Latest Developments In The Russo-Ukraine War

History strongly suggests that the Russo-Ukraine war will not be contained to Ukraine. I have said before that we are witnessing the early days of World War III, as countries make alliances and maneuver for strategic advantage in what they see as an inevitable conflict between democratic Western governments and the autocratic terrorist state of Russia (and its allies). Things can quickly spin out of control.

There are several developments on this front this week.

CNN reports that western sanctions on the terrorist state of Russia have had a devastating effect on the Russian economy. Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt, says S&P:

Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt because it offered bondholders payments in rubles, not dollars, credit ratings agency S&P has said.

Russia attempted to pay in rubles for two dollar-denominated bonds that matured on April 4, S&P said in a note on Friday. The agency said this amounted to a “selective default” because investors are unlikely to be able to convert the rubles into “dollars equivalent to the originally due amounts.”

According to S&P, a selective default is declared when an entity has defaulted on a specific obligation but not its entire debt.

Moscow has a grace period of 30 days from April 4 to make the payments of capital and interest, but S&P said it does not expect it will convert them into dollars given Western sanctions that undermine its “willingness and technical abilities to honor the terms and conditions” of its obligations.

A full foreign currency default would be Russia’s first in more than a century, when Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin repudiated bonds issued by the Tsarist government.

Russia cannot access roughly $315 billion of its foreign currency reserves as a result of Western sanctions imposed following its invasion of Ukraine. Until last week, the United States allowed Russia to use some of its frozen assets to pay back certain investors in dollars. But the US Treasury has since blocked the country from accessing its reserves at American banks, part of its effort to ramp up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and further diminish his war chest.

JPMorgan estimates that Russia had about $40 billion of foreign currency debt at the end of last year, with about half of that held by foreign investors.

Moscow prepares to go to court

Russia is now planning legal action.

“We will sue, because we undertook all necessary action so that investors would receive their payments,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper on Monday.

“We will show the court proof of our payments, to confirm our efforts to pay in rubles, just as we did in foreign currency. It won’t be a simple process,” he added. He did not say who Russia planned to sue.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a press conference last week that any default would be “artificial” because Russia has the dollars to pay — it just can’t access them.

“There are no grounds for a real default,” Peskov said. “Not even close.”

Russia has gone to great lengths to artificially prop up the ruble — which sank by as much as 40% to less than one US cent in the days after the invasion — including by hiking interest rates to 20%, and by forcing exporters to swap most of their foreign currency revenues for rubles.

That measure is still in place but the central bank has decided to relax some other restrictions, Reuters reported Monday, and last week announced that it was cutting interest rates to 17%.

Reuters reports, Russian oil embargo could be part of next EU sanctions package, ministers say:

The European Union’s executive is drafting proposals for an EU oil embargo on Russia, the foreign ministers of Ireland, Lithuania and the Netherlands said on Monday, although there is still no agreement to ban Russian crude.

“They are now working on ensuring that oil is part of the next sanctions package,” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said of the European Commission as he arrived for a meeting with his EU counterparts in Luxembourg.

“The European Union is spending hundreds of millions of euros on importing oil from Russia, that is certainly contributing to financing this war. We need to cut off that financing … the sooner that can happen the better,” Coveney added.

“We are looking at all other (sanctions), including energy,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said, a position echoed by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who has said an EU oil embargo must happen “sooner or later”.

The European Parliament last week voted for an embargo, although its decision is not binding.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on April 5 that she was considering additional sanctions, including on oil imports, based in part on proposals from EU governments. Those ideas include imposing tariffs on Russian oil, or a ban on some oil products, according to EU diplomats.

Any oil embargo rests on both the technical details of the scope and phase-in time of such a move and the support of the EU’s 27 member states. Energy dependence varies widely across the bloc, with countries such as Bulgaria almost totally dependent on Russia oil. Hungary has said it cannot support an oil embargo.

The president of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, after visiting President Zelensky in Ukraine, has promised to “accelerate” Ukraine’s membership in the European Union, long sought by Ukraine and opposed by Russia.

