Victory Chronicles
-DAY 404

Above: Poland has already handed over several Mig-29 jets to Ukraine. Earlier, Poland announced intentions to hand over 20 MiGs and Slovakia 13.  President Zelensky will visit Warsaw for the first time since the war began on April 5. (Ukrinform)

Above: Ukrainians mark the anniversary of the liberation of Bucha and the uncovering of the scene of total Russian depravity. (New York Times) 

Video: “Terrorists have no place in sports”.  A Ukrainian tennis champ filmed a public service announcement in response to Wimbledon organizers’ greenlighting Moscow-sponsored athletes’ participation in the annual championship in England. 

Instead of Wimbledon – the invincible #Bachmut: Serhiy Stakhovsky in the Sports Front project

The new ambassador of the "Sports Front" project was Serhiy Stakhovsky, former Ukraine's No. 1 in tennis and guardsman of the National Guard of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/zKF08vnz63

— НГУ (@ng_ukraine) April 3, 2023

Above: UK Ministry of Defence

• ISW’s abbreviated edition on April 2 discussed the intriguing assassination of a pro-war Russian ulta-nationalist militant and blogger in St Petersburg, Russia on April 2. The deceased, originally from Makiivka, Donetsk, was blown up in a bar owned by the Wager financier, by a gift statuette he had just received from a “Cyber Front Z” event participant. The Kremlin first blamed it on Ukrainian terrorism then Navaly-affiliates, then both at the same time. Ukraine called it “spiders eating each other in a jar”.
• On Monday, Petersburg police searched for the woman who made the gift, allegedly a Navalny supporter who was arrested in February 2022 for anti-war protests. Another woman, possibly her mother, was escorted by police from an apartment in St Petersburg.
• The Russian ambassador to Belarus confirmed on Sunday that the Kremlin will move tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, to be stationed on belarus’ western border. The US called it a desperate attempt by Russia to avoid military defeat and “threaten the world with nuclear apocalypse.”
• Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state electricity transmission system operator, announced the complete restoration of power facilities in central Ukraine following Russia’s last mass missile attack on March 9, stating. “All consumption restrictions on Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Kharkiv oblasts due to the damage to power facilities caused by a Russian mass missile attack on March 9 have been lifted. We’re grateful to our Lithuanian colleagues for providing help. There are no current limitations to power consumption in Ukraine.
• Russia began its semi-annual conscription on April 1 with the aim to draft 147 thousand Russian men between April 1 and July 15, the largest conscription call-up since 2016. The Kremlin may be attempting to make up for unfulfilled conscription quotas from the previous fall 2022 conscription cycle.
• The Financial Times reported Russia’s security forces are confiscating passports of senior officials and state-owned company executives due to paranoia over potential leaks and defections. “The increased pressure reflects deep suspicion in the Kremlin and FSB, the KGB’s successor agency, about the loyalty of Russia’s civilian elite, many of whom privately oppose the war in Ukraine and are chafing over its impact on their lifestyles.”  The legal basis for the confiscations dates from Soviet times but hasn’t been strictly enforced until recently.

General Staff’s Daily Video Digest with English subtitles

Above: Ukrinform

Ukrainian General Staff of the Armed Forces estimated enemy losses since February 24, 2022 (with daily additions)

• Liquidated personnel, 175,160 (+610)
• Tanks, 3,619 (+1)
• Armored personnel vehicles, 6,993 (+7)
• Artillery systems/MLRS, 2,694/527 (+7/0)
• Anti-aircraft warfare systems, 280 (+1)
• Aircraft/helicopters, 306/291 (0)
• UAV operational-tactical level, 2,262 (+13)
• Cruise missiles, 911 (0)
• Warships/boats, 18 (0)
• Vehicles and fuel tanks, 5,553 (+16)
• Special equipment, 298 (+2)

Above: Bakhmut. (Radio Svoboda)

Above: It is well-known that many civilians who remain in places of mandatory evacuation are pro-Kremlin. Over the weekend, Ukrainian Security Services detained a woman in Kramatorsk for providing coordinates of hospitals, dormitories and locations of Ukrainian forces to the enemy via Russian social media. (Suspilne)

Glory to Ukraine!
The 404th day of the Russian large-scale invasion has begun.

