Feb 3: Buonasera Mag
Day 344: Avdeeva 320,000 OSCE Olympics RedArmyChoir Shmyhal KyivIndependent Kassymbekova Davis Niland Bhahara Shuster Lautman VelvetBlade
Catching up
Hop over the Scott Lucas’s EA Worldview for the latest up-dates from the US and the Middle East as well as Europe.
Just a quick programming note: I’m at a conference today on mafia, Russian influence and anti-corruption measures. So the newsy bit in the post is limited. Regular posts will resume tomorrow with The Saturday Edition of EF.
Stories we’re following…
General Staff: Ukraine’s military hits Russian control point on Feb. 2. Ukrainian forces hit Russian control point and seven temporary bases, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its Feb. 2 update. According to the report, Russian forces conducted five missile strikes, including against Kramatorsk residential area in Donetsk Oblast.
Ukrainian intelligence estimates that 320,000 Russian troops are inside Ukraine. This would be significantly higher than previous estimates, but it could explain why Russia believes that it can recklessly sacrifice so much troops.
North Korea reportedly intends to send personnel to Donbas. North Korea’s government plans to send up to 500 soldiers or police personnel to occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts “to take part in reconstruction efforts,” Daily NK, a South Korean-based newspaper, reported.
Ukrainian soldiers will be ready to operate Patriot air-defense system "in weeks" - Ukrainian Defense Attaché at @UKRintheUSA in an interview for VOA Ukrainian
Parliamentarians from 20 countries have urged Austria to bar Russian delegates from attending a gathering of the world's largest security body later this month, in a letter seen by AFP on Thursday. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)'s parliamentary assembly is to be held in Vienna on Feb. 23-24, the one-year anniversary of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Russia would use the meeting to "sow disinformation, fake news and hate speech," the letter sent to Austria's government said.
Zelensky at Sanremo: In 2013, the Russian Armed Forces Choir performed at Sanremo. I’m mentioning this because in these days in Italy, a debate is raging over whether President Zelensky should or shouldn’t address Sanremo via video. Never missing an opportunity to make Putin happy, Salvini has come out against, and pro-Kremlin-pacifist (I’m not kidding) public figures have started a petition asking that he not address the audience. This all smacks of pure hypocricy given since the Red Army performed at Sanremo in 2013 after Russia’s attacks on Chechnya and Georgia. This is what Italian politicians close to the Kremlin are wasting our time on.
The former Chelsea and Ukraine footballer, Andriy Shevchenko, has urged the International Olympics Committee (IOC) to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing at the 2024 Olympics. “There is no politics in sport. But this war is more than just politics,” he said.
If athletes from russia or belarus enter the arena, with or without flags, it reflects this statement from the Olympics Committee to the whole world — the war is over, you can forgive everyone and forget everything.
But the war is not over. Every day war destroys our cities, ruins the childhood of our kids and threatens our existence.
Botakoz Kassymbekova, Europe’s last empire: Putin’s Ukraine war exposes Russia’s imperial identity- Atlantic Council (must read)
Modern Russian national identity remains firmly rooted in notions of a sacred imperial mission that perceives Russia as being a unique civilization locked in an eternal struggle against various constructed foreign enemies. Hundreds of years ago, the messianic vision of the czars gave rise to the idea of Russia as the Third Rome and leader of Orthodox Christianity. In the twentieth century, this belief in imperial exceptionalism was harnessed to identify Russians as the nation that would save the world from capitalism and lead a global communist revolution.
Under Putin, the lyrics may have changed but the tune remains largely the same. Indeed, it is telling that while Soviet communism has long since been consigned to the ash heap of history, today’s Russia has seamlessly inherited the USSR’s Cold War-era animosity toward NATO, the United States, and the Western world in general.
The sense of imperial mission pervading modern Russian society has helped nurture values of sacrifice and obligation at the expense of individual human rights. Many Russians take it for granted that they are destined to rule over other nations and interpret their colonialism as fundamentally benevolent, even when it is obviously unwelcome. Russia’s victims must be liberated, whether they like it or not.
Paul Niland, Stalingrad: The Second Time as Farce- Byline Times
As Putin threatens the West at a commemoration of the decisive World War Two battle, Paul Niland says the Russian President’s red lines are drawn in the sand
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke today at the commemoration for the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, in the city now renamed Volgograd. “The ideology of Nazism again creates direct threats to the security of our country,” he said in his televised address “we are again threatened by German Leopard tanks.” But rather than just invoke the history of what Russian’s call the ‘Great Patriotic War’, he also threatened more dire consequences over Western supplies of arms to Ukraine: “we have something to respond with, and it won’t be just about using armoured vehicles”.
Once again, Putin appears to be suggesting a potential nuclear escalation, and the collective west seems to be hindered in their response to Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine by paying too much attention to the supposed “red lines” announced by the Kremlin. Why? Based on the evidence of the past 11 months, every time Russia has suffered a setback in their attempt to occupy all of or large parts of the country, the only actual response has been a shift in propagandistic rhetoric.
Anne Applebaum: “The modern battle that most resembled Stalingrad took place in Mariupol, where extraordinarily brave Ukrainians fought to the bitter end to defend themselves against a brutal invasion by Russia, an autocratic power that seeks to eradicate their culture and their nation.”
Simon Shuster, Documents Reveal Erik Prince's $10 Billion Plan to Make Weapons and Create a Private Army in Ukraine- Time
On the second night of his visit to Kyiv, Erik Prince had a dinner date on his agenda. A few of his Ukrainian associates had arranged to meet the American billionaire at the Vodka Grill that evening, Feb. 23, 2020. The choice of venue seemed unusual. The Vodka Grill, a since-defunct nightclub next to a KFC franchise in a rough part of town, rarely saw patrons as powerful as Prince.
As the party got seated inside a private karaoke room on the second floor, Igor Novikov, who was then a top adviser to Ukraine’s President, remembers feeling a little nervous. He had done some reading about Blackwater, the private military company Prince had founded in 1997, and he knew about the massacre its troops had perpetrated during the U.S. war in Iraq. Coming face to face that night with the world’s most prominent soldier of fortune, Novikov remembers thinking: “What does this guy want from us?”
It soon became clear that Prince wanted a lot from Ukraine. According to interviews with close associates and confidential documents detailing his ambitions, Prince hoped to hire Ukraine’s combat veterans into a private military company. Prince also wanted a big piece of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, including factories that make engines for fighter jets and helicopters. His full plan, dated June 2020 and obtained exclusively by TIME this spring, includes a “roadmap” for the creation of a “vertically integrated aviation defense consortium” that could bring $10 billion in revenues and investment.
The Mercers have struck again…
