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[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: Eight

Russian forces advance towards Ukraine’s Dnipro region​

Troops bypass urban warfare in Donetsk and push towards highway leading to Dnipropetrovsk

Russian forces are heading towards Ukraine’s Dnipro region, bypassing an anticipated heavy urban battle in the eastern Donetsk area. Ukraine has been preparing for urban warfare in Pokrovsk, a key logistics and transport hub for the remaining Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region, since the summer.

But Russian forces pushing up from the south are now heading west of Pokrovsk and are just under 7km from taking the highway leading to the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to mapping group Deep State, which has ties to Ukraine’s defence ministry. “They understand that they will lose a lot of their forces trying to take Pokrovsk so they have decided to pursue a different strategy and approach from the south and go around it,” Andriy Cherniak, a senior Ukrainian military intelligence official, told the Financial Times on Sunday. “They will try to cut off all the supplies to Pokrovsk so that our forces leave there.”

Russia’s ministry of defence announced on Sunday the capture of Yantarnoye settlement in the Donetsk region, approximately 50km south of Pokrovsk, following “active offensive operations”. “The border of the Dnipropetrovsk region is now approximately 6.5km away,” Russian military blogger Voenkor Kotenok posted on his Telegram channel on Sunday.

The next major town inside Dnipropetrovsk is Pavlograd, a major Ukrainian military base. The region also includes Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city. How quickly Russian forces are able to take the highway towards Dnipropetrovsk, depends on the extent of fortifications in the area as well as Ukrainian manpower, which has been in increasingly short supply.

 

Around 300 N.K. soldiers killed, 2,700 wounded during fight against Ukraine: S. Korea's spy agency​


SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Yonhap) -- At least 300 North Korean soldiers dispatched to support Moscow's war in Ukraine have been killed, with some 2,700 others injured, South Korea's spy agency told lawmakers Monday.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) shared the information with lawmakers during a closed-door meeting by the parliamentary intelligence committee, according to Rep. Lee Seong-kweun of the ruling People Power Party.

The NIS said it attributed the "massive casualties" of North Korean soldiers to their "lack of understanding of modern warfare," including their "useless" act of shooting at long-range drones, based on the agency's analysis of a combat video it obtained recently.

The spy agency also said North Korea has stressed to its soldiers to kill themselves to avoid being captured alive by the Ukrainian military.

 

'Your husband's being tortured, and it's your fault'​

Svitlana says she never considered betraying her country, "not for a second."

"My husband would've never forgiven me," she says, as we meet in her flat near Kyiv.

The 42-year-old had been waiting for news of her husband Dima, an army medic captured by Russia, for more than two years when she suddenly received a phone call.

The voice at the end of the phone told her that if she committed treason against Ukraine, Dima could be eligible for better treatment in prison, or even early release.

"A Ukrainian number called me. I picked up, and the man introduced himself as Dmitry," Svitlana explains. "He spoke in a Russian accent."

"He said, 'You can either burn down a military enlistment office, set fire to a military vehicle or sabotage a Ukrainian Railways electrical box.'"

There was one other option: to reveal the locations of nearby air defence units — vital military assets that keep Ukraine's skies safe from Russian drones and missiles.

As Dmitry set out his proposal, Svitlana says she recalled instructions that the Ukrainian authorities had distributed to all families in the event of being approached by Russian agents: buy as much time as possible, record and photograph everything, and report it.

Svitlana did report it, and took screenshots of the messages, which she showed to the BBC.

The Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, told her to stall the Russians while they investigated. So she pretended to agree to firebomb a local railway line.

As we sit in her immaculate sitting room, with air raid sirens periodically wailing outside, she plays me recordings she made on her phone of two of the voice calls with Dmitry, made via the Telegram app. During the call, he gives instructions on how to make and plant a Molotov cocktail.

"Pour in a litre of lighting fluid and add a bit of petrol," Dmitry explains. "Go to some sort of railway junction. Make sure there are no security cameras. Wear a hat – just in case."

He also gave Svitlana a tutorial in how to put her phone on airplane mode once she was 1-2km away from her intended target, to avoid her signal being picked up by mobile phone masts that could be used by investigators.

"Do you know what a relay box is? Take a photo of it. This should be the target for her arson attack," explained Dmitry, who demanded proof of completion of the task.

"Write today's date on a piece of paper and take a photo with this piece of paper."

