Jan 28 The Saturday Edition
Day 339: Donetsk RUoffensive EE UA-Germany rubles Kazakhstan MHG EU Japan Hungary-A&Ps-Darth ISW UKDef Aslund Halushka Tokariuk Schwartz Avdeeva Semotiuk Lautman AC Tokariuk Vadym Cuda Umland Sykes
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.
Top Tweet…
Stories we’re following…
Northern Command: Russian forces shell Ukraine’s northern regions 49 times on Jan. 27. Ukraine's Northern Command reported that Russian forces 49 times shelled Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts.
This morning, Russian forces shelled a residential area in Kostyantynivka of the Donetsk region, killing 3 and injuring 2 people. russia is a terrorist state and should be designated as such. Its 350bln$ assets have to be confiscated for the needs of Ukraine's defence and recovery.
President Zelensky, in his nightly video address on January 27, said the intensity of the fighting showed that Ukraine urgently needs more weapons to fight off the growing Russian pressure. Ukrainian forces were engaged in fierce fighting with Russian troops in several hot spots in the east, where Moscow has been pressing with increasing urgency amid Western pledges of modern tank deliveries for Kyiv.
Kyiv and its western allies are engaged in “fast-track” talks on the possibility of equipping the invaded country with long-range missiles and military aircraft, the Associated Press (AP) quotes a top aide to Ukraine’s president as saying.
USNI News: Russia’s Northern Fleet’s ballistic missile submarines and strategic bomber force’s capabilities remain intact despite the heavy toll the country’s invasion into Ukraine has had on its naval infantry, army and special forces assigned to the Kola Peninsula, a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies found. The Arctic remains “of great strategic value to Russia,” Njord Wegge, a professor at the Norwegian Defense University College, said this week as the report was released. On the military side, the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic provides a gateway for Russia’s Northern Fleet’s attack and ballistic missile submarines to move through the Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom [GIUK] gap to reach the Atlantic.
The Kremlin confirmed that Putin is issuing preemptive pardons for convicts who serve in Russian operations in Ukraine.
Zelensky: Ukraine needs 300-500 tanks. His comments come after the U.S., U.K., and Germany announced the delivery of main battle tanks to Ukraine. He thanked partners but added that they couldn't waste time in getting tanks to the front line.
Estonia’s Intelligence: Russia may be capable of up to 9 months of massive missile strikes against Ukraine. According to Estonia’s Intelligence Chief Margo Grosberg, Russia still has up to 1,250 high-precision missiles left from its stock of 2,500 before the full-scale invasion. In addition to that, Russia continued to produce missiles throughout the invasion.
Ukrainian troops arrive in Germany for training on Marder infantry fighting vehicle. Berlin promised to deliver 40 of the German-built Marders to Ukraine on Jan. 6, the same day that the Biden administration pledged 50 (later expanded to 100) of the U.S. equivalent, the Bradley.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said ahead of an EU-Ukraine summit next week that Ukraine had unconditional support from the bloc and that the country needed to prevail against Russian attacks to defend European values.
800 severely wounded Ukrainian POWs are held in Russia. Dmytro Lubinets, the chairperson of Ukraine's Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, told RFE/RL that 800 severely wounded Ukrainian servicemen are held as prisoners of war (POW) in Russia.
Russia’s Embassy in Canada refused to admit a Russian national because she is subscribed to a pro-Navalny Facebook page (the ambassador declared her a security threat).
Money transfers from Russia to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Georgia were reported at record-breaking levels, several times the figures for 2021, according to the 2022 central banks’ numbers analyzed by the Russian outlet RBK.
From Putin’s mobilization announcement to the end of last year, 36,000 Russians received temporary residence permits in Kazakhstan, more than 3,500 applied for long-term residency there, and almost 1,000 applied for Kazakh citizenship. On December 31, however, the Kazakh government passed a resolution that tightened visa rules: beginning on January 27, 2023, it will no longer be possible to reset the length of one’s visa-free stay simply by crossing the border (visaless foreigners will now be limited to 90 days in Kazakhstan per 180-day period).
Russian and international human rights activists on Thursday condemned the dissolution of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), Russia's oldest independent human rights organization after it was ordered to close by a Moscow court the day before. “The shutdown of the organization is the final nail in the coffin in the destruction of the human rights movement in Russia,” said Lev Ponomarev, an MHG member, and prominent human rights activist.
EU prolongs economic sanctions against Russia by 6 months. "In the face of Russia's war of aggression, the EU stands resolutely with Ukraine and its people, and is unwavering in its support of Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders," the statement reads.
Japan expands sanctions against Russia. Japan has introduced additional sanctions against Russian individuals and entities and expanded export restrictions to Russia, the Japanese Foreign Ministry reported on Jan. 27.
Hungary to veto EU sanctions on Russia's nuclear energy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio that Budapest would veto any European Union sanctions against Russia related to nuclear energy, Reuters reported on Jan. 27.
OCCRP: Italian police detained 56 suspected mafiosi and seized more than 200 million euros (US$217.89 million) in assets during an operation that, according to authorities, broke the spine of the country’s most prominent organized crime structure, the Calabria-based ‘Ndrangheta. The seized assets were obtained mainly through the extortion of tourist and construction sectors, the Italian Interior Ministry said Thursday in a statement.
