This might be a little tougher than Putin thought...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
- Start date
Can't remember if I saw here or elsewhere, but there was a video of a Russian helicopter trying to take out a tiny unmanned boat that had heat seeker SAMs strapped on it.Must be a "drifting" attack-the boat is not moving on its own. So maybe just an embellished target practice session, and the guy still has trouble hitting it
I noticed in this video the guy pops flares, but we can't see the target very well.
Kharkiv fighting difficult but under control - Zelensky
Fighting around the city of Kharkiv, which has seen Russia make its largest territorial gains in Ukraine in 18 months, has been described as "very difficult" but "under control" by Volodymyr Zelensky.Ukraine's president made the comments while speaking to military leaders in the north-eastern city on Thursday, just 18 miles (30km) from the Russian border.
Moscow launched a major ground assault across the border into the Kharkiv region last week.
The surprise move has further stretched Ukraine's outgunned and outmanned forces.
Writing on Telegram, Mr Zelensky said Ukrainian soldiers were "inflicting significant losses on the occupier".
He said: "However, the area remains extremely difficult. We are reinforcing our units."
Kharkiv governor Oleg Synegubov said Ukraine was trying to "stabilise" the front line in the region and had managed to partially halt Russia's advance.
According to analysis by news agency AFP, Moscow seized 278 sq km (107 sq miles) of Ukrainian territory between 9 and 15 May - figures it based on data from the Institute for the Study of War.
This has been the largest territorial gain by Russia in a single operation since mid-December 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday his troops were advancing on "all fronts".
Some military analysts say Moscow may be trying to force Ukraine to divert troops from other hot spots.
On Thursday, a top Nato commander said Russia did not have sufficient forces on the ground to make a major breakthrough in Ukraine.
"I've been in very close contact with our Ukrainian colleagues and I'm confident that they will hold the line," US General Christopher Cavoli told journalists, AFP reported.
The intensification of Russian attacks on multiple fronts has underscored the acute ammunition and manpower shortages affecting the Ukrainian military.
The advances happened ahead of a rare international visit by President Putin to China, meeting President Xi Jinping.
During the visit, both leaders called for a "political solution" for what they termed the "Ukraine crisis".
Ukraine war: Kharkiv fighting difficult but under control - Zelensky
Ukraine is halting further Russian advances after suffering its largest territorial loss for 18 months.
www.bbc.com
Glenn Greenwald Makes an Important Prediction About Ukraine
“By this time next year…”
vigilantnews.com
Lot more cannon fodder too. The sooner Russia is defeated and Putin gone, the better it’ll get for the Russian people and the world long term. China will think twice about asserting itself
AFRICA FILE, MAY 16, 2024: RUSSIAN OUTREACH ACROSS AFRICA
May 16, 2024 - ISW PressAfrica File, May 16, 2024: Russian Outreach Across Africa; Iran’s Uranium Aims; IS Mozambique Continues March
Author: Liam Karr
Editor's Note: The Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute publishes these updates with support from the Institute for the Study of War
Key Takeaways:
Libya. Russia has reinforced its military presence in Libya as it consolidates its positions across Africa. Russia may have deployed the influx of personnel and matériel as part of ongoing negotiations to secure a naval base in Libya, prepare to send more support to various theaters in sub-Saharan Africa, or strengthen its position to make itself essential to resolving the ongoing domestic stalemate in Libya. None of these potential causes are mutually exclusive. The Kremlin likely aims to protect its position in Libya so that it can use Libya’s strategic location to pose conventional and irregular threats to Europe and continue using it as a logistical bridgehead for activities in sub-Saharan Africa.
West Africa. Russia has recently expanded military cooperation with former Portuguese colonies in West Africa as it continues to expand its influence in Africa. Russia is likely trying to spread its influence from the landlocked Sahel and Central African Republic (CAR) into key waterways for regional and transatlantic shipping. The Kremlin may also seek to undercut African support for Ukraine as a secondary goal. Russian Atlantic basing in West Africa is a potential but less direct alternative to Mediterranean basing to threaten NATO’s flank.
