Feb 7: E-Stories

Day713 Razom4UA RUattacks ZNPP CombatSit Kupiansk BehindLines RUsonarLith InRussia Allies GOP Biden Kazak A&P CDS ISW Davis UKDef Gaze Mamedov VOA Kenyon InformNapalm BBC

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.

If you’re American and you feel that aid to Ukraine is essential, please click on the link below and read the document and call your representatives. These talking points can be used to appeal to them and get better informed on the essentials points.

Go to: Key Messages and Target Legislation for Ukrainian Advocacy

Stories we’re following…

CDS: Over the past week, Russian forces have increased the intensity of artillery shellings by 25% and have shelled Ukrainian territory over 1,500 times, hitting more than 570 towns and villages. As a result of full-scale Russian aggression, 1,938 cultural infrastructure sites in Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed.

Russian attacks on Sumy Oblast communities kill 1, injure 8. Russian forces launched at least 51 separate attacks throughout the day, firing at 10 communities along the border on Feb. 5, injuring eight civilians and killing one, the regional administration reported.

Russian attack on Kharkiv Oblast injures 71-year-old woman. Russian forces shelled Kharkiv Oblast's Kupiansk district, injuring a 71-year-old woman, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office reported on Telegram.

A hotel in the city of Zolochiv, Kharkiv region, was destroyed by an S-300 night missile strike. A two month old boy died… three more women were injured and hospitalized. Seven houses, civilian infrastructure, two administration premises and several cars were damaged.

Noel Report: The Prana Network hacker group breached the email servers of the Iranian company IRGC Sahara Thunder, that facilitates arms sales from Iran to Russia. The servers contained data on the production of Shahed-136 attack drones for Russia. The documents do not directly mention the type of product being manufactured. Instead, drones are listed in documents under a special code as "Dolphin 632 type motor boat."

The Iranian side announced a starting price of $375,000 per unit. However, during the negotiations, an agreement was reached for $193,000 per piece when ordering 6,000 units or $290,000 when ordering 2,000 units. The total price of the production contract, including the transfer of technologies, equipment, 6,000 pieces of UAVs and software, is roughly $1.75 billion. According to other published documents, at least partially, Russia conducts its financial transactions and payments with Iran in gold.

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Combat Situation Update

During the day, 81 combat clashes took place at the front; the Russians carried out 4 missile attacks and 17 airstrikes, as well as 45 attacks from multiple-launch rocket systems, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on Facebook; information as of 18:00 on 6 February.

• Kherson direction: in the area of responsibility of the Odesa Operational Strategic Group, the Russian forces have not abandoned their plan to dislodge Ukrainian units from their reinforced bridgeheads on the left bank of the Dnipro river. During the day, two unsuccessful attempts were made to storm Ukrainian troops' positions.

• On all other fronts, the Ukrainian forces are repelling attacks.

• Ukrainian Defense Forces have comparatively superior counter-battery capabilities compared to Russian forces, which include the AN/TPQ-36, -48, -50 radar systems, as well as the German COBRA radar systems.

• The shortage of artillery shells for the Defense Forces is likely to persist, limiting their ability to conduct counter-battery warfare.

• Defense Forces in critical frontline sectors, such as Avdiivka, suffer from a lack of artillery shells. Consequently, they concentrate on group targets, prompting the enemy to adopt tactical shift, launching attacks in small groups.

• After failing to encircle Avdiivka, Russian forces are preparing to break through the city. This indicates that the enemy command is gradually returning to a strategy reminiscent of the Bakhmut operation.

• The enemy is completing the formation of favorable conditions for capturing the Khimik neighborhood in Avdiivka. Its loss would render further defense of the city impractical.

Commander: Ukraine 'waiting for' missiles with 300-500 km range from allies. Ukraine expects to receive F-16 fighter jets and missiles with a range between 300 and 500 kilometers "in further military aid packages" from its allies, Joint Forces Commander Serhii Naiev said on Feb. 5.

Defense Ministry: Ukrainian special forces capture Russian equipment from Black Sea drilling platform. Ukraine's Special Operations Forces conducted an operation on a Russian-occupied drilling platform off the coast of Crimea, the Defense Ministry reported on Feb. 6.

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Behind the Lines

ISW: Kremlin intensifying rhetoric pushing for hypothetical partition of Ukraine. The Kremlin is intensifying efforts to normalize Western discussions of a hypothetical partition of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported in their daily assessment.

On top of forcible deportation, disappearances of Ukrainian citizens, Russia is planning another massive resettlement of Russians, Belarusians, and Kazakhs to occupied Zaporizhzhia to forcibly change the demographic composition of the region, says Melitopol mayor.

