Russlands invasjon av Ukraina [Ny tråd, les førstepost]

[torbjornen]

Kongsberg skal levere Joint Strike Missile (JSM) til amerikanarane sine F35.

https://www.nrk.no/buskerud/kongsberg-gruppen-sikret-seg-milliardkontrakt-med-det-amerikanske-flyvapenet-1.16908797

[Brother Ursus]

Utvikling av missiler og droner er noe Norge er veldig bra på og noe vi burde investere mer i. Særlig produksjonsvolum. De er fremtiden. Og er viktige uavhengige av hvilken plattformer man sender dem fra.

[Brother Ursus]

 

"Result: one after another, groups are simply destroyed, and new ones come to replace them. In the company of this soldier, contract soldier Anton Andreev from the 5th company of the 1009th regiment, only 12 people out of 100 remained. At the same time, he realizes that orders to his superiors come from Moscow, and they also cannot do anything about it."

[Brother Ursus]

 

Ukraina slår nå til med HIMARS mot luftvernsystem inn i Russland.

 

Endret 3. juni av Brother Ursus

[Brother Ursus]

 

[Brother Ursus]

 

 

[Brother Ursus]

 

Ukrainske spesialsoldater skal allerede ha vært i Afrika og eliminert en del russiske styrker og leiesoldater der - antagelig med etterretningshjelp fra Vesten. Vesten kan selvsagt ikke selv angripe russiske styrker. Men det er ingenting i veien for at vi kan dirigere ukrainerne til nøyaktig hvor og hvordan gjøre det mest mulig effektivt

 

[Brother Ursus]

Den tsjetsjenske "Akhmat"-styrken, som er blokkeringsstyrker for å hindre russiske soldater i å desertere, har nå blitt stasjonert i de bakre rekkene i Kharkiv-retningen der de ferskeste russiske styrkene står. Det har vært en del meldinger om dårlig moral, dårlig fremgang og usanksjonerte tilbaketrekninger der.

I god stalinistisk ånd skal troppene presse fremover, hvis ikke skyter de politiske offiserene dem i ryggen.

Personlig hadde jeg heller tatt sjansen på å overgi meg til ukrainerne og risikere vennlig ild og artilleribombardement, enn å løpe mot ukrainske linjer som virker som selvmord - og et uverdig og umoralsk sådann.

[Brother Ursus]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckrr1k1xl0lo

'Russia now is like 1984': Inside a Russian dystopian library

“The situation now in Russia is similar to Nineteen Eighty-Four,” librarian Alexandra Karaseva tells me. “Total control by the government, the state and the security structures.”

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Party manipulates people’s perception of reality, so that citizens of Oceania believe that "war is peace" and "ignorance is strength".

Russia today has a similar feel about it. From morning until night, the state media here claims that Russia’s war in Ukraine is not an invasion, but a defensive operation; that Russian soldiers are not occupiers, but liberators; that the West is waging war on Russia, when, in reality, it was the Kremlin that ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“I’ve met people who are hooked on TV and believe that Russia isn’t at war with Ukraine, and that the West was always out to destroy Russia,” Alexandra says.

---snip---

It was a local businessman, Dmitry Silin, who opened the library two years ago.

A vocal critic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he wanted to create a space where Russians could “think for themselves, instead of watching TV”.

Dmitry was later prosecuted for “discrediting the Russian armed forces”. He’d been accused of scrawling “No to war!” on a building. He denied the charge. He has since fled Russia and is wanted by police.

---snip---

“Most of my generation had no experience of grassroots democracy,” recalls Alexandra, who is 68. “We helped destroy the Soviet Union but failed to build democracy. We didn’t have the experience to know when to stand firm and say ‘You mustn’t do this.’ Perhaps if my generation had read Ninety Eighty-Four, it would have acted differently.”

---snip---

Eighteen-year-old Dmitry Shestopalov has read Ninety Eighty-Four. Now he volunteers at the library.

“This place is sacrosanct,” Dmitry tells me. “For creative young people it’s a place they can come to find like-minded citizens and to get away from what’s happening in our country. It’s a little island of freedom in an unfree environment.”

As islands go, it is, indeed, little. Alexandra Karaseva is the first to admit that the library has few visitors.

---snip---

“I’m happy with the direction Russia’s heading in,” pensioner Vladimir tells me. “We’re becoming more independent. Less reliant on the West.”

“We’re making progress,” says a young woman called Natalya. “As Vladimir Putin has said, a new stage for Russia has begun.”

But what about Russia’s war in Ukraine?

“I try not to watch anything about that any more,” Nina tells me. “It’s too upsetting.”

---snip---

Back at the George Orwell Library they’re holding an event. A local psychologist is finishing a lecture on how to overcome "learned helplessness" and believe you have the power to change your life. There are ten people in the audience.

When the lecture ends, librarian Alexandra Karaseva breaks the news.

“The building’s been put up for sale. Our library has to move out. We need to decide what to do. Where do we go from here?”

The library’s been offered smaller premises across town.

Almost immediately one woman offers her van to help with the move. Another member of the audience says she’ll donate a video projector to help the library. Others suggest ideas for raising money.

This is civil society in action. Citizens coming together in time of need.

Admittedly, the scale is tiny. And there’s no guarantee of success. In a society with less and less space for “little islands of freedom,” the library’s long-term future is uncertain.

But they’re not giving up. Not yet.

[Brother Ursus]

https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-hit-russia-s-port-kavkaz-with-neptuns-using-them-for-the-first-time-against-land-targets-50423979.html

Ukraine deploys Neptune missiles as tactical weapons for first time

Ukraine used Neptune missiles as tactical weapons rather than anti-ship missiles for the first time, former Deputy Chief-of-Staff of the Ukrainian Navy and strategic expert with Sonata Company, Andriy Ryzhenko, said in an interview with NV Radio on May 30.

The Ukrainian Navy targeted a ferry crossing and an oil terminal at Port Kavkaz in Russia's Krasnodar Krai with missiles launched from a Neptune coastal missile system, Ukraine's General Staff said.

[Brother Ursus]

[Enceladus]

27 minutes ago, Brother Ursus said:

 

"Result: one after another, groups are simply destroyed, and new ones come to replace them. In the company of this soldier, contract soldier Anton Andreev from the 5th company of the 1009th regiment, only 12 people out of 100 remained. At the same time, he realizes that orders to his superiors come from Moscow, and they also cannot do anything about it."

Det er så rart, så uforståelig. Det er jo den samme gamle historien om igjen med russerne vi har hørt gjennom hele krigen. Men likevel blir jeg alltid forundret.

Hvorfor er de der? Har de ikke fått med seg hvilke tilstander det er på fronten etter over 2 år med krig? Går dette opp for dem når de først står der selv? Og hvordan kan de kjempe for slike ledere? I slike tilfeller ville vel det åpenbare valget være mytteri, snu våpnene mot egne ledere, særlig om man uansett skal dø.

Hva er det de egentlig kjemper for når de så tydelig opplever at deres egen side er så gjennomført korrupte og onde?

Uforståelig.

[Brother Ursus]

1 minute ago, Enceladus said:

Det er så rart, så uforståelig. Det er jo den samme gamle historien om igjen med russerne vi har hørt gjennom hele krigen. Men likevel blir jeg alltid forundret.

Hvorfor er de der? Har de ikke fått med seg hvilke tilstander det er på fronten etter over 2 år med krig? Går dette opp for dem når de først står der selv? Og hvordan kan de kjempe for slike ledere? I slike tilfeller ville vel det åpenbare valget være mytteri, snu våpnene mot egne ledere, særlig om man uansett skal dø.

Hva er det de egentlig kjemper for når de så tydelig opplever at deres egen side er så gjennomført korrupte og onde?

Uforståelig.

Jeg skjønner ikke jeg heller. Det må jo være en logikk i det, men jeg klarer personlig ikke å finne den.

Hadde de vært helt motvillige skulle man tro at de ville overgi seg 'en masse' eller snu våpnene på blokkeringsstyrker og offiserer langt oftere.

Eneste konklusjon jeg kommer til er at de på et eller annet nivå faktisk også tror på propagandaen, selv om de forstår at de blir brukt som kjøtt.

[Aiven]

Snikpellik skrev (4 timer siden):

Oppdatert:

Det er nå ikke overraskende bekreftet at The Grayzone-medarbeidere mottar penger fra både Russland og Iran.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/06/02/grayzone-russia-iran-support/

Recently unearthed documents reveal that leaders of an online news site aimed at Americans have received money from both Russian and Iranian government media outlets, showing how widening geopolitical alliances are making it harder to identify and trace foreign influence operations.

Hacked emails and other documents from the Iranian government- funded Press TV show payments of thousands of dollars to a writer who is now a Washington-based editor for Grayzone, whose founder regularly appears on Russian television and once accepted a trip to Moscow for a celebration of Russian state-controlled video network RT that featured Vladimir Putin.

@Aiven Du som både har promotert og forsvart disse folkene, hva tenker du om dette?

Jeg gidder ikke abonnere på The Washington Post for å lese artikkelen. På generelt grunnlag ser jeg ikke noe problem med at frilansjournalister får oppdrag fra medier i ulike land.

Uten at jeg har lest hele artikkelen, så virker det som noen forsøker å koke suppe på spiker her.

 

[Snikpellik]

Aiven skrev (1 minutt siden):

Jeg gidder ikke abonnere på The Washington Post for å lese artikkelen. 

Gratis lenke: https://t.co/fD7upvDr57

Endret 3. juni av Snikpellik

[Aiven]

Snikpellik skrev (30 minutter siden):

Gratis lenke: https://t.co/fD7upvDr57

Ok, lest.

Vi lever i en tid hvor journalister kritiske til amerikansk utenrikspolitikk ikke får jobb i amerikanske MSM. Så da har man valget mellom å ikke skrive noe, forsøke å få jobb hos en av ytterst få medier som er kritiske som The Greyzone – eller å jobbe for medier i land som er villige til å betale for det.

Som tidligere frilansjournalist har jeg full forståelse for at noen journalister foretrekker å publiseres – og få betalt – framfor å ikke gjøre det. Å legge en ferdig artikkel i skuffen fordi ingen vil kjøpe den er veldig lite gøy, tross konsekvensen med drittpakker fra MSM i ettertid.

Jeg er for å være kritisk til journalistikk fra iranske og russiske medier, men mener at man også bør være kritisk ovenfor vestlige kilder – spesielt med det stadig økende konfliktnivået.

Sannheten er krigens første offer.

Endret 3. juni av Aiven

[Brother Ursus]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/03/russia-europe-far-right-espionage/

Russia co-opts far-right politicians in Europe with cash, officials say

A Kremlin-backed media outlet — the Prague-based Voice of Europe — funneled hundreds of thousands of euros to far-right politicians, officials say.

When an associate of one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies launched a pro-Kremlin media outlet here in May 2023, Czech counterintelligence officers began keeping careful watch.

For nearly a year, European intelligence officials said, the Czech authorities secretly recorded hours of meetings between several far-right politicians from across Europe and the associate, Artem Marchevsky, who was running the propaganda website, Voice of Europe, including at its offices on a quiet side street in the center of Prague. E.U. and Czech authorities, which have shut down the site, have labeled Voice of Europe a Russian propaganda operation.

The Czech probe rapidly expanded into Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and France, European security and intelligence officials said, as investigators concluded that Voice of Europe represented far more than its official veneer as a pro-Russian website interviewing favored European politicians about ending aid to Ukraine.

