May 25: E-Stories
Day 456: UASitRep IvanKhurs Bakhmut Khromove UNreport Crimea Gazum Allies passports CN Macron debtceiling Australia A&P UAArt Putin Scholz Harth Dannatt UKDef Gilmore Khara Putin Dmitri Mudra Lucas
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 invaders are trying to advance on the village of Khromove near Bakhmut; the Armed Forces of Ukraine hit two artillery units, an ammunition depot and three enemy control points, as reported by the Ukrainian General Staff. Ukraine’s rocket and artillery units hit 3 control points, 4 areas of weapons and military equipment concentration, 1 ammo depot, 2 artillery units in firing positions and 3 more critical Russian targets.
The Russians continue concentrating their main efforts on the Kupiansk, Lyman, Avdiivka and Marinka fronts. During the day, 16 combat clashes took place on the indicated areas of the front; Bakhmut and Marinka remain at the epicentre of hostilities. They are also trying to reinforce the flanks around Bakhmut.
“The Ukrainian armed forces made an unsuccessful attempt to attack the Ivan Khurs ship of the Black Sea fleet with three unmanned speedboats. [The Ivan Khurs] is performing tasks to ensure the safety of the operation of the Turkish Stream and Blue Stream gas pipelines in the exclusive economic zone of the Republic of Turkey,” reports the Russian MoD.
Russian irregular army Wagner lost more than 20,000 fighters in the drawn-out battle for Bakhmut, according to chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. He said about 20% of the 50,000 Russian prisoners recruited to fight in the 15-month war died in the eastern Ukrainian city, Reuters reported. It is higher than the official estimate of the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan war of 15,000 troops between 1979 and 1989.
ISW: Ukraine's General Staff does not report fighting in the city of Bakhmut for first time since December. Ukraine's General Staff did not mention fighting in Bakhmut in its evening briefing on May 23 for the first time since last December, suggesting the Wagner Group may have advanced further into the city, the Institute for the Study of War said.
As reported by the UN, older people have suffered and died at a disproportionately high rate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with some perishing because they were barred from fetching medicines or leaving basements. The report compiled by UN human rights monitors showed that about a third of the civilians killed in the first year of the war were over 60. The UN found older people were hit exceptionally hard by power outages due to Russian attacks on critical infrastructure trapped many in their upstairs apartments. Others had to be evacuated in haste, sometimes in wheelbarrows because there was no time to fetch their mobility devices. Many were left behind.
The Russian occupiers are keeping from 5 to 20 items of military equipment near each power unit of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, as reported by Ukraine’s defence intelligence. “At the moment power units 1,2,4 are in fact being used as a logistics and military base. Manpower of the occupiers, armoured vehicles and trucks are constantly located there."
The Russian-built Crimea Bridge linking the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula to the Russian region of Krasnodar was closed on Wednesday after being closed for several hours for “exercises”, an official from Crimea’s Russian-imposed administration said. The Russian authorities created a smokescreen to hide the attack on a ship.
Nine people remain in hospital, utility supplies continue to be disrupted, and over 500 people remain displaced after the cross-border incursion into Belgorod by anti-Russian partisans on Monday. Gladkov also announced two more incidents, stating a drone attack over Novaya Tavolzhanka failed when the explosive device dropped did not detonate, and that shelling in Terezovka has injured one person who has been hospitalised as a result.
Ukraine's security service says it uncovered company providing submarine components to Russia. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, a company based out of Ukraine's western Volyn Oblast was allegedly working to supply Russian companies with components for submarine production.
Gazprom lost its first long-term contract with a European company. The Finnish company Gasum, through arbitration, terminated the agreement with Gazprom for the supply of fuel. The contract between Gasum and Gazprom was to be valid until December 31, 2031. After the start of a full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine and the sanctions that followed it, Russia began to demand payment in rubles for gas. Gasum, like a number of other companies, refused such a scheme, and Gazprom stopped deliveries to Finland in May 2022.
On Tuesday, a Moscow court extended the detention of the WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, detained in Russia on espionage charges at the end of March. During a brief hearing, the court ordered that Gershkovich should remain in jail until 30 August, Russian news agencies reported.
Russian human rights defender Olga Romanova: “This is a very unusual war… We have been speaking with Valentina Melnikova from Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, she says this is the first war in her life when mothers do not come to her. 60 branches of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers throughout Russia. They don't come. They are happy with everything. They give away their sons and say that if anything happens – they still have one more”.
Russian State Duma approves amendment allowing passports of conscripts to be confiscated. Russia’s State Duma approved an amendment to a law requires those conscripted into military or alternative civilian service to hand over their passports. The passports must be handed over to the Russian authorities within five days of receiving the conscription notice. The passports will be returned upon completion of either military or civilian service. If a conscript fails to surrender their passport without providing an acceptable reason, the passport will be declared invalid.
The Russian Justice Ministry has prepared an amendment to a draft law that would ban maps that “dispute Russia’s territorial integrity.” Under the ministry’s changes, prosecutors would be required to prove that a map’s creator “knowingly distorted” Russia’s borders and intended to “dispute” its territory.
Russia's prime minister signed a set of agreements with China during a trip to Beijing, describing bilateral ties at an unprecedented high, despite disapproval from the West of their relationship. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin held talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and was due to meet with President Xi Jinping.
EU countries have provided 220,000 artillery shells and 1,300 missiles for Ukraine under a plan agreed by ministers in March, Reuters reports the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told the media on Tuesday.
Japan held a ceremony on Wednesday marking its planned donation of about 100 military vehicles to Ukraine, as Tokyo seeks to provide equipment that can be of broader military use than its earlier shipments of helmets and hazmat suits. This is notable because Japan has embraced the policy of neutrality since the WWII.
Shmyhal: $16 million allocated to 7 oblasts for reconstruction efforts. A total of Hr 588 million ($16 million) in subsidies has been allocated to the budgets of seven oblasts for reconstruction efforts, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reported on May 23.
Sophie Pedder: You won’t hear this in the Anglo press. Support- France training of Ukrainian pilots; Creativity- flying Zelensky to Saudi Arabia and G7 in Japan; Clarity: ruling out peace on basis of a frozen conflict...for reasons of "cowardice or ease "
Macron: "Peace cannot be turning the situation into a frozen conflict... experience teaches us that a frozen conflict will be a war for tmrw...peace must...respect UN charter" (Video source: Rym Momtaz)
France 'prepared' to provide security guarantees for Ukraine. France is "prepared to enter into agreements with Ukraine aimed at providing it with security guarantees," according to a statement published by the French Foreign Ministry on May 23.
US official: F-16 jets to take 'several months at best' to arrive in Ukraine. It will take "several months at best" to deliver U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, cited by CNN.
Orban claims Ukraine can't win war, Kyiv pledges to fight until complete liberation of Ukrainian territories. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko responded to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's statement that Ukraine couldn't win the war with Russia, saying that "Ukrainians will continue to fight until the complete liberation of their territories from Russian occupation."
Commenting on Hungary's blocking of a new package of European Union sanctions against Ukraine and funds from the European Peace Fund, the Hungarian Prime Minister referred to it as a "matter of principle" and supported the position of Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Péter Szijjártó.
"The Minister of Foreign Affairs said it correctly. If a country like Ukraine wants to receive your financial support, which they consider inevitable, they cannot put your companies on the 'blacklist'," Orbán said in an interview with Bloomberg's editor in Qatar.
In April, consumer prices rose by 8.7% in annual terms, down from 10.1% in March but still leaving Britain with the joint highest rate of inflation among G7 economies alongside Italy.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose impassioned battles over pandemic lockdowns and divisive cultural issues have endeared him to conservatives, will announce today on Twitter spaces with Elon Musk that he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, placing him on a collision course with former President Donald Trump.
Representatives of President Biden and congressional Republicans were expected to reconvene after another round of debt ceiling talks ended with no signs of progress as the deadline to raise the government's borrowing limit or risk default ticked closer. We have an explainer on how a default could hit regular Americans, and here is what US Treasury debt payments are at risk.
Chinese hackers targeted Kenya's government in a widespread, years-long series of digital intrusions against key ministries and state institutions, according to three sources, cybersecurity research reports and Reuters' own analysis of technical data related to the hackings.
NYT: Australia Tries to Break Its Dependence on China for Lithium Mining. Australia mines about 53 percent of the world’s supply of lithium, and virtually all of it is sold to China. But now the Australian government wants to break the world’s dependence on China for processing the minerals driving the green revolution.
Pilbara Minerals is working with the Australian tech company Calix on a project to refine spodumene to a lithium phosphate salt — a key step in readying the material used in batteries. The companies are expected to make a final decision by the end of the year whether to invest up to 70 million Australian dollars, or around $47 million, to build a demonstration plant.
Pseudo-history to justify a genocide
Putin ( once again ) stated that before the creation of the Ukrainian SSR, "there was no Ukraine in the history of mankind." This thesis, by which the Kremlin, among other things, justifies Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, he repeated at a meeting with the chairman of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin, when he showed the president a copy of the map, which, according to him, was compiled by the French under Louis XIV, in the middle of the 17th century.
The meeting was broadcast by the Russia 24 TV channel. Part of the meeting with the map was also published by the Kremlin's telegram channel.
History lessons with Putin have only one aim: to justify his invasion and the goal of annexing parts (or all) of Ukraine, as well as subjugating the Ukrainian people. The imperialistic ambitions of the Kremlin are not even concealed, yet many still refuse to listen.
Iryna Mudra, the Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine, has said that the International register of damage caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine will become operational in August this year, press service of the Ministry of Justice reports. The ministry added that the register will include the applications of all victims of Russian aggression and the evidence base for these applications. According to her, the procedure for creating the management bodies of such an agreement is ongoing. Thus, it will be an international organisation, in which:
The secretariat will collect information on evidence of damages;
The board will verify the collected evidence and include applications in the register;
The conference of the participants, which will consist of all parties to the agreement, will appoint an executive director and adopt the rules and procedures for the operation of the Register of damage.
Dmitri (wartranslated): Surrender
“A large unit of 28 Russian soldiers surrendered to Ukrainians together with officers. After a defeat in Avdiivka by the UAF's 59th Motor Rifle Brigade on 21 May, surviving soldiers of the Russian 110th Brigade, assault platoons specifically, surrendered, and recorded a video accusing the Russian command of sending them to sure death. The most senior officer is in the rank of Captain.”
Prigozhin’s new diatribe…
In a long interview with publicist Konstantin Dolgov, Evgeny Prigozhin spoke for more than an hour, finding plenty of time for fresh attacks on Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and his family. Not for the first time, he was especially scathing in his remarks about Shoigu’s son-in-law, Alexey Stolyarov, questioning the man’s heterosexuality in crude terms. Prigozhin also suggested that Shoigu’s daughter might be getting rich on contracts to restore an old fort in St. Petersburg. Incidentally, it was President Putin who ordered this renovation project.
Prigozhin then argued that using nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be too extreme though he quickly noted that he supported using nukes earlier in the war, before the Defense Ministry’s supposed incompetence became apparent to the adversary, he claimed.
Russian morale could aid Ukrainian counteroffensive
Richard Dannatt, former chief of the general staff of the British armed forces feels there is a good chance that Russian morale in the army could crack if a Ukrainian counteroffensive started with gains:
They shouldn’t launch it before they’re ready. Quite rightly, they’re integrating the weapons and the advice and the equipment and the training that the west has been giving them.
But I’m quite certain that at the moment of their choosing, and I think the time is getting quite close now, and at a place of their choosing, and that’s entirely up to them, I think they have the chance, if they can strike some decisive blows on the Russians, that they could have significant effect.
Now, that doesn’t mean to say the war is going to be over in a few days and weeks. D-day on 6 June 1944 was the start of the Normandy campaign, but it lasted for quite some time.
But I think we will see some decisive strikes, which could be potentially spectacularly successful. Because, think of it from the Russian soldiers point of view. Most of them don’t want to be there. They are poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly clothed, poorly led. Frankly their morale could crack, and that’s what the Ukrainians really need to achieve. Because once a soldier, once an army thinks it’s beaten, frankly, it is beaten.