Kyiv Independent

Russia concentrates military power for Kyiv assault

Illia Ponomarenko – March 15, 2022

The operative lull in the battle for Kyiv over the last few days seems to be running to its end.

New indications suggest Russia is getting ready to relaunch a massive offensive in the region, the war’s main goal. 

Despite a very complicated situation with many of its main axes of attack throughout Ukraine, Russia keeps throwing more military power west and east of Kyiv, in a bid to possibly surround and penetrate the city.

Satellite images issued by U.S. company Maxar reveal Russia’s very recent activity close to the Hostomel Airfield, including armored units and towed artillery. 

“Russia is likely seeking to reset and re-posture its forces for renewed offensive activity in the coming days,” as the British Defense Ministry said in its March 11 intelligence update.

“This will probably include operations against the capital, Kyiv.”

As the expert community believes, Kyiv should brace itself for a hard defense within short notice, potentially for Russian attempts to impose a full blockade and trigger a humanitarian disaster to force the Ukrainian leadership into a deal. 

Nonetheless, as the situation suggests, Russian prospects look increasingly grim as well.

With Russia’s failed attempts to seize Kyiv in a blitz attack, along with steady defense efforts, the capital city has all chances to grind over and bleed dry invading forces in fierce urban combat, effectively precipitating a strategic victory over Russia.

Russia’s scarce progress

As in any of the key areas, such as Mykolaiv, or Kharkiv, or Chernihiv, Russia has demonstrated very little progress in the battle for Kyiv over the last few days. 

A series of fierce attacks before March 8-9 ended up with Russia gaining a foothold northwest of Kyiv, in the satellite cities of Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel, a key junction on the E373 road, more commonly known as the Warsaw Highway. 

Along with the P02 road to the north, this has become the Russian military’s vital throughway between the Kyiv metropolitan area and Belarus via the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.

At huge costs, Russia has formally secured this passage for supplies and fresh troops.

However, as multiple evidence suggests, the narrow corridor is still prone to extreme logistics issues, which end up causing fuel and food shortages among Russian forces advancing towards Kyiv.

Very illustrative was the situation regarding the ill-fated Russian military convoy stretching 64 kilometers along the highway northwest of Kyiv. 

For many days, numerous satellite pictures showed the convoy, basically, a giant traffic jam, standing still, very likely due to fuel shortage and poor technical condition of vehicles that effectively stalled the movement.

But according to the latest observations, the giant convoy has largely dispersed, likely redistributed among multiple Russian units in the area. 

After gaining a foothold in parts of Hostomel, Bucha, and Irpin, Russia also demonstrated very limited success trying to advance further south to the defunct E40 road connecting Kyiv and Zhytomyr.

According to Ukraine’s General Staff, this group of Russian forces is most probably poised to partially surround Kyiv from the west and cut the capital city off from supplies. 

On March 8, the Institute For the Study of War (ISW), a Washington D.C.-based think tank, said Russian forces were concentrating on a possible assault against the capital in the coming 24 to 96 hours.

Nonetheless, amid extremely slow progress due to logistical issues and a strong Ukrainian defense, Russia has probably decided to take a breathing spell in operations and agreed on civilian evacuation from Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, and Borodyanka, the cities that have been largely ruined.

As the Ukrainian military suggests, Russian forces in many ways used this lull to try and re-array west of Kyiv and possibly get its logistics issues resolved for an effective onslaught. 

The last few days in the area have been relatively calm, although the warring parties have had sporadic clashes.

Russia is also investing a lot of effort into trying to gain a foothold east of Kyiv, particularly the Brovary area. But this axis has proved even less successful.

Similarly to the Dnipro west bank, Russia is also confined to a few key highways leading northeast to Russia and Belarus, particularly the E-95, M-02, and H-07 roads. 

And the problem for Russia is that it has so far failed to seize or effectively block two key cities on its way to Kyiv, namely Chernihiv and Sumy, both of which continue offering fierce resistance since day one of the invasion and inflicting severe enemy casualties. 

Without the stiff control of either of the two cities, along with ensuring safe communications along the highways, gaining ground east of Kyiv is also extremely problematic.

As a result, Russia has no effective control over the vast territories between Kyiv and Chernihiv or Sumy, where Ukrainian regular military and territorial defense forces are practicing hit-and-run tactics. 

“Sending large military forces to Kyiv from the north means long convoys moving along roads in the forest,” says Andriy Zagorodnyuk, former Ukraine’s defense minister and the chairman of the Kyiv-based Center for Defense Strategies. 

“Convoys are very vulnerable in such a terrain. One needs to just target the convoy head, and the whole convoy effectively stops. And then it gets decimated. And this is what we see on a constant basis. The local geography is not on the invader’s side.” 

Day after day, the Ukrainian military and local social media users indicate multiple pieces of evidence of Russia’s massive loss of manpower and hardware in combat, especially in Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kyiv regions. 

As one of the latest developments, a Russian battalion tactical group, part of the 90th Armored Division’s 6th Regiment, sustained severe losses close to Brovary on March 10. 

According to Ukrainian statements, most of the regiment’s personnel, along with the commanding officer Colonel Andrey Zakharov, were killed in action. The division’s advancing groups had to retreat and stay on the defensive. 

The Ukrainian victory likely further disrupted Russian efforts to set conditions for offensive operations east of Kyiv, as the Institute For the Study of War commented on the engagement. 

“The episodic, limited, and largely unsuccessful Russian offensive operations around Kyiv increasingly support the Ukrainian General Staff’s repeated assessments that Russia lacks the combat power near the capital to launch successful offensive operations on a large scale,” the think tank said on March 10.

Besides, the ISW added, Ukrainian air force and air defense operations continue to hinder Russian maneuvers on the ground by likely limiting Russian close air support and also exposing Russian mechanized forces to Ukrainian air and artillery attacks. 

This suggestion was clearly illustrated by the March 10 engagement at Brovary, where the advancing Russian armored convoy moving concentrated on a highway was spotted and then decimated by intense and dense Ukrainian artillery and tank strikes.https://www.youtube.com/embed/ShxAORZfjp8?feature=oembed

Moreover, according to the ISW conclusions, the likelihood is increasing that Ukrainian forces could fight the Russian forces advancing to take Kyiv to a standstill, eventually. 

Logistics and organization issues, as well as poor morale and inadequate planning, have already cost it the swift victory it had evidently hoped for on Feb. 24.

“There are as yet no indications that the Russian military is reorganizing, reforming, learning lessons, or taking other measures that would lead to a sudden change in the pace or success of its operations,” the ISW also said on March 10.

“Although the numerical disparities between Russia and Ukraine leave open the possibility that Moscow will be able to restore rapid mobility or effective urban warfare to the battlefield.” 

Russia’s success unlikely 

The expert community has a consensus that Russia’s chances of seizing Kyiv are at least questionable, given the general performance to date. 

The blitzkrieg plan that would see the Ukrainian leadership in Kyiv being captured and forced into a deal within days has ultimately failed. The war gets increasingly protracted for Russia, which has already employed close to 95% of its military power deployed against Ukraine, according to Ukrainian and Western intelligence, with no key goals reached so far.

Upon that, multiple pieces of evidence suggest Russian forces are getting exhausted and running out of reserves due to systemic organizational issues and high casualty rates. 

As of March 11, the Ukrainian military reported a total of over 12,000 Russian fatalities since Feb. 24, along with 353 tanks, 1,165 light armored vehicles, 125 artillery pieces, 58 multiple launch rocket systems, 57 airplanes, and 83 helicopters. 

Speaking late on March 11, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Brigadier General Kyrylo Budanov said Russia since Feb. 24 had 18 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) rendered combat-ineffective in clashes with the Ukrainian military. Thirteen more BTGs have been completely destroyed in action, according to the official. 

Budanov called this “horrific losses Russia has never had.” 

In general, according to Ukrainian and Western intelligence, Russia was believed to have concentrated a total of 120-125 BTGs for its full-scale military action against Ukraine. 

Zagorodnyuk of the Center for Defense Strategies believes that, although not very accurate, Ukraine’s official figures on the Russian death toll might be close to reality.

Upon the think tank estimates, up to a total of 45,000 Russian military personnel could have been forced out of action as killed, wounded, taken prisoner, or demoralized, after two weeks of fierce fighting. 

This might correspond to up to one-third of Russia’s total military contingent deployed against Ukraine, the expert suggests. 

Nonetheless, all sources suggest a concentration of Russian forces near Kyiv, despite seemingly unfavorable terms on the ground. 

“The Kyiv axis is among their top priorities,” says Ruslan Leviev of the Conflict Intelligence Team, an online investigation group checking Russia’s military activity. 

“As we believe, Russians may acknowledge the fact that at some point they will have to seek talks and offer a deal. So they need the strongest leverage they can get for the talks, which is the siege of Kyiv and a humanitarian disaster in the city.” 

According to the group’s estimates, Russia may be trying to concentrate a total of nearly 21-22 battalion tactical groups against Kyiv, including nearly 15 coming from the northwest. 

The Russian force from the east could have been much stronger, the CIT said, but the Ukrainian resistance in the northern regions, particularly Chernihiv, has diverted a significant portion of the enemy force from the capital city.

