ISW:Russian forces conducted massive, coordinated missile strikes on over 20 Ukrainian cities. Putin claimed the strikes were in retaliation for the explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge, likely in part to curry favor with “pro-war” factions.
Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy grid will not likely break Ukraine’s will to fight, but Russia’s use of its limited supply of precision weapons in this role may deprive Putin of options to disrupt ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensives in Kherson and Luhansk Oblasts.
Ukraine downs 4 Russian helicopters in 18 minutes. Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile units shot down at least four Russian attack helicopters (presumably Ka-52) in southern Ukraine from 8:40 a.m. to 8:58 a.m. on Oct. 12, Ukraine’s Air Force reported.
White House: Russia planned for Oct. 10large-scale attacks before Crimean Bridge explosion. "It likely was something they had been planning for quite some time. Now that's not to say that the explosion on the Crimean bridge might have accelerated some of their planning," John Kirby, White House national security spokesman, told CNN.
Around 30% of energy infrastructure in Ukraine has been hit by Russian missiles since Monday, Ukraine's Energy Minister Halushchenko said. The minister told CNN that this was the “first time from the beginning of the war” that Russia has “dramatically targeted” energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian PM Denys Shmyhal has appealed to citizens and businesses to reduce their electricity consumption by 25% during peak hours to avoid blackouts and stabilize the power system.
Oleksii Reznikov: A new era of air defence has begun in Ukraine. IRIS-Ts from Germany are already here. American NASAMS are coming. This is only the beginning. And we need more. No doubt that russia is a terrorist state. There is a moral imperative to protect the sky over Ukraine in order to save our people.
Karen Shakhnazarov tried to excuse Putin’s strikes against Ukrainian civilians by comparing the Crimean bridge incident to the September 11 attacks in the U.S., claiming that the bridge incident was of a greater magnitude and importance than 9/11.
Ukrainian Forbes counted that the average total value of the missiles that Russia launched yesterday was $400-700 million. These are only estimates because the exact number of missiles of each type is still unknown.
Russia continues to amass kamikaze drones in Belarus. As of Oct. 10, Russia has brought 31 Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones to Belarus and plans to transfer eight more before Oct. 14, Ukraine's Defense Ministry reports. Russia likely relocating ammunition, other materiel from Belarusian storage bases.
The Russian Defense Ministry has begun to recruit new soldiers from among the inmates of Russia’s so-called “red” penal colonies. This is a class of penal institutions where some of the inmates are former law-enforcement and state-security servicemen. Military recruitment among convicts used to be something only done by Evgeny Prigozhin.
A recent investigation from Mediazona, however, found that the Russian authorities feel threatened by Russian-language news outlets abroad as well — and not only outlets that publish media for Russian audiences, like Meduza, but also Kazakh and Kyrgyz outlets writing primarily for Kazakh and Kyrgyz readers. Roskomnadzor has been sending warning letters to Central Asian news outletsdemanding they remove articles on the war in Ukraine — and threatening to block them in Russia.
Putin was in Astana to attend 4 events: - Conference on Interaction & Confidence-Building Measures in Asia - CIS summit - RUS-Central Asia summit - a separate meeting with Erdoğan Not much is expected from these meetings, just another try by Russia to secure its position in Central Asia.
Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned company that manages the ZNPP has accused Russian forces occupying it of refusing a convoy of company vehicles carrying dieseltorefuel the plant’s generators. It has been cut off from off-site power. Energoatom also warns that there is the possibility of a radiation accident at the substation due to the missile attacks.
Pro-Russian Killnet followed through on their threat to target U.S. infrastructure when they launched a DDOS attack on U.S. airports (FYI - no flight ops were disrupted).
President Biden on Putin’s nuclear threats: “I don’t think he will. The whole point I was making was it could lead to just a horrible outcome,” he told CNN. “And not because anybody intends to turn it into a world war or anything, but just once you use a nuclear weapon, the mistakes that can be made, the miscalculations, who knows what would happen.”
Council of the EU: EU ambassadors today agreed a mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament on a decision on the non-acceptance of Russian travel documents issued in Ukraine and Georgia.
WaPo: “One lesson from this war is we should have listened to those who know Putin,” European Commission President von der Leyen said in her State of the European Union speech last month. “They have been telling us for years that Putin would not stop.”
Germany, Norway, and Denmark to buy 16 Zuzana howitzers for Ukraine from Slovakia to provide additional assistance to Ukraine. The artillery systems will be produced in the Slovak Republic with a preliminary delivery in 2023.
Germany to give Ukraine additional MLRS, howitzers. Germany will deliver to Ukraine "more" howitzers Panzerhaubitze 2000 and multiple launch rocket systems MARS II “in the next few weeks,” according to the German Defense Ministry.
Last year, Oliver Stone starred in a documentary in which he interviewed Kazakhstan’s former president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. As it turns out, a charitable foundation controlled by Nazarbayev secretly paid at least $5M for the film.
Senior Whitehall official: “The PM is panicking and reaching for almost anything that she can do to calm the situation. She was so burnt by the fallout from mini-budget that anything that seemed bold, she now wants to massively trim back.”
The Coronation of King Charles III will take place on Saturday 6 May 2023 at Westminster Abbey. The Ceremony will see King Charles III crowned alongside The Queen Consort.
We’re being buried by propaganda
In four separate political talk shows last night, these were the messages that Italians were fed. It’s a miracle if Italians are functional today. My thanks to Fabio Chiusi for posting the headlines.
Mario Giordano: “I understand him [Zelensky]…but…” and then he proceeds in a visceral critique of President Zelensky and how he’s bringing us all to nuclear armageddon.
On Cartabianca, Alessandro Orsini (Putin’s newest friend): “Putin’s hands are tied. Nuclear war is immanent.”
On Rete4’s Stasera, Rampini attacks president Biden: “Why is Biden silent?” Rampini says we are falling into Putin’s nuclear trap.
On La7’s OttoEMezzo, Minniti says, “I have the sensation that the situation is grave.” The terrorising prophecy of atomic warfare.
Casey Michel, How to Stop Former Western Leaders From Becoming Paid Shills for Autocrats- Foreign Policy
Second, any hope that shame and morality alone would deter former Western politicians from avoiding the kinds of contracts with authoritarian enterprises that Schröder has pioneered is dead and buried. During his visit to Washington last week, Scholz—of the same German Social Democratic Party (SPD) as Schröder—was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper what message his predecessor’s Russian positions send. Instead of seizing the opportunity to lead by repudiating Schröder’s actions—a precedent already set by Germany’s then-Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2017—the best Scholz could muster was a flustered, “He’s not the government. I am the chancellor now.”
Cybersecurity Consultant Was Outed for Ties to Moscow, So Why Is He Meeting Top Trump Officials in D.C.?- The Daily Beast
The meetings and visual evidence of them might have otherwise counted as any other ho-hum calendar event for America’s busy national security establishment and the many friendly specialists from overseas looking to liaise with it. Except there was one very glaring and easily google-able problem: about six months before he arrived in America, Dünn had been publicly exposed in the German media as having numerous links to Russian intelligence and influence operations, including one financed by the U.S.-sanctioned oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Iryna Lopatina, “Dad, You Have to Come—Or We Will Be Adopted!”: One Ukrainian Family’s Harrowing Wartime Saga- Vanity Fair
Near evening, he says, “we were brought some food. I understand that the guards, at their own expense, bought us two loaves of bread and two two-liter bottles of water.” Some nights, the group got “two bottles, at best. At worst, there was one for all of us. We tried not to breathe, or even to talk, because talking means burning oxygen, and there was no oxygen in the cell for so many people. It was boiling in there, and we were wet with sweat. We undressed almost to our underwear because it was tough to sit there.”
