Summary of the daily livestream with Aleksey Arestovych, day 124 of the war, kindly provided by twitter.com/savaadaak
Battlefield update: no significant changes, even in Lysychansk. Russia using 22-24 BTGs near Bakhmut-Lysychansk road. Expecting battle for Lysychansk, and Popasna group to attempt moving on Bakhmut, then on Kramatorsk. Last 10km took Russia 84 days.
Missile attacks:
- Kremenchuk: Russian missile strike, at least 10 dead, 40 wounded, expecting to increase, air-launched Kh-22 missile, which is old and inaccurate, accuracy within 600m – attack on city center is pure terror.
- Kharkiv: bombing with Iskander, howitzers.
- Mykolaiv: unguided rockets (Uragan, Smerch).
- Odessa: winged missiles, getting intercepted.
- Kyiv: winged missiles.
- Current Russian missile launch amounts are like after middle of March, around 50/day.
- Russia will keep bombing every day, but such amounts of 50 missiles day, they won’t be able to sustain for long.
- Bombings are partially Russian response to western position becoming stronger, increase in sanctions. Ukrainian response would be strictly to military targets, there are plenty. Russia starting a terror war on Ukraine.
- Some more towers hit in Black Sea (soon there should be public announcements).
G7 meeting:
Putin got mocked during G7 [link], they are burning all bridges, planning to get rid of Putin. Decisions include to support of Ukraine in military, economical, humanitarian, political spheres without time limit. Supply of long and medium range air-defenses (NASAMS), sanctions on gold. US added 35% import tariff on Russian products, that will be used to assist Ukraine. [link]. New sanctions about to include semiconductor import ban, most of which are made in Taiwan. Decision is to break Putin. EU considering striping veto-rights, as many countries keep abusing them.
Ukrainian military started working very accurately, not only HIMARS, but artillery. 2 days ago HIMARS was used near Izium on front-line command post. Last week Ukraine destroyed 4 ammo warehouses in Luhansk district, 12 in Luhansk district (using both Tochka-U and HIMARS systems).
Both sides have escalated. West has finally understood, that it’s not time for negotiations. NATO increasing readiness force to 300 000, which would be equal to 1.5m Russian troops.
🇧🇾 Belarus:
Russia seems to consider arming Belarus with nukes, constitution update removed non-nuclear status last year. Members of Russia’s 12th Chief Directorate (responsible for nukes) visiting Belarus. It seems that Russia wants to break NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons), which could cause significant escalation.
Zelensky did an address to Belarusian citizens, calling to not join war. Estimated that Belarus can add to war 10k-20k troops out of 80k total army size, including reserves. The only thing, that could make Lukashenka give order to attack, would be emotional provocation, not rational, like he already did with grounding a plane, and arresting Wagner mercenaries.
Russia will keep pressuring, but the exact level of influence is unknown. Right now, there are signs of Belarusian military preparing, but that doesn’t mean usage of military force. West is sending strong signals of possible consequences.
Putin searching for possibilities to avoid sanctions through Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. Russia had technical default today, sanctions are starting to show some effectiveness. 7th package of sanctions will include natural gas, expecting acceleration.
POWs:
Russia is preparing for blackmail, bringing some lawyers from FSB. Operation to exchange them is still in progress. Prisoners are being watched by international organisation [Red Cross?], there are guarantees. Russia would still attempt to gain some more favourable deals. Deceased bodies are being exchanged, will not forget of alive. Please be patient, process can be long. Nobody will be forgotten, everyone will be returned.
US Nazi Hunter arrived to Ukraine, to gather proof [link] of war crimes. He has experience with over 100 cases, and difficult to obtain proof. Everyone responsible for war crimes will be found and tried.
There will be no broadcast tomorrow
