1/ A recent Ukrainian attack in the Kherson region village of Yuvileine killed 4 police staff and injured another 17. The details of the casualties highlight both collaborationist activities and how officials from Russia have been recruited to manage the occupied regions. ⬇️
2/ The attack, which was likely carried out using HIMARS, struck a police building on the left bank of the Dnipro that was reportedly being used for a high-level meeting. It housed the so-called "Novokakhovsky Department of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation".
3/ The ASTRA Telegram channel has named several of the dead and wounded. It reports that most were police officials from Russia, who were "recruited to work in the occupied territories of Ukraine with promises of double salaries and other privileges."
4/ The four people killed were:
🔺 46-year-old senior police lieutenant Mergen Nimgirov (pictured), who came from the Moscow region to work in the Kherson region;
🔺 33-year-old police major Artur Dzhunusov, deputy chief of the department;
5/🔺 39-year-old police major Vladimir Novikov, who held the position of chief of logistics;
🔺 45-year-old police captain Sergei Novikov, who held the position of "inspector for juvenile affairs."
6/ The Russian wounded included:
🔺 36-year-old lieutenant of justice Elena Golodiaeva, who worked as a senior investigator and came to the Kherson region from Astrakhan;
7/ 🔺 36-year-old police captain Yuri Panchenko (left) who also worked as a senior investigator after coming from Stavropol in Crimea;
🔺 39-year-old Lieutenant Colonel of Justice Amida Midelashvili (right), head of the investigation department, who also came from Astrakhan;
8/ 🔺 38-year-old police lieutenant colonel Dmitry Baranov, chief of the traffic police department;
🔺 37-year-old police captain Sergei Lysenkov.
9/ Several Ukrainian collaborationists working for the Russians were also injured in the attack. They included:
🔺 46-year-old police lieutenant Zhanna Khabirova, deputy head of department, who graduated from the Odesa Law Academy.
10/ 🔺 29-year-old junior police lieutenant, Nikolai Trubchanov, who graduated from the Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs.
The police are a key component of the Russian occupation, working to support the Russian military and suppress any partisan activity.
11/ The attack was likely intended to signal to the Russian police officials and their Ukrainian collaborationist co-workers that they are regarded as legitimate targets, and to weaken Russian control by disrupting the policing of frontline areas. /end
1/ The people aboard Yevgeny Prigozhin's aircraft were reportedly dismembered – and in one case decapitated – by an explosion on board before it crashed. This suggests that they were already dead before they hit the ground and disproves Vladimir Putin's claims about the crash. ⬇️
2/ Two months after the 23 August 2023 crash of Prigozhin's Embraer Legacy 600 jet north-west of Moscow, Putin claimed that grenade fragments had been found in the victim's bodies and hinted at the passengers' possible use of drugs or alcohol.
3/ The scenario he painted was clearly intended to suggest that someone on board the aircraft set off a grenade in a drunken or drugged moment. It is well-established that the aircraft broke up in flight, likely as the result of an explosion on board.
1/ Russia's police are reportedly rounding up migrant taxi drivers to send them to the war in Ukraine. However, this puts migrants at risk of long jail sentences in their home countries under legislation banning fighting in foreign wars. ⬇️
2/ The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel reports that the Moscow traffic police are detaining migrant taxi drivers who attempt to pay a "spot fine" (i.e. a bribe) when they are stopped for minor violations. It cites a number of examples:
3/🔺 28-year-old Yandex Taxi driver Omurbek Abdykasyt was stopped and detained after trying to give a policeman 2,500 rubles; on the same day, another YT driver, Sabir Bazarov from Uzbekistan, was detained for placing 12,000 rubles next to an inspector.
1/ Last week's news that two Russian cannibals had been pardoned and sent to fight in Ukraine has highlighted the ongoing trend of convicted murderers being recruited for the Russian army or Wagner Group. At least 17 are known to have been released after fighting in Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ The independent Russian outlet Agency. News has compiled a list of released murderers who have fought in Ukraine. Their pardons have caused great distress to relatives of the victims. Some of the killers have gone on to commit fresh crimes at home. Cases include:
3/ 🔺 Vladislav Kanyus, jailed for 17 years in 2022 for raping and strangling his ex-girlfriend. The police failed to respond to multiple calls from neighbours who heard her screams. He signed a military contract, served in Ukraine, survived and returned to Russia a free man.
1/ The recent bicycle-powered 'migrant invasion' on the Finnish border was reportedly ordered by Russian Presidential Chief of Staff Sergei Kiriyenko and organised by Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, but has failed to achieve its apparent objectives. ⬇️
2/ The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel reports that "Kiriyenko personally ordered ... Kolokoltsev to gather illegal immigrants from the Middle East, Africa, etc. in all centres for accommodating refugees and migrants."
3/ Bicycles were purchased through the state-owned VTB bank "for the future Tour de Helsinki, and outreach work was carried out among illegal immigrants, who, of course, wanted to get to Western Europe."
1/ The Kremlin has reportedly told regional governors to "extinguish with money" the protests of wives of mobilised soldiers ahead of next March's elections. It is said to believe that they are "often waiting not for their husbands from the war, but for their salary cards". ⬇️
2/ Verstka reports that nervousness in the Russian government about complaints from soldiers' wives has led to the presidential administration making recommendations to the country's regional governments. Relatives' protests have grown in recent months.
3/ According to sources, the administration has recommended that payments be made "fully, quickly and without red tape" and that existing public activists be involved in the "round dance around the mobilised".
1/ Russian schoolchildren in the Moscow region have been treated to a hands-on exhibition of military medicine, including amputated limbs and a blood-covered mannequin depicting a man with a mortar bomb embedded in his chest. ⬇️
2/ The 'Not the Norm' Telegram channel reports on a recent educational visit by children from Sosnovy Bor near Moscow to the 'Choice' youth centre, for a so-called 'Courage' lesson.
3/ After watching the Russian singer Shaman's patriotic song 'Let's Rise', the children toured the centre's Hall of Military Glory – a legacy of the Soviet Union's programme of military-patriotic education – before going on to see a recreation of the Kolomna Military Hospital.