Russian Digest
Top stories I'm keeping an eye on!
Prosecutor General’s Office records over 84,500 Russian war crimes, crimes of aggression in Ukraine
Russian forces have committed 84,764 war crimes and crimes of aggression in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s all-out war, according to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office.
Prosecutor General’s Office reported that 650 suspects allegedly responsible for those crimes are the Russian soldiers and the country’s political leadership.
Ukrainian law enforcement agencies said that Russia’s war against Ukraine has killed at least 478 children and injured at least 963 since Feb. 24, 2022.
The real number of children killed and injured due to Russia’s war is expected to be higher as the current count does not include casualties in Russian-occupied territories or where hostilities are ongoing.
Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s Presidential Office deputy head Ihor Zhovkva said that 36 countries had already joined the Core Group on the Special Tribunal for the Russian crime of aggression.
The Russians are preparing provocations on the northern border with Ukraine
Russian servicemen stationed in Bryansk and Kursk regions received Ukrainian military uniforms.
This was reported by locals who cooperate with the Ukrainian underground. All these actions indicate that the Russians are preparing a provocation under a foreign flag in order to mobilize their society and also to mislead the world society in order to divert attention from the crimes of the Russian Federation.
Terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation, or an imitation of hostage-taking, are not excluded.
The Center of National Resistance calls for vigilance and to pay attention to such actions of the enemy, so as not to become a victim of enemy intentions.
https://sprotyv.mod.gov.ua/rosiyany-gotuyut-provokatsiyi-na-pivnichnomu-kordoni-z-ukrayinoyu/
NATO staged a hunt for Russian submarines
The Russian navy, like the army, has demonstrated its unwillingness to wage a full-scale war. At least on the surface. But the West is seriously afraid of the entry into the confrontation of submarines. And in the course of ongoing exercises, NATO countries are working out measures to track down boats, including to prevent their possible attacks on underwater infrastructure, such as cables and gas pipelines.
Most of the 12-day exercise, which ends Friday and involves 12 NATO Allies, has been spent hunting down a fictitious hostile submarine off the coast of Norway and Iceland, according to Bloomberg. In these areas, Russian submarines could disrupt commercial shipping or try to cut off military routes through which the US is able to send reinforcements to Europe. In addition, strikes can be carried out on submarine cables that carry data and electricity.
That Russia "may target submarine cables" was announced this week by NATO Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence and Security David Kuttler. According to him, Russian ships are mapping the critical infrastructure of the countries of the bloc on land and underwater, preparing for attacks on underwater targets in Europe and North America.
Fearing such attacks, the Polish government approved a bill that would allow the destruction of ships that threaten a gas pipeline opened last year from Norway.
During the war in Ukraine, the Black Sea Fleet lost its flagship cruiser Moskva, was unable to hold Serpent’s Island, a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, and missed an attack by aquatic drones in Sevastopol. At the end of last summer, according to Western military officials, it turned into a kind of coast guard flotilla.
However, the war did not have a negative impact on the Russian submarine fleet, Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commander of US European Command and Supreme Commander of NATO Allied Forces Europe, recently told the US Congress. Russian submarines are now showing much more activity on their way to the Atlantic Ocean and in the Atlantic itself than the US has seen for years, he said.
Poland to boost military protection of Baltic energy infrastructure
The Polish government has approved draft legislation that would allow the military to sink an enemy ship targeting a key gas pipeline from Norway via the Baltic Sea following NATO's warning that Russia might sabotage undersea energy infrastructure.
In "exceptional situations", and when other options had been exhausted, the military would be allowed to foil a terrorist attack by sinking an enemy ship or airship, the government said on Thursday.
Read More:
Russia's Wagner threatens to leave Bakhmut, Ukraine says mercenaries reinforcing
Russia's main mercenary group announced plans on Friday to withdraw from the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, but Ukraine said the fighters were reinforcing positions to try to seize it before Russia marks World War Two Victory Day next week.
Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said his men had been starved of ammunition and would expect the army to take their place in Bakhmut next Wednesday, jeopardising what has long been Russia's main target in its attempt to carve up its neighbour.
"My lads will not suffer useless and unjustified losses in Bakhmut without ammunition," Prigozhin said in a video accompanying a written withdrawal announcement addressed to military leaders including President Vladimir Putin.
The announcement said "bureaucrats" had held back supplies despite knowing that Wagner's target date to capture the city was May 9, the day of the World War Two commemoration.
"If, because of your petty jealousy, you do not want to give the Russian people the victory of taking Bakhmut, that's your problem," Prigozhin added in the video.
Ukrainian troops have been pushed back in recent weeks but have clung on in the city to inflict as many Russian losses as possible ahead of Kyiv's planned big push against the invading forces along the 1,000 km (620 mile) front line.
Read More:
Peskov announced the cancellation of the reception in the Kremlin on the occasion of Victory Day
There will be no reception at the Kremlin on the occasion of Victory Day this year, press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti.
“No,” Peskov answered the question of journalists whether this event is planned for the current year.
On May 9, the president traditionally met in the Kremlin with veterans of the Great Patriotic War. At this event, the head of state delivered a speech and presented awards.
The last one took place in 2019. In 2020 and 2021, the event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, last year amid a full-scale war in Ukraine.
