(Image by NEIVANMADE)
A quick housekeeping note: TechCrunch is reporting that Twitter has silently reversed the log in requirement for viewing tweets. As far as I can tell this is not the case, but that is what is being reported.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
We are working with our partners as hard as we can to ensure that our common security in Vilnius prevails; it all depends on our partners – address by the President of Ukraine
5 July 2023 – 19:03
Fellow Ukrainians!
A report on this day.
First: The meeting of the Staff was particularly long, particularly detailed. We discussed the safety of our strategic facilities, our nuclear power plants. There were relevant reports, relevant decisions, and – very importantly – control over the implementation of decisions.
By the way, we maintain maximum contact with our partners to ensure that no one in the world has even the slightest shortage of information about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP and the threats posed by Russia.
As always, we discussed in detail the key areas of the East and South. Thank you, warriors, for your bravery!
We are also paying attention to the Northern direction – we see all potential threats, and the Commander-in-Chief has been instructed to continue strengthening the North.
Very importantly, at every meeting of the Staff, we return to the issue of ammunition, in particular for our artillery. And this applies not only to supplies from partners, but also to production in Ukraine. I am grateful to each and every person who works to fulfill this strategic, vital task. We are constantly making progress in the production of weapons in Ukraine.
The second important thing that happened today. We are preparing new sanctions, sanction steps by our government, and today I held a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Svyrydenko and National Security and Defense Council Secretary Danilov. The decisions will be made soon.
Third, I held a separate meeting on the situation with shelters in different regions of our country, in different cities. The reports were delivered by Minister of Strategic Industries Kamyshin and specialized Deputy Head of the Office for Regional Policy Kuleba.
Unfortunately, in different cities of Ukraine, there is still a significant lack of availability of shelters… after all this time. The state will not tolerate such inaction. And this is the responsibility of local leaders. Local authorities in the country have the resources to build shelters.
One more thing.
There is exactly one week left until the key day of the NATO Summit in Vilnius. That means a week until the key moment for our common security in Europe. We are working with our partners as hard as we can to ensure that our common security in Vilnius prevails. It all depends on our partners.
Glory to all Ukrainian heroes! Glory to each of our combat brigades, all units of our defense and security forces!
Glory to Ukraine!
Ukrainian Minister of Defense Reznikov was quoted in The Financial Times regarding the Ukrainian Armed Forces actually testing US and allied weapons systems, thereby providing invaluable data back to these militaries and their weapons manufacturers about what works, what doesn’t, how, and why.
Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov was meeting US officials when he took a phone call from his top commander. Turning to his American visitors, Reznikov said: “I have good news for you. We downed a Kinzhal.”
The Kinzhal was supposedly a fearsome Russian hypersonic missile which, Vladimir Putin boasted, flew so fast it could not be intercepted. But on that day in May, Ukrainian forces fired a newly acquired Patriot air defence system, one of the most advanced pieces of weaponry supplied so far by the US, proving Putin wrong.
“Fantastic!” Reznikov recalled a US official responding.
The war in Ukraine is the first time that Nato weaponry is being used on a large scale against Russia’s army — after pleas for assistance from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — and it is giving western militaries invaluable insights into the performance of their kit.
Experts had long suspected the Patriot was capable of shooting down a Kinzhal, but it took the Ukrainian military to demonstrate it. They have since intercepted more than a dozen.
Kyiv’s western allies “can actually see if their weapons work, how efficiently they work and if they need to be upgraded”, Reznikov said in an interview.
“For the military industry of the world, you can’t invent a better testing ground,” he added.
Much more at the link!
For all intents and purposes Ukraine is one big proving ground for the US and allied militaries. Both for how their weapons work, but also how you could conduct operations, including now combined arms operations, without air superiority. This is exceedingly important because the US and our NATO allies would never do anything without air superiority. And because we spend a lot of time doing training with partners that are not themselves capable of establishing air superiority what we should – I’d like to say will, but despite everyone at the Combined Arms Center saying it, THE ARMY IS DEFINITELY NOT A LEARNING ORGANIZATION!!!! – learn from observing how the Ukrainians conduct their defense against Russia’s genocidal re-invasion without the air superiority we take for granted. This should translate into better training, education, and experiential learning programs for our partners.
Estonian Prime Minister Katja Kallas has some thoughts for her peers in the other NATO member states:
Estonia’s prime minister has warned western countries not to use bilateral security assurances to “blur” the debate over Ukraine’s bid for Nato membership ahead of the military alliance’s summit next week.
