Dec 7 Buonasera Mag
Day 287: ZNPP Kurakova Kherson RUarms Putin Pololyak Kuleba Norway NATO HUN Girkin Heinrich13 CHprop Georgia-A&Ps-Lautman Koshiw Turk Noel Iacoboni Zelensky Sallah Applebaum Berlinski Shymko
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…
Russian forces strike Zaporizhzhia Oblast with drones, missiles overnight on Dec. 7. Two communities in Zaporizhzhia Oblast were hit with Russian drones and S-300 missiles, Oleksandr Starukh, the region's governor, reported on Telegram. In one of the villages, three people were wounded in the attack, including a 15-year-old girl.
Eight people were killed by Russian shelling in the town of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, according to a Ukrainian official.
Prosecutors discover another Russian detention facility in Kherson Oblast. Russian occupiers used the facility to detain over 100 people with pro-Ukrainian views, according to the prosecutors. Prisoners could be subjected to physical and psychological pressure.
The US said Tuesday it hadn’t “enabled” Ukraine to carry out strikes inside Russia. Washington has held back from supplying Ukraine forces with long-range ATACMS missiles that could strike inside Russia out of fears it could lead to a direct confrontation between Russian forces and those of the US and Nato.
ISW: Kremlin departs from limited messaging intended to minimize concerns about Ukraine war. Russia's Belgorod and Kursk oblasts have announced the formation of territorial defense units, the ISW said in its latest report, exposing many civilians to the prospect of all-out war "under the absurd premise of the threat of a Ukrainian ground assault on Russia’s border regions."
NYT: Russia continues missile production despite Western sanctions. Some of the cruise missiles used by Russia in its strikes on Ukraine were produced no earlier than October, the New York Times reported on Dec. 6, citing Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a British independent analyst group that tracks illegal weapons in conflicts.
Forbes estimates Russia spent $400-500 million on Dec. 5 missile strikes. Russia fired more than 70 cruise missiles at targets across Ukraine on Dec. 5 with a total value of $400-500 million, according to Forbes.
Putin warned that the threat of nuclear war was “on the rise” while speaking during a televised annual session of his human rights council.
We haven’t gone mad, we realise what nuclear weapons are. We have these means in more advanced and modern form than any other nuclear country, that’s an obvious fact. But we aren’t about to run around the world brandishing this weapon like a razor.
Mikhailo Podolyak, presidential adviser, has said that Iran has so far not delivered ballistic missiles to Russia and may not do so, as a result of diplomatic pressure and Iran’s own internal political turmoil.
FM Kuleba, said 31 “suspicious packages” had been sent to Ukrainian missions in 15 countries. In the past week, Ukraine says its embassies and consultants across Europe have received “bloody” packages, some containing animal eyes, in what Kyiv has described as a “campaign of terror and intimidation”.
Norway will contribute €14.5 euro in support of EUMAM Ukraine in 2023. Josep Borrell stated: "With our partners, we will continue to assist Ukraine in every way we can, for as long as it takes". This is a significant step towards strengthening Ukraine.
Nato’s secretary general Stoltenberg has said Russia is attempting to “freeze” the fighting in Ukraine over the winter to prepare its forces for a renewed assault early next year. Stoltenberg urged Nato allies to continue sending weapons to Kyiv over the winter, adding that the conditions for a peaceful settlement to the war are “not there now”.
EU finance and economy ministers meet in Brussels yesterday and Hungary’s rule-of-law row with the EU Commission over EU funds will loom large. Originally, ministers were supposed to vote on the Commission’s proposal to freeze €7.5 billion in regular EU funds for Hungary. But France and Germany are leading a push to lower that amount, arguing that Hungary has made some reforms in the meantime.
Igor Girkin, sentenced to life in prison (in absentia) by the Hague District Court for shooting down MH17 and killing 298 passengers and crew, is now in Moscow (thus ends his latest attempt “to take part in combat” again in Ukraine)
Germany arrests 25 accused of plotting coup. German reports say the group of far-right and ex-military figures planned to storm the parliament building, the Reichstag, and seize power. A German man referred to as a prince called Heinrich XIII, 71, is alleged to have been central to their plans. According to federal prosecutors, he is one of two alleged ringleaders among those arrested across 11 German states. Former members of the military were also a significant part of the coup plot, reports said. They included ex-elite soldiers from special units.
