Russia Ukraine Update Thread - part 3

31 May Update

US and German officials confirmed that the United States and Germany have changed their policies to allow Ukraine to use US- and German-provided weapons to strike Russian territory with some restrictions

Ukrainian media, citing unspecified sources, reported on May 31 that Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) conducted a successful drone strike against a Russian "Nebo-IED" long-range radar system near occupied Armyansk, Crimea, and estimated that the system is worth $100 million. The radar system reportedly serviced a 380-kilometer-long section of the frontline, and Ukrainian forces reportedly observed a shutdown of the radar's radiation signature following the drone strike, indicating that the strike took the system offline.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported on May 30 that Ukrainian forces conducted a successful ATACMS strike on a ferry crossing and damaged two ferries that Russian forces were using to transport forces and equipment across the Kerch Strait to occupied Crimea on the night of May 29 to 30.

Ukraine signed long-term bilateral security agreements with Sweden, Iceland, and Norway on May 31.

Ukraine and Russia conducted a one-for-one prisoner of war (POW) exchange on May 31, the first POW exchange since February 8.

Russian forces recently advanced near Vovchansk, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City.

More at URL above.

Cheers

Same ole.

The same demilitarization with Ukraine being the bullet sponge.


Vote Biden.

1 June Update

Ukrainian Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk reported on June 1 that Russian forces launched 47 Shahed-136/131 drones and 53 missiles, including 35 Kh-101/555 cruise missiles from aircraft over the Caspian Sea, four Iskander-M ballistic missiles from occupied Crimea, an Iskander-K cruise missile from occupied Crimea, 10 Kalibr cruise missiles from the northeastern Black Sea, and three Kh-59/69 cruise missiles from aircraft over occupied Zaporizhia Oblast. Oleshchuk reported that Ukrainian forces destroyed 46 Shahed drones, 30 Kh-101/555 cruise missiles, the Iskander-K cruise missile, and four Kalibr cruise missiles, and noted that Russian forces have not abandoned their intentions of destroying Ukrainian fuel and energy infrastructure.

Russian forces recently marginally advanced near Kupyansk, Chasiv Yar, and Avdiivka.

The Russian Ministry of Justice designated the "Way Home" social movement, a movement of relatives of mobilized Russian servicemembers that has been calling for their relatives' demobilization, as a "foreign agent" on June 1.

More at URL above.

Cheers

2 June Update

Ukrainian field commanders' decisions to train newly-deployed personnel on the front before committing them to combat indicates that the overall quality of Ukrainian forces will likely remain higher than that of Russian forces in the near- to mid-term.

Russian forces recently advanced near Vovchansk, Avdiivka, Donetsk City, and Krynky.

More at URL above.

Cheers

3 June Update

Ukrainian forces struck a Russian S-300/400 air defense battery in Belgorod Oblast likely with HIMARS on June 1 or 2. Geolocated imagery published on June 3 shows two destroyed launchers and a damaged command post of a Russian S-300/400 air defense system in a field east of Kiselyovo (just north of Belgorod City).

Russian opposition outlet Verstka reported on June 3 that Russian military authorities began forcibly sending hundreds of Russian servicemembers who refused to take part in Russian combat operations to the front in Ukraine, including to northern Kharkiv Oblast and Donetsk Oblast, in May 2024.

Ukrainian forces recently advanced within Vovchansk and Russian forces recently advanced near Lyptsi, Avdiivka, and Velyka Novoslika and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.

More at URL above.

Cheers

4 June Update

Russia is conducting a wide-scale hybrid warfare campaign targeting NATO states in tandem with Russian efforts to augment its conventional military capabilities in preparation for a potential conflict with NATO.

Russian forces recently advanced near Vovchansk, Siversk, and Donetsk City.

The Russian military reportedly continues to forcibly send Russian military personnel, including those with serious medical issues, to fight in Ukraine.

More at URL above.

Cheers

5 June Update

Western-provided artillery ammunition has reportedly started arriving to Ukrainian forces on the frontline

Russian missile and drone strikes have caused significant long-term damage to Ukraine's energy grid, and Ukraine will reportedly face even greater energy constraints in summer 2024.

Russian forces recently advanced southeast of Kupyansk, near Chasiv Yar, west of Avdiivka, and southwest of Donetsk City.

More at URL above.

Cheers

6 June Update

French authorities are investigating multiple recent pro-Russian sabotage and societal influence operations in France amid continued Russian hybrid war measures against NATO states and France aimed at weakening support for Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces struck an oil refinery in Rostov Oblast and reportedly struck an oil depot in Belgorod Oblast on the night of June 5 to 6.

Russian forces recently advanced within Vovchansk, southeast of Kupyansk, northeast of Siversk, northwest of Avdiivka, south of Velyka Novosilka, and near Krynky.

More at URL above.

Cheers

7 June Update

The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced a $225 million security assistance package for Ukraine on June 7.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on June 6 that France will provide Ukraine with an unspecified number of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets and equip and train a brigade of 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers.

