(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
We are preparing for the next Ramstein meeting, we expect solidly grounded decisions to meet the prospects on the battlefield – address of the President of Ukraine
17 April 2023 – 18:29
Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!
This day began with a meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Many topics.
The front line is the actions of our defense forces, what is achieved, and what we need to achieve.
The commanders of the Khortytsia, Tavria, Odesa, Pivnich task forces, Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny – all reported on the current situation.
Supply of ammunition for our soldiers – separately at the Staff meeting. Today, more details about this: not only supply, but also everything related to manufacturing – both by the state and private companies. Minister of Strategic Industries Kamyshin, Minister of Defense Reznikov, and Commander of the Logistics Forces Huliak also reported.
I held a meeting with Prime Minister Shmyhal on the results of his trip to Canada and the United States, these were meetings primarily for financial support of Ukraine by partners. The results are substantive. This applies to relations with the IMF and other international institutions and bilateral relations with Canada and the United States.
Thanks to all our partners who always help!
By the way, we are already preparing for another Ramstein meeting. I held preparatory meetings. And we expect solidly grounded decisions that will meet the prospects on the battlefield. Quite ambitious prospects, which we are approaching with all our might. Moreover, we are approaching them not only for ourselves, not only for Ukraine but also for our entire anti-war coalition.
The aggressor must lose. And this is our joint responsibility with our partners – to gain more time for peace, that is, to be as active as possible now in providing weapons and ammunition to speed up our joint victory.
I signed the decree on awarding state awards to our soldiers. 127 soldiers of the Armed Forces… 68 of them – posthumously.
It is very important to understand this: every time we hear that the promised supply of weapons is delayed, every time there are doubts about the type of weapons for Ukraine, about the range or other quality characteristics – every time it means that Ukrainian soldiers are giving their lives so that we have this time… The time that is spent to convince so that the supply of the necessary weapons takes place after all.
Today, I’d like to especially commend our soldiers from the 5th Separate Assault Brigade and the 80th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade for active and successful assault operations in Bakhmut. Thanks to the 214th Rifle Battalion for powerful blows against the enemy near Bakhmut!
92nd separate mechanized brigade – thank you for the result in Luhansk region!
Donetsk direction… Fighters of the 35th and 36th Separate Marine Infantry Brigades, 55th Separate Artillery Brigade. Paratroopers of the 79th Air Assault Brigade. Soldiers of the 74th Separate Intelligence Unit, the 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade named after Yakov Handziuk… Thank you all!
In Zaporozhzhia, there is something to praise for the soldiers of the 128th separate assault brigade of Zakarpattia. Well done!
Every destroyed enemy now is a liberated meter of Ukrainian land tomorrow.
And one more.
Yesterday, a search and rescue operation ended in Sloviansk after Russian terrorists attacked residential buildings. I want to mention our people who, together with their colleagues on the ground, did everything possible… Despite the threat of repeated strikes, and despite all the difficulties, they did everything possible to save as many lives as possible.
I thank Sergeant Yaroslav Pletsky, Senior Sergeant Viktor Herhel, Senior Lieutenant Bohdan Havrylov, and Lieutenant Colonel Mykhailo Zahnitko, all who participated in this operation.
Thank you to everyone in the great team of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine who works for the people!
Glory to our soldiers!
Eternal memory to all those, whose lives were taken by Russian terror!
Glory to Ukraine!
I want to bring this portion to your attention:
By the way, we are already preparing for another Ramstein meeting. I held preparatory meetings. And we expect solidly grounded decisions that will meet the prospects on the battlefield. Quite ambitious prospects, which we are approaching with all our might. Moreover, we are approaching them not only for ourselves, not only for Ukraine but also for our entire anti-war coalition.
The aggressor must lose. And this is our joint responsibility with our partners – to gain more time for peace, that is, to be as active as possible now in providing weapons and ammunition to speed up our joint victory.
I signed the decree on awarding state awards to our soldiers. 127 soldiers of the Armed Forces… 68 of them – posthumously.
It is very important to understand this: every time we hear that the promised supply of weapons is delayed, every time there are doubts about the type of weapons for Ukraine, about the range or other quality characteristics – every time it means that Ukrainian soldiers are giving their lives so that we have this time… The time that is spent to convince so that the supply of the necessary weapons takes place after all.
The Ukrainian leadership knows that they have two external constraints. The first is time. The second is how long it takes to get the US, as leader of the coalition supporting Ukraine, to agree to provide military equipment and material in sufficient quantities to allow the Ukrainians to be successful. I fully expect that the Ukrainians will flat out ask for F-16s at the next Ramstein meeting. I also expect that the Biden administration will say no. And this is regardless of whether the Ukrainians would be able to quickly be able to get their pilots up to speed on them, in the air, and fight them effectively. Rather, it is because the Biden administration is afraid that if the Ukrainians are too successful it will destabilize Putin’s rule and then destabilize Russia. Here’s Shashank Joshi’s, The Economist‘s defense correspondent and a non-resident fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, reporting: (emphasis mine)
Western officials familiar with Ukraine’s preparations are unsure how everything will pan out. It is vital, they say, that Ukrainian forces have the confidence to keep moving forward. Russia’s layered defences are designed to lure advancing columns into “kill zones” covered by pre-sighted artillery. If troops panic and freeze up, they could be decimated. But there are also concerns about the opposite: an unexpected collapse of Russian forces that puts Ukraine’s army at the mouth of Crimea, in a position to seal off the peninsula, attack Russian ports and bases there and deny the Sea of Azov to Russian ships. Large pockets of Russian troops could also be trapped in Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts.
Such a humiliation is deemed unlikely—a leaked assessment by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) predicts only “marginal” gains for either side this year—but not impossible. Many Ukrainian officials would welcome it. But some Western ones are concerned that a serious rout would destabilise Russia to a dangerous degree, making it harder for the Kremlin to swallow any negotiations that might follow. Far preferable, they say, for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, to order a semi-voluntary retreat, as he did from the west bank of the Dnieper river in Kherson province in November. The aim is not to defeat Mr Putin militarily but to persuade him that recovering the lost territory would require wave after wave of politically risky mobilisation.
That will not be easy. Mr Putin is thought to remain convinced that time is on his side. He has reinforced failure at every turn, sticking with the war after his defeat at the gates of Kyiv and then frittering away hundreds of thousands of mobilised recruits on a futile offensive around the town of Bakhmut since January. The DIA assessment, first published by the Washington Post, says that even if Ukraine were to inflict “unsustainable losses on Russian forces”, Russia would prefer to conduct a fresh mobilisation rather than enter negotiations. On April 12th Russia’s parliament passed a new law allowing the defence ministry to issue electronic—rather than physical—summons for military service, making it easier to dragoon recruits. Another round seems inevitable.
Leaving the DIA assessment portion of the reporting aside, the Ukrainians know that this is what they’re facing from their allies. A lack of resiliency and resolve to see all of Ukraine liberated regardless of how resilient and resolved the Ukrainians may be.
There is still no operational update posted by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense today, but here’s a statement from Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Ana Malar about Russian attempts to weaponize Bakhmut in the information space:
Bakhmut:
Video of soldiers from Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade in Bakhmut. https://t.co/NDNHIONthy pic.twitter.com/3uPi4Qzlss
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 17, 2023
Bakhmut. https://t.co/4UUVmfacPxhttps://t.co/nu4MwOcyPD pic.twitter.com/aKa2gEyGOe
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 17, 2023
From EuroMaidan Press:
Ukrainians are keeping Russians away from the main supply roads to Bakhmut and are conducting counterattacks to push them even further whenever possible.In our daily update from the front, we pair up with military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to give you an update about what’s happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.In Bakhmut, Russian forces attempted to complement their recent offensive to the north by developing attacks to the south. However, Ukrainians understood that this was the next logical step and assigned their best sniper, artillery, and drone crews to make sure that Russians do not cross the main street, so when Russians started launching their attacks, they lost one assault unit after another within minutes.
The freshest reports suggest that Ukrainians established permanent surveillance of Russian positions along Korsunskogo street and are eliminating all Russian reconnaissance groups already on the approach. The footage released by the Ukrainian 93rd Mechanized Brigade shows how drone operators coordinate with an artillery crew and destroy a Russian assault unit the moment it tries to cross Korsunskogo Street. Such continuous actions successfully prevented Russians from developing offensive actions from a secondary axis. What further complicates the situation for Russians is that this area basically has nothing to hide behind. Since the clashes here have been taking place for months, and all the houses in the region are quite small, everything was gradually leveled with the ground, making attacks from this direction as dangerous as attacking through the fields.
