Jan 25: E-Stories

Day700 Kherson Kharkiv Sumy II-76 CombatSit InRussia Allies GOP Belarus A&P Zelensky JayinKyiv Giles Margolin Landsbergis Razom4UA Breshahan Lautman Viasna TimesRadMae KI Tchakarova ISW Danylyuk

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…

Overnight, a total of 14 Shahed drones were launched by the Russian forces towards Ukraine. Air defense units managed to destroy 11 of them.

Death toll of Russian Jan. 23 strike on Kharkiv rises to 10. The two Kharkiv residents found the ruins of a five-story building today were a 56-year-old woman and a 57-year-old man.

Police: 2 killed, 9 wounded in Russian attack on Hirnyk, Donetsk Oblast. Russian troops launched an attack against the town of Hirnyk in Donetsk Oblast, targeting a residential area, the Donetsk Oblast police said on Jan. 24.

Russian forces Kherson hospital, injure 3 medical workers. Russian forces launched an attack against Kherson on Jan. 24, hitting a hospital and injuring at least three medical workers, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported.

Andriy Yusov, representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence confirmed that a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine was being prepared for today. Information about POWs on the Il-76 is currently being checked, he added. Russian media published a list of alleged prisoners of war that were onboard the Il-76. 17 of the list of alleged Ukrainian POWs in the Il-76 have been identified as prisoners of war that were already exchanged early January this year. The list therefore looks to be unreliable.

President Zelensky’s evening address about the II-76 crash.

Noel Report: The crash site and flight direction of the Il-76 that crashed was geolocated. It flew away from Bilhorod towards the northeast.

The board number of the crashed IL-76 is RA-78830 which flew through Egypt, before that through Saudi Arabia, before that through the Red Sea and Iran. It disappeared from the radar near Syria, and then flew to Bilhorod. After that it departed in the northeastern direction after which it crashed near Yablonovo.

Ukraine says it was not informed about need to ensure safety of airspace before plane crash in Belgorod Oblast. The Russian side did not notify Ukraine about the necessity to ensure the safety of the airspace around Belgorod, Ukraine's military intelligence said, which has been done "repeatedly" in the past.

This is a video of the plane crashing. Locals confirm that it was hit during take off. There are no body fragments at the impact site. A large object falls out of the plane once it starts going down.

Keir Giles, a fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme, cast doubt on the Russian version of events. He said:

“The Russian story – that Ukraine might indeed have shot down an aircraft carrying their own PoW – is gaining traction because of uncritical repetition in western media, with too many outlets already reporting this as a tragic mistake. But at this point, we have no way for certain of knowing what has happened. So far, the only suggestion that there were Ukrainians on board comes from the Russian Ministry of Defence, which usually serves as an indicator that the opposite is true.”

“The aircraft was flying away from Belgorod- it was supposedly carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war with just three guards. Russia mounted an impressively fast disinformation campaign off the back of the incident. That’s usually an indication that it was known about in advance.

“So, we should consider the possibility that Russia fed Ukrainian intelligence information that the aircraft was carrying S-300 missiles, as initially reported – but, in fact, filled it with Ukrainians in the expectation that it would be shot down. Russia showed with the destruction of Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s aircraft last year that it won’t balk at the deaths of its own innocent pilots when necessary.

“Even if the story of PoW on board is a complete fabrication, that doesn’t stop Russia exploiting the untruth- just look at how doubt over Russia’s shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 persisted, driven by a long-running and intensive Russian disinformation campaign.

“In addition, Russia controls the crash site – and has every opportunity to fabricate evidence to support its story. Missile fragments and other “evidence” can easily be introduced to show to journalists. The massacre at Olenivka in July 2022 shows how Russia is not above the mass murder of Ukrainian PoW if bodies are required.

“In summary, Russia holds all the cards for turning a serious military setback locally into a propaganda victory worldwide.”

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Combat Situation Update

Russia’s military is carrying out probing attacks with barrages of missiles and drones in an attempt to find weaknesses in Ukraine’s defences as US funding for security assistance is tied up in Congress, Celeste Wallander, a Pentagon assistant secretary of defence, has said.

As of the 700th day of the full-scale war, 50 combat clashes occurred at the front, while the Russian army launched two missile attacks and 53 airstrikes, the General Staff reports on Facebook, information as of 18:00 on 24 January.

