Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[jaichind]

From NYT.  I do not think the way this request is worded is wise and most likely be counterproductive

Something struck me about this picture.   It seems the Biden administration sent a Black diplomat to lecture and warn African countries not to buy from Russia.  I point this out because it seems this is a pattern in the Biden administration.

Back in March when the Russia-Ukraine war just started the Biden administration sent an envoy to India to "warn" India to fall in line with the anti-Russia sanctions.  The envoy in question was a person of Indian decent.  When I saw that my reaction was "this is a very bad idea."  I wonder if anyone in the Biden state department ever read a book on Indian history written by India for Indians.  In those books, the rise of the British Raj was critically enabled by Indian proxies for the British (Mir Jafar as Nawab Nazim of Bengal, the various Nizam Nawab of Hyderabad, the Raghunath Rao clan in the Maratha confederacy, and various Nawab Nizam of Awadh, etc)  To send an envoy of Indian decent to "lecture" and "warn" Indians on a course of action will just revive those bitter memories of their historical narrative.  Until the visit of the USA envoy, the Hindi media in India was clearly pro-Russia but there were pro-Ukraine voices in the English Indian media.  After the failed attempt by the USA envoy of India decent to change Indian policy pro-Ukraine voices started to disappear from Indian media and social media as no one want to be lumped into an Indian proxy for an "American Raj"

I assume in the warped woke identy policies world view of Biden and the Democrats this is a good idea but I suspect in Africa this will play just as badly as it did in India.

[jaichind]

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-suspends-oil-exports-via-southern-leg-druzhba-pipeline-due-transit-2022-08-09/

"Russia's Transneft says Ukraine halted oil flows to Europe over payment issue"

It seems Russian pipeline oil flows via Belorus to EU continues

[rc18]

Novofedorivka airbase in western Crimea goes up in smoke.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1556996656079507456?s=20&t=70QtmBuC8eFkWm...

~220 km from the frontlines...

[Virginiá]

I don't believe none of these are being sent because of a shortage of weapons for active use - they haven't used M198s for years. It may be that the US prioritizes keeping a large reserve, or does not want to supply Ukraine with so many tubes that they burn ammunition beyond a certain rate, or it may be due to them currently assessing whether it is useful to supply Ukraine with more mortars, howitzers, or HIMARS (they've just sent the first mortars in a while).

I mean that is pretty much what I was getting at. It doesn't matter exactly how many weapons the US has if they factor into their own plans and they are also not willing to compromise said plans. US weapon stores are not really in question so much as their willingness to actually take from it and give to Ukraine. Rate of ammunition usage sounds like a better explanation to me, if it was any of those. It's possible if the US doesn't think UA needs more, it could be along the lines of them believing they do need more but at the same time, more won't really change the front lines enough to justify the costs.

Does the US still have the capability to supply Ukraine with barrels and other parts for the M198s, if the US decided to donate these? Apparently it had maintenance and reliability issues during its lifetime, so that might have been a consideration.

[DINGO Joe]

Oh who's to say where a front line is....as long as it is a military target.  Looks like the front line to me.

[Virginiá]

Another supply depot hit in Kherson Oblast, 150km+ from the front line.

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1556893167013748736

There's some speculation that it could be Neptune anti-ship missiles configured to hit land targets, or that the US finally gave Ukraine the ATACMS for the m270/HIMARS, which has a range of 300km.

[jaichind]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-09/uk-braces-for-blackouts-gas-cuts-in-january-in-emergency-plan

"UK Braces for Blackouts, Gas Cuts in January in Emergency Plan"

Wow.  The UK is not even that dependent on Russian energy. I think what is going on is in the winter months UK does buy gas from Mainland EU to cover shortfalls in gas supply.  This winter mainland Europe is expected to have its own shortages ergo this could become a crisis for the UK.

[Virginiá]

Update on Crimea airbase strike:

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/status/1557007543897145347

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1557017110320136194

A thread with many many videos and photos of the explosions.  Obviously, given the location and time of day it'll be the most documented event of the war thus far.

