All that tactical nuke talk by the Russians is largely disinformation about scheduled training. They know what would happen, much like NATO does. The real combat now is about the major pre-winter counteroffensive to reclaim southern territory to the pre-2014 line. “Ukraine must actually recapture all its land to the internationally recognized border:. Then there’s the MSM trying to tie Russia and Iran together until anti-drone tech improves. OTOH crowd-sourced drone geolocating might even work.
A very small bit of good news is the exchange of POWs amidst the disinformation that frames the Russian use of Iranian-made drones:
Ukraine says another "large-scale" prisoner swap has taken place with Russia, describing it as the first all-female exchange since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Andriy Yermak, head of the president's office, said on Telegram that the exchange took place on October 17 and freed 108 women.
"Mothers and daughters were in captivity, and their relatives were waiting for them," Yermak said.
Among the freed prisoners were 37 who held out in the Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol through weeks of fighting in the city until Russian forces seized it in May.
Most of the women were members of the Ukrainian armed forces. Yermak posted a photo of the women walking down a road, many of them in their uniforms and smiling.
Some of the women had been captured before Russia launched its invasion on February 24 and held for holding an "extremely pro-Ukrainian position," Yermak said.
[...]
The last prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow took place on October 13. That involved 20 Ukrainian soldiers and was the second of the week after 32 soldiers were freed and the body of an Israeli who volunteered to fight for Ukraine was released two days earlier.
www.rferl.org/...
But if Mr. Putin hoped to shift the war’s battlefield dynamics, he is likely to be disappointed. Four factors have combined to steadily diminish Russia’s battlefield prospects: the demands of a high-intensity war on an army unprepared to wage it; early and severe losses to its ground, airborne and special forces; the Ukrainians’ resilience and will to fight; and Western support for Ukraine. The fact is that none of the Kremlin’s recent gambits — annexation, mobilization or personnel shuffles — can overcome the larger problems facing Russia’s military. And in the months ahead, its difficulties will only worsen.
Despite the risks involved in mobilization — how it reaches deep into the population, relying on an untested labor pool and older military equipment drawn from long-term storage — Mr. Putin clearly felt that he had no choice. The Kremlin delayed the decision for as long as it could, attempting instead to entice volunteers with cash bonuses and social benefits. But by September it did not have sufficient forces left to hold occupied areas in Ukraine. Successful Ukrainian counteroffensives, reclaiming thousands of square miles of territory, drove the point home.
Mobilization offers the chance for recovery, relieving Russia’s depleted forces after nearly eight months of fighting. Yet it has not gone well so far. Evidence has emerged of mobilized infantry deployed piecemeal into Ukraine with just a few days or weeks of training; other groups will reportedly receive just a month of training. Even before the majority of new troops have been deployed, there are anecdotes of mobilized forces being killed, captured and deserting. There are, to put it mildly, obvious downsides to sending unprepared and questionably led conscripts to a combat zone.
[...]
The Kremlin, reticent so far to escalate the war beyond Ukraine, could also aim to directly disrupt or deter foreign military assistance to Kyiv. Such efforts might involve attacks on NATO satellites or other reconnaissance assets, jamming or “sensor blinding” them to render them temporarily or permanently inoperable. To inflict domestic costs on Kyiv’s supporters, Russia could also conduct cyberattacks against Europe or the United States, targeting critical infrastructure like energy, transportation and communications systems. The war then would no longer be confined to the borders of Ukraine.
www.nytimes.com/...
While the Shahed-136 is bigger and faster than many of the small commercial drones being used in the conflict, with a fairly substantial warhead and big standoff range, its relatively low cost (reportedly around $10,000 to $20,000 apiece) means it’s a significant cost-exchange mismatch to use surface-to-air missiles or even fighter jets firing missiles to defeat them. This is an issue that has affected Saudi Arabia, in particular, as it tackles Houthi drones (and cruise missiles). For instance, each new AIM-120 AMRAAM built today, the same type used in NASAMS air defense system Ukraine is getting, cost $1M. Luckily, NATO has a lot of AIM-120s in its arsenal because Ukraine will likely be gobbling them up soon.
