Good morning!
British writer Martin Amis, one of the brightest prose writers of his generation, died in the United States at the age of 73. In the non-literary world:
- Prigozhin announced the complete capture of Bakhmut. Putin congratulated the military and mercenaries. The Ukrainian leadership denies that Bakhmut has been completely captured.
- The President of Ukraine took part in the G7 summit in Hiroshima. The United States announced a new package of military aid to Kyiv.
- The wedding of a relative of Lavrov in Georgia was canceled after protests.
- Putin agreed on the list of buyers of the Russian part of Yandex.
- Police in Berlin are investigating the possible poisoning of two political emigrants from Russia.
Military reports
On Saturday, the founder of PMC Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced the “complete capture” of Bakhmut. On Sunday, his words were confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Defense, and congratulations from Putin appeared on the Kremlin website. The Ukrainian military insists that units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine remain in the western part of the city, which, at the same time, is also half surrounded from the flanks. The President of Ukraine at the G7 summit in Hiroshima also did not confirm the capture of the city by the Russians, while emphasizing that almost nothing was left of it. On Sunday, the outskirts of Bakhmut were visited by the commander of the ground forces of the Ukrainian army Alexander Syrsky. Here is a photo chronicle of the almost year-long battle for Bakhmut, and here is a fresh report from Ukrainian positions directly outside the city. The US President said at the G7 summit that Russia had lost about a hundred thousand troops near Bakhmut. Does Ukraine have a chance to completely recapture the city and how the hostilities will develop further, is described here.
The Ukrainian army launched a missile attack on the occupied Berdyansk, Zaporozhye region. The Armed Forces of Ukraine claim that they hit the headquarters of one of the units of the Russian troops, the occupying authorities of the Zaporozhye region say that a canteen on the outskirts of the city was destroyed, there were no victims. Electricity went out in Simferopol on Sunday evening, possibly due to a blown power line.
On Monday night, an air raid alert was again announced in most of Ukraine, explosions were reported in the Dnieper, Kharkov region and near Kiev.
Big diplomacy
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky flew from Saudi Arabia, where he spoke to members of the Arab League, to Hiroshima, the site of the G7 summit. Even before the summit began, Zelensky met with US President Joe Biden, who announced a new military aid package for Kiev that included all kinds of ammunition, equipment for integrating Western air defense systems, armored vehicles and spare parts. From the statements of American officials, it became clear that the issue of transferring F-16 fighters to Ukraine has moved forward; Biden says Zelensky promised him not to use fighter jets over Russian territory.
On the sidelines of the G7 summit, Zelensky met with the heads of Ukraine’s allies (Rishi Sunak, Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron, George Meloni, and others), and also held talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The heads of the seven largest economies in the world reaffirmed their readiness to support Ukraine for as long as necessary, adopted a new package of sanctions against Russia and called on China to put pressure on Moscow. Here is a summary of Zelenskiy’s speech at the G7 summit.
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that the new EU sanctions against Russia will affect more than 90 companies around the world that help Moscow circumvent existing sanctions. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov announced a new meeting in the Rammstein format this week, which will focus on protecting the Ukrainian skies.
The Vatican has confirmed that it is organizing a peacekeeping mission in an attempt to secure a truce between Russia and Ukraine.
War, view from Russia
- The Belgorod governor announced that as a result of the shelling of the city of Shebekino, a landfill caught fire there.
- Relatives of those mobilized from Khakassia, the Altai Territory and the Kemerovo Region recorded a video message to Putin and Shoigu, in which they said that PMC Wagner buys mobilized 25,000 rubles per head in order to be able to dispose of them at their discretion.
- A court in Sevastopol sentenced a contractor who left the Kherson region with a Kalashnikov assault rifle to 5.5 years in a strict regime colony.
- In a military unit in Pskov, Private Artem Chuzhikov is threatened with a criminal case because of his refusal to participate in hostilities in Ukraine: six months ago he voluntarily signed a contract, but did not reach Ukraine because he was severely beaten by a senior in rank – Artem ended up in the hospital. Here is a story about what happens to Russian servicemen before they get to the front.
- A resident of Chechnya was detained in Omsk, who tried to resign from the police in order to avoid returning to the front. From Omsk, he was going to leave for Kazakhstan with the support of Chechen human rights activists.
- Employees of the transport police and the FSB detained an 18-year-old resident of Krasnodar, suspected of trying to set fire to a relay box on the railway tracks.
