Ukraine is hitting Russian forces behind the front lines, but has a long way to go, a top official cautions.

KYIV, Ukraine — Even as the Ukrainian government sought to bolster the nation’s resolve with defiant commemorations of its Independence Day, military leaders tried to brace the public for a long, bloody slog ahead as Russia appeared to be aiming to strengthen its grip on Ukrainian territory it has seized.

“It’s going to be very difficult; it’s not going to be easy,” the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said in an interview aired Wednesday with Radio Liberty, a U.S.-funded independent news organization. “And if someone thinks that we have already passed some kind of Rubicon and that the rest will be like clockwork, unfortunately, it will not be.”

The Russian Ministry of Defense has said it was slowing the pace of its military campaign — a reflection, Western military analysts say, of the Kremlin’s need to explain the lack of military progress at home after going weeks without gaining significant new ground in Ukraine.

But Moscow continues to rain rocket strikes on the country, including on Wednesday, when two dozen people were killed in an attack on a train station in the east. And the United States warned that Moscow may try to stage “sham” referendums, possibly as soon as this weekend, in order to provide a veil of legitimacy as it moves to annex parts of the country under its control.

“We expect Russia to try to manipulate the results of these referenda under the false claim of the Ukrainian people wanting to join Russia,” John F. Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, told reporters on Wednesday. “It will be critical to call out and counter this disinformation in real time.”

He did not offer more detail on why the United States thinks referendums could move so quickly, or what effect such a move could have on efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has previously said he would end talks with Russia if Moscow holds referendums in occupied areas.

The Ukrainian government has been urging people living under occupation to resist pressure to participate in the referendums. Its network of partisan fighters have stepped up their attacks on local Russian proxy administrations.

The Ukrainian military’s southern command said on Thursday that “local resistance prevents the Russians from taking organizational measures to prepare a fake demonstration of will.”

The concern about Moscow’s referendum planning underscores the steep challenges Ukraine faces as it seeks to translate losses it has recently inflicted against Russian forces into successfully regaining territory. Moscow is now estimated to control some 20 percent of Ukraine.

Strikes against ammunition depots and command centers — along with the work of partisans targeting Russian occupation forces behind enemy lines — are part of a counteroffensive as the Ukrainians seeks to both degrade Russian forces and sow chaos.

But as Mr. Zelensky and other leaders have vowed that Ukraine will win the war, they have also repeatedly urged Ukrainians living under Russian occupation to be patient.

Ukrainian forces have yet to make any major push to drive the Russians from occupied territory, and officials have said they understand they have a limited amount of time to take advantage of Russia’s apparent struggles. And Ukraine, too, has lost fighters and equipment, as its civilians have suffered through frequent Russian strikes.

Mr. Danilov said the hardest days may yet lie ahead.

“We will have a big war with this country,” he said, “and we will have to put a lot of effort in order to win.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Six months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he is sending $2.98 billion in new military aid to Ukraine that will provide longer-term weapons and training to enable forces there to fight for years to come.

In a statement, Biden said the aid will allow Ukraine to acquire air defense systems, artillery systems and munitions, drones and other equipment “to ensure it can continue to defend itself over the long term.”

The announcement comes as Ukraine is celebrating its 1991 declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.

“I know this independence day is bittersweet for many Ukrainians as thousands have been killed or wounded, millions have been displaced from their homes, and so many others have fallen victim to Russian atrocities and attacks,” Biden said. “But six months of relentless attacks have only strengthened Ukrainians’ pride in themselves, in their country, and in their thirty-one years of independence.”

The aid package is being provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which funds contracts to purchase weapons and equipment. It includes money for the small, hand-launched Puma drones, equipment for the longer-endurance Scan Eagle surveillance drones, which are launched by catapult, and, for the first time, the Vampire anti-drone system, which can be launched off ships.

In addition there is money for six advanced surface-to-air missile systems, known as NASAMS, munitions for them, 24 counter-artillery radars, precision rocket systems, and more than 300,000 rounds of artillery and mortar ammunition.

