Gabriel B
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Ukraine - April 24, 2023

Ukraine - April 24, 2023

Apr 25, 2023

At Bakhmut, Russia has launched a large push west from the railroad, and they largely met with success. They have breached several large complexes of buildings which Ukraine may have been aiming to use as a desperate last line of defense. With Russia having control over several blocks to the west of the railroad at most points, its importance for Ukraine is virtually gone.

At Oleshky, which sits across from Kherson, Ukrainian partisans claim to have destroyed a Russian checkpoint. If true, it certainly suggests that Russia might be starting to lose their grip on the city. It's completely possible I'm reading too much into the recent Russian video asserting everything was fine filmed at the southern edge of the city. But such videos are usually done when an advancing force captures a settlement, and there were other places which would have easily confirmed a Russian military presence in the city much closer to the Dnipro river; which would have much more firmly backed up Russia's claim. I find it extremely unlikely that Ukraine has any significant military presence in the city, but I would be unsurprised if Russia's garrisons along this stretch of the Dnipro are severely undermanned, resulting in parts of Oleshky having no major military presence. I believe that this would explain a lot of the recent reports from the area.

The morning began with a Ukrainian seaborne drone attack against the Russian fleet at Sevastopol, Crimea. It seems as if no damage was done to the fleet, though Ukraine's drones made it well into the harbor before they were detected and destroyed. The attack was accompanied by further Ukrainian threats that they will militarily recapture the Crimean peninsula if Russia does not agree to surrender it in the future. Russia has threatened to use this attack on Sevastopol as an excuse to not renew the Black Sea grain deal. Russia has said that the drones originated from the major port city of Odesa.

There was a second notable drone incident today, near Moscow. Vnukovo airport was shut down due to drone activity; presumably, a Ukrainian drone was active in the area. Ultimately, the airport was safe from harm.

An incident in Belgorod is a bit of a cause for alarm for Russia. Two citizens were detained for buying weaponry from Russia's military and reselling the weapons. While this is just one case, it is a rather public one underscoring corruption within the Russian military. Separately, one of the PMC Wagner whistleblowers was also arrested. He was allegedly beaten by several PMC Wagner troops as well.

Lavrov has arrived in the United States to chair the United Nations Security Council. However, the United States rejected requests for Russian media to be allowed to accompany Lavrov.

Further fallout from the leak is now impacting American-Ukrainian relations. According to the Washington Post which has been reviewing these documents, the Ukraine was planning but had not committed to a large series of attacks on Moscow on the one year anniversary of Russia's full invasion of Ukraine. Such an operation would have used ul virtually all of Ukraine's assets in the region and would have required a large number of drones. Purportedly, the United States convinced Ukraine to call off the assault, due to fears that Russia would dra.atically retaliate. Ukrainian officials have angrily denied that they were planning on assaulting Moscow in such a manner, asserting that it would be illogical. They argued that such an attack would be a waste of resources as it wouldn't have a major impact on Russian military operations, nor would it be expected to encourage Russia to stop fighting. Ukraine also hit back against the claims, stating that it painted Ukraine as an impulsive country, undermining their requests for advanced weaponry.

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