Sept 3 Buonasera Mag Saturday Ed
Day 192: Kherson, UA-UK intel reports, Zaporizhzhia, Erdogan, Melitopol, EU gas cap, Levada Centre, Pushilin, RU hackers, Italian mafia, LEGO. Arts & Posts: Ben Schmitt, Davis, Barr, NYT
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.
The Battle of Kherson
Ukraine’s military: “in the region around the towns of Kherson and Enerhodar, precise strikes by our armed forces destroyed three enemy artillery systems as well as a warehouse with ammunition and up to a company of soldiers.”
Ukraine’s military has claimed that Russian forces suffered “significant losses” in Kherson. Ukraine’s successes have been “quite convincing”, according to a spokesperson for the southern Ukrainian military command, who added that more “positive news” would likely follow “very soon”.
Ukraine's intelligence: 40% of military equipment of Russia’s newly created 3rd Army Corps not ‘combat ready.’ A representative of Defense Ministry's Intelligence Directorate said that Russia had used its latest military equipment in February and March.
ISW: Russian officials, proxies, bloggers pushing false narratives around Ukraine's southern counteroffensive. The false narratives of a failed counteroffensive are likely meant "to exploit Ukrainian operational silence," according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Stories we’re following…
IAEA head, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said six of the team’s experts remained at the site to continue the work. He told reporters the mission would produce a report early next week of its findings. Grossi said military operations were increasing in the region of the plant, “which worries me a lot”. The military presence was not available when he asked to speak to them about the control centre, they did not approach his team and they were “withdrawn” throughout their visit to the Russian-controlled facility in south-eastern Ukraine.
Erdoğan has told Putin that his country can play a facilitator role regarding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, according to his office.
Russian troops launched overnight rocket attacks on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in Ukraine, according to the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Russia is able to send only around 300,000-350,000 soldiers to Ukraine. According to Vadym Skibitsky, representative of Ukraine's Defense Ministry Intelligence Directorate, Russia has been experiencing troop shortage since the start of the full-scale war.
RFE/RL: Russia plans to offer land plots in Crimea, Moscow region for military personnel. According to draft decree those who have “state awards” or “combat veterans” status or people currently participating in Russia's war against Ukraine might be entitled to land plots in Moscow Oblast and in the annexed Crimea for free.
Residents of the occupied city of Melitopol, Ukrainians who have accepted Russian passports, are now receiving orders to sign up for military service. One online user called it “cash back” for Russian Federation citizenship.
Reuters: Lavrov, Russian delegation yet to receive US visas for UN visit. Russia has not received the 56 visas required for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his delegation to travel to New York for an annual UN General Assembly on Sept. 13, Reuters reports.
Denmark has offered to provide the Ukrainian Army with winter uniforms.
Latvian president, defense minister ask NATO to provide Ukraine with Western-made tanks, jets. In an interview with The Times, Latvian President Egils Levits and Defense Minister Artis Pabriks urged NATO allies not only to support, but also increase military aid to Ukraine.
EU states, except for Hungary, agree to provide 5 billion euros in aid to Ukraine. EU economy ministers are expected to sign a political declaration in support of the macro-financial assistance package next week in Prague, Brussels-based publication Euractiv reported.
Part of German funding for Ukrainian culture will also go towards Russian opposition media. After a visit to Germany, Ukraine's Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko says that part of Germany’s 20 million euro aid program for Ukrainian cultural assets and for the support of refugees in the culture and media sectors will also go to support Russian opposition media.
Norwegian petroleum company Equinor exits Russia. Norway's state-owned energy company said on Sept. 2 that it had completely withdrawn from the Kharyaga field located in the northern part of the country.
We’ll find out tomorrow who the new Prime Minister in the UK is: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Liz Truss, or Rishi Sunak, former Chancellor of the Exchequer. Most analysts are putting their money on Truss.
