Sept 28 Buonasera Mag
Day 218:HIMARS, RU rebranding, Lyman, NS1-2, EU sanctions, Georgia, Serbia, Albania, Turkey, UK eco-A&Ps-Kaleniuk, Hertling, Avdeeva, Blas, VDL, Shekhovtsov, Hoxha, Toth Czifra, Lee, Harvey
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…
UK Ministry of Defence: “Russia is mounting a more substantive defence than previously” as Ukraine attempts to press forward “on at least two axes east”.
ISW: Russia may attempt to reframe invasion of Ukraine as 'counterterrorism operation.' The Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment that Russian officials may try to justify their occupation of annexed Ukrainian territory as a “counterterrorism operation.”
AP says US will give Ukraine 18 more HIMARS. The Associated Press reported that the new U.S. $1.1 billion military aid package will include 18 HIMARS and other weapons "to counter drones that Russia has been using against Ukrainian troops."
Ukrainian authorities say they have identified 5 Russian soldiers who allegedly shot at civilian cars in the Kyiv region during the first days of the war. CCTV footage gathered by Ukrainian investigators shows Russian units shooting at civilian cars along roads just outside Hostomel, a town north-west of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
Officer of Russian Bars-13 unit stationed in Lyman says Ukrainian forces captured (read liberated) Katerynivka, Nove, Kolodyazi and Novoselivka settlements in Donetsk Oblast. He adds the situation is becoming critical for the Russian forces in the area.
Two explosions recorded on seismographs a few hours prior to the leaks being spotted at the same coordinates according to SVT. More than half of the gas in the damaged Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea has already leaked into the atmosphere, the head of the Danish Energy Agency has said.
Sergej Sumlenny: It looks like Putin has deliberately and physically destroyed every pipeline of NS1 and NS2 except of one NS2 pipe. It is blackmailing: you want gas, you must accept the deliveries via NS2. And it looks like NS2 turned to a cult for Putin.
German authorities: the Nord Stream 1 could become “unusable forever” after major leaks into the Baltic Sea, according to reports. Tagesspiegel has cited government sources as warning that large volumes of salt water will flow into the pipelines and cause corrosion if leaks in the two lines are not repaired quickly.
Norway’s PM has said its military will be more visible at oil and gas installations as politicians across Europe warned the suspected sabotaging of the two Nord Stream pipelines could herald a new stage of hybrid warfare targeting vulnerable energy infrastructure in order to undermine support of Ukraine.
Denmark’s PM: We see the Nord Stream leaks as deliberate actions. We don not see a direct military threat against Denmark.
Gas prices have risen on fears that Russia could halt supplies to Europe through Ukraine, adding to turmoil caused by damage to the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea. The Kremlin-controlled gas company Gazprom said it could impose sanctions on Ukraine’s Naftogaz due to ongoing arbitration.
As anticipated, the new package of Russia sanctions is designed “to make the Kremlin pay” for escalating the conflict in Ukraine through mobilisation and “sham referenda that are an illegal attempt to grab land and change international borders by force”, she said.
The proposed eighth sanctions package includes further import bans on Russian products, expected to deprive Moscow of an additional €7bn in revenues.
The EU will also extend export bans on key technology used for the military such as aviation items, electronic components and specific chemical substances. This will “weaken its capacity to modernise” Russia’s military base, she said.
The sanctions package will lay the legal basis for an oil price cap and ban EU citizens from sitting on governing bodies of Russian state-owned companies, she said.
ISW: Russian forces are reportedly committing newly-mobilized Western Military District (WMD) men to the Kherson and Kharkiv Oblast frontlines without prior training.
The Polish and Bulgarian Ministries of Foreign Affairs advise against any travel to the Russian Federation in connection with the war in Ukraine and the recognition of Poland by the authorities of the Russian Federation as an unfriendly state. Romania has now sent out the same message to its citizens in Russia.
US embassy issues warning to Americans to leave Russia 'immediately'. “Russia may refuse to acknowledge dual nationals’ U.S. citizenship, deny their access to U.S. consular assistance, prevent their departure from Russia, and conscript dual nationals for military service.”
Anastasia Davydova, General Secretary of the Russian Olympic Committee, 5-time Olympic gold medalist in synchronized swimming has fled Russia.
The Moscow Times is reporting that authorities in the Russian region of North Ossetia, which borders Georgia, is putting in place travel restrictions to prevent people fleeing to Georgia to avoid conscription.
Russians who are running from the country at the border with Georgia are being greeted by anti-war protestors with Ukrainian flags and protest banners.
The Kremlin’s planned annexation of occupied Ukraine may take place before or shortly after October 1, the start of Russia’s normal fall conscription cycle, to enable the forced conscription of Ukrainian civilians to fight against Ukraine.
The next planned session of Russia’s Federation Council will probably take place on 4 October, and could see the legislative moves from Moscow to absorb the four areas of Ukraine that its forces at least partially occupy. Vyacheslav Volodin, the chair of Russia’s state Duma, has hailed the “results”, saying they will “save millions of people from genocide.”
Albanian Amb. Hoxha Fer at today’s UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine: "The sham referendums run against the UN Charter, against UN resolutions, against International Law. They have zero legality, zero legitimacy, zero credibility and Albania will not recognize them."
Serbia’s president Vučić has said he will not recognise the results of the so-called referendums held in four regions of Ukraine partly occupied by Russian forces.
Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of the late #Iranian president Rafsanjani and a woman rights activist, was arrested for "inciting rioters", according to Tasnim News Agency.
Economic crisis in the UK
Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng have not appeared in public today to address the unfolding financial crisis, but the Treasury minister Andrew Griffith has done a round of broadcast interviews. In them he defended the government’s plans, which have largely been blamed for the seismic financial shock to markets.
Nick Timothy, who was chief of staff to former PM Theresa May, has attacked the government’s plan.
And it is not what Conservatives do. Ideology and unnecessary risks with market confidence are supposed to be what the other side does. We do need a different plan – but this is a disaster that should never have happened.
Departments will be asked to look for “efficiency savings” and told they must live within the budget constraints of the current spending review. The chief secretary to the Treasury Chris Philp will write to departments witthe next 48 hours setting out the request, a Whitehall source said.
András Tóth-Czifra, Putin Gambles on Winter and Orbán - Cepa
The Kremlin’s efforts to weaken the European Union’s (EU) support for sanctions and military aid using energy blackmail have so far failed. A harsh winter could still cause enormous problems, but European gas storage reached its desired level two months before the stated deadline, and Gazprom faces a near-total loss of its European markets — and much of its future export revenue — as buyers seek long-term contracts with reliable suppliers.
Putin’s hopes now hinge on the winds of winter — and on two EU member states: Hungary and Italy.
Benjamin Harvey, Sanctioned Putin Ally Says He Created Russian Mercenary Group- Bloomberg
A sanctioned Russian businessman linked to President Vladimir Putin has confirmed he created the Wagner private military contractor after years of denying any connection to the mercenary group.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said he founded the infamous group in May 2014 to send fighters to Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. “I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted out the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me,” he said Monday in a statement posted by his company on Russian social media.
Ukraine’s Chief-of-Staff Valeriy Zaluzhnyi is the architect of the Kherson counter-offensive.
Note the difference…
