Day 415 of the invasion of Ukraine. Summary of key events in the last 24 hours:

• Russia is checking the readiness of its Pacific fleet
• Moscow is targeting Girkin, according to whom Putin will end up like Gaddafi, and Russia will collapse
• Ukrainian forces withdraw from Bakhmut following a fierce Russian offensive
• PMC "Wagner" and media group RIA FAN are on the sanctions list of the EU
• Lavrov will visit Latin America. According to Cuba, the US is responsible for the crisis in Ukraine
• The FBI has arrested a 21-year-old Guardsman for the massive leak of classified documents from the Pentagon
• “China does not provide weapons to Russia and will not do so in the future”
• “The EU cannot trust China if it does not seek peace in Ukraine”, Borrell said

Russia is checking the readiness of its Pacific fleet

The entire composition of the Russian Pacific Fleet was put on sudden alert this morning, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced. Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has ordered to check the readiness of strategic submarines to use weapons.

The aim is to check the readiness of the armed forces to prevent the landing of the conditional adversary on the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, which have been the subject of a territorial dispute between Russia and Japan since the Second World War.

Aircraft of the long-range aviation and the aviation of the Eastern Military District were activated in the inspection. According to Gerasimov, "a learning environment will be created as in the case of a direct threat of aggression". He specified that the inspection will be carried out in three stages.

First, the fleet will be put on alert. Air defense and aviation duty forces will be checked. The Standing Readiness Force will then be deployed to the combat training areas. In the third final stage, the training and combat tasks will be completed.

Moscow is targeting Girkin, according to whom Putin will end up like Gaddafi, and Russia will collapse

Russian security services will investigate the media activities of the terrorist Igor Girkin-Strelkov, former defense minister of the separatists from the so-called DPR.

After the start of the war with Ukraine, he became a popular blogger. Girkin, who criticized President Vladimir Putin and called the leadership of the armed forces idiots, has become the subject of an investigation to determine whether his words discredit the Russian army, Mash reports.

The complaint against Girkin, whose Telegram channel already has almost one million subscribers, was written by a resident of Novosibirsk who had questions about his posts on social networks and statements in his video addresses.

In recent appearances, the Russian ultra-nationalist has said there is a real possibility that Putin will end up like Gaddafi - with a machine gun stuck in the back - and that if Russia loses the war, the country will be torn apart not only by its enemies, but also by its "friends". According to him, nothing will stop the republics of the North Caucasus from declaring independence, and China from taking everything up to the Urals, for which, according to him, Beijing had historical reasons. In another speech, Girkin criticized the Russian president for not having prepared anyone for his successor if something were to happen to him and that the chairman of the State Duma of Russia, Vyacheslav Volodin, is useless because he is a "fa**ot".

According to Mash, Girkin is being investigated by investigative bodies in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where, according to the complainant, the former FSB officer currently lives.

The reason for one of the inspections was a video that Girkin posted on March 20. In it, the officials of the security forces see an insult to the authorities, which Girkin advises to keep quiet, and not to make excuses, reproaching the Kremlin for not starting the war back in 2014. Then, according to Girkin, it was possible to pass as in a parade from Kharkiv to Odesa almost without firing a single shot.

The "Angry Patriots Club," a social movement involving nationalists and "friendly bloggers" that Girkin announced in March, could also come under scrutiny, Mash said.

Girkin's organization is being investigated for fraud. He and his wife allegedly received donations for the special military operation, but did not account for them in any way.

Girkin himself stated that he did not receive any official documents from the authorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

"For now, I can only say that regardless of further action by the authorities, I will behave, speak and act exactly as I have done so far. There will be no change in my rhetoric 'at all'. I will not be intimidated." he assured.

Last November, a court in The Hague sentenced Girkin in absentia to life in prison for the downing of a Boeing passenger plane over the Donbas in 2014.

Girkin, as well as two other defendants in the case - Sergey Dubinsky and Leonid Kharchenkov - were found guilty of supplying from Russia the Buk anti-aircraft missile system that fired a missile at the plane. The court concluded that their joint actions led to the deaths of nearly 300 passengers on flight MH17 and ordered them to pay 16 million euros in compensation to the relatives of those who died.

Ukrainian forces withdraw from Bakhmut following a fierce Russian offensive

Ukrainian forces have been forced to withdraw from parts of the embattled city of Bakhmut following a fierce Russian offensive that has included intense artillery fire over the past two days, the British Defense Ministry said today in its daily bulletin on the war in Ukraine, quoted by Reuters.

"Russia's advance on the city of Bakhmut, which is located in the Donetsk region, is intensifying, with the forces of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the private military company Wagner improving cooperation" with each other, the British ministry said in a statement.

"Ukrainian forces are experiencing significant difficulties with supplies, but manage to withdraw in an organized manner from the positions they are forced to leave," the bulletin states.

The private military company "Wagner" plays a leading role in the battles for Bakhmut, which are among the bloodiest since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

"Ukrainian forces are still in control of the western areas of the city, but have been subjected to extremely intense artillery shelling from Russia for the past 48 hours," the British ministry said.

Earlier today, Chinese Foreign Minister Qing Gang said China wanted to encourage talks to end the war in Ukraine and would not do anything that would "add fuel to the fire" of the conflict.

Chinese Defense Minister Li Shanfu will be in Russia from April 16 to 19 and will meet with Russian defense officials, the Chinese Ministry of Defense said, as quoted by Reuters.

PMC "Wagner" and media group RIA FAN are on the sanctions list of the EU

The Council of the EU added the private military group "Wagner" and the media group RIA FAN to the EU's sanctions list for actions that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.

Last night's decision completes the so-called "Wagner package", adopted at the end of February, thus emphasizing the international dimensions and seriousness of the group's activities, as well as the destabilization in the countries in which it operates. The message emphasizes that it is actively involved in the aggressive Russian war in Ukraine and is in the vanguard of the attacks on Soledar and Bakhmut.

RIA FAN is part of Patriot Media Group, a Russian media organization whose board is headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who also finances the Wagner group. It is involved in pro-government propaganda and disinformation about Russia's war in Ukraine.

Lavrov will visit Latin America. According to Cuba, the US is responsible for the crisis in Ukraine

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit several countries in Latin America until the end of April, announced the diplomatic office in Moscow. TASS quotes Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel as saying that the United States is responsible for the crisis in Ukraine.

Sergey Lavrov plans to visit Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, according to an article prepared for Brazilian and Cuban media and distributed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow. Russia advocates strengthening Russian-Latin American cooperation "on the basis of mutual support, solidarity and respect for the interests of the other side," the article said. It is emphasized that Moscow does not want to turn the region into an arena for confrontation. Unlike former colonial metropolises, Russia does not present its partners with a choice of "with us or against us", does not divide them into own and foreign.

According to the Cuban president, Washington has distorted the root cause of the conflict in Ukraine and through its enormous media power has caused a feeling of contempt for Russia. I believe that it was they who incited Russophobia and covered up the real reasons for the conflict by making Russia the culprit. “I really think that the US government itself is to blame for creating this conflict,” said Miguel Diaz-Canel in an interview published on YouTube.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has vowed to pursue a policy of intransigence against corruption. He promised to hold officials involved in corruption schemes involving state oil company PDVSA and other state institutions fully accountable. Those who robbed the people will suffer punishment, Maduro said on the 21st anniversary of a failed coup attempt against the revolution.

The FBI has arrested a 21-year-old Guardsman for the massive leak of classified documents from the Pentagon

The FBI has arrested a 21-year-old man for the massive leak of classified Pentagon documents.

Jack Douglas Teixeira, who was detained on Thursday, is a member of the US Air National Guard, Reuters reported.

Federal agents raided his place with an armored car and military gear. The young man was spotted wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt and sneakers at his home in Dayton, Massachusetts, a town of 8,000 about 50 miles south of Boston.

Documents leaked on social media a week ago discredited the US, revealing that Washington was spying on allies, as well as plans related to the war in Ukraine and data on its military. The leak also reveals information about Israel, South Korea and Turkey.

The breach is believed to be the most serious since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2010.

Teixeira was an Airman First Class at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts. He joined the Air National Guard in 2019 and works as a Cyber Transportation Systems Specialist or IT Specialist.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the man was taken into custody "without incident."

The Justice Department did not say what charges he would face. Reuters suggests they are likely to include criminal charges of willfully withholding and passing on national defense information. Brandon Van Grack, a former national security prosecutor at the Department of Justice who now works at the law firm Morrison Foster, said the possible charges could carry up to 10 years in prison even if Teixeira had no intent to cause harm.

Teixeira is expected to appear in court Friday, a spokesman for the US Attorney's Office in Boston said

Eddie Souza, 22, has known Jack Teixeira since the two attendedDighton-Rehoboth Regional High School a few years ago. "He's a good boy, he's not a troublemaker, he's just a quiet boy," Souza said. "It looks like it was a stupid kid's mistake."

The damage

Although the leak only gained widespread attention after the April 6 New York Times story, journalists have found evidence that the documents — or at least some of them — were circulating on social media as early as March or even January.

Bellingcat, The Washington Post and The New York Times traced their earliest appearance to a downed server on the Discord site. There, Teixeira went under the moniker OG and was admired by the group's mostly young members, who shared their love of guns and military equipment.

The number of leaked documents is probably over 100.

A number of countries have questioned the authenticity of some of the leaked documents, including Britain, which said there was a "serious level of inaccuracy" in the information.

US officials believe most of the material is genuine. However, some of them appear to have been altered to show inflated estimates of Ukrainian battlefield casualties in the war with Russia, as well as underestimates of Russian forces.

“China does not provide weapons to Russia and will not do so in the future”

The Chinese government has stressed that it will not provide weapons to Russia to support Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, not now or in the future, DPA reported.

"We do not and will not supply weapons to the parties to the conflict," Qing Gan said after almost two hours of talks with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Beijing. He added that dual-use goods, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, are controlled by law.

China's role in Ukraine is to promote reconciliation and speed up peace talks, Qing Gan said. "We will not continue to add fuel to the fire," he stressed, according to the official translation.

“The EU cannot trust China if it does not seek peace in Ukraine”, Borrell said

It will be difficult for Europe to trust China if Beijing does not try to find a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis based on the withdrawal of Russia from Ukrainian territory, said the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, quoted by Reuters.

This is part of a speech Borrell was expected to deliver to a Beijing think tank today. However, he was forced to cancel his visit to China after falling ill with COVID-19. The prepared statements were published on the EU website.

"It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the EU to maintain a relationship of trust with China, which I would like to see if China does not contribute to the search for a political solution based on the withdrawal of Russia from Ukrainian territory," Borrell said. "Neutrality in the face of violation of international norms does not inspire confidence," he added, calling on Chinese President Xi Jinping to talk to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as to provide more humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian people.

Xi has met Russian President Vladimir Putin twice but has not spoken to Zelensky since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, described by Moscow as a "special military operation", in February 2022.

Novinite is still the only Bulgarian media that publishes a summary of events and highlights related to the conflict, every single day. Our coverage began on day one - 24.02.2022 and will not stop until the war has concluded. Despite the pressure, our independent media will continue to provide its readers with accurate and up-to-date information. Thank you for your support! #stayinformed

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