Russian Digest
Top daily stories I'm keeping an eye on!
Update: 1 killed, 15 wounded in Russian attack on Mykolaiv Oblast
Russian forces attacked multiple locations in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv Oblast in the early hours on April 27. At least 15 people were injured and one person was killed in the attack, according to Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaly Kim.
An air alarm alerted the entire region of the strikes at 1:00 a.m. local time.
The region was struck with four S-300 air defense missiles, according to authorities. At least one of these missiles hit a multi-story residential building, while another targeted a private residence. Kim reported later that first responders have been called to a third location following the attack.
The extent of the damage is unknown at the time of the publication.
Two wounded civilians are in critical condition, according to the governor.
Mykolaiv, a shipbuilding center and a port on the Southern Buh River, has been a frequent target of Russian attacks. The latest before today's killed 2 teenagers on April 16.
https://kyivindependent.com/untitled-32/
Ukraine Has Nearly All Combat Vehicles Allies Promised, NATO Says
Gen. Christopher Cavoli, also the top commander of U.S. forces in Europe, made the comments to the House Armed Services Committee.
Nearly all the combat vehicles Ukraine’s Western allies promised to deliver in time for Kyiv’s expected spring counteroffensive have arrived, NATO’s top military commander said on Wednesday.
“Over 98 percent of the combat vehicles are already there,” said the officer, Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, who is also the top commander of U.S. forces in Europe. In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, he said, “I am very confident that we have delivered the matériel that they need and we’ll continue a pipeline to sustain their operations as well.”
General Cavoli’s comments were his most expansive on the war in Ukraine and America’s military support of Kyiv since he assumed the European and NATO commands last year.
The United States and NATO allies have supplied Ukraine with extensive artillery and ammunition for the long-heralded counteroffensive, and officials now say they are hopeful the supplies will last — a change from two months ago, when they were only trickling in and U.S. officials were worried that they might run out.
Read More:
Poland confiscated all the money from the accounts of the Russian embassy
The Polish prosecutor's office seized money from the accounts of the embassy and the trade mission of the Russian Federation, said the head of the Russian diplomatic mission, Sergei Andreev.
“We received a notification that the funds from the accounts of the embassy and the trade representation in Santander bank were transferred to the accounts of the prosecutor’s office,” he said ( quoted by RIA Novosti).
After that, Santander announced the termination of cooperation with the embassy and closed the accounts, Andreev added, specifying that we are talking about "significant funds" in US dollars and in Polish zlotys.
Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that "Warsaw should wait for Moscow's answer" in connection with the withdrawal of money.
The accounts were frozen after Russia's invasion of Ukraine under the pretext that they could be used for "money laundering or terrorist financing." According to the newspaper Rzeczpospolita, it was about 912 thousand dollars and 800 thousand zlotys (about 180 thousand dollars). At the same time, 45 Russian diplomats were expelled from Poland on charges of espionage.
In April, Polish bailiffs occupied a residential complex with 100 apartments in Warsaw, which was in the use of the Russian embassy but transferred by a court decision to the state treasury of the republic.
In December, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland got rid of employees who graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). The head of the department, Zbigniew Rau, explained that the decision was made within the framework of “decommunization”.
“MGIMO was a ‘tool of Russian imperialism’ and ‘Soviet soft power’. We managed to close a very important process,” the minister said, noting that in this way the loophole left by the laws on lustration was eliminated. How many diplomats lost their jobs, Rau did not specify.
MiG-31 fighter crashed in the Murmansk region
The MiG-31 fighter jet crashed in the Murmansk region, according to Baza and TASS.
According to a TASS source, during a scheduled flight, according to preliminary data, one of the engines caught fire on the plane. The fighter fell into the lake. “The pilots probably ejected, eyewitnesses claim that they saw two paratroopers in the crash area,” he added.
A Baza source, in turn, said that the pilots were saved. They were found alive near the garden partnership "Birch."
The crash site of the MiG-31 is located 10 kilometers from the city of Monchegorsk.
Later, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation confirmed the information to the media. According to the agency, the plane crashed into a deserted place.
https://meduza.io/news/2023/04/26/v-murmanskoy-oblasti-razbilsya-istrebitel-mig-31
In Russia, "everything is collapsing," power is "in the hands of an asshole." A recording of a conversation attributed to billionaire Roman Trotsenko appeared on the internet
Sistema project: A new recording emerges of Russia's billionaires complaining about Putin and the state of affairs inside Russia
Sistema (an investigative project of Present Time and Radio Liberty) received by mail a link to a publicly available audio recording of a conversation allegedly by billionaire Roman Trotsenko. His interlocutor was not indicated in the letter, but, judging by the conversation, it could be businessman Nikolai Matushevsky.
