Threat Matrix 2022

Welcome to the Threat Matrix 2022. Keep up to date on the multiple threats to our country and life.

Holy cow people, I certainly hope the information I’m dealing with isn’t April fools! Seems like more an more on the plate every morning. Now for the weekly heat index.

Temperature Gauge - Threat Trending Code Color Key

BLACK - An area worth noting, but not immediately impacting on US safety
BLUE - Incidents increasing and needing further monitoring, low threat to the US
YELLOW - This is the moderate concern level. Definitely becoming a threat but in the longer term.
ORANGE - A definite threat in both short term and long term. Some active events occurring
RED - Active and ongoing. Examples of this would be 2020 rioting, etc.

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Globalism / Great Reset - YELLOW trending upward *unchanged*
DISCUSSION - Ukraine war has allowed GGR to operate towards the ‘reset’ without much news coverage. GGR evaluating global impacts to food supplies and economies for exploitation to the globalist cause. GGR cadre, are heaping food scarcity on top of the supply chain crisis, fuel crisis, and violent crime epidemics they’ve already brought us. Exploitation and creation of crisis - in order to get the people to turn to the global ‘saviors’ as the price of lost liberty and freedom.

BlackRock Inc. President Rob Kapito told an audience in Austin, Texas, that an entire younger generation is quickly finding out what it means to suffer from shortages, according to Bloomberg.
“For the first time, this generation is going to go into a store and not be able to get what they want,” Kapito said.
“And we have a very entitled generation that has never had to sacrifice.”
OBSERVATION - GGR will use this ‘suffering’ to pivot as saviors of the world, solving the ‘crisis’

Global digital currency enroute - From ongoing WEF meeting this week.
Economist at World Government Summit says new financial world order about to shift in dramatic new direction. Dr. Pippa Malmgrem, a top American economist who served as a special adviser to former President George W. Bush, made a statement that confirms everything myself and others have been reporting for quite some time – that a cashless society is looming right around the corner.
“We are on the brink of a dramatic change where we are about to, and I’ll say this boldly, we are about to abandon the traditional system of money and accounting and introduce a new one. And the new one; the new accounting is what we call blockchain… It means digital, it means having an almost perfect record of every single transaction that happens in the economy, which will give us far greater clarity over what’s going on.”
This new money system Malmgren talks about with such enthusiasm will not only be digital, it will be centralized and it will be programmable. Do not confuse it with Bitcoin or other crypto currencies. The only thing it will share in common with other crypto is that it will be based on blockchain technology.

So what is meant mean by “programmable” money?
This means the central banks will have complete control over your money and will be able to program it so that it can only be spent on certain things or in certain places. For example, have you purchased too many guns or too much ammunition over the past month? Maybe you indulged in too much frivolous travel and blew through too much gasoline? The government could easily have your money reprogrammed to limit future purchases of such taboo items.

OBSERVATION - Outgrowth of the social credit system. Got to break the current system first in order to replace it with this.

World Health Organization is proposing a new pandemic treaty they’re hoping will be accepted by enough member countries to become a reality by 2024. The pandemic treaty is a direct threat to a nation’s sovereignty to make decisions for itself and its citizens.
AGAIN - Moving under the radar due to Ukraine. Global control, where some globalist wonk tells America what it has to do, while exempting a ‘favored’ nation something else.
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Wuhan virus - YELLOW *last updated 12-10-21*
DISCUSSION - News largely overwhelmed by Ukraine reporting. Some rules are being silently locked in while other mandates are being removed/suspended. The distraction of war is allowing the remnants of mandates to be hidden for later use - as needed.

Dr. Peter Marks, the head of the FDA office responsible for vaccine safety, indicated the U.S. might need to offer fourth shots for people under 50-years-old in the fall. People who are now eligible for fourth shots would likely get a fifth shot if there’s evidence that would be beneficial, Marks told reporters on a conference call.
“It would not be surprising if there is a potential need for people to get an additional booster in the fall along with a more general booster campaign if that takes place,” Marks said. “It may be that a decision is made that rather than the vaccines we currently have, which are called vaccines against the prototype virus, that we will move to a vaccine that is either against one of the variants or something else.”
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Economy - RED * Updated 02-25-22*
DISCUSSION - Inflation continues to be the prime source of concern for the US and the rest of the world.

A key inflation metric monitored by the Federal Reserve soared 6.4 percent in February compared to a a year ago, reaching a new 40-year high. The latest price surge, which effected the price of fuel, groceries and other consumer essentials, represents the largest year-over-year increase since January 1982, according to data released by the Commerce Department on Thursday.
Not taking into account food and energy fluctuations, which tend to be more erratic and can overemphasize inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index, the preferred inflation gauge of the Federal Reserve, jumped 5.4 percent in February from a year prior. Including gas and groceries, PCE surged 6.4 percent.

Biden announces the largest release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in U.S. history. One million barrels / day for the next 6 months. That will bring the reserves to 50% capacity, the lowest since the 1980’s. All as a political tool to try to lower gasoline prices.
OBSERVATION - This administration is dedicated to destroying the petroleum industry, started form day one. Draining the petroleum reserve is another step that will leave the US increasingly vulnerable to an even greater energy crisis and in the minds of biden’s handlers provide leverage to force a ‘green’ agenda on the country. Think I’m blowing smoke - see the following

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm stated that many hoped “we would be focusing solely on clean energy solutions, renewable, making that transition,” but the war in Ukraine has thrown a wrench into that and said that “we have got to use this reason to become energy independent with clean energy.”

biden has announced he was invoking the Defense Production Act to help increase the building of batteries for electric vehicles in the United States.

(Reuters) - A key part of the yield curve inverted on Thursday, according to Tradeweb data, as the two-year U.S. Treasury note yield rose above the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note yield.
That part of the yield curve inverted on Tuesday for the first time since September 2019.
An inversion of the two-year, 10-year part of the curve is viewed by many as a signal a recession is likely to follow in one to two years.
OBSERVATION - Some economists are projecting a recession by the end of the year, and not the 1-2 year frame listed above.

New data from the Census Department released last week reveal that the average cost of a new home hit a record high in February at $511,000. Now, the Federal Reserve is warning about a housing bubble.
OBSERVATION - Worrying about a bubble now, over priced demand meets unaffordable loans. . . . .

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Invasion of Illegals - ORANGE trending upward *unchanged*
DISCUSSION - Illegals continue to push across the border with record numbers of intercepts

Over the past four years, the number of counterfeit pills containing fentanyl that have been seized by US law enforcement jumped by 4,850%, according to a new study, underscoring how an alarming surge in the deadly drug is putting people at increasing risk for accidental overdose.
The study by a consortium of academic researchers, led by New York University, was released on Thursday. Using a first-of-its-kind, real-time analysis of federal data, it found that more than 2m fake pills were seized by officials in the last quarter of 2021 alone – up from 42,000 in the first quarter of 2018. Researchers also found that the number of individual seizures involving fentanyl pills increased by 834%.
The authors say this reflects the huge supply of these pills, which criminal drug networks manufacture to look like legitimate pharmaceutical tablets such as Percocet, Xanax, and Adderall, being imported into the US and sold on the streets.
OBSERVATION - Not just illegals, human trafficking and other crime, but the flood of drugs is flowing over the entire country. Here in the Redoubt, land near Canada, fentanyl from Mexico has created a huge increase in deaths and overdoses. Its not just a border state problem.
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Biden/Harris watch - ORANGE trending upward *unchanged*
DISCUSSION - Mental facilities continue to degrade. Harris’ mental capabilities are also questionable.

Harris appears to be incapable of putting an intelligent statement together. Following her word salads in Poland now after meeting with Jamaican delegation she swings and hits it over the fence again.
“We also recognize just as it has been in the United States, for Jamaica, one of the issues that has been presented as an issue that is economic in the way of its impact has been the pandemic,” Harris said. “So to that end, we are announcing today also that we will assist Jamaica in COVID recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica that have been essential to, I believe, what is necessary to strengthen not only the issue of public health but also the economy.”
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CW2/Domestic violence - YELLOW trending upward *updated 03/25/22*
DISCUSSION - BLM/Antifa showing increasing trends to respond with violence to political activities (marches, meetings, etc) on the right. Increase early calls to show up armed and willing to kill. Increased first aid and riot training. Rampant crime continues with it migrating into affluent areas.

A federal jury’s $14 million award to Denver protesters hit with pepper balls and a bag filled with lead during 2020 demonstrations over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis could resonate nationwide as courts weigh more than two dozen similar lawsuits.
The jury found police used excessive force against protesters, violating their constitutional rights, and ordered the city of Denver to pay 12 who sued.
Nationwide, there are at least 29 pending lawsuits challenging law enforcement use of force during the 2020 protests, according to a search of the University of Michigan’s Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. -
OBSERVATION - This verdict, if left to stand, may well further the tying of law enforcements hands in future riots. Liberal/progressive cities will likely cite it as reinforcement to arguments to stand down police. We’ve seen how similar city actions have turned Portland and Seattle into hell holes and have only served to increase crime and violence.

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CANCEL CULTURE FRONT - YELLOW *updated 01-28-22*

Continued high tech censoring of conservative views.
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POLITICAL FRONT - YELLOW and increasing *updated 01-28-22*

Democrats reaching panic mode over polls for the midterms.
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Strategic Activity / Deployments - ORANGE (UPDATED 01/21/2022) *status raised*

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is extending the deployment of the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, its escorts and Carrier Air Wing 1 as a hedge against Russian aggression in Europe, two defense officials confirmed to USNI News on Thursday.

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Cyber Warfare - YELLOW

Continued warnings of Russian cyber attacks against US power and financial networks.
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China - ORANGE trending neutral to upward

Congo has threatened to review what it calls unfair and possibly corrupt contracts, particularly in the mining sector. And now Congo is doing it. On February 28 Congolese court took control of Congo’s Tenke Fungurume mine away from China Molybdenum corporation. According to court allegations, China Molybdenum has failed to pay millions of dollars in royalty payments on copper and cobalt ore. The court appointed a temporary administrator from Gecamines, Congo’s state-run mining authority.
OBSERVATION - Normally, this works in reverse, where China takes control of an industry upon default by the country.
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India/China - BLUE MOVING TOWARDS YELLOW *updated 120421*

Russia has told India that is won’t be able to help it in the event that China attacks in the LOC if India stops buying Russian oil. Same goes for India participating in any of the other sanctions nations has placed on Russia.
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North/South Korea - ORANGE tending upward (UPDATED 03-25-22)

Lower rainfall over the last six months means much lower wheat and barley will be harvested in Korea. South Korea and the U.S. monitor North Korean agriculture via multispectral satellites, and the drought in both Koreas is so bad that brown fields that should be green this time of year mean hunger in the north and more grain imports in the south. South Korea can better deal with drought but cannot avoid some losses. The crop disaster is worse in the north because of continuing fertilizer shortages because of problems at the main fertilizer plant.
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Japan - BLUE trending upward (updated 03-25-22

Japan has officially stated after negotiation between the two Countries since the end of WW2 recently entirely collapsed that the entire Kuril Island Chain is Japanese Sovereign Territory and is being Illegally occupied by Russian Forces.
OBSERVATION - Next question is will Japan take steps to physically regain those islands while Russia is occupied with Ukraine?
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Russia - RED * updated 02-18-22*
DISCUSSION - INCREASED WARNING ONGOING -

WAR WATCH - This situation is rapidly developing and remains fluid.

CURRENT ASSESSMENT -Russia declared a ‘pause’ in its operations in order to redeploy forces, primarily to get more forces to capture the Dombas region. This was suppose to consist of local withdrawals and consolidations with removal of some of the hardest hit units. This is not working out well for Russia as will be described in greater details in this and the Ukraine sections.

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On Thursday, the State Security Committee of South Ossetia spread a message about the provocations by individual citizens of Georgia and Georgian socio-political organizations against the law enforcement officers and military personnel of the Republic of South Ossetia and the Russian Federation.
The KGB of the Republic of South Ossetia responsibly declares that any attempts by the Georgian radical, pro-Western and extremist forces to exert any force on the Russian and South Ossetian military personnel will be regarded as international sabotage and terrorist activities, with all the ensuing consequences for its perpetrators
OBSERVATION - Removal of Russian occupation forces for the Ukraine fight has created an opportunity for countries to push back on Russian controls.

RUMINT -
Continued distrust between Putin and his military leadership.

Reinforcements -
- Up to 2,000 Russian soldiers being moved from Georgia to Ukraine due to ‘unexpected losses’ on the battlefield: UK
- Putin ordering draft of 135,000. Russia does a biannual draft in the fall and spring, and the announcement today is standard. Not to mention, the guys who will get conscripted won’t arrive at their units and be trained for months. This may free up other troops for deployment to Ukraine.
- The Ukrainian General Staff reported on March 31 that 200 “mercenaries from the Middle East,” likely Syrian troops, arrived at the Gomel military airfield in Belarus on March 29

Economic Hits -
- Russia will halt gas supplies to buyers from ‘unfriendly’ states unless they switch to payments in rubles from April 1, President Vladimir Putin says bloomberg
- Russia has instituted many work arounds to imposed sanctions, forcing the west to reevaluate their moves and eliminate loopholes Russia is exploiting.

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Ukraine - RED *updated 02-18-22* - The battle for Kyiv and Ukraine has entered its second month.

WEATHER FORECAST - Temperatures forecast thru April 10th show warm with increasing rain/showers. Conditions likely to keep off road operations unfavorable.

24 HOUR ROUND UP -
This has been wild 24 hour period. It appears that the Russian ‘redeployments’ and troop consolidations have locally turned into a rout. Ukrainian forces maintained pressure on these relocating and withdrawing forces and have apparently made huge gains as Russian flee to Belarus and Russia, even abandoning equipment and in some instances, troops behind. Ukraine forces continue to attack the withdrawing forces, causing even more chaos for the repeating Russians.

Overnight, two Ukrainian attack helicopters struck an oil facility in Belgorod, across the border inside Russia. This was a nighttime attack! Belgorod is about 75km from the front lines. 8 reservoirs with fuel on fire at oil depot were reported to be on fire. This is the second attack in the Belgorod area, follows the attack on an ammo storage area. Russian citizens in the Belgorod area are up in arms according to social media posts, over the strike.
OBSERVATION - These strikes will complicate Russian plans by forcing them to divert ADA assets from the battlefield to defend what they thought were ‘safe’ areas. The Ukraine success in these attacks may well spur similar attacks on other Russian cities.

There massive lines at gas stations in the Belgorod Region of Western Russia are being reported following the the oil depot attack. Russian citizens in the area fear of more Ukrainian strikes as some people beginning to panic and stock up on essential goods.

Pending further confirmation, Ukraine restored control over the settlements of Demydiv, Dymer, Lytvynivka, Havrylivka, Kozarovychi, Zhovtneve, Hlybivka, Yasnohorodka, Talakun, Sukholuchcha, Lypivka, Gavronshchyna, Makovyshche, Mykolaivka, Khmilna, Kyiv region. After the enemy withdrew, Ukraine took control of the settlements of Rudnya, Shevchenkove, Bobryk, Stara Basan, Nova Basan, Makeyevka, Pogreby, Bazhanivka, Volodymyrivka, Shnyakivka, Salne, Sofiyivka, and Gavrylivka.

And the list continues to grow this morning.

Kyiv front -
A number of reports this morning that the Russians have pulled back from NW of Kyiv, all the way to Belarus. The pull back has been reportedly been unorganized and chaotic. Reportedly (pending confirmation) Russian forces around Kyiv are retreating en masse, leaving behind wrecked armor and possibly trapped pockets of troops as the Ukrainian army advances. Ukrainian Ground Forces Command claim they’ve counted “almost 700 units of equipment withdrawing towards Ivankov, towards the Belarusian border.
Some key areas retaken include Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and the Hostomel airport. The links below depict the a couple of assessment of the extent of Ukrainian successes and the poor shape Russia finds itself. Please note, these figures also cover actions in the Northern Front and North Easter Front.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPQXL-vX0BknOk5?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPQcEXZaAAEZeAS?format=jpg&name=large
(this second figure - blue circles represents Ukraine recaptures of last 24 hours, yellow last 48 hours)

Again, pending further confirmation, the Russian withdrawal/redeployment in this sector may well be turning into a rout. Russians are giving up ground in three days that it took them over 5 weeks to gain.

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Russian withdrawals have opened up full access to Chernihv. Ukrainian forces have moved in to secure the zone. See links above.
North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy - Khariv salient) -
Ukrainan forces have essentially routed Russian elements along the old Konotop and Suma axises. See links above
The Nova Bassn pocket has been taken by Ukraine.

Russian and Ukraine forces still are clashing in the vicinity of the town of Izyum (Izium). Unconfirmed reports that Russia has finally taken control of the city. However, very little Russian progress in the area otherwise.

Eastern (Dombass Separatist Region) Front -
Conditions in Mariupol continue to be desperate with bombing killing hundreds of civilians. Evidence that some elements of Russian forces have penetrated to the center of the city. Russia violated its own ceasefire to allow civilians to leave and even blocked buses coming in to assist in the removal.

Russian air force continues an increased tempo to support Russian ground attacks, however, Ukraine forces still able to repulse those attacks or limit Russian advances.

Lisichansk, Luhansk oblast, a Ukrainian oil tank farm was hit. Facility reported not operating for several years.

Russia is still prioritizing this area for reinforcements and seizure.

Crimea Front -
Ukranian forces continue to press their attack towards Kherson. Novovorontsovka, Kherson Oblast, reportedly retaken by Ukrainian forces

Russian withdrawal/repositioning appears to be more orderly in this region versus the northern areas. However, Ukrainian pressure makes it difficult for the Russians.

Russian amphibious operations against the Odessa region are off the table for now.

Western Ukraine -
No significant attacks to note.

Current map of depicting Russian advance into Ukraine produced by wikipedia found here -
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg

OUTLOOK -
If these reports of a Russian rout in the north fall true, their goal of reconstituting these forces for reinsertion into the Dombas fight becomes even more problematic. The events of the last 48 hours indicate that not only has the threat to Kyiv dissapated, but that Russia has given up on trying to take it at all.
The forces withdrawing from the Northern were composed primarily of CAAs brought in from the Far East Command. There will be serious command and control issues between them and the western MD’s fighting in the Dombas - just from not having worked together. That probably won’t stop Russia from trying to integrate them in anyway. Growing evidence that Russian forces have abandoned a lot of equipment (tanks etc) in this withdrawal will put additional pressure on logistics to reequip these forces.

The successful strike on the Belgorod sites will encourage Ukraine to identify and attack other targets in Russia. Again, this will force a strategic rethinking of Russia operations and stretch their forces even thinner to protect those vulnerable targets.

Russian forces will continue to close the loop in Mariupol. Their continued refusal of humanitarian aid and evacuation is nothing but a war crime and desire to punish the citizens. Defenders may not have much more than a week left. However, their defense continues to tie down and attrit Russian forces that could be shifted into the attack to seize the greater Dombas.

I expect more rocket/bomb and artillery attack of Ukrainian cities in the southeast and rest of the country - more of the same.
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Belarus - RED *updated 01-02-28*
DISCUSSION - Managing to keep its forces in country and not commit to ground combat in Ukraine.

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Poland - ORANGE trending upward *updated 3-18-22*
DISCUSSION - Poland could well be within Russian crosshairs for its operation in resupplying Ukrainian forces.

Continued Ukraine resupply hub for humanitarian and military supplies to Ukraine.
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Europe / NATO General - ORANGE *updated 02-25-22*
DISCUSSION - Increasing potential that NATO will become involved in an Ukraine invasion as Poland, Romania and the Baltic Nations respond.

Britain and its allies have agreed to send air and coastal defence systems, longer-range artillery and counter battery capabilities, armored vehicles as well as provide wider training and logistical support to Ukraine, British defence minister Ben Wallace said

More discussions from NATO about supplying anti-ship systems
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Israel - ORANGE trending upward *updated 04-01-22*
DISCUSSION - Several terror attacks by West Bank Palestinians has caused tensions to skyrocket over the past week. Israel could face attacks from both the West Bank and Gaza is things escalate with the approach of Ramadan which begins on Saturday.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi has warned that the current wave of terror attacks in Israel could spread to Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.

Hamas terror group threatened on Thursday to escalate violence against Israel, after Israeli forces launched a large-scale anti-terror operation in the West Bank in response to a string of attacks in the last two weeks that have left 11 Israelis dead.
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Iran - ORANGE and increasing *(updated 03-25-22)*

This morning, the “National Resistance of Ahwaz” - a separatist organization of the Arab minority in Iran - claims that its people are behind the explosion in the petrochemical complex in Mahshahr.
OBSERVATION - Internal dissent is still alive and well within Iran. However this is the first actual attack of this kind I’ve seen in a while. Mostly resistance has been in the form of mass protests.
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Armenia/Azerbaijan - BLUE ( updated 03/25/22)

Reports of Azeri forces attacking Armenian cities because Russia has pulled out troops to fight in Ukraine has created a power vacuum and opportunity for renewed fighting in the region.
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Globalism / Great Reset -

During a keynote speech on the opening day of the World Government Summit (WGS2022) in Dubai, World Economic Forum (WEF) founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab said the world can only be improved by more government cooperation at more levels.
“The world has to overcome not only the damage done to our economies and our societies by COVID-19, it also has to confront the repercussions of a dangerous clash between major global powers,” Schwab went on to say during the session, Our World Today: Why Governments Need to Act Now.
Schwab, also warned of global cyberattacks and worldwide disruptions with food and energy systems.
“We do not yet know the full extent and the systemic structural changes which will happen, however, we do know the global energy systems, food systems, and supply chains will be deeply affected,” Schwab said speaking on the economic fallout from Covid-19, dangers of climate change and clashing world governments.”
“The time has come for world governments to unite as one and tackle global problems such as climate change, trade, and economic disruption without hinderance or delay,”
OBSERVATION - WEF answer to the global food and energy crisis is to expand government power, under a one-world format

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Wuhan virus -

According to new survey data released Thursday, more than 44 percent of American teens reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” while nearly 20 percent seriously considered suicide, and nine percent actually did attempt suicide in 2020. “These data echo a cry for help,” Debra Houry, a CDC deputy director, told the Washington Post. “The COVID-19 pandemic has created traumatic stressors that have the potential to further erode students’ mental well-being.”
OBSERVATION - Among other things the ill designed lock downs and mandates the branch covidians forced on society. Add to it increased drug and alcohol abuse/use, increased violence, increased cancer/other diseases etc and the unintended consequences have exceeded any benefit fo the wuhan response.
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Economy -

OPEC and its allies including Russia decided on Thursday to stick with a schedule of gradual production increases. The group, said Thursday that it would boost crude output by 432,000 barrels a day in May as it works to restore pre-pandemic levels of production, according to a statement. That’s up slightly from 400,000 barrels per day in previous months.
OBSERVATION - Why should they increase production more (from their view point), when they are receiving a windfall of money and they watch the US shoot itself in the foot by tapping the SPR and reducing it in half.

The highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) continues unabated. This pandemic is not even two months old yet, and the death toll for chickens and turkeys has now risen to nearly 17 million.
OBSERVATION - Even higher food prices for poultry and eggs. And don’t forget those products that contain eggs, chicken or turkey.

The US economy added 431,000 jobs in March, missing the forecast for 490,000 new payrolls ,the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday morning. The gain is the smallest since September and reflects weaker job growth than the prior month’s pace.
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Invasion of Illegals -

The Biden administration on Friday announced that it will be terminating the Title 42 public health policy, that has been used by both the Trump and Biden administrations to quickly expel migrants at the southern border since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, at the end of May – despite fears of a massive migrant wave in the coming months.
“After considering current public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight COVID-19 (such as highly effective vaccines and therapeutics), the CDC Director has determined that an Order suspending the right to introduce migrants into the United States is no longer necessary,” the Centers for Disease Control said in a statement.
Mayorkas noted that 600 additional Border Patrol agents have been deployed and a senior DHS official said the department is prepared to mobilize other officers.
OBSERVATION - This will flood our borders and create massive chaos to our society. SMH, biden et al continue to agressively move to destroy this country. Also, 600 more officers to face a daily surge estimated in the range of 18,000/day.

More than 62,000 illegal immigrants evaded Border Patrol agents in March, averaging about 2,000 a day, according to multiple Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources.

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Biden / Harris watch -

The White House refused to rule out President Joe Biden issuing a presidential pardon for his son Hunter Biden or for his brother James Biden as federal investigations continue over their foreign business dealings.
“That’s not a hypothetical I’m going to entertain,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said during the daily press briefing when asked about a potential pardon “I don’t have anything to add from this podium.”
OBSERVATION - Speculation continues on whether or not the hunter probes could be a leverage to oust biden from the WH - if they can figure out how to deal with harris.
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POLITICAL FRONT -

The House voted to pass a law legalizing marijuana
OBSERVATION - Good thing to know given the far more SERIOUS issues our country is facing.
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China -

In response to increased Chinese military and economic threats in the region, Australia has decided to increase the size of its military by 30 percent over the next eight years. Currently the Australian military has 59,000 active-duty personnel and 29,000 in the reserves. A 30 percent increase would mean 77,000 personnel by 2030.

RUMINT. China staged a huge cyberattack on Ukraine’s military and nuclear facilities in the build-up to Russia’s invasion, according to intelligence memos obtained by The Times
OBSERVATION - Questionable in the effort required to pull this off and China would’ve required a lot of Russian direction / help in breaking into nets as Ukraine isn’t in its normal AO.

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North/South Korea -

U.S. imposes sanctions on 5 North Korean entities over recent ICBM tests

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Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv continues - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

CURRENT ASSESSMENT - Russia is switching to a defensive posture over most of the territory seized from Ukraine as an Economy of Force effort. This redeployment is more likely readjustment of forces to consolidate into more defendable positions and protect their supply lines. Combat ineffective units also being pulled out to Belarus to rearm, reform and reequip.

Russia is becoming more aggressive in strategic strikes into western Ukraine to disrupt food, fuel, maintenance/repair and resupply lines from Poland.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

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Russia says it will target Britain’s high-precision weapons as they enter Ukraine. According to Russian Ambassador to Britain Andrei Kelin, the strikes will likely occur in western Ukraine, possibly around the Lviv area.

Kazakhstan is openly refusing to support Russia in its war in Ukraine, as well as unequivocally declining to recognize Crimea or Donbas annexation/’independence.’ This despite being in alliance with Russia and receiving CSTO support just three months ago.
“Russia wants us to support them but we don’t recognize Crimea, or Donbas. Yes, we are in a union with Russia but it doesn’t apply to this situation. We won’t help Russia avoid US and EU sanctions.” - Deputy chair of the presidential administration in Kazakhstan.

Russia has been making complaints about the apparent Ukrainian strike on a petroleum tank farm in Belgorod, as if it is ok for Russian bomb Ukraine, but not so to bomb Russian territory.

Logistics - Reconstitution of BTGs in Russia’s plan.
Up to 120 Russian battalion tactical groups involved in the Ukraine campaign. That is 75% of its BTGs as well as Rosgvardia and conscripts. . It is estimated that Russian want to restore up to 34 BTGs while 16 BTGs have been totally destroyed. The rule of thumb is that when a unit loses around 1/3 of its paper strength, it is effectively destroyed. For a 800-man Russian BTG, that amounts to just 3 tanks and around 20 other armored vehicles.

Reconstituting a BTG is not that simple. First it requires personnel replacements. Russia lacks the trained soldiers and has to rely upon poorly trained conscripts at this time for replacement. Highly trained units, like the VDV have been cut to pieces after being used as the ‘tip of the spear” in most of the Russia attacks to date. These replacements need time to be integrated into the reforged units to restore cohesiveness.

Second requires equipment. By conservative estimates, Russia has lost nearly 3000 vehicles of all types including at least 300 tanks and hundreds of armored infantry related vehicles. Voices out there say Russia has thousands of tanks and armored vehicles to draw upon. However, it has been revealed that most of this equipment is old, poorly maintained and missing essential parts (like weapon sights, communication systems, etc) One estimate suggests that only 10% of Russia’s war storage of tanks and armor are combat ready. Then there is the need to train soldiers up on the equipment. Even though they are designed to minimize differences say in tanks, different versions have different quirks that need to be learned.

Finally, finding qualified leadership to lead these reconstituted units. Russia has lost an astounding number of battalion and higher leaders, let alone junior officers. Again, that will take time to properly piece things back together. Under normal conditions - months - but Russia has only days/weeks. So it is likely that these reconstituted BTGs will be even more poorly prepared for battle than the starting groups.

Russian Personnel Issues -
- Ukraine intel - “We see the redeployment of Russian forces and divisions of the so-called Transnistrian republic to demonstrate readiness for an invasion and possibly military actions against Ukraine.” Moldovan Foreign Ministry said that the authorities don’t confirm the increase in military activity in the occupied region, but will continue to “monitor and exchange information with partners.” It is believed that there are only 2000-3000 Russian troops in Transnistria and Russia faces a potential attempt by Moldova to recapture the territory if they remove too many.

Economic Impacts -
- The Biden administration announced on Friday a new round of export restrictions against Russia and Belarus, adding 120 entities, mostly companies with links to the military, to a list of those effectively blocked from receiving vital technology.

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Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Temperatures forecast thru April 11th with a lot of rain in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

24 HOUR ROUND UP -

Tempo has slowed a little, but still highly fluid. Ukrainians are on track to liberate the entire Kyiv Oblast within the week following a Russian retreat. Some battles still being fought in a few areas though. It was not a smooth withdrawal for the Russians. Russians are continuing to press their attacks in the Southeastern region of the country while trying withdraw / reposition in the other parts of the country. Increased missile/bombing attacks on Dnipro and surrounding cities.
Mariupol still manages to hold while Russia foils promised relief efforts.
Russia is still recoiling from the helicopter strike against the petroleum facility in Belgorod.

Kyiv front -
Situation has become VERY fluid.
Russian forces continue to withdraw under pressure by Ukrainian forces. See map link below. Ukraine forces attempting to cut off the southern salient of the russian advance by attacking along a major route on two axis, eastward from Borodyanka and westward from Hostomel.
As Ukrainian forces are consolidating recaptured cities, they are encountering evidence of Russian brutality toward civilians. In Bucha, for example, videos are being posted showing many civilians shot dead by retreating Russian army, bodies lying everywhere on the streets. Some with tied arms.

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Russian forces did not conduct any major operations along the Chernihiv and Sumy axis in the past 24 hours. Ukraine forces continue to recapture cities and towns around Chernihiv, expanding the freed zone around it. Russian troops left the town of Horodnya (NW of Chernihiv) on 1st April, and Ukrainan forces are back in control according to the head of Horodnya territorial community Andriy Bohdan

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy - Khariv salient) -
Russian forces falling back under pressure from Ukrainan elements. The Konotop and Sumy Russian road bound ‘pincers’ are essentially non existent any more. Gaps in Russia occupation are also beginning to develop between Konotop, Sumy and Khariv. It appears that Russian forces have abandoned operations to encircle and capture Kharkiv and Sumy. Kharkiv does continue to face heavy artillery bombardment of residential areas.

Fierce fighting continues south of Khariv, with It is being reported that Russian forces having captured Izyum on April 1. Russian forces elsewhere in this area have made little to no progress. This is part of an effort to advance southeast to link up with Russian forces in Luhansk Oblast in the coming days.

Eastern (Dombass Separatist Region) Front -
Mariupol is close to falling to Russian forces who’ve managed to essentially cut the pocket in half.
Russia announced a ceasefire then sabotaged a Red Cross effort to begin evacuating civilians on Friday. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. “They will try again on Saturday to facilitate the safe passage of civilians from Mariupol,” the ICRC said in a statement. It said the convoy returned to Zaporizhzhia northwest of the southern port “after arrangements and conditions made it impossible to proceed”.

Russian army shelled Severodonetsk, Rubizhne, Lysychansk, Kreminna, Hirske, Popasna Berezove, Toshkivka in last 24 hours. Attacks were made on a refinery in Kremenchuk, and airfields in Dnipro and Poltava cities. Dnipro has come under increased missile and bombing attacks.

Crimea Front -

Ukrainian forces conducted successful counterattacks in northern Kherson Oblast on April 1, capturing several towns and pushing Russian forces south from Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia.

Russian forces are highly unlikely to successfully resume offensive operations toward Mykolayiv in the coming days and will likely prioritize defending Kherson against Ukrainian counterattacks.

No amphibious operations against Odessa region appear to be possible in the near and long term.

Western Ukraine -
No significant missile strikes overnight.

Current map of the estimated situation on the ground is found here -

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPTGu8kWQBACYcJ?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

OUTLOOK -
Russia focus will continue to be Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine in an effort to secure the Dombas region. All other sectors will be either withdrawing or conducting economy of force / defensive operations.

Russian forces in the north face encirclement and defeat over the next week.

Maripol may last for a week, but things continue to be desperate as Ukrainian forces grudgingly lose ground.

The potential for Russian troops in Transnistria to conduct an invasion towards Odessa could result in an amphibious invasion. However, the numbers for Transnistria suggest not much more than 1-2 BTGs available and the combat readiness of those units are questionable. Thus the probability of this event is rated low at this time based on the information available. Even with that limited ground attack, an amphibious operation is dubious at best. The shut down of the land threat from the east (Kherson) has been negated.

Russia will resume attacks in Western Ukraine, forced to divert assets from Eastern Ukraine in an attempt to interdict resupply efforts.
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Europe / NATO General -

The US is planning to work with allies to assist in the transfer of Soviet-made tanks to Ukrainian forces, an unnamed US official told The New York Times. It’s the first time the US has helped deliver tanks to Ukraine since Russia invaded and comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his requests for the West to send tanks and planes.

Czech Republic to transfer 56 upgraded BMP-1 armored vehicles to Ukraine

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Israel -

Three members of a terror cell were killed in a firefight with Border Police’s Counterterrorism Unit officers in Araba near Jenin on Friday night, according to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Service).
They were later identified as belonging to the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which vowed after the incident to continue fighting Israel “in the name of the Palestinian people,” Yet reported.
The terrorists were responsible for a previous terror attack in Tulkarm, and intelligence determined that they were on the way to carry out another large-scale attack; they were defined by the Shin Bet as “ticking time-bombs.”
OBSERVATION - Conditions continue to be tense as Ramadan begins.

Hamas has issued a statement drawing a redline to Israeli presence at Al-Aqsa Mosque. The group urged Palestinians to attend prayers at Al-Aqsa & warned the mosque will be a “forbidden” area for Jews & Israeli forces. If the warning is not heeded a response will occur

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________________________________

Globalism / Great Reset -

A paper by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to say that dangerous climate change will be avoided only if vast quantities of carbon dioxide are removed from the air, the Times of London reported.
“Carbon dioxide removal is necessary to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions globally and nationally,” a draft version of the summary report said, according to The Times. If “negative emission” technologies fulfill their potential, it continues, they could even enable a reversal of global warming.
However, carbon-capturing technology is nowhere near where it needs to be. Today, 19 operational plants capture only 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, compared to the 36 billion tons the world produces annually, according to the report.
The paper also says that an urgent and wholesale shift away from fossil fuels is needed for there to be any chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Scientists believe topping that threshold will lead to significant and irreversible harm to Earth’s climate.

OBSERVATION - More global warming leverage for the GGR
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Wuhan virus -

Sweden lifted All COVID Travel Restrictions on April 1.
Denmark lifted last of COVID entry restrictions on March 29th.

