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May 9 – Day 440 – Window with a view, Wagner whining, Migs und Katzen

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Admin note: Videos will be attached later

Because I was at least theoretically one of the targets, I’ll kick off this report with some stuff about the latest round of drone and missile strikes. The report’s leading images are all stuff that hit some portion of the Kyiv region in the last 24 hours, just as a reminder there is Russian stuff in the skies and even if they can’t hit anything they aim at, and the Ukrainians are basically shooting everything down, Mr. Newton’s law about gravity still counts.

In the early morning hours of Monday the Russians sent a bunch of Shahed drones and most of them seemed to be directed towards Kyiv, this time there weren’t any cruise missiles to go with them. Eventually the Ukrainians claimed they shot 35 of them down, and I have it from multiple sources on the ground – one of which is me, setting on my balcony – that the Ukrainians did this with a combination of automatic cannon like on Gephard or Tunguska, shorter-ranged anti-aircraft missiles, or Territorial defense guys in pickup trucks. The news reports don’t communicate how loud some of that stuff is.

Also speaking of not in mainstream media, just think about this: one of those Shaheds can buzz around a city district for probably 30 minutes before something gets done about it or it flies away or runs out of gas or whatever, and that means probably there are tens of thousands of people (Kyiv is pretty densely populated) forced to go hide in shelters, or drink another shot of vodka, or cram more cotton in their ears, or ignore more nervous family members insisting on going to a shelter, etc.

From the point of view just of the young parents with babies who have to deal with this, just them alone, it’s absolutely appalling that a state could call itself civilized and visit Shaheds in the middle of the night on people just trying to sleep in their homes.

Obviously lost sleep and grumpy babies aren’t the same as dead and wounded people, and it’s not like the Ukrainians are about to quit (far from it, read on) but the it’s happening and even though the Ukrainian air defenses are strong every time the Russians do this, trust me, they are tacking on decades to the time the Ukrainians will need to forgive the Russians. I promise you, every baby under missile strikes right now will get told from the moment it is old enough to understand its parents, how it spent its first month with Mama running to or from an air raid shelter. That accurate story will be passed on to those children’s children, at least.

This morning the Russians sent 15 cruise missiles, dropped by Tu-95 Bear bombers, likewise all shot down (the missiles I mean. Image of bomber plus missile.)

In terms of ordnance on the ground the big image is a of an X-55 Russian cruise missile which, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, got shot down because a territorial defense team in a pickup truck, and armed with an Igla hand-held missile, received early warning, drove to a suitable point below the missile’s flight path, and tagged it from the back as it went by.

Four more images, one a collage, of stuff that fell out of the sky in Kyiv region this morning.

According to the MoD a $20,000 Igla missile knocked down a 1.5 million dollar X-55, and overall Russia over the past 48 hours has pissed away $190 million dollars’ worth of cruise missiles, just to dig some holes in Ukrainian farm fields. So yes, Ukraine is definitely the winner in the missile bombardment war, but babies are still losing sleep and trust me their parents will never, ever forget it.

Also perhaps noteworthy was today, one of the most anemic and humor Red Square parades, in history, ever, and that’s including the Tsarist regime, the Soviet Union, pre-Putin Russia, and present Putin Russia. The best line to emerge from the parade is clearly, and I quote: “There are Ukrainian farmers with more tanks than that”. Here’s a link to the KP article on the parade, but frankly, the images and the social media commentary are the story.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/16822

Bakhmut

It has been all Sturm and Drang on the Russian side here, with Evgeny Prigozhin of Wagner over the past five days first promising Bakhmut will be taken, then accusing the Defense Ministry of starving his boys of artillery ammo, then declaring the ammo en route and Bakhmut soon to be in Russian hands, then announcing no the ammunition didn’t get there and Wagner is leaving Bakhmut right now, and then coming back and saying well, yes, Wagner is leaving but in the next couple of days, and finally (this morning) saying maybe that timeline will have to change because “some troops” have “betrayed” Wagner by breaking and running, and so Wagner might have to fall back sooner to avoid being outflanked. In any case, the Russian Defense Ministry is incompetent and Wagner needs total state support or the war with Ukraine will be lost. Meanwhile, day before yesterday, ammo shortage or no, some Russian element dropped a big barrage of Wille Pete on the Ukrainian part of Bakhmut, trying I suppose to smoke them out.

I can’t just how much of this Wagner drivel is true, how much of this is hysteria, how much of it is army formation for the coming Russian revolution, how much of it is Kremlin musical chairs, and how much of it is the convicted felon Prigozhin just saying whatever he feels like, for the hell of it, he’s in a war so why care a lot about the internet, and if idiots want to take what he says in public seriously waste their time trying to parse it, let them, they’re idiots.

