Ukraine War, 3-4 May 2022
Good morning everybody!
Here’s my review of most important developments in the Ukraine War for 3 and 4 May 2022.
STRATEGIC
In the light of the latest Russian TV-exercise with nuclear weapons — indeed, of the Putin’s PRBS-machinery airing simulations of nuclear strikes on Berlin, Paris and London — there’s lots of discussion in the social media about at which point is the West legally becoming a party in this war, if we should not stop supporting Ukraine etc.
Sorry people, but — for those in the rearmost row: Putin doesn’t give a damn about international laws and regulations. He launched- and is running a war of extermination in Ukraine not because of the UN Charter, or paragraph 17 of the Law XY, but because he is convinced he can yield higher profits by destroying Ukraine, than the war costs Russia — in terms of human losses, in terms of material losses, and in terms of economic damage — and thus him, too (him: in monetary terms).
Putin launched this aggression; he is the only one who can stop it at any time, negotiations or no negotiations — and, have no doubts, Putin would attack Moldova, and Finland, and Sweden and any other neutral county in Europe, if he only could (he wouldn’t dare attacking any of NATO members, because he knows he can’t win such a war). He can’t — because over 90% of his armed forces are neck-deep involved in Ukraine, and suffering massive losses there. Thus, please, be so kind and spare me of discussions about what should we do not, how we should negotiate and save peace, how wrong and aggressive it is to support Ukraine and all the similar daydreaming….
Another ‘main topic’ in the media of the last few days seem to be predictions that Putin’s going to officially declare war on Ukraine and launch a general mobilisation. I’m not into predicting future, but into analysis. Precisely because of this, I doubt both of these ideas. Putin does not recognise Ukraine as a sovereign state, nor as a nation: why should he then declare it a war?
And, he’s not going to announce a general mobilisation, because
a) he cannot afford it,
b) it would only put additional strain upon the massively weakened RFA, and
c) he cannot predict the public reaction, which in turn would be a gamble on his hold to power.
The latter is particularly important at the time there are ever more ‘spontaneous fires/special combustions’ destroying highly important installations all over Russia. Instead, I assess him as being satisfied with holding over 20% of Ukraine under control; keeping both Ukraine and Russia ‘busy’ with cruise missile strikes, savaging the Ukrainian economy, announcing the country for both ‘disarmed’ and ‘de-nazified’, exercising pressure by nuclear-blackmails upon the West (and EU/NATO in particular), and continuing with a sort of ‘covert mobilisation’ of reservists in poorest parts of the Russian Federation.
RUMINT has it that up to 75% of NATO-supplied howitzers calibre 155mm (and 200,000+ rounds of related ammunition) are already in Ukraine, and indeed: deployed in combat.
AIR
Except for concentrating the majority of its troops in some 3–5 zones, the RFA is also concentrating the mass of its air defence assets in the same 3–5 zones. Of course, the biggest such concentration can be found in the Izium area, where it’s protecting a concentration of 20+ depleted BTGs (which, for reasons listed below, is going to decrease in the coming days). Have seen numerous videos shown deployment of advanced mobile radars for detection of low-flying aircraft and helicopters, and 9K37M3 Buk-M3 (SA-17 Grizzly) SAM-systems there, the last few days. In this fashion, the Russians seem to seek the way to create ‘anti-access’ zones for the Ukrainian Air Force — which they’ve declared for destroyed already back in mid-March.
Of the VKS aircraft, the most active the last 7–10 days were Su-25s. These can be seen on dozens of videos underway at extremely low altitudes, mostly in the Donetsk area.
Late on 3 May, Russia targeted train stations and electrical substations in Dnipro, Kirovohrad, Lviv (three facilities), Vinnytsia, Odessa (the route from Romania), and in Volovets, in the Zakarpattia region. The electrical substation in Volovets was back in operation a few hours later and overall: much of the Ukrainian railway network was never electrified, and thus strikes of this kind have only short-term effects.
Another wave of Russian cruise missiles — Kyiv reported a total of 18 — came in during the night from 4 to 5 May. Eight of these were claimed as shot down, including one in the Brovary area, west of Kyiv; another hit a residential neighbourhood in the centre of Kramatorsk, injuring 25; two have hit Lviv. Here I’m still trying to find out about details, and this section of the summary might get updated, later today and tomorrow.
Overall, the Ukrainians claimed the downing of two Russian fighter jets (including one Su-30), two Orlan-10 UAVs, and three cruise missiles on 4 May.
BATTLE OF DONBASS
For all practical purposes, this battle is now in a state of a stalemate — with two minor exceptions. Starting on 1 May, the Ukrainian forces have launched another counteroffensive north and north-east of Kharkiv. As far as can be said by now, they have liberated Molodava and Ruska Lozova, and are in the process of liberating Stary Saltiv (indeed, the RIA Novosti meanwhile confirmed the Russian withdrawal from this town). I.e. in the coming days, we can expect the Ukrainians to liberate all of their soil west of Doniets.
Nevertheless, the Russians continue rocketing northern Kharkiv with BM-27s and BM-30s at every opportunity: that is, until this morning, when they ceased and began targeting advancing Ukrainian troops instead (just for example: as late as of the last week, they would shell and rocket Kharkiv 7–8 times a day; the last few days it was ‘two times a day’, today it’s zero in most of Kharkiv, but some shelling in the north).
In the Izium area, the Russians are building-up their air defences, but seem to be in the process of withdrawing some of BTGs and re-deploying them to the Severodonetsk area, where up to 19 BTGs have been identified by now.
Further east… well, as far as I can assess, the Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the northern bank of Doniets: not sure about the situation in Lyman…Yampil is — at least — ‘largely’ under the Russian control, and the troops there withdrew to Ozerne, and there is a bitter battle raging there, too: both sides have suffered heavy losses and the Ukrainians seem not to be in full control of the latter place any more.
That was about the only serious Russian advance of the last few days: I think it might become the last serious RFA advance in this war, too.
Continuous shelling is reported almost everywhere from Rubizhne to Severodonetsk and down the LOC. Avdiivka and Marinka have been hit heavily the last two days, but there’s no change in regards of frontlines. Ukrainians have reported about two dozens of additional assaults over the last two days, but I would say that there was no major attack, actually. Instead, the Russians seem to be mopping up the areas they have captured the last few days. For example, inside Popasna, combatants of the Wagner PMC are now trying to systematically isolate Ukrainian strongpoints and then force Ukrainian troops to surrender. Here’s a drone-captured video of one case where they were successful.
MARIUPOL
Hard on the heels of the second evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal complex, on Tuesday, 3 May (in which 300 people were evacuated), the Russians launched a massive assault on the same. Tu-22M3 bombers hit the complex with free-fall bombs, and then the Separatist ground forces assaulted from the north-east. As far as is known about developments of yesterday, 4 May, the Russians have broken into the works. For a while at least, the situation was really critical, and the defenders suffered quite some losses, too. However, eventually the Marines, Azov and TD units have pushed the assailants out. Indeed, this morning, the Keystone Cops in Moscow announced a 10-hours-long cease-fire, supposedly to enable evacuation of remaining civilians.
I expect the RFA to do everything possible to overrun Azovstal by 9 May — for obvious reasons.
SOUTH
The offensive of the 58th CAA was stalled, and Zusko withdrew whatever was left of the 70th MRR from Velyka Novosilka.
East of Dnipro: well, the offensive of the 49th CAA wasn’t ever really launched. Instead, the Russians are now concentrating on taking control of Ukrainian civilian communications. For example: they are blocking services of local internet- and TV-operators, and incorporating the occupied territories into their own information space. With other words: the population is to get cut off from Ukraine.
