Just a brief update tonight.
Here is President Zelenskyy address from earlier this evening. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
Dear Ukrainians!
Today, our Air Force has a good result – downed Kaliber missiles, an attack helicopter of the occupiers, drones.
I want to thank all our defenders of the sky from the East air command. Well done, today and always.
Each such result is a saved life of our citizens, an opportunity not to be afraid for all our people. We will do everything so that Ukraine can fully defend its skies from Russian missiles and aviation. This is one of the fundamental issues for our country.
And, of course, we are grateful to all our partners who help with the answer to this difficult question. Helping Ukraine with air defense is the most literal, most obvious way to protect people from Russian terror.
Fierce fighting continues in many areas of the front – both in Kharkiv region, in Donbas, and in the south of our country.
Russian troops again attacked Mykolaiv region, the districts of Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk regions, and Kharkiv. Unfortunately, there are victims, and among them, unfortunately, are children.
Ukrainian artillery is doing everything to destroy the striking potential of the occupiers, so that every Russian headquarters and all their ammunition depots, all logistical routes in the occupied territory are neutralized.
I thank our soldiers who ensure this. Today, in particular, the fighters of the 55th artillery brigade in the Donetsk direction merit special mention – for their accurate fire on the enemy. I’m grateful to our intelligence and the Security Service of Ukraine for the accuracy of our answers regarding the positions and objects of the occupiers.
Unfortunately, today we have an absolutely unacceptable event in the city of Chernihiv. In the afternoon, an explosion rang out at a public event in the city center, and a grenade launcher went off. Children are among the victims. The little boy is now in serious condition in intensive care.
The law enforcement officers should find out as soon as possible why this happened, who brought combat weapons to this city event. All those responsible must be brought to justice. And they will be.
And I call on the representatives of local authorities throughout the country, all our law enforcement officers to be very careful so that this never happens again anywhere.
These days, Russia is trying to increase the energy pressure on Europe even more – gas pumping through the Nord Stream pipeline has completely stopped. Why do they do this? Russia wants to destroy the normal life of every European – in all countries of our continent. It wants to weaken and intimidate the entire Europe, every state. Where Russia cannot do it by force of conventional weapons, it does so by force of energy weapons. It is trying to attack with poverty and political chaos where it cannot yet attack with missiles.
And to protect against this, we all in Europe need even more unity, even more coordination, even more help to each other.
This winter, Russia is preparing for a decisive energy attack on all Europeans. And the key answers to this should be two things: first, our unity – unity in protection against the terrorist state, and second – Increasing our own pressure on Russia – this includes increasing sanctions at all levels, and limiting Russia’s oil and gas revenues.
The more strikes we all make together, the fewer strikes these terrorists will be able to make.
Thank you to everyone who defends our country!
Thanks to everyone who helps us!
Glory to Ukraine!
This is what President Zelenskyy is referring to at the beginning of his address:
Thanks to western help, the #Ukraine sky is now closed. Repeatedly, the #Ukraine air defense intercepted the entire salvo of the Russian cruise missiles. All 5 Kalibrs launched by the Russians to hit #Dnipro city were shot down on approach, reports the Ukr. East Air Command. pic.twitter.com/FQpwL2JGPh
— Viktor Kovalenko (@MrKovalenko) September 3, 2022
I wouldn’t say that Ukraine has established air superiority through its air defense, but they’re certainly doing a good job with their air defense.
There was no operational update today from Ukraine’s MOD.
Here is today’s assessment from the British MOD:
The Brits didn’t post an updated map today.
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s updated assessment:
NOTE: Indications and Warnings is honoring UKR’s request to observe OPSEC in reportage. The 1730 UTC report reflects positions plotted 24-36 hrs ago. The Forward edge of the Battle Area (FEBA) is deliberately offset.
— Chuck Pfarrer (@ChuckPfarrer) September 3, 2022
Indications and Warnings is the name for his feed.
