Feedback from our battalion commanders on combat use of equipment and weapons is what we will discuss with the leaders of partner states – address by the President of Ukraine

15 August 2023 – 19:32

Dear Ukrainians! All our warriors!

Today I continue to visit our combat brigades. Yesterday we were in Donetsk region, today – various districts of Zaporizhzhia region, the territory of the Tavria operational and strategic group of troops. Together with General Tarnavskyi, we visited the positions of the 3rd and 15th operational brigades of the National Guard, the 47th and 65th separate mechanized brigades, the 46th airmobile brigade; the 10th Army Corps – the 116th, 117th and 118th brigades. Each one is special, all of them are doing great. I also visited the frontline surgical unit and thanked our combat medics for saving Ukrainian lives. I spoke with the brigade commanders and battalion commanders about the needs of our warriors – what they really feel on the frontline. Everything the guys talked about will be voiced at the Staff.

When such communication takes place brigade by brigade, and everyone has real combat experience, we can assess the situation much more deeply, see how the specific experience of one brigade can be applied by other units and scaled up to our entire defense forces. Specific needs have been defined: electronic warfare equipment, drones, and medevac armored evacuation vehicles. There are additional organizational issues that were not discussed yesterday, in particular, regarding officer ranks. Training of soldiers is one of the key tasks, we talked about it. Real combat experience, current challenges and trends on the battlefield, fire and maneuver, the skills that our warriors have and that need to be shared with all brigades and made a priority in training centers, especially when training mobilized soldiers. Soldiers’ training is also the responsibility of every commander at all levels. Motivation of people is important, and it is a direct consequence of how they learn to fight.

We heard from the battalion commanders about combat use of equipment and weapons provided by our partners. Each such feedback is something we will discuss with the leaders. And I would like to thank all our warriors who take trophies and put Russian equipment to work for Ukraine. This is not just the rationality of our guys, this is also an important proof of the ability of our heroes to take weapons from the enemy and use them to protect the life of Ukraine.

I was honored to award our warriors – soldiers, sergeants, officers… I am proud of everyone! Thank you, guys, for your chevrons. It’s a pleasure!

Today I would like to thank everyone who helped eliminate the consequences of Russian missile attacks. Yesterday it was in Odesa and Kharkiv region, and today it was in Lviv, Lutsk, Dnipro, Kramatorsk, Cherkasy region, Zaporizhzhia region and other parts of the country. I am grateful to the rescuers, doctors, police, volunteers, local authorities… Thank you! Every day we must remember that the steps forward of our warriors on the frontline bring security and protection closer to all our cities and villages. And the more powerful our air defense system is, the more opportunities the rear regions have to work for defense. In particular, we are already increasing military production, even in the current conditions. And we will further increase it.

Ukraine’s goal is clear: we will win and provide Ukraine with the power to guarantee a lasting peace. And I thank each and every one of our warriors – everyone who is fighting for Ukraine! I am grateful to all the volunteers who help, to each and every one of them. To all Ukrainians who feel that they are at war and therefore help the defense. Thank you very much!

Glory to Ukraine!

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1691493897099259923

President @ZelenskyyUa
visited the locations of the brigades that are conducting offensive operations in the Melitopol direction.

The President met with the Commander of the Tavria operational-strategic group, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, and visited the locations of:

– 3rd Brigade & 15th Brigade of the operational assignment of @ng_ukraine;
– 47th Mechanized Brigade;
– 117th Mechanized Brigade;
– 65th Mechanized Brigade;
– 116th Mechanized Brigade;
– 46th Airmobile Brigade;
– 118th Mechanized Brigade

The President received reports of the commanders about the situation in their areas of responsibility and discussed with them any challenges their units are experiencing.

Lutsk:

https://twitter.com/JamWaterhouse/status/1691376904782196736

Lviv:

https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1691374720174661632

The Kakhovka resevoir:

Kakhovka reservoir now. pic.twitter.com/oFsve748yq

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 15, 2023

Do you know what time it is?

/2 Strikes were at maximum HIMARS range. ~73km or more.
Approximate geolocation:
(46.1239437, 33.3838238) pic.twitter.com/vPhXTsI1h9

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 15, 2023

(Image by Boris Groh)

Here’s more video of the Russian naval interdiction the other day:

Russians published footage of the raid on the Sukru Okan ship that was stopped in the Black Sea on its way to Izmail. As I understand, the crew of the ship first told the occupiers to go where Moskva went and only stopped after the Russians fired shots?

Then the officer… pic.twitter.com/vdZkVrPHWe

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) August 15, 2023

Russians published footage of the raid on the Sukru Okan ship that was stopped in the Black Sea on its way to Izmail. As I understand, the crew of the ship first told the occupiers to go where Moskva went and only stopped after the Russians fired shots?

Then the officer embarrassed himself with his level of English.

Oh goody, it looks like the DOJ put on the golf shoes in the Autumn of 2022 and decided step on its crank again:

Meanwhile, Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash hired an American lobbyist in his pursuit of a plea deal for the US indictment on racketeering charges.

It looks like DOJ “expressed a willingness to negotiate” “that does not include Mr. Firtash pleading guilty to a felony”. pic.twitter.com/xmto5re7dS

— Tanya Kozyreva (@TanyaKozyreva) August 15, 2023

Always nice when what should have been breaking news doesn’t break for over a year!

You’ll remember Firtash from the first Black PSYOP post way back in OCT 2o19. Posted in flight about an hour and a half before Bixby decided to use my head as a chin rest.

