A prominent Russian TV presenter said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is approaching a “new stage” in which Moscow will find itself at war with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — and by extension, the entire world.
“I believe the special military operation is entering a new stage. Ukrainians alone are no longer enough,” said Vladimir Solovyov, according to the translation of a video clip tweeted on Thursday by The Daily Beast’s Julia Davis.
In the widely shared clip, Solovyov noted that NATO countries have been supplying weapons to Ukraine. “We’ll see not only NATO weapons being drawn into this, but also their operators,” he warned while speaking on his show “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov.”
In the clip, he noted that Russia was “starting to wage war against NATO countries.”
Meanwhile on Russian state TV: host Vladimir Solovyov threatens Europe and all NATO countries, asking whether they will have enough weapons and people to defend themselves once Russia's "special operation" in Ukraine comes to an end. Solovyov adds: "There will be no mercy." pic.twitter.com/fCN3vfZy4N
We’ll be grinding up NATO’s war machine as well as citizens of NATO countries,” Solovyov said. “When this operation concludes, NATO will have to ask itself: ‘Do we have what we need to defend ourselves? Do we have the people to defend ourselves?’
“And there will be no mercy. There will be no mercy,” he added.
Echoing Putin’s call for the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine, Solovyov said: “Not only will Ukraine have to be denazified, the war against Europe and the world is developing a more specific outline, which means we’ll have to act differently, and to act much more harshly.”
His comments come as several NATO member states announced they would provide Ukrainian troops with advanced weapons and heavy artillery and training on how to use the equipment.
For instance, the US is now sending hundreds of tank-busting “Switchblade” drones designed to crash into targets and explode and dozens of long-range artillery systems called howitzers. The UK has also said it would provide 120 armored vehicles and anti-ship missile systems.
“We must understand that, in his head, Putin is at war not with Ukraine,” exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky told CNN on April 4. “He’s at war with the United States and NATO. He said this more than once.”
Ukraine claims Ramzan Kadyrov’s troops killed 3 Russian troops who no longer wanted to fight
Mia Jankowicz – April 21, 2022
Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, on February 25, 2022.Yelena Afonina/TASS via Getty Images
A Ukrainian military official said Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov’s troops killed three Russian soldiers who rioted.
Kadyrov’s militia has a reputation for brutality and is reported to be fighting in Ukraine.
Insider was unable to verify the claim, though it is one of numerous similar reports on low Russian morale.
A Ukrainian official said that troops working for Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen Republic leader and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, killed three Russian soldiers who did not want to fight in the Ukraine war.
A number of Russian soldiers had rioted over a lack of promised pay in Polohy, a district in the southeastern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, according to an official statement attributed to regional military spokesperson Col. Ivan Arefyev.
The statement, posted to Telegram on Wednesday, said that Ukrainian intelligence found that the soldiers in question “were ready to surrender their weapons and go home.”
But fighters answering to Kadyrov “brutally killed” three of the Russian soldiers, Arefyev’s statement said.
Insider has been unable to verify the incident, and did not immediately receive a response to enquiries to the Russian embassy in London and Chechnya’s parliament.
Kadyrov is a Putin loyalist who runs the quasi-autonomous region of Chechnya with an iron fist. His private militia — “Kadyrovites” as per the statement — are widely reported to have been fighting in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Arefyev’s report, if verified, would give a rare insight into the relationship between Kadyrov’s forces and the Russian rank and file in this conflict.
Arefyev’s statement follows a string of reports that a proportion of Russian soldiers are suffering low morale and reluctant to carry out Putin’s military objectives in Ukraine.
Some such reports originate with Ukrainian officials and are amplified as part of the country’s war effort, and not all have been independently verified.
In the audio, the voices suggest shooting a former colonel. They said they were left in a precarious situation with no weapons or supplies, and that they had been ordered to fire on civilians.
“We were like what the fuck, you know?” says one voice.
“Fucking bastards … shoot that wanker first, right now, motherfucker,” said another, in apparent reference to the colonel. The other can be heard agreeing, saying he would write “a massive report” when he got home.
As with the report from Arefyev, Insider was unable to verify the authenticity of the recording.
But others have emerged from independent sources.
On March 23, the Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbaliuk reported that frustrated members of a Russian battalion ran over their colonel’s legs in a tank, hospitalizing them. A senior Western official later told The Washington Post that they believed the colonel had been killed “as a consequence of the scale of the losses taken by his own brigade.”
The Russian newspaper Pskovskaya Gubernia also reported on April 7 that 60 Russian paratroopers had refused to join the invasion. The paper has a reputation for independence within Russia’s repressive media environment.
Ukraine gets Norwegian Mistral VSHORAD – 800 m/s, 6 km range
By TOC – April 21, 2022
KYIV, ($1=29.46 Ukrainian Hryvnias) — Assistance to Ukraine from Norway in the form of the Mistral SAM may seem a little strange, but it is a gift that can really help the armed forces. Hundreds of Mistral anti-aircraft missile systems will arrive in Ukraine as free aid from Norway, learned BulgarianMilitary.com, citing a statement by Norwegian Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram.
He also stressed that the Mistral SAM is “an effective weapon used in the Navy and will be very useful for Ukraine.” And according to Norwegian media, Mistral, which is installed on Norwegian Alta and Oksoy minesweepers, is still planning to replace it with a newer one, so the transfer of these weapons will not affect Norway’s defense capabilities.
Therefore, when it comes to Mistral, it should be understood that this is not a portable complex, but an installation. In the case of Norwegian weapons – a paired installation of Sibmad in the first version. The most correct classification is VSHORAD [Very Short Range Air Defense] – air defense with a very short range.
Note that the characteristics of the Mistral rocket, which was created in the 80s, do not differ from the characteristics of the breakthrough. And in the version from the ’90s, Mistral has the following technical data: it weighs 19.7 kg, has an effective operating range of 6 km, the warhead weighs 2.95 kg, and the missile flies at a maximum speed of 800 m / sec.
Mistral VSHORAD
Of course, the current version of this missile from MDBA has a range of up to 7.5 km, but Norway is unlikely to renew the stocks purchased in the 90s. Therefore, to understand the effectiveness of these weapons, it would be right to focus on the indicators for older versions.
As with many other missiles in this class, an infrared targeting head is used for guidance. The detonation of the missile is possible with a remote laser detonator or contact. Combined with a powerful warhead, this can be a decisive factor in complete destruction, not damage to the target.
At the same time, the question of a “place inline” Mistral arises. First of all, he needs a machine to start. The missiles may be transferred with Sibmad launchers, which will be removed from the ships. Or the armed forces will receive ground launchers separately.
Photo credit: Regjeringen.no
Second, to ensure mobility, the starter must be installed on a mobile platform. At the same time, such an installation will not be effective in the foreground, because the range of Mistral launches is similar to the much less noticeable portable anti-aircraft missile system.
Therefore, according to experts, one of the few effective scenarios for the use of SAM Mistral in Ukraine is the protection against cruise missiles. The fact is that one of the main tasks of Sibmad with Mistral is the destruction of anti-ship missiles, which do not differ much in-flight parameters from cruise missiles.
A growing number of Kremlin insiders are questioning Putin’s war in Ukraine, and believe it will set Russia back decades: report
Tom Porter – April 20, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the development of the Russian Arctic zone at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, on April 13, 2022.MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
A number of high ranking Kremlin insiders have growing concerns about Putin’s war in Ukraine.
10 insiders told Bloomberg of their concerns about the economic and political impact of the invasion.
They also share fears of US intelligence that the Russian president could turn to nuclear weapons.
A small but growing number of Kremlin insiders are questioning President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and have serious concerns about its potentially devastating economic and political impact, Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg cited ten sources with direct knowledge knowledge of the situation in its report, and described the critics as being spread across senior positions in government and state run businesses.
According to the report, the Kremlin insiders regard the invasion as a catastrophic mistake that will set the country back decades.
They told the outlet that Putin is surrounded by a group of hardline advisors, and has dismissed attempts to warn him of the steep economic and political costs of the conflict.
But the report says that while Putin has acknowledged the damage Western sanctions will do, he claims the conflict was pushed on him by Western powers.
Putin regards himself as being on an historic mission, Bloomberg reported the sources as saying, and believes he has the support of the Russian people. They see no prospect of a serious challenge to his power domestically.
Russia initially expected to seize Ukrainian capital Kyiv in a matter of days, analysts say. After nearly two months of fighting, its forces have pulled back from the city, and efforts are instead being focused on seizing territory in the eastern Donbas region.
Putin has publicly claimed that Western sanctions have failed to undermine Russia’s economy, with the value of the ruble having recovered in recent weeks after a 40% collapse in value in the wake of sanctions.
