5. In March, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also recorded a total of 12 medical facilities and 32 educational facilities destroyed or damaged. 7/
6. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was attacked for the first time since November 2022. Russia accuses Ukraine, Ukraine accuses Russia of the attacks 8/ bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the top U.S. military commander in Europe, warned that Ukraine could lose the war with Russia if the U.S. does not send more ammunition to Ukrainian forces quickly. 9/
7. Frontline Ukrainian forces are rationing artillery shells due to lack of a reliable Western supplier, allowing Russian troops to outfire them 5-to-1, a ratio that could soon increase to 10-to-1 without additional U.S. aid. 10/
8. Russia has reconstituted its army faster than initial U.S. estimates, increasing frontline troop strength by 15% to 470,000 and expanding the conscription age limit. Russia plans to expand its military to 1.5 million troops. 11/
9. Russian missile attacks on Ukraine's energy system, bombardment of Kharkiv, and advances along the front are stoking fears that Ukraine's military is nearing a breaking point. 12/
Western officials say Ukraine is at its most fragile moment in over two years of war.
Ukrainian officials don’t comment on the “breaking point” but increasingly voice alarming pleas for weapons and air defense 13/
There is a risk of Ukrainian defense collapse which could enable Russia to make a major advance for the first time since the early stages of the war. The next few months will be Ukraine's toughest test. 14/
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged his country's allies to make good on their promises of military aid on Thursday, particularly in the form of desperately needed air defence systems as Russia scales up its air strikes 15/
So, in short, Ukraine is running out of air defense and weapons, and Russia is taking advantage of it.
Russia can break through unless the West overcomes its political infighting and dysfunctionality to provide support to Ukraine
16/
Democracies are messy, I often hear, but it is the best system. True, but this mess currently makes democracies unable to effectively address Russian threat. It looks more and more like a lack of leadership rather than the usual weakness of democracies. 17X
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Kyiv School of Economics advocates another way to hit Russian oil revenues: completely blocking oil tankers from key sea routes and ports unless they have proper international P&I insurance — Brookings
This would cut Russia’s oil export tax revenues from the Baltic by 5.6–14% 1/
If a tanker is stopped, the pressure shifts to the country whose flag it sails under.
Russia registers its tankers in poor states and insures them there.
If the EU forces those states to enforce real insurance rules, former flag countries won’t give these ships insurance.
2/
This is also beneficial for Europe.
Currently, if an accident with a tanker from shadow fleet occurs, European taxpayers pay for it. In a new approach, the tanker will simply not be allowed to go to sea.
But if an accident does occur, the country of registration will pay.
3/
In 2017, after pressuring a Russian model for nude photos, he abruptly wrote, “My Russian ambassador friend… just died in New York.”
He meant Vitaly Churkin, Putin’s UN envoy — a close Epstein contact, Times. 1/
Churkin held coffee meetings with Epstein.
Sergei Belyakov, Russian deputy economy minister and FSB academy graduate, called Epstein a very good friend, sought multi-entry visas for him, and pitched him as a channel for US investment into Russia. 2/
Epstein claimed he had FSB backing.
After a Russian model allegedly tried to blackmail businessmen, he wrote that friends in the FSB warned threats would be dealt with extremely harshly. 3/
Russia abducted Ukrainian journalist Yana Suvorova in occupied Melitopol when she was 18.
After a closed, staged trial, she was sentenced to 14 years for “terrorism” and “treason.” Her case is classified. She vanished from exchange lists, United24. 1/
Yana: “The cell is cold. Rats run around. The light is on constantly.”
Her boyfriend says her condition collapsed after transfer to Donetsk — held with girls who had attempted suicide. Psychological pressure was constant. 2/
Russia is prosecuting journalists as “terrorists” — to erase them from prisoner swaps.
By reclassifying Ukrainian media workers as terrorists, Moscow locks them out of exchanges, hides them from public view, and sentences them to decades in prison. 3/
The Davydenko family in Kyiv is escaping the cold together with their 7 pigs. Their apartment drops to -2°C, but leaving the city would feel like a gift to Putin, they say — Reuters. 1/
Russian strikes on Ukraine’s power grid left their 12th-floor apartment without electricity for 8 days and without heating for nearly 2 weeks.
Night temperatures fell to -20°C. Sleeping there became impossible. 2/
So the family moved with 3 children, 2 cats, 2 dogs, and 7 pigs into their own business — Piggy Cafe Kyiv.
A generator provides power. Heating still works. At night, they roll out mattresses on the floor. 3/
Germany broke up a network supplying Russia’s defense industry.
Police arrested 5 suspects accused of exporting sanctioned goods to Russian military firms. The network shipped €30M worth of goods since 2022 — Reuters. 1/
German prosecutors say the group used shell companies and fake end-users inside and outside the EU to hide shipments to 24 Russian defense firms.
Raids took place in multiple cities, assets were frozen, and 5 more suspects remain at large. 2/
An asset freeze has been ordered against the equivalent value of the transactions.
Finance minister Lars Klingbeil: “Today's operations, ordered by federal prosecutors, show that we rigorously enforce the sanctions we have agreed on the EU level.” 3X
Kyiv will get just four to six hours of electricity a day in February.
Russia launched the largest attack on Ukraine's power grid since the start of the year during severe cold. Two key substations hit, while temperature was -13 degrees — New York Post. 1/
Stanislav Ihnatiev, head of the Ukrainian Renewable Energy Association: Damage to substations of this class is a strategic blow to the entire energy system.
These facilities ensure the distribution of large amounts of power on a national scale. 2/
Frequent attacks make repairs nearly impossible. Emergency power cuts introduced during Ukraine's coldest winter in a decade.
Ihnatiev: “Restoration of unique equipment will take months or years.” 3X