Regarding the central part of the region, Ukrainians still hold positions at the train station. The soldiers defending it said that Russians are increasing the pressure after establishing control over the grain elevators. Recent geolocated footage confirms that Russians indeed crossed the rails and are operating in the vicinity of the grain elevators.
In the northern part of the region, the fighting continues. One of the fighters said that intense artillery fire brought the Russians to senses and forced them to stop pushing further. Today Ukrainians tried to regain the initiative and counterattacked Russians along the whole line. Russians reportedly started retreating, although they did put up an intense fight, and overall resistance was immense. Combat footage released by the Ukrainian side shows that Ukrainians are operating in small assault units to test Russian defense capabilities from all sides. Whenever a group advances, it immediately tries to leverage the gains to help other units breach their strong points.
Today a commander of the Ukrainians 1st Border Detachment, responsible for the southern line, stated that they rarely meet Wagner forces and that almost all attacks are already conducted by regular Russian forces. This statement confirms my analysis based on the footage of battles and prisoners of war. Today, Ukrainians reportedly took captive several more dozens of soldiers and showed weapons taken as trophies. This is less than yesterday, although still much more than usual.
A lot of those captives were taken near the Khromove road. A fighter from the Aidar Battalion reported that yesterday they forced a group of Russians to surrender in the aftermath of an unsuccessful Russian assault. Fighters from the Da Vinci Wolfs Battalion showed a video of how they got encircled, held an all-round defense, and still repelled the massive Russian attack. To not allow Russians to move freely in the region and prepare for their assaults, Ukrainians are also conducting assaults. Today, the Da Vinci Wolves Battalion showed the aftermath of a successful assault on Russian positions. Before this assault, their drone operators, in coordination with artillery crews, increasingly targeted Russians in the trenches. As a result, they managed to undermine a Russian strongpoint and reduce control over the region after a successful assault.
Overall, Ukrainians are keeping Russians away from the main supply roads to Bakhmut and are conducting counterattacks to push them even further whenever possible. Inside Bakhmut, Ukrainians managed to prevent a similar development of offensive actions in the south by establishing tight control over the region and preventing Russians from concentrating their forces by immediately targeting all units that got out of cover. It looks like the situation stabilized, and as stated by a soldier from the 24th Assault Battalion, if Ukrainians break Russian momentum in the north, then Bakhmut will continue to hold.
Soledar and Bakhmut:
Yermak's reaction: https://t.co/G63PVTt1PN
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) April 17, 2023
Here’s the full text of Weiss’s first tweet:
A big drop today of two ex-Wagner fighters testifying to mass killings, including of more than 20 Ukrainian children and teenagers. Azamat Uldarov and Aleksey Savichev are both former prisoners.
They say they blew up a pit with 50+ wounded Ukrainian POWs and the so-called “500s,” Russian refuseniks who didn’t agree to kill Ukrainians. They cleared residences in Soledar and Bakhmut by murdering everyone.
“I executed the order with this hand, I killed the children on the order,” Uldarov says. “What we did when we entered Soledar and Bakhmut… We were given the command to clear and kill everyone. We went and killed all women, men, pensioners and children, including minors, five-year-olds.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin personally gave orders for the shootings, Uldarov and Savichev claim.
https://youtube.com/watch
Here’s the video with English subtitles:
Here are the two tweets with Yermak’s reply/response:
Росіяни викрали тисячі 🇺🇦 дітей, подальша доля багатьох усе ще невідома. Нація нелюдів та вбивць.
Ми робимо все, щоб повернути 🇺🇦 дітей. За дорученням Президента @ZelenskyyUa готуємо відповідний план.
Світ має побачити справжню РФ. Пізно боятись. Треба вибити зуби цій потворі.
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) April 17, 2023
And here’s the machine translations of them:
Russian terrorists confessed to numerous murders of Ukrainian children in Bakhmut and Soledar.
Confession is not enough. There must be a punishment. Tough and fair. And it will definitely be.
How many more such crimes have been committed?
And:
The Russians kidnapped thousands of 🇺🇦 children, the future fate of many is still unknown. A nation of inhumans and murderers.
We are doing everything to return 🇺🇦 children. We are preparing an appropriate plan by order of the President @ZelenskyyUa.
The world needs to see the real Russian Federation. It’s too late to be afraid. We need to knock out the teeth of this monster.
