Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

Putin’s Meeting with Wagner Included 35 Others

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Primer:

BRUSSELS (AP) — Nearly 50,000 Russian men have died in the war in Ukraine, according to the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s war dead.

Two independent Russian media outlets, Mediazona and Meduza, working with a data scientist from Germany’s Tübingen University, used Russian government data to shed light on one of Moscow’s closest-held secrets — the true human cost of its invasion of Ukraine.

To do so, they relied on a statistical concept popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic called excess mortality. Drawing on inheritance records and official mortality data, they estimated how many more men under age 50 died between February 2022 and May 2023 than normal.

*** So, then what was this meeting about that Putin invited 35 top people to attend? After 3 hours in this meeting, it was meant to show Putin maintains control…control of what remains unclear but the read outs from the meeting are scarce on details except that General Valery Gerasimov is keeping his position and title which was the main complaint of Prighozin. It could be however that his duties and responsibilities are diminished. Furthermore, due to the high casualty rate of injuries and death of Russian fighters, Moscow is turning to the Chechen Republic. Chechen fighters are some of the deadliest fighters known but have yet to appear on the battlefield. This is one to watch. Preparation of Jumping-off Ground for Russian Air Forces in Belarus ... (2 Russian bases in Belarus/source)

Next, NATO leadership, at least our own State Department and Department of Defense need to address Belarus and Lukashenko, the president of Belarus.

MEMRI is reporting:

On June 28, 2023, the Russian media outlet Vzglyad published an article titled “How To Manage The Legacy Of The Wagner Group” about the future of the Wagner Group mercenaries after the attempted mutiny that took place few days earlier.

As many Wagner group fighter are preparing to move to Belarus, Belarusian military expert Alexander Alesin told Vzglyad that these fighters may become instructors in the Belarus Army or may provide security for Belarusian workers in Africa.
On June 28, 2023, the Russian media outlet Vzglyad published an article titled “How To Manage The Legacy Of The Wagner Group” about the future of the Wagner Group mercenaries after the attempted mutiny that took place few days earlier.

As many Wagner group fighter are preparing to move to Belarus, Belarusian military expert Alexander Alesin told Vzglyad that these fighters may become instructors in the Belarus Army or may provide security for Belarusian workers in Africa.

Meanwhile, the other topic that should be part of major discussions at the NATO summit is Germany. Exactly what side is Chancellor Scholz on any way? German intelligence knew in advance?

 

… criticism came from the ranks of the center-left German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which is the primary political party behind the government of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. However, criticism also came from the Green Party —which also supports Scholz’s administration— and the center-right Free Democratic Party (FDP), which opposes Scholz’s government. The criticism intensified after June 28, when, during a live television interview, Chancellor Scholz appeared to confirm speculation that the BND had left his administration in the dark about the Wagner mutiny until it was too late.

Late last week, however, a joint investigation by two of Germany’s most respected public television broadcasters, the Hamburg-based NDR and the Cologne-based WDR, concluded that the BND had been far more informed about the Wagner mutiny than its critics have claimed. The investigation concluded that, not only did the BND have foreknowledge of the mutiny nearly a week before it materialized, but that it was able to listen-in to the frantic telephone conversations between Prigozhin and Belarussian President Lukashenko, as the latter tried to dissuade the Wagner leader from storming the Russian capital with his heavily armed band of mercenaries.

According to the NDR-WDR report, the BND had been able to hack into Wagner’s internal communications system up for over a year. However, its operation was betrayed by “Carsten L.”, a German intelligence officer who was arrested late last year for spying for Russia. However, the German spy service was able to continue to monitor the internal affairs of Wagner through other sources and had access to channels of information within Wagner in the months leading up to the mutiny. Thus, according to the report, the BND had “vague indications of an imminent uprising by Wagner” about a week prior to June 23. source and read more here. 

Cuba Agrees to Host Chinese Spy Base

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First there was a full-throated denial by Adm. Kirby from the White House Press Room that the story the Wall Street Journal reported was true. Then a couple of days later, Adm. Kirby walked it back and attempted in national security platitudes to explain why he initially denied the story. Then the White House decided to blame the Trump administration stating that China has had a base in Cuba since 2019. If that was true, then why would the Biden administration lift some sanctions on Cuba?

Well….no , under the Trump administration, that is not accurate either. Perhaps China only has had radar surveillance installation since 2018. but you can bet that since Russia has had a spy base in Cuba known as the Lourdes signals intelligence facility, they are not only collaborating but perhaps co-locating especially since Beijing and Moscow have nurtured a a friendly business relationship without limitations. However, no one is putting China and Cambodia in the conversation…that is right, China has a secret base there too, called the Ream Base. .Satellite imagery of Ream Naval Base from 5 February 2023, annotated to show the shape of the pier extension. Original image courtesy of BlackSky

 

Lourdes

Russia 'to reopen Lourdes spy base in Cuba' - BBC News 2014 source

Beyond the Wall Street Journal doing great work, then comes the Miami Herald with more.

The CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. The Cuban government also pushed back against the initial WSJ report calling it “totally false and unfounded information” in a statement made by the Vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Fernández de Cossío.

Regardless of Cuba’s sovereign rights in defense matters, the official said, Cuba rejects “any foreign military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean, including that of numerous United States military bases and troops, especially the military base that illegally occupies a portion of the national territory in the province of Guantánamo.” While China might be already collecting intelligence on the U.S. from its commercial facilities in the region, having a signals-intelligence facility “adds to China’s capabilities, especially in times of war,” said Evan Ellis, professor at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, which monitors China’s relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean. “I think it telegraphs Chinese willingness in the current difficult environment between our two countries to take some of these bolder steps and their sense, with their growing military power and economic power and the perception of the U.S. democratic disarray, that they can take these steps that maybe a decade ago, they would not have risked,” Ellis said. “It’s not that big of a threshold that they’ve crossed, but it is significant,” he added.

The news follows intense speculation that Russia, not China, was planning to reopen its Soviet-era espionage base in Lourdes, a town near Havana, which it shut down in 2002. High-ranking Russian national security officials and diplomats have been traveling to the island recently and the two governments appear as close as ever, with Cuban leaders offering public support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But when publicly asked about reopening the Lourdes base during his trip to Havana in April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did not directly address the question. And despite several economic agreements recently announced by Russian and Cuban authorities, including land-lease deals, the news about a Chinese spy base speaks to the realities on the ground: The island is desperate for cash as its economy continues sinking. Russia had limited resources even before embarking on a war against Ukraine — and China can pay. On May 20, Cuba’s Interior Minister, Gen. Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, met with China’s Minister of Public Security, Wang Xiaohong. “China stands ready to work with Cuba to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries and deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields, especially in law enforcement and security,” a Chinese government statement said.

The news about the spy base comes as the Biden administration has been taking steps to improve its strained relationship with China, which is considered the United States’ primary military and economic rival. At the same time, State Department officials and members of Congress have been raising concerns about China’s increased influence in Latin America and the Caribbean. China has become South America’s largest trading partner and has exploited the Biden administration’s reluctance to new trade deals and has inked a free trade agreement with Ecuador, while Uruguay and Panama are in line, U.S. Rep Maria Elvira Salazar, a Miami Republican, said during a congressional hearing she chaired on Wednesday. “That is very troublesome,” Salazar said, blaming the Biden administration for ignoring the pleas of allies in the region with conservative governments “to the benefit of our enemies.”

When asked by representative Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, why the United States has seemed to become “more passive” and allowed China to increase its influence in the Western Hemisphere, the State Department’s top diplomat for the region acknowledged the administration needs to act with a sense of urgency. “This is the most challenging moment I have seen in 30 years in our hemisphere, and we have to do everything that we can to help our neighbors and our partners around the region to succeed and resist these strategic competitors from outside,” Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs Brian Nichols said. The China deal also complicates U.S. policy towards Cuba.

