Ukraine War, 26 May 2022
Hello everybody!
‘Little bit’ later than usually, but a slightly bigger update today….
STRATEGIC
As I’m writing this, the oligarchy of this planet (minus Russians, this time) — plus many of politicians bribed by it — is in the process of closing its gathering at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, in Switzerland. In between of enjoying hamburgers priced at €80 apiece and lots of networking necessary after two years of pandemic, they were mumbling about affairs like ‘collaborative, multistakeholder impact’, ‘unique collaborative environment in which to reconnect…’, and, time and again, such unimportant affairs like the Ukraine War and the possible famine it might cause in Africa and Asia, or energy crisis, and plastic pollution…
As so often before, one of ‘stars’ was Henry Kissinger. For youngsters between us: he’s a former National Security Adviser of the USA (from back in the late 1960s and 1970s), best known for involvement in lying to the US public about de-escalation in Vietnam War while widening the war into neighbouring Cambodia; for playing an instrumental role in a coup against President Allende of Chile of 1973; for putting the US Armed Forces on DEFCON2 (nuclear alert short of all-out war) during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War; for supporting Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor….and few other….’controversial’ affairs. To others, he might be famous for his statements regarding importance of oil and specific human beings….and to me, he’s best-known as director of the think-tank Kissinger Associates, which was instrumental in the US involvement in support of Paul Kagame’s ‘democratising’ regime in Rwanda, and its looting of the Congolese mineral wealth since 1996…
But, I digress… In his appearance in Davos, Kissinger ‘advised’ — or, shall I say, ‘cautioned’ — the ‘European politicians’ to — between others — mollify Putin through satisfying his appetite, i.e. through granting him parts of Ukraine…
Always a delight to be advised by people as well-informed as Kissinger — and of course, in no way was he trying to appease the aggressor. No.
BTW, could somebody please have the mercy to explain him that Putin did meet different European politicians over the last 12 months, ‘or so’, but actually didn’t listen to them — and, instead, insisted on negotiating with the USA about ‘spheres of influence’….?
…perhaps to ask him if he’s ready to grant, say, Florida, New England, or at least New York City to Putin — in exchange for peace?
This rose plenty of dust, of course, and thus it went down that, just a BTW, Israel has turned down another US (and German) request to supply weapons developed in co-production between the USA and Israel (read: paid by US taxpayer’s money) — to Ukraine. This time it was about Spike anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs).
Why that matters?
Israel’s government is reasoning its denial of provision of armament to Ukraine with its ‘security interests’. Now, in reality, the ‘security interests’ in question are daydreaming about Putin keeping the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) & Hezbollah-conglomerate from converting Syria into a base for attacks on Israel.
Well…sigh…. Dear Israelis, it’s about the time to face reality: the IRGC/Hezbollah have a well-established para-state in Syria already since years, Assad is completely dependent on sponsoring from Tehran for his survival, and nothing less than an outright invasion of the country (by whoever might want to enter such an adventure) might ever kick them out and thus preven….actually: save Syria from becoming another Lebanon (though with 10 times bigger Hezbollah).
With other words: this is a completely nonsensical excuse — though one so typical for our times: stick your head deep into the sand, baby, and the problem is going to go away….
But, don’t worry: the mass-media is going to ignore Israel’s behaviour, as usually, while the social media is always chock-full with people full of excuses for that pooh lil country — and of critique of the German government for ‘doing nothing’ or ‘dragging its feet’.
Ah yes…’dragging its feet’ and ‘Syria’… did I already mention that, over the last three months the RFA and VKS withdrew the mass of their troops and aircraft from Syria, respectively?
Why that matters?