Nato is divided over offering Ukraine a postwar pathway to membership at the summit in Vilnius next week. At the same time the US, UK and EU states are drawing up plans to provide Kyiv with “security commitments” aimed at helping the country defend itself in lieu of alliance accession.
“We need practical, concrete steps on the path to Nato membership,” Kaja Kallas told the Financial Times. “I have the feeling that talking about security guarantees actually blurs the picture . . . the only security guarantee that really works and is much cheaper than anything else is Nato membership.”
Euro-Atlantic security will not be complete without Ukraine being part of the mutual defence pact, she said, urging her allies not to waver and bow to “terrorist” intimidation from Russia.
The proposed commitments being discussed among western capitals are largely based around codifying and pledging a long-term continuation of support already being provided to Ukraine in weaponry, finance and training. Kallas said that was not sufficient to deter Russian aggression.
“This is what we are doing right now, but it doesn’t give you any other additional guarantees,” she said. “The war will not be there when the deterrence is credible.”
“There is a majority who think that we have to find a practical way [forward],” Kallas said. “Grey zones are sources of conflict and war. So as long as those countries who want to join the alliance are not allowed to when they feel threatened, then I think that the whole [Euro-Atlantic security] picture is not complete.”
“I hear a lot [of countries] saying that we shouldn’t do this or that because it provokes Putin or Russia and especially to use nuclear weapons,” she said.
“Those threats are in order to intimidate us. The definition of terrorism is to make us afraid so that we would refrain from the decisions that we would otherwise make. And this is what they are trying to do.”
Much more at the link!
I wold remind everyone that West Germany was admitted into NATO despite half of Germany – that whole East Germany part – being under Soviet control and effectively occupied.
For you drone enthusiasts:
Perfect combination.
🇺🇦 aerial reconnaissance + 🇺🇦 artillery = ☠️ to occupiers.🎥60th Mechanized Brigade pic.twitter.com/QCiYyqeXUh
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) July 5, 2023
Makiivka:
Yesterday's bavovna in Russian-occupied Makiivka pic.twitter.com/XzkR51RXUD
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) July 5, 2023
Below is a new and different strike in Makiivka from the video of yesterday’s strike above. Yesterday’s took out a cache of grad rockets, today’s hit an oil depot.
2Himars strikes blown-up an oil depot in the temporary occupied #Makiivka
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/mNicXII1vm— АЗОВ South (@Azovsouth) July 5, 2023
🔥Happy HIMARS anniversary orcs🔥 pic.twitter.com/he6nMI6Jmu
— АЗОВ South (@Azovsouth) July 5, 2023
/2. «As a result of the shelling of the Chervonogvardeisky district, an oil depot caught fire.» – Russian appointed head of Makiivka pic.twitter.com/jrFGWkDb8f
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 5, 2023
Bakhmut Axis:
BAKHMUT AXIS /1645 UTC 5 JUL/ Front line reportage on 5 JUL indicates that UKR forces have advanced 250 meters and have taken the hilltops dominating the village of Klischiivka [See Inset]. The capture of this key terrain will likely lead to further advances south of the Bakhmut… pic.twitter.com/BZeh1FCTVa
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) July 5, 2023
Full text of the tweet:
BAKHMUT AXIS /1645 UTC 5 JUL/ Front line reportage on 5 JUL indicates that UKR forces have advanced 250 meters and have taken the hilltops dominating the village of Klischiivka [See Inset]. The capture of this key terrain will likely lead to further advances south of the Bakhmut urban area,
Update: Northern flank #Bakhmut
The 🇺🇦Armed Forces advanced in #Berkhivka area
Successful counterattack actions, forced a bunch of orcs to retreat from two strongholds near the village of Berkhivka. The 🇺🇦Forces have occupied strongholds and trying to consolidate positions.
— АЗОВ South (@Azovsouth) July 5, 2023
Dmitri brings us this translated assertion from Russian milblogger Sladkov
❗️Sladkov – Russian armed formations left Klischiivka!
"We left Kleshcheevka.
This is near Bakhmut. It is necessary to check this, I'll be glad if this is reguted. If it's true, then it's bad. Bakhmut is under fire control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
I can’t say a bad word… pic.twitter.com/0jTd0443yG— Dmitri (@wartranslated) July 5, 2023
Here’s the full translation from Dmitri’s tweet:
❗️Sladkov – Russian armed formations left Klischiivka!
“We left Kleshcheevka.
This is near Bakhmut. It is necessary to check this, I’ll be glad if this is reguted. If it’s true, then it’s bad. Bakhmut is under fire control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
I can’t say a bad word about our guys who left.
According to my data, there is again a shell diet. I’ll be glad to be wrong.
