What Coup?

I've been trying to do two things

1. Wait for more info - early reports are always wrong
2. Figure out what some of the different alternative story-lines might be

Jake Broe asks a coupla perfect questions:

What the fuck just happened? 

Why Lukashenko?

Warthog Defense

The Butcher Of Bakhmut is celebrated as a conquering hero.

Ukraine

Retired 3-star Ben Hodges seems like such a straight-shooter.

"It (defending Ukraine) matters, not because we love the people, but because of where it sits on the map. If we think strategically about the Black Sea Region, we'll be a lot more clever with our interactions with our Turkish ally..." and we can better understand the importance of other countries like Georgia and Romania, etc.

For myself, I do have an emotional connection with Ukraine because I have a familial connection there. And while I don't know any indigenous Ukrainians, I definitely feel a pretty strong bond, which goes along with, and strengthens my support for the strategic aspects of this big fuckin' mess that Putin's ego has blundered us all into.

Слава Україні

🌎🌏🌍 ❤️ 🇺🇦

Ukraine

Some good analysis from an Estonian veteran, Artur Rehi.

• Russians closed all the release valves weeks before the Kakhova dam was blown up - so the water pressure would be very high, and the damage would be greater - and then ordered their forces to pull back their artillery and vehicles just before the blast.
• Without the water (delivered by canals) from the reservoir, 3 oblasts will be unable to produce the agricultural goods that the Ukrainian economy depends on.

• Eco-cide
• Shaping the battle space
• Politics of Energy
• Politics of Hunger
• Scorched earth

"Unless Russia can mobilize least another 4 or 5 hundred thousand people, and have a third party supplier of weapons, they will not be able to do any major offensive operations in the future"

Curiouser

The first rule of the Nordstream attack is you don't talk about the Nordstream attack.

It looks a lot like the US and European allies had a pretty good idea about what was about to happen with Nordstream.

That doesn't mean they could've done anything to stop it, and it doesn't mean they didn't try to keep the Ukrainians from do it - if it was Kyiv that did it - and it probably was.

What it tells me is that there's nothing new: geopolitics sucks, and somebody's always fucking with somebody, who's fucking with somebody else.

Throw in an actual war, and we've got a very bad thing that just gets worse. Wanna talk about the dam at Nova Kakhova? - yeah, me neither, but we'll have to eventually.

U.S. had intelligence of detailed Ukrainian plan to attack Nord Stream pipeline

The CIA learned last June, via a European spy agency, that a six-person team of Ukrainian special operations forces intended to sabotage the Russia-to-Germany natural gas project

Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure.

The European intelligence report was shared on the chat platform Discord, allegedly by Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira. The Washington Post obtained a copy from one of Teixeira’s online friends.

The intelligence report was based on information obtained from an individual in Ukraine. The source’s information could not immediately be corroborated, but the CIA shared the report with Germany and other European countries last June, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence operations and diplomatic discussions.

The highly specific details, which include numbers of operatives and methods of attack, show that for nearly a year, Western allies have had a basis to suspect Kyiv in the sabotage. That assessment has only strengthened in recent months as German law enforcement investigators uncovered evidence about the bombing that bears striking similarities to what the European service said Ukraine was planning.

Officials in multiple countries confirmed that the intelligence summary posted on Discord accurately stated what the European service told the CIA. The Post agreed to withhold the name of the European country as well as some aspects of the suspected plan at the request of government officials, who said exposing the information would threaten sources and operations.

Ukrainian officials, who have previously denied the country was involved in the Nord Stream attack, did not respond to requests for comment.

The White House declined to comment on a detailed set of questions about the European report and the alleged Ukrainian military plot, including whether U.S. officials tried to stop the mission from proceeding.

The CIA also declined to comment.

On Sept. 26, three underwater explosions caused massive leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, leaving only one of the four gas links in the network intact. Some Biden administration officials initially suggested that Russia was to blame for what President Biden called “a deliberate act of sabotage,” promising that the United States would work with its allies “to get to the bottom of exactly what ... happened.” With winter approaching, it appeared the Kremlin might have intended to strangle the flow of energy, an act of “blackmail,” some leaders said, designed to intimidate European countries into withdrawing their financial and military support for Ukraine, and refraining from further sanctions.

Zelensky, in private, pushed for bold attacks inside Russia, leak shows

Biden administration officials now privately concede there is no evidence that conclusively points to Moscow’s involvement. But publicly they have deflected questions about who might be responsible. European officials in several countries have quietly suggested that Ukraine was behind the attack but have resisted publicly saying so over fears that blaming Kyiv could fracture the alliance against Russia. At gatherings of European and NATO policymakers, officials have settled into a rhythm; as one senior European diplomat said recently, “Don’t talk about Nord Stream.”

The European intelligence made clear that the would-be attackers were not rogue operatives. All those involved reported directly to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, who was put in charge so that the nation’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, wouldn’t know about the operation, the intelligence report said.

Keeping Zelensky out of the loop would have given the Ukrainian leader a plausible way to deny involvement in an audacious attack on civilian infrastructure that could ignite public outrage and jeopardize Western support for Ukraine — particularly in Germany, which before the war got half its natural gas from Russia and had long championed the Nord Stream project in the face of opposition from other European allies.

While Gazprom, the Russian state-owned gas conglomerate, owns 51 percent of Nord Stream, Western energy companies, including from Germany, France and the Netherlands, are partners and invested billions in the pipelines. Ukraine had long complained that Nord Stream would allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian pipes, depriving Kyiv of huge transit revenue.

A map showing the Nord Stream leaks in the Baltic Sea. The neighboring countries are labelled, and it is indicated if they are an E.U. or NATO member.
The intelligence summary says that the Ukrainian military operation was “put on hold,” for reasons that remain unclear. The Ukrainians had planned to attack the pipeline on the heels of a major allied naval exercise, known as BALTOPS, that ran from June 5 to 17, 2022, according to the report.

But according to German law enforcement officials investigating September’s Nord Stream bombing, key details emerging of that operation line up with the earlier plot.

For instance, the Ukrainian individual who informed the European intelligence service in June said that six members of Ukraine’s special operations forces using false identities intended to rent a boat and, using a submersible vehicle, dive to the floor of the Baltic Sea and then damage or destroy the pipeline and escape undetected. In addition to oxygen, the team planned to bring helium, which is recommended for especially deep dives.

German investigators now believe that six individuals using fake passports rented a sailing yacht in September, embarked from Germany and planted explosives that severed the pipelines, according to officials familiar with that investigation. They believe the operatives were skilled divers, given that the explosives were planted at a depth of about 240 feet, in the range that experts say helium would be helpful for maintaining mental focus.

