Ukraine Invasion: Part 38

[MagicFox]

🇺🇦 38th thread for information sharing, solidarity and community 🇺🇦

Washington Post Telegram

Analysis: The GOP’s Ukraine supporters begin to summon their voice

A noisy minority can be powerful in politics. And rarely has that been the case as much as with the GOP, post-tea party. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had a message during a visit to Munich last week: A noisy GOP minority is still a minority.
“There’s ... too much attention given to a very few people who seem not to be invested in Ukraine’s success,” he said. McConnell added that he would step up in making a case that he has long made: that the war is the most important worldwide priority.
McConnell has a point. But his argument misses a key fact: It’s not just that his party’s critics of funding Ukraine have been noisy; it’s that unlike McConnell, GOP supporters have been quiet, allowing critics to dominate the public debate.
But on the anniversary of the invasion, that appears to have begun to change.

What are Articles 4 and 5 of NATO’s founding treaty and why do they matter?
(www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/15/what-is-article-5-nato/?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_main)
Nearly a year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Eastern European countries remain worried about their own security, while allies have warned Moscow that attacking NATO members would trigger a broader, global conflict.
The U.S. made a “sacred commitment” to Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty, President Biden told leaders of countries on the alliance’s eastern flank, who gathered Wednesday in Warsaw to discuss concerns about Russian aggression.
The treaty article means that if Russian forces were to attack Poland, for instance, that move should be treated as an attack on the United States as well. Article 4 lays out another bedrock principle of the alliance: consultation among members if one of them is under threat.

Mitch McConnell tells U.S. to ‘wake up’ to threat of Russia on Ukraine war anniversary
(www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/24/mitch-mcconnell-tells-us-wake-up-threat-russia-ukraine-war-anniversary/?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_main)

With Russia’s Viagra supply cut off, authorities look to generics as backup
(www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/15/russia-viagra-sanctions-ukraine-war/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=telegram)Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry said that it had taken steps to establish domestic production of generic forms of Viagra, the erectile dysfunction remedy, after the U.S. manufacturer of the drug halted supplies.
The U.S. pharmaceutical company Viatris, which manufactures Viagra, had informed the Russian government last year that it would stop selling the drug in tablet form. [A UN representative stated that in fact Russia had issued Viagra to soldiers to encourage rape]

Washington Post Telegram

[this is worth posting separately because actually, the Russian helpers are perhaps some of the bravest of all. They know what they are risking, which is not only prison for now but ostracisation for them and their families, including serious bullying at school for their children]

Discreetly, and at peril, Russian volunteers help Ukrainian refugees

(www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/25/russia-secret-volunteers-ukrainians-war/?utm_source=telegram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_main)
To avoid the authorities, thousands of displaced Ukrainians in Russia are relying on a discreet network of unofficial volunteers — a sort of Slavic echo of the Underground Railroad — working to bring war refugees through Russia to safety in Europe.

These volunteers are not linked to each other. Most of them will never see each other in person. The common denominator is the risk they face from the Russian security forces, who are suspicious of citizen initiatives and have cracked down on all manner of civil society groups.

The independent volunteers do all kinds of things. Some work from home processing help requests. Others help care for pets, gather food, clothing and medicine, or deliver to makeshift warehouses. Hosts who open their doors to Ukrainians or drivers who transport them across the Russian border face the steepest risk as they are ones interacting directly with refugees and the authorities.

Piece in todays Telegraph:

Russia stares into population abyss as Putin sends its young men to die

Sending waves of soldiers onto the battlefield, compounded by emigration, will hasten Russia's birth rate decline
By
Szu Ping Chan
26 February 2023 • 6:00am

Dmitry Nechaev bought a one-way ticket from Moscow to Tel Aviv a year ago.
Two days into Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the 38-year-old businessman abandoned his apartment in the Russian capital and travelled to Israel, leaving his wife, children and dog behind.
Within days, Visa and Mastercard suspended their services in Russia, blocking his cards and preventing him from buying plane tickets for his family. His wife had already got rid of many of their belongings in a fire sale, including their country house and camper van in a bid to raise cash quickly.
In the end, a few phone calls and a friend's bank account in the United Arab Emirates saved the day. The price of five one-way tickets from Russia to Israel for his family? $10,000. "Believe it or not, that was cheap," he says.
In Moscow, he sold high-end titanium bikes internationally. Now, he is making ends meet driving a van in Haifa, northern Israel.
Yet Nechaev is upbeat - he got out.
"There's a joke among Russians now," he says. "Normally when you get on a plane, everyone claps their hands when the aeroplane lands. In Russia, people clap when the plane takes off."
Hundreds of thousands of working age Russians have left the country or died on the battlefield since Putin declared war on Ukraine. Ukraine says its soldiers have killed more than 100,000 Russianss_, while the Kremlin puts it closer to 10,000.
The numbers may be disputed, but the trends are clear: Russia is facing a demographic time bomb that will make it harder to wage war and, in the long run, keep its ailing economy going.
Sending waves of young men onto the battlefield, compounded by emigration, will result in tens of thousands of fewer births and hasten an already long-term decline in birth rates.
Alexey Raksha, an independent Russian demographer, says the Russian battlefield casualty numbers may not sound a lot for a country of 145 million people, but he believes the war will leave deep scars on an already fragile economy.
"If there are no soldiers, it means there are no men. No men, no sex. No sex, no children. It's very simple," he says. "But we also don't know what the psychological impact is going to be on these people, which will also cause the number of births to decline."

Experts believe Russia may see fewer than 1.2 million births this year if military operations continue in the coming months. This would be the lowest in modern history, according to Igor Efremov, a researcher at the Gaidar Institute in Moscow.
A separate estimate by Mikhail Denisenko, director of the Institute of Demography in Moscow, suggests a year of military service for the 300,000 men mobilised into the army last September and October will lead to 25,000 fewer births.

As well as dying soldiers, talented Russians have been fleeing the country in their droves. Thousands of Russian women have travelled abroad to give birth. Argentina has seen a surge in births due to visa-free entry for Russians, whose children automatically acquire citizenship, making it easier for their parents to get it too.
An Argentine passport allows holders to enter 171 countries visa-free, compared to 87 for Russians.
Others have escaped via Kazakhstan, where many have set up bank accounts and moved on. Turkey, Georgia and Armenia have also seen a huge influx of Russians, while US customs and border protection data show more than 20,000 Russians have tried to enter the US since last October via the Mexican border.
Many Ukrainians - sometimes forcibly - have also moved to Russia over the course of the war, with migration statistics suggesting the overall number decline in the population may be modest.
But while young Russians have been moving out, it's mainly older citizens moving in, according to Raksha, who recently fled Moscow himself.
"On the face of it, things are not that bad, because compared with the 800,000 or so people who have left the country fleeing from the war, Russia has also taken in around one million Ukrainians. But the age, sex and educational structure of those who emigrated and those who immigrated are completely different.
"So mostly young, educated, high-earning men left the country and mostly women with children and elderly people came to the country as refugees from the war.
“While overall migration could be positive, we don't know by how much. But we do know that the economic impact will be very negative because of the number of young people who have left, and continue for decades to come.”
A country that was already facing huge challenges is now staring into a demographic abyss.
Collapsing population
UN population projections updated last year show Russia's population is already long past its peak.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought with it a decline in birth rates and fertility that has seen the population drift slowly down ever since. There were 148.5 million people in what became Russia after the fall of the USSR. It fell by more than five million over the next decade, before an intervention by Putin's government in 2007 that paid mothers the equivalent of thousands of pounds to have more children helped push up birth rates.
"In some ways, Russia was in a better position than other eastern European countries," says Raksha. "They have free movement within the European Union, so many young people in those countries left. But Russians never had the same opportunities, so outward migration is not that high and has never been."
The war has changed this dynamic. Faced with a choice between isolation and starting again, many have chosen the latter.
Five of Dmitry Nechaev’s employees ended up cycling across the Georgian border and through Turkey for three days on the bikes they'd helped to weld after Russia declared a partial mobilisation of military reservists last September.
The UN numbers, which have not been fully adjusted to account for the war, already painted a bleak picture prior to the invasion.
80pc of the country’s population were of working age in the 1990s but that is forecast to fall to around 60pc in the 2050s because of declining birth rates and an ageing population.

Meanwhile, the share of Russians aged over 65 is projected to rise from 15pc in the nineties to 32pc by 2050.
Adjusting for the war presents an even bleaker future.
"Several hundreds of thousands is a massive emigration," notes Raksha. "If you combine all the factors - the hit to incomes that the fleeing of young men and mobilisation will cause and the psychological shock - together Russia will probably see a 10pc decline in births in 2023. “That's going to have a big impact on the economy in 20 years when these people come of age.”