• On the Kupiansk front, the Defence Forces repelled five Russian attacks near the settlement of Synkivka in Kharkiv Oblast, where the Russians were trying to breach the defence of the Ukrainian forces.

• Russian attacks were repelled on the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Marinka, Zaporizhzhia and Shakhtarsk fronts.

• The Russians did not abandon their attempts to drive Ukrainian units from their positions on the left bank of the Dnipro River. Over the past 24 hours, the Russians carried out seven unsuccessful assaults on the positions of the Ukrainian troops.

In Tuapse, Russia, an energy facility was hit presumably by drones. Fire breaks out at oil depot in Russia's Krasnodar Krai. A fire broke out at an oil depot in the town of Tuapse in Russia's southern Krasnodar Krai the night of Jan. 25. According to preliminary information, there are no casualties.

Maria Avdeeva: “Largest Rosneft oil refinery on the Black Sea, Putin's crony Sechin's pride and joy, is ablaze in Tuapse after a reported drone attack. Perhaps the most effective sanctions against Russia to date.”

Martin Herem, Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces, has said that new intelligence on Russia's ability to produce munitions and recruit people into the army has prompted NATO allies to reassess and issue a series of warnings about the need to prepare for a long-term conflict, as reported in Bloomberg.

"A lot of people thought they couldn’t go beyond that — today, the facts tell us otherwise. They can produce even more — many times more — ammunition.

Herem said that Russia is capable of producing several million artillery shells a year, which is far beyond European efforts. In addition, the Russian army is capable of recruiting hundreds of thousands of new soldiers.

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Behind the Lines

Ukrinform reports the director of the Kharkiv human rights group, Yevhen Zakharov, has said that about 530 religious buildings in Ukraine have been damaged during the course of war.

Zakharov said that while the vast majority of the buildings targeted were of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, there had also been cases of shelling of Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu religious buildings. He said the largest number of damaged buildings was in Donetsk region.

Russia burns again: In the village of Elovoe near Krasnoyarsk, a production workshop is on fire.

Ukraine has urged its partners to block any attempts by Russia to buy goods that could be used in the military technologies sector from private companies in the West, says the Ukrainian delegation to the OSCE; media outlet Ukrinform.

Danylo Kubai, First Secretary to the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the International Organisations in Vienna, said that demonstrating the highest level of hypocrisy, the Russian Federation continues to criticise the legitimate supply of armaments to Ukraine carried out in support of Ukraine’s inherent right to self-defence according to Article 51 of the UN Charter. Russia is making every effort to disrupt the supply of defence armaments to Ukraine while importing weapons from Iran and North Korea to strengthen its capability to continue waging its war of aggression.

"According to some reports, up to 95% of critically important components of foreign origin found in Russian armaments destroyed in Ukraine were produced in Western countries. It is known that these supplies are made not by state institutions but by private firms. Moreover, exports which end up in Russia are not necessarily military goods but also dual-purpose goods, civilian products or even household appliances.

The disruption of supplies of critically important goods and technologies to Russia requires large-scale coordinated efforts by the private and state sectors. But this will save the lives of many civilians in Ukraine and disrupt Putin’s military machine. Comprehensively blocking Russia’s access to advanced and sophisticated military technologies ultimately affects Russia’s capability to produce, support and deliver advanced weapons to the battlefield in Ukraine."

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Meanwhile in Russia

An Oldie But Goodie: Medvedev promises to war with the U.S. for Alaska.

A war with the United States over Alaska is “inevitable,” says Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev. “According to a representative of the State Department, Russia will not get back Alaska, which was sold to the United States in the 19th century. Well, so be it. And we expected Alaska to return any day now. Now war is inevitable,” Medvedev wrote on January 23 in the English version of his blog on X (formerly Twitter) and added a laughing emoticon at the end. A day earlier, U.S. State Department Deputy Press Secretary Vedant Patel said Russian President Vladimir Putin “will not get” Alaska. With these words he commented on the rumors according to which Putin had signed a decree defining the sale of Alaska to the United States as "illegal".

Bank of Cyprus leaves Russia. The Bank of Cyprus, the biggest Cypriot bank, closed its representative offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Jan. 22, the data posted by the Central Bank of Russia revealed.

