A difficult year ahead for Ukraine
February 10, 2024 1:16 PM   Subscribe

After a not very successful campaign in 2023 Ukraine is facing some difficult obstacles and tough choices in 2024. Inside is a collection of status reports and commentary on where the war is now.

In recent days, shakeups in Ukraine's top military leadership has grabbed the headlines: Tucker Carlson got a lot of attention for his interview with Putin: Some thoughts on the way forward: Developments in how the war is waged: Many voice concern over the scope and length of the wider confrontation: The war is still a terrible strain on the Ukrainian economy and civil society, and Support Ukraine Now has a number of ways for you to help.
posted by Harald74 (124 comments total) 55 users marked this as a favorite
 
Thank you for making the post and collecting those links. Here in the US, having a significant chunk of one political party be openly in the pocket of Putin is really embarrassing and is starting to cause major problems for Ukraine, and must be causing concern for the Baltic states.
posted by Dip Flash at 1:22 PM on February 10 [12 favorites]


Finland least of all, I suspect, as they have a strong tradition of kicking Russian ass. Plus I suspect that because of their application to NATO due to the invasion of Ukraine, Putin will increasingly reluctant to stand near upper floor windows.
posted by y2karl at 1:34 PM on February 10


How, historically, have stalemates been broken?

I don't see enough mil./$ support for Ukraine materializing to get a win devastating enough for Russia to withdraw.

I don't think either Putin or Zelensky croaking would affect the trajectory of the war in the short term. Both countries are vested in their side winning.

What can the west support beyond "not letting putin win" and "stasis expensive in blood and treasure"?
posted by lalochezia at 2:07 PM on February 10 [6 favorites]


If you've been following the chatter about the war lately, one statistic you might've heard over and over again is fairly stark. Currently, the Russian military is being supplied with triple-to-quintuple the number of artillery shells per month that the Ukrainian army is. This is partly because of the way the production cycles are lining up, but partly it's because US aid has been held up for so long, while North Korean munition factories have been increasing their output. Bloomberg got hold of a fairly starkly-worded document that the Ukrainian defense minister, Rustem Umerov, sent around to European colleagues. Here's the text of the Bloomberg article:
Ukraine has warned its allies that it is facing a “critical” shortage of artillery shells with Russia deploying three times as much firepower on the frontlines each day.

Defense Minister Rustem Umerov wrote to his European Union counterparts this week describing the massive numerical disadvantage his troops are facing as they try to fight off fresh Russian assaults. He said Ukraine is unable to fire more than 2,000 shells a day across a frontline that stretches for 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), according to a document seen by Bloomberg. That’s less than a third of the ammunition Russia uses.

Ukraine’s weapons shortages are growing worse by the day, Umerov added, as he urged his EU allies to do more to meet their pledge to supply a million artillery rounds. He said Ukaine needs to at least match the firepower deployed its enemy.

“The side with the most ammunition to fight usually wins,” Umerov said, according to the document.

The EU acknowledged on Wednesday that it will supply barely half of the shells it had promised by a March deadline, resolving to deliver almost 600,000 more by the end of the year.

Ukraine needs 200,000 155mm shells per month, the document says. Moscow is on track to get almost twice that amount, according to Estonian estimates, with about a million shells coming from North Korea.

At a meeting of defense ministers on Wednesday, the EU said it will have a capacity to produce 1 million rounds per year and expects to double that capacity to 2 million in 2025. The US is also ramping up production of shells in order to help Ukraine meet its needs.
One problem the EU has is simply there aren't very many munitions factories. For instance, one new Finnish factory will be providing a tenth of the increase just on its own.

That said, the EU is ramping up production, and if the US ever sorts itself out (admittedly a big if) that shell gap will shrink very quickly.
posted by Kattullus at 2:22 PM on February 10 [13 favorites]


This pointless war will go on until another 1917 or (successful) 1991 happens in Russia.

It's up to the Russian people whether they want to be locked in with their club of 5 mates (Syria, North Korea, Belarus, Nicaragua) or return as first class citizens in the Zapadny mir.

It's a tougher row to hoe, defeating the security state run by totalitarians.
posted by torokunai at 2:27 PM on February 10 [3 favorites]


North Korean elites may be utterly thrilled but North Korean artillery shells are another story.
posted by y2karl at 4:07 PM on February 10


The BBC fact checkers are not doing themselves any credibility favors with "Catherine the Great in the 17th Century."

I very much wish the US was not bundling Ukraine aid with Israel because it risks splitting the American people on an issue that otherwise had widespread support.
posted by Gable Oak at 4:16 PM on February 10 [7 favorites]


Taiwan aid also.
"If the legislation ultimately passes the Senate, it will face an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated he could split the aid into separate bills."

4 of 8 comments thus far Inform that the United States is not meeting it's commitment. If the war in Ukraine is solely contingent upon the United States and Western allies supplying artillery shells, then this war is lost.
posted by clavdivs at 4:42 PM on February 10 [3 favorites]


Apparently our lack of machine tools is hampering our ability to increase artillery ammo production, which means we can blame Reagan with a straight face.
posted by credulous at 5:01 PM on February 10 [9 favorites]


Apparently we can't expand the factory that produces shells for Ukraine because it's in a national historic district.

Just something to bring up next time your neighbors start talking about landmarking.
posted by novalis_dt at 5:04 PM on February 10 [3 favorites]


It's a shell game.
ooo
posted by clavdivs at 5:23 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]


More on the seemingly contradictory assertions by the United States military industrial complex thus reaffirming that concentrating discussion on the United States in Foreign Wars being currently held is problematic.


from the Defense 1 Article.
"The U.S. already maintains large stockpiles of some key raw materials, such as the precursor chemicals for explosives, Bush said. But how much of other raw materials the U.S. should keep in reserve is an open question. “The issue is really stockpiling, Bush said, “It’s really a question of how much you can afford to do.”

from Defense News: "You have to produce enough explosives – either IMX-104 or TNT – to fill that many shells that fast and that production capacity does not exist in the United States by itself,” Doug Bush said during a Feb. 5 Center for Strategic and International Studies event in Washington. “We’re having to go overseas to allies. Luckily, we have many, [that are] highly capable.”

posted by clavdivs at 5:46 PM on February 10


Apparently we can't expand the factory that produces shells for Ukraine because it's in a national historic district.

I mean, we stopped caring about climate, this could be waived
posted by eustatic at 6:10 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]


~Apparently we can't expand the factory that produces shells for Ukraine because it's in a national historic district.

~I mean, we stopped caring about climate, this could be waived

Resulting in the one time in history that republicans will give a shit about preserving an historical district. They are dead-set on letting Ukraine die just because the orange one wants to be pals with Putin. It's reprehensible.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:22 PM on February 10 [9 favorites]


In brief, nobody knows how to make anytime anymore. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 7:01 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]


Even Forbes has been openly calling the GOP congresspeople obstructing Ukraine aid as Russia-aligned.
posted by 1adam12 at 7:30 PM on February 10 [5 favorites]


I very much wish the US was not bundling Ukraine aid with Israel

If we can give free weapons to Israel, we should compel Republicans to do the same for Ukraine or they need to explain to the public why they pledge allegiance to Putin and Russia over the United States.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:54 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]


"DOD Official Restates Why Supporting Ukraine Is in U.S. Interest."

And from the current DOD postion, like a musical,
"While supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do, U.S. support is about more than just Ukraine, Wallander said. "[Our support] is about the international order that keeps all countries and all populations safe, including Russia," she said."

