Ukraine resumes electricity exports to neighboring European countries. The counteroffensive has been delayed by slow equipment deliveries and the leak of U.S. intelligence documents. Zelenskyi reacts to a video of Russian soldiers beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive delayed by slow equipment deliveries, leak of U.S. intel documents, the WP says
The expected Ukraine’s spring offensive has been delayed by weather, slow equipment deliveries and ammunition scarcities, the Washington Post said. Further complicating the planned counterattack is the leak of dozens of U.S. military and intelligence documents, including many details about the condition of Ukraine’s military and its capabilities, including weaknesses in air defenses, that could force commanders to alter plans.
The expected spring offensive has been framed as Ukraine’s make-or-break opportunity this year to recapture territory held by Russian forces, which totals about one-fifth of the country, the article reads. The stakes are high as Ukraine is poised to retake its territories, and Ukraine does not take a risk to begin the offensive while awaiting materiel from Western backers, Ukrainian analysts add.
Ukraine resumes electricity exports to neighboring European countries
At this stage, it is clear that Putin’s winter bombing campaign was unable to achieve its goals of crippling the Ukrainian energy system and forcing Ukraine back to the negotiating table, senior energy journalist, Dr. Aura Sabadus said in her piece for the Atlantic Council.
Ukraine’s state-owned energy sector operator Ukrenergo announced in early April that it was resuming commercial electricity exports to neighboring European countries for the first time since October 2022. The news has been widely touted as an example of Ukraine’s remarkable wartime resilience, and is also being seen as further evidence that Moscow’s six-month bombing campaign against the country’s energy infrastructure has failed.
A total of 330 megawatts of border capacity was allocated for exports to Moldova for 11 April. The volumes initially available for export should be enough to single-handedly cover almost half of Moldova’s daily needs. More capacity is expected to be made available to Slovakia, potentially helping Ukrainian energy companies to improve their cash flow position by selling at a premium in neighboring Central European markets, the article reads.
Earlier in March, Ukrenergo and the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), which the Ukrainian energy giant joined a year ago, decided to increase the capacity for electricity trading with Europe from 700MW to 850MW. Cross-border capacity is under constant review and is expected to increase further in the upcoming months, deepening Ukraine’s integration with European electricity markets.
In addition to the existing ENTSO-E connection with Moldova, Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary, Ukraine also has a separate isolated power link with Poland, which it hopes to increase in the coming months. On April 10, a total of 80MW of capacity was allocated for westward electricity exports from Ukraine.Ukraine and Moldova unplugged from the Russian and Belarusian grids just hours before Russia’s fall-scale invasion began on February 24. Both countries had been connected to these grids since the Soviet era. Within less than a month and against all odds, Ukraine and Moldova were then able to synchronize with Europe’s ENTSO-E system. By June 2022, Ukraine had even begun exporting electricity to neighboring Romania and Slovakia. Full text is available at the link.
Zelenskyi reacts to video of Russian soldiers beheading Ukrainian prisoner of war
In a video address, President Zelenskyi promised there would be a legal reckoning for Russia and urged world leaders to act after beheadings clips.
“There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill. This video… The execution of a Ukrainian captive… The world must see it. This is a video of Russia as it is. What kind of creatures they are. There are no people for them. A son, a brother, a husband… Someone’s child… This is a video of Russia trying to make just that the new norm. (…) This is not an accident. This is not an episode,” Zelenskyi said, recalling Russia’s atrocities in Bucha.
Ukraine must focus on what’s happening on the frontline and mobilize help as much as possible, the President said. “Our main goal is to win. The main goal is to have tenacity to win. Defeat of the occupying force, sentences to the murderers, Tribunal to the state that embodies the evil,” he added.
“Yesterday, a video surfaced on social media showing Russian forces revealing their savage nature — cruelly torturing and beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war,” Ukraine’s state security service said in a post on Telegram. The agency opened an investigation into a war crime, the statement said.
Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry released a statement calling on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to “immediately investigate yet another atrocity of the Russian military in the context of the investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by citizens of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said he had appealed to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, UN Secretary-General, and International Committee of the Red Cross, calling on them to do their utmost to bring those responsible for war crimes to justice.
How to recognize and counter key narratives of russian propaganda? Ukraine in Flames #398
For almost a year of russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, russian propaganda narratives have been constantly changing, as well as the stated purposes of the war changed from the “reaction to the NATO expansion” and “denazification of Ukraine” to “preventing the Third World War” and “protecting russian people from the anti-russian coalition”. Watch Ukraine in flames #398 to find out about the key disinformation narratives used by the Kremlin in an attempt to justify and fuel the war.
Guests:
- Iryna Subota, Analyst at the Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security
- Alyona Nesterenko, Media Expert at the Institute of Mass Information
- Inna Polianska, Senior Analyst at Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group
- Anton Khimyak, Analyst at Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group
- Myroslava Markova, Senior Analyst at VoxCheck
- Maryna Vorotyntseva, Senior Analyst at the Centre for Countering Disinformation