• During the past day, the enemy launched 5 missile and 32 air strikes, launched more than 50 attacks from rocket salvo systems.
• The probability of launching missile and air strikes throughout the territory of Ukraine remains high, because the enemy will continue to use terror tactics.
• The enemy is concentrating its main efforts on conducting offensive operations in the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinska directions – more than 70 enemy attacks were repulsed. Bakhmut, Avdiyivka and Maryinka remain at the epicenter of hostilities.
• During the day, the enemy shelled Volfyne, Basivka, Ryasne, and Mezenivka in the Sumy region, as well as Veterinarne, Gatyshche, Velikiy Burluk, and Kolodyazne in the Kharkiv
• Kamianka, Petro-Ivanivka, Dvorichna, Kutkivka, Zapadne, Masyutivka and Krokhmalne in the Kharkiv region and Novoselivske in the Luhansk region came under enemy fire in the Kupyansk
• In the Lymanskyi direction, during the day, the enemy carried out unsuccessful offensive actions in the areas of Bilogorivka and Verkhnyokamyanskyi. Nevske and Bilogorivka in Luhansk region and Torske, Spirne and Rozdolivka in Donetsk region were hit by artillery fire.
• In the direction of Bakhmut, the enemy does not stop storming Bakhmut, trying to take it under complete control. Our soldiers repelled more than 20 enemy attack Also, our defenders repelled the attacks of the occupiers in the area of the settlement of Ivanovske. Vasyukivka, Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Novomarkove, Hryhorivka, Bohdanivka, Bakhmut, Ivanovske, Chasiv Yar, Kostyantynivka, Zalizne and New York of the Donetsk region were affected by enemy shelling.
• in the districts of Avdiivka, Pervomaisky and Maryinka, he was not successful. Yesterday, Ukrainian soldiers repelled more than 15 enemy attacks near Maryinka and Avdiyivka alone. In addition, the invaders shelled Orlivka, Tonenka, Severna, Netaylovo, Krasnohorivka, and Georgiyivka in the Donetsk
• During the day, the enemy shelled the settlements of Pobieda, Novomykhailivka, Vugledar, Prechistivka, Velyka Novosilka, Vremivka, and Neskuchne in the Shakhtarsky
• In the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions, the enemy shelled more than 30 settlements that were not far from the battle line. Among them are Olhivske, Gulyaipole, Biloghirya, Mala Tokmachka, Novoandriyivka, Kamianske, Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as Zolota Balka, Tomarine, Kozatske, Ivanivka, Zelenivka, Komysany, Bilozerka, and Kherson.

Support the Armed Forces! United we will win! Glory to Ukraine!

Above: Luhansk Oblast Police have a special squad of demining specialists working in Donbas.  They reported in the last month to have cleared about 260 thousand square meters of land in liberated Donetsk from enemy GRAD, tank and artillery shells as well as anti-tank and mortar mines and grenades.  (Luhansk Oblast Police)

• Russian occupation officials continue to deport Ukrainian children to Russia under rest-and-rehabilitation schemes. Luhansk People’s Republic claimed on April 1 that an additional 100 children and mothers will soon depart to the Klyazma sanatorium in Moscow Oblast.
• Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line on April 1. Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Kreminna; within 21km northwest of Kremina near Chervonopopivka and Makiivka; and within 20km south of Kreminna near Dibrova, Hryhorivka, Bilohorivka, and Verkhnokamyanske. Geolocated footage published on March 31 and April 1 indicated that Ukrainian forces made limited advances west of Chervonopopivka and northeast of Verkhnokamyanske.
• The Luhansk Oblast Administration stated that the most intense fighting occurred near Bilohorivka. Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces stated that Russian forces operating in the Kupyansk-Lyman direction are mostly composed of mobilized personnel in airborne and motorized rifle units and Luhansk People’s Republic units.
• The New York Times reported that Russia deported more than 2,500 Ukrainian prisoners from Kherson Oblast to Russia while withdrawing from the west bank of Kherson Oblast in autumn 2022, and distributed them to prison colonies throughout Russia. Ukrainian prisoners reportedly faced beatings at detention facilities in occupied Crimea immediately following their deportation from Kherson Oblast.

