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…
Russia launched 31 drones and two missiles at Ukraine overnight on Dec 24/25, mostly targeting the south of the country, with air defences destroying 28 drones and both missiles, the Ukrainian military reported on Monday.
“As a result of air combat, the Ukrainian Air Force and defence forces destroyed 28 Shahed attack drones in Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kirovohrad and Khmelnytskyi regions,” Ukraine’s Air Forces said on the Telegram messaging app.
Dec 24: One of the units of a thermal power plant (TPP) in Donetsk Oblast has experienced an emergency shutdown due to hostilities, and a 330kV line belonging to Ukrenergo, a Ukrainian national power company, has been damaged, reported Ukraine’s Energy Ministry on Telegram.
Russia hits third humanitarian aid base in Kherson in 5 days. Russian forces struck a third humanitarian aid center in Kherson within five days, the head of the emergency response unit for the Ukrainian Red Cross in Kherson Oblast Mykola Taranenko said in a comment to Hromadske radio on Dec. 25.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed the downing of a Su-34 in the direction of Mariupol. “In the Odesa direction, there was combat work on the Russian Su-30 in the Black Sea - we are studying the materials of objective control in order to know for sure whether the target was hit or not,” the Air Force adds.
During the night, a total of 31 Shahed drones were launched of which 28 were shot down.
Combat Situation Update
During the day, there have been 76 combat engagements on the Russian invasion battlefront. Ukrainian defenders continue to hold back the aggressors in Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions. –General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 18:00, 25 Dec 2023.
Ukrainian forces repelled 32 Russian assaults on the Avdiivka front and 24 on the Lyman front on Monday, 25 December, and are continuing to hold Russian forces back in the vicinity of Novomykhailivka on the Marinka front, reported the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, information as of 18:00 on 25 December.
On the Kherson front, the cities of Tiahynka, Antonivka and Kherson (Kherson Oblast) and Solonchaky and Kutsurub (Mykolaiv Oblast) came under Russian fire.
"Enemy forces are not abandoning their intentions to drive our units out of their footholds on the left [east] bank of the River Dnipro. Over the course of the past day, enemy forces carried out 12 unsuccessful assaults, were repelled, and sustained significant losses. Our units are firmly holding the line and inflicting fire damage on the enemy," the General Staff reported.
Ukrainian forces have effectively suppressed Russian long-range artillery on the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.
The adversary is employing long-range strike UAVs from the Primorsko-Akhtarsk airfield in Krasnodar Krai (Russian Federation).
There is information about an increasing number of Russians refusing to participate in assault operations. In particular, in units of the 1st Army Corps. Entire groups of Russian servicemen began to surrender," spokesman Colonel Olexander Shtupun said. (Me: not sure about this, but I’ll keep an eye on it.)
The Russian forces claim to have captured Mari’inka but the Ukrainian military continues the battle for Maryinka in the Donetsk region, says Colonel Olexander Shtupun, the spokesperson for the Joint Press Center of the Tavria Defense Forces, during a telethon broadcast. According to Shtupun, as of now, the Russians have not yet occupied the city.
"The battles for Maryinka are ongoing, and currently, our military is within the administrative boundaries of Mari’inka, but the city is completely destroyed. It is incorrect to talk about the complete capture of Maryinka," he emphasized.
These Russian soldiers thought that they were being sent to the front for territorial defence. They now find out There is information about an increasing number of Russians refusing to participate in assault operations. In particular, in units of the 1st Army Corps. Entire groups of Russian servicemen began to surrender," spokesman Colonel Olexander Shtupun said. that they will be deployed in forward fighting units.
"This week we once again proved how effective strengthening our air defence is. Not just to protect cities and villages from Russian drones and missiles, but for [the forces fighting on] the front, too.
Being able to shoot down Russian fighter jets is one of the keys to bringing this war to an end, to a just end.”
Me: I couldn’t resist…they got me on the furry friend.
