Latest @DefenceHQ update is on the "Wagner" unit, says its "new level of integration [with the #Russian Army in eastern #Ukraine] further undermines the Russian authorities' long-standing policy of denying links between PMCs and the Russian state". Which is British understatement 
The #Biden administration continues denying #Ukraine weapons, in this case ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles, because of its deranged fear of #Russia "escalating", as if that is an actual Thing at this point.
https://twitter.com/Ayei_Eloheichem/status/1552869172840841217
A tribute to Oleg Moroz, a "cyborg" at Donetsk International Airport in 2014 who was awarded as a "Hero of Ukraine" posthumously for his personal courage in defending his area around Shchastya in the Luhansk Oblast during #Russia's invasion in February. armyinform.com.ua/2022/07/28/hro…
Another one for the "negotiate with #Russia" crowd. Even if it was not a shame and a disgrace to give in to Moscow's demands in #Ukraine, and even if doing so was not guaranteed to prepare a new round of war, the Russians simply are not interested in talks
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1552745475723386880
Signs of support for #Russia in #Palestine, not that surprising given the history of Moscow's close relations with the PLO and the other terrorist groups controlled by #Iran.
The video that went around yesterday of #Russian soldiers castrating a #Ukrainian POW with a small knife was the revelation of a long-standing and widespread practice by the Russian Army, which succeeds at war crimes and little else
https://twitter.com/Ayei_Eloheichem/status/1552867362516242433
If you are able, you can donate to @Dmit_Petrovich's unit, which is fighting against the #Russian invaders in east #Ukraine and is running short of certain pieces of kit (binoculars, radios), using Paypal: kalyna784@gmail.com
Three-quarters of the way there, just need a little extra push
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1552447572182286336
#China and #Russia advertising their alliance, yet still we are dealing with claims that there is some serious divergence in the interests of these two powers or that they can be handled separately.
https://twitter.com/BartekKowalski1/status/1552551797956530177
Well said, @SonnyBunch, about the wilfully stupid reaction to #Ukraine's Zelensky meeting "celebrities" and participating in a "Vogue" photoshoot. This is how to reach Westerners now and a for a leader needing Western support, this is as serious as it gets
https://twitter.com/Ayei_Eloheichem/status/1552872965967990784
Roman Perimov, a #Ukrainian engineer, returned home, finding the tech team with "two old computers and a half-dead printer". Since then, with friends and outside donations, he has built a system to protect Starlink, down #Russian drones, and enable HIMARS. afr.com/technology/how…
"What drives people such as [Andrey] Liscovich, [Oleg] Rogynsky, [and] Perimov … is a passionate belief that … digital innovation is the key to winning both the war and peace. 'I am confident we will win the war. Israel is the model,' says Perimov."
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1552903947127586817
Well that was inevitable
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1552728347725250563
Another thing the war on #Ukraine has clarified: "Wagner", to the extent it exists, is a unit of #Russia's military-intelligence apparatus. It's presentation as a "private military company" is to give the Kremlin political deniability.
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1552905639504105474
The tide flowing all #Ukraine's way around Kherson
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1552827746262335489
#Russia in a very literal sense not interested in talking to the #US, even when it is being offered its own criminals back in exchange for the hostages it took exactly for this purpose.
https://twitter.com/Ayei_Eloheichem/status/1552914955770376192
#Ukraine's President Zelensky handed out "Cross of Military Merit" awards yesterday to those who had helped defend the country from the #Russian invaders.
The divergence between living through the 2010s, where the consensus had #Germany and Merkel as the leading lights of the West, and how that period is already looked back on as paving the way for #Russia and #China to rampage, is rather stark.
https://twitter.com/CapelLofft/status/1552923790736326656
#Britain still in the #EU would have been restrained by #Germany and #France's more pro-#Russia stance, which would have been even worse. The British-Polish-Baltic axis has shamed Berlin and Paris, providing the political pressure to get them to do what little they have done.
The governor of Mykolaiv in southern #Ukraine says a #Russian strikes on his city has killed four people and injured seven at a bus stop this morning - @AFP
#Russia has struck Kramatorsk in the north of the Donetsk Oblast in eastern #Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1552924641664139264
Nothing #Russia says should be taken seriously, and when it comes to the mistreatment and massacre of #Ukrainian prisoners the Russian record should make this scepticism even sharper.
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1552922702800982018
#Russia's state messaging continues to be somewhat below A1
https://twitter.com/fatimatlis/status/1552750007408885760
#Ukraine's President Zelensky visited wounded soldiers at a hospital again today. Such visits, the awarding of medals, and Zelensky going to the front are a tremendous, visible morale boosts to troops, and help strengthen the civil-military relations of the state.
One of the finest outputs from the #NAFO Fellas: "HIMARS - The Opera". #Pavarotti
https://twitter.com/jabuttee/status/1543906637043359744
Terrible pictures from the aftermath of #Russia's attack with cluster munitions on a bus stop in Mykolaiv this morning
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1552939129788317697
Highly, highly suspicious: a spokesman for #Russia's "Donetsk People's Republic" tells Russian military TV that none of the Russian guards were killed or wounded in the alleged strike by #Ukraine in Olenivka that killed dozens of Azov prisoners today.
https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1553004152489402368
Yesterday:
- Russian soldiers castrated a Ukrainian captive on video
Today:
- Russian cluster munitions killed civilians at a bus stop in Mykolaiv
- 50 Ukrainian Azov prisoners in Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast, killed; lot of circumstantial evidence it is a massacre by Russia
- Russian soldiers castrated a Ukrainian captive on video
Today:
- Russian cluster munitions killed civilians at a bus stop in Mykolaiv
- 50 Ukrainian Azov prisoners in Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast, killed; lot of circumstantial evidence it is a massacre by Russia
#Ukraine's Foreign Minister squarely blames #Russia for the attack on the prison in Olenivka that has killed 50 or so Ukrainian prisoners-of-war this morning, which the Kremlin is blaming on the Ukrainians.
https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1552978759669645314
#Russia's propagandists obviously pleased with #Hungary.
Question it will take time to unravel: was Budapest made any promises of #Ukrainian territory by Moscow before this began in exchange for political support for what was meant to be a lightning war.
Question it will take time to unravel: was Budapest made any promises of #Ukrainian territory by Moscow before this began in exchange for political support for what was meant to be a lightning war.
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1552975947690905600
#Ukraine's HIMARS at work overnight: destroyed what seems to be an ammunition depot in Ilovaisk in the centre-east of the Donetsk Oblast. There has been a slowdown in these HIMARS strikes on #Russia's logistics points simply because the Ukrainians have wiped most of them out.
#Ukraine keeping up the pressure on #Russian-occupied Kherson, struck a target, presumably a weapons depot, in Brylivka overnight.
Good things by good people
https://twitter.com/ItsBorys/status/1553021456073752576
Good piece from @steven_pifer: to know why #Russia has done this, one only has to listen to #Putin, who speaks of the Holy Rus, historic Russian lands, and #Ukraine being a fake country, with "not one word about #NATO or NATO enlargement." brookings.edu/opinions/one-m…
.@USTreasury indicts Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, head of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, ran a "malign influence campaign" for the FSB from 2014 onwards "turning #US political groups and US citizens into instruments of the Russian government" justice.gov/opa/pr/russian…
#pt: There is enough info in the @USTreasury indictment that some of the groups and people #Russia co-opted within the #US will soon be identified. One of the obvious groups is the African People's Socialist Party, headquartered, appropriately enough, in Saint Petersburg, Florida
Great essay by @peterpomeranzev on #Putin's project to humiliate Ukraine and the manipulation of Russians' sense of humiliation to sustain this enterprise, displacing onto a West that must not participate in this cycle by indulging the Kremlin's fantasies. nytimes.com/2022/07/26/opi…
#pt: Point @peterpomeranzev hits on is the Kremlin's essentially schizophrenic approach to the West, which is reflected in the Russian population more broadly: they profess to despise a decadent West and want to be isolated from it, while seeking the West's approval/recognition.
#pt: NB: the racist sense #Russian officials have about the ethnic minorities that are doing so much of the fighting. Just as Russian soldiers in Ukraine say they will protect Ukrainians from Tuvans, prisoners are threatened with rape by Chechens (happened to a friend of mine).
Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old #Russian contract soldier, was the first convicted in #Ukraine for war crimes in February for murdering a civilian. On appeal, his life sentence has been reduced to fifteen years. independent.co.uk/news/ap-kyiv-b…
The clash between #Israel and #Russia highlights the complications for the Zionist project in the 21st Century, writes @mkoplow, with the Israeli government managing its identity and obligations as a sovereign actor for citizens and a refuge for all Jews. israelpolicyforum.org/2022/07/28/rus…
Marina Ovsyannikova was fined 30,000 rubles after her protest on #Russian state television in March and has now been fined another 50,000 rubles for "discrediting" the Army. She refused to retract and told the court: "What's going on here is absurd". theguardian.com/world/2022/jul…
#Putin's calculations in #Ukraine are about regime security, not national security, meaning there is nothing the West can offer alter them: there is nothing to be learned in negotiations and every chance they make things worse, writes @samagreene. tldrussia.substack.com/p/why-putin-fi…
The right message from @trussliz: as Prime Minister she would "work relentlessly to ensure a Ukrainian victory and Russia's strategic defeat"; keep the weapons flowing "to push Russian troops out"; and no talk of "concessions and compromises". telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/…
#pt: A bit slow, but again the right signal from @trussliz: as PM, she would "raise [Britain's] defence spending to three per cent of GDP by the end of the decade".
Important from @Reuters on what I think will loom larger and larger in the #Ukraine story: #Russia thought it had agents in place to collapse the state from within, which is why such maximalist aims were pursued with troop numbers that made so little sense reuters.com/investigates/s…
#pt: In some local areas, #Russia's plan worked: #Chernobyl's head of security, Valentin Viter, was a traitor who opened the town up. (Similar happened down in #Kherson.) But Viktor Medvedchuk coup plan in Kiev failed, and Oleg Tsaryov could not be installed as puppet leader.
#pt: Russia was taken in by some agents, who "overstated their influence [within Ukraine] in the years leading up to the invasion", which is partly a problem of Russian intelligence's corruption: they skimmed off money designed for agents and didn't vet their recruits properly.
A factor @Reuters doesn't dwell on: #Russia has agents in place, who, when the moment came, refused to help the invaders, and a significant part of that is due to President Zelensky: nobody expected him to stand firm and hold together the state.
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1553080778287992832
#pt: Still, "the Russian intelligence infiltration did succeed in one way: It has sown mistrust inside Ukraine and laid bare the shortcomings of Ukraine’s near 30,000-strong Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU".
#pt: Interesting that despite Chernobyl's long history, even after #Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union, of being a hotspot of KGB/FSB influence, #Russia left it so late in active preparations for the invasion in that area, only beginning in November 2021.
#pt: Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s prosecutor general from 2016 to 2019, said that when he left office "hundreds" of Ukrainian Defence Ministry employees were under surveillance, approved by his office, because the were believed to be Russian agents or otherwise tied to RU intel.
#pt: The revenge of the Great Man Theory: #Russia and everyone observing the situation had every reason to believe #Ukraine, with all its socio-political fractures and the Kremlin agents in place, would crumple quickly; nobody could have foreseen the Zelensky factor.
#pt: The wilderness of mirrors remains about Denis Kireev: there is no agreement who he worked for or how he died.
#pt: The infiltration by Russia's intelligence services of Ukraine was a major reason before the invasion began I thought (see below) that Ukraine was going to struggle to hold off. Glad to have been wrong about that.
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1493817349341859840
#pt: From during the battle for Kiev
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1497686482169044997
#pt: Gradually became clear in March that Russia had badly miscalculated how much of a fifth column it had
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1503246748378042369
#pt: By the end of March, was obvious something had gone terribly wrong for the Russians when it came to assessing the assets they had in place in Ukraine
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1508120664435314688
#pt: Good report from May on what went wrong for Russia's intelligence services in planning the invasion
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1523062994992877569
The account of #Russia's Embassy in #Britain advertising the intent for its government to commit war crimes against #Ukrainian prisoners of war. What one might call an indirect confession of what Russia did this morning in Olenivka.
In his speech tonight, #Ukraine's President Zelensky promises retribution for the #Russians who carried out the massacre of prisoners in Olenivka today. (The Kremlin is claiming the prisoners were killed when the jail was hit by Ukrainian shelling.)
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1553119865493508103
#Britain's police 'contextualising' #Russia's Embassy calling for war crimes, while paying warning visits under "hate speech" laws to those who tweet "trans women aren't women". Whatever you think on substance of the latter, the double standard is absurd.
https://twitter.com/Dr_F_Hunter/status/1553142314339549184
#Ukraine intercepts a call of a #Russian soldier saying Ukrainian POWs were packed into the Olenivka prison over the last few days, the prisoners were killed today likely by an explosive planted inside, then some Grads were fired at the prison and Ukraine's HIMARS were blamed.
A second part to this video was posted today that shows the #Russian soldiers shooting the #Ukrainian captive in the head and then tying one of his legs to a vehicle with a rope and dragging his body through the street. Utterly obscene behaviour.
https://twitter.com/KyleWOrton/status/1552728347725250563
Do tune in on Monday if you're about
https://twitter.com/MriyaReport/status/1553164658135035904
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