Friday was most notable in eastern Ukraine for the sheer lack of Russian attacks. Whether this was a result of the cascade of incoming overall commanders (Here comes Dvornikov! Here comes Gerasimov! Wait, here comes Putin!), a matter of being out of some sort of supplies (noticed all those burning ammo dumps lately?), or just giving the guys a break after weeks of throwing themselves on swords each day (which sounds very un-Russian), very little forward progress was even attempted.
Though artillery shelling of Ukrainian towns and villages continued Friday, it was hard to find any evidence of a genuine attempt at an advance. Anywhere. The result was daily summaries that contained the phrase “no change on the ground” in area after area. Only north of Kharkiv, where Ukrainian forces are slowly pushing Russian troops back from a series of villages just a few miles from the Russian border, was there any measurable change.
In their own daily update of the situation, the U.K. Ministry of Defense had something to say about the status of Russian troops. In their evaluation, Russia had been forced to redeploy troops who were “depleted and disparate” after their experience in the failed Battle of Kyiv. Those troops have now been pushed into the Donbas, often as part of patchwork units formed from the fragments of BTGs that remained after losses in the north. They’ve brought with them fear, exhaustion, and a big feeling of just being done-with-this.
The U.K. also noted that, despite the much shorter supply lines in the east—after all this whole area is not just adjacent to Russia, but to areas Russia has controlled for eight years—that doesn’t seem to have translated into more reliable supplies at the front line. Ukrainian attacks on supply locations and fuel depots may have played some role in that failure, but whatever the cause, Russia still isn’t getting ammo, fuel, and even food to the places where they are needed.
Russia is also still having issues with coordinating troops. That’s in spite of placing the focus of the war in a smaller area and piling on all that top brass. All those attacks that have been happening are still attacks by just one or two tactical groups.
Something unusual was reported on Friday night—an attempted night attack by Russian forces. Throughout the war, Russian forces have been completely lacking in night vision equipment. With NATO donations of exactly that kind of gear to Ukraine, attempting to move forces at night is something that Russia has rarely dared. However, updated tanks and othered armored vehicles often have their own built-in thermal or low-light vision system. So it seems that Russia did make a push Friday night along the line north of Popasna. It went this well:
Oh, and on Friday, Russia continued to bomb the fighters and civilians holding out in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. It seems they can always find the energy for that.
Saturday, Apr 30, 2022 · 1:24:32 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
The information on these images also indicates a time early on Saturday morning in Ukraine, but this seems to be a different location from the other vehicles that were reportedly lost in a night assault.
Did Russia conduct multiple “let’s see if it works better in the dark” probes on Friday night? Hard to tell. This equipment could have been sitting around for days and Saturday morning was just when the pics were snapped. Or this could have been another part of the same attack.
Saturday, Apr 30, 2022 · 2:23:03 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense now estimates that more than 1,000 Russian tanks have been destroyed since the invasion began. Oryx has 593 tanks on his list, but remember that those are just the tanks that have been documented to the extent that photos or videos can confirm they are destroyed, or in Ukrainian control, and that they have not been featured in any previous photos. The idea that photographed and documented tanks lost should be about 60% of the total losses doesn’t seem unreasonable.
Where it’s difficult to tell if the numbers are anywhere close to accurate is with aircraft. It’s very easy for a soldier who fires an anti-aircraft missile, or an anti-aircraft gun, to report a hit. They may even be right. But some of those “hits” are almost certainly misses, while others may do limited damage, allowing the aircraft to get back to base and be repaired. Planes or helicopters that are genuinely lost may also make it Russian-controlled airspace where they don’t get nicely photographed by Ukrainian forces.
When it comes to planes, Oryx has just 26 documented Russian losses—less than 15% of the reports from the Ukrainian government. The real number is definitely in between these two values, but it’s hard to tell which number is closer to the truth.
Saturday, Apr 30, 2022 · 3:34:00 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
Before this invasion, I tended to look on the idea of an “observation drone” about as benignly as a I would a camera drone filming folks fishing on the lake behind my house. Sure, it could give people a peek over the next hill or line of trees, but how dangerous could it really be? That’s before I understood that these drones can calculate exactly locations of opposing forces and feed those solutions back to the fire control computers on artillery and missile units.
Does Russia rolling out an Orlan from the civil defense agency mean that they’re actually running short on these drones (which, if nothing else, are highly dependent on imported chips)? Hard to say. If the number of Orlan drones getting shot down begins to drop, that could be a sign that Russia’s drone force is fading.
Saturday, Apr 30, 2022 · 4:13:27 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
Just an example of the kind of propaganda going out on the pro-Russian side.
What actually happened on that day? Russia did release a video of Kalibr missiles being fired by a submarine on the Black Sea, and at least two of them did hit Zaporozhye … where they tore through residential buildings and and office, killing at least three people, including a child. They did not destroy any significant military target.
As far as Chervone, Russia appears to have shelled a grade school. Dovhenke remains under Ukrainian control after repelling a Russian advance. Fighting was going on at Pashkove then, and is going on at Pashkove now. In short, none of the things mentioned in the Russian propaganda burst—which is certainly not unique to this self-described “yellow journalist”—appears to have much connection with reality.
But then, back in early April, the same guy reported that Russia had managed to destroy over 900 Ukrainian facilities in a single day, a number that also came straight from the Russian military.
This is the kind of exaggerated number that Russia is pushing out every day, and which is getting repeated by pro-Russian sources in countries around the world. At what point do these people ever start to say to themselves “wait a second, if Russia is doing so well, why isn’t this fight over?”
Listen to Markos and Kerry Eleveld talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast