According to a new report from the Ukrainian media outlet known as The Kyiv Independent, Ukraine’s “State Investigations Bureau says it seized 10 Russian ships worth over $34 million. The Bureau blocked eight Russian cargo ships and two tankers from leaving Ukraine. According to Ukrainian law, the state can seize Russian property without compensation.” A report made last Thursday (meaning April 7) by the Ukrainian government information source called Ukrinform stated, based on revelations from Odesa-area Governor Maksym Marchenko, that “Russian ships currently being repaired at the Izmail shipyard will soon be forcibly seized in favor of Ukraine.” It’s not immediately clear whether these are the same ships.
⚡️ State Investigations Bureau says it seized 10 Russian ships worth over $34 million.
The Bureau blocked eight Russian cargo ships and two tankers from leaving Ukraine. According to Ukrainian law, the state can seize Russian property without compensation.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 12, 2022
A direct quote from Marchenko shared in that Thursday report from Ukrinform said: “As for the Russian-flagged ships, which are currently at the shipyard in the city of Izmail, the Cabinet of Ministers will soon decide to forcibly seize these ships in favor of Ukraine.” The reported seizures unfolded amid a worldwide effort to target economic assets tied to the Putin regime in response to the Russian government’s recently launched invasion of Ukraine, which has already culminated in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian civilians and untold levels of destruction across the country. Recently, the U.S. government made its apparent first seizure of a pricey Russian oligarch-owned yacht in connection to the war in Ukraine, taking a high-dollar vessel owned by Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg under federal control. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland recently stated that, on the same day as the seizure of Vekselberg’s yacht, U.S. authorities “obtained seizure warrants targeting the assets of several additional sanctioned Russian nationals.”
⚡️ Russian forces kill over 400 civilians during occupation of Bucha.
According to the head of Kyiv Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Pavliuk, new bodies have been discovered each day since the liberation of Bucha from the Russian troops on April 1.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 12, 2022
It wasn’t immediately clear which sanctioned Russians were the subjects of these warrants; Garland made those remarks last Wednesday, on April 6. In the meantime, in Switzerland alone, national authorities recently revealed that they had frozen over $6 billion worth of Russian assets of various forms. (Those details emerged in late March.) Although Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, it has adopted the union’s sanctions in relation to the war in Ukraine. In addition, Garland recently said that the U.S. Justice Department would further its involvement in attempting to hold those who have perpetrated war crimes in Ukraine accountable. “This Department has a long history of helping to hold accountable those who perpetrate war crimes,” the Attorney General remarked. “One of my predecessors — Attorney General Robert Jackson — later served as the chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. Today, we are assisting international efforts to identify and hold accountable those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine. And we will continue to do so.”
Over 440,000 square meters, or 20% of all warehouses, logistics property in Kyiv Oblast have been destroyed by the Russian attacks.
Source: Estimation by Fedor Arbuzov, head of office and logistic property department at Retail & Development Advisor company.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 12, 2022
As the conflict in Ukraine continues, the death toll in the long-targeted Ukrainian city of Mariupol alone has surpassed 10,000, according to the city’s mayor. Large numbers of residents — apparently over 100,000 — remain trapped inside that city amid relentless Russian attacks and losses of access to needs like running water. Despite recent exits of Russian ground troops from areas including the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, after resolute defenses from Ukrainian personnel, Russian forces are further focusing their violence in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine, including Mariupol.
⚡️ CNN: Large Russian military column spotted heading to Donbas.
CNN geolocated a video showing a group of Russian military vehicles near Russia’s Matveev Kurgan, a settlement in the Rostov region.
The vehicles were seen facing northwest, in the direction of Ukraine’s Donbas.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 12, 2022
