Gabriel B
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Ukraine - May 01, 2024

Ukraine - May 01, 2024

May 02, 2024

Russia advanced today at multiple points, but their advances are mostly setting the stage for future combat for villages and towns. For instance, Russia has cleaned out more of the outlying area around Chasiv Yar. They also are pushing towards Kostyantynivka, west of Novomykhailivka (not be confused with the city of the same name by Chasiv Yar). North of Avdiivka, Russia also expelled Ukrainians troops from rural areas south of Arkhanhelske, with the battle for the village likely to commence tomorrow or the day after.

For the third consecutive day, Russia has struck the port city of Odesa, killing and wounding civilians. So far, only the attack on the first day of the three was reported to have used cluster munitions. Regardless, the city is suffering from frequent Russian bombardment, underscoring the need for additional air defense systems and munitions to be shipped to Ukraine and distributed both to the front and to cover cities behind the front.

Ukraine reportedly targeted oil refineries in Kursk and Oryol oblasts of Russia. Oryol is typically spares from these sorts of attacks as it sits behind the border oblasts of Bryansk and Kursk, and if Ukrainian drones make it past the initial air defenses, it's fairly safe to assume they'll continue on their route, passing by Oryol, to reach Moscow. The targeting of Oryol suggests that Ukraine may be satisfied with the damage done to closer refineries, or have perhaps lost confidence that they can effectively do further damage as Russia has hypothetically increased their defenses around refineries that have already been damaged. Ryazan and Voronezh oblasts were also reportedly targeted; Ryazan is southeast of Moscow, which does more or less confirm that the latest round of Ukrainian attacks had the distance to try for Moscow, had Ukraine wanted to.

Latvia has stated that multiple countries have dropped the requirement that weapons supplies to Ukraine only be used on their soil, but have not made the knowledge public. As far as I am aware, only Finland has publicly dropped this restriction. Presumably, Latvia is also one of these countries, seeing as they made the statement.

Ukraine is moving to limit publication of satellite imagery of the country. Ukraine stated that they had signed memorandums with multiple unnamed mapping services to limit the distribution of fresh satellite imagery to prevent Russia from acquiring access to what could reveal Ukrainian sensitive points, including both military and civilian targets. Ukraine also stated that they signed another agreement, again with an unnamed company, to provide Ukraine with very high resolution imagery for their own military purposes. Depending on the precise nature of these secret agreements with unknown companies, it could have substantial ramifications on the open source intelligence community. Satellite imagery is one of the best ways to learn about recent events from an outside perspective. Before and after satellite images have recently circulated of Sudan, bringing heightened awareness to their devastating civil war. Satellite imagery helped to confirm the Russian buildup of troops prior to the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and has been used to confirm or deny narratives over whether or not particular strikes were successful or not, narratives which shape political views and thus have very real ramifications. All that being said, it overall is likely a beneficial move for Ukraine, provides that they are confident that Russia's satellite array is an inadequate replacement for commercial and free satellite imagery. As the specifics of spy satellites are state secrets, this is something of a minor gamble I'd Ukraine doesn't have current intelligence on Russian satellite capabilities.

Also in the realm of cybersecurity, Zelenskyy has dismissed the head of cybersecurity for Ukraine's Security Service (the SBU). He had been previously suspended, thanks to an investigation into his personal finances which showed that he and his family had far more wealth than they should have had, strongly suggesting some form of corruption.

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