Today, First of All, we Express our Gratitude to Every Warrior of the State Border Guard Service – Address by the President

30 April 2024 – 20:35

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

Today, first of all, we express our gratitude to every warrior of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. It’s their professional holiday today. We are talking about thousands of qualified warriors, really brave people, who are not only protecting our state border, but also fighting at the frontline together with the entire Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine, even in the hottest directions… And they are fighting with true heroism. I thank each soldier, sergeant, officer and general of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, all the units that destroy the occupier and protect our communities in the border area from Russian terrorists. Each destroyed Russian subversive group, each repelled Russian assault is a step closer to the day when even the madmen in the Kremlin will realize that they are not able to break Ukraine’s spirit. And now I want to praise the units and the warriors of our State Border Guard Service of Ukraine who have shown their best in combat during these days and weeks. Luhansk Border Guard Detachment, the “Revenge” Offensive Guard Brigade, and especially Sergeant Anton Kyrylov, Senior Sergeant Vasyl Luskiv and Senior Lieutenant Serhiy Nezhovorov. Thank you, guys! Donetsk Border Guard Detachment: Soldiers Yaroslav Fedorenko and Denys Yablinskyi, and Senior Soldier Oleh Zimirskyi. Thank you! The south of our country — the warriors of the Kherson Border Guard Detachment: Soldier Serhiy Trotsenko, Sergeant Yuriy Shvets, and Senior Sergeant Anton Kanivets. Thank you! Berdyansk Border Guard Detachment — especially Sergeant Dmytro Manuilov and Senior Lieutenant Serhiy Peretyatko. Well done! Our Border Guard warriors from the Sea Guard units. Thank you all! And special thanks go to Sailor Artem Nazarenko, Senior Sailor Valeriy Lutsenko, Chief Petty Officer Yuriy Petryk, and Lieutenant Anton Konuchenko. Also, Chernihiv Border Guard Detachment, the warriors of which are fighting in the Novopavlivka direction — and doing it quite effectively. Soldier Anatoliy Romanchenko, Staff Sergeant Kostiantyn Melnychuk, and Chief Sergeant Denys Bortnyi. I thank you, guys, and all your brothers-in-arms for your bravery! Earlier yesterday, I also signed several decrees regarding the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and its warriors. I awarded the titles of Hero of Ukraine to Master Sergeant Oleh Pryshnevskyi and Lieutenant Colonel Dmytro Oleksiuk. Thank you, guys! I also signed a decree on awarding two hundred and seventy-one border guards with state awards — the Cross of Military Merit and various orders. Furthermore, I signed the law of Ukraine on increasing the staffing of the State Border Guard Service — this way the state recognizes your efficiency, warriors, in protecting Ukraine, our independence, and the lives of our people. The truly effective structures of the Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine deserve to be expanded and their experience should be shared with other units of our army.

Throughout the day, there were many meetings on military topics — the situation at the front, the occupier’s offensive and our actions — both to disrupt Russia’s plans and to achieve our goals. The Commander-in-Chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, presented a report, and we also discussed with the Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov the deliveries of weapons and the communication with partners. We need a significant speed-up of deliveries to strengthen the capabilities of our soldiers tangibly. It is not Russian air bombs and assault operations that should dominate the frontline, but our Ukrainian initiative — our air defense, our artillery, our drones. We are solving this partially due to our production and to everyone who helps the Defense Forces. We have achieved particular results regarding the matter of drones — I am grateful to everyone who works for this cause, who produces drones, who trains operators, who provides everything we need. I thank each of our partners who now are really doing everything they can to strengthen our position. We are really counting on the promptness of the U.S. deliveries. These are the deliveries that should be felt in the destroyed logistics of the occupiers, in their fear to deploy in any part of the occupied territory, and in our strength — in strength, that should prove itself in the Pokrovsk direction, as well as in the Kurakhove, Siversk, Lyman, and Kupyansk directions… In the south of our country. Everywhere where Russia is pushing and where we have to push it back. And also everywhere where new strike threats may arise.

And one more thing for today.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal delivered a report. We discussed the details of the supply of weapons and ammunition and the relevant work with partners. The Prime Minister reported on the negotiations in this regard — on the implementation of decisions. In particular, I would like to thank the Government and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic personally for accelerating the implementation of the artillery initiative. We also discussed in detail today the preparations for the first Peace Summit, including the work with the countries of the Global South — government officials, our diplomats, the Office of the President — we all work together to ensure that as many leaders and nations as possible have the opportunity to prove themselves while working for peace. We also discussed the efforts regarding the European direction — the preparation for the decisions we expect in June, the actual start of negotiations on Ukraine’s membership in the European Union. These are the really necessary things, and everything is ready on our side.

I thank everyone who fights and works for our country and people! I thank everyone in the world who stands with Ukraine! I thank everyone who helps — on time and in the right way to win.

Glory to Ukraine!

⚡️Zelensky: Aid delivery has to speed up for Ukraine to 'disrupt Russian plans.'

Zelensky held a day of meetings on the situation on the front lines on April 30, calling for Western allies to speed up deliveries of critically needed military aid.https://t.co/yHzsZtJcDY

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 30, 2024

The US:

The U.S. continues to encourage other countries to provide Ukraine with Patriot air defense systems, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on April 30.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 30, 2024

From The Kyiv Independent:

The U.S. continues to encourage other countries to provide Ukraine with Patriot air defense systems, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on April 30.

Ukraine has asked international partners to deliver more air defense in the wake of an increase in Russian strikes targeting energy infrastructure since March. U.S.-made Patriot systems are highly effective at intercepting Russia’s ballistic and cruise missiles.

“There are countries that have Patriots, and so what we’re doing is continuing to engage those countries,” Austin said.

Austin said he had talked “to the leaders of several countries” over the last two weeks, “encouraging them to give up more capability or provide more capability.”

Germany announced on April 13 that it would provide Kyiv with an additional Patriot system. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz then called on other NATO allies to do the same.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded that Poland could not give up the Patriot system installed at Rzeszow airport in southeastern Poland, as it is a key logistics hub for defense aid deliveries into Ukraine.

Greek media reported on April 22 that Athens planned to send at least one Patriot system to Ukraine, but Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ruled this out in an interview on April 25.

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles then announced on April 26 that Spain would send Patriot anti-aircraft missiles to Kyiv.

According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine needs 25 Patriots to protect the country from Russian attacks, but Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he is for now focused on securing seven to protect Ukraine’s largest cities.

The US has fifteen Patriot battalions. Each of these battalions has four Patriot batteries. The Army has requested funding for two more of these battalions. Right now the US has 60 Patriot batteries. And while some are definitely needed in the Middle East to protect US Forces deployed there, you’d think we’d be able to spare a few.

Or we could just send these:

⚡️Israel to mothball its Patriots, fate of systems badly needed by Ukraine unknown.

Israel did not say what would happen to the systems after they're retired.https://t.co/WDyCasriKa

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 30, 2024

The Kyiv Independent has the details:

The Israeli Air Force will mothball its Patriot air defense systems within two months as it moves to replace them with its own more advanced air defense equipment, the country’s defense ministry announced on April 30.

According to media reports, Israel is thought to have eight U.S.-produced Patriot systems that currently work alongside its own air defenses, most famously the Iron Dome, a short-range interceptor designed to shoot down rockets, mortars, and drones.

It also deploys the David’s Sling system, designed to shoot down medium-range projectiles, and the Arrow, a long-range system designed to intercept ballistic missiles.

All were put to their biggest test yet earlier this month when Iran fired 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel, almost all of which were intercepted and destroyed.

Israel will from now on rely on the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Arrow for its air defenses, rendering its Patriots – in use by the country since 1991 – obsolete.

The country’s defense ministry did not say what would happen to the systems after they’re retired but Ukraine has for months now been asking for more Patriots to bolster the country’s air defenses in the face of escalating Russian aerial attacks.

The Kyiv Independent asked Ukraine’s Defense Ministry if they had requested the mothballed Patriots but had not received a response at the time of publication.

The US has end use monitoring agreements for every weapon system, weapon, and munition we sell, whether military to military, allow commercial sale to foreign military, or dual use items. As such, since they’re not going to be needing them, maybe the Biden administration might ask Bibi if Israel would please send these to Ukraine.

Also the US:

⚡Trump says he would only continue US aid to Ukraine if Europe 'starts equalizing.'https://t.co/b1vNOv9XM1

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 30, 2024

While Washington's support to Ukraine is worth over $67 billion, European countries combined have allocated over $96 billion for military, humanitarian, and financial support since February 2022, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 30, 2024

Time has the details:

But an insecure NATO is as likely to accrue to Russia’s benefit as it is to America’s. President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine looks to many in Europe and the U.S. like a test of his broader vision to reconstruct the Soviet empire. Under Biden and a bipartisan Congress, the U.S. has sent more than $100 billion to Ukraine to defend itself. It’s unlikely Trump would extend the same support to Kyiv. After Orban visited Mar-a-Lago in March, he said Trump “wouldn’t give a penny” to Ukraine. “I wouldn’t give unless Europe starts equalizing,” Trump hedges in our interview. “If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay? They’re much more greatly affected. We have an ocean in between us. They don’t.” (E.U. nations have given more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine as well.)

You should really take the time and read the whole article/interview.

Latvia:

More good news today!
The government of Latvia has just approved the transfer of NBS anti-aircraft guns, tactical unmanned surveillance systems, as well as other essential material and technical assets to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
We are grateful to our Latvian friends for… https://t.co/ZlAmRoQUVy

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 30, 2024

More good news today!
The government of Latvia has just approved the transfer of NBS anti-aircraft guns, tactical unmanned surveillance systems, as well as other essential material and technical assets to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
We are grateful to our Latvian friends for their unwavering support.
Together, we will win!
🇺🇦🤝🇱🇻

Here’s the machine translation of the two tweets by the Prime Minister of Latvia:

The government has just approved the transfer of NBS anti-aircraft guns, tactical unmanned surveillance systems, as well as other essential material and technical assets to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This will help improve both Ukraine’s air defense and intelligence capabilities. 1/2

With each shipment, we affirm friendship 🇺🇦 to the nation and its fight against the aggressor Russia, which is the biggest threat to world peace and security. Latvia annually allocates 0.25% of GDP to the military support of Ukraine. We will continue to support Ukraine both bilaterally and together with our allies. 2/2

Estonia:

📈 The membership of the Estonian Defence League (Kaitseliit) has surpassed 30,000 volunteers. I.e. more than 2% of 🇪🇪 population voluntarily contributes to the readiness to defend #Estonia! pic.twitter.com/7eriWfVHSJ

— MoD Estonia (@MoD_Estonia) April 30, 2024

Germany:

Great news from our German friends!
Germany provided a new military aid package for Ukraine, which includes:
◾️10 Marder IFVs
◾️Ammunition for Leopard 2
◾️1 Skynex air defense system with ammunition
◾️29,638 rounds ammunitions for Gepard
◾️IRIS-T SLM missiles
◾️1 TRML-4D air… pic.twitter.com/5Ar4k06fZj

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 30, 2024

Great news from our German friends!
Germany provided a new military aid package for Ukraine, which includes:
◾️10 Marder IFVs
◾️Ammunition for Leopard 2
◾️1 Skynex air defense system with ammunition
◾️29,638 rounds ammunitions for Gepard
◾️IRIS-T SLM missiles
◾️1 TRML-4D air surveillance radar
◾️7,500 rounds 155mm ammunition
◾️1 Beaver bridge-laying tank
◾️1 Dachs armored engineer vehicle
◾️9 mine ploughs
◾️1 AMPS self-protection systems for helicopters
◾️60 outboard motors
◾️600 LED lamps
◾️6 M1070 Oshkosh tank transporter tractors
◾️18,000 rounds ammunition 40mm
◾️3,000 RGW 90 man-portable anti-tank weapons
◾️120mm mortar ammunition
◾️1,980 camouflage nets
◾️2,000 ponchos
◾️100,000 first aid kits

Thank you for your steadfast support!
🇺🇦🤝🇩🇪
#StandWithUkraine
@BMVg_Bundeswehr

You may ask, in regard to that Trump interview, doesn’t all this military aid that we document here every time a new announcement is made by a NATO member demonstrate that our NATO allies have stepped up as Trump demands? It would if Trump could be made to believe that what we’re documenting here multiple times a week was actually happening. As I’ve written here before, Trump thinks he knows both the price and value of everything, when, in fact, he doesn’t know the price or value of anything.

Odesa:

Just appalling: Russia's strike on recreational zone in Odesa with Iskander missile packed with cluster munitions. Designed to kill personnel, its bomblets blanket areas as large as a football stadium. 5 people were killed in this attack. pic.twitter.com/8HdqiGql7Z

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) April 30, 2024

Horrific. There is no military application or reason for cluster munitions being used on a civilian waterfront area as they were in Odesa yesterday, killing 5 people and wounding 30 others. Time and time again, Russia has carried out similar attacks on densely populated areas of… pic.twitter.com/wj1Dpqy8Lc

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 30, 2024

Russian occupied Crimea:

Source- https://t.co/MkJGq6w5kv

Additionally, Russian sources report that multiple ATACMS hit Dzhankoy Airbase last night, injuring at least 5 Russian personnel on the ground. https://t.co/FyLvHJDa7f pic.twitter.com/gS703euGy4

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 30, 2024

/2. Burning marks also are visible on the territory of Gvadeiskoe military airfield near Simferopol. Which also was reported to be targeted by ATACMS tonight https://t.co/TkxmYHg7ng pic.twitter.com/pEv3SVasEt

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 30, 2024

Bakhmut front:

Achilles unit of the 92nd brigade targeting Russian AFVs and Russian infantry which is hiding inside/under destroyed AFVs. Bakhmut front. https://t.co/AY4ZNTKNJR pic.twitter.com/lnC5D6VwGr

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 30, 2024

"Russia is taking advantage of a "window of opportunities" until Ukrainian Defense Forces receive military aid from the United States. Russian attacks will intensify over the next two months, both on the front line and against civilians" – Commander of the Achilles drone strike… https://t.co/k9msVPHkdf pic.twitter.com/lBTfU3GgLY

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 30, 2024

Moscow and Rome, Georgia:

Carlson gives a whole new meaning to the term 'academic philosopher' with Dugin. His fascist ideology forms the core of the 'Russian world' concept Putin employs to justify Russia's bloody war. pic.twitter.com/wpc6vSx76b

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) April 30, 2024

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets today. So here’s some adjacent material:

Ukrainian Defender Taras found a puppy when he served in Kherson region.

The dog was very naughty as a puppy, so the soldiers named her Kosiak (Mistake). Kosiak grew up near Taras and got very attached to her human.

Then, Taras had to send her to a shelter because he was no… pic.twitter.com/L6fWivy9P3

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 30, 2024

Ukrainian Defender Taras found a puppy when he served in Kherson region.

The dog was very naughty as a puppy, so the soldiers named her Kosiak (Mistake). Kosiak grew up near Taras and got very attached to her human.

Then, Taras had to send her to a shelter because he was no longer able to care for her. But he promised they would be together again.

In the video, Taras and Kosiak meet again after being apart for three months. Volunteers brought Kosiak to his home in Ternopil – and another puppy for company! You can see how Taras raises two fingers in the video – he didn’t expect to get two dogs, but he’s happy to take him.

📹: uanimals.official/Instagram

Open thread!

Ukraine Needs at Least 7 Patriot Systems – Address by the President

27 April 2024 – 19:53

Dear Ukrainians!

We endured another massive missile attack today – 34 Russian missiles of various types. The main target is the energy sector, various facilities of the industry: both the electricity grid and the gas transit facilities, the very gas facilities that, in particular, ensure the security of deliveries to the European Union.

We managed to shoot down some of the missiles today, and I am grateful to each of our warriors who were really accurate and reacted in time. The trajectories of the missiles and the nature of the attack were calculated by the Russian terrorists in order to complicate the work of our air defense system as much as possible. Each missile downed today is a significant result.

Of course, I am grateful to all the partners who have already helped us with air defense: now every system for protecting the sky, every anti-missile is literally a lifesaver. And it is important that all new agreements with partners that are already established to strengthen our air defense, every initiative of friends of Ukraine to help, in particular, with the search and supply of Patriots, is implemented as soon as possible. Ukraine needs seven systems – this is the bare minimum. Our partners have these Patriots.

Russian terrorists are aware that our partners, unfortunately, do not have the same determination to protect Europe from terror that they have demonstrated in the Middle East. However, it is still possible to provide the necessary quantity and quality of air defense systems. No time should be wasted – the necessary signal of determination must be sent.

I would also like to thank all the countries and leaders who are working hard to restrict Russia’s schemes for circumventing sanctions. I thank all the politicians and public figures, journalists who report on how Russia is importing components for missiles and other weapons violating the world’s sanctions. Every piece in the media about sanctions circumvention schemes, every public call for tougher sanctions, all the political work for this purpose that leads to results, limits not only Putin’s terror, but also terror in general. And this is the global meaning of our cooperation – of all partners.

Right now, power engineers and repair crews are working in many regions of our country – Lviv region, Ivano-Frankivsk region, Kharkiv and the region, Dnipropetrovsk region. All the relevant services are involved to restore the generation and distribution systems that were destroyed by the Russian strikes. Everyone will definitely do their best. And I thank all those who are working now and have been working all day.

It is crucial that such strikes like today’s do not become routine for the world. I am grateful to all the leaders who respond to them, who condemn Russian terror, who contact partners having air defense systems that could operate in Ukraine and the appropriate missiles. For the terrorists to lose, the solidarity of leaders in the defense against terror must work 24/7, just like the people who are eliminating the consequences of the strikes, and like our soldiers who are doing everything they can to make the most of the forces available in Ukraine every day and every night.

And one more thing. I want to thank Australia for announcing a new support package for our country and people. It is a military support that will strengthen our air defense, also drones and military equipment. Thank you! Today, the Prime Minister of Ukraine held talks with the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Minister for Defence. They took place here, in our country. I am waiting for the Prime Minister’s report.

We are also preparing for a new communication with our other partners: tomorrow and the next week will be quite active. Every day our country should gain strength. Every day we have to reinforce certain Ukrainian positions. We need to make Moscow realize that the war will give them nothing. And we can achieve this only by strength. All Ukrainians. All partners. And all being equally determined.

I thank everyone who stands with Ukraine! I thank everyone who is in combat, at combat posts, on combat missions! I thank everyone who trains our soldiers, and who convinces the world to be as decisive as possible so that this war comes to a just end.

Glory to Ukraine!

Estonia:

It’s only a matter of time before Russian GPS jamming kills someone in the Baltic region.

NATO may not think it’s at war with Russia, but Russia is acting like it is at war with NATO. https://t.co/x3X48tHQIa

— David Priess (@DavidPriess) April 26, 2024

The Ukrainian Marine who tweets as Kriegsforscher has posted an assessment of how he thinks things will go for the rest of 2024. From the Thread Reader App: (I am copying and pasting this verbatim, the second half of the post was in Ukrainian and I have machine translated it. And am copying and pasting that part verbatim as well. So this is your warning for foul/offensive language.)

The second part of this year will be the hardest since May 2022 I assume.

Russians are able to push at different directions (Donetsk oblast is a strategic goal for this year). And they do it.

I am sure that we will see new directions such as Northern Kharkiv👇 

RUAF right now have enough forces to move them from, for example, Kreminna to Avdiivka without loosing the advancing potentional.

New CAA, new AC, new divisions. They are creating more and more forces. They will reach success this year. 

The situation is worse than it used to be during the battle for Avdiivka. Much worse. They concentrate a lot of forces in one place to be able to breakthrough. We just don’t have enough brigades to manoeuvre and react. 

There is a hight possibility that RUAF will start a new offensive from Belgorod oblast. No, the goal is not to capture Kharkiv.

The point is to make us to decide what and where we must sacrifice. They may use ~40K personal for this advance. And that’s a lot. 

So I ask you to help the armed forces of Ukraine.

I am very thankful that the US support was approved cause we would be fucked. Wait extra 6-7 months till new election would be close to death for us. Will be easier.

Help the Armed forces of Ukraine. 

And now let’s guess, after the president delayed so much with the mobilization, will the new recruits really be able to study for three months in the NC?

Weapons and equipment are given, but there is no one to hold those weapons in their hands. Clinic. 

You can talk for a long time about how bad the Americans are, but in 7-10 days the enemy will take Krasnohorivka. Where is the concrete, where are the factories. Which could be held. A city, not a village of 1,500 called Novomykhailivka.

But the fault here is not in the absence of BC for artillery, etc. 

And the fact that for half a year the mobilization was not carried out in the normal way, according to the new “law” (which, by the way, did not have to be developed, but only to amend the existing one). 

But there is one constant variable – the Armed Forces (no, no more positive pathetic text).

Because what happened in Ocheretyn (in fact, the issue here is not only up to 115) is not a matter of Biden or the (political) leadership of Ukraine. This is a separate branch of pussies. 

Here’s Rob Lee’s take on the supplemental aid bill that just passed. From the Thread Reader App:

Some thoughts about the supplemental bill. This is good news, but it will primarily help Ukraine defend in 2024 and into 2025. Russia will still likely make further gains this year, and it doesn’t fix all of Ukraine’s issues. It should be seen as one part of a long-term strategy. 

Ukraine has had three main problems since Russia seized the initiative in October: ammunition, manpower, and fortifications. Ukraine is making progress building fortifications and multiple defensive lines, but defenses on many of the key parts of the front are still underdeveloped, contributing to Russian advances. 2/ 

The bill and first PDA aid package announced this week will provide a quick boost to Ukraine’s defenses. But it is important to keep in mind that the limitations aren’t just appropriated funds but also production capacity and size of stockpiles. Greater artillery ammunition deliveries will help reduce Russia’s 5-6:1 artillery advantage, but it will not give Ukraine parity. 3/ 

The PDA package will also provide other critical ammunition like anti-tank mines and Javelin/TOW ATGMs. Recent Russian advances have demonstrated that increased numbers of FPVs cannot replace artillery, mines, and ATGMs. Russia’s assault on Vuhledar in 2023 and Ukraine’s offensive last summer demonstrated how effective mines can be for defending forces. 4/

Further deliveries of armored vehicles will also be important. Many Ukrainian brigades don’t have sufficient armored vehicles, and combat losses often aren’t replaced. This leads to higher casualties. Bradleys are very popular, armored humvees will help, and further M113 would be very useful for CASEVAC. 5/

Air defense is another critical Ukrainian need. Russia has resumed its missile campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure and UMPK glide bombs, which played a key role in Russia’s seizure of Avdiivka, are a serious problem. More recently, Russian Su-25 attack aircraft have been operating closer to the front than normal, which indicates a lack of SHORAD and MANPADS. 6/

Unroll available on Thread Reader

The USAI package announced today includes Patriot and NASAMS missiles and the PDA included Stinger MANPADS and RIM-7/AIM-9M missiles reportedly for FrankeSAM systems. Stingers could help push Su-25 further from the front line, and Patriots are critical both for defending cities and infrastructure from Russian ballistic missiles and also to counter Russian Su-34 bombers that drop UMPK glide bombs. 7/

The question is whether production of these missiles is sufficient to meet Ukraine’s continued air defense needs over time, especially with increased Russian production of Shahed UAS and missiles. F-16 fighters and their airbases will be another priority target for Russian missiles that will require air defense coverage. It also depends how successful the various FrankenSAM programs prove to be. 8/

Manpower has become the most pressing issue though, which was exacerbated by reduced deliveries of ammunition and equipment over the winter. Ukraine’s summer offensive primarily culminated when it ran out of infantry, and Ukraine has struggled to replace combat losses since then. 9/

This means that Ukrainian brigades are understrength, and Ukraine lacks sufficient reserves to respond to Russian advances, so units are pulled from one part of the front to attempt to stop advances elsewhere. Ukrainian infantry need to be rotated more often or there will be a growing risk of exhaustion. 10/

Ukraine has passed a new mobilization bill that provides incentives for volunteers and increases the pool of men available to be drafted. Hopefully, this will improve the manpower situation, but it will take time to mobilize and train soldiers/units. 11/

More concerning is that the manpower issue has been known for some time, but has not been fixed. The longer it takes to improve the manpower situation, the less likely it becomes that Ukraine can conduct a offensive in 2025. The new NATO-trained/equipped brigades last summer did not have enough time to train together, and Russian defenses will still be strong. New soldiers/units need to be mobilized to replace current losses and trained for 2025. 12/ 

At the same time, one of the most important factors in the war last year was that Russia was able to significantly improve its manpower situation, recruiting more than 300,000 volunteers. 13/

It isn’t just involuntary mobilized soldiers and prisoners, they are mostly getting volunteers who are willing to go into costly assaults. The quality, of course, varies, but the quantitative advantage is a serious problem. 14/

Without this manpower advantage, Russia’s artillery and airpower advantage would not be sufficient for Russia to make gains on the battlefield. The relative manpower situation is likely the most important factor that will determine the war’s trajectory, particularly if Russia can sustain recruiting 20-30k a month. 15/ 

The immediate problem is that Russia continues to advance on the battlefield, and has reached important locations while Ukraine faced ammunition shortages. Russia is bringing up reserves to Chasiv Yar, and will likely soon begin an assault on the city. 16/

Russian forces are also expanding their foothold in Ocheretyne, which threatens Ukrainian positions nearby, and they have advanced into Krasnohrivka and have made recent gains on the Marinka-Novomykhailivka front. 16/
deepstatemap.live/en#12/48.1163/…

DeepStateMAP | Map of the war in UkraineNews of Russia’s war against Ukraine on the maphttps://deepstatemap.live/en#12/48.1163/37.4383

Even with increased ammunition deliveries/expenditure, Ukraine might not be able to hold Chasiv Yar and other of these towns/cities, and Russia faces more favorable terrain once they get past Chasiv Yar, which could lead to an increase in the rate of advance. If Chasiv Yar falls, it will also put Ukrainian positions south of the city at risk. This is true for further Russian advances elsewhere. The delays in aid/mobilization have been costly. 18/

If Ukraine can stabilize the front and fix the manpower situation in 2024 when Russia has a number of advantages, 2025 could be more favorable because Western production capacity will increase and Russian equipment losses could become a greater issue. If the manpower situation does not improve, then the second half of 2024 will likely be more difficult for Ukraine than the first half. 19/ 

This bill will be vital, but it needs to be part of a broader long-term strategy for Ukraine. Western countries need to consider how to help Ukraine compensate for Russia’s current advantages, including increased deliveries of long-range missiles. 20/

And here is Tatarigami’s and his team’s assessment of what is going on with the Russian offensives at Chasiv Yar, Kurakhkove, Ocheretyne. From the Thread Reader App:

Why have Russian forces advanced in multiple directions and what are the implications? What are the future prospects? Today’s analysis by Frontelligence Insight centers on Chasiv Yar, Kurakhkove, and Ocheretyne

Before proceeding, please like and share to aid visibility. 🧵Thread

2/ Ukrainian forces retreated from Ocheretyne and Solovyove. While the 115th brigade was blamed, the core issue is that many brigades are not in a condition to hold the enemy with disproportional advantage in personnel, artillery, vehicles, and air support along the frontline

3/ Our team has received reports of poor communication, coordination, and leadership. These problems are rooted in deeper systemic issues, like personnel shortages and challenges in preparing skilled officers for senior roles promptly and in holding them accountable 

4/ Our assessment suggests that Russians are attempting to flank and launch a frontal assault on Chasiv Yar, similar to Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Additional Russian troops are reinforcing the area, likely aiming to take over the southern and northern sectors of Chasiv Yar.