The Russian perspective of encircling Kyiv does not seem promising, given the mission’s complexity, the group believes. But even in case of an uneven success, Russia will unlikely resolve to try and break through the city defenses. 

“Although they have made numerous mistakes in terms of military strategy and leadership, I think they understand that with their force available, assaulting Kyiv makes no sense, Leviev says. 

“It will not be successful,” he said. 

It is much more likely that Russians will try and establish a blockade amid relentless shelling and airstrikes. Such tactics of forcing cities into surrendering via total terror have so far barely worked against Mariupol, Sumy, and especially Kharkiv, which carry on with their fierce resistance despite massive destruction and loss of life. 

Kyiv, being a very large and well-fortified city, is an incomparably more difficult target for a Russian blockade, let alone an all-out assault, as experts believe. 

“Assaulting Kyiv in this situation would a stupid thing to do,” says Zagorodnyuk. 

“But we have already seen them doing stupid things — so we should not rule this out.”

 Author: Illia Ponomarenko is the defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has reported about the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict’s earliest days. He covers national security issues, as well as military technologies, production, and defense reforms in Ukraine. Besides, he gets deployed to the war zone of Donbas with Ukrainian combat formations. He has also had deployments to Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an embedded reporter with UN peacekeeping forces. Illia won the Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to work as USA Today’s guest reporter at the U.S. Department of Defense.

Daily Beast

Putin’s Own Soldiers Are Refusing to Fight in Ukraine

The Daily Beast – March 15, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin has two options at this point, says Ukrainian diplomat Olexander Scherba: Either he destroys Ukraine and takes its cities and then withdraws, or “he withdraws without doing that because he cannot accomplish anything here.”

Putin may not realize it, but “everyone outside this very close circle around Putin understands that this campaign is going down the drain,” Scherba adds on this episode The New Abnormal. “The [Ukrainian] soldiers are ready to fight until the last drop of blood here and Russian soldiers increasingly are clueless about what they’re doing here.”

Watch: Journalist interrupts Russian TV news to protest against Ukraine invasion

Journalist interrupts Russian TV news to protest against Ukraine invasion

Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova burst on to a live news broadcast to protest against her country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Not only are they clueless, but they’re simply refusing to fight, Scherba, who is currently in western Ukraine, tells co-host Molly-Jong-Fast. He shares that soldiers in Crimea refused to be deployed when they discovered they were ordered to take Odessa, and intercepts of communication between soldiers in Ukrainian cities and their parents indicate that they’re spooked by how many of their own have died.

But we should still “assume the worst,” he says, sharing his opinion on the one thing that Ukraine needs from the U.S. to win.

Putin’s Paranoid, Isolated, and Trying to Bluff His Way Through

Also on the podcast, The Nation’s Elie Mystal pleads with Joe Biden to say the word “abortion” and explains how sending federal doctors to Texas would be enough to save the state from its own fuckery.

And Molly and co-host Andy Levy discuss whether Tucker Carlson can feel embarrassment, and Molly actually sorta defends Mitt Romney when it comes to Tulsi Gabbard.

Reuters

U.S. Senate unanimously condemns Putin as war criminal

Moira Warburton – March 15, 2022

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, a rare show of unity in the deeply divided Congress.

The resolution, introduced by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and backed by senators of both parties, encouraged the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and other nations to target the Russian military in any investigation of war crimes committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“All of us in this chamber joined together, with Democrats and Republicans, to say that Vladimir Putin cannot escape accountability for the atrocities committed against the Ukrainian people,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor ahead of the vote.

Russia calls its actions a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Putin has also called the country a U.S. colony with a puppet regime and no tradition of independent statehood.

Moscow has not captured any of the 10 biggest cities in the country following its incursion that began on Feb. 24, the largest assault on a European state since 1945.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

The New York Times

Russia Deploys a Mystery Munition in Ukraine

John Ismay – March 15, 2022

American intelligence officials have discovered that the barrage of ballistic missiles Russia has fired into Ukraine contain a surprise: decoys that trick air-defense radars and fool heat-seeking missiles.

The devices are each about 1 foot long, shaped like a dart and white with an orange tail, according to an American intelligence official. They are released by the Iskander-M short-range ballistic missiles that Russia is firing from mobile launchers across the border, the official said, when the missile senses that it has been targeted by air defense systems.

Each is packed with electronics and produces radio signals to jam or spoof enemy radars attempting to locate the Iskander-M, and contains a heat source to attract incoming missiles. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about intelligence matters, described the devices on the condition of anonymity.

The use of the decoys may help explain why Ukrainian air-defense weapons have had difficulty intercepting Russia’s Iskander missiles.

Powered by a solid-fuel rocket motor, the Iskander can reach targets more than 200 miles away, according to U.S. government documents. Each mobile launcher can fire two Iskanders before it must be reloaded.