History suggests the impact of war on a country's demography lasts for decades, Raksha says.
"Look at Japan and Italy. These countries lost the Second World War alongside Germany. And you know what? In the last 40 years, the oldest countries in the world have been first Germany, then Italy, and then Japan. What does it mean? It means that if you lose a war, your fertility after that will be low for decades."
'Return to the motherland'
There aren't many things that keep Putin awake at night, but Russia's demographic decline is one of them. A growing population has always been seen by the Russian leader as the mark of a prosperous country.
"From the economic point of view, the demographic problem is one of the most important,” he said in 2021.
If current demographic trends continue in Russia, there will be 30 million fewer people living in the country by the end of the century. That stark reality prompted Putin to order the government to draw up a package of measures this year to increase birth rates and "strengthen our statehood".
The Russian president remained as defiant as ever last week in a State of the Nation speechh_ in which he railed against the West for the best part of two hours.

While he didn't reveal any new pro-natalist policies, there were plenty of threats.
Putin urged Russian citizens to return to the "motherland" instead of being treated like "second-class" citizens in Europe or other countries.
"Everyone must know that the sources of their prosperity and their future can only be here, in their native country Russia.
“I would like those who have come up against the predatory mores of the West to hear what I have to say: running around with cap-in-hand, begging for your own money makes no sense, and most importantly, it accomplishes nothing, especially now that you realise who you are dealing with.
“Stop clinging to the past, resorting to the courts to get at least something back. Change your lives and your jobs, because you are strong people," he said in his annual address to the Federal Assembly.
Observers say young Russians are unlikely to return to a life of military service.
Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned in a recent blog post that proposals to change the age at which Russian men are conscripted for mandatory military service from 18 to 21 years old, and increasing the upper age limit for conscription from 27 to 30 years old, will mean "young men being called up after earning their college degrees, and trained specialists being pulled out of the job market to have their skills voided by military service".

The impact on the Russian economy is already evident. Analysis by Moody's last week showed the sectors "most reliant on foreign components and investment like car manufacturing have already seen a dramatic drop in production".
Putin's embrace of autarky will force the Kremlin to spend ever greater sums propping up its flagging national economy. State spending already accounts for 33pc of gross domestic product (GDP) and 50pc of formal employment, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which last conducted an in-depth evaluation in 2019.
While the world is taking longer than expected to wean itself off the country's oil, helping the country to stave off a deep recession, fossil fuel revenues will eventually fall. That will make propping up activity harder and harder.
Moody’s says: "Similarly, bans on the export of refining technologies and new foreign investment in Russia's energy sector will make it harder for Russia to upgrade its oil refineries."
Moscow has been pivoting East since the war. Many barrels of oil that used to find their way to Germany, Italy and other places in Europe are now heading to China, Turkey and India at cut pricess_.
This is supporting growth, but has also forced the Kremlin to raid its war chest of savings.
"Even before the imposition of severe new sanctions, Russia's growth potential faced significant headwinds from chronically low investment, a very weak business climate and challenging demographics," Moody's highlights. It believes the economy will shrink 3pc this year, which would be the worst recession since the financial crisis.
Putin's speech talked about creating a "strong and self-sufficient economy" by supporting "enterprises and jobs, schools and universities, science and healthcare, culture and sports. In this way, you will increase your wealth and will also win the respect and gratitude of the people for a generation ahead. The state and society will certainly support you," he said.
But Raksha, who used to work at Russia's statistics office before he was fired for criticising its handling of Covid data, says the war has changed the outlook for many Russians, including himself.
"Nobody knows what Putin will do," he says. "He may just push the red buttonn_ and we're all gone."
The 44 year-old says he's glad he has no wife, girlfriend or children, casually adding that he sold his apartment and is using the money to travel around the world.
Even if the war doesn't end in nuclear oblivion, Russia's prospects remain bleak, he adds.
"Russia is now in the middle of a downward decline where the number of women of primary productive age will decline by 40pc between 2010 to 2030. Even without the war, the number of births would have declined. The war will just accelerate this process, but nobody knows by how much at the moment."
Raksha believes that in the worst case scenario, the population could start declining by 1 million people every year.

