Ukraine says ‘Battle of Donbas’ has begun, Russia pushing in east
April 18, 2022
FILE PHOTO: A local resident rides a bicycle past a charred armoured vehicle in Volnovakha
(Reuters) – Russian forces launched a new offensive push along most of Ukraine’s eastern flank on Monday and the “Battle of Donbas” has now begun, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy and senior officials said.
Ukraine’s army has been bracing for a new Russian assault on its eastern flank since Moscow withdrew its forces from near Kyiv and from Ukraine’s north late last month in order to focus on an assault in the Ukrainian region of Donbas.
“We can now say that Russian forces have started the battle of the Donbas, for which they have long prepared,” Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Ukraine Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said in televised comments: “They (Russian forces) began their attempt to start the active phase this morning.
“This morning, along almost the entire front line of the (eastern) Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, the occupiers attempted to break through our defences,” he said.
Russia has been bulking up its forces in the east of Ukraine using troops that it pulled out of Ukraine’s north and neighbouring Belarus, a close Russian ally.
In a post on Facebook, the Ukrainian armed forces command said that Russia’s main military force was concentrating on taking control of the entirety of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the swathe of land known as the Donbas.
“The second phase of the war has begun… Believe in our army, it is very strong,” the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia’s reinforcements have set the stage for a protracted battle that military analysts say is certain to inflict heavy losses on both sides as the Russians try to encircle Ukraine’s fighters dug in to defend the Donbas region.
(Reporting by Maria Starkova in Lviv; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Sandra Maler)
Russia-Ukraine war latest: Russia launches offensive in eastern Ukraine, Mariupol on brink of collapse
Niamh Cavanagh, Producer – April 19, 2022
LONDON — Russian forces started a brutal offensive in eastern Ukraine this week and have already seized what is believed to be their first Ukrainian city as part of their “next phase” of the war, which is nearing its third month. It comes as Russia called on Kyiv forces to surrender the final pocket of resistance in Mariupol as the port city remains on the brink of collapse.
‘Battle for Donbas’
The bodies of civilians killed in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Russian forces had begun their long-expected offensive in a bid to take control of the country’s eastern region. “Now we can already state that the Russian troops have begun the battle for the Donbas, for which they have been preparing for a long time,” he said in an address late Monday night. The Ukrainian president added that a “significant part of the entire Russian army is now concentrated on this offensive.” Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, called the latest offensive the “second phase of the war.” Zelensky has said he’s not willing to give up eastern territory in order to end the war.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Russian troops are focusing their efforts to take full control of the Donbas area. “The occupiers made an attempt to break through our defenses along nearly the entire frontline,” the General Staff said in a statement on Tuesday. Taking control of Donbas would mean that Russia would have a southern land corridor to the annexed Crimean Peninsula, which has been occupied by Kremlin forces since 2014.
First Ukrainian city seized in new offensive
Civilians evacuating from Kramatorsk, Ukraine, board a transport on Tuesday. (Andriy Andriyenko/AP)
Russian forces have taken control of the eastern city of Kreminna, the regional governor said Tuesday. Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk, said in a briefing that Kyiv forces had left the city. “Kreminna is under the control of the ‘Orcs’ [Russians]. They have entered the city,” he said. “Our defenders had to withdraw. They have entrenched themselves in new positions and continue to fight the Russian army.” Gaidai added that Kremlin-led troops had attacked the city “from all sides.” Regarding the death toll from fighting, he said: “It is impossible to calculate the number of dead among the civilian population. We have official statistics — about 200 dead — but in reality there are many more.” It is believed to be the first city captured in Russia’s new offensive.
Russian officials call on troops in Mariupol to surrender steel plant
Smoke rises above Azovstal Iron and Steelworks in Mariupol in this image posted on social media on Tuesday. (Mariupol City Council via Reuters)
Russia’s Defense Ministry called on all troops in the besieged city of Mariupol to surrender the Azovstal steel plant by noon on Tuesday. It is believed that Azovstal is the last major pocket of resistance in the city. “All who lay down their arms are guaranteed to remain alive,” the Kremlin’s Defense Ministry said. Moscow estimates that 400 foreign mercenaries and 2,500 Ukrainian troops are in the plant. Footage released from the City Council appeared to show the aftermath of an airstrike on the plant.
Police estimate that at least 1,000 civilians, including children, are sheltering in the building. Mykhailo Vershynin, chief of Mariupol patrol police, told CNN that Azovstal had “quite large reserves” of much-needed food and water. Meanwhile, Denys Prokopenko, the commander of the Ukrainian National Guard’s Azov Regiment, alleged that Russia had been dropping “bunker-buster” bombs on the plant. These types of bombs are designed to penetrate strong defenses and to hit targets that are underground.
