WAR IN UKRAINE: April 15, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 416
Russia's military continued its intensive bombardment of areas of eastern Ukraine over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian military said on April 15, including a strike in the city of Slovyansk on an apartment building, killing nine people, according to the latest death toll - RFE/RL
The war in Ukraine has gutted Russia’s clandestine spetsnaz forces, and it will take Moscow years to rebuild them, according to classified U.S. assessments obtained by The Washington Post. The finding, which has not been previously reported, is among a cache of sensitive materials leaked online through the messaging platform Discord. U.S. officials attributed their assessments to Russian commanders’ overreliance on the specialized units, which have been put to use as part of front-line infantry formations. Those formations, like the Ukrainians, have suffered massive numbers of dead and wounded - Washington Post
Ukraine secured promises of $5 billion in additional funding to support its ongoing fight against Russia amid "fruitful meetings" in Washington this week, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told reporters on April 13.
The alleged executions of captive Ukrainian soldiers that have appeared in videos circulating online will not affect Ukraine's treatment of Russian prisoners of war, chief ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets told the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on April 14 that NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP) is no longer a necessary step for Ukraine's path to joining the military alliance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 14 signed a law on electronic military enlistment aimed at making it more difficult for potential draftees to evade duty.
Ukraine has barred its national sports teams from competing in Olympic, non-Olympic, and Paralympic events that include competitors from Russia and Belarus, the Sports Ministry said in a decree published on April 14 - RFE/RL
Required reading…
Opinion: How the battle for Bakhmut exposed Russia’s ‘meat-grinder’
Opinion by Michael Bociurkiw
Odesa CNN —When the war in Ukraine finally comes to an end, the besieged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine will go down as one of the most recognizable symbols of the conflict.
A place where happiness was brutally replaced with blood-drenched killing fields.
It will also be recorded in history as a battle that exposed more than anywhere the meat-grinder approach of Russian fighting. Where sending wave upon wave of fighters – including former convicts recruited by the Wagner mercenary group and Russian elite forces – became a military tactic to dislodge Ukrainian forces from the city.
For a prize of highly-questionable military value, the Kremlin, not known for valuing human life – even that of its own citizens – established a new threshold that tolerated the loss of several of its own combatants to every Ukrainian.
Read my full CNN Opinion OpEd here