Jan 22: E-Stories
Day697 Ust-Luga RUstrikes CombatSit BehindLines InRussia Allies EUmeeting GermanyProtests DeSantis A&P UKDef ISW NoelReport CDS EuroMaidanPress DarthP OCCRP KI Aslund Kokcharov Axios
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.
In the Leningrad Region in Russia, a terminal of the Trade Port in Ust-Luga is on fire since early this morning. Locals heard the sound of drones, and then two explosions.
Stories we’re following…
Russia shells 8 communities in Sumy Oblast. Russian forces shelled Sumy Oblast 37 times, firing at eight communities along the border on Jan. 20, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported.
Russia strikes Zaporizhzhia Oblast 95 times, injuring civilian. A 71-year-old resident was injured in Huliaipole due to artillery shelling. There were two reports of the destruction of residential buildings.
Russia's permanent representative in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov , said that the mines that IAEA experts found around the Zaporizhia NPP are a “normal means of protecting” the station from attacks. They are dangerous only “for rats, crows and saboteurs,” RIA Novosti quotes a statement from a Russian diplomat. (Me: these people are insane.)
Two drones hit a terminal of Russia’s largest liquefied natural gas producer Novatek on the Baltic Sea, according to the governor of the Leningrad region, amid reports of drone sightings in the area, Reuters reports. The terminal is about 170 km (110 miles) west of St Petersburg and 35 km from the Estonian border.
“There were no casualties as a result of the fire at the Novatek terminal,” Alexander Drozdenko said on the Telegram messaging app early on Sunday.
Russian Novatek gas plant halts operations after suspected Ukrainian drone attack. The terminal of Russia's Novatek natural gas company near St. Petersburg has halted operations after an alleged Ukrainian drone strike caused a large fire at the fuel plant, Bloomberg reported on Jan. 21.
One of the hits in Tula was at the Shcheglovskiy Val plant. A Russian military-industrial complex enterprise that manufactures military products. It is known that this is one of the places in Russia where the Pantsir-S(1) is being assembled as well as armored vehicles.
On Sunday, more explosions recorded in Sevastopol near Balaklava District in Crimea. On Saturday night, there were other strikes on Crimea as well as those in Russia. Russian channels claim that a total of 4 SCALP/Storm Shadow missiles were launched towards Crimea, all of them were allegedly shot down.
Combat Situation Update
Russia’s capture of the village of Krokhmalne in the Kharkiv region, is a “temporary phenomenon,” the Ukrainian ground forces command spokesperson Volodymyr Fityo said, reports the Kyiv Independent citing comments made on the Ukrainian digital broadcasting station Hromadske on Sunday.
“We simply don’t report on the repulse of 100-200 meters, and for Russian propagandists, any victory must be presented to explain why they lost 7,055 soldiers at the front in the Khortytsia zone of responsibility in January alone,” Fityo said during the live televised broadcast.
He added that the frontlines shift daily and that the loss of the small village, which had a prewar population of 45, is a “temporary phenomenon.”
Military expert Oleksiy Hetman thinks a wider and deeper bridgehead on the Dnipro is need for further advances south.
"We need to build a bridgehead that will be along the Dnipro for at least 20 kilometers, and 20 kilometers deep from the shore. Heavy equipment and additional forces can be transferred to such a bridgehead. When it is created, it is not a secret, we will move to the northwest of Crimea, our the goal is Armyansk and Skadovsk, and then we'll see," he said.
Russian soldiers from unit 12267 within the 2nd batallion of the 26th motorized rifle brigade operating in Krynky are dissatisfied. There are too many of these videos circulating now from various units in occupied Ukrainian territory not to take them seriously. The message is: the conditions are crap and we need a vacation.
"During our deployment of 7 months, there was not a single day off, not a single rotation. We have been under constant artillery fire from all calibers, with the use of cassette ammunition and phosphorus bombs. Many of our brothers left Krynky wounded or dead. Also many wounded died to long evacuation times. We do not give up our positions, but the moral fatigue grows every day.
Our command does not conduct rotation and does not allow us a well-deserved vacation. We don't have winter clothing, food and gasoline are brought in minimal volumes. We are not provided with bottled water and there are a lot of questions about our payments. None of us got paid for fighting in December, for example.
We ask the Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu to take measures against the lawlessness and injustice on our part of the front. And do not ignore the outrageous violations of our rights."
