Russian Digest
Top stories I'm keeping an eye on!
French MPs ask EU to label Wagner mercenaries as terrorist group
The French parliament adopted a resolution Tuesday calling on the European Union to list Russian Wagner mercenaries as a "terrorist group".
The resolution, which is non-binding, passed with unanimous support across the political spectrum.
Its author, ruling party MP Benjamin Haddad, has said he hopes it will encourage the 27 members of the EU to put Wagner on its official list of terrorist organizations.
"Wherever they work, Wagner members spread instability and violence," he told parliament on Tuesday. "They kill and torture. They massacre and pillage. They intimidate and manipulate with almost total impunity."
FBI Disables Malware Russia Allegedly Used to Steal Documents from NATO Allies
U.S. authorities said they disabled a piece of malware Russia’s intelligence agency has allegedly used for two decades to steal documents from NATO-allied governments and others, in an operation that highlights the FBI’s increasing efforts to go beyond arresting hackers and find new ways to disrupt cyberattacks.
The operation effectively hobbled one of Russia’s most well-known and oldest cyber espionage groups, officials and security experts said, a vaunted hacking team that has been previously linked to devastating thefts of U.S. secrets.
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Pentagon confirms Ukraine downed Russian missile with Patriot system
The Ukrainian military has downed a Russian missile using the U.S.-made Patriot missile defense system, the Pentagon’s top spokesman confirmed Tuesday.
“I can confirm that they did down a Russian missile by employing the Patriot missile defense system,” press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters. “As you know, that system is part of a broader range of air defense capabilities that the United States and the international community have provided to Ukraine.”
Ukrainian officials said Saturday that a U.S.-supplied Patriot was used to hit an incoming Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv earlier that week.
The system destroyed a Kremlin Kinzhal, an armament capable of traveling up to 10 times the speed of sound, Ukrainian Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a post on Telegram.
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Russian oligarchs staged a "sale" of yachts
Sanctions and mass arrests of yachts forced wealthy Russians to put them up for sale.
Major yacht brokers Fraser, Moran, Burgess, C&N, and Arconyachts have a dozen vessels for sale associated with Russian owners.
The largest and most expensive of them is Here Comes the Sun (89 m), associated with the owner of the Eurasia drilling company Alexander Japaridze. They want to raise $195 million for Here Comes the Sun. Also on sale is Galactica Supernova (70 m) for €75 million. Vagit Alekperov, the founder of Lukoil, was called its owner.
Former officials also sell their yachts: Icon Ragnar (68 m) was associated with a former KGB officer and ex-director of Norilsk Nickel Vladimir Strzhalkovsky. The seller wants to get €69.5 million for it. Another boat, Admiral Quinta Essentia (55 m), is probably being sold by the former senator and vodka king from the Beluga Group, Valentin Zavadnikov. He wants to raise a modest €25 million.
Earlier, ex-banker Oleg Tinkov announced his desire to sell the yacht. He can no longer afford to maintain the $100 million icebreaker La Datcha.
US and EU authorities have seized at least 13 superyachts owned by oligarchs close to President Putin. This includes Alisher Usmanov's 156-meter Dilbar yacht worth $600 million, Igor Sechin's 135-meter Crescent yacht for $190 million, Sergey Chemezov's 85-meter Valerie ($140 million), Alexey Mordashov's Lady M ($55 million), 40-meter yacht Lena by Gennady Timchenko for $50 million
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/05/09/rossiiskie-oligarhi-izbavlyayutsya-ot-dorogih-yaht-a42399
Journalist working for AFP news agency killed in Ukraine
French international news agency Agence France-Presse says its Ukraine video coordinator was killed Tuesday during a rocket attack near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
Arman Soldin, 32, was with a team of AFP journalists traveling with Ukrainian soldiers when the group came under fire with Grad rockets, the agency said. The rest of the AFP team was uninjured.
The late afternoon attack took place in the vicinity of Chasiv Yar, a town near Bakhmut, the agency said. Russian forces have been trying to capture the city for nine months, making Bakhmut the focus of the war’s longest battle.