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Economy -

California drought: Sierra snowpack falls to one of lowest April 1 levels in 70 years January-March was driest such three-month period in San Francisco since records began during Gold Rush
OBSERVATION - Kalifornia is a bread basket for the US and world. Loss of production will increase the cost of groceries everywhere. But the drought covers more than Kalifornia and with it harvests will be diminished. This on top of fertilizer shortages and skyrocketing fuel costs.
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Invasion of Illegals -

According to various reports, the Biden administration is reportedly considering diverting doctors from the Department of Veterans Affairs in order to treat illegal aliens who are expected to flood the southern border this spring and summer.
The insulting slight to American veterans was first reported by Fox Business’s Hillary Vaughn, who cited a source with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
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Biden / Harris watch -

Harris blessed us with two minutes of word salad yesterday .
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CW2/Domestic violence -

A bill to require parents or guardians with a student in public or charter school to annually disclose if they have firearms at home has been proposed in Kalifornia. The bill on the proposed requirement failed its first committee vote Wednesday after facing opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union and National Rifle Association, two groups that rarely agree on anything related to guns.

OBSERVATION - Backdoor gun registration. Remember, under 0bama a similar attempt was tried using the medical community.

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North/South Korea -

North Korea to ‘reconsider’ their relations with South Korea after South Korean defense minister Suh Wook stated that South Korea had the capability to “accurately and swiftly strike any targets in North Korea”.
North Korea’s Pak Jong Chon and Kim Yo Jong warns South Korean defense minister: You’re “crazy” and a “fool” to mention preemptive strike against a country that possesses nuclear weapons

In response to increasing provocations being conducted by North Korea, South Korea has strengthened their combined defense posture and increased the readiness of their reconnaissance assets according to sources to Yonhap.

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Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv has ended - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

CURRENT ASSESSMENT - Russia has hard pivoted to a readjustment of combat forces to sieze the Dombas region of eastern Ukraine. In some locations, this has resulted in a complete withdrawal, as with the Kyiv region. Other areas have switched to an economy of force/defensive posture to free up additional forces to fight in SE Ukraine. Personnel and equipment are being brought in to build back as many BTGs as possible for this next phase of combat.

Withdrawing Russian forces have left abundant evidence of mass murder of civilians, rape of women and children and widewpread looting. More details under Ukraine.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

********

Reports of Explosions in BELGOROD - Russia. No details as I write.

According to US officials to CNN, Russia wants to take control of Donbas & other regions in Eastern Ukraine by early May. Putin is focused on May 9th due to it being known as Russia’s Victory Day.
“The US also assesses Putin is now preparing, for the first time, to name an overall commander of the war to achieve greater Russian successes, two US officials said.”
OBSERVATION - This would be a theatre commander who’s job would be to herd the cats under him. To date, the CAA generals were operating semi-independently, competing for resources and poorly coordinating actions between them. Placing a general over them could resolve many of these issues, and that is a big could.
By placing a May 9th deadline, Russia could be painting itself into another corner if tactical operations go as poorly as the previous phase. Many units are combat ineffective and those that are still relatively intact have huge holes cut into them. Elite, high trained units Russia relied on early in the war are the hardest hit and those trained soldiers at this stage are irreplaceable as too the losses of senior officers.

RUMINT -
Discussion that Putin may be suffering from thyroid cancer. Also, the May 9th deadline to achieve new military goals may be just speculation.

Logistics -
- Russia has brought in some intact BTGs from other military districts, but these are of lower quality than those originally deployed.
- It is still expected that to refit battered units that have been withdrawn from Ukraine could take weeks, and with poor quality equipment.

Russian Personnel Issues -
- A local group of Cossacks are being organized collaborate with Russian occupiers in Melitopol to “maintain law & order.”

Economic Impacts -
- The number of European countries disconnecting from Russian gas completely is growing.

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Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Temperatures forecast thru April 11th with a lot of rain in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

24 HOUR ROUND UP -

Incredible, fluid situation. The fog of war and time shifted reporting over the past couple of days made me concerned that the withdraw and local rout of Russian troops may have been overstated. It is clear that much of it wasn’t overstated or propaganda. Kyiv is no longer threatened by a ground assault.

First the good news - Ukraine said Saturday it has regained control of the Kyiv region. Russian forces have completely withdrawn to Belarus from the Northwest quadrant of Kyiv. The fleeing Russian soldiers left tons of destroyed, damages and abandoned vehicles in their rush leave.

Now the bad news - Intensity of combat has increased in the southeastern corner of the country with largely a stalemate developing. This is in spite of intense Russian bombing and artillery support to ground troops. Russian precision attacks have also moved to east central Ukraine areas as well as Odessa, now targeting oil / fuel related facilities.

The ugly - Ukrainan forces entering cities abandoned by Russian forces have discovered evidence and proof of extensive civilian killings, rapes of women and children (younger than 10 yrs old) and looting. In Bucha, mayor, Anatoly Fedoruk, told @AFP by phone that they “have already buried 280 people in mass graves,” since the Ukrainian army retook control of the key town outside Kyiv
Numerous videos have been posted showing the heavily destroyed town’s streets littered with corpses not buried.

Reports are also coming in, mostly confirmed at this time, of this atrocity being repeated in every occupied village north northwest of Kyiv. Many victims were handcuffed and shot in the head, in groups or house to house, pushed into mass graves, piled up and burnt, or left in the street. The bodies of around 20 civilians have also been found all over the Zhytomyr highway. Some pundits are equating the murders to the zachistki, or ‘cleansing operations’, in Chechnya in 1999-2000+.

Looting was also extensive. A 3 hour CCTV recording from a courier service in Mazyr, Belarus was posted on the internet showing Russian servicemen sended almost endless numbers packages with what they stole back home.

With the mass civilian executions in this region, concerns are even higher for Mariupol potentially an order of magnitude larger.

Sadly, I seriously doubt that no one from russia will be held accountable for these war crimes.

With the change in the operational situation, I’m going to be modifying the different fronts to account better for this next stage of the war. I’ll keep the Kyiv Front active to cover war crimes. The Northern Front stays active though much of the Russian forces have pulled out of country, there is still a Russian defensive presence and continued attacks off Chernihv.

The biggest change will be to split Khariv off from the northeastern front. Ukrainian forces have cleared Russian troops out of the country to the border between Khariv and Sumy. So the sector from the vicinity of Khariv southeastward to the southeast corner of Ukraijne will now be the eastern front. This realignment also takes the northern portion of the Dombass sector and places it in the eastern front. This is largely due to the emphasis to cut off Dombas region.

Eastern Dombas will be renamed Southeasterrn Dombas.

Crimea and Western Ukraine Fronts will be otherwise unchanged except as noted above

I’ve lined two maps that try to depict the ground that has changed hands over the past week. They aren’t perfect, but give a pretty good overview of what’s been happening minus propaganda (as much as possible)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPXWQ1OXEAYuyXS?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPWaZFQaQAc2z6D?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Kyiv front -
Situation continues to be VERY fluid.
This front is now officially cleared of major Russian forces. Suspect that there may be pockets of Russian troops that were left behind that need to be ferreted out, but for now there is not more threat on this front.

As noted above, the big story playing out is the massive murder of civilians and the numerous booby traps Russian forces left behind. Incredible numbers of armor and other vehicles destroyed, damaged and abandoned.

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
Russian forces still falling back under pressure from Ukrainan elements. The Konotop and Sumy Russian road bound ‘pincers’ are essentially non existent any more. Gaps in Russia occupation are also beginning to develop between Konotop, Sumy and Khariv.

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Heavy artillery and bombing of the Khariv area overnight. Russian forces have been observed entering the Oblast overnight as well.
Fierce fighting continues south of Khariv, as it appears that Russian forces are attempting to by pass the city to reinforce the push from Izyum or create its own axis to the south west.

Russian forces are attempting to push south- southwestward from Izyum. Combat appears to be see-sawing between forces resulting in little to no gains by Russian troops.

The apparent objective of the Russian assault in this sector is to punch southwest from Khariv and Izyum towards Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, trapping a large number of Ukraine forces on the east where Russian attacks from the southeastern most half of this front, combined with the northern half of the Dombas front can eliminate the pocket of Ukrainian forces this moved would create.

South Eastern (Dombas Separatist Region) Front -
Mariupol is close to falling to Russian forces who’ve managed to essentially cut the pocket in half. Continued heavy bombing and artillery of Ukrainan controlled areas.

My estimation a week ago that it probably had less than a week is apparently too pessimistic but absent significant help and reinforcement I can’t see it holding out much longer.

With the exception of Mariupol, this front remains relatively static, with no apparent success in pushing towards elements trying to push south out to

Crimea Front -

Ukrainian forces continue to push Russians south from Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia.

Heavy rocket/bombing attacks on Mykolaiv.

Oil storage depots in Odesa were hit by Russian cruise missile strikes and are on fire.

It appears that Russian forces in this region are operating in a defensive posture / economy of force and not venturing out offensive to try to link up with forces coming from. Khariv and Izyum

No amphibious operations against Odessa region appear to be possible in the near and long term.

Western Ukraine -
No significant missile strikes overnight.

OUTLOOK -

Continued Ukrainian offensive operations combined with Russian pull outs in the Northern and Northeastern fronts is expected. Russia is incapable of seizing Kyiv in the long term.

Continued intense fighting in Southeast Ukraine if Russia is seeking to meet a May 9th deadline to wrap up operations . Key question is how quickly and completely Russia can refit BTGs mauled in northern Ukraine and bring them into the battle.

Continued missile and bombing of Odessa and central/western Ukraine targets, focusing on fuel storage, maintenance and munitions storage.

One thing to watch is if a Theatre commander is designated and how successful he will be untangling the logistical and operational mess that the Russian army finds itself in. CAA commanders are used to operating independently and may chafe at a higher command level. Time frame is also important. Comms between units and Moscow have been poor and a whole new network has to be established for this theatre command to all CAA elements. If the new commander cannot efficiently and clearly communicate to subordinate elements, then operations may continue to be messed up. Finally, this general needs to pull together a functional staff that can translate his view of this new phase into orders that the subordinate commands can understand. The Russian army isn’t used to this.. I noted prior to the start of the war Russia hasn’t maneuvered a force of this size since WW2 and is not prepared for it. We will see just how far up the learning curve the Russian high command has gotten soon.

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Belarus -

Observers noting a lot of Russian military convoys passing through areas, but no further evidence that it will be joining the fight any time soon.
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Poland -

Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslav Kaczynski expresses openness to deploying U.S. nuclear weapons on Polish soil

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Europe / NATO General -

European Council President: Shocked by haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army in Kyiv liberated region. EU is assisting Ukraine and NGO’s in gathering of necessary evidence for pursuit in international courts. Further EU sanctions & support are on their way.

British Defense Ministry: We are collecting evidence to support an ICC investigation into war crimes in Ukraine

Germany reportedly wants to purchase Israeli or U.S. missile defense systems to counter the threat from Russian Iskanders in Kaliningrad

The Baltic states have announces they halt gas imports from Russia.

The European Union will impose new sanctions on Russia, the exact nature of them have not been specified.

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Israel -

Tensions still high as Ramadan inspired violence continues.
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________________________________

Wuhan virus -

Doom is back. DOOOOOOM
The more contagious omicron subvariant BA.2 has become the dominant COVID-19 strain in the U.S., but international health experts are putting an increased focus on a new hybrid variant that may even be more infectious.
The XE variant is a recombinant, meaning it is comprised of genetic material from two other strains, which in this case are BA.1, the original strain of omicron, and BA.2, known as “stealth omicron.”
According to an epidemiological update published March 29 by the World Health Organization, estimates show XE is 10% more transmissible than BA.2, however the findings require further confirmation.
OBSERVATION - May be more infectious, but no expectation of increased death or hospitalization.
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Economy -

According to the German Retail Association (HDE), consumers should prepare for another wave of price hikes for everyday goods and groceries with Reuters reporting that prices at German retail chains will explode between 20 and 50%!
In February, Germany’s cost of living rose at the highest level since reunification, with everyday goods increasing by an average of 7.3%. The federal statistics agency Destatis said the jump from January’s figure of 5.1 percent to February’s 7.3 percent reflected the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has sent the price of oil and gas soaring.
According to Joachim Rukwied, president of the farming association, the food supply in Germany is assured for at least another year – though after this the forecasts are less certain. With rumors of shortages swirling around, however, supermarket owners have been complaining of the sort of panic-buying not seen since the first months of pandemic.

OBSERVATION - There is concern from some quarters that similar is coming for the US. Some would argue that it is already here.

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Biden / Harris watch -

Moochle 0bama - the former ‘vice president’ of the US.

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Japan -

Japan’s PM says the country will consult with allies regarding new sanctions on Russia

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Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv has ended - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

Withdrawing Russian forces have left abundant evidence of mass murder of civilians, rape of women and children and widewpread looting.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

********
US is pushing to remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council

Russia hasn’t announced a theatre commander for the war effort, though Putin is expected to designate one.

Russia redeploying helicopter assets. Observers noted today at 12:05, a group of 14 Russian helicopters took off from the airfield in Machulishchy. At 12:50, 14 more Russian helicopters, incl. Ka-52 and Mi-8, took off from the airfield. Reportedly flying towards Russia, and the movement infers that they will no longer be in play in northern Ukraine

Russian state-owned propaganda outlet RIA published the new programmatic article with the title “What Russia must do with Ukraine”. The article reveals a detailed plan for a genocide, starting from full elimination of Ukrainian state.
OBSERVATION - Doesn’t help their PR when juxtaposed against Russian denials of the atrocities in northern Ukraine.

Logistics -
- With complete pullouts from nearly all of northern Ukraine, equipment replacements may take some time.
- Tip of the iceberg as far as Russia losses. Just tanks alone - Tanks (416, of which destroyed: 197, damaged: 6, abandoned: 42, captured: 171) H/t oryx, only documented losses, likely higher.

Economic Impacts -
- Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.

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Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Temperatures forecast thru April 11th with a lot of rain in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

RUMINT -
Russian frigate “Admiral Essen” reportedly was hit by Ukrainian Neptune cruise missile. I’ve found no confirmation yet.

24 HOUR ROUND UP -

Incredible, fluid situation !!!!!!

Russian forces have pulled out of northern part of the Country, remaining Russian Forces are reportedly scattered around the Sumy Region but are slowly being pushed back towards the Russian Border by Ukrainian Offensives. Apparently have completely pulled out of the Chernihv region. I wasn’t expecting a total pull out of these areas so quickly. The Russian forces throughout the Northern Ukraine have been chewed up pretty well, and any reconstitution should take weeks. However, the
tactical situation in East-Southeast Ukraine may force a quicker turn around.

The following map depicts the current situation on the ground. It isn’t perfect, but give a pretty good overview of what’s been happening minus propaganda (as much as possible)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPWaZFQaQAc2z6D?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Kyiv front -
Situation continues to be VERY fluid.
In Bucha, a Russian headquarters has been identified where civilians were interrogated and then shot. The worst was in the basement of the dacha. ‘We found 18 bodies in there,’ he said. ‘They had been torturing people. Some of them had their ears cut off. Others had teeth pulled out. There were kids like 14, 16 years old, some adults.’”

“410 bodies of killed civilians have been found in the territory of Kyiv region, for April 1-3, 140 of them have already been examined by prosecutors and other specialists,” Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova.

President Zelensky visited liberated Bucha to see the destruction and Russian atrocities

Russia on Sunday denied Ukrainian allegations that it had killed civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Russian forces in this front executed a poorly organized withdrawal over the past couple days.
“Ukraine’s Armed Forces and territorial defense battalions have pushed them away through Chernihiv Oblast,” Zhyvytsky said, warning that small groups of Russians might still be around.

See map link above

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
“The withdrawal of occupation troops continues in the Sumy Oblast. The enemy provides cover and logistical support for individual units assigned to the territory of the Russian Federation... Sumy Oblast Governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky reported on April 3 that Russian forces have been withdrawing from Sumy Oblast and taking their equipment with them. In parts of the Sumy region, control over state border has been fully restored by Ukraine.
Some reports indicate that the withdrawal was more organized than around Chernihv.

See map link above

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Heavy artillery and bombing of the Khariv area overnight. Russian forces reportedly organizing for an attack in the southern portion of the front.

Modification of the attack plans, based on Ukrainan assessments. The attacks will be directed south-southwest in the direction of Severodonetsk and Velyka Novosilka. This is not as far west as I presumed yesterday but makes better sense. A pronounced Ukrainan salient now exists in the Kramatorsk area and it makes sense to cut this off before trying to tackle the rest of the Dombas region.

South Eastern (Dombas Separatist Region) Front -
News about Mariupol is lacking. Ukrainan forces still hold the center of the town. Cant tell if Russians are pursuing the assault as vigorously as in the past weeks. This could represent the potential that Russia is satisfied in containing the Ukraine forces while shifting more intact units eastward to support the expected Donbas offensive.
Besieged Ukrainian city Mariupol ‘90 percent’ destroyed, around 130,000 remain trapped: mayor

Reports of Russian units assembling it the region in preparation for resumption of an offensive action.

Crimea Front -

The wreck of the Alligator class LST at the Port of Berdyansk has not moved, and no additional traffic seen since the attack. This has likely impaired resupply efforts in Southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces continue to push Russians south from Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia.

Heavy rocket/bombing attacks on Mykolaiv and Odessa.

It appears that Russian forces in this region are operating in a defensive posture .

No amphibious operations against Odessa region appear to be possible in the near and long term.

Western Ukraine -
Missile strikes as several locations in Central and Western Ukraine.

OUTLOOK -
Sudden Russian pullouts from Chernihv and Konotop/Sumy regions caught me off guard. That and the redeployment of Russian helicopter assets out of Belarus suggest that there is a degree of urgency to gather support for the impending Dombas offensive. This could indicate that the Russian forces are more desperate for men and equipment and recent import of units/equipment may be inadequate. Conventional wisdom would suggest that it should take weeks to reconstitute and reequip the pulled out units but I think other forces are at work.

Actions suggest there is some kind of unified command and that they are on a short time table. The rumored May 9th deadline could be a driver. This could force these recently pulled out units back into the fight largely as is, before they are prepared. Russia will be lacking the better trained VDV forces, having them get chewed up in the North and parts of Odessa fronts, to lead this new offensive. Russia will have to rely on the lower quality forces to drive this attack.

