May 9: E-Stories
Day 440: Odesa Bakhmut RUnavy Enerhodar RUlabour UADef Transnistria NatResCentre Klimovich Turkey EU US May9 A&Ps Lautman Forbes KyivIndie UKDef Yusof Giles KyivIndie URC MacKay Rudik Pavlou
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…
Russia launches another large-scale strike against Ukraine, injuring at least 5 in Kyiv. At least five people were wounded in Russian strikes on Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported in the early hours of May 8, as Moscow launched another large-scale attack on Ukraine.
Explosion reported in Odesa as air raid sirens spread across Ukraine. About eight Kh-22 cruise missiles were fired by Russia at Odesa overnight according to Ukraine’s air force spokesperson. Yurii Ihnat said that “some of them did not reach their targets”, the Kyiv Independent reported, as Ihnat spoke on television. He said that they were older Soviet missiles.
General Russian positions: In the Bakhmut direction, the Russians have no reserves to support the efforts of the Wagner PMC inside the city. The pace of advancement of the 1st Army Corps of the 8th Army in the area of Avdiivka has noticeably decreased. Russian forces have mostly suspended their offensive operations on the entire theater of military operations, indicating a possible shift to a defensive posture.
As of May 7, there were 12 Russian ships at sea, patrolling areas near the coast of Crimea. Among them were four missile-carrying ships: the frigate Admiral Makarov and three Buyan-M class corvettes.
Ukraine downs 35 Russian drones. Russia launched at least 35 Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 drones in the early hours of May 8 amid another large-scale attack on Ukraine, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in its morning update. Ukraine's air defense shot down all the aerial targets.
Ukrainian military: Russia moving civilians out of occupied Enerhodar. Russian forces are evacuating civilians out of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast city of Enerhodar, Ukraine's General Staff said on May 7. They are also moving members of the local authority, collaborators, children and teachers from the city of Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia to the city of Berdiansk, which is also under Russian control.
Michael MacKay: “The Russian fascist invaders shelled more than 50 settlements in the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson directions, including Zmiyivka, Prydniprovs'ke, the city of Kherson, Romashkove, Yantarne, Kizomys, Sofiyivka and Stanislav in Kherson region. –UA Armed Forces, 06:00, 8 May 2023”
ISW questions Russia's ability to coordinate a cohesive defense campaign across front line. Russia's military leadership appears to be increasingly delegating responsibilities for different sectors of the front in Ukraine to various Russian commanders while the power of the theater commander continues to wane, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest update.
UK Defense Ministry: Russia likely facing 'worst labor shortage' in decades. The U.K. Defense Ministry said in its latest update that Russia is "almost certainly facing its worst labour shortage in decades," with its population having reportedly decreased by "two million more people than expected" due to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and its all-out war against Ukraine.
The Russian military has been using various tactics to exhaust Ukraine's air defence system, explains Natalia Humeniuk, Head of the Joint Press Centre for Operational Command Pivden (South), on air during the national joint 24/7 newscast.
"The fact that they are trying to use different tactics is because they are testing and exhausting our air defence system, trying to... find a way around it.
They are also expanding their tactics as they do not have a sustainable stock of assets to act with. They use what they have left.
The high-precision weapons are being somewhat saved while the rest are still in use, so they are testing and determining where the air defence systems are."
Unrecognised Transnistria has asked Russia to increase the number of so-called Russian "peacekeepers," citing an increase in security risks. The head of the "mission" of the pseudo-republic in Russia, Leonid Manakov, made this statement in an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. There are currently 450 Russian troops in Transnistria, and the authorities are asking this number to increase to 3,100, as promised by the Kremlin.
Russian officials are considering changes to the resolution "On the Procedure for Evacuating the Population, Material and Cultural Property to Safe Areas." If changes are approved, the "evacuees" will be taken to filtration camps. The men will be sent to separate camps that will be under the control of military commissariats. From there, they will be mobilised.
National Resistance Centre: The Russians continue measures to forcibly expropriate property in the temporarily occupied territories. On the temporarily occupied left bank of the Kherson region, representatives of the occupation administrations forfeit boats from the local people. This way they are trying to reduce the shortage of watercraft in formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
Due to the resistance of the local firefighters, the Russians involve the Russian Guardsmen in extinguishing the fires. The occupation administration in the temporarily occupied Energodar cannot recruit firefighters to work in the city. Earlier Ukrainian firefighters refused to work for occupiers and follow their instructions to switch to the Russian contracts.
Finance: In the first quarter of 2023, the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) closed correspondent accounts for all Russian credit institutions, Frank RG reports, citing the group's financial statements. An exception is made only for its own "daughter" in the Russian Federation - Raiffeisenbank. “We are committed to further reducing business activity in Russia while continuing to work through possible related deals,” the bank's parent company, RBI, said on Friday.