New U.S. sanctions for Russian bank, oligarchs, crypto miner BitRiver
Daphne Psaledakis and David Brunnstrom – April 20, 2022
FILE PHOTO: The U.S. Treasury building is seen in Washington
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on dozens of people and entities, including a Russian commercial bank and a virtual currency mining company, hoping to target Moscow’s evasion of existing sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The U.S. Treasury Department said it designated a virtual currency mining company for the first time, alongside more than 40 people and entities led by U.S.-designated Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev.
“Treasury can and will target those who evade, attempt to evade, or aid the evasion of U.S. sanctions against Russia, as they are helping support Putin’s brutal war of choice,” Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in a statement.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The United States and its allies have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow since its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, including targeting the country’s largest lenders and Putin himself.
Wednesday’s move targets Russia’s virtual currency mining industry, reportedly the third largest in the world, sanctioning the holding company of Moscow-based bitcoin miner BitRiver, which operates data center in Siberia, and 10 of the holding company’s Russia-based subsidiaries.
The Treasury also put sanctions on Russian commercial bank Transkapitalbank, whose representatives it said serve several banks in Asia, including in China, and the Middle East, and have suggested options to evade international sanctions.
Its subsidiary, Investtradebank, was also designated.
Wednesday’s action freezes any U.S. assets of those designated and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.
But Washington issued two general licenses related to Transkapitalbank alongside the sanctions, authorizing the wind down of dealings with the bank until May 20 and certain transactions destined for or originating from Afghanistan until Oct. 20 “in support of efforts to address the humanitarian crisis.”
The United States also imposed additional sanctions on Russian oligarch Malofeyev, whom U.S. authorities have long accused of being one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea. He was first designated under the Obama administration in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Justice Department charged Malofeyev with violating sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
“The United States will work to ensure that the sanctions we have imposed, in close coordination with our international partners, degrade the Kremlin’s ability to project power and fund its invasion,” Nelson said.
The U.S. State Department is also imposing visa restrictions on over 600 people in a bid to promote accountability for human rights abuses and violations, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, barring them from traveling to the United States.
Three Russian officials were also hit with visa restrictions over “gross violations of human rights” alongside 17 others hit with restrictions over accusations of undermining democracy in Belarus.
“We will use every tool to promote accountability for human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine,” Blinken said.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Chris Gallagher, Doina Chiacu, David Brunnstrom, Andrea Shalal and Alexandra Alper; Editing and Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell)
The Treasury Department on Wednesday designated a number of entities and individuals involved in attempting to evade sanctions imposed by the United States and international partners on Russia, maintaining that economic costs will be imposed to “degrade the Kremlin’s ability to project power and fund” its invasion of Ukraine.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Russian commercial bank Transkapitalbank and a global network of more than 40 individuals and entities led by U.S.-designated Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, including organizations whose primary mission is to facilitate sanctions evasion for Russian entities.
OFAC also designated companies operating in Russia’s virtual currency mining industry, reportedly the third largest in the world. The Treasury Department said this is the first time they have designated a virtual currency mining company.
“Treasury can and will target those who evade, attempt to evade, or aid the evasion of U.S. sanctions against Russia, as they are helping support Putin’s brutal war of choice,” Brian E. Nelson, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said Wednesday. “The United States will work to ensure that the sanctions we have imposed, in close coordination with our international partners, degrade the Kremlin’s ability to project power and fund its invasion.”
President Vladimir Putin has shut down independent media inside Russia. Getty Images
Transkapitalbank is a privately owned Russian commercial bank that has operated since 1992. Treasury says TKB representatives have offered services to banks in Asia, including within China the Middle East, and “suggested options to evade international sanctions.”
The Treasury Department said that, for example, in order to “avoid detection and sanctions-derived restrictions,” the bank had offered its clients the ability to conduct transactions through its proprietary internet-based banking system known as TKB Business, which they describe as an alternative communication channel to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) network.
Treasury said the move is for the purpose of “processing U.S. dollar payments for sanctioned clients.”
Treasury also noted that TKB is seeking to create a settlement hub in Asia “without involving U.S. or European banks in the clearing process.”
On Wednesday, OFAC also targeted a worldwide sanctions evasion and “malign influence network” led by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev. Malofeyev was first designated in 2015 for being “responsible for or complicit in, or for having engaged in, actions or polices that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine; and for having materially assisted, sponsored or provided financial, material or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.”