People will leave, people will die," he says. "So Russia will become depleted of young men and women over a number of years, and it will be quite old by then. I think economic growth even in the best of scenarios will just stop because of that."
Russia's isolation will mean it will not be able to procure microchips and other new technologies, precisely the sort of technology required to drive economic growth in the decades ahead.
"Russia is going to become like Iran," says Alexander Gabuev at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but without its youthful population.
Raksha adds: "In the worst scenario, almost all the world will live better and better lives, and Russians probably will live the same as 10 or 20 years ago, and the difference will grow and grow and it will be noticeable in terms of living standards."
'The new Iran'
Entrepreneur Dmitry Nechaev says he's spoken to hundreds of Russians who have fled the country. None with the intention of ever returning.
"These are IT people, engineers, coders, project managers. They are scientists, artists, and actors. Like me, they were paying the taxes, they were spending money, they had several children. Neither the VAT or income tax is going to Russia any more. It's all elsewhere now.
"This is what my country has lost and other countries have gained. There are so many people who have had to leave their jobs and get new ones and many are very well educated and experienced enough that they got them pretty quickly."
Nechaev, now reunited with his wife and two children, aged eight and ten years, says he's accepted that they will grow up in Israel.
"Most of the people I meet are in their mid-thirties," he says. Going back will mean them returning in their forties. “That's too much hassle for a family who's started again. There's little reason for anyone to go back."
Nechaev is reestablishing his company, Triton Bikes, in Portugal with a fellow Russian he met during his escape from the country.
It took some creative thinking to reunite Nechaev with some of the belongings he couldn't carry on the plane, including tools and a beloved beige Land Rover.
"February 2022 was a really, really hard month," he recalls. "I could hardly sleep and work. I was just doom scrolling. I knew it wasn't going to end well."
Today, he feels positive about the future. His employees are all back together again. They've chosen Portugal because his staff, who all have Russian passports, can start work as tourists without having to wait for work permits. Dmitry hopes the suppliers and customers he once worked with will quickly return.
"We've already bought all the machines, we are installing the tooling and we've brought all the materials again."
Nechaev admits he misses Russia, but says that the feeling of safety outweighs any home sickness.
"I feel a lot safer now. And I can say whatever I want. I would never talk like this with you if I was in Russia, I would be too scared."
Demographer Raksha also has no plans to return. He speaks to colleagues every day who say they need him to go back to design the policies that will help to increase the population and rebuild the country.
But he remains defiant. "I sold my apartment because it could be my last year," he says. "I'm doing things that I want to do. I'm just spending money. It could be my last year of life. So why not? There is no future in Russia."

Where Russians have fled:

Apologies if this has already been posted but it’s the latest in the BBC Putin series done in collaboration with Ukrainecast.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0f4xcw9

That was interesting @DesdamonasHandkerchief I wonder if the article is rather on the Doom side, but there has to be a lot of basis to it.

I think it's a real possibility Putin will close the borders again. HE will likely get chips from China etc, but the whole culture looks like it's going to be war-orientated and unstable for some time.

Situation in Bakhmut is grim. As always but shifting grimness.

'Official' Wagner feeds reporting little. Reservoir breach yesterday by Ukrainians to alter the contestable ground. Suggestions of real Russian advances to the NW and now possibly a Ukrainian counter-attack into the side of that advance (as shown in map from a Polish feed but no idea where that traces back to).

There's little in the way of road routes into Bakhmut now.

This is allegedly, has not been confirmed mobile.twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1629906775565643776

Can you summarise @minsmum ? I'm on Twitter but can't see the content because it's restricted

Sorry it is alleging that Belarusian partisans have blown up and severely damaged a Russian plane an Awacs A50. From what they are saying Russia don't have many of these and if it's true it makes the skies much safer for Ukraine. They were comparing it with the sinking of the Moskva but it's not confirmed yet. Also I don't know anything about aircraft in general and Russian aircraft at all

I will try to find another link

mobile.twitter.com/Hajun_BY/status/1629892960996282376 see if this works

They are saying it's likely to be an upgraded A 5OU and Russia only have 6 or 7 they cost about 500 million USD. Snow ploughs were clearing the air base when there were unexplained explosions. India recently bought 2 with Israeli radar for 2 bill

Oh wow, fantastic

Very much a rumour (more of that in a moment) -

The A50 ("Mainstay" in NATO parlance) is a Russian AWACS equivalent (long range airborne radar plus command and control platform ) so the loss of one is important to the Russians and good news for Ukraine.

The problem with actually verifying this ATM is that the Mainstay airframe is very much based on a very common Soviet era freighter, the Il-76, with some extra big bits bolted on, so it's not impossible there's been a case of mistaken identity.

