Nov 7 Buonasera Mag
Day 257: Odesa, Kyiv, Kherson, marine drones, Pavlivka, Mariupol, Killnet, Iran, US midterms, COP27-A&Ps- Zelensky, Davis, Guterres, Russiagate, Banksy, Kharkiv doco, Chinese organ trade, Snyder
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…
Reports for heavy fighting in Bilohorivka, Luhansk region. Joint units of Wagner and LNR are attempting to assault the Ukrainian forces in the village where the clashes are raging for a month already. The Russian forces have failed to take Pavlivka.
The mayor of Kyiv has warned residents that if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure they must prepare for having no electricity, water or heat as temperatures drop below freezing. Mayor Vitali Klitschko told state media:
We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die. And the future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations.
If you have extended family or friends outside Kyiv, where there is autonomous water supply, an oven, heating, please keep in mind the possibility of staying there for a certain amount of time.
Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv has announced preparation measures for receiving more refugees and internally displaced people into his region, and appealed for help with the provision of diesel generators and financial aid for medical supplies.
Russian forces in the Kherson region are trying to fool Ukrainians that they are retreating. In fact, they're preparing strongholds/traps for urban fighting with artillery support from the eastern riverbank, said spox of the Ukr South Command Natalya Gumeniuk of Ukr TV.
Ukraine has accused Russia of looting empty homes in the southern city of Kherson and occupying them with troops in civilian clothes to prepare for street fighting in what both sides predict will be one of the war’s most important battles.
UK intelligence: Russia's lack of air superiority 'unlikely to change in next few months.' Russia lacks air superiority in Ukraine due to poor training and loss of experienced military personnel, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry.
UK intelligence: Newly mobilized Russian troops arrive with ‘minimal or no training at all.' The U.K. Defense Ministry said in its intelligence briefing on Nov. 5 that Russia is struggling to provide military training for its current mobilization drive and its annual fall conscription intake.
Official: Russian occupying forces strengthen defenses around Mariupol. Russian forces have begun building a line of defense around the occupied city of Mariupol, according to Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to the Mariupol mayor.
The Kremlin has prepared handbooks for propagandists to explain to Russians the likely impending retreat from Kherson — Meduza writes.
President Zelensky: Next week, Ukraine to start fundraising for marine drones fleet. “This is only for the protection of our waters. We don’t claim anything that doesn’t belong to us,” Zelensky said on his evening address on Nov 5.
Reznikov: NASAMS and Aspide air defense systems arrive in Ukraine. Ukraine has received long-anticipated Western air defense systems to shoot down "enemy targets" more effectively, according to Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.
Podolyak: Ukraine ready to negotiate with next Russian president. Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, said “Ukraine has never refused to negotiate” with Russia, but that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not ready to do so.
Politico: Russia hasn’t destroyed single HIMARS in Ukraine. Russian forces haven't destroyed any of the U.S.-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Politico reported, citing a Pentagon official.
The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has reportedly held talks with aides to Putin, with the aim of reducing the risk that the war in Ukraine could spill over or escalate into a nuclear conflict.
Russia kidnaps 34 children from Kherson Oblast Russia took 34 children from the Preobrazhenka village in the Myrne community to Russia’s Anapa, Kherson Oblast Governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said, citing Valentyna Holovata, the head of the Myrne community military administration.
BBC: Satellite images show over 1,500 new graves near occupied Mariupol. Maxar's new satellite images show that three mass burial sites near occupied Mariupol have "steadily" grown since spring, according to the BBC.
The Russian hacking group KillNet hit the websites of the intelligence services of Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland, Moldova, and Romania. The attack began on Nov 5, on Russia’s Military Intelligence Day. Less than a month ago, the group attacked 14 government websites in Bulgaria.
UK intelligence: Russia changes commander of its largest military district. Commander of Russia's Central Military District Colonel General Alexander Lapin has been replaced with Major General Alexander Linkov, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on Nov. 6.
ISW: Iran exploits Russia's dependence on kamikaze drone supplies. The Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment that Iran is likely already using Russia’s dependence on the supply of kamikaze drones “to request Russian assistance with its nuclear program.” “The nuclear assistance requests and the recognition of the drone shipments are both indicators that Iranian officials may intend to more clearly establish an explicit bilateral security relationship with Russia in which they are more equal partners,” the ISW reports.
Assassination attempt reported on judge who sentenced UK fighters to death. Oleksandr Nikulin, a judge of the illegal Russian-installed “supreme court" in occupied Donetsk, suffered gunshot wounds and is currently in critical condition following an assassination attempt on Nov. 4 in the Russian-occupied town of Vuhlehirsk, Donetsk Oblast, Novaya Gazeta Europe, an independent Russian newspaper, reported on Nov. 5.
