Ukraine War Watch Thread

[raklian]

Is this what we call a traitor? (or called).

What is the point of saying that? Just curious.

[ibm9000]

What was the point of posting the first one?

[ibm9000]

ISW:

- Ukrainian reports of Russian shelling on Serhiivka from the 26th indicates Ukrainian forces captured the settlement.

- Russian sources claim that Russian forces control Zaitseve as of October 27th.

They look the same... but completely different.

Russian sources shared geolocated footage of close-quarters combat between Ukrainian forces and Wagner troops...

Bayonets... probably.

That ISW doesn't update the colours in its maps does not help to clarify the situation, the blue in Izyum is a bit of old news.

[caltrek]

Attacks Behind Russian Lines are Thought to be Crippling War Effort
November 1, 2022

Introduction:

(Institute for the Study of War) Key Takeaway: Effective Ukrainian partisan attacks are forcing the Kremlin to divert resources away from frontline operations to help secure rear areas, degrading Russia’s ability to defend against ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensives, let alone conduct their own offensive operations. Poor Russian operational security has enabled Ukrainian partisan attacks. Russia’s increasing manpower shortages are likely degrading Russian forces’ ability to effectively secure Russian rear areas against partisan attacks and simultaneously defend against Ukrainian counteroffensives. The Kremlin still has not effectively countered Ukraine’s organized partisan movement and is unlikely to have the capabilities to do so.

Note on methodology: This curated list of confirmed Ukrainian partisan attacks contains only events that ISW can verify with high confidence using visual evidence, remotely sensed data, or Russian and Ukrainian source corroboration. This list only includes events that official Ukrainian government entities have claimed or discussed. ISW has observed several reported partisan attacks that have not met this high-confidence threshold. This dataset is likely a small subset of all actual Ukrainian partisan attacks. This list does not include Ukrainian partisan reconnaissance or fire adjustment tasks. This list does not jeopardize Ukrainian operational security as Russian and Ukrainian government sources have discussed them publicly.

Russian occupation forces have so far failed to neutralize Ukraine’s organized partisan movement as of November 2022 and are unlikely to possess the capability to do so. Ukrainian partisans began targeting pro-Russian Ukrainian collaborators and Russian personnel less than one week after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24.[1] Ukrainian partisans have conducted dozens of confirmed attacks across occupied Ukraine and have assassinated at least 11 Russian occupation officials and prominent collaborators as of November 1.

Poor Russian operational security has enabled Ukrainian partisan attacks. Russian forces have not effectively concealed the identities of pro-Russian collaborators and have failed to provide basic security to Russian occupation officials at their homes and places of work. Russian forces have failed to protect vulnerable sections of critical Russian ground lines of communication, such as rail line junctures and bridges, particularly in rural areas.[2] Ukrainian partisans freely collect targeting information on Russian military and occupation authority targets and pass this information to other partisans and the conventional Ukrainian military.[3]

1,2 & 3 – See linked article for footnotes indicating sources.

Read more and view interactive map here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backg ... t-russian

[caltrek]

...

More on that and the general subject of drone attacks:

Ukraine’s Unprecedented Mass Drone Boat Attack Was A Wakeup Call
by Tyler Rogoway
November 1, 2022

Introduction:

(The Drive) The multi-unmanned surface vessel assault on the home of the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea marked a new point in unmanned warfare. We have gotten quite of few of these kinds of seminal moments in recent years — the arrival of weaponized off-the-shelf and homemade drones in Mosul, the long-range mass drone attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure, and the assassination attempt via drone on Venezuela's Maduro, to name a few. But the attack on Sevastopol also marked a historic point in the history of naval warfare, although to what degree will surely be debated. While not revolutionary, the operation was certainly evolutionary, and that makes it quite important. Here's why.

The level of success of the attack, which you can read all about in our initial reporting here, is still to be determined, but it really doesn't change the optics of it and especially the precedent that it set.

That's not to say that we haven't seen 'suicide' drone boat attacks before. The basic concept is anything but new and in some cases dates back a century, with influences running even farther back into the annals of military history.

I will save the history lesson for later, but in more recent times, Iran and their proxy clients largely pioneered this capability operationally, converting small boats into explosive-packed radio-controlled weapons. Nearly six years ago, one struck a Saudi frigate in the Red Sea.

But Iran's early use of improvized explosive-laden drone boats — Tehran has since evolved its capabilities in this regard, too — was a far cry from what was used Saturday morning in and near the Russian-occupied port of Sevastopol. What were up until recently crude, jury-rigged devices have morphed into purpose-built, or at least semi-purpose-built, weapon systems.

Read more here: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ ... keup-call

[ibm9000]

Ukrainian partisans began targeting pro-Russian Ukrainian collaborators

ISW.

I do understand that by "targeting" means murder and terrorist attacks, like against the British in Afghanistan, in Ireland (and NI), in Palestine and in Afghanistan again (until recently), correct?

