Jul 11: E-Stories
Day 502: Orikhiv Sumy Mikolaiv Bakhmut Zapo Melitopol Erdogan Gerasimov BRICS Prigo Yellen POL NATO UZB China A&P Kuleba RepairTogether FT ISW Irpin KyivIndie Tchakarova BadBalticTakes
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…
Four people died and 11 were injured after Russia’s bombed of a residential area of the frontline town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region while distribution of humanitarian aid was taking place, Reuters report the governor of the region said on Monday.
Russia launches missile attack on Mykolaiv. The Russian army hit the city of Mykolaiv with an S-300 long-range missile on July 10, Governor Vitaliy Kim reported on Telegram. Russia shells 2 communities in Sumy Oblast. Russian forces shelled two communities in Sumy Oblast on July 9, launcing 11 mortar attacks, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported on Telegram.
General Syrsky announced that the city Bakhmut is under fire control by the Ukrainian army.
Ukrainian forces have registered “a definite advance” on the southern flank of the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar. In a Telegram post Maliar said there was no change in positions on the northern flank.
In Bakhmut, our defenders have been keeping the entrances, exits and movement of the enemy through the city under fire control for several days. This became possible due to the fact that in the process of advancing, our troops took control of the main commanding heights around Bakhmut," Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliar just confirmed.
Melitopol mayor says Russians are mining critical infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia. Russian forces have begun to mine critical infrastructure in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported via Telegram on July 9.
Russian invaders are threatening to deport doctors in the temporarily occupied Starobilsk, Luhansk region. The Luhansk Regional Military Administration reported this on Facebook, according to Ukrinform. Residents of the temporarily occupied Sievierodonetsk have to use walkie-talkies because mobile communications have been cut off by the Russians, and in medical emergencies, residents have to run around finding a doctor.
Erdogan wants to extend grain deal for another 3 months. The Black Sea Grain Initiative, allowing Ukraine to continue exporting its grain amid Russia's full-scale war, was prolonged on May 17, and is due to expire on July 18.
Russia’s ministry of defence has published an image of Valery Gerasimov for the first time since the failed Wagner uprising of 24 June. Gerasimov was one of the military leaders that Yevgeney Prigozhin had been railing against for weeks before ordering his mercenaries to march on Moscow.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said that next month’s BRICS summit, which Vladimir Putin has been invited to, will be held in-person despite an arrest warrant on the Russian leader. He did not say whether Putin will be in attendance.
“The BRICS summit is going ahead and we are finalising our discussions on the format,” Ramaphosa told journalists on the sidelines of a conference by the ruling ANC, adding it will be a “physical” meeting.
ISW: Putin doesn't know what to do about Wagner. Putin's decision not to expel the Wagner Group and prosecute rebellion leaders puts the Russian dictator in "an awkward position," the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote on July 9.
French intelligence leak: Prigozhin on Jun 29 was at the Kremlin with Putin for a long time. No dismantling of Wagner. "Libé" reveals that Wagner's boss was also heard by General Viktor Zolotov commander of the Rosgvardia national guard and very loyal to the president, and by Sergei Naryshkin, the boss of Russian foreign intelligence.. For Lukashenko, Putin may have softened. And one of the Wagnerian historical commanders, "Lotus", confides: we remain the reserve force of Russia. The news has been confirmed by Dmitry Peskov as reported by TASS cited Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on July 10.
NYT: After 10 hours of meetings over two days in Beijing, Janet Yellen, the U.S. treasury secretary, said that she believed the U.S. and China were on a steadier footing despite their “significant disagreements.” She added, “We believe that the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive.” Yellen announced that the two sides would pursue more frequent communication at the highest levels, describing improved dialogue as a way to prevent mistrust from building and fraying a relationship that she called “one of the most consequential of our time.”
Poland has detained another member of a Russian spy network, bringing the total number of people rounded up in an investigation to 15, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski has said. Reuters reports:
A hub for Western military supplies to Ukraine, Poland says it has become a major target of Russian spies and it accuses Moscow of trying to destabilise it.
“The suspect kept surveillance of military facilities and seaports. He was systematically paid by the Russians.”
The Australian government will send a surveillance aircraft to Germany to help monitor the flow of military and humanitarian supplies into Ukraine. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced the deployment after talks with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin on Monday, a day before attending a Nato summit in Lithuania where the war in Ukraine will dominate discussions.
NATO Summit news
Gitanas Nausėda, President of Lithuania, has confirmed that the NATO member states have reached a consensus and decided to drop the requirement for a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Ukraine on its way to accession to NATO.
Nato allies on Monday reached agreement on regional plans detailing how the alliance would respond to a Russian attack, overcoming a Turkish blockage one day before leaders meet for a summit in Vilnius, three diplomats told Reuters. Nato had for decades seen no need for large-scale defence plans, as it fought smaller wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt certain post-Soviet Russia no longer posed an existential threat.
NYT: Ukraine is not ready for membership in NATO, President Biden said in an interview that aired on Sunday on CNN. It would be “premature,” he said, to begin the process to allow the country to join the alliance in the middle of a war, because doing so would thrust all NATO members into military conflict with Russia.
