Ukraine liberates 440 sq kilometres and nine settlements in two months & Kyiv hammers Baltic oil hubs to wreck Putin’s Iran war windfall

The Telegraph

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I'm Adely Potman-Ponte and this is Ukraine, the latest.

Today, as Ukraine continues its strikes on Russian oil terminals on the Baltic Sea,

we explore how Russia oil exports and economy are benefiting from the war in Iran.

Meanwhile, Zelensky is in Saudi Arabia looking to strengthen defense cooperation

in the Middle East, and finally, we bring you several updates on the occupied territories.

Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships

to finally reward you with victory.

The Russia does not want peace.

If I'm president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours.

We are with you, not just today or tomorrow, but for a hundred years.

Nobody is going to break us. We are strong. We are Ukrainians.

It's Friday, the 27th of March, four years, and 31 days since the fall scale invasion began.

Today, I'm joined by my colleague Dom Nichols, associate editor for defense,

and Dr. Jade McGlin, from King's College London.

But first, over to Dom, for the military updates.

Thanks, Adley. So, Ukrainians strikes against Russian oil terminals in the St. Petersburg area

have continued for a fourth night, drones reportedly hitting the oil terminals in the port cities of

Usluga, and premores. So, there's oil in Russia's Leningrad oil blast. This comes from,

well, numerous places, but Russian telegram media channels amongst many others.

So, in the early hours of today, local residents reporting explosions in the area of all these

oil terminals are located just off the Baltic Sea. Russian officials had earlier warned of drone

attacks, expected in the region. They don't have to be correct. There are many photos and videos

posted on social media showing flames coming from the Usluga terminal, which is you remember

from earlier the week. It's one of Russia's largest ports on the Baltic Sea, a major hub for

exporting crude oil and other petroleum products. Primores, just a little bit to the north,

handles around 60 million tons of oil annually. So, Russia's main export oil hub on the Baltic Sea.

Now, as I said, that's the fourth night in a row that these facilities and similar facilities,

some slightly to the east, but fourth night in the row that oil terminals and oil facilities have

been hit. Got to wonder why they are getting through. What is it about Russian air defense that

is missing or has Ukraine found a gap in air defense that they are exploiting? Perhaps this is the

combination of this month's long Ukrainian effort to erode air defense. So, systematically going

after the radars and the missile batteries and what have you. So, maybe they've been punching a

hole for a number of months and this is the expected outturn from it. So, they finally got through

who knows, but I'm sure they'll be, they'll be, they'll be eagerly watching in the sky tonight.

Now, Russia says it's shot down 85 Ukrainian drones over Leningrad, Oblast, and also neighboring

Vologga, Oblast. That's just to the east as well as over the Black Sea. And again, we've got no

way of verifying those figures, but if they say they shot down 85, you can be pretty sure that to

some others got through. Well, certainly something did because they all exploded. Exposions also

reported in the city of Chernipovets. That's about 250k to the east of St Petersburg.

Local residents there said drones were targeting the appetite to chemical plant. That's part of

Fosagro's industrial complex. Vologga, Oblast, Governor Gorgi Philomanoff confirmed the strike

on an unnamed industrial site in the city, but said there was no damage to the critical

infrastructure and no casualties. Now, on the ground in Ukraine, no significant moves to the

lines, but a lot of activity, a lot of violence. They start off in the northeast, so the Vovchansk

area haven't talked about it for a long time. Vovchansk is that lodgement just north of Harkiv

city. Russia pushed over the border for 18 months ago. Now, I can't remember exactly, but they've

been sitting there doing not a lot ever since. And neither has Ukraine been able to eject them,

to be fair, but that's not done much at all. Well, Ukraine seems sort of pushed into the

southwest of the city. There's a notable thrust there, whether or not that precursor to

something else we will see, but yeah, worth noting is we haven't actually looked at that area

for a long time. This comes from geolocated footage published yesterday cited by the Institute

for the study of war. Now, go further southeast from there, and Ukrainian joint forces task force

spokesperson Colonel Viktor Dragorov said yesterday that the remaining Russian troops thought to

be fewer than 50 in Kupiansk are said to be in the basement of one of the city or ruined hospitals,

one of the city's hospitals. I mean, again, we've talked about Kupiansk for a while, the last

surviving elements of the Russian forces in there, which is to say, it's thought to number in the

very, very low tens, but yeah, they now seem to be in the city. Interesting that they are still there,

interesting that Russians, particularly Sergei Lavrov, seems to be claiming that they own the city,

but also interesting that Ukraine hasn't been able to winkle them out, but that is the nature of urban

combat. Now, go further south into the Donbass, and a spokesperson for the Ukrainian brigade

operating in the vicinity of Leman said that Russian forces there are deploying fresh

infantry into the front line, and last week they had conducted an attack where infantry were

in and supported by armed fighting vehicles, and they were escorted by first-person

view drones. So, in micro terms, if you like, a combined arms effort. So, the drones were there

to try and intercept any Ukrainian drones. The bombers coming to have a go at the armed fighting

vehicles didn't work. They didn't get through. It was an unsuccessful attack, but interesting to see

the evolution of these assaults, trying to get some kind of maneuver going again, but as they

didn't work. Now, just to the south of there, so between Leman and Slaviyansk, footage has emerged

of a Russian strike on a dam along the Suresky-Denets Donbass Canal that took place on Monday.

Now, authorities say that the first and second stage pumping station reservoirs of the Suresky

Donets Donbass water canal have only about two weeks of water reserves left after Russian forces

hit a dam near Rida Rock, just northeast of Slaviyansk, on Monday with two aerial bombs. So,

all part of the, we think, the shaping of the battlefield is part of the spring offensive.

