The Dnipro River, a new key front line for Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia

The Dnipro River, a new key front line for Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia

Post By World Crimea, Europe, Features, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine war analysis

Ukraine confirmed this week that it had managed to maintain its positions along the left bank of the Dnipro River, which had been completely under Russian control. These successes suggest that a major Ukrainian counteroffensive, aimed at reclaiming Crimea, could soon be under way.

Issued on: 24/11/2023 – 17:51

5 min

Ukrainian soldiers appear to have successfully consolidated their positions on the left bank of the highly strategic Dnipro River, an area that was previously under Russian control, according to a November 22 update from the Institute for the Study of War, which analyses the military situation in Ukraine on a daily basis.

In a new development, the Ukrainian general staff officially congratulated themselves on Wednesday on the Ukrainian “successes” on the left bank (Crimea side) of the river. “Until a few weeks ago, Kyiv had remained very discreet about its attempted incursions into Russian-occupied territory in the Kherson region. Now the general staff are bragging about it,” says Huseyn Aliyev, a specialist on the war in Ukraine at the University of Glasgow.

New winter quarters on the Dnipro River

Ukraine’s “successes” on the Crimea side of the Dnipro River have fuelled tensions in Russia between the government and the “milbloggers”, mostly ultra-nationalist Russian military observers who discuss the conflict on social media. “Officially, Moscow repeats that all Ukrainian offensives have been halted in this region, but the ‘milbloggers’ have started to acknowledge on social media that Ukraine has made advances there,” says Sim Tack, a military analyst at the conflict monitoring company Force Analysis.

For almost a year now, the Ukrainian army has been testing Russian defences on the other side of the Dnipro River. However, before October 2023, soldiers crossing the river did not stay on the other side of it, as it was too risky to do so.

Everything seems to have changed just over a month ago following an attack on Pishchanivka and Poima, two villages located around 10 kilometres southeast of Kherson. Since then, Ukraine has been trying to set up winter quarters for a growing number of soldiers in the area. “It even seems that they have managed to take control of several villages,” says Aliyev.

Fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces has intensified along the Dnipro River, a key front line. © Graphic design studio, France Médias Monde

It is looking more and more like Ukraine is using the left bank of the Dnipro River as a new front in its counteroffensive against Russia, which began in June 2023. “The main fighting is taking place around the village of Krynky – some 30 kilometres south-east of Kherson – where the Russians still seem to be holding their positions,” says Tack.

The objective: Repelling Russian artillery

However, it is not the current fighting that is making the situation dangerous for the Russian army. Above all, Ukraine has “succeeded in securing several crossing points over the Dnipro River, enabling it to reinforce its positions and rotate troops to be more combat effective”, says Tack.

Securing a river crossing is no mean feat, as crossing rivers is one of the most complex and dangerous military operations. This is why the Dnipro River is considered one of Russia’s best defensive assets in southern Ukraine.

Ukraine can now pride itself on having removed this obstacle for at least some of its troops. “For the moment, the Ukrainians are able to provide security for small groups of infantry, accompanied by a few light vehicles, crossing the river. But the area is not yet secure enough to attempt to send in contingents of tanks or heavy artillery,” says Aliyev.

Furthermore, a major offensive cannot take place in this region without heavy military equipment, says Tack. Ukrainian troops are currently trying to clear the road that runs from east to west along the Dnipro River in the hopes of pushing the Russian artillery as far back as possible to keep any Ukrainian tanks out of range of Russian guns, should Ukraine decide to send tanks across the river.

But the Ukrainian army has not yet succeeded in doing so and is in the meantime trying to decide whether to attempt to seize new territory. In addition to having enough soldiers stationed there to do so, “the Russian troops present in this region are less well trained and equipped than those in Bakhmut and the Zaporizhzhia region, where Ukraine has concentrated its main counteroffensive effort”, says Tack.

A risky decision

However, Ukrainian soldiers do not have enough firepower to reach Crimea, the main objective of any offensive in the Kherson region. “For the time being, these attacks can still be seen as an effort to distract Russia into transferring troops to this area, which would weaken Russian defences in the Zaporizhzhia region,” says Tack.

If Russia doesn’t take the bait however, then Ukraine would have to consider the possibility of launching a major offensive. This risky decision would involve mobilising a large number of forces. “We would need at least 100 tanks and several hundred support vehicles in addition to light infantry,” says Aliyev.

Ukraine “probably does not have as many forces in reserve and would therefore be forced to transfer some of them from another part of the front”, says Aliyev. This could potentially provide Russia with opportunities for a counter-attack.

What’s more, organising this type of offensive not only takes time, but also risks turning the left bank of the Dnipro River into a death trap for the Ukrainian army. Both of the experts interviewed believe that Russia is waiting for its enemy to mobilise more forces on the left side of the Dnipro River before sending troops to try to surround the Ukrainian contingent and cut off the few possibilities of retreat. “That’s why the Ukrainians are taking their time: to see how the Russians react,” says Tack.

After all, Ukraine does not have many alternatives. “The counteroffensives in Bakhmut and around Zaporizhzhia have ground to a halt and the southern part of the Kherson region currently appears to be the main opportunity to show the world that Ukraine is making progress,” says Aliyev. In other words, the Ukrainian army will be forced to take major risks if it wants to prove that the Western-backed counteroffensive has produced tangible results.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

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How Ukraine’s secret agents re-learned the art of shadow warfare

Post By World espionage, Europe, Features, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine war analysis

New revelations in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in September 2022 have strengthened the case for Kyiv’s involvement, with a controversial Ukrainian secret agent alleged to have been the brains behind the operation. Although Kyiv continues to deny responsibility, there is little doubt that the Ukrainian intelligence services are playing a very special role in the war against Russia.

New “proof” of Ukrainian involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream I and II natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea was published by the Washington Post and German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday November 11. The two publications claimed to have identified the Ukrainian “mastermind” behind the explosive operation.

Roman Chervinsky, a veteran Ukrainian spy, is alleged to have “coordinated” the team of six saboteurs suspected of setting off explosive charges near the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022, several sources – “both Ukrainian and among the international teams of security experts connected to this case” – told the two publications, according to Der Spiegel.

‘Hothead’ or ‘patriot’?

This 48-year-old expert in “clandestine actions” was a controversial figure even before his name came up in the pipeline affair. Chervinsky has been in pre-trial detention in Kyiv since April 2023, awaiting trial for his involvement in a high-risk operation that ended in disaster for Ukraine’s intelligence services.

Chervinsky is accused of having attempted to recruit a Russian pilot in the summer of 2022 amid a broader campaign to lure potential defectors. It soon became clear that the pilot remained only too loyal to Moscow. Instead of flying to Ukraine as promised, he apparently provided the coordinates of a military airport to the Russians, who wasted no time in bombing it. At that time, Chervinsky had joined the Ukrainian army’s ‘special forces’, specialists in intelligence and sabotage operations.

This failure pushed the Ukrainian authorities to distance themselves from their spy, claiming that he had gone off on his own and exceeded his prerogatives. Since then, Chervinsky has been seen by some Ukrainians as a “risk-taker” who endangers national security. His defenders, however, hail him as a “great patriot” who pulled off one of the Ukraininan intelligence services’ greatest coups in 2019 after he had succeeded in capturing a “Russian witness” supposedly in possession of evidence showing Russian involvement in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in the skies over the Donbas in 2014.

When contacted for comment by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel, Chervinsky, speaking through his lawyers, accused “Russian propaganda” of trying to frame him for the Nord Stream sabotage. Kyiv, for its part, refused to comment on the “revelations” published by the two Western media outlets.

These new developments are a reminder that behind the trench warfare taking place in Ukraine, a shadow war is also being fought between the countries’ intelligence services. Because, notwithstanding the imbroglio behind Chervinsky’s alleged involvement, the fact remains that, faced with the vast Russian spy machine, Ukraine’s secret agents “have shown themselves to be up to the task”, according to Jeff Hawn, an expert on Russian security issues and a non-resident fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, a think-tank based in Washington, DC.

“Their actions have a strategic impact on the course of the conflict,” he said.

