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[brewer bob]

A Russian TV host may be declared unwelcome by Khazakh officials after his statements about Khazakhstan not siding with Russia.

Spoiler: from the Guardian (click to show/hide)

Kazakhstan may declare a prominent Russian television host persona non grata after he said the central Asian nation could meet the same fate as Ukraine if it did not side decisively with Russia, a Kazakh official said on Wednesday.

Reuters has this report below:

Tigran Keosayan - married to Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT - said on his YouTube show that Kazakhstan was being “ungrateful” and “sly” by failing to show its support for Russia.

Kazakh foreign ministry spokesperson Aibek Smadiyarov said Keosayan’s comments were “insulting” and lacked objectivity.

“Perhaps his statement reflects the views of some parts of the Russian public and political establishment, but it goes against the spirit and essence of the cooperation between our countries and the existing agreements between our leaders,” he added.

“I expect he will be included in the list of people who are not welcome in Kazakhstan.”

Kazakhstan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic, has so far not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but has called for the crisis to be resolved in line with the United Nations charter. It has also sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and has said it will abide by Western sanctions against Moscow.

[martinuzz]

The vice-governor of Cherson appointed by Russia, Kirill Stremoöesov, says "Russia will never give back the province of Cherson to Nazi Ukraine. That is impossible".
A referendum will not be held.
Starting 1st of May, the province of Cherson will switch to rubles as official currency.

[brewer bob]

The Guardian: Moldova facing ‘dangerous moment’ amid fears it could be drawn into Ukraine war.

Spoiler: from the Guardian's live updates (click to show/hide)

Moldova is facing “a very dangerous new moment”, the country’s deputy prime minister has said, as he warned that unnamed forces were seeking to stoke tensions after a series of explosions in the breakaway region of Transnistria this week.

In a briefing with journalists, Nicu Popescu said his government had seen “a dangerous deterioration of the situation” in recent days, following grenade attacks on the “ministry of security” in the breakaway region of Transnistria on Monday. The attacks with rocket-propelled grenades represented “a very dangerous new moment in the history of our region,” he said, adding that Moldova’s institutions had been put on high alert in response.

Fears are growing that Moldova and Transnistria could be drawn into the Ukraine conflict. The predominantly Russian-speaking region of Transnistria in eastern Moldova has been controlled by pro-Russia separatists since 1992 after a short war when Moscow intervened on the side of the rebels.

Last week a senior Russian commander said gaining control over southern Ukraine would help Russia link up with Transnistria, which shares a 453km border with Ukraine. Then on Monday came a series of mysterious explosions targeting Transnistria’s “state security ministry”, a radio tower and military unit.

“Our analysis so far shows that there are tensions between different forces within the region interested in destabilising the situation and that makes the Transnistrian region vulnerable and creates risks for the Republic of Moldova,”

said Popescu, who added that a majority of Moldovans, including those in Transnistria, wanted to stay out of the war.

Moldova’s government, which does not control Transnistria, was working through several hypotheses about the cause of the attacks, he said, adding that it could be a provocation or “the result of some tensions of some forces inside this region”. He added:

“We cannot point exactly the finger or put the blame, but what we see is that indeed there are some forces inside the region that work towards the destabilisation of the situation inside this region.”

[brewer bob]

A military experts predicts that Russian forces will collapse within weeks.

Russian forces will collapse in weeks, predicts military expert

Russia's assault on Donbas has "sort of fizzled" and the battle for the region will be over in two to four weeks, says military expert Dr Mike Martin.

The war studies visiting fellow at King's College London says: "Basically the Russians are gonna run out of troops, and the Ukrainians are going to counterattack."

The Russians have squandered their one chance to take the region, he believes.

"They pulled all of these mauled units out of Kyiv, and then tried to reconstitute them for combat in the east," he explains.

But they were "bruised and damaged" by the battle for the Ukrainian capital and Russia failed to build them up and "do some bold manoeuvre".

And Martin says there has been a "major strategic shift" in the war, with the UK declaring its aim is to clear Russian forces from Ukraine, including Crimea.

He adds that UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is "wrong", however, to say this would take 10 years, insisting: "Russian forces will collapse before that, and we’ll see a coup."

And with the US announcing US$33bn (£26bn) of funding for Ukraine, "that is an extremely clear signal of intent", says Martin.

It also means Nato and the US have decided Vladimir Putin is bluffing about using nuclear weapons if Nato up the ante, he adds.

[Telgin]

I feel like I've heard that before like a month ago, so what has materially changed?  Supposedly Russia was going to run out of money weeks ago but that doesn't seem to have happened or changed anything for its army.

[nenjin]

IIRC (sorry not doing the best reporting) they achieved solvency because some countries agreed to accept rubles in payments.

[EuchreJack]

Keep up the good work!

[anewaname]

April 6th, Guy Verhofstadt gave a 2 minute speech , addressing the EU parliament, on behalf of 212 of the 700-ish members. Basically, he says banning coal is not enough because it is only 3% of the imports, and "SWIFT, the ban, ridiculous. More than 50% of the financial institutions are still outside the ban".

My take is that even if the 50% of banned financial institutions initially represented 90% of the SWIFT volume, the unbanned 50% would suddenly get a lot of new customers, but I also don't know anything about the related politics or Guy Verhofstadt.

[brewer bob]

BBC reports that Russia has tried to trade captured civilians for prisoners of war. Yet another breach of the Geneva Convention.

Russia attempts to trade civilians for military prisoners - Ukraine

Moscow has attempted to trade Ukrainian civilians for Russian military prisoners, according to Ukraine’s deputy prime minister - a move forbidden by the Geneva Convention.

Iryna Vereshchuk told the BBC that her office, which is responsible for negotiating prisoner swaps, declined and instructed Russia to send back Ukrainian civilians it had taken.

There is growing evidence that Russia has forcibly deported large numbers of civilians across the border since it invaded the country in February.

Ms Vereshchuk said they were being used as hostages.“That's why they captured all these hostages - civilians, women, employees of local councils, to try and use them," she said.

“We know there are more than a thousand hostages there - including almost 500 women,” she said. “We know they are in prisons and pre-trial detention centres in Kursk, in Briansk, in Riazan, in Rostov."

She said Russia had also dragged its feet in sending back women civilians. “We are extracting women almost with pliers,” she said. “Now we refuse to hold an exchange with no women in the list. That is how we try to somehow rescue our women and civilians.”

In the most recent exchange, nine civilians were sent back with severe injuries, including amputations performed in Russia.

“There were badly injured people in this exchange - amputated limbs, sepsis, other severe injuries," Ms Vereshchuk said.

“There were clear signs of torture," she said. "The stories they told us are terrible."

[KittyTac]

[Lord Shonus]

Ukraine clams to have killed Major General Andrey Simonov in an artillery strike on his command post.

Confirmation is lacking, but a claim this specific is too easy to debunk for a fake to be likely.

[KittyTac]

Spoiler: HAHAHA YES MUTINY MUTINY (click to show/hide)

[Ganondworf]

Spoiler: HAHAHA YES MUTINY MUTINY (click to show/hide)

I'm sorry I do not understand, could you explain this?

[EuchreJack]

I would also like more sources, but the claim is that Russian soldiers switched sides and are now fighting FOR Ukraine Against Russia.

But it's entirely possible those particular Russians were always soldiers for Ukraine. Or the Ukrainian Military did a lousy patch and repair job on their captured Russian stuff

[Ganondworf]

Ah thank you, I can see now where I was misreading at this late hour.

This is interesting but meaningless without confirmation. I was once told: "only one source of information is the same as no source at all".