*** MILITARY SITUATION ***
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 13 as of 3:00 pm EST
March 13th Map of Russian Operations:
Russian forces again conducted few ground offensives on March 13, only securing new terrain in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces predominantly took measures to restore combat readiness and regrouped combat units as of noon local time on March 13. Russian forces continue to assemble reinforcements and attempt to improve logistical support in both the Kyiv and southern operational directions. Russian forces may intend to resume larger-scale attacks on both axes of advance in the coming week, but will likely take longer to (or may never) cohere the combat power necessary to complete the encirclement of Kyiv.
Russia is increasingly pulling forces from its international deployments to reinforce operations in Ukraine, though these deployments are unlikely to shift the balance of forces in the coming week. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on March 13 that 800 personnel from Russia’s 102nd Base in Armenia deployed to an unknown location in Russia on March 9-10 in preparation to deploy to Ukraine.[2] They also reported that Russia is recalling elements of its peacekeeping deployment in Nagorno-Karabakh to replenish losses in Ukraine.[3] Russia will likely draw further forces from its international deployments in Armenia, Tajikistan, and Syria to replace losses in Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff separately reported that Russia plans to deploy 1,500 troops from Russia’s 40th Naval Infantry Brigade (of the Pacific Fleet) to Belarus via rail at an unspecified time.
Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Russia is recruiting mercenaries from Syria and Libya and will pay them around $300-$600 monthly.[5] Russia reportedly opened 14 recruitment centers in Syria and will transport mercenaries to the Chkalovsky airbase in Moscow Oblast after they receive training. The GUR reported that Russia has already gathered “thousands” of Syrian troops, mainly those specialized in heavy artillery and sniper weapons, from the National Defense Forces and 5th Corps—two Russian-backed pro-Assad units. Russia can likely redeploy its established Syrian proxy forces in the National Defense Militia and 5th Corps on relatively short notice, dependent on its airlift capacity. However, even hurriedly trained Syrian and Libyan mercenaries will likely take weeks or months to deploy to Ukraine and will likely be of lower quality than the already poor Russian forces in Ukraine. Russia is unlikely to successfully mobilize the reinforcements and replacements necessary to favorably change the balance of forces around Kyiv in the next week but may successfully generate a longer-term pool of low-quality replacements.
Russian forces are increasingly using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Ukraine, including an armed Forpost-R UCAV on March 13.[10] The Ukrainian air force and air defenses remain active, however, and claimed to shoot down two Ka-52s helicopters, one Su-34 fighter bomber, an unidentified Sukhoi jet, and two drones on March 13.
-Ukrainian counterattacks and operations by Territorial Defense Forces in northeastern Ukraine threaten Russia’s exposed line of communicating, requiring Russia to redeploy forces away from the offensive toward eastern Kyiv;
-The Kremlin may be seeking to take direct control of Belarusian units to deploy them in Ukraine but faces Belarusian resistance.
-Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations northwest of Kyiv for the third day in a row.
-Russian forces did not conduct attacks toward northeastern Kyiv and prioritized reinforcing their lines of communication and logistics routes.
-Russian and proxy forces successfully captured several towns north of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast on March 13, the only offensive ground actions of the day.
-Ukrainian protests in occupied Kherson are likely expanding.
-Russia is diluting its international deployments in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh to reinforce operations in Ukraine and pulling additional forces from Russia’s far east.
-Ukrainian intelligence reported Russia will deploy preexisting pro-Assad Syrian units to Ukraine, in addition to previously announced plans to recruit new Syrian and Libyan mercenaries. These forces are unlikely to enable Russia to favorably change the balance of forces around Kyiv in the next week but may provide a longer-term pool of low-quality replacements.
-Russian ballistic missiles killed 35 Ukrainians at the Yavoriv military training center near Poland in a likely effort to interdict Western aid deliveries to Ukraine—following up on the Kremlin’s March 12 announcement it will treat international aid shipments as military targets.
-Russian naval forces have established a distant blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade. Russian naval forces are also continuing to conduct missile strikes against targets throughout Ukraine.
*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***
-Ukrainian president Zelenskiy urged Nato to impose a no fly zone after the attack on the military base that brought the fighting close to the Polish border. “If you don’t close our sky, it is only a matter of time before Russian rockets fall on your territory, on Nato territory,” he said.
-The United States will try to persuade China not to supply arms to Russia at a high-level meeting in Rome which the White House sees as critically important not just for the war in Ukraine but also for the future of the global balance of power. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, will meet his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, in the Italian capital amid reports that Russia has asked China for weapons to bolster its faltering invasion of Ukraine. A spokesperson for the US embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, told CNN he had “never heard” of the Russian arms requests, noting that China’s priority was to ensure the situation does not escalate or get out of control.
-A Soviet-era Tu-141 military drone carrying a 265-pound bomb flew across three NATO member states before finally crashing down in Croatia, in an urban area according to the Croatian defense minister on Sunday.
-At NATO’s Tapa military base in central Estonia, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked a heightened sense of purpose among the troops. On a recent weekday, and despite heavy snow, there were plenty of signs of activity in and around the frontline camp — just 160 kilometers from the Russian border — as soldiers wondered what Russian President Vladimir Putin’s future plans might be. In the town of Tapa, north of the base, armed Estonian conscripts practiced street patrols, methodically checking side roads for would-be invaders. Closer to the main camp, a civilian police vehicle skidded to a halt to block oncoming traffic before a convoy of eight hulking military trucks came barrelling along on a training exercise. Armored vehicles could also be seen tracking the edge of a forest further off-road. Inside the camp, Colonel Andrus Merilo, who as head of Estonia’s first infantry brigade functions as base commander, said Moscow’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of one of its neighbors had focussed people’s minds on the task at hand here: national defense and the potential threat Russia could pose toward Estonia. “Vigilance is the key thing,” he said. “We must exercise it now, so we don’t miss any indications that the threat will be directed towards Estonia.”
-the UK government will donate more than 500 mobile generators to Ukraine to help provide power for key buildings such as hospitals, shelters and water treatment plants.
-Russia has asked China for military equipment since the start of the invasion US officials say Russia has requested military equipment from China since the start of the invasion, according to the Financial Times. This has sparked fears in the White House that China may decide to help Russia and undermine western efforts to aid Ukraine. Another person told the FT that the US was “preparing to warn allies about the situation amid some indications that China may be preparing to help Russia”. “Other US officials have also said there were signs that Russia was running out of some kinds of weaponry as the war in Ukraine approaches the start of its third week,” the FT report said.
"US officials told the Financial Times that Russia had requested military equipment and other assistance since the start of the invasion." And the FT notes that "They declined to give details about what Russia had requested." It's been no secret that Russia's military has been losing a more than expected amount of tanks, armored, carriers, planes, and helicopters, although precise numbers remains conjecture. The Washington Post also recently observed that regardless of Russia's overwhelming troop numbers, battlefield setbacks and losses have been "costlier" than the Kremlin likely calculated a mere little more than two weeks in. Since there are precious few details from the FT's anon sources, the key question is whether this is another US intelligence attempt to preempt the very scenario being asserted as confirmed before it actually happens (akin to repeating official intel leaks in the run-up to the Feb.24 invasion of Ukraine).
As Bloomberg reports, Sullivan right before departing for the official trip put Beijing on notice concerning any level of sanctions evasion cooperation between China and Moscow. Here's what he said in a CNN interview Sunday: ".the U.S. has warned China against helping Russia evade sanctions and is watching the extent to which it provides "material support or economic support" to Russia. "We will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions," Sullivan said. Large-scale sanctions evasion or providing support that allows Russia to "backfill" will have "consequences," he said, without elaborating.
U.S. officials say “If Beijing is offering any type of military assistance to aid Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the spillover effects on U.S.-China policy could be vast.”
Sullivan also said the US is warning China not to "bail out" Russia by helping Moscow in sanctions-busting efforts. So now it appears there's a double-warning coming out, with Beijing being put on notice about military equipment and possible plans to assist Russia in Ukraine.
-US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron underscored in a call on Sunday their commitment to holding Russia accountable for the invasion of Ukraine, the White House said in a statement.
-With new outbreaks in Iowa and Missouri, nearly 2.8 million birds — almost entirely chickens and turkeys — have died in one month due to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the Agriculture Department said on Monday. The viral disease has been identified in 23 poultry farms and backyard flocks in a dozen states since February 8, when the first report of “high path” bird flu in a domestic flock was reported.
-One journalist was killed and two were injured in Irpin, Ukraine when Russian troops reportedly opened fire on their vehicle. A New York Times video operator was shot and killed while reporting in a suburb of Kyiv, filming refugees.
-Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any attempts to prevent exports of fertilizers, oil, gas, and metals will have “serious consequences on this segment of the world market and for food in general.” Putin made the comments at a meeting with government members this week, according to the Russian state-run news agency TASS.The president also doubled down on his support for comments made by Russia’s Industry and Trade Minister, Denis Manturov, who previously said that Russia would redirect exports to other countries that were not hostile to Russia if problems with “logistics” were to continue after claiming that European carriers are not loading Russian products on their ships. Unfriendly countries to Russia include the United States, Canada, and member states of the European Union, among others. “This obstruction of supplies concerns energy carriers, oil. Of course, it concerns gas, including liquefied gas. This also concerns fertilizers and some other goods, metals, and so on, chemical products in the broad sense of the word. As for fertilizers, then, of course, if this continues further, it will have serious consequences for this segment of the world market and for food in general,” Putin said, according to TASS.
-Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region, said he travelled to Ukraine to visit Chechen troops attacking Kyiv, according to Reuters. Reuters could not independently verify whether he actually travelled to the region. Kadyrov is a close ally of Vladimir Putin and has previously described himself as Putin’s “foot soldier”.
-Ukraine’s defense ministry was given free access to Clearview AI -- a controversial facial recognition software that scrapes images from social media and other platforms -- to use during the war, Reuters is reporting. Clearview AI sent a letter to Ukraine offering its services to help “uncover Russian assailants, combat misinformation and identify the dead” once the invasion began. It’s unclear what the defense ministry is using the software for but Clearview chief executive said he expected other Ukrainian agencies to begin using the service in the coming days.
-With Russia now officially cut off from both the USDollar and the euro, Russia's VTB Bank is seeing a surge in Chinese Yuan deposits, attracted by the bank offering significantly higher interest rates as Putin shifts focus to 'friendly' nations. The state-owned bank is offering a Chinese yuan savings account with a maximum interest rate of 8%, hailing the currency as "one of the most affordable and promising options for investing funds" after the country was hit by Western sanctions. Putting that in context, the three-month deposit rate is 8% in dollars and 7% in euros, while the six-month rate for ruble deposits is 21%, according to VTB.
-Russia’s statement on the attack on the Yavoriv training facility near the Polish border. The defence ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov told a briefing that Russia had used high-precision long-range weapons to strike Yavoriv and a separate facility in the village of Starichi. He claimed both bases were being used to train foreign mercenaries and store weapons. “As a result of the strike, up to 180 foreign mercenaries and a large amount of foreign weapons were destroyed,” he said. The attack came one day after Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said Moscow considered convoys of western arms shipments to Ukraine to be legitimate targets.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the US condemns Russia’s attack on the International Center of Peacekeeping and Security. The attack brought the fighting close to the Polish border and resulted in the death of 35 people.
-The governor of Lviv said that 35 people are now confirmed dead after the rocket attack on the International Peacekeeping and Security Centre base on Sunday morning.
-Ukrainian and Russian delegates from peace talks have sounded positive, ahead of more negotiations in the next few days. Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said talks had become more constructive. Leonid Slutsky, a Russian delegate said there had been significant progress and they hoped to soon arrive at a “joint position”, Reuters reports.
-More than 14,000 people in 112 cities have been arrested in Russia for anti-war protests since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, according to an independent human rights body in the country.
-The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has said there is no case for new investments in Russia. In a statement issued alongside a video on Sunday morning, he urged companies to “think very carefully” about their holdings.
-On Sunday, Shenzhen placed its 17.5MM residents on a lockdown that’s supposed to last until March 20, Bloomberg reports. It has become the latest threat to Chinese stock and bond markets, as the number of nationwide cases has doubled to 3,200. So much for Beijing's "COVID Zero" policy. The new wide-ranging lockdown in Shenzhen is an expansion of earlier restrictions placed on the city’s business district. Although cases are climbing throughout the country, the surge in infections is reportedly linked to the neighboring city of Hong Kong, where about 300K people are currently in isolation or under home quarantine, and where new infections are being recorded at a rate of roughly 10K per day.
-Software company Oracle says it was the first of those requested to stop all of its operations in Russia in response to a tweet from President Zelenskiy urging the company, as well as Microsoft and SAP, to cease supporting all products in Russia.
-Venezuelan Minister for Foreign Affairs Felix Plasencia has said Caracas is ready to sell oil to the United States again, while remaining “loyal” to Moscow. Plascenia told the Turkish Anadolu Agency on Saturday that it would not be a “strange relationship” for Washington and Caracas to work together on oil, as Venezuela had “been doing oil business with the Americans for a long time.” The minister argued that it would “be good for everyone” if Venezuela’s energy exports to the US get “back on track,” adding that Americans were welcome in the country as long as they “respect the sovereignty” of Venezuela and recognize President Nicolas Maduro as “Venezuela's only and legitimate head of government.”
-Russia’s state media and communication regulator, Rozcomnadzor, says Instagram will be banned, claiming the social networking site “calls for violence against Russians” as the reason behind the embargo.
No comments:
Post a Comment