SITREP 4/19/24: A Small Gust for Ukraine's Sails?

Today we have some interesting thematic developments in the context of Ukraine’s future sustainment outlook.

The most talked about of course is the headway being made for the Ukrainian aid bill, which is set to be voted on in both the House and Senate this weekend and early next week, owing to Speaker Mike Johnson’s eye-opening U-turn. The U-turn was in fact so ‘sudden’ as to imply sinister developments behind the scenes—perhaps kompromat waving, threats, and the like. From an alleged CIA/NSA whistleblower:

You can see below how drastically his tone has changed into an uncharacteristically histrionic one:

This comes after he suddenly proclaimed himself a “wartime speaker”, which was echoed ominously by other congressmen:

In any case, the voting is moving forward, though there is no clear indication yet what will happen; Matt Gaetz has reportedly signaled that unfortunately the vote stands a good chance to pass, though they are still bitterly fighting it. Here’s the latest update:

However, while the pro-Ukrainian crowd rejoices, it’s not clear what real benefit the aid would bring, should it pass. For instance, days ago the provisions of the alleged bill had leaked which apparently showed the vast majority of the $48B Ukrainian aid going to various American DOD scams:

If there’s any accuracy to the above, it appears that when you take away the civil funds to the Ukrainian government, and the DOD’s own beak-wetting double-dip, all that’s really left for Ukrainian ‘weapons’ is about $14B or less. And in fact Johnson appears to confirm this when he says that he changed the bill so that 80% of it now represents replenishment of American stocks, rather than new weapons for Ukraine:

Certainly that’s still a fairly significant amount of money, all things considered, but it doesn’t even begin to address the much bigger issue of there not being any arms left to spend that money on.

For instance, recall the claimed million shells that Czech Republic was said to have found for Ukraine. Now Peter Pavel has confirmed they’ve only made agreements for an alleged 180k and have possibly found another “120k” shells, though they haven’t been purchased yet. That entire number is basically what Russia manufactures per month.

That’s not to mention the fact that Western ammo factories continue to mysteriously go up in smoke these past two weeks:

I wonder what it could be?

Some logically suspect that the urgent increase in production schedules has simply overtaxed the aging and stressed infrastructure and workforce at these sites, which understandably results in elevated risks of industrial ‘accidents’.

But moving on.

The other significant event which dovetails with the aid bill is that Zelensky has finally signed the mobilization bill, which—most significantly—lowers the mobilization age from 27 to 25. By far the most controversial was the removing of the provision that allowed Ukrainian servicemen who’ve served 36 months to be demobilized. This has created an uproar with soldiers posting death threats to the Rada, like this one:

In spite of that, the final ratification of the bill means Ukraine could now stand to mobilize a significant amount of new troops, some estimating 200-500k—or at least that’s the wishful target.

This new chart purports to show the amount of eligible men in each age group. Each bar below represents a year, so one can see for instance that 25 and 26 are somewhere around the 180k or so:

Since the mobilization opened up those two extra years, together that would open up a bit under 400k newly eligible, if the chart is accurate. But when you factor in all the various forms of attrition that realistically happen, i.e. draft dodging in all its varieties, then the real amount could be less than half of that, or even worse.

And for those wondering why there is such a dip in Ukrainian men in their 20s, the explanation I got was that these were men born precisely in the ‘dark ages’ period of the post-Soviet collapse, which means the birthrates were falling drastically then, resulting in far less people being born. It shoots up for the age 5-15 group because presumably in the 2000s the birthrate rose a bit in those brief economically hopeful internet bubble years, before collapsing again in the post-Maidan period.

Anyway, this further means that we’re set for quite a showdown for sometime this summer. That’s because if the aid bill is to pass and the heavy mobilization begins, the influx of new money, weapons, plus large amounts of men could coincide with the long-expected Russian offensive. Of course, it will not change the course of the war, but it could mean a much bloodier meatgrinder that will result in Russia incurring far more losses as it advances. That’s because the cheap defensive weapons most effective against advances, like mines, basic RPGs, small arms ammunition, drones, mortars—are things that have never been in short supply, and a flush of new aid cash could bring a new bonanza of replenishment for them.

