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The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

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

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

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

Please don’t feed the bears.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Everybody saw this coming.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 964: Russia Ups the Terrorization of Ukrainians

War for Ukraine Day 964: Russia Ups the Terrorization of Ukrainians

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A painting by Ukrainian artist NEIVANMADE. The words "NEVER AGAIN" are repeated over and over, from left to right and top to bottom, in a faded, washed out black against a white background. Red, the color of blood, runs and drips down across 2/3rds of the painting. "WHILE YOU TOLERATE TYRANTS" is written/painted in the bottom white corner below the three rows of "NEVER AGAIN".

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

A quick housekeeping note: We’re still safe and sound at the hotel. The power company is still estimating 17 OCT for restoration, so we’ll sit tight until it’s restored. No point going home if we have no power. The girls are curled up on the bed with me as I type this.

I’m going to just run through the basics again tonight. I’ll deal with the new Kofman assessment tomorrow or sometime this week.

The Russians have decided to use a different way to terrorize Ukrainians today: bomb threats!

The Kyiv Independent has the details:

Hundreds of Ukrainian schools, businesses, embassies, and media outlets, including the Kyiv Independent, received bomb threats via email on Oct. 14, prompting evacuations of state institutions.

The threats appeared to be connected to a recent investigation conducted by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) into Russian security services’ sabotage efforts in Ukraine.

“I have planted several explosive devices in your building, and very soon it will explode,” the email received by the Kyiv Independent said.

The email, while otherwise vague as to “your building,” did list some other addresses as targets, including the RFE/RL office and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. The threats lead authorities to carry out searches for explosives at a number of organizations, RFE/RL reported.

The police did not find any evidence of an explosive device at the outlet’s office in Kyiv.

The sender claimed to represent a “terrorist group” and said that three of RFE/RL’s investigative journalists should consider themselves responsible for the attack. The group’s name matches that of an anti-Ukrainian Telegram channel that disseminates calls to set fire to cars belonging to Ukrainian military personnel.

RFE/RL’s investigative project, Schemes, published a report on Oct. 10 documenting how Russian security services recruit Ukrainians, including minors, to burn cars belonging to military personnel and conscription center representatives.

The journalists who authored the report were those named in the threatening email.

“We will not be intimidated and stand behind our reporters who will continue to bring news to Ukrainian audiences without fear or favor,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said.

Capus pledged to cooperate with authorities in investigating the incident.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

This Week, We Will Present to All Our Partners in Europe Our Strategy for Compelling Russia to Bring This War to a Just End – Address by the President

14 October 2024 – 18:48

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

A brief summary of the day. A long report by Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi – the frontline and especially the Pokrovsk direction. The Kursk operation and our vision of further actions on the foothold.

I held a meeting of the Staff. Several issues. Among the most important was the report of the intelligence services – the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine – on the intentions of the Russians for the fall and winter. Everything was quite detailed. The actual involvement of North Korea in the war. Also, Russia’s relations with some other countries, that, unfortunately, are investing in prolonging the war. Also, the direction of foreign policy: our relations with partners and possible steps that can help us defend ourselves and achieve results despite everything. I thank our intelligence, all the specialists involved for the full picture. In return, I have given specific tasks to the Defense Forces, the Security Forces, the Government and our diplomats. Whoever helps Russia, we will respond as toughly as necessary to defend Ukraine. There will be respective work with our partners to ensure that Russia’s intentions do not work. And it is possible. This is exactly what will happen.

Today, Deputy Prime Minister Stefanishyna delivered a report on the negotiations in Washington and other capitals at the team level on the geopolitical point of our Victory Plan. The military officials are working at their levels with our partners on the military points. This week, we will present to all our partners in Europe our strategy for compelling Russia to bring this war to a just end. Of course, the Victory Plan will be made public. Moreover, along with the initial response we have received from our partners. And all of us in Ukraine really need maximum support.

And one more thing.

There was a report by Oleksandr Kamyshin on our production, domestic production and supply to the army. As of today, there are already one million drones that have been purchased at state expense and delivered to the front. And this is only the state’s contribution. There are also supplies from volunteers, from all those who support us. I want to thank everyone who makes our army technologically advanced: all Ukrainian manufacturers, our entire state sector, all partners who invest in the production of drones in Ukraine. We will continue increasing this supply, and the main thing is that technological development helps us protect our warriors’ lives.

I thank everyone who stands with Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!

From The Kyiv Independent:

Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted a bill to the State Duma, published online on Oct. 14, to ratify a treaty entailing strategic partnership with North Korea.

