Nov 10: E-Stories
Day622 RUattacks Kherson BlackSea CombatSit Adviivka BehindLines grain RR InRussia RUeco Allies EU US Israel Belarus A&P UKDef ISW Lautman KremlinFileMatisek Kokcharov Kuleba Burgess Wagener Nishanov
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…
Nov 9: A severe fire broke out in Vinnytsia: warehouses caught fire. According to the State Emergency Service, the area of the fire is about 1000m². In total, 40 personnel and 11 units of special equipment were involved in extinguishing the flames.
Authorities: Russian attack on Kherson Oblast village injures 1. Russian troops struck the village of Yantarne in Kherson Oblast on the evening of Nov. 9, wounding a 52-year-old man, the regional administration reported. The man was hospitalized with injuries to his abdomen, arms, and legs, according to the Kherson Oblast authorities.
Infrastructure Ministry: Black Sea corridor remains open despite Russian attacks.
The movement of vessels from and to Odesa Oblast’s ports through the temporary Black Sea corridor has continued despite Russia’s Nov. 8 attack on a civilian ship, the Infrastructure Ministry reported on Nov. 9.
Six cargo vessels loaded with 231,000 metric tons of agricultural products have left Ukraine’s ports heading towards the Bosphorus while five more ships are waiting to enter the ports, according to the ministry.
Deadly missile attack on Donetsk city struck a Russian training centre for military drone operators, reports said. It was portrayed by Russian occupation authorities on Tuesday as a Ukrainian attack on civilian government offices, but analysis identified the target as the “Zhoga Republican Centre for Unmanned Systems”, Newsweek and other outlets said.
Combat Situation Update
Russian forces reinforced by reserves continue to attempt to encircle Avdiivka, Ukrainian military officials have said. Anton Kotsukon, spokesperson for the 110th separate mechanised brigade, said a Russian force of 40,000 was massed on three sides of the town. General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, head of Ukraine’s southern group of forces, said troops around Avdiivka were “stoutly holding their defences”.
UA step up efforts to cross Dnipro, tie up Russian forces in Kherson Oblast.
Pressure is mounting on Russian forces across the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast. Ukrainian forces have reportedly stepped up their attacks on Russian positions to try and secure a beachhead and bring heavy armor into the fight.
They aren’t quite there yet, but assaults on the eastern bank could mean Ukraine is getting closer to opening a new front in the south. Experts told the Kyiv Independent that if Ukraine can put together an armored strike force on the eastern bank, it could be devastating for Russian troops, but it's unclear how they can manage with Russia's advantage in the air.
Amphibious attacks are also notoriously difficult.
"Preparations are currently underway for a whole series of operations similar to the events in Kerch. There are still enough Kalibr carriers in the Black Sea Fleet. There will be more news in the future," GRU representative Andrii Yusov said.
Romanov with an update on the left bank from a Russian perspective.
"Krynki - on the ground it is noted that the enemy became afraid to move at night. A very tense situation remains in the forest area in the south of the village. On the left bank of the Dnipro on the section between Pidstepne and Kozachi Laheri, the enemy is attempting to create another bridgehead by transferring and consolidating forces at the shoreline."
Commander of the Tavria operational-strategic group Oleksandr Tarnavskyi reports that Ukrainian forces have destroyed a modernized S-300B4 air defense system.
"The current situation on the battlefield does not indicate that Ukraine can gain military superiority, and time is now in Russia's favor. The situation is clearly not positive. What should be positive for Ukraine is that we are on their side and should keep supporting them in achieving their goals," Czech President Petr Pavel said at the Diplomacy and Security conference.
Behind the Lines
Ukraine’s security service (SBU) has confirmed in a statement to Reuters that Russian hackers were behind a cyberattack that disrupted part of Ukraine’s power grid in late 2022.
The statement from the country’s main intelligence agency backs up earlier claims by the US cybersecurity firm Mandiant, part of Google, that Russian spies were responsible for the hack in October last year.
The SBU said the hacking group know as Sandworm had been behind the attack, and that the group was staffed by officers from Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. The attack was likely to have been carried out to maximise the impact of Russian missile strikes, Illia Vitiuk, head of the SBU’s cybersecurity department, said in a statement.
Research by Russian media outlet Mediazona suggested 76 cases of railway sabotage within Russia had reached court since the invasion, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its latest intelligence update. The alleged saboteurs were “anti-war activists” mostly aged under 24 and their work “continues to represent a significant challenge for the Russian authorities”, the MoD said.
Ukraine managed to return 3 more children from the Kherson region who were deported by Russia, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration said. Parents and children are currently working with psychologists, they are provided with medical assistance.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, raises an issue that has made its way into the press in full force over the past week: the question of negotiating with Russia. Most will say that all wars end in negotiation. Not really. All wars end when peace is established, and in this case, peace can only be achieved if Ukraine regains its territorial sovereignty as defined by its 1991 borders. This is what the Ukrainians have set as their strategic goal.
Russia has demonstrated over the years that it does not seek peace: it seeks to take territory that doesn’t belong to it and subjugate the population in Ukraine. Thus, any attempt by the Russians to seek ‘negotiations’ is motivated to achieve their goal of the total occupation of Ukraine and the cessation of its sovereignty.
Meanwhile in Russia
Putin is running an election campaign, which is a farce. He goes through the motions and pilots them because he and the leadership must seem like a ‘democracy’. It’s a question of legitimacy in the eyes of the Russian citizens and the world.
This is an issue that the Russian regime has had to deal with since the Bolsheviks literally seized power illegitimately in November 1917 by not respecting the Constituent Assembly results. The Revolutionary Socialist were set to lead the Duma, but they were suppressed along with other parties, and later killed by the Chekists (the Bolshevik secret police). The Bolsheviks did not rule with the consent of the governed. Putin and the security services come from this tradition.
When ‘re-elected’ in 2024, he would end his term (maybe) in 2030, as Tim Mak has pointed out. By that time, he will have held office longer than any leader since Stalin, and then will most likely remain in power until 2036 due to the constitutional changes that were rubber-stamped in 2021.
The video clip below speaks to the social media campaign that is being run at the moment.
Russia’s army and its weapons factories are absorbing workers as Moscow braces for a long war in Ukraine, leaving civilian sectors with painful labour shortages and destabilising the broader economy.
“The labour market is extremely tight,” the head of a big Russian mining company told the Financial Times. “It is not just the mobilisation, or people fleeing Russia. The main problem is arms production.”
The Kremlin is moving to absorb former Wagner soldiers into Russia’s military structures, the Guardian’s Russian affairs reporter Pjotr Sauer reports.
Weeks after Prigozhin’s death, Putin met Andrei Troshev, a former senior Wagner commander, to discuss how its fighting force could be used in Ukraine. After the meeting, the Kremlin said that Troshev had signed a contract with the defence ministry.
But the regular army is only one of many pathways open to former Wagner soldiers, with Russia’s national guard, known as Rosgvardia, and several state-linked private military groups also poaching Wagner veterans.
WSJ: Russia has sought to retrieve parts from defense systems it had exported to countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Belarus and Brazil, as it tries to replenish the enormous stocks of weapons being expended for the war in Ukraine.
India saved ~$2.7 billion by importing discounted Russian oil in the first 9 months of 2023, according to calculations based on government data. Russia has surpassed Iraq as top oil supplier to India, with Saudi Arabia relegated to 3rd place.
Bahkti Nishanov: “This is an encapsulation of the tables turned in the Kazakhstan-Russia relations: President of Kazakhstan pulls a power move and opens his speech to the visiting Russian delegation headed by Putin speaking Kazakh. You can see the bewilderment and confusion among the delegation.”
Russia does not believe the European Union’s promises to admit Ukraine are “real”, according to the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, Reuters reports. “Most likely we are talking about a carrot that is tied in front of the cart,” Peskov said in comments to the Kremlin reporter Pavel Zarubin.
