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Kremlin Still Claims Kherson Even As Russian Troops Abandon Major Port City

Kremlin Still Claims Kherson Even As Russian Troops Abandon Major Port City

The Russian army pulled out of the region around the city of Kherson overnight on Thursday, leaving behind army uniforms, stockpiles of ammunition, and a local populace cheering the arrival of Ukrainian forces in the street. The New York Times reported from the front lines yesterday that the Russian military has left the small village of Blahodatne, located on the strategic M14 main highway leading to Mykolaiv, another port city on the Pivdennnyi Buh about 60 miles west of Kherson. Ukraine has held Mykolaiv for some time but has not held Blahodatne or any of the other villages to the west and north of Kherson.

The Russian defense ministry announced in Moscow this morning that the retreat of all Russian troops on the west bank of the Dnipro River was complete. The Times, which has a photographer and at least two reporters on the scene, reported that the Russians are setting up new defensive positions on the east bank of the Dnipro and were beginning to shell Ukrainian military units advancing on Kherson on the west bank of the river.

The Times reporters, Andrew E. Kramer and Marc Santora, wrote that they had spoken by phone to residents of Kherson this morning who told them that “While there was no visible Russian military presence in the city on Friday, four residents described seeing Russian soldiers dressed in civilian clothes — some armed — moving about parts of the city.”

“Kherson is returning under the control of Ukraine. Units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are entering the city,” the intelligence directorate of Ukraine’s defense ministry said in a statement released in Kyiv on Friday morning.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, Putin’s government appeared to still be laying claim to Kherson. “Kherson region is a subject of the Russian Federation. This status is fixed,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, announced. “There can be no changes here.”

Reports from the front lines in Kherson indicate that Peskov should probably consult the local residents, who continued to greet advancing Ukrainian troops waving the distinctive blue and yellow national flag of Ukraine. The Russian defense ministry spokesman in Moscow appeared just as deluded. “Not a single piece of military equipment and weaponry was left … and there were no losses of personnel, weapons, equipment,” a defense ministry spokesman said.

Below is a photograph of a warehouse in Blahodatne that was part of a Russian military base there. The photo was taken by Lynsey Addario of the New York Times on Friday morning. It shows stacks of ammunition boxes and rows of what appear to be 82 mm mortar rounds lying on the ground. That is Russian ammunition. Those are Ukrainian troops walking through the warehouse examining their find.

Ukrainian soldiers in weapons depot captured from Russians in Blahodatne, Ukraine on November 11, 2022Photo by Lynsey Addario/New York Times


Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Reprinted with permission fromLucian Truscott Newsletter

Putin Spokesman Rebuts Trump Claim On Venezuela

Putin Spokesman Rebuts Trump Claim On Venezuela

Trump often gives deference and praise to Russian President Vladimir Putin — but he’s not always getting the same treatment in return.

Trump tweeted on Monday that Russia had “removed most of their people from Venezuela,” thereby satisfying a demand made by the Trump administration as Venezuela devolves into chaos thanks to mismanagement from Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

But on Tuesday, a Putin spokesman came out to deny Trump’s claim.

“There were no official messages from the Russian side on this score and nor could there be any,” Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, said on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg News.

Peskov added that Russia has “specialists there who are maintaining” military equipment in Venezuela.

Russia and Venezuela are allies. Russia helped former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez and his successor, Maduro, build the country’s authoritarian regime. And Russia has stood by Maduro even as the country falters thanks to Maduro’s failures as a leader.

Trump, on the other hand, often has his loyalty to Putin rewarded with public humiliation. This is not the first time Putin has contradicted Trump, or sought to remind Trump who’s boss.

Some of Putin’s slights have been petty, like making Trump wait for almost an hour before their big meeting in Helsinki, Finland — where Trump infamously took Putin’s side over U.S. intelligence agencies in a televised joint press conference.

Others have been more substantial.

In 2017, Trump claimed that Putin told him Russia didn’t interfere in the 2016 election — and said he believed the Russian president when he said that. The Russian government, however, categorically denied that the two had even discussed election interference.

Before the G-20 summit in Argentina in December of 2018, Trump tried to claim that he was not going to meet with Putin at the summit. Putin, however, insisted that the meeting would in fact take place — and later leaked details about the meeting, which the White House had initially kept secret.

Russian media, which is basically run by the Kremlin, has also sought to humiliate Trump. Russian state TV hosts called Trump a “clown” after his failure of a summit with North Korea, and boasted that he was acting like an “agent of the Kremlin.”

Despite the fact that Russia helped get Trump elected, Putin still seeks to remind Trump who calls the shots.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

House Intel Chairman: Kremlin Helped Trump Conceal Moscow Tower Deal

House Intel Chairman: Kremlin Helped Trump Conceal Moscow Tower Deal

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

In a new, detailed examination of the counterintelligence aspect of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, NBC News reported Tuesday that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, believes the possibility that Russia may have leverage over Trump may not be getting enough scrutiny.

And near the end of the article, Schiff makes an argument that I’ve previously referenced but is routinely ignored — even in the very NBC News report that quoted the committee chair.g

In the last three paragraphs of the article, reporter Ken Dilanian writes:

Schiff said he is particularly concerned about the Trump Tower Moscow project, the real estate development Cohen was pitching to the Kremlin while Trump was running for president.

He noted that when it first emerged that Cohen had emailed Putin’s office seeking help, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Pescov, said he never answered the email. But it later emerged in court documents that an assistant to Peskov did respond, emailing Cohen and asking him to call, which he did.

“So here we had the Kremlin facilitating a cover up by the president of the United States,” Schiff said. “This needs to be exposed.”

Indeed, even as the Kremlin was lying about its ties to the Trump campaign, Cohen himself lied to Congress and Mueller about the extent of the Trump Tower Moscow deal in an attempt to downplay its significance. Cohen has since pleaded guilty to those criminal lies. And when he testified before the House Government Oversight Committee in February, Cohen said he told these lies in an effort to please the president and follow his lead. At one meeting to discuss the Russia investigation before he lied to Congress, Cohen said, he spoke with Trump and was told — falsely — there was no “collusion” and no “deal.”

So, in essence, Trump’s personal attorney committed a crime to further a cover-up that was done in concert with — either explicitly or implicitly — the Kremlin. And, from all appearances, it looks like Trump was directing this cover-up. There’s another word you might use for this behavior: collusion.

But bizarrely, despite having all this information, Dilanian writes: “some of the key figures seen as likely participants in any Russia conspiracy — Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen — have been charged with other offenses in cases that made no allegation of any ‘collusion’ with Russia.”

There’s no reason to think Mueller should have to use the word “collusion” to describe this behavior — but it fits the commonsense definition, and it’s baffling that informed observers of the investigation can’t recognize it. It seems the word “collusion” has come to be redefined to mean, in this context, some extremely specific and overt type of behavior which may indeed never happened, but it’s unclear why we should accept these word games.

IMAGE: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov arrives for the opening of the Army-2015 International Military-Technical Forum in Kubinka, outside Moscow, Russia, June 16, 2015. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov