Ukraine Invasion: Part 55

[MagicFox]

We're on 55. Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦 That last one went quickly!

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Live: Ukraine Telegram Highlights

❗️❗️Russia has taken control of Sudzha in the Kursk oblast, raising its flags near the city administration, according to Russian media
Awaiting official confirmation from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

🇨🇭 Switzerland’s arms exports are declining due to the ban on resale to Ukraine.
In 2023, Swiss exports of weapons, ammunition, and related materials dropped by 27%, followed by another 5% decline in 2024.
The reason for the downturn is Switzerland’s neutrality law, which prohibits sending Swiss-made weapons directly to countries engaged in armed conflicts and blocks the re-export of previously sold weapons.
As a result, Germany—Switzerland’s largest arms buyer—excluded Swiss companies from certain procurement deals, while Denmark and the Netherlands suspended their orders.
Now, the Swiss government is considering ways to address the issue and is exploring options to ease the restrictions.

🇪🇺 4.3 million Ukrainians under temporary protection as of January 2025 – Eurostat
As of January 31, 2025, nearly 4.3 million non-EU citizens who fled Ukraine due to Russia’s aggression were under temporary protection in the EU.
The EU countries hosting the largest number of beneficiaries were Germany (1,170,250 people; 27.3% of the total in the EU), Poland (993,015; 23.2%), and Czechia (394,985; 9.2%).
Compared to the end of December 2024, the total number of individuals under temporary protection in the EU increased by 25,530 (+0.6%) by the end of January.
The highest absolute increases were recorded in Germany (+8,800; +0.8%), Czechia (+6,360; +1.6%), and Spain (+3,050; +1.3%). Conversely, the number of beneficiaries decreased in Denmark (-2,245; -6.1%), France (-660; -1.1%), Austria (-420; -0.5%), and Lithuania (-155; -0.3%).
Relative to each country’s population, the highest rates of beneficiaries per 1,000 inhabitants were recorded in Czechia (36.2), Poland (27.1), and Estonia (26.0), while the EU-wide average stood at 9.5 per 1,000 people.
As of January 31, 2025, Ukrainians accounted for 98.4% of all temporary protection beneficiaries in the EU. Adult women made up nearly half (44.8%), while children accounted for almost a third (31.8%). Adult men represented less than a quarter (23.4%) of the total.
The share of men increased by 0.4% in one month. A year ago, adult men made up 20.4%, meaning their proportion has grown by 3% over the past year.

A Ukrainian soldier helped (x.com/ultrarightnow/status/1899135982948982865) save the life of a foreigner who was stabbed in Venice.

Meanwhile, podcaster Lex Fridman complained about a drone attack on Moscow, where he had arrived to interview Putin.
He said that a UAV flew “very close” to the place where he was staying. He also recalled that there was shelling when he visited Ukraine as well.

Confirmation:
Arrested ship's captain is Russian national
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c30mj5gq9d5o

I don’t believe in coincidences….

Yeah that seems very suspiciously like hybrid warfare activity

@Igotjelly

"I don’t believe in coincidences…."

I usually believe in cock up over conspiracy.

The Solong was on autopilot heading to Rotterdam in the fog with most likely no one (or no one capable) on the bridge. It happens all the time

The Russian Captain had no way of knowing that the Stena Immaculate was contracted to the US military to carry jet fuel (JP8 and not Jet A1 as reported in the press). Plus deliberately ramming a tanker carrying jet fuel is potentially suicidal.

So I'm definitely going with cock up.

@1dayatatime

I’m trying to keep an open mind but having heard/read some more eye raising stuff elsewhere I very much agree with your line of thinking…

There’s a bit of a fashion with all this talk of AI to think that these days collisions shouldn’t be possible due “automation” and so if two objects at sea or in the air hit each other it must be a deliberate act (see some of the initial wittering about the Washington mid-air).

In reality automation is another tool in the tool box in some lines of work and if miss used or abused there can be unfortunate consequences….In aviation selecting “go direct”, i.e. straight line, on an autopilot and then the humans who are supposed to be keeping an eye on things not intervening can sometimes have catastrophic consequences.

As has been said, ”to err is human but to stuff up completely and in style you need a computer”..

I have no idea how much of a ships manifest is in the public domain and I do agree with your comments about deliberately hitting something carrying fuel of any sort could very well be suicide mission.