Investigators have matched explosive residue found on the pipeline to traces found inside the cabin of the yacht, called Andromeda. And they have linked Ukrainian individuals to the rental of the boat via an apparent front company in Poland. Investigators also suspect that at least one individual who serves in the Ukrainian military was involved in the sabotage operation.

A collaboration of German media organizations previously reported the suspected involvement of the Ukrainian military service member.

The June plot differs from the September attack in some respects. The European intelligence report notes that the Ukrainian operatives planned to attack the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, but it makes no mention of Nord Stream 2, a newer line. The intelligence report also says that the saboteurs would embark from a different location in Europe, not Warnemünde, a German port town on the Baltic, where the Andromeda was rented.

The CIA initially questioned the credibility of the information, in part because the source in Ukraine who provided the details had not yet established a track record of producing reliable information, according to officials familiar with the matter. The European service, a trusted U.S. partner, felt that the source was reliable.

But despite any reservations the CIA might have had, the agency communicated the June intelligence to counterparts in Germany and other European countries, officials said. The European service also shared it with Germany, one person said. German intelligence personnel briefed lawmakers in Berlin in late June before they left for their summer break, according to an official with knowledge of the closed-door presentation.

Officials familiar with the European report conceded that it is possible that the suspected Ukrainian plotters might have been apprised that the intelligence was shared with several countries and that they may have changed some elements of the plan.

But the report from the European intelligence service isn’t the only piece of evidence pointing to Kyiv’s role in the pipeline bombing.

The Post previously reported that governments investigating the explosions uncovered communications that showed pro-Ukrainian individuals or entities discussed the possibility of carrying out an attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. Those conversations took place before the attack, but were only discovered in its aftermath, when spy agencies scoured data for possible clues, a senior Western security official said.

Despite waiving Trump-era sanctions on the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline as an attempt to mend fences with Berlin, the Biden administration had long harbored concerns about Nord Stream and did not shed tears over its September demise.

After months of pressure from Washington, the German government halted final authorization of Nord Stream 2 just days before Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, surprising many U.S. and European officials who had worried that Berlin would find Russia too important an energy source to sever ties. At the time of the attack, the pipeline was intact and had already been pumped full with 300 million cubic meters of natural gas to ready it for operations.

Nearly a month before the rupture, the Russian energy giant Gazprom stopped flows on Nord Stream 1, hours after the Group of Seven industrialized nations announced a forthcoming price cap on Russian oil, a move intended to put a dent in the Kremlin’s treasury.

Officials have said that the cost of repairing the pipelines would run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

While U.S. intelligence officials were initially skeptical of the European reporting, they have long been concerned about aggressive operations by Ukraine that could escalate the war into a direct conflict between Russia and the United States and its NATO allies.

In February of this year, on the eve of the war’s first anniversary, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency agreed, “at Washington’s request,” to postpone planned strikes on Moscow, according to another intelligence document leaked on Discord. That incident illustrated a broader tension that has existed throughout the war: Ukraine, eager to bring the fight to Russia’s home turf, is sometimes restrained by the United States.

Officials in Washington and Europe have admonished Ukraine for attacks outside its territory that they felt went too far. After a car bomb near Moscow in August killed Daria Dugina, in an attack that appeared intended for her father — a prominent Russian nationalist whose writing had helped shape a Kremlin narrative about Ukraine — Western officials said they made clear to Zelensky that they held operatives in his government responsible. The attack was seen as provocative and risked a severe Russian response, officials said.

Ukraine has persisted with strikes inside Russia, including drone strikes on an airfield and on targets in Moscow that U.S. officials have linked to Kyiv.

Falling In Real Time (?)

I'm thinking maybe the headline should read:

Russian army shells Russian city to stop Russians fighting to liberate Russia

Russia fights alleged incursion from Ukraine for second day, reports more drone attacks

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops and security forces fought for a second day Tuesday against an alleged cross-border raid that Moscow blamed on Ukrainian military saboteurs but which Kyiv portrayed as an uprising against the Kremlin by Russian partisans.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region on the Ukraine border, said forces continued to sweep the rural area around the town of Graivoron, where the alleged attack on Monday took place. Twelve civilians were wounded in the attack, he said, and an older woman died during the evacuation.

Gladkov urged residents of the area who evacuated to stay put and not come back to their homes just yet. “We will let you know immediately ... when it is safe,” Gladkov said. “Security agencies are carrying out all the necessary actions. We’re waiting for the counterterrorism operation to be over.”

It was impossible to independently verify who was behind the attack or what its aims were. Disinformation has been one of the weapons of the almost 15-month war.

"Ground And A Lot Of Dead Russians"

With Bakhmut ‘only in our hearts,’ Zelensky makes impassioned G-7 plea

HIROSHIMA, Japan — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, making a dramatic and impassioned plea for the richest global democracies here to continue supplying Ukraine with arms and money, mourned the destruction in Bakhmut, a city in ruins that Russia claims to have taken.

Asked during a Group of Seven summit meeting with President Biden whether Bakhmut was still in Ukraine’s hands, given that the Russians say they’ve taken control, Zelensky responded: “I think no. But you have to understand, there is nothing.”

His spokesman Sergii Nykyforov later clarified on Facebook that Zelensky’s “no” was referring to Russia’s assertion that it has taken the city, saying Zelensky denies those claims.

But buildings have been destroyed, Zelensky said, and all that remains is ground “and a lot of dead Russians.”

“For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts, and there is nothing on this place,” Zelensky said, while praising Bakhmut’s defenders: “They did strong work, and of course we appreciate them for their great job.”

It was a somber note as Zelensky arrived in a city that was severely damaged nearly eight decades ago by a U.S. nuclear bomb. He came warning anew about the threats of nuclear weapons and the risks for his war-tattered country that is seeking to one day rebuild in the same way Hiroshima has become a vibrant industrial hub.

Biden, in remarks ahead of the meeting with Zelensky, said the United States would supply Ukraine with another phase of military assistance, a $375 million tranche that Biden described as “a package that includes more ammunition artillery, armored vehicles to bolster Ukraine’s battlefield abilities.”

“The United States continues to help Ukraine respond, recover and rebuild,” Biden said.

Zelensky spent much of the day in meetings but was expected in the afternoon to visit the Peace Memorial Park, the epicenter where the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, and hold a news conference in the evening. Throughout the day, he received hugs, handshakes and pats on the back.

