#conscripted its employees into the Russian army

[lady-nightmare]

Krwawe pieniądze. Jak Auchan sponsoruje rosyjską armię?

[mariacallous]

Journalists from the independent outlet iStories have confirmed that at least 84 non-mobilized Russian conscripts who were stationed in the Kursk region when Ukraine launched its cross-border offensive are currently missing, and at least 45 others are in Ukrainian captivity.

In an earlier analysis, journalists from BBC News Russian identified 81 missing and 38 captive conscripts. Additionally, at least three conscripts have been killed in the Kursk region since the start of Ukraine’s operation there.

iStories spoke to the families of several of the missing conscripts. The soldiers’ parents said they haven’t received any information from the Russian Defense Ministry about their children’s possible whereabouts. However, they have gotten messages from pro-war activists and bloggers — referring to themselves as “volunteer helpers” — who told the parents not to speak out publicly about the deaths, capture, or disappearances of their loved ones to avoid “playing into” Ukraine’s hands and provoking conflict with the Russian authorities.

One of these “helpers” is an activist named Svetlana Zarutskaya, who runs a chat group for a military unit. She has advised parents “not to talk with Ukes” and to contact the Federal Security Service (FSB) if anybody tries to help them find their sons.

In a conversation recorded by the mother of a missing conscript, Zarutskaya said the following:

There were conscripts stationed on our border in 1941, and our conscripts fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya! When they took their oath, they pledged allegiance to the Motherland. […] The Ukes are pushing the narrative that we’re at fault for posting the conscripts [on the border]. There’s been a major propaganda campaign aimed at turning Russian citizens against their government and against their state. But it’s important to understand: it was the Ukes who crossed our border and took the conscripts captive, and even killed some of them. And we, the Russian army, didn’t cross their borders. We haven’t crossed the new Ukrainian border anywhere.

Some of the missing conscripts’ relatives said they’ve reached out to Russian propagandists for help publicizing their situation but that everyone they contacted was afraid to help, according to iStories. Among these figures were Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent Alexander Kots; blogger Semyon Pegov, who runs the popular WarGonzo Telegram channel; state media “war correspondent” Yevgeny Poddubny; Izvestia correspondent Emil Timashev; blogger Yury Podolyak; and reporters for the Yekaterinburg-based state news site Ura.ru.

The Ura.ru employees cited Russia’s law against spreading “disinformation” about the military. Propagandist Anastasia Kashevarova, meanwhile, promised the missing conscripts’ parents that she would help State Duma deputy Shamsail Saraliyev compile a prisoner exchange list, but she then went on to blame the conscripts themselves for allowing Ukrainian troops to cross the border:

Serving at the border in a country at war, they were completely relaxed — wearing civilian clothes and with no weapons. Look at the photos and videos of soldiers captured in the SVO (special military operation) zone: those guys are shell-shocked, dirty, and wounded, and it’s clear that they fought to the end. Compare them with the images of those captured in the Kursk region: some of them are wearing slippers, some are in civilian clothing, all of them look clean. [...] Surrendering without a fight, out of negligence, while drunk — it’s [tantamount to] working for the enemy.

[songsofprotestpeacerevolution]

Pussy Riot — MAMA, DON’T WATCH TV / МАМА, НЕ СМОТРИ ТЕЛЕВИЗОР (ANTI - WAR SONG)

(Until I can find an unblocked by youtube version, you will have to click on the watch on youtube in the above)

STATEMENT This song is our statement against the war that Putin started in Ukraine. 

On 24th February 2022 Russia began a wide scale military attack on Ukraine. Russian bombs and rockets destroyed Ukrainian homes, schools, hospitals, wrecking towns and destroying lives. We believe that Putin’s regime is a terrorist regime, and Putin himself, his officials, generals and propagandists are war criminals. 

The chorus is based on the words of a captured Russian conscript soldier who, in a telephone conversation with his mother, said "Mom, there are no Nazis here, don't watch TV." Russian propaganda daily poisons the hearts of people with hatred. 

Those who oppose Putin are imprisoned, poisoned with military poisons and killed. The tradition of political poisoning for more than 100 years, "laboratory x" - the first laboratory of military poisons created by the NKVD. Opposition figures of anti-government movements became victims of the "experiments". Putin and the FSB are proud of this "tradition" and continue it: Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Skripal, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Pyotr Verzilov, Alexei Navalny. 

Russia has continued its military aggression on the territory of Ukraine since 2014, when Russian troops annexed Crimea and began the occupation of the Donbass region. Every day since then Ukraine has had to fight for the right to live and for freedom, fight to guarantee its sovereignty. 

During all these years, the international community has looked for compromise and conducted business with Russia, at the same time sponsoring Putin’s cruel war. The Kremlin receives billions of Euros from the sale of oil and gas and each day this money converts into Ukrainian blood. 

We call for: 1. An EMBARGO on the purchase of Russian oil and gas, on the sale of weapons and police ammunition to Russia. 2. ARREST the western bank accounts and property of Russian officials and oligarchs and introduce personal sanctions against them. 3. An INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL to try Vladimir Putin, employees of Russian state propaganda, army officers and everyone who is responsible for the genocide of the Ukrainian nation. Мы обращаемся к тем, кто в России: Пожалуйста, не участвуйте в этой войне! Не берите повестки, не ходите в военкоматы, не слушайте пропаганду! Каждый жест против этой войны важен.

[ammg-old2]

When Wagner Group paramilitaries marched into Rostov-on-Don on Saturday, many residents responded by offering food and water. In one video, a young woman offers a soldier masked in a balaclava and wielding an assault rifle a packet of crackers. When asked why, she answers, “It’s a humane thing. They look tired.”

