Russia is redeploying elements of its forces from Georgia to reinforce its invasion of Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Thursday.
Between 1,200 and 2,000 of these Russian troops are being reorganised into 3x Battalion Tactical Groups,” Britain’s ministry of defence said.
It is highly unlikely that Russia planned to generate reinforcements in this manner and it is indicative of the unexpected losses it has sustained during the invasion.”
Ministry of Defence
(@DefenceHQ)
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 31 March 2022
Find out more about the UK government’s response: https://t.co/SV5bl19zq3
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australia will send armoured Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy specifically asked for them during a video appeal to Australian lawmakers.
Zelenskiy addressed the Australian Parliament on Thursday and asked for the Australian-made, four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Morrison told reporters the vehicles will be flown over on Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport planes. He didn’t specify how many would be sent or when.
“We’re not just sending our prayers, we are sending our guns, we’re sending our munitions, we’re sending our humanitarian aid, we’re sending all of this, our body armor, all of these things and we’re going to be sending our armoured vehicles, our Bushmasters, as well,” Morrison said.
Zelenskiy specifically asked for Bushmaster vehicles during his address to Australian Parliament.
“You have very good armed personnel vehicles, Bushmasters, that could help Ukraine substantially, and other pieces of equipment,” Zelenskiy said.
Earlier, we heard remarks from US president Joe Biden who suggested Putin appears to be “self isolated” with indications that he has either fired some of his advisers or put them under house arrest.
UK defence secretary Ben Wallace has seemingly concurred with this assessment, saying Putin is “not the force he used to be” as he becomes increasingly more isolated.
Speaking with Sky News, Wallace said:
President Putin is not the force he used to be. He is now a man in a cage he built himself. He’s isolated.
His army is exhausted, he has suffered significant losses. The reputation of this great army of Russia has been trashed.
He has not only got to live with the consequences of what he is doing to Ukraine, but he has also got to live with the consequences of what he has done to his own army.”
Wallace added that he believed Russian forces appear to be regrouping and shifting their focus towards the south and east of Ukraine.
“We have seen it before. It always gets worse. It goes for more civilian attacks, more civilian areas.”
Sky News (@SkyNews)
“President Putin is not the force he used to be”.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace describes the Kremlin as a “man in a cage that he built himself” and “Russia is a lesser country” because of him.https://t.co/fRz3GD32S3
Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/zfc1MMQmCj
Russian troops began leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after soldiers contracted “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine’s state power company has alleged.
Ukraine’s state agency in charge of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Energoatom, published an update late on Thursday confirming Russian troops had left the site.
According to the staff of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, there are currently no outsiders at the NPP site.
It will be recalled that today the Russian occupation forces left the territory of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the satellite city of Slavutych.”
Energoatom said Russian troops had dug in the forest inside the exclusion zone around the now-closed plant.
“It should be noted that the information about fortifications and trenches that the [Russians] built right in the Red Forest, the most polluted in the entire Exclusion Zone, was also confirmed,” Energoatom said in a Telegram post.
So it is not surprising that the occupiers received significant doses of radiation and panicked at the first sign of illness. And it manifested itself very quickly.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had not been able to confirm reports of Russian troops receiving high doses and was seeking more information in a statement on Thursday.
The IAEA has not been able to confirm reports of Russian forces receiving high doses of radiation while being in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and is seeking further information in order to provide an independent assessment of the situation.”
Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert with the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, told the Associated Press it “seems unlikely” a large number of troops would develop severe radiation illness, but it was impossible to know for sure without more details.
He said contaminated material was probably buried or covered with new topsoil during the cleanup of Chernobyl, and some soldiers may have been exposed to a “hot spot” of radiation while digging. Others may have assumed they were at risk too, he said.
Russian troops on Tuesday left Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant after weeks of occupation, officials said on Thursday.
Energoatom said Russian troops began leaving the station and other exclusion zones, which they had occupied since the start of the Russian invasion on 24 February.
The IAEA also released a statement, saying: “Ukraine informed IAEA today that Russian forces that had been in control of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant since 24 February have, in writing, transferred control of the nuclear power plant to Ukrainian personnel and moved convoys of troops.”
IAEA – International Atomic Energy Agency (@iaeaorg)
#Ukraine informed IAEA today that Russian forces that had been in control of #Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant since 24 Feb have, in writing, transferred control of the NPP to Ukrainian personnel and moved convoys of troops. https://t.co/DkBXEJpDu8 pic.twitter.com/guITblxwXP
Hello and thank you for joining us.
