The War in Ukraine: Vladimir Putin and the X-rays of the Kremlin-backed Russian International Affairs Council (IAC)

Kortunov says that Putin could make a declaration of victory and leave on his own terms. For this, he needs a big achievement on the ground. “Russia cannot simply get to where it was, on the 24 February of this year, say, okay, you know, that’s fine. Our mission is accomplished. So we go home… and there is something that the public can see as a victory.

Kurt Volker was US ambassador to NATO and US special representative to Ukraine during Donald Trump’s presidency. “I think what he must be striving for, is to brandish the nuclear weapons, make all kinds of threats to Europe, and then say, okay, so let’s negotiate a settlement. Let me keep what’s left from my previous purchases.

Andrey Kortunov, who runs the Kremlin-backed Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow, sees it, too. According to him, Putin wants to end it as quickly as possible.

Putin has suffered a number of battlefield losses, and is running up a political tab because of the heavy-handed drive to recruit 300,000 troops.

Above all, many of the best and brightest in virtually every field have now fled Russia. Some of the most creative technologists, scientists and engineers are also included.

CNN is unable to verify the Russian figures, but the 40 kilometers (around 25 miles) traffic tailbacks at the border with Georgia, and the long lines at crossings into Kazakhstan and Finland, speak to the backlash and the strengthening perception that Putin is losing his fabled touch at reading Russia’s mood.

Kortunov says he doesn’t know what goes on in the Kremlin but that he understands the public mood over the huge costs and loss of life in the war. “Many people would start asking questions, why did we get into this mess? You know why we lost so many people.

He used the same strategy of annexing the region as before, but this time he threatens to use nuclear weapons should the Ukrainians try to take it back.

The leaders of the west are threatening to destroy Putin’s empire. Last Sunday US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Washington would respond decisively if Russia deployed nuclear weapons against Ukraine and has made clear to Moscow the “catastrophic consequences” it would face.

Explosive Nuclear Shocks in the Danes, Germans, and Ukraine: Why Putin is so fast in war with the West?

Both Danish and Swedish seismologists recorded explosive shockwaves from close to the seabed: the first, at around 2 a.m. local time, hitting 2.3 magnitude, then again, at around 7 p.m., registering 2.1.

Within hours, roiling patches of sea were discovered, the Danes and the Germans sent warships to secure the area, and Norway increased security around its oil and gas facilities.

Russia denies responsibility and says it has launched its own investigation. But former CIA chief John Brennan said Russia has the expertise to inflict this type of damage “all the signs point to some type of sabotage that these pipelines are only in about 200 feet or so of water and Russia does have an undersea capability to that will easily lay explosive devices by those pipelines.”

Western intelligence sources say that European security officials have seen Russian naval vessels in the area. The NATO North Atlantic Council described the damage as an act of sabotage.

Nord Stream 1 had been throttled back by Putin as Europe raced to replenish gas reserves ahead of winter, while dialling back demands for Russian supplies and searching for replacement providers.

The approach of winter may be why Putin is thinking so much faster. Napoleon and Hitler both failed to take Moscow as supply lines running through Ukraine were too long and arduous in winter. Volker says that what historically saved Russia is now pressing down on Putin: “This time, it’s Russia that has to supply lines, trying to sustain its forces in Ukraine. That’s going to be very hard this winter. The schedule has moved up for a number of reasons.

No one knows what’s really going on in Putin’s mind. Kortunov doesn’t think that Putin will compromise beyond his own terms, not on the terms offered by Zelensky, but on the terms offered by the West. But we don’t know what these degrees [are] likely to be.”

Russia wants France and Germany to tell the Ukrainians that they need to end this war, protect their territories and pressure them to do so.

Putin knows that he is in a difficult position but does not realize how much of a challenge it is. Would he make good on his nuclear threats?

Ukrainian Infrastructure and Electricity Misalities in the First Three Days of February 13th Violations of the Kremlin-Ukraine War

The assault appears to be the largest bombardment of both missile and rocket attacks seen in most of Ukraine since February.

Moscow fired at least 84 cruise missiles toward Ukraine on Monday, the Ukrainian military said, 43 of which were neutralized by missile defense systems. 13 of the attack drones that were used in the battle were destroyed.

Two days ago, a strategic blow to the Kremlin was dealt after an eruption damaged a bridge. A wounded Vladimir Putin, who has also seen weeks of Russian losses on the battlefield, had been under pressure to respond with force following the explosion, which Putin on Sunday blamed on Kyiv and described as an act of terror.

Putin said that it was impossible to leave the crimes unanswered. “If attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on our territory continue, responses from Russia will be tough and will correspond in scale to the level of threats to the Russian Federation.”

The subway system in Kyiv was suspended for several hours on Monday. The air raid alert was lifted at midday, as rescue workers attempted to pull people out of the rubble.

Demys Shmygal, Ukraine’s Prime Minister, said Monday that as of 11 a.m. local time, a total of 11 “crucial infrastructure facilities” in eight regions had been damaged.

The Ukrainian State Emergency Services said the electricity supply had been cut in the area around Monday afternoon. Electricity was “partially disrupted” in the rest of the country.

Kiev-Kyiv Missile-Strikes – Russia’s Invasion, Putin, the Kremlin, and the Netherlands

The Kremlin added that Putin held a meeting at the command post of the special military operation – Russia’s description of its invasion – in Rostov-on-Don.

Sergey Aksyonov was appointed by the Russian government to head the annexed peninsula and he said he had some good news on Monday.

The first day of the special military operation, he said, “We would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated.”

“They are trying to annihilate us and wipe us off the face of the earth,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram on Monday as the scale of the attacks became clear. That is it, in a nutshell. They are trying to slaughter our people who are sleeping in their homes in Zaporizhzhia. They are trying to kill people who are on their way to work in Dnipro and Kyiv.”

On the heels of the strikes, European allies doubled their support for Kyiv, with the European Union Foreign Policy Chief saying on his account that more military support from the EU is on its way.

The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stated that Putin is murdering innocent civilians in other cities. “[The Netherlands] condemns these heinous acts. Putin does not seem to understand that the will of the Ukrainian people is unbreakable.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the attacks “another unacceptable escalation of the war and, as always, civilians are paying the highest price.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/10/europe/ukraine-kyiv-missile-strikes-russia-intl/index.html

CNN News Editor’s Note: Putin, the Kmer Rouge, and the I want to live: a crisis in Ukraine confronted by the latest missile attacks

The G7 group of nations will hold an emergency meeting via video conference on Tuesday, the office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed to CNN, and Zelensky said on Twitter that he would address that meeting.

Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. His views are of their own in this commentary. CNN has more opinion.

The first missile to have landed in Poland – a NATO member – on Tuesday may well have been a Ukrainian anti-aircraft rocket intercepting an incoming Russian missile a short distance from one of Ukraine’s largest cities, Lviv, as suspected by Polish and NATO leaders. The president has insisted that the missile was not Ukrainian.

One thing is certain, whether the missile was fired at a target or not. NATO Secretary General Jens Tangenberg said that Russia was responsible for its illegal war against Ukraine.

But beyond these most recent missile attacks lies a laundry list of horrors Putin has launched that only seems to have driven his nation further from the pack of civilized powers that he once sought so desperately to join.

His forces have planted mines in vast stretches of territory in Kherson from which they’ve recently withdrawn – much as the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia stretching back to the 1970s. The Cambodian de-mining experts have been called in to help out with the task facing Ukraine in 2022. At the same time, Russian armies have also left behind evidence of unspeakable atrocities and torture, also reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge.

That said, a growing number of Russian soldiers have rebelled at what they have been asked to do and refused to fight. Russian troops may be prepared to shoot retreating or deserting soldiers, according to the UK’s Defense Ministry.

Indeed a hotline and Telegram channel, launched as a Ukrainian military intelligence project called “I want to live,” designed to assist Russian soldiers eager to defect, has taken off, reportedly booking some 3,500 calls in its first two months of activity.

Putin has also tried, though he has been stymied at most turns, to establish black market networks abroad to source what he needs to fuel his war machine – much as Kim Jong-un has done in North Korea. The United States has uncovered large networks of shadow companies and people centered in hubs from Taiwan to Armenia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, and Luxembourg to source high-tech goods for Russia.

Diplomatically, Putin finds himself increasingly isolated on the world stage. He was not at the G20, but Zelensky labeled it the “G19,” because he stayed away. Putin once contemplated rejoining the G7 but now he’s out, it seems as though inclusion is a distant dream. Russia’s sudden ban on 100 Canadians, including Canadian-American Jim Carrey, from entering the country only made the comparison with North Korea more striking.

One leading Russian journalist, Mikhail Zygar, who has settled in Berlin after fleeing in March, told me last week that while he hoped this is not the case, he is prepared to accept the reality – like many of his countrymen, he may never be able to return to his homeland, to which he remains deeply attached.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/17/opinions/putin-poland-missile-ukraine-nato-andelman/index.html

Ukrainian Warfare: The Implications for Russia and the Security & Security of the Cold War, as Revealed by NPR’s State of Ukraine

Rumbling in the background is the West’s attempt to diversify away from Russian oil and natural gas in an effort to deprive the country of material resources to pursue this war. “We have understood and learnt our lesson that it was an unhealthy and unsustainable dependency, and we want reliable and forward-looking connections,” Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission told the G20 on Tuesday.

