Russian Digest

Russian strike on Ukraine city kills eight, damaging hotel used by journalists

Pokrovsk attack leaves at least 31 injured, with a hotel and pizzeria damaged in the attack said to be popular with international reporters

Two Russian missile strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, including on a residential building, killed at least eight people and wounded many more, a regional governor said. Prominent journalists noted that a hotel and pizzeria damaged in the strike were known to be popular among correspondents covering the war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Moscow had struck an “ordinary residential building”, publishing footage of a typical Soviet-era five-story building that had its top floor destroyed. Ukraine said rescue operations were ongoing.

The second missile hit the city 40 minutes after the first, the governor said, killing the first responders.

Poland Says Belarus, Russia 'Organizing' New Migrant Influx

Poland's government on Monday accused Belarus and Russia of orchestrating another migration influx into the European Union via the Polish border in order to destabilize the region.

"We're talking about an operation organized by the Russian and Belarusian secret services that is getting more and more intense," Polish Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wasik told reporters.

Tomasz Praga, the head of the Polish border guard, added that the Belarusian services had become "a criminal group that is masterminding illegal migration."

"Of course, they are making huge profits from it," he told reporters.

During a previous border crisis, starting in the summer of 2021, tens of thousands of migrants and refugees -- mostly from the Middle East -- crossed or attempted to cross into Poland from neighboring Belarus.

At the time the West accused the Belarusian regime of orchestrating the influx with its ally Russia in a "hybrid" attack, a type of warfare using non-military tactics -- a charge Minsk denied.

Poland reacted then by setting up a no-access zone at the border, which lasted for nine months and banned non-residents including migrants, aid workers and media from the area.

It also sent thousands of troops and police officers to reinforce border guard patrols at the height of the crisis, built a steel wall along the border and approved a law allowing migrants to be forced back into Belarus.

Wasik said the situation "is not as chaotic today as it was two years ago.”

Banker Rotenberg, who settled in the Czech Republic, was charged with circumventing sanctions

The Czech authorities opened a criminal case against the Russians for circumventing international sanctions, the National Center for Combating Organized Crime said.

According to law enforcers, in 2015 the defendant helped to transfer money to an “oligarch long associated” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and who was under sanctions due to the annexation of Crimea. Subsequently, these funds were used in the Czech Republic.

According to local media, we are talking about businessman Dmitry Kalantyrsky. For more than 10 years he worked as the head of SMP-Bank, owned by Arkady Rotenberg, but after the oligarch fell under EU sanctions in 2014, he sold his shares and acquired assets in Europe.

Back in 2017, the anti-corruption project “Municipal Scanner” called Kalantyrsky one of the “emissaries” sent by Rotenberg to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to circumvent restrictions. Including the entrepreneur who bought through his offshore Cyprus two four-star hotels on the Austrian mountain pass Nassfeld on the border with Italy.

In a conversation with Denik N, Kalantyrsky confirmed that in 2015 he received about 100 million kroons ($4 million) on his accounts from business partners from Russia. However, he assures that the company that transferred money to him did not belong to Rotenberg at that time.

Kalantyrsky also added that he is currently not in contact with the oligarch and maintains business relations only with a certain woman from his entourage.

According to RBC, Kalantyrsky owned the Cypriot offshore Ermira, which was the actual owner of vodka under the Putinka brand. In addition, this offshore has been used as Putin's "purse" for many years, the Project wrote.

In the Czech Republic, Kalantyrsky owns three companies, one of which is associated with Cyprus offshore. The entrepreneur's house in Prague also belongs to a company registered in Cyprus. On August 2, the mansion was searched. Kalantyrsky himself is still at large.

Arkady Rotenberg has known Putin since childhood - together with him and his brother Boris they went to the same judo section. In 2014, commenting on the sanctions against them, the president called the businessmen his "good friends."

The Rotenbergs are under EU, UK, US, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and Ukraine sanctions. Earlier, the BBC published a joint investigation with the journalistic organization Finance Uncovered that businessmen circumvented sanctions by taking advantage of a loophole in UK law - in particular, they created companies that are not required to report on the owners.

About how Arkady and Boris Rotenberg were able to hide their billions in assets after the imposition of sanctions through restructuring, change of formal owners, and other schemes, they also wrote "Important stories."

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/08/07/naosevshego-vchehii-bankira-rotenberga-zaveli-delo-obobhode-sanktsii-a51282

Ukraine says it’s foiled assassination plot against Zelensky

An alleged informant for Russia has been detained in connection to a plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said Monday.