In Russia, more than 20 cities have canceled parades in honor of Victory Day in 2023. In some cities, events were canceled "for security reasons," and in others - due to concern for the "participants of the NWO" who came for rehabilitation. At the same time, it was decided not to hold the parade in Kursk, “taking into account the current situation,” and in Belgorod, “so as not to provoke the enemy with a large accumulation of equipment and military personnel” in the city center. In Bryansk, Krasnodar, and Sochi, the authorities did not explain the cancellation of the parades at all.
In turn, in Moscow, only the procession of the Immortal Regiment has so far been abandoned (this event will also not be held in other cities of Russia).
https://meduza.io/news/2023/05/05/peskov-soobschil-ob-otmene-priema-v-kremle-po-sluchayu-dnya-pobedy
Georgia closes one of the main escape routes for Russians from mobilization
Since May 5, the Georgian authorities have closed the passage for cars at the Kazbegi-Upper Lars customs checkpoint. Passage through the border with Russia will be limited for a month, the Georgian Finance Ministry said.
“From May 5, for one month, due to construction and rehabilitation work (in order to build new passages for cars), the work of existing passages for cars will be temporarily suspended,” the ministry said in a statement.
However, passenger cars will be able to cross the border with delays through checkpoints intended for trucks. Pedestrian passage across the border will work in the standard mode, the Ministry of Finance specified.
The border crossing through Upper Lars became one of the most popular in the period after the announcement of mobilization in Russia. Georgia remained one of the few countries where it was possible to get through the land border from Russia. Many kilometers-long queues formed at the Upper Lars checkpoint. Approximately 10,000 vehicles crossed the border daily.
In general, Georgia has become one of the main destinations for those fleeing the war and the general conscription of Russians. In November 2022, the President of the Republic, Salome Zurabishvili, said that since the beginning of the mobilization, more than 700,000 Russians had come to the country, of which 100,000 remained in Georgia. In 2022, money transfers from Russia to Georgia increased five times compared to 2021, exceeding $2.6 billion.
Since the beginning of 2022, Russians have purchased real estate in Georgia more than other foreigners, the Bm.ge portal wrote, citing data from the Georgian Ministry of Justice. In just a year, non-residents bought 15,000 apartments in the republic. Of these, more than 6 thousand were purchased by citizens of the Russian Federation.
Binance Faces US Probe of Possible Russian Sanctions Violations
DOJ said to probe whether Russians illegally accessed exchange
Neither Binance nor executives have been accused of wrongdoing
The Justice Department is investigating whether Binance Holdings Ltd. was used illegally to let Russians skirt US sanctions and move money through the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, according to people familiar with the matter.
The inquiry by the Justice Department’s national security division is looking at whether Binance or company officials ran afoul of sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to five people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named discussing a confidential investigation.
Read More:
Russian proxies in Zaporizhzhia Oblast announce displacement of civilians from front-line settlements
Russian occupation authorities in Zaporizhzhia Oblast plan to move 70,000 residents deeper into the occupied territories, a top Moscow-installed proxy Andrey Kozenko told Russian state-owned news agency TASS on May 5.
Kozenko said the displacement had already started in the Polohy district, from which 500 civilians were relocated to the Russian-occupied city of Berdiansk.
Earlier, Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of Russian occupation authorities in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, announced the partial displacement of residents of 18 front-line settlements.
Yevhen Balytskyi called the displacement "evacuation" caused by alleged "increased enemy's shelling" of the Russian-occupied settlements.
The settlements include Tymoshivka, Smyrnivka, Tarasivka, Orlianske, Molochansk, Kuibysheve, Pryshyb, Tokmak, Mala Bilozerka, Vasylivka, Velyka Bilozerka, Dniprorudne, Mykhailivka, Kamianka-Dniprovska, Enerhodar, Polohy, Kinski Rozdory, Rozivka.
Last fall, amid Ukraine's counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast, Russian occupation authorities were also conducting a forced relocation campaign in the region, calling it "evacuation."
Ukraine is expected to launch a major counteroffensive in the coming weeks. The long-awaited counteroffensive is seen as a critical juncture to take back Ukrainian territory under Russian control.
The occupiers in Melitopol are "burning documents with sacks" - the mayor
In the temporarily occupied Melitopol of the Zaporizhia region, documents are burned in sacks on the premises of the so-called police, and equipment is taken away from the occupation passport office.
Source : Mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov
Direct quote: "In Melitopol, the computers and servers of the occupation passport office took an indefinite leave."
"The occupiers hastily pack the equipment and take it to an unknown destination in Russia. Some documents are burned to the ground."
"There is no less commotion in the building of the occupation military police - documents are burned in sacks all day long."
Details: Fedorov added that an urgent evening meeting of the "management" of the occupiers took place in the Melitopol intensive care hospital, where they discussed who had already managed to escape.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2023/05/6/7400928/
The Insider investigation: Where is denazification? How neo-Nazis, with the support of Governor Beglov, teach Russian children to kill
In St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, groups affiliated with neo-Nazis offer “lessons of courage” and “weekend classes” to orphans, troubled adolescents, and cadets. The Dobrovolets [Volunteer] Center and the North Slavic Community maintain close ties to the Russian neo-Nazi organization Rusich, as well as the group Union of Donbass Volunteers, whose members have been involved in fighting in Ukraine since 2014 and have repeatedly called for the massacre of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Read More:
