Lawn gnome. There are social posts that prove he was lying at least once. He was posting that he was deep inside Ukraine with a vid and pics of him on a prayer rug at a gas station. The photos have been authenticated and show him at a gas station brand that isn't in any part of Ukraine. He was nowhere near the front that time. I haven't seen much about him for months.
Ukraine clings to Bakhmut, top US official tells Russian counterpart Washington backs Kyiv all the way
"The real role of pro-Russian Chechens in Ukraine"
22 hours ago
A Ukrainian politician says the country's forces will likely have to pull back from Bakhmut. (AP Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka)
Ukrainian forces have held out against Russian attacks in the city of Bakhmut, while the top US diplomat told his Russian counterpart — in their first face-to-face encounter since the invasion — that the Kremlin must stop its war.
Key points:
* Bakhmut has been left in rubble as the bloodiest battles of the war move through its streets * Advancing Russian forces have been reinforced with Wagner mercenaries * The US Secretary of State met with Russia's foreign minister at the G20 in the first face-to-face encounter they've had since the war began
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin said Russia had been hit by what he called a terrorist attack in its southern Bryansk region bordering Ukraine.
Mr Putin vowed to crush what he said was a Ukrainian sabotage group that had fired at civilians.
Russia's FSB security force said later that the situation there was "under control".
Near the frontlines, west of Bakhmut, in the Ukrainian-held town of Chasiv Yar, the thump of outgoing artillery fire could be heard on Thursday morning, local time.
In nearby towns and villages, new trenches had been dug on the roadside, 20-40 metres apart, a sign that Ukrainian forces were strengthening defensive positions west of the ruined city.
Ukrainian soldiers are fighting in the streets of Bakhmut. (AP Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka)
Residents trickled out of the area, carrying bags.
"We remained until the very last. We wanted to stay. But how can we? Our neighbour's flat has now been destroyed. It is time to go," Svitalana, 47, told Reuters journalists.
Battle for Bakhmut becomes bloodiest in war
Bakhmut has been reduced to a blasted wasteland, with a few thousand of its 70,000 pre-war civilian population still inside as armies battle street-by-street.
The spring thaw around Bakhmut is turning roads into mud and fields into quagmires. (Reuters: Yan Dobronosov)
Moscow, which lost territory throughout the second half of 2022, said taking Bakhmut would be a step towards seizing the rest of the surrounding Donbas region.
Kyiv said the city had limited strategic value but it was exhausting Russia's invasion force in what has become the bloodiest battle of the war.
"Sooner or later, we will probably have to leave Bakhmut. There is no sense in holding it at any cost," Ukrainian politician Serhiy Rakhmanin said late on Wednesday.
The aim was to "inflict as many Russian losses as possible", he said.
In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, Russian missiles crashed into a five-story apartment block overnight, collapsing upper floors.
Police said at least four people had been killed.
Evacuated residents, in shock, were being kept warm aboard a bus while crews tried to clear the debris.
"The people were screaming from under the rubble," resident Yuliia Kharytenko, 36, told Reuters.
US backs Ukraine as long as necessary
The war, now in its second year, dominated a foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi of the G20 group of big economies, one of the last international forums involving senior Western officials where Russia is still invited.
A US official said Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke briefly to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines and told him Washington would back Ukraine as long as necessary and that Moscow must cease the war.
The US does not expect any formal senior-level talks with Russia in the near term. (AP Photo: Olivier Douliery/Pool)
The unscheduled encounter was not considered a formal meeting but was nonetheless marked the first time they had met face-to-face since Russia sent it troops over the border into Ukraine on February 24 last year.
A State Department spokesperson said the US was not expecting formal, senior-level dialogue with Russia in the near term.
In Washington, national security spokesman John Kirby said US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will discuss Ukraine's needed assistance when they meet on Friday at the White House.
The United States will announce a new military aid package for Ukraine on Friday, Mr Kirby said.
Earlier in New Delhi, Western powers urged the Group of 20 countries to keep up pressure on Moscow to end the conflict.
"We must continue to call on Russia to end its war of aggression and withdraw from Ukraine for the sake of international peace and economic stability," Mr Blinken told the meeting.