Defense Ministry: Ukraine, US hold first joint inspection of US-supplied weaponry. The inspectors examined serial numbers, technical conditions, and proper storage conditions of the weapons, and the results are yet to be established, according to the Defense Ministry. "During the joint work, there were no complaints from the U.S. representatives."
Guardian: UK gives UN photos of North Korean shipments to Russia. The U.K. has given a panel of UN experts satellite photographs of North Korean cargo shipments to Russia as evidence in an investigation into illegal arms trading, the Guardian reported on Jan. 22.
An aircraft repair plant was attacked in the Smolensk region on Saturday. The plant that was struck is engaged in the production and repair of weapons, aviation and military equipment. It also produces Kh-59 missiles.
Behind the Lines
ISW: Moldovan authorities accused Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria of numerous violations, including the improper use of drones, while conducting exercises in late December 2023, prompting an information attack by a pro-Kremlin mouthpiece.
At the writing of this post, 25 people were killed in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine by Ukrainian shelling, Alexei Kulemzin, the city’s Russian-installed mayor, said on Sunday, Reuters reports. According to Kulemzin, Ukrainian forces shelled a busy area where shops and a market are located. No other information has been provided.
Me: The Russian representative of the UN has called an emergency meeting to discuss Ukrainian strikes against civilians. This strike at Sunday morning market in Donetsk smells like a Russian job. They’ll increase disinformation around it, and that’s easy to do since no information is getting in or out of Donetsk unless it’s Russian-controlled. Ukraine has not targeted civilians while Russia constantly strikes at civilian infrastructure and buildings. If you’ve ever listened to Russian audios from the front ordering the killing of any soldier who tries to retreat, you know that they are perfectly capable of killing their own people.
Batumi shopping centers evacuated amid bomb threats. Authorities evacuated shoppers at Batumi's Grand Mall, Metro City, Batumi Mall, and Plaza. The official reason for the evacuation was not disclosed, but an employee of Grand Mall said there were rumors of mines planted in the building.
In the occupied Donetsk region, a power station was hit. Parts of Makeevka and Donetsk itself are without electricity.
Meanwhile in Russia
Putin showed his intention to visit Pyongyang soon, according to Reuters. The news agency cited a report by North Korea’s state media KCNA on Sunday. Last week, Putin met North Korean foreign minister Choe Son Hui on his visit to Russia and during the meeting thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for his invitation to visit, KCNA said citing a foreign ministry official.
North Korea is Russia’s largest arms supplier at present, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told the Financial Times (FT) in an interview published on Sunday.
A “significant amount” of artillery ammunition was transferred to Russia by North Korea, according to Budanov, who said it had “allowed Russia to breathe a little”. Budanov added": “Without (North Korea’s) help, the situation would have been catastrophic.”
“This has always been considered beneath them, it’s an indignity,” Budanov said of Russia’s need to seek military assistance from countries such as North Korea.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko has pushed back against Nato exercises announced several days ago. The scale of Nato’s Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises mark an “irrevocable return” of the alliance to cold war schemes, Grushko told the state news agency RIA in remarks published on Sunday, according to Reuters.
“These exercises are another element of the hybrid war unleashed by the west against Russia,” Grushko told RIA.
“An exercise of this scale … marks the final and irrevocable return of Nato to the cold war schemes, when the military planning process, resources and infrastructure are being prepared for confrontation with Russia.”
The Minister of Culture of Slovakia, Martina Simkovicova, lifted the ban on cultural cooperation with Russia and Belarus , which was introduced by the previous leadership of the department after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The local publication Pravda writes about this .
“There are dozens of military conflicts taking place in the world, and, in our opinion, artists and cultural figures should not suffer because of them,” her press secretary Pavel Chorba commented on the minister’s decision.
Slovak PM promises to block Ukraine's NATO entry, says it must cede territory. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is scheduled to meet with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal on Jan. 24.
Slovakia’s new elected PM Fico is supposed to visit with his Ukrainian counterpart soon. He was interviewed on Sunday and this is what he said:
"Since 2014, Ukraine is under total control of the US after the Maidan. Imagine that you have Mexico, which sits next to you and their Ministry of Defense is under Russian control and would push Mexico into some sort of military organization. What would the US do? Ukraine is not a sovereign, independent country. It is under the influence of the US," Slovakian Prime Minister Fico said.
