*** MILITARY SITUATION ***
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 9th
The Russian military is attempting to generate sufficient combat power to seize and hold the portions of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that it does not currently control after it completes the seizure of Mariupol. There are good reasons to question the Russian armed forces’ ability to do so and their ability to use regenerated combat power effectively despite a reported simplification of the Russian command structure. This update, which we offer on a day without significant military operations on which to report, attempts to explain and unpack some of the complexities involved in making these assessments.
We discuss below some instances in which American and other officials have presented information in ways that may inadvertently exaggerate Russian combat capability. We do not in any way mean to suggest that such exaggeration is intentional. Presenting an accurate picture of a military’s combat power is inherently difficult. Doing so from classified assessments in an unclassified environment is especially so. We respect the efforts and integrity of US and allied officials trying to help the general public understand this conflict and offer the comments below in hopes of helping them in that task.
We assess that the Russian military will struggle to amass a large and combat-capable force of mechanized units to operate in Donbas within the next few months. Russia will likely continue to throw badly damaged and partially reconstituted units piecemeal into offensive operations that make limited gains at great cost. The Russians likely will make gains nevertheless and may either trap or wear down Ukrainian forces enough to secure much of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, but it is at least equally likely that these Russian offensives will culminate before reaching their objectives, as similar Russian operations have done.
The US Department of Defense (DoD) reported on April 8 that the Russian armed forces have lost 15-20 percent of the “combat power” they had arrayed against Ukraine before the invasion. This statement is somewhat (unintentionally) misleading because it uses the phrase “combat power” loosely. The US DoD statements about Russian “combat power” appear to refer to the percentage of troops mobilized for the invasion that are still in principle available for fighting—that is, that are still alive, not badly injured, and with their units. But “combat power” means much more than that. US Army doctrine defines combat power as “the total means of destructive, constructive, and information capabilities that a military unit or formation can apply at a given time.” It identifies eight elements of combat power: “leadership, information, command and control, movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires, sustainment, and protection.” This doctrinal definition obviously encompasses much more than the total number of troops physically present with units and is one of the keys to understanding why Russian forces have performed so poorly in this war despite their large numerical advantage. It is also the key to understanding the evolving next phase of the war.
US DoD statements that Russia retains 80-85 percent of its original mobilized combat power unintentionally exaggerate the Russian military’s current capabilities to fight. Such statements taken in isolation are inherently ambiguous, for one thing. They could mean that 80-85 percent of the Russian units originally mobilized to fight in Ukraine remain intact and ready for action while 15-20 percent have been destroyed. Were that the case, Russia would have tremendous remaining combat power to hurl against Ukraine. Or, they could mean that all the Russian units mobilized to invade Ukraine have each suffered 15-20 percent casualties, which would point to a greatly decreased Russian offensive capacity, as such casualty levels severely degrade the effectiveness of most military units. The reality, as DoD briefers and other evidence make clear, is more complicated, and paints a grim picture for Russian commanders contemplating renewing major offensive operations.
The dozens of Russian battalion tactical groups (BTGs) that retreated from around Kyiv likely possess combat power that is a fraction of what the numbers of units or total numbers of personnel with those units would suggest. Russian units that have fought in Ukraine have taken fearful damage. As the US DoD official noted on April 8, “We've seen indications of some units that are literally, for all intents and purposes, eradicated. There's just nothing left of the BTG except a handful of troops, and maybe a small number of vehicles, and they're going to have to be reconstituted or reapplied to others. We've seen others that are, you know, down 30 percent manpower.” Units with such levels of losses are combat ineffective—they have essentially zero combat power. A combination of anecdotal evidence and generalized statements such as these from US and other NATO defense officials indicates that most of the Russian forces withdrawn from the immediate environs of Kyiv likely fall into the category of units that will remain combat ineffective until they have been reconstituted.