Again, that hasn't yet worked. The dam is still standing, but we know from earlier experience that

they do try and use water and the environment as a weapon. So, keep your eye on the dam there

near Slaviyansk. Now, then, still heading a little bit south of there, a Ukrainian 11th Army

Corps spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Zaporets speaking yesterday said that Russian

forces are actively advancing towards Slaviyansk. Now, that obviously is near the top

of the fortress belt. Slaviyansk and Leman, right up there at the top of the fortress belt,

he said that they're attacking seven or eight times a day and they've increased the rate of

artillery strikes. Again, artillery, not heard a huge amount of it recently because it's all

drones. Artillery is still there, chubed and barrel artillery and they seem to be trying to

increase the number of artillery strikes. Now, we are told that in that area, Ukraine currently

holds the high ground from which they're able to operate drones to see the potential Russian

advances and interdict them as they try and cross the low ground, but again, another area of very

activity. Now, let's keep going, southwest. Let's go down into the, in sort of Dmitry Petrov's

Zaporizha areas. Ukrainian forces say they've liberated nine settlements in this area,

kind of near Oleksandr Drivka, and they say they've killed just over 2,600 Russian troops

over the last couple of months. Ukraine's air assault forces command said yesterday they're

reporting this operation that they say has gone for a couple of months. They say Ukrainian forces

have regained 440 square kilometers of territory, liberating seven settlements in Dmitry Petrov's

and two in Zaporizha oblasts. Now, we have reported those numbers. They haven't moved massively

in the last few days, but they're saying this is the air assaults forces command. They're saying

Russia's spring offensive began on January the 29th, very specific. And they say since then,

Russia has lost, I'll just read these numbers exactly. They say that Russia's lost 3,676

personnel just in that sector alone, including 2,653 killed, 1,023 wounded, and 11 captured.

Now, I read them out specifically like that because look at the ratios. I mean, you normally have

a far higher number of wounded to killed because most people survive small arms fire and artillery

and what have you, but they are wounded. That ratio has completely turned on its head there. 2,600

is killed, 1,000 wounded. I mean, that's certainly the other way around. And I think that speaks of

the amount of drones that are being used here because, as we unfortunately see, as we look at all

this footage to make sure we know what we're talking about, if you get hit by a drone, you don't come

out of it wounded. It is pretty binary. It's a 1 or a 0 and you hit by a drone and it ends up as a 0.

Equally, 11 captured that, again, speaks of it's just not the mixing of forces in normal war

when two armed forces mix the opportunities to take prisoners of war is much greater. Well,

that's just not happening here. I don't think the forces are meeting. I think they're getting hit by

drones before they get anywhere near each other. Hence, so few actually do come to meet to the other

side. I think it's drones doing all the work here. I want the majority of the work. I just

pointed to some comments, though, by Emil Castelmi, who's a military analyst with the Finland-based

Blackbird group. He was speaking to the key independent. He said that he thinks Ukraine's momentum

is gone. Remember this nesting together this series of counterattacks where he says the momentum

is gone. He says it doesn't really seem that the Ukrainians have made much progress beyond what

they achieved in February and early March. As I say, this figure of 440 square kilometers liberated,

we have mentioned before. So, perhaps the potential benefits of this starling cutoff and the other

things that we've spoken about that allowed Ukraine to make that push and reclaim territory down

there in the southwest. Maybe that's coming to an end. Now, just finally, further southwest,

there are counterattacks from which Ukraine's taken back some minor pieces of land. There's

geolicative footage from Zaparija Oblast, as well as sighting from Russian sources that say

Ukraine has regained ground in the Pramorsk and the Stepahesk area. That's just south of Zaparija

city. That was the area when we were in Ukraine three weeks ago in theopsram in Zaparija city.

These were the areas in Pramorsk and Stepahesk. This is what we were looking at. So,

there's that area there where Ukraine has taken back some land. Across the country,

there's a 93 of 102 drones brought down by Ukraine. However, it did leave one person dead in

13 injured across the country. The person killed was in the eastern Donetsk region. There was

90-year-old woman injured in Harkiv Oblast for no reason whatsoever. A 53-year-old man injured in

his civilian car. Then when he was hit by a drone in Hezon city, there are suggestions supported

by footage I've seen recently that the so-called drone safari is Russian drone pilot practicing

on civilians before then going elsewhere. Some of the footage is just so blatant when they are

attacking civilian vehicles, dogs, things like this. It's sickening to watch. A couple more for

me, but just looking slightly wider, interesting news out of the Ukraine delegation's visit to

Saudi Arabia today. So, President Zelensky said in the last few hours, he said, we've reached

an important agreement between the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense

of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on defense cooperation. It lays a foundation for future contracts,

technological cooperation and investment. It also strengthens Ukraine's international role

as a security donor. We are ready to share our expertise, he says, and systems with Saudi Arabia

and to work together to strengthen the protection of lives. Now into the fifth year,

Ukrainians are resisting the same kind of terrorist attacks. This is quite clever.

The same kind of terrorist attacks ballistic missiles and drones that the Iranian regime is

currently carrying out in the Middle East and the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia also has the capabilities

that are of interest to Ukraine, and this cooperation can be mutually beneficial. And I think

that last sentence says it all, the whole mutually beneficial bit. So, if you look at how

Ukraine may view the world right now, look at the United States, they are distant, they are

detaching from support of Ukraine in some places you might say they are actively hostile to Ukraine

at the moment. Europe is dithering, I think, to share themselves to be unserious,

defense and security actors at a time when strong leadership is required. The EU seems to be

too wedded to its rules about consensus decision making such that one country, Hungary,

is able to hold everything up, the 90 billion loan or the frozen assets or what have you.