The organization was being used to funnel hundreds of thousands of euros — up to 1 million a month — to dozens of far-right politicians in more than five countries to plant Kremlin propaganda in Western media that would sow division in Europe and bolster the position of pro-Russian candidates in this week’s European Parliament elections, according to interviews with a dozen European intelligence officials from five countries. Most of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing and sensitive investigation.

Officials described the Russian operation as among the most ambitious undertaken by the Kremlin in Europe in its efforts to undermine support for Ukraine and create divisions in the transatlantic alliance. Previous Kremlin-backed covert actions include the attempted union of the far right and far left in Germany, stoking domestic divisions in France and sabotage in Poland, The Washington Post has reported.

Internal Kremlin documents obtained by one of the European intelligence services and reviewed by The Post show for the first time that Voice of Europe was part of an influence campaign established by the Kremlin in close coordination with Viktor Medvedchuk, the Putin ally who until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led a pro-Moscow opposition party in Kyiv. It was later managed by a key Medvedchuk lieutenant who, other documents show, worked closely with a unit of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, responsible for Ukraine and some former Soviet states, otherwise known as the FSB’s Fifth Service

After the expulsion from Europe of dozens of Russian intelligence officers following the invasion of Ukraine, fronts such as the Voice of Europe became instruments for the Kremlin to regain lost ground, one of the senior European intelligence officials said. “The Russian intelligence services had to change their work. The result is, for example, influence networks such as Voice of Europe,” the official said.

The website’s status as a news organization was designed to provide cover, another of the intelligence officials said, making it “easier to approach politicians” under the guise of interviewing them about Ukraine, anti-globalism and other issues.

Michal Koudelka, head of the Czech domestic security service, said that the Voice of Europe operation was also an attempt to get more pro-Russian members into the European Parliament and that after the vote that starts this Thursday, “there was a plan for the people in the European Parliament to conduct classic espionage” on behalf of Russia.

“It was an operation that aimed to shape Europe,” Koudelka said in an interview.

Far-right parties could end up with 25 percent of the seats in the 720-member European Parliament, according to some opinion polls. And for Russia, increasing influence among those parties could provide a mechanism for threatening aid to Ukraine, as well as fertile ground for espionage, according to Vera Jourova, the European Commission’s vice president.

Pro-Russian politicians “could really make the financing [of Ukraine] difficult,” Jourova told The Post.

The Czech investigation has led to raids on the home and offices of an aide to a far-right Dutch member of the European Parliament and of Petr Bystron, a leading member of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, and the party’s No. 2 candidate for the European Parliament. Bystron, the AfD’s spokesman for foreign affairs, has been among the most vocal in Germany against sending Western weapons to Ukraine and for lifting sanctions on Russia.

German authorities said in May they have placed Bystron under investigation for alleged corruption and money laundering as part of the probe, and police raided his office in the German parliament as well as properties in Germany and Spain. In one recording, three of the senior European intelligence officials told The Post, Bystron can be heard complaining to a Voice of Europe official about the difficulty of transporting tens of thousands in cash to his vacation home in Mallorca.

“We knew he was pro-Russian,” said one of the senior intelligence officials, noting Bystron’s long-standing ties with Russia and pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. The official believes authorities have now gathered evidence supporting the accusation that Bystron received money from Russia and placed propaganda in far-right publications in return.

The Czech-born Bystron wasn’t only “a passive person who received money,” the official said.

“He organized things,” according to the official, saying that Bystron, who speaks Russian, brought other political figures into Voice of Europe’s orbit and was “the main leading person.”

“Bystron knew about the plans for the espionage operations” in the European Parliament, this person said, adding that there was recorded evidence of this.

Bystron remains a candidate for the European Parliament and has denounced the investigation as a plot by European security services to damage AfD’s standing ahead of the elections. “Before every election it is the same: defamation with the help of the secret services,” he told Deutschland Kurier, an AfD-linked website.

In a brief text exchange with The Post, Bystron said, “We already had a house search during an election campaign in 2017, which was subsequently declared to be illegal by the courts. Nobody was interested after the election.” He declined to be interviewed further and did not respond to detailed written questions.

