Tag: Russia Ukraine

Russia-Ukraine War: How Russia and the World Navigate Two Years of Conflict

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Two years on, where does the Ukraine war stand?

Russia’s war in Ukraine has entered its third year. What many thought on February 24, 2022 would be a swift Russian military operation against its smaller neighbour has turned out to be the largest land war in Europe since the end of the Second World War. This is no longer about Russia and Ukraine. This is now a proxy conflict between Russia and NATO, a trans-Atlantic nuclear alliance. Two years since the war began, where does it stand today, and how it’s transforming Russia and the world?

If one looks back at the beginning of the war, it’s not difficult to see that President Vladimir Putin made a grave strategic miscalculation when he ordered the invasion of Europe’s second largest country with less than 2,00,000 troops. Mr. Putin probably expected a quick victory, like he did in Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014. But that did not happen.

In 2022, Russians were forced to retreat from Kharkiv and Kherson. The West doubled down on its military and economic support for Ukraine. Russia had declared “demilitarisation” and “denazification” of Ukraine as their objectives. Ukraine wanted to push back the invading troops and recapture the lost territories, including Crimea. The West wanted to use Ukrainian forces to bleed out Russian troops and weaken Russia as a great power. The wheels of war were grinding on. Who is meeting their objectives today?

Ukraine last year launched an ambitious counteroffensive with advances weapons from the West. Their plan was to make swift advances into Russia’s line of defence in the south and destroy Mr. Putin’s land bridge that connects the Donbas with Crimea.

Eight months after counteroffensive began, it’s now evident that the campaign has failed. Gen. Velery Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander in chief who was fired by President Zelensky, had called for a mass mobilisation, suggesting that Ukraine was facing acute shortage of fighters on the frontline. They lost many of their West-supplied weapons in the counteroffensive and are waiting for fresh supplies. Ukraine is almost entirely dependent on the West for critical supplies, but aid from the U.S., the single largest supporter of Ukraine, is stuck in Congress amid growing Republican opposition.

On the other side, the Russians are on the offensive. In December, Russia claimed its first victory since the capture of Bakhmut in May when it seized Maryinka. Earlier this month, Ukraine was forced to abandon Avdiivka, a strategically important town in Donetsk. The Russians are now advancing westward in Donetsk and piling up pressure on Ukrainian forces in Krynky, Kherson, in the south.

The message from the battlefield is alarming for Ukraine and its partners in the West.

Editorial |Endless war: On the Russia-Ukraine war

Take a look at the West’s strategy. The West, or NATO to be specific, had taken a two-fold approach towards Ukraine. One was to provide economic and military assistance to Kyiv to keep the fight against Russia going on; and the second leg was to weaken Russia’s economy and war machine through sanctions. With Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive and a changing political climate in Washington with the prospect of a second Trump presidency looming, the first pillar of this policy faces uncertainty, if not absolute peril. The second pillar, sanctions, has hurt Russia badly. Western officials believe that sanctions have deprived Russia of over $430 billion in revenue it would otherwise have gained since the war began. Europe has also curtailed its energy purchases from Russia. Sanctions have also made it difficult for Moscow to acquire critical technologies, including microchips, which are necessary for its defence industry.

But this is not the whole story.

Russia has found several ways to work around sanctions and keep its economy going. When Europe cut energy sales, Russia offered discounted crude oil to big growing economies such as China, India and Brazil. It amassed a ghost fleet of ships to keep sending oil to its new markets without relying on western shipping companies and insurers. It set up shell companies and private corporations operating in its neighbourhood (say Armenia or Turkey) to import dual use technologies which were re-exported to Russia to be used in defence production. China, the world’s second largest economy, ramped up its financial and trade ties with Russia, including the export of dual use technologies. Russia moved away from the dollar to other currencies, mainly the Chinese yuan, for trade, and boosted defence and public spending at home (its defence budget was raised by nearly 70% this year).

Does it mean that everything is going well for Mr. Putin? No it doesn’t.

Since the war began, two countries in its neighbourhood, Sweden and Finland, have joined NATO, expanding the alliance’s border with Russia. Now, if you look at the Baltic Sea, all basin countries, except Russia, are practically NATO members, which makes it look like a NATO lake.

Mr. Putin spent years, after coming to power, to build strong economic ties with Europe, which are now in tatters. Russia’s hold on its immediate neighbourhood is also loosening, which was evident in tensions with Armenia and the latter’s decision to freeze participation in the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Russia is also increasingly becoming dependent on China, even though the Kremlin is careful not to upset the sensitivity of New Delhi.

But how does India look at the war?

India’s ties with Russia have multi-dimensions. While the energy aspect of this partnership, which flourished after the war, is seen largely opportunistic, the defence side is structural. India also sees Russia, a Eurasian powerhouse, as an important long-term strategic partner in tackling its continental challenges. But the elephant in the room was China.

