Sept 24 The Saturday Edition
Day 214: current battle, sham ref, Iranian drones, NATO, EU/UN, Orban, China, Russians running, Iceland-A&Ps-Dutch ref, ISW, Giczan, Def of UA, Davis, Kozatsky, Lucas, Berlinski, Ben-Ghiat, Stradner
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.
Speaking of referenda, the Dutch have topped their trolling by proposing:
Stories we’re following…
The Russian mobilization system is struggling to execute the task Russian President Vladimir Putin set and will likely fail to produce mobilized reserve forces even of the low quality that Putin’s plans would have generated unless the Kremlin can rapidly fix fundamental and systemic problems.
Russian pro-war milbloggers and social media users are raising concerns about unlawful mobilization practices and showcasing many serious Russian mobilization problems on the second day of the mobilization effort.
UK Intelligence: Russian forces are probably trying to attack dams in Ukraine in order to flood Ukrainian military crossing points. Russian forces struck the Pechenihy dam on the Siverskyi Donets River with ballistic missiles or similar weapons on Wednesday and Thursday after striking a dam near Krivyy Rih in central Ukraine the previous week.
Zelensky’s message to the occupied territories
“Save your lives, help us weaken and destroy occupiers.” Zelensky also said people living under Russian occupation should "hide from Russian mobilization, avoid conscription letters, and try to get to the free territory of Ukraine."
Those who are forcibly mobilized into Russia's army should "sabotage any activity of the enemy, provide (Ukraine) with important information about the occupiers' bases, headquarters, ammunition warehouses, and at any opportunity, switch to (Ukrainian) positions," Zelensky said.
ISW: what is happening in Ukraine
Ukrainian forces continued to advance north and northwest of Lyman.
Ukrainian forces continued their interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast and maintained operational silence regarding Ukrainian progress on the axis.
Russian forces continued to launch unsuccessful assaults near Bakhmut and northwest of Donetsk City.
Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down an Iranian-made Mohajer-6 drone in an unspecified area of the Black Sea, likely near Odesa.
NYT: "Putin...has thrust himself more directly into strategic planning for the war in Ukraine in recent weeks...including rejecting requests from his commanders on the ground that they be allowed to retreat from the vital southern city of Kherson."
NYT: Putin rejects commanders’ requests to withdraw from Kherson. Putin has been more directly involved in planning Russia’s war in Ukraine, reports New York Times, citing unnamed U.S. officials.
Another Iranian drone shot down overnight in Odesa. That's 7 in just 18 hours. Iran says it regrets Ukraine’s decision to downgrade relations between the countries over reports it supplied Russia with drones, the Iranian foreign ministry has said.
SBU identifies Russian commander who ordered troops to torture Kherson residents. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said on Sept. 24 that it identified Alexander Naumenko, a Russian commander who reportedly instructed Russian troops to kidnap and torture Kherson residents.
White House: US ready to impose 'severe economic costs' on Russia. The U.S. is ready to "impose additional swift and severe economic costs on Russia" if it moves ahead with the annexation of occupied territories of Ukraine, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Stoltenberg: Russia will face ‘severe consequences’ if it uses nuclear weapons. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with CNN that the alliance seeks to prevent any use of nuclear weapons by Russia.
Former NATO Secretary General Rasmussen on Macron; "Macron astonished us at the beginning of the crisis with his, to say the least, unique and critical statement that Putin should not be humiliated and offered an exit ramp. Such statements were disastrous and deeply harmful."
Top EU official calls for suspending Russia from UN Security Council. European Council President Charles Michel said that Russia should be suspended for launching an “unprovoked and unjustified war.”
Charles Michel calls for EU countries to allow in fleeing Russians. European Council President Charles Michel said in an address to the UN General Assembly that the EU should demonstrate an “openness to those who don’t want to be instrumentalized by the Kremlin. In principle I think that … the European Union [should] host those who are in danger because of their political opinions. If in Russia people are in danger because of their political opinions, because they do not follow this crazy Kremlin decision to launch this war in Ukraine, we must take this into consideration.”
The Lithuanian foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said the country will not be granting asylum to Russians fleeing the country. “Russians should stay and fight. Against Putin.,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Finland to 'significantly restrict' border crossings from Russia amid mobilization for the war in Ukraine The decision is needed to prevent serious damage to Finland’s international position, the Finnish government said.
Estonia submits ICJ declaration denouncing Russian genocide in Ukraine. “Russia’s aggression on the pretext of preventing and punishing genocide has seriously undermined the meaning of such a horrible crime as genocide,” said Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu. Other states that have deposited their declarations include: Poland, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Romania, France, Sweden, US, UK, and New Zealand.
Marco Fattorini: “Among the "international observers" of the farce referendum of the Russians in Donetsk is the Italian researcher Eliseo Bertolasi, who in L'Antidiplomatico accuses "the Kiev regime with an inhuman face", the "mainstream" media and the West for " innocent bloodshed “.
British music stars Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran, US basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal and other celebrities will donate personal objects for a campaign launched on Saturday to support healthcare in Ukraine.
RUMINT: The European Union is going to cut Gazprombank off from SWIFT. This is the latest rumour that is floating around on possible actions by the EU.
Iceland: “Four have been arrested in Iceland for planning a terror plot. Police siezed dozens of firearms, including semi-automatic weapons. Part of the preparation involves 3d printed weapons. This is unprecedented in Iceland.”
Master trolling by Defense of Ukraine
Putin threatens nuclear escalation
As Putin’s full mobilisation and efforts to curb the outflow of Russians leaving the Federation fail, the new-ish narrative Russian propagandists and proxies are pushing through the pipelines is to threaten the West with nuclear strikes.
Dmytro Kozatsky, A Ukrainian soldier uploaded all his photos of Azovstal before he was captured- The Guardian
Dmytro Kozatsky, Azov Regiment fighter and photographer, documented the siege of the Azovstal metalworks. Before his capture he posted his pictures on social media, asking that they be shared as widely as possible. This is some of his work showing the realities of life during the battle. The Azov regiment retains some far-right affiliations
Warning: this gallery contains images some people may find upsetting
U.N. experts find that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine. NYT
Russian soldiers have raped and tortured children in Ukraine, a United Nations-appointed panel of independent legal experts said in a damning statement on Friday that concluded war crimes had been committed in the conflict.
A three-person Commission of Inquiry set up in April to investigate the conduct of hostilities in four areas of Ukraine laid out the graphic allegations in an unusually hard-hitting, 11-minute statement to the U.N Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“The commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined,” the panel’s chairman, Erik Mose, told the council.
At least 54 people have been killed by security forces in protests across Iran. Hundreds have been injured or arrested. Internet disruptions and cuts continue across the country.
Nightmares from the Zona, Convo with Dina Khapaeva
For the Cosmopolitan Globalists, Claire Berlinski and I spoke with Dina Khapaeva about the Russian war through a historical lens. It’s a long episode but well worth your time.
I became acquainted with Dina Khapaeva when I came across her article in the Atlantic about the Kremlin’s favorite book: Mikhail Yuriev’s 2006 utopian novel, The Third Empire: Russia as It Ought to Be. Monique Camarra and I discussed this and quite a bit more in our first podcast. We had a fascinating conversation, but it left us with many questions we thought merited further discussion, so we decided to speak again.
We were especially eager to hear more of Dina’s thoughts about the cult of the Great Patriotic War, as Russians call it, and the role Gulag plays in shaping post-Soviet culture. Dina argues both are central to understanding what’s happening in this war and its prospects. “I believe the historical amnesia of Stalinism,” says Dina, “and the unwillingness to criminalize that regime, is the true source of Putinism.”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, The Return of Fascism in Italy- The Atlantic
Brothers of Italy, which Meloni has led since 2014, has an underlying and sinister familiarity. The party formed a decade ago to carry forth the spirit and legacy of the extreme right in Italy, which dates back to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the party that formed in place of the National Fascist Party, which was banned after World War II. Now, just weeks before the 100th anniversary of the March on Rome—the October 1922 event that put Mussolini in power—Italy may have a former MSI activist for its prime minister and a government rooted in fascism. In the words of Ignazio La Russa, Meloni’s predecessor as the head of the Brothers of Italy: “We are all heirs of Il Duce.”
Nathan Hitchen, An Untuned Instrument: Strategic Counterintelligence in the Sino-American Technology Competition-The Hamiltonian
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is after the treasures of our society. Besides aiming industrial espionage at commercial sectors for pure economic advantage, China’s strategic intelligence targets are private-sector dependencies of the American national security establishment. Gaping holes in the security practices of the defense industrial base, high-technology firms, academia, critical infrastructure, and government agencies are fueling China’s comprehensive policy of industrial modernization to surpass the United States as the premier scientific and technological (S&T) power of the world. Consequently, we have a national counterintelligence (CI) challenge to protect a whole-of-society target.