So, at what point does consensus then just become a hindrance? Europe dithering as well.

Hence, Ukraine turns to the Gulf and Saudi Arabia with deep pockets and a very real need right now

for the kind of stuff that Ukraine is able to sell and to drone capabilities. So,

it seems like a lot of Gulf countries in Saudi Arabia in particular here, their outlook has

fundamentally changed and they are willing to talk to Ukraine. I say they've got a lot of money

they can support, there's a lot of business deals they can do there over the drones and it will

add to the diplomatic heft. So, I think that's quite a cany move by Ukraine and just turns to Europe

and America and says, well, if you're not going to pony up, we're going to find people who can help us.

It's a cardwell played. It is, I think, yeah. Am I right in thinking that Zelensky may be the

first Western leader to have gone to the Middle East since the beginning of the war in Iran?

I think so. Yeah, I can't think of anyone else. Clever move, if that's the case.

Yeah, yeah, it does, it all matters. One last one for me, so here we go, how's this for a headline?

The United Kingdom commits 100 million pounds of air defense package for Ukraine to protect cities

and critical infrastructure. That sounds good. It sounds good. So, this came in a slightly

breathless Ministry of Defense press release last night, arrived in my inbox. It says the UK will

urgently commit an additional 100 million pounds for air defense supports Ukraine, helping to defend

the country from Russia's relentless attacks. This looks pretty good, I thought. It goes on,

the funding will be rapidly deployed to strengthen Ukraine's air defenses, ensuring frontline

forces and key national infrastructure are better protected from aerial bombardment.

No dithering there. No dithering sounds brilliant. So, I'm now looking down to see this 100 million

pound air defense stuff. It's going to be rapid. It's urgent. What's in the 100 million

quid? I'm sort of reading through the press release. It goes, the UK package comes as joint

expeditionary force leaders, messing hell sinky. Like, yes, yes, we know that. We talked about it

yesterday. Yeah, I'm sure any moment now they're going to get onto the detail of this 100 million

quid blah, blah, blah. It also follows President Zelensky's visit to London last week.

Yes, yes. Why are you still picking that out in a press release that you bung out last night?

I mean, still looking for the detail. Blah blah blah. Then there's some nice morale boosting

quotes from Defense Secretary John Healey. They then repeat an old announcement of 500 million

pound air defense package that was announced in February. And actually, then lists the details that

were in that 500 million quid. No detail of what the 100 million is. And where it comes from?

So, where it comes from, what it's going to do other than it's going to be urgent and rapid,

and it's going to protect cities and critical infrastructure. So at this point, I'm quite annoyed.

I've just had to wait through another blooming press release. Doesn't tell me anything.

So I rang the MOD, and I spoke to the, I spoke to people there, and I said, right, what's the

score with this 100 million quid then? Where's your air defense? All sounds brilliant. What's it

going to be spent on? And I said, oh, we can't tell you. And I said, well, what do you mean you can't

tell me? I mean, you literally stay later on in the press release with a 500 million that you

announced in February. You list that, you know, a load of different missiles out of bits and pieces.

You list that. So why can't you list what's in the 100 million quid? And also, by the by,

if you're going to spend 500 million in February, then why an extra 100 million just a month later?

I mean, why not put the two? So what's happened? But come to the first question, if you want my

first one, tell me what's in the 100 million. Then he said, oh, well, we don't know yet.

I said, well, if you don't know what's in it, how can you cost it up at 100 million?

Yeah. We'll get back to you. We'll get back to you. Quick as a flash. They didn't get back to me.

So I rang them again just before we came on air. And nope, they still haven't come back to me.

So MOD, please don't put out press releases that you just expect us to lift and drop into tomorrow's

telegraph without any detail. And when I ring you and ask for detail and you say you'll get back

to me, please do. Just give us some detail. Otherwise, I just read all this stuff out on air and

you look a little bit silly. And that's that's up to date, Adley.

So let's go now to the diplomatic updates. And we're going to look at the economic consequences

of Ukraine's strikes on oil terminals. How is that impacting Russia's sale of oil and gas,

which are so fundamental in financing the war effort? Well, we kind of have to go back to the

beginning of the year in order to really understand what's going on. Because Trump's sanctions

have eroded Russia's oil revenue. It has been down 47% compared to 2025. That was at the

beginning of the year in January. And that really showed how effective Western sanctions could be

because four years into the war, it was still managing to inflict material damage on Russia's

economy. In December, the price of the barrel had fallen to roughly $39, which was the lowest

level since the pandemic. And for the more recent shipment, for example, to India, which is Russia's

biggest, I believe, crude oil buyer, or at least it was before the sanctions in September,

it dropped to under $25 a barrel, which barely covers Russia's break even price. So it's really,

really low. And as a result of that, then, Russia's national deficit had already reached 91%

of the 2026 target. So that's pretty bad. But then the war with Iran started. And so what happened

then, this tweet of Hormuz closed and the price of oil skyrocketed. Who could have guessed?

Who could have guessed? So Ukraine feared rightfully so.

My granny could have guessed and she's been dead for 30 years.

Well, maybe we should try and ring her in. Yeah.

So Ukraine, rightfully so, feared that it could lead to a rapprochement,

I've learned to say that word since last time, between the West and Moscow,

following the result of the energy crisis. And you may remember that the Belgian prime minister

at the beginning of February had called for the common sense normalization of relations with

Russia in order to, I quote, regain access to cheap energy. That hasn't happened,

but the war in Iran is indeed a boon for Russia's economy. Because Moscow has been earning almost

$800 million per day in sales of oil and gas, which is totaling almost $24 billion in March.