Soviet Union’s long shadow

Hawn said that the Ukrainian intelligence services seemed to have come a long way since their dark days following the fall of the Soviet Union.

“Before 2014, they were really kind of a joke,” he said. “The SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] was used to spy on political enemies – and was corrupt.”

These criticisms apply equally to the two main intelligence agencies, the SBU, the counter-espionage service that reports to the interior ministry, and the GUR, the military intelligence agency, he said.

After the pro-European Maidan revolution in 2014 and Kyiv’s geopolitical slide to the West, the situation changed. The wave of state modernisation that swept the country has not left the intelligence services behind, even if their Soviet heritage – Ukraine had been the KGB’s second-most important centre of operations in the former Soviet republics – has made the task all the more difficult.

One of the main innovations of the past decade has been the addition of a third branch to Ukraine’s burgeoning espionage. In 2016, the army created its own agency, the Special Operations Forces (SSO), supposed to be made up of elite fighters.

Chervinsky’s career shows the extent to which the three services can step on each other’s toes. As Der Spiegel points out, the spy held similar positions in both the SUB and the GUR before joining the special forces.

Psychological games

Since Russia’s full-scale offensive in February 2022, the operations attributed to Ukrainian agents have shown a mode of operations inspired by Western methods combined “with an almost suicidal approach reminiscent of what KGB agents were ready to do to fulfill their mission”, said Jenny Mathers, a specialist in Russian intelligence services at Aberystwyth University in Wales.

For her, the most surprising operation was the August 2022 assassination of Daria Dugina, the daughter of ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, which the US believes to have been the work of Ukrainian agents.

“It’s kind of a strange use of precious resources to go after someone like Dugina, who isn’t a prime war target per se,” Mathers said.

At first glance, the sabotage operations launched against the Crimean Bridge and the assassination on Russian soil of submarine commander Vladislav Rzhitsky in July 2023, who was accused of having ordered a missile strike on a Ukrainian town that saw more than 20 civilian deaths, seem to be more in line with the war’s objectives.

But “the big picture seems to be that they are dividing their resources between targets that clearly disrupt the war effort … and other targets with a less direct goal”, Mathers said.

“It’s more about demonstrations of force, showing that they can hit close to Putin’s inner circle. A bit of a psychological game with Russia,” she said.

The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline could be a part of this same logic: proving that the Ukrainian secret services can hit Russian interests, no matter where.

For Mathers, it is still too early to evaluate the impact of all these operations on the course of the conflict. But even if “it won’t be decisive, like a tank breaking the defense line, it will have a strategic effect”, Hawn said: Ukraine’s spies are a constant irritant for the Russians, never letting them forget that the war is also being fought far from the front lines.

This article has been adapted from the original in French.

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It’s time to hang up on the old telecoms rulebook

Post By Politics 5G, Aid and development, Belgium, brazil, Business and competition, cities, cloud, Communications, Companies, Competitiveness, connectivity, Crisis, digital, Energy, Energy prices, Germany, Growth, Health Care, hospitals, india, Industry, Inflation, Innovation, Interest Rates, Internet of Things, Investment, Mobile, Philippines, Platforms, Poland, Policy, REACH, Refugees, regulation, Regulatory, research, Roaming, Russia, Safety, satellites, Seeds, Services, Single Market, Society and culture, South Korea, Spain, Spectrum, Supercomputers, sustainability, Telecoms, Thailand, transport, Ukraine, War, water

Joakim Reiter | via Vodafone

Around 120 years ago, Guglielmo Marconi planted the seeds of a communications revolution, sending the first message via a wireless link over open water. “Are you ready? Can you hear me?”, he said. Now, the telecommunications industry in Europe needs policymakers to heed that call, to realize the vision set by its 19th-century pioneers.

Next-generation telecommunications are catalyzing a transformation on par with the industrial revolution. Mobile networks are becoming programmable platforms — supercomputers that will fundamentally underpin European industrial productivity, growth and competitiveness. Combined with cloud, AI and the internet of things, the era of industrial internet will transform our economy and way of life, bringing smarter cities, energy grids and health care, as well as autonomous transport systems, factories and more to the real world.

5G is already connecting smarter, autonomous factory technologies | via Vodafone

Europe should be at the center of this revolution, just as it was in the early days of modern communications.

Next-generation telecommunications are catalyzing a transformation on par with the industrial revolution.

Even without looking at future applications, the benefits of a healthy telecoms industry for society are clear to see. Mobile technologies and services generated 5 percent of global GDP, equivalent to €4.3 trillion, in 2021. More than five billion people around the world are connected to mobile services — more people today have access to mobile communications than they do to safely-managed sanitation services. And with the combination of satellite solutions, the prospect of ensuring every person on the planet is connected may soon be within reach.

Satellite solutions, combined with mobile communications, could eliminate coverage gaps | via Vodafone

In our recent past, when COVID-19 spread across the world and societies went into lockdown, connectivity became critical for people to work from home, and for enabling schools and hospitals to offer services online. And with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when millions were forced to flee the safety of their homes, European network operators provided heavily discounted roaming and calling to ensure refugees stayed connected with loved ones.

A perfect storm of rising investment costs, inflationary pressures, interest rate hikes and intensifying competition from adjacent industries is bearing down on telecoms businesses across Europe.

These are all outcomes and opportunities, depending on the continuous investment of telecoms’ private companies.

And yet, a perfect storm of rising investment costs, inflationary pressures, interest rate hikes and intensifying competition from adjacent industries is bearing down on telecoms businesses across Europe. The war on our continent triggered a 15-fold increase in wholesale energy prices and rapid inflation. EU telecoms operators have been under pressure ever since to keep consumer prices low during a cost-of-living crisis, while confronting rapidly growing operational costs as a result. At the same time, operators also face the threat of billions of euros of extra, unforeseen costs as governments change their operating requirements in light of growing geopolitical concerns.

Telecoms operators may be resilient. But they are not invincible.

The odds are dangerously stacked against the long-term sustainability of our industry and, as a result, Europe’s own digital ambitions. Telecoms operators may be resilient. But they are not invincible.

The signs of Europe’s decline are obvious for those willing to take a closer look. European countries are lagging behind in 5G mobile connectivity, while other parts of the world — including Thailand, India and the Philippines — race ahead. Independent research by OpenSignal shows that mobile users in South Korea have an active 5G connection three times more often than those in Germany, and more than 10 times their counterparts in Belgium.

Europe needs a joined-up regulatory, policy and investment approach that restores the failing investment climate and puts the telecoms sector back to stable footing.

Average 5G connectivity in Brazil is more than three times faster than in Czechia or Poland. A recent report from the European Commission — State of the Digital Decade (europa.eu) — shows just how far Europe needs to go to reach the EU’s connectivity targets for 2030.

To arrest this decline, and successfully meet EU’s digital ambitions, something has got to give. Europe needs a joined-up regulatory, policy and investment approach that restores the failing investment climate and puts the telecoms sector back to stable footing.

Competition, innovation and efficient investment are the driving forces for the telecoms sector today. It’s time to unleash these powers — not blindly perpetuate old rules. We agree with Commissioner Breton’s recent assessment: Europe needs to redefine the DNA of its telecoms regulation. It needs a new rulebook that encourages innovation and investment, and embraces the logic of a true single market. It must reduce barriers to growth and scale in the sector and ensure spectrum — the lifeblood of our industry — is managed more efficiently. And it must find faster, futureproofed ways to level the playing field for all business operating in the wider digital sector.

But Europe is already behind, and we are running out of time. It is critical that the EU finds a balance between urgent, short-term measures and longer-term reforms. It cannot wait until 2025 to implement change.

Europeans deserve better communications technology | via Vodafone

When Marconi sent that message back in 1897, the answer to his question was, “loud and clear”. As Europe’s telecoms ministers convene this month in León, Spain, their message must be loud and clear too. European citizens and businesses deserve better communications. They deserve a telecoms rulebook that ensures networks can deliver the next revolution in digital connectivity and services.

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Biden calls US allies to ‘coordinate’ support for Ukraine

Post By World drones, Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine war analysis, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky

US President Joe Biden called key allies on Tuesday to “coordinate” support for Ukraine, the White House said. Western allies have raised concerns on the subject after Republican hardliners in Congress derailed US funding for Kyiv. The news came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited frontline areas in eastern Ukraine. Read our liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).

