Benton, the husband of Rand Paul’s niece and a veteran GOP staffer, faces up to 20 years in prison, but plans to appeal.
— Read on www.axios.com/2022/11/18/trump-campaign-jesse-benton-russia
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Evgeny Prigozhin, the terrifying muscle behind Putin’s most notorious mercenary group, is an increasingly vocal threat to Putin, himself.
— Read on puck.news/putins-chef-the-man-behind-russias-shadow-army/ -
THURSDAY 12 JANUARY 2023
News Notes:
NYT
- Months of fighting in Soledar.
- Poland and Britain are still considering sending tanks to Ukraine.
- Giving these tanks to Ukraine raises fears of more direct Western involvement in the war.
- While most of Ukraine lies in destruction, West fears giving tanks to Ukraine will provoke Putin. (Note: Ridiculous).
- Poland is urging Western nations to band together and send tanks.
- Germany says it won’t be the first nation to send in tanks. Poland has to get Germany’s approval to send in German-made tanks.
- Aleksei Navalny’s wife is asking the Russian government to provide jailed Navalny with appropriate medication.
- Navalny is in a “punishment cell” 2 by 3 meters. He is kept from lying down all day even though he has a temperature.
- More than 200 Russian doctors sent a letter to Putin asking Putin to stop abusing Navalny.
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Wednesday 11 January 2023
News Update:
From the Internet: New York Times
- Bakhmut
- Wagner Group claims to have taken Soledar, north of Bakhmut.
- If true this would be the first Russian military success in months.
- Many, including Zelensky, have questioned Russia’s apparent obsession with capturing Bakhmut. There are a number of different theories. For some, the determination to take Bakhmut with almost exclusively Wagner Group troops is both an effort to built a reputation for Wagner and also to bolster a power move by its founder Prigozhin.
- Prigozhin wants to present Wager as being the only effective fighting group on the Russian side.
- The purported capture of Soledar is intended to complete an envelopment of Bakhmut from the north.
- The fighting in Bakhmut is different from fighting in other areas where the Ukrainians have avoided direct confrontations and adopted a more nimble and smart method of fighting.
- The struggle for Bakhmut is said to have symbolic value for both sides.
- According to a report from Reuters, Prigozhin has stated that Wagner wants access to the vast underground cities that exist near Bakhmut and have multiple entrances near Soledar. These cities are disused salt mines.
- Tank and infantry can move around freely in these underground tunnels and it is thought the military that controls the unused mines can outflank the other.
- Others have noted the strategic positive of the salt and gypsum still in the mines.
- The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) thinks that Wagner is interested in exploiting the natural resources in the undergraound complex of tunnels and cities
- Russian Economy
- Russia posts a $47 billion budget deficit for 2022.
- Mikhail Mishustin, Russian prime minister.
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TUESDAY 10 JANUARY 2023
NEWS NOTES: Ukraine: The Latest Podcast
- Intense fighting around Bakhmut continues. Fierce fighting for a number of weeks.
- This seems to be the “main immediate operational objective” of Russia according to British Intelligence. Russia is trying to envelope to the north of Soledar.
- Soledar is the location of entrances to extensive salt mines. The mines are disused, but there is an extensive network of underground tunnels and there is a fear that the military force that controls these tunnels can outflank the opposing forces.
- Soledar is the location of two foreign aid workers who have disappeared.
- Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is noting the Wagner Group is using the limited success in Soledar to boost Wagner’s reputation as the only effective force Russia has in the field. Prizochin (head of Wagner Group) is claiming that Wagner is exclusively fighting around Soledar.
- https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-wagner-says-it-controls-ukrainian-town-soledar-fighting-continues-2023-01-10/
- The Russian government is maintaining that Russia is fighting the West and NATO, and above all the US and Britain. This is the narrative because they can’t be losing to Ukraine, they portray themselves as confronting the entire West.
- The more the conflict is portrayed as being against “The West” it deters other countries from getting more involved.
- Britain has not made a final decision about whether to send tanks to Ukraine. The provision of these tanks would help unleash other countries to release tanks. They are all waiting for who is going to make the first move.
- Sending the tanks is a big decision. We can’t always look at these decisions or this reluctance as obstinacy.
- A decision about sending an air defense system to Ukraine is being made in Italy despite of the far-right government.
- Patrushev (Russian leader) is a believer in conspiracy theories about the US intending to harvest organs from Ukrainian children. He was in that initial public meeting between Putin and the Russian military leaders about the invasion.
- Some are seeing him as a possible successor of Putin. If Putin were ousted the replacement might be worse. He wants to ramp up military support. He says that Russia has the right to use nuclear arms.
- There are people calling for a further escalation in Ukraine.
- https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-ally-s-latest-move-shows-growing-strain-with-putin/ar-AA16ajtm
- The EU has pledged new sanctions against Belarus.
- Belarus may become more important in the near future. There has been speculation that Russia may launch a further attack from Belarus.
- Sources
- https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/01/sviatlana-tsikhanouskaya-belarus-russia-lukashenko-putin/672666/
Wagner Group
- https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-s-wagner-group-advances-in-donbas-captures-much-of-salt-mining-town/ar-AA16bI1b
- https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/russian-mercenaries-from-the-wagner-group-owned-by-a-key-putin-ally-are-stoking-influence-in-resource-rich-central-african-republic/ar-AA16boSl
- https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/wagners-prigozhin-looks-to-punch-his-meal-ticket-in-soledar/ar-AA16bpfh
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/10/russia-wagner-group-fighting-heavy-bloody-battles-control-soledar
- https://www.thedailybeast.com/wagner-groups-secret-squadron-of-executioners-accused-of-killing-their-own-men-in-ukraine
- https://special-ops.org/wagner-group-notorious-private-military-company/
- https://www.newsweek.com/russia-wagner-group-recruiting-prisoners-belarus-war-1770932
- Personalities https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/22/the-personal-politics-of-putins-security-council-meeting-a76522
- Alexander Bortnikov, FSB Director
- Nikolai Patrushev, Security Council Secretary, KGB background, Leningrad/St. Petersburg background, conspiratorial worldview.
- Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu
- Valentina Matviyenko, Federation council speaker
- Dmitri Medvedev, Deputy Chair of the Security Council.
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The small city of Soledar in eastern Ukraine has become a focal point of fierce fighting in recent days, part of a broader push in the Bakhmut area that Russia sees as important to achieving its goal of occupying all of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
While the area is still highly contested, many have asked how a tiny city became such a focus. Even in his overnight address, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine mentioned Soledar, and said: “What did Russia want to gain there?”
The most critical factor is perhaps not what Russian forces hope to gain in Soledar, but rather what a mercenary group fighting on the front there has to gain in terms of reputation if it manages to seize the city. In Bakhmut, the Wagner Group, the private military contracting company that has recruited prisoners into its ranks, has become the main force leading the offensive for Russia, and the fighting has become bloodier.
Russian forces and the Wagner Group are likely now in control of most of Soledar after intense fighting over the past four days, Britain’s defense ministry said in its daily intelligence update on Tuesday. The capture of the city, which is about six miles north of the city of Bakhmut, is likely to be part of “an effort to envelop Bakhmut from the north, and to disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication,” the update said.
Mr. Zelensky said that the fighting in Soledar was “extremely difficult” for Ukrainian forces, but that their resilience had “gained additional time and additional power for Ukraine.” “Everything is completely destroyed — there is almost no life left,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader also said that thousands of fighters on Russia’s side had been killed there. “The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” he said. “This is what madness looks like.”
The tactics employed by the Wagner Group have resulted in a high number of casualties. In recent days, reporters for The New York Times embedded with a Ukrainian drone crew on the front line saw the bodies of Russian fighters scattered across open ground in the area around Bakhmut. Images and videos on Ukrainian social media in recent days also appear to have come from these aerial reconnaissance missions and show similar scenes.
Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a caterer and businessman who now leads the Wagner Group and is a close associate of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, is thought to want a victory in Bakhmut to boost his own political standing at home. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, noted in an analysis on Monday that Mr. Prigozhin “continues to use reports of Wagner Group success in Soledar to bolster the Wagner Group’s reputation as an effective fighting force.”
Mr. Prigozhin has emphasized that the group is the only Russian force fighting in Soledar, although Ukrainian officials and the Russian military say that Wagner is not the only group fighting for the city on Moscow’s behalf.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Prigozhin said that Ukrainian forces were putting up a strong fight for Soledar and for Bakhmut.
Some Ukrainian messaging around the battle for Soledar on Tuesday appeared to suggest that losing control of the city to Russian forces would not be a major setback. Mr. Zelensky emphasized the importance of his forces’ broader goal of retaking the eastern Donbas region.
“The result of this difficult and long battle will be the liberation of our entire Donbas,” he said in his overnight address.
The larger battle is the fight for Bakhmut. For Russia, capturing it would be the most significant success in months.