Those soldiers must be tired, and now their future is even more uncertain. The ones who participated in Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed coup will escape prosecution because of their “heroic deeds on the front,” according to the Kremlin, while those Wagner paramilitaries who didn’t participate will be offered Russian Defence Ministry contracts. Although Prigozhin was able to negotiate a safe exit from Russia (at least for now), an early casualty of this coup seems to be the Wagner Group itself; Vladimir Putin is unlikely to keep it intact.

Over the course of a single weekend, Prigozhin and Putin have jointly done what the Ukrainian military and its NATO allies have failed to achieve in 18 months of war: They’ve removed Russia’s single most effective fighting force from the battlefield. Wagner Group fighters have, since 2014, combatted a long line of adversaries including the Ukrainian armed forces, the Free Syrian Army, the Libyan army, and even elements of the U.S. armed forces. Although many of those Wagner Group fighters may now be folded into the regular Russian military, their power will be forever diluted.

Wagner’s potency was derived both from its experience as a fighting organization and from its status as a private entity, one that has operated apart from the state. The grief of a mother mourning the death of her mercenary son doesn’t resonate politically the same as the grief of a mother mourning the death of her conscripted son. One is an employee in a private enterprise; the other is the responsibility of the nation. Outsourcing dirty wars to mercenaries is a practice as old as war itself. If it checks political costs at home in the short term, it increases long-term political risk. When loyalty to a commander eclipses loyalty to the side for which the soldiers are fighting, the result is a mercenary army that marches on its capital—as Putin has just seen.

Up to this point, Putin’s pathway to victory in Ukraine has relied on a strategy of attrition, both of Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield and of the political will of Ukraine’s allies. The most effective tool Putin had for the former has now ceased to exist. When it comes to the latter, before this weekend, Putin seemed to have a chance at sustaining his war in Ukraine longer than the West could sustain its interest; this was a strategy he pursued effectively in Syria. But the loss of the Wagner Group necessitates that Putin rely wholly on the Russian military. This reduces his ability to insulate the Russian population from the costs of war, diminishing the political space for such an approach.

Authoritarians aren’t the only heads of state fixated on the costs of war. We’ve all heard the term boots on the ground. It’s a fixation among American leaders in times of war. The Pentagon even bestowed an acronym on this concept, BOG, pronounced “bog,” as if it correlates with getting “bogged down” in a war. American presidents have long relied on special-operations forces, CIA paramilitary forces, and mercenary forces like Blackwater to reduce the U.S. military’s footprint in countries where we’ve been at war. But the stakes are different for democratically elected leaders. Unlike in authoritarian nations, the cost of a lost war for a president is likely a lost election, not the loss of his life.

We live in an age of rising authoritarianism. Those authoritarians have little respect for international order, and wish to redraw maps. This has made Ukraine a global, not a regional, concern. The greatest current authoritarian regime is China, and the ease or difficulty that Russia faces in Ukraine today informs the decisions that President Xi Jinping might make tomorrow in Taiwan. The biggest threat to any authoritarian is one from within. An autocrat considers his decision to wage war alongside his appreciation for whether that war will consolidate or weaken his power. Putin’s troubles in Ukraine are already a cautionary tale for autocrats the world over. This latest chapter highlights the existential threat from within that hired armies pose. Strategists in Beijing, Tehran, and elsewhere will likely be redrafting aspects of their war plans.

But there’s still an actual war going on in Ukraine, and it isn’t over because Putin is facing a political crisis. Ukraine is in the middle of a summer offensive. It’s still early, but gains in that offensive have thus far proved underwhelming. Even if Ukraine hasn’t yet retaken meaningful swaths of territory, it’s taken back something every bit as important: the strategic initiative. The strain Ukrainians placed on Prigozhin’s forces in Bakhmut, Kherson, and a host of other places contributed to this rebellion, and this rebellion is again placing the Ukrainians in the driver’s seat of the war.

Prigozhin ostensibly turned against Putin and marched on Moscow because of the insufficient support of the Russian military. In the opening hours of the coup, he said, “Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished.” The coup attempt we’ve just witnessed was a profound punishment for Putin and Russia. In this regard, Prigozhin was successful. The question we should all be asking now is how to capitalize on Prigozhin’s success.

[odinsblog]

After President Vladimir Putin announced this week that Russia was conscripting some 300,000 reservists and military veterans to reinforce its war effort in Ukraine, international flights out of Russian cities quickly sold out. This latest wave of Russia’s exodus included Anton Shalaev, a 38-year-old senior manager at an IT company, and 15 colleagues.

On less than a day’s notice, these men of military age all left their relatively comfortable lives in downtown Moscow to fly to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Because of Putin’s war, Shalaev tossed a book, an iPad, and a laptop in a backpack and got out of Dodge.

Shalaev and his co-workers are true tech geeks, producers of high-value computer games. They represent their country’s brightest and best, members of a tech elite that was the economic foundation of Russia’s new middle class. In a last selfie from Moscow, Shalaev brandished a coffee mug that bore the slogan, not today, satan.

Anna Nemtsova: Why didn’t you want to be drafted to fight in Ukraine?

Anton Shalaev: On the day Putin declared the war, I knew I would never fight on behalf of this new Nazi Reich. They are my personal enemies: mercenaries who steal my country from me, occupy foreign territories, and kill innocent people. Putin’s army commanders have had plenty of time to turn down their contracts; instead, they are recruiting more cannon fodder now.

So I chose to help Ukrainians suffering from this horror—pay for shelters in Kyiv with cryptocurrency and write antiwar posts on social media. To encourage Russians at home, I said: “Guys, look, I am writing this from Moscow.”

Nemtsova: What was your escape like?

Shalaev: Unlike state-owned companies such as Yandex or the Mail.ru Group, which are making their employees stay, we were independent of government funding, so we made an immediate decision to relocate.

