Russia avanza a Pokrovsk, Ucraina attacca depositi a Belgorod 🗞️ Rassegna del 10/09/2024

Israele

(Associated Press) Syria says Israeli strikes kill 18 people in a large-scale attack on sites

• The number of people killed in overnight Israeli strikes in Syria has risen to 18 with dozens more wounded, Syria’s health minister said Monday — the largest death toll in such an attack since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
• One of the sites targeted was a research center used in the development of weapons, a war monitor said. Syrian officials said civilian sites were targeted.
• Israel regularly targets military sites in Syria linked to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Those strikes have become more frequent as Hezbollah has exchanged fire with Israeli forces for the past 11 months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hamas — a Hezbollah ally — in Gaza. However, the intensity and death toll of Sunday night’s strikes were unusual.
• There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of war-torn Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations. The strikes often target Syrian forces or Iranian-backed groups.
• Israel has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in Syria, particularly since Syria is a key route for Iran to send weapons to Hezbollah.

(REUTERS) Israel's ultra-Orthodox parties help approve more funding for war

• Israeli lawmakers gave their initial approval on Monday to raising the 2024 budget framework to help fund reservists and assist people displaced as a result of the war in Gaza, with support coming from ultra-Orthodox parties. The vote to add 3.4 billion shekels ($906 million) to the 2024 budget passed by a 58-52 margin, the Finance Ministry said.
• Ultra-Orthodox parties had threatened to boycott votes in parliament in a dispute over funding for their separate education system. The bill still needs to pass two more votes to become law.
• The rift with ultra-Orthodox parties is a test of the unity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government as Israel presses on with its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year.
• The two religious parties, which occupy 18 of parliament's 120 seats, said last week they would not participate in plenum votes until the government agreed that schools in their separate education system should receive the same benefits as state-run schools -- especially their "New Horizon" programme which adds school hours and sharply boosts teacher pay.

Ucraina

(REUTERS) Russia takes Ukrainian town in advance on Pokrovsk

• Russia said on Sunday its forces had taken full control of a town in eastern Ukraine as Moscow's forces advance on the strategically important city of Pokrovsk and seek to pierce the Ukrainian defensive front lines.
• Russian forces, which control about a fifth of Ukraine since invading in February 2022, are advancing in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to take the whole of the Donbas[...]
• Russia's defence ministry said its forces had taken the town of Novohrodivka, which lies 12 km (7 miles) from Pokrovsk, an important rail and road hub for Ukrainian forces in the area. The town had a population of 14,000 before the war.
• The General Staff of the Ukrainian military, in a report issued on Sunday evening, gave details of fighting throughout the Pokrovsk sector, including Novohrodivka.
• It said 29 attempted Russian advances had been repelled, with seven skirmishes continuing. "Our troops are taking measures to maintain designated positions," it said.
• But an interview with a Ukrainian officer broadcast last week by U.S.-funded Radio Liberty said Ukrainian forces had abandoned Novohrodivka on grounds that the positions there were not favourable for defending it.

(Associated Press) Iranian missiles in Russia are a legitimate target, a Ukrainian official says

• A senior Ukrainian official said Monday Western partner countries must allow Ukraine to use weapons they have supplied to strike military warehouses inside Russia because of strong suspicions Iran has provided ballistic missiles for the Kremlin’s war effort.
• The United States has told allies it believes Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press at the weekend.
• Western countries supporting Ukraine in the war have hesitated to let its military strike targets on Russian soil, fearing they could be sucked into Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, but the head of the Ukrainian presidential office said “protection is not escalation.”
• Russia has been receiving Iranian-made Shahed drones since 2022. The possible shipment of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia as well has alarmed Western governments as President Vladimir Putin reaches out to other countries to provide him with support.
• CIA Director William Burns warned in London at the weekend of the growing and “troubling” defense relationship involving Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Those ties, he said, threaten both Ukraine and Western allies in the Middle East.

Russia

(MEDUZA) Russians are voting again for regional offices, and Meduza’s sources say the elections will test the Kremlin’s plan to replace the Communist Party

• Russia is nearing the end of its latest gubernatorial and regional elections — voting that offers virtually no political competition but nevertheless tests the Kremlin’s elaborate management of public office. While early voting necessitated by Ukrainian military operations has been underway in the Kursk region and parts of Crimea since August 28, the rest of Russia’s elections are being held this weekend, September 6–8: races for 21 gubernatorial posts and seats in 13 regional parliaments. To learn more about the Kremlin’s plans for this voting, Meduza spoke to two sources close to the Putin administration’s political policy team, two regional officials, and a political consultant currently working on a regional campaign.
• According to Meduza’s sources, the Kremlin views this weekend’s gubernatorial races as “just an extra test of turnout.” The authorities have had years to finetune candidacy filtration, genuine political competition is kaput, and the only surprises left are exactly how individual governors and their subordinates scheme to mobilize voters.
• At the same time, the Kremlin’s political team questions the “vitality” of Russia’s existing party system, a source close to the administration told Meduza. Just Russia is in danger of slipping below the State Duma’s five-percent threshold for representation, LDPR performs inconsistently in the absence of its late founder, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) has been losing voters for years. “All the established parties are in decline,” said Meduza’s source.
• The Kremlin has tried to accelerate KPRF’s deterioration by promoting whichever “opposition” parties poll best in various regions, lifting rivals to unseat the Communists as Russia’s entrenched number two party. (In some places, this means New People, in others, it’s LDPR, and so on.) The Putin administration successfully pursued this same strategy in last year’s elections, and KPRF lost its spot as the top “opposition” party in half the regions where voting was held.
• With such an ailing party system, this year’s voter turnout is expected to be dangerously low. “The lower the turnout, the more skewed the results will be,” said a political consultant who works with the presidential administration. If turnout is too low, even the authorities’ ballot fraud and other manipulations will make it hard to conceal United Russia’s implausible results. The Kremlin will observe voter participation this weekend to gauge its plans for at least 50-percent turnout in the 2026 State Duma elections.

(REUTERS) Ukraine attacks oil storage depot in Russian border region, governor says

• The governor of Russia's southern Belgorod region said on Sunday Ukrainian forces attacked a fuel depot, triggering a series of fires after Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of launching overnight attacks on border regions.
• "The Ukrainian military, aided by lethal drones, attacked a fuel storage site in Volokonovsky district," Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram, referring to an area near the border.
• "Several reservoirs caught fire in an explosion. Firefighting crews are putting out the blaze."
• Gladkov also reported drone attacks on three other localities. There were no casualties reported in the incidents.
• In the overnight air attacks, Ukrainian officials said two people died and four were injured in Sumy region. Gladkov reported three civilians were injured in Belgorod.
• Two children were among those injured in Sumy, the military administration of the northeastern Ukrainian region said on Sunday on Telegram. Several homes and cars were damaged.

(REUTERS) North Korean weapons extending Russian stockpiles, German general says

• North Korea's provision of weapons has strengthened Russia's hand in Ukraine by allowing it to keep its arsenals stocked at home, Germany's top military official said during a visit to South Korea on Monday.
• Chief of Defence General Carsten Breuer said Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have reached out to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for weapons if they were not useful.
• "It's about increasing the production of weapons for Russia's aggression in Ukraine, it's also strengthening Russia by making it possible for them to keep their stocks like they are," Breuer told reporters in the South Korean capital Seoul.
• Ukraine and the United States, among other countries and independent analysts, say that Kim is helping Russia in the war against Ukraine by supplying rockets and missiles in return for economic and other military assistance from Moscow.
• North Korea has shipped at least 16,500 containers of munitions and related materiel to Russia since September last year, and Russia had launched more than 65 of those missiles at targets in Ukraine, Robert Koepcke, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, said in a speech last week.

Europa

Lettonia: 

(REUTERS) Russian drone that crashed in Latvia carried explosives, Latvian military says

• A Russian military drone which crashed in Latvia on Saturday carried explosives that were likely to have been intended for Ukraine when it strayed into its air space, Latvian officials said on Monday.
• Romania and Latvia, both NATO members and supporters of Ukraine in its 2 1/2-year-old war with Russia, said on Sunday they were investigating instances of Russian drones that crashed after breaching their airspace.
• The drone that landed in Latvia was of the Iranian-designed Shahed type, National Armed Forces Commander Lieutenant General Leonids Kalnins told a press conference, according to Latvia's Delfi news website.
• The drone's explosives, which were likely meant for Ukraine, were deactivated following its discovery in Latvia, Kalnins told reporters.
• The drone fell in the region of the village of Gaigalava some 90 km (60 miles) from the border with Belarus, from where it entered, according to a Latvian Defence Ministry statement on Monday.
• NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana on Sunday denounced the incidents as "irresponsible and potentially dangerous", while saying there was no indication of a deliberate attack on alliance member-states.

Politica internazionale

America Latina

Messico:

(REUTERS) Mexico's contested judicial reform clears commission stage, moves to full Senate vote

• A highly contested proposal on judicial reform that critics say will hurt Mexico's business climate edged closer to approval when senators late on Sunday backed it at the commission stage.
• Under the planned reform, more than 7,000 judges and magistrates, including from the Supreme Court, would be elected by popular vote, a change that critics say would weaken a crucial check on the power of the executive branch.
• President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has pushed the proposal, which has strained relations with the United States. Advocates say it will bolster Mexican democracy and they point to public support for the reforms in multiple polls.
• Senators backed the bill in the commissions by 25 votes to 12 against. It has already been approved by the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, and is now scheduled for debate and a final vote by the full Senate on Wednesday.
• Workers in the judicial system, civilian groups and university students opposed to the reform have staged multi-day protests around the Senate and in several cities across Mexico, which has the second largest economy in Latin America.