Feb 6: Buonasera Mag
Day 347: UASitRep Bakhmut RUSitRep Zelensky Reznikov ISW Israel Iran-RU RUoil cyberattack POL Malofyev balloon A&Ps Junisbai Gic Voichuk Lucas Milic Campbell Landsbergis Piatov Gvaramia Macaes
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.
Stories we’re following…
President Zelensky said the situation on the frontlines in the east of the country was getting tougher and Russia was throwing more and more troops into battle. The Kremlin has been pushing for a significant battlefield victory after months of setbacks, with Russian forces trying to close grip on the town of Bakhmut and fighting for control of a nearby major supply route for Ukrainian forces.
“I’ve often had to say the situation at the front is tough, and is getting tougher, and it’s that time again … The invader is putting more and more of his forces into breaking down our defences,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address. “It is very difficult now in Bakhmut, Vuhledar, Lyman and other directions,” he continued.
Heavy fighting was under way on February 5 in Bakhmut in the eastern region of Donetsk, according to Yevgeny Prigozhin the head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group. In the northern quarters of [Bakhmut], fierce battles are going on for every street, every house, every stairwell," Prigozhin said on Telegram, adding that Ukrainian forces were not retreating. "The Ukrainian armed forces are fighting to the last," he said.
UK Defense Ministry: Bakhmut "increasingly isolated" as key roads come under Russian fire control. Russian troops have continued to make small advances in an attempt to encircle embattled Bakhmut in eastern Donetsk Oblast, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on Feb. 4.
Reznikov: Ukraine won’t strike inside Russia with new longer-range weapons. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine wouldn't strike Russian territory with longer-range weapons pledged by the U.S. Ukraine would only target Russian units in occupied Ukrainian territory.
Ukrainian service members leave for training on French-Italian Mamba air defense system. Training on the medium-range air defense systems is expected to be completed in spring, when the new Ukrainian operators "will return to Ukraine with the knowledge, skills, and the Mamba systems themselves,” Ukrainian Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said.
UK Defense Ministry: Russia claims to 'formally' integrate occupied areas into its southern military district. In its recent update, the U.K. Defense Ministry drew attention to the Feb. 3 report by the Russian government-controlled news agency TASS that claimed Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts "are being placed under the three-star command which is headquartered in Rostov-on-Don."
Russia renames 86 streets named after Ukrainian figures in occupied Melitopol. Russian forces in occupied Melitopol have renamed 86 streets named after Ukrainian figures, Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov said on Feb. 4.
Russian proxies discuss forcibly sending children in Luhansk Oblast to Republic of Karelia. Russian proxies in Luhansk Oblast discussed sending Ukrainian children to the Republic of Karelia in Russia, the National Resistance Center, an organization operated by Ukraine’s Special Forces, reported on Feb. 4.
Russian forces have reportedly seized Ukrainian books from libraries and schools in the occupied eastern Luhansk and burned them in heating plants, according to the National Resistance Center, an organisation run by Ukraine’s Special Forces.
The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has said in an interview that Vladimir Putin told him he would not try to kill President Zelensky, a promise made during a trip to Moscow shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year. “I asked: ‘Are you planning to kill Zelensky?’ He said: ‘I won’t kill Zelensky.’ I then said to him: ‘I have to understand that you’re giving me your word that you won’t kill Zelensky.’ He said: ‘I’m not going to kill Zelensky.’”
Iran and Russia are looking to build a factory in Russia that could supply more than 6,000 Iranian-designed drones for the war in Ukraine, according to reports. The Wall Street Journal says that the two governments are moving ahead with plans, and that an Iranian delegation went to Russia in January to visit the planned site. "The drone factory is part of a $1 billion deal between Russia and [Tehran], the officials said. Moscow has provided Iran with weapons seized on the battlefield in Ukraine that they are trying to reverse engineer, the officials said."
Price caps on Russian oil to hit Moscow’s revenues from oil and gas exports by nearly 30% in January, or about $8bn, compared with a year before, the International Energy Agency (IEA) chief, Fatih Birol, said on Sunday.
L’Occidentale: A "massive ransomware attack," detected by the Computer security incident response team Italy of the National Cybersecurity Agency (Acn). Hackers hit servers all over the world, "from European countries like France, Finland, Italy, to North America, Canada and the United States." “The French were the first to notice this, probably due to the large number of infections recorded on the systems of some providers in France. Subsequently, the wave of attacks moved to other countries including Italy”.
Ukrainian hackers have successfully penetrated a video conference briefing on cybersecurity for African nations, organized by the Russian Foreign Ministry. Having appeared on the screen of all participants, the two activists accused Russia of terrorism and waging a colonial war, and then concluded their stunt by singing the Ukrainian anthem, Guildhall reported, posting a video of the briefing, seen by Ukrinform.