You won’t be strong without strength. The weak don’t win. The city of Bakhmut is under threat of assault. Can we keep it? Who knows.”
Volkovakha, Donetsk Oblast:
Powerful #HIMARS strike on the administration building in temporary occupied #Volnovakha, Donetsk Oblast.
A bunch of💀💀orcs pic.twitter.com/SXRCLAIefs
— АЗОВ South (@Azovsouth) July 5, 2023
And a little something for Omnes:
A short video demonstrating the operation of the M109 Paladin howitzer by members of Ukraine's defence forces' 47th Brigade. pic.twitter.com/tXLqXBGuzV
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) July 5, 2023
Yarrow sends along this reminder of the US’s and allies’ warnings to Russia from February:
Quite a story buried in this FT article:
“US, UK, and France…delivered a joint message to Russia vowing to retaliate with conventional weapons if Putin decided to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.” https://t.co/UclYv5nhBl
That red line would be war between NATO and Russia. 👀 pic.twitter.com/vAkl2NtQoN
— Hans Kristensen (@nukestrat) July 5, 2023
A US Marine veteran who had gone to Ukraine to fight on behalf of the Ukrainians in the International Legion has been killed in action. Task and Purpose has the details.
The war in Ukraine has claimed the life of another U.S. military veteran. Ian Tortorici was killed in a recent Russian missile strike on a restaurant in Ukraine, his father Jon Frank told Task & Purpose.
“I was told he fought on every front for 15 months and was never injured with the exception of one concussion,” Frank said. “After Bakhmut there were only five of the 16 from his original team who did not leave, killed or wounded and he told me he would not leave until the war was over.”
In the last message that Frank received from his son, Tortorici wrote that he was on leave in Kramatorsk, Ukraine after his nine-man team had taken a trench from 20 Russians.
Tortorici also wrote that he expected to return to the front lines after a few days of rest, but on June 27 a Russian missile struck a crowded restaurant in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, killing Tortorici and 12 other people, including Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina.
On Monday, Frank told Task & Purpose that his son served as both a data systems administrator and radio operator in the Marine Corps Reserve from 2009 to 2015, during which he was activated for 10 months for an expected deployment to Bahrain, but his unit ended up staying at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California.
While in the Marine Corps, Tortorici served under the name Ian Frank, said his father, who explained that “Tortorici” is Frank’s grandfather’s name, which his son added later. Tortorici left the Corps as a corporal.
“He was not a Mercenary but a contracted member of the Ukrainian army with the International Legion and a U.S. Flag over his heart,” Frank wrote in a June 30 Facebook post. “He was a U.S. Marine, Park Service Ranger and ICE agent, a son, a brother and uncle and he gave up a lucrative and comfortable life to prevent WWIII.”
Frank also wrote on Facebook that Tortorici asked his father “not to make a fuss” if anything happened to him, but Frank still felt the need to pay tribute to his fallen son.
“He experienced a lifetime of death and horrors but chose to stay,” Frank wrote. “He loved his team, his girlfriend and Ukraine. He was the most selfless, bravest, kindest, unassuming and off-center person on the planet and hated for anyone to know it.”
Anthony Tortorici Frank also paid homage to his fallen brother on Facebook, who left his life behind to join Ukraine’s international legion.
“To this day, I still don’t fully understand why he felt the need to defend a country that wasn’t his home,” Anthony Tortorici Frank wrote. “All I know is he had a warrior’s spirit and, like all warriors, answered the call. We never know when our final hour is upon us. All we can do is live our lives on our terms, and my brother did just that. I am proud of you, Ian. I am happy for the life you lived. I will honor your memory and look after our family.”
More at the link!
Tales of collaboration:
That face when the SBU knocks on your door after you passed sensitive information of AFU movements around Bakhmut to your ruzZian contact & you know you are going to prison for 10 years. Tetyana B.
How many soldiers died from artillery strikes because of her?#lviv pic.twitter.com/0VRudfNUHR— TheLvivJournal (@LvivJournal) July 5, 2023
It is funny because she answered to one of the Ukrainian undercover agents (posing as a ruzZian on Facebook) that she was helping ruzZia for free (out of her love) and that she did not accept money for the information she was giving
— TheLvivJournal (@LvivJournal) July 5, 2023
That’s enough for tonight.
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Open thread!
twbrandt
Links to specific tweets work without a login, but going to just twitter.com requires a login. At least that’s what happening for me with both Firefox and Safari.
Adam L Silverman
@twbrandt: That makes sense. They’re probably still trying to figure out how to fix what they broke.
japa21
If verified, the news about Klischiivka will be fantastic. The one victory Russia has really had (Pyrrhic though it was) could be on the verge of being totally erased.
