Note: I will be in a Human Rights Campaign board meeting all day today and tomorrow and will be off on Monday for my birthday, but I will publish my daily summary of the war in Ukraine from my FB page here on my substack through Monday. Here is Day 30’s summary. — Jay
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Day 30
NATO now estimates that between 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine after four weeks of fighting. By comparison, Russia lost about 15,000 troops over its entire 10 year war in Afghanistan.
Russia appears to have made little progress yesterday in its critical eastern flank assault and instead may have suffered some setbacks. The Ukrainian army reported taking down 130 troops, nine tanks, and six infantry vehicles along the eastern front yesterday alone. Ukraine's “East” Operational Tactical Group reportedly repelled five distinct attacks by Russian forces, while its navy claims it sunk a large Russian assault ship in the occupied port of Berdyansk in southeastern Ukraine. Videos posted to social media and reviewed by CNN showed a large fire and secondary explosions in the port.
At the NATO leaders summit held yesterday, President Biden said that Putin, “was banking on NATO being divided” but “is getting exactly the opposite what he intended to have, as a consequence of going into Ukraine.” At the summit, NATO agreed to greatly expand its defensive posture with four new battle groups along the eastern side of the alliance.
The US and the EU announced a major deal on liquified natural gas to reduce the continent’s dependence on Russian natural gas. By signed agreement, the US will provide the EU with around 10% of the gas it currently gets from Russia by the end of this year as the EU continues to cut Russian gas use. The new deal will supply an extra 15 billion cubic metres of gas on top of last year's 22 billion cubic metres.
The U.S. will accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, according to a senior state department official. “To meet this commitment, we are considering the full range of legal pathways to the United States and that includes U.S. refugee admissions program, parole and immigrant and non-immigrant visas,” the official told reporters. The U.S. will also donate $1 billion to help Europe with the surge of refugees out of Ukraine.
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. The vote passed overwhelmingly, underscoring Russia’s isolation. Drafted by France and Mexico, 140 countries voted in favor of blaming Russia for creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in Europe, demanding Moscow abide by laws protecting civilians and infrastructure and safe passage for humanitarian aid, and calling for an end to the war. Russia, Syria, North Korea, Eritrea and Belarus voted against the resolution. 38 countries abstained including China, India, South Africa, Iran and Pakistan.
The safety of President Zelenskyy is now a top concern among Western allies. The U.K. government stated that the Russian mercenary company known as Wagner Group was reportedly tasked with assassinating Zelenskyy. The U.K. announced sanctions against Wagner Group but didn’t provide any evidence or further details of the deadly assignment. A representative of Wagner Group’s alleged owner, the politically connected businessman and former restauranteur Yevgeny Prigozhin, called into question the Wagner Group’s very existence and said press questions about the U.K.’s claim represented “a severe psychosis of Western media.”
The whereabouts of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who hasn’t been seen publicly in over two weeks, remains unverified. A Kremlin spokesman said he was busy with Putin’s “special operation” in Ukraine. “Of course, now is not exactly the time for media activity. That’s completely understandable,” he added, dismissing reports of Shoigu’s undisclosed health problems. He claimed Shoigu had attended a recent meeting to brief Putin on the state of the war, though no video recording of such a meeting was released.
Longtime Putin adviser Anatoly Chubais abruptly resigned and left the country earlier this week, reportedly in protest of Ukraine war. The Kremlin played down the departure in comments to Russian media, claiming he was not a “direct employee of the presidential administration.” A Kremlin spokesperson told Komsomolskaya Pravda, “Listen, I honestly don’t understand why we are devoting so much time to this. Every day someone resigns from the administration, or new employees come. It’s a fairly large and lively mechanism.”
The Moscow Stock Exchange finally opened after four weeks of forced closure, and stocks sharply rose on initial trading. But this rise is likely wholly artificial. Foreign traders are not permitted to sell shares, all short sales are forbidden, and only certain companies can be traded. U.S. officials called the severely restricted market a "charade” as Russia made clear it would "pour government resources into artificially propping up the shares of companies that are trading." Said one U.S. deputy national security aide, “This is not a real market and not a sustainable model, which only underscores Russia's isolation from the global financial system.”
On orders from President Zelenskyy, the first exchange of war hostages took place. Ukraine exchanged 11 Russian sailors rescued from a sunken ship near Odesa for 19 Ukrainian sailors. The Ukrainians had been captured after their response to an attacking vessel demanding their surrender became a national rallying cry: “Russian warship, go f**k yourself.”
Sources:
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-kyiv-europe-nato-e35e54b40359e52f3ffd4911577b669a
https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-24-22/h_ccffcb69f4d3e25e7d3705933b02a759
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60871601
https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-accept-100000-ukrainian-refugees/story?id=83645980
https://nyti.ms/3ww6QEo
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/world/europe/un-general-assembly-russia-ukraine.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-says-russian-mercenary-group-aims-to-assassinate-ukraines-president-11648137870?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/sergei-shoigu-missing-russian-defense-minister-is-just-busy-with-many-concerns-kremlin-says
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-economy-stock-market-reopens/
Thank you for the updates. Happy early birthday. Cheers!
Thanks for the updates ! Happy Birthday to you Have a great day Jay !!