Russians | Jotup

Ukraine recap: counter-offensive gathers pace while Wagner Group takes on new role

Retrieved on:

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Reports from the front lines of the various conflict zones reveal daily just how difficult Ukraine is finding its summer counter-offensive.

Key Points:

Reports from the front lines of the various conflict zones reveal daily just how difficult Ukraine is finding its summer counter-offensive.
“The number of mines on the territory that our troops have retaken is utterly mad,” he told Ukrainian television this week.
Read more:
Ukraine war: after two months of slow progress the long-awaited counteroffensive is picking up speed.

The trouble with the Wagner Group

This is a 60-mile stretch of Polish territory on its border with Lithuania, linking Belarus with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko mischievously quipped to Vladimir Putin that he might not be able to control the Wagner mercenaries who, he said, were itching to “go west”.
Natasha Lindstaedt, professor of international relations at the University of Essex with a special interest in non-state paramilitary groups, says that while Lukashenko was clearly joking, mercenary companies such as the Wagner Group are notoriously difficult to control.
Read more:
Wagner Group boss and Belarus's president are still manoeuvring for power

Scramble for Africa

But what Putin may not be able to achieve through diplomacy in terms of influence in Africa, Russia’s Wagner Group proxies appear to be securing by propping up unstable regimes (and destabilising others) across west Africa.
Read more:
Russia-Africa summit: Putin offers unconvincing giveaways in a desperate bid to make up for killing the Ukraine grain deal

Crimean Tatars’ guerrilla war

Another important non-state group that is playing an increasingly prominent role in the war – this time on Ukraine’s side – are the Crimean Tatars.
It is waging what appears to be a highly effective guerrilla campaign, disrupting logistics, sabotaging key targets and stoking discontent against – and within – the Russian army.
Read more:
Crimean bridge attack is another blow to Putin's strongman image

Russians on the home front

Matveeva has spoken with ordinary Russians who either donate funds or run grassroots campaigns to provide everything from stretchers and medical supplies to drones and other weaponry to help fill perceived shortfalls.
But there’s a sense that by helping the men at the front, it could reduce the prospect that their own sons might be called up.
Read more:
Ukraine war: how Russians are rallying on the home front to support 'their boys'

Nato matters

Ukraine war: why Crimean Tatar fighters are playing an increasing role in resistance to Russian occupation

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

A resistance group of Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group native to the Russian-occupied peninsula, is now a prominent player in the Ukraine war.

Key Points:

A resistance group of Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group native to the Russian-occupied peninsula, is now a prominent player in the Ukraine war.
The Atesh (fire) movement has pledged to wage an unending war on the Russian invaders of Ukraine.
Founded in September 2022, Atesh seeks to disrupt logistics, sabotage key targets, and stoke discontent against – and within – Russian president Vladimir Putin’s army.
Atesh’s methods are ruthless, as witnessed by the killing of 30 Russian servicemen in hospitals in Simferopol in November 2022.

Who are the Tatars?

Unlike the Slavic Russians, the Crimean Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group native to the Crimean peninsula.
Under the rule of Joseph Stalin (1924-1953), the Soviet Union engaged in the active repression of the Crimean Tatars.
This led to a number of Tatars cooperating with the Germans following the Nazi invasion of June 1941.
Stalin accused the Crimean Tatars of treachery and deported the community en masse to the Gulag.
Although some Crimean Tatars served with the Axis powers, rather more served in the Red Army.
The invasion of Crimea by Russia in 2014 was a disastrous return to the past for the Crimean Tatars.

More corrupt, fractured and ostracised: how Vladimir Putin has changed Russia in over two decades on top

Retrieved on:

Sunday, July 30, 2023

According to this narrative, Putin has sturdily held back waves of foreign and domestic adversaries, and simultaneously restored Russia to greatness.

Key Points:

According to this narrative, Putin has sturdily held back waves of foreign and domestic adversaries, and simultaneously restored Russia to greatness.
Russia has become a nation under the thrall of Putin’s singular idea, instead of a healthy contest between competing ones.
He has progressively sickened Russian society, creating a toxic culture that celebrates xenophobia, nativism and violence.

Putin’s ascent

Putin’s political ascent began once he took over as head of the Russian Security Council in March 1999, long seen as a likely pathway to executive leadership.
He then assumed Russia’s prime ministership, and, soon after, its presidency as an increasingly infirm Boris Yeltsin sought to anoint a successor.
A struggle for order and stability has been a consistent leitmotif in how Putin has portrayed himself.
He amended Russia’s tax code, replacing an arcane system of loopholes and tax breaks with flat rates to boost compliance.

Putin’s economic miracle?

Inflation fell and the economy grew by around 7% a year, although real wages declined.
While the economy suffered a recession as a result of the global financial crisis in 2008, growth was swiftly restored.
Annual household income rose to an estimated US$10,000 per capita in 2013, but by 2022 had contracted to only $7,900.
Wealth is unevenly distributed, concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and in Russia’s regions it’s highly centred on local elites.

Kleptocrats, meet autocrats

Despite fanfare about clearing out the oligarchs, Russia has scored consistently poorly on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
By comparison, after Putin had finished his first term as president in 2004, Russia placed 90th.
Putin’s rule is also the story of Russia’s slide from a “managed” democracy to an autocratic regime.

Putin’s legacy: ostracism and fragility

With respect to perceived external adversaries – NATO members and the broader West – Putin sees regime security as being synonymous with national security.
By invading Ukraine, Putin has actually succeeded in enlarging NATO further, with Finland and Sweden joining the alliance.
He has prompted Germany and other overdependent European states to wean themselves off Russian oil and gas.
And he’s ensured Russia will remain a Western pariah for the foreseeable future, while bequeathing Russia’s next generation the lasting hatred of Ukrainians.

How the Soviets stole nuclear secrets and targeted Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb'

Retrieved on:

Monday, July 24, 2023

The issues that Nolan depicts are not relics of a distant past.

Key Points:

The issues that Nolan depicts are not relics of a distant past.
The new world that Oppenheimer helped to create, and the nuclear nightmare he feared, still exists today.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening to use nuclear weapons in his war in Ukraine.
Declassified records reveal that Soviet spying on the U.S. atomic bomb effort advanced Moscow’s bomb program, but Oppenheimer was no spy.

Oppenheimer’s perspective

Oppenheimer joined the Manhattan Project, a nationwide effort to build an atomic bomb before the Nazis developed one, in 1942.
In 1954, at the height of the McCarthy era, Oppenheimer was accused of being a communist and even a Soviet spy.
Oppenheimer saw communism as the best defense against the rise of fascism in Europe, which, being of Jewish heritage, was personal for him.

Russian overtures

But being targeted and cultivated for recruitment is not the same as being a recruited spy.
Oppenheimer rejected the approach, but for reasons that remain unclear, he did not inform authorities for several months.
Archives made available after the Soviet Union’s collapse now establish beyond doubt that Oppenheimer was not a Soviet agent.

All the Kremlin’s men

“Oppenheimer” focuses on Klaus Fuchs, a brilliant theoretical physicist who fled from Nazi Germany to Britain and became a British naturalized subject.
General Leslie Groves, the military commander of the Manhattan Project, later blamed the British for failing to identify Fuchs as a Soviet spy.
Other Soviet spies, like the British scientist Alan Nunn May, worked in other parts of the Manhattan Project.
These men had multiple motives for betraying U.S. atomic secrets.
By the end of World War II, Stalin’s spies had delivered the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Kremlin.

New targets

Today, the world stands at the edge of technological revolutions that will transform societies in the 21st century, much as nuclear weapons did in the 20th century: artificial intelligence, quantum computing and biological engineering.
Watching “Oppenheimer” makes me wonder whether hostile foreign governments may already have stolen keys to unlocking these new technologies, in the same way the Soviets did with the atom bomb.

National pride and sorrow: attending the 150th Latvian Song and Dance Festival as the daughter of refugees

Retrieved on:

Sunday, July 23, 2023

With song we have been victorious.” These were the words of the newly elected president of Latvia, Edgars Rinkēvičs, at the closing ceremony of the 150th Latvian Song and Dance festival, held from June 30 to July 9.

Key Points:

With song we have been victorious.” These were the words of the newly elected president of Latvia, Edgars Rinkēvičs, at the closing ceremony of the 150th Latvian Song and Dance festival, held from June 30 to July 9.
Rinkēvičs was greeted by an audience of 50,000 members of the public and 21,000 performers who cheered and waved Latvian flags.
He spoke about the power of song to unite and give hope to the Latvian people and to reinforce its centuries old cultural traditions.

Joy about culture; sadness about history

Next to me, two Ukrainian journalists wept as the orchestra played their national anthem.
In the televised replays of the festival, cameras zoomed in on teary singers, dancers and musicians of all ages.
On August 23 1989, two million people from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia formed a human chain over 600 kilometres long to join their capital cities.

A free Latvia

After the second world war, when Latvia was part of the USSR, the festival was used to promote Soviet ideology.
Gaismas Pils (The Castle of Light), composed in 1899 by Jāzeps Vītols, tells of a sunken castle that rises to announce the rebirth of a free Latvia.
Participants from Latvia and from abroad paraded in national costume along Freedom Boulevard, cheered on by enthusiastic crowds and unfazed by downpours of rain.
Although I have been to Latvia many times, this was my very first experience of the Song and Dance Festival.

There are civilian casualties on both sides of the front lines in the war in Ukraine

Retrieved on:

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Western news sources regularly report on civilian deaths on the Ukrainian side of the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Key Points:

Western news sources regularly report on civilian deaths on the Ukrainian side of the front lines of the war in Ukraine.
In May 2023, the United Nations reported 8,791 civilians have died and 14,815 have been injured in Ukraine since February 2022.
Exceptions to this — when the western media has widely reported on casualties behind Russian lines — have largely been when Russian forces have been accused of atrocities.

Civilian casualties prior to 2022

The war in Ukraine precedes February 2022, so statistics amassed since then aren’t telling the whole story of the conflict.
In the West, the war is largely perceived to have begun in February 2022 when Vladimir Putin’s government launched what it described as a “special military operation” and invaded Ukraine.
In January 2022, the United Nations recorded 3,106 conflict-related civilian deaths and as many as 7,000 wounded in fighting in Ukraine up to that point.

Growing threats to civilians

While many of these weapons have good accuracy, they nonetheless are too often fired by both sides on the basis of inaccurate or flawed intelligence.
Even after the fighting has moved on from a particular area, the war leaves behind a legacy of unexploded munitions.
Cluster munitions are another particular threat to civilians long after the fighting has moved on from a given area.

Cluster bomb use likely to increase

The United States — also not a signatory to the convention — has recently decided to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions from its own stocks.
That decision can only increase their use by both Ukraine and Russia, meaning that civilians on both sides of the front line will inevitably fall victim to unexploded munitions over time.
The U.S. claims the munitions it plans to provide Ukraine will leave behind no more than three per cent of the munitions unexploded.

Why Russia pulled out of its grain deal with Ukraine – and what that means for the global food system

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

The Russia-Ukraine grain deal that has been critical to keeping global food prices stable and preventing famine is currently in tatters.

Key Points:

The Russia-Ukraine grain deal that has been critical to keeping global food prices stable and preventing famine is currently in tatters.
So, what is the grain deal, and why is it so important to the global food supply chain?

What makes Ukraine such an important part of the global food supply chain?

More than 400 million people relied on foodstuffs from Ukraine before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
One key reason for that is Ukraine has approximately one-third of the world’s most fertile soil, which is known as chernozem, or black soil.

What happened when war broke out?

Even before the war, famine was increasing across the globe.
Other researchers have suggested global hunger is the highest it’s been since at least the early 2000s.

How did the grain deal come about?

The U.N. and Turkey brokered what is officially known as the Black Sea Grain Deal with Ukraine and Russia on July 22, 2022.
While the original agreement was to last 120 days, it has been extended several times since.
Ukraine has exported more than 32 million tons of food products through the Black Sea since August 2022.
The U.N. has estimated that the grain deal has reduced food prices by more than 23% since March 2022.

Why is the Black Sea so important for Ukrainian exports?

Before the war, 90% of Ukraine’s agricultural exports were transported on the Black Sea.
While Ukraine also ships its grain and other food over land through Europe, doing so costs a lot more and takes more time than sea exports.