New Deal democrat
Some important sources of Ukraine War information have started making use of lifeboat accounts elsewhere.
NOELreports is now on Mastodon at noelrports dot social
So is Tendar at newsie dot social
Defmon3 has started a Bluesky account:
Defmon3 dot bsky dot social
Bill Arnold
Looks like twitter links to particular tweets sort of render.
Those with a url formed like:
I removed URL because it was breaking the margins on phones, see image of what was removed in a reply at 22 below. – WG
They show, they show video. They do not show any context; in particular, no replies, or parent tweet if any. (i.e. mostly useless.)
I suspect that they are trying to game google into not downgrading twitter links because twitter is a walled hell-garden, while still attempting to block all scraping. Dropping API costs by a factor of 10-50 would solve their problem, but they are stupid and stubborn.
Google appears to be indexing new tweets referenced elsewhere, at least.
The question is whether advertisers will come back to a walled-hell-garden. I suspect not, and that these changes are self-inflicted kill shots.
Alison Rose
Well said. And it sure does feel like we’ve heard “if we do X putin will use nukes” many many times. Thus far, nada. I swear, sometimes it feels like the whole world is in an abusive domestic partnership with this son of a bitch.
I saw that Petr Čech has joined the Game4Ukraine team! It’s in one month at Stamford Bridge, if any UK jackals are interested.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Steeplejack
@Bill Arnold:
You broke the margin with your “encoded” Twitter address. Readers on phones will have trouble writing comments.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: Any suggestions for fixing it. Other than deleting it?
Carlo Graziani
Concerning Russian nuclear use in Ukraine being explicitly deterred by the threat of NATO conventional intervention in Ukraine: I’m going to indulge myself in a rare self-pat-on-the-back, as I wrote a detailed comment on the fact that this was likely the case in April of last year. At the time, it seemed to me that there was a great deal of worrying about whether the Russians would use battlefield NBC weapons in Ukraine, but nobody seemed to be asking the question “why have the Russians not done so already, given how badly the war is going for them?”
I’ve made numerous inferences and predictions about the course of this war, and the majority of them have been wrong (*). But if I had to pick one that I had the most confidence in, this one would be it.
(*) I don’t feel bad about this. Trying to make sense of the war based on highly incomplete information makes it inevitable. Marking belief to market is the key to continuously improving the picture that emerges from the process. And that’s really what matters, more than getting any individual inference right.
lashonharangue
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks Adam. Could it be that the Army cannot conceive of a scenario where the casualties associated with fighting without air superiority would be acceptable to the U.S. public? So they train for the war they think would be accepted.
Carlo Graziani
@Adam L Silverman: Possibly editing the comment to insert hard line breaks in the URL, so that the comment wraps properly
ETA: That may look weird, because line breaks appear to cause paragraph breaks in WP. So perhaps strategically inserting a space right before “/status…” is a better option
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: @Adam L Silverman:
On my phone, in portrait mode, putting a carriage return before “<twitteruserid>” would get it to wrap Ok. (I don’t know if it would break the “code” formatting and require other fixes.)
On my phone, it doesn’t break the margin in Landscape mode.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Carlo Graziani: CGAD: Carlo Graziani Ensured Destruction. I’m sure it will be all the rage in International Relations!//
Geminid
There will be an important meeting in Brussels tomorrow, where the Foreign Ministers of Sweden, Finland and Turkiye will hash out questions related to Sweden’s NATO accession. Reports are that the three countries’ intelligence and national security chiefs will attend also.
Some tea leaves to read: Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry released a statement welcoming the extension of Secretary General Stoltenberg’s tenure, expressing gratitude for his support of Turkiye.
Adam L Silverman
@lashonharangue: That’s part of it. The other part is we’ve had air superiority for decades. No one comes close. As a result our doctrine is all built on the assumption we’ll have it.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: @Carlo Graziani: I’m on my MacBook Pro, so it looked normal before. But I just made some tweaks. Someone take a look and let me know if it’s now fixed.
Carlo Graziani
@Adam L Silverman: Eh, I’ll take it. It makes up for the time I thought the Ukrainians were going on a thunder run to Kerch in July 2022…
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: You’ll just have to let everyone else use your phone to read the comments.//
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Link-ifying it works, also too. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Carlo Graziani: I was just good naturedly teasing.
WaterGirl
@Bill Arnold:
Origuy
I’ve been getting a lot of Ukraine information on Mastodon from @[email protected]
Since I don’t follow a lot of other people there, it dominates my feed.
