UPDATE: Tuesday, Feb 28, 2023 · 8:13:53 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
To give some idea of where that airbase and oil storage facility at Yelsk are located, here’s a map showing their relationship to southern Ukraine.
Location of Yelsk. Open image in another tab for a larger view.
Anything originating in Ukraine and striking Yelsk would have to practically overfly Mariupol. It’s 140 km away from Vuhledar. So even if someone dragged a M270 right up to the line and fired the longest range M30 GMLRS, that’s well outside potential targets.
Maybe the magic weapon of Mariupol was drones all along?
UPDATE: Tuesday, Feb 28, 2023 · 7:21:10 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Lockheed Martin has announced that it’s doubling the capacity of its HIMARS production plant from 48 to 96 launchers per year. This follows a reported order for up to 500 HIMARS launchers from Poland.
Around 20 HIMARS systems are currently thought to be in Ukraine at the moment, in spite of Russia claiming that have destroyed 260% of the units shipped. The performance of those units has provided a big publicity boost for Lockheed’s missile system.
In Ukraine currently, the reported shortage isn’t launchers, but missiles. The latest assistance package for Ukraine, announced on Feb 24, includes additional HIMARS ammunition. But while exact numbers were given for some other systems, the amount of HIMARS ammunition isn’t clear.
UPDATE: Tuesday, Feb 28, 2023 · 6:46:01 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Reuters reports that Chinese private space company Spacety has been blacklisted by the U.S. for providing satellite imagery to Russia, and particularly to Wagner Group. There seem to be a couple of possibilities from this that are interesting: Either Russia’s own imagery is proving inadequate or the Russian military is refusing to share imagery with Wagner.
UPDATE: Tuesday, Feb 28, 2023 · 6:09:51 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
These images of the crashed UJ-22 are now being used in a claim that the drone was in the suburbs southeast of Moscow—a completely different distance and direction than earlier reports. I don’t think we can trust anything about what’s being said on this concerning the location where it was found.
We can’t even be sure this was even in Russia, or that the image is new.
On Tuesday, a drone reportedly crashed in Russia, some 460km from the nearest border with Ukraine. Wreckage indicates that this was a UKRJET UJ-22. It’s a fairly large (4.6-meter) winged drone powered by a single gas-driven engine driving a propeller. The top speed is about 160 kph, but the cruising speed is a considerably lower 120 kph (75 mph). It’s not stealthy. It’s not speedy. And yet … it was still somehow able to cross hundreds of kilometers of Russian airspace without being detected.
Reports on the crashed drone are emphasizing that the wreckage was found near a gas compressor station. How near? Not very, as that station seems to be invisible in shots taken from multiple angles except for a couple of small pipes that are clearly not large transmission lines. While this is being pushed as if the station was the target of the drone, there are a couple of problems with this. One is that a gas compression station makes a lousy target. The whole thing is little more than a few exposed pipes (I grew up next to one, and even the dedicated attention of a dozen bored teens never managed to damage the thing). It would take a significant, precise hit to score any damage, and both cutting off gas flow and repairing the station would be fairly minor efforts. It is not the thing Ukraine would fly hundreds of kilometers to hit.
There are at least two better theories on what that drone is doing in that place.
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One is simply that it was never meant to be there. The UJ-22, which was covered back in the Field Guide to Drones of Ukraine, is primarily a reconnaissance drone. Yes, it can carry up to 20 kg of gear, so, in theory, a bomb could be strapped under there. However, it’s very large and slow to serve as any kind of suicide drone. It’s also pretty costly compared to a small consumer drone. It looks very much like a half-scale model of a Cessna.
The real way in which this particular drone is usually flown is at high altitude, with a pack of hi res cameras, IR cameras, and radar systems pointing down. It’s operated by a ground station that uses a HOTAS setup (think flight simulator controls) rather than the kind of controller used for smaller drones.
Operators fly the UJ-22 over an area and produce strategic mapping. They’re not using this drone to search for a Russian soldier hiding in a trench. They’re using it to see where Russia is digging new trenches—and there they are piling up ammo and gear. The simplest explanation for who the drone ended up in the snow in a part of Russia southeast of Ukraine is this: An operator, probably near Odesa, launched the drone from a runway in that area, flew it over Crimea, and lost communications somewhere along the way. The drone then kept flying until it ran out of gas and crashed. There seems to be no indication that it was shot down by Russian forces.