Photographs of the dart-shaped munitions began circulating on social media two weeks ago. They had stumped experts and open-source intelligence analysts — many of whom mistook them for bomblets from cluster weapons based on their size and shape.

Richard Stevens, who spent 22 years in the British Army as an explosive ordnance disposal soldier and later worked as a civilian bomb technician for 10 years in southern Iraq, Africa and other regions, said he had been exposed “to plenty of Chinese and Russian munitions, but I had never seen this.”

Stevens posted photos of the munitions to a site for military and civilian bomb disposal experts that he started in 2011, and found that no one else seemed to have seen these mystery munitions before either.

“That Russia is using that size of weapon — the Iskander-M — and quite a few of them I believe, that’s why we’re seeing this now,” Stevens said. “It’s just that, post-conflict in the past 10 to 15 years, no one has had the opportunity to see this.”

The devices are similar to Cold War decoys called “penetration aids,” the intelligence official said, that have accompanied nuclear warheads since the 1970s and were designed to evade anti-missile systems and allow individual warheads to reach their targets. The incorporation of the devices into weapons such as the Iskander-M that have conventional warheads has not been previously documented in military arsenals.

“The minute people came up with missiles, people started trying to shoot them down, and the minute people started trying to shoot them down, people started thinking about penetration aids,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a professor of nonproliferation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. “But we never see them because they’re highly secret — if you know how they work, you can counteract them.”

The use of the decoys may point to some level of carelessness or urgency by Russian military leadership, Lewis said, given that Russia knows they will inevitably be collected and studied by Western intelligence services so that NATO air defenses can be programmed to defeat the Iskander’s countermeasures.

And it is highly unlikely, he said, that the version of the Iskander that Russia has sold to other countries would contain these decoys.

“That suggests to me that the Russians place some value on keeping that technology close to home and that this war is important enough to them to give that up,” Lewis said. “They’re digging deep, and maybe they no longer care, but I would care if I were them.

“I think that there are some very excited people in the U.S. intelligence community right now.”

Daily Beast

Ex-Black Ops Agent: This Is How Putin Could Meet His End

A. Craig Copetas – March 15, 2022

Spooks from Langley to Kyiv are likely to be quietly untangling an espionage conundrum that dare not speak its name, according to a former senior intelligence agent who was once regularly involved in such discussions: “Could President Putin really be assassinated?”

“The operation is on every intelligence agency’s design table,” a veteran clandestine operative for France’s General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) told The Daily Beast. “I know this because I used to plan them.”

To be sure, killing Putin as a means of ending his war in Ukraine is a volatile topic to raise officially. It’s also diplomatically discourteous. “Oh, wouldn’t it be great if someone internally just took this guy out and eliminated him,” Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio recently mused, hurriedly adding, “that’s not the official policy, obviously, of the United States, no one’s talking about the U.S. doing it.”

The retired DGSE agent—an elimination specialist whose attention to detail receives high praise from his fellow liquidators—said the most efficient method would be poison.

“The attempt will be from within the Kremlin. This is not an outside job,” he said.

This would certainly not be the first attempt to assassinate a sitting Russian leader. Back in 1866, the revolutionary nihilist Dmitry Karakozov tried and failed to murder Tsar Alexander II in St. Petersburg. He was executed for his effort.

Arguably the most curious effort merely resulted in a catastrophic change of menu at the only Chinese restaurant in Moscow. The year was 1952 and the Hotel Peking on Mayakovsky Square was nearing its completion to celebrate Sino-Soviet friendship. Although the hotel didn’t open until 1955, two years after the death of Joseph Stalin, Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong sent a favorite chef to Moscow to open a restaurant just off the hotel’s lobby.

The story—endlessly told by the Peking’s staff and management during the nearly two years that I lived in one of the hotel’s apartments—had all the trappings of an espionage horror movie. The chef was not really a cook. He was an assassin sent to kill Stalin. But the KGB got to him first, slamming a kitchen cleaver into his head, and—according to hotel legend—leaving his ghost, ax-in-head, to haunt the hallways in search of Stalin.

How today’s spooks might be proposing to take out Putin—deniably, of course—is another mystery, but a stroll down memory lane in the assassination business inspires recollections of classics like the ice-ax, the roof-toss and, the favorite of Genovese crime family hitman Richard “the Iceman” Kulinski, a nasal spray bottle filled with cyanide.

“Russian intelligence is likely the only one left that deploys poison as a default,” says the Frenchman, citing a long roster of Russian potions used to eradicate Kremlin enemies from 1957 KGB defector Nikolai Khokhlov (coffee laced with thallium) to a 2004 assassination attempt on Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko (dinner seasoned with dioxin).

Putin prefers poison. Polonium-210 triggered the 2006 death of Alexander Litvinenko and Novichok was responsible for the nearly fatal 2018 attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in England. Back on home turf, Prince Felix Yussupov in 1916 allegedly took out the mad monk Grigori Rasputin with cyanide and a few bullets in the head; more recently, Putin’s people in 2020 attacked opposition leader Alexei Navalny with Novichok. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov at the time disagreed it was a “trend,” adding, “you’ll agree that in many countries in the world, everyday a lot of poisonings happen,” he said.

“All true,” says the DGSE agent, “but nobody does it better than the Russians.”

Yet poisoning Putin wouldn’t be an easy task. According to a source who works in the upper echelons of a Russian ministry, Putin in February allegedly sacked the some 1,000 people—from cooks to launderers to secretaries to bodyguards—who catered to his daily personal and professional needs, and replaced them with a new group of attendants.

“Putin is of course aware someone is coming after him,” says the Frenchman. “Killing Putin is not an easy task, but Putin knows it can be done, and that’s guaranteed to scare him.”

Scheduling is everything. Would-be assassins like to “gather information. Determine habits. Correlate all of Putin’s back-up options,” the covert operator adds, ticking the boxes. “Doubt Putin will travel far by vehicle. There’s no armored vehicle that can survive a few tons of explosives buried under the street.”

The former DGSE black-operations planner says any hit on Putin most likely will have someone in his inner circle, or a phantom just outside the perimeter, as the trigger man. “It will be an expensive job, a fortune,” he says. “In my experience, I’d wager an asset is already in place. There always is.”

People

Ukrainian Woman Documents What Her Family Cooks and Eats Inside Bomb Shelter amid Russia’s Invasion

Natasha Dado – March 15, 2022

Valeria Shashenok, a Ukrainian photographer, is documenting her family’s experience from inside a bomb shelter amid Russia’s invasion of the country.

Since the war, Shashenok has shared a series of videos on TikTok, which show how her family is coping while, she says, they are hunkered down in the shelter, which is located Chernihiv.

In one clip, Shashenok — who goes by the username @valerissh and has garnered over 800,000 followers — chronicles how she cooks pasta. In the clip, the 20-year-old is seen showing off a pan of noodles as she imagines “she is in Italy.” Another clip shows Shashenok’s mom preparing borscht — a sour soup common in Eastern Europe — on a small electric hot plate.

TikTok–

In a video posted on March 11, Shashenok demonstrates how she and her family made coffee during a power outage at the shelter. With limited resources, Shashenok adds ground coffee beans and water to what, appears to be a heat-proof cup, before lighting the container with a blow torch, which instantly creates the coffee. “I’m shocked, but it works!” Shashenok wrote over the clip.

TikTok

Her account also chronicles the damage done to Ukraine. In a different video shared on March 4, Shashenok leaves the bunker to retrieve some items from her home, and while on the way, she shares footage of the country’s destruction.

Despite the heartache of war, Shashenok manages to incorporate humor in her TikTok videos, joking in one clip that the bomb shelter is like a “5 star hotel” and the bathroom area is a “place for reading books!”

TikTok

Speaking on her decision to document her experience, Shashenok told The Cut: “I want to show what’s happening in my country… I’m that person who always ragged on everything with humor. It’s the best way to show people the problem. I’m that person who always sees light in the dark, and it’s a nice way to do something for my country.”

RELATED: Morning Show Host Broadcasting from Inside Bomb Shelter During Russia Invasion: ‘Not Sure I Am Safe’

RELATED: Russian TV Channel Editor Marina Ovsyannikova Interrupts Live Broadcast with Sign Reading ‘No War’

Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues after their forces launched a large-scale invasion on Feb. 24 — the first major land conflict in Europe in decades. Details of the fighting change by the day, but hundreds of civilians have already been reported dead or wounded, including children. More than a million Ukrainians have also fled, the United Nations says.

The invasion, ordered by President Vladimir Putin, has drawn condemnation around the world and increasingly severe economic sanctions against Russia.

With NATO forces massing in the region around Ukraine, various countries have also pledged aid or military support to the resistance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for peace talks — so far unsuccessful — while urging his country to fight back.

Putin, 69, insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy, 44, vowed not to bend. “Nobody is going to break us, we’re strong, we’re Ukrainians,” he told the European Union in a speech in the early days of the fighting, adding, “Life will win over death. And light will win over darkness.”

The Russian attack on Ukraine is an evolving story, with information changing quickly. Follow PEOPLE’s complete coverage of the war here, including stories from citizens on the ground and ways to help.

Yahoo! News

The superyachts (worth £680m) seized from oligarchs as sanctions hit Russians

Ross McGuinness – March 15, 2022

As the Russian invasion in Ukraine continues, so too does the wave of economic sanctions against the nation’s oligarchs with links to president Vladimir Putin.

On Tuesday, the UK announced sanctions against a further 350 Russian individuals and entities, taking the total to more than 1,000.

And the EU imposed its own sanctions on 15 new individuals, including Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, who was already on the UK list.

One of the most prized assets of oligarchs are their superyachts – and these are now being seized on a regular basis.

The latest vessel to be seized through sanctions belonged to oligarch Sergei Chemezov, a close ally of Putin.

Here are the luxury vessels that have been take off the hands of Russian oligarchs since their country’s invasion of Ukraine began almost three weeks ago.

Sergei Chemezov – Valerie superyacht – £115m

A superyacht belonging to Sergei Chemezov was seized by Spanish authorities in Barcelona on Monday.

The boat, named Valerie, is estimated to be worth about £115m.

Chemezov is a former KGB officer with strong links to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

He is the chief executive of the Russian state-owned conglomerate Rostec, which comprises 700 businesses across the defence and civil sectors.

Chemezov was appointed to the role by Putin – the pair became friends when stationed in the old East Germany in the 1980s.

The Valerie is 85m long and sails under the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The vessel is registered to Chemezov’s stepdaughter, Anastasia Ignatova, through a British Virgin Islands company, according to a 2021 article published in the Pandora Papers information leak.

Chemezov was sanctioned by the EU and the US in 2014 and the UK in 2020 over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and was named in sanctions lists this month by the US and Australia.

Andrey Melnichenko – Sailing Yacht A – £450m

On Saturday, Italian police seized the superyacht Sailing Yacht A, owned by Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, said to be close to Putin.

The 143m long yacht was seized at the northern port of Trieste.

Melnichenko owned major fertiliser producer EuroChem Group and coal company SUEK. The companies said in statements on Thursday that he had resigned as a member of the board in both companies and withdrawn as their beneficiary.

Watch: Drone footage shows superyacht under investigation for Putin linksScroll back up to restore default view.

A spokesperson for Melnichenko, Alex Andreev, said the billionaire industrialist has “no relation to the tragic events in Ukraine” and “no political affiliations”.

He was placed on the EU sanctions list on 9 March. He had attended a meeting between Putin and other oligarchs in February just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Alexei Mordashov – Lady M – £20m

The Lady M superyacht belonging to Russia’s richest man, Alexei Mordashov, was seized by Italian authorities earlier this month.

The 65m boat was seized at the northern Italian port of Imperia.

Mordashov is under EU sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The EU called him the “personal bank” of the senior officials who benefited from Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

He is the chairman of Severstal, Russia’s largest steel and mining company.

According to Forbes, he has a net worth of about £22bn.

Gennady Timchenko – Lena – £6m

The 40m long superyacht Lena, belonging to billionaire Russian businessman Gennady Timchenko, was seized in the Italian port city of Sanremo earlier this month.

Timchenko was placed under EU sanctions and UK sanctions last month. He is a close friend of Putin, who gave him an oil export licence in 1991.

Igor Sechin – Amore Vero – £91m

Earlier this month, French authorities seized the 85m long Amore Vero superyacht belonging to Igor Sechin, a long-time confidante of Putin’s.

Nicknamed “Darth Vader”, Sechin served as Russia’s deputy prime minister from 2008 to 2012 and now runs the management board of oil company Rosneft.

The EU sanctioned Sechin last month and had his assets frozen. The UK has also imposed sanctions on Sechin.

Yacht Watch columnist: ‘World’s biggest privately-owned yacht’ seized amid Russian sanctions

Alex Finley, Yacht Watch columnist, author, and former CIA officer, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the seizure of yachts owned by Russian oligarchs due to sanctions violations amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

Related:

Yahoo! Finance

Russian oligarch yacht troubles continue as White House promises: ‘That is just the beginning’

Ben Werschkul and Adriana Belmonte – March 18, 2022

The fate of impressive watercraft owned by sanctioned allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin has become one of the more unexpected barometers for how the sanctions imposed by the West are going.

Tracking the status of these incomprehensibly luxurious vessels has become a sport online, with experts including former CIA officer Alex Finley — who recently appeared on Yahoo Finance (video above) — providing updates. President Biden mentioned the yachts in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, and the topic has come up in the White House briefing room.

“Let me give you just a couple of examples of assets that have already been seized,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said told reporters before diving into the details. Her summary included both the yachts and superyachts (which is most often defined as a vessel longer than 80 feet in length) now under Western control.

“That is just the beginning,” Psaki added, referencing a multinational task force the U.S. is involved in to hunt down the physical assets of sanctioned Russian companies and oligarchs. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Attorney General Merrick Garland convened the U.S. wing of the task force for the first time this week.

Yacht seizures have happened alongside other newly confirmed actions, like the impounding of an $18 million resort linked to oligarch Alisher Usmanov in Sardinia. And while the U.S. is not in a position to seize the yachts directly — since the oligarchs are clearly avoiding U.S. waters — authorities are assisting European efforts to cut off assets.

Here’s a running tally of some of the watercraft that Western governments have taken control of — and others that are on move around the globe in search of friendlier waters — with internet sleuths like Finley hot on their tales.

The Lady M — linked to Alexei Mordashov

The White House confirmed that the 213-foot yacht was recently impounded in Italy.

According to a summary online, it was built in Wisconsin and finished in 2013. It requires a crew of 14 to operate and can accommodate up to 12 guests spread across six suites. One notable perk, according to the listing, is a beauty salon.

This month’s seizure might be a blow to Mordashov, though he apparently has a second yacht that is reportedly still at large, according to Finley.

Mordashov, who is known as Russia’s richest businessman, was estimated to be the 51st richest person in the world before the invasion, based on being a majority shareholder in Severstal, the Russian steel company.

The Lena — linked to Gennady Timchenko

This yacht is also confirmed to have been seized in Italy.

It was built in 2010 and reportedly holds nearly 8,000 gallons of fuel. It has two decks and needs two diesel engines in order to power it, according to a sketch provided by Super Yacht Times.

Gennady Timchenko founded a private investment group called the Volga Group and is reportedly a close friend of President Vladimir Putin. He was able to afford luxuries like the Lena after gaining a Russian oil export license.

“Sailing Yacht A” — linked to Andrey Melnichenko

Melnichenko made billions through his stakes in the fertilizer producer Eurochem and coal energy company SUEK. Like Mordashov, he apparently owns two boats, with the second still at large.

The “Sailing Yacht A” vessel is described online as “the ultimate embodiment of German superyachts built for the 22nd century” includes features like an underwater observation pod and the world’s tallest masts that top out 100 meters above the waterline.

The White House confirmed this week the boat had been seized in Italy.

The Dilbar — linked to Alisher Usmanov

Usmanov is the 99th richest man in the world, according to Forbes, and his yacht is one of the largest in the world at 512 feet long and is reportedly valued around $600-$735 million.

The status of his superyacht is currently uncertain with reports that his entire crew has been fired because of the sanctions, leaving the vessel stuck in a port in Hamburg where it is undergoing repairs. The boat itself may or may not have been seized though it is at least being monitored closely by German authorities.

Either way, the White House recently announced a host of sanctions on Usmanov, with the U.S. Treasury stating that “any transactions related to the yacht or aircraft, including things such as maintenance, the hiring of operating personnel, or payment of docking or landing fees, conducted with U.S. persons or in U.S. dollars, are prohibited.” (The sanctions also apply to Usmanov’s private jet, reportedly one of Russia’s largest privately-owned aircraft.)

A total of 9 yachts reportedly under Western detainment of sorts

The White House confirmed this week that two more yachts are now seized: former KGB officer Sergei Chemezov’s $140 million yacht (seized in Spain) and Igor Sechin’s 280 foot yacht (impounded in France).

According to Bloomberg, the Sechin’s yacht was confiscated “as it was preparing an urgent departure.”

Finley added three more yachts to the tally on Thursday, bringing the total up to nine that have been seized since the invasion began. She reports a boat called the Lady Anastasia — linked to Russian businessman Alexander Mikheev — has been detained after a Ukrainian crew member reportedly tried to sink it. She also says a boat called the Royal Romance — linked to Putin pal Viktor Medvedchuk — has been detained in Croatia.

A superyacht called the Crescent — the second boat linked to Igor Sechin — has been detained and Reuters photos show it docked in Spain.

“Congratulations, Igor!” Finley tweeted after a second asset of Sechin’s was apparently seized by the West.

Reuters

Japanese, U.S. marines practice airborne assaults in sign of deepening cooperation

Tim Kelly – March 15, 2022

TOKYO (Reuters) – In a sign of deepening military cooperation between Japan and the United States, amphibious Japanese troops and U.S. Marines on Tuesday practised airborne landing assaults together for the first time.

Japan is revising a decade-old national security strategy this year in the face of China’s growing military assertiveness. The upgrade to defence policy guidelines is expected to call for the country to take a more active role alongside Washington in regional security.

The drills in the foothills of Mount Fuji on Tuesday involved 400 troops from Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB), and 600 U.S. marines, and is part of a three-week joint exercise to hone interoperability between the allies. Tilt-rotor Osprey troop carriers were used during the drills.

“The real significance from this training is that the Marines and the ARDB are doing serious combat training of a sort that would have been unthinkable a decade ago,” said Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel who advised Japan as a liaison officer when it set up its amphibious force.

“It demonstrates a more solidly linked U.S. and Japan.”

Activated in 2018, the ARDB troops are Japan’s first marines since World War Two and were formed to reinforce its defence along its southwest islands at the edge of the East China Sea.

Trained to take back captured islands using helicopters, Ospreys and amphibious landing craft, the force of around 1,500 soldiers would likely be one of the first in action to counter any Chinese attack on Japan’s islands.

China, which is locked in a territorial dispute with Japan over uninhabited islands controlled by Tokyo in the East China Sea, routinely dispatches ships to assert its claims.

The joint drills also come as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raises fresh security concerns in East Asia where China is putting pressure on Taiwan following its crackdown on Hong Kong. Japan also faces Russia’s forces operating from Far East bases that are increasingly cooperating with China’s military.

Moscow describes its military action in Ukraine as a “special operation”.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Karishma Singh)

HuffPost

Retired Lt. General: Russia May Face Trouble In Ukraine ‘Within The Next 10 Days’

Nick Visser – March 15, 2022

A former U.S. Army general predicted Monday that the Russian military could soon run out of the manpower and weaponry needed to continue its invasion of Ukraine.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, said recent moves by Russia to extend its campaign to western Ukraine and reports that the country had asked China for military supplies may mean the Kremlin is running out of steam.

“Russia’s decision to transition to a war of attrition, where they’re smashing cities, putting civilians on the road for fear of being murdered, they need three things to do this, and they don’t have those three things,” Hodges said on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They don’t have the time, they don’t have the manpower and I don’t think they have the ammunition.”

Hodges’ comments were buoyed by evidence that Russia was running low on weaponry as Ukraine continued to mount a fiercer-than-expected resistance, notably around the capital of Kyiv. He said that if the West continued to support Ukrainians, it could be less than two weeks before the Russian military reached what he referred to as its culmination point.

“Assuming that we, the West, not only continue but accelerate the delivery of the capabilities the Ukrainians need, I think within the next 10 days that Russia is going to culminate, which means they will not be able to continue the attack any further,” Hodges said. “So, it’s kind of a race, actually, if we give the Ukrainians enough so they can outlast Russia.”

Hodges added that there was a big caveat to his prediction, a nod to Putin’s unpredictability during the invasion.

“I’ve been wrong a lot,” he said. “I don’t have a crystal ball here.”

One Mile at a Time

Bermuda Revokes Russian Aircraft Airworthiness, And Why It Matters

Bermuda has just suspended the airworthiness certificates of all Bermuda-registered jets in Russia. This might seem random given all the sanctions that Russia is facing, but this is more significant than you might think… sort of.

Ben Schlappig – March 13, 2022

Many Russian planes are registered in Bermuda

As of March 13, 2022, the Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority (BCAA) has provisionally suspended all certificates of airworthiness of Bermuda-registered aircraft operating in Russia. The reason this matters is because roughly half of the commercial jets in Russia are registered in Bermuda (including a majority of the planes that are leased).

International sanctions make it hard for Bermuda to maintain safety oversight of these Russian operated aircraft, meaning that Bermuda can no longer confidently verify that these aircraft are airworthy.

Why are so many planes flying in Russia registered in Bermuda? There are a few reasons, including lower import duties, better safety oversight, and easier and better insurance options. The process of trying to re-register aircraft in Russia is currently taking place, but that also has its complexities.

Why this doesn’t matter all that much

Under normal circumstances, half of a country’s commercial aircraft losing their airworthiness certificates would be really significant. But at this point it probably doesn’t matter all that much:

• Russian airlines have almost entirely suspended international flights, so demand for air travel is a fraction of what it once was; airlines don’t need all of their planes
• With sanctions in place, hundreds of Russian jets are supposed to be seized, as lease agreements have been terminated; however, Russian airlines are refusing to return these jets, and repossessing them in Russia isn’t exactly easy right now
• Many Russian planes are without insurance now, but even so, continue to fly

On the surface it’s significant that half of Russia’s commercial jets are officially no longer considered (legally) airworthy. Then again, Russian airlines are illegally refusing to return planes to leasing companies, so I’m not sure Russian airlines care much more here either?

Bottom line

Aviation regulators from Bermuda have suspended the airworthiness certificates of the hundreds of jets registered in Russia. This move comes as the regulator can no longer confidently speak to the airworthiness of these planes.

While this would usually have major implications, Russia no longer cares about international laws, so this is likely all a moot point.