Due to a powerful storm in the Black Sea, Russians had to disband their naval grouping, including missile carriers, and return to their home bases, according to the Operational Command South on Facebook. "The enemy naval grouping, along with missile carriers, has been disbanded and safely returned to their bases. The powerful storm at sea continues unabated," stated the report. Simultaneously, Russian occupiers persist in terrorizing civilian populations, notably in southern Ukraine, through drone attacks.
Behind the Lines
The Russians are preparing an expedition to Africa to seek mercenaries for the war against Ukraine, reports Ukraine's National Resistance Center. "The enemy is currently conducting a recruiting campaign in the Kursk region, where it expects to recruit 50 to 100 soldiers and officers to fill the so-called "African Corps". It is created as a replacement for the mercenaries of the "Wagner" PMC, who operated in Africa, but were sent to Ukraine."
BBC: Victoria Petrova was convicted for reposting on social networks, but was sent not to prison, but to a psychiatric hospital. And this is not the only case in Russia where treatment is used as punishment in political affairs. The BBC looked into how the system works.
A 29-year-old St. Petersburg woman was accused of “fake stories” about the Russian army for a post on social networks. In March 2022, she published a post on her VKontakte where she condemned the war in Ukraine and the Russian leadership that launched the invasion.
Me: that’s the propagandist that advocated for drowning Ukrainians as well as other sadistic actions.
Ukrainian Hackers Offenziva attack Russian Data Storage Systems…
When our troops destroy your unwashed hordes with headless command on the battlefield, we attack you from the middle. We have disabled data storage systems, workstations, backup tools and information systems.
Access to a huge array of internal data of the organization was obtained. Among them is the list of employees, lists of those mobilized from various branches, salary calculation (very low) .
The most interesting thing happened with your cyber protection - it is worthless, despite the contractors "Standard Security" LLC and "Perspektivnyi Monitoring" JSC. Recent training in combating computer attacks has not helped you. The overall assessment is unsatisfactory.
You are so afraid to admit your defeats that you even hesitate to publicize the failure of the AIS RPT to function. You are as cowardly as your pathetic dwarf ruler. Supervision is no longer the same. Special thanks to several employees for helping to destroy your infrastructure.
Serbia in turmoil after questionable election results
On Dec 24 protests errupted in Belgrade at the city hall against the questionable election results. Various agencies have documented irregularities.
Russia on Monday accused Western countries of stirring up tensions in Moscow-friendly Serbia, which has been rocked by protests over alleged fraud in elections held on 17 December.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow hoped the result would lead to the “further strengthening of friendship” between the countries.
“The attempts of the collective West to destabilise the situation in the country are obvious,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told state-run news agency RIA Novosti.
Belgrade did not join international sanctions against Moscow for its Ukraine offensive, but Serbia has condemned Russia’s aggression at the UN and its support has caused controversy.
Serbia is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas, AFP reports.
The police moved in to suppress the protesters.
Meanwhile in Russia
One of France's largest banks, Societe Generale, will soon sell its business in Russia and exit the market of the aggressor country, reports Bloomberg. It is noted that Societe Generale may finalize its exit from Russia by selling stakes in some of the country's largest companies worth around $75 million to its former local unit, PJSC Rosbank. Putin approved a decree on Sunday allowing Rosbank to buy Russian shares from the French bank.
The United States has frozen over three billion dollars on the Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange (SPB Exchange) due to sanctions, reports the Moscow Times. "Foreign securities totaling just over $3 billion were frozen after the imposition of U.S. blocking sanctions on November 2," the statement of the stock exchange says. On the eve of this announcement, the head of the Central Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, revealed that Russians had reduced their investments in foreign securities from $7 billion in February 2022 to $3 billion in November 2023.
The members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union have signed a free trade agreement with Iran, Russian news agency Tass has reported. The agreement will become permanent and replace a similar temporary pact in force since 2019, according to Reuters.
A court in Moscow arrested head of the GUR, Kyrylo Budanov, in absentia on charges of organizing terrorist attacks. Budanov is accused of committing 104 crimes provided for in clauses "a", "c" of part 2 of Article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (terrorist act).
Russia said on Monday that emergency workers had put out a fire on a Soviet-era nuclear-powered cargo-icebreaker ship and the state company which runs the vessel said there had been no casualties and no threat to the security of the reactor.
The fire broke out on Sunday in one of the cabins of the Soviet-made Sevmorput ship, which is currently at dock in the northern Russian city of Murmansk, the emergency ministry said. The fire, which at its peak covered an area of about 30 square meters (323 square feet), was put out with no casualties, the ministry said.
“The fire was quickly liquidated,” Atomflot, which owns the vessel, said in a statement.
“There were no injuries. There was no threat to crucial support systems or to the reactor plant,” Atomflot said.
The Murmansk region, in Russia’s northwest, shares borders with Finland and Norway, as well as with the Barents and White seas.
FSB raided Timur Prokopenko's home and office for operating Telegram channels. He is a high ranking official in the Presidential Administration and co-president of Putler's Youth.
Iran's naval fleet has received cruise missiles with a flight range of 1,000 km, as well as reconnaissance helicopters, reports Reuters. The head of the Iranian Navy, Shahram Irani, stated that the Talaeiyeh cruise missile has a flight range of over 1,000 km and is a "smart missile that can change targets mid-mission".
Mylovanov et al, ‘Parroting Putin’s propaganda’: The business exodus over Ukraine was no Russian bonanza—Fortune
What’s really happening with Russia’s economy
The wave of nationalizations and asset seizures raised in the article reflect Putin’s weakness, not strength, as we’ve noted before. Russia is becoming a kleptocracy, with Putin cannibalizing the entire productive economy to fund his whims. The state is commandeering more of the economy to add to its cookie jar to fund the war. Business activity needs continuous investment in capital, people, technology, and ideas to sustain itself. Putin can pad his coffers in the short-term with thuggish asset seizures and nationalizations, but he is setting the Russian economy on the path to ruin. Thanks to Putin’s seizures, no multinational firm can justify returning to, or increasing investment in, Russia as long as he remains in power.
As the reporters should have noted, only Putin cronies are buying discarded Russian assets from exiting multinationals because nobody outside of Russia wants to invest a penny into the country. Even the Chinese are hardly rushing to snatch up discounted Russian assets. If Russian assets are really such a “good deal,” why is it that even Russia’s allies refuse to buy in?
Although the Russian economy is struggling by any measure, with several sectors of the economy down by at least 90%, and energy export revenues down by half, it is fair to say that the initial potential of the Russian business retreats, paired with economic sanctions, to completely cripple the Russian economy is not being fully realized at the moment, with escalatory economic measures put on the back burner in favor of fighting it out militarily on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. But to say that the Russian business retreats are somehow helping Putin is false.
Simply put, when businesses pull out of Russia, Putin loses, no ifs, ands, or buts. The transfer of defunct or imploding assets to Putin’s cronies does not enrich Russia. There are no lines of eager diners around Moscow’s former McDonalds. And even as they stumble onwards in the short term, few Russian companies have a future without Western technology. In aviation, for example, the number of aircraft failures in Russia increased by 320% this year, and domestic commercial airlines have stopped offering many routes, with the S7 airline unable to operate at least 20% of its fleet due to difficulties in servicing Airbus planes.
With U.S. funding for Ukraine potentially running out amidst our domestic political dysfunction and military setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine, this may be the most perilous moment for Ukraine since Putin’s initial assault on Kyiv.
Journalists have a responsibility to get their facts straight without parroting Vladimir Putin’s propaganda. Already, Putin has kidnapped the courageous young Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has spent the last nine months in a Russian prison. Gershkovish’s only “crime” was to document the unraveling of Russia’s economy due to sanctions and mass business exits through his field research in Russia.
Days after publishing the evidence of shuttered factories, mass talent flight, and the halt of investment in Russia, the Russian authorities arrested that brave American reporter. But Putin cannot hijack the truth–unless we let him.
Allied Support
Latvia sent a total of 271 cars confiscated from drunk drivers to Ukraine. According to data as of mid-December, the total value of confiscated cars is estimated at almost €1 million.
From Oleksandr Scherba: Ukrainian folk music at Christmas.
