July 22 - Day 514 - Bridges and dumps, The price of the grind, High Seas Chicken
Hi FB!
The two lead photographs are a UAF 203mm gun at work, and UAF air defense dudes taking on Iranian drones on July 22. Both images from Ukraine’s MoD.
As you might guess, my newspaper really got stuck in on the bridge:
Here’s a reasonable rendition of the Big Crimea Bang:
As to the fighting -
The attrition fighting is continuing but the pace of the Ukrainian attacks has dialed down a bit. If earlier in the month we were hearing about six or seven assaults taking place in a day, at points across the front, now it’s about half that. Likewise, Russian equipment kill claims by the Ukrainians have fallen significantly, last week you could see maybe 30-35 claimed in day, now it’s 18-25 or so.
Here’s a KP write-up on how Ukraine’s grinding, attrition strategy is affecting Ukrainian soldier morale. The point of the article is I think worth bearing in mind when you try and decide if Ukraine is doing “well” or “poorly”: a whole lot - some might go so far as to say the entire war - comes down to how long front-line Ukrainian soldiers can keep on believing their sacrifice is useful.
The locations the Ukrainians are pushing remain pretty much the same.
Bakhmut - Here the UAF still seems slowly to be working towards an encirclement. Indicators are the Ukrainians are still making progress here in field by field assaults. There are fairly credible reports of 3rd Assault advancing 1.8 km in one of the attacks, and if you believe their press section most recently they captured a position with at least 40 dead Russians inside it, and their weapons, and took no friendly casualties - this all taking place in the vicinity of the village Klishchivka.
I am fairly certain confirm that proper combined arms were used including tanks, APCs, and indirect fire was used; I mention this because combined arms + claims of zero casualties are very much an outlier in the UAF.
Attached is a (heavily edited) video example from 30th Mech Brigade, in it we see UAF infantry attack and they are backed up with drone-dropped grenades, mortars and cannon fire from their BMPs. Location isn’t mentioned but most likely this is Bakhmut sector vicinity Zaliznyanske.
I get the very strong impression the attacks are anything but rapid fire. It looks to me like the process of prepping the attack for the next wood-line and then carrying it out takes a minimum of three or four days, and that’s not counting the possibility of friendly losses, troop rotations or ammo shortages.
My ballpark estimate for Ukrainian progress in this the most “successful” of the Ukrainian attack sectors is probably a rough average of 300-500 meters a day. This corresponds roughly with claims from the Ukrainian military. The Russian border is about 110-120 km. East of Bakhmut (and that’s not counting the major city Luhansk a Ukrainian advance on that axis), so, even if we assume this particular series of attacks continues and continues to succeed at the present pace, in the Bakhmut sector, it will be April-May 2024 before the UAF will have reached the Russian border.
In other words, even where the Ukrainians are succeeding the most it is an attrition battle where both sides’ goal is to inflict so many casualties on their opponent, that he retreats or quits. It is worth noting the Ukainians are not always succeeding even in the Bakhmut sector. On Wednesday a video started making the rounds, Russian troops counterattacking probably around the villages Vesele or Yakolivka took a dozen prisoners from 10th Mountain Assault Brigade.
Velyka Vasylkivka-Tokmak - Here the UAF is not quite stalled tactically, but it completely stopped operationally. The lead formation here is 47th Mech Brigade - the guys with the Bradleys and Leopards - and by all accounts they are getting beaten up. Based on western media and Ukrainian military news platforms, the unit has lost at least 10 out of 100 Bradleys totally written off, and another 20-25 not completely destroyed but badly damaged enough that they won’t be available for combat, for weeks. I have a less good handle on the Leopard tanks in the unit, but roughly, looking at all the gleeful photos posted by the Russians, it’s probably safe to guess 5 or so Leopards are completely written off and 10 or so, likewise, won’t be doing anything until they are hauled to and from repair depots back in Germany.
In other words, basically a month into the offensive, Ukraine’s single most combat-capable brigade is probably at 65-70 percent strength, and they have advanced about 10-12 km., and they are still fighting their way through the Russian fortifcation belt. I observe similar slow advance by 65th Brigade (line unit, no spiffy western equipment that I know of) to the west.
As in the Bakhmut sector, this pace of advance - about 10 km. a month - is the very opposite of a rapid breakthrough: at that speed if they survived the 47th’s Bradleys would reach the Sea of Azov, and so cut Russian land communications between Crimea and points eastward, by late Spring 2024, and again, this is just math not accounting for delay factors like possible shortages of men or ammo, urban fighting, or just rain. If things worked out very well, they might hope to reach a line allowing the UAF to cut that supply route with long range fires, if not physical presence, by Fall 2023.
