Aug 23: E-Stories
Day 54 RobotyneLiberation UASitRep RUSitRep TU-22 BRICS spies Prigozhin RoscosmosLuna25 SerbianMercenarie TimothyGartonAshRUImperialism NYTGOPCand UKDef Michel ISW
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.
On a personal note: today marks ten years that my husband and I have been together. I know this is highly unprofessional but I couldn’t be doing this and all my other projects without him. We’ll be spending the day in the mountains close to home, a picnic lunch, some reading under the shade of the trees, and planning out our next adventures. It’s a perfect day.
Robotyne liberation…
The 47th mechanized inside Robotyne, providing aid to locals that had remained. The Ukrainian forces are making progress in this sector. They’ve encountered stiff Russian resistance, and defensive belts meant to stop them. But here they are saving who they can. Residents said they had no water or electricity, problems getting food. (Translation Maria Avdeeva)
Dotsya, they got us out…
I know, Mum…
Don’t you cry. We are already at home…
Mommy, I'm so happy…
Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, said Ukrainian soldiers were organising the evacuation of civilians (with Bradley IVFs), but were still coming under fire from Russian forces.
Robotyne is six miles south of Orikhiv, a town on an important road leading to Tokmak, a Russian-occupied road and rail hub. Tokmak’s capture would be a milestone as Ukrainian troops press southwards towards the Sea of Azov.
Stories we’re following…
Russian warship enters Mariupol port for first time since occupation. For the first time since the beginning of Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine, a Russian warship has entered and docked at the seaport of the temporarily occupied Mariupol, Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, reported on Telegram.
BBC News: A flagship Russian long-range bomber has been destroyed in a Ukrainian drone strike, according to reports. Images posted on social media and analysed by BBC Verify show a Tupolev Tu-22 on fire at Soltsy-2 airbase, south of St Petersburg. The Tu-22 is a Cold War-era, swing-wing supersonic bomber, codenamed "Backfire" by Nato, which has been used extensively in attacks on Ukrainian cities. According to prosecutors in Kyiv, 30 people were killed when a Tu-22-launched missile hit a block of flats in Dnipro in January.
Drone attacks on Russian military airfields are carried out by groups of saboteurs, whose activities are coordinated by the Ukrainian special services.
The Ukrainian edition NV writes about this , citing a source in the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
According to the publication, over the past few days, these groups "disarmed five Russian aircraft, including strategic bombers, which carried out missile attacks on Ukrainian cities."
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to president Zelenskyy, said the commitment made by some European countries to donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will help minimise Ukrainian losses and ultimately de-escalate conflict. The Netherlands and Denmark announced on Sunday they will donate up to 61 F-16 fighter jets between them to Ukraine once pilot training has been satisfactorily completed.
The transfer of fighter jets (F16) to Ukraine is, first of all, about the full understanding by the donor countries (Nordic countries) of the general nature of the war, and this particular stage.
It is also about de-escalation, significant reduction of the risks of war expansion, and acceleration of a fair ending. It is about minimising Ukrainian losses, optimising offensive operations and increasing the effectiveness of destroying the Russian occupation group.
Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet in Russia, Yeni Safak reported, citing sources in the office of the Turkish President. According to the newspaper, the main purpose of the meeting will be negotiations on the grain deal, from which Russia withdrew in July.
Uniqlo has terminated the lease agreements for all of its stores in Russia. All employees were fired with compensation.
The pharmaceutical company MSD will stop supplying the hepatitis C drug Zepatir to Russia. The company has consistently reduced its presence in the Russian Federation after the start of the war.
The Czech Financial Analytical Office has seized assets belonging to the family of Boris Obnosov, CEO of the Russian Tactical Missiles Corporation, in Czechia. Some of the assets belong to Obnosov’s daughter and son-in-law, who are on Czechia’s sanctions list alongside Obnosov himself, European Pravda reported, citing Czech Television.
The Obnosov family’s assets in Czechia are estimated to amount to more than 100 million CZK (approximately €4.15 million). Most of them are owned by Obnosov’s son-in-law, Rostislav Zorikov. The Czech financial police seized 14 of Zorikov’s apartments in Prague’s elite neighbourhoods, as well as the assets of Zorikov’s real estate agency, Riomax.
Kosovo joins G7 declaration on Ukraine's security guarantees. "Ensuring victory for Ukraine — and holding Russia's leaders accountable for their crimes — is essential to preserving peace and democracy," Kosovan Prime Minister Albin Kurti tweeted.
Knives are out at Roscosmos in the wake of the Luna-25 lunar crash. Per Izvestiya, "purges" at the Russian space agency are likely, possibly including top executives.
On August 21, Roskosmos named the main cause of the death of the automatic lunar station Luna-25.
According to the head of the state corporation Yuri Borisov, the accident was caused by abnormal operation of the station's engines during the maneuver. He explained that the correction of the Luna-25 trajectory took place in the radio communication zone and the specialists knew everything that happened to the station before the accident.
Even before the official conclusions, decisions on personnel changes can be made . This was told to Izvestia on condition of anonymity by a source in the space industry. Moreover, he noted that, perhaps, this will affect high-ranking functionaries.
Monique: The day before the crash, president Zelenskyy met with a delegation member from the Moon substation. Call me crazy, I think he’s supporting Ukraine.
Russia is hiring 500 Serbian private soldiers for immediate deployment in Ukraine, Intelligence Online reports
According to the French intelligence services, citing the Russian opposition, it is expected that by September 1, several hundred recruits from the Balkans will arrive at a temporary camp in the Moscow region.