Ukrainian General Staff warns Russians are preparing the offensive in Donbas, “which may begin tomorrow”. They may be seeing indicators of action sooner than later. They were on top of the original invasion. Weather is on the side of Ukraine, with rain in the forecast for the next week, limiting Russian advances to roads.

Russian units in the Dombas region have been trying for the past 5 weeks to make progress and largely been stalled out after the first week of fighting. Combat capabilities of the Russian there are diminished without reinforcements, but capable at least to initiate the offensive provide follow on forces are ready.

The attack to seal off the Kramatorsk salient makes sense - eat the elephant one bite at a time - and give Russia at least one area where they could claim victory. However, Ukraine forces have fought exceptionally well in situations where they’ve been partially or mostly cut off and put Russian forces into a meat grinder for every foot of ground they gained. Ukraine also has the advantage of internal supply lines, permitting them quicker response to a Russian assault.

SUMMARY- A Russian assault into the Dombas is imminent but not a given victory I expect Russia to try another blitzkrieg style attack hoping to capture the Kramatorsk salient as quickly as possible and prevent Ukraine from catching them into another meat grinder. A unified command will help Russian action, but there appears to be a rush to get things started - push for too fast of action when not ready for that action could spell another disaster from Russia. Cessation of Russian action in the north gives Ukraine a chance to reinforce the Dombas region quicker than Russia can reposition forces. Finally the Russian atrocities in the north will steel the will and morale of Ukraine forces for the vicious battle to come.

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Europe / NATO General -

Poland’s Prime Minister says Germany is the main obstacle in the way of tougher sanctions on Russia

Poland proposes the creation of an international commission to investigate genocide in Ukraine

The Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki has called for an Emergency European Union Summit to discuss the Massacres perpetrated by the Russian Military in Ukraine, he has also reportedly proposed a Complete Sever in Trade Relations with the Russian Federation.

There are also unconfirmed reports that Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithonia have made the decision to completely Ccose their border crossings with both the Russian Federation and Belarus within the next 48-72 hours.

Germany to expel a “significant number” of Russian diplomats after making a decision this week:

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Israel -

Things quieter but still tense as Ramadan continues.
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Turkey -

Turkey’s annual inflation rate rises to 61% in March, the highest in two decades. This will further civil discontent towards the ruling regime.

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Globalism / Great Reset -

UN scientists have unveiled a plan that they believe can limit the root causes of dangerous climate change.
A key UN body says in a report that there must be “rapid, deep and immediate” cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts.
Even then, the world would also need technology to suck CO2 from the skies by mid-century

OBSERVATION - Expect more global warming ‘justifications’ for a GGR desired emergency declarations and shutdowns based upon the wuhan shutdowns.
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Wuhan virus -

Branch covidians still trying to drum up fear over the latest variant, but it isn’t gaining traction.

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Economy -

In his annual letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warns that the global economic picture may continue to worsen. Three points follow. First, he says the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war risks a sharp global economic downturn. Dimon notes that further sanctions against Russia are possible, adding that the situation “could easily worsen.” Dimon continues that the “confluence [of war, sanctions, and economic instability] may dramatically increase the risks ahead” and characterizes worsening conditions as “a potentially explosive situation.”(FO)

March 2022 Logistics Manager’s Index Reports the LMI at 76.2, the highest in the history of the index, up (+1.0) from February’s reading of 75.2. The first three months of 2022 have been marked by high levels of inventory, and insufficient capacity to deal with it. This trend started at the end of 2021 when inventories increased by 2.4% in December 2021 – an all-time month-to-month record.

OBSERVATION - Basically there isn’t enough truckers to get stuff to the market and that products are staking up in warehouses. This is also driving prices higher through a combined of Inventory, Warehousing, and Transportation Costs.

OVERALL OBSERVATION - This summer may be a hinge point for the country if inflation and shortages continue as they have. This will make the political climate even more intense in the lead up to the midterms.

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Invasion of Illegals -

Biden is looking to further slash deportations by having federal prosecutors drop cases against illegal aliens unless they are considered a “public safety threat,” a newly leaked internal memo reveals. The memo, reviewed by BuzzFeed News, directs prosecutors for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to drop deportation cases against illegal aliens who are not considered a threat to national security or public safety or who have not recently crossed the United States-Mexico border.

Drugs cartels will control the U.S. border once the Biden administration lifts Title 42 at the end of May, warns Border Patrol union chief Brandon Judd. “They’re going to create gaps in our coverage and going to cross more of their drugs, their fentanyl — and more of our U.S. citizens are going to die simply because this administration doesn’t want to give the proper policies to protect U.S. citizens.”

Missouri, Arizona and Louisiana are suing the biden administration decision to stop Title 42 policies, saying the move would lead to a ‘crisis’ at the US-Mexico border.
OBSERVATION - I expect more states to join in the coming days.

OVERALL - The tsunami of illegals the cessation of Title 42 will create will be more than the MSM can cover up and may well trip a substantial crime wave as cartels take greater control of the border. Arizona and Texas have already made plans to increase NG presence on the border and this time they may be armed and dangerous, not in a supporting role. DC will oppose such a response, setting up another confrontation between border states and biden.
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Biden / Harris watch -

Harris’ deputy chief of staff Michael Fuchs has resigned. His departure adds to the increasing number of senior staffers jumping off her ship.
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CANCEL CULTURE FRONT -

Billionaire Elon Musk bought 9.2% of Twitter stocks, becoming the largest single shareholder. Reportedly he did so was the anti-free speech of the platform. Leftist heads immediately exploded.
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POLITICAL FRONT -

Biden admitted that he’d like to see former President Donald Trump prosecuted for the Jan. 6 riots and that he’s disappointed Attorney General Merrick Garland has not taken tougher action . Push back from the GOP and the merging with the dumpster fire of Hunter biden investigation is creating even more attention on corruption in the biden administration.

0bama to give a speech on the 12th anniversary of the (un)affordable care act in an effort to divert public attention from biden’s woes to show that democrats have done positive things for the country. 0bama’s first visit to the WH since biden was elected.

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CW2/Domestic violence -

The National Fraternal Order of Police is reporting that as of this month, 101 officers have been shot in the line of duty. This marks a 46% year-to-date (YTD) increase from 2021 and a 63% YTD increase from 2020. The report notes a significant increase in ambush-style attacks.

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Strategic Activity / Deployments -

The Army this week admitted it was having problems recruiting and announced an unprecedented reduction in its numbers that would shrink the active duty Army to its smallest size since World War II.

10 additional U.S. Marine F-18 fighter jets have arrived in Poland.

The Biden administration’s $813 billion budget for fiscal year 2023 projects 2.2% inflation for Defense-related costs, despite the likelihood of the country running high inflation indefinitely.

_________________________________

North/South Korea -

Kim Yo-jong said it was a ‘very big mistake’ to threaten Pyongyang and declared the North’s nuclear forces were ready to respond.
OBSERVATION - The war of words between North and South have been escalating over the past week, reflecting in part a harder line by the South.
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Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv has ended - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

Withdrawing Russian forces have left abundant evidence of mass murder of civilians, rape of women and children and widewpread looting.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

********

US to ask for a UN General Assembly vote to remove Russia from the the UN Human Rights Council. Two thirds of 193 members of the UNGA would have to vote in favor of expelling Russia.

Logistics -
- Videos and photos of Russian armor pulled out of storage and arriving in theatre show evidence of poor storage conditions, which may also reflect on combat readiness.

Economic Impacts -
- According to the Central Bank of Russia, since the war began its foreign reserves dropped from USD643.2 billion on 18 Feb to USD604.4 billion on 25 Mar. The bank is spending on average USD7.76 billion a week to prop up the economy and meet international financial commitments
- The German Bundestag has just Announced that Gazprom Germania, a Subsidiary of the Russian Energy Giant Gazprom, has been Taken Under the Control of the German Government and effectively Nationalized to reportedly Secure Critical Energy Infrastructure across the Country.
- Europe’s development bank has suspended funds to Russia and Belarus due to the war.
- The Russian Embassy in Ireland is running out of fuel for heating and hot water and is complaining that numerous Irish oil companies have refused to deliver supplies.
- Russia’s latest sovereign bond coupon payments have been stopped, putting it closer to a historic default. The country has a 30-day grace period to make the payment.
- The EU proposes an import ban on Russian coal which will cut off 4 billion euros of annual trade.

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Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Temperatures forecast thru April 11th with a lot of rain in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

24 HOUR ROUND UP -

Incredible, fluid situation !!!!!!

Zelenskyy scheduled to address the UN security council.

Widespread Russian cruse missile attacks, many of which have reportedly been intercepted by Ukrainan ADA. Increasing numbers of Russian forces building up in the southeastern corner of the country. It is suspected that many of these units were the better quality forces withdrawn from northern Ukraine. That withdrawal left the poorer quality forces in defensive positions as cover, then their disorganized withdrawal / near rout after those chosen units has pulled out.

The combat readiness/ capability of these redeployed units is still questionable, with unknown personnel and equipment losses.

The following map depicts the current situation on the ground. It isn’t perfect, but give a pretty good overview of what’s been happening minus propaganda (as much as possible)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPWaZFQaQAc2z6D?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Kyiv front -
Situation continues to be VERY fluid.
Satellite images refute Russia’s claim that the killing of civilians in Bucha, a suburb of Ukraine’s capital, occurred after its soldiers had left town, a New York Times analysis found.
The UN Human Rights Office says that civilians in Bucha were “directly targeted and directly killed”

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Russian forces have withdrawn and Ukrainan forces conducting clean up operations.

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
Russian forces have withdrawn and Ukrainan forces conducting clean up operations.

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Heavy artillery and bombing of the Khariv area again overnight. Russian forces fired considerable artillery attacks all along the LOC, probably in preparation for the impending ground assault into the Dombas.

In Rubizhne an artillery projectile damaged a tank with nitric acid. Hazmat situation declared, and civilians warned to take cover and use personal protection equipment

Sources are noting that considerable numbers of Russian forces have entered the province in the past couple days. This is likely driving increased Russian attacks to try to regain the offense south of Khariv.

South Eastern (Dombas Separatist Region) Front -
News about Mariupol is lacking. Ukrainan forces still hold the center of the town.

Reports overnight of a 250 man element of Ukrainan marines surrendering in Mariupol. Not confirmed yet.

Red Cross says its team traveling to Mariupol was stopped, now being held - Reuters News. No information of when / if they have been released.

Russian army shelled a chemical plant in Donetsk region, no leak of dangerous chemicals

Extensive artillery fire all along the LOC into the Donetsk region supporting limited assaults on Novotoshkivske, Nyzhne, Popasna, Kalynove, Stepne, Rubizhne, Troitske, Novobakhmutivka, and Novoselivka Druha, but were unsuccessful. Likely precursors to the impending Russian Dombas offensive.

Crimea Front -

Small Russian attacks against Ukraine forces pressing in on Kherson.

No amphibious operations against Odessa region appear to be possible in the near and long term.

Western Ukraine -
Missile strikes as several locations in Central and Western Ukraine.

OUTLOOK -

Russia will kick off the Dombas invasion phase soon. However, does Russia have the capability to pull this off? Larger means more complexity in logistics as well as communication and coordination. So far Russia has been unable to do anything of this before. What is the morale status of the Russian forces? They have been put through a meat grinder, especially those from the north. Fresh troops may not be too willing to enter combat having been exposed to the results of the Ukrainan resistance. And on top of it is the quality of those soldiers is questionable.

Expect the Russian attack to begin in earnest within a week with probing attacks and abundant artillery and bombing until then. I expect the new offensive to be ushered in by the most intense artillery and bombing of the war to date to neutralize Ukrainan defenses and assist Russian forces to break out. To delay any further will permit an even stronger Ukrainan redeployment of assets and defensive preparations. Refit works both ways as western military supplies continue to come into Ukraine at a high tempo.
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Europe / NATO General -

Sweden has decided to expel three Russian diplomats who did not work in accordance with the Vienna Convention, says Foreign Minister Ann Linde
Italy expelled 30 Russian diplomats
Denmark expelled 15 Russian diplomats
Berlin expels 40 Russian diplomats.
The Lithuanian Government has officially announced that they are downgrading their diplomatic status with the Russian Federation, expelling the Russian Ambassador from the country and recalling their own Ambassador from Moscow, Lithuania is the first EU Country to do this.
France expels 35 Russian diplomats
OBSERVATION - Overall about 178 Russian Diplomats have been expelled within the last 20 hours.

EU ‘ready to send’ investigators to probe Ukraine war crimes: von der Leyen

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Israel -

Things quieter but still tense as Ramadan continues.
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Iran -

Iran will only return to Vienna to finalize an agreement to revive its landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Monday
OBSERVATION - biden administration has lost all credibility in these negations. Iran is getting everything it wants and in doing so will destabilize the region even further.
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________________________________

Globalism / Great Reset -

Four organizations focused on global health and the economy say it will take $15 billion in grants this year, and another $10 billion annually after that to establish and maintain an adequate toolkit to respond to COVID-19 and address future pandemic threats.
The estimate is laid out in “A Global Strategy to Manage the Long-term Risks of COVID-19,” a working paper published on Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund, in partnership with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Global Fund, and Wellcome Trust.
In the paper, the four global groups assert that ending the pandemic everywhere remains an urgent economic, health, and moral priority for the world.
OBSERVATION - Wuhan is still trying to be used by some of the GGR to leverage increased goat control of the population.
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Wuhan virus -

The Food and Drug Administration bypassed its own experts in approving a fourth dose of vaccine for Americans 50 years and older last week, despite many of its vaccine experts being skeptical about the need for another booster shot and unsure about its safety.
The evidence suggests that the risk of side effects would cause almost anyone — immunocompromised or not — to hesitate. In fact, the data gathered to date is insufficient for anyone who might need a fourth booster to make an informed decision.
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Economy -

The combination of increasing mortgage rates and rising home prices are delating the housing market. This has resulted in a drop in mortgage business that is causing layoffs at companies like Movement Mortgage and Better.com. Mortgage companies had been on massive hiring sprees in the first year of the Covid pandemic, as interest rates set more than a dozen record lows and both refinance and purchase demand surged.
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Invasion of Illegals -

Mayorkas is directing that economic migrants get every opportunity to stay once the Title 42 barrier is removed. Mayorkjas’ intentions are described in his February strategy, which was leaked to Breitbart Texas on April 4. The February strategy is titled “DHS Southwest Border Mass Irregular Migration Contingency Plan,” and it says on page 16:

“A. Secretary’s Intent.
1 ) Purpose:
The purpose of this plan is to describe a proactive approach that humanely prevents and responds to surges in irregular migration across the U.S. [southern border]. This will be done while ensuring that migrants can apply for any form of relief or protection [emphasis added] for which they may be eligible, including asylum, withholding of removal, and protection from removal under the regulations implementing United States obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”

To maximize benefits for migrants, Mayorkas minimizes the detention and deportation of migrants — even though federal law generally denies the entry of foreign workers and economic migrants into Americans’ homeland.

OBSERVATION - Its clear that the border policy is deliberately setting up to essentially eliminate the border and any checks on those who cross it.

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Biden / Harris watch -

Biden was cast aside like a piece of rubbish as people swarmed 0bama at yesterday’s 12 year commendation of 0bamacare.
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China -

The U.S. government has approved a sale of up to $95 million worth of training and equipment to support Taiwan’s Patriot Air Defense System, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. “The proposed sale will help to sustain the recipient’s (Taiwan’s) missile density and ensure readiness for air operations,” the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.
The Defense Department added that Taiwan will use the proposed training and equipment as a “deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen homeland defense.”
OBSERVATION - China will not be happy about this.

China has continued flying aircraft into the Taiwan’s warning zone, though not on the top of the headlines due to Ukraine, and at lower numbers.

Recession watch - The latest data from China shows a slowing manufacturing sector as the NBS purchasing manager index slips back into contraction, or negative growth.

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Japan -

Japan is seeking a capability to strike enemy bases to let potential adversaries know they’d “pay a price” for attacking Japan, according to the country’s defense minister. The Japanese government, in closed-door hearings the past few months, has heard from security experts about possibly acquiring the means to conduct counterstrikes, Kyodo News reported Monday.

There’s a consensus among Japanese defense experts that their country needs a strike capability, according to Tetsuo Kotani, a senior research fellow at The Japan Institute of International Affairs.

Some of the Japanese rationale for seeking the new capability is concern about America’s reliability as an ally. “Japan has finally woken up to the fact that they are pretty much defenseless (against Chinese missiles),” retired U.S. Marine Col. Grant Newsham, a senior researcher with the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo told Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday.

OBSERVATION - Japan’s military is tied down by the post WW2 constitution and rules which historically been cited to limit the capabilities of the country to strictly defensive measures. Increasing threats by both China and N Korea is forcing a relook at these laws and they are finding ways around them.
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Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv has ended - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

Withdrawing Russian forces have left abundant evidence of mass murder of civilians, rape of women and children and widewpread looting.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

********

UNGA will vote Thursday on the removal of Russia from participation in the Human Rights Council.

Logistics -
- There are about 450 documented Russian tank losses (destroyed/captured) alone would be equal to 45 BTGs (other units also had tanks, APCs such as the militia units from Donestk/Luhansk or airborne forces—but we can basically say the undocumented losses would more than cover what they would have lost). They started out with about 120 BTGs, that represented the most combat ready units in the Russian Army, about a 1/3 loss of combat power in tanks alone. Russian replacement stockpiles are in poor shape - just like their personnel conditions.
- Overall, conservative count indicates Russia has had, visually confirmed, to have lost at least 2500 vehicles and pieces of equipment since it began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Russian Personnel Issues -
- Russia does not plan to rotate troops who committed atrocities in Bucha out of Ukraine according to Ukrainian intelligence. Russia’s 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade of 35th CAA was withdrawn to Belarus & will be moved to Russia for 2 days rest before likely returning to combat in Kharkiv.

