Do you still recall the time we cried?
September 22, 2023 6:41 AM Subscribe

The war in Ukraine continues with Ukraine seeming to finally break through to the other side the primary defensive line that has been holding up their progress during the summer counter offensive.

Meanwhile Ukraine has made effective use of storm shadows to attack the head quarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet including destroying 2 a warship and a submarine undergoing maintenance along with the critical dry dock used to maintain the fleet. This morning Ukraine hit the Headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet. Zelenskyy also spoke at the United Nations this week and met with the President and key Senators.

posted by interogative mood (160 comments total) 38 users marked this as a favorite

with all the remote-piloted weaponry and pinpoint artillery direction I didn't expect this conflict to more resemble WW I in terms of Stellungskrieg warfare.

Russia's Victory Day parade this year was pretty pathetic.

Meanwhile half of the GOP caucus apparently wants to turn ongoing Ukrianian aid into a political football.

This Eastory video explains why this corner of Ukraine is so hard to crack.

I guess this conflict shows how an army of draftees just has a real hard time successfully fighting adventurist wars. Not much in it for them.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 7:02 AM on September 22, 2023 [7 favorites]

In addition to the fleet headquarters mentioned in the post, there are also photos on Twitter/X of another large military building in Crimea that was leveled, with before and after satellite photos. There have also been a number of articles lately about how effective it has been to push the Russian Black Sea fleet back so far, allowing a couple of grain vessels to leave recently.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:15 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile half of the GOP caucus apparently wants to turn ongoing Ukrianian aid into a political football.

Is this surprising? Defending democracy isn't exactly on the GOP's to-do list anymore. Quite the opposite, it seems.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:47 AM on September 22, 2023 [19 favorites]

WWI just keeps echoing, Heywood Mogroot III.
posted by doctornemo at 7:47 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

I hope Ukraine can hang on without US aid, because I'm pretty sure the Party of Trump will not permit any further American aid to reach Ukraine.
posted by sotonohito at 7:56 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

(It took me a while to find the musical reference in the title).
posted by rongorongo at 8:01 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

I wish to acknowledge the soldiers and all the staff in the field, who are fighting Ukraine's fight. They are fighting hard and are being killed. Perhaps not on the scale that the Russians suffer, but Ukraine has fewer people.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 9:06 AM on September 22, 2023 [12 favorites]

the only way out is through indeed.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:11 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

I guess this conflict shows how an army of draftees just has a real hard time successfully fighting adventurist wars.

FYI both armies have draftees. Ukraine also offered prisoners amnesty in exchange for military service (if they had previous experience).
posted by srboisvert at 9:11 AM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

(Ukraine's not fighting an adventurist war, is the distinction, I believe.)
posted by nobody at 9:46 AM on September 22, 2023 [27 favorites]

...because I'm pretty sure the Party of ~~Trump~~Putin will not permit any further American aid to reach Ukraine.

FTFY
posted by Thorzdad at 10:08 AM on September 22, 2023 [7 favorites]

Ukraine also offered prisoners amnesty in exchange for military service

I believe that never went through, it was one of the very early desperation plans when it seemed likely Kyiv would be taken, like passing out rifles to civilians, but once Ukraine got its feet under it was cancelled before anyone was processed. They do have regular draftees, though, as pretty much any nation under existential threat would do.
posted by tavella at 10:47 AM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]

So many dead. It infuriates me so much that Putin and his enablers (and I count 30 years of support from the Russian population as part of that) think their power is worth the lives of half a million people. Most of the victims had no say in the matter. Their lives were stolen in furtherance, or defense against, the whims of a madman. And it's still happening because the only way to stop him is to keep killing. Why are humans like this?
posted by Popular Ethics at 11:02 AM on September 22, 2023 [10 favorites]

I think that all that defense contractor lobbyist money and the number of jobs in Red districts making Javelins and Artillery Shells for Ukraine are going to ensure we have enough Republican votes to keep Ukraine going for at least the next year.

This war is playing out as it has because neither side has air / artillery superiority. Recent military adventures by Russia (Chechnya, Georgia, Syria) and the US (Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq) were conducted with almost total air supremacy from the start. This enabled the kind of rapid, combined arms ground campaign. In the run up to the 1991 US libration of Kuwait, Iraq constructed the Saddam line. It was very simliar to the Russian lines in Ukraine. This makes sense as the Russian combat engineers trained the Iraqis. Iraq also had the benefit of 10 years of fighting Iran to really train themselves up. Allied air superiority allowed for thousands of missions a day to be launched against the Saddam Line. When the ground campaign began the US and allies punched through it quickly.
posted by interogative mood at 11:16 AM on September 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

It infuriates me so much that Putin and his enablers (and I count 30 years of support from the Russian population as part of that)

I cannot stress enough how deranged this sort of thinking is.
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:56 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

Curious as to the rationale of the previous comment.
posted by Keith Talent at 12:03 PM on September 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

I cannot stress enough how deranged this sort of thinking is.
Why? It's been clear for decades that Putin is a dangerous murderer. His power has grown to the point where he can murder millions because his country has allowed it. (And it can happen here too).
posted by Popular Ethics at 12:07 PM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

>When the ground campaign began the US and allies punched through it quickly

aktually Schwartzkopf did the maskirovka thing with 7 mobile divisions appearing well to the west of where the Iraqis thought they could possibly be, so they got rolled from the behind, mostly.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:08 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

the way I see it it's hard being a hero in a totalitarian state.

when everything goes to shit: 1/5 will be enthusiastic fascists, 1/5 will bandwagon with them, 1/5 will try to be the disinterested neutral, 1/5 will keep their heads down, and only 1/5 will actively fight for what's right (and/or GTFO)
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:11 PM on September 22, 2023 [4 favorites]

I’ve been re-reading Eyes All Over the Sky by James Streckfuss, which is a revisionist history of aerial surveillance and artillery spotting by balloons and planes during WWI. Streckfuss makes a very strong case that WWI was a true “air war” from the beginning, even without significant aerial bombardment and limited aerial combat, but that the flashy stories and career trajectories of combat aces have distorted both historians and strategic planners views of air power.

As during WWI, everyone is obsessed with the flashy drone attacks and largely ignoring the surveillance role of drones in artillery spotting and strategic planning.

WWI is the horror that will never stop repeating, until we bury industrialized war once and for all.
posted by Headfullofair at 12:13 PM on September 22, 2023 [7 favorites]

I cannot stress enough how deranged this sort of thinking is.

The war in Ukraine is very popular among Russians, Russian chauvinism (superiority of Russians over everyone else) is a very common thing, I live here in Estonia where there are thousands of Russians who only have their livelihoods because of Estonia who think this country should be subsumed under the superior Russian culture...

...anyway, what was your point again?
posted by Pyrogenesis at 12:25 PM on September 22, 2023 [28 favorites]

Jessica Berlin on X

I have unofficial confirmation from 🇺🇦 sources: Black Sea Fleet commander Admiral Viktor #Sokolov was killed in today’s strike in #Sevastopol.
Sokolov personally ordered missile strikes on civilian targets in #Ukraine & would’ve been indicted as a war criminal had he survived.

posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:34 PM on September 22, 2023 [16 favorites]

That would be a big fish, but I'll be a little wary until it's admitted by the Russians. Presumably they also have air alerts and bomb shelters. Though I wouldn't put it past Russian arrogance to just sit in your office when Ukrainian SU-27s are in the air.
posted by tavella at 1:47 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Exclusive Interview With Ukraine’s Spy Boss From His DC Hotel Room
Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov opens up about the ongoing counteroffensive, attacks inside Russia, warnings about Abrams tank usage and much more.

[warning: riddled with pop-up ads]
posted by Kabanos at 1:54 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

1/5 will be enthusiastic fascists, 1/5 will bandwagon with them, 1/5 will try to be the disinterested neutral, 1/5 will keep their heads down, and only 1/5 will actively fight for what's right (and/or GTFO)

Would that this were true. Each of those bands numbers a shade under 30 million Russians. If the final band was actively fighting for what's right and/or emigrating, surely by now we'd have seen the effects - truly mass protests, mass arrests, general strikes, civil unrest, curfews, active efforts to block logistical movements inside Russia, martial law, a visible and standing deployment of crowd control forces near government facilities and so on. There have been a number of public protests for sure, but from what has shown up in Western media at least, the largest of these measured in the low 4 digits.

I don't downplay the difficulties and severe personal risks in fighting a government like Putin's, but there's no need to lionize those who've chosen to say and do nothing.
posted by senor biggles at 2:07 PM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

The Future is History is an interesting read that explains some (a lot?) of this, written by a Russian critic of Putin.

Seems to me Russia seems to be a case study of "what if the 1/5 fighting for what's right, lost". The Russia you see now is a the product of many decades of conditioning.
posted by mazola at 2:47 PM on September 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

When the ground campaign began the US and allies punched through it quickly.

That was more of fakeout, and then an around and finally a through.
posted by notyou at 3:16 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Per above, that last 20% has been attrited since the Decembrists if not earlier
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 4:04 PM on September 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile half of the GOP caucus apparently wants to turn ongoing Ukrianian aid into a political football.
Is this surprising? Defending democracy isn't exactly on the GOP's to-do list anymore. Quite the opposite, it seems.

Yes, it's surprising. Very surprising! I, for one, am downright shocked that it's only half of them.
posted by Flunkie at 4:24 PM on September 22, 2023 [6 favorites]

Reports that the m26s will finally be given over. No idea how many are still functional, but there were huge amounts stockpiled.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 3:27 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

tavella: Presumably they also have air alerts and bomb shelters.

People in Crimea have reported that Storm Shadow strikes 'feel like earthquakes', so penetrate, then explode (not unlike the WW2 Tallboys and Grand Slams). They've been shown to penetrate bomb-hardened hangars, exploding inside.

Sokolov may well have been sitting in the building's bomb shelter, but with two Storm Shadows hitting there's a good chance he's now pancaked underneath a piece of shelter roof if he wasn't killed by the actual explosion (if he's indeed dead, that is).
posted by Stoneshop at 3:48 AM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Are there any particular Ukrainian accomplishments which would be likely to break the Russian invasion?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:22 AM on September 23, 2023

Realising they could throw a drone with an IR camera up in the evening and see the heat signatures of the mines would probably be a contender.
posted by krisjohn at 5:41 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Are there any particular Ukrainian accomplishments which would be likely to break the Russian invasion?

Breaking through the prepared defensive lines and having having heavy armor and IFVs causing havoc in the rear would probably trigger a massive retreat possibly back to Russia. Particularly if they can divide the Russian forces and cut off Crimea. Then the question will be whether Russia continues launching missile and drone attacks from their own territory. I imagine at that point the international community would have to step in (aggressively) to create and enforce a peace.
posted by srboisvert at 9:31 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

I do hope Ukraine is keeping a wary eye (as well a strong defensive force) focused on Belarus. I fear that the further Ukrainian forces advance east, the more a northern front becomes a possibility.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:40 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Giorgi Revishvili on X

This is truly big if true.

A Russian Telegram channel claims that at least 34 Russian officers* were killed in a Ukrainian attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet HQ in temporarily occupied Sevastopol, Crimea.
Budanov reported 9 dead and 16 injured. Apparently, there're more

*Better translation appears to be "at least 34 dead, more than half of that officers"
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:30 AM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Why does Russia insist on clustering officers together in possibly highly dangerous locations? It seems to be a continuing pattern with them, and it puzzles me.
posted by hippybear at 11:39 AM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Why does Russia insist on clustering officers together in possibly highly dangerous locations? It seems to be a continuing pattern with them, and it puzzles me.

Officers tend to cluster together in headquarters. A fleet HQ would be absolutely lousy with commanders and lieutenants and lieutenant commanders. When I was in a division HQ, I would often be in meetings with a couple dozen officers, and that wasn't even the room where there were always a couple dozen officers. Plus that was in the US Army, which has way more NCOs and therefore fewer officers than a Russian equivalent HQ would.
posted by Etrigan at 11:49 AM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

A theory of victory that seems plausible:
The UAF is remarkably close to severing the east west rail link through Zaporizhia Oblast. They have previously disrupted the rail bridges in and out of Crimea. If sustained, that leaves the Russians at the end of an untenable logistical chain in southern Kherson, and they could likely be forced out. Essentially a replay of northern Kherson last year. Having been visibly losing for two years and with continued high visibility attacks into Crimea, the war may become politically impossible and bring the Russians to the table.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 12:17 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

per my first comment in this thread, Ukraine will win easily if it can fight a 21st Century war instead of the 19th century action we're seeing on the front lo these many months.

I truly don't understand how s . . . l . . . o. . . w this war has been going. Granted, Germany's initial aid offer was a big batch of helmets so escalation has always been a worry of Ukraine's partners, but an equipped Ukraine would be able to make yesterday's precision armament delivery an hourly occurrence.

Can't wait for Putin's billion-dollar compound on the Black Sea to be blowed up. 44° 25′ 10″ N, 38° 12′ 20″ E
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 12:24 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Russia loses officers a lot for two major reasons. One, the worse the army morale is and the more tattered the command and control is, the closer the officers need to be to the front lines. Plus, Russia uses a very hierocratic system. It's easier and safer to pass decisions up the chains of power. Wouldn't want to fall out of a window, after all. Or be accused of coup plotting.

Second, Ukraine is getting really good at figuring out how to target and hit high value targets, with various drones and missiles. I wouldn't be at all surprised if multiple NATO governments are helping Ukraine with the intelligence, the spying and communication intercepts and satellites used to tell when and where particular priorities are.

So Russia is just going to lose a lot of upper staff. And it's an easy news hour victory to report as good progress in a war where the lines don't always move much.
posted by Jacen at 12:50 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if multiple NATO governments are helping Ukraine with the intelligence

if they haven't been shadow-fighting this war (as an ongoing staff exercise) for the past 18 months I'd wonder what we're paying them for.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 1:01 PM on September 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

I truly don't understand how s . . . l . . . o. . . w this war has been going.

The first usual answer is that combined arms warfare is really hard.

The second is that both sides have enough air defense capacity to deny air supremacy, and neither seems to have enough SEAD capability to end that. And I gather that without shitloads of air cover, combined arms warfare or maneuver warfare are truly brutally difficult.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:40 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

One potential negative consequence of all those Russian officers being killed: These are the guys who got Russia to where it is now in this war. Their deaths could be a great setback to Ukraine.
posted by Flunkie at 2:48 PM on September 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

Heywood Mogroot III: Can't wait for Putin's billion-dollar compound on the Black Sea to be blowed up.

It has no military value, and Putin is hardly ever there these times anyway. And killing Putin would make him a martyr in the eyes of an uncomfortable lot of Russians.
posted by Stoneshop at 4:20 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think these officers were the ones directing regular missile attacks on civilians from Russian submarines and surface ships. They were meeting in their fleet headquarters they probably thought that if there was an attack they would have plenty of time to get to a bomb shelter.

Until recently they would have had that time because Russian air defenses would have spotted these missiles a long way off and they’d get at least 10 minutes to get out.

However in the last month they lost some key oil platforms in the Western Black Sea that housed some radars and spotters to keep an eye out for aircraft. Russia also has recently pulled their fleet out of this area because the Ukrainian submarine drones were doing a lot of damage. As a finally kicker a couple of really important S400 radars were taken out. Storm Shadow missiles are somewhat stealthy, but they are launched from the Ukrainian not at all stealthy jets. I assume Ukraine flew south into the western Black Sea at a low altitude, past the recently recaptured oil platforms and then launched Storm Shadow missiles. The Russians didn’t see the jets because of the loss of oil platforms and lack of ships with radars. The older radars they have left didn’t see the missiles or saw them when it was too late.
posted by interogative mood at 6:47 PM on September 23, 2023 [11 favorites]

A few bits from ISW's latest that stood out to me today (all emphasis theirs):

First:

ISW is now prepared to assess that Ukrainian forces have broken through Russian field fortifications west of Verbove in western Zaporizhia Oblast. These fortifications are not the final defensive line in Russia’s defense in depth in western Zaporizhia Oblast, but rather a specific series of the best-prepared field fortifications arrayed as part of a near-contiguous belt of an anti-vehicle ditch, dragon's teeth, and fighting positions about 1.7 - 3.5 km west of Verbove.

There are several caveats given in regards to that one (like "limited breakthrough” and "rate of advance near their breakthrough remains unclear"), but it seems to me like something that might be of significant importance in near-future events.

Second:

The Ukrainian counteroffensive in western Zaporizhia Oblast has likely destroyed the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade (Black Sea Fleet).

For those of you who, like me, often have to look up what the size names of various military groupings mean: A "brigade" is typically something like 3,000-5,000 people. I've seen some things indicating that this specific one is (or was) probably more like 2,000-2,500, though.

Also, I think it should be noted that the "destroyed" there does not necessarily mean something like "completely annihilated"; rather, it's more like "rendered ineffective for use in combat".

And finally, this one gave me a little chuckle:

A Russian insider source argued that the Russian military should reintroduce military officers for political affairs (zampolits) to address the Russian military’s problems with political and ideological commitment — a problem that Russian military thinkers identified in September 2018.

Yeah, that's gotta be the problem :eyeroll.gif:
posted by Flunkie at 8:02 PM on September 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

Flunkie: Their deaths could be a great setback to Ukraine.

How so? They're dead. They won't be giving orders any more, and any replacements won't be any better than these guys who at least knew all the relevant details of the situation and had the plans for the immediate future.

The Russian Army has an utterly top-down command structure. Lop off the top and the underlings will be more or less paralysed until they get a new commander.
posted by Stoneshop at 1:52 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

interogative mood: As a finally kicker a couple of really important S400 radars were taken out.

Also, Ukraine recently dropped some explodium on a very rare and expensive Russian piece of kit, the Predel-E long-range radar that has the capability to 'see' over the horizon.

If the optimal place to station your radar system is within the enemy's artillery range, maybe you should consider putting it elsewhere.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:04 AM on September 24, 2023 [4 favorites]

The Russian Army has an utterly top-down command structure. Lop off the top and the underlings will be more or less paralysed until they get a new commander.

I think it's a meme/joke Flunkie's referencing... Ukraine shows the Russian military a new bottom-up approach by taking out the heads. What if it goes wrong for Ukraine and Russia hires someone competent??

Of course, the Russian navy could use one of the Putin doppelgängers to take over an admiral's position, and thus hold onto their strict hierarchy. Putin all the way down.
posted by UN at 5:58 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Heywood Mogroot III There would be absolutely no military gain in blowing up Putin's mansion.

But DAMN it'd be fun! And possibly a PR gain, I think a lot of people would get a kick out of watching Putin having a tantrum about his little summer home being exploded.
posted by sotonohito at 8:21 AM on September 24, 2023

Stoneshop, it was a dumb joke.
posted by Flunkie at 9:07 AM on September 24, 2023

I truly don't understand how s . . . l . . . o. . . w this war has been going.