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: I fixed it.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
I see someone already found the answer: if you make it an actual link, with that same text as the “text” part of the link as well as the URL, FYWP can parse it successfully.
Carlo Graziani
@Adam L Silverman: It fixed the formatting for the rest of the page. Bill’s comment itself looks slightly odd (the first part of the broken URL has now become a link that redirects to the twitter login page) but its meaning is understandable.
Carlo Graziani
@WaterGirl: Of course you did.
Adam L Silverman
@Origuy: I have a link somewhere for Ukraine war news on Mastodon. I’ll try to dig it out for tomorrow.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Except it wasn’t a valid link, right? So it would appear to be clickable but wouldn’t take you anywhere good.
Manyakitty
@WaterGirl: 😂🤣😸
Traveller
@Carlo Graziani: Wrong or Right in predictions, you are always a good read…thoughtful, measured, full of providing information to readers…so be gentle on yourself. Traveller
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: It was a (pseudo-)link to Twitter, so that goes without saying, doesn’t it??
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: That’s got to be a new rotating tag.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
As I have hypothesized before, if the “text” is a URL, FYWP will line-break it okay. It is only “regular” text strings that FYWP may have problems with, depending on the presence or absence of certain line-breakable characters.
ETA: It doesn’t have to be a valid URL.
NutmegAgain
Not to pick nits, but of course East Germany (DDR) and West Germany (BRD) were actually 2 distinct countries at the time. Yes, they reunited in 1990, but post-war through the 1980s they were separate.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
And I see that WaterGirl unfixed it and refixed it in a different way.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
It was not meant to take you anywhere, but making it “clickable” neatly solved the formatting problem.
Geminid
@Geminid: Stoltenburg very much wants Sweden’s accession to NATO agreed to by next week’s summit meeting in Vilnius, so Turkiye may choose to gratify his desire. I think Turkiye’s eventual agreement to Swedish NATO membership is all but certain, so they might as well “git ‘er done,” as they say in Ankara.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: In general, FYWP tries to do the right thing with URLs, yes. But sometimes it messes up and, e.g., leaves off some characters in the URL on the last part of the wrapping. That happened with a MomSense link yesterday (or a day or so ago).
FYWP just seems to run away screaming if it sees too many characters without white space that isn’t what it thinks a URL should be.
(There are some brain-dead printer routines for browsers that are even worse – if they come across a line that is “too long”, they’ll reduce the magnification of the page to make everything microscopic. I thought word wrapping was figured out about 58 years ago with CRT terminals…)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
@NutmegAgain:
I think perhaps (part of) the point is that West Germany could be said to have a border dispute with a neighbor, which could have theoretically ruled out NATO membership.
[Narrator: There was no way West Germany was not going to get membership.]
Anonymous At Work
Adam,
About the proving grounds bit, any sense or word that UA having access to the latest and best with good training will prepare US for when a SE Asian power decides to invade a small breakaway island neighbor? That teh US needs to learn MORE from what weapons can/do work than this “SE Asian power” does from what Russia does (or rather learns what not to do)?
Another Scott
@NutmegAgain: I wouldn’t call them two distinct countries, myself. One of the occupying powers after WWII didn’t play by the rules, but it wasn’t a separate country.
NATO.int:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anonymous At Work
Adam,
The buildup by RU around Kreminna, is that a legit threat or is it a “threat-in-being”?
piratedan
@Anonymous At Work: perhaps its simply a “target rich environment”……
NutmegAgain
@Another Scott: Dunno, they had different governments, different currencies, different food, even (recommend Goodbye Lenin! , wonderful movie). Lots of the culture is different; sadly, today the former East is where neo Nazi garbage has taken hold, along with AFD. On the fun side, FKK is much more normal over there. Anyway, it’s clearly a matter of metrics in deciding whether they were one or two. And yeah, border disagreement is clearly relevant.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: Yes and yes.
Adam L Silverman
@Anonymous At Work: I’ll deal with his tomorrow in the update itself.
Lyrebird
@New Deal democrat:
Thanks for these! I hope that Ponomarenko and Avdeeva and other key journalists pick their alternate accounts, maybe some NAFO fellas could try to help make it easier to sign up? I don’t know.
Jay
@Anonymous At Work:
It’s both, and they are using the Plant as a “human shield”.
Chetan Murthy
That bavovna in Makiivka that Adam linked-to in the post …. wowsers, I saw the clip last night, and it’s *something* alright. Wowsers, it just goes on and on and on. Big-ass GRAD rocket stockpile, that. Love it.
