WAR IN UKRAINE: February 27, 2023

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 369

Kyiv and Chernihiv oblasts were under air raid alerts early into Monday morning. Ukraine media reported Russian strike drones being brought done in both regions.
China is holding off on Russia equipment assistance because it isn't in their best interest, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says. Giving Russia military equipment would put them "into the center of responsibility for ... the slaughter of people in Ukraine” - NBC News
Ukraine’s commander of joint forces operation has been dismissed from his post, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced in a decree Sunday. Major Gen. Eduard Mykhailovich Moskalov had been appointed to the position last March when Lt. Gen. Oleksandr Pavliuk was appointed head of the Kyiv regional military administration. Zelensky did not provide an explanation for Moskalov's dismissal, but it's the latest in a long line of recent leadership changes made by his administration - CNN
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky says he plans to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss his so-called peace plan - saying such a meeting would be "important for world security.” Pre-war Zelensky referred to China as Ukraine's number one trade & economic partner in the world. However during the Covid-19 pandemic, Beijing blackmailed Kyiv with vaccines after Ukraine signed a petition critical of China’s treatment of minorities.
Saudi foreign minister meets Zelensky in Kyiv, signs $400 million aid agreements. The visit was the first by an official Saudi delegation to Ukraine since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1993. According to Ukrainian presidential office head Andriy Yermak, Saudi Arabia will provide Ukraine with $100 million in humanitarian aid and $300 million in oil products - Kyiv Independent
Opposition group: Explosion at Belarusian military airfield damaged Russian aircraft in reported partisan attack. A Russian A-50 early warning and control aircraft in Belarus was damaged as a result of the Feb. 26 explosion at the Machulishchy airfield near Minsk, Belarusian opposition media Nasha Niva reported on Feb. 26 citing Aliaksandr Azarov, leader of Belarusian anti-government organization BYPOL.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow has to take into account NATO's nuclear capabilities as he again falsely claimed that the West wants to eliminate Russia. “Where the leading NATO countries have proclaimed their main goal to be the strategic defeat of Russia, in order for our people 'to suffer' as they put it, how, in these conditions, could we not take into account their nuclear potential?," Putin asked during an interview with Pavel Zarubin on the Rossiya-1 TV channel on Sunday, according to an NBC translation. Putin said the West is complicit in "crimes" being committed by Ukraine by supplying the country with weapons and that the end goal is to destroy and divide Russia - NBC

Required reading…

The invasion has stalled, but Putin’s war on dissent marches on

Russian society is almost as closed and repressive as it was in Soviet times

Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled their homeland since the war in Ukraine began. Their exodus, and the ruinous effect it is likely to have on Russia’s future, is the subject of a new Economist podcast, “Next Year in Moscow”. The newspaper spoke to dozens of exiles in Britain, Georgia, Turkey and elsewhere—and many people who stayed in Russia. Their stories help explain why Mr Putin started this devastating war and how it will change their country.

Russians to have lost their place in society. Some 20,000 have been arrested since the start of the war for protesting against it. The police have even detained people laying flowers by statues of historic figures of Ukrainian origin, since they see the gesture (rightly) as an implicit rebuke. Alexei Navalny, a jailed opposition leader, has been moved to solitary confinement. Prosecutors are preparing a new political show trial for him.

What is more, the few remaining institutions that criticise the government or advocate a more liberal society have disappeared. The legal restrictions Mr Putin’s regime has imposed on discussing the war—or even calling it that—have forced the closure of all independent media outlets, including Echo of Moscow, a radio station, and tv Rain, a television channel (both now broadcast from outside Russia). The Moscow Helsinki Group, which campaigns for human rights, has been shut down. Another such outfit, the Andrei Sakharov Centre, is being evicted from its premises.