*** Official Russia vs. Ukraine Discussion - Invasion has begun *** (3 Viewers)

[Don't Toews Me]

Ukraine Steps Up Strikes on Crimea as Offensive Grinds On

Ukraine has stepped up missile and drone attacks on Russian-occupied Crimea, destroying weapons, bases and supply lines as a four-month-old counteroffensive makes halting progress on the ground in the country’s east and south.

www.bloomberg.com

After taking out advanced air-defense systems that had protected the peninsula, Ukraine used cruise missiles and drones to destroy ships and the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and recaptured drilling platforms used for radar activity. As a result, the Russian fleet has been further limited, cutting the Kremlin’s capabilities, according to a European official who requested anonymity to discuss matters that aren’t public.
The operations are part of a broader strategy of targeting Russia’s supply lines, logistics and ability to mount offensive operations, the official said. The intensified attacks underscore Ukraine’s progress in gradually degrading Russia’s military effort — and provide a reminder of the embattled nation’s broader strategic goal of retaking the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.
But they aren’t likely to enable Ukraine to make a decisive breakthrough in the ground war this year, said the official.

Ukrainian officials suggested at least some of the attacks in Crimea have used the Storm Shadow and Scalp cruise missiles provided by the UK and France, some of the longest-range weapons in Ukraine’s current arsenal. Russian air defenses seem incapable of shooting them down, said the European official.

U.S. Defense Secretary Tours Africa

Austin touts U.S. as best alternative to Russia and China during visit.

foreignpolicy.com

The United States has heard from several African countries that they regret letting the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group into their territories, current and former U.S. military and defense officials told Jack. “We are seeing a growing understanding that this is, at minimum, a double-edged sword but, at worst, a net negative for countries that have enabled Wagner presence,” said a senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity based on ground rules set by the Pentagon. One of the groups that regrets letting in Wagner is the eastern Libyan faction led by strongman Khalifa Haftar, according to one former U.S. military commander.

 

[Orange&Blue]

Hate to say it, but with some western countries giving clear signals that their continued support is no longer going to be armor, and russia continuing to circumvent sanctions, ukraine needs to seek an end.

 

[Don Quixote]

Slovakia election today could have some implications. Favorite is Robert Fico, who is pro-Russia. Could change Slovakia’s role in the war.

https://wapo.st/46d0Ejw

 

[themeistersinger]

Interesting: https://twitter.com/konrad_muzyka/status/1707780936329224421

Since the start of SEP, Ukrainians reported a dramatic increase in the number of Shahed interceptions. Whether this signals a change in the Russian approach to their use over the coming weeks is yet unclear. The big question obviously pertains to the sustainment of such tempo.

France, Germany pave the way to making weapons in Ukraine

As Western armies’ stocks start to dry up, governments encourage the private sector to build partnerships with Kyiv.

www.politico.eu

French and German defense companies are setting up local shops in Ukraine for arms maintenance — a first step toward manufacturing weapons in the country.

This week, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office gave the green light to a proposed joint venture between Rheinmetall, a German arms maker, and the Ukrainian Defense Industry, a Ukrainian state-owned defense group.

France’s Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu traveled to Kyiv this week with about 20 French defense contractors — reportedly including Thales, MBDA, Nexter and Arquus — to facilitate partnerships with Ukrainian officials.

In the past week, French officials have started to hammer home a new message: France can no longer sustain giving weapons to Ukraine and will instead plug Ukrainian officials into the country's defense industry.

According to a government report, France delivered €640.5 million worth of weapons to Ukraine in 2022, including 704 missile launchers and portable anti-tank rocket launchers, 562 12.7mm machine guns, 118 missiles and missile launchers, and 60 armored fighting vehicles for free.

“We can't continue to take resources from our armed forces indefinitely, otherwise we'll be damaging our own defense capabilities and the training levels of our troops,” Lecornu told French TV Sunday.

France's shift comes on the heels of similar plans with British arms manufacturer BAE Systems and the Swedish government.

In August, Kyiv and Stockholm signed a statement of intent to deepen cooperation “in production, operation, training, and servicing” of the Combat Vehicle 90 (CV90) platform, manufactured by a Swedish branch of BAE Systems. A few days later, BAE Systems announced it would set up a local entity to ramp up production of 105mm light artillery guns.

The German competition authority's decision this week to green-light Rheinmetall's joint venture with the Ukrainian Defense Industry — which will be based in Kyiv and operate exclusively in Ukraine — paves the way for a partnership designed to maintain and service military vehicles. It will also include “assembly, production and development of military vehicles.”

Both parties also hope to eventually develop military systems jointly, “including for subsequent export from Ukraine.”

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger expressed a desire to manufacture the company’s next generation Panther tank in Ukraine — up to 400 per year. Although still a prototype, the new tank would be the successor of the company’s Leopard 2 main battle tank.

if they are planning to start manufacturing weapons in Ukraine, then they are obviously expecting the war to drag on for quite a while.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Ukraine's occupied regions to be included for first time in new round of Russian conscriptions

Fall conscription will begin from October 1 in all parts of the Russian Federation, including in the illegally annexed regions of Ukraine, Russia's defense ministry announced Friday.

www.cnn.com

Fall conscription will begin from October 1 in all parts of the Russian Federation, including in the illegally annexed regions of Ukraine, Russia's defense ministry announced Friday.

In some regions of the Far North, the conscription will begin on November 1 due to the climate differences, Rear Admiral Vladimir Tsimlyansky, deputy chief of the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said during a briefing.

“The autumn conscription will take place from October 1 in all constituent entities of the Russian Federation," Tsimlyansky said.
"The exception is certain regions of the Far North and certain areas equated to regions of the Far North, where citizens living in these territories are conscripted for military service from November 1 to December 31. This is primarily due to the climatic characteristics of these territories."

The departure of conscripts from collection points is scheduled to begin on October 16, he said. “The term of conscription military service, as before, will be 12 months,” Tsimlyansky said.

The conscription for military service in what Moscow claims are Russia's the new regions is regulated by a so-called constitutional law on admission to the Russian Federation, according to state news agency TASS.

According to the law, the autumn 2023 conscription will include the annexed territories – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – for the first time. There was no conscription for military service last year and in the spring of 2023 in these regions, according to TASS.

While regular conscriptions will be carried out, Russia has no plans for further mobilizations, Tsimlyansky, said.

Some context: Conscriptions in Russia happen twice per year. Last fall’s conscription began a month later than usual due to bottlenecks at conscription offices amid a partial mobilization, according to TASS.

SU-35 shot down, possibly by Russia's own air defenses: https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1707683457537540562

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Russia reportedly 'shoots down' its own fighter jet; NATO country investigates possible airspace breach

Ukrainians in Vinnytsia have been ordered to evacuate after an "infrastructure site" was hit by Russia. Meanwhile, Romania is investigating a possible airspace violation after a radar system picked up an unusual signal and reports suggest Moscow has shot down one of its own fighter jets.

news.sky.com

There are widespread reports that Russia has lost another of its SU-35 FLANKER multi-role fighter jets near the frontline around Tokmak in occupied Ukraine.

Ukrainian sources claim they shot down the Russian fighter using S300 surface-to-air missiles.

However, later reports suggested Russian ground forces were responsible for shooting down the aircraft.

Here's a Telegram post by a Ukrainian journalist about the incident - we've translated it into English using Google Translate for you.

In fact, both sides in the conflict use the S300 missiles which were a foundation of military air defence capability during the Former Soviet Union era.

So, we might never know who actually fired the missile, but we do understand the Russian pilot did not survive the incident.

Western military analysts have noted Russia continues to lose a significant proportion of its frontline military aircraft, losing at least four FLANKERS in the past 18 months alone.

Given the relative inexperience and lack of training of Russia's pilots, why are they being deployed closer to the frontline where the risks of being shot down increase dramatically?

One explanation is Russia is running low on stocks of surface-to-surface missiles, so needs to increase the support provided to the frontline by the Russian air assets.

Also, it probably reflects the increasing Russian concern over Ukrainian progress in their counteroffensive and the need to throw everything available into the fight.

As to the suggestion that Russia shot down its own aircraft, although that might seem - at least at face value - unlikely, in fact the history of warfare is littered with frequent examples of fratricide.

My own first-hand experience as a fighter pilot during the Iraq war highlights this point.

Air missions planned to support the allied liberation of Iraq planned to avoid known Iraqi surface-to-air missiles systems, but when heading back to base in Kuwait, we were flying straight into a comprehensive wall of US Air Defences - the Patriot system.

Flying at high-speed, allied air power was always nervous about being accidentally targeted on the way home, with the omnipresent risk a missile operator would "fire first and ask questions later".

If such a risk can occur with the incredibly professional, capable and high-tech Western forces, it can certainly exist with inexperienced Russian pilots and war-ravaged, nervous and poorly trained Russian soldiers.

Regardless, the Russian Air Force will be increasingly concerned about growing losses of strategic assets - particularly fighter aircraft that take years to replace, and pilots that take considerably longer.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://twitter.com/tggrove/status/1708094979858469139

Last year, Russia quietly began to steal 100,000s of tons of Ukrainian grain from newly occupied regions, exporting it to Russian-allied countries in the Middle East.
Yesterday, our @WSJ video team won a @LoebAwards for their investigation

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1708021705632010675

A detailed, nuanced explanation of how China’s establishment views the war in Ukraine — and the PRC relationship with Russia. Key belief: “PRC standing up to Moscow’s actions [in Ukraine] would not alter Washington’s containment strategy towards China.”

Some combat video: https://twitter.com/Mike_Eckel/status/1708020725657797075

Intense gun battle outside Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut; where Ukraine's 80th Air Assault Brigade is trying to hold off Russian forces trying to recapture it.

Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia

Analysts say armoured vehicles have been confirmed beyond Russia's first defensive lines for the first time.

www.bbc.com

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Pretty wild story:

Ukraine’s jet ski raiders strike at the heart of Crimea

Ten jet skis crept towards the coast in darkness, their engines barely audible over the slapping of waves. Each carried two Ukrainian frogmen, invisible against the night sky. The Russians never saw them coming. Slipping ashore in Crimea, the soldiers readied their rifles, explosives and anti-tank w

www.thetimes.co.uk

Ten jet skis crept towards the coast in darkness, their engines barely audible over the slapping of waves. Each carried two Ukrainian frogmen, invisible against the night sky. The Russians never saw them coming.
Slipping ashore in Crimea, the soldiers readied their rifles, explosives and anti-tank weapons. They had already travelled 125 miles over sea from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled territory and would have to return another 140 miles at speed.
They were the first Ukrainian troops to set foot on the Crimean peninsula in nearly a decade.
A fortnight earlier, planners had counted and weighed every gram of equipment, reducing the load wherever possible. Their commander, Levan, spent two weeks running the route in the Black Sea before he concluded that the scheme could work.
He had travelled as far as 87 miles on one of the jet skis. It was exhausting and they would need to refuel twice, he had learnt, but he believed his men could make it.
His British military advisers were not so sure. “At sea, they know and understand a lot, but even for our British partners this looked like an almost impossible task,” Levan told The Times.
About 50 British special forces personnel, including members of the Special Air Squadron, have been deployed to Ukraine to advise and train on western weapons systems, according to US intelligence documents leaked to the Discord server. In addition, British intelligence officers are believed to have been working in Ukraine since the start of the invasion.

Levan, one of four men who shared details of their role in the audacious mission, is second in command of the Timur group, an elite special forces regiment named after its leader. It operates under the command of the Ukrainian military intelligence, the GUR, led by Lieutenant-General Kyrylo Budanov.
Budanov had asked them to find a way to raise the Ukrainian flag on the peninsula for the first time since its occupation in 2014. He wanted to send a blunt message to Russia, to his allies and to the Ukrainian troops embroiled in the bloody counteroffensive in the country’s south: that Ukrainian soldiers are capable of striking anytime, anywhere.
They had a month to plan and train.
The date set was set in stone: Ukraine’s Independence Day, August 24.

Twenty men would have to travel across the Black Sea undetected, infiltrate a Russian military base, fight the enemy, then make the long return journey, possibly pursued by aircraft and President Putin’s Black Sea fleet.
The Russians had spent the previous nine years turning Crimea into a fortress. It was defended by aircraft from six airbases as well as fast patrol boats, mines, submarine nets, drones and infrared cameras. “Neither the Americans nor the Brits gave us much chance of success,” Levan said.
He was told it would take a miracle to succeed, so it was perhaps fitting that the mission was entrusted to the Brotherhood Battalion, a deeply religious unit whose recruitment posters appeal for “battle swimmers”, with “belief in God” listed as the first requirement alongside “excellent physical condition, high motivation and extreme daring”.
“Our first target was an electronic warfare station so powerful not even a compass could work within 20 miles of the shore,” said Borghese, the battalion commander who co-ordinated the mission on the day. “It interfered with the work of our missile operators and the entire GPS system could not work. Our guys were working only by the stars.”
The station was thwarting Ukrainian drone strikes and efforts to reconnoitre targets for British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles. Neutralising Crimea is key to the success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, with advancing Ukrainian troops being pounded by Russian aircraft flying sorties from the peninsula.
As Levan and his men moved inland towards the Russian base, moving in silence to avoid contact with the enemy, heavy-machinegun fire rattled through the night on the opposite side of the peninsula. Five Ukrainian support ships were racing along the coast, raking Russian positions with bullets and rockets to draw attention to themselves. Explosions lit up the night sky.
The 20 frogmen silently wished their comrades luck — then turned their attention to the task at hand.

They headed for the base housing the electronic warfare station, which also contained surveillance equipment and radars. Their goal was to place explosives, depart and detonate, but as they got to within 200 metres of their target one of the teams was spotted.
A Russian machinegunner opened up in their direction, prompting a 30-minute exchange of fire. “We had to capture the control centre, plant explosives and blow it up, but because there was a battle going on we couldn’t approach quietly,” said Borghese.
Realising they could not reach their targets to place explosives, the team reverted to plan B: their anti-tank weapons and rocket-propelled grenades thumped into the building as well as three target vehicles.
“We decided to simply destroy the control centre from a distance with anti-tank weapons, damage the antennas and withdraw, which we succeeded in,” Borghese said.
Ten minutes later they were back at the beachhead, boarding their jet skis. By this point the Russians had scrambled warplanes and Raptor patrol boats. “They were really chasing us hard. Four enemy boats came out to intercept us, blocking the retreat to our coastline,” said Borghese.
As the Russians plotted an intercept course they came across the Ukrainians’ evacuation ship. They switched focus, targeting that instead and ignoring the jet skis sprinting back out to sea. The Ukrainian evacuation ship, forced to flee, beat a course for port, leaving the jet skiers to make their own way home.
The five Ukrainian support ships broke away at the same time, firing Stinger anti-aircraft missiles at the Russian warplanes and forcing them to disengage. Levan said: “It was a battle for several hours of all these modern defence systems and aviation. The naval vehicles were taken out of action, so we were able to get to a safe zone.
“The Russian aircraft were over us for four hours, maybe more because they were rotating. There were a certain number of enemy aircraft that would enter the area, circle, hit different points, then turn around. It was like that for four to five hours non-stop.”

Borghese said every man involved in the operation had made it back alive. “Our guys are very faithful and the whole operation went like a miracle. There were clouds at dawn, so enemy aviation and their drones couldn’t work well. When we were halfway home, the sun came out and we had good weather.”
He added: “An hour after the guys stepped ashore a hurricane began — which confirms, as always, that God is with us.”
The mission’s success has allowed Ukraine to turn Crimea from a Russian safe haven into a battleground. On September 13, British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles hit the Russian submarine Rostov-on-Don and the landing ship Minsk, guided by special forces operators from Timur group.
On September 22 missiles hit Russia’s Black Sea Fleet command headquarters. Ukraine’s Special Operations Command claimed to have killed 34 senior officers — including the fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov — and wounded 105. The Kremlin denied his death, airing video of him meeting Putin. It accused Britain of helping to plan the attacks.
“I’m proud of my guys, the courage of our fighters and their incredible physical training. You can see that after we landed on the peninsula a lot of interesting things started to happen there. I can tell you that this mission triggered all of this. It worked to make the enemy more vulnerable,” said Levan.
“A big nod and thank you to all the western partners who are involved in making sure that we are prepared and well staffed.
“We now have the means to plan and execute even larger operations. There’s a lot more to come.”

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1708199259776893341

A Ukrainian defense official for Kharkiv said that Russia destroyed 90% of Ukraine's air defenses in Kharkiv Oblast at the beginning of the war. He noted that Russia knew the locations of their command posts, which were built in the Soviet era.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1708212174903001208

Another great thread about Russian defenses in the Robotyne-Novoprokopivka area from @solonko1648.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Tu-95 Decoys Are Being Painted On Russian Air Base's Apron

Moscow’s efforts to disrupt Ukraine's ability to target and strike its bomber force while on the ground now includes painted silhouettes.

www.thedrive.com

Satellite imagery shows Russia is now painting the silhouettes of Tu-95MS “Bear-H” strategic bombers in parking revetments at its master bomber base, Engels Air Base, also known as Engels-2. The base has come under repeated attack over the last year and as Ukraine's standoff weapons capabilities are rapidly evolving, so are its abilities to strike deep inside Russia using local sabotage and drone attack teams.

Planet Labs satellite imagery obtained by The War Zone that was taken on Sept. 29 shows the two-dimensional decoys adorned on Engels’ tarmac — a near 'copy-paste' of the four-engine bomber’s distinctive planform right down to its black-painted cockpit area. A second painted decoy appears partially complete next to the finished one. It's worth noting that it is possible that these are some sort of low profile cloth/canvas or other decoy, but it has little to no vertical dimension, so paint is most likely.

 

[Don Quixote]

Slovakia election today could have some implications. Favorite is Robert Fico, who is pro-Russia. Could change Slovakia’s role in the war.

https://wapo.st/46d0Ejw

Exit polls showing the progressives up by a couple of points. Need to wait for the official results, but positive sign so far for supporters of Ukraine.

 

[Don Quixote]

Slovakia election today could have some implications. Favorite is Robert Fico, who is pro-Russia. Could change Slovakia’s role in the war.

https://wapo.st/46d0Ejw

Exit polls showing the progressives up by a couple of points. Need to wait for the official results, but positive sign so far for supporters of Ukraine.

Exit polls ended up being wrong. Fico’s party came in first, but going to need to build coalition.

Pro-Russian Populist Party Wins Slovakian Election

BRATISLAVA — The party of pro-Russian populist Robert Fico has won Slovakia’s parliamentary election, nearly complete results showed Sunday.
The Smer party’s victory came despite early exit polls predicting a slight lead for the progressive party of Michal Simecka.


With almost all the votes counted, Fico’s Smer party led with about 23 percent of the vote, according to an update from the Slovak Statistics Office Sunday morning, followed by Simecka’s Progressive Slovakia with just under 18 percent.
The results suggest the country is headed for a coalition government, with neither of the largest two parties winning enough support to command a parliamentary majority. If Fico’s Smer leads that coalition, it could reverse Slovakia’s support for Ukraine and threaten European unity over the Russian invasion.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1708416182749905315

Three foreign cargo vessels left the ports of Odesa and five more are entering today, according to Marine Traffic. It hasn’t been this busy in months. Russian attempts at a naval blockade of Ukraine clearly not working.

https://twitter.com/DrRadchenko/status/1708407399466270898

So based on Chinese customs stats and some tinkering with numbers I managed to calculate that China enjoyed an average of 9.02% discount on Russian crude in the first 8 months of this year, which is less than the 11% it enjoyed between April 2022 and January 2023 (here I draw on @henrikwacht's numbers). Now let's see if I can draw some profound conclusion from this.

Good summary of the results of Ukraine's counteroffensive here from the Deep State telegram channel: https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1708316924197609878

Referencing that post: https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1708346927933214938

“The summer has shown that the war will not end on our terms in 2024. Ukraine needs to prepare for new challenges that will have to be faced soon.” — @Deepstate_UA

Ukraine war latest: Russia 'preparing for years of fighting in Ukraine' - as it 'paints decoy bomber planes' at airbase

The US president has urged Congress to continue providing aid to Ukraine after it was left out of an agreement to avoid a government shutdown. Meanwhile, satellite images suggest Russia is painting decoy bomber planes at one of its airbases.

news.sky.com

Earlier today, The Sunday Telegraph reported Defence Secretary Grant Shapps had suggested British troops could train forces in Ukraine.

It reported Mr Shapps as saying he has spoken to army chiefs about moving "more training" into the war-torn country and has discussed with Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the Royal Navy helping to defend commercial vessels in the Black Sea.

But Rishi Sunak has denied this will happen any time soon, saying the plans are not for the "here and now".

During a visit to Burnley, the prime minister told broadcasters: "I think there's been some misreporting about this."

He said British troops have been training Ukrainians in the UK, adding: "What the defence secretary was saying was that it might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine.

"But that's something for the long-term, not the here and now - there are no British soldiers that will be sent to fight in the current conflict. That's not what's happening.

"What we are doing is training Ukrainians. We're doing that here in the UK. It's something that everyone should be proud of, because it's making an enormous difference."

Ukraine war latest: Russia 'preparing for years of fighting in Ukraine' - as it 'paints decoy bomber planes' at airbase

The US president has urged Congress to continue providing aid to Ukraine after it was left out of an agreement to avoid a government shutdown. Meanwhile, satellite images suggest Russia is painting decoy bomber planes at one of its airbases.

news.sky.com

A Russian commander may have been removed from his post following outrage from a group of military bloggers about how his brigade was operating, a leading US think tank has said.

The commander of the Russian 205th Motorized Rifle Brigade lost his role in a "rare case" in which truth and justice prevailed, one milblogger said, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

His brigade had suffered "significant losses due to inadequate artillery support and poor leadership in the Kherson direction", it added.

His removal suggests "Russian ultranationalist outrage may still be able to pressure the Russian military command", the ISW explained.

This is despite the "apparent decline in such reactions" across the country since the Wagner Group launched an armed rebellion in Moscow back in June.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Ukraine war latest: Russia 'preparing for years of fighting in Ukraine' - as it 'paints decoy bomber planes' at airbase

The US president has urged Congress to continue providing aid to Ukraine after it was left out of an agreement to avoid a government shutdown. Meanwhile, satellite images suggest Russia is painting decoy bomber planes at one of its airbases.

news.sky.com

Russia appears to be "preparing for multiple further years of fighting" in Ukraine, the UK has said, after leaked documents suggested Vladimir Putin's defence spending is set to "surge".

Moscow is planning to ramp up its defence fund to around 30% of total public expenditure next year, the documents apparently from Russia's finance ministry showed.

The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it is "highly likely" Russia can support that level of funding - but only "at the expense of the wider economy".

"Full details on Russian defence spending are always classified, but these figures suggest that Russia is preparing for multiple further years of fighting in Ukraine," it said in its latest intelligence update.

Its assessment comes after Russia's defence minister Sergei Shoigu suggested he was preparing for the war to continue into 2025 earlier this week.

The costs of Russia’s war are about to hit home

Vladimir Putin will be unable to protect citizens from the pain

www.economist.com

The new stage of the economic war presents officials with tough choices. Mindful of a presidential election in March, the finance ministry wants to support the economy. Bloomberg, a news service, has reported that Russia is planning to increase defence spending from 3.9% to 6% of GDP. The finance ministry also wants to raise social-security spending. Mr Putin is keen to run the economy hot. He recently boasted about Russia’s record-low unemployment rate, calling it “one of the most important indicators of the effectiveness of our entire economic policy” (conscription and emigration no doubt helped).
Yet the central bank is no longer keen to assist. The problem starts with the rouble. It is sliding in part because businessfolk are pulling money from the country. Low oil prices for much of this year have also cut the value of exports. Meanwhile, Russia has found new sources of everything from microchips to fizzy drinks. Resulting higher imports have raised demand for foreign currency, cutting the rouble’s value.
A falling currency is boosting Russian inflation, as the cost of these imports rises. So is the fiscal stimulus itself, warned Elvira Nabiullina, the central bank’s governor, in a recent statement. Consumer prices rose by 5.5% in the year to September, up from 4.3% in July. There are signs of “second-round” effects, in which inflation today leads to more tomorrow. Growth in nominal wages is more than 50% its pre-pandemic rate, even as productivity growth remains weak. Higher wages are adding to companies’ costs, and they are likely to pass them on in the form of higher prices. Inflation expectations are rising.
This has forced Ms Nabiullina to act. In August the central bank shocked markets, raising rates by 3.5 percentage points and then by another percentage point a month later. The hope is that higher rates entice foreign investors to buy roubles. Raising the cost of borrowing should also dampen domestic demand for imports.
But higher rates create problems for the finance ministry. Slower economic growth means more joblessness and smaller wage rises. Higher rates also raise borrowing costs, hitting mortgage-holders as well as the government itself. Last December the finance ministry decided it was a good idea to rely more heavily on variable-rate debt—just as borrowing costs began to rise. In August, conscious of higher rates, it then cancelled a planned auction of more debt.

Mr Putin would like to square the circle, defending the rouble without additional rate rises. He has therefore asked his policymakers to find creative solutions. Two main ideas are being explored: managing the currency and boosting energy exports. Neither looks likely to work.
Take the currency first. The government is keen to mandate exporters to give up more hard cash and make it harder for money to leave the country. In August officials started preparing “guidelines” that would “recommend” firms return not just sale proceeds but also dividend payments and overseas loans. On September 20th Alexei Moiseev, the deputy finance minister, hinted that capital controls were being considered to stem outflows to every country, even those deemed “friendly”.
Such measures are, at best, imperfect. Russia’s export industries form powerful lobbies. The experience of the past 18 months is that the firms which dominate energy, farming and mining are skilled at poking loopholes in currency controls, says Vladimir Milov, a deputy energy minister in the early days of Mr Putin’s reign. Waivers and exemptions abound. In late July Mr Putin issued a decree allowing exporters operating under intergovernmental agreements, which cover a big chunk of trade with China, Turkey and others, to keep proceeds offshore.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Institute for the Study of War

Russian forces are conducting tactical counterattacks in the Robotyne area as part of their elastic defense against ongoing Ukrainian offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast. The situation south of Robotyne is fluid as some tactically

www.understandingwar.org

Russian forces are conducting tactical counterattacks in the Robotyne area as part of their elastic defense against ongoing Ukrainian offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast. The situation south of Robotyne is fluid as some tactically significant field fortifications have changed hands several times. Geolocated footage posted on September 30 shows Ukrainian forces striking Russian troops trying to enter a trench system about 1km southwest of Robotyne near the T0408 Robotyne—Tokmak road.[1] Footage posted on September 13 shows that Ukrainian forces had previously occupied segments of this trench and thus appear to have lost it to Russian counterattacks between September 13 and 30.[2] ISW has recoded this area from Ukraine's counteroffensive to Russian advances.

A Ukrainian soldier analyzed the footage of the area and noted that the aforementioned Russian-controlled trench is a strongpoint in an interconnected system of trenches, firing systems, and dugouts that lie between Robotyne and Novoprokopivka.[3] The Ukrainian soldier noted that the trenches are connected by underground tunnel-like structures and that Russian forces are prioritizing the defense of these positions, which have tactical significance in the area between Robotyne and Novoprokopivka.[4] Geolocated footage posted on October 1 shows Russian forces striking a Ukrainian vehicle just south of the middle of the three trenches and about 1km west of the easternmost trench in the system, suggesting that Ukrainian forces control the easternmost trench and are attempting to push westward to recapture the remaining two trenches and connected dugouts and firing positions.[5] Commercially available satellite imagery indicates that Russian forces destroyed this vehicle between September 25 and 28, indicating that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack and reconsolidated Russian positions near the trench systems in late September. The reported continued presence of Russian forces in the western and central trenches suggests that Russian forces have been conducting successful limited tactical counterattacks south of Robotyne and that the tactical situation in this area is complex and dynamic.

The status of the Wagner Group remains unclear amid reported negotiations about the Wagner Group’s future cooperation with the Russian government. The Wagner Group’s main combat elements are split across several countries, including Belarus, the Central African Republic, Libya, and Mali, and there is no clear unified leader for the Wagner Group.[14] Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly embraced former Wagner Group commander and current Ministry of Defense (MoD) employee Andrey Troshev on September 29 and stated that he and Troshev discussed how Troshev would be involved in the formation of new volunteer detachments that perform combat missions primarily in Ukraine.[15] Some Wagner group elements reacted negatively to Putin’s embrace of Troshev and have now put forward an alternative leader. A prominent Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel announced on October 1 that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s 25-year-old son Pavel Prigozhin has taken over “command” of the Wagner Group, and that Pavel Prigozhin is negotiating with Rosgvardia about having the Wagner Group rejoin combat operations in Ukraine.[16] The prominent Wagner-affiliated source reported that Wagner fighters would not have to sign contracts with the Russian MoD and that the Wagner Group would retain its name, symbols, ideology, commanders, management, and existing standard operating principles.[17] A Russian insider source claimed that Pavel Prigozhin is not an independent actor and is under the influence of Wagner Security Service head Mikhail Vatanin, indicating that some Wagner personnel are interested in rallying around a Prigozhin-linked alternative to the Kremlin- and MoD-aligned Troshev, even if that alternative is not an independent entity.[18] A different pro-Wagner source claimed on September 30 that Rosgvardia Head Viktor Zolotov is considering allowing Wagner Group elements to join Rosgvardia as a separate Wagner unit, though the Pavel Prigozhin camp has not commented specifically on how its branch of the Wagner Group may operate with Rosgvardia.[19] It is unclear what the Kremlin thinks the relationship(s) between Wagner elements and the Russian government are. Rosgvardia is directly subordinate to the Russian Presidential Administration, which makes Putin’s public embrace of Troshev and subordinating Wagner elements to the Russian MoD noteworthy. The MoD would have to provide the equipment and supplies for a large, reconstituted force under Rosgvardia in any case, since Rosgvardia does not have the logistical infrastructure to do so on its own.

ISW will revise its assessment about the prospects for the Wagner Group to reemerge an as effective military organization if the Wagner Group successfully reconstitutes as a large, unitary organization under Rosgvardia, the Russian MoD, or a similar organization. ISW previously assessed that disjointed Wagner Group elements were unlikely to pose a serious military threat to Ukraine without bringing the full suite of effectiveness Wagner had as a unitary organization under Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s and Dmitry Utkin’s consolidated leadership. This initial assessment will be invalidated if the Wagner Group reestablishes itself as a coherent and large formation under the Russian government with effective centralized leadership.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/02/popescu-moldova-ukraine-russia-war/

That was the main message of Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu, whom I interviewed in New York last week on the sidelines of U.N. General Assembly meetings. “What happens in Ukraine does not stay in Ukraine,” Popescu told me. “What happens in Eastern Europe does not stay in Eastern Europe. It has global repercussions.”
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Moldova, which is not a member of NATO or the European Union (although it seeks to join the latter) and has just a small army, has dealt with energy disruption, massive inflation, trade disruption and thousands of refugees, all while managing tense relations with its breakaway province of Transnistria, where about 1,500 Russian troops are stationed.
“This war had a negative impact on every country in the world. … But the closer you get to it, the more impacted you are,” he said.

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1708839968397771063

Peskov on Congressional CR not including aid for Ukraine:

“This is a temporary phenomenon. America will remain involved in the conflict. But we have repeatedly said that according to our forecasts, fatigue from this conflict, from the absurd sponsorship of the Kyiv regime..” 1/2

…will grow in different countries, including the United States. This fatigue will lead to the fragmentation of the political establishment and the growth of contradictions” 2/2

Good read here:

'Not against Ukraine': Russian deserters tell their story – DW – 09/27/2023

Hundreds of Russian soldiers have deserted, but many do not have passports and are trying to get to safety in the West for fear of extradition. DW spoke to three of them.

www.dw.com

Naval air power increasingly vital for Russia, UK ministry says – DW – 10/02/2023

p.dw.com

The UK Ministry of Defence says that, in recent weeks, the naval aviation component of Russia's Black Sea Fleet has assumed a particularly important role in operations.

As Moscow's forces seek to deal with concurrent threats on the southern flank of the Ukraine war, the ministry said air patrol operations are becoming more central.

Their primary mission is the early identification of uncrewed surface vessels, sometimes used by Ukraine to mount its attacks.

A key asset in these operations is the Be-12 MAIL amphibious aircraft. The planes, designed in the 1950s, fly out of bases in occupied Crimea, said the ministry's Monday briefing.

Meanwhile, Su-24 FENCER and FLANKER variant combat jets are conducting maritime strike operations. There was at least one such strike on the strategically located Snake Island, the ministry added.

With more Black Fleet activities likely relocating to Novorossiysk in the face of threats to Sevastopol, naval air power is becoming increasingly necessary to project force over the north-western Black Sea.

This is another good read, although a lengthy report:

In the Shadow of Ukraine

Russian leaders are committed to a reconstitution of the Russian military—especially the Russian army—over the next several years, though achieving this goal will be challenging. In addition, Russia views the United States as its main enemy for the foreseeable future.

www.csis.org

The report has several findings. First, Russian military thinking is dominated by a view that the United States is—and will remain—Moscow’s main enemy (главный враг) for the foreseeable future. This view of the United States as the main enemy has increased since the 2022 invasion, with significant implications for the future of warfare and force design. Russian political and military leaders assess that Russian struggles in Ukraine have been largely due to aid from the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which Russian leaders interpret as direct participation in the war. In addition, Russian leaders believe that the United States is attempting to expand its power, further encircle Russia, and weaken Russia militarily, politically, and economically. These sentiments make Russia a dangerous enemy over the next five years and will likely drive Moscow’s desire to reconstitute its military as rapidly as possible, strengthen nuclear and conventional deterrence, prepare to fight the West if deterrence fails as part of a strategy of “active defense” (активнаяоборона), and engage in irregular and hybrid activities.

Second, Russian analyses generally conclude that while the nature of warfare—its essence and purpose—is unchanging, the character of future warfare will rapidly evolve in ways that require adaptation. This report focuses on four categories of interest to Russia: long-range, high-precision weapons; autonomous and unmanned systems; emerging technologies; and the utility of hybrid and irregular warfare. In these and other areas, Russian leaders assess that it will be critical to cooperate with other countries, such as China and Iran. Third, Russian political and military leaders are committed to a major reconstitution of the Russian military—especially the Russian army—over the next several years, though achieving this goal will be challenging.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1708964749831000340

"Russian forces used over 1,200 missiles and kamikaze drones to attack Ukraine’s energy system between October 2022 and April of this year, state-owned power grid operator Ukrenergo said...Some 250 missiles and drones hit Ukrenergo sites alone"

Ukraine prepares for winter again as Russia targets its power grid

Things may be tougher this time

www.economist.com

It was a close-run thing, says the director of the power station, as he thinks back to last November. The Russian missile was heading directly for the turbine hall; but it hit some of the plant’s many power lines a split second before impact, throwing it off course and thus sparing the heart of the operation. It was one of eight missiles to have struck here since the invasion began last year. Now Ukrainian officials are jumpy. The director’s name and the location of the station cannot be revealed, they say, nor the locations of factories that have been rushing to fulfil orders for new equipment to replace what has been damaged and destroyed. The officials make no secret of their fear that, in terms of energy, the coming winter could be worse than last.

Ukraine’s engineers have been widely praised for preventing the collapse of the country’s energy system last winter when it came under sustained Russian attack. Ingenious schemes were found for moving both electricity and equipment around the country. Before the invasion Ukraine had the capacity to produce considerably more energy than it consumed, which gave it a buffer as parts of the system were knocked out. A recent modernisation programme also meant that it had many old but only recently retired transformers, which could be reconnected. Even so, between October 10th and the end of last December the average Ukrainian household had no electricity for a cumulative period of five weeks.
The damage inflicted by the Russian campaign to freeze Ukrainians into submission last winter was immense. According to a report by the un Development Programme power-generating capacity in April 2023 was down 51% from just before Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Nuclear power accounts for the largest part of Ukraine’s energy output, and while the three working nuclear stations still under Ukrainian control have not been directly attacked, the capture of its Zaporizhia plant, the largest in Europe, by Russia has meant that nuclear generating capacity is down 44%.

German Galushchenko, Ukraine’s energy minister, says that the country is bracing for a renewed attack on its energy system but, with no more excess capacity and little in the way of spare equipment, it is much more vulnerable than it was last year. Ukraine’s allies have stumped up money but much is routed via international financial organisations. Their procurement processes for equipment are very slow, he says, so he is asking them for “a martial law approach” to speed things up. One important improvement compared to before the invasion is that Ukraine is now connected to the European grid, and so it can import power if needed.
Ukrainians now have plenty of experience of how to cope with large-scale attacks, says Mr Galushchenko; but he adds that he expects the Russians, too, to have learned from their experience of “failing to destroy the system”. When asked what is the best way to ensure that the lights stay on this winter, he says wearily that the country needs more air-defence systems. On September 21st, for the first time since the spring, Russia sent a wave of drones against the Ukrainian power grid; four-fifths of them were shot down.
DTEK, a private company, produced around a quarter of Ukraine’s energy before the war. Since then it has lost more than 20% of its capacity, says Dmytro Sakharuk, its executive director. Of its pre-war workforce of 60,000, some 5,000 are now in the army. So many have gone to fight that 250 women are now working underground in its coal mines (before the war women did not work underground). The most frustrating thing, he says, is that when DTEK crews repair or replace damaged equipment the Russians simply attack it again. “It is like being a hamster in a wheel.”
Mr Sakharuk also says that cyber-attacks could be an even bigger threat this winter than missiles and drones. A successful assault “can paralyse the whole system” and that can be “much more dangerous than physical damage”. Ever since the invasion began DTEK and Ukraine’s cyber warriors have been battling Russia’s hackers; and this, he says, is “a game of cat and mouse”. Once you develop a new way to protect yourself the hackers find a new way around your defences. “You are always in motion,” he says.

 

[massraider]

Pretty wild story:

Ukraine’s jet ski raiders strike at the heart of Crimea

Ten jet skis crept towards the coast in darkness, their engines barely audible over the slapping of waves. Each carried two Ukrainian frogmen, invisible against the night sky. The Russians never saw them coming. Slipping ashore in Crimea, the soldiers readied their rifles, explosives and anti-tank w

www.thetimes.co.uk

Ten jet skis crept towards the coast in darkness, their engines barely audible over the slapping of waves. Each carried two Ukrainian frogmen, invisible against the night sky. The Russians never saw them coming.
Slipping ashore in Crimea, the soldiers readied their rifles, explosives and anti-tank weapons. They had already travelled 125 miles over sea from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled territory and would have to return another 140 miles at speed.
They were the first Ukrainian troops to set foot on the Crimean peninsula in nearly a decade.
A fortnight earlier, planners had counted and weighed every gram of equipment, reducing the load wherever possible. Their commander, Levan, spent two weeks running the route in the Black Sea before he concluded that the scheme could work.
He had travelled as far as 87 miles on one of the jet skis. It was exhausting and they would need to refuel twice, he had learnt, but he believed his men could make it.
His British military advisers were not so sure. “At sea, they know and understand a lot, but even for our British partners this looked like an almost impossible task,” Levan told The Times.
About 50 British special forces personnel, including members of the Special Air Squadron, have been deployed to Ukraine to advise and train on western weapons systems, according to US intelligence documents leaked to the Discord server. In addition, British intelligence officers are believed to have been working in Ukraine since the start of the invasion.

Levan, one of four men who shared details of their role in the audacious mission, is second in command of the Timur group, an elite special forces regiment named after its leader. It operates under the command of the Ukrainian military intelligence, the GUR, led by Lieutenant-General Kyrylo Budanov.
Budanov had asked them to find a way to raise the Ukrainian flag on the peninsula for the first time since its occupation in 2014. He wanted to send a blunt message to Russia, to his allies and to the Ukrainian troops embroiled in the bloody counteroffensive in the country’s south: that Ukrainian soldiers are capable of striking anytime, anywhere.
They had a month to plan and train.
The date set was set in stone: Ukraine’s Independence Day, August 24.

Twenty men would have to travel across the Black Sea undetected, infiltrate a Russian military base, fight the enemy, then make the long return journey, possibly pursued by aircraft and President Putin’s Black Sea fleet.
The Russians had spent the previous nine years turning Crimea into a fortress. It was defended by aircraft from six airbases as well as fast patrol boats, mines, submarine nets, drones and infrared cameras. “Neither the Americans nor the Brits gave us much chance of success,” Levan said.
He was told it would take a miracle to succeed, so it was perhaps fitting that the mission was entrusted to the Brotherhood Battalion, a deeply religious unit whose recruitment posters appeal for “battle swimmers”, with “belief in God” listed as the first requirement alongside “excellent physical condition, high motivation and extreme daring”.
“Our first target was an electronic warfare station so powerful not even a compass could work within 20 miles of the shore,” said Borghese, the battalion commander who co-ordinated the mission on the day. “It interfered with the work of our missile operators and the entire GPS system could not work. Our guys were working only by the stars.”
The station was thwarting Ukrainian drone strikes and efforts to reconnoitre targets for British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles. Neutralising Crimea is key to the success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, with advancing Ukrainian troops being pounded by Russian aircraft flying sorties from the peninsula.
As Levan and his men moved inland towards the Russian base, moving in silence to avoid contact with the enemy, heavy-machinegun fire rattled through the night on the opposite side of the peninsula. Five Ukrainian support ships were racing along the coast, raking Russian positions with bullets and rockets to draw attention to themselves. Explosions lit up the night sky.
The 20 frogmen silently wished their comrades luck — then turned their attention to the task at hand.

They headed for the base housing the electronic warfare station, which also contained surveillance equipment and radars. Their goal was to place explosives, depart and detonate, but as they got to within 200 metres of their target one of the teams was spotted.
A Russian machinegunner opened up in their direction, prompting a 30-minute exchange of fire. “We had to capture the control centre, plant explosives and blow it up, but because there was a battle going on we couldn’t approach quietly,” said Borghese.
Realising they could not reach their targets to place explosives, the team reverted to plan B: their anti-tank weapons and rocket-propelled grenades thumped into the building as well as three target vehicles.
“We decided to simply destroy the control centre from a distance with anti-tank weapons, damage the antennas and withdraw, which we succeeded in,” Borghese said.
Ten minutes later they were back at the beachhead, boarding their jet skis. By this point the Russians had scrambled warplanes and Raptor patrol boats. “They were really chasing us hard. Four enemy boats came out to intercept us, blocking the retreat to our coastline,” said Borghese.
As the Russians plotted an intercept course they came across the Ukrainians’ evacuation ship. They switched focus, targeting that instead and ignoring the jet skis sprinting back out to sea. The Ukrainian evacuation ship, forced to flee, beat a course for port, leaving the jet skiers to make their own way home.
The five Ukrainian support ships broke away at the same time, firing Stinger anti-aircraft missiles at the Russian warplanes and forcing them to disengage. Levan said: “It was a battle for several hours of all these modern defence systems and aviation. The naval vehicles were taken out of action, so we were able to get to a safe zone.
“The Russian aircraft were over us for four hours, maybe more because they were rotating. There were a certain number of enemy aircraft that would enter the area, circle, hit different points, then turn around. It was like that for four to five hours non-stop.”

Borghese said every man involved in the operation had made it back alive. “Our guys are very faithful and the whole operation went like a miracle. There were clouds at dawn, so enemy aviation and their drones couldn’t work well. When we were halfway home, the sun came out and we had good weather.”
He added: “An hour after the guys stepped ashore a hurricane began — which confirms, as always, that God is with us.”
The mission’s success has allowed Ukraine to turn Crimea from a Russian safe haven into a battleground. On September 13, British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles hit the Russian submarine Rostov-on-Don and the landing ship Minsk, guided by special forces operators from Timur group.
On September 22 missiles hit Russia’s Black Sea Fleet command headquarters. Ukraine’s Special Operations Command claimed to have killed 34 senior officers — including the fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov — and wounded 105. The Kremlin denied his death, airing video of him meeting Putin. It accused Britain of helping to plan the attacks.
“I’m proud of my guys, the courage of our fighters and their incredible physical training. You can see that after we landed on the peninsula a lot of interesting things started to happen there. I can tell you that this mission triggered all of this. It worked to make the enemy more vulnerable,” said Levan.
“A big nod and thank you to all the western partners who are involved in making sure that we are prepared and well staffed.
“We now have the means to plan and execute even larger operations. There’s a lot more to come.”

Looking forward to the documentary on this mission. Man, what a story.

 

[themeistersinger]

An elite Russian unit's morale is at 'critical levels' after being sent to stop Ukraine's counteroffensive, analysts say

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1709171705967509921

Russia plans to spend an enormous 10.8tn rubles ($110bn) on defense next year, finance minister Anton Siluanov says.

"That's more than this year, but the money is essential to achieve our main goal: making sure we win," he says.

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/status/1709123362872545578

️ In Russia, an ex-convict who was pardoned after fighting in Ukraine has been arrested for the alleged killing of a 68 year old woman and her 35 year old daughter.

Watch my report on the rise in such cases in Russia…

Ukraine war latest: Russian ally delivers blow to Putin; drunk recruits and convicts sent to frontline in 'Storm Z squads'

Armenia has voted to join the International Criminal Court - which has an arrest warrant out for Vladimir Putin. And the Kremlin has been deploying convicts and troops caught drunk to the most dangerous parts of the frontline and treating them like "just meat", according to soldiers.

news.sky.com

As debate takes place in the US over the level of aid to continue sending to Ukraine, it is worth remembering how vital it has been to the country's war effort.

As of 31 July, the US has provided the most military aid of any ally, £36.6bn - more than the next 10 top donors combined, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Without military assistance from the US, Ukrainian soldiers would run short of ammunition for ground operations and equipment used to stop Russian strikes, experts told AFP.

"The Ukrainian military would weaken and then ultimately perhaps collapse", though it "might be able to just hold on on the defensive," Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said.

But Moscow might not be able to take advantage of such a situation, due to the exhaustion of its own military, he told AFP.

Removing US tech from air defences would also degrade the whole system because they are tightly integrated, according to James Black, assistant director of the defence and security research group at RAND Europe.

He said it would take a "years and decades-long effort" for effort to fill the military aid gap left by the US.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/03/europe/ukraine-reaction-us-military-aid-intl-cmd/index.html

Unfazed by the artillery duels just a few miles away, over the battered city of Bakhmut, Vasyl, 44, practices with a US-made M2 Browning machine gun. He scopes out targets in the training ground, carefully aiming before pressing the trigger.

“This is a large-caliber machine gun that works without failures,” said Vasyl, who asked that his last name not be used due to safety concerns. “It’s very handy when you are working from a high-rise, for example. You have the high ground and you see the enemy below.”

Vasyl is part of the 80th airborne assault brigade’s fire support team, providing units with cover while they advance and slow Russian forces when they counterattack. He said he can’t imagine what would happen if Ukraine were to lose support from the US.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “That would be tough.”

Back at the Ukrainian military training ground, smoke billows on the horizon but a momentary silence suggests an end to the artillery duel in the distance. It’s short-lived. Seconds later, a rumble signals the firing of multiple-rocket launch systems, indicating this remains a very active frontline.

Vasyl is unperturbed as he reloads the Browning, preparing another practice run with a confident smile. He used to fire Soviet machine guns. This one, he said, is a massive improvement.
“It’s much better because it doesn’t fail,” he said. “When you fire a Soviet one it often gets jammed after a few shots just because of the dust getting in. With the Browning, even when it jams as you saw, you jerk it and keeps working. No problem,” he adds.

While it would be a problem if Western weapons like this one stopped making their way into Ukrainian hands, it’s not something Vasyl can afford to worry about.

“Politics is for the politicians,” he explained. “My job is here, my job is to fight.”

And he say’s he’ll do so, with US weapons or not.

“We would be able to perform well with a Soviet gun,” he said. “We don’t have a choice. We have to fight.”

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/03/opinions/why-putin-wants-a-forever-war-galeotti/index.html

When Westerners talk about the conflict in Ukraine becoming a “forever war,” they tend to mean it as a bad thing. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, though, it likely is a goal.

Last week, Putin made the date September 30 an official holiday: the inelegantly-named Day of Reunification of New Regions with the Russian Federation. Marking the one-year anniversary of the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions — even though most were not even in Russian control at the time — it provided an opportunity for Putin to return to one of his current obsessions: that this is a struggle “for the Motherland, for our sovereignty, spiritual values, unity and victory.”

This is not, in his eyes, a struggle with Ukraine so much as a global one with the West, in which Ukraine is just one battlefield, even if an especially bloody and obvious one. In his speech at the 2023 Victory Day parade, usually a lengthy and bombastic litany of successes, Putin was bleak and stark, declaring that “a real war has been unleashed against our homeland.”

He raised the spectre of the Great Patriotic War — how the Russians describe the Second World War — and warned that “civilisation is again at a decisive turning point” because “Western globalist elites” were determined to “destroy and decimate” Russia.

On the one hand, this could be taken as an apocalyptic alibi for the relative failure of his so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine, in which what was meant to be a quick operation to impose a puppet regime instead became a bloody, full-scale war which has seen the flower of the Russian military destroyed.

Yet it is more than that. When Putin talks of this as one of the “decisive battles for the fate of our Motherland,” as he did at this year’s Victory Day parade, he also seems to be speaking from the heart — and to the new creed of his regime. He was offering no clear vision of the future, nor even any real hope, just the message that the nation was locked in an existential struggle with a hostile West with no real end in sight.

We cannot know whether Putin genuinely believes that Russia can drag some kind of victory out of his Ukrainian debacle or simply feels he has no alternative but to hope he can outlast his enemies. However, from his point of view, talk of a “forever war” has one final virtue for him — it is demoralising to his enemies.

It is, after all, one thing to imagine a Ukrainian military victory on the back of the determination of its soldiers and the superiority of Western-provided equipment. Yet there is a real gap between that and a lasting peace.

Even if every Russian soldier is pushed out of Ukraine — which would take some doing — then that simply moves the front line to the national border. Russia will still be able to rebuild its forces, launch drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities, and do what it can to impede reconstruction.

German military chief warns Ukraine war could escalate – DW – 10/03/2023

p.dw.com

The head of the German military, General Carsten Breuer, has warned that the war in Ukraine could escalate and called for Germany's and NATO's capabilities to be strengthened.

Breuer, who holds the rank of inspector general, said on Tuesday that there had been early warnings ahead of both the 2014 seizure of the Crimean Peninsula and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

He said that at the time, countries like Germany were stuck in a "comfort zone" and did not want to believe these indications.

As a result of this, he said, Germany must now provide more support for countries that could be seen as frontier states, for example by setting up a brigade for Lithuania.

"Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine underlines the relevance of combat-ready armed forces," Breuer said during a reception given by Germany's ambassador to NATO, Geza Andreas von Geyr.

Breuer said that while it might have been good in the past to demonstrate strategic patience and calm, now it was necessary to act more quickly.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

A tactic known as ‘elastic defense’ is one of several factors aiding Russia.

As Ukraine’s counteroffensive has rumbled forward in recent months, it has encountered minefields and forces dug into elaborate trench networks. Kyiv’s forces have also run up against a Russian tactic of ceding ground before striking back.
Reports on Monday illustrated the issue: Russian forces said they had staged an assault on Ukrainian troops on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, while Ukraine’s forces said it had “repelled the attacks.”
Rather than holding a line of trenches at all costs in the face of Ukraine’s assault, security experts say, Russian commanders have employed a longstanding military tactic known as “elastic defense.”
The tactic sees Russian forces pull back to a second line of positions, encouraging Ukrainian troops to advance, then strike back when the opposing forces are vulnerable — either while moving across open ground or as they arrive at recently abandoned Russian positions.
The goal is to prevent Ukrainian troops from actually securing a position and using it as a base for further advances. That’s what Ukraine was able to do with success in the village of Robotyne in the south, their biggest breakthrough in recent weeks.
“The defender gives ground while inflicting as heavy casualties as they can on the attackers with a view to being able to set the attackers up for a decisive counterattack,” said Ben Barry, a senior fellow for land war studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank.
This tactic is just one of several factors that have impeded more rapid progress, according to Ukrainian officials and military experts. They also cite Moscow’s use of dense minefields, networks of trenches and tank barriers, as well as the West’s reluctance to supply advanced fighter jets and longer-range weapons sooner in the war.
Perhaps the most formidable obstacle is Russia’s large stockpiles of artillery, which have been deployed throughout the conflict and not least to repel the counteroffensive that began in June.
Elastic defense is not a new approach, Mr. Barry said. The Soviet Union employed it during its defeat of Germany in 1943 at the Battle of Kursk, one of the biggest on the eastern front during World War II. Russia also appears to have been applying it for some time in Ukraine.
Assessing whether the tactic is being deployed on any given day is difficult without direct access to Russian commanders, experts said. But the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, noted signs of it in recent days around Robotyne, which fell to Ukrainian forces at the end of August.
Some significant field fortifications had changed hands several times, it said in a report this weekend, adding that Russian forces had “been conducting successful limited tactical counterattacks.”
A key factor in the successful implementation of elastic defense is the judicious use of military reserves, who can be thrown into the battle for a counterattack, said Oleksiy Melnyk, a former Ukrainian commander who is now a senior official at the Razumkov Center, a think tank in the capital, Kyiv.
Moscow appeared to have begun to deploy elite airborne units to its defense in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to Mr. Melnyk, suggesting that its supply of regular reserves could be running thin — a development that Mr. Melnyk said would be “encouraging news” for Ukraine.
Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that if Moscow’s forces begin to retreat more than a few hundred yards at a time, and Ukrainian troops, particularly mechanized units, are able to build up enough momentum to advance in significant numbers, it would be a sign that Russia’s defensive strategy was beginning to falter.
“One of the biggest things that remains in question is whether or not the Ukrainian military will be able to achieve a breakthrough,” he said on the “War on the Rocks” podcast last week. One alternative, he said, is that “what we’re seeing is largely how this offensive was going to unfold from now until, let’s say we get into the winter, or perhaps even through the winter.”

 

[Don't Toews Me]

An elite Russian unit's morale is at 'critical levels' after being sent to stop Ukraine's counteroffensive, analysts say

MSN

www.msn.com

This was the ISW post that it is referring to:

Institute for the Study of War

A prominent Russian milblogger and front-line unit commander claimed that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky “saved” the Russian 31st Guards VDV Brigade, which was fighting south of Bakhmut, mirroring claims made by

www.understandingwar.org

A prominent Russian milblogger and front-line unit commander claimed that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky “saved” the Russian 31st Guards VDV Brigade, which was fighting south of Bakhmut, mirroring claims made by a much smaller milblogger about VDV units in western Zaporizhia Oblast. Vostok Battalion commander Alexander Khodakovsky recalled a conversation with then-Commander of the 31st VDV Airborne Brigade Colonel Andrei Kondrashkin prior to Kondrashkin’s death around Bakhmut in mid-September, in which Kondrashkin revealed that his forces suffered personnel losses and that their motivation to fight dropped to a critical level.[1] Kondrashkin reportedly stated that the Russian military command demanded that his forces undertake “decisive actions,” while he knew that his personnel were suffering a critical lack of motivation. Khodakovsky noted that Kondrashkin refrained from raising his concerns to the military command and proceeded to blame his military failures on the lack of cohesion among Russian forces. Khodakovsky, in turn, noted that cohesion was not the problem, but rather that Kondrashkin needed to make a choice to either “waste” his troops in combat or protest the Russian military command’s order at the expense of his career. Khodakovsky observed that Kondrashkin never had a chance to make this choice because he sustained an injury in combat immediately after the conversation, and that Teplinsky “saved” the 31st VDV Brigade by taking the “remnants [of the brigade] under his wing” and giving them the opportunity to take a break from combat.

A Telegram channel that advocates for Teplinsky also amplified Khodakovsky’s account, claiming that Russian VDV forces – namely elements of the Russian 7th and 76th VDV divisions – are facing similar issues in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[2] The milblogger claimed that Teplinsky is no longer able to rescue these divisions, however, as he was quietly stripped of his responsibilities. ISW cannot confirm either Khodakovsky‘s or the pro-Teplinsky milblogger’s claims, but both narratives attempt to portray Teplinsky as a commander who values the wellbeing of his forces over his career – likely to advance political goals that could support changes in the Russian military command. Khodakovsky’s account of Kondrashkin’s dilemma prior to his death also supports ISW’s prior assessment that Ukrainian counteroffensive operations south of Bakhmut may be degrading Russian units defending and counterattacking the area.[3]

A Russian “Storm Z” assault unit instructor speculated that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) removed Lieutenant General Andrey Sychevoy from commanding in the Bakhmut direction due to his poor performance. The instructor claimed on October 1 that the Russian military command removed Sychevoy from his position for conducting unprepared and unsupported counterattacks south of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.[4] Sychevoy’s current formal position within the Russian military is unknown. Sychevoy previously commanded the Russian Western Group of Forces in Kharkiv Oblast until his dismissal in early September 2022, and this claim is the first observed speculation that Sychevoy has had a role in military operations in Ukraine since September 2022.[5] Prominent Russian ultranationalist media outlet Tsargrad claimed in August 2023 that Sychevoy refuses all journalistic requests for comment, indicating that Sychevoy retained an official position and may have intended to keep this position concealed.[6]

Prominent actors in the Russian information space continue to speculate about the possible future of the Wagner Group under Rosgvardia. A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on October 2 that the Wagner Council of Commanders and Wagner Commander Anton Yelizarov (call sign “Lotos”) reached an agreement with Rosgvardia in which Wagner personnel must sign individual and group agreements to join Rosgvardia before January 1, 2024.[11] The milblogger claimed that the group agreements “serve as a guarantee that [Wagner] will not be ‘torn apart’” and that Wagner personnel will be able to keep their symbols and callsigns while serving under Rosgvardia. The milblogger claimed that although it is unclear where Rosgvardia will deploy its Wagner personnel in Ukraine, it will likely not be to the Bakhmut area where former Wagner personnel who signed contracts with the Russian MoD under former Wagner representative and current MoD employee Andrey Troshev are reportedly operating. The milblogger stated that the future of Wagner’s operations in Africa and the Middle East is also not clear as Rosgvardia has reportedly only approved Wagner’s use of aircraft for operations in the war in Ukraine and the new Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s son Pavel, is focusing only on Wagner’s business in Russia.[12] ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin’s ideas about the relationship(s) between Wagner elements and the Russian government are unclear at this time as Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly embraced Troshev and subordinated some Wagner elements to the Russian MoD on the one hand, while the Russian MoD will need to supply Rosgvardia with the equipment it lacks on the other.[13] Russian milbloggers’ continued discussion of the matter recently indicates that the relationship is likely still not fully defined or made public.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Inside Ukraine’s Strategy to Weaken Russia’s Military in Crimea

Ukraine war: Western allies say they are running out of ammunition

The UK and Nato say ammunition production must be ramped up so Ukraine can defend itself against Russia.

www.bbc.com

Adm Rob Bauer, Nato's most senior military official, told the Warsaw Security Forum that "the bottom of the barrel is now visible".

He said governments and defence manufacturers now had to "ramp up production in a much higher tempo".

Ukraine fires thousands of shells every day and most now come from Nato.

The admiral, who chairs Nato's Military Committee, said decades of underinvestment meant Nato countries had begun supplying Ukraine with weapons with their ammunition warehouse already half-full or even emptier.

"We need large volumes. The just-in-time, just-enough economy we built together in 30 years in our liberal economies is fine for a lot of things - but not the armed forces when there is a war ongoing."

UK Defence Minister James Heappey told the forum that Western military stockpiles were "looking a bit thin" and urged Nato allies to spend 2% of their national wealth on defence, as they had committed to do.

"If it's not the time - when there is a war in Europe - to spend 2% on defence, then when is?" he asked.

He, too, said the "just-in-time" model "definitely does not work when you need to be ready for the fight tomorrow".

Ukraine’s accession would cost €186B, EU estimates

Future enlargement of the EU would greatly affect farming and cohesion funding allocation.

www.politico.eu

Integrating Ukraine into the European Union could mean some €186 billion in EU funds flowing to the country over seven years, according to an internal note of the Council of the EU seen by POLITICO.

Enlarging the EU further to include six Balkan countries, as well as Georgia and Moldova, would impose a further burden of around €74 billion on the EU budget, the document added.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Ukraine war latest: Putin invaded Ukraine because he 'believed NATO was weak'; Japanese MP in trouble for Moscow visit

The Russian president believed installing a pro-Moscow government in Kyiv "would be safe and easy" before the invasion, according to the Institute for the Study of War. And Tokyo has condemned a visit to Russia by a Japanese politician who gave no warning he was going.

news.sky.com

Footage released by Ukraine's Defence Intelligence (DI) purportedly shows special forces conducting an amphibious raid on the coast of Crimea.

It said the Ukrainian fighters had "landed on the territory of the Crimean peninsula and inflicted fire on the Moscow occupiers!"

Ukraine has rarely publicised such operations, with the last said to have been in August.

The date and time of this latest assault was not disclosed.

However, Russian state media said today its air force had foiled an attempt by Ukraine's armed forces to "land a landing force near Cape Tarkhankut in Crimea from three jet skis and one speedboat in the northwestern part of the Black Sea".

It also said footage had been released by the Russian security service, the FSB, showed a captured Ukrainian saboteur being interrogated.

The footage also apparently showed "one of the hydro-cycles with automatic rifles and ammunition on board".

Russia named the captive as a member of DI, and said he told interrogators the purpose of the landing was to put up the Ukrainian flag.

Andriy Yusov, the spokesperson for DI, also acknowledged the raid and said there were losses on both sides.

He told Ukrainian media outlet RBC that DI fighters "had a fierce battle in the occupied Crimea. The Russians suffered significant losses, and our groups have already returned from the special operation."

Mr Yusov said it had been a sabotage and reconnaissance operation.

Ukraine claims attack on Russian S-400 – DW – 10/04/2023

p.dw.com

Drones launched by Ukraine struck an S-400 air defense system in Russia's Belgorod overnight, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told the Reuters news agency.

It is rare for Ukrainian authorities to claim responsibility for attacks carried out on targets inside Russia.

Earlier, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov spoke of damage to an administrative building.

Russia's Defense Ministry said it had overnight downed 31 drones in its airspace.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Institute for the Study of War

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu celebrated an odd group of Russian armed formations operating in the western Zaporizhia Oblast direction during a conference call with Russian military leadership. Shoigu’s choice of units could indicate he seeks to

www.understandingwar.org

A Reuters report published on October 3 stated that Russian forces have embedded “Storm-Z” units within conventional Russian units to conduct costly counterattacks against Ukrainian gains in key sectors of the front. Reuters reported that the Storm-Z units are composed of 100-150 personnel, including both civilian penal recruits and Russian soldiers under punishment, are embedded within conventional Russian military units, and deploy to the most exposed parts of the front.[22] Reuters estimated that Russia has currently deployed at least several hundred personnel to the front line in various “Storm-Z” units. Reuters interviewed multiple Russian soldiers, including fighters in “Storm-Z” units, which the Russian military command reportedly views as lesser than conventional military units. The Russian soldiers told Reuters that the Russian military command sends Russian soldiers to serve in the “Storm-Z” units after they commit acts of disobedience, including insubordination or drinking alcohol. Reuters reported that the Storm-Z units have sustained heavy losses, and one soldier embedded in the 237th Guards Air Assault Regiment (76th Airborne [VDV] Division) reportedly stated that his “Storm-Z” unit of 120 personnel lost all but 15 personnel while fighting near Bakhmut in June 2023. The Russian MoD has never formally confirmed the existence of the “Storm-Z” units, and ISW first reported on the existence of these “Storm-Z” units in April 2023.[23]

‘Our allies ask us to advance with a gun at our backs’

The men of the mortar squad bounced along in the back of their pickup truck as it raced through Orikhiv, marvelling at the devastation their enemy had wrough

www.thetimes.co.uk

The men of the mortar squad bounced along in the back of their pickup truck as it raced through Orikhiv, marvelling at the devastation their enemy had wrought.
The engine’s roar masked the whoosh of a Russian bomb streaking overhead but could not compete with the thunderous blast of its impact, sending smoke and shrapnel into the sky.
The soldiers of Sturmgewehr mobile mortar unit whooped and cheered. It was an enemy strike, but they were laughing with the euphoria of those who had narrowly escaped death by 450kg of laser-guided high explosive.
Spoken of in hushed tones, the word on every soldier’s lips here on the Zaporizhzhia front is KAB, the Russian acronym for guided aerial bomb.
Since Ukraine broke through the Surovikin line to capture the strategic village of Robotyne last month, Russian bombers flying sorties from Crimea have been pounding Ukrainian troops occupying their former positions, as well as command posts further back in Orikhiv.
“They hit Orikhiv with KABs about 25 to 30 times a day,” Zahar, a soldier with another mobile mortar unit, Makhno, said. The most advanced KAB variants have a range of 25 miles and the biggest warheads weigh more than a tonne.
They have had a devastating impact on the Ukrainians’ efforts to advance, bringing the counteroffensive to a shuddering halt over the past month.

Zahar said: “They make a crater big enough to bury a tank or four cars. In Orikhiv there are only a couple of intact houses left. It looks more like Bakhmut every day.”
Traversing the Zaporizhzhia front, The Times came across a Ukrainian S-300 missile launcher and radar, relocating in convoy in broad daylight, barely nine miles from the contact line. It was a sign of how desperate the battle against the warplanes that drop the KABs has become.
“The maximum launch range of anti-aircraft missiles, 25 to 30 miles, does not usually allow the Su-34 and Su-35s that carry them to be shot down,” an air force lieutenant-colonel explained. “Really, the only effective way to shoot down the bombers is aviation: F-16s or Atacms [long-range guided missiles].” The KABs, as well as mines, underground fortifications and a deluge of suicide drones, have pinned down Ukraine’s assault brigades. It is why last month’s penetration of Russian fortifications failed to lead to a full breakdown in their defences.

All over the Robotyne-Verbove line, Ukrainian forces are bogged down.
Mobile mortar teams like Makhno and Sturmgewehr try to support the infantry, driving by night to within three miles of Russian positions, setting up their own positions, firing about 20 rounds at dawn and then fleeing the inevitable retaliation 15 minutes later.
It is gruelling work. “They’ve had a long time to fortify their positions so they use Vietnam tactics: whole cites underground behind metal doors,” Zahar said.
President Putin’s troops have become more tech-savvy too, developing smaller, better-disguised electronic warfare devices to bring down the cheap, commercially available reconnaissance drones Ukraine has been using to identify targets. The Makhno mortar team lost 15 Mavic drones in three days last week.

Russian Lancet kamikaze drones and Zala reconnaissance drones that provide laser targeting are far more resistant to Ukrainian efforts to bring them down.
“We’ve been asked to advance with a gun in the back of the head,” said Zahar. “We get last from our western allies what we should have got first. Putting Bradley [fighting vehicles] on mined fields? Yes, our allies have helped a lot but their politicians expect us to take territory in conditions they would never dream of sending their own troops into. We need more long-range missiles, we need mine clearers, we need aircraft.”
Always watching over their infantry comrades with drones, members of the mortar team relayed their harrowing stories. Sheva, a burly Zaporizhzhia native, had been part of a special forces assault group before being transferred.
“We were moving along the Russian trenches, 50 metres from them,” he said. “One of our fighters, we called him Maliy or Little Boy, because he was just 19, stepped on an anti-personnel mine. His leg was torn off completely.”

Sheva paused, his eyes welling with tears. He grasped his close-cropped head in his hands. “But Maliy didn’t make the slightest sound, knowing Russians will spot our group if he does. They heard an explosion but no sound of a voice. He didn’t make a peep.”
The raid was a success, driving the Russians from their positions, which were soon occupied by another Ukrainian unit. On the way back to their lines, their sergeant counted heads and realised one was missing. Sheva’s team went back and found Maliy lying in agony, still silent, with his tourniquet strapped onto his leg.
The cover of tree lines has been key to making surprise assaults across otherwise open fields pockmarked with shell craters. Yet the intensity of the fighting around Robotyne has obliterated much of the foliage, and with the arrival of autumn the remaining leaves are yellowed and withering. The Ukrainian forces have been forced to adapt their tactics.
“We are now creating activity on the flanks so that the enemy relocates reserves from Robotyne to the line, which means we are escalating the entire line,” said Rambo, Sturmgewehr’s commander. “And then, where there is a weakness in the defence, we drive a wedge into it and continue the offensive. This happened in Robotyne, where we broke through two defensive lines, and from there the way to the right, to Melitopol, and to the left, to Tokmak, opens up.”
At the forefront of the drive to break the Russian lines has been Ukraine’s 47th Brigade, a highly motivated unit equipped with western Bradleys and Leopard 2 tanks. But they have found that each Russian trench they capture provokes a fearsome counterattack by troops who know all too well the co-ordinates of their previous positions.
Their efforts to make ground have exacted such a toll on the brigade it is now being withdrawn and replaced by the 10th Corps, although the artillerymen of the 47th continue working around the clock to cover the rotation.
“I’m in deep **** here. It’s hard, sorry,” said one exhausted 47th Brigade officer. “I’ve zapped around four Russian companies with artillery but it’s still not enough. I was defending, I’m on the offensive. Now I really want to be home.”

 

[themeistersinger]

Russian Warships Leave Annexed Crimea Amid Growing Missile Threats – Reports - The Moscow Times

Russia's Black Sea Fleet has moved its warships from annexed Crimea to southern Russia after a string of attacks on its headquarters, the independent news outlet The Bell reported Wednesday, citing satellite images shared by pro-war military bloggers.

www.themoscowtimes.com

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Russia scrambles to cover ballooning cost of Ukraine war | Financial Times

One-off budget revenues to go up in 2024 as Moscow’s defence spending has tripled

www.ft.com

Vladimir Putin’s cabinet is turning to increasingly irregular revenue-raising measures to fund a rapid rise in defence spending, which has tripled since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian government has said it aims to spend a staggering Rbs10.8tn ($108bn) on defence next year, three times the amount allocated in 2021, the last year before the invasion, and 70 per cent more than was planned for this year.
To cobble together that sum, the cabinet is relying to a greater extent on irregular revenues stemming from one-off taxes and levies, including “voluntary donations” western businesses have to pay when leaving Russia.
The defence budget “will allow us to completely support the tasks of the special military operation”, finance minister Anton Siluanov said on Tuesday, using the Kremlin’s euphemism for the war in Ukraine. The military spending increase, he said, was “essential to achieve our main goal: making sure we win”.

Ukraine war: US gives 1.1 million rounds of ammunition seized from Iran to Kyiv

The US military says the rounds were confiscated from a ship taking arms to Yemeni rebels last year.

www.bbc.com

The US has sent roughly 1.1 million bullets seized from Iran last year to Ukraine, its military has said.

The US Central Command (Centcom), which oversees operations in the Middle East, says the rounds were confiscated from a ship bound for Yemen in December.

Ukraine's Western allies recently warned that their production lines were struggling to keep up with the rate at which Ukraine was using ammunition.

Centcom says the Iranian rounds were transferred to Ukraine on Monday.

It added the ammunition was 7.62mm calibre used in Soviet-era rifles and light machine-guns.

While the number is significant, it represents a small percentage of the hundreds of millions of rounds already shipped by allies to Ukraine.

Satellite imagery indicates Russia dispersing naval assets to other ports after Sevastopol attacks

US officials believe only weeks remain before a lack of additional Ukraine funding starts to become a serious battlefield concern. Follow the latest news here.

www.cnn.com

Satellite imagery indicates that a number of Russian naval ships have been relocated to other ports in the Black Sea following several devastating Ukrainian missile strikes on the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

As many as a dozen ships, including frigates, landing ships and submarines now appear to be moored at Novorossiysk, according to satellite imagery over the past few weeks.

CNN can confirm that some of the ships did come from Sevastopol, the home port of Black Sea Fleet, but additional satellite imagery reviewed by CNN shows a number of military vessels remain in that port.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) commented that imagery from October 1 and October 3 "reportedly shows that Russian forces recently moved the Admiral Makarov and Admiral Essen frigates, three diesel submarines, five landing ships, and several small missile ships" to Novorossiysk.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://twitter.com/Mike_Eckel/status/1709950635330707700

Putin says that Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered cruise missile (Burevestnik/Skyfall). Very unclear what, when and where he's referring to.

Slightly political here, but noteworthy nonetheless (we'll stay away from the politics as much as possible):

https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1709958233819873283

Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that support is falling among Americans of both major political parties for supplying Ukraine with weapons. Only 41% agree that Washington "should provide weapons to Ukraine," compared to 35% who disagreed and the rest unsure.

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1709916749263769625

Zelensky says 48 civilians, including at least one child, killed in a Russian strike that hit a food shop and a cafe in the Kupyansk district of the Kharkiv region.

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1709931661595742449

Especially grim. Ukraine’s interior minister said there were about 60 people who had gathered at the grocery/cafe for a memorial when the rocket struck.

On understanding the naval war

Avoid premature conclusions and underestimation of the challenges Ukraine is facing at sea.

thelookoutn.substack.com

Ukraine has achieved a lot in the naval war, especially considering their limited resources compared to Russia so what I write in this article isn't downgrading their achievments. However, the Black Sea Fleet isn't “functionally defeated” (whatever that means), nor can one at the current time draw the conclusion that abandoned Sevastopol.

There is also a tendency to include the naval war into the equation when determining whether the Ukrainian offensive has been successful or not, something I think is wrong. I'm skeptical of labeling everything as "joint" or "multi domain operations".

As I see it, other services and domains sometimes plays a supporting role to the ground campaigns, other times they run what can be seen as their own wars. The evidence required to link operations together using such terminology in many cases simply isn't available.

There is a lot more at the link

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Institute for the Study of War

The Russian military recently transferred several Black Sea Fleet (BSF) vessels from the port in occupied Sevastopol, Crimea to the port in Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai, likely in an effort to protect them from continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian

www.understandingwar.org

The Russian military recently transferred several Black Sea Fleet (BSF) vessels from the port in occupied Sevastopol, Crimea to the port in Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai, likely in an effort to protect them from continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian assets in occupied Crimea. Satellite imagery published on October 1 and 3 shows that Russian forces transferred at least 10 vessels from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk.[1] The satellite imagery reportedly shows that Russian forces recently moved the Admiral Makarov and Admiral Essen frigates, three diesel submarines, five landing ships, and several small missile ships.[2] Satellite imagery taken on October 2 shows four Russian landing ships and one Kilo-class submarine remaining in Sevastopol.[3] Satellite imagery from October 2 shows a Project 22160 patrol ship reportedly for the first time in the port of Feodosia in eastern Crimea, suggesting that Russian forces may be moving BSF elements away from Sevastopol to bases further in the Russian rear.[4] A Russian think tank, the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, claimed on October 3 that the BSF vessels’ movements from occupied Sevastopol to Novorossiysk were routine, however.[5] Russian forces may be temporarily moving some vessels to Novorossiysk following multiple strikes on BSF assets in and near Sevastopol but will likely continue to use Sevastopol’s port, which remains the BSF’s base. Former Norwegian Navy officer and independent OSINT analyst Thord Are Iversen observed on October 4 that Russian vessel deployments have usually intensified following Ukrainian strikes but ultimately returned to normal patterns.[6] ISW will explore the implications of Ukrainian strikes on the BSF in a forthcoming special edition.

Autumn and winter weather conditions will slow but not stop Ukrainian counteroffensive operations. US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby stated on October 3 that good weather will last for another six to eight weeks before weather will impact both Ukrainian and Russian operations.[10] ISW has previously observed that seasonal heavy rain and resulting mud in the autumn will slow ground movements on both sides, and that the autumn rain and mud are usually less intense than spring conditions.[11] Hardening ground during the winter freeze will likely enable the tempo of combat operations to increase, however, and Ukrainian officials have expressed their intent to continue counteroffensive operations into late 2023 and exploit cold weather conditions.[12] ISW has frequently assessed that offensive operations will continue through the winter season and has observed the continuation of combat activities throughout the fall mud season of 2022, winter season of 2022–2023, and spring mud season of 2023.[13]

Russian sources continue to speculate about the current role of former Aerospace Forces (VKS) Commander and Wagner Group–affiliate Army General Sergei Surovikin after the Wagner rebellion, further highlighting his continued relevance in the Russian information space. Some Russian sources amplified footage on October 3 and 4 allegedly of Surovikin and his family outside a church near Moscow on October 3.[22] This speculation comes after prior speculation of Surovikin allegedly appearing in various African countries on behalf of the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD).[23] Russian news outlet Novye Izvestia claimed that Surovikin denied to comment to journalists who approached him near the church.[24]

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1709967487658295561

Russians are actively expanding their training ground facilities in the rear areas of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts and within Russia. This expansion aims to tackle logistical bottlenecks that arose after the 2022 mobilization, signifying efforts to improve infrastructure. Thread

https://twitter.com/emm_mateo/status/1710016351295693091

Russia struck a cafe where people were holding a memorial for a killed local soldier. 50+ civilians killed in a small village. "My brother died, my sister in law and mum died. With one strike they destroyed half the village." I wish this video had english subtitles. Heartbreaking

https://twitter.com/leonidragozin/status/1710037613875257414

“A local resident may have tipped off the Russians about the funeral banquet, but the logic of the Russians is unclear because there were only civilians in the cafe”, spokesman for the local prosecutor’s office says about Hroza attack.

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1709977009898627440

Devastating. Almost every family in the village of 330 people had at least one relative at the gathering.

https://twitter.com/k_sonin/status/1710021399203733789

Putin live on TV today, October 5, 2023: "If Western defense supplies are terminated tomorrow, Ukraine will have a week left to live as it runs out of ammunition." A couple of hours earlier, a Russian missile hit a Ukrainian village, killing 55 people, about one sixth of the village population. I understand why US, UK, Germany, France and other countries are reluctant to send troops to stop Putin, but I think they should seriously consider doing this.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Ukraine war latest: Missile strike leaves 51 dead in one of deadliest attacks on civilians since war began; Putin gives update on Prigozhin plane crash

Ukraine says at least 51 people have been killed in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians since the war began. It came after President Zelenskyy urged world leaders at a summit in Spain to back his country's defence to avoid a NATO-Russia clash in Europe in future.

news.sky.com

The Russian mercenary group Wagner signed a contract with a Chinese firm last year to acquire satellite images for intelligence, AFP reports.

A document seen by AFP shows that the company, Beijing Yunze Technology Co. Ltd, sold two satellites belonging to Nika-Frut - a company then part of the former Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin's business empire.

The mercenary group in turn used the images to assist them in operations in Africa and also this June when it attempted a mutiny in Russia which later failed, a European security source told AFP.

The source also claimed that the mercenary group ordered images of Russian territory this year.

Ukraine war latest: Missile strike leaves 51 dead in one of deadliest attacks on civilians since war began; Putin gives update on Prigozhin plane crash

Ukraine says at least 51 people have been killed in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians since the war began. It came after President Zelenskyy urged world leaders at a summit in Spain to back his country's defence to avoid a NATO-Russia clash in Europe in future.

news.sky.com

Volodymyr Zelenskyy's military will be bolstered by new air defence systems from Spain and Germany after both countries pledged the extra support today.

A Spanish government source said Madrid has offered Kyiv another six HAWK systems to protect the country's grain exports from Russian attacks.

In additional to this, the Spanish army will train Ukrainian soldiers on how to use the systems and provide more demining equipment.
Meanwhile, German chancellor Olaf Scholz said after a meeting with the Ukrainian president that Berlin is "working on" providing another Patriot air defence system which could be operational in winter.

He said it is "what is most necessary now", following the first day of the EU Political Community summit in Granada, Spain.

Ukraine war latest: Missile strike leaves 51 dead in one of deadliest attacks on civilians since war began; Putin gives update on Prigozhin plane crash

Ukraine says at least 51 people have been killed in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians since the war began. It came after President Zelenskyy urged world leaders at a summit in Spain to back his country's defence to avoid a NATO-Russia clash in Europe in future.

news.sky.com

We're at a "very significant point" in the political debate over further funding for Ukraine, says our Europe correspondent Adam Parsons.

He points to the situation over in the US, where a request from Joe Biden for billions of dollars worth of further aid for Ukraine is facing opposition from Republicans.

"It's very clear if you talk to European diplomats, that if that American tap got turned off, they couldn't match it.

"There's no way they could come up with $24bn worth at the drop of a hat, not least because there are some countries who are becoming increasingly nervous about supporting Ukraine with more and more money."

Though countries such as Germany, France, Spain and the UK are firmly backing Ukraine, others such as Slovakia and Hungary are more wary, Parsons explains.

"That's why Zelensky was [at a summit of European leaders in Spain today]. He's worried the money could run out."

Ukraine war latest: Missile strike leaves 51 dead in one of deadliest attacks on civilians since war began; Putin gives update on Prigozhin plane crash

Ukraine says at least 51 people have been killed in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians since the war began. It came after President Zelenskyy urged world leaders at a summit in Spain to back his country's defence to avoid a NATO-Russia clash in Europe in future.

news.sky.com

The US eyeing up using a grant programme to send further military aid to Ukraine, according to a report.

Two officials close to the situation told Politico that the Biden administration is considering using foreign military financing - a loan scheme intended to help other countries buy weapons - intended for Ukraine.

It comes as Congress continues to debate a request from Joe Biden to approve $24bn in extra aid for Ukraine.

The White House has been pushing for a solution after a last-ditch bill approved by US lawmakers at the weekend to prevent a government shutdown omitted any further support for Kyiv.

The US president hinted yesterday that there could be an alternative source for Ukraine funds, without expanding on what he meant.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://twitter.com/Stanovaya/status/1709987499622162586

Putin's perspective delivered today at Valdai on Wagner is notable: He seems sceptical about legitimising such PMCs. However, he appears to be more flexible if its activities are to be conducted outside of Russia, albeit still with a lot of doubts. Yet coming from him is a firm no to allowing PMCs, in the current situation even theoretically, to act internally. Even in Ukraine, there's a strong position not to admit their appearance and activities - only after signing individual contracts with the army.

There has also been a significant revelation from Putin… to simplify, he suggests that the business jet’s crash in August might have been caused by a hand grenade explosion, possibly linked to cocaine use. This seems to be a deliberate effort to decisively tarnish Prigozhin's reputation.

Italian official warns of war fatigue, limited resources for Ukraine

Claiming Italy does not have “unlimited resources”, Guido Crosetto said Italy has “done almost all that it could do" in sending weapons to Ukraine.

www.defensenews.com

The Italian government is running out of military equipment to send to Ukraine, just as domestic public opinion loses interest in supporting Kyiv, Italy’s defense minister said Wednesday.

Claiming Italy does not have “unlimited resources”, Guido Crosetto said Italy has “done almost all that it could do,” when it comes to sending weapons to Ukraine. ”There is not much more room,” for freeing up military supplies.

Estonia sent offensive cyber tools to Ukraine after Russia invaded

Tallinn expects Moscow’s cyber attacks to increase—even after Russia is ejected.

www.defenseone.com

When waves of cyber attacks struck Ukraine just before Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year, one small country familiar with such tactics rose to Kyiv’s aid: Estonia, the tech-savvy nation of just 1.3 million people.

“We helped to overcome the first shocking moments,” said Tõnu Tammer, head of the Incident Response Department at the Estonian Information Systems Authority. “We acted as a sort of conduit to put resources at the disposal of Ukrainians from the donors that wanted to contribute.”

A host of public and private entities would ultimately step in to help Ukraine respond to Russian hacking. Microsoft, for example, helped Ukraine transfer data to cloud systems beyond the reach of Russian missiles.

Estonia’s role as a cyber-defense coordinator is just one way in which the small Baltic country has adapted to the new security reality caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Tammer’s office is at the center of this work. The Estonian Information Systems Authority is in part responsible for guarding the networks of Estonia, a country so digitized that a majority of citizens voted online in the 2023 elections.

Estonia also provided Ukraine with dual-use cyber tools that could be used for offensive operations against Russia, said Tammer.

The tools are used to detect vulnerabilities, Tammer said, and therefore can either identify gaps in Ukraine’s defenses or identify gaps in Russian cyber defenses. But Estonia gave the tools for use in defense, he said.

Tammer’s team also sees changes in how Russian-based hackers operate, although he did not tie them explicitly to Ukraine. For one, the Russian government is making more and more use of criminal hackers in operations in support of political goals.

“There has been sort of a gradual shift, in the sense that, if you have sufficient skills, you can be beneficial to us,” he said.

While Estonia is secure for now, Tammer warned of what might happen if and when Russia loses its war in Ukraine. With large numbers of Russians supporting the war, according to polls, he foresees a country that is eager to take revenge.

““How do you express the frustration, if you are no longer able to express this using tanks?” he said. “Cyber in that sense, continues to be a convenient tool.”

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Institute for the Study of War

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the 20th Valdai Discussion Club on October 5 and promoted multiple long-standing Russian information operations. Putin reiterated the false narrative that the West initiated the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 and

www.understandingwar.org

A prominent Russian milblogger justified Russian tactical retreats throughout the Ukrainian counteroffensive as part of an elastic defense. A Russian milblogger amplified a claim reportedly from a Russian frontline soldier that Russian commanders have been choosing to withdraw their forces throughout the counteroffensive period from “broken positions” in order to conduct a “maneuverable and active defense,” likely referring to an elastic defense approach.[13] Other Russian milbloggers have recently indicated that Russian commanders are increasingly needing to choose between either “wasting” their troops in counterattacks to hold tactical positions or standing up to the Russian military command by retreating to previously prepared positions against orders or pressure, thereby risking their careers.[14]

The Russian military may have redeployed elements of the 41st Combined Arms Army (CAA) and elements of the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade to the Kherson direction. A Russian milblogger claimed on October 5 that elements of the 41st CAA (Central Military District) including the 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 55th Motorized Rifle Brigade, as well as unspecified Russian naval infantry elements, are regrouping in the Kherson direction.[15] The milblogger claimed that the Russian naval infantry unit is presumably the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade, which Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov stated on September 22 had been “completely defeated,” now indicating that the brigade may have reconstituted or is in the process of reconstituting.[16] Budanov stated on August 31 that elements of the newly formed 25th CAA deployed to the Kupyansk direction in order to replace elements of the 41st CAA, which would begin a “slow” deployment to an unspecified area in southern Ukraine.[17] ISW previously assessed that the Russian military would laterally redeploy elements of the 41st CAA to defend against Ukrainian counteroffensive operations.[18] The milblogger’s claim, if true, would invalidate that assessment and suggests instead that Russian forces continue to be very concerned about potential future Ukrainian operations on the left (east) bank of the Dnipro River.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the 20th Valdai Discussion Club on October 5 and promoted multiple long-standing Russian information operations. Putin reiterated the false narrative that the West initiated the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 and claimed that NATO expansion threatens Russian security.[1] Putin claimed that the war in Ukraine is not a “territorial conflict” but is about Russia establishing principles for a new multipolar world order, stating that the UN and modern international law are “outdated and subject to demolition.” ISW recently evaluated claims that Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 because he feared NATO and instead assessed that Putin’s aims were to expand Russia’s power, eradicate Ukrainian statehood, and break up NATO – goals he still pursues.[2] Putin’s expressed goal of establishing a multipolar world order further supports ISW’s assessment that Putin’s goals in Ukraine have also exceeded responding to some supposed NATO threat or conquering limited additional territory.

Putin claimed that Russia has successfully completed testing of the nuclear-power Burevestnik cruise missile and the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).[3] Putin spoke about the Russian doctrinal uses of nuclear weapons in either a retaliatory strike or in response to an existential threat to Russia and claimed that there is no modern situation that would threaten Russia’s existence and that no aggressor would use nuclear weapons against Russia. ISW has previously assessed that the Kremlin uses nuclear rhetoric to prompt the United States and its allies to pressure Ukraine to negotiate and that Russian nuclear use in Ukraine remains unlikely.[4] Putin also exaggerated Ukrainian personnel and equipment losses, as Russian officials often do, as part of a continued effort to paint the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failure.[5]

Putin continued to deny the existence of private military companies (PMC) in Russia, indicating that the future of the Wagner Group still remains unclear. Putin reiterated the absurd claim that PMCs do not exist in Russia because “there are now laws about private military companies [in Russia]” and called the name of Wagner PMC a “journalistic name,” likely meaning that the media incorrectly labeled the Wagner Group a PMC.[8] Putin claimed that he did not object when the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) suggested that parts of the Wagner Group participate in the war in Ukraine because Wagner personnel acted voluntarily and “fought heroically,” but noted that the experience with Wagner was “clumsy because it was not based on the law.”[9] Putin also claimed that “several thousand” Wagner personnel signed contracts with the Russian MoD.[10]

 

[Don't Toews Me]

North Korea provides Russia artillery for the Ukraine war as U.S. hands Kyiv ammunition seized from Iran

North Korea has started transferring artillery to Russia as the U.S. sends a seized cache of Iranian ammunition to Ukraine.

www.cbsnews.com

North Korea has begun transferring artillery to Russia, bolstering Vladimir Putin's forces as they continue their 20-month invasion of Ukraine, a U.S. official tells CBS News. It was not immediately clear whether the transfer is part of a new, long-term supply chain or a more limited consignment, or what North Korea is getting in return for the weapons.

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1710244671736164565

“The [German] Taurus is being held up because of the ATACMS. We have a situation very similar to tanks, all this back and forth,” said Mr Zagorodnyuk. “We will have to see what happens.”

https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1710289623203672464

What IFF doing? Russian air defense crews shot down their own fighter-bomber near Mariupol today, days after another such incident with a Su-35. Points to systemic issues — maybe the constant Ukrainian drone and missile threat makes Russian AD units too trigger-happy?

Moldova’s president says Wagner leader planned coup to remove her | Financial Times

Maia Sandu claims thwarted attempt by paramilitary group was part of campaign to destabilise the country

www.ft.com

Moldova’s president has claimed Russia’s Wagner paramilitaries were behind a thwarted coup attempt that aimed to depose her as head of state as part of a campaign to destabilise the country.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Maia Sandu said Wagner’s late leader Yevgeny Prigozhin had planned the coup earlier this year and warned that Moscow is using various methods, including cash mules and bank cards issued in Dubai, to smuggle money into Moldova to bribe voters ahead of a string of elections.
“The information that we have is that it was a plan prepared by [Prigozhin’s] team,” Sandu said, adding that they wanted to encourage anti-government protests to turn “violent”. “The situation is really dramatic and we have to protect ourselves.”
European and US officials warned in February that Russia was planning to topple Sandu’s pro-western government and Moldova said in March that it had arrested a Wagner member and charged them with fomenting unrest. Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in August, two months after leading an aborted mutiny in Russia.

Ukraine war latest: Russian fighter jet scrambled over US patrol plane; Moscow building 'complex underground two-storey bunkers'

A Russian jet was scrambled to escort a US patrol plane near its airspace, according to state media. And criticism prompted by a Sky News revelation has pushed a UEFA official to quit another role. Got a question on the war? Submit it below and our experts will answer a selection.

news.sky.com

Sweden is considering sending fighter jets to Ukraine - but not until it is accepted into NATO.

The Swedish government announced a 14th round of military aid for Kyiv today, and tabled the possibility that it could transfer its Gripen fighter planes to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia.

Swedish defence minister Paul Jonson said lawmakers are assessing "the conditions under which Sweden can contribute in the field of combat aircraft".

"We can do this by expanding our participation in the F-16 coalition or by donating or exporting the Gripen system," he said.

The results of that assessment should come next month.

"We also stated that a mandatory condition for the provision of fighter jets is that Sweden is a NATO ally, and we had a dialogue with the Ukrainians, and they expressed their understanding of this," Mr Jonson said.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Pressure is building on Germany to send long-range missiles to Ukraine. (Published 2023)

With the

www.nytimes.com

With Ukraine’s counteroffensive moving slowly and Britain and France providing long-range missiles to Kyiv, pressure is building on Germany to transfer some of its own.
The Biden administration has made no public indication that it is sending its long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems — known as ATACMS and pronounced “attack ’ems” — to give Ukraine a boost in the counteroffensive against Russian forces. But European officials and security experts say they expect a U.S. announcement soon, adding pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to donate Germany’s Taurus missiles.
“He is under extreme pressure and might want to end this discussion,” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the head of the Bundestag’s Defense Committee, said Thursday in an interview. “But if the Americans will give a green light for delivery of their ATACMS, then maybe.”
A German government spokesman said on Thursday that Mr. Scholz’s position remained unchanged from last month, when the chancellor was asked directly about the Taurus and signaled to journalists that no decision had been reached.
For much of the past year, the German government has sought to announce its donations of armored vehicles, air defense systems and battle tanks in tandem with similar statements from the United States. Long-range missiles are among the last major weapons systems that Ukraine has demanded from the West, but concerns that they could strike Russian territory and escalate the war seeded reluctance in both Berlin and Washington to send them.
Ukraine has pledged to not fire the missiles into Russia’s internationally recognized borders, assurances it also gave when Britain and France donated their long-range missiles earlier this year.
Mr. Scholz, a member of Germany’s center-left Social Democrats party, has other reasons to hesitate amid a clamor from right-wing populists to wind down support for the war that mirrors others across Europe.
His government has voiced concern that Russia could reverse-engineer the Taurus missile and develop ways to counter it, should its components be gathered up on the battlefield. His allies have suggested that German troops would need to be deployed in Ukraine to help operate the Taurus systems. Ms. Strack-Zimmermann and some experts have rejected that assertion, because Kyiv’s forces have been trained on other Western weapons systems in North Atlantic Treaty Organization states.
The missile, formally named the Target Adaptive Unitary and Dispenser Robotic Ubiquity System, has a range of more than 310 miles — at least 120 miles longer than the U.S. ATACMS and probably longer than, or at least comparable to, that of Britain and France’s Storm Shadow and SCALP.
Developed in the early 2000s, the Taurus would be the newest and most sophisticated long-range missile yet for Kyiv. It can fly low to avoid radar detection, and its targeting is so precise that it can hit a specific floor in a building.
Experts said that about 150 Taurus missiles out of the 600 that the German military originally ordered could be available on short notice.
Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba of Ukraine said last month that it is “just a matter of time” before the Taurus missiles are delivered. On Thursday, German lawmaker Anton Hofreiter of the Green party said Mr. Scholz’s reluctance “reinforces Putin’s belief that he will win the war in the long run.”
“This sends exactly the wrong signal,” Mr. Hofreiter said Thursday.

 

[themeistersinger]

Pressure is building on Germany to send long-range missiles to Ukraine. (Published 2023)

With the

www.nytimes.com

With Ukraine’s counteroffensive moving slowly and Britain and France providing long-range missiles to Kyiv, pressure is building on Germany to transfer some of its own.
The Biden administration has made no public indication that it is sending its long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems — known as ATACMS and pronounced “attack ’ems” — to give Ukraine a boost in the counteroffensive against Russian forces. But European officials and security experts say they expect a U.S. announcement soon, adding pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to donate Germany’s Taurus missiles.
“He is under extreme pressure and might want to end this discussion,” Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the head of the Bundestag’s Defense Committee, said Thursday in an interview. “But if the Americans will give a green light for delivery of their ATACMS, then maybe.”
A German government spokesman said on Thursday that Mr. Scholz’s position remained unchanged from last month, when the chancellor was asked directly about the Taurus and signaled to journalists that no decision had been reached.
For much of the past year, the German government has sought to announce its donations of armored vehicles, air defense systems and battle tanks in tandem with similar statements from the United States. Long-range missiles are among the last major weapons systems that Ukraine has demanded from the West, but concerns that they could strike Russian territory and escalate the war seeded reluctance in both Berlin and Washington to send them.
Ukraine has pledged to not fire the missiles into Russia’s internationally recognized borders, assurances it also gave when Britain and France donated their long-range missiles earlier this year.
Mr. Scholz, a member of Germany’s center-left Social Democrats party, has other reasons to hesitate amid a clamor from right-wing populists to wind down support for the war that mirrors others across Europe.
His government has voiced concern that Russia could reverse-engineer the Taurus missile and develop ways to counter it, should its components be gathered up on the battlefield. His allies have suggested that German troops would need to be deployed in Ukraine to help operate the Taurus systems. Ms. Strack-Zimmermann and some experts have rejected that assertion, because Kyiv’s forces have been trained on other Western weapons systems in North Atlantic Treaty Organization states.
The missile, formally named the Target Adaptive Unitary and Dispenser Robotic Ubiquity System, has a range of more than 310 miles — at least 120 miles longer than the U.S. ATACMS and probably longer than, or at least comparable to, that of Britain and France’s Storm Shadow and SCALP.
Developed in the early 2000s, the Taurus would be the newest and most sophisticated long-range missile yet for Kyiv. It can fly low to avoid radar detection, and its targeting is so precise that it can hit a specific floor in a building.
Experts said that about 150 Taurus missiles out of the 600 that the German military originally ordered could be available on short notice.
Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba of Ukraine said last month that it is “just a matter of time” before the Taurus missiles are delivered. On Thursday, German lawmaker Anton Hofreiter of the Green party said Mr. Scholz’s reluctance “reinforces Putin’s belief that he will win the war in the long run.”
“This sends exactly the wrong signal,” Mr. Hofreiter said Thursday.

Can't blame Germany for wanting the US to go first, but I certainly hope they are a very close second.

 

[themeistersinger]

Opinion: Weakness is lethal. Why Putin invaded Ukraine and how the war must end

Editor’s Note: This is an analysis by Nataliya Bugayova, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Frederick W. Kagan for the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). This analysis was originally published by the ISW on Oct. 1, 2023, and has been republished by the Kyiv Independent with permission. Russian...

kyivindependent.com

 

[Da Guru]

Russia calls for an immediate ceasefire from Israel and Hamas to stop more bloodshed.

As the pound Ukraine non stop with bombs. Unreal

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Unreal

Indeed.

The US, UK, Europe, Pacific Rim and Israel, or Russia, Iran, China and Hamas (etc).

It's a pretty easy choice for me. Democracies have a lot of flaws -- because human beings have a lot of flaws -- but at least you retain the possibility of correcting current flaws in the future.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Russians intensify blitzkrieg attacks in eastern Ukraine

The risk of encirclement is growing, but Ukrainian forces are holding the line.

www.politico.eu

Russian forces have launched a series of massive attacks involving thousands of troops as well as tanks and armored vehicles on Ukrainian positions in the east of the country in an effort to encircle Ukrainian forces.

The Ukrainian side has lost control over some positions on the northern outskirts of Avdiivka, but the military says it is still holding on to key parts of the industrial city, only 20 kilometers west of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk. Avdiivka has been under continuous Russian attack for two days, and fires are burning throughout the shattered remnants of the city. Before the war, the city had a population of 32,000; some 1,700 civilians remain.

“The situation is difficult. Intense fighting continues for the second day. The encirclement threat has existed for almost a year, but our forces keep holding defense lines,” Vitalli Barabash, Adviivka military administration head, told POLITICO in a quick message from the frontline.

“Russian invaders used up to three battalions, supported by tanks and armored vehicles, intensified offensive actions in the vicinity of Avdiivka. Ukrainian defenders repelled all enemy attacks and prevented loss of lines and positions,” said Andriy Kovalyov, spokesperson of the Ukrainian general staff.

A Russian battalion has about 800 men.

General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, the local commander, said in a Telegram post that his forces destroyed almost 100 pieces of military equipment, including a Su-25 fighter jet.

"Over the past day, the enemy launched 26 air strikes, fought 56 combat engagements, and made 849 artillery attacks," he said.

Ukrainian soldiers on that part of the front are reporting intense fighting in Avdiivka and its outskirts. “I do not understand the situation in other areas of the front, except for Donetsk. But I will say that our enemy has actively gone on the offensive. With equipment and assaults. Especially in the Avdiivka direction. We again need the maximum support of all the people,” Sergeant Egor Firsov said in a Facebook post.

On Tuesday morning, Russian pro-war Telegram channels were celebrating what they called the strongest attack against Ukrainian positions in days on that part of the front. However, as of Wednesday, Russian military bloggers admitted that Ukrainians were still holding the line and were fighting off Russian efforts to encircle them.

The offensive is aimed at trapping Ukrainian forces and ensuring that Donetsk, the largest Russian-occupied city in Ukraine, is not threatened, wrote Ukrainian military journalist Yuriy Butusov.

"Avdiivka is of strategic importance for the Russian Federation, as this city is actually the gateway to Donetsk — the main communication hub in the occupied territories. And in order to gain a foothold in captured Donbas, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin needs to move the front line away from Donetsk," he wrote.

The attack also puts pressure on the Ukrainian military to shift resources away from the southern front, where it has been making slow progress against formidable Russian defenses, in order to shore up its position in the east of the country.

"Russians have been searching weak spots in our defense lines for months. Now they are concentrating on Avdiivka to force us to draw our forces from the Melitopol offensive, where Ukrainians are progressing day by day. But the Ukrainian army has been holding the lines," said Kovalyov.

The intense fighting burns through vast amounts of weapons and ammunition, something Kyiv will be trying to bolster at a series of NATO meetings taking place in Brussels starting on Wednesday.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

https://www.politico.eu/article/us-to-lead-on-training-ukrainian-f-16-pilots/

The United States will head up a coalition of countries training Ukrainian pilots and crews to operate and maintain F-16 fighter jets alongside the Netherlands and Denmark, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday.

Speaking during the first day of the NATO defense ministers summit in Brussels, Austin said allies in the security bloc's Ukraine Defense Contact Group had decided to form smaller "capability coalitions" focusing on specific areas of support for Kyiv.

For example, Austin said that Estonia and Luxembourg will lead on supporting Ukraine's IT infrastructure to "defend its networks," while Lithuanian will help Kyiv with demining.

Beyond fighter jet training, Austin said the U.S. would also join armor and artillery programs, while a naval group will also be set up.

"That shows how much we can do when we come together," said Austin. "It also show that American leadership matters."

In August, the U.S. granted approval for the Netherlands and Denmark to donate their F-16s to Ukraine once pilot training was complete. So far, 11 countries have signed up to train Ukrainian air crews and maintenance staff, with the U.S. Department of Defense committing to start instruction at the Morris Air National Guard Base in Arizona this month once candidates complete an English language course.

While it's not yet clear how much time is needed to complete the fighter jet training, Dutch and Danish ministers have said that first F-16 deliveries should take place in 2024, and Austin said that “earliest is next spring when we can see an initial capability” of Ukrainian pilots flying the planes.

Belgium's Prime Minister Alexander De Croo also said Wednesday that Belgian F-16s would be donated to Ukraine in 2025 — as long as the next government agrees.

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1712223863524716997

We are seeing an increase in Russian attacks in Ukraine. The latest spike and largest amount since March are almost certainly related to Russia’s assault in Avdiivka, which it has tried to encircle. Reporting on that here: https://on.ft.com/3rP7tcf

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1712242453858693541

Video of a Russian tank, possibly a T-80BVM, striking a mine west of Krasnohorivka on the Avdiivka front from Ukraine's 116th Territorial Defense Brigade. 8/

https://twitter.com/stephenwertheim/status/1712148246938648736

"More than six times as many Americans want the United States to decrease (32%) or withdraw (17%) its troops from Europe as want it to increase (8%) its troop presence to better defend European allies."

Updated chart of Russian reported ground attacks since March 2023: https://twitter.com/konrad_muzyka/status/1712028680707342828

Kremlin planning winter onslaught, says Zelensky

The Ukrainian president has appealed for more western air defence systems, artillery and long-range missiles, saying that Moscow is intent on using winter “as

www.thetimes.co.uk

The Ukrainian president has appealed for more western air defence systems, artillery and long-range missiles, saying that Moscow is intent on using winter “as a weapon of war”.
On his first visit to Nato headquarters in Brussels since Russia invaded last year, President Zelensky warned that the Kremlin was planning a new wave of attacks on his country’s energy infrastructure.

“How to survive during this next winter for us is big,” Zelensky said before his meeting with defence chiefs from Nato and about 20 other countries that have provided Ukraine with military support.
Speaking alongside Jens Stoltenberg, the head of Nato, Zelensky said his government was doing everything possible to prepare for the challenges of the winter months, when temperatures in Ukraine can fall to minus 25C. “We are preparing, we are ready. Now we need some support from the [Nato] leaders. That’s why I’m here today.”
Stoltenberg said it was vital to prevent Russia crippling Ukraine’s ability to provide its people with energy during the winter. “With more advanced and increased capabilities for air defence, we can make a big difference,” he said.
He promised that Nato would “stand by” Ukraine and give further support as it attempts to drive out the invaders. “This is really important for the whole of Nato,” he said. “We must continue to step up and sustain the steady flow of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.”

Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, offered more immediate assistance, announcing a $200 million military aid package for Ukraine. “It includes AIM-9 munitions for a new air-defence system that we will soon deliver to Ukraine, as well as artillery and rocket ammunition, precision aerial munitions, anti-tank weapons and equipment to counter Russian drones,” Austin told the meeting. “That puts America’s total commitment at some $43.9 billion since the start of Putin’s war.”
The weapons are to be provided under presidential drawdown authority, meaning they will be taken from the Pentagon’s stocks and delivered quickly to Ukraine.
Kajsa Ollongren, the Dutch defence minister, said it was important for Nato to underline its support. “The war in Ukraine has our attention,” she added.
Ollongren said last week that “supporting Ukraine is a very cheap way” to ensure that Russia is unable to pose a threat to Nato; a comment that was seized on in Moscow as evidence that the military alliance is fighting a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
Nato leaders also sought to assure Zelensky that the escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not deflect from western support for Kyiv.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Institute for the Study of War

Ongoing localized Russian offensive operations near Avdiivka likely demonstrate the ability of Russian forces to learn and apply tactical battlefield lessons in Ukraine. Russian forces launched localized attacks towards Avdiivka after intensive artillery

www.understandingwar.org

Ongoing localized Russian offensive operations near Avdiivka likely demonstrate the ability of Russian forces to learn and apply tactical battlefield lessons in Ukraine. Russian forces launched localized attacks towards Avdiivka after intensive artillery preparation of the battlefield in the early hours of October 10, and geolocated footage from October 10 and 11 confirms that Russian troops advanced southwest of Avdiivka near Sieverne and northwest of Avdiivka near Stepove and Krasnohorivka.[1] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that a grouping of up to three Russian battalions with tank and armored vehicle support intensified offensive operations near Avdiivka.[2] Ukrainian General Staff Spokesperson Andrii Kovavlev clarified that these battalions are part of three motorized rifle brigades of the Southern Military District’s 8th Combined Arms Army.[3]

Russian sources celebrated Russian advances in this area and outlined several adaptations that suggest that Russian forces are applying lessons learned from operations in southern Ukraine to other sectors of the front.[4] A Russian artillery battalion commander who is reportedly fighting in the area claimed that Russian forces are paying significant attention to counterbattery combat.[5] Another source who also claimed to be fighting in the area reported that Russian forces are using electronic warfare (EW) systems, conducting sound artillery preparation of the battlefield, and are demonstrating “clear interaction” between command headquarters, assault groups, aerial reconnaissance, and artillery elements.[6] The milblogger noted that Russian forces are not employing human wave-style “meat” assaults, and several Russian sources amplified footage of Russian armored vehicles leading a breakthrough along roadways towards Ukrainian positions, followed by infantry columns.[7]

The suggestion that Russian forces are effectively employing EW, counterbattery, artillery preparation, aerial reconnaissance, and inter/intra-unit communication is noteworthy, as Russian sources previously emphasized these tactical adaptations as the strengths of Russia’s defense against Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in southern Ukraine, particularly in June and July.[8] Furthermore, the majority of Russian forces currently fighting in the Avdiivka area are likely elements of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) 1st Army Corps, which the Russian 8th Combined Arms Army predominantly controls.[9] ISW has not observed any 8th Combined Arms Army elements not from DNR formations involved in ongoing attacks, and ISW assesses current Russian offensive efforts in the Avdiivka area are likely primarily comprised of DNR forces. DNR elements have suffered from pervasive issues with abusive command culture, poor discipline, and minimal training; all of which have been exacerbated by wider issues with the integration of the DNR’s more irregular force structure into Russia’s regular military, as ISW has previously reported.[10] Reports by Russian milbloggers that units in this area are displaying effective communication may suggest that DNR forces have somewhat eased their integration into regular Russian forces and have learned lessons from previous ineffective and failed attacks in the Avdiivka area.

These tactical-level adaptations and successes, however, are unlikely to translate into wider operational and strategic gains for Russian forces. Geolocated footage shows that Russian gains around Avdiivka are concentrated to the southwest of Avdiivka, and Russian forces have not completed an operational encirclement of the settlement and will likely struggle to do so if that is their intent. Avdiivka is also a notoriously well-fortified and defended Ukrainian stronghold, which will likely complicate Russian forces’ ability to closely approach or fully capture the settlement. Russian forces additionally already control segments of the critical N20 Donetsk City-Kostyantynivka-Kramatorsk-Slovyansk highway and other routes that run near Avdiivka, so the hypothetical capture of Avdiivka will not open new routes of advance to the rest of Donetsk Oblast. As ISW previously assessed, Russian forces likely intend attacks in the Avdiivka area to fix Ukrainian forces and prevent them from redeploying to other areas of the front. However, Ukrainian officials have already identified the Avdiivka push as a Russian fixing operation, and they are unlikely to unduly commit Ukrainian manpower to this axis.[11]bb

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Why Germany is rattled about sending its Taurus missile to Ukraine

The fuss about the Taurus is about its fuze — which makes it a bridge-killer.

www.politico.eu

The U.K. and France have supplied Ukraine with powerful cruise missiles but Berlin is balking at doing the same.

While the dithering from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is enraging Kyiv, there are some reasons for Berlin's caution.

To the untrained eye, there is little to differentiate the two missiles.

Both are launched from fighter jets, they are both around 5 meters long and weigh about the same, 1,300 kilograms for the Storm Shadow/SCALP and 1,400 kg more for the Taurus. Each has a range of about 500 kilometers and very similar warheads — 450 kg for Storm Shadow/SCALP and 461 kg for Taurus.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius confirmed on Wednesday during the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels that Berlin will not send the missile to Ukraine.

So why the fuss in Germany?

It's about the fuze, according to Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow and missile expert at the University of Oslo, who dug into the differing devices that each missile family uses to detonate its warhead.

The Storm Shadow/SCALP BROACH warhead system uses the so-called Multi-Application Fuze Initiation System (MAFIS), where the delay between impact and warhead detonation is set by hand. That makes it difficult to properly target complex objects like bridges, as the warhead may have to first pass through a relatively thin roadbed before impacting on the real objective — the concrete pillar holding up the whole structure.

The Taurus tackles that issue as its MEPHISTO warhead is equipped with a “void sensing and layer counting” fuze called PIMPF (Programable Intelligent Multi-Purpose Fuze), which can recognize layers of material and voids and can more effectively blow up multilayered or buried targets.

"One missile equipped with a void sensing & layer counting fuze can therefore cause the damage that previously could only be achieved with two or more accurately dropped bombs," Hofmann wrote, adding that if Ukraine gets the Taurus missile it would be able to effectively strike at the Kerch bridge linking Russian proper with occupied Crimea.

That's a key target for Kyiv, which has tried several times to bring down the bridge that is crucial to Russia's logistics and its control of Crimea.

But that's also why Scholz is reluctant to supply the Taurus. He recently called a scenario of Ukraine using the German missile to knock out the bridge an “escalation of the war.” He added that his responsibility as chancellor is to ensure “Germany does not become part of the conflict.”

That's not the only issue causing concern in Berlin.

Storm Shadow/SCALP and Taurus both use terrain contour mapping system to remain on course in GPS-compromised environments. Berlin worries that Taurus missiles would need topographical mapping data to its targets programed into their guidance systems by Germany.

Gustav C. Gressel, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said: “Ukraine would need more geodata for launching Taurus than for SCALP or Storm Shadow.” He added that “training Ukrainian soldiers on the process takes more time, because it is more sophisticated.”

Gressel said Ukraine could use the Taurus without German boots on the ground. “Technicians from MBDA Germany [the firm behind the Taurus design] could either go to Ukraine or teach Ukrainians in Germany” how to operate and maintain the Taurus.

But Hoffmann brushed aside the argument that helping Ukraine with mapping would be escalatory. Much of the topographical data needed for the Taurus contour mapping system is publicly available, he said.

Germany is also worried that a Taurus could fall into Russian hands.

While Paris and London have a future replacement missile already in the works, Germany plans to continue using the Taurus until mid-century. Rather than developing a Taurus successor, the platform will receive a Mid-Life Upgrade, which won’t alter the missile’s hardware but will integrate “better GPS and other software updates for greater capabilities,” Hoffmann said.

Until then, “Taurus is the only real deep strike means Germany has,” Gressel said.

There is a fear in the Chancellery and defense industry “that the Russians would get to know and counter Taurus,” Gressel said. “Or worse, a Taurus may crash unexploded and unharmed somewhere and Russians start to reverse-engineer it.”

The Taurus is also specifically engineered to counter Russian air defense systems like the Pantsir and the S-400, making it especially interesting for Russian troops to get their hands on one.

Despite Scholz's fears, pressure is growing on him to give way.

The U.S. is already supplying a small number of its ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles to Ukraine; Germany had earlier said it wouldn't move on the Taurus until the U.S. sent its own missiles.

Senior lawmakers on the Bundestag’s defense committee and within Scholz’s own Social Democratic Party are urging him to reverse his stance “immediately.”

 

[higgins]

To the regular topical news posters (you know who you are), please don't let other current events dissuade your posting -- you are very much appreciated (necessary even?).

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Institute for the Study of War

US and Ukrainian officials reported on October 12 and 13 that they anticipated the Russian offensive operations around Avdiivka and expressed confidence in Ukrainian defenses. US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby reported on October 13

www.understandingwar.org

US and Ukrainian officials reported on October 12 and 13 that they anticipated the Russian offensive operations around Avdiivka and expressed confidence in Ukrainian defenses. US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby reported on October 13 that the new Russian offensive operations near Lyman and Avdiivka “did not come as a surprise.”[1] Kirby stated that the US is confident that Ukrainian forces will repel these Russian attacks.[2] Kirby also reported that Russian forces appear to be using human wave tactics, wherein the Russian military uses masses of poorly trained and equipped Russian soldiers to attempt to advance - the same practice Russian forces used during their failed winter offensive in winter 2023.[3] ISW has additionally observed Russian forces using higher than usual numbers of armored vehicles in ongoing operations.[4] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Representative Andriy Yusov similarly reported on October 12 that Ukrainian forces knew about and prepared for the Russian attack near Avdiivka and that Russian forces did not form sufficient reserves to attack along the entire frontline, but only in certain sectors.[5] Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian mines are slowing Russian advances near Avdiivka, indicating Ukrainian prior preparations for the attack.[6]

The Russian information space remains divided on the prospects of Russian successes near Avdiivka and on current Ukrainian capabilities. Geolocated footage published on October 13 indicates that Russian forces marginally advanced north of the waste heap north of Avdiivka.[7] Additional geolocated footage published on October 14 indicates that Russian forces also advanced south of Avdiivka.[8] Some Russian sources claimed on October 13 and 14 that Ukrainian defensive fortifications pose a significant challenge to Russian advances around Avdiivka.[9] Some Russian sources indicated that Russian problems with medical support are also impeding Russian advances in the Avdiivka area. One Russian source claimed on October 12 that there is a shortage of surgeons in occupied Horlivka and Donetsk City near Avdiivka and called on Russian doctors to travel to the front to help treat wounded Russian soldiers.[10] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun similarly stated on October 14 that the majority of Russian casualties in the Avdiivka direction are due to low-quality medical treatment and local hospitals reaching capacity.[11]

Other Russian milbloggers continued to praise Russian offensive efforts on October 13 and 14 and reiterated the Kremlin’s desired narrative that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is over.[12] One Russian milblogger warned that Russian officials and sources have likely dismissed the Ukrainian counteroffensive too quickly and noted that it is too early to determine if the Russian attacks near Avdiivka will develop into an organized offensive operation.[13]

The Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) will maintain some vessels at its main Sevastopol naval base amid Ukrainian strikes on Russian vessels, as the Russian Navy’s main drydock on the Black Sea is in Sevastopol. Ukrainian Naval Spokesperson Captain Third Rank Dmytro Pletenchuk reported on October 14 that Ukrainian forces struck the Russian Professor Nikolai Muru tugboat and the Pavel Derzhavin patrol ship on October 13 and stated that the BSF has redeployed vessels from Sevastopol to Kerch, Feodosia, and Novorossiysk (in mainland Russia).[17] Pletenchuk noted that Russian forces continue to use the Sevastopol base because there are not enough piers to accommodate vessels at other ports, however.[18] The BSF‘s headquarters and main facilities including a dry dock are located in Sevastopol, and the Russian navy therefore must send some vessels for repairs within range of Ukrainian strikes.[19] The UK Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported on October 14 that the BSF has likely increased its defensive and reactive posture after multiple Ukrainian strikes on BSF assets in August and September 2023.[20]

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Fierce Fighting Flares Around Eastern Ukrainian Town of Avdiivka

Russia’s assault there may be a sign that Moscow is trying to regain the initiative in the war, after it spent months defending against Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive.

www.nytimes.com

Russian and Ukrainian forces were locked in fierce fighting around the eastern frontline town of Avdiivka for a fourth straight day on Friday, in one of Moscow’s biggest military offensives in months.
Ukraine’s top military command said that it had repelled more than 20 attacks over the past day around the town, a linchpin of regional defenses whose capture by Russia would ease the way to the nearby, larger cities of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka.
Local officials described round-the-clock fighting and residential buildings that had been reduced to rubble by shelling, with heavy bombardments and the deployment of large numbers of troops and tanks by Russian forces.
“It was a hot night in Avdiivka,” Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the town’s military administration, told Ukrainian television, adding that Russian forces were closing in on the area with infantry and striking with artillery. “The assaults do not stop, day or night.”
The attack on Avdiivka, already devastated by Russian shelling during the war, may indicate that Moscow is trying to regain the initiative on the battlefield, after months on the defensive after Kyiv launched its counteroffensive this summer in the south.
“The enemy sees Avdiivka as an opportunity to gain a significant victory and turn the tide of hostilities,” Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesman for Ukraine’s southern forces, said on Thursday.
But as much as Ukrainian forces have struggled to break through Russia’s formidable defensive lines in the south, it will not be easy for Russian troops to overrun Kyiv’s heavily fortified positions around Avdiivka, which has been on the front line since Russian-backed militants seized territory in eastern Ukraine, including the nearby city of Donetsk, in 2014.
Ukraine’s military has claimed that many Russian troops and armored vehicles have already been eliminated in the assault, in which Russian forces have captured less than two square miles, according to geolocated footage analyzed by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
Mr. Barabash said Russian forces were trying to encircle Avdiivka, which sit in a strategic pocket surrounded to the north, east and south by Russian positions.
He reported intense fighting to the north and south of the town, adding that one civilian had been killed and several others wounded over the past day.
But encircling Avdiivka would most likely require more forces than Russia has committed to its offensive in the area so far, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Over time, Avdiivka has become a symbol of resistance to Russia’s onslaught. It withstood eight years of low-intensity warfare in eastern Ukraine before the invasion began in February 2022, and now a year and a half of enormous assaults by the Russian Army, which have left the town in ruins and forced almost all of its 30,000 inhabitants to flee.
Ukrainian forces have held out through airstrikes and continual artillery bombardment, using the grounds of a coking coal factory as a fortress and digging trenches and bunkers around the area.
“Avdiivka. We are holding our ground,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Thursday.

 

[Don't Toews Me]

Long analysis here on Avdiivka: https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1713236442804097160

Missed this from other day: https://twitter.com/jseldin/status/1712868618864558298

US says #NorthKorea sent 300 shipping containers full of munitions to #Russia via rail

Per US, containers traveled from #Najin, #DPRK to Dunay, #Russia between September 7 & October 1

Kyiv says 'heated' fighting continues in Avdiivka – DW – 10/14/2023

p.dw.com

Ukraine has reported continued "heated" fighting around its eastern city of Avdiivka, ongoing for days.

"For the fifth day already, the enemy has not stopped either assaulting or shelling positions around the city," Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the city, said on Ukrainian television. He described the fighting as "very heated."

Barabash claimed that Moscow was deploying "more new forces" to the area, in an effort to surround the city.

"There is certainly no silence there at all. Shooting battles continue, both from the north and from the south of the city," he said.

Kyiv reported intense fighting generally in the eastern regions.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, who was visiting Ukrainian troops in the area, said fighting has "significantly worsened." He accused Russian forces of attacking around the village of Makiivka and toward the city of Kupiansk.

"The main objective of the enemy is the defeat of a grouping of our troops, the encirclement of Kupiansk and to reach the Oskil River," he said in comments carried by an official military platform.

Despite Washington chaos, Americans still want to support Ukraine

The American public is under no illusions as to how long the war is likely to last.

www.politico.eu

A new survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs shows that nearly two-thirds of those polled (63 percent) support sending additional arms and military supplies to Ukraine, and 61 percent support providing economic assistance.

Ukrainians in Israel — from one war zone to another

Seeking escape from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they found themselves in the middle of another conflict.

www.politico.eu

Viktoriia Gryshchenko, an intellectual property rights specialist from Kyiv, arrived in Israel only 10 days ago, looking forward to a temporary break from Russia’s war on her homeland.

“But I only escaped from war into another war. And I say that with a bitter smile on my face,” said Gryshchenko, who had not left Kyiv since the start of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine more than 19 months ago.

 

[themeistersinger]

Is Poland Getting Read to Turn Its Back on Ukraine and Its War for Survival Against Russia?

Ukraine’s strongest European ally and neighbor is about to hold a parliamentary election, which could have a considerable knock-on effect on Kyiv’s fight against Russia.

www.19fortyfive.com

 

[themeistersinger]

Putin Is on the Counterattack in Ukraine But Is Losing Soldiers and Tanks Fast

Over the last few days, the Russian forces have launched an intense series of small-scale counterattacks in the Donbas.

www.19fortyfive.com

 

[themeistersinger]

‘She needs armor.’ Female Ukrainian soldiers call for equality

Many passersby raise their heads when walking past the Princess Olga monument in downtown Kyiv. Some even stop, gazing at the statue with surprise. Although it has been there for years, it seems the monument has never gotten as much attention as it has in recent weeks. In early September,

kyivindependent.com