Ukraine Invasion: Part 17

[MagicFox]

A new place for us to convene, thread 17.

Talks:
english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2022/03/27/Blinken-says-Israel-mediation-on-Ukraine-war-important-closely-coordinated-with-US
Blinken says Israel mediation on Ukraine war important, closely coordinated with US

Science:
apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-space-exploration-science-business-mars-38ded59c1f3796cab7c5abe21bb69207?utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow
Without Russia, science going solo on world’s woes, dreams

Chernihiv:
news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-those-trapped-in-besieged-city-of-chernihiv-united-in-fight-for-survival-12576282?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
Inside the city with no escape after the Russians destroyed its only bridges
Kseniia Chernoskutova tells Sky News: "People try to do their best to help everyone. We got united and got connected with this situation and we do all we can to help each other."

@RedToothBrush thank you for that quote. How recent was Zelensky’s speech? I’ve just seen some Ukrainians on Twitter saying Mariupol has been taken. Also earlier posts here said the Snake Island troops had been released as part of a hostage exchange.

Has anyone seen anything much being talked about the theatre in Mariupol that was bombed? It seems tragically accepted that all those who survived the initial bombing have almost certainly all died now because no one has been able to get them out, yet I’ve seen hardly any reference to it beyond the first day or so after it happened. Not saying it’s suspicious at all, just odd that such a big tragedy hasn’t had much focus on it’s ending. Like stating the obvious would be too much to bear.

@DGRossetti

Also the Ukrainians successful targeting and assassinating top generals suggests that (a) the Wests intelligence is pretty awesome and (b) whoever it's being given to in Ukraine is doing a damn good job of using it.

Speaking of spying.

www.ft.com/content/bd74a542-3ce3-44de-a93a-36dc5929912b?segmentid=acee4131-99c2-09d3-a635-873e61754ec6
‘Tip of the iceberg’: rise in Russian spying activity alarms European capitals

"Eight serving European intelligence officials and diplomats interviewed by the Financial Times said Russia’s covert operations in Europe had been expanding at a rate that counter-espionage efforts have struggled to match".

“For many years there has been a conspiracy of silence, with western powers reluctant to talk about Russian activities or even go after them.”

Max Seddon @max seddon
'Austria is a “veritable aircraft carrier” of covert Russian activity... Its BFV agency is so compromised that for a time it was cut out of much European intelligence sharing... The country’s defence ministry is “practically a department of the GRU”'

Dr Cristina Vanbergen @vanburgeneu
#EU officials warning we rely on US/UK intelligence due to restrictions on surveillance &resources. #Russia’s covert operations in #EU have been expanding at a rate that counter-espionage efforts have struggled to match with agencies slow to respond to growing scope of operations

www.vice.com/en/article/v7dnvx/russian-spy-europe?utm_source=VICEWorldNews_twitter&utm_medium=social
A Bunch of Russian Spies Are About to Get Their Butts Kicked Out of Europe

Three officials from NATO member countries in the EU declined to speak on the record or provide exact numbers but described the Russian embassies in Paris, Brussels, Vienna and Prague as, in the words of one official, “overstuffed like a goose, but with spies.”

“All across Europe we find Russian embassies staffed far in excess of the diplomatic requirements,” said a senior NATO counterintelligence official based in Brussels. “Of course there’s usually an intelligence element to most embassies, but the sheer number of Russians assigned around Europe is a brazen attempt to abuse diplomatic immunity.”

[quote HeechulOppa]@RedToothBrush thank you for that quote. How recent was Zelensky’s speech? I’ve just seen some Ukrainians on Twitter saying Mariupol has been taken. Also earlier posts here said the Snake Island troops had been released as part of a hostage exchange.

Has anyone seen anything much being talked about the theatre in Mariupol that was bombed? It seems tragically accepted that all those who survived the initial bombing have almost certainly all died now because no one has been able to get them out, yet I’ve seen hardly any reference to it beyond the first day or so after it happened. Not saying it’s suspicious at all, just odd that such a big tragedy hasn’t had much focus on it’s ending. Like stating the obvious would be too much to bear.[/quote]
I think its within the last 24 hours.

I think there is a last stand going on.

Tim White @TWMCltd (within the last 5 mins)
Some more encouraging news for #Ukraine is that the heroic defence of #Mariupol' continues.

