SITREP 5/29/24: NATO Ramps Up Figleaf of Cross-Border Strikes

There’s no one big thematic development to cover today so we’ll just keep abreast of some side developments in preparation for the larger storms to come—so this will be a scattershot assemblage of interesting updates.

I’ll start with what is the most interesting news to me: Ukraine’s defense minister Umerov has stated in a new Reuters interview that Russia plans to insert an additional massive 200-300k troops into Ukraine.

This is obviously huge, if true. The 500k figure is roughly what we already know as Russia’s contingent currently involved in the SMO, but the addition of another 200-300k—the equivalent of multiple field armies—is a far greater force than most imagined Russia would utilize in the next wave.

Umerov doesn’t specify if this is to be the land force used in the new northern campaign, but if that’s the case, then one can’t help but imagine Russia seeks to put an end to the war once and for all.

Recall that we’ve heard figures like 20-30k being used for Russia’s northern Kharkov contingent, counting reserves which have not been used yet, but some reports claimed this figure can quickly swell to 50-80k.

It’s possible that Russia could eventually jack up the Kharkov contingent to 100k+ then slowly inject another 100k+ into Sumy, with potentially another 100k in Chernigov or elsewhere.

In light of this, rumors also continue about the mysterious buildup in Belarus, with new claims that the helicopter contingent Russia has added to Baranovichi airfield near Minsk has grown and that helicopters are spotted flying around.

AFU reports Russian aviation activity over Belarus more and more

But where is this new potential 200-300k being taken from? Those who’ve been reading here for a while know I’ve tracked Shoigu’s newly raised army of nearly 500k men throughout 2023, and we’ve often discussed whether they would be utilized in real combat operations or kept as a reserve deterrent force against NATO. I leaned in the direction of it being a reserve force, but I think both are right in that Russia has continued recruiting men throughout 2024 as well, which means by now they likely have even far more than that original 500k. Thus, taking even 200-300k of them for combat operations can leave hundreds of thousands in reserve, which will still accumulate toward the 500k mark again by this year.

It’s hard to know how much of it is exaggeration, but Ukrainian reports have recently claimed that Russian forces outnumber them 8:1 or even 10:1 in some areas of the eastern front. Ukraine is not keeping up with Russian recruitment whatsoever, as numbers for the new ‘mobilization’ continue to look dire. Even police from cities like Kharkov have reportedly been thinned out and sent to the front:

Every spare body is being used, and so it’s only logical to conclude that if Russia were to introduce such a sizable force, it could swamp Ukrainian defenders once and for all.

Of course, this poses the counter question which many have rightfully asked: if the situation is truly that dire, then why aren’t Russian forces totally breaking through on every front, and why are they still experiencing many losses in every bitter, clawing advance?

I would answer:

1. To some extents we can argue Russia is breaking through on every front. There are advances everywhere but they are limited, inches at a time due to Russia not being in a hurry and thus prioritizing caution and safety over anything else. They’re happy to gain a few meters per day with very small scale attacks to maximize soldier safety.

2. In the modern warfare, particularly the way Ukraine has mastered its technological aspects, the defender is vastly favored over the attacker when it comes to land assaults. Thus, a much smaller coefficient of defenders is needed to thwart a disproportionate attack, given the defender has access to the latest state of the art ISR capabilities. That’s because the defender has full battlefield awareness of the attacker, who is forced to bring himself out in the open for the assault. The defender, on the other hand, can remain in hidden and entrenched positions, somewhat nullifying the attacker’s own ISR. Thus in the modern sphere, a 1:10 differentiation in forces is not as unfavorable for the defender as it once was—particularly when the defender has evolved into the most sophisticated practitioner of modern drone warfare in the world. Yes, there is no equal on earth in drone warfare to the Ukrainians—they are virtuosos of the art for a variety of reasons: a) necessity, while Russia has the ‘luxury’ to be looser with drone usage b) Ukraine has always been the epicenter of technological advancement in the USSR, and some of its cultural tradition has carried over to tech ingenuity c) Ukraine has access to far greater drone-adjacent technologies from Western partners, while Russia is shut out from all global tech/semiconductor/AI/electronics markets.

