Ukraine morning briefing: Five developments as two missile strikes hit Ukrainian military unit
Our Foreign Staff – March 24, 2022
Volodymyr Ilnytskyi, 55, a retired policeman, prays before ringing the bell of the Latin Cathedral in Lviv – AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty
Good morning. Western leaders have denounced Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour as “barbarism” as thousands in besieged cities sheltered underground from Russian bombardment.
Responding to Thursday’s Nato show of unity among Western leaders in Brussels, Moscow said the West had itself to blame for the war by arming the “Kyiv regime”.
1. Two missile strikes hit Ukrainian military unit
News is breaking that in Dnipro, Ukrainian forces have been badly hit this morning. According to the city’s governor, there is “serious destruction” after two missile strikes hit a Ukrainian military unit on the outskirts of the city. The governor says rescuers are desperately looking for survivors.
Our liveblog will bring you the latest updates.
2. Ukraine is reoccupying defensive positions
The UK Ministry of Defence said Ukraine had managed to reoccupy some areas, however.
In its latest intelligence update, posted on Twitter, the MoD said: “Ukrainian counter-attacks, and Russian forces falling back on overextended supply lines, have allowed Ukraine to reoccupy towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometres east of Kyiv.
“Ukrainian forces are likely to continue to attempt to push Russian forces back along the north-western axis from Kyiv towards Hostomel Airfield.
“In the south of Ukraine, Russian forces are still attempting to circumvent Mykolaiv as they look to drive west towards Odesa, with their progress being slowed by logistic issues and Ukrainian resistance.”
3. Hundreds of thousands ‘forcibly removed’ to Russia
People who are sheltering in a metro station in northern Kharkiv receive food from volunteers – REUTERS/Thomas Peter
Ukraine has accused Moscow of forcibly removing hundreds of thousands of civilians to Russia to pressure Kyiv to give up.
President Volodymyr Zelensky urged his country to keep up its military defence and not stop “even for a minute”.
Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, had been taken against their will into Russia, where some may be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to surrender.
The Kremlin gave nearly identical numbers for those who have been relocated, but said they wanted to go to Russia.
4. Ex-president says Western sanctions won’t sway Kremlin
It is “foolish” to believe that Western sanctions against Russian businesses could have any effect on Moscow, Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian ex-president and deputy head of security council was quoted as saying on Friday.
The sanctions will only consolidate the Russian society and not cause popular discontent with the authorities, he told Russia’s RIA news agency.
The West has imposed an array of sanctions on Russia, but one month into the war, the Kremlin says it will continue the assault until it accomplishes its goals of Ukraine’s “demilitarization and denazification”
Boris Johnson: We will tighten the economic vice around Putin regime
Some of the sanctions have specifically targeted billionaire businessmen believed to be close to President Vladimir Putin.
“Let us ask ourselves: can any of these major businessmen have even the tiniest quantum of influence of the position of the country’s leadership?” Mr Medvedev said.
“I openly tell you: no, no way.”
5. Gas shipments to help wean Europe off Russian energy
Joe Biden is expected on Friday to announce increased shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe, part of a long-term initiative to wean the Continent off Russian energy after the invasion of Ukraine.
He plans to discuss the issue with Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Union’s executive arm, shortly before leaving for Poland.
Russian energy is a key source of income and political leverage for Moscow. Almost 40 per cent of the European Union’s natural gas comes from Russia to heat homes, generate electricity and power industry.
Ukraine said on Thursday they destroyed Russian navy landing ship Orsk in an attack on a Russian-occupied port facility in the city of Berdyansk.
Ukrainian officials didn’t say how the attack was carried out, but video shows other Russian vessels fleeing the area as smoke rises over the port, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Berdyansk is one of the few cities Russia has been able to seize since the start of the war, though Ukrainian citizens regularly protest the invading soldiers.
When the Orsk arrived on Monday, Russia’s army TV station Zvezda boasted of their new capabilities.
“The southern flank of the special operation can now receive anything, including armor and ammunition, at any time,” Zvezda said at the time, per the Journal. “The port, and the entire city, are under reliable protection of the Russian air defenses.”
Russia did not confirm the attack on the ship.
Ukraine has been able to stall much of Russia’s advances throughout the war, surprising Western allies who have supported the country with military and humanitarian aid.
NATO says six generals and up to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the start of the invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for international rallies starting March 24 to support Ukraine after one month of fighting.
Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now
March 24, 2022
FILE PHOTO: Russia’s invasion on Ukraine continues
(Reuters) – Western leaders showcased their unity against Russia’s war in Ukraine with Washington seeking more military aid to Ukraine, London imposing new sanctions against Moscow, and NATO assigning more troops for its eastern flank as the conflict enters its second month.
LVIV, Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to NATO leaders to increase military support for Ukraine against Russian forces that he warned would next target alliance members in eastern Europe.
ON THE GROUND
* Ukrainian authorities said about 15,000 civilians had been illegally deported to Russia from besieged Mariupol since Russian forces seized parts of the southern port city.
* Ukraine said its forces had destroyed the Russian landing ship “Orsk” near the Russian-occupied Ukrainian port of Berdyansk on the Azov Sea. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said the ship was capable of carrying 45 armoured personnel carriers and 400 people. Reuters was unable to verify the report.
* NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would boost its forces in Eastern Europe by deploying four new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
REPERCUSSIONS
* Switzerland has frozen around 5.75 billion Swiss francs ($6.17 billion) worth of Russian assets covered by sanctions and that amount is likely to rise, a government official said.
* The U.S. Embassy in Moscow received a list of its diplomats declared “persona non grata”, a State Department spokesperson said, in what Russian media said was a response to a U.S. move ousting Russian staff at the United Nations.
* Russia plans to switch its gas sales to “unfriendly” countries to roubles, President Putin said, responding to a freeze on Russia’s assets by foreign nations.
CIVILIANS
* UNICEF said 4.3 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children have been uprooted by the month-long war.
* More than 145,000 babies are in urgent need of nutrition support in Ukraine, UNICEF said.
QUOTES
* “Come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities, come in the name of peace, come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life,” Zelenskiy said in his appeal for a worldwide demonstration.
* “We, the French and Europeans, will do everything to stop this war without entering it,” French President Macron said.
(Compiled by Michael Perry and Peter Graff; Edited by Angus MacSwan)
As many as 40K Russian troops killed, wounded, held prisoner or missing: NATO
March 23, 2022
NATO estimates that up to 15,000 Russian troops have been killed since the Kremlin’s attack on Ukraine began last month, with as many as 40,000 dead, wounded, taken prisoner or missing.
The alliance arrived at those figures based on information from Ukrainian officials, Western intelligence and information gleaned from Russia through official channels or unintentionally, a senior military official from NATO told The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
NATO estimates that roughly 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the attack started on Feb. 24, a major blow to Moscow, which sought to decapitate the Ukrainian government in a matter of days.
But the Russians were quickly mired by fierce Ukrainian opposition and issues with supplies, with the campaign now hitting four full weeks of fighting and NATO warning it is “rapidly approaching” a stalemate.
Ukraine also claims to have killed six Russian generals, while Moscow has only acknowledged one dead.
The new NATO figures mark the first time the alliance has publicly released Russian casualty estimates since the start of the war. U.S. officials have not provided public estimates of Russian or Ukrainian casualties, pointing to the questionable reliability of such information and a fast-moving and ever-changing conflict.
Russia has also closely guarded information on its casualties. The last time it acknowledged such information was on March 2, when it said almost 500 soldiers were killed and nearly 1,600 wounded.
On the Ukrainian side, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that thousands of his people had been killed, including at least 121 children.
Zelensky said on March 12 that about 1,300 Ukrainian troops had been killed in action.
The Russian troop death toll has already exceeded the U.S. militaries losses in the first 18 years of the Afghanistan war, when just over 7,000 troops died.
The Kremlin, despite sending more than 150,000 troops into Ukraine, has made limited progress with its ground forces in recent weeks.
The Russian troops have been slowed or stopped by Ukrainian units using hit-and-run tactics and Western-supplied weapons, forcing them to destroy cities from afar using bombs and heavy shelling.
Ukrainians forces, meanwhile, have continued to defend several major cities including the capitol of Kyiv and have started to move to take back territory Russians had gained in recent days.
Related:
Yahoo! News
Russia has suffered up to 40,000 casualties on Ukraine battlefield, claims Nato
Jimmy Nsubuga – March 23, 2022
Pro-Russian separatists on patrol in Donetsk. (Getty)
Russia may have suffered between 30,000 and 40,000 battlefield casualties in Ukraine, according to a senior Nato military officer.
The military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by Nato, added between 7,000 and 15,000 Russians had been killed since it invaded its neighbour on 24 February.
The estimate of those killed is based on information from the Ukrainian government, indications from Russia, and open-source data, Associated Press reported.
It is Nato’s first public estimate of Russian casualties since the beginning of the war.
The US government has largely declined to provide public estimates of Russian or Ukrainian casualties, saying available information is of questionable reliability.
The Nato military officer, in a briefing from the alliance’s military headquarters in Belgium on Wednesday, said the estimate of 30,000 to 40,000 Russian casualties is derived from what he called a standard calculation that in war an army suffers three wounded soldiers for every soldier killed.
The officer said the casualties include killed in action and wounded in action, and those taken prisoner or missing in action.
The exact toll on Putin’s forces is unknown.
Earlier this week, Western intelligence officials placed the tally of Russian deaths at a “reasonable estimate” of 10,000. If true, this would represent the heaviest number of Russian casualties since the Second World War.
This figure appeared to match a report in a pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper called Komsomolskaya Pravda on Tuesday, which cited Russian Defence ministry data confirming 9,861 troops had died.
However, the death tally was quickly deleted from the article with the newspaper later accusing hackers of planting fake news on its website.
Russia has not officially updated its casualty figures since stating on 2 March that 498 servicemen had been killed and 1,597 wounded.
A veteran aide of president Vladimir Putin has resigned over the Ukraine war. (Reuters)
What is clear, however, is that Russian forces have taken heavy losses in the four weeks since the invasion began. They have been frozen in place for at least a week on multiple fronts and face supply problems and fierce resistance.
As a consequence, Russia has turned to siege tactics and bombardment, causing massive destruction and many civilian deaths.
Despite its losses so far, Russia may still be hoping to make more gains on the battlefield, especially in the east, in territory including Mariupol, which Moscow demands Ukraine cede to Russian-backed separatists.