The atmosphere at passport control in the airport was quiet but tense; men waiting for the flight around me were exchanging alerted glances. I had bought my ticket right before the announcement—we were already hearing rumors of the mobilization—so it cost me only about $300. But my colleagues got their tickets the next day, and they cost more than $1,000.

The departure was super stressful. The border guards took each of my friends aside into a small room, interrogated them, asked if they had ever served in the military, and if not, why not. And you know that type of sly border official making their little jokes: “Aha, you are leaving on the day of conscription.” Of course, they checked whether our names were in the database for the mobilization.

Nemtsova: Did you do military service, in fact, when you turned 18?

Shalaev: No, I entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, which had a military department, so that released me from the service obligation. I studied political science, and dreamed of becoming a Russian diplomat—Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was a graduate there. For a long time, I considered myself a Russian patriot, ready to serve.

When I enrolled in college, in 2001, there was some ideological diversity: We had a neo-Stalinist who taught us about how “Josef” ruled with an iron fist, but the next class would be with a professor telling us about liberal values. Today, the school recruits students for the secret services. And lately, I heard that the dean has urged students to call for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to surrender.

Nemtsova: What do you think of the Kremlin’s decision making?

Shalaev: A few old men and an army of zombies are leading us to hell. I say that because people around me in Russia behaved as if they had been bitten by a zombie, dragging my entire country into a dreadful war. All I saw was Russian loser husbands beating their wives, while the entire rotting house of the state system has turned my people into an army of the dead.

They are my enemies.

Nemtsova: What do you know of the situation in Ukraine?

Shalaev: I constantly follow the war news in Ukraine—and I seek out the best, most objective analysts. My main sources on the atrocities are Ukrainian refugees from cities bombed by Russian forces.

I realize that I would rather go to prison than go to fight against the Ukrainian army. I openly embrace my antiwar position. I urge my social-media followers to donate to Ukrainians. This entire war is a crime against humanity.

(continue reading)

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Road trip? Quarantines mess with Americans’ travel plans (AP) Families trying to squeeze in a summer vacation before school starts better do some homework on COVID-19 restrictions before loading up the minivan. The web of state and local quarantines is growing more tangled by the day: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have ordered visitors from a whopping 34 states to quarantine for 14 days. Chicago and Washington, D.C., have each singled out travelers from about two dozen states. Other states have their own lists. Some have an option for visitors to get tested instead. Complicated doesn’t begin to describe it. I feel sorry for people. They just want to go to Cape Cod. They want to go to Vermont. I don’t know what to tell them. People are pretty much left on their own to figure out,” said Kathy Kutrubes, owner of a travel agency in Boston.

One-Room Schoolhouses Make a Covid-19 Comeback—in Backyards and Garages (WSJ) In the olden days, one-room schoolhouses were common across the country, many of them simple wood-frame buildings painted white. Katy Young’s one-room school is going be a dome. Ms. Young, who lives in the suburbs outside Berkeley, Calif., recently set up a 24-foot-round geodesic polyhedron in her backyard to host a small group of kindergarteners. An Airstream trailer parked nearby will serve as an administrative office. The dome was built by Ms. Young’s husband, Randy, for use at Burning Man, the annual outdoor art festival in the Nevada desert. But with Burning Man canceled this summer, the structure is being repurposed for her kindergarten son and five classmates, whose Mandarin-language school has switched to distance learning in the fall. “We’re calling it ‘dome school,’ “ said Ms. Young, a lawyer. With thousands of schools across the country moving to partial or full remote learning in the fall, parents are racing to form small at-home schooling groups or “pandemic pods,” groups of children who will be taught together. Some parents are hiring teachers to help guide the students through remote learning, while others plan to devise lesson plans on their own.

30 million unemployed to lose extra jobless benefits, as talks stall (Washington Post) Nearly 30 million workers are set to lose $600 in enhanced weekly unemployment benefits that have kept much of the economy afloat these past four months during the coronavirus pandemic, as top lawmakers in Congress and the White House remain at an impasse over how and whether to extend the benefits. Most of the last checks went out this week, but the program officially ends Friday, a day that Democrats and Republicans spent trading barbs over who was to blame for the failed negotiations. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Democrats had rejected reasonable offers, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) derided Republicans for trying to advance a short-term fix that would have extended the benefits for just a week.

Oregon hopes for changes from ongoing Portland protests (AP) Hundreds peacefully protested in downtown Portland Friday, two days after the announcement that the presence of U.S. agents there would be reduced—a deal that Oregon officials hope will continue to ease tensions as the city tries to move on from months of chaotic nightly protests. The start of Friday night’s protest mimicked that of Thursday, which was the first time in weeks that demonstrations ended without any major confrontations, violence or arrests. The change in tone outside a federal courthouse that’s become ground zero in clashes between demonstrators and federal agents came after the U.S. government began drawing down its forces in the liberal city under a deal between Democratic Gov. Kate Brown and the Trump administration. Unlike previous weeks, protesters were not centered mainly outside the courthouse, but scattered throughout downtown.

Hurricane Isaias lashes Bahamas while Florida battens down (AP) Hurricane Isaias snapped trees and knocked out power as it blew through the Bahamas on Saturday and headed toward the Florida coast, where officials said they were closing beaches, parks and coronavirus testing sites. Florida authorities said they have prepared shelters, but didn’t expect to have to evacuate people. Authorities in North Carolina ordered the evacuation of Ocracoke Island, which was slammed by last year’s Hurricane Dorian, starting Saturday evening. Meanwhile, officials in the Bahamas evacuated people on Abaco island who have been living in temporary structures since Dorian devastated the area, killing at least 70 people.

