Ukraine

[LFC]

This thread describes the fact that Putin's original goal (total destruction of Ukraine as a sovereign nation) is still very much on his mind and in his rhetoric, how Russia have shifted their tactics, how Russia is planning on a long, protracted war, and how the West is countering. Quick read and interesting stuff.

[LFC]

Equipment destruction update:

Date   Vehicles     Tanks       Since 2/24
3/18:  1574         244         3 weeks
3/25:  1831 (+257)  289 (+45)   4 weeks
4/01:  2175 (+344)  359 (+80)   5 weeks
4/07:  2614 (+439)  449 (+90)   6 weeks
4/14:  2885 (+271)  505 (+56)   7 weeks
4/21:  3068 (+183)  528 (+23)   8 weeks
4/28:  3248 (+180)  580 (+52)   9 weeks
5/05:  3417 (+169)  605 (+25)  10 weeks
5/12:  3623 (+206)  664 (+59)  11 weeks
5/19:  3675  (+52)  671  (+4)  12 weeks
5/27:  4150 (+475)  733 (+62)  13 weeks
6/02:  4207  (+57)  747 (+14)  14 weeks
6/09:  4273  (+66)  762 (+15)  15 weeks
--
7/05:  4573 (+200)  830 (+68)  19 weeks
7/12:  4683 (+110)  865 (+35)  20 weeks

Putin really doesn't care what happens to his army, as long as he "wins". All that matters is (in his mind) the glory of his legacy and that's achieved by taking territory.

[LFC]

The HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) we're sending to Ukraine are having a real impact and are allowing the Ukrainians to fight in a manner they prefer.

4/ It appears that more than a dozen major Russian supply depots, primarily used to store artillery ammunition, have been attacked by the long range #HIMARS rockets in the past few days.
5/ The Ukrainians, shifting away from the attritional fight they have been drawn into in the Donbas, are re-adopting the asymmetric conventional tactics they used so successfully early in the war.
6/ They are attacking the Russian weak points once again – its railway centric logistics, its over talkative battlefield generals, and its over reliance on massed artillery to advance in the east.
7/ One key target is command and control nodes, or in other words, command posts with senior Russian commanders. The ability to rapidly target these, once detected, and use the accuracy of the #HIMARS rockets to inflict maximum destruction is vital.
8/ Additionally, many Russian supply depots, located close to railways, are also proximate to civilian towns. The greater accuracy of the #HIMARS permits the Ukrainians to minimise collateral damage in their long-range attacks on Russian targets.
9/ Beyond the physical, there is a psychological impact. Now, a much greater proportion of the invading Russian force falls within the radius that can be attacked. They will have seen its impact, on social media and in person.
10/ And, as @general_ben has noted, being an ammunition handler in a logistic depot is probably now the least desirable job in the Russian Army. These psychological impacts have a cost on the effectiveness of a military organization.

The author feels that some might be overhyping them, though, and cautions that a war of this scale requires a lot of different equipment.

13/ Despite this, we must not cast the #HIMARS as the wonder weapon that will change the tide of the war. There has been a tendency since the first Industrial Revolution to look for the single technological wonder that will win wars. This is a mirage.
14/ HIMARS is having an important impact and will continue to do so, but it alone will not win this war. While it has provided the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a new ‘Long Hand’ to attack the Russian invaders, there is no such thing as a silver bullet solution in war.
15/ Importantly, its impact does not abrogate the responsibility of western nations to continue providing the full range of weapons, munitions, intelligence, training and other forms of support required by #Ukraine.

[andydp]

The old saw that "amateurs talk tactics and professionals talk logistics" is alive and well.

Attacking the "soft" area of an Army is always preferred to attacking a Tank Brigade.  If you eliminate their ammo and fuel supplies you're forcing them to stop.  "George Patton used to say grab them by the nose and kick them in the patoot" (<< Cleaned up for general audiences) Attack them in front and do an end run to the supply areas.  By and large, these are usually weakly defended and "manned" by second rate troops:  recovering wounded, "allies", undertrained soldiers.

[LFC]

What in the actual hell?

President Volodymyr Zelensky has suspended the head of Ukraine's spy agency (SBU) and the prosecutor general, citing many cases of treason in the two powerful organisations.