It's all crazypants but, "As Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhnyi notes in his recent treatise, “On the Modern Design of Military Operations in the Russo-Ukrainian War: In the Fight for the Initiative,” there is a need for new concepts that “increase[e] the mobility of own troops” and ensure the “safe access to certain lines.”"

History Redux
posted by clavdivs at 9:00 PM on February 10 [1 favorite]


Thanks, Harald74. I thought the article by Gady and Kofman was really good. My takeaway from reading Cathal Nolan's "The Allure of Battle" is that most major wars turn into a contest of attrition. The West has much greater economic capacity than Russia does - but the bottlenecks in ramping up production of artillery shells are a huge challenge.

A couple articles from the Economist: posted by russilwvong at 9:20 PM on February 10 [1 favorite]


The latest from TFG: CNN: Trump says he would encourage Russia to ‘do whatever the hell they want’ to any NATO country that doesn’t pay enough
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense in a stunning admission he would not abide by the collective-defense clause at the heart of the alliance if reelected.

“NATO was busted until I came along,” Trump said at a rally in Conway, South Carolina. “I said, ‘Everybody’s gonna pay.’ They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer.”
Unlike his Russian counterpart Medvedev, Trump stand a real chance of being reelected, putting his crazypants pronouncements in a totally different light. This stuff and congressional waffling is not doing any favours for the US' image in the world, and by extension faith in the current world order.

Though he is correct that other NATO members should step up and pull their weight. A stopped clock etc.
posted by Harald74 at 10:28 PM on February 10 [5 favorites]


Tom Nichols in The Atlantic: If Russia wins
Ukrainian defenses are in danger of being destroyed and overrun because House Republicans refuse to provide ammunition and aid. If Russia wins this war, the consequences could be catastrophic.

...

The real danger for the U.S. and Europe would begin after Ukraine is crushed, when only NATO would remain as the final barrier to Putin’s dreams of evolving into a new emperor of Eurasia. Putin has never accepted the legitimate existence of Ukraine, but like the unreformed Soviet nostalgist that he is, he has a particular hatred for NATO. After the collapse of Ukraine, he would want to take bolder steps to prove that the Atlantic Alliance is an illusion, a lie promulgated by cowards who would never dare to stop the Kremlin from reclaiming its former Soviet and Russian imperial possessions.
posted by Harald74 at 10:48 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]


In the Putin interview, he says that Ukraine is to blame for the invasion like Poland was to blame for WWII. Which... *shrugs in utter lack of words and also Ribbentrop-Molotov*
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:36 AM on February 11 [21 favorites]


Well, at least that saves us from making the comparison between Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin, since Putin has already done it for us.
posted by UN at 4:52 AM on February 11 [14 favorites]


(Anyone remember when Russia was invading Ukrainian "because Nazis"? That was so two years ago.)
posted by UN at 4:59 AM on February 11 [5 favorites]


i don’t think it’s emphasized enough how completely the “economic war” against russia has failed. their gdp is growing, they face no real obstacles to lng and oil exports and they seem to have had no problem sourcing the electronics and other materials needed to keep their war machines going. at the beginning of the war western boosters would not stop predicting the inevitable collapse of the russian military because they would run out of supplies due to sanctions and it’s clear that won’t happen. it’s much more likely that ukraine runs out of artillery shells or soldiers even if they continue to get US financial support than russia runs out of anything they need to keep fighting.

If Russia can keep fighting for the foreseeable future then what options are left? Ukraine almost certainly can’t keep the war going forever, and without western support they would probably fall apart pretty quickly. It seems like either NATO goes all in and deploys their forces or Ukraine slowly bleeds until peace seems like the only option. neither of these are good outcomes.
posted by dis_integration at 7:37 AM on February 11 [13 favorites]


I understand the impulse behind isolationism, but I cannot get it into my head why any American would regard Putin with favour.

TFG is right that NATO members have not been meeting their commitments for military spending, which puts the lion's share of alliance defense on the US. It's arguable that a stronger, better-defended Europe might have been seen by Putin as a greater deterrent.

I'm super-cynical about the world this year. A military stalemate in Ukraine benefits Russia.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:44 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]


I understand the impulse behind isolationism, but I cannot get it into my head why any American would regard Putin with favour.

Putin’s Russia is the America Republicans want.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:26 AM on February 11 [20 favorites]


Putin’s Russia is the America Republicans want.

They must imagine that they would be oligarchs in the new system. Because if you are an oligarch or otherwise on the good list, Putin's Russia is a pretty nice place. If you aren't, it's not so nice.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:01 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]


In my opinion, Democracy, Freedom of Belief and Free Market Capitalism all diffuse conflict by making the possibility of changing who is dominant in society possible without violence and destruction. Even if they make manifestly poor choices and outcomes, the ability for revolution to not always produce violent civil war gives them a leg-up over rival systems.

To people who are dominant in society or identify with that dominant faction, this can be viewed as a plus (when someone defeats me and mine, as always happens in every society, I and everything I care about does not get destroyed!), or as a minus (how dare they challenge my dominance!)

Putin's Russia was the result of a failed transition to Democracy, Freedom of Belief and Free Market Capitalism. It turned into (to be pithy) an autocratic fascist kleptocracy.

Now, in order to gather power, you have to really want to have it and keep it. So to many of these people, the fact that all 3 of those ban them from destroying their potential rivals is unacceptable. So they want to dismantle Democracy and replace it with one where they cannot lose power. They want to dismantle Free Markets and replace it where economic dominance can crush foes. They want to ban other Beliefs and ways of thinking and crush those who follow them with violence.

And then there are those who don't want the end-state, but they behave locally pushing towards that end state, and have been convinced (by themselves, or political philosophy) that global action should match local. The "I may be economically powerful, but I have no choice but to act in my short-term local self interest" fools and similar.
posted by NotAYakk at 10:08 AM on February 11 [3 favorites]


> In my opinion, Democracy, Freedom of Belief and Free Market Capitalism all diffuse conflict by making the possibility of changing who is dominant in society possible without violence and destruction

gifs are kind of cheugy or whatever but also that one gif of nathan fillion is just perfect for this occasion
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:28 AM on February 11 [1 favorite]


Don't worry, gang. Eric Schmidt of Google is making autonomous drone bombs.
posted by McBearclaw at 11:01 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]


At least he's making them for Ukraine. Starlink, however, has started appearing in numbers on the Russian side. Ol' Musky was very worried that Starlink could be used by Ukraine to escalate the war, let's see how this plays out.
posted by Harald74 at 12:36 PM on February 11 [6 favorites]


seemingly, progress on the aid bill.

Platoons to get counter-drone gear in two US Army divisions.
Joint Counter-UAS office says anti-drone gun trucks are also set for delivery to Ukraine soon.
posted by clavdivs at 1:22 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]


Artillery shell gaps are the discourse fodder of simpletons. The real galaxy brains are talking about kill ratios.
posted by Richard Saunders at 4:56 PM on February 11


Senate advances Ukraine aid bill despite Trump opposition:
The Democratic-led Senate voted 67-27 in a rare Sunday session to clear the latest procedural hurdle and moved the foreign aid measure toward an ultimate vote on passage in the coming days.

... The next Senate action is expected on Monday sometime after 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT), when lawmakers are due to hold two procedural votes: one to adopt the foreign aid package as an amendment to an underlying House bill; and a second to limit debate ahead of a final vote on passage, which could come on Wednesday, according to aides.

