A Ukrainian navy captain claimed Russia has only one missile ship left in the Black Sea.
He said that most of the Black Sea Fleet had relocated after a series of Ukrainian strikes.
A senior UK Royal Navy officer said that 25% of Russia’s Black Sea warships had been sunk or damaged.
A Ukrainian commander has said that Russia only has one “loser” missile ship left in the Black Sea after a series of successful attacks.
“Most of the combat units, if you take the carriers of cruise missiles, have actually all been relocated, except for one loser who has not yet launched a single missile,” Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk told Ukrainian TV.
He said that the lone ship remaining in Crimea is Russia’s Cyclone warship, a Karakurt-class corvette.
Pletenchuk noted that the Black Sea Fleet was once considered Russia’s main force in Crimea but had almost entirely been chased away and relocated.
A Ukrainian sea drone slams into a Russian warship in Novorossiysk on August 4, 2023.Pravda Gerashchenko
Ukraine has been successfully using missiles and drones to strike ships at Sevastopol, Russia’s major Black Sea port in Crimea.
A senior UK Royal Navy officer said last month that 25% of Russia’s vessels in the Black Sea had been sunk or damaged.
Last weekend, Ukraine carried out its latest attacks on the Russian fleet at Sevastopol, bombarding it with missiles that struck four ships.
Ukraine’s navy said it struck two of Russia’s large landing ships, the Yamal and the Azov, as well as the spy ship Ivan Khurs and the Konstantin Olshansky large landing ship.
The latter ship was seized from Ukraine in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.
The UK’s defense minister said on March 25, after the latest Ukrainian attack, that the Black Sea Fleet was “functionally inactive.”
In a further intelligence update on March 31, the UK defense ministry said that four Russian barges had been identified in recent imagery as being positioned at the entrance to the Black Sea Fleet facility at Novorossiysk.
The department noted this was an effort to boost the defenses of the port against attacks from Ukrainian Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs), which are remotely operated vessels that are packed with explosives and used to strike Russian ships.
The UK department said that some of the Black Sea’s most valuable assets had taken refuge Novorossiysk port in the eastern Black Sea after the regular attacks on their traditional homeport of Sevastopol.
Russia’s Adm. Viktor Sokolov, the former Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, was reported to have been fired after a string of successful Ukrainian attacks.
The UK defense department noted that his successor, Vice Adm. Sergei Pinchuk, has likely taken preventive measures to improve the survival chances of Russian vessels.
Ukraine revised its tally of Russian ships it said were damaged in strikes over the weekend.
It said four Russian ships were hit, when earlier statements just mentioned two.
Ukraine has targeted Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which the UK said is now “functionally inactive.”
Ukraine said that its weekend strikes on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet were more successful than it previously revealed, with damage to two additional vessels.
Ukraine’s navy said on Sunday that it struck two of Russia’s large landing ships, the Yamal and the Azov, in occupied Crimea, in an attack on Saturday.
But in an update on Tuesday, it said it had also damaged two other ships, “the spy ship Ivan Khurs and the Konstantin Olshansky large landing ship.”
Ukraine’s defense ministry said a homemade Neptune anti-ship missile was used to strike the Konstantin Olshansky.
The ship was seized from Ukraine in 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, as Business Insider’s Jake Epstein previously reported.
A Ukrainian navy spokesperson described the ship as “not operational” after the weekend attack, The Moscow Times reported.
Business Insider was unable to independently confirm the attacks, and it is not clear what state the vessels are in.
The latest reported strikes come after a slew of Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
The UK said last month that 25% of Russia’s vessels in the Black Sea had been sunk, damaged, or destroyed. This is despite Ukraine not having a functional navy of its own.
The UK’s defense minister said on Sunday, after Ukraine’s first updates about the attack, that the Black Sea Fleet was “functionally inactive.”
“Putin’s continued illegal occupation of Ukraine is exacting a massive cost on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet which is now functionally inactive,” Grant Shapps wrote, adding: “Russia has sailed the Black Sea since 1783 but is now forced to constrain it’s fleet to port. And even there Putin’s ships are sinking!”
Ukraine has used missiles, drones, and commando raids to harass ships at Sevastopol, Russia’s major Black Sea port in Crimea.
In response, Russia has moved many vessels away to safer, more distant ports.
Eastern Ukraine — Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met our CBS News team at an undisclosed, bombed-out building in the far east of his country. Bombed-out buildings aren’t hard to come by here.
With spring approaching, Zelenskyy said Ukraine‘s forces had managed to hold off Russian advances through the worst of the winter months.
“We have stabilized the situation. It is better than it used to be two or three months ago when we had a big deficit of artillery ammunition, different kinds of weapons,” he said, “We totally didn’t see the big, huge counteroffensive from Russia… They didn’t have success.”
“We need help now”: Zelenskyy says Russian offensive looming
But Zelenskyy acknowledged that the invading Russian troops and their seemingly endless supply of missiles and shells had destroyed “some villages.”
“We didn’t have rounds, artillery rounds, a lot of different things,” he said, stressing that while his troops have managed to keep the Russians largely at bay up to now, they’re not prepared to defend against another major Russian offensive expected in the coming months.
