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☆ A Russian Defector’s Killing Raises Specter of Hit Squads
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-31 | by ( Michael Schwirtz | José Bautista | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The men who killed Maksim Kuzminov wanted to send a message. This was obvious to investigators in Spain even before they discovered who he was. Not only did the killers shoot him six times in a parking garage in southern Spain, they ran over his body with their car. They also left an important clue to their identity, according to investigators: shell casings from 9-millimeter Makarov rounds, a standard ammunition of the former Communist bloc. “It was a clear message,” said a senior official from Guardia Civil, the Spanish police force overseeing the investigation into the killing.

Persons: Maksim Kuzminov, ”, “ Organizations: Communist, Guardia Civil, Spanish Locations: Spain

A day before the U.S. embassy in Moscow put out a rare public alert this month about a possible extremist attack at a Russian concert venue, the local C.I.A. station delivered a private warning to Russian officials that included at least one additional detail: The plot in question involved an offshoot of the Islamic State known as ISIS-K.American intelligence had been tracking the group closely and believed the threat credible. Within days, however, President Vladimir V. Putin was disparaging the warnings, calling them “outright blackmail” and attempts to “intimidate and destabilize our society.”Three days after he spoke, gunmen stormed Crocus City Hall outside Moscow last Friday night and killed at least 143 people in the deadliest attack in Russia in nearly two decades. ISIS quickly claimed responsibility for the massacre with statements, a photo and a propaganda video. What made the security lapse seemingly even more notable was that in the days before the massacre Russia’s own security establishment had also acknowledged the domestic threat posed by the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, called Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, ” Organizations: Crocus City Hall, Moscow, ISIS, Islamic State Locations: U.S, Moscow, Russian, Islamic, Crocus, Russia, Afghanistan, State Khorasan Province

☆ The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-25 | by ( Adam Entous | Michael Schwirtz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed, its command center a burned-out husk, a casualty of a Russian missile barrage early in the war. Not far away, a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between Russian commanders. On one screen, a red line followed the route of an explosive drone threading through Russian air defenses from a point in central Ukraine to a target in the Russian city of Rostov. The underground bunker, built to replace the destroyed command center in the months after Russia’s invasion, is a secret nerve center of Ukraine’s military. There is also one more secret: The base is almost fully financed, and partly equipped, by the C.I.A.

Locations: Ukrainian, Russian, Ukraine, Rostov

☆ Russian Pilot Who Defected to Ukraine Is Believed Dead in Spain
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-20 | by ( Michael Schwirtz | Constant Méheut | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Maksim Kuzminov pulled off a daring escape last summer when he defected to Ukraine and handed his military helicopter over to Ukrainian commandos in exchange for half a million dollars. Ukrainian intelligence officials warned Mr. Kuzminov that his life was in danger and urged him not to leave the country. But he ignored them, and was believed to have moved with his money to a small resort town of pastel houses on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. Now Mr. Kuzminov, 28 at the time of his defection, appears to have met the harsh fate Ukrainian officials warned of. Two Spanish police officials with knowledge of the case said the body of a man found riddled with bullets last week in the coastal town of Villajoyosa belonged to Mr. Kuzminov.

Persons: Maksim Kuzminov, Vladimir V, Kuzminov Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Villajoyosa

☆ C.I.A. Told Ukraine Last Summer It Should Not Attack Nord Stream Pipelines
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Julian E. Barnes | Michael Schwirtz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Central Intelligence Agency told Ukrainian officials last summer that it had learned of what it thought was an aborted plot by the Ukrainians to attack the Nord Stream pipelines, and the agency reinforced its objection to any such operation, U.S. officials said. In June 2022, Dutch intelligence officials shared information with the C.I.A. that they had learned the Ukrainian military had been planning an operation using divers to blow up one of the pipelines, according to U.S. and European officials. But the original tip by the Dutch, according to U.S. officials, was that Ukraine had already reconsidered and canceled the operation. In reality, American officials now believe, the operation was not aborted but delayed, potentially with a different Ukraine-aligned group carrying out the attack.