In addition to the approximately 50 Serb fighters already recruited, the contingent is expected to grow to 500 and be quickly sent along with Russian soldiers. To accommodate them, a "Serbian unit" was created as part of the 106th Guards Airborne Division.
Allegedly, a network of Russian and Serbian figures had been preparing the operation since May on Russian initiative and with high-level support in the security apparatus.
The recruits are mostly Serbian citizens and ethnic Serbs from neighboring countries. Between mid-July and mid-August, 50 candidates were selected and brought to Russia by commercial flights in groups of two or three under the guise of a contract with a front construction company.
The person in charge of project planning and logistics is a Balkan national residing in Russia.
An ethnic Serb from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Davor Savicic (his name comes from his alias "Wolf") is well known in Russia.
He was a member of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's unofficial special forces and fought with the Wagner group in Ukraine in 2014 and in Syria after 2016.
XV BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa
The theme of the 15th Brics summit is “Brics and Africa”, Agence France-Presse reports.
On the eve of the summit, Ramaphosa said his country would “not be drawn into a contest between global powers” and strongly reaffirmed South Africa’s longstanding policy of non-alignment.
“We will urge the international community to refocus on development issues, promote a greater role by the Brics cooperation mechanism in global governance, and make the voice of Brics stronger,” China’s Xi said in an editorial published in South African media on Monday.
The group, whose economies account for a quarter of global GDP, may take a clearly anti-western turn at the event. This raises the prospect of a new and re-energised economic and political actor against the US and its allies in world affairs. The Brics nations are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador at large for Asia and the Brics, said:
“Countries in the [global] south don’t want to be told who to support, how to behave and how to conduct their sovereign affairs. They are strong enough now to assert their respective positions.”
What kind of spies is Russia running? Euronews
Russia's spy networks across Europe - and across the world - fit into four main categories:
Russian spies working at foreign embassies posing as diplomats;
Officials or politicians that Russia has managed to turn, and who get paid to provide information;
Deep cover agents from Russia, known as "illegals", who live seemingly normal lives (usually they would pass themselves off as from another country, and not usually say they are Russians), maybe running a business or raising their families, and keeping their cover sometimes for decades;
Sleeper spy cells, like the Bulgarians apparently unmasked in London, whose mission it is to wait and observe, to build contacts and possibly try to gain access to people who might become targets for espionage.
In terms of who handles the spies, traditionally the GRU was Russia's foreign intelligence service while the FSB was the domestic spy service, but those roles have shifted somewhat now.
"The Russian system is such that you have to blur competences, or even double competences, so the agencies [GRU and FSB] can check and control each other," explains Ryhor Nizhnikau, a Russia expert at the Finnish Institue of International Affairs, FIIA, describing two agencies with similar missions, but which often compete for the spotlight.
"The FSB for example has an external department and its role has been expanding so it is in charge of operations in Ukraine where it now has a huge presence. And the focus of GRU is leading on Russia's activities in the West," he adds.
Timothy Garton Ash, Putin, Pushkin and the decline of the Russian empire—Financial Times
Last month, I stood at the corner of what used to be Pushkin Street in Kyiv. Following Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has been renamed Yevhen Chykalenko Street, after a major figure of the early 20th-century Ukrainian independence movement. To lovers of literature and opera, cancelling Alexander Pushkin, poet and author of Eugene Onegin, might seem a bit over the top. Putin, yes, but why Pushkin?
For Ukrainians, however, engaged in an existential struggle for their independence against Russia’s war of recolonisation, Pushkin is a symbol of the Russian imperialism that has long denied Ukraine’s right to a separate national existence. Pushkin was a great poet, but also a poet of Russian imperialism, just as Rudyard Kipling was a great poet, but a poet of British imperialism.
Pushkin’s Poltava depicts the Ukrainian Cossack hetman Ivan Mazepa as a fickle traitor to the heroic Russian tsar Peter the Great, who nonetheless triumphed over the Swedes in the 1709 Battle of Poltava — and 12 years later formally founded the Russian empire.
As Russian forces bombarded Ukraine last year, an officially distributed video showed Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov reciting(opens a new window) lines from Pushkin’s “To the Slanderers of Russia”, a poem fulminating against western supporters of Slavs rebelling against Russia. Cutaways to photos of US president Joe Biden and a G7 summit made the message plain. When Russian forces occupied Kherson, billboards featuring Pushkin were deployed(opens a new window) in a propaganda campaign that proclaimed Russia was “here for ever”. [continue]
Where the Republican Presidential Candidates Stand- NYT
As the Republican presidential candidates barrel toward their first debate under the shadow of a front-runner facing dozens of felony charges, policy issues have not exactly taken center stage. But it is those positions that reveal how they would seek to shape American life if voters give them a shot at the White House.
The New York Times examined the candidates’ stances on abortion, China, climate change, economic policy, immigration, transgender rights, and the war in Ukraine, as well as the Trump indictments, with their implications for democracy and the federal justice system.
We combed their websites, read news coverage of their campaign events, listened to their speeches and past interviews and examined their records in previously held offices. Each candidate’s campaign was contacted to clarify any ambiguous statements or unclear positions, and to describe how broad goals could be accomplished. Where they declined to answer, we have noted in the text.
This project will be updated if candidates release significant new proposals.
Monique: Neat explainer. Click on the name of the candidate to see where they stand on the issues mentioned above.