Russia/Ukraine War Update - March 24th, 2022

*** MILITARY SITUATION ***

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 23rd as of 3:00 pm EST

March 23rd Maps of Russian Operations:

Russian forces continued to settle in for a protracted and stalemated conflict over the last 24 hours, with more reports emerging of Russian troops digging in and laying mines—indications that they have gone over to the defensive. Ukrainian forces continued to conduct limited and effective counterattacks to relieve pressure on Kyiv, although the extent of those counterattacks is likely less than what some Ukrainian officials are claiming. Russian efforts to mobilize additional forces to keep their offensive moving continue to be halting and limited. Russian progress in taking Mariupol city remains slow and grinding. Increasing Russian emphasis on using air, artillery, and rocket/missile bombardments of Ukrainian cities to offset forward offensive momentum raises the urgency of providing Ukraine with systems to defend against these attacks.

Russian efforts to bring Syrian forces into Ukraine may be encountering challenges. Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) reports that a Russian commander in Syria met with the commander of the Syrian Arab Army’s 8th Brigade to request a list of Syrian personnel ready to fight in Ukraine, but that the Syrian commander promised only to respond after consulting with his colleagues. We have no independent verification of this report. ISW’s Middle East Team is preparing a brief report on Russian efforts to mobilize Syrian forces to support the war in Ukraine and will publish it in the coming days.

Russian mobilization efforts are likely becoming urgent given Russian losses in the war. The Wall Street Journal cites an unnamed NATO official claiming that Russia has lost as many as 40,000 troops killed, wounded, or missing of the roughly 190,000 deployed to invade Ukraine. That assessment, which is plausible given previous estimates of Russian combat deaths, must be considered in the context of the assessment offered by an unnamed Department of Defense official on March 21 that Russia had committed a high proportion of its available battalion tactical groups to the war already. The protracting pause of Russian offensive operations in Ukraine and increasing anecdotal reporting of breakdowns in the morale and capability of Russian combat units all accord with these assessments. These reports and assessments collectively suggest that Russia may not be able to find new combat power with which to regain offensive momentum for weeks or even months.

Russian forces are increasingly preparing for protracted defensive operations in various parts of the theater. Numerous reports and satellite images of Russian troops digging defensive positions and laying mines suggest that they have gone over to the defensive and do not anticipate conducting renewed large-scale offensive operations in the near future in a number of locations across Ukraine.

-Russian forces continue to go over to the defensive, conducting restricted and localized ground attacks that make little progress.

-Ukrainian forces are conducting limited and successful counterattacks around Kyiv to disrupt Russian operations to encircle the city (which has now become extremely unlikely) and relieve the pressure on the capital.

-The Battle of Mariupol continues as a block-by-block struggle with fierce Ukrainian resistance and limited Russian gains.

-Russia is likely struggling to obtain fresh combat power from Syria and elsewhere rapidly.

-Russia is beginning to dig into defensive positions outside Kyiv in the face of fierce Ukrainian opposition, a senior Defense official said. The Russian advance from the north remains stalled about 10 miles from the city center, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence assessments. To the east of Kyiv, the Ukrainians have pushed back the front line about 15 miles to 30 miles outside the city.

-Russia’s defence ministry has said Russian forces hit a Ukrainian arms depot outside the country’s northwestern city of Rivne on Tuesday, destroying an arsenal of weapons and equipment.

-The Ukraine Defense Ministry claims its forces have driven occupying Russian troops out of Makariv – a small Kyiv suburb that's crucial because it provides control of a highway to the west. The effort also blocked Russian troops from surrounding Kyiv from the northwest and provided the Ukrainian military with a much-needed success story.

-Ukraine is increasing pressure on Russian forces north-east of Kyiv while carrying out successful counterattacks against Russian positions in towns on the outskirts of the capital, the UK defence ministry has said.

-The Pentagon, in a briefing with reporters, said Russian troops are adopting defensive positions north of Kyiv, rather than advancing, while Russian efforts elsewhere have stalled. Ukraine’s counter-offensive near Kyiv has pushed Russian forces further from the capital, having been driven back about 15 miles.

