Russian Digest 4/12
Top daily stories I'm keeping an eye on
According to Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces, the authorities in Belgorod, Voronezh, Bryansk, and Krasnodar and in Russian-controlled Crimea said they were stepping up security measures on April 11 over what they said were “possible provocations” from the Ukrainian side. “These measures are probably carried out in order to organize the movement of military equipment, weapons, and personnel into the territory of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s General Staff reports. via Ukrainian Pravda
More groundwork for false flag operations by the Russian regime. The propaganda in Russian state media Ria Novosti warns of both nuclear material and ‘preparations by Ukrainians of a chemical attack’ in one article.
“Deputy Foreign Minister Syromolotov: Ukraine can bring nuclear material from third countries”
MOSCOW, April 13 - RIA Novosti. Moscow does not rule out a scenario in which nuclear material can be brought to Ukraine from third countries, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
"We cannot rule out a scenario in which nuclear material can be brought to Ukraine from third countries," he said.
“Salikhov also warned that the Ukrainian authorities are hatching plans for chemical provocations in the Donbas, and repetition of terrorist attacks against enterprises with toxic substances is not ruled out.”
The Russian government has drastically increased funding for state-run media amid the war with Ukraine, after which the degree of state propaganda reached levels not seen since the Stalinist Soviet Union.
In January-March, the federal budget allocated 17.4 billion rubles under the article "mass media", which follows from the operational statistics of the Ministry of Finance.
Compared to the same period last year (5.4 billion rubles), spending on state television channels, agencies, and publications jumped 3.2 times. In March, when hostilities were underway, the budget spent 11.9 billion rubles for these purposes - twice as much as in January-February combined (5.5 billion) via Moscow Times
Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday that they had thwarted a Russian cyberattack on Ukraine’s power grid that could have knocked out power to two million people, raising fears that Moscow will increase its use of digital weapons in a country already pummeled by war. via NYT
The Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov warned that Russian special services are planning a series of terrorist attacks with mining and explosions in Russian settlements in order to whip up anti-Ukrainian hysteria.
According to him, Russian special services are planning terrorist attacks on residential buildings, hospitals, and schools in Russia, as well as launching missile and bomb attacks on the city of Belgorod or one of the cities of Crimea.
Still another thought provoking piece. I also note the Russian plan to attack their own people and blame the attacks on Ukraine. Putin really is a war criminal to kill his own people. But, I seem to remember he did the same thing to several apartment buildings in Russia early in his career and blamed the Chechens; and this became his excuse to go to war with the Chechens. Same playbook then and now. To do this is cold-blooded (murder). Madeleine Albright was right: Putin IS reptilian!