U.S. military assistance arrives in Ukraine
Ammunition, weapons and other equipment bound for Ukraine are processed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in January. (Mauricio Campino/U.S. Air Force via AP)
The assistance includes 40,000 artillery rounds, 11 Mi-17 helicopters and 18 155-mm Howitzers. As it is the first time Ukrainian soldiers will have come into contact with a Howitzer, the U.S. military is expected to start training them in the coming days, a senior defense official said. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the first shipment had arrived in Ukraine just 48 hours after President Biden authorized the assistance, which he noted was at an “unprecedented speed.”
Cover thumbnail photo: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
With troops concentrated for a major ground assault, airstrikes bombarding cities and Ukraine’s forces steeling for what could be a series of decisive battles, many expect this Russian offensive to be better equipped and organized than the failed first phase of the war.
So why has Russian President Vladimir Putin refocused his military’s efforts on this region of eastern Ukraine, and what should we expect in the days and weeks to come? NBC News takes a look.
From industry to invasion
Simply put, the region is of territorial and ideological significance and making gains there could provide the Kremlin some form of victory after struggling to achieve its initial objectives in the war.
Valeriy Akimenko, a senior research associate at Conflict Studies Research Centre, said that Russia sees the land as valuable and “as historically Russian, ‘gifted’ to Ukraine during the Soviet era.”
“It is also part of the ‘Russian World’ concept Moscow aims to construct,” he added.
The region, almost twice the size of Belgium, is an industrial powerhouse filled with valuable coal and metal deposits and processing centers as well as strategically important ports on the Sea of Azov, which sits between Russia, Crimea and Ukraine.
Since Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Moscow-backed separatists have battled Ukrainian forces in the Donbas. The conflict lasted eight years and killed an estimated 14,000 people, according to the United Nations, until Russia invaded its neighbor nearly two months ago.
That move followed Putin’s recognition of the independence of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic.” They are named after the two main areas that together make up the Donbas.
“Technically, the aim of the Russian ‘operation’ is to ‘defend Donbas’, one of the narratives promoted [by the Kremlin],” Akimenko said. “Thus, the capture of Donbas would allow Russia to claim success [and] declare ‘victory,’ interim as that might be given Russia’s evidently greater ambitions.”
Putin originally appeared set on deposing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s western-leaning government and re-exerting the Kremlin’s influence over its neighbor with a sweeping military operation.
But with casualties mounting and western sanctions hitting his economy, the so-called “liberation” of Donbas might prove appealing — particularly if it arrives in time for Russia’s annual Victory Day on May 9.
While all eyes have been on Kyiv, Ukrainian forces have long been fighting in defense of eastern Ukraine.
It’s a location where some of the bloodiest battles have occurred over the past eight weeks, from towns near Kharkiv in the north to Mariupol in the south, where Ukrainian forces are desperately battling to maintain a foothold in the crucial port city under siege.
Life on the Front-Line Ukrainian City of Mariupol (Christopher Occhicone / Bloomberg via Getty Images file)
Now that Russian forces have regrouped in Ukraine’s east and south, the expectation by both Ukrainian state officials and outside observers is that Moscow will try to take the territory and begin an offensive from there, especially after its efforts to occupy Kyiv failed.
“The operating assumption is that once the effort to invade Ukraine from multiple fronts has failed, then Russia decided to recalibrate its offenses and start to focus all its forces on one region in the hope that that will enable Russia to break through Ukrainian defense lines,” said Udi Greenberg, a historian of modern Europe at Dartmouth College
Victory for Russia then could be to annex the Donbas, slicing off a significant portion of Ukraine and depriving the country of access to those resources that make the region so valuable. Or, if they believe they could see further success, Russia could use the territory as a launching pad to continue its offensive through the rest of the country.
‘Dancing in Donbas’
But Ukraine and its military, which has been able to maintain heavy resistance and produced effective counterattacks in the region, sees neither of those options as tenable.
The Ukrainian military said that over the past 24 hours its forces had repelled seven Russian attacks in the Donbas that were supported by strategic bombers, drones and surface-to-air missile systems.
The country has created a defensive belt through the heart of the region, from the north to the southeast, according to Leonid Polyakov, Ukraine’s former vice minister of defense, who has remained in Kyiv through the war.
“South of Kharkiv they tried to break through toward Kramatorsk, toward the administrative border of Donetsk Oblast,” he explained, using a word that refers to an administrative region. “Luhansk is largely under their control except for major populated areas, while Donetsk is largely under our control. We resist there for the moment.”
Polyakov said that the Ukrainians are keeping their forces highly maneuverable to find weak points in the Russian lines and attempting to encircle their foes, but he admitted they have also been forced back at points by Russia’s greater numbers.
That includes one town in the Donbas, Kreminna, where local officials said Moscow’s troops had seized control in the hours after launching their intensified assault.
The Russians have resisted Ukrainian counterattacks toward occupied territory in Donbas in Kherson, a city on the Black Sea, and Zaporizhia, an industrial city further north on the Dnipro River. That has become a key offensive line for Russian forces, as it creates a corridor to supply chains maintained in Crimea.