Russia’s deepening ties with China triggered different arguments on India’s choices. One section argued that the growing synergy between Russia and China should serve as a wake-up call for India to revisit its Russia policy. Others, including yours truly, argued that India would be wary of pushing Russia deeper into China’s embrace by toeing the anti-Russian Western line.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar explained India’s thinking on this matter at the Raisina Dialogue recently. The world must give Russia more options, rather than “closing doors” on it and pushing it towards a closer embrace with China, Mr. Jaishankar said. The Minister’s comments underscored India’s concerns about a deepening China-Russia partnership, but his policy prescriptions were nuanced. “What’s happened today with Russia is essentially a lot of doors have been shut to Russia in the West,” he said. “We know the reasons why Russia is turning to parts of the world which are not West. Now, I think it makes sense to give Russia multiple options.”

Meaning, India’s ties with Russia are here to stay and expand, irrespective of what its western partners think of Moscow.

Script and presentation: Stanly Johny

Production: Richard Kujur

Video: Thamodharan B.

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#RussiaUkraine #War #Russia #World #Navigate #Years #Conflict

Russia targets Ukraine’s port of Odesa and calls it payback for a strike on a key bridge to Crimea

Post By World , , , , , , , ,

Ukraine said its forces shot down Russian drones and cruise missiles targeting the Black Sea port of Odesa before dawn on Tuesday in what Moscow called “retribution” for an attack that damaged a crucial bridge to the Crimean Peninsula.

The Russians first sought to wear down Ukraine’s air defences by firing 25 exploding drones and then targeted Odesa with six Kalibr cruise missiles, the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command said.

All six missiles and the drones were shot down by air defences in the Odesa region and other areas in the south, officials said, though their debris and shock waves damaged some port facilities and a few residential buildings and injured an elderly man at his home.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its “strike of retribution” was carried out with sea-launched precision weapons on Ukrainian military facilities near Odesa and Mykolaiv, a coastal city about 50 km to the northeast.

It destroyed facilities preparing “terror attacks” against Russia involving maritime drones, including a facility at a shipyard that was producing them, the Ministry said. It added that it also struck Ukrainian fuel depots near the two cities.

It was not possible to verify the conflicting claims by both countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine on Monday for striking the Kerch Bridge, which links Russia with Crimea and was attacked in October 2022 and needed months of repairs. The bridge is a key supply route for the peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Ukrainian officials stopped short of directly taking responsibility, as they have done in similar strikes before, but Ukraine’s top security agency appeared tacitly to admit to a role.

Satellite images taken on Monday by Maxar Technologies showed serious damage to both eastbound and westbound lanes of the bridge across the Kerch Strait on the part nearest to the Russian mainland, with at least one section collapsed. The railroad bridge that runs parallel to the highway appeared undamaged.

The Russian military has sporadically hit Odesa and the neighboring region throughout the war, but Tuesday’s barrage was one of the biggest attacks on the area.

Ukrainian forces have been targeting Crimea with drones and other attacks. Kyiv has vowed to reclaim it from Russian control, arguing that the peninsula plays a key role in sustaining the Russian invasion and is a legitimate target.

The onslaught also came a day after Russia broke off a deal that had allowed Ukraine to ship vital grain supplies from Odesa during the war. Moscow said the decision was in the works long before the bridge attack.

Even so, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov alleged, without offering evidence, that the specific shipping lanes and routes used for the grain transport under the deal were abused by Ukraine.

“Our military has repeatedly said that Ukraine has used these grain corridors for military purposes,” Mr. Peskov told reporters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine will continue implementing the grain deal. Mr. Peskov warned that such action was risky because the region lies next to an area where there is fighting.

“If they try to do something without Russia, these risks must be taken into account,” Mr. Peskov told reporters.

Mr. Zelensky said grain exports by sea and port security topped the agenda of his meeting on Tuesday with senior military commanders and top government officials, adding that he received reports on logistics and protection of the coastal regions.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said Russia is endangering the lives of millions of people around the world who need Ukrainian grain exports. Hunger is a growing threat in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and high food prices have pushed more people into poverty.


Also read: Why allowing Ukraine to ship grain during Russia’s war matters to the world

“The world must realise that the goal of the Russian Federation is hunger and killing people,” Mr. Yermak said. “They need waves of refugees. They want to weaken the West with this.”

The United Nations and Ukraine’s Western allies slammed Moscow for halting the Black Sea Grain Initiative, saying it put many lives in peril.

USAID is giving Ukraine a further $250 million to support its agricultural sector as its chief, Samantha Power, visited Odesa and chided Moscow for its stance.

“Russia’s disruption of maritime commerce since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, including blockading ports, delaying ship inspections, and, most recently, withdrawing from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, has severely choked the amount of grain Ukraine is able to provide to the world amid a global food crisis,” a USAID statement said.

The Kremlin said the agreement would be suspended until Moscow’s demands to lift restrictions on exports of Russian food and fertilizer to the world are met. Peskov on Tuesday reaffirmed an earlier Kremlin pledge to provide especially poor countries in Africa with grain for free, adding that the issue will be discussed at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg next week.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry also said its forces had foiled a Ukrainian attack on Crimea using 28 drones.

The ministry said 17 of the attacking drones were shot down by air defenses and 11 others were jammed by electronic warfare means and crashed. It said there was no damage or casualties.