Among the tenets of the treaty is a stipulation that either country must provide military assistance to the other in the case of an attack.

The treaty was first signed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June 2024. The defense pact officially enters into effect when both nations ratify the agreement.

Moscow and Pyongyang have deepened military cooperation as Russia seeks arms and other support in its full-scale war against Ukraine. In recent weeks, claims of a more direct North Korean presence in Ukraine have increased.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Oct. 14 announced that Russia plans to involve North Korea directly in the full-scale war against Ukraine in the coming months.

According to Ukraine’s military intelligence, Russia’s plans for the fall and winter include “the actual involvement of North Korea in the war,” Zelensky said.

The previous day, Zelensky warned of Russia’s “increasing alliance” with North Korea, saying the partnership had moved beyond an arms deal and is now “actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying military forces.”

Zelensky’s statement followed reports that several North Korean officers had been killed in a Ukrainian missile strike in occupied Ukraine. The Kyiv Independent has not been able to verify these reports, which have not been confirmed beyond a single intelligence source.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-Hyun told lawmakers in early October that North Korea was likely planning to send troops to Ukraine to fight alongside Russia. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Oct. 10 dismissed these reports as “fake news.”

The agreement signed by Putin and Kim bears similarities to historical treaties. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency noted in June that Article 4 of the treaty, which discusses the obligation to render military assistance, replicates wording from Article 1 of the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance signed by North Korea and the Soviet Union in 1961.

in his evening address, President Zelenskyy said that North Korea factually joined the war against Ukraine.

So this is it then. We will be at war against the entire axis of evil, while our military potential remains restricted and military assistance inadequate, as the world still fears escalation.
But if this isn’t escalation, what is? And what will the world do when it runs out of Ukrainians to defend it?

Serhiy Leschenko, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, spent some time today debunking more Russian propaganda:

The cost:

Hromadske has the obituary:

Former hromadske journalist, 27-year-old Viktoria Roshchyna, died in Russian captivity. The Russian authorities claim that this happened during the transfer from Taganrog to Moscow.

Viktoria Roschyna worked for hromadske for more than five years. She was one of those journalists who do not wait for an editorial assignment. As soon as something was happening, Viktoria was already there. At rallies, skirmishes, sites of murders. She took on the most difficult challenges, loved law enforcement topics, attended high-profile and important court sessions. Time and geography were unimportant to her – at any moment, Viktoria was ready to go on a business trip even before she was told to go. She had no days off, holidays, or sick leave.

From 2017 to 2022, Viktoria conducted dozens of streams on hromadske – from outside government buildings and courtrooms, met national guardsman Vitaliy Markiv from captivity, political prisoners Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko, live on the air, shot films and wrote articles on various topics.

On February 23, 2022, Viktoria was in Shchastia, Luhansk Oblast. She went there on the eve of the full-scale invasion, because she understood that something was about to happen, so she travelled closer to the front line.

With the beginning of a full-scale war, Viktoria filmed videos and wrote articles from hot spots in the east and south of Ukraine. In the first two weeks, she managed to make a report from Hulyaipole, which was under constant fire at that time, and from Zaporizhzhia, which the Russians were approaching; to talk with the evacuated residents of Volnovakha and tell the world how the temporarily occupied Enerhodar lives.

Then Viktoria prepared pieces about the military operations in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk oblasts and planned to go to Mariupol to report what was really happening in the city, which was already encircled.

On March 16, we learned that she was detained by the Russians on the way to Mariupol and imprisoned in the colony of temporarily occupied Berdyansk. On March 21, she was released. Viktoria wrote the column “A week in the captivity of the occupiers. How I got out of the hands of the FSB, Kadyrovites and Dagestanis” about that experience. Immediately after her release, Viktoria still made a story about Mariupol, talking to the evacuated residents who were in Berdyansk at that time.

Later, she started working as a freelancer for various newsrooms in order to have more freedom in where she goes and what she covers. She visited the occupied territories and wrote reports from there.

On August 3, 2023, Vika went missing in the temporarily occupied territories. Only in May 2024, Russia confirmed for the first time that it was holding her captive.

On October 10, her death was reported. Petro Yatsenko, the spokesman of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said that Viktoria was being prepared for exchange, but “unfortunately, we failed to do it in time”: “The fact that she was being transferred from Taganrog to Moscow was the stage of her preparation for release”.

We were really looking forward to the day of Viktoria’s release. But there will be neither a stream nor a happy return story.

However, hundreds of her articles remain. They meant a lot to her. They were her life and a part of her.

