The key thing is that historically we have reached a decision: Ukraine will always be a part of the common European home – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

17 December 2023 – 20:23

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

We are wrapping up this highly productive week, a historic one.

We have secured the decision of the European Council, for which we have been working all year, to open accession negotiations. In the coming days, we will officially initiate with the European Commission the process of assessing Ukrainian legislation for compliance with the EU acquis – the screening process. We are also preparing to work on the negotiation framework for Ukraine – we expect it in the spring. The negotiation process will not be easy, but the key thing is that historically we have reached a decision: Ukraine will always be part of our common European home. And I thank everyone who contributes to advancing the necessary European decisions – everyone who has been involved: politicians, civic leaders, and the peoples of various countries who equally believe in us, in Ukraine, and in Europe.

We continue our active work to ensure that next year will also include sufficient financial support programs for Ukraine. This includes bilateral programs with partner countries, programs at the EU level, as well as the process of using and confiscating Russian assets frozen in various jurisdictions. And this issue – the issue of frozen assets – was one of the very important decisions addressed during the negotiations this week. In particular, in the United States of America. Specifically, the G7 countries can demonstrate their leadership – the assets of the terrorist state and its affiliates should be used to support Ukraine, to protect lives and people from Russian terror. This will be fair. We are already preparing the necessary outlines for these decisions.

We maintain perfectly positive, meaningful relations with the Nordic countries – the visit to Norway and the Nordic – Ukrainian Summit have proved this once again. I am grateful for the unwavering desire to bring the victory of Ukraine, our people and our values closer. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland – each country helps us, each treats us with absolute sincerity. Thank you!

I would also like to thank all the leaders who have dedicated this week as well to supporting our air defense, our warriors , and our defense prospects.

The week has restored attention to Ukraine in Latin America as well. The visit to Argentina last Sunday was indeed cordial and positive. Talks with the new President of Argentina – we wish success to him, his country, and the entire Argentine people. Meetings with the leaders of other countries in the region – Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador… This is one of the key tasks for Ukraine, a strategic objective – to extend our foreign policy beyond traditional directions. Our state, our interests, Ukrainian culture and our defense of international law must be represented and understood in all parts of the world, and this is a task for everyone who works on behalf of Ukraine and Ukrainians.

And one more thing.

I would like to recognize today the warriors of our National Guard, who, together with everyone are in battles, together with everyone are helping to save lives after Russian strikes, together with everyone are giving Ukraine more security. The 3rd operational brigade of the National Guard – Soldier Maksym Osipov and Junior Sergeant Vladyslav Moroz. I thank you guys for your performance! The 14th operational brigade – Junior Sergeant Serhiy Tykhenko and Captain Hryhoriy Tokar. Thank you! The 15th Sloviansk regiment of the National Guard – Junior Lieutenant Oleksandr Rohovskyi and Lieutenant Bohdan Shulika. Well done, warriors! The world helps when it sees that the state and the people themselves are doing everything to defend themselves, when they see that the country really has the potential to defend itself. And I thank everyone in Ukraine, all our people, who week after week prove to the world with their own strength – Ukraine will endure, maintain its independence, and prevail. And special gratitude to the Main Intelligence Directorate, the Security Service of Ukraine, the Air Force, and the Foreign Intelligence Service. This is the case when no specifics will be given. In a nutshell, it was powerful.

Glory to our people! Glory to Ukraine!

For those marking Advent on your calendars this season:

Ukrainian Advent Calendar: Day 17
 
Today, we want to say thank you to our French (@Armees_Gouv) and Danish (@Forsvarsmin) partners for CAESAR self-propelled artillery systems.
 
In the capable hands of Ukrainian artillerymen, the CAESAR became a nightmare for occupiers. It can… pic.twitter.com/q7QFbV9krR

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 17, 2023

 

Ukrainian Advent Calendar: Day 17

Today, we want to say thank you to our French (@Armees_Gouv) and Danish (@Forsvarsmin) partners for CAESAR self-propelled artillery systems.

In the capable hands of Ukrainian artillerymen, the CAESAR became a nightmare for occupiers. It can hit targets from more than 40 kilometers away with pinpoint accuracy. This artillery system gets us one step closer to victory.

Tomorrow we’ll present another Weapon of Victory in our Advent Calendar.

#StandWithUkraine #UAMoDAdvent

Holidays are coming!
HIMARS is preparing gifts for the occupiers! pic.twitter.com/M3olLaIH9q

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 17, 2023

Obligatory:

Assistant to the President for National Security Jake Sullivan went on a podcast/video cast and had thoughts regarding Russia. I’m not saying they’re good thoughts. Edward Hunter Christie of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs explains why they’re not good thoughts.

https://twitter.com/EHunterChristie/status/1736151165325172895

Sullivan’s remarks on Russia (see video below): analytical, confident, but in my view wrong in important ways because of incorrect emotional and cultural biases. It seems to me a misguided case of projection to imagine that the Putin regime is so bothered about Russian conditions. Of course it’s not nothing to have lost over 300,000 men, but we know from available data that:
1: the regime doesn’t care
2: a big part of the population = obedient cattle
3: most unpleasant to the Western mind: many Russians up and down the social ladder *are* imperial-nationalists to varying degrees
4: liberal minority is afraid, many have fled, they have neither the stomach nor the skills to rebel
5: Putin regime strongly biases military recruitment towards ethnic minorities, poor provinces, convicted criminals
6: the war lasting longer is also an enabler for Putin. Regardless of whether this was the initial plan, he couldn’t go for a full national-socialist war economy in one day. But the more time goes by, the more he can.
7: the war in Ukraine is the gamble of the century for Russia, and their leaders know it. They will not give up unless brutally forced to do so.
8: Russia has a very long history of putting up with absurd and horrid domestic conditions without triggering a political crisis – potentially for decades
9: nor is any of this unique to Russia – fascist regimes of the past also held out and fought for considerably longer than their Western contemporaries were hoping they would.
It was **hard** to defeat Nazi Germany.
It was **hard** to defeat Tojo’s Japan.
But in the end, that’s the only thing that stopped them: extremely brutal and unrelenting military force until they were no longer *able* to fight.

The past four administrations have mishandled Putin and Russia. Presidents Bush (43), Obama, and Biden and their nat-sec teams have done so in normal ways. Largely being unable to actually listen to what Putin, his trusted agents and catspaws, and other senior Russian officials are telling us with both what they say and what they do. This is an all too common failing in national security work. We call it mirroring, which is being unable to actually assess what other states and non-state actors are doing from their perspective versus ours. The Trump administration, of course, did not mishandle Putin and Russia, they purposely sought to ally with Putin. As I and others documented here beginning in early 2016, Trump has been pursuing Putin in public and private for decades. Just as he’s been pursuing Xi and Kim since his presidency began in 2017.

One of the major reasons we are way, way, way right of boom is because the three of the four presidencies that were within normal parameters, followed by Trump’s slavish sycophancy towards Putin, have left us unprepared to deal with the strategic reality we face. Sullivan’s statements are just further evidence of this unfortunate reality and provide more evidence of how we’ve gotten to this point.

Major General Budanov, the Commander of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR), is now publicly calling for a mobilization to ensure that the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not run short of personnel:

Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, says the country needs more soldiers, mobilization necessary. He says no amount of recruiting will attract enough troops. “It is not even conceivable to think that we can do without mobilization.” https://t.co/C2ZFc0DO8D

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 17, 2023

Here’s the whole video from YouTube with English captions:

As I’ve repeatedly noted: Putin does not care how much of his own blood and treasure he spills to achieve his goal of taking Ukraine. He knows he has far more of both than the Ukrainians. The issue is not the Ukrainians willingness to fight and to defend themselves and their country, the issue is that they can only do that successfully if the US and its allies and partners provide Ukraine with the funding, material, and equipment it needs. The provision of which is going to run out of authorization and/or funding in the US in two weeks and is being held up in the EU by Hungary. Putin’s strategy is to grind down the Ukrainians. To force them to spend their more limited amount of blood and treasure to repel the bodies he throws at them indiscriminately. His assumption is that the GOP House majority caucus’s dysfunction, as well as the fact that Senator McConnell is happy to sacrifice his current hostage – support for Ukraine – to score political points against the Biden administration and the Democratic Senate majority. McConnell may actually care about Ukraine, but he cares about retaking the majority in the Senate and the White House more.

Here are some thoughts on Ukrainians defense against Putin’s and Russia’s genocidal re-invasion from LTC Deny Prokopenkol; Commander of the 12th Special Forces Brigade – Azov – of the National Guard of Ukraine:

Nearly two years after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukrainians are beginning to ask themselves: "How long will this war last?". The uncertainty and the chance that the fighting will continue for years are weighing on civilians and sometimes even on the military.…

— Denys Prokopenko (@D_Redis) December 17, 2023

Nearly two years after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainians are beginning to ask themselves: “How long will this war last?”. The uncertainty and the chance that the fighting will continue for years are weighing on civilians and sometimes even on the military.

The answer is simple: Russia will never let Ukraine go from its realm of geopolitical influence. The war will continue as long as we are able to resist. Any “truce” or “agreement” is just another time out to accumulate resources for a further offensive. Our ability to mobilize all the necessary resources at a critical moment and work on the verge of extraordinary capabilities should not gradually turn into initiative-free stability.

