Aug 12 Buonasera Mag
Day 170--readings and posts: Crimea, UA MoD trolling, Zaporizhzhia NPP, RU agitprop, birth toursim, Yana, Medvedev, ITA elex, Chinese influence, Alaska, Belarus
Catching up…
I’ll be travelling today so please hop over to Scott’s EA Worldview for news about Ukraine and the world.
Via Mike Eckel: Look who's in Luhansk on Thursday (reportedly): Dmitry Medvedev, accompanied by Kiriyenko (Kremlin PA); Kolokotsev (Interior Ministry); Bortnikov (FSB); Krasnov (Prosecutor General) and Bastrykin (Investigative Committee)
Meduza, Mikhail Zygar says Medvedev still wants presidency, revamped image to please Putin
“He probably has vivid memories of the conversations he had with Putin as the two went fishing in Astrakhan. Putin promised Medvedev that he would become the president again. So he does have a chance. According to sources, at the beginning of this year, Putin hinted to Medvedev that the plan was still on the table — all Medvedev has to do is be a strong politician and meet the historical moment,” Zygar writes.
Further reading…
Satellite imagery now emerging on the Crimea operation
Petri Mäkelä: What makes this more important is that the Ukrainian attack penetrated the much hyped Russian AD bubble without any losses. This base was protected by an overlapping coverage of two S-400 battalions backed up by state of the art air defense network and multiple EW and AS radars.
Christo Grozev: reactions in Russia to Crimea
While Russian official media & MoD are totally silent on the Saky losses, Russian PMC/mercenary channels are open about what happened, and appear to be angry at central command for not anticipating it. Keep up the fissures, guys.
Nationalist Russian media begin to openly attack MoD over "arrogant silence on the tragedy in Crimea", name the incident a "high-precision attack". Mainstream non-governmental media richly site this "canary in the coalmine". Kremlin's truth monopoly not as intact anymore.
Superior Ukrainian trolling: A message from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense
Latvia votes to deem Russia a sponsor of terrorism and then this happens…
VOA, German reserve lieutenant colonel accused of spying for Russia
On Thursday, a German army reservist was tried in Düsseldorf, accused of providing classified military information to Russia.
Prosecutors allege that the 65-year-old retired lieutenant colonel, identified only under German confidentiality rules as Ralph G., has been working for Russia's GRU military intelligence since 2014.
The German news agency dpa reported that the defendant worked for an American company and supplied the GRU with information from public and non-public sources, including private contact details of high-ranking German military officers.
Atle Staalesen, Turks are coming to Russia's rescue in large Arctic LNG project—The Barents Observer
Novatek will not be able to complete the project as planned following the exit of Baker Hughes, as well as Saipem and Technip.
But help might be on its way from Putin-friendly Turkey.
Karpowership, the Turkish manufacturer of so-called powerships, is reported to be in talks with Novatek over the construction of a 300-400 MW floating power station that can provide the first of the project’s three trains with energy.
Zaporizhzhia NPP: what the Russians are planning to do
Statement of the G7 Foreign Ministers in support of the IAEA´s efforts to promote Nuclear Safety and Security at the Zaporizhzhya NPP in Ukraine
We, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union, reiterate our strongest condemnation of the ongoing unprovoked and unjustifiable war of aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The Russian Federation must immediately withdraw its troops from within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders and respect Ukraine’s territory and sovereignty.
NBC News, Birth tourism brings Russian baby boom to Miami
Lured by the charm of little Havana or the glamour of South Beach, some 15 million tourists visit Miami every year. But for a growing number of Russian women, the draw isn't sunny beaches or pulsing nightclubs. It's U.S. citizenship for their newborn children.
In Moscow, it's a status symbol to have a Miami-born baby, and social media is full of Russian women boasting of their little americantsy.
Do you remember Yana and her Mom?
Buonasera Mag posted a story about Yana, and how she and other children and adults are receiving prosthetics as part of a programme by the Right to Walk Foundation. Here she is.
WaPo, Big Tech tried to quash Russian propaganda. Russia found loopholes
Russian Embassy accounts in countries around the world have actually received more engagement on Facebook and Twitter since the war began than they did before Russia’s unprovoked Feb. 24 invasion, according to a new report from the nonpartisan research group Advance Democracy. On Facebook, those accounts have found ways to launder Russian propaganda from sanctioned state media accounts, such as copying and embedding videos originally produced by state-run Russia Today rather than linking to them.
Russia Free Movement
Igor Sushko: Russian politician and former member of the Russian parliament, Ilya Ponomarev, who was the only vote against annexation of Crimea in 2014, has made a public call to arms to all Russians to wage war against the Putin regime to build a free Russia.
Decode39, Russian interference and disinfo. Italy’s Intel Committee’s pre-electoral work
Watch out for Russian interference. Mario Draghi was very clear in his last speech to the Senate, just before tendering his resignation as Prime Minister. “We must increase our efforts to fight interference by Russia and other autocracies in our politics and society.” That wording suggests the issue isn’t just a hypothesis, but rather an ongoing problem.
Rome is among the “main targets” in the ongoing “war of disinformation, manipulation, propaganda” and foreign espionage, he explained recently. Russia and China, he added, make continuous use of these practices.
Thus, COPASIR will remain open for emergencies throughout August. Chairman Urso said the measure is “dutiful […] partly because of the risks of possible external interference aimed at conditioning the election campaign itself.”
Edward Lucas, Chinese Influence in Central and Eastern Europe—CEPA
Welcome to #CCPinCEE, a series of reports published by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) analyzing Chinese influence efforts and operations across the nations of Central and Eastern Europe.
Please continue to read the executive summary and full report
Italian General Elex—Ex-PM of Italy Giuseppe Conte’s allegiances
VOA, Russian Surveillance Aircraft Spotted Near Alaskan Air Space
NB: In the Aug 10 Buonasera Mag, I mentioned NORAD picking up this activity.
The U.S. military says Russian military surveillance aircraft entered the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone on two separate occasions over the past two days. U.S. F-22 fighter jets intercepted the second aircraft upon entering the airspace, a defense official told VOA. Both entries involved the same type of Russian surveillance aircraft, the official added.
"We remain ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America and Arctic sovereignty," the post added. This is the first reported incident of Russian military aircraft nearing Alaskan airspace in 2022, but sightings have become common in recent years.
Belarus-repression continues
