TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org

Resurrecting fake: "Head of GUR Budanov was captured by ruZZia." -

After a large-scale missile attack on the positions of the Armed Forces, it was reported that one of the important Ukrainian figures had been eliminated. Later it turned out that this was the head of the GUR Budanov and he was captured by the Z- military, pro-Kremlin "z-warriors" revived old fakenews.

As we all know, the propagandists already "captured Budanov" - they replicated this fake back in October 2023. Z-propaganda used deepfake technology with the face of the head of Ukrainian intelligence to create it.

Not to forget that they "killed" him already a year ago - awarding him thus the title of The Immortal Warrior. 😂

Spravdi reminds that at the Kyiv Stratcom Forum 2024, the head of the GUR stated that the most absurd Z-fake was that he was killed last year.

@freerussia_report

A Muscovite who participated in a social survey of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was sentenced to five years of forced labor for disseminating “fake news”

Addition to previous report.

The court sentenced Yuri Kokhovets, who spoke negatively about the “special operation” in a street interview in 2022, to five years of forced labor for "fake news". The man was also banned from administering websites for four years.

Previously, the prosecutor's office requested 5.5 years in prison for Kokhovets.

His lawyer considers it "a victory in this situation” (after changes it can now be up to 10 years). The accused pleaded partially guilty, disagreeing with the point on political hatred and alleged that in a conversation with journalists he expressed his opinion, using his constitutional right to freedom of speech.

“I asked to acquit Yuri Kokhovets for lack of evidence of a crime, but we are satisfied with the verdict. We will not appeal it, because we know the judicial practice.”

Source

@freerussia_report

Not a single acquittal was rendered by Z-courts in 2023 in anti-war cases.

The OVD-Info project analyzed the judicial statistics for 2023 from the point of view of political persecution (final verdicts).

In 2022 at least two people were acquitted under the article on “justification of terrorism.” None in 2023.

Criminal cases under anti-war articles about “discrediting” and military “fakes” have increased almost 7 times: 17 verdicts in 2022, 115 in 2023. 28 people were sent for compulsory treatment.

The number of sentences for sabotage increased 12 times, and for treason almost 2,5 times. The increase in sentences under these articles indicates that methods of political pressure are becoming harsher.

345 people were convicted in cases of justification of terrorism. In 310 cases for online posts. In 2022, the total number of people convicted under this article was 8% less.

According to a Re: Russia study, terrorism-related verdicts increased 40-fold between 2012 and 2022.

@freerussia_report

The Immortal Regiment is canceled for the second year in a row.

The “Immortal Regiment” march in Putinistan this year will not be held “in person,” state media report, citing the co-chair of the movement’s central headquarters, State Duma deputy Elena Tsunaeva.

The organizers explained their decision to abandon the march due to “security reasons.”

The Immortal Regiment procession in Moscow and many other regions has been canceled for the second year in a row. In 2023, marches were not held in Moscow, in the regions bordering Ukraine and in annexed territories.

There were also concerns that too much dead "SMO heroes" would pop up and cause embarrassing questions about the military losses.

@freerussian_report

The situation in the State Duma: Deputy Zhuravlev is deeply outraged that life has become the main value among young Russians. - Sirena

He called people who consider their lives the main value potential traitors.

State Duma Deputy Alexey Zhuravlev spoke at the “Safe Internet League” forum.

As part of his speech, the deputy got really upset at the fact that Russians have been raised for 30 years with the attitude that life is the main value. According to him, the most important thing in life for him is the country, family and friends, values, and only then his own life.

" -No, life is the main thing for us.- That’s the main thing for the one who will sell the country,” the deputy summed up.

As always the half-truth, leaving the most important parts out. The most important to him and his ilk is the money of the country, to stash it with family and friends, in order to buy real estate and other net present values in the evil West, so that he can have a real good own life.

@freerussia_report

In Ramenskoye, near Moscow, a large fire broke out at a polyethylene warehouse from Storex - Social media

The area of the fire reached 2.300 square meters, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the city prosecutor's office reported. 30 people were evacuated from the building.

According to Z-state media reports, the warehouse was stocked with pallet racks, plastic pipes, warehouse trucks and other equipment systems. The fire spread to the production building and part of the open area. After extinguishing the blaze, the structures are dismantled, the ruZZian Emergencies Ministry said. The cause of the fire is unknown and will be investigated.

@freerussia_report

Russian Authorities have recently Targeted Several Russian Journalists Working for Western Publications

The Institute of the Study of War has reported the following:

Western and Russian opposition media widely reported that Russian authorities recently arrested Sergei Karelin, who previously worked with the Associated Press (AP) and Deutsche Welle, and Konstantin Gabov, who previously worked with Reuters, on charges of working with an “extremist organization” for their previous work with the Anti-Corruption Fund founded by deceased Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

A Russian court also recently placed Forbes Russia journalist Sergei Mingazov under house arrest for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian military by reposting news articles about the Russian military’s massacres in Bucha on his Telegram channel.

Russian opposition outlet Mediazona reported on April 26 that Russian courts have charged more people with ”participating” in ”undesirable” Russian opposition and foreign media organizations so far in 2024 than were charged with such crimes in 2022 or 2023.

ISW has recently reported on the Kremlin’s effort to increasingly use the vague “extremism” legal definition to increasingly prosecute anti-war sentiment, and the arrests of Karelin and Gabov in particular demonstrate one such application of this

The press service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has announced that Denmark will purchase weapons directly from Ukrainian manufacturers for 200 million Danish kroner.

A Letter of Intent to support Ukrainian defense production was signed by Minister of Defense of Denmark Trols Lund Poulsen, Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine Oleksandr Kamyshin, and Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Dmytro Klimenkov.

"This marks an important milestone in the cooperation between our countries. Denmark has already provided 17 packages of military aid to Ukraine totaling over 4 billion euros. Denmark was one of the first countries to announce its intention to allocate funds for the purchase of weapons directly to Ukrainian manufacturers. An amount of 200 million Danish kroner ($28.6 million) will be allocated for this purpose," stated Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Klimenkov.

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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Luhansk Oblast

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line on April 29, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline.

Ukrainian and Russian sources reported continued fighting northwest of Svatove near Berestove and Stelmakhivka; southwest of Svatove near Tverdohlibove, Kopanky, Novoserhiivka, Makiivka, and Nevske; west of Kreminna near Terny and south of Zarichne; southwest of Kreminna in the Serebryanske forest area; and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.

Russian milbloggers continued to disagree over the status of Kyslivka (northwest of Svatove), which some Russian sources claimed that Russian forces have seized in recent days, and one milblogger noted that Russian forces have only raised a flag in southern Kyslivka and do not yet control the northern part of the settlement.

A prominent Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Russian forces continued offensive operations towards Makiivka and gained a foothold on the eastern outskirts of the settlement, although ISW has not yet observed visual confirmation of Russian forces operating on the outskirts of Makiivka.

Ukrainian Kharkiv Oblast Head Oleh Synehubov reported on April 29 that Russian forces have resumed offensive operations in the Kupyansk and Lyman directions and stated that the Russian command is planning to accumulate forces along the Kharkiv-Belgorod Oblast border, but that it is too early to forecast if and when Russian forces may open a new front in this area.

A Russian milblogger claimed that elements of Russia’s Western and Northern Grouping of Forces are intensifying combat activity, including air and artillery strikes, in the Kharkiv City direction.

Bakhmut Area & Closer Look at Chasiv Yar

Bakhmut General Area

Positional engagements continued in the Siversk direction northeast of Bakhmut on April 29, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area.

Positional engagements continued east of Siversk near Verkhnokamyanske; southeast of Siversk near Vyimka; and south of Siversk near Rozdolivka.

Elements of the Russian 2nd Artillery Brigade and the “GORB” detachment (both of the 2nd Luhansk People’s Republic Army Corps [LNR AC]) are reportedly operating near Spirne (southeast of Siversk).

Chasiv Yar

Fighting continued near Chasiv Yar on April 29, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Geolocated footage published on April 28 shows that Ukrainian forces recently repelled a roughly reinforced platoon-sized Russian mechanized assault north of Klishchiivka (southeast of Chasiv Yar).

Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are using “turtle” armored vehicles – armored vehicles with metal sheets welded on their sides to protect against drone strikes – in combat operations near Chasiv Yar after having recently used similar vehicle protection systems fitted on tanks west of Donetsk City near Krasnohorivka.

Fighting continued north of Chasiv Yar near Hryhorivka; near the Novyi Microraion (eastern Chasiv Yar); east of Chasiv Yar near Ivanivske; southeast of Chasiv Yar near Klishchiivka and Andriivka; and south of Chasiv Yar near Pivdenne and Niu York.

