March 4, 2024: Russian Digest

Kirby: Putin taking advantage of delays in US aid

Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of delays in U.S. aid to Ukraine to further Russian military efforts, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said at a press conference on March 4.

Aid for Ukraine has been stuck in the U.S. Congress since Autumn 2023. The U.S. Senate on Feb. 13 passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill that includes $60 billion for Ukraine, as well as funds for Israel and other allies, but the proposal is yet to be approved by the House of Representatives.

After delaying the vote for weeks, House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Feb. 29 that his chamber would consider the foreign aid bill "as soon as the government is funded."

Congressional leaders managed to pass a short-term stopgap spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown without funding for Ukraine.

Holdups in U.S. assistance have put a significant strain on Ukraine's efforts to resist Russian aggression, causing ammunition shortages and contributing to the loss of a key front-line city of Avdiivka.

Responding to a question about whether Putin is trying to weaponize U.S. hesitancy to send aid to Ukraine, Kirby stated that Ukraine's depleted ammunition supplies are helping Russia achieve stronger military advantages.

"So part of this is trying to get them to pare down their inventory because he knows that the United States is now not able to send a significant amount of support and aid to Ukraine," Kirby said. "He’s certainly taking advantage of what he’s seeing happen on Capitol Hill. And the dysfunction in our own system up there on Capitol Hill is definitely giving him an opportunity to place his own military positions at greater advantage."

Read More at Kyiv Independent

Ukraine has started negotiations with Spain on the conclusion of a bilateral security agreement

On the instructions of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the head of the Office of the Head of State Andriy Yermak and in fulfillment of the G7 Joint Declaration on support for Ukraine, the deputy head of the Office of the President Ihor Zhovkva started negotiations with Spain on the conclusion of a bilateral security agreement.

The structure of the future agreement was discussed and the schedule for further negotiations was agreed.

Via Ukraine’s Presidential Administration

A View into Russia’s Bloody Imperialist Thinking…

Medvedev (former President and PM) claims Ukraine is "part of Russia"

Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, has said that Ukraine’s territories on both banks of the Dnipro River are an integral ‘part of Russia.’

"All our adversaries need to understand once and for all a simple fact: that the territories on both banks of the Dnipro River are an integral part of Russia's strategic and historical borders."

Details: Medvedev called Ukraine "Malorossia" (Little Russia) and a "failed state", and its citizens "slaves to Europe", "deaf and dumb servants" and "expendables".

He also believes that Ukrainians and Russians share a common history, language, faith, and "mentality towards everyday life" and should therefore be part of the same state.

Via Ukrainian Pravda

Air Force Employee Indicted for Unlawful Disclosure of Classified National Defense Information

A civilian employee of the U.S. Air Force assigned to the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), at Offutt Air Force Base, was arrested Saturday, March 2, for allegedly conspiring to transmit and transmitting classified information relating to the national defense (National Defense Information or NDI) on a foreign online dating platform beginning in or around February 2022 until in or around April 2022.

According to the indictment, David Franklin Slater, 63, of Nebraska, worked in a classified space at USSTRATCOM and held a Top Secret security clearance from in or around August 2021 until in or around April 2022, after retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel from the U.S. Army. It is alleged that Slater willfully, improperly, and unlawfully transmitted NDI classified as “SECRET,” which he had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, on a foreign online dating platform to a person not authorized to receive such information.

Read More at The Department of Justice

Germany accuses Russia of seeking to divide Europe with leaked call

Germany accused Russia on Monday of leaking an intercepted recording of German military discussions about how to support Ukraine against the Kremlin's invasion in an attempt to divide Europe.

Russian media last week published an audio recording of a meeting of senior German military officials held by Webex discussing weapons for Ukraine and a potential strike by Kyiv on a bridge in Crimea.

Germany has confirmed the authenticity of the 38-minute call, saying it is investigating what it called an apparent act of eavesdropping by Russia that was part of an "information war".

Read More at Reuters

“Like under Stalin.” Russia has rebuilt its spy network abroad and is stepping up the hunt for regime opponents.

Having failed to prepare for the invasion of Ukraine and suffered the expulsion from Europe of about 400 diplomats (many of whom were spies), Russian intelligence services began to rebuild a foreign network and began an active hunt for opponents of Vladimir Putin's regime. Undercover operatives followed anti-war Russians who fled mobilization to countries in Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus, representatives of European intelligence agencies told The Wall Street Journal.

Another proof of the restoration of their activity was the murder in February in Spain of helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who surrendered to Ukrainian troops. By intensifying the hunt for those whom the Kremlin calls traitors, Putin is returning the country to Stalinist times, when the special services themselves, and with the help of recruited foreigners, liquidated and kidnapped opponents of Soviet power. And this despite the fact that with the KGB in power, Russia has already become the world leader in extraterritorial persecution of its citizens.

