SITREP 6/1/24: Ukraine's Latest Gasp Off to Rocky Start
An orgiastic hubbub continues to surround the West’s newfound ‘permission’ for Ukraine to strike Russian soil:
Many in the pro-Russian sphere are losing their minds over it, calling for nuclear retaliation, WWIII, and more.
But as I wrote last time, it’s clear that a large part of this desperate morale-boosting work-up is nothing more than a cheap grandstand without much substance behind it.
There’s the fact that when you look under the hood, the messaging itself is mixed, with Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh yesterday contradicting reports by stating that Ukraine does not in fact have permission to strike Russian territory:
This was followed by reports further tempering the noise which said that Ukraine has limited permission to use American weapons only around Belgorod region and only on Russian military targets which are involved in the ongoing Kharkov campaign.
Yesterday strikes on Belgorod region began, with images surfacing which show recovered GMLRS rounds from the HIMARS after Belgorod defenses allegedly downed a full salvo. However, once more the totally futile and ineffective attempt served merely as a screen for Russia’s own far more devastating barrage, launched from the usual complement of Tu-95 bombers:
The strikes once more targeted the remainder of Ukraine’s energy grid, hitting Dnipro Hydroelectric plant among others:
Double arrival of Kh-101 missiles at the Dnipro hydroelectric power station on the night of June 1
The Dnieper hydroelectric power station, which is the largest hydroelectric power station in Ukraine, is in critical condition after explosions in the Kyiv-controlled city of Zaporozhye. This was announced by the head of the regional administration subordinate to the Ukrainian authorities, Ivan Fedorov.
“At the moment, the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station is in critical condition,” he said on the Rada TV channel. “We’re not even talking about generating electricity,” Fedorov added.
At the same time that U.S. was allegedly giving Ukraine reluctant permission for limited strikes, the U.S. conversely reprimanded their ward for the strikes on Russia’s strategic anti-ballistic missile early warning radar sites by issuing a statement of ‘concern’ about the strikes.
My personal reading of the situation as of now is as follows:
Zelensky was getting desperate with the ongoing failures and the U.S.’ lack of follow through on the so-called aid package and weapons deliveries. Thus, to put pressure on Biden, Zelensky went a bit rogue and deliberately crossed the U.S.’ own lines in hitting the Russian radar sites to scare Biden back into the fold. Now, in order to placate his intractable puppet, Biden was forced to make some desperate concession to calm Zelensky down: thus the somewhat erratic and failed rollout of the strike “permissions”.
However, despite how unsteady the U.S./Ukraine partnership is hobbling along, Russia is still forced to make serious considerations in regard to escalatory procedures for the crossed red lines, because signaling indecision and passivity is an exploitable weakness which potentially erodes Russia’s nuclear deterrence—the same deterrence which relies entirely on adversaries believing that Russia will act decisively when threatened to an unacceptable degree.
The fact is: the commentariat is split at the moment on this issue. Half the people and ‘analysts’ are in apoplectic and apocalyptic fury, declaring that Russia will lose all its might and standing in the world if it doesn’t react in some over the top way, the other half is dismissive. I’m mostly in the dismissive camp because I think Ukrainian attacks are overblown, not to mention that the attack on the OTH radar was likely met with very sharp reproofs behind the scenes which may mean Ukraine will not try it again. Likewise, Russia could have issued new sets of threats to the appropriate offices. Of course, if Ukraine does continue being insolent then things could change.
For now, there are some rumors of Russia’s response; for example:
This would be a perfectly appropriate response in my view because we know Russia has already shot down an American RQ-9 with no adverse effect, as the Houthis likewise routinely down them without even thinking twice—to which the U.S. doesn’t respond.
By citing the RQ-4 as being involved in the attacks on the OTH radars, Russia would be within full justified rights in shooting even just one of them down demonstratively, and this of course would be linked with the other strikes on Russian soil allegedly soon to come.
This recent statement from Elena Panina from Russian RUSSTRAT thinktank gives an interesting breakdown:
The sign language of Russia and the United States: a “phase of exchanges” has begun in the party in Ukraine In the conversation between Russia and the United States, a certain readable language has emerged that can be read and understood. The sequence of steps and actions is this language: everything has a clear meaning. This makes it possible to understand what both sides are trying to achieve and to state that such a language of gestures is still readable and that the situation has not collapsed into chaos.
