Russian Digest 4/8

Top daily stories i'm keeping an eye on

1. 'Kill them all, for f**k sake': Shocking intercepted audio reveals conversations between Russian soldiers via CNN

2. As the staging ground for an assault on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, one of the most toxic places on earth, was probably not the best choice. But that did not seem to bother the Russian generals who took over the site in the early stages of the war.

   “We told them not to do it, that it was dangerous, but they ignored us,” Valeriy Simyonov, the chief safety engineer for the Chernobyl nuclear site, said in an interview.

   Apparently undeterred by safety concerns, the Russian forces tramped about the grounds with bulldozers and tanks, digging trenches and bunkers — and exposing themselves to potentially harmful doses of radiation lingering beneath the surface. via NYT

3. At least 50 people were killed and 98 injured in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called an “evil” Russian shelling attack on a train station where hundreds of civilians were attempting to flee ahead of expected attacks.

   Grisly scenes emerged from the city of Kramatorsk, with bodies strewn among luggage, toys and debris. Witnesses described a large explosion followed by four or five “cluster bombs” that tore into a crowd of people who had gathered to catch an arriving train. Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration, said 38 people died at the station and another 12 died while in the hospital. Among the dead are five children, he said, with 16 children recorded as injured. via Washington Post

4. Russia continues to lay the groundwork for using chemical weapons in Ukraine and blaming it on Ukrainian authorities. This isn’t their usual propaganda, with Russia’s Defence Ministry warnings in recent weeks being more detailed.

   Russia continues to lay the groundwork for its potential chemical weapons attack in Ukraine- Latest update

   5. Two days after the 2020 presidential election, as votes were still being tallied, Donald Trump's eldest son texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that "we have operational control" to ensure his father would get a second term, with Republican majorities in the US Senate and swing state legislatures, CNN has learned.

   In the text, which has not been previously reported, Donald Trump Jr. lays out ideas for keeping his father in power by subverting the Electoral College process, according to the message reviewed by CNN. The text is among records obtained by the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021.

   "It's very simple," Trump Jr. texted to Meadows on November 5, adding later in the same missive: "We have multiple paths We control them all." via CNN