The legislation includes $61 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel in its war against Hamas and $4.83 billion to support partners in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan, and deter aggression by China.
posted by joannemerriam at 5:51 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]


Russia spends between $500 million to 1 billion dollars a day on the war in Ukraine.

the United States spends roughly $900 billion a year on defense.

America spends on pets and pet supplies in one year 136 billion.
and on lottery, 108 billion.

what the f*** are these people thinking.
posted by clavdivs at 8:30 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]


Mod note: One, and some replies, deleted. 1) Don't make it personal. Also, 2) you are coming in strong from nowhere with a pretty uniformly rejected narrative that mirrors certain Russian propaganda and insisting that if others don't agree there's something wrong with them? Maybe you aren't weirdly trolling but it seems like you are weirdly trolling.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:21 PM on February 11 [10 favorites]


The always excellent history professor Timothy Snyder with a debunk of the Carlson interview.

In a talk with Tucker Carlson, Putin uttered sentences about the past. I will explain how Putin is wrong about everything, but first I have to make a point about why he is wrong about everything. By how I mean his errors about past events. By why I mean the horror inherent in the kind of story he is telling. It brings war, genocide, and fascism.

Putin has read about various realms in the past. By calling them “Russia,” he claims their territories for the Russian Federation he rules today.

Such nonsense brings war. On Putin's logic, leaders anywhere can make endless claims to territory based on various interpretations of the past. That undoes the entire international order, based as it is upon legal borders between sovereign states.
posted by Harald74 at 11:11 PM on February 11 [11 favorites]


On the more technical side of things, a summary of known Ukrainian long-range drones being used inside Russia, from H.I.Sutton.
posted by Harald74 at 11:15 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]


Fate of Avdiivka uncertain as Ukrainian forces defending it struggle with fortifications, resources (Kyiv Independent):
Among the most serious issues reported all along the front line is that Ukraine is facing a major personnel shortage – particularly in the infantry.

To reinforce infantry units after heavy losses, Ukraine has transferred soldiers from units specialized in artillery or logistics to infantry positions, according to the soldiers interviewed by the Kyiv Independent. This means soldiers deployed on the first defensive line may not even know the basic survival skills of an infantryman, which results in even more casualties.

Serhii, a 20-year-old artilleryman with the 59th, said that his originally 64-man artillery group had sent 15 men to the front line. He said most of them had been killed in their first days there. He attributes it to the fact they "knew almost nothing" about being in the infantry. Only four out of 15 survived.
posted by kmt at 2:04 AM on February 12 [3 favorites]


yeah this is not a battlespace where you want to run with WW-I era tactics.

with billon-dollar budgets nobody should be firing rifle rounds at the invaders.
posted by torokunai at 8:37 AM on February 12


Apparently we can't expand the factory that produces shells for Ukraine because it's in a national historic district.
I mean, we stopped caring about climate, this could be waived
Resulting in the one time in history that republicans will give a shit about preserving an historical district.
Hey, come on, be fair. All you'd have to do to get Republicans to care deeply about preserving a historical district is tell them "Robert E. Lee slept here."
posted by Flunkie at 5:12 PM on February 12


Unlike his Russian counterpart Medvedev, Trump stand a real chance of being reelected
Huh? I think he's been in an appointed (as opposed to elected) position for the past few years, but regardless, has Medvedev fallen out of favor?
posted by Flunkie at 5:25 PM on February 12


I regret not having said "as opposed to... ahem... elected"
posted by Flunkie at 5:26 PM on February 12


For president, that is. Only Putin is going to be president for as long as he's alive.
posted by Harald74 at 1:52 AM on February 13


It's not like they are or even ever were competitors for the presidency. They're allies, and even during Medvedev's presidency, he was widely viewed as being nothing more than the de jure puppet of the de facto ruler: Putin.

The only reason he was elected in the 2008 election was because he ran and Putin didn't. In turn, the only reason he ran and Putin didn't is because (at that time) the constitution forbade anyone from being president for three straight terms. Upon taking office, Medvedev immediately appointed Putin prime minister. Effectively, they had just swapped titles, nothing more.

As soon as Putin was legally able to run for the presidency again (i.e. the very next election, 2012), Medvedev declined to run for reelection and backed Putin. They once again swapped titles.

In the meantime (during Medvedev's de jure presidency), they changed the constitution so that future presidential terms would be six years, not four. This was widely viewed as having been done specifically for Putin.

We're now approaching the end of Putin's fourth term, i.e. his second second-consecutive term. But surprise surprise, the constitution has been changed again, and now presidents can serve for no more than four consecutive terms.

In the intervening years, Medvedev served as prime minister for a while longer, and then was appointed by Putin as the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council. The just-plain-chairman chairman being Putin.

So framing Medvedev as the "Russian counterpart" to Trump, with the sole difference being that he doesn't "stand a real chance of being reelected", and therefore that his "crazypants pronouncements", as opposed to Trump's, aren't really important is at least technically true on some surface level, I guess, but it seems very, very misleading to me.

Medvedev was, sure, the president before Putin. But Medvedev neither is nor was Putin's presidential rival whom Putin defeated and is now looking to defeat Putin in turn. Not even close. And his pronouncements, sure, don't really matter as much as Trump's, but that's not because he doesn't "stand a real chance of being elected" to the presidency (which he's not even running for); it's because his pronouncements have never really mattered, not even while he was president. Except in the sense that they are proxy announcements of Vladimir Putin's.
posted by Flunkie at 12:11 PM on February 13 [6 favorites]


Syrskyi announces transition to new stage of war against Russia
According to Syrskyi, the main value for Ukraine is the lives of the military, especially those performing combat missions. Syrskyi states that Ukraine cannot afford to neglect the value of the lives of Ukrainians, acting similarly to Russia.

"We have transitioned from offensive actions to conducting a defensive operation. The goal of our operation is to exhaust the enemy, inflict maximum losses on them, using our fortifications, our technical advantages, in terms of unmanned aviation, EW systems, maintaining prepared defense lines," he says.

Syrskyi notes that this war elevates the importance of technological progress in the armed forces and the progress of armed combat itself.

"We are already seeing, and for us, this is not news, the use of ground robotic platforms. Modules that are remotely controlled, which make it possible to save the lives of military personnel. Thus, the war is entering a new stage," he says.
posted by UN at 1:57 PM on February 13 [3 favorites]


de jure puppet of the de facto

Yet another de n'importe quel user name.
posted by y2karl at 7:11 PM on February 13 [1 favorite]


Meduza: Ukraine says large Russian landing ship destroyed in strike
The Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) General Staff says that Ukrainian intelligence units have destroyed the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s large landing ship Caesar Kunikov. “At the moment of the strike, it was located in Ukrainian waters near Alupka,” the AFU General Staff said. Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate has published a video purportedly showing the destruction of the ship by naval drones.
I think this is the fourth ship if the Ropucha-class being sunk or functionally destroyed. They are important logistical assets for the Russians, especially when the bridge to Crimea is closed.
posted by Harald74 at 12:58 AM on February 14 [3 favorites]


Flunkie had issues with my flippant take on Medvedev as the Russian Trump, and wrote an excellent summary of what Medvedev's position is in his comment. All good stuff, and to clarify I'm only of the opinion that they are alike in that they both are shit-talking former presidents. I'll abstain from further comparisons in the future, they are both despicable human beings in their own right.
posted by Harald74 at 1:06 AM on February 14


Another refinery fire in Russia, this time the Gazpromneft refinery in Moscow. They are starting to accumulate - I wonder what the overall picture here is regarding refinery capability for the armed forces and surplus for export now?
posted by Harald74 at 1:15 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]


