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Sadly things are not looking up or like they might improve anytime soon now. Russia seems to be only attending the peace talks as a way to save face because even when they agree to it they have bombed these very places. This has resulted in civilian deaths in both Kyiv and Mariupol and forced the Ukrainians to close the corridor for two days now. There have been a ton of developments so let's dive right in.
Ukrainian Side News
Russian Agrees to Civilian Corridor
Who would have thought that a humanitarian corridor would be a bad thing? Personally, I figured Putin knew better than to bomb the corridors he agreed to but low and behold he is just as cold a cruel as ever. When these corridors were first announced it was huge for the city of Mariupol which is completely surrounded and has a population of over 400,000 who really did not have an opportunity to flee due to Russia coming from the east and then crime Crimea bottling them into a small area. For a while, the city has done an extremely impressive job of holding out but now with it being days since the siege began the situation is turning dire.
Civilians of Mariupol have not been able to bury their dead for several days now and because of that disease is something that everyone has to think about and be aware of. Estimates place the number of people who are not part of the fighting at 200,000 and once the ceasefire was announced the city organized 50 buses to transport people out. Russia had other ideas it appears as two hours into the ceasefire they opened fire on the residential areas yet again. Sending people in the middle of evacuating scrambling. Since this ceasefire broke it has not been able to go back into effect and for two days now it has been forced to be canceled as civilians have been killed in the corridor.
In Kyiv, they were supposed to be able to evacuate people as well including people just walking to exit the city. There is no way anyone will be able to tell me that this was nothing short of a targeted attack. As 8 civilians reached the checkpoint to get out they were struck by 2 mortar rounds and a whole family was killed right in front of the eyes of the Mayor of Kyiv who had been helping to organize people getting out. Now, this weekend has passed with the corridors being closed for the most part and while they were briefly opened they seem to have been turned into death zones.
Ukraine Struggles to get New Fighter Jets
Last week we also heard the announcement that Ukraine was getting new fighter jets to replace the ones they had lost and to also boost their Air Force from some members of the EU/NATO. A sticking point has arisen and while it would seem to be "complex" the solution is there if the US government decides to act upon it. Poland was going to be the biggest donor of MiG aircraft as they are retiring theirs anyway however they want to make sure they have aircraft to replace them. The aircraft they have ordered are not expected to arrive until 2024 at the earliest. What could be done and most likely will is the US government will station additional F-18s and F-35s in Poland to serve as a stop-gap until their planes arrive.
The news on the ground is that Saturday was a pretty bad day for Ukraine as they lost several planes and if this is the case it is important that they get these donor crafts. With these crafts, the Ukrainian Air Force has been able to keep their air space contested allowing for guns and munitions to flow into the country.
Ukrainian Armed Forces Increase Takedowns of Russian Aircraft with the New Missile Systems
The arms that have flowed into Ukraine have been shown to have an important impact. In a recently captured video, you can see a Stinger missile, used to down aircraft, his a Russian gunship and send it plummeting into the earth in a fireball. It was also announced on March 5th alone they had taken out 4 helicopters and 5 aircraft showing that even with a lack of planes themselves they can still disrupt Russia's, Air Force.
Ukraine Makes Purchases with it New Crypto Donations
While it has raised over $50 million so far the first purchase of substance has been announced and it is of military supplies. While countless countries have been providing arms much more is needed and the biggest part of this purchase was bulletproof vests. With the increase in the number of troops with the militias or territorial defense forces.
Russian Side News
Payment Firms Freeze Business with Russia Crippling Credit Cards
First VISA and MasterCard froze their payments system in Russia and now American Express has also joined in. This is wreaking havoc on the flow of payment in Russia as credit cards and debit cards are no longer good. To try and get this functioning again Russia has pivoted to Chinese banks but again there is a deep deep rivalry and now much will one country's state-owned will collaborate with another country's state-owned company is a complex question that does not have an answer.
Having these huge payment systems go offline is huge in just screwing up the Russian economy. It will definitely impact Russian citizens and while it won't harm or ruin them it makes their lives just much harder adding additional layers to the process of purchasing goods and services. While Russia is trying to pivot it won't be as easy as flipping a light switch.
New Russian Laws to Prevent "Disinformation"
Faced with huge protests at home resulting in over 4,600 protesters arrest Sunday and a total of nearly 15,000 civilians including children and the elderly the backlash at home is reaching levels Putin has not faced in a long long time. To clamp down he has turned to modeling Russian internet and media services after China with restricting sites and what can be reported on. Facebook and Twitter have been shut down by the government and from my last check, there was a single news station that was still trying to hold out from being forced to close. Certain words have literally been banned from the media speaking like war. Ukraine can only be addressed as a "special military operation".
Those who are charged with spreading misinformation face 13-20 years in a Russian Federal Prison. This extreme has led even TikTok to suspend some of the app's functions like posting new videos or going live because the company doesn't want its creators to end up in jail. Talking about what is truly going on and how they are bombing innocent civilians is not allowed to be reported on keeping everything very hush-hush. The Defense Ministry still states only a couple hundred have died thus far in the war while it is known to be over 10,000 now.
The hacktivist group Anonymous has also caused Russia a huge pain with how Anonymous keeps knocking websites offline or uploading actual articles of what is occurring. My favorite thing that they have done is hacking the television networks to play actual footage of what is going on in Ukraine with commentary in Russian. Fueling the fire and discontent people are having with this war.
Russia Teeters on Default
After extreme issues with capital flight, Putin has had to pivot to paying his countries debt with Russian Rubles. This means that a ton more is going to have to be spent to pay back the bonds since the Ruble has plummeted in value. The sanctions are also crippling Russia's entire economy with many banks having to close due to the number of people withdrawing what they can. More and more companies also are pulling out of the country and this is detrimental to Russia's ability to charge import and export tariffs!
