Sept 14: E-Stories
Day 567: Sevastopol CombatSit RUdom BehindLines ROM Greece PU-Kim Musk RUdom Schroder Croatia EU Baltic MOL UASaveKids Sevastopol lithium Vietnam potatoes Libya McCarthy A&P SaveUA ISW UKDef Avdeeva
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.
Ropucha-class landing ship 'Minsk' in Sevastopol. It won’t be going anywhere soon: see the story below. Musk must be hiding out in his bunker in New Zealand afraid of the onset of a Russian nuclear strike.
Stories we’re following…
Overnight, Russia attacked Ukraine with a lot of Shahed drones, mainly focused at the port of Izmail in the Odesa region. A total of 44 Shahed drones were launched of which 32 got shot down. In total, 128 settlements and 110 infrastructure facilities were attacked. Russian troops used grenade launchers, mortars, tanks, artillery, MLRS, air defense systems, attack UAVs and tactical aircraft.
Russian attacks kill 3, injure 15 over past day. Russian forces attacked nine oblasts over the past day, killing at least three people and injuring at least 15 others, local officials reported early on Sept. 13.
Nato member Romania said it has begun building air raid shelters for residents near the Ukraine border, after drone fragments were found there last week. Romanian soldiers on Saturday found fragments of a drone “similar to those used by the Russian army” in the Plauru area across the border from Ukraine, AFP reports. The move follows a decision by the Romanian National Committee for Emergency Situations to adopt “protection measures on the national territory in the immediate vicinity of the conflict zone in Ukraine”.
NGO Save Ukraine rescues 13 more children from Russian occupation. The NGO Save Ukraine has arranged the return of 13 more children from occupied parts of Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to their relatives in the Kyiv-controlled territory.
Combat Situation Up-date:
Russian channels report about the situation in Klishchiivka, as expected. "About Klishchiivka: Ukrainian forces took almost the entire village, a small part is under our control. The group came out from our side, there are 300."
ISW: Russian insider sources claimed that the Kremlin’s inner circle is again actively disagreeing about the necessity of and preparations for a second wave of reserve mobilization ahead of the semi-annual fall conscription cycle, which starts on Oct. 1.
Russia has reportedly adjusted air defense systems around Moscow in light of recent increased drone strikes on the city, likely in part to assuage complaints in the Russian information space about the ineffectiveness of air defenses around the capital.
Ukrainian forces advanced in western Zaporizhia Oblast. Geolocated footage posted on September 12 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced eastward along a trench line in the fields west of Verbove in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Ukrainian forces also continued offensive operations in the Donetsk-Zaporizhzhia border area on September 12 but did not make confirmed advances.
Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations near Bakhmut on Sept. 12 and recently advanced.
The Crimean Bridge was closed today for unknown reasons, reports the Russian Operational Headquarters of Crimea.
Heavy smoke is reported by locals in occupied Nova Kakhovka after several explosions.
Ukrainian long range artillery hit and destroyed a Strela-10 anti aircraft missile complex as a result of a precision strike near the town of Pshenychne.
US General: First Ukrainian pilots to likely complete F-16 training in 3 months. The first set of Ukrainian pilots could complete their initial training on F-16 fighter jets at the end of the year, although it will take longer before they are engaged in combat, the Associated Press reported on Sept. 12, citing General Michael Loh, the director of the U.S. Air National Guard.
Behind the Lines
In occupied Sevastopol, there were explosions at 3 am. The Ukraine forces attacked a dry dock, Sevmorzavod, used for ship repairs in the southern bay.
Gen Ben Hodges: It’s almost like the Ukrainians planned it that way…a SOF raid to destroy radar, then a sophisticated strike on Sevastopol… This counter-offensive is much more than a ground assault…it’s a multi-domain operation. UKR Gen Staff is running rings around the Russian Gen Staff.
Russian media report that during the attack on the Black Sea fleet shipbuilding and maintenance plant, SevMorZavod in Sevastopol two vessels were damaged: The Rostov-on-Don (B-237) sub and Ropucha-class landing ship "Minsk". The AFU also destroyed a KS-701 Tunets type boat. Two people died and 26 were wounded. This was supposed to be the site for Russia's marine drones building program.
Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force Mykola Oleschuk confirms that the strikes on Sevastopol were carried out by Ukrainian aviation. Presumably Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG. The UAF has now knocked out a total of 16 Russian ships (10 destroyed, 6 damaged).
Cheka-OGPU also reporting that drones also attacked ships that were in the Black Sea.