U.S. Dollar Suffers Its Worst Month in a Decade (BloombergQuint) The euro rose the most in a decade this month, the British pound is headed for its best July since 1990, and for the first time this year, every major currency in the world rose against the greenback. A gauge of the dollar against its biggest peers is down 4.4% this month, the worst rout in a decade. The world’s reserve currency of choice was already on the back foot when U.S. President Donald Trump raised the idea of delaying elections this year. He added fuel to a rout that was driven by falling U.S. Treasury rates, real yields near all-time lows and disappointment over America’s response to the coronavirus compared to Europe.

Mexico 3rd in global pandemic deaths, Vietnam struggles anew (AP) Mexico now has the third most COVID-19 deaths in the world, behind the United States and Brazil, while former success story Vietnam is struggling to control an outbreak spreading in its most famous beach resort. China reported a more than 50% drop in newly confirmed cases in a possible sign that its latest major outbreak in the northwestern region of Xinjiang may have run its course. However, in Hong Kong, infections continue to surge, with more than 100 new cases reported as of Saturday among the population of 7.5 million. Officials have reimposed dining restrictions and mask requirements. Mexican health officials on Friday reported 688 new deaths, pushing the country’s total to 46,688. That put Mexico just ahead of the United Kingdom, which has 46,119, according to the tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Russia and Belarus at odds over arrest of suspected mercenaries (Reuters) A dispute between Moscow and Minsk over the detention of more than 30 men who Belarus accused of being Russian mercenaries deepened on Saturday, as the two sides contradicted each other about the group’s plans. The arrests soon before an Aug. 9 presidential election in Belarus could further strain relations between Minsk and its traditional ally Russia, which soured after the neighbours failed to agree on an oil supply contract for this year. Russia said on Thursday that the men, who it described as employees of a private security firm, had stayed in Belarus after missing their connecting flight to Istanbul. But Alexander Agafonov, the head of the Belarusian investigative group which is handling the case, said late on Friday that the men—some of whom were wearing army fatigues—had no plans to fly further to Istanbul.

Americans fault China for its role in the spread of COVID-19 (Pew Research Center) Today, 73% of U.S. adults say they have an unfavorable view of China, up 26 percentage points since 2018. Since March alone, negative views of China have increased 7 points. There is a widespread sense among Americans that China mishandled the initial outbreak and subsequent spread of COVID-19.

‘Losing battle’: Philippine doctors, nurses urge new COVID-19 lockdowns (Reuters) More than a million Philippine doctors and nurses, saying the country was losing the fight against COVID-19, urged President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday to reimpose strict lockdown in and around Manila. In the largest call yet from medical experts to contain the virus, 80 groups representing 80,000 doctors and a million nurses, warned of a collapse of the healthcare system from soaring infections of the new coronavirus without tighter controls in the capital and nearby provinces. “Our health workers are burnt out with seemingly endless number of patients trooping to our hospitals for emergency care and admission,” the group, led by the Philippine College of Physicians, said in a letter to the president.

A teenage pop sensation becomes a soldier, and the Israeli army tries to cope (Washington Post) As one of Israel’s biggest pop stars, Noa Kirel’s shining face adorns billboards, and she appears daily in an array of commercials, reality television shows and teen dramas. Famous since 14, her YouTube videos have garnered millions of viewers, and last month she became the first Israeli to sign a multimillion dollar music deal, with Atlantic Records. But for the foreseeable future, every media interview, every public appearance, every television taping and photo shoot must be strictly coordinated with the Israeli army. Kirel, 19, was drafted into the army six months ago under Israel’s mandatory conscription law. And as teen pop superstardom encounters military conformity, it is proving to be a challenge for the wildly popular singer—who cannot walk down the street without being mobbed by fans—as well as for the army brass. After a month of basic training, which Kirel said she enjoyed because she was ordered around like every other recruit and forced to do “normal” chores such as cleaning toilets, she was placed on the “talent track,” allowed to form her own music act and dispatched to perform for the troops. In no time, however, a short video clip of her singing with two male backup dancers clad in military fatigues and heavy combat boots went viral, drawing ridicule and criticism on social media. The backlash caused the army to cancel all military dance roles. Most Israelis are drafted into the military at 18 with the exception of most Arab and ultra-Orthodox Jewish citizens, and while the army has absorbed celebrities into ranks before—think “Wonder Woman” actress Gal Gadot, who was already crowned Miss Israel before her service—it has not dealt with anyone quite on this scale.

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/western-media-invente-gru/

How the Western Media invented the “mysterious murderers from GRU”

Source: https://vz.ru/world/2019/10/9/1002097.html

Translated by Scott Humor

The New York Times has published another article “to expose the subversive work” of the GRU in Europe. We are talking about nothing less than the activities of an entire military unit, the purpose of which is to conduct “subversion, sabotage and murder.” What does this military unit actually do, and how convincing are the published accusations?

In fact, the topic has long grew cold. The peak of attacks on the GRU came in the summer and autumn of last year against the background of the “Skripal’s case.” The campaign against the GRU took a form of daily harassment, which, in addition to the British and American media, were joined by liberal publications and “experts” in Russia. No real facts were presented, back then and now, but as a whole the “revelation” looks plausible for the Western audience, because it contains some figures, symbolizing the names of Russian military units (they might look for the English-speaking public as an interesting charade), and fitting random factoids. It reads like a spy-sabotage thriller – and, surprising, that this all has not yet found its reflection in Hollywood.

The current publication in the NYT is exactly the same: a collection of disparate assertions without any specific confirmation. It is impossible to draw any conclusions from this text. It’s just another material of the faded anti-Russia propaganda campaign, new in which was only another digital designation of the Russian military unit.

According to NYT, citing unnamed intelligence officials in four Western countries, the “coup attempt” in Montenegro, the “destabilization campaign” in Moldova, as well as the poisoning of Bulgarian businessman Emilian Gebrev and ex-GRU Colonel Sergei Skripal in the UK involved the same unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces (GRU, since 2010 – the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces). The publication notes that security agents in Western countries have concluded that these operations are part of a coordinated and ongoing “campaign to destabilize Europe.” According to them, it is conducted by an elite top-secret unit of Russian intelligence, which specializes in “subversion, sabotage and murder.”

According to the New York Times, the group, known as “the Unit 29155,” has been active for at least a decade, but Western authorities learned of its existence recently. It was first identified in 2016 after the failed coup in Montenegro, but “the extent of the activities of Western intelligence agencies realized” only after the poisoning of the Skripals in 2018. The unit is allegedly located in the Moscow headquarters of the 161st Special Purpose Training Center.

According to Western intelligence agencies, other employees of the GRU, most likely, don’t know about the existence of this unit.

The press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov, to whom the newspaper sent a request about the Unit 29155, redirected journalists to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. And it is clear why – in this story almost everything is a lie with the exception of the sincere reaction of Peskov. Representatives of the “intelligence in the four countries” heard, of course, a certain ringing, which was shared with an employee of the NYT, who also, apparently, is not too familiar with the Russian military and intelligence realities. And just with life, in general. No sane person can imagine that the military unit with the usual number “is unknown to other GRU employees,” “was identified only in 2016” and it is unclear how it is “mobilized”. To write this one has to not know anything about the realities of modern Russia.

Let’s start with the fact that the 161st training center (a.k.a. training center, GCHQ) has existed since Soviet times. Previously, it was located in the suburban objects so called “dachas” (for example, in Razdory) and there were trained special services and armies of the allied states. Now “dacha” in the town Razdory is abandoned and has become object for stalkers and junk dealers, which search there for artifacts like casings from educational radio transmitters 1970-1980’s to trade on flea markets. Another object m\u 29155 until the early 2000s was listed on the balance of the FSB in the Serebryany Bor (as an ordinary warehouse), but then was liquidated by the government of Moscow along with two dozen objects in the resort and park area of Serebryany Bor during its reconstruction.

[Washington used to have its Embassy retreat property in the Serebryany Bor until it was taken from the US in quid-pro-quo after Washington stole Russia’s owned properties in the US. Only in a pseudo-reality invented by the American Media the highly sensitive military training center would be located next to the US Embassy dacha on a small river island. S.H.]

Now military unit No. 29155 is located in Northern Izmailovo on 11th Park street and is a shameful for the “elite and top-secret units of the GRU” crumbling building behind the sloping white concrete fence, familiar to any soviet person.

[S.H. From the 2009 the military unit 29155 is listed in the All-Russia Business Directory as FEDERAL STATE INSTITUTION Military Unit 29155 with its actual street address, name of its commander and the state tenders.

ФЕДЕРАЛЬНОЕ КАЗЕННОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ “ВОЙСКОВАЯ ЧАСТЬ 29155”]

It is unlikely that NYT employees ever visited this not the most touristy area of Moscow, but this imbalance was compensated by the statement that the elite unit, “destabilizing Europe,” is experiencing difficulties with financing.” As a proof, the NYT refers to the data from open sources that the commander of the unit General Andrei Averyanov allegedly lives in the Khrushchev built five story apartment building near the m\u and drives an old Soviet built “Zhiguli-five”.

All of these looks strange for respectful American publications. Not only do they not even try to double-check the information, they just invent it. Petrov and Bashirova are invented to be in the military unit 21955 based on the photos from the wedding of the daughter of General Averyanov. Also in this article mentioned the military unit 74455 (Scientific Center of Cryptography on Komsomolsk Avenue and Svoboda street, whose employees were accused by the US of hacking Hillary Clinton’s emails, as the newspaper VZGLYAD wrote in detail) and the m/u 99450 as the main source of “destabilization.”

[See also, What are military units #26165 and #74455 in Mueller’s indictment, S.H.]

The history of these digital designations is as following. In 2009, during the reform of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, was created the Department of Special Operations (USO), subordinated personally to the Chief of the General Staff (back then it was General Nikolai Makarov). USO was formed on the basis of the center “Senezh” in Solnechnogorsk district, which was the m\u 92154.

And in April 2011, a second Special Purpose Center was established, subordinate to the head of the GRU in Kubinka-2 (aka “Zazaborye”, aka “Kuba”). In 2013, the new chief of the General staff Valery Gerasimov announced the beginning of formation of the Special Operations Forces Command (SDF). Then in 2013, Senezh and Kubinka began active construction of infrastructure. The Special Operations Forces Command (SDF) had received a designation as the military unit number 99450, which now the NYT accuses of all mortal sins, especially pressing for the “annexation of the Crimea.”

In Senezh emphasis is placed on parachute training, although here is also located the Department of Marine Special Operations (there is also a unit in Sevastopol) and the Anti-Terrorism unit.

Mountain training is carried out in North Ossetia (m \ u 90091) and the basis for the training and survival center “Terskol” in Kabardino-Balkaria. In general, these are assault army units trained to storm objects and destroy enemy bases, and not spy-style “killer-poisoners” and “Europe destabilizes.” Several units of security and protection are not even professional and comprise conscripts – a unit of reinforcements, command guards, a unit of material support, a technical platoon, a communication unit, a unit of new recruits.

On the territory of the military town of Senezh, a training, airborne and fire complexes are located, in addition to a canine complex, an indoor swimming pool, a sports hall, a tactical town for practicing actions in settlements, a helicopter pad, as well as a platform for driving special equipment, medical and office premises. In Kubinka (unit 01355) all roughly the same with emphasis on physical training.