Whats the chances of a direct "hit" on a ship at anchor?

Why wouldn't the Captain know that the vessel was carry aviation fuel? We've just uncovered a large spy ring in Yarmouth, i'm sure its not the only one and Russia has been using ships as "spy" ships for decades.

Obviously we don't yet know the full circumstances and may never do if the Russian denies ramming the vessel...

Maybe it was a complete accident but if i had to place a bet....

With a Russian captain I wouldn't discount the possibility that he had been drinking.

Modern ships have a host of navigational aids and warning systems plus the tanker would have been trying to contact the ship as it got closer... unless they'd also been on the lash!!

It's all nicely in that "plausible deniability" zone, isn't it?

Simultaneously highly suspicious while difficult to nail down exactly what's happened.

Now we have to await the black box information and further investigations.

@Alexandra2001

"Whats the chances of a direct "hit" on a ship at anchor?"

Fairly high if you are sailing down the coast from Grangemouth to Rotterdam past the highly congested entrance to the Humber estuary on autopilot with no one keeping watch.

Why wouldn't the Captain know that the vessel was carry aviation fuel?

Because the contents of a vessel's cargo is not publicly available information.

Too much conspiracy theory and ignoring cock up reality.

When I was a child there a ship that left the harbour bound for Netherlands and the Captain who had been heavily drinking after leaving port put it on autopilot but forgot to change the destination from the previous one.

So after the ship did a full a full circle and headed back to the port he had just left. Fortunately the ship missed the harbour and went up on the adjacent beach. The captain was so drunk that when the authorities came on board he was still on the bridge looking out and not even knowing the ship had gone aground.

Oh more on that Great Yarmouth Russian spy ring. IIUC this info comes from the official investigations and court case: they appear to have been well-funded and batshit.

Russian spy ring's plans to kill journalist 'beyond imagination'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62k0kxwzywo

[Christo Grozev] said one of the ways the spies "fantasised about killing me" was hiring an Islamic State group "suicide bomber and having him explode himself next to me in the street".
Mr Grozev said there was also a plan to kidnap him and "send me to a torture camp in Syria" while another man wearing a latex mask resembling him would fly to Russia on a commercial flight and be "arrested in front of cameras for full deniability".
"Another way was bludgeoning me to death using a sledgehammer", he said before adding that "the fantasy and imagination of these wannabe spies is beyond any imagination".
Mr Grozev said failures of Russian intelligence in the past meant that spying was being "outsourced" to non-professional spies.
He told the BBC that the fact they were using "non-professional" spies did not take away from the "intent to kill". The issue was that "wannabe spies" did not necessarily know how to de-escalate situations, he added.
He said he felt lucky to be alive given that he and his colleague were tracked by the spies for so long and the operation had been so well-funded.
[...]
Jan Marsalek, who instructed the spy ring on behalf of the Russian intelligence services, wrote in a message in December 2020 that Mr Grozev was the "lead investigator in the Navalny case".
A message sent by Marsalek to Orlin Roussev - who ran the UK-based group from a former guest house in Norfolk - said: "Personally I find Grozev not to be a very valuable target but apparently Putin seriously hates him."
[...]
The methods they used were the sort of thing you would "expect to see in a spy novel", said the Metropolitan Police's Cdr Dominic Murphy.

Sorry but the ships really are not as big in RL as your picture suggests!

On probability, when was the last time this happened? a full speed collision on a ship at anchor...

Look, Russia has proven itself to use anything in its assault on the West, inc Never Agent and Radioactive material, i'm sure they are perfectly capable of sing a ship.

Do you really believe the FSB etc wouldn't know what a ship is carrying if it wants to find out?

Its not about "conspiracy" its about accepting that the Russian state are capable of anything at all.

That’s exactly it. Obviously I’d like to believe it’s a cock up, but recent history points otherwise.

Thank the dear lord that the sodium cyanide containers aboard the Solong were empty; we really don't need that stuff let loose into the sea off our coast. Initial reports said they were full. Nightmare time.

If they'd been full I would have seriously thought cock-up or drunk, or both, because nobody in his right mind would play games with sodium cyanide and surely the captain must know what is in his manifest. With them having been empty all bets are off again, except that I get a touch of the cui bonos: what does Russia stand to gain from this collision?

Anyone else heard the one about one of the most highly sophisticated, well equipped, supposedly well crewed ships in the western navies with a “dry” crew managing to tee bone a tanker near Singapore almost a decade ago, killing ten people…

How anyone thinks a merchant ship with probably minimal crew and less kit doing similar must almost certainly be a deliberate act is beyond me. Accidents driven at least in part by human error still happen.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_and_Alnic_MC_collision

@1dayatatime

Russia would be nuts not to agree to a ceasefire and it would simply turn back on the US military support at full flow.

On the first half of your statement: 'Russia' would just be being Russian. If I was Putin (which I am not) I'd take a ceasefire to just stop for now with territorial and self-esteem gains. If I was actually Putin, I might see a ceasefire as a loss.

The initial war aim was to replace the Ukrainian government. Since then it has been to keep going through setbacks and successes to replace the Ukrainian government. Or that has more or less been the message.

On the second half of your statement, US support is now back on tap due to the Ukrainians being compliant in Saudi Arabia. Whether an annoyed Trump would go beyond the Biden lines because his friend Vladimir rejected his 'deal' would be interesting.

Trump said he would quickly stop the war. He hasn't. However, he has intervened in ways that can send it down different tracks. The interplay between Putin and Trump is now crucial to what happens next. There are probably some nightmarish Game Theory outcomes.

Image is linked to what some Russian commentators want. Will explain in another post. It is not official and, who knows, Lavrov/Putin may say something Trumpish soon.

Yes bizarre accidents do happen...

However, you make my point, these types of collision are extremely rare & given a Russian Capt involved and our relationship with Putin, its unwise to rule out a deliberate act.

@Alexandra2001

However, you make my point, these types of collision are extremely rare

I’m not really sure I do, I could have found several more mil vs. civvie collisions, e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNoMSHelgeIngstad(F313)

and I haven’t even bothered looking at civvie v civvie.

I agree that at this stage deliberate act can’t be ruled out in the case of the North Sea collision but where you’d put that in terms of relative probabilities I don’t know.

I have to say (and this is a general point) there’s certainly an increasing tendency these days for people to dive in to debates post pretty much any major event/accident and claim it must have been caused by a deliberate act (usually followed by “but of course we’ll never know the truth”…)

This has been circulating recently and, though it does not reflect an official position, it does reflect a mindset.

Note that this is a 'look we have failed to get what we really want in Ukraine, but this will do' map.

A source (which also has a link in it to a Telegram channel):

https://el-tolstyh.livejournal.com/15298951.html

In short:

Orange through to pink, the Oblasts Russia controls or controls most of: 'we're having that'.

Odessa and Mykolaiv, west of Orange Kherson. Demilitarised. Russian military there to monitor, so 'we're pretty much having that'.

Those two swathes would include most of the Russian speakers of Ukraine (and my three relatives killed in the war) and conform to 21st Century dreams of Novorossiya.

Chunk in north with blue arrow: perhaps Belarus might want this?

Left Bank core Ukraine: demilitarised, Russian monitoring.

Right Bank core Ukraine (the western bit where speaking Russian is very minority): OK that's your bit, but the government must be Russian aligned.

This is a glimpse inside some Russian minds more than anything else. It would be both a dream and a compromise.

More Russian side commentary on ceasefire proposals (it reads like a poor translation).

Thanks, we're not in a hurry here.

Jeddah Peace Formula: thanks, we're not in a hurry here - Pravda EU

notimagain, there is an instance in a book I read recently (fiction) of someone saying wtte "but of course we will never know the truth" and the person he says it to, who was there at the time of the incident in question and saw exactly what actually happened, says "if we choose not to" and leaves it at that, knowing that the conspiracy theorist talking to him is not interested in the truth but only in a nice drama.

I'm not saying that's the case this time, just that it made that point rather nicely.

And I recall incidents in which two RN vessels have collided IN HARBOUR and damage was caused to both, and the best that can be said about that is that as the air started to turn blue with both captains on radio, one of the radio operators had the presence of mind to have a catastrophic radio failure for several minutes....

Rinse, Repeat.

Pravda Switzerland, where the text reads less like a translation: The best response to U.S. truce proposals would be to repeat Russian conditions.

Russian Ambassador has been summoned by the foreign office.