Sept 22 Buonasera Mag
Day 211: POW swap, RU attacks, sham refs, 1 million, RU protesters, Czech Rep, Hoekstra, Truss, EU sanctions, NK-A&Ps-Vadym, Kuleba on Colbert, Scherba, Giczan, Giles, Seskuria, Clark, Trump
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…
Commanders of the Azovstal defense, including Denys Prokopenko, the head of the Azov regiment at then-besieged Azovstal steel plant, his deputy Svyatoslav Palamar and marine commander Serhiy Volynsky. Five British nationals held by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine have been safely returned. 215 Ukrainian POWs have been released in the prisoners swap.
President Zelensky on major prisoner swap with Russia: “We value every life, will return everyone.” Zelensky has posted to Telegram to thank Turkey and Saudi Arabia for their role in the recent prisoner release.
Russia starts conscripting plant workers in Donetsk Oblast. Russia's proxies conscript 200-500 steel plant workers in Donetsk Oblast, bringing the Yenakiieve Iron and Steel Works to a halt, Defense Ministry's Intelligence Directorate reported on Sept. 21.
Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Volodymyr Havrylov: “I think after Putin's announcement, we are closer to a political decision here in Washington, D.C., that Ukraine deserves and really needs to be provided with ATACMS”.
Council of Europe on Russia's pseudo-referendums: 'We reject this mockery of democracy.' Pseudo-referendums can "neither be accepted nor recognized," said Marija Pejcinovic Buric, Council of Europe general secretary, on Sept. 21.
UK Defense Ministry: 'No amount of threats, propaganda can hide that Ukraine is winning.’ Russian President Vladimir Putin's breaking of his own promises not to mobilize parts of his population is an admission that his invasion is failing, said U.K. Defense Minister Ben Wallace. "(Putin) and his defense minister have sent tens of thousands of their own citizens to their deaths, ill-equipped and badly led".
Novaya Gazeta: Russian government plans to mobilize 1 million people against Ukraine. The secret part of Putin’s decree on mobilization states that Russia can draft up to one million people, Russian media Novaya Gazeta reported, citing unnamed sources in the Kremlin. Peskov has denied the existence of the paragraph, which really means it’s true.
At least 735 anti-mobilization protestors detained in Russia. Russian independent monitoring group OVD-Info said police had arrested demonstrators in 36 Russian cities during protests on Sept. 21- over half arrested in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
CNN: Putin gives directions to generals in the field himself. Two undisclosed sources told CNN that Russian President Vladimir Putin was giving tactical orders himself, hinting at a "dysfunctional command structure," the U.S. media reported.
ISW: While Shoigu said mobilised soldiers will receive weeks of training, local enlistment offices already state that they will send some men without the training course. Russia is in a hurry.
“Partial mobilization” will affect reservists up to age 50, as stated to the Interfax by Lieutenant General Andrey Gurlev, a member of the State Duma’s Defense Committee.
According to Interfax, Kartapolov, the chair the Duma’s Defense Committee, listed the categories of people to be drafted first: expects that drone operators will be summoned first, along with military intelligence and communications specialists. He also noted that new graduates of military schools and departments might be drafted, too, if their specializations are in demand.
Christo Grozev: “Prigozhin continues leaking videos of him in commander-in-chief role (on this one, doing that 3 am meeting your commanders thing. Wagnerites tell me they'd vote for him over Putin any time, and it seems to me he smells blood.”
Russians fleeing the partial mobilisation ordered by Putin will not be issued with humanitarian visas by the Czech Republic, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavský said.
The Finnish government is considering ways to sharply reduce Russian tourism and transit through Finland, the country’s prime minister Sanna Marin said.
Russian deserters fleeing the partial mobilisation may be able to obtain protection in Germany, the German interior minister has said.
Wopke Hoekstra: “The Netherlands strongly condemns the fake referenda in eastern Ukraine and the partial military mobilisation in Russia. It is crucial to continue and up our support for Ukraine: more sanctions, more weapons, more aid. We must do all we can to help Ukraine stop Putin's bloodshed.”
British PM Liz Truss: Putin's nuclear threats will not work. PM Truss, in her address to the U.N. General Assembly, called Vladimir Putin's threats to use nuclear weapons "saber-rattling" and said "this will not work". “New UK weapons are arriving in Ukraine as I speak – including more MLRS rockets. We will not rest until Ukraine prevails.”
Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, & Moldova will create a free trade zone. In New York, the foreign ministers of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova signed a corresponding protocol.
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan banned their citizens from fighting in Ukraine. Criminal responsibility for this is from 5 to 10 years of imprisonment, confiscation of property is also possible.
Politico EU: Diplomats expect a discussion on a plan to cap the price of Russian oil, which is currently being discussed in the G7. The U.S. is pressuring the EU to make progress on an oil price cap before the EU’s ban against Russian oil imports comes into force in December. Other potential measures on the table could be more listings of individuals, a ban on the import on Russian diamonds and other luxury goods.
North Korea has released an official statement claiming that it has never supplied weapons to Russia and has no such plans.
Russia’s FM Lavrov walked out of a UN security council meeting after accusing Ukraine and its western allies of “impunity” in Donbas.
