Apr 22: Saturday Stories
Day 423: Kharkiv Kupiansk Vinnytsia Budanov Belgorod BlackSeaFleet Uss MoscowUni Ramstein NATO Canada Estonia G7 Putsila India China A&Ps Giles Avdeeva UKDef Logically Bieliszczuk
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Stories we’re following…
Russian forces shelled the border and frontline settlements of the Kharkiv, Kupiansk, and Chuhuiv districts of the Kharkiv region yesterday.
Media: Israel to test advanced missile alert system in Kyiv in May. According to senior Ukrainian and Israeli intelligence officials cited by Israeli outlet Walla, the system was developed specifically for Ukraine and would ideally be operational by summertime in additional cities.
Russia targets critical infrastructure in Vinnytsia Oblast with Iranian drones overnight. Russia attacked an infrastructure facility in Vinnytsia Oblast with drones overnight on April 21, Ukraine's Southern Command spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk reported on national television.
A Moscow court today issued a warrant for the arrest of the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, accusing the spy chief of organising “terrorist attacks” inside Russia, state-owned news agency RIA reported. Reuters reports that the RIA cited the court as saying that Budanov was accused of offences related to terrorism and arms smuggling.
Russia said one of its fighter jets lost ammunition over Belgorod near the Ukrainian border on Thursday, after local authorities reported a blast that injured two people and left a huge crater in the city.
Russian Navy: As of 10 a.m., nine enemy ships, including two Kalibr cruise missile carriers, are on combat duty in the Black Sea, with a total volley of up to eight missiles.
The father of a Russian smuggling suspect wanted by the United States has stepped down from his governor’s post in Siberia, a decree on the Kremlin website said Thursday the day after his son, Artyom Uss arrived in Russia after escaping from his house arrest in Milano. Alexander Uss was appointed by President Vladimir Putin as acting head of the Krasnoyarsk region in 2017 and elected governor in 2018. He is the father of entrepreneur Artyom Uss who was one of five Russians detained in Italy at the request of the United States in 2022. The timing of Uss father’s resignation is telling.
Media: Military summonses distributed at Moscow State University dormitory. Military summonses were being handed out to graduate students in a dormitory at Moscow State University, independent Russian media outlet Doxa reported on April 21.
11th Ramstein Summit begins. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin welcomed Defense Secretary Oleksii Reznikov to the start of the 11th Ramstein summit on April 21. Reznikov posted that he had a “fruitful” bilateral meeting with his US counterpart at Ramstein airbase in Germany on Friday morning. He tweeted on Friday:
Today, we mark the one-year anniversary of this format. On the agenda are an analysis of what’s been done, our strategy for 2023, current needs of the armed forces, and the distribution of assistance programmes to all divisions of Ukraine’s defence forces. We feel the support of our partners, and we continue to strive for victory.
Defense Minister: 'Tank coalition' meets at Ramstein, agrees to open service center for Leopard tanks. A coalition of countries that have delivered or pledged tanks to Ukraine met at the 11th Ramstein summit in Germany on April 21, according to Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov
Stoltenberg confirms Zelensky accepted invite to upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed on April 21 that President Volodymyr Zelensky had accepted his invitation to the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius this July.
Dan Sabbagh: The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said all member countries have agreed that Ukraine will eventually join the transatlantic military alliance once the war is over, ahead of a meeting of western defence ministers discussing further military aid for Kyiv.
At the end of the meeting with Stoltenberg today, Ukraine Defence Secretary, Oleksii Reznikov wrote:
Excellent discussion with Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg. I expressed my gratitude to him for coordinating the Alliance’s assistance to Ukraine.
On the eve of the Vilnius summit, a number of concrete projects were discussed.
I’m happy to have a green light for our close cooperation with NSPA, Nato’s procurement agency. This will include the National Procurement Review and best-in-the-league advice to the armed forces of Ukraine. We need excellent defence procurement both to win the war and to be efficient in the future.
