Prigozhin had released a photo showing him with a group of his fighters and a tank, which he said was taken in one of the tunnels of a saltmine in the south-west of Soledar.
…
Ukraine’s defence ministry tweeted late on Tuesday: “Even after suffering colossal losses, Russia is still maniacally trying to seize Soledar – home to the largest saltmine in Europe.”
From the below pictures and one from @VitalyBBC’s thread, the wall seems more similar to my untrained eye to the gypsum mine in Bakhmut.
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1613212141095378945
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1613216933360312321
“Surovikin is to remain as Gerasimov’s deputy, the ministry said.”
I’m sure that Surovikin will give Gerasimov his full support and go above and beyond to make his boss look good. /s
Hopefully Gerasimov is not as much of a brutal thug as Surovikin. He will no doubt spend the entirety of his (probably brief) term in command wondering when the axe will fall.
So now they are jailing the soldiers who WANT Russia to succeed!
…after getting into an altercation with his superiors over poor training conditions…
…draftee Alexander Leshkov is seen shouting profanities and shoving Lt Col Denis Mazanov at a training ground outside Moscow.
In the footage, Leshkov is heard telling his commander: “You are sabotaging the commander-in-chief’s direct orders [to supply and train mobilised soldiers],” adding: “You should be arrested.”
I think Germany is the biggest European provider to Ukraine but in this case the reason is more obvious. Germany has more tanks for kind of obvious reasons, c.1,000 Leopards are in service versus 200 of the British tanks. This includes other NATO countries like Poland (the largest per capita/ percentage provider of aid and I think refuge too) who need German permission to re export. And yes, that would provide pressure on the US to provide Abrams tanks.
That’s what I’ve read anyway. Whether the symbolic escalation and its political outcomes are a significant consideration rather than just better tanks I have no idea. I’m sure outmatching rather than just blunting Russian armour is very tempting to Ukrainian military planners.
In its investigation, the Times decided to publish only the first names of the quoted soldiers to protect their identities. The inclusion of apparent phone numbers undermines that effort. Armed with a phone number, Russian authorities may be able to track down who was critical of the government’s wartime efforts.
Motherboard found the Times website included not only the numbers of apparent soldiers on these calls, but also the alleged family members back home. That included the number that placed the call, the number that received it, and apparent notes from Times’ fact checkers on the caller’s identities.
“Exposing the phone number of the families of Russian troops is exposing those family members to risks,” Rid added.
While those soldiers or family members could be targeted for their criticisms of the war, security researcher Matthew Tait said. “On the Russian state side, the targeting is, in my opinion, much more likely due to potential exposure of senior officers and the Russian state in identifying directed war crimes than for criticism of Putin.”
When originally published in September, some of the audio files included in the story contained pieces of metadata that contained a date, a timestamp, and a series of digits. Those digits appear to be phone numbers. This month, a security researcher flagged the issue to Motherboard. The security researcher requested anonymity because they did not want to draw the attention of either Russian or Ukrainian authorities.
Pick a window, you’re leaving
He’s about to find out.
Despite the headline and the article, it’s still not clear (to me anyways) whether Germany has actually approved or needs to approve of such a transfer.
It’s definitely not de jure.
By applying for full NATO membership without any explicit restrictions, Finland allows itself the opportunity to chart its own decisions on nuclear weapons. But there is one caveat: Under Finland’s current national legislation nuclear weapons are illegal.
Like Finland, the nuclear weapons aspect of the alliance is something Ukraine should debate.