This liveblog is no longer being updated. For more of our coverage on the war in Ukraine, please click here.

8:18pm: Russia summons Moldova ambassador in media row

Moscow on Tuesday summoned Moldova‘s ambassador to protest against what it called “politically-motivated persecution” of Russian-language media in the pro-Western country.

In mid-September, Moldova expelled the country chief of Russia’s state news agency Sputnik, accusing the outlet of spreading “propaganda and disinformation”.

The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the expulsion of Moldova’s Sputnik bureau chief was part of an ongoing campaign of “politically motivated persecution” of Russian-language media in Moldova.

Moscow said that a number of people who are involved in restricting “freedom of speech and the rights of Russian journalists in Moldova” will be banned from entering the country.

8:15pm: Russia says it shot down Ukrainian missile off Crimea coast

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday evening it had shot down a Ukrainian missile off the Crimea coast.

According to the statement, Russian air defence systems downed a Ukrainian Neptun missile over the north-western part of the Black Sea off the coast of the Crimean peninsula.

7:50pm: US aid for Ukraine to last ‘couple of months’ without funding, White House says

US aid for Ukraine‘s fight against Russia will run out in “a couple of months” if Republican hardliners fail to pass new funds for Kyiv, the White House said Tuesday.

“You’re talking perhaps a couple of months or so, roughly,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a briefing.

7:30pm: White House warns ‘time is not our friend’ on Ukraine aid

The White House warned on Tuesday that time is running out to fund Ukraine‘s fight against Russia’s invasion, after hardline Republicans in Congress blocked US aid for Kyiv.

“Time is not our friend. We have enough funding authorities to meet Ukraine’s battlefields needs for a bit longer, but we need Congress to act,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

President Joe Biden told US allies in a call earlier Tuesday that he was “confident that we’re going to continue to have bipartisan and bicameral support” for aid, Kirby added.

6:50pm: Ukraine’s troops advance on southern front, top general says

One of Ukraine’s top generals said on Tuesday that his forces were advancing in the south, one of two theatres of their counteroffensive to evict Russian occupation forces, but offered few details of their gains.

“In the Tavria sector, there has been an advance by the defence forces,” General Oleksander Tarnavskyi said in a post on Telegram, using the military’s name for the southern front.

Tarnavskyi, head of the southern group of forces, said troops had conducted 1,198 assignments in the past 24 hours, with Russian forces sustaining losses of 261 men and a further 10 being taken prisoner.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces, in its evening report, said offensive operations were proceeding in the east and south, with little elaboration.

It reported Russian air strikes in southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, the focus of the drive south to the Sea of Azov. The report also said Ukrainian forces had repelled Russian attacks in areas of Donetsk region already recaptured by Kyiv and around the long-contested town of Maryinka further west.

Military analysts have spoken in the past week of Ukrainian forces consolidating positions around the village of Verbove on their southward drive.

5:59pm: PM Sunak reaffirms UK support to Ukraine

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told G7 and NATO leaders on Tuesday that Britain was prepared to support Ukraine with military, humanitarian and economic assistance “for as long as it takes,” his office said in a readout of a call.

“He (Prime Minister Rishi Sunak) outlined the UK’s ongoing military, humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine and stressed that this support will continue for as long as it takes,” a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statment.

US President Joe Biden convened the call amid concerns that support for Kyiv’s war effort against Russia was fading, especially in the United States, where Congress excluded aid to Ukraine from an emergency bill to prevent a partial government shutdown.

5:11pm: Biden assured partners of continued support for Ukraine, Poland’s Duda says

United States President Joe Biden assured leaders of G7 and European states of Washington’s continued support for Ukraine during a video conference, the Polish president said on Tuesday.

“He assured us that support for aid given to Ukraine continues, especially military aid. He said he would secure this support in Congress,” Andrzej Duda told a news conference.

4:50pm: Biden calls US allies on support for Ukraine, White House says

President Joe Biden called key allies on Tuesday to “coordinate” support for Ukraine, the White House said, amid concerns in Western capitals after Republican hardliners derailed US funding for Kyiv.

“President Biden convened a call this morning with allies and partners to coordinate our ongoing support for Ukraine,” the White House said in a statement, adding that it would give details of the call later.

3:06pm: Two more vessels head to Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa, local lawmaker says

Two vessels sailing under the flags of the Marshall Islands and Cameroon are heading towards the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa, a local Ukrainian lawmaker reported on Tuesday.

The lawmaker, Oleksiy Honcharenko, did not provide any details other than names – EQUATOR and MARANTA – but posted images of vessels on the Telegram messaging app.

A senior member of the government said on Sunday that five other ships were on their way to Ukrainian Black Sea ports using a new corridor opened for predominantly agricultural exports following Russia’s decision to quit a UN-brokered wartime deal on safe shipments.

2:01pm: Ukraine’s Zelensky visiting eastern front line

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said that he was visiting frontline areas in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces have been pressuring Kyiv’s forces.

“Today we are visiting our brigades performing combat missions in one of the hottest areas (of the front) – Kupiansk-Lyman,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media.

Today, we are visiting our brigades that are fighting in one of the hotspots, the Kupyansk-Lyman direction where Russian occupiers constantly try to attack our positions. The 103rd Territorial Defense Brigade, the 68th “Oleksa Dovbush” Jeager Brigade, and the 25th “Sicheslav”… pic.twitter.com/9cF4tw5Fxs

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 3, 2023

12:05pm: Russia vows no new mobilisation

“There are no plans for an additional mobilisation” of Russian men to fight in Ukraine as more than 335,000 have signed up so far this year to fight in the armed forces or voluntary units, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told top generals in a meeting broadcast on state television Tuesday.

“The armed forces have the necessary number of military personnel to conduct the special military operation,” he said, adding that, since the start of the year, “more than 335,000 people have entered military service under contract and in volunteer formations”.

In September alone, more than 50,000 people signed up, he said.

Putin ordered a “partial mobilisation” of 300,000 reservists in September last year, prompting hundreds of thousands of young men to flee Russia to avoid being sent to fight.

Putin has repeatedly said there is no need to repeat the mobilisation, which some Russian officials say was a mistake as it prompted so many to leave.

11:57am: Ukraine moves toward flexible currency to improve economy

Ukraine’s central bank said it would allow controlled currency fluctuations starting Tuesday, easing wartime restrictions to boost the economy.

At the beginning of the war Kyiv suspended all currency trading, and set a fixed exchange rate to defend its currency – the hryvnia – and stabilise the markets.

“The National Bank of Ukraine is implementing managed exchange rate flexibility, which will strengthen the stability of the foreign exchange market and the economy,” the central bank said in a statement.

With inflation slowing down and international reserves “sufficiently high for a long time” it said the time was now right to act.

The hryvnia had been pegged at around 29 to the dollar at the beginning of the war, but it devalued in July 2022 to around 36.

11:33am: Russia’s Gazprom says European energy security system unstable

Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Tuesday that Europe, which used to be its main source of revenue, is short of natural gas and may face challenges, more than a year after the Nord Stream pipelines were damaged by mysterious blasts.

Gazprom’s gas exports almost halved last year to 100.9 billion cubic metres (bcm) due to political fallout with Europe over Ukraine and after the undersea Nord Stream pipelines, the largest single gas exporting route for Russia to European market, were blown up in September 2022.

“The fact that the systemic deficit has not gone away is manifested not only by the higher price level in 2023 compared to the pre-Covid years, but also by the persistence of a stable contango in the natural gas market,” Sergei Komlev and Alexander Shapin, Gazprom’s senior managers, said in an inhouse magazine.

Contango is a market structure in which longer-dated futures trade at a premium that encourages traders to keep the commodity in storage for more profitable resale in the future.

“This price behaviour means that, according to market participants, the energy security system in Europe, built in an emergency mode, is unstable and faces new challenges,” the Gazprom managers said.

11:31am: Ukraine aims to borrow $700 million from World Bank to support agriculture

Ukraine’s government started talks with the World Bank on Tuesday on a $700 million loan for emergency support to the agricultural sector this year and next, the farm ministry said.

