Russia has been flexing to claim territory and resources around the north pole for decades - I think it was actually earlier this year the UN determined their claim to continental shelf resources in the area to be valid
(link added)
QUESTION: And just one more separate issue. Sorry to range around. On the sort of cross-border offensive in Russian territory, I know you sort of touched on this briefly yesterday, but – and I know that the policy is that U.S. – American-supplied weapons shouldn’t be used in attacks on Russian soil. But is there – is there any U.S. position on whether you support or would denounce an attack, whether using U.S. weapons or not, but an attack into another country by – I guess the Russians would say this is terrorism. So does the U.S. have, like, a position in any way sort of to the people who did this? And we don’t know yet who it was.
MR MILLER: Let me say a few things about it. Number one, we’ve seen some of the reports circulating on social media and elsewhere making claims that U.S.-supplied weapons were used in these attacks. I will say that we’re skeptical at this time of the veracity of these reports. As a more general principle, as we’ve said and I believe I said yesterday, we do not encourage or enable strikes inside of Russia, and we’ve made that clear. But as we’ve also said, it is up to Ukraine to decide how to conduct this war.
Ok, so the rumour originates from intentional fuzziness in official responses to journalists making assumptions. Instead of confirming that the US knows exactly who it was (as included in the leaked documents) and what equipment was in the photos, the US is simply confirming what ought to be obvious to anybody that doesn’t believe Russian claims that it is a proxy war “it is up to Ukraine how to conduct this war”.
Perhaps the Ukrainian implausible denials are not, as I suppose, simply humorous (eg saying the Free Russian forces could buy tanks on ebay) but also accommodating the US fuzziness.
Either way, all anybody needs to say or quote the US as saying is:
“it is up to Ukraine how to conduct this war”.
Not:
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that rumour seems to keep circulating. All reports are based from RIA Novosti so that is highly suspect. Still, you would think that UA might provide some kind of proof if it weren’t true.
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The Liberty of Russia Legion is making some extraordinary claims on its twitter account of successful campaigns across Russia. Liberation of villages in border regions, some in cooperation with the Russian Volunteer Corps with which it has shared aims.
The groups have been described variously as far right to extreme far right, composed of Russians from Ukraine and Russian deserters, far right extremists within Russia.
Matched by Russian propaganda which claims to have destroyed their troops and captured equipment.
Today’s Katz video:
Russia’s Southern Border Breached | Why Ukrainian Army Crosses Into Russia (English subtitles)
Recently, something happened that’s impossible to overlook today. A group of fighters from the Russian Volunteer Corps crossed from Ukraine into Russia’s Belgorod Region. Today, we’ll discuss the possible goals of this operation.
The start is rather odd. I’ll just quote it verbatim without comment:
UNIGNORABLE NEWS
Recently, something happened that’s impossible to overlook.
A company of the Russian Volunteer Corps, a group of Russian fighters aligned with Ukraine,
crossed from Ukraine into Russia’s Belgorod Region with heavy vehicles, including tanks.They caused quite a stir, hijacked an APC, engaged in combat, lost several vehicles, and returned to the Ukrainian soil.
Make no mistake: the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) isn’t the so-called Freedom of Russia Legion.
The former is a real unit made up of Russian citizens who’ve been living in Ukraine and flying its color on the battlefield for quite a while, long before the 2022 invasion.
Its active core fought for Ukraine in the Donbas in 2014-2015, and many members have served in volunteer forces like the Ukrainian nationalist Right Sector.
It’s unclear to what extent the RVC is connected with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, since there’s no formal relationship.
But they’re definitely controlled and supplied by the Ukrainian army.
The RVC’s public figures are a rather odious batch of Russian nationalists, including radical ones, and the occasional fascist.
Nevertheless, they exist.
Meanwhile, the Freedom of Russia Legion, supposedly made up of Russian nationals and soldiers who defected to Ukraine after the war began, is a fantasy of former Russian MP Ilya Ponomarev.
For some reason, this fantasy is widely supported by Ukrainian intelligence and public figures.
When we say RVC, we, of course, mean the Ukrainian army.
It’s just that here they’re cosplaying Putin and acting on Russian soil by proxy,
using gangs of adrenaline junkies formally unaffiliated with the official army.Putin did the same thing in the Donbas 8-9 years ago.
“Don’t look at us, they must’ve bought the tank at the army surplus store.”
Anyway, it was this fun bunch who crossed into the Belgorod Region.
The conclusion is easier to understand:
In truth, Russia is fighting with everything it can muster. It has emptied all its reserves and exhausted all capabilities.
It’s actually Ukraine who’s not going at it full strength, only fighting to force Putin into peace.