The detained woman has not been named publicly but is from the southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv, according to a statement from the SBU.

The SBU said she had been “gathering intelligence” about Zelensky’s planned visit to Mykolaiv at the end of July, in order to plan a Russian airstrike to kill the president.

However, SBU agents had obtained information about the “subversive activities of the suspect” and adopted additional security measures, foiling the plot.

The SBU said that it caught the woman “red-handed” as she “was trying to pass intelligence to the invaders.”

In monitoring the communications of the woman, the SBU established that she also had the task of identifying the location of electronic warfare systems and warehouses with ammunition of the armed forces.

She allegedly traveled around the territory of the district and filmed the locations of Ukrainian objects.

According to the investigation, the perpetrator was a resident of Ochakov in Mykolaiv region and a former saleswoman in a military store.

North Korean hackers breached top Russian missile maker

An elite group of North Korean hackers secretly breached computer networks at a major Russian missile developer for at least five months last year, according to technical evidence reviewed by Reuters and analysis by security researchers.

Reuters found cyber-espionage teams linked to the North Korean government, which security researchers call ScarCruft and Lazarus, secretly installed stealthy digital backdoors into systems at NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, a small town on the outskirts of Moscow.

Reuters could not determine whether any data was taken during the intrusion or what information may have been viewed. In the months following the digital break-in Pyongyang announced several developments in its banned ballistic missile programme but it is not clear if this was related to the breach.

Experts say the incident shows how the isolated country will even target its allies, such as Russia, in a bid to acquire critical technologies.

Russia has damaged over 760 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine since Feb. 24

Russian forces have damaged at least 763 cultural heritage sites in unoccupied regions of Ukraine since Feb. 24 2022, according to Ukraine's Culture Ministry. The highest number of damaged sites have been recorded in Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Kyiv and Odesa oblasts.

Of those 763 are at least 255 architectural landmarks, 185 historical sites, 19 monumental art sites, 18 sites of archeological significance. The information presented by the ministry spans the beginning of ther war to July 25, 2023.

The total number of damaged cultural heritage sites due to Russia’s war is vastly higher, as the current count does not include Russian-occupied territories or where hostilities are ongoing, the ministry said.

Earlier, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said that as of July 26, at least 274 cultural sites had been damaged during the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This included 117 religious sites, 27 museums, 98 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 19 monuments, 12 libraries, and one archive.

After Russian strikes against Odesa's historical center, which was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site earlier this year, the organization highlighted that the intentional destruction of cultural sites may amount to a war crime, "as acknowledged also by the United Nations Security Council — of which the Russian Federation is a permanent member."

https://kyivindependent.com/russia-has-damaged-destroyed-over-1-100-cultural-sites-in-ukraine-since-feb-24-2/

Japan raises concerns over Iran’s nuclear enrichment and drone supplies to Russia for Ukraine war

Japan expressed concern on Monday over Iran’s advancing uranium enrichment program and the Middle East country’s suspected supplying of combat drones to Moscow for Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi raised the two issues during talks with his visiting Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, the foreign ministry in Tokyo said. A statement from the ministry said Hayashi appealed for Iran to act constructively in the matter but did not elaborate.

Iranian drones have been a key element of Russia’s continued war on Ukraine. Tehran has offered conflicting accounts about the drones — first denying Iran has supplied them to Russia and later claiming the unmanned aircraft were only sold before the Russian invasion.

How U.S. microchips are fueling Russia’s military — despite sanctions

Western microchips used to power smartphones and laptops are continuing to enter Russia and fuel its military arsenal, new analysis shows.

Trade data and manifests analyzed by CNBC show that Moscow has been sourcing an increased number of semiconductors and other advanced Western technologies through intermediary countries such as China.

In 2022, Russia imported $2.5 billion worth of semiconductor technologies, up from $1.8 billion in 2021.

Semiconductors and microchips play a crucial role in modern-day warfare, powering a range of equipment including drones, radios, missiles and armored vehicles.

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50 years of history rewritten for schoolchildren at Putin's request

A unified history textbook for grades 10-11 will contain "completely revised" sections relating to the events of the past 50 years, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky said, Interfax reports.

“The section about the 70s, 80s, 90s, and ‘zero’ [2000s] years has been radically rewritten,” he said. In addition, a section covering the period from 2014 to 2023 has been added to the textbook. That is, starting with the annexation of Crimea and ending with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Medinsky noted that "the authors literally wrote with their own hands “a lot" of these events.

