Lukashenko is sick and went to the hospital...
Saturday May 13, 2023 · 6:34 PM PDT
Polonium or defenestration—the choice is yours!
Lukashenko has played a delaying game with Moscow, doing just enough to keep Putin from sponsoring a leadership change, while dragging feet at every opportunity. This is one of two reasons* why Belarusian does not send troops into Ukraine.
But maybe Putin is tired of waiting for the second front to open, especially with his Army collapsing left and right. So this is pure speculation, but is it possible, and possibly likely, that Lukashenko was poisoned?
kyivindependent.com/…
[The second reason is that the training and weaponry of the Belarusian armed forces is mostly oriented around suppressing dissent—not attacking real armies.]
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Ukraine Puts $300 Million of US Aid in One Warehouse & Russia Blows It Up
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May 13, 2023
Yevgeny Prigozhin Offered to Give Up Russian Troop Locations for Safe Withdrawal from Bakhmut
Sunday May 14, 2023 · 5:16 PM PDT
According to the Washington Post, disclosures from the Discord Leaks indicate Yevgeny Prigozhin secretly offered to give up Russian troop locations for a guarantee for the safe withdrawal of Wagner mercenaries from Bakhmut. From the Post:
Prigozhin has had secret contact, including meetings, with the Ukrainian intelligence directorate (HUR) and made the offer more than once. Neither Ukraine nor their American partners felt Prigozhin could be trusted and the offers were refused.
The leaked documents also detail Russia’s frustrations in how to handle Prigozhin’s escalating diatribes against the Russian Military and its leaders.
Prigozhin went so far as to encourage the Ukrainians to “push forward with an assault on the border of Crimea, which Russia has illegally annexed, while Russian troop morale was low.”
Damning if true, and potentially deadly to Prigozhin. Apparently he is making no effort to deny it either:
Ukraine: The Latest - Russia's flanks 'collapse' in Bakhmut due to poorly trained soldiers
85
David Knowles
Mon, May 15, 2023 at 8:56 AM PDT
Rishi Sunak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Chequers, the country house of the Prime Minister in Buckinghamshire
Today on Ukraine: The Latest, the team report on Ukraine pressuring Russia’s flanks around Bakhmut, the Russian airforce suffering its worst week since the beginning of the full scale invasion and a special in-depth report from backstage at Eurovision, as Francis Dearnley ventures to Liverpool to report on the Ukrainian experience.
Dominic Nicholls, Associate Editor of Defence, gave updates on a particularly busy 48 hours in Ukraine:
He goes into more detail into why this might be:
Also joining the episode was The Telegraph's Foreign Reporter, Genevieve Holl-Allen, who comments on the meeting between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and British PM, Rishi Sunak:
This meeting followed Britain's pledge last week in becoming the first country to provide long-range missiles to Ukraine.
Listen to today's full episode which also includes analysis from our Russia Correspondent and special in-depth report on the Eurovision song contest and its importance to Ukraine.
A Ukrainian soldier looks on near Bakhmut
War in Ukraine is reshaping our world. Every weekday the Telegraph's top journalists analyse the invasion from all angles - military, humanitarian, political, economic, historical - and tell you what you need to know to stay updated.
With over 30 million downloads, our Ukraine: The Latest podcast is your go-to source for all the latest analysis, live reaction and correspondents reporting on the ground. We have been broadcasting ever since the full-scale invasion began.
Ukraine: The Latest's regular contributors are:
David Knowles
David is Head of Social Media at the Telegraph where he has worked for almost two years. Previously he worked for the World Economic Forum in Geneva. He speaks French.
Dominic Nicholls
Dom is Associate Editor (Defence) at the Telegraph having joined in 2018. He previously served for 23 years in the British Army, in tank and helicopter units. He had operational deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.
Francis Dearnley
Francis is Assistant Comment Editor at the Telegraph. Prior to working as a journalist, he was Chief of Staff to the Chair of the Prime Minister's Policy Board at the Houses of Parliament in London. He studied History at Cambridge University and on the podcast explores how the past shines a light on the latest diplomatic, political, and strategic developments.
They are also regularly joined by the Telegraph's foreign correspondents around the world, including Joe Barnes (Brussels), Sophia Yan (China), Nataliya Vasilyeva (Russia), Roland Oliphant (Senior Reporter) and Colin Freeman (Reporter). In London, Venetia Rainey (Weekend Foreign Editor), Katie O'Neill (Assistant Foreign Editor), and Verity Bowman (News Reporter) also frequently appear to offer updates.
Russia has a vast intelligence network of informants in Ukraine. They track every major arms shipment from NATO members. Over the last 2 weeks Russia has destroyed billions worth of supplies for the ‘counter offensive’ have been destroyed. US taxpayer money laundered dollars go up in flames
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Ukraine Puts $300 Million of US Aid in One Warehouse & Russia Blows It Up
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May 13, 2023
Oh, look, seems like 'ole Vladdy Vlad is batting about .033-Da-YUM, that's lower than Bob Buhl's lifetime average, lol.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SUSIE BLANN
Wed, May 17, 2023 at 8:51 PM PDT·4 min read
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired 30 cruise missiles against different parts of Ukraine early Thursday in the latest nighttime test of Ukrainian air defenses, which shot down 29 of them, officials said.