He was backed by his counterparts from Germany, France and the Netherlands.
Russia, which calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation", hit back.
Mr Lavrov accused the West of turning work on the G20 agenda into a "farce" and said Western delegations wanted to shift responsibility for their economic failures onto Moscow.
A reported raid into the village of Lubechanye near the border in Russia's Bryansk province comes days after Moscow said Kyiv had attacked targets deep inside its territory with drones.
In videos circulating online, armed men calling themselves the "Russian Volunteer Corps" said they had crossed the border to fight "the bloody Putinite and Kremlin regime".
Describing themselves as Russian "liberators", the armed men called on Russians to take up arms and rise up against the authorities.
Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the footage.
Mr Putin, in a televised address, called the action a terrorist attack and accused the group of opening fire on civilians in a car, including children.
Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said the attack had killed two people and wounded an 11-year-old boy.
"They won't achieve anything. We will crush them," Mr Putin said, adding that the group was made up of the kind of people who wanted to rob Russia of its history and language.
[Sheesh. Circumstance created by Putin make that claim a furphy. ]
In an initial statement , the FSB security service said that, with the army, they were trying to liquidate "an armed group of Ukrainian nationalists" who had crossed the border.
In a later update, the FSB said the situation was under the control of law enforcement agencies.
It said a large number of explosive devices had been found and de-mining was taking place.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak called the Russian reports of the incident "a classic deliberate provocation".
Moscow "wants to scare its people to justify the attack on another country & the growing poverty after the year of war", he tweeted.
However, he also implied an attack was under way, carried out by Russian partisans.
"Fear your partisans," he wrote.
VIDEO - 1 minute 38 seconds, Volodymyr Zelenskyy makes a direct appeal for more tanks.(Steve Cannane)
"The real role of pro-Russian Chechens in Ukraine "We've read many in Russian intelligence are not enamored with Kadyrov, so the suggestion some are working against him is thoroughly believable. Also, i'd guess many in the FSB would be unhappy with Putin going to war so recklessly. Is Chechnya Taking Over Russia?""
Note the 'war against the crusaders' the Islam extreme zealots talk about is framed as a war against all of Islam, not just a war against violent extremists as themselves. Note also these extremists are all religious zealots, as are those religious people of the Western world who believe their God (not Allah) also has a firm hand in the show.
The group’s Afghanistan branch is capitalizing on the Russia-Ukraine war to recruit, fundraise, and incite violence.
By Lucas Webber, Riccardo Valle, and Colin P. Clarke
Afghan women walk past the Russian Embassy after a suicide attack targeted the building in Kabul on Sept. 5, 2022. Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images May 9, 2023, 4:32 PM
Now that the United States has left Afghanistan, the local branch of the Islamic State has turned its sights on a new enemy: Russia. Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the Islamic State’s central propaganda apparatus initiated a Ukraine-focused media campaign in its weekly al-Naba newsletter under the headline “Crusader Against Crusader Wars,” in which the group reveled in the mutual destruction of its declared adversaries on the European continent.
“This bloody war taking place today, between the Orthodox crusaders—Russia and Ukraine—is an example of the punishment that was unleashed upon them and is forever glued to them.” The conflict, the article argues, is about power and “a manifestation of the escalating competition between America and Russia for control of the Eastern European countries.” The Islamic State says the “crusader against crusader wars” are just beginning, and the article concludes with an appeal: “O Allah, make their wars bloody and plant discord in their hearts; pour your wrath and torment upon them.”
Following the al-Naba item, the Islamic State’s central propaganda outlets moved on to other issues; however, pro-Islamic State media groups continued the discourse and carried on producing their own content. During the summer of 2022, the group’s Afghanistan branch, known as the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K)—named after a historical region .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/09/25/the-strange-story-behind-the-khorasan-groups-name/ .. that encompassed northeastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, and northern Afghanistan—emerged as the leading voice on the Russia-Ukraine war and began spearheading the campaign to capitalize on the conflict that dominates daily global news headlines.
