Megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - April 27-28

They Flooded Their Own Village, and Kept the Russians at Bay (NYT)

All around Demydiv, a village north of Kyiv, residents have been grappling with the aftermath of a severe flood, which under ordinary circumstances would have been yet another misfortune for a people under attack by Russia.

This time, though, it was a tactical victory. The Ukrainians flooded the village intentionally, along with a vast expanse of fields and bogs around it, creating a quagmire that thwarted a Russian tank assault on Kyiv and bought the army precious time to prepare defenses.

The residents of Demydiv paid the price in the rivers of dank green floodwater that engulfed many of their homes. And they couldn’t be more pleased.

“Everybody understands and nobody regrets it for a moment,” said Antonina Kostuchenko, a retiree, whose living room is now a musty space with waterlines a foot or so up the walls.

“We saved Kyiv!” she said with pride.

Article has lots of photos, along with more details of the Ukrainian defensive efforts, and interviews with the locals.

Lots of talk on social media recently about two things that I'd request info on if any of you have it:

• Explosions and fires in Russia, some of which far away from Ukraine. Is there any info beyond "yeah, that happened", e.g. Ukrainian statements on the matter.

• Transdnistria. I have no clue WTF is going on, except that people are talking about it again. What exactly happened?

German parliament approves petition to deliver heavy arms to Ukraine (Reuters)

Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a petition on support for Ukraine backing the delivery of weapons including heavy arms to the country to help it fend off Russian attacks.

"Alongside the broad economic isolation and decoupling of Russia from international markets, the most important and effective means to stop the Russian invasion is to intensify and speed up the delivery of effective weapons and complex systems including heavy arms," the petition read.

The petition was backed by both the three parties in the ruling coalition as well as the opposition conservatives, passing with 586 votes in favor, 100 against and seven abstentions, according to Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki.

Poland confirms T-72 tank delivery to Ukraine, with Challenger 2 tanks to fill gap

Poland’s prime minister has confirmed the country supplied its Soviet-designed T-72 tanks to Ukraine to support the fight against Russia, which invaded Ukraine Feb. 24.

The announcement came shortly after his British counterpart Boris Johnson unveiled plans to supply an undisclosed number of Challenger 2 tanks to Poland to “backfill” the operational needs of its military.

[...]

Earlier this month, Poland signed a deal worth about $4.75 billion to buy 250 M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 tanks from the U.S.

Poland spent decades trying to quit Russian gas. Now it has no choice. (Washington Post)

Poland consumes about 20 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year. About half of that has come via pipelines from Russia. Poland produces 3 bcm domestically and imports more than 6 bcm of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, a year through a relatively new Baltic Sea port that is set to expand this year. Much of that LNG comes from the United States and Norway.

The most important piece of Poland’s independence strategy is the soon-to-be christened pipeline from Norway, which the nation’s minister of climate and environment, Anna Moskwa, calls “the great pride of Mr. Naimski.”

When that underwater link starts shipping gas in a few months, it will have the capacity to deliver 10 bcm to Poland a year — more than making up for the quantities Russia was supplying.

A big question now is whether Norway and Denmark, whose territory the pipeline crosses, will cooperate to speed the start date of the pipeline.

Roszkowski said it might be possible to open the pipeline earlier. But even if not, he and other analysts said Poland should be able to weather the next several months because its gas storage tanks are more than 75 percent full and because it can probably import some gas from Germany in a pinch.

[...]

Naimski’s next priority is to complete construction of a second LNG terminal, in the port city of Gdansk. It was originally scheduled for completion in late 2027, but he’s aiming to get it done by 2025.

After Poland secures its own domestic supply, Naimski hopes to have gas left over to provide to the nation’s E.U. allies.

The US's Lend-Lease act (2.0) has passed 417-10 and is on its say to Biden's desk.

Bulgaria will repair Ukrainian military hardware. They will also, IIRC, be providing tanks of their own, along with Poland, Czechia and Slovenia. Slovenia will receive German military hardware to replace their own tanks.

Britain will replenish Poland's tank stocks with Challenger 2 tanks, while also sending Stormer IFVs with Starstreak missile systems to Ukraine.

Here's a long Twitter thread talking about US (mostly) missile logistics and how it can be screwed up: https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1519401885534498816

Canada lawmakers vote unanimously to label Russia's acts in Ukraine as 'genocide' (Reuters)

Canadian lawmakers voted unanimously on Wednesday to call Russia's attacks in Ukraine a "genocide", with members of parliament saying there was "ample evidence of systemic and massive war crimes against humanity" being committed by Moscow.

The Canadian House of Commons' motion said war crimes by Russia include mass atrocities, systematic instances of willful killing of Ukrainian civilians, the desecration of corpses, forcible transfer of Ukrainian children, torture, physical harm, mental harm, and rape.

In Ukraine, destroyed Russian tanks are the newest roadside attraction (Washington Post)

How Kyiv was saved by Ukrainian ingenuity as well as Russian blunders

Moscow’s forces were thwarted, too, by pieces of foam mat — the Ukrainians call them karemats — costing as little as £1.50. The mats prevent Russian thermal imaging drones from detecting human heat. “We held the karemats over our head,” said Konoko, explaining how his men moved stealthily in tiny groups at night.

In that way soldiers armed with anti-tank weapons supplied by the US, Britain and others could sneak up on the Russians, fire their deadly and accurate missiles and then slip away.

From April 9. I think I've read most of these stories before, but not this one detail.

#RF economy weekly April 19, 2022 — April 25, 2022

This Medium account has weekly updates on the Russian economy, by a Ukrainian economist or journalist it seems?

• Energy: In the 1st half of Apr, the average daily refining fell by 6%. Shipments of Russian oil by sea for the week fell by 25% — Bloomberg. India’s state-owned oil refining companies plan to buy as much oil as possible from Russia. Export of Russian coal in April collapsed by more than 20%, and since the beginning of the year, the decline was 9%.

• Divestment of Japanese, US and British companies from RF LNG projects poses a risk of China taking over more control of RF offshore oil and gas development, thus making Japan hesitate over withdrawal. Japanese trading company Marubeni Group (owns 30% of the Sakhalin-1; ExxonMobil owns 30% withdrawing from RF; the rest is owned by India and Russia) decided to withdraw from Russia. Yet, Japanese companies Mitsubishi and Mitsui decided to continue Sakhalin-2 LNG project (they own 22.5%; Shell owns 27.5% withdrawing from RF; Gazprom holds 50%). Chinese state companies have already announced plans to buy Shell’s stake.

Found via a Twitter thread from the Ukrainian economist Tymofiy Mylovanov, which retweets similar information. Mylovanov has been awarded funds by Marginal Revolution.