Head of the presidential office of Ukraine, Mykhailo Podolyak on the attack on Sevastopol:
The demilitarization of the Russian Black Sea fleet is a real long-term guarantee of security for regional trade routes and the "grain corridor". This is the only correct response to Russia's attempts to turn hunger into a weapon and the only way to ensure uninterrupted grain supplies to the countries of the East and Africa. The way to do this is to build up the capacity of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including by expanding the range of weapons. We can already see the results of this in Sevastopol. A professional and meaningful "statement"...
Russia’s defence ministry said in statement that Ukraine had attacked with ten cruise missiles and three uncrewed speedboats, damaging two vessels that had been undergoing repairs
Ukraine strikes Russian military base of drone operators. Ukraine’s forces carried out a successful strike against a base of Russian operators of Zala and Lancet drones, the military’s Strategic Communications Directorate reported.
Meanwhile in Russia
Formal negotiations between Putin and and Kim have begun at the Vostochny cosmodrome in Amur, Tass reports and include members of the delegations from each country. The meeting is taking place “in the meeting room on the first floor of the engineering building of the technical complex of the Soyuz-2 space rocket complex,” the Russian news agency writes.
Noel Reports: At dinner with Kim Jong-un, Putin proposed a toast to the well-being and prosperity of the peoples of Russia and North Korea and the further strengthening of cooperation. Kim Jong-un responded by proposing a toast to the health of Putin, all comrades present and to new victories for Russia. Meanwhile, 60% of the total population of North Korea live below the poverty line while Kim is filling his belly.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia sees prospects for cooperating with North Korea in space, and sending the first North Korean cosmonaut up to the stars, Tass reported. In August, Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years failed after its Luna-25 spacecraft spun out of control and crashed into the moon.
Speaking after the Russian president and North Korean leader concluded talks at the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s far east, Peskov also said that the foreign ministers of the two countries would meet next month in North Korea. Putin would not be travelling to North Korea.
Four Russian regions in the first half of 2023 faced a double-digit drop in tax revenues to local budgets, the Gaidar Institute reported.
The region registering the most revenue loss was the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, where collections for 6 months collapsed by 35.1%. Budget revenues of Khakassia decreased by 27.2%; Kemerovo region, a key coal mining region in the Russian Federation, by 21.7%. St. Petersburg, where Gazprom is headquartered, lost 13.2% in revenue after gas exports to Europe fell to their lowest level since the mid-1970s.
Even if the overall tax collected increased by 7%, 15 constituent entities of the Russian Federation faced a drop in income, and 26 regions reduced their budget to deficit.
The EU will not extend sanctions against three Russian businessmen when their six-month period expires on September 15, Reuters reports , citing two diplomatic sources. Sanctions have been lifted on Grigory Berezkin, owner of the Unified Social Tax group of companies; billionaire Farhad Akhmetov, former president and co-owner of Northgas; and Alexander Shulgin, former CEO of the online retailer Ozon.
Moscow court extends Russian warlord Girkin's arrest until December. A Moscow court has extended the arrest of Igor Girkin, a former commander of Russian proxy forces in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, for three more months, Russian media reported on Sept. 12. Girkin, who has been detained on charges of extremism, asked the court to transfer him to house arrest due to alleged health issues, according to Mediazona, a Russian independent media outlet.
The life of a Russian soldier is worth a sack of potatoes: “I am your son’s commander. He was a good guy, he got killed.” The commander walks to his van and presents a sack of potatoes to the family of the fallen Russian soldier. Notice the other sacks of potatoes in the van.
Greece is not only the largest carrier of Russian oil, but also sells old tankers for its deliveries at exorbitant prices. Numerous small firms, through which Russia had to form its shadow fleet after the start of the war, created a high demand for marine scrap metal.
According to Robin Brooks, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, the share of Greek tankers in seaborne Russian oil exports has risen to 50% from 33% before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. But “many Greek shipowners decided they could make even more money by selling ships,” notes Elizabeth Brough, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in “Greece hits the jackpot by selling ships to Russia” for Foreign Policy .
Papal envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi will be in China from Wednesday to Friday this week as part of a diplomatic push to facilitate peace in Ukraine, the Vatican said. Zuppi has said the initial focus of his mission is to help the repatriation of children that Ukraine says have been deported to Russia or Russian-held territories, rather than a full-scale mediation effort, Reuters reports. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Vatican said:
The visit represents a further stage in the mission desired by the pope to support humanitarian initiatives and the search for paths that can lead to a just peace.
