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Europe
Germany
31 08 2023 The German government will make it easier to reject asylum applications from Georgia and Moldova by classifying them as safe countries of origin, the Interior Ministry announced yesterday. Asylum applicants from safe countries face an accelerated review of their claims. Georgians and Moldovans were only involved in 4.5% of applications in 2023. Fewer than 1% of those applications were accepted, meaning that many rejected applicants would be deported faster. The two new additions join the member states of the European Union, Ghana, Senegal, and the Western Balkans countries as safe countries. (Source: euractiv)
Russia
Aug. 31, 2023 Ukrainian forces have penetrated the main Russian defensive line in southeast, raising hopes of a breakthrough that would reinvigorate the slow-moving counteroffensive.Ukrainian paratroopers are fighting through entrenched Russian positions on the edge of the village of Verbove, an agricultural village of some 1,000 residents before the war. Ukrainian forces have also reached the main defensive line to the south of nearby Robotyne village. The advance marks the first time Ukraine has penetrated the main Russian defensive line, an extensive system of minefields, trenches and antitank obstacles covered by artillery. Ukrainian forces are now working to expand the cracks in the line to create a hole large enough for Western-provided armored vehicles to push through with sufficient logistical support. A breach at Verbove could open a path to the Russian-occupied port cities of Berdyansk and Mariupol, while progress south of Robotyne could threaten Tokmak. Still, Russia has significant fortifications in the southeast, including a second thick defensive line. Ukrainian advances in recent days have led to cautious optimism among Western intelligence services that Ukraine can retake the occupied city of Tokmak, a logistical hub for Russia. Any breakthrough would be a major boost for Ukraine’s three-month-old counteroffensive, which has turned into a grinding, field-by-field advance rather than the lightning operation that Kyiv and its allies had envisaged. The counteroffensive is aimed at slicing down to the Sea of Azov in southeast, cutting Russian occupation forces in two and seizing back some of the nearly 20% of Ukrainian territory that Moscow holds. The West supplied Ukraine with hundreds of armored vehicles, including tanks, and trained thousands of troops for the operation. There are still serious obstacles to turning the current penetration into a full-fledged breach. Ukraine’s push to retake territory has been slow, as its forces face a deadly problem: land mines. Russia is targeting Ukrainian troops there with heavy artillery fire directed by aerial drones. There is no sign of a collapse in Russian lines. Russia appears to be sending reinforcements, including paratroopers, to help hold their positions. During the early summer, Ukraine seized a handful of villages in the eastern Donetsk region and forced Russian troops back around the city of Bakhmut, but made little progress with its main push south toward the Sea of Azov from the city of Orikhiv. Powerful Russian defenses thwarted initial assaults, so Ukraine switched to methodical advances by small teams on foot. The slow progress accelerated in August. Accurate counter-battery fire helped suppress Russian artillery. Infantry advances seized trenches and lines of trees along the edges of farm fields. Ukrainian troops took the village of Robotyne and pushed south toward Tokmak. Ukrainian forces’ main goal has been to advance south from Orikhiv. It could allow Ukraine to move forward artillery and target Russian positions that were previously out of range. Ukraine deployed fresh troops, including airborne units like the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, equipped with Western-made Stryker armored fighting vehicles. The advance is facing fierce resistance, elite Russian forces, including the 7th Guards Air Assault Division. Russia is targeting Ukrainian troops and vehicles using heavy artillery fire guided by aerial drones and explosive drones directed from the ground by pilots wearing video goggles. For now, the Ukrainians must resupply front-line troops on foot or, at best, using motorcycles, all-terrain buggies or pickup trucks, rather than Western-supplied armored vehicles, which attract massive fire as soon as they appear on the battlefield. Even small vehicles, used to avoid attracting attention, are vulnerable. In some places, there are so many drones flying that the Ukrainians call the phenomenon “Boryspil,” after the country’s main international airport in Kyiv. Ukraine’s aim is to create a corridor through the Russian lines, pushing enemy artillery back far enough to allow Western-provided armored vehicles to move through the gap and receive supplies. U.S.-supplied cluster bombs are having a significant impact, soldiers said. Ukrainians on the offensive are using the munitions - which release dozens of smaller bomblets and can cause devastation over a broader area than ordinary artillery shells - to target Russian troops running across open ground, either to flee or to provide reinforcements. (Source: wsj)