Iran. Iran is using weapons sales to pursue uranium in Africa. French media has continued reporting that Iran and Niger have been negotiating since the end of 2023 for Niger to provide 300 tons of uranium yellowcake to Iran in exchange for drones and surface-to-air missiles. Iran is also likely using defense engagement to pursue uranium or other minerals in Zimbabwe. Iran has increased outreach to Zimbabwean officials since the beginning of April and has been aiming to grow cooperation in critical areas for uranium, like energy and mining, since 2022.
Mozambique. The Islamic State’s Mozambique Province conducted one of its largest and most complex attacks in years as it continues to operate at a scale unseen since at least 2022. The group is likely demonstrating its strength as regional security forces prepare to depart. Future security force arrangements are unstable and likely insufficient to degrade the insurgency. An escalation of the insurgency threatens to strengthen the global IS network and undermine local and international economic development.
Weird
There used to be a treaty that prevented Iran from acquiring uranium.
Wonder what happened to that...
It might be a good time to draft those 18 - 25 year olds even if it is politically unpopular.😒
AP story about drone operators in the northeast of Ukraine as Russian forces grind forward providing an endless supply of targets. Unfortunately, Ukraine lacks the ammunition and cannot rotate soldiers through fast enough to exploit the situation against these poorly trained, poorly equipped Russians.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-drones-war-ec031ad3b79f20f4e204f096e47f175e
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-drones-war-ec031ad3b79f20f4e204f096e47f175e
LOL - those downed drones keep landing on their targets!
And just want to emphasize this is a Russian port and not Crimea.
And just want to emphasize this is a Russian port and not Crimea.
good first hand account. BBC always attaches pretty good maps...
Ukraine's defence lines stretched as Russian troops advance
We travel at speed towards the village of Lyptsi – now under siege.
Russian forces have penetrated this border area north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
We are being escorted by members of Ukraine’s National Guard, among the latest reinforcements to try to halt this most recent Russian advance. They’ve gone from a fierce battle in the east to another further north – without rest.
The heavy thuds of artillery grow louder when we arrive at their position, just a mile from the front line.
We run past a smouldering fire towards a bunker, where we are told to take cover.
In the dank, gloomy basement, a group of soldiers are watching a drone feed. They’re directing Ukrainian artillery fire towards a tree line.
Andrii tells me the situation: “It’s dynamic and tense and hard to predict."
We’ve been told we can’t stay for long. Even underground you can hear the explosions.
I ask Andrii whether he and his men’s arrival on this front is making a difference.
“Relatively, but it’s always hard to get involved in someone else’s defence lines because there’s no proper interaction, with other units,” he replies.
But he understands the importance of their task and why the Russians have opened this new front.
“They want to pull our forces from defence lines in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It was just a question of time. The Russians always use mean tactics," he says.
It’s getting dark outside and they’re now using a thermal image camera on a drone to watch Russian movements. “Our pilot has just found out the movement of the enemy group near to our positions,” Andrii tells me.
We’re told to leave quickly.
At a field hospital well behind the front line, Ukrainian medics are treating yet another casualty.
Viktor has lost some of his fingers in a mortar explosion. He’s lying on a bed, conscious, wrapped in a foil blanket as he receives treatment from a nurse.
But Viktor is more worried about the men he’s left behind. “I can’t live without my guys,” he says, “they’re my friends, my second family." He says he wants to get back to them as soon as he is patched up.
The Russians too have been taking heavy casualties. But there are more of them.
Viktor says they were fighting off wave after wave of attacks. “There are a lot of them,” he says.
Russia’s believed to have massed a force of more than 30,000 just over the border.
Ukraine has not just been outnumbered on this front, it’s also been outgunned.
“The Russians have everything, whatever they want," says Viktor, “and we have nothing to fight with. But we do what we can."
Delays in US military support have made their job more difficult. Ammunition has had to be rationed over the past few months.
On average Russia has been able to fire 10 times as many artillery shells. The hope is the deficit will narrow with the arrival of more US weapons and ammunition.
At an artillery position, hidden in a tree-line outside Vovchansk, men of Ukraine’s 57th Brigade have been firing 50 to 100 rounds a day to defend the town.