Defense Minister says he will step down if Zelensky orders his dismissal. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said during a briefing on Feb. 5 that he was ready to step down if President Volodymyr Zelenksy ordered his dismissal. In late January, the Defense Ministry was beset by a high-profile corruption scandal that led to the firing of several top officials.
Intelligence Chief Budanov to head Defense Ministry after upcoming reshuffle. Intelligence Chief Kyrylo Budanov will replace Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, lawmaker David Arakhamia said on Feb. 5.
Ukraine imposes sanctions against Russia’s nuclear industry. The measures target 200 Russian entities and will remain in effect for 50 years.
President Zelensky, has revoked the citizenship of several former influential politicians. “Today, I signed the relevant documents to take another step to protect and cleanse our state from those on the side of the aggressor,” Zelensky said during his nightly video address on Saturday. He would not list the names but said they had dual Russian citizenship.
US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has authorised the country to begin using seized Russian money to aid Ukraine, according to US media. The money would come from assets confiscated from Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev after his April indictment for alleged sanctions evasions, he added.
Poland is constructing an $82 million fence on its border with Kaliningrad. A key step to prevent Russia from weaponizing migration against Poland in a hybrid war fashion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he is considering sending an Iron Dome defense system to Ukraine - ABC
Canada: The new sanctions target MIA Rossiya Segodnya, a state-owned media company, United World International and Foundation for the Fight Against Repression and popular Russian singer and TV host, Nikolay Victorovich Baskov.
The US military has shot down the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, a US official said Saturday. Prior to the balloon being shot down, the Federal Aviation Administration had issued a ground stop for airports in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Charleston and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The FAA also restricted airspace near Myrtle Beach “to support the Defense Department in a national security effort.”
Duncan Campbell, Russia & the US Press-The Article the CJR Didn’t Publish- Byline Times
Two and a half years ago, the Columbia Journalism Review refused to publish Duncan Campbell’s investigation into The Nation magazine and its apparent support for Vladimir Putin. It is published here in full
One afternoon, five weeks before Election Day in 2016, on the 21st floor of a tower overlooking Manhattan’s Eighth Avenue, members of The Nation’s editorial advisory board gathered for a twice-annual meeting. Katrina vanden Heuvel—the magazine’s editor, publisher, and owner—invited attendees to hear from a special guest, who had come to warn them that criticizing Donald Trump’s involvements with Russia, or his relationship with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, could trigger global nuclear annihilation. Vanden Heuvel, who was 56, gestured to her husband, Stephen F. Cohen, then 77, a retired professor of Russian studies. Russia and the United States “were closer to war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis,” he told the board. He also derided Democrats and American media organizations for “demonization of Russian President Putin.”
Philip Green, a political theorist who had been on the board for forty years, listened with skepticism. Cohen’s theory, “presented with deadly and urgent seriousness,” he thought, appeared to be channeling the paranoia of the far-right. Others felt the same way. But afterward, Green says, “It became the party line.”
Filipp Piatov, That is why Moscow is a legitimate war target- Bild
The West is supplying arms to Ukraine - but not enough to enable the country to win Russia's war of aggression. In BILD, the head of the Ukrainian security committee explains exactly how Russia can be defeated. And also why it is legitimate to attack the Russian capital Moscow.
Fedir Venislavskyi (53), Head of the Security Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament and Presidential envoy, calls for an end to Western restraint in the weapons shipment- and criticises that some Western experts lived in a “parallel world”.
Although Venislavskyi welcomes the recently announced tank deliveries, he says clear how fatal the delay was: “We needed the tanks in March 2022. But back then it was not even discussed theoretically,” he says in the BILD interview in Berlin.
Only when a “great many Ukrainians died” and it was noticed that “Russia commits crimes, was it imperative that Putin must be stopped. Because otherwise, the war won’t end,” he explains.
Bruno Maçães, This is how Putin loses the war- The New Statesman
In an exclusive interview, Volodymyr Zelensky’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak lays out how a Ukrainian victory would unfold.
The Ukrainian city of Izyum was liberated in September, halting the near siege of Slovyansk, a city in the Donetsk region that Russia tried to take for most of 2022. Nothing prepares you for the drive between the two cities, where major battles took place. For dozens of miles, an image of destruction. Almost no buildings are standing. Forests have been shelled, the fallen trees pointing towards the north, and in the forests there are the graves of the dead, which the Russian troops marked only with a number. You realise this is scorched earth. Everything was targeted: the people, the houses, the trees and even the dust. As you enter the Donetsk region, near the village of Dolyna, the forests give way to the steppe. The sunset is blood red, like an Arkhip Kuindzhi painting.
Talley & DeBarros, China Aids Russia’s War in Ukraine, Trade Data Shows- WSJ
China is providing technology that Moscow’s military needs to prosecute the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine despite an international cordon of sanctions and export controls, according to a Wall Street Journal review of Russian customs data.
The customs records show Chinese state-owned defense companies shipping navigation equipment, jamming technology and fighter-jet parts to sanctioned Russian government-owned defense companies.