Good morning, here is your news update, collated from several sources and cross checked. Unless information comes from reputable sources and is cross checked, it’s not stated as definite. Information that has not been verified is clearly indicated as “probable,” “possible,” or “apparently true, but pending extra verification.”
Where are we today?
Kyiv: convoy.
US intelligence reports suggest that the 40-mile long Russian military convoy heading towards Ukraine’s capital is still stalled.
An satellite image (Maxar Technologies on Monday) showed a lengthy (approx 40 miles long) collection of Russian army vehicles on their way to Kyiv. However, it appears that the fleet of armoured vehicles, tanks, artillery and support vehicles hasn’t moved since it was photographed about 18 miles north of the capital. US sources believe that some of the vehicles within the convoy appear to be ‘literally out of gas’ while it also seems like there is difficulty in feeding some of the troops.
Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday morning that enemy troops were continuing to launch bombing and missile strikes on critical infrastructure as they sought to close in on the capital Kyiv.
In a 7am update, the military’s general staff said that enemy troops were continuing their offensive on Kyiv with the aim of blocking the capital from the north and north-west. Moscow on Tuesday warned residents to clear out of unspecified areas around Ukraine’s communications infrastructure.
“Unsuccessful in advancing its forces, the enemy insidiously continues to launch missile and bomb strikes on critical infrastructure in order to intimidate the civilian population, which is courageously side by side with the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Ukraine’s military said.
Are the stories of logistical difficulties true?
Evidence elsewhere from footage taken by Ukrainians shows Russian soldiers raiding/looting supermarkets: it appears to be true that logistically the Russian troops on the ground are poorly organised and supplied.
Russian troop organisation:
Canadian journalist Lyse Doucet for the BBC (part of what journalists are calling the “Bunker Broadcasting Corporation” working from a basement in Kyiv) as well as reporting indiscriminate shelling in the city, reports that it appears that Russian troops on the ground are using unsecured radio channels to communicate and are being spied on, jammed and misdirected by an impromptu army of dedicated amateur radio hacks. Reports from Kyiv also suggest that there are desertions by Russian troops on the ground.
(That there are fuel issues for Russian troops is not a surprise. The longer logistical supply chains are, and the further they have to stretch, the more likely they are to break down. Photographic evidence also from captured Russians also appears to suggest that they have been issued with rations that are, in some cases, a couple of years out of date.)
Available evidence indicates, therefore, that Russian personnel on the ground are reluctant soldiers at best. Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, today said “morale is low.”
Meanwhile also in Kyiv, the FT reports that:
“A Russian missile strike targeting Kyiv’s main television tower has struck the nearby Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff said.
Andriy Yermak, head of Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday:
“A powerful rocket attack is under way on the territory where the Babyn Yar memorial complex is located! These villains are killing Holocaust victims for the second time!”
The memorial honours the tens of thousands of Jews and other ethnic groups massacred by Nazi Germany during the second world war.
Video posted by Ukrainian officials showed plumes of smoke rising from the area near the memorial and the nearby TV tower still standing.
The TV tower is adjacent to a wooded area where Nazi troops executed tens of thousands of Jews in September 1941, and later Ukrainians and ethnic minorities.
Yermak pledged to rebuild the memorial, which had been in the process of a major upgrade.
“We will definitely stand up and rebuild our beloved Ukraine,” Yermak added.
Yaakov Bleich, chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine, told the Financial Times: “The bomb fell on the exact location of the Jewish cemetery of Babyn Yar. I saw it. It is 100 per cent true.””
(The biggest mass grave of the Second World War, the ravine of Babi/BabynYar, holds the remains of (estimated between) 100,000 and 150,000 people. On September 29–30 1941, the Nazis slaughtered more Jews in two days than in any other single German massacre, killing 33,771 Jews. Killings took place from September 29, 1941, until October 1943. Ethnic Ukrainians, Roma and other minorities were also killed.)
Other attacks on Ukraine: Kharkiv (FT and Reuters based):
Russian forces bombarded Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and regrouped to make a push on its biggest cities.
During a seventh morning of fighting across the country, Russia stepped up a fierce aerial assault on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, while continuing its faltering advance on Kyiv with the aim of enveloping the capital from the north and north west.
The BBC reported Russian paratroopers had landed in Kharkiv on Wednesday morning, part of an assault to take the north-eastern city that has suffered some of the heaviest fighting of the war.
At least 21 people were killed and 112 wounded in the shelling of Ukraine’s second most populous city Kharkiv, according to the city’s mayor. There are also photos in circulation of what appears to be a blast from a thermobaric weapon targeting a munitions store. Casualty estimates are therefore likely to be inaccurate.
Ukraine’s ministry of internal affairs said that the regional police headquarters in Kharkiv was one of the targets that had been hit. The government body shared pictures of firefighters trying to douse flames in the blown-out building as burning rubble fell to the ground.
Elsewhere: Kherson
The two sides made competing claims over the major southern city of Kherson on Wednesday morning. Russia’s defense ministry said it had captured the city while Kherson’s mayor said it remained under Ukrainian control but that Russian forces had seized the railway station and river port.
