Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Virginiá]

Follow-up: 26 of the modernized T-72s will arrive within the next 30 days:

https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1588567378077814785?t=DXyuyRHJNEc0zw4Ytj...

Also, would like a more official source on this, but it does fit with the news from months ago that Ukraine was building an ammunition factory with an unnamed European country:

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1588591995517214721

[Virginiá]

Moving a large portion of the manufacturing process underground and in an area under the protection of IRIS-T/NASAMS may help them keep production online. Particularly if they can decentralize some of it as well.

With all the outside support Ukraine has, and the introduction of modern air defenses, reestablishing some level of production was likely inevitable.

edit:

This was from September:

https://kyivindependent.com/uncategorized/ukroboronprom-says-its-building-ammunition-factory-together-with-nato-member-state

I still do feel like this is NOT in Ukraine if they partnered with another country. I suppose you could assume the other country helped them establish the machinery and other tools, but it makes more sense to build it out of the country to avoid being subjected not only to potential missile strikes but also energy supply issues due to the country's energy grid problems.

[Virginiá]

This brings the total of HAWK air defense systems Spain is giving to Ukraine to 6

https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1590747349563080705

Again, an old system for sure but has decent range and can take on helicopters, drones, cruise missiles and some fighter jets (not all due to slow missile speed).

[Virginiá]

Kherson City is basically a ghost city now. Everything of resource has been stripped, and it's citizens sent to mainland Russia or occupied territory. I would compare it to Moscow/Borodino 1812.

Not all

https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1590609267886694402

[Virginiá]

One of the stories about the Hawks said it was the latest version - but before Spain recently modernized some systems to work with modern radars. However if Spain eventually gives all their HAWKs to Ukraine, that means Ukraine will eventually get those too. I don't know that I agree with the launchers vs systems, though. I've seen enough comments from Ukrainian and other officials to think that's not the correct way to read it, but I don't know, I'm not going to speculate anymore about it until/unless it is clarified.

Good times keep on rolling the past few days. New aid package - includes Avenger SHORAD system, which TBF is just a Humvee-mounted Stinger battery:



Link:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3216287/400-million-in-additional-assistance-for-ukraine/

[Virginiá]

US buying 100,000 artillery shells from South Korea for Ukraine

https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-korea-to-sell-arms-to-u-s-for-ukraine-11668116294

South Korea will for the first time sell artillery shells destined for Ukrainian forces through a confidential arms deal between Seoul and Washington, a move that reflects a global scramble for munitions after months of war with Russia.

U.S. officials familiar with the deal said that the U.S. will purchase 100,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition that will be delivered to Ukraine, enough to supply Ukraine’s artillery units for at least several weeks of intensive combat.

Routing the deal through the U.S. allows South Korea to stick to the letter of its public commitment not to send lethal military support to Ukraine while assisting Washington, Seoul’s paramount ally in deterring North Korea.

In August, the stockpile of U.S. 155mm artillery rounds had fallen to levels that concerned the Pentagon as Ukraine engaged in fierce artillery duels with the Russian forces, and U.S. officials say the situation is considerably worse now.

I don't know if this is part of that mysterious >= 3 billion dollar deal involving Czechia, but either way, it's an interesting development.

It's also another sign that Ukraine really needs to make progress in some sort of domestic production of ammunition, whether directly in Ukraine or in a neighboring country. The US seems to be nearing its limit of artillery shells, and the current industrial capacity for new shells is not nearly enough to sustain Ukrainian guns - at least right now. Hopefully the US will be able to patch together an international network of reliable suppliers, such as South Korea and its own factories.

[Virginiá]

That bridge going down was inevitable in a Russian defeat in Kherson, but I don't think it'll have much of an effect on the Ukrainian southern offensive. They always planned to go after Kherson Oblast primarily through Zaporizhzhia since they control both sides of the Dnieper in that region. Fording the river in Kherson would be a secondary support effort once Russian defenses have been sufficiently whittled down along the river.

[Virginiá]

What is next After Kherson ?

In terms of next likely liberated areas - Svatove and Kremina.

For Army Group South, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, likely in a push to Melitopol in order to split the southern land bridge between Crimea/Kherson and the Donbas/Russia.

[Virginiá]

What is next After Kherson ?

In terms of next likely liberated areas - Svatove and Kremina.

For Army Group South, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, likely in a push to Melitopol in order to split the southern land bridge between Crimea/Kherson and the Donbas/Russia.

You think Ukraine can pull off a Melitopol offensive in the winter or will they be waiting until spring?

Winter actually isn't that bad if the ground freezes, at least so long as they have the proper gear. It's that brief period in Autumn where it rains a lot and turns the ground to sludge, and then in the spring when the snow melts and again creates extremely muddy conditions.

I think if they throw a lot of weight into it, they might chip away at the front, but admittedly I am a little skeptical they will be able to take a very large swathe of land in the next ~3 months. Russia is likely moving the large concentration of professional soldiers they had in Kherson to the same areas as the ZSU. But we'll see.

[Virginiá]

Although depending on how you assess the state of the Russian military, further large gains may be possible:

https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1591499034724012032

[Virginiá]

https://mobile.twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1591926287358390272

Another quote from one of the referenced tweet threads:

‘“We are saying to the Ukrainians that it is up to them to decide when to do it,” said a Western European official, referring to the potential for talks. “But it might be a good idea to do it sooner.”’

Echoing the US, now doesn't seem like the right time for talks either, but at the same time, a negotiated settlement where Ukraine gives up land just doesn't seem politically possible. Eventually this could get tricky for Ukraine, as their war needs are extensive and the while the west has invested in expanding production, they are only going to go so far, and the rest is up to Ukraine. I do hope that if Ukraine cannot see the end in 2023, that hopefully they secure a robust manufacturing base to make up the difference in munitions and weapons they need that aren't satisfied by the west.

[Virginiá]

In other news, the lame duck Congress will likely pass another Ukraine funding bill to fund the next year's fight. The $37 billion dollar number will probably go up.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1592618497678385154

Probably will, but I wonder by how much. This is notably less than the number floating around when the idea of passing lame duck funding started to be considered (that number was in the 50s).

I would also note that this doesn't even match the first long-term aid package the US approved in May (40 billion), which also doesn't factor in the separate aid packages (the 13.6 emergency aid in March or the ~12 billion supplementary aid approved in September). I do wonder how this reflects on the type of military support the US is projecting it is able and willing to offer Ukraine in 2023. It's possible they believe the Ukrainian army needs less aid since it has been significantly built up and has become somewhat more well-rounded, but it could also mean the US is running out of systems it is able & willing to send. We do know this attrition is starting to reach into things like artillery shells.

Just trying to think through it and deduce whether this is enough money for what the US is able to do overall or whether it reflects growing limitations in our ability to support the war.

[Virginiá]

The arms race, with a burn rate not experienced in decades, such is the consequence of engaging in a land war with Russia as it were. High tech alone is not enough. The whole concept of national (Western) defense is undergoing an extensive rewrite.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/26/world/europe/nato-weapons-shortage-ukraine.html

Honestly, I can't say I blame anyone here, although I do wish they had contingencies in place that would have at least allowed companies to spin up production faster, even if at a cost. There doesn't seem to be any such thing. It's not practical to spend the money to maintain vast production lines of military staples like artillery shells and missiles of various kinds, especially when there is no clear idea of when a major war will be fought or with whom exactly.  The west would instead have to spend a lot of money on an annual basis purchasing weapons it doesn't need to keep those lines active. And for artillery, I think the US miscalculated on that and the fact that it has wasted billions of dollars over the years trying to develop a next-gen self-propelled artillery gun and still has nothing to show for it (aside from prototypes) is pretty sad in itself and indicative of how far down the list of priorities artillery is to the US.

The big lesson here I think is going to be that west cannot just invest in small amounts of high-tech weapons and think that will be enough. They have to have large stockpiles of munitions and more basic systems that are a necessity in just about any war. Further, they need to devise a way to surge production faster than they have, even if it means spending significant money to stockpile excess machinery and train people they might need to call on later to build those weapons. Otherwise the ability to fight an extended peer war is dicey at best.