Training of officers is carried out in the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School – RVVDKU (faculty of special and military intelligence and department of application of special purpose units) and Novosibirsk higher military command school – NVVKU (faculty of special intelligence and department of special intelligence and airborne training).

At the same time, parts of the S.O.F. experience a constant shortage of personnel with “non-physical” training. For example, there is a chronic lack of specialists with knowledge of foreign languages, which is a global problem (in terms of S.O.F., first of all, they look at the physical training). The French 13th Dragoon parachute regiment (13e Régiment de dragons parachutistes) of the S.O.F. of the French army’s Land forces in 2014, with a staff of 751, had 707 men in service for the same reason. At the same time, there is evidence that General Makarov, creating the Russian S.O.F., actively adopted the experience of Western colleagues – the French, Germans and Italians (Italians are traditionally strong in the training of naval combat swimmers). In 2012, in order to exchange experience, General Makarov visited a similar American S.O.F. training center in Tampa (Florida).

Nevertheless, the creation of the S.O.F. units, not included in the GRU, but tied directly to the leadership of the General Staff, went slowly because of funding problems and quiet bureaucratic sabotage. Now, the Russian S.O.F. – one of the best in the world, as shown by the experience of Syria.

So, where is here the Skripals, attempt of revolution in Montenegro, Bashirov and Petrov, the Bulgarian arms dealer and Hillary Clinton? All the more tied in one knot by the NYT’s “sources.” Texts like the one published by the NYT are created solely to maintain interest in a faded topic.

The main message of the article: be afraid of the Russians, especially their GRU, which is prone to cruelty (these are actual words of one of the “American experts”).

Having discovered a new three-letter combination – GRU – two years ago, the Western media consistently hammers into this one point: the Russians have some terrible brigades of murderers, from whom no one is protected because of their brutality. Evidence-zero. There is not even an elementary knowledge base on this topic, and to visit the 11th Park street and knock on the crumbling fence is really scary.

We can, of course, ignore this. What this leads to we saw on the example of almost daily mockery of the Russian military intelligence. Surely, the Russian intelligence services will remain silent this time, providing a lot of food for thought to those who will continue to invent schemes of involvement of Russian military units in something off color.

By the way, Gebrev traded Bulgarian and Russian made weapons to the Middle East through the channels of the CIA and managed to annoy half of the Arab world, in addition to the CIA and Israel. Maybe, the NYT should dig somewhere in there?

The featured image: Russian Spetsnaz Special Operation Forces

[mariacallous]

Two weeks into the Ukrainian army’s foray into the Kursk region, officials in Moscow are over the initial shock and are now trying to spin the ongoing fighting on Russian territory as yet another “new normal,” sources close to the Putin administration and the government told Meduza. All of the officials Meduza spoke to believed the fighting in the Kursk region could continue for several months, however, the authorities are loath to cancel the upcoming gubernatorial elections. Sources also said that Kremlin propagandists are priming public opinion to normalize sending conscripts into embattled border areas, all while officials weigh the pros and cons of another round of mobilization. 

When the Ukrainian Armed Forces began an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on August 6, Russian “elites” were “shocked,” two sources close to the Putin administration and another source close to top government officials told Meduza. Two weeks on, however, “the shock has worn off” and they’ve begun to adapt. 

“At first it wasn’t clear what forces [had crossed the border and] for how long. Now there’s an understanding [and] this is always easier. [Ukrainian forces] are far from the regional centers, but [their] very entry into Russian territory and seizing control of villages is a new and very unpleasant event,” explained a source close to the Kremlin.

One source close to the Putin administration pointed to a recent Kremlin-commissioned poll, which showed that against the backdrop of the incursion, the share of Russians who believe an “anxious mood” is predominant in their social circles shot up six points to 45 percent. Officials in the Putin administration considered this figure quite high and hope it will come down quickly.

“During a shock — and this was certainly a shock — there are always leaps [in the polls]. Then people get used to it and everything settles down. What happened during the Prigozhin rebellion, the mobilization, and the start of the war?” one source said cynically. Although he added that “if the war stopped, everyone would feel better.”

The ‘new’ new normal

In order for things to “settle down” more quickly, the Kremlin is enlisting its propagandists to try and help Russians adapt to this “new reality.” They’re also recycling the term “new normal,” which Kremlin propagandists used during the global pandemic and at the very start of the full-scale war. “This [terminology] is necessary so that people think of what’s happening not as a deviation but as a new norm, albeit a temporary one. This should be calming,” explained a spin doctor who works with the Putin administration’s domestic policy bloc. 

As conceived by the Kremlin, the key elements of this “new reality” are as follows:

The enemy really did penetrate Russian territory;

Inevitable defeat awaits them;

But returning territory takes time, and Russians will need to wait. 

During this time, residents are urged to “channel the negativity and shock in a positive direction” — namely, to help collect aid for the Kursk region. The Putin administration has already “recommended” that regional governments take up collections, as well. 

“It’s not, you need to collect this much money or send this many groceries. [Just] organize a collection and suggest [people] participate. In [some regions] they suggested transferring one day’s earnings — this is voluntary-compulsory. It’s understood that if the leadership says so, public sector employees will transfer [money]. But [in my region] everything is purely voluntary,” a high-ranking regional official told Meduza on condition of anonymity. According to him and two officials from other regions, some state corporations have also organized similar collection drives. 

As for the upcoming gubernatorial elections in the Kursk region (where Alexey Smirnov is currently acting governor), early voting is set to begin on August 28 and the main voting day will take place in early September. Earlier, Verstka reported that the authorities had debated canceling the vote and replacing Smirnov with another hand-picked candidate. However, this wasn’t corroborated by Meduza’s sources close to the Putin administration. 