Oleksandre Polianichev: Russia is purging books of the word "Ukrainian." The "magnificent Ukrainian sky" from Gogol's May Night (1831) is no longer Ukrainian. Annihilating Ukraine means wiping out its very name. A Russian language high-school textbook. 2021 edition, left. 2023 edition, right. (Photo credit: Konstantin Sonin)

The Ukrainian regional public broadcaster Suspilne Donbas and the Kyiv Independent reported the bakery was set up after the Russian occupation of Lysychansk, and supplied Russian proxy forces, as well as providing a meeting place for Russian-backed officials. Suspilne cited the exiled, Ukrainian-run Lysychansk city military administration as saying: “The arrival [missile strike] was at a time when the occupiers had gathered there.”

Russian invaders move to strip Ukrainians forced to flee occupied Berdiansk of their homes. The Russian-installed occupation ‘authorities’ have taken another, immensely cynical, step towards stealing the property of Ukrainians forced to flee after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and seizure of parts of Zaporizhzhia oblast.

Berdiansk Today reports that the occupiers are to no longer recognize the power of attorney documents which Ukrainians drew up, authorizing relatives or friends to look after their property.  Such documents were needed to prevent the Russians claiming that the properties had been abandoned.

Now the occupiers have ‘decreed’ that no such documents drawn up by Ukrainian notaries, or even those made in Russian consulates, will be accepted. 

Ukraine nationalizes Russian oligarch's oil, gas assets. Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) nationalized Ukrainian assets valued at half a billion hryvnias ($13 million) belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarch Eduard Khudainatov.

Turkish company Baykar has begun construction of a drone factory near Kyiv, which will produce TB2/3 drones.

"We need about 12 months to finish construction and then we will move on to internal machinery, equipment, and organizational structure."

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Meanwhile in Russia

Russian election commission says signatures collected by anti-war candidate Nadezhdin surpass invalidity threshold. According to rules set by Russia's Central Election Commission, if more than 5% of signatures are deemed invalid, the prospective candidate is not allowed to be registered on the ballot.

Bloomberg: The delivery of specialized ships to a new Russian LNG facility is being stymied by US sanctions, threatening exports. Japanese shipping line Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd. can no longer charter three ice-breaker LNG ships to the Arctic LNG 2 project.

At the end of 2023, Russia’s largest gas company extracted 404 billion cubic meters of raw materials from the subsoil, Kommersant reported , citing data from the Russian Ministry of Energy. Compared to the first year of the war, when Gazprom began to freeze wells and lost a fifth of production, volumes decreased by another 9 billion cubic meters, or 2%.

The final volumes of gas production by Gazprom were the lowest in the 34 years that the company has existed. Compared to 1990, when the USSR Ministry of Gas Industry was transformed into a gas state corporation, Gazprom lost a third of its production, or almost 200 billion cubic meters.

ISW: Putin and his entourage want to “normalize” conversations about the partition of Ukraine, so that the European Union gradually begins to consider it natural that it cannot remain within its former borders, and are ready to conduct peace negotiations taking this into account. Experts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) write about this in their latest report.

To do this, the Kremlin “is increasingly using rhetoric about the hypothetical division of Ukraine, seizing on harmless and unrelated [to the main issue] topics.” Thus, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev on February 5 called the European plan to build a railway from Spain to Lviv as proof that the West recognizes that Lviv will be the “new capital of Ukraine within the borders” of the Lviv region. This will happen, as can be assumed from Medvedev’s post, after the end of the war. “It is clear that this plan has nothing to do with Ukraine’s borders or the end of the war and is simply an independent European infrastructure project,” ISW experts write.

The Russian authorities are launching a “banana scheme” to solve the problem of trade imbalance with India, which increased oil purchases from the Russian Federation 11 times after the start of the war, but did not launch a return flow of goods into the Russian market.

In January, the first batch of bananas left India for Russia, the press service of Rosselkhoznadzdor reported on Tuesday. The department emphasized that the decision to open the Russian market for Indian bananas was made after long negotiations and supply volumes will increase.

“The next delivery is planned until the end of February,” Rosselkhoznadzor said, adding that Russia has no restrictions on the import of fruits and vegetables from India, and local farmers are also interested in exporting mangoes, pineapples, papaya and guava.

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Allied Support

NYT: The G.O.P. abandoned a bipartisan border security bill that also aided Ukraine after Democrats called their bluff on immigration, agreeing to tough measures Republicans demanded.

