North Carolina Zoo announces birth of three red wolf pups

May 10 (UPI) -- North Carolina Zoo has announced the birth of three red wolf pups -- who are one of the most endangered animals on the planet.

The zoo uploaded to Twitter on Monday photos of the pups being held by the veterinary team. The small newborn's can fit inside one hand.

"Introducing the newest addition to the North Carolina Zoo: a trio of red wolf pups! Three brothers were born on April 20th to mom Ayita, and dad, Denali.

There is an estimated 15 to 17 red wolves living int he wild and another 241 existing in captivity.

In April, a littler of six red wolf pups were born for the first time since 2018 at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina. The litter included four females an two males.

CDC looks to rebuild trust after sweeping review
By Serena McNiff, HealthDay News

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies before a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to examine the federal response to COVID-19 and new emerging variants on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on January 11. 

Pool photo by Shawn Thew/UPI | License Photo

In April, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched a new center to better forecast infectious disease outbreaks. It also underwent a monthlong review to examine their current systems and inform future strategies.

Together, these announcements paint a picture of an agency at a crossroads, in the wake of enormous public scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most recently, the CDC came under fire for paying a controversial data storage company for location data from the phones of tens of millions of Americans to study their adherence to public health measures, according to documents obtained by Vice. More broadly, the criticisms have centered around inconsistent messaging and the unsophisticated data collection systems that inform the agency's guidance.

CDC leadership has suggested that the agency's overhaul is partly in response to these criticisms. In a statement announcing that the CDC would be undergoing a comprehensive review, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, "Never in its 75-year history has [the] CDC had to make decisions so quickly, based on often limited, real-time and evolving science... As we've challenged our state and local partners, we know that now is the time for CDC to integrate the lessons learned into a strategy for the future."

According to Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff at the CDC, many of the agency's difficulties have been exacerbated by political interference.

"This is what it looks like when you run a public health response or any type of emergency response out of the White House," McGowan said during a HealthDay Now interview. "It takes a very complicated process and response and makes it 10 times or 100 times more complicated than it needs to be. And every time that a guidance document is put out, or every time an interview is requested, there are 10 or 15 different people from [the Department of Health and Human Services] on up to the White House that has to confirm or sign off on those documents."

McGowan was tapped to join the CDC by the Trump administration in 2018, where he served for two years before resigning. He shared his experiences in a 2021 interview with The New York Times, citing political meddling from the White House and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as one of the reasons for his departure. The Trump administration's efforts to downplay the pandemic and control the CDC's messaging have been widely reported.

But despite promises to the contrary, the Biden administration hasn't seemed to loosen the political grip. In fact, there were far fewer CDC briefings on COVID-19 in 2021 than there were in 2020, when Trump was in office. "We're asking the CDC to be nimble and flexible and communicate faster. Yet we put all of these burdens in their way of being able to do that," McGowan said.

The fallout over messaging has cost the agency some public trust: In an NBC poll from January, only 44% of Americans said they trust the CDC's information about COVID-19. According to Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Michigan's chief medical executive, dwindling public trust in the CDC has a trickle-down effect, jeopardizing the authority of public health messaging across the board.

"When the public doesn't trust what the CDC is saying, that also affects the public trust that we have at the state level and that our local health departments have with their communities," Bagdasarian told HealthDay News. "And I'm also hearing from medical providers, from my colleagues who are practicing clinically, that it's affected their clinical relationships with patients. It becomes just a lack of public trust in healthcare recommendations."

As the evaluation of the CDC wraps up and the agency looks to improve its communication strategy in the future, Bagdasarian emphasized the importance of finding better ways to communicate uncertainty. She said public health authorities should clarify that recommendations will evolve with the science and change over time. "So far, I think that hasn't been done. Guidance has been issued as 'this is the new guidance,' when instead it should be, 'this is the guidance for where we are right now, but we expect things to change,'" she added.

The systems for collecting and analyzing data are another weak point for the agency. "The CDC is only as good as the entities that provide the information to them," McGowan said. "And I think it's important to understand that the CDC really owns no data of its own."