Ukrainian documentary wins Sundance Film Festival audience award. Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov’s documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” won the audience prize at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States on Jan. 27.
Mattathias Schwartz, Exclusive: Inside the extramarital affair and cash-fueled double life of Charles McGonigal, the FBI spy hunter charged with taking Russian money- Business Insider
Guerriero says their affair lasted for a little more than a year. McGonigal's Brooklyn sublet may have been modest, but he lived large. He courted Guerriero at high-end restaurants. He would give her gifts of cash — $500 or $1,000 — for her birthday and for Christmas. He once joked about framing his divorce papers for her, as a Christmas gift, but those papers never materialized. He took her to watch New Jersey Devils hockey games in a private box. She recalls that McGonigal once gave a hundred-dollar bill to a panhandler on the street. "I'm a little better off than him. I can spare a hundred dollars," Guerriero remembers McGonigal saying, after she expressed astonishment.
That day in October wasn't the only time that Guerriero remembers McGonigal carrying large amounts of cash. After he brushed her curiosity aside, she tempered her suspicions. She told herself it was probably "buy money" for a sting operation, or a payoff for one of McGonigal's informants. She had dated federal law-enforcement officials before. She knew not to ask too many questions about work.
James Waterhouse, Zelensky's government launches anti-corruption drive- BBC
Ever since Ukraine declared independence 31 years ago, corruption has plagued its public services and most of all its politics.
In 2014, a popular revolution toppled the last Moscow-leaning government because people wanted to finally live under a democracy. Ever since, Ukraine has attempted a series of reforms, notably driven by Russia's subsequent campaign of aggression towards the country. Change was seen as essential to securing the West's continued support.
New anti-corruption agencies were then set up, along with new systems for government spending, a new police force, and politicians were forced to disclose their wealth - often with eye-watering confessions.
"We wanted results," Yaroslav Yurchyshyn tells me. He's an MP and deputy head of the parliamentary anticorruption committee. "Yes, we have some leftovers from corruption in the past, but at least now we are not silent about it. The next stop will be prevention."
Orest Semotiuk, Ukraine: Humour as a Weapon of War- Zios
The rapid development of social media in recent years has led to the emergence of new forms of media culture, political humour and social engagement which increasingly bring these 'soft power' topics to the fore. The cultural dimension of Russia’s war against Ukraine is conveyed, primarily by the Ukrainian side, in numerous cartoons and memes. Meme #1 is a visual narrative. It alludes to the Russian incursions into Georgia, Syria and Ukraine and their brutal consequences and deploys the visual metaphor of Russia as the figure of Death. The lower of the two images forming this meme shows the horrified face of Death itself when confronted with armed resistance by Ukrainian troops in the current war.
Olga Lautman & Jeff Stein, Putin's Ukraine Folly Enables Kremlin Rivals- Military.com
The sudden surge of convicts into the ranks, however, some of them hardened criminals, aggravated tensions between Prigozhin and FSB counterintelligence, the heart of the Kremlin security establishment. For starters, the FSB was expected to assist in recruiting the prisoners, and the mogul’s public call for his thieves and murderers to kill, torture, and “at least cut the throat” of Ukrainians was not the FSB’s clandestine style. But it also knew that it would fall to the FSB to deal with a flood of trained killers after their military discharges.
Russian imperialism and its past manifestation…
Vadym Vietrov posted this poster from 100 years ago. Nothing has changed.
Georgia: Sentencing of pro-opposition media owner Nika Gvaramia a political motivated silencing of dissenting voice- Amnesty International
Background
On 16 May, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Nika Gvaramia to three years and six months in prison for “abusing his position” when he worked for the television station Rustavi 2. He was also found guilty of embezzlement, for which he was fined 50,000 Georgian lari (US$ 16,500).
His criminal conviction is based on the allegation that, as a director of Rustavi 2, Nika Gvaramia procured a company car for the TV station, as part of an advertisement deal, and used it for personal reasons. The prosecution also alleged that his failure to act in good faith over this deal harmed the financial interest of the company and amounted to embezzlement.
Nika Gvaramia, who once worked as a lawyer for former President Mikhail Saakashvili, is a prominent critic of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
He was initially charged on 6 September 2020, alongside Kakha Damenia, a former financial director of Rustavi 2, and Zurab Iashvili, the director of Inter Media Plus.
Heidi Cuda, Conspiracy Theories Are Weapons of War- Bette Dangerous
Because we are in a continual trauma loop - more congressional grotesques, another FBI agent charged with working for the Russian mob, multiple mass shootings, rolling insurrections - I am going to ask you to press pause.
Press pause on the anguish, and take a breath with me. Inhale. Exhale.
All the lies we are being fed, all the unreality being carpet-bombed online, all those Kremlin propagandists loitering in corporate green rooms and Twitter Spaces - waiting their turn to plant poison in our brains - all of it is intentional.
Repetition, chaos, destabilization - designed to create the illusion that liberal democracies are broken. They are not - wounded, yes, but not broken. The people delivering the lies, chaos, and destabilization are broken. Recall, Keir Gile’s explainer on the broken people delivering Russian propaganda.