3. There is always the possibility that Ukraine is playing at a bit of maskirovka and its troop woes are not as bad as we’d like to believe. It’s classic Sun Tzu 101: appear weak if you are strong.

4. Russian troops are still mastering the art of combined arms advancement under the modern technological umbrella. That means even with the massive edge of numbers, they aren’t universally proficient at advancing against an entrenched foe. I say universally because RF forces are uneven: some units/formations are more elite and have the art down pat compared to others.

5. Russian munitions production may not yet allow the types of vast expenditures necessary for mass maneuvers and breakthroughs. Sure, they’re doing well enough to keep up their own daily cadence of shell usage, etc., but that is a medium-intensity cadence that is much different than the types of expenditures typically necessary for large-scale offensives. Russia may not want to ‘blow its load’ like it did in Izyum and elsewhere long ago, firing 60-100k shells a day. It is now waging a very methodical and surgically calculated precision campaign. While its production has ramped up, so has the size of its forces which means a relatively gargantuan amount of munitions is still required to quench the thirst across the entire front.

Rezident UA #Inside
Our source in the General Staff said that the Russian army is now trying to stretch the forces of the Armed Forces along the entire front line, while destroying our heavy equipment. Such a strategy is designed for a long time and does not pursue the goal of quick breakthroughs of the front, the enemy wants to exhaust our army, and then move on to the next stage.

Here’s a recent example of an assault on Krasnogorovka, where a Russian armored column successfully and professionally conducts a troop discharge onto enemy positions without losses:

Another showing the crazy new Russian turtle tanks in action:

Assault on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces south of the village of Krasnoe - 48.55968, 37.92807. Our tanks have a very futuristic look

I must admit, the complaints from the front about various issues have markedly dropped for Russia. There are still plenty here and there, but they are nothing compared to a few months ago, where it was a daily occurrence to hear angry outbursts about the lack of shells on one front, or lack of counterbattery warfare on another, drone and EW issues, etc., etc. It can still change in the future as war has a way of being dynamic, but for now things appear running relatively smoothly.

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The arms woes continue mounting for Ukraine. The following CNN frontline report about the Abrams tank is a must-see:

Not only do the AFU tankmen say the Abrams isn’t properly armored for modern combat, they speak of its various breakdowns and inability to withstand the terrain. The consolation is “it’s still better than the Soviet tanks”. Well, yeah—the ones Ukraine has—which are all old and obsolete. The modern upgraded Russian ones are a different story; i.e. the T-72B3M, T-80BVM, T-90M, etc.

Then, in another devastating blow to the reputation of U.S.’ top systems, MSM reports that the U.S. stopped even sending the Excalibur guided artillery round because it has performed so dismally, continually jammed by Russian EW:

This leaves the Russian Krasnopol as king of the battlefield, which continues not only performing daily, but whose use has vastly increased. Just in the past few days alone we’ve seen footage of Abrams, M109s, and other high profile Western systems all taken out with the Krasnopol.

One of the reasons the Krasnopol has gained an even greater edge is that the bottleneck has always been the laser illuminator, most of which were bulky legacy Soviet Malakhit ground kits. The Orlan-30 also performs the function but was not as widespread. Now, however, Russia has rolled out increasing numbers of systems, like a new Granat-4 UAV, which also have laser designators, which greatly expands the Krasnopol’s usage all over the front:

Unlike the Excalibur which uses only jammable GPS, the Krasnopol’s main guidance is with laser, which cannot really be jammed—though it can have certain issues with heavy cloud cover and things like that.

Now the West is increasingly worried about Russia’s unparalleled industrial achievements.

https://archive.ph/2TObD

The new WSJ article above claims Russia’s new drone factory in Tatarstan will shortly pump out 6,000 Shaheds per year, which is 500 a month, or 17 a day:

The plan is for the Alabuga facility to churn out 6,000 Shahed attack drones a year, in addition to surveillance drones, according to a contract between the plant’s Russian managers and their Iranian partners leaked by the Prana Network and that was independently corroborated by two advisers to the British government. At the end of April, the factory was ahead of its production schedule, having already supplied 4,500 of the promised Shaheds, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based defense-focused think tank.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to keep up, NYTimes reports the U.S. is finalizing the opening of its first new arms production plant since the start of the SMO, the long-awaited Mesquite, Texas General Dynamics artillery ammunition plant:

https://archive.ph/Cg6re

Here, in the Pentagon’s first new major arms plant built since Russia invaded Ukraine, Turkish workers in orange hard hats are busy unpacking wood crates stenciled with the name Repkon, a defense company based in Istanbul, and assembling computer-controlled robots and lathes.

