Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 825: The Bombardment of Kharkiv and Sumy Continues

War for Ukraine Day 825: The Bombardment of Kharkiv and Sumy Continues

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Painting by NEIVANMADE. It has a white background an in the center are Soldiers in green doing air defense by firing at incoming Russian missiles in the upper right. The missiles are red and yellow. In the upper left, written in green, is the text: "SAVE THE BRAVEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!" Below the Soldiers, also written in green, is "SUPPORT FOR KHARKIV"

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

A quick housekeeping note: Rosie is doing very well with the time off. Ruby is also back to herself. Thank you all again for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations. They are greatly appreciated.

I’m going to try to keep tonight’s post on the shorter side.

Kharkiv:

Last night, russian troops launched an attack on the village of Borova in the Izium district of Kharkiv Oblast, deploying aerial bombs and MLRS. About 150 apartments and 50 private houses were damaged, with three houses were engulfed in flames. A 70-year-old man was injured.
#LetUkraineStrikeBack

Sumy:

From The Kyiv Independent:

Russian forces attacked Sumy Oblast 81 times in 23 separate attacks throughout the day, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported on May 28.

The communities of Bilopillia, Khotin, Krasnopillia, Velyka Pysarivka, Berezivka, Seredyna-Buda, Novoslobidske, Putyvl, Hlukhiv, and Esman, were targeted.

Throughout the day, Russia assailed the border communities with mortar, drone, and artillery attacks, while also dropping explosives from drones onto a community.

No casualties or injuries were reported.

The town of Velyka Pysarivka, located about 3 kilometers west of the Ukraine-Russia border, experienced the bulk of the attacks reported with 19 explosions recorded in the area.

Given the town’s proximity to Russia, Velyka Pysarivka has become a main target of attack for Russia over recent months. Much of the community’s infrastructure has been destroyed by Russian attacks.

Russian strikes against Sumy Oblast have become increasingly destructive in recent months. Amid intensified attacks, Ukrainian authorities ordered increased evacuations from the region.

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on May 14 he expects Russia to launch a new attack in Sumy Oblast once the situation in Kharkiv Oblast stabilized, the New York Times reported.

Officials from Ukraine’s Border Guard service later said that Russia does not have enough troops on the Sumy Oblast border to launch a major attack on the region.

Shelling is a daily occurrence for the communities near Ukraine’s northeastern border with Russia, with residents in the region’s vulnerable border settlements experience multiple attacks per day.

President Zelenskyy is still traveling. Today he was in Portugal. Here is the video of his joint press conference with Portuguese PM Luís Montenegro.

The cost:

Kateryna Zakoretska, a soldier from the Lyubotynsk community, died at the front.
In 2013, she signed a contract with the ZSU. She served in the air defense forces, protecting the sky over Kharkiv region.

The 34-year-old defender died on May 16 as a result of an enemy rocket attack. An 8-year-old son was left without his mother

Machine translation of the Russian language reporting from CurrentTimeTV:

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation confirmed that the Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roschina, who disappeared in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhya region, was detained and is in Russia. This is stated in the response of the department to the appeal of her father, writes edition of Graty”. Nothing has been known about Victoria for almost nine months.

“According to reports, Roschina Victoria Vladimirovna < … > is detained and is currently located on the territory of the Russian Federation,” – is said in a letter from the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Where exactly is the journalist, what she is suspected or accused of, the agency does not specify.

After the appearance of this information, the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War established the status of “plen” on the site, the publication notes.

Lithuania:

NATO:

“It is the most difficult time in this war since the first days and weeks of the war” in Ukraine, says NATO Secretary General @jensstoltenberg. He’s arguing for Ukraine to be permitted by allies supplying weapons to strike Russia inside their territory: “Self-defense includes also the right to strike targets outside Ukraine, including legitimate military targets in Russia.”

For want of a nail:

It has been reported by BILD that when Ukraine used Patriot missiles against Russian aerial vehicles in Bryansk back in May 13, 2023, where in a matter of minutes two Russian Mil Mi-8, one Su-34 and one Su-35 were blown out of the Russian sky, that Berlin and Washington were furious. They threatened to stop deliveries if this repeats.

Unbelievable, and, yet, it explains a lot. It proves once again, how wrong decision-making in Western capitals prolongs this war. Russia is vulnerable, it can be defeated, but Ukraine is not allowed to fight back, properly, while Russian bombs hit shopping centers, kindergartens and residential areas.

This has to stop, now!

France:

Macron gets it!

The Czech Republic:

⚡️Shells within the “Czech initiative” will arrive in Ukraine in June – Petr Fiala, PM of Czechia.

€1,6 billion was raised to buy shells within the initiative, Prime Minister said.

The first of them will arrive “within days.”

So thankful to Czechia and everyone who contributed to the initiative!

Holland:

Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren supports allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory with Western weapons.

“It is quite obvious that Ukrainians should strike inside Russia as well, so from my point of view, this should not be a subject of discussion, and I hope that other states that have a different position will change it,”
@DefensieMin
said before the meeting of EU defense ministers.

Ollongren emphasized that Ukraine has the right to use all means to defend itself and restore its territorial integrity.

The minister added that Ukraine is now fighting “with one hand tied behind its back.”

The Netherlands, together with its allies, is also trying to assemble a Patriot system for Ukraine.

Before the meeting of the EU defense ministers, the Minister of Defense said that several states should build a single air defense system, showing creativity, as Ukrainians do.

The official emphasized that she wants the assembled Patriot system to be delivered to Ukraine “as soon as possible.”

