Dec 23: E-Stories
Day667 Kherson Kyiv Donetsk CombatSit 4RuJets BehindLines InRussia Orban BEL Novatek Allies MOL CN Prigo A&P Zabrinsky ISW RFE/RL Janovsky OCCRP Iacoboni Sipher Yellen Rottigen Hoffman Pichler Lucas
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.
Zarina Zabrinsky reporting from Kherson: Antonina had to move from her home. Many houses and blocks of apartments were flooded after Russians blew up the dam. Fixing them under shelling is not possible. Her new place is under incessant fire; houses around ruined.
Stories we’re following…
Falling debris from drone strike on Kyiv leaves residential building on fire, 2 injured. Falling debris from a Russian drone strike on Kyiv left a residential building in the Solomianskyi District on fire, Kyiv city officials reported overnight on Dec. 22. More than two dozen Russian drones targeted Ukraine’s capital, hitting the 24th, 25th and 26th storeys of an apartment building and injuring two people, and causing lesser damage to several other residential buildings, according to Reuters.
The Ukrainian military shot down 24 of 28 attack drones launched overnight by Russia, Kyiv’s air force said on Friday. The Iranian-made drones were destroyed over parts of central, southern and western Ukraine. At least two injuries were reported in the capital, Kyiv. Video by RFE/RL.
Governor: Russian soldiers in occupied Kherson Oblast killed boy in front of his family. The Russian soldiers likely thought the boy was taking photos, so they took him home and shot him as his family watched, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Russian strike on mines in Donetsk Oblast kills 3, injures 6. A Russian strike on two mines in Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast killed three civilians and wounded five others, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Dec. 21.
Russia has launched about 7,400 missiles and 3,700 Shahed attack drones at targets in Ukraine during its 22-month-old invasion, Kyiv said, illustrating the vast scale of Moscow’s aerial assaults. Ukrainian air defences were able to shoot down 1,600 of the missiles and 2,900 of the drones, air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said in televised comments.
Energy Ministry: Widespread power outages due to bad weather, Russian attacks. Thirteen oblasts across Ukraine were affected by either or both bad weather and Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, impacting the power supply of close to 100,000 people.
Combat Situation Update
President Zelensky said Ukraine was receiving signals that Russia’s military planning and activity were slowing. “The enemy’s plans, the work of the Russian defence [industry]. There are signals indicating a slowdown. We will continue to support their slowdown,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, citing a military intelligence directorate (HUR) report. It was not immediately clear whether the president was referring specifically to the Russian defence industry or to Russian tactics and objectives in a broader sense.
Noel Report: “The cost of just one Su-34 can amount up to $50 million. These are one of the newest jets in service with the Russian Air Force," Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat comments on the destruction of 3 Su-34's in the southern direction. Presumably by Patriot AD system(s).
Drone attack reported in multiple Russian oblasts. Ukrainian attack drones hit their targets on Russian territory, Ukrainska Pravda reported on Dec. 22, citing a source in intelligence. Earlier on Dec. 22, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed air defense systems in Moscow, Kaluga, and Bryansk oblasts had stopped an attempted Ukrainian drone attack.
Russia will take retaliatory measures if Ukraine uses NATO air bases for flights of Western fighters transferred to Ukraine. Head of the Russian delegation at the negotiations in Vienna on military security and arms control, Konstantin Gavrilov, said.
Latest up-dated map of action on the Donetsk front. This is the area that the Kremlin would like to secure before the March so-called elections in Russia.
Task & Purpose: Marine veteran killed in Ukraine fought 12 Russians in last stand. Marine veteran Ethan Hunter Hertweck often quoted an axiom, his mother Leslie recalled: “All that’s necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ethan decided that he needed to help the Ukrainian people, Leslie Hertweck told Task & Purpose. He was killed during what was supposed to be his last mission, just 11 days before he was scheduled to return home.
“He had thought of coming home before this last mission, but we know he didn’t want to leave his two ‘brothers’ that transferred with him to the new unit,” Leslie Hertweck said on Thursday.
At least 46 Americans have died in Ukraine since February 2022, including more than 30 U.S. military veterans. Ethan Hertweck is one of 11 Marine veterans killed in Ukraine, according to a list compiled by Task & Purpose.