The funds were required for small farmers and agricultural and food producers, the ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

The agricultural sector is a key driver for Ukraine’s economy but has been hit hard by Russia’s invasion.

11:30am: Kyiv, Warsaw agree to speed up Ukrainian grain transit

Warsaw and Kyiv announced on Tuesday they had agreed to speed up the transit of Ukrainian cereal exports through Poland to third countries, a first step in resolving their “grain war”.

The three-nation agreement between Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania means that Ukrainian grain exports – destined for markets in Africa and the Middle East in particular – will be taken directly through Poland instead of first being checked at the Poland-Ukraine border.

“From tomorrow, grains that transit (to world markets) via Lithuania will undergo checks at a Lithuanian port and not at the Poland-Ukraine border,” Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus told journalists.

After Russia’s invasion prevented Ukraine using its traditional Black Sea routes to export grain to world markets, the crops were sent by land through the European Union. But because of logistical issues, grain began piling up in EU states neighbouring Ukraine and driving down local prices.

Brussels allowed several countries to impose a temporary embargo on Ukrainian grains.

But when it ended those restrictions, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia extended the ban, causing a diplomatic spat between Kyiv and its allies.

7:44am: Ukraine downs 29 Russia-launched drones, one cruise missile

Ukraine has destroyed 29 of 31 drones and one cruise missile launched by Russia overnight, most of them targeting the regions of Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk, its air force said.

The attacks came in several waves and lasted more than three hours.

6:50am: Ukraine shells Russian village with cluster munitions, Russian official says

Ukraine has fired cluster munitions at a Russian village near the Ukrainian border, damaging several houses, the governor of Russia’s Bryansk region said.

According to preliminary information, there were no casualties in the shelling of the village of Klimovo, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said on the Telegram messaging app.

The governor’s statement, which was made without providing any visual evidence, could not immediately be independently verified.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

Ukraine has received cluster munitions from the United States, but has pledged to use them only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers.

Russian officials in Bryansk and other regions bordering Ukraine have repeatedly accused Kyiv of an indiscriminate shelling by Ukraine’s armed forces.

3:44am: US aid cuts would be ‘devastating’ for Ukraine soldiers, experts say

Ukraine’s troops would soon run short of essential ammunition and equipment if Republican hardliners succeed in stopping US military aid, undermining operations on the ground and reducing their ability to defend against Russian strikes, experts say.

Top American officials have repeatedly insisted the United States would back Kyiv for “as long as it takes”, and Washington has committed more than $43 billion in security aid since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 – over half the total from all Western donors.

But Republican opposition led Congress to remove new funding for Ukraine from a recent compromise bill to avoid a US government shutdown, highlighting that continued American support is not guaranteed.

“It would be devastating for the Ukrainians” if US aid is halted, said Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

1:50am: Ukraine to build first underground school in Kharkiv, says official

Ukraine’s eastern metropolis of Kharkiv will build the country’s first fully underground school to shield pupils from Russia’s frequent bomb and missile attacks, the city’s mayor said.

“Such a shelter will enable thousands of Kharkiv children to continue their safe face-to-face education even during missile threats,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

While many schools in the frontline regions have been forced to teach online throughout the war, Kharkiv has organised some 60 separate classrooms throughout its metro stations before the school year that started September 1, creating space for more than 1,000 children to study there.

Key developments from Monday, October 2:

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday told a joint press briefing with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba that he had proposed a new €5 billion bilateral envelope to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a meeting of all 27 EU foreign ministers in Kyiv that victory “directly depends on our cooperation”.

Ukrainian grain exports have fallen to 6.68 million metric tons so far in the 2023/24 July-June season from 8.99 million tons in the same period of 2022/23, according to agriculture ministry data.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, and Reuters)

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Kosovo attack: Who benefits?

Post By Politics Aid and development, Albin Kurti, Aleksandar Vučić, Antony Blinken, Balkans, borders, Dimitar Bechev, Energy dependency, Enlargement, EU27, Far right, Intelligence, Josep Borrell, Kosovo, military, Neighborhood, Rights, Russia, Safety, sanctions, Security, Serbia, Ukraine, United States, Unpacked, War In Ukraine

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.

The European Union and the United States have been trying to persuade Serbia and Kosovo to end their enmity and normalize relations for more than a decade.

There were finally signs of promise in April, when Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti finally gave tacit, if begrudging, approval to an EU-brokered plan that would see the two finally sprinkle some soil over the hatchet.

But despite all the cajoling and coaxing, it wasn’t to be.

U.S. and European officials have insinuated that Kurti was more to blame here, with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell drawing attention to the failure to establish an association of municipalities in northern Kosovo, which would have allowed Kosovo’s Serbs some autonomy in an enclave where they’re a majority.

Behind the scenes, U.S. and European officials have also quietly praised Vučić for a slow and halting tilt toward the West, secretly supplying some arms to Ukraine and moving to reduce Serbia’s dependency on Russian energy supplies.

This is why last week’s astonishing clash between armed Serbs and police in the village of Banjska, in northern Kosovo’s Zvečan municipality, is especially perplexing — and it’s worth asking whose interests it serves.

Kosovo’s leaders quickly blamed Vučić for the attack, which also involved a siege of an Orthodox monastery. A Kosovan policeman and three Serb gunmen were killed in the clash. And Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani said Friday that “the (armed) group simply exercised the intentions and the motives of Serbia as a country and Vučić as the leader.”

Osmani maintains Belgrade was trying to copy Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, which began with so-called little green men infiltrating the Ukrainian peninsula. “They are trying to carry out a Crimea model in the Republic of Kosovo, but we will absolutely not let that happen,” she added.

Kurti has called for sanctions to be imposed on Serbia for what he describes as a state-sponsored terrorist attack, warning that if the crime goes unpunished, Belgrade will repeat it. Vučić planned and ordered an attack in northern Kosovo “to destabilize” the country with the goal of starting a war, he said.

In response, Vučić has angrily denied these allegations but has noticeably hardened his rhetoric, possibly as a sop to Serbian ultra-nationalists. More alarmingly, however, Serbia has been building up its forces near the border with Kosovo since the deadly clashes, which the White House has described as “unprecedented.” And according to U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, on a phone call with Vučić, Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged an “immediate de-escalation and a return to dialogue.”

If Belgrade did have a hand in the attack, however, it would appear to pull against the caution Vučić has displayed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hedging his bets between the West and Serbia’s traditional Slavic ally. Vučić didn’t join in on Western sanctions against Russia but has condemned the invasion, and says he’s keen to pursue Serbia’s bid for EU membership.

If Belgrade did have a hand in the attack, it would appear to pull against the caution Aleksandar Vučić has displayed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine | Andrej Cukic/EFE via EPA

Marko Đurić, the Serbian ambassador to the U.S., echoes Vučić’s argument that planning or approving an attack in Kosovo at this juncture would make no sense and potentially ruin Belgrade’s improving relations with the West. “We have a lot to lose by any kind of escalation in Kosovo,” he told POLITICO — including harming the country commercially.

Đurić also said the attack has complicated the country’s domestic politics, noting that “the far right in Serbia is going to try and exploit this to the greatest extent possible.”

But Kosovo’s leaders have a case against Belgrade that needs answering.

To support the allegation that Vučić endorsed the attack, they highlight the role of Milan Radoičić, the deputy leader of the Serb List — a party that dominates Serb politics in northern Kosovo and has close links with Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party.

Nicknamed the “boss of the north,” Radoičić admitted to organizing and leading the attack in a statement issued by his lawyer, saying he was solely responsible. “I didn’t inform anyone from the government structures of the Republic of Serbia about this, nor from the local political structures from the north of Kosovo and Metohija, nor did I get any help from them, because we already had had different views on the previous methods of resisting Kurti’s terror,” he said.

But Kurti dismisses the idea that Radoičić would have gone ahead without Vučić’s approval. “I have no doubt that Radiočić was only the executor. The one who planned and ordered this terrorist, criminal attack on our state, in order to violate our territorial integrity, national safety and state security, is none other than President Vučić,” he told reporters.