Japan formally joined NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) on Friday, several years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the nation’s intention to do so. Jiro Minier, an East Asian cyberespionage and cybersecurity policy analyst, told The Record that the announcement Japan had formally joined the CCDCOE is“just one of many milestones during a busy period” for Japan’s cybersecurity efforts.
American Mid-term elections: It’s still a day before the midterms, but more election-related lawsuits have already been filed this year than in all of 2020. Lawsuits challenging everything from who can vote to how ballots are collected and monitored are most visible in battleground states like Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. More than 100 lawsuits have been filed thus far.
President Biden is making his final appeal to voters ahead of elections that could upend the rest of his presidency. He is set to appear at a rally in Maryland, a state normally considered a Democratic stronghold, at about 19:00 (00:00 GMT).
Trump is holding an evening rally in Ohio, at about 20:00, in support of JD Vance - an author and former Trump critic. The results of this election will set the US political landscape ahead of the presidential elections in 2024 - with Trump considering another bid for the White House.
Most polls are showing that the Dems will lose the majority in the Senate. Close to 40 million Americans have already voted via mail-in ballot.
President Macron- COP27: He begins by saying many states are being affected by the unravelling of the climate. He says we will not sacrifice our climate commitments to the energy crisis caused by the aggression of Russia in Ukraine. He talks of the need for “energy sobriety”, to transition away from fossil fuels.
On climate justice, Macron says confidence between global north and south is frittering away: “We must come to terms with the idea of financial solidarity.” That means rich, polluting nations handing over money to poorer, vulnerable nations.
Jim Rutenberg, The Untold Story of ‘Russiagate’ and the Road to War in Ukraine- The New York Times (must read)
On the night of July 28, 2016, as Hillary Clinton was accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in Philadelphia, Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, received an urgent email from Moscow. The sender was a friend and business associate named Konstantin Kilimnik. A Russian citizen born in Soviet Ukraine, Kilimnik ran the Kyiv office of Manafort’s international consulting firm, known for bringing cutting-edge American campaign techniques to clients seeking to have their way with fragile democracies around the world.
Ryan, Hudson & Sonne, U.S. privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia-WaPo
The Biden administration is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The request by American officials is not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, these people said. Rather, they called it a calculated attempt to ensure the government in Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fueling a war for many years to come.
ABC News (Australia)- Foreign Correspondent in Ukraine
Extraordinarily powerful documentary with many touching individual stories inside. It’s very emotional to be part of it. Steve Cannane and all the team at Foreign Correspondent tell the story of Kharkiv in the war in Ukraine.
UNODC Launch Manual to Tackle Underreported Crime of Organ Trade-OCCRP
Driven largely by the global shortage of organs available for transplant, it is estimated that ethical transplants cover less than 10% of the global need. This disparity has resulted in sick patients seeking out organs from the black market, a process facilitated by criminal groups who engage in trafficking and illicit transplants.
The complex network of actors for this sort of crime, from surgeons and healthcare workers who regulate the transplants to brokers who match patients with compatible donors, paired with its transnational nature and the lack of expertise in identifying and investigating it, makes organ harvesting an exceptionally underreported crime.
Timothy Snyder, America is on the ballot, Thinking About…
How to vote for, or against, the continuity of our republic
Two years on, the situation now is perilous, since the lie that Trump told about his electoral defeat has become part of the American system. Should that process continue, should his lie penetrate further into state and national institutions, we are asking for a repeat of January 6 2021 in 2025 or 2029 — but this time with far greater consequences. In these midterm campaigns, the atmospherics are distracting us from the weightiness of the vote. For different reasons, Republicans and Democrats hasten to speak now about other issues than democracy and about the continuity of the United States. So we have reached an odd moment where what is most essential is hardly being discussed at all.
This is about what I think is most essential: taking responsibility with our votes for keeping the country going, and creating a chance for a better democracy in the future. (November 6 2022).
States to keep your eye on: North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan.
Disinformation surrounding the vote- BBC
A series of false and misleading claims have gone viral online days before the US midterm elections. Some of the claims cast doubt on the legitimacy of the voting process in key states, while others include manipulated content from across the political spectrum.
Claims that voting machines flip votes from Republicans to Democrats and vice versa have dogged US elections for years. Yet to date there is no evidence to suggest that election tampering has taken place.
A manipulated video of former President Barack Obama campaigning for the Democrats in Detroit, Michigan, has been viewed more than two million times and widely shared. In the manipulated clip, it appears as though Mr Obama was cut off by the audience chanting an expletive against President Joe Biden.
A fake version of Republican campaign pledges has been widely shared online, which has been manipulated to feature promises to cut Social Security benefits, raise the eligibility age for Medicare and tax veterans.
Programming note:
I’ll be travelling from Nov 8- Nov 11, and may not be able to send out Buonasera Mag in its usual format. My heartfelt thanks for your patience and Buonasera Mag will be out as per usual on Nov 12.