Yesterday in Del Debbio’s TV show, Silvio Berlusconi asked him: "I saw that you talked to a beautiful girl in the report. Did you ask her for the phone?" "Obviously". Berlusconi: "You've learned everything, bravo".
Gorbachev’s funeral took place without state honours or the presence of Putin.
Grazprom- what a surprise!
Gazprom announced that the Nord Stream pipeline 1 would not restart on schedule on Saturday, citing turbine damage. The European Commission chief spokesman, Eric Mamer, said Gazprom was staging the shutdown “under fallacious pretences”.
Asked about the halt to the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, the EU commissioner for the economy, Paolo Gentiloni, pointed to high gas storage levels and said there were plans to conserve energy in the winter. He said:
We expect Russia to respect the contracts that they have. But even if weaponisation of energy continues or increases, the EU is ready to react.
Zelensky supports G7 decision to impose price cap on Russian oil, calls for same move on gas price. In a video address on Sept. 2, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that such a step would limit the flow of income to Moscow and “restore justice for all Europeans Russia is trying to blackmail with artificially inflated prices.”
Olga Tokariuk Spaces on universal jurisdictions
Ukrainian indepedent journalist and contributor to various international publications, has started up her highly informative spaces again. Yesterday’s discussion centered around the concept of Universal Jurisdiction with human rights leaders. Click on the tweet to access the recording.
The Levada Centre poll: do Russians support the war?
The Levada Center, finds that most Russians continue to support the invasion of Ukraine despite catastrophic losses and evidence of war crimes March: 80% April: 74% May: 77% June: 75% July: 76% August: 76%. It is still supported in great numbers in the 50+ age group, while less in the younger generations.
Follow up on Pushilin’s statements
Heads up: Donetsk was founded by a Welshman, Luhansk by an Englishman, Melitopol was a Nogay fort, Berdyansk a Cossack one. Any questions?
Russian hackers and the information they find
Russian hackers have accessed the private email of Gwythian Prins, a professor at the London School of Economics, in order to gain the correspondence and thus, information from Richard Dearlove, an ardent Brexiteer, is a former boss of MI6, the top British spy agency. There efforts also included Paul Mason, a former economics journalist on British TV news, and now a well-known political commentator who has urged fellow left-wingers to back British efforts to face down Russian President Vladimir Putin.
And both targets — though on opposite ends of the political spectrum — have one thing in common: Their personal emails swiftly appeared on fringe far-left websites, alongside forcefully-written narratives attacking the victims' motives but bearing questionable relation to the actual contents of the emails. These claims were then noisily amplified across like-minded corners of the internet, damaging the reputations of all involved.
Italian mafia weighing into the Italian general election
Intimidation and threats have begun to surface before the Italian general election.
In the tweet below, Roberto Saviano points out that the eyes of Paolo Borsellino, who was killed by a car bomb ordered by the mafia, have been rubbed out. The message is: for those who have ‘seen’, they will never ‘see’ again. Saviano explains that the mafia attacks its victims to ‘cancel their courage.’
Other acts of intimidation have been reported. A direct threat was made to the offices of La Stampa in Torino, and it’s happened before. The external walls of the building where La Stampa has its offices were covered in neo-Nazi graffiti. Many journalists for La Stampa courageously report on corruption and Russian economic and political capture in Italy.
Former US Attorney General Bill Barr on Trump
The F.B.I. found empty folders marked for classified files at Donald Trump’s home, prompting questions as to the whereabouts of the missing files. Officials found 48 empty folders marked as containing classified information and more than a dozen “top secret” documents in the search of Mr. Trump’s Florida residence, a court filing detailing what the F.B.I. retrieved shows.
The New York Times, Trump’s Tastes in Intelligence: Power and Leverage
He took little interest in secret weapons programs, but he often asked questions about the look of Navy ships and sometimes quizzed briefers on the size and power of America’s nuclear arsenal.
He was fascinated by operations to take out high-value targets, like those that led to the deaths of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, and Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a top Iranian commander. But the details of broader national security policies bored him.
LEGO for Ukrainian children
