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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 448: A Very Brief Wednesday Night Update

War for Ukraine Day 448: A Very Brief Wednesday Night Update

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Very, very, very long day today. Not bad, but I’m beat. So just a few basics tonight.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:

We need more consolidation of the world to put pressure on Russia, more strength for our warriors – address by the President of Ukraine

17 May 2023 – 22:30

Dear Ukrainians!

Today, the Russian shelling of our Kherson region claimed the life of another child. A boy. His name was Vsevolod. He would have turned six years old in July. My condolences to the family and friends!

It was another artillery attack by terrorists. People were just on the street near an ordinary store.

Regular shelling of Sumy, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia regions and Donbas proves again and again that we need even more consolidation of the world to put pressure on Russia, even more strength for our warriors to destroy every position of terrorists, and even more support for our people to save lives and return security to our cities and villages.

Today I held several preparatory meetings on new steps to strengthen our defense and our international positions.

A Ukrainian delegation visited the Republic of Korea, and it was a pretty successful visit. Government officials, the First Lady of Ukraine. There were meetings, negotiations at various levels, and Olena’s address to the people of Korea and all the nations of the region at the important Asian Leadership Forum. I thank Mr. President of the Republic of Korea for his clear condemnation of Russian aggression and support of global efforts for peace.

There is an important decision of the Council of Europe: the final resolution of the summit held in Iceland supports the Ukrainian Peace Formula. It is important that Europe is so united for the sake of a fair peace plan. I thank all the leaders of our Europe and every member state of the Council of Europe for this.

Based on this consolidation, we will continue to limit the ability of the terrorist state to continue this aggression and will further increase our ability to bring justice, liberate our land, and save our people.

I would like to thank the parliamentarians of the two European countries.

Today, the French Senate voted to recognize the Holodomor of 1932-33 as genocide of the Ukrainian people. I am grateful to everyone who supported this decision. Strengthening historical truth is the mission of the strong.

The Estonian Parliament has adopted a statement in support of our aspiration to become a full member of NATO and called on the Alliance to support this decision. I thank all the Estonian people and the entire Estonian political class for such clear support for our common Euro-Atlantic security.

Thank you to everyone who helps us protect our people, our Ukraine and life in general!

Glory to all our warriors who are now in combat, on combat missions and at combat posts! Glory to each and every one who is now in the epicenter of the fighting in the east of our country and is making extraordinary efforts to prevent the enemy from advancing. I thank you, warriors!

Glory to Ukraine!

Bakhmut:

From the Ukrainian officer who tweets as Tatarigami:

Full text:

I had discussions with several officers in Bakhmut and its surrounding area today, and it is disheartening to note that the situation remains very challenging in the city itself. The problem stems from the fact that the russian forces maintain a significant advantage in terms of artillery and mortars numbers.

Regardless of the training, experience and preparation of our soldiers, if positions are reduced to rubble by non-stop shelling, we will be unable to hold them.

We continue to hear assurances about an increase in ammunition production and the time required for production to be rebuilt. However, despite being a year and a half into this conflict, we find ourselves in the same situation as we were a year ago.

The political impotence and reluctance to increase the pace of production and deliveries directly translates into Ukrainians paying with their lives for every instance of missing ammunition that remains undelivered.

And a few follow ons:

Mykolaiv:

The Donbas:

That’s all I’ve got time for tonight, should, hopefully be back to a more robust update tomorrow.

Your daily Patron adjacent material! Wait, what?

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A new video from Patron’s official TikTok!

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Open thread!

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  1. 1.

    Alison Rose

    Miller’s and Tatarigami’s tweets about Bakhmut had me in tears. This destruction is the fault of russia, yes, but the hands of Western governments who dillydallied for months aren’t entirely clean. And I sincerely hope that once this is over and putin is in the ground and prigozhin has been launched into outer space and every last orc has scuttled back to their shithole motherland or completely off the mortal coil, that every single country not run by dictatorial assholes steps way up to pay for and assist with rebuilding. That is the absolute least we owe Ukraine.

    Sigh. Thank you as always, Adam.

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    Also that John Stuart Mill asshole can go fuck himself. I made the mistake of looking at more of his tweets, and he claims to support Ukraine but sure doesn’t sound like it. He’s basically saying they all have to smile and shut up since we’re giving them so much aid. Someone find this guy and punch him in the teeth for me, please.

  4. 4.

    jonas

    I’ve read in several places now that a lot of the tanks and artillery pieces Ukraine has been provided by the UK and Germany in particular are in really poor condition and have required considerable maintenance/upgrading before they can be put into the field. (Stuff from Poland and the Baltic countries is, unsurprisingly, newer and in pretty good shape.) This has delayed the deployment of a lot of armor. Does the same go for the ammunition? My impression is that a lot of stuff is being dug out of Cold War-era mothball and is not necessarily in ready-to-go condition.

