Oct 31 Buonasera Mag
Day 250: Russian attacks on Kyiv, Dnipro, Nikolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, UA responds, Black Sea, Turkey, 14 ships, Canada, Finland, US Elex, ITA weapons, Musk- A&Ps- Gauck, Potemkin bones
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.
LATEST: Russia has reportedly fired at a civilian barge transporting grain near Ochakiv, the Operational Command “South” reported. Two crew members were killed, and one with injuries was rescued. The fate of another one is not yet known.
People who live in Kyiv oblast can be temporarily relocated to other regions if the situation on the energy front becomes critical. Source: Oleksii Kuleba, head of military administration.
Emergency power cutoffs to be introduced in Ukraine on Oct. 31. After Russia's mass attack on energy system facilities, the government will introduce emergency electricity cutoffs across Ukraine, said Deputy Head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko.
The attack leaves most of Kyiv's residents without water supply. Russian strike at an energy infrastructure facility near Kyiv caused water outages for 80% of the households in the city, according to water supply company Kyivvodokanal.
DTEK says its running out of equipment for power grid repair. DTEK Executive Director Dmytro Sakharuk said the Ukrainian energy giant has depleted its stock of stored equipment following the two series of attacks after Oct. 10.
Stories we’re following…
Russia shells Nikopol from Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. A gas pipeline and 10 high-rises and private residences have been damaged.
Several explosions heard in Kyiv. Around 7-8 explosions were heard in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast early on Oct. 31. Anton Gerashchenko reports that “40 Russian cruise missiles on Ukraine this morning.” Andriy Sadovyi, Lviv’s mayor, has praised Ukraine’s air defence this morning, saying “Air defense forces that shoot down missiles in such foggy weather are, without exaggeration, Titans”.
Vitali Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv: “Power engineers are working to restore electricity supply after damage to an energy facility that powers about 350,000 apartments in Kyiv. Specialists, together with other emergency services and authorities are doing everything possible to stabilise the situation as soon as possible.”
Kyiv’s city state administration has issued this map online of the locations residents can find their nearest pumping station to stock up on water. The red markers indicates pumps which are “temporarily out of service due to lack of electricity”. Besides the hydro-electric power plants, Russian missiles are also destroying renewables: 80% of windmills have been destroyed.
From the Mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov: “After the morning arrivals, the situation in Kharkiv is rather complicated. The blow fell on a critical infrastructure facility, as a result of which the subway and ground electric transport were de-energised. At the moment, we have managed to launch the Kholodnogorsko-Zavodskaya line, and we have replaced trolleybuses and trams with buses.
There are also problems with water supply, but power engineers and our public utilities are doing everything possible to resume water supply to the homes of Kharkiv residents as soon as possible. All services are working to restore the normal life support of Kharkiv. Together we will stand and win.
In Melitopol, the occupiers introduced military censorship - the mayor of the city. As Ivan Fedorov noted on the air of the Freedom online marathon, the Russians will check the phones of the residents of the captured city and identify with whom and what they talked about, where and what news they read.
This morning a part of a Russian missile shot down by Ukrainian air defences landed in the Moldovan village of Naslavcea on the Ukrainian border. There were no casualties; the shock wave shattered windows of several residential houses. Moldova condemns in strongest possible terms Russia's continued aggression against Ukraine. The appalling strikes on critical infrastructure reverberate beyond Ukraine's borders and pose a direct threat to Moldova’s energy – and human – security.
The Russian Armed Forces destroyed two civilian tugboats involved in the transportation of grain in the Ochakiv port, the operational command "Pivden" (South) reports. Two crew members were killed, one was rescued and the fate of another is unknown.
Norway will place its military at a higher level of alert. Norway deployed troops to guard offshore platforms and onshore facilities after the Nord Stream leak and will now strengthen its security in a more systematic fashion.
Turkey, Ukraine and the UN reach an agreement to move 14 ships under the Black Sea grain export deal.
Russians destroyed a poultry farm and killed about 800k chickens in Svyatohirsk, Donetsk Oblast, by shelling the infrastructure. It caused a dramatic rise of egg prices.
Canada is in the crossfire of Russia's narratives about the Sevastopol attack Russia alleges that Canadian-made navigation modules were used in shot-down UAVs.
General Staff: Russia to withdraw heavy artillery from Kherson. Russian forces plan to remove its artillery from the Dnipro River's right bank in Kherson Oblast, which includes the city of Kherson, the General Staff reported on Oct. 30.
Ukrainian Intelligence is reporting that Russian Forces have received Iranian Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar Short-Range Ballistic Missiles and are preparing to use them against Ukrainian targets in the coming weeks ahead, members of the IRGC are also on ground to assist In their use.
