Some info from the Ukraine

[68RR]

Current Ukrainian estimate of total Russian losses:
Killed: 20,800
Wounded: 62,400
Taken Prisoner: 1000
Armored Combat Vehicles: 2063
Tanks: 802
Artillery Weaponry: 386
Aircraft: 169
Helicopters: 150
Ships and Boats: 8

[68RR]

Ukrainian military bloggers are now suggesting the Kremlin is intentionally raising new troops well away from western Russia, and particularly away from the big cities, because of fears of triggering anti-war protests. That may be, but, over the last month we have documented the dispatch of basically ethnic formations of Chechens, Abkhaz, Ossetians, Buryats, Tuvans into Ukraine; as well as combat units with little business in a land war in East Europe like Marine infantry, Arctic infantry and peacekeeper units yanked fro m the Caucasus, and generally speaking the UAF has cut them all to bits. At the same time, professional combat units with heavy numbers of ethnic Russians seem to have caused the UAF the most trouble.
Sooner or later the RF is going to have to choose. Option one in their mind seems to be throwaway cannon fodder whose soldiers the Kremlin pays little political price for, if they are killed, but who probably have few chances in an open fight with the UAF. The second option seems to be capable combat units containing a high proportion of soldiers educated in relatively Europeanized towns and cities, who can often fight very effectively, but if THOSE soldiers are killed and wounded in great numbers the RF public just might turn out in the streets and demand an end to the killing.
The choice gets trickier when your plan is capture Donbass whole in a major offensive hopefully ending in time to celebrate Allied defeat of Nazi Germany on May 9.

[68RR]

