No queues: MMCs’ work digitalization is of great importance – address by the President of Ukraine

30 August 2023 – 22:37

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

A report for the day.

First of all, the NSDC. I held a meeting today. As I said earlier, there was only one issue – MMCs.

The inspection of military medical commissions across the country is underway. Law enforcers will complete it soon. And there are already several conclusions.

It is necessary to check a significant number of decisions of the military medical commissions on disability and unfitness for military service that were made after February 24. Today, the relevant statistics were presented at the National Security and Defense Council. There are examples of regions where the number of people removed from the military register due to the MMC’s decision has increased tenfold since February last year. It is absolutely clear what these decisions are. Corrupt decisions. And in the criminal proceedings that are currently underway against the staff of MMCs and MSECs, it is even clearer how many decisions could have been falsified. Law enforcement officers have already clearly identified unreasonable MMCs’ decisions. Specific evidence has been recorded. It has been presented behind closed doors. Different regions of the country, different TRCs, different officials. The bribes range from 3 to 15 thousand dollars. They will be held accountable.

The list of those who went abroad due to obviously dubious decisions of MMCs will be analyzed separately. First of all, due to the decisions of those who have already been caught taking bribes. We are talking about at least thousands of people.

We will also address the issue that almost all commanders in the field are referring to – the concept of so-called limited fitness. For a very long time, this concept allowed for manipulation in the manning of units. In particular, combat brigades. Everything related to fitness or unfitness for military service must be as clear as possible. So that a person understands how he or she can help the defense, and so that the units have clarity on who will be joining them.

And a very important point is the digitalization of the MMCs’ work. No more queues. No more wandering around to find or sign the right paper. All this can be ensured electronically and by the presence of the necessary military personnel at the place where the medical examination takes place, if it is in a civilian medical institution. Government officials will complete this digitalization work. And we need full accessibility in all areas of the civilian medical system for the purpose of undergoing the MMC’s examination. Some regions, such as Volyn, have ensured this one hundred percent. And another example is that in Kyiv, almost nothing has been done to allow people to undergo the MMC’s examination in civilian medical institutions.

Therefore, the military command, the medical sector, and all levels of government must work as actively as possible to resolve this issue.

The second topic for today is our international agenda. We are actively preparing for the negotiations and meetings scheduled for September. I have held meetings with international relations officials, with our ambassadors in the respective countries. We clearly see which leaders we need to meet and negotiate with, and what results we have to bring to Ukraine.

The third issue is the European Union. I held a large meeting with representatives of the parliament, government officials, and our international relations officials on our readiness for the launch of membership negotiations with the EU. The implementation of the recommendations. The necessary bills that have already been prepared and need to be passed in the parliament. 226 votes for each decision for Ukraine in the European Union is an obligation.

And a few more things.

Peace Formula. Today, a new meeting was held with representatives of diplomatic missions on the implementation of the Peace Formula. Andriy Yermak chaired it. And today, there were 11 more diplomats, bringing the total to more than 70 diplomatic missions involved. This is a very good dynamic. And there can be even more participating states. The world majority will be with us.

The Peace Formula is designed so that every country and every leader can demonstrate their capabilities for the sake of a common result, for a just and lasting peace.

And our air defense. I thank every warrior who defends Ukrainian skies every day and every night. We are working very hard to provide Ukraine with new air defense systems. Now is not the time to talk publicly about the details, but negotiations on additional air defense systems are ongoing with our various partners. Step by step, we are bringing this success closer for Ukraine.

Glory to everyone who fights and works for Ukraine! I thank everyone in the world who helps!

Glory to Ukraine!

