(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Russia bombarded Zaporizhia today with glide bombs.
Just so everyone is aware, some of the videos and imagery below includes emergency personnel tending to the wounded.
How long will the world keep watching, tolerating, and trying to ‘understand’ Russia’s feelings while it keeps killing Ukrainians every day? Glide bombs hit Zaporizhzhia. Don’t look away—this is a modern European city, like any other.
— Maria Avdeeva (@mariainkharkiv.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Zaporizhzhia right now‼️
Russia struck the city, killing at least 1 and injuring at least 2 others
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 9:34 AM
13 civilians have been reported killed, and dozens injured in a russian air attack on Zaporizhzhia.
— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 11:17 AM
The number of injured people in the Russian glide bomb attack on Zaporizhzhia has increased to 30. At least one person has died.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 10:17 AM
13 people gone.
Please don’t look away. Watch the video and share it. I don’t know how else to get attention—russia is murdering us.
Zaporizhzhia today 🕯
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 10:56 AM
“What did I see? A tram, a burning car, people lying without legs, the wounded, black smoke rising, screams everywhere, and no one around.”
This is how a witness described the horrifying aftermath of a deadly russian airstrike on Zaporizhzhia.
— Iryna Voichuk (@irynavoichuk.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
We Must Not Waste a Single Day – We Must Put Pressure on Moscow, We Must Force Russia into Peace – Address by the President
8 January 2025 – 20:27
Dear Ukrainians!
A rescue operation is currently underway in Zaporizhzhia. Russian bombs hit the city, directly targeting civilians. Sadly, 13 people have been killed. My condolences to their families and loved ones. 32 people have been wounded, and all are receiving help. This was a direct attack on the city, on ordinary people. An absolutely deliberate strike by the Russian army. This shows once again what Russia truly seeks. They want only war, and only victims. That is why we must not waste a single day – we must put pressure on Moscow, we must force Russia into peace, we must continue doing everything necessary to protect lives and stop deaths. And at the same time, it is crucial to maintain the unity of all our partners, America and Europe, all our partners around the world who are helping us. Tomorrow, I will attend a meeting in the Ramstein format; and talks with partners, at the level of defense ministers and military commanders, are also planned. Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Umerov is already in Germany and has begun his first meetings. Ukraine’s key priority is to further strengthen our air defense, to give Ukraine the ability to at least push Russian military aircraft away from our cities and borders. This is realistic if our partners now finally implement the agreements we have been discussing for a long time. I am grateful to everyone who is helping Ukraine. Of course, we will discuss with our partners how our defense coalitions will continue to operate in 2025. Europe has only one choice, and it is a historic one, to become stronger, to become more independent, to rely more on itself. We must be mature in this world and be ready to make our own European contribution to global security. This will be the right thing to do for everyone in Europe.
Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi reported today on our long-range strikes, on our army’s efforts against Russian military logistics and their military facilities. I am grateful to each of our warriors for their precision.
Today, I held several international talks. Moldova – Maia Sandu. Of course, the most important thing is to help Moldova get through a difficult period of energy challenges, to prevent Moscow from stirring up social tensions. The entire current energy situation in Moldova – including on the left bank of the Dnister River – is Russia’s attempt to manipulate energy resources against the Moldovan authorities. We are ready to help Moldova, in particular, with coal. It is crucial to maintain stability and provide all the people of Moldova with the conditions they need to live in peace and work for their country, eliminate poverty, and support our joint movement toward the European Union.
I spoke today with the Amir of Qatar. I thanked him for supporting our humanitarian efforts, for participating in the implementation of our Peace Formula points, especially regarding the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia and the exchange of prisoners. We must free all our people. Of course, we also discussed the current global situation and exchanged views on possible changes. I also have just spoken with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. I thanked him for his support of our state and for our cooperation. We are working at all levels to provide Ukraine with as many opportunities as possible. These opportunities are not just for us, but for everyone who values peace and human life.
Glory to Ukraine!
The US:
This is terrible. Speaking as someone who is living through the invasion right now: you really don’t understand what you are saying, and you should all stop making jokes about it.
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 9:03 AM
Where are all the WW3 prophets when the USA threatens its neighbors?
Or are they only worried about WW3 when Ukraine is defending itself?
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 9:08 AM
Another shonda.
If the next US government normalises the idea of absorbing territory by force – even if this is justified as some sort of lunatic diplomatic gambit – it makes it more likely that China will believe that the US will ultimately stand aside during an invasion of Taiwan.