Meduza: Ukraine says large Russian landing ship destroyed in strike

There is now footage that looks to be from the drone attack itself, just like with the last sinking. (Link is to Reddit and is SFW, but that subreddit has a lot that is very NSFW.) It looks like the same tactics keep working, having a group of drones that zip in and hit the ships broadside. Unlike with the last sinking, this ship didn't seem to be firing at the drones.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:38 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]


> Meduza: Ukraine says large Russian landing ship destroyed in strike

it seems like ships are basically defenseless against drone attacks. slow moving, giant targets, no way to defend against cheap bombs that can fly low and fast (especially if they can send a few at once). they’re sitting ducks, which does not bode well for the american reliance on carrier groups. a few thousand bucks in consumer electronics and explosives and you can destroy billions of dollars in military hardware.
posted by dis_integration at 8:18 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]


What I'm about to say isn't news for anyone who's been watching their Perun, but the difference in artillery shell supply/number of artillery pieces/amount of artillery fires, while bad, isn't as bad as it appears on the face of it. The Ukranian forces are, as a general rule, using a greater portion of modern pieces that are more accurate, and doing much better on maintenance. Artillery barrels wear out fast under consistent use, and the Russians forces appear to be going for a high volume/lower tech/inaccurate approach compared to the Ukrainians.

That being said, Ukraine's allies can and should be doing much more to support them, and to hamper Russian logistics.
posted by LegallyBread at 8:18 AM on February 14 [2 favorites]


I'm curious if it's still true that Russian forces are using the older style impact detonating shells while Ukraine is using modern airburst shells along with a smattering of more specialized shells. The modern stuff being more damaging and lethal over a larger area in more scenarios.

It's still hard to overcome the sheer volume of shells Russia is able to fire. Getting Ukraine a high enough volume of shells that they can bombard enemy positions ahead of a ground assault should go a long way towards making Ukraine's assaults more effective with fewer casualties.
posted by VTX at 8:33 AM on February 14


There is a surprising (to me at least, only tangentially served with artillery) lack of airburst fuzes in this war. I thought they were ubiquitous.
posted by Harald74 at 8:39 AM on February 14


Some analysis of the sinking of the Caesar Kunikov from The Independent:

Retired captain Andrii Ryzhenko, a former veteran officer in the Ukrainian Navy, told The Independent the destruction of the Caesar Kunikov amounted to the fifth Russian Ropucha-class warship out of 13 to be badly hit since the full-scale invasion.

“This means that Russia now has very limited capability in the Black Sea. It also means logistics from mainland Russia are quite limited,” he said. “It is a small but important step to prevent Russian dominance at sea.”

He added that there had been some indication that the Ropucha-class had been carrying Iranian-made Shahed drones to Crimea from mainland Russia, in preparation for attacks on Ukrainian civilian cities.


The 13 ships in the class are not all based in the Black Sea, BTW, there seems to be only two left according to Wikipedia.
posted by Harald74 at 8:43 AM on February 14 [2 favorites]


Or maybe three, it's a bit confusing.
posted by Harald74 at 8:44 AM on February 14


it seems like ships are basically defenseless against drone attacks. slow moving, giant targets, no way to defend against cheap bombs that can fly low and fast (especially if they can send a few at once).

The ones they have been using repeatedly to sink Russian ships are basically fancy jetskis with ~500 pounds of explosives in the nose. The footage they have released from the attacks shows a group of drones approaching and zipping in ones and twos to strike the ships at vulnerable places (broadside and at the stern to disable the propellers). We don't see the unsuccessful strikes, and there must be times when the ships successfully defend themselves, but this time around the ship didn't seem to be putting out any real defensive fire at all.

How vulnerable western naval vessels are to this is doubtless a subject being looked at very intensely by the various navies, but the Russian ships appear to be very vulnerable and either don't have or aren't using successful countermeasures.

There is a surprising (to me at least, only tangentially served with artillery) lack of airburst fuzes in this war. I thought they were ubiquitous.

There was a point earlier in the war when Ukraine started using western artillery and shells, and all of a sudden the footage started showing accurate airburst hits. Prior to that, all the footage showed inaccurate, old-style artillery rounds that explode when they hit the ground.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:45 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]


Also vulnerable: giant containers of oil. Russia gets hit again, this time in Kursk.
posted by UN at 11:34 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]


How vulnerable western naval vessels are to this is doubtless a subject being looked at very intensely by the various navies, but the Russian ships appear to be very vulnerable and either don't have or aren't using successful countermeasures.

Google tells me Russian is upgrading their anti drone tech. Logic tells me the over 18 drones shot at u.s. ship suggests they have adequate anti drone technology.
posted by clavdivs at 3:13 PM on February 15


Diána Vonnák in New Lines Magazine: Can We Laugh? On the Ground With Ukrainian Artists
Artists are in a complicated position across Ukraine, where the appetite for readings, stand-up comedy and theater has become enormous as people release tension and try to process what is happening to them. But there is often violence in the catharsis, and the line between humor that hurts and that which heals is often blurred.
...
“In the local stand-up scene, the best jokes were gone by the end of spring,” a historian and Lviv local who gave only his first name, Zhenya, remembered. When I asked what he meant by “good,” he replied, “Gore. No shame. Lots of corpses. But that isn’t funny after a while. It becomes gruesome. And people probably realized that the war is here for good.”
posted by Kabanos at 6:57 PM on February 15 [3 favorites]


A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners
As Ukraine has scrambled to source ammunition, arms and equipment for its defence, Russia has presided over a massive ramping up of industrial production over the last two years that has outstripped what many western defence planners expected when Vladimir Putin launched his invasion.

Total defence spending has risen to an estimated 7.5% of Russia’s GDP, supply chains have been redesigned to secure many key inputs and evade sanctions, and factories producing ammunition, vehicles and equipment are running around the clock, often on mandatory 12-hour shifts with double overtime, in order to sustain the Russian war machine for the foreseeable future.
While much of Europe worries about the cost of government spending on military aid.... Russia shows that that kind of spending drives the economy.
posted by UN at 10:24 PM on February 15 [4 favorites]


'NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO and Ukraine will create a joint analysis, training, and education center in Poland following the meetings of NATO Defense Ministers in Brussels on February 15.Stoltenberg stated that NATO will open the center in Bydgoszcz, Poland, which will allow Ukrainian forces to share their combat experience with NATO and train alongside their allied counterparts. Stoltenberg also stated that NATO had negotiated contracts with ammunition manufacturers worth $10 billion and that NATO needs to come out of peace time ammunition production to replenish NATO stocks and support Ukraine.[Stoltenberg added that European NATO members for the first time will collectively invest a total of $380 billion on defense in 2024, which constitutes two percent of all NATO members’ collective GDP.'
posted by clavdivs at 10:57 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]


Putin says he was not impressed by Tucker Carlson. Claims he would have preferred tougher questions, which I somehow doubt...
posted by Harald74 at 1:34 AM on February 16


Hey Kabanos, thanks for posting that article by Dia!* Her piece really resonated with me. The jokes are great, and it does shed some light on the place of humor in Eastern European life:
“It’s great to have war in the time of advanced tech,” she told the audience. “It’s like ordering a take-away: ‘Your rocket is estimated to arrive in 15 minutes.’ Might as well take a shower. Oh, no, a delay! Aren’t rockets so unreliable these days?”