31/08/2023 The role of drones in the war and the future of warfare. Drone strikes are routine in Russia's war against Ukraine. Both sides use unmanned aircraft systems to attack each other's territory daily. We've seen their capabilities developing and evolving over the course of the war and becoming more sophisticated and long-range. We're starting to see sort of the fruition of some of these projects and their ability to hit Ukraine, hit Russia or the Russian-controlled territory. The Ukrainian drone industry has taken off in this war. Overall, the Ukrainians have many lessons the United States military and other militaries can learn from about drone warfare, military expert Grieco, a senior fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank said. 'I think they've really been at the leading edge in innovation around drone use', she said. According to the Ukrainian government, there are over 80 Ukrainian-manufactured drone companies at this point. This has actually been an important source of advantage for the Ukrainians. At the beginning of the war, they were able to use the Turkish-made (Bayraktar) TB2 drones to strike some of those armored columns that the Russians had. It provided them with a strike capability, particularly early in the war. That was very important in slowing down the Russian advance. And then thousands of quadcopters, which are not as expensive as something like the TB2, that Ukraine is using on the battlefield have really provided an advantage in terms of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance over the Russians and have been very important for its battlefield situational awareness and giving it an edge. Ukraine is looking to sorts of longer-range drones that they can make inside Ukraine as an alternative to sort of long-range strike capabilities that the West is more reluctant to give to them. There's a range of systems, some fairly large. They are not quadcopters but larger drones that seem to be remotely controlled. Some have an autonomous capacity to fly, allowing them to fly longer. And they're working on expanding the number of explosives they can deliver. These tend to be drones that are slow and steady. It can be hard to spot on these kinds of drones that are flying not all that fast and are maybe trying to hide closer to the ground and some of the ground cover. And the Russians are learning that this is harder to detect. Russia does seem to have some capacity to interfere with these drones electronically. Many of the drones that have crashed near Moscow have resulted from drone interference. At the start of the war, the Russian forces were very much behind in drone capabilities. They had some more advanced military-grade drones, the Orion, which is a drone for surveillance and reconnaissance. But they were very much behind and sort of understanding the importance of commercial quadcopters and commercial technology. The day the war started, Ukrainians began massive online drone campaign to try to fund a drone effort. The Russians understand the value of drones, and they've had to turn to the Iranians for some of that technology and capability. Russia is also developing new systems, not just using the Iranian Shahed drones. They're trying to move more of it into Russia, even if it's the manufacturing. Russia is already assembling them on its own territory, and Ukrainians fear that Russia might be ahead of Ukraine in developing new drones. We are headed towards hundreds or even thousands of drones used simultaneously to hit one target. "I hope, obviously, that this war ends sooner rather than later. But warfare, in general, is headed in that direction". Cheap mass and firepower is really making the defense very strong - many uncrewed drone systems that can communicate with each other, coordinate and then cooperate in their action to attack a target - that's really a huge change in warfare. (Source: dw)
August 31, 2023 Russian officials said today the country’s air defenses shot down a Ukrainian drone flying toward Moscow, destroyed over the Voskresensky district. Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor, said on Telegram there were no reports of casualties or damage. (Source: voa)
31 Aug 2023 Top Russian rocket scientist Professor Melnikov, 77, had headed up the Department of Rocket and Space Systems at RSC Energia, Moscow’s leading spacecraft manufacturer. He had worked as chief researcher at TsNIIMASH, a division of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. Melnikov was the author of 291 scientific articles, and was regarded among the most imminent space scientists. He cooperated with foreign colleagues, including at NASA. Latterly, he was a professor at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. The source of his poisoning was inedible mushrooms, according to a “preliminary version”, reported Moskovsky Komsomolets. Doctors were unable to save him after battling the “severe poisoning” for more than two weeks. Professor Melnikov's death comes just weeks after astronomer Marov, 90, suffered a "sharp deterioration" in his health weeks after the Luna-25 unmanned spacecraft' failed moon landing which was smashed into pieces after it crashed into the lunar surface after spinning out of control. (Source: thesun)
August 31, 2023 Russian unemployment hits fresh all-time low of 3% in July among individuals aged 15 years and above, down from 3.1% in June, RosStat reported on August 30. The overall count of unemployed individuals in Russia for July totalled 2.3mn people. The war in Ukraine has drawn off hundreds of thousands of young men to the front line. Companies are reporting difficulties in finding skilled employees, as even those men that remain at home are being hired away by military factories that are running three shifts a day seven days a week. (Source: intellinews)
