Ukraine Invasion: Part 30

[MagicFox]

We're now on our 30th thread, thanks as usual to all who contribute.

Good article on if Putin will use tactical nunclear weopons www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-worried-should-we-be-about-nuclear-war-

Broken link @Ijsbear :-)

worked for me but ill repost it www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-worried-should-we-be-about-nuclear-war-

www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-worried-should-we-be-about-nuclear-war-

Mb76
I am also finding myself hating them all, it’s been a long time coming. I don’t know how to live with this hatred in my heart.

I am also finding myself with hatred in my heart, though I have nothing like as much as your reason for doing so.

Somehow I am managing to direct it only at two distinct groups: the Russian leadership, and the barbaric Nazi-style soldiers committing rape and torture and murder of innocents (I doubt that this is all Russian soldiers; many seem to me to be victims of their leadership, really, particularly the young recruits who had no idea what they were getting into). I don't hate Russia, and I don't hate the Russian people, yet at least; I sincerely pity what is probably the majority them for their debased condition, kept in ignorance and uninformed, treated as serfs were in the middle ages in most of Europe, with no way to get out of a subsistence level of existence except by joining the army, and with so little hope of anything ever getting better. They need rescuing, ultimately, however much they may swallow the Kremlin's propaganda because it is all they have available to believe.

Reports tonight of gun fire within Kherson City tonight.

Apparently it's the Russians making a propaganda film for the domestic audience.

And to scare the locals

Another possibility is that its different Russian allied troops fighting with each other. In their mad rush to fortify Kherson, the Russians brought in regular army troops, Rosgvardiya (national guard/riot police), DPR, LPR, and Chechen units. All have separate chains of command. Given their rather dire supply situation, it wouldn't surprise me if they're now fighting over food, ammunition, and medical supplies.

This type of conflict has happened before, by the way.

twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1561374457893195776

You may recall that a month or two ago, there was an incident in Kherson when the FSB confronted two Russian troops who were drinking in uniform, and a gun battle ensued.

It's also standard practice for the Russians to deploy the Chechens with the mission of shooting any Russian troops who try to surrender or desert. Given that the Russians in Kherson haven't been resupplied in any significant way for over a month, I imagine that many Russian troops would like to surrender or desert. Killing the Chechens would be the first step.

It doesn't sound like a good place to make a film at the moment.

This piece of footage is doing the rounds ATM, it's supposedly of tonight's events and it does look rather like live ordnance is involved....

twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1571211376122646532?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1571226672493469697%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=

It doesn't sound like a good place to make a film at the moment.

Yep, unless it is a cowboy Western.

If I were a Russian soldier, I would so kill the Chechens before I am forced to fight and be killed in a losing battle. Some tough choices to be made here of the least bad alternative.

Yes, indeed. It is hard to know what is going on from the clip. Could it be an ambush?

Apparently there are a lot of Chechens in Kherson atm.

Yup, that's live fire, alright. In the first video, you can see the muzzle flashes from a vehicle-mounted heavy machine gun at 51 seconds. One of the reply tweets says it's the Chechens (Kadyrovs) fighting Wagner troops. I had forgotten about Wagner in Kherson.

I don't think it's too bold to say that Russian unit cohesion and the chain of command in Kherson has collapsed at this point.

Thanks for the link, @notimagain.

One of the reply tweets says it's the Chechens (Kadyrovs) fighting Wagner troops

Oh good. I hope they now capture and torture each other in basement torture chambers. That will keep them busy until Ukraine arrives.

This is a lovely bit of bad news for the Kremlin. Last weekend, Kharkiv, this weekend, Russian allied troops killing each other. More evidence of the utter fragility of the Russian forces.

It's also vindication of the Ukrainian strategy of fooling the Russians into concentrating their forces in Kherson and then cutting off their ground lines of communication. I think the Russians didn't believe that HIMARS could disable the bridges. This was a very expensive lesson for them.

I almost forgot this setback for the Russians. The Ukrainians gutted the 1st Guards Tank Army, Russia's top armor formation. It's charged with the defense of Moscow, so it gets the best of everything.

A Hundred Wrecked Tanks In A Hundred Hours: Ukraine Guts Russia’s Best Tank Army

The MoD says it will take years to rebuild.

twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1569550041194405890

Failures like this have a way of cascading. No one wants to be the last Russian to die in Ukraine.

It'll be interesting to see how the situation in Kherson plays out over the next few days. The Russians cannot stabilize the situation or assert control because they can't get anyone in or out of the area.