Trotsenko is the former president of the United Shipbuilding Corporation and an ex-adviser to the president of Rosneft Igor Sechin, one of the businessmen close to Vladimir Putin. Matushevsky, a longtime friend of Trotsenko and founder of the Moscow design factory Flacon, has publicly sympathized with the opposition, and for example, posted videos of the 2021 Moscow protests on Instagram.
The letter to Sistema was sent from an email address containing the name Oleg in the title but was not linked to any social networks. The author of the letter provided Trotsenko's real telephone number as indirect evidence of the authenticity of the recording. He did not respond to editorial questions.
Rosstat classified statistics on oil production in Russia
The Russian authorities continue to cover up the statistics on key sectors of the economy with a secrecy stamp.
On Wednesday, Rosstat published its monthly report on industrial production, which for the first time did not include data on oil production in the country.
One of the largest industries, which accounts for up to half of the economy's total export earnings, was excluded from open statistics, which provide data on the output of more than 130 of the economy's most important commodities.
Other raw materials industries - extraction of gas, coal, metals, and "other minerals" - remained in the statistics. Rosstat declined to comment on the situation, Interfax notes.
The latest available official oil statistics - for January-February - showed a decline in production by 0.2% in annual terms, to 88.1 million tons. Last year, according to Rosstat, it increased by 2.1% and amounted to 534 million tons, including gas condensate.
Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development classified all oil estimates included in the updated macro forecast for the current year. Data on how much, according to the government, the oil will cost, as well as in what volumes it will be produced and exported, was transferred to closed access.
A source familiar with the discussion of the document explained to Interfax that the decision was made "in view of opposition to sanctions", adding that the publication of forecasts "may harm the activities" of the fuel and energy complex.
The March data of Rosstat were supposed to show the decline in production, which the Russian government announced at the beginning of the year, promising not to sell raw materials and processed products to countries that joined the “price ceiling”.
The authorities announced a reduction in oil production by 500,000 barrels per day, but export volumes did not change: tankers regularly exported 3-3.5 million barrels per day from seaports.
The International Energy Agency estimated the reduction in production in Russia in March at 290,000 barrels per day, to 9.58 million barrels per day.
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/04/26/rosstat-zasekretil-statistiku-po-dobiche-nefti-v-rossii-a41319
PUTIN'S SPIES
They act under diplomatic cover – but are actually Russian intelligence officers.
Uppdrag Granskning has investigated 21 suspected agents, 13 of which are active today.
These are Putin's spies in Sweden.
Russia's intelligence and security services are active in Sweden and in other Nordic countries.
About a third of the staff at the Russian embassies are in fact intelligence officers, according to the Nordic intelligence and counterintelligence services in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland.
By acting under diplomatic cover they are protected by the Vienna Convention which grants them diplomatic immunity and exempts them from the laws of a foreign jurisdiction.
Swedish investigative television show Uppdrag Granskning has investigated 21 suspected intelligence officers who are active in Sweden or previously have been – which is revealed in episode two of the investigative documentary series ”Putin's Shadow War” which airs on April 26.
Together with the investigative organization Dossier Center, which has access to leaked databases from inside Russia, we can now reveal unique details about their backgrounds and what they are doing in Sweden.
SÄPO recently received a list of suspected Russian intelligence officers that Uppdrag Granskning identified – and on April 25, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Sweden is expelling five Russian diplomats.
These are Putin's spies in Sweden.
Read More:
https://www.svt.se/special/putins-spies/
What the hell are you, a tanker?
The head of the armored service was accused of stealing engines for T-90 tanks
As it became known to Kommersant, the head of the armored service of the technical support department of the Southern Military District, Colonel Alexander Denisov, was arrested on charges of especially large-scale fraud. According to investigators, from November 2021 to April 2022, he, as part of an organized group, stole tank engines in the amount of 20.5 million rubles. The court arrested the officer for two months. His defense insists that there is no evidence of the colonel's guilt in the case.
The Southern District Military Court upheld the decision of the Rostov-on-Don garrison military court on the election of Colonel Alexander Denisov, head of the armored service of the technical support department of the Southern Military District, as a measure of restraint in the form of arrest. The corresponding decision was published in the file of the court.
The criminal case against 44-year-old Alexander Denisov is being processed by the investigator of the first military investigation department of the Military Investigation Department of the TFR for the Southern Military District. It was initiated on March 28, on the same day the military was detained and charged with fraud committed by an organized group (part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
According to investigators, from November 2021 to April 2022, the colonel stole seven V-92S2 engines intended for installation on T-90 tanks. Investigators estimate the total amount of damage at 20.5 million rubles, which is an especially large amount.
According to data from open sources, the V-92S2 is a V-shaped four-stroke twelve-cylinder diesel engine. It is produced at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and is used exclusively on the T-90 and T-72B3 tanks.
Who, in the opinion of the investigators, is included in the organized group other than Alexander Denisov, is unknown. The colonel's lawyer Roman Budarin, in a conversation with Kommersant, said that his principal does not admit guilt. “An innocent person is being held accountable. There is no evidence of Denisov's guilt," the defender claims.
The next day after the arrest, the Rostov-on-Don garrison military court, at the request of the investigator, sent Alexander Denisov to a pre-trial detention center until May 28. Military lawyers disagreed with this decision. In the appeals filed with the Southern District Military Court, the defenders asked their principal to choose a measure of restraint not related to deprivation of liberty.
Among other things, the colonel's lawyers drew the appellate court's attention to the fact that he has been in military service for a long time, has positive characteristics, and has repeatedly been in the zone of a special military operation. However, the court upheld the decision to arrest.
“Denisov is accused by the bodies of preliminary investigation of committing a serious crime, for which punishment is provided for up to ten years,” the appeal ruling says.
The decision can be appealed to the Military Court of Cassation.
In 2019, the ex-head of the supply department of the armored service of the same Southern Military District, reserve lieutenant colonel Dmitry Sedov, the ex-head of the armored service of military unit 33744, Colonel Vitaly Uspensky, and the former head of the warehouse of armored vehicles Igor Shevkunov were convicted of a similar crime.
They were found guilty of attempted theft of four KamAZ engines worth 1.3 million rubles. and sentenced respectively to two years eight months, three years, and two years six months in a colony settlement. The officers, who denied their involvement in the crime, appealed against the verdict, but the court of appeal considered it lawful and justified.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5954243
Brazilian Judge Bans Telegram App Amid School Attacks Inquiry
The Federal Police requested the app’s suspension because it failed to provide complete user data from two group chats that the authorities said had inspired an attack.
A judge in Brazil on Wednesday ordered that the messaging app Telegram be blocked throughout the country, as the authorities investigate neo-Nazi groups that they say have used the platform to incite school attacks.
The Federal Police requested that the app be suspended because Telegram failed to comply with court orders demanding complete user data from two antisemitic group chats. The company told the police that the groups had been deleted and that it could not recover the data.
Judge Wellington Lopes da Silva ordered the app shut down and imposed a fine of $200,000 per day against it for noncompliance with previous court decisions. He also ordered Google and Apple to remove the app from their stores in Brazil and mobile carriers to block access to it in the country.
The court order against Telegram follows a series of aggressive moves by the Brazilian authorities to hold social media and messaging companies accountable for what users post on their platforms.
Read More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/briefing/brazil-telegram-ban.html
Leak: PMC "Wagner" participated in the preparation of riots in Moldova
In February 2023, PMC "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigozhin participated in the planning of riots in Moldova. This follows from a secret document of the US Department of Defense, which got into the network. The fact that the pro-Russian forces in the republic are preparing riots was warned by the law enforcement agencies of Moldova. In early March, they detained a man in Chisinau who was allegedly a member of the Wagner PMC.
As stated in the document, which the correspondent of Radio Liberty got acquainted with, Russia continued its attempts to destabilize the situation in Moldova despite the fact that its intentions were revealed by the authorities of this country. In November 2022, Russia's plans to "undermine" the situation in Moldova with the help of protests were reported by The Washington Post, citing Ukrainian intelligence data. On February 13, 2023, Moldovan President Maia Sandu announced that a coup attempt had been prevented in the republic. According to her, the coup was supposed to take place as a result of "protests by the so-called opposition aimed at overthrowing the constitutional order."