Managing infectious disease outbreaks properly requires massive amounts of data. On the most basic level, data allows the CDC to track the number of infections, infection severity, where infections are occurring, and who is affected. There is no comprehensive or standardized system for collecting this information. Instead, the CDC gathers data from a patchwork of sources, including private sector companies, academic institutions, and state health departments. States relay regional case numbers to the CDC on their own timetable and with varying levels of precision as part of a voluntary reporting system.

With more extensive data, the CDC can run better analyses to help predict future trends or outbreaks. "We now need to be preemptive, proactive, and look ahead and provide this type of information very much like a weather forecast, and then also provide instructions for how we want people to prepare," Bagdasarian said.

The CDC is trying to do that with the new forecasting center, which will focus on modeling the path of outbreaks to inform more timely recommendations. These forecasts will allow public health authorities to "start messaging when we know that there are surges expected," according to Bagdasarian. "So, now is the time to get ready. Make sure you've got over-the-counter tests at home. Make sure that if you are eligible for a booster, that you have a plan to get a booster."

However, the CDC is limited in the data it can collect. In an interview with "60 Minutes," Walensky explained that the agency is the "compiler of the data, but we do not have the authority to collect it," according to CBS. With a public health emergency in effect due to COVID-19, the CDC has benefited from looser restrictions, allowing the agency to receive more direct reports from laboratories and hospitals. The CDC could lose access to this data when the COVID-19 emergency declaration expires, which, barring another renewal, is scheduled to occur in July.

How the agency will go about enacting the goals they've signaled in recent months remains uncertain. Obstacles include limitations on data collection and a lack of flexible funding.

"The CDC needs to have congressional funding that is sustainable and flexible. It also needs the data authorities to truly do its job," McGowan said. "And if we wait until Congress temporarily gives funding or temporarily gives authorities during the next public health emergency, we've already failed as a country because the people are already sick, and we need the CDC to have those authorities and that funding now and during peacetime so that we can better prepare so that we never have to live through something like COVID again."

More information

Find out more about the CDC's disease forecasting center.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Cancer nutrition misinformation is common on Pinterest

By HealthDay News


The brand logo for Pinterest hangs outside of the 

New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City on July 23, 2018. 

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

About one-third of cancer nutrition information on the social media site Pinterest is misleading and posted by businesses trying to sell products, according to a new study.

"Our results revealed a significant amount of misinformation about cancer and nutrition," said study co-author Tracy Crane, an associate professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

"There's a pervasiveness of health claims that are not necessarily valid or coming from reliable sources," Crane said in a university news release.

Crane and colleagues searched Pinterest using terms like "cancer recipe" or "cancer nutrition," to replicate the kinds of queries made by cancer patients.

RELATED Cancer patients may be more susceptible to COVID-19 misinformation

Nearly half the responses to their searches were on "for-profit" sites. Also, numerous health claims featured terms such as anti-cancer, cancer-fighting or cancer-busting.

Many posts exaggerated the ability of food and/or supplements to cure cancer. One even claimed a "terminal cancer patient reverses disease with anti-angiogenic foods," which is almost certainly false, according to the authors.

"Around 33% of the times we went to Pinterest, someone tried to sell us something that claimed to be anti-cancer or cancer cell killing," Crane said. "These health claims may or may not be true. But put yourself in the shoes of a cancer patient. They see buzzwords around these products and may automatically be inclined to purchase them."

RELATED Bogus information on cancer common online, study shows

Posts targeted both patients and caregivers, and many focused on breast cancer. Only about 18% of posters listed any health-related qualifications.

The study findings were published online recently in the journal Cancer.

"The key takeaway is for patients and providers to be aware that there is quite a bit of misinformation online, and that online misinformation should be part of the conversation between providers and patients," Crane said.

RELATED Misinformation lowers vaccinations, raises risks

"Patients want to find out all they can about their disease, but we need to be concerned for their internet hygiene and guide them to reliable places to find information, like the American Cancer Society, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Association for Cancer Research," Crane added.

She said healthcare providers need to identify the best ways to help patients determine if online information is reliable. They might also create handouts and other materials to help patients and caregivers find reputable sources.

"We live in a digital world now, and that fundamentally changes how people get their information. Providers need to be aware of this and respond," Crane said. "We need to be asking more questions about where people are getting their information and how that may be affecting their health."

More information

To learn more about nutrition for cancer patients, go to the American Cancer Society.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Exposure to chemicals rising among pregnant women

By HealthDay News

Researches checked urine samples of pregnant women for 103 chemicals, mostly from pesticides, plastics and replacement chemicals for BPA and phthalates. More than 80% of the chemicals were found in at least one of the women in the study and more than one-third were found in a majority of the women. 

Photo courtesy of Max Pixel.

Exposure to potentially harmful chemicals is on the rise among pregnant women in the United States, a new study warns.

"This is the first time we've been able to measure the amounts of chemicals in such a large and diverse group of pregnant women -- not just identify chemicals," senior study author Tracey Woodruff, director of the University of California, San Francisco Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, said in a university news release.

For the study, Woodruff's team analyzed 12 years of urine samples from 171 women in California, Georgia, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York and Puerto Rico enrolled in the U.S. National Institutes of Health Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes program.

About one-third (34%) were White, 40% were Hispanic, 20% were Black, and the remaining 6% were from other or multiple groups.

The study authors checked the urine samples for 103 chemicals, mostly from pesticides, plastics and replacement chemicals for BPA and phthalates.

More than 80% of the chemicals were found in at least one of the women in the study and more than one-third were found in a majority of the women. Some of these chemicals were present in higher amounts than seen in earlier studies, the researchers reported.

Many of the chemicals that the women had been exposed to were new forms of chemicals that have been banned or phased out, but that may be just as harmful as the ones they replaced.

The researchers also found many of the women had been exposed to neonicotinoids, a kind of pesticide that is toxic to bees, according to the study published online Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Non-white women, those with lower levels of education, those who were single and those who had been exposed to tobacco had higher levels of overall chemical exposure, the findings showed.

Hispanics had especially high levels of parabens, which are used as preservatives, as well as phthalates and bisphenols, which are used in plastics.

"While pesticides and replacement chemicals were prevalent in all women, we were surprised to find that Latinas had substantially higher levels of parabens, phthalates and bisphenols," said study first author Jessie Buckley. She is an associate professor of environmental health and engineering and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore.

"This could be the result of higher exposures to products with chemicals, such as processed foods or personal care products," Buckley suggested.


Exposure to chemicals can come from air, food, water, plastics and other industrial and consumer products. Although these chemicals can pose risks to pregnancy and child development, few are routinely monitored in people, the study authors noted.

More information

The U.S. Office on Women's Health offers pregnancy health and safety tips.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.




Sponsored

Yoga teacher holds scorpion pose for 29 minutes, breaks world record

Yash Moradiya broke a Guinness World Record by holding the scorpion yoga pose 

for 29 minutes and 4 seconds. Photo courtesy of Guinness World Records

May 10 (UPI) -- A yoga instructor in India broke a Guinness World Record by holding the difficult scorpion pose for 29 minutes and 4 seconds.

Yash Moradiya, 22, a Dubai native living in India, said he took on the record for longest time to hold the scorpion position as a means of raising awareness of the benefits of yoga.

"The scorpion position, particularly, is all about stability. The longer we hold the pose, the better we learn to establish the mental resilience to survive any critical situation we face in life with grace," Moradiya told the Khaleej Times. "Yoga has the ability to transform our physical and mental well-being, driving us to unlock our hidden potential of our bodies away from limiting thoughts."

Moradiya, who has been practicing yoga since he was 8 years old, said he has been working on his endurance in the scorpion position for five years.

He successfully held the position for 29 minutes and 4 seconds, handily defeating the previous record of 4 minutes and 47 seconds.

PATRIARCHY IS RAPE

'Sins of the Amish' docu-series explores rape in Amish communities

"Sins of the Amish" follows survivors in the Amish community.

 Photo courtesy of Peacock


May 10 (UPI) -- Peacock released the trailer for its true crime docu-series Sins of the Amish on Tuesday. The two part series premieres May 24.

Sins of the Amish follows Amish women who are pursuing justice against men in the community who raped them. One survivor alleges her biological father raped her when she was five.


"The odds of an Amish woman getting raped by a guy within their own community, it's 1 out of every 6, on a good day," one survivor says.

Another survivor discusses the Amish community bussing in people to support her attacker. One young woman calls her attacker a pedophile.

"Amish communities view going to the police as a greater sin than the rape itself," another survivor says.

Sins of the Amish explores the Amish and Mennonite communities and the roles of women in them. While many see the Amish as a peaceful community, as portrayed in films like Witness, the docu-series delves into abuse and mind-control that keeps women subservient to men.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Ex-Coca-Cola chemist sentenced to 14 years for stealing trade secrets for China

The Justice Department on Monday said a woman from Lansing, Mich., who worked for Coca-Cola was sentenced to 14 years for stealing trade secrets for the benefit of China. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo

May 10 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Tennessee has sentenced a chemical engineer to 14 years in prison for conspiring to steal secret chemical formulas to create the coating inside of beverage cans and use it to set up a new Beijing-supported company in China.

Xiaorong "Shannon" You was sentenced Monday after a jury convicted her last month following a 13-day trial on charges of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, conspiracy to commit economic espionage, possession of stolen trade secrets, economic espionage and wire fraud, the Justice Department said.

The sentence also includes three years of supervised release and a fine of $200,000.

"The defendant stole valuable trade secrets and intended to use them to benefit not only a foreign company, but also the government of China," Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department's National Security Division said in a statement.

You was convicted of stealing secret formals to create bispheno-A-free coating, a chemical used to line beverage cans and food containers to prevent their contents from coming into contact with the metal surface. The coating protects the container from corrosion and its contents from contamination.

According to the indictment, You gained access to the formulas developed at a cost of more than $120 million by Dow Chemical and other companies while being employed by The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, Ga., as its principle engineer for global research and then as a packaging application development manager for Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport, Tenn.

Federal prosecutors said she worked at Coca-Cola from December 2012 to August 2017 before becoming employed the next month by the Eastman Chemical Company. At both companies she was among a handful of employees with access to the trade secrets in question, they said.

The indictment states that until recently beverage cans and containers were coated with the chemical bisphenol-A but due to its possible harmful effects companies began searching for an alternative, and developed bispheno-A-free coating.

Prosecutors said You participated in a conspiracy to steal the bispheno-A-free formula to set up a coating company in China with Weihai Jinhong Group.

The indictment states that the group had received millions of dollars from the Chinese government to support the new company and that You intended for her theft to benefit not only Beijing but also the province of Shandong, the city of Weihai and the Chinese Communist Party.

"Stealing technology isn't just a crime against a company -- It's a crime against American workers whose jobs and livelihoods are impacted," said Bradley Benavides, acting director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.

You's case is one of dozens the Justice Department prosecuted under its now-shuttered China Initiative, which the previous Trump administration launched in 2018 to investigate economic espionage for China.

The program resulted in charges against numerous Chinese academics and researchers but attracted criticism of departmental bias, and was shutdown in late February.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Mississippi sues Brett Favre, dozens of others over welfare spending scheme


Brett Favre was sued in civil court Monday in connection to a sprawling welfare spending scandal in Mississippi.

 File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo


May 10 (UPI) -- The Mississippi Department of Human Services has filed a lawsuit against retired football legend Brett Favre, retired professional wrestler Ted DiBiase and more than two dozen other people and companies in a bid to recover millions of dollars in misspent welfare funds.

The department announced Monday in a statement that it had filed the civil lawsuit against 38 parties previously identified in an audit report published in September of having wrongfully received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds.

State auditor Shad White, who authored last fall's audit report, said he applauds the filing of the lawsuit and is grateful Mississippi is taking the next step toward securing justice for taxpayers.

"We knew this day would eventually come," he said in a statement. "We will continue to work alongside our federal partners -- who have been given access to all our evidence for more than two years -- to make sure the case is fully investigated."

The state is seeking to recover some $24 million in misspent funds from TANF, a program to provide assistance to unemployed or low-income Mississippi residents.

According to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by Mississippi Today, John Davis, the former director of the state's Department of Human Services, and Nancy New, the head of non-profit Mississippi Community Education Center, are at the center of this scandal.

The complaint alleges that Davis entered an agreement with New that he would disregard laws so she could distribute TANF funds to family and friends through her organization if she did the same for Davis.

"That illegal quid pro quo agreement and conspiracy between Davis and New resulted in all of the transfers of TANF funds for non-TANF purposes," the complain states.

The lawsuit states that DiBiase, better known by his wrestler name The Million Dollar Man, is a close friend of Davis and that he along with his two sons received more than $1.7 million in TANF funds from May of 2017 in the scheme.

Concerning Favre, the complaint states he allegedly convinced New and Davis to buy stocks in companies he was affiliated with.

The document states that he was the largest individual outside investor and holder of corporate stock in Prevacus, Inc., a biotechnology corporation, and he urged a second defendant to solicit New to use MDHS grant money to invest in the company.

He then hosted New, Davis and others at his home where they received a presentation on investing in the company, the complaint states, adding they agreed to invest in Prevacus and also later in its corporate affiliate, PreSolMD, Inc.

The complaint states New's non-profit transferred $1.7 million in funds to Prevacus in January 2019 to secure clinical trial sites in Mississippi to promote an experimental anti-concussion drug developed by Prevacus.

The lawsuit claims that the claimed motive behind the investment was "a sham" concocted to conceal the actual purpose of the transaction, which was to enrich the defendants.

"Moreover, neither the falsely pretended purpose of that agreed $1.7 million transfer of TANF funds to Prevacus, nor the actual purpose, had any relationship to the pursuit of lawful TANF purposes," it states.

In total, Prevacus and PreSolMD received $2.1 million in TANF funds between January and October 2019, which the state is now seeking to recover through the lawsuit.

The state also says Favre was paid $1.1 million in TANF funds for four speeches he never performed.

Bob Anderson, executive director of MDHS, said he was tasked by Gov. Tate Reeves to correct the mistakes of his department and that begins with filing the civil complaint.

"This is our initial complaint, as in any civil lawsuit, as discovery proceeds, we anticipate that additional parties and additional claims may be added or changed as the matter moves forward," he said.

The filing of the lawsuit follows Nancy New and her son, Zack New, pleading guilty late last month in federal court in relation to the scandal, which White called "the largest public fraud scheme in state history."

Yellen says letting states ban abortion would harm U.S. economy, 'set women back decades'

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies on Tuesday before the Senate banking committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. 

May 10 (UPI) -- Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Capitol Hill Tuesday that global fiscal growth is volatile and uneven due to the ripple impact of COVID-19 around the world and the Russian war in Ukraine -- and cautioned that banning abortion in the United States would also create economic harm.

Appearing before the Senate banking committee to outline the Treasury's budget needs, Yellen said that both global events are the two main outside factors affecting the U.S. economy.

Although the domestic economy has made strides in the two years since the arrival of the pandemic, the Treasury chief told the panel that it's still deeply ingrained in world markets and the fighting in Ukraine is disrupting the normal flow of business.

"There is the potential for continued volatility and unevenness of global growth as countries continue to grapple with the pandemic," Yellen said. "Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has further increased economic uncertainty."

"The U.S. financial system has continued to function in an orderly manner, though valuations of some assets remain high compared with historical values," she added. "We stand firmly with the people of Ukraine and have implemented an unprecedented suite of sanctions on Russia that have been implemented by financial institutions."

Yellen, who was the first chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, said at Tuesday's hearing that she'd expect that overturning Roe vs. Wade would lead to fewer women in the workforce and harm to the U.S. economy. 

Yellen, who was the first chairwoman of the Federal Reserve under President Barack Obama between 2014 and 2018, also told lawmakers on the panel that overturning the Supreme Court's landmark abortion ruling in Roe vs. Wade would have an unforeseen negative impact economically.

"I believe that eliminating the right of women to make decisions about whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades," she said.

Yellen explained that legalized abortion led to noticeable increases in female participation in the U.S. workforce -- and that striking down the 1973 ruling could have a similar impact in reverse.

Yellen was asked about her opinion on the issue in light of a leaked Supreme Court opinion last week that indicated the court is planning to overturn the Roe vs. Wade decision. If the high court dismisses the ruling, each state would have to determine on their own whether the practice is legal. A number of Republican-led states like Texas, Missouri and Iowa have already moved to ban abortion.

"Denying women access to abortion increases their odds of living in poverty or need for public assistance," she said.

Yellen was also asked about rising inflation and said that price arcs in the United States may be at or near their peak. She said the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates last week should begin to show dividends soon -- but cautioned that a new round of COVID-19 lockdowns in China could revive the same supply chain issues that disrupted the global economy for nearly two years.

Similarly, the Treasury chief pointed to climate change as another area that could significantly impact the U.S. and world economies without measures to mitigate its impact.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., pushed back against that assessment -- instead pointing to cybersecurity as a more significant concern.

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/05/yellen-trip-to-capitol-detours-into.html

Is Ukraine conducting a sabotage campaign inside Russia?

Analysts say at least some of the incidents, particularly those in Bryansk, 

Russia, point to a possible effort by Kyiv to bring the war to their invaders

2022/5/8 
© Agence France-Presse

Washington (AFP) - A deadly fire at an aerospace research institute in Tver, northwest of Moscow. Another blaze at a munitions factory in Perm, more than 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) to the east. And fires in two separate oil depots in Bryansk, near Belarus.

Coincidences, or a sign that Ukrainians or their supporters are mounting a campaign of sabotage inside Russia to punish Moscow for invading their country?

Since the blaze at the Central Research Institute of the Aerospace Defense Forces in Tver on April 21, which killed at least 17 people, social media has leapt on every report of a fire somewhere in Russia -- especially at a sensitive location -- as a sign that the country is under covert attack.

No one is claiming responsibility, but analysts say at least some of the incidents, particularly those in Bryansk, point to a possible effort by Kyiv to bring the war to their invaders.

In a post on Telegram, Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, called the fires "divine intervention."

"Large fuel depots periodically burn... for different reasons," he wrote. "Karma is a cruel thing."

'We don't deny' -

In a massive country such as Russia, a fire at a remote factory or building would normally not be particularly eyebrow-raising.

But since Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, more than a dozen blazes noted by people who document the war have drawn huge attention on social media, amid fears there is a concerted campaign of arsonous terror by the Ukrainians.

Even fires late last month in Russia's far east -- at an airbase north of Vladivostok and at a coal plant on Sakhalin -- raised suspicions.

And on Wednesday, a massive conflagration struck a chemicals plant in Dzerzhinsk, east of Moscow.

"Russian saboteurs against Putin continue their heroic work," said Igor Sushko, a Ukrainian racecar driver who regularly posts photos and videos on Twitter of alleged acts of sabotage inside Russia -- but offers no proof they were deliberate.

Another Zelensky advisor, Oleksiy Arestovych, was equally opaque to The New York Times, noting that Israel never admits its covert attacks and assassinations.

"We don't confirm, and we don't deny," he said.

Part of the strategy?

War analysts believe the infernos in Bryansk, which hit facilities sending oil to Europe, were deliberate and tied to the war.

The anonymous analysts behind "Ukraine Weapons Tracker," a Twitter account that posts detailed accounts with supporting videos of attacks by both sides, said they received "reliable" information that the Bryansk fires were the result of attacks by Ukrainian Bayraktar drones.

"If accurate, then this story again shows the ability of Ukrainian forces to conduct strikes in Russian territory using long-range assets," they wrote.

"I think it was probably a Ukrainian attack, but we cannot be certain," Rob Lee, another war analyst, told The Guardian.

Added to that have been a number of apparent shellings by helicopters and drones and evident acts of sabotage against infrastructure in Kursk and Belgorod Oblast on the Ukrainian border, close to the fighting.

The governors of Belgorod and Kursk have both blamed the fires and destruction of infrastructure such as railway bridges on saboteurs and attackers from Ukraine.

An April 1 attack on a Belgorod fuel depot, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on his Telegram channel, was the result of "an air strike from two helicopters of the armed forces of Ukraine, which entered the territory of Russia at a low altitude."

"Nothing that would confirm Ukrainian sabotage, except for the fact that many of the fires seemed to hit strategic/military targets," said Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

Such attacks "certainly seem to be a part of their strategy," he said.

Pentagon officials have said that Russian forces inside Ukraine are hobbled by weak supply chains, and attacks on their infrastructure would further affect their war effort.

But US officials would not comment on whether, deeper inside Russia, there is an active campaign of sabotage hitting targets not-so-directly related to the invasion.