Meanwhile, there are now increasing numbers of reports suggesting that Iranian-made ballistic missiles may also be headed to Russia, something that we had predicted could make a lot of sense for Russia. An equally proven set of weapons for this level of strikes, missiles like the Iranian Fateh-110 would be similarly useful for attacking static Ukrainian targets, whether military or civilian. You can read out full report on this here.
www.thedrive.com/...
Ukraine has created an application for mobile devices that will help air defense units supplement radar information about an air target to better the chances of taking it down, according to Ukraine's Strategic Communications Department.
"The Android version of the "ePPO" application is already available to download. Now every citizen of Ukraine can join the anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense of our skies," the Strategic Communications Department of the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.
To use the app, all that is needed is to install the "ePPO" application on your smartphone, pass a quick authorization process, click "Test" to make sure that everything works, and be ready to notify anti-aircraft fighters about perceived threats.
If you see an air target, for example, a cruise missile or a suicide drone, you need to open "ePPO" on your smartphone, select the type of air target, point your smartphone in the direction of the target and press the big red button.
Air defense specialists will see a mark on the map, it will complement the radar information and the threat will be shot down.
www.jpost.com/...
Q3: How can the United States and NATO allies deter nuclear weapons use in Ukraine?
A3: Deterrence entails threatening to impose costs if an adversary takes an unwanted, aggressive action. Since deterrence is ultimately about perception, it needs to be tailored to the adversary. Deterring Putin therefore will require either threatening to retaliate and punish him or refusing to afford him the desired outcome of any nuclear use, i.e., winning the war in Ukraine or gaining regional preeminence. These costs could be military in nature, such as U.S. or NATO conventional intervention in Ukraine, or the costs could be economic or reputational, such as turning Russia into a pariah state similar to North Korea. Perhaps one of the biggest costs to Putin if he used nuclear weapons could be domestic backlash. As Lawrence Freedman has observed, “It is also hard to imagine that [Russian use of nuclear weapons] would be greeted calmly in Russia. It could intensify opposition in Moscow to Putin.” Additionally, the Biden administration and NATO can signal to Putin that nuclear use will not win him any advantages or achieve his ultimate objective of preventing Ukraine and other countries on Russia’s borders from turning toward the West.
But successfully deterring Putin will also require maintaining NATO unity. One of the greatest weapons against Russia’s invasion, aside from the Ukrainian people, has proven to be the alliance’s unity and continued support for Ukraine in the face of unprovoked aggression. If U.S. efforts to deter Putin are seen as escalatory or dangerous by some NATO allies and undermines unity, that would work at cross-purposes and could embolden Putin.
Q5: What would happen if nuclear weapons were used in Ukraine?
A5: The war in Ukraine has already led to mass human displacement, with over 7 million Ukrainians now living outside Ukraine, along with major disruption to energy and food supplies and other potentially dangerous “ripple effects.” The humanitarian, ecological, and economic consequences of nuclear weapons use would be orders of magnitude greater and could cross borders to also affect Belarus and parts of Europe. The impacts of nuclear use would depend on a variety of factors, including the size of the nuclear weapon used and the location where it was used. A relatively low-yield nuclear explosion over the Black Sea, for example, may result in a relatively small number of casualties, aside from environmental affects. A small tactical nuclear weapon detonated at surface-level in eastern Ukraine might have low casualties but could create radioactive debris that would blow into surrounding areas, including potentially into Russia.
The United States and NATO would not need to respond in-kind to a Russian nuclear use. Any nuclear use, no matter how small, would break a 77-year taboo and could leave Russia an international pariah, abandoned by partners such as China and India. Therefore, while the U.S. military response to nuclear weapons use might depend on the number of casualties, as recently argued by former senator Sam Nunn, any nuclear use warrants a blanket response of international opprobrium. If the United States and NATO did decide to intervene, either because of direct threats to a NATO member or simply to put an end to Putin’s aggression, the allies have sufficient conventional options to mount a military response that would avoid further nuclear use and escalation. The goal, at present, should remain deterring Putin from further escalating the war and maintaining NATO unity.
www.csis.org/...