Former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Tatyana Shevtsova, who officially was dismissed mid-June, fled to France ‘with hundreds of millions of dollars saved in cryptocurrency.’.

Tsargrad and other Telegram channels report this with reference to several sources, although confirmation or refutation of this data has not yet been received. If she fled to France, it must be a deal with the French security service, as she is sanctioned in Europe.

There is a version that Shevtsova allegedly cooperated with the investigation against the detained generals, trying to avoid her own charges. According to another version, the generals, to reduce their sentences, named the names of colleagues who participated in corruption schemes, which could include Shevtsova.

In addition, the Tsargrad publication notes that Tatyana Shevtsova actually owns several real estate properties, including a residence on the banks of the Moscow River worth up to 2 billion.

She has also real estate in Italy, Spain, Switzerland and France.

Serious questions are being raised as to who helped Tatyana Shevtsova leave the country and who covered up her actions. Fleeing to NATO countries is not the best choice for a Russian official, especially a former defense official.

Source

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Kiev (8/6 – 17).          

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s announcement about the personnel losses suffered by Moscow in May underscores the toll the conflict has taken on the Russian side.

The reported figure of 38,940 personnel losses for Moscow as stated by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, indicates a significant escalation in the conflict’s intensity. Such a high monthly casualty count underscores the severity of the situation and the toll it’s taking on the Russian side.

Ellie Cook’s report in Newsweek highlights a critical aspect of conflict reporting the difficulty in accurately determining battlefield casualties. Analysts often caution against relying solely on figures provided by involved parties due to the potential for inaccuracies. Putin commented in a rare occasion on the death toll.

The UK Ministry of Defense’s estimate of 500,000 killed and wounded Russian personnel in Ukraine since the start of the war is a significant figure that aligns closely with Ukrainian estimates.

The Ukrainian General Staff’s report of 507,650 personnel losses since the beginning of the war underscores the significant toll the conflict has taken on Russian forces. The UK Ministry of Defense’s statement about the high level of casualties in May, with an average of over 1,200 Russian personnel per day, further emphasizes the intensity of the fighting during that period.

The record-high losses experienced by Russia, including the highest single daily loss figure of the entire war, are attributed to Moscow’s commitment to an attritional style of warfare. So called ‘meat grinder’ attacks, make up the number of mounting losses for the Russians.

The UK Ministry of Defence’s assessment highlights significant challenges facing Russian forces, including limitations in training and tactics. The report suggests that many Russian troops received only limited training.

Dissent within Russian society is growing. In a repressive system these forces are supressed. Observers warn that the army leaders, purged by Putin, could emerge as a force. Tactics in use are out of the Russian Red Army manuals. So is training and strategy.

Source: Internet

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Moscow 22/5 (57.14)

According to NATO’s top military official, Russia does not have enough troops to make a significant advance in the north-east of Ukraine.

“The Russians don’t have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli told reporters last week. “They don’t have the skill and the capability to do it; to operate at the scale necessary to exploit any breakthrough to strategic advantage,” the general said. 

According to earlier statements by Putin, Russia’s intention is not to take the city of Kharkiv, but rather to create a security zone, a sanitary zone in the region. Russian forces continue their offensive in Ukraine, yet General Cavoli does not believe there will be a major breakthrough. 

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has highlighted Russia’s strong relations with the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, in an apparent bid to underscore unity with former Soviet nations.

Putin met with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan in Moscow on Friday. The two countries agreed to boost cooperation in political and economic activities, security and other fields.

Putin said at the beginning of the talks, “Our relations are developing quite successfully.”

After their meeting, the two leaders signed a joint statement on deepening their strategic partnership to boost joint political, trade, cultural and humanitarian activities, as well as security cooperation.

Putin also referred to Russia’s natural gas exports to Uzbekistan through a pipeline that opens on Saturday. He said this was designed to ensure energy security for Uzbekistan and the broader Central Asian region.

The decline of Russian influence is becoming more evident among some members of the former Soviet Union, which Putin views as being under Russia’s sphere of influence.

Armenia has been moving away from Russia as dissatisfaction has grown over Moscow’s handling of a military conflict in September in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where residents are ethnic Armenians.

Next week in Kyrgyzstan, Putin is scheduled to attend a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS. The CIS is made up of some former Soviet republics, including Central Asian nations.

Putin apparently wants to underscore the unity of former Soviet countries through meetings with CIS leaders.

Source: NHK World

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What are Erdogan and Putin thinking when they meet up in person as they recently did on September 4? What are they looking to gain off each other, if anything, that they can’t through intermediaries? What implicit messages are intended for the world – and their own public? Both hail from relatively closed societies – closed by them – especially at the top, thus very little authentic information is made available. Teasing out the truth requires advanced forms of what used to be called ‘Kremlinology’, reading the signs based on years of observation. Luckily this column has done just that for some decades – adduced from field experience reporting on wars and political shenanigans in the region.

Putin and Erdo met in Sochi on the Russian Black Sea coast to discuss the Ukraine grain deal. Putin emerged saying it’s still no go. Erdogan came away saying progress was made. Since both leaders control their media, they can posture publicly in that way without fear of contradiction at home. So, at the very least, it’s a photo-op and a plus for both. Look how world leaders come to pay homage to your leader, is the message, a form of legitimation. The photo-op occurs at a time when Erdogan has ‘won’ a national election and feels emboldened. Putin is slowly losing grip on Moscow’s empire. Usually, on such occasions, the Kremlin boss likes to keep his visitor waiting as a psy-op maneuver up front. He can’t afford to do that with Erdogan, at this point, because real-world consequences would follow – he knows the Turkish prez is a vindictive guy.

What consequences? Who has more leverage over the other? Well, it’s a pretty balanced situation. Turkey allows a lot of dark money to flow to and from Russia. A crucial source of foreign currency. Turkey gets the benefit of Russian tourism that keeps the hotels and restaurants afloat in the midst of severe inflation/recession. The Kremlin, no doubt, has tons of embarrassing communications by Erdo, his family, his party that Russian snooping apparatus has picked up. But he has proved impervious to such leaks from any quarter, having sailed through several down the years. His followers don’t care. Above all, he knows the Russians prefer him to any squeaky-clean fully pro-Western non-authoritarian leader. He’s a man they can do business with, as the saying goes.

He’s also, in many ways, their worst nightmare strategically. Erdo has now signed defense pacts with several of the Central Asian countries, from Azerbaijan eastwards. Ankara is displacing Moscow as the security guarantor of Russia’s underbelly across the ‘Stans, reconstituting a pan-Turkic bloc to counter-balance domination by Russia after some three centuries of Kremlin hegemony. Let us not forget the enormity of that challenge to the status quo – if such a bloc gels it can destabilize other Turkic areas in the Russian Federation such as Tatarstan, Astrakhan, Bashkortostan and the like. China and Iran support Putin in his geo-throttling of Central Asia but slowly, inexorably, they’re losing their grip. And the US is finally getting into the game actively, as this column indicated recently via a leaked letter from President Biden to the President of Uzbekistan.

And then there’s Ukraine. Essentially, the Russo-Turkic tug-of-war over Ukraine is a struggle over domination of the Black Sea. Russian control over Crimea being a central peg. Again, a story of centuries – ever since Turkic ally, the Khan of Crimea, lost power to the Kremlin in the 18^th century. These are deep tectonic plates of memory and history and both leaders feel their force when they meet. Putin has suddenly opened disastrous cracks in the Procrustean bed of Russian hegemony by his invasion of Ukraine. It’s an opportunity for Erdogan to write his name in history as the Turkish leader who helped liberate the Crimean Tatar cousins from Moscow’s yoke. And, now, you can understand the full symbolic significance of Zelensky appointing a Crimean Tatar as the Defense Secretary of Ukraine. Ukraine, too, is getting into the game of liberating Crimea from Moscow.

Close to the surface too, no doubt, was the issue of Turkey’s Bayraktar drones. They caused havoc on Russian forces and armor for many months. And then we heard very little about them. Essentially, the Russians had built microwave towers that could detect their signature in advance. They were rendered ineffectual. At the time of the Sochi meeting both leaders surely knew that. But Erdogan also likely knew that Ukraine had identified the towers, perhaps with Turkish help. Recently, at least one tower was destroyed by Ukraine on the Crimea coast and suddenly the Bayraktars were aloft again, hitting targets inland and along the coast. ‘We haven’t seen much of your drones recently,’ Putin might have said, as a humiliating aside. Erdogan might have responded ‘You will.’

Source: Forbes

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Russia will continue to oppose Western sanctions, President Vladimir Putin has said, following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

His address to a virtual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit was his first to an international meeting since last month’s mutiny in Russia.

Mr Putin backed trade accords between SCO nations in local currencies – seen as an attempt to blunt sanctions.

The 2023 SCO summit is taking place virtually, under India’s leadership.

Mr Putin used the platform to send a message of defiance to the West, saying “Russia counters all these external sanctions, pressures and provocations and continues to develop as never before”.

He has made several public appearances since the Wagner mercenary group staged a short-lived mutiny in late June, but this was the first time he’d been seen with a group of international leaders.

“I would like to thank my colleagues from the SCO countries who expressed support for the actions of the Russian leadership to protect the constitutional order and the life and security of citizens,” he told the summit in a televised address from the Kremlin in Moscow.

Mr Putin added that more than 80% of trade between Chinese and Russian people was in roubles and yuan, and urged other SCO members to follow the same process.

He also welcomed Russian ally Belarus’s application to become a permanent member of the SCO next year.

Summit host Indian PM Narendra Modi called on members to boost trade, connectivity and tech co-operation, among other things.

But he didn’t directly refer to either the war in Ukraine or China’s increasingly assertive stance in the Indo-Pacific. India – historically non-aligned – had to walk a tight diplomatic rope, due to its increasingly strong ties with the West.

Just days earlier the US had rolled out the red carpet for Mr Modi when he was received in Washington on a state visit.

While Mr Modi talked about regional security, he did not mention China, a neighbour with whom India has long had hostile relations. Indian and Chinese troops fought deadly clashes on their long disputed border in 2020 and tensions persist to this day.

The West increasingly sees India as a counterweight to China, although Delhi has publicly never owned the tag. And it once again refrained from doing so at the SCO.

India’s PM instead urged members to co-operate on cross-border terrorism.

“Some countries use cross-border terrorism as an instrument in their policies, (they) give shelter to terrorists… the SCO should not hesitate to criticise such countries,” Mr Modi said.

Such statements are always seen as directed at neighbouring Pakistan, India’s bitter rival over the decades. Its Prime Minister, Shahbaz Sharif, said SCO nations must take measures to “combat the three evils of terrorism, extremism and separatism”.

But he also said religious minorities should not be demonised in the “pursuit of domestic political agendas” – viewed as a dig at India, which Muslim-majority Pakistan has often accused of not protecting the rights of Muslims.

Mr Modi’s government has always rejected evidence that it is not protecting the rights of minorities in India, whose population is largely Hindu.

When it was Chinese President Xi Jinping’s turn to speak, he mentioned the importance of safeguarding regional peace and security. He urged SCO members to “follow the right direction and enhance their solidarity and mutual trust”.

One factor that all members seemed to agree on unanimously was maintaining stability in Afghanistan, following the Taliban takeover after US troops pulled out two years ago.

A joint statement due later should give more clues on how SCO nations aim to work together on Afghanistan.

China, Russia and four Central Asian countries formed the SCO in 2001 as a countermeasure to limit the influence of the West in the region. India and Pakistan joined in 2017.

The group has become more relevant for Russia and China as their relations with the West have deteriorated.

Experts say the group’s potential can’t be underplayed, despite the existence of more prominent forums like the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the G20 and G7.

The SCO groups around 40% of the world’s population and more than 20% of global GDP. Add Iran’s, and it will control around 20% of the world’s oil reserves.

Iran’s inclusion as a full member at this year’s meeting will boost the SCO’s energy portfolio but it will spark anger in Western capitals. As the SCO is increasingly pitted against Western-led forums, it may get harder for India to strike a diplomatic balance between its different global partners.

But Indian diplomats say they are confident about keeping their foreign policy independent without pandering to one group or the other. How Delhi manages its diplomacy – and its differences with Russia, China and Pakistan in particular – will have an impact on future of the SCO.

Source: British Broadcasting Corporation

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