“You never know what rumors are spreading [in the region]. Canceling would increase panic: it [would] mean the entire region is under threat,” said one source close to the Kremlin. In his words, refraining from electing a new governor could give locals the impression that “the region has already been surrendered.” This same source also insisted there are “no threats to voting,” claiming, “In Donbas, elections and referendums took place in conditions of war and nothing [happened].” 

That said, as Verstka also reported, the municipal elections in the region could actually be canceled. “This is just a targeted cancellation, it’s not scary,” Meduza’s source claimed. 

‘Fairly optimistic’

All of the officials Meduza spoke to believe the fighting in the Kursk region could continue for several months. One source close to the government even deemed this assessment “fairly optimistic.” 

Earlier, Chechen special forces commander Apti Alaudinov claimed that not just the battle in the Kursk region but also the war itself would “end” in two or three months. Since the start of the incursion, Alaudinov has become the government’s unexpected spokesman for the Kursk region. Two sources close to the Kremlin attributed this to the fact that the FSB is overseeing the situation and “the intelligence services don’t like to talk or go out in public,” while Alaudinov “wanted to do it himself; they aren’t stopping him.” “There needs to be some kind official representative,” one source said. 

A Meduza source close to the Russian government and another source close to the Putin administration claimed that immediately after the start of the Ukrainian offensive, Kremlin officials debated declaring another round of mobilization. This was previously reported by Bloomberg, whose sources said that due to a shortage of reserves, Russia could conduct another mobilization before the end of 2024. 

However, a source close to the government told Meduza that both the cabinet of ministers and businessmen with state ties are strongly opposed to another mobilization drive. “This will knock the last of the workforce out of the economy. There’s no one left to work. And [if] some are taken away, others will sneak off,” he explained. 

At the same time, the source stressed that he didn’t know to what extent the country’s top leadership listens to such arguments. In his view, it’s more likely that Russia will involve massive numbers of conscripts in the fighting in the Kursk region. The two sources close to the Putin administration claimed that state media is already priming public opinion on this issue. (Alaudinov, for example, has already addressed it.) “This is also part of the new norm. Since the enemy came to us, conscripts [must] take part in repelling [them],” one source said. 

The “elites” are also waiting for those who failed to prevent the Ukrainian incursion to lose their jobs. “Immediately afterwards, they started to discuss [General Staff Chief Valery] Gerasimov’s resignation. Now, there are no such rumors,” one source said. “Things aren’t easy in the Kursk region, but the offensive in Donbas is ongoing. Gerasimov has ill-wishers, but he also has the offensive that he can present to the president as an achievement. But since there’s a crisis situation, [since there are] mistakes, then someone to blame will definitely appear.”

[mariacallous]

Moldova’s president: Our democracy’s survival depends on joining the E.U.

Maia Sandu is a woman on a democratic mission in a war-torn neighborhood — the first honest president that Moldova has elected since breaking away from Russia in 1991. After a series of pro-Russian oligarchs enriched themselves at the expense of this small former Soviet republic, Sandu, a 50-year-old former World Bank employee and education minister, formed her own political party in 2016 to fight corruption. She was appointed prime minister in 2019 and elected president in 2020. Now, instead of focusing fully on criminal justice reforms, she is navigating the shock waves of Russia’s war against neighboring Ukraine and the impact of Russian cutbacks on gas sales to Europe. The Post’s Lally Weymouth sat down with Sandu this week in the presidential offices in Chisinau. Edited excerpts of their conversation:

Weymouth: How do you see the war in Ukraine going?

Sandu: We have condemned the Russian aggression against Ukraine from the very first day. One year ago, none of us would have thought we would have a full-fledged war in Europe. Ukraine is fighting for the free world and is also defending us.

Do you expect the war to go on for a while?

We all want this war to end as soon as possible and Ukraine to recover its territories.

How do you see President [Vladimir] Putin’s actions — his conscription, driving people to flee from Russia to avoid being drafted and his nuclear threats?

We have condemned the actions Russia has been taking. The war has created a lot of pain for Ukraine, but Moldova has also been affected significantly. Our analysis shows that the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons is small, but it should not be excluded.

You’ve spoken about your need to move your country away from its traditional neutral status.

Unfortunately, Russian propaganda has been trying to mislead people in Moldova that neutral means you should not have a defense sector or you should not invest in your defense sector, which is not true. In the constitution it says that we are a neutral country. At the same time, it says that the country should have an army and the army should be able to defend the country. So we are saying that because of the war in Ukraine, we should be more concerned about our security and should invest more than we invested in the past in our defense sector.

What’s the most important thing to you personally?

I do believe that our chance to survive as a democracy — and democracy is very important to us — is to integrate into the European Union. We want to stay part of the free world.

How [else] has Moldova been affected by the war?

It has caused the energy crisis which is affecting Moldova. Because of this war, we have high inflation and todayMoldovans pay a price for gas seven times higher than last year. We are also paying a higher price for electricity. Moldova is not a rich country, which means that in people’s budgets, the share of spending on energy and on food is very high.

[Russia’s state-owned energy company] Gazprom threatened to cut off Moldova’s gas supply on Oct. 1. They did not cut off the supply entirely but reduced it by 30 percent. Will you turn to the open market?

The problem is the price. There is still gas on the market, but the prices are very high. They are 10 times higher than last year. Before, we had 100 percent of gas provided by Gazprom. … We will be able to buy gas on the Romanian market, but the question is whether we will be able to afford such prices.

So the gas supply for this month is taken care of?

It is for this month. We will have to see how things develop in the next few months.

People say that your citizens will spend 50 percent of their money on energy and electricity this winter.

The government will try to compensate those with low incomes. The government has some (gas) reserves but not [enough to last] long.

