Posts Tagged ‘Berdyansk’

Russo-Ukrainian War Roundup for March 28, 2022

Monday, March 28th, 2022

Despite last week’s announcement that Russia was going to confine operations to the eastern part of Ukraine, there seems to be a lot of activity around Kiev, possibly of “one last push” variety, though Ukrainian forces have retaken Irpin, and Russian forces have reportedly finally taken Mariupol.

  • Is Putin going to declare victory May 9 no matter what?

    Vladimir Putin has already declared the ‘end’ of the war in Ukraine, officials in Kyiv have claimed, matching the same date Russia celebrates defeating the Nazis in World War Two.

    The general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian propaganda ‘imposes the idea that the war must be completed before the 9th of May 2022’.

    Russia holds an extravagant victory day parade in Moscow’s Red Square on that date every year to mark Nazi Germany’s surrender and the end of the Second World War.

    In a Facebook post, the general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said: ‘According to the available information, among the personnel of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, propaganda work is constantly being carried out, which imposes the idea that the war must be completed before the 9th of May 2022.’

  • Ukrainian forces retake control of irpin, which is northwest of Kiev right at the edge of Hostemel Airport.
  • Russia is hitting Ukrainian fuel storage facilities. Also, a bit about Russia’s scaled-down goals:

    Ukrainian intelligence is warning that Russia may attempt to bifurcate the country. This is could very well be part of a pivot to a less ambitious strategy that Moscow is framing as their original intent, which is a lie.

    Still, this makes sense as trying to secure a large part of Donbas, or more realistically from the Dnipro River to the south to somewhere east of the Vorskla River to the north, is a far more attainable goal than taking the entire country or even half of it. This would be sold by Putin as a measure to provide security to the newly-recognized (by Russia) ‘republics’ of Donetsk and Lugansk in Ukraine’s far east, but it could possibly allow Russia to maintain a land bridge to Crimea and control every port on the Sea of Azov. These separatist republics may soon ‘vote’ to actually join the Russian Federation, which would give further pretext to such an operation.

    Above all that, it would give Russia a major foothold to degrade, undermine, and outright attack Ukraine over the long haul. It would also be better situated than ever to launch a new invasion of more territory to the west in the future under such a setup.

  • Some realism from Zelensky:

  • Russian morale is poor. “Professor Michael Clarke, former director of the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said: ‘The Russians are making almost every tactical mistake it is possible to make.'”
  • Are Russian troops fragging their own officers? It’s certainly possible, given how unpopular the war is and how ill-prepared Russian troops were for the invasion, but I’d treat this report with several grains of salt. Speaking of things that need to be taken with grains of salt…
    
  • I simply don’t buy this report that Ukraine has captured more tanks from Russia than its lost.

    Ukraine has lost at least 74 tanks—destroyed or captured—since Russia widened its war on the country starting the night of Feb. 23.

    But Ukraine has captured at least 117 Russian tanks, according to open-source-intelligence analysts who scrutinize photos and videos on social media.

    In other words, the Ukrainian army might actually have more tanks now than a month ago—all without building a single brand-new tank or pulling some older vehicle out of storage.

    The Russians meanwhile have captured at least 37 Ukrainian tanks—a sum inadequate to compensate for the roughly 274 tanks it is believed to have lost to all causes.

    1. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 2. I believe the Russia loss numbers are probably a good floor, given their poor preparation and numerous reports of lack of fuel. But I suspect the Ukrainian loss numbers are probably low. 3. A captured tank is not necessarily a usable, fieldable tank. That said, it is easier for Ukraine and Russia to field each other’s captured armor that most belligerents, given both have the same Soviet roots.

  • Why Putin is bombing Russian speaking parts of Ukraine.

    Putin claims he’s come to save the Russian world and the Russians from Nazism — but he’s mostly bombing Russian-speaking cities. Kherson, Mariupol, Odessa, Kharkiv, these are all cities where the majority of the population speaks Russian.

    The fact that a big portion of the current Ukrainian leadership is of Jewish descent is no accident — they are fighting for a new, contemporary Ukraine. We want to live like normal people, not like animals: not to be poor, not to be under someone’s thumb, or someone’s boot. We don’t want to be dominated.

    Putin doesn’t believe that Ukrainians exist. And he can’t let the new Ukraine state stay alive — he can’t let it slip away from him. So he has to derail the project. He has tried everything. The fact that he had to go to war is already proof that he wasn’t successful, that he couldn’t achieve his goal in any other way.

    Another Russia is possible, but for that to happen, Russians have to repudiate today’s Russia — a complex and probably bloody process. They have to repudiate Putinism, the gulag, their nostalgia for the Soviet Union and for the Russian Empire. And if they don’t, then they can’t have a free and democratic Ukraine on their border, since it’s a bad example for Putin’s Russia. Ultimately, this is as much about them as it is about Ukraine.

  • Fifth Russian general reported dead. “Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, 48, commander of the army’s 49th combined arms division, became the fifth general to be killed after being taken out in a strike by the Ukrainian armed forces, sources in Kyiv said.”

    Yakov?

  • Is Russia suffering from a higher than usual percentage of dud munitions? It’s entirely possible, given the substandard maintenance we’ve seen for the rest of their armed forces over the past month.
  • R. S. McCain has reports of Ukrainian forces pushing back at Makariv, Borodyanka, and other villages as yet unnamed.
  • Food for thought:

  • “Ukrainian forces have seized part of one of Russia’s most advanced electronic warfare systems, which could reveal its military secrets, reports say. The Krasukha-4 command module was found abandoned on the outskirts of Kyiv partly damaged but otherwise intact, The Times of London reported.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of captured interesting captured Russian tech:

  • “Russian warship destroyed in occupied port of Berdyansk, says Ukraine.” There’s also video:

  • Reports of cut rail lines in Belarus. Source is Ukraine, so grains of salt apply.
  • Who are the Russian oligarchs?

    The richest person in Russia, Vladimir Potanin, has a 35% stake in Moscow-listed Nornickel.

    The company is the world’s biggest producer of palladium, a metal used in vehicle catalytic converters, and also the world’s largest producer of nickel, an essential metal for EV batteries and renewable energy.

    Former First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and a close associate to President Vladimir Putin, Potanin is a major benefactor of the arts. He recently stepped down from the board of the Guggenheim Museum, after 20 years as a trustee.

    Arts and luxury are common among the Russian oligarchs.

    The Russian ultra-rich are also among the biggest owners of private jets and superyachts⁠—some of which are getting snagged by law enforcement as part of the sanctions designed to crack down on Russia.

    The fifth-richest man in Russia, Alisher Usmanov, owns Dilbar, the largest motor yacht in the world by gross tonnage. The boat is 512-feet long and reportedly cost $800 million, employing 84 full-time crew members.

    Named after Usmanov’s mother, the yacht was seized by German authorities who later discovered that it’s really owned by a Malta-based firm and registered in the Cayman Islands.

    Besides art and luxury, the Russian oligarchs are also deeply involved with sports.

    Roman Abramovich, once Russia’s richest man, is the departing owner of Chelsea Football Club, a London-based soccer team. He was sanctioned by the UK while trying to sell the club for $3.9B.

    Besides Abramovich, Mikhail Prokhorov—founder of Onexim Group, a Moscow-based company with interests in banking, insurance, and real estate—owned the Brooklyn Nets basketball team and its home arena from 2009 to 2019.

    The list also includes Vladimir Lisin, chairman of the steel group NLMK. A shooting sports enthusiast, he is the president of the European Shooting Confederation.

  • “UK sanctions Alfa, Gazprombank and Lavrov’s step daughter.”

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    Russo-Ukrainian War Update for February 27, 2022

    Sunday, February 27th, 2022

    The Russian offensive in Ukraine continues to bog down against stiff resistance, Putin puts his nukes on alert, a rumor of peace talks, momentum to suspend some Russian banks from SWIFT builds, and a whole lot of aid from the rest of the world is pouring into Ukraine.

  • Russia evidently didn’t expect the fierce resistance they received in Ukraine:

    Russia invaded Ukraine from three sides on Wednesday night Eastern time, and as of now, early afternoon Saturday, the Russian army has yet to seize any Ukrainian cities.

    This morning, a senior defense official at the Pentagon briefed reporters and declared, “We continue to believe, based on what we have observed that this resistance is greater than what the Russians expected and we have indications that the Russians are increasingly frustrated by their lack of momentum over the last 24 hours particularly in the north parts of Ukraine… As of this morning we have no indication still that the Russian military has taken control over any cities. As of this morning we still believe that Russia has yet to achieve air superiority. Ukrainian air defenses including aircraft do continue to be operable and continue to engage and deny access to Russian aircraft in places over the country.”

    There is an intriguing but unverified claim from Ukrainian intelligence that Putin is furious, that he expected a quick surrender from Kiev, and that the invading Russian forces weren’t equipped for a long war – and that after ten days, the Russian forces will face serious problems with supply lines, fuel, equipment, ammunition, etc. Maybe this is just Ukrainian propaganda, meant to keep up morale for the next week or so. But there are some intriguing anecdotes of Ukrainians hitting Russian supply columns and videos of Russian tanks running out of fuel. (It turns out supply chain problems are just everywhere these days!)

    Sending in armored columns without dedicated infantry, artillery and air support is a big risk, big reward move. Patton did it successfully in the race across France in 1944, but he had air superiority, a friendly population, and the greatest war machine ever assembled in the history of mankind up to that time backing him, and even he had to halt when he outran his supply lines.

    Putin’s initial goal, the Russian reabsorption of Ukraine or the transformation of it into a lackey state of a renewed Russian empire, is now probably impossible. Any Russian-backed Ukrainian puppet government is likely to be vehemently rejected by the Ukrainian people. Russian forces will find it difficult to go out on patrol when every citizen’s got a rifle and every grandma on every street corner is handing them sunflower seeds, telling them they are going to be fertilizer soon.

    Russia may take large chunks of Ukraine, but they will have an exceptionally difficult time keeping it.

  • Why the Russians are struggling:

    The last three days of combat should put a serious dent in the reputation of this new Russian army. We should, however, try to understand why the Russians are struggling. First, the Russian army’s recent structural reforms do not appear to have been sufficient to the task at hand. Second, at the tactical and operational level, the Russians are failing to get the most out of their manpower and materiel advantage.

    There has been much talk over the last ten years about the Russian army’s modernization and professionalization. After suffering severe neglect in the ’90s, during Russia’s post-Soviet financial crisis, the army began to reorganize and modernize with the strengthening of the Russian economy under Putin. First the army got smaller, at least compared to the Soviet Red Army, which allowed a higher per-soldier funding ratio than in previous eras. The Russians spent vast sums of money to modernize and improve their equipment and kit — everything from new models of main battle tanks to, in 2013, ordering Russian troopers to finally retire the traditional portyanki foot wraps and switch to socks.

    But the Russians have also gone the wrong direction in some areas. In 2008, the Russian government cut the conscription term from 24 to twelve months. As Gil Barndollar, a former U.S. Marine infantry officer, wrote in 2020:

    Russia currently fields an active-duty military of just under 1 million men. Of this force, approximately 260,000 are conscripts and 410,000 are contract soldiers (kontraktniki). The shortened 12-month conscript term provides at most five months of utilization time for these servicemen. Conscripts remain about a quarter of the force even in elite commando (spetsnaz) units.

    As anyone who has served in the military will tell you, twelve months is barely enough time to become proficient at simply being a rifleman. It’s nowhere near enough time for the average soldier to learn the skills required to be an effective small-unit leader.

    Yes, the Russians have indeed made efforts to professionalize the officer and the NCO corps. Of course, non-commissioned officers (NCOs) have historically been a weakness of the Russian system. In the West, NCOs are the professional, experienced backbone of an army. They are expected to be experts in their military speciality (armor, mortars, infantry, logistics, etc.) and can thus be effective small-unit commanders at the squad and section level, as well as advisers to the commanders at the platoon and company level. In short, a Western army pairs a young infantry lieutenant with a grizzled staff sergeant; a U.S. Marine Corps company commander, usually a captain, will be paired with a gunnery sergeant and a first sergeant. The officer still holds the moral and legal authority and responsibility for his command — but he would be foolish to not listen to the advice and opinion of the unit’s senior NCOs.

    The Russian army, in practice, does not operate like this. A high proportion of the soldiers wearing NCO stripes in the modern Russian army are little more than senior conscripts near the end of their term of service. In recent years, the Russians have established a dedicated NCO academy and cut the number of officers in the army in an effort to put more resources into improving the NCO corps, but the changes have not been enough to solve the army’s leadership deficit.

    Now, let’s talk about the Russian failures at the operational and tactical level.

    It should be emphasized again that the Russian army, through sheer weight of men and materiel, is still likely to win this war. But it’s becoming more and more apparent that the Russians’ operational and tactical choices have not made that task easy on themselves.

    First, to many observers, it’s simply shocking that the Russians have not been able to establish complete air superiority over Ukrainian air space. After three days of hostilities, Ukrainian pilots are still taking to the skies and Ukrainian anti-air batteries are still exacting a toll on Russian aircraft. The fact that the Russians have not been able to mount a dominant Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) campaign and yet are insistent on attempting contested air-assault operations is, simply put, astounding. It’s also been extremely costly for the Russians.

    To compound that problem, the Russians have undertaken operations on multiple avenues of advance, which, at least in the early stages of this campaign, are not able to mutually support each other. Until they get much closer to the capital, the Russian units moving north out of Crimea are not able to help the Russian armored columns advancing on Kyiv. The troops pushing towards Kyiv from Belarus aren’t able to affect the Ukrainians defending the Donbas in the east. As the Russians move deeper into Ukraine, this can and will change, but it unquestionably made the opening stages of their operations more difficult.

    Third, the Russians — possibly out of hubris — do not appear to have prepared the logistical train necessary to keep some of their units in action for an extended period of time. Multiple videos have emerged of Russian columns out of gas and stuck on Ukrainian roads.

    The classic saying is “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics” (attributed to Marines Corps commander Gen. Robert H. Barrow, but I suspect the general sentiment is much older). An army runs on its stomach, and a modern mechanized army runs on its gas tank, and something has clearly gone wrong in with Russian logistical support for this war.

  • Russia seemed to have expected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to fold. He hasn’t.

    America offered to evacuate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy replied, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

    Zelenskyy’s reply was reminiscent of past heroes in times of war: Gen. Anthony McAuliffe who replied in “NUTS” in response to the German demand for surrender at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944; and the Texans striving for independence from dictator Santa Anna’s Mexico with their “Come and Take it Flag,” which was itself appropriated from Spartan King Leonidas and his response the Persian surrender demand at the Battle of Thermopylae.

    This bravery, in a day when modern communications allow all Ukrainians and the world to see it, has rallied Ukrainians to defend their nation. And now that the fighting has gone on for three days, what might that mean?

    Russian President Putin is said to have assembled 200,000 troops for the invasion. It is estimated that half of them have been committed so far. Further, Putin has called on 10,000 battle-hardened Chechen mercenaries. More than half of Russian forces are likely committed to the battle of Kyiv.

    Ukraine has 245,000 active-duty members, but most are in the east, facing the Russian-led and equipped militia in the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukraine also has another 220,000 reservists. Many of these are spread across the nation slightly larger than the state of Texas.

    The strategic target is Kyiv and its independent government. To move the reservists to the fight, they must contend with Russian air superiority, slowing their march. More importantly, given this struggle for national survival, 7,000,000 men of military age and fit for military service are taking up arms. Every day, many more older men — and many Ukrainian women — are also being issued weapons, making Molotov cocktails, and joining the fight.

    The ongoing Ukrainian mobilization means that the Russian military will soon be outnumbered most everywhere on the battlefield. The Ukrainians may not have the same level of modern equipment — missiles, jets, helicopter — but they have numbers and will power. And, the Russians need to eat, they need fuel, and ammunition — their resupply trucks must get through. They won’t, not in large enough numbers; everyday Ukrainians will see to that.

  • General update from late yesterday:

    Russian forces’ main axes of advance in the last 24 hours focused on Kyiv, northeastern Ukraine, and southern Ukraine. Russian airborne and special forces troops are engaged in urban warfare in northwestern Kyiv, but Russian mechanized forces are not yet in the capital. Russian forces from Crimea have changed their primary axes of advance from a presumed drive toward Odesa to focus on pushing north toward Zaporizhie and the southeastern bend of the Dnipro River and east along the Azov Sea coast toward Mariupol. These advances risk cutting off the large concentrations of Ukrainian forces still defending the former line of contact between unoccupied Ukraine and occupied Donbas. Ukrainian leaders may soon face the painful decision of ordering the withdrawal of those forces and the ceding of more of eastern Ukraine or allowing much of Ukraine’s uncommitted conventional combat power to be encircled and destroyed. There are no indications as yet of whether the Ukrainian government is considering this decision point.

    Ukrainian resistance remains remarkably effective and Russian operations especially on the Kyiv axis have been poorly coordinated and executed, leading to significant Russian failures on that axis and at Kharkiv. Russian forces remain much larger and more capable than Ukraine’s conventional military, however, and Russian advances in southern Ukraine may threaten to unhinge the defense of Kyiv and northeastern Ukraine if they continue unchecked.

    Key Takeaways

    • Russia has failed to encircle and isolate Kyiv with the combination of mechanized and airborne attacks as it had clearly planned to do. Russian forces are now engaging in more straightforward mechanized drives into the capital along a narrow front along the west bank of the Dnipro River and toward Kyiv from a broad front to the northeast.
    • Russian forces have temporarily abandoned failed efforts to seize Chernihiv and Kharkiv to the northeast and east of Kyiv and are bypassing those cities to continue their drive on Kyiv. Russian attacks against both cities appear to have been poorly designed and executed and to have encountered more determined and effective Ukrainian resistance than they expected.
    • Russian movements in eastern Ukraine remain primarily focused on pinning the large concentration of Ukrainian conventional forces arrayed along the former line of contact in the east, likely to prevent them from interfering with Russian drives on Kyiv and to facilitate their encirclement and destruction.
    • Russian forces coming north from Crimea halted their drive westward toward Odesa, and Ukrainian forces have retaken the critical city of Kherson. Some Russian troops remain west of the Dnipro River and are advancing on Mikolayiv, but the main axes of advance have shifted to the north and east toward Zaporizhie and Mariupol respectively.
    • Russian forces have taken the critical city of Berdyansk from the west, threatening to encircle Mariupol even as Russian forces based in occupied Donbas attack Mariupol from the east, likely to pin defenders in the city as they are encircled.
    • Russian successes in southern Ukraine are the most dangerous and threaten to unhinge Ukraine’s successful defenses and rearguard actions to the north and northeast.
    • Russian troops are facing growing morale and logistics issues, predictable consequences of the poor planning, coordination, and execution of attacks along Ukraine’s northern border.

    Here’s a Livemap snapshot of the conflict:

    It appears that the various armored column incursions were secondary to or distractions from the attempted paratroop-powered decapitation strike to be launched from Antonov International Airport. When that went awry (as airborne assaults often do; see the SNAFU that was Operation Market Garden in World War II), there appeared to be no coherent backup plan.

    Indeed, the entire operation seems to have been hastily planned and executed, which is odd, since Ukraine has obviously been much on Putin’s mind since 2014.

  • Here’s a Twitter thread showing destroyed Russian (and occasionally Ukrainian) vehicles and equipment.
  • Here’s another one reportedly from Bucha, just north of Kiev:

  • From the same thread:

    This is not the way competent troops act in hostile urban environments. It’s like the Russian army forgot all they learned from getting their asses kicked in the First Battle of Grozny, where driving ill-supported mechanized columns filled with untrained conscripts into the city resulted in horrible losses for the Russians.

    The Kiev assault seems even less thought out, and their opponents appear much better equipped and trained than the Chechens were.

  • On the other hand, here’s a report that Kiev is surrounded. I’d take that with several grains of salt.
  • Putin puts Russian nuclear forces on alert. The idea that Putin would actually contemplate nuclear war with the west because his own ill-conceived and badly-executed invasion of Ukraine has gone off the rails is hardly credible. Russia would be annihilated.

    “As you can see, not only do Western countries take unfriendly measures against our country in the economic dimension – I mean the illegal sanctions that everyone knows about very well – but also the top officials of leading NATO countries allow themselves to make aggressive statements with regards to our country,” Putin said on state television.

    “Mommy, they’re saying bad things about me!” Those unfriendly measures would, of course, stop instantly if Putin were to withdraw his forces from the territory of other sovereign nations.

  • Here’s a video of Putin explaining himself:

    Does that look or sound like an all-powerful conqueror at the top of his game? No, that’s the tone and the body language of a guy trying to explain why he just fucked up. “We had no other choice!” Yeah, except, you know, not invading another country.

  • There are evidently plans for talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations on the Ukraine border with Belarus. Don’t expect much. Zelenskyy: “I do not really believe in the result of this meeting, but let them try, so that no citizen of Ukraine would have any doubt that I, as president, did not try to stop the war when there was even a small chance.”
  • Ukraine says its been resupplied with air-to-air missiles.
  • The U.S. is sending $350 million in military aid. “The defense aid will include anti-armor, small arms and various munitions, and body armor and related equipment.” Let’s hope none of it disappears into the pockets of people connected to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee…
  • In a reversal of official policy, Germany is sending 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles to Ukraine, and also allowing countries that have bought German military equipment to reexport to Ukraine.
  • They’re also sending RPGS.
  • Speaking of reversing course, Germany has also done an about-face and is now in favor of removing some Russian banks from SWIFT. “The sanctions, agreed with the United States, France, Canada, Italy, Great Britain and the European Commission also include limiting the ability of Russia’s central bank to support the ruble.” I get the impression that the Eurocrats were hesitant to cut Russia off from SWIFT because they thought it would be a useless gesture. Now that Russia’s invasion has gone off the rails, they’re rethinking. The quick reverse also indicates how pissed they are at Russia right now.
  • “Sweden will send military aid to Ukraine, including anti-tank weapons, helmets and body armour.”
  • Australia is sending money for lethal aid.
  • Even broke Greece is sending aid.
  • Europe has effectively closed its airspace to Russia:

  • “Viral tweet about Republican senators voting to deny Ukraine military aid is thoroughly debunked.”
  • We could be heroes, just for one day.

    • A final word: There are a few Twitter pundits suggesting that some sort of “wag the dog” scenario of a fake war might be unfolding in Ukraine. I don’t buy it. There’s too much real reporting from too many points in Ukraine for such an elaborate, two-part deception to be unfolding. Lots of weird things happen in warfare.

    I will say one thing: The manifest incompetence with which Russia has tried to carry out this assault suggests that Putin felt he had to launch it then due to some sort of time pressure or deadline, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe Putin has late stage cancer, or he felt Ukraine was about to join NATO, or a major Russian oilfield is about to run dry. Whatever it is, this war appears to be a panic move that’s gone very badly for Putin.

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