In return, Dmitry said he could arrange a phone call with her husband, or for a parcel to be delivered to him.

Later, the SBU told Svitlana that the man she'd been talking to was indeed in Russia, and she should break off contact. Svitlana told Dmitry she'd changed her mind.

"That's when the threats began," says Svitlana, "He said they'd kill my husband, and I'd never see him again.

For days, he kept calling, saying: "Your husband is being tortured, and it's your fault!"

"How concerned were you that he might go through with the threats to harm Dima?" I ask Svitlana. Her eyes moisten. "My heart ached, and I could only pray: 'God, please don't let that happen.'"

"One part of me said 'this person has no connection with the prisoners.' The other part asks: 'What if he really can do it? How would I live with myself?'"

In a statement to the BBC, the SBU said co-operating with Russian agents "will in no way ease the plight of the prisoner; on the contrary, it may significantly complicate their chances of being exchanged."

The authorities are urging all relatives to come forward immediately if they are approached by Russian agents.

Those who do, they say, will be "protected," and treated as victims.

But if relatives agree to commit sabotage or espionage, says the SBU, "this may be classified as treason. The maximum punishment is life imprisonment."

The authorities regularly publicise arrests of Ukrainians who allegedly commit arson or reveal the location of military sites to Russia.

Pro-Kremlin media is awash with videos purporting to show Ukrainians torching army vehicles or railway electrical boxes.

Some of the culprits do it for money, paid by suspected Russian agents, but it is thought there are attacks carried out by desperate relatives, too.

Petro Yatsenko, from the Ukrainian military's Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, says around 50% of all families of PoWs are contacted by Russian agents.

"They're in a very vulnerable position and some of them are ready to do anything," Petro says, "but we are trying to educate them that it won't help [their loved ones in captivity]."

Petro says an act such as setting fire to a military vehicle isn't considered a significant material loss to the Ukrainian Armed Forces:

"But it can destabilise the unity of Ukrainian society, so that's the main problem.

And, of course, if someone shares the location of, for example, air defence systems, that's a big problem for us too," he admits.

The authorities don't publish the numbers of Ukrainians held as prisoners of war, but the number is thought to be more than 8,000.

A source in Ukrainian intelligence told the BBC the number of cases where relatives agree to work with Russia is small.

The Russian government told the BBC in a statement that the allegations it uses prisoners' families as leverage are "groundless," and Russia treats "Ukrainian combatants humanely and in full compliance with the Geneva Convention."

The statement goes on to accuse Ukraine of using the same methods:

"Ukrainian handlers are actively attempting to coerce residents of Russia to commit acts of sabotage and arson within Russian territory, targeting critical infrastructure and civilian facilities."

Svitlana's husband Dima was released from captivity just over three months ago.

The couple are now happily back together, and enjoy playing with their four-year-old son, Vova.

How did Svitlana feel when her husband was finally set free?

"There were tears of joy like I've never cried before," she says, beaming. "It felt like I had snatched my love from the jaws of death."

Dima told his wife the Russians didn't act on their threats to punish him for her refusal to co-operate.

When Svitlana told him about the calls, he was shocked.

"He asked me how I held up," she says, and winks. "Well, as I always say, I'm an officer's wife."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9w5jyd9nnwo
 
On the topic about scamming and extortions.

Russia is being set aflame by hundreds of arson attacks​

An elderly man places a newspaper on an atm terminal, douses it in spirit, and sets it alight while filming it all on his smartphone. The pensioner then repeats the trick twice more on December 21st—once unsuccessfully—before police nab him in Kolpino, near St Petersburg. Within days, Alexander Nikiforov is in court and charged with terrorism. But his case, echoing dozens of similar events targeting banks, post offices and police cars the same week, has raised more questions than it has answered. Mr Nikiforov claims he was acting not from conviction, but under the instructions of unidentified telephone scammers.

It is not the first time Russia has experienced arson attacks since beginning its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In the first year of the war, military recruitment offices and police departments were frequent targets. According to a forthcoming investigation by Mediazona, an independent Russian media outfit, there have been 280 arson attacks to date. But if the early wave of attacks were easily identifiable as anti-war or anti-mobilisation protests, that is no longer the case. The latest attacks, which peaked in the second half of December, appear more driven by manipulation and coercion. The perpetrators, often pensioners like Mr Nikiforov, claim to have been tricked into transferring large sums of cash, before somehow being persuaded they must burn atms to recover the money.