The presence of a gas-pressurization station in the area is a coincidence. Odds are good this drone wasn’t even carrying any sort of weapon. That’s one good theory. Here’s another one.
Last April, StopFake.org reported on how Russian sources had publicized the supposed wreckage of Ukrainian drones at two locations inside Russia. One of those drones reportedly went down near Kursk in mid-April, while the other was found in the Bryansk region, about 50 km from the Russian border, a month before. However, a quick examination showed that this was actually two sets of photos showing the same wreckage.
To give the Russian Telegram sources at least a little credit, this doesn’t seem to be the same UJ-22 that was found last April. Or maybe it is … only one has been confirmed lost since the start of the invasion. In any case, at least it’s different parts than what appeared in other images. But no one should be assuming that the location where this was reportedly found, or even the presence of a drone at all, is a given. Russian sources are not only willing to fake these events, they’ve been caught at it before.
One thing that smaller quadcopter drones can do well is this kind of flyby showing the horrifying levels of destruction in and around Bakhmut.
There are more reports this morning that Ukraine has pulled forces that were still east of the small river that runs north-south through the city. Fighting still appears to be going on, block by block, in the north of the city, with continued fighting near the “hell intersection” where the M03 highway and other roads come together in a set of complex exchanges north of Bakhmut.
The big concern remains a Russian push to the south a few kilometers west of the city. While some sources kept insisting on Monday that the extension of the Russian lines was a trap meant to draw Russia into that area before a Ukrainian counteroffensive, those claims seem to be coming from the same place as earlier Russian claims that Ukraine was being lured into a trap in Kharkiv or Kherson—it’s one of those things people say when things are going badly and they don’t want to accept it. Right now, there is no sign that this Russian advance has been cut off or destroyed, as some sources have claimed.
In Bakhmut, things right now are going badly. Ukrainian forces are continuing to make Russia pay for almost every block, but the time when they can be effective there, and when they can make the ratio of Russian losses many times that of Ukrainian losses, may be close to an end.
Images are now showing Wagner Group forces apparently walking without opposition through the Stupka district of Bakhmut. The Zabakhmutka and Myasokombinat neighborhoods in the east also appear to be lost.
However, Ukrainian forces still hold the center of the city.
Ukraine continues to repel Russian attempts to advance south of the city, so the “Road of Life” running west from Bakhmut through Khromove to Chasiv Yar remains open. But that push from the north and the loss of sections of Bakhmut proper are making things exceedingly difficult. Magyar seems exhausted. I’m sure he is.
So long as Ukraine was able to hold well-defended positions and fire into Russian forces trying to cross open areas or assault defended buildings, Ukraine could be certain that even a Russian “victory” in the Bakhmut area came at a lopsided cost. As the fighting grows closer and Ukraine leaves those long-held positions in the east, casualties between the two sides will likely be more even. If Russia can close the road into the city, there’s a risk of a significant force of Ukrainian troops and equipment being lost. That’s the kind of loss Ukraine does not want to take. One of the most important parts of a defense like the one Ukraine has waged in Bakhmut is knowing when to leave.
All that has to be weighed today before we can say “Bakhmut holds!” again tomorrow.
As always, the level of Ukrainian aviation operating near the front continues to be amazing.
Remember this village? It’s likely to go down as one of the most important locations of the entire war. This is the point where Russia’s Izyum salient ran out of steam, and where their last push toward Slovyansk and Kramatorsk from the north was broken by a much smaller Ukrainian force operating from these hills. Russia held Svyatohirske across the river. Their forces were pressing from north and west, but they could not crack this nut. A “hero village,” even if no village is left to accept the medal.
A breakdown of the Russian losses at Vuhledar. At this point, I honestly can’t tell you if this includes all the attempted advances there, just the last attempted advance, or something in between. But the details are incredible. It’s up to 101 vehicles lost.
No matter where you are in the world, money cannot buy taste.