It's not going slowly at all. Just look at World War II for an example. Once the French and the British declared war there was a period referred to as the phony war, between the third of September, 1939, when little actual warfare occurred, which ended with the German invasion of France and the Low Countries on the tenth of May, 1940. That same year on September 15th, the Luftwaffe took so many casualties it became clear that Germany could gain control of the air over Britain and that there could not be an invasion. Then things didn't move much until June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The Germans kept having successes until September 1942, even though they lost ground in some areas of the Soviet Union, but from September '42 they were in slow retreat. It took awhile for it to be clear who was winning, much like over this summer for people watching the situation in Ukraine. People in Britain and France waited all the way until June 1944 for D-Day, when the allies invaded Normandy to retake it from the Germans. For civilians following along at home that was a long time. People had been joking for months that it was never going to happen, and because of the raid on Dieppe, plenty of them scoffed when the newspaper headlines announced D-Day and didn't believe it was real. They had been waiting so long it no longer seemed plausible.

Similarly the Vietnam War lasted for 20 years, from 1955 to 1975. It took that long for the Vietnamese to finally reunify and regain control of the breakaway region.

It looks like the war in Ukraine could be decided in less than twenty years, even if we use 2014 as the start date, but it wouldn't be slow in historical terms, if it does take twenty years.

War is usually very slow. War movies and documentaries show the excitement but most of the people in countries at war don't see the explosions, because they get so inured to the distant bombardment shaking the ground and the sound of aircraft or missiles overhead that they don't turn around until after a close one hits.

Being in a war has been aptly described as long periods of time being bored to death, punctuated by a few moments of being scared to death.

A lot of the time we don't find out when something major happened until we are studying the war in retrospect, when analysts can safely say what the turning points were. Right now it looks like Ukraine may be about to cut the Russian supply lines to Crimea, and are successfully inflicting critical damage to the Black Sea Fleet by destroying the dry dock in Sevastapol and killing some of the integral officers - but those two incidents might turn out to be just minor raids once historians are analyzing the war in retrospect.

Keep in mind too, that a lot of what is happening just isn't hitting the news. ISW has some really complete tactical coverage, and satellite footage enables us to see the map being changed, sometimes by only a few square yards. It's amazing how much we can see. But we still can't see major things happening, like when a railway line that brings essential supplies to armament factories in Russia breaks down and production is stopped, or when two men make eye contact and a deal to siphon hundreds of thousands of Hryvnias from procurement in Ukraine is agreed upon by profiteers. Either of the two made up incidents I just named could have a bigger impact than the two missile strikes in Crimea that we did hear about.

Blitzkriegs are rare in war, simply because if one side is so much more powerful than the other that they can move in that hard and fast without being opposed effectively, they don't need to actually launch an invasion to get what they want.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:05 AM on September 24, 2023 [20 favorites]

The war may become politically impossible and bring the Russians to the table.

Russia has nothing at all to bring to the table. The only thing they can do is withdraw and nobody will trust any peace promises they will make now at least as long as Putin is in charge. The end of this war will be interesting in the bad curse kind of way. I simply don't see how Ukraine accepts any offer that doesn't include instant NATO membership + international monitoring and I can't see Russia accepting their worst nightmare as a settlement when they can just keep lobbing missiles and drones at civilian and military targets indefinitely.

I'm not certain even a total rout of the entire invasion force results in peace between Russia and Ukraine. I think a very touchy cold-war II or North vs. South Korea scenario is much more likely.
posted by srboisvert at 2:36 PM on September 24, 2023 [5 favorites]

I simply don't see how Ukraine accepts any offer that doesn't include instant NATO membership + international monitoring

So let's say Ukraine regains control over all of its territories, and Russia says they're now open to peace on favorable terms for Ukraine - definitely rescinding all of their claims on Ukrainian territory, internationally backed attempts to find and repatriate the kidnapped Ukrainians, some reasonable (i.e. non-crushing) reparations, war crimes charges for Putin et al, whatever.

But NATO says they don't want Ukraine as a member (e.g. one of the frankly more questionable NATO members just says no), at least not immediately (e.g. there's some remaining interoperability conformity that Ukraine still lacks).

Ukraine rejects the Russian offer? The war just goes on?
posted by Flunkie at 3:01 PM on September 24, 2023

A peace deal is indeed hard to imagine. In a way, Ukraine needs to take some sliver of Russian territory that they can give back for the Russians to have any sense of equality. It is insane, given that the Russians were the aggressors.
Alternatively, there might have to be a Russian revolution, where the humiliation in Ukraine is translated into a regime change. I don't know, this is way over my pay-grade.
posted by mumimor at 3:11 PM on September 24, 2023 [6 favorites]

Ukraine are ready to exchange Belgorod for NATO membership.
posted by krisjohn at 3:45 PM on September 24, 2023 [8 favorites]

one of the frankly more questionable NATO members just says no)

While NATO membership is neat and tidy there is nothing stopping other members signing defacto equivalent bilateral treaties.
posted by Mitheral at 4:45 PM on September 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Some sliver of Russian territory?

Kyiv Independent: National Resistance Center: Russian strongholds in Kursk Oblast deserted

"The latest aerial reconnaissance data shows that almost all of the strongholds are deserted, with most of them overgrown with bushes," the Center reported.

The Center published photographs showing aerial views of the positions, which are reportedly meant to imitate actual defensive facilities.

posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:24 PM on September 24, 2023

Reading the article gave me a very different impression than "Zelenskyy and Trudeau just gave a standing ovation to an actual living urkrainian Nazi" did:

They (and the Canadian House of Commons as a whole) just gave a standing ovation to someone who was introduced as a "Ukrainian war hero". The fault seems to have been with the lack of sufficient vetting done by whoever in parliament set it up, and the Speaker has accepted full responsibility (I imagine in a "the buck stops here" sense rather than a "I was the person who was actually supposed to literally do the low level investigation to vet the guy" sense).

Zelenskyy and Trudeau don't seem to be anything but innocent bystanders here, unless they were supposed to somehow realize that this random 98 year old guy who they were just told was a Ukrainian war hero was actually a Nazi.

To be clear, I'm not saying you were intending to give the impression that they were somehow at fault, but that was definitely the impression I got, so I just wanted to clear it up preemptively for anyone else who may get that same impression.
posted by Flunkie at 11:47 PM on September 24, 2023 [11 favorites]

lax has a history of echoing Sputnik/RT propaganda.

Trying to frame Zelenskyy as 'maybe a Nazi??' or a Nazi-sympathiser is pathetic and disgusting. Sorry.
posted by UN at 12:11 AM on September 25, 2023 [7 favorites]

One deleted: disinformation / propaganda via misleading framing. Do not do this or anything similar again, or risk a permanent ban.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:06 AM on September 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

Not commenting on that cheering whatever thing, but wartime alliances are often their own thing. I had a grandfather who was in the Red army which he joined voluntarily, and the other grandfather who was forced into the Wehrmacht. They got along just fine. Both were also deserters in the end. Neither got what they wanted: independence for Estonia.

The granddad who was conscripted into the wehrmacht escaped soon after, when the nazis were retreating from Tallinn, so he just fled back home. After the war, in the Soviet Union, people knew he had been a "nazi" even if briefly and involuntarily. So the NKVD planted a person to spy after him in the tailor shop where he worked.

That NKVD spy's sister became my grandmother. My granddad lived to the healthy age of 86.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 2:29 AM on September 25, 2023 [24 favorites]

I'm thinking and hoping that means he got to breathe free Estonian air.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:31 AM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

UA Pravda: Special Operations Forces reveal Russian losses following destruction of Minsk landing ship and Black Sea Fleet HQ

Because the Minsk landing ship was due to go on combat duty the next day, personnel were on board. Irretrievable losses amounted to 62 occupiers.

Following the destruction of the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, 34 officers died, including the commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Another 105 occupiers were wounded. The headquarters building is beyond repair.

posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:54 AM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Not commenting on that cheering whatever thing, but wartime alliances are often their own thing.

I get that, but let's not totally minimize this man's actions. He did indeed volunteer and fight for the Waffen-SS. The Toronto Star, certainly not an anti-Ukrainian or pro-Russian media source, reports the following:

[Hunka's unit] The First Ukrainian Division was the name given to what had previously been called the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the 1st Galician Division....the 1st Galician Division has been credibly accused of war crimes.

“The Galicia Division was formed in 1943 under German command from Ukrainian volunteers in Galicia region of Western Ukraine. Members of this division were involved in mass killings of Jews, Poles and Ukrainians,” said University of Ottawa political science professor Ivan Katchanovski.

“They massacred close to 1,000 Polish civilians in the village of Huta Peniatska and participated in other massacres of Polish civilians, as well as the suppression of the Warsaw uprising in 1944, and anti-Nazi uprisings in Slovakia and the former Yugoslavia.”

Much of what is known of Hunka’s wartime record was provided by him directly, in a series of blog posts written in Ukrainian for a publication called Vesti Kombatanta, roughly translated as Combatant’s News. The publication, which dates back to 1961 and is based in the United States, is dedicated to the “Brotherhood of the Soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army.”

“In July 1941, the German army occupied Berezhany,” wrote Hunka. “We greeted the German soldiers with joy.”

“I just turned 16, and the next two years were the happiest years of my life,” continued Hunka. He later indicated that he along with many others in his high school joined the Galicia Division in 1943.