August 31, 2023 In July, Russian President Putin’s approval rating was 82%, according to the last available Levada centre poll. Despite the speculation that the Russians might rise up and rebel following the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian President Putin’s popularity remains higher than ever according to Levada. Putin’s popularity had been hovering in the mid- to high-60s for much of the pandemic years, falling to a one-time low of 53 points in April 2020 when the first lockdowns were introduced before recovering to 66 in August that year. However, following the invasion of Ukraine his popularity leaped over 10 points to 83 in March 2022 and has remained at between 81 and 83 points throughout the duration of the war, with the exception of September to November when it fell to 77-79 following Ukraine’s successful Kharkiv counter-offensive. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has also enjoyed a bump in popularity, with his approval rating rising from the mid-50s pre-war to 69-71% since the start of this year. His approval was slightly down to 69% in July. Mishustin’s government has also been lifted from around 50% approval pre-war to 67% in July and has consistently polled at 67-69% all year. Russia’s regional governors are even more popular, as they have in the last ten years become more effective and have concerned themselves with dealing with the immediate needs of their constituents. Region governors received consistent ratings of between the high-50s to low-60s pre-war that rose to 69% following the start of the war and have stayed at 69-74 in since. In July their approval fell slightly to a still high 72%. The overall majority of Russians still approve of the Duma with the rate split 57/35 approve/disapprove in July, the last data available, with the remainder expressing no view. Pre-war around 50% of respondents thought the country was going in the “right” direction, with roughly 44% believing it was going in the “wrong” direction and the remainder having no opinion. Following the start of the war the number of respondents saying Russia was going in the “right” direction jumped to 69% in March 2022 and wrong fell to 22%. Since then respondents have very consistently polled at 67-68% for the right direction. The “don’t know” category has remained the same, circa 10% for both pre-war and post-start of the war periods. The propensity to protest with political demands has oscillated around 27-30% for most of the last five years, but it fell sharply in the first poll after the start of the war in May 2022 to 16% and was 17% in July. After the initial shock of the invasion wore off a small minority of around 15% remain opposed to the Putin regime and war has not added significantly to their numbers. The same people don’t like Putin now as didn’t like him before the war. In the May 2022 poll that fell to 17% that thought protests could happen and 14% saying they would participate if they did. In the July poll 17% said protests could happen but the number willing to participate has fallen to 10%. (Source: bneintellinews)
31/09/2023 How stable is Russia after the Wagner rebellion? Since the cancellation of the uprising, there has been some debate about the stability of Russia. Putin's regime has managed to win over a large part of the population with repression and propaganda and is managing to circumvent Western sanctions to some degree, Russia expert Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) said. Many companies, including some Western ones, are still active in Russia. He has observed a reduction in prosperity among the Russian population. However, he says the country cannot be said to be disintegrating, nor is Putin showing signs of weakness. Putin is "firmly in the saddle" and has sufficient resources to pursue his war against Ukraine for another two or three years. His view is that Putin's system is actually demonstrating strength — including with the death of Prigozhin. He doesn't believe that oligarchs, society, the military or the people who surround Putin and depend on him could call his power into question. Only the intelligence services or the security apparatus might one day be able to do that, he says. According to Meister, minor military defeats in Ukraine do not put Putin's power at risk. The only thing that might make a difference, he says, would be if Ukraine succeeded in taking back Crimea, for example, and all its territories currently occupied by Russia. (Source: dw)
Ukraine
31 August 2023 After months of fighting their way through heavy minefields, Ukraine's forces have finally reached the main Russian defensive lines in the Zaporizhzhia region, in recent days. If troops can find a way past anti-tank defences and other Russian traps, a further advance there would provide the first test of Russia’s deeper defences, which Ukraine hopes will be more vulnerable and less heavily mined than the areas its troops have traversed so far. Ukraine’s foreign minister Kuleba has said this week that recent gains on the southern front could enable them to recapture the annexed Crimean peninsula. He suggested those who criticised the pace of its three-month-old counteroffensive to ''shut up' – the sharpest signal yet of Kyiv’s frustration with some Western officials, quoted in US media reports, that Kyiv’s troops are moving too slowly. 'Criticising the slow pace of [the] counteroffensive equals ... spitting into the face of [the] Ukrainian soldier who sacrifices his life every day, moving forward and liberating one kilometre of Ukrainian soil after another,” Kuleba said. 'I would recommend all critics to shut up, come to Ukraine and try to liberate one square centimetre by themselves,” he said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Spain. (Source: independent)
August 31, 2023 Ukraine is investigating its military medical commissions for corruption after finding that some branches accepted bribes in exchange for falsified health documents that made men ineligible to draft. President Zelensky said in his nightly address that the number of men removed from military registers by the medical commissions increased tenfold in some regions since February. (Source: washingtonpost)
Asia Ázsia
China