Russian forces recently advanced near Svatove, near Chasiv Yar, and northwest of Avdiivka.

More at URL above.

Cheers

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
7 June Update

The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced a $225 million security assistance package for Ukraine on June 7.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on June 6 that France will provide Ukraine with an unspecified number of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets and equip and train a brigade of 4,500 Ukrainian soldiers.

Russian forces recently advanced near Svatove, near Chasiv Yar, and northwest of Avdiivka.

More at URL above.

Cheers

lol looks the frog in charge is pissed that France lately has been getting their sh*t kicked in by Wagner in Africa.

and losing influence in Africa.

So of course Macron has been barking lately like a chihuahua.

a reply to: Imhere

Boy, you really are eaten up with hate.

It's not good for you.

"Frog"?

So you hate Nazis but cheerlead for Wagner Nazis.

Wow.

Interesting take on Russia's situation in Crimea:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

It's vital supply route could be about to be cut.

originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
Interesting take on Russia's situation in Crimea:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

It's vital supply route could be about to be cut.

That article is correct about some things, but it's wrong about one key point:

The Ukrainians have managed to hit the bridges twice now, once in October 2022 and again in July 2023. Despite efforts at repair, they are still not at full capacity. In response to this, Russia has built a new railway line across the land bridge from the east.

It says "Russia has built a new railway line ...", that's wrong. It should have said Russia "is building...". Why is that distinction so important?

Because it will probably be finished sometime next year in 2025, and when Russia has that back-up rail line to Crimea finished, any attack on the Kerch bridge will have significantly less impact due to availability of the alternate route. Here is an article updating the current progress of construction of that rail line, saying it's moving from Donetsk to Zaporizhzhia:

Russia still building railway from Rostov-on-Don to Crimea through Zaporizhzhia Oblast — governor

Currently, the construction of a railway from Rostov-on-Don through the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to the temporarily occupied Crimea is underway, Zaporizhzhia regional governor Ivan Fedorov said on the national telethon.

Most of the construction is moving from Donetsk Oblast to Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

"The enemy is building an extremely important logistical artery for themselves, which will definitely be a problem for us, so we should do everything possible to prevent them from implementing it," he noted.

Isn't it interesting that the governor of Zaporizhzhia is talking about the enemy (Russia) building the railway in Zaporizhzhia? It's a stark reminder that while Russia claims the Zaporizhia oblast is part of Russia now, they only partially occupy it and have failed to take the rest. If the governor was in the Russian-occupied part of the oblast, Russia would surely kill him for saying that!

Striking the Kerch bridge this year, before the alternate route is finished, will have a far greater impact than any strike after completion of this alternate route. That's probably why the leader of Ukraine's navy has vowed to disable the Kerch bridge before the end of the year. Russia knows an attack is likely imminent, which is why they are building up so many defenses like that article talks about, at least sea defenses, against Ukraine's sea drones. But I don't think air defenses in Crimea are that great, so I think a swarm of ATACMS should be partially successful in reaching the bridge, if they overwhelm air defenses. However, the bridge is so robust I don't think ATACMS by themselves will do major damage.

This is why it's interesting that Ukraine destroyed the ferries which were supposedly used to transport rail cars of fuel across the straight so they couldn't result in damaging the bridge. Now that the ferries are out, will Russia start using the Kerch bridge to transport the rail cars of fuel? If so, then ATACMS would have a force multiplier if they can hit the rail cars of fuel going over the bridge...that would be a better strategy. I would guess they will send drone boats too, which would be good for additional distraction even if they aren't as successful as the ATACMS.

Denys Davydov's latest update today includes aerial imagery at time index 0:50 showing the impressive line of barges Russia has lined up trying to protect the Kerch bridge:

Update from Ukraine | Crimea is Under Strike. Ruzzia Can't protect its Military an the Kerch bridge

That video also talks about more air defenses in Crimea being attacked, possibly helping to facilitate future missile attacks by Ukraine, including the Kerch bridge.

The US applied new sanctions to Russia and now the exact value of the Russian Rouble is uncertain. Apparently currency traders aren't quite sure how to account for the impact of the new sanctions. This article from yesterday says trading was halted on the Rouble on MOEX, the Moscow Exchange where the currency trades normally happen, providing visibility of the exchange rates to traders. When the currency is traded OTC, off MOEX, traders aren't sure what it's being traded for, which is what creates the uncertainty.

Rouble swings to opaque trading territory after new US sanctions

MOSCOW, June 13 (Reuters) - New U.S. sanctions that forced Russia's leading exchange to halt dollar and euro trading led to a range of varying prices and spreads as trading moved over-the-counter (OTC) on Thursday, obscuring access to reliable pricing for the Russian currency.

The Russian central bank set its official rouble-dollar rate for Friday at 88.21, implying a strengthening of about 0.9% from the previous close. But the sanctions caused confusion in how to determine accurately the currency's exact value...