Russia is blaming Ukraine for the unusual campaign, citing both motive and means. On the latter point, Ukraine is somewhat of a world-leader in the phone scamming industry, with hundreds of murky call-centres operating from cities such as Kyiv and Dnipro. Since Russia began its original war on Ukraine in 2014, and Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies broke off all co-operation with Russia, Russian citizens have been prime targets of the criminal activity.

 
I cannot imagine why Ukrainians are upset with Russia. What could Russia possibly have done to Ukraine that would warrant setting ATM machines on fire in Russian cities. Does that even make sense?
 
On the topic about scamming and extortions.

Russia is being set aflame by hundreds of arson attacks​

An elderly man places a newspaper on an atm terminal, douses it in spirit, and sets it alight while filming it all on his smartphone. The pensioner then repeats the trick twice more on December 21st—once unsuccessfully—before police nab him in Kolpino, near St Petersburg. Within days, Alexander Nikiforov is in court and charged with terrorism. But his case, echoing dozens of similar events targeting banks, post offices and police cars the same week, has raised more questions than it has answered. Mr Nikiforov claims he was acting not from conviction, but under the instructions of unidentified telephone scammers.

It is not the first time Russia has experienced arson attacks since beginning its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In the first year of the war, military recruitment offices and police departments were frequent targets. According to a forthcoming investigation by Mediazona, an independent Russian media outfit, there have been 280 arson attacks to date. But if the early wave of attacks were easily identifiable as anti-war or anti-mobilisation protests, that is no longer the case. The latest attacks, which peaked in the second half of December, appear more driven by manipulation and coercion. The perpetrators, often pensioners like Mr Nikiforov, claim to have been tricked into transferring large sums of cash, before somehow being persuaded they must burn atms to recover the money.

Russia is blaming Ukraine for the unusual campaign, citing both motive and means. On the latter point, Ukraine is somewhat of a world-leader in the phone scamming industry, with hundreds of murky call-centres operating from cities such as Kyiv and Dnipro. Since Russia began its original war on Ukraine in 2014, and Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies broke off all co-operation with Russia, Russian citizens have been prime targets of the criminal activity.

On the positive side, it's a more interesting use of the phone scam than getting US/Canadian senior citizens to send their Amazon prime to grinders in India ^^
 
An elderly man places a newspaper on an atm terminal, douses it in spirit, and sets it alight while filming it all on his smartphone. The pensioner then repeats the trick twice more on December 21st—once unsuccessfully—before police nab him in Kolpino, near St Petersburg. Within days, Alexander Nikiforov is in court and charged with terrorism
"We are very lucky they are so ******* stupid".

The terrorism charge is the cherry on top, really.
EDIT: Damn, I really want to know how they convinced him to burn the newspaper.
 
I don't agree with that angle... Sure, you can see an out of touch old (or dumb, or old and dumb) person (in this case in Russia) as a symbol of the state or part of a collective, but they are primarily a very vulnerable group and their suffering won't help much with anything. Clearly it's not the worst nor the most egregiously unfair victimization in a war, yet still is nothing to be proud of.
Russia's draconian laws can certainly lead to some of those victims being then handled in more terrible ways by the state. You typically aren't heroic in taking revenge by tricking your adversary to beat his/her own grandparents' distant cousins and imagining this will be a moment of self-reflection on a character flaw and thus somehow an indirect hit. It's only done so as to do something, because the crucial reaction is unavailable to you.

EDIT: Damn, I really want to know how they convinced him to burn the newspaper.
Most likely by explicitly telling him they will return his money if he does so. It's how all ending-phase scams work; when you have no more money yourself, they will tell you to victimize others (bigger fish) for a return of what was taken from you (which, obviously, won't happen either).
 
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There was a recent wave of arson attacks in Ukraine too (it's mentioned in the article I linked), though it looks like most targets were TCK (recruiters) cars.
Ukrainian officials blamed Russian scammers, but I wouldn't be so sure in this case.
 
Engels fuel depot has been burning for six days, and then hit again the day the fire was extinguished. No phone call involved.


And fallen debris of intercepted ATACMS and Storm Shadows have caused fires on various targets in Russia


The Ukrainian military’s General Staff said it had attacked three regions of Russia and the republic of Tatarstan, including strikes nearly 700 miles into Russia. The targets included an oil storage base, as well as military production facilities, the General Staff said in a statement.