The factory will soon turn out about 30,000 steel shells every month for the 155-millimeter howitzers that have become crucial to Kyiv’s war effort.

Firstly, it’s interesting it mentions Turkish workers unpacking Turkish robotics and lathes for the plant: weren’t they making fun of Russia for utilizing Austrian and Japanese robotics? Why the double standard?

They claim the new plant will do 30k shells a month—but that’s after it reaches full capacity, which apparently may not be for a long time.

Quoted in the article, Michael Kofman remains dubious:

“I would say those late-2025 output targets will arrive late in this war, and it is likely that Russian artillery output will still be higher than the U.S. and Europe combined at that point.”

“Let’s say a year and a half from now both the U.S. and Europe are making, or buying, over a million shells each,” he added. “That’s still probably less than Russia is going to produce this year.”

But as usual, the boy-wonder analyst remains behind the curve. If the war is still ongoing by the end of 2025, the shell count will be the least of Ukraine’s worries. By then, the main bottleneck will be the artillery systems themselves. Not only has Russia recently been massively attriting Ukrainian artillery guns, but the West itself no longer produces the vast majority of them. M777s are no longer made, the Caesar—as I reported recently—takes nearly a year to construct a single piece. By 2025, Ukraine will be left with nothing but short ranged WWII guns while Russia is mass-producing 2S35 Koalitsiyas and 2S19M2 variants of the Msta-s.

Another vindication of my reporting on this specific tack comes from Zelensky himself yesterday. Recall I was the only one who called NATO’s bluff about having ‘better’ and ‘longer range’ artillery systems. I said repeatedly that the main standard NATO 155mm round that Ukraine uses, as fired from the M777 and other guns, has an objectively shorter range than the standard 152mm round Russia fires from its mainstay systems.

Well, now Zelensky admits they have “no long range 155mm” rounds at all:

So much for that NATO artillery superiority.

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Zelensky mentions the now ongoing narrative about striking over the Russian border, so it’s a good time to segue into that to explain something important:

As we know, the entire West has latched onto this most ‘pressing’ issue of striking Russian territory. But I’m here to tell you: the entire thing is a giant mirage, a facade, a red herring.

First of all: Ukraine has obviously already been striking Russian territory unabatingly with a variety of weapons like the AGM-88 Harms in Belgorod, etc. Secondly, there is no real particularly exceptional damage it can do with such strikes because most Russian supply lines are along the eastern front, which is by far the largest current front—not in the north where Zelensky is currently focusing. The Kharkov operation is just a minor diversionary one for now. But the majority of the eastern rear lines, C2/3 nodes, etc., are far out of range of any possible weapon Ukraine has, including ATACMS.

Thus, the entire thing is a sham, a totally artificial narrative created under the false guise of needing to hit Russian rear lines. In reality, the actual truth entirely revolves around needing to escalate the conflict to save the AFU, which is collapsing. It has nothing to do with hitting Russian supply lines which are way out of reach anyway, and everything to do with the escalation creep of triggering Russia’s red lines and slowly wedging NATO into the conflict.

The real hopes of this recent highly coordinated push can be broken down to two things:

1. To continue increasing pressure on Russia, to make Putin feel “cornered” and hopefully create political instabilities—which obviously has no chance of working.

2. To precondition the more sheepish and reluctant of the NATO/Western “allies” into escalating by ‘leading the way’ in showing Russia’s lines can be pushed more and more, which will allow political pressure to be applied to the most cautious EU/NATO leaders in coercing them into increasing their own involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.

The entire goal remains to subtly force as many of the reluctant Western countries as possible into escalating against Russia, to affect the image of a ‘united front’. The more that countries can stand in ‘solidarity’, the more their own citizens can be pressured and guilt-tripped into perpetual financial support of Ukraine.

