Before we start, the Israelis appear to have killed four World Central Kitchen staffers in an air strike in Gaza around 6 PM EDT. Video and pics of the casualties are circulating online. Trust me, you do not need to watch them or loock at them. Expect more clarity in tomorrow’s news reporting. Russia appears …
War for Ukraine Day 768: A Brief(ish) Monday Night UpdatePost + Comments (43)
This year raises a number of fundamental questions about NATO-Ukraine relations – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
1 April 2024 – 19:29
I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!
A brief report for today.
I had a rather long and thorough discussion with the military and government officials about drones, all their necessary types – from FPV to our attack drones, which are showing remarkable results in destroying Russia’s military potential in the rear. Today we talked about the nuances of production, support and financing, contracts, and the necessary flexibility in setting priorities. Our defense industry must produce precisely what the war requires in the amount that is necessary and as timely as needed. Obviously, drones will be one of the decisive factors for victory in this war, and it should be a Ukrainian factor, Ukrainian drones, Ukrainian victory, which means we need more and more efficient Ukrainian drones. We can ensure this. Today’s meeting also focused on electronic warfare systems. We now have a significant number of Ukrainian products, and we have a great determination of our manufacturers to strengthen our defense with electronic warfare. We are providing the state resources to the maximum extent necessary and are working on comprehensive solutions. Solutions that will provide the necessary cover for the entire front. Everyone in the government of Ukraine, everyone in the Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine who is responsible for the drone program, knows their tasks clearly. Time and efficiency in fulfilling the tasks will be crucial. And I commend everyone who works one hundred percent efficiently in this area.
Second. NATO. Today I held a special meeting on our work with the Alliance on interoperability and prospects for this year. It was attended by all our international relations officials, the Minister of Defense, and the international cooperation team of the ministry. This year raises several fundamental questions about Ukraine-NATO relations. In particular, this concerns the summit in Washington and many other aspects of cooperation. Only with Ukraine in the Alliance can we count on real security in Europe.
Third. Today, in the White Hall of Heroes of Ukraine in the Mariyinsky Palace, I presented the Golden Star Orders to our warriors and the families of the fallen Heroes. The best of our warriors who have distinguished themselves in battles in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv regions and the south of our country – wherever Ukraine is fighting for its life and independence. Wherever our people show the best qualities of Ukrainians.
I am proud of each and every one of our warriors! I am proud of all our people who are defending Ukraine and doing everything to make normal life possible despite the Russian terror. From Kharkiv to Chernihiv region, from positions in Donetsk region to Odesa. I thank everyone who has dedicated their life to serving Ukraine. We must definitely win.
Glory to Ukraine!
The cost:
Instead of a thousand words.
A father by the portrait of his son who died defending Ukraine.
📷: Volodymyr Tarasov pic.twitter.com/VCespwkVsf
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024
On the second anniversary of Bucha’s liberation:
"The international symbol of mass graves, of executions, bodies of the dead lying in the streets." On the second anniversary of the liberation of Bucha, journalist and author @IAPonomarenko reflects on Bucha then and now. pic.twitter.com/E00PXKqS9C
— Kim Brunhuber (@kimbrunhuber) March 31, 2024
Tonenke village, near the Avdiivka front, Russian occupied Donetsk Oblast:
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) April 1, 2024
March 30, 🇺🇦Ukraine’s 25th Airborne repels a massive attack by 36 tanks and 12 BMPs (!!!) of Russia’s 90th Guards Tank Division’s 6th Armored Regiment near the town of Tonenke, the Avdiivka section.
Russians ended up losing 12 tanks and 8 BMPs in their frontal assault. The Ukrainian lines not breached.
Seriously, I have no idea how Ukrainian troops manage to get through this, again and again, being so severely and chronically outnumbered and outgunned.
It’s just a man-made miracle that they do.
Javelin doesn't miss a shot.
