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Ukraine Invasion Day 1,104: No Nobel Peace Prize for You, Mister Krasnov! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-02
Russia dedicated staggering amounts of manpower and equipment to several major offensive efforts in Ukraine in 2024, intending to degrade Ukrainian defenses and seize the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. These Russian efforts included major operations in the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast area, Avdiivka, Chasiv Yar, northern Kharkiv Oblast, Toretsk, Marinka-Kurakhove, Pokrovsk, and Vuhledar-Velyka Novosilka. Russia has achieved relatively faster gains in 2024 than throughout most of the war after the initial invasion and developed a blueprint for conducting slow, tactical envelopments to achieve these advances, but Russian forces have failed to restore the operational maneuver necessary to achieve operationally significant gains rapidly. Russia has thus paid an exorbitant price in manpower and equipment losses that Russia cannot sustain in the medium term for very limited gains.
Russian forces conducted a series of drone strikes against Ukraine on the night of March 1 to 2. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched 79 Shahed and decoy drones from the directions of Oryol and Bryansk cities; Millerovo, Rostov Oblast; and Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai on the night of March 1 to 2. [80] The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Ukrainian forces shot down 63 drones over Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts and that 16 decoy drones were "lost," likely due to Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) interference. Ukrainian officials stated that Russian drones struck Kharkiv, Sumy, Khmelnytskyi, and Zaporizhia oblasts. [81]
Russian forces conducted a series of missile strikes against Odesa Oblast on March 1 targeting port infrastructure and civilian shipping. Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces hit Odesa City with an unspecified ballistic missile on March 1, damaging port infrastructure, a Panama-flagged civilian container ship, and a Sierra Leone-flagged vessel transporting over 21,000 tons of corn and soybeans for export. [78] Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister for the Reconstruction of Ukraine Oleksiy Kuleba noted on March 2 that this is the 29th civilian ship that has sustained damage from Russian strikes, presumably since the start of the full-scale invasion. [79]
Recent Russian official statements in response to the proposed US-Ukraine mineral deal indicate that the Kremlin is trying to sabotage the deal through narratives targeting Ukrainian and American audiences. The Kremlin is claiming that this mineral deal does not benefit Ukraine while also claiming that Russia can make a better offer to the United States, indicating that Moscow sees the deal as harmful to its objectives. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded on February 23 to a question about the US-Ukraine mineral deal and whether US pressure would push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to "finally sell out all of Ukraine," including Russia's illegally annexed territories in Ukraine. [1] Peskov claimed that the people in occupied Ukraine decided "long ago" that they wanted to join Russia so "no one will ever sell off these territories" — implying that Zelensky may "sell out" other areas of Ukraine. Russian state television evening news program Vesti claimed on February 24 that the United States is "blackmailing" Ukraine with the mineral deal. [2]
understandingwar.org/...
Kremlin officials are also trying to prevent the United States and Ukraine from concluding a mineral deal by making competing offers. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to Kremlin journalist Pavel Zarubin on February 24 that Russia has an "order of magnitude" more rare earth materials than Ukraine and stated that Russia can cooperate with both the US government and US companies in capital investment projects for rare earth materials. [4] Putin referred to mineral reserves both within Russia and within occupied Ukraine in his attempts to appeal to the United States to invest in "Russian" rare earth minerals (claiming minerals in occupied Ukraine as Russia's own). Putin also offered to conclude deals with the United States on the supply of Russian aluminum. CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and newly appointed Special Presidential Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries Kirill Dmitriev told CNN on February 24 that Russia is open to economic cooperation with the United States, that the first stage of cooperation would be in the energy sphere, and that such cooperation is key for a "more resilient global economy." [5]
Russian state media is delaying coverage of select Kremlin statements in order to exploit changing dynamics in the US-Ukrainian relationship and drive wedges between Ukraine and the United States. Zarubin and Russian state media outlets TASS and RIA Novosti amplified on March 2 a previous statement from Peskov about the US decision on February 24 to vote alongside Russia against a Ukrainian- and European-backed UN resolution that recognized Russia as the aggressor in the war. [6] Peskov claimed on February 26 that the Trump administration is "rapidly changing" all of its foreign policies in ways that "largely coincide with [Russia's] vision," but TASS, RIA Novosti, and Zarubin only reported Peskov's statements on March 2. [7] Russian state media headlines on March 2 deliberately misrepresented Peskov's statements such that they appeared to be in response to the February 28 meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. [8]
understandingwar.org/...
The Kremlin has a vested interest in preventing the United States and Ukraine from signing a mineral deal, as the deal will commit the United States to a long-term investment in Ukraine and Ukraine's sovereignty. The Kremlin is investing significant time and effort into undermining and misrepresenting the US-Ukrainian mineral deal, indicating that the Kremlin views the deal as an impediment to accomplishing Russian President Vladimir Putin's objectives in Ukraine. [9] The mineral deal, even one that does not include text about an American security guarantees for Ukraine, will represent a long-term US economic investment in Ukraine and could be a building block towards additional US assistance or military sales to Ukraine in the future, as US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent observed in an interview to CBS on March 2. [10] Any agreement that ties the United States to an independent and sovereign Ukraine is contrary to Russia's long-term goals of isolating and conquering Ukraine. Putin likely assesses that preventing the US-Ukrainian mineral deal is a necessary step towards pushing the United States into stopping military assistance to Ukraine and abandoning Ukraine altogether. Putin's articulated theory of victory in Ukraine — which assumes that Russia can continue slow, gradual advances in exchange for significant personnel and materiel losses — rests on the assumption that Russia can outlast and overcome US and European security assistance to Ukraine and Ukrainian efforts to mobilize its economy and population to support its defense. [11] Putin is likely attempting to undermine the US-Ukrainian mineral deal in order to prevent deepening US-Ukraine ties in the hope that Russia will be able to destroy or extract significant territorial concessions from Ukraine during future negotiations before Russia's own wartime economic and force generation issues begin to significantly impede Russia ability to advance on the battlefield in 2025 and beyond. [12]
understandingwar.org/...
"The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely coincides with our vision," - Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov
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