The third Republican candidates’ debate was held on Nov 8. Viewers sat through Ramaswamy’s performance which was none other for one person. It is shocking to me how Americans (and not only) have decided to advance and promote Russia’s agenda. Some paid and nurtured, and some free of charge. How can they push propaganda that is trying to destroy their own state?
Allied Support
The US has gone through 96% of the funds that it allocated for Ukraine, the national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, has told reporters. The lag time between allotments of armaments and ammunition is roughly 6 months.
European Union countries are considering a backup plan to push through much-needed aid for Ukraine in its fight to repel Russia in case Hungary vetoes the current €50 billion funding proposal.
European Parliament: Sanctions against Russia not tough enough, enforcement must be strengthened. The existing sanctions against Russia simultaneously do not go far enough and are under-enforced, the European Parliament wrote in a statement about a resolution adopted on Nov. 9.
The European Commission will host technical experts from the G7 next week to hash out a final plan for a ban on Russian-origin diamonds, Reuters reports.
An EU diplomat said Belgium’s proposal that suggests tracing the diamonds from the rough stage in Antwerp – the main hub for the world’s rough diamond trade – would be closely mirrored in the Commission’s proposal.
Russia’s state diamond miner Alrosa has been placed under sanctions by the United States, but not the EU. Major western jewellery brands began shunning Russian diamonds soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.
Maria Avdeeva: Belgium set a very good precedent on windfall profits. We now need a broader legal framework, approved at the EU level, to allow all member states that hold Russian sovereign assets to use them in a legally compliant way for recovery of Ukraine.
Germany has issued new defence policy guidelines for the first time in over a decade, Reuters reports. The 19-page document details what the “Zeitenwende” – the major shift of policy German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
As a first step to bring the military back up to scratch after decades of attrition following the Cold War, Germany last year set up a €100bn special fund to purchase modern weapons and pledged to reach Nato’s target of spending at least 2% of the national GDP on defence from 2024.
“With the Zeitenwende, Germany becomes a grown up country in terms of security policy,” Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said as he presented the guidelines, the first Berlin suspended conscription in 2011.
Slovakia’s new government has rejected a previously drafted plan to donate rockets and ammunition to Ukraine, following through on a pledge by the incoming prime minister Robert Fico to halt military aid to Kyiv as it fights a Russian invasion.
Hungary said the EU should not start membership talks with Ukraine. EU leaders are expected to decide next month whether to accept the European Commission’s recommendation to invite Kyiv to begin membership talks with the bloc, but Hungary prefers a form of “privileged partnership” for Ukraine, rather than full membership.
But Ukraine will be able to overcome Hungary’s political opposition to its progress on EU membership, according to Kyiv’s minister for European integration, Olga Stefanishyna. “We understand that there is a such a statement, but we also understand there is a dialogue with Budapest,” she said.
Olga isn’t screwing around on this one: Ivanka couldn’t remember buying the Trump Doral property while on the stand yesterday. Olga is reminding her of the other deals she managed, and others that the Trumps have made over the years starting roughly in 1984. This information is readily available financial records. This is why organisations such as the OCCRP and IEI are important. They dig into the records, examine the networks, and make sense of it all.
And more on dirty dealings: A prostitution ring was uncovered in the States, and the perpetrators were arrested on Nov 10. Chris Burgess reminds us of similar operations that were carried out in 1984. The ring disclosed by the FBI yesterday could be a coercion and blackmail operation.
Programming notes…
The New Age of Military Power—Russia & Ukraine—with Jahara ‘FRANKY’ Matisek
Olga and Mo are joined by Lt Col Jahara "FRANKY" Matisek to discuss the increasing and alarming utilization of asymmetric warfare by countries such as Russia, China, and Iran to destabilize Western democracies and key institutions, the transformation of warfare, Russia's disinformation operations, and Ukraine's ongoing counter-offensive.
Visit Megaphone to listen to the episode, or you can listen from the platform of your choice.
