Jan. 25 — Day 336 — Deja vu all over again, Donbass drama, Leopardsprung
Hi FB!
The big theme of this review pretty obviously will be (again) tanks, but there are other items to consider as well.
The first image is in the critical subject area of Ukrainian felines. The second image is courtesy of the Russian military internet: a neato graphic explaining to Russian soldiers where to shoot a Leopard tank.
Then I offer you a pair of images. First, hot off the presses, from today, a nice and if you ask me highly optimistic graphic explaining to Russian infantrymen how to attack the modern German Leopard tank. See how it might be hard to hit those weak points, if the Leopard kept its distance? OK, second half of the pair, a historical Red Army graphic, World War Two, where infantry should attack the German Tiger tank. Same deal: nice drawing, but you have to wonder how useful that instruction would be, if the panzer just stands off at long range and pounds the infantry.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This Russian invasion of Ukraine frequently makes me feel like I’m living in a World War Two documentary.
OK, now some propaganda. Many of you have probably read about but it bears repeating: It turns out General Valery Zaluzhny has relatives in the States, one of them died and left him $1 million, and he donated it all to the army. From a practical point of view, as a person who will go down in history as a man who defeated the Russian military and drew the line under Ukrainian independence and freedom, his future and his children’s future is assured, and his memoirs will be worth several times the inheritance. But contrast that to money stolen by Putin from Russian taxpayers which, by conservative estimates, is somewhere around $20 billion. Zaluzhny image attached, I’ll spare you Putin.
The video is Bradleys and Abrams heading into Poland. A lot of them. This almost certainly is not for Ukraine, but for NATO. I bet the deployment area is in short driving distance from Kaliningrad.
The landscape image is of Ukraine’s Chernihiv region where, meteorologists are saying, the wettest winter in more than a century is flooding everything. So the next time you see a “Russia may attack Kyiv again” news story, unless the Russian army gets equipped with several thousand hovercraft and jet skis, you might be a bit skeptical.
The fighting
Probably the big news over the last 72 hours is that the UAF admitted it had cleared out of Soledar and retreated to prepared positions to the west of the town. This we knew from on-the-ground reports even a week ago, but now it’s official. Bakhmut by Ukrainian accounts is holding hard, while according to Russian media it’s almost cut off.
Fighting appears to still be pretty intense: today the UAF recording 910 Russian soldiers killed over the last 24 hours, the second-highest kill claim of the entire war. RF pressure appears to be greatest, based on reports, in Donbass around Bakhmut, Avdievka and Uhledar, and in the south around Hulyaipole. Map of the Donbass fighting attached. Image of an (inhabited) apartment building in Avdievka attached. Image of some Russian vehicles that attacked Uhledar but didn’t get there attached. According to unconfirmed reports, one Russian company commander refused to attack, telling his boss his unit was down to 20 percent men and machines.
More fighting is taking place around Kreminne, as the Ukrainians continue their now-standard tactic of wearing down a Russian defensive sector by using constant light infantry attacks and raids through difficult ground — in this case forested rolling hills. Quad image of what RF sources claim is the result of a HIMARS strike on administrative buildings in Kreminne.
Two days ago the Ukrainian special forces put in a small boat raid across the Dnipro River to hit some kind of Russian base on the left bank. According to the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, the raiders crossed the waterway, hit a command post and data collection/observation post, killed at least a dozen Russian soldiers, and burnt a BTR-82 before escaping back across the river. According to the Russians, the raid was totally destroyed and more than 100 Ukrainians were killed. The Ukrainians posted several images, which usually troops don’t make public if they’ve been defeated, and obviously would have even more trouble posting, if they were totally wiped out. Three images attached.
Air operations
Over the past two days the Ukrainians have reported a spike in shoot-downs of Russian combat aircraft: four Ka-52 attack helicopters, two Su-25 strike jets, and at least three Oran-10 observation drones. Heavy Russian air activity was reported around Bakhmut and other strikes around Kupansk. This is a likely indicator of either the Russian air force trying to do its part, a new increase to Ukrainian air defense strength, or both.
