Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 04-09-2024

Shadowy supply chain funnels Starlink to adversaries & accused war criminals via backroom deals in Africa, SE Asia & UAE.

Russia has been working for around a year to deploy Starlink, the satellite-internet service developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, on the front lines in Ukraine and started using the terminals extensively earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

Despite banning Starlink, Russia has seen a surge in middlemen purchasing user terminals for Russian forces. This has challenged Ukraine's technological edge, as they also rely on these advanced devices.

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

UK foreign secretary David Cameron has held talks in Florida with Donald Trump, as London pushes to win support from the former president’s Republican allies in Congress for more Ukraine aid. Cameron’s talks with Trump, the presidential candidate, comes before he is due in Washington for meetings starting on Tuesday with Biden administration officials and Republican and Democratic lawmakers. He said before the trip he would urge Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Trump ally, to pass Ukraine funding, although there are no plans for the two to meet, according to people familiar with the matter. Johnson has refused to use his powers to call a vote in the lower chamber of Congress on new security funds, including $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, after pressure from Trump and lawmakers on the far-right flank of the Republican party. The Republican block on new funding from the US comes amid fears that Russia’s invading forces will capitalize on Ukraine’s diminishing firepower and slower supplies of Western ammunition to capture more territory. Johnson has been searching for a politically viable path to move the funds through Congress without inflaming far-right Trump allies and other Republicans who have taken a more isolationist stance on US foreign policy. Cameron had already indicated that he would lobby Johnson on the Ukraine funds – but securing Trump’s support first will be crucial. – FT

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday an undisclosed date for a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah has been set, even as the White House said its negotiators in Cairo had handed Hamas militants a proposal for a cease-fire and hostage-release deal. “Today, I received a detailed report on the talks in Cairo,” the Israeli leader said in Jerusalem. “We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas. “This victory requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen. There is a date,” he said. The US immediately rebuked Netanyahu. A Pentagon spokeswoman said, “We've been very clear that we don't support operations into Rafah…We want to see a credible plan for how they would conduct any operations there” given “substantial” humanitarian concerns about more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there, said deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh. “We have not seen their official plan put forward.” – VOA

A Slidstvo-Info investigative journalist who released an unflattering report on Vityuk, was approached in a Kyiv shopping mall on April 1 by military draft officials, sparking corruption accusations.

Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) suspended head of the cybersecurity department (DKIB) Illya Vityuk from his duties while the SBU investigates a report of possible corruption published by the Slidstvo-Info investigative news site last week, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

Kyiv Post reached out to Vityuk for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

Ukraine’s underground Center for National Resistance asserts that the Kremlin’s Rosmolodezh plans to indoctrinate Ukrainian children with Russian “Z” propaganda.

The underground Ukrainian partisan movement, the Center for National Resistance (CNR), called Russian plans to create a new ministry for youth policy and “patriotic” education “brainwashing.”

Russian media outlet Vedomosti reported on Moscow’s plans to create the new ministry on Tuesday, April 9.

Evacuating the high-tech tank out of no-man’s-land took three days and at one point soldiers had to carry a 70 kg tank battery more than a kilometer.

Troopers from the Ukrainian combat unit the Kremlin loves most to hate, the Azov Brigade, grabbed one of Russia’s most modern tanks and drove it off the battlefield in a high-risk combat raid.

Drone video published by the controversial unit, formally called the 12th “Azov” Special Purpose Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine, showed two Azov fighters clamber aboard an abandoned Russian T-72B3M tank, crank up its engine, and head for friendly lines.

The transfer last week came as Ukraine suffers from significant shortages of ammunition and US Republican lawmakers block new aid.

Washington has given Ukraine small arms and ammunition that were seized while being sent from Iranian forces to Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen, the US military said Tuesday.

The transfer last week came as Ukraine suffers from significant shortages of ammunition and US Republican lawmakers block new aid, but it does not address Kyiv's need for key items such as artillery and air defense munitions.

Seeking NATO membership for 32 years and facing Russian aggression for over a decade, Ukraine has undergone significant changes and contributed to the reconsideration of NATO’s original concepts.

April 4 marks the founding day of NATO. On this day in 1949, representatives of 12 countries, including the United States, Great Britain, France, Canada, Italy, and Norway, signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, which was ratified later the same year.

US President Harry Truman declared at the signing ceremony: “Men with courage and vision can still determine their own destiny. They can choose slavery or freedom – war or peace…”.

Borrell said Kyiv was asking its allies to urgently send seven Patriot missile systems to help counter Russian attacks.

Ukraine's Western backers are failing to give Ukraine the air defence systems it desperately needs to protect itself from Russian bombardments, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday.

Borrell said Kyiv was asking its allies to urgently send seven Patriot missile systems to help counter Russian attacks.

Norwegian investigations have discovered that said cottages, in close vicinity to Norwegian military bases, were owned by Russian elites with ties to the Kremlin.

Norwegian media have discovered that defense personnel from Norway and Sweden were renting cottages owned by Russian elites during March’s Nordic Response exercise.

The Nordic Response exercise, aimed to strengthen NATO’s northern flank defense, took place between March 3 and March 14 with 20,000 NATO troops from 13 nations participating. It was coordinated from the Norwegian town of Bardufoss. The base and cabins were in the vicinity.

The 80th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade said they used an aerial drone to track the Russian UAZ “Bukhanka” and watched a group of Russians unload the ammunition before blowing it up.

A Ukrainian brigade released a video on Telegram Monday, April 8 which they said shows them finding and destroying a supply of mines and ammo that a group of Russian soldiers had collected in the open air near the Donetsk region village of Klishchiivka.

NBU reserves are boosted by foreign aid.

Last week, the MoF took advantage of healthy demand and decreased interest rates in the primary bond market. In the secondary market, investors' demand concentrated in three-month and 12-month bills.At last week's primary auction, demand was the largest for 12-month bills, almost twice as large as the cap.

This allowed the MoF to decrease the cut-off rate by 10bp to 16.25%. The overall decrease in the rate reached 55bp since the NBU revised down its key policy rate and interest rates for CDs. For two-year bills, the Ministry lowered the cut-off rate by 10bp to 17.1% and rejected almost one-quarter of demand.

A Russian serviceman says that the Russian Defense Ministry conceals the true status of its soldiers in order to avoid paying them monetary compensation.

Moscow is concealing the fact that its soldiers have died at the front line in Ukraine to avoid compensating their beneficiaries, a Russian serviceman says in an intercepted telephone conversation published by Ukraine's Military Intelligence service (HUR) on Friday, April 5.

Lavrov arrived in China for a two-day official visit on Monday, with the two countries looking to deepen diplomatic ties as Russia's war in Ukraine grinds on.

China's top diplomat said Tuesday that Beijing would strengthen strategic cooperation with Moscow and that the two must stand on the side of "fairness and justice" as he met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Lavrov arrived in China for a two-day official visit on Monday, with the two countries looking to deepen diplomatic ties as Russia's war in Ukraine grinds on.

Kyiv Post's intelligence sources say Ukrainian drones attacked the training center in Russia’s Voronezh region and damaged the main production facility.

Ukraine’s attack drones hit an aviation training center in Russia’s Voronezh region on the night of April 9, Kyiv Post’s intelligence sources say.

Two drones struck the Borisoglebsk Chkalov Aviation Training Center in the Voronezh region of Russia.

A former minister in Russian-occupied Crimea serving a 10-year sentence for bribery said she has applied to take part in Russia’s war in Ukraine and is awaiting official Kremlin approval.

Vera (Arina) Novoselskaya, former minister of culture in occupied Crimea who is serving a 10-year sentence in Moscow for bribery, has applied to fight for Russia in Ukraine in a likely bid for a potential pardon.

According to a Moscow Public Monitoring Commission representative who visited Novoselskaya in prison, she submitted the application three months ago and “[hoped] that it will be considered in the near future,” as reported by Russian state media TASS. 

Last week, Macron slammed Russia's "bizarre and threatening" tone following a conversation between French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu.

France's foreign minister said Monday it was no longer in Paris's "interest" to talk to Russia after differing accounts emerged from a rare phone call about last month's deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall.

"It is not in our interest currently to hold discussions with Russian officials because the statements and the summaries issued about them are lies," Stephane Sejourne told broadcasters France24 and RFI.

Peter Pellegrini, who supports the Fico government's pro-Russian course, won the run-off election on Saturday against the candidate from the pro-Western liberal camp, Ivan Korčok.

Peter Pellegrini will be Slovakia's new president. The Social Democrat, who supports the Fico government's pro-Russian course, won the run-off election on Saturday with a lead of more than six percentage points against the candidate from the pro-Western liberal camp, Ivan Korčok. Europe's press fears the emergence of a new alliance.

Fear of being dragged into war successfully exploited

The accord extends the duty-free access to Ukrainian agricultural goods but sets caps for poultry, eggs, sugar, maize, groats and honey to average volumes seen between mid-2021 and end-2023.

EU states and the European Parliament on Monday agreed tougher restrictions on some Ukraine farm imports, European Union presidency holder Belgium said.

The accord extends the duty-free access the bloc has given to Ukrainian agricultural goods since Russia's 2022 invasion, but sets caps for poultry, eggs, sugar, maize, groats and honey to average volumes seen between mid-2021 and end-2023.

During the operation, SSO fighters also wounded four Russian servicemen and damaged two infantry fighting vehicles and an armored personnel carrier.

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) fighters reportedly killed nine Russian soldiers using first-person view (FPV) drones, as detailed in the SSO's Telegram post.

“Armored vehicles and soldiers of the Russian Federation were eliminated,” reads the caption to the footage released by the SSO.

The continuing fallout from the IDF strike that killed seven aid workers in Gaza,  NATO’s 75th anniversary and the developing Russiagate scandal that has rippled across the German far-right.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian oil refineries are reportedly forcing Russia to seek gasoline imports from Kazakhstan.
• Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) indirectly suggested that it may have been responsible for an explosion that disabled a Russian Baltic Fleet small missile carrier at the naval base in Baltiysk, Kaliningrad Oblast on April 7.
• Recent discourse among select Russian milbloggers highlights contradictory Russian rhetoric in the Russian information space between narratives that seek to portray Russian forces as more capable than Ukrainian forces and other narratives that seek to criticize the Russian military for shortcomings that result in high Russian infantry casualties.
• The Kremlin-affiliated governor of the pro-Russian Moldova autonomous region of Gagauzia, Yevgenia Gutsul, insinuated that Romanian officials control the Moldovan government — the latest in a series of recent Kremlin efforts to question European pro-Western governments’ sovereignty.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Kreminna, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the Russian Cabinet of Ministers and Russian machine construction company KONAR JSC to increase the production of components for the domestic machine tools industry, likely as part of ongoing efforts to expand the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) and mitigate the effects of international sanctions.

Russia increasingly making Kharkiv unlivable amid incessant bombardment; Justice Minister eases bureaucracy for internally displaced people; Zelensky focuses on Kharkiv in nightly address.

More than a dozen civilians killed in Russian aerial attacks on Kharkiv

Fifteen civilian residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, have been killed from April 1 to April 7, due to cross-border airborne attacks, the Ministry of Emergencies Services says.