May 19 Buonasera Mag
US $40B 4 Ukraine, Azovstal, EU, Turkey, Lavrov, Putin's kids, Ukraine puppet government, back-tracking narratives
Happy Vyshyvanka Day! З Днем Вишиванки!
Patron- Ukraine's Emergencies Service DSNS landmine-sniffing dog.
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…
US Congress has approved a new $40 billion aid package for Ukraine.
TASS: It is believed that half of the Azov Battalion fighters have left the Azovstal steelworks plant.
The major of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has issued an appeal to EU countries and cities to host around 15,000 Ukrainian children in summer camps. In a letter he sent to the president of the EU Committee of the Regions, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, he writes that “most of them are restricted from attending educational institutions” as many schools have been destroyed and classes have moved online, while their parents are often fighting on the frontline.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it has registered hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
Russian soldier, Vadim Shishimarin pleads guilty to killing civilian in Sumy Oblast. He is the first Russian soldier standing trial in Ukraine for war crimes.
Politico EU: The European Parliament today votes on a resolution on the economic and social consequences of the war in Ukraine, as debate begins to shift in Brussels about how to handle rising inflation, energy prices and the long-term effect of sanctions, which all affect poor people disproportionally.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said the UK will introduce fresh sanctions to stop state-owned Russian airlines Aeroflot, Ural Airlines and Rossiya Airlines from selling their unused landing slots at British airports, Reuters reports.
Chancellor Scholz said the EU must prepare to rebuild Ukraine by establishing a fund to assist with the reconstruction process and has also said that Ukraine's application to the EU cannot be expedited.
Reuters: Italian PM Draghi has called for an urgent ceasefire in Ukraine so serious negotiations can begin to end the war.
NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg visits Denmark to meet with the Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jeppe Kofod and Minister of Defense Morten Bødskov.
UK MoD daily up-date: Russia is allegedly firing a number of senior army commanders for underperforming in the Ukrainian war. It is thought that the Kremlin is running a military and security operation fraught with "coverups and scapegoating".
Turkey’s Erdogan yesterday blocked a procedural vote to move NATO ahead quickly with the membership applications of Sweden and Finland and Hungary’s Orban continues to block the E.U.’s embargo on Russian oil.
The BBC: G7 partners are set to meet in Germany later today to find a way to repair Ukraine's war-ravaged economy.
US president Biden is set to meet Finland's President Sauli Niinisto, and Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson in Washington today to discuss their Nato membership bids.
The Moscow Times: According to independent military analyst Pavel Luzhin, “There are no volleys of long-range cruise missiles anymore, and there are almost no Iskander strikes”.
Lavrov: “We are deeply concerned about possible food crisis provoked by anti-Russian sanctions. As a responsible player, Russia intends to continue fulfilling its contract obligations on export of agricultural products, fertilisers, energy carriers and other critical products.”
Politico EU: Sanctioning Schroder
The European Parliament today votes on a resolution regarding the financial transaction tax. The really juicy bit of today’s resolution on fiscal rules is a clause calling on the EU to sanction Europeans that sit on the boards of Russian companies, unless they step down: i.e. Gerhard Schoder and Karin Kneissl, who not resigned from their posts.
The proposal “calls on the Council to extend the list of individuals targeted by EU sanctions to the European members of the boards of major Russian companies” and politicians who continue to receive Russian money.
AFP Breaking: Germany has removed official perks accorded to former chancellor Schroeder, assessing that he has failed to uphold the obligations of his office by refusing to sever ties with Russian energy giants.
Jason Horowitz, Vladimir Putin, Family Man
Vladimir Putin did not like the prying.
It was 2008, and the Russian president, then 56 and eight years into his tightening grip on power, stood for a news conference in Sardinia’s lavish Villa Certosa. At his side was his closest ally in Western Europe, Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul and Italian prime minister of legendarily hedonist appetites with whom he shared a taste for raunchy jokes, over-the-top furnishings and vast wealth.
Shannon Vavra, This Is the Puppet Government Putin Has in Mind for Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin is apparently so confident his military will successfully invade and take over Ukraine that he’s already thinking about the pro-Russia puppets he could install in a new government in Kyiv.
That’s the overly confident plot that the British government revealed to The Daily Beast this week—with Putin supposedly planning to push in a new regime in Ukraine more friendly to Russia, composed of a handful of former Ukrainian politicians.
James Beardsworth, Explainer: Is Russia Running Low on Missiles?
In total, Russia has fired 2,154 missiles at Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, according to a statement last week by Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky.
But these attacks have become rarer in recent weeks, leading to speculation from Western officials, analysts and media reports that Russia’s missile stocks are running low.
We look at Russia’s use of missiles, whether stocks really are seriously depleted, and what a lack of such munitions could mean for Russian tactics in Ukraine.
In Russia’s universe last night, as Julia Davis points out, “it seems like Khodaryonok was instructed to talk about the superiority of Russian-made arms—a big trend in state media, as Russia strives to boost its standing on the global arms market.”
“Russian servicemen are routinely being showcased on state TV, praising their Russian-made weapons, vehicles, planes and equipment. Ever the callous profiteers, Kremlin's propagandists are filming commercials in the middle of the war in Ukraine, to help Russia's global arms trade.”
Sam Culter et al, What we learned at the International Journalism Festival
In April, the Guardian’s Investigations and Reporting team were lucky enough to attend the International Journalism Festival in Perugia. Here’s some stuff that we learned.
The Atlantic Council’s Dashboard- Tracking the Western Response to the war in Ukraine
Western nations have rushed humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, NATO members have dispatched additional forces to the Alliance’s eastern flank, and countries from North America to Europe to Asia have hammered the Russian economy with sanctions. To monitor and visualize these transformative diplomatic, security, and economic actions, teams from across the Atlantic Council have developed the suite of interactive trackers below. (click on ‘Dashboard’ to access the link)
Support for Ukraine in London
EuroFile@6 News…
Programming change: Scott and I will be doing our weekly EuroFile@6 Twitter spaces on Friday May 20 this week.
We are joined by Irene Kenyon, who specialises in risk Intelligence, a former Treasury intelligence officer and now special advisor to the Joint Taskforce for Anti & Counter Corruption (JTACC), Nathalie Vogel at EVC and Sergei Sumlenny, specialist in Eastern Europe and who has worked over 10 years in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus and former director of @boell_stiftung Kyiv (UA & BY) office.
The topic of discussion in general is the response of the West- sanctions- their impact, efficacy and entity of the sanctions levelled on Russian entities and persons and we’ll be weaving in an up-date and information on what is happening in Germany relating to these sanctions and other issues.
We hope you’ll be joining us for what promises to be a fascinating discussion.
We’re signing off…thanks for reading…
Mo & Scott