Up-date: In the raid, 130 homes raided, caches of weapons seized, 52 arrests: a mix of pro-Russian nuts, Qanon nuts, former AFD members, former East German military nuts, descendents of German nobility, all planned a violent coup.
A German-Russian woman Vitalia B. is among far-right conspirators arrested today in GER. Authorities say she was a partner of the conspiracy leader Heinrich R. and organized his contacts with the Russians. Heinrich visited RU consulate and wanted good relations with RU.
Leading Italian paper publishes Chinese propaganda. The Sunday, December 4 edition of Il Sole 24 Ore – Italy’s top economic daily, often likened to a national version of the Financial Times – included four pages of promoted content hailing straight from Beijing’s propagandists. In response, the paper’s union issued a harsh statement criticising the content “propagandising” the Chinese economy as “inappropriate” and “dangerous.” The advertising nature of the four pages “was not clearly indicated;” the headlines, by contrast, are rather clear in giving the impression of an institutional investor “without too much difficulty, notably in a country where the boundary between the economic system and the political apparatus is very blurred, if nonexistent.”
The Trump Organization has been found guilty in a tax fraud scheme in which executives were offered off-the-book benefits. The verdict was a remarkable rebuke of former President Trump's company and what prosecutors described as its “culture of fraud and deception.” The testimony of the organization's former chief financial officer proved crucial to the case.
Senator Raphael Warnock held on to his seat, fending off Herschel Walker to give Democrats a 51-49 Senate advantage. Mr. Warnock’s victory ended a marathon midterm election cycle in which Democrats defied history, as they limited the loss of House seats that typically greets the party that holds the White House and now gain a seat in the Senate.
Michael Sallah, Kevin G. Hall, Brian Fitzpatrick, Will Jordan, Fake ‘Rothschild’ Was Chased by Russian Organized Crime When She Took Pictures With Trump at Mar-a-Lago- OCCRP
While Inna Yashchyshyn visited Mar-a-Lago and schmoozed with former President Trump and his inner circle, she was being pursued by a senior member of Russian organized crime.
Key Findings:
An organized crime figure told reporters he was trying to track down Yashchyshyn and a former associate for an unpaid debt after a business deal gone wrong.
He said they had allowed him to use their fake charity to move money into the U.S. via a payment processing platform.
The charity also allegedly skimmed fraudulent donations from credit cards.
For months before she drove a Mercedes SUV into Mar-a-Lago to masquerade as a member of the wealthy Rothschild clan and take pictures with Donald Trump, Inna Yashchyshyn was receiving threatening texts and calls from a man who warned he meant business. The man was a vor v zakone, or “thief in law”: a ranking member of a Russian organized crime group.
Anne Applebaum, The False Romance of Russia- The Atlantic
Sherwood Eddy was a prominent American missionary as well as that now rare thing, a Christian socialist. In the 1920s and ’30s, he made more than a dozen trips to the Soviet Union. He was not blind to the problems of the U.S.S.R., but he also found much to like. In place of squabbling, corrupt democratic politicians, he wrote in one of his books on the country, “Stalin rules … by his sagacity, his honesty, his rugged courage, his indomitable will and titanic energy.” Instead of the greed he found so pervasive in America, Russians seemed to him to be working for the joy of working.
Claire Berlinski, New Caesars: Hungary Edition, Part I- The Cosmopolitan Globalists
One of the oddest things about modern Hungary is its adoption by the American right as aspirational—this to the extent that Viktor Orbán was a guest of honor at CPAC and Tucker Carlson spent a week broadcasting from Hungary.
Why Hungary?
It’s a tribute to a top-flight lobbying effort, certainly. Hungary has first rate lobbyists in Washington. They’ve hired Policy Impact Strategic Communications, a well-known DC lobbying firm. Policy Impact formed a group called the Hungarian American Institute, which arranges visits by Hungarian legislators to Washington and vice-versa. Tucker Carlson’s father is on the board of Policy Impact and the Hungarian American Institute, which probably explains some of their success.