One person died and two were wounded by a Russian missile that got through and struck an industrial building in the southern region of Odesa, according to Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the region's military administration.
Amid the recently intensified Russian air assaults, China said its special envoy met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during talks in Kyiv earlier this week with Ukraine's chief diplomat.
Beijing's peace proposal has so far yielded no apparent breakthrough in the war, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Thursday that the warring parties needed to “accumulate mutual trust” for progress to be made.
Ukrainian officials sought during the talks to recruit China’s support for Kyiv’s own peace plan, according to Ukraine’s presidential office. Zelenskyy’s proposal includes the restoration of his country's territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian forces and holding Russian President Vladimir Putin legally accountable for the invasion in February 2022.
Meanwhile, Kremlin-installed authorities in occupied Crimea reported the derailment of eight train cars Thursday because of an explosion, prompting renewed suspicions about possible Ukrainian saboteur activity behind Russian lines. Russian state media reported that the train was carrying grain.
The state news agency RIA Novosti, quoting a source within the emergency services, said the incident occurred not far from the city of Simferopol. The Crimean Railway company said the derailment was caused by “the interference of unauthorized persons” and that there were no casualties.
Ukraine officials refuse to comment on possible acts of sabotage. Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesperson, Andriy Yusov, noted on Ukrainian television that Russian train lines “are also used to transport weapons, ammunition, armored vehicles.”
Overnight, loud explosions were heard in Kyiv as the Kremlin’s forces targeted the capital for the ninth time this month in a clear escalation after weeks of lull and before a much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive using newly supplied advanced Western weapons.
Debris fell on two Kyiv districts, starting a fire at a garage complex. There was no immediate word about any victims, Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv Military Administration, said in a Telegram post.
Ukraine also shot down two Russian exploding drones and two reconnaissance drones, according to authorities.
The missiles were launched from Russian sea, air and ground bases, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian commander in chief, wrote on Telegram.
Several waves of missiles were aimed at areas of Ukraine between 9 p.m. Wednesday and 5:30 a.m. Thursday, he said.
Russian forces used strategic bombers from the Caspian region and apparently fired X-101 and X-55-type missiles developed during Soviet times, Kyiv authorities said. Russia then deployed reconnaissance drones over the capital.
In the last major air attack on Kyiv, on Tuesday, Ukrainian air defenses bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems shot down all the incoming missiles, officials said.
That attack used hypersonic missiles, which repeatedly have been touted by Putin as providing a key strategic advantage. The missiles, which are among the most advanced weapons in Russia's arsenal, are difficult to detect and intercept because of their hypersonic speed and maneuverability.
But sophisticated Western air defense systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in the country’s east and south.
While the ground fighting is largely deadlocked along that front line, both sides are targeting each other's territory with long-range weapons.
The most intense fighting has focused on the battle for the city of Bakhmut and the surrounding area, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, with a Ukrainian military official claiming Thursday that the army advanced up to 1.7 kilometers (more than a mile) there over the previous day.
At the same time, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the millionaire owner of Russia’s private military contractor Wagner whose troops have spearheaded the battle, claimed that Russian army units had retreated from their positions north of the city. Prigozhin is a frequent critic of the Russian military.
At least seven Ukrainian civilians were killed, including a 5-year-old boy, and 18 people were wounded over the previous 24 hours, the presidential office said.
Also, two people were wounded in a drone attack in Russia’s southern Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, the regional governor reported Thursday.
In a Telegram post, Roman Starovoit claimed Ukrainian forces dropped an explosive device from a drone on a sports and recreation complex.
___
Yuras Karmanau contributed to this report from Tallinn, Estonia.
Russia fires 30 cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets; Ukraine says 29 were shot down
Russia Ukraine War
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Police Press Office, fragments of a Russian rocket which was shot down by Ukraine's air defence system are seen after the night rocket attack in the Kyiv region, Ukraine, Thursday, May 18, 2023. (Ukrainian Police Press Office via AP)ASSOCIATED PRESS
SUSIE BLANN
Wed, May 17, 2023 at 8:51 PM PDT·4 min read
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired 30 cruise missiles against different parts of Ukraine early Thursday in the latest nighttime test of Ukrainian air defenses, which shot down 29 of them, officials said.
One person died and two were wounded by a Russian missile that got through and struck an industrial building in the southern region of Odesa, according to Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the region's military administration.
Amid the recently intensified Russian air assaults, China said its special envoy met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during talks in Kyiv earlier this week with Ukraine's chief diplomat.
Beijing's peace proposal has so far yielded no apparent breakthrough in the war, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Thursday that the warring parties needed to “accumulate mutual trust” for progress to be made.
Ukrainian officials sought during the talks to recruit China’s support for Kyiv’s own peace plan, according to Ukraine’s presidential office. Zelenskyy’s proposal includes the restoration of his country's territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian forces and holding Russian President Vladimir Putin legally accountable for the invasion in February 2022.
Meanwhile, Kremlin-installed authorities in occupied Crimea reported the derailment of eight train cars Thursday because of an explosion, prompting renewed suspicions about possible Ukrainian saboteur activity behind Russian lines. Russian state media reported that the train was carrying grain.
The state news agency RIA Novosti, quoting a source within the emergency services, said the incident occurred not far from the city of Simferopol. The Crimean Railway company said the derailment was caused by “the interference of unauthorized persons” and that there were no casualties.
