October 12 — Day 231 — Red Alligator Down, Air war philosophy, FSB story holes
Hi FB!
First, time for a some animal images, first a porker and possibly wild boar on the front line, and second another War Cat.
Today two things happened that really didn’t seem to advance the Kremlin’s cause, one confirmed and one non-confirmed, but the source is pretty reliable.
The unconfirmed development is this: According to the Army General Staff (AGS), today Ukrainian air defense forces in the southern sector shot down four Ka-52 helicopters, and maybe more. I’ve seen no image evidence, but it’s worth noting, that every time I’ve had a chance to match AGS kill claims with independent outside sources, the official Ukrainian numbers have turned out to be within margins of errors. This is particularly the case for tank kills.
It is also worth noting that today the independent information group Volya Media estimated Russian losses dead at 60–66,000 dead and 112,000–124,000 wounded. For practical purposes, this effectively matches official AGS estimates of Russian dead to date. Further, data from a purportedly leaked FSB report leaked today: “unrecoverable” Russian losses (dead and severely wounded) number more than 90,000 — again, very close to the Ukrainian official numbers.
According to the AGS, the shoot downs took place in 18 minutes from 0840 to 0852 as the helicopters were trying to give fire support to RF troops. One helicopter crashed in Russian lines and the other three, supposedly, are in no-man’s land. Comment on what weapon or UAF soldiers did this in the “Stuff for Ukraine” section. Two images communicating air war success from Ukraine’s defense ministry, attached. Once again, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry is the sole source of this report, so far.
The more easily confirmed development is this: the big, bad, nasty Russian missile and kamikaze drone barrage started two days ago is pretty much over, much of what got blown up is already fixed, and either the Russians are now ruthlessly collecting battle damage information and deciding what to do next, or, they once again have run out of missiles.
That Ukrane’s skies were quiet Tuesday night and Wednesday until (so far) late afternoon is just a fact, no missile launches or strikes reported period, with the exception of a seven missile S-300 salvo at Zaporizhia. As you will recall an S-300 is an anti-aircraft missile the Russians sometimes use for inaccurate bombardments. The general opinion is, they do that because they don’t have enough real surface-to-surface missiles in inventory.
Zaporizhia regional defense commander Oleksandr Starukh told media in a press statement made public shortly after midnight. Two missiles hit the city center and five flew into suburbs. One weapon partially destroyed a residential building and rescuers pulled three people out of the rubble. Two S-300 missiles blasted craters in a farm field, Starukh said. Also, In Dnipro the regional defense command in the early afternoon reported a single explosion, but by evening it still wasn’t obvious what that was.
What was abundantly clear, however, that a huge, order of magnitude drop of RF missile and suicide drone launches, as compared to Monday and Tuesday, took place on Wednesday.
Over the 48 hours they were firing, the Kremlin using ships, bombers, and ground carriers to launch approximately 120–130 cruise missiles and 70 kamikaze drones at Ukraine. These weapons killed 20 people and injured 100 (counts are ongoing). In a couple of cities the power was shut off for more than a day, in five or six cities the power grid was damaged or degraded somewhat. The power in the worst-hit city, Lviv, was on by Wednesday morning. In most places the Ukrainians got the grid working fully, again, in a couple of hours.
Before and after pix of the street intersection downtown that got missiled, attached. It took the Ukrainians a little more than 24 hours to fix that hole. Video attached of the strike not too far from Klovska metro station. The thing the Russians were probably trying to hit, and missed, was that big tall office building.
Pro-Russia information platforms claimed that almost all of the weapons got through to hit purely military targets, but the AGS said no, actually, more than anything else these weapons were just shot down. How many? According to the official Ukrainian numbers, October 10–11 showed more military aircraft shot down in a war, over two days, than since World War Two.
Seriously. According to kill claim counts published in the AGS’ daily situation estimate, during the two-day Russian bombardment Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) units reported they destroyed 66 RF cruise missiles, along with 37 of the smaller, Iran-manufactured kamikaze drones.
It is of course possible the fact that Wednesday saw basically zero missiles and kamikaze drones, is a brilliant Putin plan to lull the Ukrainians into a false sense of confidence. Or, the Russians realized this kind of destruction for the results obtained is just not sustainable.
There is no small amount of anecdotal imagery to support the argument that, actually, this big missile and drone bombardment was an air war bloodbath for Russia. Images posted in social media by AFU soldiers have documented shoot-downs in Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa and Dnipro regions. I talked to a person who saw the Kyiv kill. One gunner made public a video of a pair of RF missiles shot down within seconds of each other, by air defenses in the Krivoi Rih. Image of that attached.
Some clever Ukrainian military buffs even figured out the Russians were using a missile to spoof Ukrainian army radars, several images attached.
The Odesa regional defense command, the first line air defense belt against weapons incoming from RF-controlled Crimea and the Kuban and the Black Sea and Caspian regions, claimed that on Tuesday alone Ukrainian gunners destroyed 16 Kh-101 or X-555 high-tech air-launched missiles, and 12 Kaliber ship-launched missiles. Due to imported internal components each $6.5 million missile is arguably irreplaceable to the Kremlin, while the Kh-101, also foreign component dependent, costs $13 million a pop. The X-555 is older and cheaper, but you get the point: that’s a lot of money and rare weaponry to expend, for some pretty limited results. That could be another reason there were no missiles on Wednesday.
Mykolaiv regional defense command head Vitaly Kim said this about what Russian intentions and their missile bombardment:
“(T)here are several possible explanations. The first is that the Russians seek to keep us in basements and shelters…The second possibility is that they are testing our anti-aircraft defence. Where are our weak spots that can be hit massively. We understand that, too…And the third reason may be that they are just illogical idiots, which is also a very likely scenario”.
Image attached of Guilio Douhet attached, in case any reader of this review finds him or herself in charge of a nation state and in a position to consider strategic aerial bombardment as a rational and effective tool of state policy, and doesn’t want to risk getting called an illogical idiot by a guy like Vitaly Kim.
The fighting
Meanwhile, the ground war hasn’t stopped. On Tuesday there were reports the Russians launched “a heavy counteroffensive” towards Lyman, but this may have been a vapor attack existing in the internet only. However, UAF sources said the Russians definitely attacked around Kupyansk, Zaitsevo and Novomyhailivka — that’s Kharkiv, Donbass and Kherson sectors respectively — without making much progress.
In the south, the Ukrainians reportedly are gaining ground: Novovasylivka, Novohryhorivka, Nova Kam’yanka, Tryfonivka and Chervone all reportedly were liberated in the last 48 hours.
British military intelligence in its daily report noted that RF forces are advancing towards Bakhmuta at the pace of a “a kilometer a week”, and even pro-Russian information feeds like WarGonzo are saying the price to go forwards is bloody.
Also, HIMARS are still at it. Image attached of bases and troop concentrations hit, Oct. 3–9. Also attached, a “message” image of some HIMARS rockets soon to be launched.
Stuff for Ukraine
The general opinion of the blogosphere here is that the main outcome of the Russians’ missile attacks will be to accelerate delivery of advanced US air defense systems to Ukraine, although there are varying schools of thought as to whether that will be Patriot, NASAMS, more Stingers, or maybe even Vulcan cannon.
It is probably but not for sure coincidental, but two days ago the Germans announced that the first four IRIS-T SLM air defense systems were going to be in Ukraine “in a few days”. This is an excellent missile effectively the same as the shorter-range air-to-air missiles used by NATO combat jets, so it’s got top-end acquisition radars and anti-jamming stuff aboard, and by any measure it’s reasonable to expect an Iris-T missile would knock down a Ka-52 with no problem.
But if it’s a stretch to believe the Ukrainians shot down four RF attack helicopters in less than 20 minutes, it’s even more of an ask to believe a spiffy high-end German system the Ukrainians have been waiting for for about a half year, did the work. Two images of an IRIS-T SLM attached, one in Sweden, one very recent on the Polish border with Ukraine.
Mobilization
According to Radio Svoboda, at least 500 reservists sent to the elite Tamanskaya Division recorded a complaint about lack of equipment, non-existent training, bad leadership, and rotten living quarters.
The Kremlin, in the form of spokesman spokesman Dmitry Peskov, on Wednesday stated that the mobilization was going forward as is and that more waves of call-ups are not planned.
Meanwhile, the hacking group Anonymous published more than 300,000 individual names of Russian citizens with past military training on the potential mobilization list. I’d be willing to be some RF bureaucrat angry about the whole mess just leaked it all, but I have no proof of that.
So we know it probably wasn’t a truck bomb
The Kremlin is pulling out all the stops to explain to the Russian public that a truck bomb possibly driven by a suicidal terrorist was responsible for the attack on the Kerch bridge, and has been energetically placing “evidence” of the “bomber’s origin, his links to the Ukrainian secret services, images of the ignored X-ray of the truck that police should have looked at, his known associates, etc.
However, sharp-eyed Ukrainian internet users, and not just Ukrainian, have pointed out differences between the truck in the pictures provided by the FSB and the truck in the X-ray the FSB says proves that a couple of lazy policemen, and in no way shape or form the Ukrainians or the Kremlin, should be blamed for the bridge blast. Specifically, the X-ray shows a spare tire, the photo does not, and there are other differences: the truck frame, the trailer shape and even the axle count. Over all, it looks like the truck in the photo is American-make and the truck in the X-ray is European make.
Rule of thumb in East European journalism: When we have pretty good indications the FSB is manufacturing evidence, that is a pretty good cue to look for some other explanation that what the FSB is arguing. Image attached.
There is also a convoluted chain-of-custody story the FSB is pushing that the truck was in Bulgaria at one point and that Ukrainian agents hired the truck and driver in Armenia, but who cares?