April 7 - Day 43 - Donbass: The decisive RF offensive that is no longer a surprise
Hi FB,
Two videos for you today.
The one with the RF vehicles in the plain I think is a good illustration of how the Russiand Federation (RF) forces move and what the Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) can and cannot do about it. You see a bunch of trucks, which are far too close together for any intelligent army in a war against a competent opponent, and then you see very accurate UAF shells hitting among the trucks. What you don’t see - and I concede it may have happened, it just didn’t get videoed - is a crushing artillery strike of 20-40 shells in a several seconds. To do that, one needs practice coordinating among several cannon batteries, and of course, plenty of shells to burn. At least in the video, clearly, the UAF is only firing a few cannons at time, and certainly not wasting ammunition.
The message being: If the West wants to give the Ukrainians the capacity to crush RF attacks as opposed to turn them back for a while, a basic prerequisite is trainloads of artillery ammunition.
The second video is giggling UAF soldiers blowing up an RF tank. It is important to remember that the real fighting is done by young men, and like it or not they have their own sense of humor.
Donbass:
Please take a look at the two Donbass battle maps I pilfered from today’s social media. Together I think they give a reasonably probable picture of where forces are now.
According to all accounts both sides are preparing for a show-down battle in this sector. The most extreme prediction came from Foreign Ministry Anatoly Kuleba, who predicted a WW2-scale fight with hundreds of tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers on each side. He said the crisis was coming in “days not weeks” and that if western states want to help Ukraine they need to get hardware to the Donbass now, or it will be too late “and thousands will die”.
Other sources, for instance Ukraine’s Army Chief of Staff and British Defense Intelligence, are more conservative in their predictions, and say that right now the RF is rearming and re-equipping its troops prior to the Donbass offensive, and that it’s taking time to bring units battered around Kyiv and Kharkiv back into fighting order.
According to a statement from 128th Mountain Assault Brigade (Zakarpatia) , near the Luhansk village Kremenna, near Severodonetsk, the UAF put in a successful infantry attack and threw RF forces north five to ten km. If that’s true, then that’s one place both maps referenced above are inaccurate. No way to know for absolute sure, without going there.
Official UAF sources reported unsuccessful RF pushes towards Novotoshkovska, Rubizhne and Nizhne and Novo Bakhmutovka; and substantial shellings (again) of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk and Popasna. Particularly heavy fires “with all weapons” were reported at Hirsky.
On Wednesday evening a video surfaced purportedly showing a substantial column of Russian equipment near Kupyansk, which is a key road interesction town; if you drive west from there you attack Kharkiv, and if you go south you can aim at either Severodonetsk or Kramatorsk. The size of the column wasn’t clear, but, at least possibly this column is one of the first RF reinforcement formations getting ready to be thrown at Donbass. However, there were no reports of a major column moving either in the Kharkiv or Severodonetsk sectors during the day today. Almost certainly US satellite overfights, and so the UAF, know exactly where this column is. We don’t, but do know it’s out there.
As always, the blackout on UAF preparations for the Donbass offensive was effectively total. Me, I would not want to attack the UAF after giving them a week or two to get ready, but I’m biased.
Mariupol: There was not a peep or a reference, by Ukraining media or UAF officials sources to the Marine “surrender” reported yesterday by RF propaganda outlets. Which is a little peculiar. Not sure what it means though.
Kherson, Mykolaiv and Krivoi Rih
The single map of this sector, also pilfered from social media, I think gives a very clear picture of where units are, assuming that the information is accurate. There are some confirmations of unit locations on this map, from other sources. The overall picture seems to be UAF forces and RF forces shooting artillery at each other, but making no pushes or obvious retreats.
A video surfaced late Wednesday evening purportedly showing RF armored vehicles, including tanks, moving in the vicinity of Nova Kakhovka. It was not clear in what direction.
According to the Zaporizhia regional defense command, overnight Wednesday-Thursday RF artillery shelled the settlements of Shcherbaki, Novodanylivka, Mala Tokmachka, Lukyanivske, Preobrazhenka, Huliaipole. As a result of another shelling in the village of Komyshuvakha, one person was injured. About 20 houses were damaged, one was destroyed. RF fires of an unreported type also hit houses in Stepnogorsk and in Verkhnya Krynytsia.
Kyiv and rear area Ukraine:
Here is another indication of the threat level in this sector: Today, road crews begain repairs to the Zhitomyr highway, which had been a battle zone for nearly a month. Inside Kyiv checkpoints are operating and tank barriers are still in place. However, grocery stores have a somewhat larger range of foods, and some small stores are now re-opening. Most of the city’s businesses still seem to be closed. But - and some of you will be glad to hear this - Martin the War Cat’s favorite pet food store in our neighborhood reopened yesterday.
A statement from the Kyiv defense command said that the capital is far from peacetime safe. According to that report, in the last 48 hours Kyiv police and other law enforcers have identified sixteen separate guerrilla groups left behind by retreating RF forces, hopefully to cause fear and mayhem in the city. So far, Kyiv seems quiet, but martial law is fully in effect from 2100 to 0600.
International:
- The British announced today they were sending Ukraine Mastiff armored vehicles, which will be of some use, although like most Afghanistan-era vehicles they are pretty large and blocky for use in conventional war where speed and smaller size are good vehicle feature, because of all the ways the other side has to destroy a vehicle if he can spot it. It will be interesting to see how the Ukrainians make use of them, but in any case, it is highly doubtful a battle bus designed to take on the Taliban was also designed to handle the firepower a typical RF battle group can bring down on a target. So nice gesture, the Ukrainians will probably figure out a way to use them, but Mastiffs don’t count as the heavy weapons Ukraine keeps begging for.
- Today, after weeks of announcements and press releases and declarations it’s really going to happen, the Pentagon said Ukraine received its first batch of Switchblade kamikaze drones. Reports of actual numbers seem to range between 50 and 100, and I haven’t found a definitive answer as to whether the drones are the little anti-personnel kind, or the big anti-vehicle kind. On paper an anti-vehicle kamikaze drone is a tool the Ukrainians can use and that the RF will have difficulty countering. However, one of the drone’s supposed advantages - a long loiter time running into hours - is probably not very useful in this war. Drones appear to be getting shot down fast and frequently in this war; at least, that’s what a drone operator told me today. Maybe if the Americans sent 500 or 1000 of the things, then you might get so much overmatch that RF air defense would be overwhelmed and the UAF would have the capacity to wipe out an entire RF BRG without have a single UAF soldier stick his head out of a foxhole. But this is 50 to 100 attack drones. I think it’s pretty likely the UAF will use the Switchblades like a mobile anti-armor reserve, similar to the way they used Bayraktar strik drones in the second week of the war, in Zhitomyr sector.
Russian army
- According to UAF media quoting an RF news channel called “Pskovskaya Gubernia”, an RF airborne unit based in the city Pskov, now in Belarus after a month fighting around Kyiv, is effectively dissolving itself because a great majority of the service personnel have handed in their resignations. Command is trying to entice officers and men to not to do that with a combination of patriotic appeals and threats of prison. Not confirmed, but certainly far from the first report we’ve had about motivation issues in the RF military.
Similar refusals were reported in Kamchatka and Buryatia but, RF propaganda television today showed armed Buryats standing in a row at attention, while the voiceover said this was part of the new wave of RF patriots ready to go fight Nazis in Ukraine.