The drone strikes forced at least six cities to restrict their airspace on Tuesday morning, according to a statement from Russia’s Federal Aviation Agency. Those included the cities of Saratov and Engels, which were attacked overnight.

Two industrial plants sustained damage, Roman V. Busargin, the governor of the Saratov region, wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Today Saratov and Engels were subjected to a massive UAV attack,” he said, using the initials for unmanned aerial vehicle. “Air defenses eliminated a large number of targets.”

It was the second time in a week that Engels, which is the site of an airfield for some of Russia’s long-range, nuclear-capable bombers, was attacked. Emergency crews recently extinguished a large fire sparked by a strike on Jan. 8.

Mr. Busargin said that, in the wake of the attacks, schools would be closed and classes in Engels and Saratov would be held remotely on Tuesday.

The authorities in the Tula region of western Russia similarly confirmed a large drone attack. Dmitry V. Milyaev, the regional governor, said air defenses had shot down 16 drones and that falling debris had damaged some cars and buildings. There were no casualties, officials said.

Local news media in Kazan, the capital of the republic of Tatarstan, in southwestern Russia, reported that a tanker at a liquefied natural gas base had been struck, igniting a large fire.

The head of the republic, Rustam N. Minnikhanov, wrote on Telegram that firefighters had put out the blaze and that there had been no casualties or “significant damage.”

In the border region of Bryansk, which has come under more regular attack, powerful explosions were reported. The Russian independent news organization Astra said that a chemical plant had been struck; the report could not be independently verified.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that Ukraine had launched more than 140 drones, along with U.S.-made long-range missiles known as ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles provided by Britain.

“These actions of the Kyiv regime, supported by Western curators, will not go unanswered,” the ministry said in a statement.
 
Don't worry, Russia will respond accordingly, most likely by bombing energy infrastructure. Without phone calls either.

Meanwhile, the dynamics of the frontline doesn't seem to change.

DeepState reports about worsening situation in Toretsk, which may become the second city-size settlement Ukraine will lose in 2025.

Russia cut the Western supply line to Pokrovsk
 
That seems a tad optimistic, Prokovsk was first mentioned here as a potential Russian gain in febr. 2024.

If red arrows on a map won wars your army would be invincible 😊


Every attempted encirclement obviously also exposes you own forces to the enemy, something the Russians avoided in recent years with slow, grinding frontal attacks.

But the proximity of the Russians to Pokrovsk also brings them into range of the Pokrovsk garrison’s own short-range weapons—and its most numerous surveillance drones: the first link in the “kill chain” that ends with Russian HQs exploding.

As the main battle for Pokrovsk begins in the coming days or weeks and more Russian force stage closer to the city, their commanders and command staffs will stage closer to the city, as well.

The Ukrainians will be looking for them, and preparing to strike with rockets, missiles and bombs.
 
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Don't worry, Russia will respond accordingly, most likely by bombing energy infrastructure. Without phone calls either.
I'm sorry you don't have access to internet in Russia.

Just so you know, Russia had never wait for a bombing on its energy infrastructure to do so in Ukraine. Problem is the terror bombing of cities that goes with those.
 
That seems a tad optimistic, Prokovsk was first mentioned here as a potential Russian gain in febr. 2024.
Crimea was mentioned as a potential Ukrainian gain in 2022. In Pokrovsk though, supply line was cut.
Every attempted encirclement obviously also exposes you own forces to the enemy, something the Russians avoided in recent years with slow, grinding frontal attacks.
Such maneuvers may be dangerous because of possible enemy counter-attacks. Ukrainian infantry capable of doing so seems to be in Kursk though.
 

“We have maintained, Australia has maintained diplomatic relations with Russia through that period under different governments. However, we will consider all options once we have ascertained the facts and once we can verify what has actually occurred here with Mr Jenkins,” Wong said.

Video that circulated on social media last month showed Jenkins dressed in combat uniform while being interrogated and hit across the head by an unseen man speaking Russian.

The 32-year-old is believed to be the first Australian held as a prisoner of war by Russian forces in Ukraine.

Not including Jenkins, at least six Australians are believed to have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion.

If his death is confirmed, Jenkins would be the first Australian prisoner of war killed by a foreign power since Horace William “Slim” Madden died in captivity in North Korea in 1951.
 
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