Organizations: Central Intelligence Agency Locations: U.S, Ukraine, Russia, Europe

☆ As Kyiv Reckons With Deaths by a Shelter, Russia Evacuates Border Towns
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Thomas Gibbons-Neff | Natalia Yermak | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If scenes of flight and destruction are relatively novel for Russians, such bombardment have become painfully familiar for many Ukrainians. For the residents of the eastern Kyiv district near the clinic, living in a cluster of Soviet-style apartment blocks amid small shops, going to the children’s clinic shelter had been part of a weekslong routine, as Russia launched drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at the capital for much of May. 3 clinic to take shelter in its basement early Thursday morning. As they huddled, knocked and waited for entry, Ukrainian air defenses, bolstered by Western-supplied weapons such as the Patriot missile, only partially intercepted a Russian ballistic missile, knocking it off course but not destroying its warhead, the police officer said. The explosion shattered windows in nearby buildings and blasted doors off their hinges in the clinic, creating a crater roughly 13 feet wide.

Persons: ”, Sukhomlyn, “, ” Anatoly Kurmanaev, Michael Schwirtz Organizations: Patriot Locations: Kyiv, Russia, Russian

☆ Kremlin Blasts Were Real. The Rest Is Hazy, Maybe Intentionally.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Michael Schwirtz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But whose outrage was real and whose was feigned? In this war, the battle over the narrative is as important as the battle in the field. While the Kremlin frequently lies and uses its powerful government-controlled media to craft alternative realities, Ukraine, too, has proved adept at bending the truth to serve its wartime agenda. Cutting through the competing narratives to get to the truth can prove to be a tricky thing, and that perhaps is the point. Was it a staged Russian provocation meant to justify still harsher attacks on the Ukrainian population, or perhaps against Ukraine’s leadership?

☆ Ukraine Wants to Push Forward. Not So Fast, Says Its Black Soupy Mud.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Michael Schwirtz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The troops of Ukraine’s 43rd Separate Artillery Brigade have just about everything they need to begin the expected spring counteroffensive. They are well rested, have plenty of ammunition and are now in possession of several advanced German-made self-propelled howitzers, which have replaced their old Soviet artillery pieces. But for the moment, they are barely moving forward, stalled not by ferocious Russian attacks, but by an enemy no less tenacious: the viscous central Ukrainian mud. “Until the weather improves, there will be no counteroffensive,” said a lieutenant with the brigade named Serhii. Wheels and treads spin and spin, only digging military vehicles deeper into the mire.

☆ Life in Ukraine’s Trenches: Gearing Up for a Spring Offensive
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Michael Schwirtz | David Guttenfelder | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In a thicket of trees between two vast farm fields, a plywood trapdoor built into the forest floor opened to reveal stairs leading underground. Inside was a subterranean bunker, cut into the black earth, where Ukrainian troops from a mortar unit awaited coordinates for their next target. Blast waves from artillery shells and rockets shook the bunker, and a radio crackled with a warning of incoming Russian helicopters. But the soldiers were focused on their screens, specifically on a line of Russian troops and heavy equipment dug in a short distance away and marked with red plus signs. “We just want to kick them off our land, that’s it.”

☆ Ukrainian Troops Repel Russian Attacks, and Hope Western Arms Turn the Tide
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Michael Schwirtz | Stanislav Kozliuk | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Two Russian jets screamed up to the Ukrainian lines near the town of Vuhledar on Thursday, dropped their explosives and banked sharply, hurtling back from where they came. They left in their wake two large black plumes rising from the detonations. After a brief lull, Russian forces have of late intensified their assaults on positions around Vuhledar, a coal mining town and strategic crossroads in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that has been the scene of epic tank battles. Russians have made several attempts to seize the city, only to falter in the face of Ukrainian resistance. “And there are also tanks, helicopters and jets.

Follow the latest news on the leak of classified intelligence documents. It sounded as if the airman, Jack Teixeira, was in a speeding car, said a member of the group who uses the screen name Vahki. “Guys, it’s been good — I love you all,” Airman Teixeira said, Vahki recounted. I prayed to God that this would never happen. And I prayed and prayed and prayed.

Since the early days of the invasion, Mr. Putin has conceded, privately, that the war has not gone as planned. “I think he is sincerely willing” to compromise with Russia, Mr. Putin said of Mr. Zelensky in 2019. To join in Mr. Putin’s war, he has recruited prisoners, trashed the Russian military and competed with it for weapons. To join in Mr. Putin’s war, he has recruited prisoners, trashed the Russian military and competed with it for weapons. “I think this war is Putin’s grave.” Yevgeny Nuzhin, 55, a Russian prisoner of war held by Ukraine, in October.

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