The best news today for Ukraine was Emmanuel Macron’s win over Marine Le Pen for France’s president, possibly by 16 points. The far-right, anti-NATO, anti-EU Le Pen has praised Adolf Hitler and admired Russian President Vladimir Putin although she toned down her rhetoric during her campaign. Le Pen owes over $10 million to Russian banks close to Putin and almost that much to the autocratic Hungary.
Orthodox Easter, the holiest holiday in Ukraine, saw no abatement in Russia shelling throughout south and east Ukraine. refused both a cease-fire and humanitarian corridors for the religious holiday, and services were moved to morning.
Violating the Geneva Convention, Russia plans to forcibly conscript civilians from the partly occupied regions of Kherson and Zapoizhzhia like Putin did in Russian-occupied Crimea and Donbas regions. Special monitoring mission staff members of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have also been detained in eastern Ukraine after the organization evacuated almost 500 international mission members.
A spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights said humanitarian law seems to be “tossed aside,” with “a horror story of violations perpetrated against civilians.” In one form of Russia’s vicious murders, forensic doctors found tiny metal arrows, fléchettes, in civilians buried in Bucha’s mass graves from shells fired by Russian artillery, an anti-personnel weapon widely used during the first world war. Each shell holds up to 8,000 fléchettes about 1.5 inches long that arc and bend into a hook on impact with the body. The four fins at the rear cause a second wound.
Satellite images show Russians hiding their “barbaric” war crimes by burying civilian bodies killed by shelling in new mass graves. Russian trucks take corpses from the streets of Mariupol. 12 miles away, and transport them to Manhush, a nearby village. Bodies of as many as 9,000 Ukrainian civilians are thrown into 100-foot-wide trenches.
The UN office reported 114 attacks on medical facilities “although the actual figure is likely to be considerably higher.” Spokesperson Ravina Shamdansi said:
“We estimate that at least 3,000 civilians have died because they couldn’t get medical care and because of the stress on their health amid the hostilities. This includes being forced by Russian armed forces to stay in basements or not being allowed to leave their homes for days or weeks.”
Mariupol, vital to Russia’s path to the Crimea and the Sea of Azov, is mostly rubble, over two-thirds of its 400,000 residents gone—evacuated, forcibly taken to Russia, or dead. Pleased by seeing the horrors, Putin told Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on television, “The work of the armed forces to liberate Mariupol has been a success. Congratulations.” A few thousand people, including children, remain in the basements and tunnels of the four-square-mile steel plant along the coastline, imprisoned until they die of illness, starvation, or thirst.
Mariupol native and computer programmer Dmitry Cherepanov created Mariupol Life, a site to help people search for their missing loved ones, listing names, addresses, birth dates, and, if possible, last-known locations of missing individuals and photographs.
Putin desperately wants a win by Victory Day on May 9, celebrating the Soviet Union’s defeat of the Germans in World War II. Taking Mariupol gives him both a land bridge and a “success” for his propaganda—the first Ukrainian city to fall since he began his invasion. Seizing Mariupol gives Putin control of the Ukrainian coast on the Sea of Azov, blocking maritime trade “vital for the Ukrainian economy.” Mariupol’s metal industry accounted for one-third of Ukraine’s steel production in 2019.
According to Russian commander Rustam Minnekayev, Putin doesn’t plan to stop with taking over Ukraine. Minnekayev said that Russia wants “full control” of eastern and southern Ukraine as a path to taking over neighboring Moldova and perhaps beyond. Part of the plan is to take over Transnistria, a narrow, land-locked areas between Ukraine and Moldova. Capturing Odesa would give Putin far more control over the Black Sea.
Putin has said the invasion will continue until “full completion” but doesn’t define the term. Earlier, he claimed he didn’t plan to permanently occupy Ukrainian cities; now he’s intent on regime change. Putin also reneged on his claim that he wouldn’t continue shelling Mariupol. Yet he still maintains the “special military operation” is for national security and denies any atrocities or indiscriminate shelling.
In his “second phase” of invasion, Putin concentrates on severing the Donbas region, in eastern Ukraine, from the rest of Ukraine to create puppet Russian republics. Although Putin faces the same low morale from his troops, Russians may find the terrain easier—broad plains instead of streets and buildings for concealing Ukrainians and easier use of tanks and large missile systems. Donbas’ border with Russia allows easier supply lines than further inside Ukraine, and soldiers are more familiar with the territory. Residents were more sympathetic to Russia: before the war, 30 percent of them wanted to join Russia, and another ten percent wanted independence.
The new commander strategizes a pincer movement to crush Ukrainians in the east, moving south from the Kharkiv area and north from the coast near Mariupol before Russians move west. As always, Russians pound Ukrainians with heavy firepower. About 70 to 80 combat battalions, about 400 soldiers each, will try to execute a “double encirclement” of Ukrainian forces like Hannibal defeated the Roman army in 216 B.C. Or the Battle of Stalingrad when the Red Army broke through German lines in the decisive battle on the Eastern front. The German army called the tactic kesselschlacht, or “cauldron battle”; Russians want to make eastern Ukraine into a deadly cauldron.
The industrial heritage of Donbas of both heavy mining and steel-producing capacity and large coal reserves makes it desirable for Putin. The 2015 Minsk peace deal would have given the two eastern regions autonomy to regain Ukraine’s border with Russia, but Putin refused because he wanted to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty. Putin formally recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk republics three days before the invasion; Mariupol was one of the last urban areas in Donetsk not under his control. He is moving onto Izyum on the western border of Donbas before heading to occupy Popasna, between the two republics, move onto Izyum on the western border of Donbas. Last week, the Russians took Kreminna and called the remaining residents “hostages.”
Since the beginning of the invasion, Ukrainians have located and destroyed at least 31 Russian command and communication posts, killing ten or more generals, two of them in the attack on a command post near Russian-occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine that also critically wounded another general. Russians have a large supply of generals, but the casualties temporarily confuse units and make them vulnerable to a swift attack.
Ukraine now has more tanks in Ukraine than Russia does, partly because of contributions from the West but also from the capture of 212 functioning Russian tanks. Russia captured only 73 Ukrainian tanks. The Czech Republica donated many Soviet-era tanks and other war equipment. Russia lost about 3,000 armored vehicles in the 60 days of invasion but only half in combat. When vehicles run out of fuel or are abandoned, “it’s finder’s keepers for these farmers,” Ukrainian military expert Yuri Zbanatski said.
Two months ago, Putin thought “phase one” of the invasion would be an easy win. Russia suffers from the same problems as then—poorly maintained vehicles and Ukraine rapidly acquiring more tanks and heavy, longer-range artillery. Sympathy in Donbas for Russians may also wane as bombs drop on homes in the area.
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said sanctions are part of the reason that Russia hasn’t reached its goals. The U.S. placed sanctions this past week on the privately owned commercial bank Transkapitalbank (TKB) offering clients such as banks in China and the Middle East the ability to conduct their transactions through their own Internet-based banking system. This alternative to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) network allowed customers to process otherwise sanctioned U.S. dollar payments. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also targets companies in Russia’s virtual currency mining industry, including Bitriver, the third largest in the world. In addition, Russian-affiliated ships are no longer permitted to enter American ports.
Sanctioned Russian oligarchs and their families are also starting to die. Two cases this week in Spain and Russia “appear” to be murder-suicide: Sergey Protosenya was top manager of Russia’s energy giant Novatek, and Vladislav Avaev was a Gazprombank executive. Last month, billionaire Vasily Melnikov, his wife, and his sons were found dead. Russia’s largest single chemical plant, the Dmitrievsky Chemical Plant, went up in flames, and a fire broke out at the primary analytical center for Roscosmos, the Russian space program. Days earlier, a fire broke out at a research facility connected to both the Russian Ministry of Defense and Roscosmos and the design of Iskander missiles.
Sixty days after Putin promised Russian soldiers they would overcome Ukraine in a matter of hours, their casualties pile up, and Kremlin’s senior insiders are worried. Open criticism is not accepted, but high-ranking government and state-run business leaders look at the invasion as a catastrophic mistake as growing isolation and economic disaster will set the country back for years. They also worry about whether Putin will use his nuclear weapons if his “holy war” continues to fail. Putin continues his propaganda of winning, but empty grocery shelves, like this photo of Russian shelving for sanitary napkins, tell a different story.
Russia claims a successful launch of “Satan II,” the RS-28 Sarmat nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile to bull through the U.S. missile defense systems. More nuclear rattling.
Nel's New Day 