Apr 5: E-Stories
Day 406: UASitRep Bakhmut Crimea Sochi ICC RUOilProd $27Bln EU UN Poland Denmark $500M Lithuania NATO A&P UKDef RUpassports Lucas RUapp Briant DialoguesOnWar Finnish Government Pesu Vanhanen
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Stories we’re following…
Suspilne is reporting that overnight there has been shelling in the Sumy region – specifically in the communities of Seredyna-Buda and Esmansk. It reports “there are injuries and damage”, citing the regional authority.
At night, the Russian Federation attacked Ukraine from the south with 17 “Shahed” drones. In the Odesa region, a business was hit, there were no casualties. In the morning, Russian troops shelled Kupyansk. During the day, Russian troops shelled the Kherson region 61 times. In Donetsk region, four people were killed by shelling of the Russian army last night, two in Toretsk, one each in Avdiivka and Torske.
Ukraine downs 14 Russian drones. Ukrainian air defense downed 14 Iranian-made Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 drones overnight on April 4. The drones were likely launched from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov.
Zelensky: Russian forces 'still have time to leave, otherwise we will destroy them.' President Volodymyr Zelensky added on April 3 that he could not divulge specific details about the upcoming counteroffensive.
Wagner Group head Prigozhin says mercenaries have ‘legally’ captured Bakhmut. They reportedly took control of the Ukrainian city’s administration building. President Zelensky warns against Russian propaganda, reiterating that Bakhmut is still under Ukrainian control.
Washington Post: Satellite images show Russia bolstering Crimean defenses. New satellite imagery of Crimea from Maxar Technologies shows an intricate network of trenches in the occupied territory of the peninsula. Russia has built dozens of defensive structures, which span several miles, the Washington Post reports.
Media: Air defense systems sighted near Putin's Sochi residence. The Pantsir S-1 anti-aircraft missile system was allegedly placed near Russian President Vladimir Putin's Sochi residence, according to a video published by Russian Navalny Live channel.
Gleb Karakulov, an officer responsible for providing encrypted communications to President Vladimir Putin, said he has fled Russia over the war in Ukraine and disclosed details about the Russian leader in an interview with the Dossier Center investigative website Tuesday. Karakulov told the Dossier Center he managed to flee with his family to Turkey while accompanying Putin on a visit to Kazakhstan for a summit in mid-October 2022.
Russia’s State Duma moves to criminalize collaboration with ICC. Lawmakers aim to ban the court’s activities in Russia and to criminalize public calls to enforce its decisions.
The Kremlin's decision to cut oil production by 500,000 barrels per day proved powerless to raise prices for the Russian-grade Urals. In March, the average price of the main Russian export brand fell to $47.85 per barrel, the Ministry of Finance reported on Monday. The number of clients for offshore deliveries of Russian oil has shrunk to four countries. At the same time, 70% of exports went to India, Reuters notes, citing traders and data from Refinitiv Eikon. China remained in second place with about 8% and Turkey in third with 7%.
DGSE director Bernard Emié visited Minsk on 24 March, during which the French intelligence service attempted to act as a mediator with Alexander Lukashenko. Vladimir Putin confirmed the next day that Belarus had agreed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on its soil, though a week later Lukashenko called for a truce between Moscow and Kyiv.
Russia's commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, is likely to brief an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council this week, according to a note seen by Reuters on Monday. "Participants will hear 'first hand' information from the Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights of the Russian Federation, as well as from children evacuated from the conflict area," read the note.
"They cannot invite a credible briefer because they do not have any credibility on this issue," Britain's Deputy U.N. Ambassador James Kariuki told Reuters in a statement. "Russian leaders have been charged by the ICC with unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine to Russia. That is a war crime."
Ukraine receives first $27 billion tranche of IMF financial package. On March 31, the IMF first announced that it had reached an agreement with Ukraine to provide a four-year financial aid package worth approximately $15.6 billion.
Kuleba meets Blinken, says 'more military aid on its way' to Ukraine. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he met with the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 4. Kuleba is now in Brussels, taking part in a NATO-Ukraine Commission summit.
U.S. arms and equipment for Ukraine valued at $500 million. This military assistance package includes more ammunition for U.S.-provided HIMARS, air defense interceptors, and artillery rounds that Ukraine is using to defend itself, as well as anti-armor systems, small arms, heavy equipment transport vehicles, and maintenance support essential to strengthening Ukraine’s defenders on the battlefield. In addition, the U.S. Department of Defense is announcing a significant package that includes air defense capabilities, as well as artillery and tank ammunition, mortar systems, rockets, and anti-armor systems under its Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
Stoltenberg wants NATO states to pledge 500 million euros yearly to Ukraine Fund. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wants NATO members to pledge 500 million euros per year for a support fund aimed at assisting Ukraine, Bloomberg reported on April 3.
President Zelensky is scheduled to visit Poland on Wednesday for talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. The visit will begin with an official meeting at the royal castle between Zelenskiy and Duda, with the pair expected to discuss security issues, regional politics, and economic cooperation, as well as the transit of Ukrainian grain and other farm produce through Poland, according to Marcin Przydacz, the head of Duda’s international office.
Denmark and Norway to jointly transfer 8,000 artillery rounds to Ukraine. According to the ministry's statement, the artillery shells are to be used with the 19 Ceasar self-propelled howitzers that have been already pledged to Ukraine in January.
Lithuania’s parliament decided on Tuesday to ban Russian nationals from purchasing real estate in the Baltic country, citing risks to national security. Reuters reports the ban, which will be in place until 2024, would not apply to Russians who are granted residency in the country. Parliament also halted the issuing of new visas to nationals of Russia and its ally Belarus.
Donald Trump has officially entered a plea of not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in connection a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election. New York law classifies falsifying business records in the first degree as a class E felony, which is the lowest level of felony charges in the state.
Click here to read Trump’s indictment: https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Donald-J.-Trump-Indictment.pdf
“THE GRAND JURY OF THE COUNTY OF NEW YORK, by this indictment, accuses the defendant of the crime of FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE, in violation of Penal Law §175.10, committed as follows:
The defendant, in the County of New York and elsewhere, on or about February 14, 2017, with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise, to wit, an invoice from Michael Cohen dated February 14, 2017, marked as a record of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, and kept and maintained by the Trump Organization.”
Noah Barkin, GMFAsia: "French officials close to Macron have indicated that he is considering offering Xi a deal along the lines of this: France will resist US pressure to decouple from China if Beijing invests diplomatic capital in bringing about peace in Ukraine."
IAEA head to visit Russia, discuss occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is scheduled to visit Kaliningrad to address safety concerns over the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, CNN reported on April 3.
Ukrainian MPs have registered a draft resolution appealing to the government to terminate the lease Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has on Pochaiv Lavra monastery in Ternopil Oblast.
Finland will significantly deepen its existing military partnership (Sweden, Norway, US, UK and Estonia) and this process is already underway. These relationships will be crucial if deterrence fails collective defence ever needs to be implemented.
Finland’s Russia policy will become increasingly deterrence-based - a deviation from its reassurance-based line. Finland’s Russia policy fits well with the Alliance’s three-pronged approach outlined in the recent Strategic Concept.
Finland will be covered by the Alliance’s nuclear umbrella. This will introduce a new track to 🇫🇮approach to nuclear weapons. In addition to promoting nuclear arms control, 🇫🇮 must develop a view on nuclear deterrence and determine its involvement in shaping NATO’s nuclear policy.
Russia takes passports from senior officials so they do not flee the country- Financial Times
Since Soviet times, Russian officials with access to mid-level state secrets have been required to leave their passports in safes of "special departments" of their ministries and companies. But Russia’s security services rarely enforced the rules, according to former officials and executives. They are now.
Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official, said passport restrictions had now expanded beyond individuals with security clearance. "Now they are coming to certain people and saying, ‘please hand in your red civilian passports, because you have access to sensitive information for the motherland, so we want to control your movements…
Basically any information can be deemed secret, so the embedded FSB officers start telling you that you have sensitive information. What is it? Why is it secret and who decides that? Nobody knows."
Ukraine’s Success Risks Splitting Its Friends-CEPA
By Edward Lucas, April 2, 2023
It may come in days, weeks, or months, but Ukraine’s counter-offensive is looming. Speculation about its duration and direction is pointless. The key to success is to catch the Russian occupiers by surprise.
But success is vital for diplomatic as much as military reasons. In the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the conventional wisdom among many supposed experts in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, and elsewhere was that 2022 would be a repeat of 2014: a Russian advance, a Ukrainian retreat, and a brokered diplomatic settlement.
These perceptions could easily shift. If Ukraine’s offensive stalls or produces only modest gains, many in the “old West” — countries like France, Germany, Italy, and Spain — will flinch at the prospect of another year of fighting. They will wonder if the time is ripening for some kind of land-for-peace deal, perhaps brokered by China.
These ideas are delusional. Ukrainians will not stop fighting until Russia stops attacking. Their close friends in Poland, the Baltic states, and elsewhere will keep backing them. Their support for the Ukrainian cause rests not on perceptions of success — the desire to back a winner — but on a bleak perception of real threats. If Russian imperialism is not destroyed in defeat in Ukraine, it is only a question of time before the Kremlin will reload, recover, and return to the offensive. Its target could be Ukraine, again, or some other neighboring country. Fading support for Ukraine from the weak-willed “old West” heralds not peace but more war.
Leaving this here again…
Programming note…
On February 24 the armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Today, the whole world is talking about it. In order to comprehend the events of the last days, PEN Ukraine launched a series of conversations #DialoguesOnWar.
Speakers of the 43d episode: – Olesya Khromeychuk, historian, writer – Timothy Garton Ash, historian, author.