People say that Ilan Shor, a Moldovan oligarch who was convicted in a Moldovan court in 2017 of stealing over $1 billion, is living in Israel and working with the Russians to undermine your government.

He was involved in a banking-sector fraud, which was a significant scheme [involving] a $1 billion fraud of three banks, one of which was a state bank. He left the country when we were elected because he and the other crooked oligarchs realized we are serious when we talk about justice-sector reform and strengthening the independence of the anti-corruption institutions. Now they have been working together with pro-Russian political parties in Moldova, trying to undermine our efforts.

Do you intend to retrieve the money stolen by Mr. Shor and the others?

We need the big countries, including the U.S., to help us stop the movement of dirty money from one country to another and to recover the money that was stolen. People who paid taxes had their money stolen from the state budget. They feel the injustice.

How many pro-Russian parties are in Moldova?

There are two political parties which are in the parliament, one of which is openly pro-Russian. Another is not openly declared as pro-Russian but has close ties to Russia.

How is the reform of the justice system going?

We are making progress in reforming justice and prosecution. But building institutions takes time.

Are you satisfied by the pace of reform?

We would like it to happen sooner, but we need to respect the conditions of the E.U.

You hear people complaining that the reforms are too slow.

If you wait too long to enact reforms, it may be difficult to explain to people who gave us their support to fight corruption.

You have managed to achieve E.U. candidate status for Moldova in record time.

To us, E.U. integration is very important. This is probably the only way for us to be able to save and consolidate democracy in this difficult region.

I hear that you hate to talk about yourself.

This is not about me, this is about Moldova and its people.

But you’re the president of Moldova.

I know, but there is an entire team trying to help. And we’ve got to thank the Moldovan people. When some of these corrupt people tried to impose an authoritarian regime, they went to the streets to protest. We appreciate democracy no matter how difficult it is economically.

Do you live here [in the presidential offices]?

There is a house that the former president lived in, but I don’t want to spend people’s money on my electricity consumption, so I stay in my apartment and pay for my own electricity.

I don’t believe [I am making] a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice for some of our ministers who left jobs which paid 10 times higher. We have to go through this because we have to change the situation.

Is the president paid the same as the ministers?

My salary is less than 1,000 euros a month. It’s a poor country.

What made you believe you could do this?

The choice was that I either leave the country or try to change things. I never planned to become a politician, but seeing so many corrupt people in politics, and [seeing] corruption seeping into state institutions, there was no future for this country.

What made you think that it wasn’t hopeless?

I just felt it was my duty to try. I love this country.

[mariacallous]

A number of industrial companies owned by Russian billionaire oligarchs Oleg Deripaska, Leonid Mikhelson, Sergey Gordeev, and Mikhail Gutseriev are involved in a scheme for providing financial incentives to contract soldiers willing to take part in the Ukraine war. Maria Zholobova and Anastasia Korotkova, investigative journalists working for the independent news outlet iStories, spoke with contract servicemen (called “volunteers” by the Russian authorities), as well as military recruiters, whose phone numbers link them to corporations like Deripaska’s Rusal, Mikhelson’s Novatek, and other industrial giants. Here’s the gist of their investigation, just released by iStories.

One of the contract servicemen who spoke to iStories was Igor Sergienko, a platoon commander in the Russian army’s Sokol (“Falcon”) battalion, where he is known by the nom-de-guerre “Shershen” (“Hornet”). Sergienko’s salary comes from two sources: 200,000 rubles a month (or just over $2,000) is paid to him by the Russian Defense Ministry, while another 100,000 comes from a sponsor he describes as a “company in the military-industrial complex.”

Neither Sergienko nor his recruiter, who also agreed to speak with the journalists, wanted to say more about the sponsor company’s identity. But the phone numbers given by the recruiter as contact information for prospective conscripts led the authors of the investigation to Rusal Management, a subsidiary of Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal. Another phone number provided by the recruiter for employment questions also belongs to Rusal Management. In the recruiter’s own words, Rusal’s military incentive scheme works like this:

We onboard a new employee the day before he signs a military contract, and next we suspend his contract with us, which leaves us legal grounds to pay him a stipend while he’s in the combat zone.

Sergienko’s employment record shows that in October 2022 he was hired by Ruslan, a private security company whose bank records reflect payments to mercenaries. According to iStories, Ruslan’s only clients in 2022 were two Deripaska-affiliated corporations.

The natural gas extraction company Novatek, whose majority owners are billionaire Leonid Mikhelson and Vladimir Putin’s longtime friend Gennady Timchenko, is also participating in a similar sponsorship scheme. One of the contract soldiers contacted by iStories shared his recruiter’s phone number with the investigators. The phone number, it turns out, is registered to Andrey Vasilyev, the CEO of Saturn-1, another private security firm, this time founded by Novatek. Although Saturn-1 isn’t formally a subsidiary of Novatek, almost all of its revenue in 2022 came from Mikhelson-owned ventures, including the Moscow-based contemporary arts center GES-2.

When contacted by iStories, the recruiter explained that payments to army “volunteers” are funneled through the Muzhestvo (“Valiance”) foundation, registered in September 2022. Nearly all of the foundation’s endowment (over 200 million rubles, or $2.2 million, based on the current conversion rate) were contributed by Novatek.

According to iStories, Sergey Gordeev’s PIK construction company and Mikhail Gutseriev’s Mospromstroy (another construction giant) are similarly involved in sponsoring and incentivizing contract soldiers.

Novatek, PIK, and Mospromstroy did not respond to the journalists’ queries. Rusal replied by denying any connection to military recruitment or any knowledge of other organizations’ use of its registered phone numbers. Although their owners have been personally sanctioned by Ukraine’s partner countries in the West, these corporations themselves are not currently under sanctions, the publication points out.