Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus to Welsh friends
A column of tanks and military vehicles stretching for 40 miles (some reports on its length differ) is rolling towards Kyiv. Shelling of Kyiv continues.
Shelling was severe overnight. Kherson, near Odessa in the south, is surrounded, and a military base at Okhtyrka has been lost with 70 Ukrainian soldiers.
Russia’s second city Kharkhiv has been attacked. Ukraine’s operational command says Russian forces have fired a rocket at the regional administration building in Kharkiv. Video shows a massive explosion with the building hit directly. Several civilian cars were passing at the time. The strike was an attempt to kill Kharkiv’s governor and his team leading the defence of the city, Ukraine’s second largest, Kyiv says. Residents say Kharkiv was targeted again last night and this morning.
Russia is using cluster bombs against civilian targets, and there are reports that a thermobaric weapon has been deployed. At yesterday’s UN meeting, the Ukrainian ambassador claimed that Russia was committing war crimes, focusing delgates’ attention towards the humanitarian crisis, rather than the military. An investigation has been launched into Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
Listening to the speech of the Russian delegate to the UN, it was clear that Russia is being fed an alternate reality: what he said was happening does not correspond to what is being seen and reported on the ground. Trust me, his report was unrecognisable as reality. It is clear that what Russians are fed about this situation is a tissue of lies.
The UK government continues to grandstand, while achieving very little. Ministers take supposedly impressive looking photographs, make grandiose noises, and have still not kicked “Lord Lebedev of Siberia” out of the House of Lords, nor effectively sanctioned all the oligarchs on the UN list. Meanwhile, Poland has taken over 350,000 refugees, and aid to Ukraine, both military and humanitarian, pours in to Ukraine from countries all over the world. At least we now have a government directive to our ports refusing fuelling for Russian ships.
Ukraine has formally asked to join the EU. Obviously, membership is a lengthy process, but this should really be seen as Zelensky making a point.
US Intelligence reports that Putin is unhappy about the slow progress of the war, and has been lashing out at those close to him. Russia’s advance on Kyiv has made little progress in the past 24 hours due to logistical difficulties and the army has increased its use of artillery north of the capital, a British military intelligence update said.
“The Russian advance on Kyiv has made little progress over the past 24 hours probably as a result of continuing logistical difficulties,” the British defence ministry said in a military intelligence update.
“Russian forces have increased their use of artillery north of Kyiv and in vicinities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv. The use of heavy artillery in densely populated urban areas greatly increases the risk of civilian casualties.”
“Russia has failed to gain control of the airspace over Ukraine prompting a shift to night operations in an attempt to reduce their losses,” it said.
Ukrainian talks with Russia did not, as expected, achieve anything, but are, as expected, set to resume. Ukraine has made the point that while Russia is calling Ukrainians “Nazis” and maintaining that this war is a war against Nazis, the Ukrainian delegation on talks with Russia, consisted of, by ethnic origin, one Jew, one Georgian, two Ukrainians, one Russian, and one Crimean Tatar. Not exactly Nazis, then.
What will happen today?
Fighting will continue. The issue now is the extent to which Putin is going to lose his patience with the slow advance of his war, and what he will do then. Western sanctions continue to bite: can they bite hard enough, deep enough and fast enough to make the bitten turn on Putin? Probably not if the UK is anything to go by, as Russians have been given time to get their money out of the country before those sanctions kick in, according to some accounts. More on that when I’ve done some more research.
That’s about it for this morning. We’ve all lived to fight another day: let’s all pledge to do something kind for someone else, and remember that life is precious and fragile, and every day is to be cherished.