Click through to read the whole thing.

The reason:

The Vatican:

I like Pope Francis, especially compared to his two predecessors, but sometimes it might make sense to either be more explicit about what is going on or to say nothing at all.

Germany:

From The Financial Times:

Germany narrowly avoided a plane crash earlier this year after a parcel destined for an aircraft’s hold burst into flames before the flight in a suspected act of sabotage, one of the country’s spy chiefs has said as he warned of a dramatic increase in “aggressive behaviour” by Russian agents.

Thomas Haldenwang, head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, said that only a lucky coincidence meant that the package caught fire on the ground at a DHL logistics centre in Leipzig and not in mid-air. He did not say if it was a passenger or freight plane.

Haldenwang told a parliamentary committee at the German Bundestag that if the package had ignited during the flight, “it would have resulted in a crash”.

While he did not name the suspected perpetrators, the German news agency DPA said security services were working on the assumption that the attack was connected to Russia. It was not clear to whom the parcel was sent.

Appearing before members of parliament, Haldenwang and other German spy chiefs issued the latest western warning that the Kremlin had significantly stepped up its destabilisation efforts, with attempted acts of espionage and sabotage increasing “both quantitatively and qualitatively” in Germany.

“We are observing aggressive behaviour by the Russian intelligence services,” he said, adding that Moscow was “putting people’s lives at risk”. He warned: “It affects all areas of our free society.”

Bruno Kahl, head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, said the Kremlin’s willingness to take covert action had reached a “previously unknown level”.

Putin was likely to “test the west’s red lines”, he added, saying that there was a large risk of further escalation in the stand-off between Nato and Russia following Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Martina Rosenberg, head of the Germany’s military counter-intelligence service, said she was alarmed by attempts by foreign intelligence services to spy on the country’s armed forces.

Rosenberg said there were efforts to glean information about German arms deliveries to Ukraine, as well as training projects. Germany is one of the biggest international suppliers of weapons to Kyiv and is also home to a series of camps where Ukrainian soldiers learn to operate western military equipment. Moscow, she added, was also seeking to “create a sense of insecurity through acts of sabotage”.

The revelations by the German spy chiefs follow similar warnings from other western intelligence agencies about the activities of Russia and other hostile states on European soil.

The head of Britain’s MI5, Ken McCallum, said last week that Russia was on a “mission to generate mayhem” on Britain’s streets and that Iran was fomenting lethal plots at “an unprecedented pace and scale”.

More at the link.

The Kursk cross border offensive:

Russian military complain that in the rear of the Kursk region, on their supply and evacuation roads, someone suddenly decided to set up anti-tank barriers, “dragon’s teeth.”

Which led to the injuries and deaths of dozens of Russian servicemen. As one of the Russian sources says:

“On the evacuation routes where cars rush from fpv drones at 150 km/h.
Without any identification marks. More than 40 people died in just one day, the same number is injured. More accidents in an hour than fpv records in a week.”

Here’s a detailed assessment of the Kursk cross border offensive:

Assessment of the situation in Kursk direction

In the last few days, the Russians have continued successful attacks against the western flank of the Ukrainian-controlled area in Kursk. The Ukrainian defences were breached and Russian troops were able to push relatively deep. 1/Image

Let’s take a brief look at the recent developments.

Russians have carried out multiple counterattacks in Kursk in September and October. The first major success was opening the land route between Glushkovo and Korenevo. For Ukraine, this was a problematic setback. 2/ 

From the Russian perspective, it was a pragmatic move, which was likely to happen at some point. It reduced the risk of Ukrainians cutting off and capturing Glushkovo and the area south of Seym river, as the supply didn’t solely depend on temporary bridges anymore. 3/ 
However, the risk of losing Glushkovo was rather low to begin with. Even with coordinated strikes against bridges, the Russians should be able to supply a bridgehead of this size in all situations. If it failed to do so, it’d be an interesting data point of their capabilities. 4/ 
Soon after this, the Russians started to push the Ukrainians back on the eastern flank of the bulge. Ukrainians lost the village of Borki and some other positions, but managed to hold Plekhovo. The changes in the frontlines weren’t as dramatic as in the western flank. 5/ 
In the last few days, the Russians have continued their advance. Russian troops have been geolocated as far as Zelenyi Shlyakh, where they have possibly also retaken some fortifications they lost in August. However, it’s unclear what positions they’ve actually managed to hold. 6/Image
Stabilizing the situation seems difficult. Ukraine has lost roughly a third of what they controlled in Kursk at the beginning of September – from over 1000 km2 to less than 700 km2. There are some uncertainties such as Olgovka, but the trend is clear. A lot has been lost. 7/ 
There are some challenges in the terrain of the western flank. There’s some forest patches and treelines here and there, but the area is mostly dominated by large open fields with a limited natural cover. Especially without proper fortifications, defending it can be difficult. 8/ 
The size of the area allows it to be monitored more effectively with Russian UAVs, and destroying any engineering equipment is likely a priority for the Russians. Possibly because of this, we haven’t seen many new fortifications appear in the Ukrainian-controlled area. 9/ 
While Russia has continued its counteroperations, Ukraine launched an attack towards Glushkovo. However, it began after the Russians had already opened the land route to Korenevo. It is unclear what conditions for success the Ukrainians assumed the operation would have. 10/ 
The attack in Glushkovo has not made very much progress. A couple of villages were captured, but advancing further north has proved to be difficult, and there likely won’t be rapid changes. The Russians claim they have pushed Ukraine back in this direction too. 11/ 

