Running Newsticker for the War in Ukraine

Ukraine Conflict Updates
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 1, 2023

Click here to read the full report.
Key Takeaways

• Russian, Ukrainian, and Western sources observed that the Russian winter offensive has failed to achieve the Kremlin’s goals of seizing all of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by March 31.
• Growing Russian speculation about Russian military command changes likely indicates that Russia may soon reshuffle its senior military command due to the failed winter offensive.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Russian forces did not make any confirmed gains in or around Bakhmut and continued offensive operations along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City frontline.
• Russian forces continued to build defenses in occupied southern Ukraine.
• Russia began its semi-annual conscription on April 1, the largest conscription call-up since 2016.
• Russian occupation officials continue to deport Ukrainian children to Russia under rest-and-rehabilitation schemes.
• Russian nationalist figures criticized Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for failing to pursue the Union State between Russia and Belarus efforts since mid-1990s. . . . .

Russia continues to face shortages of trainers necessary to prepare its forces for combat. A Russian milblogger agreed with other milbloggers that Russia is not offering sufficient sapper training to mobilized personnel.[49] The milblogger proposed that the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia) should train mobilized personnel elementary sapper skills.

Wagner Group continues to recruit mercenaries across Russia. A Wagner employment account posted a recruitment ad seeking contract servicemen, signals personnel, systems and drone operators, and medical staff.[50] A Russian milblogger also amplified a purported Wagner recruitment ad on an adult entertainment site.[51] . . . .

 

Sky News
Ukraine war - latest updates: 'Extremely high' number of Russian troop deaths linked to alcohol abuse - is Moscow ...



Ukraine war passes 400 days as Russia suffers major losses in Bakhmut



Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian forces affected by alcohol consumption, says

 

Yes, but digging halfway to China will keep the Russian working class distracted from what is becoming an increasingly inconvenient truth about Putin's "48 hour war". Russia is still the "forced workers paradise" -- right?

 

World
The Telegraph
War latest: Ukraine publishes plan to recapture Crimea and expel Russians

 

World
The New Voice of Ukraine
Kremlin mouthpiece suggests Russians take out Putin, Tsymbaliuk says

 

A year ago would have been better.

"As an artist, as a brand, as a rapper, as a musician, you know you got a window and a lot of people, even an athlete; they don't have no exit strategy. It's just living in the false reality that it's going to be like this forever." Nipsey Hussle

 

I'm sorry, but where do you get information about the fact that Russia is a country of forced laborers? Perhaps this is practiced in Korea or Japan, but in Russia a person is completely free and can quit his job at any time. I cannot deny that in villages where there is no other job, an employee is limited in his desires and cannot get another job, but he can always quit!

 

Tiny statue explodes, killing Russian blogger in cafe

An explosion tore through a St. Petersburg cafe, killing a prominent military blogger who had supported the fighting in Ukraine and injuring at least 25 others, officials said.

Woman reportedly handed him the device »

 

Ukraine Conflict Updates
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, April 2, 2023

Click here to read the full report.
Unknown actors killed Russian milblogger Maksim Fomin in a deliberate and targeted attack during an event in a St. Petersburg bar reportedly belonging to Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin on April 2. Social media footage showed Fomin receiving a statue as a gift from a female audience member who introduced herself as a sculptor moments before the explosion.[1] Fomin was making a public presentation at the Street Food Bar #1 Café in downtown St. Petersburg. Russian authorities reported that the explosion killed Fomin and wounded 30 audience members who had gathered to listen to Fomin discuss his experience as a frontline correspondent.[2] The event was advertised as open to the public and had approximately 100 attendees. Prigozhin confirmed that he had offered his Street Food Bar #1 Café to the Russian ultranationalist movement “Kiber Front Z,” to hold Fomin’s event and other nationalist gatherings.[3] Witnesses stated that the woman who presented the statue to Fomin identified herself as Nastya and told the audience that the event’s security asked her if there was a bomb inside the statue during a Q&A session.[4] Witnesses noted that there was no security when entering the event, however, and that the explosion occurred within three to five minutes after the exchange between Fomin and the woman.[5] Russian Interior Ministry sources told Russian state media that the explosive may have remotely detonated and that the woman or other unknown individuals may have been responsible for this attack.[6] Russian state media published unconfirmed information that Russian police detained St. Peterburg resident Daria Trepova, who had previously been arrested for anti-war protests in February 2022.[7] Russian Interior Ministry sources also revealed that Russian special services had known about assassination plans against Fomin for a long time. . . . .