The administration has lifted some restrictions on flights and remittances, resumed the family reunification program for Cubans and reestablished migration and law enforcement talks with the Cuban government. But it stopped short of easing other embargo restrictions and removing Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, which the Cuban government had made a condition to improving relations. The cozying up to Russia and China indicates the Cuban government has chosen to seek further support from its longtime political and ideological allies rather than pursuing normalization of relations with the U.S. at a time Cuban authorities perceive their grip on power is at risk. Cuba is facing its worst economic crisis in decades and serious political challenges from a population that has taken to the streets to protest and demand regime change. Ebrahim Raeisi, the president of Iran, another major U.S. adversary, is set to travel to the island after visiting Venezuela and Nicaragua next week. The strategy suggests something else: The Cuban military is calling the shots on the island, not the civilian team led by Cuba’s handpicked president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. If true, the deal with China shows “Cuba’s desperation. It’s the same thing with Russian investors. Cuba is looking for cash where it can get it,” Ellis said. “Cuba also understands the limits of the Biden administration.

With the Republicans in control of the House in Washington, with Biden being more conservative, with a sense of lessons learned that the Obama opening was seen as ‘we gave up too much and receive too little from Cuba,’ there’s an understanding in Cuba that they’re not going to get much more out of Washington.” Latin America’s sharp turn to the left and the consolidation of power by Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela also gives Cuba confidence to do bolder things, Ellis said, while noticing that island has not gone that far as to sign military agreements with Russia or receive Russian weapons. Florida Republicans in Congress quickly reacted to the report on the China espionage base deal to highlight what they said is an increasing national security threat coming from Cuba. “The threat to America from Cuba isn’t just real, it is far worse than this,” Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted. “But to date, not only does the Biden White House not care, they have people who actually want to appease the regime.” “The Cuban regime is auctioning off land to the Russians, hosting the Iranians, and letting the Chinese open a base to spy on the U.S.,” Salazar tweeted. “Just 90 miles from our coast, the dictatorship has opened the door to our greatest enemies!” Later on Thursday, Rubio, who is the Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence and the committee’s chairman, Mark R. Warner (D-VA), issued a statement urging the Biden administration “to take steps to prevent this serious threat to our national security and sovereignty.” “We must be clear that it would be unacceptable for China to establish an intelligence facility within 100 miles of Florida and the United States, in an area also populated with key military installations and extensive maritime traffic,” they said.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article276215936.html#storylink=cpy

 

The Clop Ransomware Gang Have Struck State, Federal Agencies and Hospitals

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It was several days ago that the first reports started to surface and as CISA/FBI issued warnings, the target list/victims continues to expand.

All attributions so far point to an Russian entity with history on this and those attributions do  not come from the Federal government but rather outside cyber expert companies across the country.

Clop ransomware gang starts extorting MOVEit data-theft victims source and expanded details

So, anyone remember when President Biden gave a list of entities that were completely off limits to cyber attacks? Remember?

Well it was exactly a year ago this month…

There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof. Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21): Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience advances a national policy to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure. This directive supersedes Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7.

Click here for the full description of the list. 

Meanwhile, the victims of this cyber attack related to MoveIT and CLOT include:

Reported by TechTarget:

Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri state governments are among a growing list of organizations attacked via a critical flaw in Progress Software’s MoveIT Transfer product.

Progress Software on May 31 detailed an SQL injection bug in its managed file transfer (MFT) software MoveIt Transfer. Progress urged customers to immediately apply mitigations for the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-34362, while it worked on a patch, which was released later that day. But as security vendors reported soon after, the critical bug was already under active exploitation in the wild.

A wave of organizations have disclosed data breaches in the wake of CVE-2023-34362 coming to light. Some of the early major names affected by the MoveIT flaw included the government of Nova Scotia, Canada; HR software provider Zellis; the BBC; British Airways; and British retailer Boots.

Several other organizations have disclosed compromises since that initial wave, including U.K. broadcast regulator Ofcom and networking vendor Extreme Networks. Multinational accounting firm Ernst and Young was also reportedly breached via the critical flaw. Ernst and Young did not reply to TechTarget Editorial’s request for comment, but the BBC said it received confirmation of a data breach from the firm.

Additionally Johns Hopkins University Hospital got hit as well as British Airlines. 

CNN adds information to the report:

A Russian-speaking hacking group known as CLOP last week claimed credit for some of the hacks, which have also affected employees of the BBC, British Airways, oil giant Shell, and state governments in Minnesota and Illinois, among others.

The Russian hackers were the first to exploit the vulnerability, but experts say other groups may now have access to software code needed to conduct attacks.

The ransomware group had given victims until Wednesday to contact them about paying a ransom, after which they began listing more alleged victims from the hack on their extortion site on the dark web. As of Thursday morning, the dark website did not list any US federal agencies.

The episode shows the widespread impact that a single software flaw can have if exploited by skilled criminals.

The hackers – a well-known group whose favored malware emerged in 2019 – in late May began exploiting a new flaw in a widely used file-transfer software known as MOVEit, appearing to target as many exposed organizations as they could. The opportunistic nature of the hack left a broad swath of organizations vulnerable to extortion.

Progress, the US firm that owns the MOVEit software, has also urged victims to update their software packages and has issued security advice.

The 1023 Redactions Show 17 Audio Tapes of Joe and Burisma

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Primer:Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian owner of Burisma, was the “foreign national” involved in the alleged “criminal bribery scheme” detailed in the FBI form, and Zlochevsky referred to Joe Biden as the “big guy” during a conversation several years before the June 2020 date of the bureau document, according to sources familiar with the FBI record who described its contents to the Washington Examiner.

Hoorah again for Senator Grassley. The Director of the FBI continues to remember that Senator Grassley has seen the whole 1023 form, yes the un-redacted version. So, it appears the Republicans are going on the offense and Grassley took to the Senate floor to announce for the official record the 17 tapes that were used by the top executive at Burisma as an insurance policy. What kind of policy is unclear but for sure there was a lack of trust from the outset.

But read on…

JTN:

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley on Monday announced that the foreign national who allegedly bribed then-former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter kept recordings of his conversations with each as an “insurance policy.”

“The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them. Seventeen total recordings,” Grassley said on the Senate floor. Fifteen audio recordings include conversations between him and Hunter Biden while two include conversations between him and Joe Biden.

“These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,” he continued.

A source familiar with the matter told Just the News that the FD-1023 memorializes the conversation between the Burisma executive and the FBI’s confidential human source in which he told the source he was in possession of the recordings. Those recordings are not included in the record, however.

In his remarks, Grassley pointed to the FD-1023 form that members of the House Oversight Committee were recently permitted to view by the FBI, but noted that the bureau still redacted parts of the unclassified document.

“More than that, the FBI made Congress review a redacted unclassified document in a classified facility. That goes to show you the disrespect the FBI has for Congress,” he added (emphasis original).

The FD-1023 includes allegations from a confidential human source that the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, hired Hunter Biden to serve on its board in order to use his father’s influence to stifle an investigation from then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin into the firm. Shokin was removed from his post in 2016 and the FD-1023 indicates that two Biden family members received $5 million each for their trouble.

***

The contents of the form last week, the FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020, is the FBI’s interview with a “highly credible” confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, starting in 2015. (Obama knew since Biden was tasked with the Ukraine portfolio)

Grassley said the recordings were “allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot.”

“The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,” Grassley said.

Grassley demanded answers on “what, if anything has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?”