Another example. Some sources state that a large batch of new ATACMs missiles will be opened up with the aid bill, and these missiles have proved to be relatively effective. Not wunderwaffe by any means, but effective enough to incur losses and potentially—in large enough number—hamper Russia’s logistics rear to make advance much more painful. A new ATACMs strike has just successfully been carried out on Dzhankoi airbase in Crimea, destroying what’s said to be an entire deployment of S-300s, or what Ukrainians claim were S-400s. The missile parts have now been recovered and identified as ATACMs:

Ukraine released the launch footage, showing around 6 ATACMs being launched from the right bank of the Dnieper, while Russian sources claimed there were up to 12 missiles, with 7+ being shot down:

That said, the Russian MOD has claimed that up to 10 ATACMs were shot down in another direction the very next day—though we have no real evidence.

The point being, given the somewhat questionable shootdown ability against the ATACMs demonstrated thus far, it could pose a bit of a problem if provided in much larger quantity, particularly at a time when Russia will be gearing up for a large offensive, which means huge stores of munitions will be laid up at brigade HQs, as well as large manpower concentrations, etc.

As an aside, for every such occasional blow that Ukraine delivers, Russia gives back at least 4 or 5 big ones. In the past week alone we’ve had several major successful strikes, such as on the Ukrainian base in Dnipro, with several Mig-29s and S-300 systems destroyed:

For which AFU obituaries already began rolling in:

As well as a big blow on another AFU and mercenary troop concentration in a Chernigov hotel, which Western cretins like McFaul tried to spin as an attack on a civilian complex, but—as I attached below his message—one can see admissions from AFU accounts of the large amount of military casualties at the site:

That includes ex-Aidar dep. cmdr. Mosiychuk angrily admitting to many military deaths:

And as of this writing there’s a new attack on a Dnipro complex said to house many AFU troops as well:

So, clearly, whatever minor successes Ukraine has, Russia continues vastly out-attritioning them.

A quick article round up to gauge the mood this week:

The two most pertinent ones are the following:

The above again mentions a potential Kharkov offensive by Russia.

And the new Politico piece likewise echoes fears of a Kharkov assault:

https://www.politico.eu/article/why-ukraine-losing-russia-war/

Today Rezident UA channel reported the following:

#Inside
MI-6 transferred new intelligence to the Office of the President and the General Staff about the plans of the Russian army to introduce new 10 brigades to Ukraine by the end of May. For these purposes, heavy equipment is also accumulated, and assault groups with new weapons are also being prepared.

And another Russian channel reported that some major new training has been launched about a month ago, which is likely the eastern Siberian echelons being prepared about which I reported last time. This could be the 10 new brigades referenced above.

In fact, BILD has now reported on the large scale fortifications Ukraine is building in the Kharkov region in anticipation:

The first line of new fortifications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Kharkov runs 10 km from the Russian border, said BILD deputy editor-in-chief Paul Ronzheimer, who visited the construction.

“It is expected that the Russian Armed Forces may go on the offensive there in the coming weeks or months. The first line of trenches runs just 10 km from the state border. Construction workers are working with shovels, without special equipment. They said that they are under constant Russian fire, including glide bombs", the material says.

At the same time, Carlo Masala, a professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich, said in a comment to BILD that “a possible offensive will initially go through Kramatorsk.”

“If so, then the path of Russian troops to Kharkov would be open. But even if there is no new ground offensive, Putin’s goal may be to shell Kharkov in preparation for the assault. Make a new Mariupol out of it and force people to flee,” said Masala.

At the end they mention forcing citizens to flee Kharkov, which is another common theme shared amongst several recent tabloids:

So, as you can see, Kharkov is really becoming more and more of a focused worry for them. That being said, I still don’t see particularly big signs that Russia will go there directly any time soon, but we’re merely keeping track of the movements and sentiments. It makes far more sense that for now, any potential phantom Russian brigades purported to be in the pipeline will be sent to one of the current breakthrough areas in the Donetsk or Bakhmut directions. There Russian forces have been making huge headway in a variety of settlements, from Novomikhailovka, to Pervomaisk, Krasnogorovka, etc. In the Bakhmut direction it’s Chasov Yar, as well as continued advances in the Avdeevka direction. So this whole connected front makes more sense for where new forces might be injected to develop breakthroughs and keep pushing in order to not give the retreating AFU here any chance to dig in, which will keep the momentum going like an avalanche.

Let’s cover a few disparate but important items.

