Apr 6: E-Stories
Day 407: Bakhmut BlackSea Odesa Belarus Wagner Ural Uss Lula Ivanov $2.6B NATO Poland-UA Baerbock Taiwan-IT SwedenSpies TrumpIndictment CH ROM A&Ps UKDef CEPA StJavelin Walton NYT Walton Khara
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…
Ukrainian military downplays Wagner Group claims on Bakhmut capture. Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi downplayed Wagner mercenaries' claim of allegedly raising the Russian flag over Bakhmut city hall, noting that it was already destroyed during fighting long ago.
Ukraine’s Southern Command said on April 4 that Russia deployed additional ships to the Black Sea. There are currently 15 ships, including six missile carriers. This amount of ships can carry up to 40 Kalibr missiles. The military added that the threat of missile attacks is “extremely high.”
Russia carries out overnight drone attack on Odesa. Ukrainian air defenses reportedly downed 14 of the 17 drones Russia sent.
Shoigu claims Russia placed aircraft, missile systems in Belarus capable of delivering nuclear strikes. Russia has provided Belarus with aircraft and Iskander-M missile complexes capable of delivering nuclear strikes, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on April 4.
UK Defense Ministry: Russia likely to 'eventually' replace Wagner with other PMCs in Ukraine. Russia may partner with other private military contractors for combat in Ukraine amid ongoing tensions with the Wagner mercenary group, the U.K. Defense Ministry wrote in its April 4 intelligence update.
The owner of the Russian Copper Company, Igor Altushkin, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine at $3.4 billion, is the main sponsor of the Ural Battalion, an assault unit within the Russian Defense Ministry. Altushkin's sponsorship of Ural was confirmed in a telephone conversation with The Moscow Times by Viktor Yarkov, president of the Ural Veterans Foundation.
Lukashenko has arrived in Moscow for a meeting with Putin, Belarusian state-run Belta news agency has reported. Lukashenko and Putin will hold a meeting this evening, where the pair will “discuss a broad range of matters concerning Belarusian-Russian relations”, it said. (He’s picking up his paycheque)
Russia exported a record volume of oil products in March as Moscow successfully developed alternative routes for its deliveries one month after a Western embargo came into force, the Vedomosti business daily reported Wednesday. Supplies of seaborne Russian oil products totaled 3.13 million barrels per day (bpd) in March 2023, according to the commodities analyst Kpler, a 31.2% year-on-year increase and just over the previous record of 3.1 million bpd exported in February 2022, the month Russia invaded Ukraine.
Putin says that Russia is about to make a big scientific leap, but scientists are horrified by how the war is destroying Russian science. Many specialists have left the country, and the rest complain that scientific work has become almost impossible: the world's leading institutions are curtailing joint projects, there are not enough reagents, not everyone is given mobilization armor, and unrealistic lists of materials and equipment that need to be urgently replaced by imports are walking around the institutes. [continue reading]
Artyom Uss, wanted in the U.S., arrives in Russia after escaping house arrest near Milan. An Italian court had already approved his extradition to the States, where he could have faced up to 30 years in prison. Just a reminder: Uss was wanted in the US and Russia for extradition on charges. The Italian authorities approved Uss’s extradition to the US, not Russia. Uss has not been arrested upon his arrival in Russia.
Brazil's President Lula secretly sent his adviser to Moscow to consult on possible peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, - CNN Brazil
The US has pledged a further $2.6 billion in weapons and munition to aid Ukraine. The new package includes more ammunition for HIMARS, air defense interceptors, artillery rounds, anti-armor systems, small arms, heavy equipment transport vehicles, other equipment, and its maintenance support.
Stoltenberg: Ukraine's position at negotiating table 'inextricably linked' to battlefield strength. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that it was up to Ukraine to determine the terms for negotiations with Russia, but "what happens through the negotiating table is inextricably linked to the strength of the battlefield."
President Zelensky, and Olena Zelenska, visited Poland on Wednesday. The Polish public overwhelming supports Ukrainians in their war with Russia but unrest is brewing among Polish farmers due to the lack of tariffs on Ukrainian agricultural products.
