Ukraine war: Russian fighters want to refuse orders

Russian paramilitaries threaten to disobey orders

1:33 p.m A force of right-wing Russian paramilitaries is said to be threatening to disobey orders in the Ukraine war because one of their leaders is imprisoned in Finland. The Russian government should force the 36-year-old to leave the country, the Rusitsch militia is demanding. The US Institute for War Studies ISW reported on this on Sunday. “If a country doesn’t protect its citizens, why should citizens protect the country?” it said on a Rusich channel on Telegram.

The detained Russian is suspected of committing atrocities against Ukrainian soldiers during fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. Ukraine is therefore demanding his extradition. The district court of Vantaa near Helsinki extended the man’s detention on Friday, according to Finnish radio Yle. The well-known right-wing extremist had already been arrested in July for violating residence regulations. According to Russian paramilitaries in the Finnish prison, he is said to have already been questioned by officials from the Ukrainian secret service SBU.

According to this information, the Russian embassy in Helsinki only began to take care of the case when the detention review in Vantaa was due. Rusitsch’s paramilitaries are often used for reconnaissance and sabotage operations. They are said to be cooperating closely with Wagner’s private army. Because of the Russian war against Ukraine, Finland has given up its traditional neutrality and joined NATO. The entry of Russians was stopped with a few exceptions.

Russian cruise missile attack on outskirts of Kiev

Sunday, August 27, 9:12 a.m.: Several regions in Ukraine reportedly came under fire from Russian cruise missiles early Sunday morning. Among other things, air defenses were activated in the outskirts of Kiev, as the military administration of the Ukrainian capital announced on Telegram.

The Ukrainian Air Force said the cruise missiles were launched by Russian fighter jets near the town of Engels on the Volga. A total of eight missiles were observed. Four of them were shot down over northern and central Ukraine. Despite this, no impacts or damage were reported. Some of the guided missiles could have been dummies, it said. Such military information can usually not be independently verified.

The governor of Cherkassy, ​​Ihor Taburez, also wrote in his Telegram channel that the central Ukrainian region had activated air defenses. Russia has been waging a brutal war of aggression against the neighboring country for around 18 months.

Ukrainian media: drone strikes in Crimea

10:20 p.m.: According to a report in Ukrajinska Pravda, the SBU secret service and Kiev’s armed forces have used drones to attack military positions on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia. There are dozens dead and injured, the Internet portal reported on Friday, citing informed circles at the SBU secret service. A photo of clouds of smoke was also published. Accordingly, the 126th Brigade of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is said to have been attacked in the village of Perevalnoe not far from the Crimean capital Simferopol.

Other Ukrainian media also reported about it. There was initially no information on this from the Russian side. The information was not independently verifiable.

According to the reports, the drones also hit an ammunition depot, bypassing Russian air defense systems. Military technology was also badly damaged, it said. The Russian occupiers were not prepared for the special operation of the secret service SBU and the Ukrainian armed forces.

In the past, the Russian Ministry of Defense and the authorities in Crimea had repeatedly reported the shooting down of Ukrainian drones. For weeks now, Ukraine has been increasingly targeting targets on the Black Sea Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.

Selenskyj urges hurry for F-16 mission

10:10 p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is urging the use of F-16 fighter jets against Russian aggression. “Our goal is to get closer to the time when the F-16s will help us keep the Russian terrorists away. As soon as possible,” he said on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday evening.

After the announced delivery of the combat aircraft by the Netherlands and Denmark, the agreements made there during his recent visits would be implemented, said Zelenskyj in his evening video message distributed in Kiev. Norway had also announced F-16.

In total, dozens of planes are involved. The exact delivery time is not clear. With the fighter jets, Ukraine wants to increase the effectiveness of its counter-offensive against the Russian attacks and, above all, protect its airspace – together with the air defense systems – even better than before. Russia, on the other hand, warns that the use of fighter jets will increase violence in the war.

“Our team abroad is working on expanding the training missions as much as possible,” Zelenskyj said. “Our military is preparing the infrastructure as soon as possible and is sending pilots and engineers for training. We have to make sure that Ukraine is fully prepared.” He had previously said the F-16s would be delivered once the pilots had completed training.