And his most recent assessment regarding the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant:
ZAPORIZHZHIA NUCLEAR PLANT: Artillery & mortar fire is reported to have destroyed a key transmission line and struck several locations within the plant’s perimeter. UKR has announced that two UN sponsored IAEA technicians will remain on site to monitor the situation. pic.twitter.com/Tzjc0muDH7
— Chuck Pfarrer (@ChuckPfarrer) September 3, 2022
Kherson:
In Kherson, the recreation complex where the Russian occupiers and collaborators lived has been hit by Ukraine's forces
Local publication Most citing locals reports UA Forces destroyed this recreation complex;it belongs to the collaborator Volodymyr Saldo https://t.co/aybuBLyCID pic.twitter.com/yR0JoySE2l
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) September 3, 2022
Nova Kakhovka:
***BREAKING***
The bridge of the Nova Kakhovka dam has collapsed due to numerous Ukrainian strikes. The railway bridge did not collapse but is severely damaged. pic.twitter.com/1YCWXGLZFI
— Benjamin Pittet (@COUPSURE) September 3, 2022
Kramatorsk:
Russia attacked Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast by 8 missiles last night, damaging a storage of humanitarian aid and enterprises
A storekeeper was seriously wounded, city council informed. https://t.co/VVjarkravo pic.twitter.com/6R8oiY92AB
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) September 3, 2022
Tokmakh:
The partisan Maksym Makhrynov killed several Russian soldiers in the occupied city of Tokmakh.
The Russians figured out where he lived and came to arrest him the next day.
He blew himself up by his front door and took another 2 Russians with him.
RIP Maksym! pic.twitter.com/rJHBt0g8l1
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 3, 2022
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
Demining
— Patron (@PatronDsns) September 3, 2022
Keep a good thought for him while Patron’s at work!
Here’s a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:
@patron__dsns Інструкція до тварин. Придумав сам😌🐾 @UAnimals
The caption translates as:
Instructions for animals. I came up with it myself😌🐾 @UAnimals
Open thread!
Gin & Tonic
That photo of Max Makhrynov says that eyewitnesses say that he said “Slava Ukraini!” as he blew himself up.
Bill Arnold
@Gin & Tonic:
Respect for that man. For all Ukrainian partisans.
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: We’re most of us brought up in a peaceful world, and aren’t taught to make life-or-death choices. I wonder how many of us, if America goes Fascist, and they come for us, could do what he did. I wonder if I could. It’s unsettling. the bravery of this man, of these people. How can anybody in our fat and happy Western countries not support them, it’s beyond me.
zhena gogolia
The video is Patron giving instructions for people who want to adopt an animal like don’t give a dog chocolate
Sebastian
Something is going on with Kadyrov.
https://twitter.com/samramani2/status/1566061902727450625?s=21&t=n2D5IyDoX9fS0AutWep7VQ
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
A whole lot of people in this country could learn a thing or two about what patriotism actually looks like by observing Ukrainians. (Of course…a lot of those people are too busy praising daddy putin to do so). May Maksym’s memory be a blessing to all who knew him, and even those of us who didn’t.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Lyrebird
Thank you Adam, and thanks 2 @Gin & Tonic: for adding more to what we can understand.
All respect to you Max Makhrynov.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I know people are dying every day in Ukraine, but reading about this is a gut punch. I wonder how they found him so quickly.
Sanjeevs
BBC report from Donbas frontline.
https://twitter.com/sommervilletv/status/1565586779926925312?cxt=HHwWgMC8qbW4irorAAAA
dr. luba
@zhena gogolia: The list of instructions is quite extensive and even sweet. Especially the last one–Love us (your pets). Even if only half as much as we love you. For a pet, their human is their entire world!
Jay
Crying tonight.
Medicine Man
@WaterGirl: When I read about Max Makhrynov on Twitter, I read claims that collaborators snitched on him sending the Ruscists to his door.
CarolPW
@Jay: Has your friend/colleague who went to Ukraine been killed? Talking about him you have made him very real. If he has died I will join you in your tears.
Carlo Graziani
@Sanjeevs: That BBC reporter has very steady nerves (as does his cameraperson). Also, unusually for a BBC reporter, he spent a lot of effort reporting on the war, and not much reporting on himself. Great piece.
Gin & Tonic
@Sebastian: He’s done that a hundred times before, at least.
Sanjeevs
Renmarkable report. Really shows what the incredible risks the soldiers (and civilians) near the frontline have to endure.
