Heading towards World War III?

Dozens of civilians have been evacuated from Mariupol to both Russia-controlled and Ukraine-controlled territory after weeks under siege.

Some have left the Azovstal steelworks, the last hold-out of Ukrainian troops in the strategically significant city.

Russia said dozens of civilians have arrived in a village it controls.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a large group is also on its way to Zaporizhzhia, which Ukraine maintains control of.

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61292951

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that it struck a supply of foreign weapons at a military airfield near the Black Sea port of Odessa in Ukraine.

Supersonic Oniks missiles destroyed a hangar with “weapons and ammunition received from the US and European states,” Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov told a daily press briefing. He added that a runway was destroyed as well.

The ministry also released a video of what it said was the missile launch. It wasn’t immediately clear when exactly it took place, but the Odessa region's governor, Maxim Marchenko, claimed on Saturday that a Russian “Bastion missile, launched from Crimea,” destroyed the runway at a newly constructed Odessa airport.

Konashenkov also told the briefing that seven Ukrainian military targets were hit by airstrikes, including two S-300 air defense missile batteries near the cities of Zaporozhye and Artemovsk.

www.rt.com/russia/554814-russia-oniks-missile-odessa

Budapest was informed of the Russian attack in advance and hoped to seize a part of Ukraine’s territory for itself, a top official of the government in Kiev claimed on Monday, adding there will be “consequences” for Hungary. This statement comes after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was added to the database listing enemies of the Ukrainian state.

Hungary “openly talks about its cooperation with Russia. More than that, it was given early warning by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that our country would be attacked,” Alexey Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), said during a media appearance on Monday. He was answering a question about whether Hungary could block Ukraine’s admission to NATO.

Hungary “thought it could take part of the territory,” Danilov added. “This will never happen. Victory will definitely be ours. And about Hungary, which behaved this way, we will see what the consequences will be for this country.”

This was presumably a reference to Transcarpathia – a region in western Ukraine with some 150,000 ethnic Hungarian inhabitants – that had been a matter of dispute between Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Soviet Union over the course of the 20th century.

Earlier on Monday, it emerged that Hungary’s recently re-elected PM was added to Mirotvorets, (‘Peacemaker’) the notorious online database maintained to blacklist people considered enemies of Ukraine, some of whom have been murdered after being listed there. The website labels Orban “an accomplice of Russian war criminals” and an “anti-Ukrainian propagandist.”

Though Hungary is a member of both the EU and NATO, Orban has refused to send weapons to Ukraine or allow the transit of such shipments through his country’s territory. Budapest has also opposed an oil and gas embargo against Moscow.

On Monday, the German outlet ZDF reported that Hungary had “moved away” from its veto on the matter, and that EU oil sanctions against Russia were forthcoming. Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs denied the reporting, however, saying that Budapest’s stance on oil and gas sanctions “remains unchanged: We do not support them.”

In addition to making allegations and apparent threats against Hungary, Danilov also said that Kiev has no plans for another round of mobilization, and that Ukraine does not intend to sign any kind of peace treaty with Moscow, but will only accept a Russian surrender.

www.rt.com/russia/554878-ukraine-hungary-danilov-warning

The head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, has told RT that his team is making progress in a criminal probe into Ukraine’s alleged Pentagon-funded bioweapons program.

“The analysis of the obtained documents allowed us to clearly identify the people involved in the military biological activities in Ukraine, including representatives of the US Department of Defense and American companies with ties to it,” Bastrykin said.

He added that the US had spent more than $224 million on biological programs in Ukraine since 2005. The investigator added that foreign aid was used to equip and upgrade around 30 research centers governed by Ukraine’s defense, health and agricultural ministries.

“The results of said research had been evacuated to Kiev-controlled territory before the start of [Russia’s] special military operation,” Bastrykin said, adding that his agency would continue to study the documents on the matter.

www.rt.com/russia/554898-russia-investiagtes-ukraine-biolabs

The European Union, this week, announced ambitious proposals to embargo the importation of Russian oil by the end of 2022. After teeth-pulling negotiations which have been met with strident objections from several member states, including Hungary and Slovakia, and public doubt over the impact of such measures, its Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyden declared that these measures would be gradually implemented throughout the course of the year.

This didn’t reassure markets, with crude oil prices quickly rising above $114 per barrel as of Friday morning, and Moscow officials predicting that the bloc would still be buying Russian oil via third countries and intermediaries, a strategy that has allegedly been utilized by Iran under tough American sanctions.

Despite marketing the measures as tough, for multiple reasons the EU is set to be the biggest loser of such an effort. The proposed embargo reveals a huge strategic vulnerability in its “energy security” – the ability of a state, or group of states, to secure access to energy resources when they are not capable of producing enough of their own. When you consider how many wars have been fought by the West purely over access to oil supplies, including two in Iraq, this is a big deal.

For the EU, cutting off oil dependency continues to be a difficult step which will exacerbate already surging energy costs and inflation across the continent. How will the bloc find new supplies? And if so, surely relying more on other partners will bring new dangers?

www.rt.com/news/555073-eu-destroy-energy-security

Germany will be battered with a wave of bankruptcies due to Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia, according to Commerzbank Chief Executive Officer Manfred Knof.

“The energy supply in Germany is at risk, supply chains are breaking down, we have high inflation,” Knof was quoted by the Handelsblatt daily as saying.

According to the executive, almost a third of Germany’s foreign trade has been impacted, forcing companies to navigate complex issues with customers, including surging commodity prices and supply-chain bottlenecks.

“We shouldn’t delude ourselves: the number of insolvencies in our markets will probably increase and the risk provisions of the banks with it,” Knof said.