Turkey rejects US proposal to give Ukraine S-400 system. Turkey has refused the U.S.'s suggestion to give Ukraine an advanced S-400 air defense system it had purchased from Russia, Turkish news outlet Lodos Haber reported on May 7.
Blogger jailed for liking a caricature depicting Belarusian dictator dies in prison. Mykola Klimovich, a 61-year-old blogger and social activist from Pinsk, died in prison, Human rights center Viasna reported. In February, Klimovich was sentenced to a year in prison for reacting to a caricature depicting Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in the Odnoklasniki social network.
EU Commission president von der Leyen to meet president Zelensky in Kyiv on Tuesday, which is Europe Day. The visit reaffirms “the EU’s unwavering support towards the country”, a spokesperson for the EU Commission told reporters. “The visit will focus on all the dimensions of our relations with Ukraine”, he added.
The EU could impose penalties on countries helping Moscow dodge western sanctions as part of a drive to close loopholes in the regime of restrictions on the Russian economy. The proposal addresses the “Eurasian roundabout”, which is used to circumvent sanctions and ensures the export of products to the Russian Federation. EU trade with former Soviet countries in the Caucasus and central Asia has jumped, and Turkey and China have also increased their sales to Russia.
The issue is the centrepiece of the EU’s 11th round of sanctions against Russia, which otherwise contains few substantial measures. Some EU diplomats argue the EU has little left to sanction, with contentious issues – such as a ban on Russian diamonds and civil nuclear technology – too difficult to agree among the 27 member states.
The Moscow Times Russian Service: Some high-ranking US officials are beginning to lean towards the position of a number of European countries that, in the event of a successful Ukrainian offensive, they can try to start peace negotiations towards the end of this year. And it is worth bringing China to them so that it will involve Moscow in the process of resolving the conflict.
Senior officials in Paris and Berlin who are familiar with discussions between their leaders and President Joe Biden say the White House is expected to be involved in trying to arrange negotiations after Ukraine liberates at least some of the territory. Thus, the de-occupation of the southern regions can be considered a success, even if part of the Ukrainian lands remains under Russian control.
Why did Prigozhin create all this drama over the weekend?
I’ll leave the answer to this question that I was asked over the weekend on Global News to Andrii Yusov, the representative of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine. My answer didn’t make the final cut, but here it is.
"People like Prigozhin, when we talk about Russian so-called society, if they say something, they say it not only on their own behalf but on behalf of their partners, patrons, who allow such statements and such speeches.
A part of the Russian so-called political and ruling elite is considering various scenarios, including planning some kind of life after Putin, after the defeat in the war with Ukraine. That's why they are preparing for various apocalyptic (but actually realistic) scenarios for Russia.
I think that this is not even one wing; these are different environments that can compete with each other. For example, Prigozhin and Girkin, to put it mildly, do not like each other in the public sphere. But their narratives often point to the same problems in the occupying army. Therefore, they are different environments."
"If in a few months the situation for the Russian army is miserable on several fronts, including in the east, they will be looking for the blame game. Of course, in this situation, Prigozhin will show his statements from a few months ago and say: ‘I'm definitely not the last man standing.’."
Russian information operations
A good interview with four top experts in the field of Russian information warfare operations. Please note that the framing of disinformation as ‘fake news’ is incorrect. Disinformation is a tool within the Russia’s active measures strategy used at home and abroad—psychological operations to influence and mold foreign target audiences and stakeholders. It’s a weapon. Disinformation campaigns are created at the top of the military leadership and may include misinformation, and bits of fact to reign in the target.
Alexandra S. Levine, The Words TikTok Parent ByteDance May Be Watching You Say—Forbes
Forbes obtained a trove of internal documents showing how ByteDance tracks “sensitive words” mentioned on its social media apps. Hundreds of vocabulary lists housed in the company’s “detection tool” illustrate the range of political, social and cultural topics that the Chinese giant is monitoring or suppressing. [continue reading]
Lists about geopolitics
As tensions intensify between the U.S. and China and other authoritarian adversaries, some lists in the tool could shape global discourse around American politics, U.S.-China relations and war in Ukraine and Russia or other parts of the world. TikTok denied any of the below have ever been used on TikTok.
977-Trump Directed Prohibited Words
982-Sino-US trade directional prohibited words
508-North Korea-related core words
976-Putin Directed Prohibited Words
2350-Interactive Russian-Ukrainian Tag Temporary Vo-
623 - Current Leader Words
1632-G Leaders’ Special Retracement Speech
2007-G-Competitor block word list
503-separatist forces core words
2749-LS Theming - Coup, War (title)
2754-LS Theming - Coup, War (Review)
3253-im Private Chat Politics-related Active Control
Programming note…
Episode #6 is dedicated to Ukrainian grain exports, and how they destabilize European domestic markets. Anastasiia is joined by the Kyiv Independent reporter Alexander Query.