A Russian private jet carrying six people is believed to have crashed in a remote area of rural Afghanistan, reports Associated Press. The crash happened on Saturday in a mountainous area near Zebak district in Badakhshan province, according to regional spokesperson Zabihullah Amiri. He said a rescue team had been dispatched to the area.
According to Baza , entrepreneurs from Volgodonsk Anna and Anatoly Evsyukov were flying on the plane that crashed in Afghanistan. A business jet was chartered to transport a sick woman from Thailand to Russia.
Six people are missing after a private jet carrying out a medical evacuation from Thailand to Russia crashed in a remote area of Afghanistan after straying from its flight plan and disappearing from radar screens.
The premises of the Russian Consulate General in Bulgaria after the eviction: "They stole everything: shutters, doors, sockets, taps, beds, furniture, kitchen utensils." Super-nuclear power Russia stole everything, or almost everything from the apartment.
Allied Support
Foreign Ministers meeting today in Brussels: Arriving at the foreign affairs’ meeting this morning in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said: “The fact that we are engaged [in] looking for a solution in the Middle East doesn’t mean that we are not continuing supporting Ukraine.” (More on the FM Meeting in tomorrow’s E-Stories)
Elina Valtonen, Finland’s foreign minister, has underscored the need for “significantly more volume” and long-term support for Ukraine. Asked about the importance of the European Peace Facility, an instrument the EU has used to provide military assistance to Ukraine, the minister said:
Finland has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine, also on a bilateral basis, though we deem it important that the European Union is unified in this and each country contributes according to the capital key.
So whichever means is necessary to fulfil the immediate needs that Ukraine has now, but also our position is very firm on this: we have to find a strategic, long-term way of also ramping up our common European defence industry and our capabilities.
Defense firm denies German politician's claim on missile supplies to Ukraine. The company effectively denied a statement made earlier by Johannes Arlt, an expert at Germany's Social Democratic Party. He claimed that Germany's defense industry would struggle to replenish its needed stockpiles if it sent the missiles to Ukraine.
RIA Novosti: its analysts had calculated that the West stood to lose assets and investments worth at least $288bn (£226bn/€264bn) if it confiscated frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine and Moscow then retaliated, according to a report on Reuters.
After Putin sent forces into Ukraine in February 2022, the US, UK and other allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry, blocking around $300bn (£236/€275bn) of sovereign Russian assets in the West.
US and British officials have worked in recent months to jumpstart efforts to confiscate Russian assets immobilised in Belgium and other European cities in order to help reconstruction in Ukraine, parts of which lie in ruins.
RIA cited data which it said showed that direct investment by the European Union, the G7 nations, Australia and Switzerland in the Russian economy at the end of 2022 totalled $288bn.
It said EU nations held $223.3bn of the assets, of which $98.3bn was formally held by Cyprus, $50.1bn by the Netherlands and $17.3bn by Germany. It said the top five European investors in the Russian economy also included France with assets and investments worth $16.6bn and Italy with $12.9bn.
Among the G7 countries, it named Britain as one of the largest investors, citing data at the end of 2021 which showed British assets in Russia were worth about $18.9bn. It said the United States had $9.6bn worth of Russian assets at the end of 2022, Japan $4.6bn and Canada $2.9 bn.
Me: Well, I’ve no idea if the ‘investments’ the article is talking about refers to private investors. Frankly, if they are, they knew what they were getting into by investing in Russia from the get go. Doing business in Russia is doing business with the devil, with all the risks that brings. Being the thugs that they are, they’ve also shown their hand.
I think the confiscation of Russian funds scares the Kremlin but not because it fears losing the money. The money probably belongs to oligarchs, businessmen and front organisations: losing their support is something Putin and his inner circle can’t afford to do. It means he can’t protect them.
Massive protests across Germany, which started on Friday, to demonstrate their disdain for the ‘mass deportation plan’ in the works by the far-right party, the AfD. This was the protest in Cologne.
Trust me,I know nothing but it has come up consistently on a couple of news podcasts I listen to on Monocle Radio. I think I just really went to believe that they’re just absolutely abysmal quality, enough to make even a tiny dent in the Russian capabilities.
I realize this does not negate the need for a continued push-back against the Russian invasion, but aren't North Korea's weapons supposed to be absolute rubbish?