Disinformation continues with the Russian trope of direct US involvement as a counter to failing Russian military recruitment efforts. Partisan attacks on Russian officials and Ukrainian collaborators continue.
Russian forces conducted a limited and unsuccessful reconnaissance-in-force operation in an unspecified area on the Kharkiv City Axis on August 1. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces withdrew after attempting a reconnaissance-in-force attempt in an unspecified area on the Kharkiv City Axis.[23] The Derhachi City reported that fighting continued near Dementiivka, and it is possible that Russian forces attempted the unsuccessful reconnaissance-in-force operation northwest of Kharkiv City.[24] Russian forces launched an airstrike on Mospanove, approximately 55km southeast of Kharkiv City, and maintained artillery fire on Kharkiv City and settlements to the north, northeast, and southeast.[25]
www.understandingwar.org/...
Russian forces unsuccessfully attempted to advance southwest of Izyum and continued to shell settlements on the Kharkiv City-Izyum line on August 1. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian reconnaissance-in-force operation near Mazanivka, about 22km due southwest of Izyum.[6] Russian forces also shelled Chepil, Husarivka, Nortsivka, and Protopivka (northwest of Izyum) and Hrushuvakha, Ridne, Virnopillya, Dibrovne, and Barvinkove (west and southwest of Izyum).[7] Geolocated footage of Ukrainian forces destroying Russian infantry fighting vehicles about 20km northwest of Izyum published on August 1 suggests that Russian forces may also be attempting to advance west of Izyum.[8] Continued shelling westward may indicate that Russian forces may be setting conditions seize more settlements in greater Kharkiv Oblast, as opposed to defeating Ukrainian strongholds in Slovyansk.[9] The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) also reported that Russian forces are withdrawing elements of the Eastern Military District (EMD) committed to the Slovyansk effort and transferring them to support defensive positions in southern Ukraine.[10]
Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations north of Slovyansk or around Siversk on August 1. Russian forces reportedly shelled Adamivka, Dolyna, and Krasnopillya northwest of Slovyansk.[11] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces did not attack any settlements in Siversk area due to declining morale in units that have suffered ”significant losses” of manpower and military equipment.[12] ISW has previously assessed that Russian offensive operations in this area would likely culminate in part because Russian commanders did not take enough time to reconstitute forces exhausted by the seizures of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.[13] Ukrainian forces have reportedly struck a Russian headquarters building in Pervomaisk, about 10km due east of Popasna.[14]
Russian forces continued to launch unsuccessful assaults on settlements southeast and northeast of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian General Staff noted that Ukrainian forces neutralized a Russian reconnaissance-in-force attempt in Yakovlivka and an assault on Soledar, about 17km and 13km northeast of Bakhmut, respectively.[15] Russian forces also launched an assault on Vershyna (approximately 12km southeast of Bakhmut) and attempted to improve tactical positions around Bakhmut, but were unsuccessful and retreated.[16] Russian Telegram channel Voennyi Osvedomitel published footage of destroyed vehicles in a field, claiming that Russian forces are within two kilometers of Bakhmut.[17] ISW cannot independently verify that this footage is in Bakhmut’s immediate vicinity or if Voennyi Osvedomitel’s claim is true. Russian Telegram channel Z Kraken also claimed that fighting is ongoing east of Bakhmut.[18]
Russian forces continued offensive operations around Avdiivka and resumed assaults west of Donetsk City on August 1. Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked Avdiivka and Pisky and then withdrew.[19] Russian proxy authorities and military correspondents did not claim any new territorial gains around Avdiivka on August 1.[20] Social media footage showed large clouds of smoke in Avdiivka, reportedly after Russian artillery fire in the area.[21] Russian forces also attempted to conduct a reconnaissance-in-force operation in Mariinka, but Ukrainian forces neutralized the reconnaissance group and forced it to retreat.[22]
www.understandingwar.org/...
LONDON (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday said that the United States, the world's top military power, was directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine because U.S. spies were approving and coordinating Ukrainian missile strikes on Russian forces.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
Russia's defence ministry, headed by a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine's deputy head of military intelligence, had admitted to the Telegraph newspaper that Washington coordinates HIMARS missile strikes.
"All this undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine," the defence ministry said.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants Ukraine to defeat Russia and has supplied billions of dollars of arms to Kyiv but U.S. officials do not want a direct confrontation between U.S. and Russian soldiers.
Russia said the Biden administration was responsible for missile attacks on civilian targets in areas controlled by Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine.
"It is the Biden administration that is directly responsible for all Kiev-approved rocket attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in populated areas of Donbas and other regions, which have resulted in mass deaths of civilians," the defence ministry said.
Russia and the West frame the conflict in Ukraine very differently.
Putin calls it a "special military operation" aimed at preventing what he says is a Western attempt to use Ukraine to threaten Russia and at protecting Russian speakers from persecution from dangerous nationalists in Ukraine.
The 69-year-old Kremlin chief increasingly casts the conflict as an existential battle with the West whose outcome will reshape the global political order.
Kyiv and its Western backers say Putin's claims are without foundation and that there is no justification for waging an unprovoked war against a sovereign state whose borders Russia recognised.
www.rawstory.com/...
The Donbas has become a battle of attrition with high casualties on both sides, BBC Newsnight charts the impact of the war on the Russian side from the 331st regiment's home in Kostroma to the evolution of symbols painted on their tanks. In April, we confirmed 39 soldiers had been killed but now BBC Newsnight estimates the total number of casualties to be between 400-500, almost half of the regiment's strength from the beginning of the war.
nexth.city/...
2/ It is important we study the Ukrainian military #strategy and how they fight. It offers important insights for the modernisation of western military forces, many of whom remain mired in an intellectual quicksand of Cold War and COIN doctrines.
3/ During their invasion, Russia’s military has been forced by the Ukrainians to continually re-assess its strategic objectives. Russia has downgraded their political goals for #Ukraine, and the strategy for achieving them. The Ukrainians have fought & subverted Russian strategy.
4/ While political objectives shape how war is conducted and what battles are fought, so too do battles reshape political objectives. It has been the Ukrainian military strategy, implemented with courage and discipline, that has driven this.
5/ The Ukrainians have achieved this through the adoption of a simple military strategy: corrosion. The Ukrainian approach has embraced the corrosion of the Russian physical, moral, and intellectual capacity to fight in #Ukraine - and in the global information environment.
6/ This strategy of corrosion sees #Ukraine attacking the Russians where they are weak, while also using some of their combat power to delay and frustrate Russian combat forces. It extends beyond tactics & operations - as I noted before, it also attacks Russian military strategy.
7/ British military historian and theorist, Basil Liddell Hart described this as the indirect approach. He wrote writes how “effective results in war have rarely been attained unless the approach has had such indirectness as to ensure the opponents unreadiness to meet it.”
8/ The Ukrainians have taken this advice to heart. They have attacked the weakest physical support systems of an army in the field – communications networks, logistic supply routes, rear areas, artillery and senior commanders in their command posts.
9/ In the Battles for #Kyiv and #Kharkiv, the Ukrainians were able to fight the Russians to a standstill because they were able to penetrate Russian rear areas and destroy parts of their logistic support.
10/ And in doing so, they had a significant impact on Russian morale. The Ukrainians therefor corroded the northern Russian expedition physical and morally from within, and forced its ejection from Ukraine.
11/ The Ukrainians had less success with this approach in the Donbas however. Due to the alignment of the front line, and the concentration of most Russian offensive capacity, the Ukrainians were drawn into an attrition fight there for many weeks.
12/ This is a way of war that Russians embrace and one which the Ukrainians would have preferred to avoid. It was a crunching and destructive fight, with many lives spent on both sides for minor tactical gains by the Russians.
13/ The introduction of #HIMARS changed this dynamic. It allowed the Ukrainians to realign their defensive operations in the east and adapt to attack the Russian strength (artillery) by targeting its ammunition supply depots.
14/ The Ukrainians are re-adopting the asymmetric conventional tactics they used so successfully early in the war. This is the Ukrainian ‘deep battle’, an integral part of their strategy of corrosion.