5/ If Chasiv Yar falls to Russia, particularly the southern part, they could advance towards Kostyantynivka, disrupting logistics for the force south of Bakhmut. The situation could worsen if Russians move from Ocheretyne towards the road as well.

6/ In the Vuhledar-Donetsk area, Russians aim to cut off Kurakhove – a key logistical hub. The establishment of fire control over the road might severe logistics to Kurakhove. The loss of Kurakhove can put the entire grouping of forces in the Vuhledar area into a risky situation.

7/ Russians are trying to exploit the current unfavorable situation to achieve ambitious operational goals. How did Ukraine find itself in this situation? It’s the result of several factors: delayed mobilization efforts, delayed Western aid, and inadequate fortifications

8/ Trenches provide good protection, but with the excessive use of munition-dropping and kamikaze drones, it’s crucial to have proper top cover for dugouts and trenches, along with concrete structures and drone-catching nets. It requires resources that understaffed brigades lack 

9/ Can the Russians realistically achieve these objectives in 2024? According to the military theory, once defenses are breached, mechanized units can exploit the opening and move into an “operational space” – a geographical area where units can relatively freely maneuver. 

10/ Overall, due to losses in vehicles and problematic frontline logistics, the Russian army is unlikely to conduct deep maneuvers into Ukrainian territory as they did during the initial invasion stage. Instead, they will likely focus on attempting to envelop Ukrainian forces 

11/ The situation on the frontline is expected to stabilize with the arrival of new ammunition, weaponry, and freshly mobilized but trained recruits. However, it is unlikely that we will see stabilization anytime soon, as it takes time to arm, train, and prepare new recruits 

12/ The situation should not be taken lightly, as the Russian military still has a reserve force equivalent to at least two corps, which could be deployed anywhere, including the Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts, or to reinforce existing axes of advance if weak spots are identified. 

13/ It’s one of the most favorable situations for Russia. Failing to capitalize on it would be an indication of their inability to achieve their goal of seizing the entire Donbas region in the foreseeable future. This, in turn, could force a reassessment of their own end goals 

Thank you for taking the time to read this thread. We appreciate your support and would like to kindly ask for your help. Please consider donating to help us cover the costs of essential resources like licenses and satellite imagery to keep us running

Tatarigami_UA is All Source Public IntelligenceSatellite imagery and other expenses https://buymeacoffee.com/frontelligence

It's definitely not very positive, but not grim. Remember, these are potential advances, displaying their aims and goals. They might have resources on paper to do it, but it doesn't mean they will succeed. Rather, it just shows that the risk is real, not merely a theoretical one

— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) April 27, 2024

Orcheretyne, Donetsk Oblast:

According to @Deepstate_UA, Russian forces have captured Berdychi and advanced west of the village, occupied 80% of Ocheretyne, and advanced in Kyslivka.https://t.co/3aNVFshPehhttps://t.co/iyDTIhnc9I https://t.co/ImIccqbWbK pic.twitter.com/9t98J4m0uW

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 27, 2024

«Russians managed to break through and gain a foothold in a certain part of Ocheretyne, Donetsk region» – Khortytsia operational-strategic group representative

According to him, the AFU are taking measures to kick the enemy out from Ocheretyne, heavy fighting is underway. The… pic.twitter.com/6YkgQDGQnZ

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 27, 2024

«Russians managed to break through and gain a foothold in a certain part of Ocheretyne, Donetsk region» – Khortytsia operational-strategic group representative

According to him, the AFU are taking measures to kick the enemy out from Ocheretyne, heavy fighting is underway. The Russian Federation has deployed four brigades there. Ukrainian troops have also pulled up additional means and forces from the reserve.

Serebryansky Forest:

Nightmares in the forest.
Warriors from the Burevii brigade destroy russian armored vehicles in Serebryansky Forest. pic.twitter.com/aNJr5AVZCk

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 27, 2024

Odesa:

View from the cabin of Yak-52 which helped to down a Russian drone over Odesa today.
https://t.co/XqkJhEn1DP https://t.co/u3PkwwZ9Cw pic.twitter.com/sOKgq7Nqbq

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 27, 2024

Militarynyi has the details:

In the Odesa region, a Yak-52 piston trainer aircraft shot down a Russian reconnaissance drone.

The corresponding videos were released by local Telegram channels.

The published videos show the moment of descent of an enemy reconnaissance drone on a parachute, which most likely opened due to the operation of automation, around which the Yak-52 was circling.

It can be assumed that the shooting was carried out by the second crew member with a gun or automatic weapon.

Modernization of the Yak-52 with the installation of a heading machine gun in the wing or board is unlikely due to the need for significant and technologically complex interference with the airframe.

Targeting can be performed by third-party targeting via radio communication and a situational awareness system, followed by visual identification of the target.

It is worth noting that the Yak-52, the modification of the Yak-52B, still has the ability to suspend GUV-8700 pods with machine guns or UB-32 with unguided rockets, but such a version existed in a single copy.

Yak-52

Yak-52 is a two-seat single-engine trainer aircraft with a low-wing and three-wheel landing gear, which was mass-produced from 1979 to 1998.

It has a low stall speed of 100-140 kilometers per hour, which allows it to chase drones and, at the same time, to maneuver at relatively low speeds.

The aircraft has a maximum permissible speed of 470 kilometers per hour, a range of up to 500 kilometers and a flight duration of 2.5 hours.

The length of the Yak-52 is 7.745 meters, the wingspan is 9.3 meters, and the wing area is 15 square meters.

The mass is 1035 kilograms, and the maximum takeoff and landing weight is 1315 kilograms.

For you drone enthusiasts:

Not all lessons from Ukraine will apply to NATO militaries, but this is one that will. Russian Orlan ISR UAVs are not very sophisticated but they are cheap and easy to produce. That means Russia produces them in large numbers and they are expendable. But many of the current… https://t.co/fQJFbgmb4w

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 27, 2024

Here’s the whole thread on the orlans from The Thread Reader App:

“Orlan” is one of the main Russian reconnaissance drones in the war against Ukraine

Among scientists and analysts studying changes within the russian army and their weapon systems during the military conflicts of recent decades, 2014 is considered a turning point. It can be argued that as early as 2008, after the invasion of Georgia, the russian invaders drew conclusions in preparation for further expansion against their neighbours. Alongside the adoption of the new military doctrine, they realised the opportunities of the intense use of aerial reconnaissance. 1/

In 2013, the “Orlan-10” aircraft-type unmanned aerial system (UAS) was taken into service by the russian armed forces. Although it can hardly be called a technological crown in the industry, nevertheless, in 2014, during the active warfare in Donbas, the system allowed russians to achieve a striking advantage over Ukrainian forces, which, at a certain point, were close to eliminating the russian enclave in the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. 2/ 

With the help of these systems, the russians constantly conducted reconnaissance of the Ukrainian territory and, most likely, corrected artillery that fired at our units. Later, “Orlan” became a mass solution for the russian army. Today, its various versions (such as “Orlan-10”, “Orlan-30”, “Mosquito”, etc.) operate on a daily basis on the battlefields of russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. 3/ 

Despite that fact, one can often find quite strange technical solutions in devices that were shot down or captured by the AFU. For example, a Canon SLR camera or a plastic bottle used as a gas tank. (Yes, these things fly on gasoline). Because of this, “Orlans” became the object of many jokes, kind of, “look, the russians are feeding them with junk”. Looking ahead, I would say there are not so many reasons to laugh about. “Orlan” is a tool widely and often effectively used against us. 4/ 

Versatility of application

Let’s skip the technical characteristics which can be easily found in the open source, except for specific modifications and what the military conveyor of the occupiers is supplying now. At least 5 km of flight altitude, 120 km of video signal transmission distance, and the ability to fly autonomously for hundreds of kilometres along a defined route (here, the Japanese SLR camera allows obtaining excellent reconnaissance material) make this, far from the most perfect in the world of UAVs thing, an effective and even formidable weapon against us. 5/ 

“Orlan” is a multi-purpose complex. It is used as a target designator, providing intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, as an aerial photographer, and as EW/ES when needed. For instance, the Leer-3 EW system includes up to three “Orlan” UAVs which carry reconnaissance and GSM jamming equipment on board. 6/ 

Many missile attacks and shelling of Kyiv during the battle for the capital were carried out based on the results of reconnaissance, conducted by these UAVs. According to various estimations, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the number of these UAVs, owned by the russians, ranged from 1500 to several thousand vehicles. 7/ 

Production and UAV special features

There is no doubt that the production of “Orlans” continues today. That is because, firstly, “Orlans” are being lost. Sometimes, they are being shot down, captured, as was in the case of the Kharkiv offensive operation. In other cases, they fall due to technical reasons. There is nothing new or surprising here, as in this war, UAVs are nothing more than consumables. So they are needed in large quantities and literally everywhere. 8/ 

Secondly, the russians are exporting “Orlans” which may also indicate that production has been running in one way or another.

As for the production itself, today, it is known that the russians are able to produce an aerodynamic body without any problems. (Like us, by the way.) Another issue is its “filling” with the components, such as electronics, chips, communication, payload (camera modules, etc.), anti-jamming, and more. Despite Western sanctions, the russians somehow continue receiving components on which this equipment depends. From the open sources, one can learn that the UAVs contain components from the U.S., Japan, China, and a number of European countries. However, it is necessary to understand that the crucial thing is the possibility of using this equipment for its intended purpose. 9/ 

“Kometa”, an invention of the russian engineers, can serve as a simple example. One of its modifications is installed on the UAV’s board. It is known that “Kometa” has the details designed by U.S. and Taiwanese companies. This so-called CRPA (controlled radiation pattern antenna) has a clearly defined and very important function – to protect the device from the effects of EW measures, which, in turn, attempt to jam the drone’s navigation signal and knock the drone off the course. 10/

Imagine you are the operator of such a UAV. To control it from a long distance, you need to have both navigation and video signal. When one of these things is jammed, you still can return the drone (the mode known as RTL, or Return to Launch mode). But if there is neither one nor the other, you are dealing with a big problem. In case you need to work out a UAV mission for a distance of hundreds of kilometres deep into the enemy’s rear, where it has to work in autonomous mode, the lack of navigation simply makes it impossible to conduct the mission. 11/ 

That is why russians seek to gear up their equipment with modules to protect this signal. This allows “Orlan” to perform the function of an aerial photographer for hundreds of kilometres deep into our territory, bringing back the data that the enemy uses, among all, for the conduction of missile strikes. 12/ 

Proven by years of experience

A lot can be said about the pros and cons of this UAS. However, a few facts are indisputable:

●      “Orlan-10” and its other modifications should be considered a massive and fairly effective solution which, at various stages of the confrontation between the russian federation and Ukraine, either gave the russians a complete advantage in the aerial reconnaissance component, or did not allow to lose it.

●      The enemy has a significant number of the “Orlan” UAVs and vast opportunities for their use both at the frontline and in Ukraine’s rear.

●      The use of “Orlan” type UAVs by the russians in Ukraine (since 2014) and in Syria allowed them to gain a lot of practical experience in such application which was significantly expanded during the full-scale war against Ukraine. This enables russians to make not only military but also engineering decisions. This is especially important given the fact that the enemy possesses large resources and an extensive system of companies and design bureaus that implement and improve these solutions, often quite quickly.

●      There are still no sufficiently effective solutions to protect Ukraine against the activity of these UAVs and the consequences of this activity.  13/ 

What to oppose?

Despite anything, as of today, we have no analogues of even such an imperfect UAS. It refers to both the technical specifications of this technical solution and the scale, that is, the number of UAVs produced. The point here is that it is not enough to just create a working sample that would bring results. The functioning of mass production and the ability to supply troops and carry out standardisation are necessary. The latter is specifically needed to make it a rather pleasant bonus out of the existing “zoo” of various UAS within the AFU than a problem. 14/ 

All this should encourage the Ukrainian Defence forces, designers, manufacturers, and state bodies to intensify their work in the direction of design, deployment, and production of their own mass technical solution which would be competitive and able to properly cover the needs of the AFU and other Defence forces participating in the repulsion of russian aggression. In addition, there is a need to speed up the development of tools that would be capable of systematically countering the penetration of enemy UAVs deep into our territory, to our airfields, enterprises, etc. 15/ 

So, it can be said we are rather dealing with the “working horse” of the aggressor’s army, not with an object for jokes. Despite the certain obsolescence and dependence of “Orlan” on Western-made components, it continues performing significant work on the frontline and in the rear, posing a great danger to us. It is a multi-purpose product, capable of correcting the enemy’s artillery on the battlefield, directing missiles and drones at our infrastructure, logistics and military facilities in the rear, as well as carrying out EW/ES tasks. The mass character allows the russians to keep “Orlan” in their arsenal as a “staff” UAS that fits into the system and forms the system itself. This enables maintenance standardisation, operators training, and, at the same time, prevents shortages in UAVs. No UAV of this kind in Ukraine is so massive in numbers. 16/ 

For ASTERO ANALYTICS.