Unfortunately, many people in Ukraine and abroad still refuse to accept the ruthless reality as it is. Some try to convince themselves that everything is about to end on its own. Others, on the contrary, are petrified at the mere thought that peace in Ukraine may take almost a decade to reach.

In addition, Russian informational and psychological attacks aimed at demoralizing the Ukrainian society are pouring fuel on the fire: they say that Ukraine will not be able to withstand a long marathon, the army and volunteers will get tired and break down.

Azov has been at war for ten years. For us, it all started long before February 24, 2022. Since then, we have learned to ignore fatigue and not give in to despair; we have realized that perhaps not only our youth, but our entire lives will be spent on the frontlines of the war for Ukraine’s independence; we have realized that we have no other path but the one we have consciously chosen.

The best cure for despair, panic, or apathy caused by reflections on the timing of this war is active involvement in the historical processes that are taking place here and now.

We do not know the exact day, month or year when we will win and be able to return to our families. But we are confident that no matter how long the war lasts, we have our trusted brothers-in-arms by our side, love for our country in our hearts, and weapons in our hands. And all this will not let us retreat: neither today, nor in a year or ten years.

Those who are not yet serving in the Ukrainian Defense Forces must make a deliberate choice: to pick up arms and join the ranks of the military, or to become a reliable backbone for the army, working to support the country’s defense potential.

This is a long war. It can last for years. It depends on us what we do daily to bring our victory closer.

Ukrainian air defense had a busy night:

The Ukrainian Army reports that last all 20 Shaheds were destroyed. Additionally, a Kh-59 was intercepted as well. A single Iskander didn't reach its target.#Ukraine pic.twitter.com/yMtRhD1WkR

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) December 17, 2023

Avdiivka:

In our recent vehicle loss analysis, an error occurred. A few draft images were included instead of the final ones, which included unedited coordinates and moving vehicles. I've fixed this by uploading the correct images. The overall count remains at 211https://t.co/6Igzxb5i5k

— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) December 17, 2023

The left bank of the Dnipro, Russian occupied Kherson Oblast:

Russian source associated with Russian military aviation publishes sad photo of a Russian Su-25. No details yet.
P.S: Usually this means that Russian aircraft crashed/ was shot down. pic.twitter.com/I9GR4ITEZn

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 17, 2023

/3. Some other Russian and also Ukrainian sources lean towards a crash:

Ukrainian source – “regarding the dead cockerel SU-25 – I have no information that anyone (air defense) worked on it, but I do not rule it out

at approximately 11 am today the cockerels (both took off from… pic.twitter.com/fMoL4bz8UF

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 17, 2023

/3. Some other Russian and also Ukrainian sources lean towards a crash:

Ukrainian source – “regarding the dead cockerel SU-25 – I have no information that anyone (air defense) worked on it, but I do not rule it out

at approximately 11 am today the cockerels (both took off from Millerovo) were working in pairs on our positions in the East, as a result of which 1 cockerel simply crashed”

Russians shot down one of their own Su-25. It started with Pro-Russian account sharing a picture of mourning depicting a Su-25 but now the Ukrainian army confirms it. Allegedly a Russian Buk-M3 is the culprit.#Ukraine pic.twitter.com/2zyTNcxaTE

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) December 17, 2023

Synkivka:

The Russian attacks in the vicinity of Synkivka are primarily suicide operations for them, so a pretty standard day.

In the beginning of this video you can already see four newly destroyed Russian vehicles. For the next two BMPs it looks not better. You can see a projectile… pic.twitter.com/DzvP6jAWD3

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) December 17, 2023

The Russian attacks in the vicinity of Synkivka are primarily suicide operations for them, so a pretty standard day.

In the beginning of this video you can already see four newly destroyed Russian vehicles. For the next two BMPs it looks not better. You can see a projectile (probably Javelin) reaching altitude and then slamming into the leading vehicle from above, blowing off mounted infantry.

The fact that the other Russian BMP got destroyed almost simultaneously gives this choreography a nice touch.

#Ukraine #Kherson #Kupyansk

Somewhere in the Donbas:

Review of M109, an American self-propelled howitzer, which after the start of the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine, entered service with its Armed Forces. This particular unit is operating in the east.

