Ukraine Invasion: Part 34

[MagicFox]

Welcome all 🇺🇦

Mick Ryan thread about the depressing prospect of how the war is likely to grind on next year:

Recently, I have written how Russia’s strategy for Ukraine is evolving (again), as well as the potential impacts of winter. Looking beyond the next few months, what might Russia’s options be for 2023, and what are the vulnerabilities Ukraine can attack?

twitter.com/warinthefuture/status/1587601438053920768?s=61&t=qDo47JPYqNZnVnOnmjBqFQ

Little haul of interesting Twitter threads this morn

@bbc North and South Korea fire missiles off each other's coasts at the same time www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63481183

Shashank Joshi summarises Boris interview.
@shashj 🧵 Sky News has an interview with Boris Johnson on Ukraine out today. It's a very interesting discussion. Despite being asked repeatedly, he keeps a laser-like focus on Ukraine rather than his own political implosion & ambitions. A few highlights from the interview below: twitter.com/shashj/status/1587542520086642691?s=46&t=p3wPIdTX-4rEdN7iBnxnCQ

Thread by Igor Sushko promoting FSB whispers about a coup by Prigozhin and Kadyrov again. Not sure I'm convinced by this. twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1587466832839000064?s=46&t=p3wPIdTX-4rEdN7iBnxnCQ

@velinatchakarova I recommend this highly interesting CNN interview with India's Minister of Petroleum @HardeepSPuri in which he covers many important issues related to Russian oil & green transition. He rightfully points out that without Russian oil, prices will only go up twitter.com/vtchakarova/status/1587450019627548675?s=46&t=p3wPIdTX-4rEdN7iBnxnCQ

Sobering FT article on deglobalisation and geopolitics by Martin Wolf:

Geopolitics is the biggest threat to globalisation
The consequences of a great power rupture may be even worse now than during the cold war

www.ft.com/content/8954a5f8-8f03-4044-8401-f1efefe9791b

Feels like the worlds gone mad this morning with the misiles flying back and forward between North and South Korea, talk of an attack on Saudi Arabia by Iran potentially in the next 48 hours and Serbia putting its armed forces on high alert and sending army units toward the border with Kosovo.

I think it is easy to feel like the World is falling apart at the moment but regional disagreements flare up from time to time. The Serbia/Kosovo disagreement has been rumbling on for some time and flared up during the summer over a disagreement relating to new number-plate laws.

Saudi and Iran are another set of countries with longstanding disagreements, particularly linked to Yemen and links with the West. Not hugely surprised things are flaring up there again.

The Koreas again are well known enemies. Whilst this set of missile firings is a slight escalation from what's been seen before its nothing really new.

ISW Key Takeaways

Planned Iranian shipments of drones and ballistic missiles to Russia will likely further strengthen Russian reliance on Iran and Iranian-made weapons systems.

The Russian MoD started its semi-annual fall conscription cycle despite reports of Russian authorities covertly continuing mobilization measures.

Commander of the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District (SMD), Lieutenant-General Andrey Mordvichev, reportedly replaced Colonel-General Alexander Lapin as commander of the Central Military District (CMD).

Wagner Group financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin is likely attempting to address critiques against his parallel military structures following Lapin’s reported dismissal.

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to conduct counteroffensive operations in the directions of Svatove and Kreminna.

Russian forces continued defensive preparations while Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in Kherson Oblast.

Russian forces continued to conduct offensive operations around Bakhmut and around Donetsk City.

Russian forces continued to strengthen Russian control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Russian military structures are reportedly expanding training capabilities.

Russian occupation officials continued to set conditions for the long-term and permanent relocation of residents from the east bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.

+++

⚡️ Air Force: Ukraine downs over 300 kamikaze drones as Russia starts to use them.

⚡️ CNN: Iran to send 1,000 additional weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
Iran is preparing to send around 1,000 additional weapons to Russia, including ballistic missiles and about 400 kamikaze drones, CNN reported, citing unnamed Western officials. [this could make things much harder for Ukraine]

⚡️ CEO of Ukraine's energy monopoly Naftogaz resigns.