Economic Impacts -
- The American company, “Intel”, the manufacturer of electronic chips, is suspending its activities in Russia.
- More economic sanctions coming up in response to civilian massacres.

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Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Temperatures forecast thru April 11th with a lot of rain in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

24 HOUR ROUND UP -

In his address to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated that Russia had committed war crimes and said the U.N. must hold Russia leaders accountable to show other potential war criminals “how they will be punished if the biggest one is punished.”

Thousands of people are fleeing Ukraine’s Donbas as Russia shifts the focus of its attacks to the east of the country. Ukrainian authorities are calling on people to evacuate the eastern Luhansk region, with five humanitarian corridors out of the area planned today

Incredible, fluid situation !!!!!!

It appears that Russia has kicked off its assault to capture the Dombas region. The following map I found does a pretty good job putting this phase of the battle into context.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPqT4a3XEAI1eVW?format=jpg&name=large

Widespread Russian cruse missile attacks, many of which have reportedly been intercepted by Ukrainan ADA. Increasing numbers of Russian forces continue to redeploy to the southeastern corner of the country. Targets appear to be petroleum and other industrial facilities.

Russian activity in the Transnistria region of Moldova is gaining greater scrutiny. Some unconfirmed reports that Russia airfields there are preparing for a lot of traffic. Transnistria could be used as a jump off point for Russian forces assaulting the Odesa region to support an amphibious operation. This is important given that forces from Crimea were soundly stopped by Ukraine resistance to attack Odesa from the east.

Kyiv front -
The evidence of heinous acts committed in the towns around the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv gets more horrific by the day.
On Tuesday, Associated Press journalists saw six burned and blackened corpses piled together just off a residential street near a playground, the latest gruesome scene to emerge from Bucha as world leaders push for Russia to be held accountable.
One charred body had arms raised in supplication, the face contorted in a scream. The skull of another had a bullet hole in the left temple. A child’s small, blackened foot could be seen in the tangle of bodies.
More than 400 people are missing from the town of Hostomel, a local official says. The town bore the brunt of Russian advances on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, along with Bucha and Irpin

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Russian forces have withdrawn and Ukrainan forces conducting clean up operations.

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
Russian forces have withdrawn and Ukrainan forces conducting clean up operations.

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Heavy artillery and bombing of the Khariv area again overnight. Russian forces continue to shell cities in eastern and southern Ukraine, and strike targets elsewhere with missiles. Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, saw intense shelling overnight.

Reports of Russian forces with close air support, trying to storm Barvenkove and Slovians.
According to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Russia targeted Ukrainian army positions and civilian infrastructure in Borivske, Novoluhanske, Solodke, Marinka and Zolota Nyva — in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

South Eastern (Dombas Separatist Region) Front -
News about Mariupol is lacking. Ukrainan forces still hold the center of the town.
Russian troops allowed 1,496 civilians to evacuate the besieged city of Mariupol by private vehicle but blocked the entry of a convoy of evacuation buses accompanied by Red Cross workers, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

Extensive artillery fire continues all along the LOC into the Donetsk region supporting limited assaults on Novotoshkivske, Nyzhne, Popasna, Kalynove, Stepne, Rubizhne, Troitske, Novobakhmutivka, and Novoselivka Druha, but were unsuccessful. Explosions were also reported in Dnipro and Odesa according to reports. A petroleum facility in Dnepropetrovsk was reportedly near the city of Dnipro.

Again, see map link above for better understanding of the actions and where they are happening.

Crimea Front -

Ukrianian Armed Forces report they are pressing the offensive towards Kherson city and Oleksanarvka. Heavy battles reportedly are being fought for the city. Ukrainian forces also are pressing south from the direction of Kryvi Rih towards Kherson.

RUMINT - Some reports that Russian forces beginning to withdraw across the to the east bank of the Dnieper River and set up new defensive positions there to better protect the left flank of the Crimean front. This could force Ukraine to launch a major river crossing operation that would make it very vulnerable to heavy losses.

No amphibious operations against Odessa region appear to be possible in the near or long term.

Western Ukraine -
Russia has hit targets in the Vinnytsia region of central Ukraine, and Radekhiv in the west. Explosions heard in Lviv region in west Ukraine, according to local officials.

Explosions also being reported in northwestern cities of Lutsk and Rivne, believed due to a large missile attack by Russian Forces.

However, the race is on - how quickly can Russia refit and reorganize unit pulled out of the fight in the north and get them in the fight for Dombas before Ukraine can shift forces south and get additional equipment for NATO via Poland. The next few days will be critical in eastern Ukraine.

Russia will continue to be hammered by the documentation of horrendous war crimes against Ukrainan civilians as more of the North is cleared out of Russian forces and relief moves in. I don’t know if Russia will receive any meaningful rebuke/sanctions by the UN, but momentum is in the favor of Ukraine.

Defenders of Mariupol continue to hold to parts of the city, thwarting Russian efforts to conquer it. However, it appears that Russia is more than happy to turn the city into rubble. Civilian deaths will be sky high - more of a war crime. they cold hold out for days or weeks - just don’t have better data.

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Europe / NATO General -

NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg says alliance determined to supply more weapons to Ukraine, adding they will do more for partners such as Georgia and Bosnia “vulnerable for Russian threats and interference”

The Czech Republic has been sending old Soviet-era tanks into Ukraine, providing badly needed heavy weapons to outgunned Ukrainian troops that are battling a much better-equipped Russian invasion force.
The efforts, described by three Czech and Slovak officials, mark the first time a foreign country has provided tanks to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began Feb. 24. In a potentially even more important development, both the Czech Republic and neighboring Slovakia, which shares a border with Ukraine, are considering opening their military industrial installations to repair and refit damaged Ukrainian military equipment.

Portugal to expel 10 Russian diplomats.
Norway to expel three Russian diplomats
EU has now ordered 19 Russian diplomats to leave Belgium.
The Greek authorities declared 12 members of the Diplomatic and Consular Missions of the Russian Federation, which are accredited in Greece, as personae non gratae
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Israel -

Israeli foreign minister Lapid accuses Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine: “The images and testimony from Ukraine are horrific. Russian forces committed war crimes against a defenseless civilian population. I strongly condemn these war crimes”

OBSERVATION - Israel has been walking a fine line because they have been working with the Russians to avoid inadvertently hitting any troops when thy strike Hezebollah targets. Part of this is keeping Russian ADA assets out of play. This effort has become strained by the war and may be on the verge of the loss of cooperation.

MK Idit Silman announces her resignation from the coalition, leaving them without a majority. With this, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government loses its majority in Knesset, leaving it neck-and-neck with the opposition at 60-60. If an additional person were to leave the coalition, the government could be brought down in a law brought by the Opposition that would disperse the Knesset. Silman said that she “could not take it anymore,” and that she could not continue undermining the Jewish identity of the State of Israel, a reference to a disagreement she had with Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz over allowing chametz into hospitals over Passover.

OBSERVATION - Besides a concern over Passover practices, this could put Israel back into a cycle of parliamentary elections that could put the country in a dangerous position when facing increasing aggression by Iran and Hezbollah.
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Central / South America General-

Peru’s president declared a state of emergency in the capital Lima as violent protests over inflation led to clashes with police, blocked highways and food shortages.
OBSERVATION - Food shortages and skyrocketing inflation are key ingredients for social instability and as this crisis worsens globally these kinds of protests will grow and expand.
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Black Swans -
Unseasonably cold weather hit parts of Europe over the past weekend, following warmer-than-normal temperatures in previous weeks that caused rapid greening of flora. Damage to agriculture is widespread but it seems it’s not as bad as it was last year when a similar cold episode happened. The worst affected countries were France, Germany, Spain and Austria.

OBSERVATION - More stress on the global food supply chain.

Wuhan virus -

See China lockdown
_____________________________

Economy -

The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects U.S. food prices to increase by at least another 5% on average this year.
OBSERVATION - You can bet the USDA is lowballing these numbers.

Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Patrick Harker said this week that he doesn’t “see high inflation going away quickly.” Harker also said that the American public should expect to pay high food and gas prices for some time.

US jet-fuel inventories have fallen to a seventeen-year low. More troubling is that jet-fuel inventories for the US East Coast have fallen to a 25-year low. Tight fuel supplies ahead of a traditionally busy travel season may suggest ticket prices could jump.
OBSERVATION - This may become a worse repeat of last spring/early summer where some airports had to cancel commercial flights because of demand compounded by early forest fire season.

Federal Reserve officials agreed to shrink the central bank’s balance sheet by a maximum of $95 billion each month, minutes from the March meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee revealed on Wednesday.
Fed officials in March hiked the target for overnight lending and the interest paid on reserves by a quarter of a percentage point, to a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent. The minutes released Wednesday revealed previously undisclosed details about the Fed’s plans to shrink its enormous stockpile of bond holdings.
OBSERVATION - Continued aggressive plans by the Fed. Economic concerns that they may be pressing too hard, too fast, which could trigger a deep recession or depression.

Deutsche Bank warned this week of an “outright recession” in 2023. Deutsche is the first major bank to predict recession, and their latest expectation is that after hiking rates through 2022, the Fed will be forced to cut rates in the first half of 2023.

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Invasion of Illegals -

Democratic and six Republican senators will introduce a new bill on Thursday that would prevent the Biden administration from lifting Title 42 without a detailed plan in place to stop an expected surge of migrants at the border.

The White House admitted Wednesday that it is giving smartphones to illegal immigrants who cross the southern border in order to track them while they’re in the United States and make sure they attend their immigration hearings.
OBSERVATION - New play on 0bama phones for illegals.
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Biden / Harris watch -

Increasing scuttlebutt that recent gaffs by biden, along with imploding democrat support for the upcoming midterms, may accelerate efforts to put him out to pasture sooner now rather than later. Probably most noticeable when 0bama spoke at the 12th anniversary of 0bama care. Such an event on a none major time break (ie, normally such would be on the 10th, 20th etc anniversary) and how the assembled mob swarmed on 0bama and excluded biden just adds fuel to the fire.
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China -

China’s Foreign Ministry warned overnight that they’d take strong measures if U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) continues with her planned trip to Taiwan this weekend. The Foreign Ministry said Pelosi should cancel her trip immediately, as they’ll be forced to “take resolute and forceful measures to firmly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the US must be fully responsible for all the consequences.”(FO)

Some residents under lockdown in Shanghai say they are running out of food, amid the city’s biggest-ever Covid outbreak.
Residents are confined to their homes, banned from leaving for even essential reasons such as grocery shopping.
Nearly 20,000 cases were reported on Thursday in China’s biggest city - another near-record high.
But public anger is also being stoked by other drastic measures - such as the removal of children from their parents if they test positive. Shanghai officials later responded by allowing parents who were also infected to accompany their children to isolation centers.
OBSERVATION - The city has been on lock down for nearly three weeks now.

China’s “breathtaking expansion” of its strategic and nuclear arsenal is a quickly escalating risk for the U.S., the head of U.S. Strategic Command plans to tell lawmakers at a closed-door hearing on Tuesday.
OBSERVATION - China may be taking notes of Russia’s blackmail of the west in Ukraine via nuclear threats. Unlike Putin, China may feel less restrained to use nukes in any operation to capture Taiwan.
____________________________________

North/South Korea -

US officials believe that North Korea may conduct a nuclear test next week, this comes after their ICBM test on 23 March, the first since 2017.
OBSERVATION - The last test was believed to be a thermonuclear (H bomb) level. Some Geologists suggest that the tests have damaged the intergrity of the rock at the test site and further tests could result in a significant release of nuclear products and even a potential breakout of a nuclear fireball. Work appears to be rushed and that could further result in a signifiant release and even failure of a hillside.
This test, i believe, could be a an actual warhead for its Hwsong series ICBMs. The would be a logical next step.

North Korea could be preparing to restart land trade with Russia on their shared border. Satellite imagery from recent weeks shows resumed work to upgrade a freight station, suggesting a resumption may be on the horizon.
OBSERVATION - NK needs more reliable sources of food primarily and Russia could be helpful there. However, Russia may demand cold hard cash, something NK is short of.

SK President Yoon vows to strengthen deterrence against North Korea’s nuclear, missile threats. This could indicate the start of an arms race on the peninsula.
OBSERVATION - Yoon promised in his campaign to take a harder stand against NK provocations.

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Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv has ended - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

Withdrawing Russian forces have left abundant evidence of mass murder of civilians, rape of women and children and widewpread looting.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

********

UNGA will vote today on the removal of Russia from participation in the Human Rights Council.
Washington: We have enough votes to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council.

Russia is losing the latest PR battle due to the execution of civilians in towns north of Kyiv. They have tried to counter, but their arguments as clearly false on the face.

Putin is gambling that the attack to capture the Dombas region will give him a ‘victory’ that will permit him to save some face and stop the war on his terms at least. So far Russian forces are still under performing in the renewed assaults.

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Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Temperatures forecast thru April 16th with a lot of rain continuing in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

24 HOUR ROUND UP -

According to US officials, “Russian forces are be preparing for a larger offensive in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in the coming days, but are unlikely to generate the combat power necessary to break through Ukrainian defenses in continuing frontal assaults.”
So far this observation appears o be playing out as Russian attacks in the Dombas region appear to be rejected by Ukraine forces (see details under respective fronts). Reports continue that units pulled out of the north are being funneled to the Khariv front.

Intensive artillery, missile and bombing in the Dombas continues to intensify. Evidence now that Russia are now loading large, dumb bombs on their strategic bombers rather than just use them as cruse missile launch platforms. This could place them at risk from Ukraine ADA as well as increase indiscriminate deaths of civilians.

US estimates that over 60% of Russian forces that invaded Ukraine remain inside the country, some units have pulled back to Belarus. This number is a little meaningless in that it doesn’t break the 40% number down by KIA, WIA, MIA for personnel for instance. Tracking indicates at a minimum 30% of Russian tanks have been destroyed along with thousands of APV. Estimated KIAs of 15K from a couple weeks ago is 10% of the preiavasion forces and is likely higher now (haven’t seen any more recent estimates). The with this in mind, just how tore up are these 40% forces?

Belgorod continues to emerge as the primary concentration area for Russian forces regrouping and refitting after their retreat from Kyiv and in preparation for movement to their home stations or to join fighting in the east. However, there is no evidence of movement back to home stations.

The following map that I found does a pretty good job putting this phase of the battle into context.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPqT4a3XEAI1eVW?format=jpg&name=large

Ukrainian authorities say nearly 5,000 people were evacuated from combat areas in the south or eastern part of the country.

Kyiv front -
North of Kyiv, Ukraine is doing de-mining operations, senior U.S. defense official says.

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Continued clearing of any Russian pockets and mines
North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
Continued clearing of any Russian pockets and mines

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Elements of Russia’s 20th Combined Arms Army and 1st Guards Tank Army continued offensive operations from Izyum towards Slovyansk but did not make any major territorial gains in the past 24 hours. This axis of attack is critical to the encirclement the eastern Dombas region.

Heavy artillery and bombing of the Khariv area again overnight. Kharkiv alone was hit 50 times last night
Russian forces continue to shell cities in eastern and southern Ukraine, and strike targets elsewhere with missiles.

Russian forces continued to redeploy forces to the Izyum-Slovyansk axis and eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours and did not secure any major advances . Ukrainian forces reportedly repelled Russian attack at Kreminna and pushed them 6-10kms from the town.

Airstrikes in recent days are being concentrated heavily south of the Ukrainian town of Izyum and into the Joint Force Operations (JFO) area.

South Eastern (Dombas Separatist Region) Front -

News about Mariupol is lacking. Ukrainan forces still hold the center of the town.
The mayor of Mariupol said on Wednesday that 50 people were burned alive in the city during Russia’s assault on it, and 5,000 were killed over the last month.
Ukrainian troops are apparently still able to operate armor in the very outskirts of Mariupol. Not only do they still have working BTR-4s despite a nearly month-long siege, but they still operate in large parts of the suburbs. The following link is to a map that shows the current tactical situation based on the available data. (impressive video out there of a BTR taking out two Russian tanks with its 30mm cannon in an ambush from rear)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPvwmGcagAQp5-7?format=jpg&name=medium

Russian forces continued unsuccessful operations to seize Popasna and Rubizhne and continued shelling along the entire line of contact in the past 24 hours.

Ten high-rise buildings are on fire in the eastern Ukrainian town of Sievierodonetsk after Russian forces shelled the town on Wednesday, the governor of the eastern Luhansk region said in an online post. He said that there was no information yet on any casualties. Sievierodonetsk is the temporary headquarters of the regional authorities as Luhansk city has been controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.

Extensive artillery fire continues all along the LOC into the Donetsk region
Russian army attempted to break through the defenses near Novotoshkivske, but failed

Again, see map link above for better understanding of the actions and where they are happening.

Crimea Front -
Ukrainian forces continued successful counterattacks towards Kherson from both Mykolayiv and Kryvyi Rih. The Russian push to Kryvyi Rih a couple of weeks ago may have already been cut off by recent Ukraine actions, but I have no data. I suspect that Russia is / has pulled them back to Kherson and across the Dnieper River to reinforce defenses there.
Ukrainian forces reportedly liberated Osokorivka in Kherson region, according to Ukrainan military officials. Ukraine’s counter-offensive contiunes to advance towards Khersonshchyna.

No amphibious operations against Odessa region appear to be possible in the near or long term.

Western Ukraine -
Russia has hit targets in the Vinnytsia region of central Ukraine, and Radekhiv in the west. Explosions heard in Lviv region in west Ukraine, according to local officials.

OUTLOOK -
Russian assault to seize the Dombas region will continue ramp up. Already, intense artillery and bombing followed up by ground assault are being conducted, perhaps the best combined arms effort by Russia to date. Could be the result of a better unified Russian command.
The most aggressive assaults are coming from the Izyum-Slovyansk axises south of Khariv. Expect Russian forces redeployed from the north to be positioned here. However, I don’t expect these repositioned forces to make much difference for at least another week.
Expect continued Russian missile attacks on Dombas and Western Ukraine targets.

Defenders of Mariupol continue to hold to parts of the city, thwarting Russian efforts to conquer it. Evidence that Ukraine can still maneuver and strike Russian forces suggest that the defenders have a greater reserve and supplies than initially estimated.
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Europe / NATO General -

Finland will clarify next steps regarding a possible decision to seek NATO membership in the coming weeks, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters after attending a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Thursday.
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Israel -

Bennett says security forces recently foiled more than 15 terrorist attacks.

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Iran -

Democrats are expressing alarm at a renewed nuclear deal with Iran, the Daily Mail reports.
On Wednesday, a group of 18 House Democrats warned that the Biden administration’s weak negotiating position meant there were no guarantees that the Islamic republic would not eventually develop nuclear weapons. According to the Mail, the group also said that lifting economic sanctions would allow money to flow to the state’s terrorist proxies.
OBSERVATION - Like I’ve been pointing out, Iran is getting everything they want due to the ineptitude and weakness of the biden administration. They only respect strength.

Iran has reportedly moved all its machines that make centrifuge parts from its mothballed workshop at Karaj to its sprawling Natanz site just six weeks after it set up another site at Isfahan to make the same parts, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.
OBSERVATION - Iran getting ready for unfettered processing of uranium. Relocating them to a more secure, bunkered facility to minimize damage from any potential Israeli airstrikes

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Armenia/Azerbaijan -

A trilateral meeting of the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the President of the European Council, has begun in Brussels. This may represent the start peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to in order to address tensions over the long-disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which borders both nations, according to the office of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
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Misc of Note -

It has been confirmed that the entire island of PuertoRico was without power due to an “critical fault” overnight. There are reports of an issue with a power plant, and fires at two substations. This morning, LUMA Energy is reporting partial restoration with currently reported 347k out.

OBSERVATION - PR’s power grid has historically been jerry rigged due to corrupt and inept operation of the power system. Rebuild efforts after the hurricane a few years ago exposed deep corruption. Reconstruction under Trump’s administration put the major back bone of the system back, but apparently the system has returned to its inept, corrupt operating standards.
One thing of note are the two fires at substations - cause unknown and could have contributed to the dominos falling. At this time, no evidence of terror related causes.
Could be some time before things are straightened out.

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If you haven’t figured this out yet, the world is becoming less stable at an increasing rate. This summary tries to snapshot the stability (or lack thereof) on a subjective basis (mine). We are an interconnected world, and what happens in parts of the world has ripples that affect us.

Temperature Gauge - Threat Trending Code Color Key

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Globalism / Great Reset - YELLOW trending upward *unchanged*
DISCUSSION - Ukraine war has allowed GGR to operate towards the ‘reset’ without much news coverage.

Obama spoke Wednesday at an event sponsored by The Atlantic and the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy.” He called for government control over the Internet in order to stem the “demand for crazy” that was spreading what he called “disinformation.”

OBSERVATION - Claims of ‘disinformation” or ‘misinformation’ is all over out there being used as a basis to control discussions. GGR needs tight control of the narrative to maintain control of the sheeple. This was brought fully into the picture from the wuhan dumpster fire where the govt claimed individuals passed ‘misinformation ‘ and those people lost their jobs.
________________________________

Wuhan virus - YELLOW *last updated 12-10-21*
DISCUSSION - News largely overwhelmed by Ukraine reporting. Doom cries about a new ‘variant’ poking their head up.

Democrats facing a ‘super spreader’ event fallout from recent democrat events. Pelosi may have exposed biden to the wuhan before diagnosed herself.

An Israeli study found that a fourth dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t offer long-lived protection against the Omicron variant of the CCP virus.
Using Ministry of Health data on more than 1.2 million people, researchers found that a second booster dose of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine offered protection against significant COVID-19 infections for six weeks. But protection against all virus infections started to drop quickly after four weeks and nearly disappeared after eight weeks, according to the study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Several weeks ago, Israeli researchers found in a separate preprint study that the protection from a second Pfizer booster quickly diminished.
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Economy - RED * Updated 02-25-22*
DISCUSSION - Inflation continues to be the prime source of concern for the US and the rest of the world.

Jim Bullard, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, during a presentation Thursday at the University of Missouri-Columbia said inflation is “a mess that we haven’t seen in 40 years,” and the Fed’s benchmark interest rate needs to increase to 3.5% from the current 0.5%.

OBSERVATION - increasing rates too high, too fast could backfire and crash the economy into a depression. Many economists pessimistic about the Fed’s ability to land the interest plane without crashing it.

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Invasion of Illegals - ORANGE trending upward *unchanged*
DISCUSSION - Biden’s removal of Title 42 measures guarantees an uncontrollable flood of illegals starting next month. States of AZ and TX may take stronger measures by declaring an invasion and deploying forces to the border.
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Biden/Harris watch - ORANGE trending upward *unchanged*
DISCUSSION - Mental facilities continue to degrade. Harris’ mental capabilities are also questionable.

Increasing rumors that the swamp is viewing biden as a detriment in spite of their ability to control him and may be looking to put him out to pasture sooner rather than later. Their problem is what to do with airhead Harris.
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CW2/Domestic violence - YELLOW trending upward *updated 03/25/22*
DISCUSSION - BLM/Antifa maintaining lowered presence outside of base areas (Portland, Seattle etc). There are continued events like first aid and riot training. Rampant crime continues with it migrating into affluent areas.

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Strategic Activity / Deployments - ORANGE (UPDATED 01/21/2022)

US actively delivering war supplies to Poland for shipment into Ukraine. US forces are deployed to the region as well as maintaining presence in the Western Pacific to deter China.
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Cyber Warfare - YELLOW

Continued warnings of Russian cyber attacks against US power and financial networks.
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China - ORANGE trending neutral to upward

Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan has been canceled due to her coming down with wuhan.
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North Korea - ORANGE tending upward (UPDATED 03-25-22)

Nuclear test watch over the next week. Hurried preparations continue to be observed at the test site.

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Russia - RED * updated 02-18-22*
DISCUSSION - INCREASED WARNING ONGOING -

WAR WATCH - This situation is rapidly developing and remains fluid.

CURRENT ASSESSMENT -Russia has pivoted its focus to Eastern Ukraine and capture of the Dombas region. Russian troops pulled from northern Ukraine are reportedly being refurbished and transferred to Eastern Ukraine to support the attack.
Russia facing a propaganda nightmare due to the massacre of civilians north of Kyiv as well as indiscriminate bombing of residential areas.

*********
The U.N. General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from the world organization’s leading human rights body over allegations of horrific rights violations by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, which the United States and Ukraine have called tantamount to war crimes.

Hackers who operate on behalf of the cyber collective Anonymous claim that they’ve gained access to the Kremlin’s CCTV system. They warned Putin: “We won’t stop until we reveal all of your secrets. You won’t be able to stop us.”

Personnel Issues -
- In a shocking admission, Russian officials acknowledge heavy personnel losses.
- Unconfirmed reports that Russian military has begun recruiting conscripts who have been discharged from military service since 2012 and is summoning them for a special three-month training period before deployment to active units
- Reports that Russian units withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine are currently residing in tent camps and face declining morale.

Equipment Issues -
- Russia continuing to suffer from heavy equipment losses. Documented losses have skyrocketed as Ukraine forces consolidate the north.

Economic Hits -
- Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has announced new sanctions on Russia, including a coal ban, slamming Moscow for violations of international law in Ukraine
- US Senate has voted to end normal trade ties with Russia over their invasion of Ukraine

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Ukraine - RED *updated 02-18-22* - The battle for Ukraine has entered its second month.

WEATHER FORECAST - Temperatures forecast thru April 15th show warm with increasing rain/showers. Conditions likely to keep off road operations unfavorable.

24 HOUR ROUND UP -

Russia continued missile and bombing attacks across the nation, focused mostly on the Dombas region. Ukranians are departing the region to avoid being caught up in the fighting. Ukrainian forces “are absolutely adapting and adjusting in real time to Russian efforts now to increase their activities there” in eastern Ukraine, senior U.S. defense official says. Russia has continued to gain the initiative in the east but are repulsed by Ukraine forces.
Intelligence assessments on the fight for Dombas indicate that Russian forces will likely attempt to regroup and redeploy units withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine to support an offensive, but these units are unlikely to enable a Russian breakthrough.

More and more evidence of war crime atrocities in the north continue to be revealed. The scale of atrocities in Melitopol may well be orders of magnitude greater.

Kyiv front -
Indicators that Russian and Belarusian forces are conducting “demonstrative actions” to fix Ukrainian forces around Kyiv in place. It is unlikely that these forces have signifiant combat capability and unlikely to launch any attacks.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Foreign Affairs rep of the European Union Josep Borrell, and Prime Minister of Slovakia Eduard Heger visited Bucha.

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Consolidation and clean up of Russian mines ongoing.

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
Consolidation and clean up of Russian mines ongoing.

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Russian and Ukraine forces still are clashing in the vicinity of the town of Izyum (Izium). Russian forces along the Izyum-Slovyansk axis did not make any territorial gains in the last 24 hours.

Russian forces continued to shell civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv and its outskirts and seek to fix Ukrainian forces in place. More intense artillery and bombing in the eastern Ukraine LOC around Izyum and Slovyansk.

Eastern (Dombass Separatist Region) Front -
Conditions in Mariupol continue to be desperate with bombing killing hundreds of civilians. It is unclear how much longer the Ukrainian defenders can hold out.
Russian proxy forces claimed to have captured central Mariupol on April 7, but Ukrainian forces still dispute the area and apparently have better control of suburb areas.

Russian troops seized evacuation buses with humanitarian aid to Melitopol’ according to the head of regional administration.

Separatist/Russian forces made little to no gains in the sector to join forces trying to come down out of the north from Izyum-Slovyansk

Overnight Russian forces launched at least two Tochka-U rocket from separatist held area and hit the rail road station in Kramatorsk, killing at least 50 and wounding hundreds of civilians who were gathered there to evacuate out of the region ahead of the impending Russian assault.
Kremlin affiliated media first proudly reported the Kramatorsk massacre, claiming their missile hit an ammunition train that arrived yesterday evening. After the appearance of civilian casualties, they started blaming Ukraine.

Crimea Front -
Ukrainian advances in Kherson Oblast have slowed as Russian forces continued efforts to improve their defensive positions in Kherson.

Russian amphibious operations against the Odessa region are off the table for now.

Western Ukraine -
Missile attacks in the region were reported but no significant targets reported were hit. Silence on this point may be OPSEC to deny Russia BDA.

OUTLOOK -

Continued build up of Russian forces in the east as those that were battered in the north are refitted, reconsolidated and moved there. Russia is betting it all on the capture of the Dombas region and is devoting the bulk of its resources to the fight. Some of this may also be driven by a theatre commander running the show rather than each CAA doing their own thing. The assessment that the redeployed Russian forces will not be adequate to sway the battle in this area and that Ukraine is showing great flexibility in getting reinforcements and equipment there quicker than the Russians are able to. Old saying - who ever gets there the firstist with the mostest wins.

More civilian deaths are being discovered. Combination of deliberate assassination by Russian troops along with deliberate targeting of residential areas and civilian shelters killing even more. This is resulting in Russia becoming increasingly isolated diplomatically as well as economically.

Ukraine still holds out in Mariupol, and their dogged determination is amazing, how much longer they can hold out is uncertain.
____________________________________

Belarus - RED *updated 01-02-28*
DISCUSSION - Managing to keep its forces in country and not commit to ground combat in Ukraine.

Belarus facing increasing sanctions due to their support of the Russian invasion.
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Poland - ORANGE trending upward *updated 3-18-22*
DISCUSSION - Poland remains in Russian crosshairs for its operation in resupplying Ukrainian forces.

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Europe / NATO General - ORANGE *updated 02-25-22*
DISCUSSION - NATO nations continue to funnel war supplies to Ukraine. Russian threats against these countries are less vocal/open. Russia may be very wary of hitting any of these nations (particularly Poland) conventionally due to Article 5 and the sorry state of its military forces in and around Ukraine.

Spanish Foreign Minister: The attack on the Kramatorsk station is a flagrant violation of international law aimed at punishing civilians

Finland making preparations to apply for NATO membership as early as this summer.

Greece will ask the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes in Mariupol. There is a substantial Greek population in the town.

Eighteen countries (Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Greece, Portugal, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, North Macedonia, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, and Denmark) have now expelled a total of 318 Russian diplomats.
Japan joins Western nations in expelling Russian diplomats, kicking out eight, Foreign Ministry says
Montenegro announced the expulsion of 4 Russian diplomats

Slovakia gives S-300 air defense systems to Ukraine
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Israel - ORANGE trending upward *updated 04-01-22*
DISCUSSION - Several terror attacks by West Bank Palestinians has caused tensions to skyrocket over the past week.

Two Israeli civilians killed in shooting attack in Tel Aviv. The terrorist who carried out the deadly attack was identified as 28-year-old Jenin resident Ra’ad Hazem. He was killed in a pre-dawn firefight near a closed Jaffa mosque where he was hiding out hours after the killing spree. Hazem wa from the Shin Bet. He had no apparent terror group affiliation. No prior arrests. Illegally in Israel at the time of attack. No terror group has claimed credit for the attack either, though several praised it.
Bennett ordered northern West Bank crossings closed ‘until further notice’.

OBSERVATION - Israel is close to dropping the hammer on Palestinians in the West Bank, but are trying to hold off because of Ramadan and such would be adding fuel to the fire.
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Iran - ORANGE and increasing *(updated 03-25-22)*

Iran continues to have its way in talks over a new nuclear agreement.
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Armenia/Azerbaijan - BLUE ( updated 03/25/22)

Both countries are meeting to try to work out recent issues

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This is going to be a bit abbreviated today - have a bunch of work that has to take priority such has helping my daughter get her house ready for my next grandbaby.

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Globalism / Great Reset -

Dr. Phillipa “Pippa” Malmgren, a technology entrepreneur and economist, spoke at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum being held in Davos, Switzerland, this week, dropping a bombshell prediction that the world is well on its way to implementing an electronic banking system that would open every transaction of every person to government scrutiny.
“And what we’re seeing in the world today is I think we are on the brink of a dramatic change where we are about to - and I’ll say this boldly - we’re about to abandon the traditional system of money and accounting and introduce a new one, and the new one - the new accounting - is what we call blockchain.”
“It means digital,” she continued. “It means having an almost perfect record of every single transaction that happens in the economy, which will give us far greater clarity over what’s going on.”
\
OBSERVATION - With “clarity” comes greater control.

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Wuhan virus -

Residents of Shanghai are starting to protest the ongoing total lockdown of the city. Authorities now say they will ease restrictions after another mass test in China’s most populous city.
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Economy -

A national shortage of baby formula brought on by pandemic-related supply-chain issues has forced US retailers such as Walgreens to ration the all-important product.
The company - the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS - said Friday that amid the supply-chain crunch, it is limiting customers to three infant and toddler formula product purchases at a time, at its 9,021 US locations.

OBSERVATION - Walmart and Costco has been rationing for at least the past 6 months now and IIRC I noted back then the impending shortage crisis. BTW I stocked up about 9 months worth for my grandbaby due later this month .

Prices for food commodities like grains and vegetable oils reached their highest levels ever last month because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the “massive supply disruptions” it is causing, the United Nations said Friday.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said its Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international prices for a basket of commodities, averaged 159.3 points last month, up 12.6% from February. As it is, the February index was the highest level since its inception in 1990.
OBSERVATION - The war has made a preexisting bad situation even worse.

(Reuters) - The macro-economic picture is deteriorating fast and could push the U.S. economy into recession as the Federal Reserve tightens its monetary policy to tame surging inflation, BofA strategists warned in a weekly research note.
“’Inflation shock’ worsening, ‘rates shock’ just beginning, ‘recession shock’ coming”, BofA chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett wrote in a note to clients, adding that in this context, cash, volatility, commodities and crypto currencies could outperform bonds and stocks.
OBSERVATION - Doesn’t this make you harken back to the days of “transitory” inflation. . . .

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Invasion of Illegals -

Border states taking more steps in anticipation of the tsunami of illegals expected in the coming month.

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CANCEL CULTURE FRONT -

Still laughing at how Musk is causing twitter - heads exploding.

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POLITICAL FRONT -

Pelosi has tested positive for COVID-19, a day after appearing unmasked at a White House event with President Joe Biden. ...The 82-year-old Democratic leader’s announcement came ahead of her weekly press appearance on Capitol Hill. The House is set to start a two week spring recess.
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China -

See Wuhan above
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North/South Korea -

According to U.S. officials to CNN, North Korea’s nuclear test site could be ready in days. The U.S. is worried that North Korea could conduct a nuclear test or another missile test next week, especially on or around their Day of the Sun holiday (April 15th).
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Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv has ended - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

Withdrawing Russian forces have left abundant evidence of mass murder of civilians, rape of women and children and widewpread looting.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

********
Russia’s ambassador to the US warns that West’s actions may lead to a military confrontation between Moscow and Washington

We now have an idea who’s in-charge of the Ukraine operation. Reports are that military leadership in Ukraine has been assigned to Gen Alexander Dvornikov. Western officials say the general has extensive experience of Russian operations in Syria.

The Russian Foreign Ministry transfers its “denazification” rhetoric on Ukraine to Latvia:
“The ruling regime in Latvia has long been well known for its neo-Nazi preferences and attempts to whitewash the atrocities of Nazi Germany ‘s henchmen”
OBSERVATION - The Baltic countries have been warning about Russian aggression and this rhetoric from Russia just reinforces the concerns.