The crowd giggled along and the two hours passed without tension. The audience’s laughter was cordial, and everything felt cozy if slightly lukewarm.

The comedy night stayed clear of jokes that could divide the audience. Hierarchies of suffering, men leaving the country, some Ukrainians holding on to speaking Russian — nothing potentially divisive was addressed. Instead, the message was simple: We are all in this together.

Thinking back on a year of intense conversations and listening to strangers, Slyvynsky suggested that jokes make one look at what would otherwise be ignored. Humor is a Trojan horse that smuggles in the stuff that will need serious debates and solutions.

“People can laugh at jokes when they are ready to at least acknowledge the existence of the problem thematized in a joke. When they aren’t, a joke can be traumatic,” he said. When it is not yours to acknowledge, you might feel awkward or stupid, he added.
Made me recall this article on political jokes from the communist period: Hammer & tickle - Prospect Magazine.

*Disclaimer: She's an old acquitance of mine from college. Had quite a turn coming from philosophy and classics to anthropolgy. She then spent 3 months in Nepal researching buddhist nuns before switching again for the anthropological history of Lviv. But now she's seems to be settled. For this and more, you can listen to this podcast interview, unfortunately only in Hungarian.
posted by kmt at 2:06 AM on February 16 [7 favorites]


Only tangentially related to the war, but the Russian Penitentiary Service reports that Aleksey Navalny is dead.
posted by Harald74 at 3:32 AM on February 16 [6 favorites]


I was insomniacally doomscrolling this am when that popped up all over my Chrome splash page panel. My mantra of late is It Only Gets Worse. Which is too true too often. This was one of those times.
posted by y2karl at 11:21 AM on February 16


Commander-in-Chief announces withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Avdiivka
posted by kmt at 7:00 AM on February 17 [1 favorite]


FEBRUARY 18, 2024 Russian Armed Forces gained local air superiority during the battles in Avdiivka - ISW

FEBRUARY 19, 2024 Air Force: Ukraine shoots down 2 Russian fighter jets this morning and three Russian fighter jets, two Su-34s and a Su-35, were shot down on Feb. 17, the Air Force said.

That's six fighter jets in the last three days, if my math is correct.
posted by UN at 3:28 AM on February 19


I meant 5. Or let's just say a number between 1 and 10 [insert facepalm emoji].
posted by UN at 5:11 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]


...the knowledge and strategies of Ukraine is going to be studied pretty widely

Absolutely. Cynical me quickly zeroed in on how useful this war would be for revisiting the techniques and technology of conventional war in a "western" urbanized setting, a great opportunity to fire off everyone's old, soon-to-expire armaments, and an unmatchable R&D environment for new and less expensive technologies like drones. Jetskis with explosives!

Damn.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:44 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]


I meant 5. Or let's just say a number between 1 and 10 [insert facepalm emoji].

The Guardian is reporting it as a claimed six planes shot down.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:48 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]


HUR Confirms Death of Russian Helicopter Pilot Who Defected to Ukraine With Mi-8
28-year-old Captain Maxim Kuzminov seized control of a Russian armored combat Mi-8 helicopter and brought it safely to an airbase in the Kharkiv region in August of 2023.

Andriy Yusov, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (HUR), confirmed to Kyiv Post the death of Russian pilot Kuzminov, who seized control of a Russian armoured combat Mi-8 helicopter and brought it safely to an airbase in the Kharkiv region back in August of 2023.

"We can confirm the fact of death," Yusov told Kyiv Post, providing no additional details.

According to Russian media, Maksim Kuzminov was shot dead, with at least five bullets in his body. He was found in an underground parking lot in the municipality of Villajoyosa, in the province of Alicante, Spain.
People worry about crossing 'red lines', meanwhile, is there a country in Europe left that hasn't endured assassinations on their soil?
posted by UN at 9:43 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]


Today Ukraine marks the Day of Remembrance of the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred, remembering the 100+ protesters who were killed 10 years ago during the Maidan revolution.

If you haven't yet seen it, today's a good time to watch Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, a doc about Maidan. It captures the fierce spirit of Ukrainians, though it's particularly unnerving to watch it now with the knowledge of what is to come at them in the coming decade to try to annihilate their hope.
posted by Kabanos at 2:19 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]


Murz, Russian milblogger of note, has apparently committed suicide (sorry about the Xitter link). He was often publishing numbers and perspectives that the Russian authorities rather not see widely distributed, but had been keeping a low profile since the crackdown on negative portrayals of the SMO. But one of the last things he posted was the 16k casualty figure for the battle of Avdiivka.
posted by Harald74 at 1:13 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]


People worry about crossing 'red lines', meanwhile, is there a country in Europe left that hasn't endured assassinations on their soil?

Estonian security services, usually known for punching way over their weight, have arrested 10 people while investigating attacks on a government minister's and a journalist's cars, saying they believe the people were acting on behalf of Russian special services.

Latvian security service also detained a person in similar circumstances recently.

Russian state TV, former president Medvedev and even Putin himself have been talking about the Baltics as historically Russian lands. These kind of operations might increase if the Russians get their way in Ukraine. There have been bombings and other destabilisation operations earlier, and the Baltics seem set to be an arena where Russia gradually can test Nato resolve later.
posted by Harald74 at 1:24 AM on February 21 [5 favorites]


And speaking of the Estonian security services, you could do worse than read their recently released annual report (in English)
posted by Harald74 at 1:26 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]


The Ukrainian military has shot down another Russian aircraft. The Su-34 became the seventh enemy aircraft shot down recently, according to Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk.

What's going on?
posted by UN at 3:48 AM on February 21


Can be several factors, one is that the RuAF operate closer to the front to deliver their new glide bombs, which by all accounts are quite effective. They are possibly calculating the odds there vs reduced Ukrainian air defence presence due to lack of missiles and their need to protect infrastructure and cities, and finding that they are willing to take the risk. There are also several commentators that think the Ukrainians' German-delivered Patriot systems, which are truck-mounted and more mobile, are used to make air defence ambushes here and there. And there's always the risk of friendly fire whenever Russian air defence is involved.
posted by Harald74 at 4:11 AM on February 21 [4 favorites]


Here's a little bit more from Meduza on the Murz suicide.
posted by Harald74 at 5:28 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]


There are also several commentators that think the Ukrainians' German-delivered Patriot systems, which are truck-mounted and more mobile, are used to make air defence ambushes here and there.

This is the speculation that I've been seeing a lot lately. I didn't even know that the Patriot system could be used to shoot down airplanes, until there were some Russian planes shot down that way over the sea last year. This is the article I remember, with a photo of a Patriot system with stencils on the side showing all the things it had shot down.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:14 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]


I honestly can't believe we haven't just utterly blanketed Ukraine with Patriot batteries. What is the point of having a massive military industrial complex and sitting on enormous stockpiles if we won't send them in a situation like this?
posted by Reverend John at 10:57 PM on February 21 [4 favorites]


I honestly can't believe we haven't just utterly blanketed Ukraine with Patriot batteries. What is the point of having a massive military industrial complex and sitting on enormous stockpiles if we won't send them in a situation like this?

So, I agree and wish more were being given (along with more of the cutting-edge European-made air defense systems). But the very real problem is that there simply aren't all that many of them available and there is a high demand for them by lots of countries who have placed orders. (Being able to watch videos every day of both old and current American-made weapons easily destroying Russian armor, planes, and infantry has to be the best advertisement our military-industrial complex could ever imagine.)