  6. 6.

    Gin & Tonic

    Vyshyvanka Day, noted in the last tweet before Patron, is the third Thursday in May, when Ukrainians (and friends) wear the traditional embroidered shirts called “vyshyvanky” to honor tradition and folklore.

  7. 7.

    Gin & Tonic

    I am not currently in a position to link to it, but this week’s The Economist has a long and well -researched article about how Ukrainians are modifying consumer drones for warfare.

  8. 8.

    Another Scott

    @Gin & Tonic: Here ya go:

    In February 2022, four days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a man who goes by the pseudonym “Swat”, and who lives in Kyiv, switched on a 3d printer in his garage and began to make plastic tailfins. The idea was to attach them to hand grenades, turning them into miniature bombs that can be dropped from drones.

    (Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android.)

    A year on, Swat (which means “go-between” in Ukrainian) helps run a network called Druk (“Printing”) Army, which co-ordinates the output of over 300 3d printers across the country. A similar network run from Latvia, Swat says, has about 150 members. Following a trail blazed by the likes of Hizbullah and Islamic State, they specialise in converting civilian drones designed for hobbyists, film-makers and farmers into lethal weapons of war.

    […]

    Thanks for the pointer.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  9. 9.

    YY_Sima Qian

    5K Mavic 3s being converted a months, in one factory, into suicide drones. DJI must be making bank selling into Ukraine (& Russia). Also a very pricy choice.

  10. 10.

    Carlo Graziani

    @jonas: The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be very adept—and highly motivated—at adapting or repairing war gear.

    I have a feeling that stories like that come from interviews with Western officials and captains of industry accustomed to normal peacetime Western military-industrial practices, in which bureaucratic procurement and humane work conditions create a pipeline nowhere characterized by a sense of urgency. Wartime changes one’s perspective on such matters, and priorities shift so as to bring urgency to every pipeline stage.

    Which is to say that if the Ukrainians need to revive some rusting Leopard Is by welding plates and cutting new sheet metal and running coax cables under a driver’s seat, that’s what they’ll do, and the result, while appalling to a NATO tank officer, will be a perfectly serviceable tank.

  11. 11.

    kalakal

    @jonas:

    I’d be surprised if the UK Challenger IIs supplied were in poor condition, there’s only about 20 of them and they probably came from ‘active’ stock. No idea about the artillery but all the NLAWS and Starstreaks supplied, and they supplied a lot were in grade A condition as I presume are the StormShadows. The Leopard 1s on the other hand are almost certainly cold war mothballs.

  12. 12.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    PF1’s are nasty. Scatter cluster mines. Often brightly coloured to attract children. They are designed to maim, not kill. Blow a foot off.

    Destroying them with a anything over 6 feet, (they are pressure dentonated) is pretty safe.

    The problem is that Moscovia has scattered hundreds of thousands, with no regard for “military targets”. They are going after kids.

  13. 13.

    Jay

    @Carlo Graziani:

    Slava and his crew loved their Leopard II. Pristine clean, ( better than the depot stuff they got, mostly old T-72’s).

    Everything just worked.

    And hidden around the tank were Werther’s , stuffed beaver toys, maple sugar candies all hidden by the kids of the crews at CFB Gagetown.

  14. 14.

    Andrya

    Food for thought:  the very next BJ post after this one includes efforts to advance the cause of nuclear disarmament including by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and actor George Takei.  Here’s the thing- before the russian invasion of Ukraine I might have sympathized, but now, it seems to me that we cannot even consider nuclear disarmament in the foreseeable future.  (Yes, nuclear weapons are awful, and we may destroy the human race, but what would putin do if he had nukes and NATO did not?  And could we monitor russia sufficiently to absolutely preclude cheating in a treaty of mutual disarmament?)

    I’d love to get the opinion from jackals who know more about this than I do.

  15. 15.

    Andrya

    @Jay:  The USSR also deployed mines disguised as toys in Afghanistan (link).  I would argue that this was actually even more evil than doing so in Ukraine:  most Ukrainian children probably have at least one toy, but for many Afghan children, this would appear to be the only chance in their life to have a toy.

    What on earth can one do about a society so sunk in depravity?

  16. 16.

    Jay

    @kalakal:

    Leopard I’s are used as “training tanks”, by a bunch of NATO.

    They are in good shape, better than the T-54/55, T-62’s and T-72’s being pulled out of storage by the Moscovites.

    Keep in mind, there is an entire pundit class, paid for decades, to shit on NATO, (NAFO eats their shorts) and upsell Moscovia.

  17. 17.

    Jay

    @Andrya:

    those were PF-1’s.

    Being plastic, and being the USSR/Moscovia they were made  in any colours of plastic available, and still are.

