Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine was meant to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and eradicate Ukrainian identity. Instead, it is turbocharging the de-Russification of the country. In the six months since the invasion began, Ukrainian support for de-Russification has become a truly nationwide phenomenon, reaching record highs far in excess of the significantly more modest public backing for de-Communization policies following the country’s 2014 Euromaidan Revolution. This wartime trend is rapidly reversing centuries of Russification and directly undermining Vladimir Putin’s dreams of a new Russian Empire.

Putin’s criminal war is having a truly historic impact on Ukrainian society and bringing Ukrainians together in a quite literal sense. The invasion has forced millions of Ukrainians to flee to the west of the country, where they have either sought refuge or traveled further into the EU. This has led to unprecedented intermingling between Ukrainians from different regions of the country, which is fueling feelings of solidarity and national integration. Recent opinion polls consistently indicate converging opinions on national identity, language, relations with Russia, and future geopolitical objectives among Ukrainians from all regions of the country. One of the national issues Ukrainians are now most united on is the need for de-Russification.

A further factor driving national integration is the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to serve in the country’s military, with many deploying to frontline regions in the east and the south. Likewise, Ukraine’s large volunteer force is based throughout the country, bringing a wide variety of people from different professional and regional backgrounds into contact with each other for the first time.

The invasion is also speeding up Ukraine’s linguistic de-Russification, with the Russian language now increasingly associated with military aggression. The number of Ukrainians who support Ukrainian as the country’s official state language has risen to 86%. Just 2% of Ukrainians believe Moscow’s claims of a “genocide” against the country’s Russian speakers, but the deliberate weaponization of the Russian language by Vladimir Putin has led many Ukrainians to view the language less favorably.

At the same time, Russian remains widely used in everyday life throughout Ukraine. Language change is a slow process with Russian-speakers typically becoming bilingual before fully adopting Ukrainian. Recent data indicates that 85% use both Ukrainian and Russian at home while just 13% of the Ukrainian population uses only Russian.

Ethnic re-identification appears to be proceeding at a faster pace with 92% of Ukrainian citizens now declaring themselves ethnic Ukrainian in one recent survey. This figure would make Ukraine the third most homogeneous country in Europe after Portugal and Poland. Meanwhile, only 5% of today’s Ukrainian population identified as ethnic Russians in the same survey, representing a striking decline from 22% in the 1989 Soviet census and 17% in the 2001 Ukrainian census.

Ukraine’s relationship with the past is undergoing radical change in response to Russia’s invasion, leading to a widening of the memory divide separating the two neighboring countries. Only 11% of Ukrainians now express nostalgia for the USSR compared to approximately two-thirds of Russians. Likewise, 84% of Ukrainians hold a negative view of Stalin while most Russians have a positive attitude toward the Soviet dictator.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian attitudes toward the country’s twentieth century liberation movement have experienced a major shift. During the early decades of Ukrainian independence, public opinion was often deeply divided on the issue of Ukrainian nationalist groups. This began to change following the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution, when 41% expressed positive views of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) and UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army). Since the February 2022 invasion, this figure has rocketed to 81%.

Ukrainians are now less inclined to differentiate between the Kremlin and ordinary Russians. Following the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014, a majority of Ukrainians blamed Russia’s leadership. However, they now overwhelmingly hold both the Kremlin and the Russian people responsible for the current invasion. As a consequence, the number of Ukrainians who express positive views of Russians has plummeted from 47% in 2018 to just 3% today.

This collapse in positive attitudes toward ordinary Russians is not difficult to explain. Everything from polling data to anecdotal evidence demonstrates overwhelming Russian public support for the invasion of Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians with relatives in Russia have personal experience of their family members either applauding the war or accusing them of lying about the horrors of the invasion.

It is also striking that the vast majority of civilian victims during the first six months of the invasion have been the same Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the south and east of the country who Putin claims to be protecting. Tens of thousands were murdered in Mariupol alone, while dozens of other towns and villages have been similarly reduced to ruins in regions of Ukraine that the Kremlin cynically trumpets as “historical Russian lands.”

Given the scale of the carnage, it is hardly surprising that 89% of Ukrainians believe the Kremlin is committing genocide in Ukraine. Almost nine in ten Ukrainians think Russia is seeking the destruction of the Ukrainian state and Ukrainian national identity, while half regard Russia as a fascist regime.

This sense that Ukraine is facing an existential challenge is fueling de-Russification and is also driving Ukrainians to reject any talk of a compromise peace. There is a strong sense throughout the country that without a decisive victory, Ukraine will never be secure. Around half of Ukrainians believe there can never be reconciliation with Russia and another third think it may only become possible in two to three decades. In other words, 78% of Ukrainians rule out any normalization of relations with Russia for at least a generation.

De-Russification at the official level has seen openly pro-Kremlin political parties banned and pro-Kremlin media shuttered. The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in Ukraine is on life support with only 4% of Ukrainians now professing membership. This is compared to 54% who identify as members of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. With the Ukrainian government recently imposing sanctions on ROC head Patriarch Kirill and seven leading members of the ROC clergy for their role in the invasion, the ROC has an uncertain future in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s school curriculum is undergoing wartime de-Russification, with Ukrainian schoolchildren no longer studying Russian language and literature. The cultural de-Russification process also includes the removal of monuments to Russian literary figures such as Pushkin and Dostoyevsky, along with changes to thousands of street and place names across the country.

Monuments to Russian-Ukrainian friendship along with Russian and Soviet history are being rebranded or pulled down. In Kyiv, a prominent monument to Russian-Ukrainian friendship has been renamed while the city’s iconic motherland monument will have its Soviet crest replaced by a Ukrainian tryzub (trident). In Odesa, debate is raging about whether to remove the monument to Russian Empress Catherine the Great.