“Together with all of our allies and partners, we have achieved such a level of cooperation which ensures that democracy, international law, and freedom are respected,” he wrote on Twitter amid his meetings. “There have been attempts to ignore and disregard what we value. But now it is impossible. Now our power is growing.”

He called for keeping democracies united.

“The more we all work together, the less likely anyone else in the world will follow Russia’s insane path,” he added. “But is this enough? Democracy needs more. I think we need the clear global leadership of democracy. This is the main thing that we provide with our cooperation.”

Later in the day, he wrote an emboldened message stating that Ukraine won’t negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin until troops are withdrawn.

“As long as invaders remain on our land, no one will sit down at the negotiating table,” Zelensky wrote. “The colonizer must get out. And the world has enough power to force [Russia] to restore peace step by step.”

In the morning, Zelensky met with other leaders at a hotel. They posed for photos briefly, with Zelensky leaning over to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and saying, “Thank you.” After about a minute of rearranging themselves and posing for photos, Biden came over to Zelensky, draping his arm around him and speaking into his ear as they left the room.

During a later meeting, Zelensky was notably seated next to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has remained neutral about the war.

“The Ukrainian situation, and the international community, is faced with challenges over peace and stability,” Kishida said to start the meeting. “How can we respond to these challenges? I hope we can deepen our discussion on those themes.”

Before the discussion began, and before Zelensky spoke, reporters were ushered out of the room.

Zelensky met on Sunday afternoon with Biden, a discussion that came a few days after the Ukrainian president won a significant victory when White House officials said they would allow allied nations to send F-16s to Ukraine and that the United States would train Ukrainian pilots. That decision, a significant reversal after Biden had maintained that the fighter jets were unnecessary, came after Zelensky had for months requested the advanced aerial capabilities to bolster his country’s counteroffensive.

The shift was the result of extensive discussions among White House officials and diplomacy with allies around the world.

In the weeks leading up to the G-7 summit, national security adviser Jake Sullivan traveled to London, in part to iron out the details of the F-16 issue, according to U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. While there, he met with European officials, including the British, French and Germans, to discuss the logistics of training the Ukrainians, and the Dutch and the Poles to discuss the potential delivery of the fighter jets. The trainings are likely to take place in Europe, U.S. officials said. The Netherlands and Poland have F-16s, making them central to the effort to provide Ukraine with them.

Upon returning to Washington, Sullivan briefed Biden on the discussions and the broad support among U.S. allies to give the planes to Ukraine. That paved the way for Biden to tell his G-7 counterparts at the summit that the United States would support training Ukrainian pilots, paving the way for countries to eventually send F-16s to Ukraine.

Zelensky’s trip, which had been kept under wraps until the day before he was to arrive, immediately has become the most dominant theme for a summit that was also designed to focus on climate change, combating China’s economic and military rise, and coming up with international standards for rapid advancements in artificial intelligence.

He landed late Saturday afternoon, dressed in his signature army green, and walked down the stairs of a French plane to board a waiting motorcade. Riding through the streets of Hiroshima, with police officers standing at nearly every corner, he arrived for several meetings with foreign leaders.

One of his first was with Modi, the first time the two have met since the war began.

In his remarks, Modi said he would do everything he could to find a solution to the conflict: “For me, this is an issue of humanity and humanitarian values. You would know the challenges and pain of war more than any of us”

He held meetings late into the evening with every top leader here, including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Zelensky released an upbeat video late on Saturday to the citizens of his country, calling his meetings hopeful and productive.

“As always, I’m thankful to our warriors,” he said. “To everyone who protects the Ukrainian land, the Ukrainian sea and the Ukrainian sky. We are sure we will return from this visit with even greater opportunities for you, our defenders.”

It was Zelensky’s first visit to Asia to mobilize for the war, but he has traveled extensively this month to try to keep the international community behind Ukraine’s fight, including visits in recent weeks to capitals in Germany, France and Britain.

Zelensky’s appearance at the informal grouping of the world’s largest economies — which included Russia just a decade ago — showed how much the geopolitical landscape has shifted in the aftermath of Putin’s invasion. Russia was kicked out of the group, known previously as the G-8, in 2014 after Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea.

Now, the leaders of the remaining seven countries have banded against Russian aggression once more, and this weekend, leaders sought to consistently reinforce that message.

Despite a leaky lead-up, Zelensky’s meeting with Scholz in Berlin culminated with a promise to provide Ukraine with air defense systems and more tanks. Then came a surprise trip to Paris, where Macron announced that armored vehicles and light tanks would be headed to Ukraine. During Zelensky’s U.K. visit, Sunak said Ukrainian forces will get “hundreds” of missiles and drones; London also offered to help other countries send fighter jets to Ukraine.

Ukraine will also continue shipping grain around the world after a NATO- and Turkey-brokered deal to extend a Black Sea initiative between Kyiv and Moscow, an agreement that gives Zelensky’s nation an economic lifeline.

The Mideast diplomacy continued Friday, when Zelensky stopped in Saudi Arabia to request more support from Arab League leaders. That meeting included Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was attending for the first time since being suspended from the group 12 years ago after his crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators triggered a deadly civil war.

Not every development has gone Zelensky’s way this month.

Although damage from a midweek missile strike on the U.S.-provided Patriot air-defense system was repaired, attacks on Kyiv were some of the heaviest in months, prompting overnight sirens and unnerving capital residents while their president was traveling to shore up support.

Amid his efforts to secure more assistance from Asian allies, Zelensky also met Sunday with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose country sits on a huge supply of artillery shells that Ukraine says it desperately needs and has faced sustained pressure from Western countries to send lethal weapons directly to Kyiv.

Zelensky announced on Twitter that he thanked Yoon for South Korea’s humanitarian and nonlethal assistance and that he looked forward to “continued cooperation.”

South Korea has so far declined to supply lethal weapons to the war effort, citing its concerns over its relationship with warring countries. Seoul has been wary of driving Moscow closer to Pyongyang, out of fears that Russia would retaliate by helping North Korea advance its nuclear and weapons programs. U.S. officials have said that Russia is already providing food and other commodities to North Korea in return for weapons.

Zelensky and Kishida are set to meet Sunday evening for the first time since Kishida’s March trip to Ukraine as the final G-7 leader to make the trek to Kyiv to show support.

At the time, Zelensky called the Japanese leader “a truly powerful defender of the international order and a longtime friend of Ukraine.”

