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.
The KyivIndie:The frontline of central Donbas now and a YEAR ago. From the ending of the Battle of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk and today. The result that required a massive mobilization and the insanity of the Bakhmut slaughter.
Stories we’re following…
Military: Counteroffensive going to plan, full potential yet to come. Ukrainian commanders said that the counteroffensive is developing according to the plan, but the military has not yet deployed its full potential, ABC News wrote on July 5. About 30 combat engagements recorded in four sectors of the front – General Staff. The Russian forces continue to focus their main efforts on the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka sectors of the front.
Volodymyr Litvinov, head of the Beryslav district administration in Kherson region, has reported that, in the last 24 hours, four settlements in the district came under fire, causing damage to houses and farm buildings. No injuries or casualties were reported.
598 libraries have been damaged in Ukraine as result of Russia's invasion. Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine, 1,582 Ukrainian cultural sites, including 598 libraries, have been damaged, the Culture Ministry said on July 4.
The designated hot contact line now exceeds 1,200 kilometres, covering Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv oblasts, where active hostilities are underway, Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov, Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, in an interview with Ukrinform news agency. Hromov clarified that the most intense offensive areas in the Donetsk and Tavriia operational areas are Melitopol and Berdiansk, where Ukrainian units have advanced up to 7.5 km into enemy defences.
Ukrainian forces advance 2 km in Berdiansk direction. Ukrainian troops have advanced up to 2 kilometers in the Berdiansk direction, the military's Tavria command spokesperson Valerii Shershen said on July 4. In Berdyansk, according to locals, the sounds of explosions were heard throughout the city. A siren sounds in the port area.
Ukraine’s military said it had destroyed a Russian “formation” in Russian-controlled Makiivka in the frontline Donetsk region, where Moscow-installed officials and media said one civilian was killed and dozens wounded in attacks by Kyiv. The target was a russian rocket depot in an abandoned construction site.
Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions came under fire from Ukrainian forces across the border in the early hours of Wednesday, the regions’ governors said, adding that no casualties were reported.
As Ukraine warns Russia might damage nuclear plant, Moscow blames Kyiv for potential strike. Ukraine's military intelligence spokesperson Andrii Yusov told Channel 24 that such disinformation campaigns could serve as preparation and information cover for Russia's own actions.
Suspilne reports that overnight residential buildings and a medical facility were damaged by a rocket attack on Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region.
Belgorod Governor offers evacuated Shebekino residents to return home. Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov offered on July 4 to the evacuated resident of the border town of Shebekino to return home within the next two weeks.
Belarusian Minister of Transport and Communications Aleksey Avramenko died suddenly on July 4 of unknown causes, the state news agency Belta reported on July 5, referencing information from the ministry. The late minister was placed under international sanctions. In his position as the head of transport, he bore responsibility for the illegal diverting of passenger flight FR4978 to Minsk airport on May 23, 2021, leading to the capture of the oppositionist journalist Raman Pratasevich.
Tass reported Wednesday that the website and mobile app of the Russian railways network has been subjected to “a massive hacker attack”.
Prigozhin gets back ten billion rubles ($111 million) in cash and more seized after mutiny. According to local St. Petersburg outlet Fontanka, Yevgeny Prigozhin has had boxes of cash that were seized during his mutiny returned to him. Authorities took possession of the cash during a search related to the mutiny. Fontanka reports that Prigozhin’s driver, who had been granted power of attorney, came to collect the money on July 2.
Putin’s former election spokesperson has been appointed to run TASS, according to a government order published on Wednesday. Prime minister Mikhail Mishustin signed an order dismissing Sergei Mikhailov as general director of TASS and appointing Andrei Kondrashov in his place. Mikhailov had served as general director since 2012.
Bloomberg: Russia eyes Chechen convicts to avoid full mobilization. Russia plans to send more Chechen fighters and convicts to the front to avoid full mobilization, Bloomberg wrote on July 5, citing European intelligence sources.
Russian propagandist Margherita Simonyan makes an appeal to former employees of Prigozhin’s vast ‘media services’ (troll farms, fake news websites etc) to join the RT, the Russian controlled media that she directs.
Since 2009, according to Russian sources, Prigozhin grew his media businesses which included Patriot (HQ in St Petersberg), and the Internet Research Agency. They were part of a GRU operation to penetrate the Western infosphere with a view to influence domestic audiences by leveraging divisive issues. ICYMI Olga and I spoke with Jessika Aro about her experience at the IRA, and her investigation.
The IRA executed a series of operations to interfere in the American presidential elections in 2016, as well as others in Europe, France for example. The operations mostly focused on weakening Hilary Clinton’s voter base by discrediting her as a candidate and boosting Trump’s viability: email hacking and doxxing, flood of derogatory social media posts, sowing doubt regarding her support in the African American community to name a few.
The E-Stories team will be following this story to see how it plays out and how the GRU info operations will be carried out in the future.
Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-imposed mayor of the occupied city of Donetsk, claimed on Tuesday that in the discussion with people in Donetsk they asked him about the prospect for elections in September. However, yesterday Ella Panfilova, who chairs Russia’s central election commission, told Russian president Vladimir Putin: “Since the situation is really difficult, anything can happen. If unforeseen circumstances arise – in some areas the situation may deteriorate dramatically - and we see that there is a serious danger to the life and health of residents, then we have the right to postpone these elections.”
Russian citizens buy dozens of real estate units in Lithuania every month, and since the beginning of the year, they have purchased almost 300 properties in the country, Lithuania’s national broadcaster LRT reports. At the beginning of May, a law came into force in Lithuania stating that only Russians with residence permits can buy real estate in the country. However, in the first month of the innovation, this did not significantly change the trend – in May, Russian citizens bought only 7 properties less than in April.
FT: Xi warned Putin against nuclear attack in Ukraine.Chinese President Xi Jinping personally warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the Financial Times (FT) reported on July 5 citing Western and Chinese officials.
Medvedev on Telegram: "In general, any war, even a world war, can be ended very quickly. Either if a peace treaty is signed or if you do what the Americans did in 1945 when they used their nuclear weapons and bombed two Japanese cities. They really then curtailed the military campaign. The price was the lives of almost 300,000 civilians."
The Financial Times reported that the United States, Britain and France - NATO's three nuclear powers - have told Russian authorities that they will strike Russian forces with conventional weapons if Russian forces use tactical nuclear weapons. People close to the Kremlin claim that Putin has decided that tactical nuclear weapons will not give Russia an advantage, and a nuclear strike will likely turn the annexed areas "into an irradiated wasteland and will do little to advance Russian troops."
OSCE Parliamentary Assembly recognizes Russia as state sponsor of terrorism. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly recognized Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and the private mercenary Wagner Group as a terrorist organization, according to Yevheniia Kravchuk, a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the assembly.
Netherlands to provide Ukraine with $128 million aid package. The Dutch government announced another aid package for Ukraine worth 118 million euros (about $128 million) on July 4, which will go toward the country’s humanitarian and economic needs.
Last week, Italy officially became the third partner in a leading Franco-British project to design the next generation of anti-ship and cruise missiles when French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu confirmed Rome’s entrance into the aptly-named Future Cruise and Anti-Ship Weapon (FC/ASW) also known as Future Anti-Ship Missile/Future Cruise Missile programme (or FMAN/FMC through its French acronym).
Zelensky to visit Bulgaria. President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Bulgaria at the new government's invitation, Bulgarian newspaper 24 Chasa reported on July 4, citing its diplomatic sources. Bulgarian minister: New military aid package for Ukraine 'taking shape.' Bulgaria has already begun preparing the new package of military aid for Ukraine, Defense Minister Todor Tagarev told Glavcom on July 4.
Lithuanian President: Ukraine likely to receive a lot but not all it expects at NATO summit. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda told LRT on July 5 that, while it will likely not get everything it's hoping for, Ukraine will not be disappointed at the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius in July.
Next week’s Nato summit must offer “real security guarantees” to Ukraine, Italian PM Meloni said today. Speaking in Warsaw alongside Polish PM Morawiecki, Meloni said Italy and Poland “are in perfect agreement” on the issue, Reuters reported. Nato leaders are meeting in Vilnius on July 11-12.
The town of Nikopol – current population 50,000 – and other nearby cities are taking the threat of damage to the nuclear plant seriously. Last week for the first time they carried out radiation drills, a rehearsal for what locals should do in case of a repeat of the 1986 Chornobyl disaster
“The Zaporizhzhia plant is on my doorstep. You can see it,” resident Anna Supranova said. “If there is a nuclear leak we will fetch the dog, go inside and close the windows and doors. Unfortunately we don’t have a car. We won’t get far on foot.” She, her husband, Serhiy, and 15-year-old daughter, Angelina, would wait for rescue. “I’m not sure who exactly would come,” she admitted.
Speaking on Monday, the Nikopol military district chief Yevhen Yevtushenko said the situation was under control. Radiation levels were normal. There was no sign that the Russians were leaving the plant in big numbers, he said. The authorities were not planning a forced evacuation – for now. Since Russia’s all-out attack in February 2022 about half of the town’s population had moved to safer areas, he said. [continue]
The Ingush news website Fortanga reports that students are being forced to go in person to receive their diplomas. They are immediately being handed a summons for mobilisation, in front of witnesses, and have to decide whether to accept it. Their decision is recorded.
If they refuse the summons, they face a 200,000 ruble fine, forced labour, arrest or imprisonment for up to two years.
As a source tells Fortanga: "To get a diploma, you have to sign a summons to the army. Otherwise, you don't get a diploma in any way.
"Either you get a summons or you sign a waiver of the summons. So, if you receive a summons, it means you have to go to the army, but if you refuse to sign it, you are 'hello, motherfucker, it's prison'."
The practice is said to have been introduced "after the director of a college in Nizhny Achaluki announced at a meeting with the republic's governor, Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov, that 30 students from his establishment had been called up for military service."
The idea was subsequently adopted by local military enlistment office staff. It's legal, as long as the right procedures have been followed. Educational establishments can serve summonses but can't write them out themselves – that has to be done by military enlistment offices.
Every few weeks, a light show featuring the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag — and occasionally a Ukrainian-language profanity about the Russian president, Vladimir Putin — is beamed onto the white facade of the Russian Embassy in Washington. Russia has fought back with a big spotlight, umbrellas to obstruct the projections and illuminations of its own, such as two giant white Z’s, a nationalist Russian symbol of the war effort.
This is the strange new normal around Russia’s main diplomatic outpost in the U.S., a scene of protests, spy games and general weirdness amid the most hostile relations between the U.S. and Russia in decades. The Russian ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, has called the embassy compound, where in recent years as many as 1,2000 Russians have worked, “a besieged fortress.”
The embassy’s personnel may be among Washington’s least welcome residents, but Biden administration officials are glad they are there to maintain diplomatic ties, they say. Kicking out the Russians entirely would mean an end to America’s diplomatic presence in Moscow, which, among other things, works to assist U.S. citizens imprisoned in Russia.
Crazy Ass Moments in Italian Politics on Instagram
Yes, this is a real account and a juicy follow on Instagram, FB and Twitter. CAMIP reports that Berlusconi’s villa in Arcore will become a museum. Yes, a museum. With all his ‘artefacts’. Besides visiting the million rooms of the villa, you can also partake in a poll dancing exhibition. That’s him ressurected from the dead.
