Dec 14 — Day 294 — Drone drubbing, Political leanings, Patriot games

Hi FB!

OK, we haven’t had a pure cat picture in a while, so here’s one helpfully sitting on a Starlink receiver.

The Russians tried another wave of drones, relatively small but all aimed at Kyiv. All of them got shot down. I have a personal stake in continued electricity in the city. Everywhere I checked, every source I know, all report the same thing: no hits on the power grid, no damage, electricity deliveries stayed the same as before.

As a matter of fact — and I’m crossing my fingers to prevent the jinx — in my semi-edge-of-Kyiv apartment where rolling blackouts have been very real for quite a while, since 4 P.M. yesterday afternoon, we’ve had continuous electricity, and that includes right through this morning’s strikes.

UPDATE: Power got turned off about a hour after I wrote that. Rolling blackout. It’s back on. Need to work on my finger-crossing.

A run-down of what went where and who said what about today’s strikes is here:

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/5741

But the main points I think are pretty obvious: (1) Right now anyway, Russia obviously doesn’t have enough cruise missiles to bombard Ukraine faster than Ukraine can fix damage (2) December 5 may indeed have been a decisive moment in the war, as a previous review noted, because that was the first day Ukrainian air defenses handed a proper defeat to the Russian incoming missiles.

I note here that a person living in Odessa and reading this would probably disagree with the second point because the Russian weapons got through there on the 5th, and it took until the 8th or even the 9th to get the power back on. But with all respect and affection to Southern Palmyra, I’m even more inclined now to say that outcome was an outlier. Barring major injections of new missiles from an outside source — there is talk of Iran but it wouldn’t be easy — it’s very hard to see how Russia can destroy Ukraine’s power grid, and we need to remember, every time they try and fail, they make things worse for themselves.

(Reduced missile inventory, more fodder for the West to motivate itself against Russia because bombarding the civilian power grid is a pretty definitive war crime, narrative of incompetent weak Ukraine is undermined, narrative Russia can and will win is undermined, all the Russian army staff officers and potential opposition politicians get more evidence for the argument the people in the Kremen are incompetent and for the good of Russia need replacing, etc. etc.)

Political inclinations

I’ve attached a pair of poll result graphics from the survey company Ratings Group, which asked Ukrainians how important it would be to them to continue the war into Crimea and towards a full liberation of Donbass. Bottom line, ten months into the war, Ukrainian public opinion is less, not more, inclined to compromise with the Russians.

This is impressive particularly because although support to the UAF is nearly universal, it’s very easy to find complaints about how the UAF is run on a micro level, and it’s almost impossible to find a Ukrainian who thinks Russia can be beaten in a couple of weeks, least of all soldiers on the line. Also, at the start of the war Ukrainians didn’t understand how many people would die and how much destruction there would be. But these numbers say the Ukrainians are willing to accept a very long war.

The Ukrainian military (Anna Malyar, joint forces south) is now talking openly about another wave of Russian mobilization after the New Year, FWIW.

Also on the subject of motivation, today Russian official and long-term visitor to Kazakhstan, Mikhail Zhilin, was picked up by police. He became a minor poster person for draft evaders because when Putin announced the mobilization his wife and kids went to Kazakhstan by normal means while he, a government official in Siberia and banned from leaving the country, snuck into Kazakhstan by illicit means.

His goal was to be a political refugee from the Putin regime, and you have to believe that were he to wind up again in Russia the authorities would not be pleasant. Kazakhstan, for its part, has sentenced him to six months in (safe) Kazakh prison after which he will be kicked out of the country. His wife has said if he goes back to Russia bad things will happen to him. Image.

The fighting

Donbass — In Bakhmut the fighting has moved, I read from multiple sources, into properly built-up areas, meaning artillery is far less able to affect how the combat goes, and quality of infantry plus a side’s ability to inject more infantry into the fight, is decisive. Both sides say the fighting is tough and gains and losses are measured in the dozens of meters.

