The Ukraine Spring Offense ‘Leak’ OR just Disinformation?
European farmers ain’t happy with Ukraine gran exports crowding their markets and have begun protests’….
The fight for Bakhmut continues….
The fate of the Wall Street reporter is MOST likely in the hands of if Biden agrees to swap someone for the reporter…..The media WILL seek to keep the story warm….
As the Pentagon said it was investigating a leak of classified U.S. and NATO plans to aid Ukraine’s military, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky said the disclosures contained “fictional information.” Here is what we’re covering:
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Both sides suggest the leak of Western war plans could be a ploy.
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Russia formally charges detained American reporter with espionage, according to state media.
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European farmers stage protests, saying Ukraine’s grain threatens their livelihoods.
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Macron finishes his China visit with little progress seen on the Ukraine war.
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A Ukrainian bassoonist and opera conductor is killed on the front lines.
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Russia took 2,500 Ukrainian convicts with them as they left Kherson. For some, what ensued was absurd.
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Explosions hit a village in southern Ukraine where Russia had massed troops, a Ukrainian official says.
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The custody of a Russian girl who drew an antiwar picture is still undecided…..
U.S. efforts to gain consular access to Evan Gershkovich have been unsuccessful, the White House said Thursday.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects around the globe.
- Schumer and McConnell called Russia’s espionage allegations “baseless, fabricated charges.” “We strongly condemn the wrongful detention of U.S. citizen and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and demand the immediate release of this internationally known and respected independent journalist,” Schumer and McConnell wrote, noting that Gershkovich had been accredited to work as a journalist in Russia by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- The United States has not been able to gain consular access to Gershkovich, the White House said. “We need to get consular access to Evan,” White House spokesman John Kirby said, adding that the issue was being continually brought up through the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
- The Moscow City Court is set to hear an appeal from Gershkovich’s defense on April 18, a court press service told Russian news agencies. The hearing is expected to be recorded but closed to the public. More than 200 Russian journalists and activists have demanded Gershkovich’s immediate release. In a letter, the group called the case “preposterous and unjust.”
- The Biden administration says classified documents detailing U.S. and NATO plans to support an upcoming Ukrainian offensive appeared on Twitter and Telegram, the messaging app popular in Russia, the New York Times reports. The documents are five weeks old, focus on what materiel Ukraine may require for the offensive, and do not outline any battle plans. Some versions of images spreading online appear to have been altered, including to change total losses on both sides of the conflict. Asked about the Times report, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh acknowledged that social media posts had come to the Pentagon’s attention and were being investigated.
- A man sentenced in absentia to serve two years because of a picture his daughter drew has been detained, according to Russian state media. Alexei Moskalyov’s sixth-grade daughter made an antiwar drawing in class, sparking an investigation, The Washington Post has reported. According to Tass, he has been detained and is awaiting a hearing in Zhodino, Belarus.
- Russia’s main offensive efforts continue to be directed at Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka, Ukraine’s military said early Friday. Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the chief of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, said in a Telegram post that Ukrainian forces were still fighting in Bakhmut. Ukraine’s garrison in the embattled city “is not going anywhere,” he said.
- An explosion near a Russian-Ukrainian border city killed a Russian service member and wounded another after their car struck a mine, according to a Telegram channel associated with Russia’s security services. A similarly murky attack happened in the same border region in early March. “Then, the Kremlin cited a ‘terrorist attack,’ which it blamed on Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin saying that assailants had ‘opened fire on civilians,’” The Washington Post reported.
- French President Emmanuel Macron said the world was looking to Chinese leader Xi Jinping to “bring Russia back to reason” and to the negotiating table with Ukraine. Macron’s comments are a contrast to U.S. political rhetoric and a win for Xi, The Post reported. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who met with the two leaders in Beijing, called on China “not to provide any military equipment, directly or indirectly, to Russia.”
- Russian prosecutors requested a 25-year prison sentence for Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician, author and Washington Post opinions contributor, one of his attorneys told local news outlets Thursday. Kara-Murza has been imprisoned in Moscow since April 2022 on charges of treason and spreading “false” news about Russia’s military by speaking out against the war on Ukraine.
- Ukrainian grain shipments to Poland will be halted, as the two countries hammer out export restrictions to deal with the flood of Ukrainian grain into neighboring countries’ markets, Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus said Friday. “We must ensure that the warehouses in are unloaded by harvest,” Telus said on Twitter. “By next week, we will agree on export restriction procedures.” The move comes as farmers in Poland, Romania and Hungary have protested the flood of Ukrainian grain into their markets.
- Also in grain-related news, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Turkish officials in Ankara on Friday to discuss exports, according to Turkey’s state news agency. The two countries agreed to work to lift obstacles to Russian fertilizer and grain exports, the state media agency said….
More on the ‘leak’ story……