April 12, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The Ukrainian military has reported heavy fighting in the central region of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday. 

The Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration said a five-hour battle took place in the Polohy district as Ukrainian forces tried to liberate the area.

After units of the region's territorial defense brigade occupied part of the district, Russian reinforcements forced them to withdraw, according to Col. Ivan Arefyev, spokesperson for the military administration.

Polohy is northeast of the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, where Arefyev said Russian troops continued to "use terrorist methods to intimidate the local population and persuade them to their side."

Arefyev alleged the Russians were forcing businesses "to give part of their income in exchange for a work permit. Similar actions are taking place in the Berdiansk district of the region."

Berdiansk is on the coast, some 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) west of Mariupol.

Ukrainian authorities have accused the Russians of repeatedly blocking humanitarian convoys in the same region, at Vasylivka.

Russian forces in the south have made more significant territorial gains than elsewhere in Ukraine, holding Melitopol and Kherson despite Ukrainian counter-attacks in the area. From there, they have pushed northwards.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Wednesday will publish the findings of its investigation into human rights abuses and atrocities committed in the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, according to the spokesperson for the US Mission to the OSCE.

It is unclear what the findings of the report will be at this point.

The report is the product of a weeks-long fact-finding mission led by three experts chosen by Ukraine from an OSCE list of experts. That investigation was triggered after 45 countries invoked a rare OSCE mechanism —the Moscow Mechanism — that is used to investigate human rights concerns

The report was shared with OSCE members on Tuesday and with Ukraine last week, the spokesperson said. 

Michael Carpenter, US ambassador to the OSCE, will brief the press following a special Permanent Council meeting on Wednesday.

More context: The OSCE does not have the authority to legally punish Russia if it finds evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but their facts can be given to other bodies that do have that authority.

The Moscow Mechanism, which was used to launch the fact-finding mission, is a serious step, and according to the OSCE, it has been triggered only nine other times since its establishment in 1991. It was most recently used in 2020 to investigate human rights abuses in Belarus.

Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are all members of the OSCE.

The Pentagon is set to convene a meeting of its top weapons makers Wednesday to discuss the industry’s capacity to support Ukraine in a protracted war with Russia, according to a defense official and an industry official.

The classified discussion will include proposals to speed up the production of existing systems and develop new systems critical to the Defense Department’s assistance to Ukraine and to allies, the defense official said.

The meeting, first reported by Reuters, will bring together the top eight prime defense contractors, including General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and others.

It is “part of our ongoing, frequent dialogue with industry partners to ensure a resilient industrial base that is responsive to the department’s needs,” the official said.

The meeting between the defense contractors and the Pentagon was organized just a few days ago, according to the defense industry official with direct knowledge of the arrangements. The official said the contractors have been told the focus of the meeting is on the “capacity of the industry” to support Ukraine if the war goes on for several years. 

The sense of things, the official said, is that the US is “assuming this is going to be a years-long endeavor” in a scenario where, at a minimum, Ukraine will not able to safely manufacture weapons in its own country.

But in the meeting, the official said, the contractors are likely to bring up the serious challenges still facing defense manufacturing in the US including ongoing and severe supply chain issues and a lack of affordable labor. 

All of this continues to constrict defense manufacturing capacity right now, and could grow worse as increased defense spending in the budget and Ukraine contracts vie for manufacturing capacity, the official said.

The issue of capacity is also impacting the manufacture of critical ammunition supplies, even though most of it is done in government-owned contractor-operated facilities.

The US has already authorized more than $2.4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including more than $1.7 billion since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24th.

US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Americans' budgets shouldn't depend on whether a dictator "commits genocide" in another country.

"To help deal with this Putin price hike, I've authorized the release of one million barrels per day from the strategic petroleum reserve," Biden went on.

Biden has previously stopped short of calling what is underway in Ukraine a genocide. His aides have said it doesn't yet rise to the level.

"We have seen atrocities, we have seen war crimes, we have not yet seen a level of systematic deprivation of life of the Ukrainian people to rise to the level of genocide," national security adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier this month.

On Sunday, Sullivan told CNN's Jake Tapper that calling it "genocide" isn't as important as calling out the atrocities.

