Putin escalated his war today, announcing a partial mobilization of Russia’s reservists, and threatening Ukraine and its allies with atomic annihilation. At the very least, that’s an open admission that things have been going very badly for Russia. 1/20 politico.eu/article/putin-…
Ukraine's successes on the battlefield have become undeniable - even for Margarita Simonyan, the head of Kremlin-directed RT media, who earlier this week admitted "mistakes were made." Talk about an understatement. 2
Russia massively miscalculated the morale gap between its forces and Ukrainians, and underestimated how hard soldiers fight when they know they are facing an existential struggle against a genocidal enemy that resorts to torture, rape and murder. 3
Confused about what happened in Russiaworld on Tuesday? Here's my digest.
Russia’s proxies in Donbas region, the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, declared they would imminently hold referendums on being recognized as part of Russia. 1/13
Kremlin-installed officials in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region also indicated they planned to hold a referendum, with pro-Russian authorities in the Zaporizhzhia region indicating they would do the same. 2/13
There are two ways to read the decision by the Kremlin’s puppet governments in Russian-held areas of Ukraine to hold votes on officially joining the motherland: Escalation or desperation. 3/13
Interesting mood music out of Kazakhstan, re relations with Russia in wake of war on Ukraine.
Astana has started detaining Russian trucks carrying sanctioned EU goods through its territory, Russia's state-run Izvestia reports today. 1/7
As a result of sanctions, trucks carrying European goods get to EU's border with Belarus, then transfer goods onto Belarusian or Russian vehicles for onward transport to places including Kazakhstan. (Russian/Belarus companies can't travel through EU.) 2/7
Now, the Russian transport ministry is complaining that Astana has demanded the drivers of these trucks produce permits to show EU goods are being legally transported, and is detaining trucks if they don't have them. 3/7
Put simply, the items on the list must not be allowed to get into Russian hands.
We know Russia is in trouble when it comes to supplies of things like the 88E1322-AO-BAM2I000 gigabit ethernet transceiver made by Marvell ...
... Or the 10M04DCF256I7G field programmable gate array made by Intel (which used to cost under $20 but now the Russians reckon they can get it for over $1000).
Ukraine's PM @Denys_Shmyhal reckons RU is down to just 48 hypersonic missiles, because of chip shortages.
Russian security services overnight raided the home of Marina Ovsyannikova, a former editor for state-run propagandist Channel One who denounced Russia's war on Ukraine during a live TV broadcast in March. Latest w/ @CamGijs politico.eu/article/police…
Ovsyannikova is now being taken to Russia's Investigative Committee, Zakhvatov said. (Think Russia's FBI.) The lawyer said a criminal case relating to charges of disseminating false info about Russian armed forces has been opened. The max sentence is 15 years in prison.
It's unclear if it's Ovsyannikova herself facing the charges, and I couldn't reach her for comment.
Reminder: In March, Ovsyannikova crashed top evening newscast Vremya with a poster saying "Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They are lying to you here."