Source video: Armia TVhttps://t.co/PvvamBblcQ pic.twitter.com/yEGbLRSzw4

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) December 17, 2023

Rostov Oblast, Russia:

Allegedly these are photos of a Su-34 bomber damaged by unknown drones at the Morozovsk aerodrome in Rostov Oblast last night. Message on the UAV part says "Greetings to katsaps from Yarik! [Yaroslav]" pic.twitter.com/EtzLPyA50O

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) December 17, 2023

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos tonight. There is a new slideshow – those don’t embed here – at on the Patron the Dog cartoon site. Click across if you want to see it.

Open thread!

This week, 104 out of 112 Shahed drones used by Russia destroyed – address by the President of Ukraine

16 December 2023 – 18:42

I wish good health to all Ukrainian men and women!

I held a Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s Staff meeting. Various issues and diverse defense aspects. It lasted almost three hours.

The topics ranged from military concerns, veteran issues, brigade matters, fortifications, to weapon production. We are working to implement all our arrangements with partners regarding new weapon production – joint production facilities and a shared repair base. The goal is to maximize Ukraine’s strength, with each month adding power to our defense.

I want to commend our sky defenders: in just one night, they destroyed 30 Shahed drones. A potent result. Overall, 104 Shahed drones out of the 112 used by Russia have been destroyed this week – most of them. Each destroyed drone means saved lives and preserved infrastructure. I express gratitude to all the warriors in our mobile fire groups, pilots, engineers of the Air Force, and all our anti-aircraft gunners. Well done! This week also witnessed missile interceptions, including ballistic ones. Systems like Patriot, NASAMS, Gepard, and other provided by our partners are working excellently. I thank everyone worldwide who helps!

We are preparing for further strengthening air defense – we have already reached agreements on this. The theme of air defense arises in almost every meeting and talk with world leaders. There will be more systems, more protection for the sky.

And one more thing.

Christmas is approaching, and while political activity may relax in many countries, we continue to work rigorously with all partners who can help now and provide support in the future. We are preparing important foreign policy contacts until the end of the year. The entire team – our team, the team of our diplomats – is working 24/7. I express gratitude to everyone in the country who maintains the same pace, who tirelessly defends, works, and helps.

Glory to all who fight for Ukraine! Glory to all who contribute to the necessary outcome in every area where strength is so crucial for us!

Glory to our people!

Glory to Ukraine!

For those of you marking Advent on your calendars this season:

Ukrainian Advent Calendar: Day 16

Today, we want to highlight the NASAMS air defense system and thank our Norwegian (@Forsvarsdep), Canadian (@NationalDefence), Lithuanian (@Lithuanian_MoD), and American (@DeptofDefense) friends for considerable aid that secured the Ukrainian… pic.twitter.com/TQb5AmUshJ

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 16, 2023

Ukrainian Advent Calendar: Day 16

Today, we want to highlight the NASAMS air defense system and thank our Norwegian (@Forsvarsdep), Canadian (@NationalDefence), Lithuanian (@Lithuanian_MoD), and American (@DeptofDefense) friends for considerable aid that secured the Ukrainian sky.

NASAMS systems significantly strengthened the #UAarmy and made our skies safer.

More Weapons of Victory are coming soon! Stay tuned.

#StandWithUkraine #UAMoDAdvent

So, now even Vladimir Putin himself said it loud and clear that there can't be any "peace" until his 'special military operation' against Ukraine, which is about to enter the third year, finally meets its 'initial goals.'

Yes, it's the same vague 'de-Nazification,'…

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) December 16, 2023

So, now even Vladimir Putin himself said it loud and clear that there can’t be any “peace” until his ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine, which is about to enter the third year, finally meets its ‘initial goals.’

Yes, it’s the same vague ‘de-Nazification,’ ‘demilitarization,’ and ‘the ‘neutral status’ of Ukraine.

Let me translate this from the Kremlin newspeak into the language of human beings for you:

