Day 88 – Sunday

May 22, 2022

Praise Reports

Success

• Severnodonetsk – Russian occupation forces tried to advance on Sievierodonetsk from 4 directions at once, but were repelled by Ukrainian troops. Russians used an outmoded super-heavy artillery piece (240mm) called Tulip to take out a key bridge, but a propagandist was with them livestreaming it and giving their location allowing the Ukrainians to directly target it causing it to explode with mass casualities.
• Russian Pro-war Opposition – Battlefield setbacks in Ukraine are prompting mounting criticisms of the Russian military among Russians who support the war but are increasingly frustrated with the way it is being fought. Military analysts, veterans, mercenaries and journalists are among those who have begun speaking out on social media and state-run television against the blunders and shortcomings that continue to plague Russia’s efforts in Ukraine, even after the Russian military narrowed its goals to the capture of territory in the eastern Donbas region.
• Mariupol – According to the regiment commander, there were more than five attempts to transfer aid to Azovstal defenders, and the absolute majority, except for the last two, were successful. Even in movies like “Black Hawk Down” Americans were never sent on a mission more than a hundred kilometers into a deep-seated air defense system while patrolling enemy fighters were in the air. There have never been operations like this in the history of mankind.
• Sanctions – Russian Minister of Transport, Vitaliy Savelyev, “The sanctions imposed on Russia today have virtually wrecked all logistics in our country. And we are forced to look for new logistics solutions.”

Truth Revealed

• Analysis – Vladimir Putin’s top security officials think the war in Ukraine is ‘lost’, making the chances of a coup more likely, an analyst in Moscow says. The chances of the Russian tyrant launching a nuclear strike are receding as it is likely people would refuse to carry out his order, according to expert and investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who suggests Putin is losing his grip on power. He says leading officials are unlikely to obey Putin’s commands to launch nukes as they don’t trust he will still be in power in three months time. ‘I think that it is the informed elite within the security forces who understand that the war is lost.’ He said Putin’s inner circle understand the president would need a full mass mobilization to win the war, but this would cause a ‘social explosion’ in Russia. Some hardliners may pressure for use of nuclear or chemical weapons, Grozev warned. But others will say ‘enough is enough’ and ‘it is better not to waste another 10,000 lives of our soldiers and officers’. Grozev, lead Russia investigator for investigative journalist group Bellingcat, said one or more of the ‘five hands’ needed to launch Russia’s nukes could end up defying Putin.