Chetan Murthy
@Sanjeevs: I watched the entire video. And it needs to be watched by people like us, in our safe homes in our safe countries, so we can know what Ukrainians are suffering for their homes, and for our safety, too.
But could I please, please ask: next time, it would be good to put a content warning on it: I had to look away near the end, b/c the suffering of the wounded soldier was a bit too much.
Again, I repeat: I’m glad you posted the video; just …. it would have been better to be forewarned of the nature of the content near the end.
Chetan Murthy
@Sanjeevs: A little transcript of the end part of his report:
Bill Arnold
@Sebastian:
Is he on some sort of recreational drug in that video? His facial motions are … interesting.
Sanjeevs
@Chetan Murthy: Sorry about that
Carlo Graziani
I wrote up some notes summarizing our discussions of the last few days concerning the Kherson offensive, because I wanted to capture the clarity that last night’s discussion brought about, at least for me. I now believe that I have an idea of what the Ukrainians are attempting around Kherson, and I think it seems basically inevitable that they will succeed in retaking the city sooner rather than later.
As we know, over the past month or so, the UA has conducted a concerted campaign against the Dnipro bridges, destroying them by means of HIMARS strikes, and leaving the Russians no choice but to resupply over hastily-rigged pontoon bridges. These have limited capacity, and can certainly not carry heavy vehicles or transports. The Ukrainians have made no concerted effort to destroy them.
At the beginning of July, the range of speculation about the scope of a counteroffensive embraced efforts to liberate the entire Black Sea coast, and perhaps Crimea. But it is now clear, as Michael Kofman pointed out on the latest War on the Rocks podcast, that Ukraine has chosen the modest, limited battlefield of the Kherson-Mykolaiv area to operate on, and set itself only the goal of liberating Kherson. This seems sensible, as it yields a good political return (if successful) for a military commitment that does not require military overextension and massive risk, and can potentially pay dividends before winter. I believe the dividends will in fact pay off much sooner.
There was a puzzle (to me) which was this: There is extensive and rigorous operational security that the UA threw over their dispositions, to the extent that even four days after the beginning of the offensive it was still not possible for any Western observer (without a security clearance) to know how many Ukrainian troops were involved, in what types of formations, with what kinds of weapons, and did they have air support, etc., let alone any kind of detailed order of battle (OoB) information. The reason this was puzzling is that by the time the Russian defenders had been in contact with the UA for 96 hours on this small, flattish, open battlefield, with the Ukrainians coming to the Russians rather than the reverse, the Russians must have had a very good picture — from routine tactical intelligence gathering practice taught to officers in their field manuals — of the Ukrainian OoB, probably down to the company level. So why all the OPSEC? What is being concealed, and from whom?
One thing that had become clear after a few days is that the UA is coming in hot. According to Kofman, they are now using HIMARS in a tactical role for the first time, firing at active battle targets rather than at strategic interdiction targets. That means that this is no feint. They can’t keep that tactic up for long. The M-31 GMLRS rockets fired from HIMARS are in short supply even for NATO. So the UA built up a stock of those missiles for a special occasion, and this is it. They’re going to make them count.
So, what’s the plan?
Sebastian sorted it out, in my mind, in the September 2 Ukraine War Update comments, with this:
I mean, it’s one of those obvious things that leave your palm print on your forehead. The UA has set up the Russians. The Ukrainians can effectively resupply at will, and can control the tempo and intensity of combat operations. The Russians must gasp to suck light supplies over the thin straw of their pontoon bridges — over which they may, however, withdraw at any time, leaving most of their stuff behind. All the UA needs to do is drive up the Russians’ materiel burn rate beyond what they can sustain for continued combat operations. The Russians were doomed to withdrawal behind the Dnipro the moment the offensive began. Their only choice is a single degree of freedom: the date on which they begin to withdraw East of the river. If they are smart and do so early, they can preserve more of their personnel and materiel; if they are dumb and stubborn and deny the inevitable they will have a calamity on their hands by the time they are forced to pull a Sir Robin of Camelot.
