Vladmir Putin has a new problem. His invasion of Ukraine is not just bogged down. It’s going rapidly backwards.

Ukraine’s armed forces have launched two stunningly successful counteroffensives around Kharkov in the nation’s east, and in the south near the Russian-occupied city of Kherson. Kyiv is now claiming to have recaptured some 2,000 square kilometres of its territory, with the potential to cut off and trap a sizeable portion of the Russian invasion force.

By the Kremlin’s own standards, this is hardly winning. Realising Russia’s war aims – including regime change and the establishment of a “Crimean corridor” that denies Ukraine access to the Black Sea – would require nothing short of a dramatic reversal of its fortunes.

Putin now essentially has three options.

First, he can seek a political solution, hoping to hold onto the territory Kremlin proxies captured in the eight years prior to his 2022 invasion. That’s an unattractive choice, especially since a bullish Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hardly in the mood to negotiate favourable terms for Moscow. Internationally, it would be a humiliating blow to Russian prestige: a smaller state defeating a top-tier nuclear power in a major land war.

Domestically, and more worrying for Putin, it would sharply call his leadership into question. Mounting signs of domestic discontent now even include St Petersburg regional deputies publicly calling for Putin to be tried for treason, another group from Moscow calling for him to step down, and even state media questioning the conflict.

Option two for Putin is to try to reimpose a long and grinding campaign. But even if his forces can blunt the Ukrainian advance, Russia can achieve only a stalemate if the war returns to static artillery duels. That would buy time. It would wear down Ukrainian forces and allow him to test whether using energy as a weapon fragments the European Union’s resolve over the winter.

However, at Russia’s current rate of losses its conventional forces will be exhausted beyond about 12 months. Both NATO and Ukraine would be well aware of that.

Putin’s third option is to escalate: to send a message to both the West and Ukraine that he means business. Given the dubious nature of his other choices, that may be increasingly likely. But where? And, of equal importance, how?

Invade Moldova

Numerous experts have claimed Moscow might seek to annexe Moldova’s breakaway region of Transdniestria, plus further chunks of Moldovan territory. And in early September, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned of armed conflict if Moldova threatened the 2,000 Russian troops guarding Transdniestria’s large ammunition dump at Cobasna.

An actual invasion would be difficult, because it would require Russian control over the Ukrainian city of Odesa for land access. But an airborne reinforcement of its Transdniestrian garrison might be tempting, or launching a hybrid warfare campaign to justify doing so.

In April 2022, there were several “terrorist incidents”, including the bombing of Transdniestria’s Ministry of State Security, as potential pretexts for such a move.

That said, invading would arguably be counterproductive, not least because it may prompt Moldova’s close partner Romania – a member of NATO – to become involved.

Send a ‘stabilisation force’ to Kazakhstan

Although unlikely, a Russian incursion into Northern Kazakhstan to “protect ethnic Russians” was commonly nominated by Russia-watchers playing grim games of “where does Putin invade next?”. Or, at least, they did before Ukraine.

Russian forces under the banner of the “Collective Security Treaty Organization” (CSTO), comprising some of the former Soviet states, actually intervened as recently as January 2022 at the request of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

However, that was soon exposed as a ploy to help Tokayev defeat his enemies. Since then, he has drifted towards neutrality on the war in Ukraine.

A new Russian intervention would certainly reinforce to restive Central Asian states that the Kremlin sees the region as its privileged sphere of influence. Indeed, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently hinted that northern Kazakhstan was next on Russia’s invasion list. Yet, with many of its forces already tied up in Ukraine, it’s questionable whether doing so would really be worth the effort.

Ukrainian forces are advancing against the Russians in the eastern Kharkiv region. AP/AAP

Full mobilisation

The significant losses suffered by Russian forces might be covered by putting the nation on a war footing. A general mobilisation would direct the economy towards military production, and provide an unending stream of personnel.

Putin has avoided this so far, choosing a shadow approach instead, which has called up an extra 137,000 Russians.

It does remain a live option, although it would mean admitting the conflict is a war (not a “Special Military Operation”), which would be domestically unpopular and result in untrained and ill-equipped conscripts flooding the front line.

Draw NATO in

Apart from the Moldovan scenario, Putin might elect to stage a “provocation” against a NATO state like Estonia. That would be a risky gambit indeed: given what we have seen of the performance of Russia’s conventional forces, even a limited war with NATO would hasten Russia’s defeat, and thus far Putin has assiduously avoided such provocations, apart from bluster and rhetoric.

Perversely, that might allow Putin to salvage some domestic pride by claiming he lost to NATO rather than Ukraine.

Yet his propaganda machine has already been falsely claiming NATO is directly involved in the fight against Russian forces.

And if Putin isn’t prepared to initiate a peace process, then really only one escalation pathway remains.

Read more: Russia is fighting three undeclared wars. Its fourth – an internal struggle for Russia itself – might be looming

Arrange a radiological ‘accident’

The Kremlin has obliquely hinted at this for a while.

Russian forces have controlled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant near the city of Kherson since March, turning it into a military base. Rocket and artillery fire is actually not a huge concern, since the plant is heavily hardened.

But if the plant loses connection to the Ukrainian grid – which has already happened several times – the reactors are only controlled by their own power generation, with no fail safe.

Arranging a false flag “accident” blamed on Ukraine is certainly possible, raising the nightmare prospect of a new Chernobyl.

Use tactical nuclear weapons

Look, it’s unlikely. But it can’t be ruled out.

Realistically, using tactical nuclear weapons would be of dubious military value. There would be no guarantee NATO would back down, or that Ukraine would capitulate. It would be very difficult for Russia’s few remaining partners to continue supporting Putin, either tacitly (like China) or indirectly (like India).

Indeed, while much has been made of Russia’s supposed “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine, involving using nuclear weapons to force others to blink, there’s plenty of evidence it’s a myth designed to increase fear of nuclear war among Moscow’s adversaries.

In summary, Putin’s choices remain poor, both domestically and internationally. He may soon feel forced to pick between those that are unpalatable, and those that are risky.

Unfortunately, identifying what he will choose is guesswork: we simply don’t know enough about how Putin’s mind works, or how he prioritises information to make decisions.

But perhaps there’s one hint. Throughout his tenure, Putin has consistently invited NATO and its allies to blink. At this crucial time, the West owes it to Ukraine, and for the sake of its own credibility, to ensure it does not give the Russian president what he wants.

Greek officials put forth national security reasons during a European Parliament hearing on Thursday (8 September) to fend off uncomfortable questions about why journalists and opposition politicians had been targeted with surveillance technology. 

The Parliament’s committee investigating the use of surveillance technologies (PEGA) zoomed in on Greece, following the revelations of espionage targeting MEP Nikos Androulakis and investigative journalists. 

“Greece is a country where in 2021, a single prosecutor that is in charge of the national intelligence service, signed within one year 15,975 decisions to wiretap people for reasons of national security,” Thanasis Koukakis, one of the journalists targetted by surveillance, told the hearing. 

Asked about the reasons behind the wiretapping of Androulakis during the hearing, representatives of the Greek authorities deflected the questions for reasons of “confidentiality” and “national security”.



The ruling right-wing government and the national intelligence service are embroiled in the scandal that has shaken the country, with the case of Androulakis, leader of the centre-left opposition party PASOK and member of the European Parliament, attracting particular attention.



Androulakis himself was not invited as a panellist following political tensions, as EURACTIV previously reported. The PASOK leader will be addressing the Parliament on 6 October together with other MEPs who were infected with spyware. 

Surveillance of journalists

The targeted journalists, Stavros Malichudis and Thanasis Koukakis, had been working on stories on corruption and refugee issues while under surveillance. 

While Malichudis provided written evidence that the national intelligence services were interested in his journalistic work and sources, the reasons why their phones were wiretapped remain covered under the shield of “national security”. 

When a journalist or politician is spied on, all their sources and contacts, who might be more vulnerable, are exposed, too.

For these professions in particular, and also for lawyers or NGOs, it is vital to be able to do their work safely, stressed Sophie in t’Veld, the PEGA committee rapporteur. “It is essential for democracy,” in t’Veld added.

These cases further highlight the dire state of press freedom in Greece. “The fact that my country is so low in the lists of press freedom is not by chance,” Koukakis said. 

Alleged conflict of interest

In 2019, as one of his first moves after his election, the conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis made the Greek National Intelligence Service (EYP) answer to him directly. 

Still, according to the government, Mitsotakis did not know about the targeting of Androulakis by the secret services Mitsotakis did stress the wiretapping was “legal”. 

Shortly after the scandal broke, two top officials resigned, the head of the intelligence service, Panagiotis Kontoleon, and the prime minister’s chief of staff and nephew, Grigoris Dimitriadis.

Yet, the representatives of the Greek authorities reiterated at Thursday’s hearing that the Greek government never purchased Predator spyware. 

In May 2021, the Greek government changed a law that had been in effect for 27 years to prevent the privacy authority cannot tell someone if they were wiretapped or by whom. Again,  national security reasons were invoked to justify the move. 

“Wiretapping in Greece has little to do with national security and up to a degree they are executed by a small group that have some common interests, and they are serving those interests,” journalist Koukakis concluded. 

Investigation’s next step

The lawmaker in t’Veld said “the only way we’re finding any traces of who ordered the use of predator is by going into the Intellexa offices and confiscating all the material, their computers, servers”. But she stressed that “this has not been done”.

Intellexa is the company distributing the Predator spyware used against Koukakis and Androulakis in Greece.



The Greek parliamentary inquiry into the scandal first convened on Wednesday. However, most MPs decided that all inquiry meetings would be held behind closed doors and remain confidential.



In the meantime, Panos Alexandris, secretary general of justice and human rights at the Justice Ministry, played down the revelations.

“Why it is a scandal? Because it is so expressed in the media? Because some people believe so?”



Instead, Alexandris said at the European Parliament’s hearing that the work of the “independent institutions” should be seen first, before deciding whether there is a problem, and then criminal action will be undertaken by the judiciary.

Deleted files?

The PEGA committee also asked about reports of national intelligence service dossiers on people under surveillance being illegally destroyed.



