Aug 26 Buonasera Mag
Day 184: Zaporizhzhia, Chaplyny, Donetsk, RU spies, UK-UA transportation agreement, Ofgem, Germany, Belarus, Italy. Posts & Arts: Van Brugen, Sauer, RFE/RL, RU occupation, Pomerantsev, Giczan
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.
February 26, 2022
Stories we’re following…
All six reactors of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine are still disconnected from Ukraine’s electricity grid, Reuters reports, citing state nuclear company Energoatom. Ukraine has begun trying to restart operations at two reactors at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Residents near the Zaporizhzhia NPP have reportedly been given iodine tablets, amid mounting fears that the fighting around the complex could trigger a catastrophe.
Ukraine is the only place in the world where cluster munitions are used today. According to the Human Rights Watch’s global Cluster Munition Monitor 2022 report, Russian forces’ repeated use of cluster munitions has caused at least 689 civilian casualties in Ukraine. Russian forces have attacked ten Ukrainian regions with hundreds of cluster munitions, while Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions rockets on at least two occasions, the watchdog said.
Ukraine kills 200 Russian paratroopers in Kadiivka, Donetsk Oblast. Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhiy Haidai said on Aug. 26 that Ukrainian troops had destroyed a Russian base at the Donbas hotel in Russian-occupied Kadiivka, formerly known as Stakhanov.
The EU accuses Russia of "missile terror" at the Chaplyny railway station attack in south-central Dnipropetrovsk. Borrell: “The EU strongly condemns another terrible Russian attack on the civilian population in Chaplyny on Ukraine’s independence day. Those responsible for Russian missile terror will be held accountable".
Ivan Sushko, the head of Mykhailivka in the Zaporizhzhia region, was blown up when a bomb planted underneath the seat of his vehicle by unknown assailants detonated, according to Vladimir Rogov, a representative of the local Russian-proxy administration.
Ukrainian court jails official for 12 years on charges of spying for Russia. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that an official at the Cabinet's secretariat had been charged with high treason for transferring information about Ukraine's defense capabilities, the state border, and the personal data of Ukrainian law enforcement officers. Russia's Federal Security Service paid the official $2,000 to $15,000 per assignment, the SBU said.
Governor: 200,000 tons of grain from Luhansk Oblast stolen by Russia. Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhiy Haidai said on Aug. 25 that according to the farmers of Agroton, a large agricultural holding in eastern Ukraine, the harvest from all of their fields has been taken to Russia.
UK to help Ukraine with transport infrastructure restoration. The European Pravda media outlet reported that Ukraine and the UK signed a Joint Action Plan to help restore the Ukrainian transport network, within which London offers funds, engineering expertise, and vehicles.
Ukrainian MPs propose to expel former members of pro-Kremlin party from parliament. The draft law calls for the termination of the mandates of 42 former members of the now banned Opposition Platform — For Peace party on account of them having left the party group or Ukraine.
‘Referendums’ on Russian annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories likely to be postponed again. Three of the sources attributed the decision to the fact that Russian forces still have yet to capture the entirety of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. One noted that the Kremlin’s plan of timing the referendums to coincide with Russia’s “single voting day” is impractical.
Lukashenka of Belarus: modernisation of Belarusian Su planes to carry nuclear weapons have been completed. (Warning: perhaps a false flag)
Zelensky meets Italy’s foreign minister in Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed the Western support for Ukraine with Luigi Di Maio.
Hungary 's nuclear regulator has granted a construction licence for two new reactors at the Paks NPP, which are to be built by Russia's Rosatom.
Turkey’s finance minister has said that they should not be worried by US threats of sanctions if they do business with sanctioned Russians. In comments representing Turkey’s first official response, Nureddin Nebati tweeted that the letter should not “cause concern in our business circles. Turkey is one of the most important political and economic power centres in the world”.
The head of the UK’s energy regulator, Ofgem, has blamed Russia for driving up energy prices, resulting in the UK price cap rising by 80%. Ofgem on Friday approved the £1,578 increase on the current price cap of £1,971 for the average dual-fuel tariff.
Germany will not supply Ukraine with weapons that can be used to strike Russia. The head of the German government noted that the goal of Germany is to prevent Putin from winning the war, “so that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is preserved.”
The German ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, has acknowledged that there is a risk that public support for Ukraine could wane this winter as the energy crisis intensifies.
The left wing of Scholz's party demands to stop giving weapons to Ukraine and start negotiations with Russia - Der Spiegel. They have demanded peace talks with Russia mediated by China because they fear nuclear war.
Russian Embassy trolling Italy
Jacopo asks: in what other country do the official embassy accounts act as troll-in-chief?
Russian Vox
Van Brugen, Could Putin's FSB Be Linked to Dugin's Daughter's Killing? - Newsweek
Sergej Sumlenny, a German political expert with a particular focus on Russia and Eastern Europe, told Newsweek that he believes the Kremlin's version of Dugina's assassination is "totally fake."
"It's absolutely out of the scale of plausibility," said Sumlenny, pointing to the evidence the FSB produced in attempting to pin the blame on a female Ukrainian citizen, who allegedly arrived in Russia in July with her daughter, rented an apartment in the same building as Dugina and spied on her before killing her.
Pjotr Sauer, ‘There were hundreds of us’: Navalny ex-staffer tells of being FSB informer
He is part of what appears to be a trend of ex-FSB informers coming clean after Moscow’s decision to invade Ukraine.
“I am convinced there were hundreds of us,” Sokolov said, sitting at a cafe near the refugee centre in the south of the Netherlands. “Nearly every organised opposition group had an informer at low or mid-level.”
Russians occupying Ukrainian territory
Ukraine World Podcast
The explanation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not only geopolitical, but also psychological. It is rooted in Russia’s culture of violence and political sado-masochism. Find out more in our new podcast, co-hosted by journalist and author Peter Pomerantsev.
DW, Russia-Ukraine updates: Russia spied on Ukrainians training in Germany, report says
Germany's military counterintelligence service (MAD) has indications Russia spied on Ukrainian soldiers training in Germany, news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday.
Following the start of the training course at two military sites, German military counterintelligence detected suspicious vehicles that could observe distances from the access roads to the barracks from their positions.
Small drones also flew over the locations to observe training exercises. Security sources also told the magazine that Russia may have attempted to scoop up the Ukrainians' mobile phone data with special telecommunications equipment, using a device such as a stingray.
Trolling Putin & Russia
On Ukraine’s Indepedence Day, Ukrainian hackers managed to get access to webcams and blasted the national anthem across the occupied territories.
Tadeusz Giczan, Lukashenka: Looking Out for Number One
Throughout the winter, the Belarusian dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenka effectively served as the Kremlin’s press secretary. In contrast to Vladimir Putin’s restrained speeches, he openly insulted Western leaders, threatened Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanded the acceptance of the Russian ultimatum, and claimed that if Russia attacked, Kyiv would fall in three or four days (he was, in fact, the author of this now legendary estimation.)