Hofreiter: “The Russian leadership acts like a mafia state”

Friday, August 25, 12:10 a.m.: The chairman of the European Committee in the Bundestag, Anton Hofreiter (Greens), has attested to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mafia methods. The reason for this is the alleged death of the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigoschin, whom Hofreiter believes was a deliberate murder. “The Russian leadership acts like a mafia state,” said the Green politician to the editorial network Germany (RND). “The death of Prigozhin is a demonstrative assassination and is intended to have a deterrent effect on imitators. At the same time, it shows the cracks in the Putin system.”

With regard to the Ukraine war, Hofreiter added: “In any case, nobody should have any illusions about negotiations. Putin would only stick to results if they are in his interest,” said the Green. “That should also show the last thing we have to do: namely to support Ukraine unreservedly and actively.”

US imposes sanctions on Russians for kidnapping children

7:12 p.m.: The US government has imposed sanctions on various members of the Russian state apparatus for kidnapping Ukrainian children. The US State Department on Thursday announced punitive measures against several high-ranking Russian officials and operators of child re-education programs in Washington.

They are accused of being involved in kidnapping Ukrainian children from Russian-held areas of Ukraine. Among other things, the sanctions will freeze the assets of those affected in the United States and prohibit them from doing business with the United States. Some visa restrictions have also been imposed.

Since the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Kiev has accused Moscow of kidnapping Ukrainian children. Moscow denies this and speaks of evacuations. In March, the International Criminal Court based in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin and his child rights commissioner, Maria Lwowa-Belowa. Investigators hold both responsible for war crimes – including kidnapping children from occupied Ukrainian territories.

US President Joe Biden said in a written statement that the United States is working with other countries to hold Russian forces accountable for war crimes and other atrocities. “This also includes the violent kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia,” he lamented. “These children were taken from their parents and separated from their families. It’s unscrupulous.”

Ukraine receives Iris-T missiles from Norway – allegedly also F-16 jets

1:15 p.m.: Ukraine will receive Iris-T anti-aircraft missiles from Norway. According to media reports, Kiev is also to receive an unspecified number of F-16 fighter jets. Ukraine urgently needs more military equipment, missiles and anti-aircraft missiles, said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre during a visit to Kiev on Thursday. Therefore, Norway supports the country attacked by Russia with everything that is possible.

TV2 and NRK, citing multiple sources, reported that Norway will become the third country to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets after Denmark and the Netherlands. A number was not initially mentioned. The Norwegian government initially made no mention of the jets.

There it was said that Oslo supports the Ukrainian energy supply with the equivalent of 130 million euros. “The Ukrainian authorities need our help to provide homes, businesses and public facilities with electricity and heat before another winter, Støre said. With the money flowing through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the critical Infrastructure repaired and maintained and gas purchased for emergency storage.

Germany has made the modern Iris-T air defense system available to Kiev, for which Norway now wants to deliver further missiles, as part of its military aid to Ukraine.

Russia expert sees no danger from the Wagner group for the Kremlin

12:33 p.m.: The Russia expert Stefan Meister does not assume an uprising by the Wagner group against the Kremlin. “I don’t see that new structures or any structures are forming in Wagner that will then somehow take action against the Kremlin,” said the foreign policy expert of the German Press Agency on Thursday.

“This is a private army working for money,” explained Meister. The focus here is on payment – who the orders come from is less relevant. At the end of June, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private army, called on his fighters to march on Moscow because the Russian military leadership had allegedly ordered an attack on Wagner mercenaries. He quickly broke off the uprising and agreed to go into exile in Belarus with his fighters. Since this action in June, according to Meister, Prigozhin’s declining influence on the Wagner group had been noticed.

Prigozhin is said to have died in a plane crash on Wednesday evening. Since the march in June it had been clear that he would not be able to survive the action. “It’s ultimately not a surprise. It is in the logic of the Putin system that you show strength in this way,” said Meister. “Prigozhin was a top priority, so that was ultimately decided in the Kremlin.”

The geostrategist and political scientist Alexander Libman also assumes that Prigozhin was murdered. But that doesn’t rule out future rebellion. “It just means that the preparation for it will be even better hidden and the actors will think even more carefully about the possible dangers
be,” says Libman in an interview with the “Rheinische Post”.

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