Other officials in Pristina also say it would be stretching credulity to think Aleksandar Vulin, the head of Serbia’s BIA intelligence agency, would have been unaware of a planned attack.

Bojan Pajtić, a Serbian law professor and former president of the autonomous province of Vojvodina within Serbia, agrees the Banjska provocation wouldn’t have gone ahead without the security agency’s knowledge, saying it is improbable that the BIA would have failed to notice an operation being prepared by a heavily armed formation consisting of dozens of people in such a small area. “The BIA normally knows who drank coffee with whom yesterday in Zvečan,” he said.

“When an incident occurs that is not accidental, but the result of someone’s efforts, you always wonder whose interests it is in,” Paltić said. “In this case, it is certainly not in the interest of Aleksandar Vučić, because after the last attempt at dialogue in Brussels, in the eyes of the West, in relation to Kurti, he still looked like a constructive partner.”

Pajtić isn’t alone in querying who’s interest the attack was in, and so far, both Washington and Brussels have been extremely cautious in their comments. European Commission spokesperson Peter Stano said the EU will wait for the completion of the investigation before coming to any conclusions on what he described as a terrorist attack. Washington, careful to keep its language neutral, hasn’t been specific about who it blames either.

This, of course, stands in sharp contrast to Moscow, which predictably grandstanded as Serbia’s traditional protector, accusing Pristina of ethnic cleansing in northern Kosovo — the very same lie used to try to justify Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“This incident, the most serious example of violence in Kosovo for years, turned the tables on Vučić,” said Dimitar Bechev, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe. And he, too, questioned whether the attack was a rogue operation by Serbian ultra-nationalists and Kosovo’s Serb leaders.

“Should the story of Radoičić freelancing be corroborated, it would appear that Vučić has lost control over his erstwhile proxies,” he said.

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In War-Torn Ukraine, a Doctor Evacuates Children with Cancer

Post By Science And Technology Conflict, medicine on the front lines, oncology, pediatric oncology, Pediatrics, Ukraine, War

Roman Kizyma The first months of war, we didn’t have the weekdays, so we just worked seven days, 24 hours.

There are moments when I can work for three days without sleep. There are moments like when I, I cannot do anything for this day.

I had a very long period without my very small kids. And so when I met in a couple of months, my younger son, so he didn’t recognize me. So compared to the people that suffered the atrocities in Bucha or European or Eastern Ukraine, this is nothing. But this wasn’t a good experience.

The main factor for myself is this feeling of responsibility.

[Roman Kizyma, to camera] So when you see a bald guy or girl in the hospital, that’s my patient.

If I just stop, I compromise the treatment of hundreds of children. And I think I’m not in the position to to end this.

[Roman Kizyma, in Ukrainian to patient] Where is the problem? Where does it hurt? Show me.

[Patient] Here.

Roman Kizyma Here? Ok.

[Roman Kizyma in Ukrainian, to patient] Do you want to show me your tongue? Ok.

My name is Roman Kizyma. I am pediatric oncologist, a medical doctor treating children with cancer. Now I’m the Acting Director of Western Ukrainian Specialized Children’s Medical Center, a huge, specialized hospital for severely ill children with cancer with other catastrophic diseases.

The war made the things for children with cancer and other catastrophic disease very difficult. You have to fight two wars, one against cancer, the other against the crazy Russian army shooting at you. It’s not only the physical unsafety, it’s also the complete disruption at some point of medical logistics. So no drugs coming to the hospital. No doctors or nurses available in the direct hospital. The physical unsafety, the shelling of Ukrainian electricity infrastructure.

So sometimes we were black. All the hospital was black. No electricity.

[Hospital staff, in Ukrainain] And our doctor’s don’t know this but

[Staff] — Oh everyone’s with flashlights.

[Hospital Staff singing Ukrainian National Anthem]

Roman Kizyma This is a vulnerable group of patients. And when there is a kind of crisis, vulnerable group of people suffers the most because no one cares. Everyone trying to save themselves. So that’s why a lot of families like asked or decided or went by themselves to Europe with this project that we call Safer Ukraine.

Before the war, I was just treating cancer. I transformed into someone coordinating the big groups of very sick children going here and there. So it means like one and a half thousand children out of Ukraine with cancer treated somewhere else. The team is ready to help these children and we have the capacity. So that’s why this is a special hospital.

During two years before the start of the war, we were creating the new department, the Clinic of Pediatric oncology and stem cell transplant here in this hospital.We opened this seven days before the start of the war, so we had a huge amount of patients going to be treated there. And we have to transform ourselves from oncologists to emergency doctors and relocate all our patients to to to the other countries.

So it was a huge blow for our level of work. And we have to abandon all these new structures that we created because you cannot perform transplants when you are getting shellings and shootings and all these children.

[Roman Kizyma in Ukrainian] If not urgent then tomorrow, ok? Ok. If urgent I can look now. Ok.

I feel so stressed. I feel like in a race against time. The relocation of a child with cancer from Ukraine to Western Europe is not something new. We did that even before the war, but was like a couple of children per year. But how do you do that if you have 100 children with cancer coming to your hospital per night.

These are severely ill children. And for each of them you should have a lot of medical staff to support each patient.

[Nurse, in Ukrainian] Alright.

There is no hospital that can treat 1,500 children at one time from some country. So this is not possible,

[Child, in Ukrainian] It’s cold.

Roman Kizyma That’s why we tried to use different criteria. First of all, we organized multistep approach with different hubs.

We got the requests from the families or the doctors from different cities of the east of Ukraine or Kyiv, the capital. The first hub is in Lviv. This hospital that can host any child of any severity. And if they cannot go further, we can treat them here for a long time or for a short time and then allocate them.

We created with our partners, with charities or the support for housing and the capacity for transportation. So we had a lot of volunteers meeting children in the railway station, carrying them out of there, carrying 20 patients out of a train in a railway station that is packed with people trying to go somewhere. We went only [as] five doctors to meet a huge convoy at the railway station, so we have to carry kids across the railways.

The next step was the hub in Poland. The thing was to cross the border was a lot of queues of people trying desperately to move out of Ukraine. So we used the diplomatic power of Polish consulates situated in Lviv. This was saving time for the severely ill kids because if they stayed for ten or 20 hours in the queue, they would not leave it. So it was possible.

In the next hub there was a triage of the international team that came here to Poland and they formed a logistics. A huge hotel was transformed into a medical center in the middle of Poland. Children were arriving there and they were triaged to different rooms and taken care by this group of international doctors.

Then they contacted their dedicated hospital throughout Europe and U.SA and these hospitals and their government, they were transferring these kids to a specific hospital admitted by their team. In the worst phase, we had more than 150 children per week sent by this pathway. This was very hard.

[Roman Kizyma in Ukrainian, to patient] You can pull it up a bit. Good.

Roman Kizyma My job was not to step into one into one case.

So this was I was oncologist myself. So I tried just to not to step in each case more than like 10 minutes. So I used my previous experience to triage them.

[Roman Kizyma in Ukrainian, to patient.] Good. Can you smile? Can you smile and show your teeth? Good, well done.

During all these relocations, we lost two children. It’s Russians who were attacking them, kids were from Kharkiv.

So it’s very close to the Russian border. That’s why during their very severe treatment phase, they had to be evacuated from their hospital, put into ordinary trains and they came to L’viv. Like we literally had no choice. So we had to explain to the families, you decide what you do. You don’t go and we stay and try to do something here in L’viv during these air strikes, or you risk.

But at least, you know you did everything to a child. So they risked and we failed. So this both children died. Some of their doctors who helped us here, they came from the regions that were under attack. There is a sad story of our colleagues in Kyiv. One of their doctors, she was driving to her shift for the children with cancer.

She was hit directly by a Russian rocket in her car and she was burned alive. Her name is Oksana Leontieva. And I think this event, it was very influential. So we realized how dangerous, dangerous the work is.

[In Ukrainian, singing] Hands made some porridge and gave to Darynka. Running to get some porridge, Yes.

But there were a lot of happy situations. And I visited a lot of these hospitals afterwards, like in fall in the winter, that here. And the people were happy. The children were happy. Who are you treating? Sometimes I felt like I was going through a hospital in Europe and like the first room, my patient, the second room, my patient. The third room, my patient.