Markinka:
YIKES!
Video of a Russian tank in Marinka struck by a Ukrainian FPV loitering munition with what appears to be a PG-7 warhead that avoids the roof screen. https://t.co/Ak7bkAK4yR pic.twitter.com/MTehHF0UL0
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 17, 2023
Slovakia!
NEW HOME FOR JETS:
All 13 Slovak #mig29 have been safely handed over to #Ukrainian Air Force. Proud to be on the right side, doing the right thing to help protect #lives. We Stand w/Ukraine. @oleksiireznikov @Slovakia_NATO @DefenceU @NATO @ZelenskyyUa #WeAreNATO pic.twitter.com/xWCPFEc0pM
— Jaro Nad (@JaroNad) April 17, 2023
We have some updates on former Petty Officer Second Class Sarah Bils, now doing business as Lyudmila Mikhailova Kazakova (because why the fuck not?). First tweet from Pekka Kallioniemi’s thread with the rest coming from the Thread Reader app, which caught the three tweet’s he deleted:
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American propagandist and podcaster, Donbass Devushka. She's best-known for her fake Russian identity, for her pro-Russian podcast, and for spreading false, pro-Russian narratives on social media.
1/23 pic.twitter.com/DdGTlKH8Ce
— Pekka Kallioniemi (@P_Kallioniemi) April 15, 2023
Donbass Devushka wasn’t always working under this pseudonym – during the summer of 2022, her alias was Mila Medvedev or @LuganskforLife (and also CheburekiVibes, MeatballSubZero, YuGopnik, GhostofLugansk).While active under this account, she’s posted several photos of herself, and confirmed working also under the pseudonym “Donbass Devushka” through a link to her post on Patreon.In the past, she’s stated that she’s a “poor woman from Luhansk”, but she’s actually just a regular Yankee girl, living in Oak Harbor, Washington. She’s originally from New Jersey and was married from 2011 until 2021.Perhaps as an attempt to become more credible, she’s changed her real name to a Russian sounding one at the end of Mar 2023.Before she was working for a shop that sold tropical fish, but after the war started, she must’ve smelled a good niche for making some extra money, and started creating pro-Russian propaganda on various social media channels.The Donbass Devushka YouTube channel was created in Jul, 2022, and @LuganskforLife Twitter account followed after one month. The YouTube channel is actually a collective of various people doing interviews and podcasts, and boy oh boy, do these interviews stink of vatnik.Her Telegram channel was also one of the first places where the doctored leaks of Jack Teixeira were detected. These fakes had decreased Russian military losses drastically, while the Ukrainian ones were increased.Many of them have been covered in earlier #vatniksoup threads, including Jackson “Z” Hinkle, Eva Bartlett, Scott Ritter and Gonzalo Lira. In these podcasts, “Devushka” fakes a terrible Russian accent, which she forgets to do every now and then.The contents of the podcast are exactly as you’d imagine, full of BS like “Ukrainian Nazis”, bioweapons labs, multipolar world, praise of Putin, mockery of the West, NATO and Joe Biden… basic vatnikology 101.10/23
But there’s nothing new in people ditching their old life and becoming propagandists for dirty Russian money, it’s happened with people like Z-Hinkle, Mike “iEarlGrey” Jones, Karin Kneissl… in these circles, Devushka is still just a nobody. But what is much more……interesting in this case, is how her real identity was discovered. The whole operation was conducted by Shiba Inu unit of the #NAFO battallion. The identity of Devushka had been under scrutiny for long time, and finally they could piece the whole thing together to …12/23
…find out her real identity as a Jersey girl. The group noticed that some trolls had trolled Devushka’s account by calling her by her real name. They then found out that she was married before, and found old photos of her from Facebook.With this information, they identified her home address, and compared photos from her social media accounts to other open source images of her alleged address – and they matched. They even managed to get a confirmation through a reflection from the sunglasses she was ……wearing, and from the color of the wall paint her house has. Then they tracked her marriage certificate to find her birth date, and it matched with the one she posted on her Telegram channel.Finally, they obtained a video of her working for the tropical fish joint and matched her voice to Devushka’s, just without the fake Russian accent.16/23
Of course this tactical unit also looked into her family tree: she’s stated that in addition to being Russian, she’s also Jewish. By referring to her Jewish heritage, she had a free pass to criticize Jews for pretty much everything (which is exactly what she did).But of course there was neither Russian or Jewish blood in her, which was proved by looking at her parent’s names in her marriage certificate.18/23
So, one of the biggest pro-Russian disinformation and propaganda pushers online claimed to be a Russian-Jew from Luhansk, but actually turned out to be a divorced, middle-aged woman from Jersey. But that’s not all: there’s still the money she’s been collecting through……various donation channels. On her TG channel, she’s stated that all the funds go towards charity, for example to Mariupol, and to “Donbassian refugees in Rostov”. For collecting donations, Devushka used several channels, including BuyMeACoffee, crypto wallets and Locals.