Above: Ukrainian Front

Above:  The maker of famous Soledar salt lamps has relocated to Dnipro city. Olena Bukrei is an entrepreneur from Bakhmut, who, for 16 years, has successfully made and sold salt lamps with salt from Soledar mines.  For now, the business can’t source salt from Soledar, but is importing Himalayan salt. We wish good luck to the business until Soledar salt is available once again. (Suspilne)

• Ukrainian, Western and even Kremlin sources observed on April 1 that the Russian winter offensive has failed to achieve the goal of seizing the Donetsk and Luhansk oblast administrative borders by March 31. Russian milbloggers fretted that Russian forces must finish their offensive operations in Bakhmut and Avdiivka to prepare for the Ukrainian counter offensives they expect between Orthodox Easter on April 16 and Soviet Victory Day on May 9.
• There are few evacuation routes from Bakhmut, all of them are dangerous. The Russian military is targeting evacuation vehicles with children. There is no electricity, heating, water supply, and communication is bad.
• Bakhmut’s deputy mayor said on April 3 that the situation in Bakhmut is very difficult, tense, but under control and that  fighting continues in the central part of the city.  He spoke about exaggerated accounts in Russian media, “The Armed Forces of Ukraine are not retreating, they are giving a decent repulse in all directions where the enemy is trying to attack. I cannot comment on the Russian propagandists. We trust the official data from our side.”
• The tempo of Russian assaults around Bakhmut is decreasing compared to two weeks ago. Russian forces are continuing to regroup in the Bakhmut area, and may decide to recommit personnel and resources to increase the tempo of offensives in and around Bakhmut.
• Russian forces continued to conduct ground attacks along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City Russian forces retreated from unspecified positions in the Donetsk direction. Geolocated footage published on April 1 indicates that Ukrainian forces likely made marginal gains northeast of Vodyane (8km southwest of Avdiivka). Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka, Novobakhmutivka (14km northwest of Avdiivka), and within 27km southwest of Avdiivka near Sieverne, Pervomaiske, and Marinka.

Above: The Irish low-cost airline Ryanair announced intentions to start operating in Ukraine as soon as the war ends including services to Odesa, Lviv and Kyiv. (Odesa Life)

Above:  The community culture center in Chornomorsk, Odesa, replaced its Russian signage with Ukrainian. Southern and eastern Ukraine remained largely “russified” following Ukrainian independence.  Most people spoke Russian, russo-communist monuments remained, businesses and public buildings used Russian names.  Putin’s invasion has changed all that as everyone from villages to big cities push to “de-communize” and rename institutions, streets and businesses into Ukrainian.  (Dekomunizatsia. Ukraina)

• The Ukrainian Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Danylov published a post on Facebook entitled “12 steps to the de-occupation of Crimea” that includes expelling russians who have occupied crimea since 2014, mental detoxification of inhabitants from russian propaganda and creation of a monument to “Russian warship, go **** yourself”. The former commander of the US Army in Europe Ben Hodges has consistently stated for months that  Ukraine will liberate Crimea by the end of the summer of 2023. The pathetic former Russian president Medvedev said any offensive on Crimea would evoke Russia’s use of nuclear weapons.
• Ukrainian forces conducted a HIMARS strike against a rail depot in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, the third strike against the city in the past week.
• Ukrainian partisans in Melitopol blew up the car of a major collaborator who was afterwards hospitalized.  Oborzrevatel notes that this is not the first time the collaborator’s car exploded.  In November 2022, the collaborator’s vehicle was blown up in the Zaporizhzhya region when initial reports of his death were later confirmed as premature.
• The head of enemy war recruitment in Crimea complained that Crimea didn’t meet its fall 2022 quotas due to a shortened cycle, “massive outflow of citizens”, employee and funding shortages within military recruitment centers and “sabotage of conscription events by citizens of the Crimean Tatar nationality”. He added that medical facilities in Crimea lack MoD-certified equipment and specialists to administer physical examinations for conscription.
• Russian forces deported more than 2,500 Ukrainian prisoners from Kherson Oblast to Russia while withdrawing from the west (right) bank of Kherson Oblast in autumn 2022. The New York Times reported on April 1 that Russian forces deported more the 2,500 prisoners from local penitentiaries on the west (right) bank of Kherson Oblast and distributed them to prison colonies throughout Russia, primarily in southern Russia.[54] Ukrainian prisoners reportedly faced beatings at detention facilities in occupied Crimea immediately following their deportation from Kherson Oblast.