Irrespective of how long the war will last, it already seems clear that the end product will be a de-Russified and Europeanized Ukraine. This is exactly what Vladimir Putin hoped to prevent. The Russian dictator’s genocidal invasion is both a crime and a blunder on a scale unparalleled in modern European history.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blog...raine-forever/

Ukraine’s Turkish-made drones are blowing up Russian equipment in southern Ukraine, helping to clear a path for Ukrainian battalions as they fight their way toward Russian-occupied Kherson.

Videos that have circulated online since Kyiv announced its long-anticipated southern counteroffensive on Monday depict the 1.5-ton, propeller-driven Bayraktar TB-2 drones striking a Russian mortar team and a self-propelled howitzer.

It’s likely there have been many more drone strikes in the south in recent days—there’s just no visual evidence. Yet.

The southern drone strikes underscore the durability of Ukraine’s TB-2 force as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its sixth month. The Russians, despite their best efforts, have failed to destroy enough TB-2s or supporting equipment to ground the force.

The strikes also hint at the effects of the Ukrainian air force’s ongoing suppression-of-enemy-air-defenses campaign. The SEAD effort, combining Ukrainian MiGs with American-supplied anti-radar missiles, seems to have cleared the air for the slow, essentially defenseless TB-2s.

It was an open question, in the days leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the night of Feb. 23, whether Ukraine’s roughly two-dozen missile-armed TB-2s even would survive the first volley of Russian missiles.

A month later, it was apparent the TB-2s not only survived—they quickly flew into action. In those critical early weeks of the wider war, TB-2s belonging to the Ukrainian air force and navy dismantled whole swathes of Russia’s front-line air-defense network, then began striking Russian tanks, trucks, trains, command posts and even ships at sea.

Firing 14-pound, laser-guided Smart Micro Munition missiles, the TB-2s so far have knocked out around a hundred Russian vehicles, radars and command posts that outside analysts can confirm. The actual number of drone kills undoubtedly is much higher.

TB-2s played a central role in Ukraine’s sea-denial campaign in the western Black Sea starting in April. Drones reportedly distracted the crew of the Russian navy cruiser Moskva so a ground-based Neptune missile crew could strike the vessel, ultimately sinking it. TB-2s also blew up ships and helicopters resupplying the Russian garrison on Snake Island, starving the garrison and eventually forcing it to evacuate.

It’s not a totally one-sided fight. The Russians in six months have shot down 13 TB-2s and destroyed at least one of the ground-based radio relays that, possibly along with Turksat satellites, allow crews to control the drones from hundreds of miles away.

But Turkish drone-maker Bayraktar has made good Ukraine’s drone losses. It’s possible the Ukrainian TB-2 fleet actually is bigger now than it was before the war.

Desperate and disappointed Russian forces back in April even tried to create the impression they’d shot down more TB-2s than they actually had, by staging old drone wreckage in a sloppy mimicry of a more recent crash.

Ukraine’s SEAD campaign—MiGs firing High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles—is working in conjunction with the drone campaign. TB-2s are vulnerable to air-defenses. The Ukrainians have written off more TB-2s than they have any other warplane type.

But as HARMs knock out more and more Russian radars, surface-to-air missile-launchers and ground-based air-defense guns, there are fewer obstacles to TB-2 strikes. The drone crews can hunt targets at their leisure.

Ever freer to strike Russian forces, the TB-2s could play a key supporting role as the Ukrainian counteroffensive develops. The mortar and howitzer the drone crews knocked out this week could be just the first of many victims.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax...ian-artillery/

When the empire strikes back, it usually leads to disaster.

As every American should know.

Originally Posted by sabang

As every American should know.

Do you think Guam and Puerto Rico will eventually bring them down? Or do you just not know what an empire is?

Ukrainian officials say their military’s southern offensive is going slowly. They also say that is precisely the plan.

The announcement Monday of a thrust in the south raised hopes that Ukraine could reclaim territory Russia seized early in the war, including the regional capital of Kherson.
But success could take many shapes, say officials...

Ukrainian officials say their military’s southern offensive is going slowly. They also say that is precisely the plan.

The announcement Monday of a thrust in the south raised hopes that Ukraine could reclaim territory Russia seized early in the war, including the regional capital of Kherson.

But success could take many shapes, say officials and Western analysts. Even without quickly regaining much ground, Kyiv can achieve progress by forcing Russia to expose its troop locations and supply bases, take a defensive posture and thereby appear weak or pull troops from other parts of the country. Ukraine can also gain intelligence about Russian formations, vulnerabilities and will to fight.

Ukrainian officials say they have neither the armor nor the manpower to make a quick advance. Instead, the military aims to weaken front-line Russian forces while also using long-range artillery and rockets, such as Himars provided by the U.S., to hit critical installations behind Russian lines such as command posts and ammunition depots.

Kherson sits on the west bank of the Dnipro River, which Russian troops must cross to enter, resupply or leave the city. Ukraine’s military says its strikes on bridges across the Dnipro and the smaller Inhulets River to the city’s northeast have largely cut supply lines to Russian forces in the city.

Russia has roughly 20,000 troops in and around Kherson, Western officials estimate, cautioning the figure isn’t precise. Trapping them could potentially force a surrender, allow Ukraine to decimate them or force them to flee. Whatever happens, Ukraine hopes to retake Kherson without having to engage in bloody street fighting.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, called the strategy “the systemic grinding of Putin’s army.” He said Kyiv’s forces are working “to uncover their operational logistical supply system and destroy it with artillery and Himars,” a process that can take time.

“There’s no rush,” he said.

While Ukraine ultimately wants to evict Russian forces from Kherson—the city’s occupation is one of Moscow’s most significant gains since invading on Feb. 24—Kyiv could still boast of success if it retakes towns outside the city, captures or kills a large number of Russian troops or compels some to retreat.

The Kherson offensive also represents an element of Ukraine’s broader strategy to strain Russia’s entire invasion force, from around Kharkiv in the northeast to Crimea on the Black Sea.

By attacking in so many places, “you keep the Russians wondering where the Ukrainians are going to strike next,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Twitty. “You want an unpredictable fight to keep the Russians on their heels.”

Gen. Twitty, who participated in Operation Desert Storm, said not to expect a massed attack.

“We’re going to see multiple locations of small units, which is going to wreak havoc on the Russians and is a great way to fight,” he said. But he cautioned: “In this type of fighting, you have to take a long-term perspective.”

Ukraine’s fighters may advance and pause to prepare for a subsequent attack, said Billy Fabian, a former U.S. Defense Department analyst. “You’re always thinking about the next operation.”

Ukrainian forces will move slowly because they are attempting an operation that military planners consider exceedingly difficult: dislodging an entrenched defender without overwhelming force or air superiority. Kyiv has a limited number of skilled or veteran troops and must deploy them across a vast front line. Ukrainian commanders want to put at risk the smallest number of troops possible.

Attempting “a deliberate storming of Kherson city would likely be a mistake,” said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, in an analysis posted Friday.

Instead, Ukraine is capitalizing on the region’s geography, aiming to push Russian troops against riverbanks. Ukrainian forces appear to be advancing on land from the north and west while increasing the tempo of strikes on bridges and supply facilities. Their goal is to starve Russian forces of supplies while closing in on them.

“We need the enemy to be unable and unwilling to resist effectively,” said Mr. Arestovych, the Ukrainian presidential adviser.

Russian attempts to retreat across the rivers would make rich targets for Ukrainian drones, rockets and artillery.

Ukrainian forces appear already to have retaken some small towns outside Kherson, according to open-source intelligence reports. Gen. Twitty said the incremental gains count as a tactical success because “these little towns mean a lot” to Ukrainians, who see compatriots liberated, and to Kyiv’s Western backers, who want to see progress against Russia.

Ukraine’s larger strategic objective of regaining its land and repelling Russian forces is vital because the war is likely to end in some form of negotiation, Gen. Twitty said.

“The long-term perspective is, the more gains Ukraine can make, the better off they will be at the negotiating table,” he said.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/ukr...?mod=flipboard

No doubt it was always the plan. Starve the russians of supplies both food and armaments. there already poor morale will get worse as food supplies and armanents dwindle together with the aproaching winter. Any large surrender by the Russian forces will be a great propaganda victory for the Ukrainians.

Originally Posted by Hugh Cow

No doubt it was always the plan. Starve the russians of supplies both food and armaments.

Systemic grinding. It is having an effect for sure. The Russian forces are cut off on the west side of the Dnieper at this point, and it is not even arguable. Twenty thousand of them with no resupply and winter coming. Stuck in primitive trenches with shit like this happening...

Ukraine took back the village of Vysokopillia in Kherson on Sunday and raised its flag over a hospital following reported "successes" in the region that fell to Russia on March 3, a week after Russia invaded the Eastern European country.

Yuriy Sobolevskyi, first deputy head of Kherson Oblast Council, announced on Telegram that Vysokopillia was liberated from Russian control. The region is significantly important because it's a strategic location at the mouth of the Dnieper River's exit into the Black Sea.

The Kyiv Independent reported on Twitter that forces also raised the Ukrainian flag in Vysokopillia, which is located north of the Kherson region on the administrative border with the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to Ukrinform.

Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said on Twitter that the flag was raised on a hospital roof in the village. A few other Twitter accounts, including Ukraine updates, made the same announcement.

"The flag is on a hospital roof in Vysokopillya, Kherson Oblast," Ramani tweeted. "Russia is cracked down on any displays of Ukrainian nationalism inside Kherson and reportedly raised a Soviet victory flag in Kherson after its occupation."

Russian forces have sent many villagers fleeing from their homes, as troops took over dozens of towns and villages since the invasion began on February 24. Some of those who fled Russian-occupied territories were desperately seeking safety as they escaped on foot, bikes, and by wheelchair, NPR reported in July.

However, Sobolevskyi recently said that Ukrainian forces have successfully achieved some goals in the Kherson region amid the counter-offensive they reportedly launched on Monday.

"Now is the time to support our armed forces," Sobolevskyi said last week, according to Reuters. "Now is not the time to talk about the specific successes of our lads"—as he spoke of Ukraine's efforts in the Kherson, Beryslav and Kakhovka districts.

The Ukrainian military insisted on not revealing information about the offensive in the south of the country, but the presidential office reported "powerful explosions" and "tough battles" in the region, adding that Ukrainian troops destroyed ammunition depots and large bridges across the Dnieper River that are necessary to send supplies to Russian forces.

Ukrainian forces also recently moved forward with their goals against Russian troops as it took advantage of Russia's poor leadership, administration, and logistics, the British Ministry of Defence said on Saturday. Additionally, Ukrainian air forces took down a Russian reconnaissance drone named "Kartograf" in the Mykolaiv region.


Newsweek reached out to the Russian foreign affairs ministry for comment.

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-rec...-1739725?amp=1

Originally Posted by bsnub

Systemic grinding.

You have to feel sorry for the poor grunts who were sent there only to be mashed up. Fuck Putin

The Russian defence ministry is in the process of buying millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea to support its invasion of Ukraine, according to a newly downgraded US intelligence finding.

