BLACKWATER USA | DAILY BRIEF

Posted by BW Actual on Jan 6th 2023

BLACKWATER USA | DAILY BRIEF

Ukraine

  • Pres. Putin announced a brief unilateral cease-fire from noon today until midnight tomorrow night in honor of Orthodox Christmas, which majorities in both Russia and Ukraine celebrate.
  • Ukrainian officials called the move a "banal trick" and a "propaganda gesture." After all, Putin made no such offers for the New Year's holiday last week - and even escalated attacks that weekend. Besides, Russia's record of respecting its own cease-fire commitments isn't great: it violated truces to allow humanitarian evacuations from Mariupol in March, for example.
  • Indeed, Russian troops were still shelling the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk after the cease-fire came into effect today.
  • Separately, a White House official suggested that Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's interest in Bakhmut is less about proving his outfit to be more effective than Russia's regular troops and more about winning mining rights to salt and gypsum deposits in the area. That would be consistent with Wagner's playbook in Africa, where it has focused on securing mining assets and traded private military services for mining rights.
  • The first of the inmates that Wagner Group recruited from Russian prisons reached the end of their six-month service commitment and received the pardons they were promised...at least the ones that survived did.
Mexico
  • Mexico arrested Ovidio Guzman - a son of "El Chapo" and current leader of the Sinaloa Cartel - ahead of Pres. Biden's visit to Mexico City next week as a token of collaboration with the U.S.
  • Guzman's cartel retaliated with fierce attacks on police and army targets in Sinaloa state where he was captured. Two planes at Culiacan airport were hit by gunfire, and the airport has temporarily closed.
China
  • Pres. Xi paid a friendly visit to the Philippines, where he and Pres. Marcos agreed to strengthen economic ties - and largely overlooked their territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
  • Meanwhile, the U.S. sailed an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the Chung-Hoon, through the Taiwan Strait yesterday, provoking China's objections.
Somalia
  • Al Shabaab claimed a pair of car bombs in the central town of Mahas, Hiran that killed at least 20 - including mostly women and children, according to government officials.
  • Al Shabaab usually stays quiet about its attacks that cause heavy civilian casualties, so it may believe its own claim that yesterday's twin blasts killed mostly soldiers.
Venezuela
  • Venezuela's opposition leadership appointed three of their exiled colleagues to lead the national assembly and create a commission to manage foreign assets in opposition control, including Citgo. The triumvirate will replace former interim president Juan Guaido, who failed to effectively unify the opposition.
Other News
  • In a move that analysts think was influenced by Iran, Oman's parliament voted to criminalize relations with Israel (details are not clear yet). The Times of Israel lamented that Oman was - until recently - expected to be the next Arab state to normalize ties with Israel; now it seems to be moving in the opposite direction.