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LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) – A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Russia triggered an earthquake-sized blast at a major arsenal in the Tver region on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of a nearby town, war bloggers and some media reported.

Unverified video and images on social media showed a huge ball of flame blasting into the night sky and multiple detonations thundering across a lake about 380 km (240 miles) west of Moscow.

“The enemy hit an ammunition depot in the area of Toropets,” said Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger. “Everything that can burn is already burning there (and exploding).”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, hailed the outcome of the attack without referring specifically to the target.

“A very important result was achieved last night on Russian territory and such actions weaken the enemy,” Zelenskiy said. “I thank everyone involved. Such precision is truly inspiring.”

He thanked the SBU security service, the HUR intelligence service and the Special Operations Forces.

A source in Ukraine’s SBU state security service had earlier told Reuters the drone attack had destroyed a warehouse storing missiles, guided bombs and artillery ammunition.

Russian state media have in the past reported that a major arsenal for conventional weapons was located at the site of the blasts. State media, now subject to military censorship laws, was muted in its reporting on Wednesday.

Igor Rudenya, governor of the Tver region, said that Ukrainian drones had been shot down, that a fire had broken out and that some residents were being evacuated. He did not say what was burning.

One woman told Reuters that members of her family had been evacuated from Toropets.

“A fire started with explosions,” said the woman, who identified herself only as Irina.

Rudenya later said the situation in Toropets was stable as of midday local time (0900 GMT) and that evacuated residents could return. The fire had been put out and there were no recorded fatalities, he said.

Russia and Ukraine each reported dozens of enemy drone attacks on their territory overnight, with Russian forces advancing in eastern Ukraine.

MAJOR EXPLOSION

The size of the main blast shown in the unverified social media video was consistent with 200-240 tons of high explosives detonating, said George William Herbert of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California.

A Toropets chatroom on the Russian social media site VK was flooded with messages of support from other parts of the country and offers of help to people fleeing the town.

Some people were asking whether buildings at specific addresses were still standing.

“People, does anyone know what’s happened to Kudino village??? They told me nothing is left of our house,” posted one woman.

Another woman replied: “It’s horror there.” Kudino is a village 4.5 km (2.8 miles) northeast of Toropets.

Some war bloggers asked how drones could trigger such large blasts at what was thought to be a highly fortified facility.

According to an RIA state news agency report from 2018, Russia was building an arsenal for the storage of missiles, ammunition and explosives in Toropets, a 1,000-year-old town, with a population of just over 11,000.

Dmitry Bulgakov, then a deputy defence minister, told RIA in 2018 that the facility could defend weapons from missiles and even a small nuclear attack. Bulgakov was arrested earlier this year on corruption charges, which he denies.

“It (the concrete facilities) ensures their reliable and safe storage, protects them from air and missile strikes and even from the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion,” RIA quoted Bulgakov as saying at the time.

Some Russians on chat groups expressed anger.

“Why wasn’t the ammunition underground?! What are you doing???? In Kudino, houses were blown away! Why is the forest burning and no one is there… What kind of negligence is this!!!!” one woman posted.

Russia reported that its air defence units had destroyed 54 drones launched against five Russian regions overnight, without mentioning Tver. Ukraine said it had shot down 46 of 52 drones launched by Moscow overnight and that Russia had used three guided air missiles which did not reach their targets.

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Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, Lucy Papachristou, Mark Trevelyan and Tom Balmforth in London and Anastasiia Malenko in Kyiv; Additional reporting by Gerry Doyle in Singapore; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Michael Perry, Christian Schmollinger, William Maclean, Gareth Jones, Philippa Fletcher, Ron Popeski and David Gregorio

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

An influential cybersecurity policy body says that the federal government has implemented more of its recommendations in the past year but that several hard-hitting items still need completion to better protect the U.S. from nation-state hackers and cybercriminals.