#17 is pretty interesting because you can see the shockwave on the video and blue car obviously felt it and decided to turn around.  There are photos of windows blow out and traffic jams of people trying to leave but can't say for sure if all part of this event.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Course of the Russian commentary on the two strikes at the airbase today:

- It was a fire from an accident; nobody was harmed. No aircraft harmed; ammunition exploded
- Admission of one dead and five wounded
- State media commentator says Ukraine has crossed a red line in Crimea, but does not say they are responsible for the attack
- Russian soldiers leak images on Telegram showing at least one destroyed aircraft

https://www.twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1557077182110998528

[rc18]

Course of the Russian commentary on the two strikes at the airbase today:

- It was a fire from an accident; nobody was harmed. No aircraft harmed; ammunition exploded
- Admission of one dead and five wounded
- State media commentator says Ukraine has crossed a red line in Crimea, but does not say they are responsible for the attack
- Russian soldiers leak images on Telegram showing at least one destroyed aircraft

https://www.twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1557077182110998528

There's also what appears to be the remains of a burnt out Su-30 (?) to the right.

There were about 6 planes parked up this morning just at the location this appears to be, and plenty more scattered around.


Edit; some more video. This car parking is even further away from the storage buildings that appear to have blown up than the plane above (planes are bottom right on the satellite image,  storage sites off map to the south).

Watch till the end...

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1557116180124540930?s=20&t=eFLBFs4...

[NOVA Green]

A Senior Ukrainian official per NYT:

Publicly, Ukrainian officials would not confirm the involvement of Ukraine’s military, as Russian and occupation officials scrambled to determine the source of the blasts, raising the terrorist threat level in the area. But a senior Ukrainian military official with knowledge of the situation said that Ukrainian forces were responsible, having carried out an attack on the Saki air base on the western coast of Crimea.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, the official said the air base was one from which planes regularly took off for attacks on Ukrainian forces. The official would not disclose what type of weapon caused the explosions, saying only that “a device exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture was used.”

also:

The senior Ukrainian official said the attack involved partisan resistance forces loyal to the government in Kyiv, but he would not disclose whether those forces carried out the attack or assisted regular Ukrainian military units in targeting the base, as has sometimes occurred in other occupied Ukrainian territories. It was not clear how many detonations there were, but witnesses and Russian officials cited multiple blasts, which videos posted to social media appeared to confirm.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/world/europe/crimea-explosions-russia-ukraine.html

Meanwhile an hour or so ago of in the Post:

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the blasts on the west coast of the peninsula, in an area of beach resorts. An aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky distanced Kyiv from the attack. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said it appeared Ukrainian forces had carried out a strike using a weapon not provided by the United States. U.S. officials referred additional questions about the operation to Ukraine.

The attack, if conducted by Ukraine, would amount to a dramatic escalation in the nearly 6-month-old war. It would demonstrate a remarkable ability by Ukrainian forces, or their allies, to strike at Russia far from front lines, deep inside territory where Russian tourists are so comfortable with their security that they lounge near the base on sandy Black Sea beaches.

and a little bit of Ukrainian trolling...

In a statements posted on social media, seemingly meant to needle Moscow, Ukraine’s defense ministry said it “cannot establish the cause of the fire,” but reminded the Russian side of the dangers of "smoking in unspecified places.”

In another post, the Ukrainians seemed to troll the Russians further: “The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine would like to remind everyone that the presence of occupying troops on the territory of Ukrainian Crimea is not compatible with the high tourist season."

In an interview with Dozhd, an independent Russian online broadcaster, Podolyak did not claim responsibility, saying anti-Russia partisans might have carried out the attack.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/crimea-explosion-russian-air-base/

[Person Man]

So is the next stage of the basically artillery valleys and sabotaging an entrenched yet immobilized occupation force?

[NOVA Green]

So is the next stage of the basically artillery valleys and sabotaging an entrenched yet immobilized occupation force?

Well... very good question.

Sure Ukraine can will def hit hard on the West banks of the river and surround Kherson City, in Russia
s weakest zone and basically force the Russian entrenched garrisons to be either military defeated or starved, in a city where the overwhelming majority of the civilian population will rise up , even if it takes molotov cocktails to force the occupiers out.

Meanwhile UKR forces have been launching significant counter attacks on what is something like a 1.5 km front lines, not to mention traditional "probe and reccie ops"...