A US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said on Monday that the fact Russia was turning to North Korea demonstrated that “the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine, due in part to export controls and sanctions”.

US intelligence officials believe that the Russians could look to purchase additional North Korean military equipment in the future. The intelligence finding was first reported by the New York Times.

The finding comes after the Biden administration recently confirmed that the Russian military in August took delivery of Iranian-manufactured drones for use on the battlefield in Ukraine.

The White House said last week that Russia has faced technical problems with Mohajer-6 and Shahed-series drones, bought as part of what the Biden administration says is likely part of a Russian plan to acquire hundreds of Iranian unmanned aerial vehiclea (UAVs).

North Korea has sought to tighten relations with Russia as much of Europe and the west has pulled away. The regime has blamed the US for the Ukraine crisis and claimed the west’s “hegemonic policy” justifies military action by Russia in Ukraine to protect itself.

The North Koreans have hinted interest in sending construction workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied territories in the country’s east.

North Korea’s ambassador to Moscow recently met envoys from two Russia-backed separatist territories in the Donbas region of Ukraine and expressed optimism about cooperation in the “field of labor migration”, citing his country’s easing pandemic border controls.

In July North Korea became the only nation aside from Russia and Syria to recognise the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk, further aligning with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...igence-ukraine

The chips are down: Putin scrambles for high-tech parts as his arsenal goes up in smoke


It's the microchips that look set to get Vladimir Putin in the end. Six months into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is being throttled by a severe technology deficit inflicted by sanctions.

Having fired off (or lost in combat) way more of their missile firepower than they originally anticipated, Moscow's soldiers are now increasingly relying on ancient stocks of primitive Soviet-era munitions while Western-armed Ukrainian forces are battling to turn the tide in a southern counteroffensive with pinpoint strikes on munition dumps and key infrastructure such as bridges.

Kyiv is acutely aware that the outcome of the war is likely to hinge on whether Russia finds a way to regain access to high-tech chips, and is out to ensure it doesn't get them. In order to flag the danger, Ukraine is sending out international warnings that the Kremlin has drawn up shopping lists of semiconductors, transformers, connectors, casings, transistors, insulators and other components, most made by companies in the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K., Taiwan and Japan, among others, which it needs to fuel its war effort.

The message is clear: Don't let the Russians get their hands on this gadgetry.

POLITICO has seen one of the Russian lists, which is divided into three priority categories, from the most critical components to the least. It even includes the price per item that Moscow expects to pay, down to the last kopeck. While POLITICO could not independently verify the provenance of the list, two experts in military supply chains confirmed it was in line with other research findings about Russia's military equipment and needs.

At first glance, Russia shouldn't be able to acquire the most sensitive tech on the lists. With only very basic domestic technology, the Kremlin has relied on key players in the U.S., the EU and Japan for semiconductors as suppliers over the past years and these should be out of grasp thanks to sanctions. The difficulty would emerge in whether an intermediary country such as China were to buy technologies, then sell them on to Moscow. In extreme cases, Russians appear to be clawing chips out of household appliances like fridges.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stressed the war had come to an inflection point where the technological edge was proving decisive.

“According to our information, Russians have already spent almost half ... of their weaponry arsenal," he told POLITICO.

He added that Ukraine estimated that Russia was down to just "four dozen" hypersonic missiles. "These are the ones that have precision and accuracy due to the microchips that they have. But because of sanctions imposed on Russia, the deliveries of this high-tech microchip equipment ... have stopped and they have no way of replenishing these stocks.”

Chips on the menu

Of the 25 items Russia is seeking most desperately, almost all are microchips manufactured by U.S. firms Marvell, Intel, Holt, ISSI, Microchip, Micron, Broadcom and Texas Instruments.

Rounding out the list are chips by Japanese firm Renesas, which acquired the U.S.-based IDT; Germany's Infineon, which acquired U.S.-based Cypress; microcircuits by American firm Vicor; and connectors by U.S. firm AirBorn. Some of the items can be easily found in online electronics retailers, while others have been out of stock for months as a result of the global microchip shortage.
The cheapest item on the top priority list, the 88E1322-AO-BAM2I000 gigabit ethernet transceiver made by Marvell, can apparently be sourced by Moscow for 430.83 rubles a piece, or around €7. The most expensive item, a 10M04DCF256I7G field programmable gate array made by Intel, can be sourced at a highly inflated 66,815.77 rubles or €1,107 each, according to the list (before the chips shortage, it would have cost under €20).

When it comes to the medium priority list, companies including Germany's Harting and the Netherlands' Nexperia (which was acquired by Chinese tech firm Wingtech in 2019) feature heavily.

The Russians are hunting for a range of Harting's casings and connectors, the list showed, including the 09 03 000 6201 and the 09 03 000 6104, as well as Nexperia/NXP's 74LVC1G14GV,125 inverters and 74LVC244APW,112 octal buffer/line drivers.

James Byrne, director of open source intelligence and analysis at leading defense and security think tank RUSI, said it's likely that Russia has been buying up stock of Western microchips and other essential equipment for years, but could now be running low.

The Russian military procurement program is "extensive, it’s well funded, and they have a huge military and industrial base producing stuff," said Byrne. "But now they’ve expended so much of it in Ukraine, they need a large volume of new supplies. And the sanctions are going to make it more difficult for them ... So they’re going to have to prioritize critical things, and that’s why we’re seeing these documents. We obviously think they are scrambling to secure supplies."

Holes in the blockade

Since its latest invasion of Ukraine in February, Western countries have tightened sanctions on Russia, increasingly targeting its supply chains of microchips to decrease its military capabilities. The new sanctions come on top of years of stricter controls of chips sales — which often fall under "dual-use goods" because they're used in military and civilian applications alike — under international agreements like the Wassenaar Arrangement as well as recent EU law.

Experts warn that these export control regimes too often fail to stop transfers of technology to unwanted actors and entities.

"Once chips have left the factory it's very hard to know for sure where they end up," said Diederik Cops, a senior researcher in arms exports and trade at the Flemish Peace Institute, a research organization linked to the Flemish parliament.

Cops said Russian entities supplying the military have various ways to acquire critical goods, ranging from buying them on unregulated online marketplaces to using third-party front shops and post-box companies to smuggle high-tech kit into the country.

"Countries like North Korea and Iran have built up years of expertise to circumvent sanctions. Russia will surely have prepared itself to cope with this in past months ... The Russians can also rely on historic expertise to set up such channels: It was routine during the Cold War. And it has long borders with neighboring countries and a large network of allied states to work with," Cops said.

The U.S., Europe and other Western allies have set up licensing regimes to stop companies from exporting potential military technology to clients who could be deemed a risk to their security. But "it's a huge challenge to monitor the illegal proliferation channels, and even the legal channels, to see who the end user is," Cops said.

The sanctions imposed since February's invasion aimed to close loopholes and further tighten the screws on Russia's military.

According to Damien Spleeters, deputy director of operations at Conflict Armament Research (CAR), an organization specialized in tracking and tracing weapons of war that is currently tracing components found on Ukraine's battlefields, it's too early to say to what extent the sanctions are working: "Everything we've seen so far was produced before the invasion. It's stocks that date from before the sanctions," he said.

But the Russians are definitely “running out of stock," according to Ukraine's Prime Minister Shmyhal. "They are using their Soviet-made equipment and missiles which were produced back in 1960s or 70s," he said.

Russia is so desperate for the most sophisticated semiconductors for its weapons program, it has resorted to stripping microchips from dishwashers and fridges to use in its military gear, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in May, attributing the intel to Ukrainian officials.

But some American national security veterans disagree with the optimistic assessment from U.S. President Joe Biden’s team. They say Western governments have little ability to stop other regimes — particularly China — from transferring microchips to Russia.

The controls on chips “are about as tight as a screen door,” said Matthew Turpin, the U.S. National Security Council director for China from 2018 to 2019. “China and Russia share a 4,300-kilometer border. There is absolutely no way we could detect if those chips are passed from China to Russia.”

The U.S. Commerce Department has repeatedly said it has seen no evidence that China is transferring technologies to Russia, which could open Beijing to severe sanctions. But the Chinese government has also said it would put no new limits on its commercial relationship with Russia, and Turpin and others say there is almost no way Western governments can be certain of their behavior.

Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees tech sanctions, has “fewer than 10 ‘inspectors’ in China which are supposed to determine whether chips have been diverted to Chinese military use,” Turpin said, adding that “we are not effective in inspections” because the Chinese government requires prior warning.

Desperate times, desperate measures

Over the past years, as its relationship with the West turned increasingly frosty, Russia implemented an import substitution program, seeking to create its own high-tech industry. Those efforts have become ever more urgent now.

Russia's ministry of industry and trade has prepared proposals that seek to further incentivize local companies to produce the high-tech components needed by the military-industrial complex, business daily Vedomosti reported last month. The measures, dated August 22, include slashing tax for the relevant companies, reducing insurance premiums, providing preferential loans and guaranteeing purchases. The measures are due to be approved and enter into force no later than January 1, according to Vedomosti.

The problem for Moscow is that such measures have failed in the past, bogged down by widespread corruption and graft, not to mention a brain drain — and that's unlikely to change now.

"Ultimately it hasn’t really been a success," RUSI's Byrne said about Russia's import substitution drive. "There’s loads of high-tech components they can’t replace with home-made alternatives ... A lot of those things are absolutely critical for their weapons program."

An investigation by Reuters with RUSI in August showed components of U.S. and other Western technology firms were still rife in Russian military equipment found on the battlefield.
Such Western components, and microchips in particular, are key for Russia's military to keep up its war efforts.

"Russia's missiles and processing computers and sensors are built with Russian parts. But the most critical components in them, the highest tech, were Western," RUSI's Byrne said. "The Russians have used a lot of their high-end equipment — cruise and ballistic missiles, precision munitions, the latest infantry fighting vehicles. Now, they're resorting to older equipment they’ve brought out of storage. And part of the aim of sanctions is to slow down procurement of high-tech components, and essentially attrit the Russians’ ability to use this high-end stuff, so they will have to rely more and more on outdated equipment."

Cops, the Belgian researcher, said: "More and more 'dumb' rockets are being found in Ukraine, demonstrating how Russia is battling supply chain shortages."

Friends with benefits

While the EU, U.S., Japan and other countries have slapped sanctions on Russia, Moscow does have a friend in Beijing, which has already provided the country with off-road vehicle exports for command personnel, as well as drone components and naval engines. But like Russia, China has also struggled to catch up with its competitors when it comes to the most high-tech components Russia needs.

"A lot of these [Western] companies, they’re really specialized in the specialized kit, they’ve been making it a long time. The Chinese semiconductor industry doesn’t have capability to make those things," RUSI's Byrne said.

Kevin Wolf, former assistant secretary of commerce under the Obama administration, said China’s difficulties in access indicate new global norms, as countries around the world coordinate to put pressure on Russia.

“As horrible as the invasion of Ukraine is, one dramatic effect is the accelerated pace of the U.S. to work with its offshore allies to impose common controls outside of the regular regime process, that are especially painful to China given the state of their [semiconductor] industry," Wolf said.

National security concerns put Western industry between a rock and a hard place, as companies argue sales to China provide critical revenue to support their research and development efforts.

Above all, the wide use of Western tech in Russia's military equipment shows it's extremely hard to even understand the global arms trade, Spleeters, at Conflict Armament Research, said.

"Everything can be regulated … But you need to have an observation component to it," Spleeters said. "You need to monitor how it's being used, how it's being acquired. If you lack that vision on the field you risk missing a lot of the possible trade routes and ways to circumvent the rules."

https://www.politico.eu/article/the-...-war-machines/

You know the chinkies would slide some under the table to keep that cheap oil and gas flowing.

Russia-Ukraine latest news: Ukraine seizes 400sq km in Kharkiv with 'opportunistic' counter-offensive

Ukraine has seized around 400sq km in Kharkiv thanks to an "opportunistic" counter-offensive.


Ukrainian forces "likely used tactical surprise to advance at least 20km into Russian-held territory" in the territory on Sep 7, according to the Institute for the Study of War.


The Russians were likely understrength due to troops being sent to Donetsk to support the ongoing efforts to capture the area and bolster the deployment on the southern axis, a source in Moscow claimed.


Russian troops have now began deploying reinforcements to the Kharkiv area to defend against Ukrainian advances.


There are concerns among the Russians that this Ukrainian counterattack seeks to cut ground lines of communication to Russian rear areas in Kupyansk and Izyum, which would allow Ukrainian troops to isolate the Russian groupings in these areas and retake large swaths of territory, the institute said.

Russia-Ukraine latest news: Ukraine seizes 400sq km in Kharkiv with 'opportunistic' counter-offensive

Originally Posted by misskit

The Russians were likely understrength due to troops being sent to Donetsk to support the ongoing efforts to capture the area and bolster the deployment on the southern axis, a source in Moscow claimed.

They took the bait.

The real offensive is in Kharkiv.

US: Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians forced to Russia

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.S. said Wednesday it has evidence that “hundreds of thousands” of Ukrainian citizens have been interrogated, detained and forcibly deported to Russia in “a series of horrors” overseen by officials from Russia’s presidency.


Russia immediately dismissed the allegation as “fantasy,” calling it the latest invention in a Western disinformation campaign.


The charge came during a Security Council meeting called by the United States and Albania to discuss Russia’s “filtration operations.”

That involves Ukrainians voluntarily fleeing the war in their homeland and those forcibly being moved to Russia passing through a series of “filtration points” where treatment allegedly ranges from interrogations, data collection and strip searches to being yanked aside, tortured, sent to a detention center in Russia and never seen again. The Associated Press wrote in July that nearly 2 million Ukrainian refugees have been sent to Russia, many through forcible transfers.


US. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said estimates from a variety of sources, including the Russian government, indicate that Russian authorities have interrogated, detained and forcibly deported between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainians. She said they are sent to Russia, often to isolated regions in its far eastern regions.


“These operations aim to identify individuals Russia deems insufficiently compliant or compatible to its control,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “And there is mounting and credible evidence that those considered threatening to Russian control because of perceived pro-Ukrainian leanings are `disappeared’ or further detained.”


Russia’s presidency is not only coordinating filtration operations but is providing lists of Ukrainians to be targeted for filtration, she added.


She said estimates indicate thousands of children have been subject to filtration, “some separated from their families and taken from orphanages before being put up for adoption in Russia.” According to U.S. information, “more than 1,800 children were transferred from Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine to Russia” just in July, she said.


Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, accused the West of trying to besmirch his country.


He said more than 3.7 million Ukrainians, including 600,000 children, have gone to Russia or Russian-controlled separatist areas in eastern Ukraine, but they “aren’t being kept in prisons.”


“They are living freely and voluntarily in Russia, and nobody is preventing them from moving or preventing them leaving the country,” he said.


Nebenzia said those Ukrainians went through “a registration rather than filtration procedure” similar to that for Ukrainian refugees in Poland and other countries in the European Union.


He said that since “we’ve wasted time talking about the latest conjectures and fantasies” Wednesday, Russia is proposing that the Security Council hold a meeting Thursday “on real threats to international peace and security caused by the supply by foreign states of arms and military goods to Ukraine.”


French Ambassador Nicolas De Riviere, the current council president, scheduled the meeting for Thursday afternoon.


It will be the third consecutive Security Council meeting on Ukraine. On Tuesday, the council held a meeting at Russia’s request to hear about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the facility and threatening a possible nuclear catastrophe.


Thomas-Greenfield said the United States knew Russia would deny using filtration, “but there’s a simple way to know if any of this is true.”


“Let the United Nations in,” she told Nebenzia and other council members. “Give the independent observers access. Give NGOs access. Allow humanitarian access. Let the world see what Is going on.”


U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo called for investigations of the “extremely disturbing" and persistent allegations “of forced displacement, deportation and so-called `filtration camps’ run by the Russian Federation and affiliated local forces.”


She called for U.N. access to Ukrainians living in Russian-controlled areas and reiterated that the International Committee of the Red Cross and the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine “must have unimpeded access to all individuals detained in relation to the ongoing war.”


“This includes access to places of internment of Ukrainian prisoners of war and detainees in the Russian Federation,” she said. “Both sides to the conflict must fully abide with their obligations under international law.”


Ilze Brands Kehris, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights, urged Russia to provide her Geneva-based office access to all places of detention. She added that any adoptions of Ukrainian children in Russia would violate the Geneva Convention prohibiting the change of a child’s personal status including its nationality.


Kehris said the U.N. human rights office “has verified” that Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups subject civilians to “filtration” security checks, which according to credible reports it received result in numerous human rights violations, including the rights to liberty, personal security and privacy.


The human rights office has documented that Russian troops and their affiliates subject Ukrainians to body searches that sometimes include nudity, interrogations about their personal background, family ties, political views and allegiances, and examinations of mobile devices, Kehris said.


The office has also documented that men and women perceived to having ties to Ukraine’s military or government, or as having pro-Ukrainian or anti-Russian views “were subjected to arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment and forced-disappearance” and were transferred to penal colonies, Kehris said.

US: Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians forced to Russia | Taiwan News | 2022-09-09 0414

Uighurs, Ukrainians . . . the similarities keep on piling up

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed "good news" from the northeastern Kharkiv region, after an apparent surprise counter-offensive forced Russian troops onto the back foot and prompted a pro-Kremlin official to call for evacuations.The Russian-installed head of the Kupiansk city administration, Vitaly Ganchev, urged women and children to evacuate the city as Ukrainian forces approached.

Ganchev said the city, which lies west of the Donbas region and about 70 miles east of the city of Kharkiv, "is constantly under terror" and experiencing "constant rocket attacks from the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

Ukrainian officials have declined to comment on the offensive in the northeast of Ukraine, but footage geolocated by CNN showed Ukrainian forces in the town of Volokhiv-Yar on Wednesday, around 50 km away from Kupiansk, and also on the outskirts of Balakliya to the south. Russian officials have also remained silent on developments in the Kharkiv region.

The operation appeared designed to catch Russian forces off guard, following intensifying conflict in the south of Ukraine near the city of Kherson.

In recent weeks, Russia redeployed some forces to the south to bolster its ranks ahead of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson region, according to Ukrainian officials and footage of equipment moving through Crimea geolocated by CNN.

While the southern front looks set to be one of the main theaters of conflict as the war heads towards winter, a new Ukrainian push in Kharkiv could stretch Russian forces across two disparate locations.

Kyiv "likely used tactical surprise to advance at least 20km into Russian-held territory in eastern Kharkiv Oblast on September 7, recapturing approximately 400 square kilometers of ground," the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based analytical group, said its daily report on the conflict on Wednesday.

"Ukrainian forces likely took prudent advantage of a reallocation of Russian troops, equipment, and overall operational focus to launch localized counteroffensives toward critical points in Kharkiv Oblast," the ISW said.

In recent weeks, Russia redeployed some forces to the south to bolster its ranks ahead of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson region, according to Ukrainian officials and footage of equipment moving through Crimea geolocated by CNN.

Russian military bloggers and analysts have reported Ukrainian forces' push towards Kupiansk aims to cut off supply lines to the strategic city of Izium to the south.

Zelensky was coy on whether specific settlements have been retaken by Ukrainian forces in his nightly address on Wednesday. But the President thanked three brigades involved in operations to recapture Russian-held territory there.

"This week we have good news from Kharkiv region," Zelensky said. "Probably, you all have already seen reports about the activity of Ukrainian defenders. And, I think, every citizen feels proud of our soldiers. It is a well-deserved pride."

He also thanked units stationed in southern Ukraine what he called "extremely successful hits" on occupying Russian forces, while the simultaneous counter-attack was launched in the north.

"The more difficult it is for the occupiers, the more losses they have, the better the positions for our defenders in Donbas will be, the more reliable the defense of Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, and the cities of Dnipropetrovsk region will be, the faster we will be able to liberate the Azov region and the entire south," he said.

Ukraine continues to press on with its southern counter-offensive; Ukrainian forces are making gains in the south, with the ambitious goal of taking back most of the Russian-occupied region of Kherson by the end of the year, senior US officials and Ukrainian officials told CNN on Wednesday.

The last week has seen the most ambitious ground assaults by the Ukrainians since the beginning of the invasion, following sustained attacks on command posts, ammunition stores, and fuel reserves far behind the front lines, according to geolocation of video and satellite imagery.

The US has observed Ukrainian forces achieve some success in attacking Russian supply lines, with the intention of cutting off and isolating Russian troops currently deployed west of the Dnipro River, according to a senior US official.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/08/europ...ntl/index.html

Ukraine’s military advanced as much as 30 miles in the country’s east and liberated more than 20 villages and towns, a senior commander said, in a rapid thrust aimed at cutting Russian supply routes.

Brig. Gen. Oleksiy Hromov, a senior officer on Ukraine’s General Staff, gave the first official confirmation of the gains of an offensive launched Tuesday to the east of Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv.

He told reporters in Kyiv that Russian forces were demoralized but resisting, and noted smaller advances near other eastern cities.

Russia’s military hasn’t commented on the Ukrainian advance. But Gen. Hromov’s comments tally with reports from Russian war bloggers close to the Russian military who have said Ukrainian forces are making gains toward Kupyansk, a city of some 30,000 before the war, that is a critical road hub for the resupply and movement of Russian occupation forces.

Russian occupation authorities in Kupyansk said they would evacuate women and children from the strategic city as advancing Ukrainian forces stepped up strikes there.

The unexpected Ukrainian thrust appears to mark a new phase in the war where Kyiv is seeking to take back ground that Russia seized since it launched a full-scale invasion about six months ago. After repelling Russian forces from Kyiv in spring, Ukraine’s military has been gradually withdrawing from cities in the east under devastating artillery and airstrikes.

But the Russian advance there appears exhausted, and Ukraine has seized the initiative in the war with dual offensives in the south and east. In the south, Ukraine is seeking to cut off thousands of Russian troops on the western bank of the Dnipro River in and around the regional capital of Kherson.

To the east of Kharkiv, Kupyansk has emerged as a key target. Liberating the city, or even being close enough to use artillery to disrupt Russia’s supply lines, could isolate Russian forces in the city of Izyum to the south, which Moscow had sought to use for an offensive of its own.

Ukrainian troops liberated the eastern city of Balakliya Thursday, according to Russian war bloggers and photographs posted on local social media channels. The city, with a prewar population of some 30,000, is the largest that Kyiv’s forces have retaken control of in months. Ukrainian units were also advancing to the northeast in the direction of Kupyansk, seizing several villages.

A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the Ukrainian offensives were aimed at demonstrating to Ukrainians that everything was going well and at persuading the West to provide more weapons, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with senior commanders Thursday to receive reports on advances, which he said had liberated dozens of towns and villages and around 1,000 square kilometers, or about 385 square miles, more than the land area of New York City, since the start of September.

He posted a video on social media of a Ukrainian soldier standing on a Russian tricolor with the Ukrainian flag flying on a pole behind him, reporting that Balakliya had been liberated.

“Everything is in its place,” wrote Mr. Zelensky. “The flag of Ukraine in a free Ukrainian city under a free Ukrainian sky.”

Senior U.S. officials said Thursday that Washington is sending $675 million in new military assistance to Ukraine, along with $2 billion in additional funding for the country and others in the region.

Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns, speaking of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, said Thursday, “I would not underestimate the capacity, or courage, of the Ukrainians right now.”

Mr. Burns said that Russian President

“I believe, my colleagues at CIA believe, that Putin is as wrong about that bet as he was profoundly wrong in his assumptions going back to last February about Ukrainian will to resist and the will of the West, of the United States and all of our partners to support the Ukrainians,” Mr. Burns said at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit in Washington.

U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that while “so far, the Russian strategic objectives have been defeated,” it was too soon to say whether Ukraine has successfully thwarted Russia in the southern part of the country.

Gen. Milley, speaking from Ramstein Air Base in Germany, said that Ukraine has struck 400 targets using U.S.-provided Himars rocket systems, with devastating effect.

“Russian lines of communication and supply chains are severely strained. It is having a direct impact on the Russian ability to project and sustain combat power,” he said.

Russian officials have dismissed indications that their six-month invasion is faltering. Mr. Putin said Wednesday: “We have not lost anything and will not lose anything.”

A senior Russian official proposed holding votes on joining Russia in occupied territories on Nov. 4, a Russian public holiday known as National Unity Day. Andrei Turchak, leader of the governing United Russia party, said it would be a “correct and symbolic” date for the votes. He said they would certainly take place before the end of the year.

Russia had previously indicated that votes would take place in September, but those plans appear to have been scuttled by Ukraine’s offensives.

In areas that Russia has captured, Moscow has been handing out passports, taking control of schools and introducing the Russian ruble.

But occupation forces have met with resistance. Vladimir Rogov, a senior collaborator in occupied Melitopol in Ukraine’s south, said the headquarters of his group “We Are Together with Russia” had been blown up Wednesday.

—Olya Fokaf and Warren P. Strobel contributed to this article.

Ukrainian Forces Punch Forward in East, Threatening Russian Supply Lines - WSJ

As the Ukraine war rages, Turkey’s president accuses Western nations of provoking Russia.


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Western nations of provoking Russia, as he hailed Ankara’s policy of “balance” regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Erdogan has maintained ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, while trying to maintain neutrality in the conflict.

As well as mediating, Turkey supplies Ukraine with weapons and combat drones.

The Turkish president told reporters on Wednesday, during a visit to Belgrade, that he understood Putin’s decision to cut off natural gas supplies to Germany via the Nord Stream pipeline.

“I can say very clearly that I do not find the attitude of the West, no need to mention names, to be correct, because it is a policy based on provocations,” Erdogan said at a news conference with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic.

“As long as you try to wage such a war of provocations, you will not be able to get the needed result.”

Erdogan has tried to use his open relations with Moscow and Kyiv to arrange direct talks between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Turkey, a mission that has ultimately failed.

“As Turkey, we have always maintained a policy of balance between Ukraine and Russia. From now on, we will continue to follow that balanced policy,” he said.

Erdogan is expected to meet Putin at a regional summit in Uzbekistan next week. Chinese President Xi Jinping will also attend.
Turkey has not joined the Western sanctions regime against Russia and recently signed a new economic cooperation agreement with Moscow.

The United Nations and Turkey brokered a deal between Russia and Ukraine in July to allow grain exports to resume from Ukrainian ports, after warnings of possible famine outbreaks in parts of the world.

During Erdogan’s visit – the second stop on a three-nation Balkan tour – Turkey and Serbia signed seven agreements related to the economy, industry, and technology, including a protocol allowing mutual passport-free travel for their respective citizens.

‘Provocations’: Erdogan decries Western policy towards Russia | Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera

My guess is the UDF will keep the Russians guessing. The russian weakness is a long front line which is hard to defend on territory full of their enemies who want them gone. The russians cant start an offensive without weakening their front line somewhere else. With winter coming this will be a slow grind and will further sap the morale of the Russian troops.
The Babooshkas need to be out in the streets if they dont want to see their sons and grandsons coming home in body bags. I feel for those Russian conscripts who dont want to be there. Not for the ones who rape pillage and murder civilians. Along with the wagner group they should be shot on the spot. The Wagner group should be declared a terrorist organisation. Again the EU has failed on Russian tourists and they need to be doing a lot more instead of leaving the heavy lifting to the USA and UK yet again.

Originally Posted by Hugh Cow

My guess is the UDF will keep the Russians guessing.

The Russians have been totally blindsided by the Ukrainians in Kharkiv, where there has been a blitzkrieg offensive that is currently on the gates of Kupiansk. A rather stunning outcome so far, and it just may well be that a rather large number of Russian troops are encircled in Izyum as we speak. Lots of footage and updates on Twitter which verify all of this. Once again, Twitter is out front of the conventional news media.