Trend: Russian troops are losing their ability to continue offensive actions and are increasingly moving from offensive to positional defense.

The offensive launched by Russia in the winter was a failure, since the goal of capturing the entire Donetsk and Luhansk regions was not achieved. Now the aggressor state will try to gain a foothold in the occupied territory, and the best scenario for the Russian Federation would be to establish a ceasefire.

In the Kupyansk direction the enemy did not conduct offensive operations.

In the Bakhmut direction, the enemy continues to conduct offensive actions. Fighting continues for the city of Bakhmut. In addition, Russia is conducting unsuccessful offensive actions in the direction of the settlements of Hryhorivka, Ivanivske, and New York.

In the Avdiivka direction, the enemy carried out offensive actions in the Avdiivka area, without success.

In the Mariinka direction, the Russian Federation continues to attack the positions of the Defense Forces of Ukraine. Battles continue for Mariinka. The occupying forces captured most part of the destroyed settlement.

In the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions russian troops are on the defensive positions. The Armed Forces of Ukraine probably began to conduct combat reconnaissance in order to identify weak points in the enemy's defense. Against the background of a possible offensive of the Armed Forces, the occupation authorities began evacuating collaborators and their families as well as occupation administrations deeper into the captured territory.

 

In the second half of April, it became known about the transfer of the following equipment to Ukraine:

 

Italy:

- M109L (Quantity unknown)

Slovakia:

- Completed transfer of 13 MiG-29

FRG:

- Patriot air defense system

- SAM IRIS-T

- Air defense Skynex

Netherlands:

- Patriot air defense system

Estonia:

- 155 mm caliber artillery ammunition

Sweden:

- Giraffe 75 radar

Canada:

- 40 sniper rifles

- 16 radio stations for Leopard tanks

Spain:

- 6 Leopard 2A4

Portugal:

- APC M113 (5 units)

Slovenia:

- 20 Valuk armored personnel carriers

Pakistan:

- MANPADS Anza Mark-II

Lithuania:

- Land Rover Defender (6 units)

Czech Republic:

- MLRS BM-21MT (Quantity unknown)

Croatia:

- MLRS RAK-SA-12

USA:

- Zuni anti-aircraft missiles

Also, Ukraine has received TAB-71M armored personnel carriers, but the number and the country that transferred this equipment are not specified. Probably, Ukraine received these APCs from Romania. During the “Ramstein” meeting on April 21, it became known that Berlin, Kyiv and Warsaw will create a maintenance center for Leopard 2 tanks of the Ukrainian army in Poland. The agenda of the new meeting of “Ramstein” also included discussion on strengthening the air defense system of Ukraine, as well as the transfer of fighter jets.
Source: Mil.ua

Trend: The chairmanship of the Russian Federation in the Security Council as a diagnosis of the impotence and failure of the UN.

Russia's disgraceful presidency of the UN Security Council came to an end in April. Before the end of its presidency, the aggressor state held a meeting entitled "Maintenance of international peace and security". Minister Serhii Lavrov flew to the USA personally, and he was allowed entry to participate in the event, however, with certain restrictions. First, the Russian delegation was allowed to enter without Russian propagandists. Secondly, the representative of the aggressor state had no right to leave the UN headquarters further than 40 km. This rule applied to Soviet diplomats during the Cold War. The fact of the return of such restrictions indicates not only the deterioration of relations between the United States and its partner countries with Russia, but also the decrease of the latter's international authority. At the meeting, only 4 countries (UAE, Gabon, Ghana and Cuba) were represented at the ministerial level. The rest of the delegations lowered the level of representation to permanent representatives or their deputies.

Lavrov's speech at the UN became a concentration of Russian propaganda. In particular, the minister of the aggressor state mentioned the "Kyiv Nazi regime", the "illegal coup d'état of 2014" and the alleged threat to Russia by NATO, trying to shift responsibility from the Russian Federation for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Despite these attempts, the general tone of the meeting was directed against the aggressive actions of the Russian Federation and Lavrov's statements. " Our hypocritical convener today, Russia, invaded its neighbor Ukraine and struck at the heart of the U.N. Charter," the US representative, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. "This illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary war runs directly counter to our most sacred principle: that a war of aggression and territorial conquest is never, ever acceptable. Today it’s Ukraine, but tomorrow it could be another country, another small nation that is invaded by its larger neighbor", she added. The Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations also invited the family of Paul Whelan, an American citizen and former marine who was detained on false espionage charges 4 years ago and has not been released, to the meeting. During the speech, she urged the minister to look into the eyes of a sister of the illegally detained American, who at that moment stood up and directed her gaze at Lavrov.

Even UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres this time did not try to take a position of neutrality and condemned the Russian aggression. 27 ambassadors of the European Union, in their turn, also made a joint statement before the meeting, in which they condemned Russia's actions in Ukraine.

The meeting emphasized the decline of Russian authority in the international arena. The current leadership of the aggressor state is no longer perceived among the countries of the Euro-Atlantic space as a government that can be dealt with. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, however, the Russian Federation maintains certain positions and tries to maintain and further develop relations with other states. On the international stage, Russia is trying to criticize the "West" on behalf of the countries of the Global South, which Lavrov tried to do again this time. However, under the conditions of Russia's weakening, the alternative power to the United States can be the People's Republic of China and certainly not the Russian Federation. But even among the states of the Global South, the criminality of the current Russian regime is increasingly understood. This awareness increases in proportion to the increase in Russia's defeats in Ukraine and the weakening of the Russian Federation and Putin's regime.

However, the very presence of Russia in the United Nations, and even more so in the Security Council, should be reviewed. Contrary to the UN Charter, the Russian Federation is waging a war of aggression against a neighboring country. All the principles of the organization were neglected by the aggressor country, but Russian diplomats are still able to use this international platform to promote their own narratives. Any constructive decisions regarding Ukraine at the UN are practically impossible due to Russia's right of veto. The organization, which was created to prevent wars, is not able to fulfill its duty and in order to restore trust, as well as the ability to influence the resolution of international conflicts, Russia should be excluded from the Security Council.