But in a daily intelligence update, the UK’s defence ministry said the entire battlefield across northern Ukraine – which includes huge armoured columns that once bore down on Kyiv – was now “static”, with the invaders apparently trying to reorganise.
A veteran aide of president Vladimir Putin has also resigned over the war and left Russia with no intention to return, two sources said on Wednesday, making him the first senior official to break with the Kremlin since Putin launched his invasion a month ago.
The Kremlin confirmed that the aide, Anatoly Chubais, had resigned of his own accord.
Servicemen carry the coffin during the funeral of 30-year-old Ukranian Sandor Kish. (Reuters)
In a further sign of growing Ukrainian confidence, on Wednesday a Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said he expected the active phase of the Russian invasion to be over by the end of April as the Russian advance had already stalled in many areas.
Speaking on local television, Arestovych said Russia had already lost 40% of its attacking forces and played down the prospect of Russia waging nuclear war.
Nato will likely decide on Thursday to ramp up military forces on its eastern flank, the head of the alliance said, while also warning Russia against using nuclear weapons.
“I expect leaders will agree to strengthen NATO’s posture in all domains, with major increases in the eastern part of the alliance. On land, in the air and at sea,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference ahead of the summit in Brussels on Thursday.
Related:
Air Force Times
NATO: 7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops dead in Ukraine
Nebi Qena, Cara Anna, The Associated Press – March 23, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine — NATO estimated on Wednesday that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in four weeks of war in Ukraine, where ferocious fighting by the country’s fast-moving defenders has denied Moscow the lightning victory it sought.
By way of comparison, Moscow lost about 15,000 soldiers in Afghanistan over 10 years.
A senior NATO military official said the alliance’s estimate was based on information from Ukrainian officials, what Russia has released — intentionally or not — and intelligence gathered from open sources. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by NATO.
When Russia unleashed its invasion Feb. 24 in Europe’s biggest offensive since World War II, a swift toppling of Ukraine’s democratically elected government seemed likely.
But with Wednesday marking four full weeks of fighting, Russia is bogged down in a grinding military campaign.
With its ground forces repeatedly slowed or stopped by hit-and-run Ukrainian units armed with Western-supplied weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops are bombarding targets from afar, falling back on the tactics they used in reducing cities to ruins in Syria and Chechnya.
As U.S. President Joe Biden left for Europe on Wednesday to meet with key allies about possible new sanctions against Moscow and more military aid to Ukraine, he warned there is a “real threat” Russia could use chemical weapons.
Addressing Japan’s parliament on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said four weeks of war have killed thousands of his people, including at least 121 children.
“Our people cannot even adequately bury their murdered relatives, friends and neighbors. They have to be buried right in the yards of destroyed buildings, next to the roads,” he said.
Still, major Russian objectives remain unfulfilled. The capital, Kyiv, has been shelled repeatedly hit but is not even encircled.
Near-constant shelling and gunfire shook the city Wednesday, with plumes of black smoke rising from the western outskirts, where the two sides battled for control of multiple suburbs. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 264 civilians have been killed in the capital since war broke out.
In the south, the port city of Mariupol has seen the worst devastation of the war, under weeks of siege and bombardment. But Ukrainian forces have prevented its fall, thwarting an apparent bid by Moscow to fully secure a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Zelenskyy said 100,000 civilians remain in a city that had 430,000 people. Efforts to get desperately needed food and other supplies to those trapped have often failed.
Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of seizing a humanitarian convoy. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the Russians were holding captive 11 bus drivers and four rescue workers along with their vehicles.
It is not clear how much of Mariupol is still under Ukrainian control. Fleeing residents say fighting continues street by street. In their last update, over a week ago, Mariupol officials said at least 2,300 people had died, but the true toll is probably much higher. Airstrikes in the past week destroyed a theater and an art school where civilians were sheltering.
In the besieged northern city of Chernihiv, Russian forces bombed and destroyed a bridge that was used for aid deliveries and civilian evacuations, regional governor Viacheslav Chaus said.
Kateryna Mytkevich, who arrived in Poland after fleeing Chernihiv, wiped away tears as she spoke about what she had seen. The city is without gas, electricity or running water, said Mytkevich, 39, and entire neighborhoods have been destroyed.
“I don’t understand why we have such a curse,” she said.
Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted the military operation is going “strictly in accordance” with plans.
A man trains in a shooting range in Lviv, western Ukraine, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. The rush for guns and gun training continued in the western city of Lviv. (Bernat Armangue/AP)
The most recent figure for Ukraine’s military losses came from Zelenskyy on March 12, when he said that about 1,300 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed in action.
The NATO official said 30,000 to 40,000 Russian soldiers are estimated to have been killed or wounded.
Russia has released very little information on its casualties, saying March 2 that nearly 500 soldiers had been killed and almost 1,600 wounded.
Ukraine also claims to have killed six Russian generals. Russia acknowledges just one dead general.
The figures from NATO represent the alliance’s first public estimate of Russian casualties since the war began. The U.S. government has largely declined to provide public estimates of Russian or Ukrainian casualties, saying available information is of questionable reliability.
With casualties mounting and quick victory no longer in sight, Russia is having to work to suppress dissent and shore up morale.