Putin wished that the conflict would drive further wedge into the Western alliance, but it did not happen. The long-stalled French-German project for a next- generation jet fighter at the heart of the Future Combat Air System was said to be starting to move forward.

In the final analysis, Putin still appears to have learned that revenge is not an appropriate way for him to act on the battlefield and that it is likely to cause more harm than good.

In his speech in the Kremlin on Tuesday, he said that attempts to change world history are becoming more aggressive and trying to divide us and weaken Russia.

President Zelenskyy traveled to Europe, meeting leaders in London, Paris and Brussels and calling for fighter jets to be sent to Ukraine.

Russian forces began their next major offensive in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, attacking Ukrainian defensive lines and making marginal advances, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Russian forces are trying to encircle the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, according to analysts at the Atlantic Council.

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Russian incursion into the Ukraine, the historic visit of Biden was a symbolic boost to the city.

According to the international team investigating the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight, there’s a strong indication that Russian President Vladimir Putin gives the go-ahead to supply anti-aircraft weapons to the rebels.

You can read past recaps here. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR’s coverage here. Listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

But the visit caused fury in Russian pro-military and ultranationalist circles, as it upstages Putin on the eve of a major address in which the Russian president is expected to tout the supposed achievements of what he euphemistically calls a “special military operation.”

“Biden in [Kyiv]. Russian journalist Sergey Mardan was sarcastic in his reply on his Telegram channel. “Tales of miraculous hypersonics may be left for children. Just like spells about the holy war we are waging with the entire West.”

Russian army veteran and former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Igor Girkin meanwhile suggested that Biden could have visited the frontlines in eastern Ukraine and escaped unharmed.

Is it not possible that the grandfather (who is not good for anything but simple provocations anyway) will be brought to Bakhmut as well?

Girkin is among a number of hardline military bloggers – some of whom have hundreds of thousands of followers and provide analysis of the conflict for large swaths of the Russian population – who have repeatedly criticized what they consider a “soft” approach on the battlefield by Putin’s generals.

Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, is known for making belligerent pronouncements in an apparent bid to shore up his nationalist credentials.

Participants of what Russia refers to as its “special military operation” will be in attendance but foreign guests or representatives will not be invited, the Kremlin’s spokesperson told reporters Monday.

Vladimir Putin has made a surprise visit to Russian-occupied Mariupol, his first visit to territory captured by his forces in the year-long full-scale conflict.

It also prompted outrage from Ukraine – the defense ministry compared Putin to a “thief” visiting “under the cover of night” – with the city having been reduced to ruins in Russia’s offensive.

News of the visit comes after the ICC issued arrest warrants on Friday for Putin and Russian official Maria Lvova-Belova for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia. Putin is yet to comment on the warrant.

The Importance of Being in Mariupol: The Birthplace of the Cold Cold War: U.S. Strikes Against Crimea

Mariupol became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance during weeks of relentless Russian attacks last year. When most of the city fell, its defenders held out at the Azovstal steel plant for weeks before the stronghold finally fell.

The plan to rebuild it by the end of the third year is outlined in the video. We want it to be a functional airport that can offer flights to all of Russia and abroad.

It was in Mariupol that Russian forces carried out some of their most notorious strikes, including an attack on a maternity hospital last March and the bombing of a theater in which hundreds of civilians had sought refuge.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is visiting Russia to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is rumored that Xi might hold a virtual meeting with Zelenskyy.

The International Monetary Fund made a rule change that could allow a reported multibillion dollar loan to Ukraine, which the war-battered country has been seeking.

Putin also visited Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine, which most governments condemned and consider illegal.

U.S. drone attacks on Russian warplanes and the Belarus-Iran black-sea grain graze – the most recent open arms embargo

A Russian warplane crashed into a U.S. drone, forcing the American aircraft to crash into the Black Sea, the US military said. One of the Russian fighter jets hit the propeller of the drone that was flying in international airspace. Russia’s government denied the collision but awarded the pilots of the two fighter jets.

Poland and Slovakia will send MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, the first NATO countries to answer Kyiv’s call for allies to share their warplanes to fight Russian forces. The U.S. has refused to give Ukraine F-16s.

Russia and Ukraine extended the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to safely ship Ukrainian grain and seed abroad, which was due to expire Saturday.

In Tehran, leaders of Belarus and Iran praised their countries’ ties. Wedged between Ukraine and Russia, Belarus is a Kremlin ally and has followed its footsteps in warming up to China and Iran, which has supplied attack drones to Russia.

Russia now has the lowest approval rating in America since Soviet times, with just 9% of the U.S. public surveyed saying they have a favorable view of the country, according to Gallup.