And on top of that, India is coming back into the picture. So you'll remember that in September,

the US had imposed very harsh export tariffs on India to prevent it from buying more Russian oil.

So in January, Indian diplomats were negotiating with the US trying to ease those sanctions

and those tariffs. And they were willing to do that by slashing their crude oil input from Russia.

But, and that's a big but, writers revealed in an exclusive yesterday that New Delhi and Moscow

were now doubling down on their energy cooperation. They were resuming direct sales of

liquefied natural gas for the very first time since the beginning of the war in Ukraine,

not the war in Iran, the war in Ukraine. And the agreement also includes an increase in the

sale of crude oil to India. And that could basically double India's import of Russian oil within

about a month. So where does that leave Ukraine? So between all the strikes of the last four days

that we've been reporting on, and all of the tankers that have been seized by various countries

across the globe and the damage to several pipelines, Ukraine is trying to prevent the oil from

actually getting to the customers. This week, as we reported yesterday, it's 40% of the Russian oil

export capacity that was halted, which writers is called the worst disruption in oil supply in

modern Russian history. And that strategy is obviously very important because the higher the global

oil price go, the more the Kremlin has room to absorb the wartime costs. But there's also

another analysis about this. It's coming from the spectators. It's Alexander Koliandra,

a researcher for the center of European policy analysis who specialises in Russia's economy.

He points out that although the logic seems pretty straightforward, disrupt, exports,

reduce revenues, constrain the war efforts, there's, according to him, a deep flaw in the strategy.

Firstly, because Russia has actually changed its tax system, the federal government no longer

taxes oil exports, but oil extraction. That's an important nuance. What that means is that crude oil

does not need to reach the customer in order for the federal government of Russia to get money out

of it. In 2024, that generated roughly $108 billion, and that was considered a bad year. That is

through that special tax, that taxes companies at extraction level, not export level. On top of that,

Russia is still able to export through pipelines towards Asia, and with the price per barrel

skyrocketing over the last months, that means that Russia is extracting more oil than before,

and therefore getting more revenue in tax again at the federal level. So let me quote the piece.

Every $10 rise in the U-rolls crude price adds roughly $1.5 billion to Russia's monthly

extraction revenues at the current extraction rate. I'll leave you with that analysis to ponder.

It says Ukraine is, in effect, further intensifying a global oil supply shock that disproportionately

benefits the budget it is trying to deplete. The burden is being shouldered by consumers worldwide,

paying record fuel prices, and by Russian oil companies squeezed between high extraction

on the one hand, and constrained export earnings not by the Kremlin. The Kremlin is not being

affected by that squeeze. The analysis continues. The strategy made sense when oil costs $65 a barrel

at $110 a barrel. The arithmetic runs the other way. You'll find the link in the show notes,

and I'll leave that with you to ponder. Let's move on now to the topic of Ukrainian children

that have been forcefully deported to Russia. Yesterday, the U.S. State Department announced

that $25 million would be allocated to track and return Ukrainian children that were abducted by Russia.

So these 25 millions are meant for identifying returning and rehabilitating these children,

and they will go to American non-profit organizations. I'm still trying to find out what exactly

the detail of that is and what they mean by that. And these organizations will be supporting

the Ukrainian government's effort, as well as trusted actors on the ground.

So I'm curious to see who gets access to that money and under what conditions, because obviously

the lack of funding on the U.S. side is something we've been reporting on for several months now.

Another aspect of the U.S. policy when it comes to Ukrainian children, as we reported previously,

is the First Lady Melania Trump's efforts to make the cause of Ukrainian children the center

of her humanitarian agenda. And it seems that now her mediation efforts, which were announced in

the autumn, have brought back about 19 children to Ukraine. Overall, it's really important to keep

in mind the numbers and the scale, because we're often talking about 20,000 children that have been

forcefully taken at the lowest. So far, it's only 2,000 children that have come back, through various

means that's either government mediation or actors on the ground, organizing the logistics for

children to be brought back to Ukraine or families going into the occupied territories or Russia

to get the children back. So that's about 2,000 children, which is not bad, but it's very, very far

from the lowest estimated number of children who are missing. So in that overall picture, Melania

Trump in the last five months roughly has brought back 19 children. There was also a new report on

that front yesterday published by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab. It's calling the Russian

state energy companies Gasprom in Ross Neft. I quote, the willing accomplices in the deportation

of Ukrainian children. The report states with high confidence that at least six camps were about

2,500 children were forced to be transferred, were owned by these Russian state actors.

It also identifies 44 entities that are linked to the deportation so they can be either

subsidiaries of the state companies or also trade unions. And 80% of them are not currently

included in US or European sanctions. And we know how much Europe in particular has been trying

to target individuals and organizations in the deputation of these children. And I'm interesting

to see if there will be new batches of sanctions coming through from various countries or from the

European levels based on that report. And finally, before we go to Dr. Jade McGlin for the regular

news on the occupied territories, three updates on the topic. One, the Ukrainian government reported

a couple of days ago that Russia is trying to ban people over 60 from calling and receiving calls

from outside of the occupied territories. I'm not really sure how you implement that to be fair.

But obviously for a lot of people in the occupied territories, a lot of elderly Ukrainians living

under occupation, they've not been able to escape because it's costly, it's difficult and long

journey. And if you're not in good health, it's very, very difficult undertaking. But phone calls

is basically the only way they can stay in touch with their families. So I'm not really sure

again how you implement that. But that is something that is part of cracking down on the population

and severing the links between people living under occupation in the occupied territories to

the wider Ukraine or Ukrainians living in a diaspora elsewhere in the world. And that's I think

really key in understanding what it's trying to do to families to keep people from just communicating

from one another. Another update is that Russia is auctioning off a gold or deposit in occupied

Lohansk near the town I believe of Bobrykivsky. It was sold for almost 10 million dollars to the

Russian mining firm Bolianka. And according to the auction data, the deposit contains an estimated

1.64 metric tons of gold, which at current market prices could be worth almost 260 million dollars.

So that's a lot of money. It's a lot of money towards the Russian war effort as well. And it's

only one of the dozen sites that Russia is currently putting up for auction from the occupied

territories. Another example is a large lithium deposit in Denetsk oblast near the town of Shivchenko.

And finally, the last update is an opinion piece published in the key of independent by Alha Kirishko.

She is the permanent representative to the president of Ukraine for the Autonomous Republic of

Crimea. And she goes deep into the information war waged by Russia in order to kind of convince

the international community to recognize Russia's historic right to Crimea and what good it's doing

over there. She calls it a vast propaganda arsenal that is implemented through various means. One of

them, which I found particularly interesting, was fabricated stories about foreign migrants to

Crimea. So what does that look like in practice? Well, for example, that is alleged German plumber,

a Polish electrician, a British taxi driver, or a French nanny, who are moving to Crimea,

employed by locals, trying to paint Russia as a hub of opportunity for the wider west.

Good luck with that. Would you, if you were to do a career move, would you move to Crimea, Dom?

I'm looking forward to going to Crimea after the war. Yeah, but different regiments.

Yeah. Before we go to Dr. Jade McGlin for the latest update on the Occupy Territories,

here's a teaser for the first episode of Francis' three-part series on Hungary, as they prepare for

that critical election on April 12th. War has come to Europe. Not that you'd know it, looking out

over Budapest. Hungary's capital. An EU and NATO member states. It borders many nations,

including to its east, Ukraine. But despite the war taking place just 250 kilometers from this spot,

the government here takes a very different view from its neighbours regarding its relations with Moscow.

Starting and waging a war is not a war crime. This war cannot be won by Ukraine. They are in a worse

and worse situation. It has huge defeats, ramifications for you. It's on your border.

The greater threat, as far as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is concerned, is Brussels.

So what's really going on here? Why would a NATO member be apparently more comfortable with Moscow

than Brussels? I flew to Budapest to find out more. There, I spoke to leading figures in the Orbán

government, visited historical sites and took the temperature with ordinary people to better understand

how they view the war at a pivotal moment for Hungary, as that fast approaches a tightly contested

election on the 12th of April. Well, we certainly don't want to miss that, do we? No, we don't.

The first episode of the series is dedicated to the country's relationship with Ukraine and Russia,

and it releases tonight on the main Telegraph YouTube channel. We'll add a link to the show notes,

make sure to tune in. And now, over to Jade. Hi Jade, it's good to see you again. And Jade.

Today, we wanted to discuss together an investigation published by writers on what's happening in

the occupied territories, and all of the money that Russia is pouring in to make it new Russia,

Novorossiya, if I'm understanding this correctly, and all of the infrastructure is building. Do you

want to take us through what the investigation shows and what those findings are? Sure, so the

investigation was interesting. I'm always happy when anybody writes about the occupied

territories in some ways, but I did find the article a little bit odd, so it was making out that

Russia is pouring a lot of money and investment into the occupied territories, but I probably would

have written it a little bit differently, to be honest with you, whilst still being grateful for

particularly the satellite imagery, which is interesting. But I would say that it presents

Russian investment announcements. I would say maybe a little bit at face value, so it's talking

about the different roads and infrastructure projects that are being built, and suggesting that

there's now a lot more investment going to the occupied territories. It also claims that

maybe the occupied territories might then become profitable, and that I went back and looked at my

figures and my statistics, and I don't really understand how that would happen. So there are

three economic zones that were established in 2023, but they do very little to offset the immense

costs of annexation. The occupied regions are among the biggest recipients of subsidies from the

Russian national budget. They're very far from being economically self-sufficient. A lot of the

investment that is spoken about, first of all, even by the homeland's own numbers, they often

announce a certain amount of money, and then it gets reduced later on, but even with the investment

that does occur, a lot of it is just siphoned off, because of course Russian elites lost a lot of

assets up to the full-scale invasion, and the occupied territories has been an area where they've

been kind of allowed to exploit and extract from them in recompense. I mean, in terms of the kind

of economy, I was just reading Block Not Today, so it's a sort of Russian nationalistic new source

that's centered around somewhere in Russia and the occupied regions, and it was about, you know,

huge numbers of complaints that they're receiving because people, including those working for

construction companies, just have not received their wages for months and months. And we've heard

that, you know, it's shockingly regular, so port workers in Barichandsk were unpaid for three months,

coal mine workers in Lisi Chants, coal mines in Le Hance, facing closure, because there's

just no money. The main focus of the thesis to look at the so-called Azov Ring Road,

it's an infrastructure project kind of about connecting occupied territories more into Russia,

and these projects, there has recently been an opt-taking building, which is what the satellite

imagery shows, but they've been so, so delayed. I mean, I've been watching the Azov Ring Road for a

long time, they're routinely re-announced. The satellite, the vessel tracking data as well, does confirm,

you know, there has been a notable opt-taking maritime traffic, but I would just note that considering

the amount of reconstruction needed in the occupied territories, all of these volumes still remain

far below pre-war levels. You know, when Ukraine, obviously, was not trying to rebuild

these territories, because they have not yet been destroyed. So I just find the framing, again,

little bit odd, and similarly, I mean, there isn't really a real economy in the occupied territories,

they're all sort of a colony that, from which to extract resources. And so as opposed, well,

I did, there were many aspects I thought were useful and thought-provoking about the article,

and it's good to see Reuters covering yet. I did feel that at points, it conflated and out,

with effective economic integration and extraction with development, and also that

if what we can see across years now is Russia's resource extraction initiatives,

they're very much primarily designed to funnel seas to Ukrainian assets into Russian controlled

networks, and the local population sees very little from this. It's unstable work, degraded

infrastructure services that, as we know, function very unevenly if we were going to be sort of

polite. So I think Russia is very good at generating the appearance of economic activity,

whether that's for shell companies, ribbon cutting, budget allocations, investment forums,

but, and I can see how if you follow that paper trail, it might send you in a certain direction,

but that gap between announcement and reality, which exists across Russia,

I would say in the occupied territories is particularly enormous, and something to flag.