⚡️Zelensky: Up to 40% of Ukraine’s energy system destroyed by Russian attacks

⚡️General Staff: Russia moves Kherson’s occupation administration further south.
According to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, the occupation administration was moved from Kherson to the city of Skadovsk.

⚡️Macron vows to step up military support for Ukraine.
This support will particularly boost Ukraine’s air defense capabilities, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter after a phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

⚡️Mayor: 1,000 heating points to be set up in Kyiv in case of emergencies.
Kyiv residents would be able to warm up, have a hot drink, charge their phones, and get the necessary help in those heating points, according to Klitschko.

Ukraine war latest: Russian proxies intensify deportation campaign in Kherson Oblast (kyivindependent.com/national/ukraine-war-latest-russian-proxies-intensify-deportation-campaign-in-kherson-oblast)

Intelligence: Russian troops install military equipment on Zaporizhzhia power plant’s rooftop.
Russian forces at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar have set up electronic warfare equipment on the rooftop of the fifth power unit to combat aerial reconnaissance, Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate reported on Nov. 1

⚡️US launches demining training project in Ukraine.

⚡️General Staff: Ukraine launches 33 strikes against Russian forces.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported that Ukrainian forces launched 33 strikes against the Russian troops, hitting 26 areas of military equipment clusters.

UK intelligence: Wagner Group advancing up to 200 meters daily, missing Russia's 30-kilometer goal. [The point is rather that they are still advancing. Ukraine has said it is still far outnumbered by Russian artillery]

Extraordinary troop losses again.

⚡️Sweden promises to supply Ukraine with modern weapons, - Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson in an interview with the newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
"Sweden will more actively support Kyiv in its war against Russia".

💸Russia spent $400-600 million on the morning missile attack
This is the cost of 50 X-101/X-555 missiles launched by the occupiers on the territory of Ukraine.

😱Gap brand continued to supply to Russia despite the company's announcement to stop supplies - Reuters
Russian customs reports show that Gap in Moscow received 1585 shipments of clothing.

🇨🇿Czech Republic has developed a plan to help Ukraine and will give money for diesel generators, - Czech government after the meeting in Kyiv.
A program of humanitarian and stabilization assistance for 2023-2025 worth almost $20 million annually has been developed.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria is one of the largest indirect suppliers of weapons to Ukraine - Euractiv
According to experts, today Bulgaria has supplied at least 1 billion euros worth of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine through intermediaries.
The record export of weapons this year was confirmed by Alexander Mikhailov, ex-director of the state-owned company "Kintex", through which weapons are exported from the country.
Bulgaria and Hungary are the only NATO and EU countries that officially refuse to send military aid to Ukraine [one of those cases where stuff sent is -not- recorded]

⚡️According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, against the background of significant losses in manpower, Russians are looking for ways to replenish troops at the expense of private military companies.
In particular, it was decided to withdraw the contingent of private military companies from the Republic of Mali.

Clip of two Ukrainian soldiers, who seemed pretty calm, giving a sitrep that Bakhmut is still wholly in Ukrainian hands.

🗣The Head of the Military Intelligence of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has at least three lookalikes who underwent plastic surgery to resemble him.
"We know about three people who constantly appear, but we do not know how many of them there are. They all had plastic surgery to be similar. The only thing that gives them away is their height. It can be seen in the video and photos. Also gestures, body language and earlobes, because they are unique for each person."

[! Does mean it's impossible to judge his health by his appearance though, if this is true. Things such as hand-bruising like on a recent picture might just be on one of these stand-ins, not him. I wonder how the hell you persuade people to take the job of stand-in on.]

‼️Russia has transferred Kinzhal missile carriers to Belarus, British intelligence reports. At the Belarusian airfield, a large canister was noticed in a protective earthen berm. Intelligence believes that the canister is associated with an AS-24 KILLJOY air-launched ballistic missile ("Kinzhal" in Russian) - it can be carried by MiG-31K aircraft.
Intelligence believes that this is a message to the West - Russia wants to show that Belarus is becoming an increasingly important ally.

📉Russia lost 43% of gas exports
At the same time, the company does not associate this with a full-scale war, sanctions and restrictions. The reason is called "reduced demand for gas in the world".

