UKRAINE WAR BRIEF DAILY DRAFT
For: 2024-03-27
Slava Ukraini! Since June 2023 I have provided a daily draft for the Ukraine War Brief Podcast collecting news from over 60 sources daily much of which ends up in the script. I will make this Draft available here for those who wish to keep up with events on a daily basis.
INSIDE UKRAINE
ALONG THE CONTACT LINE
GSAFU Morning Report
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in its situation update at 06:00 on Mar.27 stated that it was day 763 of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.
During the past day, 67 combat engagements took place. Over the past 24 hours, the enemy carried out 5 missile strikes, 74 air strikes, and 152 MLRS attacks across the positions of our troops and settlements. As a result of the Russian attacks, unfortunately, there are dead and wounded among the civilian population. Destruction and damage to residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure.
At the same time, Ukrainian soldiers continue to inflict losses in manpower and equipment on the occupying troops, exhausting the enemy along the entire front line.
Ukrainian missile forces struck 1 air defense system, 1 artillery system, and 1 ammunition depot
Air Force Daily Report
The Ukrainian Air Force in its situation update at 06:00 stated that during the previous day it launched air strikes on 2 command posts and 8 concentrations of troops, weapons, and military equipment
During the night of Mar. 27, russia attacked with 13 Shahed UAV’s launched from the Kursk region (Russia)
Ukrainian defence forces shot down 10 of 13 Shahed UAVs in the Kharkiv, Sumy and Kiev regions.
The Khortytsia operational-strategic group
(Responsible for the Kup’yans’k, Lyman, and Bakhmut axes, in the northeastern part of Ukraine. )
Kup’yans’k axis: The enemy carried out 1 assault in the vicinity of the settlement of Ivanivka (Kharkiv oblast) unsuccessfully trying to improve its tactical position.
Lyman axis: Ukrainian defenders repelled 13 attacks near Terny, Yampolivka and north of Vesele (Donetsk oblast) plus Bilhorivka (Luhansk oblast)
Bakhmut axis: Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled 7 attacks near Bohdanivka, Ivanivske and Klishchiivka and (Donetsk oblast).
The Tavria operational-strategic group
(Responsible for the Avdiivka, Novopavlivka, and Orikhiv axes, in the central-eastern and southeastern part of Ukraine.)
Avdiivka axis: Ukrainian Defence Forces repelled 9 enemy attacks in the vicinities of settlements of Berdychi, Semenivka, Pervomais’ke and Nevel’s’ke (Donetsk oblast).
Novopavlivka axis: Ukrainian Defense Forces continue to hold back the enemy in the vicinities of Heorhiivka, Novomykhailivka and Urozhaine (Donetsk oblast) The enemy, supported by aviation, made 26 attempts to break through the defence of Ukrainian troops in that area.
Orikhiv axis: The enemy launched 7 attacks on the positions of Ukrainian defenders in the vicinities of Staromaiors’ke (Donetsk oblast), Robotyne, and northwest of Verbove (Zaporizhzhia oblast).
The Odesa operational-strategic group
(Responsible for Kherson, Qırım, (also known as Crimea) and the Black Sea.)
Kherson axis: Ukrainian defenders continue to maintain their positions. Over the past day, the enemy carried out 3 unsuccessful assaults on the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the vicinity of Krynky (Kherson oblast) on the left bank of the Dnipro River.
TEMPORARILY OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Nothing to report.
THE HOME FRONT
Russia kills 2, injures 17 over the past day
The Russian military attacked six oblasts, killing two civilians and injuring 17 others, local authorities reported on 27 March.
Russiay attacked ten settlements in Kherson oblast and Kherson, injuring three people, Governor Oleksandr Produkin said. The attacks also damaged a multi-story building and two residential buildings, an outbuilding, a bus, and a car.
In Odesa oblast, Russian troops attacked Odesa, injuring ten people, Governor Oleh Kiper said. The attack damaged about 300 apartments, the Palace of Sports and destroyed several buildings.