In fact, it's interesting because it pointed to some of the things at the moment at King's.

We are, what I am, working on setting up an occupied territory's insight hub that will host

some of the incredible amounts of data that I and some of my kind of collaborators have,

so that other researchers and, of course, journalists can use it, as well as some of the analysis

and policy, but I really want to kind of provide more of this data, hopefully, so that we can have

maybe some of these more informed conversations about the occupied territories and what

and how is happening there, because often the argument is it's very hard to know, and that's

true to an extent, but, of course, there is, as always, whenever you want to research what Russia's

doing, where there's a world, there's a way, and so we're really looking forward to kind of launching

this platform and just having it as a space where people can deal with the unfilled data,

because there's so much politicization of the topic inevitably, and I myself, you know, often feel

that as well, but this place is designed to be a kind of purely academic endeavor, and to just

provide some of the core information that will hopefully make it easier for people for other

research, because I'm, even if I live 10 lives, I wouldn't be able to get through and analyse all

of this data as well, so hopefully we'll spark some interesting projects. That sounds like a great

initiative indeed. What can you share with us about how you gather all of that data on the

occupied territories? It's so difficult to have any access to what's going on over there.

So, of course, there are real limitations on what you can do, and we often discuss that,

but a lot of the time, I mean, there is a range of, a range of different elements. I mean,

some of the data, a lot of the, and of course, you can't always take it at face value, but it's

still useful to have the data as primary kind of source. If you're talking about legislation to

do with the occupied territories, if you're talking about companies that have been registered,

if you're talking about your whole range of things that leave an administrative paper trail,

provided you can, you have some basic scraping, coding skills, you can just, and a good VPN to

show that you're in Russia, you can just scrape this information. So, that's point one. I mean, in

terms of one of the, one of the parts of the data collection that I find the most fascinating is

we have quite a large collection of methodological manuals, curricular training manuals, which books

are allowed to be taught which aren't, and they're often published on very small telegram channels,

and you know, it's kind of, we think, sort of collecting them like, very specific magpies

over the years and collating them. Some of the other data is provided, let's say, is given,

and that's some of the data where some of that won't be able to be published, of course, you know,

not everything in my possession can go on, not just for reasons of security, but also just for

ethical reasons. I mean, there's certain people saying, there's an incredible amount of public

information essentially provided that you know where to look and you start documenting and keeping

it, and provided that you're able to pass it, not just in terms of kind of actual technological

skills or research skills, but almost pass it in terms of critical thinking as to, I think,

one of the most important guides, I'm going to have to provide to this, maybe in a more simplified

form and also in a more detailed form, is, you know, how to engage critically with these,

you know, what does it mean when they say, you know, what are some flags when they say x, y, z,

what does that actually mean? Because what I don't want to do is to provide a bunch of

history textbooks with, I don't know, I don't think it's about how there is no Ukraine,

and if everyone's come away and be like, well, there's no Ukraine. So obviously, you're going to

have to be some sort of responsibility around, around how the data that's from the occupation

itself has provided. In terms of the data on, for example, cultural infrastructure,

sometimes it's a combination of using our own sources on the ground and using, you know,

satellite imagery, quite a few of the bases are sort of mixed. And separately, of course,

it's not just my data, I'm going to be working very closely with the Centre for Occupation Studies,

who are very generously going to provide me with a huge amount of their archive,

also been speaking to other researchers who are working on European projects around cultural

destruction, I have a very keen to get involved in some of the relocated media sources as well,

so media from the occupied territories you've since relocated. So I think everybody kind of who's

involved has a shared interest in having this data available and having a more informed

conversation around the occupied territories and what's happening there. And of course,

a lot of it at the moment is in Russian or Ukrainian, so a question of how to translate that,

or who wants to pay for somebody to translate that will be a question the later on, but that's not

a question, but now for now, our task is just to get it up and start it running.

Yes, staggering the resources, one after the other. But it's really interesting the point

that you bring up because it goes back to what you were saying about the investigation, which is

whatever comes out of these territories needs to be looked at with a critical eye because you

can't take all of that information at phase value depending on where it's coming from, right?

Exactly, exactly. And I think as well, it's quite easy once you've been doing this for a while,

it's quite easy to actually know what things mean, and I think I'm hopeful that I will be able to

create, I'm sure it will only improve time, but I'm hopeful I'll be able to create a useful

guideline of just, whether they say, you know, more investment in X, this actually means we're

taking the money for so-and-so's mistress, but obviously in a more formal way.