🚙 Ukrainian artist Andriy Danylko aka Verka Serduchka said that he will sell Freddie Mercury's Rolls-Royce at the auction. He plans to transfer the entire amount from the sale to the construction of a rehabilitation center in Ukraine. The auction will take place on November 5 in London.

⚡️About 100 Ukrainian soldiers are graduating from NASAMS training in Germany - The New York Times.
"Norwegian instructors are teaching them how to operate and maintain the system and its associated munitions."

🇲🇩 Moldovan President Maia Sandu said that the political parties that have now started protests are working together with Russian special services to undermine the situation in the country

‼️Saudi Arabia has warned the United States that Iran is ready to attack the kingdom and Iraq to divert attention from the internal protests that have engulfed the country. The US and Middle East military are on high alert.

⚡️The main thing for today.

▪️ Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has received at least 41 billion euros in aid from Western countries.

▪️The United States will transfer 8 NASAMS systems to Ukraine.

▪️The Serbian Armed Forces are on high alert due to the situation in Kosovo and Metohija.

▪️The EU is ready to supply Ukraine with electricity in case of shortages due to Russian shelling.

▪️Macron promised Zelenskyy to help Ukraine strengthen its air defense.

▪️Saudi Arabian authorities warned the US that Iran plans to attack it and Iraq in the near future to distract its population from anti-government protests.

▪️Saudi Arabia, the United States and several other neighboring states have increased the level of readiness of their armed forces.

🇫🇮🇸🇪Finland and Sweden allow deployment of nuclear weapons near borders with Russia - Bloomberg.

🚙The German government will give Ukraine 500 cars for border patrol, 22 of them have already arrived in Ukraine.

🇷🇸 The German government has called on Serbia to choose between Russia and the European Union. The Germans say that because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the need to make this choice becomes more urgent.
Germany also expressed its surprise and disappointment that Serbia signed an agreement to expand cooperation with Russia.

Thread about the experience of volunteers sent to the front twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1587742973760098307

Essentially they signed up with enthusiasm but received no training or equipment, got sent to the front, one commander died and the 2nd wounded. They refuse to go back and are threatened with prison as deserters. Minimal food for days, no money, no medical care.

Soldiers treated like this are going to get sick, fast.

Day 251, November 1st. Summary of Arestovych and Feygin daily broadcast
Posted on 02 November 2022

🔥 Battlefield update:
No significant changes, small tactical actions. Both sides are fighting for gray zone. Close-up battles near Bakhmut, Bilohorivka, Avdiivka, Vuhledar, partially in Kherson district. The rest are artillery duels – who got more successful with drone, aiming, etc. Every day 3-4 🇷🇺 command posts destroyed. There is no dynamics, because neither side has resources – 🇷🇺 managed to slow down 🇺🇦 with inflow of draftees, but 🇺🇦 doesn’t have enough weapons for 850km active front line.
Sides will battle at specific locations, losses will accumulate until one side has sudden advantage.

🔥 Russian troops:
In theater (including Belgorod, 🇧🇾 Belarus, Crimea) there are total 170-190k 🇷🇺 solders, under 100k mobilized troops. Front line could have 12-20k of them, some 30k in second echelon, some in route, some in rotation. They are not capable of offensive.
The remaining 200k mobilized are sitting in training camps without clothing, equipment and commanders. There is even lack of food – getting them trained to proper level is very vague idea.

🔥 Vuhledar:
Vuhledar and Volnovakha are key to holding south. If 🇺🇦 breaks through, and interrupts rail supplies, it’s a catastrophe for all southern front. 🇷🇺 has gathered only 5-7 BTGs for key objective.

🔥 Grain deal:
Grain ships will use 🇹🇷 Turkey flag, and be protected by 🇹🇷 fleet. Putin had conversation with Erdogan, and as condition for continuing deal asked for 🇺🇦 to guarantee safety of 🇷🇺 Black sea fleet 🤡
Erdogan is not afraid of 🇷🇺, there have already been direct clashes between 🇹🇷 and 🇷🇺 in 🇱🇾 Libya, 2019.

🔥 U.N. vote on Israel nuclear weapons:
There is significant public discussion, some justifications, manipulations, but in short – 🇺🇦 should not have voted against 🇮🇱 Israel. 🇺🇦 still has perspective of becoming trusted partner of 🇮🇱, if it supports 🇮🇱 in future.