Ukraine officials refuse to comment on possible acts of sabotage. Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesperson, Andriy Yusov, noted on Ukrainian television that Russian train lines “are also used to transport weapons, ammunition, armored vehicles.”
Overnight, loud explosions were heard in Kyiv as the Kremlin’s forces targeted the capital for the ninth time this month in a clear escalation after weeks of lull and before a much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive using newly supplied advanced Western weapons.
Debris fell on two Kyiv districts, starting a fire at a garage complex. There was no immediate word about any victims, Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv Military Administration, said in a Telegram post.
Ukraine also shot down two Russian exploding drones and two reconnaissance drones, according to authorities.
The missiles were launched from Russian sea, air and ground bases, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian commander in chief, wrote on Telegram.
Several waves of missiles were aimed at areas of Ukraine between 9 p.m. Wednesday and 5:30 a.m. Thursday, he said.
Russian forces used strategic bombers from the Caspian region and apparently fired X-101 and X-55-type missiles developed during Soviet times, Kyiv authorities said. Russia then deployed reconnaissance drones over the capital.
In the last major air attack on Kyiv, on Tuesday, Ukrainian air defenses bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems shot down all the incoming missiles, officials said.
That attack used hypersonic missiles, which repeatedly have been touted by Putin as providing a key strategic advantage. The missiles, which are among the most advanced weapons in Russia's arsenal, are difficult to detect and intercept because of their hypersonic speed and maneuverability.
But sophisticated Western air defense systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in the country’s east and south.
While the ground fighting is largely deadlocked along that front line, both sides are targeting each other's territory with long-range weapons.
The most intense fighting has focused on the battle for the city of Bakhmut and the surrounding area, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, with a Ukrainian military official claiming Thursday that the army advanced up to 1.7 kilometers (more than a mile) there over the previous day.
At the same time, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the millionaire owner of Russia’s private military contractor Wagner whose troops have spearheaded the battle, claimed that Russian army units had retreated from their positions north of the city. Prigozhin is a frequent critic of the Russian military.
At least seven Ukrainian civilians were killed, including a 5-year-old boy, and 18 people were wounded over the previous 24 hours, the presidential office said.
Also, two people were wounded in a drone attack in Russia’s southern Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, the regional governor reported Thursday.
In a Telegram post, Roman Starovoit claimed Ukrainian forces dropped an explosive device from a drone on a sports and recreation complex.
___
Yuras Karmanau contributed to this report from Tallinn, Estonia.
Ukraine Update: Russia appears as fragile as a Faberge Egg
Mark Sumner for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Thursday May 18, 2023 · 12:55 PM PDT
Air defenses shooting down Russian missiles on May 18, 2023 in Kyiv, Ukraine. 29 of 30 missiles were shot down on Wednesday
Between 1885 and 1917, the jewelry firm Fabergé, then headquartered in St. Petersburg, presented a series of fabulously detailed and intricately formed golden eggs to the Tsars of Russia. They are genuinely exquisite objects, involving looping traceries of metal, shells of rare minerals, and hundreds of jewels, large and small. Some include tiny figurines, miniature portraits, or even Lilliputian vehicles.
A total of 69 were produced. Most were sold off in the 1920s on the orders of cash-strapped Joseph Stalin. A dozen have been lost. In 2013, Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg paid $100 million to bring nine of the eggs back to Moscow.
At this moment, Russia seems to have a lot in common with those eggs. The majority of its past glory has been lost. Despite enormous expenditures directed by uber-oligarch Vladimir Putin, very little of it seems poised to return. Its military, its economy, and its standing in the world are all growing more miniscule by the day.
And, like those eggs, Russia appears to be extremely fragile.
Sometime in the next week, Russia might actually capture Bakhmut. Despite everything that has happened in and around the city, the remaining area of the city proper now controlled by Ukrainian forces is very small.
According to Russian sources, forces involving Wagner Group mercenaries reached the area of the children’s hospital on Thursday. Most Ukrainian forces seem to have retreated across the Khromove road to the area that has been called “the citadel.”
Right now, Russia is pouring artillery into that small area from three directions, trying to reduce the final collection of tall buildings in Bakhmut into powder. The relative shortage of artillery shells, which Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has complained about so many times, doesn’t matter nearly as much when just about every Russian gun in the area is firing into the same small target area.
Given another few days to carry out this process, it’s entirely possible that Prigozhin will get his opportunity to stand on the last of that rubble, wave a Wagner Group flag, and declare Bakhmut captured.
And it won’t mean f**k all.
As kos has written, this is entirely symbolic. Prigozhin has no interest in staying and trying to hold Bakhmut. He’s certainly not going to advance out of Bakhmut. One last wave of that flag—not a Russian flag, not a Russian military flag, but a flag of the private military company that he personally owns—and he is out of there.
For months, just about everyone (including Prigozhin) has noted that Bakhmut has little strategic significance. Over the full year since Russian forces drew close enough to begin shelling the town, it’s been lent a kind of importance based on the fact that Russia needed to move past Bakhmut to reach it’s genuine goals, and Ukraine wanted to hold Russia at Bakhmut as long as possible to both protect its other cities and bleed the Russian military and Wagner Group dry.