I know you haven't got loads of time today, Jade, so thanks again for taking time and you busy

day to join us. Shall we just wrap it up with the updates from the last fortnight from the occupied

territory? Yes, thank you. So between the 12th and the 25th of March, 226, we identified 14 confirmed

operations as usual sabotage of rail, attacks on military vehicles and damage to kind of

logistical support infrastructure. And another interesting point because it sort of re-emerged in

the last fortnight as well as most active regions, again, Lohanskot Blast figures. So Lohanskot Blast

is effectively under total occupation. I think if I wanted, if you want to be very specific,

I think it's 99.1 percent, but yeah, so it's interesting to see things happening there at

Crimea and Maroupal, so active. So in terms of chronology, the first case took place in

Siviera Danyetsk, in Lohansk, that came on occupation in 2022 and that was on the 15th of March,

Ateche claimed responsibility for this, so their origins are in the Crimean Peninsula, but they

operate sort of throughout. And there was the destruction of a transformer that supplies electricity

to the Russian Brigade headquarters in Siviera Danyetsk. The next case was on the 17th of March in

Siviera Danyetsk, which is also in the Lohansk region, and this was reported by Sorok, who don't

maybe are not as active sometimes as Ateche, but are often quite clinical precision. And in this case,

they destroy a vehicle used by the occupation forces in which it would appear, I'll be careful

if we haven't been able to fully confirm this, that the driver and the military escort individual

died. And these areas in particular, they're pretty important because they're part of the wider

land corridor and military logistics space in the east, you know, for the fighting that is still

happening around into Deneetsk, but also as well into Harkiv region and Kupiansk and these parts,

so it's a quite specific location. On the 18th of March, there were two separate cases, both in

Crimea. The first one was reported by Crimean partisans and was the good old tradition of burning

a railway relay cabinet, and the second incident in Crimea was reported by Ateche and took

place in Siviera Danyetsk, and it involved the destruction of a diesel locomotive that was

supplying apparently to the Saporizia direction. So, of course, there are numerous sources,

humanitarian sources, in the occupied territories, who pretty much consistently track logistics,

whether that's by road or by rail, I'm going towards the Saporizia direction, so essentially

resupplying Russian forces who are fighting back against the Ukrainian, because we're Ukrainian

counter-eventives in the conditions. In this particular case, you know, a locomotive is pretty hard

to replace, it's harder than a car, obviously, and, you know, rail transport remains pretty central

for moving like heavy cargo, like ammunition, fuel, engineering supplies. And so, once again,

it's part of that pattern that we see this concentration on the rail system and the

military logistics, which is not just a symbolic target, we kind of see this increasingly strategic

approach by the resistance. On the 21st of March, there was an activity by Merioblisbrotiv,

so this was the burning of a car, but there was a much more interesting act by Merioblisbrotiv,

which technically shouldn't be part of this using the methodology, which perhaps I might need to

amend in coming months, but also during this period, Merioblisbrotiv working with her

blue upper data center in Mangush and destroyed it. Now, considering some of the work that it's

happening in the occupied territories to prepare administration, to prepare bureaucratically and

administratively for what looks like a new force conscription move, I mean, that's an incredible,

this quite an incredible feat to be, you know, that involves both on the ground and, of course,

quite technical capability inside free Ukraine. So, Merioblisbrotiv, very interesting organization.

However, even in this case, when we're just talking, not just, but when we're talking about the

burning of a car, like these, these attacks matter because they create that sense of everyday

insecurity, everyday, you know, a kind of low-level insurgency, they of course increase the

cost of mobility, and they show that you have not pacified the area. And the last visible case

that I'll talk about, took place on the 22nd of March in Sidiere Danyets, so back in Lohansk,

and this again was a burning of a military vehicle belonging to a Russian brigade,

and it's interesting that the Sidiere Danyetsk is a location with two separate incidences,

in this case after having been relatively quiet for quite a while. There were also in terms of the

non-violent cases, there were also some a couple of incidences in Crimea around the 19th,

where they were reported on the 19th of March. I imagine they happened earlier that showed burning

of the Russian flag. But yeah, so they're also in these acts of political messaging,

identity, but you're rarer, and this is their really so. So on that I will wrap up, but thank you.

You were talking about the attacks on infrastructure and trains and how that's really important

to create a sense of insecurity and how the area hasn't been pacified yet.

We started this conversation talking about the rotors investigation, and obviously they're

describing how much infrastructure is potentially being built, also in terms of railways and in

terms of motorways as well. I mean, these attacks are very effective, but they're also very local.

How does it compare the scale of the attacks, which are obviously, you know, from small underground

organizations, in very local, in the scale of the plans that Russia has for these occupied territories?

No, I think it's a good distinction to make, but I think in some ways if, of course, if we were

just purely comparing violent or resistant acts and separating that from the border work of the

resistance, 90% of the work of the resistance is human intelligence is providing not just coordinates

but information about what is happening, that then feeds into Ukrainian headquarters, and of course,

I am sure it's part of, for example, their calculations when they choose places for deep strikes

or medium strikes, you know, for targets. So, for example, if you have human intelligence on

the ground, you know that a factory that is building, let's say, important elements or important

part of the construction process for this infrastructure is located in, I don't know, let's see,

somewhere in Lohansk, and then you can provide that information so that they know how to target

the factories or the military production sites or the logistics, you know, parts of the logistics

supply chain. So, I wouldn't see it as just partisans against what Russia can build. I think

realistically we're talking about partisans and the information partisans can provide to the

Ukrainian state and anybody else, you know, who would like to engage in deeper targeting beyond

beyond the frontline. So, I think that's, it's a more equal battle than it may at first seem.

Thanks, Jade. I know you've got to dash, so I don't want to keep you for too long, but is there

any final thoughts that you'd like to share with us? I'm just simply that we really should be paying

attention as opposed to to come back to the point and why I overall think that the royal

south, which is really good that it came out because we should be paying attention to what Russia

is doing in the occupied territories. It does give us, you know, insights into Russia's plans,

into viability of negotiations, I'm into Russia's plans for the future, and also I guess what

Russia will do if it comes to occupy other countries, which given the pretty kind of flaccid response

from our own country in Britain and from European countries of late, because unfortunately the

trajectory we're currently on through, there's still lots and lots of time and ways to change that

trajectory. Thank you, Jade, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks then. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Thank you.