In a news conference concluding the summit Sunday, Kishida said that it was “truly worthwhile for the G-7 to have invited President Zelensky to Japan to show the G-7’s unwavering solidarity with Ukraine.”

Kishida said by inviting Zelensky, the leaders were able to send a “strong message to the world” about their support for Ukraine and their condemnation of Russia’s invasion.

“Wherever in the world, attempting to unilaterally change the status quo by force can never be accepted,” he said.

Sending Messages

It's a time-honored tradition that dates back as far as 2,500 years - just an extra little touch that prob'ly means nothing to the guy on the receiving end, but could mean quite a lot to the sender.

And why not make a buck on it while we're at it?

All in a good cause, right?

Ukrainians Send a Message With Their Bombs. On Them, Too.

Ukrainians have a lot to say to Russia, and many have chosen to say it in ink on the sides of rockets, mortar shells and even exploding drones.

The Ukrainian artilleryman was all set to slide the explosive shell into a launcher and send it on its way toward Russian positions — but first he had to take care of one last thing on his checklist.

“For Uman,” he scrawled on the side of the projectile with a felt-tip marker.

Then he ducked away as it roared off on a fiery trajectory to the front line.

Uman is the Ukrainian city where more than two dozen civilians were killed last month in a Russian rocket attack. But it is hardly the only city Russia has attacked, and the message on the shell was also only one of many.

After more than a year of war, Ukrainians have a lot to say to Russia, and many have chosen to say it on the sides of rockets, mortar shells and even exploding drones. Thousands of messages have been sent, ranging from the sardonic to the bitter, among them one from Valentyna Vikhorieva, whose 33-year-old son died in the war.

“For Yura, from Mom,” Ms. Vikhorieva asked an artillery unit to write on a shell. “Burn in hell for our children.”

Ms. Vikhorieva said her son, a Ukrainian soldier, was killed last spring by a Russian artillery shell.

“I will never forget,” she said in an interview. “And he will always be my boy.”

It is more than just venting.

Charity groups and even the military have seized on the desire of Ukrainians to voice their anger as a mechanism to raise funds — never mind that however well-crafted the messages, the Russians are unlikely ever to read them. The shell cases, of course, generally explode into smithereens. And if they hit their target, their intended recipients may be in no condition to appreciate them.

But for some Ukrainians, it still feels like justice, if only symbolically, said Victoria Semko, a psychologist, who works with people who endured the brutal Russian occupation of Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv.

“People are in pain because of the loss, personal and national,” Ms. Semko said. “It is normal when aggression is directed at the guilty parties.”

It is not just Ukrainians who have paid for messages. The groups behind the campaign say people from Eastern Europe still angry over the long years of Soviet rule have also written in. Oleksandr Arhat, a co-founder of one group raising money for the military through the messages, Militarny, offered some examples.

There was the writer from Israel who wanted to avenge the torture death of a grandfather by Soviet Internal Affairs. There was the Czech who wanted to commemorate the Prague Spring of 1968, when the Soviet Army put down protests. “Russians Go Home” wrote a Hungarian denouncing the Soviet invasion of his country in 1956.

One retiree, Yuriy Medynsky, 84, said he had drawn on his meager benefits to send a message not once but repeatedly to honor his grandson, who was 33 when he was killed fighting in the Kharkiv region in the spring of 2022.

“To Katsap hermits for Maksym Medynsky. Grandpa,” he wrote, using an epithet for the Russians.

“I put in my message all the hate I feel for Muscovites,” Mr. Medynsky said. He paid about $13 for each message.

His daughter-in-law, Tetyana Medynska, Maksym’s widow, has also sent repeated messages.

“Personally for me it’s a tiny bit of revenge,” she said. “I do not imagine killing someone particular, as they are all guilty, all Russians who came to Ukraine. They have no faces for me. When I send money for the message on the bombs, I feel some kind of psychological relief.”

Some have struck a tone of irony.

“When my friend got married, she asked to write her maiden name on the mortar, to say farewell to it,” said Private Vladyslav, a soldier at a mortar position outside the town of Toretsk, in eastern Ukraine.

He himself once sent a message: “I congratulated my mom on her birthday this way,” Private Vladyslav said.

At that moment, he was preparing an 82-mm mortar with a message from a comrade, Private Borys Khodorkovsky, who was celebrating his 50th birthday at the front.

“I want those devils to know that I am here, and want them to feel bad,” Private Khodorkovsky said. “Psychologically, I know that this mortar will hit something and fewer of my brothers in arms will die, and fewer Russians will shoot at us.”

But most messages seethe with unvarnished fury.

“For the destroyed childhood,” wrote Dmytro Yakovenko, 38, a pharmacist. He has two daughters, 11 and 14. The family lived through a harrowing bombardment and then evacuation of their hometown, Lozova, in the Kharkiv region.

“My daughters’ childhood is destroyed,” he said. “I want Russians to know why this mortar is flying their way.”

The unit that fired the mortar with a message for Ms. Vikhorieva, whose son was killed fighting, is a small one. Its members say that they have used the money raised by selling messages to repair vehicles, and that they have fired more than 200 personalized mortar shells to date.

“I feel uneasy when a person orders a message for the loss of a loved one, and I know that nothing will change,” said Ihor Slaiko, the commander. “But I still sign them.”

His men dutifully inscribe the words onto the shell — and then send them toward Russian lines with a boom.

Glimmers

War is for losers.

I'm not talking about it the way Trump did. He took a giant dump on anybody who answered the call and served honorably in uniform. He actually called the dead and the wounded suckers and losers.

And while I'll continue to make the argument that the warriors are in fact ultimately responsible for the war (ie: you don't have much of a war if nobody shows up to fight), that's not my point.

When you're responsible for your own actions no matter the circumstances, we all need to be very careful, and not get fooled by the cynical manipulations of asshole politicians who'll never have to do any of the fighting and the bleeding and the dying in the name of some noble cause their PR team came up with.

When I say 'war is for losers', I mean it at the base level. Nobody wins a war. When the killing stops and the smoke clears, the "winner" is the side that lost the least, or was able to stand losing more than the other guys.

Nobody wins. Everybody loses. War is about loss. War is for losers.

There's no better example of that than what's going on in Ukraine, and the "good news" - for lack of a better way to say it - is that it kinda looks like the example of Putin getting his dick knocked in the dirt is making the Chinese a little more reasonable.

Opinion In Vienna, the U.S.-China relationship shows signs of hope

As the United States and China veered toward confrontation in recent years, both sides gave lip service to the idea that they seek cooperation on issues of mutual interest. Little came from that rhetoric until last week in Vienna, when top Chinese and U.S. officials actually seemed to be creating a framework for constructive engagement.

