Hello, dear readers!
By Monday evening, at least 6,650 internally displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh had entered Armenia. The already tragic situation was aggravated by an explosion at a fuel warehouse near Stepanakert, where gasoline was distributed to refugees leaving for Armenia. The death toll cannot yet be determined; According to the Ombudsman of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh, Gegham Stepanyan, more than two hundred people were injured, many are in serious and critical condition; Stepanyan called for opening an air corridor from Karabakh to Armenia to save lives.
Even before the tragedy, the authorities of the self-proclaimed republic announced that more than 120 thousand people, that is, almost its entire population, wanted to leave the region. Will Armenia be able to cope with such a flow of refugees? Kirill Krivosheev, an expert on the region, explains here.
In Armenia itself, protests continue to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan – more than 160 people have been detained. US President Joe Biden sent Pashinyan a personal message with words of support, and the Russian Foreign Ministry attacked him with sharp criticism: he allegedly succumbed to the “exhortations of the West,” recognized Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh, and is now trying to shift responsibility to Moscow. Russian television propagandists led by Margarita Simonyan and Tigran Keosayan adhere to the same line: they call Pashinyan “Judas.”
Military reports
On Tuesday night, Russia again launched several groups of “Shaheds” across Ukraine and fired missiles at the Zaporozhye region. Where the “Shaheds” are flying is now impossible to understand immediately, because they fly in large circles before hitting the target, but even before midnight the authorities of the Nikolaev region reported about the “arrivals”. Shortly before this, Ukraine fired missiles at Sevastopol (explosions were also reported in Dzhankoy), and the Belgorod governor reported seven “aircraft-type drones” shot down over the region.
The night before, Russia fired 19 Shahedov, 12 Kalibr and two Oniks hypersonic missiles into the Odessa region. All the drones and 11 “Calibers” were shot down, and the ones that weren’t shot down destroyed the granaries in the port, damaged the port infrastructure, the building of the Marine Station and the empty hotel next to it. Two people were killed and some were wounded. The Russian Ministry of Defense reported a strike on a “temporary deployment point for foreign mercenaries.” After all this, fragments of the S-300 missile were found in Transnistria.
In Russia, on Monday night, two drones were shot down over the Kursk region, two over the Bryansk region, and air defense operations were reported in the Tula region. The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports that one of the drones ended up in the Kursk Ministry of Internal Affairs. Sources from RBC-Ukraine and Russian military telegram channels claim that on Sunday, at the Khalino airfield near Kursk, the leadership of the air regiment and an FSB officer were killed: they arrived to inspect a drone “landed” by electronic warfare equipment, and the drone exploded.
Ukrainian special operations forces have clarified the data on Russian losses caused by the attack on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on September 22: 34 officers were allegedly killed (including the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Viktor Sokolov), and another 105 people were wounded. When the shipyard was hit on September 13, according to updated MTR data, Russia’s irretrievable losses amounted to 62 people. There is no independent confirmation of these data; Here, the meaning of Ukrainian operations in Crimea is explained by military expert Yevgeny Diky. According to the military analysis company Rochan Consulting, due to the war in Ukraine, the Russian Baltic Fleet has lost the ability to conduct offensive landing operations, but can still shoot far and defend well.
On Monday afternoon, Russia dropped four aerial bombs on Berislav, Kherson region: one hit a housing office, another destroyed a residential building, killing three people. Three more people were killed during the shelling of Kherson. Ukraine, for its part, attacked an ammunition depot in Sorokino, Luhansk region (to those who read Fadeev’s “Young Guard”, this city is known as Krasnodon).
There are no changes on the front. The American Institute for the Study of War and British military intelligence write that Russian troops are unsuccessfully counterattacking in the Zaporozhye and Donetsk regions and are not retreating to previously prepared positions. They do this to gain time while waiting for the arrival of reserves, but Russia has doubts about the availability of reserves. Here is a comment from Ukrainian military expert Mikhail Samus (video only). Vladimir Zelensky confirmed that the first batch of American Abrams tanks has arrived in Ukraine.
A report by the UN International Commission of Inquiry into Abuses in Ukraine said Russian troops tortured Ukrainians, sometimes to death, and Russian media rhetoric appeared to be incitement to genocide. In Ukraine, a Russian missile gunner from Zaporozhye was sentenced to life imprisonment and two Russian snipers were accused in absentia of a series of rapes during the occupation of the Kyiv region. The leadership of the International Criminal Court has been put on the wanted list in Russia.