Thus, we see a clear desire on the part of the West to drive Russia into an escalation algorithm favorable to NATO. This is a protracted war of attrition against our country, waged exclusively with conventional weapons, for which NATO has the potential for quantitative and/or qualitative advantage. Even in those weapons where Russia has a predominance, NATO is trying to compensate for the situation with the combined use of other means of attack.
Russia is signaling that it sees this scenario and is conducting TNW (Tactical Nuclear Weapons) deployment exercises, albeit without loading warheads. This is a warning that there is a counter-scenario and that the West will not be able to impose its war plan.
The West immediately responds with strikes on Russian missile warning system (MWS) radar stations near Armavir and Orenburg, with a simultaneous attack on an antenna in Crimea, also used for this purpose. So far, this is only a demonstration. But the West has outlined the trajectories of future strikes and made it clear that it is capable of attacking Russia’s SPRN in a combined and serial manner, if Russia develops the topic of TNWs, rather than continuing the war according to the NATO plan by conventional means, where the West expects to realize its resource advantage.
At the same time, Russia is being given to understand that the West sees the problem of manning the AFU and is preparing to introduce contingents of NATO countries into Ukraine. NATO intends to block Russian intentions to block this build-up with TNWs by denoting its ability to blind our Strategic Nuclear Forces. This, according to the West, should force Russia to give up its strong trump card and accept an ultimatum in the fall, the text of which will be approved in Switzerland in June. At the same time, the West is conducting exercises to launch nuclear attacks near our borders. The pressure on the Russian leadership is exerted on all fronts, in combination. Preparedness for nuclear attacks, counting on internal instability, demonstrating readiness to expand escalation without restrictions - this is the language the West is now using with Russia. The goal is to convince the Russian leadership that it is impossible to inflict unacceptable damage on the West and surrender.
Putin responds to the West at the final press conference in Uzbekistan that everything was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines. Russia sees and understands all the preparations of the West and has the will, forces and means to break this scenario. Moscow keeps its composure, realizes its resources and acts optimally. And it warns that everything will be different: Putin did not accidentally mention the high population density in Europe. Russia keeps the entire arsenal of possible responses to the West in reserve. Restraint should not be interpreted as passivity, but it should show the Global South Russia’s sanity on the eve of the conference in Switzerland. And thereby influence neutrals and allies in their attitudes toward the West’s agenda. Russia is showing that it sees the South’s concerns and is taking them into account, but it is not indefinite. If the West moves to another escalation stage, Russia will respond, and if it is important to the South that this not happen, it has a chance to press the West. That is where the nuclear threat to the world stems from.
Before us is a chess game where Russia is playing Black. Her strategy is built in relation to White’s strategy. The opening is over, the exchange phase (middlegame) has begun. White shows that he is ready to throw pieces off the board and move to a fight. Black shows that it will cost White a lot. The strategy of the West is a penned hunt, the strategy of Russia is a hunt for the hunter. These strategies are 200 years old, they are constant and are now being repeated. The West understands only real answers, it will not stop until it has tried everything. Russia will have to respond in kind. It’s about where Ukraine’s borders will be drawn and how the new balance of power in Europe will be formed. — Elena Panina, director of the Institute for International Political and Economic Strategies (RUSSTRAT)
I agree with much of what she says apart from that it was the West’s idea to strike Russian OTH radars. As I stated, I believe this was Zelensky’s rogue action against the West’s wishes. However, there are fine points to this: it is very likely that some secretive faction from the West—i.e. intel services—are working with Zelensky on this against the ruling administration’s wishes; this is very common in the U.S., where the CIA is often at odds with the Pentagon, with each supporting totally opposing sides.
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Now Zelensky continues drumming up false threats of Russia’s ‘impending’ provocations against Europe, which of course always signals the projections of what NATO itself actually plans to do to bait Russia:
Which as always came hand-in-glove with a slew of propaganda support from the yellow press:
This included a new Lemonde article which reports that French instructors may be sent to Ukraine within days:
Ukrainian Rada MP Goncharenko appeared to confirm this:
The first group of military instructors from France is already heading to Ukraine, says Supreme Rada deputy Alexey Goncharenko.
But again: as ‘scary’ as it sounds, it’s still most likely just an inert attempt at the ‘strategic ambiguity’ and tension they’ve talked so much about. Everyone knows France has nothing they can possibly threaten Russia with.
If troops arrive, they are merely to be trainers for the purposes of:
1. Freeing up any Ukrainian rear troops to send to the front
2. Bolstering Ukrainian morale in a show of ‘solidarity’ with the illusion that Europe and NATO will go all the way for Ukraine, which is simply not the reality
What they don’t blare about as loudly, however, are the welter of voices from within their own camp that are totally opposed to all this. Turkey, Italy, and many others have continued loudly denouncing any troops on the ground:
Now, Belgium has reportedly announced they will not allow their supposed F-16s to be used against Russian territory:
As always, the ‘unified front’ is illusory—just another in a long line of desperate figments.
As to the above comment about Ukrainian soldiers being forced to fight “with one hand tied behind their back”—which is repeatedly thrown around now by the pro-UA camp—we must remember one thing:
It is Russia that is even to a larger extent fighting with its hands tied behind its back. Ukraine is using the full-fledged resources of NATO’s ISR capabilities from friendly countries or international airspace—like in the case of the Black Sea Global Hawks—which have been off limits to Russia. The same goes for all of Ukraine’s rear supply lines: Ukrainians claim Russia has an advantage because they can’t strike its logistics chains but the same obviously goes for Ukraine—its main logistics arteries in Poland are safe from any Russian disruption. So why the crying, hysteria, and double standards?
Technical View
But the other thing to comment on is the supposed big news that Sweden will be donating two of its Saab 340 Erieye AWACS planes:
This is being ginned up as the next “game changer” that will totally eliminate the Russian airforce. The AWACS—or as Sweden dubs them, the AEW&C—is meant to have 300-400km range and via NATO’s interoperable Link-16 datalink can digitally beam targets to both Ukrainian F-16s and air defenses on the ground. This is apparently a last ditch desperate effort to try and stop Russian glide-bomb heaving Su-34s, which are currently decimating the AFU.
But the problems here are so many that it would likely take an entire dedicated article to list them all. Firstly, having only two of these planes obviously means they can only be used sparingly, and certainly can’t provide round-the-clock coverage. That means right off the bat, they’ll be designated for the occasional mission.
Next: unlike Ukrainian fighter jets which can be quickly scrambled out of bases to avoid strikes, it’s not as easy to move these planes, which means they will be susceptible to ground interdiction by Kinzhals and co. Also unlike fighter jets, they cannot be effectively used from highways and other improvised landing strips, which vastly limits their options. They will have to be stored far in the west of the country, which means at their slow speed of ~500km/h, it will take them an hour or more just to get to the front, and their flight endurance—according to wiki—is only 5 hours total.
Next and biggest problem: they present gigantic targets themselves, and for their radars to see as far as possible, they obviously have to fly at the highest possible altitude. Unlike fighter jets, however, they are incapable of any real anti-missile notching style or quick diving maneuvers, which means a long range missile is almost a surefire kill against them. Russia not only has the hypersonic R-37M with a range of over 300km+, but also the rare KS-172 which was developed specifically as an AWACS killer and is the longest range air-to-air missile in the world, with an over 400km+ range. According to unsourced ‘rumors’, Russia is planning to un-mothball these rare missiles to deal with the Swedish AWACS threat.
The problem with AWACS is that anything they can see can also sees them. Russian S-300/400s on the ground also have the same detection range, Russian jets in the air, etc. AWACS are supposed to be protected by a powerful wall of air defense fighters—something Ukraine simply doesn’t have and won’t have even with its meager handful of lousy F-16s. An AWACS has next to no chance to dodge even the longest range missiles, as the hypersonic R-37M, for example, takes merely 2 minutes to reach even its maximum range of hundreds of kilometers, which gives no time for a propeller plane to even descend out of radar view, nor does it have the thrust to exhaust the missile by bleeding its energy via maneuvers—not to mention presents a massive RCS target for the missile’s active homing head.
No, the only realistic usage such craft can have in Ukraine is for defensive purposes. They will be positioned in the west of the country and be sent up when Russian Tu-95s take off. They will be used to provide an additional radar net in detecting Russian cruise missiles in order to facilitate the planned F-16s in shooting the missiles down. That’s it.
However, this is all a moot point as my bet would be that the AWACS will never make it in country, and is merely another chest-puffing bluff meant to blow smoke up Ukraine’s skirt. The F-16s will likely never get there either, though at least there’s a somewhat better chance of a token handful of them eventually being sent.
The other technical matter to comment on briefly was the reported ATACMS strike on Kerch, not far away from the bridge. Some reports even claim it was an attempted strike on the bridge itself, though this isn’t definitively known.
In the early hours of 30 May.
The AFU used a new modification of the ATACMS missile - MGM-164 ATACMS 2000 Mod, or MGM-168 ATACMS Block IA
It is clear that one of the two modifications of the advanced MGM-164/168 missiles, equipped with a 227 kg WDU-18B penetrating-fuzed warhead, could have been used in the attack, because of the characteristic of the hole on the ferry deck.
An important technical feature of these missiles is that they are equipped with GPS correction modules, which reduced the circular probable deviation from 250-100 m (for MGM-140A/B cluster missiles) to 10-3 m respectively.
A total of 8 missiles are reported to have been launched. With 6 of them intercepted by S-400. Some of the missiles were intercepted on descending branches of trajectories over the Azov Sea by 48N6DM anti-aircraft missiles, and several on terminal/terminal parts of trajectories.
The damage was minimal. And the ferry restored operation soon after. No more than 2 missiles made it to the target area.
There is no real verification, but the best info we have is around 8 missiles were fired and 6 allegedly shot down, one hitting a ferry with questionable damage, seen above.
The area struck was the ferry terminals at the crossing seen below, with the Kerch Bridge shown a mere 10km south of it:
What can we surmise about the attack?
Firstly, if it truly was ATACMS that was used, it appears the ATACMS can penetrate Russia’s Kerch S-400 defense—but just barely. The result seems pretty much what I expected when I previously wrote that they can likely damage the Kerch bridge minorly, but not bring it down in any significant way. If 6/8 missiles were truly shot down, then it shows they have the ability to make a few pot holes here and there as I surmised, but it’s simply no where near enough to present some sort of crisis-level danger to the Kerch Bridge.
Was this attack some kind of practice run? Or merely meant to keep Russia on alert and feeling vulnerable, though it is ultimately a superficial vulnerability.
The pro-UA side, of course, claims that these strikes were the latest in a long-running campaign to disable Russia’s ability to resupply Crimea and cut its supply lines in preparation for some imagined “follow on” action—as I heard one pro-UA analyst humorously describe it. What “follow on” action could Ukraine possibly exert in capturing Crimea? Beyond the realm of video games and fantasies, I have no idea.
The above report claims the ferry was quickly fixed and resumed operation, by the way. If true, I’m not sure what it means exactly: either the unitary warhead ATACMS is extremely weak or Russian EW fried its fuse and the warhead didn’t actually detonate—which is much more consistent with the visible impact damage to my eyes.
Ultimately, it could be evidence that Russia is slowly wrangling the ATACMS beast and mastering the art of neutralizing it as expected.
Intermission:
“Ukraine doesn’t have enough people,” Bloomberg writes in an article about how mobilization is wiping out talent from the economy.
The labor force in Ukraine, according to experts, has decreased by 27% compared to pre-war levels. “Labor shortages have become one of the main problems for businesses experiencing hiring difficulties, and the search for work is taking more and more effort from managers,” the publication reports.
“Kyiv has to fill the gap left by millions of people who either fled the country, joined the army, or died in battle,” the agency writes. Under these conditions, Ukraine “risks weakening even further.”
More than six million people fled the country from hostilities. “The vacuum has been exacerbated by men who have gone into the shadow economy, where unregistered workers work to evade military conscription.” This problem cannot be solved with the help of allies, the publication writes. An example is the Metinvest group of companies, which spent three months filling 89 of 4,000 vacancies. Many men quit their jobs and found something close to home - so as not to get caught by military registration and enlistment office patrols.
Northern Rumblings
One very interesting thread vis-a-vis Russia’s future battlefield plans continues to develop. We know the Sumy region rumors have been heating up—for instance, this new one:
Russia is gathering forces to attack the Sumy region - The Washington Post.
Over the past week, the number of satellite communication terminals has increased significantly along the border of the Sumy region. There is also a significant increase in radio communications, indicating a large presence of Russian troops.
However, Ukrainian sources claim that there is a lack of aerial reconnaissance, which was in large quantities before the offensive to the north of the Kharkov region
And this very interesting but uncorroborated report:
“The Gomel region of Belarus, bordering Ukraine, is ready to be transferred to wartime.”
This statement was made by the First Deputy Head of the Belarusian Ministry of Emergency Situations Alexander Khudoleev.
Let us recall that earlier Ukrainian Defense Minister Umerov said that Moscow wants to open a new front in the north.
The head of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry did not rule out that Ukraine could launch strikes on the territory of Belarus
Recall that Gomel is the region of Belarus bordering Chernigov and Sumy:
But the most interesting thread I’ve been watching is that for months now, there have been strange utterings about Russian troops in the Dnieper zone practicing river crossings and landings, which I’ve reported before.
Now there has been two strange things. Firstly, a video which I won’t post showing a Russian scuba diver being eliminated by Ukrainian drones, with the following commentary:
The operator of the FPV-drone of the 38th separate brigade of the marines destroyed a Russian scuba diver in the forest near Cossack Camps, on the occupied left bank of the Kherson region.
According to preliminary data, Russian scuba divers are engaged in demining the water area of the Dnipro River, which may indicate preparations for intensifying hostilities on the part of the enemy on this part of the battle line.
46.704319, 33.030259
Followed by reports that Russian forces began to capture islands across the Dnieper virtually on the Ukrainian side, as the below UA post alarmingly concedes:
For a better view, one can see the proximity to Kherson city itself:
So, Russian divers are covertly demining the waters while forces capture islands deeper into the right bank: it is certainly an interesting development.
Now, beach season has opened in Odessa, and here is what the beaches there look like:
It seems they’re expecting something, no?
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Last few sundry items:
A new exchange has taken place between Russia and Ukraine. The most interesting aspect was the ratio of the KIA exchanged: 45 Russian bodies vs. 200 Ukrainian ones—clearly an indication of general loss disparities (4:1):
Today, with the assistance of Saudi Arabia, an exchange of prisoners was made. 75 by 75. Kiev, as always, demanded media prisoners: 19 APU soldiers from Zmeiny Island and 10 Azov fighters from Mariupol. The previous exchange was on February 8, and then it was delayed for almost a month and a half. In addition, the bodies of the dead were exchanged - we gave 200 bodies to the Ukrainians, 45 were returned to us.
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And another rumor about losses from Legitmny channel, unconfirmed but interesting to note nonetheless:
#hearings
Our source reports that the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this month lost as much equipment and infantry as in the Bakhmut meat grinder.
It seems that the West is constantly transferring weapons, but with such a dynamics of the war, stockpiles of weapons are constantly being consumed.
This is the media « silence », and only 2% of everything that happens at the front gets into the network. On the day of the Armed Forces in the Kharkov direction, up to 50 pieces of various equipment may lose (tanks, SAU, howitzers, guns, armored vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, RSZO, pickups, support trucks, other vehicles, etc.).
Everything is very, very difficult.
It’s true that I have noted a severe uptick in Ukrainian armor losses recently. For a long time they were at a low as Ukraine dug in and rarely used armor, but it seems it has picked up, with massive attrition of artillery guns in particular, but many tanks suddenly cropping up as well. Perhaps, then, it is no “coincidence” that two new videos just happened to appear showing one train full of Slovenian M-55S tanks headed to Ukraine, and another showing a train with M1 Abrams tanks moving somewhere through Germany.
And by the way, the past month of May recorded the highest ever Lancet strikes of the war thus far:
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On the topic of blowing smoke, the much-touted Czech ammo initiative continues to deteriorate, with a new report stating that not only did Czechia acquire a tiny fraction of the claimed shells as I had long written, but even the ones they sourced were faulty:
In fact a full 50% of the shells were apparently unusable because they were sourced from African countries:
Michal Strnad, owner and chair of CSG, told the Financial Times that about 50 per cent of the parts acquired by his company on behalf of the Czech government in places such as Africa and Asia were not good enough to be sent to Ukraine without further work. For some shells, CSG is being forced to add missing components from its own production.
What kind of clown show is this?
“Every week the price is going up and there are big issues with the components,” Strnad said during an interview in his company’s Prague offices. “It’s not an easy job.”
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Lastly, June 1 was Prigozhin’s birthday, and admirers as well as colleagues came to pay respects to his grave which has just had a new statue erected days ago:
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You can’t print more people. Ukraine suspended elections. Biden regime trying to throw Trump in jail. EU censoring as much as possible and attacking citizens for being against rapefugees. Such sacred beautiful democracy!
curious - how real are the rumors (?) of attack on US carrier ship by Ansarullah? some RU bloggers write of them 'suddenly finding' some tech in desert lands as asymmetric responses to latest NATO escalations..