Mar 28: Buonasera Mag
Day 398: Vuledar Bakhmut Sloviansk Iran NK NukeBlackmail EU allies NMacedonia SwissTech Netanyahu A&P Michta AtlanticCouncil Schmitt Skove Weiss Mendel UKDef GlasnostGone ForeignOffPod
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…
Russian attacks kill 5 civilians, injure 25 across Ukraine over past 24 hours. According to the report, Russia attacked 132 settlements across eight regions – Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts.
At least two people have been killed in a Russian missile strike in the eastern city of Sloviansk on Monday, according to the regional governor. The attack left 29 others wounded, Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
Ukraine’s ground forces commander said on Monday his troops were continuing to repel heavy Russian attacks Bakhmut and that defending it was a “military necessity”. Reuters reports Ukraine’s military said Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi had acted during a visit to the eastern frontline to solve “problematic issues that prevent effective execution of combat tasks” and taken “operational decisions aimed at strengthening our capabilities to deter and inflict damage on the enemy”.
On March 26, Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraine's Eastern Military Command, reported that the Armed Forces have managed to "stabilize the situation" around the embattled city of Bakhmut in eastern Donetsk Oblast. According to the spokesperson, the number of assaults on the Bakhmut front has decreased, possibly indicating that the Russian forces are repositioning their reserves.
An attempt was made this morning to assassinate the police chief, Mikhail Moskvin, in occupied Mariupol, according to Tass.
ISW: Putin not ready for negotiations, 'seeks complete victory'. Russian President Vladimir Putin still wants to achieve his initial aims in Ukraine through military force, despite growing Western sentiments to seek a settlement, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest update.
UK Defense Ministry: Russia began receiving ‘regular resupplies’ of small numbers of Iranian drones. Since the beginning of March, Russia has launched at least 71 attacks on Ukraine using Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones, following a two-week pause in drone attacks in late February, the U.K. Defense Ministry wrote in its latest intelligence update.
North Korea test-fires 2 more missiles as US sends carrier. The seventh missile test this month underscored heightening tensions in the region as both the North’s weapons tests and the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises have intensified in a cycle of tit-for-tat.
Russian psy-ops: “In the center of Moscow, videos are being broadcast on how to properly assemble an alarm case. The Ministry of Emergency Situations advises Muscovites to put a first-aid kit, a flashlight, matches, a radio, a knife, thread with a needle, food, disposable tableware, personal hygiene products and a change of clothes there.”
Kyiv on Sunday said it was seeking an emergency meeting of the United Nation's Security Council to counter Russia's "nuclear blackmail" after President Vladimir Putin announced his country would station tactical nuclear arms in Belarus.
NATO criticized Moscow on Sunday for its “dangerous and irresponsible” nuclear rhetoric after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he would deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.
The 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks promised by Germany to support Ukraine have been handed over at the Ukrainian border, according to a report. About 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles have also reached Ukraine, der Spiegel reported, citing unnamed sources.
Howitzers without GPS, rocket launchers restricted to short-range: The US is sending Ukraine weapons with critical limitations. Observers say US officials are trying to avoid a confrontation with Russia.
Moldovan Defense Ministry announces joint military exercises with US, UK. Joint military drills of Moldovan, Romanian, U.K., and U.S. soldiers will take place on March 27-April 7, Moldova’s Ministry of Defense reported.
The EU is looking into investing frozen assets belonging to the Russian central bank to reap returns, according to a paper by the Commission set to be discussed on Tuesday by national experts, obtained by Politico. G7 countries, the EU and Australia together froze $300 billion of Russian central bank assets at the beginning of the war, two-thirds of which is believed to be in the EU. Member countries agreed on an obligation to report on the whereabouts of frozen Russian assets in its latest sanctions package against Moscow to try to get a clearer picture.
Hungary has ratified accession protocols for Finland to join NATO. It has not yet voted on Sweden’s bid. Twenty-nine states have ratified Finland’s accession to NATO thus far.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will travel with French President Emmanuel Macron to China on April 4, on her first journey to Beijing as Commission president.
Germany’s opposition Christian Democrats are planning to shift away from the pragmatic stance toward China that characterized Angela Merkel’s 16 years as chancellor, claiming that maintaining peace through trade has failed. the conservatives say the idea of keeping peace through economic cooperation “has failed with regard to Russia, but increasingly also China.” The paper is to be adopted by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag around Easter.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock plans to expel more than 30 Russian diplomats - they were suspected of involvement in the creation of an agent network, Focus writes, citing security sources. Security officials believe there are about 160 Russian intelligence officers operating in Germany under the guise of diplomats, more than during the Cold War.
Poland has detained a foreign citizen on charges of spying for Russia, prosecutors said on Monday, as the largest country on NATO's eastern flank finds itself increasingly targeted by Moscow's intelligence services. Prosecutors in Gdansk said:
"The findings made in the case show that the suspect acted for the benefit of Russian intelligence by obtaining and collecting information... on critical infrastructure in the Pomeranian and Kuyavian-Pomeranian Regions and on the activities of services and bodies responsible for security," they said.
North Macedonia may send 12 Mi-24 helicopters to Ukraine. According to North Macedonian Defense Minister Slavjanka Petrovska, the decision will not affect the country's military since the "equipment is already at the end of its use, according to modernization plans."
Swiss technology still comes to Russia. The latest "Swiss" microchip was found a few days ago in Donbas. It was installed on the Russian reconnaissance drone "Orlan" which reports Ukrainian positions to the artillery of Kremlin soldiers. This electronic component is produced by the U-blox company of Zurich, one of the world leaders in the automotive and healthcare sectors.
Russian athletes who have actively served in the military invasion of Ukraine should be allowed to return to international sports if they did not take part in war crimes, according to a United Nations expert advising the International Olympic Committee.
Ambassadors of the EU’s 27 countries reviewed a deal struck Saturday by Germany and the European Commission, which paves the way for the sale of cars running on synthetic e-fuels even after combustion-engine vehicles are banned from 2035. Berlin and Brussels struck the deal just hours after EU leaders left their summit in Brussels on Friday.
Some of those pieces are analytical, others veer into partisan screeds. But they all share two assumptions in common: that 1.our support for Ukraine is a distraction from the real threat, and 2. that we lack sufficient resources to engage both in the Atlantic and the Pacific.
This argument fundamentally misreads our geopolitics. The United States is a quintessentially maritime power-an island on a continental scale. We have the maintenance of the Navy written into our Constitution. Access to the World Ocean has historically nurtured our prosperity.
And now we’re being told that getting out of Europe is a solution to our security dilemma when it comes to China. Or that we should peel Russia away from China (how exactly?). This has become a drumbeat since Obama’s failed “reset with Russia” & his ill-fated“pivot to Asia.”
Advocates of the US pulling out of Europe misread the nature of the threat facing us in the coming years of prolonged global instability. We cannot hope to abandon our allies and interests in one major theater and expect to prevail in the other.
The Sino-Russian alliance constitutes a danger to US security on a global scale. They are engaged against us in both theaters. Ukraine is grinding down the Russian military, buying us time for our NATO allies to rearm. It helps us sequence the threats.
Sam Skove, Using Starlink Paints a Target on Ukrainian Troops- Defence One
Units scramble for solutions as Russia learns to locate and jam the vital comsat links.
Operating behind enemy lines, one soldier fighting for Ukraine knows the Russians will hunt for him the second he sets up his portable Starlink internet dish.
On the one hand, Ukrainian soldiers say the device is key to their operations, notably its ability to help coordinate devastating artillery strikes. On the other, they report a variety of ways in which the Russians can locate, jam, and degrade the devices, which were never intended for battlefield use.
In Boris’s case, Russian signals-intelligence equipment is likely pinpointing the devices by scanning for suspect transmissions, said Todd Humphreys, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has studied Starlink devices. [continue reading]
Sam Cooper, Liberal MP Han Dong secretly advised Chinese diplomat in 2021 to delay freeing Two Michaels: sources- Global News
Liberal MP Han Dong, who is at the centre of Chinese influence allegations, privately advised a senior Chinese diplomat in February 2021 that Beijing should hold off freeing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, according to two separate national security sources.
Both sources said Dong allegedly suggested to Han Tao, China’s consul general in Toronto, that if Beijing released the “Two Michaels,” whom China accused of espionage, the Opposition Conservatives would benefit.
At the time, the two Canadians had been in Chinese custody for over two years. However, it was widely perceived that they were jailed in retribution for Canada’s detention of Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive facing extradition to the United States.
Dong also allegedly recommended that Beijing show some progress in the Kovrig and Spavor cases, the two sources said. Such a move would help the ruling Liberal Party, which was facing an uproar over China’s inhumane treatment of Kovrig and Spavor. [continue reading]
Programming notes…
How vital are Western components for the Russian military? What can Western governments and companies do to more effectively prevent dual-use technology exports to Russia? How can the West make it more difficult for Moscow and its partners to circumvent sanctions?
Panelists include: Dr Benjamin Schmitt, and Olen Tregub