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Ukraine Weekly Update 12th April 2024 DR. ROB CAMPBELL APR 12, 2024 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi shake hands during a joint press conference following their meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing, China - Sputnik International, 1920, 10.04.2024 Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi - Has China agreed to back Russia militarily? This week, Russia has continued to degrade Ukraine’s energy system with some massive drone/missile attacks. Several large power plants have been damaged and some disabled while large underground gas storage facilities have been destroyed. The future of...

Tens of thousands of residents in the Russian city of Orenburg and neighbouring Kazakhstan have been told to evacuate immediately as flood waters inundate homes. -snip- Orenburg is home to half a million people, and the city's mayor Sergei Salmin said the situation was extremely dangerous. "Over the last 10 hours, the water level in the Ural River has risen by 40cm … these levels are dangerous," he wrote on the Telegram messenger app. He called on residents to gather essential items and to abandon their homes. Emergency workers said water levels in the Ural River were more than two...

Russia's armed forces have grown larger and not dwindled during its war in Ukraine, a top US general said on Wednesday. "The army is actually now larger — by 15 percent — than it was when it invaded Ukraine," US Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told the House Armed Services Committee in a hearing. "Over the past year, Russia increased its front-line troop strength from 360,000 to 470,000," Cavoli continued, adding that the bolstered numbers stemmed from Russia raising its conscription age from 27 to 30. The increase, Cavoli said, meant that Russia was able to...

Watch footage of the bizarre tanks ploughing through the battlefield. PUTIN'S failing forces have resorted to using bizarre mobile sheds on the battlefield in an attempt to withstand Ukrainian kamikaze drones. Russian tanks have appeared underneath turtle shell-like cages after it was revealed that a humiliated Putin has lost almost all of the tanks he had when he began his brutal invasion of Ukraine. Strange footage shows a row of ageing Russian tanks trawling through fields under the steel covers. The odd-shaped metal blanket appears to be designed to shield Putin's dwindling fleet from Ukrainian onslaught. Up close clips show...

Russians left homeless following floods have directed their frustration towards President Vladimir Putin and local officials. Over a hundred individuals sought aid from Putin on Monday after the city or Orsk was struck with the worst flooding ever recorded, expressing their discontent with local authorities whom they accuse of insufficient assistance. An emergency was declared in the Orenburg region near Kazakhstan, as the Ural River, Europe’s third longest, surged several meters in mere hours last Friday, breaching a dam embankment in the city. Large portions of Orsk, situated 1,800 km east of Moscow with a population of 230,000, now lie...

Hundreds of residents in southwestern Russia’s Ural region staged a rare protest Monday, demanding compensation for the flooding of their homes after a dam gave way because of rising floodwaters. The protest took place in the city of Orsk, located in the Orenburg region near the border with Kazakhstan. Chanting “Putin help us” and “shame,” the locals affected by the floods defied Russian laws that prohibit demonstrations without the permission of authorities. They gathered in front of the city’s administrative building Monday, demanding emergency assistance as the floods swallowed more than 10,000 homes. Denis Pasler, governor of the Orenburg region...

Zelenskyy straight-up said Ukraine is going to lose if Congress doesn't send more aid Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that his country "will lose the war" against Russia if Congress does not act to send it more aid, Agence France-Presse reported. Zelenskyy's statement on Sunday was his starkest warning to date about the fate of Ukraine. In late March, he told The Washington Post that Ukraine's army would have to contemplate a retreat "step by step, in small steps," if the US aid did not come through.

Russia is having to use electronic parts meant for its air defense systems to manufacture its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) due to shortages caused by sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine, according to a local report. -snip- "Sources of VChK-OGPU say that today the Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant is experiencing a serious shortage of electronic components...for the production of strategic missiles," the channel said. "The electronics of the new RS-28 (Sarmat) missile system are largely of foreign origin and, due to sanctions, are experiencing a serious shortage. Now all efforts are being made to somehow correct the situation with...

Russian cities erupted in flames overnight as more than 60 explosions ripped through several top military air bases. Vladimir Putin's prized weapons went up in flames last night after a devastating Ukrainian drone blitz on three different military air bases. Costly bombers were wiped out during an assault on the Engels, Yeisk and Morozovsk military bases. A senior Kyiv intelligence source later confirmed to Reuters that the attack on the Morozovsk air base in the Rostov region wiped out at least six Russian warplanes in a joint operation between the security services and military. The blitz also damaged at least...

Residents in a region hit by the deepest drone strikes within Russian territory since the start of the war in Ukraine have been warned that air defenses may not be able to protect them from future attacks. Since the start of its full-scale invasion, Russia has been hit with drone strikes reaching Moscow as well as ammunition depots and warehouses around the country linked to the war effort. Russian authorities blame Ukraine for the attacks, which Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for. In the latest incident, a drone attack on the Russian republic of Tatarstan on Tuesday reportedly hit industrial areas...

