Mediaboss Marketing

By Guy Faulconbridge and Filipp Lebedev

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Sunday that the United States was responsible for a Ukrainian attack on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula with five U.S.-supplied missiles that killed four people, including two children, and injured 151 more.

The Russian Defence Ministry said four of the U.S.-delivered Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles, equipped with cluster warheads, were shot down by air defence systems and the ammunition of a fifth had detonated in mid-air.

Footage on Russian state television showed people running from a beach and some people being carried off on sun loungers.

Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said missile fragments had fallen just after noon near a beach on the north side of the city of Sevastopol where locals were on holiday.

The incident generated a furious reaction among Russian public figures.

The Defence ministry said U.S. specialists had set the missiles' flight coordinates on the basis of information from U.S. spy satellites, meaning Washington was directly responsible.

"Responsibility for the deliberate missile attack on the civilians of Sevastopol is borne above all by Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, and by the Kyiv regime, from whose territory this strike was carried out," the ministry said.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and now views the Black Sea peninsula it as an integral part of its territory, though most of the world considers it still part of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, in what he cast as a defensive move against a hostile and aggressive West. Ukraine and the West say Russia is waging an imperial-style war.

The United States began supplying Ukraine with longer range ATACMS missiles, which have a 300-kilometre (186-mile) range, earlier this year.

Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield reports from either side.

TREATING THE INJURED

Russian-installed Sevastopol Governor Mihail Razvozhaev put the death toll at four, with 144 injured, including 82 taken to hospitals. Twenty-seven children were among the injured.

Specialist doctors were being flown in from other parts of Russia.

Russia will respond to Sunday's attack, the Defence Ministry said, without elaborating. The Kremlin said Putin had been "in constant contact with the military" since the attack.

Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council and a leading voice among Russian hawks, described the incident as "a vile, despicable act against our people".

He likened it to attacks carried out by gunmen on Sunday against a synagogue, a church and police post in Dagestan and said there was "no difference to us" between the U.S. administration, Ukrainian leaders and "crazy fanatics".

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a prominent supporter of the invasion, said there "was no justification whatsoever for a missile strike on civilians" and expressed indignation that the incident occurred on the Orthodox holiday of Trinity.

Neither Ukraine nor the United States has commented on the attack, which came on a day when Ukraine said one person had been killed and 10 others wounded by Russian strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Putin has repeatedly accused the U.S. of using Ukraine to undermine Russia's own security, which Kyiv and its Western allies deny, and has warned of growing risks of a direct confrontation between Moscow and the U.S.-led NATO alliance.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Filipp Lebedev in London; Editing by Gareth Jones, Ron Popeski and Bill Berkrot)

Read the original:
Russia says US is responsible for deadly Ukrainian attack on Crimea - Yahoo! Voices

Ukraine is facing a severe manpower shortage as it continues to battle Russia's invasion.

But Ukraine's 3rd Separate Assault Brigade is one of the most popular units in the Ukrainian army.

It attracts new recruits with its PR-savvy approach and 12-strong media team.

For months, Ukraine's armed forces have faced a severe manpower shortage.

In April, one brigade commander told Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne that the country's manpower problems were "much more important than ammunition" and that one Ukrainian soldier was having to carry out the tasks of three to four soldiers.

Since December, Ukrainian military officers have sought as many as 500,000 extra recruits.

Lawmakers have since taken steps to try to address that need.

In April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed into law a bill lowering the minimum conscription age from 27 to 25.

And in May, Ukrainian lawmakers passed a bill allowing convicts in certain categories to serve in the military.

Though people recognize the need to fight, "since the mobilization system is not very well organized and is not perceived as just, this lowers motivation," Julia Kazdobina, a Senior Fellow at Ukrainian Prism's Security Studies Program, and a former advisor to the Ukrainian Information Policy Minister, told Business Insider.

But one place Ukraine isn't struggling to find new recruits is in the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, an elite fighting force that has taken part in a number of the war's most intense battles, from Bakhmut to Avdiivka.

The squad emerged from the Azov Brigade, a controversial regiment founded by the right-wing politician Andriy Biletsky in 2014 that played a crucial role in the Russian siege of Mariupol in 2022.

The 3rd Brigade has since become famous for its battle-hardened, fearless approach to combat.

But this is just one of the reasons the unit is receiving more than 900 volunteers a month, according to an April report by the Washington DC-based think tank the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

While many brigades use social media platforms to advertise and celebrate battlefield wins, the 3rd Brigade is especially skilled at PR.

The unit has 12 full-time media staff, including press officers, cameramen, and editors and they are "pioneers in running a public recruitment campaign," Kazdobina said.

"The brigade is run by people with extensive combat experience and a reputation for bravery," she added.

The 3rd also has a professional website as well as a YouTube channel with more than a million subscribers where some videos have attracted more than nine million views.

Last week, the brigade released a video appearing to show Russian troops emerging from a trench with their hands raised or tied behind their backs. The prisoners of war were later filmed and interviewed, sitting in what appeared to be a school classroom.

All of this is designed to appeal to young and eager potential recruits.

Elina Beketova, a defense fellow at CEPA, told BI that the brigade has had success recruiting "because they have a system."

"They start with intensive training to prepare volunteers for frontline duties both physically and mentally," she said. "Then, they match people's preferences with different roles. If someone isn't ready for combat, they continue training them and find the best role for that person."

The brigade has four recruitment centers Kyiv, Dnipro, Lviv, and Odesa.

The unit's website says it offers a seven-day training course for potential recruits who want to assess their readiness to join the armed forces.

"If you realize that the army is not for you, you can halt the test and leave at any time," it says.