Zaporizhzhia-Melitopol highway - I am seeing reports here that RF defenses are getting more difficult to hold because the reduced flow of the Dnipro River has effectively opened what used to be a closed flank (i.e., the now-disappeared river reservoir) on the west side of the highway, and here the UAF is making slow progress. As in the past the main formation responsible is 128th Mountain Brigade out of Mukachevo, and 30th Mech Brigade from Zhytomry. I’m not fully clear which unit is precisely where, but, most recently they appear to have, finally, taken full control of Pyatikhatki. I’m seeing conflicting reports on whether they’ve pushed into Luhove. Firing seems to have fallen off here about three days ago. So we will see if that’s prepping for more attacks or the Ukrainians are out of steam.
Cluster munitions -
As most of you will know the US decided last week to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine, this week by most accounts they got used. It’ve very clear the rule that cluster munitions shouldn’t be used around villages because people live there, is out the window. Here’s a video from 21 July showing, allegedly, 53rd Brigade dropping cluster muntions on a village possibly containing Russian troops, near the city Adviievka.
This is just a single example, there’s evidence of cluster munitions having been used probably a half dozen times, at least, since last week. It looks to me like there is no central control on cluster munitions, the UAF is just shooting when it’s available and they see a suitable target.
I am seeing zero, repeat zero complaints from anyone in Ukraine, even the most dedicated mine clearance/Lady Di sort of people, that the UAF shouldn’t be using the weapon. As noted repeatedly, the Russians have been shooting cluster munitions at the Ukrainians - primarily with unguided Smerch artillery rockets - since the beginning of the war.
What is more interesting, probably, is the Russian reaction. The Kremlin and Moscow-linked information platforms have vaguely wanted they will retaliate in kind, but everyone knows that with the Russian shell shortage the way it is if the Russians had a lot of cluster munitions available they would be shooting them. And on the ground level, the rah rah Russia “frontline correspondents” aren’t mentioning the system at all. Meaning they’re scared, or they haven’t noticed. We’ll see.
For more info on cluster munitions in Ukraine, and some pretty good production values, go here:
CNN says Ukraine arms going missing, Ukrainians say CNN got it wrong
CNN published a report yesterday, citing a US government inspector general report, that Ukraine’s government found and shot down a “plot” to steal weapons and equipment sent to Kyiv from the West. The report also said that the US wasn’t able to track some of the equipment “due to the limited US presence in the country”, which translated means, the State Department and Defense Department security guys have banned the State Department and Defense Department inspection guys, from going where the equipment is, which is obviously a war zone.
I think we should take a moment to reflect on the inability of US government officials, you know, the people running the world’s most powerful state, to figure out a way to keep track of weapons and arms they transferred to Ukraine for use in a war, because, you know, they are actually being used in a war.
As to the Ukrainians, they repeated past boilerplate that every single US-provided weapon, munition,vehicle, medkit, MRE and bright orange hazard vest is fully accounted for and rigorously tracked. Yesterday it was the turn of Deputy Defense Minister Volodymyr Gavrilov, who clearly has learned that the best way to respond to the US government is not with reasonable language, but Beltway gobblety-goop, and I quote: “ "Artillery, ammunition, complex air defense systems, armored vehicles - everything is taken into account in Ukraine. Last year, an automated system for recording and passing all weapons and military equipment through logistics was introduced. With the help of partners, the LOGFAS and Karavay programs were introduced, which allow escorting military equipment to a military unit using a barcode and a QR code, and if necessary, come there and see what is there."
Two points, first, “there” is by and large an active war zone, into which the Ukrainian government bans pretty much anyone from travelling freely and without a designated escort, to include indpendent media. What Gavrilov and CNN say about US stuff going missing in the war, or not, is in a wide sense irrelevant, because in fact truly independent information collection from the front line doesn’t exist. This discussion between Kyiv and Washington about accountability is not about real ownership, but rather whose flawed guess is going to be accepted as “reality”.
Second, courtesy of Russia’s 36th Army, we have images of a Browning .50 machine gun apparently captured from the UAF. It’s still in the box and it looks to be in less than ideal condition, and the internet knows the serial number. In a war as big as this one, a single machine gun’s ownership is no big deal, but, point is, it got sent to Ukraine by the Americans and now the Russians have it. So now everyone with an political axe to grind can play blame game: Which specific individuals in the US and Ukraine government are specifically responsible for that specific failure?
