Aug 29 Buonasera Mag
Day 187: Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, RU recruitment, Medvedev, Baerbock, EU visa ban, Montenegro, UK, Germany, Dell. Arts & Posts: Patrikarakos, Kuzio, Umland, Grozev, Vetrov, Trump docs
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.
Stories we’re following…
The Battle for Kherson: Ukraine has started a long-awaited counter-offensive in the country’s south, its southern military command has announced, amid reports that Ukrainian troops were able to break through Russian lines in the Kherson region.
Stratcom UA: “The Armed Forces of Ukraine have breached the occupiers' first line of defence near Kherson. They believe that Ukraine has a real chance to get back its occupied territories, especially considering the very successful use of Western weapons by the Ukrainian army.”
Ukrainian media is confirming that all bridges around Kherson are destroyed and only pedestrian crossings are left This achievement is cited as the reason for Ukraine's counter-offensive escalation in Kherson.
Kuleba: Russia turns Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant into military base. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted that Russian forces are putting the whole of Europe at risk by weaponising the Ukrainian nuclear plant that they seized in March.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said in its latest update that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is being "side-lined," with Russian operational commanders briefing Putin on the course of the war.
Ukraine summons Turkey's ambassador over Russian weapons shipment through the Bosporous.
Ukraine uses resistance doctrine developed by US to deter Russia. Ukrainian forces have successfully used a method of resistance warfare developed by U.S. special operations forces, the U.S. and European officials told CNN.
Minister: Ukraine no longer interested in NATO membership action plan, wants membership. According to Deputy PM for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna, after 6 months of full-scale war, NATO's potential MAP for Ukraine no longer has the same importance.
Zelensky announces joint forum with France on rebuilding Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the forum in his address to the French business community MEDEF. The event will be held in Paris together with representatives of the private sector in the fall.
Russia has exhausted recruitment pool of peripheral and disenfranchised regions, may turn to central Russia. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia cannot continue recruitment efforts in peripheral regions and may have to depend on central Russia for further recruits.
Russian forces are “reconstructing” the Mariupol theatre to cover war crimes, according to an advisor to the city’s mayor. Petr Andriushchenko said Moscow’s forces are rebuilding the theatre under the guise of reconstruction for “historical value”.
The most prominent collaborator assassinated since the Russian invasion : Aleksey Kovalyov, a Ukrainian lawmaker from Zelensky’s party who switched sides to become deputy head of the Russian administration in Kherson, overseeing grain theft, has been gunned down in his home.
Medvedev published this anti-semitic image of Rasputin, and a message on Sunday: “To the heads of state and government of the countries of the European Union Due to the increase in the price of gas to €3,500 per thousand cubic meters, I am forced to increase the estimated cost to €5,000 by the end of 2022.”
Baerbock: Germany paid for Russian gas with its "security and independence." German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the German newspaper Bild that Germany had to "put an end to the self-deception that we ever received cheap gas from Russia."
Russia's Central Military District and Army-South heads now directly report to Vladimir Putin. This reflects Putin's assumption of personal control over the Ukraine War and mistrust of key security figures, such as Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, who promised a swift victory.
Puppet head of police department in Russian-occupied Mihaylivka, Zaporizhya province, killed by Ukrainian partisans.
Russian hackers launched a massive and coordinated cyberattack against the government of Montenegro on Saturday.
OCCRP: Russian oligarch Abramovich’s companies supply materials for Russian military. OCCRP investigation shows Roman Abramovich’s steelmaker Evraz group supplied steel to the military that could have been used to make tanks.
The Financial Times is reporting that the EU is set to suspend its visa travel agreement with Russia this week. The plan to freeze the 2007 deal will make it harder and more expensive for Russians to get Schengen-area documents, the FT reports.
UK to send 6 undersea minehunter drones to Ukraine to help clear coastline. The U.K. Defense Ministry announced on Aug. 27 that the Royal Navy and its U.S. partners will teach dozens of Ukrainian personnel to use the autonomous minehunting vehicles over the coming months.
Dell ceases all operations within Russia. On Aug. 27, Dell Technologies announced that it will make a full withdrawal from Russia after closing its offices in mid-August. Dell was a major supplier of servers in Russia. Computer accessories giant Logitech International said on today it would wind down its remaining operations in Russia due to the “ongoing uncertain environment”.
Rusland Trad: The interim Bulgarian government, led by President Radev, is *asking* Gazprom to negotiate gas supplies in defiance of all political and economic processes in the EU. Government representatives lie unscrupulously and present Gazprom as the only option. Protests expected.
Baerbock: Germany paid for Russian gas with its ‘security and independence.’ German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the German newspaper Bild that Germany had to "put an end to the self-deception that we ever received cheap gas from Russia."
Germany plans to nationalize local Gazprom subsidiary. According to German newspaper Die Welt, preparations for a possible nationalization of the former German subsidiary of the Russian state-owned company Gazprom are ongoing.