Mariia Kramarenko: The condition in which Ukrainian pow was returned from russian captivity. And it’s not exclusive to military, 91% of civilians detained by russia experience the same.
Behind the Lines
An elementary school teacher in Crimea sang a Ukrainian song at school. 10 masked policemen were sent to take her to prison in the middle of the night.
Bloomberg: Orbán insisted on calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “military operation”, mirroring language used by the Kremlin. “It is a military operation … as long as there is no declaration of war between the two countries,” the nationalist leader told reporters during his annual press conference. “When the Russians declare war on Ukraine, then it will be war.
Me: The narrative that the Kremlin and Orban would have us accept is that this is a ‘regional’ conflict; hence, spinning the war as a localised and limited ‘military operation’. What the Russian propaganda omits is that the Russians cannot fight this war without the assistance of China, Iran, and North Korea or other states, like Morocco, that provide safehaven to shell companies necessary for the illicit exports of technology and other provisions for Russia’s military industrial production.
Meanwhile in Russia
Reuters: Novatek (NVTK.MM), Russia's largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), has sent force majeure notifications to some of its clients over future supplies from its Arctic LNG 2 project, four industry sources told Reuters on Thursday. Novatek declined to immediately comment on the situation.
The notifications were issued after the United States last month imposed sanctions on Arctic LNG 2, which is due to start production before the end of this year or in early 2024. A seller of goods or services may declare force majeure in the event that they cannot supply them due to circumstances beyond their control. In such a case, they must notify the other party and offer an explanation.
The project is a key element of Russia's drive to increase its market share on the global LNG market to a fifth by 2030 - from around 8% now. The first LNG tankers from the project were expected to set sail in the first quarter of next year.
Russia may sever diplomatic ties with the US if Washington confiscates Russian assets frozen over the Ukrainian conflict, the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, as saying on Friday. The US “must not act under an illusion … that Russia is clinging with both hands to diplomatic relations with that country,” Ryabkov said.
Russia will never leave in peace any country that seizes its assets, the Kremlin said on Friday, saying it would look at what Western assets it could seize in retaliation in such a scenario. The Kremlin was commenting on an idea being actively discussed in the West where some politicians have suggested that frozen Russian assets worth $300 billion be handed to Ukraine. (Me: ah, they’re angry. Good. They won’t leave any country to deal with its own domestic and foreign affairs anyway. )
At a meeting with his Council for Strategic Development and National Projects, Putin said Russia’s roadmap for national development should extend to 2036, which happens to be the last year he can remain president, if he’s still alive at that time. Russia’s current national development goals are defined until 2030.
Me: Putin does this every year. Lots of promises about infrastructure plans, and then videos circulate about the living conditions that the vast majority of Russians. The reason is the corrupt system in place inherited from the Soviet period of the planned economy. Russia produces arms, and sells raw materials. It doesn’t produce much of anything else: most of the products of the supply economy come from China and other states.
Putin issued an executive order dispensing one-time 100,000-ruble ($1,090) payments to children in the four occupied Ukrainian regions who have been “injured due to Ukraine’s aggression.” Pay eligibility requires that children are now Russian citizens and permanent residents of territory occupied by Russia and that their injuries occurred after February 18, 2022. This sudden benevolence comes nearly a year after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russia’s president and children’s rights commissioner on war crimes for kidnapping children from occupied Ukraine to Russia. (Me: it’s a payoff. By the way, I had to change the wording of this news story that has been published by Meduza. They did not make reference to the four Ukrainian provinces as ‘occupied’ but as ‘annexed’ and other tell-tale signs that the publication is using Russian rather than Western terminology.)
Jacopo Iacoboni: The audience members that were listening to Putin's ramblings on Dec 20 was interesting: Patriarch Kirill was sitting next to the head of all Russian security services Patrushev, and in the row behind the head of the FSB, and immediately behind General Yevkurov (Wagner's new head on behalf of Putin).
Russian police officers, National Guardsmen, and military recruiters raided construction sites and parking lots selling New Year’s trees and fireworks in Chelyabinsk on Thursday. The authorities reportedly distributed military registration summons to recently naturalized Russians and initiated the deportation of at least two migrants after discovering immigration violations.
Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry has stopped publishing statistics about crimes committed using firearms. According to the Mozhem Obyasnit Telegram channel, the data released until October 2023 showed a massive spike in gun violence, but now the ministry isn’t updating those reports, and it’s actually purged previously published numbers from its archives. When available, the records showed that the number of armed robberies, murders, and other crimes involving guns committed in regions bordering Ukraine grew 5–17 times between January and September 2023.
Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko advocates amending Russia’s law on the “repatriation of compatriots” to accommodate people who share the country’s “traditional values.” Economic Development Deputy Minister Dmitry Volvach recently said Russia is ready to resettle roughly 45,000 foreigners from “unfriendly nations.” To welcome Westerners who share “Russian values” but lack the ancestral roots for repatriation, Volvach proposed special tax benefits, residence privileges, and help to study the Russian language.
Me: an election campaign stunt. No one is rushing to go to Russia, and if they are, they are usually running away from the law or have been recruited for specific tasks—i.e. Scott Ritter, Tara Reade, and Karin Kneissl. These people are touted in the press to show that they prefer the ‘Russian World’ as opposed to the West. It’s also a way of extracting illegals that are based in the West and need to get out.
Abramovich loses appeal to be removed from EU sanctions list. Abramovich and other top Russian oligarchs were sanctioned after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He filed a challenge against the decision at the EU court in Brussels, saying that he had no influence over the Kremlin's decisions and that his business interests were not connected to the war.
Putin held a telephone call with the Palestinian president Abbas on Friday to discuss ways to de-escalate the conflict in Gaza as well as humanitarian relief efforts, the Kremlin said. It said the two men agreed that Abbas would visit Russia at a date to be agreed.
Me: Ah, I don’t think that’s what they really talked about. It’s the word ‘humanitarian’ that gives it away. Putin can use this fake diplomacy as another excuse to have his image posted in the press at home and abroad. The real contents of the visit, if it actually takes place, are unknown.
Allied Support
U.S. Department of State Official Readout:
The United States, alongside our allies and partners, is committed to curtailing Russia’s use of the international financial system to advance its war in Ukraine. As a next step in this effort, President Biden today signed an Executive Order to expand the United States’ ability to target financial institutions located outside of Russia that facilitate transactions involving Russia’s military-industrial base. The new order also gives the United States the authority to ban importation to the United States of certain goods mined, produced, or harvested in Russia, even if substantially transformed in a third country.
Finland announces military aid package for Ukraine worth $116 million. Details of the delivery were not made public "for operational reasons and in order to guarantee the safe delivery of the aid," but the package takes into account "both the needs of Ukraine and the resource situation" of Finland's Armed Forces, the Defense Ministry said.
Germany announces 88.5 million euros in winter aid for Ukraine. Germany will provide Ukraine with an additional 85.5 million euros ($94 million) in aid to help the country endure the winter and withstand Russian attacks on critical infrastructure, the Foreign Ministry announced on Dec. 21. (Me: Once Germany had decided to step up and provide funds and kit, it has been consistent and quietly so.)
The Netherlands is sending 18 F-16s to Ukraine to help in the war against Russia. The government had previously promised Ukraine to supply fighter jets, but it was still unknown how many would be delivered. Preparations are ongoing.
Canadian armored vehicle manufacturer Roshel recently commemorated a significant milestone, celebrating the delivery of the 1000th Senator armored vehicle to the Ukrainian military in an official ceremony.
Secretary Janet Yellen: “For too long, criminals & bad actors have hidden behind anonymous shell companies. Thanks to the new beneficial ownership rule, we’re leveling the playing field.”
Visit the FinCen News website for information.
Rottigen: "In the event that Trump is reelected, Europeans must be able to sustain the Ukrainian war effort on their own. Europeans cannot escape the geography of our continent; we are not separated by a vast ocean from the war. We do not have a choice but to ensure a Ukrainian victory."
Me: The EU poses limits to how much a state can go beyond its budget. This limitation was been lifted for defence budgets of EU member states. The Italian Defence Minister, Guido Crosetto, has stated that EU industries were not prepared to transform their manufacturing industries to military production, and this has caused delays in provisions for Ukraine. It is true that most of the EU member states’ defence capabilities have been woefully neglected over the past 30 years. It seems that there is a change happening now in that attention is being paid to strategic industrial output goals. The same attention to defence capabilities was recently expressed by Charles Michel, in his speech at the EDA annual conference, “A European Defence for our Geopolitical Union”.