"This plan included the entry into Moldova of citizens of Russia, Montenegro, Belarus, and Serbia in order to try to provoke protests in an attempt to change the legitimate government to an illegal government controlled by the Russian Federation," Sandu said.
A few days earlier, Volodymyr Zelensky spoke about the interception of such a plan during a speech at the European Council. "Our intelligence managed to intercept a detailed Russian plan to destabilize the political situation in Moldova. A Russian document showing who, when and as a result of what actions is going to break Moldova, the democratic order of this country and establish control over it," the President of Ukraine said.
According to the Moldovan authorities, the riots were planned to be staged during protests in Chisinau against the country's new pro-Western government. These actions took place on March 12. According to information from The Moldovan service of Radio Liberty, supporters of the opposition pro-Russian Shor party and the opposition Movement for the People chanted slogans against the country's president, and also spoke out against high electricity prices. Clashes were reported between protesters and police about an hour after the rally began. The police blocked the demonstrators' approach to the Government House, in the area of the main square of the Great National Assembly. The protesters tried to break through the cordon. As a result of the negotiations, the police let three deputies from the Shor party into the government building. They handed over the resolution adopted at the protests. After that, the protesters dispersed.
Connection with Prigozhin
As stated in a Pentagon document dated February 28, "at least some of the figures behind the conspiracy against Moldova intend to continue efforts in this direction." According to the US military, the planning of the "destabilization measures" was coordinated by the CEO of the Russian private military company Vegacy Strategic Services and an employee of the "influence group associated with PMC Wagner", which is called "Farm" in the document The Farm. In the United States, including in court documents, this is what Prigozhin's "troll factory" is called.
A lot is known about PMC Vegacy, as well as PMC "Wagner". As investigators from the Conflict Intelligence Team established in 2019, the mercenaries of this private military company collaborated with the Russian military during the siege of the Syrian city of Aleppo in 2016, and three years later they trained in Syria a group of representatives of the Palestinian diaspora, Liwa al-Quds, loyal to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In the photographs of these trainings, patches with the name Vega Strategic Services are visible on the uniforms of the mercenaries. The company with the same name, as CIT found out, was founded in April 2011 in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv by former members of the international elite and special units of Russia and Ukraine. Vega Strategic Services s, according to the description on its website, offered security services to individuals and companies in high-risk areas and provided security services on marine vessels.
A year after its founding, the company moved to Cyprus and changed its name to Vegacy Strategic Services Ltd. It was registered in June 2012 and liquidated in May 2018, according to the Cypriot Registry of companies. Then the company was half owned by a citizen of Ukraine named Anatoly Smolin, who was also its director.
In January 2022, it was reported that members of the Vegacy PMC were training security forces in Venezuela loyal to President Nicolas Maduro, whose legitimacy is not recognized by the Venezuelan parliament and a number of countries around the world, including the United States.
PMC "Wagner,” in turn, also actively participated in the war in Syria, and sent its mercenaries to Venezuela to help the Maduro regime. The Security Service of Ukraine in 2019 claimed that PMC Vega is in fact not an independent organization, but a "cover" for the activities of PMC Wagner. One of the Vega mercenaries, Dmitry Dzhinikashvili, who is mentioned in the CIT investigation, is now fighting in Ukraine, as follows from his profile on the social network VKontakte.
Failed training "protesters" in Turkey
From the document of the US Department of Defense, it follows that the organizers of the conspiracy planned to train rioters in Moldova from February 24 to 28 in a camp in Turkey, but were forced to change the training location to an unknown location in Russia due to "travel restrictions" and " increased attention" of the Turkish special services to "Russian men". It was also decided to increase the duration of training from a few days to "one or two months." In training, as follows from the leak, it was planned to participate 150 people. They should be taught how to start protests, what actions the Moldovan special services need to be prepared for, how to provide first aid to victims during the dispersal of rallies, and how to behave in case of capture.
On March 9, shortly before the opposition rallies in Chisinau, a member of the Wagner PMC was detained in the capital of Moldova. This was reported by the border police of the country. The detainee flew to Chisinau by plane and was deported to the country of departure, which is not named. The police published photos of his tattoos with the symbols of PMC "Wagner", as well as a picture from the phone of this person. On it, several people are posing in military uniforms, one of them has a patch on his sleeve that resembles the PMC Vegacy patch, and the other has a cross, which is awarded to mercenaries of the Wagner PMC.
