Gabriel B
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Ukraine - April 13, 2023

Ukraine - April 13, 2023

Apr 14, 2023

After yesterday's failure to advance, Russian troops in Bakhmut picked up steam yet again, capturing several blocks. Ukraine's presence east of the railroad is now likely quite minimal as Russia has secured most of the city here. I imagine any remaining Ukrainian units are probably conducting a fighting retreat to the west of the railroad. Russian troops to the west of the railroad also advanced along both the northern and the southern fronts, which will force Ukraine to abandon the railroad as a defensive line entirely if they cannot prevent further Russian advances to the west.

There is still virtually no other battlefield news to report on. With Russia's missile and drone barrages drying up, and Russia and Ukraine preparing for a quite possibly delayed Ukrainian offensive, both sides are pretty firmly entrenched with little movement. In some regards, combat is increasingly resembling that of the western front of World War 1. Lines of fortifications and grueling battles for small slivers of territory are of course the most obvious commonality, but with both sides desperate for weaponry, some of what is on the battlefield is closer to World War 1 than to the modern day.

There are twin pieces of tank news today. Russian T-55s have made their first confirmed appearance on the battlefield. An archaic tank, it is also one of the most produced models in all of history. Russia will have plenty of these to dip into, though as mentioned, many of them are quite old; production began in the 1940s. While they have benefitted from many upgrades over the decades, they are fundamentally going to be outclassed by modern western tanks, even disregarding age and maintenance issues for dealing with machines that may be up to 75 years old.

The other bit of news involves the T-90. Ukraine is known to have acquired over a dozen of these tanks by capturing them from Russian troops. One of them, which was captured in Kharkiv last year, was randomly spotted in Louisiana. And no, this isn't a case of Ukraine sharing names with the United States (such as New York); this was in Louisiana, in the United States. A truck was hauling the tank and broke down, leaving it at a rest stop for a time. The ultimate destination is unknown, but I'm assuming that it ultimately wind up under in the hands of the US government. Either to analyze, or to provide upgrades and to have it then be returned to Ukraine.

Ukraine has taken the unusual step of banning their national sports teams from partaking in sporting events where Russian or Belarusian athletes are also competing. With Ukraine's allies largely demurring on whether or not they would boycott international competitions if Russia was allowed to participate, it seems that Ukraine is trying to force the matter. I expect that if it eventually becomes clear that this decree doesn't have its desired effect that it will quietly be axed eventually.

The EU has put into place a new set of sanctions, focused heavily on PMC Wagner and their associated media. This comes after two separate beheading videos emerged this week involving the group.

Switzerland has promised a massive financial aid package for Ukraine. The 1.7 billion USD amount is to be distributed over time until 2028. While Switzerland may be balking at transferring weapons to Ukraine due to their famed neutrality, this is just one of the few ways that the country has gradually and softly picked a side.

Germany signed off on allowing Poland to re-export twentytwo MiG-29s which used to belong to Germany. This batch of planes had once belonged to East Germany; a united Germany then transferred the planes to Poland twenty years ago. I personally find it interesting to think about how warplanes belonging to a client state of Moscow's may be be used to fight against Russia decades later, depending on if Poland decides to give the planes to Ukraine. If they do, it will more than make up for Slovakia's delivery being delayed due to Russian sabotage.

Norway has been slow to expel Russian diplomats when compared to many other European countries, particularly for one that shares a border with Russia. However, that changed today with Norway accusing fifteen Russian diplomats of secretly doing intelligence work for Russia, with the penalty being their eviction from Norway.

The leaker has been identified and arrested, but with news agencies scouring over hundreds of leaked documents (many of which were never made available to the general public), more fallout is probable. The leaker was an airman working in IT for intelligence, with a pretty short career. Subsequently, I would be astonished if others weren't involved, as I find it nigh impossible that he had access to all of these files. At best, there was likely extreme negligence enabling security breaches that he took advantage of. At worst, there is a whole network of people redistributing classified documents. Either which way, I fully expect more individuals will be prosecuted, though a lot of it may be done quietly. It's also worth noting that the United earliest leaks have now been dated back to February 2022, the same month that Russia's full invasion of Ukraine began.

Fallout from the leak today show that the United States thought that the UN Secretary General was too favorable towards Russia during the Black Sea grain deal negotiations. Adding a curve ball to this reveal is that Russia, incidentally, just began chairing the UNSC this month.

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