[Virginiá]

One thing I will say is that I feel like western audiences are treated regularly to stories that paint an extremely grim picture of conditions for the Russian army and suggest even more grim consequences, and yet they keep on keeping on despite that. I don't think this means they aren't facing extremely grave losses (otherwise they wouldn't have mobilized), but I do think it means that so long as Putin and Russian society are willing to continue sending wave after wave of men into Ukraine, Russia is going to be able to absorb debilitating losses, whether from winter or poor combat outcomes, for quite a while longer, even if they have to strip the uniforms off dead Russian soldiers to give to the newly mobilized. Sure, they might not actually be able to conduct meaningful counter-offensives and seize more land, but it will slow Ukraine down as well and keep this war dragging on indefinitely.

Just saying because I've both read and felt myself that surely Russia can't keep going with these kinds of losses, and yet they do, and that is largely because I think we underestimate the amount of losses and suffering the Russian army can endure. It might be the only thing they are truly good at.

[Virginiá]

Russia hasn't been able to simply keep on trucking, but it has adapted - which is normal.

I'm speaking in the broader sense of this war. Every day Putin and his generals instruct their army to hold their ground or launch operations against the enemy, they are basically keeping on keeping on despite taking on heavy losses and accomplishing nothing of note doing so.

They've had to retreat and give up some regions for various reasons, and they've suffered considerable losses of manpower and equipment, the latter of which alone is more than many other countries could take, but because of Putin's indifference for the welfare of his people, and their considerable weapon & munition stockpiles, they are able to keep going in spite of the losses.

[Virginiá]

I suspect this isn't completely true. War is negative-sum, and Ukraine's army is not a rock upon which Russia breaks itself. It's likely that even with equal or greater manpower, Russia's force has degraded in Ukraine, but that Ukraine's army has also degraded to some extent. Relative casualty rates and equipment losses/potential replacements are relevant here.

I wasn't really commenting on the condition of Ukraine's army. Like Russia can keep sustaining itself despite heavy losses even while inflicting heavy damage on Ukraine's forces, that's not in dispute here. I feel like that is basically implied in this war, actually.

FWIW I wouldn't consider Russia degrading Ukraine's military equipment a success of note. If all you're doing is breaking each other's toys and not actually achieving your military objectives, than that isn't something I would consider noteworthy. At least in the sense that, Russia's losses right now still appear to be unsustainable (in the long run) vs the damage they are doing to Ukraine's military. But, again, back to my original point, not so unsustainable that collapse is just right around the corner from the RuAF, even when it seems like that to a casual observer.

I feel like you're talking about different things here so I'm just going to leave it at that.

[Virginiá]

Obscenely long delays in contracts being awarded, even for systems that have no alternative bids or possible manufacturers, is an underrated complaint. Ukraine's power grid is failing due to incessant Russian strikes, slowly creating a humanitarian crisis, to which the US repeatedly said it would speed up air defense systems as much as it can, only for us to see that it is only just now awarding contracts to actually build the next 6 NASAMS air defense systems they promised to Ukraine months ago.

https://twitter.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1598098877894504448
https://twitter.com/ColbyBadhwar/status/1598098907778920451

Just the pinnacle of absurdity how contracting rules have not been altered yet for this conflict, especially for cases where it's completely unnecessary.

Some defense contractors have made the decision to invest in expanding production of some systems because they determined that demand was likely going to be much higher (such as HIMARS), but this is the exception, not the rule. Most of the time they are not going to start production until the deal is locked in.

This ought to be a sober reminder for Ukraine that ultimately no matter how bad things get, there is a limit to how much and how fast things will get done for them, because the cost of doing more and doing that faster is either just too much, or requires too much effort that certain people just aren't willing to put in, for whatever reasons.

[Virginiá]

More on air defense:

U.S. looks to shift air defense systems from Middle East to Ukraine, Raytheon chief says

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/01/raytheon-air-defense-ukraine-middle-east-00071687

The U.S. is working with Middle Eastern countries to move a handful of their air defense systems to Ukraine, according to the CEO of Raytheon Technologies.

The goal is to send National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems to Ukraine in the next three to six months, CEO Greg Hayes said in an interview. The U.S. would then backfill those systems with new NASAMS in the Middle East over the next 24 months.

[...]

It takes two years to build NASAMS because of the lead time required to buy electronic components and rocket motors, Hayes said.

Oman signed a contract with Raytheon in 2014 for NASAMS, with delivery in 2016. The U.S. cleared Qatar to buy NASAMS in 2019. The government notifications did not outline how many systems Oman and Qatar would buy.

[Virginiá]

FWIW Chuck Pfarrer has become (or always was) kind of a joke on this war. I'm not super interested in this stuff outside of the Ukrainian war, but half the time I read one of Chuck's tweets these days, the things he is saying are either brazenly wrong or later turn out to be wrong, usually because he jumped the gun and then of course rarely corrects himself. He has for instance claimed Ukraine has used ATACMS numerous times despite them not having it and there being no proof of it and both governments denying the transfer of it. Or how many times he says Ukraine has taken control of part of highway P-66, only for his later reports to basically pretend it never happened. There's a reason people joke that Chuck Pfarrer isn't in the OSINT community, he's in the RUMINT community.

Anyway, just saying, take what he says with a grain of salt.

[Virginiá]

Was more of a general gripe, not specific to movement on the Kreminna front. I just see his tweets retweeted or posted here and sometimes it's fine, and sometimes it isn't, but always because he isn't cautious or even mildly conservative about his claims and doesn't seem to have much of a standard of proof.

[Virginiá]

Might be time to revise these plans. Not much of a point in holding back munitions for a possible war with Russia when Russia is already at war and their military is being ground down day by day. If we're saving weapons for this hypothetical war, we might as well use them now. By the time Russia can rebuild its military, we'll already have replacements for the weapons sent to Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1601314635755364353

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/09/military-aid-ukraine-russia-munition-stockpile-shortages/

Also:

Congressional aides have complained that U.S. aid packages to Ukraine are becoming increasingly divorced from the reality on the ground, with around $400 million going to Kyiv every couple of weeks—far less than what was being provided during the summer months, when the United States began providing the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System that Ukraine used to devastating effect against Russian lines.

“The administration doesn’t actually want to go faster in Ukraine,” the first congressional aide said. “That’s very clear to all of us.”

Worth reading the article if you like to follow military aid to Ukraine.

[Virginiá]

It was widely posited that Ukraine would need to launch successful offensives to prove the aid was worthwhile, but it's quite possible that the reverse was closer to the truth: that the Biden administration and others are nervous about Ukraine advancing too quickly (or at all). A Congressional aide suggests as much in the article.

Kherson was heavily telegraphed and most of the land was retaken because Russia accepted it was necessary; it wasn't a surprise. The success of the Kharkiv counteroffensive, by contrast, may have taken Russia, the US and even Ukraine by surprise, and perhaps it spooked Western backers a little bit.

You could also argue that the Biden admin is just worried about Ukraine advancing too fast due to enhanced military aid from them, such as flooding the battlefield with modern tanks and long range missiles (as current aid hasn't been enough to overly provoke Russia). I think the US is primarily concerned about their actions causing Russia to escalate, rather than Ukraine doing so merely by winning. As for munitions - some of these production lines seem genuinely constrained and something like the GMLRS they have been sending are only produced by the US. Artillery shells may end up not being a problem later on due to unified efforts of NATO factories (and other foreign suppliers), but that is to be determined. It doesn't seem like NATO currently has the ability to produce the amount of 155mm Ukraine needs, though. Even Slovakia seems to be considering spinning up production. What I would agree on is that eventually NATO/3rd party production lines will be able to provide steady & sufficient supplies, but who knows when that will be the case. It could easily be a year from now, potentially giving Ukraine problems on the battlefield due to a shortage of shells if the US refuses to send more

The way it is looking, Russia is not prepared to accept a loss so long as Putin feels they have the potential to keep going, so any Ukrainian successes are going to eventually result in escalation so long as those wins keep coming in (and thus from Russia's perspective, losses). The US just wants to keep that escalation from reaching inside NATO borders and thus dragging them into the conflict.

[Virginiá]

Damn those wayward grenade launchers

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1601360644561072129

[Virginiá]

Step in the right direction - would be nice to see Biden join in on this

https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1602362520030904320

A very clear choice with consequences Russia can easily avoid by simply ceasing their strategic bombing of Ukrainian infrastructure.

[Virginiá]

Iran seems to be limiting the range of ballistic missiles they will provide Russia, but 300km will still allow Russia to hit much of Ukraine if they stage the launchers near the border / LOC in Belarus, and Kherson / Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1602349277321334788