Spiegel: The SPD now wants to organize an anniversary celebration for former Chancellor Schröder. Since other members are also being honored for long-standing memberships, according to a spokesman for the Hanover SPD district, “Gerhard Schröder will also be honored.” The “Stern” had previously reported on it. Originally, the responsible local association Hannover-Oststadt-Zoo could not agree on honoring Schröder. Now the SPD district of Hanover has to solve the case with a private ceremony. (Monique: he should be arrested not celebrated.)
Russian war criminal vacationing in Italy: Russian war criminal Ivan Katanaev is currently resting in Italy. The latest photos from the city of Verona. Katanaev used to say that Europe would soon disappear, but he himself went there to drink wine. He arrived in Italy on September 9, before that he was deported from Moldova. It is not clear why he was not on the international wanted list, but I hope there will be a reaction from the prosecutor's office. It is necessary to urgently take measures to detain Katanaev, otherwise he will have time to escape.
Allied Support
In a speech delivered to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said that Russia’s war in Ukraine “is the most immediate and acute threat to the international order enshrined in the UN charter and its core principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence”.
Ukraine and Moldova should be granted EU membership in order to prevent them from falling under the influence of countries that do not share the bloc's values, said the President of the EU Commission von der Leyen at the State of the Union address. According to von der Leyen, the EU needs to expand its borders in order to recognize new geopolitical realities.
"The future of Ukraine is in our Union”. The EU needs a fresh vision for successful enlargement, now that "history is calling us to work on completing our union," she told the parliament in Strasbourg. "We cannot afford to leave our fellow Europeans behind," she said.
Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg will meet Ukraine’s Olha Stefanishyna at its Brussels headquarters today. She is the minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine. The press release stipulates that “there will be no media opportunities”.
The EU will maintain visa restrictions with Russia until the end of the war in Ukraine, reports the EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano.
Ukraine has been exporting grain through a northern Croatian port for more than a year, an official told AFP on Wednesday. To date, the Rijeka port’s annual grain capacity is just one million tonnes. However, officials are scrambling to expand the facility’s export capacity.AFP reports:
Approximately 100,000 tonnes of Ukrainian corn and wheat have been exported from northern Croatia’s Rijeka port since May 2022, according to Marino Klaric, the head of the facility’s grain terminal.
Russian troops, after Russia's withdrawal from the grain deal, destroyed 280 thousand tons of grain, attacking port infrastructure and grain storage facilities in the south of the Odessa region, The Financial Times writes , citing data from the UK government.
Baltic countries ban entry for Russian registered vehicles. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have banned entry to their respective countries for vehicles registered in Russia after a recommendation by the European Commission. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said on Sept. 13 that Tallinn is joining the measure announced by Latvia and Lithuania a day prior.
Germany delivers 20 Marder armored vehicles, other aid to Ukraine. Germany provided Ukraine with 20 Marder infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), reconnaissance and surveillance equipment, munitions, and other aid in the latest military assistance delivery, the German government said on Sept. 13.
Moldova expels head of Sputnik’s Moldova branch. The Moldovan authorities expelled Vitaly Denisov, the head of the Russian-controlled propaganda site Sputnik Moldova, for a period of 10 years, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported on Sept. 13, citing the country's Migration and Asylum Office.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz is dampening expectations of a quick peace solution. It has now been possible to bring important states together to advance the principles for a peace solution, said the SPD politician at the International Peace Meeting of the Catholic Community of Sant'Egidio in Berlin. But: »That takes effort and time. Time that we don’t actually have because Russia continues to bomb, torture and kill in Ukraine.”
Scholz called the basis for peace “the understanding of the Russian leadership that it is also about the withdrawal of troops. Then there will also be an opportunity for talks, and I am sure the Ukrainian government will take part in them.
We must beware of pseudo-solutions that only have 'peace' in their name. Peace without freedom is called oppression, peace without justice is called dictatorship.
A warm thank you from Ukrainian authorities to Italy. It’s in the post because…well…I am Italian! “Guns not Gnocchi!”
Lithuanian customs will begin to confiscate Russian cars upon entry into the country in accordance with the latest recommendations of the European Commission, said the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic, Agne Bilotaite. The measure will apply not only to Russians, but also to all EU citizens.
“Those cars that are registered in Russia must be confiscated if they enter Lithuania, and this control will be ensured by the customs authorities, because this is their function, this is the work and responsibility of the customs authorities,” Bilotaite said (quoted by Interfax ) ).
The EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said a major series of policy reviews will be launched to ensure the 27-nation bloc can still function properly as it invites in new members in coming years. Von der Leyen said that the EU must prepare to grow to more than 30 members, the Associated Press reports. Ukraine, Moldova and countries in the western Balkans are among those in line. She told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France:
We will need to think about how our institutions would work – how the (EU) parliament and the commission would look. We need to discuss the future of our budget – in terms of what it finances, how it finances it, and how it is financed.
Around the World
WaPo: Thousands are missing and feared dead after extreme flooding in Libya. A powerful storm unleashed torrential rain across northeastern Libya, bursting two aging dams and devastating Derna, a city of around 90,000 residents. The Interior Ministry said 5,300 people had died and thousands remain missing. Rescue workers said that almost a quarter of the city was destroyed.
US to boost lithium production at home- Readout: The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy, through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization (MCEIP) office, entered an agreement with Albemarle Corporation to support the expansion of domestic mining and production of lithium.
The $90 million agreement, entered into under Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III authorities and utilizing funds appropriated by the Inflation Reduction Act, will help support Albemarle's planned re-opening of their Kings Mountain, N.C. lithium mine to increase domestic production of lithium for the nation's battery supply chain. Albemarle estimates that Kings Mountain will be operational between 2025 and 2030.
President Joe Biden's trip to Vietnam will likely be seen from business and strategic perspectives as bolstering ties with a country that can help Washington counter China's growing might. But human rights advocates were disappointed. (Monique: Vietname has been very closely aligned with Russia over the years.)
New investments in the US and Europe aim to challenge China’s stranglehold on a key ingredient used in most electric vehicle batteries – graphite – but industry experts said that will be an uphill battle. The focus is shifting to a new front: Synthetic graphite.
The EU Commission will assess whether the EU needs to impose tariffs to protect itself against Chinese electric car producers benefiting from subsidies. European carmakers have realized they have a fight on their hands to produce lower-cost EVs. Von der Leyen said at the State of the Union address yesterday:
"Global markets are now flooded with cheaper Chinese electric cars. And their price is kept artificially low by huge state subsidies. This is distorting our market," von der Leyen said in her annual State of the European Union address.
WaPo: Kevin McCarthy directed the House to open a Biden impeachment inquiry. The speaker’s move — made without a House vote — authorizes investigations to determine whether someone has committed impeachable offenses. Hard-right members of the Republican Party are pressuring McCarthy, who needs their votes on a government spending bill — and their support to remain speaker. They’re investigating whether President Biden benefited from his son’s business dealings, McCarthy said. (The Fact Checker breaks down the allegations here.)
EUBarometre: How do you feel about Russia’s influence in global affairs?
MI5 warned Conservatives that MP hopefuls could be spies—The Times
MI5 secretly warned the Conservative Party that two of its potential candidates to become MPs could be spies for the Chinese state.
The Times has been told that the security service contacted the party about two people in 2021 and last year and advised that they should not be on the central list of candidates.
MI5 is said to have raised concerns that the pair had links to the United Front Work Department, a body charged with influencing global policy and opinion. They were blocked from the list, which is used as a pool to pick candidates for by-elections and general elections.
“It was made very clear that they posed a risk,” a source said. “They were subsequently blocked from the candidates list. They weren’t told why.”
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “When we receive credible information regarding security concerns over potential candidates we act upon them.”
Details of the alleged attempt to infiltrate the party emerged after a Tory parliamentary researcher was arrested on suspicion of spying.
Chris Cash, 28, was the director of an influential group on Beijing co-founded by the security minister. He was also employed as a researcher by Alicia Kearns, chairwoman of the Commons foreign affairs select committee.
Cash, who studied in China before working in Westminster, released a statement through lawyers on Monday, insisting that he was “completely innocent”. He said the allegations were “against everything I stand for”, adding that he had spent his career “trying to educate others about the challenge and threats presented by the Chinese Communist Party”. China called the claims malicious slander.
In July, the Commons intelligence and security committee published a report saying that China was targeting the UK “prolifically and aggressively”, but that government departments did not have the “resources, expertise or knowledge” to tackle the threat.
Last year the security service took the unprecedented step of issuing an alert to MPs naming Christine Lee, an Anglo-Chinese lawyer, as an agent of influence carrying out “political interference activities on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party”. Lee, 59, who denies wrongdoing and is suing MI5, had donated almost £500,000 to Barry Gardiner, Labour’s former shadow international trade secretary. Lee’s son worked in Gardiner’s office. [continue]