Dec 29: E-Stories
Day673 Kherson Odesa KakhovkaDam CombatSit Kharkiv Zapo BehindLines InRussia Allies USaid A&P UKDef Davis Stewartson CDS Rossiya1 Gutzeit Panyi Paplauskaite AP TimesRad Scarr Aslund Berlinski Raufoglu
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.
Gyunduz Mamedov: The photo shows the consequences of the strike by kamikaze drones on a medical facility in Beryslav, Kherson region. During the almost two years of full-scale war in Ukraine, 195 hospitals were destroyed and 1,487 medical facilities were damaged. The destruction of civilian objects that are not military targets is a war crime.
Stories we’re following…
Ukraine’s air defence systems shot down 7 out of 8 Russia-launched Shahed drones overnight, the country’s air force said on Thursday. Drones were downed in three central and southern regions, the air force said on the Telegram.
On Dec 28 at 10 am, Russians shelled Vovchansk, Kharkiv region. A 66-year-old woman killed, another injured. In the late evening, the Russians shelled Odesa with shahed drones, and struck a high rise building. Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper said that casualties and details of the damage are still under investigation.
Russian attacks injure 4 in Kharkiv, Kherson oblasts. Russian troops struck Zolota Balka in Kherson Oblast and Kharkiv Oblast’s village of Hlushkivka on Dec. 28, wounding four civilians, regional authorities reported. (Photos from Hlushkivka: Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov/Telegram.)
AP investigation: Russian occupation authorities vastly and deliberately undercounted the dead of the flooding that followed the catastrophic explosion that destroyed the Kakhovka Dam.
Russia said 59 people drowned in the territory it controls. But an AP investigation claims the number is at least in the hundreds in the town of Oleshky alone. Health workers and others who were in Oleshky told the news agency that Russian authorities hid the true number by taking control of the issuance of death certificates, immediately removing bodies not claimed by family, and preventing local health workers and volunteers from dealing with the dead.
An exact figure for the dead — in Oleshky, the occupied area’s most populous town before the war, and beyond — may never be known, even if Ukrainian forces retake the territory and are able to investigate on the ground.
“The scale of this tragedy, not just Russia, but even Ukraine doesn’t realise,” said Svitlana, a nurse who initially oversaw the process of collecting death certificates and later escaped to Ukrainian-controlled territory. “It’s a huge tragedy.”
The bulk carrier was en route to one of the Danube ports to load grain. Two individuals have been injured, according to the Southern Ukrainian Defense Forces.
"The vessel lost propulsion and control, with a fire erupting on the upper deck. To prevent sinking, the captain intentionally grounded the ship," military sources reported.
Coast Guard boats and search and rescue teams promptly provided assistance to the crew, bringing medics on board.
Combat Situation Update
CDS Report: The Russian Federation plans to seize the entire Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and part of Kharkiv Oblast up to the Oskil River by March of 2024. Over the next 36 months, Russia intends to capture parts of Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv Oblasts, including the city of Kharkiv on the left bank of the Dnipro River.
Localized enemy attacks are exerting pressure on Ukrainian forces in many places along the front line and may lead to a gradual tactical advancement by the adversary.
In Zaporizhzhya region, Ukrainian defenders repelled 2 attacks by the Russian fascist invaders west of Verbove and near Robotyne. The aggressors failed to break through.
Noel Report: A Russian soldiers shot a video moments after their military base was hit. Personnel and trucks can be seen while ammo can be heard exploding.
Ukrinform: Russia has six ships in the Black Sea as of 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, December 27. There are no missile carriers, reported the Ukrainian Navy on Facebook. There are three Russian ships in the Mediterranean, including two Kalibr cruise missile carriers, with a total volley of up to 16 missiles. As reported, in the afternoon on December 27, the Russian Federation deployed five warships to the Black Sea.
As a result of the combat, Maryinka has been effectively destroyed. The "Tavriya" OSG troops have partially withdrawn from the village, although certain units continue to operate on the northern outskirts of Maryinka. Outside the village, a prepared defensive line has been built.
The capture of Maryinka will enable Russian forces to conduct offensive operations towards villages up to 15 kilometers west of Maryinka in the coming weeks and months, posing a threat to Ukrainian communications.