The fighting can often see the two sides push each other back and forth without any significant change in the overall battlefield picture.
“This is what we call ‘dancing in Donbas,’” Polyakov said.
TOPSHOT-UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT (Fadel Senna / AFP via Getty Images)
Ukrainians remain optimistic that they can win this war. But they see the fight as one not just being waged on the ground and in the air with Russia, but as a constant struggle to secure more support from their partners in the West that they say could prove decisive.
Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a social media post that the battle for Donbas was essential to the country and its “outcome will determine the fate of this phase of the war.”
While Russian forces may occupy cities and towns and kill Ukrainian troops, he remained confident that the Ukrainian military would maintain an “active, mobile defense” and beat back their invaders.
“The forces that the Russians have accumulated in the Donbas region are not enough to achieve their goals, these forces are disparate and weakened,” he said. “The only justification for this attack is the political will to move forward and the inability of the military to convince the Russian political leadership that they cannot achieve their goals.”
The main challenge for Ukraine remains the same: acquiring enough weapons for the battles ahead.
Polyakov said they have enough troops, pilots, gunners, missile crews and tank crews, but they don’t have enough ammunition, jets, guns, missiles and tanks to keep up the resistance and push the Russians from their land.
“There is a direct link in how much our civilians suffer in captured regions like Donbas and how quickly our partners and allies can overcome their bureaucracy and deliver what they can to us,” he said.
How 12-Year-Old Orphan Was Unwittingly Sucked Into Russia’s Ukraine Propaganda: ‘She Is So Scared’
Virginia Chamlee – April 19, 2022
Mariupol
SERGEY BOBOK/AFP via Getty Mariupol
Amid Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine, a 12-year-old orphaned girl has somehow found herself unwittingly at the center of the country’s propaganda efforts, a new report details.
According to a CNN story published Sunday, Kira Obedinsky — whose mother died when she was a child — found herself parent-less when her dad was killed in Russia’s assault on Mariupol, one of the hardest-hit parts of Ukraine in recent weeks.
CNN reports that, days after her father was shot to death on March 17, Kira and her dad’s girlfriend attempted to leave on foot, but she was injured in a landmine explosion. And that’s when things took a turn.
Kira was taken to a hospital controlled by Moscow-backed separatists and, in footage released by Russian media, could be seen looking happy while talking about how she was allowed to call her grandfather.
While the video is meant to send a positive message, the girl’s grandfather, named Oleksander, told CNN it was a false one. The reality, he said, was that Kira is alone, without any family, and was relocated without her will.
He told the network that Russians forces had taken away Kira’s documents and told her she would be provided with new ones in Russia, where she would eventually be taken to an orphanage — an account adding to others of Ukrainians forcibly moved to Russia during the war.
Oleksander added to CNN that, in an audio message Kira sent him, she could be heard saying: “I haven’t seen you for so long. I want to cry.”
Reportedly speaking to The Guardian, the 67-year-old Oleksander said his granddaughter seemed okay when he able to connect with her via video call.
“She was in a hospital bed, she had shrapnel wounds around her ear and face and her legs, but she seemed okay,” he told the newspaper. “I was so relieved. But she told me she’s in Donetsk [a separatist region in eastern Ukraine], and it seems like she’s on her own. She told me they’re taking her to a Russian city.”
Elsewhere in the interview, however, he said his granddaughter seemed “scared” by the confusing situation.
“She is so scared. She doesn’t know where or why she is going,” Oleksander said. “I can’t say for sure what she understands about what’s going on and the war … She’s seen people killed in front of her, explosions and shelling. She just wants to come back to her family and come back home.”
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A Ukrainian official claimed last month that more than 400,000 people in the country had been taken to Russia against their will as the war rages.
Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson monitoring human rights, said those people could be used as “hostages” to pressure the country to relent as it defends itself from attack. Russia has insisted that the people actually wanted to leave Ukraine.
The number of those relocated includes 84,000 children, the Associated Press reported in March.
Russian forces were also blamed for taking at least one entire Ukrainian city — Chernihiv — hostage by cutting off its access to the capital city of Kyiv.
In Mariupol, where Obedinsky was living prior to the war, the situation has been similarly dire.
Just last month, the Mariupol city council said that “several thousand” residents had been forcibly taken to Russia, CNN reported.
According to the network, the city issued a statement in which it claimed “the occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhny district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing.”
The statement added that some of those residents were taken to camps, where Russians checked their phones and documents, then to remote cities in Russia, per CNN.
Children of Bucha
Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo Neighbors wait for a free food delivery in Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 8.
Russian forces launched their large-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 — marking 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. Millions of Ukrainians have also fled, the United Nations says.
“You don’t know where to go, where to run, who you have to call. This is just panic,” Liliya Marynchak, a 45-year-old teacher in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, told PEOPLE of the moment her city was bombed — one of numerous accounts of bombardment by the Russians.