Footage showed numerous destroyed tanks, vehicles as well as multiple Russian casualties dispersed in a field. Ukraine has wiped out on of Russia's biggest tank charges since the start of the war, destroying 12 tanks in one day. Footage showed 48 Russian tanks and other vehicles coming under attack from Ukrainian drones, missiles and artillery. It shows the convoy of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles moving in the east of Ukraine alongside soldiers. Kyiv's forces then struck the convoy as it moved down a single road, taking out 12 tanks and eight armoured vehicles as well as several Russian personnel....

Members of Russian military intelligence unit 29155, who allegedly have access to microwave or ultrasound weapons, had been placed at the scene of reported attacks that resulted in US personnel suffering health problems, according to a year-long investigation by the Latvia-based Insider in collaboration with CBS’s “60 Minutes” and Germany’s Der Spiegel. Christo Grozev, the head of investigations with The Insider, told “60 Minutes” that he uncovered accounting records that show a 29155 officer received a bonus for work related to the development of “non-lethal acoustic weapons.” Unit 29155 has reportedly operated around the world since 2008, and is suspected...

Russian forces have inadvertently bombed their own region, escalating concerns over military oversight and competence. On March 31, the Russian Air Force mistakenly discharged two FAB-500 air bombs in Belgorod Oblast, marking the 16th such incident in just two weeks. Reports indicate that the bombs were accidentally released during a routine flight, landing in the Belgorod region. Telegram messages from ASTRA sources confirmed the development, stating: "2 more FABs were dropped by Russian planes on the Belgorod region." One bomb was discovered near the Nina farmstead, while another left a crater in the area of the village of Kryukovo.

Best quote of his explanation: "This is a situation in which the sanctions were imposed by one important sector of the world economy which then cut itself off from resources that it needs - and that's particularly true of Western Europe - in return for cutting Russia off from various things that Russia doesn't really need."

The incumbent Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, who is vying for the country’s top office as an independent candidate, has cast his electronic vote in the presidential election, APA reports quoting TASS. The published video footage shows Putin walking to a computer in his office, casting his vote and then smiling and waving at the camera. The computer monitor displayed a standard notification for a successfully cast vote.

Vladimir Putin has weighed in on multiple reports alleging Russian citizens have burned down ballot boxes in protest as the Russian election is underway. -snip- Putin slammed the reports as he accused Ukraine of waging a "terrorist" campaign against Russia in an effort to thwart the election. He also accused Kyiv of intensifying military strikes on Russian territory to "intimidate" voters – a goal he claimed Ukraine will not achieve. According to the TASS news agency, Putin said: "These attacks, pointless from the military point of view and criminal from the humanitarian point of view, as has been said, are...

Vladimir Putin could raise taxes after the presidential election this month to keep the money flowing to pay for the country's war in Ukraine. Bloomberg reported on Monday that the Kremlin is considering dipping into the pockets of high-earning Russians and corporations, as the government plans to hike taxes by as much as 4 trillion rubles ($44 billion). Sources said that the hikes could be finalized this summer. Under the plan, the government would raise personal income tax from 15% to 20% for those earning over 5 million rubles (roughly $55k USD) and from 13% to 15% for those making...

Russian citizens were forced to cast their votes in presidential elections from their beds today as polling officials set out to garner a high turnout for incumbent president Vladimir Putin. Dystopian images emerged of an elderly, bed-ridden man looking over his shoulder as a stern-faced woman presumed to be his wife thrusts their voting cards into an empty ballot box held by an election official. -snip- Running effectively unchallenged, the 71-year-old Kremlin chief is almost certain to secure another six-year term with any legitimate political opponents in jail, in exile or in the ground after his fiercest of opponents, Alexei...

Voting for Russia's presidential elections was disrupted today in the border region Belgorod amid new shelling and incursions of anti-Kremlin Russian groups from Ukraine that forced 'thousands' of people to evacuate. Polling was suspended in Belgorod city after it came under artillery fire, with clips circulated by Russian news channels on the Telegram messaging app showing trucks and cars blown to pieces by the shelling. Election officials were seen wearing bulletproof gear as they monitored voting on the first day of a three-day election expected to return Putin by a landslide. Meanwhile, footage appears to show anti-Putin pro-Ukrainian partisan paramilitary...

President Vladimir Putin is facing trouble in his ongoing war in Ukraine, days before the country's election, which is expected to result in the Russian leader remaining in power until at least 2030. This week has so far been tumultuous for the Russian president. On Tuesday night, the country was attacked by more than 60 Ukrainian drones, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, with targets including a Federal Security Service building in the southern Belgorod region and an oil refinery—both of which sustained damage. Multiple incursions by Russian defectors were also launched on Russian soil. The militia groups Freedom of...