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Ukraine intercepts missiles as Russia steps up strikes on Kyiv
Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 18 attempted Russian strikes on Kyiv early Tuesday including six hypersonic missiles, military and city authorities said, largely foiling one of Moscow’s fiercest attacks so far.
Residents of the Ukrainian capital were jolted awake about 3 a.m. by cascading booms that shook windows, set off car alarms and delivered a new dose of terror in a city mostly spared from direct damage and destruction in recent months.
Falling missile debris injured at least three people in Kyiv and caused damage to the city’s zoo and central neighborhoods, city officials said.
The strikes, which could be heard for over 20 minutes in the capital, were among the most intense in months. The assault “was exceptional in its density — the maximum number of missile attacks in the shortest period of time,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration, wrote on Telegram.
Ukrainian officials said the barrage offered the latest evidence that Ukraine desperately needs stronger aviation capabilities and more powerful, longer-range weapons.
Ukrainian officials claimed a perfect interception rate, and credited Western-donated Patriot air defense systems with thwarting attacks by the most sophisticated Russian weapons, including the hypersonic Kinzhal, or Dagger, which travels at more than five times the speed of sound. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force, said Russia expended millions of dollars in high-end missiles in a failed attempt to hit targets in the Kyiv region.
“The enemy is attempting to achieve its goals,” Ihnat said. “Right now it had the goal of striking certain installations in the region of the capital. These could be next to the city, or in the city — we can’t know what the enemy had in mind, because we destroyed everything.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/16/missiles-russia-ukraine-war-kyiv/
U.S. officials confirm damage to a Patriot air defense system in the attack but say it remains operational
Ukraine’s air defense intercepted six hypersonic Kinzhal missiles fired by Russia early Tuesday, several Ukrainian officials and one American official said. The strikes are further evidence of Ukraine’s ability to shoot down one of the most sophisticated conventional weapons in Moscow’s arsenal.
In one of the largest aerial assaults since early March, Russia also launched nine Kalibr cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea, three short-range ballistic missiles from land and a number of drones, according to the commander in chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. All of the drones and missiles were shot down, the military said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that at least one Kinzhal was used in the attack on Tuesday and claimed that a Kinzhal had hit a Patriot air defense system. Two U.S. officials confirmed that a Patriot system had been damaged in the attack but added that the Patriot remained operational against all threats.
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Hungary blocks next tranche of EU off-budget military support for Ukraine
Hungary did not approve the disbursement of the next tranche of military support for Ukraine provided under the EU's European Peace Facility (EPF), a government spokesman's office said on Tuesday.
The EPF, created in 2021, is an off-budget instrument aimed at enhancing the EU's ability to prevent conflicts, build peace and strengthen international security.
"Hungary does not agree with the fact that the European Union, along with other existing tools, uses the European Peace Facility solely with regard to Ukraine as this does not allow sufficient funds to be channelled to promote the EU's interests in other areas," the government spokesman's office said in an email response to Reuters about an Italian media report on the matter.
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UK, Netherlands agree on ‘international coalition’ to help Ukraine procure F-16 jets
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte have agreed to build an “international coalition” to help procure F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine, the British government has announced.
The statement published by the U.K. government on May 16 says that Sunak reiterated his belief that "Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO" and the leaders agreed on the importance of allies providing long-term security assistance to Ukraine to guarantee they can deter against future attacks.
The announcement came a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky hinted that Kyiv could soon receive F-16 fighter jets, saying he was hopeful of “very important” decisions on the subject with the help of the U.K.
Zelensky and Sunak held a two-hour talk on May 15 during the president's second visit to the U.K. since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion. At a joint press conference after the meeting, Sunak reportedly said that sending fighter jets to Ukraine was "not a straightforward thing," but London would be "a key part of the coalition countries," providing Kyiv with that support.
Any coalition of F-16 donors would likely be reliant on backing from the U.S. and Washington has recently ruled out sending F-16 jets to Ukraine for now, while U.S. officials have estimated the most expeditious time needed for training and delivery at 18 months.
Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said that Ukraine's military has regained 20 square kilometers near Bakhmut
Information about the course of hostilities should be considered in the context of all the measures of the defense operation and should not be taken out of the context of the events.
For example, within a few days, our troops liberated about 20 square kilometers from the enemy in the north and south of the suburbs of Bakhmut.
At the same time, the enemy is advancing somewhat in Bakhmut itself, completely destroying the city with artillery. In addition, the enemy is raising units of professional paratroopers.
Heavy battles continue with different results.
In the current situation, our troops are doing their best and even more.
The fact that the defense of Bakhmut lasts for so many months and there are advances in certain areas is the strength of our fighters and the high level of professionalism of the defense command.
I will remind you that the enemy has an advantage in the number of people and weapons. At the same time, thanks to the actions of our military, he has not been able to implement his plans in the Bakhmut direction since last summer.
Russian National Charged with Ransomware Attacks Against Critical Infrastructure
Ransomware Attacks Against Law Enforcement Agencies in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey, As Well As Other Victims Worldwide; U.S. Department of State Offers Reward Up to $10M
The Justice Department today unsealed two indictments charging a Russian national and resident with using three different ransomware variants to attack numerous victims throughout the United States, including law enforcement agencies in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey, as well as victims in healthcare and other sectors nationwide.
According to the indictment obtained in the District of New Jersey, from at least as early as 2020, Mikhail Pavlovich Matveev, aka Wazawaka, aka m1x, aka Boriselcin, aka Uhodiransomwar, allegedly participated in conspiracies to deploy three ransomware variants. These variants are known as LockBit, Babuk, and Hive, and Matveev transmitted ransom demands in connection with each. The perpetrators behind each of these variants, including Matveev, have allegedly used these types of ransomware to attack thousands of victims in the United States and around the world. These victims include law enforcement and other government agencies, hospitals, and schools. Total ransom demands allegedly made by the members of these three global ransomware campaigns to their victims amount to as much as $400 million, while total victim ransom payments amount to as much as $200 million.
“From his home base in Russia, Matveev allegedly used multiple ransomware variants to attack critical infrastructure around the world, including hospitals, government agencies, and victims in other sectors,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “These international crimes demand a coordinated response. We will not relent in imposing consequences on the most egregious actors in the cybercrime ecosystem.”
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Russia's spending on the war in Ukraine reached 30 billion rubles a day
The expenses of the Russian budget to finance the army, thrown into the war with Ukraine, by the beginning of May exceeded 3 trillion rubles. Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International Security Problems, provides such an assessment with reference to the data of the Electronic Budget system.
According to the Ministry of Finance , as of May 15, the budget spent 789.8 billion rubles on open items in the "national defense" section alone. To this amount, you need to add more secret expenses - 3 trillion rubles, of which 80% (2.4 trillion rubles) goes to the military, Kluge points out.
Thus, on average, each month of hostilities costs the budget about 720 billion rubles. These are two annual budgets of rich regions, such as the Yamalo-Nenets or Khanty-Mani Autonomous Okrugs (330 billion rubles), or 8 annual budgets of poor regions, such as the Bryansk or Vladimir regions (90 billion rubles).
Every day, the military machine "eats up" about 30 billion rubles - an amount comparable to what the poorest regions collect for the treasury in a year. For example, the income of the Jewish Autonomous Region in 2023 is set at the level of 19.3 billion rubles, Kalmykia - 24.9 billion rubles, Ingushetia - 35.9 billion rubles.
In the 2023 budget, the Ministry of Finance established 5 trillion rubles under the item “national defense,” and by mid-May it had already spent two-thirds of this amount, Kluge points out. Military spending was three times higher than the appropriations to support the national economy and 6 times the amount that was allocated for education and health from the federal treasury.
In January and February, injections into the army and defense plants, which are instructed to sharply increase the production of tank and missile shells, reached almost a trillion rubles a month, based on data of the Ministry of Finance (the department published the full amounts, taking into account “closed” articles, only for two months of 2023). Compared to the same months of 2022, when the army stood on the Ukrainian border and prepared to invade, and Russian officials denied plans to start a war, defense spending has increased by 282%.
Part of the spending is advance payments to military-industrial complex enterprises, which President Vladimir Putin demanded to produce more weapons and urgently improve their characteristics.
“We do not have any funding restrictions,” he promised at the Defense Ministry collegium at the end of December. As a result, the budget is sharply increasing spending, while the situation with income is getting worse: the rivers of raw material rent have become shallow due to sanctions and gas cuts to European countries, and non-oil and gas revenues are sagging amid a recession in the economy.
According to the Ministry of Finance, in January-April, oil and gas tax revenues were cut in half, total revenues fell by 22%, and the deficit reached 3.4 trillion rubles, exceeding the plan for the whole year.
At the same time, in April alone, the hole in the treasury exceeded a trillion rubles, and the decline in oil and gas revenues accelerated to 64% after 43-46% in January-March.
"Fakel", "Potok" and "Redut" Three PMCs associated with Gazprom are fighting in Ukraine. The main thing from the investigation of the BBC Russian Service
In addition to PMC Wagner, private military companies are involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which are most likely connected to Gazprom. As the BBC Russian Service recalls , Yevgeny Prigozhin spoke about the existence of such PMCs in an interview in April.
“Those people who have money think that this is an awesome topic now - to collect PMCs. So they start breeding. Gazprom's PMC Potok, PMC [billionaire Andrey] Bokarev, PMC Redut - each creature in pairs,” said the founder of PMC Wagner. Prigozhin claimed that mercenaries from other PMCs were sent to cover the flanks near Bakhmut, where Wagner was advancing, but they were forced to abandon their positions due to poor training and supplies, as well as due to the lack of “tactical commanders.” At the same time, Prigozhin said, the founders of such PMCs “report to the Kremlin,” and mercenaries in these companies receive huge salaries.
At the beginning of 2023, a subsidiary of Gazprom, Gazpromneft, received permission from Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to create a “private security organization” (PHOO). According to the BBC, it was created in Omsk under the name "Gazpromneft Okhrana" and under the leadership of former high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB.
There is no official confirmation of the connection between Gazpromneft Okhrana and PMC Potok, the BBC notes, but there is indirect evidence of it. So, in April, a video message from “fighters of the Potok battalion” appeared on the channel of one of the Russian “military correspondents,” stating that it was created by Gazprom from “departmental security personnel,” sent to the Bakhmut area and replaced there in positions on flanks of Wagner PMC mercenaries. The mercenaries complained about poor leadership and supply, and also mentioned that they were sent to Ukraine under the command of the Redut (aka Redoubt) PMC, which Prigozhin also mentioned.
The fact that Potok is under the command of PMC Redut is stated in the recording of the interrogation of a Russian prisoner, which appeared in late April - early May. In the video, the prisoner, who introduces himself as Alexander Tkachenko, a native of Orenburg, said that Gazprom has two more PMCs, Fakel and Plamya, and they are controlled by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Judging by the information on the page of Alexander Tkachenko in social networks, which was discovered by the BBC, he worked for Gazprom Dobycha Orenburg. Tkachenko's position is not specified, but, judging by his signatures, he was associated with the private security of the gas monopoly.
PMC "Redut," which is mentioned by both Prigozhin and Potok's mercenaries, has existed for several years and previously guarded the facilities of Gennady Timchenko's Stroytransgaz in Syria, writes the BBC. Until recently, Redut was considered a small structure compared to Prigozhin's PMC, but a few months ago, according to the BBC, reports began to appear that the company was actively recruiting mercenaries and participating in battles in Ukraine.
Some pro-war bloggers and journalists are hinting at the connection of "Redut" with Russia’s Ministry of Defense. “Allegedly, Gazprom created three PMCs: Plamya, Potok and Fakel. Volunteers are recruited there and transferred to the Ministry of Defense. I don’t know if this is true or not, and what their future is, I don’t know either, ”the BBC quotes an April interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda war correspondent Alexander Kots.