He said more than 60 former employees were now working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied areas.

A total of 651 collaboration and treason cases had been opened against law enforcement officials, he added.

The officials, Ivan Bakanov and Iryna Venediktova, have not commented.

In a video address late on Sunday, Mr Zelensky said: "Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state... pose very serious questions to the relevant heads [of the two organisations]."

"Each of these questions will receive a proper answer," the Ukrainian president added.

In a later appearance on Ukrainian TV, Andriy Smirnov, one of Mr Zelensky's top advisers, clarified that the officials have not been fired, as initially suggested, but merely removed pending an investigation.

"In order to prevent the potential influence of these two officials on criminal proceedings, which are being investigated in relation to SBU employees who are suspected of cooperation with the aggressor country, and the same applies to the prosecutor's office, the president made appropriate decisions," Mr Smirnov said.

[LFC]

The analyst I've been following basically says "winter is coming" and that the next 4 months could see a lot of maneuvering for position. The HIMARS rocket systems sent by the U.S. continue to destroy artillery munitions, reducing Russia's greatest advantage, as well as Russian HQs.

6/ First, the Russians. While they have made some ground in the east, they are on the defensive in the south. The Ukrainians are slowly, inexorably taking back their territory, especially in the Kherson region.
7/ Adding to Russian problems in the south, a growing resistance movement is targeting Russian officials, Ukrainian collaborators and Russian supply trains. It will place great pressure on Russian forces, and may draw forces from the east.
8/ To compound Russia’s challenges, the introduction of accurate, long range HIMARS rockets has caused significant disruption to Russian logistics.
9/ These rockets are destroying Russian artillery ammunition stockpiles, as well as tactical headquarters containing talkative Russian senior officers. Even air defence systems have been shown to be vulnerable to these rockets.
10/ So the Russians face the next phase of their campaign with reduced artillery ammunition, even lower morale due to #HIMARS strikes, and potentially increased attacks from the Ukrainian Air Force.
11/ They will find further gains in the east even more expensive than those in Luhansk, be challenged to hold ground in the south, and may even have problems stockpiling supplies for the coming winter.

One big worry Ukraine still has is if Europe will hold firm when winter comes and energy prices go up again.

17/ Finally, we will need to watch the major countries in Western Europe as winter approaches and energy prices continue to rise. While they may be dealing with a heat wave at the movement, sooner or later the weather will turn and heating will be needed.
18/ This will test the resolve of some nations in their support of Ukraine. Already, nations such as Germany have proved to be laggards in the provision of military assistance to Ukraine. An energy crisis in winter might compound this problem.
19/ While this war is perhaps the clearest example of good versus evil - a just war - since the WW2, it remains to be seen whether leaders in European nations can convince their people to endure higher energy prices as the price of supporting the defence of democracy.

[LFC]

Well that explains it.

Nearly five months into its senseless war against Ukraine, Russia has concocted a wild new explanation for why the Kremlin’s plans for a quick takeover fell apart so spectacularly—because Ukrainian troops were turned into superhuman killing machines during “secret experiments” in American-run biolabs, of course.

Never mind the myriad reports of Russian troops refusing to fight by the thousands, sabotaging their own shoddy equipment and even deliberately wounding themselves to abandon the war, Russian lawmakers claim the real setback for Moscow was “drugged up” Ukrainian soldiers.

That claim was made Monday by two Russian lawmakers heading up a commission to investigate “biolaboratories” in Ukraine, Kommersant reported.

[LFC]

Ukraine is rumbling about taking it directly to Russia through Crimea.

Ukraine is in talks about using Western weapons to target Russia’s Black Sea fleet and ultimately take back Crimea, according to The Times. “Russia will have to leave Crimea if they wish to exist as a country,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Volodymyr Havrylov was quoted saying during an event in London on Monday. “We have a permanent threat from the Russian Black Sea fleet. Given the new technologies and capabilities we receive, we have to address this threat,” he told the Times, adding that, “We are ready to target them all over the Black Sea if we have that capability.” While the Biden administration has said Ukraine provided “assurances” they won’t use American-supplied weapons systems against targets on Russian territory, Havrylov said Ukrainian officials are in talks on whether they can use the weapons to hit Russian forces in occupied Crimea. “Sooner or later we will have enough resources to target Russia in the Black Sea and Crimea. Crimea is Ukrainian territory, that’s why any target there is legitimate for us,” he said.