So I was feeling like I’m the part of the staff of that hospital. You were asking me like, What should we do with your patients? So mostly these are the good stories and the feedbacks where like people are very grateful to all these countries because they felt like they were in home. During last year even as a pediatric oncologist, I helped to build the facilities.

So I’ll try to do that as a director, but not only for pediatric oncology, for example, this will be the intensive care unit, the huge project within this year. So some people like outside of Ukraine, how can you build during the wartime? You can. Why not? The life still goes on and we have to have these places for this severely ill children that will look better.

So that’s what I am focused now to to do that. This is a network that try to balance itself. So this is a never ending process. I hope this will work.

[The above is a transcript of this podcast]

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Western sanctions on Russian diamonds set to disrupt a global industry

Post By World Economy, European Union, Features, G7, Russia, sanctions, Ukraine

G7 experts are set to arrive in India on a fact-finding mission this week ahead of the expected announcement of a new embargo on importing Russian diamonds. An EU ban has also been under discussion for months – but imposing new regulations on the global diamond market is no easy feat.

Experts from the G7 and Belgium will discuss potential sanctions on Russian-mined diamonds this week on a visit to the Indian cities of Mumbai and Surat.

The trip is the latest step forward in months of negotiations among Western powers over how to impose sanctions that could transform a sprawling – and often controversial – global industry.

Around one-third of the world’s supply of diamonds are mined in the Siberian region of Yakutia by Russian state-owned company Alrosa. The diamond industry overall contributes around $4.5 billion to the Russian economy annually, making it one of the largest sectors in Russia to avoid the sweeping sanctions imposed by Western powers since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

But this is not for lack of trying. Individual countries such as the US and UK have introduced their own sanctions on the luxury stones even while discussions over diamond sanctions among the EU stalled due to pushback from member state Belgium.

Belgium’s port city of Antwerp is home to the centuries-old Diamond District – the world’s largest diamond trading hub.

Approximately 84% of the world’s rough-cut diamonds and 50% of all polished diamonds are traded through the Belgian city, equivalent to around $220 million dollars’ worth of diamonds every day.

Belgium has argued EU sanctions would excessively penalise its economy while leaving other EU economies relatively intact and Russia free to sell its diamonds outside the bloc.

Tracing the stones

If the typical diamond mined in Russia is then traded in Belgium, the next stop on its journey to the jewellery shop window is almost certainly in Surat on India’s west coast, where 80% of the world’s diamonds are cut and polished.

Here the diamond trade employs around 1.5 million people and is worth around $30 billion in both imports and exports.

Employees work on diamond polishing machines at a factory in Surat, India, on June 1, 2022. © Punit Paranjpe, AFP

Once polished, the majority of gems are likely to end up in either New York – gateway to the world’s largest market for polished diamonds, the United States – or Hong Kong to be channelled into the Chinese market.

However, diamonds can bounce between multiple other destinations. Botswana and Canada are also major producers while Israel, Dubai and India are significant trading hubs. There is also a growing cutting and polishing industry in the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

In short, from mine to retail, any diamond “will change hands usually a number of times”, says Edahn Golan, a diamond industry analyst based in Tel Aviv.

Herein lies a fundamental problem with imposing sanctions: traceability.

Most diamonds are initially exported as rough gems that have not yet been cut or polished. At first, they can be fairly easily tracked.

“International trade of rough is somewhat regulated,” says Golan. “Every time you want to export a rough diamond from one country and import into another, there’s paperwork involved that denotes where the diamond was mined, the origin, the shipper, the company that’s selling the diamond and the recipient.”

Complications arise when diamonds are traded multiple times between different locations.

If traders in Antwerp or Tel Aviv prepare parcels of diamonds to send to a manufacturer, they can mix similar stones from (for example) Russia, Botswana or Canada. The whole package is then labelled as being of “mixed” origin from that point onward.

When a parcel of mixed diamonds arrives, specialist scientists or experienced traders may be able to identify the geographical origin of individual gems – but this is not done on an industrial scale. In this way, large numbers of Russian stones could easily fly under the radar.

“That is one of the primary ways of avoiding the sanctions,” says Golan. “Traders can add one stone that came from anywhere else in the world, close up the parcel, ship it as ‘mixed’ origin, and it’s perfectly legal.”

A worker holds a rough diamond at the Diamonds of Alrosa factory in Moscow, Russia on April 30, 2021. © Tatyana Makeyeva, Reuters

Tracing a diamond’s origin is even more complicated for exports of polished gems.

Even as a car made up of parts manufactured around the world will be labelled as Japanese if it is assembled in a factory in Japan, a similar principle holds for diamonds. A stone that comes from anywhere in the world can be classed as “Indian” if it has been polished and cut in India.

This is an issue that current US sanctions on imports of rough Russian diamonds does not address. “Right now, the US has what I would call ‘softer’ sanctions on the importation of Russian diamonds,” says Paul Zimnisky, a diamond industry analyst based in New York.

“Russian-origin diamonds can still be imported as long as they were transformed or cut and polished outside of Russia.”

New technologies

New sanctions from the G7 aim to go further than existing US sanctions to “block all Russian-origin diamonds from Western consumer markets”, says Zimnisky.

To do this, the G7 has said it will implement a new traceability system, which could see Antwerp function as a central sorting hub where Russian stones are eliminated and others are allowed to enter G7 markets.

The technical aspects of the sorting system have not yet been revealed, although experts have their theories.

“I think sanction enforcement will be some combination of document-based auditing via customs but will also incorporate the new tracking technology on the market, which uses high-resolution imaging to ‘fingerprint’ a stone and then register it on a blockchain-like system,” says Zimnisky.

Golan says the SWIFT banking system could be used to track payments, along with non-invasive laser technology that marks each individual stone with a unique identification.

However, Golan foresees issues with either system. First, industry actors across the entire global trade, manufacture and retail pipeline will need to implement the same technologies simultaneously.

Second, he says, “even the best technologies don’t work for every diamond. And below a certain size, economically, tracing even doesn’t make any sense. There are some diamonds that trade for $4 or $5 [or] $6 per carat – nobody wants to trace them”.

Smaller diamonds are even more likely to fly under the radar, Golan adds, as a laser-marked diamond that is then divided into smaller stones will not retain the unique identity mark on every piece, making it impossible to use the system to validate the diamonds’ origin.

New markets?

Belgium, initially resistant to sanctions packages, has been brought round by the promise of expanding the measures to cover all G7 countries, rather than just the EU, and by the promise of a central role for Antwerp’s diamond industry.

During a September visit to New York where he met diamond industry leaders, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said that new traceability measures should be introduced in time for sanctions on Russian diamonds to be imposed by January 2024.

The @G7 wants to reduce Russian diamond revenues. As leading diamond trading hub, Belgium has a responsibility to contribute to its success. Tonight, I met with industry leaders to discuss how to seize this opportunity and raise the transparency standards for the entire industry. pic.twitter.com/ZnQgnY7GvD

— Alexander De Croo 🇧🇪🇪🇺 (@alexanderdecroo) September 19, 2023

There are also promising signs of cooperation from India, whose leadership has striven to maintain diplomatic ties with both Russia and the West since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian diamond producer Alrosa has suspended rough diamond supplies for September and October at New Delhi’s request, India’s Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council said on Wednesday.

The move was put down to an attempt to counter oversupply in the global market and stabilise diamond prices amid weak demand. But, Golan says, the pause in Russian diamonds entering India lines up neatly with potential sanctions from the West.

If sanctions are imposed, as expected, Zimnisky believes the international diamond trade will simply adapt. “We might see certain categories of non-Russian diamonds trade at a premium from time to time. I don’t expect a material price impact in the near term at least, as the trade has had ample time to prepare for this.”

Golan predicts an inevitable boost within G7 markets for diamonds from countries such as Botswana and Canada.

Outside the G7 market, sales of Russian diamonds may well expand into countries still maintaining diplomatic ties with Russia.

India’s internal retail market for diamonds grew steadily in 2022 and there are positive signs of demand recovering in China, according to an annual report from international diamond company De Beers.