Russia continues to show its massive industrial output. A new T-90M echelon was sent to the front:

And Shoigu visited Omsktransmash, where Russian T-80BVMs are being manufactured en masse. You can see the sheer scale and vast multitude of tanks being produced:

Scoffing doubters have brought up the fact that these are not brand new T-80s, as Russia still no longer produces them. These are all old hulls being restored and upgraded to T-80BVM status. However, in the video Shoigu notes that phase 1 of the resumption of a full T-80 production line has been completed, which is that Russia is now producing the turbine engines from scratch—which you can see in the video as well. The final phase will be for Russia to start actually manufacturing the hulls themselves, which is planned.

Another extremely significant development is that the tanks are now being rolled out with a native anti-drone EW system some are calling the ‘ZIP’:

This is a major deal, and is a first for the tanks to be equipped at the factory level, rather than with a field upgrade/attachment later on. That means Russia now has the world’s first and only main battle tank with native EW of this kind. That’s a big milestone and a testament to Shoigu’s hard work in pushing the equally hard-working defense industry to their limits.

—

CIA director burns openly stated that Ukraine will lose by end of 2024 if aid is not rendered immediately:

Actual speech:

And the topic of speeches by globalist cretins, here’s a remarkable soundbite from Boris Johnson who says the quiet part aloud, that the Ukraine war is actually all about preserving Western Atlanticist hegemony:

It’s fascinating how “mask-off” these elites go when all the chips are down and the situation is so desperate that there’s literally nothing left to lose.

—

And a final fascinating speech demonstrating their desperation comes from Stoltenberg. Here he openly admits that Europe’s stocks are so depleted that they must send Ukraine even their own personal strategic supplies, dangerously dipping below strict NATO reserves requirements for their own armies:

So, in essence, he’s now admitting that NATO is being totally demilitarized for Ukraine. Good news.

—

Another vindication. Many pro-UA trolls mocked me when I said online that Ukraine’s laughable attacks on Russian oil refineries were nearly inconsequential as Russia has some of the deepest oil heavy equipment infrastructure in the world and can repair any such damage fairly quickly. Now once again I’ve been vindicated as Western MSM broke the news that damage caused by Ukraine’s attacks was in fact quickly restored:

Not to mention:

—

That’s all for now—now, we must sit and wait to see how the U.S. Congress and Republican spectacle plays out, vis-a-vis the Ukrainian aid. Depending on which way that goes, will have major consequences on the remainder of the war. Not even necessarily so much from the actual aid itself—which I already explained may not end up amounting to much real material gain at the end of the day—but even from the standpoint of support and morale for Ukraine. At this critical juncture, if the aid were to stall or end forever, it could have devastating effects on the Ukrainian army’s morale and ability to continue fighting for the rest of this year, particularly as Russia launches its onslaught in a few months. But the shadow cast by the aid, whether it brings any real value or not, could lift the AFU’s spirits with the knowledge that ‘America still has their back’, though even that won’t ultimately change much, just prolong the suffering a bit longer.

I’ll leave you with a thought-provoking quote I came across from the German philosopher and Russophile Walter Schubart. What do you think, any truth to his generalizations?

“Western European man views life as a slave whose neck he has stepped on... He does not look with devotion at the sky, but, full of lust for power, looks down at the earth with evil, hostile eyes. Russian people are obsessed not with the will to power, but with a feeling of reconciliation and love. He is filled not with anger and hatred, but with the deepest trust in the essence of the world. He sees in man not an enemy, but a brother.” An Englishman wants to see the world as a factory, a Frenchman as a salon, a German as a barracks, a Russian as a church. The Englishman wants loot, the Frenchman wants glory, the German wants power, the Russian wants sacrifice. The Englishman wants to profit from his neighbor, the Frenchman wants to impress his neighbor, the German wants to command his neighbor, but the Russian doesn’t want anything from him. He does not want to turn his neighbor into his means. This is the brotherhood of the Russian heart and the Russian idea. And this is the Gospel of the future. The Russian all-man is the bearer of a new solidarity. Promethean man is already doomed to death. The era of John's man is coming - a man of love and freedom. This is the future of the Russian people. The West is driven by unbelief, fear and selfishness; The Russian soul is driven by faith, peace and brotherhood. That is why the future belongs to Russia…”

---

Your support is invaluable. If you enjoyed the read, I would greatly appreciate if you subscribed to a monthly/yearly pledge to support my work, so that I may continue providing you with detailed, incisive reports like this one.

Alternatively, you can tip here: Tip Jar

---