Ukraine belongs in the European family.

And today, Ukraine takes another important step towards EU membership.

We will accelerate this process as much as we can, while ensuring that all conditions are respected.#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/q7Yi5gMOBH

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) April 8, 2022

Sweden and Finland, since the end of World War II, have maintained a status of neutrality between the West and Russia, declining to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Alliance. Russia’s war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine and its indiscriminate war crimes against civilian populations has altered this calculus.

Reuters reports, Finland, Sweden set to join NATO as soon as summer, The Times reports:

Russia has made a “massive strategic blunder” as Finland and Sweden look poised to join NATO as early as the summer, The Times (of London) reported on Monday, citing officials.

The United States officials said that NATO membership for both Nordic countries was “a topic of conversation and multiple sessions” during talks between the alliance’s foreign ministers last week attended by Sweden and Finland, report added.

This is certain to be called a provocation by the Russians.

Note: Finland suffered a very similar situation to Ukraine today in the early days of World War II. “The Winter War, also known as the First Soviet-Finnish War, was a war between the Soviet Union and Finland. The war began with a Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, and ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940 (in which Finland ceded 9% of its territory to the Soviet Union). Despite superior military strength, especially in tanks and aircraft, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway.” The Soviet failure in Finland is what convinced Adolph Hitler that he could successfully attack his ally at the time.

In a bizzarre interview with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, Newsweek reports Russia’s framing (propaganda) of the Russo-Ukraine war. Russia’s Ambassador to U.S. Reveals Why Ukraine War Began, How It Could End. Miscalculations based upon misinformation is what leads to war.

Towards the end of this interview, Ambassador Antonov makes this not-so-veiled threat to the United States:

“Western states are directly involved in the current events as they continue to pump Ukraine with weapons and ammunitions, thereby inciting further bloodshed,” Antonov said.

“We warn that such actions are dangerous and provocative as they are directed against our state,” he added. “They can lead the U.S. and the Russian Federation onto the path of direct military confrontation. Any supply of weapons and military equipment from the West, performed by transport convoys through the territory of Ukraine, is a legitimate military target for our Armed Forces.”

After being thwarted in taking Ukraine’s Capitol of Kiev in a matter of days as they were led to believe, the Russian military has withdrawn and regrouped for a new offensive in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. As Axios reports, “It’s unclear when exactly Russia will let loose this next offensive, but the Kremlin may be planning for a victory in the region by May 9, which is the country’s annual Victory Day celebration of the Soviet Union’s World War II victory over the Nazis.

Vladimir Putin has appointed a new general accused of atrocities in Syria to command Russian troops in Ukraine, following weeks of military setbacks and heavy losses capped by humiliating defeat in the Battle for Kyiv. Russia appoints feared commander accused of atrocities in Syria to lead its war on Ukraine:

Aleksandr V. Dvornikov, dubbed “the butcher of Syria”, commanded forces in the Syrian civil war that were accused of attacking residential neighborhoods and targeting hospitals in 2015, as part of Russia’s intervention to prop up the government of President Bashar al-Assad, the New York Times reports.

During the general’s time, chemical weapons and air strikes were used in Syria – resulting in thousands of civilian casualties.

The new butcher witn extensive #Syrian "experience" is will be a new commander for #Russia's full-scale war against #Ukraine, General Alexander #Dvornikov. After the failure of the "special operation", 🇷🇺 is reorganizing the command in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/s7xBLPgxWv

— Giorgi Revishvili (@revishvilig) April 8, 2022

Dvornikov will lead the Russian forces with the goal of increasing coordination between various units. Until now, Russian forces have been commanded separately and from Moscow, with no central war commander on the ground in Ukraine.

Western officials told the BBC that Dvornikov, a general who played a significant role in the Russian bombardment of Syria, has been put in charge by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian intervention in Syria was notoriously brutal, and foreign policy analyst Rula Jebreal said Dvornikov’s appointment likely signals an “expansion” of Russia’s “terror campaign” against Ukraine.

Western officials and human rights organisations have previously condemned tactics employed by Russian forces in Syria under Dvornikov’s command, including the targeting of hospitals and civilian neighborhoods in attacks. Dvornikov previously said: “I will say this: without carrying out information operations, we would not have had success in Aleppo, Deir al-Zour and Ghouta”

The 60-year-old general is also believed to be the man behind a missile strike on Kramatorsk railway station, which killed at least 52 civilians who were attempting to evacuate from the region on Friday.

A US State Department spokesperson would not comment on the general being put in charge of the Russian invasion but said “it’s clear this war has not gone according to plan for Putin – a quick victory has been stymied by Ukraine.”

“This war is taking a very hard toll on the people of Ukraine, but it is also taking a significant toll on Russia’s forces,” the spokesperson said.

“This war was a strategic blunder that has left Russia weaker and isolated on the world stage, while the people of Ukraine have inspired the world with their bravery.”

The appointment comes as Russian forces have completely withdrawn from positions in the north of Ukraine, around Kyiv and Chernihiv, after failing to take the Ukrainian capital and even being pushed back as they attempted to capture it. The troops have moved into Belarus and western Russia to be refitted with weapons and supplies in preparation for an offensive in eastern Ukraine.

“At this juncture we believe that Russia is revising its war aims,” White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said this week. “Russia is repositioning its forces to concentrate its offensive operations in eastern and parts of southern Ukraine rather than target most of the territory.” US and Ukrainian officials have warned that a coming Russian offensive in Ukraine’s Donbas region will be horrific and bloody.

Newly released Maxar satellite imagery collected on Friday showed a 13 kilometer convoy of military vehicles headed south to the Donbas region through the Ukrainian town of Velykyi Burluk. Western military analysts said an arc of territory in eastern Ukraine was under Russian control from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the north to Kherson in the south.

The Kremlin is believed to be hoping that Dvornikov, who is currently Commander of Russia’s Southern Military District, could restore the honor of the Russian army after it suffered considerable setbacks and losses on the road to Kyiv.

In September 2015, he became the first commander of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria, during Putin’s military intervention to support the embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Dvornikov was awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation in 2016 for his leadership in Syria, the highest military honor in the country.

A UN investigation into atrocities committed in Syria said that Russia was partly to blame for war crimes due to indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas without “a specific military objective.”

Following his time in Syria, Dvornikov was appointed Commander of the Southern Military District. A report by the Institute for the Study of War said that Dvornikov drew on his experience in Syria to “reorganize the Southern Military District into a joint force grouping capable of operating effectively on land, sea, and air.”

The change in leadership could be seen as “a sign of Russian weakness,” Gwythian Prins, a military strategy expert who’s advised NATO, told the BBC.

Prins noted that Russia has lost several of its most senior commanders in Ukraine, including Colonel Andrei Mordvichev and Lt. Gen. Yakov Rezantsev.

“So yes they’ve brought in someone who’s a well-known bombardier, they have reverted from the failed strategy of the blitzkrieg, which was intended to happen, and they’ve now gone back to terrorizing people by rubblization–and Mr. Dvornikov is very good at that sort of thing,” said Prins.

The Ukrainian leadership and western experts believe Russia is poised to launch a new offensive in Donbas, eastern Ukraine.

On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of a conflict that could result in the biggest war in centuries.

At least in the last 77 years since the end of Word War II.

The horrific war crimes against civilians that the world has born witness to in the past few weeks is nothing compared to what is about to come in the next few weeks from the Butcher of Syria.

The world stood by an allowed Russia to get away with war crimes in Aleppo, Syria. Now that the terrorist state of Russia has brought its war crimes to the doorstep of Western Europe – reawakening memories of the horrors of World War II – how long can the NATO Alliance stand by and allow Ukrainian civilians to continue to be slaughtered before choosing to act in the collective securiy interests of Europe?

And what good is the United Nations if the general assembly will not act to bypass the Security Council, where Russia has a veto, and choose to intervene with peace keepers and no fly zones as it did in the Bosnian War?

Buckle up, boys and girls. Things are about to get real in the coming weeks.