Ukrainian officials continue to warn that aid to U.S. security is vital to the ability of Ukrainian forces to defend against current and future Russian offensive operations expected to begin in the late spring and summer. The head of Ukraine's General Military Intelligence (GUR) Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said Ukrainian forces were preparing to repel a future Russian major offensive expected in late May or early June, but noted that it would be "catastrophically difficult" ; without Western military aid.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on April 14 that the current situation in eastern Ukraine is "tense" and that Russian forces are concentrating their efforts west of Bakhmut in the direction of Chasov Yar.
Umerov said that Ukrainian forces are successfully using modern technology against Russia's larger number of personnel. The spokesman, Lt. Col. Nazar Voloshin, said on April 15 that Ukrainian forces in the direction of Bakhmut and Avdeevka can only use one to five artillery shells for every 10 artillery shells that Russian forces fire, but Ukrainian artillery is more accurate than Russian.< /p>
This is what the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) warns.
ISW continues to assess that Russian forces are currently taking advantage of Ukrainian materiel shortages resulting from the lack of US security assistance to make marginal tactical progress. But future Russian attacks may be able to achieve more significant successes, especially west of Bakhmut, if the US continues to withhold aid to Ukraine.
A senior Estonian military official described Russia's stepped-up offensive frontline operations and deep-rear strike campaigns as designed to undermine both Ukraine's will to fight and Western unity. Estonian Chief of Staff Major General Eno Mots said in an interview published on April 14 that attempts by Russian forces to exploit front-line vulnerabilities across the theater - which Mots described as "amoeba tactics" - and Russia's escalation of deep rear strikes are attrition tactics ultimately aimed at exploiting the Ukrainian military's current materiel shortage, which is consistent with recent ISW observations of Ukrainian air defense, artillery, and manpower shortages.< /p>
Motts noted that Ukraine needs significant resources to repel Russian aggression and reconstruction, and that fragmented Western unity creates a dilemma that interrupts the "smooth" timely and consistent flow of supplies to Ukraine, which ultimately backfires and reduces support for Ukraine.
Motts presents several important observations: US failure to provide timely and consistent military assistance to Ukraine (which only the US can provide at scale) has a negative impact on Ukraine's international partners worldwide; shortages force Ukraine to prioritize frontline areas at the expense of others; and that ongoing Russian information operations are intended to convince Western politicians that Russia can and will outlast Western military aid to Ukraine.
Russian officials have justified the April 13 Iranian strikes on Israel, falsely equating them with an April 1 Israeli strike targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel in Damascus. Russia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Vassily Nebenzya told a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on April 14 that Iran carried out the April 13 strikes in response to the inaction of the UN Security Council after the strike on Israel on April 1 against IRGC officials. Nebeznia also claims that Israel is constantly bombing Syria.
Nebenzia called on Israel to "give up its military actions in the Middle East" and reiterated Russian calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia opposes escalation and supports a political and diplomatic solution to conflicts in the Middle East.
The Russian government is likely to continue to intensify information operations designed to justify Iran's April 13 strikes against Israel to the international community.
A Russian internal source claims that Russian officials are preparing to redeploy some former elements of the "Wagner" group serving in the Africa Corps to the Belgorod region. The inside source said on April 15 that the Kremlin believed that Russian General Directorate of Military Intelligence (GRU) Lieutenant General Andrey Averyanov had not met Kremlin deadlines for developing the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD)-controlled Africa Corps.< /p>
An inside source claims that Russian authorities are preparing to move unspecified units of the Afrika Korps from Africa to the Belgorod region. The inside source hinted that the ongoing efforts of "Wagner" to recruit for their operations in Africa actually aim to recruit for deployment to Belgorod Oblast. Soldiers of the Russian Africa Corps deployed to Niger on April 12. It is not clear whether it will completely stop its operations in Africa or only some units will be deployed in the Ukrainian-Russian border area.
Averyanov had previously been part of the Russian delegation that met with officials in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali and appeared heavily involved in the Russian government's efforts to include the "Wagner" group.
Averyanov is the commander of GRU unit 29155, responsible for the 2018 assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom, and whom a joint investigation by 60 Minutes, Der Spiegel and Insider recently implicated in non-lethal directed energy or acoustic weapon attacks against US government personnel in the US and internationally.
The head of Crimea's occupation administration, Sergei Aksyonov, passed a decree limiting migrant labor in occupied Crimea, undermining Kremlin efforts to ease labor shortages. The decree prohibits businesses from hiring migrants for 35 different types of jobs. Among them are transport, agriculture and food production, supply of natural resources, utilities, trade (except trade in motor vehicles and motorcycles), culture and education.
The decree does not prohibit migrants from doing construction work, indicating that Crimean occupation officials may be able to legally hire them to build fortifications, logistics routes or other infrastructure to support Russia's military effort.
p>Aksyonov stated that the uncontrolled presence of labor migrants in the occupied Crimea and in Russia is "unacceptable" and that Crimean occupation law enforcement agencies have identified more than 500 individuals who have violated Russian migration laws.
Russian authorities have brought migrants from Russia into occupied Ukraine as part of efforts to resettle and rebuild occupied areas, as ISW previously reported.
Some Russian bloggers welcomed these restrictions and noted that Russian officials should impose more measures to control migrant labor and impose stricter visa and citizenship requirements.
Aksyonov's decree and the bloggers' proposals, however, run counter to the Kremlin's recent attempts to balance dissent and ease Russian public concerns about the economic consequences of war and labor migration.
On April 4, Putin hinted that Russia should continue to import foreign labor, given that Russia will face labor shortages in the coming years.
Russian state media have seized on Georgia's protests against a proposed law similar to Russia's "foreign agents" law, possibly as part of the Kremlin's efforts to increase political discord in Georgia. TASS reported in detail the debates in the Georgian parliament on April 15 on a proposed law that would require non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive more than 20 percent of their budget from foreign sources to register as an "organization pursuing the interests of a foreign power." ;. "Foreign Agent" is a term that Russia uses and was included in previous versions of the proposed law.
Georgia's parliament passed the bill on first reading in 2023, then withdrew it from further consideration after widespread public protests against the bill.
TASS focused particularly on protests in Tbilisi against the proposed law and repeatedly highlighted that Western diplomats in Georgia, such as the EU mission and the US embassy in Georgia, opposed the bill.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded on April 4 to the re-introduction of the bill in the Georgian parliament and called claims that it was a "Russian project" absurd.
Peskov stated that such laws are "world practice" and that "no sovereign state wants interference from other countries in its internal politics". Russian media also highlighted the public protests and public disagreements during the 2023 protests against the first version of the law on foreign agents.