[Xyls]

Whoopsie daisies the Russians are having a near doubling of losses of military personnel this week from last. If this keeps up Putin will have exhausted half of his mobilized 200k or whatever it was supposed to be by the end of the year.



I mean basically the Russians are just getting massacred even in their defensive lines. As the conscripts are untrained, poorly supplied, and without any kind of coherent leadership.

[ibm9000]

Does anyone remember the "source" and the "secret protocol" where Russia was going to recruit one million men?

[caltrek]

Russia Changes Course, Rejoins Key Ukraine Grain Export Deal
by Ivana Kottasová
November 2, 2022

Introduction:

(CNN) Russia said Wednesday it was rejoining the agreement that guarantees safe passage for ships carrying vital grain exports from Ukraine, a move that may help ease concerns about global food supplies that were raised when Moscow suspended its participation in the pact last week.

The decision to reverse course and rejoin the agreement was announced by the Russian Ministry of Defense just days after Moscow cited drone attacks on the city of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea as the reason for its withdrawal from the deal.

“The Russian Federation considers that the guarantees received at the moment seem sufficient and resumes the implementation of the agreement,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its official Telegram channel.

Russia has blamed Ukraine for the Sevastopol attacks. Ukraine has not confirmed that its forces attacked the city, and the extent of the damage to Russian naval vessels remains unclear.

After speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the agreement would resume midday Turkish time on Wednesday, according to Turkish state news agency Anadolu.

Read more here: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/europe/ ... deal-intl

[ibm9000]

If you follow the western media’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, you’ll probably come to one clear conclusion: Things aren’t going to plan for Russia. If you’re embedded into the world of twitter, you’ll probably even think Moscow is losing. There’s enough reason to believe it at face value: An apparent plan to occupy Kyiv and the North of the country seemingly failed, resulting in Russia’s withdrawal, whilst Putin’s forces appear to have suffered more than expected losses and the Black Sea flagship the Moskva has been sunk. This is coupled with reporting which repeatedly assumes that Putin aspired for the war to be swift, short and painless, depicting him as miscalculating, mentally deteriorating and falling into an a quagmire of his own making.

Except that isn’t the case. Whilst it is true indeed that wars never do go according to plan, and always do surmount to unanticipated costs, it is nonetheless also a reality that the western media coverage of the conflict has been nothing short of a blatant war propaganda and psychological warfare campaign, which has coincided with a deliberate campaign to censor the other side of the story. It is ultimately preposterous to assume the media could even contemplate being impartial when given the severity of the conflict, they are under enormous social and political pressure to “take a side” and invest in what they hope to be Putin’s looming failure.

Before Russia proceeded with its current offensive on Donbass, it first undertaken a process of “shaping the battlefield” which involved distracting Ukraine by invading the North of the country (even if there was a hope Kyiv could be quickly encircled). As these multiple axis were opened, Russia then proceeded to invade from Crimea and seize Kherson oblast (to prevent a pre-emptive Ukrainian attack on the peninsula) and advanced into Zaporizhzhia (setting up a Southern launchpad). Mariupol was then encircled and cut off. These multiple fronts being opened allowed Russia to then invade Kharkiv and Luhansk Oblasts, which they then developed into a Northern flank with the capture of Izyum.

It is worth noting that at no stage of doing this did Russia attempt to storm through the fortified Ukraine lines surrounding the area of Donestk, the area which was most combat ready and long term prepared for an attack. That area remains relatively unchanged throughout the war. Instead, the bigger picture has been to outflank them from their rear from both the North and South in the view to a strategic encirclement. It is plainly obvious that Russia sees this effort as the defining battle and moment of the war and of course, so does the west, but that’s not what they’ve told their public. They’ve mislead people that these preparatory stages were in fact little more than an aborted operation to quickly seize the entire country and have shifted the goalposts from the reality that Donbass was always one of the biggest prizes.

It seems awfully strange that for a country who is “winning” the west are now severely upping their military aid and also their rhetoric in the anticipation they can make Putin fail, but little do people know such is because the tide on the battlefield is starting to turn against them. Russia suffered a lot of unanticipated losses and resistance along the way, but the narrative they are losing the war and facing defeat is waning thin. Reality is starting to come from. The west is leading Kyiv off a cliff edge by attempting to goad them into a deeper war, and the hubris manifest in the recent speech of Liz Truss is indicative that is them who are more likely to be met with political failure than Putin himself.

India Defence Review. 30 April 2022.

It is true that it is old (and the article is even longer), but I think it is always good to have a different perspective. We do remember India, right? and those Indo-Pakistani wars, right? Pakistan, that now has nuclear weapons thanks to US... fo the next war.

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Power blackouts across Ukraine amid Russian shelling
Source: AP

By ANDREW MELDRUM

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s state electricity operator on Saturday announced blackouts in Kyiv and seven other regions of the country in the aftermath of Russia’s devastating strikes on energy infrastructure.

The move comes as Russian forces continue to pound Ukrainian cities and villages with missiles and drones, inflicting damage on power plants, water supplies and other civilian targets, in a grinding war that is nearing its nine-month mark.

Russia has denied that the drones it has used in Ukraine came from Iran, but the Islamic Republic’s foreign minister on Saturday for the first time acknowledged supplying Moscow with “a limited number” of drones before the invasion. Hossein Amirabdollahian claimed, however, that Tehran didn’t know if its drones were used against Ukraine and stated Iran’s commitment to stopping the conflict.

Ukrenergo, the sole operator of Ukraine’s high-voltage transmission lines, initially said in a an online statement Saturday that scheduled blackouts will take place in the capital and the greater Kyiv region, as well as several regions around it — Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Poltava and Kharkiv.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... osition_04

[ibm9000]

Russia’s military Keynesianism
The Kremlin’s strategy to redistribute wealth through the war effort may boost its legitimacy.

Do we have any economist around?

[caltrek]

Fifteen Days to Prevent Disaster: Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Running on Backup Generator
by James Felton
November 3, 2022

Introduction:

(IFL Science) Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been fully cut off from the power grid following shelling by Russian forces, leaving it to rely on backup diesel generators, according to the Ukrainian State Enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generating Company "Energoatom".

The company said that the last lines connecting the power station to the grid were damaged during shelling on Wednesday, according to Reuters. All six reactors had been shut down prior to the final line being hit, but they all still need a constant power supply in order to prevent disaster.

"Yesterday [...] the Zaporizhzhia [nuclear power plant's] last two high-voltage lines connecting it to Ukrainian power system were damaged. At 11:04 p.m., the station went into full blackout mode. All 20 diesel generators were switched on," Energoatom said in a Telegram statement seen by Reuters.
"In the near future, they (Russia) will try to repair and connect the communication lines of the [Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant] in the direction of temporarily occupied Crimea and Donbas".

The power plant, which is under the control of the invading Russian army, had been running on emergency generators for the last two weeks, and now has only 15 days' worth of fuel to run the generators supplying power to the reactors.

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/15-days-to- ... tor-66052

[Yuli Ban]

This has absolutely become a drone war.

Incredible how technology has so totally changed the game. If Russia doubles down on drones, they might even take this handily and prove to the world where we ought to focus our military priorities from now on

[raklian]

This has absolutely become a drone war.

Incredible how technology has so totally changed the game. If Russia doubles down on drones, they might even take this handily and prove to the world where we ought to focus our military priorities from now on

Speaking of drones, Zelensky wants a drone navy.

[ibm9000]

This has absolutely become a drone war.

Maybe not quite yet.
I think it happened before... with the AT missile; also with the tank, the plane and the bullet... the end of armour. I wonder what, more than a few officers think about that.

I also wonder why the French position is not the same as it was regarding the Spanish Republic (I am reading about the foreign intervention during the SCW). I wonder if it's more about "interests" than about "principles", I wonder if "western democracy" is more an insult than a compliment.

[Xyls]

[Xyls]

The Ukrainians are inflicting way more damage on the Russians than they are taking.

[caltrek]

Where Is The Clamor For Getting Russia And Ukraine Off The Ramp?
by Ajay Bisaria and Anita Dutta
November 7, 2022

Extract:

(Observer Research Foundation via Eurasia Review)
Where are the Peace Plans?

(There) is the surprising absence of credible peace proposals. After the 2014-15 Crimea annexation, the quad of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine had come under the Normandy Format to discuss the peace initiative, leading to the shaky Minsk agreements. These fell apart, interpreted differently by Russia and Ukraine. In the current crisis, Israel and Turkey have been trying to mediate since March 2022. The belligerents had made significant progress on a tentative peace plan in the early months, which included ‘neutral’, non-nuclear status for Ukraine in exchange for certain ‘security guarantees’ from Russia, Belarus, and others. The world’s ‘chief twit’, Elon Musk, has injected some maverick peace plans into the discourse, while Istanbul along with the UN had brokered a limited grain deal.

But where is the serious diplomacy that saved the world from nuclear Armageddon 60 years ago during the Cuban missile crisis? Thoughtful observers are rightly asking why we see little effort to find a solution to the crisis. Was the March peace plan stalled because of a western guarantee of unending support to Ukraine? Boris Johnson said in Kyiv in April – that the UK was in for the ‘long run’. And US Defence Secretary Austin, during his visit to Ukraine in April, pointed out that the US and NATO were no longer just trying to help Ukraine defend itself, but were now committed to using the war to “weaken” Russia.

The world cannot afford to wait, praying for battlefield reverses or a solution by next spring after Europe has ‘shivered through’ this winter. Both Ukraine and Russia, at different points of the crisis, have given lip service to end the fighting through diplomacy, but this is yet to materialise. The UN Security Council is limited in its ability given that a permanent member is involved. Allowing the crisis to linger even in stalemate increases the probability of scenarios of nuclear escalation by miscalculation. The world must rush in with concrete plans for peace. There is an urgent need for a serious peace process—or several alternative pathways, overt and covert—to lay the groundwork for a near-term solution.

Read more here: https://www.eurasiareview.com/07112022 ... analysis/