Did this guy, personally, commit war crimes? Nothing seems to indicate that. But come on - there is a big difference between being forced as a draftee into a regular army unit and joining this type of division with a record of massacres.

Back to this boondoogle, obviously Zelenskyy and Trudeau are not to blame here - it's the fault of the Speaker of the House of Commons for inviting this guy without doing a background check. It's embarrassing and makes the Canadian Parliament look amateurish, and I'm sure it will be used by Russian propaganda, but I think thirty seconds of reflection would be sufficient to see that it is not evidence of a "Ukrainian Nazi" movement.
posted by fortitude25 at 7:40 AM on September 25, 2023

Back to this boondoogle, obviously Zelenskyy and Trudeau are not to blame here - it's the fault of the Speaker of the House of Commons for inviting this guy without doing a background check…

FWIW, the conservative opposition is doing its darnedest to make this Trudeau's fault.

But hoo boy what an unnecessary gift to propagandists on what should have been a really positive occasion.
posted by mazola at 8:55 AM on September 25, 2023 [6 favorites]

I did not call Zelenskyy a Nazi, I just said what happened, with a link to the Washington post? I could have linked to the BBC if the washington post is bad now.

Zelenskyy's grandfather along with over a million Ukrainians joined the red army to fight the Nazi's, as compared to the 100,000 that sided with the Nazi's.

You should be very suspicious of any one described as an "anti-communist" fighter in ww2, pretty much all of them will be nazi supported, and most of them loved killing jews just as much as they liked killing communists.
posted by Iax at 10:59 AM on September 25, 2023

I did not call Zelenskyy a Nazi, I just said what happened, with a link to the Washington post? I could have linked to the BBC if the washington post is bad now.

As I said, reading the Washington Post's article gave me a very different impression than your summary did. The Washington Post's article was not the one that I felt was misleading.
posted by Flunkie at 11:32 AM on September 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

Sometimes, while reading online debates about "What do the Russian people really think? Do they support the war? Oppose it?", etc., I try to imagine what the U.S. would look like if DJT had been President for the last 30 years, with Bannon and Miller in charge of all media? (With Roger Stone giving the White House press briefings?)

Semi-related: I was browsing a Russian Telegram channel a few weeks ago, and people were lamenting the officially reported loss of 1200 soldiers in the previous month. This was in a month when most credible non-RU sources were estimating ~15,000 Russian soldiers killed in action. The people of Russia are inhabiting a very different information space. I suspect only the wealthiest and/or the most daring have access to the kind of global information/news systems we take for granted. (I think the Duma outlawed the use of VPN's recently? Don't quote me on that.)
posted by ButteryMales at 12:19 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’m not sure what you expect our reaction to be to calling Zelenskyy — a Jewish man whose family suffered under the holocaust — a Nazi on Yom Kippur based on some obvious misunderstanding in Canadian parliament.

... Zelenskyy and Trudeau were clearly _not_ knowingly applauding a Nazi, which is what you were positing. It's boring, this kind of disingenuousness and I think we would all appreciate if it was left out of these threads.

The people of Russia are inhabiting a very different information space.
I didn't realize Murdoch had any outlets there. Man that guy was industrious.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:43 PM on September 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

You should be very suspicious of any one described as an "anti-communist" fighter in ww2, pretty much all of them will be nazi supported, and most of them loved killing jews just as much as they liked killing communists.

Rather than explode, I shall direct you to freaking Wikipedia.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 1:06 PM on September 25, 2023 [9 favorites]

I'm thinking and hoping that means he got to breathe free Estonian air.

He did, died in 2011, Estonia being an independent republic for two decades by that time. But until he died he was afraid that it wouldn't last.

I get that, but let's not totally minimize this man's actions.

The context was deleted before I saw it. I was just having a melancholy moment about my grandfather.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:18 PM on September 25, 2023 [4 favorites]

Meanwhile in Izuym they wrapped up a year excavating one of the many mass graves created by the Russian army during their occupation last year.

What’s more disgusting some improperly vetted former Nazi getting a round of applause based on misinformation; or the virtual ongoing applause given by right wing media to Vladimir Putin and his regime. Those who echo kremlin talking points are applauding much more loudly and with a lot more knowledge than any of those in parliament.
posted by interogative mood at 1:40 PM on September 25, 2023 [8 favorites]

After missing their anticipated salary payments, Russian officers decided to leak sensitive information about Moscow's Black Sea Fleet to a Ukrainian partisan movement. The intelligence later paved the way for a devastating missile strike on the fleet's headquarters in the occupied Crimean peninsula, Ukrainian media reported.

...

Business Insider: Russian officers who hadn't been paid by Moscow sold key intel on the Black Sea Fleet ... via: reddit.com/r/ukraine
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:22 AM on September 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

You should be very suspicious of any one described as an "anti-communist" fighter in ww2, pretty much all of them will be nazi supported, and most of them loved killing jews just as much as they liked killing communists.

Prior to this war, I would have just said 'ok whatever' to this. But now we have a genocidal war in Europe built around this fabrication and disinformation.

You're spreading a lie about millions of people — and we're sick of it. People like my deceased grandfather, who fought together with Polish Jews, blew up Nazi trains and railroad bridges. He risked his life to destroy fascism. Later in life, he did radio interviews to teach younger people what life was like when his town was an imperfect but vibrant place with Jews, Poles and Lithuanians living together. That is, until the Nazis and Communists came.

What did the Soviets do when they took over Poland and Lithuania? They kicked him out of his ancestral home. They did all they could to deny his contribution to the war effort.

When he took me to the cemetery to show me the burial spot he chose next to his deceased wife, he told me: to the right of us and to the left: communists who collaborated with the Soviet Union. He said: he lived with them, and he'll be dead next to them — in the end, we all end up the same. He was forgiving, because he was a kind man.

And you? You're abusing history to drive today's war. There's no honor in it, no respect. Just death, torture and sadness. Don't drag the rest of us into it.
posted by UN at 2:21 AM on September 26, 2023 [28 favorites]

Also: considering that the Soviets were allies with the Nazis in WW2, it's a bold statement to call out others for collaborating with the Nazis. I mean, wtf.
posted by UN at 2:39 AM on September 26, 2023 [8 favorites]

Home video shows apprehensive Putin in sweatpants – Yle publishes images from secret trip to Finland is an odd little story about a trip Putin took to Finland in the 1990s, back when he was an functionary in the St. Petersburg municipal government. Excerpt:

This is pre-rich Putin, Putin in a bad shell suit, with a bad haircut, bad vest, doing everyday dad stuff,” says Luke Harding, Russia expert and former Moscow correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian.

The video was filmed in Finland around a May Day holiday in the early 1990s, according to Yle sources. In those years, Putin, aged around 40, was quickly becoming a major political player in St Petersburg.

Yle has obtained a remarkable amateur video of the visit, which has not previously been reported in Finland.

In the video, the usually reserved Putin's self-control sometimes falters. In the heat of a ping pong match, Putin even emits a rare laugh.

”The most striking thing is he is smiling. He looks human, rather than the ghoul he has become,” says Harding when shown excerpts of the video by Yle.

I will say that Putin has some real “weird little guy” energy in those videos.
posted by Kattullus at 3:10 AM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile on the economic front: Tymofiy Mylovanov:

There is a letter leaked on the conditions for the US help to Ukraine

It is well-meant, in theory, if one ignores the war

Conditions aim to bolster Ukraine's resilience and EU integration capacity. But the list is a kitchen sink and isn’t realistic. Decide for yourself 1/

...

All of these reforms are needed, but they take years if not decades even in the most advanced economies with great state capacity.

Demanding these reforms to be implemented over the winter is setting up everyone for failure.

What do you think?X

posted by kmt at 6:27 AM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Both my granddads were resistance heroes, both at pretty high levels, so they knew each other.
One was a nationalist anti-communist. To be fair, he never had Nazi leanings, like many of his friends had until the German invasion made them choose their nation over ideology.
The other was a liberal Jew.
They fought on the same side.

After the war, my maternal granddad, the only one to survive, put a great deal of work into reconciling the differences that had been inside the resistance movement, and pull together universal support for liberal democracy. He wasn't alone, it's just that his is the perspective I have.

I think this pattern was the same all over Europe. It wasn't a simple black and white thing then and it isn't today.
posted by mumimor at 10:09 AM on September 26, 2023 [5 favorites]

BBC: Viktor Sokolov: Russian video 'shows Black Sea fleet commander alive'

The eight-minute video shows a Defence Ministry collegium, said to have taken place on Tuesday morning. Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu is seen talking to senior officials in a conference room in Moscow.

He is also briefly seen on several occasions on video link with the commanders of Russia's five fleets including the Black Sea Fleet, none of whom speak.

...

But the BBC has so far been unable to verify whether the meeting actually took place on Tuesday, or whether the image of Adm Sokolov on the video link is in real time.

posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:14 AM on September 26, 2023

There's also the issue of Sokolov not moving during the video and being propped up on a pillow. I'm guessing hospitalised.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:24 AM on September 26, 2023

"About the SS Officer in the Gallery: History is messy, horrible, complicated. All we can do is face it" from Justin Ling.

I found this overview/background helpful.
posted by mazola at 1:28 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

There's also the issue of Sokolov not moving during the video and being propped up on a pillow. I'm guessing hospitalised.

Weekend at Vitya's
posted by Kabanos at 2:48 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

You should be very suspicious of any one described as an "anti-communist" fighter in ww2, pretty much all of them will be nazi supported, and most of them loved killing jews just as much as they liked killing communists.