On both sides I’ve seen videos from small units complaining they are fighting without enough support. I think it’s fair to say that at least on the Russian side, this battle is becoming sort of a Stalingrad where simply winning at any cost is becoming a lot more important than the resources lost in the process. On the Ukrainian side, it’s obvious they just want to kill Russians. So it will come down to which side wants or maybe better at this point is able to feed its infantry into the fight to achieve that goal.

The Georgians published a video they say is from Bakhmut and there are a lot of Wagner bodies in a small space. I am intentionally not attaching the video.

According to Ukrainian military intelligence men in the RF-occupied town Horlivka who previously had papers making them not subject to the draft due to health or job, are now liable to be called up and thrown into the lines. Haven’t confirmed that but I’d believe it. In this war every time the RF army has started running low on manpower, its first default response has been, always, to force Ukrainian citizens living in occupied Donbass to join the Russian army.

Another development that is clearly, er, developing is that the Ukrainians are obviously preparing to do something. I did a check of units that the Ukrainians like to use to launch big attacks — this is traditionally a mix of assault infantry, mech infantry and artillery which one way or another have become units that move around rather than stay in one sector- and in most cases I’m seeing signs a lot of those units are off the line and training. The last time that happened, a lot of them appeared in the Kharkiv sector and we all know how that ended.

The current best guess of where is the Zaporizhia sector direction Melitopol, but of course the UAF is quite capable of head-faking like they did towards Kherson over the summer. Since, at this point, I’m not seeing obvious “get ready we’re coming” messaging coming from the Ukrainian military, head-fake or not, that leads me to suspect they aren’t planning any major moves right at the moment. They certainly don’t mind if people think Melitopol and south Zaporizhia region are the next big objectives.

Strike zone

Here are some more details from that recent strike in Melitopol, according to the Ukrainian internet and some UAF spokesmen, what was hit among other targets was the headquarters of 58th Army. This is, someone correct me if I’m wrong, at least the fourth time the Ukrainians have dropped so much metal on that Army’s HQ that dozens of people were killed. 60 dead and 150 injured is what the Ukrainians are claiming.

For the record, the RF media surfaced a “reporter” who said he spoke with the 58 army staff and they’re all fine. Of course, an actual interview with one of the officers would have been more convincing, but the media doesn’t always do the job one wants of it. Video attached so you can decide if the Ukrainians or this guy is lying.

It’s almost a guarantee that the UAF targeting came from direction-finding, either by home grown units or the American satellites, it really doesn’t matter. What is important is, ten months into a conventional war against what arguably already is a technically-SUPERIOR opponent, the Russian army still can’t figure out a way to keep command and control nodes from getting whacked regularly. This is an absolutely textbook example of a military failing to identify a problem and fix it, in preference to doing things the old way.

I’ve attached images of HARM missile debris in Nova Kakhovka. No reason to think it’s recent, just interesting. Clearly not every US-made spiffy anti-radiation radar-bashing HARM missile blows up.

Stuff for Ukraine — Patriots coming

Almost all of you will have seen that major US media is reporting Ukraine will get Patriot anti-missile systems and one system will be delivered in weeks if not days. Official announcement expected on Thursday. A late afternoon report out of DC Wednesday said no, the transfer won’t happen until training and supply are set up.

My comment is great if it happens, but everyone needs to understand a logical outcome of the transfer will be Patriot missiles shooting down Shahed drones, or possibly, Patriot missiles — possibly — failing to intercept Kinzhal missiles.

There is of course a cynical take on Patriot: frankly the Ukrainians don’t need it that badly, they have a pretty functional air defense network vs. cruise missiles already, BUT what Patriot is really good at is knocking down airplanes. So although Patriot might not have a great effect as another piece of the cruise missile defense network, even a couple of batteries would have the effect of pushing everything that flies and is Russian a good 150–200 kilometers away from the line of contact.

This in turn would mean Ukrainian air superiority over the fighting line, and besides the humor of that for those of us who were told in February and March Ukraine should just surrender, the combat effect could be devastating. The Americans already have said they’re going to send Ukraine laser-guided bombs, and if there are no enemy jets out there, you can lob laser-guided or GPS-guided bombs in on targets until the cows come home, at no risk to your plane or pilot, except fatigure. So I rate the effect of Patriot on the air space as potentially giant, but on stopping specifically the cruise missiles, sort of meh. A lot will depend on how many, in any case, Ukraine has a big air space.

