Ukraine - Thursday April 28
Obama, Trump, and Biden, all told Europe to diversify their energy from Russia. Europe didn’t.
🇺🇦 (Pictured) America is planning on selling seized Oligarch yachts to fund the Ukraine aid and military effort. This is done through the DOJ, as the DOJ is responsible for money laundering and similar crimes. Pictured is Russian oligarch Dmitry Kamenshchik’s yacht, which will likely end up contributing to the Ukrainian war effort.
🇺🇦 Gas distributors in German, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary are planned to open Ruble accounts at Gazprom bank in Switzerland in order to satisfy Russia’s requirement to purchase fossil fuels. Then Russia decided to flex and deny them the ability to purchase that energy. It’s basically a flex to Europe saying “You do what we tell you, and we’re going to back track, because you do what we tell you.”
🇺🇦 Russia has sold $46 billion worth of fossil fuels in the past month, which is basically funding their war effort.
🇺🇦 For the past 8 years, the United States has been telling Europe to diversity it’s energy needs from Russia. Obama said it, Trump said it, Biden said it. Everyone scoffed at the United States. And now Europe, it looks like you’re paying for this war.
🇺🇦 Ukraine conducted three attacks in Russian soil yesterday, one going as far as 200 miles into Russian territory. This was Ukraine’s response to Putin threatening Ukraine doesn’t attack Russian territory.
🇺🇦 Russia put out a propaganda video saying they had captured a Ukrainian tank and were going to refit it to fight. But it had a Z on it so everyone immediately figured out it was a Russian tank
🇺🇦 Lend-Lease Act has passed the House and is going to Biden’s desk for signature. The bill would reactivate the WWII-era 1940 Lend Lease Act, which eliminates bureaucratic red tape and makes it much easier to send aid to Ukraine. Note: This does not fix the training issue, it only fixes the equipment issue
🇺🇦 The Kremlin continued to prepare for a likely false-flag missile attack against the Moldovan territory of Transnistria, which is illegally occupied by Russian forces.
🇺🇦 Transnistria has banned all able-bodied men from leaving. Moldova views this as an escalation. Chances of a potential conflict are rising. Opinion: you see, this is what Russia does to countries and why they’ve turned themselves into everyone’s enemy
🇺🇦 Russia has stolen 2,000 pieces of artwork from Mariupol’s museums.
🇺🇦 The CEO of the Azovstal factory kept a bomb shelter in the facility with food for 3 weeks for 4,000 people. While it’s been much longer than 3 weeks, there are about 2,000 people reportedly in the factory.
🇺🇦 Russia is forcing school teachers in occupied territories to switch to Russian curriculums.
🇺🇦 Russia has now forced 1 million Ukrainians to live in Russia. 184,000 children. They call it “filtration” and it is unknown what is happening to the uncooperative Ukrainians. And as a reminder…
🇺🇦 Russia is kidnapping Ukrainians to fix their demographics crisis. Russia never recovered from their post-soviet baby bust.
Operations:
🐬Russia has deployed trained navy dolphins in Crimea to detect underwater sabotage.
🇺🇦 Russian forces made minor but steady advances both from Izyum and in continued assaults along the line of contact in eastern Ukraine
🇺🇦 Ukrainian forces likely conducted drone or possibly missile strikes on Russian logistics centers in Belgorod and Voronezh (Institute for the Study of War - ISW)
🇺🇦 Concentrated artillery is likely enabling limited Russian advances in eastern Ukraine, though Russian forces continue to struggle to break through prepared Ukrainian defenses. (ISW)
🇺🇦 Russian forces funneled additional reinforcements and tactical missile units into the Izyum front and made minor advances.
🇺🇦 Heavy Russian bombardment and continued assaults failed to make headway against Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol’s Azovstal plant, even as Russian forces prepared to stage a press tour in the occupied areas of the city on April 28.
🇺🇦 Russian forces around Kherson are likely preparing for a renewed push to capture the entirety of Kherson Oblast in the coming days but Ukrainian counterattacks continue to disrupt Russian operations in the area.
🇺🇦 Russian occupation forces continued preparations to announce the creation of a Russian proxy “Kherson People’s Republic” (KNR) amid widespread Ukrainian resistance.
🇺🇦 The Kremlin may be preparing to either bring Transnistria into the war in Ukraine or destabilize Moldova itself to put additional pressure on NATO.
🇺🇦 HUGE shoutout to Institute for the Study of War. OSINT GOAT
📢 Countries apply to be in NATO. NATO doesn’t seek to expand. Saying NATO is encroaching on Russia is Kremlin messaging. Russia has three primary propaganda efforts directed at the West, and that’s the first
📢 Yes, Ukraine has a nazi problem, but it’s a very small percentage of the country, and not representative of the whole. Using a small group to smear the entire group is called “guilt by association.” Russia has three primary propaganda efforts directed at the West, and that’s the second.
📢 If you ever hear anyone say “What about America…” in an effort to redirect attention away from Ukraine and onto the west, 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: I got lazy with my citations and I apologize. My top sources are: Current and former military planners, singularly-focused pundits, and all manner of vetted open-source intelligence. Top cited open source pundits and sources include: CP Scott, Institute for the Study of War, Kyiv Independent, Aaron Parnas, Philip DeFranco, John Aravosis, Malcontent News, and mainstream news with high levels of journalistic integrity and track records. Sadly I can’t source private individuals, of course.
⚠️ These posts are not affiliated with my employer, nor done during my employer’s time. Every item I report is from my own research, my own opinion, and written during my own time.
⚠️ Note: War happens fast and even high fidelity news needs a ton of corrections after the dust settles. Also, I’ve been spoiled by social media’s format where I can update the final product every time I find a typo. That poses a problem because…
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