Pray Points – Latest

• Black Sea – Ukraine has said that if they would be given MLRS systems like HIMARS they could break the blockade of the ports that is leading to food shortage worldwide.
• Mariupol – Russia claims to have taken complete controller of Azovstal and that anywhere from 2000 to 2400 Ukrainian soldiers have been taken to either prisons or hospitals. But also the last communication from the Ukrainian commanders was that they had a core group that was still planning some sort of operation. Although they have been documented as POW’s five the Red Cross to be exchanged for Russian POWs., they are voices in Russia and then yes they are calling for them to be tried as terrorists.
• Severnodonetsk – Intense fighting has been reported around the city, as Russian forces appear to be stepping up an offensive to encircle its Ukrainian defenders.
• Donetsk/Lughansk – The eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk – known collectively as the Donbas – are being turned into “hell” and this “final stage of the war” could be the bloodiest. “They completely ruined Rubizhne, Vonokvakha, just as Mariupol,” Zelensky said in a video address late on Friday, adding the Russians were “trying to do the same with Severodonetsk and many other cities”. Yesterday, the Russians shelled more than 30 settlements in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, destroyed and damaged 83 civilian objects, including 72 residential buildings, two schools, a hostel, a hermitage of the Holy Dormition Sviatohirsk Lavra, two shops, a hangar with sunflower seeds and a number of utility and storage facilities.
• Popasna – having taken a month to take the town, with advancement of just meters a day, suddenly yesterday with the massive arial bombardment they broke through the Ukrainian defenses and managed to take three villages and make real movement toward a larger encirclement
• Ruble – the Russian currency is surging to 7-year highs, that although artificial indicate that funds are flowing into Russia rapidly (as Europe attempts to refill stockpiles and India and other companies take advantage of discounted oil) meaning that Russia is being kept afloat.
• Mariupol – over 1700 soldiers including 80 severely wounded have left Azovstal but still a core remains with the leadership and claim to be planning a special operation. Soldiers have been registered by the Red Cross as POWs and transferred to Prison in Donetsk territory where the claim is that they will be tried by a tribunal.
• Zaporozhia/Kryvyi Rih/Kherson – Shelling continues as the Russians attempt to move forward and Russia has blocked all exit from these regions as people line up at the borders
• Odessa – more missile attacks, but it sounds like they’ve all been intercepted.
• Kherson – Russia is stopping humanitarian aid from reaching hundreds of thousands of people in the region of Kherson, Ukraine said. Doctors could run out of medicine for chronically ill patients in two weeks, a Ukrainian official said.
• Kharkiv – Fighting continues in the areas of Ternov and Borshchiv. Occupiers are conducting enhanced aerial reconnaissance.
• Wheat – prices soar 60% as India, the worlds second largest producer, blocks exports due to low harvest from heat wave
• NATO – Even as Finland and Sweden apply to join along, Turkey continues threatened to veto it
• Snake Island – Russia is spending a lot of resources to install anti-missile facilities and to protect paratroopers who are holding the island
• Russian Navy – Russian Navy – All operating submarines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet went to sea from Sevastopol as seen by the fact that they are targeting military installations in Lviv
• Fuel – Russia continues to strike fuel refineries and stores (including in Lviv yesterday) destroying its Ukrainian production capacity and fuel tanks, continuing to create dangerously low availability of fuel, meaning much of Ukraine’s economy and food supply could be affected, but also the military and humanitarian aid distribution.
• EU – Hungary is holding up the oil embargo
• Food – pray for the world food supplies as Wheat make up 15% of all the worlds calories consumed. And much higher for impoverished countries. Ukraine produces 7% of the worlds wheat and Russia 11% meaning 3% of the entire food supply for the world is cut off, and again a much higher percentage for developing world. While corn makes up 19.5% of global calories and Ukraine produces 2.6% and Russia with 2.3% of world supplies, meaning a further decrease in 1% of the world calorie intake for a total between wheat and corn of 4%. A response to this is that “the Russian invasion is a large shock for agricultural commodity markets, but not historically large. Markets and trade patterns will adjust to absorb it. Farmers around the world will produce more and consumers will cut back or substitute. The transition may be difficult in some places, especially countries such as Egypt that typically rely on wheat from Russia and Ukraine who must be helped to find alternate suppliers
• Russian Military – trying to create panic among the Ukrainian civilian population and to disrupt the supply lines in the rear, but has minimum success on the battlefield.
• Mines – Almost half of the territory of Ukraine needs humanitarian demining – this is about 300,000 square kilometers, according to the State Emergency Service. Every day, an average of 2,000 to 6,000 explosive items are seized and rendered harmless in the country. One day of active hostilities is equal to 30 days of demining. For example, it will take about a year and a half to clear mines in the Kyiv region, where the fighting lasted a month. “Spring is coming, overgrown with grass, and in a week explosive devices cannot be installed visually, only devices. A few months later, due to rains, they sink underground to a depth of 3-5-7 centimeters, they are not visible at all, but they are still working,” the minister said. (As a sign of what supernatural resolutions can be possible, but during the Vietnam War, the United States strategically placed mines in North Vietnamese waters area that were set to detonate when a ship was in close proximity. In August 1972, a large number of these magnetic mines simultaneously started exploding. Upon investigation, the US found out that the cause of these explosions, which were estimated to be as many as 4,000, were not enemy ships. As it turned out, the culprit was a powerful historical series of solar storms with an extreme solar flare, solar particle events, and geomagnetic storm components hit the Earth.)
• Testing the West – multiple alternative narratives are being focus-grouped by politicians – Like assuming Russia taking half of Ukraine is a done deal. Or turning Ukraine into Cyprus – divided state with Chinese soldiers occupying
• Russia – Default – The Russian finance ministry announced it paid nearly $650 million it owed holders of two of its dollar bonds. Two creditors told Reuters they had not yet seen the money in their accounts, but a senior U.S. government official confirmed that the payments had been made and that the source appeared to be outside the limits of the current sanctions. The Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee, representing major global banks and asset managers, met on Friday and acknowledged the reports of Russia’s payments, but nonetheless made plans for a credit default swap auction next week “solely in order to prepare for the possibility of a Failure to Pay Credit Event.” If Friday’s announced payments clear, attention will shift to two events at the end of May:
  1. Transactions between U.S. persons and Russia’s finance ministry, central bank or national wealth fund are only allowed under a temporary license issued by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) that will expire on May 25. The U.S. Treasury has not commented on whether that deadline will be extended.
  2. Russia faces coupon payments due on May 27 on a dollar bond issued in 2016 and an euro bond issued in 2021. The payment on the euro bond could be done in ruble as a last resort, but the dollar bond does not have that provision.
• Belarus – starting emergency military exercises today, claims it does not pose a threat to its neighbors.
• Narrative – probing attacks from many directions in the media and with politicians continue as they attempt to discover a way to distract, divide or dissuade support for Ukraine and for Russia’s total expulsion from Ukraine and for Russian government to be held accountable. Continue to pray for solidarity and truth and those in occupied territories who are suffering and/or have been deported will be heard and not forgotten or abandoned.
• Putin – Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to undergo cancer surgery and temporarily hand over power to a hardline former federal police chief, according to a new report. Putin will transfer control of Russia’s government to Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian federal police’s Security Council, while he is incapacitated during and after the procedure, according to a video from the mysterious Telegram channel “General SVR” on Saturday. Putin will transfer control of Russia’s government to Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian federal police’s Security Council, while he is incapacitated during and after the procedure, according to a video from the mysterious Telegram channel “General SVR” on Saturday. The channel — which is purportedly run by a former Russian Foreign Intelligence Service lieutenant general known by the pseudonym “Viktor Mikhailovich” — reported that Putin has been told by doctors that he must undergo an operation. The anticipated surgery and recovery are expected to incapacitate Putin for “a short time,” according to the unconfirmed report. “Putin is unlikely to agree to hand over power for a longer period of time,” the narrator of the video states, adding that the control of the country will likely be in Patrushev’s hands for no more than two to three days. “I will say that this is the worst option,” the narrator adds. “Patrushev is an outright villain. He is no better than Vladimir Putin. Moreover, he is a more cunning, and I would say, more insidious person than Vladimir Putin. If he comes to power, Russians’ problems will only multiply.” “Viktor Mikhailovich” ominously hinted that he and his allies “will make certain efforts so this does not happen, and I hope we will succeed.”
• Social Media – Russia’s online trolling operation is becoming increasingly decentralised and is gaining “incredible traction” on TikTok with misinformation aimed at sowing doubt over events in Ukraine, a US social media researcher has warned.
• PTSD – they are seeing that those fleeing the Russians are holding on for about 10 days and then face complete mental breakdown.
• 6 Russian Key Objectives to Pray Against
  1. Kharkiv – Destroy, Encircle, Capture
  2. Izyum – push south to encircle Donbas
  3. Slavyonsk and Kramatorsk – in the east to complete a smaller encirclement of the cities
  4. Mariupol – completely destroy all opposition and export the populations
  5. Zaporozhye – Russian troops are building up forces and building logistics a massive concerted attack
  6. Kherson – Russia is facing sabotage from the people but is still attempting to push north toward Kryvyi Rih and west toward Mykolaiv, then to Odessa and to Transnistria and eventually to Moldova.
• Izyum/Kherson/Zaporozhye – there is much evidence that Russia is desperately attempting to catch and conscript any and all able men in the occupied regions and force them to fight for them.
• Ukrainian Artillery – all of the defensive positions are using Soviet Era 152mm ammunition and NATO has been scrambling to provide Ukraine with all that it needs but they are running out. As the US is finally willing to send artillery (theirs is 155mm) it will still be months until it can reach the front lines and be used effectively.
• Deportations – Russia has deported over 500,000 people from Ukraine to Russia. 134,000 of those from Mariupol alone.
• Mercenaries – Continue to pray for all mercenaries to be neutralized in any way!
• Logistics – Russia logistical challenges are still problematic even though the supply lines to the Donbas are shorter, and much will depend on the condition of the roads and railways.
• Refugees – now 5.5 million have fled Ukraine. Pray for their safety, provision and care.
• West – pray that the pressure would continue to mount on western leaders to ban oil and gas imports and to continue to increase meaningful heavy arms donations.
• Russia – pray that the emotional need to make a huge statement and reaction to the sinking of Moskva will lead to Russia moving prematurely and without adequate preparation and coordination and thereby dooming their own assault. Or to make a move that so steels international resolve that it makes supporting Russia impossible even for China and India.
• Russian People – pray they understand the Truth and reject the lies they’ve been told and rise up
• US – pray that Lend/Lease gets fast-tracked and raise on the House floor and approved today
• China – has doubled down and the Russian propaganda and refused to admit the atrocities were committed by Russia or any other point

Pray Points – Continued

• Ukraine – Almost two-thirds of Ukrainian children have fled their homes, the UN says. About 4.8 million out of 7.5 million children had to leave their homes, said Manuel Fontaine from UNICEF. He confirmed the deaths of 142 children, but added that the number is “almost certainly higher”
• Economy – Ukraine economy to contract 45.1% this year, Russia 11.2%: World Bank
• Rage – Pray against rage as videos have come to the four about Ukrainian soldiers summarily executing Russian soldiers. Although they can obviously feel incredibly justified, this is destructive to them and provides ammunition to Russia their attempt to create an alternative narrative in Ukraine.
• Russian Military – Russia is sending an 8-mi long convoy of 100s of vehicles, including armored vehicles and artillery southbound through the Ukrainian town of Velykyi Burluk. The convoy is moving about 60 mi east of Ukraine’s 2nd-largest city of Kharkiv, as Russian focuses on Donbas. Russian Ministry of Defense claims destruction S-300 SAM at Chuhuiv airbase and Starobohdanovka in Mykolaiv region. Also claimed destruction of National Guard base in Zvonetske of Dnipropetrovsk region
• TRUTH – pray that an ever-increasing steady stream of the atrocities committed by the Russians will be revealed and documented to maintain the ever-increasing pressure on political leaders and parties to act with speed, vigor and determination.
• Russian Lies – pray that all their various alternative narratives would be revealed as rags and shadows for all to see.
• Evacuation & Panic – Ukraine has urged civilians to leave the east of the country “while the opportunity still exists” before a massive Russian military assault that it expects in the coming days. The governors of the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions were calling on people to move immediately to safer areas. “It has to be done now, because later people will be under fire and face the threat of death. There is nothing they will be able to do about it.
• May 9 – Reports are that Putin needs the invasion successful in time for the Victory Day parades, thereby threatening great attacks over the coming month. Putin would want to have an “announceable success” by then, which could create “some tension” with Russian commanders as exhausted forces were likely to be thrown into battle fairly soon in an attempt to gain ground in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv. This also is at the end of the 30-day default negotiation period (ending on May 5) meaning incredible pressure is on Russia to achieve victory by then.
• Europe/US – pray they will block all gas imports and provide truly meaningful military support.
• Oil – Pray that Europe would have the political will to do a complete embargo of Russian fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal, etc.)
• Occupied – Many villages completely cut off from all supplies and food and water!
• Global Food – there could be a global food crisis as Ukrainian farmers are being forced to limit what they plant due to the war. And also due to the fact that the main ways that they have a reaching global markets through the Black Sea is now blocked by Russia. Russia and Ukraine together produce 25% of all green in the world!
• Refugees – According to Polish border guards, more than 2.4 million people have fled Ukraine to Poland . However, supplies have dropped off and now the whole regions are struggling.
• For the Weak – Russia has flown more than 300 air sorties over Ukraine in the past 24 hours: senior U.S. defense official
• Russian Elites – to turn on one another and on Putin
• Russian Military – continuing to press in the north, but the real danger is that Russia seems to preparing for an all-out push in Donbas to encircle the Ukrainian army and to take the entire region and to create a united front against Ukraine.
• Russian Soldiers – pray for their physical, emotional and spiritual well-being and for them to have the courage to face the Truth and the opportunity to receive the Gospel which is the ONLY answer to the atrocities they’ve already committed.
• Russian Opposition – that those in the inner circle will see a way out and that Russian Opposition would be able to gather together in a meaningful way
• The Truth – In all things that the Truth would be painfully evident and unavoidable in all public discussion
• Ukrainian Army – Russia is attempting to encircle the Ukrainian Army in Donbas
• Russia – for the people to wake up to the Truth and rise up
• Putin’s Inner Circle – to fragment and turn on one another
• Protection of the Weak
• The West – to not grow numb to atrocities, but be compelled to action
  1. Sanctions – Loopholes would be closed and sanctions rendered effective
  2. Oil Embargo – That Europe would make the choice to stop immediately at the very least paying for gas & oil
  3. Heavy Weapons – provide planes, tanks, heavy artillery and high-altitude weapons

Prayer Strategies

• Corruption & Domination Falls
  • Russia, Belarus & Ukraine
  • The Former Soviet Union
  • China, India, UAE & Saudi Arabia
• Truth & Freedom prevail
• The Gospel is spreads like wildfire
  • From Ukraine
  • To Russia
  • To the whole world

Prayer Encouragement

“Each time, before you intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!”  — Andrew Murray