When we arrive, they’re waiting for a fresh delivery of ammunition for their Russian-made self-propelled gun. Another 20 rounds are soon delivered by a small van. It’ll keep them going for a few more hours.
This unit too had been fighting further east before the call came to defend Kharkiv.
Ukraine’s defence lines are being stretched and thinned out.
Another brigade nearby has arrived from Robotyne in the south, where Russian forces are also advancing.
The small gains made in Ukraine’s 2023 offensive are slowly but surely disappearing.
This time last year Ukraine was hoping to take back its land. Now it's simply hoping it can hold the line.
Ukrainian reinforcements are making a difference in repelling this latest Russian assault. But at what cost elsewhere on the 800-mile (1,287 km) front?
It’ll be hard to dislodge all the Russian forces who have now gained a significant foothold in the Kharkiv region.
Mykhailo, the Ukrainian artillery commander at the position, tells me: “We are losing Vovchansk and we are also losing the villages around Vovchansk."
And there is a feeling that this could have been avoided if defences had been better prepared.
“We could have used logs and concrete to build defences. Now we’ll [have] to use shells and people to take back this land,” he tells me.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn037ry3r3zo
From the article above...straight out of Band of Brothers...
But Viktor is more worried about the men he’s left behind. “I can’t live without my guys,” he says, “they’re my friends, my second family." He says he wants to get back to them as soon as he is patched up.
But Viktor is more worried about the men he’s left behind. “I can’t live without my guys,” he says, “they’re my friends, my second family." He says he wants to get back to them as soon as he is patched up.
A Storm Of 3,000 Ukrainian Bomblets Blew Up Four Russian Jets At Their Base In Crimea
It was one of the biggest single-day losses for Russian air power in the Ukraine warThe Ukrainian army’s Tuesday night rocket raid targeting Belbek air base, just outside Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea, destroyed at least four Russian air force and navy warplanes on the tarmac.
It was one of the biggest single-day aircraft losses for the Russian military in Russia’s 27-month war on Ukraine. The only bigger loss may have occurred in May 2023, when a Ukrainian air force Patriot surface-to-air missile battery shot down at least four, possibly five, Russian fighters and helicopters over southern Russia.
Belbek, which lies 150 miles south of the front line in southern Ukraine, hosts Russian air force Sukhoi Su-27 or Sukhoi Su-30 fighters as well as Russian navy Mikoyan MiG-31 interceptors and, it seems, navy Mikoyan MiG-29K fighters.
The MiG-31s are some of the most dangerous warplanes in Russia’s war on Ukraine. Firing radar-guided R-27 missiles farther than 200 miles, the MiG-31s have shot down several Ukrainian warplanes—and forced many others to abandon their missions.
Belbek airfield is protected by a Russian air force S-400 long-range surface-to-air missile battery. It’s apparent, however, that the S-400 misses as many incoming Ukrainian munitions as it intercepts.
On Tuesday night, the Ukrainian army fired a salvo of 190-mile range M39A1 Army Tactical Missile Systems rockets from the tracked launchers donated to the army by the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy—or the wheeled launchers it got from the United States.
The M39A1 is the farther-flying version of the 100-mile M39 ATACMS. The first batch of precision-guided ATACMS that the United States shipped to Ukraine last fall only included M39s. The second batch of more than 100 rockets, which shipped in April, included at least a few M39A1s.
An M39 scatters nearly a thousand grenade-sized bomblets. An M39 sacrifices warhead size for a larger rocket motor—and scatters just 300 bomblets.
According to one popular Russian military blogger, the Ukrainians fired 10 of the two-ton ATACMS at Belbek on Tuesday. Belbek lies beyond the range of the M39 but within the range of the M39A1. That means as many as 3,000 bomblets pummeled the base.
The damage was extensive. A radar and two launchers from the S-400 battery were destroyed. A fuel depot burned through the night. And while the blogger claimed a MiG-31 and three Su-27s were damaged, satellite imagery from Colorado-based Maxar told a dramatically different story.