Significant shift of Russian forces from Donbas to Kherson naturally create their own complications, since it allows the possibility of major Ukrainian counter assaults in places such as NE Ukraine, not to mention the Donbas region.

UKR would def prefer to either capture or re-capture entrenched Russian trenches/ formations vs a WW I style slog fest, but reality if UKR were able to successfully execute a Ukrainian counter-offensive and liberate Kherson City would be a HUGE morale booster.

Terrain of Kherson province likely would favor UKR vs RUS, and as soon as you take out RUS systems, not to difficult to imagine UKR units sweeping down to liberate some of the first occupied regions of Ukraine post 2014 Russian Fascist Invasion of Ukraine.

[jaichind]

Big surge of semiconductor exports from PRC to Russia

[DINGO Joe]

Lazurne is quite far from the front lines, 69km from the nearest town under Ukrainian control Oleksandrivka, Kherson Oblast.

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1549470246259548162?s=20&t=sw-dnl...

This was a very rare valuable piece of equipment they took out.  The kind of thing Russia can't build now.

One of the internet tech guys thinks these dots might connect

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1557223009383059457

[jaichind]

Russia's July CPI MoM came in at -0.39% as deflation momentum continues.  This seems to be driven by food prices which are falling across the board.   This is going to put pressure on Russia Cental Bank to cut rates more.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/lilygrutcher/status/1557350283453370375?t=W5x-Sv3yIO32v4Lbb_...

[pppolitics]

lot of aircrafts lost

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1557441267109400576

[pppolitics]

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

This is an embarrassment for Russia and the means Ukraine used to achieve it pose interesting questions, but if the means don’t exist in large numbers (quite probable if they’re newly produced ballistic missiles) and Russia doesn’t push its air assets back for whatever reason, this individual attack might not be so impactful.

After failing to suppress Ukrainian air defences in the first two months, the RuAF apparently only flies so many sorties/day. The loss of these aircraft alone is painful for their long-term objectives but they are replaceable by other, under-utilised airframes. I would guess more critical limitations than airframes built include: properly trained pilots, how many jets engineers can maintain at once, and various logistical issues.

[urutzizu]

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/aug/10/eu-under-pressure-to-ban-russian-tourists-from-europe

Major debate in the EU to ban Russian citizens from short stay visas. Will be discussed at next sanctions package at the end of the month. Poland, Baltics, Czechia, Finland have already done this, but because Schengen visas issued by any MS are valid everywhere in EU, it only works if common EU decision is taken. It is clear that despite the suspension of flights, many Russians are still entering the EU for short stays via Istanbul: In July Germany alone issued 5484 tourist visas for Russian citizens, considerably more than in the last year. The excuse that this is dissidents/emigrants is clearly bullsh**t, because they only valid for 90days and cannot be converted in country to immigrant visas. It is Russians having fun at Eiffel tower and St. Marks square while their country genocides.

When the first sanctions package after the Invasion was announced and visa facilitation for Russian officials was ended, the EU went to great lengths to stress that ordinary Russian citizens ability to travel was not being affected. There has definitely been a sea change in mentality here as officials have come around to the view to the member states that actually border Russia and know the country best: it is not just a Putin problem and it is legitimate to ask ordinary Russians share in the pain of the aggression/genocide the vast majority of them support.

[Isaak]

It is Russians having fun at Eiffel tower and St. Marks square while their country genocides.

This sounds a little extreme. There is nothing wrong with private citizens having fun and enjoying their holidays - they are not the ones who are responsible for what is happening in Ukraine.

 

[NOVA Green]

So now we are starting to get a few US MSM Solid publications writing on the event at the Russian Air Force Base in Crimea:

New York Times:

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the episode was caused by the explosion of stockpiled ordnance for warplanes at the base. The statement did not mention Ukraine or its military.

Satellite imagery, collected by the company Planet Labs and reviewed by The New York Times, challenged Russia’s account of the damage. The images, one taken hours before the explosions and one taken a day after, did not show the haphazard debris of a single blast, but rather what appeared to be three large craters from detonations.

The imagery showed at least eight destroyed warplanes, both Su-30 and Su-24 fighter jets, all parked on the air base’s tarmac. Two buildings near the aircraft were completely destroyed as well, with damage and large burn marks observable elsewhere at the military base.

Other parts of the air base appeared intact, including several helicopters and a large ammunition depot.

Local officials, scrambling to explain and cope with the destruction, offered more detail about what had happened to the base, on Crimea’s western coast. The peninsula’s Kremlin-installed leader, Sergei Aksyonov, said on Wednesday that 252 people had been moved to shelters because of damage to homes. At least 62 apartment buildings and 20 commercial structures had been damaged in the blast, he said on Telegram, and officials were still cataloging damage to private homes.

Videos reviewed and verified by The New York Times showed that a plume of smoke was rising from the air base just before at least three explosions: two in quick succession and a third a few moments later. It is unclear from the videos what caused the blasts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/10/world/europe/crimea-explosions-ukraine.html

Washington Post:

A powerful attack on a Russian air base in occupied Crimea was the work of Ukrainian special forces, a Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post on Wednesday, suggesting an increasingly important role for covert forces operating deep behind enemy lines as the country expands efforts to expel Russian troops.

The Ukrainian air force said in a statement Wednesday that nine Russian military planes were destroyed at the base, which the authorities have said was used by Russia to launch missile strikes against Ukrainian-controlled territory.

If confirmed, the losses would be the biggest in a single day for the Russian air force since the start of the war, and could further curtail Russia’s capacity to carry out missile strikes against Ukrainian cities, at least in the short term. Russia’s air force has struggled to mount airborne operations throughout the war, and most of its strikes are launched from planes and ships comfortably out of reach of Ukrainian air defenses in Russia or Russian-occupied territory.

The attack could also have a profound impact on Russia’s long-term ability to maintain its control over southern Ukraine, and especially the nearby province of Kherson, where Ukrainian forces are hoping to launch a counteroffensive to reclaim territory. Crimea has emerged as a key logistics hub for Russian operations in the south, the main transit point for troops, equipment and ammunition reinforcing and supplying the Kherson area.

Hints from Ukrainian officials that special operations forces may have been involved have put a spotlight on the activities of what is officially known as the National Resistance, and which many Ukrainians refer to as “partisans.”

Led by Ukraine’s special operations forces and under the overall command of the Ukrainian army, the shadowy force made up of trained infiltrators and local sympathizers has been stepping up activities aimed at disrupting Russia’s logistics, administration, and command and control, according to Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/10/ukraine-russia-crimea-beach-blast/

Wall Street Journal:

For Russia, images of explosions far from the front lines, in a part of Ukraine known as an idyllic vacation resort, brought the war closer to home.

Russian state television largely ignored the incident, but some prominent pro-Kremlin propagandists expressed irritation. Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of state-controlled media organizations RT and Rossiya Segodnya, called for calm and continued support for Moscow’s military.

“Whatever happens, your duty is to support your country, your people and your army,” she said on Telegram. “Don’t whine. Don’t panic. Don’t criticize. Support!”

“Visual evidence proves Russia lost at least four Su-30SMs [multirole aircraft] and seven Su-24M(R)s [strike/tactical reconnaissance aircraft] at Saki air base,” according to Oryx, an open-source site that tracks military-equipment losses.

Meanwhile WSJ mentions a few things from further away in Kherson Oblast, believe Virginia might have posted about that ammo dump previously, but honestly so many Russian ammo dumps going "up in smoke" these days, hard to keep track!

The blasts in Crimea occurred as Ukraine seeks to roll back Russian gains in the south of the country. The southern operational command said Ukrainian forces had destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in the Kherson region. In recent weeks, Kyiv has sought to isolate Russian forces there by striking bridges and other infrastructure to hinder resupply.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces said a strike disabled a bridge near the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station in Kherson.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-mocks-russia-after-explosions-at-crimean-air-base-11660123645?mod=hp_lead_pos7

[NOVA Green]

https://twitter.com/lilygrutcher/status/1557350283453370375?t=W5x-Sv3yIO32v4Lbb_...

Don't know who this random Twitter dude is, but still..

https://twitter.com/lilygrutcher/status/1557459646394372097?s=20&t=CVjwsFSbP...