“My guess is that we will find a lot more traders trying to sell in China,” Golan says. “China is still a depressed market, but just last month we saw a little increase in [diamond] jewellery sales since Covid.”

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Second Ukraine wheat shipment reaches Turkey despite Russian threats

Post By World Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine war analysis, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky

A second shipment of Ukrainian wheat reached Turkey via the Black Sea on Sunday, according to maritime traffic monitoring sites, despite Russian threats to attack boats heading to or from its neighbour and enemy. Read our blog to see how the day’s events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).

This live blog is no longer being updated. For more of our coverage on the war in Ukraine, please click here.

1:51pm: Russian airstrikes kill two people, wound three more in southern Ukraine

Russian airstrikes on Sunday killed two people and wounded three others in southern Ukraine’s Kherson province, the region’s governor reported Sunday as the war in Ukraine entered its 20th month.

According to Governor Oleksandr Prokudin, Russian forces struck the city of Beryslav, destroying an unspecified number of private homes. A woman was killed and three people were wounded, including a police officer, he said.

Another airstrike also killed a 67-year-old man in the village of Lvove, Prokudin said, without specifying the type of weapons used in the attack.

Both of the communities hit are located in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Kherson region, where the Dnipro River that bisects the province has marked a battle line since Russian troops withdrew across it in November 2022, a retreat that boosted the invaded country’s morale.

12:26pm: Putin critic Kara-Murza brought to Siberian penal colony

Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, jailed for 25 years on treason charges and for denouncing Moscow’s Ukraine offensive, has arrived to serve his sentence at a maximum-security Siberian prison, his lawyer said Sunday.

Kara-Murza – a dual Russian-British citizen – was handed the unprecedentedly long sentence in April, with international leaders and supporters calling for his release.

“Vladimir Kara-Murza has been brought to the Omsk maximum security penal colony IK-6 to serve his punishment,” his lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said on Facebook. “He was straight away placed in an isolation cell.”

Omsk is located some 2,700 kilometres (1,670 miles) east of Moscow.

11:42am: Russian-installed head of Donetsk imposes five-hour curfew

The Russian-installed head of the Russian-annexed Ukrainian region of Donetsk has imposed a curfew, according to a decree published on Sunday.

Denis Pushilin banned the presence of civilians on streets and public places from 11pm until 4am on Mondays-Fridays, according to the decree.

The decree forbade assemblies, rallies and demonstrations as well as other mass events in Russian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region unless they were permitted by the Operational Headquarters for Military Threat Response in Donetsk People’s Republic.

The decree signed by Pushilin on September 18 introduced “military censorship of postal mail and messages transmitted via telecommunications systems as well as control of telephone conversations”.

Among other steps entailed by Pushilin’s order was the establishment of checkpoints and security posts at borders with the Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

10:51am: Ukrainian drone strikes Russia’s Kursk, says official

A Ukrainian drone strike hit an administrative building in the centre of Russia‘s southern Kursk city, authorities said Sunday.

Kyiv has targeted Russian cities with almost daily attacks in recent months of Moscow’s 19-month offensive.

Kursk is situated around 90 kilometres (50 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

“In Kursk, a Ukrainian drone attacked an administrative building in the central district,” governor Roman Starovoyt said on Telegram. “The roof was slightly damaged. Employees of the emergency services are working at the scene.”

Last month, a Ukrainian drone strike damaged Kursk’s railway station, leaving five people injured and causing significant damage.

Both Russia and Ukraine report regular drone incursions as Kyiv presses a counteroffensive aimed at reclaiming Russian-held territory.

10:18am: Ukraine’s Zelensky says he met top businessmen during US visit

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday he met leading American entrepreneurs and financiers during a visit this week to the United States, where investment opportunities in Ukraine were discussed.

Zelensky said the businessmen, who included Michael Bloomberg, Larry Fink and Bill Ackman, were prepared to make major investments in rebuilding Ukraine after its war with Russia.

“The American entrepreneurs and financiers confirmed their readiness to make large-scale investments in our country immediately after the end of the war and the receipt of security guarantees,” he posted on Telegram, along with photos of the meeting. “We are working for the victory and reconstruction of Ukraine.”

On a trip to the US and Canada this week, Zelensky sought continued military and financial support for Kyiv’s effort to fend off Russia’s 19-month-old invasion.

7:02am: Second Ukraine wheat shipment reaches Turkey, according to tracking sites

The Palau-flagged bulk carrier Aroyat – laden with 17,600 tonnes of wheat – left the port city of Chornomorsk on Friday bound for Egypt.

Ukraine is testing a new sea route that avoids using international waters and follows those controlled by NATO members Bulgaria and Romania, following Russia’s withdrawal from a UN-backed grain export deal.

According to the websites Marine Traffic and Vessel Finder, the Aroyat was at the southern exit of the Bosphorus Strait at 0300 GMT on Sunday.

It was to head towards the Dardanelles Strait to reach the Mediterranean.

A first ship loaded with 3,000 tonnes of wheat, and also flying the flag of Palau, left Chornomorsk without incident on Tuesday and arrived in Istanbul on Thursday.

Key developments from Saturday, September 23:

Ukraine on Saturday said dozens of people including senior Russian navy commanders died or were injured when it staged a missile attack on Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol a day earlier.

Kyiv’s army has broken through Russian lines in southern Ukraine, the general leading the counteroffensive there told US media Saturday, in the latest Ukrainian claims that it is making progress in the Zaporizhzhia area.

Read yesterday’s liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, and Reuters)

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Vienna seeks to calm Selmayr ‘blood money’ furor

Post By Politics Alexander Schallenberg, Austria, Austrian politics, cloud, Currency, Dumping/Duties, Elections, Energy dependency, European politics, Far right, gas, German politics, Germany, history, Jean-Claude Juncker, Karl Nehammer, Karoline Edtstadler, Martin Selmayr, media, National Politics, Natural Gas, oil, Olaf Scholz, opinion, Pipelines, Policy, Regions/Cohesion, Rights, Russia, Sebastian Kurz, Security, Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen

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Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg signaled his government was de-escalating a row with the EU’s senior representative in the country, Martin Selmayr, who last week accused Vienna of paying “blood money” to Moscow by continuing to purchase large quantities of Russian gas.

“Everything has already been said about this,” Schallenberg said over the weekend in a written response to questions from POLITICO on the affair. “We are working hard to drastically reduce our energy dependency on Russia and we will continue to do so.”

Austrian officials insist that the country’s continued reliance on Russian gas is only temporary and that it will wean itself off by 2027 (over the past 18 months, the share of Russian gas in Austria has dropped from 80 percent to an average of 56 percent).

Some experts question the viability of that plan, considering that OMV, the country’s dominant oil and gas company, signed a long-term supply deal with Gazprom under former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz that company executives say is virtually impossible to withdraw from.

Those complications are likely one reason why Vienna — even as its officials point out that Austria is far from the only EU member to continue to rely on Russian gas — doesn’t want to dwell on the substance of Selmayr’s criticism.

“We should rather focus on maintaining our unity and cohesion within the European Union in dealing with Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine,” Schallenberg told POLITICO. “We can only overcome the challenges ahead of us in a united effort.”

Schallenberg’s remarks follow a decision by the European Commission on Friday to summon Selmayr to Brussels to answer for his actions. A spokesman for the EU executive on Friday characterized the envoy’s comments as “not only unnecessary, but also inappropriate.”

Given that the Austrian government is led by a center-right party, which is allied with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party bloc, the sharp reaction from Brussels is not surprising. An official close to the Austrian government said Vienna had not demanded Selmayr’s removal.

Selmayr made the “blood money” comment, by his own account, while defending the Commission chief. He told an Austrian newspaper that he made the remark during a public discussion in Vienna on Wednesday in response to an audience member who accused von der Leyen of “warmongering” in Ukraine and having “blood on her hands.”

“This surprises me, because blood money is sent to Russia every day with the gas bill,” Selmayr told the audience.

Selmayr expressed surprise that there wasn’t more public outcry in Austria over the country’s continued reliance on Russian natural gas, which has accounted for about 56 percent of its purchases so far this year. (A review of a transcript of the event by Austrian daily Die Presse found no mention of the comments Selmayr attributed to the audience member, however.)