Little is known about the scale of losses of PMCs associated with Gazprom, writes the BBC. The only member of the Potok unit whose death was officially recognized by the authorities is Erast Yakovenko, a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria. As the journalists established, Yakovenko worked as a senior security guard in one of the structures of Gazprom - a branch of the Southern Interregional Security Directorate.
Officially, neither the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, nor Gazprom, notes the BBC, the existence of PMCs associated with the gas monopoly, do not recognize.
Note: PMC’s are illegal in Russia under to the Constitution and conduct global operations on behalf of the Kremlin, intelligence services, and Defense Ministry.
YouTube started removing videos of Wagner
YouTube, owned by the American corporation Google, has begun removing videos of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, the Moscow Times has learned.
The service explained that Wagner is a “criminal and terrorist organization,” and accordingly it is forbidden to post materials about it. “We make exceptions only for educational, documentary, artistic, and scientific videos if they are accompanied by a suitable context and their publication is justified,” the support said.
At the end of January, the United States recognized Wagner as a transnational criminal organization and imposed sanctions against structures associated with it. The mercenary group itself and its founder, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, have been under US sanctions since 2017.
In addition, the French Parliament voted to declare PMC Wagner a terrorist organization. The resolution emphasized that the group has "participated in the killing and torture of civilians in Bucha" and its actions could be qualified as war crimes.
In March of this year, a similar decision was made by the Seimas of Lithuania, and then the European Union added Wagner to the sanctions list for "active participation in Russian military aggression against Ukraine." About a week ago, it became known that the United Kingdom also intends to recognize PMC Wagner as a terrorist organization.
In April, Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine Oleksandr Tkachenko appealed to YouTube management with a request to “take specific measures” to identify videos promoting Prigozhin’s group. “Such manifestations of the Russian hybrid war must be stopped as soon as possible for the stability of the democratic world,” he said.
On the same day, Tkachenko noted that the company responded to the request "with lightning speed, removing Wagner videos with more than 1 million views and the channels that distributed these videos."
In October last year, Prigozhin demanded that the Russian Prosecutor General's Office block YouTube, accusing the platform of spreading "fake news," calling for the overthrow of the government, and publishing "Russophobic" and destructive content. He also asked to recognize the "undesirable" activities of Google.
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/05/16/youtube-nachal-blokirovat-roliki-ochvk-vagner-a43062
CIA launches video to recruit Russian spies
The Central Intelligence Agency has launched a new effort to capitalize on what US intelligence officials believe is an “unprecedented” opportunity to convince Russians disaffected by the war in Ukraine and life in Russia to share their secrets, posting a slickly produced, cinematic recruitment video online on Monday.
The push includes a new CIA channel on Telegram, the social media network that is a highly popular source of unfiltered news in Russia. The CIA first posted the video on Telegram, which ends with instructions on how to get in touch with the CIA anonymously and securely. The video is also being posted to its other social media platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
CIA officials involved in the project said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created a historic opening “to have Russians come to us and deliver information the United States needs.” It also comes after a previous recruitment drive following the launch of the invasion that the officials said has been successful, with “contact coming in.”
The message, one official said, that they hope Russians who work in sensitive fields with access to valuable information now hear is: “We understand you, maybe better than you think.”
“We wanted to convey to Russians in their own language we know what they’re going through,” added the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive project.
The official insisted the video is “absolutely not” meant to be incendiary or fuel unrest among the broader population – where Russian President Vladimir Putin still enjoys a high level of support – but rather targets individuals who may be on the fence, and “demystifies” the process of contacting the CIA. It does not mention Putin or even the war Ukraine, in part because it would be “redundant,” but also because they argue it draws on “timeless” themes that have long convinced disaffected Russians to reach out to the CIA.
“Ukraine is top of mind but that’s more or less a symptom of something larger,” one of the officials said. “There are always individuals in Russia who identify with what we have to say here.”
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https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/15/politics/cia-russia-spy-recruitment-video/index.html