UPDATE: Thursday, Feb 23, 2023 · 11:34:02 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
Completely forgot to mention the critical news that Russia intends to wake up the Yellowstone super-volcano using a nuclear weapon.
Of course, the missile they’re proposing for this task is the one that failed in testing last Monday. So the plan has a few bugs to work out.
UPDATE: Thursday, Feb 23, 2023 · 4:48:17 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
Spain is now saying it will send 10 Leopard 2s. Finland has announced that it is sending 3 Leopards specially modified for mine clearing (provably the 2R AEV). These may be the most nightmarish things on the battlefield, even if they’re a lot less deadly to enemy forces than a regular Leopard 2.
Overnight, the Ukrainian military produced its usual graphic showing Russian losses in the illegal invasion. Those losses include 708 men lost in 24 hours. That might seem extraordinary, but over the last month, such numbers have become absolutely typical as Russia has engaged in repeated fruitless attacks against well-defended positions.
What is astounding in the numbers reported for Wednesday is the hardware: 16 tanks, 24 APCs, and 7 artillery batteries were lost in a day. That’s amazing. How and where did Russia manage to render so many tons of armor into scrap?
The biggest news of the day may be simply how disappointed Vladimir Putin will be. Because in advance of the anniversary of his invasion, it appears his forces have delivered to him … nothing.
The answer doesn’t seem to be a single massive Russian defeat. Instead, that pile of broken vehicles appears to result from another impressive number, out of the Ukrainian military reports on Tuesday morning: In a single day, Ukrainian forces repelled no fewer than 90 individual assaults on Ukrainian positions from one end of the line to another.
Ukraine repelled assaults on Stelmakhivka west of Svatove, and Bilohorivka south of Kreminna. Interestingly enough, Kreminna itself was on the list of failed assaults. A Russian attempt to remove those Ukrainian forces from the south and west of the city was reportedly one of the biggest failures of the day.
Russian forces failed in attacks in at least six different areas around Bakhmut. That includes three separate attempts to cross the M03 highway between Orikhovo-Vasylivka and Berkhivka, and more attempts to cross into Bakhmut around that cluster of highway crossings.
Interestingly, the command only reported a single failed assault south of the city. Earlier in the week, that effort to cross the highway south of Ivaniske and move toward Chasiv Yar seemed to be the main thrust of Russian activity in the area, but over the last two days, this effort appears to have fizzled.
Oh, and … Bakhmut holds!
In the area west of occupied Donetsk, Russia made assaults toward Novobakhmutivka, Avdiivka, Vodiane, Nevelske, Mariinka, Pobieda, Vuhledar, and Prechystivka. That’s a long list, but thankfully the list of successful advances can be summed up as none of the above. And that assault on Vuhledar? Once again, that’s reportedly one of Russia’s big losses on the day, as they apparently can’t resist decorating those extensively mined fields south and west of the town with still more dead armor.
An attack east of Prechystivka, about 8km west of Vuldehar, appeared to represent a new vector for Russian assaults. However, it ended as all the others launched on Wednesday: by going nowhere.
Shelling continued along the Zaporizhzhia line and across the river into Kherson, where Russia likes to remind the city they are “Russia forever” by sending them festive incendiary bombs.
Prigozhin makes promo video one day after waving picture of dead mercenaries
Wagner group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin showed up in Bakhmut today to shoot a little promo video from the occupied area on the east end of Bakhmut. In this case, he was near the grounds of the all too familiar winery.
I’ll spare you the actual pep talk for cannon fodder, but you have to wonder why he didn’t include that image of bodies of former Wagner Group mercenaries stacked like cordwood that Prigozhin was showing around yesterday as he complained about inadequate support from the military.
Losses being detailed in near real-time
Because so many of the losses are now happening in Russian assaults on Ukrainian positions, vehicles are often filmed by drones and right out in the open for ID. As a result, Oryx is tallying Russian losses about as fast as the Ukrainian military reports them. Here are the items added in just the last day.
Mariupol mystery weapon
This morning there were at least three more explosions around Mariupol, which sent Russia’s fighter jets scrambling into the air. But even as they searched for something to shoot, two suggestions were circulating about how Ukraine suddenly managed to touch a location that Russia thought was safely out of range.
The first may be the simplest.
Sure. 80 km is close to the limits of what the longest-range M30 rockets that the U.S. has made available to Ukraine can accomplish, but if Russia’s artillery skills are proving to be laughably poor, then why not drag a gun right up to the last screen of trees and take advantage of every meter of that range? Ukraine may feel that it’s worth risking a single launcher if it can make Russia go into a high panic, which it has.
There’s also another possibility.
It’s been some time since the Bayraktar TB2 has come up in discussions about activities in Ukraine, but several of these heroes of the early fighting are still around. In the period before the arrival of western artillery and HIMARS, it was the Bayraktar that generated so many hits against Russian targets far from the front lines that it got its own theme song.
As months passed, the Bayraktar became less of a threat to Russian forces. Just as Ukraine quickly learned to shoot down Iranian Shahed-136 drones, turning them from a wave of destruction to an evening of target practice, Russia grew more skilled against the Bayraktar over time. By August, reports of effective strikes from the Turkish drone had all but stopped.
However, it’s been a long time since then. Plenty of time for Russian skills to get rusty and for other weapons, including other drones, to become a distraction. The Bayraktar has an enormous range and is easily capable of making it to Mariupol and back. Its presence in the area might explain why Russia spent Thursday morning with fighter jets zipping back and forth over Mariupol … though they didn’t report bagging any targets.
Marking the anniversary of war in London
As you might expect, Daily Kos has some stuff planned for tomorrow to mark the anniversary of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. They’re already busy in London.
Russian troops reportedly rebelling south of Vuhledar
Failed attempts to capture Vuhledar, bypass Vuhledar, or come anywhere near Vuhledar have become an almost daily occurrence. Several of these failed assaults have resulted in losses so significant they’ve been compared to the Bilohorivka bridge debacle in terms of both the men and machines lost.
This morning, there are multiple reports that Russia mounted another such assault on Tuesday, resulting in another round of losses on the same stretch of road where literally dozens of burned-out Russian vehicles already litter the shoulders. The reason for that seems to be some severe pressure being applied to Colonel General Rustam Muradov, who is in charge of Russian forces in the area.
Muradov was actually promoted following the first two big failures at Vuhledar, but he was apparently sent back with orders to make it happen. That led to another assault on Wednesday in which at least a half dozen more armored vehicles were reportedly destroyed, along with unknown numbers of troops.
But even if Muradov is feeling the pressure to organize another attack, After watching their fellow soldiers walk to their deaths along the same stretch of road over and over, the Ukrainian ministry of defense reports that Russian forces in the area appear to have a different idea.
"Troops from the so-called volunteer Cossack Detachment, attached to the 155th Marine Brigade of the Russian Pacific Fleet, are refusing to continue to take part in offensive operations due to the failure of the offensive and significant personnel losses near Vuhledar."
This may or may not be accurate. But it’s not hard to understand if those troops decided this has become ridiculous.