RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Brazil blasts West over role in Ukraine conflict
Neither Ukraine nor Russia can achieve every goal they have set in their conflict, but they need a mediator to facilitate peace talks, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has told journalists. The EU and the US were too quick to back Kiev instead of trying to deescalate the situation, he added.
“It is not necessary to have a war,” Lula said on Thursday, during a media breakfast at the Palacio do Planalto, the official presidential workplace. He also criticized the US and its allies for their role in the conflict.
“We think that the developed world, especially the EU and the US, had the option not to enter the war the way they did, so fast, without spending time trying to negotiate,” he explained. “Negotiating peace is very complicated.”
The Brazilian leader is set to travel next week to China, a nation with a similar position on Ukraine to his own. He said he hoped that his contacts with President Xi Jinping will help bring about a conversation “that we should have had a year ago.” India and Indonesia may have a role, too, he added.
Explaining his view on how the hostilities could end, he suggested that the status of Crimea should be excluded from the discussion, but stressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot keep the land in Ukraine.”
Citizens in Crimea voted in 2014 to break away from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, after an armed coup in Kiev. A similar drive for independence arose in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, but Moscow urged the breakaway Donbass to remain part of Ukraine. Kiev deployed military force in an attempt to quash the rebellion but failed.
Moscow has cited continued Ukrainian military attacks against the then-self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kiev’s stonewalling of an EU-brokered reconciliation plan, as key reasons for the deployment of troops against Ukraine in February 2022.
Later in the year, the two Donbass regions, along with the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, held referendums on rejoining Russia. Kiev dismissed the ballots, which voted to rejoin, as “sham,” but Moscow said the status of its new parts was not subject to negotiation.
Lula believes that Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky “can’t want everything either.” Kiev has declared a military victory over Russia and a return of all lands, including Crimea, as preconditions for entering peace talks.
** EU buying Russian fuel through India
Indian refineries have ramped up diesel and jet fuel supplies to the EU after Russian oil imports to the country surged to record levels in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing preliminary ship-tracking data from Kpler and Vortexa.
The outlet suggests that the EU has been using India as a "back door," given the sharp increase in New Delhi's imports of Russian oil since the bloc banned crude from the sanctioned country.
In 2022-2023, Indian refiners bought between 970,000 and 981,000 barrels of Russian oil per day, accounting for more than a fifth of the country's overall imports, which were between 4.5 million and 4.6 million barrels per day (bpd), Kpler and Vortexa data showed.
Discounted crude from Russia allowed Asian processing plants to boost production and sell oil products to the EU at a competitive price.
According to Kpler, India supplied an average of 154,000 barrels of diesel and jet fuel per day to the EU prior to the conflict in Ukraine. Volumes surged to 200,000 bpd after the EU imposed an embargo on imports of Russian petroleum products in February, the data showed.
India's diesel exports to Europe jumped by between 12% and 16% to 150,000-167,000 bpd in the last fiscal year as Western customers avoided Russian products, bringing New Delhi's export share of the fuel to 30% up from 21-24% a year earlier.
According to Kpler, Europe accounted for about 50% of India's jet fuel exports with France, Türkiye, Belgium and the Netherlands among the top European consumers of diesel refined in the Asian country.
The development comes as Russian energy major Rosneft and the Indian Oil Corporation signed a deal to "substantially increase" the supply of crude oil to India and diversify its grades.
India, the world's third-largest crude importer, began to boost purchases of Russian oil shortly after the start of Moscow's military operation in Ukraine and the ensuing Western sanctions.
Russia now covers 35% of India's total oil imports, up from less than 1% in 2021. The figures show that in March oil deliveries from the sanctioned country surged for the seventh consecutive month, making Russia a top supplier to India.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine seeks to prevent military leaks after NATO assistance plans reportedly appear on social media
Ukraine's leaders discussed ways to prevent leaks of military information on Friday after secret documents detailing U.S. and NATO efforts to help the country plan a counter-offensive against Russia's invasion reportedly appeared on social media.
The New York Times said on Thursday, citing senior U.S. officials, that classified war documents were posted this week on Twitter and Telegram, which is widely used in Russia.