The sanctions led to a suspension of trading in U.S. dollars, euros and Hong Kong dollars on MOEX. The U.S. said it was aiming to cut the flow of money and goods used to sustain Russia's war in Ukraine.

Apparently ordinary Russians are also worried about the value of the Rouble. The video in my previous post by Denys Davydov shows what appears to be a long line of ordinary Russians waiting in queue to exchange their roubles of uncertain value for more stable currencies.

Russia put forth a Peace Treaty to end this war. Ukraine and the West rejected it without a call for negotiation. The Ukraine Peace Summit is this weekend, I am really not sure that will accomplish the peace that most of us want to see.
With Biden saying "You cannot wait us out. You cannot divide us" that sounds like more war is the agenda.
www.reuters.com...

a reply to: cookalldafood

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday Russia would end the war in Ukraine only if Kyiv agreed to drop its NATO ambitions and hand over the entirety of four provinces claimed by Moscow... territory of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.

The territories look reasonable, along the Russian boarder with a population more aligned with Russia than NATO.

I don't see the NATO ambitions stopping any time soon with those backing the conflict. With the recent EU vote there is some EU support to not get dragged into another war. If Russia does want to cut up Ukraine, then it is reasonable to expect the other side getting the other bit. Even if what is left of Ukraine does not fall into NATO overnight, being on NATO's boarders will provide ongoing pressure to become a member one day.

Russia and NATO are two tectonic forces colliding with Ukraine stuck in the middle. For it to realistically remain independent does not look promising. It worked for a while after the USSR fell, long term it will have to pick a side.

What if Russia advances to Kyiv and just cut Ukraine in half? Could Russia then accept having a boarder with NATO?

a reply to: cookalldafood
Of course the peace summit won't achieve peace, only a regime change in Moscow could allow such a thing.
Ukraine has a peace proposal on the table too, for Russia to remove all their troops from illegally occupied and annexed territories, and the war will be over.

So the two positions are irreconcilable.

If Putin could be trusted, then there might be some negotiation, but he can't. So it's not Russia that Ukraine is refusing to negotiate with, it's Putin specifically. Russia was already a signatory to the Budapest memorandum where Russia agreed to not take any hostile action against Ukraine, in exchange for Ukraine giving their nukes to Russia, so if Putin doesn't honor that, what makes anybody think he will honor any other agreement?

How about holding Putin to the agreement Russia already made in the Budapest memorandum if you want to talk about peace agreements?

originally posted by: kwaka
The territories look reasonable, along the Russian boarder with a population more aligned with Russia than NATO.

It doesn't look reasonable, it's more territory than Russia currently occupies.

The bigger problem is, Putin can't be trusted, so even if Ukraine agreed to these absurd terms, Putin would just pause the war, then resume it after the pause, with more devastating effect after having time to re-constitute his arms and forces. He would never be satisfied with just those territories, he wants a regime change where Russia controls Kyiv either directly or as a puppet state like it controls Belarus. So it would be a terrible decision to agree to Putin's terms.

The whole "NATO borders" thing is ridiculous. Look at how much NATO-Russia borders increased as a direct result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they doubled! And Finland was a neutral country, they didn't even want to join NATO until they saw how aggressive Russia was in invading their soverign neighbors using fictitious false-flag claims in what was simply a land-grab.

Finla nd joins Nato in a major blow to Putin which doubles the length of the alliance’s border with Russia

Ukraine has launched an attack on Morozovsk airbase in southern Russia destroying up to 5 SU-34 fighter-bombers which are used to attack their Country.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The allies are also loaning $50bn of Russia's frozen assets to Ukraine for their fight against the invader , pretty sure that's not going to go down well.

In a show of unity aimed at President Putin, G7 leaders meeting in Italy this week finally agreed to a deal to use profits from frozen Russian assets to provide around $50bn (£40bn) worth of support to Ukraine.
news.sky.com...

originally posted by: gortex
Ukraine has launched an attack on Morozovsk airbase in southern Russia destroying up to 5 SU-34 fighter-bombers which are used to attack their Country.

In the past, when Ukraine's drones have struck Russian aircraft on the ground at an airbase, we've seen satellite images before the attack showing intact aircraft, and satellite images after the attack showing damaged aircraft, right?

So whiskey tango foxtrot for these images showing "disappeared planes"? Drones don't make planes disappear, if the planes were damaged in a drone attack, there should be images of the damaged planes, right?

This might be the case Denys Davodov talked about where he thinks there's a "rat" or Russian spy who leaked the attack plans to Russia. What Denys thinks happened is Ukraine planned the attack, the Russian spy or Ukrainian "rat" let Russia know about the plans, and Russia moved the airplanes away from that airfield before the drones could damage them. That would explain why the images show no planes after the attack, but burn marks on the ground, where the drones hit where the planes were before Russia evacuated them.

So Ukrainian intelligence has some work to do to find the "rat" who is leaking secret plans to Russia. They could leak different plans to different people and see which plan makes its way to Russia, to find out who the rat is.