Jul 30 Buonasera Mag
Day 157: Olenivka, Mykolaiv, Sloviansk, new sanctioned Russians, Russia plunders Sudan gold, Ionov investigation, Greiner/Whelan, Hill & Lucas interview, sham referenda, Canada, Berlusconi defections
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…
Zelensky: President Zelensky thanked the U.S. senators who unanimously approved the resolution calling on the U.S. State Department to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. “You can take any day in Ukraine — today or any other after February 24 — to see that no one in the world invests in terrorism more than Russia,” he said. “This really needs a legal response at the global level.”
Prosecutor General's Office: Around 57 Ukrainian POWs killed, 130 injured in Russian attack on Olenivka penal colony. The General Staff said on July 29 that Russia shelled the colony in Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast, to destroy the evidence of torturing and killing Ukrainian POWs.
General Staff: Armed Forces destroy Russian reconnaissance group near Sloviansk. According to Ukraine’s General Staff, on July 29, Armed Forces also forced another reconnaissance group to withdraw near Kramatorsk.
US adds 2 Russians, 4 companies to sanctions list. The U.S. sanctions list now includes Nataliya Burlinova, a former Russian government employee, and Alexander Ionov, a Russian nationalist, who was linked to the "Russian troll factories," according to Ukrainian media.
US official: There is bipartisan support to send long-range missiles to Ukraine. Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin told CNN that there is bipartisan support for supplying Ukraine with ATACMS, missiles that can strike as far as 280 kilometers. “Ukrainians want to go to the south and do operations in the south. And we want them to be as successful as possible,” Slotkin said.
All new buildings in Ukraine will be required to have bomb-shelters. The Ukrainian parliament adopted a law requiring that each new building have either its own bomb shelter or access to one nearby.
Security Service detains man suspected of aiding 20 men of draft age flee Ukraine. The man was allegedly providing them with forged documents that identified them as students of foreign colleges, and charged them $3,500 for the service. He faces up to 5 years in prison.
Poll: 81% of Ukrainians in favor of EU membership, 71% support joining NATO. According to a recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 81% of Ukrainians would support joining EU, and 71% would support joining NATO if asked during a potential referendum.
Russia counters America's trade offer (Bout for Greiner/Whelan) with the addition of Vadim Krasikov. He's the Berlin bicycle assassin that the FSB used to kill a Chechen man.
Ukraine identifies 5,600 children forcibly deported to Russia. According to Deputy Interior Minister Kateryna Pavlichenko, the numbers are expected to be higher. Ukrainian authorities are working on returning these children, she said.
Reuters: “Russia's Gazprom halts gas supplies to Latvia after accusing it of violating supply conditions, a move the Baltic country said would have little impact on its gas supplies. Russia has already cut off gas supplies to Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, Netherlands and Denmark, which refused to pay for gas in line with an order by President Vladimir Putin requiring rouble accounts to be set up in a Russian bank.”
Bloomberg: Scholz signals plan to extend German nuclear power plants.
Canada to lend Ukraine over $350 million. Ukraine’s Finance Ministry announced on July 29 that Ukraine will borrow 450 million CAD ($352 million) to finance social and humanitarian expenditures. The total amount loaned to Ukraine from Canada is now $1.13 billion.
The USS Ronald Reagan and its escorts left Singapore on Monday sailing northeast, according to ship tracking information. The ship’s deployment comes after Beijing warned it would ‘take strong measures’ if the US house speaker visits the island.
Euromaidan, Intercept shows Russia behind Olenivka prison strike that killed POWs; Wagner PMC involved – Ukrainian SBU, intelligence
Judging from the conversations, the tragedy could have happened because of the explosives that were stored in the colony. None of the eyewitnesses heard any rocket flying toward the colony. “There was no characteristic whistling, and the explosions occurred by themselves,” SBU notes. The intercepted conversations also reveal that the Russian troops placed Grad rocket launchers near the colony and fired from them into Ukrainian-controlled territory. However, no return fire followed.
CNN, Russia is plundering gold in Sudan to boost Putin's war effort in Ukraine
A heated debate transpired between officials in a back office of Khartoum International Airport. They feared that inspecting the plane would vex the country's increasingly pro-Russian military leadership. Multiple previous attempts to intercept suspicious Russian carriers had been stopped. Ultimately, however, the officials decided to board the plane.
Inside the hold, colorful boxes of cookies stretched out before them. Hidden just beneath were wooden crates of Sudan's most precious resource. Gold. Roughly one ton of it.
Following up on the Ionov case…
Strikesource, The Curious Case of The Faux U.N. Human Rights Group: CIPDH/IHRDC
Protests following the death of George Floyd demonstrated Russia’s informational apparatus remained true to form by engaging this social phenomenon via official government channels and state-sponsored outlets such as RT, Sputnik, and RedFish. But there was one instance that stood apart from the aforementioned engagements, an open letter from Alexander Ionov on behalf of an international human rights organization expressing.
Please open and read Julia’s tweets as they contain more information on the case.
ISW- United Russia members sent to prepare sham referendums in occupied Ukraine
(They) traveled to occupied Ukrainian territories to promote an organization called ‘We Are Together with Russia,’ likely to present the façade of a ‘grassroots’ call for the Russian annexation of occupied Ukraine and to prepare for falsified annexation referenda.
Maria Avdeeva reports…
Iacoboni, Russian shadows behind the crisis: this is how Putin’s men were interested in the possible fall of Draghi’s government
According to intelligence documents that La Stampa was able to view, at the end of May Oleg Kostyukov, an important official of the Russian embassy, asked an emissary of the Northern League leader if their ministers are "willing to resign from the Draghi government". Thus leaving to the record a factual interest of Moscow in the "destabilization" of Italy.
Carfagna and Gelmini leave Berlusconi
Belusconi’s Forza Italia ship is leaking. To date, six Forza Italia parliamentary members have left the party due to Forza Italia’s decision to abstain in the parliamentary vote to support Draghi’s government. By abstaining, Forza Italia put the final nail in Draghi’s coffin.
Mara Carfagna released a statement about her concerns for the future of Italian politics and Russian interference:
«In 2018, the government contract signed by the League with the Five Stars defined Russia as a“ strategic interlocutor ”. Salvini and Meloni's relations with Viktor Orbán, who at the moment is a sort of fifth Russian column in Europe, have never been interrupted. The ambiguity is in the facts, it is not an opinion, and all fear is well founded ».
Calling a spade a treacherous spade…
Mariastella Gelmini, who had served as Minister of Education in the Berlusconi IV government, has also left Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party because of the party’s role in prime minister Draghi’s defenestration.
“Just to be clear. The only real treachery here was done by Salvini, who with the complicity of Forza Italia, turned his back on Italy, and many voters on the centre-right, so he could run after Meloni, and not lose ulterior concensus. Matteo Salvini, I won’t be lectured to by you.”