The obvious way of doing that is by causing Russia to respond in some uncharacteristic way that can be declared as a ‘threat’, which will be used to galvanize this contrived Western solidarity. In short: it’s a slow, devious boa constrictor move to expand the Western coalition and its slow-drip involvement in the Ukraine war, lowering the fear threshold for continued Western involvement which—they hope—can eventually lead to the conditioning of Western publics into accepting boots on the ground to save Ukraine at the final hour.

Part of this subtle, insidious campaign involves things like the following:

Bild writes about the creation of some kind of "advanced logistics" for Ukraine, which is currently being developed in the offices of NATO. It was initiated by Poland and supported by France, Great Britain, Canada and the Baltic states. The United States and Germany opposed it. Apparently, the Ukrainians steal so much humanitarian and military aid that the owners decided to take control of logistics entirely into their own hands. In addition, the option of covering the western regions of Ukraine with NATO air defense forces is being considered.

Not to mention this rumor:

⚡️⚡️⚡️#Inside

Our source at the General Staff said that military personnel from France have been in Lviv and Odessa for a month now, where they are training Ukrainian soldiers. Now this is not a large contingent of instructors, but in June the arrival of three hundred military personnel is expected, who will work in five regions of the country.

It’s the gradual creep which they hope can ‘boil the frog’ of public awareness so that by the time the public realizes the extent of it, the excuse can be: “Yeah, but we’ve had troops there for a long time now, there’s nothing to worry about!”

In the meantime though, the other hedge currently being prepared is the laying of the groundwork to freeze the conflict, in case the escalation plan fails.

🇪🇺🇷🇺🇺🇦 The EU wants to organize a peace conference on Ukraine in the fall with the participation of Russia - Bloomberg

▪️It should take place in Saudi Arabia.

▪️ “An important issue for the EU, officials say, is how to move from the Swiss conference next month to a possible meeting in Saudi Arabia in the fall with Russia,” the publication writes.

▪️Currently, EU foreign ministers are discussing “how to find an acceptable result” for the summit in Switzerland.

Now that Russia and China have rejected the Swiss conference, the West appears desperate to organize another one in Saudi Arabia with Russia and China’s actual participation. They know that if they can’t goad Putin into overreacting to the provocation plan, then Russia will continue methodically breaking through until Ukraine collapses. In that case, they must find a way to freeze the conflict by convincing Russia to negotiate. But what possible incentive would Russia have to do that when—as Ukraine’s own defense minister claimed—Russia stands to inject a massive 300k army to decapitate the AFU and get the entire prize in one fell swoop?

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In a new conference, Putin addressed much of the above discussed issues. Here are a few of the choicest highlights.

NATO operating the long-range weapons in Ukraine:

Zelensky may soon lower the mobilization age to 18 and then be forcibly replaced by someone:

Once the Polish contingent comes in, they will never leave Ukraine—a reference to Poland taking parts of Western Ukraine in the future:

Lastly and most importantly, Putin says the entire state must operate on a war footing the same as the fighters on the front, in order to achieve victory:

Propagandists are interpreting this as Putin sending the whole country to war. On the contrary, he appears to be referring mainly to the government as clear part of his new initiative in totally cleaning out all the corruption. He’s basically saying the entire state structure must function with the proficiency, resilience, and serious focus of a country at a historically momentous crossroads. This merely puts the icing on the cake of all the latest firings and arrests of various corrupt officials—it’s clear that something has changed and Putin is now operating like the guy who came in rousting the roost in 2000, overturning tables and lashing moneychangers out of the holy temple that is Russia.

Now Putin has again promoted rising star and patriot Dyumin to Secretary of the State Council:

Two new secretaries appeared in Russia:

🎖 Secretary of the Security Council S. Shoigu (appointed 2 weeks ago)

🎖 Secretary of the State Council A. Dyumin (appointed today)

Which one will be closer to the image of the Secretary General?

Which of the two Councils will become more important?

The interesting angle to this was the timely uncovering of Dyumin’s condolences for Prigozhin at the time of his death:

The Governor of the Tula region Alexey Dyumin expressed his condolences to the families and friends of Yevgeny Prigozhin, Dmitry Utkin, other passengers and crew members of the plane that crashed in the Tver region.