The imagery revealed that two MiG-31s, an Su-27 or similar Su-30 and what appears to be a MiG-29K burned to the ground in their roofless revetments. It was the first time the Russians had lost a MiG-31 or MiG-29K in combat in Russia’s wider war with Ukraine.
As the extent of the damage became clear, Russian commentators grew furious. “Why weren’t protective structures erected?” one blogger asked. “Why, 27 months after the start of the air defense system [in occupied Ukraine], are our air defense systems still standing in open spaces?”
“Since last fall, we have been warning that the armed forces of Ukraine will concentrate all their forces on attacks on Crimea,” the blogger seethed. Russian commanders “treated this threat carelessly.”
A Storm Of 3,000 Ukrainian Bomblets Blew Up Four Russian Jets At Their Base In Crimea
It was one of the biggest single-day losses for Russian air power in the Ukraine war.
www.forbes.com
Key weeks ahead for Russia’s war in Ukraine
Ukraine knew Russia was planning a summer offensive, but not where it would start. That became clear on 10 May, as Russian forces penetrated the border area near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
They have since grabbed a number of villages on Ukraine's northeastern frontier, and are trying to push forward as Ukraine’s outgunned forces try to shore up a weakened front line.
A buffer zone or a deeper push?
By entering Vovchansk, only 5km (3 miles) inside Ukraine, and seizing large areas of Ukrainian territory in the Kharkiv region, Russian forces may be trying to create a buffer zone to fend off Ukraine’s own cross-border attacks.Having seen the relatively poor state of Ukraine’s defences, they may also have far more ambitious plans.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin has for some time talked of setting up some kind of “sanitary zone” that would protect the southern Belgorod region from drone or missile attack. Belgorod has also proved vulnerable to cross-border incursions by two Ukraine-based Russian paramilitaries.
Russia could be planning a further cross-border push towards the northern city of Sumy, to the north-west. Ukraine’s military spy chief, Kyrylo Budanov, believes a “small group of forces” is waiting there, ready to act.
Sergei Shoigu, the new head of Russia’s security council, has said only that the military is advancing in all directions.
That could involve pushing deeper into Ukraine, either to force Kyiv to divert forces from the fiercest front line in the eastern Donbas or seize increasing amounts of territory.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War think tank believes the main aim is to create a buffer zone, as does Russian military analyst Anatoly Matviychuk.
But Russian forces are also pushing towards the village of Lyptsi, some 20km from the northern outskirts of Kharkiv and, in his words, “we can practically see the suburbs of Kharkiv through binoculars”. Suddenly capturing Ukraine’s second biggest city could be in Russian sights.
Is Kharkiv at risk?
With a pre-war population of 1.4 million, Kharkiv comes behind only Kyiv and Dnipro in its economic importance to Ukraine. It is too close to the border to have sufficient air defence and has repeatedly come under lethal Russian bombardment from ballistic and remodelled anti-aircraft missiles and glide bombs.If Russia could capture it, Matviychuk says it would prove a “turning point” in the war and hit Ukraine’s industrial potential hard.
That seems highly unlikely. Ukrainian and Western commentators are convinced Russia does not have the resources to do so. If it took 80,000 Russian troops to capture the devastated eastern city of Avdiivka last February, a much bigger city like Kharkiv would require numbers that Russia does not have.
Vladimir Putin has said "there are no such plans as of today" for Russia to capture the city, although he has not always been truthful about his ambitions in Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, on a visit to Kharkiv, said the situation in the region was “generally under control”, although the area remained extremely difficult.
“The strategic intention of the Russian troops is… the encirclement of Kharkiv as a regional centre,” says Oleksandr Musiienko, head of the Centre for Military and Political Studies in Kyiv.
That way, they would not only create a buffer zone of 10-15km in depth, he says, but also give Russia the option of attacking Kharkiv later.
Ukrainian military blogger Yuriy Butusov says too many mistakes were made in defending the border and, now that Russian forces have seen how thinly spread the defences are, they could try to set up both a buffer zone and a bridgehead, to launch deeper into Ukrainian territory: “Of course, this is their goal.”
