*** MILITARY SITUATION ***
Russian forces forced Ukrainian troops to abandon the Ilyich metal plant in northern Mariupol on April 13, further constricting the two remaining pockets of Ukrainian defenders. Russian forces will likely capture Mariupol in the coming week. Russian forces continued to conduct small-scale limited offensive operations on both the Izyum and Severodonetsk axes and have not yet begun a broader offensive campaign.
-Russian forces continued to take ground in Mariupol, but Russian claims of a mass Ukrainian surrender are unverified.
-Russian forces continued unsuccessful local attacks in eastern Ukraine amid continuing preparations for a likely wider offensive.
-Russian forces continued to regroup in Kharkiv Oblast for offensive operations and conducted only minor attacks south of Izyum.
-Russia is attempting to mobilise up to 70,000 people in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military claims. Russian forces continue to expand units near the eastern border and restore and replenish ammunition, officials added.
-Negotiations are reportedly underway on the exchange of 169 servicemen of the National Guard of Ukraine who were taken prisoner at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukrainian officials say.
-The Russian defence ministry said the entire crew of the warship Moskva, reported to be struck by two Ukrainian Neptune missiles in the Black Sea late on Wednesday night, has been evacuated after an ammunition explosion and fire on the ship. The ship was famously defied by Ukrainian troops on Snake Island at the start of the war. The Moskva is the flagship of the Black Sea fleet. “The cruiser ‘Moskva’ of the Black Sea Fleet was seriously damaged as a result of the detonation of ammunition that occurred as a result of a fire, the crew was evacuated,” Russian state media outlet TASS reported, citing the Russian defene ministry. “As a result of a fire, ammunition detonated on the Moskva missile cruiser. The ship was seriously damaged. The crew was completely evacuated,” the ministry added. Ukraine said it struck and damaged a Russian warship in the Black Sea, according to a Telegram messaged posted by Odesa governor Maksym Marchenko. The 12,500 tonne ship could have as many as 510 crew members on board.
The Russian defence ministry has said the entire crew of the warship Moskva, reported to be struck by Ukraine in the Black Sea late on Wednesday, has been evacuated.
*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***
-Russia has warned Nato that if Finland and Sweden were to join the military alliance, then it would take measures in the Baltic. Dmitry Medvedev is reported by Reuters saying: “There can be no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic - the balance must be restored. Until today, Russia has not taken such measures and was not going to.” Finland and Sweden took a major step towards joining Nato yesterday, after their prime ministers said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had changed Europe’s “whole security landscape” and “dramatically shaped mindsets” in the Nordic countries. The Finnish prime minister, Sanna Marin, said on Wednesday that her country, which shares a 1,300km (810-mile) border with Russia, would decide whether to apply to join the alliance “quite fast, in weeks not months”, despite the risk of infuriating Moscow.
- The White House is moving to significantly expand its intelligence sharing with Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal is reporting based on admin officials. "The Biden administration is moving to significantly expand the intelligence it is providing to Ukraine’s forces so they can target Moscow’s military units in Russian-occupied Donbas and Crimea and potentially take back territory, U.S. officials said," the report says. Further it comes as Biden has said the Pentagon will step up its weapons flow to Kiev. This was revealed following a phone call with Zelensky on Wednesday, where Biden said he informed his Ukrainian counterpart he's authorized an additional $800 million in weapons, ammunition, and other security assistance to Ukraine, according to the official readout. Crucially, the transfer of helicopters was named as part of the new assistance package. Some of these are weapons systems the Pentagon has never given Ukraine before.
-The French president, Emmanuel Macron, declined to repeat Biden’s accusation that Russia was carrying out “genocide” against Ukrainians, warning that verbal escalations would not help end the war.
-Senior US officials are weighing whether to send a top Cabinet level official to Kyiv as a high profile representative in a show of solidarity with Ukraine, a source familiar with the situation said on Wednesday.
-Zelenskiy warned that the war will become an “endless bloodbath, spreading misery, suffering, and destruction” without additional weaponry.
-In a speech at the Atlantic Council on Wednesday, US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said that countries on the fence of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine could face global isolation. “The unified coalition of sanctioning countries will not be indifferent to actions that undermine the sanctions we’ve put in place.”
-US President Joe Biden earlier announced an additional $800m in military assistance to Ukraine including heavy artillery ahead of a wider Russian assault expected in eastern Ukraine. The package, which brings the total military aid since Russian forces invaded in February to more than $2.5 billion, includes artillery systems, artillery rounds, armoured personnel carriers and unmanned coastal defence boats, Biden said in a statement after a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Biden said he had also approved the transfer of additional helicopters, saying equipment provided to Ukraine “has been critical” as it confronts the invasion.
The new package includes 11 Mi-17 helicopters and 18 155mm howitzers, along with 40,000 artillery rounds, counter-artillery radars, 200 armoured personnel carriers and 300 additional Switchblade drones. It will be the first time howitzers have been provided to Ukraine by the United States. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said some of the systems, like the howitzers and radars, will require additional training for Ukrainian forces not accustomed to using American military equipment.
This is the155mm Howitzers
Here are the Russian Mi-17 Heli's, which are apparently kept in the US inventory by the Army's Flight Concepts Division, probably for classified missions and training since the Afgan military formerly used these Helo's extensively as well as the CIA on covert missions in Afghanistan. Don't really need those anymore, do we?
One thing not mentioned in the briefing included in the package are thousands of anti-personnel Claymore mines. What would happen if the US was invading a country and Russia was gifting that country anti-personnel mines?
-The prices that goods and services producers receive rose in March at the fastest pace since records have been kept, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. The producer price index, which measures the prices paid by wholesalers, increased 11.2% from a year ago, the most in a data series going back to November 2010. On a monthly basis, the gauge climbed 1.4%, above the 1.1% Dow Jones estimate and also a record. Stripping out food, energy and trade services, so-called core PPI rose 0.9% on a monthly basis, nearly double the 0.5% estimate and the biggest monthly gain since January 2021. Core PPI increased 7% on a year-over-year basis. PPI is considered a forward-looking inflation measure as it tracks prices in the pipeline for goods and services that eventually reach consumers. Wednesday’s release comes the day after the BLS reported that the consumer price index for March surged 8.5% over the past year, above expectations and the highest reading since December 1981.
-Russia has warned of a direct military confrontation with the US over its support to Ukraine, even as the former Soviet republic is set to become part of the European Union. Anatoly Antonov, Russia's envoy to Washington, has warned that the current actions of Western nations viz a viz Ukraine could be leading to a direct military confrontation between Russia and the US.
-Russia is imposing sanctions on 398 US House representatives and 87 Canadiana senators, reports Reuters citing a Russian news agency. According to Interfax news agency, Russia’s foreign ministry said the move to impose sanctions came after the US announced sanctions last month against 328 members of the Russian Duma, or parliament. Russia plans to announce additional sanctions in response to U.S. punitive measures soon, Interfax said.
-The presidents of four countries bordering Russia – Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia – have travelled to Kyiv in a show of support for their Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his embattled troops. It follows Kyiv’s reported refusal to meet the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who visited Poland on Tuesday and said he had planned to go on to Ukraine but “was not wanted”. The former German foreign minister is facing heavy criticism for his past policy of rapprochement towards Moscow.
-According to a report from Reuters, the Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight US weapons makers to discuss the industry’s capacity to produce arms for Ukraine if the war lasts years. One source told Reuters that the Pentagon’s Office of Acquisition and Sustainment will host a 90-minute meeting that Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks will likely attend. Resupplying the weapons stockpiles of the US and its allies are expected to be discussed, as well as planning for a long-term conflict. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the US has pledged over $1.7 billion in new military aid for Ukraine. The weapons in highest demand are Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, as the US is shipping them to Ukraine on a near-daily basis.
Javelins are a joint venture between Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. The Stingers are solely made by Raytheon, which is the former employer of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Raytheon, Lockheed, and other US arms makers are expected to reap long-term benefits from the war in Ukraine. Other top US arms makers that could attend the Pentagon meeting include Northrop Grumman, Boeing, L3Harris Technologies, and General Dynamics. Besides replenishing stockpiles sent to Ukraine, the companies stand to gain from European countries increasing military spending in the wake of Russia’s invasion.
-Russia will view US and Nato vehicles transporting weapons on Ukrainian territory as “legal military targets”, the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said, Reuters reports. Speaking in an interview with the Russian state-owned news agency Tass, Ryabkov said: We are warning that US-Nato weapons transports across Ukrainian territory will be considered by us as legal military targets. We are making the Americans and other Westerners understand that attempts to slow down our special operation, to inflict maximum damage on Russian contingents and formations of the DPR and LPR (Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics) will be harshly suppressed. "Western states are directly involved in the current events as they continue to pump Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, thereby inciting further bloodshed," Antonov was quoted as saying by Newsweek magazine. He said the support being received by Ukraine from the West was escalating the crisis and warned that the consequences of such policies could be severe. "We warn that such actions are dangerous and provocative as they are directed against our state. They can lead the US and the Russian Federation onto the path of direct military confrontation. "Any supply of weapons and military equipment from the West, performed by transport convoys through the territory of Ukraine, is a legitimate military target for our Armed Forces." Antonov also warned that any supply of weapons and military equipment from the West was “a legitimate military target for our Armed Forces.”
-A French journalist who returned from Ukraine after arriving with volunteer fighters told broadcaster CNews that Americans are directly “in charge” of the war on the ground. The assertion was made by Le Figaro senior international correspondent Georges Malbrunot. Malbrunot said he had accompanied French volunteer fighters, two of whom had previously fought against ISIS. “I had the surprise, and so did they, to discover that to be able to enter the Ukrainian army, well it’s the Americans who are in charge,” said Malbrunot. Adding that he and the volunteers “almost got arrested” by the Americans, who asserted they were in charge, the journalist then revealed that they were forced to sign a contract “until the end of the war.” Malbrunot also mentioned America providing Ukraine with switchblade suicide drones, something highlighted by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a tweet that revealed Ukrainian soldiers were being trained to use the devices in Biloxi, Mississippi. Citing a French intelligence source, Malbrunot also tweeted that British SAS units “have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as did the American Deltas.” Russia is apparently well aware of the “secret war” being waged in Ukraine by foreign commandos who have been in the region since February.
-The UN refugee agency has called on the UK government to intervene to stop single British men from being matched up with lone Ukrainian women seeking refuge from war because of fears of sexual exploitation.
-Russia said on Wednesday that claims by the US and Ukraine that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine were disinformation because Moscow destroyed its last chemical stockpiles in 2017.
-China’s overall trade with Russia rose by more than 12% in March from a year earlier in dollar terms, in sync with previous gains, even as Beijing criticised western sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Overall trade with Russia increased 12.76% in March to $11.67bn and jumped 30.45% in the first quarter from the same period last year, Chinese customs data showed on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
-Last month, as many tech companies sided with Ukraine over Russia’s invasion, TikTok appeared to follow suit by suspending new video uploads and live streams from Russia. The company said it made the move to protect Russian users from the country’s new laws criminalizing criticism of its military. But the wildly popular, Chinese-owned social media app also walled off Russian users from seeing any posts at all from outside the country, including from Ukraine — effectively creating a second, censored version of its platform. For the tens of millions of Russians on TikTok, the outside world has fallen silent. TikTok’s block on outside content appears to have effectively purged the app of non-Russian content.
-Australia has imposed targeted financial sanctions on 14 Russian state-owned enterprises on Thursday, including defence-related entities such as truckmaker Kamaz, and shipping companies SEVMASH and United Shipbuilding Corp.
-The European Space Agency said is has ended cooperation with Russia on three missions to the Moon due to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, following a previous decision to do the same for a Mars mission.
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