Heading towards World War III?

Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) announced on Friday that it had begun conducting a “filtration” of civilians in Balakleya, the town in Kharkov Region reportedly taken by forces of the Kiev government. SBI agents will be checking for those who “may pose a threat to national security,” the agency said.

“The purpose of the measures is to prevent the subversive activities of the Russians and their allies,” the SBI said on social media, adding it would “carefully process information about persons who cooperated with aggressors” and hold “collaborators and traitors strictly accountable.”

“The time of reckoning has come,” the SBI concluded.

Ukraine had charged the town’s mayor with treason in April, accusing him of collaborating with Russian troops and helping them distribute humanitarian aid.

Balakleya is about 90 kilometers (55 miles) southeast of Kharkov, in the Izyum district. The town had around 25,000 residents before the conflict in Ukraine escalated in February. Russian troops took control of it at the end of March, but Kiev claims to have retaken it this week. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky shared a video of a Ukrainian flag flying over the town’s administration on Thursday evening.

Kiev’s announcement of “filtration” comes just days after the US and its allies condemned Russia over its own alleged use of the practice. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were “forcibly transferred” to Russia through a “vast and punitive” network of detention camps, the US State Department claimed on Wednesday. These claims were then echoed at the UN Security Council by US and Albanian diplomats.

Russia was not conducting “filtration,” Moscow’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, replied, but documenting and registering the displaced persons from the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, as well as Ukrainians seeking refuge in territories under Russian control.

“As far as we can tell, Poland and other EU countries are applying the same procedures to Ukrainian refugees, but I’ll let them explain themselves,” he told the Security Council, accusing the Western countries of projection. Nebenzia also pointed out the long stream of Ukrainians voluntarily crossing into Russian-held territory at a checkpoint in Zaporozhye.

www.rt.com/russia/562530-ukraine-balakleya-filtration-civilians

Hungary’ stance on Russia and the conflict in Ukraine could potentially see it exiting the EU, the Czech European affairs minister has warned.

The EU is “a unity of many voices” that always finds common ground despite any disputes, Mikulas Bek told Cesky Rozhlas Plus radio on Thursday.

“Negotiations are often tough in the EU, and many countries could engage in them. But Hungary, in my opinion, has come a long way, reaching the edge an abyss, and now it has to decide whether to go back from that edge or risk a jump, the consequences of which I don’t even want to speculate on,” the minister said.

On the prospects of Budapest leaving the EU altogether, Bek said it’s theoretically possible.

Budapest has remained relatively neutral since the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine in late February, and refused to send weapons to Kiev unlike many of its neighbors. It has been critical of the EU sanctions against Russia, calling them ill-conceived and self-defeating. Hungary, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy, is exempt from the bloc-wide ban on Russian oil.

The Czech European affairs minister, whose country currently presides over the EU Council, pledged to work hard in the coming months to make sure Hungary stays in line with European policies.

www.rt.com/news/562534-hungary-ukraine-eu-czech

Ukraine's military says its forces have retaken over 3,000 sq km (1,158 sq miles) during a rapid counter-offensive in eastern Ukraine.

The remarkable advance, if confirmed, means Kyiv's forces have tripled their stated gains in little over 48 hours.

On Thursday evening, President Zelensky put the figure at 1,000 sq km, and then 2,000 sq km on Saturday evening.

The BBC cannot verify the Ukrainian figures, and journalists have been denied access to the frontlines.

On Saturday, the eastern counter-attack saw Ukrainian troops enter the vital Russian-held supply towns of Izyum and Kupiansk.

But UK defence officials have warned that fighting has continued outside those towns. And officials in Kyiv said Ukrainian forces were still fighting to gain control of a number of settlements around Izyum.

Russia's defence ministry confirmed its forces' retreat from Izyum itself and Kupiansk, which it said would allow its forces "to regroup" in territory held by Moscow-backed separatists.

The Russian ministry also confirmed the withdrawal of troops from a third key town, Balaklyia, in order to "bolster efforts" on the Donetsk front. Ukrainian forces entered the town on Friday.

At the same time, the head of the Russia-installed administration in the Kharkiv region recommended that its people evacuate to Russia "to save lives".

Unverified footage on social media appeared to show long queues of traffic building up at border crossings.

And the governor of the Belgorod border region in Russia said mobile catering, heating, and medical assistance would be available to people queuing.

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62867560

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has celebrated the reported advance of his troops amid the ongoing large-scale offensive in Kherson Region in the country’s east.

“The movement of our soldiers continues in different directions of the front. To date, as part of active operations since the beginning of September, about 2,000 [square] kilometers of our territory have already been liberated,” he said in a video address late on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, The Russian Ministry of Defense acknowledged the withdrawal of its troops from multiple locations across Ukraine’s Kharkov region. Over the past three days, soldiers stationed in the area have been “re-deployed” to territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the ministry claimed.

Russian military explains partial withdrawalREAD MORE: Russian military explains partial withdrawal
“In order to achieve the goals of the special military operation, a decision was made to regroup troops in the areas of Balakleya and Izyum in order to build up efforts in the Donetsk direction,” the Russian military said in a statement.

www.rt.com/russia/562571-zelensky-ukraine-offensive-liberation

The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed the withdrawal of troops from multiple locations across Ukraine’s Kharkov region. The development comes amid a offensive in the area by Kiev.

“In order to achieve the goals of the special military operation, a decision was made to regroup troops in the areas of Balakleya and Izyum in order to build up efforts in the Donetsk direction,” the Russian military said in a statement on Saturday.

The troops stationed in the area have been "re-deployed" over the past three days into territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the ministry claimed. During the operation, the military has performed a “number of distracting and demonstration activities imitating the real action of troops,” it added, without providing any further detail on said maneuvers.

In order to prevent “damage to Russian troops,” the military has been subjecting Ukrainian units in the area to “powerful” artillery, missile and aircraft attacks, the ministry said, claiming destruction of over 100 armor pieces and artillery, as well as elimination of “more than 2,000 Ukrainian and foreign fighters” in the past three days.

The withdrawal comes amid a massive Ukrainian offensive that was launched in Kharkov Region on Thursday. The assault was preceded by attempts to advance in other areas, namely near the Russia-controlled southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.

www.rt.com/russia/562559-mod-explains-withdrawal

Researchers at the University of Adelaide have published a landmark paper on the activities of bot accounts on Twitter related to the conflict in Ukraine. These Australian findings are truly staggering – of 5.2 million tweets on the social media network from February 23 to March 8, between 60 to 80% were shared by fake accounts. What’s more, 90% of those posts were pro-Ukraine.

In particular, these accounts pushed the hashtags #IStandWithUkraine, #IStandWithZelenskyy, and #ISupportUkraine, and myths like the ‘Ghost of Kiev’, a fictional Ukrainian fighter pilot who is farcically alleged to have taken down 40 Russian jets within hours of the military operation commencing.

Significant spikes in activity were recorded at key points in the initial stages of the fighting, such as Russia’s capture of Kherson on March 2, and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant on March 4.

The accounts identified were overwhelmingly English language, leading the researchers to conclude these fake users sought to “drive more disruption in English-speaking countries” and “influence a variety of user groups.” Despite the significant focus on English, Ukrainian bots also employed the Russian language to “cause more disruption” in the country.

Leaked document exposes hidden Western hand behind new British-style anti-worker laws in Ukraine
Read more Leaked document exposes hidden Western hand behind new British-style anti-worker laws in Ukraine
The accounts were successful in their objective of stimulating discussions and trends around particular topics, kickstarting and increasing online discussion around a number of subjects, including the question of whether Ukrainians should flee the country. The researchers recorded “significant flows” of information from Ukrainian bots to non-bot accounts.

The study is the first analysis of social media content related to the conflict, and covers a very small time period – just two weeks. It is almost inevitable that the level of pro-Kiev sentiment expressed by users – troll and organic alike – will have increased even further beyond the 90% recorded during this timeframe. Numerous commentators have drawn attention to the weaponization of Twitter, Facebook, et al in support of the Western proxy war in Ukraine.

One need only spend a few minutes scrolling major social media networks to identify a profusion of anonymous, recently registered users pumping out pro-Ukraine, pro-NATO, and pro-war propaganda, and attacking anyone critical of ascendant Western narratives. It is, in the words of writer Caitlin Johnstone, “the most aggressively trolled war of all time.”

Unsurprisingly though, the Western media – which remains overwhelmingly committed to not publishing any negative information about Ukraine whatsoever – has universally ignored the bombshell findings of this academic paper. You can only imagine the blanket coverage if the findings were related to Russia.

The hesitancy of corporate news outlets to report on matters that do not reflect positively on Kiev is nonetheless somewhat understandable, as on the vanishingly rare occasions this has happened, the backlash has been savage.

On August 4, for example, Amnesty International published a report on Ukrainian troops basing forces and weaponry in residential areas, including schools and hospitals, which both endangers civilians and constitutes a war crime. Three days later, CBS broadcast a documentary showing that just 30% of the vast Western arm shipments to Kiev actually reach the frontline, the rest disappearing or being sold on the black market.

Such was the incendiary response to these reports on social media, Amnesty was successfully bullied into apologizing for any “anger and distress” its disclosures caused – CBS went one further and pulled its documentary from the web. The academic study would tend to suggest that much of this counterblast was in fact attributable to automated accounts, and deliberately intended to create the false impression that condemnation of both organizations was omnipresent.

The University of Adelaide paper also raises obvious questions about the true nature of something called NAFO – the ‘North Atlantic Fellas Organization’ – which was a leading force in the online counterblast against Amnesty and CBS. NAFO has a history of harassing pro-Russian voices and mass reporting accounts until they are temporarily or permanently suspended. Many prominent officials have praised the group, and it has received positive profiles in The Economist, Politico, and the Washington Post.

As is so often the case, dubious tactics and conduct of which Russia is widely accused cease to be villainous when it’s Western countries and their allies doing it. One might reasonably ask whether the entire mainstream media controversy over Kremlin bots on social media was just a smokescreen for far larger and more effective operations much closer to home.

www.rt.com/news/562509-ukrainian-bots-in-twitter

The last working power unit was switched off at the Russia-controlled Zaporozhye nuclear power station early on Sunday, the local authorities and the plant’s Ukrainian operator said.

The sixth reactor “was stopped at 3:45am. Now it doesn’t generate electricity,” Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Zaporozhye Region administration, told RIA-Novosti.

The decision to shut down was made due to continued shelling of the plant by Ukraine and damage to the power lines, he said. The constantly changing mode in which the reactors and turbines were forced to operate, because of the attacks, created the risk of an accident, the official explained.

According to Rogov, the unit had already been operating at minimum capacity for several days.

Ukrainian state-owned company Energoatom has also confirmed the so-called ‘cold shutdown’ of the last unit, with the Zaporozhye facility coming to a complete halt.

The largest nuclear power plant in Europe has been controlled by Russian forces since March, but is still operated by Ukrainian staff.

Ukraine accused of cutting itself off from power supply
Read more Ukraine accused of cutting itself off from power supply
Despite the shutdown of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, energy supply to the nearby town of Energodar is continuing as usual, the local authorities assured.

The nuclear facility and Energodar have repeatedly sustained missile and artillery strikes in recent weeks, which Russia has blamed on Kiev’s forces. It also reported several failed attempts to retake the power plant by Ukrainian saboteurs.

Moscow has warned that the continued attacks could cause a nuclear disaster that would eclipse the 1986 Chernobyl incident and affect many countries in Europe.

Ukraine claims that Russia has turned the plant into a military base and that it is shelling the facility itself in order to pin the blame on Kiev.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose inspectors visited the plant in early September, has demanded that all attacks on the plant “be stopped immediately,” but refrained from identifying the party responsible for them.

www.rt.com/russia/562575-zaporozhye-nuclear-ukraine-shutdown