Back Story Newsletter
Good Morning,
Russia/Ukraine
-Oil-
Russia will stop gas shipments to Poland and Bulgaria starting today. Gazprom the main state supplier is demanding payment from “unfriendly countries” in rubles.
Poland and Bulgaria say no, but so do other European countries, and using energy as a weapon is an escalation by Russia attempting to stick it to Europe which is supporting Ukraine after it was attacked by Russia.
Why aren’t U.S. oil companies jumping to fill the gap left by Russian oil cuts? U.S. oil production is up less than 2 percent, to 11.8 million barrels a day, since December and remains well below the record 13.1 million barrels a day set in March 2020.
Europe needs 4 million barrels of oil daily imported from Russia. But it appears U.S. producers are cautious and skeptical that oil prices will stay high enough and long enough for them to make money from drilling new wells.
American producers needs an average price of $56 a barrel to break even apparently. And the market is betting oil could fall to $50 by the end of the year and actually want high prices to remain in place. The U.S. Government needs to urge/demand an industry response to drill.
-Russia-
Western countries are digging in for a long war, as indicated by statements by U.S. Def. Sec. Austin at meetings with 40 other nations in Germany this week.
Austin spoke of “dealing with the tremendous demand that we’re facing for munitions and weapons platforms” and “redoubling our common efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s military for the long haul”.
This as the ‘Pinocchio’ of Foreign Ministers, Russia’s Sergei Lavrov (know for his misleading statements such as Russia won’t invade Ukraine) said NATO is “engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy”.
But Ukraine is not a “proxy”. It is a direct combatant defending itself from a Russian invasion with direct interests in a conflict pushed upon it by President Putin’s bizarre vision that Russia should control its neighbours or destroy them.
-Putin-
Putin was seen sitting at the ridiculously long conference table of the Kremlin with UN Chief António Guterres yesterday. Putin is said to be paranoid about Covid. And when he used the same table to meet French President Macron, it was later said Macron has refused to take a Russian Covid test, which could possibly sample his DNA.
Putin claimed falsely in the meeting his forces around Mariupol had allowed large numbers of civilians to flee in ‘humanitarian corridors’ when in fact tens of thousands remain trapped in the rubble of a city that stands as a monument to the inhumane assault by Russian troops.
Putin blamed Ukraine for the lack of civilian evacuations from war torn areas and said Ukraine had walked back commitments made in talks in Turkey last month. Putin may be referring to demilitarization discussions, but Ukraine surely can’t be expected to lay down arms while it’s under attack?
-UK Planes-
UK Foreign Sec. Liz Truss will make a speech today calling for warplanes to be given to Ukraine despite any talk of dangers of nuclear weapons by Russia. The speech has been released in advance;
"If Putin succeeds there will be untold further misery across Europe and terrible consequences across the globe. We would never feel safe again," she will say.
"Heavy weapons, tanks, aeroplanes - digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this."
The UK has one of the worst relations with Russia, after the murder of former Russian spy Litvinenko by Russian agents in 2006, and the attempted murder of former GRU agent Skripal in Salsbury England by Russia in 2018.
While the UK has been slow to chase Russian oligarch money out of London in the past, it has been a leader in pushing for weapons shipments to Ukraine by Europe to fight Russia’s invasion.
Poland has revealed shipments of tanks to Ukraine and Germany now pledges anti-aircraft systems to be transferred.
-On the ground-
Russian forces are making some progress in eastern Ukraine say experts, citing a slower more methodical approach by Russian Commanders looking to take territory and encircle Ukrainian forces in the Donbas.
Odesa has been attacked wit missiles and is in the gunsights of Putin looking to create a land bridge to Moldova.
Russia also appears to be readying some kind of operation in the break away Moldovan separatist state of Transnistria. This week there have been several explosions in Transnistria, which seem similar to false flag operations Russia used as a pretext to invade Ukraine.
Putin is looking to possibly declare new “peoples republics” in several areas of Ukraine and Moldova on the May 9th Victory Parade in Moscow. “People’s republics” are Putin’s code for so called independence and then ultimate annexation of territories.
***Putin could try to formally recognize independence in Transnistria, and send reinforcement to destabilize Moldova, and even NATO’s neighbouring Romania.***(Just as Putin did in Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukraine)
If Russia is to lose the war in Ukraine, all of the coastal areas it has grabbed along the Black Sea in Ukraine will have to be fought for and reclaimed. Is Ukraine up to doing so and if it doesn’t, the country will be land locked and cut off from its major ports?
This is why talk of ending this war seems desperately detached from reality. Conditions for a ceasefire will only be set after Russia is pushed back from Mariupol and other centres and that could take months, or even years…
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Dana Lewis