May 13: Saturday Stories
Day 444: Melitopol BlackSea Serebryansk Mar'inka 325tanks NP Yellen deportations Bakhmut Komi Pope CN TUR SWI G7 Cypus A&P KyivIndie MacKay UKDef ImagineDragons Chotiner NovayaGazeta GlasnostGone
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…
Defense ministry confirms Ukrainian advance in Bakhmut area. Ukrainian soldiers have advanced two kilometers toward Bakhmut and haven't lost any positions in the area in the past week, Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on May 12.
CDS Daily Brief: The Ukrainian Defense Forces will continue to destroy the Russian artillery, and destroy objects in its operational rear in the entire operational zone, preparing favorable conditions for the launch of the counteroffensive.
'Strong' explosion heard in Russian-occupied Melitopol city center. A "strong, single explosion" was heard in the center of Russian-occupied Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, exiled Mayor Ivan Fedorov reported on Telegram early in the morning of May 12.
Map source: Michael MacKay, May 12, 2023 @ 12:25pm CET
Units of the Defense Forces repelled more than 39 enemy attacks on various fronts. Heavy fighting is ongoing for Bakhmut and Maryinka. Russian troops carried out unsuccessful attacks and offensives in the Serebryansk forest area, the industrial zone of Bilohorivka, the city of Bakhmut, and the areas of Avdiivka and Maryinka.
"Wagner" PMC mercenaries continued their offensive operations in and around Bakhmut, unsuccessfully attacking in the Bakhmut area, towards Ivanivske and Stupochky, and carrying out unsuccessful assaults in Maryinka.
Wagner boss calls on Russian defense minister to come to Bakhmut. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia's state-backed private mercenary Wagner Group, offered Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to visit the Russian-controlled part of Bakhmut to access the battlefield situation.
The commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has said its defences are being tightened amid a flurry of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting its home base, the Crimean port of Sevastopol, specifically in Donuzlav, Sevastopol, and Novorossiysk.
On May 11th, there were 8 enemy ships in the sea. They patrol the areas near the coast of the Krasnodar Krai and near the Kerch Bridge. Among them were three ships equipped with Kalibr missiles. The enemy's aviation continues flights from Crimean airfields Belbek, Saky, Dzhankoy and Hvardiyske over the sea.
Russians deport children en masse before Ukrainian counteroffensive - Save Ukraine Before the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Ukrainian children are being taken en masse from settlements adjacent to the demarcation line to the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea and to Russia.
Russia likely recruited 10,000 convicts for Ukraine war in April. Since the beginning of 2023, the Russian Defense Ministry has stepped up its scheme of recruiting Russian prisoners to fight in Ukraine, with up to 10,000 convicts signing up in April, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on May 11.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church lost control of a cathedral in Simferopol after local bailiffs and Russia’s Land Relations Ministry seized and sealed off the property, dubiously citing missing paperwork. The Russian authorities will reportedly transfer the cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Sources say the Kremlin is losing patience with Prigozhin’s outbursts. On Tuesday, he posted a much longer video, this time accusing a Russian army unit of abandoning its positions in Bakhmut before referring to a “happy grandpa” who’s failing to save his country. Kremlin officials view Prigozhin’s statements about the Russian Defense Ministry as a “serious threat.” One source said that Prigozhin is currently acting “not as part of the same team and not out of the same interests” as the Russian authorities.
“He has his own project, Bakhmut, and he’s currently doing everything for its sake. But that’s a personal project, aimed at giving him more influence over the Defense Ministry, so that Wagner becomes the main force behind the victory,” said the source.
The "head" of the annexed territory of the Zaporizhzhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said that an attempt was made on the "chairman of the court" of the region in the occupied Melitopol. According to him, two guards of the "judge" were injured, they were hospitalized. He did not give details of the assassination.
Unknown persons set fire to the building of the department of the Federal Security Service in Usinsk in the Komi Republic, writes Baza. According to the Telegram channel, the incident occurred on the night of May 11. At about 3:00 am, an unidentified person threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of the building.
The Russian Justice Ministry is implementing a planned expansion of the “foreign agents” law, adding “third parties” to existing regulations, empowering the authorities to target virtually anyone who provides any kind of goods or services to an already-registered “foreign agent.”
Zelensky may travel to Italy, meet with Prime Minister, Pope. President Zelensky may travel to Italy on May 13 and meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Pope Francis, news agency Ansa reported on May 11.
The Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine believes that recently there has been exaggerating media activity aimed at making Ukraine to negotiate on Russian terms. "There are many proposals from different countries in this regard. But keep in mind," Oleksiy Danilov said, "I am more than sure that if we are going to talk about something, and the President makes such a decision, then it will be only on the terms of our country."
Warsaw: Poland has delivered 325 tanks out of 575 from Ukraine's partners. Poland has delivered a total of 325 tanks and 14 fighter jets to Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, the Permanent Representation of Poland to the EU reported on May 11.
Pentagon explains decision to hold off F-16 supply to Ukraine. Providing Ukraine with the required number of F-16 aircraft requires more financial resources than the U.S. government has currently allocated. This would complicate the supply of air defense capabilities and artillery shells for the needs of the nation's Defense Forces.
US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen met German finance minister Christian Lindner on Friday, to underscore the importance of working together to counter evasion of sanctions imposed on Russia over its war in Ukraine, the US Treasury has said.
US trains Ukrainian law enforcement in cryptocurrency investigations. Criminal-investigation division of the Internal Revenue Service is training Ukrainian investigators to pursue crypto investigations related to sanctioning Russian oligarchs, according to The Wall Street Journal.
China's foreign ministry says special envoy for Eurasian affairs to visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Russia from May 15, "to make communications with all parties on the political settlement of Ukraine."
Turkey’s defence minister, Hulusi Akar, has said that parties to the Black Sea grain initiative are approaching an extension. Reuters reports Akar’s comment was released by his ministry in a statement on Friday, after talks in Istanbul.
The Swiss government approved the confiscation of the reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in favor of Ukraine. The use of the assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation for the restoration of Ukraine is "legally possible," Fabian Mayenfisch, spokesman for the State Secretariat for Economics, told RIA Novosti. In total, 7.4 billion francs ($8.3 billion) of the Russian Central Bank, which fell under Western sanctions in the very first days of the war, were discovered and blocked in Switzerland.
Cyprus has received an 800-page dossier from the US government detailing sanctions breaches by local individuals and entities that are alleged to have enabled the Russian billionaire, Alisher Usmanov, to conceal his immense wealth. Nikos Christodoulides vowed to push ahead with the prosecution of law and audit firms that had aided the oligarch, Washington released documents that amounted to a toolkit to facilitate the process.
WSJ: Russia fines Google for failing to remove content discrediting armed forces. Russian court fined Google for “refusing to take down material it described as promoting same-sex relationships and discrediting the country’s armed forces,” The Wall Street Journal reported on May 11.
RMF FM reports that Poland's National Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating former chancellor Schroeder for his possible role in aiding and abetting Russia's war on Ukraine. The German politician could have used his positions in the Russian energy sector to later put pressure on EU countries and Ukraine. Investigators will also look into what role the former chancellor played in the preparations for the invasion.
The Ukrainian conflict has shaken global stability and forced Japan to rethink its approach to regional security, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said in an interview with CNN. At the end of last year, Japan already decided to double its defense spending, and now it is preparing to open the first NATO office in Asia.
"We are already discussing this," Hayashi told CNN, adding that the final terms have not yet been agreed. Japan is not a member of the alliance, but the decision to strengthen ties with it is meant to demonstrate that its partners in the Asia-Pacific region are "extraordinarily consistent" with the bloc, Hayashi said.
You raised a freak and a murderer…
A 60-year-old Russian woman was given a two-year suspended sentence on Thursday for leaving a note with an “insulting inscription” on the grave of president Vladimir Putin’s parents, independent news sites reported. According to the SOTA news site, Tsybaneva does not plan to appeal against the verdict.
Prosecutors had sought a three-year suspended sentence for Irina Tsybaneva, who in October was charged with desecrating the grave in St Petersburg with a note referring to Putin’s mother and father as “the parents of a maniac”.
“Death to Putin, you raised a freak and a murderer,” the note said, urging the deceased parents to “take him with you”.
She said she wrote the note after she watched the news about the war in Ukraine and “understood that everything is very scary, everything is very sad, and there are many dead”, according to another news outlet, Mediazona.
American band Imagine Dragons shot a music video about Oleksandr Zhurskyi, a 14-year old boy from the village of Novohryhorivka in Mykolaiv Oblast. The band told a story of the life of Oleksandr’s family, under Russian occupation for five months.
Why Russian Élites Think Putin’s War Is Doomed to Fail
By Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, May 3, 2023
You recently wrote that Putin is more vulnerable than most people think. Why is that?
We tend to equate Putin’s regime with Putin himself. It is often heard that if Putin disappears, his regime will fall. However, I caution against this assumption, as the regime may prove to be more resilient, drawn-out, and potentially radical than Putin himself. It depends on the circumstances of Putin’s departure, but in my opinion his regime may outlive him. This is not just due to natural reasons related to age and health but also because of the way the war has drastically changed the domestic situation in Russia.
Putin, who was once a strong leader with a clear plan, vision, and resources to secure the state’s stability, now appears misinformed, hesitant. He is failing to provide a reassuring strategy for how Russia will get out of this crisis. If Putin had conquered Ukraine in the first months of the war, there would be no questions. Not only did he fail but he created a crisis with no clear way out. I am not saying that he does not have a vision, but the way he interacts with the élites and deals with military defeats fuels uncertainty and anxiety about Russia’s future. [continue reading]