Ukraine generally:
Nationwide, the troop movements, reinforcements and the shift to using more heavy weapons on urban areas have prepared the ground for what analysts expect to be a critical phase of the conflict, with Russia set to accelerate its ground offensives over coming days.
Video footage published on the Ukrainian Telegram channel Ukraina: operativno showed several houses in flames in Zhitomir, west of Kyiv, after a reported rocket attack.
The Ukrainian military said it was also foiling Russian attempts to surround the cities of Sumy, Lebedyn and Okhtyrka, and that Russian troops were trying to block the strategic port city of Mariupol “without success”. The Ukrainian military’s claims could not be independently verified.
Russia’s defence ministry said it cut off Ukraine’s access to the Sea of Azov, as its troops in the south had connected with Russian separatist areas in eastern Ukraine
Russia intends to launch strikes using precision weaponry on several targets in the Kyiv area, warning residents to leave their homes, according to Russia’s defence ministry. Russian military claims cannot be independently verified
US response and the economic situation:
The clashes came as US president Joe Biden vowed to make the “dictator” Vladimir Putin face a reckoning for his aggression, saying the Russian president had “badly miscalculated” the strength of Ukrainian resistance and the resolve of the west.
“When the history of this era is written, Putin’s war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger,” the Biden said during his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.
Biden announced Russian flights would be shut out of US airspace, the latest in a wave of measures aimed at hobbling Putin’s economy. He also hinted that further sanctions could follow as the invasion progresses, saying Putin “has no idea what’s coming”.
Russia’s economy is already reeling from the squeeze on its financial sector, sanctions on oligarchs, flight restrictions across Europe and North America and a western corporate exodus from its economy.
Boeing announced it had halted major operations in Russia, which includes parts and maintenance for the country’s airlines, joining a fast-growing list of suspensions that includes Apple, ExxonMobil, Ford and Nike.
The controversial gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 has become insolvent after targeted sanctions and Swiss-based miner and commodity trader Glencore also said it was reappraising its activities in Russia.
The human cost of the war has grown rapidly, with rising civilian casualties and 660,000 already fleeing Ukraine at a rate the UN said would become Europe’s biggest refugee crisis this century.
What’s happening in Russia?
There is a growing groundswell of anti-Putin sentiment in Russia, which this morning issued a prohibition on removing currency above from the country. Dymytry Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, this morning, after commenting on the fact that Russia’s indiscriminately fired missiles are hitting hospitals, maternity homes and children’s homes, also tweeted a picture of Russian children protesting the war who had supposedly been put behind bars for the night. Given the source, one should consider how this information was obtained.
More on the currency issues: the FT reports that the rouble has lost 30 percent of its value against the dollar since sanctions were imposed, falling to historic lows on Monday but regaining some of that decline on Tuesday. Russia’s stock market fell 40 per cent immediately after the invasion began, although it has rebounded by nearly 30 per cent since last Thursday.
To try to arrest the rouble’s freefall, the government has banned Russians from transferring foreign currency abroad or servicing loans in foreign currency outside the country after Tuesday. Russian exporters have also been ordered to sell 80 per cent of their foreign currency revenue dating back to January 1 to boost the country’s forex reserves.
On Tuesday night Russia banned taking foreign currency exceeding an equivalent of $10,000 in cash out of the country as of Wednesday, according to a presidential decree on additional temporary economic measures “to ensure the financial stability”, according to the Kremlin. In this context, there are reports that some Russians are trying to flee the country.
Belarus:
As Lukashenka is photographed in front of a map showing a Ukraine partitioned into four parts, and a possible offensive planned in Moldova, the EU approves new sanctions on Belarus.
European Union diplomats have approved new sanctions against Belarus for its supporting role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the French presidency of the EU confirmed.
EU diplomats have approved new sanctions against Belarusian people who are playing a role in the attacks to Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Sanctions will also hit “some economic sectors, and in particular timber, steel and potassium”, the statement said.
An EU official said this week that one of the aims of the new sanctions against Minsk was to stop exports of any further Belarusian goods to the EU, on top of those already subject to sanctions previously imposed by the EU after the President Alexander Lukashenko crushed protests following elections in August 2020.
So where are we?
The EU and the US/NATO are still ruling out closing the airspace over Ukraine. It has been pointed out that this would also have the effect of stopping Ukrainian aeroplanes manoeuvring there.
The Kremlin said Russian officials were ready to hold a second round of talks with Ukraine on Wednesday but it was not clear if Ukrainian officials would turn up.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there was contradictory information regarding the talks, Reuters reported.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that Russia must stop the bombing of Ukrainian cities before talks could take place.
Peskov also said Moscow needed to formulate a harsh, thought-out and clear response against measures imposed on western countries to undermine the Russian economy.
And Zelensky has said this:
Referring to Russia’s attack on Babyn Yar – the site of a second world war massacre of Jews by German occupation troops and Ukrainian auxiliaries – Zelenskiy said:
“This strike proves that for many people in Russia our Kyiv is absolutely foreign. They don’t know a thing about Kyiv, about our history. But they all have orders to erase our history, erase our country, erase us all.”
Can Ukraine hold out?
Not without help.