Russian intelligence agencies are becoming increasingly brazen and creative in suppressing dissent abroad, U.S. and European intelligence officials say. At the same time, the boundaries between the three main services - the FSB, the GRU (Main Directorate of the General Staff), and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) - are increasingly blurred, which complicates the determination of those responsible for a particular operation.

“They used to be very divided, but now they exchange both employees and recruits, just like under Stalin,” when three counterintelligence structures were created during the war under the general name “Smersh” (“Death to Spies”), says Russian intelligence specialist Andrei Soldiers.

In the years before the start of the war in Ukraine, the FSB significantly increased the staff of the Department of Operational Information (DOI), which is part of the Fifth Service. After the invasion, DPI employees were supposed to ensure the overthrow of the legitimate government of Ukraine and participate in the establishment of a government loyal to Moscow.

Via The Moscow Times and Wall Street Journal

Ukraine hacked the servers of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and gained access to secret documents - HUR

Ukrainian intelligence conducted a successful DDoS attack against the Ministry of Defense of Russia, as a result of which it was possible to gain access to servers, ciphers, and secret documents.

This was reported by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

According to the GUR, Ukraine now owns information protection and encryption software used by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, as well as an array of secret official documents of the Russian agency.

We are talking about orders, reports, orders, reports, and other documents that circulated among more than 2,000 structural units of Russia's law enforcement agency.

The received information allows the establishment of the complete structure of the system of the Russian Ministry of Defense and its units, say the GUR. The analysis of the received data also helped to identify the general, and other high-ranking managers of structural divisions of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, as well as deputies, assistants, and specialists - all those who used software electronic document management under the name "Bureaucrat".

Via Hromadske

The Rotenberg brothers are creating their own private army from ‘PMCs’ of football fans

The Espanyola ‘PMC’ is supported by Viktor Shendrik, head of the Russian Railways security service and protégé of Putin’s friends.

The head of the security service of the Russian railway monopoly Russian Railways, Viktor Shendrik, is a sponsor of the Espanyola ‘PMC,’ a volunteer detachment of Russian football fans fighting in Ukraine. Three sources who know Shendrick told Important Stories about this.

Victor Shendrik is a protégé of Vladimir Putin’s friends, the Rotenberg brothers. “Important stories,” told how the Rotenbergs introduced Shendrik, who had previously worked in their security service and was associated with them in a common business, into the management of Russian Railways. The Rotenberg companies are key contractors of Russian Railways.

“Espaniola was created by fans, mainly of Spartak, then the Rotenbergs came there with the idea of taking over the ‘PMC’ for themselves,” says one of the interlocutors of “Important Stories.” “Now many large companies are creating their own private armies, and the brothers want to make their own private army based on the Espaniola. They put Victor in charge of this because he worked for a long time in their security service and served in Vympel - that is, history is on his line.”

Shendrik graduated from the Golitsyn Military Institute of Border Troops and served in the Vympel special forces unit of the FSB, which is called “intellectual special forces.” He was engaged in business - together with the Rotenberg brothers and with the family of Senator Pavel Fedyaev. Since 2016, he has been the head of the Russian Railways security service. Member of the board of directors of Russia's largest railway container operator, TransContainer; is on the board of directors of the second Russian operator (after Rostelecom), Transtelecom. Shendrik is a rich man; according to leaked data on the income of Russians, in 2021 alone he earned more than 2 billion rubles.

Espaniola was created as a voluntary formation of radical football fans from all over the country and was part of the Vostok battalion of the illegally occupied Doneskt. In February 2023, Espaniola identified itself as a private military company. It includes units of reconnaissance, attack aircraft, artillery, electronic warfare, unmanned aerial vehicles, and snipers. Ilya Khanin, a football fan and brother of the head of the administration of the Ramensky urban district of the Moscow region, Nikolai Khanin, is in charge of supplying the Espaniola fighters.

Like most Russian volunteer units, Espaniola is part of the Redut ‘PMC’ of the Russian Ministry of Defense, that is, the fighters sign a contract with Redut. Espaniola is commanded by Stanislav Orlov, nicknamed the Spaniard, a CSKA football fan. Orlov has been participating in hostilities in Ukraine since 2014. It is known that Espaniola fighters took part in the assault on Azovstal, fought in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia directions, near Vuhledar, near Avdiivka.

Dozens of mercenary detachments are fighting on the Russian side; they are financed by large Russian companies. "Important Stories" has revealed this in several investigations. Thus, the Moscow authorities force them to look for and hire soldiers of fortune “Mosgaz”, “Moscow Metro”, “Gormost” and “Mosvodokanal”. The late Yevgeny Prigozhin mentioned in an interview about ‘PMCs’ associated with Gazprom. The Uran battalion reported that it was receiving support from Roscosmos. The Soyuz squad, which includes martial arts masters, is financed by Sberbank, Rosatom, and RusHydro. Private companies are not lagging behind state ones: Rusal, Novatek, PIK, and Mospromstroy have their divisions on the Ukrainian front.

