May 12: E-Stories
Day 443: Enerhodar Bakhmut Starodub Sloyansk StormShadow Bogomaz Ukrnaft Georgia China Mariupol Pavel Malofeev $30B RUbudget SA A&Ps DefUA Africk Krym Realii Kokcharov Pomeranzev Volker Harth Snyder
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…
President Zelensky on the counteroffensive: "With what we have, we can go forward and succeed, but we will lose a lot of people. I think this is unacceptable. Therefore, we need to wait. We still need more time."
The Russian invaders conducted unsuccessful offensive actions in Bakhmut. They carried out airstrikes on Bakhmut, Klishchiyivka, Kurdyumivka and Bila Hora. –General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine operational information at 06:00 on 11 May 2023.
RIA Novosti reports that storage facilities occupying a total area of 4,000 square metres caught fire in Norilsk, Russia. The fire quickly spread over the area, doubling its initial size. A total of 16 pieces of equipment and 62 emergency workers have been deployed to extinguish it.
A Ukrainian drone hit an administrative building in the town of Starodub , Bryansk region, said the governor of the region, Alexander Bogomaz. According to him, no one was hurt. Emergency services are on site—the Baza telegram channel,
Russians shelled Slovyansk (Donetsk region, Eastern Ukraine) with missiles on May 11. As a result a fire broke out in a garage and a car on the territory of a private home. Rescuers extinguished the fire on a total area of 20 square meters. A local woman was killed. 2 high-rise buildings, 5 private residential buildings and civilian cars were also damaged, the State Emergency Service reported.
The UK’s defence secretary Ben Wallace has confirmed reports that the UK is donating long-range Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine. He told MPs in the House of Commons: “The donation of these weapons systems gives Ukraine the best chance to defend themselves.
Storm Shadow cruise missiles have a typical range of around 155 miles, enabling Ukraine to strike deep behind the frontlines and disrupt Russian supply lines before a spring counter-offensive.
Storm Shadow ranges: the orange dots at 290km, and the blue at 400km
Russian governors report attacks on oil depot, energy facility. Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of Russia's Bryansk region, said on May 11 that a Ukrainian drone had allegedly attacked an oil depot in Klintsy. On the same day, Kursk Oblast's governor claimed that Ukrainian forces hit an electrical substation in the village of Tyotkino. Kyiv hasn't commented on the incidents.
ISW: Russian combat capability constrained around Bakhmut, vulnerable to localized attacks. Attritional assaults in the Bakhmut area and “pervasive issues with Russian combat capability” make Russian forces vulnerable to localized Ukrainian attacks, the Institute for the Study of War said in its report on May 10.
As per a Financial Times investigation, after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, goods worth a total of two billion euros were sent from the EU in transit through Russia - about half of them were "lost" on the territory of the Russian Federation. The recipients of European goods, including dual-use products that can be used in the military industry, were companies in Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Peskov interview with ATV: "And you say, why are the Russians acting so slowly? Because the Russians don't fight, we don't wage war. Waging war is a completely different matter, it is the total destruction of infrastructure, it is the complete destruction of cities. We don't. Russia is trying to preserve infrastructure and human lives". (cough)
The Russian military are conducting lessons in schools in the occupied city of Mariupol to teach how to drop ammunition from drones, as reported by the Mariupol City Council. "The occupiers come to schools and bring weapons with them. This is how the so-called ‘lessons of courage’ are held. In particular, they tell children about the drones that kill Ukrainians.”
General Staff of the AFU on Facebook report that Russian occupation forces are continuing to take looted goods away from frontline settlements in Zaporizhzhia Oblast under the pretext of evacuating civilians. Russian occupation forces have looted all medical facilities in Enerhodar, taking the looted medical equipment to the Russian-occupied city of Simferopol in Crimea.
Russian state media have been instructed to portray Prigozhin as a “traitor to Russia” if he continues to criticize the Defense Ministry and talk about “failures at the front,” Meduza sources say. At the same time, the matter may not be limited to the "poison" of state propaganda. “If it goes on like this, the official security forces will definitely stop it,” says one of Meduza’s interlocutors.