As Russia’s war on Ukraine drags on, U.S. security assistance is shifting to a longer-term campaign that also will likely keep more American military troops in Europe into the future, U.S. officials said.

Unlike most previous packages, the new funding is largely aimed at helping Ukraine secure its medium- to long-term defense posture, according to officials familiar with the matter. Earlier shipments, most of them done under presidential drawdown authority, have focused on Ukraine’s more immediate needs for weapons and ammunition and involved materiel that the Pentagon already has in stock that can be shipped in short order.

Besides providing longer-term assistance that Ukraine can use for potential future defense needs, the new package is intended to reassure Ukrainian officials that the United States intends to keep up its support, regardless of the day-to-day back and forth of the conflict.

“The United States of America is committed to supporting the people of Ukraine as they continue the fight to defend their sovereignty,” Biden said.

Detailing the package, Colin Kahl, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, said the long-term focus of the contracting — which could be one to three years down the road — is a direct message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“His theory of victory is that he can wait everybody out. He can wait the Ukrainians out because they will be exhausted and attritted. He can wait us out because we’ll turn our attention elsewhere. He can wait the Europeans out because of high energy prices or whatever,” said Kahl. “So packages like this are extraordinarily important, indirectly challenging Putin’s theory of the case, which is that we’re not in it for the long haul.”

Asked why there are no manned aircraft in the long-term package, Kahl said new fighter jets are not currently a priority. He said the Pentagon is concentrating on improving the capabilties of the Russian-made aircraft Ukraine already uses, such as installing high-speed anti-radiation missiles on them to better target enemy air defense systems. He added that providing fighter aircraft to Ukraine remains “on the table.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg noted the more extended focus Tuesday as he reaffirmed the alliance’s support for the conflict-torn country.

“Winter is coming, and it will be hard, and what we see now is a grinding war of attrition. This is a battle of wills, and a battle of logistics. Therefore we must sustain our support for Ukraine for the long term, so that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation,” Stoltenberg said, speaking at a virtual conference about Crimea, organized by Ukraine.

Six months after Russia invaded, the war has slowed to a grind, as both sides trade combat strikes and small advances in the east and south. Both sides have seen thousands of troops killed and injured, as Russia’s bombardment of cities has killed countless innocent civilians.

There have been fears that Russia will intensify attacks on civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days because of the independence day holiday and the war hitting the six-month mark.

On Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine and the State Department issued a new security alert for Ukraine that repeated a call for Americans in the country to leave due to the danger.

Other NATO allies are also marking the independence day with new aid announcements.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country is providing more than 500 million euros (nearly $500 million) in aid, including powerful anti-aircraft systems. The aid will include rocket launchers, ammunition, anti-drone equipment, a dozen armored recovery vehicles and and three additional IRIS-T long-range air defense systems, the German news agency dpa reported.

The funding must still be approved by parliament, and some of it won’t be delivered until next year.

And Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $3.85 million for two Ukraine projects through the Peace and Stabilization Operations Program. It includes about $2.9 million in funding for ongoing development of Ukraine’s national police force and other emergency services, and about $950,000 to help advise Ukraine’s defense ministry.

Including this latest package, the U.S. has provided about $13.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including 19 packages of weapons taken directly from Defense Department stocks since August 2021.

U.S. defense leaders are also eyeing plans that will expand training for Ukrainian troops outside their country, and for militaries on Europe’s eastern and southern flanks that feel most threatened by Russia’s aggression.

___

Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

Published: 07:55 BST, 25 August 2022 | Updated: 08:21 BST, 25 August 2022

A June morning at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.

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In a display of even-handedness, Facebook and Twitter have taken down a series of accounts that have for five years been engaging in pro-Western propaganda.

Twitter said the accounts violated its policies on platform manipulation and spam, while Meta described them as ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’.

Following the takedown of the accounts during this month and last, data was handed over to social media analytics firm Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory for analysis.

The accounts were found to be targeting users in the Middle East and central Asia with narratives promoting the interests of the US and its allies, while opposing countries including Russia, China, and Iran.