– An unconditional surrender of Ukraine. Complete cessation of all forms of armed resistance to Russia’s occupational forces.
– Complete disarmament dismissal of Ukrainian armed forces as ‘illegal formations.’ Termination of all Western defense and economic aid. The removal of all Western-provided weapons (or even their acquisition by Russia as a sort of ‘contribution’ for the ‘Western aggression against Russia in Ukraine,’ along with Ukraine’s Soviet-made weaponry.
– Russian occupation of at least most of Ukraine’s territory (possibly except for western oblasts, but not necessarily – Putin’s appetite may be fully encouraged to seize Lviv as well). And in light of the laughable sham ‘referendums’ of 2022 and the formal Anschluss of Ukrainian regions that the Kremlin does not even fully control – nothing stops Putin from not only demanding that Ukraine gives up to “the new territorial reality” but simply annexing the entire the rest of Ukraine via new ‘referendums’ with 99% of ‘yes’ votes. Who needs just a ‘pro-Russian puppet regime’ in Kyiv when the insanity has gone beyond all limits imaginable?
– Sweeping ‘filtration procedures’ regarding the entire Ukrainian population (yes, just like what happened at Russian filtration camps in occupied Donbas). The manhunt for all pro-Ukrainian citizens (a.k.a. ‘Nazis’), including activists, civilian volunteers, those who ever sent or collected donations for the Ukrainian military, non-defecting officials, just ordinary people who want to be a Ukrainian in an independent free Ukrainian country, non-surrendering Ukrainan soldiers and officers (a.k.a. ‘Nazi war criminals’) etc etc etc. Naturally, also a widespread crackdown on the Ukrainian identity and civil liberties (a.k.a ‘re-education’), concentration camps, a harsh occupational regime, anti-guerilla warfare, etc etc etc.
– All sanctions and limitations lifted immediately (of course).
Russia getting full access to Ukraine’s resources (especially food production), its geographic position in Europe, infrastructure etc.
– In case of no formal annexation taking place, a puppet ‘Ukraine’ joining ‘the union state’ of Russia & Belarus, as well as the ‘customs union’ and, in the long run, also the CSTO (‘Russia’s NATO’) if it manages to create a form of a collaborationist ‘military’ on the model of ‘people’s militias’ of the ‘DNR’ and the ‘LNR’.

How do you like such ‘peace’? Would you accept that for your loved ones behind your back who have already seen Russian-made mass graves and cities leveled to ashes?

In the shorter run, Putin might demand that Ukraine ‘accept the status quo’ (i.e., recognize the annexation of Kherson, Crimea, Zaporizhia, and Donbas) and then leave itself totally defenseless and broke without Western aid – in exchange for Putin giving Jack’s shit.

Guess what happens next if today’s masters of escalation management force Ukraine into such a ‘peace for our time’ under Putin’s terms.

It’s a complete mystery why those silly Ukrainians just don’t see that as a possible option.

It’s not a fucking soccer championship (‘well, you will lose, but it’s not the end of the word, really…’).

It’s about a 40-million European nation and a democracy that does not deserve to die in a pit with a bullet in the back of its head because the wealthiest and the most powerful community of nations in the history of mankind was too obsessed with petty politics and phobias.

The elimination and subjugation of Ukraine is Vladimir Putin’s lifetime project, which he has pursued in various forms since the very beginning of his rule in the early 2000s.

It is especially personal now that Putin’s easy-cheezy triumphal march to Kyiv turned into a 2-year-long bloodbath with a long list of insanely humiliating defeats and blows upon Russia’s imperial pride.

He will not leave Ukraine be unless he is made to. Or unless he loses power or dies.

Oh, by the way, do I have to say that the fall of Ukraine means the Russian military being empowered with Ukrainian resources and standing at the gates of Central Europe?

Putin can formally stay in power until at least 2036. And before and after that, he and his successors in the Kremlin will be knowing that war, territorial grabs, and nuclear intimidation do work.

That the West will do little to nothing in response. And that war works perfectly well to keep their power over Russia consolidated as long as the ‘besieged fortress’ combats ‘the entire NATO’ in a new ‘global confrontation of superpowers.’

THEY NEED WARS. AGAIN and AGAIN.

So, really, the ONLY way to put this to an end in Ukraine is to provide Ukraine with everything it needs to defeat the biggest European war of aggression since Adolf Hitler.

To render the Russian war in Ukraine so critically costly and failing that it will make Putin seek a way out of it, with Ukraine & the West speaking from the position of power in negotiations.

And (which is also extremely important) to keep Ukraine, its eastern European allies, and NATO itself strong and resilient enough to keep Russia deterred and contained.

Putin will stop where and when he’s made to. Not by begging, not by giving him a chance to save face, or by appealing to his common sense or ethics, or by trying to please him into not siding with China in a future confrontation with the United States.

The free world’s obsession with escalation management, lack of leadership, half-hearted measures, and reluctance to go beyond its comfort zone do not work. Giving Ukraine a handful of missiles and tanks for such a large-scale war against Russia and then hoping for a miracle to happen at a low price also doesn’t work.

The free world has already given Putin TWO YEARS to unfold Russia’s military production and adapt itself to sanctions.

We all know how many tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died as the West keeps waiting for heaven knows what, making the solution increasingly costly.

The BBC has the details on a long running Russian Information Warfare campaign that was partially responsible for bringing down former Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov.

A Russian propaganda campaign involving thousands of fake accounts on TikTok spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine has been uncovered by the BBC.<Its videos routinely attract millions of views and have the apparent aim of undermining Western support.Users in several European countries have been subjected to false claims that senior Ukrainian officials and their relatives bought luxury cars or villas abroad after Russia’s invasion in February 2022.The fake TikTok videos played a part in the dismissal last September of Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, according to his daughter Anastasiya Shteinhauz.

The BBC has uncovered nearly 800 fake accounts since July. TikTok says it was already investigating the issue and says it has taken down more than 12,000 fake accounts originating in Russia.

‘Villa in Madrid’

Ms Shteinhauz told the BBC she found out about the Russian disinformation campaign when she received a surprising call from her husband while on holiday.

OK, so now you’ve got a villa in Madrid,” he told her, before sending a link to a TikTok video narrated by an AI-generated voice that claimed she had bought a home in the Spanish capital.

Ms Shteinhauz initially dismissed the video as a one-off, but the following morning she was sent a similar TikTok clip alleging she had bought a villa on the French Riviera. The videos had been circulating among her friends before finally reaching her husband.

Ms Shteinhauz says she does not own property in Spain or France or “anywhere else outside Ukraine”.

BBC Verify also traced the pictures of the houses in Madrid and Cannes to two local property websites and they were both still for sale.

Other videos directly targeted her father.

Co-ordinated effort

The videos sent to Ms Shteinhauz belong to a vast Russia-based network of fake TikTok accounts posing as real users from Germany, France, Poland, Israel and Ukraine.

Using a combination of hashtag searches and TikTok’s own recommendations, BBC Verify was able to trace hundreds of similar videos targeting dozens of Ukrainian officials.

The accounts that posted them used stolen profile pictures, including those of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, Emma Watson and Colin Farrell.

With only a handful of exceptions, they posted just one video each – a tactic TikTok says is new and aimed at evading detection and manipulating the platform’s system for recommending videos to users.

The effort appeared to have been co-ordinated: sometimes videos were released by different accounts on the same day and featured identical, or very similar scripts.

During the investigation, BBC Verify found consistent, circumstantial evidence pointing to a possible Russian origin of the network.

This included linguistic mistakes typical of Russian speakers, including some Russian phrases that are not used in other languages. Also, many of the videos contained links to a website previously exposed by Meta as part of a Russian-linked network impersonating legitimate Western news websites.

Many of the videos analysed by BBC Verify targeted Mr Reznikov, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials, portraying them as obsessed with money and uncaring about ordinary Ukrainians or the war effort.

They avoided direct allegations of wrongdoing, but implied politicians had bought luxury property or goods during a time of war – claims that, when checked, always turned out to be false.

Ms Shteinhauz believes this steady drip of innuendo played a role in her father’s dismissal: “It affected the life of my dad and his career.”

Previously praised as a key figure in Ukraine’s efforts to lobby Western countries for arms supplies, Mr Reznikov was sacked from his job as defence minister in September.

One video on its own may not have had any effect, Ms Shteinhauz said, but “when it goes like five times from different parts of the world and from inside the country, it starts to work”.

Mr Reznikov lost his job amid an anti-corruption drive and a number of scandals at the defence ministry involving the procurement of goods and equipment for the army at inflated prices. However, he was not personally accused of corruption.

Announcing the decision to replace Mr Reznikov, President Zelensky said “the ministry needs new approaches”. Although he made no mention of corruption in his statement, some in Ukraine welcomed the resignation that followed multiple accusations of corruption which involved Mr Reznikov’s subordinates.

Roman Osadchuk from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, who investigated the network in collaboration with the BBC, said that the fake accounts targeting Ukrainians were trying to undermine their trust in the country’s leadership.

“They’re trying to make Ukraine less resilient in a way and [make] Ukrainian society stop fighting the Russians,” he said.

Renee DiResta, technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, says the videos’ focus on corruption in Ukraine’s war effort was particularly aimed at the West.

“All of these different things they’re alleging [about Ukrainian officials] as the forms in which the corruption becomes grift, it would be to undermine continued support, particularly by European countries for the Ukrainian war effort.”

When we reported our findings to TikTok, a spokesperson said: “We constantly and relentlessly pursue those that seek to influence our community through deceptive behaviours, and we have removed a covert influence operation originating from Russia, as part of an investigation initiated by TikTok and to which the BBC has contributed.”

TikTok said it was still investigating who was behind the network and had found fake videos in two additional languages – Italian and English.
Despite TikTok’s efforts to shut down the network, in the weeks since BBC Verify reported the accounts, the app has recommended us dozens more videos that appear to be part of the same network.

Some of them were posted as recently as late November and covered recent events.

There are lots of images that will help you all make sense of the reporting at the link!