The cost:

A childhood dream. In an art therapy session, 9-year-old Kamila illustrated her dream: to have her father, who perished in the war, return to Earth as an angel. They are all angels – our heroes – safeguarding their little ones in dreams as they slumber.
Story: Pierre Polard
📷… pic.twitter.com/rtsrhuAs6V

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 30, 2023

A childhood dream. In an art therapy session, 9-year-old Kamila illustrated her dream: to have her father, who perished in the war, return to Earth as an angel. They are all angels – our heroes – safeguarding their little ones in dreams as they slumber.
Story: Pierre Polard
📷 Patryck Jaracz

I meant to include this video yesterday and forgot until after the post had been up for several hours, so it goes in tonight. Since I don’t know the nym of the commenter who sent it to me, just the person’s real name, feel free to sound off in the comments and take credit it for sending it across. Thanks!

Last night in comments way2blue asked:

The past few weeks we’ve seen repeated complaints from unnamed Pentagon & intelligence officials—nitpicking the pace & focus of the Ukrainian counter offensive.My question to you is why?Could you offer insight into their motives?  Seems counter-productive & perverse.

Are their military assessments not being taken seriously by the White House?So they leak to the public hoping for traction?Or the opposite?Is Russian framing hardwired within segments of the Biden administration?Are they left over from the Trump administration?Scapegoating?Something else?

Thanks as always for your professional insights into so many facets of war in Ukraine.

You are most welcome. Thank you for the kind words. To answer your question, I do not know. Some of this stuff has leaked to WaPo’s David Ignatius, who is considered to be the go to source for the Intel Community leadership to get information they want out to the public out to the public. But since these concerns and complaints are being made anonymously I have no idea if these are senior people with permission to leak or they’re frustrated career folks or they’re uniformed or civilian. What I do know is that all this does is help the Russians with their information warfare campaign.

Speaking of Biden administration statements, this is interesting:

to Russia. Since that visit, Pres. Putin & the leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Un have exchanged letters, pledging to increase their bilateral cooperation. Our information further indicates that following Shoygu’s visit, another group of Russian officials traveled to Pyongyang

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) August 30, 2023

the DPRK, which the Russian military plans to use in Ukraine. These potential deals could also include the provision of raw materials that would assist Russia's defense industrial base… An arms deal between the DPRK & Russia would directly violate a number of UN Security Council

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) August 30, 2023

More related from US Ambassdor to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield: pic.twitter.com/R9Ga60CRXC

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) August 30, 2023

Here’s the screen grab from Rozen’s tweet above:

he declined to get into that but it was implied this was derived from US intelligence

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) August 30, 2023

This would be an authorized disclosure of information/intelligence.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, the former Ukrainian Minister of Defense, did an interesting interview yesterday with Christianne Amanpour:

This evening I was talking to Christiane Amanpour @amanpour live on @cnn about our situation on the front and the future of war. Four parts and citations are below in the comments:
🧵 1/5 pic.twitter.com/T6AJ335jle

— Andriy P. Zagorodnyuk (@Andriypzag) August 29, 2023

🧵 3/5 https://t.co/ZdABfAlsPU

— Andriy P. Zagorodnyuk (@Andriypzag) August 29, 2023

🧵 5/5 https://t.co/bRLDi1ruf0

— Andriy P. Zagorodnyuk (@Andriypzag) August 29, 2023

Verbove:

Ukraine has breached the first Russian main defensive line, as known as the Surovikin line, in the direction of Verbove.

The village is integrated to the Russian defenses, and it's not clear if Ukraine tries to push inside the village, or are they just widening the flanks. 1/6 pic.twitter.com/J6YDbUNUSJ

— Emil Kastehelmi (@emilkastehelmi) August 30, 2023

You can read more about the fortifications of this area from my thread here.

I'm rather convinced the Ukrainian attack won't stop here, the defences are breachable. It seems they are going for the Ocheretuvate direction. 3/6https://t.co/x5SV88uFvR

— Emil Kastehelmi (@emilkastehelmi) August 30, 2023

Also, there is possibly some Ukrainian success south of Urozhaine. Our team is looking into that, we'll get back to this later if we manage to geolocate this video. Follow our master geolocator @EerikMatero for updates. 5/6 pic.twitter.com/NEJSPbejGS

— Emil Kastehelmi (@emilkastehelmi) August 30, 2023

By the way, thanks to @moklasen, he was the first to geolocate the video. Nice work!https://t.co/IItfPi4L4T

— Emil Kastehelmi (@emilkastehelmi) August 30, 2023

Yes, this was a part of the weaker section. However, the village of Verbove might be a difficult obstacle, as it's a built area in a valley, and the Russians still likely control the heights on both sides.