🔥 Prigozhin:
Prigozhin praised Zelensky as strong and confident leader. This does not match his rank somewhere on level 2. There exist many armies: Federal army, Kadyrov’s army, Prigozhin’s army, Rosguardia, LPR, DPR armies – each getting political wing. In the end there will be many countries.
Prigozhin revealed that children of elites are spared from mobilization. In 🇷🇺 model Tsar is fighting alongside people against noblemen. This means, Prigozhin is aiming for role of Tsar.

🔥 Iran missiles:
Those will be used from afar, they have range of 800km. Quantity is expected to be low, due to complicated manufacturing. It’s unpleasant, but won’t change a lot for average 🇺🇦 citizen – there are already missile strikes. 🇪🇺 E.U. agreed to compensate electric power, while 🇺🇦 infrastructure is damaged.
🇮🇷 Iran under sanctions is making better missiles and drones, than 🇷🇺 did without sanctions.

Wait til frost bite season kicks in...

They will die of exposure. They won't get sick. Getting sick is a luxury which takes time and implies it is survivable. They will straight up die pretty damn quickly in the conditions they are being sent to the front. Even now the commanders know that the mobiks aren't likely to survive more than a couple of weeks with what they are sending them to and that's only going to get worse.

The Ukrainians are getting high casualties, however they are better equipped and medical aid provision is actually available.

What I've read suggests if you are a Russian who gets injured you have less than a 50% rate of survival because of the lack of medical provision. That's pre-WWII rates.

On that note, the Ukrainians are reporting a Russian casualty increase of +800 today. Thats another particularly high one. Not quite as bad as Sunday's report but I think it's the second highest so far.

I think those numbers are worth looking at. Even if they aren't accurate or are propaganda, imagine the effect on Russians who might be aware of conditions at the front from their own real world experience (or even be at the front) and you are seeing those daily lose numbers slowly cranking up like that.

Psychologically it's a massive issue for the Russians will already low morale to deal with.

Under continued pressure, it just makes a major Russian collapse or surrender on a frontline more likely. It hard to see it not happening as time goes on.

It's just horrible.

I know we sit here trying to talk rationally about this, but actually I just can't get my head round Putin doing this en masse to the people of his own country. Never mind someone else's.

It really is horrible. These are largely just young men (and women in some cases) and the casualty numbers and suffering on both sides is immense.

Guardian reporting that Russia will re-join the Black Sea Grain deal.

"Russia’s ministry of defence confirmed on Wednesday it would rejoin the grain deal just days after it cut its participation due to the Ukrainian attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

In remarks reported by Russian state media, the Russian defence ministry said it had received written guarantees from Kyiv that Ukraine would not “use the grain corridor for combat actions against Russia.”

The decision is a dramatic about-face from the Kremlin that sees Russia return to the grain export deal with little to show in terms of concessions from Kyiv and the west.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will be seen as having successfully called the Russian bluff to blockade Ukrainian ports or even sink civilian cargo ships carrying grain abroad. The Turkish leader had said that exports of grain from Ukraine would continue with or without Russian approval and appears to have brokered the Russian climbdown.

Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine of using the “grain corridor” to prepare attacks on Russia, including the bombing of the Crimean Bridge last month, where the explosives used in the attack were allegedly shipped from Odesa.

Following its diplomatic retreat, Russia’s future threats to hold the deal hostage will probably be taken less seriously by the international community.

Russia may have balked because the grain deal was also popular with other countries in Africa and the Middle East facing shortages of food imports.

Moscow has sought to curry favour with those countries to provide diplomatic support for its invasion of Ukraine."

Erdogen being increasingly seen as the only International Leader that has the ability to get any negotiation out of Putin.

Yeah. the UN is poor :(

Even now the commanders know that the mobiks aren't likely to survive more than a couple of weeks with what they are sending them to and that's only going to get worse.

I still can't get my head around the reported fact that Russia's threatening to shoot its own soldiers in the back. They send untrained, unequipped, sometimes unfed men to the front in terrible conditions and then threaten to shoot them if they retreat. (there are several reports of this).

