February 29, 2024: Russian Digest
Top stories I'm keeping an eye on!
February 29, 2024
Call to Action for my U.S. subscribers: Please call your Congress representatives and tell them to pass the weapons and aid package to Ukraine and to stop endangering U.S. national security by using domestic weaknesses for political purposes… This easy new site helps you send a message to your reps in Congress. Be sure to make your voice heard through helpukrainewin.com
Ukraine repels Russian attacks but situation is difficult, top general says
Ukrainian forces have pushed back Russian troops from the village of Orlivka, west of Avdiivka, but the situation on the eastern front remains difficult, Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Thursday.
Orlivka is less than 2 kilometres (1-1/2 miles) northwest of Lastochkyne, which was occupied this week by Russian forces.
Russian forces last week captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka after a months-long assault and are pressing on other areas along the front line, Ukrainian authorities say.
Ukraine's military said this week it had withdrawn from two more villages near Avdiivka, losing more territory as support from its Western allies runs short.
"The enemy continues active offensive actions in many areas of the front line. The situation is particularly tense in the Avdiivka and Zaporizhzhia sectors," Syrskyi said on the Telegram messaging app.
He said Russian assault units were trying to break through the Ukrainian defences and capture the settlements of Tonenke, Orlivka, Semenivka, Berdychi and Krasnohorivka.
Read More at Reuters
Ukraine Sees Risk of Russia Breaking Through Defenses by Summer
Kyiv’s assessment of battlefield situation increasingly bleak
Putin still aims to capture Kyiv, Ukrainian intelligence shows
Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis.
Internal assessments of the situation on the battlefield from Kyiv are growing increasingly bleak as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russian attacks while rationing the number of shells they can fire.
Read More at Bloomberg
Transnistria begs Putin to ‘protect’ it against Moldova
Politicians in Moldova’s Kremlin-backed breakaway region of Transnistria have appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to “protect” it against “pressure” from Chișinău.
“[We resolved to] appeal to the Federation Council and the State Duma of the Russian Federation, requesting measures to protect Transnistria amidst increased pressure from Moldova,” read a resolution adopted by hundreds of Transnistrian politicians in Tiraspol, the region’s capital and largest city.
The appeal stops short of directly asking Moscow to integrate Transnistria into Russia, as had been predicted by one Transnistrian opposition politician in the days before the resolution was adopted.
Read More at Politico
Sweden will cut financial support to the branch of the Russian Orthodox Church due to suspicions of espionage
The Swedish government announced on February 29 that it would cut support for the Russian Orthodox Church in the country after intelligence warned of Moscow's use of the church for espionage. This was reported by the Swedish Agency for Grants to Religious Organizations, " European Truth " reports.
As the department explained, the Security Service of Sweden believes that the ROC is used by the Russian state "as a platform for gathering intelligence data and other activities that threaten security."
"In the warnings of the Security Service of Sweden, it is said that representatives of the religious community were in contact with people who work for the Russian security and intelligence services," the agency clarifies.
It added that the ROC received significant funding from the Russian state, and the actions of its representatives could be considered support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In addition, the church also does not meet the criteria of democracy.
According to the Swedish Agency for Grants to Religious Organizations, the ROC was still among the smallest recipients of grants from the Swedish government for religious communities. In 2022, they amounted to slightly less than 200,000 crowns (19.3 thousand dollars).
Finland: Ukraine is free to bomb Russia with our weapons
Helsinki also urged Germany to “seriously consider” sending long-range Taurus cruise missiles to help Kyiv.
Ukraine can use weapons provided by Finland to hit targets on Russian soil, senior officials in Helsinki said.
Finland's Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen said his country has not set any restrictions on what Ukraine can do with the weapons it provides, Finnish broadcaster Yle reported on Thursday. Häkkänen added that blocks have been imposed mainly by countries which have provided Ukraine with long-range weapons systems.
“If necessary, Ukraine should also strike military targets on the Russian side. It is a completely legitimate defensive battle that Ukraine is waging. The U.N. Charter allows military targets to be attacked across land borders,” said Jukka Kopra, chair of the Finnish parliamentary defense committee.
Read More at Politico
Pentagon Weighs New Plan to Ship Weapons to Ukraine Quickly
A short-term measure carries political and military risks as the Biden administration considers whether to tap into U.S. stockpiles again.
The Biden administration is considering whether to provide Ukraine with badly needed arms and ammunition from Pentagon stockpiles even though the government has run out of money to replace those munitions, according to two U.S. officials and a senior lawmaker.
Such a move would be a short-term measure to help tide over Ukraine’s armed forces until Congress breaks a monthslong impasse and approves a larger military aid package to the country, the officials said.
But in considering whether to tap into the Pentagon stockpiles again, the administration is weighing both the political risks and questions about American military readiness.
“It’s something that I know is on the table,” Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who leads the Armed Services Committee, said in an interview. Mr. Reed, who recently returned from a trip to Ukraine, said he would support such a stopgap measure in “incremental uses to buy time.”
Read More at NYT
Sixth person charged with spying for Russia in UK
A sixth person has been charged with being part of a suspected Russian spy ring operating in the UK.
Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, a 38-year-old Bulgarian national, from Acton, west London, was arrested earlier this month and will appear in court on Wednesday.
He is accused of "conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy".
Five other Bulgarian nationals are due to go on trial in October after being charged with the same offence.
Orlin Roussev, 46, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, Bizer Dzhambazov 43, and Katrin Ivanova, 32, of Harrow, north-west London, Ivan Stoyanov, 32, of Greenford, west London, and Vanya Gaberova, 29, of Euston, London, were arrested in February 2023.
It is alleged surveillance was carried out on people and places targeted by Russia between August 2020 and February 2023.
The charge faced by Mr Ivanchev alleges he acted with the five other defendants, a person named as Jan Marsalek and others unknown.
It says they"conspired... to obtain, collect, record, publish or communicate documents or information which was calculated to be, or might be intended to be, directly or indirectly useful to an enemy for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state.”
Read More at BBC
Deep Dive…
Bolshevik Homeowner: A former Russian propaganda executive is still living freely in Spain
Until 2016, Alexander Ordzhonikidze was a key figure in Russian state propaganda. The great-grandson of a prominent Bolshevik and the son of a diplomat who advocated for the “destruction” of Ukraine, Ordzhonikidze led the National Media Group (and even worked alongside Alina Kabaeva, widely understood to be Vladimir Putin’s longtime romantic partner). Upon leaving the NMG, Ordzhonikidze took over a media business in Latvia from the Kovalchuk family (reputed to be Putin’s personal money managers), acquired Israeli citizenship, and purchased two luxurious villas in Spain.
Read More at The Insider
An organized crime group that stole millions in orders for the Ministry of Defense was discovered at the Military Space Academy
At least four employees of the Mozhaisky Military Space Academy became defendants in a criminal case for fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code), Kommersant learned. They face up to 10 years in prison.
Employees of the Main Investigative Directorate of the ICR detained the head of the Department of Networks and Communication Systems of space complexes, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor Kirill Tsvetkov, the head of the Department of Space Radio Navigation, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Associate Professor Andrei Nazarov, the latter’s deputy Vladimir Avdeev and teacher Artemy Pavlov.
According to investigators, the suspects united into a criminal group to carry out illegal schemes on orders from the Ministry of Defense. Thus, during the audit, it turned out that the experimental design work (R&D) that the university performed for the military department contained the names of 82 “dead souls” - people who did not take a real part in the project.
The money allocated under the contracts was appropriated by the heads of two departments of the academy with the help of teachers and spent “at their own discretion.” According to the investigation, the group operated from 2021 to the end of 2023. The total amount of damage amounted to almost 8.5 million rubles. Investigators are looking for accomplices of the detainees and other possible episodes of fraud.
All four teachers were placed under house arrest. They are prohibited from using the Internet and any other means of communication, with the exception of telephones to communicate with defense lawyers and the investigation, as well as making comments on the case in the media. At the same time, only Nazarov and Avdeev admitted guilt in full, revealing the mechanism of the thefts; the other two members of the group did so with reservations.
So, according to teacher Pavlov, he only followed the instructions of Professor Tsvetkov, drawing up documents to record the working hours of persons who were listed only on paper. He knew that some from the list of “dead souls” handed over the received payments to the work managers, and he assumed that this money could go to Tsvetkov, but he does not know for sure.
In turn, Tsvetkov himself admitted that he had repeatedly collected money from employees fictitiously involved in the OCD. However, he claimed that he did not steal anything, but used these funds to repair office premises. Witnesses confirmed the testimony of all four defendants in one way or another.
The head of the academy, Major General Anatoly Nestechuk, told the publication that he knows nothing about the thefts or the criminal case against leading employees of the university. “Everything is fine with us,” he said.
Via The Moscow Times
Deep Dive…
In ‘False Transit’ Loophole, Russia’s War Machine Is Supplied Through Kazakh Companies and Belarusian Warehouses
Countries around the world have imposed sanctions intended to cripple Russia’s ability to wage war, but the flow of high-tech foreign goods into the country continues.
A new investigation by Buro Media, Verstka, and OCCRP exposes one of the ways this is accomplished — a scheme known as “false transit” that takes advantage of lighter or non-existent sanctions against two of Russia’s closest economic partners, Kazakhstan and Belarus.
Both countries are members of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Russian-led trade bloc that integrates the economies of five former Soviet republics, allowing goods to flow freely across national borders with no customs checks.
Credit: The Russian President's Office/American Photo Archive/Alamy Stock PhotoRussian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
As reported in previous investigations by OCCRP and Buro Media, sanctioned goods are known to flow to Russia through each of these countries. But the scheme revealed in this investigation makes use of a major loophole that involves both at once.
In this case, a Kazakh company ordered high-tech semiconductor production equipment and other goods from Europe and had them delivered to a temporary Belarusian storage facility. A letter obtained by reporters shows the Kazakh company issuing orders to the storage facility to change the destination of some shipments to Russia, avoiding having to route them through Central Asia.
In total, Russian customs data shows, the scheme appeared to supply nearly $5.9 million worth of sanctioned high-tech goods to a group of Russian companies with extensive military contracts.
Experts say the scheme underscores the key role Belarus continues to play in supplying Russia’s war machine, with the discrepancy in sanctions between the countries creating what one called “a severe hole in the sanctions net.”
Read More at OCCRP
I think I'm becoming a fan of Finland.