The Greek media publication Ta Nea reported on Thursday that the records of both Nikos Androulakis and Thanasis Koukakis by the Greek intelligence had been destroyed, citing official information from the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE). 

Even though the files should have been saved for two years under legal provisions, the data “was not stored for technical reasons” after changing interception systems, the report said. 

Christos Rammos, ADAE president, strongly denied that this destruction had taken place during the hearing in Brussels. 

[Edited by Luca Bertuzzi/Zoran Radosavljevic]

On Jun. 29, Chechen Head of State Ramzan Kadyrov sent a message of resilience to his millions of Telegram followers: “the real power of Russia does not lie in weapons or technology, but lies in its valiant and selfless sons, ready to defend their Fatherland to the last breath.”

An estimated 8,000 of these valiant and selfless sons are Chechen men, an ethnic minority group hailing from Russia’s Northern Caucasus. Many are blackmailed or coerced to enlist, while others comprise Kadyrov’s elite private military. Despite these differences, all Chechens share a common history marked by Russia’s colonial oppression and violence.

Since Kadyrov’s ascent to the presidency in 2007, the Chechen government has gradually fortified its friendship with the Kremlin by quashing its internal opposition movements. Still, the legacy of Russian intervention in Chechnya continues to inspire outrage, leading Chechens in the diaspora to join arms with Ukrainian soldiers in a kindred fight against Russian domination. To make sense of these differing alliances, we turn toward Chechnya’s complex history and current leadership.

THE OTHERIZATION OF CHECHEN IDENTITY

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric around Russia’s escalated war against Ukraine incorporates a tried and tested tactic to antagonize the Ukrainian people that has long historical roots. Much like Putin’s present crusade to “denazify” Ukraine, in 1944 Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin accused the entire Chechen population of colluding with Nazi Germany. Chechen soldiers fighting on behalf of the Soviet Union’s Red Army were stripped of their awards and branded as traitors. In a move that the European Parliament would later classify as genocide, Stalin then expelled one million Chechens from their native homeland.

Even after Stalin’s successor Nikita Krushchev sanctioned the Chechen’s return to the Soviet Union, the manufactured stereotypes of their untrustworthy and dangerous character persisted. The subsequent decades of virulent discrimination inspired the formation of Chechen separatist movements in the 1990s. But then-president Boris Yeltsin refused Chechen separatists’ call for independence. It was around this time that Ukraine, meanwhile, successfully seceded from the newly established Russian Federation.

For many Chechens, Putin’s war in Ukraine evokes memories of the past.

By demonizing the Chechen people in the leadup to and during the first Chechen war in 1994, Yeltsin sought to rally a fragmented Russian population around a common enemy. By the conclusion of the first Chechen war in 1996, both the Russian and Chechen sides incurred massive losses of up to 100,000 casualties. In 1999, hostilities resumed in the second Chechen War, while the Kremlin began its hunt for Yeltsin’s successor. As prime minister at the time, Vladimir Putin’s inflammatory anti-Chechen rhetoric and publicized trips to the frontlines made him a household name. By ramping up the public’s anti-Chechen fears, Putin galvanized an exhausted public after the previous failed military campaign.

While Stalin set in motion the Russian public’s distrust of the Chechen people, Putin took the Kremlin’s strategic myth-building and disinformation campaigns a step further. Promising to “wipe them out in the outhouse,” Putin’s escalated rhetoric against the accused Chechen terrorists yielded tremendous results, culminating in a remarkable 72% approval rating in 1999 that showed Putin could win a presidential election. Meanwhile, Russian soldiers brutalized the local Chechen population, pushing separatist factions further and further towards radicalized and violent opposition.

The Kremlin’s portrayal of Chechens as dangerous terrorists eventually reached western shores. In 2016, this fear-mongering led the Wall Street Journal to incorrectly report on the presence of Chechen fighters in al Qaeda. With the Kremlin’s decades of anti-Chechen propaganda, and the West’s legitimization of these tales, we arrive at the stereotype of a Chechen soldier: a brutal, radicalized, and bloodthirsty warrior.

KADYROV’S RISE TO POWER

Enter Ramzan Kadyrov, the nicknamed “Chechen Putin.” Kadyrov’s rise to power began with the Second Chechen War in 1999 when he abandoned the separatist cause for Chechen independence. While collaborating with the Russian Armed Forces, Kadyrov took control of his father’s ruthless private militia, known as the Kadyrovtsy. After his father’s still unresolved assassination in 2004, the young and power-hungry Kadyrov was appointed Chechnya’s deputy prime minister.

So long as Kadyrov’s militia worked toward Russian interests, Putin turned a blind eye to allegations of kidnappings, torture, assassinations, and the relentless persecution of LGBTQ+ Chechens. In exchange for his unyielding loyalty, Putin made Kadyrov Chechnya’s president in 2007.

With Chechnya under Kadyrov and Putin’s control, public rhetoric from the political elite reversed. Putin conscripted former Chechen insurgents and Kadyrovtsy fighters into Russia’s “death battalion” during Putin’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s fearmongering of Chechen terrorism and religious extremism dissipated, and Chechen soldiers were instead applauded for their valiant, and well-advertised efforts in Putin’s military operation in Donbas and Crimea.

