The so-called new phase of the war might begin soon in the east and south with even greater ferocity. Consequently there are greater calls for more Ukrainian weaponry. There have been new revelations in terms of the civilian toll, with media attempts to connect it to the new leadership for the Russian forces. A wide range of stored NATO member vehicles is being transferred to the Ukrainians. Disinformation remains high with claims and counter-claims as the global information fatigue begins to sink in, raising the stakes for framing and punctuation of messaging. Now, even Christopher Steele of the eponymous dossier mentioned in the Mueller report is weighing in on the crisis.
…The offensive, which analysts have forecast for days, has not yet begun, but the shift represents a new phase of the war after Russia failed to capture Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.
Donbas — a large swath of the country’s easternmost territory, stretching from the Luhansk oblast south to Mariupol — has been the site of fierce fighting. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian military there since 2014, and Mariupol emerged as an epicenter of violence early in Russia’s invasion in late February. The city’s mayor said Monday that more than 10,000 civilians have been killed in recent weeks, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky estimated a toll of “tens of thousands.”
www.washingtonpost.com/...
And Mr. Putin, despite Russia’s military blunders in the war, and for all the Western efforts to ostracize him, still appeared in control of the crisis. He has severely repressed any dissent and benefited from widespread domestic support, continuing revenues from oil and gas sales to Europe, the implicit backing of China and the refusal of much of the world to join sanctions against Russia.
Many commentators in the West had criticized (Karl Nehammer) the Austrian chancellor — his country is a member of the European Union but not of NATO — for having visited Moscow at all, seemingly playing into Mr. Putin’s narrative that American-led efforts to isolate Russia would necessarily end in failure.
[...]
How much more brutal the war could become was signaled in an interview with Eduard Basurin, a separatist commander, aired on Russian state television. Mr. Basurin said that with Ukrainian forces ensconced in underground fortifications at a steel plant in Mariupol, storming the redoubt did not make sense. Instead, he said, Russian forces needed to first block the exits and then “turn to the chemical troops who will find a way to smoke the moles out of their holes.”
[...]
If and when the southern port city of Mariupol finally falls, Russian troops can move north to meet up with Russian troops attempting to move south from Izyum and try to encircle the bulk of Ukraine’s army, which is concentrated further east, said Mathieu Boulègue, an expert on the Russian military at Chatham House, the London research institution.
That is easier said than done, Mr. Boulègue said, as the battered Russian troops await reinforcements. The Ukrainians, he said, were trying to block the Russians and organize a counterattack that would be more complicated than the fighting around Kyiv, which had forced the Russians to retreat.
Given the reports of Russian atrocities at Bucha, Kramatorsk, Mariupol and other cities, negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian governments are on hold.
www.nytimes.com/...
The U.S. Defense Department is monitoring unconfirmed reports that Russia has used chemical weapons during its siege of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, a senior official said Monday evening.
American intelligence has not been able to verify the accounts, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said, but Western leaders have for weeks warned that Moscow could employ such tactics.
“We are aware of social media reports which claim Russian forces deployed a potential chemical munition in Mariupol, Ukraine,” Kirby said in a statement. “We cannot confirm at this time and will continue to monitor the situation closely. These reports, if true, are deeply concerning and reflective of concerns that we have had about Russia’s potential to use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents, in Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier that the threat of chemical weapons was part of Russia’s “new stage of terror against Ukraine.”
“We take this as seriously as possible,” Zelensky said during his nightly address.
Zelensky was responding to comments from the spokesperson of Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, who advocated for the use of “chemical troops” in Mariupol to “smoke these moles out of their holes.”
The Washington Post has not been able to independently confirm the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine. On Monday, the Azov Battalion — a Ukrainian paramilitary unit with a history of far-right nationalism — accused Russian troops of using “a poisonous substance of unknown origin against Ukrainian military and civilians” in Mariupol.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.
The British Defense Ministry warned that Russia could use phosphorous munitions in Mariupol, as it has in the Donetsk region. Zelensky has already claimed that Russia used phosphorous bombs against civilians.
Eastern Ukraine: Western and Ukrainian officials say they are bracing for a fresh Russian assault on the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. “We predict that active combat operations will begin any time soon,” a spokesman for Ukraine’s defense ministry, Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, said on Monday, according to a Ukrainian news release. “The Ukrainian army is ready for it.” Officials say the eastern town of Izyum — which Russian forces seized Friday — appears to be a key staging point for further attacks.
www.washingtonpost.com/...
Much like the fighting on the Eastern Front during World War II, the conflict in Ukraine has become a war without pity. When the Ukrainians liberated the suburb of Bucha, the world was aghast to discover that Russian forces had killed scores of civilians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on April 7 that the situation in the town of Borodyanka, roughly 37 miles northwest of Kyiv, is “significantly more dreadful” than in Bucha, according to Reuters.
taskandpurpose.com/…
Russia's pace of missile launches has actually gone *DOWN* in recent days as the Kremlin has re-adjusted for operations in the Donbas.
Weeks ago, 🇷🇺's average of missile launches per day was around 50. That number has sunk as we approach day 50.
Russia's new offensive in Donbas has yet to begin, U.S. officials caution.
But 🇷🇺 has started reinforcing military positions southwest of Donetsk in an effort to prepare. And it is resupplying some units on the ground and moving others out of country.
Top Pentagon officials expect that Russia's campaign in the Donbas will be more of a close quarters fight – with mechanized forces nose-to-nose backed by artillery – instead of shelling cities from distance, like the abortive drive on Kyiv.
That is dovetailing with the weapons systems that the US & European nations want to supply to Ukraine.
Several nations are considering sending tanks to 🇺🇦 to take on Russian armor in the Donbas. And the US is looking for more options to train 🇺🇦 on drones
But Russia is still licking its wounds from the effort to take Kyiv.
About 20 battalion tactical groups – maneuver units that form the backbone of Russia's military in 🇺🇦 – are regrouping in W 🇷🇺 & Belarus.
Another 20 BTGs are near Donbas.
Russian units that could overcome Ukrainian forces in Sumy & Chernihiv are out of the fight – and it's not clear whether they will return.
And some others are likely done for good (other Western estimates indicate ~1/4 of Russian BTGs now inoperable).
Putin is also appointing Gen. Alexandr Dvornikov – known as "the butcher" for ordering 🇷🇺 strikes that flattened Syria's Aleppo – as head of all forces in 🇺🇦.
But US & European officials don't believe Dvornikov can solve 🇷🇺 logistical problems overnight.
Instead, Dvornikov, who fought in Russia's two brutal wars in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s that destroyed another famous city, Grozny, is likely to make Russia's war in Ukraine even more focused on targeting civilians, officials indicated.
But the gaping holes in those bank reports — which now reside in a database maintained by Treasury — underscore how difficult it will be to locate, let alone freeze, assets connected to Russian billionaire Suleyman Kerimov and other Russian elites that have been moved into offshore accounts over the past decade.
U.S. officials described the task of penetrating the layers of shell companies and proxies that cloak many oligarchs’ holdings as one of the most difficult-to-execute aspects of the economic assault against Russia.
“Russian elites and oligarchs are probably some of the best in the world at hiding their wealth,” said a senior Treasury official involved in directing the sanctions policy. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject. Luxury yachts, lavish homes and private jets are relatively easy to pursue because they are “out in plain sight,” the official said. “The thing that’s going to be hardest is places where people have set up front companies to hide their assets.”
www.washingtonpost.com/...
As my wheals were rushing to deliver some food for my granny, I've managed to see Kyiv in details. For the first time after a month of darkness of not my apartment, constant air raids and shelling.👇
Yes, Kyiv starts living again. But it is no longer Kyiv I knew. Now it is tied by checkpoints and armed guards. Anti-tank hedgehogs are blocking almost every road. Trenches are dug at once beautiful flowerbeds. 👇
It now seems future is an overestimated concept. I hate that superpowers have the right to interfere,kill, enslave in 2022. It seems the only thing that changed in this world is that now you can document and tweet about this real time.
I know that people say we have to stay strong. But I can't. Because I live in the world where a giant fucking Nazi with nukes attacks you, kills or kidnaps your people, rapes your children, and you have to beg for every rocket.
So the only way to survive is to keep fighting while the rest of the world cheers and watches from a distance and try to assure you that there might be no future. No more riding a bike through a spring forest, as now half od your country is mined by Russians.👇
You won't have children, as you know that Russians might come and kill them, or do something worse.
And it is ok to believe there might be no future.
This thread is my honest answer to the "How are you question".
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