UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 8, 2023 · 7:46:49 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Some of the action near Zaliznyanske. Which, again, is west of the highway at Bakhmut. This is taking place a good 8-9km northwest of Bakhmit. At the 0:46 mark on this video, the tank is on the M03 highway, 2km above the junction with the T0513, shooting to the southeast toward a line of trees that’s just west of Blahodatne.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 8, 2023 · 7:39:18 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Just north of Bakhmut, I’ve been unsure of Russia’s advance west of the highway at Blahodatne, but this does appear to be real. Russian forces were reportedly halted today near Zalizynyanske, but there’s no doubt that between this movement and one near Paraskoiivka, Ukraine’s control over the last strong access route into Bakhmut is jeopardized. Look for an update on this no later than tomorrow.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 8, 2023 · 7:33:40 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Russian forces reportedly made another run in the Vuhledar area on Wednesday, this time attempting to move up a road to the west of the town. However, they don’t seem to have made it very far before getting repulsed again.
No word on the scale of this particular disaster. It may have been a typical small-scale zerging, or it might have been another 1,000+ troops lost mega-zerg such as the one on Monday. In any case, it’s halted.
Elsewhere, Russian forces attacked Marinka. Which is odd, because Russia took Marinka two weeks ago, according to Russia. Except it didn’t. It also didn’t today. Russia made several other runs at areas west of Donetsk today, including Avdiivka, but all these attacks appear to have ended in failure.
On Wednesday, the area around Kreminna is the subject of wildly diverging storylines. On the one hand, Ukrainian sources are reporting that Russian forces are engaged in a serious offensive in the area and that there is heavy fighting west of the city. On the other hand, Russian sources are reporting that Ukraine has massed troops in the area and is preparing for a major counteroffensive. To top it off, the official reports from the Ukrainian military are … confusing.
Ukraine is reporting Russian artillery strikes at Terny, which follows previous reports of attacks near other locations along that same line, both north and south. These earlier attacks suggested that Russian forces had pressed through the intersection to the north at Ploshchanka to attack those locations to the west. That led to the conclusion that Ukraine had lost control over the locations of Chervonopopivka and Pishcane, which the Ukrainian military had held for weeks just north of Kreminna. But wait. Now Ukraine is reporting that both those locations were shelled by Russian forces on Wednesday. This follows a Tuesday report that Russian attacks had been repelled both near Kreminna and Shypylivka. That certainly suggests that Ukraine not only still holds positions in the forest south of Kreminna, but that the forces that earlier moved northeast from Bilohorivka are still threatening Russian positions around Shypylivka. It may even support sources that earlier claimed Ukraine had liberated Shypylivka (reports that were never confirmed).
Is Russia marching west? Is Ukraine pushing east? Is all of this confusing? The best that can be done at the moment is to mark a lot of this area as “in dispute” and wait for more news.
There are multiple reports this morning, like this from The Guardian: Vladimir Putin wasn’t just aware that a Russian missile took down the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Boeing 777 back in 2014, but he personally signed off on the decision to send that missile launcher into Ukraine.
“The investigation produced strong indications that a decision on providing the Buk Telar – or in any event a heavier air defence system with a higher range – to the Donetsk People’s Republic was taken at the presidential level,” a report published on Wednesday by the joint investigation team (JIT) said.
The big story running across Russian media this morning, and being spread around social media by ecstatic tankies, is a claim that journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed how U.S. Navy divers bombed the Nordsteam pipeline during a NATO exercise. Of course, Hersh didn’t say this at The New York Times or anywhere else he has a column. He let it slip in a substack account conveniently created in Hersh’s name that appeared just half an hour before Russian outlet Sputnik ran the story. You can be certain this will be the common wisdom among pro-Russian sources from now on, backed up by how it was “proven” by Hersh.
Meanwhile, Russian state media is also fretting that Ukraine is getting ready for a new counteroffensive.
Sources in Russian-occupied Luhansk are reportedly warning that Ukraine has pulled forces from other areas and is massing troops along the line between Svatove and Kreminna, preparing to move on those cities and beyond. It’s a big switch from last week, where the same Russian publications were all in on how Russia was advancing out of that area and was about to retake Lyman on the way to Izyum and Kharkiv.
So does this represent an actual flip in the status along the northern part of the front, or is it Russia trying to downplay their position before they make another attempted attack, or… ? Honestly, who knows? Searching for facts in Russian state media is fruitless, and searching for motivation has always been about as sensible as traffic on the Moscow ring road. Russia could be telling people this as a warning that Ukraine is going to advance. They could be saying it to inflate any advance made by Russia. They could be saying it so that just sitting still can be touted as a victory. They could be saying it because there were open column inches. There’s really no way to tell.
But hey, here’s a Russian pundit dreaming of how things will be once Russia conquers the world.
The fight in Bakhmut isn’t all about Russia making a slow advance. There are Ukrainian counterattacks that are taking back areas of the city where Russia encroached. Ukraine’s defense of Bakhmut is far from passive.
Not looking to jinx anything, but this is amazing. Throughout the war, as Russia has hurled missile after missile into civilian residences, schools, hospitals, and every kind of infrastructure that makes everyday life possible, one place has apparently failed to make its target list. [NOTE: As KyivGuy has pointed out in the comments, this source is regarded as highly unreliable, so get out that salt shaker.]
This is the refinery cranking out diesel and gasoline that drives Ukrainian tanks, SPGs, APVs, and other armored vehicles. They haven’t had to import it, because Russia is so intent on murdering families that they haven’t actually used their long-range ability to go after military targets. Kremenchug is an amazing example of how Russia has prioritized murder and terrorism.
This is just Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s second trip outside of Ukraine since the invasion began. Maybe now Republicans will stop complaining that Zelenskyy didn’t take off his military garb and dress in a suit and tie for his meetings on Capitol Hill? No, probably not. But if Zelenskyy is not swapping out his olive drab sweater to meet with King Charles, he’s not doing it for Ted Cruz.
Zelenskyy will reportedly go from the U.K. to an EU summit to be held in Brussels tomorrow.
No, The U.K. didn’t promise Zelenskyy fighter jets … this is him working the room.
It was probably the words “with their tanks and their bombs” that caused the YouTube algorithm to shove this to the top of my list. In fact, it’s a song about the violence and loss of war, and the lingering effect on survivors and their families. It also has nothing to do with Ukraine, as this video is five years old and the song is two decades older. Just consider it a palate cleanser. And that algorithm must know something; I’ve watched it four times.
Markos and Kerry are joined by University of St. Andrews Professor of Strategic Studies, Phillips P. O’Brien. O’Brien, an expert in military history, explains how we got to where we are right now, what is unique about the world’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the parallels between the conservative movement’s isolationism in World War II and now.