Austria’s deep relationship to Russia, which has continued unabated since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has prompted regular criticism from its European peers.

Even so, the EU envoy’s unvarnished assessment caused an immediate uproar in the neutral country, especially on the populist far right, whose leaders called for Selmayr’s immediate dismissal.

Europe Minister Karoline Edtstadler called the remarks “dubious and counterproductive” | Olivier Hoslet/EPA-EFE

Schallenberg’s ministry summoned Selmayr on Thursday to answer for his comments and the country’s Europe Minister, Karoline Edtstadler, called the remarks “dubious and counterproductive.” Some in Vienna also questioned whether Selmayr, who as a senior Commission official helped Germany navigate the shoals of EU bureaucracy to push through the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline — thus increasing Europe’s dependency on Russian gas — was really in a position to criticize Austria.

Nonetheless, Selmayr’s opinion carries considerable weight in Austria, given his history as the Commission’s most senior civil servant and right-hand man to former Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Though Selmayr, who is German, has a record of living up to his country’s reputation for directness and sharp elbows, even his enemies consider him to be one of the EU’s best minds.

His rhetorical gifts have made him a considerable force in Austria, where he arrived in 2019 (after stepping down under a cloud in Brussels). He is a regular presence on television and in print media, weighing in on everything from the euro common currency to security policy.

After Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer recently pledged to anchor a right to pay with euro bills and coins in cash-crazed Austria’s constitution, for example, Selmayr reminded his host country that that right already existed under EU law. What’s more, he wrote, Austrians had agreed to hand control of the common currency to the EU when they voted to join the bloc in 1994.

A few weeks later, he interjected himself into the country’s security debate, arguing that “Europe’s army is NATO,” an unwelcome take in a country clinging on to its neutrality.

Though Selmayr’s interventions tend to rub Austria’s government the wrong way, they’ve generally hit the mark.

The latest controversy and Selmayr’s general approach to the job point to a fundamental divide in the EU over the role of the European Commission’s local representatives. Most governments want the envoys to serve like traditional ambassadors and to carry out their duties, as one Austria official put it to POLITICO recently, “without making noise.”

Yet Selmayr’s tenure suggests that the role is often most effective when structured as a corrective, or reality check, by viewing national political debates through the lens of the broader EU.

In Austria, where the anti-EU Freedom Party is leading the polls by a comfortable margin ahead of next year’s general election, that perspective is arguably more necessary than ever.

Victor Jack contributed reporting.

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Ukraine war: Kyiv denounces G20 declaration as UN warns of potential nuclear safety threat

Post By World Kyiv, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia's war in Ukraine, Ukraine, ukraine war, Volodymyr Zelenskyy

All the latest developments from the war in Ukraine.

G20 declaration on Ukraine: “nothing to be proud of” – Kyiv

Kyiv has criticised the G20 leaders’ statement on the war in Ukraine, in which they denounced the use of force, but neglected to mention Russia.

“Ukraine is grateful to the partners who tried to include strong wording in the text. At the same time, regarding Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the G20 has nothing to be proud of,” said a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Oleg Nikolenko.

Nikolenko posted on his Facebook account a modified version of the official communiqué of the G20 summit in New Delhi, with words or expressions crossed out and replaced by others in red, reflecting notions the Ukrainian authorities would have preferred.

Examples included the phrase “concerning the war in Ukraine” becoming “concerning the war against Ukraine”, and “all states must refrain from the threat or use of force” replaced by “Russia must refrain…”.

The text adopted by the G20 does not explicitly mention Russian “aggression” in Ukraine, a term used in 2022 during the previous G20 summit in Bali.

That use was a reference to a Security Council resolution which had criticised “in the strongest terms strongly condemn the aggression committed by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”.

Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor of the United States, however, welcomed the wording of the text.

“From our point of view, it’s a very good job,” he told reporters.

Nikolenko expressed disappointment, though, adding that he believed it was “obvious that Ukraine’s participation in this G20 summit would have allowed the participants to better understand the situation”.

Threat to nuclear safety as fighting spikes near Ukraine plant – UN atomic watchdog

The United Nations atomic watchdog warned of a potential threat to nuclear safety due to a spike in fighting near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine, whose forces continued pressing their counteroffensive on Saturday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its experts deployed at the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant reported hearing numerous explosions over the past week, in a possible indication of increased military activity in the region. There was no damage to the plant.

“I remain deeply concerned about the possible dangers facing the plant at this time of heightened military tension in the region,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi warned in a statement issued late on Friday.

He noted that the IAEA team was informed that staff at the nuclear power plant had been reduced temporarily to minimum levels due to concerns of more military activity in the area.

“Whatever happens in a conflict zone, wherever it may be, everybody would stand to lose from a nuclear accident, and I urge that all necessary precautions must be taken to avoid it happening,” Grossi added.

The IAEA has repeatedly expressed concern that the fighting could cause a potential radiation leak from the facility, which is one of the world’s 10 biggest nuclear power stations. The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

Ukraine makes tactical advances near Robotyne

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have advanced into the multi-layered main Russian defensive line east of the town of Robotyne.

Ukrainian dismounted infantry forces are continuing to make gradual tactical advances against Russian positions and attrite Russian forces in the area.

Ukrainian forces have also maintained pressure on Russian positions to the south of Bakhmut, making gradual gains between Klishchiivka and Adriivka.

It is highly likely that Russia has redeployed forces from other areas of the frontline to replace degraded units around Robotyne. These redeployments are likely limiting Russia’s ability to carry out offensive operations of its own along other areas of the front line.

The redeployments are also highly likely an indication of pressure on their defensive lines, particularly around Robotyne.

Counter-offensive threatened by slow Western aid – Zelenskyy

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Russia was slowing down the Ukrainian counter-offensive, blaming the “slowness” of Western arms deliveries. The leader also renewed calls for long-range weapons as well as new sanctions against Moscow.

Speaking on Friday, Zelenskyy also stressed that time was against Ukraine, with Russia banking on a Republican victory in the 2024 presidential election to weaken American support for Kyiv.

According to him, “the processes are becoming more complicated and slower when it comes to economic sanctions against Moscow or the supply of weapons” from the West.

Ukraine has complained in particular for months about the slowness of negotiations on the delivery of F-16 fighters. Several dozen of these American aircraft will ultimately be delivered by European countries, but the crews must now be trained for months in order to use them effectively.

The Ukrainian counter-offensive, launched in June, came up against powerful defence lines built by the Russians, including minefields and anti-tank traps.

However, a breakthrough has emerged in recent weeks in the south, which could allow the Ukrainian army to advance to cut Russian lines of communication between the north and Crimea, one of its objectives.

American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Kyiv on Wednesday and Thursday, judged the “significant progress” of the offensive “very, very encouraging”.

He promised $1 billion (approximately €933m) in new aid. Washington also confirmed the supply of depleted uranium shells to give “momentum” to the offensive.

More Russian bombs hit Ukrainian cities

Ukraine confirmed the deaths of four people on Friday as Russia continues its bombing of Ukrainian cities.

Three civilians were killed in Odradokamianka in the southern Kherson region, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko.

In Kryvyï Rig, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the south of the country, a bombing hit an administrative building killing a police officer, according to emergency services.

Kyiv denounces upcoming Moscow-organised local elections

Kyiv has poured scorn on the local elections organised by Moscow in regions in Ukraine under its control.

“The pseudo-elections carried out by Russia in the temporarily occupied territories are worthless,” stressed the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, denouncing a “gross violation” of its sovereignty.

France supported the denouncement, condemning on Friday “the organisation by Russia of sham elections on Ukrainian territory, and in particular in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, as well as in the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson”.

These “so-called elections” are “devoid of any legitimacy and are being held in territories that Russia illegally occupies,” continued French diplomacy in a press release, assuring they will not recognise the results.

The Ukrainian Crimean peninsula, with the town of Sevastopol, was annexed in 2014 by Russia after a referendum that almost the entire international community refused to recognize. The four regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson suffered the same fate – referendum and annexation – in 2022.

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