20/23She’s also collaborated with Rybar, a Russian news outlet focusing on military analysis also connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin.Now here’s a problem that Devushka might be facing: Russia is heavily sanctioned, and in case to fundraising efforts were real, she’s potentially…21/23
…violated them. If they weren’t then it’s a regular fraud.The Shiba Inus also checked her crypto wallets,and noticed that they had received funds on several occasions, but there were no traces of money being sent out. Based on this evidence, I’d go with the ‘fraud’ option.22/23As of today, Donbass Devushka’s account @PelmeniPusha has been suspended.Big thanks to #NAFO for their incredible work.
And a couple of follow ons:
It also seems that I am being targeted by coordinated ban attempts coming from the DD Telegram channel.
If I get suspended, keep up the good work, shiba inus!
2/2 pic.twitter.com/8N0kO7B4iL
— Pekka Kallioniemi (@P_Kallioniemi) April 16, 2023
And here’s a follow on thread from Robert van der Nordaa:
2/x 2/x The thing which struck me most is the fact that she is not called Sarah Bils anymore. Her name is now Lyudmila Mikhailova Kazakova. She officially had her name changed. Source/Article @MalcontentmentT https://t.co/TnEK8EltAS pic.twitter.com/zfl30t1OGA
— Robert van der Noordaa (@g900ap) April 17, 2023
4/x She started deleting her Linkedin pages. So she is deliberately covering her tracks and open source info. Doesn't look to good for a person who claims she has done nothing wrong pic.twitter.com/gqob9mG4EU
— Robert van der Noordaa (@g900ap) April 17, 2023
6/x DD cooperated with Rybar. This could be a very important aspect now that she is officially investigated. @P_Kallioniemi shared a screenshot of the article. See tweet 7/x Link: https://t.co/dXd3XGoosI
— Robert van der Noordaa (@g900ap) April 17, 2023
8/x The NAFO investigation is amazing but even more so if you link all this data to the @bellingcat @EliotHiggins investigation which shows that DD is the first to publish US secret military info. https://t.co/8TdqL8PEyp
— Robert van der Noordaa (@g900ap) April 17, 2023
10/x What struck me in the WSJ article is that DD said that she doesn't hate Ukrainians. This is legally not true. There is a lot of legislation on hate speech. Calling Ukrainians nazis, antisemitism is illegal. Authorities could prosecute her for this. pic.twitter.com/vPxoWBuXxm
— Robert van der Noordaa (@g900ap) April 17, 2023
12/x to take a break but will be back soon with a lot more data on DD
— Robert van der Noordaa (@g900ap) April 17, 2023
US Naval Institute News has the latest on the erstwhile petty officer:
The Department of Justice is investigating a former Navy non-commissioned officer for her role in social media accounts that posted a series of leaked Pentagon documents, two U.S. defense officials told USNI News on Monday.
Sarah Bils, 37, a former aviation electronics technician 2nd Class who was last stationed at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., according to her official Navy biography, is allegedly behind a pro-Russian series of social media accounts under the banner of “Donbass Devushka,” The Wall Street Journalfirst reported. The people behind the Donbass Devushka network allegedly posted at least four of the classified documents, leaked by Massachusetts Air Guardsman Jack Teixeira, to their Telegram social media channel.
Bils is an administrator for the Donbass Devushka properties, which is now a network of 15 people, she told The Wall Street Journal. It’s unclear if Bils, who had a security clearance as part of her Navy career, used it to access classified documents. The handle is a combination of the contested Donbass region in eastern Ukraine and the Russian word for “young lady.”Bils told The Wall Street Journal that another administrator on the accounts posted four of the documents to the Donbass Devushka Telegram channel. Several Pro-Russian social media accounts picked up the documents after they were shared. The Donbass Devushka social media accounts are the largest English-speaking, pro-Russian accounts that engage in “Russian–style information warfare,” Bils told the Journal.USNI News was unable to reach Bils using listed numbers on Monday.
