Ukraine Conflict: Crimea-a-River

[Werthead]

Final confirmation that Patriot can take down Zircon hypersonic missiles: two were shot down before they could hit Kyiv this morning. That's a major blow to Russian prestige, as the Zircon is supposed to be a "proper" hypersonic weapon unlike the Kinzhal, which is a bit of an interim bodge job.

Ukrainian drones hit the Novocherkassk power plant in Rostov, disabling two power units. That's quite heavy damage.

[Maithanet]

Ukraine making a landing in force in Kherson across the Dnipro would be risky, but could potentially set up an attack to isolate Crimea over time (assuming they could damage/knock out the Crimea bridge again).  Making an amphibious landing via the Black Sea into Crimea sounds significantly more difficult and would require much greater forces.  Logistics would be extremely challenging for Ukraine, only modestly challenging for Russia.  Ukraine would be in a position where they are forced to attack, because they cannot stay put.  Russia would absolutely deploy tanks, helicopters and probably fixed wing aircraft to crush such an attack, and Ukraine would have limited means of punishing those moves. 

While it's always good to keep Russia off balance by threatening aggressive moves, even a committed Dnipro attack would be a big throw of the dice, since any heavy equipment you send over the river would stand a good chance of not coming back. That same logic applies double to attacking via the Black Sea. 

[The Big Stink]

4 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Ukraine making a landing in force in Kherson across the Dnipro would be risky, but could potentially set up an attack to isolate Crimea over time (assuming they could damage/knock out the Crimea bridge again).  Making an amphibious landing via the Black Sea into Crimea sounds significantly more difficult and would require much greater forces.  Logistics would be extremely challenging for Ukraine, only modestly challenging for Russia.  Ukraine would be in a position where they are forced to attack, because they cannot stay put.  Russia would absolutely deploy tanks, helicopters and probably fixed wing aircraft to crush such an attack, and Ukraine would have limited means of punishing those moves. 

While it's always good to keep Russia off balance by threatening aggressive moves, even a committed Dnipro attack would be a big throw of the dice, since any heavy equipment you send over the river would stand a good chance of not coming back. That same logic applies double to attacking via the Black Sea. 

Russia lost months ago. 

 

Will not exist in two years.

[SeanF]

On 3/24/2024 at 6:40 PM, DMC said:

The causal inference(s) between Ukraine hitting Russian refineries and hurting Biden's electoral chances is incredibly weak (not to mention convoluted). 

The much greater concern is normalizing this type of tactic into SOP for warfare - and, particularly, our adversaries starting to target western countries' refineries.  That's something we definitely don't want.  Also, should be noted Ukraine has denied the US made such a request (and the Biden administration is not commenting).

I think it’s justified, given that Russian oil revenues are funding the invasion.

[Loge]

34 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I think it’s justified, given that Russian oil revenues are funding the invasion.

Russia exports _crude_ oil. The refineries produce gasoline and diesel for domestic consumption. Would be rich if Russia had to import refined oil from India, though.

[DMC]

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think it’s justified

Agreed.  My personal opinion though really doesn't matter to the discussion at hand.

[Kalbear]

16 minutes ago, DMC said:

Agreed.  My personal opinion though really doesn't matter to the discussion at hand.

As to the matter at hand, at least the markets and opec are both increasing prices and blaming that on Ukraine.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

As to the matter at hand, at least the markets and opec are both increasing prices and blaming that on Ukraine.

OPEC blaming their gauging of prices on Ukraine?  I'm shocked!

[Kalbear]

Just now, DMC said:

OPEC blaming their gauging of prices on Ukraine?  I'm shocked!

Yeah, it's not that surprising or anything and doesn't mean it is actually true, but for markets what people believe to be true usually makes it so. And gas prices have risen about 5% since the attacks majorly stepped up, well over what seasonality would explain.

[Luzifer's right hand]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, it's not that surprising or anything and doesn't mean it is actually true, but for markets what people believe to be true usually makes it so. And gas prices have risen about 5% since the attacks majorly stepped up, well over what seasonality would explain.

The secret ingredient is greed.

Any reason is a good reason for more profits.

Edited March 26 by Luzifer's right hand

[Wilbur]

An interesting motivation for France to more strongly support Ukraine is the way that Russia has supplanted the France neo-colonies in the Sahel across Africa.

 

[Werthead]

Ukraine has hit a swathe of targets across Kherson Oblast (the occupied bit, obviously) and Crimea, hitting EW stations and even individual houses being used as barracks by Russian soldiers.

Interestingly, very little AA or anti-drone efforts to stop them. You sometimes see these efforts only being partially successful or even wholly unsuccessful, with missiles shot down by Russian air defence or portable anti-drone systems leading to shoot-downs. This latest swathe of attacks seemed to be meet very little resistance, the same with the last few hits on Russian refineries and power plants. In fact, one drone flew behind enemy lines and bombed an EW station that seemed to be trying to shut it down and having no impact.

One possibility is that Ukraine's new "AI control system" is now operating, which helps complete missions. When EW shuts down direct control, the AI takes control and completes the mission. The other is that Ukraine's boasts about having new control systems that Russian EW is ineffective against are correct, despite some scepticism in some quarters.

The other is that Russia's own stock of EW and AA systems along parts of the front has run so dry that Ukraine can operate with increasing freedom.