Why did Russia say it’s pulling out of the deal?

Over the following two days, it attacked Odesa with drones and missiles in one of the largest sustained assaults on the port.
Russia also said it would deem any ship in the Black Sea bound for a Ukrainian port to be a legitimate military target.
Chicago wheat futures, a global benchmark, are up about 17% since Russia left the deal.

St Kitts and Nevis introduces mandatory interviews to confirm its status as the best regulated Citizenship by Investment Programme in the Caribbean

Retrieved on:

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

That meeting was convened to discuss and agree on common ways to deal with threats to international communities in the investment migration ecosystem.

Key Points:

That meeting was convened to discuss and agree on common ways to deal with threats to international communities in the investment migration ecosystem.
The five Caribbean participating governments are Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia.
Head of St Kitts and Nevis’ Citizenship by Investment Unit, Michael Martin, commented that “St Kitts and Nevis remains committed to cooperating with our international stakeholders and takes the safety and integrity of our Citizenship by Investment Programme extremely seriously.”
Due diligence and risk mitigation remain a very important aspect of how St Kitts and Nevis approaches its CBI programme.
St Kitts and Nevis boasts the oldest CBI programme in the Caribbean, established in 1984, and continues to be a firm favourite among international investors across the world.

Ukraine's slow advance doesn't signal failure in its counteroffensive against Russia

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Territorial Defense, Pressure, Politics, Special forces, War, World, First, National Guard, Azov Regiment, Interior, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, Wagner Group, National Guard of Ukraine, Arms industry, Gasoline, Jet fuel, Russians

Russia has had several months to prepare for the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Key Points:

Russia has had several months to prepare for the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Extensive fortifications, including trench systems reminiscent of the First World War, make any rapid advance difficult.
Overcoming such a defensive system without specialized equipment, which Ukraine lacks, means that progress will be slow and casualty-heavy.

A variety of tools

While these forces are focused on defeating Russia, interservice rivalry is sometimes a problem.
The best-known formations are the army’s battle-hardened units who maintain tactical advantages against the Russians.
These units, however, have suffered significant casualties since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The unit’s performance prompted the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior to create multiple brigades mirroring Azov’s force structure and tactics.

Differing military traditions

Units with varied traditions can provide tools and abilities that some armies might otherwise lack.
One of the observations from defence experts is that there are parallel military traditions in conflict in Ukraine: one western-inspired, one Soviet.
But the basis for much of this training — American military doctrine — has several underlying assumptions.
Second, this inherent requirement of U.S. military doctrine creates pressure for something western countries want to avoid in the short term: equipping Ukraine with F-16s.

The politics of war

War, as the famous war theoretician Carl von Clausewitz famously emphasized, is an act of politics.
But Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, must also confront the fact that their war in Ukraine is unlikely to meet all their objectives.

Ukraine war: Crimean bridge attack is another blow to Putin's strongman image

Retrieved on:

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Water, Kremlin, Drinking, Standstill, Donetsk, Invincible-class submarine, Aggression, Wagner Group, Arms industry, Palladium, Russians, Chonhar

The partial destruction of the road bridge followed unsuccessful recent attempts to strike both the bridge and Sevastopol harbour, the main base of the Russian Black Sea fleet.

Key Points:

The partial destruction of the road bridge followed unsuccessful recent attempts to strike both the bridge and Sevastopol harbour, the main base of the Russian Black Sea fleet.
Monday’s attack on the bridge left its parallel railway track undamaged, but all road traffic came to a standstill.
Russia is likely to be able to render the bridge operational again as it did after an earlier attack in October 2022.

Crimea’s crucial role

And on their own, they probably would be, especially as the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive has been slow in taking back Russian-occupied territory.
Crimea plays a crucial role in this context.
These include both Russian volunteers and indigenous Crimean Tatars who have become more active since the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Putin’s vulnerabilities

What is really important in all of this is that these same Russian vulnerabilities still exist, in Crimea and in other parts of the hinterland behind the Russian defences in occupied Ukrainian territory.
Read more:
Ukraine war: Wagner Group boss and Belarus's president are still manoeuvring for power
This exposure is also symbolically highly significant.
It is ultimately decisions in Kyiv that will determine whether, where, and how it can be won.