Brady Africk: Russian forces in Ukraine continue build defenses along the front line and deep within occupied territory. An updated map and satellite imagery of Russian fortifications is available here.
According to preliminary data from the Ministry of Finance, the budget from January to April was executed with a deficit of 3.4 trillion rubles, of which 1 trillion came in the last of four months. In general, a deficit of 2.9 trillion rubles was planned for the year. As noted in the Ministry of Finance, oil and gas revenues in the first four months of 2023 decreased by 52% compared to the same period in 2022.
RFE/RL: Former Motor Sich head asks to be swapped to Russia. Former Motor Sich President Viacheslav Bohuslaiev, who was accused of collaborating with members of the Kremlin and Russian defense contractor Rostec, has requested to be included in the prisoner exchange list with Russia, RFE/RL reported, citing Bohuslaiev’s letter to Ukraine’s Presidential Office head Andrii Yermak.
According to Bloomberg, Ukraine needs more than a US$30 billion arsenal to strike back at Russia and liberate its territories. “To succeed, Ukraine will need to execute a complex so-called combined arms operation, without the advantage of air superiority, for which few militaries in the world have the necessary training. That means coordinating infantry, armour, combat engineers and air defence to maximize the impact of the more than 200 tanks, 300 infantry fighting vehicles and other weapons Ukraine has received since December.”
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has served notices of suspicion on former MPs from the Party of Regions political faction, namely Oleh Tsariov, Dmytro Sviatash and Ihor Markov. According to the investigation, Tsariov cooperated with the Russian MoD after the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Tsariov received this information from Sviatash, who, after 24 February 2022, actively spoke out in support of Russia, for which the Kremlin "considered him as a potential [Russian-controlled] ‘head’ of Kharkiv Oblast."
Mykola Kolisnyk, Deputy Minister of Energy and Serhii Koretskyi, Head of Ukrnafta, have reported that Ukraine has banned the import of fuel of unknown origin so that Russian energy resources do not enter the market to circumvent sanctions. Despite the sanctions, the fuel of Russian origin entered EU countries, Türkiye, and other countries, from where it went to the Ukrainian market as a resource of uncertain origin, explained Kolisnyk.
Journalists from Krym Realii media outlet published a map that geolocates 223 active, temporary, and preserved military facilities in Russian-occupied Crimea.
"It is important for us to inform our audience about the level of militarization of the Crimean Peninsula. We want to warn Crimeans about the dangers associated with these places," the map's creator, Ihor Tokhar, said.
US Ambassador to South Africa Ruben Brighetti said that South Africa supplied weapons to Russia, despite the declared neutrality on the issue of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. According to him, the weapons were loaded in December 2022 on the Russian cargo ship LadyR, which docked at the naval base in Cape Town in December.
President Pavel announced on May 10 that Prague would transfer two 2K12 Kub air defence systems and missiles for them to Kyiv. The Czech president emphasised that Ukraine needs an air force to prepare for the decisive phase of the war with Russia. At the same time, the priority, in his opinion, is to provide a sufficient number of armoured vehicles and ammunition.
Reuters: US authorizes first transfer of seized Russian oligarch’s funds to Ukraine. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has approved the transfer to Ukraine of the first part of the confiscated assets of the owner of the Tsargrad TV channel Malofeev. The amount is not specified. This is the first case of the transfer of confiscated assets of the Kremlin oligarchs in favor of Ukraine.
The agriculture ministers of five EU states called on the bloc to correct regulations restricting the import of Ukrainian agricultural products, Polish news agency PAP reported citing sources. According to a letter signed by the agriculture ministers of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia the import ban introduced on 2 May does not apply to goods imported under contracts concluded before that date, creating a risk that undated contracts could be cleared by customs, PAP reports.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili proposed drastic measures in response to Putin’s decision to introduce a visa-free regime for Georgian citizens and resume direct flights, which have been closed since 2019. “I propose to convene the National Security Council and consider the introduction of visas for Russian citizens for a period of three months, which is necessary for us, taking into account internal challenges,” President Zurabishvili said on Wednesday.
Media: US warns of sanctions if Georgia resumes direct flights to Russia. The U.S. has warned Georgia of economic sanctions if it resumes direct flights to Russia, Georgian media outlet Accent News reported on May 10.
Germany led calls urging caution against targeting China under new European Union sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, during a first discussion among the bloc’s proposed new restrictions, five diplomatic sources said. Italy backed Germany’s proposal to target foreign companies, rather than countries, over any circumvention of existing sanctions, according to the sources familiar with the Wednesday discussion, behind closed doors.
Turkey has gained the right to defer payments for $4 billion worth of Russian gas until 2024, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter in Ankara. The corresponding agreement, which Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Donmez announced last week, was concluded between Gazprom and the state-owned energy company Botas.
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is in trouble again for his links to Russia after attending a victory day party at the Russian embassy in Berlin. Schroeder who has previously been criticised for his links to Russia was seen at the reception on Tuesday marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war, along with senior figures from the far-right Alternative for Germany party and the far-left Linke party. “On the day the former chancellor was entertained by Russian diplomats, innocent people in Ukraine died as a result of the Russian war of aggression,” Frei said.
Sanctioning Russian Diamonds: “The G-7 countries are set to join the US, which has already imposed sanctions on Alrosa to limit Russia's diamond earnings, according to a draft communiqué from the May summit seen by the Financial Times. The goal of the G7 is to create an effective international mechanism for tracing diamonds of Russian origin in order to limit the ability to circumvent sanctions.”
Important elections in Turkey on Sunday
On Sunday, Turkey will vote in what could be the world’s most important election this year. Authoritarian-leaning President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will face off against challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and as the Global Briefing has noted, the race is expected to be close.
As The Economist has written, a loss for Erdoğan could mean a turn back toward liberal democracy in Turkey and repaired relations between Ankara and the West. Others say Turkey will retain its position as a geopolitical fulcrum between East and West.
Nadeen Ebrahim expects close relations with Russia to continue, as “Turkey is a key trading partner for Russia, as well as a hub for thousands of Russians who fled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, pouring money into real estate and other sectors.”
Some very big factors weigh on the vote: inflation, which has surged in Turkey as Erdoğan has kept interest rates low; the massive earthquakes that rocked Turkey earlier this year; and a generational division over politics and Islam.
LSE senior fellow Peter Pomeranzev talks about the evolution of Russia's disinformation methods. "The really powerful stuff Russia is doing internationally is drawing this very effective false equivalence between Europe's generosity towards Ukraine and self-interest.
Kurt Volker, Hang Together on Ukraine, or China Will Hang Us Separately
Two major fallacies continuously infect Western analyses about China’s perspective on Russia’s war in Ukraine:
that China supports Russia, and
that the West cannot afford to waste resources on helping Ukraine when the real long-term threat is China.
The first fallacy leads to a standoffish approach to China concerning Ukraine when we should instead be seeking to enlist China in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty and economic development, while disincentivizing any temptations to take Russia’s view on the conflict.
The second fallacy implies we should diminish Western support for Ukraine — something that would only serve to encourage China in its ambitions to take Taiwan, and thus increase the costs to the West in any future conflict there.
Why do we fall into these traps? Because we look at Chinese actions or inactions through the perspective of our own wishes and fears, rather than China’s. The starting point for thinking about China’s policy concerning Russia’s war against Ukraine is Chinese interests. These are complex and do not fit neatly within the dividing lines of Western policy thinking. [continue reading]
Read the article from The Guardian here.
Programming note…
Class 10 examines how several global empires shaped the development of Ukraine.
Ukraine must have existed as a society and polity on 23 February 2022, else Ukrainians would not have collectively resisted Russian invasion the next day. What does it mean for a nation to exist? Is this a matter of structures, actions, or both? Why has the existence of Ukraine occasioned such controversy? In what ways are Polish, Russian, and Jewish self-understanding dependent upon experiences in Ukraine? Just how and when did a modern Ukrainian nation emerge?