The deputy commander of a Ukrainian unit operating near Chasiv Yar stated that Ukrainian and Russian forces each control about 50 percent of Ivanivske and that Ukrainian and Russian forces are conducting attacks in the settlement in alternating waves.

The deputy commander stated that Russian forces are interested in taking Ivanivske, which is located in a geographical lowland, to advance to Chasiv Yar.

Russian Supporting Effort - Southern Axis

Kherson and Zaporhizia Frontlines

Area around Kherson and Mykolaiv

Positional fighting continued in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast near Krynky on April 29, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline.

Elements of the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade (Black Sea Fleet [BSF]) are reportedly fighting in Krynky.

Zaporhizia Area

Positional fighting continued in western Zaporizhia Oblast near Robotyne and Verbove (east of Robotyne) on April 29, but there were no changes to the frontline.

Elements of the Russian 108th Airborne (VDV) Regiment (7th VDV Division), 291st Guards Artillery Brigade (58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]), and 42nd Motorized Rifle Division (58th CAA) are reportedly operating near Robotyne.

Desertion Rate Among Russian Invaders is Growing - Intelligence

Based on a statement made by the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine:

"Desertion is flourishing in the armed formations of the Southern Military District of the Russian army. In total, more than 18,000 Russian soldiers have left the service in the combat units of the district without permission," the statement said.

Most of them - about 12,000 fugitives - falls on the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Russian Armed Forces, which is constantly involved in hostilities in eastern Ukraine.

Approximately 10,000 of them were drafted through mobilization. The remaining 2 thousand are contract soldiers.

In the 58th Combined Arms Army, which is also part of the Southern District of the Russian Army, the desertion rate is about 2,500 people.

This follows reports by British Intelligence earlier this year that a record number of cases and sentences for desertion of military personnel have been recorded in Russia.

In particular, in March, Russian military courts sentenced 684 people for desertion.

- Ukrinform

WSJ spoke about Ukrainian startups that produce drones for strikes in Russia

The American newspaper Wall Street Journal publishes a report about the new Ukrainian industry for the production of drones, which are used for attacks on Russian territory.

As stated in the publication, the Ukrainian authorities cannot use Western equipment to fire at Russian targets, so they rely on products of their own production.

As a result, many startups have appeared in Ukraine - relatively small enterprises that develop and produce combat drones commissioned by the Ukrainian military.

The authors write that this approach helps Ukraine resist a Russian invasion, but it has its limitations, since Russia has put its entire economy on a war footing and uses hundreds of Iranian suicide bomber drones in combination with missiles.

Therefore, Western experts cited by the publication advise Kyiv to determine which of the different drone models are the most promising and organize their mass production.

One of the newspaper's interlocutors identified 19 different models of Ukrainian drones that are used to strike Russia, including balloons that drop grenade launchers from high altitudes.

🇺🇦@ukraine_report 🇺🇦🔱

https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/cye30983w94o

Thierry Frank, CEO of Eurenco, announced that France will increase production of modular powder charges for artillery to 500,000 units per year.

Currently, the main bottleneck in the production of artillery ammunition is the shortage of gunpowder. In response to growing demand from Ukraine and EU countries, the French company has received orders totaling 1 billion euros in the past six months alone.

In mid-April, Eurenco inaugurated a new production line in Bergerac that will produce up to 1,200 tons of gunpowder per year. The first batches are expected to be available in the first half of 2025.

In terms of charges, 1,200 tons of gunpowder is equivalent to more than 500,000 modular charges or 95,000 full shots (six modular charges per projectile).

In 2026, France plans to increase production to 1.2 million modular charges, or about 200,000 full rounds.

Monobank will buy a house for 98-year-old Lidiia Stepanivna, who left partially occupied Ocheretyne on her own

"She will definitely live in it, until the moment when this abomination (Russia) disappears from our land," the bank's co-founder writes.

The grandmother walked about 10 kilometers to get to the free territory. Her house in the village was destroyed by the Russians.

Video: united 24

🇺🇦@ukraine_report 🇺🇦🔱 Liz

https://t.me/noel_reports/11377

https://t.me/noel_reports/11371

The Air Force told how they will store F-16 fighters to prevent them from being hit by Russia.

"These are enormous funds if we are talking about digging underground, storage facilities, bunkers. This also takes time. Therefore, we are now developing other methods of how to place them, where to place them. We understand that this will be a dispersed use on different types of runways, airfields, where it is difficult for the enemy to find them," Air Force speaker Yevlash said.