Everyone is going to key into the wrong thing in the BBC reporting: TikTok! I’m not suggesting there are not problems with the fact that a major social media platform is ultimately controlled by the PRC’s government. That’s a major problem. But rather than deal with the actual issues between the US and the PRC, senior American officials begin during the Trump administration have decided that the real issue is TikTok or other Chinese companies regardless of whether they are directly owned by the PRC or just controlled. The real issue here is that over decade into Russia’s Information Warfare campaign, which is just one part of Russia’s world war, against the US, the EU, NATO, our other allies and partners, and any state, organization, and/or group that Putin thinks either should be Russian/Russian controlled or is in his way, we DO NOT HAVE ANY ACTUAL EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS TO THIS PROBLEM SET!!!

https://twitter.com/katiedrumm/status/1374359971350056963

Your tax payer dollars at work:

The Pentagon is bad at making memes, but it still tries. On October 29, 2020, U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force—a DoD team that “ensures commanders can maintain the freedom to operate in the cyber domain”— posted a picture of a Soviet bear dropping a Halloween candy bucket full of malware. Candy labeled with words like “X-Agent,” “XTunnel,” and “ComRat” flew from the poor bear’s candy basket. The tweet got 364 likes and was retweeted 190 times. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act Request filed by Runa Sandvik, a senior advisor for Norway’s Armed Force Cyber Defense, we have a 23 page report detailing Cyber Command’s creation of the image.

The Pentagon doesn’t meme like you or I. Before the DoD’s cyber warriors can shitpost, images must be approved, tweets drafted and redrafted, and everything has to go through the chain of command. From conception to deployment, the picture of the Soviet bear dropping malware candy took 22 days.

The first email to mention the image comes from a redacted email sent on October 7, 2020 at 11:24 A.M. “Intended date of disclosure is 29 OCT,” the heavily redacted email said. The message contains the rough sketch of an idea—to tell the public about specific kinds of malware.

The next email is more explicit and comes on October 20, 2020. Both the sender and receiver are redacted. “Good morning, graphic team extraordinaire,” the email started. “[Bottom line up front]: Requesting a quick turn of three graphics, as described below. We are requesting the graphics [no later than] two days before the final request date, so we have time for commander review.”

The first requested meme is completely redacted, but the second and third are detailed. “Graphic concept: Cartoon bear in soviet uniform costume holding Halloween candy basket with malware names,” the email said. For the second picture, it wanted “image of the same bear in soviet uniform costume holding Halloween candy basket, now tripping with ‘treats’ (malware names) spilling out of candy basket.” In advance of the images going live on October 29, members of Cyber Command met on October 28 to workshop the tweet that would accompany it. The FOIA contains several emails detailing the drafting of the tweet.

The bumbling bear is part of an effort by U.S. Cyber Command to make Russian hackers look uncool online. “We don’t want something they can put on T-shirts, we want something that’s in a PowerPoint their boss sees and he loses his shit on them,” an anonymous U.S. official told CyberScoop in November, 2020.

The FOIA’d report on the creation of the bear mentions the CyberScoop article. “The article, while a bit tongue in cheek, is mostly accurate and does highlight the core purposes for the malware disclosures.”

Cyber Command’s response to the report contained a detailed explanation of why it’s making bad memes. According to Cyber Command, they “impose costs on adversaries by disclosing their malware,” and the graphics “are used and included to increase engagement and resonate with the Cybersecurity industry.” Though it did admit that “the graphics may not be shaping adversary behavior.”

Here’s the link to the FOIAed After Action Report.

Obligatory!

Last summer, after he was killed, one of Prigozhin’s key agents in undertaking Wagner’s part of Russia’s Information Warfare campaign stated in an interview that they actually started in 2009. Prior to that the earliest dating was sometime in either late 2011 or early 2012. This has been going on for over fourteen years and we are no better at responding to it now than we were in 2009! There is a war, we have been in it for over fourteen years, we refuse to admit this reality exists, which is WHY WE ARE LOSING!!!!

Again, if you won’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Fiona Hill:

“This is the tipping point where the United States and Ukraine and everybody loses.” Russia expert and fmr US National Security Council official Fiona Hill says delayed aid for Ukraine is a “winning ticket” for Putin. pic.twitter.com/amf7Y0De6X

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) December 16, 2023

The Ukrainians are not going to stop defending themselves:

Just back from the front line. The mood: The war will drag on for much longer. Russian troops attacking daily. Ammo running low. US military aid is stalled. EU's money blocked. But Ukrainian soldiers say they'll continue to defend their land no matter what https://t.co/Y2SFO6lGRE

— Abdujalil A (@abdujalil) December 16, 2023

Kyiv:

Sixth air attack on Kyiv this month. Following three days of ballistic threats, Russia launched Shahed drones, echoing mixed tactics used in May 2023. Now, it’s drone strikes, missiles from strategic bombers, Iskanders, Kinzhals – all targeting Kyiv one after another. pic.twitter.com/xJ3L252RwM

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) December 16, 2023

Avdiivka:

Today, Russians attempted another attack on Avdiivka front.
Deepstate about today’sattack:

“Today, Russians again marched in a column in the area of ​​the Avdiivka Terekon.

