Russia/Ukraine War Update - May 6th, 2022

*** MILITARY SITUATION ***

The Ukrainian counteroffensive out of Kharkiv city may disrupt Russian forces northeast of Kharkiv and will likely force Russian forces to decide whether to reinforce positions near Kharkiv or risk losing most or all of their positions within artillery range of the city. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zalyzhnyi stated on May 5 that Ukrainian forces are transitioning to counteroffensive operations around Kharkiv and Izyum, the first direct Ukrainian military statement of a shift to offensive operations. Ukrainian forces did not make any confirmed advances in the last 24 hours but repelled Russian attempts to regain lost positions. Russian forces made few advances in continued attacks in eastern Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces may be able to build their ongoing counterattacks and successful repulse of Russian attacks along the Izyum axis into a wider counteroffensive to retake Russian-occupied territory in Kharkiv Oblast.

-A Ukrainian commander said “heavy, bloody fighting” continues at the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol. Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, pleaded for help for the “wounded soldiers dying in terrible agony” and the evacuation of civilians trapped in the plant.

-Ukraine is “unlikely” to launch a counter-offensive before mid-June when it hopes to have received more weapons from its allies, an adviser to President Volodymr Zelenskiy said. Oleksiy Arestovych added that he did not expect Russia’s offensive in Ukraine to produce any “significant results” by 9 May, when Russia celebrates its ‘Victory Day’ over Nazi Germany in the second world war.

*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***

-The head of America's nuclear forces has sounded an alarm in Congress, suggesting that Washington’s ability to deter attacks by rivals may be lacking amid threats from Russia and a rapid buildup of China’s strategic weaponry. “We are facing crisis-deterrence dynamics right now that we have only seen a few times in our nation’s history,” US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) chief Admiral Charles Richard said on Wednesday in a Senate hearing. He reiterated concerns over “three-party deterrence dynamics,” of which he warned lawmakers in March, citing the Ukraine crisis. “The nation and our allies have not faced a crisis like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in over 30 years,” Richard said. “President [Vladimir] Putin simultaneously invaded a sovereign nation while using thinly veiled nuclear threats to deter US and NATO intervention.” Meanwhile, Chinese leaders are “watching the war in Ukraine closely and will likely use nuclear coercion to their advantage in the future,” the admiral said. “Their intent is to achieve the military capability to reunify Taiwan by 2027 if not sooner.”

-A series of attacks inside Russian territory and unexplained explosions at Russian targets near the border with Ukraine have expanded the scope of the conflict in recent weeks, underscoring Russian vulnerabilities in regions that are crucial to Moscow’s renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine.  Russian officials said last month that two Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopters entered Russian airspace flying at low altitudes to evade air defenses and launched a missile attack on a fuel depot in Russia’s Belgorod region, a province that sits on the western edge of the country, less than 20 miles from Ukraine’s war-ravaged city of Kharkiv. Since then, an explosion sparked a blaze at an ammunition depot near the city of Belgorod and blasts have been reported inside the city. Last week, fires erupted at other oil depots, including one at a Russian military base. Other explosions have damaged rail lines beyond Belgorod in the provinces of Kursk and Bryansk. Ukraine has denied a role in the incidents

-Russian forces are confiscating farm equipment and thousands of tons of grain from Ukrainian farmers in areas they have occupied, as well as targeting food storage sites with artillery, multiple sources have told CNN. The phenomenon has accelerated in recent weeks as Russian units have tightened their grip on parts of the rich agricultural regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, the sources said. Sowing operations in many areas have since been disrupted or abandoned. The actions of the Russian forces may threaten the harvest this year in one of the world's most important grain-producing countries. The volumes involved are said to be huge.

-Vladimir Putin has issued an apology to Naftali Bennett for Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statements during phone talks on Thursday, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office has said. Lavrov made the controversial remarks over the weekend, suggesting that Adolf Hitler may have had Jewish ancestry and that some of the “most ardent” anti-Semites are Jews themselves. “The Prime Minister accepted President Putin’s apology for Lavrov’s remarks and thanked him for clarifying his attitude towards the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust,” the PM’s office said.

-The US Defense Department has denied that it provided intelligence on the locations of Russian generals on the battlefield so that Ukraine forces could kill them. Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said it was true that the United States supplies Kyiv’s forces with military intelligence “to help Ukrainians defend their country” but Ukraine makes its own decisions on whether to target a Russian leader or not. The White House National Security Council slammed the New York Times report as “irresponsible.”

-Just 6 weeks after President Biden unveiled the greatest, most-massivest, democracy-saving plan to release millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve into the market to bring down the price of gasoline at the pump for Americans... which was crushing his approval ratings as the average joe's pocket book is eaten alive by Biden-flation... CNN reports that the Biden administration plans to seek bids this fall to buy 60 million barrels of crude oil as the first step in a years-long process aimed at replenishing America's shrinking emergency oil reserve, an Energy Department official said.