It has arrested thousands of antiwar protesters and cracked down on the media. Also, under a law passed Wednesday, troops in Ukraine will get the same benefits as veterans of previous wars, including tax breaks, discounts on utilities and preferential access to medical treatment.
In an apparent reflection of growing divisions in Russia’s top echelons, top official Anatoly Chubais has resigned, Peskov told the Interfax news agency. Chubais, the architect of Russia’s post-Soviet privatization campaign, had served at a variety of top official jobs over three decades. His latest role was as Putin’s envoy to international organizations.
Peskov would not say if Chubais had left the country.
Western officials say Putin’s forces are facing serious shortages of food, fuel and cold weather gear, with soldiers suffering frostbite, while Ukraine’s defenders have been going more on the offensive.
Still, Russia’s far stronger, bigger military has many Western military experts warning against overconfidence in Ukraine’s long-term odds. The Kremlin’s practice in past wars has been to grind down resistance with strikes that flattened cities, killing countless civilians and sending millions fleeing.
Talks to end the fighting have continued by video. Zelenskyy said negotiations with Russia are going “step by step, but they are going forward.”
With no peace, those not yet fighting prepared to do so.
“Everything’s a best-seller these days,” said Zakhar Sluzhalyy, who owns a gun shop in the western city of Lviv.
“We’re defending our land,” he said. “We’re fighting for our freedom and that of the rest of Europe.”
Anna reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press writers Robert Burns in Washington, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, and other AP journalists around the world contributed to this report.
STORY: Western leaders piled on military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine on Thursday with U.S. President Joe Biden calling Russian leader Vladimir Putin a “brute” and Britain denouncing Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor as “barbarism.”
At an unprecedented triple summit in Brussels, NATO, G7 and European Union leaders addressed the continent’s worst conflict since the 1990s Balkans wars.
Biden stressed the importance of the Western alliances.
Biden: “This single most important thing is for us to stay unified and the world continue to focus on what a brute this guy is and all the innocent people’s lives that are being lost and ruined.”
NATO announced new battle groups for four nations in East Europe, while Washington and London increased aid and expanded sanctions to new targets.
Ahead of the summit Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was grateful for the support Ukraine had received from individual NATO member states, but that NATO had yet to show what the alliance can do to save people.
“And I have been repeating the same thing for a month now. To save people and our cities, Ukraine needs military assistance without any restrictions.”
The European Union was set to unveil steps to wean itself off Russian energy — likely to drive up fuel costs even further around the continent.
But the measures stopped short of Zelenskiy’s calls for a full boycott of Russian energy and a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
The invasion unleashed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin has killed thousands of people, sent more than 3 million people abroad, destroyed cities, and driven more than half of Ukraine’s children from their homes, according to the United Nations. Russia calls the invasion a “special military operation.”
In the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, nearly flattened by the Russian bombardment, hundreds of thousands of people have been hiding in basements without running water, food, medicine or power.
But Moscow has failed to capture any major city. Russian troops have taken heavy casualties and are low on supplies. Ukrainian officials say they are now shifting onto the offensive and have pushed back Russian forces, including north of Kyiv.
Moscow Thursday said the West had itself to blame for the war by arming the “Kyiv regime.”
When Miyuki Hino bought a house in Chapel Hill, N.C., in 2020, she checked an online map that showed the damage caused by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 to evaluate the neighborhood.
“We wanted to know our flood risk before buying, although we’re aware that every storm is different and they can be hard to predict,” says Hino, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We had to make an offer quickly, so we looked at the map and we asked neighbors about which houses nearby had flooded. We found out that our street is on a slight hill and the homes at the bottom of the hill had more trouble from that hurricane.”
Hino purchased flood insurance, which costs about $300 annually, even though it isn’t required for her home.
“Our first concern is for the safety of everyone in the house,” says Hino. “Our second concern is about property damage in case of a storm. But we’re also concerned about the long-term impact of extreme events on the value of our property.”
Not every buyer is as diligent about evaluating the potential risk of a weather-related disaster, but that may change in the future. Violent storms, wildfires, floods, droughts and extreme heat are among the increasingly visible signs of climate change. While safety issues associated with these events are of prime importance, the frequency and intensity of dramatic natural disasters are beginning to have an impact on property values and the cost of homeownership in some locations. Researchers are analyzing data to help buyers, homeowners, lenders, insurance companies and appraisers evaluate what the future may hold and how that could impact the housing market.
“Most homeowners should care about climate change and the potential impact on their families and property,” says John Berkowitz, CEO and founder of OJO Labs, a real estate technology firm that owns the Movoto listing site in Austin. “Unfortunately, the people who are most likely to be hurt are already disadvantaged in the housing market, such as first-time buyers and minority buyers who are focused on affordability now. They don’t have the luxury of time or money to think about what their property value will be in 2050.”
Lack of knowledge about climate risk makes it difficult for buyers to recognize that their home could be more costly to maintain, more expensive to insure, and more exposed to damage and possible destruction from a storm or fire. All those possibilities could also contribute to a decline in a property’s value or the inability to sell the home in the future. Yet few consumers consider these issues when buying a home.
Fires, floods and home values
Numerous studies have recently looked at the current impact of hazards on property values. For example, Redfin researchers found that homes in areas prone to wildfires sold for an average of 3.9 percent less compared with homes in areas with lower wildfire risk in California, Oregon and Washington state in 2020. Between 2012 and 2020, the median sales price of homes in low-risk areas increased 101 percent compared with an 88 percent increase in the median sales price for homes in areas with a high risk for wildfire, according to the study.