Malofeyev has also been sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU), Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom (UK).
According to the Treasury Department, at the time of his 2014 designation, Malofeyev “funded separatist activities in Eastern Ukraine and was one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea.”
“In recent years, Malofeyev, covertly or through intermediaries, supported pro-Russian activities that undermine democracy, interfere in elections, and degrade security and stability in a host of countries,” the Treasury Department said. “Malofeyev served as an intermediary between the Government of the Russian Federation (GoR) and pro-Russia politicians abroad, facilitated funding for or directly financed pro-Russia politicians and opinion makers, and worked to create institutions that could advance Russia’s interests in the European Union from within.”
Meanwhile, the sanctions are also coordinated with additional action taken by the State Department.
The State Department is moving to impose visa restrictions on 635 Russian nationals who are “involved in suppressing dissent in Russia and abroad, who have been involved in activities that threaten the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and who have been involved in human rights abuses in prison facilities and places of unofficial detention in Russia-controlled areas of the Donbas region of Ukraine.”
The State Department is also imposing visa restrictions on three Russian Federation officials for involvement in “gross violations of human rights, and on 17 individuals responsible for undermining democracy in Belarus.”
“As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the persons above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC,” the Treasury Department said Wednesday. “In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50% or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked.”
Treasury said “all transactions by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons are prohibited unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC, or exempt.”
“These prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any blocked person and the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person,” Treasury said.
In February, the United States, Canada and other European allies imposed sanctions on Russia, and removed Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system. The U.S. and allies said the move would “ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally.”
The move came from leaders of the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
SWIFT provides messaging services to banks in over 200 countries, and is controlled by the central banks of the G-10, including Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland and Sweden.
What the dead say: Ukraine investigators gather evidence of Russian atrocities
Carolyn Cole, Laura King – April 20, 2022
Bodies in a mass grave were uncovered by investigators documenting possible war crimes in the town of Borodianka, Ukraine, on Wednesday. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
The dead are so many. And they are everywhere.
A son found lying with his hands folded beneath his cheek, as if sleeping. People run over by Russian armored vehicles, their mangled remains pulled from a mass grave. A woman’s corpse covered only by a thin nightgown that offered no scrim of dignity.
In the brutal landscape of what were once placid and prosperous suburbs and satellite towns near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, investigators struggle daily to document evidence of mass atrocities against the people who once lived here.
Because the dead, in their way, can speak.
Nadya Boyko waits as investigators inspect bodies found in a mass grave in Borodianka, Ukraine, on Wednesday. Among the dead was her son Constantine, who was shot by Russians. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
They work painstakingly, these caretakers and curators, these examiners and searchers who are affording the most meticulous care to this scatter of carnage. For the sake of the knowledge to bring the perpetrators to justice — perhaps.
And painstakingly, also, in the sense that they — along with the stunned mourners they minister to as best they can — are absorbing the horror of what transpired here, along roadsides, in cellars, and in the mud of gardens and backyards.
The Russians have been gone for nearly as long as they occupied these small Ukrainian communities, living among those whose lives they would take or change forever. Over the weeks, it became clearer that the Russian military advance would stall here, that the invaders’ imagined swift and triumphal push into the capital would be derailed in a tangle of logistical and other problems.
For that ignominious failure, and the backlash it ignited, civilians paid the price. Hundreds died here, Ukrainian officials say, and an outraged world is demanding war crimes investigations and eventual accountability.
That’s for later. For now, a sorrowful procession arrives daily at the morgue in Bucha, a town whose name has become a byword for hideous suffering coming to light weeks after the fact. The crowd is small and desolate, waiting for the bodies of loved ones to be formally identified and released as the exactitude of forensic science folds into simple grief.
Body bags on gurneys outside the morgue in Bucha, Ukraine, on Tuesday. Families wait outside for investigators to finish their work so that they can take their loved ones home for burial. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Out front, a dozen gurneys bore numbered plastic body bags. Some of the remains had been exhumed days before from the mass grave at the church of St. George, a few blocks away. More than 50 bodies were recovered there.
Now, the ragged trench has been filled in with dirt. A bloodied comforter still lay on the ground.
At the morgue, Zena Laboonska leaned over the body bag holding her 31-year-old son, Sergey Sydorchuk, bearing a tag with the number 184. With both hands, she touched the white plastic covering.