Ukraine has reached unprecedented levels of interoperability with Nato. We are, de facto, already a part of the Alliance’s security space. I expressed my hope that this would expedite political decisions regarding our country’s Nato integration.
Canadian Defense Ministry announces new military aid package for Ukraine. Canada announced a nearly $28 million defense aid package during the 11th Ramstein Summit on April 21, according to the Canadian Ministry of Defense.
The defense ministers of Ukraine and Estonia signed a memorandum on cooperation between the departments. We signed a memorandum on cooperation between Ukraine’s MoD and Estonia’s MoD. We are deepening our cooperation on the basis of shared goals - peace and security for our countries and the entire continent,” he wrote.
Germany, Poland and Ukraine signed an agreement on Friday for a hub to repair Leopard tanks used in Ukraine to fight Russian forces, Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius said at a meeting of allies at the Ramstein airbase. However, he sounded a note of caution about any early invite for Ukraine to join Nato.
Canadian Defense Ministry announces new military aid package for Ukraine. Canada announced a nearly $28 million defense aid package during the 11th Ramstein Summit on April 21, according to the Canadian Ministry of Defense.
The G7 is considering a near-total ban on exports to Russia, Kyodo news agency reported on Friday, citing Japanese government sources. Bloomberg news on Thursday also reported that the United States and Ukraine’s allies were considering “an outright ban on most exports to Russia”. That report said officials from G7 nations were discussing the idea before a summit meeting in Japan next month.
The UK has today imposed sanctions on five people linked to the arrest of Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was jailed for 25 years this week. Elena Lenskaya – a judge who approved Kara-Murza’s arrest, along with Denis Kolesnikov and Andrei Zadachin – investigators involved in the arrest of Kara-Murza, will all be hit with sanctions.
Bloomberg: Russian arms shipments to India fall through due to financial sanctions. Russian arms shipments to India have been hindered by the increasing difficulty of finding a payment system that doesn't violate U.S. sanctions, Bloomberg reported on April 21.
China’s foreign ministry said on Friday that no country had the right to interfere in its relationship with Russia. Reuters reports ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remark at a news briefing when asked to comment on the US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen saying that China’s “no limits” partnership with Russia indicated it was not serious about ending the war in Ukraine.
Politico: President Macron and President Biden discussed their China trips as well as their shared commitment to supporting Ukraine in a phone call on Friday. While the White House readout of the call says the two leaders discussed “the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the French one doesn’t mention Taiwan — alluding instead to “the entire Indo-Pacific region.” Likewise, while the French readout says the leaders agreed that China had a “role to play to contribute, in the medium term, to the end of the conflict” (aka Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) and the need to “engage with the Chinese on this basis,” the White House readout makes no mention of Beijing’s role.
Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show
Marrying Germany’s far right and far left is a Kremlin goal, according to a trove of Russian documents reviewed by The Washington Post
When 13,000 demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Feb. 25 to call for an end to weapons supplies to Ukraine, the protest was led by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of parliament for Germany’s far-left Die Linke party and a firebrand with national ambitions. Wagenknecht decried the prospect that German tanks, soon to be delivered to Ukraine, could once again be used to shoot at “Russian women and men.”
“We don’t want Germany to be drawn deeper into this war,” she said, as she called for the creation of a new peace movement and condemned the bloodshed in Ukraine, without mentioning Russia’s invasion.
Among the crowd in Berlin was Jürgen Elsässer, editor of a far-right-wing magazine, and dozens of members of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party who cheered Wagenknecht’s calls to cut off Ukraine. Elsässer’s Compact magazine had recently declared on its cover that Wagenknecht was: “The best chancellor — a candidate for the left and the right.”
The coming together of political opposites in Berlin under the banner of peace had been percolating for months, though the union remains ad hoc and unofficial. But marrying Germany’s extremes is an explicit Kremlin goal and was first proposed by senior officials in Moscow in early September, according to a trove of sensitive Russian documents largely dated from July to November that were obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post. [continue]