Who’s blockading whom?
Most of you will have read that the “grain deal” is over and at least theoretically the Russians are enforcing a full blockade of Ukrainian ports again. The Russians yesterday sank a captured Ukrainian warship with some missiles to be scary, and today they said everything moving in the Black Sea in international waters could be subject to boarding and search by the Russian navy.
The Ukrainians, for their part, basically dared the Russians to try it, with Gavrilov saying already the UAF has anti-ship missiles that reach well into the Black Sea, and that “soon” that capacity will expand to the point where the Black Sea fleet will either be sunk or forced to retreat to Novorossisk. He made very clear, Friday comments, that a long-range Ukrainian naval strike capacity is coming, not maybe, not hoped for, not promised, but coming.
The most obvious way to read those tea leaves is that Kyiv is expecting either long-range anti-ship missiles than the ones it currently has - a mix of Ukrainian Neptunes and older NATO Harpoon capable of reaching maybe 300 km. Into the Black Sea - or a way to strap existing anti-ship missiles onto a strike platform the Russians would have trouble stopping, which might be hooking them onto jets, small boats or maybe even seaborne drones.
On paper, Turkey alone could call the Russian bluff because the Turkish Black Sea flotilla by itself outclasses the beat-up ships in the Russian Black Sea fleet by an order of magnitude, and that’s before taking into account that the air support Turkey would bring to that stare-down would be, similarly, heavily weighted in Ankara’s favor. What if Erdogan decides to flag ships coming out of Odessa with a Turkish flag? The dude has already shot down a Russian fighter jet. (It was back in 2015, and even though that meant a NATO F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber, in NATO air space next to Syria, Russian pilots killed, the Russians didn’t go nuclear and WW3 didn’t happen). I bring this up because it’s not just Putin that could be emboldened by a previous success in brinksmanship.
On the ground, so to speak, the reality seems to be that the Ukrainians are advising ships to sail from Odessa directly into Romanian and Bulgarian territorial coastal waters, meaning under NATO protection, and also meaning that the only place NOT under NATO protection is a stretch of sea about 150 km. long from Odessa to the Danube delta.
For Russia to hit ships travelling that route, they would need to bring aircraft into air space over the west Black Sea theoretically threatened by Ukrainian air defenses, and at least approach water that the Ukrainians might be able to hit with their anti-ship missiles. In this context Gavrilov's hinting about longer-range systems makes perfect sense: he's trying to make the Russians unsure about what part of the Black Sea is safe and what isn't.
What is absolutely clear is that, no matter what Turkey does or NATO does, any ship hugging the north Black Sea coast is not going to get boarded by the Russian navy, because if it's maybe possible there are safe places in the Black Sea the Russians could park their missile boats in to attack cargo ships carrying grain, there is zero chance anything Russian and above the water could get that close to the Ukrainian shore.
So "subject to boarding by the Russia navy" is simply hot air, there is a clear route from Odessa to Istanbul where the Russian navy cannot operate boarding craft.
I think it's worth repeating the points I've made from time to time about the naval balance of power in the Black Sea:
1. NATO has strike aircraft in place, now, sufficient to close off at least the west half of the sea to any warship, it could be done overnight. Any Russian naval activity including interruption of grain to Africa from Ukraine only takes place because NATO doesn't intervene.
2. When we recall this war is now 16 months old, and the West still has been unable to hand over anti-ship missiles capable of reaching 500-600 km (instead of the 200-300 km envelope the Ukrainians have), it is hard to call that inaction anything else but negligence. It is not as if the smart people in the NATO governments didn't know the Ukrainians raise grain people in the Middle East and Africa eat it, nor is it easy to believe Russian aggression against that piece of the world food logisitics chain was unlikely. Plus, Russia has used its Black Sea Fleet warships to bombard Ukrainain towns and cities and killed probably hundreds of Ukrainian civilians, since mid-2022.
How in the world is it that the Russian Black Sea Fleet still operating freely? Sixteen months, and the best NATO and the West have been able to do is have talks about grain corridors?
3. All of this could be solved if someone gave Ukraine some effective commerce raiders. Goeben and Breslau. There is precedent.
Here’s a link to a KP article on the Russians, grain, saber-rattling on the Black Sea, and the latest round of missile strikes on Odessa: