SITREP 9/15/24: Ukraine's Situation Worsens as Allied Weapons Drive Flunks

Talk continues to revolve around Zelensky’s big “victory plan”, or rather ‘peace’ plan, with Bild making claims as to what it consists of:

https://www.bild.de/politik/ausland-und-internationales/selenskyjs-schicksalsrede-in-kiew-die-ukraine-hat-nur-noch-eine-chance-66e549a563176b30b5877c46

They outline the next several weeks’ worth of narrative for Ukraine, so you can fairly understand the next thematic stretch of the agenda. Zelensky is going on a long tour to the US to meet both Biden and Kamala, as well as Trump and present his big “plan” to them all.

Controversy erupted, however, when Bild reported that his plan included freezing the fighting on some of the territories currently under Russian control:

According to BILD, this includes both the demand to be allowed to deploy Western long-range weapons deep inside Russia and Ukraine's willingness to accept local ceasefires on certain sections of the front - and thus a temporary freeze of the situation.

Zelensky’s press office quickly shot back an angry refutation:

🏴‍☠ Only a few people know our "Victory Plan". Bild has not seen it. Ukraine does not agree to freeze the conflict , - Zelensky's adviser

▪️D. Litvin denied the information that Zelensky is ready to offer Russia a ceasefire in certain areas of the front, which was written about today by the German Bild.

▪️Bild spread a fake, he claims, noting that "of the few people who are currently involved with Zelensky in preparing the Victory Plan, none spoke to Bild."

▪️"Nobody from "Bild" has communicated with the team developing the Victory Plan. Ukraine is categorically against freezing the conflict. It is important that the US supports the Victory Plan, not capitulation. The plan will initially be presented to the US, which can ensure its implementation," Litvin said.

RVvoenkor

But as Zelensky begins drumming up his tour with a pre-gaming press campaign, some very interesting revelations have begun shedding light on just how desperate Ukraine’s situation has become. In an interview with propagandist Fareed Zakaria, Zelensky made some eye-openingly frank admissions on the Kursk operation:

Here’s a summary of points pulled from elsewhere—pay particular attention to the bolded ones:

The goal of the operation in the Kursk region was to divert Russian troops from Donbass, Kyiv prepared a plan for victory, - Zelensky

Zelensky's key statements from the CNN interview:

1. "The idea was to move some Russian forces there (near Kursk). And I think it was the right idea." He did not admit that it had failed, but said that "it was a risky operation, and we understood that."

2. Due to slow weapons deliveries, Ukraine was unable to adequately equip even 4 brigades out of 14. Russia has a 12 to 1 advantage in shells against Ukraine (Kiev recently announced that it was supposedly already 2.5 to 1 - they got tangled up in lies). (around 2:20 minute mark)

Listen particularly to 2:20 to around 3:20. Zelensky openly says that over the past eight months, Ukraine has virtually used up all their reserves and weaponry, and has not been able to equip more than four of the vaunted new fourteen brigades.

This was validated by the new Forbes piece:

The other points from the interview:

3. The Russians use 4,000 aerial bombs per month in the east of Ukraine alone, and they have hit 80% of energy facilities. Therefore, Zelensky asks the West to approve strikes on Russian airfields with long-range missiles (so far, such permission has not been given, as the president specified).

At the same time, he acknowledged that “Russia has begun to move its aircraft from 100-150 kilometers to 300-500” and reproached Western partners for “waiting too long.”

4. Speaking about the “victory plan” that will be presented to Biden, Zelensky said that there are five points - “4 of them are the main ones, plus 1 that we will need after the war.”

According to him, the plan concerns "security, the geopolitical position of Ukraine, very strong military support that should be available to us, and so that we have freedom in how to use certain resources. This also concerns economic support."

One part of his plan is to make life worse inside the Russian Federation, which will supposedly make Putin more willing to negotiate.

RVvoenkor

Of course, Zelensky’s been in dire straits ever since the latest push to strike deeper into Russia fell flat on its face:

This comes as the Donbass situation continues to deteriorate for Ukraine, with Russian forces making steady progress in the Pokrovsk region, as well as in Kursk, where Ukrainian-held territory slowly dwindles.

BBC’s latest cements this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1epe546p5vo

The situation is critical, a Ukrainian military officer in the east told the BBC near the front line south of Pokrovsk.

Russia’s military strategy now appears to be surrounding the city, which is a key transportation hub in the region.

The officer, who preferred to stay anonymous, said his military leadership want to hold their positions at all costs, often leading to the loss of troops and resources.

That approach, he says, was resulting in a number of “cauldrons”, large territories surrounded by the Russian forces.

The article actually makes a very important confirmation of something we’ve been writing here for a while, but which Western sources have attempted to downplay or paper over deliberately:

“They’re trying to strengthen their flanks so that they can get closer to Pokrovsk, half encircle it and then start erasing the city to the ground,” says Maj Serhiy Tsekhotsky from the 59th Brigade.

This is confirmation from a high-ranking Ukrainian officer that Russia is widening the wedge at its flanks as preparation for the large-scale assault on Pokrovsk coming up soon—precisely what I’ve been saying for a couple weeks now.

Ukrainian military post:

CNN’s latest also had a few interesting revelations about the Kursk mission in particular.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/13/world/ukraine-kursk-offensive-cost/index.html

The most interesting to me was the reveal that all their communications have been jammed in Russian territory:

Several units have told CNN that navigation and communication between units and their commanders were a major problem in Kursk.

With GPS and cellphone signals jammed, the Ukrainians have been relying on the Starlink internet service. But they are finding the service doesn’t work at all in certain parts of the Kursk region.

They repeatedly mention the vast amount of casualties, which was reportedly 300 men just yesterday—according to Russian MOD—in Kursk alone.

Well, what else is new?

You’ll notice what the pro-UA and Western sides are doing is deliberately playing “dumb” when necessary in reporting on Kursk. For instance, they continue to call it a great success, and talk of positional fighting, when in reality they’re intentionally ignoring the past week or two of reports and are merely rehashing the first week from August 6th, now nearly a month and a half ago.

The fact is, the AFU is now being driven back mercilessly, getting slaughtered with heavy losses, and if you take a look at the map, they control significantly less territory in Kursk, with it shrinking every day. Yes, in order to staunch the losses they attempted to launch another desperate assault into a different direction at Russia’s rear, near Glushkovo. However, that too was vastly exaggerated and they were pushed back to a single tiny village mere meters from the Ukrainian border after being badly destroyed:

Now, Budanov has trotted out the worn out threat that Russia is trying to end the war by mid-2025 to early 2026 because afterwards it will face significant “economic pressures”:

Summary:

Yesterday's Budanov.

[Russia would like to end the war by the end of 2025-beginning of 2026 with its victory, because from the summer of 2025 it will begin to have serious problems in the economy and there will be a need for mobilization, which could undermine the socio-political situation, said the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Kirill Budanov, citing Russian data.

"The year 2025 for them, the turn of 2025 - the beginning of 2026 - it is key for them. They want to finish all this, because according to their own calculations, the Russian Federation, if they do not emerge from this war as conditional winners, they will fall out of the possibility of seeing Russia as a superpower, which is what they are striving for, for the distant, so to speak, future, which is a horizon of 30 years," he said at the 20th annual YES meeting in Kyiv on September 13-14, organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.

Budanov noted that Russia predicts that “all their problems will begin in the summer of 2025,” since both the financial-economic factor and the socio-political factor will come together.

According to him, the Russian Federation is now rightly fighting the deteriorating economic situation because it understands that the decline continues, which is already noticeable and painful.

"But this is far from the peak. They predict that around the summer of 2025, the negative impact on the economy will become very noticeable for their country. By the way, this is connected to many processes that they are trying to speed up in their country now, in order to get out of this period as much as possible, as they would like. They would like to end it with their victory, unfortunately," Budanov added.

According to him, the issue of under-recruitment in the army is becoming increasingly acute in Russia. "During this period (in the summer of 2025), they will face a dilemma - either to declare mobilization, or to somehow reduce the intensity of military actions a little, which for them may ultimately be critical," the head of Ukrainian military intelligence noted.

He believes that war fatigue exists in Russia, no matter what anyone says, because the war has already affected a large segment of the Russian population.

Budanov admitted that Russians are openly happy that the aggressor has already managed to capture more than 30% of our state, and also arranges high wages in the Russian army. However, the number of volunteers is decreasing, which has led to an increase in one-time payments upon signing a contract to 2 million UAH.

The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense added that the socio-psychological state of the population was also affected by Ukraine's efforts to transfer military operations to Russian territory, deep into it. "This changed the worldview (of Russians). Before that, the entire Russian population lived in the paradigm that, no matter what, we are a very powerful country, we are the strongest in the world... And now with the first explosions, so to speak, in Moscow and the territory of the Russian Federation and so on, this myth was destroyed," Budanov explained.

The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, citing Russian documents, noted that if there is no Russian victory by the end of 2025, there will be only two superpowers left in the world – the United States and China, and there will be no place for the Russian Federation.

"They clearly understand this. This is a key period for them. Therefore, they will do everything possible to win in their understanding. Otherwise, they will be eliminated from absolutely all global processes. All they can count on is regional leadership, and this does not suit them," Budanov concluded.]

Read the above carefully—Budanov is actually giving a fairly accurate assessment of the situation. I believe Budanov doesn’t outright lie as much as people think—he presents correct information, but what he twists is the subsequent analysis of it.

It’s true that theoretically speaking, economic pressures will have increased by summer, particularly given that literally yesterday the Russian central bank just increased its key rate to a whopping 19% after declaring that inflation has surged again to an uncomfortably high level, 7.6% for August.

And it’s true that Russia will likely face growing recruitment pressures given the fact that Russia has verifiably been increasing signing bonuses by unprecedented levels recently. There can really be no other reason for such high recruitment bonuses other than to keep the numbers flowing steadily as before, which means they must have drooped.

But the key questions Budanov would not dare answer: did those numbers droop anywhere near Ukraine’s levels? No.

Will Russia’s economic or recruitment problems be anywhere as bad as Ukraine’s either in 2025 or 2026? No.

Will Russia’s economic conditions even be anywhere near as bad as any other major “first world” Western nation? No.

So what Budanov is really saying, is that pressures will merely increase to the point of making things a bit uncomfortable for Russia’s elite, but that really doesn’t mean much in the end. The amount of ‘comfort’ capital Russian society has, the room or threshold for pain, is so vast that it’s not even remotely close to being to the point of minor alarm. In fact, a major YouTube propagandist channel recently went around Moscow interviewing citizens on the street to try and answer the question precisely why no Russians are concerned whatsoever about Kursk or the ongoing Ukrainian provocations.

The thing Westerners simply cannot comprehend is that Russian citizens have such unequivocal certainty in their victory that they are not bothered even in the slightest by Zelensky’s laughable “drone strikes on Moscow”—which by the way, did not hit even close to Moscow but way outside the MKAD—nor about the pitiable Kursk incursion. You see, Russian citizens are actually well-informed and fully understand that the Kursk operation is nothing more than a cheap stunt meant to anger them and sow discontent.

Let’s put it in terms of percentages, to make the point more clear. If by 2026 Russia’s threshold—defined with 0% being losing the war—may drop from 90% to 85%, Ukraine’s will have dropped from 20% to 5% in the same time period; and most NATO countries will have come close to collapsing by then from the absolute disorder and societal dissatisfaction in their own societies. For instance, even Scholz is close to getting the boot, as there are now rumors he’s being asked to withdraw from the 2025 election.

The point is that some economic “pressures” do not mean Russia will lose or have to stop the war. It just means a little belt-tightening and other corrective measures to keep things going. Budanov is desperate to make a mountain out of a molehill in his quest to convince people Russia has a running timer, when in reality it’s his Ukraine draining down the hour glass.

For example:

Here Arestovich enlarges on the growing population crisis:

And here is Ukrainian MP Mykola Kniazhitsky, who states hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who fled abroad are choosing to simply renounce their citizenship rather than return:

All while Euromaidan Press just released a shocking statistic, that Ukraine has both the highest death rate and lowest birth rate in the entire world:

https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/09/13/ukraine-faces-the-highest-death-rate-and-lowest-birth-rate-globally-amid-russias-war/

Even Ukrainian reserve officer Tatarigami was forced to declare that Ukraine faces possible extinction:

Today, tens of millions of Ukrainians have been displaced, cities reduced to rubble, and millions more are being pushed into poverty. This is Europe's worst humanitarian tragedy of the 21st century.

Despite the incredible resilience of the Ukrainian people and their heroic resistance against one of the world’s largest military forces, the collapse of the country and the erasure of its nationhood is a real possibility. Many pro-Ukraine advocates in the West seem to ignore this grim reality, believing Ukraine can hold out indefinitely. Yet, its population has nearly halved, its industry is in ruins, and people are fighting on, impoverished, for the basic right not to be assimilated or exiled to remote corners of Russia.

And this is all before the Ukrainian power grid is entirely turned off for good this winter. Imagine what Ukraine looks like by the summer of 2025 when Budanov proclaims Russia will experience its first minor economic hardships? I don’t think inflation ticking up a percentage point or two is comparable to literal civilizational collapse. The normalcy bias in the West is astounding.

Ironically enough, Budanov made some other comments of great note in a new Ukrainska Pravda article.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/09/14/7475117/

Well, isn’t that interesting. We’ve noted a week or two ago how Iskander usage on the frontline has infact been “massively” increased by all accounts. Now we have our confirmation.

But why this is particularly humorous is the fact that the West continues to try and sell this war as a kind of “cheap” demilitarization of Russia, bought at a ‘minor fraction’ of the West’s defense spending. In reality, evidence increasingly suggests it’s the opposite: Russia is utilizing a relatively small defense budget to completely empty NATO’s shelves.

Another new report, for instance, affirms that the UK depleted its entire stock of mobile artillery for Ukraine:

https://www.forcesnews.com/services/army/british-army-has-capability-gaps-due-war-ukraine-says-armed-forces-minister

He also said the UK had sent "nearly all" of its AS90 mobile artillery units to Ukraine.

Mr Pollard added: "That was the right decision, absolutely the right thing to do.

"But there is a challenge now about what do we do in the interim period."

British defense journalist chimes in:

He notes how the British military now only has 14 artillery systems in total, the Swedish Archers to replace their divested AS90s. The problem is, NATO-member Sweden itself only had about 30-40 total Archers, of which it gave 8 to Ukraine and now 14 to the UK—who gave all of its artillery to Ukraine. So, all NATO is doing is reshuffling its meager stock amongst its members. Sweden is now left with only ~20 or less artillery pieces for its entire army, and the UK gets 14. Russia has thousands yet is billed as the country being “demilitarized” by the West. Makes sense?

Only very slowly are Western military “experts” coming around to how real wars are fought:

I guess they should have read my piece which outlined it all long ago.

Remember, Ukraine has drained Europe of much of its air defense, just in the last article we spoke about it draining US stock of ATACMS as well. That’s not to mention that Ukraine was sent ~300 American M777s, while the US itself only operates less than 1,000 of them in total. To be precise, the US Army operates about 500, and the US Marines another 500—100 of theirs were sent to Ukraine. Thus Ukraine has already drained 20% of the US Marines’ artillery capability.

