May 17 Buonasera mag
EU Defense Min meeting, Italy LNG, ICC, Azovstal, Khodarenok, Sweden
Happy Constitution Day Norway!
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.
Here are some other stories we’re following…
Mariupol: At least seven more buses were reported to have left the steelworks on Tuesday, escorted by pro-Russian forces.
Reuters: Israel is ramping up offshore natural gas production and aims to reach an agreement to supply it to Europe in the coming months.
Rumours abound about Turkey vetoeing Finland and Sweden’s application to NATO. There will be a lot of this going back and forth, so don’t pay any heed to it just yet.
Politico Playbook EU: EU defense ministers meet today as the bloc considers new ways to finance joint arms purchases. One idea: Pool countries’ defense budgets. Another: Obtain EU financing through the European Investment Bank.
Hungary refused, once again, to its opposition to an EU ban on Russian oil at Monday’s foreign ministers’ meeting. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell remained optimistic but said there could still be weeks of talks. “Hungary has not explained their position on political terms, but in economic terms,” he said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in Brussels today for the Brussels Economic Forum. She’ll also be meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Financial Services Commissioner Mairead McGuinness.
Russia has announced plans to withdraw from the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). Russian FM Lavrov insisted today that Russia had made the decision to leave CBSS "in response to hostile actions" by the group. It was comprised of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Russia.
The BBC: Russia has asked its Supreme Court to designate Ukraine's Azov Regiment as a terrorist organisation. The Justice Ministry in Moscow has said a court case "on recognising the Ukrainian paramilitary nationalist association 'Azov' as a terrorist organisation and the ban on its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation is scheduled for trial on 26 May. The Azov fighters are now in Russian custody.
The International Criminal Court has sent a team of 42 investigators, forensic experts and support personnel to Ukraine in the "largest ever single field deployment" by it's prosecutor's office.
The German government signed a deal to receive two floating LNG import terminals by year end. Hoegh LNG will provide the FSRUs for 10 years. Germany has been fast-tracking the terminals.
Azovstal
Ukraine's military has said it is working to evacuate all remaining troops from the steelworks after months of bombardment.
"The 'Mariupol' garrison has fulfilled its combat mission," the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said in a statement. "The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel... Defenders of Mariupol are the heroes of our time," it added.
Some 600 troops are thought to have been inside the steel plant. "We hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an early morning address and added, "There are severely wounded ones among them. They're receiving care. Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive."
"In the interest of saving lives, 52 of our severely wounded servicemen were evacuated yesterday [Monday]. After their condition stabilises, we will exchange them for Russian prisoners of war," Deputy PM Iryna Vereshchuk has said on Telegram.
Dan Sabbagh, Putin involved in war ‘at level of colonel or brigadier’
Vladimir Putin has become so personally involved in the Ukraine war that he is making operational and tactical decisions “at the level of a colonel or brigadier”, according to western military sources.
Mariupol
Russia seeks to extract false testimony from Mariupol residents. Russian occupiers have announced that they would give compensation for destroyed housing and killed family members, Petro Andryushchenko, an advisor to the mayor of Mariupol, said.
The compensation will be paid in exchange for false testimony that Ukrainian troops killed relatives or destroyed property, he said. The occupiers offer roughly $6,000 for a destroyed house and $33,000 for a killed relative, according to Andryushchenko.
Discordant voices in Russia
Mikhail Khodarenok, a Russian military analyst and retired colonel, made an appearance on Skabayeva’s show last night. Listen to his assessment, which is less than rosy for the Russian forces and underscores the strength of the Ukrainian forces.
Social media was ablaze with commentary, most of which posited that these comments point to a regime change in Russia. That’s stretch. In all likelihood, Khodorenok’s comments is meant to dampen expectations of Russia’s victory in the war or at least seed this idea. Russian propaganda always seeds a variety of narratives to be nurtured should they be necessary in the future.
Olga Rudenko, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: ‘Toughest sanctions for Russia will be free, democratic Belarus’
At the toughest moment in the history of relations between Ukraine and Belarus, the Kyiv Independent sat down to speak with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of the Belarus opposition in exile. Back in 2020, Tsikhanouskaya contested Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in the presidential election. There is evidence that the election was rigged on a massive scale.
CEPA Virtual Event- Finland and Sweden, the road to NATO
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rapidly altered the security landscape in Europe, particularly for Finland and Sweden. Both nations are now positioning to join the NATO alliance, a move that would have major implications for security in Northern Europe and end decades of military non-alignment for both countries, reshaping the region’s geopolitics. How might these developments impact transatlantic security, relations with Russia, and the war in Ukraine?
I actually got teary-eyed watching this historic moment.
Join us on WTF…
This evening Livia and I will be hosting Andrei Soldatov on our weekly LiberiOltre show (YouTube, Twitch & FB), an indepedent media platform. We’ll be kicking off at 9:30pm CET.
We’re eager to know what is happening at the top of the Kremlin leadership and understand the nature of the changes in the Russian intelligence services that were brought on because of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
Click here for the link on YouTube.
We’re signing off…thanks for reading…
Mo & Scott