Via Important Stories

An AI-generated clone of a Ukrainian blogger sells Russian goods in China

Speaking Mandarin and promoting love for China, countless videos of foreign-looking women made with artificial intelligence started popping up on Chinese social media platforms around the Lunar New Year earlier this month.

The avatars in the videos are created with online images that are stolen, reproduced and repurposed so that even the women in real life recognize themselves in the videos.

Olga Loiek is one of those women. She’s a 20-year-old Ukrainian who studies cognitive science at the University of Pennsylvania. A couple of months ago, Loiek started a YouTube channel where she talks about mental health and shares her philosophies about life.

However, shortly after that, she started receiving messages from followers telling her that they had seen her on Chinese social media. There, she's not Olga Loiek but a Russian woman who speaks Mandarin, loves China and wants to marry a Chinese man. Her name is Natasha, or Anna, or Grace, depending on the social media platform you find her on in China.

"I started translating the videos with Google Translate, and I realized that most of these accounts are talking about things like China, Russia, how good the relationship between China and Russia is," she told VOA. "This feels very violating."

In some videos, the avatars talk about how much they value Russia and China's close ties. In other videos, they praise Chinese history and culture or talk about how much Russian women want to marry Chinese.

"If you marry Russian women, we will wash clothes, cook, and wash dishes for you every day," an avatar said. "We will also give you foreign babies, as many as you want."

Read More at Voice of America

Russia’s Backdoor for Battlefield Goods From China: Central Asia

Exchange routes through the region are increasingly important to Moscow’s efforts to thwart Western sanctions

Two years after the invasion of Ukraine, drones and U.S.-made computer chips are increasingly flowing to Russia from China through Central Asian trade routes, showing the difficulty of strangling supplies to Moscow’s war effort.

Trade routes snaking through former Soviet republics Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are among the many paths into Russia for so-called dual-use goods—singled out by the U.S. and its allies because they can be used on the battlefield.

"Despite their efforts, Central Asia is a growing pipeline for Russia, made possible by thousands of kilometers of open borders, opaque trade practices, and opportunistic middlemen. The goods often come from China, where they are manufactured, in some cases by large American companies that claim that these goods are imported by Russia without their permission."

Read More at WSJ

“Fuck you!” Employees of state-owned companies began to refuse to vote for Putin under duress

The Kremlin is having problems mobilizing employees of state-owned companies to participate in the Russian presidential elections, a political strategist working with the presidential administration told Meduza.

According to him, in previous years, forcing employees of state-owned companies to vote did not cause difficulties - many held on to their jobs and were afraid of losing them. However, now workers understand: that there is a shortage in the labor market, so no one will fire them for refusing to go to the polling station, says the publication’s interlocutor.

According to him, very often in response to attempts by management to force them to take part in the vote, people say: “Go to ***! I don’t want to, so what will you do to me? Will you work instead of me?”

At the same time, the political bloc of the presidential administration is faced with the task of ensuring an extremely high turnout - at the level of 70-80%, as well as the result of Vladimir Putin - more than 80%.

Previously, to resolve the issue of attendance, the presidential administration ordered members of the United Russia party, state employees, and employees of state-owned companies to bring people along with them to the polling stations. Thus, United Russia members and supporters of the party in power must bring 10 people each, state employees - three, and employees of state-owned companies - two. People who receive money from the state are “obliged to help” the authorities, a Meduza source close to the Kremlin explained the logic.

According to the established scheme, a party representative, a public sector employee or an employee of a state company must provide management with the names and surnames of the people they brought to the polls, as well as their telephone numbers and email addresses. But this needs to be done several weeks before the elections.

In order for the Kremlin to monitor compliance with the requirement, all people involved in the elections must register in the remote electronic voting system (DEG), and in regions where there is no such option, turnout is monitored using QR codes.

All United Russia members and their supporters, as well as state employees and employees of large companies, have already been “digitized” and “collected in a database,” Meduza’s sources claim. “All regional administrations have this data, and turnout forecasts are based on them,” explained one of the interlocutors.

However, the Kremlin is aware of the risk that part of the electorate dependent on the government will refuse to ensure turnout, the publication’s source says. In this regard, the presidential administration recommended that the systemic parties, whose representatives participate in the elections, “minimize surveillance as much as possible.” Interlocutors in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and New People confirmed that they would not arrange “serious surveillance.”

This should help ensure turnout “above 70% or at least 70%,” says a political strategist working with regional authorities. “For this, extra eyes of observers are not needed. And [deputy head of the presidential administration, curator of domestic policy Sergei] Kiriyenko will personally incinerate the [official] who does not give the required turnout,” the political strategist concluded.

Via The Moscow Times

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