According to Ollongren, “very specific negotiations” are underway and are almost complete.

https://english.defensie.nl/latest/news/2024/05/28/the-netherlands-spearheads-initiative-to-jointly-deliver-patriot-system-for-ukraine-calls-on-other-european-nations-to-contribute

Vovochansk, Kharkiv Oblast:

Lyptsi, Kharkiv direction:

Simple heroism. Such footage is not often seen because it is not always possible to shoot it from a drone.

In this video, the soldiers of the 13th Khartiia National Guard Brigade evacuate a brother-in-arms from the village of Lyptsi, Kharkiv direction of the frontlines, under fierce fire of Russian artillery shells.

Our Warriors make the impossible look easy. But they are humans, and they need the tools to do their jobs. They deserve the world’s utmost respect, support, and having their hands untied.

📹: 13th Khartiia National Guard Brigade

Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast:

Novomykhailivka:

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets today. Here is some adjacent material.

Night vision device.

 

Yorna, a German Shepherd dog, detects mines. She has been working with Border Guards in Odesa region for over three years and has received many awards for her achievements.

Yorna joined the service as a 6-month-old puppy. She is being cared for by dog handler Artem. He is very proud of her.

📸: State Border Guard Service of Ukraine

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

12Comments

  1. 1.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Perhaps the US & Germany were afraid that Ukraine might accidentally shoot down a Russian airliner? OTOH, the range of the Patriot SAM is only 160 km, should be fairly easy for Russian ATC to diver civilian traffic a bit further north & west. Or is the fear that Putin might put a Russian airline deliberately in harm’s way?

  2. 2.

    hrprogressive

    Tatarigami is right, and I really wish more people with the platforms to also say it, would say it.

  3. 3.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Update on the temporary pier at Gaza:

    Gaza Aid Pier Lasted Less Than Two Weeks Before Breaking Apart
    The Trident Pier broke apart in rough seas with pieces of it and boats used to support it being scattered along the coastline.
    BY HOWARD ALTMAN| PUBLISHED MAY 28, 2024 3:58 PM EDT

    TL:DR, it will take a while before it might be back in operation. Also a reminder why amphibious invasions are so challenging. The sea state in the Taiwan Strait is fairly rough except for several weeks in the year (though clearly ferries, cargo ships & fishing boats operate there year round).

  4. 4.

    M Hall

    First time poster, long time reader.

    I just came across some startling information on the Krebs on Security website about Starlink/Wi-Fi routers/Apple devices exposing geolocation data. Google does similar, possibly to a lesser effect?

    Wondering if Uk security services know about this.

    Also curious why almost the entirety of China shows no geolocated access points.

    Apparently there is a way to avoid broadcasting the location information [“by appending “_nomap” to the end of the Wi-Fi access point’s name (SSID)”] but this remedy is not so well known.

    Curious to know what the more experienced researchers on this forum think the battlefield ramifications of this easily discoverable device geolocation data could be.

    Source:
    “Why Your Wi-Fi Router Doubles as an Apple AirTag”
    krebsonsecurity.com/2024/05/why-your-wi-fi-router-doubles-as-an-apple-airtag/#more-67551

    “Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geo-locate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data from Apple to track the location of billions of devices globally — including non-Apple devices like Starlink systems — and found they could use this data to monitor the destruction of Gaza, as well as the movements and in many cases identities of Russian and Ukrainian troops.”

    “The researchers said that by zeroing in on or “geofencing” other smaller regions indexed by Apple’s location API, they could monitor how Wi-Fi access points moved over time. Why might that be a big deal? They found that by geofencing active conflict zones in Ukraine, they were able to determine the location and movement of Starlink devices used by both Ukrainian and Russian forces.”

  5. 5.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @M Hall: Nothing visible (at least via open source, presumably the NSA has their own means) in the PRC is probably because of the Great China Firewall, as well as PRC regulations that restrict sending domestic information outside of the country. Apple may have a view on the locations of access points w/in the PRC, but only via its data center partner in the country, as all of the data is stored in the country.

  6. 6.

    Bill Arnold

    @M Hall:
    Ah good. Read the paper from arxiv a little while back. This section about their threat model is also interesting; a high-resource adversary could do more.
    Surveilling the Masses with Wi-Fi-Based Positioning Systems (Erik Rye, Dave Levin, arxiv, 23 May 2024)

    4.1. Threat Model – We assume an unprivileged, low-resource adversary who has no prior knowledge of in-use BSSIDs. The adversary need not have a device from any particular manufacturer (e.g., Apple or Google), nor does it need to be geographically proximal to any specific target. The central goal of the attacker we consider is to gather location and movement data about a large number of devices, either globally or pertaining to a specific region of interest. Such information gathering can enable a wide range of information-leaking attacks; we present several such case studies in §8.

  7. 7.

    Jay

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    A properly run AD system will use IFF and other means to properly ID an enemy target.

    The US and Germany shit their pants because Ukraine wasn’t “geofenced” and the US and Germany suck Putin’s cock, gargle his balls and rim his ass,  and then ask for more, out of fear of empty ruZZian threats.

  10. 10.

    Jay

    Both Perun and Laser Pig have new  YouTube vids up.

    Perun on Putin’s current Purges,

    Laser Pig on “How to kill a God”. (Putin)

  11. 11.

    Bill Arnold

    Enthusiastic colorful Vox piece on the State Department’s INR:
    The obscure federal intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right – INR is “almost always right.” How come nobody has heard of it? (Vox, Dylan Matthews, May 28, 2024)

    Every American knows what the CIA is. I would guess that maybe 1 in 1,000 have ever heard of INR — the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, American diplomats’ in-house intelligence agency.
    But if you do know about INR, you probably know two things:
    It has gotten big stuff right when the CIA and others screwed up.
    When it got that big stuff right, no one listened to it.
    INR is the Cassandra of American intelligence, and it earned that reputation the hard way.

Comments are closed.