Nov 28 — Day 278 — Nuke stuff, Orban wobble, Potato man

Hi FB!

Today’s lead pic is an M777 doing its thing, source is StratKom VSU. Also a pic of a UAF T-72 sending steel downrange, that’s an official shot from the Ukrainian army. And finally a pic from a UAF casualty collection point in Bakhmut, that from the UNIAN news agency.

Svatove-Kreminne

The Russian strategy of freezing the conflict and just shelling the heck out of whatever is in range, and civilian, is definitely what’s going on in the northern sector, according to the head of Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration Oleh Synehubov. On Nov. 27, he said Russia hit the cross-border tow Vovchansk with artillery; from what I’ve seen and heard there’s nothing there to shoot at but the very rare Ukrainian volunteer minivan and civilians. A residential building was damaged. A 66-year-old man was injured and hospitalized. Another man set off a mine, and he was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds.

In Kupyansk, the Russians hit the town with S-300 missiles at night and in the morning. This is basically as deep as the RF artillery can reach in this sector, albeit inaccurately. No casualties or injuries reported.

Further south, according to RF-associated platforms, the UAF has returned to the tactic of infantry probes for weak points, using the Sviata Hora forest belt as cover. Fire raids on RF positions in this sector are taking place daily, reportedly.

Again I am seeing multiple claims in the RF information networks that the UAF is building up force around Kharkiv which will, supposedly, kick off an offensive once the ground freezes properly.

Donbass

More grinding, short-range fighting here over the last two days. The RF supposedly launched an attempt to capture UAF fortifications, with the localities of Krasnohorivka, Nevelske, Pervomaiske named as fighting focuses. Once again, Avdeevka was shelled.

South of Bakmmut, Wagner’s current push is vs. Opytne with another effort vs. Soledar. The general impression I get is that they are very slowly gaining ground, with casualties to both sides unknown but probably high, in house-to-house fighting. According to DPR officials RF troops nearly have Bakhmut surrounded, which has been reported now, I think, about twice a week for about the last three months. On both sides, I am seeing reports of mounting casualties.

Zaporizhia-Krivoi Rih

No movements here, only artillery exchanges, on the Ukrainian side Guliapole, a city that now has to be in competition for place-under-fire-for-the-longest-time-outside-Donbas, along with Olgovske, Novpolie and Zelene Pole. Reportedly, UAF return fires here are limited, possibly due to ammo shortages.

Energodar and nuke stuff

There has been more than a little chatter over the last 48 hours about how the Russians will soon evacuate this town, which in current conditions (that’s a pun, read on) is pretty important because of the nuclear station next door. See map attached. Energodar is on the left bank of the Dnipro but the power lines from the nuclear station feed the region, and with the Russians blowing up power grid infrastructure Ukraine needs every jolt of juice it can get. However, the Russians occupy the plant and, despite very wide reports that the main Russian defensive line has retired 15–20 km to the south, to get out of UAF artillery range from the right bank of the river, there the Russians say they plan to stay. Map attached to remind of where this place and the Dnipro River and so forth are.

With the Russians having evacuated much of the left bank elsewhere, that is either an opportunity or a problem for the Ukrainians: they might well be able to get across the river, but, the best close objective on the other side, the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant adjacent to Energodar, is occupied by RF troops. How to capture a nuclear power plant without shooting at its occupants?

Also on the nuclear front, yesterday the head of Ukraine’s atomic energy agency said that Ukraine has two full years of nuclear fuel for its reactors after which, the plan is, Ukraine will buy half of its nuclear fuel from Westinghouse. So score one for the Americans, but that’s not the news.

The news is that the other half, the plan is, Ukraine will make itself. This means Ukraine plans to enrich uranium — to industrial not weapons grade purity, but still. Once you start enriching uranium, even if you are peaceful, all your neighbors will be sure you’re planning to get The Bomb.

It will be interesting to see if the Russians pick up on this news item. One has to assume the Americans knew ahead of time. A plan two years in the future is pretty sketchy and written in sand, but, there’s no other way to interpret it except as a tiny but clear step by Kyiv towards regaining nuclear power status, by which I mean capable of fielding a nuclear weapon. Picture of the power station attached because an image of the Hiroshima bomb or a mushroom cloud would be kinda tacky.

Strike Zone

On Saturday UAF/international reconnaissance spotted seven Tu-95 bombers taking off from Engels, in Russia’s Saratov region. These are the aircraft that lob the cruise missiles that blow up Ukraine’s power grid and make people like me sit in the dark. Prior to the previous attack, the Russians flew ten Tu-95s down from Engels, had them do practice runs to launch airspace over Rostov region, and then on Wednesday let loose. So, if one worries about such things, the Saturday sortie is a first step in a new wave of strikes in the next three days or so. Picture of a Tu-95 attached.

Too bad NATO air forces aren’t able to do anything about it…

Also, according to Joint Forces South, for the first time in “a while” the Russians sortied a pair of missile frigates carrying Kinzhal cruise missiles, out of Sevastopol. Each carries eight missiles. So, the thinking is, the next wave of missile strikes will come both by sea and air.

Too bad NATO naval forces aren’t able to do anything about THAT…

Stuff for Ukraine

Supposedly, Luxembourg (spelling?) handed over to Ukraine six Primoco One 150 drones. The report came out on Saturday and was widely distributed. However, fact checkers ran down the source and it appears to come from a website in Europe without attribution, so I don’t know.

Also, Olaf Scholz has promised Ukraine another IRIS-D anti-aircraft system, which has by all accounts, including that of the Ukrainian air force, which is the one that counts, performed brilliantly shooting down Russian cruise missiles and Iranian drones. So pic of the system attached.

Stuff for Russia

The inimitable journalist Yury Butusov, citing Ukrainian intelligence sources, published a list of US companies whose microchip hardware has been found in Russian Kaliber, Kinzhal and Iksander missiles (roll of drums):

• Linx Technologies (USA)
• Broadcom (USA)
• Qualcomm (USA)
• Telit (USA)
• Maxim Integrated (USA)
• TRIMBLE (USA)
• Cavli Wireless (USA)
• u-blox AG (Switzerland)
• STMicroelectronics (Switzerland)
• Sierra Wireless (Canada)
• NovAtel (Canada)
• Septentrio (Belgium)
• Antenova (Great Britain)

For those of you who are unsure whether sanctions against Russia work, this will be more fodder.

Picture of some made-in-the-west hardware that flew into Ukraine from Russia and survived the missile explosion, attached.

Magyarország

This by many standards is the biggest news of the last 48 hours but since it’s from outside Ukraine it just got thrown into the list. According to reports out of Budapest, Hungary will ratify Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership bids early next year, the source being Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at a V4 group meeting in Slovakia.

At the same gathering, Orbán, who supposedly was Putin’s man and reliable veto inside the EU and NATO, said that Ukraine must definitely exist as a nation state for European security, any reasonable person can see that.

Of course the Kremlin might just be messaging that it wants to talk through its Hungarian top agent. I have no doubt Putin and his gang consider a public declaration that they do NOT want any more to wipe Ukraine off the map a very serious concession worth at minimum Ukraine abandoning all claims on Crimea and Donbass and also, probably, Ukraine paying Russia war reparations.

But the other, and to my mind more probable possibility is that Orbán has figured out which way the political winds are blowing, and just maybe, all those mad people on the streets in Iran and China these days have reminded him there are limits to how far you can string along a populace with fake news and faux nationalism before they get irate about the crappy living standards and being second class tourists on resort package tours.

Disconnect time

We picked on Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko in the last review and he’s in our gunsights again. He got in front of television cameras in Minsk, and said, really, what has to happen is that Ukraine has to negotiate with Russia, now without conditions.

Here’s part of what he said:

“Well, you can’t set conditions in advance. Especially in a conversation with giant Russia. Sit down at the negotiating table, and there you will put forward all the conditions. And the second classical principle is compromises. Well, you don’t need to kill your own. Well, we have the same blood flowing in our veins. I see that Russia understands this. Will Ukraine understand this? Well, we’ll see in the near future.”

This is so tone-deaf that if Putin said it it would be insulting, but since it was Lukashenko, it just comes out stupid. The Belarusians are neighbors to the Ukrainians and they know better than most what it’s like to have Russia as a neighbor.

The thing is, the Ukrainians feel sorry for the Belarusians for having to live underneath a tinpot dictator who spends his time running in and out of the Kremlin shadow. Ukrainians, unlike the Belarusian leadership, consider the line “same blood” fighting words.

The last thing you want to do, in wartime Ukraine, is imply any Ukrainian citizen, ethnic background unimportant, has some genetic and cultural affiliation with modern Russia and modern Russians. The Russians invaded Ukraine and are killing Ukrainians, the Ukrainians are defending themselves, it coud not be clearer, and now this Belarusian collective farm boss has the gall to suggest the Ukrainians should just recognize they’re pretty much the same as Russians, and start peace talks?

This is not a rant, but rather, to point out the problems the Kremlin has with its messaging. Every myth, trope, falsehood and fake reality Russian propaganda puts forward, be it only for domestic consumption, is transmitted real-time across the Ukrainian media, everyone sees it in their mobile phones, and so every time a guy like Lukashenko opens his mouth and spouts this stuff, he’s literally undermining the Kremlin goal of bringing the Ukrainians to talks.

Seriously, if the Ukrainians aren’t willing to negotiate with Putin, they are going to be even less willing to negotiate with Putin, if a dolt like Lukashenko is advising them to do it.

Tugging the heart strings

Finally, if you read this far, and speaking of Kremlin messaging, there is this visual item. Last review I attached a video of a woman sad that her son died in Ukraine this year but, as she told Vladimir Putin, who had invited her to the Kremlin for tea, this is what the Motherland demands, the Russian intervention in Ukraine is necessary for peace, and Russians are patriots, so sad but acceptable.

Well, fast forward 48 hours and the Ukrainian blogosphere uncovered this: the service member in question, apparently, was indeed a military serviceman, but he died in occupied Luhansk region in 2019 — when Russian was denying even a single one of its soldiers had ever set foot Ukraine.