If Ukraine decided to blow up the bridge to Crimea, which is a pretty soft target, Russia would be on the hook to supplying the region by sea. It would also kill Crimea as a valued shipping port since goods couldn't get in and out.

[LFC]

Equipment destruction update:

Date   Vehicles     Tanks       Since 2/24
3/18:  1574         244         3 weeks
3/25:  1831 (+257)  289 (+45)   4 weeks
4/01:  2175 (+344)  359 (+80)   5 weeks
4/07:  2614 (+439)  449 (+90)   6 weeks
4/14:  2885 (+271)  505 (+56)   7 weeks
4/21:  3068 (+183)  528 (+23)   8 weeks
4/28:  3248 (+180)  580 (+52)   9 weeks
5/05:  3417 (+169)  605 (+25)  10 weeks
5/12:  3623 (+206)  664 (+59)  11 weeks
5/19:  3675  (+52)  671  (+4)  12 weeks
5/27:  4150 (+475)  733 (+62)  13 weeks
6/02:  4207  (+57)  747 (+14)  14 weeks
6/09:  4273  (+66)  762 (+15)  15 weeks
--
7/05:  4573 (+200)  830 (+68)  19 weeks
7/12:  4683 (+110)  865 (+35)  20 weeks
7/19:  4738  (+45)  869  (+4)  21 weeks

More slowing down. It's becoming a real long-range artillery and missile war plus equipment destroyed 40 miles behind the front line will never get verified.

[andydp]

Ref: Crimea bridge.

One thing that has to also be assessed is what other infrastructure does the bridge carry ? Communication and power conduits are just two. Making the bridge unusable for traffic would also give you a bonus if there’s other infrastructure involved.

Military tactic fact: large, important targets like that bridge only need to have a span or two destroyed to be rendered useless. Since you would have a need for that bridge later on, the idea is the damage should be “easily” repaired once the enemy is gone.

[LFC]

Russia is sounding desperate to claim victory and sorta' / kinda' go home, or at least hope to staunch their bleeding. From everything I've read the people of Ukraine aren't ready to hand another massive chunk of their country to Russia and wait for them to regroup, resupply, and take the rest of their coast.

A top Kremlin official is leading a project to hold “referendums” in Russian-controlled Ukrainian territories by Sept. 15, Bloomberg News reports, citing sources familiar with the plan. Sergei Kiriyenko, the presidential administration’s first deputy chief of staff who is widely seen as Vladimir Putin’s point man in Ukraine, is reportedly heading up the project. In addition to the territories in Donetsk and Luhansk that Russia deemed its top priority in the war, referendums are also reportedly being planned in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. Kiriyenko has routinely been spotted making visits to the occupied territories, with his most recent visit, to Kherson, reported just this week. Russia has already set up its own “new” administrations in several areas, with local authorities touting the distribution of Russian passports. But the referendums—similar to the one Moscow held in occupied Crimea in 2014—would presumably give the Kremlin the chance to declare a “victory” after several months of setbacks. In a statement quoted by Bloomberg, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied plotting any such votes, saying, “If they are going to make any referendums, it will be their decision.” A day earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov openly declared that the “geography” of Russia’s war in Ukraine had been expanded to include territories outside the Donbas, including Kherson and Zaporizhia.

[jackd]

I agree with the declare victory part but not so much with the"kinda go home" part.

[LFC]

Jul 21, 2022 22:45:50 GMT jackd said:

I agree with the declare victory part but not so much with the"kinda go home" part.

By "kinda'" I meant simply entrench where they are and try to rotate some troops. I don't think the Ukrainians will allow that to happen. They seem determined to take their territory back.

[indy]

Yowser. If this is accurate, Russia may have very little left to add to the conflict. I assume this is a percentage of the currently ready total.

[andydp]

Jul 23, 2022 14:41:24 GMT indy said:

Yowser. If this is accurate, Russia may have very little left to add to the conflict. I assume this is a percentage of the currently ready total.