August 31, 2023 Indian state and some Malaysian waters now inside 'nine-dash line'; Malaysia, India and Taiwan reject China's new territorial map. The 2023 edition of China's "standard map," published Monday, August 28, on China's Ministry of Natural Resources website, claims the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin plateau as Chinese territory. It also includes part of Malaysia's maritime area off Borneo, as well as Taiwan and swaths of the South China Sea. Malaysia and India have lodged protests against the new map that appears to expand Beijing's territorial claims. Malaysia on August 30 rejected China's unilateral claims over its maritime area. 'The map has no binding effect on Malaysia," its statement read. "Malaysia is consistent in its position of rejecting any foreign party's claims to sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction on Malaysia's maritime features or maritime area based on the 1979 Map," said the statement, referring to a Malaysian map showing the territorial waters and continental shelf boundaries of Malaysia. Malaysia's national oil company Petronas last week announced its first gas production at its Timi field, located about 200 km off the coast of Sarawak - well within China's 'nine-dash line'. India also lodged a protest ahead of next week's Group of 20 summit in New Delhi, which Chinese President Xi is expected to attend. "We reject these claims as they have no basis," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Bagchi said in a statement on August 30. "Such steps by the Chinese side only complicate the resolution of the boundary question." The Philippines' foreign ministry also issued a statement rejecting the new map. "This latest attempt to legitimize China's purported sovereignty and jurisdiction over Philippine features and maritime zones has no basis under international law," adding that a 2016 ruling by an international tribunal in The Hague "invalidated the nine-dashed line." The map also painted Taiwan as Chinese territory and included the Taiwanese mainland and outlying islands inside China's U-shaped "nine-dash line," which covers most of the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. "Taiwan, the Republic of China, is a sovereign and independent country and is not affiliated with the People's Republic of China," Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told. "The People's Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan. This is a fact and a status quo that is generally recognized by the international community," the ministry said. "No matter how the Chinese government distorts its claim to Taiwan's sovereignty, it cannot change the objective fact of our country's existence." The Chinese Foreign Ministry on August 30 called on relevant parties to remain objective. It is 'a routine practice in China's exercise of sovereignty in accordance with the law,' spokesperson Wang said. "We hope relevant sides can stay objective and calm, and refrain from over-interpreting the issue.' The map is expected to further raise tensions in the South China Sea and along the 3,000-kilometer Sino-Indian border, where tens of thousands of soldiers are amassed on both sides in the western Himalayas. Some analysts say that the publication of the new map is an attempt by Beijing to distract its citizens from the country's deepening economic woes. "The general idea is that the economy and people's livelihood are so bad that Xi is playing the nationalism card by arousing people's patriotic fervor. Xi has no other weapon in his toolbox,' said Wo-Lap Lam, a senior fellow at Washington-based think tank Jamestown Foundation. (Source: nikkei)
Kína
2023. augusztus 31. Kína földrajzi helyzete nem túlságosan kedvező Tajvan megtámadásához, főképp, hogy az Egyesült Államok a térségben állomásozik. A szomszédok fegyverkezése és a harctéri tapasztalat hiánya sem mellettük szól, igaz, katonai költségvetésük hatalmas. Az viszont csak egy katonai konfliktus során derül ki, hogy mire képes a haderő valójában, ahogy azt Oroszország esetében is láthattuk. ... (Forrás: portfolio): https://tinyurl.com/ccu5bssd
China
August 31, 2023 In a speech while traveling in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on August 26, President Xi affirmed “the outcomes of [China’s] Xinjiang policies.' He pledged to “consolidate hard-won social stability,' ensure that “the public [in Xinjiang] have correct views … on ethnicity, history and religion,' and “forge a consciousness of a united Chinese nation.' Since 2017, the Chinese government has carried out a widespread and systematic attack against Uyghurs and Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. It includes mass arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, separation of families, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights. Since the 2022 UN report, Beijing has demonstrated little change in the trajectory of its Xinjiang policies. Although some 'political re-education' camps appear closed, there has been no mass release from prisons, where a half million Turkic Muslims have been held since the start of the crackdown. Uyghurs abroad continue to have little to no contact with their family members, some do not even know if their loved ones taken into custody or forcibly disappeared are still alive. Xinjiang authorities also deepened their efforts to forcibly assimilate Uyghurs. The Xinjiang Communist Party secretary, Ma, vowed in November 2022 to continue 'counterterrorism and stability maintenance' measures, require “various ethnic groups … to fully embed' into the Chinese nation, 'Sinicize” Islam so it is consistent with 'socialist values,' and deepen cultural and ideological control over the region. Following the publication of the UN report, a group of countries tried to put the Xinjiang situation on the formal agenda of the UN Human Rights Council for discussion, which Beijing and its allies narrowly defeated. Türk, the UN rights chief, should update the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Xinjiang, following up on the recommendations of his office’s report, and present an action plan for advancing accountability. (Source: hrw )
Space
Moon
August 31, 2023 The moon appeared to be bigger and brighter than usual, given its close proximity to Earth: just 357,344 kilometers or so. It was the second full moon of August. The next blue supermoon isn’t until 2037. (Source: apnews): https://tinyurl.com/4d82pa53
August 31, 2023 August's rare blue supermoon, an astrological phenomenon that won't fire up the skies again for more than a decade - Photo. (Source: miamiherald): https://tinyurl.com/33rfpjtc