Well, on Monday, 23 May Erdogan announced that, because USA and Russia have failed to keep their promise to keep the PKK/YPG/SDF-conglomerate 30km away from the Syrian-Turkish border, he intends to expand the Turkey-controlled areas in northern Syria. In that, ‘north-western corner’ of Syria, Turkey is — together with numerous NGOs, and without all of the financial support promised to him by the EU — taking care about at least 3 million of Syrian refugees….in addition to between 3 and 5 million of Syrian refugees inside Turkey. Therefore, Erdogan should now be intent on securing Ain al-Issa, Manbij, and Tel Rifaat. Sure, none of these towns is going to ring lots of bells, thus let me just observe that the last of them used to be predominantly populated by Sunni Arabs, until the US/NATO-supported PKK/YPG/SDF-conglomerate ethnically cleansed and looted it to the last nail, back in 2015…
A few hours after Erdogan’s announcement, the Turkish Army has deployed several motorised- and mechanised units along the border to Syria, and then additional units inside Syria, especially into the al-Bab area. ‘What a surprise’, yesterday, there was a report about a Turkish military vehicle being targeted in the area south of Afrin: ever since, there are reports about the Turkish Army shelling Sidon, Muallq, Ain al-Isa, the M4 highway, Aqiba, and several places north of Manbij…
Latest piece of news is that Ankara intends to discuss the situation at the Security Council of the UN, tomorrow: should nothing come out of that…. well, we’re going to see. Point is: for somebody like me, somebody considering Erdogan for a piss-poor negotiator, it’s unclear if he is attempting to exploit the US and Russian preoccupation with developments in Ukraine, the Russian withdrawal from Syria, or the US and NATO’s lechery to get Finland and Sweden abroad (and versa vice)….
Rather unsurprisingly considering all the endless Western, Russian, and Israeli arrogance and ignorance, and IRGC’s military intervention, the situation in Syria thus has best predispositions for becoming…. sigh… a bardak.
Of course, you’re not here to read my rambling about cynical reality of geo-strategy. Thus, let me get back to the battlefields of Ukraine…
AIR & NAVAL
The Keystone Cops in Moscow have had at least two of their subs get back to Sevastopol, pronto, quickly re-loaded them with 3M54 Kalibrs, and then sent them back to the sea, so they can re-launch attacks on Ukraine — and then what kind of attacks. Early on 25 May three Kalibrs hit the Motor Sich factory in Zaporizhzhya, which is manufacturing engines for UAVs. Actually, four of them have reached the city, but one was shot down while passing directly above a shopping mal: the resulting detonation demolished most of the latter, killing one person in the process…
The sarcast in me cannot but wonder: why attacking a factory for production of UAV-engines, if the RFA is shooting down these in droves, every day, as claimed by the Keystone Cops…. But, that’s me and my never-ending questions about unimportant thingies…
Kyiv then claimed that, later yesterday, another volley of Kalibrs was intercepted by Ukrainian Air Force, and two were shot down by MiG-29s.
Elsewhere during the day, of interest was the deployment of VKS Tu-22M-3 bombers to strike ‘tactical targets’ in the Donbass area with ‘high-precision missiles’ — see: Kh-22s. This might confirm rumors along which the VKS is not even trying to operate anywhere in the sky protected by heavier Ukrainian SAMs (which is: de-facto all of the Ukrainian airspace). Of course, the Russians promptly countered this by releasing videos like this one, shown VKS Su-25s ‘above’ Kherson, or this one, supposedly over Severodonetsk/Lysychansk: observer is left to decide on his/her own whether ‘flying between buildings and trees’ still counts as ‘in the sky’…
Seriously now, please make no mistake: the VKS is all the time searching for Ukrainian air defence units, trying to track them down — and to destroy them. This was the purpose of that Tu-22M-3-strike, too. In turn, this is enabling us two conclusions:
- A) the Ukrainian GenStab is considering the situation in Donbass — probably especially in the Lyman area — for critical enough to move some of its heavier SAM-systems (especially S-300s) closer to the frontline, but,
- B) also safe enough to do so.
Therefore, we must expect the Russian ‘suppression of enemy air defences’ (SEAD) -campaign to be further intensified in the coming days. This also because, at least according to Kyiv, the VKS is meanwhile going to so far (and remaining so unsuccessful), that it should have started to deploy its Tu-95 and T-160 strategic bombers against forward-deployed Ukrainian SAMs. This is of particular interest, because
A) the VKS did not deploy such bombers to strike such targets even early during the war, when it would still made much more sense (indeed: it did not destroy even most of non-mobile early warning radars in Ukraine, like everybody else would have done);
B) it’s days, if not weeks, since any strikes by Kh-101 and/or Kh-555 missiles have been reported from Ukraine; and
C) so far, such weapons were used to target ‘fix’ objects — like airports, factories and bridges, i.e. nothing that can be moved — but nothing like mobile air defence systems in Ukrainian service.
