7 Things to Know

1. Within the past week, two high-ranking U.S. officials have acknowledged that Russia has rebuilt its conventional forces conducting operations in Ukraine sooner than America expected. First, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on April 3 that “over the course of the last couple of months … Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily,” with its newfound capabilities used to not only attack in Ukraine, but also to pose “a longer-term challenge” to stability in Europe and a threat to NATO. Then EUCOM chief Christopher Cavoli told the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 11 that “Russia is reconstituting that force far faster than our initial estimates suggested.” “The army is actually now larger—by 15%—than it was when it invaded Ukraine,” he said. The Russian military may be, indeed, larger than it was during the launch of the invasion in February 2022, but it will still take time to ensure the newly recruited soldiers’ skills are comparable to the original invading force, the bulk of which was contract soldiers, some of whom had been serving for years.*
2. Ukraine anticipates Russian offensive operations to intensify in late spring and early summer, with these operations becoming especially active in Donbas, according to chief of the Ukrainian MoD’s intelligence branch Kyrylo Budanov. In the meantime, a particularly difficult situation has emerged east of Chasiv Yar and west of Avdiivka in Donbas, according to ISW. Ukrainian forces remained in control of Chasiv Yar as of April 12. As of that day, Russian forces were conducting attacks in the town’s surroundings, according to pro-war Russian Telegram channel “Rybar.”
3. On April 11, Ukraine's parliament approved legislation that officials say will simplify conscription, aiding an expected mobilization that could press hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men into the fight, WP reported. The unpopular measure, which has not been published in full and which Zelenskyy is yet to sign into law,expands the powers of Ukrainian authorities to issue draft notices, among other things, according to RFE/RL. Within 60 days of the law taking effect, all individuals eligible for conscription would have to visit their Territorial Recruitment Centers, according to RBC.ua. The bill also includes better pay and longer leaves, according to FT. However, the bill does not address two of the most contentious issues: how many soldiers ultimately will be drafted and whether those who have served since the start of Russia's invasion should be discharged, according to WP. Gen. Yuriy Sodol, who commands the troops in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions, stressed the need for more troops, telling lawmakers that Russian forces outnumber Kyiv's troops up to 10 times on the battlefield in the east. "We are maintaining our defenses with our last strength," he said, according to RFE/RL. The bill is to come into force one month after Volodymyr Zelenskyy signs it, according to RBC.ua. Given the law’s provisions and the fact that Zelenskyy is yet to sign it, it would take weeks to call up those eligible for mobilization. It would then take 10 weeks or more to have these new recruits undergo basic training. That means the bulk of the newly recruited may be not fit for fighting if Russia launches the new massive offensive, which the Ukrainian military intelligence expects in late May-early June.
4. Embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) has pledged to bring up Ukraine aid for a vote in the House soon after Congress returns from Easter recess, but what the bill will look like—and who will support it—remains unsettled due to fractures among Republicans and Democrats, according to WSJ. With that bill’s future uncertain and no plan B available, Ukrainian troops have been rationing ammunition as Russian forces outfire them at a rate of about 5-to-1, but that “will immediately go to 10-to-1 in a matter of weeks,” according to EUCOM’s Christopher Cavoli. Without further U.S. assistance, Kyiv “could lose,” Politico quoted NATO’s supreme commander in Europe as warning.
5. Even before Russia’s strike on the night of April 10-11 destroyed the Trypilska Thermal Power Plant, which provided electricity to millions of people in Kyiv, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions, up to 80% of Ukraine's conventional power plants and half its hydroelectric plants had been hit. That was the estimate of damage done by Russian attacks in recent weeks, according to Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko on April 8. These attacks, which now include strikes on underground gas storage facilities, signal a change in Russia’s targeting priorities, with power stations hit in areas less protected than Kyiv, some of which cannot be fully restored in time for next winter, according to FT. In an interview with Bild, Zelenskyy acknowledged that Russia's attacks on energy infrastructure are successful, while Putin said these attacks are retaliation for Ukraine’s  assaults against his own country’s energy sector.
6. Alternative Ukraine peace plans continued to circulate in the past several days. First WP reported that Donald Trump has privately said he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up Crimea and Donbas. Then Switzerland announced it would host a high level conference on June 15-16 to consolidate global support for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s peace formula, with Joe Biden expected to attend, and Vladimir Putin not invited. Putin and his diplomats took turns dismissing the Swiss-hosted event. If that was not enough, Alexander Lukashenko, during a meeting with whom Putin vented about the Swiss-hosted peace conference, recalled the Russian-Ukrainian peace talks Recep Erdoğan hosted in Istanbul in spring 2022, proposing to return to the accord on resolution of the conflict. Putin supposedly agreed with his Belarussian counterpart’s proposal, according to Kommersant. His spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the 2022 discussions could serve as the basis for resuming negotiations, for which Putin is ready, according to Xinhua. In addition to dismissing the pending Swiss event, Sergei Lavrov also praised China’s 12-point peace plan during his visit to Beijing this week. In response, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Lavrov that China "hopes to see a cease-fire and an end to the war as soon as possible." Finally, Novaya Gazeta Europe has learned of a proposed peace deal aimed at ending the war in Ukraine that has the backing of Erdogan, and whose main points are supposedly an agreement to freeze the conflict and to refrain from using nuclear weapons. 
7. While hosting Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi proposed that the two countries pursue “dual counteraction to double containment" of Russia and China by the U.S. and its allies, Kommersant reported. Lavrov welcomed the new formula, relaying it to the press that accompanied him during the April 8-9 visit. The two diplomats have also declared that their two countries will maintain “industrial supply chain stability,” according to FT. In addition to meeting Wang, Lavrov was also received by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who told his guest that China and Russia have embarked on a new path of harmonious coexistence and win-win cooperation, according to Xinhua.

5 Ideas to Explore

1. The increased threat of military escalation in the Middle East in the wake of Iranian strikes on Israel will likely draw Western attention and aid away from Ukraine, ISW quoted Russian pro-war commentators as predicting. “There will be no world war” because of the strikes, but the Middle East will slide into a long proxy war and Putin’s Russia will be among the beneficiaries of this confrontation, according to one such commentator Andrei Medvedev’s article on pro-Kremlin conservative analytical site Vzglyad. In the military domain, Israel’s success in defending against the Iranian strikes “underscores the vulnerabilities that Ukrainian geography and the continued degradation of Ukraine’s air defense umbrella pose for Ukrainian efforts to defend against regular Russian missile and drone strikes,” in the view of ISW’s Nicole Wolkov, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Angelica Evans, and Frederick W. Kagan.
2. Whether it’s artillery shells or Patriot missiles, the U.S. simply doesn’t have the resources to produce and provide even half of what Ukraine says it needs to become on par with Russia in the war. This follows from Republican Sen. J. D. Vance’s commentary entitled “The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up,” published in NYT. “Ukraine’s manpower situation is even worse” than the situation with its munitions, according to Vance. Vance then argues that these disparities must inform any future U.S. policy toward the conflict, “from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president.” “The Biden administration has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war. The sooner Americans confront this truth, the sooner we can fix this mess and broker for peace,” Vance concludes. Vance’s estimates of what Ukraine says it needs and what the U.S. can supply ignores the European variable in the equation. Europe’s capacity for military assistance to Ukraine cannot fully compensate for declines and delays¹ of such aid from the U.S., but they are significant nevertheless.*
3. Ukrainian authorities have made progress this month on expanding the conscription pool by passing a bill on additional mobilization and lowering the age of eligibility for being called up to 25. However, it is “unclear how quickly Ukraine will draft and train the additional troops it needs, or whether they will be ready before the broader Russian offensive that is expected in the spring or summer,” according to NYT. ''The decision is taken—it's a good one, but it's too late,'' Serhiy Hrabsky, a colonel and a commentator on the war for the Ukrainian news media, told NYT. Hrabsky has a point. Given the mobilization bill’s provisions, including that it would come into force one month after it is signed by Zelenskyy, it would take weeks to call up those eligible for mobilization. It would then take 10 weeks or more to have these new recruits undergo basic training. Thus, the bulk of the newly recruited may be not yet be ready for fighting if Russia, which has rebuilt its conventional forces to the pre-invasion level, launches the new massive offensive in late May-early June, as expected in Kyiv. When estimating whether and when Ukraine will have a sufficient number of soldiers to successfully defend² itself, one should also keep in mind draft dodging.
4. “Moscow and Beijing may never sign a formal alliance, but the evolution of their relationship in the years ahead will increasingly affect the world and challenge the West,” CEIP’s Alexander Gabuev writes in FA. “To come to terms with this development, Western policymakers should abandon the idea that they can drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow,” Gabuev writes, “[w]hereas ... Henry Kissinger courted communist China during the Cold War by offering Beijing a normalization of ties with the United States, U.S. officials cannot extend a deal of that sort to either Moscow or Beijing at this point.” Like Gabuev, Ivan Timofeev of pro-Kremlin RIAC doesn’t believe Moscow and Beijing are creating “a military-political alliance similar to NATO... yet,” but he does see the two countries eventually building a Eurasian security framework that may “be tailored to the task of deterrence.” Timofeev may be alluding to the “dual counteraction to double containment” formula proposed by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi while recently hosting Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov, which the latter welcomed.
5. While “Western sanctions clearly limit Russia’s economic development,” they also, “paradoxically enough, protect the economy from ... external shocks” by pushing the Russian authorities to pursue “shielding” measures, such as de-dollarization, according to CEIP’s Alexandra Prokopenko. In spite of the sanctions, ordinary Russians are unlikely to see empty store shelves of the kind they saw in the latter days of the USSR because Russia’s economy has significant financial reserves, is more diversified, and is more open to the world than the Soviet one was, she writes in a commentary for CEIP.  “Given the existing safety margins and the nature of Western sanctions, it could take Russia many years to reach the end of its ability to muddle through such challenges,” she predicts.

April 9 update:

April 9 update: No significant territorial change. Zelensky said audit found additional manpower within armed forces but signed law lowering draft age to 25. Net territorial change in the past month: Russia +29 square miles.