Author: Blazingcatfur

The sinking of the Moskva, which is the Black Sea fleet’s flagship, has both symbolic and operational significance.

Beyond its symbolic role, it is the sole vessel in the fleet equipped with wide-area air defences in the form of the S-300F. The Moskva has thus provided air cover to other vessels during their operations, which have included coastal bombardments and amphibious feints.

In the absence of the Moskva, the fleet lacks vessels with a comparable air defence suite, and will thus find it more risky to conduct similar operations.

Moscow says it will respond to any Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory by striking Kyiv with more missiles.

The “number and scale” of attacks will go up if its own settlements become targets, the ministry said.

The warning came as Russia announced a missile strike on a military factory near Kyiv, which it claimed was in response to a Ukrainian helicopter attack on a Russian village.

Ukraine denies it carried out the attack.

Russia near to defaulting on overseas debts, says ratings agency

Russia’s switch to making debt payments in roubles has brought the heavily sanctioned country to the brink of defaulting on its debts, according to a leading credit rating agency.

Heaping further pressure on Vladimir Putin’s beleaguered government, Moody’s said that without a return before 4 May to making payments in dollars as agreed under the terms of Russia’s loans, Moscow could be in default, allowing creditors to claim insurance payouts and tainting the country’s reputation as a reliable counterparty.

The warning by Moody’s of an impending default is expected to be met with an angry response from Putin’s administration, which has denied that the rules governing its loans prevent Russia making interest payments in roubles.

#Ukraine: A Ukrainian BTR-4 took out a Russian tank with 30mm autocannon fire in #Donetsk Oblast recently. pic.twitter.com/PCukpUjw3r

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 14, 2022

“This Is an Organized Crime Story”: Putin Critic Bill Browder’s New Book on Corruption in Russia Finds New Relevance

… For years, Browder has been an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, and devoted his life to exposing corruption in Russia after his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was tortured and beaten before he died in a Russian prison after being denied proper medical care for pancreatitis. For the past several years, he has urged the passage of the Magnitsky Act, in the U.S. and countries around the world, to punish those who commit human rights abuses. In Browder’s telling, he was analogously trapped in a glass box; he claims his warnings about Putin fell on deaf ears. “If we had used sanctions before the invasion, we could have done a much smaller amount of sanctions and it would’ve had a much bigger effect and the reason I say that is because Vladimir Putin has had a history over the last 20 years of doing terrible things and not having robust reactions to his terrible things,” he had told me earlier in the day at the Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking District. The U.S. should give Volodymyr Zelenskyy the no fly zone, he added.

On 25 February, the day after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian warship Moskva opened fire on Snake Island, a strategically important rocky outcrop in the Black Sea. Facing imminent capture, Snake Island’s hopelessly outgunned Ukrainian defenders told the Moskva to ‘Go fuck yourself’.

At the time, this brief, hopelessly uneven battle seemed to capture in miniature outside observers’ grim expectations of the conflict. Ukrainians would certainly be brave and defiant. But, before the might of the Russian army, navy and airforce, their resistance was bound to be futile. This was a war that Russia was going to win, and it was probably going to do so easily and swiftly.

#Ukraine: It turns out that this attack near Borova, #Kharkiv Oblast, was larger than we realised- the bridge was detonated by UA SOF as the Russian convoy passed over it, taking out 4 trucks and a Tigr-M IMV. https://t.co/0xMvOuyXYk pic.twitter.com/NK7tBC1enZ

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 14, 2022

#Ukraine: A Russian BMP-2 was hit by Ukrainian fire, filmed by a DJI drone. pic.twitter.com/kg4nis5Mel

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) April 14, 2022