Important Takeaways:
- The story of the transfer of Iranian missiles to Russia is not just about the missiles; it is about the larger symbol.
- “We are aware of the credible information provided by allies on the delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia,” EU spokesman Peter Stano said, according to reports. The reports claim Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia. Russia has been fighting a war against Ukraine for more than two years. The Iranian ties with Russia are not new; the countries have worked together for decades on various issues, and Iran increasingly wants to partner with Russia on numerous issues.
- Iran’s Mehr News also reported on the claims. Iran’s foreign ministry has denied the claims.
- The CNN report noted that it is not clear when the missiles were delivered. “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told allies at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany on Friday that Ukraine urgently needed more air defense systems,” CNN noted.
- Reports that Turkey will attend an upcoming Arab League meeting and that Turkey and the Syrian regime could reconcile are also part of the story. Syria’s regime is a key ally of Moscow. Iran uses Syria to threaten Israel. Iran traffics weapons via Syria to Lebanon and also bases weapons in Syria.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The Chinese Defense Ministry on Monday said it would hold joint military drills with Russia sending naval and air forces for a maritime patrol of “relevant areas of the Pacific Ocean” in September.
- The move underscores the progressive alignment of the two countries, both militarily and economically, in opposition to the Western-led liberal democratic order.
- What do both countries have to gain?
- Russia is seeking China’s help in strengthening its position as a Pacific power, while Moscow has supported China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
- Increasingly, this has come to include the 180-kilometer (110-mile) wide Taiwan Strait dividing mainland China from the self-governing island democracy of Taiwan. Beijing considers the island part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force if necessary.
- Moscow and Beijing have increased military and economic cooperation in recent years, each opposing “Western hegemony” — particularly a perceived US domination of global affairs. In the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two countries declared a “no limits” partnership.
- NATO leaders claim China has become “a decisive enabler” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting Beijing to warn the US-led military bloc against “provoking confrontation.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The United States and nine allied nations on Thursday formally accused the Russian government of masterminding cyberattacks in 2020 on Ukrainian critical infrastructure, among many other targets.
- The countries pinned the attacks, which largely used a type of malware known as “WhisperGate,” on GRU Unit 29155, a Russian military hacking group.
- Hacking efforts as part of this campaign began in 2020, and included attacks on Ukrainian groups in January 2022 ahead of Russia’s invasion, along with critical infrastructure organizations in government, transportation, financial, health and other sectors in NATO member states.
- According to the FBI, this hacking activity included more than 14,000 observed instances of scanning networks in more than 20 NATO member states and European nations, along with targeting of groups in Central American and Asian nations.
- The Justice Department accused the group of carrying out attacks, including the probing of an unnamed Maryland-based U.S. government agency between August 2021 and February 2022, and of hacking the transportation infrastructure of an unnamed Central European nation supportive of Ukraine in mid-2022.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- NATO is planning to deploy an armored brigade in Finland to serve as a deterrent against Russia, newspaper Iltalehti reported on Thursday, citing sources within the US-led military bloc and the government in Helsinki.
- The unit, which could range in size from 4,000 to 5,000 troops, will be stationed at Mikkeli in the south-eastern part of Finland, according to the daily. Mikkeli, which has a population of 51,000, is just 87 miles (140 kilometers) from the border with Russia.
- According to the newspaper’s sources, the brigade will comprise NATO troops from neighboring Sweden and Norway.
- Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen told state-owned broadcaster Yle on Wednesday that Helsinki was in talks with several NATO states about deploying their soldiers to Finland even if the country does not face an immediate military threat. The bloc’s contingent should be “comprehensive and large enough to form a sufficient presence in crisis situations,” he stressed. According to Hakkanen, soldiers from his own and from other NATO countries could, among other activities, stage large-scale military exercises if there is a “tense atmosphere at the border” with Russia.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, will meet with US officials “to try to concretely convince the White House to lift restrictions on long-range weapons strikes on Russian territory,” the lawmaker said.
- “They will provide a list of priority targets, without which it will be difficult to change the course of the war in Ukraine’s favor.”
- Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky once again called for allowing Ukraine to carry out strikes deeper inside Russia and “lifting the restrictions on long-range strikes for Ukraine now,” arguing it would end the war sooner “for Ukraine and the world as a whole.”
- “We consider strikes deep into Russian territory with American weapons no more provocative than strikes with American weapons on Russian territory near the border,” the Ukrainian lawmaker told CNN. “Both are Russian territory and it makes no difference how deep the targets are.”
- The Ukrainian seizure of Russian land in Kursk earlier this month injected a fresh wrinkle of uncertainty in what had become a grinding war of attrition with only small incremental gains apparently possible for either side.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Three weeks ago, Ukraine’s military launched a stunning operation to take the war in Ukraine back onto the territory of the country that launched it. Three weeks later, the Ukrainians still occupy hundreds of miles of territory in Russia’s western Kursk region.
- The incursion had a number of goals: to force Russia to divert its forces from Ukraine to defend its own towns and cities; to seize territory that might later be used for bargaining leverage in peace negotiations; and to send a political message to the Russian people and their leaders that they are not safe from the consequences of the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin nearly two-and-a-half years ago.
