05.05.2024

The Kyiv Independent: The German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall will supply Ukraine with "hundreds of thousands" of shells in 2024, including prototypes of artillery shells with a range of 100 kilometers, Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said on May 5.

Reuters: Russian attacks on Orthodox Easter Sunday killed a woman buried under rubble and injured 24 in Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv and the surrounding region, regional officials said.

FT: A US crackdown on banks financing trade in goods for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – and the fear of secondary sanctions – has made it much more difficult to move money in and out of Russia (archive).

The Kyiv Independent: Representatives of Czechia and Estonia will not be in attendance for Putin's upcoming presidential inauguration, the foreign ministers of the respective countries confirmed on May 5.

LRT: Lithuania’s new defence minister, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, has spearheaded the establishment of Komendantūros (Commandant's Offices), which would operate alongside local municipalities during wartime.

The Kyiv Independent: A car bomb explosion in occupied Berdiansk killed a Russian official allegedly responsible for setting up torture chambers in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on May 5.

POLITICO: Putin cut out the heart of a deer and presented it to Silvio Berlusconi, one of the late former Italian prime minister’s close allies said in an interview published in the newspaper Corriere della Sera Sunday.

Ukrainska Pravda: European intelligence agencies have warned their governments that Russia is planning sabotage across the continent.

BBC News: Russia has likely been recruiting Cuban nationals to fight in its army in Ukraine, research by the BBC has shown.

ISW: The Kremlin continues efforts to portray its unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine as something other than what it is while continuing to assert the jurisdiction of Russian federal law over sovereign states.

04.05.2024

Reuters: Russian attacks on Ukraine's Kharkiv and Dnipro regions and the Black Sea port city of Odesa killed at least two civilians, set a food factory ablaze and damaged other infrastructure, homes and commercial buildings on Saturday, regional officials said.

The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine is expecting $38 billion in financial support from international partners after fulfilling the requirements of an International Monetary Fund program, the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine said on May 4.

Reuters: Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian Su-25 fighter-bomber over the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

AP News: The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been battered by fighting, drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Reuters: Russia has opened a criminal case against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and put him on a wanted list, the state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, an announcement Ukraine dismissed as evidence of Moscow's "desperation".

The Kyiv Independent: Three Russian students studying in Finland were detained for allegedly exporting unspecified dual-use goods - items that are suitable for military capabilities, Finnish outlet Yle reported.

Reuters: Poland condemned alleged cyberattacks by a Russian group named called APT28 on Germany and Czech Republic saying it had also been targeted.

ISW: Ukrainian officials continue to highlight that Russia’s main goal for 2024 remains the seizure of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as Russian forces plan for their Summer 2024 offensive operation.

Reuters: Alexander Vinnik, a Russian suspected cybercrime kingpin who was arrested in Greece in 2017, convicted of money laundering in France three years later and is now awaiting trial in California, has pleaded partially guilty, TASS news agency cited his lawyer as saying on Saturday.

03.05.2024

POLITICO: Biden administration officials are increasingly worried that rogue Russian soldiers in Niger will take actions to antagonize U.S. troops in the country, forcing the U.S. to respond.

Bloomberg: The US is in talks with close partners to lead a group of allies that would give as much as $50 billion in aid to Ukraine, with the massive outlay being repaid with the windfall profits from sovereign Russian assets that have been frozen – and are accruing interest — mostly in Europe (archive).

The Guardian: Germany has summoned a top Russian envoy over a series of cyber-attacks targeting members of the governing Social Democrats and its defence and technology sector.

France 24: Germany and the Czech Republic on Friday blamed Russia for a series of recent cyberattacks, prompting the European Union to warn Moscow of consequences over its "malicious behaviour in cyberspace".

The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine's military intelligence carried out a large-scale cyberattack in Russia's Tatarstan on May 3, a source in the agency confirmed to the Kyiv Independent.

FT: Although Ukraine continues to push for an all-out seizure of Russia’s assets, G7 officials say privately that is no longer on the table. Instead, they are exploring alternative ways of extracting funding (archive).

AFP: France estimates that 150,000 Russian soldiers have been killed during Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said in an interview published on Friday. Paris estimated total Russian casualties, including wounded, at 500,000 in the war, now in its third year.

Reuters: Hungary will need to boost defence spending further next year if the war in neighbouring Ukraine drags into 2025, reducing the amount of funds available for other expenditure, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told public radio on Friday.

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