Sept 5: E-Stories

Day 558 UNGenocide RUattacks UASitRep Moscow BehindLines Surovikin UAKids Crimea China NorKor ErdoganPutin Kuzminov UAE GER UK KakhovaDam A&P SovietX MacKay UKDef Alexander Panyi Tarnavskiy NoelReport

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.

"Currently, we do not have sufficient available evidence that would meet the legal qualifications provided for by the Convention on Genocide," the head of the independent international commission of the UN to investigate violations in Ukraine Erik Møse said.

"We are well aware of concerns and accusations regarding this crime. Therefore, we are investigating it step by step. Remember, it is a matter of intent, the intent of the perpetrators. There must be an 'intent' to destroy a specific group. And such destruction, according to the Convention, must be physical or biological. These are the stringent conditions [for recognizing genocide] supported by judicial practice," noted the head of the UN commission.

Monique: I’m not a jurist. That said, I simply don’t understand how there is INSUFFICIENT evidence of genocide?????? I mean…really????? Do all Ukrainians need to be killed before it is considered genocide? Bucha, Kharkiv, Izyum, Mariupol…need I continue?

This is devastating. It’s playing on all the Russian Telegram channels and they’re gloating.

Stories we’re following…

A total of 32 Shahed drones were launched at Ukraine at night. 23 of them were shot down. During the day, the Russian invaders carried out 5 missile and 68 air strikes, and fired 42 times from rocket salvo systems. As a result of Russian terrorist attacks, civilians were killed and injured. Residential buildings and other civil objects were destroyed, General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine operational information as of 18:00 on 4 September 2023

• Russia has launched its second attack in two nights on Ukrainian ports, with Ukrainian officials warning residents of Izmail to remain in shelters in the early hours of Monday. The barrage of missiles lasted nearly 2 hours. In total 17 drones were shot down, but there are also hits in warehouses and production buildings of agricultural enterprises.

• In the Dnipropetrovsk region 6 Shaheds were shot down. There, an infrastructure facility was hit.

A Russian Shahed kamikaze drone fell and detonated on the territory of Romania, this was reported by the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleg Nikolenko based on information of the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service. The Ministry of Defense of Romania has responded with this statement:

"The Ministry of National Defense categorically refutes the information in the public space regarding a so-called situation that appeared during the night of September 3-4, in which Russian drones would have fallen on the national territory of Romania."

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Ukraine has photographic evidence that Shahed drones fell on the territory of Romania.

"I think that in this particular case, the Romanian authorities, are now studying all aspects of what happened. It's pointless to deny that something fell there. And we authoritatively claim, with evidence, that it was Shahed drones that flew there. We have photographic evidence that something fell there," he added.

Combat Situation Report:

Ukrainian troops liberated 3km² last week in the Bakhmut direction while also continuing the offensive in the Novodanylivka-Novoprokopivka sector, Hanna Malyar, Deputy Defense Minister, reports. "Last week it was very hot in Klishchiivka, Kurdyumivka and Ozarianivka," she added.

In his early update, Russian miliblogger WarGonzo reports that the AFU is advancing in the gray zone east of Novoprokopivka towards Ocheretuvate. In addition, the AFU is attacking near Dorozhnyanka.

Noel Reports: AFU advanced west of Verbove by entering a part of the infantry trenches behind the anti-tank ditches. If they can advance southward, RU defensive positions west of the infantry trench become untenable and heavy armor can be transferred in, making the anti-tank ditch useless.

Source: Noel Reports

Meanwhile…In Russia: Fire reported at warehouse in Moscow Oblast. A large fire is ongoing at a paint and varnish warehouse in the suburban town of Vidnoye in Moscow Oblast, Russian-state media reported on Sept. 3.

What’s going on? Another fire in Moscow. Emergency crews have been sent to a huge fire which broke out near the Moscow Leningradsky railway station.

The Russian gasoline market continues to rewrite price highs against the backdrop of a growing shortage of fuel that has engulfed the southern regions. On Monday, September 4, at the St. Petersburg International Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange, the cost of Premium-95 gasoline for the first time in history exceeded 75 thousand rubles per ton.

Behind the Lines: Months after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, which unleashed untold economic, environmental and human suffering, many communities are still reeling.

For 60-plus years, the Bezhan family ran a fishing business on these shores. They bought boats, nets, freezers and enormous rumbling ice-making machines, and generation after generation made a living off the fish. But now there are no fish.

“If the war ended tomorrow, and I don’t think it will,” said Serhii Bezhan, the family’s broad-chested patriarch, “it would take five years to rebuild that dam and then at least two more for the reservoir to fill up. Then it would take another 10 years for the fish to grow — for some species, 20.”

