Russo-Ukraine War - 11 March 2022
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"To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal]
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the "Donbass republics" for help. That attack is a blatant violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Putin stressed that Moscow's plans did not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories, the goal is the demilitarization and denazification of the country. As stated in the Russian Defense Ministry, the Russian military does not strike at cities, but disable only the military infrastructure, so nothing threatens the civilian population.
In a March 11 video conference with President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s defense minister argued against the conclusion that the decision-makers in the Kremlin making bad decisions based on bad information. "Vladimir Vladimirovich, everything is going to plan," said Sergei Shoigu, who is one of Putin’s closest confidants. "We report this to you every day this week."
On March 11 a report by a well-sourced Russian journalist said that the head of the FSB’s Fifth Service and his deputy had been arrested and suspected of embezzling funds earmarked for Ukraine operations. The report by Andrei Soldatov said they were also accused of knowingly feeding bad information about the political situation in Ukraine.
"Today it was reported that Putin began repressions against the 5th service of the FSB (the Service of Operational Information and International Relations, performs the functions of foreign intelligence of the FSB with the zone of responsibility of Ukraine). The head of the service Beseda and his deputy Bolyukh, the head of the DPI (Department of Operational Information) were placed under house arrest. We confirmed the information through our sources. Among the reasons for the repressions are the embezzlement of funds allocated for subversive and undercover work in Ukraine, as well as deliberately false information about the political situation in Ukraine."
According to numbers complied by Stijn Mitzer in collaboration with Joost Oliemans Kemal, Dan and Jakub Janovsky, Ukrainians now have more tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, and armoured personnel carriers than when the war began as those captured from Russia exceed those they have lost.
Jack Detsch reported that "Ukraine's fixed-wing aircraft fleet remains 80 percent intact 15 days after Russian invasion: senior U.S. defense official. Ukraine only flying 56 fighter jets 5-10 hours per day given Russian surface-to-air missile coverage over the country." That is 5-10 sorties a day total. Not each plane is in the air 5-10 hours a day.
United States and its allies will strip Russia of the status guaranteeing equal treatment between international trade partners, the US president announced 11 March 2022. “The United States and our allies and partners continue in lockstep to ramp up the economic pressures on Putin and to further isolate Russia on the global stage,” Biden said at the White House in announcing the move to be taken jointly with NATO allies, the G7 and European Union.
Ukraine’s air force said Russian aircraft fired at a Belarusian settlement near the border with Ukraine from Ukrainian airspace to try to drag Minsk into the war. “This is a PROVOCATION! The goal is to involve the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus in the war with Ukraine!,” Ukraine’s Air Force Command said in a statement.
The Russian armed forces launched a strike with "long-range precision weapons" at two military airfields in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The military airfields in Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk were put out of action. The mayor of Ivano-Frankiivsk, Ruslan Martsinkiv, ordered residents in the neighbouring areas to head to shelters after an air raid alert. The mayor of Lutsk also announced an air raid near the airport. The raids were far to the west from the main Russian offensive.
Russian armed forces have made no progress in Ukraine in the last 24 hours, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said. “Our opponent has been halted in practically every direction by air strikes, rocket fire and ground attacks,” Arestovych told a news briefing. Ukraine’s armed forces had staged counterattacks near Kyiv and Kharkiv, he added.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine has reached a strategic turning point in its war with Russia and will overcome Moscow’s offensive, but cautioned that it was not possible to say how long fighting would continue. “It is impossible to say how many days we still have to free Ukrainian land. But we can say we will do it. For we have already reached a strategic turning point,” he said in a televised address.
The huge Russian military convoy that had been stationed outside Kyiv since last week appears to have dispersed, according to the United States-based satellite-imaging company Maxar, as the city braces for a possible ground assault. Maxar Technologies said satellite images showed that the 64km (40 miles) long line of vehicles, tanks and artillery has broken up and been redeployed.
Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed the 64-kilometer (40-mile) line of vehicles, tanks and artillery has broken up and been redeployed, with armoured units seen in towns near the Antonov airport north of the city. Some of the vehicles have moved into forests, Maxar reported. The assessment came as a senior US defence official said that Russian forces advancing on Kyiv from the northwest had edged 5km (3 miles) closer to the city in the previous 24 hours, placing them just 15km (9 miles) from its center. Meanwhile, a separate tranche of soldiers advancing on the capital from the northeast was about 40km (25 miles) from the city, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added at a Pentagon news briefing. The official said the “multiple lines of advance towards Kyiv” indicate Moscow aims to encircle the city.
The mayor of Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv says it is under “non-stop bombardment” from Russian forces. Ihor Terekhov said in a televised interview that at least 48 of Kharkiv’s schools had been destroyed in the attacks. Terekhov’s remarks came as Synegubov claimed Russian forces had shelled residential areas of the city – Ukraine’s second-largest – 89 times in one day.
Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko has said 400,000 people are trapped in the port city, which he claimed had gone through “two days of hell”. “Every 30 minutes planes arrived over the city of Mariupol and worked on residential areas, killing civilians – the elderly, women, children,” Boychenko said. Petro Andrushenko, an adviser to the mayor, said the Russians wanted to “delete our people”.
The UN’s human rights office says it has received “credible reports” of several cases of Russian forces using cluster munitions in populated areas in Ukraine, adding that indiscriminate use of such weapons might amount to war crimes. “Due to their wide area effects, the use of cluster munitions in populated areas is incompatible with the international humanitarian law principles governing the conduct of hostilities,” OHCHR spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters
The Ukrainian authorities should turn to Russian President Vladimir Putin and admit defeat, said the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov in an article published on his official website. "The Ukrainian authorities should accept defeat and stop using the population they have deceived as a human shield. Comrade [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky should understand that the adventure he unleashed in no way benefits the Ukrainian people. Contact the President of Russia, admit your defeat. It will be the best and right decision that will protect the Ukrainian people," Kadyrov wrote.
The forces of the Lugansk People's Republic have already liberated most of their territory, about 35-40% of the territory of the LPR is under the control of the Ukrainian military, said the official representative of the People's Militia of the LPR, Ivan Filiponenko. "Most of the Lugansk region, within the administrative boundaries of which the LPR exists, <...> is under our control," he said, noting that the ratio of controlled territory in the LPR is the same as in the DPR.
Taking control of the city of Volnovakha is an important victory on the way to the liberation of Mariupol, said Eduard Basurin, deputy head of the People's Militia Department of the DPR. "They took the stronghold of the Ukrainian military, which was located between Donetsk and Mariupol (Volnovakha - TASS note). The resistance was very serious. This is a small victory that will lead to a big one - the capture of Mariupol. The spirit of the Ukrainian military will be broken, they were convinced that help no one came to them <...> People are still in the basements, it is necessary to make a final sweep, clear the city and then return it to normal life," he said.
More than 13,900 people have been arrested for taking part in a string of anti-war demonstrations held in dozens of cities throughout Russia since it began its offensive, according to protest monitoring group OVD-Info. Russians who say they are ashamed of the country’s “special military operation” in Ukraine are not real Russians, the Kremlin has said. “A real Russian is never ashamed to be Russian,” Kremlin spokesman Peskov told reporters during a news briefing when asked about a slogan – ‘ashamed to be Russian’ – that emerged in the wake of Moscow’s incursion in Ukraine.
The current situation in Ukraine exacerbates food problems in the world: due to rising food prices, millions of people are at risk of starvation, the UN World Food Program warned. "The effects of the conflict in Ukraine are being felt elsewhere, causing a wave of concomitant hunger around the world. Soaring food and fuel prices put millions of people at risk of starvation," WFP spokesman Thomson Pirie said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has said he believes there are nearly two million people still left in the Ukrainian capital. Klitschko said the city, normally home to some 3.5 million people, had enough vital supplies to last a couple of weeks and that supply lines remained open for now. His brother Wladimir, added that some people who had fled Kyiv after Moscow launched its offensive were now returning to take part in the city’s defence as concerns mount over a possible large-scale assault by Russian forces.
More than 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion on February 24, according to the UN’s migration agency. “The number of people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance is increasing by the hour,” the International Organization for Migration (IOM) tweeted. Separately, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said at least 1.85 million people were displaced within Ukraine. The number of refugees who arrived in Poland from Ukraine exceeded 1.5 million.
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