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And now on to our final thoughts, Tom, do you want to start?

Yes, thank you. I'd say thank you to Barry. Barry Roachins,

hi guys. When you report that X amount of drones have been intercepted on wondering how and what

does the intercepting? Well, there's a whole load of things, Barry, that does the intercepting. So

starting on the electronic side, if you like, there's first of all, there's electronic warfare

that interferes with the signal. So if it's just a radio frequency signal, the old remote control

drones, if you like, so drone goes off and you control it by just by radio signal. If you can

chop that signal or interfere with it in some way, then the drones are going to fall out of the sky,

or as we saw in the very early days since the fall scare invasion. Some drones, if they lose

signal so that you don't smash up your nice hobby toy, there's not going to fall out the sky

and a blistery itself. It would go back to where it came from. Go back to the launch point. So

you crane worked out in the first few weeks. If they broke the signal, then the drone would then go

back to the launch point and then they're just calling an artillery strike on the Russian drone pilot.

Things have moved on since then. It's not quite that simple anymore. So after electronic warfare,

they started bringing in fiber optic control drones, which you can't intercept because you can't get

into the cable. That's why we've seen just in the very recent weeks, we've seen these airborne

lasers. We think they're more experimental than an actual capability that's fielded widely.

These lasers that are literally burning out the fiber optic cable. If you hit the

great laser, it's just light. So if you hit the ground at a certain angle, it's going to go inside

the fiber optic cable and it'll burn out the very fragile filament in there. So that's one way of

defeating a fiber optic cable controlled drone. And then of course, you've got the hard kill option.

So you've got like things like air defense missiles, like the Patriot that we keep talking about,

but a Patriot missile is about $4 million a pop. So you don't want to be banging those around

with our flats. If you're up against a $2,000 drone, you've just got a bankrupt yourself. So

what else do you need? It's just a question of getting metal into the sky. So this is why we see

these heavy machine guns mounted on vehicles and point defense are just sort of on the ground.

We see these Gepards, which are German supplied. Gepard is a German capability that was going out

of service. It was brought back in since the false gun invasion. It's basically just a almost like

a tank hull. It's got two, it's got 25 millimeter cannons that just pile a huge amount of shells

into the air in a very short space of time just to bring down drones. And then you've got interceptor

drones. So the most recent innovation is to have smaller drones that then go and either hit

the drones that are coming into attack you or have an explosive charge in them as well. If you think

about it, the drones that are flying along, you don't need to do too much to them to make them

tumble out of the sky. That's what we've seen some examples of nets being fired at them. If you can

wind up the propeller, it's going to collapse. Some drones have had shotguns and missiles on them

as well. But that's all quite technically demanding. So actually, it's just a lot easier to fly a drone

and smash it into the one that's trying to come and attack you. So hence this family of interceptor

drones that we're now seeing. And I think it's interceptor drones that are now said to account for

70% of the sheer heads that are being fired by Russia. So interceptor drones seem to be doing

a lot of the damage. But essentially, it's all about getting as much metal into the air as you

possibly can to bring these things down, although there is still always a place for electronic warfare

as well. But thanks Barry. I have a tangential question. So you talked about the German made

geppard. Am I right in thinking the tanks are the lepards from the Germans? Are they German as well?

Yep. So you know what? I would be really curious to read about one day. I would really like to

read an analysis on how different countries name their weapons and what it says about them

and their relationship to set weapons. Well, that would be a very interesting read. We need to get

a habeish on to it immediately. But in this instance, leopard, L-E-O-P-A-R-D, the geppard is not

just replacing the L with a G. Geppard is G-E-P-A-R-D. So different. So I don't think it comes

in the same place. I think they're probably cousins, we'd say, the whole. Yeah, but they're two

big cats who eat animals, right? I guess so. Yeah. And two big wild cats, and that's how much I

know about zoology. But yeah, no, I'd be really curious to read about that. What does it say?

Stormshadows, Patriots, the French Caesar's, I think. I'd love to read about that.

Well, I mean, our big drones, you had Reaper, and then you had, what else do you have? Predator,

and the latest situation is Protector, because, you know, it sounds a bit too, a bit too sort of,

er, if you have Reaper. We want to be too warm on green with missiles. You want the drone that

kills you to have a nice name, basically. Right, okay. That was in my final thought. My final thought

is a little anecdote that I heard on my trip to Latvia at the beginning of the week. And we'll hear

more about Latvia in the next few weeks. But I've been speaking some really interesting people.

And one anecdote that I heard that I've not actually had time to double check, but I trust the

person who told me that is that if you are arrested in Latvia for driving under the influence,

and you reach a certain level of alcohol in your breath, in your blood, wherever it goes,

your car apparently gets seized by the police and send to Ukraine.

Well, yeah, we've heard things like this, isn't we? Yeah, that's interesting.

Which I thought was a really interesting development in terms of, you know,

police enforcement and also support for not a neighboring country, but a country you're trying

to support militarily. If you drink and drive, you might just get your car seized and it might

get sent to the front line. And I kind of wonder what they do with the very fancy cars that are

probably not helpful on the front line. What happens if they seize a Porsche? You're asking the

wrong person. Never driven a Porsche. Neither have I. But yeah, so anyways, if you are in Latvia and

you've had your car seized, shoot us an email. We'd love to hear what that was like. Yeah,

no, I mean, it's an incentive, isn't it? All right, well, that's it for us today.

Have a good weekend, everyone, and we'll see you all next week. Jack with you.

Thanks, everyone.

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