WAR IN UKRAINE: May 13, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 444
Russian troops retreated to a distance of up to two kilometers on separate sections of the front in Bakhmut direction, Ukrinform reports. "Thanks to the well-thought-out defense in Bakhmut direction, we are getting the results of the efficient actions of our units. Among other things, we carry out effective counterattacks. In some areas of the front, the enemy could not withstand the onslaught of the Ukrainian defenders and retreated to a distance of up to two kilometers," Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, posted on Telegram. According to him, it was the competent conduct of the defensive operation that exhausted the trained forces of PMC Wagner and made them be replaced in certain directions by poorer trained units of the Russian regular troops which were defeated and retreated.
Russian military bloggers have also reported that the Kremlin is losing ground around Bakhmut but Moscow has since denied the claims from Kyiv. One military analyst said on SKY News that a breakthrough may have been made around Soledar. He said the expected spring offensive will not be a shock and awe event, but a series of probing actions and offensives.
The Kremlin's envoy to the annexed territory of Crimea said the U.K. risks being destroyed for its decision to supply Ukraine with long-range Storm Shadow missiles to assist in its fight against Russia. Georgiy Muradov, permanent representative of Crimea under the Russian president, told Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti in an interview published on Friday that the U.K. may be turned "into a devastated territory" following the delivery of the weapons to Ukraine. On Thursday, Britain became the first country to supply Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked Western allies for long-range missiles for months to assist his country in defending against Russia. The Kremlin has warned that providing weapons capable of striking Russian territory could lead to escalation in the war - Newsweek
The Group of Seven is discussing ways of transferring to Ukraine the Russian assets seized following the invasion by Moscow, with legal complexities and domestic restrictions making it difficult to do the transfers, a source familiar with the discussion said Friday. One approach discussed during the G7 meeting has been to target the income generated from those assets, as a means of bypassing some legal hurdles. But there have been developments on this front. In a key move, the U.S. said separately that it has authorized the transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine for the first time - Japan Times
Italian media claim to have received confirmation of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to Italy on Saturday. He reportedly plans to meet with the President & Prime Minister of Italy, as well as with the Pope. PM Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing populist party Brothers of Italy, met with Zelensky in Kyiv in February
Emergency talks being held in Italy after a staple of the national diet - pasta - soared 17.5% in March from the same month in 2022. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unleashed a “tsunami” of high prices last year for some of the raw materials needed to make pasta. Over the past two days no ships have been seen coming in or out of Odesa port - the anchor of the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative approved by Kyiv, Moscow, Ankara and the U.N. A slowdown of ship clearance from the Russian side at the checkpoint in Istanbul is said to be the reason
Required reading…
Ukraine can pile up debt without default risk for now
Although the government is actively accumulating sovereign debt, repayment pressures are being postponed during the war
Ukraine received a USD1.25bn US grant via the World Bank’s Trust Fund on April 28. It followed the EU’s disbursement on April 25 of a third lending tranche of EUR1.5bn (USD1.65bn) from its EUR18.0bn macro-financial assistance package. In both cases, the money went directly into Ukraine’s state budget. Kyiv is relying ever more on external financing to close the ballooning budget deficit due, among other things, to the Russian invasion.
What next
War-torn Ukraine can hardly function without financial support and will remain in dire need of regular and substantial aid injections from abroad. Western inflows will most likely continue, above all of concessional loans, for as long as the war rages. It is only afterwards that the question will arise of how Ukraine can repay, unless by then debt restructuring or debt write-offs are agreed. Each of those is possible but not guaranteed - Oxford Analytica