Unlike an Il-76 you'd expect a high value asset such as the A-50 to be heavily protected on the ground so if partisans or others did get to one it's another major Russian stuff up.

I think jury will be out until we see daylight images of what was blown up and can see what exactly got whacked.

Yes I think at the moment it's cross your fingers and hope it's true

@blueshoes just got back from seeing Antytila in London. Absolutely fantastic and full of Ukrainian spirit. They can really get the crowd going. I had to leave early to get the train home but the cherry on the top was the guest appearance from Bono and The Edge from U2 🙂🙂🙂 🇺🇦

There are rumours, and that's all it is, that the dangerous offensive north of Bakhmut has been surrounded and may collapse.

This is NOT confirmed.

The south and West of Bakhmut have held, the north has been retreating. There are few/no safe roads left. But IF this is true .... if ... then the tables may turn

I think it has been a foregone conclusion that Bakhmut will fall for a while now.

Hard as it is to accept if this is the best a new major Russian offensive can achieve then they are in real trouble when the newly equipped Ukrainian forces advance at a time and place of their choosing.

I haven't listened to this talk yet, but it's a subject that we've often discussed on the thread and so might be if interest:

Joseph Torigian, A HARD ACT TO FOLLOW: EXPLAINING AUTHORITARIAN SUCCESSION

warontherocks.com/2023/02/a-hard-act-to-follow-explaining-authoritarian-succession/

Oh this is fantastic! 😁
was the venue full? I considered going but it would have been too difficult to get back from that part of London on a Sunday night for us.

Actually the rumours are that Ukr is carrying out a local counteroffensive with the chance of some success. Emphasis on rumours.

A general visited the front line recently, perhaps it's connected. Maybe even some of the new equipment is getting there too?

Here's hoping.

I've being trying to mentally steel myself for the possible loss of Bahkmut. The cost to Russia is horrendous but for weeks they've been making incremental gains and they add up.

www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-26-2023

ISW is publishing an abbreviated campaign update today, February 26. This report focuses on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to avoid ordering involuntary mobilization by launching a series of irregular volunteer force generation campaigns since late May 2022 and the consequences of that attempt.

Key inflections in ongoing military operations on February 26:

Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Vadym Skibitsky stated that Ukrainian forces will be ready for a counteroffensive this upcoming spring and that one of Ukraine’s strategic goals will be to drive a wedge into the Russian front in southern Ukraine between Crimea and the Russian mainland.[43]

Russian President Vladimir Putin falsely stated that the West is trying to break up the Russian Federation and suggested that Western security assistance to Ukraine makes the West a participant in the war.[44] Putin leaned on a longstanding rhetorical line of effort for raising domestic support for the war by falsely claiming that the West is threatening the survival of the Russian people as a unified ethnic group.[45]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that the types of systems that the West provides to Ukraine will determine how far Russian forces need to push threats away from Russia’s borders, likely in support of an ongoing Russian information operation aimed at discouraging the Western provision of specific systems to Ukraine.[46]

US Central Intelligence Director William Burns stated on February 25 that the CIA is confident that Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment to Russia but has not made a final decision.[47]

Russian forces continued to conduct unsuccessful operations northwest of Svatove and near Kreminna.[48]

[the short version of the main discussion is:

Russia likely began to run out of combat-ready forces by late May 2022, forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to decide between launching a volunteer recruitment campaign or ordering an unpopular involuntary reserve call-up.

Putin likely rejected the Russian military’s advice to order an involuntary reserve call-up

The Kremlin had consistently outsourced voluntary recruitment efforts to support its operations abroad and during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine to ultranationalist groups and likely allowed ultranationalist networks to expand their force generation campaigns over the summer.

The Kremlin likely turned to these existing networks in hopes that they would immediately attract volunteers who ideologically support his war.

Putin likely ordered the Russian MoD to form its own regional volunteer battalions to replicate the recruitment processes of the ultranationalist groups rather than ordering the involuntary reserve call-up the MoD likely recommended.

The Russian MoD has historically struggled to generate volunteer forces and has instead remained reliant on conscription. [funny that, with all the hazing and rape that goes on]

The Russian MoD, in fact, appears to have abandoned the effort to recruit into the BARS system itself [the Russian Combat Army Reserve], delegating that undertaking to the ultranationalist community.

Ukraine’s sweeping counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast between September 6 and September 11 likely shocked Putin into realizing that he needed to order an involuntary reserve call-up.