[AnthonyS]

I watched it live and DVR'd it so I could watch it again!

This information is only on every news outlet around... .. .

Ask yourself why every news outlet on the planet cares about this shit more than a screwed up economy, open border, pedophilia, and re-evaluate your TV consumption. Or not.....

[Trip McNeely]

What you should really question, is why are you watching such BS on TV in the first place?

I watched it live and DVR'd it so I could watch it again!

This information is only on every news outlet around... .. .

[AnthonyS]

Question…. Why did Zelensky video a statement and announce a Grammy winner for the show on Sunday night? Does this not strike anyone as extremely odd as they are in the middle of a “war?” WTF

I already told you we are in the midst of the WW3 information war. It's mostly about information and control. Wars are and will be different from now on. Unrestricted trench warfare is gone for now. It's going to be information, political and guerilla warfare from now on. And anyone that thinks guerilla warfare doesn't work should revisit Afganistan.

Zelensky is a TV personality and not a field general. He is doing what he knows how to do and at the behest of his advisors..... the real thing you need to do is figure out who his advisors are and what information they are peddling and what they are hiding.

What you should really question, is why are you watching such BS on TV in the first place?

[Trip McNeely]

Question…. Why did Zelensky video a statement and announce a Grammy winner for the show on Sunday night? Does this not strike anyone as extremely odd as they are in the middle of a “war?” WTF

[Gasser64]

Here's the reason:

[68RR]