Russian Personnel Issues -
- Russia mobilizing 60,000 reservists to join the war in Ukraine: U.S. senior defense official NOTE - Its going to take weeks / months before these reservists are equipped, organized and made combat ready
- Russian forces are increasingly refusing to reenter combat, and the Kremlin remains unlikely to quickly redeploy effective forces from northeastern Ukraine to operations in Donbas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that more than 80% of personnel in some unspecified Russian units previously involved in combat operations are refusing to return to the front. Russian commanders are reportedly refusing to release soldiers whose service contracts have expired, forcing them to stay with their units.
- Another one bites the dust. Colonel Alexander Bespalov, the commander of the 59th Guards Tank Regiment (part of the 144th Guards Motorized Rifle Division), was killed in Ukraine.
- Now rough estimates of Russia KIA stands at 19,000. Rough estimate of wounded would be about 57,000

Economic Impacts -
- S&P cuts Russia’s foreign currency rating to ‘selective default’
- Biden has signed into law the Suspending Normal Trade Relations with Russia and Belarus Act

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Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Temperatures forecast thru April 16th with a lot of rain continuing in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

24 HOUR ROUND UP -
‘Overwhelming’ number of Russian air strikes in past 24 hours are in Mariupol and other areas of eastern Ukraine . Intensive artillery, missile and bombing in the Dombas continues to intensify.

Ukraine keeps defeating attacks in the Dombas region while Russia struggles to redeploy combat effective forces from the North. New overall Russian CG named and will have his hands full trying to coordinate the effort.

Ukraine forces still advancing on Kherson and may potentially attempt to cross the Dniper River north of the town.

Kyiv front -
North of Kyiv, Ukraine continues doing de-mining operations, senior U.S. defense official says.

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Continued clearing of any mines

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
Continued clearing of mines

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Russian forces remain concentrated on taking Rubizhne and Popasna in Luhansk Oblast and concentrated on Marinka in Donetsk Oblast. The Ukrainian General Staff additionally reported that Russian forces are establishing minefields around Kharkiv in expectation of Ukrainian counterattacks.
Russian forces continued attacks south of Izyum toward Slovyansk and Barvinkove on April 8 but did not take any new territory.

Heavy artillery and bombing of the Khariv area continue. Russian forces continue to shell cities in eastern and southern Ukraine, and strike targets elsewhere with missiles.

Russian forces continued to redeploy forces to the Izyum-Slovyansk axis and eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours and did not secure any major advances .

Airstrikes in recent days are being concentrated heavily south of the Ukrainian town of Izyum and into the Joint Force Operations (JFO) area.

South Eastern (Dombas Separatist Region) Front -

Situation in Maripol is clouded by lack of solid information, but is appears the noose is tightening for defenders. Russian forces have reportedly made it to the southern part of the port area. Other reports of Russian forces said to be just blocks away from Mariupol station. Remaining Ukrainian positions along the eastern bank of the Kal’mius are in trouble, too. However, it appears that Ukrainian forces retain control of defensive positions in eastern and southwestern Mariupol, despite Russian claims to have captured most of the city.

Russian forces continued unsuccessful operations to seize Popasna and Rubizhne and continued shelling along the entire line of contact in the past 24 hours.

Extensive artillery fire continues all along the LOC into the Donetsk region

Crimea Front -
Ukrainian counterattacks have likely taken further territory west of Kherson, threatening Russian control of the city. Russian forces in the southern direction remain on the defense and continue to lose ground.

No amphibious operations against Odessa region appear to be possible in the near or long term.

Western Ukraine -
More missile attacks across the region, but no signification targets mentioned, likely to maintain a degree of OPSEC.

OUTLOOK -
Continued Russian buildup in the East/Southeast Ukraine in anticipation of an offensive to seize the rest of the Dombas region. Russian difficulties in getting the redeployed units ready for combat may be the cause for the current delay, but analysts note that full operations are imminent. Russian attacks of recent may be probing attacks seeking ways to get the large contingent of forces through Ukrainan defenses.. A road bound assault will face a meat grinder as the failed attacks in the north have.

Russian air activity is expected to increase in Ukraine’s south and east, the UK’s Ministry of Defence says in its latest defense intelligence update.

Mariupol will continue to doggedly hold out - but unknown for how much longer. As with the rest of the Ukrainian defense, these units have over performed expectations, lasting weeks longer than they were believed they could.

Moscow’s forces are continuing to hit Ukrainian non-combatants, like those killed in Friday’s rocket strike on Kramatorsk railway station, it says.
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Belarus -

There are Unconfirmed reports that Multiple Eastern European/Asian Countries have begun to request their Citizens leave Belarus Immediately, these include Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan, some have also started preparing Evacuation Flights from Belarus beginning today.
OBSERVATION - Observers are not certain as to the reason for the sudden action by these countries. One RUMIT thought is that Russia may be considering forcibly conscripting these individuals into the war effort.

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Europe / NATO General -

U.S. sending a Patriot missile system, manned by American troops, to Slovakia, after they provided Ukraine with an S-300 air defense system. The Pentagon Press Secretary affirmed that those sent to Slovakia are on “temporary” assignment.
US will deploy one Patriot missile system to Slovakia, US Defense Secretary Austin says
Appears like in exchange of Slovakia sending its S-300 to Ukraine

Finland bans overland freight transport with Russian, Belarusian license plates. The measure came into effect on April 9 according to the sanctions imposed by the European Union.

____________________________________

Israel -

IDF to ramp up northern West Bank activity as PA said to be losing control of Jenin. Yesterday, ther were armed clashes during Israeli military patrols storming Jenin refugee camp .

OBSERVATION - Concerns of continued ‘lone wolf’ terror attacks based from the Jenin camp. If so, then Israeli responses will become stronger and stronger.
____________________________________

Iran -

The Biden administration will not remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the US terror list even though it may be a dealbreaker for Tehran signing a revived nuclear deal, an unnamed US official has told The Washington Post.

__________________________________

________________________________

Wuhan virus -

Locally rising cases of the weak new wuhan variant is giving govts thoughts about reinstating mask mandates. As early as Monday, Philadelphia is expected to reimpose an indoor mask mandate because of increasing positive tests and hospitalizations.
Also, two prominent universities — Georgetown and Johns Hopkins — are mandating masking and have instituted testing requirements before students return from spring break.
There are still several states that are maintaining their emergency powers even though most of the rest of the country has ended theirs.

OBSERVATION - Its not about the disease, its all about power.
_____________________________

Biden / Harris watch -

While introducing newly-confirmed Judge Ketanji Jackson at the White House, biden rambled on saying “I was in the the foothills of the Himalayas with Xi Jinping, traveling with him, that’s when I traveled 17,000 miles when I was Vice President. I don’t know that”
OBSERVATION - Verbal word salad like this is becoming an increasing standard when biden speaks. To swing into a conspiratorial mode, the powers that be may be allowing him to dig his own hole as ammunition for is eventual removal from office.
___________________________

CW2/Domestic violence -

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas delivered a speech to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network conference in New York City on Friday. He told those attending the conference that “the greatest terrorism-related threat that we face in the homeland is the threat of domestic violent extremism.” By this Mayorkas was confirming that to represent White supremacists.

OBSERVATION - This has been a recurring theme since 0bama years. After Jan 6th, this list has expanded to include many ‘white’ ideas and thought such as love of country, God, etc.. Policies like this are setting up potential govt targeting of much of the population if things go sidewise.
___________________________________

Strategic Activity / Deployments -

The Patriot battery going to Slovakia will include US personnel to operate it.
_________________________________

North/South Korea -

After a conference between US and South Korean officials in Washington on Tuesday (April 5), South Korean lawmaker Park Jin stated that “deploying strategic assets is an important part of strengthening extended deterrence” and that both countries “discussed the issue today in that sense.” Among the US strategic assets South Korea wants to be redeployed to its territory are nuclear-powered submarines, aircraft carriers and long-range bombers.

OBSERVATION - This level of cooperation between the US and SK is going to cause Kim fits. It is a 180 degree reversal of previous SK policy of appeasement.

NK holiday - North Korea will celebrate the birth of the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung, on April 15. Kim is the grandfather of current dictator Kim Jong Un.
OBSERVATION - This is why analysts and observers are looking to this date for a possible nuclear test.

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Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv has ended - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

Withdrawing Russian forces have left abundant evidence of mass murder of civilians, rape of women and children and widewpread looting.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

********

Russia staged war games in Kaliningrad according to Reuters News “Up to 1,000 military personnel. and more than 60 military equipment units were involved,” - Russian Baltic Fleet Command’s press service.

Russia has forcibly relocated many Ukraines into Russia. There Russia has fast tracked the adoption of Ukraine Orphans. This is just another war crime as identified below.
Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide:
E) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

War could potentially spread outside of Ukraine if Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria serves as an air base for Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine Ukraine has warned that it will shoot down Russian jets that are en route to Tiraspol

A lot of discussion on the assessment of Russian losses and the combat readiness of redeploying units from the north. 29 Russian Battalion Tactical Groups are reportedly combat ineffective after sustaining heavy losses & logistical failures in Ukraine per U.S. officials to CNN. Others assess the loss of BTGs at 20 “destroyed” and about 40 more combat ineffective. This comes out to about a loss of a third of Russia’s pre invasion forces.

Many of the losses were concentrated in some of Russia’s best units - airborne. Naval Infantry. and Guards tank regiments. This does not take into account other BTGs that lost some vehicles/personnel but are still considered “fit”. This analysis is essential to evaluate the combat effectiveness of the Phase 2 Dombas campaign by Russia. In addition to it, unit cohesiveness/coordination and morale are key issues.
A good discussion of the issue if found at the following link.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-9

RUMINT -
Top FSB general was ‘moved to high-security Moscow jail’ as Putin steps up purge of spies who ‘told him Ukrainians would welcome invasion’. Sergei Beseda, now former head of the 5th Service of the FSB, was earlier under house arrest. He has now been placed in pre-trial detention in notorious Lefortovo Prison The move will be seen as a warning to other senior aides of Vladimir Putin

Unconfirmed reports that Russia is trying to keep as many as 30 BTGs in a position to threaten Kyiv in an effort to freeze the transfer of forces by Ukraine to the Dombas region.

Logistics -
- Discussion among analysts on how long it will take Russia to refit units pulled out of N Ukraine to make them ready for the impending Dombas campaign. Some are placing this in the range of weeks or even months. There is evidence that Russian forces are in the process of moving to the Eastern Ukraine area - most noteworthy VDV forces, so there appears to be a spectrum of deployment dates.

Russian Personnel Issues -
- Russian troop call ups continue, however, many thing it will take as long as months to have them ready to deploy into the Ukranian fight.

Economic Impacts -

____________________________________

Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Mild temperatures are forecast thru April 19th with rain continuing in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

RUMINT -

24 HOUR ROUND UP -

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to Kyiv. He met with Zelensky and promised more aid including Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

Fighting in the Dombas region is ongoing, but ho significant Russian or Ukrainan gains/losses.

Heavy missile and air strikes in the Dombas region.

Kyiv front -
North of Kyiv, Ukraine continues doing de-mining operations

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Continued clearing of any mines

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
Continued clearing of mines

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Unconfirmed reports that Ukrainian military forces destroyed big Russian military column on the way to Izyum.
Other unconfirmed reports that this column was grouped in Kupianki. They were ambushed before the intersection of the road to Izjum and suffered substantial losses. Ukrainian forces have effectively blocked the intersection, at least for the time being.
It is also unknown if this is the same 8-mi long convoy of 100s of vehicles, including armored vehicles and artillery southbound through the Ukrainian town of Velykyi Burluk from a video posted by a Russian(?) source.

Russian forces continued to redeploy forces to the Izyum-Slovyansk axis and eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours and did not secure any major advances .

Numerous airstrikes and missile attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region including at least 7 striking Dnipro itself

OOOPS After hitting the industrial facility with artillery, Aerosols from the explosion of a cylinder with 4 tons of nitric acid spread towards the positions of the Russian military near Kudryashivka and Varvarivka.

South Eastern (Dombas Separatist Region) Front -

Situation in Maripol is clouded by lack of solid information, but is appears the noose is tightening for defenders. Russian forces have reportedly made it to the southern part of the port area. Other reports of Russian forces said to be just blocks away from Mariupol station. Getting a clear picture of the fighting and force distribution is difficult as much of the fight is now on a house to house basis.

Crimea Front -
Ukraine forces continue to pressure Kherson from both the southwest and north.
No amphibious operations against Odessa region appear to be possible in the near or long term.

Western Ukraine -
No significant activity noted.

OUTLOOK -
Continued force build up in Eastern Ukraine along with Russian probing attacks to pin and identigy weaknesses in Ukrainan forces for later exploitation. Continued heavy bombing and missile attacks deeper in the Dombas region. I don’t think Russia has enough forces yet to launch a major attack and doesn’t want to peace-meal units into the attack as they arrive.

Continued slug fest in Maripol with Ukraine defenders holding on by their fingernails. It appears that Russia wants to end this as soon as possible in order to redirect forces into the Dombas campaign.
___________________________________

Europe / NATO General -

‘If President Putin wants less NATO on his borders, he will get more NATO at his borders’ An interview with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

____________________________________

Pakistan -

Pakistan’s lawmakers have voted to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan from office in a vote of no confidence. The nuclear-armed Islamic nation has been in political turmoil for weeks. But he was accused by his detractors of economic mismanagement and foreign-policy mistakes.

Skyrocketing inflation, rising unemployment, a weak currency and a heavy debt burden also hurt his popularity.
While Khan’s supporters viewed him as the last hope for Pakistani politics, opponents chastised him for his willingness to accommodate Islamists and antagonize the West.

Shehbaz Sharif is likely to become the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. He is known for his “can-do” administrative styles & wants to have better relations with the United States.

High alert was ordered at all Pakistani airports, no senior state member or government official is allowed to leave the country without an NOC. Hospitals in Islamabad placed on high alert also, says police commandos, paramilitary, and snipers are deployed in Islamabad, reports Pakistani Army vehicles roam the streets.

Protests are erupting in the streets of Pakistan over Parliament’s removal of PM Imran Kahn from office. The Pakistan military has banned any government officials from leaving the country.

India’s military is on increased alert status due to this political turmoil.

OBSERVATION - This is a nuclear armed country that needs stable leadership to prevent a nuclear war with India. It has had a lot to turmoil over recent history. Right now it appears the military is supporting the idea of a new govt, ensuring as relatively smooth power transition.

___________________________________

Israel -

The IDF says 20 Palestinians suspected of terror activity were arrested in overnight raids across the West Bank. 11 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli forces in the areas of Jenin and Tulkarm.

Unusually fierce bombardment by Israeli yesterday. At least 5 aistrikes hit 3 different places in area of Masyaf Syria. One, a weapons laboratory near Zawi, known to have produced barrel bombs & currently used by Iran/Hezbollah was among the targets. This facility has been hit in the past.

____________________________________

________________________________

Globalism / Great Reset -

UN Claim: “Humans have less than three years to halt the rise of planet-warming carbon emissions and less than a decade to slash them by nearly half, UN climate experts said. … It’s a last-gasp race to ensure the world has a “liveable future”.
OBSERVATION - Expect wuhan like emergency declarations soon. This is next on the GGR hit parade.
_____________________________

Economy -

The average American household will have to spend an additional $5,200 this year ($433 per month) to live the exact same life as a result of record inflation, according to a study from Bloomberg.

Commodities prices could rise by 40 percent and will likely continue to go higher, according to a note from JPMorgan Chase from April 7, as raw materials hit a record high last month following Western sanctions on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine.
The commodities affected include oil, which is already up 33 percent from the same month the previous year, while natural gas has gone up by 65 percent since the invasion roiled the markets.
Metals excluding gold, such as copper, are up by 7 percent from 2021, while wheat has surged upward by 33 percent.

OBSERVATIONS - Look at your budget and needs 6 months out NOW and try to purchase those essentials now. Fun money is going to be scarce very soon, so readjust your budget.
PERSONAL - I’ve been following my own advice here in the Redoubt. Months ago when I posted on impending baby formula shortages, I stocked upon with about 9 months worth to make sure my soon to arrive next grandbaby is covered. Now I’m getting 2+ cords of wood to beat prices and availability (fire season may shut down wood cutters).
______________________________

Invasion of Illegals -

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) says President Joe Biden could potentially entice 20,000 to 30,000 border crossers and illegal aliens to the United States-Mexico border every day if he follows through on plans to end the Title 42 public health authority.
______________________________

Biden / Harris watch -

The Hunter scandal continues to gain traction in the MSM! suggesting that things may be hot for brandon and his reign in the WH.
___________________________

CW2/Domestic violence -

Biden will announce new federal regulations on so called “ghost guns”, targeting privately made firearms that can be assembled from do-it-yourself kits purchased online or in a store. The new rules will clarify that the unfinished parts sold in the kits, such as the fame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, will qualify as firearms under federal law.

OBSERVATION - More to diminish the 2d amendment rights and disarm americans.
___________________________________

POLITICAL FRONT -

MSM increasingly reporting that the democrats are facing a dumpster fire disaster in November. Not good when they start to jump ship.

_____________________________________

China -

China delivered newer ADA missile systems to Serbia over the past couple days. This spiked European concerns that this ally of Moscow is preparing to escalate against other former Yugoslavian states.
____________________________________

North/South Korea -

NUKE WATCH on going.
__________________________________

Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv has ended - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

Withdrawing Russian forces have left abundant evidence of mass murder of civilians, rape of women and children and widewpread looting.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

********
Russia’s newly appointed battlefield commander in Ukraine made his reputation crushing resistance to Syrian President Bashar Assad during that country’s devastating civil war. Russian forces led by Gen. Alexander Dvornikov destroyed whole cities while dropping barrel bombs that targeted civilians. With Moscow supporting Assad, the war in Syria has killed more than 350,000 people.
OBSERVATION - Could signal Moscows designs for a similar scorched earth campaign in Ukraine.

The Russian Ambassador to the United State; Anatoly Antonov, recently said that western shipments of arms to Ukraine which are being used against Russia Forces are beginning to reach a breaking-point in which an Ddrect conflict between the U.S/NATO and Russia is very likely.

OBSERVATION - This is not new rhetoric though the ambassador to the United States rarely makes such inflammatory statements. So far Russia hasn’t been able to stop the resupply effort to Ukraine and make take more direct efforts to do so, especially if the Dombas offensive boggs down.