"As we are thoughtful and methodical in the decision to drawdown from our emergency reserve, we must be similarly strategic in replenishing the supply so that it stands ready to deliver on its mission to provide relief when needed most," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.

Beyond trying to refill a vital rainy fund, the Biden administration hopes the buyback plan will encourage domestic oil production by guaranteeing a source of future demand. This cunning plan to sell low and buy high has sent oil prices back above $110... and erased any short-term impact on oil prices from Biden's plan. Gas prices at the pump are now above where they were when Biden unveiled the cunning plan

So - the plan to sell oil to the market from the SPR was designed to lower oil prices (more supply) and thus lower gas prices... and now the plan to buy oil and refill the SPR is design to lower prices (because it may encourage domestic production)?

"Congress has been irresponsibly selling the SPR down," said Bob McNally, who in the early 2000s oversaw the Energy Department's efforts to replenish the SPR under former President George W. Bush, adding that "draining the reserve leaves the country and the world more vulnerable to geopolitical shocks."

CNN adds that the buyback plan won't impact congressionally mandated sales of oil from the SPR aimed at raising revenue to ease the federal deficit...

...but won't buying the oil back worsen the deficit?

WTF is going on?

You simply cannot make this up!

-The European Union plans to impose sanctions on Alina Kabaeva, long rumoured to be Vladimir Putin’s girlfriend, and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox church. Two sources said the EU has proposed sanctions on Kabaeva, a former Olympic gymnast whose appearance on a draft sanctions list was first reported by Bloomberg.

-British prime minister Boris Johnson lauded Ukraine’s president Zelenskiy as “truly one of the most incredible leaders of modern times” during a fundraising event in London.

-A $300 million yacht belonging to Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov has been seized by Fijian authorities at the request of the United States Department of Justice.

-A court in Spain ordered the provisional release of Anatoly Shariy, a Ukrainian politician and blogger who was arrested after being accused of treason in Ukraine. Shariy was arrested on Wednesday near the coastal city of Tarragona under an international arrest warrant issued by Ukraine, according to Spain’s National Court and as reported by the Associated Press.

-Nato will increase its presence around Sweden’s borders and in the Baltic sea while it applies to join the alliance, Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said. Sweden and Finland are expected to make a decision about whether to apply to join Nato this month. Both countries are seeking military protection assurances during an application process, which could take up to a year to be approved by all Nato members.

-The EU’s aviation safety agency warned of increased risks of civil planes being accidentally targeted due to the war in Ukraine. “Misidentification is easy in confused arenas of warfare”, it said in a document. “It is easy to see the potential for innocent aircraft being subject to missiles or radar laid weapons.”

-The US is stepping up its efforts to train Ukrainian troops in Europe on weapons systems Washington is pouring into Ukraine. Pentagon officials detailed the training to reporters on Wednesday. Brig. Gen. Joseph Hilbert, the head of the 7th Army Training Command in Germany, told reporters that the US invested $126 million to train more than 23,000 Ukrainian troops at the Yavoriv military base in western Ukraine since 2015. In 2014, the US also sent CIA paramilitaries to train Ukrainians on the frontline of the Donbas war, a mission that was recently revealed by Yahoo News. Before Russia invaded on February 24, the US withdrew the CIA paramilitaries and National Guard troops that were training Ukrainian soldiers. The US restarted its training of Ukrainian forces in recent weeks after sending howitzers to Ukraine for the first time.

As recently as late March, the Pentagon walked back President Biden's claims the U.S. was "helping train the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland," insisting no physical drills were taking place. The shift to openly training troops in Germany, and publicizing the mission, came soon after Biden's watershed decision last month to begin providing Ukraine with artillery and other heavy weapons Kyiv had long requested. The training is taking place in Germany and in two other locations in Europe outside of Ukraine. Now, more than 220 Ukrainians have been trained on howitzers. Ukrainian soldiers are also being trained to use new Phoenix Ghost drones the US designed for Kyiv, radar systems, and armored vehicles.

-Last month Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin bluntly admitted of US policy aims in Ukraine: "we want to see Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine." He also sought to stress before the American public during an interview that the US is not fighting a "proxy war". However, unnamed senior American officials in a bombshell New York Times report have said that intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians have helped take out some of the estimated 12 Russian generals that have died on the front lines since the Feb.24 invasion, an astonishingly high number given the rarity in any war of deaths from among highest officer ranks (and considering the war has been going for a little over two months at this point). The intelligence sharing, which was previously vaguely acknowledged as happening by President Biden, is part of a broadly expansive US role in the conflict with the way being paved by unprecedented in size military aid packages and weapons shipments. According to the limited details of intelligence provided to the Ukrainians, The New York Times reports that "The United States has focused on providing the location and other details about the Russian military’s mobile headquarters, which relocate frequently."  Additionally, "Ukrainian officials have combined that geographic information with their own intelligence — including intercepted communications that alert the Ukrainian military to the presence of senior Russian officers — to conduct artillery strikes and other attacks that have killed Russian officers." While US intelligence officials are seeking to deny that the purpose is an "intent to kill Russian generals" - as a National Security Council spokesperson told the Times as the story came out - the report implicitly acknowledges this marks a major escalation in terms of Washington's role.

-There is some queasiness among Europeans about the wisdom of the anonymous US officials telling the New York Times that US intelligence has allowed Ukraine to kill so many Russian generals. (Ukrainian forces say they have killed 12 so far). There is a feeling that this sort of boasting does not serve a military purpose, and brings Nato and Russia closer to direct confrontation.

-The Kremlin said it was well aware that the US, Britain and other Nato countries were constantly feeding intelligence to the Ukrainian military and that this would not stop Russia from achieving its objectives.

-Amid what seems escalation after escalation, and new revelations of Washington's deepening and perhaps increasingly direct role in fighting Russia in Ukraine, NBC brings us this doozy... "Intelligence shared by the U.S. helped Ukraine sink the Russian cruiser Moskva, U.S. officials told NBC News, confirming an American role in perhaps the most embarrassing blow to Vladimir Putin’s troubled invasion of Ukraine."

-With heavy weapons like first-line tanks, multiple rocket launchers, 155mm howitzers, attack helicopters and updated anti-aircraft systems flooding into Ukraine and beginning to reach the battlefield, the only thing missing from an all-out war between NATO and Russia are allied soldiers. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov responded to the upsurge in weapons shipments this week when he said, "NATO is, in essence, going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy." Lavrov accompanied that with some nuclear saber-rattling, and then said that NATO and the U.S. were running the risk of turning the war global and involving nuclear weapons: "The risk is serious, real. It should not be underestimated," he said Monday night on Russian state television. "Under no circumstances should a third world war be allowed to happen. There can be no winners in a nuclear war."

-Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (PCR), former Assistant Treasury Secretary and international award-winning journalist, is warning that NATO and the U.S. is deliberately provoking nuclear war with Russia in Ukraine. PCR explains, “In the middle of a serious situation that can already go out of control, we are adding new provocations. It is clear Washington intends to push these provocations to the hilt. In a normal sane world, everyone would understand that it is recklessly irresponsible to put Finland and Sweden in NATO, particularly at the present time. . . . The Russians have a high tolerance for provocations and, therefore, the provocations that the West commits never have any costs, and they increase in number and severity. At some point, these provocations are just too much to stand, and that’s where you cross the line and the situation becomes nuclear. . . . How much can you provoke them and they let loose and it hits the fan? I see everything Washington doing is designed to further provoke Russia.” PCR says people do not realize how dangerous the Biden/Obama administration policy is regarding Russia. This sort of provocation of Russia has simply never happened before. PCR says, “This strikes me as dangerously irresponsible. No other President in our history has ever done that. Nobody in the cold war provoked Russia. It just was not done, you avoided that.

-Manure has become a hot commodity. U.S. farmers hunting for organic fertilizer come as chemical fertilizers are in short supply or at sky-high prices. According to Reuters, soaring demand for manure has unleashed a poop shortage. Kampschnieder said cattle feeders selling waste are sold out for 2022. "We've got waiting lists," he said. Farmers quickly switched to animal manure, a mixture of animal feces and straw, because the prices for industrial fertilizer jumped since the European natural gas crisis in the winter of 2021 and Western sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine in March. This week, Canada-based Nutrien Ltd., the world's largest fertilizer company, warned that fertilizer disruptions "could last well beyond 2022." If so, this could drive even more farmers into spreading poop on fields. Agriculture experts say manure is not a complete replacement for chemical fertilizer because it lacks some nutrients. Plus, there's not enough to overtake the chemical fertilizer market share in the U.S., hence why shortages are already materializing. Meanwhile, the Biden administration said it was great news chemical fertilizer shortages were happening because it would force farmers to "go green" by using "natural solutions like manure."

-South Korea has become the first Asian member state of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE), the country’s Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday. In a statement cited by the media outlet, Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it plans to “strengthen our cyber response capabilities to a world-class level by increasing the number of our staff sent to the center and expanding the scope of joint training.” South Korea’s accession to the CCDCOE has brought the number of members to 32, with 27 being NATO states, referred to as sponsoring nations. Korea and the other four members from outside the US-led bloc are contributing participants.