Edited March 27 by Werthead

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Ukraine has hit a swathe of targets across Kherson Oblast (the occupied bit, obviously) and Crimea, hitting EW stations and even individual houses being used as barracks by Russian soldiers.

Interestingly, very little AA or anti-drone efforts to stop them.

Could they start redeploying the TB-2?  Because my impression is that those are extremely effective, they're just also very vulnerable and thus could not be effectively deployed after April 2022.  Although I'll admit it's quite possible drone technology has advanced fast enough that a very effective drone from 2022 is underwhelming two years later. 

[Bironic]

https://www.t-invariant.org/2024/03/no-more-tolerance-to-putin-s-regime-br-an-appeal-from-scholars-of-the-world/

40 Nobel Price laureates are urging the world leaders to support Ukraine and the Russian opposition. You can sign on to the petition as well if you want!

[Werthead]

Ah, the hit on the Kherson barracks was carried out by stand-off French-supplied AASM-250 Hammer bombs, with a range of about 45 miles. Very difficult to intercept.

Perun on the challenges faced by defending the Baltic States:

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Ah, the hit on the Kherson barracks was carried out by stand-off French-supplied AASM-250 Hammer bombs, with a range of about 45 miles. Very difficult to intercept.

Perun on the challenges faced by defending the Baltic States:

 

With Finland and Sweden in NATO doesn’t that make defending the Baltics a more realistic prospect?

[Maithanet]

19 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

With Finland and Sweden in NATO doesn’t that make defending the Baltics a more realistic prospect?

More realistic, definitely.  Still a very tough spot.  But yes, that means that NATO will have airbases and capable armies to the North and South.

[Zorral]

Quote

 

On Wednesday the nonprofit, nonpartisan Institute for the Study of War published a long essay explaining that Russia’s only strategy for success in Ukraine is to win the disinformation war in which it is engaged. While the piece by Nataliya Bugayova and Frederick W. Kagan, with Katryna Stepanenko, focused on Russia’s war against Ukraine, the point it makes about Russia’s information operation against Western countries applies more widely.

The authors note that the countries allied behind Ukraine dwarf Russia, with relative gross domestic products of $63 trillion and $1.9 trillion, respectively, while those countries allied with Russia are not mobilizing to help Russian president Vladimir Putin. Russia cannot defeat Ukraine or the West, they write, if the West mobilizes its resources.

This means that the strategy that matters most for the Kremlin is not the military strategy, but rather the spread of disinformation that causes the West to back away and allow Russia to win. That disinformation operation echoes the Russian practice of getting a population to believe in a false reality so that voters will cast their ballots for the party of oligarchs. In this case, in addition to seeding the idea that Ukraine cannot win and that the Russian invasion was justified, the Kremlin is exploiting divisions already roiling U.S. politics. 

It is, for example, playing on the American opposition to sending our troops to fight “forever” wars, a dislike ingrained in the population since the Vietnam War. But the U.S. is not fighting in Ukraine. Ukrainians are asking only for money and matériel, and their war is not a proxy war—they are fighting for their own reasons—although their victory could well prevent U.S. engagement elsewhere in the future. The Kremlin is also playing on the idea that aid to Ukraine is too expensive as the U.S. faces large budget deficits, but the U.S. contribution to Ukraine’s war effort in 2023 was less than 0.5% of the defense budget. ....

 

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-29-2024?

 

[Werthead]

Berdychi seems to be the current focus of Russian advance efforts following Avdiivka. Both Ukrainian and Russian sources seem baffled by Russian MoD tactics: they initially launched overwhelming attacks across open ground with large formations of vehicles and men, which were pummelled by Ukrainian artillery and drones. So the Russians switched to using small formations of men attempting lots of little attacks to overstretch the defenders. However, artillery and drones were successful in eliminating this tactic as well. The Russians seem to have resumed large-scale attacks with large numbers of troops and vehicles, presumably on the grounds that the Ukrainians have forgotten how to deal with this in the few days since they last tried that. They have not.

Edited March 30 by Werthead

[Zorral]

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

JAN 20, 2023

Ukraine: Under the Counter

In the weeks following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a young doctor in Germany sees that abortion pills are urgently needed in Ukraine. And she wants to help. But getting the drugs into the country means going through Poland, which has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. So, she gets creative. What unfolds is a high-stakes, covert-operation run by a group of strangers. With everyone deciding: who to trust? In collaboration with NPR’s Rough Translation (https://zpr.io/9UpCwb2Smjzw), we find out what happened. 

https://radiolab.org/podcast/ukraine-under-counter

FEB 3, 2023

Ukraine: The Handoff

We continue the story of a covert smuggling operation to bring abortion pills into Ukraine, shortly after the Russian invasion. In this episode, reporters Katz Laszlo and Gregory Warner go to Ukraine, landing on a fall night during a citywide blackout, to pick up the trail of the pills and find out about the doctors and patients who needed them. But as they follow the pills around the country, what they learn changes their understanding of how we talk about these pills, and how we talk about choice, in a war. 

This episode is the second of two done in collaboration with NPR’s Rough Translation. You can find the first episode here (https://zpr.io/CnmNVFQ6X5gc).

https://radiolab.org/podcast/ukraine-handoff