He looked away as his eyes misted up.

“I’m 50,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if I’ll even be around that long.”[continue]

Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov (who is about to be replaced by Rustem Umerov) said that one day of war costs Ukraine $100 million, and this is mostly state funds, not volunteer fees.

Behind the Lines: Russia is planning to launch an active mobilization process in occupied Crimea after the illegal elections, which will take place from September 12, according to partisan movement Atesh. Particular emphasis will be placed on retired police officers and other security officials. The document is currently being studied as to its authenticity.

Behind the Lines: The abduction of Ukrainian children and their subsequent transportation to Russia is being investigated as potential genocide by an independent international commission of inquiry on Ukraine. Chairman Erik Møse told a press conference on Monday that the commission is trying to establish what has happened to the children once they enter occupied territory or Russia itself.

Putin has signed a decree that will affect IT specialists and their recruitment for the war. The age limit age of deferment from conscription for IT specialists will increase from 27 to 30 years old. Looks like Russia needs IT specialists.

Russian service Radio Liberty: a report about the construction of a site for a Pantsir S-1 anti-aircraft missile system. By studying the coordinates of the images, the journalists were able to geolocate the site, which is located in Zarichia, a village less than 10 kms away from Putin’s residence.

"At the end of January, as can be seen from Google satellite images, the site was made stationary, and now the Pantsir site was surrounded by a fence, and podiums were built for installations...

These Pantsirs are installed less than 10 kilometres from the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Novo-Ogariov."

Kim Jong-un will visit Putin in Russia to discuss supplying North Korean weaponry for the Ukraine war. In a rare foray from his country, Mr. Kim plans to travel from Pyongyang, probably by armored train, to the Pacific Coast of Russia to meet with Mr. Putin, according to American and allied officials.

Russia’s defence minister proposed to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that their countries hold a naval exercise, along with China, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on Monday, citing South Korea’s intelligence agency. Yonhap reported that Shoigu had made the proposal for a three-way naval exercise to Kim during his visit but it provided no details.

WarGonzo reporting that a photo of General Surovikin with his wife has appeared online. We cannot vouch for its authenticity, but according to sources as close to the situation as possible, Surovikin has been unencumbered by any restrictions for more than a week, according to the Russian narrative.

In St. Petersburg, law enforcement officials accused a group of military doctors of creating an organized criminal group that, in exchange for bribes, gave false diagnoses to conscripts and exempted them from military service. As Kommersant writes with reference to the case file, the group of doctors was headed by the former head of the Center for Military Medical Expertise in St. Petersburg, Vladimir Kilimchuk. For their services, doctors demanded from 250 thousand to 300 thousand rubles.

The last major US bank, JSC Citibank, that maintains a presence in the Russian retail market intends to completely get rid of all ATMs in the country.

The Russian subsidiary of Citigroup (JSC Citibank), which is in the top 30 in the Russian Federation in terms of assets and held deposits of citizens for 153 billion rubles before the war, is dismantling the ATM network by the end of 2023, the credit institution said.

Starting from March 2023, Citibank began to charge a fee for holding foreign currency on accounts, and in August it stopped accepting cash in dollars and euros through its cash desks.

Selling the Russian business, however, will not be easy for the bank. The government commission that approves deals does not intend to let foreign credit institutions out of the country easily, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said last week.

Chinese banks have quadrupled lending to Russian ones since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

In the 14 months to March 2023, the total amount of credit claims of the four largest banks in China to Russian borrowers quadrupled, reports the Financial Times, for which the Kiev School of Economics conducted the corresponding calculations based on data from the Bank of Russia. If before the Russian invasion, Ukraine had this figure of $2.2 billion, then in March of this year it was already $9.7 billion.

All four banks - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China - are state-owned. The overwhelming share of loans to Russian credit institutions ($8.8 billion) falls on the two largest - ICBC and Bank of China.

Putin has now formally welcomed Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to talks in Sochi, saying they would discuss Ukraine and that Russia was open to talks on the Black Sea grain deal, which Moscow abandoned in July. Erdogan’s top economic policymakers are also visiting Russia on Monday, a Turkish official who requested anonymity told Reuters. Finance minister Mehmet Simsek and Hafize Gaye Erkan, the central bank governor, will attend meetings.

"The eyes of the whole world are fixed on the grain deal, there are a lot of expectations," Erdogan said. He added that after the talks in Sochi, he and Putin would hold a press conference where they would 'give a necessary message to the world.'

Erdogan said that during the meeting with Putin, the issue of settling the issue on the grain deal was raised. However, the proposed alternatives did not meet Russian expectations in terms of security and other aspects. Putin later said that Russia was forced out of the grain agreement but is 'ready to return to the grain deal, as soon as the promises made to them are fulfilled'. He also noted that Ukraine is attempting to attack gas pipelines through which fuel goes to Türkiye.

The US State Department has commented on the talks between Erdoğan and Putin concerning, among other things, the Black Sea Grain Initiative, CNN reports. The State Department spokesperson added that Russia's decision to end its participation in the initiative "hurts communities vulnerable to food insecurity around the world".

"We welcome the efforts of Turkey and other countries to convince Russia to return to the deal. We are engaging with the United Nations and with Turkey, both of whom have worked very hard to make BSGI (Black Sea Grain Initiative) both possible and functional."

Monique: The general feeling in the US is that Biden shouldn’t be running in the 2024 Presidential Election because he’s simply too old.

I hear this and I start to chuckle: he beat Trump in 2020, and has rallied US support on both sides of the aisle and overseas for Ukraine. Despite the loud and irritating voices of a few grifters, malign actors, and those playing to their electoral base, that support is solid.

Putin will probably die a painful death, and leave a legacy of Soviet inspired torture, mafia rule, poverty and terror. He can’t leave Russia because of the arrest warrant in his name, and if that isn’t bad enough, he has to look over his shoulders every day because his own security services are probably setting the stage for his exit. He must have been shaking when Prigozhin stopped just short of Moscow—his worst nightmare coming true—a Red Munity.

He is now forced to kneel at the feet of despots in North Korea and Iran, begging for weapons. At Russia’s most important international showcase event, the Economic Forum in St Petersburg, he had to address and exchange niceties with Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities sitting in the front row, while Russian state TV ran a disclaimer on the TV screens reminding viewers that the Taliban are considered a terrorist organisation by Russian law.

I can picture the security services and elite sitting around a table shooting off the mouth, complaining about how far down the hole has Russia fallen, and what a shitty impression they are making on the world stage. What an embarassment Putin must be—losing face to the American foe and losing money in general. It must burn them to no end.

Trump’s presidency was an embarassment to many Americans and their baffled cousins oversesas. He is facing years and years of legal battles and hopefully pretty soon, he’ll be donning an orange jump suit for crimes against his own nation.

Erdogan is now in the role of international benign mediator while his country is experiencing an acute economic crisis that he cannot resolve. He’s destroyed the legal system in Turkey and jailed the opposition. He’s hollowed out state institutions, placed loyalists in key positions, and enriched his cronies—corruption that paved the way for the death of over 37,000 Turkish citizens in an earthquake that hit them on February 6, 2023.

The sheer magnitude of the quake made it deadly, but academic research shows that earthquakes kill more people in countries affected by widespread corruption. The Turkish economy under Erdogan rode high on the back of a construction boom. He enriched a small circle of close associates from the construction sector by awarding them infrastructure projects without competitive tenders or proper regulatory oversight, writes Gonul Tol.

The history books of the future will look back on Biden’s presidency in these years as something the Americans can objectively applaud. He stood firm against tyranny’s most evil contemporary form—the aggressor nation, Russia, headed by Vladimir Putin. Ukraine shook our shoulders and showed the world that you can and must, and the US government and Congress stepped up to the task. Incredibly, this tired old man will probably see to the second collapse of the Russian empire.

Russian pilot who transferred to Ukraine calls on Russians to follow his example. Maksim Kuzminov, the 28-year-old Russian pilot of the Mi-8 helicopter who surrendered to Ukraine after landing in a Ukrainian airfield on Aug. 23, called on other Russian pilots to follow his example.

Zelensky: France to train Ukrainian pilots on fighter jets. France has joined the international coalition to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets, President Volodymyr Zelensky said after a Sept. 3 phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.

US, British and EU officials are planning to jointly press the United Arab Emirates to halt shipments of goods to Russia that could help Moscow in its war against Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Officials from Washington and European capitals were visiting the UAE from Monday as part of a collective push to keep computer chips, electronic components and other so-called dual-use products out of Russian hands, the report said.

The head of the Bundestag Defense Committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, said that Chancellor Olaf Scholz is the only one blocking the supply of long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine. "What is the Chancellor waiting for in God's name," she added.

Warsaw is ready to deport citizens who evade conscription into the army to Ukraine, the General Directorate of Police of Poland said. “In order to bring such people into the country, Ukraine must issue an international arrest warrant for each of them,” a spokesman for the agency told Rzeczpospolita.

NYT: China’s Ministry of State Security has even opened its first social media account, as part of what it described as an effort at increasing public engagement. Its first post: a call for a “whole of society mobilization” against espionage. “The participation of the masses,” the post said, should be “normalized.” China’s ruling Communist Party is enlisting ordinary people to guard against perceived threats to the country, in a campaign that blurs the line between vigilance and paranoia.

NYT: China’s Leader Looks Set to Skip G20 Summit in Snub to India. Xi Jinping has never missed the annual Group of 20 gathering since taking power in 2012. Beijing would not explain his apparent decision to forgo the event in New Delhi.

The United States expects to elevate its diplomatic relations with former foe Vietnam to the top level as President Joe Biden travels to Hanoi in a week, in a move that may irk China and with unclear business implications.

The leader of a coup that ousted Gabon's President Ali Bongo will address the nation for the first time as interim president after a swearing-in ceremony that would appear to solidify the junta's grip on power.

‘Everything is ahead of us’: Ukraine breaks Russian stronghold’s first line of defence—The Observer

Ukrainian forces have decisively breached Russia’s first defensive line near Zaporizhzhia after weeks of painstaking mine clearance, and expect faster gains as they press the weaker second line, the general leading the southern counteroffensive has said.

Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskiy estimated Russia had devoted 60% of its time and resources into building the first defensive line and only 20% each into the second and third lines because Moscow had not expected Ukrainian forces to get through.

“We are now between the first and second defensive lines,” he said, speaking to the Observer in his first interview since the breakthrough. Ukrainian forces were now pushing out on both sides of the breach and consolidating their hold on territory seized in recent fighting, he said.

“In the centre of the offensive, we are now completing the destruction of enemy units that provide cover for the retreat of Russian troops behind their second defensive line.”

A vast minefield trapped Ukrainian troops for weeks as infantry sappers slowly cleared an assault route on foot. But now that barrier has been crossed, Russians have been forced into manoeuvres and Ukrainians are back in their tanks and other armoured vehicles. In a sign that Moscow is feeling the pressure, it has redeployed troops to the area from frontlines inside occupied Ukraine – Kherson to the west and Lyman to the north-east – and also from inside Russia, he said.

“The enemy is pulling up reserves, not only from Ukraine but also from Russia. But sooner or later, the Russians will run out of all the best soldiers. This will give us an impetus to attack more and faster,” Tarnavskiy said. “Everything is ahead of us.”

A tank specialist by training, Tarnavskiy has built up an impressive track record fighting Russian troops since they crossed the border in 2022. Last September, he was made commander of the troops fighting to liberate Kherson; two months later the city was liberated.

When asked about Ukraine’s counteroffensive which seemed to be stalling, Tarnavskiy shrugged off that criticism, saying he preferred to judge a job when finished and thanking the UK and other allies for their support in training and weapons, including Challenger tanks that are already in the field. “When we started the counteroffensive ... we spent more time than we expected on de-mining the territories,” he admitted. “Unfortunately, the evacuation of the wounded was difficult for us. And this also complicated our advance.

“In my opinion, the Russians believed the Ukrainians would not get through this line of defence. They had been preparing for over one year. They did everything to make sure that this area was prepared well.”

When asked about slow progress breaking through Russian lines in another offensive further east along the enemy’s defensive line, he said it had other aims and added that Ukraine was preparing other surprise offensives to drain Moscow’s forces.

“To be successful in one direction, you always need to mislead the enemy. The main goal of the [offensive near the] village of Velyka Novosilka had a different aim,” Tarnavskiy said. He refused to be drawn on timelines for reaching big targets such as Melitopol, or the coastline for the Sea of Azov, but said fighting would continue.

Slow military progress over the summer bolstered those in western capitals calling for negotiations with Vladimir Putin to end the war. That position has been fiercely rejected in Ukraine, where many feel only total defeat of Russia will forestall another invasion; any settlement that rewarded Moscow for use of force would give it reason to try again in future. “If we stop advancing, the enemy will gather new forces and strengthen. We will reach the 1991 borders of Ukraine ... We don’t want to see our kids and even our grandkids fighting against Russians, and who is there to stop them? Only us.”

Tarnavskiy is commander of the Tavria operational and strategic group of forces, named after the historic region that included Crimea, a reminder of Ukraine’s military commitments, now sharpened by the losses of the last 18 months.

“The closer to victory, the harder it is. Why? Because, unfortunately, we are losing the strongest and best. So now we have to concentrate on certain areas and finish the job. No matter how hard it is for all of us.”

Signing off for the day…