Poland's already been mentioned, but one of the most resolutely anti-USSR nations during World War II was FInland, who had a kind of complicated situation, what with having ongoing hostilities with the USSR that predated and continued well into the World War. It's hard to blame them for positioning themselves against the USSR in the circumstances. FWIW, it seems like the only goal they had in common with Nazi Germany was pushing Russia out of the Baltic, and they tried their hardest to never say the word "ally" in conjunction with the Nazis, but they were definitely acting in coordinated military operations, so the accusation of alliance is hard to deny.

Nonetheless, for the most part the Finns have not been really accused of being Nazi collaborators, because their shared goals were so extremely limited (as were their options for joining WWII on the side of the Allies, given that they were in an ongoing war with one of them).
posted by jackbishop at 2:55 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yeah, my liberal, Jewish granddad wanted to go with an ambulance to Finland before WW2, but his mum faked an illness to prevent him from going. It was really complicated.
posted by mumimor at 3:04 PM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

Ukrainian resistance fighters say Russian officers who hadn't been paid by Moscow sold them key intel on the Black Sea Fleet.

Okay, this makes me really wonder why they said this. If they have some Russian officers willing to accept money to provide them with intel, why the hell would they admit to it, and thus encourage Russian Military Intelligence to look for those officers, and make it harder for them to provide more information?

So my guess is one of several possibilities occurred:

One is that the Russian officers in question have already been caught and arrested. No pointing keeping quiet about it. It's good for morale to let everyone know that there are unpaid Russians who are starting to catastrophically fail in their commitment to the war.

One is that the Russian officers in question have taken their money and bailed and are currently in Ukrainian custody saying, "Теперь ты обещаешь, что не отправишь меня обратно в Россию? (Now, promise you won't send me back to Russia...)"

One is that there are no such Russian officers, and the story is disinformation so that the Russian Military Intelligence will hopefully spend more time looking for officers and less time looking for the chambermaid who made up the beds for 32 recently deceased Russian Naval officers, or maybe it was a guy in the transportation pool, or the one who delivered the vodka.

Or maybe it was disinformation so that the Russians will spend a lot of time looking for Crimean partisans - thus distressing and angering lots of pro-Russian Crimeans who will start to become a lot less pro-Russian when they get hassled by investigations based on the assumption that they might be partisans - if someone loves you, accusing them repeatedly of not loving you is a good way to make reality out of your accusations.

There are so many possibilities here, whether or not there is any truth to the statements they made.
posted by Jane the Brown at 3:49 PM on September 26, 2023 [7 favorites]

I assumed it was to induce paranoia but *shrug*.
posted by mazola at 3:54 PM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

I thought it was here I saw it, but maybe it was somewhere else that they stated explicitly that the Russians who provided the coordinates had not been given their promised salary.
posted by mumimor at 3:58 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

So my guess is one of several possibilities occurred:

Advertising? "Hey disgruntled/unpaid invaders, we are paying top ruble for GPS coordinates. Bonuses for every digit of precision!"
posted by Sauce Trough at 5:04 PM on September 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

Just so everyone is aware, there is a thread about Canada-Gate and all of the related discussions.
posted by miguelcervantes at 5:04 PM on September 26, 2023

> One is that there are no such Russian officers, and the story is disinformation so that the Russian Military Intelligence will hopefully spend more time looking for officers and less time looking for the chambermaid who made up the beds for 32 recently deceased Russian Naval officers, or maybe it was a guy in the transportation pool, or the one who delivered the vodka.

I'd bet on US/NATO signals, cyber, human, and/or satellite intelligence, myself.
posted by sebastienbailard at 5:16 PM on September 26, 2023 [1 favorite]

... perpetrators, victims, and enablers were not always static categories throughout the war.

One thing is understanding history, the other is seeing genocide-enabling speech that's actively being utilized against a nation right now. Timothy Snyder speaks about genocide perpetrated by Russia against Ukraine in an interview here.

Putin's words, just weeks ago:

“The Western masters,” Putin told Russian television, growing visibly angry, “put a person at the head of modern Ukraine an ethnic Jew, with Jewish roots, with Jewish origins” to cover up “the anti-human essence that is the foundation … of the modern Ukrainian state” and “the glorification of Nazism.”

Putin is both anti-Semitic and anti-Ukrainian at the same time. He had a man with SS tattoos on his neck run his flagship mercenary group. He built a cathedral made of melted-down Nazi tanks. Russian leaders are making genocidal remarks against Ukraine, Poland and other states daily. They deny Ukraine's right to exist — our right to exist.

I don't see why we should humor them with nuances and research that, in this particular time, and this specific context, have the effect of supporting their narrative.

It's madness. It's a reflex. It's a trap.
posted by UN at 6:20 PM on September 26, 2023 [15 favorites]

Unsurprisingly but shamefully, Russian ICRC representatives participated in tormenting Ukrainian POWs.
posted by tavella at 8:58 PM on September 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

There are so many possibilities here, whether or not there is any truth to the statements they made.

Or maybe it is a self-serving PR announcement by Ukrainian Intelligence services?

I find it weird that they even need any significane espionage work to get this data. Satellites and NATO planes relaying COMINT combined with the fact that there are no doubt a huge percentage of Ukrainian loyalists and sympathizers in all of the occupied parts of Ukraine makes me think the big issue will be sorting through the heaps of intelligence they must receive rather than collecting it in the first place.
posted by srboisvert at 7:46 AM on September 28, 2023

"Tanks and troops out in the open in Ukraine can't go 10 minutes without being spotted and fired upon, Ukrainian official says
Thibault Spirlet Sep 28, 2023, 10:24 EMT

Tanks and troops out in the open can now be spotted in five minutes, a Ukrainian official says.
Vadym Skibitsky told The Wall Street Journal they could be hit in a further three minutes.
"The survivability on the move is no more than 10 minutes," he said.

The sheer number of drones operating in Ukraine, as well as battle-management systems that provide real-time imaging and locations, mean that troops and tanks out in the open have just minutes before they're targeted, a top Ukrainian military official says.

"Today, a column of tanks or a column of advancing troops can be discovered in three to five minutes and hit in another three minutes," Maj. Gen. Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy commander of Ukraine's HUR military-intelligence service, told The Wall Street Journal.

"The survivability on the move is no more than 10 minutes," he added.

Skibitsky also told the newspaper that "surprises have become very difficult to achieve."

..."

https://www.businessinsider.com/tanks-troops-in-the-open-are-hit-within-10-minutes-ukraine-official-2023-9#:~:text=HOMEPAGE,difficult%20to%20achieve.%22

posted by sebastienbailard at 4:40 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

I like these snapshots of some of the crazy logistics necessary to support large military operations:

How US military equipment for Ukraine is shipped across Atlantic: An exclusive interview with ARC on its military transport operations
posted by Kabanos at 5:59 AM on September 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

The bubblewrap industry must be making a fortune.
posted by rifflesby at 5:45 PM on September 29, 2023

The conversation has moved on somewhat, but maybe it’s not too late to mention that a few days ago a Christian proselytizer knocked on my door and I learned that he is of Estonian descent and that during WW2 his grandfather fought the Germans when they came and then the Russians after.
posted by house-goblin at 7:12 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

Haiane Avakian, in The Atlantic:
BAKHMUT, BEFORE IT VANISHED
The world first heard of my hometown only after Russia destroyed it.
posted by Kabanos at 8:03 AM on September 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Congress on Saturday blocked new aid for Ukraine in its government spending deal, a rebuke to Kyiv with geopolitical reverberations that came despite a concerted lobbying push from senior Biden officials and the highest-ranking GOP senator. [washpo]
posted by porpoise at 1:42 AM on October 1, 2023

Does the shutdown prevent Biden from using his Presidential drawdown authority?
posted by Reverend John at 8:53 AM on October 1, 2023

I don't know if a distinction is made such that Biden can do some things by himself while requiring Congress's approval to do other things, but: The shutdown didn't happen. A continuing resolution was passed instead, and the continuing resolution is what blocked whatever is blocked.

The continuing resolution will only last until mid-November. In the meantime, they're going to try to pass something specific for helping Ukraine.

This all is, of course, the fault of the GOP, though there are individual GOP congresspeople who want to continue aiding Ukraine. In my view, though, those people are still indirectly responsible, as they've been enablers to the worst of their party for a long time now, and have been continuing to be despite the worst of their party pretty much continually getting worse and worse that whole time.
posted by Flunkie at 11:19 PM on October 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

Somewhat tangential, but the Muskrat has now progressed to making fun of people fighting to keep their country and avoid a genocide. Important voices like Phillips O'Brien are considering their presence on the platform.

In addition ol' Musky is lately parroting far-right talking points regarding immigration in both in the US and Italy (!), and posing with weapons. (He's an immigrant himself, FFS)
posted by Harald74 at 3:33 AM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

All EU foreign ministers are in Kyiv today. Except nope, not all because Hungary and Poland took a bow. In Poland's case, it may also be related to Rau not wanting to show face after the scandal where he was discovered having sold up to 200K Schengen area visas to citizens of third countries in clear corruption (like importing a "Bollywood film team" made up of Bangladeshi farmers who scraped their families' savings to afford the bribe), but also of all the things the right-wingers are trying to use to win the election on the 15th, it's turning against the country we absolutely united in support of 19 months ago.

5 billion euro for defense over the next year isn't peanuts, but Ukraine's being ambitious about EU membership as well.