You have to wonder what China is thinking right now.  Isn't there a border dispute China could fire up again ?

www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/china-border-disputes/

Let's not forget "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". 

Pres Biden to Xi:  How about starting something with Vlad ? If you make him reduce forces in the Ukraine we'll see to it that....

ETA:  Wouldn't have to be anything big: massing of forces along the border, fly bys along the disputed area. a couple of VERY mionor "incidents", "fleet maneuvers" outside Vladivostok.  

[indy]

There are probably quite a few knives being sharpened right about now.

[indy]

Russians loading a tank onto a semi...sure gave me a chuckle.

[LFC]

The one analyst I've been following says that Ukraine is preparing for counter-offenses in the south. They've already retake some territory that could allow them to aim at cutting Russian troops from supply lines.

5/ Over the last couple of months, there has been a rolling series of Ukrainian assaults on Russian defences in the south. This has seen them liberate significant parts of their country in the south.



6/ This is important particularly if one views the territory retaken so far with the perspective of cutting Russian logistics and establishing launch points for subsequent attacks.

[andydp]

Jul 24, 2022 16:00:01 GMT indy said:

Russians loading a tank onto a semi...sure gave me a chuckle.

Nothing new.  Happens a lot when troops don't have enough training.  To get the tank righted you'll need a tank recovery vehicle manned by experts (i.e. trained operators).  Imagine if that happened in a war zone on a Main Supply Route.  

[LFC]

Equipment destruction update:

Date   Vehicles     Tanks       Since 2/24
3/18:  1574         244         3 weeks
3/25:  1831 (+257)  289 (+45)   4 weeks
4/01:  2175 (+344)  359 (+80)   5 weeks
4/07:  2614 (+439)  449 (+90)   6 weeks
4/14:  2885 (+271)  505 (+56)   7 weeks
4/21:  3068 (+183)  528 (+23)   8 weeks
4/28:  3248 (+180)  580 (+52)   9 weeks
5/05:  3417 (+169)  605 (+25)  10 weeks
5/12:  3623 (+206)  664 (+59)  11 weeks
5/19:  3675  (+52)  671  (+4)  12 weeks
5/27:  4150 (+475)  733 (+62)  13 weeks
6/02:  4207  (+57)  747 (+14)  14 weeks
6/09:  4273  (+66)  762 (+15)  15 weeks
--
7/05:  4573 (+200)  830 (+68)  19 weeks
7/12:  4683 (+110)  865 (+35)  20 weeks
7/19:  4738  (+45)  869  (+4)  21 weeks
7/26:  4822  (+84)  887 (+18)  22 weeks

There's been more reporting on potential Ukrainian counter offensives. I'll be interested to see if the amount of equipment destroyed rises more quickly.

[LFC]

Another analysis saying that if the West continues their support Ukraine may very well take back the territory stolen by Russia in the south. Also, since Ukraine has been getting longer range weapons, Crimea could suddenly come back into play. Putin would f***ing melt down if that happened.

14/ But without possessing the south, Russia’s current strategy will have failed.

15/ As the Ukrainians have shown throughout the war, they are very willing to fight and kill as many Russians as it takes. But they are at their best when undertaking clever, indirect actions that destroy Russia’s #strategy.

16/ Finally, losing the south will force Putin and his military commanders to make difficult strategic choices.

17/ Because if the Russian Naval base at Sevastopol comes into range of Ukrainian long range strike weapons in the south, is it then a bastion worth retaining and defending for Russia?


18/ If not, a Russian withdrawal from Crimea (as a goodwill gesture, of course) will have significant political ramifications for Putin at home. But if Russia stays in Crimea, they will need to further dilute their forces in the east to send more defenders to Crimea.

19/ For both the Ukrainians and the Russians, the campaign in the south will be the decisive front in the war. For Ukraine, ongoing or increased Western support may be a vital outcome of victory.
www.smh.com.au/national/southern-ukraine-looms-as-key-battleground-in-putin-s-war-20220726-p5b4jv.html

20/ For Russia, overall success in this war to subjugate Ukraine, and extinguish their democracy, probably rests on their retention of the south. The stakes are the very high indeed. End

[LFC]

Mick Ryan, the analyst I've most been following on this war, says that the Ukraine has mastered effective 21st Century strategies will look like and that many other nations' militaries can learn a lot from how they're fighting. He discusses the strategy of "corrosion" which I posted here before. He then notes the shift in the Donbas to how the Russians want to fight and how HIMARS have allowed Ukraine to shift back to their preferred strategy.

11/ The Ukrainians had less success with this approach in the Donbas however. Due to the alignment of the front line, and the concentration of most Russian offensive capacity, the Ukrainians were drawn into an attrition fight there for many weeks.

12/ This is a way of war that Russians embrace and one which the Ukrainians would have preferred to avoid. It was a crunching and destructive fight, with many lives spent on both sides for minor tactical gains by the Russians.

13/ The introduction of #HIMARS changed this dynamic. It allowed the Ukrainians to realign their defensive operations in the east and adapt to attack the Russian strength (artillery) by targeting its ammunition supply depots.

14/ The Ukrainians are re-adopting the asymmetric conventional tactics they used so successfully early in the war. This is the Ukrainian ‘deep battle’, an integral part of their strategy of corrosion.

He views the corrosion strategy against Russia to have been successful at multiple levels.

19/ The Ukrainians have also forced on the Russians a deeper form of intellectual corrosion. Under pressure to achieve some form of victory due to previous setbacks, the Russians are taking greater tactical and operational risks with their military operations.
20/ More broadly, the Russians are having to form volunteer battalions which will not be as well-equipped, led or trained as the Russian forces that entered Ukraine in February. This is corroding the Russian military and its capacity to sustain operations in the long term.
21/ The Ukrainian consistency in implementing their strategy of corrosion now sees the Russian Army under pressure, with insufficient reinforcements to replace an increasingly exhausted force that is under attack physically and psychologically.
22/ Strategically, the Ukrainians are corroding Russia’s international standing with their global influence operations. And they have secured strategic commitments from the EU and NATO.
23/ In corroding the Russian military physically, morally, and intellectually, the Ukrainians have evolved the military art. This is what 21st century war looks like. The Ukrainians have proved to be masters of it.
24/ Ukraine, largely, has refused to fight how Russia wants to fight. It has developed & implemented its own military strategy with great discipline. What might other nations learn from the Ukrainian Armed Forces? In short – a lot. That is the topic of my next thread. End

insert quote here

[LFC]

At the start of the invasion Putin actually had backers in Ukraine. He has steadily whittled that support away by mindlessly shelling towns, slaughtering civilians, and allowing his troops to commit an endless string of atrocities. There's a big difference between welcoming regime change at the point of a gun and accepting your neighbors, and perhaps relatives, being chewed up as a cruel, childish, but deadly retribution for Putin's military failures. Maybe being ruled by Russia doesn't look so great anymore.

Russia has been bombarding the seaside city of Odesa since the earliest days of its war in Ukraine—but the critical grain port has become a symbol of ongoing local resistance, where even former pro-Russian stalwarts are now embracing Ukrainian patriotism.

“The longer the war goes on, fewer people sympathize with Russia in Ukraine. Those who spoke Russian in everyday life, switch to Ukrainian,” a long-time observer of Ukraine’s politics, Yevgeny Kisilyev, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “Even the most openly pro-Russian politicians, including Odesa’s mayor … have turned into passionate enemies of [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s regime.”

Odesa, with its huge grain storage and shipping resources, is a much-desired target for Moscow. Russian missiles have been destroying the city since the first days of the war. In March and April, missiles killed dozens of civilians, including a three-month-old baby girl, Kira Glodan, her mother, and her grandmother.

The tragedy angered Odesa but the massacre did not stop. On July 1, one of the missiles hit an apartment block in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, killing 19 people. Weeks later, on July 20, “Russia fired eight missiles that cost millions of dollars, which our forces brought down along with a Russian drone,” Natalya Humeniuk, spokeswoman of the South Defense forces, told The Daily Beast in an interview last week.

The relentless attacks from Russia have hardened local sentiments against Putin. “During the first week of the war, Odesa’s mayor, Gennady Trukhanov—who many believed had a Russian passport—said nothing against Moscow,” local activist Julia Grodetskaya told The Daily Beast. “So concerned citizens consolidated, and patriotic volunteers worked hard on the city’s defense. Their actions, and constant Russian violence, changed the leadership and made local authorities more patriotic," she said, adding that now, “all former pro-Russian Odesans are ready to defend our city.”

