2/ First, the order states that the equipment of the 41st army (which includes tanks and heavy MLRS), transferred from Siberia, is to remain in a camp south of Voronezh until Zapad-2021 strategic military exercises which aren't due till September.
By our assessment, the forces remaining at Ukraine's border still present a danger of deployment into occupied Eastern Ukraine, while a large-scale invasion of government-controlled territory would certainly require moving more troops to the border.
We will keep monitoring.
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In yet another TikTok video of a military train, researchers spotted a Kasta-2-2 radar station. We checked the carriage ID in a railcar tracker and found out the train was going to Crimea from Chita in the Russian Far East.
The train was going to Aivazovskaya station in Crimea which we earlier noted as an unloading site for trains carrying elements of the 58th army from North Caucasus, which presumably ended up at a training ground in eastern Crimea.
@derspiegel has obtained satellite images of aRussian military camp at a training ground in east Crimea, some 280 km by road from Ukraine-controlled territory.
We believe it shows elements of the 58th Army, recently transferred from North Caucasus. spiegel.de/politik/auslan…
2/
As we and other researchers have noted, units from the 58th Army (known for the 2008 Russia-Georgia war) have been arriving to Crimea, including the 291st Artillery and the 136th Motorized brigades.
Note that the unloading areas for military vehicle trains all point to east Crimea, same as videos filmed on the eastern part of the E97 ("Tavrida") highway.
This suggests that the 58th army units were indeed going into the recently discovered camp.
We were tipped off about yet another military train video - this time on VKontakte, filmed in Novosibirsk (we confirmed the location, with the train heading west).
In the comments, they said the "kontractniki" (professional soldiers) from Yurga were sent towards Ukraine.
Russian convoy watch update: there's been a minor but troubling development.
@GirkinGirkin spotted two videos where we can either hear or see for ourselves that parts of the Russian trucks' number plates are obscured: namely the 2-digit codes that denote a military district. 1/
But we know that the obscured number plates are significant, because recently we spotted a video from the border region of Voronezh (Western military district) showing military trucks with a Central Military District code (76)
On August 10, Belarusian authorities announced the death of a protester in Minsk. An IED exploded in his hand, they alleged.
We analyzed a video which the protester's wife says shows his death. We believe he was killed by Belarusian special forces medium.com/@CITeam_ru/%D0…
According to Belarus police, the incident happened at Pritytskogo street in Minsk. The intersection of Pushkina and Pritytskogo was a hotbed of protest activity on the night of the 10th,
A video soon surfaced which allegedly showed the protester's death.
Yesterday, the protester was identified by @svaboda as Alyaksandr Taraykousky. His widow told journalists he was indeed in that video. svaboda.org/a/30781421.html
Thread: Ukranian General Staff has published a video of what they say are intercepts of radio talks between Russian coast guard vessels and their onshore command during yesterday's incident with Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch strait. Key points to follow
1. The Russian coast guard vessels rammed Ukrainian vessels (likely the "Yany Kapu" tug) twice. Both rammings occured at the Kerch strait entrance within Crimea's territorial waters.
2. The coast guard tried to ram Ukrainian gunboats but couldn't due to their maneuverability.
3. The Russian coast guard tried to use water cannons on Ukrainian vessels, but those turned out to be out of order.
4. Two Russian coast guard vessels collided, damaging the coast guard boat "Izumrud" (damage earlier noticed by @ChristopherJM)