Key inflections in ongoing military operations on April 2:

• Russian forces continued limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line.[27] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces made marginal gains northwest of Kreminna.[28]
• Russian forces continued to attack Bakhmut and its environs.[29] Russian forces likely seized the AZOM plant in northern Bakhmut as ISW has previously assessed. Ukrainian forces conducted a missile strike on the plant on April 2.[30]
• Russian forces continued to conduct ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.[31] Ukrainian Tavriisk Direction Forces Joint Press Center Spokesperson Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi stated that Russian forces retreated from unspecified positions in the Donetsk direction.[32]
• Ukrainian forces conducted a HIMARS strike against a rail depot in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, the third strike against the city in the past week.[33]
• The UK Ministry of Defense assessed that a significant minority of Russia’s 200,000 casualties in Ukraine are due to poor discipline and training outside of combat, including due to excessive alcohol consumption and mishandling of small arms.[34]
• Former Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) official Rodion Miroshnik denied ISW’s April 1 report citing Miroshnik that Russian authorities are deporting Ukrainian children to Russia under rest-and-rehabilitation schemes.[35] Miroshnik claimed that mothers and children from Horlivka, Donetsk Oblast went to Russian sanitoriums for medical treatment.[36] Miroshnik denied being closely affiliated with the current occupation regime, claiming that he has not served as advisor to the Head of the LNR for a year.[37] LNR People’s Militia Press Service called Miroshnik “advisor to the LNR Head” as recently as January 29, 2023, however.[38] Miroshnik claimed on his Telegram channel that he served as LNR Ambassador to Russia as recently as November 13, 2022.[39] . . . .

 

Terrorism is a terrible weapon.

 

Awww, darn. RIH, MF. Even though there is no such thing...

 

It's apparently Russian-on-Russian. From the link in # 6684:

Fomin’s assassination at Prigozhin’s bar is likely part of a larger pattern of escalating Russian internal conflicts involving Prigozhin and Wagner. Fomin had attended another event earlier in the day without incident, so it appears that the attack was deliberately staged in a space owned by Prigozhin.[19] Advisor to Ukrainian Presidential Office Mykhailo Podolyak stated that Fomin’s death was a result of antifighting and political competition among Russian actors.[20] Some Russian political analysts also speculated that Prigozhin was supposed to attend Fomin’s event, although there is no confirmation of that speculation.[21]

Fomin’s assassination may have been intended as a warning to Prigozhin, who has been increasingly questioning core Kremlin talking points about the war in Ukraine and even obliquely signaling an interest in the Russian presidency, whether in competition with Putin or as his successor.[22] Fomin’s biography and behavior bear a resemblance to Prigozhin’s as both became prominent ultranationalist figures after being imprisoned and receiving pardons.

 

World
Business Insider
Former Russian commander in Ukraine says Moscow was unprepared for a protracted war and is now 'heading for military defeat'

 

My source is Reuters and The Conversation.

“Over the past few weeks there have been a growing number of reports that Russia is recruiting workers and – according to some sources, using ***forced labour*** – to dig trenches and build fortifications in Crimea across areas they would be forced to defend were Ukraine to make the peninsula a major objective of its spring offensive.”


“Activity is mainly focused on the areas around the Isthmus of Perekop, a roughly 19-mile long stretch of land which connects Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland. Its strategic importance is obvious when you think there have been fortifications dug there on and off for 2,000 years.”
THE CONVERSATION, Ukraine recap: as spring arrives in Ukraine an offensive against Crimea could be on the cards, REUTERS/Toby Melville, Published: March 30, 2023 1.21pm EDT. (*** mine)
https://theconversation.com/ukraine...e-against-crimea-could-be-on-the-cards-203009

 

Firstly, this is an unusual situation. There was no forced labor in peacetime.
Secondly, I suspect that the correspondent has slightly shifted the emphasis. most likely, this is what is meant: enterprises are obliged to allocate some % of their employees to be sent to dig trenches. I personally can't imagine that, say, somebody would come to your home and forcibly take them away with the police for such work.

 

Really?
Forced labour was a way for the Soviet Union to imprison anyone for any reason, including, but not limited to, Germans, Polish, Asians, Muslim Soviets, as well as Jewish Soviets, or anyone who looked Jewish.

Forced labor in the Soviet Union - Wikipedia

The Russian correctional system will be reintroducing compulsory labor as a criminal punishment starting January 1, 2017. According to the provision, which was originally included in the criminal code in 2011 but postponed due to a lack of facilities, compulsory labor will be an alternative punishment to prison.Oct 13, 2016

Russia to Reintroduce Forced Labor as Criminal Punishment

 

....thoughts from Christo Grozev from Bellingcat on the zapped milblogger, Vladlen Tatarsky killed yesterday....

 

It would appear that the missile defense system doesn't work.