Bloomberg: France, Germany don't support EU-wide entry ban for Russian tourists. According to Bloomberg, both countries said the European Union should continue to issue visas to Russians with no ties to the government, such as students, artists, scholars, and professionals.
European Union defence and foreign ministers will meet in Prague this week to discuss options for setting up military training mission for Ukrainian forces and also look into calls by some members to ban Russian tourists from entering the bloc, reports Reuters.
Serbia and Kosovo on Saturday reached a deal to resolve a dispute centering on a set of rules that introduced new administrative hurdles for citizens of Kosovo in Serbia and vice-versa. “We have a deal,” Josep Borrell tweeted. “Under the EU-facilitated Dialogue, Serbia agreed to abolish entry/exit documents for Kosovo ID holders and Kosovo agreed to not introduce them for Serbian ID holders.”
Russia’s FSB security service has accused without evidence a second Ukrainian citizen of preparing the car bomb that killed the daughter of an ultranationalist Russian ideologue this month.
Up-coming elections
Sweden- September 11- as per Politico: “the center-left government of Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson looks like it could be in trouble. With the ballot less than two weeks away, Andersson’s party has been hitting the campaign trail, announcing handouts for Swedes to help compensate for rising energy prices, and trying to capitalize on the PM’s high approval ratings, helped by the recent decision to join NATO.”
Italy- September 25- I’ll be posting regular up-dates on the campaigns of the two main coalitions.
David Patrikarakos, Why Putin can’t capture Kherson
When I lived on Kyiv’s main boulevard, Khreschatyk, in 2014, I often wondered what it would be like to see Russian tanks rolling down its centre. Last week, I found out, after residents sent me photos of the Ukrainians parading captured Russian tanks down that very street to celebrate their impending Independence Day.
Russian soldier in occupied Mariupol
Haqqin.az, Leading British political scientist: "Margarita Simonyan is a supporter of Russian imperialism and an Armenian nationalist"
The author of the publication quotes Simonyan, who stated, in particular, that “... many of them (in the West - ed. ) cannot distinguish borscht from barbecue, which does not allow them to deal with Putin. They don't understand the mentality and therefore can't predict the reaction."
“In making such statements,” Kuzio writes, “Margarita Simonyan, like many representatives of the Russian elite, does not hide her inferiority complex in relation to the West. In March of this year, she declared that "a significant part of the Ukrainian people is gripped by the madness of Nazism" and that the Little Russians will welcome Russian troops as "liberators."
Christo Grozev, Socialite, Widow, Jeweller, Spy: How a GRU Agent Charmed Her Way Into NATO Circles in Italy
The name on her passport was Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, and as Bellingcat and its investigative partners have discovered, she was a GRU illegal whom friends from NATO offices in Naples had for years believed was a successful jewellery designer with a colourful backstory and chaotic personal life.
Vadym Vetrov reporting
Greg Noone, Made in China: How the UK is decoupling from Chinese technology-TechMonitor
The allegations levelled at Hikvision about its activities in Xinjiang have recently led to calls from 67 MPs and Lords that the sale of its cameras should be outlawed in the UK. Anxiety about the role of Chinese-made technology in the UK, however, is not confined to CCTV. Concerns persist among Whitehall and the security services that Chinese technology companies are engaged in campaigns to acquire valuable intellectual property, either through theft or buying up British companies. With this in mind, the UK government has used new powers under the National Security and Investment Act to block or investigate over a dozen commercial deals, including one that would have seen the University of Manchester sell novel computer vision technology to a Chinese firm and a buyout of Newport Wafer Fab by a Chinese-owned Dutch corporation.
Inventing Anna: The Mar-a-Lago Investigation
For a time, Anna de Rothschild boasted of her family roots to the European banking dynasty, donning designer clothes, a Rolex watch, and driving a $170,000 black Mercedes-Benz SUV.
But the 33-year-old woman was not a member of the famous banking family, and is now a subject of a widening FBI investigation that has delved into her past financial activities and the events that led her to the former president’s home.
A year before the FBI’s spectacular raid of the former president’s seaside home, the woman whose real name is Inna Yashchyshyn, a Russian-speaking immigrant from Ukraine, made several trips into the estate posing as a member of the famous family while making inroads with some of the former president’s key supporters.
The documents Trump had in his closet- explainer
An explainer on the classification of docs trump had per the affidavit:
ORCON - originator controlled. The person who wrote said classified document is the only on who can disseminate/release it
NOFORN - distribution to non-us citizens prohibited regardless of their clearance
HCS - humint control system. Used to further protect sensitive intelligence information
FISA - governs the conduct of certain electronic activities with the US against US persons regardless of location
Trump Mar–a-Lago affidavit reveals ‘handwritten notes,’ highly classified material led to warrant request-Politico
Records the FBI obtained from Trump’s Florida home in advance of the Aug. 8 search bore indications they contained human source intelligence, intercepts under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and signals intelligence, as well as other tags indicating high sensitivity. Several of those tightly-controlled documents contained Trump’s “handwritten notes,” the partially-redacted affidavit detailing the Justice Department investigation says.