Ukrainian counter-attacks continue as Mariupol seems to be further under Russian control. The Russian mercenary group Wagner has now deployed to eastern Ukraine. Disinformation remains pervasive as the conflict also resumes negotiations between the combatants in Turkey.
Ukrainian forces recaptured Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, on March 28. Ongoing Ukrainian counterattacks around Kyiv will likely disrupt ongoing Russian efforts to reconstitute forces and resume major offensive operations to encircle Kyiv.
Key Takeaways
- Russian forces have not abandoned their objective to encircle and capture Kyiv, despite Kremlin claims that Russian forces will concentrate on eastern Ukraine.
- Ukrainian forces recaptured the Kyiv suburb of Irpin on March 28. Ukrainian forces will likely seek to take advantage of ongoing Russian force rotations to retake further territory northwest of Kyiv in the coming days.
- Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks toward Brovary and did not conduct offensive operations toward Chernihiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv. Russian operations in northeastern Ukraine remain stalled.
- The Ukrainian General Staff stated that a battalion tactical group (BTG) of the 1st Guards Tank Army fully withdrew from Ukrainian territory near Sumy back to Russia for possible redeployment – the first Ukrainian report of a Russian unit fully withdrawing into Russia for redeployment to another axis of advance in this conflict.
- Russian forces continued to steadily take territory in Mariupol.
- Ukrainian resistance around Kherson continues to tie down Russian forces in the area. Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations in the southern direction.
www.understandingwar.org/...
Russian forces are engaged in four primary efforts at this time:
- Main effort—Kyiv (comprised of three subordinate supporting efforts);
- Supporting effort 1—Kharkiv;
- Supporting effort 1a—Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts;
- Supporting effort 2—Mariupol; and
- Supporting effort 3—Kherson and advances northward and westward.
Main effort—Kyiv axis: Russian operations on the Kyiv axis are aimed at encircling the city from the northwest, west, and east.
www.understandingwar.org/…
Q: Okay. Second question: At this point is -- are the Ukrainians air defense systems and, you know, their whole air defense network, are they holding up fairly well against the Russians in terms of preventing air superiority and air supremacy?
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Yes. I -- I think that the short answer to that is yes, Tony. We still assess that -- that they have the majority of their air defense, long-range air defense systems available to them. Yes, they're using them, of course, and we are working hard with allies and partners to help replenish those stocks. But they are using them quite effectively, and as I said earlier, the airspace remains contested.
And you -- and you know, I know you probably get tired of me saying that every day. But think about this: We're on day 33. The Russians have surface-to-air missile coverage almost all over the entire country. Their pilots are still showing risk-averse behavior by -- if they have to venture into Ukrainian airspace, only doing it for a short amount of time before they leave. Most of the cruise missile strikes that they're launching are coming from inside Russian or Belarusian airspace. I mean, it's remarkable, what the Ukrainians have been able to do with the air defense systems that they have available to them, and that's why we're going to try to replenish them as best we can.
www.defense.gov/...
2/30 I summarize here from open sources certain unusual features of this war. These are odd facts that would seem to suggest prior, or provoke future, dissension among Russian leaders. I draw no conclusions, and will at most suggest where to look.
3/30 Putin is the supreme leader. The invasion of Ukraine was predicated on his idea that there was no Ukrainian state or nation. His views are widely repeated, though perhaps not as widely shared. They were immediately proven wrong.
4/30 Putin's idea of regime change in two days failed in practice. His victory declaration of February 26th, accidentally published, revealed a vast gap between aim and achievement.
(For sources, See: snyder.substack.com/p/the-kremlins…)
5/30 Putin's notion was that Russia would be negotiating with a puppet Ukrainian government on the third day of the invasion.
6/30 Thus neither extensive Western sanctions nor heavy Russian troop losses could have been anticipated. These add considerable weight to Putin's primary errors.
7/30 To make reality fit Putin's axioms, Russia must now use its military, National Guard, and Chechen irregulars to destroy the Ukrainian state and nation. Genocide does not necessarily enjoy broad support.
8/30 The decision to invade Ukraine was discussed beforehand only among a small group of people.
9/30 There are thus a large number of people just beyond Putin's inner circle who could say, truthfully, that they had no part in the decision to invade Ukraine.
10/30 The decision to invade Ukraine seems not to have been accompanied by much of an operational plan. This could well be a result of Putin's erroneous premise and the lack of consultation.
11/30 After Putin, the most important person involved in discussions of the invasion was presumably Sergei Shoigu, the minister of defense. Shoigu is or was a public friend of Putin.
12/30 Shoigu has an excellent reputation as a manager, but no military experience as such. He has a large PR staff and is self-aggrandizing. Real generals might find him irritating.
13/30 Seven real Russian generals are reported to have been killed in Ukraine, along with many other field commanders. Morale seems low. It is reasonable to connect all this to Putin's error, Shoigu's inexperience, and the lack of planning.
14/30 Shoigu went missing for two weeks, and was reported to be having heart problems.
15/30 When Russia's war aims were publicly recalibrated on March 25th, the announcement came not from Shoigu but from General Sergei Rudskoi.
16/30 Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian general staff, is unlike Shoigu a real general. Because of the adroit propaganda of the last Russian invasion of Ukraine, 2014, he is associated with the idea of hybrid war.
17/30 Whether or not that association is correct, the invasion of 2022 has been a propaganda disaster. Insofar as Gerasimov's reputation was associated with hybrid war, it has suffered.
18/30 Gerasimov is regarded as the mastermind of the decisive 2014 battlefield victory at Ilovaisk during the last Russian invasion of Ukraine. Insofar as his reputation was associated with outwitting Ukrainians on the battlefield, it has suffered.
19/30 The American military leadership complains that their Russian counterparts (Shoigu and Gerasimov) will not take their phone calls. This is an unusual and dangerous practice.
20/30 The Russians might not be taking the Americans' phone calls because of a capricious decision by Putin. They might also be afraid of contact with Americans at a time of stress or suspicion.
21/30 Putin might wish to believe that intelligence leaks explain the better-than-expected Ukrainian (and the worse-than-expected Russian) performance on the battlefield.
22/30 The leak theory would be convenient, since it would distract attention from his own erroneous views about Ukraine, a major cause of both the invasion and its failures.
23/30 Sergei Beseda is or was the head of the part of the Russian secret police (Federal Security Service, FSB) that is responsible for international affairs. He now seems to be under house arrest.
24/30 Like Gerasimov, Beseda was associated with the last Russian intervention in Ukraine. He was in Kyiv with a team of colleagues on an official mission in February 2014, just when dozens of protestors were shot to death.
25/30 Beseda would presumably have been responsible for providing Putin with intelligence on Ukraine prior to the invasion. It is hard to know what he said or whether Putin listened.
26/30 Putin might prefer to blame faulty intelligence for the difficulties in Ukraine as a diversion from simpler explanations, ie: his premise was wrong; he failed to consult others.
27/30 Perhaps Beseda yielded to Putin's prejudices, perhaps he gave him good intelligence and was ignored. Either way, if Beseda is blamed, this is a blow to the FSB and its prestige.
28/30 The FSB is presumably mindful of its position with respect to rival institutions, such as the National Guard and Chechen irregulars, both present in Ukraine.
29/30 Summary: the supreme leader is consistently redistributing blame for his own errors; military leaders are scarcely and unpredictably visible during a war; other important services are under stress.
30/30 It is worth looking for fault lines between Putin and his generals; among his generals; between higher officers and soldiers in the field; between Putin and his secret police, and between his secret police and rival services.
#Ukraine #Russia #UkraineRussianWar
• • •
- But they did not want an answer. They did not want to accept the story at its face value. They wanted a controversy. Somehow they seemed to feel that it was more important to badger @POTUS over nine words that expressed the view of every sentient moral being on the planet...
- ...than it was to focus on the tens of thousands of deaths caused by Putin. Somehow they felt that the story was how the president might have hurt the feelings of a war criminal rather than it being that we finally had a president who would call out Putin and stand up to him.
- No president since Putin assumed power has taken a tougher stance. No president has mobilized a more active, unified response from NATO. No president in his right mind would feel any other way about Putin than Biden has expressed he does.
- Further, the idea that somehow Putin would seize upon Biden's remarks as reason or excuse to escalate the war does not withstand the slightest scrutiny. His every action has been underpinned with lies and false rationales.
- Further, it is Putin who is violently seeking regime change in Ukraine. (Contrary to what his lying mouthpieces may say.) And it was Putin who sought to effect regime change here in the United States--as our entirely intel and law enforcement community concluded.
- Biden gave a historic speech in Warsaw. It marked a fundamental change in relations between the West and Russia. Today, moments before the torrent of ridiculous questions, the president announced he was supporting that change with a major new defense budget request.
- How many questions were there about that? None. How many questions were there about POTUS's announced plans to introduce greater fairness into our tax system or more assistance for those in need? None. How many questions were there about current state of the war in Ukraine? None.
- No. They were there for the game of gotcha. The result was they missed the big story of the president's trip, they missed the big story of the day, they missed the stories that mattered to American families, they missed actually learning more about Ukraine policy.
- Instead, repeating the same question over and over and hoping for a different answer, they just did the work of the president's opponents and of Putin, seeking through some perverse alchemy to turn strong remarks and an effective policy into an error they could promote.
- If there was any sensational story associated with the president's ad libbed expression of a hope we share with our allies and the people of Ukraine it is in how badly it was covered, how easily the press was once again led away from real news by the prospect of...
- ...winning a game of gotcha with the leader of the free world at a moment of great crisis when serious issues loom everywhere and far too many of the men and women of the White House press corps just don't seem to be interested in any of them.
- p.s. I was just looking at some of the response here. Some were just disparaging the media generally and were pretty rude about it. Some of the people I respect and admire most are members of the DC and WH press corps. They perform an absolutely essential service.
- Many do it extraordinarily well. I was speaking primarily about today's display and what I saw this weekend following the speech. There was too much of a herd instinct...and that happens often when groups are bunched together, travel together, etc.
- So, can the WH press corps do better? Absolutely. Are some of its members brilliant, honest, hard-working and essential to the functioning of our society? Yes, many are. Best if we don't succumb to groupthink when criticizing the groupthink of others.
• • •