The🇺🇦 forces General Staff reports another attempt by Russia to take control was repelled. They reckon 150 RU soldiers were wiped out along with 10 vehicles, two of which were tanks.

@HeechulOppa

Reports on the theatre were converging on total of 300 dead:

apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-kyiv-europe-moscow-b56759e5d40db18e94bef8e42db23e47

Given circumstances in many parts of eastern Ukraine I'm sure it's hard for reporters to move around at all, let alone to provide frequent updates on single events.

"Eight serving European intelligence officials and diplomats interviewed by the Financial Times said Russia’s covert operations in Europe had been expanding at a rate that counter-espionage efforts have struggled to match".

On spying, assuming the spy is not Russian, what would motivate a Westerner to spy for Russia? How does Russia find its spies within the European institutions? I am ignorant of how espionage and counterespionage works.

Illia Ponomarenko @IAPomomarenko
Something to watch very closely now: potential Russian reinforcements to the Izium area, probably at the expense of the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy axes of attack.
Their only possible way is to try and surround Ukraine’s Donbas military group now.

Nexta @nexta_tv
Bellingcat investigator Hristo Grozev said that #Russia has spent billions of dollars since 2014 on a pro-Russian politicians and propagandists in #Ukraine. However, all this money was simply stolen and fake reports came to the Kremlin that the invaders would be met with flowers.

@RedToothBrush

Nexta *@nexta*_tv Bellingcat investigator Hristo Grozev said that #Russia has spent billions of dollars since 2014 on a pro-Russian politicians and propagandists in #Ukraine. However, all this money was simply stolen and fake reports came to the Kremlin that the invaders would be met with flowers.

Given how highly Bellingcat is rated, that's reliable - and hilarious.

Putin was once going to be prosecuted for encouraging corruption when he was on his way up, until he pulled strings. I wonder if he seriously thought that everyone was corrupt except his own servants?

The rhetoric used on Russian state tv here seems much worse than it was a few weeks ago. Worse because it's both dialled back (less mad statements) and more escalatory (weirdly, calmly existential). What do you make of this talk? I know this is a big propaganda channel, but that's not comforting. I don't like what this guy says here.

twitter.com/dalperovitch/status/1508159241265291264?s=21&t=09fLYwCVVzsBfEsJer5QVw

@blueshoes

On spying, assuming the spy is not Russian, what would motivate a Westerner to spy for Russia?

All sorts of reasons..handful I can think of:

Ideology (maybe no as common now as was).

Money - making a bit of cash by elig info.

Blackmail - the Soviets used to, Russians probably still do try and compromise somebody who they considered a suitable target (perhaps due to the nature of their work) and then threaten to expose them to their boss/spouse/the papers unless they started providing whatever the handlers wanted.

How does Russia find its spies within the European institutions?

Couple of stories here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Five

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/revealed-welsh-fighter-pilot-jailed-2035807

what would motivate a Westerner to spy for Russia?
Money
Blackmail
The thrill of it
Grass is always greener mindset
Are probably some of the main ones.

Another translation of Zelensky's interview. Slightly different details :

Natalia Krapiva @natynettle
NEW: @ZelenskyyUa just gave a remarkable interview to Russian independent journalists from @meduzaproject @kommersant @novaya_gazeta & @tvraine, who defied Russian government orders not to release it.

Here are some highlights in English.1/

2/ Zelensky: “[Russian government’s] refusal to see Ukraine as an independent state is a shared tragedy of Ukrainian & Russian people,” as he sees Russian people (народ) as separate from the Russian government (власть).

3/ Zelensky says that he is “99.9% certain” that Russian leadership was told by pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine that Ukrainian people were awaiting Russian forces with “flowers and smiles” and that Zelensky’s government was widely unpopular.

4/ @tikhondzyadko asks Zelensky to clarify the number of dead/POW on the Russian side. Zelensky says Ukraine shares all the lists with the Russian army. Many of the killed Russian soldiers are “children,” born in 2003-2004, & Russian side refuses to acknowledge them/take their bodies.

5/ Zelensky gets very emotional as he is saying that even cats & dogs get better treatment after they die than killed Russian soldiers who Russian government is refusing to acknowledge & instead is offering “trash bags” to Ukraine. “They are not just cattle,” says Zelensky.