More good news from the Telegraph:

Ukrainian soldiers have broken through Russia's frontline along the Oskil River, exposing an important supply route and swathes of territory that the Kremlin has promised to defend.
Fighting has focused on Kupiansk since Russian forces fled a surprise Ukrainian offensive around Kharkivv_ in northeast Ukraine last week but now military bloggers from both sides have said that Russia's defence has crumbled once again.
"Kupiansk has surrendered. The enemy is on the left bank of the Oskil," the pro-Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky told his 450,000 subscribers last night.
Western commentators confirmed the development. James Rushton, a British military analyst based in Ukraine, said he didn't think that Russian forces would be able to hold their defensive line along the Oskil River for much longer.
"The Ukrainians have already crossed it," he said. "Considering they now control all of Kupiansk, half of the city is on the eastern bank, any defensive line the Russians might try to form along the river is already very vulnerable."
Russian forces fled across the Oskil River, which runs north-south from central Russia into Ukraine, after a surprise Ukrainian offensive recaptured roughly 2,500 square miles of territory, an area nearly equal to the size of Devon.
Kupiansk and Izyum are the largest and most valuable towns captured by the Ukrainian military. Both were heavily fought over in the opening weeks of the war and the Russian army had used them as logistics bases for supplying its forces in Donbass_.
The British Ministry of Defence said that a Ukrainian breach of the Russian frontline along the Oskil River would humiliate the Kremlin, which has made capturing and then defending Luhansk a priority, and threaten its final logistics hub to Donbas from the Russian city of Belgorod.
This line sits along the border of Luhansk Oblast, part of the Donbas, which Russia aims to ‘liberate’ as one of its immediate war aims," it said. "Any substantial loss of territory in Luhansk will unambiguously undermine Russia’s strategy."
It added that "Russia will likely attempt a stubborn defence of this area, but it is unclear whether Russia's front line forces have sufficient reserves or adequate morale to withstand another concerted Ukrainian assault."
The Oskil River meanders south through fertile farmland in Ukraine before joining the Seversky Donets River which flows into Donbas. It lies 75 miles east of Kharkiv and 110 miles to the northwest of the city of Luhansk which pro-Russia rebels have controlled since an uprising in 2014 against the central government in Kyiv.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War also confirmed that Ukrainian forces had broken through Russia's northeastern frontline. "Russian forces are likely too weak to prevent further Ukrainian advances along the entire Oskil River," it said.
A video reportedly shot from a Ukrainian tank and uploaded onto Twitter was geolocated to Kupiansk on the east bank of the Oskil River.
It showed the smashed-up and destroyed city. On the left of the video footage lie the wrecks of two smouldering and seemingly abandoned Russian tanks, one painted with the letter Z which has become a Russian pro-war symbol.
Another video of a Ukrainian soldier celebrating the destruction of a Russian armoured personnel carrier has also been geolocated to the east bank of the Oskil River. "All will soon be Ukraine," the soldier says in the video. Russian forces have taken huge losses since the Kremlin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
The Pentagon has estimated that the Russian army has sustained at least 75,000 dead or injured, far greater than the Soviet Union's losses in a decade of fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Analysts have said the Russian army's rout from the Ukrainian offensive showed that it was exhausted, suffering from a breakdown around its command and control structures and that morale was poor.
And there is evidence from messages on the Telegram social media app that Russian soldiers are finding it hard to sustain their defence against Ukrainian attacks.
In one conversation leaked onto the Telegram social media app and reported by the BBC, one Russian officer apparently explained to a friend back home that he had lost two more sniper units and that losses were becoming unsustainable.
"You have no idea how tiring it is to say hello to someone in the morning and then have to identify his remains later that day," he said, according to the Telegram post.

Good article in The Times ref the sticky situation Putin finds himself in:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fear-and-loathing-in-the-kremlin-where-putin-writhes-in-his-own-trap-csxptgmzz

I have no experience that can contribute to this thread, but I am de-lurking as I wanted to say how much I appreciate all the regular posters who have kept me informed and up-to-date with Ukraine.

I have read all 30 threads and am so saddened there have been so many, but very appreciative of the insights offered and knowledge shared. I suspect there are many more like me who use this thread as the chief method of keeping abreast of the situation, please keep posting.

welcome @Tiredandbored !

About the video from Kherson - certainly one Khersonite thinks it was a propaganda video made for Russian TV!

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ISW Key Takeaways

Russian forces continue to prioritize strategically meaningless offensive operations around Donetsk City and Bakhmut over defending against continued Ukrainian counter-offensive operations in Kharkiv Oblast.

Ukrainian forces liberated a settlement southwest of Lyman and are likely continuing to expand their positions in the area.

Ukrainian forces continued to conduct an interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast.

Russian forces continued to conduct unsuccessful assaults around Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

Ukrainian sources reported extensive partisan attacks on Russian military assets and logistics in southern Zaporizhia Oblast.

Russian officials continued to undertake crypto-mobilization measures to generate forces for war Russian war efforts.

Russian authorities are working to place 125 “orphan” Ukrainian children from occupied Donetsk Oblast with Russian families.

[The ISW also came out with a scathing comment which sounded just a little gleeful to me: "The Russians cannot hope to make gains around Bakhmut or Donetsk City on a large enough scale to derail Ukrainian counteroffensives and appear to be continuing an almost robotic effort to gain ground in Donetsk Oblast that seems increasingly divorced from the overall realities of the theater].

