On Monday, May 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy opened the World Economic Forum, where business leaders and government officials will focus on economic disruption caused by the war. The Red Cross is keeping the list of Mariupol defenders, now Russia’s prisoners of war, confidential. British intelligence has compared Russian troop losses in Ukraine to those the Soviet Union suffered in Afghanistan, Ukrainian public broadcaster Ukrinform and UK’s BBC report.
According to American military institute The Study of War, Russian occupation forces in Ukraine continue to focus on the Donbas offensive, where it has reached some small territorial gains. The institute and the Ukrainian Armed Forces pointed to an increase in surveillance activity in southern Ukraine and evaluated that a renewed offensive there could follow.
Russia’s three month invasion and atrocities in Ukraine continue to cause global economic disruption and threaten a food crisis in the Middle East and Africa. Rejecting continued energy imports from the aggressor state, has changed Europe’s use, cost and suppliers of energy resources. All these issues will be high on the agenda of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has delivered the opening speech at the event via video link from Ukraine.
Fate of Mariupol defenders monitored by Red Cross
Ukrinform reports that the International Committee of the Red Cross has stated that any information on the number and personal data of Ukrainian service members, who surrendered to Russian forces from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol under humanitarian surveillance, will remain confidential and will not be made public.
«This information is confidential. Our priority is to verify the conditions under which the prisoners of war are held and their treatment, to prevent disappearance and to maintain their family contact. But we will not share publicly the lists or names of people we visited, or those who we visit in the future,» Mirella Hodeib, spokeswoman for the organization, said responding to a question about the number of the Azovstal evacuees.
Hodeib added that the registration of prisoners of war by the Red Cross allowed them to feel protected at least from the risk of disappearing without a trace.
Ukraine invasion turning into another Afghanistan to Moscow
The British Defence Ministry has likened the death toll of Russian troops in Ukraine in the first three months of the current war to the number of fallen soldiers in the Soviet-Afghan War, which lasted for over nine years.
In the 1979-89 conflict, the Soviet Union lost around 15 000 to 20 000 troops and lost the war.
British intelligence evaluated that the high casualty rate – suffered in the current Donbas offensive – can be explained by a combination of poor low-level tactics, limited air cover, lack of flexibility and «a command approach which is prepared to reinforce failure», BBC reports.