(In other news, plenty of Ukrainian and rainbow flag at the Million Hearts March yesterday! Looks like we're nicking Ukrainian flower crowns as a patriotic/protest display the same way we nicked vuvuzelas after the 2010 World Cup. Ouch, my ears.)
posted by I claim sanctuary at 8:40 AM on October 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

(He's an immigrant himself, FFS)

Ladder pullers are always the absolute worst anti-immigrant people. It's like they watched Aliens and thought "Wow! That Burke character (Paul Reiser) was really cool. I want to be like him".
posted by srboisvert at 3:25 PM on October 2, 2023

Between the Slovakian election, Poland lecturing Ukraine about their lack of obedience and gratitude, Musk openly mocking Zelenskyy, US funding for Ukraine in question, the fiasco in the Canadian Parliament... it feels like there's been a string of bad news for Ukraine.

Politically, I worry Putin's strategy will work out for him in the end. Keep at it until the collective West gets tired and bored. Re-group and continue.

The past few weeks have been a reminder of just how fragile everything is. It's depressing.
posted by UN at 3:41 AM on October 4, 2023 [6 favorites]

I have been feeling the same, UN, but I found solace in the unlikeliest of sources, an in-depth report by Patrick Wintour in The Guardian about changes within the politics and bureaucracy of the European Union (no seriously). The EU is an organization which is dominated by inertia, and so once it starts moving in a certain direction, it takes a lot to slow it down, and it’s definitely moving in the direction of opposing Russia and supporting Ukraine. Excerpt:

“The EU has changed. There is no turning back. We have turned out the lights behind us and there is basically only one way.”

The words of the Danish politician and EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager at a conference in May neatly reflect the mood among the Brussels elite, taken aback at their own ability to shed EU bureaucratic torpor, defend Ukraine, embrace enlargement and move closer to fulfilling Ursula von der Leyen’s ambition for the EU to become a “geopolitical force”.

“Our response to the invasion was by the hour at first, now not to the same degree, but it is absolutely Europe’s top priority and we will stay supportive of Ukraine until the war is won and Ukraine has been rebuilt, and become a member of the European Union,” Vestager continued.

“I think that is the crucial commitment that has been made, and that will be a better union when that is brought about – a more dynamic union and a more united union.”

Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion, Josep Borrell, the EU foreign and security chief, argued the EU had grown up, “making more progress in a week toward the objective of being a global security player than it had in the previous decade”. The example of the brave Ukrainian resistance sprang the EU into a newfound sense of purpose.

“Russia’s war had awakened a slumbering giant,” he claimed. Measures that were unthinkable just a few days earlier, such as barring leading Russian banks from the Swift international financial messaging system and freezing the Russian central bank’s assets, were imposed at an unprecedented pace.

The price of failure was also dauntingly high. Take Jonatan Vseviov, the secretary general in Estonia’s directorate of the ministry of foreign affairs, and one of the key influences on Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister.

“Everything is at stake in this war: each and every one of the core principles of European security have come under attack,” he said.

“They will either be strengthened as a result of this war, or they will be fundamentally weakened. The notions of territorial integrity, sovereignty, the unacceptability of aggression, the illegality of war crimes are being tested right now.

“Furthermore, our own identity as Europeans is being tested. We are being tested, and we will be seen on the world stage through the lens of how we behave today in the context of this conflict.

“Western credibility is at stake, which depends not just on the things that we say, not just the things that we do, but primarily on the results that we get. The results matter. We might as well do the right things and say the right things; if we fail, we fail.”

There have been bad news days, a lot of them, but at least when it comes to European financial and material support, it is only trending in one direction currently.
posted by Kattullus at 4:53 AM on October 4, 2023 [10 favorites]

More bad news: Ukraine war: Western allies say they are running out of ammunition (BBC):

"We need large volumes. The just-in-time, just-enough economy we built together in 30 years in our liberal economies is fine for a lot of things - but not the armed forces when there is a war ongoing."

UK Defence Minister James Heappey told the forum that Western military stockpiles were "looking a bit thin" and urged Nato allies to spend 2% of their national wealth on defence, as they had committed to do.

"If it's not the time - when there is a war in Europe - to spend 2% on defence, then when is?" he asked.

posted by kmt at 4:55 AM on October 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

Guess its time for another letter to my national political leaders.
posted by Reverend John at 7:53 AM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Russia is understandably getting fed up with having its vessels in and around Sevastopol harbour being targeted by Storm Shadow and aerial and surface drones, and is upping sticks to Novorossiysk and Feodosia, both much smaller ports with less facilities. To maintain some sense of presence in the Black Sea Russia has apparently signed a deal with Abkhasia, a breakaway region of Georgia, to build a naval base there.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:12 AM on October 5, 2023 [4 favorites]

UK Defence Minister James Heappey told the forum that Western military stockpiles were "looking a bit thin" and urged Nato allies to spend 2% of their national wealth on defence, as they had committed to do.

Keep in mind that when they say that stockpiles are looking a little thin they are really referring to what they can spare rather than what they have. Many countries are still just shipping out expired or near expiring ammo that they would have dumped on the arms market anyways. They are still maintaining what they consider essential for their own militaries (This may not be true of the more threatened Baltic States which are making quite outsized contributions to Ukraine).

The main point does stand though and the EU and the rest of the West should ramp up production even if just out of economic self-interest. There is huge money to be made both arming Ukraine and with the likely rethink of just how much ammo countries need to stockpile going forward now that the current reality of war has been shown to have dramatically changed from the Gulf Wars.
posted by srboisvert at 2:36 PM on October 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

To maintain some sense of presence in the Black Sea Russia has apparently signed a deal with Abkhasia, a breakaway region of Georgia, to build a naval base there.

Only Russia and its lackey allies recognize Abkhasia. It is really just another Crimea: A Russian occupied territory and not recognized by the international community.
posted by srboisvert at 2:39 PM on October 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Driving Russia further up the Black Sea in order to "maintain a presence" is actually a pretty excellent marker of victory for Ukraine. I hope they continue in this vein.
posted by hippybear at 2:47 PM on October 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

The US has ramped up production, although it's taking some time.

U.S. aims to make 100,000 artillery shells per month in 2025, US official says

WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. plans to increase monthly production of 155 millimeter artillery shells over the coming years to 100,000 in 2025, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer said on Friday.

"We're going to be at 100,000 per month in 2025. We were at 14,000 per month 6 or 8 months ago, we are now at 28,000 a month today," Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer said at a conference on Friday.

IIRC, some EU countries are too.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:44 PM on October 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Only Russia and its lackey allies recognize Abkhasia.

See also Transnistria, which I continue to hope will not survive the conclusion of the war in Ukraine.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:01 PM on October 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

"a breakaway region of Georgia"

An occupied and neglected region.

"Russian world in all its glory: what Sukhumi looks like 30 years after the war.

Bullet marks are still visible on many houses, dilapidated buildings are collapsing, the atmosphere is like something out of an apocalypse film." (Machine translated)

As Telegram only searches in original language, not translations, search that channel for "Сухуми" for posts about the capital of the Russian-controlled region.
posted by krisjohn at 4:06 PM on October 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

The US has ramped up production, although it's taking some time.

The slow ramp-up time for any kind of industrial production, even for products for which there is a well-defined method for mass production, is a thing that I don't think the US populace really groks on any true level.

And if you get into novel products that are crucial for society like a new vaccine, the understanding is even less.

Until we develop the Star Trek replicator, there is absolutely nothing in our society that we can want en masse that won't require a lag time before it is available en masse.

And maybe it doesn't feel that way because of your personal experience with Rubik's Cubes or fidget spinners or whatever other suddenly popular consumer product seemed to suddenly swarm your world. But what you probably don't realize is that for every one of those there are probably 4 "produce a bunch of these things" orders for products that don't catch on that are made and subsequently scrapped before 100 pile-on creators can begin to place their orders.

Anyway, all this is to say, we've created a form of capitalism which is very dependent on a cascade of orders coming before the final assembly, each needing to be fulfilled on time in order for each successive step to be completed before it all comes together. And in this era of disrupted supply chains which extend from lack of base inputs to a failed transport chain this is much more complicated than it might have been even 5 years ago.

In WWII, the US converted factories that were formerly creating consumer goods to war products. I don't think we're there yet, but maybe we might need to start thinking along those lines in a small measure if we really want to stop all this bullshit once and for all.
posted by hippybear at 4:09 PM on October 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

A healthy domestic manufacturing sector is a crucial part of national security policy. Private business can be 100% trusted to ignore this and go searching for the cheapest labour regardless of how this exposes their home country. Governments either need to regulate heavily, or maintain their own direct capcity (no outsourcing). Businesses that lobby for reduced regulation need to be scrutinized. Businesses that secretly lobby for reduced regulation through astroturf and black box political organisations need to be investigated for possible criminal activities (or, during war time, treason).
posted by krisjohn at 5:58 PM on October 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Good summary of the current Polish-Ukrainian mess. I'm waiting for my assignment as an independent election observer...
posted by I claim sanctuary at 5:19 AM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

...now that the current reality of war has been shown to have dramatically changed from the Gulf Wars.

Keep in mind that a HUGE part of the reason this conflict has progressed so differently is because both sides have a ton of air defense capability but neither side has much ability to take out the other's air defense network. Ukraine just needs more planes, more modern versions of the planes they're getting, a lot more pilots qualified to operate those planes. If they can whittle down Russia's air defense capability and establish some kind of air superiority and provide ground troops with close air support the nature of the fighting will change real fast and real hard.
posted by VTX at 7:15 AM on October 6, 2023 [4 favorites]

If anything this war shows how little war has changed when it is between industrialized, near-peer countries vs the Gulf Wars. Russia launched this invasion with 130,000 soldiers vs the million the US and its allies had in the Gulf Wars. The Russians barely managed 300 sorties per day at the peak of their air attack, while the U.S. regularly exceeded 3000.
posted by interogative mood at 9:15 AM on October 6, 2023

This is how a Russian attack on Ukraine looks like as seen from across the Danube in the EU — footage taken in the Romanian city of Isaccea.
posted by UN at 1:39 PM on October 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

So I've sent a new letter to my Congresspeople and President Biden via Resistbot. If anyone else wants to send it to their representatives you can text SIGN PNVHCV to 50409. Here is the text:

Please give Ukraine the support it needs to succeed in defending itself from Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression and take back all of its stolen territories. Ukrainians need our maximum possible support to repel the Russian invasion of their country.

Please provide Ukraine with all the possible resources they may request to take back their stolen territories, including additional Patriot and NASAMS batteries to expand their air defenses around Odessa and their port facilities on the Black Sea which have come under Russian attack, ATACMS missiles to strike deeper into Russian occupied Ukrainian territories and disrupt Russian logistics, more and newer F-16’s to defend against Russian air threats, and any other weapons the Ukrainians might request that we can provide.

We need to increase our support for Ukraine as fast as possible. Our support has been less than completely sufficient to date. While there may have been valid reasons early in the war to be cautious in providing aid to Ukraine out of concerns for possible escalatory responses by Russia, time and events have shown that Russian intentions and rhetoric are neither in good faith nor honest. Further delay only aids and encourages Russian threats and aggression, and rewards nuclear blackmail, increasing our future risks. The proper response is to help the Ukrainians defeat the Russians’ aggression.

Defending Ukraine is in the interest of the United States. A free, democratic, pro-Western Ukraine will be a valuable ally against authoritarian states like Russia. Helping Ukraine succeed in defending itself is vital to our own security interests.

Thank you for your attention.

posted by Reverend John at 11:42 AM on October 7, 2023 [7 favorites]

> text SIGN PNVHCV to 50409

done. bonus sad fact that Good is my house rep.
posted by glonous keming at 8:39 PM on October 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Here’s a podcast episode where Kate Riga, of Talking Points Memo, interviews her colleague Josh Kovensky, who was a reporter in Ukraine before joining TPM, and Tim Mak, who was the Ukraine war correspondent for NPR before they let him go and he started The Counteroffensive. It has a lot of good info on the state of the war, of Ukraine away from the front lines, as well as what’s going on in the US Congress with aid for Ukraine (though it was recorded before McCarthy was ousted). I found the discussion about reporting from Ukraine especially fascinating, but all of it is worth a listen.
posted by Kattullus at 7:18 AM on October 9, 2023 [5 favorites]

the interview with Mak is good, especially if you have been reading his substack about the war. His description of the psychological toll it has had on the citizens of Ukraine, and himself, is very insightful. It's a viewpoint of war we don't often hear front and center.

(Not to minimize either conflict or to down-play the specificity of either, but there are times when I wonder if the war in Ukraine isn't functioning, on a cultural level, for "Europe" and "North America" as the Spanish Civil War did. A sort of litmus test. It is, at the same time, curious that the war in Syria never took on the same cultural role: The Gulf Wars were a different sort of beast. )
posted by From Bklyn at 8:34 AM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

As Twitter/X continues to descend into chaos, one of the useful features left to us are lists. Here is a good list of OSINT accounts.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for my BlueSky invite, to see if the grass is greener. I know a number of credible contributors have theirs already.
posted by Harald74 at 3:36 AM on October 10, 2023

(A very kind MeFi sponsored my non-credible self with an invite. Thank you!)
posted by Harald74 at 10:44 AM on October 10, 2023

The Barents Observer: Newly elected leader of Norway's Finnmark region snubs Moscow, wants Volodymyr Zelensky to 2WW anniversary

The new regional government of Hans-Jacob Bønå does not want any official Russian representatives at next year's 80-year anniversary of Soviet liberation of East Finnmark. A similar political shift has come to the border town of Kirkenes, where a new mayor intends to scrap cooperation with neighbouring Russian region of Pechenga.

...

“Russia has decided to exit the European community and started a full-scale attack on a neighbouring country. It is unacceptable. And it is dangerous,” Bønå underlined and added that Norwegians still remember how it was to be occupied by another country.

“It has a strong imprint in us even today,” he said with reference to the 2WW Nazi German occupation of Norway.

Locally, this is a pretty big deal. The cooperation with Russia in the Arctic has not been without problems, but there are many connections among people living in the border area, and there has historically been quite a bit of trade. Finnmark is also one of the few areas the Red Army liberated and then vacated after WWII. There are monuments to and war graves for soldiers and prison labourers up and down northern Norway, something Russia has been pushing for to enable them cover for travel during the Cold War, and sort of cultural imperialism after.
posted by Harald74 at 10:56 AM on October 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

There are starting to be unnamed accusations of Russian sabotage of the gas pipeline and communications cable between Finland and Estonia. If true, it's a disturbing deepening of the divide between Russia and NATO countries.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:23 AM on October 10, 2023 [4 favorites]

A sort of litmus test. It is, at the same time, curious that the war in Syria never took on the same cultural role

I think a lot of it comes down to the "bad guy" in the Russian-Ukraine invasion being Vladimir Putin who has been on the world stage for 20+ years and has near universal name recognition. Despite the extremists in the GOP, he is seen as a negative figure. Contrast that with Syria and very few people know who Bashar al-Assad is and next to no one understands the fractional forces in that conflict. Again, absent some extremists, almost everyone agrees that Ukraine is the "good guys" and Russia is the "bad guys". There may be disagreements (genuine and partisan) about what to do about the situation but not about the broad strokes.
posted by mmascolino at 4:49 PM on October 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

A sort of litmus test. It is, at the same time, curious that the war in Syria never took on the same cultural role

Expanding a bit on what mmascolino wrote: in the beginning, in Syria, people and politicians all over the world were very supportive of the revolt, and the refugees fleeing the mayhem. But then it all devolved into fractions, including hard-line Islamic fundamentalists, and everyone was confused. After Afghanistan, where the US supported Islamic fundamentalists (though not the Taliban) in order to oust the Russians, no one wants to get their hand stuck in that bee's nest again.
posted by mumimor at 11:55 PM on October 10, 2023

Harald74: The Barents Observer: Newly elected leader of Norway's Finnmark region snubs Moscow, wants Volodymyr Zelensky to 2WW anniversary

Similar sentiments on Svalbard: Barentsburg: the Norwegian town feeling the chill of the Ukraine war

Until recently, the mostly Russian and Ukrainian residents of Barentsburg have had remarkably warm relations with their predominantly Norwegian Arctic neighbours along the coast in the settlement of Longyearbyen. There were regular cultural exchanges, with visiting symphony orchestras and children’s choirs, chess competitions and sport fixtures.

But since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the two communities have found themselves on the edge of the west’s last remaining interaction point with Russia. And the mood has turned decidedly icy.

(as the main reason for Russian and Ukrainian presence, negotiated in 1932 so USSR times, on Svalbard is coal mining, it's unsurprising that most of the Ukrainians are from the Donetsk and Luhansk mining regions)
posted by Stoneshop at 12:05 AM on October 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

NBI: Cause of pipeline damage was likely mechanical, not an explosion from YLE News is a good overview of the current state of knowledge about the damage to the gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. Excerpt:

Finnish officials on Wednesday said it was not likely the damage to a pipeline between Finland and Estonia was caused by an explosion, but noted the line had been physically damaged.

The National Bureau of Investigation's (NBI) probe into the suspected sabotage has been challenging, according to the agency's director, Robin Lardot.

He made the comment at a joint press conference on Wednesday evening, alongside other authorities, including members of the Border Guard and the National Emergency Supply Agency.

In communications about the incident, the Finnish government has refrained from directly calling what caused it as sabotage. On the other hand, there has been a good deal of speculation in the media about Russia's possible role.

Reporters asked about the possibility of Russian involvement in the incident, but the Finnish authorities continued to be tight-lipped.

The NBI's chief inspector, Risto Lohi, said investigators are not making speculations in the case, but rather working to find answers.

"At the moment we are determining what happened and [who] may have been involved. Considering the situation we will not speculate, but work to find facts, analyse them and then draw conclusions about what caused the damage," Lohi said.

If you look at the related articles section below the main body of text, you’ll find further info on what’s going on and what’s known.
posted by Kattullus at 9:52 AM on October 11, 2023 [5 favorites]

Reports of large scale attacks by Russia and battles near Avdiivka. There are videos on social media that are reminiscent of the early days of the invasion: long columns of tanks driving in a single file down the road .... with a large number of those being destroyed as well.
posted by UN at 10:33 PM on October 11, 2023 [2 favorites]

The New York Times had a report on the battle of Avdiika yesterday, which provides plenty of context. If you’ve been following events in Ukraine for a while, you’ll remember the town from a battle in 2017 which was perhaps the last time before 2021 that people were worried that war was going to break out.
posted by Kattullus at 1:33 AM on October 12, 2023 [3 favorites]

Fingers crossed for Poland, I claim sanctuary.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:09 PM on October 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

I still can't quite believe that exit poll <3 Really hoping the Left will pull through - due to electoral intricacies they need 8% to get any seats and they're hovering just above that threshold, but the voting turnout has been amazing. Dozens of places ran out of voting forms and we had US-like queues into the middle of the night for the first time ever. Some people waited for over 5 hours to vote, absolutely unheard of here.

In the school where I voted, there were children's artworks on the wall. The one nearest the voting room was a portrait of one of Poland's famous poets in stark black and white with a long quote from him in painstakingly correct Latin cursive, signed by a Ukrainian girl, 12 years old. I'm taking it as a good sign.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 11:14 PM on October 15, 2023 [12 favorites]

A Russian BTR-90 APC has been spotted in Ukraine. This is a bit odd, as the BTR-90 was developed in the 90s as a successor to the BTR-80, but there was only 12 prototypes built, and in later years the more modern VPK-7829 Bumerang has been developed and shown in parades at least. Seems like someone had a look in the back of the shed at one of the development agencies in Russia, and re-activated this thing.

Also a destroyed Russian BTR-50 APC has been spotted. These went into service in 1954, and was thought to be only used in rear areas.
posted by Harald74 at 2:30 AM on October 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

By the warm sea: disturbing account of Ukrainian children being held at the Artek summer camp in Crimea.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:37 AM on October 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

Russia's offensive in Avdiivka does not seem to be making much if any progress and resulting in tremendous casualties for Russia (Gaurdian). The ISW has also noted in their October 15 report on the offensive:

The Russian information space writ large is also metering its initial optimism about the prospects of Russian offensive operations around Avdiivka. Russian milbloggers initially reported maximalist and unverifiable claims of Russian advances over 10km, likely exaggerated the degree of Russian successes near Avdiivka during initial offensive operations, and expressed optimism for rapid Russian advances.[5] Some Russian milbloggers have since acknowledged difficulties in the Russian advance near Avdiivka and noted that Russian forces decreased their pace of offensive operations around the settlement.[6] Russian milbloggers have also begun to claim that intense and attritional fighting is ongoing around Avdiivka.[7]
....
ISW has not yet observed visual confirmation of previous claims of Russian advances in the area or geolocated footage of any other Russian gains. Russian sources claimed notably fewer Russian advances in the area on October 15 compared to previous days and described these new alleged advances as marginal.
....
Both Ukrainian military observers and Russian sources stated that Russian forces did not achieve their desired immediate breakthrough, and Russian forces faced initial high losses and a likely slower than anticipated rate of advance

Here is a video taken from the trenches showing what it is like for frontline Ukrainian soldiers (lots of gunfire but no gore). Ukrainian media was reporting over the weekend that the Russians are running out of body bags for their dead do to the failure of the offensive.
posted by interogative mood at 10:31 AM on October 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

And it's official - Poland has voted in a centre-left coalition after openly calling for separation of Church and state, equal LGBTQ rights and an end to the "abortion compromise" that allowed for terminations only in cases of danger to life or health of the mother, major fetal defects or pregnancy as result of crime. Which is important for Europe, but also for Ukraine, because it leaves in charge a guy who hasn't been pouting over Zelenskyy's popularity and who everyone in Brussels knows already because he spent the past 8 years as one of the biggest power players there, including being voted in for his second term as president of the European Council by a united EU with the exception of his own home country. Hungary now stands alone, or maybe with Slovakia, but a country of 5.5 million people punches far weaker in Brussels than a 38 million one.

And honestly Ukraine has so much to do with how the election turned out. The reason we knew we could do it was because we finally saw our own united strength 19 months ago as we helped our Ukrainian neighbours. That was the activist impulse that got everyone talking and working together. So in a perverse way, after sabotaging Poland's previous 4 national-level elections, Vladimir Vladimirovich shot himself in the foot in so many more ways than he thought possible.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 2:05 AM on October 17, 2023 [28 favorites]

The people that I barely know ('friend of a friend' etc.) who reached out to me to urge me to vote in the last few weeks gave me hope that something positive is happening — and here we are. Nice.
posted by UN at 5:50 AM on October 17, 2023 [7 favorites]

Ukrainian SOF reports successful strikes on russian air bases in Berdiansk and Luhansk, destroying the following:
- 9 helicopters;
- 1 air defense launcher;
- special vehicles;
- ammo depots;
- air strips were severely damaged.

Various folks on Twitter suggesting ATACMS were used.
posted by Kabanos at 6:32 AM on October 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

And FighterBomber on Telegram, an account with ties to the Russian Air Force, also claims ATACMS, but we'll see. FIRMS show fires on the base, so something has happened.

Looking around for estimates for the Russian remaining operative Ka-52s, I found numbers from 25-50. So any further losses will be significant.

That the airstrip was severely damaged is probably hyperbole, they are really hard to put out of function for any significant length of time.
posted by Harald74 at 6:37 AM on October 17, 2023

Kabanos: Various folks on Twitter suggesting ATACMS were used.

https://nitter.net/NOELreports/status/1714287721651523970?t=bH15NWp30zWu0fcCD3Ipww&s=19

The watermark on the images is from Two Majors, a Russian Telegram channel.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:07 PM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

The US secretly provided Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles in recent days, according to multiple US officials, providing Ukraine with a significant new capability that could allow its forces to hit new Russian targets that were previously out of reach. [CNN]

I'm also seeing that Zelenskyy has confirmed it's ATACMS.
posted by UN at 12:33 PM on October 17, 2023 [4 favorites]

There's some confirmed losses at the Luhansk air base as well.
posted by Harald74 at 2:23 AM on October 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

The small number of M39 and related will be a big deal in forcing the russians to relocate or disperse high value targets in a large area, but this has to mean that the much larger number* of M26 and any remaining M30s are on the way. These are shorter range, less accurate, but still pack a huge punch at longer range than conventional artillery, which will make them great for counter-battery and tactical use on the front lines.

* There is no accurate, public accounting of how many of these things exist and are usable that I am aware of. Best guess is a few hundred thousand to a hundred thousand.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 11:22 AM on October 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

GLSDB will presumably start showing up in the coming few months, too.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:40 PM on October 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Russian Air Force Grapples With Worst. Week. Of. The. War.

The worst single day for the Russian Air Force, not just for last week but for the entire war so far, took place last Tuesday, on Oct. 17, following the (for the Kremlin) surprise Ukrainian deployment of US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles tipped with warheads specifically designed to saturate an airfield with cluster munitions.

ATACMS missiles struck an airfield near the Russia-occupied city of Berdyansk destroying at least nine attack and transport helicopters. Another ATACMS salvo hit an airbase near the Russia-occupied city of Luhansk ruining another five helicopters. Ukrainian military bloggers and open-source satellite imagery widely confirmed the Russian losses.

The authoritative Defence Express analytical platform reported most likely, in that day of Ukrainian missile strikes, at least 20 military helicopters, or about six percent of the rotary wing aircraft in the entire Russian Air Force, were rendered long-term unflyable or damaged too badly to be worth trying to repair.

...

Aside from punishing ground losses – Kyiv estimated Russian forces lost 55 tanks on Thursday alone – Russian combat jet have spiked over the past week, with official Ukrainian sources reporting the shoot down of five Su-25 ground support jets in engagements across the front.

posted by UN at 5:30 AM on October 20, 2023 [8 favorites]

About the ground losses ("Kyiv estimated Russian forces lost 55 tanks on Thursday alone") — the videos coming out of Avdiivka today and in the last few days are simply mind-bending. I don't mean to minimize the difficulty Ukraine faces, and I can't judge what's truly going on lacking any military experience .... but it looks like target practice.

The videos and photos are wild. Here's another short overview article about the equipment losses in that area, with a link to the open source Twitter account that pulled together the images.

Images in the link are SFW but the bad stuff is always just a click or two away, so proceed with caution.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:53 AM on October 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wait, what? We gave them the weapons they've been asking for for months, that people have been saying, "if they had these, they would turn the tide of the war quickly", we finally gave them these weapons and THEY WORKED???

They should have had them a year ago.
posted by hippybear at 7:11 AM on October 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

Absolutely. If they got more of, well everything, a year ago, many lives would have been saved. Now most of the stuff on Ukraine's wish list has been delivered (at least in initial quantities), I think maybe the German Taurus cruise missiles is the most high-profile item left. And they have really gotten some mileage out the Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles they already got, so I expect the Tauruses (Tauri?) to be a very useful addition to their arsenal as well. When Scholtz is done waffling.
posted by Harald74 at 7:29 AM on October 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

The Insider has released a long article detailing their exposure of a secret GRU unit responsible for assorted sabotage and mayhem in Europe: Inside an Infamous Russian Spy Unit’s First Bombing in NATO:

In November 2011, GRU Unit 29155 blew up an ammunition depot in Lovnidol, Bulgaria, containing artillery destined for Georgia. It was the first known terror attack perpetrated by the team of hitmen and saboteurs who would later poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal in England, a Bulgarian arms dealer in Sofia, and blow up a host of other storage facilities and buildings across NATO territories. These operations killed or wounded dozens of civilians and led to the expulsion of Russian diplomats. But now The Insider has obtained travel records and leaked correspondence from members of Unit 29155 that points to their culpability in the inaugural attack in Bulgaria – and partly answers the question of why so many of these operatives have all gone on to occupy high-profile political positions in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

posted by Harald74 at 7:31 AM on October 20, 2023 [7 favorites]

I wonder if large quantities of rocket artillery are behind the landing on the left bank of the dnipro. With the ability to launch saturation cluster attacks against an organized counter attack and do counter battery well past traditional artillery range, maybe it’s worth the risk.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 6:41 PM on October 20, 2023

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