International:
The big news is is that today the heavy hitters in the support Ukraine club Kyiv is going to get heavy weapons.
The British (as reported by The Times) promised to deliver artillery including the AS90 Braveheart howitzer, as well as shells and armored vehicles. These are the exact big guns the Ukrainians have been begging for. According to the Times report, Poland and the Baltic states already operate the AS90, and it’s likely the Ukrainian gunners will be trained on the system there. If and when fielded, this will mark the first time Ukraine - again, at war for eight years - actually will have howitzer firing 155mm NATO standard shells. This is a big deal not just politically, but from the munitions point of view: Ukraine badly needs more laser-guided munitions, and the RF has destroyed Ukraine’s own factories capable of making such shells. A weapon firing 155mm laser-guided munitions, obviously, is not at much risk of having the factory making its shells bombed by the Russians.
The Americans, for their part, put out a press release detailed the latest batch of arms and materials they’re sending Ukraine, worth in total $USD 300 million. Along with the Switchblade kamikaze drones that have been on the “they’re coming” list already for two weeks, the statement said, Uncle Sam is sending two kinds of military drones, “armored vehicles” which almost certainly means HUMMVs or MRAPs left over from Afghanistan, small arms ammunition, and “laser-guided rockets”. None of this stuff is heavy weapons, all of it can easily be delivered by aircraft.
More importantly, the Gray Lady (New York Times to you non news people) reported today that the Biden administration “will work with” NATO states to help get Ukraine tanks. The article doesn’t say what tanks and from whom, but the obvious candidate is Poland. Discussion on that some other time.
Non-duck video and its details
The video I’ve attached was produced by Yury Butusov, one of Ukraine’s leading journalists. He runs the censor.net.ua news website and has a long history of excellent sources in the military.
On 28 February Butusov posted a video of him walking along the crest of a hill overlooking the Kharkiv region village Mala Rogan’. As some of you will recall, a little less than a week ago this was a place where RF forces were dug in and preventing the UAF from moving supplies in and people out of Kharkiv. In other words, the RF forces on the crest were part of the Kharkiv “encirclement”. After a battle elements of the 92nd Mech Brigade threw the RF forces off the crest. According to Butusov, elements of the RF 59th Tank Regiment and 136th Motor Rifle Brigade were the defenders.
The video is very simple - Butusov walks the two kilometer length of the position, with a video recording, and shows and describes what he sees. It is not often one gets a close look at a defensive position after a battle. This is by far the most detailed look, made public, of a defensive position during this war.
I’ll go into details I spotted in the next several paragraphs, but, short version, if you want conclusive, hard, unarguable evidence at least some units in the RF army are poorly-led and badly disciplined, you need look no further than this video. Likewise, if you want to see an example of how disastrous it can be when a poorly-led unit with pretty good equipment, gets attacked by a well-led, motivated unit with average equipment.
- The RF occupied this position on 26-27 February, i.e., it was in place for a month. In that time, a competent unit would have built full-dress bunkers, multiple firing positions, multiple firing sites for the tanks, and hide positions for all other major equipment and communication trenches. Failure to dig in seriously when the other guy has lots of artillery, is suicide for infantry. At about 03:30 and 09:00 you can see infantry hides they dug: the roof is perhaps two layers of sandbags, and they are well above the level of ground. Against medium never mind heavy artillery, this kind of flimsy protection is a joke and a death trap.
- It is clear from the video that the terrain chosen by the Russians very typical for east Ukraine: the top of a rolling hill where farmers had planted a line of brush and low trees to divide fields. The RF simply set up in the brush, dug in a couple of firing positions for the tanks, and did little else. This gave them a little bit more concealment that being out in the middle of a field, but, a professional defender would have dug his infantry in on a reverse slope, with machine gun, observation and firing positions on the crest itself. The defense set up here is either amateur, or ignorant. Instead, there are shallow holes out in the open, a couple with tripods.
- Cut branches, smashed tree limbs, destroyed equipment scattered across the position, plus meter-diameter and bigger along the length of this position make it extremely likely that prior to putting in a ground attack the Ukrainians plastered the entire length of the wood line with either 122mm howitzers or 152mm howitzers, or both, and if I had to guess it was 152s. There is evidence of heavy shell splinters up and down the position. It’s hard to imagine how anything above ground could have lived under that barrage, and as noted above, the RF soldiers seem to have done practically nothing to get themselves below ground: for an entire month.
- Over the course of the video, according to Butusov, he walks past some 30 destroyed RF armoreed vehicles, of which 4 were tanks. We don’t know what other vehicles exited the position, but the ones that were destroyed im place mean one of three things: (1) when the UAF artillery came down it was so quick and so heavy, that 30 or so armored vehicles - which are, inherently, supposed to resist artillery - were put out of action almost instantly or (2) when the artillery came in, the crews just abandoned the vehicles and ran or (3) when the artillery came in, the crews couldn’t think of anything better to do than leave the vehicles to be pounded into destruction. Freezing under artillery fire is a common reaction among untrained troops, but is unpardonable in a military with pretensions with professionalism.
- Expended rounds and a pair of prepared firing positions for the tanks make it likely that the entire defensive scheme for this RF position was, the tanks would shoot at anything coming towards the hill, or moving on the road below it. Tanks are far too expensive to live stationary like a bunker on tracks. If they are threatened, their crews need to move them or their commander needs to tell them to move. That didn’t happen here.
- There are other details, but it becomes repetitive. I’m not saying this video is a window onto all engagements taking place in this war, but, it is conclusive evidence that, at least sometimes, the RF on a tactical level is shockingly amateur. The defensive errors this video shows would be unpardonable, even in bad US National Guard unit. For a unit in a shooting war for a month, the errors are criminally negligent and there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that that negligence got somewhere between a few and several dozen of young Russian soldiers killed.
- Looking at how the RF defended this hill above Mala Rogan’, from a UAF point of view - never forget the UAF has been at war eight years - it is just mystifying and even a little funny that there are people out there who call themselves experts, that say Ukraine has no chance against the RF.