Since spring 2022, Russian forces in the Maryinka area have refrained from conducting any offensive operations, as they have extremely limited capabilities to conduct mobile offensives, not only on an operational but also on a tactical scale The lack of such capabilities is evident in the Avdiivka area, where the adversary suffered significant losses in armored vehicles during attacks in a combined arms formation. This prompted the Russian military command to shift towards infantry-based attacks.
Francis Scarr: Russian state TV has aired a report from the ruins of Mariinka likening the town’s "liberation" to the taking of the Reichstag in 1945.
Behind the Lines
Mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, reports that partisans have destroyed the railway bridge near Svitlodolyns'ke for a second time. After it was initially blown up, Russians decided to repair it, after which it was destroyed once again.
Occupants plan to demolish 16 houses in Mariupol to hide evidence of crimes. In Mariupol, the occupants plan to demolish 16 private houses and one of the shopping centers to eliminate the traces of their crimes. The city council published a list with the addresses of these private houses and emphasized that in this way, the Ukrainian city of Mariupol "is being erased, as well as traces of Russian war crimes against civilians." 3,000 houses in the private sector alone have been destroyed in Mariupol. Many migrants from Russia have come to the seaside city, allegedly to 'rebuild' it. The Russian occupiers are turning Mariupol and the surrounding villages into a military and logistic hub.
Vadym Gutzeit, the President of the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee, states that more than 400 Ukrainian athletes have already lost their lives as a result of the full-scale Russian aggression.
The wives of the mobilized, who had previously called on Putin to go to the front himself and die, published a new appeal to the head of state in the “Way Home” telegram channel.
“Today our member Maria’s husband died. <…> We hope that Vladimir Vladimirovich and those responsible for thousands of broken destinies will not choke on the blood of our guys, which is filled to the brim in their elegant glass, on New Year’s Day! Burn in hell,” said the wives of the mobilized.
The comment is posted under a video message from a woman who introduces herself as Maria Ishkova from St. Petersburg. She says that her husband was mobilized in the fall of 2022, and in August his unit “like airborne forces, like attack aircraft” was sent to the Zaporozhye direction to stop the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and in December he died.
“I want to tell all the people who are fighting for their beloved men: <...> you don’t have time, because absolutely every day can become fatal. And, most likely, it inevitably will. Fight for them now, today, do everything possible. But I believe that the only thing possible is SOCH ( unauthorized abandonment of a unit - TMT), this is escape. If your husband returns home, just run with him,” says the author of the video.
In Russia
Russian universities will introduce student identification using biometric data. This follows from the instructions of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko, which Vedomosti reviewed. The Ministry of Digital Development and the Central Bank of Technology stated that they have already begun developing proposals. The service will be completely safe and will make it easier for students to pass exams, the Ministry of Digital Development emphasized.
Me: The Russian leadership is selling this as an aid for university students, but it will most likely be used as a vehicle for recruitment for the Russian armed forces.
Russian propaganda at work: Jim Stewartson reports that this video is circulating in the QAnon world. What’s worrisome about it is that there will be Americans who believe the Russia didn’t interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections, and that it doesn’t have any intention of doing so.
In a recent post, Claire Berlinski asked, “Why is it so easy for the world's worst regimes, entities, and people to seed the West with absolute nonsense? Why are we so bad at explaining our own security interests to the public?”
It’s a huge question that deserves a proper answer. My first thought is: culture. I’d like to take my time with this one. By the way, you can get these fab questions and content to boot at the Cosmopolitan Globalist (if you haven’t subscribed, you won’t regret it.)
Russia is resolved to achieve its goals in its military operations in Ukraine, its foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said, adding that what he called the west’s strategy to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia had “completely failed”. The G7 countries intend to discuss a “peace formula” proposed by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, which they agreed on at a “secret summit” held about 10 days ago, Lavrov said in an interview with Russian state media.
Storms continue in the world and one of the reasons is that the ruling circles in the west provoke crises thousands of kilometres from their borders in order to resolve their own issues at the expense of other peoples.
It can be said that given conditions in which the west is clinging to the domination slipping away from it, no one can be protected against its geopolitical intrigues. There is a growing understanding of this.
Vladimir Egorov, an ally of Putin, has been found dead after a suspected fall from a third-floor window.
A member of the ruling party United Russia, 46-year-old Egorov was a wealthy and prominent politician in oil-rich Tobolsk in western Siberia. His dead body was reportedly found in the yard of his house, with one source claiming there was "no visible sign of a criminal death on the [politician's] body." An interlocutor said: "One of the most likely reasons is heart problems."
It comes after Lukoil tycoon Ravil Maganov, 67, fell from a window of Moscow’s elite Central Clinical Hospital - known to some as the Kremlin clinic - in September last year.
Russia successfully deployed a new military satellite into the earth's orbit after sending several devices used for defence purposes earlier, officials in Moscow said Wednesday.
The satellite was launched by the Russian Aerospace Forces (RAF) Soyuz-2.1b rocket, according to the defence ministry.
It noted: "On December 27 at 10:03 am combat crews of the RAF space forces conducted a launch of a light-class Soyuz-2.1b rocket with a space device in the interest of the Russian Defence Ministry, from the state testing cosmodrome of the Russian Defence Ministry in Arkhangelsk region (Plesetsk)."
The Russian space agency Roscosmos mentioned that total 67 launches were conducted using Soyuz-2.1b rockets between December 27, 2006 and November 25, 2023. As many as some 577 devices have been delivered into the space.
During Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow in March this year, Putin told his Chinese counterpart that Russia would fight against Ukraine for “at least five years,” diplomatic sources told Nikkei Asia.
They say this could be Putin's way of setting the record straight and assuring Xi Jinping that Russia will ultimately win the standoff because a protracted war benefits Moscow.
With his remark, Putin probably wanted to send a warning to the Chinese leader not to change his position towards Russia, Nikkei Asia notes.
In the event of a military escalation between Russia and NATO, Finland will be the first to suffer from the NATO alliance, said Mikhail Ulyanov, the permanent representative of the Russian Federation to international organizations in Vienna.
“We lived calmly, peacefully and unexpectedly found ourselves between Russia and NATO, as an integral part of the alliance, but they are neighbors with us, and God forbid, if there is any aggravation, then Finland itself will suffer first,” he said in an interview “ RIA Novosti" Ulyanov.
He also called the US-Finland defense cooperation agreement, under which the US military would have access to military facilities on its ally's territory, a "serious challenge".
Allied Support
Financial Times: The U.S. has proposed that working groups from G7 countries explore ways to seize $300 billion in frozen Russian assets. Preparatory work is proposed to make sure an option is available at the next meeting on February 24.
German party leader says Europe can't compensate for potential loss of US aid to Ukraine. In a comment for the German Press Agency, Omid Nouripour, a co-leader of Germany's Green Party, has emphasized the central role the U.S. is playing in Western support for Ukraine, adding that Germany and the European Union, in general, won't be able to compensate for a potential loss of the U.S. aid to Ukraine.
The US Congress should “act swiftly” to renew the flow of aid to Ukraine, the state department has said, after the White House announced what it said was the last remaining package of weapons available under the existing authorisation. Congress reconvenes on 8 January.
“It is imperative that Congress act swiftly, as soon as possible, to advance our national security interests by helping Ukraine defend itself and secure its future,” the state department said in a statement, adding that the year’s final package included air-defence and artillery munitions.
Dietmar Pichler: The damage is done
Some of the damage done by Russian, and even already Soviet propaganda seems unfortunately irreversible. No, I am not only talking about Russia itself; I am speaking about the discourse in the West.
Reasons and signs for this assessment:There are a number of people who defended the Soviet Union back then and now stand up for Russia. The enemy remains NATO, the United States, "the West"; Russia can do whatever it wants, they will defend the Kremlin's actions.
Instead of admitting that they were already wrong with the Soviet Union back then, many now even defend modern Russia – this also applies to Western communists, even though Russia is not communist anymore.
This shows how far the decades-long anti-western campaign initiated by Moscow has influenced our societies. For instance, the myth that the Soviet Union disappeared 'peacefully' and we were not 'grateful' enough—what about the bloodbath in Vilnius 1991?
As an Austrian, I am truly grateful that the Allies left our country in 1955, and we were able to enjoy freedom despite our responsibility for World War 2. What about the countries that remained occupied and subjugated by Moscow? We ignored that issue; some even praised it.
Let's move to 2014. Russia told us that 'Russian language is banned in Ukraine,' 'Genocide in Donbas,' 'no Russian military involved,' 'Ukrainians shot down MH17,' and 'US paid Maidan with $5 Billion.' All these lies are still widespread.
People refuse to admit that they were wrong. We are talking about politicians, some journalists, 'experts,' 'influencers,' and many more. It takes a lot of guts to admit a mistake, to acknowledge that you are a victim of propaganda. So, people use everything to avoid that painful process of realization.
Instead of countering the various propaganda narratives, many influential people decided to choose self-censorship and avoid the topic entirely. Russian trolls did their part in supporting that development. Debunking—we did not see a lot of it; rather false balance/bothsidesism.
The alternate reality created by Russian propaganda is spreading around the world and we are still not aware of the impact. It is much easier to build resilience against this alternate reality than to help people escape from it.
U.S. Treasury: “These persons have facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars to the Houthis at the direction of U.S.-designated Sa’id al-Jamal, who is affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF).”
Brian Nelson: “The United States, along with our allies and partners, will continue to target the key facilitation networks that enable the destabilizing activities of the Houthis and their backers in Iran.”
Velina Tchakarova: Panama Canal is partially restricted and the Indo-Pacific will become the next hotspot too (Strait of Taiwan & Strait of Malacca). I‘ll be closely watching the DragonBear along the Northern Sea Route as well. (Map: Contrarian Investors)
Create a crisis, Win an election
“Literally, like those who were cut off. There are no migrants. They simply disappeared as if they had never existed. Now there is none. Zero. This is a shock!” - said our source with knowledge of the situation on the Slovak-Hungarian border and the police ranks, after we contacted him saying that we know that in recent weeks, refugees have disappeared from the border just as they came.
The new wave of refugees started roughly in the spring, and in the summer, illegal immigrants began to flow into the border villages in southern Slovakia from Hungary in ever-increasing numbers. By autumn, the situation had deteriorated to the point where several thousand people were arriving every week. A state of emergency was also declared in the district, and soldiers were ordered to the border. In September, Telex also reported in several affected villages in Slovakia , in one of the settlements we met a group of migrants consisting almost exclusively of young men.
Nothing is left of it today. "The flood has completely stopped, I can prove it," said the mayor of Ipolyhídvég in Slovakia to our inquiry. In September, strangers came to the village almost daily in groups of 20-30, there were days when there were as many as a hundred. According to Viktor Lestyánszky, however, in the weeks after the Slovak elections held on September 30, the number of refugees began to decrease steadily, "and by the end of October, there were no more migrants". [continue]
Julia Davis, ‘Morality Shouldn’t Get in the Way’ — Russia’s Genocidal State Media
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s elite propagandists wanted to drink champagne in the studio to properly celebrate the moment. Head of state propaganda agency, RT, Margarita Simonyan, expressed “an overwhelming sense of euphoria” and added: “I’ve been waiting eight years for this . . . it finally happened. This is true happiness.”
With the bloody all-out invasion now in its second year, the euphoria has been replaced by a lingering sense of dread, with Putin’s mouthpieces routinely fretting about the possibility of war crimes tribunals. The issue is playing on their minds.
Appearing on the state TV show, Evening With Vladimir Solovyov in November, Simonyan said: “Let me tell you that if we manage to lose, the Hague — whether real or hypothetical — will even come for the street cleaner sweeping the cobblestones behind the Kremlin.” The same month, Olga Skabeeva, the host of the state TV show 60 Minutes, likewise predicted that if Russia loses its war against Ukraine, every Russian will be considered guilty. She argued that a resounding victory was the only way “to avoid tribunals at the Hague, criminal cases, and having to pay reparations.” [continue]
Marichka Paplauskaite, “our task is to resist with dignity and not let them destroy us.”