“His death is a terrible reminder of the risks and dangers faced by journalists every day covering the conflict in Ukraine,” said AFP chairman Fabrice Fries.
Soldin was born in Sarajevo, now the capital of Bosnia, and a French citizen, according to AFP. He arrived in Ukraine to cover the war the day after the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, and had traveled regularly to the front lines in recent months.
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https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-afp-journalist-killed-052b7b047fc11581b7c4467995595254
Russian brigade flees Bakhmut
Ukraine's Third Assault Brigade confirmed on May 9 that the 72nd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces has fled Bakhmut.
The news, prior to the confirmation, was originally announced by Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
"Prigozhin's report about the escape of the 72nd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces from Bakhmut and the '500 corpses' of Russians who remained there is true. The Third Assault Brigade is grateful for the publicity of our success at the front," the Third Assault Brigade wrote.
According to the statement, assault troops killed 64 Russian soldiers during offensive operations in the southwestern outskirts of Bakhmut.
Additionally, "another 87 were on the way," the statement read. Among the casualties were Wagner mercenaries. Five Russian soldiers were also captured.
Bakhmut has been the epicenter of fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces for the past nine months.
Wagner mercenaries have served as the primary shock troops in Russia's attempts to expand its control over Donetsk Oblast. However, in the past nine months, they have only made incremental gains, with Ukraine still holding parts of the city.
https://kyivindependent.com/russias-brigade-flees-bakhmut/
Russian mercenary chief says he's been told to stay in Bakhmut or be branded traitor
The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary force fighting in eastern Ukraine said on Tuesday he had been told he and his men would be regarded as traitors if they abandoned their positions in the city of Bakhmut.
But Yevgeny Prigozhin said for the second time in a matter of days that his forces would leave Bakhmut if they did not receive the ammunition they needed to press the battle.
He delivered his latest tirade in a profanity-laced audio message which coincided with Russia marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two with its traditional parade on Moscow's Red Square.
He made cryptic but crude comments about those in overall charge of Russia's war on Ukraine on Tuesday, referring ambiguously to a "grandfather" figure who was under the mistaken impression that everything was going well with Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine.
"What will the country do, our children, grandchildren who are the future of Russia, and how can we win this war if - by chance, and I'm just speculating here - it turns out that this grandfather is a complete ****head?," he asked.
Prigozhin has previously poured scorn on Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff, but has avoided all personal criticism of President Vladimir Putin.
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Türkiye began to massively refuse Russians a residence permit
The Russians faced problems with obtaining and renewing a tourist residence permit in Turkey. In almost all regions, the percentage of denials of residence permits began to rise sharply, and the extension of residence became the most painful issue for the majority of Russians who moved to Turkey.
Difficulties are recorded in all major cities where immigrants from the Russian Federation live: Istanbul, Antalya, Kemer, Bodrum, Marmaris, and others. According to a visa consultant from Turkey, the problem is widespread, and the requirements of the city administration for documents for a residence permit in each region may differ. Now many people are trying to get other residence permits, not tourist ones, for example, they are buying real estate.
Three Russians from Bodrum, Marmaris, and Antalya spoke about the difficulties in extending. According to a resident of Bodrum (one of the most expensive resorts), many are forced to leave for Russia, the EU and other countries. He believes that Bodrum has a very high failure rate - close to 90%.
In other tourist cities of Turkey, the situation with residence permits is also becoming more complicated, local administrations require much more documents to extend the residence permit, including statements from Turkish banks with monthly receipts to the account. Usually for a family of three, this is about $2,000 per month.
Tourist residence permit was very popular and allowed to stay in the country for up to a year. To obtain it, previously only the rental of real estate and local insurance was required.
Last year, Russians became the main buyers of real estate in Turkey among foreigners, occupying a quarter of this market. They purchased more than 16,000 properties in Turkey, three times more than a year earlier.
The number of residence permits issued by Russians amounted to 153 thousand, and this is also a record among all foreign citizens in Turkey.