Logistics -
- There are those who state that Russia will overwhelm Ukraine by there volumes. One measure they like to point out are the thousands of tanks Russia reportedly have. On paper Russia had thousands of fully armed and equipped tanks and other armored vehicles in reserve for quickly replacing combat losses. Not surprisingly those reserve vehicles were often in bad shape, having been poorly maintained by conscripts and larcenous civilians who made a lot of money by taking key items from these vehicles and selling them on the black market. These missing items were usually not reported missing until troops received these vehicles, which were generally mobile enough to be driven onto a railroad flatcar for transportation to units needing them. Once received these reserve vehicles were found missing equipment and in need of extensive repairs to make the vehicles combat ready.
- Current baseline Russian armor losses. Based on confirmed counts by Oryx, we have the following-
- Russian Army have visually lost 18/187=9.6% of its T-90A fleet,
- 151/1054=14.3% of its T-72B3/B3M fleet,
- 60/186=32.3% of its T-80U fleet,
- 21/72=29.6% of its T-80BVM fleet.
- Actual figure will be significantly larger with the 60 unknown pieces.
- So the Russian Ground Forces have visually (always note it is the baseline figure!) lost 467/1400=33.35% tanks deployed in Ukraine in the first 46 days of battle. ( oryx)

Russian Personnel Issues -
- Britain’s Ministry of Defence said: ‘In response to mounting losses, the Russian armed forces seek to bolster troop numbers with personnel discharged from military service since 2012.. ‘Efforts to generate more fighting power also include trying to recruit from the unrecognized Transnistria region of Moldova.’
- At least 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine, with a total 40,000 wounded, dead or captured since Putin’s invasion began on February 24. This is about 55K out of a starting force of about 180K - approximately 1/3. To keep in perspective, Russian losses for their entire time in Afghanistan was something like 10K.

Economic Impacts -
- Russian economy to contract 11.2%: - World Bank
- Russian Railways are in default
- Russia’s finance minister said the country would take legal action if it’s forced to default on its external debt, the Izvestia newspaper reported on Monday.

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Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Mild temperatures are forecast thru April 19th with rain continuing in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

24 HOUR ROUND UP -
Russia focused heavy artillery and bombing on the Khariv region, likely due to trying to fix Ukrainan forces in place and allow its formerly northern forces to move southward to the Izyum region unopposed. However, Ukraine hunter/killer teams and other elements are still managing to hit these columns.

Russians used more missiles last night, striking the Dombas region as well as Western Ukraine / Livi area.

The defenders of Maripol are still holding on.

In other areas, action seems to have dropped to a lower level. A calm before the storm.

Kyiv front -
North of Kyiv, Ukraine continues doing de-mining operations
Residents of Borodianka expect to find dozens of victims under the rubble of the several buildings destroyed during fighting between Russian forces and Ukrainian troops. The town is about 75 kilometers (47 miles) northwest of the capital of Kyiv

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Continued clearing of any mines

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
Continued clearing of mines

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Intense bombing and artillery strikes hit Kharkiv and surrounding suburbs and towns overnight.

Russian troops remotely deployed anti-personnel mines in residential district in Kharkiv, rescuers asking citizens not to approach them

Russian forces continued to redeploy forces to the Izyum-Slovyansk axis and eastern Ukraine in the past 24 hours and did not secure any major advances .

South Eastern (Dombas Separatist Region) Front -
Situation in Maripol is clouded by lack of solid information, but is appears the noose is tightening for defenders. Getting a clear picture of the fighting and force distribution is difficult as much of the fight is now on a house to house basis.

Crimea Front -
Mykolaiv had major missile strikes in the city suburbs overnight.

Western Ukraine -
Missile strikes reported in the Lviv outskirts.

OUTLOOK -

Rainy season is progressing and that bodes ill for Russian armor. This may limit its armor superiority it is massing to try to capture the Dombas region. Tankers like to maneuver, and not get road bound. Unlike in the north, the terrain is more open with fewer big cities and chokepoints that aided the Ukraine forces. However, Ukraine forces in the south are the best trained and have been preparing for war since 2014 separatist fight. Open, exposed areas will make Russian tanks very open to the layers of ATGMs Ukraine has.

Analysts still crystal balling when Russia will kick things off. If you looked at the Russian tank losses, there is a lot of reconstitution northern forces will need to accomplish. Plus, how hard was the road convoy on those poorly maintained vehicles and how may will make it to jump off locations. Observers/analysts are not convinced that the designation of Gen. Alexander Dvornikov as overall theatre commander will be enough to sort out the logistics mess nor correct Russian’s poor performance so far. Russia does have a better situation, concentrated forces, less stretched out, but still a logistical nightmare as well as a combat coordination challenge.

Russia’s buildup and eventual kick off of the offensive will be under better intelligence eyes than the attacks in the north. Up to a dozen intel aircraft from multiple NATO nations have been up daily flying the Ukraine southern border and shifting to southern Ukraine will place their collection capabilities in their sweet spot. Ukraine will benefit from more real-time actionable intel.

Finally, watching to see if Transnistria will play a similar support role that Belarus has for Russian air and missile strikes.
___________________________________

Europe / NATO General -

Lithuania announces plans to train Ukraine to use Western weapons

____________________________________

Israel -

Armed militants deployed throughout Jenin, West Bank, anticipating another raid by Israeli forces.
OBSERVATION - There is a lot of Ramadan to go and radical groups like Hamas and PIJ have elements in Jenin wound up tight.
____________________________________

Iran -

Iranian Foreign Ministry: Washington has not even shown that it is serious about returning to the nuclear agreement
OBSERVATION - Iran continues to allow this to drag out to their advantage.
__________________________________

Misc of Note -

Puerto Rico slowing getting power back on line. Still narrowing down the reason for the outage but looking closely at a ‘breaker’ in one of the substations failing for an unknown reason.
____________________________________

________________________________

Globalism / Great Reset -

Crisis upon crisis, conflict upon conflict. What are the puzzle pieces the GGR are putting together.
- Economic crisis, trending to a hard recession ore even depression
- Energy crisis
- LGBTQ issues - trying to recruit our children’
- CRT (and renamed equivalents)
- Illegal tsunami
- Govt spying on citizens
- Corruption of the election system
- Food and other supply shortages
- Rampant crime
- homelessness
- war

These and I’ve probably missed a couple, are being manipulated by the power that be to drive sheeple towards some one who can solve these problems. None of the following sections are isolated from GGR influences and attempts to manipulate.

_____________________________

Wuhan virus -

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health announced Monday that it will reinstate the city’s indoor mask mandate, just over a month after lifting it.
Health Commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole said the department will allow a one-week education period for businesses, with masks required in all indoor public spaces, including schools and child care settings, business, restaurants and government buildings, as of April 18.

OBSERVATION - Once again, its not about the disease but power.

Covid cases are starting to rise once again in parts of the U.S. after nearly three months of declines coming off of the massive winter Omicron surge - but health officials say it’s not a cause for concern because hospitalizations and deaths remain low. - Dr Ashish Jha, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator

OBSERVATION - “Stealth” variation with very mild symptoms.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bypassed many of its own protocols to speed through the authorization of Pfizer’s second booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine last week.
That FDA vaccine panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), is meeting Wednesday, and part of the agenda will be to discuss the fourth vaccine dose and the Israeli studies which are being used to exhibit its effectiveness. Typically, the vaccine authorization process would involve a meeting and vote by VRBPAC on whether to recommend authorization, followed by the FDA head granting that authorization. Then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine committee would vote on how to recommend the vaccine, which would then be determined by the CDC director.
Dr. Paul Offit, a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine and member of VRBPAC, said he couldn’t explain why the FDA didn’t present its data to the committee first before moving ahead with authorization: “The way it’s working here is that the government basically just declares that this is what they’re going to do.”..

OBSERVATION - At this stage of the game, the FDA and CDC just don’t care anymore. Others are calling the shots.

_____________________________

Economy -

The President is slated to announce that the Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency waiver permitting year-round sales of E15 gasoline, which contains a 15% ethanol blend, on a trip to Menlo, Iowa, where he’ll visit POET Bioprocessing, a biofuels plant that specializes in the creation of bioethanol.
OBSERVATION - this will not ease prices. Already US crops are having difficulties due to drought, lack of fertilizer and other chemicals and grossly higher prices to grow (diesel etc).

The latest estimates from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) show around 24 million poultry birds like chickens and turkeys have died or been culled due to the virus since February. National egg prices are off the charts for this time of year because of tight supplies. The average price of a dozen eggs has jumped to $2.60, up from $1.20 in early January.
OBSERVATION - This flu is bad because it resides in wild birds that don’t get sick and easily spread it around during spring migration.

The U.S. winter wheat crop has emerged from dormancy in miserable condition following a historically dry winter in key production states, almost guaranteeing that the harvest will not rank among the country’s better ones.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture late on Monday said 30% of U.S. winter wheat was in good or excellent condition as of April 3, well below the trade expectation for 40% and the year-ago 53%. That was the agency’s first national assessment of wheat conditions since late November.
Crop health has rarely been this poor in early April. Only 27% of winter wheat in 1996 was good or excellent within the first 10 days of the month, and 2018 was close behind with 31%. Final yields were poor in 2018 but terrible in 1996.
OBSERVATION - Given poor growing conditions in many other countries (and China facing another miserable year) from droughts and lacking fertilizer yields will be way globally. Throw in Ukraine and Russia grain losses, things aren’t looking good. Some are forecasting a really messed up fall for food prices.

Chinese authorities continued enforcing COVID measures, including the lockdown of Shanghai, and the Port of Shanghai. The minimized operation of the port will eventually impact US ports once full operations begin again. Logistics analysts warn that the U.S. could experience another backlog at busy ports like Long Beach and Los Angeles .
______________________________

Invasion of Illegals -

Over a hundred Texas National Guard members in full riot gear practiced military maneuvers on the Texas border last week. The training is a part of Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s sweeping border security plans in anticipation of the federal government ending Title 42 practices.

______________________________

Biden / Harris watch -

BIDEN: “I know it’s controversial but I got it done once—ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines!”
“What do you think the deer you’re hunting wear Kevlar vests? What the hell ya need 20 bullets for? You must be a hell of a terrible shot. No, I’m serious. Think about it.”
___________________________

CW2/Domestic violence -

All House Democrats on the Judiciary Committee voted against a proposed amendment to a domestic terrorism bill that would have prevented American intelligence and security agencies from receiving taxpayer funds to “monitor, analyze, investigate or prosecute” Americans unvaccinated against COVID-19.
The bill in question, H.R. 350 or the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021, authorizes various federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use taxpayer-funded resources to “analyze and monitor domestic terrorist activity” and “take steps to prevent domestic terrorism.”
The term “domestic terrorism,” however, has seen its definition reoriented under President Joe Biden, with a recent memo from the Department of Homeland Security claiming individuals spreading “conspiracy theories” and “disinformation” pose a significant threat to American national security. The document, released February, singled out individuals sharing election fraud and COVID-19-related stories.

OBSERVATION - democrats at war agains American citizens again. If, rather when the govt comes after citizens they will have a big list.

The United States Postal Service has suspended services in one neighborhood in Santa Monica, California, because of repeated attacks on mail carriers since January, according to a report. The notice explained that “multiple carriers have been subjected to assaults and threats of assault from an individual who has not been located or apprehended.”
A spokesperson for the Santa Monica Police Department told the outlet that the suspect is well known among officers, who’ve had several issues with him in the past, mostly related to domestic incidents.

Oak Park, CA – A burglary suspect was punched in the head and held down by an angry homeowner who allegedly found the suspect inside his residence last week.
Police said at least one of the suspects involved in the April 1 break-in at Sal Mercado’s Oak Park home is part of a so-called “crime tourist” ring from South America known as the South American Theft Group, KABC reported.
These offenders travel to California to burglarize residences, according to the news outlet.
Ventura County sheriff’s deputies arrived and took the suspect into custody. He was later identified as 43-year-old Alexis Provoste Aranguiz, who is from Chile, KABC reported.. Investigators said Aranguiz suffered multiple facial fractures during the scuffle.

OBSERVATION - NOW “crime tourist”!!!!

___________________________________

North/South Korea -

NUKE WATCH on going.
__________________________________

Japan -

____________________________________

Russia -

WAR WATCH - The Battle for Kyiv has ended - Ukraine still stands now entering the second month of the war.

Withdrawing Russian forces have left abundant evidence of mass murder of civilians, rape of women and children and widewpread looting.

ALSO - there is a lot of propaganda out there. I’m doing my best to filter that out or put into context. When In doubt I’ve been trying to identify questionable information.

********

Russian Personnel Issues -
- Another senior Russian officer has been killed in Ukraine. Colonel Vyacheslav Savinov was deputy chief of staff of the Russian Missile Troops and Artillery. Russia’s catastrophic losses in Ukraine now reportedly include 32 colonels and 7 generals
- Rumors of more difficulties signing up retirees, and former soldiers for the war effort.
- The Russian Defense Ministry is reportedly offering cash bonuses to incentivize forces withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine to reenter combat operations.

Economic Impacts -
- Nokia pulling out operations.

____________________________________

Ukraine -

WEATHER FORECAST - Mild temperatures are forecast thru April 19th with rain continuing in the forecast . Conditions maintained for muddy off road conditions over much of Ukraine .

24 HOUR ROUND UP -
Yesterday the big stir was the report of Russia dispersing a poisonous substance of unknown origin against Ukrainian military and civilians in the city of Mariupol, which was dropped from an enemy UAV. The victims have respiratory failure. Apparently only a few people suffered effects. This claim was absent any further documentation or confirmation. Morning arm chairing by analysts and experts suggest two explanations. One could be the use
phosphorus (willie P). A more likely cause was put forth by a chemical weapons expert from the Royal United Services Institute, Dan Kaszeta, who said that the symptoms that the Ukrainian soldiers are reportedly showing - such as shortness of breath - might be explained by the inhalation of fumes caused by fighting in a heavily industrial area.
“Mariupol is one big toxic burn pit at the moment,” he said. “Somehow we’re supposed to assume that one small drone payload of something is tragically unhealthier than the rest of this mess of an environment.”
OBSERVATION - Meanwhile in Russian state media: more talk of using chemical weapons in Ukraine. The alleged attack came just hours after a pro-Russian general in Donbas appeared to promote the idea of using chemical weapons, telling state media it would ‘smoke the Ukrainian moles out of the underground’.

The defenders of Maripol are still holding on.

Fighting in the Donbas region continues with Russian assaults being turned back with no territorial gains. Very heavy artillery and bombing of the region by Russians.

Kyiv front -
North of Kyiv, Ukraine starting clean up.

Northern Front (Chernihv region ) -
Continued clearing of any mines

North Eastern Front (Konotop - Sumy salient) -
Continued clearing of mines

Eastern (Khariv) front -
Intense bombing and artillery strikes continue to hit Kharkiv and surrounding suburbs and towns overnight. In part the artillery is designed to keep Ukrainan forces pinned and allow units to pass by to the east of Khariv. This has not stopped Ukrainan strikes on Russian convoys, inflicting a lot of armor and vehicle losses.

Ukrainian sappers stuck a key railroad bridge to the east of Khariv used to transport supplies and equipment to staging areas of of eastern Ukraine. The repair will likely take many months, impacting Russia logistics for the Donbas attack.

Russian forces failed to make significant advances in continued assaults on Severodonetsk, Popasna, and Rubizhne on April 11. They continue to a suffer heavy tank/armor losses in doing so. The Ukrainian General Staff stated Ukrainian forces repulsed four Russian attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and claimed Ukrainian forces destroyed a battalion tactical group (BTG) of the 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment, killing the battalion commander and his Chief of Staff.

South Eastern (Dombas Separatist Region) Front -

Situation in Maripol is clouded by lack of solid information, but is appears the noose is tightening for defenders. Getting a clear picture of the fighting and force distribution is difficult as much of the fight is now on a house to house basis. Reports of heavy fighting near the harbor. Unconfirmed reports from Ukrainan defenders suggest that they are near the end of their ability to maintain the defense and may only be able to hold out for just a few more days.

No advances northward from the separatist region.

Crimea Front -
Russian forces did not make any significant advances against Ukrainian positions in Kherson Oblast and continued to attempt to improve their defensive positions. Ukraine continues to push Russian forces southward from Kryvyi Rlh towards Kherson.

Western Ukraine -
No significant attacks overnight.

OUTLOOK -
Interesting view from the UK Ministry of Defence. They expect that over the coming two to three weeks that the fight in the east will grow worse as forces finally get redeployed fully from the north. This assessment suggests that Russia will continue to throw units essentially piecemeal in the Khariv sector of eastern Ukraine and not mass for a large assault incorporating the redeployed elements from the north. This seems to be just more of the same and Russian equipment losses continuing to be high, almost negating the redeploying forces. This is not what I expected, though the current trend doesn’t rule out a massive, combined assault within a couple weeks. Ukraine military anticipates this kind of massed attack.

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Europe / NATO General -

Austrian chancellor: Talks with Putin were not friendly

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO will undergo a major “reset” and plans to put enough troops in states that border Russia to repel an invasion. The alliance currently has 40,000 troops in eastern member states.

The Prime Minister of Slovakia: We are studying the supply of MiG-29s to Ukraine.

NATO has Announced today they will be Deploying 2 Multi-National Naval Groups consisting of 16 Ships to the Baltic Sea for Operational Exercises and to reassure Allies in the Baltics Region over the next week, the Groups will include Minesweepers, Amphibious Ships and Frigates.
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Israel -

Hamas stops Islamic Jihad from military escalation with Israel in Gaza.
OBSERVATION - Very nonspecific, however in the past this seems to refer to Hamas stopping PIJ from launching rockets from Gaza.

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Lebanon -

An explosions in the village of Houmine El-Tahta, Lebanon appears to have been a weapons/ammunition warehouse/storage. Explosion occurred near an office of the Amal movement. 3 injured and now one dead.
OBSERVATION - Ammo dumps are all over the place in Lebanon, holdovers from the civil war and now for current tensions driven by Hezebollah.

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