Aug 18 Buonasera Mag
Day 176: Kharkiv, Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia, Crimea air bases, Ivanivna, Luhansk, Lithuania, Estonia, Kaliningrad, Scholz, NATO. Articles & posts: Khurshudyan, Umland, Weiss, Zamfir, Carrer, Ben-Ghiat
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.
NEWS: A Ukrainian military intelligence official tells @NBCNews that Russia has told its nuclear workers stationed at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant NOT to go to work tomorrow
Stories we’re following…
The condominium hit last night by Russian missiles at Kharkiv is a home for people with hearing impairments: 7 victims to date, 20 injured.
Up-date: the mayor of the city of Melitopol said explosions were heard near a Russian command centre. Ivan Fedorov said that a “loud explosion rang out near the enemy’s lair” in the centre of the city.
Russia pulled military aircraft out of Crimean airbases after recent explosions. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate reported that no less than 24 planes and 14 helicopters had been transferred out of airfields in Crimea.
New explosion just seen in Mizhvodne, Crimea, making this the 4th explosion or significant strike in this past week. It is approximately 135km from the front, meaning outside of GMLRS range from HIMARS/MLRS.
Russian arms depot in Bilogirtsi, Kherson province, destroyed by ZSU. 29 Russians sent to eternity. (Ukrainian parliament member Serhiy Khlan)
The heavy attrition of Russian main battle tanks in Ukraine is highly likely partially due to Russia’s failure to fit and properly employ adequate explosive reactive armour (ERA), according to the latest British intelligence report.
Russia sets up checkpoint on Crimean Bridge, search outgoing traffic. Outgoing vehicles are being searched and individuals' documents checked at the checkpoint, according to Denys Savchenko, coordinator of the human rights organization Crimea SOS.
The mayor of the village of Verkhnyo Rogachytsk, Svitlana Ivanivna, was kidnapped on Aug 17 at 11 am.
Russians in occupied Lugansk now wait outside kindergartens for fathers to show up. Then they are abducted, forcefully into Russian army and sent to the front. It amounts to a death sentence: the structure of these Russian military units is such that Ukrainians are front line. Wagner and Chechens at the rear assure there are no deserters, shooting anyone trying to flee.
Intelligence: Russia tries to recruit mercenaries from Central Asia. Russia is conducting a recruitment campaign targeting citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, according to Ukraine's military intelligence. The Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate also said that discontent is growing in Chechnya because locals are being forced to join Russian troops in Ukraine under the threat of criminal prosecution and torture.
Linas Linkevicius, former MoD Lithuania: “There are signs that Putin changed his position and would meet with Zelensky to discuss ‘road map’ for a ceasefire. Erdogan promises to discuss this at a meeting in Lviv. #Russia's tail is really pinched. They definitely need a break to recuperate. But it will not bring peace.
Estonia was hit by extensive cyber attacks yesterday after removing a Soviet-era tank monument from a region whose population is predominantly ethnic Russian, its government has said.
Russia has relocated MiG-31 fighters with "Dagger" missiles to the Chkalovsk airfield in the Kaliningrad region bordering Lithuania and Poland.
An unknown Chinese merchant spent $376 million on 13 cargo ships for risky Russian oil transfers on the high seas.
Russia pulls military aircraft out of Crimean airbases after recent explosions. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate reported that no less than 24 planes and 14 helicopters had been transferred out of airfields in Crimea to bases further away from the frontline and out of the peninsula to Russia.
The U.N. secretary general visits Ukraine to discuss nuclear safety and grain exports. Antonio Guterres will meet with the Ukrainian and Turkish presidents to discuss a political solution to end the violence in Ukraine and the state of grain exports.
Turkey to assist Ukraine in post-war reconstruction of infrastructure. Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov and Turkish Trade Minister Mehmet Mus signed a memorandum on post-war reconstruction on Aug. 18, according to Zelensky's office.
Poland’s deputy foreign minister has criticised German Chancellor Scholz for his opposition to a proposal to ban all Russian nationals from the European Union.“ Russian society, unfortunately, fed by propaganda for not even the last years, but for decades, hundreds of years, lives in an imperialist dream in which its position would depend on how many territories it seizes, how many countries it conquers.”
InfoResist: Denmark is ready to limit the entry of Russian tourists if the EU does not make such a decision.