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
Well that was exciting; sorry and glad you found a workaround.
It wasn’t even correct; the tweetid was supposed to be a placeholder for the unique tweet id (which includes an encoded timestamp)
Mallard Filmore
@Carlo Graziani:
Try using , it may give a better look.
BeautifulPlumage
“Below is a new and different strike in Makiivka from the video of yesterday’s strike above. Yesterday’s took out a cache of grad rockets…”
Took out a lot more than the rockets! That whole building seems to have gone up. I’ll be curious what the site looks like now.
Is that the recommended way to store rockets? @IAmTheWarax says that rockets need to be grouped together because they’re very social.
Martin
Tried signing up for Threads, but it requires an Instagram account, which it says I can’t create a new one of with my email because the account already exists, but if I request a password reset, it can’t find an account.
These guys are so good at this it hurts.
Jay
@BeautifulPlumage:
Normally, you “bunkerize” ammo. A pit or sandbagged walls, with a “blow off roof”, so if it get’s hit or blows up, everything goes up, not out.
You also minimize the amount of ammo in any one place, you scatter it around so one hit or “smoking accident” doesn’t leave you “ammo starved”.
Ruzzian logistics seem to be “pile it all up in one area” where a small group can dole it out.
I have seen vids of anti-tank mines piled up like oranges in a supermarket, cases of Grads, 7.62, mortars all piled together with half of the cases busted open, with nada, no bunker, no camo, just sitting next to the trench.
BeautifulPlumage
@Jay: that video showed a lot of stick-like items. Are the rockets only the clump of yellow or are the beige, white, etc also ammo?
Carlo Graziani
@Anonymous At Work: The Svatove-Kreminna theatre has been a continuously active area for both sides since late last year. The Russians would probably like Kupyansk back, since that loss was the most important strategic calamity that befell them during last Fall’s Kharkhiv offensive—the loss of that railhead really constrained supply from Belgorod, and added materially to the UA’s supply network. They are presumably also nervous about what further UA success in this theatre could mean for their remaining supply line from Belgorod.
Nonetheless, as far as a real threat is concerned, in my opinion they may as well go rub a lamp for all the good that a renewed offensive campaign here can do them. It’s a very mature theatre, with well-developed defensive works on both sides, and we know what the Russian offensive tactics are for such circumstances, as we saw them all last Summer in Donetsk Oblast, grinding forward a few hundred yards at a time, using artillery and desultory infantry attacks that attrited their own force more than the UA, and producing no strategic gains of any measurable value.
If they want to create another meat grinder for themselves, I feel sure that the UA will be happy to oblige them. The more so because this concentration is likely invite military crises in other theatres.
Jinchi
We can see the exact tweet you link to, including any images or movies, but no comments, leading or trailing tweets. So if you link to a tweet thread, we’ll only see the specific instance you cite, none of the thread prior or following.
I’m sure Elon will solve this quickly – probably by demanding we all subscribe to twitter blue.
topclimber
@Another Scott: Adenauer retired as German chancellor at age 87, his 14th year on the job. This was after negotiating a major treaty with France’s Charles DeGaulle, not the easiest guy to deal with. Good to remember when questions come up about Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second term.
Jay
@BeautifulPlumage:
It’s all ammo. Grad rockets, artillery shells, ATGM’s, RPG’s, tank rounds, cannon shells, landmines, heavy machine gun and small arms, all in stacks.
All that is missing is aerial bombs and naval torpedo’s.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani:
Today, FT has an article (clearly planted by Chinese officials, but seems to be willingly corroborated by Western ones) that discusses how President Xi explicitly (but privately) warned Putin against using nukes in their meeting in Moscow in Mar. Apparently Chinese officials have been trying to take credit for dissuading Putin from that path in their interactions w/ Western (especially European) counterparts.
What might actually have transpired in the Xi-Putin meeting is less interesting than why Chinese officials are planting such a story in Western MSM now, & what are the implications going forward:
I imagine the calculations are similar New Delhi, Istanbul & Brasilia.
YY_Sima Qian
@YY_Sima Qian:
Here is a short Twitter thread by Sam Greene reacting to the FT article:
japa21
Have to wonder if the warnings include not only using nukes but doing anything to the nuclear power plant that can cause a problem.
Martin
Glad to see NATO drawing a red line there. Have to assume the Russian navy would immediately get a lot smaller under such a scenario.
Geoduck
For anyone looking for more daily info about the war… Fark.com has its (ahem) quirks, but they do a daily war thread over there with lots of info and links. (And yes, they are rabidly pro-Ukrainian.)
Ruckus
Ian Tortorici
Rest in peace.