+++

The Russian authorities have reportedly arrested Moscow Times journalist Kirill Ponomarev on suspicion of spying (ovd.news/express-news/2022/09/17/v-belgorode-zaderzhali-zhurnalista-moscow-times-po-podozreniyu-v-shpionazhe) for Ukraine after he apparently introduced himself as a Ukrainian correspondent when interviewing refugees from Ukraine in the Russian city of Belgorod.

⚡️ NATO: Sanctions begin to harm Russia's military industry.
Western sanctions are starting to hurt Russia's ability to make advanced weaponry for the war in Ukraine, Rob Bauer, who chairs NATO's Military Committee, told Reuters.

⚡️ IAEA: Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant restores connection to national grid.
Engineers have fixed one of the four main power lines of the plant damaged during the Russian occupation and reconnected it to the Ukrainian grid, the IAEA reported on Sept. 17.
"While (the plant's) power status has improved over the past week, the situation is still precarious," the IAEA tweeted.

⚡️Loud explosions reported in Russian-occupied Kherson......where a Russian military base is allegedly located.

⚡️Zelensky: Ukrainian army captured hundreds of Russian POWs during counter-offensive in Kharkiv Oblast.
He also said that Russia has more POWs than Ukraine. [the number of killed Ukrainians has been uncertain, though 10,000 has been mentioned by some high-ranking officers. This is the first time we have heard a comparison of POWs though, as far as I am aware.
I woudn't want to be a Ukrainain POW in Russian hands :/ ]

⚡️General Staff: Russian military prepares ways of retreat in Kherson Oblast.
Specifically, Russian troops sank nine railroad cars near the Kakhovka hydropower plant in order to build a crossing on the Dnieper, Ukraine's General Staff said.

⚡️Papal representative comes under fire near Ukraine's frontline in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
A bus with Polish-born Cardinal Konrad Krajewski and three other participants of a humanitarian mission was shelled, the Vatican News reported. [I admit to being amused and slightly impressed. Foreign officials of any sort rarely go into actual serious danger zones]

⚡️ Die Welt: Germany to allow delivery of 18 self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine.
According to Die Welt, the delivery would be ready in 2.5 years at the earliest as KMW only wanted to begin production once it got a clear signal from the government that the weapons could be exported to Ukraine.

⚡️General Staff: Russian units lost half of their troops when retreating from Kharkiv Oblast.
According to Ukraine’s General Staff, some units of the Russian lost “more than 50% of their personnel and more than 200 pieces of equipment” when retreating from Kharkiv Oblast. Russia’s 64th separate motorized rifle brigade had 90% of its troops either dead or wounded, or they refused to participate in hostilities, the General Staff said.

⚡️Governor: Russian shelling of Kharkiv Oblast kills four medics. The doctors were trying to evacuate patients from a psychiatric hospital in Strilecha village.

According to the governor, only 30 out of the hospital’s 600 patients were evacuated.

💪Spain has sent 5 cargo planes carrying ammunition for large-caliber artillery systems to Ukraine, reports the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

💪Partly recognized Taiwan have decided to cancel the visa free program for the Russian citizens that was introduced in 2018.

😏Janis Sarts, director of the NATO Strategic Communications Center, came to the conference in Warsaw wearing socks with the inscription “I am trampling on the rusnya”. [heh]

⚡️To hold the heating season in Luhansk Oblast will not be possible even in the case of deoccupation — Head of the Luhansk Oblast Administration Serhii Gaidai

📷 Liberated Vysokopillya is destroyed by 80%

📉 Vladimir Putin is gradually losing influence in the international arena – BBC, citing international political and military experts
That is why Russia benefits from the current confusion in the world with a series of regional conflicts that divert attention from its crimes in Ukraine and maintain the appearance of its own influence on the world order.

[I keep being amazed at how Russia itself has changed in 8 months: it was a smaller superpower, but there was a lot of respect for its military. Now it's isolated, even its allies India and China appear to have doubts about it (if the reports from the Samarkand conference are true) and its close allies are isolated, backward and poor nations.

Putin has been ruinous for Russia and yet they love him for it]

Im so afraid that Putin will go for nuclear strikes, a cornered rat will take any way out

You have to love that last line of the Forbes article:

"Ukraine has more tanks now than it did before the start of the current counteroffensives"

The ghost of that fear rises again doesn't it @thereisonlyoneofme

There are trained people writing about it and the summary is that it really isn't likely to happen, but one has to accept there is an outside chance.

Very high powered people in Washington and NATO are working on this, and the whole reason NATO didn't go into defend Ukraine was that chance. We have held back, at the cost (as a recent article says) of thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian civilian and military lives. Apparently Certain Things have been made clear to Putin and while he's a vicious rat, all the evidence is that he's not a suicidal one. In fact if there's one man who fights to survive, it's him (never mind that he spends other peoples' lives freely and even joyously, it seems).

It worries me too, specially late at night, but on the considerable balance of probabilities, the highly trained folk seem to think it's unlikely to happen.

Puton reminds me of Lord Farquaad in Shrek addressing the knights about to go into battle: "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make,"
In the meantime he's as far away from the front line as it's possible to be hiding behind long tables and bulletproof vests.