A Ukrainian official told Reuters the documents contained a "very large amount of fictitious information" and the posts looked like a Russian disinformation operation to sow doubts about the offensive, which requires advanced Western weapons.
"These are just standard elements of operational games by Russian intelligence. And nothing more," presidential official Mykhailo Podolyak said in a statement. The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The announcement by the presidential office of talks on Friday at the Ukrainian headquarters of the armed forces supreme command attended by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made no mention of a leak having occurred.
"The participants of the meeting focused on measures to prevent the leakage of information regarding the plans of the defence forces of Ukraine," it said.
It was not clear whether the discussions centred on preventing leaks from within Ukraine or from among the Western partners it now shares information with, after an initial reluctance in the immediate aftermath of Russia's invasion.
The Times said the documents did not reveal when or where the offensive would take place but that the leak could affect trust between the allies as it gave timetables for the delivery of weaponry and Ukrainian troops trained by the West.
They appeared to have been modified in places, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and underestimating Russian military casualties, the paper said, adding that U.S. officials were working to get the posts taken down.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Reuters was not immediately able to review the documents.
Asked to comment, a Pentagon spokesperson said: "We are aware of the reports of social media posts and the department is reviewing the matter."
Three U.S. officials told Reuters in Washington that Russia or pro-Russian elements were likely to have been behind the leak.
One document posted on social media said 16,000 to 17,500 Russian forces had been killed since the invasion. The United States believes the actual figure is much higher, at around 200,000 Russians killed and wounded, officials say.
BAKHMUT AT RISK
British intelligence said earlier that Russian forces were threatening a key supply route to Bakhmut, the focus of their assault for months which Ukraine has said it is defending to wear the invaders down before its counter-offensive.
The Ukrainian military said it was holding on in the city but the situation was difficult.
Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that if his troops came under risk of encirclement they would pull back from Bakhmut - one of the last urban centres in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk province yet to fall to Russian forces.
Donetsk is one of four provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia declared annexed last year and is seeking to fully occupy in what appears to be a shift in its war aims after failing to overrun the country early in the war.
Friday's daily update from British military intelligence contrasted with the usual emphasis on Ukrainian successes.
"Ukraine's key 0506 supply route to the west of the town is likely severely threatened," it said. Ukrainian military expert Vladyslav Selezniov has said Ukraine will have to pull back if the route for getting supplies in and wounded out is threatened.
Eastern Military Command spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi told Reuters Ukraine controlled the situation in Bakhmut and understood Russian intentions.
Western analysts say both sides are losing large numbers of troops in the battle for Bakhmut, a regional transport and logistics hub now largely in ruins.
Zelenskiy told CNN last month that he feared Russian forces would have "an open road" to two bigger cities in Donetsk - Kramatorsk and Sloviansk - if they took Bakhmut.
GIRL'S FATHER DETAINED
Millions of Ukrainians have fled the conflict, which has laid waste to many towns and cities and killed thousands of civilians.
Three civilians were killed and 17 wounded over the past 24 hours in Russian artillery, missile and aerial attacks on 114 settlements in nine regions, the Ukrainian Defence Ministry said.
Authorities in Russian-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine said seven civilians were killed on Thursday in two Ukrainian artillery strikes. Both sides deny targeting civilians.
Moscow says it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 because its moves towards the West threatened Russia's own security, and Russian authorities have since cracked down on internal dissent.
Alexei Moskalyov, a Russian man charged with discrediting the country's army after his daughter drew an anti-war picture, is being held in Belarus, Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported, citing the Russian embassy in the country. Belarus is a close ally of Russia.
The Kremlin says it will not consider peace in Ukraine unless Kyiv accepts the loss of the territories Russia has annexed. Ukraine says it posed no threat to Russia and there can be no negotiations until Russia withdraws all its forces.
Turkey is concerned about the potential intensification of the conflict in the spring, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a joint news conference with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Ankara.
Lavrov reiterated that Russia's security concerns were ignored by the West and said its interests must be taken into account. Asked if he would meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the United Nations headquarters, Lavrov said Moscow would never refuse serious proposals for dialogue.
RT/Reuters