[68RR]

Latest evening update(UK time) from Stefan Korshak
John R Bruning
Shane Glasspool Tony Dukes William Tracy
Roy's notes: at the risk of making this a comedy of errors,Stefan outlines the front line risk of infanteers/anti tankers.
If your going to be the sharp edge of the pointy blade,you better get digging!.
Chatham Arch for anyone?
If you know,you know!!
April 2 - Day 38 - The Battle of Mala Rogan’: Bush league vs. Pros
Hi FB!
Two visuals for you today. The man with the duck, well, you have to understand Russian, but if you do then you’ll understand why it really was important to share the video.
The second video comes with warnings.
WARNING: The attached video contains an image of a corpse. Maybe two. You are warned. Also it’s fairly long, 20 minutes. You are warned about that as well. The video is not in English, although the voice-over is less important than the images. But at least you were warned about that too.
I’ll start out with the most useful fact of the day: according to Ukraine’s Finance Ministry, the war with Russia is costing Ukraine about $10 billion (USD) a month. Roughly speaking, that’s very close to what the US paid, per month, to fight in Afghanistan.
Today the RF chose to spread its long-range missiles and air bombings around. Overnight strikes hit in Odessa region (three cruise missiles, one shot down, target not reported), Poltava region (four missiles, target not reported but homes and businesses hit, according to an afternoon report two missiles shot down), Kremenchug town (three air strikes and an artillery strike, homes and businesses hit), near the village Shepetovka, outside Kmelnitsky city, (no info but social media images showing a giant smoke plume and fire often associated with a burning fuel storage site) and Dnipro (two missiles hitting a production facility). During the day RF missiles struck, for the first time, the city Pavlograd.
The Belarusian news platform Belaruskiy Raion reported the launch of a total sixteen or more RF long-range missiles from the Baranovichi and Mozyrsky regions from 22:00 to midnight on Thursday. It was not clear where these weapons struck, but it was clear that someone in independent Ukrainian media wants the Ukrainians to know when missiles are coming, and from where.
Donbass:
Aside from overnight and morning reports, this is the center of the fighting right now, and Izium still appears to be the epicenter. Ukraine’s usually stolid and consistent Army General Staff (AGS), in its 06:00 sitrep reversed its status on Izium from yesterday, declaring that actually, the UAF still controls part Mariupol (yesterday reported lost) BUT the RF has taking the Severny Donets River crossing in the city and is moving men and equipment south via a pontoon bridge. The UAF is battling hard to stop the RF push south on Izium’s outskirts, with defenses centered on the village Kamianka. Absence of updates over Friday make me suspect a severe battle is still in progress there.
Certainly, there was very heavy fighting in Luhansk and Doentsk regions on Thursday. According to the AGS, on Thursday, UAF forces operating in Donetsk and Luhansk regions repulsed nine RF attacks, destroying eight tanks, 44 infantry fighting vehicles, 16 trucks and 10 artillery systems. If the AGS estimates are accurate, RF forces attacking in Donbas could reach critical loss levels in a week or less, but, the critical loss point for UAF forces in sector could come sooner.
Other locations in this sector still under heavy pressure were, as before, Popasna, Severodonetsk and Ruzhezhne. Serhiy Hadai, head of the Luhansk regional defense command, in a statement that at these locations heavy “positional fighting” was taking place, with UAF units in defensive positions are constantly exchanging fire with RF units opposite them. He claimed Ukrainian units were holding their ground and inflicting more than 100 casualties on their opponents every day.
Haidai claimed that the RF attackers were largely elements of the DLPR 2nd Army Corps - a composite unit manned by RF officers and a mix of long-term soldiers drawn from occupied territories in the Luhansk region, and recent conscripts from the area, including students. There are also recent “Kadyrov” troops operating with 2nd Corps, he said, more than 30 of which were hit in overnight fighting and sent to hospital in Alchevsk.
UAF and Ukraine government officials said that they expect severe battles in Donbass in coming days, as the RF shifts troops from the north of Kyiv and Chernihiv and Kharkiv sectors, to reinforce its attacks in Donbas.
I have reliable information (actually, more than that) that the UAF is also shifting troops to the sector. My guess is these battles will get bigger.
Kyiv and Chernihiv:
In the Kyiv sector I didn’t see any reports of UAF troops moving further north than Ivankiv but, never short on quotable material, Presidential advisor Oleksy Arestovych told reporters today he expects the north of Kyiv to be cleared to the Belarusian border in as soon 48 hours. That may be, but, so far the RF evacuation of the Kyiv sector seems to have netted the UAF abandoned vehicles but few if any prisoners.
It in the suburbs near Kyiv, the UAF was still taking its time, going house to house and clearing corpses, booby traps and possible hiding places for RF stay-behind infantry.
Regarding corpses, I’m not kidding. In Bucha especially, shocking video is emerging with what appear to be dozens of dead Ukrainian civilians, some with their hands tied, lying in streets or courtyards. I think it’s best to wait for harder information before making any conclusions.
There were no reports, anywhere in Kyiv sector today, of UAF forces moving north contacting any kind of RF rear guard. The UAF rolled into the Chernobyl containment facility, ran up the Ukrainian flag, and no doubt left the site and its radiation as quickly as they good to the engineers that work there. In Brovary town official announced 36 hours of martial law, meaning everyone stays in their homes while the troops hunt the streets for marauders and saboteurs.
In Chernihiv sector the UAF reported recovery/liberation of these villages - Ягодное, Ивановка, Золотинка, Шестовица, Лукашевка, Слобода - which in practical terms means that, once they are cleared for mines and unexploded munitions and corpses and booby traps - the Kyiv-Chernihiv highway will be open and the siege of Chernihiv will formally be over, a statement from the Chernihiv regional command said.
However, a “large group” of RF forces are still deployed to the north of the city, the statement said, although it’s not clear whether the intend to defend where they are or go back to Belarus. The report said these RF forces are centered on the villages Sen’kovka and Horodnya.
In the south, there appeared to be little movement with RF probes towards Gulyaipole, Zaporizhia and Kam’yanske that, according to the Zaporizhia defense command, reduced the RF equipment inventory by one tank, six armored personnel carriers, three trucks and four rocket artillery systems. Also, the RF appeared to again be attempting to occupy the much-hit Chernobaevka airfield by Kherson: the UAF hit it again.