Marichka Paplauskaite is a graduate student at the Kyiv School of Economics studying memory studies. Yesterday, she was at the train station in Kherson when the Russians shelled it with ballistic missiles. It was very scary. This is her story as she published it on Facebook and as translated by Tymofiy Mylovanov.
I arrived in Kherson in the morning, on the same train, four cars of which were destroyed by the Russians in the evening. I spent the day in the company of the station manager, a brave woman named Alla Lopata, whom I will write about in my book.
The alarms in Kherson are sounding one after another. We counted five or six during the day. Each time, after the signal, or even before it, we heard closer explosions. Several times we went down to the basement, where the station staff told us about their everyday life under occupation.
Forty-five minutes before the return train to Kyiv was to depart, the same four cars returned to the Kherson platform from Mykolaiv, where they had been waiting all day, and passengers began to arrive at the station. And that's when the Russians started firing.
We ran for cover when the first hit happened. I have never heard such a loud explosion before: the basement ceiling was falling down, the walls were moving. The passengers also managed to hide in the basement.
And we all sat there together for the next hour and a half and counted the next arrivals. Two policemen who were injured by debris when they were helping passengers to hide were bandaged.
There was also a foreign volunteer, apparently with a broken rib, but he asked to be ignored and was just breathing heavily, dripping with sweat. Later, the medics helped him as best they could.
One policeman, whom I did not see, unfortunately, died. [He was out helping people. I can't imagine what goes on in the head of these officers. They risk their lives daily, knowing that some of them will die, but they keep helping people during the attacks. It must be that they have resigned to their fate and death by now. Just think about it.]
Honestly, for the first time during the great war, I really thought that I might die right now.
Only a little kitten, a lop-eared Lyalya, who was given to me by the station manager as a gift for St. Nicholas, saved me from these thoughts.
I was given the mission to watch over him while his owner made difficult decisions: what to do with the people and when it would be safe for them to leave the shelter. No one knew this.
The kitten meowed, played and got scared with us, even managed to take a few naps, and I felt its warmth in my hands and held on to it.
We didn't know what was up there, but we suspected it was bad. When the noise died down a bit, someone went to find out. The news was disappointing: the station was smashed, not a single window was left standing, and all the cars and the locomotive were destroyed.
"Buses will come for you and take you to Mykolaiv," the passengers were told. After half an hour, they told us we could go upstairs. And that's when it hit me.
Maybe it was because I had to say goodbye to my kitten, or because I saw the room littered with glass that I had been in just 30 seconds before the explosion, or because of the pool of blood at the entrance to the station - where I had stood several times during the day, but when we got on the bus and the lights were turned off in the cabin, I sat down on the dirty floor and burst into tears. My colleagues from UZ wrote to me, and I wrote back: "Please wait, I'm crying".
Before this trip, I had re-watched The Lord of the Rings and noticed an incredibly apt dialog between Frodo and Gandalf:
"I wish the ring did not exist! I wish none of this had happened!
This is what everyone thinks when they have to go through something like this, but it's out of their control. All we can do is decide what to do with the time we have.
We all wish Russia didn't exist, but it fucking does. And it continues to kill us. Yesterday, I felt very vividly what it is like to be a target. And our task is to resist with dignity and not let them destroy us.
And also to take care of each other and not to fight among ourselves, remembering that we have one enemy, and he is outside.
While I was thinking about this, we reached Mykolaiv. There, the passengers were met by station workers and volunteers who helped them navigate and find the right cars.
The four cars that were left in Kherson under fire were replaced with reserve cars in Mykolaiv, and everyone was able to board the train with a ticket.
And I was lucky enough to hug my sister and her husband, who have been serving in the Armed Forces since the first days of the war, for a few minutes. It was nice to find salvation at the train station of my hometown.
This morning, the train that was hit by Russian missiles yesterday arrived in Kyiv on schedule at 7:20 a.m. as planned. And this is one of those miracles that are made by the hands of our people.
I am grateful to everyone with whom I shared this terrible evening. I am grateful to Ukrzaliznytsia for continuing to transport passengers despite everything.