— Emil Kastehelmi (@emilkastehelmi) August 30, 2023

This is very, very bad. The Ukrainians cannot afford to lose any pilots or aviation assets.

Bad week for Ukrainian pilots. Six pilots of the 18th Army Aviation Brigade were killed near Bakhmut, the Ukrainian military said. Circumstances not disclosed. https://t.co/2IwJgvNJtR

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) August 30, 2023

Suspilne has the (machine translated) details:

August 29 on Bakhmut direction died six pilots from the 18th separate brigade of army aviation named after Igor Sikorsky. This happened during the combat task.

This was reported to the Public by a spokesman for the brigade Eugene Rakita.

The fallen had officer ranks. One of them — comes from Poltavshchyna, the rest – from other regions of Ukraine, the spokesman added.

For you Russian equipment go boom enthusiasts:

The lad needs his own livestream on Twitch, I'd be watching this content daily 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/4YZoGTnr7x

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) August 30, 2023

A bunch of locations in Russia and Russian occupied Crimea were attacked by drones last night:

Drone attack on six Russian regions reported:
– Pskov airport: four Il-76 military transport aircraft damaged;
– Bryansk: Kremniy El microelectronics factory on fire
– Kaluga: oil reservoir hit
– Moscow
– Oryol
– Ryazan

Sevastopol and the bay attacked by naval drones.

Is… pic.twitter.com/o5RcfJ5K6U

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) August 30, 2023

Drone attack on six Russian regions reported:
– Pskov airport: four Il-76 military transport aircraft damaged;
– Bryansk: Kremniy El microelectronics factory on fire
– Kaluga: oil reservoir hit
– Moscow
– Oryol
– Ryazan

Sevastopol and the bay attacked by naval drones.

Is everything still according to plan?

Pskov airfield Kresty is located 950 km (590 miles) from Kyiv. Men filming drone attack destroying four IL-76 aircrafts says: ‘Welcome to the 24th of February, tovarischi (comrades).” pic.twitter.com/8ZCEWbo4tb

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) August 30, 2023

The Financial Times has details:

Ukrainian drones struck seven Russian regions overnight, destroying several military cargo planes, in Kyiv’s most sweeping unmanned aerial attack inside enemy territory since Moscow invaded last year.

Videos showed nighttime blasts of rocket fire over the city of Pskov close to Russia’s border with Estonia. Flames could be seen rising over the city’s military-civilian airport as Russian air defences attempted to take down the drones. According to state news agency Tass, at least four Ilyushin Il-76 planes, large military cargo carriers, were destroyed in the Pskov attack.

Drones also attacked targets in the Oryol, Kaluga and Ryazan regions, and in Bryansk, where they aimed for the local television tower, among other buildings. Another drone aiming for Moscow was shot down in the Ruzsky district west of the city, the Russian defence ministry claimed.

In Bryansk, the region’s governor, said they had shot down seven drones overnight and in the early morning hours.

The airport in Pskov was closed to civilian use on Wednesday, Russia’s aviation agency said. The governor said authorities needed to assess whether there had been any damage to its landing strip.

Emergency services told the Tass state news agency that four Il-76 planes were damaged. “A fire started, two aircraft are engulfed in flames,” it said.

Ukraine has steadily extended its ability to strike targets deeper behind enemy lines. It has used foreign-supplied artillery and missile systems, such as US Himars and British Storm shadow missiles, to hit Russian targets on Ukrainian soil.

But to strike within Russian territory, Ukraine has had to develop homegrown solutions as its western allies have refused to give it weapons to attack Russia itself.

Such attacks “have military utility”, Mick Ryan, a former Australian general and frequent commentator on the war in Ukraine, said on social media, because they “could force redeployment of Russian air force assets from Ukraine”.