President Zelensky’s address at the UN
We can return the Ukrainian flag to our entire territory. We can do it with the force of arms, but we need time,” Zelenskiy said in a recorded broadcast to the UN general assembly on Wednesday, which Russia had tried to stop but was overwhelmingly voted down by member states.
Russia wants to spend the winter on the occupied territory of Ukraine … It wants to prepare fortifications on occupied land and carry out military mobilisation at home. We cannot agree to a delayed war because it will be even hotter than the war now.
Tadeusz Giczan on the importance of the prisoner swap
The release of the Azov leadership is an even bigger blow to Russian nationalists than the Kharkiv retreat. The retreat could be explained by the mistakes of the military, while the release of the Azov command undermines the very idea of "denazification".
Russian propaganda has been demonising the Azov regiment for the last eight years, telling stories about how they "kill Russian children of Donbas". They have become something like the SS and have been opposed to ordinary Ukrainian soldiers "who are just like us".
One of the main aims of denazification was the elimination of Azov, and the fall of Mariupol and their capture was the main triumph of the war to date. Their trial and execution were supposed to be the culmination of the "liberation" of Ukraine.
And then suddenly, when the cages for the tribunal were ready, they are swapped for the father of Putin's goddaughter (Viktor Medvedchuk). For Russian nationalists, this is akin to the USSR capturing General Rommel along with an SS division in 1942 and swapping them for Stalin's son.
With the Kharkiv defeat, Putin has already turned a large part of Russian nationalists against himself, but today, by his betrayal, he has practically become their enemy number one making it clear to everyone that the idea of "denazifying Ukraine" was just a bluff.
And as if that wasn't enough, on the same day, by announcing the mobilisation, Putin also destroyed Russia's main social contract of the last 30 years - you let us get rich and we stay out of your private life.
This will soon anger not only politicised activists but a huge apolitical part of the population, something completely unprecedented. It's still too early but I'm pretty sure future historians will mark 21.09.22 as one of the key days in the fall of Putin's Russia.
Keir Giles- Russia and Eurasia programme of Chatham House- on Putin’s announcement
For long-term Russia watchers, the most striking aspect of Putin’s speech was how little his claims about Ukraine and the world had moved on since his last major speech at the launch of his invasion in February. The central myth that the west wants to destroy Russia has now been embellished with the notion that the country has been threatened with western weapons of mass destruction. But otherwise, it was as though the collision with reality Russia’s military has experienced over the past six months had had no impact at all on Putin’s outlook.
The speech was primarily for a domestic audience, one that is preconditioned to accept, or at least tolerate, the looking-glass version of the world that Putin presents. But it also contained the familiar nudge and wink nuclear half-threats, designed to give western leaders the excuse they may be looking for to slacken support for Ukraine. Even here, though, there was an edge of desperation. “It’s not a bluff,” said Putin – a recognition that all his previous threats against the west, nuclear and non-nuclear, have been shown to be hollow as successive Russian “red lines” have evaporated in the face of western determination.
The speech is a further recognition that Russia has been unable to win on the battlefield – so, to defeat Ukraine, it has to win elsewhere. That win, Putin hopes, will come through undermining Ukraine’s international support. It’s a dare to the west and a play for the fearful among western leaders – especially those who read Russian nuclear intent from Moscow’s propaganda rather than from its doctrine.
Natia Seskuria, Why the EU Should Ban Russian Tourists- Foreign Policy
Allowing Russian citizens to enjoy the perks of travelling in the EU while their government is killing innocent Ukrainians is morally and politically wrong. It furthermore encourages Russians to distance themselves from politics and claim that they are ‘apolitical’- and hence do not really have a view on Russia’s war in Ukraine. A visa ban would force them to take sides, and it sends a message to each citizen that unless they oppose and condemn the war, there is no space for them in the West.
Emily Clark, The Underground Network of Belarusians sabotaging Vladimir Putin’s War- ABC Net
The Belarusians' fight is a personal one. They believe if Russia fails in Ukraine, the people of Belarus will be closer to freedom at home.
This network had been slowly gaining momentum and members while formulating "a secret plan" for a coordinated uprising against Lukashenko's regime when Putin's forces arrived in Belarus in January.
Russian propaganda works…
A recent survey in Italy reveals that 49% of those polled said Ukraine should not be helped. The motivations are: 1) it is not right to help them; 2) if we continue helping them, the war won’t finish.
Just after the war and well into the spring, the polling revealed that close to 70% of Italians polled said it it was right to help Ukraine, but starting in May those numbers dropped. The propaganda campaign to depict PM Draghi and the alliance members as the principal cause of the continuation of the war picked up steam, and this is what has resulted.
The tweet below is about a programmed aired last night on the private pro-Kremlin channel, Byoblu, and along with Dugin, there were the crème de la crème of Kremlin proxies.
Politico EU: Italian business going with Meloni
According to recent polls, Meloni is set to win in the northern regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Piedmont — formerly strongholds of Salvini’s League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. Business owners are intrigued by Meloni’s promises to cut taxes and red tape and, since neither Berlusconi nor Salvini delivered on that, they’re willing to give Brothers of Italy a go.
Trump cooking the books