Putin likely recognized that the involuntary reserve call-up could not close the gap between Russian force requirements and available manpower in a timely fashion, however, and so gave the Wagner Group room to expand its recruitment of prisoners and its operations on the frontline until the mobilized personnel could arrive en masse.

Once the bulk of the 300,000 mobilized reservists had arrived with units in Ukraine Putin began allowing the Russian MoD to reassert its primacy over all Russian forces.

Putin’s clear efforts to prepare the Russian people for a protracted and painful war suggest that he has realized that only the Russian MoD can actually sustain the large mechanized forces he needs to have any hope of achieving his ambitions in Ukraine

Putin’s need for the ultranationalist community has changed but has not vanished. ....... he still needs it to serve as the most reliable pro-Kremlin voice sustaining support for the war effort.

Putin may find himself facing another dilemma after another wave or two of reserve call-ups, as the pool of reservists appropriate for front-line fighting is finite. The Russian conscription system generates roughly 260,000 new soldiers each year, drawn in two semi-annual call-ups .....Roughly 800,000 young men turn 18 each year in Russia.[42] Expanding conscription much beyond the 260,000 of those already forced into military service risks not only taking young men with physical conditions unsuitable for war but also beginning to pull too many young men out of the Russian economy, which Putin is simultaneously attempting to put on a war footing.

The specter of limitless Russian manpower is a myth. Putin has already been forced to make difficult and suboptimal choices .... and he will face similarly difficult choices in 2023 ..... Russia can mobilize more manpower, and Putin will likely do so rather than give up. But the costs to Putin and Russia of the measures he will likely need to take at this point will begin to mount rapidly.

Interesting update. Mariupol is not beyond reach, it seems. Or the partisans have become very active.

Kyiv Independent Telegram

⚡️UK Defense Ministry: Russia’s ‘elite’ forces suffer heavy losses (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/uk-defense-ministry) in Donetsk Oblast.

⚡️Shmyhal: 'No systemic corruption (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/shmyhal-no-systemic-corruption-in-defense-ministry) in Defense Ministry.'
In an interview with Germany's Focus Magazine, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the recent procurement scandal at the Defense Ministry does not point to a larger systemic issue of corruption in Ukraine. According to Shmyhal, Ukrainian society has changed as a result of the war and has "zero tolerance" for corruption

⚡️Ukrenergo: No power deficit (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/ukrenergo-no-power-dificit-in-ukraine) in Ukraine.
For the past two weeks, there has been no power deficit in Ukraine’s energy system, according to the country’s state-owned power grid operator Ukrenergo.

There are currently 180 political prisoners, including 116 Crimean Tatars, illegally held in Russian-occupied Crimea, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets reported on Feb. 26

⚡️Germany denies report on NATO proposal (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/reuters-no-development-in-possible-nato-security-guarantees-for-ukraine) to resume peace talks with Russia.
A German government spokesperson on Feb. 26 denied a report that France, Germany and the U.K. have suggested a NATO defense pact with Ukraine in exchange for resuming peace talks with Russia, Reuters reported.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur arrived in Kyiv on Feb. 26, announcing a new military aid package for Ukraine that includes weapons and equipment for Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces.

⚡️Opposition group: Explosion (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/opposition-group-explosion-at-belarusian-military-airfield-damages-russian-aircraft-in-reported-partisan-attack) 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 outlet Nasha Niva reported on Feb. 26 citing Aliaksandr Azarov, leader of Belarusian anti-government organization BYPOL.
According to Azarov (d367rzjs5oyeba.cloudfront.net/ru/311197), the attack was carried out by Belarusian partisans in the area using two drones as part of BYPOL's so-called "Victory Plan"

⚡️Saudi foreign minister meets (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/saudi-foreign-minister-meets-zelensky-in-kyiv-signs-400-million-aid-agreements) Zelensky in Kyiv, signs $400 million aid agreements.
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.

⚡️US House Foreign Affairs head (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/us-house-foreign-affairs-head-congress-ready-to-prioritize-advanced-weapons-for-ukraine): Congress ready to 'prioritize' advanced weapons for Ukraine.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul said on Feb. 26 of the delivery of fighter jets or long-range missiles that if approved, Congress “would take steps to move the process along.”

⚡️ Prosecutor General’s Office records (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/prosecutor-generals-office-records-over-71-500-russian-war-crimes-crimes-of-aggression-in-ukraine) over 71,500 Russian war crimes, crimes of aggression in Ukraine.

'Lower' losses but one plane down.