Medvedev: "If Ukraine bombs the Crimean bridge, Russia will sue the European Court of Human Rights". (Yes, you read that correctly.)
European banks UBS, Deutsche Bank and Barclays have resumed trading in Russian bonds, according to the Financial Times.
OCCRP: “Austrian Hotel Tannenhof once secretly belonged to Russia’s VTB Bank, dubbed "Putin’s piggy bank." Cypriot corporate records show how even now, the luxury property is tied to the lender’s sanctioned chairman through a Canadian man he uses as a proxy.”
NATO says it will increase its military presence if tensions between Serbia and Kosovo escalate. The KFOR force currently has 3,700 troops. NATO has tried to position itself as a supporter of EU mediation efforts between Serbia and Kosovo despite public and government-level antipathy towards NATO in Belgrade
Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu: Estonia plans not to let Russians into the country with visas issued in other countries of the European Union.
Finland’s PM Sanna Marin has decided to limit the number of tourist visas issued to Russian citizens by 90% starting by September 1st. She says that it is necessary for the EU to jointly decide on an EU-wide ban for such visas.
Ukraine to receive $450 million from Canada to purchase of gas ahead of heating season. PM Shmyhal thanked Canadian PM Trudeau on Twitter for the assistance.
Hal Brands, Russia's War in Ukraine Is How the Soviet Union Finally Ends
Wars that are caused by people can also be caused by deep historical processes. For proof, look at the fighting in Ukraine. That conflict is the doing of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a ruler determined to reassert Russia’s greatness by destroying an independent Ukraine. Yet it is also part of a bigger story about what happens when empires break up.
Khurshudyan, An interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—WaPo
When it comes to all warnings or signals from certain partners, here is what I explained to them: If we don’t have enough weapons, it will be difficult for us to fight. We will fight them, that’s for sure. And they don’t want to talk. [Russian President Vladimir Putin] hasn’t been willing to communicate for three years. So I don’t want to listen to this nonsense that Russians are ready to talk, this is nonsense. I clearly explained that. Everything we need is weapons, and if you have the opportunity, force him to sit down at the negotiating table with me. I’d been talking about this specifically, because we believed there will be an invasion.
Andreas Umland, Ukraine: a guide to Kyiv in a time of war—Il Tempo (Italian)
Visiting Ukraine in wartime is an extreme experience that is certainly not for the faint of heart. In fact, many would likely find it inappropriate or unsuitable. However, a trip to present-day Kyiv offers the opportunity to witness the history of the world in the making while providing Ukrainians with significant moral and material support.The University of Mohyla in Mykolaiv- destroyed by the Russians
Weiss & Rushton, How Elon Musk's Starlink satellite network is aiding the Ukrainian war effort
Well, it isn’t your typical hip-hop video, but even the ghost of Biggie Smalls might approve of how his lyrics have been repurposed. “He get a free lift to the cemetery, rough very” comes in just as a white Russian van is spotted from the air. In the next frame, something filmed from a different angle — possibly the van, or maybe another target — has been consumed by a fireball, the handiwork of Ukrainian artillery. No state-of-the-art military drone scouted this vehicle’s location, somewhere on the battlefield, but rather a $2,000 quadcopter coordinated with Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet network.
Zamfir & Tuit, Chinese Influence in Romania
This report is a part of #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.
See the full report here: Goals and Objectives of CCP Malign Influence
Via Eleonora Mongelli (VP FIDU)
Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities have been drafted into forced labour in Xinjiang in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing, a report by U.N. Special Rapporteur has concluded, in what it said could amount to "enslavement as a crime against humanity".
See the full report here.
Gabriele Carrer, Why Salvini’s “creed” slogan is rooted in the global religious right—Decode39
On Saturday, the League’s leader Matteo Salvini presented his party’s new electoral slogan, which had already appeared across Italy’s cities, stripped of any political reference. One word: credo, which is both the present first person of the verb credere (i.e. to believe) and a term indicating a religious confession (i.e. creed, faith).
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, For Strongmen like Trump, Everything is for Sale and Everyone has a Price—Lucid
Authoritarian leaders have an entirely proprietary view of governance. They don't recognize boundaries between public and private. They believe that as head of state it is their right to possess and exploit anything in the nation, from natural resources to economic assets to information—the latter being the most valuable currency, as the former intelligence official Vladimir Putin well knows.