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian:
Yes, but while such claims made by Beijing have some claim on serious consideration, when other BRICS make them they have more of the character of “Rooster claiming credit for the dawn.”
The analysis makes a lot of sense, but while China appears pricipally interested in coaxing some daylight between the EU and the US, it is very intriguing that actual daylight is appearing between China and Russia.
The motion is encouraging, in that it suggests that some pragmatism operates to constrain Beijing’s International policy. With some encouragement, one could imagine that over time, Xi might come around to moderating his maximalist expectations for reshaping the global order in China’s interests, and perhaps even develop some insight into why China’s neighbors do not view its foreign policy in the same benign terms with which it views itself.
Another Scott
@Martin:
ICYMI, What to know about Threads (from Eugen Rochko, CEO / Founder of Mastodon)
Interesting.
(via @[email protected] via Teri_Kanefield)
Cheers,
Scott.
Carlo Graziani
A propos of modern nuclear deterrence: War on the Rocks just published an appreciation of Michael Quinlan, the British policy advisor and deterrence theorist. The article makes many cogent points on how Sir Michael would have viewed the problem presented by contemporary Russia’s nuclear posturing.
Another Scott
@Carlo Graziani: A good read. Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: Well, Ankara (as we diplomacy-savvy people say) also has to worry about fallout from a Russian nuclear strike, Turkiye being right across the Black Sea from Ukraine.
I’ll be interested in how Turko-Russian relations evolve now that Erdogan has won reelection. Russia threw him an economic lifeline this past year by allowing Turkiye a year’s grace on its whopping natural gas bill, and lending several billion dollars to Turkiye’s central bank in a transaction related to the Russian nuclear power plant built in western Turkiye. The economy was Erdogan’s biggest political liability, and Erdogan needed all the help he could get in this area.
Now it is the UAE that is supporting Turkiye. The two nations have been at odds most of the last decade, and backed different sides in the Libyan conflict. But last month UAE President Al Nayan visited Turkiye and announced several billion dollars of state investments in his host’s economic institutions. Erdogan treated Al Nayan to dinner at a nice Istanbul restaurant, and the two leaders walked out hand in hand in a public display of friendship and respect. Al Nayan took Erdogan’s son in law, a fellow pilot and the owner of Baykar industries, on a ride in his fighter jet and then announced the purchase of some of Mr. Bayraktar’s combat drones.
Mr. Simsek, Erdogan’s new Finance Minister, has instituted a more orthodox monetary policy. It will take a while to turn the Turkish economy around, but Simsek made his first foreign trip to the UAE last week in hopes that private Gulf investors will find Turkiye a more attractive nation in which to place their money. Western institutions may also have more confidence in Turkiye’s economy.
All that is to say that Erdogan does not need his “frenemy” Mr. Putin like he did before May 28th. What effect this will have on Turkish foreign policy in general and towards the Ukraine war in particular remains to be seen.
Carlo Graziani
@Geminid:
I’m sorry, I can’t help myself. As They Might Be Giants very educationally sang…
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: Even under Xi, there has been a strong streak of pragmatism in Chinese foreign policy, just that w/ growing Chinese power Chinese leaders do not believe they need to be as accommodating. That latter dynamic is not driven by Xi, & indeed predates him to the aftermath of the GFC. Xi is riding & exploiting these sentiments, while trying not to be devoured by them.
I think the limitations/tensions in Sino-Russian alignment vis-a-vis the West & the trans-Atlantic (or trans-Pacific, for that matter) alignments vis-a-vis China have always been there just under the surface, just as the motivations behind the alignments have been obvious. It has been in the interests of the two sets of camps to highlight their internal alignment, while sweeping the tensions & contradictions under the rug. Nevertheless, the tensions in both sets of alignments remain, & remain unresolved: the US is driven to maintain/regain its primacy, but US allies & partners (especially outside of Japan & Australia) are far less invested in maintaining US primacy as a geopolitical objective on its own; China wants an international order that is more advantaged to its interests, Russia wants to create & benefit from chaos. It is just that the vast majority of commentary out there do not attempt to scratch beyond the surface. (Which is why Adam’s posts here are so valuable.)
China is certainly motivated to push as far as possible to tilt the international order to its favor, or at least away from the West (in this it is aligned w/ non-Western parts of the world, including India), but I do not sense it is under any illusions that it can ever reach a position to dictate terms a la the US’ unipolar moment, even w/in the Asia-Pacific region. China is not powerful enough, & will likely never be powerful enough, to be in that kind of position. No great power is, nor likely will be for a long time. That is why policymakers around the world (including in the EU) are increasingly recognizing multi-polarity as the state of geopolitics going forward, even though “multi-polarity” remain dirty words in DC.
