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Morning Headlines
AP News: House Speaker Mike Johnson is negotiating with the White House as he prepares for the treacherous task of advancing wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel through the House, a top House Republican said Thursday.
Reuters: Japan wants any handling of frozen Russian assets to abide by international law, its finance minister said on Friday, adding that the topic will likely be discussed at next week's meeting of his counterparts from G7 advanced economies.
ISW: Russia appears to be exploiting Ukraine’s degraded air defense umbrella in an attempt to collapse Ukraine’s energy grid and constrain Ukraine’s defense industrial capacity while Russian ground forces take advantage of their ability to use air strikes on Ukrainian frontline positions to make slow but steady gains.
More News
CNN: Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s memoir will be published posthumously this fall, his widow revealed Thursday.
The Kyiv Independent: The Netherlands will allocate an additional 400 million euros to Ukraine, increasing its total pledge for 2024 to more than 2.4 billion euros, the Dutch broadcaster RTL news reported on April 11.
Ukrainska Pravda: Bridget Brink, US Ambassador to Ukraine, has reported that the US signed an agreement to supply Ukraine with $138 million for the modernisation of air defence systems.
Reuters: The U.S. cyber watchdog agency CISA says that Russian government-backed hackers have used their access to Microsoft's email system to steal correspondence between officials and the tech giant.
POLITICO: The top U.S. commander in Europe and NATO is warning Congress that Russia has replaced its heavy battlefield losses in Ukraine, and did it faster than anticipated.
Reuters: Ukraine risks collapsing under Russia's onslaught without U.S. support, a disaster that could embolden China and spark a new crisis in East Asia, Japan's prime minister told U.S. lawmakers on Thursday, urging them to overcome "self-doubt" about the country's role on the world stage.
CTP: A pro-Russian and Wagner Group–linked African outlet claimed that Russian Africa Corps soldiers will “soon” deploy to Niger, supporting CTP’s assessment that the Nigerien junta may contract Russian soldiers to help fill the gaps left by departing Western assistance.
Reuters: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose pro-Russian views have put him at odds with allies, sought to deepen cooperation in energy, railway links and grain transport with war-hit neighbour Ukraine on Thursday. After a joint meeting of the Slovak and Ukrainian governments, Fico said Slovakia wanted to be a "good, friendly" neighbour to Ukraine.
Novaya Gazeta Europe has learned of a proposed peace deal aimed at ending the war in Ukraine that has the backing of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and whose main points are an agreement to freeze the conflict and to refrain from using nuclear weapons.
POLITICO: The European Parliament on Thursday refused to sign off on an audit of the European Council and Council of Ministers' 2022 budget in an attempt to pressure EU leaders to support Ukraine with additional Patriot air defense systems.
Bloomberg: The European Union is moving toward approval of Ukraine’s reform plan in May, which would unlock an additional €1.9 billion as part of a total €15.9 billion that the bloc has planned in financial aid for Kyiv for this year (archive).
The Kyiv Independent: Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has discussed donating more post-Soviet air defense missiles to Ukraine with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as his country comes under intense aerial assault.
Reuters: The European Parliament voted on Thursday to pass rules allowing European governments to ban Russian liquefied natural gas imports, by preventing Russian firms from booking gas infrastructure capacity.
Bloomberg: The European Union should tap Russia’s frozen assets to help Ukraine as using just the windfall profits is not enough, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday (archive).
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Latvian counterpart, Edgars Rinkevics, signed a long-term bilateral security agreement, Zelensky announced on April 11 while visiting Lithuania for an international summit.
Reuters: Russian missiles and drones destroyed a large electricity plant near Kyiv and hit power facilities in several regions of Ukraine on Thursday, officials said, ramping up pressure on the embattled energy system as Kyiv runs low on air defences.
The Guardian: The mass use of “drop-and-forget” guided bombs containing foreign components is driving Russian advances in Ukraine, with up to 500 now being fired a week, according to a Ukrainian government analysis.
The Insider: While ordinary Russians struggle to obtain visas or residency permits in Europe, affluent top managers from pivotal Russian state-owned enterprises continue to effortlessly secure Maltese passports, thus attaining European Union citizenship.
AP News: Ukraine’s parliament on Thursday passed a controversial law on how the country will call up new soldiers at a time when it needs to replenish depleted forces that are increasingly struggling to fend off Russia’s advance.
worth mentioning
The Kremlin’s creeping nationalizations hit Chelyabinsk businesses
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