    Worse to my mind, ( yeah, know a little about mines) are the Moscovites booby traps. Teddy bears, family photo’s, set to kill people trying to come back home.

  19. 19.

    AlaskaReader

    @Andrya:

    Do you have a reference where Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and actor George Takei have said we should disarm and not everyone should disarm?

    …or even that we should disarm first?

    I looked but I hadn’t found that reference.  Maybe you have one?

  20. 20.

    Andrya

    @AlaskaReader:  No, I wasn’t saying that at all.  I assume that Kishida and Takei (because they are not insane) are arguing for mutual disarmament with inspections.  (That’s all in the BJ post immediately following this one.)  My concern is that verifying compliance in dealing with a large, technically sophisticated, morally depraved country like russia is extremely risky.  If they don’t hide actual nukes, they might well hide stuff that enables them to manufacture nukes quickly.  And a world in which russia (and probably China) have nukes and NATO does not is a very dangerous world.

  21. 21.

    Jay

    @Andrya:

    basically, it’s a winglet shaped plastic structure, ( scatterable),

    hollow, filled with a bichemical explosive.

    Squeeze it too hard, boom.

    They were supposed to  made with an “earth matching” colour.

    Being the USSR and then Moscovia, a shitload were made with recycled plastic neon colours from a bunch of failed Japanese pokemon toy runs.

  22. 22.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Andrya: I’ve read articles over the years about the various methods and technical capabilities that the US uses to track adversaries’ nukes and nuclear programs.  Stuff like:

    • a lot of the initial seismic labs were set up to search for evidence of nuke blasts
    • the US has a robust spy program keeping track of nukes
    • remember when the US and Russia mutually agreed that planes from each country could overfly the other, in order to look for nukes?
    • I remember (could be hallucinating *grin*) that we and the USSR had some agreement whereby we’d both open land-based missile silos on some day (or during some period) so each others’ satellites could photograph ’em

    What I mean is, that unless the US is convinced they can actually *verify* RU’s numbers, they’re not gonna go along.  Heh, remember RaYgUn’s “trust but verify” ?

  23. 23.

    AlaskaReader

    @Andrya:

     

    Well, you see, …I’m maybe confused when I did see that you had typed the words ‘Russia has nukes and NATO does not’

    I see no evidence that is being suggested or promoted by those urging disarmament.

    I only saw that posited in your own words…

  24. 24.

    Andrya

    @Chetan Murthy:  Thanks, but I’m still scared.

    Seismic labs?  russia has proven designs for nukes.  They may not need to test them.

    Spy programs?  Moles in US security services (Aldrich Ames, Robert Hassen)  have betrayed many US assets in russia, many were killed, one was fed, alive and conscious, feet first into a furnace.  (Shudder.)  It’s hard to think this hasn’t discouraged potential US assets in russia.

    Bottom line:  would you be willing to bet Ukraine’s survival on these “safeguards”?

    By the way, my reply is not hostile- I love your posts and have learned a lot from you.

    It’s almost midnight in California, so I am signing off.  I’ll check in tomorrow morning.

  25. 25.

    Andrya

    @AlaskaReader:  I NEVER said that Kishida or Takei advocated this.  I said it could be the result if russia evaded inspections, which is entirely possible.

  26. 26.

    AlaskaReader

    @Andrya:

     

    Food for thought: …efforts to advance the cause of nuclear disarmament including by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and actor George Takei.  Here’s the thing- before the russian invasion of Ukraine I might have sympathized, but now, it seems to me that we cannot even consider nuclear disarmament in the foreseeable future.  (Yes, nuclear weapons are awful, and we may destroy the human race, but what would putin do if he had nukes and NATO did not?  And could we monitor russia sufficiently to absolutely preclude cheating in a treaty of mutual disarmament?)

    I don’t know about any other ‘readers’ but when I read that, I do read that to say you did posit Russia having nukes and Nato not having nukes.

    …I’m aware of no one who is, or has, advanced that premise other than when you brought such a premise to life.

    Carry on…

  27. 27.

    Chetan Murthy

    @AlaskaReader: Andrya’s been around here a long time, and so I would credit their explanation that they’re talking about a world where Russia cheats on their disarmament obligations.  And the rest of that comment makes it clear that they’re not comfortable with disarmament these days.

    Who could be, given what we’ve seen, which is a nuclear power using that as a cudgel to prevent other countries from helping a victim of that power’s aggression?  These are dark days.

  28. 28.

    Chetan Murthy

    This is gripping reading: https://nitter.net/PickardJE/status/1659103829231648769#m

    fascinating from the @Guto_Harri podcast memoir, recounting Boris Johnson’s interaction with President Zelensky at 4am the night Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022

    There’s an image of the text from the memoir.  Wow.  BoJo may be a fool and a rogue (and yes, many other much-worse things) but he has his moments, and 24 Feb and the days after, were some of them.

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