5 things you need to know about Russia’s intelligence failures ahead of the invasion of Ukraine

A months-long examination by The Washington Post of the intelligence war in Ukraine draws on a trove of sensitive materials including intercepted communications involving Russian intelligence operatives, as well as in-depth interviews with senior Ukrainian, U.S. and European officials.

Here are some key findings:

1. A clandestine branch of Russia’s security service was deeply involved in the Kremlin’s failed war plan, assuring officials in Moscow that Ukraine’s government would fall quickly and deploying operatives to install a puppet regime.

2. FSB officers were so confident they would seize the levers of power in Kyiv that they spent the final days before the war arranging accommodations in the capital.

3. The FSB’s Ukraine department underwent a major expansion in the period leading up to the invasion, according to Ukrainian and Western security officials.

Read all the findings here.

The story of little Liza, killed in her stroller by a Russian missile

Four-year-old Elizaveta Dmytrieva grinned as she pushed her stroller along the street in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. It was nearly five months into the war, but the city where her family had fled from Kyiv seemed safe enough. Her mother took an Instagram video as “Liza,” who was born with Down syndrome, led the way in a moment of delighted independence.

Barely an hour later, the little girl was dead, her mother severely injured. And the image of her black and pink stroller, flipped on its side and spattered with blood, would become symbolic of the gruesome toll Russia’s invasion has inflicted on even the youngest Ukrainians.

What Iryna Dmytrieva remembers, reliving the horror of that July morning in her first interview since leaving the hospital, is a deafening noise overhead that she thought was a plane. She looked up to see a “massive” missile and immediately crouched down to try to shield her child.

Read the full story here.

UAE became Russia's safe haven for evading sanctions

Russian businesspeople and entrepreneurs have sought to move their businesses to Dubai to benefit from its global standing as a key financial hub. Similar to many Iranian businesses subject to Western sanctions, Russian businesses are using the UAE as a base to avoid such sanctions and continue their operations.

Wealthy Russians have been applying for the UAE golden visa scheme which enables applicants to gain long-term residency in the country conditional on investing $280 000 in a local company or an investment fund. The flocking of Russians to Dubai has meant that billions of potentially sanctionable dollars and euros have been transferred to the emirate.

The property market in the UAE has also been another key recipient of Russian funds. The UAE is also aspiring to be an industrial hub for some Russian factories struggling to access the global market due to sanctions, which would generate significant financial flows to the country.

Помянем человека, прикончившего коммунизм и давшего свободу Восточной Европе https://youtu.be/fgm14D1jHUw

Bloomberg: Russia may face a longer and deeper recession as the impact of US and European sanctions spreads, handicapping sectors that the country has relied on for years to power its economy, according to an internal report prepared for the government.

Faced with war losses, Russian propagandists retreat to anger and patriotism

Russian state television pundits and officials for months painted Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine as a well-oiled “special military operation” that is methodically achieving its goals of “demilitarizing” and “denazifying” the Kyiv “regime.”

But the embarrassing rout of Russian forces from northeastern Ukraine in recent days sent a normally harmonious choir of Kremlin-friendly television shows and newspapers into a frenzy, struggling to explain to the audiences that they had been assuring of victory why Ukraine had recaptured more land than Russia took since April.

The result was the broadcast of unusually tense scenes to millions of Russian households, with some uncharacteristically blunt concessions.

Read the full story here.

Bloomberg: Russia has secretly funneled more than $300 million to foreign political parties and candidates since 2014 in an effort to influence elections in more than two dozen countries.

Putin’s bridge of dreams explodes in flames

It was a media extravaganza, Putin-style. At the lead of a small truck convoy, Russian President Vladimir Putin drove an orange dump truck flying Russian flags across a portion of the Crimean Bridge in 2018, proudly inaugurating a 12-mile colossus of steel and concrete connecting the Crimean Peninsula he illegally annexed from Ukraine to mainland Russia. At the end of the ride, he was met with cheers and applause.

Even during the reign of the Czars, “people dreamed of building this bridge,” Putin boasted. “Finally, thanks to your hard work and talents, this project, this miracle, has come true.”

Early Saturday, a giant explosion sent a fireball rolling across Putin’s crown jewel thanks, it could be said, to Putin’s own hard work in launching an invasion of Ukraine in February. Portions of the bridge, among the longest in Europe, could be seen sinking in the water.

Read the full story here.