 

A web of trenches shows Russia fears losing Crimea
Satellite imagery provided to The Post by Maxar shows that Russia has recently built dozens of trenches across Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014.
By Adam Taylor, Júlia Ledur, Francesca Ebel and Mary Ilyushina

 

Forced labor has never been unusual in Russia, and certainly not under Putin.

“The cost of a human life in Russia is just 18,000 rubles (US$235). At least, that’s how much Anton Pogorelov was sold for in 2015 when he became a slave in a brick factory in Dagestan. Anton is one of 794,000 people living in conditions of modern slavery in the Russian Federation today. As a major site for domestic trafficking operations as well as international trade of trafficked persons, Russia is at the center of a global humanitarian crisis. Yet, President Vladimir Putin and others in the Russian government refuse to acknowledge the severity of trafficking within Russia’s borders.”
HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Human Trafficking: The Secret to Putin's Economy, By, 25.NOV.2020 9:00 AM.
https://hir.harvard.edu/putin-and-human-trafficking/

 

Well, the Russian military is certainly prepared for the most likely amphibious assault force -- the Baywatch Hawaii Commandos.

 

They were not imprisoned in the USSR "for whatever reason", do not invent it! Moreover, they did not conclude it just because the person was a German, a Jew or a Muslim. There has always been an accusation of some crime. Yes, in the thirties years there were a lot of accusations for political reasons, but even then they found some evidence of guilt (albeit fabricated). And by the way, oddly enough, there were cases when the court acquitted a person.

And in the rest of the years, the law was all the more strictly observed and evidence of guilt was necessarily collected - without proof, a person was found innocent and released. And you will remember your history and the times of McCarthyism and the persecution of Negroes up to the 60s. Don't you think anything was fabricated there?

As for forced labor - so these are prisoners! They are kept in prison forcibly. Let them work, atone for their guilt, rather than loafing in the cell. And if they offer work as an alternative to imprisonment, then I think everyone will gladly agree to such a replacement, but you have misrepresented and described it as if innocent people are being forced to work - they were simply stopped on the street and sent to work for a bowl of soup.

Sir, you're lying grossly. I do not know for what purpose, but by doing this you only worsen relations between Russia and the United States. And you will eventually reduce them to nuclear war

 

So it's in Dagestan! They are wild mountaineers there, they do not observe the law in those parts. These slavery is illegal and if the owners of the plant are found and police prove that they used slave labor, they will all be put in prison for a long time! And you have turned everything upside down and prove that this is the official Russian policy - the use of slave labor. Another similar thing can happen in Chechnya and probably in Altai. This is the "Wild West" of Russia.

I know the same stories about Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan - there is no law there at all and slavery is a common thing. They even dabbled in this under the USSR, but then at least the KGB caught such slaveholders. And when they became independent, then such a horror began to happen there!

 

The USSR is infamous for its use of forced labor and the mass liquidation of its own population. And as we can see now under Putin the two forced labor and mass extermination are often joint projects.

“How Russia Profits from Human Trafficking
While an estimated 90 percent of forced labor occurs in private industry, the Russian government is still the main beneficiary. The 2018 FIFA World Cup and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, both hosted in Russia, were significant sources of forced labor in the last decade. Preparations for the Winter Olympics brought an estimated 70,000 foreign workers to the Russian Federation, and many were forced to work in deplorable conditions and denied wages. Many of those who did receive wages were still left vulnerable to trafficking after the completion of their projects, as they were stranded in a foreign country and left to find their own way home. Despite this, both the 2018 World Cup and the 2014 Winter Olympics were significant sources of pride for the Russian Federation. First, these events gave the Russian economy a major boost. In addition, they were a source of pride, allowing Putin to show the world that Russia was once again a major player on the international stage. Little did “the world” know about the hundreds of thousands of people working in slavery to uphold that image.

The ties between human trafficking and the Russian economy go beyond just the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Twenty-five percent of Russia’s GDP on average comes from the shadow economy, but that number skyrockets to 60 percent in some regions and economic sectors. The very nature of shadow economy means that it’s impossible to know how much consists of human trafficking, but what we know about the number of persons trafficked in various industries can lead us to expect that forced labor is a major contributor.”
HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, Human Trafficking: The Secret to Putin's Economy, By, 25.NOV.2020 9:00 AM.
https://hir.harvard.edu/putin-and-human-trafficking/

 

Don't write nonsense - there is no slave labor and human trafficking in Russia! All such cases are criminal and the government is fighting against it.

There was no slave labor in the USSR either. Prisoners were forced to work for free, but not free people. Their work was always paid, maybe poorly paid.


Finally understand - you are mistaken in thinking that you are being written about Russia only the truth. You are lied to and often lied to. In Russia, many things are completely different, not as you imagine.