PDB – China Doubles Down on Backing Russia

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Today's PDB includes a variety of critical, global national security issues.

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READ TODAY'S PDB BELOW:

NATIONAL SECURITY

Release of Ukraine intelligence represents new front in US information war with Russia. The U.S.'s new approach to public intelligence sharing has involved declassifying secrets normally reserved for top policy makers, foreshadowing future uses of intelligence in international crises.

Experts say Russia's use of counterspace capabilities could make 2022 a ‘pivotal' year for space security. From satellite jamming over Eastern Europe to Russia's testing of an anti-satellite weapon, analysts tracking counterspace threats say the last year has brought confirmation of several troubling predictions – and 2022 will likely continue those trends.

CHINA THREAT

Bristling against the West, China rallies domestic sympathy for Russia. China's Communist Party is mounting an ideological campaign aimed at officials and students. The message: The country will not turn its back on Russia.

WHY LESS NEAR CHINA? Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) rose in 2021, but fewer were near China. U.S. forces challenged 37 excessive maritime claims by 26 countries in fiscal 2021, up from 28 such claims by 19 countries the year before.

RUSSIA THREAT – UKRAINE WAR

Russia faces global outrage over bodies in Ukraine's streets. Ukrainian officials said the bodies of 410 civilians were found in towns around Kyiv that were recaptured from Russian forces in recent days.

Satellite images show bodies lay in Bucha for weeks, despite Russian claims. Russia claimed that the images were “another hoax” and called for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on what it called “provocations of Ukrainian radicals” in Bucha.

Pentagon can't independently confirm atrocities in Ukraine's Bucha, official says. The U.S. military is not in a position to independently confirm Ukrainian accounts of atrocities by Russian forces against civilians in the town of Bucha, but has no reason to dispute the accounts either, a senior U.S. defense official said on Monday.

US warns Russia will intensify its military operations in Ukraine after weeks of stalled ground fighting. The Biden administration warned Monday that Russian forces are expected to intensify their military operations in Ukraine after weeks of stalled ground advances.

Why Putin faces ‘more NATO' in the Arctic after Ukraine invasion. “President Putin wants less NATO on Russia's borders,” Stoltenberg said in January, also referring to more allied troops in southeastern Europe, Poland and the Baltics. “But he is getting more NATO.”

NORTH KOREA

N Korea says it will strike South with nuclear weapons if attacked – KCNA. North Korea opposes war, but if South Korea chooses military confrontation or makes a preemptive strike, then the North's nuclear forces will have to attack, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un said on Tuesday.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY

Western officials condemn reports of ‘massacre' by military in central Mali. The State Department and the French foreign ministry said they were alarmed at reports of deaths caused by the Malian armed forces and their allies — Russian mercenaries with the Wagner Group.

B-52 flies with F-22s, nine other nations over Middle East in Bomber Task Force mission. A USAF B-52 flew through the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility on March 29, integrating with American F-22s and aircraft from nine other countries over the Middle East, U.S. Air Forces Central Command announced April 2.

US MILITARY AND SPACE

Navy, Marines' push ‘campaigning forward' strategy as vital to deterring China. The upcoming National Defense Strategy will highlight “campaigning forward” as a pillar of future operations, and top naval leaders say the force is already moving in this direction.

US military marks a Patriot air-defense first during Balikatan drills in the Philippines. Marine Corps hovercraft delivered an Army surface-to-air missile defense system to a Philippine beach for the first time during recent amphibious drills involving U.S. and Philippine troops.

END of PDB

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