Peaceful Russian life
- Putin approved “in general terms” the list of buyers of the Russian Internet giant Yandex from the current owners. The company will be divided between billionaires Vladimir Potanin, Alexei Mordashov, Vagit Alekperov and the state bank VTB. The list of owners may still include the Kovalchuk brothers, Mikhelson and Abramovich. Aleksey Kudrin, the former finance minister and former head of the Accounts Chamber of Russia, seems to have agreed to head the board of directors of the new structure.
- The mass exodus of Russian scientists abroad and the provincialization of science and education are described here.
- The Russian Investigative Committee has indicted prosecutor and International Criminal Court judge Karim Ahmad Khan and Rosario Salvatore Aitala in absentia. Earlier, the member states of the ICC condemned the announcement of the prosecutor on the wanted list.
- In Volgograd, a 19-year-old student was detained for allegedly posting a video of the burning of the Koran in front of a local mosque. A criminal case was initiated on insulting the feelings of believers, and the investigation was transferred to Chechnya, because there were received “numerous appeals” from residents with a request to recognize them as victims. In a video of the detention published by the FBS, the young man says that he was instructed to burn the Koran by the Security Service of Ukraine and that he received 10,000 rubles for completing the task. What all this really means is still unclear.
- A resident of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug stabbed his acquaintances during a feast; the court commuted his sentence on the grounds that the victims had “discredited” the Russian army during the quarrel.
- In Perm, searches continued in the case of the local “Memorial”, in St. Petersburg, a criminal case was opened against three people for calling for terrorism and inciting riots in telegram chats.
- Everything you need to know about the criminal case against director Evgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk is summarized here.
International echo of the war
- University College London, without warning or explanation, canceled the performance of Viktor Shenderovich on Friday evening – he took his audience to Regent’s Park, where he performed. Georgetown University in the United States invited Dasha Navalnaya to the graduation ceremony – the students demanded that her performance be canceled because of Alexei Navalny’s statements about Crimea and Georgia, but it nevertheless took place.
- An investigation has been opened in Berlin after reports of the poisoning of Russian opposition members.
- In Georgia, activists came to the hotel where, according to media reports, Lavrov’s daughter Ekaterina Vinokurova was staying. The police detained more than 10 people, but in the end the wedding they came to was canceled and moved somewhere else. The ruling Georgian Dream party accused the opposition of a “xenophobic campaign”. The arrival of Lavrov’s relatives in Georgia coincided with the resumption of direct flights between Georgia and Russia. President Salome Zurabishvili promised that she would not use the services of Georgian Airways as long as she was flying to Russia, to which the director of Georgian Airways said that she herself would not let the president on board her planes until she apologized to the Georgian people.
- A multi-thousand action was held in Chisinau in support of Moldova’s European integration. The rally was convened by the President of the country, Maia Sandu, and was attended by the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola.
Around the world
The Court of Appeal of the French city of Rennes confirmed the decision to dismiss the complaint against the Yves Rocher company, which was filed several years ago by the lawyers of Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg. Navalny accused the top management of the French company of “deliberately false denunciation” and complicity in the fabrication of a criminal case against them in Russia.
In Vilnius, Belarusian activists held a rally dedicated to the Day of Political Prisoners. 103 Nobel laureates signed a letter demanding the release of Ales Bialiatski. Here are conversations with Belarusian political emigrants who managed to visit Lukashenka’s dungeons.
Six links
- Censorship. Two excerpts from the book of the literary historian Kirill Zubkov “Educate and Punish: The Functions of Censorship in the Russian Empire in the Middle of the 19th Century” (published by “UFO”): the first one is about how the playwright Ostrovsky was read in the III department, and the second one is dedicated to the work of Ivan Goncharov in the censorship committee.
- Memory policy. A fragment from Aleida Assman’s book “The Long Shadow of the Past: Memorial Culture and Historical Politics” (published by “UFO”), dedicated to the transformation of the memory of defeat in the war into a heroic narrative and even a moral victory. Or a story about strategies to deal with monuments that refer to an uncomfortable past.
- Movie. A story about the experiments of Sergei Eisenstein in the 1930s (“Bezhin meadow” and “Alexander Nevsky”). Or a fragment from the book by Natalia Balandina “The sea still belongs to us. Films and the time of Mikhail Kalik” (published by “Order of Words” and “Film Studies Artel 1895.io”) – about the thaw.
Sincerely yours,
Seven forty