Bils was identified as one of the personas behind the Donbass Devushka social media account by the North Atlantic Fella Organisation (NAFO) – an open source intelligence group that specializes in exposing Russian misinformation.
The Department of Justice declined to comment. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh referred all questions on Bils to the Navy or the Department of Justice.
Bils is originally from New Jersey and enlisted in the Navy in 2009, according to her Navy bio obtained by USNI News. After completing “A” school at Naval Aviation Technical Training Center in Pensacola Fla., she was a student at the Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training Unit in Lemoore, Calif., and reported to Fleet Readiness Center Northwest, Whidbey Island, Wash., in June 2011. She worked in different roles at the air station until her discharge in November. From Febuary 2021to March 2022 Bils was assigned to a Whidbey Island-based EA-18G Growler forward maintenance team that deployed to work on the electronic attack aircraft. While mostly carrier-based, the Navy has deployed Growler squadrons to bases ashore to support joint missions, USNI News understands.
Her awards included two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, a Meritorious Unit Commendation, four Good Conduct Medals and the National Defense Service Medal.
Bils officially separated on Nov. 27, 2022, just over nine months after Russia invaded Ukraine. She was promoted to an E-7 chief aviation electronics technician, but left the service as an E-5. A Navy spokesman, when reached by USNI News on Monday, was unable to provide details on the demotion.
That’s enough for tonight.
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I’m going to need someone to explain this to me in the comments.
Open thread!
Gin & Tonic
It would be hi-fucking-larious if Sarah Bils collected donations from tankies to go to russia and just kept the money.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: That appears, on initial assessment, to be what happened.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman
A bunch of NAFO accounts have posted a selfie she posted, (not on her vatnik channels), with new $1500 Gucci sunglasses, and 6 shopping bags from high end, (Tiffany, etc) shops while wearing Dior during a shopping spree in Seattle.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: I think that fixed whatever was wrong with the embed. Here’s the whole tweet:
And here’s the full text of the tweet:
Jay
eg.
Jay
HumboldtBlue
The only source I have found so far is from TASS.
Captain C
@HumboldtBlue:
I mean, they could lay down their arms, police up their war criminals for the Ukrainians and the Hague, turn around, walk out of Ukraine, and sign over all their hard currency for reparations and rebuilding. That would end the war, if they’re really interested.
HumboldtBlue
@Captain C:
Agreed.
Traveller
I have not seen a better, more logically cohesive and understandable take down of the Sarah Bils situation…which is entirely astounding in its details. A person comes away from this with mouth agape, shaking their head, stunned by….well, it is all just beyond being believable fiction…but instead is very real life!
So thank you Adam for bringing this all together…which must have been considerable work…thank you again.
Cameron
“Devushka” sounds like a role in an old noir movie – super duper grifty and not right in the head. She seems to me to be really good (and appallingly energetic) at fleecing her marks, but she also seems to me to be crazy as a shitbug.
Gin & Tonic
@Cameron: It’s a very common russian word, like “mademoiselle” in French.
Carlo Graziani
@Captain C: Sure, but the change of tone is interesting for what it may reveal about the Russian view of the conflict. It will be interesting to see if Lavrov keeps this kind of thing up in a consistent messaging pattern. If so, then we’ll know that something has changed in how the Kremlin understands the future of the war, presumably because something they see has scared the shit out of them.
Of course, it could just be polite atmospherics designed for emollience to his Brazilian hosts.
Cameron
@Gin & Tonic: Sorry, I meant the person calling herself that, not the word itself. I should have been clearer.
central texas
And indeed, Mr. Putin is perfectly correct that time is on his side if our grand strategy is to prevent Ukraine defeating his armies in battle or disturbing his new colonies in the east of Ukraine. Odd that we did not mind destabilizing the USSR when it appeared that there were billions to be made in playing neo-liberal economic games with the pieces.
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
“Of course, it could just be polite atmospherics designed for emollience to his Brazilian hosts.”
That’s all it is. Both China, Brazil and a couple of other Countries, along with some Vatniks in the GrOpeR’s party have been talking about a “negotiated settlement” to the war.