Biden said that he did not think there was “unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now,” and that the process could occur only after a peace agreement with Russia was in place. There would be “other qualifications that need to be met, including democratization,” for Ukraine to be considered for membership, he added.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba called on the German government "not to repeat the mistakes" made by Angela Merkel in 2008, who spoke out against Ukraine's integration into NATO. So he commented on reports that Germany opposes the official invitation of Ukraine to NATO at the summit in Vilnius.
“The result has been even more aggressive Russian behavior – see Georgia, enmity towards the West and the current aggression towards Ukraine,” Kuleba told ARD .
Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan and US secretary of state Antony Blinken discussed the expansion of Nato in a phone call ahead of the alliance’s summit in Lithuania, Reuters reports the Turkish foreign ministry said on Monday.
President Biden will try to nail down a four-country deal that would lead to Turkey allowing Sweden into Nato in return for the sale of US F-16 jets to Ankara, on the condition they are not used to threaten Greece. But Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threw a surprise obstacle in the way of Biden’s plan by announcing he wanted Turkey’s stalled application to join the EU to be included in the package.
A substantial announcement on a German delivery of military hardware to Ukraine is expected over the course of this week’s Nato summit, a senior government official said in Berlin on Monday. Germany is also working on bilateral security guarantees for Ukraine, Reuters reports the official said, adding that it was not the right time for an invitation for Kyiv to join the defence alliance.
Six retired generals of NATO member countries have signed a letter on the eve of the Alliance summit in Vilnius, to be held on 11-12 July, calling for the opening of the way to NATO membership for Ukraine as soon as possible. The former generals emphasised that NATO member states should define a specific roadmap for Ukraine's membership in the Alliance "in the near future".
Reuters reports that Russia will continue to co-operate with Beijing and can count on China’s “friendly shoulder”, the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament said on Monday after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. “We can count on a firm and reliable friendly shoulder in China,” Valentina Matvienko said.
Report – Key Concerns of Member States—Prism
The analysis reveals that what NATO does or does not do in support of Ukraine will affect both the confidence of its member states and the scale of respect from its opponents. The failure of deterrence in the past, and the risk of repeating that failure, as well as the consequences of uncertainty over the 2008 Bucharest Summit decisions, should encourage NATO to take additional steps at the Vilnius Summit to bring Ukraine closer to membership. Lessons from the past show that ensuring long-term security for Ukraine requires more efficient mechanisms than the ones that failed to help Ukraine before. Ukraine, in turn, has to reaffirm and strengthen its image as a state that will contribute to European and transatlantic security rather than increase the risks.
Most experts continue to see the threat of further escalation from Russia as the key factor preventing Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. The factor of Russia is prevalent, and largely affects the rationale on the future efficient operation of NATO with Ukraine as a member, a common vision of threats, and so on. The stance of far right or left parties in the domestic political scenario, including their anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-NATO positions, is another concern. This makes Ukraine hostage to domestic disputes in a number of countries.
The authors of this research paper offer a number of points that debunk the current stereotypes existing in Western audience about the possible consequences of Ukraine’s membership of NATO, and can help Ukraine in advocacy of its Euro-Atlantic integration.
ISW summary of 500 days of Russia’s full-scale war vs Ukraine
500 days ago, Russia launched an unprovoked war of conquest against Ukraine. The Russian military intended to capture Kyiv within three days, but failed to achieve any of its intended targets in Ukraine.
The determined and skillful resistance of the Ukrainians halted numerous Russian offensives, including against Kiev, and liberated the Sumy and Chernihiv regions, as well as parts of the Kharkov, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, which were temporarily captured by Russian troops.
Ukrainian forces have seized and retained the initiative and are conducting counter-offensive operations along most of the front, while Russian forces are almost entirely focused on trying to hold on to the Ukrainian lands they still control. With the help of the West, Ukraine has maintained its independence, but it faces the critical task of liberating a strategically important territory still under Russian control.
Peer works for sanctioned oligarch ‘with mafia links’—The Times
Lord Oxford, a former MI6 chief in Moscow, is a lobbyist for a man the US believes is involved in Russian gang crime
A peer and former MI6 spymaster is working for an oligarch sanctioned by Ukraine and facing extradition to the US, which says he is a member of “Russian organised crime”.
The 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith is a hereditary peer who has a lifetime seat as the grandson of Raymond Asquith, the eldest child of the Liberal prime minister HH Asquith.
Known as Lord Oxford, the crossbencher had a distinguished career with British intelligence and served as MI6’s station chief in Moscow in the early 1980s. In 1985, he oversaw the exfiltration of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB colonel turned British double agent, who was spirited out of Russia in his car.
Before securing his Lords seat through a by-election in 2014, the earl, 70, ran a lobbying company serving ultra-wealthy clients from the former Soviet Union.
One of them was Dmytro Firtash, a Ukraine-born gas billionaire known for his historic proximity to the Kremlin. He made his fortune selling gas supplied by Gazprom, the Russian state-owned energy giant, to his home country.
Programming Note—video
Kyiv Independent’s How nationalist movements paved Ukraine's way to freedom
The present war is the latest stage of a long-running fight for freedom in Ukraine that can hardly be understood without a close look at the nationalist movements in the country throughout the 20th century, Ukrainian philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko told the Kyiv Independent.
"We can't understand today's resistance without (knowing about) the whole bunch of other resistances that existed in Ukraine," he said.