Oct 17 Buonasera Mag
Day 236: RU attacks, Yeysk jet, deportations, US-UK sanctions, Iran, EU, Czech trams, Poland, Hunt, CPC, Celentano- A&Ps- Latushka, Schneider, Patrikarakos, Davis, Moutet, Grozoubinski, Nichols
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…
Breaking: Explosions heard in Brovary, Boryspil, Sofiiska Borshchahivka. Users on social networks shared videos showing explosions in the sky over the towns of Brovary and Boryspil, as well as the village of Sofiiska Borshchahivka in Kyiv Oblast.
Russia struck multiple Ukrainian cities in the Sumy Oblast and Kyiv this morning. An attack on Kyiv using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones has killed four civilians, including a pregnant woman, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported. Among the victims Viktoriia, a pregnant woman Viktoriia, and her husband, Bohdan. Reporters say the 34-year-old worked as a sommelier.
WaPo reported yesterday that Iran is preparing the first shipment of Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar missiles for Russia. Five days earlier, Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia also ordered 2,400 kamikaze drones from Iran. Iran denies sending any weapons to Russia.
Critical infrastucture, including hospitals and power plants, in multiple locations in Ukraine have been targetted by Russian missile and drone attacks.
President's Office: Russia must be expelled from G20. "Those who give orders to attack critical infrastructure to scare civilians and who organize total mobilization to cover the front line with corpses can't sit at the same table with leaders of G20," said Mykhailo Podoliak.
The Ukrainian military has requested operational silence on the current Ukrainian push in Kherson Oblast.
A fully-loaded Su-34 fighter jet operated by the Russian air force in Yeysk, Krasnodar Krai, Russian Federation crashed. Russians authorities have begun investigations into the incident.
President Zelensky has said that “the most difficult is near Bakhmut, like in previous days. We are still holding our positions. A very severe situation persists in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions” in the Donbas.”
ISW: Russia continues to conduct massive, forced deportations of Ukrainians that likely amount to a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign in addition to apparent violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
According to the General Staff, the Russians have begun the process of evacuating so-called "state" institutions from the occupied part of Kherson region to occupied Crimea.
The US has warned that action would be taken against nations and companies found to be assisting Iran’s drone program after it was implicated in this morning’s attacks on Kyiv, AFP reports.
An intelligence assessment shared in recent days with Ukrainian and U.S. officials contends that Iran’s armaments industry is preparing a first shipment of Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar missiles, two well-known Iranian short-range ballistic missiles" to Russia.
Defense Ministry: Russia losing soldiers at ratio of 1 to 6.5 to Ukrainian losses on southern front. The figure was given by Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, citing Andrii Kovalchuk, commander of the Armed Forces' Operational Command "South."
Israeli minister: Time has come for Israel to support Ukraine. The delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia impels Israel to deliver military aid to Ukraine, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai wrote on Twitter. "There is no longer any doubt where Israel should stand in this bloody conflict," wrote Shai. "The time has come for Ukraine to receive military aid as well, just as the U.S. and NATO countries provide."
UK Defence: Russian is “probably incapable of producing advanced munitions at the rate they are being expended”, according to the latest update from the UK ministry of defence.
The Belarusian defence ministry said it will conduct live fire exercises and anti-aircraft guided missile launches as part of its joint grouping with Russian forces, Russian news agency Interfax has reported.
At least 11 people were killed and 15 wounded in the shooting at a Russian military training ground in the Belgorod region on Saturday, the Russian defence ministry has said. The two attackers were shot dead. An advisor to president Zelensky said that the two Russian volunteers from Tajikistan who opened fire on fellow volunteers had carried out the attack after an argument over religion.
Every art theatre in Moscow has been ordered to provide 11 employees for Putin's draft. Management of each theatre told to hand-pick the 11.
The UK and US will further their cooperation on sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine as well as on other targets, Reuters reports. Andrea Gacki, head of the US treasury department’s office of foreign assets control, and Giles Thomson, the head the UK’s sanctions enforcement office, wrote:
Over time, we expect to realise the benefits of our collaboration not only in relation to the sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but also across other common sanctions regimes.