The frontline hasn’t yet extended across the entire Russian-Ukrainian border.
Instead of attacking fortified positions in Zaporizhzhia and the Donbas, the Ukrainian army doesn’t advance across a virtually unguarded field directly into Russia, capturing cities at a glance.
Ukrainian long-range precision-guided missiles haven’t yet ripped through warehouses, command posts, and government buildings in Russia. For Russia, this isn’t a full-scale war yet.
All this is due to the good will of Ukraine and its Western allies.
Russia will have nothing to respond with. Russians aren’t interested in the war because nobody attacked them.
All these tales about how attacks on Russian soil will allow the government to announce an all-out mobilization drive are just silly.
The average TV viewer doesn’t give a damn about Belgorod, just as they didn’t give a damn about Kherson.
There’s no way of making this a people’s war. Russia has already engaged everybody who was ready to fight.
Besides, people are used to having no say over who’s governor of the Belgorod Region, so why would they protest a change of its flag?
Since people weren’t asked if they wanted this war and didn’t vote for the politicians who started it, why would they worry about the failure of a project that wasn’t theirs to start with?
Because of Putin, the breach of state borders and capture of Russian land no longer depend on Russia’s actions.
Russia’s border guards now are Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, and Olaf Scholz.
They’re the ones protecting Russian territorial integrity and imposing constraints on Ukraine.
Never before has Russia’s basic security depended on forces that it’s not even close to controlling.
Never has its very existence depended on someone else’s good will.
This never happened, until one bungling fool of a “successful geopolitician” decided he could partition Europe.
See you tomorrow!
Edit add:
The world now knows that there is armed opposition to Putin that is actively fighting. Today is going to be one of the brightest days of this war
Lt Col Alexey Arestovich
Very hasty search for background on conflict within Russian opposition re nature of the Legion gives me the impression Navalny team is hostile to them and likely to be the source for Katz views but they have closer relations to Ukraine intelligence and its links with partisan activity:
English translation of their web site:
Twitter has mixture of English and Russian. Doesn’t strike me as “extraordinary claims” but reports of partisan and resistance activity across Russia that we regularly also see reported here.
As well as Ilya Ponomarev mentioned by Katz, they are also in touch with Mark Feigin, another Russian opposition politician who does a regular English dubbed video interview with Ukrainian Intelligence officer and former Presidential Office advisor, Lt Col Alexey Arestovich.
Day 453 of 22 May discusses the initial reports from Belgorod incursion. Starts at 2’14" and continues to 21’ before switching to other issues.
Headline above conveys the essence. The detailed analysis is well worth listening to.
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I don’t think Ukraine bothers to respond directly to Russian claims.
BTW When the injury claim was was first mentioned, on 21 May at 19’24 Feigin asked Arestovich who is close to Zaluzhny about it during regular interview and was told that he just got a “like” from him on one of his posts so he must be ok.
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Wow. John McCain back in 2015 discussing the pathetic response to the capture of Crimea and the Donbas. Eerily accurate.
https://twitter.com/lenerdodicrapio/status/1661126393101680640?s=46&t=A5S-z5IJslFoC5SVN0Jodg
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Yep. Ends VERY clearly:
He can not afford to see a free democratic prosperous Ukraine because the Russian people then would want to be like Ukraine.
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McCain is also spot on in his assessment of Putin, he can’t be mollified. Being a bully boy, all Putin understands is force. That is why he is in such a quandary right now, because unlike 2014/15 Ukraine is not being all meek, but is standing up to his bullying tactics and defending itself, when he fully expected another easy victory.
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Nice thread from Thomas about the likely F16 ooptions and radar/missile options
https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1661511941150453763?s=20
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Equipment news.
Swiss inch closer to selling 25 Leopard 2s with one of the bureaucratic checks being signed off. These can’t go to Ukraine, but they could backfill other donations.
US has approved the sale of $285M worth of NASAMS air defence.
Canada is providing 25 bomb disposal suits. There’s been a strong flow of mine clearing gear recently, but vastly more is needed to allow agriculture to resume.
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Also gearing up for the counteroffensive, as many areas that UA has in mind as targets will be heavily mined.
There are already reasonably prosperous democracies on the borders of Russia (including bordering Kaliningrad). Is Ukraine different because of the amount of family connections with Russia?
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I reckon Poland is just itching to get at Russia.
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oh yeah.
Absolutely they are.
The longer Ukraine drag out the war and deplete the Russian supplies and numbers the happier the Poles will be.
Russia are going to get their comeuppance
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In addition to the Baltics (some with significant ethnic Russians) Finland and Norway (in particular, a long standing NATO member)