Also Tuesday, satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press showed that a convoy of vehicles arrived at a once-abandoned military base in Belarus, which was offered to Russia’s private military contractor, Wagner. That followed a short-lived rebellion last month against the Russian Defense Ministry by Wagner’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The photos, taken Monday, show a long line of vehicles coming off a highway into the base near the Belarusian town of Osipovichi, some 75 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of the capital, Minsk.

Belaruski Hajun, an activist group that monitors troops movements in Belarus, said a convoy of more than 100 vehicles with Russian flags and Wagner insignia entered the country, heading for the camp. The group said it was the third Wagner convoy to enter Belarus since last week.

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#Russia #targets #Ukraines #port #Odesa #calls #payback #strike #key #bridge #Crimea

Tucker Spreading Fake Doctored Russian Propaganda About Ukraine Losing? Would Fox News Even ALLOW That?

Post By Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yes, we know, Tucker Carlson has been playing his interview with Elon Musk the past two nights, and it has been overstuffed with loser divorced dad incel moments to make fun of, like when Elon got that look on his face that says “Is my hand in my pants right now?” while he talked about how abortion and birth control interfere with his weird breeding desires. Or when Elon said, “I’m very familiar with space and stuff.” We will make fun of those things very soon.

First we want to talk about another story related to Tucker and the Discord leaker and Russia’s war in Ukraine, where Tucker openly takes the side of the vile, genocidal, amoral aggressors. (Russia.)

Tucker has been lying and misleading his viewers about the latest accused leaker of classified information pretty much since the get-go, trying to turn the loser into some hero for the (Russian) cause of revealing the TRUTH about what’s going on in in Ukraine. (Not the truth.) He’s also been using facts and figures from the documents to convince his very idiot viewers that the presence of 14 US special forces attached to the embassy in Kyiv means Joe Biden has been lying and America is in a HOT WAR with Ukraine.

Tucker So Mad Nobody Talking About How Leaker Exposed Secret HOT WAR Between Russia And 14 US Troops

But, you see, certain things in those documents had themselves been altered while they were making the rounds on the dork nerd Discord/4Chan/Reddit internet. Certain things had been altered in a specifically Russian propaganda direction, to make it look like, for example, seven Ukrainians were dying for every Russian killed.

The Wall Street Journalreported this weekend on an American spreader of Russian propaganda named Sarah Bils, who ran and/or participated in a network of spreaders of Russian propaganda who posed as a Russian blogger named “Donbass Devushka.” (Translation: “Donbas Girl.” You’ll note that “Donbas” is the name of one of the regions in eastern Ukraine the Russians want to claim as their own and where at the beginning of the war they wanted the world to believe the people would greet them with flowers and blowjobs. It’s where Putin declared “independence” for the two republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, so that he might liberate them from their Ukrainian Nazi occupiers. “Donbass” is the Russian spelling.)

Bils is a former NCO from the US Navy, and the WSJ reports she was stationed at Whidbey Island in Washington state up until last year. Meanwhile, she’s doing this pro-Russian shit online. She says 15 people people all over the world control the “Donbass Devushka” account.

Indeed, it sounds like this account’s dissemination of some of the materials allegedly leaked by Jack Teixeira — shit that had been on the nerd internet for a while and hardly noticed — was what got the attention of Russian social media, which in turn got the attention of the Defense Department. Nobody cared about these documents until April 5, when this network of Russian propagandists that was actively supporting “our men on the front” — Russians — started putting them up on Telegram. Bils says she was not the member who posted this stuff, but rather that she took it down some days later.

But somewhere between Teixeira trying to impress his nerd friends on Discord by posting these documents and these Kremlin mouthpieces posting them on Telegram, some of the information on the documents got tweaked:

Some of the slides reposted on the Telegram account overseen by Ms. Bils had been altered from the otherwise identical photographs allegedly posted by Airman Teixeira on Discord—changed to inflate Ukrainian losses and play down Russian casualties. A subsequent post on the Donbass Devushka Telegram channel, on April 12, denied that the image had been doctored by the administrators.

“We would never edit content for our viewers,” the post said.

Take that as you will.

So that’s where the claim came from that SEVEN UKRAINIANS were dying for every Russian casualty. Have a heart, people! How could you want the Ukrainians to keep fighting if Russia is just massacring them? It’s not a fair fight! We should probably all get behind some kind of “peace plan” for Ukraine that involves giving Vladimir Putin as much of sovereign Ukraine as he wants while we all tongue all over Putin’s taint.

It’s the only humane solution, right?

Tucker Carlson sure thought so, when he started spreading the doctored Russian propaganda on Thursday night. Mediaite summarizes:

Malcontent News first reported on Sunday that Tucker Carlson used the “edited version” of the documents posted by Donbass Devushka’s Telegram channel to “claim Ukraine was suffering a 7-1 troop loss ratio and was ‘losing the war.’”

Indeed, last Thursday in an angry rant in which Carlson accused both President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of committing “crimes” related to supporting Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion, Carlson cited that statistic.

“The second thing we learned from these slides is that despite direct U.S. involvement, Ukraine is in fact losing the war. Seven Ukrainians are being killed for every Russian. Ukrainian air defenses have been utterly degraded. Ukraine is losing. The Biden administration is perfectly aware of this,” Carlson declared. Carlson has long claimed Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is going far better than the media has reported, all while remaining a fierce critic of Ukraine’s leadership.

