Mar 11: The Saturday Edition
Day 381: UASitRep Bakhmut Kherson Matsiyevskiy Crimea 42 FSB Volkov AlfaBank DaVinci NATO ZNPP VDL Latvia Antonov Finland QatarGate-A&P-Zabrisky ISW UKDef Lucas Lautman Firsov Taira Temnychy
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…
General Staff: Russia launches 95 missiles in its latest attack on Friday. Russian forces launched 95 missiles in the attack on March 9, according to the General Staff report.
Military: Importance of holding Bakhmut 'only increasing.' According to Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine's Ground Forces, holding Bakhmut allows Kyiv to prepare its reserves for future counteroffensives and exhausts the resources of the Russian army.
ISW: Russia conducts large missile strike to advance propaganda objectives. The Institute for the Study of War reported that Russia’s largest missile strike in recent weeks “likely only served Russian state propaganda objectives” in its latest update.
In Kherson region, south Ukraine, Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups reportedly attempted to land on the islands in the lower reaches of the Dnieper river. Ukrainian forces destroyed 7 Russian boats.
Identity of the Ukrainian soldier killed on video: the military command for northern Ukraine said it was apparently Oleksandr Matsiyevskiy, a soldier with a brigade from the Chernihiv region who was killed on December 30 near Soledar, a few kilometers northeast of Bakhmut, and Matsiyevskiy’s mother said she is certain it was her son.
Russian-backed Crimea head says fortifications still under construction. Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, said Friday that Russia’s plans to build defense fortifications in the annexed region are still in effect, adding that local authorities are taking an “unconventional” and “asymmetrical” approach to the construction process due to all of their “experience with armed hostilities.”
Prigozhin announced the opening of 42 mercenary recruitment centers in cities across Russia on Friday, despite the fact that mercenary activities remain against the law in the country.
Russia preparing 'large-scale provocation' on Ukrainian-Belarusian border. Russia is planning a "large-scale provocation" on Belarus' border with Ukraine "in the near future," potentially involving destruction of infrastructure facilities and victims among civilians, Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate reported on March 9.
“Since Russian invasion in Ukraine, 13 Russians working for FSB have been arrested illegally crossing into the US from Mexico,” US DHS sources said. They claimed to have been prosecuted in Russia for being journalists, activists and NGO workers. Those thirteen individuals, among them two women, all used the same strategy. First they flew from Russia (through Turkey) to Cancun and then they asked for political asylum at a Mexico-US land border. And though they showed up at different times and at different border crossings between Arizona and California, they also all had similar stories.
Russian volunteer group fighting in Ukraine registers as a commercial enterprise in Russia. Russia’s Federal Tax Service has registered a group called the P. A. Sudoplatov Volunteer Battalion as a legal entity. BBC News Russian writes that this is the first instance of a company fighting in Ukraine officially registering as a commercial structure in Russia.
Reuters has reported that Russia has introduced personal sanctions against 144 government officials, journalists, lawmakers and other public figures from the three Baltic states who are deemed “most hostile” to Moscow. “Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - ruled from Moscow during the Cold War but now members of the European Union and NATO - have been among the strongest critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
Anti-Corruption Foundation Chairman Leonid Volkov “pauses” his leadership role amid a scandal over his letter to the E.U. requesting sanctions relief for Alfa Group shareholders (Volkov made the request privately on the foundation’s letterhead, though the organization publicly calls Alfa-Group shareholder Petr Aven a “warmonger” who “remains involved in the system of Russian political corruption”)
Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven hope to sell their stake in Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest private lender, to longtime business partner Andrey Kosogov for $2.3 billion, reports The Financial Times. The deal requires the approval of regulators, including Russia’s Central Bank and tax authorities, and maybe U.S. and E.U. sanctions officials too.
A Moscow court sentences political scientist Demuri Voronin to more than 13 years in prison for treason. He allegedly passed information about Russian military activities in Syria from journalist Ivan Safronov to Swiss and German intelligence.
Dmytro Katsiubailo was commander of the Da Vinci Wolves. Katsiubailo is survived by her wife, Alina Mykhailova, of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Alina’s unit works for the Hospitallers, which provide emergency medical services to the fighters on the front lines. Dmytro was commander of the Da Vinci Wolves.
President's Office: Ukraine may receive security guarantees at next NATO summit. "There will definitely be security guarantees, we no longer hear "no" when we speak up about them. Now the question is who will be the first to sign them with us," Ukraine's Presidential Office head Andrii Yermak told reporters, as cited by the European Pravda.
PM Shmyhal: Euratom and 49 countries call on Russia to leave Zaporizhzhia NPP. European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and 49 countries demanded that Russia leaves the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in a joint appeal to the IAEI, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reported on March 9.
Von der Leyen and Zelensky discuss Russian missile attacks, anti-corruption reforms. In a phone call on March 9, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and President Zelensky discussed Russia's most recent mass missile attack and Ukraine's anti-corruption efforts.
Reuters reports that Ukraine will take part in the European Union scheme to jointly buy gas in global markets, to procure 2 billion cubic metres of the fuel ahead of next winter, the EU energy policy chief said on Thursday.