Nearby, a man named Sergey Bauepa was waiting to collect the remains of his son Nicolai, dead at 37. Even after an interval of weeks, the father had the air of a person trying to process something beyond his capacity to wonder.
“They killed him,” he said.
Up the road in the heavily damaged town of Borodyanka, black-clad Ukrainian police investigators went about their bleak task: taking pictures and measurements of a dug-up grave containing six bodies.
Zena Laboonska cries as she touches a body bag containing her son Sergey Sydorchuk outside the morgue in Bucha, Ukraine. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Alexander Salov, 39, already knew the fate of his 64-year-old father, Sergey: body mainly intact, head crushed. He stood in front of a Russian armored vehicle, trying to stop it, witnesses said. It ran him over.
Another of the six bodies in the grave also had been run over by heavy vehicles, while four other corpses, at least one of them a woman, bore the marks of gunshot wounds.
A few yards away, police tape marked off an area where three other bodies, two male and one female, were uncovered by police investigators. Nadya Boyko had buried her son there after he was shot and killed by Russian troops on Feb. 28.
Now, after the investigators finished their work, she would return him to the earth a second time.
The body of a woman exhumed was covered only by a thin nightgown, suggestive of other horrors. Along with cataloging the many signs of execution-style killings, war-crimes investigators are documenting evidence of sexual atrocities committed by the occupying forces.
Bodies exhumed from a mass grave lie on the ground as investigators work in the town of Borodianka, Ukraine. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Near the town of Andriivka, about 50 miles north of Kyiv, Nadya Savran knew something was wrong when her son Igor, a car mechanic, didn’t come home on March 19. The Russians had occupied their village since Feb. 26, two days after the invasion began.
She feared the worst. But even after the Russians retreated on March 30, the 66-year-old mother was told it was too dangerous to look for him. The area was laced with mines.
Finally, as if in an eerie game of hide-and-seek, townspeople inspected two underground bunkers the Russians had created by burying a car and truck. Nearby, in a white building with wooden doors, she found her 46-year-old son’s body lying on his side, shot twice in the chest.
Nadya Savran, 66, found the body of her son Igor in the town of Andriivka, shot twice in the chest by the Russians. He is now buried beside his best friend in the town cemetery. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Recounting the moment, she mimed a posture of sleep — slumber, as that of a child.
Now there are a dozen freshly dug graves in the town’s graveyard, newly cleared of mines. Igor and his boyhood friend Vladimir Pozharnikov, who went missing at the same time, are buried side by side.
Atop their graves are yellow flowers and pieces of candy. A butter cookie.
Savran and her son had talked about the Russian presence, but didn’t fully grasp how war so quickly encroaches. When he was out of the house, she didn’t hide in the basement; she stayed in the living room, with her cat for company.
She remembers something he said to her during those days, as if the very idea that someone would attack him for no reason was unfathomable.
Czech companies set to work with Ukraine military on equipment repairs
Defense Ministry in Prague says the Czech Republic was the first partner country officially approached by Ukraine with such a request
Associated Press – April 20, 2022
Ukrainian artillery men gesture last week beside a tank at the front line near Lysychansk in the Luhansk region. ANATOLII STEPANOV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
The Czech Defense Ministry says local companies will work to repair Ukrainian military equipment damaged in fighting the invading Russian military.
The ministry says the first contract will focus on fixing T-64 Soviet-era tanks. Various armored vehicles of BRD and BRDM types will follow.
The ministry says the Czech Republic was the first partner country officially approached by Ukraine with such a request.
Thousands flee Russia over government crackdown on protests, news outlets
Lilia Luciano – April 20, 2022
Thousands flee Russia over government crackdown on protests, news outlets
Thousands of Russians are fleeing their home country as the Kremlin cracks down on anyone protesting the war in Ukraine and news outlets reporting on it. The Russian government has enacted new laws threatening jail time for spreading “misinformation” about the military.
A mother and her two children managed to escape to San Francisco, citing the fear of being persecuted.
“I’m actually very angry that I had to go. But… what did it for me was another of Putin’s speeches when he mentioned atomic weapons, I was like ‘now I’m scared,'” the mother, Yulia, told CBS News.
Yulia, her sister Olga and her brother Yakov are all U.S. citizens. Their parents fled the Soviet Union in the 80s as political refugees. After college, though, Yulia returned to the country.
“Russia was very exciting,” Yulia said. “It was new and it just seemed very free. So then, cut to 20 years later, I’m a refugee again.”