Russia is a familiar enemy for Sunni jihadists and has found itself in the crosshairs of IS-K for several reasons. According to IS-K, Moscow’s hands are covered in Muslim blood, especially in Afghanistan, where the legacy of the decade-long Soviet-Afghan War still looms large. IS-K narratives frequently point to Russia’s historical entanglement in Afghanistan and current relations with the Taliban, highlighting Moscow’s lobbying .. https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-182821 .. of the Taliban to gain access to Afghanistan, while in return, the Taliban hopes to acquire international recognition and support.
Further, the Russian military’s brutal tactics in multiple Chechen wars and its scorched-earth counterinsurgency campaign in the Caucasus mean that there is no love lost for Russia.The Kremlin’s continued assistance to notorious dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, where Russian air support .. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1170-1.html .. targeted Sunni strongholds during the long-running civil war, cements Russia’s image as a worthwhile enemy to focus on. Taken together, these factors make Russia an attractive target for IS-K propaganda.
Read More
How Dangerous Is the Islamic State-Khorasan? As a top U.S. military official warns of a growing transnational threat, the group is already wreaking havoc in Taliban-led Afghanistan. South Asia Brief | Michael Kugelman
IS-K’s al-Azaim Foundation for Media Production is an innovative and savvy organization that has increasingly leveraged geopolitical issues to advance its agenda. For IS-K, ground operations in the “Khorasan” region and information warfare complement each other; as such, the purpose of al-Azaim’s media offensive is to stir Muslims’ anger over sociopolitical and economic grievances toward the governments in their countries in order to attract supporters. IS-K also seeks to gin up anti-Russian sentiment due to Moscow’s past war in Afghanistan and its current support for the Syrian regime, appealing to Muslims who see Russia as a longtime menace to Islam.
The first IS-K message mentioning Ukraine was published by the group on March 10, 2022, just two weeks after the conflict kicked off. The statement, issued in the wake of a devastating attack carried out by the group against a Shiite shrine in Peshawar, Pakistan .. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/23/afghanistan-islamic-state-khorasan-centcom-warning-threat/ .. , briefly mentioned the war in Ukraine in the last section of the text. But the mention was an important one, warning Muslims fighting on both sides that participating in the conflict does not equate to participating in jihad. This way, IS-K aims at delegitimizing other jihadist organizations’ struggles as un-Islamic, thus sanctioning only its own war for those who consider themselves true believers.
On Aug. 3, 2022, IS-K published an issue of its flagship English language Voice of Khurasan magazine featuring .. https://www.militantwire.com/p/islamic-state-celebrates-mutual-destruction .. an article titled “The Black Hole in Ukraine,” which celebrated the war as “a great, tremendous glad tiding for the Muslims worldwide.” The “war erupting among the kuffar [nonbelievers]” is, in IS-K’s view, a “great sign from Allah the Almighty.” Speaking on the two great powers, the United States and Russia, fighting a proxy war, IS-K asserted, “America has been a furious enemy of Islam throughout the last century, and Russia has proven no different.”
The unnamed author noted how this time, “the victims were not the Muslims of Chechnya, nor Afghanistan nor Syria,” but instead the residents of the “peaceful lands of Europe.” The group boasted that these “crusader governments waging their war on terror against Islam, have seen a clear glimpse of war right in their own homes.” Notably, the article quotes the late Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s past words as prophetically manifesting when he said, “We promise you—by the grace of Allah—that everyone who participates in this war against the Islamic State will surely pay dearly and will regret it.” The decision to quote Baghdadi, the first Islamic State caliph, is intended to afford further legitimacy to the statement and convey a sense of urgency to those listening.
Another early original piece IS-K published dedicated to the war in Ukraine was released on Aug. 14, 2022, by IS-K’s Farsi-language channel al-Fursan Media .. https://twitter.com/khorasandiary/status/1558776694156189696?s=20 . It urged Muslims to be patient and wait for an opportunity to strike their enemies, including Russia, by taking advantage of the ongoing turmoil. Then, in October 2022, al-Azaim Foundation featured a short article in Russian .. https://twitter.com/khorasandiary/status/1581728137700061184?s=20 .. titled “The Command on the War in Ukraine.” In a direct address to Muslims fighting for Ukraine and Russia, the statement says that it is forbidden for Muslims to fight for a non-Islamic ruler. It further claims that the war in Ukraine is another scheme devised by the West to create rifts among Muslims, and thus that believers should not get involved and should instead stand back and let the two sides destroy each other.
The most recent piece of propaganda issued by IS-K on the subject was published in issue 24 .. https://twitter.com/khorasandiary/status/1581728137700061184?s=20 .. of Voice of Khurasan on April 2. The article, “A Message from the Heart to our Muslim Brothers in Ukraine,” is allegedly written by an anonymous IS-K supporter living in Europe. The text addresses Muslims fighting on both sides of the conflict in Ukraine—specifically, Chechen Muslims on the Russian side and Tatar Muslims on the Ukrainian one—and urges them to abstain from fighting, join the Islamic State, and redirect their armed struggle toward Russian troops in Syria. The article also takes aim at current Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, whom the author describes as “vulgar” and a “hypocrite,” accusing him of being a tool of Russian President Vladimir Putin for his role in sending Chechen troops to fight in Ukraine.
The author recalled Baghdadi’s creation of the “Caucasus Wilayah”—a franchise group of the Islamic State that covered territory throughout the North Caucasus—which was meant to become a launchpad for attacks inside Russia and Chechnya as well as in the West. The author suggested that true Muslims should not be fighting in a war between nonbelievers, but instead devoting efforts to reviving the Islamic State’s capability to conduct attacks against Russian forces in Chechnya, Dagestan, and throughout southern Russia. Similarly, the author ridicules the creation of the “Muslim Battalion,” referring to Tatar Muslims fighting in units for Ukraine, and accuses them of collaborating with a “Nazi regime”—echoing a Kremlin talking point and defaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Instead, the article argues that if Tatars, Chechens, and Muslims in general want to fight against Russian forces, they should join the Caucasus Wilayah.
The media institute works closely with pro-Islamic State propaganda groups that frequently feature posts on the war in Ukraine. Additionally, IS-K’s al-Azaim Foundation for Media production and supporting outlets publish translations of official Islamic State propaganda, as well as original content in the Russian language, to build support, recruit, fundraise, and incite violence among Russian Muslims.
The media campaign has been accompanied by real-world actions. In September 2022, an IS-K suicide bomber attacked .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/world/asia/kabul-russian-embassy-suicide-attack.html .. the Russian Embassy in Kabul, killing two employees and four Afghan civilians. Although there have not been any major IS-K operations against Russia or Russian interests in Afghanistan since the embassy attack, the uptick in propaganda demonstrates that the intent remains to go after Russia. There is typically a lag effect to an influx of propaganda and actual terrorist plots and attacks, so further attacks against Russian personnel or Russian targets in Afghanistan or throughout the broader region would come as little surprise.
As Russia, China, Iran, and other countries look to fill the power vacuum in Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal, they may increasingly find themselves provoking the ire of IS-K and other jihadist groups. With Russia, IS-K may already smell blood in the water. Moscow’s underwhelming military performance in Ukraine shows just how thinly stretched the Kremlin is on the battlefield. This could encourage historically restive areas on Russia’s periphery to seek opportunities to rejuvenate armed campaigns against Russia, especially in places like Dagestan, Ingushetia, and other parts of the North Caucasus. By instigating jihadists to attack Russia, IS-K is looking to generate momentum, especially at a time when the core Islamic State organization in Syria is reeling from aggressive .. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/16/politics/isis-leader-targeted-syria/index.html .. U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
Lucas Webber is a researcher focused on great power politics and violent non-state actors. He is cofounder and editor at militantwire.com. Twitter: @LucasADWebber
Riccardo Valle is a researcher on security and politics in South Asia. He is the head of research at the Khorasan Diary, an Islamabad-based research platform. Twitter: @Valle_Riccardo_
Colin P. Clarke is the director of research at the Soufan Group, an intelligence and security consulting firm headquartered in New York City. He is also a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, an independent nonprofit center offering research, analysis, and strategic dialogue on global security challenges and foreign-policy issues. Twitter: @ColinPClarke
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