2) The Firtash initiative. Firtash wants off house arrest in Vienna and out from under the extradition order to send him to the US to face the Federal crimes he’s been indicted for. The reason Firtash wants this done is because he’s Putin’s man in Ukraine’s natural gas industry. If Firtash can get back to Kyiv he can then once again try to take over Ukraine’s natural gas sector, suck it dry of profits, and fuck up its operations, which will force the Ukrainians to buy natural gas from Russia while removing Ukrainian natural gas as an alternative to Russian natural gas for the rest of the EU market. This all benefits Putin, who is Firtash’s krysha (roof/ceiling) in the Russian mob. Just as he is for every other one of these oligarchs aligned with him.
A) Firtash’s efforts weren’t going very far, so he fired his US attorneys and hired Toensing and DiGenova. They then hired Parnas to do their translation work despite it being reported that Firtash and most of his staff speaking fluent and/or functional English.
B) Firtash was laundering manufactured dirt and conspiracy theories about the Bidens, about the Democrats working with Ukraine to steal the 2016 election, etc through Parnas and Fruman and Toensing and DiGenova to Giuliani. Giuliana who was being paid/worked for Parnas, but also somehow also Parnas’s boss.
C) Toensing and DiGenova are also working for free to assist Giuliani with manufacturing dirt on the Bidens.

A couple of final points. Both Giuliani and Toensing and DiGenova are now claiming that Parnas, Fruman, and now, I suppose, Solomon cannot be deposed, questioned, etc by investigators since they were either working for Giuliani and/or Toensing and DiGenova or are represented by them and therefore everything they know is either attorney-client privilege or attorney work product. So you can’t ask Giuliani about what Toensing or DiGenova are doing. Or what Parnas or Fruman are doing. You can’t ask Toensing and DiGenova about what Giuliani, Parnas, and/or Fruman are doing. You can’t ask Parnas and Fruman what Giuliani or Toensing or DiGenova are doing. You can’t ask Toensing and DiGenova what Solomon is doing. You can’t ask Soloman what DiGenova and Toensing are doing. You can’t ask Firtash what Giuliani, Toensing, DiGenova, and/or Parnas and Fruman are doing. You can’t ask Giuliani, Toensing, DiGenova, and/or Firtash is doing. And because Giuliani claims all of this is on behalf of his client, the President, you also can’t, because of executive privilege, ask Giuliani, Parnas and Fruman who are working for him and who he is working for, and/or Toensing and DiGenova who are assisting him pro bono and employing Parnas anything because they are all covered from having to divulge anything or answering any questions under executive privilege.

If this sounds familiar, it is similar to how Roy Cohn handled his legal representation of the organized crime families he represented in New York. They’d hold all their business/decision making meetings in his dining room with him present or with him on the phone in case of an emergency, so it was all covered under attorney-client privilege. Nobody, from any angle of inquiry, can say nothing about nothing and no one because everything is privileged.

Fortunately, the Ukrainians are taking this a bit more seriously than Merrick Garland’s Department of Milquetoast.

From The Financial Times:

Ukrainian authorities have increased pressure on one of the country’s richest oligarchs in exile, Dmytro Firtash, by expanding a corruption investigation into his energy businesses.

Security services announced on Tuesday that a further three managers of Firtash’s companies have been charged with embezzlement, bringing the total number of managers charged to 15. Investigators also seized £157mn worth of property belonging to Firtash and assets totalling £4.2mn owned by the charged managers.

The alleged scheme involved regional gas companies linked to Firtash siphoning off gas from Ukraine’s state transportation system from 2016 to 2022. The estimated damage to state coffers amounts to £380mn, according to Ukrainian investigators.

In a statement, Firtash’s company, Group DF, denied the charges and described them as “corrupt pressure”. It called on Ukraine “as a country at the forefront of the fight for European values, (to) respect the rule of law and refrain from engaging in unlawful business expropriation”.

Ukraine is under pressure from its western partners and financiers to reduce the influence of oligarchs and clean up a culture of corruption which has persisted since the country declared its independence from the Soviet Union. For decades, different business interests in Ukraine have battled for control or influence over the highest offices of the state in a bid to gain or maintain assets as well as state contracts.

“This is a move against Firtash because [the regional gas companies are] the foundation of his control over the gas supply system,” Tetiana Shevchuk, legal counsel of the Anti-corruption Action Centre in Ukraine.

Firtash was a partner of Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom in Ukraine’s lucrative gas distribution business. He gradually gained influence and was a backer of Viktor Yanukovych, the disgraced pro-Russian president of Ukraine who was ousted from power in 2014. That year, Firtash fled to Austria, where he has been stuck fighting a US extradition request for allegedly bribing Indian officials.

He attempted to strike a plea deal in November, according to a letter from US lobbyist Ben Barnes detailing he was paid an initial $100,000 to secure a meeting with the US Department of Justice.

Even if Firtash manages to reach a deal with the US, he may not be able to return to Ukraine. In 2021, he was sanctioned in Ukraine for allegedly supplying Russian military companies with titanium and his personal assets and bank accounts were frozen.

 

Ukrainians will never give up.

📷Erçin Ertürk pic.twitter.com/B34wUZC8IL

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 15, 2023

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos, so here’s some adjacent material from the Ukrainian Army Cats & Dogs Twitter feed.

Together. pic.twitter.com/cxXeCUjSfV

— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 15, 2023

🥰 pic.twitter.com/3tWXwT6JXL

— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 15, 2023

Cat. pic.twitter.com/2JV7ZYTB0U

— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 15, 2023

I’d like to clarify that that is a cat with what appears to be some sort of AK style machine pistol.

Open thread!