Hroza, "one-and-done" support to Ukraine, Russian Cold War on infrastructure, Musk-mystery

Tragedy of one country, one village and many lives - Hroza

One of the most tragic Russian rocket attacks during the war in Ukrainian took place at the village of Hroza in the Kharkiv district. Place that was unknown even to most Ukrainians.

Andri Kozyr and his son Deniss returned to Ukraine at the start of the large-scale war. They had worked in Poland yet decided to defend their land. Andri died in March 2022 near Popasna from a fatal neck wound. As his home village of Hroza, near Kupyansk, was still under Russian occupation, he was buried in a cemetery in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.

His son Deniss, on was discharged from army in June, this year due to problems with health. The young man returned to his freed home village of Hroza, where he married and wished to rebury his father in village cemetery. Closer to family.

Denss, his wife, mother, and relatives were gathering to memorial service for his father's reburial on October 5th, when Russian Iskander missile struck the small village cafe. Deniss and his wife, who planned to start a new life in his home village, were killed, as were Deniss's parents and wife's mother. Out of 330 villagers 59 were killed in single precise rocket strike.

"It was a gathering of high-level Nazis," Russian delegate Vassili Nebenzja tried to assure UN, admitting that the country had committed yet another war crime. It has been determined that all of the people killed in a cafe were civilians. The coordinates for fire were provided by local brothers Vladimir and Dmitry Mamon who had defected to the Russian side and fled to the temporarily held territory.?

Never forgive. Never forget.

Fog of war works against Russia

I am not proficient in the matters of the Middle-East, I do not have big team of fact-checkers (that doesn′t seem to help even NYC and BBC) and there is a fog of war, so I will stick to the Russian angle also when commenting on war in Israel. That being said, of course I stand with Israel and it is truly heartbreaking.

What is the role of Russia in war of HAMAS against Israel? The role is direct and indirect. Russia most probably has financed HAMAS (not as much as Iran though), has trained fighters in Wagner training camps, supplied the weapons. But there is also indirect involvement and benefit Russia hopes to gain - redirecting the resources and attention away from Ukraine, getting Ukraine off the front pages and maybe, just hoping, to play a “peace dow” as negotiator. (Not gonna happen). Russia does not care about Israel, Iran or HAMAS as such, Russia cares about restoring it′s sphere of interests and for that, if needed, creating chaos. In the midst of chaos attention and focus might get lost. You probably know the “Gerasimov doctrine”, loosely set principle of modern Russian warfare that head of joint stuff Valeri Gerasimov presented already in 2013, underlying that modern war is not just about conventional warfare but rather about information war, cyber war, other means like damaging infrastructure and creating chaos, disbelief and fog. All of this methodology was used in Ukraine and is used also in Israel - false flags, lies, diverting attention, denial. Good piece on Israel war and propaganda in WP. This is a signature of modern Russia. Web of lies that will finally cause it′s collapse just as it caused the collapse of Soviet Union.?

Those are not different frontlines in Russia and Israel, this is the same frontline by same alliance of enemies. Just remember Iranian Shaheds, thousands of which have fallen on Ukraine. Maybe not very proper comparison but reminds me of Joker in Batman - “ Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn”.?

“One-and-done” for Ukraine?

But this time it seems the fog of war will not benefit Russia as it hoped, rather on opposite, if the US manages to confirm the “one-and-done” financial package for Ukraine and Israel. Packaging Ukraine and Israel as one will hopefully help to convince also hesitant Republicans to vote for support, as Israel is a strategic ally for US (and it's politicians) in many ways. As an example - it already has the joint with US weapons development and technology transfer program that Ukraine is only now about it get. POTUS Joe Biden addressed nation in rare speech held from the Oval office, underlining it′s true significance calling Congress to continue supporting Ukraine and Israel by voting for aid package. This speech has been one of Biden′s strongest, along with the response in “60 minutes” if it can support Israel and Ukraine same time. “We’re the United States of America for God’s sake, the most powerful nation in the history — not in the world, in the history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.”

The “one-and-done” $105 billion aid package includes topics important to Demorcates as well as Republicans, making it quite a take it or leave it deal. If you vote for it, Ukraine gets $61 billion that should be enough until elections in 2024 but in the same package comes support to Israel, Taiwan and Indo-Pasific security as well as humanitarian aid. If you don′t vote, sorry, no money as well as for southern border and humanitarian causes. Give or take.

Nevertheless, it is not only about Ukraine. Putting values aside for a moment, there are several reasons for the US to support Ukraine. For starters, Russia is the United States' more?major defence threat, alongside China. The weaker the enemy, the less money will be?spent on defence. Second, there was an excellent study by CEPA that the oncoming Cold War with Russia would cost more than supporting?Ukraine. Giving up Ukraine would lead to intensified Cold War and it could cost 4 trillion, which is 10 times more than current Western aid. Third, the majority of the costs imposed on Ukraine will be paid to US weapon?producers, thereby creating jobs. I could keep on going. So, besides?values and humanity, Ukraine is just worth supporting.?

Cables and pipelines - military objects for Russia in war against West

In the night from Saturday to Sunday October 8th the Balticonnector and internet cable of Telia were damaged in Baltic Sea. The pipeline runs between Finland and Estonia, in the bottom of the Baltic Sea as deep as 60-70 kilometers.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has already stated that the "damage to pipeline and cable are most likely deliberate" yet investigations are still going on with main suspects Chinese cargo ship NewNew Polar Bear and Russian cargo ship Sevmorput that crossed the cable shortly before damage. What is unusual - the Russian ship that was escorting Chinese one belongs to Russian strategic nuclear company Rosatom through it′s subsidiary Atomflot. Both ships have been connected to different Russian military activities before.

Estonian, Finnish and Swedish governments have already confirmed that the damage was mechanical and man-made yet not finger-pointing. Something tells me that we will not know who really did it, this is the nature of Cold War from many aspects. And weather it was Chinese ship or Russian - it all leads back to "who profits". Thw answer is yet again - Russia that has quite openly declared the Cold War on West. You know, the razor-blade theory.

The new challenge we are facing is the one that we have preferred to deny - need for increasing the ability to fight the crisis and terror in many dimensions simultaniously. I wrote in my newsletter precisely year ago that about attacks on Shetland and Deutsche Bahn. Qutoing my column from Oct 22: "We have truly entered the new stage of hybrid war that Russia is waging on Europe and unless we "sanction the duck out of Russia" (expression of Lithuanian minister Landsbergis) and beat them on a battlefield, these acts of sabotage will not stop." We have to expect more. Wake-up call, as Gerasimov said in 2013 - this is non-linear war and Naiwe cannot win it by pretending it does not exist. By hoping that no more damage will be done. We have to wake up and find ways how to significantly increase the protection of critical infrastructure or we will continue to be tempting targets for one terrorist state.

Musk, (not so) mysterious Russian woman and dissapearing likes

If you are as well in Twitter, you might have noticed the amusing case of Pekka Kallioniemi posting in X the picture of Elon Musk with mysterious woman and out of the sudden the likes started dissapearing under the post. They dissapeared so fast that one programmer made even a Python script to track it. So, the question arised again - who is this woman? I actually wrote about it in my feed half a year ago.

Please meet pro-Russian TV-presenter Nailya Asker-Zade, working in Russia state broadcasting company and is sanctioned by US and Canada. According to the UK government, Asker-Zade is suspected to be in a relationship with Russian banking oligarch Andrei Kostin, who chairs the sanctioned VTB Bank. In the same FIFA World Cup 2022 in Quatar Musk was actually photographed also with Jarod Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump. I wonder if those likes would be dissapearing as well in X.