15/ Another key target is command and control nodes, or in other words, command posts with senior Russian commanders. The ability to rapidly target these & use #HIMARS to inflict maximum destruction is vital.
16/ Because beyond the physical, there is a psychological impact. Removing headquarters also removes important coordination nodes, breaking down force unity of effort. Targeting soldiers and units degrades (further) their morale and cohesion.
17/ Russian morale is being corroded because of its battlefield defeats in the south, declining availability of artillery and destruction (seen on social media) of supply depots. And clever Ukrainians innovations like this are also having an impact.
18/ The use of social media, showing off Russian deficiencies, has magnified this moral corrosion. The corrosion in morale has resulted in declining battlefield discipline, with Russian desertions, battlefield refusals and – horribly – frequent war crimes.
19/ The Ukrainians have also forced on the Russians a deeper form of intellectual corrosion. Under pressure to achieve some form of victory due to previous setbacks, the Russians are taking greater tactical and operational risks with their military operations.
20/ More broadly, the Russians are having to form volunteer battalions which will not be as well-equipped, led or trained as the Russian forces that entered Ukraine in February. This is corroding the Russian military and its capacity to sustain operations in the long term.
21/ The Ukrainian consistency in implementing their strategy of corrosion now sees the Russian Army under pressure, with insufficient reinforcements to replace an increasingly exhausted force that is under attack physically and psychologically.
22/ Strategically, the Ukrainians are corroding Russia’s international standing with their global influence operations. And they have secured strategic commitments from the EU and NATO.
23/ In corroding the Russian military physically, morally, and intellectually, the Ukrainians have evolved the military art. This is what 21st century war looks like. The Ukrainians have proved to be masters of it.
24/ Ukraine, largely, has refused to fight how Russia wants to fight. It has developed & implemented its own military strategy with great discipline. What might other nations learn from the Ukrainian Armed Forces? In short – a lot. That is the topic of my next thread. End
25/ Thanks to @IAPonomarenko @thestudyofwar @UAweapons @MilitaryLandNet @Archer83Able @defenceHQ @RALee85 @PhillipsPOBrien @Blue_Sauron, whose images I used in this thread.
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Original thread has more videos:
The individual who filmed the video on March 22 is Igor Miroshnichenko, call sign "Miron" on his Russian "LPR" military ID card.
Here is "Miron" filming himself at the alleged crime scene in Pervomaisk. Building behind, which is also seen on the abuse video, is the 'coal mining' HQ which the Russians commandeered as a base for local operations.
Contrary to popular belief, the 6th regiment (Cossacks) of the "LPR" which is under the command of Russia's 8th Combined Arms Army, is quite well armed. They even have an MLRS:
The two videos on "Miron's" Tik Tok page (now deleted) which placed him at the scene of the abuse video of seven (not six) Ukrainian POWs posted Mar 22 on Telegram
Original Tik Tok video post from March 25 which has been geolocated and verified as showing "Miron" outside the same building as seen at the crime scene of the POW abuse video he filmed posted on March 22
Who wants to see the full 2nd video at the crime scene which was the one on the audio comparison that was made public a few weeks ago?
"Miron" filmed snorting cocaine.
Censored for Twitter police.
Interestingly he's using American dollars
"Miron" lives well beyond his means as a captain in Russian "LPR" forces.
Perhaps he is supplementing his income with something else?
He was in Moscow in early / mid March. Stayed in a very exclusive neighbourhood close to the Kremlin.
Curious what his family and friends think of his war crimes?
"Miron" with Maksim (possibly his son) who is also wanted by authorities for crimes against Ukraine
Maxsim is part of Russian IAF military unit L-74347/8, 2nd motorized rifle battalion, 4th motorized rifle company
They probably know everything and enjoy the barbarism, just like the native Russians
Here's another video "Miron" filmed: It shows 16 bound Ukrainian POWs, some of whom are injured, being mistreated, beaten and taunted by Russian forces. A clip was shown in the TV broadcast. This is the full video. (see thread reader app)
⚠️WARNING 18+⚠️
You can see the Russian soldier punching one POW in the face
This is the culprit. We know who he is. Will not disclose his name yet.
All this information is open sourced, nothing classified
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