According to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission 2.0 — a continuation of the recommendation body chartered by Congress in 2019 to help guide American cybersecurity policymaking — those objectives include establishing a consistent cybersecurity national guard system, codifying a real-time cyber threat sharing platform for government agencies and creating a nation-wide plan to restore critical economic functions in the event of a cyber disaster.

Another incomplete high-priority item is establishing “benefits and burdens” for systemically important entities that, if disrupted, would create significant negative impact on national security, economic activity or public health and safety if they were to malfunction or be sabotaged.

The recommendations in the annual report from CSC 2.0, stood up in late 2021 after the initial CSC mandate sunset, are aimed at cyber officials in the next presidential administration, with the U.S. guaranteed a presidential transition after President Joe Biden this summer decided to not run for a second term.

“Some of our most important [objectives] are still not done,” said Mark Montgomery, who directs CSC 2.0 with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, where the body is now housed. Montgomery said he’s been contacted by the Harris and Trump campaign’s presidential transition teams, who asked about ideas the group has put forward.

“Even though we’re at 80% moving along, three or four of our most important ones out of the  top 10 are not done,” he said in a call with reporters to preview the findings.

Since last year, there’s been a 10% increase in the implementation or near-implementation of the initial CSC March 2020 recommendations, said Jiwon Ma, a senior policy analyst at FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation who helped craft the report.

Of the 82 initial recommendations, almost 80% are either fully implemented or close to it, with an additional 12% making steady progress, she added. This trend is consistent across all 116 recommendations, including those from later recommendation papers, with 80% implemented or nearing completion and another 14% on track for completion.

CSC has been deemed a major force behind contemporary U.S. cyber policy decisions. Members of Congress in the original commission — which included then Reps. Jim Langevin, D-R.I. and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., as well as Sen. Angus King, I-Maine — formed the backbone that created the Office of the National Cyber Director, which has helped the federal government meet various cyber priorities outlined in a sweeping strategy it unveiled last year.

One area that’s yet to be fulfilled is the creation of House and Senate select committees on cybersecurity, the report says. It’s been an inconsistent miss each year the CSC’s findings have been produced, and Montgomery said that it likely won’t move anywhere soon because there’s no motivation in either chamber or political party to do so.

“We’d have to have a dramatic ‘cyber 9/11’ event where the burning ember of blame is pointed at least partially at Congress for not doing proper oversight,” he added. “That is the only way you would get a provision like that passed.”

MIAMI (WSVN) – A 20-year-old man and his co-conspirator have been charged with conspiracy to steal and launder over $230 million in cryptocurrency, and federal authorities said the arrests are connected to an FBI raid of a mansion in Miami.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 20-year-old Malone Lam of Miami and Los Angeles, California, and 21-year-old Jeandiel Serrano of Los Angeles, were placed under arrest Wednesday night.

The federal indictment alleges the duo, along with others, orchestrated cryptocurrency thefts and laundered the proceeds through exchanges and mixing services.

One user on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, uncovered the moment Lam allegedly landed more than $230 million in stolen Bitcoin from a victim in Washington, D.C.

The indictment states the suspects “used the illegally obtained cryptocurrency to purchase international travel, service at nightclubs, numerous luxury automobiles, watches, jewelry, designer handbags, and to pay for rental homes in Los Angeles and Miami.”

The duo are accused of flaunting it all at parties like one recorded on video, showing off the luxury cars and designer handbags.

Lam, a Singapore citizen using the online aliases “Anne Hathaway” and “$$$,” and Serrano, who goes by “VersaceGod” and “@SkidStar,” allegedly accessed victim accounts and transferred cryptocurrency into their control, including over 4,100 Bitcoin from the victim in Washington, D.C. in August.

But it all came to a screeching halt Wednesday evening, when FBI agents busted into a mansion near Northeast 83rd Street and 12th Avenue, located near North Bayshore Drive, just south of Miami Shores.

“I heard what I thought was fireworks,” said an area resident.

Neighbors said the home is a rental property.

