Aug 16: E-Stories
Day 538: Lviv RUstrikes UASitRep RUSitRep Ruble Shoigu Alaska Rosatom RUdom Romaniagrain GER Moldova Israel RUspiesGB A&P PutinDick UAmed UKDef Fattorini Pichler Maui GavinRUships Lautman GeorgiaTrump
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
In Surgut, Siberia, a news ticker says: “100R to the dollar, you’re freaked out. Putin is a dickhead and a thief.”
Stories we’re following…
Russia hits Dnipro, Lviv, Lutsk during night attack, killing 3 people. Russia's missile attack on western Ukraine's city of Lutsk left two people injured, according to the local governor. A missile hit an industrial plant in the city, Volyn Oblast Governor Yurii Pohuliaiko reported on his official Telegram channel in the morning of Aug. 15.
Overnight Russia attacked Ukraine with 28 various type cruise missiles. A total of 16 were shot down. Among those fired were Kh-22/101/555 and Kalibr cruise missiles. A sports facility in Dnipro was destroyed. Sumy Oblast was also hit on Monday night.
In Lviv, a Russian rocket hit the yard of a kindergarten, Mayor Andriy Sadovy reported. Over a 100 homes were damaged, more than 500 windows were broken, and a kindergarten was damaged, and luckily no casaulities have been reported.
Margarita, a 25-year-old dentist in civilian life, serves as a medical assistant in the medical unit of an assault brigade. She could have had a fancy life building a career as a dentist, but she wanted to be useful at the front.
ISW confirms advance of Russian troops near Kupyansk. ISW has reported the availability of geolocation footage confirming some of the occupiers' successes in the Kupyansk sector.
The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers has allocated 1.25 billion UAH ($32 million) for the construction of additional fortifications in the north-eastern regions, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reported.
New tactics adopted by the Russians: A spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force command noted that this time the enemy did not use Shahids, but cruise missiles were launched that change their course.
"The enemy is programming missile routes to confuse air defences and mislead us. After all, the Air Force is ready for such things. The only question is that we need more means to destroy more missiles on the approach to our borders."
Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine: in the Bakhmut direction Ukrainian forces are gradually but surely moving forward.
“You know that along the southern flank, our troops are gradually but surely moving forward, with battles, with very large obstacles from the enemy. There are mining, and aviation, and mortar attacks. Therefore, it is very difficult, but in such conditions ours are moving forward.”
The Russian Central Bank decided to raise the key interest rate by 3.5 percentage points to 12 percent — a large hike that comes after the ruble fell to its lowest point in 17 months, briefly sliding past 102 to the dollar on Monday. On Tuesday, Sberbank, the largest bank in the country, sold $1 for 104,90 Rubles. “Eighteen months into the war with Ukraine, Russia’s current account surplus is shrinking and inflationary pressure is growing. The currency is taking the strain, and the trigger for Tuesday’s emergency move appears to have been the rouble hitting 100 to the US dollar on Monday,” writes Larry Elliott for The Guardian. The main pressure on ruble comes from the ever-increasing war spending. It's not yet fully "money printing" as the government cuts spending on health care, education, etc. Yet the deficits are widening, both because of the fall in revenues and increase in military spending. All the current "growth" comes from the increased military spending
Russia’s Minister of Defence, Sergei Shoigu’s statements at the Moscow Conference on International Security. Russia invited representatives from over 100 nations to attend, but Western countries were excluded.
Ukraines resources are almost exhausted
Most Ukrainian POWs speak negatively about combat training
Russia has never used cluster munitions while USA supplied them to Ukraine
Russian weapons production has multiplied
Western weapons are “nothing special”
US detects Russian military aircraft in Alaskan air defense zone. The U.S. military has detected and tracked four Russian warplanes flying in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) late Aug. 13 and on the morning of Aug. 14, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) reported.
Russia’s Defense Minister and head of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation examine Arctic testing grounds. Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and the head of the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Alexey Likhachev toured Russia’s Central Testing Grounds on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, says a Defense Ministry press release.
