re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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#Russian media oulet "Pravda": "50 thousand militants of the Armed Forces of #Ukraine are ready to storm #Russia in May

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Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar says that the russians are trying to influence the change of ethnicity in the occupied territories of Ukraine and are resettling ethnic groups from remote regions of russia to Ukraine.

According to Maliar, the local russian occupation administrations are doing everything to help the russian settlers in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. They provide immediate accommodation for newcomer families, employment, soft loans, business development, etc.

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Gazprom's PMC unit Potok [Stream] is reported to have conflicts with Wagner. Potok fighters complain to Putin, they were attached to OO Redut and sent to replace Wagner's positions, but were forced to retreat under the AFU pressure. For this, Wagner threatened them with shooting.

Here, a Wagner mercenary talks aggressively about Potok, accusing them of cowardice and abandoning weapons and positions. Calling them a Goluboy Potok [Blue Stream], most likely to characterise them as homosexuals ["Goluboy" refers to homosexuality in Russian]. DRO="Dyra" [Hole].

Here a captured mercenary from Potok also explains that Gazprom created a number of other units such as Fakel [Torch] and Plamya [Flame] which were attached to the Ministry of Defence. He was dumped on the battlefield by his comrades and was lucky enough to reach UKR positions.

Russian reporter Zloy Moryachok explains what the Potok PMC [Battalion] is and how it suffers from the same issues as any other volunteer battalion [BARS].

As per the video in the second tweet, Prigozhin is critical of Gazprom's initiative as he sees it as a threat to his authority with Wagner. He openly talks about large companies creating PMCs to secure themselves in case things go sour in the Russian political landscape.

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I had a long and meaningful phone call with ???? President Xi Jinping. I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine's ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations.

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The Russians also are desperately short of ball-bearings

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BEIJING, April 26 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by telephone on Wednesday Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, after months of pressure from Kyiv for such talks.

Xi told Zelenskiy that China would send special representatives to Ukraine and hold talks with all parties seeking peace, Chinese state media reported.

Xi, the most powerful world leader to have refrained from denouncing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, made a state visit to Russia last month. Since February, he has promoted a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine, greeted with scepticism from the West but cautiously welcomed by Kyiv.

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he U.S. has committed more than 4.4 million artillery shells, tank rounds, rockets and mortars, plus another 200 million rounds of small arms ammunition to Ukraine to assist its fight against the Russians.

And that doesn’t include an unspecified number of 120mm and 105mm tank rounds and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rounds for the 38 U.S.-donated M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.

Add it all up, and it weighs more than 103,000 tons.

The munitions are part of more than $36.1 billion in security assistance committed to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including more than $35.4 billion since the beginning of Russia’s full-on invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

This includes more than 1.5 million standard 155mm howitzer rounds as well as 7,000 M982 Excalibur guided rounds and 14,000 Remote Anti-Armor Mine System (RAAMS) projectiles and over 450,000 105mm artillery rounds.

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Given Ukraine’s need to feed its Soviet-era artillery tubes and tanks, the U.S. has also committed over 50,000 152mm artillery rounds; about 40,000 130mm artillery rounds, 40,000 122mm artillery rounds and 100,000 rounds of 125mm tank ammunition.

Ukraine also continues to use Soviet-era GRAD rocket launchers so the U.S. has committed 60,000 122mm GRAD rockets.

The U.S. has also provided Ukraine with 120mm, 81mm, 80mm and 60mm mortars and committed more than 345,000 rounds to go with them.

And with the promise of 31 M1 Abrams tanks and the delivery of the first tranche of 113 Bradley Fighting Vehicles the U.S. has committed an undisclosed amount of 120mm ammunition for the Abrams main gun plus over 3,000 Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles and over 1,800,000 rounds of 25mm ammunition to feed the Bradleys’ main weapons systems.

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In addition to the shells provided by the U.S., the European Union (EU) has a $1.1 billion plan to provide one million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine. And Ukraine has sought ammunition from Pakistan as well which you can read much more about here.

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