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Perhaps more importantly:
New: After an eighteen-month investigation, @theins.press has uncovered new evidence suggesting that Russia’s GRU paid tens of millions of dollars to the Taliban to target American, coalition, and Afghan military forces. Unit 29155 was behind this operation.
theins.press/en/politics/…— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 12:05 PM
From The Insider: (emphasis mine)
The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, spent years financing terrorist groups in Afghanistan to target U.S. and coalition forces. An investigation by The Insider has not only confirmed the existence of the program but also identified GRU officers responsible for its coordination. The Russian intelligence agency used a gemstone trading company as a front to run a network of Afghan couriers who delivered money to Taliban fighters and other militant groups. Once their missions were completed, the couriers were provided with Russian documents and granted asylum in Russia.
Sam heard the explosion at Bagram Airbase at around five or six o’clock in the morning. Right away he knew this wasn’t the usual round of mortar or rocket attack. “I can’t remember if the sirens went off at that point, but everyone was getting their kit on, grabbing a weapon.” An American Army officer stationed at the largest U.S. military installation in occupied Afghanistan, Sam (not his real name) recalls hearing Bagram’s first responders rushing to the scene of the blast. A big delivery truck jerry-rigged with thousands of pounds of explosives had just crashed into a wall which encircled an abandoned and unguarded Korean-built hospital outside of the main gate of Bagram, leaving a crater fifteen feet in diameter. It was December 11, 2019.
Then a second truck offloaded a squad of machine gun-wielding insurgents, some in suicide vests. They barricaded themselves inside the hospital, baiting Bagram’s defenders to try and clear a building that was now a dynamic booby trap. Instead, the hospital was cordoned off, and a company-sized element of multinational soldiers, including those from the U.S.-trained Afghan National Security Forces, fired into it. They were supported by helicopter gunships. The main battle was over by noon, but the attack didn’t culminate until two F-16s dropped “at least” two 500-pound bombs on the building. “We bombed our own base,” Sam said. “At least one suicide attacker survived badly concussed and tried to flee on foot. He was taken out by a sniper.”
Four U.S. personnel were injured. The impact of the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device shattered houses in the neighboring area, killing two Afghan civilians and injuring 80 more civilians. “It could have gone very differently had the VBIED hit close by,” Sam recalled. “That could have created an opening into the special operations side of the base. The carnage would have been much greater had they opted not to hole up in the hospital.”
That December 2019 attack, along with several others, was carried out by militants of the once and future Islamist government of Afghanistan, but it was financed by a foreign spy agency. After an eighteen-month investigation, The Insider and its partners have uncovered new evidence suggesting that Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, paid tens of millions of dollars to the Taliban in Afghanistan to target American, coalition, and Afghan military forces. GRU Unit 29155, the near-ubiquitous black ops team behind a series of bombings and poisonings in NATO countries, was behind this operation as well. The existence of the plot was first disclosed by U.S. intelligence and reported on by The New York Times a year before the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. At the time, it was couched as a “bounties” program.
According to Douglas London, the CIA’s chief for counterterrorism in south and southwest Asia from 2016 to 2018, “The Russians wanted the Taliban to spend more time killing Americans and less time killing Afghans. They relied on financial awards from Russian funding to encourage fighters to incur the greater risks in attacking the U.S. rather than Afghan targets. Russia’s intent with the Taliban evolved from minimal assistance and cooperation to proactively bleeding the United States.”
According to former Afghan and American intelligence officials, the GRU-Taliban program involved, at first, the recruitment of indigenous Afghan assets. Then it graduated to weapons and ammunition flows to the Taliban via neighboring Tajikistan, where Russia maintains its largest extraterritorial garrison. Finally, it led to money transfers to incentivize insurgent attacks on the occupying army. The former NDS officials said their investigation had linked at least 17 attacks by the Taliban with financial incentives coming from Russia “via a sophisticated money-moving network involving front companies and couriers in Tajikistan, China, and Pakistan.”
The operation kicked into high-gear around 2016, the year Donald Trump was elected president. In August 2017, the new administration adopted a South Asia policy meant to put pressure on the Taliban, but opted a year later to negotiate an end to America’s longest war. Those negotiations formed the lineaments of the Doha Agreement, which mandated “a timeline for the withdrawal of all U.S. and Coalition forces from Afghanistan.” The Trump administration began that withdrawal, and the Biden administration completed it on August 30, 2021 — amid chaotic airlifts out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, the dissolution of the U.S.-backed Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani, a suicide bombing that killed 13 American servicemen and 170 Afghan civilians, and a lightning takeover of the entire country by the Taliban.