But home values don’t always correlate with climate risks. Hino co-wrote a report with Marshall Burke, an associate professor in the department of Earth system science at Stanford University, titled “The Effect of Information About Climate Risk on Property Values,” that focused on flood risk.
“Our research looked at the impact of regulatory flood plain maps, which are used to determine whether a home needs flood insurance, on home prices,” says Hino. “We expected to see that homes that require flood insurance would be less costly than similar homes that don’t require flood insurance, but that’s not happening.”
The main culprit is lack of information, says Hino.
“I read one study that found that less than 10 percent of buyers know that a house is in a flood plain before they make an offer,” says Hino. “They find out later when their lender checks the [Federal Emergency Management Agency] map to see if flood insurance is required.”
Homes in coastal areas that are prone to flooding are desirable to many buyers for their water views, which keeps their prices high. A 2021 study by Redfin researchers found that homes with a high risk for flooding sold for a premium of 13.6 percent more than homes with a low risk for flooding during the first quarter of 2021, an increase in that premium over both 2020 and 2019.
Unfortunately, FEMA maps have been found to underestimate flood risk. A study by the nonprofit First Street Foundation found that more than 23.5 million properties are at risk of flooding over the next 30 years. First Street Foundation’s Flood Factor tool, which is available to consumers, includes flood risk from urban storm water flooding, storm surge and future conditions such as rising seas.
Mortgage lenders and insurance companies rely on FEMA maps to evaluate flood risk and to inform consumers about the requirement or recommendation for flood insurance. Flood damage is not covered by regular homeowners insurance policies and therefore requires a separate policy. The Research Institute for Housing America (RIHA) at the Mortgage Bankers Association released a study earlier this year – “The Impact of Climate Change on Housing and Housing Finance” – that concluded that the housing industry lacks an accepted indicator to assess climate risk.
“There’s lots of work to do in the industry because there’s no single test for climate projections that lenders can use for risk management,” says Eddie Seiler, executive director of RIHA in D.C. “There are private companies working to build models to understand the risks to homeowners and the financial risks to lenders. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are working to come up with climate scenarios, too.”
Seiler says he believes that eventually climate risk may become part of the mortgage underwriting process. The report found that, in addition to increased flood risk and property damage, climate change may increase mortgage default rates, increase the volatility of house prices and possibly produce climate-related migration patterns. If people choose to move away from areas with high risks from fires, floods and storms, that could reduce property values in those communities.
“After Hurricane Katrina, the mortgage industry didn’t know whether borrowers would default on their loans,” says Seiler. “The FEMA maps were way out of date, so people who were at high risk for floods didn’t know it and didn’t have flood insurance. In that case, the federal government stepped in. But we know that when people are underwater on their loans, they default more often.”
Another risk is that if insurance rates skyrocket, the cost of having a home would be so high that owners would be unable to repay their loans, Seiler says.
“Insurance companies raise rates as much as 20 or 30 percent in high-risk areas compared to low-risk areas,” says Brian O’Connell, a senior insurance analyst at InsuranceQuotes.com in Bucks County, Pa. “Buyers should expect to see rates increase as we see more floods, fires and heat waves. Alternatively, some insurance companies may simply get out of the business, which could also increase costs because of the lack of competition for customers.”
Some insurance companies also raise the deductible for specific events such as hurricanes, which leaves homeowners responsible for thousands of dollars of repair costs, according to O’Connell.
Consumers and climate risk
The unpredictability of climate change makes it difficult to evaluate the risk for a specific event to occur at any particular property. Even wildfires sometimes skip over some homes. Hurricanes and tornadoes have uneven impacts on homes within the same neighborhood.
Another obstacle for home buyers is that seller disclosure rules vary by jurisdiction. Sellers are not always required to share information about risks associated with natural disasters or previous damage.
“We found that in states with stricter disclosure laws there was a higher correlation between pricing and flood insurance,” says Hino. “In states such as Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and South Carolina, home prices are lower on homes that carry a risk of floods because buyers are aware of the risk.”
One solution is to provide data about possible future increases in storms and extreme heat directly to buyers and to real estate agents who can share that information with house hunters, says Berkowitz. Movoto includes information on climate risk for each listing on their site from ClimateCheck.
“Consumers can look now at listings on sites such as Redfin and Realtor.com for flood risk scores and climate scores,” says Seiler. “That helps to get people thinking earlier about the potential risk from floods, fires and storms.”
Consumers can also go directly to sites such as ClimateCheck, Flood Factor, Attom Data Solutions Home Disclosure Report and CoreLogic’s RiskMeter to review hazard risks that include storms, floods and wildfires.
“We’re working with climate scientists to develop analytics on what climate change means, such as whether there will be more hurricanes or stronger hurricanes and whether the issue will be storm surges or high winds,” says Tom Larsen, principal for insurance and spatial solutions at CoreLogic, a data analytics firm based in Irvine, Calif. “The challenge with these perils is that you don’t see identical damage to each house. So we use our spatial modeling to look on a granular level at every house. We can look at the elevation above the sea level of the first floor of a house and follow wildfire patterns property by property.”