Orbán said he had invited Sweden’s prime minister to visit and negotiate his country joining the Nato military alliance, a process that Hungary and Turkey have delayed. Turkey’s parliament, though, voted on Tuesday to accept Sweden as a Nato member. (Me: negotiate.)

Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Hungary clearly supports Sweden’s application to join the alliance.

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Allied Support

Slovakia won’t block the allocation of €50 billion of aid to Ukraine from the EU, will allow Ukraine's purchase of weapons from Slovak businesses and will not interfere with Ukraine's accession to the EU, Prime Minister Shmyhal reports.

The UK wants to buy Taurus missiles in order to send more Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine. The German government didn't want to comment on the possible ring exchange yet.

Estonia has decided to join the UK-led operation to train the Ukrainian military. Operation Interflex provided more than 34,000 Ukrainian soldiers already with the necessary skills for combat operations on the front line.

Czechia proposes to limit movement of Russian diplomats across Schengen zone. The Czech Republic offers that the EU explore restrictions on the movement of Russian diplomats across the Schengen area. Speaking at the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Tuesday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Lipavsky offered to include the restriction in the next package of EU sanctions targeting Russia, an Ukrinform correspondent reports, referring to MFA Czechia.

"Czechia proposes to establish the restriction of the movement of Russian diplomatic mission staff and their family members only to the territory of the state where they are accredited. It is not right for Russian diplomats to take advantage of Schengen area. We will do our utmost to ensure that our proposal is included in the 13th sanctions package," Lipavsky said.

Reuters: EU unlikely to confiscate Russian central bank assets. European officials believe it is unlikely that the EU will seize Russian central bank assets, partly due to the legal risks, Reuters reported on Jan. 23. (Me: they have no courage.)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the financial assistance allocated by the European Union countries for Ukraine this year insufficient. Berlin calls on allied states to increase defense support.

The finance minister of Germany has said it can’t keep up Ukraine’s defence capabilities on its own in the long term and that others will need to increase bilateral contributions.

Pentagon: Lack of funding prevents US from meeting Ukraine's most urgent battlefield needs. The U.S. government has not provided any military aid to Ukraine for the first time since the Ramstein-format meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) was established in April 2022, Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder said during the briefing on Jan. 23.

Media: McConnell 'floating idea of splitting Ukraine and border security' to solve infighting. Splitting the two issues would be "quite a shift in strategy," as border security has been "painstakingly negotiated with Senate Democrats and the White House over the past six weeks," the Hill said.

John Breshahan reporting: Mitch McConnell raises doubts about whether Senate Republicans should move ahead with border security-Ukraine aid deal. He told GOP senators “The politics of this have changed,” and noted Trump wants to run on immigration. “We are in a quandary,” McConnell said.

McConnell read out a quote from Trump criticizing the proposed border security-immigration policy changes. Called Trump “the nominee” and said “We don’t want yo do anything to undermine him.” This is McConnell reading the mood of his conference and the GOP nationally.

This may be the end of getting any significant Ukrainian funding thru Congress. McConnell is as vocal a Ukraine backer as there is on Hill, but opposition is growing inside GOP. Only gonna be more so as Trump tightens grip on nomination.

“Also just this news alone will send a signal and encourage every dictator on the planet to interfere in U.S. elections to destabilize and destroy US and prepare for future regional conflicts. Never ever mix domestic policy with foreign policy and U.S. national security.”—Olga Lautman.

Poland and the Baltic states were calling for import bans on Russian aluminium and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the European Union’s 13th package of sanctions against Moscow over its Ukraine invasion, a Polish official said.

Latvian President Edgards Rinkēvičs has advocated the introduction of a unilateral ban on Russian grain import, Rinkēvičs stated during a press conference, as reported by European Pravda with reference to Delfi.

He noted that grain import supports the "Russian military machine" and affects Latvian agriculture. Moreover, Rinkēvičs noted that the grain labelled as Russian may be stolen from the occupied Ukrainian territories. Additionally, grain is used as a weapon in hybrid warfare.

Times Radio: "We are a neighbour of Russia, Russia is a threat to NATO, to Baltic states and to Estonia." Kristjan Mae from Estonia's defence ministry says Estonia's territory and independence will be defended.