After two days of intense meetings Wednesday and Thursday between national security adviser Jake Sullivan and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi, the two nations used identical language to describe the meetings: candid, substantive, constructive. For diplomats, that amounts to a rave review.

Talking about resets in foreign policy is always risky, and that’s especially true with Washington and Beijing. These two superpowers might be “destined for war,” as Harvard professor Graham Allison warned in a book with that title. What they’ve lacked, in their increasingly combative relationship, has been common ground. But some shared space seems to have emerged during the long, detailed discussions between Sullivan and Wang.

The U.S. and Chinese officials are said to have talked for hours about how to resolve the war in Ukraine short of a catastrophe that would be harmful for both countries. They discussed how each side perceives and misunderstands the other’s global ambitions. They spoke in detail about the supremely contentious issue of Taiwan.

The frank discussion in Vienna was important because both sides have been running hard in the opposite direction in recent years. The Biden administration has concentrated on rebuilding U.S. military alliances and partnerships but has had little constructive engagement with Beijing. China has proclaimed a “no limits” partnership with Russia and has fostered an alliance of the aggrieved but, in the process, has rebuffed the superpower that matters most to its future.

What was different in Vienna? From accounts that have emerged, it was partly a matter of chemistry. Sullivan and Wang are both confident enough to talk off script. Over nearly a dozen hours of discussion, they threw schedules aside. They have the confidence of their bosses, Presidents Biden and Xi Jinping, to engage in detailed discussion about sensitive issues. They appear to have found a language for superpower discussion, like what once existed between the United States and both Russia and China but has been lost.

Sullivan and Wang are said to have discussed the Ukraine war at length. China insists it won’t abandon Russia, its longtime partner. China seems to understand that this conflict won’t be resolved on the battlefield but through diplomacy. As Ukraine prepares a counteroffensive that could push back the Russian invasion, China fears a cascading series of Russian losses could destabilize President Vladimir Putin.

China has proposed a peace plan for Ukraine and is sending a special envoy this week to Kyiv, Moscow and other key capitals. U.S. officials expect that China’s role won’t be as a mediator but a check on Russia’s actions. If Xi decides it’s time for this war to end, Putin has few alternatives. That’s why the Kremlin is said to have viewed last week’s Sino-American engagement with dread.

In the background of the Vienna discussions were two ruthlessly pragmatic questions for China. These issues form the context for a new stage in the relationship in which, as China’s foreign ministry spokesman put it, “China-U.S. relations should not be a zero-sum game where one side outcompetes or thrives at the expense of the other.”

The first baseline issue might be described as the “inevitability” question. Is the United States in inevitable decline while China is moving toward inevitable ascendancy? Xi’s policies have been premised on both outcomes, but the past several years have raised questions in Beijing. The U.S. economy and social framework have shown surprising resilience, and its technology remains supreme.

China might have imagined that it was dominant in artificial intelligence, for example, until the explosive impact of GPT-4. China, meanwhile, has faced economic and political head winds. Its global dominance is far from certain.

The Chinese leadership appears to be debating, behind the scenes, this question of America’s staying power. U.S. officials noted a blog post this month by Fu Ying, a prominent Chinese former diplomat, questioning in veiled terms whether one country should question another’s power. The post was removed from the website of the university where she teaches, and U.S. officials say they believe Fu was reprimanded. What’s evident is that the issue is being debated.

A second essential question for China is whether prolongation of the Ukraine war is in Beijing’s interest. Some Chinese officials are said to have argued that a long war is good for China, because the United States is bogged down in the conflict and Russia’s ties to China are reinforced. But there’s apparently a growing counterargument that the war strengthens America’s alliances in Europe and Asia and creates long-term trouble for China. U.S. officials say they believe the latter argument is gaining force in Beijing.

For the Biden administration, the fundamental question has been whether it is in America’s interest to accept China’s growing global role and work with Chinese leaders to accomplish mutual goals. Sino-American engagement had been focused on “soft” issues such as health, food and climate change. But Biden encouraged Sullivan to engage on core security issues such as Ukraine.

The U.S. message in Vienna is said to have been an emphatic “yes” on engagement. Sullivan praised Wang’s mediation of the bitter rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, for example, explaining that the United States could not have played a similar role because of its mutual antipathy with Iran but welcoming China’s effort to de-escalate conflict in the region.

Biden’s opening to China has been motivated by one simple idea: The United States doesn’t want to start a new Cold War. Biden took too long to implement this insight, bowing to the new conventional wisdom in Washington that the more strident the confrontation with China, the better. But he seems to have found his voice.

A few green sprouts don’t guarantee blossoms in spring, let alone a ripe summer. But based on Chinese and American accounts, what happened last week in Vienna was the beginning of a process of regular, direct engagement that will benefit both sides.

Then throw in the stories coming out now about Prigozhin trying to make a deal with Kyiv to help him pull his own fat out of the fire, while fucking over Putin, and the picture gets pretty sharp.

"I don't care who wins or what it costs, I just don't wanna be the loser."

Wagner chief offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says

THE DISCORD LEAKS
Secret documents reveal that Yevgeniy Prigozhin said he would tell Ukraine where to attack Russian positions if it pulled back from Bakhmut, where Wagner mercenaries were taking heavy losses.

In late January, with his mercenary forces dying by the thousands in a fight for the ruined city of Bakhmut, Wagner Group owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin made Ukraine an extraordinary offer.

Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them. Prigozhin conveyed the proposal to his contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war, according to previously unreported U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord.

Prigozhin has publicly feuded with Russian military commanders, who he furiously claims have failed to equip and resupply his forces, which have provided vital support to Moscow’s war effort. But he is also an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who might well regard Prigozhin’s offer to trade the lives of Wagner fighters for Russian soldiers as a treasonous betrayal.

The leaked document does not make clear which Russian troop positions Prigozhin offered to disclose.

Two Ukrainian officials confirmed that Prigozhin has spoken several times to the Ukrainian intelligence directorate, known as HUR. One official said that Prigozhin extended the offer regarding Bakhmut more than once, but that Kyiv rejected it because officials don’t trust Prigozhin and thought his proposals could have been disingenuous.

A U.S. official also cautioned that there are similar doubts in Washington about Prigozhin’s intentions. The Ukrainian and U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

- more -

So in the midst of the madness, there can still be little rays of hope that we're nearing the part where assholes like Putin and Prigozhin end up as corpses smoldering in a ditch somewhere.

Couldn't happen to a nicer coupla guys.

Prigozhin Goes Hard

It's impossible to tell what's real when somebody like Yevgeniy Prigozhin seems to go Full Karen.

Prigozhin showed fresh losses of Wagner PMC and blamed Shoigu and Gerasimov for them.

He says the ammunition shortage has reached 70% and seems to be on the verge himself. pic.twitter.com/lRiGjApC5n

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) May 5, 2023

• Is he worried that his influence is waning?
• Is he laying down the pretext to save face as he turns tail and runs?
• Is it meant to bluff Ukraine into getting cocky and tipping their hand?
• Is he facing a revolt - possibly outright mutiny - within the Wagner PMC?
• Is he well-enough versed in Sun Tzu to be handing Putin a dilemma?

If that last bit is the case, we could be seeing both the beginning of a potentially rapid collapse of the Russian effort in Ukraine, and the end of Mr Putin.

Of course, we may never learn the truth here, but something's happening that is definitely not according to the original plan.

Wagner boss threatens to pull out of Bakhmut, slams Russian military

In a sharp escalation of the rivalry between Russia’s disparate military forces fighting in Ukraine, the head of the Wagner mercenary group announced Friday that he would withdraw his forces from the still raging battle for Bakhmut because of insufficient ammunition.

Yevgeniy Prigozhin published a statement and video on his Telegram channel, demanding that the Ministry of Defense sign an order indicating when they would replace Wagner forces in Bakhmut. He said he would withdraw May 10, the day after Russia’s hallowed Victory Day celebrations.

“I am withdrawing the Wagner PMC units from Bakhmut, because in the absence of ammunition they are doomed to senseless death,” Prigozhin said, wearing camouflage and a helmet, with an automatic weapon slung over his shoulder. He stood with a group of dozens masked Wagner fighters, some wearing full face skull masks.

Spike in Russian combat deaths fuels fears of worse carnage to come

Prigozhin said his forces had no choice but to withdraw to rear bases to “lick the wounds.” It remains to be seen if he will indeed withdraw his forces — a move that would be catastrophic for Russia’s long and bloody military campaign to take control of Bakhmut and would likely leave the influential oligarch tarnished politically.

“Of course, I foresee criticism. After a while there will be some smart guys who will say that it was necessary to stay in Bakhmut even longer. Whoever has criticisms, you’re welcome to come to Bakhmut and stand with weapons in your hands instead of our killed comrades,” he said.

Pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov, however, said Prigozhin was so popular in Russia and irritation at political and military officials over the mistakes and inertia of the “special military operation” in Ukraine was so pronounced that it was “political suicide” to criticize him.

“It seems to society, the bureaucracy is afraid to defeat the West in Ukraine, afraid to fight for real … many are afraid to criticize the Ministry of Defense. But no one has yet dared to seriously criticize Wagner,” he said.

Overnight, an extraordinary video was posted on Telegram, in which Prigozhin displayed dozens of corpses of Wagner fighters killed in Bakhmut on Thursday, before launching a furious, obscenity-laden tirade, blaming Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, for supplying Wagner with only 30 percent of the ammunition it needed.

Prigozhin’s main accusation was that military officials, jealous of Wagner’s battlefield successes, were intentionally depriving it of ammunition to prevent it from conquering the city before the symbolically important Victory Day on May 9.

His letter on Friday went further, asserting that Wagner was only getting 10 percent of required ammunition, not 30 percent.

The bitter public recriminations over ammunition appear to be a new sign of Russia’s difficulties in increasing its military production to match the challenges on the battlefield, as it braces for an expected new Ukrainian counteroffensive in coming weeks.

Prigozhin’s outburst may also be an effort to shift the blame for Wagner’s failure to seize Bakhmut before Victory Day, which would have given President Vladimir Putin something to celebrate in his speech in Red Square.

Wagner has been battling to seize Bakhmut since last summer with massive losses, and Prigozhin’s open struggle with Russia’s military leaders has continued most of this year.

Russia needs more troops but is wary of public anger, leaked documents say

His letter also painted a picture of chaos and miscommunication on the battlefield, claiming that Russian military forces that were supposed to support Wagner’s flanks in Bakhmut were ineffective and deployed in lower numbers than officially claimed.

“Instead of tens of thousands there are tens and seldom hundreds of fighters,” he said.

According to Western intelligence estimates, Wagner deployed some 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, many of them prisoners who were offered pardons in return for fighting.

U.S. National Security spokesman John Kirby said Monday that nearly half of the 20,000 Russian soldiers killed since December were Wagner fighters pitted in the brutal struggle to take Bakhmut.

Prigozhin has frequently clashed with Russia’s Ministry of Defense over supplies to Wagner, and he renewed his pressure for more ammunition on Monday, saying his forces needed 300 tons of artillery shells to complete the assault on Bakhmut.

Prigozhin has shared videos of dead Wagner fighters before on Telegram, but his open rage, publicly confronting Russian military officials in the graphic video posted overnight, was highly unusual. The video of the bloodied corpses was crammed with bleeped-out obscenities directed at Shoigu and Gerasimov.

“These are the guys of the PMC Wagner. They were killed today. Their blood is still fresh,” he said. “Film them all,” he told an assistant, who panned across the dozens of bloodied bodies laid out in rows. If Wagner was given enough ammunition, its losses would be 80 percent lower, he said.

“Shoigu, Gerasimov,” he shouted. “These are these are somebody’s [expletive] fathers and somebody’s sons. And those [expletive] who don’t give us ammunition will be in hell eating their guts.”

Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut, where fierce battles against Russian forces have been taking place, Wednesday. (Libkos/AP)
Accusing the officials of sitting in expensive clubs, he continued, “your kids are enjoying life and making YouTube videos.” Pointing at the corpses, he said “you think that you are the masters of this life, and that you have the right to rule over their lives.

“They came here as volunteers and are dying for you so that you can have a wealthy life and sit in your redwood offices. Keep that in mind,” he said glaring furiously into the camera.

Ukraine defended Bakhmut despite U.S. warnings in leaked documents

Prigozhin, the most visible Russian battlefield leader, frequently posts videos showing himself clad in military gear, traveling in vehicles through the war zone, meeting his fighters like a general, or standing on the battlefield making announcements amid background explosions.

His willingness to take personal and political risks to support his fighters likely inspires loyalty among members of a force who see themselves as the most competent elite unit in the war on Ukraine. It also contrasts vividly with Shoigu, Gerasimov and Putin, who are rarely seen in the combat zone.