They heavily criticized Russia in particular for the deaths of innocent civilians and other atrocities committed by its soldiers following the invasion of Ukraine in February this year. Some also promoted anti-extremism messaging.

“We believe this activity represents the most extensive case of covert pro-Western influence operations on social media to be reviewed and analyzed by open-source researchers to date,” the researchers say.

“With few exceptions, the study of modern influence operations has overwhelmingly focused on activity linked to authoritarian regimes in countries such as Russia, China, and Iran, with recent growth in research on the integral role played by private entities. This report illustrates the much wider range of actors engaged in active operations to influence online audiences.”

The pattern of activity indicates a series of campaigns over a period of almost five years, rather than one homogeneous operation. However, say the researchers, they’re similar to propaganda campaigns seen before.

They involved fake personas with faces created by generative adversarial networks, along with fake media outlets, leveraged memes and short-form videos. Their creators attempted to start hashtag campaigns and launched online petitions – all tactics observed in past operations by other actors.

The Twitter dataset covered 299,566 tweets from 146 accounts between March 2012 and February 2022, and fell into two broad categories. The first was linked to an overt US government messaging campaign called the Trans-Regional Web Initiativ. The second consisted of a series of covert campaigns ‘of unclear origin’ that were also represented in the Meta dataset of 39 Facebook profiles, 16 pages, two groups, and 26 Instagram accounts active from 2017 to July 2022.

The researchers haven’t identified the origin of the campaigns, although Meta suggests the US, and Twitter the US and UK. However, they don’t appear to have been particularly successful.

“Importantly, the data also shows the limitations of using inauthentic tactics to generate engagement and build influence online,” the researchers say.

“The vast majority of posts and tweets we reviewed received no more than a handful of likes or retweets, and only 19 per cent of the covert assets we identified had more than 1,000 followers.”

Поставки оружия из ФРГ затруднены из-за собственного дефицита

Поставки оружия из Германии в Украину, по словам Анналены Бербок, идут “по тонкой грани” из-за “абсолютного дефицита собственных запасов” ФРГ. С точки зрения Киева, “лучше делать поставки вчера, чем сегодня”, но Германия должна думать и о среднесрочной перспективе, поскольку война, вероятно, будет продолжаться и в следующем году, объяснила она.

Из-за проблемы с оружием в ФРГ военная промышленность должна была специально производить его для Украины, рассказала Бербок. Глава МИД признала, что в начале войны правительство было нерешительным в вопросе передачи вооружений, но теперь необходимы быстрые, дополнительные поставки осенью, “чтобы украинцы смогли защищаться”.

Как ранее сообщило агентство Reuters, Германия планирует дополнительно передать Киеву ракетные системы Iris-T, 10 бронированных ремонтно-эвакуационных машин, 20 ракетных установок, боеприпасы и средства защиты от дронов. Поставки должен одобрить комитет бундестага. Планируется, что оружие будет передано в 2023 году, а возможно, и раньше, рассказал осведомленный собеседник агентства.

Германия утратила доверия стран Балтии и Восточной Европы

Нерешительность Берлина в вопросе поставок вооружений Киеву в начале войны стала одной из причин утраты доверия стран Балтии и Восточной Европы к Германии, признала Бербок. По ее словам, в отношениях ФРГ с этими странами “было наломано немало дров”, в том числе из-за строительства газопровода “Северный поток – 2”.

“Мы не прислушивались к опасениям наших балтийских и восточноевропейских друзей. Нам необходима новая европейская и восточноевропейская политика”, – сказала глава германского МИДа.

Канцлер ФРГ Олаф Шольц (Olaf Scholz) объявил, что проект газопровода “Северный поток – 2” заморожен, 22 февраля – после того, как Россия признала независимость самопровозглашенныз “ЛНР” и “ДНР” за несколько дней до начала вторжения.

Смотрите также:

Jared Kushner denied leaking information to the FBI ahead of its raid on Mar-a-Lago, saying that the speculation about him is “crazy.”

Megyn Kelly asked him on her podcast, released Tuesday, about theories aired by various commentators that he may have tipped off federal agents about documents kept at former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence. 

Kushner said: “That’s absolutely not true, categorically in every way.”

Axios reported on anxiety among Trump allies that a member of his inner circle could have informed on him, resulting in the August 8 raid. Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal have also cited unnamed sources who claimed an insider guided feds to the documents.

The raid uncovered a vast trove of classified documents that Trump held onto — potentially illegally — after his presidency.

Trump maintains that he had the right to hold onto the documents and that he has fully cooperated with the investigation. 

Commentators like the former president’s niece, Mary Trump, and Michael Cohen, his former attorney, both raised the possibility that the supposed informer could be Kushner. 

Trump’s former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney also said it would have had to be one of “six to eight people” in his inner circle, a grouping that would include Kushner.

A recent report by the Guardian said sources around Trump suspected it was family member because FBI agents know exactly what to look for, including a specific leather case.

In conversation, Kelly and Kushner derided the speculation, with Kelly scoffing at Mary Trump for being “all over the media, as if she knows anything.”

Kushner agreed, accusing Mary Trump and Cohen of seeking attention for themselves. “The more outlandish of an accusation you make, especially if it includes me, the media will write about it and create headlines,” he said. “Mary and Michael figured it out.”

He added in a jab at Chris Christie, who was deeply critical of Kushner in a 2019 tell-all book.

“Chris Christie used to use that all the time to get relevance for his books, so that he can sell more than, like, 300 copies, he would make up these crazy things about me,” he said.

Kushner earlier dismissed the FBI investigation as a politically motivated attempt to damage Trump.

He continued in that vein with Kelly, saying: “It just seems like they keep trying to find new things to get [Trump] on, and I’m sure if this one doesn’t work they’ll try to fine him for jaywalking, or a traffic ticket, but they’re being very aggressive to do it.”

Russia is, at the time of writing, being consumed by wildfires caused by the worst heat wave the country has endured in a millennia. A state of emergency has been declared in 35 regions of the country — seven for the fires themselves, and another 28 for crop failures caused by the drought and heat wave.

UK media has largely ignored the disaster, but the web is alive with eye-witness accounts, photographs, videos and maps of how the flames are spreading. Most of the information is coming through blogging site LiveJournal, which has a large Russian population.

Following the July heat wave in the country, peat fires — which can smoulder for years underground — ignited forest fires in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, the Voronezh Oblast, and across central and western Russia. A few days later, an area of 500,000 hectares was ablaze, with Moscow shrouded in a dense, thick smoke.

Since then, the area of the fires has been brought under control, with now only about 200,000 hectares ablaze, but there are much bigger problems looming. The fires have approached the Red Forest, an area that suffered the worst of Chernobyl’s fallout in 1986, with the soil still heavily contaminated by cesium-137 and strontium-90.

Similarly, the Mayak nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in Chelyabinsk Oblast is also threatened by the flames, as is a nuclear research center in Sarov, which was formerly known as the secret town Arzamas-16. If any of the structures succumb, then radionuclides could be spread widely afield, generating new zones of radioactive pollution and displacing the population of those areas.

Severe health risk

The effects of the smoke on public health could also be severe. In central Moscow, pollutants have reached 6.6 times the normal level for carbon monoxide, and 2.8 times that of suspended particulate matter. Deaths in the city have doubled, hitting about 700 people per day, and at least 53 people (and possibly hundreds) have been killed directly by the fires in other parts of the country.

To see the current status of the fires, you can view a Google Earth layer (which obviously requires Google Earth to be installed) or there’s also a web version, but that’s in Russian. On LiveJournal, user i-cherski has been blogging extensively about the disaster, and there are a few impressive photos of the damage on Boston.com’s Big Picture. One YouTube user videoed himself driving through the inferno, which makes for some grim viewing.

However, there could be a silver lining to the disaster. In an abrupt U-turn on previous policies, Russian officials have begun linking the heat wave with climate change. President Dmitry Medvedev said in a speech published on the Kremlin’s website: “Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past.”

That contrasts dramatically with the president’s previous rhetoric on the matter, which included a statement that “we will not let anyone cut our development potential,” vowing not to cut carbon emissions. If this U-turn is permanent, and not just an attempt to keep the blame for the disaster away from the government’s peat bog-draining policies and cuts in rural fire services, then perhaps global climate change legislation may finally be able to make some progress.

Image: Google Earth

Record-breaking temperatures in the Russian Arctic region and Siberia continue to remain much higher than normal which has contributed to an increase of hundreds of wildfires. The Siberia wildfires coverage and burning land areas are now extending across nearly 3 million acres (= 1.2 million hectares). Smoke cloud is exceptionally large and pushed also towards the United States and Canada.

The Russian agency Avialesookhrana, responsible for the aerial forest fire management, has found that wildfire coverage is higher than usual and also much earlier. Thanks to the historic heatwave in June.

Satellite image of wildfires in Siberia. Image: NASA MODIS

Around half of the forest coverage in Russia is located in remote areas where they are hardly accessed. Therefore, firefighters are allowed to let them rage the wild if fires don’t threaten nearby towns with residents.

RECORD-BREAKING HEATWAVE

The average temperature in Siberia was nearly 10 °C above normal for the first five months of 2020! The region is warming at a much faster rate than simulated in response to rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. And this warming is leading to a rapid meltdown of the permafrost and an increase in wildfires.

Widespread fire threat comes after a record-breaking heatwave two weeks ago. The town of Verkhojansk, Russia, shattered the all-time heat record for th Arctic Circle, reaching +38.0 °C (= 1004. °F) on Jun 20th:

DRAMATIC WILDFIRE INCREASE OVER SIBERIA

While numerous wildfires are common over Siberia during summer months, the record-breaking temperatures and often strong winds are resulting in the environment particularly dangerous with uncontrolled fires across a hundred thousand hectares.

Numerous ongoing fires in Siberia. Graphics: Global Forest Fire Watch

There are at least 150 large active fires ongoing right now. And conditions are worsening daily. The coverage of these sometimes zombie fires is much higher than normal.

Another dangerous part of the warming in Siberia’s Arctic region is that there are huge amounts of carbon in permafrost, which can be unleashed during periods of fires like this.

The video animation shows the transportation of smoke cloud across the northern hemisphere, tracking the smoke transport from Siberia. We can also see a high density of local smoke/smog particles in India and China:

It has been particularly hot throughout the month of June, with many regions reaching new all-time temperatures. Many areas are on fire. Attached is the ECMWF satellite scan of land surface temperatures. The land of Siberia is literally overheating.

Land surface temperature across Siberia. Graphics: ECMWF Copernicus Climate Change Service

WILDFIRES SEEN FROM SPACE

NASA satellite imagery gives us an exceptional view of the Siberian fires. Notice red dots that represent active fires. We can also see the extensive smoke cloud coverage.

Close-up satellite image of wildfires in Siberia. Image: NASA MODIS

A closer look from the high-resolution satellite imagery reveals some details on the smoke cloud. We can clearly see the wind direction, pushing smoke cloud downwind from the raging fires.

Numerous ongoing fires and huge smoke cloud across Siberia. Graphics: ESA

Smoke trails in Siberia wildfire. Graphics: NASA MODIS

The worst situation is the area around Verkhoyansk, the Sakha Republic, with more than 2.3 million acres of forests burning.

Himawari 8 satellite animation view of the wildfires:

#Wildfires continue to burn in #Siberia during a notable heat wave in the region as the #Himawari8 satellite, operated by our partners @JMA_kishou, watches from above. Russia’s forest fire aerial protection service says the fires have grown nearly fivefold over the past week. pic.twitter.com/OEbWC3gQuE

— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) June 30, 2020

The prevailing westerly winds should maintain the smoke cloud extending across Siberia, the Barents Sea into Alaska. Also reaching western Canada and the north-northwestern United States. Attached are the forecast maps for Thursday and Friday this week.

Smoke cloud on July 2nd, 2020. Graphics: SWE

Smoke cloud on July 3rd, 2020. Graphics: SWE

See also – Siberia wildfires in 2019:

• Forest fires in Siberia, sending ash into the Arctic – August 2019