Ukrain's Weekly - predictable steps

What's new in the conflict?
Hacking
Not surprising but still new: According to Ukraine's state security service, Russian hackers found their way into the Ukrainian military IT-System. Shocking! (not really)

As posted here already two weeks ago: Kiev might be able to move their tanks more or less fast from the western part of the country into the East. More difficulties the country definitely has by enhancing their IT-security level. How Russia is going to use the information they gained probably depends on what has been sacked and saved - I doubt anyone will make that public.

Sanctions going on

The European Union extends their sanctions for another six month - not very surprising either.
But in my opinion it is surprising that they did not find any consensus on widening their sanctions. I bet there are more ways on putting pressure than the existing one, which (according to experts and diplomats) already lead to twelve-figure losses on Russian's side since 2014.

The Gathering

As planned: France, Germany, Russia and the Ukraine met on Tuesday. Details stayed behind a curtain of confidentiality. Very sad.
Either the involved parties did not find anything worthy to announce OR (that is what I hope) they just did not want anyone to lose face. But very probably they just have not found anything to build a consensus on - yet.
Interesting fact: Normally the foreign ministers themselves are meeting up for such a format. Tuesday though, only the advisers of each country came together.
Only a scanning how far each party is willing to move before bringing the big fishes into the bowl?

Church splits

(picture: dpa)

Surprising - at least for me since I am not a follower of news from any church:
Ukrainian Orthodox broke with the Russian Church. I did not expect any big church to split during my lifetime but here it comes. It must feel as a relief for many Ukrainians. Finally being on their way to fully independency from Russian authorities.
This seems just to be another predictable step in cutting all existing threads with Russia.


Playground

Meanwhile, Russia keeps playing with the Ukrainian harbours in the Sea of Azov. It is not anymore the fact alone that cargo ships might have to wait for several days before they are allowed to pass through the Kerch Strait.

Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Ship owners and companies need to plan and pay the time the ship is driving - or waiting. Feeling insecure about the whole situation is already enough to fear them off. Very soon Russia does not need to block and check every ship which wants to pass through anymore, since there will be no one approaching the Ukrainian harbours.
The bigger harbour which is located in Mariupol hast 18 berth. You can imagine what that means for the city - one of their biggest source of income - is going to perish.