War in Ukraine / April 9

The Molfar team sends a daily newsletter about the war in Ukraine. The editorial staff of AIN.Capital publishes the full version of the digest. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

Bucha changed everything

On April 9, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson paid a secret visit to Ukraine. He arrived in Kyiv by train from Poland. The visit was secret, no one warned about it in the press in advance. In addition, there were representatives of Austria and EU officials in Ukraine.

None of them came to Ukraine empty-handed. They promised financial support, additional sanctions against russia, and an accelerated procedure for joining the EU. Johnson also reported the transfer of a large number of military equipment. Including anti-ship missiles “Harpoon”. Unofficial sources claim that they are already in Odessa, and therefore will be able to fight back if the russian federation comes to land a special soldiers to capture the city. A few days earlier, it was agreed to transfer to Ukraine military armored vehicles from Australia, as well as tanks from the Czech Republic.

Photos from Bucha and other cities around Kyiv – Irpin, Gostomel, Borodyanka – became the stimulus for more active provision of weapons. According to official figures, more than 1,150 civilians were killed by the russian military. Some of them died under the rubble during the shelling of residential neighborhoods. No one in Europe expected such atrocities from the russian army. But the covers of all the world’s media with the corpses of Borodyanka dramatically changed the attitude of European politicians to the situation in Ukraine.

Airstrike, missile and MRL damage

Dnipro region:

• An attack on the territory of an industrial enterprise, a building was destroyed, and a fire broke out.
• The missile was shot down by air defense, the wreckage fell on the roof of the farm, and the building burned down. According to the statement of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, “the headquarters and the base of the nationalist battalion “Dnipro”, where recruits from foreign mercenaries had recently arrived, were destroyed” by a sea-based missile in the village of Zvonetske.

Luhansk region:

• At midnight, the old districts of Severodonetsk were hit, a multi-storey residential building was caught fire and one person died. Artillery strikes continued on Lysychansk, Kreminna, Rubizhne and Zolote during the day, 11 facilities (4 of them are residential), an industrial warehouse and sports infrastructure were damaged. 4 people were injured, another 4 were rescued from the rubble, among them was 1 child (1, 2).
• The tank, which contained ~ 4 tons of nitric acid, was damaged as a result of the shelling of the industrial area. An ammonia cloud formed and flew north.

Kharkiv region:

• The attack on the housing estate was made by launching a parachute cluster shell from the Smerch MLR. Floors completely collapsed in one of the entrances of a five-story apartment building. 12 civilians were rescued and evacuated.
• 2 people died, 1 more was hospitalized in a village of Slatyne. There are several private houses were destroyed in Derhachi. 
• 66 strikes were inflicted on Saltivka, Pyatykhatky, Oleksiivka, the KhTZ district and the city center during the day. As a result of the shelling, 13 fires broke out, including in a shopping center. 9 people were injured.

Poltava region:

• Strike on the infrastructure object, there is destruction, 2 people were injured.

Donetsk region:

• Russian troops attacked Mariupol, Vuhledar, Mar’inka, Krasnohorivka, Kostyantynivka, Solodke, Novomykhailivka and Heorhiivka. Residential buildings and power lines were damaged. Four people died in Ugledar and 1 in Novomikhaylovka. Another 5 people were injured: 4 – in Ugledar and 1 – in Krasnogorovka, including a 9-year-old girl. 

Odessa region:

• Residential buildings were damaged as a result of the explosion, reasons are being clarified, and the possibility of sabotage is being considered. According to local comments, smoke was visible in the port area (1, 2).

New laws

Ukraine:

• [Martial law] On March 11, the National Bank of Ukraine sent a letter to the government, in which it proposed to forcibly withdraw financial assets from the market of MR Bank (formerly Sberbank) and Prominvestbank, subsidiaries of Sberbank of Russia and VEB.RF, to state income.
• [National security] The Verkhovna Rada adopted a draft law on “On the monitoring of potential threats to the national security of Ukraine in the economic sphere.” The purpose of the bill is to exclude foreigners from the supervisory boards of Ukrainian state-owned companies.
• [Martial law] The Verkhovna Rada has registered a draft law on the optimization of labor relations under martial law. The document, which was submitted by a large group of deputies, proposes to expand the grounds for the dismissal of workers during the war.
• [Martial law] The National Bank has determined the procedure for banks to act in the event that cash is credited to the accounts of individuals in the amount of more than UAH 400,000, and if the client does not provide, at the request of the bank, the documents or information necessary to establish the sources of origin of such funds, debit transactions from this account will be limited.
  In this case, with the funds on the account, it will be possible to carry out only financial transactions to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine, to transfer funds to the accounts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and a special account opened by the National Bank, for charitable assistance to the account of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine opened with the NBU, as well as to purchase of bonds of internal state loan “War bonds”.
• [Martial law] The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has changed the procedure for providing employers with compensation for labor costs for the employment of internally displaced persons. You can apply for a resettled status after employment.
• [Support for the economy] Until the end of the war, the National Bank will keep the official exchange rate frozen at the level of UAH 29.25/USD.
• [Support for the economy] The government has submitted a decree to the president for the establishment of the Ukraine Reconstruction Fund, which will operate as an advisory body to the president and will consist of five working groups.
• [Martial law] The Cabinet of Ministers approved the extension of the period for receiving financial assistance for internally displaced Ukrainians.
• [Sanctions] A trade embargo against the Russian Federation has been introduced. It is prohibited to import goods from the Russian Federation into the customs territory of Ukraine.

Russia:

• [Support for the economy] At a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of the russian federation on Friday, a bill on cooperation with Venezuela in the space sector was approved.

Video of russian prisoners

• 04/09/2022 — The third exchange of POWs took place: 12 military men returned to Ukraine, among them a female officer, and 14 civilians, including 9 women.
• 04/10/2022 — Russian POW lieutenant reports that he did not see in Ukraine either the oppression of the Russian language or the cruel treatment of Russian prisoners. Calls on all “lovers of safari on ukrainians” to stay in the Russian Federation.

Alternative loss estimates

• According to a BBC publication, 20% of the confirmed dead reported by Russian local authorities are officers.
• According to the DailyMail publication, more than 7k corpses of Russian soldiers are in the morgues of Ukraine.
• According to an AbcNews publication citing US officials, Russia lost 15-20% of its military power during the war against Ukraine.
• During an interview with the British television channel Sky News, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “significant losses” and that this is a “huge tragedy” for the Russian Federation.

War in Ukraine. Weekly digest of the key events