Poland and Ukraine sign joint memorandum on reconstruction and munitions production. Poland and Ukraine have signed a joint memorandum on both the reconstruction of war-damaged areas of Ukraine and the production of 125mm tank rounds, according to TVN24.
In Warsaw, President Zelensky has said Ukrainian troops face a difficult situation in the eastern city of Bakhmut, but that Kyiv will take the “corresponding” decisions to protect them if they risk being encircled by Russian forces.
We are in Bakhmut and the enemy does not control it.
For me, the most important is not to lose our soldiers and of course if there is a moment of even hotter events and the danger we could lose our personnel because of encirclement – of course the corresponding correct decisions will be taken by generals there.
German FM Baerbock said on Wednesday at the Nato summit in Brussels that the defence alliance needs to strengthen its relations with global like-minded partners. After Finland joined Nato yesterday, the Nato summit in Vilnius in July should welcome Sweden to the alliance, Reuters reports Baerbock added.
The 6 Leopard 2A4 tanks Spain promised to send to Ukraine will leave the country in the second half of April, defence minister Margarita Robles told state broadcaster TVE on Wednesday, pushing back the estimated shipment date.
PM Shmyhal: Ukraine needs $37 billion for humanitarian demining. Ukraine needs $37.4 billion to carry out humanitarian demining of its lands, the country's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on April 4, citing an assessment by the World Bank.
Politico: EU permanent representatives in Brussels met on Wednesday in another effort to iron out differences on plans to finance ammo for Ukraine and jointly resupply their own dwindling stocks. The EU wants to spend some €2 billion — €1 billion to partially reimburse countries that can immediately donate ammunition to Ukraine and another €1 billion to purchase new ammo. The idea is that together they can negotiate bigger contracts at a lower price per shell.
Brussels is planning a new round of discussions between the European Commission and EU ambassadors on the 11th sanctions package against Russia over its brutal invasion of Ukraine. The talks are expected just after the Easter holiday.
The 10th EU-U.S. Energy Council on Tuesday resulted in Washington promising to keep sending vast amounts of liquefied natural gas to its energy-hungry ally as the Continent prepares for next winter and fears rising prices. “I believe this is not a temporary situation, but marks a structural change in Europe’s energy outlook and trade orientation,” the EU’s Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said.
NATO foreign ministers continued their meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. On the agenda: talks between the North Atlantic Council and Sweden and Indo-Pacific partners. Arriving at NATO headquarters in Brussels on the day Finland formally became a member of the alliance, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his country “is aiming at reaching the same goal.”
Britain blocks UN webcast featuring Russian children’s commissioner, subject to arrest warrant. The U.K. has blocked the United Nation's webcast of an informal security council meeting on Ukraine scheduled for April 5 at which Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights is due to speak, according to the Guardian.
The UK is no longer investigating two of the three initial allegations against Mikhail Fridman four months after arresting the sanctions-hit Russian oligarch at his London mansion. The agency was still investigating suspected money laundering offences, they said. The two sides are also in dispute over the warrant used for the raid, according to one of the people.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Beijing on April 5 along with von der Leyen for a three-day visit as Europe tries to find a balance between its concerns over China's geopolitical moves and its economic ambitions for the country. Macron is looking to add a more personal touch to his discussions with Xi as part of an ambitious diplomatic push to create distance between the Chinese leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin. EU officials who spoke to RFE/RL said that expectations were low within the bloc for Macron's moves to work. Around 5:30 p.m. Paris time, just a few hours before he left for Beijing, Macron spoke on the phone with U.S. President Joe Biden.
President Macron spoke to journalists saying anyone helping “aggressor” Russia in the Ukraine conflict would become an “accomplice”. Macron said:
We have decided since the beginning of the conflict to help the victim, and we have also made it very clear that anyone helping the aggressor would be an accomplice in breach of international law.
Politico: The key meeting of the trip — a trilateral between Xi, von der Leyen and Macron — is on Thursday. The Europeans will seek to convince Xi to play a more constructive role on Ukraine and discourage him from supporting Russia with lethal aid — which would be illegal under international law and, EU senior officials and diplomats fear, would escalate the conflict.
Switzerland's financial regulator FINMA called for more power to penalize and name and shame banks that break the rules. "Our instruments hit their limits in extreme cases as seen in the case of Credit Suisse," FINMA president Marlene Amstad said.
DefenceOne: In the new Sino-Russian defense relationship, China does what it wants, and there isn’t a whole lot Russia can do about it. This dependency has now turned from markets to military hardware itself. The perfect storm of Western sanctions and severed business and political ties have severely curtailed Russia’s options in supplying its own forces, especially as the war consumes far more parts than expected. China’s practice of purchasing Russian modeled weapons, largely for acquiring the technology to make itself, though, means China now has a large reserve of military hardware it can supply to Russia’s flagging war effort.
Italian MPs are Taiwan-bound. A delegation of members of the Italian Parliament is readying to fly to Taiwan in the coming days, as Senator Lucio Malan – member of PM Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) party and president of the Italy-Taiwan Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group.
Sweden: Five men have been arrested “on suspicion of aiding and abetting terrorist offenses,” Sweden’s SAPO domestic security agency said Tuesday, adding the case was related to the burning of a Quran in January in Stockholm and that an attack is not imminent. In a statement, Susanna Trehörning, deputy head of SAPO’ s counterterror unit said that the case had “international links to violent Islamist extremism.” Swedish public radio said the suspects had links to the Islamic State group.
The New York Times Annotated Trump Indictment
The New York Times has provided an annotated version of Donald Trump’s indictment, which centers on a hush-money deal with a porn star. But a related document outlines a broader scheme that prosecutors say former President Donald J. Trump and others orchestrated to protect his 2016 campaign.
Along with the indictment, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, also released a “statement of facts” document outlining a larger scheme that he said Mr. Trump and others had orchestrated to avoid negative press during the 2016 campaign. That scheme also included hush-money payments to a second woman who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump and to a former Trump doorman who made an unproven claim that Mr. Trump had an out-of-wedlock child, Mr. Bragg said Tuesday.
Reuters: Back at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Trump lashed out at New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg for bringing criminal charges against him and declared himself the victim of election interference without offering evidence.
China Has Been Waging a Decades-Long, All-Out Spy War
By Calder Walton, Foreign Policy, March 28, 2023
While the West was distracted, the Chinese government began an intelligence assault that never stopped.
To borrow a phrase from Mission: Impossible: Relax, it’s much worse than you think. We are now witnessing some of the effects of a decision made years ago by China to use every means and medium of intelligence-gathering at its disposal against the West. Its strategy can be summarized in three words: collect, collect, collect. Most Westerners do not yet appreciate just how sweeping China’s intelligence onslaught directed at their countries is; for decades, their own governments likewise didn’t understand because their attention was largely directed elsewhere.
After 9/11, the U.S. intelligence community was overwhelmingly geared toward counterterrorism. U.S. spy chiefs followed priorities for this agenda set by decision-makers in Washington. The U.S. government’s strategic focus on combating terrorism took place at the expense of focusing on resurgent states such as China and Russia. As we pass the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it is useful to understand how China’s intelligence and national security establishment reacted at the time.
The strategy that China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), its principal civilian intelligence service, took toward the United States after 9/11 followed a Chinese saying, ge an guan huo, which roughly translates as “watch the fires burn from the safety of the opposite river bank, which allows you to avoid entering the battle until your enemy is exhausted.” The MSS followed this saying to a T. Its long-term aim was to contain the United States, and then supplant it, in Southeast Asia. As the United States was mired in the Middle East, the gains being made by the MSS went by largely undetected or appreciated by U.S. intelligence. [continue reading]
Programming note…
From the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Romania has demonstrated its unwavering support for Ukraine from helping refugees to providing necessary financial support. Russia’s invasion has also highlighted NATO’s need to secure its eastern flank, prioritize defense of the Black Sea region, and demonstrate the alliance’s tight cohesion and solidarity with Ukraine.