Vladimir Putin with Russia’s Commissioner for “Children’s Rights” Maria Lvova-Belova in March 2022

EA on Pat Kenny Show: Ukraine, Syria, and Biden

Tuesday’s Coverage: NATO Unlikely to Issue Invitation to Kyiv

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1634 GMT:

Vladimir Putin’s deployment of the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile on Ukraine was a propaganda operation designed by the Kremlin, the military, and intelligence agencies to reignite fear in Kyiv and Western capitals, according to four Russian officials.

Putin announced the firing of the Oreshnik, which is capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, on November 21 on Dnipro in south-central Ukraine. The missile caused limited damage and no significant casualties.

See also Ukraine War, Day 1,003: Putin Fires “Experimental” Ballistic Missile on Dnipro

“There were brainstorming sessions about how to respond and put the Americans and the British in their place for allowing Zelensky to use long-range weapons [inside Russia]. And how to scare Berlin and other Europeans into submission,” said one Russian official.

Another official explained the propaganda campaign:

This show, which was staged and presented to the public, consisted of several phases. The main ones were the actual Oreshnik strike, the dissemination of footage on social media, and its coverage in foreign media.

The initiative included a staged “hot mic” moment when Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, fielding questions about the attack from reporters, was supposedly interrupted by a phone call forbidding her from any comment on the “ballistic missile strike on a military factory in Dnipro”.

In fact, the call was from Alexei Gromov, a high-ranking Kremlin official who oversees the Foreign Ministry, trying to stir up speculation among journalists.

“Some of those who were in the brainstorming sessions were particularly proud of that stunt,” a Russian official said.

Six days later, at a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Putin threatened to use the Oreshnik on “decision-making centers” in Kyiv as he called for mass production of the missile.

A former Russain defense engineer said it will take years to mass-produce the Oreshnik, given bureaucratic inefficiencies and lagging innovation in Russia’s defense sector.

“Even relatively simple, non-missile-related projects can take five to seven years to develop,” the engineer said. “This strike on Ukraine seems to have been [the Oreshnik’s] first test. There wouldn’t be a lot of data to justify launching it into mass production.”

He that Russia already has missiles similar to the Oreshnik in its arsenal, such as the RS-26 Rubezh.

UPDATE 1325 GMT:

At least six civilians were killed and at least 16 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day.

In the Donetsk region in the east, four people were killed and 11 injured among attacks on towns and cities such as Kostiantynivk and Pokrovsk.

In the Kherson region in the south, two people were killed and five injured. Twenty houses, a cell tower, and an outbuilding were damaged.

Air defenses downed 29 of 50 Russian attack drones. Another 18 were lost to electronic counter-measures, and one flew to occupied territories.

UPDATE 1319 GMT:

NATO head Mark Rutte has said that while the bloc’s members will do all they can to provide Ukraine with necessary air defenses, “we do not have an overflow of supply of air defense systems”.

So that means that you always have to make sure that you prioritize,” Rutte told journalists during the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels. “But there was a clear agreement at the table last night that helping Ukraine, particularly with its infrastructure, has to be a priority.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Tuesday that Kyiv is seeking at least 20 systems like NASAMS, HAWK, and IRIS-T to protect critical infrastructure from Russian airstrikes. This would prevent blackouts from damage to energy facilities.

Rutte did not provide a concrete number, although he expressed confidence that allies would provide Ukraine with whatever they could.

UPDATE 1128 GMT:

Up to 100 “suspicious incidents” in Europe this year can be attributed to Russia sabotage, says Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský.

Speaking ahead of a meeting with NATO counterparts in Brussels, Lipavský said Europe “needs to send a strong signal to Moscow that this won’t be tolerated”.

This year there were 500 suspicious incidents in Europe. Up to 100 of them can be attributed to Russian hybrid attacks, espionage, influence operations.

In recent months, there have been a series cyber-attacks, arson, incendiary devices, sabotage, and murder plots with suspected Russian involvement.

Sweden is leading the investigation into suspected sabotage of two undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. Western officials suspect a vessel intentionally severed the cables by dragging an anchor along the seabed for more than 100 miles.

A UK court is examining a “sophisticated” spy ring that allegedly passed secrets to Russia over nearly three years, collecting intelligence on targets across Europe.

Police are also investigating whether Russia-linked spies posted incendiary devices, via the delivery firm DHL, to Birmingham in the UK and Leipzig in Germany.

An assassination plot targeting Armin Papperger, the CEO of the German defence company Rheinmetall, is also being examined.

UPDATE 0728 GMT:

Christopher Miller, Sam Joiner, and Irene de la Torre Arenas report for the Financial Times about a new Russian tactic to kill civilians in southern Ukraine:

Kherson’s civilians have been, since mid-summer, the target of an experiment without precedent in modern European warfare: a concerted Russian campaign to empty a city by stalking its residents with attack drones.  

The killer machines, sometimes by the swarm, hover above homes, buzz into buildings and chase people down streets in their cars, riding bicycles or simply on foot. The targets are not soldiers, or tanks, but civilian life. 

“They are hunting us,” said Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration. “Imagine what that does to a person, the psychological impact.”

More than 9.500 attacks with small drones, killing at least 37 people and injuring hundreds, have been recorded since mid-July in and near Kherson city.

The Russians have elite drone units to fire across the Dnipro River onto its western bank. The Eyes on Russia project by the Centre for Information Resilience has analyzed and verified 90 of the attacks in a video catalogue.

The CIR found the “overwhelming majority” of attacks were either against moving or stationary vehicles — strikes that are “difficult to replicate in a test environment”. Prokudin and other Ukrainian officials suspect that the civilians are being used for “target practice”.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia’s Presidential aircraft and funds were used in a program deporting children from occupied Ukrainian territories, stripping them of Ukrainian identity, and placing them with Russian families, concludes a report by Yale University’s School of Public Health.

The study identifies 314 Ukrainian children taken to Russia in the early months of Vladimir Putin’s invasion. It concludes that Putin and senior Kremlin officials “intentionally and directly” pursued a “systematic program of coerced adoption and fostering”. The evidence includes verified, leaked Russian documents, with direct orders from senior Russian officials — including Putin — to carry out the program.

The assessment bolsters the International Criminal Court arrest warrant, issued in March 2023, for Putin and Russia’s “Children’s Rights” Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the deportations.

Nathaniel Raymond, the Executive Director of Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, will present the findings to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Raymond explained that the report proved “the deportation of Ukraine’s children is part of a systematic, Kremlin-led program”. He said the evidence supports additional charges by the ICC against Putin.

“It reveals a higher level of crime than first understood,” the Research Lab summarizes.

Ukraine officials say they have confirmed the forced transfer of almost 20,000 children to Russia or Russian-occupied territory, and around 6,000 are in a network of re-education camps. They add that the actual number is likely to be far higher.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky added information in a coment on the Yale study:

Last month the UK added 10 individuals and entities to its sanctions of Russia for “supporting Vladimir Putin’s attempts to forcibly deport and indoctrinate Ukraine’s children and erase their Ukrainian cultural heritage”.