RIA is reporting that the governor of Crimea, which Russia annexed illegally in 2014, has announced a wave of nationalisations organisations and individuals associated with Ukrainian authorities. RIA reports he said that the list of objects subject to nationalisation includes a shipyard and construction facilities.
Nikolai Storonsky, founder and CEO of Revolut banking service, renounced Russian citizenship, as reported by the Telegraph. Forbes, citing a Revolut representative, writes that Storonsky renounced Russian citizenship even before the imposition of sanctions against his father, Mykola Storonsky, a Russian businessman. In addition to Russian citizenship, Nikolai Storonsky also had British citizenship. He is now trying to get a banking license for Revolut in the UK.
Finland will allow nuclear weapons to be placed on the border with Russia if the country's application to join NATO is approved, as reported by Newsweek.
EU Playbook—Politico: European Council President Charles Michel is visiting Uzbekistan today, after traveling to Kazakhstan on Thursday to signal the EU’s interest in bolstering ties with mineral-rich Central Asia. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Moscow’s energy trade games, the EU’s top brass has been whizzing around the world to find new providers for politically sensitive imports like oil, gas and raw materials. Central Asia is rich in minerals — for instance, Kazakhstan actually has the largest reserve of uranium in the world.
Italy has transferred from 20 to 30 M109L howitzers to Ukraine as part of the fifth aid package, the newspaper La Repubblica reports. In November, the Italian government will authorise a 6th military arms package, which may include the Spada anti-aircraft missile system.
Russia has dismissed reports that its agents hacked Liz Truss’ phone, and managed to gain access to sensitive information. (So, they’ve done it.) It was claimed the breach was discovered when Truss was running for the Conservative leadership, but details were suppressed by the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the cabinet secretary, Simon Case.
'New Defense Policy': Sweden will provide Ukraine with modern weapons. Sweden will provide Ukraine with more modern weapons as evidence of the country's new defense policy. Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson spoke about this in an interview with the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
Poland strikes a deal with South Korea to construct its second nuclear power plant. This was speculated for some time but the letter was signed today South Korea has become an increasingly important defence partner for Poland as well, especially in supplying tanks and howitzers, but the nuclear energy foray could put it in collision course with the U.S.
Why Russia Stole Potemkin’s Bones From Ukraine- NYT
With Ukrainian forces bearing down on the occupied port city of Kherson this week, the Kremlin’s puppet rulers dispatched a team to an 18th-century stone cathedral on a special mission — to steal the bones of Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin.
The memory of the 18th-century conqueror is vivid for those in the Kremlin bent on restoring the Russian imperium. It was Potemkin who persuaded his lover, Catherine the Great, to annex Crimea in 1783. The founder of Kherson and Odesa, he sought the creation of a “New Russia,” a dominion that stretched across what is now southern Ukraine along the Black Sea.
When President Vladimir V. Putin invaded Ukraine in February with the goal of restoring part of a long-lost empire, he invoked Potemkin’s vision.
Speaking the truth for once…
‘A madness has taken hold’ ahead of US midterms: local election officials fear for safety- The Guardian
On a Tuesday in September, speaker after speaker went before the Shasta county board of supervisors decrying the “election fraud” they believed – without evidence – is taking place. Dressed in red, white and blue, the residents described their effort as a David-and-Goliath-like battle.
“It’s called a citizen’s audit and we’ve been going out and collecting the evidence that shows there is fraud in our process,” one speaker said. “This is our Tiananmen Square. We’re going to stand in front of the tanks and say no more to the machines.”
Disinformation 101 - helping you to understand and recognize cognitive attacks and attempts to manipulate you from an offensive perspective. The success of such attacks heavily depends on you NOT understanding and recognizing them.
Twitter is planning to start charging $20 a month for verification. It’s Elon Musk’s first big project. The team building it was told they will all be fired if they don’t meet a launch deadline of November 7th.
If you already have a blue checkmark, Twitter is currently planning to remove it from your profile after 90 days if you don’t subscribe to the more expensive Blue subscription after it launches.
Twitter amplifies verified accounts everywhere: reply visibility, search, user suggestions, even the main timeline. That’s a lot of distribution advantage that can be purchased now.
Greg Sargent, The hidden danger lurking behind Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover- WaPo
Musk’s takeover will certainly have international ramifications, if not yet interplanetary ones. But they may not be that sunny. The world’s richest man buying perhaps the world’s most influential political echo chamber is the latest sign of a development that international relations experts have long feared: With tech giants amassing stratospheric levels of influence over global affairs, they are morphing into a species of geopolitical actor, with uncertain long-term consequences.
Those experts have a term for this development: “Technopolarity.” The idea is that big tech companies have become their own sovereigns, on a par with nation-states. The result: an increasingly unchecked level of influence over international affairs that will demand a new kind of political response.