Look at that map again. Those locations in the east—the winery, the drywall factory—those are locations Russia was fighting to take nine months ago. It wasn’t until they managed to take Soledar near the end of 2022 that Wagner began to make real inroads into Bakhmut. Even then, their progress across the city has been so slow, each of those landmarks might as well be a calendar page. In the process, Wagner has lost at least 30,000 men.
Bakhmut has held through all the stages of Russia’s mobilization and through the winter offensive. It has been the hot center of all the fighting in Ukraine for so many awful months. If what’s left of the ruined city gets a chance to rest, that’s a good thing. Russia isn't about to go anywhere from Bakhmut, even using artillery to destroy bridges heading west out of the city—stopping any of its own potential advances. Even previous thoughts of repositioning Ukrainian forces along higher ground west and north of the city appear to be irrelevant. Because it seems much more likely that the only forces who will be backpedaling in the area will be Russian.
While fighting in Bakhmut, Russia hasn’t just lost tens of thousands of troops, hundreds of armored vehicles, and dozens of aircraft. It’s lost something more important. It has shredded what remained of the fragile cohesion that held the whole operation in Ukraine together.
As kos has noted, there’s no reason for Ukraine to hurry in launching its counteroffensive. That’s because there is no longer a need to be concerned about Russia’s advance. There is no Russian advance. Instead, there’s just a daily process in which Russia’s uneasy coalition of authoritarian oligarchs looks a little less stable and a lot less capable of continuing this war.
For weeks, we’ve been staring in a mixture of amazement, amusement, and horror as Prigozhin rants against the Russian military while showing off hundreds of Wagner fighters lost to make minimal advances.
What should really scare Vladimir Putin is that Prigozhin, after weeks of stunts like this, is still there, still in command of Wagner, and still making demands. Not only that, Russian TV hosts are not condemning Prigozhin. The balance of power between Putin and his former caterer seems more than a little questionable.
Earlier today, Prigozhin was back on the air, once again attacking Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and blaming the Russian military for retreats around Bakhmut.
But notice what Prigozhin is asking for here. He’s not calling on Russian forces to advance. He’s asking them to hang on to locations around Bakhmut “for a few more days” so that he can complete his bloody ceremonial task inside the city. He’s not talking about winning; he’s talking about the speed with which they will lose.
If there has ever been a major military more disheartened, more splintered, more convinced that it is about to be crushed, that military’s leader was already in a bunker.
As Anna Nemtsova writes for The Washington Post, the Kremlin has “never been so rattled.”
Never, in more than two decades of covering Vladimir Putin’s regime, have I seen it in such an obvious state of chaos and disarray. These days, Kremlin-watchers don’t have to read tea leaves or decode cryptic utterances from the leadership to spot the signs of intrigue—it’s all out in the open, thanks to Putin confidant Yevgeniy Prigozhin.
While Russia’s infighting is certainly doing its share in creating this chaos, Nemtsova also delivers a hat tip to the Ukrainian military for using drone strikes within Russia and carefully calibrated actions to do “everything they can to undermine morale and exacerbate divisions among their enemies.”
That includes “loudly and persistently” discussing the plan for a spring offensive. For Russia, it’s almost as if each press release out of Kyiv is delivered by a tank brigade. Russian forces appear to be standing at the front already halfway turned toward the border, ready to run at the first sign of an actual attack.
The disparity in attitude even appears to be present in the trenches around Bakhmut where smiling Ukrainian forces are taking dejected Russian stragglers prisoner as they overrun position after position. None of this is making all those trenches Russia has been digging all over Ukraine seem like much of an obstacle.
Right now, those final few blocks of Bakhmut are nearly encircled by Russian artillery. With Russian forces able to direct shells into the area from three directions, and Wagner forces able to press forward from both north and east, the effort to sustain a Ukrainian presence within the city may be nearing an end.
But it is still a “may be.” Much will depend on how quickly Ukraine keeps rolling up the flanks to Bakhmut’s north and south, and whether Russia or Wagner still have the forces to fight through that maze of high rises. Even rubble can be effectively defended. And even if they do, Russia is only able to apply this pressure in this one location because of circumstances they built up over a year at nearly unfathomable cost. They cannot mimic this action at any other point on the whole 1000 km front.
The Battle of Bakhmut is going to be remembered for generations. And whether Prigozhin gets to wave his flag or not, Bakhmut will be remembered as the city where Vladimir Putin’s dream of a new Russian empire was ended.
One last thing … that location that Prigozhin was begging Russian forces to hold for just a few more days? They didn’t.
THE LOST BRIGADE
Last month, we learned that Ukraine had nine mechanized brigades reportedly trained and ready to go when it was time to begin the counteroffensive. However, many articles published in the same week suggested that Ukraine was preparing ten, or even twelve, brigades for the counter offensive.
It looks like one of those additional brigades wasn’t really lost … it was just that they were in Sweden.
The Times of London is reporting that an entire brigade—as in 3,000 to 5,000 troops and all their gear—has been training together in Sweden and are only now being deployed back to Ukraine. Rather than collecting a mishmash of hardware from various countries, this brigade has reportedly been loaded up with: Swedish modified Leopard 2 tanks, Swedish CV-90 combat vehicles, and Swedish Archer artillery. Ja. Ja. Ja.
The idea of moving this many men and women out of Ukraine to train as a coherent unit is absolutely extraordinary, and if true getting them back into the mix could be a key reason Ukraine has been biding their time on launching the counteroffensive. But, regardless of the name linked to the article, this remains something of an extraordinary claim that has not been confirmed by Ukrainian military sources.