With Putin’s renewed hostility, Chechen fighters have returned to Ukraine, and alongside them, the legends of their brutality as seasoned fighters. Social media plays a critical role in legitimizing these tales, with intimidating and rugged Chechen men posing for Tik Tok videos, and brandishing portraits of their ruthless warlord.

Although Kadyrov circulates videos of Chechen men eagerly lining up to volunteer in Putin’s ethno-nationalist fight against the Nazis of Ukraine, claims of their voluntary enlistment are doubtful. Numerous reports reveal that several “volunteers” were threatened into signing military contracts. Their refusal to do so could result in an indefinite stay in secret prisons or torture of their family members. The Chechen Human Rights Foundation (Vayfond) verified these claims, adding that even those with disabilities have been forced to enlist. These threats and intimidation tactics challenge Kadyrov’s preferred narrative that a Muslim minority group hailing from the Northern Caucasus would willingly enlist in mass droves to liberate the Slavic Ukrainians from “Nazi” leadership.

Beyond their built-up reputation, analysts are increasingly questioning whether Chechen military prowess extends beyond a phone screen. Nevertheless, Kadyrov supplies a new batch of Chechen volunteers weekly, and last month proclaimed his “thanks to the outstanding teaching staff of the Russian University of Special Forces,” asserting that “the volunteers are well-prepared for solving operational tasks promptly and skillfully.”

Military expert Vasily Dandykin explained that one week of training, even at the renowned Russian University of Special Forces, could not possibly prepare 200 volunteers for combat in Ukraine. Even Igor Strelkov, a known Russian nationalist and former Minister of Defense of the Donetsk People’s Republic is exasperated by the Chechen’s role on the periphery of the Russian invasion. According to Strelkov, the nicknamed Chechen “Tik Tok” troops are simply meant to “pose in the face of victory.”

CHECHENS ARE REUNITED ON THE BATTLEFIELD

For many Chechens, Putin’s war in Ukraine evokes memories of the past. They remember the violence perpetrated against innocent civilians and the destruction of their beloved homeland.

Consequently, hundreds of Chechens across Europe have joined with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, fighting in the Sheikh Mansur and Dzhodkhar Dudayev Battalion. The latter is a nostalgic call back to the former leader of the Chechen resistance, who once pronounced “For every Chechen ear we must take ten Russian ears.”

For Kadyrov, these opposing Chechens are nothing but traitors, terrorists, and murderers. Meanwhile, he denies the war crimes of his Kadyrovtsy, fighting to protect Putin’s Russian World while oppressing the remaining Chechen population.

On the surface, the collaboration between Chechen and Russian forces appears strange. But a myriad of circumstances informs the decision of Chechen men to enlist.

It is true that many Chechens willingly fight with the brutal Kadyrovtsy.

It is true that others face horrific threats to their family’s well-being.

It is true that there is financial gain in enlisting.

These truths should not enable Western media to buy into the myth that Chechens are innately bloodthirsty, violent warriors. After all, this generalized narrative emerges from Russian propaganda, and now serves the purpose of intimidating Ukrainians.

Manon Fuchs is a junior at Duke University studying Russian and Public Policy and is a research assistant at USIP’s Center for Russia and Europe. 

By NOMAAN MERCHANT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The discovery of hundreds of classified records at Donald Trump’s home has thrust U.S. intelligence agencies into a familiar and uncomfortable role as the foil of a former president who demanded they support his agenda and at times accused officers of treason.

While the FBI conducts a criminal investigation, the office that leads the intelligence community is also conducting a review — currently on pause pending a court order — of the damage that would result from disclosure of the documents found at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

The investigation comes at a perilous time in American politics, with increasing threats to law enforcement and election workers and as a growing swath of officials assail the FBI and spread baseless theories of voter fraud. There’s already a wide range of speculation about what was in the documents, with some Democrats pointing to reporting about possible nuclear secrets while some Trump allies suggesting the case is a benign argument about storage.

So far, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has proceeded cautiously, issuing no public statements and declining to answer questions about the review’s structure or how long it will take.

A look at what’s known and expected:

NOT A FORMAL ‘DAMAGE ASSESSMENT’

According to the government, the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago and papers the Republican former president had turned over previously included highly sensitive “Special Access Program” designations as well as markings for intelligence derived from secret human sources and electronic signals programs. Those forms of intelligence are often produced by the CIA or the National Security Agency, and the underlying sources can take years to develop.

The ODNI review will try to determine the possible damage if the secrets in those documents were to be exposed. It has not said if it’s investigating whether documents already have been exposed.

Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, confirmed the review in a letter to the chairpersons of two House committees. Haines’ letter says the ODNI will lead a “classification review of relevant materials, including those recovered during the search.” Experts say that could include non-classified papers with notes written on them that might reference classified information.

Haines’ letter also says her office will lead an assessment of “the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents.”

That’s different from a formal “damage assessment” that intelligence agencies have carried out after high-profile breaches like the disclosures of programs by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Damage assessments have specific requirements under intelligence community guidelines published online, including an estimate of “actual or potential damage to U.S. national security,” the identification of “specific weaknesses or vulnerabilities” and “detailed, actionable recommendations to prevent future occurrences.”

Under those guidelines, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a subsidiary within the ODNI, would lead a damage assessment. The center is led by acting Director Michael Orlando as President Joe Biden has not yet nominated a chief counterintelligence executive.

It’s unknown whether the intelligence review will include interviewing witnesses. Haines’ letter says the ODNI will coordinate with the Justice Department to ensure its assessment does not “unduly interfere” with the criminal investigation.

For now, the Justice Department has said the ODNI review is paused after a federal judge barred the use of records seized at Mar-a-Lago in a criminal investigation. “Uncertainty regarding the bounds of the Court’s order and its implications for the activities of the FBI has caused the Intelligence Community, in consultation with DOJ, to pause temporarily this critically important work,” attorneys for the government said in a court filing.

THE ANSWERS COULD BE UNSATISFYING

The results may not come for weeks or months, and full findings will likely remain classified.

Lawmakers in both parties are calling for briefings from the intelligence community. None is known to have been scheduled.

Former officials note that it’s often difficult for agencies to diagnose specific damage from an actual or potential breach. Given the political climate and the unprecedented nature of evaluating a former president, the ODNI is widely expected to be limited and precise in what it says publicly and privately to Congress.

But reviews like the one underway often help top officials and lawmakers better understand vulnerabilities and how to manage risk going forward, said Timothy Bergreen, a former Democratic majority staff director for the House Intelligence Committee.

“No healthy organization or society can exist without comprehensive review of its mistakes,” Bergreen said. “That’s always been a democracy’s big advantage over authoritarians.”

AN OFFICE CREATED AFTER SEPT. 11

Lesser known than many of the agencies it oversees, the ODNI was created in the reorganization of the intelligence community after the Sept. 11 attacks. Amid revelations that the FBI and the CIA did not share critical information with each other, the ODNI was intended to oversee the 18-member intelligence community and integrate the different streams of collection and analysis produced by different agencies.

The ODNI supervises the drafting of the President’s Daily Brief, the distillation of top American intelligence provided to Biden and top advisers daily. Haines is the president’s principal intelligence adviser and often briefs Biden in the Oval Office along with other national security leaders.

Trump went through three directors of national intelligence in his last year, part of his long-running battles with the intelligence community.

Some of his top officials were accused of selectively declassifying information for political purposes. And before, during and after his time in office, Trump has accused intelligence officials of selectively leaking material to undermine him or not being sufficiently loyal.

He was incensed by the long-running investigations into allegations of Russian influence on his 2016 campaign, calling them the “greatest political CRIME in American History.” And he excoriated the person who spoke to a whistleblower about his pressuring Ukraine for derogatory information, saying that person was “close to a spy” who could have committed treason.

Under Biden, Haines and other top officials have been involved in declassifying information about Russia’s war plans against Ukraine. They have also faced questioning about overly optimistic assessments of Afghanistan prior to the fall of Kabul.

Michael Allen, a former Republican majority staff director of the House Intelligence Committee, said the ODNI is uniquely positioned to handle such a closely watched review.

“This, I think, is one of the reasons why you have a DNI, to coordinate across the wide and disparate community of intelligence agencies,” said Allen, author of “Blinking Red,” a history of the post-Sept. 11 intelligence reforms. “This is their bread and butter.”

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine claimed Monday that it took several more villages, pushing Russian forces right back to the northeastern border, part of a lightning counteroffensive that forced Moscow to withdraw troops from some areas in recent days.

After months of little discernible movement on the battlefield, Kyiv’s sudden momentum has lifted Ukrainian morale and provoked outrage in Russia and even some rare public criticism of President Vladimir Putin’s war. As Ukrainian flags began to flutter over one city emerging from Russian occupation, a local leader alleged the Kremlin’s troops had committed atrocities against civilians there similar to those in other places seized by Moscow.

“In some areas of the front, our defenders reached the state border with the Russian Federation,” said Oleh Syniehubov, the governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region. Over the weekend, the Russian Defense Ministry said troops would be pulled from two areas in that region to regroup in the eastern region of Donetsk.

GRAPHIC WARNING: Some videos in this story may contain disturbing content.

It was not yet clear if Ukraine’s latest blitz could signal a turning point in the war — though some analysts suggested it might be while also cautioning there would likely be months more fighting. Momentum has switched back and forth before.

Still, the mood was jubilant across the country.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Monday that its troops had liberated more than 20 settlements within the past day. In Kharkiv, authorities hailed some return to normalcy, noting that power and water had been restored to about 80% of the region’s population following Russian attacks on infrastructure that knocked out electricity in many places across Ukraine.

“You are heroes!!!” wrote Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov early in the morning on Telegram, referring to those restoring utilities. “Thanks to everyone who did everything possible on this most difficult night for Kharkiv to normalize the life of the city as soon as possible.”

The buoyant mood was also captured by a defiant President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on social media late Sunday.

“Do you still think you can intimidate, break us, force us to make concessions?” Zelenskyy asked. “Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst for us are not as scary and deadly as your ‘friendship’ and brotherhood.’”

In the end, he exclaimed: “We will be with gas, lights, water and food … and WITHOUT you!”