Thursday night, FBI officials confirmed Lam and Serrano’s arrests are connected with this raid.

Smoke poured out of the mansion as federal authorities raided during daylight hours and investigated into the night.

7News cameras captured federal agents as they combed through every inch of the property.

City of Miami Police said they assisted FBI agents with Wednesday’s raid.

For neighbors left wondering what went down, they now have their answer.

“We all walk at the same time, so tonight, it’s going to be peace for all,” said an area resident.

Lam and Serrano were set to appear in U.S. District Courts in Florida and California on Thursday.

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The Zovighian Public Office (ZPO) has published a second edition of an open-source intelligence (OSINT) and geolocation report at the one-year mark of the military assault of Azerbaijan against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, known to Armenians as Artsakh. The report, commissioned to explore if Azerbaijan imposed a blockade on the indigenous Armenian population at the Lachin Corridor, shows how an unconventional war began in December 2022 before shifting into a conventional war in September 2023, successfully appropriating the area and expelling the community from their ancestral homeland.

Titled, “From blockade to war: The ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the OSINT study examines and refutes three consistent claims made by the Azerbaijani government during the blockade:

• Claim 1: There was no road closure and no blockade.
• Claim 2: Azerbaijan had the right to erect a checkpoint at its border with Armenia.
• Claim 3: There was no blockade because alternative roads could be used.

“It was a perfect blockade,” said ZPO Founder Lynn Zovighian, who co-authored the report. “Azerbaijan exploited geographic and geopolitical vulnerabilities, under the cover of international credibility, and successfully ethnically cleansed the historic Artsakhi Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh with no consequences.”

“One year since the people of Artsakh were forced to flee their homeland, families continue to suffer from losing their homes and livelihoods. This report painstakingly demonstrates the genocidal strategy of Azerbaijan against the Artsakhi Armenians,” said Gegham Stepanyan Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Studying the first claim, the report shows how the so-called eco-activist protest at the Lachin Corridor Road created both a physical obstruction and hostile space, barring all safe and free movement of food, medicine, and essential items from reaching the population, instigating a population-wide humanitarian disaster. A geolocation study confirmed that there were no mines in the immediate vicinity and that any protest of alleged Armenian mining activities in the region was unexplained and unjustified.

Analyzing the second claim clarified how pressure by the international community pushed Azerbaijan to replace the so-called protestors with an official checkpoint, further militarizing and institutionalizing the comprehensive siege of Nagorno-Karabakh. Insufficient efforts by the international community to stop Azerbaijan’s siege and their manipulations of sovereign rights and territorial integrity, the checkpoint effectively blocked all movement of not only residents and trade, but also humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Studying the third claim helped confirm that no viable alternative route to the Lachin Corridor existed by land between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

The report concludes that Azerbaijan was able to manipulate a confounded rhetoric to build diplomatic credibility with the international community, without needing to give away any negotiating power or backtrack on any of their positions.

“Almost two years since the illegal blockade began, this credibility remains very intact, and has been fortified by Azerbaijan’s further crimes, intentional failures to implement orders by the International Court of Justice, and the genocidal aggression and forced displacement of our people. Unfortunately, the perpetrators of the genocide have remained unpunished and have even been encouraged by the international community, winning their bid to host COP29,” explained Artak Beglaryan, Founder of Artsakh Union and former Minister of State and Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan has a history of weaponizing environmental causes and platforms, and will be hosting COP29 in November.

An expert panel will be hosted on September 30 to present key OSINT findings featured in this report with diplomats, analysts, and journalists.

“High quality evidence is essential in seeking justice and accountability for international crimes. Azerbaijan’s crimes against the Armenians of Artsakh Nagorno-Karabakh remain unpunished for now, but the collection and preservation of credible and reliable evidence will ensure that those most responsible can be held responsible at any time, and that time will surely come,” said international human rights lawyer Sheila Paylan.

This new edition is now available in the Arabic language as the Gaza War nears its one-year mark on October 7.

“Like Azerbaijan, Israel is successfully employing similar strategies in Gaza against the Palestinian people today,” explained Zovighian.

Israel and Azerbaijan have an intimate decades-long military and trade friendship based on oil, advanced military technology, and intelligence sharing.

Zovighian added, “The success of the Nagorno-Karabakh blockade and takeover by Azerbaijan taught Israel that they too could terrorize, starve, and expel an entire population with a free hand and no consequences. This is what happens when perpetrators and criminals in power are not held to account.”

The Artsakh Union, a grassroots civil society organization, was established by Artak Beglaryan following the forced displacement of the Armenians of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) after the genocidal aggression and nine-month-long blockade by Azerbaijan in 2023. Its mission is to advocate for the collective and individual rights of the Artsakh Armenians globally. It is committed to facilitating international justice and accountability and protect the right of return of the historic Armenian community to their ancestral homeland.

The Zovighian Public Office was established in 2015 to serve communities facing crises and crimes of atrocity. We are dedicated to amplifying their voices through research, culture, advocacy, and diplomacy.

In December, 1954, the United States Senate gathered for the purpose of censuring the junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy. During the preceding months, McCarthy, whose anti-Communist bromides had made him among the most feared and powerful figures in Congress, had suffered a calamitous decline in fortunes. He had been thoroughly humiliated in the nationally televised Army-McCarthy hearings and endured lacerating criticism from the journalist Edward R. Murrow. The once potent brand of innuendo, fearmongering, and outright lying that brought the senator to prominence was now the central reason for his rebuke. The traditional narrative of McCarthy’s demise centers on the most visible and operatic moments, but there was also an underlying political logic that facilitated them. In 1950, when it was reported that McCarthy, a Republican, falsely claimed to have the names of two hundred and five Communists employed by the State Department, Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House. In 1954, when the Army-McCarthy hearings took place, Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate (narrowly) and the White House, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was one thing to cast toxic conspiracies that made Democrats look bad, but quite another to spread falsehoods that made his own party look inept. In the end, twenty-two Republican senators voted in favor of censure.

Ever since Donald Trump emerged as a Presidential candidate, observers have compared him to McCarthy, not simply because of their demagogic commonalities and mutual ties to the attorney Roy Cohn but also for the hostile symbiosis they forged with the media outlets of their respective eras. The aftermath of last week’s midterm elections suggests an additional area of comparison: the narratives attached to their political declines. The G.O.P. has abided all manner of corrupt, dishonest, anti-democratic, and potentially illegal behavior from Trump, including his incitement of an armed insurrection against the United States Congress, but the lacklustre midterm performance of Republicans seems to suggest that, like McCarthy sixty-eight years ago, the former President has reached a point where his demagogy has become a liability for his own party.

Few are the demagogues noted for their superior emotional-regulation abilities, but even by that standard the reports that the former President Trump is alternately enraged and defensive over the results of the midterm elections are noteworthy. Not since his grudging exit from the White House in January, 2021, has he inspired such levels of Schadenfreude among his critics. This election—in which the Republicans picked up far fewer congressional seats than expected, the Senate remains in the hands of Democrats, and even those Trump-affiliated candidates who prevailed seemed to have done so against real political headwinds—is being read as a referendum on the dwindling viability of MAGA-style Republicanism, as well as on the former President’s prospects in 2024. Republicans are, tentatively, distancing themselves from the Trump brand, and media observers have noted the stream of criticism emanating from Rupert Murdoch-owned news properties. The cumulative effect of these developments is a barely concealed hope that the G.O.P. will jettison Trump like loose cargo on a storm-battered freighter, and that the most volatile and dangerous elements of American politics will sink along with him. But, for reasons that should be more than familiar to us by now, the path the MAGA movement takes toward irrelevance is likely not so simple—if, in fact, it is headed in that direction.

In the seven years since Trump took his ride down the gold-colored escalator in Trump Tower to declare his candidacy for President of the United States, the movement that coalesced around him has died a thousand deaths, only to climb out of its shallow grave before the first trowel of dirt hit the casket. The political landscape in front of Trump is different and far more formidable than it was even in 2016, when he was a political novice. Notable Presidents—Ulysses S. Grant and Eisenhower among them—had been elected without much political experience. But, in 2024, a prospective Trump would be attempting reëlection after having lost a Presidential election, a feat that only the Democrat Grover Cleveland achieved, in 1892, by defeating Benjamin Harrison, who was himself hobbled by divisions among Republicans. Moreover, in 2016, Trump sliced through a fairly unimpressive field of G.O.P. competitors in the primaries. This time, though, he could face a significant primary challenger, in the form of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis. All this seemingly points to the diminished viability of one of the most disruptive political movements we’ve seen in modern American history. Yet it’s worth thinking about what exactly Trumpism is and how it came to be before penning another potentially premature eulogy on its behalf.

It would be easy at this point to saddle Trump with all the ills and the disastrous implications of what we’ve come to refer to as “Trumpism.” But the most significant parallel between Trump’s careers in business and in politics is his lack of standing as a creator. His talent lies not in organizational leadership or in shepherding a novel concept from its inception to a place of prominence but, rather, in marketing. Trump emerged as a political force in the middle of the first Black Presidency and adroitly played to racist and xenophobic fears that attended Barack Obama’s election. He lied prolifically about Obama’s birth certificate. In early 2011, Trump claimed to have people looking into the matter, “and they cannot believe what they’re finding.” As with Trump’s other canards, he never actually said what these people—if they existed at all—were finding.

It should be recalled, however, that Trump did not invent birtherism; he simply recognized the broader political potential of a ridiculous lie and ran with it. Similarly, the phenomenon known as “McCarthyism” had roots that preceded the 1946 election that sent McCarthy to the Senate. Notably, the House Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by Representative Martin Dies, Jr., the Democrat of Texas, was formed a full decade earlier, and its combative use of Red-baiting innuendo against the subjects of its inquiries provided a template for McCarthy’s approach. Yet the disparate elements of intolerance for dissent, including the suppression of First Amendment rights, and the broader currents of social paranoia might have remained just that but for McCarthy’s ability to synthesize them into a cohesive whole.

The persecution associated with anti-Communism survived McCarthy. It took a series of Supreme Court decisions in 1957 and 1958—most notably the Yates v. United States ruling, which overturned the convictions of several Communists prosecuted under the Smith Act—to curtail the most egregious excesses committed in the name of patriotism. Trump did not single-handedly inject the strains of intolerance, racism, nativism, belligerence, and a durable sympathy for anti-democratic behavior into the Republican Party, and there is no reason to believe that his absence would cause them to evaporate. Immigrants make up just under fourteen per cent of the population of the United States—almost triple their proportion in 1970. The age-old fears about racial and ethnic replacement that Trump so deftly manipulated in 2016 remain ambient. Moreover, the drive to curate the electorate via voter suppression has lost none of its resonance on the right. In fact, the razor-thin margins in last week’s elections point to the outsized effect that suppressing even a sliver of specific electorates can yield. And, paradoxically, the emerging audacity among right-wing media to criticize Trump points to how little has changed. Part of what has driven the Republican Party so far to the right has been the influence of these same conservative outlets, whose criticism can spark a primary challenge for Republicans deemed too moderate. They helped foster the environment in which Trumpism could not only emerge but thrive. If they play a role in undermining Trump, this serves to reinforce their role as the rudders of the G.O.P.

For critical observers, it has always been apparent that everything Trump offered the public came slathered in snake oil. That is either a statement about the willful blindness of the American public or a barometer of how many Americans view those dangerous liabilities as assets. In either case, the McCarthy example provides at least one other insight: fixating on the salesman misses the point. The problem is, and always has been, the size of the audience rushing to buy what he’s been selling. ♦