“I’m trying to fight the feeling of being a failure,” she added. “I mean, my parent’s did so much to get us out, and here I am again.”
Yulia and her children are dual citizens, which made it easier for them to get out of Russia. But, she said she was forced to leave behind her 93-year-old grandmother.
Yakov visited Moscow from his home in Massachusetts and took over trying to get their grandmother out, but he said he soon realized what he was up against.
“We talked to almost every single embassy in Europe,” Yakov said.
Anaida Zadykyan, an immigration lawyer in Los Angeles, told CBS News that Russians are hitting a dead end when it comes to fleeing.
“All the sanctions that western countries took against Russia, there is basically no flights. It’s really hard to get out right now,” she said.
More Russians are heading to Mexico, where it is easier to get a tourist visa, before making their way to the U.S. border to seek asylum.
More than 7,000 Russians have entered the U.S. through the southern border this year — almost double the number from last year.
Zadykyan said of those feeing that, “most of the people that I see are the supporters of the opposition, bright individuals, educated. Some people are members of the LGBT community. It’s like younger crowds in their 20s.”
“It’s going to be really bad for Russia, not just in an economic sense, but like, in a cultural sense,” Yakov said.
Yakov later told CBS News over Zoom that an embassy was able to fast track an emergency visa appointment in Armenia because of his grandmother’s medical issues. After a month and a half, the family finally welcomed their matriarch to the U.S.
Allies send Ukraine ‘spare parts,’ adding 20 aircraft to fleet as Russia bombardment increases: DOD
Caitlin McFall – April 20, 2022
The U.S. and its NATO allies have refused to send Ukraine warplanes over concerns it would escalate the conflict, but a senior U.S. defense official confirmed Wednesday that “spare parts” have been sent instead.
Allies have been able to bolster Ukraine’s air capabilities by sending it supplies and parts needed to expand its operational fixed-wing aircraft fleet.
“They have more than 20 additional aircraft available to them than they did three weeks ago,” the senior U.S. official said.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby echoed these claims and told reporters that “through U.S. coordination and provision” Ukrainians have been sent “enough spare parts and additional equipment such that they have been able to put in operation more fixed-wing aircraft in their fleet.”
It is unclear how many operational fixed-wing aircraft Ukraine has in total.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded with NATO allies to enforce a no-fly zone or send warplanes to help staunch the barrage of Russian missiles.
Defense officials estimate that Russia has levied upwards of 1,670 missiles at Ukrainian targets since the invasion commenced nearly eight weeks ago.
Top Pentagon officials previously argued the majority of Russia’s missiles were launched from surface-to-air platforms – but Russian forces appear to be changing tact as they focus their efforts in eastern Ukraine after failing to take Kyiv.
A Ukrainian multiple rocket launcher BM-21 “Grad” shells a Russian troop position near Luhansk in the Donbas region on Sunday. Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images
“It appears as if one of the things they’ve tried to learn to do better is air-to-ground integration,” the senior U.S. defense official said. “We’re seeing some preliminary signs of that here in the early phases of this Donbas fight.”
Security officials have warned that Russia’s second campaign in eastern Ukraine has not actually started despite some offensive movements by Moscow’s forces in the region.
Instead, officials believe Russia is still carrying out “shaping operations” to bolster its campaign in the region after experiencing a series of failures during its initial invasion.
The senior defense official said Russia is not only moving in artillery units to deal with a different terrain in the east, but command and control units and rotary-wing aviation support to assist with logistics – both of which have proven to be “weakness” points in Russia’s force posture so far.
Russia has also refitted its troops with new supplies.
Defense officials believe roughly 82 battalion tactical groups have re-entered Ukraine, the majority of which are in the nation’s easternmost regions.
Smoke rises above Azovstal steelworks, in Mariupol, Ukraine, in this still image obtained from a recent drone video posted on social media. MARIUPOL CITY COUNCIL/via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES.
Bomber strikes appear to have become more frequent, particularly in cities like Mariupol, where Russian ground forces have been stalled for weeks in their attempts to completely besiege the city.
“In general, we continue to see a sense of weariness out of Russian pilots,” the official said noting they often fire without crossing any borders and do not stay in Ukrainian airspace for long. “But they are using, again as a part of these shaping operations, they are using airstrikes from fixed-wing bombers in support of what they are trying to get done on the ground.”