[AnthonyS]

We just finished fighting a 20+ year war in crapmanistan to replace the Taliban with the Taliban/ISIS.

You guys are silly if you think anyone wants to accomplish anything quickly anymore. We are in a very long unrestricted information war. If you are falling for most of this, you are losing.

We could all get organized and put an end to all this senseless BS, but most of you are too worried about Will Smith and the Oscar’s……. Distraction by design.

[Labora]

Jeez, it's only been 6 weeks, wtf is actually going on in Russia?

The more news that comes out it sounds like they where grossly unprepared and basically lied to about what this was going to actually be. Almost sounds like they expected Ukraine to just roll over and give up as they are struggling to do anything long term and logistically are a mess.

[Strychnine]

draftees were lined up and told to sign contracts and become professional soldiers, and go to Ukraine. Sending untrained draftees into combat...

Jeez, it's only been 6 weeks, wtf is actually going on in Russia?

[68RR]

According to Ukrainian military intelligence, the RF high command is grappling with something like a mutiny in 26th Tank Regiment of 47th Tank Division where, per Kremlin procedure, draftees were lined up and told to sign contracts and become professional soldiers, and go to Ukraine. Sending untrained draftees into combat is political dynamite in Russia, if it took place massively and word of it were to get back to the Russians, Putin could faced serious public unrest, and if there were mass casualties - and new draftees by definition are poorly trained - then that is the kind of thing historically that has led to Tsars getting put on trains to Siberia.
- Speaking of Siberia, an audio appeared of an irate police general in Novosibirsk who is apoplectic that his subordinates prefer to quit the special forces police, and get a black “coward” mark in their copy books, than volunteer to go to Ukraine. He even calls them woman and traitors. Unfortunately for him he didn’t collect telephones prior to his tirade, so now his fuming and foul language is in the internet, and no doubt he is wondering which of his insubordinate lieutenants dared to record him secretly.
Kyiv wants to go back to normal, even if it costs: Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko today announced that basically all street and sidewalk businesses like cafes and restaurants and so forth “for the duration” will no longer have to pay the city rent on space, just please get back to work and start serving customers. If the establishment wants to put up patriotic signage, the city will help with materials and maybe even cash.

[68RR]

Today, or more exactly yesterday evening began with a bang. In the Russian Federation village of Krasniy Oktyabr, near the town of Belgorod, about 20 kilometers from the Russia-Ukraine border, there is an ammunition dump. Or, perhaps more precisely, maybe its better to say there WAS an ammunition dump, -because at 20:00 something caused a massive explosion, rattling windows across the border, and throwing a giant fireball into the sky, followed by at least two hours of detonations and fire, before emergency response teams got the blaze under control.
Ukrainian media was quick - like, in less than two hours - to declare it all the work of a Ukraine Armed Forces Tochka-U missile which - and these things are big and slow, they ride on giant trucks - the Ukrainians had managed to get the missile within its 120 kilometer range of the holding facility, and blast it. I posted two images from Russian social media, which, clearly, likes posting pictures of fires and explosions accompanied by vulgar comment, quite as much as their Ukrainian neighbors.
Russian officials led by the local governor seemed to be caught flat-footed. First they said everything was under control, then they said no one was hurt, then they said yes there’s a fire but it’s under control, then they said four service personnel were injured, and ultimately they admitted it took more than five hours to put out the fire, in part because exploding artillery rockets and shells prevented the firemen from getting close enough to put it out.
Later on Wednesday, the Ukraine Army General Staff (AGS) released a cryptic statement: it wasn’t us, probably those Russians mishandled something explosive and possibly beyond expiration date.
Some Ukrainian officials - for example Mykolaiv regional defense commander Vitaly Kim - have claimed that capturing RF ammunition is not as good as it sounds, because much of the RF ammunition dates well back into the Cold War period, and some of it to the Second World War, and either way about a third of it never explodes. Which doesn’t really solve the puzzle of what caused the explosion at Krasnkiy Oktiabr, and all the ammunition that did, somehow, manage to blow itself up.
Kyiv situation part 1: The RF attempts the old football play: Student body left!
The day saw conflicting reports about what force the RF was withdrawing from around Kyiv, where it was going, by what route or routes, and what the Ukrainians were or might be doing about that. The general official view - advanced by for instance the ACS and the Kyiv defense command - was that UAF infantry was mopping up in suburbs just to the north of Kyiv in places like Irpen’ and Brovary, while larger RF formations appeared to be heading back into Belarus, via the town of Ivankiv. Where, readers may recall, the UAF claimed two days ago it had cut a critical bridge. Maybe so, but sources agreed the Russians were moving north, and mostly without hindrance. Eyewitnesses in northern Kyiv reported small arms firing off and on, particularly in the morning. To the west of Kyiv, at about two A.M. - there were no official announcements - the RF put in a rocket artillery strike audible across the most the city. Early on Wednesday (Kyiv time) Pentagon spokesmen were saying the force withdrawal may be just minor, but, by Wednesday afternoon UAF officials, like Presidential advisor Oleksy Arestovych, were stating openly the RF withdrawal had been in progress for 24 hours. Officials of all levels, down to village councils in Vorzel’ and Vyshegorod warned residents who had evacuated earlier to stay away, even if the RF soldiers are departing they are leaving booby traps behind, and in some places the ground is saturated with unexploded shells.
Kyiv situation part 2: What’s next?
For this section I suggest you look at the posted maps on the Kyiv-Chernihiv sector, created by one of the best military cartographers out there, a Twitter user named JominiW. He uses open sources and far more discipline and skill that most normal humans have to cram a massive amount of information into nice, readable situation maps. The one he put out for today shows the situation to the east of Kyiv with some of the best clarity out there, particularly if you read military symbols, which many of you do.
But to get the main point, really all you need to be is not color-blind. In the map, the Ukrainians are green and the Russians are red. If JominiW's estimate is right, and you look immediately to the north-west of Kyhiv, you’ll see several red RF units, and no matter which way the little red RF units turn, it seems like there are green Ukrainian units, at pretty much every direction of the clock.
It’s not a perfect encirclement. But if you look at the road network, the places where the Ukrainians hold a big road junction like in Chernihiv or in Konotop, and think about driving north to Belarus from that part of the world, you are confronted with the question - how exactly to drive north from where the RF is, and get to Belarus, without bumping into some piece of the UAF along the way?
This is probably a big reason why the RF has announced it’s shifting troops away from Kyiv to points east and south. It they stay put where they are, the Ukrainians might cut them off. As the RF has advanced it has lacked the force, please pardon the dreary phrase, to secure its flanks, and now it must pull troops back with all manner of coherent UAF formations in their way.
This is not to say the RF can’t pull its troops out of this sector, but, it is to say that it won’t be easy and the UAF will certainly be looking for opportunities to make it harder for them. This would not be simple to carry out with well-trained, confident troops, and the RF is anything but that. On the other hand, it is probably fair to say that the RF units in north Ukraine down to a man just want to leave the country. Arguably, right now the RF troops in Kyiv sector are as collectively motivated and focused on the mission - get the Hell out of Ukraine - as they have been for the entire war.
Shortly after 1800 Ukraine’s Interior Ministry reporte two columns of RF vehicles, one vicinity Brovary and one vicinity Novy and Stary Basany, had lined up on the road and headed north. 300 vehicles in the first column, 450 in the second, according to the report. It remains to be seen what, if anything, the Ukrainians will do about that. The RF Ministry of Defense announced that “all missions in the Kyiv and Chernihiv area are completed.” Shades of W.
South and East
Compared to yesterday, there were few reports of renewed fighting in either of these sectors. However, as we predicted, confirmation materials - images and eyewitness accounts - appeared over the course of the day confirming the wreck of an RF armored column that, yesterday, left Kherson en route to Mykolaiv but got forced back by artillery. Also, images surfaced of a reported battle with heavy RF losses over the weekend in the vicinity of the town Gulyaipole: it seems the RF indeed lost more combat vehicles there. Further confirmation came today from an RF opposition politician named Ilya Ponamarev, who told independent opposition media that during the battle the RF’s 331st Guards Airborne Regiment - an elite parachute unit - was all but wiped out. I lifted a map from a gentleman named Richard MacKay that shows a possible version of how forces are stacked up in this sector.
Likewise, images came in seemingly confirming that Monday’s engagements in Popasna and Severodonetsk left the UAF holding the positions, and RF tanks and infantry fighting vehicles destroyed or captured at both locations.
From Mariupol, I didn’t see any useful updates at all today.
Other items:
Churn and thrash in British national leadership on the subject of Ukraine - Today a number of Ukrainian politicians said London was on board with the idea of Britain giving Ukraine security guarantees needed for a peace treaty, while Prime Minister Boris Johnson stood up and saying Ukraine needs more and better weapons from the West now. At the same time, a British diplomat at the UN named Tony Radakin (spelling?) saying that while London of course supports Ukraine, extending NATO-type article five protections to Ukraine is something Britain isn’t prepared to do. He did however use the code term “new phase” of Ukraine’s war with Russia, which I think in NATO orgspeak means figuring out ways to get heavy weapons like artillery and vehicle-mounted air defense systems to Kyiv, while tightening down the sanction screws on Russia even more. You watch, a lot of western bureaucrats are going to start using the term “new phase” in coming weeks.
RF hunt for cannon fodder intensifies:
- The “Caucasian” security unit AF intelligence mentioned as heading to Debal’tsevo by train yesterday, has resolved itself, according to the same sources, to “volunteers” from the RF’s 4th military base in Tskhinvali Ossetia (1,200 men), and 7th military base in Abkhazia (800 men). Both of these bases are centers for the Kremlin military footprint in separatist areas it has dug out of Georgia. Neither formation has a reputation for discipline and military professionalism. In this particular case I can speak from personal experience. If either the Ossetians or the Abkhazians get opposite the UAF, it will be very bloody, I fear, and not for the Ukrainians. It would be more like murder.
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