The sheer -stupidity- of it - I can't make sense of it. Taking on a protracted war without either the soldiers, training, kit and suppliers ... and then shoot them. I just can't get it.

This is not surprising sadly. Russian leaders, as well as Soviet leaders have never cared for their ordinary citizens. It’s a big country with a lot of people, the loss of 100s of 1000s is nothing to them. Russian Orthodox Church Patriarchs have been telling Russians to have more children to replace the fallen ones.

if you think about it, this is the country that has consistently eliminated huge amounts of its own population throughout the 20th Century as the most recent example. Repressions, holodomor, forceful removal of Crimean tatars from their lands (how many have been killed in the process), Gulags, etc etc etc …. They do not value human life

I'm probably being manipulated but this definitely made me 'get something in my eye' 🥲

Because of war and price increases, pension is not enough so some elderly people try to earn money selling greens from their gardens

Andrii Kushnir (other 🇺🇦,too) buys all of their goods so they can go home. He passes what he bought to those who need it

https://twitter.com/gerashchenko_en/status/1587762916547248133?s=61&t=s3uspZ9qAcucDE5wGZjajg

Yes, the previous mass slaughters came to mind as as well.

Russian Orthodox Church Patriarchs have been telling Russians to have more children to replace the fallen ones.

And kidnapping Ukrainian children and women too.

I can't help thinking there's a coldly deliberate element of ethnic cleansing built into this, too. Over-representation of ethnic minorities from Russian areas distant from Moscow among the cannon-fodder; forced resettlement of naice Slavic Ukrainian women and children to provide the new generations.

I'm sorry, we might have talked about this before and I don't remember. It just seems really likely to me that this is an underlying aim that's rarely spelt out.

And still on another thread people are bleating about how the dingies crossing the channel are full of young men and why aren't they staying and fighting. You only have to look at Ukraine to see why.

ok, I am now a puddle.

My last post was in response to Desdamona's

The Russian birth rate was woeful long before the war. I remember reading about it decades ago. This is why RU did not have enough soldiers at the start of the invasion. I cannot believe they are throwing more young (and older) men at the invasion as dispensible road blocks. Along with the brain drain and flight from mobilisation, RU can barely afford it.

The kidnapping and forced adoption of Ukrainian children is chilling and criminal. I'll bet the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war has also everything to do with ethnic cleansing.

Hope RU go extinct.

I have said before that I feel sorry for the mobilised, they face a terrible fate, but I am so very sad for the Ukrainian people. @ReleaseTheDucksOfWar and I were both told yesterday about the terror being imposed on Kherson citizens being deported. If they don't go they are threatened with the 'basement' and they know once they leave Ukraine and enter Russia, they will not be allowed to return. They can only take as much as they can carry. It's dreadful. The mobilised are moving in to their homes. Way to house thousands of soldiers and I guess. They will not get frostbite this winter but will they fight when they are living so comfortably?

Undoubtedly the suffering of the Ukrainian population, particularly civilians, should be the focus of our sympathies and concern.

I do think there is a real danger in demonising an entire peoples in the Russian population. Russian people are not one homogenous group and I personally think it's quite distasteful wishing extinction on them - in fact makes us little better than Putin's regime in its rhetoric. Within Russia there are millions of innocent men, women and children living in unimaginable poverty, at the mercy of a brutal regime that snuffs out with force any attempt at descent. They may have views that we don't agree with and don't understand but those have been formed through decades of propaganda and a lack of availability of dissenting voices. This doesn't make them evil, it makes them uninformed and ignorant. They have had to fight for every little freedom that they have, and many of them do fight.

Speaking personally I know, love and respect a number of Russian people and frankly there is nothing any more evil about them or their families (including those back home in Russia) than about you or I.

Well if we instead of Rwanda we deported to Ukraine the 10000 young healthy Albanian men of fighting age that have bribed their way to our shores, we could solve two problems at once.

First, Ukraine would be glad to use them as conscripts for the foreign legion. Second, it would soon stop the problem of the illegal boat crossings. And third, the Albanians would know that they are doing something useful in fighting for their nearer-neighbour, Ukraine.

What is not to like about this as a plan?