On Friday, top EU diplomat Josep Borrell said the bloc’s foreign ministers will meet next week should member states fail to reach an agreement by the weekend on banning Russian oil.

Brussels unveiled plans for a Russian oil embargo earlier this week. The measure is expected to come into force within nine months, with the timeframe varying for different petroleum products.

Several EU nations including Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are seeking an exemption from the ban.

www.rt.com/business/555141-germany-bankruptcy-russia-sanctions-commerzbank

German energy giants like Uniper are planning to comply with Putin's demand to pay for Russian gas in roubles. Palki Sharma tells you how the EU has created a convenient loophole for companies to violate their sanctions.

Russian gas conglomerate Gazprom has received no confirmation of force majeure or any obstacles to continued transit of gas through a junction in Lugansk Region, the company said on Tuesday, after Ukraine’s operator OGTSU announced it would halt further deliveries starting May 11, due to the presence of “Russian occupiers.”

Gas Transit Services of Ukraine (OGTSU) declared force majeure on Tuesday, saying that it was impossible to continue the transit of gas through a connection point and compressor station located in the Lugansk area. As OGTSU personnel “cannot carry out operational and technological control” over the Sokhranovka connector point and Novopskov compressor station, the company cannot continue to fulfill its contract obligations, it said.

Gas from this connection will not be accepted into the transit system of Ukraine starting at 7 am on Wednesday, OGTSU said. Sokhrankovka accounts for almost a third of the Russian gas that transits through Ukraine to Europe – up to 32.6 million cubic meters per day – according to the operators.

Gazprom has received no confirmation of force majeure or disruption of operations at Sokhranovka or Novopskov, company spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov said on Tuesday. He added that Ukrainian specialists have had full access to both facilities all along, and there had been no complaints about it previously.

www.rt.com/russia/555265-gazprom-gas-ukraine-europe

Russia's oil export revenue has jumped some 50% since the beginning of 2022, Bloomberg reports, citing data from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

According to the agency’s monthly market report, Moscow has earned some $20 billion each month this year from sales of crude oil and oil-related products.

The earnings growth came despite Western sanctions over Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. As part of these penalties, the US banned all Russian oil imports, the EU and UK announced plans to scrap all purchases of Russian crude by the end of the year, and international oil giants such as Shell and TotalEnergies vowed to stop buying oil from the country.

However, according to the IEA, Russian shipments have only increased – by some 620,000 barrels per day compared to March to 8.1 million in April, returning to their average before the Ukraine crisis and the ensuing sanctions. Due to increased demand, more shipments were directed toward Asia, with China and India claiming supplies that were previously destined to go elsewhere, according to the agency. In addition the EU, despite its stance, has so far remained the largest market for Russian fuel with 43% of the country’s oil exports going to the bloc in April, the IEA said.

www.rt.com/business/555418-russia-oil-revenues-soar

Ukraine told troops besieged by Russian forces in Mariupol that help was on its way, while making no actual attempts to end the blockade of the city, the commander of the country's 36th Naval Infantry Brigade has told RT.

Colonel Vladimir Baranyuk and his unit were tasked with guarding the northern outskirts of Mariupol, a strategic port city in the southeast of Ukraine, amid the Russian military operation in the country.

He was even awarded the Hero of Ukraine honor for his “courage and effective actions in repelling enemy attacks,” with Kiev asserting that the colonel and the other defenders of Mariupol would never surrender.

But as the Russian forces kept gaining ground, Baranyuk ended up surrendering peacefully after being captured during a failed attempt to flee the city.

He was apprehended hiding in the fields together with a number of his men a few kilometers north of Mariupol.

The commander of the marines now says the Ukrainian government lied to him and his troops in order to keep them fighting.

“Kiev told us to hold on, [saying] that the units that will lift the blockade are coming, they’ll soon be here,” Baranyuk told RT.

The promise was made despite President Volodymyr Zelensky’s adviser, Alexey Arestovich, openly acknowledging in interviews that Kiev “won’t be able to save” its forces in Mariupol.

“We were promised certain help. Naturally, this help didn’t arrive. And this pushed us to come out,” the colonel said, explaining his decision to flee.

It was “painful” for the troops when they realized that they had been left for dead, but “everybody, including myself, understood it,” Baranyuk added.

www.rt.com/russia/555139-ukraine-mariupol-surrender-baranyuk

The US-made Javelin anti-tank systems have been praised for their effectiveness by Washington officials and have been turned by Western Media into a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance in the conflict with Russia. But a commander of the Ukrainian marines, who ended up being captured during the fighting for Mariupol, has revealed to RT that the hardware doesn't really live up to the claims.

“The Javelins didn’t prove useful, especially in urban warfare,” Colonel Vladimir Baranyuk, the commander of Ukraine’s 36th Naval Infantry Brigade, said.

“We couldn't even launch one. I think it's completely useless in an urban environment, as something always gets in the way,” he explained.

Baranyuk's unit was also armed with Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapons (NLAWs), supplied by Britain, but these also had their flaws, according to the officer.

“As for the NLAW missile launchers, well, we used them more often than the Javelins, but it has its own issue with the battery draining in cold conditions, making it impossible to launch,” he said.

Shoulder-fired Javelin missiles are equipped with infrared guidance and are said to be adopt a “top attack” trajectory to strike the roof of a tank, which is its most vulnerable part. Just like NLAWs, they're a “fire-and-forget” weapon, meaning that the missile guides itself to its target.

More than 5,000 Javelins have been supplied to Kiev by Washington. Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri said last week that it accounted for a third of the US stockpile of those systems. London, for its part, has already armed the Ukrainian military with over 4,000 NLAWs and other anti-tank missiles.

www.rt.com/news/555144-ukraine-javelin-nlaw-mariupol