UPDATE: Friday, Apr 14, 2023 · 7:59:45 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
Denmark is reporting that Ukrainian soldiers have completed training on the French-made Caesar SPG. There were apparently some technical delays on getting the 19 promised Caesars into Ukraine, but both the guns and crews are expected in Ukraine in the next couple of weeks.
Forcing using Western gear are continuing to come together.
Jack Teixeira, an Airman 1st Class (E-3) in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was arrested at his home on Thursday by the FBI. Teixeira supervised a Discord group which called itself “Thug Shaker Central.” It was on that platform that he shared dozens of documents—some written by Teixeira as summaries of things he had seen, others direct images of top secret documents—providing detailed analysis on the military capability of the United States, Ukraine, and others. Included were documents, such as a map of Ukrainian air defense positions, that could have a strong negative effect on Ukraine if made public.
The Thug Shaker Central group consisted of between 10 and 20 members at any time. The primary themes of the group were guns, including both civilian and military weapons; games, primarily those which simulate close combat situations; and racism, including descriptions of acts of violence toward people of color. The group was formed in 2020, and Teixeira reportedly began posting classified information to the discord server for the group almost immediately.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Teixeira created a channel called “Bear vs. Pig,” in which he posted documents about the situation in Ukraine, along with his own analysis of events. Some members were reported to be from outside the United States, including from Eastern Europe. Others members of the group said that these Eastern European members had a particular interest in the information Teixeira posted.
I’d like to say we don’t need to talk about Teixeira anymore today, and I’d especially like to say that we don’t need to have any further concerns about how the media is reporting on Teixeira. Unfortunately ...
Yesterday, I took issue—to put it mildly—with the way The Washington Post, in their article revealing information about Teixeira before he had been named, described him as a “young charismatic gun enthusiast” who was “searching for companionship” and found it in an online group held together by “their mutual love of guns, military gear and God.”
For those who felt I was being a bit hard on the Post, I give you their tweet following Teixeira’s arrest.
Breaking news, folks. The most important thing to know is that his family was patriotic. So patriotic.
The first three paragraphs of that linked article … nope. I’m just going to post them; they have to be seen to be believed.
See? He wasn’t just young and charismatic, he was also slim and boyish. And patriotic. His family was so patriotic that they got him a “patriotic-themed balloon.” His proud mom posted to Facebook! I put these in as images because I didn’t want you to think I had shorted you a word.
What’s missing from that opening? Any of the information that you see in the first three paragraphs of this article, the one you’re reading, explaining what Teixeira did and why it’s important. The Post’s glowing coverage of Teixeira is at decided odds with what CNN found when they spoke to people who were not part of Teixeira’s family or his online community at “Thug Shaker Central.”
Several former high school classmates of Teixeira’s told CNN Thursday that he had a fascination with the military, guns and war. He would sometimes wear camouflage to school, carried a “dictionary-sized book on guns,” and behaved in a way that made some fellow students feel uneasy.
“A lot of people were wary of him,” said Brooke Cleathero, who attended middle school and high school with Teixeira. “He was more of a loner, and having a fascination with war and guns made him off-putting to a lot of people.”
What both articles are describing is a loner with an obsession with guns and violence. Only The Washington Post has concentrated so much on softening Teixeira’s image that the Vaseline on the lens is now three miles deep. If the description from CNN sounds familiar, it’s because it usually comes attached to an article featuring a body count. Here’s another paragraph from that CNN article on the charismatic, slim, and boyish Teixeira.
Other students, who asked not to be identified, said they detected a more menacing vibe from Teixeira, who some recalled making comments they perceived as racist or mumbling derogatory things about people under his breath. …
One student recalled him showing up for school wearing a shirt with an AR-15 on it the day after a mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.
Just because he didn’t turn up at that high school with a rifle one day doesn’t mean that Teixeira is not responsible for deaths. It may even a large number of deaths, if the documents he put into a public space have been used by Russian forces in planning attacks. In recent weeks, the number of aerial sorties by Russia in some areas of the front has reportedly increased. Was that because they were aware of how Ukrainian air defenses were situated? Probably not. But we can’t be sure.
It’s likely we will never be sure how Teixeira’s actions have affected things in Ukraine, but he wasn’t some kid playing with make-believe characters in a video game to amuse his friends. He was a member of the U.S. military sharing top secret documents in an insecure forum in a way that put real people, real soldiers on the ground, civilians in Ukrainian cities, and relationships between entire nations at high risk.