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 insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy 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.”
Russia’s special-operations forces are under fire in Ukraine
Stavros Atlamazoglou – April 18, 2022
Russian Spetsnaz troops march through Red Square in a Victory Day military parade, May 9, 2021.Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
Amid its struggles in Ukraine, Russia’s military has relied heavily on its most highly trained troops.
The fighting has taken a outsize toll on those troops, including Russia’s famed Spetsnaz special operators.
Moscow may rely on those operators even more as it renews its campaign with a focus on eastern Ukraine.
Russian forces have struggled in Ukraine, failing to achieve any of their primary objectives after two months of fighting.
Moscow has reduced its ambitions, focusing on eastern Ukraine. It appears to be renewing its offensive, but its performance has already affected assessments of its military prowess, calling into question its status as a “near peer” force.
Among the Russian units affected are the famed Spetsnaz. During and after the Cold War, these special operators achieved legendary status in the West. Recent successes in Crimea and Syria seemed to add to their credentials.
Alongside the rest of the Russian military, however, their reputation is being tarnished in Ukraine.
The city of Irpin, only miles from Kyiv, was a base Russian special-operations forces until Ukrainian forces ousted the Russians in late March. The brutal fight for the port city of Mariupol — the kind of strategic target where Moscow has concentrated its most capable forces — appears to have taken an outsize toll on Russia’s special operators.
Spetsnaz: Russia’s special operators
Troops with the Russian military’s 14th Separate Special Purpose Brigade during an exercise, February 15, 2017.Russian Ministry of Defense/Mil.ru
Moscow established the Spetsnaz, its first special-operations unit, in the 1950s to conduct strategic missions.
Spetsnaz initially had a strategic role, but now every special-operations unit in the Russian military, law enforcement, and emergency and security services are called Spetsnaz.
In general, military Spetsnaz units are a light infantry airborne force that can act as shock troops. A few elite Spetsnaz units, such as Alpha and Vympel Groups, have strategic missions, such as counterterrorism, counterproliferation, and the security of nuclear installations.
There has been limited reporting on what Russian special-operations units have done in Ukraine or how they’ve performed, but their missions there may include special reconnaissance, direct-action operations, and unconventional warfare.
One of the few advantages that Russia’s military has leveraged against Ukraine is its long-range weapons. Russia has launched more than 1,500 ballistic and cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets.
Troops of the Russian military’s 2nd Separate Special Purpose Brigade, a Spetsnaz GRU brigade, during an exercise.Konstantin Morozov/Russian Ministry of Defense/Mil.ru
Russian special operators could infiltrate close to those targets and use specialized equipment to help guide the munition. Moscow’s utter disregard for collateral damage means it may not be using such targeting assistance, but that skill set could still be used if the Kremlin wants to take out the Ukrainian leadership with a strategic strike.
Russian special-operations forces might also be conducting direct-action operations, such as raids and ambushes, in pursuit of tactical-level goals, such as capturing a city block.
Generally, it would be folly to use special operators for conventional operations, as their potential casualties would squander the time and expense used to train them to a high level, but the lack of progress may prompt Russian commanders to do so, especially in urban settings where the close-quarters-combat training of Russian commandos might make the difference between winning and losing.
Russia may also use its special-operations forces for unconventional warfare and asymmetric operations. Russian forces have been supporting separatist forces in eastern Ukraine for years, and that effort may expand as Moscow redirects its military campaign toward that region.
Russian special operators may also target Ukrainian strategic targets, such as airfields or fuel and arms depots. There have already been reports of Russian naval commandos attacking a Ukrainian military intelligence ship.
Learning from the enemy
Members of the Russian military’s 22nd Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade during an exercise, November 24, 2017.Russian Ministry of Defense/Mil.ru
When it comes to special-operations forces, the Russian military has had ample opportunity to learn from the US.
For the past 20 years, US special operators have been at the tip of the spear. Their ability to conduct high-reward missions with less military or political risk than larger conventional units has made them a go-to option for American policymakers.
Russia’s military began a major reorganization in 2008, part of which was the formation of a dedicated special-operations command organization. Created in 2009, the Russian Special Operations Forces Command is a strategic-level special-operations organization tasked with the hardest, most important missions.
“The Russians aren’t stupid. They would have seen how successful we’ve been employing SOF [special-operations forces] downrange during the GWOT [Global War on Terror] and have taken their notes. That’s what we would do,” a retired Delta Force operator told Insider.
What Russian forces have learned in terms of military doctrine isn’t apparent, but open-source information showed “how our operations have influenced their equipment and training,” said the retired operator, speaking anonymously because they still work with their unit.
Troops of the Russian military’s 22nd Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade during an exercise, November 24, 2017.Russian Ministry of Defense/Mil.ru
“It’s funny because sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between an American and Russian operator because they tend to both wear MultiCam [camouflage], high-cut helmets, and carry similar assault loadouts. It’s only from the weapons that you can really tell the difference,” the former operator added.