Poland to transfer 'limited' number of MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. "As far as I know, it will not be a large number of aircraft," said, Paweł Szrot, the head of the Polish president's office, as quoted by the Polish Press Agency.
Former director and managers of Ukraine’s state aviation enterprise Antonov were arrested, Ukraine’s Security Service reported. They are accused of “obstructing the legal activities” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine before the Russian invasion and failure to prepare Hostomel airport for defense in January-February 2022. This led to the destruction of the world’s largest plane An-225 Mriya and other planes the Antonov company owned.
The German chancellor has said that Putin has shown no willingness to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. Speaking to a group of German reporters, Scholz said: “Unfortunately, I see no willingness at the moment,” Scholz was quoted by NBR as saying, adding Ukraine must decide what conditions it is ready to accept for peace.
Members of the House and Senate were informed on Wednesday that hackers may have gained access to their sensitive personal data in a breach of a Washington DC health insurance marketplace. Employees of the lawmakers and their families were also affected. DC Health Link confirmed that data on an unspecified number of customers was affected and said it was notifying them and working with law enforcement. It said it was offering identity theft service to those affected and extending credit monitoring to all customers.
Up-coming elections in Finland via Politico: “Sanna Marin’s Social Democrats are trailing a rival center-right group in the polls, headed by Petteri Orpo, with less than a month to go until the April 2 vote. Orpo took aim at Marin’s record on the economy and made a pitch to increase, not lessen, immigration to his country. “We want to reform the labor market, taxation and social security, and get tens of thousands of workers from other countries to Finland, as we have a lack of workers,” he said. While Orpo’s National Coalition Party is on course to win the election, it wouldn’t be able to rule alone. His choice of coalition partner is between the hard-right True Finns, who want to see Finland leave the EU, and the Social Democrats.”
Xi Jinping secured a precedent-breaking third term as president of China during a parliamentary session in which he tightened his control of the world's second-largest economy as it emerges from a COVID slump and diplomatic challenges mount.
QatarGate: Italian officials have launched their own probe into whether a Milan firm, Equality Consultancy, helped launder Qatar’s bribes for EU lawmakers, a person familiar with the investigation confirmed. And on Thursday, three Milan judges will have to decide whether to extradite the firm’s founder, Monica Bellini, to Belgium.
Belgian prosecutors have had both Equality and Bellini in their sights for weeks. Bellini served as an accountant for the former Italian MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, the alleged mastermind of a cash-for-influence network at the Parliament working on behalf of Morocco and Qatar. And her firm, Equality Consultancy, was enmeshed in a web of figures now at the center of the so-called Qatargate scandal.
Yegor Firsov, From the Trenches in Ukraine, We Know Our Enemy Is in Shock- NYT
An infantryman’s least favorite weather is a temperature of 35 degrees Fahrenheit and pouring rain, when the trench floods with knee-deep, near freezing water. Surviving in such conditions is truly an art, and it’s at these moments in particular that a trench has a special energy. Here people fight for their lives, for every manifestation of it. Here communion with God is sincere and more frequent than in any church.
Near the front lines everyone fits up his trench like it’s his little home away from home. There are sleeping bags, ammunition and food, of course. But people also keep books and affix drawings by their children to the walls.
Sometimes enemy forces are close enough that we can see them without binoculars. Sometimes they’re a few hundred feet away. Our task is to “hold the fort,” and in this common expression lies the main idea of war: not to yield your land to the enemy. So when shelling starts, a soldier cannot just take cover; he must also make sure the enemy does not move forward. As a rule, that’s exactly what happens: When the enemy begins to shell, its infantry starts to advance.
One day our positions were bombarded with 120-millimeter mortars for several hours. When the barrage started, it was terrifying. First, there was the sound of the exit — as the projectile flies out of the launcher. Then there was the wait of a couple of seconds and the vibration of its arrival.
Mark Temnycky, In Ukraine, a good news story is building- The Hill
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been catastrophic. About one-fourth of Ukraine’s population is displaced. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed. Countless cities and villages have been destroyed, and experts predict it will take over $1 trillion to rebuild.
Amidst this devastation, however, lies a good news story. While Russia’s war continues, Ukrainians across the country started to rebuild their homes. Last month, photos and videos circulated on social media showing rebuilt Ukrainian apartment buildings that were previously destroyed by Russian artillery strikes. In addition, restoration efforts across Kyiv Oblast have been very successful. Apartment buildings, shopping centers, and gas stations were rapidly rebuilt, and the government is looking to extend these efforts to other parts of the country.
How have the Ukrainians rebuilt their infrastructure so quickly?
In May 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian government launched UNITED24, an initiative defending and rebuilding Ukraine. One of the programs within this initiative is “Rebuild Ukraine.” The project seeks to restore damaged and destroyed buildings in cities across Ukraine. To date, the program has raised some $14 million.
“The Ukrainian reconstruction program will be the largest rebuilding project since the Second World War,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated when the “Rebuild Ukraine” program was announced. “We are grateful to everyone who contributes to the reconstruction of our country,” he added.