From Free West Media:

Germany, too, has run its own military-biological program in Ukraine, according to Russia’s permanent representative at the UN office in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov.

The purpose of the program was to investigate the potential of deadly diseases, such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, under conditions in Eastern Europe. The German Tropical Institute and the Friedrich Löffler Institute for Animal Health are said to have been on board. Documents prove that, said the diplomat.

According to Gatilov, the project was funded by the German Foreign Ministry and the German Armed Forces. The public knew nothing about it. At the plenary session of the Disarmament Conference in Geneva on March 31, 2022, the diplomat demanded that this, like the programs of the US, needs to be investigated. Gatilov mentioned that in addition to Georgia and Great Britain, Germany is also outsourcing parts of its biological weapons research to Ukraine.

Fleetmon.com:

Apr 14 1200 UTC UPDATE: According to Russian official statements issued by MoD, MOSKVA is still afloat, attempts to tow cruiser to Naval base in Crimea are under way. All crew evacuated to other Navy ships, says MoD. Ukraine insists cruiser sank or sinking. A post in social nets, posted obviously, by seaman, claims 54 MOSKVA crew were rescued by nearby Turkish tanker (there is Turkish tanker nearby, according to AIS data). A mess of information, misinformation and disinformation, of truth and fakes.

From NDTV.com:

The political experts on Russian state television have called for a regime change in the United States amid Democratic President Joe Biden’s support for Ukraine. The issue was taken up during a discussion on a programme hosted by Evgeny Popov last week.

According to The Daily Beast, Popov declared that time has come “again to help our partner Trump to become President”.

Political scientist Malek Dudakov, who was also present in the programme, suggested that Donald Trump should be invited to Mariupol once Russia wins the city, the report further said.

Dudakov further said that Russia’s interference in 2024 US elections is still in its early stages, and that more will be achieved after the war is over. “When things thaw out and the presidential race for 2024 is firmly on the agenda, there’ll be moments we can use,” he added, reported The Beast.

Dmitry Drobnitsky, another political scientist who specialises in the US, pitched for Tulsi Gabbard. “Maybe Trump will take her as vice president?” The Beast report said.

Trump has so far not criticised Putin for attacking Ukraine. In an interview to Washington Examiner last month, he said the Russian leader was “only trying to negotiate” when he sent troops to Ukrainian border and that he was surprised that Russia actually invaded its neighbour.

Indian Express liveblog:

Russian companies, global banks could reap windfall from depositary receipt delisting Russian companies and global banks including BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and JPMorgan could profit if Moscow moves to de-list Russian companies’ depositary receipts from foreign exchanges, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The potential windfall is due to the fees that bank issuers of depositary receipts can contractually charge investors when they cancel the product.

It is unclear how much companies and banks could make or if banks will charge the fees and risk angering investors who say it would be unfair given the extraordinary circumstances which have been triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, the fees could potentially translate into hundreds of millions of dollars according to Reuters’ calculations based on fee data provided by the sources.

From the Strait Times:

“It’s a city within a city,” said Mr Eduard Basurin, a representative for pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donetsk region.

“There are several underground levels that date back to Soviet times which you can’t bombard from above. You have to go underground to clean them out, and that will take time.”

Entering the tunnels would be all but impossible for Russian troops, according to Mr Alexander Grinberg, analyst at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

“They can try, but they’ll be slaughtered because the defenders of the tunnel will absolutely have the tactical upper hand,” he told Agence France-Presse……

The Viet Cong made the vast Cu Chi tunnel system near Saigon a base for attacks against United States troops and Hamas has used tunnels in their fight against the Israeli army.

The Islamic State group’s tunnel system in Mosul, Iraq, allowed its fighters to surprise American troops with sudden appearances seemingly out of nowhere.

But the most memorable example dates back to World War II and the battle of Stalingrad with its fierce fighting in the Red October industrial complex……

 

The astute use of tunnels has lost none of its effectiveness in the 80 years since, rendering enemy artillery, air strikes and snipers virtually useless.

Satellite surveillance is also of limited use against combatants hiding below ground, as is technical intelligence, the spying on enemy weapons.

However, as analysts point out, the underground system works only if the network is vast and fighters have enough ammunition, food and water, which requires meticulous advance planning.

Soldiers deployed underground also need extremely good training to be operational in this unusual combat environment, said Mr James Rands at British defence intelligence specialists Janes.

From Tass.com:

 Ukraine’s current regime apparently hopes that its proposal for exchanging the leader of the Opposition Platform – For Life party, Viktor Mevdedchuk, will help secure the release of the high-ranking foreign military specialists, who according to certain evidence, are trapped on the premises of the iron and steel works Azovstal in Mariupol, the deputy director of the CIS Countries Institute, Vladimir Zharikhin, told TASS on Wednesday.

The analyst doubts that the real purpose of Kiev’s proposal for exchanging Medvedchuk for all remaining militants of the Azov battalion is to save small fry.

“All this fuss is not about the rank-and-file, who in fact have already been written off. In focus there are very concrete people. The attempts to evacuate them have already resulted in the loss of eight helicopters. Four ships were dispatched to Mariupol for the same purpose to no avail. Lastly, there was a breakout attempt, in which the encircled group sustained heavy casualties. Apparently, Medvedchuk, or the person whom they present as Medvedchuk, is their last attempt to achieve the release of the high-ranking foreign nationals. May they say first who are the ones they want to be exchanged,” Zharikhin said.

He speculated that if the man proposed for an exchange is really Medvedchuk, then the Ukrainian special services might have seized him a long time ago and kept in custody just in case, as the last resort.

“Now it’s precisely this type of extreme situation. The question arises who are these very important people for whose sake they (the Ukrainian authorities – TASS) are ready to use their last resource,” Zharikhin wonders.

DPR and Russian troops have intercepted radio communications in at least 6 European languages that indicate that officers, of at least the rank of colonel, from different NATO member states are trapped within Azovstal. This raises serious issues. It is one thing to advise the Ukrainian military in peace-time. It is another thing to be a combatant in war. That violates the NATO charter in several ways, as other members were not informed. Their last chance of being exfiltrated was over on April 5 and now it is only a matter of waiting for the operation to end, probably in a couple of days.

There are said to be 3000 nationalists and Ukrainian armed forces, as well as scientists working in the biolabs, in addition to high-ranking officers from US, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Greece, Turkey and Italy.

Indian External Affairs Minister rebukes the US for worrying about Indian oil purchases from Russia when that amounts to a drop in the bucket next to the EU’s, in a soft-spoken put-down of the US criticism of India for its non-aligned stance on Ukraine. The EAM points out that India is providing humanitarian aid and is willing to do whatever else needed to stop the violence, including mediation.

Global Times:

A fleet of six Y-20 cargo planes of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force was reportedly spotted in Serbia on Saturday, with observers saying on Sunday that it could be the largest overseas operation by the Chinese domestically developed large transport plane yet, displaying the country’s strategic transport capabilities.

Citing commercial flight trackers, US news website thedrive.com reported on Saturday that the six Y-20 aircraft were first spotted heading west in Turkish airspace late Friday night, and later local residents took photos of the Y-20s, which allegedly landed in Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade, Serbia. The aircraft later flew over the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey again on their way back to China.

China has not made an official announcement about the mission as of press time, but the Global Times learned that the Y-20s indeed have carried out such a flight.

A whopping six Y-20 large transport aircraft could mark an unprecedented overseas operation, Chinese military observers said.”

The PLA planes were carrying HQ 22 surface-to-air missile systems for the Serbian military, as agreed upon 3 years ago, the Serbs confirmed. The delivery was made through the airspace of at least two other NATO states, Bulgaria and Turkey. The US has warned Serbia against using any military equipment not aligned with the West, as long as it wants to be a part of any Western alliance. There are fears in the West that armed with Chinese and Russian equipment, Serbia may reclaim Kosovo, whose statehood is not recognized by Serbia, China, or Russia.

From Global News, Canada:

“There will be an offensive … not only on Mariupol, but also on other places, cities and villages,” [Lila: Ramzan] Kadyrov said in a video posted on his Telegram channel.

“Luhansk and Donetsk – we will fully liberate in the first place … and then take Kyiv and all other cities.”