Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Back to the war.

After several nights of Russian missile attacks, the Ukrainians struck back pretty forcefully with a number of Stormshadow/SCALP missiles (British and French versions of the same heavy cruise missiles, produced by the same manufacturer) last night, targeting the Russian military bases in Sevastopol Crimea. Russian air defenses went into action and were seen to shoot down several of the attacking missiles. But multiple missiles got through and reportedly the Information and Computing Center of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Belbek Military Airfield, as well as the Operations Base of the 810th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade were all hit with large explosions.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/statu...0266563034

Russia answered back tonight with long range cruise missiles of their own, aimed not only at Kyiv where a number of explosions were reported, but also at military and logistic targets in the hitherto fairly quiet far west of Ukraine. Some of these missiles approached very close to the Polish border before doubling back and attacking the Ukrainian targets from the west. There are reports of multiple explosions in and near the western city of Liviv. This is a major logistics/training hub for western military equipment, and there are recurrent rumors of US and European soldiers there in training and advisory roles.

The Polish military is reporting that at a Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for 39 seconds, before it reentered Ukrainian airspace and headed towards Lviv.

The Poles say:

"We would like to inform you that on March 24 this year at. 4.23, there was a violation of Polish airspace by one of the cruise missiles launched this night by long-range aviation of the Russian Federation. The targets of the strikes were towns in western Ukraine.

The object entered Polish space near the town of Oserdów (Lublin Voivodeship) and stayed there for 39 seconds. During the entire flight, he was observed by military radar systems.

Tonight all necessary procedures to ensure the safety of Polish airspace were launched. Among other things, Polish and allied aviation was activated."

And today Russian missiles hit several Kyiv buildings reportedly used by Ukrainian State Security, their equivalent of the US FBI and Russian FSB.

A major fire is burning at the Berlin factory of Diehl Defense, a major German defense contractor and manufacturer of the IRIS-T surface-to-air missile system that's used with success by Ukraine.

There's no indication yet of Russian sabotage (it's very early yet, the fire is still burning) and initial indications are that it's an industrial accident in a part of the factory devoted to applying coatings and electroplating.

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And Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic are all talking about the possibility of deporting military age male Ukrainian citizens living in their countries back to Ukraine, if it's determined that they are avoiding military service. There are hundreds of thousands of them.

Which is suggestive of what appear to be growing manpower shortages in Ukraine.

nsNS

For the last few weeks the biggest events in the Ukraine war was a slow but steady Russian advance westwards from Avdiivka. The Russians successfully breached the first defensive line the Ukrainians threw up and the Ukrainians are hastily setting up a new line along a river several kilometers to the west.

But on Friday, something new started. The Russians have evidently tired of the repeated Ukrainian raids into Russia in the Belgorod area, so on May 10 they crossed the border north of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city opposite Belgorod.

Two days later, it still isn't clear what this is. At first it just looked like a small-unit raid like the Ukrainian raids the other way. But in the last two days it's become apparent the Russians have gathered a large force on their side of the border. So it's starting to look like the beginning of a new offensive, perhaps even the feared Russian Summer Offensive.

The general consensus is that the Russians won't try to take Kharkiv (they failed to do that early in the war) but will try to move closer to the city to where they can once again pound it with artillery. At the very least it will force Ukraine to rush in reinforcements that are badly needed elsewhere, perhaps allowing the Russians to make a breakthrough in the Donetsk area, where the Avdiivka fighting is.

On Monday the 13th, Russian sources admit that they have made no breakthroughs through the Ukrainian defenses north of Kharkiv. According to some Ukrainian sources, the Russians have as many as 50,000 troops near the border, which may or may not be true.

The only town of any size that the Russians currently threaten is a small place called Vovchansk (upper right on the map). The Russians are in the east end and have taken a couple of small factories on the northern outskirts that the Ukrainians were using as strongpoints. The civilian population has almost entirely been evacuated by Ukrainian border police and all that are left are a few stragglers (and Ukrainian soldiers).

On Tuesday May 14, Russia still seems to have made very little additional progress north of Kharkiv.

People on both sides are talking like this is a major offensive, but it looks more and more like a large reconnaissance in force, looking for weaknesses. Attackers get to choose where along the front to attack but defenders need to be ready to defend everywhere. If they can't, then the attackers hope to find the weakness and pour reinforcements through. Even if no weak spots are detected, the probing attacks still serve to draw scarce Ukrainian resources away from what still seems to be the main focus of battle outside Donetsk.

Ukrainian military intelligence says that they expect similar attacks in Sumy oblast to the west in coming months.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian national electic utility has announced rolling blackouts nationwide because of damage to all of Ukraine's coal fired power plants and to the distribution grid. (Ukraine gets much of its electricity from old Soviet era nuclear plants that Russia hasn't targeted, but the grid that transmits electicity from the plants to customers is pretty ragged.)

And within the last few hours, Ukraine has hit the Sevastopol International Airport/Belbek Air Force Base (it has both civil and military functions) in Russian held Crimea, using American supplied ATACMS missiles. No word yet on damage.

While all that was happening, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin was doing this in Kyiv:

https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1790472566894674368

It's cringe-worthy. Not only because of the music, but the fact that bars like this are populated by children of the rich and connected, whose families have paid the necessary bribes and whose sons have no fear of being kidnapped off the streets by brutal gangs of military conscription officers. More downscale bars, where you won't encounter the US Secretary of State, oftentimes are almost empty of young males due to repeated raids where all the military age males present are drafted into the army then and there.

The first 16 of an estimated 60 or so F-16 fighter jets being donated to Ukraine by both the Netherlands and Denmark have arrived in Ukraine and have been seen in the air over comparatively peaceful western parts of the country. Unclear if they have entered combat yet, or whether they are still in a crew-training phase. These ~60 F-16's are former Dutch and Danish aircraft that are being replaced in their own air forces by newer F-35's. The first 16 are from Denmark. They are well-maintained and still quite useful and combat effective.

Ukrainian Air Force photo of one of the jets in Ukr AF markings



nsNS

And in the last few days the Ukrainians have launched a large raid across the Russian border, from Sumy into Kursk oblast. This raid appears to number approx. 2,000 to 3,000 Ukrainian army soldiers, supported by tanks. It kind of blew past the Russian border guards and has penetrated about 10 km (6 miles) into a largely agricultural area. The Ukrainians are currently attacking a Russian town called Sudzha, a county (raion) seat with about 5,000 population and seemingly occupy about half of it. The Rosgvardya quickly evacuated the civilian population and Russian army is pouring in.

The Russians are claiming that the Ukrainian advance has been stopped and driven back, but it's unclear how true that is. Heavy fighting is continuing.

Lots of very smart people are talking about this but nobody is sure what Ukraine is trying to accomplish. One of Russia's largest nuclear power plants isn't far from the site of the incursion ('Kursk NPP' on the map below), but the consensus seems to be that the Ukrainians are unlikely to be able to reach it. There's a rail line of regional importance that the Ukes might be trying to sever. And it's true that this attack will draw Russian forces away from their attacks in Donetsk, but equally it draws away Ukrainian defenders. Some are suggesting that Zelensky is trying to grab some Russian territory to use as a bargaining chip in possible future negotiations if Trump is elected in the US.

The Ukrainian offensive into Russia's Kursk oblast continues to grow and develop and clearly has become much more than a mere raid. It's starting to look like Ukraine's big 2024 Summer Offensive.

Unlike Ukraine's failed 2023 summer offensive, this one doesn't seem to be Ukraine throwing hundreds of newly supplied NATO tanks at prepared Russian positions and suffering horrendous losses.

Ukraine is using very different tactics this time. While they have tanks supporting them, they seem to be organized into small highly mobile units rolling around the Russian countryside in American supplied hummv's.

The Russians seem to have never expected an attack here and failed to prepare defensive fortifications. Russia is rushing forces into the battle, which results in both sides being mounted on vehicles and on the move. The Ukrainians seem to be skillfully avoiding these Russians and are plunging deep into the Russian rear. It remains questionable how well they can supply fuel and ammunition to those small spearheads.

Interestingly it looks like a much smaller version of what Russia tried to do in February 2022, before their logistics fell apart and their over-extended forces started taking such heavy losses that they had to pull back.

Ukraine has succeeded in capturing the town of Sudzha, the small (5,000 pop) administrative center of a raion (like a county) inside Kursk oblast (like a province or state).

Ukraine's Kursk offensive appears to have more or less bogged down as Russians rushed reinforcements to the area. The Ukrainians have been forced to pull back some of their more far-flung units, while they have made some progress in other places. They aren't spreading all over the map though, and they are suffering increased casualties. Their biggest accomplishment in the last two weeks appears to have been the capture of the village of Snagost (population <500).

There's been lots of talk by journalists about Ukraine blowing up three bridges across the Seym river, with the implication that this will cut off the Russians fighting the Ukrainian incursion. Except that while dropping those bridges does (semi) cut off an area, but it is to the west of where the Ukrainian attack currently is. The Russians do indeed believe a Ukrainian thrust across the border is possible in that new area, but it hasn't happened yet. The loss of the bridges will make Russian defense of that stretch of border more difficult, but on the other hand the Ukrainians have lost the element of surprise that worked so well for them when they first attacked. The Russians have evacuated the civilian population of that area south of the bridges (mostly rural farms) and are preparing defenses.