Russian forces killed two people and injured one in Novohrodivka, Donetsk Oblast, Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
RUSSIAN WORLD
Ukrainian Intel – Moscow concert hall shooting a provocation by Putin’s FSB
On Mar. 27 the Russian head of the Ministry of Health, Mikhail Murashko, said that the number of people killed as a result of the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall in a Moscow suburb had risen to 140.
Ukrainian intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov said that the shooting in Moscow was a deliberate provocation by Putin’s regime, which the international community had warned about.
“The Kremlin tyrant began his career with this and wants to end it with the same crimes against his own citizens,” Yusov said.
Russia has reportedly used the attack and its conjured “Ukrainian link” to escalate its war against Ukraine.
The Russian informational campaign had already taken effect despite being debunked linking to Ukraine. On Mar. 25, images of Russian bombs inscribed with messages calling for revenge for Crocus City Hall began circulating on Russian social media.
Russian authorities persist in their efforts to link Ukraine to the attack. This deduction can be made based on the statements of infamous Kremlin propagandists such as Simonyan, who stated, “This isn’t ISIS. These are Ukrainians. And the fact that even yesterday, before the arrests, before the identities of the perpetrators were known.”
UN report reveals 32 Ukrainian POWs were executed by Russian forces in three months.
A new report from the United Nations has uncovered evidence of widespread torture, ill-treatment, and summary executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) by Russian forces, amounting to war crimes under international law.
The report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), covering December 2023 through February 2024, documents dozens of cases of Ukrainian POWs being brutally executed by Russian troops after being captured and detained.
“In the reporting period, OHCHR recorded 12 cases of executions of at least 32 captured Ukrainian POWs,” the report states, noting that three of those incidents involving the killings of seven Ukrainian soldiers were directly verified by UN monitors.
One particularly horrific case investigated by OHCHR involved three Ukrainian POWs who were captured by Russian forces in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in December 2023. According to a witness, two of the Ukrainian soldiers were executed immediately upon surrendering, while the third, who had been injured by a mine, was forced by the Russians to conduct demining work before also being executed.
In another incident from mid-December in the same region, a Ukrainian POW was interrogated overnight in a basement by Russian troops. A witness reported that one of the Russian servicemen first shot the POW in the leg for allegedly “not speaking clearly,” before then fatally shooting him twice in the back while he was defenseless.
The report presents a pattern of Russian forces deliberately killing Ukrainian POWs who had been captured and were no longer participating in hostilities, which constitutes a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and qualifies as a war crime.
NEWS WORLDWIDE
Poland allows sanctioned Belarusian timber into EU with forged documents, according to investigation
Poland has emerged as a gateway for Belarusian timber restricted by European Union sanctions to enter the bloc through forged documents disguising the sanctioned goods as exports from Kazakhstan, as reported in a joint investigation by the Belarusian Investigative Center, Radio Free Europe’s “Schemes” project, and the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU imposed restrictions on certain Belarusian products, including timber, a significant portion of which was traditionally supplied to Europe. The sanctions disrupted the timber market, with imports from the largely deforested Kazakhstan inexplicably surging to record levels worth nearly €126 million in 2022-2023, most destined for Poland.
Poland’s imports of Kazakhstani timber increased nearly fivefold year-on-year in 2022, from €14 million to nearly €68 million – starkly contrasting with Kazakhstan’s minimal pre-war timber exports to Europe and Belarus’s €1 billion annual European timber trade.
Documents obtained by journalists indicate Belarus-based companies are exploiting Poland as an entry point by falsifying shipping records to misrepresent Belarusian timber as originating from Kazakhstan, circumventing EU sanctions.
One January 2023 customs declaration, bearing seemingly counterfeit company stamps and signatures of Kazakhstani officials, certified pine fence posts as exported from Kazakhstan to a Polish recipient company, PLRBL. However, the listed Kazakhstani supplier, Nurr-electro, denied any financial transactions or contracts for such a delivery to PLRBL, calling the documents outright forgeries.
The findings prompted journalists to alert Polish authorities, including the interior, foreign, finance, and border ministries, over potential sanctions violations by PLRBL and its owners.
While Poland’s foreign ministry deflected responsibility and the interior ministry initiated an inquiry without details, the customs service acknowledged lacking capacity to verify all customs declarations – underscoring gaps enabling sanctions circumvention through fraudulent paperwork on a potentially significant scale.
Russian forces may be using Starlink terminals in Ukraine – Western media
CNN reported on Mar. 25 that Ukrainian troops’ increased sightings of Russian forces using Starlink coincide with claims from Russian crowdfunders that they successfully purchased Starlink technology in third-party countries.
Ukrainian soldiers also told CNN that Starlink’s connection speeds decreased while connection issues increased in the past several months.
Bloomberg also reported on Mar. 26 that there are “wide-spanning” examples of unspecified actors trading and selling Starlink kits illegally on the black market.
Citing an anonymous source, Bloomberg reported that recent government crackdowns in Kazakhstan against illegal Starlink terminals “barely” reduced illegal Starlink usage.
Bloomberg: Macron angered Washington with statements about sending troops to Ukraine
French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments about not ruling out sending troops to Ukraine angered US officials, according to Bloomberg.
Macron said earlier that a possible deployment of Western troops to Ukraine “cannot be ruled out.” Later, he clarified that this statement didn’t mean France considered “sending French troops to Ukraine in the near future.” However, we [France – ed.] “are opening the debate and thinking about everything that can be done to support Ukraine, especially on Ukrainian territory.”
US officials warned that “such a move might even risk fomenting a clash with Moscow,” Bloomberg reported, citing a senior official familiar with the discussions among allies.
According to the report, Macron’s hints were “issued to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin pondering,” but officials familiar with NATO discussions on Ukraine said the remarks “may have had the opposite effect.”
By forcing Berlin to publicly rule out the possibility of sending troops, Macron “managed to dispel what lingering ambiguity there had been about the whereabouts of allies’ red lines,” Blomberg reported, citing the US official.
Grumpy here — This is a personal statement: In my opinion the US lost the right to be angry about anything Ukraine’s allies do or say in support of Ukraine when they cut off military aid to an ally under attack by Russia. Until they rectify that issue, those who stand with Ukraine should ignore them.
Swiss banks start to close accounts of Russian clients
Swiss banks have started closing clients’ accounts with Russian citizenship, even if they simultaneously hold a passport of another country, Roman Kudinov, managing partner of the Swiss law firm Leolex, said to the Russian publication Vedomosti. Euromaidan reports.
“Several UBS and Credit Suisse clients with dual citizenship have faced this problem,” Kudinov said, noting that all of them pay taxes in Switzerland and do not receive any income or pay taxes in Russia.
Ivan Tikhonenko, head of the banking practice at the law firm Amond&Smith, said that one Swiss bank refused to open accounts for several Israeli citizens who retained their Russian passports. According to Tikhonenko, the banks demanded documentary proof of renunciation of Russian citizenship for further interaction with the firm’s clients.
A source at one of the Russian consulting companies told Vedomosti that another bank closed an account of their client, who holds Russian citizenship and a Swiss residence permit.
How vilified as a nation are you when even the SWISS don’t want your money?
Poland and Ukraine close to agricultural products agreement
Krzysztof Paszyk, leader of the parliamentary group of the agrarian Polish Peasants' Party (PSL), has stated that Warsaw and Kyiv were close to reaching the agreement on the import of agricultural products from Ukraine. Reuters reports.
Paszyk stated that the parties were "close to solving these problems together in dialogue" ahead of the meeting between Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski and his Ukrainian counterpart Mykola Solsky on 27 March in Warsaw, with the governments of the countries due to convene the next day.
"I think it will be possible today and tomorrow to make what is sometimes called a transit actually a transit ... I am optimistic about the results," he added.
Paszyk said that the agreement between Poland and Ukraine must contain clearly defined qualitative and quantitative quotas on the products which can remain on the territory of Poland.
MILITARY & TECH
France to deliver 78 Caesar self-propelled artillery units and shells to Ukraine
France has pledged to provide Ukraine with 78 Caesar self-propelled howitzers in the near future, along with an increased supply of ammunition.
French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu has confirmed that Paris will soon be able to deliver 78 Caesar self-propelled artillery systems to Ukraine, in addition to boosting ammunition shipments, according to Associated Press.
Speaking at a press conference, Lecornu announced that France, Ukraine, and Denmark have reached an agreement on funding the self-propelled 155mm Caesar howitzers, enabling Paris to deliver them swiftly.
He also revealed France’s intention to supply Ukraine with 80,000 shells for 155mm guns this year, a significant increase from the 30,000 provided since the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion.
Moreover, the defense minister highlighted France’s participation in efforts to locate available stocks of gunpowder and ammunition that could be purchased from non-European Union countries under the Czech Republic’s initiative.
EU grants over €130 mn to Rheinmetall for ammunition production expansion
In a significant move to bolster ammunition production within the European Union, the EU has allocated over €130 million to Rheinmetall AG, a leading defense contractor. Rheinmetall AG announced in a press release on Mar. 25.
This funding is part of the Act of Support in Ammunition Production (ASAP), aimed at expanding the production of 155mm artillery ammunition and powder, Rheinmetall reports. Ammunition remains one of the most urgent needs of the Ukrainian army, suffering from the artillery shortage.
Rheinmetall’s European subsidiaries will undertake six projects across Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Spain, accounting for more than a quarter of the total €500 million earmarked by the EU under ASAP.
ASAP represents the EU’s inaugural funding program dedicated to enhancing ammunition production capacities. The grant agreements are anticipated to be signed by May 2024. Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall AG, expressed gratitude towards the EU for recognizing the company’s role as a crucial supplier of 155mm ammunition. He highlighted the importance of artillery in the ongoing Russia’s war against Ukraine and the need for European armed forces to replenish their artillery ammunition stocks.
Ukraine draws strength from allies’ ammunition pledges amid offensive, Czech minister says
As Ukrainian forces brace for a renewed Russian onslaught in the east, artillery shells delivered by allies provide much-needed aid, according to Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky. He says that this influx of much-needed ammunition is empowering Kyiv’s troops to expend existing stockpiles more liberally, buoyed by the assurance of imminent replenishment.
In an interview on Monday in Prague, Lipavsky highlighted the tangible impact of a Czech-led initiative to procure approximately 800,000 shells from non-EU sources for Ukraine’s defense.
“As we see, it already helps Ukraine to fight better, because they know that they will have a supply of fresh ammunition, which changed their perspective on usage of the current stockpiles,” he stated.
The minister’s remarks shed light on a critical lifeline for Ukraine as its forces confront dwindling ammunition reserves while fending off escalating Russian offensives. The Kremlin, undeterred by international sanctions, has intensified domestic production and forged new supply channels, including from North Korea, to sustain its military campaign.
Kyiv’s resilience hinges on continued Western backing, even as a substantial $60 billion US military aid package remains stalled in Congress due to Republican demands on border security. The European Union’s target of delivering 1 million shells to Ukraine has been pushed back until year’s end.
The Czech ammunition initiative, unveiled last month at the Munich Security Conference by President Petr Pavel, has garnered widespread NATO support as a stopgap measure. However, Lipavsky acknowledged its limitations, asserting, “We can do much more than the initially announced number,” citing a potential volume of 1.5 million shells while emphasizing the plan’s insufficiency to solely meet Ukraine’s needs.
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