© Social media/east2wast newsYuri Afanasevskii, a major-general in the Russian FSB security services, has been seriously wounded after an explosion at his house in Luhansk,
Comment: Here's an edifying example of Western spin in the Ukraine conflict.
Yuri Afanasevskii, 64, is in a critical condition in hospital as is his son after attack
A major-general in the Russian FSB security services has been seriously wounded after an explosion at his house in Luhansk. Yuri Afanasevskii, 64, and his son are in a critical condition in hospital.
Explosives were reportedly planted by a Ukrainian sabotage group in a mobile phone that had been handed to Afanasevskii. Russian sources blame the Ukrainian SBU secret service for the attack in the Russian-occupied Luhansk People's Republic.
Afanasevskii was head of customs in the area of Ukraine's Luhansk that Vladimir Putin's forces annexed in 2014 and last year claimed to incorporate into Russia.
He was sanctioned by Britain, the EU, Canada, Switzerland and Japan.
The major-general was shown to have financial interests in the British Virgin Islands.
Comment: No proof offered.
A woman has been detained and is under investigation for attempted murder and handing an explosive device to the FSB officer.
She gave him 'a mobile phone with an explosive device that was set off after the phone was activated. The attacker is detained, she has already confessed,' said the Russian Investigative Committee.
Investigators had 'interrogated a wide range of people' and 'seized objects of interest' over the explosion.
A report by the Russia Today news channel said the FSB official's wife was also injured in the explosion.
Comment: No, she wasn't. Did Stewart actually read the RT report? (see below)
A statement from the Russian Investigative Committee said: 'The man and his son received multiple injuries. They are currently in a medical facility.'
Reports of the attack on Afanasevskii came just days after another senior Russian officer was killed by a drone in Russia while mowing his lawn on his day off. Alexei Chernykh, deputy chief of a local branch of the anti-corruption police, was blown up by a drone at his home in the Russian village of Shchetinovka, reports said.
The village sits just one mile from Russia's border with Ukraine in the Belgorod Oblast, which has come under frequent drone strikes in recent months as Ukraine has stepped up its cross-border attacks.
The Telegram channel Baza, which has known ties to Russian security services, said a drone dropped a bomb on Chernykh's property on Sunday, August 27.
'A Ukrainian drone dropped ammunition on his site in Shchetynovka,' the Telegram channel reported. It said he 'was on his day off and was mowing [his] lawn'.
The police lieutenant colonel would have turned 40 on the day he was allegedly assassinated, according to information on his social media account.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov accused Ukraine of being behind a drone strike in the region on the same day, saying that it had killed a 'civilian'.
He accused Ukraine of dropping 'an explosive device from a drone' which hit a civilian who was 'at his summer cottage mowing the grass' at the time.
Gladkov said the man died from shrapnel wounds.
He did not name the person killed in the attack.
Ukraine, which has yet to achieve a major success in its summer counter-offensive, has struck deep into Russia in recent months, including an attack on the Kremlin in May and numerous drone attacks on civilian targets in Moscow.
Comment: Which, except for a few early successes before Moscow got a handle on them, have been money-wasting propaganda stunts.
- Russia foils Ukraine drone attacks in Moscow, two non-residential buildings damaged
- Ukrainian drones downed in Moscow suburbs
- Ukrainian kamikaze drone crashes before reaching Russian gas plant target, Russian authorities close airspace over St. Petersburg
- Major attack by Ukrainian drones on Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea - Russia neutralizes all targets
- Ukraine is losing 10,000 drones a month to Russian electronic-warfare systems that send fake signals and screw with their navigation, researchers say
Ukraine typically does not comment on who is behind attacks on Russian territory, although officials have publicly expressed satisfaction over them.
If Chernykh's death is confirmed, he would become the latest high-ranking Russian official to meet his end since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine.
At least six generals have been confirmed by Russian sources to have been killed since February 2022 (including four who held the rank of major-general and two lieutenant-generals), with Ukraine claiming the true figure to be 15.
Either way, the number of Russian generals killed in the conflict is unprecedented since the Second World War.
Comment: Sad, but a tribute to their bravery. There are no 'armchair generals' in the Russian Army.
The tally has been attributed to senior commanders personally going into the field to address command difficulties, the faltering performances of Russian forces on the front lines, insecure communications and US intelligence gathering.
Late in July, Lieutenant-General Oleg Tsokov, 51, was killed in a strike believed to have been carried out using a British-supplied Storm Shadow missile.
Tsokov was personally known to Putin and had been sanctioned by Britain and the EU for his role in the war against Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian parliament approved the dismissal of Oleksii Reznikov as defence minister today, and the removal of Rustem Umerov as head of the main privatisation agency, clearing the way for Umerov to take over from Reznikov.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that he was sacking Reznikov and proposed Umerov to replace him.
To do so, he required parliament to approve their removal from their current roles and to support Umerov's appointment as defence minister. Parliament completed the first stage of the process in two separate votes today and is expected to back Umerov's appointment in a vote tomorrow. Reznikov resigned on Monday.
The moves amount to the biggest shake-up of Ukraine's defence establishment in 18 months of war with Russia.
Reznikov has been at the forefront of Kyiv's lobbying for Western weapons to fight Russia's invasion, but his departure after months of corruption allegations against his ministry is not expected to have a big impact on military operations.
Confirming parliament had voted to remove Reznikov, the Defence Ministry hailed his work and listed some of the weapons Ukraine has received since Russia's full-scale invasion.
'He held this office for 22 months and made the impossible possible by ensuring large-scale arms supplies for the #UAarmy from the free world,' it said on the social media platform X.
It added that F-16 fighter jets, which Kyiv has not received so far, 'will make Ukraine's victory inevitable'.
Comment: More 'wonder weapons' for Moscow to put on display when this farce is ended.
© Sputnik / Maksim BlinovExhibition of captured Western weaponry opens near Moscow, August 16, 2023
The Patriot Park has unveiled an exposition of trophies captured in the course of the International Military-Technical Forum "Patriot"
An exhibition of captured weapons and military equipment in service with the AFU, including those supplied by Western countries, has been opened in the Patriot Park near Moscow as part of the Army-2023 International Military-Technical Forum.
Special attention is paid to the equipment produced by the USA and other NATO countries.
The exhibition features a burned Australian Bushmaster armored vehicle, an American M-113 APC, a Swedish CV90-40 BMP, and a French AMX-10RCR wheeled tank.
Most of the Western trophy vehicles at the exhibition are British combat vehicles: armored cars Hysky and Mastiff, AT 105 Saxon. The description of the exhibits indicates where and under what circumstances they were captured.
Separately, in the covered pavilion, an exposition "Promised Alliance" was presented, telling about the ideological work that was carried out in recent years with Ukrainian youth. Among the samples are school textbooks, clothes with nationalist slogans, peculiar menus of bars and catering establishments, as well as symbols of the terrorist battalion "Azov "*.
* A terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation.
The outcome of the vote to remove Umerov from his current post was confirmed by several lawmakers who attended the parliamentary session.
Umerov, 41, is a Crimean Tatar and former lawmaker who since 2020 has been a member of a government task force working on strategy to end the occupation of Crimea, which was seized and annexed by Russia in 2014.
Stop the war. End the bloodshed.