Sen. Chris Murphy (CT): “What has happened here over the last four months is outrageous…We followed the Republican instructions on how to get a bipartisan border deal and how to get a Ukraine deal unlocked. And within 24 hrs…they abandoned border reform and Ukraine.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and other top officials say the Senate must now move on to other aspects of the package - funding for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. At the same time, in their opinion, the provisions on the border, given the deep differences in the ranks of the party, should be left aside, CNN journalist Manu Raju reports.

Head of Ukrainian GUR Kyrylo Budanov called on Canada to transfer its 83.000+ CRV7 missiles to Ukraine. Canada has hired a private company to dispose of them. However, Ukraine, whose reserves are rapidly depleting, has shown interest in the missiles.

High Representative of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell visited Kyiv for the 4th time since the start of the full scale invasion. He expressed a commitment to engage in discussions with Ukrainian allies on EU support, including military, financial assistance through the new Ukraine Facility program, and support for reforms on the path toward EU integration.

Borrell visits police, National Guard training facility in Kyiv. Josep Borrell, the EU's top diplomat, visited one of the training facilities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where EUAM instructors are training Ukrainian police and members of the National Guard, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko announced via Telegram.

France intends not only to increase the financing of aid to Ukraine, but also to expand the range of weapons provided. French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced this at a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Paris and Kyiv are finalizing preparations for French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Ukraine, focusing on an agreement for France to supply Mirage 2000D multirole fighter jets. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov is expected in Paris this week to finalize agreements with French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu. The original plan involved transferring six aircraft, but the number has now increased to 12. France is also seeking missiles and training solutions, possibly involving contributions from allied countries in the Ramstein format, such as Canada and the United States.

European aluminum producers supported by four EU countries are pressing the EU to slap an embargo on cheap imports of Russian metal. Europe is still buying 9% of its aluminum imports from Russia, which funded their war machine with €2.3 billion in 2022.

Portugal, Ukraine sign memorandum on restoring Ukrainian schools. Portuguese officials visited the third international forum on the reconstruction of Zhytomyr Oblast and signed a Memorandum of Understanding on rebuilding Ukrainian schools affected by the war, Portugal’s Foreign Ministry reported on Feb. 5.

The EU is going to limit the travel of Russian diplomats to the country where they are accredited, and not to the entire Schengen area. Such a proposal is included in the 13th package of European sanctions against Russia, Politico reports , citing diplomats familiar with the plan.

The proposal is a long-standing request from the Czech Republic, which last year insisted on ending freedom of movement for Russian diplomats. In particular, Prague sought to ensure that diplomats were issued visas and residence permits. The Czech authorities explained the need for such an approach by the fact that “agents of the Russian special services are arriving in the country,” sources told the Financial Times .

However, Politico notes, it is not yet clear how the plan will be implemented, since travel within the Schengen zone is often not controlled. The publication's sources note that the EC will also expand the lists of Russian companies to which European firms cannot sell dual-use goods and military products.

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Kazakh President nominates new PM. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev appointed his chief of staff, Olzhas Bektenov, to be Kazakhstan's new prime minister following the resignation of Tokayev's former cabinet.

Italian senators are to debate plans by the far-right government to decriminalise abuse of office, a decision that has sparked tension with the EU and raised fears over the potential for mafia infiltration in the public sector.

Punishable by up to four years in prison, the charge of abuse of office can be brought against public officials, including mayors and local administrators, who are suspected of intentionally exploiting their public position for their own or someone else’s benefit.

According to Carlo Nordio, the justice minister, the crime is too vague and discourages local politicians and civil servants from signing off on projects due to fears they will end up under investigation, thus causing “economic damage that affects citizens”.

Politico: Negotiations to form the next Dutch government collapsed Tuesday night after Pieter Omtzigt, who leads the New Social Contract (NSC) party, quit the talks.

Omtzigt said he was leaving the discussions due to disagreements over how to tackle the state of the government’s finances, but his party could support a minority Cabinet while remaining out of government, Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported.

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A federal appeals court rejected Donald Trump’s claim that he was immune to charges of plotting to subvert the results of the 2020 election. The ruling answered a question that an appeals court had never addressed: Can former presidents escape being held accountable by the criminal justice system for things they did while in office?

Tucker Carlson explaining why he is interviewing Putin. He claims you are not being told the truth about Ukraine. I guess he feels he’ll get the truth from the Kremlin.

The only thing I can say about this whole Tucker circus show is that he’s a dead cat: the press will talk about this for days as they do about Trump’s latest crazy utterance while the real issues that Americans should be dealing with are never covered. They should be expending energy and resources on much needed investigation into the 1000s of agents of influence, accountants, lawyers and other enablers who bring Russian, Saudi, and Chinese influence and cash into our financial/economic systems, media, institutions of education and think tanks. Thankfully there are people who are doing just that, and they should be supported.

Tucker is here in E-Stories as a great example of an influencer, and he’s batting against the United States.

Julia Davis: Kremlin Cronies: Putin-Tucker Interview Will ‘Blow Up’ U.S. Election—The Daily Beast

Tucker Carlson’s trip to Russia came as a shock to many, except for the Russian propagandists who have been lobbying for the fulfillment of his long-standing wish to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin. In recent years, the head of RT Margarita Simonyan pleaded with the Kremlin to make appropriate arrangements, and state TV host Vladimir Solovyov offered Carlson a job on his channel, Solovyov Live. Like many Putin propagandists, Simonyan realized that Carlson’s softball sit-down with Putin would be even more of a propaganda boon than his pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian, and borderline anti-American rhetoric over the years.

While Solovyov had to settle for Scott Ritter, it seems like Simonyan may have finally got her wish. State media reported that Carlson’s minivan, full of TV equipment, had left his hotel and traveled to the presidential administration Monday evening. During the same timeframe, Putin’s motorcade reportedly traveled towards the Kremlin.

There is still no confirmation of an interview between Carlson and Putin, but a Russian government official anonymously told The Moscow Times, “The boss [Putin] will win the election without Tucker's help, but access to an American audience through Carlson during the heated struggle between Biden and Trump is again an opportunity to exert that proverbial influence on the U.S. election, given Carlson's huge audience.” He also noted, “our propaganda will blast Carlson’s words criticizing the Democrats, which means he will confirm our hawks’ line up to the tiniest detail.”

To underscore the depth of Carlson’s commitment to the Russian cause, state media programs pointed out that in America, he is called out as a traitor and his trip is being compared to Jane Fonda’s visit to Vietnam in 1972. During Sunday’s broadcast of a show At Dawn on channel Solovyov Live, former New York Times correspondent John Varoli feverishly exclaimed that Carlson could be “liquidated” at any moment, describing him as “Joe Biden’s enemy number one.” In Russia, where the killings or imprisonments of journalists and dissidents are quite routine, an absurd assertion that the Biden administration is trying to hunt down Tucker Carlson might sound believable. [continue]

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I’m republishing an excerpt from an important article published by InformNapalm about the militarisation of education in Russia. It isn’t new as you will read. Yes, we have the Boy Scouts, but this is nothing of the sort. The kids are indoctrinated at a very young age with imperialist notions, and they do learn to assemble and dissemble weapons. Watch the video below and listen to the words these children are singing, and then enjoy the article. (Video credit: Anton Gerashchenko)

InformNapalm: Putinjugend: Children for Russian War

After Russia attacked Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, militaristic policy has become a norm for Russian society. Moreover, military propaganda is directed not only at the adults — it also targets children. The Kremlin actively influences the yet unshaped child identity and attempts to instill the idea that participation in Russian wars is a sacred duty of every citizen. Propaganda is amplified by the actual military training aimed at children with the goal of their future involvement into military operations. It should be noted that military propaganda efforts engulfs not only Russian children but also those living in the occupied territories as well as children from the countries allied with Russia (Belarus, Serbia). Such militarization constitutes a threat both for the underage children and for the states which are potential targets of Russian aggression — or have already become its victims.

Specific facts and events related to intensive child militarization processes in Russia sometimes catch the attention of mass-media in Ukraine and worldwide. Nevertheless, this process deserves systematic scrutiny, as child militarization has already become an inseparable part of Russian governmental policy directed at getting the state ready for expanding military aggression. During the last 10 years a well-organized and far-reaching system of underage military training was built in Russia, which grows fast and engages more and more youth, including pre-school children. Instead of searching for and developing scientific, technical, cultural or humanitarian talents, the Kremlin chooses to build a multi-million army — it conducts large-scale search and selection of recruits, and gets them ready for the upcoming wars.

This article is a collection of data on a system of the underage military training in Russia, on the territories occupied by Russia and in the states allied to it. As for now, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Education, FSB [Federal Security Service], Ministry of Emergency Situations, Investigative Committee as well as other state bodies, Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), different paramilitary organizations are involved in the military training of children aged 3–18 years old.

In 2009 President of Russian Federation Putin restored the Soviet paramilitary organization Voluntary Association for Assistance to Army, Air Force, and Navy. In its turn, it became a base for establishing the militarized children’s organization “Youth Army”. Putin and Shoigu (Russian Minister of Defense) created the“Youth Army” in 2015–2016. [continue]