Ukraine - Tuesday, April 5
Bomb sniffing dogs, Russian war crimes, and all's quiet on the western front
Tuesday, April 5
🐕 Patron the bomb sniffing dog is still alive! I forgot about that little beagle! He’s cleared over 100 explosive devices. Go Patron!
🇺🇦 US Sec Def: Ukrainians are currently being trained inside the US
🇺🇦 I mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again in different words: The Russian manifesto for genocide was released yesterday on state website RIA Novosti. It openly justifies the need for ethnic cleansing and mass repression. They call it “Denazification”. This is Moscow's Ukraine Solution.
🇺🇦 The Russian military has a culture of brutality. The atrocities we see here are part of Russian military doctrine.
🇺🇦 Satellite images refute the Russian claim that Ukraine dumped the bodies in Bucha after the soldiers left. The bodies were in the town during the occupation. Also decomposition proves it
🇺🇦 Germany expelled 40 Russian diplomats and gave them 5 days to leave.
🇺🇦 Parents are writing essential information on their toddlers’ backs in case they are killed and the child survives. Goddammit.
🇺🇦 Ukraine General Staff says Russians are doing a ‘filtration’ to the residents in the captured city of Izyum. In the past, this meant that approved people would be kidnapped and relocated to depressed regions in Russia; unknown what happens to the rest.
🇺🇦 EU is proposing a wide embargo of Russian ships and trucks as a response to Bucha
🇺🇸 A US Dept of Justice task force made its first seizure of oligarch property, seizing a $90 million yacht owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg had tried hiding the yacht amongst shell corporations designed specifically to obfuscate his ownership.
🇺🇸 America’s warfighting capability owns the night. Every soldier from private to brigade general has night vision. The US can see the entire battlefield clearly at night. Russia can’t fight at night. This is why the US is sending night vision to Ukraine. Ukraine is using it pretty effectively.
🇮🇱 Israel has officially accused Russia of war crimes
🇷🇺Russia’s latest atrocity is a missile strike that hit a nitric acid tank in Luhansk, which caused an extremely toxic gas cloud.
🇷🇺Russia says that efforts to hold them accountable for war crimes is harming the peace process
🇷🇺Ukrainian Diplomat: Putin considers anal swabs to be the most effective way to tell if someone has covid. So if you see people sitting next to Putin it’s because they submitted to anal swabs. if people are sitting far away it’s because they did not submit to anal swabs.
Operations:
🇺🇦 Not much going on. The only offensive move on either side was Ukraine launched a successful counterattack in Kherson
🇺🇦 Russian forces in Donetsk and Luhansk continue to make little-to-no progress, and face mounting casualties and declining moral. The replacements and reinforcements coming from Kyiv are unlikely to have any meaningful impact. Their forces are completely spent…no bullets, logistics, food, and so on.
🇺🇦 If this was some elaborate feint, then it was a horrible plan. But it wasn’t a feint, Russia just sucks at war.
🇺🇦 Mariupol is STILL not in Russian hands. You guys, I can’t underscore how incredible this is. Mariupol should have fallen weeks ago.
🇺🇦 US is saying Russia can expect further sanctions this week. Rumor is they’ll be pretty sever.
🇺🇦 Overnight Russia began striking the port city of Odessa. Odessa is important because it provides Ukraine with access to the Black Sea. Taking it would allow Russia to better supply its troops
🇺🇦 “Tyranny of distance”…some Russian forces may take a while to redeploy to new areas because they have to travel on the outside of Ukraine.
⚠️ 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.