Moscow drew on the creation of the US’s Joint Special Operations Command, which is a component of US Special Operations Command, as a model for its new command.
Although smaller than Russia’s new command, JSOC contains the US military’s special missions units, the most elite special-operations organizations that comprise the US national mission strike force.
Moscow wanted to replicate the effectiveness of the JSOC, bringing together its top special-operations units to facilitate better command and control. Even Spetsnaz units from the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, were transferred to the new organization, though they were reassigned to the GRU in 2013.
“People in SOF tend to be cut from the same cloth. The training, mission sets, and funding might be different — and in some cases worlds apart — but the people at the highest levels tend to be very similar,” the retired operator said.
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.
Putin’s Ugly War Has Believers Turning on Their Holy Men
Anna Nemtsova – April 18, 2022
KYIV—Vladimir Putin’s onslaught has pushed Tatiana Bondarenko, a 53-year-old Ukrainian Orthodox Christian, to her breaking point. First, she was forced to flee her home town in Donetsk in the 2014 war. Then, in March, she had to leave Mariupol after her husband died in crossfire shelling and the city was all but wiped out by Putin’s army. Her life, she says, is ruined, and her heart broken.
On Thursday, Bondarenko was weeping on the steps of Kyiv’s Pokrovsky Monastery, one of 12,000 Ukrainian Orthodox parishes still serving under the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) led by Russian Patriarch Kirill. She told The Daily Beast she still finds comfort being near the monastery, but her feelings about the institution and the leaders of the church have changed drastically since the start of the war.
Bondarenko says she doesn’t want her church to have anything to do with Russian Orthodox leader Kirill any longer. “Please, my God, Patriarch Kirill has blessed this war, he is not the one who has a moral right to tell us that ‘God is love,’” she said. “He has blessed Putin’s friend, commander Zolotov and the Russian soldiers to kill us, Orthodox believers of Ukraine,” Bondarenko added with tears welling in her eyes.
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
She was referring to a recent ceremony in which the Russian Patriarch prayed with President Vladimir Putin’s ex-bodyguard, Victor Zolotov, who is now the commander of the Russian National Guard fighting in Ukraine. “Let it inspire the young warriors who take the oath, embark on the path of defending the Fatherland,” the patriarch said in the Moscow ceremony last month. Zolotov, in turn, complained to the Russian Orthodox Church leader that “not everything is going as fast as we would like.” The commander then expressed his wishes that the prayer would protect the Russian Army “and accelerate our victory.”
Ukrainian worshippers gather to attend a mass at Church of the Most Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Lviv, Ukraine on April 17, 2022.Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The Russian Orthodox Church and its leader have played a huge role in garnering public support for Putin’s war in Ukraine, where about 10 million Orthodox believers still pray in Moscow Patriarchate-affiliated churches. Ukrainian Orthodox Christians whose lives have been upended by the war are left to grapple with the fact that the leader has all but condoned the murder of thousands of innocent civilians.
Now, the cracks are starting to show: More than 400 Ukrainian priests have spoken out against Patriarch Kirill for his support of the war, demanding he be put on trial by the Council of Eastern Patriarchs. Adding to that, scores of Orthodox parishes in Ukraine that have long been loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate have begun to withdraw from the UOC-MP, changing their jurisdictional affiliations to join the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church instead.
“Kirill has committed a crime: he blessed murders of innocent people,” Metropolitan Oleksandr, one of the most senior clerics of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Kyiv, told The Daily Beast. He was on his way to a parish that recently declared its independence from the UOC-MP.
“I understand their decision, the criminal Russian army killed thousands of innocent women, children, men in Ukrainian, my own relatives are in the occupied Mariupol, I don’t know if my godfather is alive. Last I heard he and his family were making food on fire outside their ruined house.” His voice cracked when he spoke about his family members.
An aerial view taken on April 12, 2022, shows the city of Mariupol, during Russia’s military invasion launched on Ukraine.Andrey Borodulin/AFP via Getty Images
One Ukrainian priest and his wife, who belonged to a church in the separatist region of Luhansk that follows the Moscow Patriarchate, told The Daily Beast that the church’s guidelines were so jarring that they made the decision to leave it altogether.
“We were allowed to pray for Ukraine for eight years, while Luhansk was a breakaway republic but in February, when the war began, we were told we could not pray for Ukraine any longer, which was just against our beliefs,” the priest’s wife told The Daily Beast while on a bus to Lviv. “The Russian Orthodox Church made us make the decision to run away with our three children. There are more and more priests who disagree with the Moscow Orthodox Church in Ukraine.”
So far at least 16 dioceses out of 53 parishes loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate have stopped praying for Patriarch Kirill. Many are unhappy that the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Onufriy, continues to pray for the Russian holy leader at Kyiv’s Pechersk Lavra, the most ancient monastery on the territory of Ukraine built in 1051.
