Aug 6 Buonasera Mag
Day 164: Zaporizhzhia, Pokalchuk, Olenivka, Mariupol, Bakhmut, ammo depots, Erdogan, Iran, Latvia, Meta, Draghi. Articles: KSORS, Speck, Bellingcat, Bucha, Kadyrov, Bout, Kelkar
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…
Oksana Pokalchuk: “If you don’t live in a country, that’s being torn apart, you’ll never understand what it means, to blame the army of its defenders”.
Russia shells area near Europe's largest nuclear power plant for the second time in one day yesterday. Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power operator Energoatom reported that this time the Russian military hit "directly on the site" of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant near a reactor.
It is being reported that Russians mined Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Some sources say they mined the machine hall, others - that the territory around the plant is mined. Ammunition is stored right beside the energy block.
Inside Olenivka, the notorious detention centre outside Donetsk, dozens of Ukrainian soldiers have been burned to death while many others face torture under a regime of “absolute evil”, Anna Vorosheva, a 45-year-old Ukrainian entrepreneur who spent time in the jail.
The Kremlin-installed occupation authorities of Mariupol plan to arrange lynching of Ukrainian prisoners of war - city council.
British Military Intelligence: Russia's war in Ukraine is about to enter a new phase, with most fighting shifting to a nearly 350 kilometre (217 mile) front stretching southwest from near Zaporizhzhia to Kherson, parallel to the Dnieper River.
Russia advances toward Bakhmut, heavy fighting continues. Ukraine's military reported on Aug. 6 that Russian forces are leading an offensive toward the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, an important target in the Kremlin's goal of taking the entire region.
Occupiers in the Russian-occupied cities of the Luhansk are using humanitarian aid to lure residents to provide personal data to partake in a referendum on joining Russia.
Ukraine’s military destroys 6 ammunition depots in southern Ukraine. Operational Command “South” said it killed 79 Russian troops and destroyed four tanks, two howitzers, an artillery installation, a radar station, and 22 armored and military vehicles on Aug. 5.
Putin and Erdogan agreed to switch to a partial payment for Russian gas in rubles at the talks in Sochi. This was reported by Interfax with reference to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
Institute for the Study of War: Russian forces use Iranian-provided drones in Ukraine. The U.S. think tank reported on Aug. 5 that Ukrainian officials confirmed that Iran provided Russia with 46 drones which are now being used in combat.
An EU plan to cut gas use and help Germany wean itself off dependency on Russia will come into effect early next week. Last week, EU member states agreed to reduce their use of gas by 15% over the winter, with exceptions for some countries and despite opposition from Hungary.
North Macedonia has agreed to supply tanks and planes to Ukraine, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said.
Latvia suspends an economic cooperation agreement with Russia and the issuance of visas to Russian nationals.
Meta said it disabled 45 Facebook and 1,037 Instagram accounts operated by a Russian troll farm targeting public figures that support Ukraine.
PoliticoEU: Why any disturbance in the Franco-Italian axis because of Mario Draghi’s departure is a threat to EU stability, just as Franco-German rifts used to be in the past. Emmanuel Macron’s relations with potential Italian PM Giorgia Meloni threaten to be bumpy.
Der Standard, Vienna police hold Ukraine seminar with Russian activists
At the end of June, the Vienna police organized an internal training event on Ukraine with the "Coordination Council of the Organization of Russian Compatriots" (KSORS), which published some of these presentations on Facebook on Monday . Theses can also be heard to justify the war against Ukraine. This cooperation between the police and the Kremlin-loyal association caused "huge outrage" among Ukrainian diplomats in Vienna.
Set your reminders…
Thread by Ulrich Speck: Germany in August 2022
Foreign policy analyst-Analyst, RFE/Prag, Carnegie/Brüssel, GMF/Washington, Berlin. Articles in NYT, FT, FAZ, SZ, IP. Columnist for NZZ Global.
Germany in August 2022: The current chancellor and his pre-predecessor are preoccupied with Russia's attempt to break Germany, a key European country, out of the Western pro-Ukraine coalition.
Olaf Scholz got completely lost trying to defend against the Russian energy weapon; Gerhard Schröder, who gave Russia the energy weapon as chancellor and Kremlin lobbyist, is actively involved in Russian activities as Putin's ambassador.
Stuck on the battlefield in Ukraine, Putin focuses on breaking the Western coalition of supporters; Germany is central here.
A classic operation for Putin, socialized as a KGB agent.
Germany does not currently appear to be aware of these connections; an energetic defense strategy is not recognizable. The chancellor in particular cuts an unfortunate figure; Germany seems weak and easily influenced.
We are entering an era of intensified conflict with the great autocratic powers of Russia and China, which are now going on the offensive. For the ruling elites there, the liberal order is the enemy because democracy and the market economy threaten their power.
Like it or not, we have to take up the fight if we are to defend the liberal order against autocracy and a Moscow-Beijing-favored international system in which a few major powers dictate everything to the satellites.
In this struggle, Germany is now in Russia's crosshairs as a gateway for propaganda, disinformation and, most importantly, a country susceptible to the use of energy as a weapon.
The battlefield in Ukraine is just one of the arenas in which Putin is fighting this battle, public opinion in key Western countries, particularly Germany, is a second arena.
The battle for Ukraine is an opening battle, from the Russian and Chinese point of view, a test balloon. If this works - conquest war against a western backed country -, more will follow. The ambition to enforce hegemony by force is there.
Bellingcat, Tracking the Faceless Killers who Mutilated and Executed a Ukrainian POW
Bellingcat’s investigation into visual clues in the videos using the available open source evidence corroborates the authenticity of the three violent videos and indicates that fighters from ‘Akhmat’, a Chechen paramilitary formation serving with the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, were present at the scene of the murder.
Defending Bucha
RFE/RL, Merchant Of Death. Lord Of War. The McDonald's Of Arms Trafficking: Who Is Viktor Bout?
Bout is believed to have been born in 1967 in Dushanbe, the capital of what was then the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, though doubts have been raised about his exact birthplace. Little is known of his father, Anatoly. His mother, Raisa, has spoken out in defense of her son, most recently in 2021, when she released an open letter to Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Chambers, How Kadyrov is financing war efforts in Ukraine
One of the best known of these «Akhmat» organizations is the Akhmat Kadyrov Fund (referred to as AKF, or the Fund). Officially, this is a charity fund, but in practice, it serves as the Kadyrov family’s corrupt slush fund. It is comprised of embezzled federal subsidies and forced tithes from the republic’s citizens. The Fund is sanctioned by the United States due to Kadyrov’s prolific human rights violations.
Italian election campaign- illegal proposition
The head of Brothers of Italy, Georgia Meloni, has proposed a naval blockade in order to curb and deny access to migrant flows coming into Italy via sea.
As Matteo Salvini found out in 2018 when he was Minister of the Interior and tried the same thing with a ship that had come into Sicily, a naval blockade is an act of war. It violates international treaties and conventions, as well as the law of the sea.
The only reason Meloni and Salvini are proposing this is because it is necessary for right radical illiberal populists to present themselves as saviours and arbiters of law and order. However, both candidates would be proposing an illegal act.
Kelkar, The global economic engine needs an independent Taiwan
The US is inexorably tightening its noose around Beijing by linking together the high-tech powers in East Asia. South Korea, a long-time trade partner and a key supplier of its semiconductors, is now being courted too, bringing Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo together in a technological embrace.
McCleary & Seligman, China’s military exercises are an intel bonanza — for all sides
More significant will be the glimpses into how China deploys and uses its forces. It will likely be a “bonanza of intelligence,” that could yield insights into “the strengths and weaknesses of PLA mobilization,” said Collin Koh, a research fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore.