Ukraine - Friday, April 8

Both sides prepare for a major conflict in eastern Ukraine.

🇺🇦 Operational pauses are defined by the attacking country, and now is one of those times. This is because…

🇺🇦 Russia is preparing a major offensive against Luhansk and Donetsk. This offensive may include Mariupol, Odessa, and Kharkiv. Pundits say this will be a major final offensive to try to take eastern and southern Ukraine. This might be right because…

🇺🇦 Military experts around NATO and Ukraine say that based on what we’re seeing in the preparations near Donbas, they expect thousands of tanks, planes and other vehicles on a scale we haven’t seen since WWII. This is because Putin is under a ton of pressure to pull out a victory, and that’s because…

🇺🇦 Russia has committed about 200,000 troops to Ukraine. A full 40% of them (about 76,000) have been killed, injured, or taken prisoner. That is a staggering number for a month and a half. (Pictured)

🇺🇦 Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia has had a significant loss of troops and that it’s a huge tragedy. This is the first time Russia has openly acknowledged their troop loses.

🇺🇦 Yevgeny Roizman, a Russian opposition politician, is on trial for opposing the war. He came to his trial for opposing the war with a jacket with an American flag. Opinion: This was deliberate, so it was either an FU to Putin, or a message directed at America saying, “Hey CIA, I’ll play ball if Putin is deposed”

🇺🇦 Inflation in Russia is now at a 200% annual rate

🇺🇦 Zelensky says the situation in Borodianka (just west of Kyiv) is more horrific than Bucha

🇺🇦 Some weird thing happened where Belarus said it would pay it’s debts in Rubles which means it will default on its debt. That’s a weird thing for them to do and I feel like I’m missing some of the story. Like, we know Russia tells Belarus what to do so maybe Russia simply instructed them to do this? Belarus’s president is a clown and has no idea what he’s doing and says stupid stuff as a default action.

🇺🇦 EU parliament is calling for expulsion of Russia from the G20.

🇺🇦 NATO foreign ministers held an emergency meeting in Brussels. 29 NATO foreign ministers, and some non-NATO ministers like Japan and Australia. 

🇺🇦 Germany is getting a little weird about their support of Ukraine, and they seem to be backing away from their 100% support a month ago. E.g., they left the NATO meeting early, they stopped their delivery of weapons, and changed their stance on guaranteeing Ukraine’s safety.  The prime minister is getting a lot of pressure (from other German leadership I think?) to stop helping Ukraine

🇺🇦 EU is postponing total ban of Russian coal by 1 month. BUT they’ve approved a total ban on all Russian coal.

🇺🇦 South Korea is debating arming itself with nuclear weapons as a result of the way Ukraine is being treated

🇺🇦 Russia claims they killed a US general in Ukraine. This didn’t happen. Russia got confused by the date format that Ukraine uses and assumed that this general was in Ukraine recently when he was there last October.

🇺🇦 Interesting tidbit: UN voted to remove Russia from the Human Rights Council. There is a huge overlap between countries that voted against this and countries where Wagner Group operates

🇺🇦 An unexploded rocket had the words “[For] the children” written on it (pictured). 

🇺🇦 Finland says they will apply for NATO membership within 30 days

🇺🇦 Kremlin says if Finland joins NATO, then Russia will need to rebalance its western defenses. A Finland general responded saying “You are welcome to join the other 200,000 Russians already in Finland buried two meters in the ground after your last attempt”. Damn, Finland.

🇺🇦 US Sec of State estimates that Ukraine has been provided 10 anti-tank rounds for every tank Russia has deployed.

🇺🇦 The Russian Air Force b0mbed the only railway for civilian evacuations. The train station they bombed was full of civilians. 30 people were killed an 100 injured. The rail was reportedly repaired after 6 hours.

🇺🇦 EU is considering granting asylum for defecting Russian soldiers.

🇺🇦 After being expelled from the United Nations Human Rights Council, Russia just announced that it will be quitting the United Nations Human Rights Council 

🇺🇦 Australia just dropped off 20 brand new heavy armored personnel carriers. They have the Ukrainian flag on them and everything. This is emblematic of a bunch of other news I’m seeing: lots of new equipment is arriving in preparation for a major battle with Russia. A Slovak S-300 missile system is already in Ukraine.

🇺🇦 China is rejecting Russian oil

Operational:

🇺🇦 Conflict was mostly limited to artillery exchanges and missile strikes on civilian populations

🇺🇦 Russia has five battalion tactical groups north and east of Kharkiv (that’s Eastern Ukraine). 

🇺🇦 Today a mall, a hospital, and a church were b0mbed by Russian forces 

🇺🇦 Russia has roughly 4,500 soldiers outside of Izyum. They are preparing for an offensive to take the city of Slovyansk

🇺🇦 Slovyanks & Mariupol: Okay so imagine Russia looks like a big fish trying to eat a small fish. The Russian mouth is chomping down on Eastern Ukraine. The top of the mouth is Slovyanks. The bottom of the mouth is on Mariupol. Luhansk is the eastern most bit already in the mouth. In order to bite down and take out an entire chunk of Ukraine, Russian wants to connect Slovyanks with Mariupol. If successful, a time-lapse would look like a fish biting down on the backside of the little fish. Slovyanks is where the teeth are going in order to chomp down on Ukraine. Mariupol is at the bottom of the chomp. Edit: lol this army guy later tells me “hey this is called a pincer move”

🇺🇦Luhansk is the eastern-most area in Ukraine (inside the fish’s mouth). Luhansk is surrounded by Russian forces on the north, east, and south. Yesterday, in Luhansk, the Ukrainian army repelled 6 Russian attacks and destroyed 4 tanks and 5 APCs. 

🇺🇦 There are still Russian troops staying in Belarus just in case they’re needed for a future push up there in the north

🇺🇦 There are rumors Ukrainian forces are going to try to retake Kherson (southern Ukraine). Nothing solid or verified in this bullet point.

🇺🇦 Ukraine says that after regrouping, Russia may try to take Kyiv again

🇺🇦 Mariupol is still under heavy fire. Russia keeps claiming they own the center of the city, but they aren’t bringing receipts, and conflict is ongoing.

⚠️ If you ever hear anyone say “What about America…” in an effort to redirect attention away from Ukraine and onto America, that is called “Competitive victimhood” and the associated meme is *always* created by Russian-backed media. Russia has three primary propaganda efforts directed at the West, and that’s the third.

⚠️  Note: War happens fast and even high fidelity news needs a ton of corrections after the dust settles.

⚠️ Note: I’m getting lazy with my citations and I apologize. It’s all the same sources as it’s always been…NATO planners, official statements, major news, other open source researchers, people who send me leads, reputable pundits like Aaron Parnas, Kyiv Independent, etc. Thank you especially to CP Scott, former Army and former NATO planner.

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