WAR IN UKRAINE: May 4, 2022
Thursday May 5: Intelligence Squared Panel - Ukrainians on the War in Ukraine. 6PM LDN/8PM Lviv. Click to register for free!
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Thursday May 5: Intelligence Squared Panel - Ukrainians on the War in Ukraine. 6PM LDN/8PM Lviv. Click to register for free! 〰️
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 69
Russian missiles struck three power stations in Lviv late on Tuesday, causing blackouts in the western city, the mayor said. Power, water and Internet were reportedly disrupted in some districts. Huge plumes of smoke could be seen into the evening hours. Train services were disrupted around Lviv Oblast as most rail services rely on electricity. The missile strikes appeared to have been part of a Russia strategy to disrupt the supply lines of weapons to the frontlines, I told CNN’s Isa Soares this morning. It’s also a potential blow in confidence to migrants seeking shelter here as well as for the aid worker and diplomatic community.
Russia steals 400,000 tons of grain from temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. According to Taras Vysotsky, first deputy minister of agriculture, the total amounts to about one third of all grain stocks in temporarily occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk oblasts. Vysotsky said if the theft continues, the regions may experience famine - Kyiv Independent
There has been an intensification of the bombardment of the Azovstal steelworks in the port city of Mariupol where 200 people are still sheltering. Ukrainian authorities are considering setting up a new humanitarian corridor after successfully bringing some 100 civilians out of the city yesterday - BBC
Russian President Vladimir Putin could formally declare war on Ukraine as soon as May 9, a move that would enable the full mobilization of Russia's reserve forces as invasion efforts continue to falter, US and Western officials believe - CNN
The Belarusian Armed Forces began a sudden check of the readiness of the response forces - in particular, one missile division began to move to “the destination area.” Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Belarus, Belarusian Ministry of Defense in Belta via Ukrainska Pravda.
A component of Russian aggression in Ukraine is launching an information siege by switching seized Ukrainian territory to Russian media, mobile and Internet connections, Ukrainian officials say. In turn, Kyiv has requested that Russia be expelled from the International Telecommunications Union.
Military experts David Johnson warns that the popular Western view of Russian military shortcomings may be mistaken, and that the Russian army remains very dangerous. After failing to take Kyiv and other cities, he believes they are now executing what he calls plan B. He explains: “Plan B is to revert to what the Russians have always done when faced with a resolute adversary. They turn to fires delivered by cannons, rockets, missiles, and bombs….Unfortunately, I deeply fear that Russian reliance on brute force and the indiscriminate use of fire power will only get worse in Eastern Ukraine as the war continues. Ukraine’s patrons have to understand these realities to understand what support the Ukrainians will require to enable them to persist in what is shaping up to be a grinding war of attrition.” Read the full article here
Congratulations to the Kyiv Independent! Their journalists make it to Forbes Europe 30 under 30. Toma Istomina, Anna Myroniuk, Oleksiy Sorokin, and Anastasiia Lapatina were included by Forbes magazine in the top 30 leaders in the media and marketing industry in Europe to transform society under the age of 30. “Less than six months after founding the English-language publication, these Ukrainian journalists have shown bravery, tenacity, sensitivity and impact while reporting on a war in their home country,” Forbes said.