BTW, according to the Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian MOD, the VKS and the RFA have spent 60–70% of their ‘high-precision’ ballistic- and cruise missiles by now, and, instead of targeting the same object by 2–4, as early during the war, are now firing 8–12 at the same target. Of course, half of this could be propaganda, but at least the latter can be confirmed by cross-examining multiple reports from the mainstream- and social-media of Ukraine and: that is speaking an entirely different language than all the claims about their ‘high precision’.
Ah well: wishful thinking and reality….thing ‘simply happen’, when one plans a war of 3–14 days, but then has to fight it… ‘forever’…
BATTLE OF DONBASS
The position of Ukrainian troops in Lyman remains critical. Consisting of elements of the 3rd Tank and 57th Motor Brigades, 79th AAB, 128th Mountain Brigade, and the 15th National Guard Regiment, the garrison there is assaulted by BTGs from four Russian motor rifle divisions, and several Separatist units (my knowledge about those from the ‘Lugansk People’s Republic’ is rather poor), and there is meanwhile no doubt that the aggressors are deep inside the town. The question is if Ukrainians can keep the defenders supplied — but also protected from massive artillery barrages, and such volumes of air strikes like on 23 and 24 May… Apparently, they can’t: reports from this morning are indicating Ukrainian withdrawal into the southern parts of the town, and from there in direction of Siversky Donets.
Further east… since 20 May, the original Ukrainian garrison in the Severodonetsk Cauldron — including the ‘4th Rapid Reaction Brigade’ (should be a regiment, actually), 17th Tank, 79th and 95th AABs, the 111th and 115th TD Brigade in the north and north-east, and the 24th Mech in the south — was reinforced by elements of the 1st SOF Brigade, 31st and 80th AABs, 128th Mountain Brigade, Donbass and Stugna Battalions; possibly by the Georgian Legion and elements from several artillery brigades, too.
Think, this is closing all the discussions about ‘Ukrainian withdrawal’.
Indeed, their arrival seems to have not only recovered, but stabilised the situation along the T1302 road in particular. The 76th VDV (that is: probably a BTG of the 106th VDV Regiment) remains bogged down in Volodymyrivka. Two days ago, there was a major crisis when the VDV — and/or one of ‘mechanised’ BTGs supporting the 76th* — pushed north to reach Yakovlivka by flanking fortifications of the 24th Mech north of Volodymyrivka. This resulted in a temporary closure of the T1302 between Yakovlivka and Bilohorivka.
However, the Russians suffered such losses to Ukrainian artillery and anti-tank guided missiles in the process that they fell back to Vasylivka, yesterday in the afternoon. As of this morning, they were all the way back to around Vrubivka… Ukrainians promptly exploited this opportunity to rush at least one (though probably ‘more’) supply convoys to Lysychansk. As of today, the T1302 remains ‘open for traffic’, even if I wouldn’t recommend any civilians to try using it (take the route via Siversk instead, if you really must).
Gauging by its own releases in the social media, the 80th AAB played a crucial role in stopping the Russian advance: between 20 and 25 May, its Stugna-P-operators knocked out at least a company-worth (see: at least 10) of BMP-2/3s and BTR-82s, plus a few MT-LBs and one or two tanks.
Obviously, this might not appear as ‘much’, but: when one destroys as many vehicles at the right moment in the right place, it can change everything. Foremost, regardless how many are assessing them as — and how much are they behaving like — ‘having seas’ of troops and AFVs, the Russians are feeling these losses. After all, there’s clear evidence for them losing over 700 main battle tanks in this war, or something like one third of their tank-fleet at the start of the conflict. Unsurprisingly, a train arrived in Melitupol, yesterday, loaded by ancient T-62M main battle tanks.
Don’t worry: Putin-fans promptly explained this away with, ‘Dvornikov’s intention to distribute tanks to plenty of smaller units, so he can continue fighting this war for much longer’…and, of course, ‘T-62M is better than T-72’, too…
Finally, both sides are meanwhile making lots of use of mini-UAVs dropping ammunition (mostly mortar bombs, but also DIY-types): while still not causing as much damage and losses as artillery, these are knocking out ever more combat vehicles (on the Russian side) and troops (on Ukrainian side). Indeed, so much so that if this war really goes on for months longer, both the Russian and Ukrainian troops will have to grow themselves a third eye: one monitoring the skies all the time…
***
*Officially at least, there are no ‘mechanised’ formations in the RFA. Only motor rifle formations. However, gauging by all the armoured fighting vehicles blown up by the 80th AAB since 20 May, the formation in question was primarily equipped with BMP-2/3s.