Since Ukrainian drones fly more slowly and at a lower altitude than missiles, and are often made of non-metallic parts, analysts say they have sometimes been able to dodge Russian air defences.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s improved air defences have been increasingly able to intercept Russian aerial attacks. Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack on Kyiv overnight that left at least two dead and two wounded. But Ukrainian air defences managed to down all 28 missiles and 15 out of the 16 Russian drones, according to Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.

Much more at the link!

The Financial Times also brings this excellent piece by Bronwen Maddox, the Director of Chatham House:

Of the two startling images that circled the globe last week, only one should prompt a foreign policy rethink for the UK and its allies. It is not the flaming wreckage of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane near Moscow. The dramatic death of the leader of the Wagner group, widely predicted since his attempted mutiny against Vladimir Putin in June, told us nothing new. This assumed demonstration of theatrical brutality only strengthens Ukraine’s resolve in the fight against Putin.

It is the police mugshot of Donald Trump that deserves more thought. Carefully posed (he chose to glower rather than smile under the combed sweep of his hair) and immediately circulated by his team as a symbol of his supposed martyrdom, it drove his poll ratings only higher. The image will dominate next year’s presidential campaign (in which he holds the overwhelming lead for the Republican nomination). US District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday set a start date of March 4 2024 for his federal criminal trial on charges of alleged election interference, one day before “Super Tuesday”, when Republican voters in more than a dozen states head to the polls to pick their nominee.

British foreign policy, like that in much of Europe and many democracies beyond, is based on the presumption that the US in some sense always remains the same. Its presidents, its policies, its wars of choice come and go. But America upholds the principle of international institutions even if it rails against some of them or funds them sporadically. It continues to pick up the giant’s share of the tab for Nato, above all.

Those assumptions are confounded if Donald Trump is elected again. His critics say that surely he would not win more support than in 2016, but President Joe Biden’s stumbles, literal and figurative, and the unpopularity of Kamala Harris as vice-president have left the Democrat vote vulnerable.

Dealing with Trump in the White House again would present problems on a different scale. In a second term, he would be a president who had denied the result of one election and rejected the legal process of being held to account for that. He would have an utterly different conception of America’s role in the world and the nature of its democracy at home, of the rule of law at home and abroad. And so would the US voters who elected him.

At that point, the US becomes, for its allies, a different country altogether. The implications for global institutions, for international law and order, for predictability of a world superpower are stark. That they are barely discussed in published foreign policy is perhaps because of concern about jeopardising current relationships. But the prospect of the US being led by a president who denies the principles of American democracy is likely enough that this is no longer a good excuse.

Much, much more at the link!

I want to make an important point in light of Maddox’s op-ed. For those who think that Trump could not or would not be elected again in 2024 you need to realize that it is possible that he could or would be. Given the nature of the electoral college Trump still has the same 30% chance of getting reelected that he did in 2016. The revolt and insurrection of his followers is ongoing. Unlike in the 1860s, this is actually a civil war albeit a cold to lukewarm one. We sit the warmer to hotter spikes multiple times a week. This past week we saw them at UNC and in Jacksonville and in several other places. Yes, Trump and some of the more/most senior co-conspirators in the attempt to overthrow the constitutional order and the constitution itself have finally be indicted. That’s great. There is no way to know if Trump will actually be held accountable. In half the states, as I wrote about Florida last night in response to a question in the comments to hurricane update thread, we have illiberal managed Christian herrenvolk democracy:

[Florida] has been gerrymandered within an inch of its life and DeStupid also controls the courts as he’s appointed the majority of the state supreme and appeals court judges over the last five plus years. The state is a managed white Christian herrenvolk illiberal democracy run on behalf of DeStupid’s ambitions and the oligarchs that fund them.

Over half the states are just like Florida in terms of GOP trifectas. Right now Robin Vos, the Speaker of the Wisconsin House is working to overthrow the last judicial election. The minute he files the impeachment charges against the new state supreme court justice she is suspended from all further judicial activities. Meaning she can’t rule on anything and the state supreme court is a 3-3 deadlock, which essentially neuters it. Bloomberg just published a piece on how the GOP majorities and supermajorities in red state legislatures are subverting the Democratic municipal governments inside their states. These governments are usually in the largest urban areas.

In red states across the South, Republican legislatures are increasingly interfering in the governance of Democratic cities by blocking liberal reforms and often dictating conservative policies in their place. In Texas, Republicans overrode measures in Austin and Dallas guaranteeing water breaks for construction workers and blocked cities’ ability to mandate paid leave for workers. In Mississippi, Republicans created a separate police force and court system for a majority White part of the heavily Black capital city of Jackson, prompting the US Department of Justice to file a complaint calling the move “racially discriminatory.” In Missouri, Republicans forced Kansas City to increase spending on policing and have been trying to take control of police oversight in St. Louis, which would reverse the outcome of a statewide ballot initiative passed 10 years ago.

Much, much more at the link.

As I’ve written here before: an insurrection (or revolt or rebellion or civil war) that goes unpunished is practiced. The only way to ensure that it is stopped is a transparent response that happens quickly. The response in regard to the leadership to the 6 January revolt and the ongoing insurrection and cold to lukewarm civil war has neither been transparent nor quick. The only reason it is happening at the Federal level is that former Speaker Pelosi set up the January 6th Committee in order to shame AG Garland into doing more than pencil whipping whatever DOJ was doing around the executive suite of the building. The US is being internally subverted – out administered – in conjunction with the non-kinetic elements of a world war being waged against us by Russia. Our domestic institutions are sclerotic, unstable, and in need of significant TLC. The international order we established after WW II is in similarly bad shape and, because we are in a world war being waged against us and our allies by Russia, despite no one in the Biden administration being willing to even consider that reality, let alone admit it, once that war concludes the global system we have all been living in is going to be remade whether we like it or not. Think I’m being hyperbolic, here’s Fiona Hill’s assessment:

“This is a great power conflict, the third great power conflict in the European space in a little over a century,” Hill says. “It’s the end of the existing world order. Our world is not going to be the same as it was before.”

Part of the problem is that conceptually, people have a hard time with the idea of a world war. It brings all kinds of horrors to mind — the Holocaust and the detonation of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the dawning of the nuclear age. But if you think about it, a world war is a great power conflict over territory which overturns the existing international order and where other states find themselves on different sides of the conflict. It involves economic warfare, information warfare, as well as kinetic war.

We’re in the same situation. Again, Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014, exactly 100 years after Germany invaded Belgium and France — and just in the same way that Hitler seized the Sudetenland, annexed Austria and invaded Poland. We’re having a hard time coming to terms with what we’re dealing with here. This is a great power conflict, the third great power conflict in the European space in a little over a century. It’s the end of the existing world order. Our world is not going to be the same as it was before.

People worry about this being dangerous hyperbole. But we have to really accept what the situation is to be able to respond appropriately. Each war has been fought differently. Modern wars involve information space and cyberspace, and we’ve seen all of these at play here. And, in the 21st century, these are economic and financial wars. We’re all-in on the financial and economic side of things.

Much, much more at the link.

If you don’t think Trump can be elected again in 2024 you are deluding yourself. If you don’t think he will then capitalize on being elected and quickly move to overturn the constitutional order and the Constitution in the name of protecting them to establish an illiberal, managed white Christian herrenvolk democracy then you haven’t been paying attention. The greatest domestic threat to the US would be a second Trump administration. It would also be the greatest threat to the international order and global system. The US would hand Ukraine, as well as Moldova over to Russia. And the Baltics would likely be in play too because Trump will pull the US out of NATO. He just announced he’d impose a set of tarriffs and start a trade war that would crash both the US and global economies. None of this is written in stone. Our fate is not utterly binding. There are a lot of dynamics in play, such as the continued effects of the Dobbs decision. However, we are dealing with a civil war inside and related to a world war and if we don’t get our heads around this soon we will wake up in November 2024 and it will be too late.

That’s enough for tonight.

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