DW—Czech shooter up-date: “Czech police said the shooter had killed his father before traveling to Prague and opening fire at his university. It's believed to be the worst gun attack in the country's history.”
Election interference: Rove says, “I think the former president has a problem with this. They had voted to certify the election, he attempted to force them to change their decision, which they tried to do, I think this is what we would call election interference.”
Dietmar Pichler’s latest on the information war
7 signs that Russia is winning the information war (unfortunately):
1) We still fail to see how essential the fight against disinformation and propaganda by authoritarian regimes is to protect our democracy & security;
2) The never-ending call for negotiations: There are still people speaking about "negotiations" as if Russian leaders showed any signs of compromise in their path of cultural genocide, deportations, annexations, and subjugation of Ukraine
3) 2014? One could think that we did our homework after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but no, Russian narratives about Maidan, Crimea, and Donbas are still widespread, and we failed to educate people. It's easy for Russian propaganda to create confusion about the past...
4) We do not listen: We still do not monitor the genocidal and imperialistic rhetoric of Russian domestic propaganda on a daily basis; many people are still not even aware of what propagandists and politicians say there.
5) "Useful idiots" are welcome: We still welcome people who have no clue about Eastern Europe but are apologists for the Kremlin's actions to comment about the situation. Additionally, we failed to debunk them; often, they can spread their narratives without any resistance.
6.1 No awareness for the terror of the occupation regime: Many people think that if the weapons were to remain silent, the suffering would end. They are not aware of the terror under Russian occupation – deportations, rape, re-education, torture, and killings.
6.2 This makes it easier to advocate for an "immediate ceasefire", "end of weapons delivery" to "end the suffering." Of course, this does not help the people in the occupied areas who would be trapped under Russian occupation.
7) Demonization of Ukraine succeeded: It is not only about 'bothsidesism'; in many cases, people seem to completely blame Ukraine and/or the West for the war. The lack of education about Ukraine collides with the huge amount of Russian narratives, which we find everywhere
Indo-Pacific News: China building new highway to India
China is on the verge of completing a new highway near its contested border with India, potentially allowing for the rapid mobilization of People's Liberation Army troops during a conflict as the military standoff between the two Asian giants continues.
In India's Ladakh region, to the east of the Line of Actual Control, China has long fretted about its Achilles' heel called the G219 highway, which runs along the country's entire western and southern border, linking the regions of Xinjiang and Tibet.
Historically, Chinese military strategists lost sleep over wartime access to the G219 during a conflict with India. Under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has vowed to defend every inch of the nation's claimed territory, Beijing has been addressing that vulnerability and is close to completing an alternate route known as the G216.
Plans for the roadway, part of a network that could one day deliver China's armed forces directly into future hot zones, were announced by Beijing in July 2022 with the aim of creating "strategic backbone passages out of Xinjiang and into Tibet." "This line is closer to the China-India border," a Chinese blogger observed at the time, predicting a stern protest from the External Affairs Ministry in New Delhi.
Publicly available footage from the region, analyzed by Newsweek, showed new sections of the G216 now accessible to tourists traveling across Xinjiang. China's state broadcaster CCTV last month celebrated the opening of a new tunnel from Urumqi to Yuli county, both in Xinjiang, which is now considered to be the world's longest.
A trending hashtag on the Chinese social media app Weibo declared in late November that the country's infrastructure was "about to break through Tianshan," referring to the mountain range. Hidden behind the celebrations, however, was Beijing's progress in linking the G216 to disputed areas on its border with India. Footage online showed the new highway passing close to Aksai Chin in Xinjiang, a region claimed by India as part of Ladakh.
In Xinjiang, the G216 starts in Altay prefecture in the north and crosses the Tianshan Mountains before ending in the town of Baluntai for a total distance of 532 miles. A new section of the national highway also connects Xinjiang's capital of Urumqi to Ruili in southwestern Yunnan province via Tibet.
Rakesh Sharma, a retired Indian Army general who is now a distinguished fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation think tank in New Delhi, told Newsweek that difficult terrain prevented the G216 from being built in the past, but Beijing has since overcome that challenge. "G216 and G219 now become the highways for the logistical sustenance of the forces in these areas as they connect across to the main highway which comes out of Xinjiang. These are two axials developed for logistical sustenance and movement of forces up and down," said Sharma, who previously served in Ladakh.
Yet another national highway, the G695, which is under construction, will come even closer to the locale where Chinese and Indian troops continue to be deployed. "The highway G695 is a different kettle of fish altogether as it will go within 10-15 kilometers (6-9 miles) to the Line of Actual Control, where both sides have their forces deployed," Sharma said.
"The highway transits across the northern borders and will become an important road against India because that is a connection through which a large shifting of forces can take place," he said.
India is expanding its own strategic infrastructure on its side of the border amid the lingering specter of armed conflict with China in the future. Sharma, who said the G695 was coming up "in bits and pieces," believes the highway could give China an edge in the mobilization of forces through difficult terrain, posing a challenge for India.
An estimated 100,000 soldiers on either side of the 2,100-mile LAC remain in eastern Ladakh, and both militaries remain locked in a stalemate despite 20 rounds of bilateral talks aimed at deescalation. China's building of bridges and other infrastructure along the LAC likely will result in a permanent PLA presence there, according to Sharma, tying down a significant portion of the Indian Army along the contested border.
Earlier this month, Beijing reasserted its claim to New Delhi-controlled Jammu and Kashmir—also claimed by Pakistan—after India's Supreme Court upheld a 2019 decision by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to strip the region of its special administrative status in a move to further solidify de facto control. "China has never recognized the so-called Union Territory of Ladakh set up unilaterally and illegally by India.
India's domestic judicial verdict does not change the fact that the western section of the China-India border has always belonged to China," China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said. "The Chinese have not been known in recent years to have paused any of their plans on account of Indian sensitivities," said Jabin Jacob, an associate professor at the Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence in India's Greater Noida.
Jacob told Newsweek the Indian government was "trying to kick the can down the road" instead of directly and publicly addressing the threat posed by China's activities at the border. "By trying to limit Indian public attention to the boundary dispute, the Indian government has actually provided the Chinese the opportunity to continue construction at the border, negotiations or no negotiations," he said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Indian External Affairs Ministry did not return separate written requests for comment before publication.
Scott Lucas on the Colorado Supreme Court Decision
LISTEN TO DISCUSSION FROM 1:23.33
Scott explains the Constitutional position and how, according to the court’s ruling, Trump violated the 14th Amendment with his support of insurrection before and during the Capitol Attack of January 6, 2021.
He also deal with the inevitable question of the political significance by asking if the US media will continue, wittingly or unwittingly, to tilt the playing field in Trump’s favor by giving him almost-exclusive attention — and by recycling his disinformation and falsehoods.
How Putin’s Right-hand Man Took Out Prigozhin- WJS
On the tarmac of a Moscow airport in late August, Yevgeny Prigozhin waited on his Embraer Legacy 600 for a safety check to finish before it could take off. The mercenary army chief was headed home to St. Petersburg with nine others onboard. Through the delay, no one inside the cabin noticed the small explosive device slipped under the wing.
When the jet finally left, it climbed for about 30 minutes to 28,000 feet, before the wing blew apart, sending the aircraft spiraling to the ground. All 10 people were killed, including Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner paramilitary group. [continue]
Me: The Wall Street Journal concludes that Russian National Security Council Secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, “put in motion” Prigozhin’s assassination. WSJ journalists say Patrushev had warned Putin about the mutiny, and that Prigozhin had been given too much oxygen. Putin reportedly saw Patrushev’s plans to kill Prigozhin by planting a bomb under the wing of his plane. “And Putin didn’t object,” sources in Western intelligence told WSJ.
This is the story the Russians would like us to believe. I don’t doubt that the journalists at WSJ have done their own research on the information they have been given. At the same time, I find it difficult to believe that Patrushev, who has tight control over the security services, would allow the mutiny to kick off at all. He was also in Kazakhstan when it went down. There’s another reason for him to allow the mutiny to happen at all: to force Putin’s internal dissenters to come to the surface.