A photo of the chapters of the textbook was published by RBC. The section on the war with Ukraine has 17 paragraphs, among them: “Ukraine is a neo-Nazi state”, “Northern Military District and Russian society” and “Russia is a country of heroes.”

In particular, schoolchildren will be told that Ukraine is an “ultra-nationalist state” where “any dissent is severely persecuted,” “opposition is prohibited,” and “everything Russian is declared hostile.” The textbook also says that the United States is “determined to fight to the last Ukrainian,” and the West “stole” Russian assets worth more than $300 billion.

High school students will be warned that the "global industry" for the production of fakes "works in a continuous conveyor," so they should not turn to alternative sources and find out information about the war on the Internet.

According to Medinsky, he himself wrote the chapter on Ukraine, which contains "dramatically fewer numbers, dates" and "dry statistics" - instead, it included "stories about people and specific events." Also, the section is replete with quotes from President Vladimir Putin and evaluative exclamations like "there was an unprecedented and unthinkable."

The textbook for grades 10-11 will be used in schools from September 1. As noted by the head of the Ministry of Education, Sergei Kravtsov, the Prosveshchenie publishing house, which is headed by Gazprombank top manager Natalia Tretyak, was engaged in the issue of circulation. The price of the textbook will be 20% cheaper than the previous version and will amount to 849 rubles. In total, 650,000 schoolchildren will receive a new history textbook for grades 11.

It is noteworthy that President Putin has been talking about the “danger of rewriting history” since at least 2014. The head of state emphasized that such actions would be "to the detriment of those who are engaged in this for the sake of momentary political interests." “Including the glorification of Nazism,” he said.

Putin noted that “history is a science,” and if you take it “seriously,” it is “impossible” to rewrite it. However, after the start of the war with Ukraine, the president declared that the creation of new history textbooks was "a matter of national importance."

“History is generally important for any nation, especially at some difficult turns in the life of the state. For us, just such a moment has come when we must be very attentive to both history and the formation of public consciousness, ”Putin stressed. After his instructions, the textbook was prepared "in the shortest possible time, in fact, within five months," said Kravtsov.

In early August, the president demanded that the new unified history textbook be delivered to schools on time. “I draw your attention to the fact that the work must be carried out as quickly as possible. In the new academic year, schoolchildren should have all the necessary books and textbooks,” Putin stressed at a meeting with members of the government.

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/08/07/dva-mesyatsa-kontrnastupleniya-ukraini-vzglyad-iz-kieva-a51281

Romania decries ‘cynical’ Russian grain infrastructure attacks

Romania is working to find more ways to help transport Ukrainian grain, the country’s foreign minister said Monday, describing the security situation in the Black Sea region as “quite serious.”

More than half of Ukrainian exports using the EU’s solidarity lanes — corridors set up to facilitate transit by road, rail and inland waterway — came through Romania. The European Commission has estimated that more than 65 percent of the grain exported via solidarity lanes in June traveled along the Danube corridor.

Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative last month, fueling fears about the future of Ukraine’s grain exports and impact on food security.

China hacked Japan’s sensitive defense networks, officials say

In the fall of 2020, the National Security Agency made an alarming discovery: Chinese military hackers had compromised classified defense networks of the United States’ most important strategic ally in East Asia. Cyberspies from the People’s Liberation Army had wormed their way into Japan’s most sensitive computer systems.

The hackers had deep, persistent access and appeared to be after anything they could get their hands on — plans, capabilities, assessments of military shortcomings, according to three former senior U.S. officials, who were among a dozen current and former U.S. and Japanese officials interviewed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

“It was bad — shockingly bad,” recalled one former U.S. military official, who was briefed on the event, which has not been previously reported.

Tokyo has taken steps to strengthen its networks. But they are still deemed not sufficiently secure from Beijing’s prying eyes, which, officials say, could impede greater intelligence-sharing between the Pentagon and Japan’s Defense Ministry.

The 2020 penetration was so disturbing that Gen. Paul Nakasone, the head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, and Matthew Pottinger, who was White House deputy national security adviser at the time, raced to Tokyo. They briefed the defense minister, who was so concerned that he arranged for them to alert the prime minister himself.

Beijing, they told the Japanese officials, had breached Tokyo’s defense networks, making it one of the most damaging hacks in that country’s modern history.

The Japanese were taken aback but indicated they would look into it. Nakasone and Pottinger flew back “thinking they had really made a point,” said one former senior defense official briefed on the matter.

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