Reconstituting these units to restore any notable fraction of their nominal power would take months. The Russian military would have to incorporate new soldiers bringing the units back up toward full strength and then allow those soldiers time to integrate into the units. It would also have to allow those units to conduct some unit training, because a unit is more than the sum of individual soldiers and vehicles. The combat power of a unit results in no small part from its ability to operate as a coherent whole rather than a group of individuals. It takes time even for well-trained professional soldiers to learn how to fight together, and Russian soldiers are far from well-trained. The unit would also have to replace lost and damaged vehicles and repair those that are reparable. The unit’s personnel would need time to regain their morale and will to fight, both badly damaged by the humiliation of defeat and the stress and emotional damage of the losses they suffered. These processes take a long time. They cannot be accomplished in a few weeks, let alone the few days the Russian command appears willing to grant. Russian forces withdrawn from around Kyiv and going back to fight in Donbas in the next few weeks, therefore, will not have been reconstituted. At best, they will have been patched up and filled out not with fresh soldiers but with soldiers drawn from other battered and demoralized units. A battalion’s worth of such troops will not have a battalion’s worth of combat power.
The Russian armed forces likely have few or no full-strength units in reserve to deploy to fight in Ukraine because of a flawed mobilization scheme that cannot be fixed in the course of a short war. The Russians did not deploy full regiments and brigades to invade Ukraine—with few exceptions as we have previously noted. They instead drew individual battalions from many different regiments and brigades across their entire force. We have identified elements of almost every single brigade or regiment in the Russian Army, Airborne Troops, and Naval Infantry involved in fighting in Ukraine already. The decision to form composite organizations drawn from individual battalions thrown together into ad hoc formations degraded the performance of those units, as we have discussed in earlier reports.[7] It has also committed the Russian military to replicating that mistake for the duration of this conflict, because there are likely few or no intact regiments or brigades remaining in the Russian Army, Airborne Forces, or Naval Infantry. The Russians have no choice but to continue throwing individual battalions together into ad hoc formations until they have rebuilt entire regiments and brigades, a process that will likely take years.
Reports of Russian efforts to mobilize new conscripts for current operations are also somewhat (unintentionally) misleading. Russia is well into its annual spring conscription phase that normally pulls around 130,000 young men into training for their one year of compulsory military service.[8] The Russian military has also launched several other efforts to recruit new contract (professional) soldiers and to expand its reserve pool, as we have reported elsewhere. The US DoD official speaking on April 8 noted that the Russians appear to be trying to draw 60,000 reservists back to the force. The official noted, “it remains to be seen how successful they'll be on this and where those reinforcements would go, how much training they would get.” This caveat is very important. Russia has likely already exhausted the pool of reservists whose initial conscript service and youth render them most likely to be effective in combat, as we have previously reported. The new batch of reservists are older, meaning that they are further away from their experience with military units and that their military skills and habits are likely seriously degraded.[11] The Russians should in principle take many weeks or months to retrain these reservists before integrating them back into combat units to fight. If they do not do so, then these reservists will likely add relatively little effective combat power to the units they join. The conscripts currently undergoing basic training are even further away from offering any significant boost in effective available combat power. Rushing them to front-line units within the next few months will make them simply cannon fodder. The Russians cannot expect to benefit from the roughly 200,000 conscripts and reservists they are currently mobilizing until late summer or fall at the earliest. If they send those people to fight sooner than that, they will suffer disproportionate casualties while adding little to the effective strength of any units they join.
The Ukrainian government and military appear to share the general assessment offered above. Oleksiy Arestovich, chief advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, claimed on April 9 that the Ukrainian military has destroyed 20 BTGs and rendered 40 more combat ineffective. We cannot track individual BTG effectiveness that precisely, but this estimate that approximately one-third of the 180 BTGs Russia has available in and around Ukraine are combat ineffective is consistent with what we have observed.
Ukrainian officials also report that Russian recruitment and mobilization efforts are going poorly. Arestovich noted that Russian attempts to recruit young men into contract service are “going badly too.” Ukrainian military intelligence reported on April 9 that it has data showing very little interest among Russians in voluntarily joining the Russian military. Fewer than one percent of citizens in Ekaterininburg, Russia, were even willing to discuss signing up. The sample size is small (397 candidates), but the picture is consistent with previous reporting. The Russian effort to attract young men into professional reserves (the BARS program) had already been failing even before the war began, as we have previously reported.
Morale is a key element of combat power, and consistent reports indicate that the morale even of elite Russian units remains very low. A Russian Telegram channel reporting on Pskov, the home of the elite 76th Guards Airborne Division, noted on April 7 that a growing number of paratroopers are refusing to fight. It claimed that many paratroopers have submitted resignation papers, which commanders are refusing to accept. Some soldiers’ families have reportedly appealed to Russian courts to force the Russian military to accept the resignations. The channel claimed on April 6 that 60 paratroopers had refused to fight and were dismissed.[17] The head of the Russian human rights organization Agora reported on April 8 that members of Russia’s National Guard (Rosgvardia) have refused to go to Ukraine or, having gone and come out, are refusing orders to return to the fight. Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) additionally claimed on April 9 that Russian soldiers have been injuring themselves to avoid having to return to combat. The GUR reported on a transcript of a call it claims to have intercepted from a Russian officer to his wife complaining of lack of food, predicting that the war will not go well, and expressing the hope that he will live to draw his pension. The GUR also reported that an elite Russian SPETSNAZ unit that had fought in Syria refused to continue fighting in Mariupol after suffering 30 casualties between April 2 and April 4. We have previously reported other instances of Russian soldiers and units refusing orders to fight or return to Ukraine after being pulled back.
Most of these reports are anecdotal and unconfirmed, but the picture they paint is coherent and accords with the observable performance of the Russian military in Ukraine to date. The Russians technically have enough healthy soldiers with weapons to pose a significant threat to eastern Ukraine, and they may wear down the Ukrainian defenders by sheer weight of numbers, although likely at a hideous cost. But all indications are that the effective combat power of Russian reinforcements that might go to eastern Ukraine will be a small fraction of what the number of soldiers and units would indicate, and the outcome of the fight is therefore far from clear. It is important to avoid allowing the shorthand DoD briefers and others understandably use to describe available Russian forces to lead to exaggerated estimates of the actual military capabilities of Russian forces.
The Russians are apparently attempting to resolve one of the problems from which their initial invasion suffered by making Southern Military District Commander General Alexander Dvornikov the single overall commander of operations in Ukraine.[23] At least two and possibly three officers had previously commanded separate axes, with Dvornikov responsible for the south and east while Western Military District Commander General Alexander Zhuravlyov commanded the north. Eastern Military District Commander Colonel General Alexander Chaiko may have commanded the troops drawn from his military district who attacked down the west bank of the Dnipro River, although we have no confirmation of that hypothesis. The lack of a single overall commander clearly hindered the cooperation of Russian forces operating along various invasion axes. The designation of Dvornikov as the overall commander makes sense now given that the announced Russian main efforts are almost all in his area of responsibility.
This simplification of the Russian command structure may not resolve all of Russia’s command problems, however. Most of the reinforcements flowing into the Donbas region are drawn from other military districts, for one thing. The active Russian offensive drive from Izyum to the southeast relies on the concentration of Russian forces around Kharkiv that draws in turn on the logistics hub of Belgorod in Russia—both in areas nominally under Zhuravlyov’s control. Russian forces will likely continue to struggle to establish coherent and efficient command and control arrangements for the foreseeable future.
-Russian forces continued offensive operations in Mariupol, along the Izyum-Slovyansk axis, and around Rubizhne and Popasna in the last 24 hours but made few gains.
-Some Russian military units have experienced major losses, a senior US defense official said, and the Pentagon estimates Russia’s combat power is somewhere between 80% and 85% of pre-invasion levels.
-Officials claim Russian forces are attempting to break through the Ukrainian defences in Izum in Kharkiv, east Ukraine, by relocating additional units to the area while also attempting to establish full control over the city of Mariupol.
-A partial blockade of Kharkiv and shelling of the city continues, Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said.
-Satellite images released by US private space technology company Maxar Technologies show an eight-mile-long military convoy moving south through the eastern Ukraine town of Velkyi Burluk on 8 April. The town sits to the east of Kharkiv, close to Ukraine’s border with Russia.
-Colonel Alexander Bespalov, the commander of the 59th Guards Tank Regiment, was reportedly killed in battle by Ukrainian defence forces.
-In response to mounting losses, the Russian armed forces is seeking to bolster troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012, according to the latest British intelligence report. Efforts to generate more fighting power also include trying to recruit from the unrecognised Transnistria region of Moldova, the report added.
-Russia has reorganised the command of its battle operations in Ukraine, installing a new general with extensive experience in Russian operations in Syria, according to western officials. The commander of Russia’s southern military district, Gen Alexander Dvornikov, now leads the invasion.
*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***
-A key opposition party in Sweden will reportedly look to switch its stance on whether the country should join NATO if neighboring Finland applies for membership, potentially clearing the way for legislation calling to end the country’s long history of military neutrality.
-China has accelerated an expansion of its nuclear arsenal because of a change in its assessment of the threat posed by the U.S., people with knowledge of the Chinese leadership’s thinking say, shedding new light on a buildup that is raising tension between the two countries.
-Nato is working on plans for a permanent military presence on its border in an effort to battle future Russian aggression, The Telegraph is reporting, citing Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
-NATO will send “heavier” weapons to Ukraine and replace the country’s Soviet-era gear with more modern equipment, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said following a meeting of member states. Speaking to reporters, Truss confirmed that the US-led bloc had agreed to ship more powerful armaments to Kiev as it resists Russia’s ongoing attack.
-Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, one of the top politicians of the Eastern European nation, said on Friday that cooperation with Hungary would not be possible unless Prime Minister Viktor Orban aligns himself with Kiev. Prior to the conflict in Ukraine, Poland and Hungary were staunch allies. Kaczynski said in a radio interview that he has an “unequivocally negative” opinion of Orban’s refusal to take a harder stance on Russia following the latter’s military offensive on Ukraine.
-The European Union has devolved to the level of “NATO’s economic relations department,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Saturday. Following his visit to Ukraine, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, tweeted: “This war must be won on the battlefield.” The militant remarks coming from a diplomat prompted a reaction from Moscow. “So much for ‘economic organization.’ This is no longer the European Union. It's just NATO's economic relations department,” Zakharova wrote.
-Russian Finance Minister Anatoly Siluanov said on Saturday that the five BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - could mitigate the backlash of Western sanctions against Russia on their economies by pooling their efforts and using a range of financial instruments at their disposal. “The current crisis is man-made and BRICS countries have all the instruments necessary to mitigate its consequences for the national and global economies,” Siluanov was cited as saying by the Russian Finance Ministry. The minister blamed economic sanctions on Russia for “destroying the foundation of the existing international monetary and financial system based on the US dollar” and urged BRICS to rely more on their national currencies in foreign trade, integrate payment systems and create an alternative to the SWIFT payment messaging platform.
-France is surveying its largest consumers of natural gas to assess which of them would have to suspend normal operations if deliveries of the fuel from Russia are cut. The plan was outlined in a decree published on Friday by the government gazette JORF.
-TikTok celebrity and self-described “Gen Z Historian” Khalil Greene has criticized his fellow influencers for telling their fans “verbatim” what the Biden administration wanted them to say on the Ukraine conflict. Greene said that he understands why conservatives said that the young influencers were “used as pawns by the White House.” Greene was one of 30 social media creators invited to a video conference by the White House last month, during which Press Secretary Jen Psaki laid out the US’ policy on Ukraine and Russia, so that the message could then be spread to their millions of followers. The White House’s director of digital strategy, Rob Flaherty, said that the virtual briefing was “critically important” to make sure that the influencers got “the latest information from an authoritative source.”
-On Friday, President Biden signed into law a bill that suspends normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus. He also signed legislation codifying an executive order he signed last month banning the import of Russian oil, gas, and coal. The Suspending Normal Trade Relations with Russia and Belarus Act strips the two nations of their “most favored nation trade status,” which paves the way for tariffs and other trade restrictions. The bill blasted through the Senate in a vote of 100-0 and overwhelmingly passed the House with only three Republican Reps. voting against it. The votes demonstrate the bipartisan support for the US-led Western sanctions campaign against Russia. Also on Friday, the EU imposed new sanctions on Moscow that include a ban on Russian coal and other products. It’s estimated the new measures will slash 10% of the EU’s total imports from Russia.
"Time for democratic countries buying this Russia energy to start taxing these imports. Revenues from new tariffs could be used to subsidize energy consumption of the poorest in these countries and to provide funds for a Ukrainian reconstruction fund." — Michael McFaul
Under the coal ban, the EU plans to wind down imports over the next four months. The sanctions are significant as the EU relies on Russia for about 45% of its coal imports, and the ban is expected to impact about $8.7 billion of Russian exports. Responding to the ban, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian coal would be sent to other markets. “Shipments of coal, as Europe refuses [its] consumption … will be redirected to alternative markets,” Peskov said, according to Tass. “Of course, coal is still a very popular commodity.”
-A holding tank containing hazardous materials has been destroyed at a chemical plant in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) town of Rubezhnoye, both local and Kiev-appointed officials said on Saturday. The blast comes days after a similar incident occurred at the facility amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “Today, once again, a tank with nitric acid was blown up on the territory of the Zarya chemical plant in the town of Rubezhnoye, which resulted in a release of toxic substances into the environment,” the LPR’s militia said in a statement, accusing Ukrainian nationalist units of using “terrorist tactics” against the civilian population and destroying infrastructure. The incident has been confirmed by the Kiev-appointed governor of Lugansk, Sergey Gaidai. However, he blamed the blast on artillery shelling by the “orcs” – a derogatory term commonly used in Ukraine to describe forces of the Donbass republics and the Russian military.
-Russia’s first external default in a century now looks all but inevitable after another brutal week for the country’s finances. First, the Treasury halted dollar debt payments from Russia’s accounts in U.S. banks, ramping up its restrictions on the country. Then, when an attempted hard-currency payment was blocked, Russia breached the terms on two bonds by paying investors rubles instead of dollars.
-In an interview with Die Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung published on Saturday, Germany’s Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht told a German paper that while "we all have an obligation to support Ukraine in its courageous fight" with "supplies from the Bundeswehr's stockpiles" Germany has "reached [its] limit," and that the German military must be "able to ensure" the country's defense. To be sure, "...that doesn't mean we can't do more for Ukraine," Lambrecht added, suggesting that Kiev could directly buy equipment it needed from German manufacturers directly. The minister pointed out that the German government "was constantly coordinating" with the authorities in Kiev to facilitate such purchaces.
-Ukraine has banned all imports from Russia, one of its key trading partners before the war with annual imports valued at about $6 billion, and called on other countries to follow suit. Ukraine’s minister for economic development and trade, Yulia Svyrydenko, made the announcement in a statement on Saturday.
-A potential sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey would be consistent with US policy objectives, the State Department told lawmakers in a letter, months after Ankara asked to purchase dozens of warplanes and upgrade kits. Dated March 17, the letter to Congress stopped short of endorsing the F-16 sale outright, but said Turkey is “an important deterrent to malign influence in the region” and suggested it may be willing to go through with the deal. Turkey's Daily Sabah points out that "Considering U.S. Congress' opposition to Ankara purchasing arms due to several lingering issues, it was thought that it would be difficult to win approval for the deal, however, reports have said that the new U.S. administration supports it."
While Turkey is a NATO member and owns a fleet of F-16s, its defense ties with the United States have deteriorated since Ankara bought the S-400 air defense system from Russia in 2017. The Donald Trump administration insisted the missile platform is incompatible with other NATO defense infrastructure and could even compromise US weapons systems, ultimately expelling Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet program and imposing sanctions on several officials in retaliation.
Despite the controversy, Ankara asked to buy 40 new F-16s and 80 F-16 modernization kits last October, having abandoned hopes to ever see the newer F-35 in its arsenal. It has so far received no public response from the White House.
-By all signs, Finland is heading towards a decision on joining the NATO alliance within the next few months, if not weeks. And in the process, a top Finnish defense official tells Breaking Defense, the country has to prepare for the reality of a furious, but unpredictable response from Moscow. “Of course, Russia will react, but we don’t know how. And we need to be prepared” should Finland decide to join NATO, said Esa Pulkkinen, the permanent secretary at Finland’s Ministry of Defense. “We need to be ready, of course, to face consequences.” NATO’s vaunted Article 5 protections do not kick in for aspirant members, only ratified ones. That means from the moment Finland — and perhaps its neighbor Sweden — declares the intention to join NATO until the moment every alliance member has ratified their ascension, there is no guarantee other nations will come to their aid in response to military action by Moscow.
-Finland was hit with cyberattacks targeting government sites on Friday just as Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky was addressing Finnish Parliament. The Ukrainian leader has regularly been giving formal speeches before lawmaking bodies across the West and the world, making urgent please for additional military and humanitarian assistance to his besieged nation.
-A Russian government fleet aircraft is suspected of violating Finnish airspace in the Gulf of Finland off Porvoo on Friday morning. According to the Ministry of Defense, the suspected airspace violation by a IL-96-300 lasted three minutes.
-Russian and Belarusian runners will not be allowed to take part in this year’s Boston Marathon because of the invasion of Ukraine, organisers said on Wednesday (Apr 6). Russian and Belarusian athletes living in their respective countries are barred from the Apr 18 race, the Boston Athletic Association said. However, Russian and Belarusian citizens not residing in either country would be allowed to take part, but not under the flag of either nation.
-Shell has announced that it will write off between $4 and $5 billion in the value of its assets after pulling out of Russia following the country’s unprecedented invasion of Ukraine. Thursday’s announcement offers a first glimpse at the potential financial impact to Western oil majors of exiting Russia.
-Dmitry Medvedev has described economic sanctions imposed on the country as an “act of aggression” on the part of individual states and their unions. Medvedev, who advises Vladimir Putin on national security matters and is among those subject to sanctions, said Russia had the right to defend itself within the framework of international law. Noone should doubt that it would use this right within the boundaries of what it “considers appropriate”, he said, in a message posted on Telegram.
-Poland on Friday summoned France’s ambassador over French President Emmanuel Macron’s reference to Poland’s prime minister as a “far-right anti-Semite” in a budding feud over Russia’s war on Ukraine, reports Associated Press.
-The Czech Republic has delivered tanks, multiple rocket launchers, howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, among military shipments that have reached hundreds of millions of dollars, Reuters reports. Defence sources confirmed to Reuters a shipment of five T-72 tanks and five BVP-1, or BMP-1, infantry fighting vehicles seen on rail cars in photographs on Twitter and video footage this week, but those were not the first shipments of heavy equipment. “For several weeks, we have been supplying heavy ground equipment - I am saying it generally but by definition it is clear that this includes tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers and multiple rocket launchers,” a senior defence official said. “What has gone from the Czech Republic is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” Independent defence analyst Lukas Visingr said short-range air-defence systems Strela-10, or SA-13 Gopher in Nato terminology, have been spotted on a train apparently bound for Ukraine, in line with a report in Czech weekly respekt.cz. The Defence Ministry declined to comment on concrete military aid.
-South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he had a productive phone call with US President Joe Biden on Friday, in which they “shared views on the conflict in Ukraine”. South Africa was among the 58 countries that abstained from voting on the UN General Assembly resolution which suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council in response to Moscow’s invasion of and alleged rights abuses in Ukraine.
-International prices for food commodities, including grains and vegetable oils, reached all time highs last month amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. The conflict is causing massive disruptions, the United Nations said Friday, threatening millions of people in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere with hunger and malnourishment.
-Russia’s justice ministry has revoked the registration of 15 foreign organisations, including those of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In a statement, the ministry said the Russian units of the organisations “were excluded due to the discovery of violations of the current legislation of the Russian Federation”. Human Rights Watch said the move is proof the Russian government “has no use for any facts regarding the protections of civilians in Ukraine”.
-A clip from earlier today of Maria Zakharova, Russia’s director of information and press department for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has gone viral for some bizarre comments she made about Ukrainians and borscht. “They wouldn’t share the borscht recipe. … It had to belong to one people, to one nationality,” Zakharova, referring to the beet soup. “They couldn’t bear the thought that every… housewife in the world would be able to cook it her way. This is what we are talking about. The xenophobia, the fascism, the extremism…”
-A Russian ballistic missile hit a crowded train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, where 4,000 people were waiting to be evacuated, on Friday mid-morning. At least 50 people, including five children, were killed, according to the governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko. Russia has denied it was responsible.
-The Prime Minister has agreed that the UK will send 120 armoured vehicles and new anti-ship missile systems to support Ukraine following talks between Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Saturday.
-US intelligence officials claim Vladimir Putin may use the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine as a pretext to order a new campaign to interfere in American politics. Intelligence agencies have not found any evidence that the Russian president authorised measures like the ones Russia is believed to have undertaken in the 2016 and 2020 elections in support of Donald Trump. However, officials believe he may see the US backing of the Ukrainian resistance effort as a direct affront, giving him further incentive to target another US election.
-YouTube has blocked the Russian parliamentary channel Duma TV, leading officials to warn the platform may be restricted in response.
No comments:
Post a Comment