Here is a tweet from an investigative journo about it:

And here is Rachel Maddow talking about Tucker:

Oh yes, weep for the poor Ukrainians, who are totally losing the war, for whom all hope is lost! Why would you force them to keep fighting like this if seven of them are dying for every Russian? Are you some kind of MONSTER?

Only Tucker Carlson and his ideological pals truly care about the plight of the desperate Ukrainians. And he read some stuff a fake Russian propaganda blogger posted that’s just really concerning him right now.

As far as what’s really going on in Ukraine, Cathy Young writes at The Bulwark that most of the people pushing the narrative that we really should be reeling over the information in these leaks are indeed propagandists for Russia, the Putin apologists who have a fundamental and sick need to believe Ukraine is losing.

But Young says even some more mainstream media is taking the bait, and should cut that shit out. She argues that from the perspectives of the Ukrainians and their supporters, the leaks “[contain] essentially nothing new, at least as far as the war in Ukraine is concerned.” She goes through all the things that are supposed to be sorts of shattering revelations and shows the receipts on how people have been talking about them for months.

And, she notes, the leaks contain a hell of a lot that’s embarrassing for Russia, stuff that’s clearly driving some of their propaganda-spreaders quite batshit. (She’s got the receipts on that too.)

So, you know, chill the fuck out.

Read the whole thing, as they say in internet circles.

And don’t listen to Tucker Carlson.

Y’all hear his employer is paying out $787.5 million to a voting machine company as a penalty for brazenly and knowing lying to its gullible idiot viewers about that company after the 2020 election? And that a lot of those lies came from his show?

And here we all thought they were so credible and above reproach.

[Mediaite]

Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter right here

And once that doesn’t exist, I’m also giving things a go at the Mastodon (@[email protected]) and at Post!

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Tucker So Mad Nobody Talking About How Leaker Exposed Secret HOT WAR Between Russia And 14 US Troops

Post By Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well, that didn’t take long.

Yesterday, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard member named Jack Teixeira was arrested in connection with the Discord leaks. It sounds like this wasn’t some high-tech dude who really covered his tracks, since earlier that day, the Washington Post was reporting on the extensive conversations it had with a teenager in the dude’s Discord group, who among other things showed WaPo a video of the guy shooting guns while yelling racist and antisemitic slurs.

It was then that we personally knew MAGA types were going to get a red hot doggie boner for this guy, whoever he was.

It’s that, but it’s also so much more than that. On top of the red hot doggie boner, they are just lying about what the leaks say, because they know their followers are too stupid and trusting to check things for themselves. Specifically, they are lying and saying the leaked documents show America is in a secret hot war against Russia, and that the Biden administration is lying about it. Ayup.

Obviously Tucker Carlson went hard last night.

Nikki McCann Ramirez reports at Rolling Stone:

“Tonight, the news media are celebrating the capture of the kid who told Americans what’s actually happening in Ukraine,” Carlson told viewers. He continued, “They are treating him like Osama Bin Laden, maybe even worse actually, because, unlike Al Qaeda, apparently, this kid is a racist.” The host was referring to reports that the Discord server in which Teixeira shared the documents contained several racist memes.

Oh no, what is the truth? And how are they treating him worse than Bin Laden? Are they raiding his compound in Pakistan? And how dare they call him a racist just because he’s apparently a racist who shoots guns in the air while yelling racist things? If they start calling people racist just because they’re always saying racist things, then …

Oh no, Tucker, what is ACTUALLY HAPPENING in Ukraine?

As Ramirez explains, the documents say there are 14 US special forces in Ukraine. (Yes, 14.) This means, according to Tucker, that he’s been right all along and this is really America’s war in Ukraine against Russia. Why did we only secretly deploy 14 troops? Probably because the rest of the military is woke and full of Dylan Mulvaney’s Bud Light and there were only 14 among the entire American fighting force who were combat-ready, but we imagine that’s a Tucker monologue for another time.

“The United States is a direct combatant in a war against Russia. As we speak, American soldiers are fighting Russian soldiers,” Carlson claimed, “This is a hot war between the two primary nuclear superpowers on Earth. And yet, this war has never been formally declared. It has not been authorized by Congress. And for that reason, this war is a violation of American law. It is a crime.”

Fourteen US special forces. Against hundreds of thousands of Russians who illegally invaded Ukraine and immediately started executing and raping and torturing kids. You know, just to remind you what the country Tucker does propaganda for has actually been doing there. What atrocities Tucker’s real father Putin is responsible for.

Fourteen US special forces. Sounds like they’re just at the embassy in Kyiv, doing embassy stuff.

But that’s how Tucker is selling his lie that actually this is an illegal American war against his adopted motherland, which he really ought to fuck off to. Even though, as Ramirez notes here, Fox News’s own correspondent Jacqui Heinrich confirmed the reporting that the 14 special forces are just at the embassy doing shit there.

Ramirez also notes that Heinrich is the very reporter Tucker wanted fired after the 2020 election, because she called bullshit on Donald Trump’s Big Lie on TV. Tucker and other Fox News hosts were busy actively and knowingly lying to their viewers about the election at that time. Couldn’t have news reporters reporting the news, it was getting in the way of their lying.

Anyway, back to Teixeira AKA Tucker’s new barely legal boy crush:

“What’s happening to this leaker now is what happens to anyone who contradicts the National Security State and their obedient servants in the media. You go to prison.”

Uh huh, OK, sure, maybe Tucker can bake him some brownies and go visit him at the jail or something.

We don’t know the full story yet on this dumbass Jack Teixeira. We don’t know if he’s just a stupid racist MAGA idiot who thought it was cool to share intelligence he improperly stole with his stupid friends on Discord, or if he had been somehow turned or was being used, wittingly or unwittingly, by our enemies. It definitely sounds like the first part is true. He seems like an absolute loser.

Here’s a really interesting clip of NBC News reporter Ben Collins talking about the chain of custody of the leaked documents, how they started with the little racist gun-humper nerd trying to impress his video game friends on the video game chat:

But anyway, back to Tucker’s show. Oh god, there was so much whining.

Tucker bitched and moaned that the media is hiding the REAL secrets of the leaks, and that the New York Times and Washington Post conspired with the FBI and used “illegal surveillance techniques” to track the dude down. He invited his buddy Glenn Greenwald on so they could bitch and moan together about all the things Glenn and the white supremacist fascists are mad about regarding this. Surprise! Glenn repeated the thing about how these docs reveal that American officials LIED and there are American “boots on the ground” in Ukraine.

(Twenty-eight boots, to be precise. At the embassy in Kyiv. Doin’ embassy stuff.)

Tucker agreed that it is appalling that the media colluded with the Deep State to hide that we are in a “direct hot war” with Russia. Tucker said this is the “most significant fact of our generation.” (Uncle Sam wants YOU! But only 14 of you! The rest you just keep being woke and transgender and reading your gay poems on battleships!)

Here’s video of that, if you have fuckall to do:

It really is amazing how quickly Vladimir Putin’s fluffers in America have decided this loser is the best thing since sliced (white) bread, and how their talking points got coordinated so fast.

Speaking of that, hi there, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Here’s the full text of that:

Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime. And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more. Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low level national guardsmen? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?

Again, SO WEIRD, how quickly their talking points came together. Or as Greg Sargent tweeted, “It’s interesting how direct and open the pro-Putin right is in linking Russia’s fortunes to those of the illiberal authoritarian white Christian secession movement in the United States.”

Except it’s not surprising.

All these people are traitors to America and to the entire free world and everything good that exists in it.

In summary and in conclusion, Tucker was really mad in 2017 when Reality Winner leaked government secrets that exposed Russian crimes against America in the 2016 election. Called her a felon and everything. Just saying.

That’s it, that’s our summary and conclusion.

[Rolling Stone]

Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter right here

And once that doesn’t exist, I’m also giving things a go at the Mastodon (@[email protected]) and at Post!

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#Tucker #Mad #Talking #Leaker #Exposed #Secret #HOT #WAR #Russia #Troops

Why purported cross-border attack ups ante in Ukraine war

Post By World , , , ,

Russia has declared that saboteurs from Ukraine crossed into its territory and attacked border villages, a raid that fuelled fears of an escalation in the war as it has dragged into a second year.

A day after Thursday’s purported attack, details of what happened remain scarce and conflicting theories about possible perpetrators and their goals are still swirling.

Also Read | Putin tells Russian security council to tighten ‘anti-terror’ measures

Ukrainian officials have denied involvement and a presidential aide described it as a false-flag attack used by the Kremlin to justify the war in Ukraine.

An obscure group of Russian nationalists who described themselves as part of the Ukrainian military claimed responsibility for the attack, but their status and goals remain unclear.

What did Russian and Ukrainian officials say?

Russian authorities reported the attack on the villages of Lyubechane and Suchany in the Bryansk region early Thursday, saying that several dozen saboteurs infiltrated from Ukraine, killed two civilians and planted explosives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled a scheduled trip to an event in southern Russia because of what he described as a “terrorist attack” deliberately targeting civilians.

Hours later, the Russian authorities said the intruders were pushed back into Ukraine and targeted by artillery fire.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak described the Russian claims as “a classic deliberate provocation,” saying that Russia “wants to scare its people to justify the attack on another country and the growing poverty after the year of war”. But Podolyak also alleged that the attack could be the work of Russian guerrillas who had rebelled against the Kremlin.

“The partisan movement in the Russian Federation is getting stronger and more aggressive,” he said.

Ukraine’s military intelligence representative, Andrii Cherniak, similarly denied Ukraine’s involvement while also alleging that Russia is facing an uprising among its own disgruntled people.

“This was done by the Russians, Ukraine has nothing to do with it,” he told AP.

Mr. Cherniak noted that a group calling itself the Russian Volunteer Corps had claimed responsibility for the attack.

What is the Russian Volunteer Corps

The Russian Volunteer Corps released a video featuring its members standing outside a post office in one of the villages and urging the Russians to rebel against Mr. Putin.