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General: UK must train 'civilian army,' prepare for land war. Britain's recent cuts to its army indicate it is not taking the threat from Russia and other countries seriously enough, said the U.K.'s Chief of the General Staff, General Patrick Sanders.

Me: this is the current debate happening on the radio talk show circuit. One caller yesterday argued in support of the civilian army: he said that he would put aside his dislike (or stronger) for his government, because it is essential to protect the state. Ukrainians will say that they are protecting their children, friends, loved-ones: they may or may not like the Zelensky government.

Politico: "Despite its battlefield losses, Russia still outguns European NATO countries in terms of numbers (though not in quality) of tanks, artillery systems and jets. It also will officially spend 4.4 percent of GDP on defense this year, although the real figure is likely much higher."

‘Elections’ will also be held in Belarus this year: we all know they are a farce. Belarusian partisans report a significant increase in the arrest of Belarusian citizens for minor demonstrations of dissent with Lukashenka’s dictatorship or because they are community leaders or and family members of political prisoners. Yesterday 70 people were arrested in Brest and taken to the Lenin Police Department, Viasna reports.

A 69-year-old former political prisoner Mikhail Zhamchuzhny was also arrested. He is an associate professor, PhD in technical sciences, head of a laboratory that dealt with hydrogen production, author of scientific monographs. He had already spent 6.5 years in the prisons of the dictatorship.

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What Ukraine's Defeat Would Mean for the US, Europe and the World—Oleksandr V Danylyuk

Given the difficulties facing the US and EU in securing buy-in for the latest round of assistance to Ukraine, it is worth considering the consequences that a Russian victory would entail.

The Russian war in Ukraine has finally taken on the character of a protracted one, and as is characteristic of any protracted war, degrading the enemy’s will to continue the struggle has become one of the most important goals on which the military and non-military efforts of the Kremlin are focused. The missile attacks on Ukrainian cities over Christmas and New Year, as well as the persistent work of the Russian special services to undermine support for Ukraine in NATO and EU countries –carried out with the help of numerous agents of influence including politicians, journalists and experts in these countries – are both designed to achieve this goal.

In Ukraine, despite already almost two years of devastating conflict, more than 74% of the population are still in favour of continuing the war until the complete liberation of all occupied territories. In the West, however, both public attitudes and the attitudes of ruling elites are showing signs of fatigue, putting at risk the volume of military-technical assistance to Ukraine. The failure of the US government to secure approval from Congress to finance aid to Ukraine for 2024 is an example of the success of Russian efforts, albeit indirect. Clearly, if the level of support for Ukraine in US society remained at the level of an absolute majority, as it was in 2022, refusing to vote for the allocation of aid would be tantamount to political suicide. Yet at the end of 2023, despite the fact that 50% of Republican Party voters still support sending weapons and military equipment to Ukraine, such a refusal has become a political reality.

Given that the threat of ending or at least reducing the amount of aid to Ukraine will only grow in the future, it is worth assessing the consequences of a complete or even partial victory for Russia. For Ukraine, the consequences are mostly clear. Putin does not hide his genocidal intentions to destroy Ukraine as an independent state and Ukrainians as a separate people. The continuation of the war is necessary to achieve these goals, as it allows not only the physical destruction of those Ukrainians who are ready to offer armed resistance (so-called ‘demilitarisation’ in the terms of the Kremlin's ‘special military operation’), but also the creation of conditions incompatible with normal life for millions of civilians – both in the occupied territories and in other areas – forcing them to leave Ukraine and seek refuge in other countries (so-called ‘denazification’, which is essentially nothing more than ethnic cleansing).

Even a short-term loss of the Armed Forces of Ukraine's ability to deter Russian aggression will inevitably upend the current equilibrium. Ukrainians will undoubtedly continue the struggle even in such a scenario, but it will increasingly bear the character of an irregular insurgent war, under the conditions of which it will be practically impossible to keep large territories under Ukrainian control, and even more so to protect the civilian population. It is enough to look at Syria to imagine the nature of such a confrontation. The methodical use of airstrikes and the destruction of cities that resist Russian troops would not leave Ukraine with much of a chance even in the medium term. [continue]

The unwillingness of the US to provide Ukraine with enough weapons to win a war with Russia calls into question the US’s readiness to protect individual NATO countries from Russian aggression.