In the near future, I’ll analyse the operation from other angles. In brief: I still don’t think it’s a great success.

Our team at the @Black_BirdGroup continues to follow the war. Our interactive map can be found here. 12/12

Kherson Oblast:

This is how Putin has had the Russian educational system remade over the past fifteen years or so.

Kurakove, Pokrovsk Raion:

🇺🇦🩺 IT WAS MY HOME.

Kurakove City Hospital was where @ngo_ra_ worked in anonymity.

We didn’t reveal the location until today.

Today, russia dropped 4 FAB bombs on it.

For now, all I will say is this:

Those four walls and the people in it gave me far more gifts than I was ever able to give in return.

🙏💔

Kyiv:

Odesa:

Russia continues attacking Odesa, killing civilians, damaging civilian vessels and wrecking port infrastructure.

Today, Russia killed one person and injured 8 more with a ballistic strike on Odesa.

Civilian vessels were damaged: the Belize-flagged NS Moon and the Palauan-flagged cargo ship OPTIMA. A week ago, the OPTIMA vessel was already damaged by ballistic missile fire, its crew members were injured.

In addition, the attack damaged a grain warehouse, cranes, warehouses, machinery, buildings of the Sea Ports Authority branch, and cars.

Russia continues to undermine the work of the grain corridor, resorting to its regular food terrorism tactics.

📹: a coffee point in Odesa during a missile attack

Russia:

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos today. Here is the next episode in his official animated series:

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

13Comments

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Chief Oshkosh: The infuriating thing is that Francis and the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, are (or were) actually pretty close friends dating back to when both were working in Buenos Aires. This feigned “balance” must be boiling Shevchuk.

  5. 5.

    strange visitor (from another planet)

    sooo, if it’s ok for north korea to join the hostilities, why can’t the french or the WP of poland?

  7. 7.

    Harrison Wesley

    Glad you’re keeping it safe and sound, Adam.  I saw this morning that there might be another hurricane getting set to roll in the western Carribean.  Hope not.

  8. 8.

    Jay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    there is a fuck ton of people, politicians, so called leaders and media when describing events in Ukraine can’t say the word ruZZia, not just the Pope.

  9. 9.

    Yutsano

    @strange visitor (from another planet): If/ when Poland gets in* the war will change rapidly. The real unknown question is will Poland invoke Article 5 of NATO when they are inevitably attacked. I’m not sure what happens then.

    *Poland is allowed to act in its own interests regardless of what NATO would want. I see that happening at some point. Poland does not need another Russian puppet state on its border.

  10. 10.

    KatKapCC

    I like Pope Francis, especially compared to his two predecessors

    l mean, particularly with the dude right before him, it would be tough to be worse. But good G-d Francis! His comments are like seeing someone stuck outside in a rainstorm and handing them one of those little paper umbrellas from a cocktail.

  11. 11.

    Andrya

    Adam, thanks so much for doing this, I’m so glad that you and yours are safe, and I hope you can return home soon.

    I do have a question for you:  are you familiar with Prof. Darin Gerdes, who does daily Ukraine war updates on YouTube?  If you are familiar with his work, do you consider him reliable?  (So far as I can tell, he has been accurate.). He’s a conservative Evangelical (an anti-Trumper) but his heart seems to be in the right place.

  12. 12.

    wjca

    “I have planted several explosive devices in your building, and very soon it will explode,” the email received by the Kyiv Independent said.

    How very Russian (not!) to give warning so as to avoid casualties.

Comments are closed.