Meanwhile, in Russia, there were some signs of disarray as Russian military bloggers and patriotic commentators chastised the Kremlin for failing to mobilize more forces and take stronger action against Ukraine. Russia has continuously stopped short of calling its invasion of Ukraine a war, instead using the description “special military operation.” Instead of a mass mobilization that could spur civil discontent and protest, it has relied on a limited contingent of volunteers.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed leader of the Russian region of Chechnya, publicly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for what he called “mistakes” that made the Ukrainian blitz possible.

Even more notable, such criticism seeped onto state-controlled Russian TV.

“People who convinced President Putin that the operation will be fast and effective … these people really set up all of us,” Boris Nadezhdin, a former parliament member, said on a talk show on NTV television. “We’re now at the point here we have to understand that it’s absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using these resources and colonial war methods.”

Yet even amid Ukraine’s ebullience, the casualties kept mounting. Ukraine’s presidential office said Monday that at least four civilians were killed and 11 others were wounded in a series of Russian attacks in nine regions of the country. The U.N. Human Rights Office said last week that 5,767 civilians were killed so far.

In a reminder of the war’s toll, a council member in Izium — one of the areas that Russia said it has withdrawn troops from — accused those forces of killing civilians and other committing atrocities.

“Russian troops committed crimes and tried to hide them,” Maksym Strelnikov said. His claims could not immediately be verified.

Izium was a major base for Russian forces in the northeastern Kharkiv region. The first Ukrainian flag was raised over the city on Sept. 10, according to Strelnikov, and more have popped up across the whole city. Residents, some wrapped in the country’s blue-and-yellow flag, happily greeted Ukrainian forces, offering them food.

The Russians continued shelling Nikopol across the Dnieper from the Zaporizhzhia power plant, damaging several buildings there and leaving Europe’s largest nuclear facility in a precarious position. The last operational reactor in that plant has been shut down in a bid to prevent a radiation disaster as fighting raged nearby.

While the war likely will stretch into next year, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Monday that “Ukraine has turned the tide of this war in its favor” by effectively using Western-supplied weapons like the long-range HIMARS missile system and strong battlefield tactics. “Kyiv will likely increasingly dictate the location and nature of the major fighting.”

The British Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said it would likely further deteriorate the trust Russian forces have in their commanders and put Moscow’s troops on the back foot.

Some analysts praised Ukraine’s initial move on the southern Kherson area for drawing the attention of enemy troops there, before pouncing on more depleted Russian lines in the northeast.

Even around Kherson, Russia is struggling to bring forces across the Dnipro River to stop the Ukrainian offensive there, the British military said.

___

Arhirova reported from Kyiv.

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Follow AP war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Exactly 200 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the defenders of the country managed to pull off a stunning rout of Russia’s forces, retaking an estimated 3,000 square kilometres of territory a town right up to the Russian border.

The war is not over, but a classic feint that threatened the central city of Kherson drew off Russian forces from Donbas where Kyiv concentrated its best troops and modern US weapons to strike a hammer blow that scattered Russian defenders and caused chaos.

Social media rapidly filled with emotional footage of local residents rushing out to meet the advancing Ukrainian forces with cheers, flags and tears of relief as they were liberated.

Basking in the success of the counteroffensive Ukraine’s Defence Ministry wryly commented on Russia’s abandonment of its military hardware as it retreated in disarray.

“Russia is trying to maintain its status as the largest supplier of military equipment for the Ukrainian army, and even to improve its status, knowing that lend-lease will soon come into effect”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has turned into an abject failure, but does it threaten his position?

“No exaggeration to say that the apparent scale of the collapse of the Russian army poses potentially the biggest threat to Putin’s rule since he came to power 22 years ago. Hardliners are furious, security chiefs unwilling to be made scapegoats. Next week [could] be very interesting,” Marc Bennetts, the Times correspondent in Moscow, tweeted.

Social media was set abuzz after municipal deputies in the Moscow district of Lomonosovsky publicly called for Putin to resign and called him a “traitor” in a statement released online.

In a very rare public show of dissent, the deputies said that “everything went wrong” after Putin returned to his second term of office and that they believe a change of power is necessary for the sake of the country.

The deputies claim that Putin’s aggressive rhetoric and his subordinates has thrown Russia back into the Cold War era, in an assessment largely shared by Western commentators. They also poured scorn on economic data that shows Russia’s economy has doubled in size under Putin’s tutelage and the quality of life has materially improved.

“Your views, your management model are hopelessly outdated and impede the development of Russia and its human potential,” the deputies said in their statement. The deputies appealed to close Putin confidant Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, saying that the system of local self-government does not actually work in Moscow, and dual power has developed at the district level, which hinders any initiatives of local residents and their representatives.

A similar protest earlier this week by seven deputies from St Petersburg’s local government ended with a summons to the local police where they were fined, RFE/RL reports. The lawmakers demanded parliament’s lower chamber, the State Duma, charge Putin with high treason over his decision to launch his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

“One of the goals declared by the President of Russia is the demilitarisation of Ukraine, and we see that exactly the opposite is happening. It’s not that we fully support the goals declared by President Putin, but simply within the framework of his own rhetoric, he harms the security of the Russian Federation, Palyuga explained in an interview with The Insider. “We want to show people that there are deputies who do not agree with the current course and believe that Putin is harming Russia. We want to show people that we’re not afraid to talk about it.”

The loss in Ukraine was so large that even the military authorities had to admit to the setback, saying the Russian forces had withdrawn from several key cities and were “regrouping”. However, state-controlled media carried almost no reports on the scale of the losses and Muscovites in particular were distracted by the annual city day celebrations as life on the street in the rich Russian cities has changed little since the war started.

However, the news was seeping out and the Ministry of Defence was placed in the humiliating position of having to admit that it was pulling out of the Kharkiv region and abandoning Izyum, a key Russian-held city and a major logistics base for Russian supplies in the region.

“To achieve the declared aims of the special military operation to liberate Donbas, the decision has been taken to regroup Russian troops located in the Balakliya and Izyum areas in order to boost efforts in the Donetsk area. With that aim, over the last three days an operation has been carried out to draw down and redeploy the Izyum-BAlakliya forces to the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Russia’s military spokesman said in his latest update of the military action.

As the troops pulled back Russia struck civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv on the evening of September 11 plunging the city into darkness.

The retreat is a major failure and the tone on Russia’s political chat shows immediately changed. A top Russian political pundit was on the evening shows and raised some uncomfortable questions as the blame game got underway.

“The people that convinced President Putin that the special operation will be fast and effective, we won’t strike the civilian population, we will come in with our National Guard along with Kadyrovites, will bring things to order. These people set us all up,” Nadezhdin said. “Someone told him that Ukrainians will surrender, that they will flee, that they’ll want to join Russia.

“Now we are at the point where we have to understand that it’s absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using those resources and colonial war methods with which Russia is trying to wage war… A strong army is opposing the Russian army, fully supported by the most powerful countries, in the economic and technological sense, including European countries… I’m suggesting peace talks about stopping the war, and moving on to deal with political issues… Either we mobilise and have full-scale war, or we get out,” Nadezhdin went on to conclude.

Putin remains popular

Putin is not threatened by a popular revolt as he has once again played the “enemy at the gate” nationalist card that was so effective in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimea and his approval rates, like then, have rallied on the back of Kremlin war propaganda.

Putin’s approval rating hovering above 80%, and 50.7% of those polled approved of the Russian government’s work, according to the most recent poll from state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) released at the end of last week.

Putin’s approval rating inched back up 0.8 percentage points to 80.3% in just the last week, but before the rout of Russia’s forces in Ukraine was reported.

“Asked if they trust Putin, 80.3% of the respondents answered in the affirmative (down 0.8 percentage points over the past week). Thus, 76.8% approved of the president’s activities (down 1.3 p.p. over the past week),” the pollster said, Tass reports.

In addition, 50.7% of those polled (down 0.1 p.p.) approved of the Russian government’s work, while 51.5% (down 0.3 p.p.) approved of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s endeavours. At the same time, 61.5% of the respondents said they trusted Mishustin (down 1 p.p. over the past week).

If regime change is to come, it is much more likely to be a palace coup, lead by disgruntled members of the siloviki, or security services faction in the Kremlin.

However, Putin has long cultivated his relations with the FSB, which remains the core of his powerbase, and has been careful never to do anything that undermines this organ. Filled with hardliners, the security fraction has supported the war in Ukraine. But the unknown now is how they will react to Russia’s crushing defeat in this battle. The knee jerk reaction will be to crack down even harder on dissent inside Russia and escalate the economic war with the West, say many pundits.

Russia has reached a crossroads where it is very difficult to say what will happen next. Analysts, pundits and even the Kremlin have been caught out by the speed and scale of the Ukrainian rout of the Russian forces. Analysts that have been following events closely from the start have had to admit they were taken totally by surprise by the events of this weekend.

“Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the northeast – liberating in a day territory that took Russia a month or more to conquer – is breath-taking. Inspiring, even,” tweeted Sam Greene, the Professor of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) at Kings College in London. “But it should also be sobering. Apart from anything else, it reveals just how much we struggle to analyse this war.”

“Focusing on objectives rather than achievability does not mean that we should ignore reality. Quite the opposite: the reality is that much of what we think we know about achievability is a fiction. Ukrainian troops on the outskirts of Donetsk seemed a fiction just yesterday,” Greene added.

In what may be unrelated news, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov brought up the topic of peace talks again in an interview on September 11.

“Russia does not reject negotiations with Ukraine, but their further delay by Kyiv will complicate the possibility of reaching an agreement with Moscow,” Lavrov said in an interview with Rossiya-1 TV channel on Sunday.

Lavrov noted that Putin conveyed Moscow’s position during a meeting with the State Duma and faction leaders. “The president told the meeting participants that we do not deny negotiations, but those who do should understand that the longer they postpone this process, the more difficult it will be for them to negotiate with us,” the minister said.

Expert analysis of the Ukraine conflict from a former member of the U.S. Army special forces: Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive in the country’s south appears to be starting, with the primary aim of liberating Kherson. Intelligence officials told the media that the Ukrainian military is carrying out shaping operations to prepare the battlefield for the offensive. 

Natalya Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, announced the military launched offensive operations in multiple directions in the south of Ukraine.