“It is hard to imagine how Father Onufriy or any other priests are still praying for Patriarch Kirill… My 91-year-old grandmother, who has lived under German occupation during World War II and now under Russian occupation, tells me Russian soldiers looted homes, shops and killed three of her neighbors,” Metropolitan Oleksandr told The Daily Beast. “Moscow accuses us and other Orthodox believers of hate but we do not feel hate, we feel righteous anger… every priest who rejects the subordination of the Moscow Patriarchate gets condemned by them and banned from serving, soon they will ban us from breathing.”
By the evening on Thursday, four parishes from Chernihiv and Cherkasy regions requested Metropolitan Oleksandr to allow them to join the autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
“Just in one day today four parishes made a decision to quit the church of the Moscow patriarchate,” Metropolitan Oleksandr told The Daily Beast. “It is time for all parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to become independent from Moscow.”
Opinion: Putin is planning a victory parade on May 9 — no matter what
Opinion by Frida Ghitis – April 18, 2022
Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own.
(CNN)When Ukrainian forces repelled Russian troops aiming to capture the capital, Kyiv, they said they found some interesting baggage among the detritus of the Russian retreat — abandoned ammunition and armor, and inside the military vehicles, Russian parade uniforms. “They expected to get Kyiv in two days and then have a parade here,” said Oleksandr Hruzevych, the deputy chief of staff of Ukraine’s ground forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn’t get a parade in the Ukrainian capital, but a parade is coming soon to Moscow and, whatever happens on the battlefield, the Russian President is likely to declare victory during that event three weeks from now.
May 9 is when Russia marks one of its most important national holidays, Victory Day — the anniversary of Germany’s surrender at the end of World War II. The Kremlin has used that anniversary for more than 70 years to commemorate the successful heroism against the Nazis but, just as importantly, to proclaim to the Russian people and to the country’s friends and foes alike that Moscow’s leaders rule over a great and mighty power.h
Victory Day is all about military muscle, and when it comes in the middle of a war — even one that Russians are forbidden to call a “war” and one that state propaganda falsely claims is going perfectly according to plan — there’s almost no alternative but to use the occasion to boast of victory.
US intelligence assessments, Russian foreign policy analysts and common sense all indicate that Putin will use May 9 as a sort of self-imposed deadline in Ukraine. It’s not a deadline to win the war — that will likely not happen by then — but to pretend Russia has won something. Something major. Something important.
The campaign over the next three weeks will focus sharply on Ukraine’s east, the Donbas region by the Russian border, where there’s a larger concentration of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, and where Russian-backed separatists have been waging war against the Ukrainian state for eight years.
That’s where Putin will seek a face-saving success, a concrete victory he can take to the Russian people to tell them he is still the larger-than-life leader whose “special military operation,” with all the hardship it is causing for Russians — let alone the calamity it is inflicting on Ukraine — has been worth the price tag. Unfortunately, his desperation for a win likely means that next three weeks are sure to bring even worse death and destruction to Ukraine.Enter email to sign up for the CNN Opinion newsletter.
So far, Putin’s war has produced almost exactly the opposite of what he wanted — strengthening Ukraine’s sense of nationhood, fortifying and unifying NATO and the West, tarnishing the image of Russia’s military forces and strategists, and on and on. And yet, Putin has been mostly successful at concealing those facts from the Russian people, shutting down independent media and prompting Russia’s genuine journalists to flee the country. That has left almost all Russians consuming only state-controlled media, which is little more than propaganda.
But even dictators need to worry about their domestic standing. If the Russian people view Putin’s Ukrainian adventure as the disaster it has been so far, his hold on power could weaken.
Even under state-controlled information, some facts can eventually become impossible to conceal. Soldiers will return home to tell their stories to friends and relatives. Thousands will not return. And a small segment of the population may still get its news from abroad. Meanwhile, the Russian people, suffering in dire straits due to sanctions and the departure of many foreign companies from their country, may soon reach an economic breaking point. Either way, slowly the truth will seep in.
That’s why Putin urgently needs to show his campaign as triumphant.
On May 9, Putin almost certainly will stand in Red Square, on a stage built in front of the mausoleum where Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin’s embalmed body has lain on display for more than 90 years, and pretend all is well on his Western front. He will ceremonially review the troops — however many the military can spare from the massive deployment in Ukraine.
We will see if Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu makes an appearance. Until last year, he played a major role, his chest bedecked with medals, resplendent after bloody victories in Syria and Chechnya. These days, he leads a humiliated force and persistent rumors of his demise refuse to die.
On that day, Putin will likely announce something about Donbas. Perhaps he will declare it has been “liberated” from the “Nazis” whom he claims rule Ukraine (an absurdly false claim, given the Ukrainian President is Jewish himself). Maybe Russia will hold a phony referendum, as it did after it captured Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. If Russia releases a referendum showing most people in Donbas eager to join Russia, remember a recent independent survey does not support that claim.