6/ Zelensky says Russian gov’s disregard for the lives of its own people is a tragedy that is affecting Ukraine. A lot of Russian soldiers (“children,” he repeats), as Ukrainian intelligence confirms, didn’t understand where they were going. They were sent to be slaughtered in Ukraine

7/ Despite this, Zelensky says he doesn’t know if Ukrainian people will ever be able to forgive & restore their relationship with Russian people. If the war continues, every single Ukrainian will have someone in their family as a victim of Russian aggression.

8/ As to Russian language, Zelensky says he never has any problem speaking Russian if someone is addressing him in Russian. But the biggest harm that was done to the Russian language was done by Putin himself as Russian speaking cities were destroyed by his army.

9/ Paraphrasing Zelensky: The Russian people aren’t somehow our enemy just because they haven’t overthrown #Putin. But each Russian has a responsibility to speak out about the invasion, even if it's just to 1 other person.

10/ Zelensky confirms several Russian oligarchs, including Abramovich, offered to send money to Ukrainian army, rebuild Ukraine, and move their businesses there. Zelensky says any Russian businessperson who is ready to support Ukrainian army will be offered security & job.

10/ Zelensky confirms several Russian oligarchs, including Abramovich, offered to send money to Ukrainian army, rebuild Ukraine, and move their businesses there. Zelensky says any Russian businessperson who is ready to support Ukrainian army will be offered security & job

Mm, the price of welcoming oligarchs who trained under Putin might be very high. Their methods are not going to be conducive to an open and high-integrity marketplace.

@Ijsbear

10/ Zelensky confirms several Russian oligarchs, including Abramovich, offered to send money to Ukrainian army, rebuild Ukraine, and move their businesses there. Zelensky says any Russian businessperson who is ready to support Ukrainian army will be offered security & job

Mm, the price of welcoming oligarchs who trained under Putin might be very high. Their methods are not going to be conducive to an open and high-integrity marketplace.

My thought was disaster capitalism is how Abramovich made his millions in the first place.

I would be concerned about the potential of that...

Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof
To put it in perspective, Russia is visually confirmed to have lost in Ukraine in one month the entire tank stock of the French Army and half of the stock of the British Army.

The videos of the young Russian soldiers receiving their medals is tragic. Most looked very young who’d suffered life changing injuries. What a waste! Hopefully the true stories of the war will be spreading in Russia. What they’ll do with the information though, who knows. Lately it’s just looking hopeless for Russian people

Thanks @RedToothBrush and @notimagain - I really appreciate your replies

Shashank Joshi @shashj
The Economist—including our editor, @zannymb—interviewed Volodymyr Zelensky in his Kyiv compound this week. "Mr Zelensky divides NATO into four camps."
www.economist.com/europe/volodymyr-zelensky-on-why-ukraine-must-defeat-putin/21808448
Volodymyr Zelensky on why Ukraine must defeat Putin
At his headquarters in Kyiv, Ukraine’s president speaks to The Economist about his country’s battle and the struggle of light over dark

[rtb: its actually five camps]

Mr Zelensky divides NATO into four camps:

First those who "don't mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this comes at the cost of Ukraine and losing Ukrainian lives".

Others want a quick end to the war because "Russia's market is a big one [and] their economies are suffering." They would like to see Russia keep certain markets.

A third, more diverse, group of countries "recognise Nazism in Russia" and want Ukraine to prevail.

They are joined by smaller liberal countries that "want the war to end quickly at any cost, because they think people come first".

And last are the embarrassed countries that want peace now and in any way possible because they are "the offices of the Russian Federation in Europe"

Shashank Joshi @shashj
"Mr Zelensky praises America and Britain...he acknowledges that Mr Biden has become increasingly engaged. But Germany, he says, is trying to strike a balance between Russia and Ukraine."

And my colleague @olliecarroll with another perspective on the interview. 'Asked what he needs most from the West [Zelenksky] immediately responds: “Number one, aeroplanes,” a smile flickers across his eyes: “Number two, but it’s really number one, tanks”'

It seems unlikely to me Zelensky would be asking for planes & tanks if this is not what his generals were telling him to ask for. Suggests that Ukr conventional forces do need replenishment; an army cannot survive on ATGMs alone.

Uk clearly fails into group 3 btw. My reading is we wanted to give the tanks, but got blocked and then gave a shit excuse to try and deflect criticism.

@Shuuu

The videos of the young Russian soldiers receiving their medals is tragic. Most looked very young who’d suffered life changing injuries. What a waste! Hopefully the true stories of the war will be spreading in Russia. What they’ll do with the information though, who knows. Lately it’s just looking hopeless for Russian people

As ive seen on twitter, those men look dead behind the eyes and mortified at the experience. Its not an honour. And the medal may one day carry shame.

Its almost like a speeded up version of Vietnam vets knowing straight away how this is going to play out over time and how they will be discarded by the state the second the cameras stop rolling. And struggling to process it, the horror theyve experienced and how worthless it was.

Quote from the economist article:

“Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.”

I think that quote well sums up my view of humanity and how I look at events like this. I started reading books on war in my late teenage years because I was looking for the humanity not the direst and most dreadful stories.

Btw, has anyone else watched Servant of the People beyond whats on C4? Ive been watching on YouTube and quite honestly its jaw dropping. Its like a step by step manifesto or manual on how to challenge and take down corruption. If Putin has seen any of it, by god he must hate Zelensky and its not hard to then start to understand the mentally of Russians and how they saw Ukraine as a an existential threat. I am really enjoying in / am totally blow aware by how it stands up in hindsight from my nerdy mindset on the subject of democracy. I'm up to episode 14. I can't watch many at a time because it takes some concerntration but think the effort is rewarding.

There is one scene where the law makers are all fighting (physically in some cases) and Zelensky's character walks in and no one notices. So he shouts "Putin has been deposed" and they all immediately go silent and look at him. "Just kidding. I couldn't think of another way to get your attention".

Theres little one liners like that all the way through and you just go. Fucking hell.

From Institute for the study of war

Russian Eastern Military District (EMD) Commander Colonel-General Alexander Chayko may be personally commanding efforts to regroup Russian forces in Belarus and resume operations to encircle Kyiv from the west. The Kremlin is highly unlikely to have abandoned its efforts to encircle Kyiv but will likely be unable to cohere the combat power necessary to resume major offensive operations in the near future.
Neither Russian nor Ukrainian forces conducted major operations northwest of Kyiv in the last 24 hours.
Ukrainian forces counterattacking east of Brovary since March 24 successfully retook territory late on March 26.
Ukrainian forces conducted limited counterattacks in Sumy Oblast on March 26-27.
Fighting continued around Izyum in the past 24 hours, with little territory changing hands.
Russian forces continued steady advances in Mariupol.
Ukrainian partisans around Kherson continue to tie down Rosgvardia units in the region, likely hindering Russian capabilities to resume offensive operations in the southern direction.

If anyone hasn't seen it, the speech Zelensky gave to the European Council the other day was rather illuminating on what Ukraine thinks of the response of individual EU countries. I'm actually glad that the UK isn't tethered to the EU response in all this and that we'll be able to judge the government on what it does or doesn't do without them being able to outsource the blame to the EU.

I'm currently seeing a lot of Ukraine-based journalists saying that there are lots of sirens and explosions across many cities tonight and lots of artillery fire outside Kyiv. I'm still not buying that Russia has limited its aims.

I don't know much about recruiting spies, but I did follow a little about the Russians "buying" politicians and influential bodies in the US.

Back before the Trump was nominated as their presidential candidate in 2016, senior Republicans were caught on tape suggesting he and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher were paid by Russia. Even to those who don't like to believe ill of Trump, it should be clear that Rohrabacher was very close to Putin.

House majority leader to colleagues in 2016: ‘I think Putin pays’ Trump
www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-majority-leader-to-colleagues-in-2016-i-think-putin-pays-trump/2017/05/17/515f6f8a-3aff-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html

Republican dubbed 'Russia's favorite congressman' loses seat after 30 years
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/10/dana-rohrabacher-loses-congressional-seat-orange-county-russia-putin

One of the hooks Putin seems to have used (though Rohrabacher may not have needed it) was the "my enemy's enemy is my friend" line, with radical Islamists as the common enemy. I remember Michael Flynn was caught on that same hook.

That Washington Post article, dateline Kyiv 2017, is spectacular reading now in March 2022. Especially the placing of Paul Manafort in the US presidential campaign.

Ooo maybe we are group 1 not 3

Robert Peston @peston
ZelenskyyUa to @TheEconomist on whether @BorisJohnson wants a long or short war in Ukraine: «Britain wants Ukraine to win and Russia to lose, but I'm not ready to say whether Britain wants the war to drag on or not»