Based on the data The Insider has analyzed, it is clear Unit 29155 was recruiting assets used in the scheme starting from at least 2015. Dozens of them were deployed as couriers, money-movers, and liaisons with the Taliban before being resettled in Russia. Others now live as refugees in Western Europe and Asia, and at least some of them appear to maintain contact with their handlers. Meanwhile, the GRU spy at the helm of this operation remains a critical backchannel interlocutor with the new Afghan government, negotiating ongoing intelligence and military cooperation between Moscow and Kabul.
Relying on telecoms metadata, travel and border crossing logs, and leaked correspondence, The Insider found that Unit 29155 recruited at least three different networks of Afghan nationals to serve as intermediaries between the GRU and illegal armed groups operating in Afghanistan, primarily the Taliban. The most prolific network, operating in northern Afghanistan from a base in Kunduz, was headed by Rahmatullah Azizi, a longtime smuggler whose recruits included his own family members. They acted as couriers between Unit 29155 and the Taliban.
An avowed fan of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azizi was primarily based in Russia as of 2015, but he traveled constantly to Afghanistan and other countries in the region. He was also issued three Russian passports under different names, one of them printed in the same numerical sequence as the two Unit 29155 operatives responsible for poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skirpal in Salisbury in 2018 with the military-grade nerve agent Novichok. Azizi created a front company as a money laundering vehicle for paying Taliban fighters — a gem-trading entity registered at a Moscow address connected with GRU headquarters.
The Insider spoke with four former Afghan officials, three of whom worked in senior positions within the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country’s top intelligence agency, which was created with the help of the CIA after the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001. All were familiar with the GRU program and had knowledge of which attacks on U.S. forces were linked to Russian intelligence; their conclusions were based on evidence obtained from thirteen Afghan members of the network, who were detained by the NDS for a year-and-a-half. The Insider was able to substantiate several key details provided by the four sources based on data from leaked email accounts belonging to three Unit 29155 operatives. The investigation was able to reconstruct the travel patterns of Afghan couriers, comparing them with the timing of known Taliban attacks on U.S. and coalition forces. The network mapped by The Insider — which includes both the GRU handlers responsible for the program and their Afghan agents — appears to contain information previously unknown to the NDS and its U.S. intelligence partners.
The program, as per the ex-NDS sources, averaged $200,000 per killed American or coalition soldier, with the payment being disbursed to the network responsible. There were smaller allowances for killed Afghan troops and security officers. One former NDS official estimated that Russia paid a total of approximately $30 million to the Taliban via the scheme, a fraction of the $3 to $4 billion the CIA spent on Operation Cyclone, the covert program to fund, arm, and train the mujahideen to drive the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan in the 1980s. “I think $30 million was a small amount to give the United States a bloody nose,” one former NDS officer said. Another ex-NDS source claimed that at least that much had also been spent on funding other armed groups opposing the U.S.-supported Afghan government, a claim partly corroborated by data showing close contacts between the GRU spymasters and members of Afghan resistance movements dating back to 2014.
The Insider interviewed six former CIA officers involved in analyzing the intelligence on the GRU’s operations in Afghanistan. All except London requested anonymity as a condition for commenting, but all maintained that The Insider’s findings complement and amplify what has been the conventional wisdom of the U.S. intelligence community over the past four years — a conventional wisdom that has often been undermined or occluded by politicized agendas. “There are many instances when we got punched in the face and were told to do nothing about it for fear of escalation,” one former CIA officer said. “This was one.”
“There were multiple services and multiple disciplines of information, and the evidence of this program was all right there,” another U.S. intelligence official, who was intimately involved in analyzing the program at the interagency level, told The Insider. “It was just lacking in hard nouns and personae, which have now been uncovered.” The reluctance to unambiguously accuse Russia of suborning an extremist adversary to kill U.S. servicemen, that former official added, “wasn’t because of a lack of information — it was a lack of priority, maybe even fortitude.”
Information about the GRU-Taliban program was included in Trump’s Presidential Daily Brief on February 27, 2020. During an NBC-hosted presidential debate in October of that year, then-candidate Joe Biden said, “I don’t understand why this president is unwilling to take on Putin when he’s actually paying bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.” The Biden administration later alluded to the “reported” program in a White House fact sheet published in April 2021, but it took no formal action against Russia, such as implementing sanctions. “Given the sensitivity of this matter, which involves the safety and well-being of our forces,” the fact sheet stated, “it is being handled through diplomatic, military and intelligence channels.”
Ten months later, Russia invaded Ukraine.
“Why would the Russians do this to us?,” a former CIA officer and veteran Russia hand asked. “Because Russia’s at war with the United States. They firmly believe they’re at war with us. And we’re naive.”