This is not how Moscow had planned it. On the eve of the war, one of the Kremlin’s ideologists, Sergei Markov, told The Daily Beast that Russian forces would take Odesa easily. “There will be a quick Marine landing supported by a pro-Russian underground,” Markov predicted of the development of the war on the Black Sea.

Instead, Odesa became a symbol of resistance—and that pro-Russian underground melted away. As thousands of displaced people from neighboring Mykolaiv and Russian-occupied Kherson have flocked to the city, locals hung huge, patriotic banners with warning messages for potential saboteurs and spies. One of them showed a Ukrainian cutting a spy’s throat: “Get ready, we know all your routes.” More banners in the district of Pushkinska and Bunin streets said, "If somebody touches Mama Odesa, Mama will bury them."

Putin's continuing cruelty and failure to gain control quickly have worked out poorly for him.

Local defense volunteers—led by the Yacht Club’s director, Albert Kobakov—grew more numerous as the war dragged on. Hundreds of activists joined. “When the war began, I came here to show that I am not going to surrender,” said local activist Maya Dimereli. She and Grodetskaya said that the biggest concern in the first week of the war was that the city authorities would betray Odesa and hand it over to Russia.

Instead, Odesa’s businessmen felt committed to helping their city. From the owner of a perfume store, Dmitry Malyutin, to the founder of a tourist company, historian Aleksandr Babich, the city’s elite opened their doors and supported the volunteers. “If not for our society, I am not sure how long our resistance would have lasted. Their self-organization is fascinating and time plays against Putin—he is bombing Mykolaiv violently but Odesa is his problem,” Sevgil Musaieva, editor-in-chief of Ukrainskaya Pravda, Ukraine’s legendary newspaper, told The Daily Beast. “Politically we are winning the war—the entire world is supporting Ukraine.”

Thousands of volunteers also signed up to be soldiers in the territorial defense units, since Odesa was keenly aware of the threat of a potential ambush by Russian forces from Transnistria on one side, and the advancing Russian army on the other. Captain Humeniuk, an officer of Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service and the voice of the administration of the defense forces in the southern region of Ukraine, told The Daily Beast that the city needed enough volunteers to fill one brigade—and instead got enough to fill three.

[indy]

Russia has been bombarding the seaside city of Odesa since the earliest days of its war in Ukraine—but the critical grain port has become a symbol of ongoing local resistance, where even former pro-Russian stalwarts are now embracing Ukrainian patriotism.

Well, from what I understand from various sources is that 'accidents' tend to happen to pro Russian Ukrainians, particularly politicians and police. So it seems it might be sensible for those folks to embrace Ukrainian patriotism.

[LFC]

Equipment destruction update:

Date   Vehicles     Tanks       Since 2/24
3/18:  1574         244         3 weeks
3/25:  1831 (+257)  289 (+45)   4 weeks
4/01:  2175 (+344)  359 (+80)   5 weeks
4/07:  2614 (+439)  449 (+90)   6 weeks
4/14:  2885 (+271)  505 (+56)   7 weeks
4/21:  3068 (+183)  528 (+23)   8 weeks
4/28:  3248 (+180)  580 (+52)   9 weeks
5/05:  3417 (+169)  605 (+25)  10 weeks
5/12:  3623 (+206)  664 (+59)  11 weeks
5/19:  3675  (+52)  671  (+4)  12 weeks
5/27:  4150 (+475)  733 (+62)  13 weeks
6/02:  4207  (+57)  747 (+14)  14 weeks
6/09:  4273  (+66)  762 (+15)  15 weeks
--
7/05:  4573 (+200)  830 (+68)  19 weeks
7/12:  4683 (+110)  865 (+35)  20 weeks
7/19:  4738  (+45)  869  (+4)  21 weeks
7/26:  4822  (+84)  887 (+18)  22 weeks
8/02:  5038 (+216)  922 (+35)  23 weeks

Russia's equipment loss just crossed 5,000. There was a big jump in destruction. I wonder if the HIMARS are the major reason for this.