Once you get past the “Peace” BS, what they mean is:
#1, Russia get’s to keep what they have stolen,
#2, Russia avoids War Crimes trials,
#3, Russia get’s sanctions lifted,
#4,Russia get’s to try again in a few years when they have rebuilt their MIC and economy,
Jay
Ruckus
@Captain C:
Russia is of course interested in winning. But that looks like a hard and very expensive road to be on and getting costlier every day. I suspect that a lot of folks in russia get this. even if vlad doesn’t. We know that he has cancer and is being treated. I wonder if he waited too long because he can’t have cancer…….. Wouldn’t that be a shame?
Adam L Silverman
@Carlo Graziani: My understanding from the news reporting over the past 14 months is that Lavrov is not in the loop. Whatever he says is meaningless.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: That’s a lot of something. And it’s very combustible.
Ruckus
@Jay:
That does not look like a house fire. It looks like a chemical fire. And I say this as someone who was one of the entry men on a fire crew in the event of a fire on board the Navy ship I was on for 2 yrs. Entry man is first in, carries a fire axe and first checks if it’s even possible to enter a compartment, then what is the possible burn profile and will you assholes behind me please keep me flooded with water spray so I don’t burn up like a roasted pig. Good times.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
you know how dangerous Russian cigarettes are,…..
#nottheonlythingburninginRussiatoday
Jay
twbrandt
Between the docs leak and this, it looks like the ANG has some ‘splainin to do. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/fbi-rent-a-hitman-site-nabbed-air-national-guardsman-who-was-excited-to-kill/
Jay
Cameron
@twbrandt: I’m hearing Frederic March saying, “Where do we get such men?”
Hangö Kex
re Bils, to speculate* : something went pear-shaped with her Navy career, she was demoted and forced to resign to avoid a dishonorable discharge. Bitter with this she didn’t mind a new gig not exactly aligned with US interests (and, in a way, she might actually have promoted those by diverting some money from being used against them to her personal use).
* irresponsible not to, right? :)
Tony G
“Donbass Devushka” from New Jersey. What a surrealistic world. Maybe I’ll run into her at the Paramus Park Mall one day.
Tony G
@Adam L Silverman: There are an awful lot of dumb, horny men out there. (Or so I’ve been told.)
Shalimar
@Hangö Kex: The timing doesn’t work. She already had her new gig mid-summer of last year. She was promoted mid-fall, then had to resign at the end of fall with the demotion. It seems likely her newfound devotion to Russia had something to do with her resignation.
Hangö Kex
@Shalimar: Quite so, now that you mention it.
Carlo Graziani
@Adam L Silverman: That’s certainly possible, likely, even. Nonetheless I’ll be looking to see if his lapse of truculence is persistent. If it did turn out to be so, it would certainly be messaging. Lavrov doesn’t need to be in the inner circle to say what he’s told to say, and I doubt very much that he has an independent streak.
West of the Rockies
@Ruckus:
Wait, Putin is confirmed to have cancer? What type? This is not just speculation?
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
it was said in part to feed the vatnik narrative that “Russia want’s peace, Ukraine doesn’t”.
See MTG,………
Jay
@West of the Rockies:
“leaked” “Pentagon” documents from the Discord leaks,……
Uncle Cosmo
Might it perchance be…bityumenous? :^p
Carlo Graziani
@Jay: To be clear: I am not attributing sincerity (please!) to Lavrov’s utterances. I am only noting an unusual change in his tone, ordinarily so manic-rabid, and wondering whether it means something. Exercise in tea-leaf reading, amateur Kremlinology, that’s all.
The nice thing about such occasions is that one can set up a “things to watch for” list. In this case, should the changed tone persist, it probably means something. Not a change of heart or purpose, by any means, but something to ponder.
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
he says basically the same thing, in the same tone, about Moscovia wanting peace, once a month, then spends the other 27 to 30 days rabidly foaming at the mouth.
It’s just vatnik fodder and bait for Moscovite outreach agitprop in other nations.
Basically, his mouth opens and lies come out, after all, he’s a Moscovite.
Ohio Mom
@West of the Rockies: A quick google shows many rumors of several different types of cancer reported by many different news outlets. I have never heard of most of these news outlets, except the New York Post (enough said).
Time will tell, especially if the rumors of pancreatic cancer pan out.
West of the Rockies
@Ohio Mom:
You probably noted that above Jay said the story is in the Discord intelligence leak.