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/05/08/turtsiya-nachala-massovo-otkazivat-rossiyanam-v-vnzh-a42377
Britain prepares to send long-range missiles to Ukraine
The U.K. is pushing the Biden administration into providing Ukraine with weapons that can reach further into Russian-held territory
Britain, which has prided itself on being ahead of its Western allies in introducing new weapons systems to Ukraine, now appears poised to send Kyiv the long-range missiles the Biden administration has long denied it.
In a procurement notice posted May 2 by the British-led International Fund for Ukraine, a group of northern European countries that has set up a mechanism to send weapons to the battlefield, the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry asked for “expressions of interest” in providing strike capabilities with a range of up to 300 kilometers, or nearly 200 miles. The notice asked for responses within three days.
No final decision has been made, according to a British official who declined to confirm the type, timing or quantity of weaponry under consideration. But the notice is a substantive step toward Britain itself supplying such munitions, and the requested specifications and capabilities closely match its air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/08/britain-ukraine-long-range-missile/
Situation of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant deteriorating - Funke Media
The situation at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine, is deteriorating, Funke Media Group reported.
According to Ukraine's state-owned operating company Energoatom, Russia is bringing more troops and military vehicles to the site of the nuclear power plant.
"The situation of equipment and personnel is deteriorating," Energoatom president Petro Kotin told Funke.
Krym.Realii journalists discovered more than two hundred military facilities of the Russian Federation in occupied Crimea
Journalists of the Radio Liberty Crimea.Reality project discovered more than 220 active, temporary, and preserved military facilities of the Russian Federation on the Crimean peninsula occupied by Moscow since 2014. Among them are military airfields with infrastructure, points, and bases of ships, ships and boats, docks, arsenals, warehouses of weapons, products, and fuel, military towns, military units, barracks, headquarters, and control points, parks of military equipment and duty stations of air defense equipment, training grounds, and training centers, some enterprises of the military-industrial complex.
All these data with exact coordinates and photos are placed on the interactive map, which Krym.Realii and RFE/RL intend to publish tomorrow, May 10.
"It is important for us to inform our audience about the level of militarization of the Crimean Peninsula. We want to warn Crimeans about the danger associated with these places. After all, many people live near the military facilities of the Russian Federation. And taking into account the large-scale military actions that Russia is conducting against Ukraine, these places are especially dangerous for others," said the author of the map, journalist Krym.Realii Ihor Tokar.
Anzhelika Rudenko, coordinator of the author's team of the project, which included journalists from Krym.Realii, the "Schemes" project, freelancers from Crimea, military experts, and specialists of the RFE/RL Central News Service, noted that the map can be used by both Crimeans and forced migrants from the occupied regions of mainland Ukraine, as well as everyone who has relatives in Crimea or is interested in information from Crimea.
Kyrylo Ovsyany, a journalist of the "Schemes" project, added that this map is made up of current Planet Labs satellite images for 2023, which show what is really happening in occupied Crimea. There you can consider in detail where and what danger military and other facilities associated with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and other Russian law enforcement agencies pose.
An interactive map of Russian military facilities on the Crimean Peninsula will be available in Russian and Ukrainian on the Krym.Realii/Krym.Realii and Radio Liberty websites at 9:00 a.m. on May 10.
Earlier, the representative of GUR MOU Andriy Yusov called on Crimeans "not to be near military facilities and facilities that supply the aggressor's army in the near future."
Starting in August 2022, the sounds of explosions can be heard almost every day in Crimea and Sevastopol. The Russian authorities explain this by shooting at "Ukrainian drones" and "the work of air defense". The representative of the occupation authorities, Serhii Aksyonov, called drones the "main threat" to Crimea. In October 2022, an explosion occurred on the Crimean (Kerchen) bridge. The peninsula has an elevated ("yellow") level of terrorist danger. Simferopol airport is closed.
Russia militarized the Crimean peninsula after its occupation and illegal annexation in 2014. Ukraine declares that it will return all its occupied territories, including the occupied Crimea.
https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/news-viyskovi-obyekty-rf-krym/32403659.html
Prigozhin sounds desperate.