One more thing, before I let all this go. Here’s how The Washington Post described Teixeira’s online community in their dewy article on Wednesday evening.
The gathering spot had been a pandemic refuge, particularly for teen gamers locked in their houses and cut off from their real-world friends. The members swapped memes, offensive jokes and idle chitchat.
Memes? What kind of memes? They were racist memes. The entire site was named after a racist meme. Other outlets haven’t shied away from making it clear that racism was a staple of Teixeira’s online community, along with anti-gay “jokes.” The one example we have of a video featuring Teixeira shows him making racist and antisemitic statements between firing a gun at a target. That aspect of this story should not be ignored or glossed over.
Discord is a highly useful tool. I belong to numerous Discord groups—one that talks about model rockets, another on astrophotography, and one that offers support for owners of a cheap and cantankerous 3D printer—but even in the most innocuous group, it’s absolutely certain that someone will show up spewing racism or threats of violence. Those people are shown the door by good group administrators. But Teixeira’s group on Discord, which was run by Teixeira, didn’t do that. It was violence welcoming. Racism welcoming. It also appears, if Teixeira is in fact the person who leaked these documents, that it was crime welcoming.
And now, I really do hope I don’t have to talk about that guy, in this place, again. Also … WTF, Washington Post? What editor approved these things? The only thing I can say is, you’re not alone.
Moving on.
Victory Day canceled in Belgorod and Kursk
May 9 is the day Russia celebrates the 1945 surrender of Nazi Germany. It’s long been a national holiday, with parades not just in Moscow, but every regional capital and many smaller cities across the nation. Except this year is going to be different.
With the parade less than a month away, events in the cities of Belgorod and Kursk have been canceled. Those cancellations have reportedly been made because there are security concerns since those cities are capitals of oblasts that border Ukraine. Certainly, Ukraine has demonstrated more than once that it can reach out to Belgorod, which is less than 50km across the border near the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Ukrainian helicopters famously conducted a low-level flight into Belgorod a year ago this month to take out a fuel depot in a daring attack that helped boost Ukrainian spirits when things were otherwise extremely difficult. Since then, Ukraine has acted several times, using MLRS, long-range artillery, and drones to hit targets at the military base and railroad deports in Belgorod.
Though lobbing missiles into a civilian crowd is something much more Russia’s style than Ukraine’s, it’s understandable that Vladimir Putin might have some concerns about lining up ranks of tanks and other equipment and running them through streets in easy reach of Ukrainian weapons. Kursk is a bit more distant—about 100km northeast of the Ukrainian city of Sumy—but sure, better safe than sorry.
Only there’s another reason that celebrations this year may be considerably toned down, and not just in these Ukraine-neighboring oblasts.
Oryx (who is planning to take a break soon after not just performing a difficult job over the last year and a quarter, but also after being a constant target for online abuse) currently logs Russia’s documented loss of tanks in Ukraine at 1,908. The Ukrainian general staff sets the number at 3,650.
Whatever the real number, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that Russia has lost over half its active tank force. In particular, the T-72B3 and T-80BV that have been the workhorses of the Russian military for decades have taken a huge hit. Many of the tanks lost in Ukraine were built in the 1980s or 1990s. Replacing them at the current rate of Russian production will take years, if not decades. At least 60 newer T-90 tanks have been lost, which is thought to be at least a third of Russia’s active fleet.
Over the last few months, older and older tanks have rolled into Ukraine. That includes rolling in hundreds of older T-62 and T-64 tanks, and more recently, 70-year-old T-55s like the one in the Twitter image above. As Forbes reported earlier this month, even when Russia can find a newer tank rusting in a rail yard or storage facility, it lacks the ability to repair them quickly enough to address the losses it is suffering in Ukraine.
A 41-ton T-62 with its 115-millimeter smoothbore gun, or a 40-ton T-55 with its 100-millimeter rifled gun, isn’t just easier for Russian industry to restore than a newer T-90 or T-72 is—after all, the T-62 or T-55 requires fewer ball bearings and electronic components. The older tank also is easier for its crew to operate.
That last sentence is particularly critical because Russia isn’t just running out of tanks; it’s running out of tank crews. The old tanks, with manual loading and simplistic fire controls, are easier to operate when Russia puts men inside who have never seen a tank before. And that’s what they’re doing. With the expected results.
Of course, Ukraine also has tanks based off the T-64 in the fight, but not all T-64s are created equal. Updated with improved armor, new communications, thermal sites, and electronic fire control, a T-64 can still be a highly effective weapon … so long as it doesn’t have to stand toe-to-toe with a newer tank. But the ones Russia is bringing to Ukraine have little or no new systems. They’re just 20th-century tanks in a 21st-century war.
As the Atlantic Council reports, the cancellation of Victory Day celebrations has as much to do about the shortages of both tanks and troops as it does with concerns over security. They cite numerous commentators who believe Moscow is...
… understandably eager to avoid highlighting the scale of the losses suffered by the Russian army in Ukraine. Whether the real reason is security issues or equipment shortages, the decision to cancel this year’s Victory Day parades represents a painful blow for Vladimir Putin that hints at the grim reality behind Moscow’s upbeat propaganda portrayals of his faltering Ukraine invasion.
They’re a big blow to Putin because, since coming to power, he has elevated Victory Day into a day that doesn’t just commemorate victory in World War II, but celebrates Russia’s supposed role as an reborn superpower on the world stage. Putin has extended the celebration into an entire “quasi-religious victory cult complete with its own dogmas, feast days, and heretics.”
Victory Day, with its ranks of goose-stepping soldiers, blocks of rolling tanks, and examples of big, big missiles, has been elevated as “the defining day in Russian history,” as much about the future as the past. That makes any diminishment of Victory Day a blaring signal that things have gone very, very wrong.
Even with a reported 97% of the Russian military currently tied down in Ukraine, there’s little doubt Putin can cobble together enough gear to put on a good show in Moscow. If nothing else, there are some dozens of the new T-14 Armata tanks which, despite repeated claims, are yet to make an appearance in Ukraine. The few that exist are all prototypes, outfitted to varying degrees, with many lacking systems necessary before they could be sent into combat. Still, they can probably look good in Moscow for an afternoon. Probably.
That video came from just after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Putin was able to keep up the pretense of Russian power than, and he can probably do it now … though some of the historic tanks rolling through Moscow streets might just keep rolling to the west when they’re done to replace those lost in the last month.
Soldiers who show up to demonstrate their skills at drilling in a real sharp coat might also want to think about what happens when they get to the end of the parade route this year. Because trains might just be waiting.
One year ago
Russia has a one-track mind
On Friday, the Ukrainian military reported that it had repelled 49 Russian attacks at various points along the line, primarily around Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
At Kreminna, Russian forces were again reportedly turned back at Dibrova, indicating that Ukraine continues to hold this position just outside the city. Russian forces failed in an attack near Stelmakhivka, west of Svatove and in the perpetual effort to take Novoselivske. There were reports on Thursday that Russia had used aircraft to bomb at power station in the forest south of Kreminna, but that station primarily provides power to the area Russia currently occupies … I’m probably missing something to explain why Russia would risk aircraft on the frontline to destroy a target that benefited them. Or maybe I’m not.
Ukraine reports that they repelled Russian attacks in the Bohdanivka and Predtechyne areas of Bakhmut, Russia is reporting more success there. Right now, I don’t have the evidence to say. However, Ukraine seems to have been repelled by Russian attacks outside the city, including at Orikhovo-Vasylivka and Ivanivske. One concerning name on the list this morning: Novomarkove. This town is southwest of Orikhovo-Vasylivka, which could represent Russia advancing across fields to attack in a new direction. Half of all the attacks reported on Friday appear to have been in the Bakhmut area.
Barely any actions were reported around Avdiivka, at least in the form of attempted advances by Russian forces. That’s also true of positions across the southern part of the line—though there are reports that Russia is gathering forces for an attack at, you guessed it, Vuhledar.
Much of what is in the morning update aligns with a report that was published yesterday indicating that, according to Ukraine at least, Russia is now incapable of sustaining multiple lines of attack. It’s investing everything it has in Bakhmut and can’t mount a major effort elsewhere unless that fight is brought to a conclusion.
Russia isn’t just hurting for equipment and ammunition; it’s seriously short on leadership at every level. Bad logistics, poor command, equipment shortages … add it all together, and it seems that no matter how many people Putin shovels into Ukraine, they can put together an offensive at only one location at a time. Even then, this is not actually a “large offensive.” It’s a lot of small offensives that are all happening in proximity. Russia appears to be incapable of directing coordinated actions across a large force.
That doesn’t mean Russia can’t mount an effective defense. At locations west of Kherson city, Russian forces showed they could defend positions even when they had diminished equipment and were under withering fire. So no one should assume that Russia’s inability to conduct a coordinated offense means it will be hot-knife-meets-butter time when Ukraine goes on the offense.
Orthodox Easter is coming
And Ukrainians of all ages take their eggs very seriously.