- But there was also a less obvious objective: Leaders in Kyiv likely hoped to send a message to their friends in the United States and Europe that their approach to the war has been overly cautious — that fears about “escalation,” “red lines,” and Russian nuclear use — a threat that Putin himself has voiced repeatedly — have been overblown.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged this explicitly in a speech on August 19, saying, “We are now witnessing a significant ideological shift, namely, the whole naive, illusory concept of so-called ‘red lines’ refs somewhere near Sudzha” — a town near the border now under the control of Ukrainian forces.
- The Russian government has certainly done everything in its power to add nuclear uncertainty to Western leaders’ calculations. From the very first day of the invasion, Putin has made repeated references to his country’s nuclear arsenal — the largest in the world — and warned countries that get in Russia’s way of “consequences that you have never faced in your history.”
- Over the course of the war, Putin and other Russian officials have made repeated references to “red lines” that should not be crossed if Western governments don’t want to face a catastrophic response. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has been particularly active in threatening foreign powers with “nuclear apocalypse” via his social media accounts.
- It’s not all rhetoric: The Russian government has taken steps such as moving some of its nuclear weapons to Belarus and conducting realistic drills for using tactical nuclear weapons — seemingly in an effort to remind Ukraine’s allies of Russia’s capabilities.
- Pavel Podvig, senior researcher on Russia’s nuclear arsenal at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva [thinks] Putin would be unlikely to consider any sort of nuclear use unless the very existence of the Russian state were threatened. “Even the loss of a region like Kursk technically would not qualify,”
- As the Council on Foreign Relations’s Fix put it, Western “red lines” on aid to Ukraine have clearly shifted. The problem is “we don’t know how the red lines are shifting in Putin’s mind.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Russia said the West was playing with fire by considering allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with Western missiles and cautioned the United States on Tuesday that World War Three would not be confined to Europe.
- Ukraine attacked Russia’s western Kursk region on Aug. 6 and has carved out a slice of territory in the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War Two. President Vladimir Putin said there would be a worthy response from Russia to the attack.
- Sergei Lavrov, who has served as Putin’s foreign minister for more than 20 years, said that the West was seeking to escalate the Ukraine war and was “asking for trouble” by considering Ukrainian requests to loosen curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons.
- Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much broader war involving the world’s biggest nuclear powers, though he has said Russia does not want a conflict with the U.S.-led NATO alliance.
- The New York Times reported that the United States and Britain provided Ukraine with satellite imagery and other information about the Kursk region in the days after the Ukrainian attack.
- The Times said that the intelligence was aimed at helping Ukraine keep better track of Russian reinforcements.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Russia unleashed a massive drone and missile barrage throughout Ukraine on Monday, targeting energy infrastructure. At least three people were reported killed, and power cuts were reported across the country.
- The barrage began around midnight and continued beyond daybreak in what appeared to be Russia’s biggest attack against Ukraine in weeks.
- Russian forces fired drones, cruise missiles and hypersonic ballistic Kinzhal missiles at 15 Ukrainian regions – more than half the country, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Monday morning.
- Ukraine’s private energy company, DTEK, introduced emergency blackouts, saying in an online statement that “energy workers throughout the country work 24/7 to restore light in the homes of Ukrainians.”
- In the wake of the barrage and the power cuts, regional officials all across Ukraine were ordered to open “points of invincibility” – shelter-type places where people can charge their devices and get refreshments during energy blackouts, Prime Minister Shmyhal said. Such points were first opened in Ukraine in the fall of 2022, when Russia targeted the country’s energy infrastructure with weekly barrages.
- In Russia, in the meantime, officials reported a Ukrainian drone attack overnight and on Monday morning.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Four prison employees have been killed after prisoners staged a revolt in a Russian penal colony and took several hostages, federal authorities say.
- Special forces stormed the IK-19 Surovikino facility in the southwestern Volgograd region after knife-wielding prisoners, who identified themselves as Islamic State (IS) militants, claimed to have taken control of the sprawling complex.
- The attack began during a disciplinary commission meeting, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement.
- It was unclear how many hostages had been taken, though some reports in Russian media suggested that the prison’s director and deputy director had been seized
- The Volgograd hostage-taking is the second such incident this summer, after six prisoners who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group captured two guards at a facility in the neighboring Rostov region.
- IK-19 Surovikino is a high-security penal colony. It is believed to hold about 1,200 inmates.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine attacked Moscow on Wednesday with at least 11 drones that were shot down by air defenses in what Russian officials called one of the biggest drone strikes on the capital since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.
- The war, largely a grinding artillery and drone battle across the fields, forests and villages of eastern Ukraine, escalated on Aug. 6 when Ukraine sent thousands of soldiers over the border into Russia’s western Kursk region.
- Two Russian citizens who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said the foiled drone attack simply showed how well defended Moscow now was, and that Ukraine was “playing with fire” by attacking Russia both in Kursk and in Moscow.
- Russia meanwhile is advancing in eastern Ukraine, where it controls about 18% of the territory, and battling to repel Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region, the biggest foreign attack on Russian territory since World War Two.
- In Kursk, Russian war bloggers said intense battles were ongoing along the front in the region where Ukraine has carved out at least 450 square km (175 square miles) of Russian territory.
Read the original article by clicking here.