And by the way, why does no one mention that the M777 is manufactured in the UK? They claim Russia uses “foreign parts” in all its weaponry, yet the US does not produce a single of its top systems in its entirety. Abrams with its German barrel and Israeli APS, F-35 made in large part in Turkey and many other countries, only “assembled” in the US, the Israeli avionics in the Apaches, the new Bradleys all made by British BAE, etc, etc. Every “mainstay” US weapon is in part or in whole manufactured by other countries—so why the double standards on Russia using a few repurposed chips? In fact, Russia manufactures far more of its own systems than the US if you discount just the semiconductors, everything else about the systems is entirely homegrown.

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To finish up the above, we’ll note that it is Zelensky and Ukraine that are now in a race against time. Not only the energy grid and societal problems that are soon to come, but the potential for Trump in office. Recall that Trump has now discussed possibly lifting all Russian sanctions because “they harm the US dollar”. What do you think that might do for Budanov’s “economic hardship” theory of summer 2025 and onward?

Zelensky is stuck between rock and hard place as signing any peace treaties will mean his end. Here infamous Ukrainian-Hungarian drone warlord Magyar threatens Zelensky’s regime directly, should Z dare to somehow make their war effort for naught:

Interestingly, even he states that the war will effectively end by the end of this year—a prediction a very many people on both sides have been making. It seems everyone has been sold on all the peace talk hype, but there is no imaginable reason for Russia to stop at a time they have finally gotten Ukraine on the ropes and primed for the KO blow.

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Here’s how Ukrainian units blitzed across the border toward the Glushkovo area of Kursk region before they were stopped:

Geolocation around 51.27321264487001, 34.553485762507975 just south of Veseloe:

Here’s another longer video showing how they used IMR engineering vehicles to cut through Russian dragon-teeth on the border:

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An interesting episode occurred in Israel where Houthis have apparently humiliated the entire Western alliance’s densest air defense capabilities by hitting an Israeli power station with a hypersonic ballistic missile from over 2,000km away:

Israeli media: The missile launched from Yemen to the Tel Aviv area flew more than 2,000 km, passing (at least) two American destroyers and one French frigate operating over the Red Sea.

This is the Gezer power plant, which was hit today by a Yemeni ballistic missile. When you zoom in, the only structures that look anything like the ones in the video are right about dead center in the middle of the plant.

Astonishing accuracy from Yemen. They hit the plant right next to the turbines themselves. If you look closely at the image, you can see the two smokestacks marking the location of the gas turbines that generate the power. The pipes and related infrastructure are just below those, probably the fuel pipes feeding into the turbines.

This might not seem like high precision compared to some of the top of the line military hardware, but consider the source.

If Yemen has rockets this accurate which can pierce the best air defense systems in the world, what do you think Iran has?

The resistance side claims the video below shows Gezer power plant being struck by the missile which satellite photos appear to show an elevated trough section similar to the one in the video:

However, the Israeli side claims it only hit some fields near Kfar Daniel, Rehovot, and Patei Modin train station—all of which, it should be noted, are within a couple kilometers of Gezer power station on the map.

But even Israeli sources are shocked that the missile could evade the entirety of Western integrated defenses, which includes Arrow and David’s Sling, meant to stop Iranian ballistic missiles:

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-820142

They still claim to have “shot down” the missile, but only after it was already near to hitting, and thus are still left to wonder how it bypassed all the other layers of “the world’s most advanced” detection systems.

Another Jerusalem Post article claims the final interceptor that hit it only broke it up slightly but did not entirely destroy the missile—perhaps a bit of an admission as to the true result of the attack.

Rather, the IDF said that it fired multiple interceptors, including both the Arrow 2 and the Iron Dome, against the missile and that at least one interceptor struck the missile but failed to destroy it completely on impact.

Instead, the impact of the interceptor led the missile to break up in Israeli airspace and fall mostly in an open field near Kfar Daniel, with other pieces of multiple interceptors falling in other areas, such as the Paatei Modiin Train Station and Rehovot. 

The IDF will now probe why the interceptor impact only caused the missile to break up and did not completely destroy it.

One Russian source with more possible details:

About Yemen's missile strike on Israel; it's almost certain that they used their domestic variant of the Iranian Kheybar Shekan-2 hypersonic ballistic missile, revealed a few months ago as 'Hatem-2'

Before that, Yemen announced they had started domestic production of Iran's original Kheybar Shekan under the name 'Palestine' (Falasteen). The Kheybar Shekan-2 or 'Hatem-2' is simply an upgraded version of this missile with a hypersonic warhead and added range and maneuvers.

Images: Hatem-2 hypersonic missile released months ago (left image) and Iran's Kheybar Shekan-2 (right image); as can be seen, the missiles are nearly identical, except that Yemen uses lesser quality materials.

The Houthis claimed that Israel fired over 20 interceptors which all missed. If a single missile—reportedly not even of Iran’s most advanced class—could bypass all of NATO’s defenses and strike at the heart of Israel, it really does not bode well for a major Iranian attack of hundreds if not thousands of more advanced variants. Nor does it bode well for the Empire if Putin chooses to reciprocate in kind by arming Yemen with even more advanced technology; it goes to illustrate the US’ hesitancy in escalating against Russia.

Some last items:

Ukraine allegedly published a threatening drone photo of the Kursk nuclear power plant, with the obvious insinuations:

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Rather startlingly, Apti Alaudinov tells Russian Chechens who have voluntarily surrendered to the AFU to kick rocks—he doesn’t want them back and won’t be pulling for their return:

It may be shocking to our sensibilities, but apparently the Chechens live by a different warrior code, and to surrender is a graver dishonor than we can reasonably relate to. In fact, in the much longer video, he explains exactly that: surrendering has always been a grave Bushido-like dishonor to Chechens throughout their history; that’s not to mention that the current conflict is a holy war to them, he adds, and everyone must go “to the end” of their fate-line even if that means dying rather than surrendering to the enemy.

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Russia shows off a new mothership drone which drops smaller FPVs over the enemy’s rear:

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Speaking of drones, another segment on the production of Russia’s Forpost UCAVs, which coincides with the increasing observation of these drones on the front, as stated last time:

Footage of the Forpost-RU with suspended KAB-20s preparing for combat flight as well as a report from the production of these drones.

The drone has a new convex-shaped compartment to house radar equipment, as well as new directional rudders.

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A video demonstrating the fallacy of believing Oryx’s figures for ‘Russian losses’. Here we can see a Russian engineering vehicle towing a battle-damaged tank to safety under fire, with the commentary stating he alone has salvaged over 30 armored vehicles already in the same way:

A soldier from the Vostok group with the call sign "Petrovich" demonstrates not only nerves of steel, but also excellent training in evacuating damaged armored vehicles. In the presented footage , "Petrovich" evacuates a damaged Russian tank under fire north of Vodyanoye . It is reported that "Petrovich" personally pulled out over 30 armored vehicles.

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Speaking of salvage, Russians have been capturing more and more high-end armor in the Kursk region.

Here’s a Swedish CV90:

Followed by a working German Marder:

And a more complete video of the repair of a newly-captured Bradley:

And here an M1126 Stryker:

That’s not to mention all the Strykers being destroyed recently:

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To demonstrate how low Western publications have sunk, here’s Der Spiegel with the latest breaking news—Putin traveled to Mongolia in order to get the shamans’ blessing for nuclear war:

https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/wladimir-putin-in-der-mongolei-besuchte-der-russische-praesident-schamanen-a-76e28d87-42c5-4e36-bf48-9a03951aa543

This apparently counts for serious scholarship these days—mind the janky auto-translation:

Well, to end on absurdity, let’s ask AI to help us visualize this difficult to imagine story, shall we?

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