Translated by Kate Kistol

Join me in Facebook

And Telegram

Support here
linkedin.com/pulse/orlan-un…
m.facebook.com/osolonko
t.me/silukr/323

Krasnodar Krai, Russia:

The Krasnodar Region, Russia, was under heavy attack last night. The Russian authorities speak of 66 UAVs. Locals reported of heavy explosions of the Slavyansk ECO refinery, which were also partially caught on video.

The administration of the Slavyansk-on-Kuban districts… pic.twitter.com/pCQt5P4nx4

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) April 27, 2024

The Krasnodar Region, Russia, was under heavy attack last night. The Russian authorities speak of 66 UAVs. Locals reported of heavy explosions of the Slavyansk ECO refinery, which were also partially caught on video.

The administration of the Slavyansk-on-Kuban districts reports that a destillation tower of the oil refinery was struck.

Locals also claim that the Kushchyovskaya airfield was struck but there is no confirmation, yet.

Source: Telegram / Astra

Slavyansk ECO refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban had to hit pause after 10 drones swooped in, causing a big fire. pic.twitter.com/Jsm9VTtHCC

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) April 27, 2024

Not only oil refineries. Kushchyovskaya military air base in Krasnodar Krai also was targeted pic.twitter.com/BnUAWqqVWV

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) April 27, 2024

Bryansk, Russia:

Air defence activity reported in Bryansk, Russia. 110km from the Ukraine border. pic.twitter.com/Ny4gIKVRIk

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 27, 2024

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos today. Here is some adjacent material.

☺️ pic.twitter.com/Ju3242GcFF

— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) April 24, 2024

Family pic.twitter.com/9SbzXPuWSa

— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) April 22, 2024

Recon pic.twitter.com/D1U4IfCO9p

— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) April 19, 2024

Visiting the #Bogorodychne village where he distributed animal feed to local residents (18 civilians).

For donates: paypal: [email protected]
or https://t.co/EfnXLrFIQB

I support the affected and front-line communities a little. pic.twitter.com/1yp3Ij0WX3

— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) April 24, 2024

Open thread!

Our Warriors Know How to Win, But They Need Your Sufficient and Timely Support – Address of the President to the Participants of the Ramstein Format Meeting

26 April 2024 – 19:47

Secretary Austin,

I thank you for your leadership in this Ramstein format,

Distinguished ministers and generals,

General Brown,

Dear friends,

I am pleased to greet you and to say that Ramstein has indeed become a global event. If we in Ukraine had not received your help with weapons, and if your countries had shown indifference to the destiny of our people, the world would definitely be different. And it is worth reminding. Predatory regimes like Russia’s are rapidly increasing their appetite for aggression. When they succeed in one part of the world, it creates problems in many other places – aggression spreads when not stopped. If our solidarity with you had not worked out and if your reaction to the war had remained only in words, the world would have had to deal with a much more powerful Russia. Many people worldwide would still believe that Russian missiles cannot be shot down. Many people would still be convinced that the Russian army is capable of crushing anyone’s independence. Many would grovel in front of Putin and not even try to defend their sovereignty if it were not for this example of ours – an example of courage that works and that must work completely.

Dear friends!

Please do not forget what you are deciding. This is not just about the arms supply – you are deciding the fate of the world that will either live by rules that we all recognize or depend only on the mercy of those whose violence is brutal.

At what point is the war now, after two years of Ramstein? The answer is clear: everything still depends only on our interaction – on how quickly we act and whether our agreements are fully implemented. Although in half a year, while we were waiting for a decision on the American support, the Russian army managed to seize the initiative on the battlefield, we can still now not only stabilize the front, but also move forward, achieving our Ukrainian goals in the war. Each of you understands what will be most effective.

First: long range weapons. No part of the occupied territory of Ukraine should remain safe for the occupier. And I thank every leader whose solutions are already working hard on the front lines – Storm Shadow, SCALPs and ATACMS. The range should be sufficient. Second: air shield. This year, Russian jets have already used more than nine thousand guided aerial bombs against Ukraine. And we need the ability to shoot down their combat aircraft so that they do not approach our positions and borders. It is possible. It is just as possible as giving protection to the cities of Ukraine from Russian rockets. We urgently need Patriot systems and missiles for them. This is what can and should save lives right now. At least seven Patriots are necessary for our cities to be safe. You have these systems, and they truly can change the situation now – change it for the better. As well as accelerating the transition to F-16. Our counter-terrorism cooperation must be more effective than Russia’s cooperation with the regimes in Iran and North Korea. Third: artillery. Many of those present at “Ramstein” were soldiers, and you can imagine what our soldiers feel when they simply have nothing to respond to enemy fire. The one-to-ten ratio of artillery in our country to that of the Russian army inspires Putin to fight on. He believes that he will walk through the ruins and he will try to launch his counteroffensive. We must disrupt it. Our soldiers need artillery – enough 155 calibers to stop Russian assaults and conduct our own active operations. I thank every country that really effectively helps with this.

And one more. Please pay maximum attention to the production of weapons – both in your countries and in our joint projects with you and in Ukraine. Now in Ukraine, we have the potential for the production of drones in particular, which significantly exceeds our financial capabilities. Same with electronic warfare systems. Likewise in many areas in your countries. We need to fill our defense capacities with real orders. And we are currently forming new brigades to strengthen our positions. They need support just like the brigades already operating at the front. Our team participating in “Ramstein” will present all the details. Even the best soldiers cannot change the war without a sufficient number of weapons. And I am proud of Ukrainian soldiers. Each of you knows the strength and capabilities of our soldiers. They know how to win. They must win. But Ukrainian defenders need your sufficient and timely support – exactly what you would need to win if you were soldiers in this war.

Thank you for your attention!

I am grateful for your support! And I would especially like to thank the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. We appreciate that it was on your personal initiative that exactly two years ago, the Contact Group on Defense of Ukraine, anti-war coalition, was created, which united efforts and rallied more than 50 countries of the world. Ukraine is grateful to you for your dedication, for the tireless work of your team and all of the partners for the saved lives of our citizens. Thank you!

Слава Україні!

Canada!

Canada is donating $3 million to Ukraine for the production of drones and $13 million to Czech ammunition initiative.

We are grateful to our Canadian friends for their staunch support!
Together, we will win!
🇺🇦🤝🇨🇦 https://t.co/2LhSpuCGee

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 26, 2024

From the government of Canada:

News release

April 26, 2024 – Toronto, Ontario – National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces

Today, the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence, participated in the 21^st Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) meeting, hosted by United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. The meeting was held virtually on the two-year anniversary of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and brought together representatives from more than 50 countries.

At today’s meeting, Minister Blair announced that Canada is donating $3 million to Ukraine for the production of drones by Ukraine’s domestic defence industry. This marks the first time that Canada is contributing directly to the production of military drones in Ukraine, and this donation will be made in collaboration with the United Kingdom.

Minister Blair also confirmed that Canada is providing an additional contribution of approximately $13 million to Czechia’s initiative to procure and deliver large-calibre ammunition for Ukraine. This contribution comes in addition to last month’s announcement of $40 million and brings Canada’s total contribution to the Czech initiative to over $53 million.

In addition, Minister Blair noted that Canada’s donation of drones from Teledyne FLIR in Waterloo, Ontario, announced in February 2024, will grow by an additional 100 drones – bringing our total contribution of SkyRanger drones to 900. Delivery of these drones will begin in May.

These donations are funded by the $500 million military assistance package that Prime Minister Trudeau announced in Kyiv on June 12, 2023.[DM1] [AV2]

Minister Blair also provided updates on the delivery of other donations:

• The first 10 of 50 Armoured Combat Support Vehicles that Canada will donate to Ukraine will be delivered to Europe this summer. Ukrainians will be trained on the vehicles in the summer, and the vehicles will move to Ukraine in the fall. These vehicles are built by Canadian workers at General Dynamics Land Systems – Canada in London, Ontario.
• The 10 Multirole Boats from Zodiac Hurricane Technologies committed in January are set to be delivered this July, including the provision of commercially contracted training for Ukrainian operators, as well as trailers and spare parts; and
•  As announced earlier this year, Canada has been contributing to Ukraine’s F-16 fighter capability by providing training since February 2024. Canada is providing civilian instructors, planes, and support staff contracted from Montreal-based Top Aces Inc. to support pilot and maintenance personnel training[AV3] [SW4]  for Ukraine’s incoming F-16 fleet, under the auspices of the Air Force Capability Coalition. In addition, Canada is providing language training to 14 Ukrainian air force members at the Canadian Forces language school in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.

Canada’s military assistance to Ukraine demonstrates our ongoing commitment to providing Ukrainians with the military aid that they need in their fight against Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable war. As indicated in the Agreement on security cooperation between Canada and Ukraine, Canada will continue to support Ukraine for the long-term.

Quotes

“Ukrainians have been relentless in their fight for freedom, democracy, and the rules-based international order that keeps us all safe. On the two-year anniversary of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Canada reaffirms that it will stand with Ukraine for as long as victory takes.”

–        The Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence

The US:

🇺🇸🇺🇦 The US has announced a historic new security assistance package for Ukraine, which totals up to $6 billion.
We are grateful to our American friends for their steadfast support!
The new package (the largest so far) includes:
* Additional munitions for Patriot air defense… pic.twitter.com/YdxC1Eh5I9

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 26, 2024

🇺🇸🇺🇦 The US has announced a historic new security assistance package for Ukraine, which totals up to $6 billion.
We are grateful to our American friends for their steadfast support!
The new package (the largest so far) includes:
* Additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems and NASAMS;
* Equipment to integrate Western air defense launchers, missiles, and radars with Ukraine’s air defense systems;
* Counter-UAS equipment and systems;
* Munitions for laser-guided rocket systems;
* Multi-mission radars;
* Counter-artillery radars;
* Additional ammunition for HIMARS;
* 155mm and 152mm artillery rounds;
* Precision aerial munitions;
* Switchblade and Puma UAS;
* Tactical vehicles to tow weapons and equipment;
* Demolition munitions;
* Components to support Ukrainian production of UAS and other capabilities;
* Small arms and additional small arms ammunition; and
* Ancillary items and support for training, maintenance, and sustainment activities.
@DeptofDefense @SecDef

Together, we are stronger!
Thank you @SecDef for your leadership.
🇺🇦🤝🇺🇸 https://t.co/O9Nd4yEyrq

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 26, 2024

Norway:

We are grateful for your steadfast support in our fight for freedom.
Together, we will win!
🇺🇦🤝🇳🇴 https://t.co/5Uy4UxBXv4

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 26, 2024

Denmark:

The Danish parliament agreed to add 4.4 billion Danish kroner ($633 million) in military support to our country.

With these additional funds, total financing for military support under the Danish Ukraine Fund in 2023-2028 will amount to 64.8 billion Danish kroner ($9.3 billion).… pic.twitter.com/sqemq953lL

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 26, 2024

The Danish parliament agreed to add 4.4 billion Danish kroner ($633 million) in military support to our country.

With these additional funds, total financing for military support under the Danish Ukraine Fund in 2023-2028 will amount to 64.8 billion Danish kroner ($9.3 billion).

This sends a strong message that the free world stands with Ukraine in its fight against russian aggression.

Thank you, Denmark!
🇺🇦🤝🇩🇰

Estonia:

We are grateful for your support!
Together, we are stronger.
🇺🇦🤝🇪🇪🤝🇩🇰 https://t.co/BXzD9f4b5J

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 26, 2024

Britain:

We have summoned the Russian Ambassador to the UK to demand an explanation for allegations that the Russian Federation orchestrated an act of criminal activity on UK soil.

We are working closely with allies to expose and respond to such malign activity.https://t.co/1gcfryWMcb

— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) April 26, 2024

Idiots: Two British men have been charged with helping Russian intelligence services after a suspected arson attack on a Ukraine-linked business in London https://t.co/fMLFIjzJGk

— Ziya Meral (@Ziya_Meral) April 26, 2024

From the BBC:

Two British men have been charged with helping Russian intelligence services after a suspected arson attack on a Ukraine-linked business in London.

Dylan Earl, 20, from Elmesthorpe in Leicestershire, and Jake Reeves, 22, from Croydon, were investigated following a fire at a warehouse in east London in March.

Three other suspects linked to the fire have been held on other charges.

The investigation is being led by Met Police counter-terror officers.

Mr Earl is accused of planning to target the business, as well as attempting to recruit individuals to materially assist a foreign intelligence service, undertaking fraudulent activity and arson.

Mr Reeves is accused of accepting money knowing that it was from a foreign intelligence service.

The prosecution case is that the intelligence service involved was the Wagner private military group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin before he died when his plane exploded last year.

The investigation is related to a large fire which broke out on an industrial estate on Staffa Road in Leyton in March, which the prosecution said was started using an accelerant such as petrol.

The charges do not specify who owns the businesses that were targeted, but Companies House records show they are two parcel delivery services: Oddisey and Meest UK.

