*** MILITARY SITUATION ***
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 31st
Ukrainian forces conducted several local counterattacks around Kyiv, in northeastern Ukraine, and toward Kherson on March 31, successfully pressuring Russian forces and seeking to disrupt ongoing Russian troop rotations. Ukrainian forces northwest of Kyiv pushed Russian forces north of the E-40 highway and will likely assault Russian-held Bucha and Hostomel in the coming days. Ukrainian forces exploited limited Russian withdrawals east of Brovary to retake territory across Kyiv and Chernihiv Oblasts. Ukrainian forces likely conducted counterattacks toward Sumy in the past 24 hours as well, though ISW cannot independently confirm these reports. Finally, Ukrainian forces conducted limited counterattacks in northern Kherson Oblast. Russian forces only conducted offensive operations in Donbas and against Mariupol in the last 24 hours and did not make any major advances.
Russian efforts to redeploy damaged units from the Kyiv and Sumy axes to eastern Ukraine are unlikely to enable Russian forces to conduct major gains. Russia continued to withdraw elements of the 35th and 36th Combined Arms Armies and 76 Air Assault Division from their positions northwest of Kyiv into Belarus for refit and likely further redeployment to eastern Ukraine. However, these units are likely heavily damaged and demoralized. Feeding damaged Eastern Military District units directly into operations in eastern Ukraine—predominantly conducted by the Southern Military District—will likely prove ineffective and additionally introduce further command-and-control challenges for the Russian military. Russian forces will likely attempt to retain their current front lines around Kyiv and in northeastern Ukraine and will continue to dig in on these fronts; ISW has not seen any indicators of Russian forces fully relinquishing captured territory. However, Ukrainian counterattacks are likely disrupting Russian efforts to redeploy and refit their forces and will continue in the coming days.
-Ukrainian forces successfully conducted local counterattacks around Kyiv, towards Sumy, and in Kherson Oblast and will likely take further territory—particularly northwest and east of Kyiv—in the coming days.
-Russia is withdrawing elements of its damaged forces around Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy for redeployment to eastern Ukraine, but these units are unlikely to provide a decisive shift in Russian combat power.
-Ukrainian forces continued to repel Russian assaults throughout Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, and Russian forces failed to take territory in the past 24 hours.
-Russian forces continue to steadily advance in Mariupol.
-Russia’s preplanned spring draft will begin on April 1 and does not appear abnormal from Russia’s typical conscription cycle. Newly drafted conscripts will not provide Russia with additional combat power for many months.
-The Kremlin is likely accelerating efforts to establish quasi-state entities to govern occupied Ukrainian territory.
-The UK’s ministry of defence has just released its latest intelligence report, suggesting heavy fighting will likely take place in Kyiv in the coming days. Despite Russian statements indicating an intended reduction of military activity around Chernihiv, significant Russian shelling and missile strikes have continued. Russian forces continue to hold positions to the east and west of Kyiv despite the withdrawal of a limited number of units. Heavy fighting will likely take place in the suburbs of the city in coming days. Heavy fighting continues in Mariupol, a key objective of Russian forces, however Ukrainian forces remain in control of the centre of the city.”
-Russia is redeploying elements of its forces from Georgia to reinforce its invasion of Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Thursday. “It is highly unlikely that Russia planned to generate reinforcements in this manner and it is indicative of the unexpected losses it has sustained during the invasion,” the ministry added.
-Russian forces are not withdrawing, but regrouping, Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said. Stoltenberg also said the alliance had yet to be convinced Russia was negotiating in good faith in peace talks in Istanbul because Moscow’s military objective since launching its invasion of Ukraine had not changed. The Pentagon added Russia may be repositioning some of its forces around Kyiv to send them to the eastern Donbas region. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russia has moved a “small number” - perhaps 20% - of its troops from around Kyiv after failing to capture the city. Kirby said the “best assessment” is that the troops are “going to be repositioned, probably into Belarus, to be refit and resupplied and used elsewhere in Ukraine.”
-Ukrainian forces have retaken the villages of Sloboda and Lukashivka to the south of Chernihiv and located along one of the main supply routes between the city and Kyiv. Ukraine has also continued to make successful but limited counterattacks to the east and north east of Kyiv. Both Chernihiv and Kyiv have been subjected to continued air and missile strikes despite Russian claims of reducing activity in these areas.”
-An oil depot is reportedly on fire in the Russian city of Belgorod as the regional governor blames Ukrainian military helicopters for the attack, a claim that could not be immediately verified. Vyacheslav Gladkov alleged the fire was caused by airstrikes from two Ukrainian helicopters that had crossed the border at low altitude, in a statement on his Telegram channel on Friday morning.
*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***
-President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a decree ordering 134,500 new conscripts into the army as part of Russia's annual spring draft, but the defence ministry said the call-up had nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. The order came five weeks into Russia's invasion, which has run into fierce Ukrainian resistance. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that none of those called up would be sent to any "hot spots".
-US President Joe Biden said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “seems to be self-isolated” and noted “there’s some indication that he has fired or put under house arrest some of his advisers,” without citing evidence.
-EU and Chinese leaders will meet for a first summit in two years on Friday with Brussels keen for assurances from Beijing that it will neither supply Russia with arms nor help Moscow circumvent western sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. EU officials close to the preparations of the summit said any help given to Russia would damage China’s international reputation and jeopardise relations with its biggest trade partners - Europe and the United States.
-Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president in Russia from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s security council, has issued a warning about Russian agricultural exports, saying in the future they will only go to friends. Reuters quotes him saying he would like to outline “some simple but important points about food security in Russia,” given the sanctions imposed. “We will only be supplying food and agriculture products to our friends,” Medvedev said on social media. “Fortunately we have plenty of them, and they are not in Europe or North America at all.”
-Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australia will send armoured Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy specifically asked for them during a video appeal to Australian lawmakers. Zelenskiy addressed the Australian Parliament on Thursday and asked for the Australian-made, four-wheel-drive vehicles. Morrison told reporters the vehicles will be flown over on Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport planes. He didn’t specify how many would be sent or when.
-Britain and its allies have agreed to send more lethal military aid to Ukraine to help defend it against Russia’s invasion, the British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said. As part of the agreement, armoured vehicles and long-range artillery will be sent.
-The Biden administration has approved the drawdown and sale of petroleum from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) citing a severe energy supply interruption. In a recently published memorandum, Biden said Russia’s invasion on Ukraine “has had a profound impact on global oil markets” prompting the International Energy Agency Governing Board to agree to a collective release of petroleum reserves. He said the United States committed to a drawdown and sale of 30 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
-A top US national security official has called on India to scale back its economic and military ties with Russia, warning of “consequences” for any nation that helps Moscow avoid the recent wave of Western sanctions. Speaking to reporters after meeting with Indian officials on Thursday, Washington’s deputy national security adviser for international economics, Daleep Singh, urged New Delhi not to boost Russian energy imports, and to avoid any moves that might “undermine” the US dollar.
-Russia will respond to European Union sanctions and says the 27-nation bloc might realise that a confrontation with Moscow is not in its interests, Russian state media agency RIA Novosti cited a senior foreign ministry official as saying on Friday. Nikolai Kobrinets said in an interview with the news agency: The actions of the EU will not remain unanswered ... the irresponsible sanctions by Brussels are already negatively affecting the daily lives of ordinary Europeans. Are they ready from their own pocket to pay for further killings of civilians in Ukraine, the transformation of Europe from a region of cooperation and stability into a zone of conflict? I don’t think so.”
-Contrary to expectations that Vladimir Putin was bluffing about collecting rubles in exchange for Russian energy exports, moments ago a decree signed by the Russian president confirmed that that was not the case. According to Bloomberg, Putin said he had signed a decree demanding payment in rubles for Russian gas supplies, which is set to begin April 1 as previously reported. According to the decree, while Russia will continue to supply gas at set volumes and prices, it will demand that buyers of gas open accounts in Russian banks, and warned that Moscow can halt gas contracts if buyers don't pay in rubles; additionally, new proceedings in EUR or USD could be blocked. Pushing what many viewed as a bluff to the edge, Putin said that active contracts will be halted if demands are not met, and explained that the move is meant to increase settlements in national currencies. Putin's decree follows an earlier report in the Russian press that Gazprom was studying options of halting gas supplies to Europe amid RUB payment issues. It also follows comments from the Kremlin which suggested that it would look into the idea from lawmakers to ask other nations to pay for a wider range of Russia exports in rubles.
-Top EU leadership has been banned from entering Russia in response to the bloc’s “unfriendly actions,” which, as the Russian Foreign Ministry claims, are “driving the relationship with Russia into a deadlock.” In a lengthy statement, issued on Thursday, the ministry said that the EU sanctions policy, which has been introduced in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, “oversteps all limits.” The intention of the EU, the statement says, is clear: “To force Russia to renounce its vital interests.”
-Pakistani PM Imran Khan ‘accidentally’ named the United States as the culprit when he claimed “a foreign country I can’t name” was eager to see him removed from his post via a no-confidence vote. “America has – oh, not America but a foreign country I can’t name” sent the leader the message in an effort to meddle in his country’s politics, Khan said in a televised address on Thursday, after a no-confidence vote against him was rescheduled.
-The French government has decided to replace the head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DRM), national media reported on Wednesday citing sources. General Eric Vidaud was fired just seven months after getting the job, allegedly for being blindsided by Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
-CEO of Germany's multinational BASF SE, the world's largest chemical producer, has warned that curbing or cutting off energy imports from Russia would bring into doubt the continued existence of small and medium-sized energy companies, and further would likely spiral Germany into its most "catastrophic" economic crisis going back to the end of World War 2. Company CEO Martin Brudermuller issued the words in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper just ahead of German officials by midweek giving an "early warning" to industries and the population of possible natural gas shortages, as Russia appears ready to firmly hold to Putin's recent declaration that "unfriendly countries" must settle energy payments in rubles, related to the Ukraine crisis and resultant Western sanctions. According to Bloomberg he mused that while "Germany could be independent from Russia gas in four to five years" it remains that "LNG imports cannot be increased quickly enough to replace all Russian gas flows in the short term."
-The Russian rouble has recovered to its pre-war value despite western sanctions on the country’s exports and financial systems. The currency was trading at 75.5 to one US dollar on Thursday morning, compared with almost 140 to the dollar at the beginning of March when it crashed with the onest of sanctions. That is actually better than it was on 22 February, two days before the invasion, when it was at 80 per dollar.
-A somewhat exasperated Zelenskiy has said peace talks with Russia are ongoing but nothing “concrete” has come out of them.
-The US Army would fall below 1 million soldiers for the first time in two decades under a new budget proposal as leaders struggle with recruitment in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. The active-duty Army would drop from the 485,000 soldiers Congress authorized for this year to 473,000, a reduction of 12,000 people, as part of the service’s fiscal 2023 budget proposal. When combined with flat National Guard and Reserve forces, the service would have a total of 998,500 soldiers.
-Taiwan’s defence ministry has set up a working group to study the tactics of the war in Ukraine, including how the country has been able to hold out against Russia, and has been discussing this with the United States, according to a recent Reuters report. Taiwan, claimed by China as its own territory, has raised its alert level since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, wary of Beijing possibly making a similar move on the island and the possible impact of the war on China’s military thinking on Taiwan. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of parliament, defence minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said they had had “contact” with foreign countries to talk about how the war was being fought, and had set up their own working group to study it.
-Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has told the Australian parliament that his country is “undefeatable” against Russia as long as it can count on the support of the global community. In a virtual speech to MPs and senators in Canberra, the Ukrainian president requested Australia send Bushmaster armoured vehicles to assist in the fight against Russia, saying they would “do much more for our common freedom and security than staying parked on your land”. “You have very good armoured personal vehicles, Bushmasters, that could help Ukraine substantially, and other pieces of equipment that could strengthen our position in terms of armaments,” Zelenskiy said. Zelenskiy accused Vladimir Putin of “nuclear blackmail” and said that an unchecked Russia was a “threat” to the world, suggesting its actions may inspire other nations to follow suit, in a thinly veiled warning to the parliament he was addressing.
-The US has imposed new sanctions on Iran and its ballistic missile program, saying the move is a response to Iranian strikes on Erbil, Iraq earlier this month, as well as attacks carried out by Yemen’s Houthis alleged to have been “enabled” by Tehran. The Treasury Department announced the penalties on Wednesday, targeting “Iranian procurement agent” Mohammad Ali Hosseini and a network of companies said to be involved in supplying “propellant-related materials” to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
-As analysts waited for more clarity on the situation and whether Russia would cut off supplies, figures showed that March was the most expensive month for power prices in European history, analysts at Rystad Energy said on Thursday, breaking the record set in December for the big five European markets (Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain).
-The Austrian government has declared a stage-one alert regarding the supply of natural gas, shortly after Germany did the same on Wednesday. Vienna made the move fearing shortages should Russia insist on payments in rubles, rather than dollars or euro, due to Western sanctions.
-On Wednesday, British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) chief Jeremy Fleming said that there’s new intelligence that shows some Russian soldiers in Ukraine have sabotaged their own equipment and accidentally shot down one of their own aircrafts, Reuters is reporting. “We’ve seen Russian soldiers short of weapons and morale - refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft,” Fleming said in a speech in Canberra at the Australian National University. “Putin has massively misjudged the situation,” Fleming said. “We believe Putin’s advisers are afraid to tell him the truth.” Reuters was unable to independently confirm GCHQ’s analysis.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a briefing: “It’s his [Putin] military. It’s his war. He chose it...the fact that he may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing in Ukraine, that’s a little discomforting.
Global restrictions on exports of industrial components to Russia have hit car and tank production. A carmaker has shut down and tank production has halted, according to the US.
-The Russian defence ministry announced a local ceasefire on Thursday to allow civilians to be evacuated from Ukraine’s besieged port city of Mariupol, according to Agence France-Presse.
-President Joe Biden’s administration is also considering releasing 1 million barrels of oil a day for several months from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to reduce gasoline prices, two senior US officials said.
-Slovakia has said it will expel 35 Russian diplomats based on information provided by intelligence services. Fellow EU countries Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and the Czech Republic have all announced the expulsion of Russian diplomats suspected of spying.
-It could take at least a year for Ukraine to hold a referendum on its neutrality - a key Russian demand to end the war - according to the head of Ukraine’s delegation at peace talks with Russia.
-Russia has said it considers the presence of any US or Nato military infrastructure in countries bordering Afghanistan unacceptable, Russian state media outlet Tass is reporting. Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the west is trying to use the UN to “create artificial competition” in its efforts in Afghanistan, the agency said.
-Belarus will allow companies to export potash fertiliser in response to western sanctions, starting on 6 April 6, RIA news agency reported, citing a government decision. Belarus is the world’s third-largest producer of the crop nutrient after Canada and Russia and state-owned Belaruskali is one of the world’s largest players, according to Reuters. RIA said the Belarus government would grant export licenses to Belaruskali and the Belarus Potash Co (BPC). Washington has given BPC clients until 1 April to wind down their business with the firm. This month, the European Union tightened existing sanctions on Belarus to completely ban potash exports while conceding they could still be sent to Russia or third countries.
-Russian troops began leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after soldiers contracted “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine’s state power company has alleged. Ukraine’s state agency in charge of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Energoatom, published an update late on Thursday confirming Russian troops had left the site. According to the staff of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, there are currently no outsiders at the NPP site. Energoatom said Russian troops had dug in the forest inside the exclusion zone around the now-closed plant.
-As the war in Ukraine enters its sixth week, Ukraine’s Bayraktar TB-2 drones still are in action. We know that because the Russians recently shot down one of the 1,400-pound drones—and also recovered relatively intact guided missiles either from the wreckage of that downed TB-2 or another drone Ukraine has lost. We can’t confirm the dates for the shoot-down, the missile-recovery or the drone strike, but together they seem to tell a story: that despite Russia’s claims that it has shot down more TB-2s than Ukraine has admitted to acquiring, the Turkish-made, propeller-driven robot still is part of the fight. Indeed, it’s entirely possible the pace of TB-2 operations is increasing, thanks to reported shipments of new airframes. “The Turkish way of drone warfare has proven to be an offense-dominant regime with a clearly advantageous defense economics bill,” analyst Can Kasapoglu wrote for the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C. Ukraine acquired its first TB-2 in July 2021. By the time Russia widened its war on the country on the night of Feb. 23, the Ukrainian navy and air force together possessed around 20 drones and well as a stockpile of 14-pound, laser-guided Smart Micro Munition missiles, whose Turkish acronym is “MAM.”
-Russia's ruble and banking system are showing continued signs of recovery from the initial punch of sanctions, as Moscow relies on energy exports and currency controls to partly protect the nation's economy. After initially plummeting, the ruble has rebounded and is edging closer to the value it held before the war began, according to the official exchange rate. And the banking system is gradually stabilizing as panicked customer withdrawals subside, economists say. Some of the recovery is artificial, made possible by strict limits that the central bank, the Bank of Russia, has placed on currency exchange, withdrawals and hard-currency transfers overseas. But it is also due to a very real factor still working in Russia's favor: strong oil and gas exports that bring a flood of hard currency into the country.
-The National Farmers' Union has warned the UK is sleepwalking into a food security crisis. Soaring energy and fertilizer costs have led to an unprecedented situation where growers' margins have collapsed, forcing many to halt growing operations. Reuters says because of the inclement weather in the UK. Farmers grow cumbers, plant peppers, aubergines, and tomatoes in vast greenhouses. Greenhouses use natural gas for heat, but after last year's surge in gas prices exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine last month, the crops have become uneconomical to produce.
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