What I can say, confirmed from multiple sources, several confirmed reliable, is that the Ukrainian positions within Bakhmut seem to be generally holding although in a bad day the UAF seems to lose a couple of buildings, and meanwhile, on the flanks, the UAF is retaking ground. The lead attacking force clearly is 3rd Assault Brigade and multiple sources in and outside that unit have pretty convincing indicators (geolocated video, photographs of personal documents from dead Russian soldiers) that the road to Chasiv Yar is open. However, a bridge on that road is blown (image), which is not a show-stopped in this season, this is one of those rare times where I can state that I (happen to) know a 4WD would be able to get past that without too much trouble. A tracked vehicle would just laugh.

The other units fighting here are, latest report, 93rd Mech, 24th Mech, possibly 46th Mech, and some kind of pickup unit from Kharkiv territorial defense. Unconfirmed, the border troops and the special forces have people in the area as well. Open source, all those brigade units have M-113.

Offensive precursors

There have been plenty in the last few days, some contradictory, but generally pointing to “soon, but not real, real soon”.

The most important factoid in my opinion is this: In a speech in Netherlands President Zelensky said that Ukraine is actively preparing for "new events" in “May and June”. This is the first time that I know of that senior official Kyiv has mentioned major UAF activity – read, the upcoming offensive – as going to take place in summer. If he wasn’t playing information games with the Russians, we can probably take this to mean that the Ukrainian top leadership is looking at offensive operations starting late enough in May that they continue into June. It’s not a big distinction, but for instance the Kharkiv offensive was over in about three weeks. Clearly, this is a signal that whatever the Ukrainians are planning to kick off soon, official Kyiv thinks will last longer than that.

Left bank evacuations in progress: Multiple reports from both sides say that the Russians are evacuating – that’s forced migration, a war crime by some measures – people from the Dnipro riverside city Sladovsk where, according to Ukraine’s Army General Staff, pro-Russian officials were observed on 6 and 7 May emptying offices and loading vehicles with documents, office furniture, personal effects and I have no doubt looted property. According to other Ukrainian military sources, similar evacuations are taking place in the villages Myhailvka. Petrivka, Shevchenko, Shyroke, Ulianivka and Krasne.
Left bank evacuations planned: According to Ukrainian civilian authorities, Russian command in Zaporizhia overall plan to kick all civilians out of Tymoshivka, Smirnove, Tarasivka, Orlyanske, Molochansk, Kamianka, Pryshyb, Tokmak , Mala Bilozerka, Vasylivka, Velika Bilozerka, Dniprorudne, Mykhailivka, Kamianka-Dniprovska, Energodar, Pology and Rozivka.

According to Ivan Federiv, Melitopol’s mayor-in-exile, the Russians plan to move 70,000 people from their homes, and that in Melitopol’ Russian officials are burning documents and destroying computer memory cards. This is a little like the sleeping babies: it is very easy to write the sentence but very difficult to communicate the pain and unpleasantness and suffering of a single family forced to leave its home because of a war, and if Federiv is right this is something like 15,000 families that will be displaced because their home might become a war zone.

Energodar and Zaporizhia nuclear power plant developments: Ukrainian news reports say the Russians have not only quartered troops and military equipment inside the Zaporizhia nuclear power station, they are rigging det charges in case the Ukrainians attack. Kremlin mouthpiece and “military correspondent” Vladimir Rogov over the weekend told RIA Novosti the Russian military is aware of a Ukrainian plan to bounce the Dnipro River, grab bridgeheads, and effectively take the nuclear power station in a coup d’main. The Russian army is “in full combat readiness”, he said.

It would be one for the history books if the Ukrainians managed it, but even the non-Napoleons among us have to concede that a water-crossing operation to grab Europe’s biggest nuclear power station, defended by the regular Russian army, pretty much fits the definition of “high-risk”. I think the significance here is that this is the most specific warning yet on the Russian side, that some part of the Ukrainian offensive may indeed seek to jump the Dnipro.

Russian air activity – Reportedly has intensified in the Liman and Zaporizhia sectors. I mention it as a possible indicator of where the Russians see the Ukrainians attacking.

Where’s the Patriot(s)

On Sunday the Russians tried a strike this way: from the north, eight Shahed drones, and then a “hypersonic”, “superior to any western weapon”, “impossible to shoot down”, “powerful Russian nuclear delivery system”, a/k/a a Kinzhal missile, got dropped by an Su-35 bomber flying in airspace above Belgorod Oblast’, and then the idea was it would whack something important in Kyiv before the Ukrainians knew what hit them.

Unfortunately for the Russian plan, the Ukrainians decided to deploy their first Patriot missile system around Kyiv, making the Ukrainian capital (even more) the place with the best-defended air space, probably, in the world. The advertising says Kinzhal accelerates to Mach 10 and is impossible to intercept, however, first the head of Ukraine’s air force and then the Americans themselves said, no, actually, the US Patriot knocked down the incoming Kinzhal.
The Ukrainian internet was very fast (eve more than usual) to deliver up images of a Knizhal that had apparently been deterred in its path by collision with a fast-moving object, or possibly, running into a slow-moving but well-guided object while flying at high speed itself.