They are owned by Mykhaylo Prykhodko, also known as Mikhail Boikov, and his wife Jelena Boikova, who both live in London.

Nick Price, head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said of Mr Earl: “Included in the alleged activity was involvement in the planning of an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked commercial property in March 2024.”

He said Mr Earl is “alleged to have engaged in conduct targeting businesses which were linked to Ukraine in order to benefit the Russian state”.

The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has summoned the Russian ambassador Andrey Kelin following the allegations.

An FCDO spokesperson said the UK remains “deeply concerned by allegations of Russian-orchestrated malign activity on UK soil”.

“We will continue to work with our allies to deter and defend against the full spectrum of threats that emanate from Russia,” they added.

Mr Earl and Mr Reeves are the first people to be charged under a new law designed to update and modernise the offences of espionage, sabotage and foreign interference.

At the time it was passed, the government said it was designed to strengthen the UK’s defences against hostile activity by states “targeting the UK’s democracy, economy, and values.”

The full charges Mr Earl faces are:

• Preparing an act that endangered the life of a person or created a serious risk to the safety of the public contrary to Section 18 of the National Security Act 2023
• Assisting a foreign intelligence service contrary to Section 3 of the National Security Act 2023
• Aggravated arson

The full charges Mr Reeves faces are:

• Obtaining a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service, contrary to section 17 of the National Security Act 2023
• Aggravated arson

Mr Earl appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court last week, but for legal reasons BBC News has not been able to report this until today.

The pair are accused of taking part in the plan along with three other men. The three others were arrested as part of the investigation but have not been charged under the national security law.

• Dmitrijus Paulauska, 22, was charged having information about terrorist acts, an offence under the Terrorism Act 2000
• Nii Mensah, 21, from Thornton Heath in South London, has been charged with aggravated arson
• Paul English, 60, from Roehampton in South West London, has been charged with aggravated arson

All five are due to appear at the Old Bailey on 10 May.

Kyiv:

Kids' hospital in Kyiv forced to evacuate because some bloodthirsty terrorists spread lies about soldiers hiding there. This is the sickening result of Russia's disinformation. pic.twitter.com/F55M6Ucw4E

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) April 26, 2024

And yes, this is the Russians learning from Libs of TikTok.

Donetsk Oblast:

As expected, the Ukrainian posture in the Donetsk Oblast remained largely unchanged since February. Russians, on the other hand, added around 20 new units to the oblast. We expect this disparity to continue to grow over spring. https://t.co/mNyR4j3e8j pic.twitter.com/fedOO3kqnX

— Konrad Muzyka – Rochan Consulting (@konrad_muzyka) April 26, 2024

The Russian army is bigger than Ukraine’s, more powerful. It has also learned from mistakes in 2022, adapted, and is not to be underestimated, Ukrainian commanders admit. But some experts see Russia’s advantage narrowing.
Story w/ @maxseddon @JP_Rathbonehttps://t.co/nC3vapdpEq

— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) April 26, 2024

Details from The Financial Times:

Russia fired up to 60,000 shells a day before autumn 2022 — an amount that has dropped to about 10,000 a day and which includes supplies from North Korea and Iran. Those smaller rates of fire reflect how the intensity of battle is outstripping what Russia can replenish even at those higher production levels — and holding back a more significant push forward….

And as Russia keeps firing more shells, it wears down its artillery barrels faster than it can produce new ones — forcing it to replace them with Soviet-era barrels instead,

US aid does not address what Ukrainian and western officials say is Kyiv’s most glaring problem — an inability to match the enormous numbers of men Russia has called up to fight. Christopher Cavoli, Nato’s supreme allied commander for Europe, told lawmakers in a Senate armed services committee hearing in April that Russia is recruiting 30,000 soldiers per month, taking its frontline troops from 360,000 a year ago to 470,000.

315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war, Cavoli said, adding pressure for the army to replenish its units. That mercantile approach allows Russia to draw enough recruits from people for whom fighting is financially attractive while avoiding mobilisation — a step that prompted hundreds of thousands of men to flee the country in autumn 2022. ‘The main approach now is ‘purchasing blood’ among the Russian lower classes,’ said Luzin, from the Center for European Policy Analysis.

A summer offensive, however, would require Putin to declare another round of mobilisation, said Massicot of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace…

Even if Russia did draft more men, sheer numbers would not be sufficient to compensate for their lack of training, Luzin said. “We all talk about mobilisation but where are the commanders, sergeants and lieutenants, who would command the mobilised soldiers?”

More at the link.

The Avdiivka front:

Russian assault group on MT-LB hits an anti tank mine. Avdiivka front. https://t.co/2xzbRuSoZu pic.twitter.com/Ff8TG6CmIM

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 26, 2024

The shifting front line:

Russia transformed its border with Ukraine over the past two years with multiple lines of defenses.

Russian forces continue expanding fortifications along this border and within occupied Ukraine. This update adds newly mapped Russian positions found in satellite imagery. (1/5) pic.twitter.com/Iu5bhSuZYb

— Brady Africk (@bradyafr) April 26, 2024

Closer to the front line, Russian forces are adding to existing networks of defenses.

For example, fortifications near Novofedorivka (Zaporizhzhia oblast) were expanded over the past month. (3/5) pic.twitter.com/13sNMGg0Pb

— Brady Africk (@bradyafr) April 26, 2024

Check out the full interactive map and satellite imagery of Russia's defenses in and around Ukraine at the link below. (5/5) https://t.co/JGlYbCrrUE

— Brady Africk (@bradyafr) April 26, 2024

Moscow:

As said, video shows the arson of a Russian Ka-32 helicopter at one of the airfields near Moscow, tonight. https://t.co/plWjtfGQvh pic.twitter.com/PAHc3Z03PR

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 26, 2024

Before we end, last night Andrya touched off a lively conversation about Neville Chamberlain in the comments. I want to just clarify a few things about Chamberlain. Despite the popular historic reputation he has as the prime minister that appeased Hitler, that is really not an accurate historical perspective. Chamberlain, along with his senior military leaders and the senior ministers in his government handling what we would today think of as foreign, defense, and national security policy, all recognized what was going on in Germany. They knew that they would have to fight. They also knew they were incapable of doing so in the 1930s. What they needed was a strategy to create time for Britain in general and the British military in specific to be rebuilt after World War I. And that is the strategy they created and pursued.

Slate has the details:

Seventy-five years ago, on Sept. 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact, handing portions of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Chamberlain returned to Britain to popular acclaim, declaring that he had secured “peace for our time.” Today the prime minister is generally portrayed as a foolish man who was wrong to try to “appease” Hitler—a cautionary tale for any leader silly enough to prefer negotiation to confrontation.

But among historians, that view changed in the late 1950s, when the British government began making Chamberlain-era records available to researchers. “The result of this was the discovery of all sorts of factors that narrowed the options of the British government in general and narrowed the options of Neville Chamberlain in particular,” explains David Dutton, a British historian who wrote a recent biography of the prime minister. “The evidence was so overwhelming,” he says, that many historians came to believe that Chamberlain “couldn’t do anything other than what he did” at Munich. Over time, Dutton says, “the weight of the historiography began to shift to a much more sympathetic appreciation” of Chamberlain.

First, a look at the military situation. Most historians agree that the British army was not ready for war with Germany in September 1938. If war had broken out over the Czechoslovak crisis, Britain would only have been able to send two divisions to the continent—and ill-equipped divisions, at that. Between 1919 and March 1932, Britain had based its military planning on a “10-year rule,” which assumed Britain would face no major war in the next decade. Rearmament only began in 1934—and only on a limited basis. The British army, as it existed in September 1938, was simply not intended for continental warfare. Nor was the rearmament of the Navy or the Royal Air Force complete. British naval rearmament had recommenced in 1936 as part of a five-year program. And although Hitler’s Luftwaffe had repeatedly doubled in size in the late 1930s, it wasn’t until April 1938 that the British government decided that its air force could purchase as many aircraft as could be produced.

All of this factored into what Chamberlain was hearing from his top military advisers. In March 1938 the British military chiefs of staff produced a report that concluded that Britain could not possibly stop Germany from taking Czechoslovakia. In general, British generals believed the military and the nation were not ready for war. On Sept. 20, 1938, then-Col.Hastings Ismay, secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defense, sent a note to Thomas Inskip, the minister for the coordination of defense, and Sir Horace Wilson, a civil servant. Time was on Britain’s side, Ismay argued, writing that delaying the outbreak of war would give the Royal Air Force time to acquire airplanes that could counter the Luftwaffe, which he considered the only chance for defeating Hitler. British strategists, including Ismay, believed their country could win a long war (so long as they had time to prepare for it). This was a common belief, and doubtless factored into Chamberlain’s calculations.

Historians disagree whether the British military’s position relative to Germany was objectively better in 1939 than it was in 1938. The British military systematically overestimated German strength and underestimated its own in the lead-up to the Czechoslovak crisis, then shifted to a more optimistic tone in the months between Munich and the outbreak of war. Whatever the situation on the ground, it’s clear that the British military’s confidence in its abilities was far higher in 1939 than it was during the Munich crisis, especially because of the development of radar and the deployment of new fighter planes. In 1939, the military believed it was ready. In 1938, it didn’t.

Chamberlain’s diplomatic options were narrow as well. In World War I, Britain’s declaration of war had automatically brought Canada, Australia, and New Zealand into the fight. But the constitutional status of those Commonwealth countries had changed in the interwar period. According to the British archives, it was far from clear that Chamberlain could count on the backing of these countries if war broke out with Germany over Czechoslovakia. “There was really a feeling that the odds were against the potential of Britain being able to prevail facing Germany and potentially Italy and Japan, and with very few potential allies,” Dutton says. Soviet Russia was seen as a potential enemy to be feared, not a potential ally. America’s neutrality laws made it unlikely that even a willing president could bring the United States into the fight. There is also plenty of evidence in the archives that the British government had near-total disdain for the stability and fighting abilities of France, its only likely major-power ally. The average duration of a Third Republic government in the 1930s was nine months. When war did break out, Chamberlain’s doubts about France’s staying power proved prescient.

Nor was the British public ready for war in September 1938. “It’s easy to forget that this is only 20 years after the end of the last war,” Dutton notes. British politicians knew that the electorate would never again willingly make sacrifices like the ones it had made in World War I. The Somme and Passchendaele had left scars that still stung, and few, if any, British leaders were prepared to ask their people to fight those battles again. Many people saw the work of the Luftwaffe in the Spanish Civil War and feared that aerial bombardment would ensure that a second war would be more devastating that the first. Any strategy that claimed to offer an alternative to sending large armies to Europe therefore found supporters on every level of British society. “There was a feeling that any sensible politician would explore every avenue to avoid war before accepting war was inevitable,” Dutton says.

If Britain were to go to war with Hitler’s Germany, most people didn’t want to do so over Czechoslovakia. “People spoke of Czechoslovakia as an artificial creation,” Dutton says. “The perception by the ’30s was there was a problem, it was soluble by negotiation, and we ought to try. It was not the sort of thing that would unite the country [as] an issue to go to war over.”

Nor is the modern view of Hitler reflective of how the Nazi dictator was seen in the late 1930s. Blitzkrieg and concentration camps were not yet part of the public imagination. The British had already been dealing with one fascist, Benito Mussolini, for years before Hitler took power, and top British diplomats and military thinkers saw Hitler the way they saw Mussolini—more bravado than substance. Moreover, many Europeans thought German complaints about the settlement of World War I were legitimate. We now see Hitler’s actions during the early and mid-1930s as part of an implacable march toward war. That was not the case at the time. German rearmament and the reoccupation of the Rhineland seemed inevitable, because keeping a big country like Germany disarmed for decades was unrealistic. Hitler’s merging of Austria and Germany seemed to be what many Austrians wanted. Even the demands for chunks of Czechoslovakia were seen, at the time, as not necessarily unreasonable—after all, many Germans lived in those areas.

So, when Chamberlain returned from Munich with the news that he had negotiated a peace agreement, cheering crowds filled the streets and the press rejoiced.

To Chamberlain’s credit, his views changed as Hitler’s intentions became clearer. When Hitler took Prague and the Czech heartland in March 1939—his first invasion of an area that was obviously without deep German roots—Chamberlain said he feared it might represent an “attempt to dominate the world by force.” He doubled the size of the Territorial Army (Britain’s version of the National Guard) and, on April 20, launched peacetime conscription for the first time in Britain’s history. Then, on Sept. 3, some 11 months after Munich, he took his country to war.

Historians often find themselves moving against popular opinion. In the case of Chamberlain, though, the gap between public perception and the historical record serves a political purpose. The story we’re told about Munich is one about the futility and foolishness of searching for peace. In American political debates, the words “appeasement” and “Munich” are used to bludgeon those who argue against war. But every war is not World War II, and every dictator is not Hitler. Should we really fault Chamberlain for postponing a potentially disastrous fight that his military advisers cautioned against, his allies weren’t ready for, and his people didn’t support? “People should try to put themselves into the position of the head of the British government in the 1930s,” Dutton says. “Would they have taken the apparently huge risk of a war [that] might mean Armageddon for a cause that nobody was really convinced in?” Chamberlain’s story is of a man who fought for peace as long as possible, and went to war only when it was the last available option. It’s not such a bad epitaph.

For a full and nuanced treatment of Chamberlain that takes full advantage of the archival material made available in the late 1950s, I recommend Dutton’s Neville Chamberlain.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos today. Here is some adjacent material:

Today's Ukrainian cat—handsome badass guarding his territory. pic.twitter.com/fXjnSdakFb

— Lorenzo The Cat (@LorenzoTheCat) April 26, 2024

Even with wounded hands, a Ukrainian soldier has compassion for his country's vulnerable creatures. Photo: Nathalie Vlasenko. pic.twitter.com/qnmKNeOl9J

— Lorenzo The Cat (@LorenzoTheCat) April 25, 2024

Look at this gorgeous hunk. His name is Dexter and he's at the @catsonmars_ua shelter in Kyiv with Uncle Eugene @eugenehmg just waiting to be adopted. pic.twitter.com/9hpPFTidaB

— Lorenzo The Cat (@LorenzoTheCat) April 23, 2024

Instead of a thousand words.

Glory to Ukrainian Defenders! pic.twitter.com/CkGYatcWF7

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 23, 2024

Open thread!

I Am Grateful to All the Countries That Have Recently Adopted New Decisions on Aid for Ukraine – Address by the President

25 April 2024 – 20:24

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

The key points for today.

The Staff meeting. Complex issues of protection, not only of the energy sector, but of the entire vital infrastructure. Social facilities, communications, everything that sustains normal life in cities and communities. Air defense, electronic warfare, necessary engineering solutions and construction. I am grateful to all those who are already working promptly at their level – both in the government and in the regions. It is very important that the deadlines for implementing decisions are met. In particular, we are closely monitoring this at the Staff meetings. We are also working on contracts for the production of weapons and equipment in Ukraine. Each manufacturer must have a truly long-term assurance that each contract will be backed by the necessary finance, supply, and logistics. We are also working with our partners to invest in production in Ukraine – in some areas we can already produce much more than our funds can cover. In particular, during our visits, during negotiations, in contacts between government officials and partners, we discuss the possibility of raising funds on a larger scale so that countries that have the funds but do not have their own production facilities can build their arsenal together with us and help our frontline. I thank everyone who has shown their interest and is contributing to this cooperation. And, of course, the situation at the front. We are preparing for tomorrow’s Ramstein meeting and will discuss, among other things, how to overcome the difficulties and problems that have accumulated over the past six months while we have been waiting for decisions on American support. Politically, we have already achieved the support. Now we need to work on filling the packages with the necessary weapons and ensuring logistics. I am grateful to all the countries that have recently adopted new decisions on aid for Ukraine, our warriors, our cities and communities. I am grateful to everyone who helps!

And today I continue to work as actively as possible on the American direction. I have already spoken with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. I thanked him for his leadership, which has now guaranteed that democracy in the world will not lose ground. I also spoke with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. I thanked them for their integrity and support in the fight against terror. I will also speak with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The focus of all our conversations is our common strength – shared among all who value human life and strive to preserve our way of life that unites us within the Euro-Atlantic community. We talked about “Patriots,” about the strength of our arsenals, about our political cooperation. We can defeat Russian terror. We have to do it. I thank everyone who fights and works for our strength, for our Ukraine! I thank everyone who helps!

Glory to Ukraine!

The cost:

"Kvilinsky's Garden is no more.
The farm's owner, Jan Kvilinsky, has died at war.
Kvilinsky's Garden doesn't grow and sell flowers anymore." pic.twitter.com/FwUIvY5KdV

— Yuriy Gudymenko (@y_gudymenko) April 25, 2024

Defender Alla (Ruta) Pushkarchuk was killed today at the front. Young, beautiful and a very brave girl. RIP, Alla… Russia is a terrorist state #StopRussia #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/6PWqA3GT9I

— Mariana Betsa (@Mariana_Betsa) April 25, 2024

Denmark:

⚡️Denmark announces additional $633 million in military support to Ukraine.

The Danish parliament agreed to add 4.4 billion Danish kroner ($633 million) in military support to the country's Ukraine Fund in 2024, the Danish Foreign Ministry announced on April 25.…

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 25, 2024

⚡️Denmark announces additional $633 million in military support to Ukraine.

The Danish parliament agreed to add 4.4 billion Danish kroner ($633 million) in military support to the country’s Ukraine Fund in 2024, the Danish Foreign Ministry announced on April 25.

https://kyivindependent.com/denmark-announces-633-million-military-support-to-ukraine/

Finland and Sweden:

To all the people with no humour out there:

Sweden’s had 200 years of peace & even managed to stay out of the WWs while Finland has been at war and in a constant balancing act with Russia.

Therefore
1) the starting points are pretty far apart
2) the bar is very low in Finland

— Minna Ålander 🌻 (@minna_alander) April 25, 2024

France:

"If we say that Ukraine is a condition for our security, that what is at stake in Ukraine is not just the country's territorial integrity but the security of Europeans, do we have any limits? No" – President Macron.

Other key points from @EmmanuelMacron' speech today:

🔷️"The… https://t.co/hJK8xvMODN pic.twitter.com/Q0IHUB0elb

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 25, 2024

“If we say that Ukraine is a condition for our security, that what is at stake in Ukraine is not just the country’s territorial integrity but the security of Europeans, do we have any limits? No” – President Macron.

Other key points from @EmmanuelMacron‘ speech today:

🔷”The sine qua non for our security is that Russia does not win the war of aggression it is waging in Ukraine.”

🔷He explained that it is necessary to give substance to the reliable defense of the European continent:

“Does that mean we need a missile shield? Perhaps. Is it by increasing our defense capabilities, and if so, how? Undoubtedly. This is why, in the coming months, I will be inviting all our partners to build this European defense initiative,” Emmanuel Macron stressed.

EU member states:

Insightful, if depressing read on why European countries and NATO members were reluctant to part with Patriots to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian attacks. At tail end there there is a bit about Russian spies detained in Germany, which is alarming. https://t.co/eofuZsuIqN

— Alex Melikishvili (@A_Melikishvili) April 25, 2024

From Yahoo!News:

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union countries possessing Patriot air defense systems gave no clear signal on Monday whether they might be willing to supply them to Ukraine, which is desperately seeking at least seven of the missile batteries to help fend off Russian air attacks.

Russia’s air force is vastly more powerful than Ukraine’s, but sophisticated missile systems provided by Kyiv’s Western partners can pose a major threat as the Kremlin’s forces slowly push forward along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line in the war.

Only Germany has come forward with a single Patriot missile battery in answer to Ukraine’s latest request.

At a meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers, Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot said the Netherlands is “looking at every kind of possibility at the moment” and is offering financial support to a German initiative to help Ukraine bolster its air defenses and to buy more drones.

Asked why the Netherlands is reluctant to send some of its Patriot systems, Slot said: “We are looking again if we can deplete our store of what we still have, but that will be difficult.”

Last week, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the military organization “has mapped out existing capabilities across the alliance and there are systems that can be made available to Ukraine.” He did not name the countries that possess Patriots.

A key advantage of the U.S.-made systems, apart from their effectiveness, is that Ukrainian troops are already trained to use them.

But Patriots take a long time to make — as long as two years, some estimates suggest — so countries are reluctant to give them up and leave themselves exposed. Germany had 12, but it is now supplying three to Ukraine. Poland, which borders Ukraine, has two and needs them for its own defenses.

Asked whether his country would provide any, Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson said: “I don’t exclude that possibility, but right now we’re focused on financial contributions.” He said Sweden would send other systems that could “relieve some of the pressure” on the need for Patriots.

Jonson also noted that more U.S. deliveries of air defense systems might come after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a package over the weekend of $61 billion in support, including $13.8 billion for Ukraine to buy weapons.

Questioned about whether Spain might step up with Patriots, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said that his country “will make its decisions based on the power it has in its hands to support Ukraine.”

“I don’t think we’re helping anyone if we hear all the time what it is that’s being given, when it’s being given and how it’s getting in,” he said at the meeting in Luxembourg.

Reporters repeatedly asked EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who chaired the talks, why countries appear so reluctant to step forward. Many in Europe feel that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop at invading Ukraine should he win the war there.

Borrell said that the EU itself does not own Patriot missile systems. “The Patriots are in the capitals, and it’s up to them to take the decisions,” he said. “Now everything has been said, and a lot of things have to be done.”

NATO keeps track of the stocks of weapons held by its 32 member countries to ensure that they are able to execute the organization’s defense plans in times of need.

But Stoltenberg said on Friday that if dropping below the guidelines is “the only way NATO allies are able to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to defend themself, well, that’s a risk we have to take.”

Beyond providing new Patriot batteries, Stoltenberg said that it’s also important for countries to ensure that the batteries they do send are well maintained and have spare parts and plenty of interceptor missiles.

In a separate development at Monday’s meeting, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis expressed concern about possible Russian sabotage against facilities in Europe being used to train Ukrainian troops.

Two German-Russian men were arrested in Germany last week on suspicion of espionage, one of them accused of agreeing to carry out attacks on potential targets including U.S. military facilities, prosecutors said. The U.S. has a number of military bases in Germany.

“We are witnessing very similar events in our region, not just in Lithuania but also in Latvia and Estonia as well,” Landsbergis told reporters.

“There seems to be a coordinated action against the European countries that is coming from Russia,” he said. “We have to find a way to deal with the threat … because Russia is fighting not just against Ukraine but the West as well.”

The effects of American delay:

The delay in US aid was deadly for Ukraine and damaging to US credibility, writes @AmbDanFried for the @AtlanticCouncil.

Now that aid is on its way, what's needed next to help Ukraine fend off an expected Russian land offensive? https://t.co/juH6fr7HHE

— Eurasia Center (@ACEurasia) April 25, 2024

Ambassador (ret) Fried at The Atlantic Council:

Finally, the blockage imposed by a minority of “America First” House members has been broken and, after a six-month delay, crucial US military aid may be on its way to Ukraine again. An alliance of what might be termed Reaganite Republicans and Trumanesque Democrats—a coalition that helped bring success in the Cold War and after—passed a $60.8 billion assistance package for Ukraine in 311-112 vote on Saturday. Rapid acceptance by the Senate and signature by US President Joe Biden look likely to follow in short order. The Biden administration appears poised to push ahead fast with sending new weapons to Ukraine.

The House vote stops the hemorrhage of US credibility that had thrown US allies into varying degrees of alarm and demoralized Ukrainians, who are fighting for their lives. Meeting with me and US colleagues in Kyiv in late March, a senior Ukrainian government official asked rhetorically what had become of the United States on which Ukraine has pinned its hopes for survival and freedom. Katarzyna Pisarska, head of the Casimir Pulaski Foundation and one of Poland’s most effective foreign policy experts, who led a group of Polish, German, and French parliamentarians to Washington in the days before the vote, put it bluntly: “We believe in America. Watching the paralysis in the face of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s aggression shook us all. Passage of the assistance restores our faith.”

“Ukraine has not yet perished” are the opening words of the Ukrainian national anthem. They remain true. The Biden administration should take the successful vote on US assistance to Ukraine as an opportunity to reverse the perception, advanced by Kremlin propagandists and their friends, that Ukraine is doomed. In fact, with sufficient European and US support, Ukraine has a plausible path to success in the war.

As US government officials put it, with enough shells (especially from the multination initiative led by the Czech Republic) the Ukrainian military could blunt an expected Russian land offensive. With sufficient new air-defense systems (including from a German-led effort), the Ukrainians could limit the damage Russian strikes do to their infrastructure and cities. Using long-range weapons, Ukraine could further degrade Russian bases, supply lines, and even its hold on Crimea. An intensified flow of US weapons, including the longer-range Army Tactical Missile System (or ATACMS), which the House bill presses for by name, could shift battlefield fortunes. The Biden administration should set aside its ill-considered opposition to Ukrainian strikes on legitimate targets inside Russia. With more and better weapons and fewer restrictions, Russian casualties and damage could mount and opposition to the war, latent but evident inside Russia, could grow.

A surge of weapons to Ukraine needs to be accompanied by an uptick in sanctions on Russia. The US- and European-led sanctions effort was effective in the first year of the full Russian invasion but needs to be intensified to close loopholes and go after third countries and companies that help Russia evade sanctions. The Group of Seven (G7) debate about using the roughly $300 billion of immobilized Russian sovereign assets held in Western financial institutions to help Ukraine has only crawled forward, at a pace not commensurate with the stakes. The legal case for using those assets to help Ukraine appears solid. The G7 Summit this coming June should be a moment for action, not further discussion.

If the United States and its allies surge ahead in military support for Ukraine and new economic pressure on Russia, by the time of the July NATO Summit in Washington Ukraine’s battlefield fortunes could be better and Russia on the defensive militarily and economically. The Biden administration appears intent on using that summit to lock in robust security support to Ukraine through a series of parallel agreements by European allies and the United States, a sort of bridge to ultimate NATO membership, as administration officials privately put it. The metaphor is apt: A credible bridge from Ukraine’s wartime trial to the long-term security of NATO membership—an end state that NATO has already agreed on—would be a major success and a marked setback for Putin.

But that’s a best-case scenario. The six-month delay in the assistance package caused by a determined isolationist minority in the House has cost Ukraine many lives and much damage. Numerous reports describe a deteriorating military situation on the front lines and Russian preparations for a major land offensive. The memory of the United States dithering while Ukraine literally burned, and the arguments of the America Firsters that effectively signaled that Ukraine was unimportant and should be left to Russia, will linger.

More at the link.

The Biden administration is of two minds. Politico has the details on both.

Mind #1:

The U.S. is putting the finishing touches on one of its largest Ukraine military aid packages to date, preparing to ink contracts for as much as $6 billion worth of weapons and equipment for Kyiv’s forces, according to two U.S. officials.

The package, which could be finalized and announced as soon as Friday, will dip into the $61 billion in Ukraine funding signed into law by President Joe Biden on Wednesday. It would include Patriot air defense munitions, artillery ammunition, drones, counter-drone weapons, and air-to-air missiles to be fitted on fighter planes, according to the two officials and a third person familiar with the planning.

The equipment — which also includes ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems — likely won’t arrive in Ukraine for several years, as the money is being allocated under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. Under USAI, the Pentagon issues contracts to American defense firms to build new equipment for Ukraine, as opposed to drawing from current U.S. stocks.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to announce the new aid during a virtual meeting on Friday of the 50-plus nations that make up the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. It will be a big boost after the U.S. was forced to show up empty-handed for the monthly gathering for months while the funding was stalled in Congress.

The package, which comes on top of the $1 billion in more immediate aid announced by Washington on Wednesday, comes as Kyiv is being outgunned and outmanned by Russian forces as the Russian war industry is running at full capacity.

Asked for comment, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Garron Garn said the department had no security assistance announcements to make. The people familiar with the pending announcement were granted anonymity to discuss internal planning.

Moscow has been firing as many as 10 artillery rounds for every Ukrainian round fired, as Kyiv’s stockpiles dwindled.

“The Russians are going to … three shifts a day 24/7” in their defense industry, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, William LaPlante, said on Wednesday. “Depending on who you believe, they’re at 6 to 7 percent of their GDP is spent on their military, we’re at about 3.2 percent.”

But after the $1 billion drawdown package announced on Wednesday, “Literally right now there are planes flying probably with equipment to Ukraine,” he added. “All we need is to sign the bill and we’re gone. We’re writing contracts this afternoon.”

That drawdown of artillery rounds, air defense missiles, armored vehicles and Army Tactical Missile Systems with a range of nearly 200 miles represents more immediate help for Ukraine as it tries to blunt recent Russian advances and stepped-up missile attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure.

Mind #2:

Despite the time and political capital spent on the $60 billion aid for Ukraine, some Biden administration officials are skeptical it’s enough for Ukraine to win its two-year war with Russia.

Battlefield dynamics have shifted a lot in the last few months, partly because Ukraine ran low on weaponry and ammunition while Congress debated authorizing more aid, according to three U.S. officials, all granted anonymity to detail sensitive internal thinking. During that period, Ukraine struggled to maintain eastern territory, though Russia didn’t make significant gains, either.

Russia maintains a manpower and weapons advantage, and it would take a lot to reverse months and years of territorial losses. U.S. officials also ask questions about Ukraine’s own tactics and priorities, especially after Kyiv’s counteroffensive failed, sapping forces of materiel and morale.

“The immediate goal is to stop Ukrainian losses and help Ukraine regain momentum and turn the tide on the battlefield. After that, the goal is to help Ukraine begin to regain its territory,” said one of the officials. “Will they have what they need to win? Ultimately, yes. But it’s not a guarantee that they will. Military operations are much more complicated than that.”

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are also expressing concerns about whether more U.S.-provided weapons can lead to a Ukrainian defeat of Russia or if it’s just enough to temporarily fend off the invasion. “That’s the question,” said a senior Democratic Senate aide.

The answer matters greatly. Winning against Russia means Ukraine will get most or all of its territory back after 10 years of war, the last two featuring Vladimir Putin’s all-out assault. Not losing, by contrast, signals Ukraine can hold its lines and advance some but fail to claw back what Russia seized.

Biden, upon signing the aid package for Ukraine on Wednesday, stressed that Russia uses its military to target civilian infrastructure, highlighting the need to boost Kyiv’s firepower. They’ve killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians,” Biden said, “bombed hospitals … kindergartens, grain silos, tried to plunge Ukraine into a cold dark winter.”

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby hinted Tuesday that Ukraine still doesn’t have a fully formed plan to defeat Russia, though the U.S. would be in talks to help crystalize one. “We’ll be able to continue to have conversations with the Ukrainians about what their longer-term strategy is for pushing back Russian aggression and then tailoring the [future] packages to meet those needs,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

The Biden administration has long maintained Kyiv will decide how the war will end, whether by pushing Russian forces back across the border or a favorable deal at the bargaining table. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insists his nation must fight until the Crimean peninsula, the eastern Donbas territory and other parts of the country are back under his control. Whether posturing or not, that stance commits the United States to a much longer conflict with no guarantee Zelenskyy will achieve his goals.

“There’s lots of debate about what a winning endgame for Ukraine looks like at this point,” said the senior Democratic Senate staffer.

The Biden administration laments that months of congressional deliberation deprived Ukraine of weaponry to push back on Russia, placing it on the backfoot during crucial months of war. “It is certainly possible that Russia could make additional tactical gains in the coming weeks,” Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said Wednesday. “It’s going to take some time for us to dig out of the hole that was created by six months of delay.”

Biden administration officials expect the $60 billion will last at least through the end of this presidential term. Should Biden win reelection against former President Donald Trump, it’s unclear if he would need to ask Congress — which could see Republicans lead both the Senate and House — for another authorization.

The only reason these are not the worst senior national security professionals I’ve ever seen is because I lived through both the Bush 43 and Trump administrations.

As always, the enemy gets a vote. Due to the risk aversion of Biden’s senior national security appointees, he also gets a seat at the deliberation table and a veto.

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1783520300274987273

Here are the details from The Economist: (emphasis mine)

Since late February Russia’s army has been creeping across eastern Ukraine. First the town of Avdiivka fell—Russia’s biggest advance in almost a year. Next its soldiers occupied a series of villages farther west. Russia’s progress is a reflection of its overwhelming advantage in firepower: on some parts of the front line, for every shell the Ukrainians have shot at Russian lines, the Russians have rained down 17 in response. Ukrainian forces have been rationing ammunition, for fear of running out. That scarcity, in turn, was a reflection of America’s failure to approve any new military aid for Ukraine since last summer.

This week, however, after months of dithering, Congress approved $40bn of such assistance, a sum roughly equivalent to all America’s military aid to Ukraine since the war began. (There was also some humanitarian aid and help for Israel and Taiwan) Joe Biden, America’s president, signed the bill into law on April 24th and ordered the immediate dispatch of the first $1bn of supplies, to arrive in days.

It comes just in time. In March Emmanuel Macron warned the heads of French political parties that Russia might break through Ukrainian lines and advance towards Kharkiv or Odessa. On April 18th Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, warned that Ukraine would be in a “dire” position if Congress did not approve the aid package. “There is a very real risk that the Ukrainians could lose on the battlefield by the end of 2024, or at least put Putin in a position where he could essentially dictate the terms of a political settlement.”

Such a calamity has now been averted. With the assistance Congress has approved, Mr Burns has said that Ukrainian forces should be able to “hold their own” on the battlefield this year and dispel the “arrogant view” of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, “that time is on his side”. The new aid should include around a year’s worth of shells, reckons Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment, a think-tank.

But the imbalance in firepower of recent months has already had grim consequences. Russia’s advantage in artillery has provided cover for its troops to advance. Worse, it has forced Ukraine to repel assaults using infantry armed with grenades and small arms, rather than its own artillery. This has led to more Ukrainian casualties and fewer Russian ones than would otherwise have been the case (though Russian losses are still appallingly high: about 1,000 killed and wounded a day during offensives, Western officials reckon).

What is more, even the fresh infusion of weaponry will not wholly eliminate Russia’s advantage in terms of firepower. With its huge population and oil wealth, Russia also finds it easier to drum up new recruits. Ukraine is therefore likely to remain on the back foot, unable to mount new offensives. And uncertainty about Western aid will not go away: America may become much less friendly to Ukraine after presidential and congressional elections in November.

The fiercest fighting at the moment is in Chasiv Yar, a town just to the west of Bakhmut, the city Russia captured a year ago after nine months of trying. For Russia, seizing Chasiv Yar would open a path towards bigger cities in Donetsk province. Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk (almost all of which is already in Russian hands) form the Donbas region, which Russia has annexed in theory and would like to do so in practice (see map). For Ukraine, Chasiv Yar is a strategic stronghold, on high ground and shielded by a canal, trenches and other recently strengthened fortifications. Russian forces have reportedly been ordered to advance as far as they can before May 9th, Victory Day, which commemorates the end of the second world war and is an occasion for bombastic military parades and jingoistic speeches.

Colonel Pavlo Fedosenko, who leads a brigade defending the city, says Ukrainian forces maintain a substantial degree of control there. During the past month of all-out fighting, Russia has shown it “lacks the strength and means” to advance. In the meantime, Ukraine has inflicted serious losses, destroying around 100 armoured vehicles in a month in this section of the front alone. Now, he says, the Russians are “largely attacking on off-road motorcycles, buggies and quad bikes”. Surveillance drones allow Ukrainian forces to detect movement as much as 10km away and react promptly. But Russian attack drones torment Ukrainian forces: stay at any point in the city for more than a few minutes and they begin to rain down. Although news of the new aid package was greeted with cheers in the local command room, Colonel Fedosenko says, he and others suspect Chasiv Yar will fall eventually.

The infusion of arms should, however, put Ukraine in a stronger position to fend off a bigger Russian offensive that Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military-intelligence service, has said he expects in May. Ukrainian forces predict a push in the east to capture more of Donbas. They have also noticed an increase in Russian reconnaissance farther north, around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city. Capturing such an important place would be a huge psychological victory, but Russia almost certainly lacks both the troops and sufficient mechanised vehicles for a decisive attack.

Defending Ukraine’s skies will also be hard. Russia has hammered Ukraine’s defence industry and power grid with barrages of drones and missiles. Ukraine tries to defend against these assaults with a hotch-potch of American, European and Soviet-era anti-missile systems. But as with its artillery, its stock of ammunition has dwindled. Videos published on social media in recent weeks show Russian Su-25 jets flying at relatively low altitudes in the east, providing close support to troops. Russian reconnaissance drones have also penetrated as far as 40km behind the front lines without being shot down. Such incidents suggest that Ukraine is running short of interceptor missiles.

The erosion of Ukraine’s air defence has several malign effects. On the front lines, the shortage of interceptor missiles has given more freedom of manoeuvre to Russian jets and guided aerial bombs, which have been flying in at a rate of 100-130 a day. The worst-case scenario is that Russia achieves air superiority, allowing it to bomb the front lines at will, as it did in the city of Mariupol in the first months of the war. That would make it vastly harder for Ukraine to hold its current lines.

There is also the damage to infrastructure away from the front. On April 16th a Ukrainian official said that Russia had destroyed seven gigawatts (GW) of power-generation capacity in previous weeks, leaving just 10GW or so operational. Ukraine is now almost entirely reliant on nuclear plants. Although Russia is unlikely to bomb those, it may well strike transmission lines. Kyiv is already suffering from rolling blackouts, which sap morale.

Small wonder, then, that Ukraine is desperate for more air-defence systems. America’s new aid is likely to include some missiles. Ukraine also needs launchers. It has between five and ten Patriot batteries, which protect against longer-range and faster-moving ballistic missiles. But these are defending cities, which leaves infrastructure and the front lines exposed. Ukraine is hoping Poland and Spain, among others, will donate more. The catch is that they are in high demand elsewhere, as Iran’s drone and missile barrage against Israel on April 13th underscored.

Even before any ammunition arrives, America’s latest aid provides Ukraine’s weary forces with a psychological boost. Mr Putin might have hoped that a well-timed offensive over the summer would capitalise on Ukraine’s shell shortage and make great headway. That, in turn, might have heightened doubts within NATO and among American politicians about the long-term viability of Ukraine’s resistance. If Mr Putin could show that Russia’s war machine was unstoppable and Ukraine was a lost cause, he might have hoped to strike an advantageous deal with Donald Trump, were he to become America’s president again in January, and so force a Ukrainian surrender on humiliating terms.

Ukraine’s counter-offensive last year fizzled for a variety of reasons: delayed arms deliveries from the West, a dramatic expansion of Russian fortifications during the resulting hiatus, miscalculations over how lethal a drone-saturated battlefield had become and strategic mistakes such as the decision to launch attacks in both the east and the south, splitting Ukraine’s forces. But high on the list was a lack of skill. Ukrainian units, armed with unfamiliar Western weapons, were expected to wage complex “combined-arms” warfare against prepared defences with a meagre five weeks’ training. The lack of experience in such co-ordinated attacks means that both Ukraine and Russia are largely fighting at the level of companies, rather than battalions or brigades. Even if one side could find or make a breach in the other’s lines, they would struggle to exploit it.

The side that can master large-scale operations first will have a big advantage. If Ukraine is to get there, it will take lots of training. One difficulty is withdrawing entire units from the front for long enough to provide that training. Another is where to do it. Poland, an obvious candidate, is hesitant to host training on such a scale. An alternative would be for Western troops to do it on Ukrainian soil—an idea aired by Mr Macron in March which is under consideration in Western capitals. European governments suggest that they would be unlikely to take this risk without American involvement, not least because any training sites would need to be bristling with air-defence systems.