AfD is still expected to come second or third in the June 6 poll, behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union, despite the controversy, which has touched other AfD leaders. Prosecutors in Germany have said in a statement that they initiated a preliminary investigation into Maximilian Krah on allegations of accepting payments from Russia and China for his work as an AfD member of the European Parliament. Police searched his office as part of an investigation into allegations that one of his aides was working as a spy for China. On Wednesday, police raided the residence and offices of the Dutch parliamentary assistant who had previously worked for Krah.

Krah said in a statement to The Post that the allegations were part of a “disinformation campaign against my party orchestrated by intelligence agencies” and called the accusations “not only wrong” but “slandering.”

Security services in Europe are still investigating the role of dozens of other far-right politicians in the Voice of Europe network, including from France, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well up to six more AfD figures, including politicians and parliamentary assistants, people familiar with the investigation said. Belgian authorities have also played a leading investigative role, with key Voice of Europe meetings with politicians taking place in other locations in Europe, including Brussels, senior officials said.

European security officials and Kremlin documents link the creation of Voice of Europe in early 2023 to Russia’s presidential administration and Medvedchuk, who is so close to Putin that the Russian president is godfather to his daughter. Medvedchuk was turned over to Russia in September 2022 as part of a prisoner exchange between Moscow and Kyiv. He was seen in Moscow as a possible leader of Ukraine if the Russian invasion succeeded and the Kremlin was able to install its allies in power in Kyiv, intelligence officials said.

The Kremlin documents show Voice of Europe was initially connected to a Russian propaganda operation launched in January 2023 by the Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko. It was designed to boost support for Medvedchuk in Ukraine and position him among European opinion makers as a viable replacement for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, promoting peace talks “as an alternative to possible nuclear war,” the documents state. The campaign, dubbed “The Other Ukraine,” would present Medvedchuk as the head of a government in exile, the documents show.

The aim was to create “an organization that could be brought in after Russia demonstrated the illegitimacy of the Zelensky regime and negotiate an end to the war from a position of strength,” said one intelligence official familiar with the plans.

Medvedchuk declined to comment.

Kremlin political strategists, including Ilya Gambashidze and Nikolai Tupikin, whom the United States has sanctioned for their roles in disinformation campaigns, were brought in to assist with the launch of the project, which envisioned promoting interviews with Medvedchuk and his Other Ukraine organization through a web of social media and YouTube accounts, and appearances in Western media, the Kremlin documents show.

Voice of Europe was described as a “news resource,” with Marchevsky, a longtime Medvedchuk associate, at its helm, one of the documents shows. In July, its overall management was taken over by Renat Kuzmin, another key Medvedchuk associate, who, documents show, worked closely with the FSB’s Fifth Service.

Neither the Kremlin nor Kuzmin responded to detailed requests for comment.

The Prague news outlet, intelligence officials said, gave Marchevsky a way to engage a network of extremist European politicians, some of whom, including Bystron, had been cultivated by Russia’s political allies in Ukraine since the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. Those relations were often first managed by Oleg Voloshyn, a political operative in charge of foreign relations for Medvedchuk’s For Life political party before Russia’s invasion.

In an interview, Voloshyn said he introduced Medvedchuk and Bystron in Berlin in 2020. Voloshyn said he brought Bystron and Krah to Kyiv to celebrate his 40th birthday in April 2021, introducing them to Marchevsky, who at the time headed one of Medvedchuk’s three television stations in Ukraine.

After Medvedchuk was placed under house arrest by Zelensky’s government and accused of treason, Bystron and Krah traveled again to Kyiv to visit Medvedchuk in his home, a trip that raised concerns among European security officials.

Voloshyn’s ability to travel in Europe was hampered in January 2022, shortly before Russia’s invasion, when the U.S. Treasury Department placed him on its sanctions list, calling him an “FSB pawn” in efforts by the Russian security agency to destabilize and take over Ukraine. Voloshyn said the sanctions — and allegations that he was connected to Russian intelligence — were based on inaccurate information.

When Bystron made a secret trip to Belarus in November 2022 — acknowledging the visit only after it was exposed by Lithuanian and German media — he met with Voloshyn, who had relocated there following Russia’s invasion, Voloshyn told The Post.

Voloshyn said he connected Bystron with Medvedchuk by phone during the visit but insisted that the German and the Ukrainian spoke for no more than a few minutes. In a 2023 interview with The Post, Bystron said he met only with Belarusian officials during the trip. Soon after the visit, Bystron presented a peace plan favorable to the Kremlin to the German parliament.

With Voloshyn unable to travel to the European Union, Marchevsky became the face of Voice of Europe in Prague.

Marchevsky did not respond to a detailed request for comment. In earlier comments to the Financial Times, he denied working as a proxy for Medvedchuk and said he was not involved in Voice of Europe’s management, claiming his company was only a third-party contractor. He declined to reveal his whereabouts after fleeing the Czech Republic.

A series of scandals dogging the AfD — including a statement by Krah that not all members of the Nazi SS in World War II were guilty of crimes — has dented but not destroyed the party’s standing ahead of the European Parliament elections. Krah has withdrawn from the race, and AfD is still expected to get at least 15 percent of the vote, which could allow it a second-place finish in Germany.

Krah’s statement about the SS did prompt the far-right National Rally party in France, led by Marine Le Pen, to say it would not sit with the AfD in the European Parliament. But the AfD’s membership in such official groupings may not mean much when it comes to voting on issues related to Russia or Ukraine, one of the European intelligence officials said, with parties able to vote in ad hoc blocs.

The Czech intelligence services, for one, are still vigilant. “We stopped [the Voice of Europe operation], and I am very proud of my service,” Koudelka said. But there are concerns that other networks may be working in other European countries. “This fight is never-ending.”

 

[Brother Ursus]

 

Oversettelse: La oss se om vi kan overbevise Sullivan, eller i det minste Biden.

[Brother Ursus]

https://news.liga.net/en/politics/news/pod-volchanskom-vsu-vzyali-v-plen-okolo-60-rossiyan--gruppirovka-voysk-hortitsa

Ukrainian forces capture around 60 Russians near Vovchansk – Khortytsia Group

The event occurred on June 2; fighting in the city continues as of June 3

 

On the same day, Voloshyn reported that Ukrainian units control most of the city – about 70%, and fierce fighting continues in and around the city.

[Markiii]

Aiven skrev (5 timer siden):

Jeg gidder ikke abonnere på The Washington Post for å lese artikkelen. På generelt grunnlag ser jeg ikke noe problem med at frilansjournalister får oppdrag fra medier i ulike land.

Uten at jeg har lest hele artikkelen, så virker det som noen forsøker å koke suppe på spiker her.

Åja, så hvis det er vestlige medier så er det veeeldig dumt, men hvis det er diktaturer så gjør det ikke noe om de kjøper seg medier for å spre løgn og propaganda?  

Aiven skrev (5 timer siden):

Vi lever i en tid hvor journalister kritiske til amerikansk utenrikspolitikk ikke får jobb i amerikanske MSM.

Kilde?

Sitat

Så da har man valget mellom å ikke skrive noe, forsøke å få jobb hos en av ytterst få medier som er kritiske som The Greyzone – eller å jobbe for medier i land som er villige til å betale for det.

Men de er jo ikke kritiske. De er kjøpte og betalte propagandarør for diktaturer.

Sitat

Jeg er for å være kritisk til journalistikk fra iranske og russiske medier, men mener at man også bør være kritisk ovenfor vestlige kilder – spesielt med det stadig økende konfliktnivået.

Dette er en falsk ekvivalens. Du kan ikke sammenligne frie vestlige medier med kjøpte og betalte propagandister for slike diktaturer.