Here is a quick re-cap of where thing stand:
- The White House said that the US has evidence that the war against Ukraine has been “a strategic disaster” for Russia. “We have seen incontrovertible evidence that this has been a strategic disaster for Russia,” director of communications Kate Bedingfield said, adding that Russia is “working to re-define the initial aims of their invasion.”
- Ukrainian forces are preparing for new Russian attacks on the Donbas region in the southeast after they repelled Russia’s assault on the capital Kyiv, President Zelenskiy said, confirming Russian troops continue to leave the country’s north but described the move as a tactical withdrawal. “We must also realise that for the Russian military, this is part of their tactics … We know that they are moving away from the areas where we are beating them to focus on others that are very important. On those where it can be difficult for us,” he said in a late-night address. Describing the “extremely difficult” situation in Ukraine’s south and in Donbas, Zelenskiy said Russian troops are “accumulating the potential for strikes. Powerful strikes.”
- A humanitarian corridor is set to be opened on Friday morning to allow civilians out of the besieged port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine. “The Russian armed forces will reopen a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia on April 1 from 10am,” or 7am GMT, the Russian defence ministry said. The decision came after “a personal request from the French president and German chancellor to Russian President Vladimir Putin”, it said.
- Meanwhile, a convoy of Ukrainian buses set out for Mariupol to try to deliver humanitarian supplies and bring out trapped civilians, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said.
- Russia is redeploying elements of its forces from Georgia to reinforce its invasion of Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Thursday. “It is highly unlikely that Russia planned to generate reinforcements in this manner and it is indicative of the unexpected losses it has sustained during the invasion,” the ministry added.
- Russian forces are not withdrawing, but regrouping, Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said. Stoltenberg also said the alliance had yet to be convinced Russia was negotiating in good faith in peace talks in Istanbul because Moscow’s military objective since launching its invasion of Ukraine had not changed.
- The Pentagon added Russia may be repositioning some of its forces around Kyiv to send them to the eastern Donbas region. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russia has moved a “small number” – perhaps 20% – of its troops from around Kyiv after failing to capture the city. Kirby said the “best assessment” is that the troops are “going to be repositioned, probably into Belarus, to be refit and resupplied and used elsewhere in Ukraine.”
- Kirby added it was not clear that Russia’s convoy of military vehicles to Kyiv, which once stretched some 40 miles, even exists anymore after failing to accomplish its mission. “I don’t even know if it still exists at this point … They never really accomplished their mission,” he said.
- US President Joe Biden said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “seems to be self-isolated” and noted “there’s some indication that he has fired or put under house arrest some of his advisers,” without citing evidence.
- Putin has threatened to halt contracts supplying Europe with a third of its gas unless they are paid in Russian currency. Putin signed a decree saying foreign buyers must pay in roubles for Russian gas from 1 April. He said contracts would be halted if these payments were not made. Germany and France rejected the demands. Government ministers said it was an unacceptable breach of contracts and amounted to “blackmail”.
- EU and Chinese leaders will meet for a first summit in two years on Friday with Brussels keen for assurances from Beijing that it will neither supply Russia with arms nor help Moscow circumvent western sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. EU officials close to the preparations of the summit said any help given to Russia would damage China’s international reputation and jeopardise relations with its biggest trade partners – Europe and the United States.
- Russian forces have reportedly left the Chernobyl power plant, the Ukrainian Atomic Energy Ministry said, citing Chernobyl personnel. Russian troops began leaving the site after soldiers got “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine’s state power company said. Energoatom said the Russians had dug in the forest inside the exclusion zone around the now-closed plant and “panicked at the first sign of illness,” which “showed up very quickly,” and began preparing to leave, Energoatom said.
- Britain and its allies have agreed to send more lethal military aid to Ukraine to help defend it against Russia’s invasion, the British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said. As part of the agreement, armoured vehicles and long-range artillery will be sent.
Russia is redeploying elements of its forces from Georgia to reinforce its invasion of Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Thursday.
Between 1,200 and 2,000 of these Russian troops are being reorganised into 3x Battalion Tactical Groups,” Britain’s ministry of defence said.
It is highly unlikely that Russia planned to generate reinforcements in this manner and it is indicative of the unexpected losses it has sustained during the invasion.”
Ministry of Defence
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 31 March 2022
Find out more about the UK government’s response: https://t.co/SV5bl19zq3
Here is a handful of some of the latest images to come from Ukraine today.
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