This weakens (even more) Russian capacity to threaten the Ukrainian capital by air, but, it also means that the first Patriot system will not intervene – unless the Ukrainians move it secretly – in the upcoming offensive.

It is worth noting that Ukraine is waiting for two more Pershing systems, one from the Americans and one from the Dutch, and Zelensky was in the Netherlands two days ago.

HIMARS and Ukrainian strikes

CNN and several other information platforms released reports late last week saying that, effectively, the US-delivered GPS-guided missiles fired by HIMARS and/or M270 are becoming less, er, effective because the Russians have developed systems that jam GPS. This in and itself is not news, as many people reading this know from personal experience, the Russians were operating GPS jammers in Donbass as early as 2015.

On Saturday the Ukrainians appeared not to be overly concerned with RF jamming, launching a series of what looked very much like HIMARS strikes well behind RF lines but still in HIMARS range, and centered on the Crimea-adjacent rail hub Dzhankoe, and targets within Crimea itself but outside of HIMARS range:
4:15 AM — the city of Saki. Three explosions. Flight defense is working.
4.19 — the city of Jewpatorija. Multiple explosions.
4.22 — the city of Sevastopol. Air Defense
4.29 — the city of Novofedorivka. Explosions are similar to air defense.
4:35am - Kozacha Bay. Two explosions heard.
4:39 — the city of Sevastopol. Sea. The air defense is working.
5.04 — the city of Krasnoperekopsk. Explosion.

This is, among other things, evidence of the Ukrainians launching deep strikes using multiple weapons systems, including ones well beyond arms provided by the West, as part of a systematic campaign to degrade the enemy’s army capacity to fight.

But also, if you check the “official” Ukrainian numbers, the Ukrainian army general staff kill claims of Russian equipment show this definite change: over the past 10 days, or the first ten days of May, if you like, the number of destroyed Russian artillery systems has spiked about 40 percent, as compared to the number of artillery systems claimed destroyed in the first ten days of April. Last month it was 71 and as of 9 May, with May 10 still not estimated, it was 108.

The number of Russian tanks claimed destroyed by the Ukrainians has shown a similar trend, to wit with 14 claimed in the first ten days of April, and, thus far, 21 in the first nine days of May.

With due regard for the probability that some of these claims are exaggerated, I think it is safe to come to the conclusions (1) the Ukrainians have intensified attacks on Russian equipment in the first part of May and (2) Russian artillery is the priority (3) it is almost certainly some form of Ukrainian artillery, that is taking out the Russian artillery (4) there is a pretty good chance some these strikes are taking place well away from the front line meaning (5) either the Ukrainians still have a pretty good spy network in occupied territories, or the Americans are helping the Ukrainians with more targeting data than Washington and Kyiv are willing to let on.

Anyway, all the foregoing is to a certain degree a reading of coffee grounds, but, if one were looking for evidence of a systematic “preparation of the battlefield” by the UAF prior to a major offensive, this would be worth at least a data point.

Stuff for Ukraine

Nette Katze - According to Danish and German news reports, a total 80 Leopard 1 tanks, which are transferred by Denmark and Germany, will be ready for deployment in Ukraine by June 1, this according to Acting Minister of Defense of Denmark Troels Lund Poulsen. That is a significant but not battle-winning number of tanks, if it happens, and I for one have seen nothing about specific Leopard 1 training for Ukrainian crews. So we shall see how much the plan matches the reality next month.

Where are the MiGs - Polish Defense Minister Blaszczak during his visit to Canada told Polish journalist Jakub Pawlowski: "Poland provided Ukraine with 10 MiG-29 fighters." Which means, since the middle of March, the number of MiG-29s Ukraine can put into the air has probably doubled, albeit partly with obsolete air frames.The point I would make here is, we have seen next to zero footage of MiGs in action, MiGs in training, MiGs being polished, MiGs being repainted, or MiGs having their photos next to volunteers delivering the next truckload of pickles, thermal sights and warm socks. So where are they? What are they up to?

I don’t know, but, we do know that pretty much as of the start of April Ukraine had various forms of US-made bombs made available, and it takes time to fit the drop mechanisms and train the pilots on using the bombs and so on. Seeing as the best Russian fighter jets seriously outclass the MiGs Ukraine operates in an air superiority role, and the fact that a fast jet popping up is a pretty good platform to drop a guided bomb, a flight of Ukrainian MiG-29 pilots being trained to drop guided bombs, in time for the offensive, is a distinct possibility, and already at minimum something Russian air defense planners have to worry about. Jet image.

If you’ve read this far

Attached is an image of a recent poll of the Ukrainian people, two questions, do you think Ukraine will win the war, do you think Putin is the modern Hitler. The graphics will give you the exact numbers, but the main thing is, the categories “absolutely agree” or “pretty much agree” accounted for more than 90 percent of all respondents. This is what a united country looks like, and this is statistical evidence that if the West sold Ukraine down the river tomorrow – which looks more and more doubtful – the Ukrainians would keep on fighting.