Sept 9 Buonasera Mag
Day 198: Kupyansk, Kherson, informants, Zaporizhzhia NPP, EU caps, UA POWs, US aid, China, microchips, stablecoins, Belarus, Blinken, Kadyrov. A&Ps: Hudson, Halushka, Nichols, Ryan, King Charles III
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.
Why is Kupyansk important: it’s a key logistical hub for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region.
UA Stratcom: Control over Balakliia provides further possibilities to advance on Izium and Kupiansk. All three cities are important logistical centres, which Russia uses to deliver military cargo. The Kupiansk railway station will become more vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to cut off the motorway towards Kupiansk, Vesele, and Izium, which will further complicate Russians' logistics and expose their rear. Due to the nature of the land, alternative supply routes will be difficult to organize.
Stories we’re following…
Zelensky: Armed Forces have liberated over 1,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian land since Sept. 1. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Ukrainian military has already liberated dozens of settlements as part of the ongoing counteroffensive in Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts.
Information provided to the Ukrainian Armed Forces by Ukrainians inside occupied territory has contributed to a recent rise in Russian personnel losses from 150-200 per day to around 600.
Ukraine’s western arms have inflicted ‘significant damage’ on Russian supply and communications lines, says a top US Officer. HIMARS alone has been used to hit more than 400 targets, Gen. Milley said at a meeting of Kyiv’s international supporters.
Official: Over half of Kherson Oblast residents have evacuated. Around half a million people have evacuated partially-occupied Kherson Oblast, Yaroslav Yanushevych, the head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration.
The head of the U.N. atomic watchdog says conditions at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia NPP are increasingly precarious and a safety zone around it needs to be established immediately to prevent a nuclear accident.
An explosion was reported on Sept 7 in Melitopol. The first took place at the HQs of the "We are together with Russia" movement, which is preparing referendums in the occupied territories. This was reported by the head of the Russian-controlled administration, Vladimir Rogov.
Ukrainian Ministry of Health: a total of 127 medical facilities have been destroyed and 826 have been damaged since the start of the invasion.
UN: Russian troops mistreat Ukrainian POWs. Matilda Bogner, the head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said the mission documented the mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian forces at the Olenivka penal colony.
Russian commanders throw inexperienced soldiers into the attack and shoot deserters without hesitation. Brigadier General Volodymyr Shvedyuk, the chief of staff of one of the groups of our troops in the eastern direction, said that the Russians first threw the mobilized into battle. At the cost of their own lives, they identify firing points from where Ukrainian defenders fire at them and destroy armored vehicles.
China buys Russian gas at 50% discount until the end of the year. China's imports of Russian liquefied natural gas soared to their highest level since 2020, according to Bloomberg data.
Russia is buying millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea, according to newly declassified American intelligence, a sign that global sanctions have severely restricted its supply chains and forced Moscow to turn to pariah states for military supplies.
UKR PM Denys Shymal stated that, due to a lack of microchips needed to control the weapons, “Russians have already spent almost half of their weaponry arsenal” in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government is also putting notices out that Russia is putting together “shopping lists” of microchips, transistors, and other advanced technology that Russia cannot produce itself, for import, and urged the international community to avoid inadvertently supplying Russia with these items.
Deputy Finance Min Moiseyev stated that Russia is exploring the use of stablecoins to facilitate payments with so-called “friendly countries” that have not yet sanctioned Russia. He stated that the proposal would avoid the use of dollars or euros in this format.
Belarus holds military drills at borders with Ukraine, Poland. Belarus' Defense Ministry said its military will conduct drills in the country's regions bordering Ukraine and Poland and its Minsk and Vitsebsk regions until Sept. 14. According to Deputy Chief of Ukraine’s General Staff Oleksii Hromov, the drills will allegedly focus on crossing the border with Ukraine and taking parts of Ukraine that Belarus deems so-called “lost territories”.
President Biden has approved additional military aid to Ukraine worth up to $675 million, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin has said.
Blinken spoke with Zelenskyy on Thursday. His message, on behalf of the United States: "We're with Ukraine today. We will be with Ukraine tomorrow and for however long it takes to deal with Russia's aggression," he told reporters the following morning in Poland. "And I come away, again, very confident in Ukraine's future because the Ukrainians are fighting for their homeland. It's their homeland, not Russia's," Blinken said.