-Western officials’ “greatest concern” for Ukraine’s military prospects is that Russia is grinding its way to an inevitable and bloody victory in Mariupol, which will in turn free up its force to move north and attack Kyiv’s elite troops defending the Donbas from three directions. They say that Russia has lost the ability to fight an offensive on “multiple axes” because of the casualties it has suffered - around 7,000 to 8,000 killed - on its disastrous offensive and is now focusing on one principal battle at a time while its attack on the Ukrainian capital has essentially stalled. “I think the challenge is once Mariupol falls and is taken, and I think there’s a grim reality around Mariupol with the kind of reckless and inhumane nature of the operation there,” one said. An estimated 100,000 people remain in the bombed and encircled port city. Another official said this would give Russia “the opportunity to bring in more firepower and to move north”, which could allow Moscow’s forces to encircle the Ukranian’s most experienced fighting forces in the east of the country. “This is probably the area where we have the greatest concern,” the official added.

-Russia is likely now looking to mobilise its reservist and conscript manpower, as well as private military companies and foreign mercenaries, to replace these considerable losses. It is unclear how these groups will integrate into the Russian ground forces in Ukraine and the impact this will have on combat effectiveness.”

-Nato must face a Russian adversary that is more unpredictable and ready to take greater risks to project power in Europe, according to a US general, warning that studying Russian capabilities and military doctrine was no longer enough.

*** PERSONAL OBSERVATION ***

 With all the talk of possible escalation as we march steadily toward WWIII, I thought it useful to note that the United States stores stockpiles of B61 thermonuclear bombs in certain NATO nations such as Italy, Belgium and Turkey so they are stationed close to specially modified fighter jets fitted to carry them in the event war with Russia occurs. The same is true of batteries of missiles which the US Army maintains in forward advanced positions in regions of possible conflict as well as heavy armored and mechanized vehicles, tanks and artillery. And of course, munitions and basic supplies such as fuel, meal rations and medical supplies, etc. There are many posts that have recently appeared on social media showing very large trains of pristine heavy unit vehicles such as Abrams tanks and Bradley APC's being moved Eastwards through Germany. This suggests that some of those war stocks in Europe are being activated by EUCOM and re-positioned farther East along Nato's frontier, a move that would seem unnecessary if Russia is the paper tiger it is being portrayed as in the Western media. Other considerations then, seem to be afoot in Europe that we don't yet have a clear picture of.

 *** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***

-The Pentagon is scrambling to replenish stocks of Javelin and Stinger missiles the US and its allies have sent to Ukraine as US defense contractors are cashing in on Washington’s support for Ukraine’s war against Russia. According to open-sourced data examined by Politico, it is estimated that the US has sent Ukraine 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems and 4,600 Javelin anti-tank missiles since January. US allies such as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the Netherlands have also sent either Stingers or Javelins to Ukraine that the Pentagon is looking to replace.

Javelin missiles are made through a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies. Stingers are produced solely by Raytheon, the former employer of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who served on the board of the weapons maker before taking his post at the Pentagon.

Congress has already handed the Pentagon $3.5 billion to replenish its weapons stocks as part of the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill that President Biden recently signed. Sources told Politico that the Pentagon faces some hurdles in getting the missiles produced as quickly as they want and is considering invoking the Defense Production Act. The Defense Production Act would allow arms makers such as Raytheon and Lockheed to cut the line and receive necessary components ahead of other domestic manufacturers. Pentagon spokesperson Jessica Maxwell told Politico that the Pentagon hadn’t made a decision on invoking the law.

For now, Javelins and Stingers are still being made, and a source told Politico that Lockheed and Raytheon will ramp up production once funding from the government comes through. Back in January, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes said the company could benefit from the tensions in Eastern Europe and elsewhere around the world.

-Ahead of US president Joe Biden’s scheduled meetings with world leaders in Europe, the White House has quietly assembled a team of national security officials to sketch out scenarios of how the United States and its allies should respond if Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashes his stockpiles of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The group, known as the Tiger Team, is also examining responses if Putin reaches into Nato territory to attack convoys bringing weapons and aid to Ukraine, according to several officials involved in the process, according to a recent New York Times report. The team is also looking at responses if Russia seeks to extend the war to neighbouring nations, including Moldova and Georgia, and how to prepare European countries for the refugees flowing in on a scale not seen in decades, the Times reports. These plans are expected to be discussed in Brussels on Thursday, when US President Biden meets leaders of the 29 other Nato nations. As Biden flew to Europe on Wednesday, both he and Stoltenberg warned of growing evidence that Russia was in fact preparing to use chemical weapons in Ukraine. One major issue the Tiger Team is reportedly looking at is the threshold that could prompt the alliance to use military force in Ukraine. Biden has made clear that he is reluctant to to do so, fearing that direct confrontation with Russia could escalate the conflict beyond control. “That’s World War Three,” he said recently.