Much, much more at the link,
Georgia:
The protest in Georgia continues: Day 42.
#GeorgianProtests
— Publika.ge (@publikage.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Day#42 non-stop pro-Euro protests in #Georgia
January 8, 2025
Close to midnight, its freezing
We are here!#GeorgiaProtests
#არშევეგუები— Niniko Robakidze (@nuka21.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Day 42. This is in Batumi. #GeorgiaProtests #terrorinGeorgia #NewElectionsforGeorgia
— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 12:54 PM
President Salome Zourabichvili is the descendant of those exiled from the First Republic of Georgia after the Soviet Russian conquest.
It’s her signature on the final document withdrawing the Russian army and bases from Georgia, as then-Minister of Foreign Affairs. 1/2— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 5:26 AM
She is now the leader figure of the Georgian national liberation from the ongoing Russian takeover, albeit the movement itself is bottom-up.
This can’t be a coincidence, this is historical symbolism.
Support the continued legitimacy of President Zourabichvili! 2/2.— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 5:26 AM
Invaluable!
— Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@marikamikiashvili.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 9:02 AM
GD has just released a long statement full of conspiracy theories. In the statement, they claim that “every single politician and bureaucrat who stands out with anti-Georgian statements [read: anti-GD] is a member of the deep state network… acting under the directives of the Global War Party.”
1/
— Anna Gvarishvili (@annagvarish.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Ironically, oligarch Ivanishvili’s party “hopes” that by 2030, the EU will “fully overcome the issues of informal oligarchic influence and the deep state.”
2/
— Anna Gvarishvili (@annagvarish.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Trump’s team “is making encouraging statements about dismantling the deep state” within American official structures… It is a fact that over the past four years, it was precisely the deep state that was destroying not only America but also many other countries around the world.“
3/
— Anna Gvarishvili (@annagvarish.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:47 AM
“Most devastatingly, the destructive impact of the deep state’s patrons has been felt by our friendly nation, Ukraine, which until 2014 had sovereignty, territorial integrity, peace… is now practically destroyed, for which the authors of the “Maidan” take no responsibility.”
4/
— Anna Gvarishvili (@annagvarish.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:49 AM
“The EU bureaucracy’s value system is currently in a dire condition, which is most clearly reflected in the five resolutions adopted by the European Parliament regarding Georgia…
5/
— Anna Gvarishvili (@annagvarish.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Given this trend, it is highly likely that in its sixth resolution, the European Parliament will openly demand that we start a war with Russia.”
6/
— Anna Gvarishvili (@annagvarish.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:52 AM
“The Baltic states have practically lost their sovereignty entirely and are forced to act solely under the directives of the deep state.”
7/
— Anna Gvarishvili (@annagvarish.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:56 AM
Back to Ukraine.
Khartsyzk, Russian occupied Donetsk Oblast:
💥 The Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the command post of the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army of the Russian Federation in occupied Khartsyzsk, Donetsk region.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 10:08 AM
Russian occupied Kherson Oblast:
🔥The result of a missile strike, likely ATACMS, on the location of a Russian unit in the occupied part of the Kherson region.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 8:38 AM
The Kursk cross border offensive:
Ukrainian defenders in the Kursk region repelled a Russian assault on a settlement, targeting armored vehicles and eliminating enemy personnel.
SOF drone crews destroyed 2 tanks and 3 armored vehicles during the Russian assault on Ukrainian positions.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Engels, Saratov Oblast, Russia:
At least there is a mini apocalypse in the russian oil depot in Engels
— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Russian oil depot in Engels burning after drone attack. 600km from the frontline.
— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 4:25 AM
/2. Russian Engels oil depot is still on fire after the drone attack last night.
— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 9:59 AM
/3. According to residents, smoke has covered half the city, and flames are visible from almost anywhere in Engels. The fire continues to grow, and explosions can still be heard in the area of the oil depot.
А state of emergency has been declared in the city.
— 🦋Special Kherson Cat🐈🇺🇦 (@specialkhersoncat.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 10:02 AM
The Russian service of the BBC counted the number of strikes on Russian refineries in 2024.
In 2024, refineries and fuel depots in Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine were attacked at least 81 times. Oil facilities in southern Russia were most often targeted.
— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 8:35 AM
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
There are no new Patron skeets or videos today. Here is some adjacent material.
Who ate the cake? I ask, who ate the cake?
— Meanwhile in Ukraine (@meanwhileua.bsky.social) January 7, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Open thread!
War for Ukraine Day 1,050: Glide Bombs on Civilian Targets in ZaporizhzhiaPost + Comments (10)