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Interrogations would last 40 minutes and often consisted of electric shocks, blows to the head and sexual abuse, real or threatened.

“They start with maximum violence,” the serviceman said. “They say ‘You are lying, you are not telling us everything.’ They put a knife to your ear or offer to cut off one of your fingers.”

Others would beat them on the back of the head so regularly that they lost consciousness, he said.

“If one gets tired, another takes over,” he recalled. “When you fall, they make you stand again. It can last 30 to 40 minutes. At the end they say, ‘Why did you not tell us everything immediately?’”

Smiley said much of the violence was of a sexual nature. One prison unit repeatedly struck the prisoners all over their bodies, including on the genitals, with batons that gave electric shocks, he said.

On another occasion, he said, a cellmate was repeatedly kicked in the genitals during roll call, where the prisoners were lined up with their legs spread, facing a wall in a corridor. Smiley suffered permanent injury from an untreated broken pelvis from a truncheon blow and could not bend or lie down without assistance for two weeks.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has very limited access to prisoners of war held in Russia, was not permitted to visit him during his nine months of imprisonment, he added.

The second serviceman said he was forced to strip and place his genitals on a stool as his interrogators hit them with a ruler and lay a knife on them, threatening to castrate him.

Interrogators put him through a mock execution, firing a volley of gunfire beside him while he was blindfolded.

They threatened him with rape, the serviceman said, making him choose what they should use — a mop handle or the leg of a chair. “Do you want to do it yourself or do you want us to help you?” they taunted him.

He said he was never actually penetrated, but others were raped. “After that you cannot walk normally,” he said. “You suffer for weeks. Other guys had the same treatment.”

“I think they had such an order to break us psychologically and physically so that we would not want anything else in life,” he said, adding that there were suicides in the Taganrog jail.

“You could hear the screams all day,” the serviceman said. “Impossible screams.” Sometimes during a lull, the prisoners could hear the voices of children playing outside, he said.

The ordeal for the former prisoners is by no means over once back home.

“The most difficult thing is having too many people around,” the serviceman said. “Everyone is peacefully walking in the park and you are still afraid that someone is listening, or that you might get shoved or say the wrong thing.”

Maj. Valeria Subotina, a military press officer and a former journalist who was also taken prisoner at Azovstal and who spent a year in women’s prisons in Russia, recently opened a meeting space in Kyiv called YOUkraine, for former prisoners.

“There are many triggers and people do not realize they still need care,” she said.

She returned to service three months after her release in April 2023, but found it hard to sit in an office. “I cannot bear someone approaching me from behind or standing behind me,” she said.

The government psychologists were not of much use, she said. “They often don’t know how to help us,” she said, and civilians often ask careless questions.

As a result, many former prisoners find returning to the front line easier than rejoining civilian life, she said, and only fellow survivors really understand what they are going through.

“We don’t want to feel pity,” she said, “because we are proud that we survived and we overcame this.”

- The New York Times

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Russia’s torture of prisoners of war has been well documented by the United Nations, with former inmates speaking of relentless beatings, electric shocks, rape, sexual violence and mock executions, so much so that one expert described it as a systematic, state-endorsed policy. Many detainees have also reported lingering symptoms such as blackouts and fainting spells stemming from repeated blows to the head that were severe enough to cause concussions.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said in September that “about 90% of Ukrainian prisoners of war have been subjected to torture, rape, threats of sexual violence or other forms of ill-treatment.”

The Russian military did not answer a request for comment on the allegations of mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Most of the released prisoners have returned to active duty after about three months of rest and rehabilitation, as the Ukrainian military, short of troops on the front line, has given relatively few medical exemptions to former prisoners of war.

A law passed this month will allow former prisoners of war the choice of returning to service or being discharged from the military, recognition that many have been subjected to severe mental and physical torture and need prolonged rehabilitation. Ukrainian officials acknowledged that there have been problems in providing sufficient care for former prisoners, but said they had now developed special centers for them using best international practices.

Ukrainian prosecutors have identified 3,000 former military and civilian prisoners who can serve as witnesses for a case they are building for the Ukrainian courts to charge Russian individuals and officials with mistreatment of prisoners. The prosecutors encouraged two of the former prisoners to speak to The New York Times.

One of them was Smiley, 22, who was captured at the beginning of the war when the Russian navy seized Ukrainian positions on Snake Island in the Black Sea. He spoke a year after his release, saying he hoped that shedding light on the conditions of Russian prisons would help not only his own rehabilitation, but also the thousands of prisoners of war still in captivity.

“My sister persuaded me to give my first interview,” he said. “‘You need to tell,’ she said. Maybe if we speak, it will help the treatment of our guys.”

A second Ukrainian serviceman made available by the prosecutors gave a lengthy interview but declined to give his name or call sign, because of the stigma surrounding the abuses he suffered.

The serviceman, 36, said he was taken prisoner along with several thousand soldiers and marines after a long siege at the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol in May 2022. He spent nine months in Russian captivity before being released in a prisoner exchange in early 2023.

He spent most of his time in three detention facilities in the Russian towns of Taganrog, Kamensk-Shakhtinsky and Kursk.

He returned critically underweight and suffering from an injured spine and, like many others, blackouts, dizziness and ringing in the ears from frequent beatings on the head.

“I am not fainting any longer,” the serviceman said, “but I have difficulties with my back and concussion, and a squeezing all the time of the area around my heart.”

Despite his injuries, he was ordered to return to light duty as a guard after only two months’ rest in a sanitarium.

“I don’t know if I could run a kilometer,” he said.

Prisoners were subjected to brutal daily beatings on their legs, backs and fingers, and mental and physical torture during interrogations, as well as hunger, cold and a lack of medical care, he said.

Three men died in custody during his imprisonment, including one who died in the communal cell they shared, he said.

Some of the Russian units guarding or interrogating the prisoners were worse than others, the two former prisoners said, but there were consistent beatings every morning at roll call and torture at most detention facilities.

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Many Ukrainian Prisoners of War Show Signs of Trauma and Sexual Violence

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The Ukrainian marine infantryman endured nine months of physical and psychological torture as a Russian prisoner of war, but was allotted only three months of rest and rehabilitation before being ordered back to his unit.

The infantryman, who asked to be identified only by his call sign, Smiley, returned to duty willingly. But it was only when he underwent intensive combat training in the weeks after that the depth and range of his injuries, both psychological and physical, began to surface.

“I started having flashbacks, and nightmares,” he said. “I would only sleep for two hours and wake up with my sleeping bag soaking wet.” He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and referred for psychological care, and is still receiving treatment.

Ukraine is just beginning to understand the lasting effects of the traumas its prisoners of war experienced in Russian captivity, but it has been failing to treat them properly and returning them to duty too early, say former prisoners, officials and psychologists familiar with individual cases.

Nearly 3,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been released from Russia in prisoner exchanges since the 2022 invasion began. More than 10,000 remain in Russian custody, some of whom have endured two years of conditions that a United Nations expert described as horrific.

The Ukrainian government’s rehabilitation program, which has usually involved two months in a sanitarium and a month at home, is inadequate, critics say, and the traumas suffered by Ukrainian prisoners are growing with the length and severity of the abuse they are being subjected to as the war drags on.

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More recently, a French helicopter crew gunned down a Houthi drone over the Red Sea.

*Machine-gunning drones from the back of a helicopter or plane saves valuable air-defense missiles.*

“Expending many thousands (if not millions) of dollars on each missile to eliminate an inexpensive UAV is an economically losing affair,” wrote Paul Maxwell, the deputy director of the Army Cyber Institute at the United States Military Academy in New York.

It’s especially important for the Ukrainians to save their best air-defense munitions as the wider war grinds into its third year.

Ukraine still gets most of its missiles from its foreign allies, and the six-month interruption in supplies from the United States—the result of Russia-friendly Republicans in the U.S. Congress slow-walking aid legislation—means missile stocks are desperately low right now.

But the cheap anti-drone tactic isn’t necessarily easy. Consider one of the first dogfights over the European front line in World War I. “We met a German aeroplane at about the same altitude as ourselves, and about the same speed, so that we couldn’t get any closer than 600 yards,” Royal Flying Corps observer Archibald James recalled.

“I put up my sights on the service rifle to 600 yards and fired six deliberate shots, and was miserable that I didn’t apparently hit him at all,” he said. “I’ve no doubt I was miles away. We had no conception then at what close ranges it was necessary to shoot to have any effect at all.”

In other words, sniping a drone from the back of a plane requires the pilot to get really close—and the shooter to take careful aim.

- David Axe, Forbes

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