Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 04-03-2024

Europe and the US have huge plans for future production, but the critical bit is that it will be at least a month before emergency buys like this Greek ammo reach Kyiv’s gunners in quantity.

Greece will become a key supplier of shells in a Czech Republic initiative to get emergency deliveries of artillery worth around $1.9 billion to Ukraine, news reports said on Tuesday.

The munitions will come from Greek army warehouses and their transfer to Ukraine, costing about $156 million, will be reimbursed by other nations, said Minister of Defense Ioannis Kefalogiannis in a briefing to the parliament standing committee on Armament Programs and Contracts, Doureios news reported.

The detention of Artem Shylo by NABU detectives could have big consequences for the Ukrainian President’s Office.

The detention of a former advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Office on embezzlement charges could have reverberations.

Kyiv Post sources within law enforcement agencies confirmed that Artem Shylo – a freelance adviser to the presidential office from 2021 to 2022 – was arrested for allegedly leading a group that embezzled Hr.94.7 million ($2.4 million) from Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukrainian Railways) through the purchase of transformers at inflated prices.

Asia expert, Alina Hrytsenko, Chief Consultant for the National Institute for Strategic Studies interviewed by Kyiv Post Chief Editor Bohdan Nahaylo.

Ukraine's Military Intelligence earlier suggested that the Kremlin would try to exploit the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall to whip up support for its war in Ukraine.

Russia is preparing to deploy an additional 300,000 troops to Ukraine by June 1, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb, as reported by RBC-Ukraine.

“We don't need half a million. The corresponding number that was not at the front - they will be at the front. As for the exact number, I am not ready to say how many will be mobilized,” Zelensky said.

According to Kyiv Post sources in Ukraine’s parliament, for now, it’s impossible to predict any terms and conditions of approval of US aid to Ukraine by the House of Representatives.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, announced on Sunday that he will submit for consideration a bill with more than $60 billion in aid to Ukraine after the Easter recess, which ends on April 9.

However, the package may include “some important innovations,” among which Johnson mentioned the credit terms and the possibility of using frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine’s recovery.

When asked by a journalist whether the United States would promise that Kyiv would never fall into Russian hands, Blinken said: “I am convinced we already have.”

Russia will never be able to conquer Ukraine, including Kyiv, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said during an interview with Darius Rochebin of the French news channel LCI/TF1 on Tuesday April 2.

Asked by the journalist whether the United States could promise that Kyiv would never fall into Russian hands, Blinken said: “I am convinced we already have.  In other words, it is not happening, it’s never going to happen”.

He put forward proposals to move away from the strategy of drawing clear red lines in respect of the war in Ukraine, as done by the US, to prevent conditions in which the conflict could escalate.

French President Emmanuel Macron held confidential discussions with US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in February, which he hoped would influence the West's stance on Russia's war against Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.

According to the report, during those talks, Macron advocated for a policy of strategic ambiguity towards Russia, arguing that it would keep all options open for the Western nations.

Diplomats and officials have said that Stoltenberg has proposed creating a 100-billion-euro ($108 billion) fund to help arm Ukraine in its fight with Russia.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that alliance members must guarantee long-term weapon deliveries for Ukraine, as ministers discussed a proposal for a 100-billion-euro, five-year fund.

"Ukraine has urgent needs," Stoltenberg said as NATO foreign ministers met in Brussels. "Any delay in providing support has consequences on the battlefield as we speak. So we need to shift the dynamics of our support."

Andriy Yusov, a Ukrainian Intel spokesperson, said that if Russians want to fight terrorists, they should get rid of autocrat Vladimir Putin.

The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed Wednesday that more Russians are signing military contracts to fight in Ukraine in order to avenge the March 22 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack – an attack carried out by the Islamic State, but which the Kremlin has attempted to pin on Ukraine – where it has been conducting a full-scale invasion since Feb. 24, 2022.

“In Moscow and other Russian cities, the number of people willing to enlist in the Russian Armed Forces under contract has significantly increased,” the Russian Defense Ministry posted on Telegram, on April 3.

April to May 2023 – Attacks on energy infrastructure continued, but emphasis now seems to be stepping up attacks on civilian communities near the borders of Ukraine.

Please find the previous parts of the digest below:

February to March 2022

Skeptical that Ukraine had the ability to strike targets more than 1,200 kilometers away, Russian social media and politicians accused the Kazakhs of facilitating the strikes.

Sources from Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR) confirmed to Kyiv Post on Tuesday that its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), drones, had targeted a Shahed kamikaze drone assembly facility in Yelabuga and an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, both in Tatarstan, more than 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) from Ukraine.

By Tuesday afternoon many in Russia were voicing the opinion that Ukraine lacked the technical ability to launch an attack over such a distance. This despite the frequent announcements by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mikhail Fedorov that Ukraine has built drones capable of flying in excess of 1,000 kilometers.

That skepticism was summed up by Lt.-Gen. Andrei Gurulev, a member of the Russian Duma’s defense committee in a post on his Telegram channel, who seemed convinced that Ukraine could have only done it with help from elsewhere.

Russia is reportedly outproducing the West in ammunition and weapons production for its war in Ukraine. How can the West enhance its industrial base and aid Ukraine to gain the upper hand?

Ukrainian forces and volunteer battalions have worked hard to defend their country against Russian aggression.

During the first year of the war, the Ukrainians protected their capital. They forced the Russians out of central and northern Ukraine. The Ukrainians defended major cities such as Chernihiv and Sumy in the north and Kharkiv in the east. They protected Odesa in the south, and they liberated Kherson from Russian occupation.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

The aid group World Central Kitchen said Tuesday that it is pausing its efforts to feed Palestinians in Gaza after seven of its workers were killed by an Israeli strike. The nonprofit said in a statement that the team was hit while leaving a warehouse where they had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza by sea, a route that World Central Kitchen helped establish just last month. The organization said the convoy had been traveling in a deconflicted zone, in armored cars branded with their logo and after coordinating movements with Israel's military, which now says it will conduct an investigation of the incident "at the highest levels." Erin Gore, the CEO of World Central Kitchen, called it a "targeted attack…This is unforgivable. This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war," she said. The U.S.-based organization, which was founded by celebrity chef José Andrés and his wife Patricia in 2010, delivers food to people on the front lines of natural and humanitarian disasters around the world. ‪The seven staff killed in Gaza are from Australia, Poland, United Kingdom, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, and Palestine, the nonprofit said - NPR

Nato is drawing up plans to secure a five-year military aid package of up to $100bn, in an attempt to shield Ukraine from “winds of political change” that could usher in a second Trump presidency. The so-called Mission for Ukraine proposal, which will be discussed by Nato foreign ministers on Wednesday, is being put forward by the secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg. According to five alliance diplomats briefed on the plan, it would co-ordinate an estimated $100bn in support committed by the 32 members of the military alliance. Stoltenberg has pitched the proposal as a means “to shield the mechanism against the winds of political change”, according to people briefed on his remarks. If approved, it would also give the alliance control of the US-led Ramstein weapons support group and allow it to manage the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. The Norwegian secretary-general, who will step down from his role this autumn, is aiming to reach agreement before the Nato leaders’ summit in Washington in July. “This will be crossing a Rubicon. Nato will have a role in co-ordinating lethal support to Ukraine,” said one of the diplomats. “I see consensus emerging and I think it will be there by the time we get on the plane to Washington.” - FT

Unnamed US officials said the Russian government was told that the concert venue was a possible terrorist target more than two weeks before it happened.

US officials had shared highly specific information with Russia about the March 22 Crocus City terrorist attack two weeks earlier, which could have prevented it, according to a Washington Post report published Tuesday. The specificity of the information would belie repeated assertions by the Kremlin’s security advisors that the warning was too general to act upon.

Alexander Bortnikov, director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said the information provided by US agencies was only of “a general nature.” On April 2, the head of Moscow’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) maintained that the warnings had “not been specific.”

Officials and diplomats said the proposal was for NATO's 32 countries to contribute to the fund according to the size of their economy.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has proposed creating a 100-billion-euro ($108-billion), five-year fund for Ukraine in a push to get the alliance more involved in sending weapons to Kyiv, officials said Tuesday.

NATO foreign ministers will hold preliminary talks on the plan in Brussels Wednesday as they seek to forge a support package for Ukraine by a July summit in Washington.

The move addresses Ukraine's urgent need for additional troops as the war with Russia has taken a heavy toll and a new mobilization bill languishes in parliament.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has approved a law to lower the army mobilization age from 27 to 25, the parliament announced on Tuesday, March 2.

This move addresses Ukraine's urgent need for additional troops as the war with Russia entered its third year and has taken a heavy toll on the country's military resources.

Oddly, Zelensky signed the bill only almost a year after it was adopted by parliament.

Atesh partisans told Kyiv Post that the underground had infiltrated the Pusk Research and Production Complex and obtained documentation for a ship’s sighting device.

Atesh partisans told Kyiv Post that a member of the underground had infiltrated the Pusk Research and Production Complex and obtained a number of documents, including the finished technical documentation for the updated UV-450-01 ship sighting device. 

The device is designed for observation and targeting. It contributes to maritime operations by improving situational awareness and target detection capabilities.

Dnipro is a city in central Ukraine on the river of the same name. It has been a target for deadly Russian attacks.

Ukraine on Tuesday said a Russian missile strike on its central city of Dnipro wounded at least 18 people, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying rescue efforts were underway after a college and kindergarten were hit.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law on April 2 that lowers the Ukrainian military’s mobilization age from 27 to 25 years of age.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on April 2 that Russian forces seized about 400 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in the first three months of 2024 — a rate of advance not necessarily reflective of wider Russian offensive prospects due to the impact of US security assistance delays.
• Ukraine conducted long-range unidentified unmanned aerial systems (UAS) strikes against Russian military production and oil refinery infrastructure in the Republic of Tatarstan, over 1,200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address at the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) board meeting on April 2 illustrated Russia’s dissonant response to the March 22 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack as Russian authorities simultaneously pursue law enforcement actions against migrant communities while also baselessly implicating Ukraine. Putin also attempted to address intensified debates about migration that have emerged following the Crocus City Hall attack but continued to express an inconsistent and vague stance on the issue.
• Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi stated on April 2 that the GUR believes that Russian forces will likely temporarily pause strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in order to replenish low missile stockpiles.
• US sanctions against Russia continue to impact Russian financial ties to post-Soviet countries, as Kyrgyzstan’s national payment system Elkart announced on April 2 that it would stop processing transactions using the Russian “Mir” payment system to prevent secondary sanctions.
• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reportedly proposed a NATO aid package that would send $100 billion of military assistance to Ukraine over five years.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kreminna and Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on April 2.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated on April 2 that the Russian military intends to finish and deploy several newly constructed small missile and patrol ships in 2024.
• The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) is increasing its law enforcement presence in occupied Ukraine in order to intensify Russian control over Ukrainian civilians and strengthen security over critical infrastructure.