Fighters of the “Wagner” group advanced further into the center of Bakhmut and captured the city administration building of Bakhmut on the night of 2 April. The financier Yevgeny Prigozhin raised a Russian flag with an inscription in memory of the murdered war correspondent Maxim Fomin (alias Vladlen Tatarsky) in front of the city administration building of Bakhmut on the night of April 2. He claims that “Wagner” controls Bakhmut, although Ukrainian troops remain in the western part of the city.
So begins the Institute for the Study of War’s (ISW) new analysis of the past day.
Wagner is likely to continue his attempts to consolidate control over central Bakhmut and will try to push west through dense urban areas towards Thunder.
Russian authorities blame Ukrainian government structures and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny about the murder of Fomin. Russia’s National Counter-Terrorism Committee alleged that Ukrainian special services cooperated with the Anti-Corruption Fund, which Navalny founded in 2011, to plan the attack on Fomin.
ISW: Kill Vladlen Tatarsky – Kyiv or Moscow
The first such killing in Russia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Ukrainian government may be behind Fomin’s death and claims that Ukraine has killed others since 2014, such as Daria Duginawhich Peskov falsely used as a justification for the “special military operation”.
The Russian Investigative Committee reclassifies the case as a terrorist attack and claimsthat it is planned on Ukrainian territory.
Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) confirmed that the sculpture handed over to Fomin before his death, contained hidden explosives.
The Russian Investigative Committee confirmed on April 3 that the Russian authorities detained Daria Trepova in an apartment in St. Petersburg on suspicion of the attack.
Authorities released an excerpt from their interrogation of Trepova, in which Trepova stated that the authorities questioned her about the handing over of a statuette of Fomin, but she did not answer on camera whether she knew the item contained explosives.
Restored
A woman was arrested for the blast that killed a Russian military blogger in St. Petersburg
At least 32 people were injured in the attack
The many versions showed the lack of consensus among official Russians sources regarding Trepova’s involvement or connection with Ukrainian special services or Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church patriarch Cyril, for example, links the murder of Fomin to the ongoing conflict around the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, although there is no obvious connection between the two incidents.
The lack of a coherent narrative in the pro-Russian media space is reminiscent of the responses to Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast in the fall of 2022, when the Kremlin’s propaganda machine initially failed to define a rhetorical line to respond to the massive Ukrainian gains and provoked a media space a breakdown that manifested itself in heterogeneous reactions throughout the pro-war community.
Russian security services reportedly continue to confiscate the passports of senior officials and executives of state-owned companies to restrict flights from Russia. The Financial Times reported on April 2 that Russian security services seek to prevent senior officials, former officials and heads of state-owned companies to travel abroad, indicating that the Kremlin continues to fear that elites will flee Russia.
The Current Time TV and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty investigative project Sistema reported on March 10 that Russian security officials told government officials and employees of state-owned companies to surrender their passports under threat of forcible confiscation of passports of a person or forced resignation.
Deputy of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Pavel suspected in two criminal cases
The holy monastery is cordoned off by the police
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on April 3 decree on the creation of a state support fund of military personnel serving in Ukraine and their families.
The decree includes all personnel who have served in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions since February 24, 2022, and in the occupied Kherson and Zaporozhye regions since September 20, 2022. Russian sources said the management of the fund will include the first deputy head of the Russian presidential administration Sergey Kiriyenko as Chairman of the Supervisory Board and the wife of the head of the Kemerovo region, Anna Tsivileva, as the chairman of the fund.
A Russian blogger criticized this leadership lineup, claiming that Putin appointed Tsivileva to head the fund because she is also cousin of Putin and head of the Kolmar Groupa major coal mining company.
Russian authorities continue to struggle with domestic resistance to the war in Ukraine. Russian sources reported at least four cases of alleged sabotage against Russian railways and attempted arson of military registration and recruitment offices in Russia on April 1 and 2.
Suspected Ukrainian guerrillas attacked a former Russian occupation official with an improvised explosive device in Melitopol, Zaporozhye region, on April 3. Official Ukrainian sources reported that a car carrying Maxim Zubarev, former occupation leader of Yakimovka (15 km southwest of Melitopol), exploded in the center of Melitopol on 3 April.
The Russian occupation authorities claimed that unknown terrorists carried out the attack and that Zubarev is in serious condition.
The member of the Occupation Administrative Council of Zaporozhye Vladimir Rogov stated that Melitopol has become a center for terrorist activity in Novorossia and advocated the reinstatement of the death penalty to specifically target “terrorist” activities in the occupied territories.
On April 3, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a package of eight laws to establish courts in the occupied territories. The laws establish regional and arbitration courts in the occupied territories and determine the procedure for selecting the initial composition of the courts. The new laws come into effect on April 20.