AVDIIVKA
From December to March, Russia launched a series of attempts to break through Ukrainian defenses at Avdiivka. Other than Bakhmut, there may be no other area that has received as much Russian military effort in the last six months. Most of that ended back in March when a series of failed assaults left the area east and north of the city littered with burning Russian armor.
But in the last week, what started with another Russian assault seems to have generated a Ukrainian advance that erased essentially all the Russian gains around the city. Ukraine is now back at the edge of Kruta Balka, pressing against the boundaries that have existed since 2014.
It’s unclear if this was a limited advance or if Ukraine will try to exploit new positions after displacing Russian forces. The front line in this area is now only about 4 km from the regional capital city of Donetsk (population: 900,000+).
What seems to be making this possible are reports that Russia has deployed units that were at Avdiivka to join the forces trying to hold the flanks at Bakhmut. Russia is now playing Whac-a-mole, and it’s running short of hammers.
Honestly, Ukraine hasn’t even started the counteroffensive, and already it’s hard to keep up with all the moves.
Still more gear on the way from Norway, including both artillery and counter-artillery systems.
Here are a couple of before and after shots that reverse the direction of what we’ve seen way too often since Russia invaded Ukraine. This is Bucha, scene of an ungodly massacre, mass graves, and bodies left in the street by indifferent Russian forces. The images of disaster come from just after Ukraine had liberated the area following the Battle of Kyiv. The second set of images is today.
That’s one down, everything else that has been touched by Russia to go.
Why Putin Is Right to Fear for His Life ("Et Tu, Comrade?" 
252
Simon Sebag-Montefiore
Thu, May 18, 2023 at 9:41 AM PDT
Victory Day Parade Takes Place In Red Square
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) wavesas Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev (2R) looks on while visiting the Victory Day Red Square Parade on May 9, 2023 in Moscow, Russia. Moscow marks Victory Day with a parade after a new wave of strikes across Ukraine. Credit - Contributor-Getty Images
Roman Emperor Domitian is remembered for only one joke. “It’s a terrible thing to be an emperor,” Domitian said, “because everything thinks your paranoia about being assassinated is groundless—until you’re actually murdered!” Soon after Domitian was assassinated. Extreme vigilance is the essential mood of tyranny, which must inhabit that condition not just first because it is indeed in danger of overthrow and surrounded by enemies but also because it requires its people to be fearful and isolated, therefore conditioned for extreme solutions. President Vladimir Putin is living proof of this conundrum.
The recent drone attack on the Kremlin may have been the work of Ukrainian or internal Russian factions, possibly within his own wider security organs, or a ‘false flag’ operation by the regime itself, but it was inevitable that the dictatorship would claim it was an assassination attempt on Putin. This is absurd since everyone knows that the president does not live in the Kremlin but outside Moscow in his gilded mansion, Novo-Ogaryovo. Yet Domitian would sympathize because Putin has every reason to fear assassination.
It is a cliché of the cliché-ridden Western press on Putin—and his predecessors Stalin, Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible—that they are paranoid to the extent of madness. It is a cliché that ignores and misunderstands the nature of dictatorship particularly in Russia. All absolute systems in world history depend on coercion to crush opposition and maintain power, thereby creating internal enemies who can only use violence to overthrow the ruler. All such systems deploy war and xenophobia to inspire and control their own people which creates another legion of enemies. The Western press always emphasizes the omnipotence of the autocrat in a system without limits without seeing that a system without limits means the leader exists in a permanent state of carnivorous chaos without any real or lasting security. Systems without clear rules of succession grant enormous power to the ruler but also mean they have no means of retirement. In Russia—whether under Tsars Ivan IV and Peter I , Stalin or Putin—rulers could appoint their successors but could never do so without creating a potential present menace.
In October 2011, during the Arab Spring revolutions, Putin spent hours watching the gruesome smartphone footage of longterm Russian ally, Colonel Gadaffi, who was sodomized with a bayonet before being shot. Putin resolved to save his ally, Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And himself. He no doubt reflected on the nature of Russian tsardom. He was aware of it from the start: when Yeltsin offered him the presidency in 1999, Putin hesitated, asking “how will I protect my family?” The answer? To establish a dictatorship and keep it for life.
More from TIME
Read More: Putin’s Path to War in UkraineEvery wise tsar knows that his constant poise must be ferocious vigilance. Peter the Great set the standard of the all-talented emperor and supreme commander to which Putin—along with every other Russian ruler—aspires but he faced constant plots against his life which he handled himself by personally torturing and executing thousands of mutinous musketeers; he even tortured his own rebellions son Alexei to death. Peter invented modern Russia—even its name Roosiya was coined by him—as a new empire; he took the title imperator. The state has never developed from that vision. But this imperial self-image also sets a perilous standard for Peter’s admiring successors: the tsar – whether president or general-secretary—is also a military commander.
If a Russian ruler cannot dominate the “Russian world,” he will disappoint history. Peter was overwhelmingly successful in his wars—but even he was nearly captured and defeated by the Ottomans. Yet the dream of every Russian ruler is conquest. In 1904, Nicholas II’s Interior Minister V.K. Plehve, supposedly advised, “What this country needs is a short victorious war.” Every ruler (even in our democracies) aspires to one of those. Nicholas II instead faced a disastrous defeat vs Japan; but Putin built his imperial presidency and garnished his swaggersome overconfidence with a run of three ‘short victorious wars’ in Chechnya, Georgia and Syria. But they were minor skirmishes; Ukraine is proving very different…
Out of the last twelve Romanov emperors, six died violently. Ivan the Terrible and Stalin died in their beds by wreaking such havoc around them that no one dared destroy them. Putin is a killer but not yet a mass killer on their scale.
Circa 1700, Peter the Great (1672 - 1725), Tsar of Russia, beheading one of the rebel Streltsy (semi-professional musketeers) in front of his nobles.Hulton Archive-Getty Images
In June 1762, the new young Emperor Peter III—puny grandson of Great Peter—threw away costly Russian gains against Prussia. His own Guards and his wife Catherine the Great overthrew him; the Guards strangled him. The press release announced he had died of haemorrhoids. When Catherine later invited the French philosopher d’Alembert to Russia, he joked “I must decline because I suffer from haemorrhoids which are a fatal disease in Russia.” After midnight, on 11th March 1801, Russian Emperor, Paul, son of Catherine and Peter III, was awakened by footsteps on the stairs of his Mikhailovsky Castle; he hid behind a tapestry as the conspirators—slightly drunk after a pre-homicidal champagne—burst into his bedroom.
The conspirators were let in by trusted servant; they were led by his chief minister & top generals; and backed by his own son, who waited downstairs. What happened next was history’s most savage liquidation of a Russian autocrat.
Paul, inconsistent and menacing, was destroyed by war , capricious foreign policy—including sending an army to attack British India. The conspirators saw his feet peeping out of the wallhanging and dragged him out; conspirators hit him with a golden snuffbox, knocking out an eye, then threw themselves onto him, shattering his head on the floor, strangling him with his sash, then drunkenly stomping his head to pulp.
Just over a century later Nicholas II was not killed by his generals but he was overthrown by them. Yes the crisis was accelerated by hungry crowds in the capital Petrograd but contrary to popular history, he was forced to abdicate by his generals when he was isolated in his railway carriage on his way to put down the revolution.
Putin knows all this history. “How will history remember me?” he kept asking historians in recent years. His isolation during Covid made him one of history’s most dangerous creatures: the omnipotent history-buff. Stalin read history obsessively and collected a huge library—half of which is in Putin’s Kremlin office. Before the war, Putin liked to ask visitors to chose a book then together they would examine Stalin’s pungent marginalia. He is not an intellectual like Stalin but he reads historical biographies—including a famous Russian biography of Paul and my own biography of Catherine the Great and Potemkin. History matters to him; he has always been obsessed by eighteenth century Russian leaders, Peter, Catherine and Prince Potemkin. They were the trio who dominated Ukraine; all subsequent Russian-Soviet leaders including Lenin and Stalin regarded the possession of Ukraine as essential to their vision of Russian statehood.
It was Peter who founded St Petersburg and won the Baltic. It was Catherine in partnership with her brilliant lover, co-ruler and secret husband, Prince Potemkin, who conquered Crimea in 1783 and south Ukraine 1787-91, founding the cities Sebastopol, Odessa, Kherson that form today’s battlefield. When I wrote that first book in 2ooo, Putin, waiting for it to be translated, asked for a one-pager on Potemkin’s conquests and cities. In his speeches and essays before invading Ukraine, he cited Catherine and Potemkin. When his troops took Kherson, they captured Potemkin’s tomb and when they retreated late last year, they stole the Prince’s body. I predict that Putin will create a splendid tomb for Potemkin in Moscow to prove the Russian claim to Ukraine.
But the history also shows what happens when tsars fail. In 1964, Khrushchev was fortunate that he was only overthrown and retired after he risked nuclear war and delivered an unprecedented national humiliation in the Cuba Missile Crisis—though his successor Brezhnev did propose his assassination.
Victory makes a Russian ruler invulnerable, almost sacred. Defeat places a Russian ruler in danger from his closest courtiers, ministers and generals. While one thinks of tsars overthrown by crowds, most are actually destroyed by their closest colleagues deep within their own palaces. The modern prototype would be another secret-policeman-aspiring- to-rule, Lavrenti Beria, overthrown in June 1953 by his trusted, somewhat inferior comrades, Khrushchev and Malenkov (whose house at Novo-Ogorovo is now Putin’s home—what a small world) at a surprise meeting. He was shot.
When Russian leaders fall, nemesis usually comes from those closest. “When you walk down the corridors,” mused Stalin, “you never go when it’s going to come.” Putin is not paranoid; he has ever reason to be vigilant.
Domitian would sympathize.
Go Nazi Ervin go. Bet u make Ann goose step around the house ????????????????
US Patriot missiles deployed in Ukraine lol Russia overwhelms the system and still blows it up. $150,000,000 spent in 2 minutes. Russia wins with dumb cheap weapons that are easy to make en masse. our high tech shit is rendered useless it's stunning
US Patriot missiles deployed in Ukraine lol Russia overwhelms the system and still blows it up. $150,000,000 spent in 2 minutes. Russia wins with dumb cheap weapons that are easy to make en masse. our high tech shit is rendered useless it's stunning
Ukraine strikes back around Bakhmut as Wagner reaches last streets in the city
Francis Farrell
Thu, May 18, 2023 at 2:52 PM PDT
On the evening of May 9, just half a day after a single T-34 tank rolled through Red Square during Moscow’s subdued Victory Day celebrations, something unexpected happened.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, announced that units of the Russian regular army’s 72nd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade had fled their positions southwest of Bakhmut, the destroyed city in Donetsk Oblast, that has been for nine months the site of the bloodiest battle of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
A few hours later, Ukraine’s Third Assault Brigade confirmed Prigozhin’s claims that the 72nd was in flight, reporting their own capture of Russian positions west of a key canal running adjacent to Bakhmut.
