Russia Reshuffles Defense Leadership as Kharkiv Pressure Builds

Off Leash Update 13 May

Coming Up This Week •Israel celebrates Yom Ha'atzmaut - its Independence Day on the Gregorian calendar - starting at sundown tonight, while Palestinians lament Nakba Day - the annual commemoration of their displacement upon Israel's independence in 1948 - on Wednesday. Both holidays will be especially charged this year as the war in Gaza presses on. •The Cannes Film Festival starts tomorrow, but strikes by freelance festival workers threaten to disrupt the soirée. •Singapore's finance minister and deputy prime minister, Lawrence Wong, will become the city-state's fourth prime minister since independence in 1965. •Next Sunday, the Dominican Republic votes in a general election. •Next Sunday is also the final day of the Premier League season. Arsenal leads Manchester City by just one point. Commodity Prices •Aluminum: $2,530/ton •Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $15,700/ton •Cobalt: $27,830/ton •Copper: $10,004/ton (an almost two-year high due to supply concerns) •Gold: $2,341/toz •Lead: $2,223/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.29/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $78.51/barrel •Zinc: $2,930/ton Gaza •On Friday, the UN General Assembly voted 143-9 to adopt a resolution stating that Palestine qualifies for full membership at the UN. The vote is a symbol of global support for (eventual, theoretical) Palestinian statehood, but bears no real teeth. •Meanwhile, a ceasefire deal for Gaza still seems elusive. Pres. Biden nudged Hamas to release all remaining hostages - saying that if they did then a ceasefire would be possible - but Hamas retorted that they would "consider [that] a setback to the outcomes of the latest round of negotiations." Russia •Pres. Putin demoted his defense minister and longtime ally, Sergei Shoigu, to run the national security council instead of the military. Some analysts had suspected Shoigu was losing Putin's support when Shoigu's close aide was sacked and charged with corruption last month; this move seems to confirm Putin is turning his attention elsewhere (though Shoigu could still have some-to-significant sway over the war as head of the national security council). •Putin appointed a civilian economist, Andrei Belousov, to replace Shoigu as defense minister. A Kremlin spokesman justified the change by pointing to soaring defense spending that requires deft economic management, as well as a need for "innovation." •A former MI6 officer told The Independent that Shoigu's sacking suggests "really quite serious instability right at the heart of this regime," but other analysts believe it merely indicates the Kremlin is returning to a Cold War level of war spending and needs better budgeting to fight the long war Ukraine has turned out to be (which is more consistent with the Kremlin's rationale). •Interestingly, Putin declined the chance to sack his chief of general staff and a frequent critic of the war, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, during the shake-up: the Kremlin said Gerasimov will stay in his post. Ukraine •Russia launched a rapid new offensive into northeast Ukraine (near Kharkiv) on Friday, and Ukraine's top military commander, Gen. Syrsky, acknowledged the situation there "significantly worsened" over the weekend. Local reports suggest Russia has captured more land area per day than at almost any other point in the war. •Ukrainian defensive lines seem to be holding, although some Ukrainian commanders are blaming others: one wrote on Facebook that "the first line of fortifications and mines just didn’t exist." •On a more positive note for Ukraine, new data showed Black Sea grain and oilseed shipments have rebounded to pre-war levels. 1/2