Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

Administration in occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region announces ‘relocation’ of residents from 18 settlements

The administration of the part of Zaporizhzhia currently occupied by Russian forces announced the “relocation” of some inhabitants from areas near the front lines.


Evgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-appointed administration, said that children and their parents, the elderly, and people with disabilities would be “relocated away from enemy fire,” reports Interfax.


Residents of the following 18 settlements will be “relocated”: Tymoshivka, Smyrnivka, Tarasivka, Orlianske, Molochansk, Kuibysheve, Pryshyb, Tokmak, Mala Bilozerka, Vasylivka, Velyka Bilozerka, Dniprorudne, Mykhailivka, Kamianka-Dniprovska, Enerhodar, Polohy, Kinski Rozdory, Rozivka.

Administration in occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region announces ‘relocation’ of residents from 18 settlements — Meduza

Russian regions close to the border with Ukraine have been weathering a spate of suspected drone and sabotage attacks in recent days as Kyiv's troops prepare for their long-expected spring counteroffensive. The BBC reported more than 20 suspected drone attacks inside Russia this year, including at least three in the past week. Many of the most recent strikes appear designed to degrade logistics networks running to and through the Russian southwest, and into the occupied territories of southern Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula.

This week, there have been two suspected drone attacks on the Ilsky oil refinery in the southwestern Krasnodar region, close to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and about 125 miles from Crimea.

Those followed a strike on an oil facility in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol—home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet—which according to Kyiv destroyed about 45,000 tons of oil products intended for use by Moscow's warships.

Other mysterious explosions have been reported at a military airport and along two railways in the Bryansk region. The train attacks derailed two locomotives, reportedly carrying fuel toward the front lines in Ukraine.

Also this week, Moscow blamed Ukraine for a dual-drone attack on the Kremlin compound, which it framed as a failed attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kyiv has generally refused to confirm or deny involvement in strikes on Russian military and infrastructure targets far behind the front lines, especially if the locations are within Russia's internationally recognized borders rather than in occupied Crimea or Donbas.

Ukrainian officials have, however, said that degrading Russian military logistics is an important element of preparations for a spring counteroffensive.

Responding to the recent sabotage attacks, Mykhailo Podolyak—an adviser to the head of Ukraine's presidential office—wrote on Twitter that the incidents are a signal of the "growing governance weakness of the state." Podolyak also said the attacks were evidence of the loss of "control over the regions," and the "emergence of aggressive and paramilitary protest [guerrilla] groups."

Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chair of the body's foreign affairs committee, told Newsweek that the uncertainty around the recent strikes is intentional.

"It's hard to say," he responded when asked if Kyiv was the most likely perpetrator. "In such issues there is a strategic ambiguity. Governments usually neither confirm nor deny. There is also the possibility that it might Russian partisan groups. On the eve of the counteroffensive, everything that weakens the enemy is good for Ukraine."

The Kremlin is grappling with a simmering partisan movement, though the size and capabilities of the violent anti-government movements remain unclear.

Alexey Baranovsky, deputy to former Russian lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev—who is organizing anti-government groups abroad and has links to Russian nationals fighting against Moscow's troops in Ukraine, and grassroots Russian partisan groups operating domestically—told Newsweek: "Ukrainian partisans operate in Crimea and on the occupied territories of Donbas, Russian rebels inside Russia."

Asked whether the location of recent attacks inside Russian borders suggest cooperation between Kyiv and anti-government partisans, Baranovsky said such contact is "not required."

"First, sabotage on the railroads and so on also occurs in the depths of Russia, in Siberia and in the Far East. Second, residents of border regions are more included in the local agenda. Many have relatives and friends in Ukraine, they know and understand more about Russian aggression. So, there are more rebels here."

The density of infrastructure and military facilities in western Russia also mean attacks there are more likely, Baranovsky said. "Not just more targets, but more military targets, targets that are used for war."

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry by email for comment.

https://www.newsweek.com/who-going-a...tisans-1798615

So much for that, the Patriot shot it down. If the Patriot can shoot down the ruzzian hypersonic missile, then it can most likely shoot down the Chinese one as well.

Ukrainian troops reportedly shoot down a Russian hypersonic ballistic missile using a Western-made air defense system.

According to Defense Express, Ukraine’s Armed Forces successfully intercepted a Russian Kinzhal (Kh-47) hypersonic missile at around 02:40 a.m. on May 4 over Kyiv.
Ukrainian Air Defense unit has detected, tracked and defeated hypersonic missiles in the final phases of flight.

The Defense Express article provides photos of wreckage that’s purported to be part of the KKinzhal air-launched hypersonic missile. Based on the photos, the wreckage without a warhead fell at a stadium in the Kyiv city limits. One of the photos shows a nosecone that is most similar to the one used in the Kh-47 Kinzhal missile with a complex shape of sharp diameter transitions.

Also, the nosecone of the downed missile, as seen in the photo, differs from the Iskander ballistic missile, which is “thicker.”

The wreckage shows that it was hit with a penetration, which allows us to estimate the thickness of the material needed to withstand the high temperature during acceleration to hypersonic speeds.

It also indicates that the intercept was quite effective, with the warhead destroyed in midair.

This is the reason for the powerful explosion heard by Kyiv residents on the night of May 4.

The Russian military says the Kinzhal has a range of up to 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) and flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it difficult to intercept. Russia has used the weapon to strike several targets in Ukraine.

Kremlin claimed that its fighter jet-launched Kinzhal missile system is “unstoppable” by current Western weapons.

Just a moment...

KYIV, Ukraine -- Soldiers from the International Legion of Ukraine said farewell Friday to an American military veteran they served with, who was killed a month ago in the fierce struggle to prevent the eastern city of Bakhmut from falling into Russian hands.

In a funeral service at Kyiv's St. Michael's Cathedral, Ukrainian regular army troops bore the Ukrainian-flag-draped coffin of Chris Campbell while about three dozen members of the International Legion looked on.

After folding the flag, they presented it to Ivanna Sanina, Campbell's Ukrainian wife.

The Florida native is one of least nine Americans now known to have been killed in fighting in Ukraine, including another last month in Bakhmut. Two Canadian volunteers were also killed there April 26 after Russian artillery hit their position.

The struggle for Bakhmut, located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, has been one of the bloodiest of the war. It has now been going on for more than eight months.

It is believed to have cost thousands of lives, though neither side has said how many. Russia now has possession of most of the city.

Campbell served with the International Legion of Ukraine, a unit of foreign volunteers with prior military experience formed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Sanina, herself a volunteer to provide aid to the frontline troops, said she had first met him at an event for volunteers earlier in the war.

“I asked him, ‘Why are you here?’ It was our first meeting, and he said, ‘Because it is right,’” she told reporters tearfully, calling him “the bravest man I've ever known.”

She last saw him two days before his April 6 death in Kharkiv, when he had a short respite from the front lines. She said she could tell how hard the fighting in Bakhmut had been on him.

“I saw that he changed a lot,” she said. “Every man, the horrors which they see, it's awful.”

Funeral held in Ukraine for American man killed in action - ABC News

^^ That’s some great news.

Originally Posted by misskit

That’s some great news.

It is very big news because it blows the lid off the whole "hypersonic" bogey man. I would not be surprised that the US knew all along that the Patriot could intercept those missiles.

It means the hypersonic missile is not cost effective. Cheaper to use lots of cruise missiles and expect some to get through.

Originally Posted by bsnub

I would not be surprised that the US knew all along that the Patriot could intercept those missiles

We knew this long ago. All part of the "classified" Raytheon sales pitch.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s air force claimed Saturday to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defense systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles.

Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defense systems.

“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Oleshchuk wrote. “It happened during the night-time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”

Oleshchuk said the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from Russian territory and was shot down with a Patriot missile.

The Kinzhal is one of the latest and most advanced Russian weapons. The Russian military says the air-launched ballistic missile has a range of up to 2,000 kilometers (about 1,250 miles) and flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept.

A combination of hypersonic speed and a heavy warhead allows the Kinzhal to destroy heavily fortified targets, like underground bunkers or mountain tunnels.

The Ukrainian military has previously admitted lacking assets to intercept the Kinzhals.

“They were saying that the Patriot is an outdated American weapon, and Russian weapons are the best in the world,” Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said on Ukraine’s Channel 24 television. “Well, there is confirmation that it effectively works against even a super-hypersonic missile.” Ihnat said.

He said successfully intercepting the Kinzhal was “a slap in the face for Russia.”

Ukraine took its first delivery of the Patriot missiles in late April. It has not specified how many of the systems it has or where they have been deployed, but they are known to have been provided by the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.

Germany and the U.S. have acknowledged each sending at least one battery and the Netherlands has said it has provided two launchers, although it is not clear how many are currently in operation.

Ukrainian troops have received the extensive training needed to be able to effectively locate a target with the systems, lock on with radar, and fire. Each battery requires up to 90 personnel to operate and maintain.

Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said he first asked for Patriot systems when visiting the U.S. in August 2021, months before Russia’s full-scale invasion but seven years after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

He has described possessing the system as “a dream” but said he was told in the U.S. at the time that it was impossible.

The Patriot was first deployed by the U.S. in the 1980s. The system costs approximately $4 million per missile, and the launchers cost about $10 million each, according to analysts.

At such a cost, it was widely thought that Ukraine would only use the Patriots against Russian aircraft or hypersonic missiles.

In a Telegram post on Saturday, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said he had thanked U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the ongoing American aid to Ukraine.

Zaluzhnyi said he also briefed Milley “about the situation at the front and preparations” for Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia.

Ukraine has not said when it might launch the counteroffensive, but it is widely anticipated this spring.

In an interview this week with Foreign Affairs magazine, Milley said he would not speculate on if or when it might come, but that with NATO assistance to help train and equip nine brigades’ worth of combined arms, armor and mechanized infantry, “the Ukrainians right now have the capability to attack.”

He also said that their capability to defend was “significantly enhanced from what they were just a year ago.”

“I don’t want to suggest that they may or may not conduct an offensive operation in the coming weeks,” he said. “That’ll be up to them. They’ve got a significant amount of planning and coordination and all of that to do, if they were to do an offensive operation. But they’re prepared to do offense or defense.”

In other developments, officials in both Russia and Ukraine said they had carried out another of their regular exchanges of prisoners of war.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it brought three military pilots back to Russia, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said 45 fighters who defended the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol had been returned to Ukraine.

Also on Saturday, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces accused Russia of using phosphorus munitions in its attempt to wrest control of the eastern city of Bakhmut from Ukrainian forces.

Russian troops have been trying to take the city for more than nine months, but Ukrainian forces are still clinging to positions on the western outskirts.

On Saturday, the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper quoted military officials as saying that “the enemy used phosphorus and incendiary ammunition in Bakhmut in an attempt to wipe the city off the face of the earth.”

A photo accompanying the newspaper report showed an urban area lit up with fire in multiple places.

The allegations could not be independently verified.

Russian forces have not commented on the claim but have rejected previous accusations from Ukraine that they had used phosphorus.

International law prohibits the use of white phosphorus or other incendiary weapons — munitions designed to set fire to objects or cause burn injuries — in areas where there could be concentrations of civilians.

White phosphorous can also be used for illumination or to create smoke screens.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...bc8_story.html

Zakhar Prilepin: Russian pro-war blogger injured in car bomb

A prominent Russian writer and pro-war blogger has been wounded by a car bomb, officials say.


Zakhar Prilepin, an vehement supporter of the Ukraine war, was reportedly conscious after the attack in the Nizhny Novgorod region but his driver was killed.
A suspect was detained, the interior ministry said.


It comes a month after another pro-Kremlin blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky, died in a bombing at a St Petersburg café.


Less that two hours after Saturday's attack was reported, the interior ministry said a suspect with previous convictions had been detained near a forest in the Nizhny Novgorod region.


"The search for possible accomplices continues," the statement said.


Nizhny Novgorod Governor Gleb Nikitin said: "Law enforcement officers are now investigating the circumstances and causes of the incident. Zakhar is OK."


The explosion reportedly took place on a remote road some 80km (50 miles) from the town of Bor. State media said the blogger suffered a concussion and fractured bones.
The partisan group Atesh, which is made up of Ukrainians and Crimean Tartars, claimed it was behind the attack.


"We had a feeling that sooner or later he would be blown up," they wrote on Telegram. "He was not driving alone, but with a surprise on the underside of the car."


The BBC cannot verify Atesh's claims.


MORE Zakhar Prilepin: Russian pro-war blogger injured in car bomb - BBC News

Wagner boss suggests his forces may stay in Bakhmut after threatening to withdraw

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, has apparently backtracked on a threat to withdraw his forces from the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, after Russia’s Ministry of Defense promised to provide more ammunition to his troops.


In an explosive, expletive-laden rant this week, Prigozhin appeared in front of dozens of his dead soldiers and blamed Russia’s military leadership for “tens of thousands” of Wagner casualties. He declared that his men would leave Bakhmut by May 10 because of inadequate supplies, resulting in heavy losses.


But a new audio message posted Sunday on Telegram suggests he has changed his mind after concessions from the Russian government.


“The bottom line is the following: they promise to give us ammunition and weapons, as much as we need to continue further actions. They swear to us that everything that is necessary will be on the flank so the enemy сan’t cut us off. We are told that we can act in Bakhmut as we see fit,” Prigozhin said.


The Russian Ministry of Defense did not immediately comment on Prigozhin’s latest claim.

MORE Wagner boss suggests his forces may stay in Bakhmut after being promised more munitions | CNN

Ukrainians with cellphones and machine guns are forcing Russia to change how it launches its drone attacks


Ukraine's flexible and adaptive air defenses have forced Russia to change its drone tactics.

Instead of launching a few Iranian-made Shahed-136 kamikaze drones at a time, Russia is sending large salvos and carefully routing them to avoid Ukrainian defenses.

Ukrainian interception rates have gotten "good enough that the Russians are now kind of saving up their Iranian production allocations until they have large amounts," Justin Bronk, an airpower expert at Britain's Royal United Services Institute, said on an April episode of the "Geopolitics Decanted" podcast.

Now Russia is launching "maybe 30 or 40" at a time, Bronk said.

This marks yet another turn in the drone war between Russia and Ukraine. In the days after Russia invaded in February 2022, Ukrainian drones armed with anti-tank missiles or even homemade bombs wreaked havoc on Russian armored columns.

Then in late summer, just as Ukraine seemed able to keep Russian airpower at bay, Moscow began pounding Ukrainian infrastructure with waves of cheap Shahed drones, which overwhelmed Ukrainian air defenses.

"Drip-feeding lots and lots of Shaheds for several months" also depleted Ukraine's stockpile of air-defense missiles and shells, Bronk said.

In turn, Ukraine has formed mobile air-defense teams equipped with a variety of short-range and portable weapons, including self-propelled antiaircraft guns such as the Soviet-era Shilka and the German-made Gepard, shoulder-fired missiles like the US-made Stinger, and even Soviet-designed DShK heavy machine guns paired with searchlights, Bronk said.

This approach has proved remarkably successful.

"Even just people with DShKs are getting much better with those weapons because they've had a lot of practice," Bronk said. "As you learn how to lead targets, even crew-served, nonradar-led gunnery can be quite effective."

Ukraine has also mobilized the public for the anti-drone war.

"They've got some clever apps, so where ordinary people can essentially quickly report in sightings of UAVs, missiles, and aircraft into a sort of centralized data-gathering function," Bronk said.
Earlier in the war, Ukrainians used a repurposed government-services app to report Russian movements on the ground.

A similar system was used in World War II. During the Battle of Britain in 1940, civilian volunteers with the Royal Observer Corps reported sightings of German bombers to a centralized air-defense network. Once the bombers flew past coastal radars and reached inland areas where radar coverage was sparser, ground controllers could use Observer Corps reports to track the raids and direct Royal Air Force fighters to intercept them.

Because Ukraine is so large — just a little smaller than Texas — Russian drones have to fly a long way to strike targets deep inside the country, Bronk said. While the Shahed-136 has an estimated range of about 1,550 miles, it has a top speed of only about 115 mph.

"They're quite slow," Bronk said. "If you can build up a picture of where they're going — which is not easy — there is often time to station mobile teams, to move them to the likely routes and shoot the drones down."

Naturally, Russia has changed its tactics. It has begun sending a few drones ahead of the main attack wave to attract the attention of Ukrainian antiaircraft sites "and see what lights up," Bronk said.

"If they manage to work out where the air defense is in a particular area, they'll then change the routing of the main strike wave to try and avoid it," he said. "So that's both an example of Russia learning and adapting but also a testament to how effective Ukrainian defense measures now are."

But Ukraine's mobile anti-drone teams are most effective against drones flying at lower altitudes on deep-penetration missions.

On the front lines, Russia can employ a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles, from small quadcopters to the Orlan-10, which flies at altitudes between roughly 5,000 feet and 16,000 feet and gathers real-time data to guide Russian artillery.

"The Orlan is one of the biggest problems because it can fly above the range of" portable air-defense missiles and antiaircraft guns, Bronk said, adding: "Essentially what that means is that in order to shoot them down, Ukraine has to use radar-guided surface-to-air missile systems like the Osa or Buk. That's one of the things that's drawing so much of their ammunition capacity."

Recently leaked US governments containing intelligence assessments from February said Ukraine was running out of ammunition for its antiaircraft weapons, especially the surface-to-air missiles needed to counter Russian jets.

While Western countries have scrambled to provide more of that ammunition, dwindling supplies mean Ukraine will have to use its air-defense resources more judiciously — and as they have done since the war began, the Ukrainians will continue to improvise.

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukra...methods-2023-5

Surprise drone attacks hint at how Ukraine is going after Russia's missile 'chokepoints'

As Russian missiles continue to pound Ukrainian cities, the Ukrainians are using drones to target Russian missile launchers.


Ukraine has struck airbases inside Russia that service missile-armed bombers. It has also hit bases on the Crimean Peninsula that support the Black Sea Fleet and its missile-equipped warships.


Ukraine's strategy is spurred by desperation. While its air defenses have been successful, they can't destroy every incoming cruise and ballistic missile, let alone high-speed hypersonic weapons. Indeed, not even Israel's vaunted Iron Dome, which Kyiv has requested, can destroy more than a fraction of incoming rockets.


Compounding the problem is that Ukraine may be close to running out of anti-aircraft missiles and shells.

Whether it's cruise missiles or ICBMs, it's much easier to destroy the missiles, their launchers, and their supply depots on the ground than it is to intercept them in flight.


Attacking those launchers "is a more efficient way" to deal with the problem, Dara Massicot, an expert on the Russian military at the RAND Corporation think-tank, said on an April episode of the Geopolitics Decanted podcast.


Ukraine's strikes are hitting bases and hubs that may disrupt Russia's ability to launch missiles, whether it be from bombers flying along the Russia-Ukraine border or from the ships of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which continue to launch Kalibr cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine.


The Black Sea Fleet has been reinforced by ships from Russia's Caspian Flotilla, which arrived through a canal connecting the seas.


Since Russia's invasion in February 2022, its warships from elsewhere, such as the Northern Fleet, have been unable to enter the Black Sea due to Turkey's invocation of the Montreux Convention, which bars warships from transiting the Turkish Straits between the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

"The Black Sea Fleet is a major chokepoint," Massicot said, and if Russian ships there "are disabled or neutralized in some way where they can no longer launch Kalibrs, Russia cannot bring in additional naval assets."


Though the Black Sea Fleet has been able to blockade Ukrainian ports, Ukraine has scored significant victories against it. The cruiser Moskva, the fleet's flagship, was sunk by Ukrainian land-based anti-ship missiles in April 2022. Ukraine has also hit port facilities that sustain the Black Sea Fleet. In April, Ukrainian drones set ablaze a major fuel depot at the big Crimean naval base of Sevastopol.


After the Moskva was sunk, the frigate Admiral Makarov became the fleet's flagship. In October, it was damaged by unmanned Ukrainian kamikaze boats — a novel form of attack that caused limited damage but still required Russia to respond to a new threat.


Airbases inside Russia have also been attacked. In December, Ukrainian drones blasted two air bases east of Moscow — hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border. The strikes, while limited, were especially significant because the bases housed Tu-160s and Tu-95s, Russia's nuclear-capable long-range bombers.

Ukraine has also used a variety of weapons — from Soviet-era drones to US-made HIMARS guided rockets — in strikes on Russian ammunition supplies. "There have been attacks on different routes to deliver munitions to the frontline," Massicot said.


Ukraine is waging a textbook example of asymmetric warfare. Though weaker than Russia in numbers, it is using innovative techniques, such as homemade drones, to even the balance.


But Russia is adapting. Ammunition depots once carelessly placed close to the frontlines have been moved out of range of Ukrainian artillery. Aircraft have also been relocated. "They have a lot of air bases, and they're pulling some of these assets back," Massicot said.


The price of these countermeasures is inefficiency in delivering supplies. By forcing Russia to make that change, Ukraine's strategy can be deemed a success, but those benefits won't last forever.


"The Russians learn from those experiences," Massicot added. "Perhaps a little slowly, but they eventually learn."

Surprise drone attacks hint at how Ukraine is going after Russia's missile 'chokepoints'

Bye Bye Kerch Bridge...

The United Kingdom has supplied Ukraine with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles, giving Ukrainian forces a new long-range strike capability in advance of a highly anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces, multiple senior Western officials told CNN.

“The UK has previously said that it will supply Ukraine with long-range weapons, this will now include a number of Storm Shadow missiles. The British Government has been clear that this is only in response to Russia’s deliberate targeting of civilian national infrastructure and is a proportionate response,” a Western official told CNN.

The Storm Shadow is a long-range cruise missile with stealth capabilities, jointly developed by the UK and France, which is typically launched from the air. With a firing range in excess of 250km, or 155 miles, it is just short of the 185-mile range capability of the US-made surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, that Ukraine has long asked for.

Critically, the Storm Shadow has the range to strike deep into Russian-held territory in Eastern Ukraine. A Western official told CNN that the UK has received assurances from the Ukrainian government that these missiles will be used only within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not inside Russia. UK officials have made frequent public statements identifying Crimea as Ukrainian sovereign territory, describing it as “illegally annexed.”

UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to announce to the House of Commons that the UK is sending Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine.

The missile is “a real game changer from a range perspective,” a senior US military official told CNN and gives Kyiv a capability it has been requesting since the outset of the war. As CNN has reported, Ukraine’s current maximum range on US-provided weapons is around 49 miles.

The deployment of the missiles comes as Ukrainian forces prepare to launch a counteroffensive intended to retake Kremlin-held territory in the eastern and the southern parts of the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country still needs “a bit more time” before it launches the counteroffensive, in order to allow some more of the promised Western military aid to arrive in country.

“With [what we have] we can go forward and be successful,” Zelensky told European public service broadcasters in an interview published on Thursday. “But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable.”

“So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time,” he added. Among the supplies Ukraine is still waiting for are armored vehicles – including tanks – which Zelensky said were “arriving in batches.”

This is not the first time Britain has gone further than the US in the weaponry it has been prepared to send to Ukraine. It was the first ally to announce it was sending modern Western tanks to Ukraine, in January pledging 14 Challenge 2 tanks before the US announced it would contribute M-1 Abrams tanks shortly after.

Earlier this year, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak signaled that Britain was considering sending long-range weapons.

“We must help Ukraine to shield its cities from Russian bombs and Iranian drones,” Sunak said at the Munich Security Conference on February 18. “And that’s why the UK will be the first country to provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons.”

And earlier this month the British government issued a procurement notice through the International Fund for Ukraine. The notice said the UK was inviting expressions of interest for buying “long-range strike” rockets or missiles by May 4, and potential suppliers would be contacted after a month. The notice stipulated “missiles or rockets with a range 100-300km; land, sea or air launch.
Payload 20-490kg.”

US officials have repeatedly emphasized that they will continue supporting Ukraine for “as long as it takes”, and while tens of billions of dollars’ worth of equipment have been provided, the embattled country has continued asking for more to defeat the Russian military, including longer-range missiles such as ATACMS.

However, the US has been cautious over the last year in providing weapons to Ukraine that could help them strike within Russian territory. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told reporters in August that it is the US assessment Ukraine does not “currently require ATACMS to service targets that are directly relevant to the current fight.”

According to MBDA Missile Systems, the European company which manufactures the missile, the Storm Shadow is a “deep strike weapon” capable of “being operated day and night in all weathers,” that features an advanced navigation system to ensure accuracy.

“After launch, the weapon descends to terrain hugging altitude to avoid detection,” MBDA’s website states. “On approaching the target, its onboard infrared seeker matches the target image with the stored picture to ensure a precision strike and minimal collateral damage.”

Exclusive: Britain has delivered long-range 'Storm Shadow' cruise missiles to Ukraine ahead of expected counteroffensive, sources say | CNN Politics

Originally Posted by bsnub

Storm Shadow cruise missile

From Donbas could strike 400km beyond Russi's border.

Originally Posted by bsnub

The United Kingdom has supplied Ukraine with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles,

It's a bit more than that, the storm shadow has been integrated with Ukraine's soviet aircraft, which has taken a bit of work. Not sure if the full capabilities are available but they are not all needed.

Originally Posted by Norton

From Donbas could strike 400km beyond Russi's border.

With a fair bit of tailwind

I think this export version goes 250-300 kms.

Fire and forget

Before each decision to arm Ukraine with a new category of powerful arms, NATO partners progress through three stages of denial. First comes an outright dismissal of the country’s ability to effectively deploy the weapons in question against Russian invaders. Ukraine could never use these—the argument has been applied to multiple rocket-launch systems, anti-aircraft systems, and sophisticated tanks—because they are just too complex. Next comes a qualified dismissal. Ukrainian forces might be able to use these systems, but equipping and training them would take far too long. Then comes a desperate third stage. Yes, Ukraine can use these weapons, which could make a big difference in the war, but we worry about how Russia or China might respond. This view, though not always publicly voiced, almost certainly is the real reason the United States and other Western powers are holding back some arms.

On the question of whether the West will provide F-16s—a capable but relatively simple, lightweight fighter aircraft widely used by NATO members—the discussion is stuck somewhere between Stages 1 and 2. Ukraine clearly needs improved air-defense capabilities and so is constantly pleading for F-16s. The U.S. is rejecting these appeals primarily with technical and logistical arguments. Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, has repeatedly claimed in recent weeks that Ukraine would need 18 months to be able to deploy and operate F-16s. The suggestion is that people should stop pressuring the U.S. to provide these planes, because they could never arrive in time to make a difference.

Yet Ukraine would not be educating F-16 pilots from scratch. It has a large number of experienced MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27 pilots, who have the added benefit of many months of combat flying. Comments by some current and former senior officers from NATO air forces suggest that qualified, experienced fighter pilots might need only a few months of training. (Ukrainian officials have described a similar timetable.) From the Ukrainian armed forces’ strong record of accomplishment, we can assume that Ukraine would not find it any more difficult to maintain F-16s than to learn how to fly them.

Retired U.S. Air Force General Phil Breedlove, a former supreme allied commander for Europe who has also worked closely with the Ukrainian air force, expresses confidence in its abilities. “There are very few absolutes in this Russian War on Ukraine,” Breedlove told us in an email. “But one thing that is absolutely consistent is that we always overestimate how long it will take Ukraine to assimilate and learn to employ the western weapons given to them.” In the past, Breedlove pointed out, Ukrainians have even had certain lessons for NATO. “In the case of weapons such as counter battery radars we supplied in the 2014 Russian Invasions of Ukraine, they have taught us how to better use them!”

Having F-16s would broaden Ukraine’s ability to shoot down incoming Russian missiles and drones. During last year’s campaigns, the Russians relied on a wide range of attack platforms: relatively simple and inexpensive Iranian Shahed drones, repurposed S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, more advanced Kalibr cruise missiles, and even Russia’s latest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. To shoot down just some of this weapony, the Ukrainians had to rely overwhelmingly on ground-based anti-air systems—to such a degree that rumors spread that Ukraine was or would soon be running short. Without an airborne defense—something F-16s would help provide—Ukraine is, to use a sports metaphor, defending on its own goal line. Instead of a systematic defense of its skies, the Ukrainians are fending off attacks on targeted infrastructure point by point. Any defense that relies on last-ditch saves is a notably poor one.

Granted, Ukraine would face some challenges in using F-16s to maximum effect. Any F-16 fleet would require a regular resupply of Western air-to-air missiles. The real problem here may well be that NATO fears exhausting its collective arsenal of such weapons. If so, the West needs to ramp up production in its own interests—rather than nervously guarding existing supplies when they could be put to good use in Ukraine.

Even with F-16s, Ukraine would not be able to use air power according to NATO doctrine, in which mutually complementary types of aircraft protect one another. But in the limited confines of the Ukrainian battle space, such high-end, airborne capabilities, designed to operate at long range and in enemy airspace, would be less important. Still, Ukraine’s primary need is to keep one step ahead of the Russian air forces to maintain primacy over the battlefield—that is, over Ukrainian territory. It must keep Russian aircraft on the defensive and prevent it from affecting any coming Ukrainian offensive. Ukrainian air power doesn’t need to attain NATO standards to serve that goal.

To that more limited end, Western allies should also consider expanding Ukraine’s ground-based electronic-warfare systems; continuing to reinforce its surface-to-air-missile capacity; enhancing its proven ability in “prototype warfare,” the deployment of experimental military technology primarily to shoot down Russian surface-to-air missiles along the front line; and integrating its various defenses via a ground-based communications network. With these improvements, the F-16 could operate in relative safety, and it would pose enough of a threat to thwart many Russian offensive missions before they could prosecute their attacks on Ukraine. This would reduce the emerging threat posed by Russia’s new glide bombs, launched at high speed from aircraft remaining behind Russia’s own lines—a big win for Ukraine’s strategic aims.

Skeptics who argue that preparing Ukrainian forces to deploy and maintain F-16s will take too long to do much good are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. The longer they draw out the process of getting a beleaguered country the weapons it needs, the more trouble that country will have in repelling the invaders. The sooner Ukraine has access to F-16s, the sooner it can fight the war far more effectively.

Already these delaying tactics mean it is too late to have any F-16s play a role in an expected Ukrainian spring-and-summer offensive. However, if the West moves soon, Ukraine could have essential assistance in place by the fall. It will need the help. Last winter the Russians embarked on a well-publicized strategic campaign against power plants and other Ukrainian infrastructure. Though the campaign failed, the Russians are very likely to attempt something similar this year, having learned from their previous failures.

For all of the West’s technical objections to giving F-16s to Ukraine, the real objection is likely based in fears of escalation. Never mind that Russia’s bloodcurdling threats of escalation have proved hollow again and again, and that Ukraine has abided by limits that skittish Western powers have put on the use of the weapons they are supplying.

In the end, providing Ukraine with F-16s as soon as possible would make a major difference in Ukraine’s ability to both wage defensive war and go on the offensive to reclaim its territory. It would allow Ukrainians, finally, to conduct ground operations in a comprehensive manner and to defend their cities and power-generation systems. It would help them win this war as quickly as possible with the fewest losses.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...rcraft/674022/

Russia’s Ministry of Defense confirmed its forces are retreating from Bakhmut, Ukraine, which Russia has been trying and failing to seize for months.

Russia has regrouped to “more advantageous defensive positions” north of Bakhmut, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Friday.

The news comes after months of Russian efforts to take Bakhmut, which officials set their sights on as an important city to capture, believing it could determine the course of the war. Bakhmut has an intersection of rail and roads that lead to strategically important cities in the Donbas. Russia finds itself on the back foot as Ukraine prepares to launch a counteroffensive sometime this spring or summer, according to U.S. intelligence assessments.

While President Zelensky has said Ukraine still needs more time before launching its counteroffensive, Ukraine said Friday its forces are making gains in Bakhmut in some pockets.

Russia’s plan and messaging for the apparent retreat appear to remain in flux. The Russian Ministry of Defense denied that Ukraine was making gains in Bakhmut. Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the Russian Wagner Group, which has been fighting in Bakhmut, claimed the retreat is “a flight, not a regrouping.” He complained this week that territories were being “abandoned.” Prigozhin acknowledged Ukraine was making some “successful counterattacks.”

Earlier this week it looked like the Russians were making a push in Bakhmut, intensifying shelling and using more advanced equipment, according to the Ukrainian commander of ground forces,

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi. That “shows that the enemy is not going to change their plans and is doing everything possible to take Bakhmut under control and continue offensive actions,” Syrskyi said.

Russia’s fight to capture Bakhmut has played out over the last several months, following a dearth of Russian gains on the battlefield throughout Ukraine. Despite announcements of a Russian offensive this winter, Russia has only captured a smattering of territories in recent months.

Through the heavy fighting, Russia has sustained hundreds of thousands of casualties, according to a recent White House National Security Council brief.

Russia’s faltering in Bakhmut is emblematic of broader problems for its military. Russian President Vladimir Putin has likely scaled back his goals in Ukraine to focus on just Eastern Ukraine, Avril Haines, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, told lawmakers in a briefing early this month. Current U.S. intelligence assessments peg Russia as likely incapable of making sweeping gains this year and that Russia’s military will take years to rebuild given its losses in Ukraine, according to a U.S. intelligence community briefing on Capitol Hill.

“We assess that Putin probably has scaled back his immediate ambitions to consolidate control of the occupied territory in eastern and southern Ukraine,” Haines said.

While the exact timing of a Ukrainian counteroffensive hangs in the balance, Ukrainian officials have cautioned that it may not look like one major push.

“The Armed Forces of Ukraine are not preparing some single plan for a specific time or a specific direction. Rather, every day, they prepare a vast array of defensive and counteroffensive strategies,” Ukraine’s Deputy Minister for Defense, Hanna Malyar, said last month.

And from Ukraine’s perspective, the counteroffensive should ideally come as somewhat surprising, so determining exactly when it begins may be difficult, Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Oleskii Reznikov, said in an interview last month.

Reznikov warned that talk of the counteroffensive has been “somewhat overheated” given that Western countries and Ukrainians are ginning up for a win.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia...orly-backfires

Russia tried to destroy a US-made Patriot air defense system in Ukraine last week with a hypersonic missile, two US officials told CNN.

The attack failed, and the Ukrainian military instead intercepted the missile using the Patriot system, the officials said, marking their first known successful Ukrainian use of the advanced air defense system only weeks after it arrived in country.

The Ukrainian air defenders fired multiple missiles from the Patriot at different angles to intercept the Russian missile, demonstrating how quickly they have become adept at using the powerful system, one official said.

US officials believe the Russians picked up on signals that are emitted from the Patriot, allowing them to target the system using the hypersonic missile, known as the Kinzhal or Killjoy.

The Patriot missile system has a powerful radar to detect incoming targets at long-range, making it a potent air defense platform capable of intercepting ballistic missiles and more. But the radar emission necessary to spot threats at a distance also makes it possible for the enemy to detect the Patriot battery and figure out its location. And unlike some shorter-range air defenses provided to Ukraine that are mobile and harder to target, the large Patriot battery is a stationary system, making it possible for the Russians to zero in on the location over time.

There are ways to camouflage those signals to some extent, officials said, but the Russian military was evidently able to figure out the rough location of the Patriot stationed outside of Kyiv. The interception took place there on the night of May 4, Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, said last weekend.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has previously said that the Patriots would “definitely” be a legitimate target for Russian forces.

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder confirmed earlier this week that the Ukrainians had used the Patriot system to intercept the Kinzhal, which can reach hypersonic speeds.

Ukraine has received at least two Patriot systems, one from the United States and one from Germany, to enhance its air defenses, which have previously been unable to intercept more modern Russian missiles such as the Kinzhal.

When the US first announced it would send Patriot missile systems into Ukraine, the timeline for delivery was months, given the complexity of the system and the need to train dozens of Ukrainian troops on how to operate the battery, which has multiple components. But the Ukrainians were already well versed in the use of air defense systems, allowing the US to compress the standard training program of approximately one year into several months.

The final check of the Patriot systems took place in mid-April, where US, German, and Dutch trainers joined Ukrainian service members for a last inspection of the systems before they were shipped into Ukraine soon after.

Russia tried to destroy US-made Patriot system in Ukraine, officials say | CNN Politics

Here are the key headlines to know:


Explosions in Russia-occupied city: Explosions have rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk, which is occupied by Russian forces and is a significant hub for Moscow's so-called "special military operation," according to local officials. Two missiles struck the city's industrial zone, the coordination committee of the LPR said on Telegram. Six children were injured in the attacks, the head of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic said.


Melitopol targeted: Parts of the city are without power after an explosion late Friday, according to the Russian-installed administration. Military analysts believe that Ukraine is trying to strike targets around the southeastern city in the Zaporizhzhia region ahead of a potential counteroffensive.


Russia loses ground: The Russian Ministry of Defense has acknowledged its forces pulled back from areas north of the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, claiming they moved to more advantageous defensive positions. But it effectively confirms the loss of some kilometers of territory by Russian forces.


Patriot missile systems: Russia tried to destroy a US-made Patriot air defense system in Ukraine last week with a hypersonic missile, two US officials told CNN. The attack failed, and the Ukrainian military instead intercepted the missile using the Patriot system, the officials said, marking their first known successful use of the advanced air defense system only weeks after it arrived in the country.


Continued support for Ukraine: US President Joe Biden and Spanish President Pedro Sanchez “underscored our unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s brutal war" during a meeting at the White House, a readout from the US said. This includes "continued security, economic, and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine," the Biden administration said.

May 12, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

They started shelling at sunrise.In the dawn haze, under the cover of their own artillery, small groups of Ukrainian soldiers advanced toward a Russian position on the outskirts of the embattled city of Bakhmut.

Drone footage had identified an avenue of attack on Russian lines on the outskirts of the besieged city. Intelligence suggested the Russians were so focused on the intense street battles playing out inside they were not expecting an assault from this direction, according to two battalion commanders in Ukraine’s Third Assault Brigade who helped plan and execute the operation and spoke by telephone.

For nine months, the bloody fight for this eastern city has dragged out inch by inch, with massive casualties on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides. Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the high-profile commander of the mercenary Wagner Group, promised to deliver the city by May 9, Russia’s hugely important Victory Day celebration. By the end of April he claimed his forces had taken nearly the whole city.

Yet instead of giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a victory to announce in his speech in front of the Kremlin on Tuesday, Ukrainian forces scored a rare advance this week south of the city and held fast in the city center. The two commanders shared details of the surprise offensive, which Ukrainian ground forces commander Oleksandr Syrsky confirmed was successful. The Washington Post could not independently verify the details of the fighting.

On May 6, dozens of Ukrainian troops advanced on the Russian foxholes, knowing they would “have to fight for every single pit,” said Rollo, the 29-year-old commander of the brigade’s first assault battalion, who spoke on the condition he would be identified only by his call sign.

The battle lasted for 12 grueling hours, but by sundown, the troops from Wagner Group broke and fled, leaving five dead behind.

“They tried to resist. They fired back. Others escaped, and then some were killed,” Rollo said. “But in the end, those who remained alive just ran away.”

Two days later, after withstanding Russian artillery counterattack on the newly seized position, the Ukrainians advanced again — moving through farmland in three columns of tanks and American-made armored personnel carriers. Once within earshot of the enemy, they spent hours negotiating with dozens of Russian soldiers, urging them to surrender.

“We were screaming at them, ‘Surrender you fools, you morons!’” Rollo said. When some Russian troops kept shooting, “Ukrainians used the APCs to just push them back and later stopped and asked again, ‘Would you like to surrender now?’”

Some agreed, but others shot back or ran into a nearby forest, he said. By afternoon, dozens of Russians were dead. Five were taken prisoner, Rollo said, including two who had to be treated by Ukrainian medics. Most of the soldiers belonged to Russia’s 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade.

“We were knocking out Russian positions and connecting our liberated areas,” said Slip, 32, commander of the brigade’s second assault battalion. After some Russian troops were killed, others became “demoralized and some of them also just ran away,” he said. Neither commander would disclose their own casualties.

By May 9 — the same day Prigozhin had pledged to take control of Bakhmut — Ukrainians had retaken more than a square mile of territory south of the city.

“I feel pleased … that the enemy didn’t have this opportunity to feel good or have victory on this day,” Rollo said.

The claims of battlefield successes come as the world waits for signs Ukraine will launch a much-hyped spring counteroffensive made possible by weapons donated from its Western partners. Prigozhin, who has swapped his confident attitude over Bakhmut with angry tales of betrayal by Russia’s Ministry of Defense, has asserted that the counteroffensive is now “in full swing.” On Friday, he invited Russia’s defense minister to visit Bakhmut and witness the “difficult situation” himself as he maintains he is not being given enough ammunition to complete his conquest of the city. At one point he even threatened to withdraw his forces.

But analysts say he is probably bluffing — in part to justify his failure to take Bakhmut as promised. “He is dramatizing the situation and he is, of course, protecting himself,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister.

Syrsky, the ground forces commander, said Russian soldiers facing the Third Assault Brigade “could not resist the onslaught of the Ukrainian defenders” and that some had retreated more than a mile in recent days.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, said Ukraine is still preparing for its counterattack — the plans for which remain secret — but said Friday that troops had made progress against Russian forces in some parts of the east. Analysts expect that operation will focus on liberating occupied areas of Ukraine’s south, although it is possible Ukrainian forces will run a distraction campaign in Bakhmut or possibly even pivot and send unexpected reinforcements to the embattled city.

Senior Ukrainian officials have expressed concern that expectations are set too high for the planned offensive, which may result in less significant gains than counterattacks last year that retook swaths of Ukrainian territory from unsuspecting Russian troops.

For months, Ukraine has faced criticism from its partners for its continued insistence on holding Bakhmut despite massive casualties and low strategic importance. But as months have passed, Kyiv has pointed to Russia’s major losses in the city as reason to stay the course. Redirecting efforts there as part of the spring counteroffensive could prove to Western supporters that Ukraine was right — and is capable of retaking the city.

The fight there “really keeps a large number of Russian troops around and prevents them from breaking through our country in different directions,” Zelensky said in an interview with The Post last week.

The losses are enormous. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview last week that Russian forces are suffering about 500 casualties per day in and around Bakhmut. Ukraine does not disclose its own battlefield casualties.

And even as Ukrainian forces were retaking significant territory to the south, the troops inside the city were locked in a ferocious, grinding battle as Victory Day drew closer.

On May 5 and 6, Russian soldiers hammered the position held by the 127th Territorial Defense Brigade so many times that after the fourth wave of attack, the Ukrainians could no longer keep track of the dead and wounded Russians outside, said the brigade’s commander, Col. Roman Hryshchenko, 41.

“The faster we dealt with these waves, the faster they were relaunching the storms,” he recalled by phone from inside Bakhmut on Thursday, as the Russians pummeled the position he was holding. In just over 20 minutes on Thursday night, Hryshchenko counted the sound of 48 incoming shells aimed at his forces. At one point, he had to disconnect the call to see if his shelter had caught fire.

He was holding the basement of a building that once had nine stories but had only four left. In another two to three days, he expects every building on that line to be demolished. The shelling inside the city is so intense, he said, that in his brigade, they “all have concussions.”

Unlike the rural area to the south, the situation is “even more difficult” inside Bakhmut now, he said, adding that he was facing fresh troops that had been brought into the city.

At the same time that Ukrainian forces were making advances south of the city at the start of the week, the Russians inside the city destroyed the roof and corner of a five-story building where some troops from the 127th were based.

Wagner soldiers then scaled the building, taking control of the third and fourth floors while his soldiers held the first and second, Hryshchenko said. At times the troops were fighting only five feet apart. His men eventually prevailed, and they repelled that wave as well. But they hardly had a chance to rest before they were back under attack.

“It’s constant. Once we kill the first group, we suffer under artillery and they send in another,” he said.

This mass expenditure of Russian troops and ammunition is one reason Ukraine has been eager to stay in Bakhmut. But the situation inside remains “very tense,” said Zahorodniuk, the former defense minister.

The battle for Bakhmut is far from over, and one success to the south is not enough to change the outcome of the fight for control of the city itself. “With a few more operations like that the situation may change, but it’s too early to say,” he said.

The scale of the advance Rollo’s man achieved in the south would be impossible inside the dense confines of the city, Hryshchenko said. “You cannot make a success like two kilometers [1.2 miles]. We are talking about each individual meter, and each meter is a hard job to get back.”

And while Prigozhin claims he is running out of ammunition and not being given the resources he needs by the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian troops arrayed against him say the scale of the assault is worse than ever.

Hryshchenko described how his 127th Brigade rations ammunition for its howitzer, while each day the Russians are covering every square mile with shells until every building is destroyed.

“If I had that opportunity to use that much artillery,” he said, “I would probably finish the war.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...sia-prigozhin/

Russia’s Air Force Has a Very Fiery Day at the Border as It Tries to Bomb Ukraine

Apocalyptic scenes were on display in Russia’s Bryansk region Saturday as four military aircraft were apparently blown out of the sky near the border, killing nearly a dozen service members.


Officially, authorities blamed the Mi-8 helicopter crash on a mysterious engine fire, but video shared on social media by local residents appeared to show a missile hit the chopper just before it exploded.

Around the same time the chopper crashed, an Su-34 fighter jet also came crashing down from the sky engulfed in flames. Residents in the town of Klintsy could be seen gathering around to gaze in horror at the fiery wreckage of the jet in a nearby wooded area.


Separately, Russian media reported that ANOTHER Mi-8 helicopter and an Su-35 jet had been shot down in the region.


Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported that all crew members aboard all four aircraft were killed. Russian authorities, meanwhile, remained mum on the simultaneous catastrophes, confirming only the crash of a single chopper.


According to Kommersant, all four aircraft had been tasked with carrying out strikes on Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, with the choppers assigned to back up the fighter jets.


But they were apparently shot down instead. According to Baza, at least 9 Russian service members are dead.

Authorities in the region are now said to be frantically searching for Ukrainian “saboteurs” who shot down the aircraft, though some questioned if Russia may have actually shot down its own planes in its paranoia over Ukraine obtaining new long-range cruise missiles.


Pro-war Russian military bloggers are now demanding revenge over what they described as an “ambush” on Russia’s air force by Ukrainian forces.


“Our aviation has not suffered such losses as today since March of last year,” one pro-Kremlin Telegram channel complained.


“We will avenge everyone, we will kill everyone,” another pro-war channel said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia...=home?ref=home

Today russia lost in russia:

• 1x of its most modern fighter-bombers
• 1x of its most modern fighters
• 2x of its most modern electronic warfare helicopters

First: that is funny as hell :-)) The Su-35 fighter was supposed to protect the Su-34 fighter-bomber from Ukrainian fighters, and the two Mi-8MTPR-1 helicopters were supposed to protect the Su-34 and Su-35 from Ukrainian surface-to-air missile systems. I know I repeat myself, but once more for the vatniks: all russian weapon systems are garbage.

How did Ukraine shoot down the russian aircraft? I don't know, but I doubt russia's air defense made four errors in day. So either Ukraine moved a air defense system to the border with russia and has been having fun with shooting at super easy targets in russia, or Ukraine has now the ability to use AIM-120 AMRAAM - either firing them from Mig-29 or Su-27 or F-16... but for the latter Israel would have had to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16s, which Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, and Belgium would have had to donate with US approval... sounds improbable.

Whatever happened: russia will now be unable to fly within 100km of Ukraine, which will help protect Ukrainian cities AND help very much when Ukraine begins the counteroffensive. All in all: a great day for the world :-)

https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1657489838205960197

Attacks on Russian Oil Facilities Deal a Military, Psychological Blow to Moscow

When an oil depot in Russian-annexed Crimea was attacked in late April, the resulting fire sent a plume of thick black smoke into the sky.


The incident at the facility in Sevastopol was one of at least five attacks on oil infrastructure in southern Russia in less than two weeks. There was also a double attack on the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region, a strike on an oil refinery in the Rostov region, a reported attack Wednesday on the Druzhba oil pipeline carrying Russian crude to Eastern Europe and an attack on an oil storage facility Thursday in Russia’s Bryansk region.


Attacks on energy infrastructure in both countries have been a common tactic since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.


But the string of recent oil facility strikes, if Ukraine is confirmed to be behind them, were likely designed to aid Kyiv’s long-expected counteroffensive by creating logistical problems for the Russian Armed Forces and puncturing a sense of security felt by Russians far from the frontlines, experts told The Moscow Times.


“Every military action that is conducted by Ukraine matters and is part of the counteroffensive logic,” said Dionis Cenusa, an expert at Lithuania’s Eastern Europe Studies Center.


While Ukraine follows a policy of neither confirming nor denying its role in attacks on Russian territory, Ukrainian officials have publicly condoned some of the oil facility strikes.


After the oil depot fire in Crimea, for instance, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, said the attacks were “God’s punishment” for the killing of civilians in Ukraine.


The Ukrainian Defense Ministry did not respond to emailed questions on whether it was behind the incidents in annexed Crimea and Russia’s Krasnodar region.


Crude oil is a crucial resource in wartime, fueling military vehicles and helping to keep the economy functioning. Its value has made oil facilities a top target for both Kyiv and Moscow as they seek to degrade the other side’s capabilities.

In Russia, it’s transported — usually through pipelines — to regions bordering Ukraine from as far away as oil fields in western Siberia and the Arctic Ocean.


Yusov said that the attack in Crimea destroyed 10 oil tanks with an approximate capacity of 40,000 tons, but the size of Russia’s oil reserves and its significant storage capacity make measuring the immediate impact difficult.


After the attack, the Russian-appointed governor of the Crimean city of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, wrote on Telegram that the local fuel supply would not be affected.


While there are few details about how exactly the strikes on Russia’s oil facilities unfolded, Russian officials have blamed Ukrainian drones.


Governor Razvozhayev said that the facility in Crimea was attacked by two drones, one of which was shot down before it could reach its target. Local officials in the Krasnodar and Rostov regions also pointed the finger at drones.


Footage published online showed what appeared to several drones traveling through the sky before falling on the Ilsky oil refinery on consecutive nights last week.


Unmanned aerial vehicles have played a key role for both the Russian and Ukrainian armies during the fighting in Ukraine, and Kyiv is known to be looking to increase its drones’ range and carrying capacity.


According to Wim Zwijnenburg, a researcher who has studied wartime attacks on energy infrastructure, the increasing sophistication of Ukraine’s drones is likely playing a role in the uptick of these kinds of attacks on oil facilities.


“I think that it’s more linked with Ukraine developing their own long-range, small type of drones with explosives that are able to penetrate Russian air defenses because they're able to fly low and be undetected,” Zwijnenburg said.

“Or they’re being launched locally by infiltration groups.”


Throughout the fall and winter, Russia made attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure a key part of its war strategy — targeting power plants, transmission lines and fuel facilities across the country with long-range missiles and drones.


In just one such barrage in October, Russia damaged 40% of Ukraine’s electricity generation and transmission facilities, according to a report that Zwijnenburg co-authored from PAX, a Dutch organization that researches conflict zones. This led to nationwide blackouts and left millions of Ukrainians without heating, electricity and water.


If Ukrainian military commanders were behind the recent attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure, however, they are unlikely to be seeking to replicate the Kremlin's tactics which caused widespread suffering among Ukrainian civilians.


Instead, they are likely focused on disrupting Russian supply chains and logistics ahead of a counteroffensive, experts said.


It’s widely believed that Ukraine will attack Russian forces in the south of the country, close to the regions where these facilities were struck.


“If you are attacking the logistics of war efforts, you might impair the military readiness of forces that are near the front,” Wojciech Jakóbik, an energy analyst based in Poland, told The Moscow Times.

That said, the strategic impact of these attacks is not always easy to measure and their scale — at least so far — is likely too small to cause the Russian Armed Forces any serious problems.


Isolated attacks like these do not tend to send any ripples up Russia’s energy supply chain, according to Elina Ribakova, an expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.


At the same time, some believe the aim of the attacks was less about causing damage to Russian logistics, and more about sowing fear among Russian soldiers and the wider population.


In addition to the attacks on oil facilities, recent weeks have also seen explosions on Russian railroads, strikes on military facilities inside Russia and even a drone strike on the Kremlin in central Moscow.


“I think there's also an ability to project force on Russia, to show we can also hit you there,” said researcher Zwijnenburg.


“To show we have the capabilities and and we will do what’s necessary to take out any fuel supplies that's needed for your troops.”


Attacks on Russian Oil Facilities Deal a Military, Psychological Blow to Moscow - The Moscow Times