As the head of the Moldovan police, Viorel Cernauteanu, told reporters, the detainee was a Russian citizen, whose goal was "to train people who were going to destabilize the situation in Moldova." At protests against the new government of Moldova, in turn, more than 50 people were detained. Seven of them were arrested on charges of organizing riots. In April, they extended their arrest for another month. Cernautianu said that the organizers of the riots formed 10 groups of 10 people, who were trained for actions and coordinated from Russia - this corresponds to the data from the document leaked to the network from the US Department of Defense. According to Cernautianu, the recruits were promised $10,000 for organizing the riots.
American serviceman Jack Teixeira was arrested on charges of leaking classified information from the Pentagon. The US Department of Defense does not comment on the content of the leaked documents.
Czech Republic imposes sanctions against Patriarch Kirill
The Czech government has included Patriarch Kirill (Vladimir Gundyaev), Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, on the sanctions list. The decision was made due to the fact that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church supports the Russian invasion of Ukraine, explained the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic, Jan Lipavsky.
He noted that Patriarch Kirill uses his position to justify Russian aggression in sermons and other public speeches. “Gundyaev is on the sanctions list precisely because faith cannot be used to justify the atrocities committed by Russian troops in Ukraine. Given the frequent public appearances of this person, all information is available in open sources. I can assure you that the package of evidence contains more than a hundred pages,” Lipavsky emphasized.
Patriarch Kirill became the first Russian to be included in the national sanctions list of the Czech Republic. The restrictions include a ban on entry into the country and an asset freeze. Also, he cannot conduct any financial transactions through Czech structures.
Earlier, Patriarch Kirill was sanctioned by Great Britain, Canada, and Australia. In addition, he was banned from entering Lithuania. The European Commission proposed to introduce restrictions against the head of the Russian Orthodox Church at the EU level, but the initiative was blocked by Hungary. The Czech Republic promised to ensure that the Primate fell under the sanctions of as many countries as possible.
Patriarch Kirill supported the war with Ukraine from the very beginning. While communicating with Pope Francis via video link, he spent 20 minutes reading paper arguments justifying military action. In particular, the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church tried to convince the head of the Holy See that the reason for the invasion was "NATO plans" to include Ukraine in the alliance and reduce the "flight time to Moscow" of their missiles.
Subsequently, Patriarch Kirill repeatedly justified the war in his sermons. Among other things, he argued that Russia was a “peace-loving power” that “does not engage in military adventures” and “never attacked anyone,” but only “defended its borders.” The primate told the participants in the hostilities that they “should have no doubts about the correctness of the chosen path,” and urged them not to be afraid to die in war since such a sacrifice supposedly “washes away all sins.”
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/04/26/chehiya-vvela-sanktsii-protiv-patriarha-kirilla-a41323
An article I wrote about the Orthodox Church as a tool of Russia’s intelligence services
An Unorthodox Russian Vision of Heaven and Hell
https://cepa.org/article/an-unorthodox-russian-vision-of-heaven-and-hell/
Dossier Center Investigation: The Kremlin hopes to restore influence in the Baltic states
Translated
The Kremlin has developed strategies to influence the internal politics of the Baltic countries. Russian officials were going to manipulate local businessmen to ensure the loyalty of the Baltic governments, as well as deter the support of the Russian opposition from the Lithuanian authorities.
The documents show that Russian officials fear Estonian participation in the development of Finno-Ugric separatism, the freezing of Russian assets in Latvia and the installation of NATO air defense systems in Lithuania. Earlier, the Dossier Center spoke about similar strategies for Belarus and Moldova.
All this became known from documents received by a consortium of international journalists. Our colleagues showed these documents to European politicians and experts. Together with them, we figured out what exactly the Kremlin is planning, how realistic these tasks are, and why they are dangerous.
The Dossier Center prepared this material in cooperation with Delfi Estonia, Expressen, NDR ( Norddeutscher Rundfunk), Frontstory.pl, Süddeutsche Zeitung, VSquare, WDR ( Westdeutscher Rundfunk), Yahoo News, Re:Baltica, and LRT.
In 2021, the Kremlin’s plans were formulated in documents called “Strategic goals of the Russian Federation in the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian direction.” They were developed in the border relations department of the presidential administration with the assistance of special services. It was also preparing a strategy for absorbing Belarus by 2030 and intervening in the politics of Moldova.