-Western nations will warn the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Thursday that his country will pay “ruinous” costs for invading Ukraine during an unprecedented one-day trio of Nato, G7 and EU summits that will be attended by the US president, Joe Biden, in Brussels. Zelenskiy said he hoped for “meaningful steps” at the round of summits, noting they would reveal “who is a friend, who is a partner, and who betrayed us for money”.

-Nato countries are also expected to agree at Thursday’s meeting to provide special kit to help protect Ukraine against chemical, biological or nuclear attacks launched by Russia.

-Boris Johnson has said Vladimir Putin has already “crossed a red line” that merits ramping up the west’s response, suggesting allies must send new weapons to Ukraine, expand curbs on international payments and target Russia’s gold reserves.

-The Russian government has no interest in negotiating a ceasefire in Ukraine for now as its army has not reached its military goals, European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Thursday. “Right now, Russia doesn’t want to sit and negotiate anything: what it wants is to occupy the ground,” Borrell said in an interview with Spanish TVE channel. “It wants to surround the coast to the border with Moldova and isolate Ukraine from the sea. It wants to negotiate in earnest only when it has secured a position of strength.” Reuters report that Borrell said the European Union and its allies will keep on delivering military aid to the Ukrainian army. “It is important because everything will be decided in the next 15 days,” he said. “What will make history is the capacity of Ukrainians to resist.”

-Reuters is reporting that Ukraine’s agriculture minister Roman Leshchenko has resigned. No reason has yet been given. He had been in the job since December 2020, and yesterday had said that Ukraine’s spring crop sowing area may more than halve this year because of the war. That has the potential to cause food supply problems in other parts of the world, as Ukraine is a significant exporter of grain.

-The port of Berdyansk, a city in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast of south-east Ukraine, is reportedly on fire, according to local Ukrainian media outlets and a senior advisor to Ukraine’s interior ministry. The city is located about 75km north-west of Mariupol. An advisor to Ukraine’s interior ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, said a large Russian ship ‘Orsk’ of the Black Sea Fleet was destroyed, citing the Ukrainian navy in an update to his Telegram channel early this morning. Ukrainian media outlet Ukrinform also cited the statement from Ukraine’s navy, adding that one Russian ship sank while two others were “smoking heavily and trying to escape”. According to Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst at the Le Beck institute, Russia had recently begun using the port of Berdyansk to unload military equipment.

-Satellite images show the extent of the damage that Russian forces have caused in Mariupol. The images show fires burning in residential neighborhoods and burned-up apartment buildings. An estimated 300,000 people in the city are without food and water.

-Russia has announced the expulsion of an unspecified number of US diplomats in response to Washington’s order to expel 12 staffers from Moscow’s mission to the United Nations. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that on Wednesday it summoned “a senior diplomat of the US diplomatic mission in Moscow” and handed him a “a note with a list of deported American diplomatic employees declared ‘persona non grata’.” The ministry revealed that it was a retaliation to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the UN mission in New York and of a Russian employee from the UN Secretariat.

-The US government has formally declared that members of the Russian armed forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday. The official US declaration that Moscow's troops had violated the laws of conflict comes after Blinken, President Joe Biden and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman all said it was their personal opinion that war crimes have taken place.

-Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has previewed in a new speech that countries will commit to "major increases" in troops along Europe's 'eastern flank'. He also took the opportunity to warn Russia to stop its 'nuclear saber rattling' - a day after the Pentagon called recent Kremlin remarks related to a heightened nuclear posture that was raised last month "dangerous". Stoltenberg stated, "Russia should stop this dangerous irresponsible nuclear rhetoric." He said, "But let there be no doubt about our readiness to protect and defend allies against any threat anytime."
"Russia must understand that it can never win a nuclear war," Stoltenberg added. And despite weapons shipments from the West continuing to reportedly enter Ukraine, he added an important caveat: "NATO is not part of the conflict … it provides support to Ukraine but isn’t part of the conflict."

-Nato announced it will double its troops along the alliance’s eastern flank. “The first step is the deployment of four new NATO battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, along with our existing forces in the Baltic countries and Poland,” said the alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg. Nato said it was considering whether to ramp up military forces on its border with Ukraine, with an announcement anticipated on Thursday.

Nato has sharply increased its presence at the eastern border of the alliance, with some 40,000 troops spread from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and is seeking to deploy four new combat units in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia. “I expect leaders will agree to strengthen Nato’s posture in all domains, with major increases in the eastern part of the alliance. On land, in the air and at sea,” Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference ahead of a Nato summit in Brussels on Thursday. The additional multinational battlegroups come on top of four existing combat units, with a total of some 5,000 troops, deployed by Nato to the three Baltic states and Poland after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

-Top Russian officials on Wednesday condemned Poland's proposal to send NATO "peacekeeping forces" into Ukraine as a "very reckless and extremely dangerous" idea that would risk a full-scale war between the alliance and Moscow. "This will be the direct clash between the Russian and NATO armed forces that everyone has not only tried to avoid but said should not take place in principle," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in remarks to students and staff at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations as Russia's deadly assault on Ukraine entered its 28th day. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov echoed Lavrov's assessment, telling reporters Wednesday that "the consequences of a possible engagement between our troops and NATO forces are quite clear and they would be hard to mend."

-One of President Vladimir Putin's closest allies warned the United States on Wednesday that the world could spiral towards a nuclear dystopia if Washington pressed on with what the Kremlin casts as a long-term plot to destroy Russia. Dmitry Medvedev, who was president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, said the United States had conspired to destroy Russia as part of an "primitive game" since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. "It means Russia must be humiliated, limited, shattered, divided and destroyed," Medvedev, 56, said in a 550-word statement. The views of Medvedev, once considered to be one of the least hawkish members of Putin's circle, gives an insight into the thinking within the Kremlin as Moscow faces in the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The United States has repeatedly said that it does not want the collapse of Russia and that its own interests are best served by a prosperous, stable and open Russia.

Medvedev said the Kremlin would never allow the destruction of Russia, but warned Washington that if it did achieve what he characterised as its destructive aims then the world could face a dystopian crisis that would end in a "big nuclear explosion". He also painted a picture of a post-Putin world that would follow the collapse of Russia, which has more nuclear warheads than any other country. The destruction of the world's biggest country by area, Medvedev said, could lead to an unstable leadership in Moscow "with a maximum number of nuclear weapons aimed at targets in the United States and Europe." Russia's collapse, he said, would lead to five or six nuclear armed states across the Eurasian landmass run by "freaks, fanatics and radicals". "Is this a dystopia or some mad futuristic forecast? Is it Pulp fiction? No," Medvedev said.

-As many as 15,000 Russian troops have been killed since the invasion of Ukraine began four weeks ago, according to NATO's first estimate. Russia has suffered 30,000 to 40,000 battlefield casualties, including 7,000 to 15,000 killed, a senior NATO military officer said in a briefing Wednesday from the alliance’s military headquarters in Belgium.

The senior military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by NATO, said the estimated deaths are based on information from the Ukrainian government.

-The risk of coup by Russia’s federal security service (FSB) against President Putin is growing every week that the war in Ukraine continues, a whistleblower at the heart of Russian intelligence has said, according to a report from The Times.

-Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin commented on Wednesday on potential plans of the US and Western allies to kick Russia out of the G20 in the wake of its military offensive in Ukraine. “G20 is the main forum for international economic cooperation, bringing together the world’s major economies. Russia is an important member, and no member has the right to expel other countries,” the spokesman said during a regular press conference.

-Saudi Arabia and UAE media are reporting that Saudi forces thwarted an "imminent and hostile" attack that threatened oil tankers south of the Red Sea, in a coalition statement first reported in state-run SPA. The attempted attack reportedly involved a pair of booby-trapped boats being launched toward the tankers by Yemeni Houthi militants, from the direction of Hodeida port after the tankers crossed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The boats were intercepted and destroyed, according to the Saudi military.

-European Union nations signed off on another 500 million euros ($550 million) in military aid for Ukraine, a previously announced commitment that doubles the EU’s military contributions to the country since Russia invaded Feb. 24.  

-Britain is providing Ukraine with 6,000 new defensive missiles and extra funds to support the Ukrainian military and BBC journalists providing news coverage in the region.

-Sweden will provide Ukraine with an additional 5,000 anti-tank weapons, the Swedish defence minister told the country’s TT news agency. Sweden has already sent 5,000 anti-tank weapons, along with other military materiel to Ukraine.

-Ukraine is using facial recognition software to identify the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in combat and to trace their families to inform them of their deaths, Ukraine’s vice prime minister said.

-Poland’s internal security and counter-espionage service ABW has identified 45 Russian diplomats as suspected spies and called on the foreign ministry to expel them. Russia has threatened to retaliate.

-China has backed Russia over suggestions that G20 expulsion could follow their invasion of Ukraine. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “The G20 is the main forum for international economic cooperation. Russia is an important member, and no member has the right to expel another country.”

-Putin aide Anatoly Chubais resigned, left Russia because of the war and has no intention of returning, according to multiple media outlets. Chubais, a special envoy for ties with international organizations, is the highest-profile figure to step down since the war began, Reuters reported.

-Vladimir Putin's defence minister has vanished with "heart problems" as the Kremlin's war effort in Ukraine stalls. Sergei Shoigu has not been seen for 12 days and old footage or pictures have been shown of him on TV, say reports in opposition media. On March 18, Shoigu, 66, was mentioned in a Kremlin website report saying he and Putin had discussed “the progress of the special operation in Ukraine” with permanent members of the security council. His circle said he was unwell - with heart problems, investigative news outlet Agentstvo was told by a source close to the minister. Shoigu is seen as one of Putin’s closest and most loyal allies.

-Agence France-Presse report from France that TotalEnergies’ chief executive said his company could not stop buying Russian natural gas in retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it would force a partial economic shutdown in Europe.

-In a budget speech to parliament, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz struck a more cautious tone on reducing Germany’s energy dependence on Russia than some of his ministers have done in recent days.

-Oksana Baulina, a journalist with the independent Russian outlet The Insider, was killed by shelling Wednesday in Kyiv while documenting the damage of Russian bombardment in the capital, the news organization said.

-Israel blocked Ukraine from buying NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware for fear that Russian officials would be angered by the sale of the sophisticated hacking tool to a regional foe, according to people familiar with the matter.

-The US held off on sanctioning Roman Abramovich after Ukraine’s president said the Russian oligarch could prove an important go-between in Ukraine-Russia peace talks, the Wall Street Journal reported. The UK and EU have imposed sanctions on Abramovich, with the EU claiming his ‘privileged access’ to Putin has “helped him to maintain his considerable wealth”.

-Vladimir Putin said Russia planned to switch payments for its gas sales to “unfriendly” countries to roubles, in a move which has alarmed international markets. The announcement sent European futures Soarin over concerns the switch would exacerbate a looming energy crisis by jamming up deals that run to hundreds of millions of dollars every day.

-the most notable move in markets today was from the Ruble (the term old woman, babki - бабки, overshadowed other slang names for the Russian currency), which saw its biggest daily gain since Dec 2014 today on the back of Putin's call for all gas payments to be made in Rubles. As Goldman's Chris Hussey notes, "The vacillation we are seeing in markets this week may simply be a reflection of the search for the right price amidst a new and changing regime, one characterized by higher inflation and higher rates amidst reopening impulses coupled with accelerating deglobalization trends." As the fears of stagflation grow, traders have to decide which will win - super-inflation or de-growth? - the 10Y Yield is right at the top-end of its 40-year downtrend-channel. A 6.7 million barrel plunge in U.S. crude stockpiles (including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) helped extend oil price gains today as traders positioned ahead of high-level meetings that may result in fresh sanctions on Russia, and as a vital Black Sea terminal may be disrupted for weeks following storm damage. Finally, things could be about to go to '11' for Europe's economy as diesel futures backwardation is screaming 'shortage' and with no diesel, truckers ain't delivering anything. As Bloomberg's Javier Blas notes: "The backwardation in the European diesel market is monstrously large. And getting worse... All points to an extremely tight market."

-French auto-maker Renault announced on Wednesday it was pausing operations at its Moscow factory and exploring options for selling its majority stake in the Russia-based AvtoVAZ conglomerate.

-Joe Rogan has called out journalists in the US who are treating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a war hero since the Russian attack on the country. Previously, Ukraine was perceived in the West as a corrupt hellhole and its leader as a would-be authoritarian, so the U-turn is “confusing,” Rogan said on his show on Saturday. “This is one of the things that is so weird is that they were very disparaging of Ukraine. They were talking about [the] massive corruption of Ukraine and how horrible it was over there. And now all of a sudden they are looking at it like they’re heroes,” he observed. Rogan offered a collection of articles in the Western press explaining Ukraine’s corruption problems and the increasing slide towards authoritarianism under Zelensky as well as his alleged personal grift. The episode, which featured ex-CIA officer Mike Baker as a guest, was focused on the conflict in Ukraine and how it affected politics in the US. The discussion was overwhelmingly negative towards Russia, its planning for the Ukraine operation, and President Vladimir Putin personally. Baker, however, acknowledged that much of the US perception of decision making in the Kremlin was guesswork rather than hard intelligence.

-Global economies will be rethinking how safe it is to rely on the US dollar in their foreign currency holdings, the deputy head of the International Monetary Fund, Gita Gopinath, said on Tuesday. The statement comes after half of Russia’s forex holdings were effectively confiscated by international financial institutions amid sanctions placed on Moscow following the launch of its military operation in Ukraine.

-Former US Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton announced on Tuesday that she had tested positive for Covid-19 and was suffering from mild symptoms.

-Women and child refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine to Poland are being targeted by suspected pimps and sex traffickers operating alone and in gangs, according to charities working on the border.

-With Americans still in shock over jaw-dropping, rising gas prices, a few proposals have floated around Congress and elsewhere about offering some relief to drivers. Some proposals include a stimulus check while others would tax oil companies. One proposal comes from Reps. Mike Thompson of California, John Larson of Connecticut, and Lauren Underwood of Illinois. The congressional lawmakers propose the Gas Rebate Act of 2022 where Americans would get an energy rebate of $100 per month (and $100 for each dependent) for the rest of 2022 in any month where the national average gas prices exceed $4.00 per gallon.

Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon has proposed the Stop Gas Price Gouging Tax and Rebate Act. The bill "would create a windfall profit tax on excessive corporate profits and return the revenue to American consumers in the form of a tax rebate." Under his proposal, companies will pay a one-time, 50 percent windfall profit tax on any adjusted taxable income (ATI) in 2022 that exceeds 110 percent of their average ATI during pre-pandemic levels between 2015-2019. Revenue, raised by the windfall profit tax, will be returned to consumers as a monthly, advanced, and refundable tax credit that will be phased out by income, according to DeFazio.

In California, Democratic state lawmakers announced a $400 gas rebate proposal for every taxpayer. The proposal would use $9 billion of the state's budget surplus to provide the rebate, which is expected to cover the 51.1-cent-per-gallon gas tax for one full year of weekly fill-ups for a car with a 15-gallon gas tank.

-The Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA) announced on Tuesday that it has confirmed a case of the highly contagious bird flu in a commercial flock of 570,000 broiler chickens and that the birds will be "humanely depopulated and disposed of." NDA, in conjunction with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), said in a press release the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was confirmed in a chicken flock in Butler County, Neb. Several other states have also reported cases of the virus in various bird species, with South Dakota reporting 85,000 cases on Sunday. Wisconsin and Missouri have also reported cases.

-Google has promised to pause all ads containing content that exploits, dismisses or condones the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, joining a raft of major social media platforms that have introduced new content restrictions.

-The EU will not allocate a number of refugees each country must take, Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said, avoiding a repeat of failures during the last major refugee influx in 2015-16 when the 27 member states squabbled bitterly over who should take in how many refugees among the 1 million who had fled the war in Syria. She said “fair burden-sharing” would be addressed by the bloc’s 27 national migration ministers at emergency talks on Monday. “It needs to be developed,” she told a news conference.

-Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the conflict in Ukraine by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday, the Kremlin said in a statement. Bennett “shared his assessment of the situation around Ukraine, taking into account his contacts with leaders of a number of foreign countries, and expressed several ideas in relation to the ongoing negotiations”, the statement said.

-On Wednesday there was another showdown at the UN Security Council, where a vote on a Russian-written resolution which sought to acknowledge the growing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine was overwhelmingly defeated, with 13 Abstentions and only 2 Yes votes. The resolution did not mention the Russian invasion as causing the crisis, and thus was easily shot down by Western powers - though most interesting is that China was Russia's only other "yes" vote.

-The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces has taken place while the world is still dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Surplus personal protective equipment (PPE) stock worth £3.5m is now being sent to Ukraine by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland. The items include masks, coveralls, oxygen therapy consumables and sterile gowns.

-And as millions fear the yoke of the city's COVID restrictions may soon be further tightened, perhaps with another full-on lockdown like those that have been implemented in Jilin Province and elsewhere, Shanghaiers are swamping online grocery platforms with orders as citizens panic-buy stockpiles of food for fear that they may soon face a punishing lockdown that will confine them to their residential compounds for days, if not weeks, the AFP reports.