Ukraine Invasion: Part 29

[MagicFox]

Welcome all, part 29

Key Takeaways

Ukrainian forces are likely preparing to launch, or have already launched, a counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast.

Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov indicated that Colonel General Sergey Kuzovlev is the acting commander of the Southern Military District.

Russian forces conducted limited reconnaissance operations east of Bakhmut and continued limited ground attacks northwest of Slovyansk, east of Siversk, and south of Bakhmut.

The Kremlin continued to form regional volunteer battalions and likely intends to have 16 such battalions formed by the end of July.

Russian occupation authorities are continuing to prepare for referenda on the annexation of occupied areas into the Russian Federation and are taking measures to isolate occupied areas from the non-Russian information space.

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⚡️ Energy Ministry: Power restored to over 20,000 Ukrainians on July 23.

⚡️ RFE/RL: West may supply up to 30 precision rocket launch systems to Ukraine.
The U.S. and its Western allies are evaluating the possibility of delivering 25-30 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems to Ukraine, U.S. Congressman Adam Smith told RFE/RL

⚡️ Health Minister: Russian forces destroy 127 Ukrainian hospitals since start of war.

⚡️Politico: 4 foreign fighters, including 2 Americans, a Canadian and Swede killed in eastern Ukraine.

⚡️The new tactics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the use of the M142 HIMARS brought the US military into complete shock
Namely, the movement of "empty" missiles between caches hidden in different places, scattered over several hundred kilometers.
Such a tactic of combat with HIMARS has not yet been used by any army in the world that has these MLRS. [grins the armies of the world are going to be analyzing Ukrainian tactics for a long time to come!]

✅British Stormer HVM air defense systems are already protecting our skies.

⚡️Bulgarian Prime Minister Kirill Petkov will visit Azerbaijan in the near future to reach an agreement on increasing supplies of Azerbaijani gas

💪 Near Lysychansk, the Armed Forces of Ukraine covered the fire of the Russian invaders who had just arrived for the rotation. We are talking about the detachment of the Sakhalin mobile detachment of special purpose. Destroyed at least 12 representatives of the enemy special forces, said the head of the Luhansk region Serhii Haidai [a mention of the Far Eastern forces who have been taken to Ukraine]

❌ Near the temporarily occupied Melitopol, a railway track was blown up at night, local media reported [it can be replaced but it's all attrition. Ru forces depend heavily on the railways to transport their military stuff]

📊 According to Ukrainian journalists, Russia spends about $400 million a day on the war with Ukraine

officers killed

The new tactics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the use of the M142 HIMARS brought the US military into complete shock
Namely, the movement of "empty" missiles between caches hidden in different places, scattered over several hundred kilometers.
Such a tactic of combat with HIMARS has not yet been used by any army in the world that has these MLRS. [grins the armies of the world are going to be analyzing Ukrainian tactics for a long time to come!]

Ummm..without wishing to grumble and whilst agreeing it's a good idea to try and throw the enemy off the scent there might be a bit of spin in that statement.

Whilst the tactic of moving ordnance or items pretending to be ordnance may not been used specifically with HIMARS/MLRs before, engaging in some sort of shell game with high some high value systems or components thereof to confuse enemy targeting isn't a new concept..

Thank you Ijsbear for your takeaways.

^The new tactics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the use of the M142 HIMARS brought the US military into complete shock
Namely, the movement of "empty" missiles between caches hidden in different places, scattered over several hundred kilometers.
Such a tactic of combat with HIMARS has not yet been used by any army in the world that has these MLRS. [grins the armies of the world are going to be analyzing Ukrainian tactics for a long time to come!]^

@notimagain Today 10:47

Ummm..without wishing to grumble and whilst agreeing it's a good idea to try and throw the enemy off the scent there might be a bit of spin in that statement.

Whilst the tactic of moving ordnance or items pretending to be ordnance may not been used specifically with HIMARS/MLRs before, engaging in some sort of shell game with high some high value systems or components thereof to confuse enemy targeting isn't a new concept.

I was wondering what that paragraph all meant, then saw your post notimagain - it is about making distracting decoys, if I’ve understood. They must be proud and want to boost their soldiers’ moral, but mightn’t it be better to keep that information to themselves so as to keep the trick working?

@notimagain I thought the statement was a bit hyperbolic! :)

There have been reports that with all the different systems and ammunition sent to Ukraine, there is a total tangle now of the wrong stuff being delivered or the right stuff being very far away. Given that the deliveries will probably have not been straightforward (to avoid being targetted by the Russians), this sounds very feasible. I did mildly wonder if some HIMARS ammunition had been mis-sent to various places!

Having said that the HIMARS are guarded like gold and their use very heavily monitored by the US, so perhaps not

📣 EU agrees to buy additional gas from Nigeria – Reuters

The Deputy Director General of the European Commission's Department of Energy visited Nigeria and held meetings with officials from this largest oil producer in Africa.

(this has a pile of problems all its own too mind you)

ACE

Ukraine NOW
@UkraineNowMedia
·
2h
🗣️Adam Smith, chairman of the US House Armed Services Committee, said the White House and allies will transfer up to 30 more HIMARS and MLRS systems to Ukraine. Moreover, there are talks about a large amount of ammunition for them.

I didn't do my checking

www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-30-precision-rocket-systems-smith/31956827.html

"The goal is to transfer more so that Ukr has 25-30 in all"

More about the Russian missiles targeting Odessa yesterday. It seems they did not actually hit the grain store, but port infrastructure. This nevertheless hardly inspires confidence in the agreement with Russia regarding Ukraine being able to resume exporting grain.

^Odesa: Outrage as Russian missiles strike port one day after grain export deal agreed - CNN%

www.cnn.com/2022/07/23/europe/russia-ukraine-odesa-strike-grain-exports-intl/index.html

The fig-leaf Russia is using seems to be the claim that they fired exclusively at military targets, and that the ship which was sunk was a naval vessel, a patrol boat. The man reporting on this for the BBC World Service last night/this morning said that it didn't look much like a patrol boat to him, but I haven't been able to find any footage showing it.

Their immediate reply to Turkish diplomats was "we did do it". They should practice getting their stories straight... although I'm not even sure they care anymore, the whole world knows that they're lying, so they're not even trying that hard to cover it up.

Foreign Minister courting the Arab world now.

Im concerned that the war is dropping out of the main stream media now.

Love Podolyak. He commented Lavrov's speech in Egypt as "classic Russian schizophrenia". He said "Lavrov's announcements today is a good reminder why you shouldn't stay under the sun too long without your head covevered. Classic Russian schizophrenia - in the morning Russia announces that it's ready for peace talks, and by the evening that their goal is to get rid of "anti-people Kyiv regime". Current Ukrainian government was elected through honest, competitive democratic elections, but Russian elite doesn't know such words."

Interesting article from WSJ:

www.wsj.com/articles/russia-ukraine-kazakhstan-central-asia-11658439761

Putin’s Unexpected Challenge: Snubs From His Central Asian Allies
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has Kazakhstan and its neighbors rethinking alliances and reaching out to the U.S.
July 24, 2022

At the start of the year, Russia dispatched more than 2,000 troops to its longtime ally Kazakhstan to help put down violent antigovernment unrest. Six weeks later, when Russian troops stormed into Ukraine, Kazakhstan had an opportunity to repay the favor by supporting the invasion.

It didn’t.

Instead, Kazakhstan has joined other Central Asian countries along Russia’s southern frontier in staying neutral on the invasion, leaving Belarus as the only ex-Soviet state that has offered full-throated support. Kazakhstan has promised to enforce Western sanctions against Moscow, said it would boost oil exports to Europe via routes that bypass Russia, upped its defense budget and hosted a U.S. delegation meant to coax the Central Asian country closer to Washington’s orbit.

The growing distance between Moscow and its largest ally in Central Asia represents an unexpected challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin. For decades since the fall of the Soviet Union, Moscow has worked to maintain influence across Central Asia through military and economic alliances with its former sister republics. Chief among them is Kazakhstan, an oil-rich country larger than the size of Western Europe. The two countries share a 4,750-mile border, the world’s second longest frontier after the U.S.-Canada border.
Peacekeepers returning to Russia from Kazakhstan in January.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a fellow former Soviet republic that shares a lot of similarities with Kazakhstan—is changing that relationship. Now Kazakhstan is rethinking Russia’s privileged position in its foreign policy and reaching out to countries like the U.S., Turkey and China, according to interviews with current and former Kazakh officials, lawmakers and analysts.
...
Sayasat Nurbek, a Kazakh lawmaker, invoked a Siberian fairy tale about how chipmunks got their stripes to explain Kazakhstan’s reasoning. A bear and a chipmunk were friends, the story goes, and the bear in a good mood petted the chipmunk’s back, but scraped it with his claws.

“The moral of this tale is: if you are a friend of the bear—even if you are the best friend, even if he is in a good mood—always watch your back,” Mr. Nurbek said.
...
After the invasion, the rhetoric is being taken seriously, particularly since Kazakhstan is the only Central Asian nation that borders Russia. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan all lie to the south of Kazakhstan. None have supported the invasion, and Uzbekistan has publicly said it would not recognize the breakaway Donbas republics.

Kazakhstan also has increased its own defense budget by 441 billion tenge, or about $918 million.

Part of the money would go to increasing Kazakhstan’s military reserves, a senior official said. Kazakhstan has also learned lessons from Ukraine’s fierce resistance, the official added, namely that it must reform its army to be more mobile and adept at combating hybrid warfare, which employs a mix of conventional warfare and methods like cyberwar, disinformation and election meddling.

While some in the West say Russia’s military has been exposed as a paper tiger, one senior official from a Central Asian country said that fear is only growing over Russia’s ambitions. “It’s one thing when they deal with so many others and they have Eastern Europeans and Ukraine to spend their time abusing,” the official said. “Imagine if they don’t have Ukraine to abuse. Are we going to be next?”

@blueshoes · Today 00:02
Interesting article from WSJ:

www.wsj.com/articles/russia-ukraine-kazakhstan-central-asia-11658439761

That is interesting. They are being brave I think. What a good story that is about the chipmunk.

Key Takeaways

Ukrainian officials are increasingly acknowledging Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in Kherson Oblast.

The Kremlin is facing mounting (if still very limited) domestic dissent from ethnic minorities who are disproportionately bearing the burden of the Russian war in Ukraine.

Russian forces attempted limited ground assaults northwest of Slovyansk, east of Siversk, and south of Bakhmut on July 24.

Ukrainian strikes have damaged all three Russian-controlled bridges leading into Kherson City within the past week.

Russian forces attempted limited ground assaults in Kherson Oblast.

The Kremlin continued constituting regional volunteer battalions and is leveraging private military companies’ recruitment drives to generate combat power.

Russian occupation authorities continued setting conditions for annexation referenda in occupied territories and are recruiting Russian civilians for reconstruction efforts.

www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-24

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‼️China warned the US of possible military response
to the spokesperson of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. [oh, hell]

⚡️ Ukraine’s military destroys Russian command post, ammunition depots in southern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Operational Command “South” reported on July 24 that it killed 66 Russian troops and destroyed five tanks, two howitzers, an anti-tank missile system, and 12 armored and military vehicles.

⚡️Human Rights Watch: Russia tortures, abducts civilians in occupied areas of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

❗️Several hundred of the Russian contract servicemen who refused to continue to fight against the Ukrainian Armed Forces are being held captive in the cellars of the town of Brianka in Luhansk region.
They are held in awful conditions and are subjected to beatings meant to force them back to the frontline, reports the Insider, referring to the relatives of captive soldiers. Military Command of the Russian Federation claims that it did not authorize the detention. The relatives were informed that the servicemen were detained by the "soldiers from Luhansk," although they are aware that those who refused to fight are guarded by the Vagner Group mercenaries.

‼️The Russians have killed at least 18 Ukrainian healthcare professionals since February 24, reports the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.
Additionally, at least 50 doctors were injured. Moreover, during the last five months of the war, Russia destroyed 123 healthcare facilities which now cannot be restored. 746 more facilities are currently in need of restoration.

❗️Local entrepreneurs of the temporarily occupied Kherson are forced to register their business in Russia which requires obtaining a Russian passport.

⚡️The tobacco company Philip Morris International Inc
likely won't be able to exit the Russian market until the end of 2022.

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Couple more days and the Ukranian count of Ru dead will be up to 40k.

There were however very sad reports that an outstanding Ukrainian commander was killed

Tim White

#Ukraine has lost one of its most successful Commanders. Vitaliy Gulyaev died from rocket fire in the #Mykolaiv region yesterday.

The commander of the 28th brigade, stopped #Russia's advance in the south, pushing them back in #Mykolaiv and #Kherson.

Re Pelosi, I thought Biden had nixed the visit?!

To say Ive had a lot on lately would be an understatement. Not had headspace for twitter.

Phillips P OBrien AT PhillipsPObrien
All anecdotal at this stage, but there seem to be reports that the Ukrainians are adding more and more troop concentration points to their target list for their better ranged weapons. Broadening it out from logistics and command and control.

The Kyiv Independent AT kyivindependent
Governor: Ukrainian forces kill 12 Russian soldiers from elite unit.

According to Luhansk Oblast Governor Serhiy Haidai, Ukrainian artillery shelled positions of Russia’s OMON, a special police unit within the National Guard, near the Russia-occupied Lysychansk, killing 12.

Phillips P OBrien AT PhillipsPObrien
Another report. A location used as a barracks behind the lines, was safe for months, not now.

Euromaidan Press AT euromaidanpress
Also, Luhansk Oblast Head Serhii Haidai reported that yesterday a building "where the Russian military was stationed" was destroyed in occupied Kadiivka - locals say it was the Stakhanov Polytechnic College where Russians took up residence 3 months ago

They were targeting the ammo depos deep in occupied space. Now moving onto barracks from the sound of this.

Good to see you @RedToothBrush !

This is not good.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62287502

I suppose it just follows the well-known and much-practised ploy of accusing others of what you are doing yourself, but it's a nasty development.

They were targeting the ammo depos deep in occupied space. Now moving onto barracks from the sound of this.

They targeted some barracks early on, but it wasn't as high a priority as other targets. In this case it was a barracks for new recruits, probably to discourage others from signing up and to up the fear level generally. The article is from the 2nd of July.

babel.ua/en/news/80890-the-ukrainian-military-told-journalists-about-the-results-of-the-first-week-of-using-himars

Welcome back, Redtoothbrush, whenever you can spare the time. Appreciate life gets in the way.

It is not great to target barracks specifically because of the high loss of life but heck, it is a legitimate military target and a necessary one to further undermine Russian troop morale towards a 'gesture of goodwill' from Russia.

@Ijsbear thanks for the key takeaways.

❗️Several hundred of the Russian contract servicemen who refused to continue to fight against the Ukrainian Armed Forces are being held captive in the cellars of the town of Brianka in Luhansk region.

They are held in awful conditions and are subjected to beatings meant to force them back to the frontline, reports the Insider, referring to the relatives of captive soldiers. Military Command of the Russian Federation claims that it did not authorize the detention. The relatives were informed that the servicemen were detained by the "soldiers from Luhansk," although they are aware that those who refused to fight are guarded by the Vagner Group mercenaries.

This is so f_cked up. Russia has to pay eye-watering sums to lure contract servicemen to fight in Ukraine and on top of that, pay Wagner mercenaries to detain and torture these servicemen to continue to fight once they are there and realise what a mess Ukraine is. All this time, Russia is lying to the servicemen's relatives because essentially, these men are being forced into battle and will likely die or be maimed by Ukraine or Wagner thugs. Or even shot by their officers.

‼️The Russians have killed at least 18 Ukrainian healthcare professionals since February 24, reports the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.

Additionally, at least 50 doctors were injured. Moreover, during the last five months of the war, Russia destroyed 123 healthcare facilities which now cannot be restored. 746 more facilities are currently in need of restoration.

Unconscionable. Every single one a war crime. Cannot imagine what is it like to lose 123 healthcare facilities. An entire hospital will take ages to rebuild. Doctors and medics were helping the sick and injured - to kill and injure them is just evil. I don't even know how doctors and hospitals can operate, particularly if there is no constant supply of electricity or medicine.

#Ukraine has lost one of its most successful Commanders. Vitaliy Gulyaev died from rocket fire in the #Mykolaiv region yesterday.

The commander of the 28th brigade, stopped #Russia's advance in the south, pushing them back in #Mykolaiv and #Kherson.

So sad. Died defending his country. What a loss.

This is not of great strategic importance, but it's an amusing tale of how the FSB got "played" by a group of Ukrainian volunteers, revealing Russian sources, methods, and agents.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1551535542180929536.html

@MissConductUS · Today 18:05
This is not of great strategic importance, but it's an amusing tale of how the FSB got "played" by a group of Ukrainian volunteers, revealing Russian sources, methods, and agents.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1551535542180929536.html

How extraordinary that all is.