Tanks
I’m sure that all of you have seen the Wednesday news that Berlin has completed its U-turn and now is okay with sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine, and as the past 48 hours have perculated through the news cycles bits and pieces of information have dribbled in about who is sending what, and when. Here’s a link to a Kyiv Post article with general information about the Leopard deliveries, it might be useful to some and it’s designed to be easy to read:
Here are some nitty-gritty details for those of you who are more panzer-obsessive, like, the break-down of what exactly, by model, and from whom. According to Wednesday evening news reports, Ukraine can expect:
Germany — 14 x LeoA6
Poland — 14 x LeoA4 (probably)
Netherlands — 18 x Leo type TBD, this would be a straight purchase not a transfer
Portugal — 4 x LeoA6
Spain — Somewhere between 1 and 53 Leo, type TBD, probably around 20 tanks
Sweden — Thinking about sending a few Strv 122 Leo, this is a high-grade modification
Norway — Almost for sure will send 8 x LeoA4 equivalent
Finland — Very likely will send Leo, A4 equivalent, numbers not clear but probably not more than 14
Poland — Almost certainly 14 x LeoA4
On the Finns, video appeared today of three Leopards on low boys being drven somewhere in Finland. Bottom line, per conventional wisdom, this dump of Leopards is going to work out to about 80 tanks, although some sources, like ABC, have mathed it out to 111 Leopards.
Besides that, of course, the British earlier this week promised 14 Challenger 2 tanks, which is probably better than all the Leopards except the late models from Germany or Sweden, and the French the week before that promised 40 AMX-10 armored cars, which carry a tank gun.
It is worth noting, at this point, that the Americans this evening promised Ukraine 31 M1 Abrams (specific type not announced, $400 million courtesy the US taxpayer, ka-ching!) and eight M88 tank recovery vehicles, which are a big deal, because excepting the French AMX-10 (expected in Ukraine next month, image) all these foreign tanks are much heavier than the Ukrainian military is used to recovering, and is equipped to recover. Think crane capacity and cable max load weight. Foreign Policy says the deliveries will take “several months.” Since you all are probably sick of Leopard pix, I’ve attached an Abrams image.
The upshot of this is that, starting in late May and running through probably mid-Summer, the UAF will beef up its tank capacity meaningfully, but not decisively in and of itself. We all need to bear in mind General Zaluzhny right before the New Year said he needed at least 300 tanks to kick of a really decisive offensive. Very roughly, the last two weeks have brought promises of, very roughly, half that.
As an aside, once all these tanks get in theater Ukrainian logisticians will have to deal with no less than FIVE types of tank ammunition: domestic 125mm, NATO 105mm, NATO smooth bore 120mm, and British rifled 120mm. That’s right, a British 120mm tank shell will NOT work in a German/American 120mm cannon.
As to what might come next, Rheinmettal put out these numbers of Leopard 2s it has in stock and so could be sent to Ukraine without any European army reducing its own tank park: 22 LeoA4 basically ready to be shipped now, 29 LeoA4 shippable by April-May, and 88 Leopard 1 tanks that are obsolete by NATO standards but probably quite usable by the UAF, considering it is not fighting NATO or the Chinese, but just what’s left of the Russians.
In Russia
No less than the state-run TASS news agency reported that as of March 1 any military-age male wanting to leave Russia by car must book a time and place at a border crossing, no more just leaving Russia when you feel like it. The Ukrainian internet is positive this is a precursor to another mobilization wave.
Food scandal
Some of you have probably been following the scandal, triggered by a report in an important Ukrainian newspaper called Zerkola Tizhden last week, that food suppliers to the Defense Ministry had jacked up prices of things like eggs, cabbage and buckwheat by 50–200 percent grocery store prices and were pocketing the difference. Pretty good deal until those meddling reporters got involved.
Anyway, this led to the sacking of several senior Defense Ministry officials, not the Defense Minister though, and then a wave of regional official sackings in rear area regions like Dnipro and Zhytomyr.
The general consensus is local officials conspired with army suppliers, at least in some cases, and once the news came out Zelensky just fired everyone and ordered the whole miliary food supply conracting process overhauled. Supposedly it will take 4–5 months.
This is classic optimist/pessimist half full/half empty situation: is it good or bad that the Ukrainian national leadership is uncovering real corruption, meaning Ukrainian officials on several levels conspired to undermine the war effort for their personal gain, and then the government response was to go nuts on punishing people for it, and probably weakening food supplies to the troops for a while, during a war? I know what I think. You can look at a Ukrainain food image as your reflect.
For those of you that read to the end, a video-documented case of a UAF trooper who rolled the military equivalent of sevens about a hundred times in a row and shot down a drone with his personal weapon AK. It is vidoes like this that will be responsible for hundreds of thousands of wasted rounds in coming weeks and months.
