Monday, April 28, 2025

Ukraine's Special Operations

"[Moskalik was] one of the most intelligent and demanding officers in the Main Directorate of the General Staff -- not well-liked, because he demanded results and was relentlessly tough on his subordinates."
"Given the high-profile nature of the target and the method of execution, there is little doubt [that] Ukrainian special services were involved."
Rybar channel report
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Investigators work at the scene where Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car in Balashikha, just outside Moscow, Russia, on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo)

It is murder when specialized agents of a country that is being blasted apart by a larger, wealthier, more aggressive military with no shortage of arms and munitions that has caused millions of deaths, seeks its own mode of punishment of the aggressor beyond the battlefields? When, with skill, intelligence and infiltration it carefully designs scenarios it is able to plan with the use of advanced technologies to reach its enemy in its very heartland to execute daring, sobering and highly successful executions of those who have bombed its country to smithereens? 

In a full-scale invasion of a massive military the aggressor calls a 'special military operation' with a view to territorial expansion on an internationally illegitimate scale with no scruples regarding international norms of warfare, targeting hospitals, civilian apartments, municipal energy sources with both targeted and randomized attacks to spread terror of mass-produced murder, there is no stopping Russia in its goal of destroying Ukraine and helping itself to its vast territories and natural resources.
 
This is the Russia that is indignant with fury that embattled Ukraine would divert from the front lines to mount discrete attacks within Russia's borders, for as far as the Kremlin is concerned, the conflict they brought to Ukraine should remain within Ukraine's boundaries. For Ukraine to scheme for strikes within Russia, to hit civilian areas in their search for military targets, is tantamount to 'terrorism', which is what they ascribe to a nation under fire for the past three years, while portraying their hostility against Ukraine as a noble reaction against 'fascism' and Neo-Nazism. 

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Videos and photos circulating on Telegram show a car in flames outside a block of flats   Telegram

 Authorities in Russia are treating the killing on Friday of a high-ranking Russian military official as a case of murder. An explosion took place in a suburb of Moscow taking Russian authorities by surprise. What arrogance, for Ukraine to think it has the right to strike back against Russia for its wholesale destruction of Ukraine. A criminal investigation into the death of Lt.-Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik has been undertaken by Russia's Investigative Committee, the country's top policing agency. 

A vehicle set up with an improvised explosive device was detonated and killed Moskalik as he was walking past the car. Citing sources familiar with the investigation, Kommersant newspaper reported the device was remotely detonated. It seems that Moskalik had been under surveillance through a camera that had been installed in the vehicle. The resulting explosion and the subsequent death was a "terrorist attack", according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

In 2014 Moskalik had been with the Russian delegation that negotiated the aftermath of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, along with the invasion of eastern Ukraine, also participating in a 2019 meeting over the failed peace process. And while Kyiv has made no public comment on the incident, Rybar noted a comparison to the December killing of Lt.-Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of Russia's Radiation, Biological and Chemical Defence Forces.

At the time of that successful operation, the Investigative Committee concluded that Kirillov had been killed by a remotely detonated explosive planted on a scooter that had been parked outside a Moscow residential complex. The highest-ranking Russian military official to be killed outside combat since February 2022, Kirillov's assistant was also killed. Ukraine's domestic security service, the SBU, was responsible for the "special operation", according to an agency official.

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 AP Photo

According to Russian authorities, two days after the event, a "Ukrainian special services agent" has been detained and charged with terrorism. Ignat Kuzin is said to have purchased the vehicle that had exploded in Balashikha, 20 miles east of Moscow. According to Russia's Federal Security Service, the man has a residence permit in Ukraine. The Russian Investigation Committee contends that Kuzin was recruited by Ukraine's Security service, with a promise of $18,000 to commit to the attack.

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posted by Pieface @ Monday, April 28, 2025

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