EU raises its military assistance for Ukraine to 3.1 billion euros. The European Union has also agreed to launch the Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine to provide individual, collective and specialized training to Ukraine's Armed Forces.
Prague and other Czech cities are donating old trams and buses to Ukraine where public transit systems across the country have been damaged by Russian bombing.
The Polish and Baltic foreign ministers are expected to start preparations for a fresh round of sanctions. The details were scarce as of Sunday, with loose suggestions ranging from further import/export bans to hitting the banking sector.
Britain's finance minister, Jeremy Hunt, will reverse nearly all of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s planned tax cuts, moving to calm markets and ease political pressure. The Chancellor also announced that the government would end its massive state intervention to cap energy prices next April, replacing it with a still-undefined program.
The EU has put sanctions on Iran's information minister, the country's "morality police," and other senior officials over the death of a young woman while in custody and the brutal crackdown on nationwide protests that have followed. The bloc published the list of those it hit with sanctions -- including 11 persons and four entities -- in its official administrative gazette on October 17.
An AP investigation found that officials have deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories without consent, lied to them that they were not wanted by their parents, used them for propaganda and given them Russian citizenship.
Chinese Party Congress- Politico Newsletter
China’s Communist Party congress, which happens every five years, continues today through the rest of the week after President Xi Jinping kicked things off Sunday. The event will culminate in Xi breaking with convention as he is expected to assume leadership for a third term. Xi used his first congress speech as he amasses unchallenged power to double down on the possible military option of taking over Taiwan, reshaping the global order in the Chinese way, while dropping no hint whatsoever about putting an end to China’s draconian measures in the name of “zero COVID.”
The EU’s national foreign ministers will today discuss the very topic of China. Economic competition and systemic rivalry with China are now taking center stage, even though the need for cooperation on certain matters still exists, according to an internal paper prepared by the European External Action Service (the EU’s foreign affairs branch) and sent to the bloc’s 27 member countries.
“The EU should … identify and address the challenges deriving from China’s foreign policy,” notes the EEAS paper, obtained by POLITICO’s Jacopo Barigazzi. “China’s activities and positions in multilateral organisations exemplify its determination to systematically promote an alternative vision of the world order.”
Julia Davis censored
I’ll continue posting Julia’s videos and commentary on EuroFile.
Moutet, Macron has lit a political fire that could soon end his presidency- The Telegraph
Macron’s assumption is that the centre-Right Républicains will vote with the government for a policy mix not unlike that which they would themselves choose. But it may be one gamble too many. If the Bill fails to pass, the president will have to call a snap general election, which may not go his way.
Coincidentally (or perhaps a balloon floated by the president himself), Le Point, the centre-Right weekly, suggested yesterday morning that, in the manner of De Gaulle, Macron is thinking of resigning if he loses “either a general election or a referendum”, quoting anonymous “members of his close entourage”.
Financial Times: A former cabinet minister adds: “She has fucked the party, fucked the country and fucked our prospects at the next general election.” (That’s a bit unfair: Johnson had a heavy hand in that process.)
Nichols, Donald Trump Tried to Destroy the Constitution- The Atlantic
In a country that still had a functional moral compass, citizens would watch the January 6 hearings, band together regardless of party or region, and refuse to vote for anyone remotely associated with Donald Trump, whom the committee has proved, I think, to be an enemy of the Constitution of the United States. His party, as an institution, supports him virtually unconditionally, and several GOP candidates around the country have already vowed to join Trump in his continuing attack on our democracy. To vote for any of these people is to vote against our constitutional order.
Ukrainians love Adriano Celentano
I had no idea that Celentano was so popular in Ukraine. This song comes at the height of his career, and is entirely sung in ‘English sounding’ non-words. He wanted to prove the point that you could sing something without any meaning at all, and as long as it sounded English, it would be a great hit. And it was.
In my POV, Celentano is a musical genius. I’m not a huge fan, but I can appreciate the innovation he brought to the Italian musical scene. He belongs to a group of innovators such as Raffaella Carrà and the Premiata Forneria Marconi. The latter served as inspiraton to the sounds of the big American and Brit bands of the 70s.