The group has described itself as “a volunteer formation” of Ukraine’s armed forces. Little is known about the group, the number of its members and its ties, if any, with the Ukrainian military.

Russian bloggers identified some of the men who appeared in the video filmed in the village of Lyubechane as former members of Russia’s radical nationalist groups who had moved to Ukraine several years ago.

Ukrainian New voice-NV news portal quoted Ilya Bogdanov, who identified himself as a member of the Corps, confirming that his colleagues who crossed into the Bryansk region were serving in the Ukrainian army.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said that the Corps’ claim could be a Ukrainian propaganda effort intended to embarrass Russia.

“It’s quite possible if our propagandists believe it would be more efficient to cast it as a heroic feat and pretend that there is an entire corps of them,” he told the AP.

Mr. Zhdanov noted that despite its flashy name, the group could include just a handful of Russians who signed a contract to fight alongside the Ukrainian military.

What do experts say?

Security analysts say it’s hard to figure out quickly who was behind the attack.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser for the International Security Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, argued that Ukraine could have launched the attack to force Russia to pull back some of its forces from the front line to tighten the border.

“If I had to bet I would say it’s the real thing,” Cancian said. “I can see why Ukraine might want to do this. Most of the border is not contested at the moment, so Ukraine might want to be forcing Russia to guard more of its borders, maybe pull some forces out of the Donbass.”

Eleonora Tafuro, a Russia expert at the ISPI think tank in Milan, said it appears possible the attack was carried out by the Russian Volunteer Corps to foment a sense of insecurity among the local population.

“The area is very exposed to fighting,” she said. “It could be a message: You are vulnerable. You are exposed.’”

Brad Bowman, senior director of the Centre on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, warned against quickly rushing to conclusions, noting that the Kremlin could be interested in rallying the public as the war drags on.

“The Kremlin’s information warfare efforts are meant to deceive Russians so they will believe that Russia is under grave threat and will be willing to fight and die in an illegal war of aggression,” he said.

And William Courtney, who served as ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia and is now a senior fellow at the RAND Corp., a non-profit research institute, argued that the purported attack could be a false-flag operation.

“It has an engineered quality to it that was carried out to make Ukraine look like a terrorist state,” Courtney said.

What are the consequences of the attack?

The purported attack came as an embarrassment for Mr. Putin, who had told officials to tighten protection of the long and porous border with Ukraine earlier in the week.

It has caused outrage among Russian hawks, who harshly criticised the Kremlin for failing to protect the border and mount a quick and forceful retaliation.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the rogue millionaire who owns the Wagner Group military company, mocked the authorities for idly watching the crossing of another Russian red line. And Ramzan Kadyrov, the regional leader of Chechnya, has challenged the Kremlin to up the ante by introducing martial law.

Hawkish commentators and military bloggers have derided the Kremlin’s indecision, calling for strikes on Ukraine’s presidential office and the deployment of hit men to target top Ukrainian officials.

It remains unclear if Mr. Putin could use the incident to double down.

In his initial statement, the Russian leader cast the purported attack as proof that Russia did the right thing by invading Ukraine, but he didn’t signal an intention to change the status of the operation or ramp up strikes.

On Friday, Mr. Putin had a video call with members of his Security Council, saying in opening remarks that it would focus on tightening protection against terrorist attacks but giving no details.

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Putin orders tightening of Ukraine border as drones hit Russia

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Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the border with Ukraine tightened on Tuesday after several drones attacked inside Russian territory, including one that crashed just 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Moscow in an alarming development for Russian defences.

The drones caused no injuries but raised questions about the Kremlin’s security more than a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

Moscow blamed Kyiv for the attacks. Ukrainian officials did not immediately claim responsibility, but they similarly avoided directly acknowledging responsibility for past strikes and sabotage while emphasising Ukraine’s right to hit any target in Russia.

Also Read | U.N. chief points to ‘massive’ rights violations in Ukraine

Although Mr. Putin did not refer to any specific attacks in a speech in the Russian capital, his comments came hours after the drones targeted several areas in southern and western Russia. Authorities closed the airspace over St. Petersburg in response to what some reports said was a drone.

Also on Tuesday, several Russian television stations aired a missile attack warning that officials blamed on a hacking attack.

The drone attacks on Monday night and Tuesday morning targeted regions inside Russia along the border with Ukraine and deeper into the country, according to local Russian authorities.

A drone fell near the village of Gubastovo, 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Moscow, Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the region surrounding the Russian capital, said in an online statement.

The drone did not inflict any damage, Vorobyov said, but it likely targeted “a civilian infrastructure object”.

Pictures of the drone showed it was a Ukrainian-made model with a reported range of up to 800 kilometres (nearly 500 miles) but no capacity to carry a large load of explosives.

Russian forces early on Tuesday shot down a Ukrainian drone over the Bryansk region, local Gov. Aleksandr Bogomaz said in a Telegram post.

Three drones also targeted Russia’s Belgorod region on Monday night, with one flying through an apartment window in its namesake capital, local authorities reported. Regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said the drones caused minor damage to buildings and cars.

The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine used drones to attack facilities in the Krasnodar region and neighbouring Adygea.

It said the drones were brought down by electronic warfare assets, adding that one of them crashed into a field and another diverted from its flight path and missed an infrastructure facility it was supposed to attack.

While Ukrainian drone strikes on the Russian border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod are not unusual, the hits on the Krasnodar and Adygea regions further south were noteworthy.

A fire broke out at an oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar region on Monday, Russia’s state RIA Novosti agency reported. Russian Telegram channels claimed that two drones exploded near the depot.

Some Russian commentators described the drone attacks as an attempt by Ukraine to showcase its capability to strike areas deep behind the lines, foment tensions in Russia and rally the Ukrainian public. Some Russian war bloggers described the raids as a possible rehearsal for a bigger, more ambitious attack.

Last year, Russian authorities repeatedly reported shooting down Ukrainian drones over annexed Crimea. In December, the Russian military said Ukraine used drones to hit two bases for long-range bombers deep inside Russian territory.

Separately, the government of St. Petersburg — Russia’s second-largest city about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) north of the border with Ukraine — said early on Tuesday that it was temporarily halting all departures and arrivals at the city’s main airport, Pulkovo. It did not give a reason for the move.

Hours earlier, unconfirmed reports on Russia’s Telegram social network referred to the airspace over St. Petersburg being shut down and to overflights by Russian warplanes. It wasn’t immediately clear whether this was connected to drone attacks in Russia’s south.

The Russian military said its air defence forces in western Russia conducted drills on “detection, interception and identification” of enemy targets in its airspace, and in coordination with civilian air traffic services in an emergency situation.

The Russian Defence Ministry did not specifically mention St. Petersburg, but its statement appeared designed to explain the temporary closure of the airspace.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the situation in St. Petersburg, urging reporters to wait for details from the country’s aviation authorities or the military. He noted that Mr. Putin had “full information” on the situation.

Speaking at Russia’s main security agency, the FSB, Mr. Putin urged the service to tighten security on the Ukraine border.

Russian media reported Tuesday that an air raid alarm interrupted the programming of several TV channels and radio stations in several Russian regions.

Footage posted by some news sites showed TV sets displaying a yellow sign with a person heading to a bomb shelter, with a female voice repeating: “Attention! Air raid alarm. Everyone should head to a shelter immediately.”

Russia’s Emergency Ministry said in an online statement that the announcement was a hoax “resulting from a hacking of the servers of radio stations and TV channels in some regions of the country”.

In other developments, four people were killed and five others wounded on Tuesday by renewed Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said in a Telegram.

A 68-year-old man was also killed as Russian forces shelled Kupiansk, a town in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, its Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.

The fiercest fighting continued to be in eastern areas of Ukraine, where Russia wants control over all four of the provinces it illegally annexed in September.

Ukrainian officials said that Russian forces have deployed additional troops and equipment, including modern T-90 tanks, in those areas.

Meanwhile, satellite photos analysed by AP appeared to show a Beriev A-50 early warning aircraft was parked at a Belarus air base just before a claimed attack by partisans there.

Images from Planet Labs PBC shows the A-50, a late Soviet-era aircraft known for its distinctive rotodome above its fuselage, parked on the apron of the Machulishchy Air Base near Minsk, Belarus’ capital, on February 19.

A lower-resolution image taken on February 23 showed a similarly shaped aircraft still parked there, though heavy cloud cover has blocked any images since.

Belarusian opposition organisation BYPOL claimed that guerrillas damaged the A-50 in an attack Sunday.

AP has been unable to independently confirm the claimed attack, which both Belarus and Russia have yet to acknowledge.

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Explained | Locating China in the Russia-Ukraine war

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The story so far: As the Russia-Ukraine conflict marches toward the one-year mark, there seem to be hardly any signs of de-escalation. Western powers have started providing powerful offensive weapons to Ukraine, and Russia has threatened grave consequences in response. Moreover, as Western sanctions on Russia progressively tighten, the country is increasingly becoming reliant on China. While China has officially been speaking in a largely neutral language, there have been some instances that have come to light recently of China allegedly assisting Russia in its campaign.

What is China’s stance on the conflict?

China’s formal stance on the conflict has been on the lines of “all countries deserve respect for their sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that “support should be given to all efforts that are conducive to peacefully resolving the crisis”, which it has consistently been reiterating on the world stage. With an emphasis on “all countries”, China appears to be demonstrating its position as being equidistant from both the conflicting parties. However, despite this articulation, China’s attitude towards the conflict has often been categorised as a ‘pro-Russian neutrality’.

Russia and China are engaged in a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era”; and despite the conflict, China has pushed ahead with strengthening its relations with Russia. Moreover, China has painted the U.S. and NATO as prime instigators of the crisis, echoing the Russian narrative in this regard. It also needs to be noted that in the past year since the start of the conflict, out of the seven resolutions put to vote in total at the UN General Assembly, Security Council, Human Rights Council, and the World Health Organization by the West against Russia, China voted against three and abstained from four. In fact, China had only voted in favour of one U.N. Security Council resolution — the proposal which was raised by Russia on humanitarian aid. Hence, China’s portrayal of a neutral stance has many detractors.