Wherever the training occurs, it will take time. A person familiar with the planning says that it would probably take until 2026 or 2027 for Ukraine to develop a serious offensive capacity. In the interim, Ukraine would need to continue to degrade Russian combat power. A strategy paper published by Estonia’s defence ministry last year argued that Ukraine would need to kill or seriously wound 50,000 Russian troops every six months to prevent Russia from building a stronger army. It would also need to keep up long-range strikes against Crimea, the Black Sea Fleet and Russian air bases, which in turn would require a steady supply of long-range missiles. Ukraine is husbanding a relatively small stock of British and French cruise missiles; America, it emerged this week, has quietly provided some long-range ATACMS ballistic missiles, which have already been put to use. Western sanctions would also need to be tightened, to hobble Russia’s defence industry.

In other words, a big military breakthrough could be several years away for Ukraine and, even then, only if large-scale Western support is maintained and enhanced. That is far from certain, especially given the vagaries of American politics. Mr Trump is much less resolute in his support for Ukraine than Mr Biden. And even if Mr Biden is re-elected, the next Congress may be even more cantankerous about Ukraine than the current one.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, warns the US, the EU, NATO, and the rest of the West in The Guardian: (emphasis mine)

https://t.co/MpI1V4JMWp

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) April 25, 2024

Ukraine’s foreign minister has enthusiastically praised US politicians for approving a long-delayed $61bn military aid package for Ukraine, but said western allies needed to recognise that “the era of peace in Europe is over” and that Kyiv would inevitably need more help to fight off Russia.

“Hallelujah,” Dmytro Kuleba said when asked for his reaction to Tuesday’s final vote by the US Senate. He said it had been “my belief that we would have a positive outcome”, based in part on the cultivation of religious conservatives, but the west needed to build its defence industry further.

Speaking to the Guardian ahead of the White House announcing a first tranche of aid including air defences, artillery rounds and armoured vehicles, Kuleba said it was “just a matter of logistics” to get the supplies to the frontline. Pentagon officials have indicated that some munitions have already been stockpiled in Europe, with Joe Biden saying on Wednesday they would arrive in hours.

Kuleba also said Ukraine had identified seven Patriot air defence systems it could use to protect civilians in major cities outside Kyiv. One had been obtained from Germany, four more had been located and negotiations were taking place, Kuleba said, and two more were in his sights.

Press reports indicate that Greece and Spain are considering whether to supply Patriots, while Poland and Romania also own the batteries. Kuleba added that an eighth system could come from the US. “I think the US army probably has one spare,” he said.

Negotiations to obtain these were complicated because “countries who operate these Patriots bargain for backfill and compensation”, Kuleba said, but he added: “I’m in no doubt, given the progress we are making, that Patriots will arrive and Germany must be commended for making the first move.”

Cities such as Kharkiv, which has been repeatedly bombed this year and seen residents move away in fear, could “live in peace and their industrial production continue”, he said, as long as Ukraine’s allies adopted a more hard-headed approach to helping his country.

He said Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had discussed the military aid with Biden on Monday.

Kuleba said Ukraine’s allies should switch from “expressing condolences and sympathy to Ukrainians and promising to help with recovery, to preventing loss of life and destruction of the country”.

He said the restoration of US military aid, held up for months by Donald Trump-aligned Republicans, would not be sufficient to defeat Russia. “No single package can stop the Russians. What will stop the Russians is a united front of all of Ukraine and all of its partners.”

Kuleba said the west needed to increase arms production, as Ukraine had, because it had been outpaced by Russia. Russia is out-shelling Ukraine by a ratio of about 10 to one, while Ukraine is running short of air defences.

“When I see what Russia achieved in building up its defence industrial base in two years of the war and what the west has achieved, I think something is wrong on the part of the west,” Kuleba said. “The west has to realise the era of peace in Europe is over.”

Peak military industrial production on the part of Ukraine’s allies was not expected until late 2024, the foreign minister said. Most observers think the war is unlikely to finish soon and will go on into next year. Russia is expected to mount a summer offensive and is thought to be in the process of mobilising an extra 100,000 to fight.

He was dismissive of those who argued that after more than two years of full-scale war it was time for Ukraine to negotiate. He said there were “200 rounds of discussions” with the Kremlin between 2014 and the 2022 invasion.

Some observers supported peace out of naivety, he believed. Others were “playing for Putin”. A third category “did not understand Russia” or its president. They were wrongly convinced it was necessary to negotiate with the devil, he said.

The minister said Putin would only engage in meaningful talks when his military position was “close to collapse”. To get to this point, Ukraine had to pursue a twofold strategy: “success on the battlefield” and a coalition of countries to back Zelenskiy’s peace formula of a Russian withdrawal, reparations and a war crimes tribunal.

Kuleba said a move announced on Tuesday to terminate consular services for Ukrainian men of fighting age living abroad was about justice, at a time when “guys in the trenches are very tired”.

“They don’t understand why the government is not trying to bring more people into the war effort,” he said. Kuleba said it was unclear how many Ukrainian men would come back, but it was unacceptable for those outside the country to “sit down in restaurants” while others were dying.

Kuleba said he did not know how long the war with Russia would last, and on his way into the office – a Stalin-era building next to Kyiv’s gold-domed St Michael’s monastery – he had passed a funeral procession.

“Every time I pass by a funeral for a soldier I double and triple my effort to bring it to an end, with Ukraine’s victory,” he said. “I think that in the end of this war, only one side will survive and it will be Ukraine. But when I say survive, I do not mean that Russia will cease to exist as a country.”

A Ukrainian veteran now living in Texas and raising funds to supply the Ukrainian military with drones also has a warning for the US, the EU, and NATO: (emphasis mine)

I don't want to blame our partners or allies, but Ukraine must face the reality: foreign aid is unreliable but very much needed. We have to face this and adapt to it.

Even if aid to Ukraine is in the best interest of the USA or any other European country, the populations and… pic.twitter.com/oHMhspLK4w

— ✙ Constantine ✙ (@Teoyaomiquu) April 25, 2024

I don’t want to blame our partners or allies, but Ukraine must face the reality: foreign aid is unreliable but very much needed. We have to face this and adapt to it.

Even if aid to Ukraine is in the best interest of the USA or any other European country, the populations and elites of these countries can easily be influenced by Russians through disinformation, bribery, and the use of “useful idiots.”

Russians invest billions in these campaigns to gaslight Ukraine, and sometimes they are more successful in these efforts than on the battlefield.

Ukraine must acknowledge this reality and decrease our dependency on foreign aid. There is no way that Ukraine can become completely independent from aid, and I doubt that any other nation in Europe could stand alone against the enormous Russian military machine combined with its immense natural resources.

One of the steps that Ukraine must take is to localize and scale up the production of critical arms such as APCs, artillery guns, and ammunition.

We have already done a great job producing our own drones. I would rate the Shark UAVs as having the best cost/effectiveness ratio among medium-sized surveillance drones in the world. Ukraine has built its own army of long-range kamikaze drones capable of penetrating Russian air defenses and striking targets as deep as 800km. Ukraine excels in producing large quantities of small attack drones, $500-$1,000 attack drones, and so-called hovering Baba-Yaga heavy munition-dropping drones that cost around $15,000-$20,000.

Also, Ukraine’s investment in producing the home-grown SPG Bohdana is paying off, and Ukraine is on its way to reequipping its forces. The production rate of over 10 howitzers a month and growing will probably make the Bohdana the most produced SPG in the world.

The key advantage of localizing production is its cost; while Western equipment is of high quality, it comes at an incredible cost of tens of millions of dollars. The price of the Caesar SPG is around $10 million, while I estimate a similar Ukrainian-made SPG to cost only $3 million.

Another result of this acknowledgment must be the understanding that this war is going to last a long time, and Ukraine needs to innovate in building its fortifications. We should move beyond simply putting together a few trenches and some logs with concrete. Instead, Ukraine’s military leadership must invest in designing and constructing a new type of fortification. New standards and instructions must be developed. We can’t afford to make mistakes; individual brigades can’t guess what will work or not—they need clear instructions, materials, and equipment to quickly assemble secure, concrete, and metal-reinforced, well-concealed positions. Trenches must have overhead protection against FPV and surveillance drones. The soldiers occupying those trenches must be trained to quickly rebuild this protection in case of damage; it has to be simple to erect, and the infantry must be trained to do it.

In the context of this large-scale conflict, the shortsightedness of Ukrainian partners must be taken into account by our political and military leadership. We can’t blame partners for being slow or inadequate; however, we must adapt to it and do what we can to survive.

The free portion of Donetsk Oblast:

In the Donetsk region, 88yo pan Ivan walked on foot from the temporarily occupied part of his village after the invaders had tried to force him to accept russian citizenship. Volunteers met him in the govt-controlled territory and evacuated to safety.

With one action this… pic.twitter.com/kstv6kXOD2

— Olena Halushka (@OlenaHalushka) April 25, 2024

In the Donetsk region, 88yo pan Ivan walked on foot from the temporarily occupied part of his village after the invaders had tried to force him to accept russian citizenship. Volunteers met him in the govt-controlled territory and evacuated to safety.

With one action this elderly man showed how malicious are analytical workings of the peace-dealing and russia-appeasing minds who push for giving up on people like pan Ivan for the sake of gifting russia another time-out to rearm and attack again. russian occupation isn’t peace, it’s a concentration camp

Source: Donetsk regional administration

Kharkiv:

What's it like living daily life in wartime Kharkiv? Well, something like this. pic.twitter.com/w2MXwZQFkt

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) April 25, 2024

I've only been in Kharkiv for three days and I already fully understand the horror and stress people here live under.
One moment you are calmly walking down the street, the next a rocket flies over your head. At one point, you try to go to sleep peacefully and wake up to…

— NAFO_trinzu🇪🇪❤️🇺🇦 (@trinzu) April 23, 2024

I’ve only been in Kharkiv for three days and I already fully understand the horror and stress people here live under.
One moment you are calmly walking down the street, the next a rocket flies over your head. At one point, you try to go to sleep peacefully and wake up to explosions all around you and at the moment I am talking about my personal experiences.

It’s all still so surreal here that someone constantly wants to destroy this beautiful city and kill the people who are here…

Anyone who is against sending aid to Ukraine should be sent here for a week.. maybe then they will understand the horror that is happening here every day..

Krasnohorivka:

Long video of a Russian armored assault on Krasnohorivka. The lead tank with the large shelter was left behind after its mine-roller reportedly got stuck but the other tanks and BMP/MT-LB continued the assault. It looks as though some of the other tanks/vehicles may have been… pic.twitter.com/qKP56GReQR

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 25, 2024

Long video of a Russian armored assault on Krasnohorivka. The lead tank with the large shelter was left behind after its mine-roller reportedly got stuck but the other tanks and BMP/MT-LB continued the assault. It looks as though some of the other tanks/vehicles may have been lost but others continued despite strikes by mines, FPVs, or other munitions.
https://t.me/Sladkov_plus/10339

The video in Rob Lee’s tweet has been edited towards the end. You can see where the edits were made. The dismounted Russians were trying to remove an anti-tank mine. They failed to do so. I’ve seen the full video of the results of that failure and I’m not posting it. Don’t go looking for it. You don’t need to see it!

More on the turtle tanks:

/2. Spotted Russian ‘turtle’ tanks. Plus full video of Russians evacuating one of the damaged ‘turtle’ tanks. pic.twitter.com/NnEmw8FGeN

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 25, 2024

/4. «Turtle» tanks are becoming more and more common pic.twitter.com/8YBfofiefm

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 25, 2024

The southern front:

Tallyho!

A Ukrainian MiG-29 shoots down a Russian reconnaissance drone, southern front. https://t.co/6028ZOeVqb pic.twitter.com/uuz89FfntB

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 25, 2024

Lord, guard and guide the ones who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky.
Be with them always in the air,
In darkening storms or sunlight fair;
Oh, hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air!

For you drone enthusiasts:

Report from the Ukrainian border guard service featuring Vampire drones a.k.a. Baba Yaga. Journalists visited the location of the Pomsta brigade and observed the night work of a heavy bomber drone. These drones are used not only for attacks on manpower but also for remote mining… pic.twitter.com/uUSV3jiPxP

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) April 25, 2024

Report from the Ukrainian border guard service featuring Vampire drones a.k.a. Baba Yaga. Journalists visited the location of the Pomsta brigade and observed the night work of a heavy bomber drone. These drones are used not only for attacks on manpower but also for remote mining of enemy rear areas.

Obligatory:

Russia:

Russian independent @verstka_media counted the number of reports in the Russian press of murders committed by soldiers returning home from the Ukraine frontline. It's over 100. pic.twitter.com/RY4kGzVPiW

— Polina Ivanova (@polinaivanovva) April 25, 2024

They seem nice!

Omsk, Russia:

25 April – tanks with petroleum products caught fire in Omsk, Russia. The volume of each tank is about 200 liters.

Reasons for fire are unknown. pic.twitter.com/l5NOqa3ieC

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) April 25, 2024

I’m pretty sure combustion is the reason.

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos today. Here’s some adjacent material.

This is what Ukraine is fighting for.

Warrior Dad surprised his teenage daughter on her birthday.

📹: lab. sviata/TikTok pic.twitter.com/V8r8MI4qRU

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 24, 2024

It’s sort of an animal video.

This is also what Ukraine is fighting for – so all families can reunite fully.

We are waiting to see whether the US Senate votes for Ukraine aid today and keeping fingers crossed.

📹: UAnimals https://t.co/uwExoN0oTZ pic.twitter.com/M32glLrE3O

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 23, 2024

Muffin feeling better ) pic.twitter.com/rQlrXFPlFz

— Eugene Kibets (@eugenehmg) April 19, 2024

Open thread!