Since CoreLogic primarily provides analytics to industry professionals such as insurance companies and lenders, its focus is on what it would cost to repair or rebuild a property. Mortgage and insurance companies need the information because of their financial commitment to the property.
“Consumers want to know if their home will lose value, but it’s tough to evaluate the market price of a property versus the physical cost of rebuilding,” says Larsen. “But consumers also need to know their total cost to live in a home. Eventually, I think predicting insurance costs based on climate risk will become part of the mortgage process because it’s part of the cost of ownership.”
For buyers today, assessing the potential cost from climate risk is one more thing to pay attention to and is challenging to evaluate, says Larsen.
“Eventually, we’ll get to the point where people can see an average score that demonstrates what the risk is now, the expected cost of possible damages and a prediction of future potential costs,” says Larsen. “That’s not necessarily to tell someone not to buy someplace, but to help them understand the risk they’re accepting by buying in certain locations.”
O’Connell recommends hiring a good buyers’ agent who will warn consumers about high insurance costs or elevated risk for natural disasters.
“Buyers should do their due diligence and check insurance premiums ahead of time for different areas, so they understand what they’re getting into if they choose to buy near water, for example,” says O’Connell. “They should also read their insurance policy, so they know what happens if there’s a weather event and to make sure they’re covered for a wildfire or wind damage. If they’re not comfortable reading it, they should ask a lawyer to review it or talk to an insurance expert.”
Buyers may want to factor in costs related to adapting their homes for climate change, says Berkowitz.
“For example, homeowners in places that are beginning to see more severe winters need to consider the cost of winterizing their homes with more insulation and better windows,” Berkowitz says. “Homeowners in traditionally cooler climates like Seattle are finding themselves investing in air conditioning now that the summers are hotter there.”
Climate awareness has received a low level of attention so far, but that won’t last forever, especially as climate risk increases, Berkowitz asserts.
However, Berkowitz acknowledges, it’s hard to predict whether climate change will decrease the desirability of homes in some areas because of safety issues or because of the higher cost of ownership. It could just mean that homes in some areas appreciate less over the next 30 years than they did over the previous 30 years.
“Home buyers and owners need to recognize the value of their house today and understand how it could change in the future,” says Berkowitz. “They need to be aware of the full cost of ownership, including maintenance and insurance and how those costs could rise.”
How to evaluate climate risk when house hunting
Check all listings on sites such as Realtor.com, Movoto and Redfin for information about climate-related risks such as floods and fires.
Ask neighbors about recent storms and damage.
Ask your real estate agent for information about floods, fires and storms in the area.
Check the address of a property on sites such as ClimateCheck, Flood Factor, Attom Data Solutions Home Disclosure Report and CoreLogic’s RiskMeter.
Depending on the local disclosure laws, ask the seller and listing agent for information about previous flood or fire damage.
Request a homeowners insurance estimate as early as possible to determine affordability.
Ask a home inspector to look for evidence of previous storm or fire damage.
Find out if storm-resistant features have been added to the house, such as hurricane shutters, stronger windows and mesh coverings for vents in fire-prone areas. If not, ask for a cost estimate to add those features.
Ask if the community is taking steps to mitigate storm risk.
15,000 civilians illegally deported from Mariupol to Moscow, officials say
March 24, 2022
A Ukrainian serviceman guards his position in Mariupol, Ukraine, Saturday, March 12, 2022.
Ukrainian officials on Thursday charged Russia with deporting about 15,000 civilians illegally from the city of Mariupol to Russia’s capital of Moscow, Reuters reported.
“Residents of the Left Bank district are beginning to be deported en masse to Russia. In total, about 15,000 Mariupol residents have been subjected to illegal deportation,” the Mariupol city council said in a statement.
Officials also said that civilians who remained trapped in the city of Mariupol, which has been heavily bombarded by Russia, are struggling to live without access to food, water, power, or heating, according to Reuters.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said at a video briefing that authorities are still working on securing an agreement with their Russian counterparts in the hope of opening a safe corridor to and from Mariupol for remaining residents.
Authorities also said that thousands of residents were taken by Russian forces to undisclosed areas across the border, with Russian news outlets reporting that buses had carried several hundred refugees from Mariupol to Russia in the past few days, Reuters reported.
This comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that the city of Mariupol has been “reduced to ashes” by Russian airstrikes.
Russian officials have denied targeting civilians, while the Biden administration on Wednesday formally accused Russia of committing war crimes.
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Reuters
Mariupol says 15,000 deported from besieged city to Russia
March 24, 2022
FILE PHOTO: Local residents queue for humanitarian aid in the besieged southern port of Mariupol
LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – Ukrainian authorities in besieged Mariupol said on Thursday about 15,000 civilians had been illegally deported to Russia since Russian forces seized parts of the southern port city.
Ukrainian officials say civilians trapped in Mariupol, which is normally home to about 400,000 people, face a desperate plight without access to food, water, power or heat.
Local authorities said on Sunday that thousands of residents had been taken by force across the border but did not provide a more precise figure. Russian news agencies said at the time that buses had carried several hundred people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.
“Residents of the Left Bank district are beginning to be deported en masse to Russia. In total, about 15,000 Mariupol residents have been subjected to illegal deportation,” Mariupol city council said in a statement issued on Thursday.