Russian life
Near-war. Near Krasnodar, at the memorial complex “PMC Wagner”, a stele was erected with the numbers of badges of more than 20 thousand mercenaries who died in Ukraine. A mobilized Tuvan, who left his unit to be with his loved ones, was sentenced to five years in prison for being AWOL. The Federation Council reassigned 80-year-old Valery Zorkin as head of the Constitutional Court for another six years and issued a warning to Senator Narusova for traveling to Spain without permission. The head of Chechnya published a video in which his 15-year-old son Adam beats student Nikita Zhuravel, accused of burning the Koran. “He beat and did the right thing,” – says Kadyrov. A member of the Human Rights Council under Putin, Eva Merkacheva, called the publication of this video “a challenge to the entire legal system of Russia” and demanded that Adam Kadyrov be brought to justice. The daughter of Senator Narusova, Ksenia Sobchak, also demanded the same, but Kadyrov called her and explained that You can’t write about his family. The Grozny TV company launched a poll on Telegram: at first, the majority of participants in Adam Kadyrov’s action condemned him, but then the number of those who approved began to grow sharply. Another monument has disappeared – this time in Yakutsk: a memorial to the Poles who were exiled to Yakutia in the 18th–19th centuries, as well as to the Poles who were victims of Stalin’s repressions. First they surrounded the monument with a fence, then they screwed up the signs, then they took them apart stone by stone. “Terrorism”. The FSB detained a 21-year-old resident of Yakutia for “calls for terrorism (he allegedly “propagandized” the Ukrainian Azov regiment in correspondence on Telegram). A criminal case has been opened against an 18-year-old resident of Arkhangelsk for attempted terrorism: he allegedly tried to set fire to an armory on the territory of a military camp, but the FSB allegedly knew everything because they were watching him. Here is an overview of the criminal cases of “justification of terrorism” recently filed in Russia. Beaten vandal. A court in Belgorod sent to pre-trial detention a resident of the Kaliningrad region accused of setting fire to a Z-installation (“vandalism motivated by political hatred”). The accused did not admit guilt and spoke about torture and pressure on him after his arrest. Loss. In Moscow, at the age of 90, one of the architects of the Russian market economy and one of the founders of the Higher School of Economics, Evgeniy Yasin, died. Russian femactivist Anastasia Emelyanova was found dead in Turkey; her boyfriend was detained on suspicion of murder.
Around the world
Belarus has introduced a ban on the storage, import and use of drones; The country’s Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit to liquidate the public association “Children of Chernobyl”. Sanctions. The United States blacklisted five Russian companies for export control, including VSMPO-Avisma, a titanium supplier for the Russian military-industrial complex, whose participation in supplying the Russian army was reported by Proekt. The Financial Times estimates that three-quarters of Russian seaborne oil exports escape the price ceilings set by G7 countries. Peddling. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Budapest will not support Ukraine on any issue until the rights of ethnic Hungarians are “restored.” The upcoming parliamentary elections in Slovakia are also built around support for Ukraine: the leader of the election race, Robert Fico, who lost his post as prime minister after the murder of a journalist in 2018, promises to stop military assistance to Kiev if he wins. The Speaker of the House of Commons of the Canadian Parliament apologized for inviting the “Galicia” veteran to the meeting (98-year-old Yaroslav Gunka was greeted with a standing ovation during Zelensky’s speech in the Canadian Parliament). Kremlin narratives. The head of the Czech civilian counterintelligence said that a Russian agent of influence in the Czech Republic “for bribes of thousands of euros” ensured the dissemination of the Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine, including using public figures. The Latvian police will fine drivers who have placed “I am Russian” stickers on their cars.
Six links
Russian poetry. Lecture by Dina Magomedova about futurists. Or Oleg Lekmanov’s detailed commentary on Vladimir Narbut’s poem “Levada” (1910). Children’s folklore. An article from the collection of philologist Alexander Belousov (1946–2023) “Culture. Literature. Folklore” (Publishing House “NLO”), dedicated to the origin of school folklore – name-calling, teasing, girlish albums and absurd poems. Or Ilya Vinitsky’s investigation into the reasons for the appearance of American children’s folklore in Mikhail Gasparov’s “Records and Extracts.” Contemporary art. A conversation with the star of Russian political street art, Slava PTRK, about future exhibitions, the prospects for protest art in Russia and in exile, and how he solves the problem of guilt and responsibility for himself. Or a selection of works from Lily Matveeva’s Berlin exhibition “Memorial Against War” with comments by the author.
Sincerely yours,
Seven forty