Unfortunately, the Sino-US relationship is caught in a downward spiral w/o bottom, despite I think sincere intentions by both Biden & Xi to arrest the decline & form a floor. Neither capitals are capable of any strategic empathy (not to be confused w/ sympathy) toward the other, or indeed much strategic empathy to 3rd parties (including erstwhile allies & partners) that they are looking to align w/ or coerce, & the domestic politics in both countries wrt Great Power Competition are dangerously toxic. The cycle will have to be broken by others.
Geminid
@Carlo Graziani: Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu (@ragipsoylu) showed a funny clip a a few days ago, from riot coverage in Paris. It’s night-time, and a reporter for Turkish State Television is yakking with the anchorwoman back in Istanbul when he looks over his shoulder and sees a big cop walking quickly towards him. It looks like the reporter’s about to get clubbed, but instead the cop brushes past him saying, “Step back!”
But the cop says it in Turkish! It turns out his family’s from Ankara.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: You are quite right about the capital or Türkiye, had a brain fart.
There is indeed a reshuffling of the deck going on in the ME.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I figured you knew, and I was just having fun.
There really is a lot going on in that region. So far the developments seem to be good, especially in Yemen. Oman’s role as interlocutor in that conflict and others has been very interesting. Oman recently hosted indirect talks between Iranian and American officials regarding Iran’s nuclear program, and in February Laura Rozen linked to a report that Iranian and Ukrainian representatives had met secretely in Oman. I don’t think the Ukrainians have a lot of leverage over Iran right now, but they might have told the Iranians that despite Iranian missiles, they are going to win this war and what goes around, comes around.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Yeah, there is definitely an attempt by the Sunni states to lower the temperature w/ Iran, & shift away from rivalry w/ Türkiye. At the same time, there has been a strong economic/technological pivot by the Gulf Coast states toward China. The UAE seems to have ditched F35s for Rafales, despite US threats, so that it could continue to build out its telecom infrastructure using Huawei & ZTE gear. There are major deals inked recently on renewable energy & EV (both of which China is currently leading) investment. It seems the Gulf States see their long term future in selling Green hydrogen created by renewable energy (the Arabian Peninsula is abundant in solar potential) to Europe, to replace their current hydrocarbon centered wealth.
At a high level, the US & China actually have interests in the ME that are largely aligned. The Biden Administrations has reacted sensibly to Chinese attempts at diplomacy in the region. A GOP administration probably would not act as sensibly. China is now even dipping its toes into mediating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though that is probably just posturing. The risible Netanyahu is set to visit China soon, after being snubbed by the Biden Administration. We’ll also see how long the principled stance by the Biden Administration will last, eventually Biden had to bow to geopolitical realities & visit MBS in Saudi Arabia.
way2blue
With Twitter on the fritz, I’ve reverted to reading the NYT & WP for current events. This morning’s front page of the New York Times included these headlines:
• ‘The Ukraine War Forced This Company to Choose Politics Over Business
• ‘Dig, Dig, Dig: A Russian Soldier’s Story
• Ukraine and Russia accused each other of plotting attacks at the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Is it always this insidious? Making Ukraine look like the bad guy. Ack.
Chetan Murthy
@way2blue: “bothsides”, donchyano? It’s why we call it FTFNYT.
Chetan Murthy
does anybody around here read Wavell Room? It seemed to have some interesting military analysts writing for them. And about Ukraine too.
https://wavellroom.com/
Manyakitty
@Carlo Graziani: thanks for this. War on the Rocks is usually good for smart takes.
Geminid
I see that President Zelenskyy was in Bulgaria this morning. Reports are that his next stop is Istanbul, to confer with Turkish President Erdogan.
The Black Sea Grain Deal is set to expire ~July 17, and the Russians say that thus time they really are going to end it. That will be one topic for Zelenskyy and Erdogan to discuss.
Perhaps they will also visit the frigate Ivan Mazeppa, which Turkish shipbuilders are fitting out in anticipation of its delivery to Ukraine next year. Defense Minister Oleksy Resnikof says the Mazeppa’s home port will be Sebastopol.
Geminid
@Geminid: That would be the frigate Hetman Ivan Mazepa. It was launched last October from a shipyard on the Sea of Marmara, with Ukraine’s First Lady in attendence.
Geminid
@Geminid: Correction: President Zelenskyy will travel to Turkiye tomorrow.
pacem appellant
@Geminid: That’s quite a bold declaration. His lips to Rod’s ears.