“All the details will be available after the operation is fulfilled,” she added.

The Army’s Center for Lessons Learned defines a Shaping Operation as “an operation at any echelon that creates and preserves conditions for the success of the decisive operation through effects on the enemy, other actors, and the terrain.

“Shaping operations set the conditions for the success of the decisive operation by synchronizing the effects of surface fires, air support, attack aviation, non-lethal fires, obscurants, and obstacles that delay, degrade, disrupt, or destroy enemy forces.”

Ukraine has been carrying out shaping operations for the past few weeks. They have used U.S.- and NATO-provided artillery and precision missiles to strike Russian headquarters and command centers, supply lines, troop concentrations, artillery positions, and weapons depots. 

One must keep in mind that any “reading of the tea leaves” comes courtesy of open source media, so the scale of the operation has yet to be determined. But all indications point to Ukraine trying to take the initiative.

Artillery and Resistance Operations Set Stage

On Tuesday morning, Ukraine’s long-range artillery – an asset they did not have early in the invasion – was targeting Russian barge ferries beside the Antovsky Bridge and appeared to hit it. The bridge was already impassable to vehicular traffic. 

This new artillery has definitely helped the Ukrainians, and it has taken a toll on Russian troops. Military analysts have said that Russia’s Battalion Tactical Groups are deploying at less than 100% strength, with some units reportedly at only 50%. 

In its daily intelligence assessment, the UK’s Ministry of Defense tweeted that, “The Southern Military District’s (SMD) 49th Combined Arms Army has highly likely been augmented with components of the Eastern Military District’s (EMD) 35th Combined Arms Army. Most of the [Russian] units around Kherson are likely under-manned and are reliant upon fragile supply lines by ferry and pontoon bridges across the Dnipier.” 

Ukraine’s special forces are taking advantage of their training with U.S. and UK counterparts to organize and operate resistance networks inside areas that have been taken by Russian forces. The U.S. Special Operations Command developed the “Resistance Operating Concept” in 2013 after the Russian invasion of Georgia. 

After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the value of the Concept was realized, and the Ukrainians began to change how its special forces operated. The Resistance Operating Concept provides a blueprint for smaller forces to resist takeovers from larger ones. It emphasizes unconventional warfare carried out not just by Ukrainian special forces, but by resistance cells of ordinary citizens. The government published “The Foundations for National Resistance,” which spelled out the formation and development of organized resistance networks.

Reports of Russian Retreats

Ukrainian forces have at least initially pushed back Russian forces, but it is far too early to draw any conclusions from this.

Humeniuk said that “under the pressure of our actions, the enemy began to retreat. It is currently recorded that the enemy has withdrawn from some of its positions.” But she too expressed caution, as the operation has only just begun. 

The UK Ministry of Defense tweeted, “From early on 29 August 2022, several brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces increased the weight of artillery fires in front line sectors across southern Ukraine. Ukrainian long-range precision strikes continue to disrupt Russian resupply. It is not yet possible to confirm the extent of Ukrainian advances.”

However, the Royal United Services Institute in London told NBC News that early indications are that “Ukrainian forces have broken through the first set of Russian defenses in places around Kherson.”

Expert Biography: Steve Balestrieri is a 1945 National Security Columnist. A proven military analyst, he served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer in the 7th Special Forces Group. In addition to writing for 19fortyfive.com and other military news organizations, he has covered the NFL for PatsFans.com for over 11 years. His work was regularly featured in the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and Grafton News newspapers in Massachusetts.

Как раз во время контрнаступления ВСУ на Харьковщине, 9 сентября, российский президент Владимир Путин созвал Совет безопасности, на котором собрались председатель Совета Федерации Валентина Матвиенко, глава ГосДумы Вячеслав Володин, зампредседателя Совбеза Дмитрий Медведев, секретарь Совета Николай Патрушев, министр иностранных дел Сергей Лавров, министр обороны Сергей Шойгу, директор Службы внешней разведки Сергей Нарышкин и другие топ-чиновники, которые уговорили главу Кремля отступать.

Об этом 24 каналу рассказал российский оппозиционер и политолог Аббас Галлямов.

Он выразил уверенность, что на Совбезе России точно обсуждали текущую ситуацию на фронте и принимали решение – пытаться удержаться, рискуя попасть в окружение, или с позором отступать.

Генералитет убедил Путина в том, что отступать нужно. Конечно, он не хотел отступать по политическим причинам, это очевидно. “Но генералы его убедили, заверив, что если они сейчас не отступят, то через неделю войска окажутся в котле и все будет в 100 раз хуже”, – убежден Галлямов.

Политолог отметил, что данное заседание напрямую никак не было связано с вопросами войны, однако в реальности чиновники обсуждали, как спасти ситуацию на фронте и ничего хорошего им придумать так не удалось.

“Все, что они придумали, это просто отступать. Российские Минобороны это называет “перегруппировкой”, или как сказал Конашенков (генерал-лейтенант Игорь Конашенков, официальный представитель Минобороны РФ – “Апостроф”), что “враг с позором бежит за нами”, – иронизирует Галлямов.

Напомним, ранее мы сообщали, какие населенные пункты деоккупировали ВСУ на Харьковщине.