“The Justice Department and FBI must show their work,” Grassley said. “They no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

The FBI brought the document to Capitol Hill last week after House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer subpoenaed it last month. The FBI briefed Comer and committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on the form in a SCIF on Capitol Hill, but did not turn over the document. Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress.

That Kabul Dissent Cable will be at the Center of Campaign Ads

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After months and months of the State Department blocking the release of the dissent cable, finally a few in the House got access. Getting access was so bad that legislation was about to be introduced to force the issue after several subpoenas.

People climb atop a plane click here for a photo gallery/credits courtesy of The Guardian

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is slamming the Afghanistan dissent cable to which Secretary of State Antony Blinken allowed congressional access Tuesday as “embarrassing” and saying that it debunks the Biden administration’s narrative that it was caught off guard by the country’s swift collapse in 2021.

Issa, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Digital that he was the first committee member to view the dissent channel cable from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and Washington’s response.

The State Department’s “dissent channel” allows for contrary views to be expressed by officials. The document, signed by 23 staffers and diplomats, warned about the possibility of a rapid Taliban advance as the U.S. left the country, which President Joe Biden and other top officials downplayed at the time.

“What we saw was their prediction, with great accuracy, of exactly what was going to happen and what the outcome would be if they did not change their directions,” the congressman said. “We saw a response from the office of the State Department saying, ‘We hear you, and we agree, basically, we don’t take it lightly.’ And then, obviously, we know what they did and didn’t do, which was totally insufficient for the warning that was given.”

“They redacted the specific names, but we now know that many of them were senior executive surrogates, meaning people that are paid at the highest level in the State Department,” he continued. “They knew and understood that there was no way that the Afghan military was going to defend successfully. They did not disagree with that, and as a result, they knew that Kabul would fall within weeks, that the Taliban would do what they have done, which is to continue to kill and persecute individuals, and they allowed it to happen.”

Issa said the cable also revealed that “there was no expectation by the State Department that there would be sustainability” in the region and knew that the billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment that was left behind was going to fall into the Taliban’s hands.

Issa said the cable went out on July 13, 2021, the response came back a week later on July 20, and Kabul officially fell weeks later on Aug. 15.

“Every prediction came through, including the quick collapse of the Afghan army,” he said.

Issa said his next course of action is trying to get the document declassified so that the families of the 13 U.S. service members who were killed during the chaotic withdrawal can get to the bottom of what happened.

“Redacting only a portion of a portion of a sentence takes this from a secret document to a confidential document, and confidential, quite frankly, in this case is even inappropriate,” he said.

“This is classified because it’s embarrassing,” he added. “There’s absolutely no reason the American people shouldn’t see it, and I will not rest until they do.”

“The bottom line is nothing ends here,” added Issa’s communications director, Jonathan Wilcox.

“This obliterates the administration’s big lie on Afghanistan – that this could not have been foretold, nobody could have seen this coming, nothing could have done to prevent it,” he said.

“We know it was received. We know it wasn’t followed,” he continued. “Their personnel on the ground saw this, reported it, warned them and were ignored.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, the State Department accused Republicans of distorting the truth.

“We strongly disagree with the characterizations from some Members of Congress on the contents of the Afghanistan dissent cable,” a spokesperson said. “As Secretary Blinken previously stated in public testimony before Congress, the cable did not suggest the Afghan government and security forces were going to collapse prior to our departure. As the Secretary also said publicly, the Department agreed with the concerns raised in the cable, and in fact, a number of the recommendations the cable made were already in motion. The Secretary personally read and oversaw a response to the dissent cable, and its contents were factored into his thinking.”

“Taking the step of allowing Members of Congress to view the cable, despite the risk that it compromises the purpose of the Dissent Channel, was an extraordinary accommodation and it’s disappointing some Members are choosing to distort the content of the confidential cable,” the spokesperson added.

The State Department referred Fox News Digital to Blinken’s testimony in September 2021 referring to the cable. Continue to read here including the number of times that subpoenas were issued.