WAR IN UKRAINE: March 24, 2023
The Odesa seafront on Thursday. During the warmer months it’s a huge draw for residents and visitors alike
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 394
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces says all units of the Russian Army that were stationed in the occupied city of Nova Kakhovka in the southern Kherson region have left. Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on March 23 visited the partially occupied southern region of Kherson as Kyiv's forces continued to battle Russian troops in the east amid what the Ukrainian military said were the first signs of Russian "exhaustion" in the fierce fighting for the city of Bakhmut - RFE//RL
Slovakia has delivered the first four of a total of 13 Soviet-made fighter jets promised to Ukraine, the Slovak Defense Ministry saidon March 23.
The estimated cost of reconstruction efforts in Ukraine after Russia's invasion has reached $411 billion, according to an updated assessment by the World Bank. This amounts to 2.6 times the country’s estimated GDP in 2022. It includes an estimated $135 billion of direct damage – mainly to the housing, transportation, energy, commerce and industry sectors, according to the bank. The majority of damage is concentrated in frontline eastern regions, including Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk. The updated cost estimate covers damage incurred in the one year period after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. It marks an increase from the bank's $349 billion estimate in June 2022 - CNN
Spain is expected to send its first shipment of modern battle tanks to Ukraine by the end of next week, once officials have completed final firing tests in the field, the Spanish Defense Ministry said in a statement Thursday. The six Leopard 2A4 tanks have been undergoing final checks at a weapons factory near Seville in southern Spain, the statement said. Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles visited the factory Thursday and said four more Leopard tanks due for Ukraine will arrive there soon for inspection and testing - CNN
“Sanctions as well as EU and G7 oil price cap are working. We must keep up the pressure,” said Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia. She said Russia earned 42% less from selling oil this February than last. “This shows oil price cap has been one of the most efficient tools in cutting Russia’s revenues. Need to continue reviewing it.”
Required reading…
Child abductions reveal the genocidal intent behind Putin’s Ukraine invasion
The recent International Criminal Court decision to charge Vladimir Putin with war crimes has shed much-needed light on one of the darkest chapters of Russia’s ongoing invasion. During the past year, Russian forces have reportedly abducted thousands of children from occupied regions of Ukraine and attempted to deprive them of their Ukrainian identity. This campaign of forced deportations and anti-Ukrainian indoctrination reveals the genocidal intent at the heart of Russia’s Ukraine invasion.
Article II of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention identifies five acts that qualify as genocide. The fifth act, forcibly transferring the children of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group to another group, concisely and accurately describes Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Kremlin officials have attempted to disguise the abductions as a routine wartime security measure, but Moscow’s well-documented efforts to “re-educate” young Ukrainians and turn them into Russians tells a very different story.
Since the invasion began in February 2022, evidence has mounted of a large-scale Russian operation to abduct and indoctrinate Ukrainian children throughout the territories that have fallen under their control. One recent report published by the Yale School of Public Health in February 2023 identified a systematic Russian program to re-educate thousands of abducted Ukrainian children via a network of more than 40 camps and facilities stretching from Russian-occupied Crimea to Siberia. “This is not one rogue camp, this is not one rogue mayor or governor,” commented Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. “This is a massive logistical undertaking that does not happen by accident.”
Read the full Atlantic Council Ukraine Alert article here