Prigozhin’s letter bluntly pointed at Russian military failures, and claimed credit for saving Russia’s military operation.

He said “a series of failures of the Russian Ministry of Defense in various parts of the front” last year led to an October decision for Wagner to conduct “operation Bakhmut meat grinder” to divert Ukrainian forces, claiming this was “extremely effective” because it allowed the Russian army “to take advantageous defensive positions and continue the offensive.”

“After these events the Wagner PMC units fell out of favor with envious military bureaucrats. An artificial ammunition starvation began. An attempt was made to create an artificial shortage of personnel,” he said, referring to moves to prevent Wagner from recruiting prisoners as volunteers.

One prominent nationalist military blogger with the handle Zapiski Veterana posted on Telegram that if Wagner did withdraw it would one of the “cases in history when Russian troops are forced to leave earlier the cities occupied by them due to stupidity, sabotage, and possibly open betrayal on the part of Russian officials.”

The Kremlin has played down reports of the conflict between Prigozhin and defense officials in the past, even as the Wagner leader’s criticisms have become increasingly strident.

In January, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports of a conflict were “the product of information manipulation” that was “organized by our enemies in the information sphere.”

But he appeared to take a subtle dig at Prigozhin adding, “But sometimes our friends behave in such a way that we don’t need enemies.”

On Friday, Peskov said that the Kremlin was aware of Prigozhin’s statement but declined to comment on it.

It's A War, Dummy

I don't like thinking a guy is justified in punching a guy for disrespecting a flag. And I don't like thinking that the Russian guy has no call to look all shocked and shit when he gets punched for disrespecting the Ukrainian guy's flag.

But there's something very symbolic about the Russian guy's action (provoked as it was by the Ukrainian guy's video-bombing), and the Ukrainian guy's reaction, and then the Russian guy's reaction to the Ukrainian guy's reaction.

It's a fucking war, the Ukrainians didn't start it, and we can't expect them to behave in a particularly nice way as they fight for their lives - no matter where that fight occurs.

Because it's a war - a total loss of control - a madness. And once it starts, nobody's calling the shots, and nobody can claim to know much of anything about what happens next, or where we go from whatever fucked up place we're at right now.

It's a fucking war.

Scuffles have broken out between Russian and Ukrainian delegates to a conference in Turkey this week, according to videos and state media reports.

Two separate altercations over Ukrainian flags occurred at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday.

In one video, a woman in a blue suit is capturing herself on a cellphone camera when a Ukrainian lawmaker holds up a Ukrainian flag behind her. A second man, identified by Russia’s Tass state news agency as the secretary of the Russian delegation, then walks up and rips the flag out of the Ukrainian man’s hands.

As he walks away with the yellow and blue flag, the Ukrainian lawmaker follows him, then slaps at him and tears it out of his hands.

“What are you doing with the Ukrainian flag?” shouts the lawmaker, Oleksandr Marikovski. “This is our flag.”

Video of the tussle was posted on Mr. Marikovski’s Facebook page and also circulated widely on social media.

Russian news reports named the woman in the video as Olga Timofeeva, a member of the Russian delegation, and said she was filming a broadcast interview at the time of the incident.

Tass identified the man who grabbed the Ukrainian flag as Valery Stavitsky, the Russian delegation’s secretary, and said that he was taken to a hospital for medical attention after being attacked.

Earlier on Thursday, Tass reported, Ukrainian lawmakers tried to “disrupt” a speech by a Russian official by unfurling a Ukrainian flag. That incident also resulted in a physical altercation, according to video posted by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

Слава Україні

🇺🇸 ❤️ 🇺🇦

Payback (?)

It's not like authoritarians to admit to the kind of failure that allows a foreign government to penetrate its air defenses and attack their capitol building from 300 miles away.

And when the drone is obviously of the small-n-slow variety, the thing did not come from "outa town".

So - 2 basic probabilities in my mind

1. Ukrainian Spec Ops got close in and did it as a kind of Doolittle Bombs Tokyo thing - but that has to raise the aforementioned question of failure on the part of Russian security forces
2. It was homegrown - Russian Resistance sending a message to Mr Putin that he's not going to survive this war. But Putin can't admit that possibility, so see #1 above - as the least bad option.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Video appears to show smoke over Kremlin after alleged drone strike

MOSCOW, May 3 (Reuters) - A video circulating on Russian social media on Wednesday appeared to show a plume of smoke over Moscow's Kremlin, after what the presidential administration said was a Ukrainian drone attack aimed at President Vladimir Putin, who has a residence in the walled complex.

The video was posted in the early hours of Wednesday on a group for residents of a neighbourhood that faces the Kremlin across the Mosvka River and picked up by Russian media, including the Telegram channel of the military news outlet Zvezda.

Separately, the Kremlin said that the May 9 Victory Day parade would go ahead in Moscow despite the incident, the state-run TASS news agency reported.

Can You Say "Pyrrhic Victory"?

Bakhmut holds no great strategic value until it becomes recognized (at some point not very far down the road) as the place where Russia went to bleed out.

Ukraine war: More than 20,000 Russian troops killed since December, US says

A further 80,000 have been wounded, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, citing newly declassified intelligence.

Half of the dead are from the Wagner mercenary company, who have been attacking the eastern Bakhmut city.

Russia has been trying to take the small city since last year in a grinding war of attrition.

Moscow currently holds most of Bakhmut, but Ukrainian troops are still control a small portion of the city in the west. The fierce battle has taken on huge symbolic importance for both sides.

Ukrainian officials have also said they are using the battle to kill as many of Russia's troops as possible and wear down its reserves.

"Russia's attempt at an offensive in the Donbas [region] largely through Bakhmut has failed," Mr Kirby told reporters. "Russia has been unable to seize any real strategic and significant territory.

"We estimate that Russia has suffered more than 100,000 casualties, including over 20,000 killed in action," he added.

The toll in Bakhmut accounts for losses since the start of December, according to the US figures.

"The bottom line is that Russia's attempted offensive has backfired after months of fighting and extraordinary losses," Mr Kirby said.

He added he was not giving estimates of Ukrainian casualties because "they are the victims here. Russia is the aggressor".

The BBC is unable to independently verify the figures given and Moscow has not commented.

The capture of the city would bring Russia slightly closer to its goal of controlling the whole of Donetsk region, one of four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine annexed by Russia last September following referendums widely condemned outside Russia as a sham.

Analysts say Bakhmut has little strategic value, but has become a focal point for Russian commanders, who have struggled to deliver any positive news to the Kremlin.

The Wagner mercenary group - which widely uses convicts and has become notorious for its often inhumane methods - has taken centre stage in the Russian assault on Bakhmut.

Its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has staked his reputation, and that of his private army, on seizing the city.

But he recently threatened to pull his troops out of Bakhmut.

In a rare in-depth interview to a prominent Russian war blogger, he vowed to withdraw Wagner fighters if they were not provided with much-needed ammunition by the Russian defence ministry.

Wagner fighters could be redeployed to Mali, he warned.

He has often clashed with Russia's defence ministry during the war, accusing officials of not providing his fighters with enough support.

Mr Prigozhin also called upon the Russian media and military leadership to "stop lying to the Russian population" ahead of an expected Ukrainian spring counteroffensive.

"We need to stop lying to the Russian population, telling them everything is all right," he said.

He praised the Ukrainian military's "good, correct military operations" and command.

A top Ukrainian general said on Monday that counterattacks had ousted Russian forces from some positions in Bakhmut, but the situation remained "difficult".

New Russian units, including paratroopers and fighters from Wagner, are being "constantly thrown into battle" despite taking heavy losses, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine's ground forces, said on Telegram.

"But the enemy is unable to take control of the city," he said.

Brother Against Brother

War is an ugly viscous thing, but there's hardly anything more viscous and ugly than a "family squabble" when everybody has military-level weapons and there are practically no rules.

Russia's Wagner boss escalates rift with Putin's military, threatens Bakhmut withdrawal due to a lack of thousands of artillery shells

He issued an ultimatum to Russia's defense minister and gave him 24 hours to respond.

Prigozhin has previously sparred with Russia's military brass over complaints of a lack of support.

The founder of Russia's paramilitary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has threatened to withdraw his mercenaries from Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, escalating his rift with Russia's military leadership.

Prigozhin issued an ultimatum to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu over ammunition shortages in an interview with Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov published Saturday.

"Every day, we have stacks of thousands of bodies that we put in coffins and send home," Prigozhin said, per Al Jazeera's translation.

"If the ammunition deficit is not replenished, we are forced – in order not to run like cowardly rats afterward – to either withdraw or die," he said.

Prigozhin warned that if Shoigu does not respond to his requests for more ammunition, Wagner fighters will withdraw from Bakhmut.

"We are patriots, and we will go to Bakhmut while we have the last cartridge, but these cartridges are left not for weeks, but for days," he said according to the video's subtitles, shared by Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to Ukraine's internal affairs minister, on Twitter.

He issued the deadline on April 27 and said the defense minister had 24 hours to reply, which has now passed. It is not clear whether Shoigu responded.

Wagner mercenaries have played a key role in the bloody 10-month battle for the city of Bakhmut, where fighting rages on as Russian forces try to cut off Ukraine's supply lines.

Prigozhin has complained that Wagner receives only 800 of the 4,000 shells per day that it currently requests, according to Washington DC-based think tank, The Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

He said that Wagner actually needed about 80,000 shells per day, which was its shell allowance before apparent Russian Ministry of Defense efforts to reduce Wagner's influence, the ISW said.

"Shell hunger"

In recent months Prigozhin has often complained about the lack of ammunition, which he has described as "shell hunger," and accused Russia's defense ministry of deliberately depriving his fighters.

He went as far as sharing a graphic image showing dozens of dead soldiers piled up in eastern Ukraine, which he blamed on the ammunition shortages.

In March, he claimed that the Kremlin was no longer speaking to him after he made complaints.

His latest comments stoke the long-running feud with Russia's regular army leaders over his allegations of lacking support for his fighters and debates over credit for Russian victories in the war.

- and from 5 days ago -

Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries killed each other in a shootout after blaming each other for their war failures, Ukrainian government says

• Russian and Wagner troops opened fire on each other in Luhansk over an argument, Ukraine says.
• The soldiers and mercenaries had been blaming each other for their mistakes in the war, per Ukraine.
• Russia has yet to confirm the report, which Insider could not independently verify.

Ukraine said on Sunday that a group of Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries opened fire on each other over a dispute about their wartime mistakes.

Soldiers from both forces were killed in the shootout in Luhansk, an eastern Ukrainian region occupied by Russia and Kremlin-backed rebels, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote in its daily briefing on Sunday.

The Wagner Group is not officially part of the Russian army, but has been enlisted by the Kremlin to fight alongside Moscow's troops in Ukraine.

Both sides clashed as they blamed each other for defeats in Ukraine, the update claimed.

"They shift the responsibility for their own tactical miscalculations and losses suffered onto each other," the briefing said. "As a result, a fight between Russian Armed Forces and PMC Wagner mercenaries broke out in the settlement of Stanytsia Luhanska recently."

Russia has not confirmed Ukraine's Sunday report. Insider could not independently verify Ukraine's claim about the shootout.

The report also comes as Wagner's relationship with the Kremlin appears to be deteriorating while the mercenary group takes heavy losses.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary group's founder who's thought to be a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in March complained that Russia's top military brass was ignoring his requests for more ammunition.

"To get me to stop asking for ammunition, all the hotlines to office, to departments, etc., have been cut off from me," Prigozhin said.

But Wagner has still been working closely with Russia's regular forces, with its ground forces deployed in tandem with Russian air support and artillery, Michael Kofman, director of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses think tank, told Insider's Michael Peck.

It's thus unclear whether the alleged firefight represents wider conflict or discipline issues among Russian forces on the frontline. Wagner has been deploying poorly trained Russian convicts in Ukraine, almost 30,000 of whom have died, per US officials.

However, multiple reports have documented Russian troops being plagued by friendly fire in Ukraine, though the Kremlin rarely acknowledges any of these incidents.

Russia's combat formations and systems also made it difficult for its forces to identify friend from foe in the early months of the war, the Royal United Services Institute, a UK think tank, found in November.

But accounts of Russian friendly fire continued to emerge later in the war, including instances that appeared intentional.

British intelligence reported in November that Russia was deploying "blocking units" behind its soldiers to prevent them from retreating.

"These units threaten to shoot their own retreating soldiers in order to compel offensives and have been used in previous conflicts by Russian forces," the UK Ministry of Defense said.

And in December, Ukrainian intelligence said it intercepted a call from a Russian soldier to his mother, in which he said his comrades were taking more losses "from their own side" than from Ukrainian fire.

In a rare admission on Friday, Russia's defense ministry said one of its Su-34 jets accidentally bombed the Russian city of Belgorod. Local authorities said the blast injured two women and damaged four apartments.

Russia's Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.