Sunday 13 March 2022: 8:00 PM

WALL STREET JOURNAL (3/13/22)

• Prosecutors in Russia are warning that they may arrest corporate leaders who stay in Russia and criticize the government.  They are also warning that they may seize assets of companies that withdraw from the country.

EUROMAIDAN PRESS

• Following previous reports that mercenaries from Russian private military companies are deployed in Ukraine, are reports that the Russians are recruiting Middle Eastern mercenaries.
• Russian soldiers are being treated in Belarus.  There are not enough blood supplies for surgery.  Reserves of blood accumulated for the citizens are being used.  There is a campaign to collect blood from the citizens.
• In a video of a Russian deserter, he claims that the Russians hae established “shooting squads” to shoot deserters.  He also related that 600 Russian marines refused to land from their ship near Odesa.
• A similar story is reported from Kherson Oblast, where 80 Russian marines refused to participate in the war.
• There are reports of Russian commanders being appointed over Belarusian soldiers who are resistant to go to war against Ukrainians.
• Putin has publicly welcomed the recruitment of 16,000 mostly Middle Eastern volunteers. 
• Defense Intelligence of Ukraine is reporting that the Russian army has legalized looting.  Troops have been instructed to “move to ‘self-sufficienty” if they are out of supplies.  “…to take away everyting necessary from the local population and to rob warehouses, shops, drugstores.”
• According to the local Zaporizhzhia Miitary Administration, Rusian troops looted a humanitarian convoy headed to Mariupol on March 12.  “As each checkpoint, the invaders were forcibly seizing food, clothing, hygiene products.”
• The mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, has been kidnapped and is reportedly being tortured.  The occupiers have evidently found a replacement for him,  a local MP from a pro-Russian Opposition Party for Life.  This woman had posted a video urging people to “adjust to the new reality” and “not destabilize the situation and not participate in extremist activities.”
• On March 13, occupiers kidnapped the mayor of Dniprorudnyi, Yevhen Matveyev.  A journalist, Oleh Baturin is also feared kidnapped in Kherson.
• March 11, during an evacuation from Peremoha (Kyiv Oblast) Russian forces fired on a column of women and children (Defense Intelligence of Ukraine).
• Russia’s Foreign Ministry Second European Department Director Sergei Belyayev has said that Finland and Sweden’s possible accession to NATO would have serious military consequences.