I hope it’s true and that his prognosis is dire.
Jay
@Uncle Cosmo:
My NAFO connections tell me its Russia’s Strategic Copium stocks,…….
Jay
@West of the Rockies:
keep in mind that as far as we know, the Discord leaks, like Wikileaks contain real, doctored and faked documents,……
see Fucker Fishstick’s use of them, even after it had been widely reported that the numbers had been crudely doctored,…….
Chetan Murthy
@West of the Rockies: I also want to believe the bastard is not long for this world. But even CIA Dir Burns went on record saying “he’s not ill, c’mon man”. Why would he say that, unless he actually believed it? If there were any reason to believe Putler was deathly ill, we’d want to spread that around, right? Helps our side, right?
Frankensteinbeck
@Ohio Mom:
Jesus. That would put a sharp time limit on things, yeah. Maybe medical technology has advanced enough it’s no longer the case, but last I heard – when it killed my grandmother – pancreatic cancer was a fast, cruel, and certain way to die.
StringOnAStick
Isn’t collecting donations as she has done and claiming they were for charity and using them for personal enrichment a form of wire fraud, a federal offense? Something tells me this is just the start of her legal troubles, especially if she was actively violating US sanctions against Russia. Get her for all of it.
Jay
I’ll believe Putin is sick with cancer when Putin’s dead from cancer.
Jay
@StringOnAStick:
somebody who donated, has to “lay an information”, and so admit, based on where she claimed the money was going, putting themselves on the hook for violating sanctions.
It’s an almost perfect grift, stealing from people who can’t complain.
way2blue
I sometimes think the U.S. would fare better with some younger people in military leadership positions. Especially when looking at Ukrainian leadership.
Nonetheless, even if the U.S. continues to balk at sending F16s to Ukraine—why can’t we step out of the way if other countries will? Or if that’s too provocative—why not start training Ukrainian pilots to fly them? Start the clock ticking without yet putting them in the skies… Their logic escapes me.
Chetan Murthy
@way2blue: Perhaps it’s not all the US’ fault. Twice now (MIGs, then tanks) we’ve seen that our European allies will bluster a lot, but then when it comes time to act, will scamper behind the US and insist the US goes first. I saw a tweet just this AM about how a few years ago, our NATO allies with frigates (didn’t click-thru, so don’t know which country) felt it was too “escalatory” to put air-defense missiles on ’em. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has (ahem) changed their minds on this, but still, it’s shocking that they could find such a thing as problematic.
I could get angry, but then I remember that (as Brad Delong put it) we engineered this situation (taught them to rely on us for defense) *specifically* so that they would stop warring with each other And it worked! 70+ years now, since the last time an army crossed the Rhine river to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war, where previously back to 111 BC, it was every 37 years on average.
It’s still a PITA.
Uncle Cosmo
Sure was when it brought down a good friend a year my junior late last millennium.
Would that really be good for us? A guy like Vova, seething with resentment toward the West and the Ukrainians, watching his drive to reestablish Russia’s old Soviet borders plop into the shitter? The solipsist’s fundamental article of faith – When I die the world ends – takes on a particularly ominous tone coming from someone with a sense of impending doom plus the thermonuclear means to make it happen…
Uncle Cosmo
FTFY, and you’re very welcome!
SteverinoCT
To explain the E-7 to E-5 demotion process, I had an LPO go through that: in the Navy, at least, you can get “frocked” to the next pay grade before the actual promotion goes through. My guy was a first-class petty officer, E-6, passed the Chief’s test and the board. All that was waiting was the actual promotion, with pay etc. He was “initiated” as Chief, wore the uniform and was called “Chief”, all the perks. Then he screwed up: failed to pass a shipboard qualification in an egregious fashion. He went to Captain’s Mast and was busted a paygrade. Since he was only frocked, he went from effectively CPO (E-7) but actually E-6, down to E-5, Petty Officer Second Class. He stayed in, but transferred to another submarine.
I suspect that’s what happened to PO Bils.
UncleEbeneezer
Figured this might be one for tonight’s post (or maybe another Black Psyop post):
U.S. Citizens and Russian Intelligence Officers Charged with Conspiring to Use U.S. Citizens as Illegal Agents of the Russian Government Defendants Sought to Sow Discord, Spread Pro-Russia Propaganda and Interfere in Elections Within the United States: