*** MILITARY SITUATION ***
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 7th
Russian proxy forces claimed to have captured central Mariupol on April 7, but Ukrainian forces retain positions in the southwest of the city. ISW cannot independently confirm this proxy claim, but we have not observed confirmed reports of fighting in central Mariupol since April 2. Russian forces will likely complete the capture of Mariupol in the coming days.
Russian forces are cohering combat power for an intended major offensive in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the coming days. Ukrainian civil and military officials continued to warn local residents to evacuate prior to a likely Russian offensive. Russian forces will likely attempt to regroup and redeploy units withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine to support an offensive, but these units are unlikely to enable a Russian breakthrough. Russian forces along the Izyum-Slovyansk axis did not make any territorial gains in the last 24 hours. Russian forces are unlikely to successfully capture Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts if Russian forces in Izyum are unable to encircle Ukrainian forces on the line of contact in eastern Ukraine.
-Russian forces claim to have successfully captured central Mariupol, but Ukrainian forces retain control of the port southwest of the city. Russian forces will likely complete the capture of Mariupol in the coming days.
-Russian forces are setting conditions for a major offensive in eastern Ukraine in the coming days, but damaged units redeployed from northeastern Ukraine are unlikely to enable a successful Russian breakthrough.
-Ukrainian forces repelled continuing Russian attacks from Izyum southeast toward Slovyansk and Barvinkove.
-Russian and Belarusian forces are conducting “demonstrative actions” to fix Ukrainian forces around Kyiv in place. However, these units are highly unlikely to launch new offensive operations, and Ukrainian units around Kyiv can likely safely redeploy to eastern Ukraine.
-Western sanctions are likely successfully disrupting Russia’s military-industrial base.
-Russian forces have now fully withdrawn from Ukraine’s north to Belarus and Russia, the UK’s ministry of defence has said. “At least some of these forces will be transferred to East Ukraine to fight in the Donbas,” the report added.
-The Sumy region in north-eastern Ukraine is now free of Russian forces, according to the city’s mayor.
*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***
-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said publicly for the first time that the US is providing intelligence to Ukrainian forces to conduct operations in the Donbas region. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Austin was asked whether the US was providing intelligence to help Ukraine carry out attacks against Russian forces in the occupied Donbas region or occupied Crimea. “We are providing them a … intelligence to conduct such operations … in the Donbas. That’s correct,” Austin said in response to the question from Sen. Tom Cotton. Austin did not mention Crimea in his response. He also stated the US is not discouraging Ukraine from launching attacks against Russian forces in these areas.
-US military leaders have had no communication with their counterparts in Moscow since the beginning of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin again claimed at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday. While the Pentagon chief said he was “disappointed” by the apparent situation, he added, “It doesn’t mean we’ll stop reaching out to engage them. I think we have to have the ability to talk to the leadership.” "[General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] and I myself have frequently reached out to our counterparts in Russia to try to ensure that we maintain a dialogue. That’s in the last – since mid-February,” Austin told the senators. "That’s not been very successful because the Russians have not responded," he added
-The ruble has surged all the way back to where it was before Putin invaded Ukraine, closing at 79.7 in Moscow on Wednesday. What’s become clear is that despite an incredibly wide-ranging package of sanctions on the Russian government and its oligarchs, and an exodus of foreign businesses, the actions are largely toothless if foreigners keep guzzling Russian oil and natural gas — supporting the ruble by stocking Putin’s coffers. Even as Russia remains mostly cut off otherwise from the global economy, Bloomberg Economics expects the country will earn nearly $321 billion from energy exports this year, up more than a third from 2021.
-Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, has appeared on Sky News in the UK, and called for Nato and other international forces to play a more active role in the Black Sea, saying: We have to unlock the Black Sea. Russians block the sea for us. That’s our own sea. We need this for humanitarian assistance to come in Ukraine.
-Russia says it has destroyed a training centre for foreign mercenaries in Ukraine, north of Odesa. The claim has been reported by Russian news agency Tass via Reuters.
-Ukraine’s state railway company say that more than 30 people have been killed and more than 100 were wounded after two Russian rockets struck Kramatorsk railway station in east Ukraine. The Donetsk governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said thousands of civilians were at the station trying to evacuate to safer areas of Ukraine when it was hit.
-Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has been speaking, and Reuters is carrying the following key lines:
- He says that Russian forces “have no advantage” on warfronts.
- He said negotiations with Russia continue online constantly but the mood changed after the events in Bucha.
- He suggested that any temporary truce with Russia would just be a war postponed for the future, and Ukraine does not need this.
- Podolyak says Ukraine is working on the possibility of evacuating civilians from Mariupol by sea.
-Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal said this year’s grain harvest is likely to be 20% less than last year because of a reduced sowing area following Russia’s invasion. He said there was a shortage of fuel for farmers but Ukraine knew how to keep them supplied. Reuters reports he also said Ukraine had large stocks of grain, cereals and vegetable oil, and could feed its population.
-The European Union approved an embargo on Russian coal imports and the closing of the bloc’s ports to Russian vessels over the Ukraine war. The measure will take effect from mid-August, a month later than originally planned, following pressure from Germany to delay, reports Reuters news agency. That package also includes a 10 billion euro ban on exports to Russia, including high-tech goods, and the freezing of several Russian banks’ assets. The EU nations import 45% of their coal from Russia, worth 4 billion euros a year.
-Britain is preparing to announce a fresh package of military aid for Ukraine and has demonstrated new missile systems and armoured vehicles that it believes can help Kyiv in the next phases of fighting.
-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. “For the first quarter 2022 results, the post-tax impact from impairment of non-current assets and additional charges (e.g. write-downs of receivable, expected credit losses, and onerous contracts) relating to Russia activities are expected to be $4 to $5 billion,” Shell said in a statement Thursday.
-Russia will probably renew its attack on Kyiv if it succeeds in taking full control of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, the deputy chief of staff of Ukraine’s ground forces, Oleksandr Hruzevych, said. The Ukrainian deputy defence minister, Hanna Malyar, earlier warned that Russian forces were biding their time as Moscow ramped up intelligence operations there and learned how best to fight Ukrainian troops. US defence secretary Lloyd Austin contradicted these claims, saying he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin has given up on conquering Kyiv after his forces were beaten back by the Ukrainian military.
-General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the war would be a “long slog” at the US Senate armed services committee in a hearing in Washington DC.
-Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said allies had agreed to strengthen support for Ukraine, and were providing “a wide range” of weapon systems, as well as cybersecurity assistance and equipment to protect against chemical and biological threats. There was no sign Vladimir Putin intended to pull back, he added.
-In an unexpectedly candid admission, the Kremlin has admitted to Western press on Thursday that now into the sixth week of the Russian invasion of Ukraine its forces have sustained "significant losses". Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the UK's Sky News, "We have significant losses of troops," and admitted "and it's a huge tragedy for us." He said this when pressed on the issue by the broadcast interview host, however, stopped short of giving a death toll as he said the numbers were not yet "double confirmed". The last official Russian Defense Ministry casualty update came on March 25, where it was cited 1,351 of its forces had been killed to that point, with 3,825 wounded. But US officials have at the start of this month issued conservative estimates that they think it's likely over 7,000 killed. Some Western media reports have posited as many as 15,000 to 17,000 or more Russian troop deaths. This as it became clear that the Russian advance especially toward the capital had been much slower-going than expected, amid a fierce Ukrainian resistance, and reportedly severe Russian logistics issues including getting adequate food and fuel to the front lines.
-Russia has imposed sanctions on Australian and New Zealand citizens, including their prime ministers, the Russian foreign ministry announced.
-Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented on the possibility of a NATO-Russia confrontation, which Biden himself last month admitted would inevitably lead to World War 3. "NATO is tailored for confrontation."
-The prospect of Finland and Sweden joining Nato was part of the discussion between foreign ministers from the military alliance in Brussels this week, a senior US State Department official said.
-Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says that if Finland, which has an 800-mile border with Russia, and Sweden join NATO "we'll look to rebalance the situation.
-Japan has announced that it is expelling eight Russian diplomats, saying it was in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, including the killing of civilians. The eight diplomats included several trade officials but not the ambassador, Mikhail Galuzin, foreign ministry officials said.
-Montenegro has ordered the expulsion of four Russian diplomats, citing “violation of diplomatic norms.”
-America’s largest farmer cooperative sounded the alarm Wednesday about possible disruptions of fertilizer supplies from Russia due to Western sanctions on Moscow. CHS Inc., the largest agricultural cooperative in the US, said in an SEC filing that it’s concerned about obtaining Russian fertilizer because of sanctions making it “more expensive and difficult to do business with Russia.” CHS warned that sanctions could “cause delays with respect to, or prevent, shipments of fertilizer to us, cause inflationary pressures on and impact our ability to purchase fertilizer, disrupt the execution of banking transactions with certain Russian financial institutions and result in volatility in foreign exchange rates and interest rates, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and operations.” The cooperative said it holds no operations in Russia. However, it has $30 million in grain inventories sitting in silos in Ukraine and will have to take an “impairment charge” because of its inability to access those stockpiles.
-The UN General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights council due over what the assembly cited as human rights violations and the humanitarian crisis stemming from its invasion of Ukraine. There were 93 votes in favor of the suspension, 24 against and 58 abstentions. The resolution cited the power of the assembly to "suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of a member of the Council that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights."
The US led the charge to achieve the two-thirds vote needed, with Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield saying ahead of the vote, "Russia should not have a position of authority in a body whose purpose - whose very purpose - is to promote respect for human rights. Not only is it the height of hypocrisy - it is dangerous." She said further: "Every day, we see more and more how little Russia respects human rights." Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, also said just before the vote: "Now the world has come to a crucial juncture. We witness that our liner is going through treacherous fog towards deadly icebergs. It might seem that we should have named it the Titanic instead of the Human Rights Council. ... We need to take an action today to save the council from sinking."
Notably China was Russia's most powerful backer, voting against the resolution. Also notable is that India abstained.
-Russia’s communications watchdog said it was taking punitive measures against Google, including a ban on advertising the platform and its information resources, for allegedly violating Russian law.
-Moscow hopes the Russian military operation in Ukraine might end in the near future, possibly “in the coming days,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sky News on Thursday. Either the country's troops will end it by achieving their military goals or Moscow and Kiev will reach an agreement through negotiations, he added. The prospect of a peace deal would largely depend on the “consistency” of Ukraine’s position and its willingness to agree to Russia’s terms, Peskov added. He particularly noted that those responsible for the crimes against civilians in the Donbass should be brought to justice.
-According to the latest update from the Washington Free Beacon, which the story using records from the DoJ, Monumental Sports and Entertainment, a company co-owned by Jobs, was paid by China Central Television to carry out a 'promotional blitz' for the 2022 Winter Games during a Washington Capitals hockey game. And as part of another promotional effort, the Chinese consulate in New York hired 11 social media influencers to talk up the Games (and China's amenable business climate) on TikTok and Instagram.
-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the US would be ready to use sanctions similar to what has been imposed on Russia against China if Beijing were to invade Taiwan. Yellen told the House Financial Services Committee that she believes the US has shown it can impose significant economic pain. “I think you should not doubt our ability and resolve to do the same in other situations,” she said. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman also testified before the Committee and warned that the US would impose harsh sanctions on China if it helped Russia in its war in Ukraine. “It gives President Xi, I think, a pretty good understanding of what might come his way should he, in fact, support Putin in any material fashion,” she said.
-As the situation in Shanghai continues to deteriorate, residents have been pushing back against the CCP's authority in ways that are rarely seen in China. Since the start of the pandemic, and the CCP's decision to adopt a "war like" position to enforce its "zero COVID" policy, has rarely elicited much resistence. Until now. Yesterday, videos of Shanghaiers taking to their balconies to sing in protest of the local authorities' decision to order an 'indefinite' lockdown went viral in the West. Authorities counted nearly 20K cases in Shanghai alone on Wednesday, nearly matching the number for all of China from the day before. It marked the sixth daily record for the city, according to the SCMP. Symptomatic cases climbed to 322, up from 311 a day earlier, while the vast majority of the cases showed no symptoms. Local authorities have counted more than 70K cases since March 1.
-The Chinese Army has vowed to take “effective measures” to prevent foreign meddling and attempts to establish the independence of Taiwan, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Tan Kefei said on Thursday in response to the US supplying weapons systems to Taipei.
-Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials have proposed a future model for developing new COVID-19 vaccines that would be built on the approach to creating influenza vaccines. Accumulating data suggest the current COVID-19 vaccines, based on a virus strain that is now generations old, “may need to be updated at some point to ensure the high level of efficacy demonstrated in the early vaccine clinical trials,” the FDA said. One concern is how new strains of SARS-CoV-2 keep emerging, some of which bypass protection bestowed by the vaccines better than others. The vaccines provide virtually no protection against infection from Omicron, the strain that is dominant in the United States at present, though they have held up better against severe disease.
-Canada is reportedly set to announce that it will ban foreign purchases of residential real estate for two years. "The foreign buyers ban will apply to condos, apartments, and single residential units," according to CTV. "Permanent residents, foreign workers, and students will be excluded from this new measure. Foreigners who are purchasing their primary residence here in Canada will be exempt." The effects will likely be dramatic, as foreign purchases of real estate accounted for a lot of the bid that helped Canadian housing skyrocket to begin with.
-Nearly 350,000 customers have been left without electricity after Puerto Rico was hit by a major power outage late on Wednesday. The blackout was caused by a fire at Costa Sur, one of the largest power plants on the Caribbean island. The blaze triggered emergency shut offs at other units, according to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (Prepa). Fire fighters have been working late into the night to extinguish the flames. “The power grid has suffered a massive island-wide blackout, potentially caused by a circuit breaker failure at the Costa Sur generation plant. We are not clear on the exact cause at this time,” grid operator Luma Energy said in a statement. People might remain without power well into Thursday, “given the size and scope” of the outage, it added.
-Two fake Homeland agents, one 'with ties to Pakistani intelligence and multiple Iranian visas' - spent 18 months 'infiltrating and buying gifts for Jill Biden's Secret Service detail' in luxury DC building where they all lived and partied. Haider Sher-Ali and Arian Taherzadeh have been arrested for impersonating Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents after two years spent showering Secret Service agents with gifts including guns and free apartments. They were charged Wednesday with one count of false impersonation of an officer of the US, according to court filings. Four Secret Service officials in First Lady Jill Biden’s detail who allegedly accepted gifts from the phony DHS agents have also been placed on administrative leave. Sher-Ali and Taherzadeh had lavished them with gifts, including rent-free penthouse apartments, high-end electronics, police equipment, a drone, and the use of “official government vehicles,” among other goodies. Taherzadeh had specifically offered to buy a $2,000 assault rifle for one of the agents assigned to the First Lady’s security detail, according to the indictment. The two men had apparently conned not only First Lady Jill Biden’s Secret Service detail but also the management of the building they were living in into believing they were federal agents investigating the January 6th Capitol riot, among other crimes. As a result, they got free use of over $40,000 worth of luxury real estate, for their own use and that of the Secret Service agents.
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