Residents of Ussuriysk, affected by the flood, met with the governor of Primorsky Krai Oleg Kozhemyako and the mayor of the city Yevgeny Korzh. Citizens expressed dissatisfaction with the amount of compensation for lost property. For homes damaged by the flood, residents will receive roughly 230 euro. Families affected by the flood in the gardens will be given 2,000 (18 euro) rubles each. Local residents believe that compensation is clearly insufficient to restore lost property.
At least 30 people were killed in a fire that caused a gas station to explode in Makhachkala. More than 100 were injured. Regional authorities declared a day of mourning.
Monique: I watched the videos stream in as the gas station was consumed by fire and the injured residents were taken to hospital. They were horrific. What struck me was the videos inside the hospital: patients were on the floor, in corridors, on sheets. No gurneys, and few hospital staff on hand.
Everything looks shiny and luxurious in Moscow and St Petersburg but a few kilometres outside these centres, the rot of the Russian state is visible to all. The Russian government is spending most of its resources on its brutal war in Ukraine, and provides disbursements to soldiers and some to their families. Basic services for many in the republics, like Dagestan, don’t exist.
Dagestani civilian society protested to bring awareness to the utilities crisis saw on Sunday night. The residents of Karaman-2, a settlement outside of the region’s capital Makhachkala, blocked the federal Makhachkala–Astrakhan highway, trying to draw attention to the dire water-supply situation in the area. According to some participants, their homes had been without running water for the whole summer. Around 200 people took part in the protest according to the local police, halting highway traffic and clashing with the frustrated drivers.
I have no idea if the two events are correlated. What is absolutely clear is that the Russian state fails to provide services for the well-being of its citizens.
The Corriere della Sera ran a special section in their paper yesterday, providing the biographies of the 500 children who were killed in Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine.
Romania plans to double transit capacity of Ukrainian grain. Romania plans to increase the transit capacity of Ukrainian grain from 2 million metric tons to 4 million every month, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Sorin Grindeanu said on Aug. 11, the Romanian news agency Agerpres reported.
Germany pledges $5.5 billion in annual military aid to Ukraine until 2027. This commitment still needs German Bundestag approval so its not a done deal yet It could also increase support for the AfD at a time when the German nat sec community is thinking of cracking down on this far-right party But a massive evolution from Scholz in 18 months.
Ukraine to receive Norwegian anti-drone systems worth $71 million. The International Fund for Ukraine (IFU), an initiative from the U.K. Ministry of Defense, has signed a contract with Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace group to provide several C-UAS air defense systems, the Norwegian company announced on Aug. 14.
Moldova: Accompanied by police, dozens of diplomats and their families were taken by buses to the airport, where a Russian plane was waiting for them. The number of staff at the Russian Embassy in Moldova was reduced by more than 40 people.
Ukraine seizes $206 million in assets from Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash. The Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine announced on Aug. 15 that it had seized $208 million in assets from Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash as three more managers of companies under his Regional Gas Company have been charged with stealing gas from the state.
Aid from Israel: "The health ministers of Israel and Ukraine had a conversation. At the request of Ukraine, Tel Aviv will send several tons of medicines to Kyiv," Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodskyi said.
Three suspected spies for Russia in Britain have been arrested and charged in a major national security investigation, the BBC reports. The defendants are Bulgarian nationals alleged to be working for Russian security services, the BBC said. They were held in February under the Official Secrets Act by counter-terrorism detectives at London’s Metropolitan Police, which has a policing responsibility for espionage, the report added.
Last week, the US Treasury Department put Pyotr Aven and other founders of the Russian Alfa Group on the sanctions list. After that, the Latvian authorities announced their assessment of the issue of the annulment of Aven's citizenship. On August 14, the billionaire made a statement to this effect.
“I have lived in Latvia for over a year and am a tax resident of Latvia. I have resigned from all positions in the companies of the Alfa Group since March 2022 and have been waiting for the permission of the Cypriot authorities for a year to complete the process of selling my Russian business, ”said Aven.
Disinformation about the fire in Maui
Just a note of caution on the information that is beginning to circulate related to the Maui fire. Two narratives are being pushed on social media. The first is a a conspiracy theory regarding the origins of the fire. Well-known pro-Kremlin and Chinese accounts are saying that the fire was purposefully lit. The same accounts are also pushing the narrative that the US has let Hawaii burn while sending billions to Ukraine. For the second narrative, it’s based on a manipulation of information. The US does not send pallets of cash to Ukraine. The US draws from its own stock and fixes a price on what is needed to replace it.
Then there’s a truly bizzarre theory: Oprah Winfrey is involved in some way because her properties weren’t touched by the fire. Idiots will retweet or like the post increasing the visibility of the account.
Dietmar Pichler- Eurobarometer on aid to Ukraine
"Do you agree with financing the purchase and supply of military equipment to Ukraine?"
Austria: 40% YES, 56% NO
Malta: 64% YES, 33% NO
Ireland: 79% YES, 14% NO
Also interesting are the results from the non-EU member state, Switzerland:
Question: "Do you agree with financing the purchase and supply of military equipment to Ukraine?"
65% YES
33% NO
EU average numbers regarding this question are:
64% YES
31% NO
This indicates that the support for purchasing military equipment among all neutral EU countries and Switzerland is above or at the average, with the exception of Austria, where the numbers are dramatically lower.
Former Special Agent in Charge of the New York FBI Counterintelligence Division pleads guilty to conspiring to violate U.S. Sanctions on Russia
Trump faces racketeering charges in Georgia—NYT
Donald Trump and others — including Rudolph Giuliani, his former personal lawyer, and Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff — have been indicted by an Atlanta grand jury in a sweeping racketeering case focused on Trump’s efforts to reverse Georgia’s results in the 2020 election.
Nineteen defendants are named in the indictment. The 41 counts, including racketeering charges, perjury and conspiracy to commit forgery, are by far the most sweeping set of accusations Trump has faced in his four indictments. Read the Georgia indictment here. The indictment spells out 161 separate acts that prosecutors say were taken to further the alleged criminal conspiracy.
The indictment lays out eight ways the “criminal enterprise” obstructed the election: by lying to the Georgia state legislature, by lying to state officials, by creating fake pro-Trump electors, by harassing election workers, by soliciting Justice Department officials, by soliciting Vice President Mike Pence, by breaching voting machines and by engaging in a cover-up.
Other defendants: Those charged in the indictment include Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman, architects of the plan to use fake electors to circumvent the popular vote in a number of swing states; Jeffrey Clark, a former senior official in the Justice Department who embraced false claims about the election; and a number of Georgia Republicans.
What’s next: Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, gave defendants until “no later than noon on Friday 25th” to voluntarily surrender, and said she was seeking a trial date “within the next six months.
Gabriel Gavin, The hunt for Russia’s secret ships—Politico
Yörük Işık puts down his espresso cup suddenly and picks up his camera. “This one is carrying diesel,” he says, training the long lens on a rusted red tanker bobbing into view in the distance. “Maybe in violation of the price cap.”
For more than a decade, he’s watched the waters in his native Istanbul, tracking the comings and goings of the tens of thousands of grain carriers, container vessels and warships that chart a course along the Bosphorus Strait every year. The natural canal flowing through the heart of Europe’s largest city links the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, connecting Russia and Ukraine to the rest of the world.
“I’m obsessive,” he explains, “I don’t like to go too far inland because I have this fear I’ll miss something. You never know what’s going to happen and often you don’t realize it’s suspicious until afterwards. Even when I have free time or I’m writing a report, I sit on my balcony so I can keep an eye out.”
With his long hair and grey beard, Işık doesn’t stand out among the fishermen, tug captains and dock workers making a living in Turkey’s ports. A regular analyst in Turkish media and on television, his Bosphorus Observer site has become a go-to resource for those tracking the Kremlin’s supply routes.
Ultimately, it’s a battle that could decide the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
“It’s all about finding out what they’re hiding,” he said, looking out from the café on the Bosphorus as the call to prayer wafts across the water from the half-dozen or so white minarets that dot the hillside. [continue]
Thanks Monique