Not long after the 2021 Victory Day parade, Putin released an article arguing that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people. It was an ominous sign that Putin would try to erase Ukrainian identity, nationhood and its very borders soon after. Most people in Donbas, the one area of Ukraine where one would expect sympathy for Putin’s historical analysis, soundly reject that view. In an exclusive CNN poll, fewer than one in five agreed that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people.” Still, that is a key element or rationale for Putin’s war.
Another strategic victory for Putin could come if the port city of Mariupol falls, as Russian forces try to establish a land corridor between the territories they control in Donbas and Crimea. That would strengthen Moscow’s control over a large segment of Ukraine, amounting to much more than a symbolic victory. It would be a moral, strategic and economic blow to Ukrainian sovereignty.
To resist the renewed onslaught, Ukraine needs even more help from the West. And Ukraine needs it fast. Putin’s desire to declare victory in three weeks will bring more suffering. But it has also put the Russian leader in potential peril. Whatever he announces on May 9 has to be credible. Otherwise, Putin knows he will become dangerously vulnerable.
After all, the parade is happening in Moscow, not in Kyiv.
Russia faces first foreign default since 1918 – here’s how it could complicate Putin’s ability to wage war in Ukraine
Michael A. Allen, Associate Professor of Political Science, Boise State University and Matthew DiGiuseppe, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Leiden University – April 18, 2022
On April 14, 2022, Moody’s Investors Service warned the country’s decision to make payments on dollar-issued debt in rubles would constitute a default because it violates the terms of the contract. A 30-day grace period allows Russia until May 4 to convert the payments to dollars to avoid default.
A default is one of the clearest signals that the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other countries are having their intended effect on the Russian economy. But will it have any impact on Russia’s ability to wage war in Ukraine?– ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
We asked Michael Allen and Matthew DiGiuseppe, both experts on political economy and conflict, to explain the consequences of default and what it would mean for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.
Why did Russia default on its debt?
The Russian government has a total of US billion worth of debt in dollars and euros, half of which is owned by foreign investors. Russia had an April 4 deadline to pay about 0 million in interest and principle to the holders of two bonds issued in dollars.
That gave Russia little choice but to try to make the payments in rubles, whose value has been very volatile since the invasion. If Russia doesn’t switch the payments to dollars by May 4, the government will be in default on its foreign obligations for the first time since 1918, when the Bolshevik revolutionaries took over Russia and refused to pay the country’s international creditors. Russia also defaulted in 1998 but only on its domestic debt.
The last time Russia defaulted on foreign debt was during the Russian Revolution. AP Photo
What are the consequences of default?
When a country defaults on a foreign loan, international investors typically become unwilling or unable to lend more money to it. Or they demand much higher interest rates.
Whether because of higher interest costs or an inability to borrow, this forces a country to cut spending. Less government spending reduces economic activity, increases unemployment and slows growth. While some of these effects, like weaker economic growth, are often short-lived, other consequences can haunt a country for years. Trade with other countries remains below normal for an average of 15 years after a default, while full exclusion from capital markets typically lasts just over eight years.
But its significant revenue from sometimes-discounted sales of oil and gas may help offset the need for borrowing in the short term, especially if it can continue to find willing buyers like India and China. On April 14, 2022, Putin acknowledged sanctions were disrupting exports and raising costs.
Does Russia care if it defaults?
The Russian government has been trying hard to avoid default.
Until April 5, it was using its precious dollars to stay current on its bond payments. And before its invasion it had built up a significant reserve of foreign currency, in large part to allow it to continue to pay back debt borrowed in dollars and euros even amid sanctions. Russia has even threatened to take legal action if sanctions force it into default.
As odd as it may sound, Russia is likely worried about its reputation – at least among bond investors.
A default by a sovereign borrower establishes a bad reputation that can take years to rehabilitate, as Argentina’s experience shows.
And the long-term impact could be worse for Russia. The reason Russia is in this bind is because it chose to invade Ukraine, despite repeated warnings that doing so would result in severe economic and financial sanctions.
So creditors might wonder if Russia will always prioritize its foreign policy interests over the interests of creditors and raise borrowing costs permanently. If so, they may find it difficult to borrow for years to come.
Another risk is that a default may enable creditors to seize Russia’s overseas assets as a form of repayment. International sanctions have already enabled countries to seize or freeze Russian assets, which could be used to pay off outstanding debts.
As long as there has been debt, governments have waged wars with other people’s money. In fact, debt has become so vital as a source of power that countries rarely fight without it.
Our own research has shown that countries that have defaulted on their debts or have poor credit ratings find it difficult to build military capacity and, consequently, are more reluctant to take up arms against other nations. Related work has found that countries with lower borrowing costs tend to win wars – though this effect is stronger for democracies.
One reason is that borrowing allows countries to overcome the guns-versus-butter trade-off: More money spent on the military means less for its citizens’ welfare, which can hurt a government’s ability to stay in power. Foreign loans can help overcome this problem, but losing access to credit forces a government to choose. In the short term, however, a default is not likely to alter the outcome of Russia’s war – or force Putin to make any unpopular trade-offs – especially if Russia is able to achieve its new and more limited military objectives in the eastern Donbas region quickly.
This will change the longer the war goes on. The war was expected to last only a few days, but a stronger-than-expected Ukrainian defense has pushed the conflict into its eighth week. Early estimates found that a prolonged war could end up costing Russia over billion a day, including both direct and indirect expenses, like loss of economic output.
Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now
April 18, 2022
Funeral of Roman Vered, 53, who according to his family was killed by Russian soldiers, in IrpinA local resident cooks food in a courtyard in MariupolRussia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Donetsk region
(Reuters) – Ukraine said a Russian missile attack killed seven people in Lviv on Monday, the first civilian victims in the western city, and reported signs that Russia had started its anticipated new offensive in the east.
FIGHTING* Lviv governor Maksym Kozytskyy said preliminary reports suggested there had been four hits on Lviv — three strikes on warehouses that are not currently being used by the military, and another on a car service station.* Russia appears to have started its anticipated new offensive in the east of Ukraine, Ukraine’s top security official said.* The United States military expects to start training Ukrainians on using howitzer artillery in coming days, a senior U.S. defense official said. * Ukrainian forces in the besieged city of Mariupol are continuing to engage with the Russian military, Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, told national television on Monday.
* Major Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine’s 36th marine brigade which is still fighting in Mariupol, appealed for help in a letter to Pope Francis, saying women and children were trapped among fighters in the city’s large steel plant.* Russia said it had launched mass strikes overnight on the Ukrainian military and associated military targets.
* Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said that Russians advanced overnight and took the town of Kreminna.
DIPLOMACY* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy formally submitted a completed questionnaire on European Union membership to an envoy on Monday and said he believed this step would lead to his country gaining candidate status within weeks.* The Kremlin accused Ukraine of constantly changing its stance when it comes to issues that have already been agreed at peace talks.* Humanitarian ceasefires between Ukrainian and Russian forces in Ukraine are not on the horizon right now, but may be possible in a couple of weeks, the U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said.
ECONOMY* Russia’s invasion has damaged or destroyed up to 30% of Ukraine’s infrastructure at a cost of $100 billion, a Ukrainian minister said on Monday, adding reconstruction could be achieved in two years using frozen Russian assets to help finance it.
* Russia on Monday flagged a likely further cut in interest rates and more budget spending to help the economy adapt to biting western sanctions as it heads for its deepest contraction since 1994.
QUOTES
“This is what hell looks like on earth … It’s time (for) help not just by prayers. Save our lives from satanic hands,”
Ukrainian major Volyna in a letter to the pope, referring to the situation in Mariupol.
(Compiled by Robert Birsel, Alexandra Hudson and Keith Weir)
U.S. to start training Ukrainians on howitzers in coming days -official
Idrees Ali and Kanishka Singh – April 18, 2022
Ukrainian service members hold drills in the Kherson region
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States military expects to start training Ukrainians on using howitzer artillery in coming days, a senior U.S. defense official said on Monday.
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine, expanding the aid to include heavy artillery ahead of a wider Russian assault expected in eastern Ukraine.
So far, four flights of weapons have been sent by the United States as part of the new package.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the howitzer training would take place outside Ukraine.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html
The United States is planning on teaching Ukrainian trainers on how to use some of the new batch of weapons such as howitzers and radars and then for the trainers to instruct their colleagues inside Ukraine.
The United States has previously trained Ukrainian forces on Switchblade drones.
Ukraine said a Russian missile attack killed seven people in Lviv on Monday, the first civilian victims in the western city, and the commander of Ukrainian forces holding out in the devastated southeastern port of Mariupol appealed to the pope for help.
It appeared that Russia was aiming at military targets in Lviv and the capital Kyiv in the north, the U.S. defense official said.
Mariupol was still contested as Russia appeared to have sent reinforcements into Ukraine in recent days, the official added.
“Our assessment is Mariupol is still contested … (it) remains under threat from the air but both from missile strikes as well as bombs from the air but even of course artillery,” the official said.
The official said there were roughly 76 Russian battalion tactical groups in southern and eastern Ukraine, an increase of about 11 in recent days.
Over the weekend, the Russian defense ministry said its anti-aircraft systems in the Odesa region shot down a Ukrainian transport plane delivering weapons supplied by Western governments.
The official said that the United States did not have any information to suggest that was true.
There were no indications that Russia was making any attempt to recover the warship Moskva, flagship of its Black Sea fleet, that sank on Thursday, the U.S. official said.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Kanishka Singh; editing by Grant McCool)