However, as the conflict progressed, China’s rhetoric seems to be becoming less pro-Russia and more neutral in tone. The signaling from China’s top leadership seems to suggest this. Xi Jinping, the President of China, during his November 2022 meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, warned that the conflict should not cross the nuclear threshold; perhaps referring to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats to deter Western support to Ukraine. Also, China’s incoming Foreign Minister Qin Gang mentioned in his article in The Washington Post in March 2022 that “Had China known about the imminent crisis, we would have tried our best to prevent it”. Subsequently, in his piece in The National Interest in December 2022, he struck a sympathetic note with the Ukrainians. He had also in other instances emphasised that there are some limits in China’s relations with Russia despite the talks of a “no limits” partnership.

Apart from the higher level leadership in China, there have also been some alleged noises from below the hierarchy which have been critical of Putin’s actions. Nevertheless, the new trend in China’s attitude to the conflict was once again on display during the G-20 summit held at Bali in November 2022. The leaders’ declaration which stated that most members strongly condemned the war, was not concurred with by China only because of its objection to calling the conflict a ‘war’. However, China not opposing the condemnation of the conflict itself, rather than its terminological nuance, is something which has not missed international scrutiny.

How much is China involved in the conflict?

Outside the realm of discourse, China’s actions do not seem to carry any such nuances, as it is intervening at least in an indirect manner in the conflict. China has benefited immensely from buying cheap Russian oil and gas. Since the start of the conflict, China has displaced Germany as the largest purchaser of Russian oil, with Russia replacing Saudi Arabia as China’s largest supplier of crude oil. The growing collusion between the two countries is not just limited to hydrocarbons, but also extends to materials and technology.

Recently, The Wall Street Journal has exposed China’s covert assistance to Russia by accessing Russian customs data compiled by C4ADS, an American think tank. The findings suggest that Chinese State Owned enterprises in the defence sector have provided navigation equipment, jamming technology, radar systems and fighter-jet parts to their Russian counterparts. According to the data, several tens of thousands of shipments of dual use goods have been sent by China to Russia, to which the latter would otherwise be having only restricted access due to sanctions. It has also been found that millions of chips have made its way to Russia through China; chips being central to modern military equipments and also subject to increasing sanctions by the West — both against Russia and China.

China refuted such allegations and claimed that the military dimensions of such transactions were mere speculations. This is in sharp contrast to China’s rhetoric where it demands Western powers not to send military support to intensify the conflict. These actions by China have a huge significance with respect to recent developments, wherein countries like Germany and the U.S. are sending their offensive weapon platforms to Ukraine such as the Leopard and Abrams tanks, respectively. The West is starting to take actions against China in this milieu. For instance, the U.S. has recently slapped sanctions on Spacety China, a Chinese satellite company which was indirectly providing satellite imagery of Ukraine to the Wagner Group, a Russian private military force which is now heavily involved in the conflict.

What is the rationale behind China’s emerging attitude?

While there is a strengthening of neutrality in China’s rhetoric, the same is absent in its actions. This trend and dichotomy can only be explained by understanding China’s larger gameplan. China needs to keep Russia close and well-supplied because Russia is its premier ally in its larger global ambition to undermine U.S. dominance. China would also like to keep its Russia card so that in the eventuality of the conflict turning into peace talks, China could use it to gain concessions from the West. Perhaps, the ideal bargain which China seeks is on the trade and technology front where it is facing major challenge from the West of late. This is significant for China, especially at a time when it desperately needs a post-Zero COVID economic revitalisation.

China cannot overtly support Russia as it will hurt its relations with both Ukraine and the European Union (EU). China is the largest trading partner for both Russia and Ukraine; in fact, China displaced Russia in 2019 as Ukraine’s largest trading partner. Ukraine, and not the U.S., is China’s largest corn supplier and its third largest supplier of military equipment; China is Ukraine’s biggest market for defence goods. Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier, is basically a refurbished aircraft carrier bought from Ukraine after the Soviet Union’s disintegration. China, therefore cannot abandon all its interests in Ukraine for Russia’s sake. China also has very strong economic ties with the EU, and would like the EU to further bolster its strategic autonomy to act more independently of the U.S. in matters of geopolitics.

On the whole, China’s efforts at the end to encourage Russia in a limited and covert manner, without raising alarms in the West seems to be to be intended to keep the war going. For one, it provides valuable time and information for planning a Taiwan invasion. China maybe watching and learning from Western assistance to Ukraine to forecast their response to a possible invasion of Taiwan in the future by China, as mentioned by the CIA Director William Burns in July 2022. It is certainly in China’s best interest to keep Russia and the West divided, lest they team up together against China as in the 19th century. Moreover, with the conflict prolonging, the West will be distracted from the Indo-Pacific theatre, and Russia will be left weakened to pose any threat to China’s growing influence in the post-Soviet space. At the same time, China can fill the economic void in Russia left by the withdrawal of Western investment and technology, while engineering an economic recovery for itself.

China can also build up its strategic reserves and capabilities during the crisis to prepare for an inevitable hostile period of relations with the U.S. in a post-Ukraine scenario.

Dr. Anand V. is the Coordinator of the China Study Centre at the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal (Karnataka).

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