Also on the subject of knocking down cruise missiles, from the Russian point of view the best thing to do about Patriot would be just to shoot Shahed drones at it, because a single Shahed drone costs probably about $30,000 and a single Patriot missile costs about $3 million.

Soap box: The way to deal with the cruise missiles and Shahed drones is not Patriot. The defense needs to be able to move to the incoming munition, meaning, Ukraine needs either the ability to strike the Russian launchers or fighter jets to intercept the missiles. And if the option is strike the Russian launchers, it needs to be understood, that would mean attacking launchers physically in Russia.

The Ukrainian air force needs F-16s or something like F-16s (called Fighting Falcon by the manufacturer and Viper by the guys that actually fly it) and maybe a billion dollars’ of ground support and training. Air superiority is how you stop air strikes.

Some of you are perhaps getting tired of my railing on and on about Vipers until I can’t calm down until I post a photo, so this time I’ll post a stock image of a Swedish Gripen, which is perhaps not quite as cool and iconic as F-16 but still a fine fighter and designed to operate from less-than-ideal airfields. I have no doubt the Swedes are smart enough to see an opening to make Ukraine a Gripen operator, and I’m sure Saab wouldn’t mind a big jet order. Just a question of financing, and as I understand it they’re pretty good at that sort of thing in Sweden…

Also on the subject of anti-air, the French are now promising Mamba missiles (image), an air-to-air missile reconfigured to fire from the ground.

Ammo for guns

Ukraine’s National Security Committee Chairman Danylov today said Ukraine is now manufacturing 152mm and 122mm artillery shells, as well as 120mm mortar rounds, all of which we knew theoretically from earlier reports, and that production is “industrial scale and in the thousands”.

He didn’t say whether that was thousands per day or per week or per month, or what, but the implication is that Ukraine has a real interest in not kicking off a major offensive right now, because it has the capacity to pile up artillery ammunition, at precisely the time Russian sources are complaining that they’re running out of shells themselves. US news reports going back to the US intelligence community likewise last 48 hours said the Russians are down to using shells at times 60 years’ old, which sometimes work and sometimes don’t, and complaints on rah rah Russia TV about how the country is just failing to shift to war production are coming pretty continuously.

So if you are General Valery Zaluzhny, you have a definite incentive to take your time before kicking off any major offensives, because over time the Russian shells reserves should fall while the Ukrainians’ should rise. Moreover, at present NATO-standard cannon are taking up the lion’s share of shooting precisely because Ukraine long ago (like, in April-May) shot off its big reserves of Soviet-standard ammunition. So even a relatively small bump-up of Soviet caliber shell will have an outsized effect on Ukrainian offensive capacity, because all those Soviet howitzers the Ukrainians have no ammo for, would suddenly be able to shoot as well.

What’s more, the Washington press is reporting in detail about a $8 billion plan to bolster US munitions production and that Congress is all for it, and that HIMARS rockets and 155mm shell are top ticket items. It all won’t go to Ukraine, obviously, but a Pentagon knowing where replacement shell is coming from, will be a lot more open to keeping the ammo flowing to the UAF. So again, over time, Ukraine should pile up more stuff to shoot at the Russians.

And while on the subject of ammunition, we’ve seen spot reports of it before, but now there’s been report bouncing around the Ukrainian internet the other day, giving the hard confirm (eh?) that the Ukrainians have and are shooting at Russians the M741/M718 155mm artillery round, which flies a long way and then scatters nine mines. By NATO doctrine, this is an ideal tool to break up an attack or really ruin someone else’s retreat. Could this be a weapon that could convert one of those Russian withdrawls into a rout? Texas-sized 10–4 on that.

Although the tech has been around since the Cold War it’s not something that was for sure used in Ukraine before, and basically, no the Russians don’t have their version. (OK, on paper they do, but not the kind of shell you can actually shoot, probably). Image attached.

Finally, if you’ve read this far attached is a video of some pretty good mud by Ukrainian standards, even locals with lots of 4WD experience wouldn’t try that without serious tires and winches and so forth.