Russia's focus on the east
For many months the war has dragged on with Russian forces securing minor gains at great human cost, especially in the eastern region of Donetsk.Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute believes the main aim of the summer offensive is “the expansion of the Russian push in Donbas”, with the aim of cutting supply lines and then giving their forces a route to both north and south.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, its declared goal was to seize the entire Donbas region, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Three months on from the capture of Avdiivka, the Russian military has set its sights on other targets northwest of the city, including the strategically important hilltop town of Chasiv Yar.
Rob Lee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute says Ukrainian troops who were based in Chasiv Yar are thought to have been moved to Kharkiv, leaving Ukraine with fewer units available there.
Losing Chasiv Yar would make Ukrainian cities in Donbas even more vulnerable to Russian attack.
By forcing Ukraine to commit troops, air defences and artillery to the defence of its second city, pressure would also be put on the frontline further south, near the Dnipro river and then threatening the big south-eastern city of Zaporizhizia.
Russian forces have already claimed the capture of one southern village that Ukraine recaptured last summer. Even if Ukraine is still in control of that village of Robotyne, it is clear that Russia’s offensive in the north places considerable pressure on Ukraine’s outnumbered forces elsewhere.
Does Russia have enough resources to gain ground?
In Kyiv, they believe Russia’s force in Ukraine now numbers more than half a million. That has left Ukraine’s military outmanned as well as outgunned, with Vladimir Putin now devoting an estimated 8.7% of Russia’s entire economic output (GDP) to defence and security.But the reinforcements waiting over the northern border number only a reported 20,000, and for all the reports of Kremlin plans to mobilise 300,000 more Russians, there is no evidence of anything like that.
Although Ukraine's total military force is about 800,000, Russia has a big numerical advantage in the major combat zones. A senior Ukrainian general said in places the ratio was as high as 10 to one. A similar advantage is reported in terms of shells.
Ukraine recently signed into law an act lowering the age of mobilisation by two years to 25, and that could increase the size of its military by a reported 100,000.
But that change will take time. As will the arrival of US arms supplies as part of a $61bn (£48bn) aid package voted through by the US Congress in April.
Nato’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Gen Christopher Cavoli, has said he is confident Ukraine’s military can hold the line: "The Russians don't have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough... more to the point, they don't have the skill and the ability to do it.”
And the man appointed Ukraine’s commander-in-chief in February, Oleksandr Syrskyi, is considered the architect of Ukraine’s fightback in September 2022, when the army pushed Russian units out of more than 500 places in Donbas and the Kharkiv regions. One of the villages they liberated was Vovchansk.
The difference now is that Russia’s commanders will have learned from their mistakes.
"The city of Kharkiv and the entire Kharkiv region is now the point of our efforts to make the lives of Kharkiv residents safer,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said this week.
What Putin wants
While Russia’s leader pursues gains on the ground, there have been signs that the Kremlin could be prepared to return to peace talks abandoned two years ago.“We are open to a dialogue on Ukraine, but such negotiations must take into account the interests of all countries involved in the conflict, including ours,” Vladimir Putin told China’s state news agency Xinhua.
The timing of his remarks come a month before a peace summit in Switzerland, organised at President Zelensky's request.
Russia has not been invited to Lucerne on 15-16 June, but the Swiss say more than 50 countries including Ukraine are going, and they are trying to get Russia’s ally China involved.
War in Ukraine: Key weeks ahead for Russia’s offensive in Ukraine
Russia has launched a push north of Kharkiv but its ultimate goal is so far unclear.
www.bbc.com
Video with translation as the drones flew over.
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Watching videos of drones buzzing along reminds me of pictures of V1’s from WW2 and video of Tomahawks during Gulf War over population centers heading to targets.
By Reuters
May 17, 20241:51 PM CDTUpdated an hour ago
May 17 (Reuters) - Russia's military said on Friday that a blast that injured seven servicemen at a military academy in St. Petersburg was caused by the accidental detonation of World War Two-era ammunition, Interfax news agency reported.
Interfax news agency, quoting the Leningrad military district, said the servicemen were injured at the Budyonny Military Academy of the Signal Corps during a check of underground areas in St Petersburg, Russia's second largest city.