That, he said, was expected around the end of May or in June he said.
“And before that, we not only need to prepare, we not only need to stabilize the situation, because the partners are sometimes really happy that we have stabilized the situation,” Zelenskyy said of the U.S. and Ukraine’s other backers. “No, I say we need help now.”
Ukraine vows to keep fighting Russia amid stalled U.S. aid effort
03:37
In what has become a grinding artillery war of attrition, Russia not only has the upper hand with more firepower, but also firepower with a longer reach.
“In Bakhmut and Avdivka and Lysychansk and Soledar and so on, it was really hard to fight the adversary, whose artillery shell can fire 20-plus kilometers, and [our] artillery shell is 20-minus,” he said.
With heavily armed soldiers keeping watch on the horizon, we joined Zelenskyy as he inspected freshly dug underground bunkers in Ukraine’s northeast, on the outskirts of the city of Sumy, no more than 15 miles from the Russian border.
The entire area is on a war footing in response to a significant buildup of Russian troops just across that border, and attacks on nearby villages, Zelenskyy told us.
“Usually, when they attack by artillery and destroy the villages, after that, they always tried to occupy,” he said. “We don’t know what will be tomorrow. That’s why we have to prepare.”
Zelenskyy on the stalled U.S. aid, and why Ukraine needs it
He said what’s needed most are American Patriot missile defense systems, and more artillery. While he’s grateful for the billions of dollars in U.S. support his country has already received, he said the nature of the funding dedicated by the American government to help Ukraine must be put into perspective.
“Dozens of billions remain in the U.S.,” he said. “Let’s be honest, the money which is allocated by the Congress, by the administration, in the majority of cases, 80% of this money — well, at least more than 75% — stays in the U.S. This ammunition is coming to us, but the production is taking place there, and the money stays in the U.S., and the taxes are staying in the U.S.”
“Yes, it’s a huge support coming to us, but we need [it],” added the president.
With lawmakers in the U.S. still wrangling after months of partisan gridlock over a $60 billion aid package, Zelenskyy acknowledged that the war in Gaza had refocused global attention — and U.S. aid — away from his country’s struggle.
As Ukraine aid languishes, some House members work on end run to approve funds
01:40
“First and foremost, we understand that this is a humanitarian disaster,” he said. “Of course, it took the attention from Ukraine in the information field. It’s a fact, and when you lose the attention from your region to other regions, then it’s obvious that you don’t see the view focused and it’s good for Russia.”
And the shift in the world’s attention is not all that President Vladimir Putin has sought to exploit, Zelenskyy said. It came as no surprise to him when the Russian leader pointed a finger at Ukraine, claiming it had somehow supported the terrorist attack near Moscow that killed 139 people on March 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the carnage, and U.S. officials say they’ve seen nothing to cast doubt on that claim.
“Even after ISIS took responsibility!” marvelled Zelenskyy, dismissing Putin’s insinuations as “ridiculous.”
“He doesn’t care whether it’s a terrorist act, an economic act, the oil industry or any of these spheres,” Zelenskyy said the Russian leader, accusing him of “using that to unite his society as much as possible — even what has taken place in Moscow, with so many casualties and wounded people, he’s using all of that just for the one objective to justify that Ukraine does not exist.”
We asked whether the war could be won with Putin still in power. Zelenskyy accepted that it would be a huge challenge, but said that village by village, winning the war would weaken Putin at home, and he warned that if Ukraine does lose, Putin won’t stop there.
Russia’s war “can come to Europe, and to the United States”
“For him, we are a satellite of Russian Federation. At the moment, it’s us, then Kazakhstan, then Baltic states, then Poland, then Germany. At least half of Germany,” he said, reiterating a warning over what he sees as Putin’s intentions that he first issued to CBS News several years ago, before Russia’s full-scale invasion even began. At that stage, Ukraine had already been fighting Russian and Russian-backed forces for years, after they pushed into the east of the country and unilaterally annexed the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine president warns of possible Russian attacks on U.S.
02:22
Zelenskyy said Putin was determined to restore the former Soviet Union to its imperial glory — and its geographical borders.
“Even tomorrow, the missiles can fly to any state,” the Ukrainian leader told CBS News on Wednesday. “This aggression, and Putin’s army, can come to Europe, and then the citizens of the United States, the soldiers of the United States, will have to protect Europe because they’re the NATO members.”
Calling Russia’s invasion of his country a war “against the democracy, against the values, against the whole world,” Zelenskyy said there may be some in the West who were tired of hearing the message, “but only those are tired who are not at war, who don’t know what war is, and who have never lost his or her children.”
“The USA is helping Ukraine and we are grateful for their support, for this multilateral support, but the United States don’t have the war going on,” he said. “But it can come to Europe, and to the United States of America. It can come very quickly to Europe.”
“The 80s and then the end of the 90s – he will never forgive that,” Zelenskyy said, suggesting his Russian counterpart bears a lingering grudge over the collapse of the pre-Cold War world. “He believes in that. We don’t need to change his opinion. We need to change him. We need to replace him.”
Charlie D’Agata
Charlie D’Agata his a CBS News foreign correspondent based in the London bureau.
Russia’s top general announced the formation of a new Dnipro River patrol force last week.
Western intelligence says these troops will likely be vulnerable to Ukraine’s fleet of drone boats.
Kyiv has used these exploding naval drones to wreak havoc on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Russia’s new river patrol force could be vulnerable to the same exploding naval drones that Ukraine has used to wreak havoc on Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet, according to Western intelligence.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu last week announced the formation of the Dnipro River “Flotilla” and a “riverboat brigade” as part of a larger effort to bolster Moscow’s forces by the end of the year.
Britain’s defense ministry said the new formation “will likely be responsible for securing” the Dnipro’s strategic waterways and islands that separate Ukrainian-controlled and Russian-occupied territory in the southern Kherson region.
The Dnipro was long a natural barrier preventing Ukrainian forces in Kherson from advancing south across the river and into the Russian-occupied territory, but this area has experienced combat flare-ups in recent months.
Elite Ukrainian naval forces raiding a Russian-occupied island in the Dnipro river.The Command of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine/Facebook
“Russia likely wants to prevent and deny Ukrainian cross-river operations, such as the operation to establish and maintain the Krynky bridgehead,” Britain’s defense ministry wrote in a Wednesday intelligence update.
Krynky is a small village on the eastern bank of the Dnipro, near the city of Kherson, where Ukrainian forces established a bridgehead, or strong foothold, in the fall. Kyiv has since sought to expand its presence there, leading to intense fighting — and heavy troop and equipment losses on both sides. Over the past few weeks in particular, Ukraine has managed to repel heavy assaults by the Russians around Krynky.
It’s not immediately clear if Moscow’s new river patrol formation is a direct result of these recent developments, but either way, these forces will probably not be sailing into uncontested waters.
“The Dnipro Flotilla will likely be vulnerable to Ukrainian uncrewed surface vehicles which have been effective in destroying Russian vessels operating in the Black Sea,” Britain’s defense ministry said.
Ukrainian infantrymen soldiers travel on the Dnipro River in the Kherson region in September.Photo by Libkos/Getty Images
Ukraine turned to uncrewed surface vehicles, or USVs, after Russia launched its full-scale invasion to make up for the fact that it didn’t have a proper navy of its own. These systems are essentially just small drone boats packed with explosives and have proven to be an innovative solution for Kyiv in the maritime battle space.
Ukraine has relied on USVs, along with cruise missiles developed domestically and provided by the country’s Western partners, to wreak havoc on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet — damaging or destroying roughly a third of its warships since the war started — and unblock a key maritime corridor in the region, which is crucial to supporting Kyiv’s economy.
This asymmetric style of warfare has compelled Russia to undertake some additional defensive measures, like adding machine gun crews on its ships and increasing aerial patrols, but Moscow has ultimately proven that it’s incapable of consistently defending against the threat.
In some cases, the Kremlin has relocated some elements of the Black Sea Fleet to Russian ports and away from its vulnerable headquarters in Sevastopol, a city in the occupied Crimean peninsula.
Ukraine’s newly released Sea Baby drone “Avdiivka” during a presentation in the Kyiv region on March 5, 2024.AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
Because the fleet is now mainly operating in the eastern Black Sea and farther away from the Kherson region, Russia’s new Dnipro formation will likely assume its river patrolling responsibilities, British intelligence said on Wednesday.
While it’s unclear what sort of manpower or capabilities the river patrol force will have, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War think tank suggested that Russia could end up using it to support its own cross-river raids into the western bank of the Dnipro river, which is controlled by Ukraine.
And although the flotilla may not have the capabilities needed to support a large footprint in the western bank or the reoccupation of Ukrainian territory, it could be enough to pin down critical resources that Kyiv needs elsewhere, the analysts wrote in a March 20 assessment.
The deployment of the flotilla, they said, “may force the Ukrainian command to make challenging decisions about resource attribution as it husbands limited stores of artillery ammunition and other critical military equipment.”
The UK said Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is ‘functionally inactive’ after Ukraine hit two of its ships.
UK Defence Minister Grant Shapps appeared to confirm Ukraine’s most recent strikes on two vessels.
Ukraine claims to have taken out a third of Russia’s navy in the waters through a series of attacks.
The UK’s defense ministry declared Russia’s Black Sea Fleet “functionally inactive” after Ukraine claimed to have struck another two of its ships.
UK Defence Minister Grant Shapps wrote on Sunday that Ukrainian attacks are taking a “massive” toll on the Russian fleet, in a post that appeared to confirm a pair of strikes Ukraine announced on Sunday.
“Russia has sailed the Black Sea since 1783 but is now forced to constrain its fleet to port,” Shapps wrote. “And even there Putin’s ships are sinking!”
Putin’s continued illegal occupation of Ukraine is exacting a massive cost on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet which is now functionally inactive. Russia has sailed the Black Sea since 1783 but is now forced to constrain it’s fleet to port. And even there Putin’s ships are sinking! https://t.co/Oghcis4xcP
Earlier on Sunday, Ukraine announced that it had struck two large landing vessels in the port of Sevastopol, in Crimea. Some sources said the missiles used to hit the Yamal and Azov were likely UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles.
The Yamal sustained critical damage to part of its upper deck and is taking on water, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence claimed on Monday.
A communications center and several infrastructure buildings in Sevastopol were also hit, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said.
The extent of the damage to the Azov is not immediately clear.
According to The Telegraph, each ship would cost about $215 million to replace with modern equivalents.
The strikes are the latest in a long string of Ukrainian attacks that have significantly curtailed Russia’s naval activity in the Black Sea.
Ukraine has used both cruise missiles and naval drones to harass ships at Sevastopol, the most well-equipped port in those waters.
One of the most eye-catching attacks was the sinking of the Ivanovets using home-developed MAGURA V5 naval drones in January.
Ukrainian officials said that as of February Russia had lost a third of its fleet to the attacks.
Not all of the attacks have been confirmed, but their sheer number is impressive considering Ukraine has no functioning navy of its own.
Last fall, after a major attack on Sevastopol, Russia moved much of its Black Sea Fleet to safer ports, such as Novorossiysk and Fedosia — a move that James Heappey, a UK defense minister, said signaled the “functional defeat” of the Black Sea Fleet.
Onlookers have been skeptical of such pronouncements. Even from those ports, Russia’s fleet is still able to fire long-range missiles and lay mines.
Even so, it made the waters safe enough for Ukraine to open an active trade route, while continuing to pound Russia’s navy.
March 25 (UPI) — Three astronauts on board Russia’s Soyuz MS-25 made it safely to the International Space Station nearly 250 miles above earth after a nearly two-day orbital journey.
The spacecraft — which carried NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy — docked at 11:03 a.m. EDT after a 50 hour trip from Kazakhstan, a former Soviet satellite state south of Russia that borders China.
Joining them at the space station are seven other crew members of Expedition 70 who already are in orbit.
Dyson is expected to spend the next six months as a flight engineer before her return in September accompanied by cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos, who will have ended their year-long space missions, according to NASA.
But Novitskiy, whose fourth flight to space this was, and Vasilevskaya who is now on her first, will be in space for just 12 days.
Expedition 70 crew member NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara smiles prior to boarding the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft for launch to the International Space Station with fellow crewmates Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Oleg Kononenko in September at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. NASA Photo by Bill Ingalls/UPI
The two newly-arrived astronauts will return to earth in a parachute-assisted landing at a Kazakh base along with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, who will have had 204 days in space by the time she lands.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Putin in 2019 – Alexey Nikolsky/AFP via Getty Images
North Korea broke into a major Russian weapons developer’s computer network as part of its bid to build an intercontinental missile, according to security researchers.
Hackers breached the cybersecurity defences of NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau commonly known as NPO Mash, in late 2021.
It is not clear if any data was taken during the intrusion, but in the months that followed Pyongyang announced several developments in its ballistic missile programme.
Experts say it shows that North Korea will target its allies in order to acquire critical technologies. The news comes after Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, was welcomed to Pyongyang in July.
Hackers remained on NPO Mash’s system for at least five months until they were detected in May 2022, and were able to read emails, jump between networks and extract data.
The company, which is based on the outskirts of Moscow, has pioneered developments of hypersonic missiles, satellite technologies and newer generation ballistic armaments.
These areas are of interest to North Korea since it has embarked on a mission to create an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the US.
In 2019, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, praised NPO Mash’s “Zircon” hypersonic missile as a “promising new product” capable of travelling at around nine times the speed of sound.
Markus Schiller, a missile expert based in Europe, said the company was a valuable target but stolen schematics would be of limited use to Pyongyang.
He said: “Getting plans won’t help you much in building these things, there is a lot more to it than some drawings.”
SentinelOne, a US cybersecurity firm, discovered the hack after an NPO Mash employee accidentally leaked the company’s internal communications online.
Malware in Japan’s defence networks
It follows the recent revelation that Japan’s defence networks were penetrated by China in one of the most damaging security breaches in its history, according to officials.
The hackers, who were discovered by the US National Security Agency (NSA) in autumn 2020, were able to access defence plans, capabilities and assessments of military shortcomings.
One US official called the breach “shockingly bad”, according to the Washington Post. Japan has said it cannot confirm if any security information was leaked.
Gen. Paul Nakasone, the director of the NSA, and Matthew Pottinger, a White House national security adviser, travelled to Tokyo to brief the Japanese defence minister once the hack was discovered.
The situation was seen as so serious that officials suggested it could derail intelligence sharing between the Pentagon and Japan’s defence ministry.
Although the US team offered to purge Chinese malware from the defence systems, the Japanese were said to be wary of “having another country’s military on their networks”.
Although Gen. Nakasone and Mr Pottinger believed “they had really made a point”, US officials realised in autumn 2021 that Japan had failed to expel China from its networks.
Japan has since announced that it will increase its cybersecurity budget tenfold over the next five years, while boosting its military cybersecurity staff fourfold to 4,000 people.
‘We see tremendous investment’
Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, has indicated to Tokyo that sharing information for advanced military operations could be slowed without tightening its security.
A senior US defence official said: “We see tremendous investment and effort from the Japanese in this area.
“The department feels strongly about the importance of cybersecurity to our ability to conduct combined military operations, which are at the core of the US-Japan alliance.”
On Tuesday, Hirokazu Matsuno, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, said both countries have always been in close communication.
He added: “Due to the nature of the matter, I am unable to provide further details of the communication but we haven’t confirmed the fact that security information has been leaked due to cyber attacks.”
Mr Matsuno said cybersecurity was the foundation of the US-Japan alliance and insisted Japan would continue to work to keep its network safe.
There was no immediate comment from Beijing.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin relies on the manipulation of media narratives and limiting access to information to maintain popular support and acceptance of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin has pruned Russian news to convey a firehose of disinformation based on three storylines: life outside Russia is horrendous, Russia is powerful despite foreign interference, and any effort to reform Russian power structures is futile due to Kremlin near-omnipotence.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s uprising in June publicly revealed the limitations of Russian state power and the instability of Kremlin control.
Meanwhile, a new kind of social media commentator – the “military blogger” (milblogger) – has more gradually, securely, and subversively – if unintentionally – challenged the Kremlin’s management of the war in Ukraine, the performance of the Russian military, and, thus, the competence of the state.
Igor Girkin (Strelkov), the former commander of Russia’s proxies in occupied Donetsk Oblast and milblogger, during a pre-trial hearing in Moscow, Russia on July 21, 2023, after he was arrested for extremism. (Photo by ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
These milbloggers are not part of the so-called democratic opposition but nationalist voices. They, like Prigozhin, support the invasion but are frustrated by the military’s shortcomings, and they seek to advance their own diverse range of agendas, likely in support of a more hidden network of patrons.
In depicting official failures, milbloggers have demonstrated by example that one can contradict and critique state policy without official retribution. The milbloggers not only survive but sometimes receive government positions of prominence and platforming by state-controlled mass media – signs not only of Kremlin tolerance but support.
Their soft immunity ensures a platform for powerful hardline voices to lobby for an even more aggressive approach to the war and for their elite backers to play out Russian inter-agency competition, and they make it more difficult for Putin to bring the war to a negotiated conclusion.
However, the recent arrest of milblogger and war criminal Igor “Strelkov” Girkin indicates that actors within the Russian state are taking steps to curtail the immunity the milbloggers have long enjoyed.
Rise of the Telegram channels
For Putin, controlling Russia’s information space is critical to maintaining power and avoiding the lot of his immediate predecessors, whose political decline partly resulted from a public image of ineffectiveness.
To avoid the same fate, Putin reasserted control over television and print media corporations and their oligarch owners shortly after election. Putin chased independent actors out of Russia and captured their assets, thereby controlling Russia’s primary sources of information. At the same time, the Kremlin invested heavily in restructuring and expanding state-run media.
Russian authorities recognized the emerging threat of the internet after witnessing its impact on the Arab Spring, color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, and, inside Russia, on domestic accusations of election fraud in 2010 and 2012.
Read also: Yaroslav Azhnyuk: Why doesn’t Ukraine restrict use of the Russian Telegram app?
In 2012, Russia responded with a law on “foreign agents,” which it progressively expanded, to surveil, fine, regulate, and discredit individuals and organizations sharing undesirable information. In 2014, Russia granted the small regulatory agency Roskomnadzor sweeping authority to regulate the internet and block access to “harmful” media, including entire platforms.
Five years later, Russian authorities adopted a series of amendments supporting the creation of a Russian sovereign internet. They also have taken steps to censor Google, YouTube, and Western social media. Independent media condensed within echo chambers or fizzled out altogether.
Despite this crackdown, Russian social media app and messenger Telegram evaded cooptation and closure. Telegram founder Pavel Durov publicly refused to cooperate with censorship and continues to feature diverse voices. Telegram’s endurance, lack of a sorting algorithm to “suggest” posts to users, and effectively nonexistent content moderation make the platform a “wild west” of online speech.
Though television remains the Russian public’s primary form of news provision, Telegram became Russia’s most popular messenger regarding mobile internet traffic in early 2022. It rapidly came to help set the policy agenda. Mass media and elite political discussions often align with debates conducted via Telegram.
State propaganda loses credibility
When Putin launched Russia’s total war in Ukraine, Russian authorities intensified existing media suppression tactics.
Putin signed a law on March 4, 2022, giving the government powers to prosecute any individual or group and ban any online resources that spread “unreliable” information, “discredit” the Russian state or armed forces, or support sanctions against Russia. These nebulous terms expanded the extensive system of Russian censorship and granted authorities unlimited regulatory discretion.
Russian authorities at first had no reason to rein in pro-war, nationalistic milbloggers active on Telegram. Officials spared them the tight television, radio, and print media controls. But the Russian military’s problems, crackdowns on Western messengers, and incoherent official reporting provided an opportunity for alternative voices – including milbloggers – to gain influence.
Russian proxy Pavel Gubarev pickets outside the Moscow City Court with a placard reading “Freedom to Strelkov. Glory to Russia!” during a pre-trial hearing on the arrest of Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, a Russian war criminal, milblogger, and the former commander of Russia’s proxies in occupied Donetsk Oblast, detained on July 21 and accused of extremism, in Moscow, Russia. (Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Milblogger war coverage diverged from official narratives when Russian forces faced a series of humiliating setbacks, and official misrepresentations piled up. Russian milbloggers resisted such spin. They published more accurate reports, including those criticizing the country’s military shortcomings.
False official war coverage, in turn, fueled a widespread desire for alternative sources of information. Many Russians turned to the milblogger community to ground rumors about military failings and fill the information vacuum.
As the months passed, the actors’ influence grew. The following of already-reputed war correspondent “Sasha” Kots on Feb. 23, 2023, was over six times larger than his following on Feb. 24, 2022. Daily analysis channel Rybar’s subscribership was over 16 times larger by the end of the same period. Milblogger posts continued to contradict official reports and became increasingly critical of the armed forces, including military leaders.
Today, these milbloggers share insider war coverage, nationalist opinions, and pro-war analyses via Telegram. Their posts receive significant attention due to their large followings (ranging from a few tens of thousands to over one million subscribers) and mass media amplification. Many milbloggers also appear to use their influence to collect advertising revenue and to amass power.
Milbloggers play a critical role in soldier and mercenary recruitment campaigns and in collecting donations for troops (of which they almost certainly embezzle a portion). Powerful political figures such as Prigozhin and Russian Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov – though not milbloggers – also use Telegram to advance their agendas and opaquely sponsor milbloggers as megaphones for their political aims.
How do milbloggers avoid censorship?
The Kremlin’s lack of censorship and even platforming of certain milbloggers – such as Putin’s inclusion of Kots on the Russian Human Rights Council, the appointment of milbloggers to a newly-formed mobilization working group, and invitation of milbloggers to state functions – suggest the Kremlin has viewed milbloggers more as effective tools than as political threats. Putin thus allows milbloggers to vent unavoidable societal and elite tensions over the war.
Allowing criticism of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) or specific generals redirects verbal fire away from Putin himself and the powerful Presidential Administration. Milblogger criticism also allows Putin to set Russian force organs against each other to protect his political position.
Read also: Ukraine may be winning ‘world’s first cyberwar’
But there are clear downsides.
The Kremlin’s allowing of milbloggers to scapegoat the MoD and the army for their performance may permanently damage the relationship of the armed forces with the remaining Russian elite, even if Russia were eventually to achieve victory.
Putin’s limited tolerance of criticism of the armed forces could weaken popular support for the war or embolden broader attacks on his rule.
Finally, milblogger activity could increase political pressure for greater media transparency by lowering the threshold for “acceptable” criticism of the regime.
Unintended consequences
Milbloggers so far mostly have redirected criticism from the Kremlin, as Putin wants. They do not appear to have destabilized the Russian government or pressured it to change its policies in Ukraine. There is little evidence to support some optimistic claims that milblogger criticism will catalyze significant challenges to Kremlin control.
However, the situation poses political peril for Putin which the milbloggers could amplify. Putin depends on a base of loyal – yet internally competitive – elites to maintain power, and the war puts increased demands on their loyalty.
Putin has avoided announcing full mobilization or mobilizing Russia’s economy. He instead pushes regional budgets (and regional politicians) and Russia’s elite to shoulder the significant costs of the war.
Meanwhile, Kremlin efforts to scapegoat political and military leaders exacerbate frictions between Russian force structures, driving a wedge between them, as fueled Prigozhin’s attack on the MoD. Should the MoD and key leaders see themselves as at odds with the Kremlin rather than subordinate to it and in tension with each other or as able to cannibalize other key force structures, Putin could be in trouble.
Kremlin efforts to distance itself from responsibility for the war also risk presenting Putin as out of touch or incompetent, images which help ring down his predecessors. This look clashes with Putin’s desire to project an image of complete power over the so-called “Kremlin Towers” – the regime’s power centers that appear to control factions of the milblogger network.
Looking forward
In the short term, creating a hostile political environment for Russian military leadership could blow back and weaken the effectiveness of Russian troops in Ukraine. The amplification of milblogger critiques and Kremlin scapegoating of MoD leaders disincentivizes promotion, discourages tactical initiative-taking, and inflames coordination challenges within the ranks.
Over the longer term, the amplification of internal disagreements may shatter the delicate balance of inter-elite competitive cooperation and Putin’s ability to hold the system in check.
Russian society may also see milbloggers’ publication privileges as a “foot in the door” leading to pressure to broaden the boundaries of allowed speech. Milblogger criticism may also exhaust other targets and shift to Putin himself. Given the current mood of society, prominent narratives and leaders would be even more extreme rather than ones that call for reconciliation with the West.
Read also: Why Russia’s war in Ukraine is not “Putin’s war” (VIDEO)
As Ukrainian forces successfully conduct counteroffensive operations, drones strike Moscow, and Prigozhin’s troops march to the vicinity of the capital, Russians question the state’s ability to protect border areas and maintain control. These developments give Putin even less room to make mistakes.
Girkin’s arrest suggests that Putin may have come to fear the impact of wild card information competitors on Telegram. He may hope to crack down on milblogger rhetoric or to sacrifice a vitriolic critic as a signal to the elite that control him and similar actors.
Though Russian milbloggers’ influence has been limited so far, they may have laid the groundwork for a genuine political shift over time, leaving Putin’s hands tied should he later choose to kill the online threats he has created.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.
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Western microchips used to power smartphones and laptops are continuing to enter Russia and fuel its military arsenal, new analysis shows.
Trade data and manifests analyzed by CNBC show that Moscow has been sourcing an increased number of semiconductors and other advanced Western technologies through intermediary countries such as China.
In 2022, Russia imported $2.5 billion worth of semiconductor technologies, up from $1.8 billion in 2021.
Semiconductors and microchips play a crucial role in modern-day warfare, powering a range of equipment including drones, radios, missiles, and armored vehicles.
Indeed, the KSE Institute — an analytical center at the Kyiv School of Economics — recently analyzed 58 pieces of critical Russian military equipment recovered from Ukraine’s battlefield and found more than 1,000 foreign components, primarily Western semiconductor technologies.
Many of these components are subject to export controls. But, according to analysts CNBC spoke to, convoluted trade routes via China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere mean they are still entering Russia, adding to the country’s pre-war stockpiles.
“Russia is still being able to import all the necessary Western-produced critical components for its military,” said Elina Ribakova, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and one of the authors of KSE Institute’s report.
“The sanctions evasion and avoidance is surprisingly brazen at the moment,” she added.
Not all advanced technologies are subject to Western sanctions on Russia.
Many are dubbed dual-use items, meaning they have both civilian and military applications, and therefore fall outside of the scope of targeted export controls. A microchip may have applications in both a washing machine and a drone, for instance.
Still, many of these products originate from Western nations with sweeping trade bans against Moscow and, specifically, its military. All U.S.-origin items except food and medicine are prohibited from reaching Russia’s army.
In KSE’s study, more than two-thirds of the foreign components identified in Russian military equipment ultimately originated from companies headquartered in the U.S., with others coming from Ukrainian allies including Japan and Germany.
CNBC was unable to verify whether the implicated companies were aware of the final destination of their goods. Swiss authorities said they were working with firms to “educate them on red flags,” while government spokespeople for the other countries cited did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Separately, a study from the Royal United Services Institute found that Russia’s military uses over 450 different types of foreign-made components in its 27 most modern military systems, including cruise missiles, communications systems and electronic warfare complexes. Many of these parts are made by well-known U.S. companies that create microelectronics for the U.S. military.
“Over decades, non-Russian high-tech systems and technologies became more advanced and really have become industry and global standards. So, a Russian military, as well as its civilian economy, have become dependent,” Sam Bendett, advisor at the Center for Naval Analyses, said.
The ubiquity and wide-reaching applications of such technologies have led them to become intertwined in global supply chains and therefore harder to police. Meanwhile, sanctions on Russia are largely limited to Ukraine’s Western allies, meaning that many countries continue to trade with Russia.
“It’s difficult to stop strictly civilian microelectronics from crossing borders and from taking place in global trade. And this is what the Russian industry as well as the Russian military and its intelligence services are taking advantage of,” Bendett said.
Those trade flows can be messy. Typically, a shipment may be sold and resold several times, often through legitimate businesses, before eventually reaching a neutral intermediary country, where it can then be sold to Russia.
Data suggests China is by far the largest exporter to Russia of microchips and other technology found in crucial battlefield items.
Sellers from China, including Hong Kong, accounted for more than 87% of total Russian semiconductor imports in the fourth quarter of 2022, compared with 33% in Q4 2021. More than half (55%) of those goods were not manufactured in China, but instead produced elsewhere and shipped to Russia via China and Hong Kong-based intermediaries.
“This should not be taken as a surprise because China is really trying to accumulate and to make profits and gains on the fact that Russia is economically isolated,” Olena Yurchenko, advisor at the Economic Security Council of Ukraine, said.
China’s trade department did not respond to a request for comment on the findings, nor did the Russian government.
Meantime, Moscow has also increased its imports from so-called intermediary countries in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East, according to national trade data.
Exports to Russia from Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgystan, for instance, surged in 2022, with vehicles, aircraft and vessels accounting for a significant share of the uptick. At the same time, European Union and U.K. exports to those countries rose, while their direct trade with Russia plunged.
“A lot of these countries really cannot sever certain types of trade with Russia, especially those nations which are either bordering Russia, like Georgia, for example … as well as nations in Central Asia, which maintain a very significant trade balance with the Russian Federation,” Bendett said.
The governments of Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the increase in trade.
The burgeoning trade flows have prompted calls from Western allies to either get more countries on board with sanctions, or slap secondary sanctions on certain entities operating within those countries in a bid to stifle Russia’s military strength.
In June 2023, the European Union adopted a new package of sanctions which includes an anti-circumvention tool to restrict the “sale, supply, transfer or export” of specified sanctioned goods and technology to certain third countries acting as intermediaries for Russia.
The package also added 87 new companies in countries spanning China, the United Arab Emirates and Armenia to the list of those directly supporting Russia’s military, and restricted the export of 15 technological items found in Russian military equipment in Ukraine.
“We are not sanctioning these countries themselves. What we are doing is preventing an already sanctioned product, which should not reach Russia, from reaching Russia through a third country,” EU spokesperson Daniel Ferrie said.
However, some are skeptical that the measures go far enough — particularly when it comes to major global trade partners.
″[The sanctions] may work against, let’s say, Armenia or Georgia, which are not big trade partners for European Union or for the United States. But in when it comes, for instance, to China or to Turkey, that’s a very unlikely scenario,” the Economic Security Council of Ukraine’s Yurchenko said.
Others say that responsibility ultimately lies with the companies, which need to do more to monitor their supply chains and avoid their goods falling into the wrong hands.
“The companies themselves should have the infrastructure to be able to track it and comply with export controls,” Ribakova said.
“If we have certain moral values or national security objectives, we cannot be giving [to Ukraine] with one hand and then giving to Russia with the other.”
A Russian military plane made a mysterious trip to Pyongyang on August 1, according to flight radar.
The flight, RFF7203, took off from Moscow on July 31, landing in North Korea, according to flight maps from Flightradar24, a Swedish flight tracker.
The Russian Air Force Il-62M—the kind of plane used for military delegations—was on the ground for approximately 36 hours, according to NK News, which first reported the mysterious trip.
Russian and North Korean state media don’t appear to have reported on the trip.
It was the first time a VIP Russian plane made the trip to North Korea since 2019, when Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin visited Pyongyang, after which North Korea cut off travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Putin’s Squad of Allies Just Got a Lot More Dangerous
The mysterious flight comes a week after Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Pyongyang with the goal of convincing leadership in North Korea to boost weapons sales to Russia, according to U.S. intelligence officials’ assessment, White House National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby told reporters.
Shoigu’s visit came as part of a celebration of the 70th anniversary of the armistice for the 1950-53 Korean War. He met with Kim Jong-un, North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam and other senior officials, including Jong Kyong Thaek, director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People’s Army, and Im Chon Il, vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, according to KCNA.
Accompanying Shoigu were Aleksei Krivoruchko, vice-minister of defense, Andrei Rudenko, vice-minister of foreign affairs, and Alexandr Matsegora, Russia’s ambassador to North Korea, according to KCNA.
Kang, North Korea’s defense minister, gave Shoigu a tour of an arms exhibition, showing off new attack and spy drones as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), according to Yonhap.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said the meetings were intended to “help strengthen cooperation between our defense departments.”
The mysterious military plane trip early this month could be a followup from Shoigu’s visit to iron out military deals, according to NK News.
The effort to lean on North Korea for more favors coincides with Russian military failures to make major gains in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. It’s just the latest sign that Russia is becoming more reliant on North Korea to continue to keep up the fight as Russia’s own defense production and supply of equipment flounders.
“It highlights the dire straits that Russia finds itself in, when it comes to resupplying and refreshing its munitions capabilities,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said of the growing relationship between North Korea and Russia.
North Korea has been supportive of Russia’s war in Ukraine from the get-go. Pyongyang has previously accused the west of coercing Moscow to invade Ukraine in order to protect its security interests. Pyongyang has since provided infantry rockets and missiles to Russia’s Wagner Group, according to a White House assessment early this year.
This Could Be the Year North Korea Gets Tactical Nukes
And in March, Russia sought to solidify a deal with North Korea in which Pyongyang would provide Moscow with munitions in exchange for food and commodities it desperately needs.
Following Shoigu’s visit, Kim appears to be doubling down on weapons production plans. He called for North Korean weapons production to increase and for programs to modernize weapons, according to Yonhap. Kim made the rounds, visiting major North Korean military factories days after Shoigu’s trip came to a close, including those that make engines for strategic cruise missiles and large-caliber multiple rocket launchers, according to Yonhap.
Kim said the facilities are important for “war preparations” and called for “steadily increasing the performance and reliability of the engine” and “rapidly expanding its production capacity,” according to KCNA.
North Korea’s work to bolster its weapons production comes as tensions between Pyongyang, Washington, and Seoul have mounted. Kim has been launching a series of missile tests in recent weeks as South Korea and the United States prepare to launch their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise. While Washington and Seoul brand the drill as a defensive mechanism, Pyongyang has claimed they are a rehearsal to invade North Korea.
Kim’s tour of weapons facilities could be a warning from Pyongyang that it can hold its own in the face of perceived threats from South Korea and the United States, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said.
“We express deep regret that North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) as well as conventional weapons at the expense of the wellbeing of its citizens,” Koo Byoungsam, a spokesperson for the ministry said.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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