A video published by the brigade on May 13 showed Ukrainian assault infantry, backed by multiple tanks and armored vehicles, surging forward across pockmarked fields, facing little resistance.
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The next few days showed that this Ukrainian advance was not an isolated occurrence.
Since then, Ukrainian forces have reportedly made significant advances not only on the southern, but also the northern flank of Bakhmut near the villages of Khromove and Bohdanivka.
Here, according to geolocated footage and Russian Telegram channels, Russian regular military units abandoned their positions in a similar fashion.
According to the latest official information from the Ukrainian military, Ukraine has taken back more than 20 square kilometers around the city, including positions that Russian forces have held since February.
On May 18, the Third Assault Brigade once again reported a successful localized breakthrough on the western outskirts of Bakhmut.
Meanwhile however, the battle inside the city continues to move in favor of Russian forces led by Wagner and Russian paratrooper units.
Twilight of the battle
The neverending battle for Bakhmut can now be understood almost as two separate battles, those on the flanks and that inside the city.Ukraine’s counterattacks have pushed Russian forces back from the two main “Roads of Life” into Bakhmut, which, in theory, makes Ukraine’s famed “fortress” city easier and safer to reinforce and resupply.
Unfortunately for Ukraine, over five months since Wagner fighters first entered Bakhmut’s urban area, there is barely anything left of the fortress.
As of May 18, Russia controls over 95% of Bakhmut, with the latest open-source maps showing Ukrainian forces holding on only to a handful of streets and apartment buildings on the western outskirts of the city.
In almost daily updates, Prigozhin has begun to measure Wagner’s daily advances in streets and square meters, testifying to the slow progress made by the much-depleted mercenary force.
On May 17, Russian sources claimed that Wagner had taken the entirety of a neighborhood dubbed the “Nest,” where Ukraine had allegedly concentrated a large number of defending units.
227
Francis Farrell
Thu, May 18, 2023 at 2:52 PM PDT
In this article:
- Yevgeny Prigozhin
Russian terrorist & war criminal
On the evening of May 9, just half a day after a single T-34 tank rolled through Red Square during Moscow’s subdued Victory Day celebrations, something unexpected happened.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, announced that units of the Russian regular army’s 72nd Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade had fled their positions southwest of Bakhmut, the destroyed city in Donetsk Oblast, that has been for nine months the site of the bloodiest battle of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
A few hours later, Ukraine’s Third Assault Brigade confirmed Prigozhin’s claims that the 72nd was in flight, reporting their own capture of Russian positions west of a key canal running adjacent to Bakhmut.
A video published by the brigade on May 13 showed Ukrainian assault infantry, backed by multiple tanks and armored vehicles, surging forward across pockmarked fields, facing little resistance.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
The next few days showed that this Ukrainian advance was not an isolated occurrence.
Since then, Ukrainian forces have reportedly made significant advances not only on the southern, but also the northern flank of Bakhmut near the villages of Khromove and Bohdanivka.
Here, according to geolocated footage and Russian Telegram channels, Russian regular military units abandoned their positions in a similar fashion.
According to the latest official information from the Ukrainian military, Ukraine has taken back more than 20 square kilometers around the city, including positions that Russian forces have held since February.
On May 18, the Third Assault Brigade once again reported a successful localized breakthrough on the western outskirts of Bakhmut.
Meanwhile however, the battle inside the city continues to move in favor of Russian forces led by Wagner and Russian paratrooper units.
Twilight of the battle
The neverending battle for Bakhmut can now be understood almost as two separate battles, those on the flanks and that inside the city.Ukraine’s counterattacks have pushed Russian forces back from the two main “Roads of Life” into Bakhmut, which, in theory, makes Ukraine’s famed “fortress” city easier and safer to reinforce and resupply.
Unfortunately for Ukraine, over five months since Wagner fighters first entered Bakhmut’s urban area, there is barely anything left of the fortress.
As of May 18, Russia controls over 95% of Bakhmut, with the latest open-source maps showing Ukrainian forces holding on only to a handful of streets and apartment buildings on the western outskirts of the city.
In almost daily updates, Prigozhin has begun to measure Wagner’s daily advances in streets and square meters, testifying to the slow progress made by the much-depleted mercenary force.
On May 17, Russian sources claimed that Wagner had taken the entirety of a neighborhood dubbed the “Nest,” where Ukraine had allegedly concentrated a large number of defending units.
Maxar satellite imagery released on May 15, 2023 showing the destruction of a residential area in Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast. (Maxar Technologies via Getty Images)
The Battle of Bakhmut, by now likely the bloodiest single military engagement of the 21st century, looks to have finally entered its twilight.
As costly as the defense has been, with Ukraine reportedly suffering high casualties, the initially controversial choice of the Ukrainian command to hold the city for as long as possible seems to have paid off.