"In my opinion, the label is less important than the fact that these acts are cruel and criminal and wrong and evil and need to be responded to decisively," he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Tuesday on Telegram that Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician and oligarch, had been detained in a "special operation."

Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Medvedchuk had faced allegations of treason in Ukraine and had been under house arrest. His whereabouts had been unknown in the weeks following the invasion. Some observers speculated that Medvedchuk or one of his allies might be the Kremlin's preference to lead a puppet government in Ukraine if the Feb. 24 invasion succeeded in toppling Zelensky.

Medvedchuk was sanctioned by the US in 2014 "for threatening the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine, and for undermining Ukraine’s democratic institutions and processes."

But the wealthy businessman also served as a go-between for Moscow and Kyiv after the outbreak of the Donbas conflict in 2014 by leveraging his personal ties with Putin. In a 2019 interview with filmmaker Oliver Stone, Putin acknowledged that he was godfather to Medvedchuk's daughter.

"I would not say that we are very close but we know each other well," Putin said. "He was [former Ukrainian] President [Leonid] Kuchma’s chief of staff, and it was in this capacity at the time that he asked me to take part in the christening of his daughter. According to Russian Orthodox tradition, you can't refuse such a request."

Medvedchuk also had notoriety in Ukraine for his role as the Soviet state-appointed defense attorney for the Ukrainian dissident poet Vasyl Stus, who died in a Soviet labor camp in 1985.

In a statement, SBU head Ivan Bakanov said, "You may be a pro-Russian politician and work for the aggressor state for years. You may hide from justice lately. You may even wear a Ukrainian military uniform for camouflage… But will it help you to escape punishment? Not at all! Shackles are waiting for you. And for the same traitors of Ukraine as you!"

Bakanov added, "Pro-Russian traitors and agents of the Russian intelligence services, remember — your crimes have no statute of limitations. And there are no hiding places where we wouldn’t find you!"

CNN was not immediately able to reach a legal representative for Medvedchuk.

Rep. Victoria Spartz, the first Ukrainian-born member of Congress, is urging the State Department to send its diplomats back into Ukraine.

Spartz, a Republican from Indiana, sent a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday saying that the US should consider redeploying US diplomats to Lviv in Western Ukraine to provide better coordination with Ukraine. Spartz pointed to the actions of the European Union, which returned its diplomatic corps to Kyiv.

“As the single largest provider of military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, it is past time that the United States follow our European allies in kind,” Spartz wrote.

The US and other countries pulled their diplomats and evacuated embassies and consulates from Kyiv in the days leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, shifting them to the western city of Lviv. Those officials were soon moved to Poland, commuting into Lviv, and the State Department suspended all diplomatic services in Lviv just before Russia’s invasion began.

In recent days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged more countries to restore their diplomatic presence in the country.

But given the ongoing fighting and the concerns about renewed Russian aggressions in Eastern Ukraine the Biden administration is not making moves to open their embassy in Ukraine in the near term despite other countries beginning to do so, according to two US officials familiar with the matter.

What other lawmakers are saying: Spartz’s letter marks a public push for the US to reconsider that position. One Democratic lawmaker who supports re-establishing a diplomatic presence in Ukraine said there have been questions from the region about why the Americans aren’t there as other countries have gone back in.

Another Democrat, however, said the State Department has good reason to be cautious about moving Americans back onto Ukraine soil. While Russia has refocused its war efforts into the east and southern regions of the country, Russia’s air power can still strike Kyiv and Lviv. While any civilian deaths from NATO countries in Ukraine could threaten to escalate the conflict with Russia, there are significantly different implications for the United States, the lawmaker said: “It’s a very different security situation and escalatory posture.”

Ukrainian officials and activists are watching other countries move to reopen their embassies and they are frustrated by the tentative US posture. The European Union announced last week that it would resume its diplomatic presence in the Ukrainian capital.

Daria Kaleniuk, the co-founder and executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, are also urging the US to re-open its embassy “urgently.” Kaleniuk believes that the embassy is symbolically significant but it is also important because it enables congressional visits and incoming shipments to occur more easily.

“What I learned that part of the reason why politicians are not coming because there is no embassy. So the embassy cannot provide them support in coming,” Kaleniuk said after spending last week on Capitol Hill meeting with lawmakers. “The lack of — an American Embassy in Ukraine also has negative impact on the possibility to purchase advanced weapons. Contractors who are building these advanced weapons, they see that there is not even an embassy in Ukraine and they are not able to work on the contracts with Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that Congress may need to approve additional funds for military and humanitarian support to Ukraine in its war with Russia, signaling early backing for more aid that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has also said will be needed.  

“At the rate we’re shipping them weapons and ammunition, we may need to do another supplemental” spending bill to continue to arm the Ukrainians and “backfill” weapons to other NATO countries that have sent their stockpiles to Ukraine,” McConnell said at an appearance at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in Louisville.  

Congress approved about $14 billion in aid to Ukraine just last month. McConnell said the Ukrainians can win the war if properly supported.

“My attitude about this from the very beginning is that our goal ought to be to win. To win. And I think the administration has been reluctant to say the goal is to win,” he said. “I think our definition of winning is whatever Zelensky says it is. In other words, as long as they want to fight, we ought to give them everything we possibly can to win the fight.”

The Dutch government said Tuesday that a total of 20 yachts with Russian ownership are now unable leave the Netherlands after customs officials placed a further six vessels under “increased surveillance,” as part of the sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. 

While authorities investigate the ownership of the yachts, they are not allowed to be delivered, transferred, or exported, the Dutch finance ministry said in a statement. 

As part of their investigations, Dutch customs confirmed that "two yachts have been found to be linked to a person on the EU sanctions list.” 

The vessels are allowed to make take part in sea trials within a defined area. During one trail “the Coast Guard and Customs kept an eye on the yacht, both physically and electronically,” the statement explained.  

Of the 20 yachts, which range from 8.5 meters (30 feet) to 120 meters (390 feet) in length. Fourteen are in construction, two are in storage and four are under maintenance according to the ministry. 

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday that he had offered a visit to Ukraine with Baltic leaders, but the trip was “not wanted” by Kyiv.  

Steinmeier said Polish President Andrzej Duda suggested the two leaders travel to the Ukrainian capital together with the heads of state of the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to “send a strong signal of common European solidarity with Ukraine.” 

The German president is considered to have had close relations with Russia in his previous political roles. Ukraine has previously been critical of Steinmeier over his links with Russia and the leading role he played as former foreign minister in improving relationships with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The German president's comments come as other European leaders have made visits to Kyiv. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer made separate visits to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday.

The intelligence community continues to monitor whether its disclosures of previously-classified information surrounding Russia’s war in Ukraine have compromised any of its closely-guarded “sources and methods,” the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, said Tuesday.

The intelligence community “took a little bit of additional risk than I think we might otherwise take” in releasing information related to Russia’s planning for the invasion, Haines said, but “we all agreed to it and achieved consensus” within the intelligence community.

Her remarks provide a rare window into the closely-guarded deliberations within the Biden administration and the intelligence community around a series of remarkable intelligence disclosures made over the past four months.

Since December, the Biden administration has released a series of previously classified intelligence revealing Russian moves as Moscow massed troops on the Ukrainian border.

Officials have previously told CNN those releases were carefully coordinated among the National Security Council, the intelligence community and other national security agencies in an effort to disrupt Russian planning, blunt the effectiveness of any “false flag” operations and, ultimately, deter military action.

Although the tactic earned broad bipartisan support, some former intelligence officials did express surprise about the level of detail that the administration was providing publicly and raise questions about how that could be done without compromising sources and methods.

US officials told CNN at the time that the decision to downgrade any one piece of information went through normal processes, led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and that no disclosure was made that could expose the means by which the United States gathered the information in the first place.

“The intelligence community used its standard declassification procedures, which are in place to protect sources and methods,” a US intelligence official said in February. 

Haines said on Tuesday that she and other intelligence officials were also initially concerned that the tactic might draw the intelligence community — which is designed to operate apolitically and independent of policymakers — too far into the realm of dictating policy.

“You as an intelligence community want to maintain your distance from policy to some extent,” Haines said. “And one of the concerns that was raised… was that we not be perceived as a tool of policy and that our credibility would stand on its own, and we tried to be careful about that too.”