"Their deaths are a great tragedy and loss for the country. Over the past few years, PMC Wagner, in cooperation with other units of the Russian Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies, has performed the most complex combat missions in the interests of Russia in different parts of the world. President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin noted the significant contribution that Wagner employees have made to the common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.

I knew Yevgeny Prigozhin as a true patriot, a man of determination and fearlessness. He did a lot for the country, and his homeland will not forget him. We grieve for those who died in this disaster, for all the soldiers of the PMC Wagner who fell during the SVO. You can forgive mistakes and even cowardice, betrayal-never. They were not traitors," Alexey Dyumin said.

This is quite interesting in light of all recent developments, particularly the slant that Shoigu’s faction has slowly been getting uprooted—or so some claim. The fact that Dyumin did not consider Prigozhin to be a traitor would certainly serve to supercharge theories that Prigozhin’s final ‘March of Justice’ against the ‘MOD’s corruption’ has slowly been successfully carried out from beyond the grave.

One is reminded of that final fateful interview at Prigozhin’s black sedan window, as he was whisked out of Rostov after his takeover of the MOD HQ, where he said something to the effect of: it was a mission accomplished because despite not overtly succeeding in capturing Moscow, or whatever it is they attempted to do, his actions would reverberate and instigate positive ‘change’ in the MOD’s culture. In essence, he gave them enough of a scare to jumpstart a campaign of deep reform.

Could it be? I’ll leave that to you to decide. Of course, if Shoigu himself were to ‘go down’ eventually as part of the ongoing corruption purges then we would surely have our final answer of who really won in the end.

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In the meantime, the U.S. empire continues to go down in a flaming wreck before our eyes:

The $300M Gaza pier collapsed and is reportedly being disassembled for good:

While another F-35 just crashed literally on its way from the Lockheed production line:

And the Houthis downed another almost fully intact MQ-9 Reaper:

The U.S. Empire has never looked so utterly exhausted, defeated, and bereft of any redeeming moral standing or leadership qualities as it does now:

The optics have never been worse—it is truly an Empire in total terminal decline, its entrails strewn across the globe for all to see.

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Last few items:

A series of new aircraft shelters/hangars have been observed by satellite at the Volgograd airfield:

The MilitaryAviationInUa blog noticed the appearance of arched aircraft shelters at Marynivka airfield in the Volgograd region. The airfield is PPD 11 SAP, armed with Su-24M and -MR.

It is known that the first shelters at the airfield appeared at the beginning of November last year (photo 2). Also, as of May 28, the satellite image (photo 3) of the airbase shows the presence of several Su-34s in the central parking lot.

Looks like Russia is finally starting to get around to belatedly building the hangars, though apparently this one was some sort of ‘sponsored’ effort, rather than paid for by the state.

This fairly instantly nullifies such strikes as from ATACMS in two key ways:

1. Stops fairly weak cluster munitions from damaging the planes

2. Stops NATO satellite recon from knowing where the Russian planes are, forcing them to play a shell game in guessing which hangars are occupied.

That being said, SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellites can potentially penetrate the hangars if they are made from thinner material like some kind of aluminum.

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A number of mercenaries continue perishing on the front in Ukraine:

⚡️🇫🇷🇺🇦☠️FRENCH SOLDIER KILLED IN UKRAINE - UNVERIFIED: Pics above reportedly show corpse of French Foreign Legion trooper, dead after making mistake of trying to take on Russian soldiers.

Soldier allegedly member of France’s 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment - earlier, former U.S. Deputy Defense Undersecretary claimed Foreign Legion troops already in Ukraine on Napoleon wannabe Macron’s orders.

And now a Norwegian soldier seen after a Russian assault on Ukrainian trenches:

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Telegraph provocatively titled a new article “Ukraine knows it is finished” but quickly changed it 3 times:

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Lastly,

A little interesting update regarding Russia’s usage of the new UMPB glide bombs:

Factory markings indicate that Russia has averaged production of at least 12 UMPB glide bombs per day over the past two months.

This gives an annualized production volume of at least ~4,400 rounds, which is likely to rise as Russia continues to scale capacity.

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