About 15 AFVs with infantry drove through Krasnohorivka to the south to Terekon, dropped the infantry… pic.twitter.com/eKWwjcV9ld

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 16, 2023

Today, Russians attempted another attack on Avdiivka front.
Deepstate about today’sattack:

“Today, Russians again marched in a column in the area of ​​the Avdiivka Terekon.

About 15 AFVs with infantry drove through Krasnohorivka to the south to Terekon, dropped the infantry and drove back. Thanks to the combined efforts of all the brigades on the site more than half of the equipment was destroyed. The infantry is now concentrated in the windbreaks, its destruction continues. Expect a video of Russian equipment destruction from the Ukrainian brigades in the coming days.

Tactics generally do not change. Regular column attacks in the hope of a quick operation. Again, we are talking about the important role of observing the frontline from drones and other UAVs, which reduce to zero the possibility of any blitzkrieg on an operational-tactical level.”

https://t.me/DeepStateUA/18342

 

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1735957137883353329

Bakhmut:

I wrote a lot in my book about living and working in Bakhmut before the war and returning to the city during the heaviest fighting. If you want to know more about Bakhmut and the Donbas before 2022 — but also since — I recommend reading The War Came To Us. https://t.co/aVAkG18QsO

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 16, 2023

I highly recommend Miller’s book.

This is older/archival video, but I figured I’d include it.

Newly published archive video. Rare footage of a tank battle: a Ukrainian T-64BV fires at a Russian T-72B3. Bakhmut Front. pic.twitter.com/PGsi50AFiG

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 16, 2023

Krynky, left bank of the Dnipro, Russian occupied Kherson Oblast:

Magyar’s Birds continue their hunt. I’m not posting the tweet with the embedded video even with a content warning. I’ve seen it, the rest of you don’t need to as well.

Dnipro:

Dnipro street art gallery: here Russian propagandists are already jailed pic.twitter.com/xm7NIJJbGb

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) December 16, 2023

Somewhere in the Russian occupied Donbas:

Brief review of a Ukrainian artillery position that uses a British-supplied L119 light towed howitzer. Eastern direction. 80th Air Assault Brigade.

Source: https://t.co/Xi06G4UIEE pic.twitter.com/29jmMAkQDA

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) December 16, 2023

Here’s the full video from the Ukrainian Army YouTube channel:

And a machine translation from the videos description posted below the video:

Lightweight, rapid-fire and accurate – that’s what Ukrainian paratroopers from the 80th separate airborne assault brigade of Galician Galician have to say about the L119. This 105-mm howitzer entered service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the summer of 2022 and has been demonstrating good performance in destroying the enemy since then.

According to the artillerymen, the advantage of the British gun is its active-reactive projectiles, which increase the range to 19 km, as opposed to 15 km for the Soviet D-30 gun. Other advantages include a wider firing angle, mobility, and ease of deployment.

We are Army TV. Our team consists of career soldiers, volunteers and mobilized soldiers who have been fighting since the first days of the war in different areas and in different units. Most of us have combat experience. Before the Russian invasion, we worked as directors, cameramen, presenters, and editors. Now we combine our military service with our media work.

We are constantly on the contact line. The channel’s studio, from which we also broadcast online streams, is also located near the frontline.

 

Synkivka, Kharkiv Oblast:

Recent days, Russians have been carrying out attacks involving a large number of AFVs and infantry in the Synkivka area, Kharkiv region. There is still little information about the results of the attacks.https://t.co/JazX7BTxzmhttps://t.co/T756q4ZQ4r pic.twitter.com/YXY2vWtUrZ

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 16, 2023

For you drone enthusiasts:

/2. Short video with a bit more view on the AQ 400 Scythe UAV pic.twitter.com/UohSNyqwh0

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) December 16, 2023

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets, so here’s an adjacent one from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Good morning! pic.twitter.com/jHJ6EtdhG6

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 16, 2023

And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:

@patron__dsns

Мій муд, коли Михайло не бере мене з собою на роботу 🤨🤨 #песпатрон

♬ оригінальний звук – Брикса Наталія

Here’s the machine translation of the caption:

My mood when Mykhailo doesn’t take me to work with him 🤨🤨 #песпатрон

Open thread!