And, they are expensive, and right now US aid to Ukraine is being blocked by Russian-influenced Republicans, so options are even more limited.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:25 AM on February 22 [3 favorites]


Why the West is losing Ukraine
U.S. Republicans blocking aid. European right-wingers pushing to abandon Kyiv. Ultra-cautious leaders. What is the West’s real strategy?

[...]

Indeed, two years after Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation has never looked more perilous for Kyiv — and for its neighbors along Russia’s western frontier — since the dark days of February 2022, when U.S. President Joe Biden offered his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a one-way ticket out of Ukraine (declined), and much of the world assumed (wrongly) that Russia would overrun the country.

U.S. Republicans, following orders from ex-President Donald Trump, are blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine, subjecting troops to “ammo starvation” with immediate, deleterious effects on the battlefield. After taking Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Russian troops are now trying to press their advantage in the directions of Marinka, Robotyne and Kreminna, according to battlefield observers. European leaders, despite having become Ukraine’s chief material backers, are failing to fill the gap in military supplies left by the U.S. and, thanks to France, insisting on “Buy European” provisions despite a lack of manufacturing capacity and refusing to shop outside the bloc for shells.

Meanwhile Putin, who’s still very much in power despite efforts to sanction his regime into submission, is ramping up his campaign of intimidation against the West. In his interview with ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Russian leader mentioned Poland more than a dozen times, placing the NATO member squarely within his vision for Grand Russia, and his deputy prime minister has started to make threatening noises toward the Norwegian leadership of the island of Svalbard, in the Arctic Ocean, of all places.
A long-ish article that takes a while to get to its point, but it brings up a point and it's... disheartening.

It seems like Ukraine is being provided just enough aid to maintain a status quo. But maintaining that status quo opens up the possibility that Russia will break through the front lines. We're not ready for it.
posted by UN at 2:39 AM on February 23 [4 favorites]


Op-ed in the Kyiv Independent by Andriy Lyubka, poet and essayist: Opinion: In the past 2 years of war, we have all died a little
Two dreadful years have passed since then. What has changed within us and around us? The most significant change is that we have become accustomed to war — it is part of our lives, our daily routine. This is the scariest change because we have acclimatized to something absolutely abnormal and horrific. We have learned to live without paying attention to it.
posted by Harald74 at 3:40 AM on February 23 [7 favorites]


Ukraine shot down another A-50 Mainstay, a radar plane that's very important for the Russians now that the ground-based radar coverage is getting more spotty all the time.
Incredibly, the Russian air force has lost another one of its rare Beriev A-50M/U Mainstay radar early-warning planes. Video that circulated online on Friday reportedly depicts the A-50’s burning wreckage in Krasnodar Krai, in Russia just east of the Sea of Azov.

The location of the crash, at least 120 miles from the front line in southern Ukraine, could indicate the four-engine, 15-person radar plane either suffered a mechanical failure—or took a hit while operating closer to the front and tried to make it back to its base in Krasnodar before exploding.
posted by Harald74 at 11:26 AM on February 23 [5 favorites]


Dang, this has been a rough month for the Russian airforce: The air arm has lost, mostly to Ukrainian long-range surface-to-air missiles—American-made Patriot PAC-2s, in particular—nine of its best planes in just a month. Including an A-50 that the Ukrainians hit over the Sea of Azov in January.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:59 AM on February 23


What's so frustrating/disheartening is that it seems Ukraine could have run Russia out in the fall of year one (before the Russians dug in) with appropriate weapons/supply.

I'm guessing some of the problem was logistics but the dithering made logistics moot.
posted by mazola at 1:39 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]


“LISTEN, IT’S WORSE HERE THAN HELL.”
Extrajudicial killings hidden in the Russian army. [Verstka]
Google translate does a decent job, but @ChrisO_wiki also summarizes it in a long twitter thread.
posted by Kabanos at 3:46 PM on February 23 [1 favorite]


Threadreader apparently works again on Xitter, so here's the thread posted by Kabanos.
posted by Harald74 at 10:07 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]


I was in the 2 year anniversary rally in Oslo today. Pretty good crowd despite some lousy weather. 1 hour of concerts and 1 hour of appeals. Our foreign minister held one, and some prominent politicians. The music was a mixture of modern and traditional Ukrainian music. Both the children's choir and when everyone joined in the national anthem was pretty moving.

A sea of flags, most Ukrainian and Norwegian of course, but I spotted a Lithuanian one, a Belarussian opposition flag and a couple of red-and-black Ukrainian nationalist flags (those will probably end up on Russian TV, I guess...)

I brought a friend along, and we had an interaction with Norwegian police that was mostly funny, almost literally bumped into the foreign minister as he walked through the crowd as Norwegian politicians are wont to do and we think we most likely were filmed by the FSB. Afterwards we had some fast food and went home...
posted by Harald74 at 1:04 PM on February 24 [6 favorites]


Big Fat Missiles To Take Down Big Fat Russian Planes. [forbes]
How Ukraine Brought Back Its Massive S-200s.
posted by porpoise at 6:13 PM on February 24 [3 favorites]


Ukrainian-American miliatry analyst Michael Kofman takes stock of the war at the two year mark on the War on the Rocks podcast. He isn't terribly optimistic. On a similar note, James Meek has a big article in the latest issue of the London Review of Books [archive link], where he goes over the military situation at some length. He also addresses some of the narratives that have taken hold in the West. Excerpt:
There’s a self-comforting argument made by some in the West which holds that Putin would be glad to stop fighting tomorrow if he could be sure Russia would get to keep what it had already seized, while the Ukrainians would have to stop tomorrow if the West stopped arming them. Ergo, Western support is all that sustains the war. According to this line of reasoning – proclaimed in Hungary by Viktor Orbán, in Slovakia by Robert Fico, in Germany by the nationalist leftist Sahra Wagenknecht and the pro-Russian AfD, and in the US by sub-Trumps like Vivek Ramaswamy – Putin’s invasion was merely regrettable (though Trump himself called the first stage of the attack ‘genius’). In this view, the real enemies of peace, the true villains, are Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Rishi Sunak, Volodymyr Zelensky and the liberal/trad-right media, who perpetuate the war in the vain hope of weakening Russia by throwing weapons at the poor, simple Ukrainians, forcing them to go on dying. Ukraine has nothing to gain from futile attempts to push the Russians further back, the argument goes, and no risk of losing more by letting Putin keep what he already has.

There are a number of flaws in this way of thinking. It implies, echoing Kremlin spin, that Ukrainians only continue to resist because Zelensky and the West force them to, rather than because they don’t want to have their compatriots in the conquered regions killed, abused, deported to Russia or simply obliged to submit silently. It denies agency to Ukrainians in the free republic, who are not subject, as Russians in Russia are, to an extensive apparatus of state repression. It also denies agency to the Russians themselves, treating them, helpfully from Putin’s point of view, as a force of nature, wild predators who can’t be expected to change their ways. Genuine pacifists, while decrying Western arms supplies, continue to demand that Putin end the war, as he could in 48 hours, by pulling his troops back to their start lines. Those making the permanent stalemate argument aren’t pacifists; they are self-declared ‘realists’, but realists who want to be thought well of. Their argument, often expressed in terms of sympathy with ‘ordinary Ukrainians’, implies an ethical superiority over those who want to see the continued arming of Ukraine. The ‘realistic’ logic that it is better to accept things as they are than risk harm by continuing to resist makes a certain utilitarian sense, especially if you’re not the one being attacked, but the coldness of the reasoning is problematic for those who voice it: they insist that those who have the greatest care for Putin’s victims are those who would let Putin have at them with the least inconvenience.

The greatest weakness in the permanent stalemate argument is the unproven assumption it relies on. If Ukraine with a steady supply of Western weaponry is too weak to dent Russian lines, Ukraine minus Western arms would no longer be able to hold a rearming Russia back. The only thing stopping Russia from biting off more of Ukraine would be if Putin were satisfied with the lands he has already conquered. There’s nothing to suggest he is satisfied, and much to indicate that he wants more, and believes he can get it. ‘Not only has their counteroffensive failed, but the initiative is completely in the hands of the Russian armed forces,’ he said in mid-January. ‘If things go on as they are, Ukrainian statehood may be dealt an unendurable, very serious blow.’ In his recent interview with the Trumpist American journalist and conspiracist Tucker Carlson, Putin conspicuously failed to answer when asked several times if he was satisfied with the Ukrainian territory Russia now holds.
posted by Kattullus at 10:55 PM on February 24 [7 favorites]


In the United Nations session on the anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion, Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski took apart the Russian Ambassador's remarks in an apparently unscripted but very... cutting Oxford manner. Highly recommended.

(Sikorski's also on something of a charm offensive in the US over the past couple of days, trying to get through to people that not even holding a vote on the Ukraine aid package is undemocratic. Americans, please feel free to mention that in calls to your representatives.)
posted by I claim sanctuary at 1:17 PM on February 25 [3 favorites]


Speaking of that, from NBC News: Russia’s 2024 election interference has already begun:
Moscow and its proxies have long sought to exploit divisions in American society. But experts and former U.S. officials said Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the country's deepening political polarization and sharp cuts in disinformation and election integrity teams at X and other platforms provide fertile ground to spread confusion, division and chaos.

“In many ways it’s a perfect storm of opportunity for them,” said Paul Kolbe, who worked for 25 years in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and is now a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “I think, for a lot of reasons, we will see the same approach, but amplified and, I think, with some of the constraints that you might have seen taken off."
posted by Harald74 at 3:11 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]


The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin (NYT, via Archive.is):
The listening post in the Ukrainian forest is part of a C.I.A.-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border. Before the war, the Ukrainians proved themselves to the Americans by collecting intercepts that helped prove Russia’s involvement in the 2014 downing of a commercial jetliner, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The Ukrainians also helped the Americans go after the Russian operatives who meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Also in spycraft: Ukraine's counter-offensive plan was in the Kremlin before it even started – Zelenskyy (Ukrainska Pravda):
"I can’t tell you the details of this plan because… the fewer people are aware of the plans of the Ukrainian army, the sooner victory and an unexpected outcome for the Russians will be achieved. I must confess that the plans for our counter-offensive actions last autumn were on the table in the Kremlin before those counter-offensive actions had even started. Full stop."
posted by kmt at 3:35 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]


To be fair, the counteroffensive plans seemed to have been all over the news even before they started...
posted by Harald74 at 4:40 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]


On Saturday I was at the 2nd anniversary rally in Toronto, along with about 20,000 others (beautifully captured here). All the politicians were there, saying the right words, but everyone is looking for more action. There is much more Canada can contribute.

Sunday was an intimate and uplifting performance by Ukrainian vocal group Gerdan, on a Canadian tour raising funds for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Musical salve for the soul. But the pleasure of the performance was partially overshadowed by the fact that a number of their members are away fighting on the front line, and some of those injured are unlikely to be able to perform again.
posted by Kabanos at 5:05 AM on February 26 [4 favorites]


I showed up late to the rally in Berlin, because [excuses]. The place was deserted by the time I got there.

There was, however, one small group left just out front of the Reichstag building: a handful of people surrounding some crank with a big Russian flag outside of the Bundestag, blabbering something over a loudspeaker.

All of it — including me being late when it counted — felt symbolic of the present situation Ukraine faces. Anyway, nice to read others here showed up!
posted by UN at 6:15 AM on February 26 [5 favorites]


First burning Abrams M1 near Avdiivka posted by Rybar. Just one tank, no big deal.

This is a way bigger deal: Europe’s arms production is in ‘deep shit,’ says Belgian ex-general
While European arms-maker KNDS plans to open a new production line for 155 millimeter artillery ammunition in Belgium, it will take two years just to install and set up machinery to build the round casings, let alone begin production.

Even when up and running, the factory will only produce 30,000 rounds a year, a fraction of the 200,000 shells a month the Ukrainian military says it needs to fight Russian forces along a 1,000-kilometer front.

“There’s a lot of wishful thing … People underestimate the time needed to realize projects,” said Thys. “The industrial fabric in Europe isn’t strong enough to support Ukraine."
Emphasis not in the original. Complements this earlier reporting: EU (predictably) admits it will fail artillery shell pledge for Ukraine:
Under plans made on 20 March 2023, the EU had committed to supplying the 1 million artillery rounds to Ukraine over a 12-month period. The bloc aimed to meet this goal first by tapping existing ammunition stockpiles and then through joint procurement contracts to ramp up industrial capacity.

However, more than halfway through the allotted timeframe, the initiative has so far only delivered around 30% of the target, Bloomberg reported on 26 October 2023.
posted by kmt at 6:35 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]


The Hungarian parliament finally votes in favour of Sweden joining Nato. (Some noise in that their president, mainly a ceremonial position, has stepped down a new one is needed to sign)
posted by Harald74 at 9:38 AM on February 26 [3 favorites]


A very direct effect for Ukraine is that this might cause the Swedes to donate some JAS-39 Gripen ("Gryphon") fighters, and rely on a Nato air umbrella while they build new ones. The JAS-39 is very heavily tailored for Swedish use, which implies operation from dispersed, austere airfields, with very few trained support personell and quick turnaround. I think a ground crew for refuelling and re-armament is two trucks and five people. Big things, like the engine being swappable in an hour, and small things, like the pilot's ladder being built-in, all included from the concept stage onwards. Some of these features are useful also for Ukraine, who is fighting the very enemy the Gripen was designed to fight...

Saab video here. The Gripen is also has a few excellent weapons, like the Meteor AA missile, which actually can challenge the Russian long-range AA missiles, something the F-16 lacks.
posted by Harald74 at 9:52 AM on February 26 [7 favorites]


Cynically enough, it appears that Orban's grandstanding about Sweden in NATO was more about European Defence Industry pork barrel politics than being a fifth column for Putin (summary article in hungarian). Which actually totally fits him and his national oligarchy. See also: Saab receives Gripen order for Hungary:
Saab and the Hungarian Ministry of Defence have also signed an MoU regarding development of high-tech industrial areas and fighter aircraft capabilities. The cooperation includes support for the establishment of a Centre of Excellence for VR technologies in Hungary.
posted by kmt at 9:54 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]


A number of countries now have security agreements with Ukraine. Macron is going to hold a meeting in Paris to rally support. Slovakia's Fico says that some European countries are considering sending soldiers to Ukraine.
posted by Harald74 at 1:13 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]


Reportedly, the Ukrainians just shot down another Russian jet, which would make eight in ten days. They are either on a string of good luck, or something has shifted in terms of targeting, radar-blinding, or something else that is making the Russian jets more vulnerable.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:56 AM on February 27 [4 favorites]


...or the Russians are fucking up their own air-defense even harder than they had been before.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:02 AM on February 27 [4 favorites]


Air Force: Ukraine downs 2nd Russian Su-34 aircraft in single day

That's a lot of downed aircraft in the last few weeks...
posted by UN at 7:27 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]


Or maybe they’ve discreetly started using F16?

Or maybe they’ve been making a concentrated effort to shape the battlefield in preparation for F16?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:27 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]


I see I'm late to the commentary.
posted by UN at 7:28 AM on February 27


That air battle is important. If Ukraine can gain any kind of air superiority it massively changes Ukraine's options and should take a lot of pressure off the artillery and the lack of shells.

I just don't know how shooting down enough of Russia's air force to render it ineffective affects the Ukrainians' ability to take out Russia's SAM sites.
posted by VTX at 10:59 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]


Yeah, the problem seems to be that neither can do SEAD very well, whether by equipment or doctrine or training or what.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 12:20 PM on February 27 [1 favorite]


Air Force: Ukraine downs another Su-34

Yes, that's another one...

It's a strange new normal, when almost a dozen jets get shot down in a war and it barely makes the news — at least not here on Germany.
posted by UN at 12:39 AM on February 29 [2 favorites]


Germany accused of ‘flagrant abuse of intelligence’ for revealing British help in Ukraine
On Monday, he [Olaf Scholz] said that German soldiers could not follow the lead of their British and French allies in “the way of target control and accompanying target control”.

“This is a flagrant abuse of intelligence deliberately designed to distract from Germany’s reluctance to arm Ukraine with its own long-range missile system,” said Tobias Ellwood, the former chairman of the Commons defence committee.
Scholz sure knows how to make himself popular.
posted by UN at 12:45 AM on February 29 [2 favorites]


Another one again today:

Ukrainian forces shot down another Su-34 attack plane, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi reported on Feb. 29, hours after Ukraine's Air Force reported that one Su-34 had been downed overnight.

The first Su-34 was downed at 1 a.m. local time (EET) in the eastern direction, according to the Air Force.

Another Su-34 jet was downed at around 9 a.m. local time. The planes were downed "in the Avdiivka and Mariupol directions," Syrskyi said.

What Air Force Doing?
posted by UN at 2:20 AM on February 29 [1 favorite]


Well, things are getting a bit out of hand here. Make that three...

Three more Russian Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bombers were downed, bringing a total of 12 SU planes brought down in the last 13 days and 13 Russian planes overall, including an A-50U radar aircraft.
posted by UN at 3:43 AM on February 29 [4 favorites]


Three more Russian Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bombers were downed, bringing a total of 12 SU planes brought down in the last 13 days and 13 Russian planes overall, including an A-50U radar aircraft.

I'm looking forward to when the details come out about what is suddenly different that is letting them drop Russian planes one after another. New weapons systems, better targeting assistance, some new kind of electronic warfare capability?
posted by Dip Flash at 6:54 AM on February 29 [4 favorites]


mazola: I'm guessing some of the problem was logistics but the dithering made logistics moot.

And training. You don't really hand the Ukrainian forces the keys to a Leopard II or a Patriot system and tell them "Have at it, good luck".
posted by Stoneshop at 2:55 AM on March 1 [1 favorite]


hippybear: Yeah, they did it WAY faster in the 30s.

Less specialised machinery needed, and the bulk of grenades and bombs were just a shell filled with explodium and a detonator on one end. Those types are still in use, but here are all kinds of grenades now whose increased effectiveness rely on smarts that of course have to be built too. And increased effectiveness means you often need less of them so lower production numbers aren't inherently a bad thing.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:21 AM on March 1


The shootdowns apparently have all kinds of possible explanations, leading to a lot of speculation:

One is that Ukraine is playing jack-in-the-box with the German-delivered Patriot battery, which is truck mounted and apparently quite nimble, though a very expensive system to risk near the front. This is easier if they have gotten more capable Patriot missiles on the sly (there are a bunch of different ones out there, some better for intercepting ballistic missiles, some better against aircraft, all of them expensive)

Another is that older, in theory less capable SAM systems with longer range has been used, one which is the S-200 (SA-5 Gammon) which Ukraine had gathering dust in a shed somewhere. They are long range, high altitude systems with big warheads, and can be integrated in more current S-300 fire control systems. Fun fact: There's a nuclear version!

And of course there is the Russian GBAD itself, which has quite a red-on-red record this war. The Russians themselves have sometimes claimed shootdowns, apparently from the belief that it's slightly less embarrassing than having the Ukrainians appear competent.

Slightly from left field is the theory that this is F-16s already operating in the area. Now with reduced radar coverage from A-50 and ground based radars they might sneak close enough to take shots at the Sukhois.

Even more from left field is the theory that the AA kills are from Meteor missiles, which has good range and might go toe-to-toe with Russian long-range AA missiles. However, this require either very secretly donated JAS-39 Gripens or an integration job of heroic dimensions to get them to work with Su-27s.
posted by Harald74 at 5:52 AM on March 1 [8 favorites]


"accompanying target control" in UN's comment above a couple sounds like it could mean a high fidelity weapons-grade target track is being provided to Ukranian air defense so like they're getting the target track from an allies sensor and it's being recieved and relayed to the SAM in flight until the onboard takes over? this way only the mobile battery and command module need to go close to the front briefly to pop off a shot or two. speculating here
posted by some loser at 6:09 AM on March 1 [1 favorite]


This article by the Kyiv Post suggests that having your planes shot down and your enemy then being able to pick their bones may well be a factor in suddenly having more of them shot down.
posted by Stoneshop at 1:52 AM on March 2 [3 favorites]


Zelenskiy says situation at Poland border has gone 'too far' (BNE Intellinews)
Thousands of trucks are stuck on the border as Polish farmers block border crossings with Ukraine in protest against what they say is an uncontrolled influx of Ukrainian farm produce that is depressing prices in Poland.

Access to the crossings is hindered despite last week’s decision by the Polish government to add the crossings to the list of “critical infrastructure”, after protests became a political flashpoint between Warsaw and Kyiv.

Ukraine says Poland is not doing enough to contain the protests that hurt its economy during wartime. The government in Warsaw, meanwhile, appears sympathetic to the protesting farmers who, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last week, “must not be the victims of the war”.
to add insult to the injury:
Tusk also said last week that the government will look at the apparent problem of agricultural imports from Russia and Belarus.

A report(*) by Ukrainian journalist Mykhailo Tkach claimed last week that Russian and Belarusian trucks carrying farm products are entering Poland unfettered.
(*) The report: Granica на мяжы: Border on the Brink. How Warsaw is increasing trade with Russia through Belarus
A few days ago, our film crew was detained by Polish police not far from the Polish-Belarusian border.
We’d gone there to see the scale of trade turnover between Poland and Belarus.
We went at a time when, on the eve of the second anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion, Polish farmers, or whoever is behind them, had completely blocked the border checkpoints with Ukraine.
Sometimes even blocking military equipment and humanitarian aid.
Find out more in this video.
posted by kmt at 1:55 AM on March 4 [5 favorites]


Russia's Sergey Kotov patrol vessel destroyed near Crimea

In a conversation allegedly intercepted by HUR, a Russian commander claimed that the Russian patrol ship had a helicopter on board. Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing unnamed sources, that a Russian Ka-29 transport and combat helicopter was destroyed along with the vessel.

[...]

In total, Russia's Black Sea Fleet has four vessels of this design, which the Ukrainian Navy calls "the most modern:" Vasily Bykov, Pavel Derzhavin, Sergey Kotov, and Dmitry Rogachev. Only the latter has not been attacked during the all-out war.
posted by UN at 5:02 AM on March 5 [6 favorites]


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