And that also explains the OPSEC. What is being concealed is not OoB information, but rather the fact that there is a massive deception operation that is playing out in plain sight. While ramping up combat intensity to exacerbate the Russian materiel burn rate, the Ukrainians want to detain the Russians on the West side of the river by keeping them guessing for as long as possible about which direction is their main axis of advance, so as to delay as long as possible the realization from dawning that the operational objective of the offensive is not a geographical feature along some axis of advance, but rather the total enfuckment of Russian logistics West of the Dnipro.
This is all speculation, of course. But if this is really what is going on, it’s a cleverer operational trap than any that I’ve ever read about.
NutmegAgain
@Chetan Murthy: I’m left wondering, do they have, or do they need front line anesthesia or pain relief for cases like the poor guy in the British video? I’m sure what they have, they need to ration. All my knowledge of stuff like this comes literally from movies, where the medics always have morphine ampoules handy. I assume real life is very different. Anyway part of the point of my rambling is to ask if there is a dedicated donation site for medical supplies for the medics & front line hospitals? If anyone knows I would love to learn.
Another Scott
@NutmegAgain:
I’m no expert. HelpUkraine.Center seems to be a clearinghouse for medical and humanitarian donations. They say in the FAQ:
It seems like a decent way to try to help the medics.
I have no personal experience with them.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@NutmegAgain: I do not know the answer, but I know that Vet Voice Foundation *was* forwarding donations thru to MOAS, which itself funds ambulances and other med-evac in Ukraine; I just don’t know if they operate in active combat zones, or only among civilians.
You’re right to ask, and I’d like to know also
ETA: VVF is in the Ukraine thermometer in the sidebar.
Fleeting Expletive
I left a comment at the end of the last thread that is not at all appropriate for as important a subject as this, but I won’t remember tomorrow.
Frankensteinbeck
@Carlo Graziani:
Bear in mind that their command structure is a shambles, their noncoms and lower level officers are deliberately picked for incompetence, and Putin is killing people at even the top levels because he’s so pissed about how badly this is going. From the standpoint of whoever is making decisions on the ground, the decision is not straightforward. Which, I suspect, is just fine from Ukraine’s perspective. They’ve drained the Russian command, then the Russian precision artillery, then the Russian ammunition, and now they’re draining the Russian combat manpower. Every Russian who doesn’t run away is one who can’t be reassigned to another front.
Andrya
@Carlo Graziani: I think your analysis is probably correct, but if I were the UK MOD I would keep everything under wraps- including stuff any competent opponent would have figured out by now- because the ru military has, on a regular basis, exhibited staggering levels of incompetence.
I have long believed that dictatorship by committee, though evil, can be competent- but a one man personal dictatorship is inevitably incompetent because no one dares to tell the dictator the truth. putin’s russia is a demonstration of this.
Carlo Graziani
@Jay: What’s going on?
Carlo Graziani
@Andrya: I agree 100% on the corruption and pathology of Putin and his siloviki.
I think it is a mistake to underestimate the professionalism of the Russian army officer corps, however. The Russians have admittedly not had a particularly good war, but they also haven’t really used their army particularly wisely either. The army itself is, from a professional standpoint, competent, and its lieutenants and captains and majors etc. are trained in how to cope with various tactical situations, including the one they are in now. That includes gathering intelligence on the enemy in contact. There is no reason whatever to believe that they have forgotten how to do this, just because Putin is a thief.
Frankensteinbeck
@Carlo Graziani:
Really? I thought that Putin deliberately screwed up the whole promotion system from bottom to top so that the army could never be a threat to him. I swear I heard that somewhere, maybe even here.
Andrya
@Carlo Graziani: I don’t think we disagree. If the russians “haven’t used their army particularly wisely ” (including somehow making their generals visible/vulnerable to missile attack, not maintaining their tanks/trucks, and not checking out the ability of their cell phone system to be encrypted) I, personally, would not declassify anything on the assumption that they would figure it out anyway. I also would not assume they would be incompetent on any particular issue. Bottom line: on any issue, assume they might be incompetent, do not assume they will be incompetent.
Omnes Omnibus
@Carlo Graziani: We will have to agree to disagree on the professionalism of the Russian officer corps.
Sebastian
@Bill Arnold:
I am not sure. It’s his usual jovial aw shucks persona, which is in contrast with the message.
Sebastian
@Carlo Graziani:
This seems to be a repeat of the Defense of Kyiv strategy, where they kept the convoys stuck on roads, burning fuel to stay warm, and taking pot shots at valuable targets.
It appears that Russians are forced to cross the Dnipro further up North because it’s not as wide. (I was wondering if the Russians have a shortage of pontoon elements.)
I couldn’t wrap my head around why UAF don’t attack those pontoons but then I realized that they are forcing RUF to drive FURTHER with their limited truck fleet. Like around Kyiv, where they didn’t destroy the convoys, they are hacking Soviet/RU doctrine:
It can be supplied, so supplied it must be, even if only one truck makes it per day. If the pontoons are destroyed and there is no way to supply, the RU command would have to move on to the next bullet point in the doctrine, which I have no idea what it is, perhaps retreat.
The more I think about it, the more brilliant this strategy appears to be: with limited supplies, only elite units get fuel and ammo, as well as high priority systems like anti-aircraft systems like the Pantsir and S-300.
Ergo, those are the ones more active and easier to identify and targets for HIMARS and artillery.
At the same time the crappy truck fleet is more likely to break down due to more stress but that only triggers RUF troubleshooting to repair the trucks or use other (civilian) vehicles to supply.
It also allows RUF to evacuate wounded soldiers, who are of no interest to UKR because their own medical resources are limited. Let the Russians deal with it, UKR will take the healthy surrendering POW.
Sebastian
WaterGirl
@Medicine Man: That was my fear, but desperately hoping that’s not true.
Carlo Graziani
@Sebastian: Yes. O’Brien lays it out even more clearly. The Russians have been had.
Sebastian
@Carlo Graziani:
Right? For the second time now. First the killzone in Severodonetsk, now Kherson.
Interestingly enough, there appears to be an offensive going on in the East as well and Ukraine just established a bridgehead in Donbas. Could it be that UAF is taking advantage of RUF amassing troops in Kherson and leaving Donbas under-protected? That would be a master stroke.
Carlo Graziani
@Sebastian: I haven’t seen that. Without knowing more, all I would say is that it seems doubtful to me that the UA could sustain two major concurrent offensives. I could see a local commander taking advantage of a local opportunity, or some kind of recon probe, or a spoiling attack intended to take pressure off elsewhere. The Russians are still pressing their stolid offensive in the Donbas, after all.
With respect to Kherson, now giving my cinematic imagination free rein, I can visualize Putin issuing Hitlerian “stand-fast” orders to his appalled general staff officers, who have come to perceive the bear-trap that they’ve fallen into, and are desperately attempting to retrieve any part of their ensnared army by any means they can devise. Their increasingly panicked explanations of logistical realities are not merely unavailing, but are met by enraged blasts, accusations of incompetence and cowardice, and self-assured averrals that The Fightng Spirit Of The Rus will sustain the brave soldiers of the Rodina and assist them in seeing off this annoying so-called “offensive” by the Ukrainian degenerate half-men. The officers shut their mouths and glance at each other nervously, knowing that the war effort can’t afford the losses that now seem inevitable, but unwilling to risk execution in a squalid prison cell for saying so…
OK, it probably isn’t exactly like that, but the script kind of writes itself…
Halteclere
@Carlo Graziani:
Maybe Ukraine knows that any battlefield info reaching Putin goes through several levels of “tweaking”, and they don’t want to give him any indication of the real situation?
Sebastian
@Carlo Graziani:
I think you nailed it. Knowing how Communist and authoritarian regimes work, this is exactly what’s happening.
Add to that inflated reports about troop levels and readiness along the entire chain of command and you end up with ghost divisions that have barely 100 men.
Thomas C. Theiner confirmed the capture of Ozerne in Donbas FWIW
Carlo Graziani
@Sebastian: OK, that’s wild. Those soldiers look like they just walked in on a day hike against zero opposition, and are happily taking pictures of each other. But they are about 4 miles from occupied Lyman along a good road. WTF?
The caption suggests that they are from two different battalion-sized units. A reconnaisance in force?
Maybe they’re trying to tempt the Russians to drive down the road from Lyman to swat them away, and they’ve already got the artillery tubes and rockets and Javelins and MANPADS waiting for them?
Can’t wait for the next episode.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: Does anybody know a way to watch these “age-restricted” videos without logging-in to Twitter ? Uh, I want to avoid logging-in for the obvious reason (inevitably, I’ll start (rage-)tweeting, and then ….. well, who needs that agita in one’s life, really? Better to only treat it as a read-only medium).
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy: I have the same issues.
Sometimes they can be found reposted elsewhere, but it often takes some digging.
Defence-UA.com has a story about it, with what apparently is the Ozerne video.
(Part of what gets me is a lot of these “age restricted” Twitter videos are apparently swiped from Tik-Tok or FB or IG or somewhere else and (often?) don’t require having a login there. Grr…)
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Another Scott: Ah, that page points to a video from Telegram (uh, I think). No idea, but those links never work for me. Ah, well.
Sebastian
@Carlo Graziani:
One thing Croatia found out after completion of Operation Storm was that many strongholds along the front had very small garrisons or none at all and that they could have made significant gains months earlier if they had known.
I can’t get rid of a feeling that this might be a similar situation. I mean, Putin is force recruiting 10,000 railway employees after he swept through the prisons, promising murderers pardons.
There is allegedly quite some unrest among the RUF troops about non-payment of combat bonuses and the force recruited Luhansk and Donbas men are probably looking for any opportunity to bail (and would have at least some chances of going into hiding as they are locals).
What if the forces in Donbas are just a paper tiger and RUF sent almost everything into Kherson, counting on reinforcements from Russia to backfill but those only exist on paper because of a chain of exaggerations to please superiors?
This is obviously wildly speculative. Let’s see what happens over the next week. I will laugh my ass off if UAF pulled off the (double) headfake of the century.
Carlo Graziani
@Chetan Murthy: Sorry, I’m an Old. I don’t really understand Twitter at all, I just accept the risk of clicking through. I don’t even tweet, but I once somehow inadvertently created a Twitter account for myself, I think because I was logged into Google while following a Tweet-link, and now every time I follow a Tweet link I do so from “my” worthless account, with all kinds of weird suggestions about who or what I might care to follow.
I really despise social media. It feels like accidentally stepping backwards onto a glue trap smeared with exceptionally pungent shit, affixed with a TV with no off switch or volume control blasting ads for toe fungus control 24/7. Why do we live this way?
Uh, sorry, rant-digression. Perhaps if the video is hosted on a different service such as YouTube that address can be extracted? I really don’t know, though.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: *grin* Yeah, I have (had) a Twitter account from 2008, when I worked there for six months (on loan from IBM, not an employee, sigh, I was stupid). I allowed it to be blocked at one point, and since then, I don’t login and have disabled Twitter’s cookies, too.
Your contempt for social media mirrors my own. But these days, it’s a good source for news on topical and breaking subjects like Ukraine. That article from Defense-UA was fine, but they embedded a Telegram link instead of copying the video to some more-common channel. I don’t know why I can’t click-thru on Telegram links but …. since from what I understand Telegram is even more of a cesspool than Twitter, I guess I’m not shedding any tears of frustration about that.
Bill Arnold
@Chetan Murthy:
I keep a Twitter login active in another alt-browser.
It also helps if there is a long thread. The popup when not logged in to sign in or create an account can be dismissed by pressing create an account and then pressing x, but it’s annoying. (Also, if using chrome family or firefox family, install “Cookie Remover”.)
I do not use the algorithm-generated twitter feed at all, just keeping open tabs for each account being followed. The only major technical (including manipulation by algorithm in technical) issue is that replies to a tweet seem to be ordered differently when one is logged in. That and a little more memory for another browser.
You’d have to work out a way to limit your rage tweeting though.
(Anonymous accounts are rather harder, with disciplined compartmentalization required, but generally recommended for interactions with possibly-violent actors including state actors.)
Chetan Murthy
@Bill Arnold:
Learn something new every day! Thank you for this. I already blocked Twitter’s cookies in Chrome the “manual” way — in Settings.