Pentagon Preparing Assessment of Long Term Support for Ukraine: on Sept 7, CNN reported that the Pentagon is preparing a detailed assessment on medium and long term support for Ukraine. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley is leading efforts in this space.
An EU executive has pledged to devise unprecedented measures in the coming days to address an energy price shock as a result of Russia’s war on Ukraine, including a controversial gas price cap that could further anger the Kremlin.
EU finance ministers supported a 5 billion euro ($5 billion) loan for Ukraine to help maintain the country’s schools, hospitals and other needed operations in the midst of Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine wants more Russia sanctions but Brussels can’t help: diplomats and officials say nobody wants to talk about a new sanctions package after Hungary stalled the last one.
The Eurobarometer reported a rise in the trust in the EU amid support for the EU's response to Russia invasion of Ukraine and energy policies - 78% of Europeans support economic sanctions imposed by the EU on the Russian government, companies and individuals.
Ukraine has been formally invited to join to the EU-Common Transit Countries’ Convention on a Common Transit Procedure and the Convention on the Simplification of Formalities in Trade in Goods.
US sanctions Iranian companies over drone sales to Russia. The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on four Iranian companies and one individual for the development and shipment of Iranian drones to Russia.
Moldova’s national airline has announced the resumption of flights to Russia. In a statement on its website, Air Moldova said it would begin operating flights to Moscow starting on 1 October.
Germany New poll: 70% of Germans want to keep supporting Ukraine despite high energy prices. Support for Ukraine is highest among supporters of the Greens (97%) and lowest on the far-right (30%).
Ramzan Kadyrov, the authoritarian leader of Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya, has backed away from recent comments he made about possibly stepping down, saying he now aims to break the record for holding the post of regional leader -- 27 years.
On Sept 8, Russian police raided the homes of journalists in multiple Russian cities, including Vecherniy Vedomosti editor-in-chief Vladislav Postnikov in Yekaterinburg, RIA Novosti reports that the common thread between the journalists is their alleged connections to February Morning, a media project founded by former State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev.
As of today Navalny is no longer allowed to communicate confidentially with his lawyers or family. All incoming and outgoing documents will be subject to a three-day censorship check. This could effectively mean no communication at all.
Hudson, Wounded Ukrainian soldiers reveal steep toll of Kherson offensive- WaPo
The soldiers were interviewed on gurneys and in wheelchairs as they recovered from injuries sustained in last week’s offensive. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid disciplinary action. Others, like Denys and Ihor, agreed to reveal only their first names. But most spoke plainly about the disadvantages they faced.
Tom Nichols, The New Anti-Soviet Resistance- The Atlantic
The Soviet experience killed trust and initiative among the subjects of the Soviet empire, yet Putin’s attempt to restore that empire has instead restored something like civic virtue in Ukraine. Derided by Putin and other Russians as a fictional country, Ukraine is now much more an example of a cohesive nation than Putin’s somber and dispirited Russia. Reading the passage above, I wonder how many of my fellow citizens in America could rise above their bickering and grievances to cooperate this way. It was possible in the country I once knew; today, I’m not so sure.
Liberation
Ronja Ganster et al, Designing Ukraine’s Recovery in the Spirit of the Marshall Plan- General Marshall Fund
This paper is an effort by GMF to help fill this void and to stimulate the debate about a meaningful Western plan for Ukraine’s recovery. It is not a full blueprint for such an effort but a structured collection of recommendations for donor governments and international institutions. It limits itself to the challenges of designing and implementing such a plan and does not comment on Ukraine’s National Recovery Plan. GMF hopes to follow this up with a broader, more comprehensive publication later in 2022 that will cover areas that this paper only touches upon, such as the role of civil society in the recovery process.
MacKenzie Ryan, ‘A white nationalist pyramid scheme’: how Patriot Front recruits young members- The Guardian
Patriot Front’s fundraising and mobilizing efforts, those experts say, reveal a corporate-style organization that more resembles a media production company with satellite offices than a classic neo-Nazi group.
“No other white supremacist group operating in the US today is able to match Patriot Front’s ability to produce media, ability to mobilize across the country, and ability to finance,” says Morgan Moon, investigative researcher with the ADL Center on Extremism. “That’s what makes them a particular concern.”
At the announcement of Queen Elizabeth II’s death…