Russia denies targeting civilians in what President Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Ukraine and the West say Putin launched an unprovoked war of aggression.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told a video briefing that Ukrainian authorities were continuing efforts to secure agreement from Russia to open a safe corridor to and from Mariupol.
Each side has blamed the other for the repeated failure to agree on arrangements to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, control of which would help Russia secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address to Italy’s parliament on Tuesday that there was “nothing left” in Mariupol after weeks of Russian bombardment.
A Reuters team that reached a Russian-controlled part of Mariupol on Sunday described a wasteland of charred apartment blocks and bodies wrapped in blankets lying by a road.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Writing by Timothy Heritage, Editing by Nick Macfie)
Fears of nuclear war have been exacerbated during the conflict. Shortly after the outbreak of war in February, Putin placed Moscow’s nuclear forces on “high alert” and began drills of its nuclear submarine fleet.
And today, Russia upped the rhetoric again, with Dmitry Polyanskiy, the Russian deputy ambassador to the UN, warning Moscow reserved the right to deploy nuclear weapons if “provoked”.
Asked if Putin was right to hold the prospect of nuclear war over the rest of the world, Polyanskiy told Sky News: “If Russia is provoked by Nato, if Russia is attacked by Nato, why not, we are a nuclear power.
“I don’t think it’s the right thing to be saying. But it’s not the right thing to threaten Russia, and to try to interfere.
Dmitry Polyanskiy, the Russian deputy ambassador to the UN, spoke to Sky News.(Sky News)
“So when you’re dealing with a nuclear power, of course, you have to calculate all the possible outcomes of your behaviour.”
Polyanskiy did not detail what provocation from other countries would look like.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS), which compiles the list of the world’s nuclear weapons, says Russia has a total inventory of 5,977 nuclear warheads. This includes stockpiled and retired warheads.
Of that figure, 1,588 are deployed strategic warheads on ballistic missiles and at bomber bases.
Another 2,889 of Russia’s warheads are non-deployed or reserve weapons. Added together, this gives a military stockpile total of 4,477 nuclear warheads.
Russia has conducted more than 25 test launches of its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can be loaded with nuclear warheads, in the past five years. It plans a further 10 test launches this year, a “significant increase in test frequency”, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reports.
Polyanskiy’s warning comes as the leaders of Nato member countries gathered in Brussels for an emergency summit to discuss the latest situation a month on from the start of the Russian invasion.
The Nato meeting, which was addressed remotely by Mr Zelenskyy, signed off on the formation of four new battlegroups in eastern Europe.
Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said the battlegroups – each numbering between 1,000 and 1,500 troops – would be deployed in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Is said to be angry at Ukrainians who wish to join Nato – which accounts for 80% (Getty)
The alliance already has 40,000 troops in Europe under its direct command, nearly 10 times the number it had a few months ago.
Nato has so far refused to get directly involved in military engagement with Russia, denying Ukraine’s request to enforce a no-fly zone above its airspace.
Russia began its invasion of Ukraine a month ago, and despite Western intelligence claiming Putin had expected to take over in a matter of days, they have yet to take over key cities.
A view of the aftermath of the Retroville shopping mall following a Russian shelling attack which killed Eight people on March 21, 2022 in Kyiv. (Getty)Putin’s spokesperson has admitted the invasion of Ukraine had “not achieved” anything yet.(Getty)
Dmitry Peskov also denied claims Putin was “angry” at Ukrainians, saying that sentiment only applied to Ukrainians who wished to join Nato – believed to account for 80% of the country.
Speaking to CNN, Peskov admitted the invasion of Ukraine had “not achieved” anything yet.
Peskov said: “Of course, no one would think from the very beginning about a couple of days. It’s a serious operation with serious purposes.”
He added that the “special military operation” was “going on strictly in accordance with the plans and the purposes that were established beforehand”
“TACS” is the common shorthand for smaller and “smarter” tactical nuclear weapons. Some are even equipped with a “Dial-A-Yield” function, that can regulate the size of the bomb’s destruction. For some military analysts, this makes the unthinkable prospect of nuclear war almost thinkable.
One might surmise from the euphemistic verbiage: “Tactical nukes—that couldn’t be that bad. Maybe it’s just the future of war we’d have to adjust to.” Well, think again.
“They’re more similar than you might expect in terms of their destructiveness,” Pollack told The Daily Beast. “Even this small nuke is extremely destructive depending on where you drop it. It would be a very large explosion that would generate an electro-magnetic pulse, and it would probably start fires.”
Maybe it’s just rhetoric, nuclear blackmail, but if Putin does the unthinkable, asked Pollack, “How do we respond in a way that avoids Armageddon?”
Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, said, “The reason these weapons are called tactical, they’re more likely to be used on the battlefield.”
“The Russians started it,” Korb continued, referring to Russia’s “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine, “and the argument was if we had them, they would counter-balance the Russians.” Nuclear weapons are meant to keep the enemy guessing, said Korb, and “if [Putin] goes nuclear, he doesn’t know how we will respond.” Would Biden—or the world—accept tit for tat nuclear strikes on civilian population centers?
The answer is almost certainly: No. Whatever it’s called in the moment, history will remember it as “World War III.”
“The TACs are new, they weren’t there during the Cold War,” Korb added. “We just had the big ones. In theory, the U.S. would not respond with a big one, but you don’t know that. If Putin launches one with a smaller yield, he doesn’t know if we will respond using a strategic weapon. That’s deterrence. He doesn’t know that, and we want to keep him not knowing that.”
Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired U.S. Army colonel and chief of staff to the late Colin Powell, said the U.S. military—prodded by a lucrative niche nuclear industry—“almost simultaneously” moved toward modernizing TACs just as the Russians did.
“Each side blamed the other,” he said. The Russians in 2013-2014 conducted military exercises to practice using small yield nukes to blunt an attack from NATO, escalating the likelihood that these weapons would eventually be used.
Wilkerson ridiculed the notion that there’s any real difference with a smaller yield TAC. “You see the plume, you don’t know whether it’s tactical or strategic,” he said, and a commander is going to hit back hard rather than wait for an after-attack assessment.
“We’re back in a time I thought we’d left behind, that we’d learned our lessons,” Wilkerson continued. “I’ve watched [Putin] for a long time. He’s a pragmatic, practical man. I don’t care what kind of a beast you think he is…he hasn’t gone from master chess player to being mad, which is what you’d have to be to do this [use nuclear weapons]. But I can’t rule it out, especially as a false flag. It shouldn’t come to this.”
Wilkerson maintains that nuclear war must be avoided at all costs, crediting President Biden with resisting the political pressure to impose a no-fly-zone over the skies of Ukraine. “If 45 million Ukrainians have to be sacrificed on the altar of no nuclear war, I’m for it. It’s not worth saving any state if it means blowing up 7 billion people” he said.
Joseph Mazur, professor emeritus at Marlboro College, wonders how much the average American knows about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For a piece on “The Madness of Nuclear Threats,” published in Psychology Today’s online blog, Mazur conducted an informal (but telling) survey.
Mazur questioned 12 adults and four teenagers, none of them experts, on what happened to Hiroshima after the U.S. dropped “the bomb.” They knew what happened in broad terms, but had little inkling of the extent of human suffering and destruction. The adults guessed that the “Little Boy” bomb dropped over Hiroshima killed between 1,000 and 25,000 people. The teens guessed 5,000. In reality, the atom bomb destroyed five square miles of the city and killed between 130,000 and 225,000 people.
“Today, the tiniest tactical nuclear weapon is capable of destruction far worse than what happened in Hiroshima,” Mazur wrote. “Even if just one ‘small’ nuclear weapon were to be launched in the current conflict, there would not be enough therapists in the world to deal with the mental health trauma that would come from watching the aftermath in real-time.”
Putin announced last month he was putting Russian nuclear forces into “special combat readiness,” which set off an understandable frenzy about what Putin might do next to save himself from humiliating military losses. “As far as we can tell, they haven’t moved any systems,” said Pollack. “There are more people on duty, but more people in command centers shouldn’t be that alarming.”
Pressed on Putin’s intentions, Pollack answered, “I don’t think he’s inclined to [use TACs] while he’s busy mauling Ukraine’s cities with heavy weapons. Proponents of TACS say we have to be prepared in order to deter nuclear war, and I would say, what do we do if deterrence fails?”
“The Trump administration in 2018 wanted an extra option if the Russians used a small one against us and we would not respond because we only have the big one. I don’t buy this,” added Pollack. “Nobody will care about actual kilotons but everyone in the world would know if a nuclear weapon was used.”
Biden, as a presidential candidate in 2019, was asked about new low-yield warheads. He responded, “Bad idea,” adding that having these would make presidents “more inclined to use them.” That was the right answer for these times.
There is still hope to preserve an uneasy deterrence, and to keep Putin wondering about Biden—at least as much as Biden wonders about him.
Russian ruble loses key lifeline as US sanctions target Putin’s $140 billion gold stockpile
Carla Mozée – March 24, 2022
Vladimir Putin holds a gold bar during a January 2011 visit to the Central Depository of the Bank of Russia while serving as Russia’s prime minister.Alexsey Druginyn/AFP via Getty Images
The US Treasury Department has prohibited gold transactions with Russia under executive orders from President Joe Biden.
Any sales of Russia’s $140 billion gold stockpile could help bolster the beleaguered ruble.
The ruble dropped below a penny vs. the US dollar after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
Gold transactions between Americans and Russia are prohibited, according to a US Treasury Department notice that cited executive orders signed by President Joe Biden.
The notice marks a setback for Russia’s currency, which could be bolstered by sales of the country’s massive gold stash. The beleaguered ruble has tumbled as the US and Western allies issue economic and financial bans on Russia for launching a war against Ukraine last month.
“U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in any transaction — including gold-related transactions — involving the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation, or the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation,” the Treasury Department said Thursday in its Frequently Asked Questions section about financial sanctions on its website.
Russia holds the world’s fifth-largest gold stockpile. Its holding of roughly 2,300 tons of the precious metal was recently valued at nearly $140 billion. The country has been building its gold stockpile with the aim of it acting as an economic insurance policy for the country.
Gold demand within Russia has been strong as residents seek to protect their wealth from the sliding ruble. The Russian currency dropped below 1 cent against the US dollar after Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin ordered the attack after months of amassing troops on Ukraine’s border.
The ruble has dropped about 26% this year against the greenback, while gold prices have risen more than 7% during 2022.
