Ukraine launched a barrage of drones across Russia overnight, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said Saturday, in attacks that appeared to target the country’s energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted successful drone strikes against several energy infrastructure facilities and a fuel storage facility within Russia on the night of April 19 to 20. Ukrainian media reported that sources in Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR), and Special Operations Forces (SSO) stated that the SBU, GUR, and SSO jointly launched dozens of drones against Moscow, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Tula, Smolensk, Ryazan, and Kaluga oblasts, and struck at least three electrical substations and a fuel storage facility.[24] Ukrainian media reported that the SBU, GUR, and SSO targeted Russian energy facilities that support Russian defense industrial facilities.[25] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian air defenses destroyed and intercepted 50 Ukrainian drones over the same eight oblasts.[26] Bryansk Oblast Governor Alexander Bogomaz claimed that a drone crashed at an energy facility in Bryansk Oblast and caused a fire.[27] Kaluga Oblast Governor Vladislav Shapsha claimed that a drone strike slightly damaged energy infrastructure in Maloyaroslavetsky Raion, Kaluga Oblast.[28] Smolensk Oblast Governor Vasily Anokhin claimed that falling drone debris caused a container of fuel to catch fire in Kardymovsky Raion, Smolensk Oblast.[29] Geolocated footage published on April 20 shows a fire at a fuel storage facility in Kardymovo, Smolensk Oblast.[30] ... ISW continues to assess that Ukrainian strikes against Russian energy facilities are a necessary component of Ukraine’s campaign to use asymmetric means to degrade industries that supply and support the Russian military.[32]
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No thanks to GOP politicians spouting Russian talking points for many months.
The House approved a $95 billion package of foreign aid bills that would provide funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, among other priorities. The bills moved forward despite a far-right threat to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) if he advanced Ukraine aid.
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Russell “Texas” Bentley has been found dead in Eastern Ukraine
Russell "Texas" Bentley, an American citizen who had been fighting on the side of the Russians and working for Russian propaganda since 2014, has died in the temporarily occupied city of Donetsk. A Russian tank crew detained him after a strike on a military unit, and he was never seen alive again.
Source: Russell Bentley's wife, Lyudmila Bentley, on Bentley’s Telegram; Margarita Simonyan, a Russian propagandist and editor-in-chief of the RT TV channel
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Russell Bonner Bentley III, also known as Texas and the Donbass Cowboy, was an American man who served in Vostok Battalion and XAH Spetsnaz Battalion in 2014, 2015 and 2017 on the side of the Donetsk People's Republic. He was a YouTuber until his channel was deleted in early 2022. He also worked for the Sputnik news agency as a war correspondent.
Russian forces conducted a series of missile strikes against Ukraine on the night of April 19 to 20. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces launched three Iskander-M ballistic missiles and two S-300/400 air defense missiles from Belgorod Oblast and two Kh-59/69 cruise missiles from aircraft over the Black Sea.[77] Ukrainian forces reportedly destroyed both Kh-59/69 cruise missiles over southern Ukraine.[78] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that an unspecified number of Russian ballistic missiles struck infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia and Odesa cities on the night of April 19 to 20.[79]
- The US House of Representatives passed a supplemental appropriations bill on April 20 providing for roughly $60 billion of assistance to Ukraine. The bill must now be passed by the Senate and signed by the president before aid can begin to flow.
- These requirements and the logistics of transporting US materiel to the frontline in Ukraine will likely mean that new US assistance will not begin to affect the situation on the front line for several weeks. The frontline situation will therefore likely continue to deteriorate in that time, particularly if Russian forces increase their attacks to take advantage of the limited window before the arrival of new US aid.
- Ukrainian forces may suffer additional setbacks in the coming weeks while waiting for US security assistance that will allow Ukraine to stabilize the front, but they will likely be able to blunt the current Russian offensive assuming the resumed US assistance arrives promptly.
- Russian forces will likely intensify ongoing offensive operations and missile and drone strikes in the coming weeks in order to exploit the closing window of Ukrainian materiel constraints.
- Ukraine will likely be in a significantly improved operational position by June 2024 regardless of delays in the arrival of US security assistance to the frontline, and the Russian military command will likely consider significant changes to the large-scale offensive operation that it is expected to launch in June, although it may still proceed as planned.
- The likely resumption of US security assistance to Ukraine is a critical turning point in the war in Ukraine, but the Kremlin, the West, and Ukraine still have additional decisions to make that will determine the character and outcome of the fighting.
- Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted successful drone strikes against several energy infrastructure facilities and a fuel storage facility within Russia on the night of April 19 to 20.
- The Kremlin appears to be censoring demands for an investigation into the reported murder of a former Donetsk People Republic (DNR) serviceman amid a wider trend of the Kremlin coopting or otherwise censoring DNR-affiliated voices within the Russian information space.
- Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut) and northwest of Avdiivka, and Ukrainian forces recently made confirmed advances south of Kreminna.
- Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that Russian forces are using US-made 203mm artillery ammunition that Russia may have received from Iran.
Russian forces recently advanced near Chasiv Yar amid continued fighting in the area on April 20. Geolocated footage published on April 20 indicates that Russian forces marginally advanced along the T0504 (Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut) highway northwest of Ivanivske (southeast of Chasiv Yar).[48] ... Russian sources continued to claim that Russian forces are conducting airstrikes, including using guided glide bombs, near Chasiv Yar.[50] Fighting continued northeast of Chasiv Yar near Bohdanivka; near Chasiv Yar itself, including near the Novyi Microraion; southeast of Chasiv Yar near Ivanivske and Klishchiivka; and south of Chasiv Yar near Pivdenne.[51] Russian and Ukrainian sources stated that Ukrainian forces struck a command post of the Russian 331st Guards Airborne (VDV) Regiment (98th VDV Division) in central Bakhmut on April 16.[52] Elements of the Russian 58th Spetsnaz Battalion (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] AC) and the 98th VDV Division are reportedly operating near Chasiv Yar.[53] Elements of the Russian 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd LNR AC) are reportedly operating in the Bakhmut direction.[54]
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331st VDV HQ claimed hit by Ukrainian HIMARS in Bakhmut
Coordinates: 48.601526, 37.973610
Positional warfare, as conceptualized in Alexander Svechin’s Strategy, is a phase of warfare that, while geographically static, creates dynamic opportunities and risks. This conception is incongruent with the modern connotations of strategic paralysis that the concepts “positional warfare” and “static front” can evoke. Local battles on a positional front can be key to shaping later operational success, and the attritional material battle can achieve strategic effects and allow a combatant to seize the battlefield advantage without breaking a positional front.
Svechin believes that success in the positional phase can set conditions for the restoration of maneuver, which may be as important as the opportunities for the tactical and strategic impacts within positional warfare. Positional fronts create favorable conditions for the combatant with interior lines and for those willing to exploit physical and political geography to circumvent existing lines. The centralized command and control that benefits positional fighting can increase the likelihood of the operational and strategic success of an initial breakthrough for a well-prepared and organized combatant.
Both foreseen and unforeseen factors contribute to the development of a positional front in the war, but a positional front is not necessarily permanent or static despite its difficulties. Svechin notes that “it is easy to get involved in positional warfare, even against one's will, but it is not so easy to get out of it.”[40] This fact has given positional warfare a reputation of extreme difficulty and permanence; as Svechin’s contemporary, Gregor Isserson, states in his Evolution of Operational Art, “positional forms of combat are scary and repugnant. People recoil from them as if they were a kind of military plague.”[41] A positional front imposes obligations on and presents opportunities to a combatant seeking to achieve an advantage on the battlefield. Positional warfare is a form of combat with various dangers and opportunities in which forces require specific means for success.
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