Those who choose to join undergo a 30-day training program. If, at the end of this program, the recruit does not feel ready, the training period can be extended.

Yurii Kovtun, a brigade sergeant, told Radio ROKS last year: "Our task, if he is weak, is to make the weakest the strongest."

"We will not send him somewhere to die," he added.

The 3rd also tries to help recruits with specific skills find the role that best fits those abilities.

"The 3rd Brigade customizes mobilization and contracts tailored to individuals. If someone isn't ready for artillery work but is prepared for another role, they will try to find a different position for that individual," Beketova said.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry has noted the benefit of this.

In March, the department announced that it would be rolling out a new recruitment algorithm for the armed forces.

This algorithm "offers a clear mechanism for voluntary enlistment through recruiting centers and online," Beketova said. "Candidates undergo interviews and tests before being assigned to their chosen unit."

The brigade also offers a "patronage service," which is designed to care for wounded fighters and prisoners of war.

"One often hears that there are two Ukrainian armies," Kazdobina told BI.

"One following Soviet tradition of inefficiency and humiliation and one that is dynamic, well organized and respects soldier lives," she said. "The Third Assault Brigade falls into the second category."

The 3rd Brigade did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Read the original article on Business Insider

View post:
How an elite Ukrainian unit is using viral videos to attract hundreds of fresh-faced volunteers a month - Yahoo! Voices

First, Vladyslav stopped going into Kyivs city center to avoid draft officers checking papers. Then he stopped exercising at the gym because of patrols in his neighborhood. Now, he spends most of his days holed up in his apartment, often using his binoculars to watch officers serving draft notices to commuters leaving a nearby subway station.

Theyre everywhere now, said Vladyslav, 45, who, like other Ukrainians in hiding interviewed for this article, requested that his last name not be published. Ill try to avoid getting caught, he said, but Im not sure its possible.

As Russian forces are on the attack across the front line, the Ukrainian military has been desperately trying to replenish its war-battered forces, embarking on a large-scale mobilization campaign backed by new laws.

While many Ukrainian men have answered the call to serve, some others have tried to evade conscription. Even before the latest mobilization push, thousands of men had fled the country to avoid service, some of them swimming across a river separating Ukraine from Romania. Now, as officers scour the countrys cities to draft men of military age, currently 25 to 60, many people like Vladyslav have gone into hiding, fearful that conscription is a one-way ticket to the front line.

It is not clear how many men are hiding out, but in big cities like Kyiv and Lviv, social media groups alerting members to the movements of draft officers include tens of thousands of members.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

See more here:
Ukraine Military Draft Causes Some Men to Hide - The New York Times

Another 38 people were wounded in the attack, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. Four aerial bombs were launched against the city, damaging residential buildings, shops and public transport stops, said Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. He said that four of the wounded were in serious condition.

This Russian terror with guided aerial bombs must and can be stopped. Bold decisions from our partners are needed so that we can destroy Russian terrorists and Russian combat aircraft where they are, President Volodymr Zelenskyy wrote on the messaging app Telegram.

Zelenskyy said last month that Ukraine still urgently needs at least seven more Patriot missile systems to fend off Russian strikes against the power grid and civilian areas, as well as military targets, with devastating glide bombs that wreak wide destruction.

Russia has also continued to target Ukraine's energy infrastructure with a new barrage of missiles and drones overnight, officials in Kyiv said. The attacks damaged energy facilities in the southeast and west and injured at least two workers.

Ukraine is struggling with a new wave of rolling blackouts after relentless Russian attacks on energy infrastructure that started three months ago took out half the countrys power generation capacity. Ukraines air defences intercepted 12 of the 16 missiles and all 13 drones launched by Russia, the air force said.

State-owned power grid operator Ukrenergo said the strikes damaged equipment at facilities in southeastern Zaporizhzhia and the western Lviv region. Two energy workers were injured in Zaporizhzhia when a fire broke out at an energy facility, according to regional Gov. Ivan Fedorov.

With no major changes reported along the 1,000-kilometre front line, where a recent push by the Kremlins forces in eastern and northeastern Ukraine has made only incremental gains, both sides have taken aim at infrastructure targets, seeking to curb each others ability to fight in a war that is now in its third year.

Moscows overnight attack on Zaporizhzhia and Lviv follows Ukrainian military strikes on three oil refineries in southern Russia overnight into Friday.

Air defenses destroyed five drones over the Sea of Azov and the countrys western Bryansk and Smolensk regions, the Russian Ministry of Defence said. A man was killed in shelling of Russias Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, according to regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.

The governor of eastern Ukraine's partly occupied Donetsk region said on Saturday that Russian attacks had killed five people and wounded seven the previous day.

In the Russia-controlled part of the region, Moscow-installed Gov. Denis Pushilin said three people were killed and four were injured in shelling by Ukrainian forces Saturday morning.

A policeman was killed in the partly occupied region of Kherson as a result of a Russian drone attack on a checkpoint, the Ukrainian National Police said.

See the original post here:
At least six killed after Russia and Ukraine exchange attacks - Yahoo! Voices

His ominous warnings, at the end of a two-day trip to North Korea and Vietnam, placed Russia and the West in a new round of escalation over Ukraine. They come amid distraction and political uncertainty among Kyivs chief backers, with potentially game-changing elections on the horizon in the United States and France.

Beyond using nuclear weapons or causing more destruction on the battlefield in Ukraine, the Russian leader is seeking to prove he can pressure and antagonize the West in other ways and other places.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

Continue reading here:
Putin Shows He Can Antagonize the U.S. Far Afield From Ukraine - The New York Times