According to U.S. estimates as of early May, Russia is believed to have suffered at least 100,000 casualties over five months since its assault on Bakhmut gained intensity in late autumn. This rough figure amounts to half of Ukraine’s own estimates of Russia’s total personnel losses since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
Though the roads into the city were for months under constant fire from Russian forces less than a kilometer away in some areas, Ukraine did manage to keep its defense of the city stable, and the fear of a disastrous encirclement proved unfounded.
In tense urban fighting where almost every street and building was contested, Ukraine successfully carried out a holding operation that will likely be remembered as one of the most decisive engagements of the war.
Wagner’s last victory?
In a battle like that for Bakhmut, for part of the attacking force to continue its relentless urban assault while, just a few kilometers away, other units chaotically flee their positions is an unusual phenomenon.In this case though, latest developments are likely to be closely connected to the boiling feud between Prigozhin and the Russian Defense Ministry.
While reporting Wagner’s gains inside Bakhmut, Prigozhin consistently goes out of his way in his daily updates to mention Russian retreats on the flanks, which Wagner “handed over” to the ministry back in mid-April.
In competition with the regular army for favor and resources from the Kremlin, Prigozhin has become increasingly desperate to portray the ministry as incompetent and even traitorous.
Prigozhin’s main asset is his fighting force, which has been severely attrited over months of heavy fighting, often in human wave-style front-on attacks.
Things came to a head on May 5, when Prigozhin recorded an expletive-laden video blaming Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Staff Head Valerii Gerasimov for the death of his fighters due to a lack of munitions supply.
In another video message the next day, Prigozhin threatened to pull Wagner forces out of Bakhmut if his demands weren’t met, a threat the mercenary boss later backed down on.
A screenshot from a video released by the press service of Yevgeny Prigozhin on May 13, 2023, shows the Wagner Group boss describing the tactical situation around Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast. (Telegram)
Although Wagner seems to finally be on the cusp of victory in Bakhmut, it now seems likely that it could be the end for the group as a force to be reckoned with in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Speaking earlier in May to the Kyiv Independent, political scientist and expert on Russian security structures Mark Galeotti said that Wagner in its current state was a “shadow of what it once was.”
No longer able to personally recruit from Russia’s prison systems, Prigozhin has ruined relations with the Defense Ministry, upon which he relies on for ammunition and transport for his troops.
With Wagner having served its purpose in taking Bakhmut and Russian forces now shifting to a more defensive posture across the front line, it looks unlikely that the Kremlin will seek to allocate Prigozhin the resources needed to go further, especially as the Defense Ministry and other elites continue to invest in their own private military companies.
Of all the war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine, Wagner’s brutal, lawless approach to both war and civilian life has earned the group a notorious reputation for cruelty.
The imminent downfall of Wagner is thus good news not only for the Ukrainian war effort, but also for the Ukrainian people.
Has the counteroffensive begun?
When Ukraine first moved forward around Bakhmut, there was chatter among Russian military bloggers that this was the beginning of Ukraine’s much anticipated counteroffensive.In a tone that bordered on panic, propagandist Yevgeny Poddubny wrote on Telegram on May 11 that Ukrainian forces were making major breakthroughs around Bakhmut, and could soon push so far as to surround the Wagner forces inside the city, in a maneuver much like the Soviet counterattack in Stalingrad.
Similar claims about the Ukrainian counteroffensive already starting were also made by Prigozhin himself, eager to draw more attention to the failures of his political rivals.
Here, the obvious-seeming difference between a counterattack and counteroffensive must be stressed.
Significant as they were, pushing Russian forces back around Bakhmut for the first time in over half a year, the Ukrainian gains are no more than local counterattacks by the brigades already stationed in these sectors, exploiting Russian weakness and poor morale to regain the initiative.
Ukrainian servicemen of the Adam tactical group ride a T-64 tank towards a front line near the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, on May 7, 2023. (Sergey Shestak / AFP via Getty Images)
While Ukraine could assign more resources to Bakhmut in an attempt to build on these gains, the large-scale counteroffensive, one which will be undoubtedly spearheaded by fresh brigades and new Western equipment, has yet to begin.
Sound military doctrine dictates that the main push should be accompanied by a second or third offensive elsewhere, to distract Russia’s defense and force Moscow to spread its troops thin, and the Bakhmut area might be part of Kyiv’s plans.
But this part of central Donetsk Oblast, where almost every kilometer has been won and lost with massive effort and casualties on both sides, is very unlikely to present an opportunity for the kind of strategic breakthrough that will enable Ukraine to call the counteroffensive a success.
Nonetheless, the disunity among Russian forces comes at a highly beneficial time for Ukraine in the context of Kyiv’s counteroffensive plans.
Having failed to make any real progress in large-scale offensives over winter in other sectors in Donetsk Oblast including Vuhledar, Lyman, and Avdiivka, the regular Russian military has itself taken heavy losses, and has now proved itself vulnerable to targeted Ukrainian counterattacks.
After a grim winter defined by the war’s most brutal fighting so far, Ukraine’s counterattacks show that the threat of Russia surging onward from Bakhmut towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the key hubs of Ukraine’s defense of Donetsk Oblast, has now subsided.
Russia’s months-long offensive in the region has run out of steam, finally opening the window for Ukraine to take the initiative, at a time and place of its choosing.