📹: 25th Airborne Brigade pic.twitter.com/UdJjeRMp7l
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 1, 2024
Blessed St. Javelin!
Kharkiv:
All critical energy infrastructure of Kharkiv is almost destroyed – Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov
In Kharkiv:
▪️ more than $10 billion is already needed to rebuild Kharkiv after the Russian attacks and every day this amount is increasing;
▪️ Russia has started hitting the city… https://t.co/jtlF3DFehE pic.twitter.com/SVNcERh1R7
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024
All critical energy infrastructure of Kharkiv is almost destroyed – Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov
In Kharkiv:
▪️ more than $10 billion is already needed to rebuild Kharkiv after the Russian attacks and every day this amount is increasing;
▪️ Russia has started hitting the city with new munitions – they cover a distance of up to 90 kilometers (there have already been two such strikes in the last week, the Russians are also hitting with S-300), most often “coming” from Belgorod region;
▪️”Unfortunately, there is not enough voltage. We had to end the heating season early to save money. The introduced schedules of light outages are hourly. We decided not to light the streets,” – Kharkiv mayor.
Kharkiv is my native city. It is so painful to see what Russia does to it. To all our Ukrainian cities and villages.
📷: Kharkiv during a blackout/Reuters
The BBC has details:
In central Kharkiv you hear the rattle of generators on every street.
Ten days ago, Ukraine’s second city was plunged into darkness by a massive, targeted Russian missile attack on the energy system – it was the biggest since the start of the full-scale war.
As Kharkiv works to restore power, there has been a wave of additional strikes across the country targeting the energy supply.
Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned what he calls Russia’s “missile terror”.
The Ukrainian president has also renewed his calls to his country’s allies for more air defence systems as protection.
The authorities in Odesa on the Black Sea in the south of the country say the energy system there was the latest to be hit overnight, with missiles and drones, causing partial blackouts.
In Kharkiv to the north, the damage is more serious.
Kharkiv’s mayor, Igor Terekhov, has said it will take weeks to restore full supply and that is if Russia’s armed forces don’t strike the same targets again.
The initial attack on the city’s energy supply even knocked out the air raid siren. There is now a screeching noise that comes straight to people’s mobile phones instead.
There can be hours of those missile warnings in the city each day – during one on Saturday night, the blast wave from a strike blew out dozens of windows in a block of flats.
But the Russians have increasingly been aiming at the power grid.
The damage is very serious,” Mr Terekhov told the BBC.
“We need time to repair it,” he added, suggesting that meant a couple more months at least.
Russia’s defence ministry confirms that its latest strikes have been focused on Ukraine’s power supply. It says the aim is to disrupt the work of the country’s defence industry and claims that “all aims of the strike were achieved”.
The ministry has a long history of disinformation.
But the Kharkiv mayor did tell the BBC that the city’s manufacturing sector, which requires significant power, has been affected by the blackouts. There are no further details.
The impact on civilian life is more obvious.
Blackout periods have been introduced in order to conserve energy, and there is a schedule for the city. On Saturday those power cuts lasted six hours, but by Sunday they had been reduced to four hours.
The timings can slip.
“They were supposed to cut the power to my area at 09:00, so I got up especially early to charge everything,'” a friend messaged. “Then I got in the lift and got stuck. They’d cut the power early!”
A hair salon in a Kharkiv back street is one of many small businesses with a generator whirring noisily outside the door. On Saturday it was on for seven hours, allowing the salon to keep operating.
The same goes for cafés and companies throughout the city centre, although many have sheets of wood over their windows to cover a gap where the glass has already been shattered or to protect it from future blasts.
Some of the boards are painted with birds and flowers.
“We’ve been working on generator power since Monday,” salon owner Natalia told the BBC. “Of course it’s really hard, especially because we’re all women and when we finish work late at night it’s so dark!”
Russia has attacked Ukraine’s power grid before, in the first winter of the full-scale war.
As engineers scrambled to perform emergency repairs then, residents shivered in the dark in their homes or headed for central “invincibility points” for warmth and power.
More at the link!
Vuhledar front:
/2. Geolocations of Russian AFVs. The column was destroyed near Novomykhailivka. https://t.co/pWiN68HpOU
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 1, 2024
Here’s the full text of the first tweet:
Destroyed Russian AFV column on the Vuhledar front.
“The column of Russian equipment, which prepared for the assault in the amount of 8 AFVs, was noticed in time.
On its way, the column was reduced to 6 AFVs, of these 6, 4 AFVs were hit by joint efforts. The rest of the scrap – 2 AFVs, threw out 8 infantrymen, only 3 of which reached across the field to their old positions…”
https://t.me/usinfantryman1/16760
Bakhmut front:
As the author said, Bakhmut Front, in the video an attempt of a Russian assault, 6 AFVs attacked, only 2 of them survived and retreatedhttps://t.co/QlPCOTySfK pic.twitter.com/RBGCCpJ5HB
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 1, 2024
The Kreminna front:
Destroyed Russian BMP column. Kreminna front. Terny area. https://t.co/717V7OqI0n pic.twitter.com/V3GCsNJhTT
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 1, 2024
Novomykhailivka front:
Russian BMP hits an antitank mine. Novomykhailivka front. Video from a Russian drone. pic.twitter.com/8jVWTiQF4Q
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 1, 2024
The Black Sea:
⚡️Ukrainian Warriors shot down one of the most expensive Russian drones over the Black Sea – Forpost, South Operational Command reports.
It's worth about $7 million. It is quite large, can conduct reconnaissance and carry an additional combat load in the form of 2 missiles or… pic.twitter.com/QMZ3sCsRul
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024
⚡️Ukrainian Warriors shot down one of the most expensive Russian drones over the Black Sea – Forpost, South Operational Command reports.
It’s worth about $7 million. It is quite large, can conduct reconnaissance and carry an additional combat load in the form of 2 missiles or other weapons to hit ground targets.
Glory to Ukrainian Defenders!
Here's some backstory about the Russian Forpost drone, one of which the Ukrainian Armed Forces shot down today.
Back in 2009, Russia purchased two Searcher II drones from Israel for study (a total amount of $12 million). In October 2010, the two countries signed a contract worth… https://t.co/f6bnWsgZBk pic.twitter.com/GpvjucYCFc
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024
Here’s some backstory about the Russian Forpost drone, one of which the Ukrainian Armed Forces shot down today.
Back in 2009, Russia purchased two Searcher II drones from Israel for study (a total amount of $12 million). In October 2010, the two countries signed a contract worth $300 million. According to this document, the Searcher II drones were to be produced at the Kazan Helicopters manufacturing company using Israeli components.
Curiously, just two years later, in 2012, the Ural Civil Aviation Factory started producing new reconnaissance systems (command vehicle + localized drones), which were named Forpost.
The main task of the Russian combat Forpost drone is to collect intelligence and conduct search-observation flights and search operations. This drone can also carry armament in the form of a container with an ATGM missile.
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
There are no new Patron tweets or videos tonight, so here is some adjacent material.
Ukrainian Defender of the 92nd Mechanized Brigade rescued two boarlets in the forests of the Kharkiv region and named them Tisha and Tosha. Another Defender with the call sign "Sladkii" ("Sweet") sheltered a red-listed marbled polecat.
Ukrainian soldiers constantly rescue wild… pic.twitter.com/osgiLQ5twq
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 1, 2024
Ukrainian Defender of the 92nd Mechanized Brigade rescued two boarlets in the forests of the Kharkiv region and named them Tisha and Tosha. Another Defender with the call sign “Sladkii” (“Sweet”) sheltered a red-listed marbled polecat.
Ukrainian soldiers constantly rescue wild animals from shellings and take care of the animals that have lost their homes and found themselves at “zero line.”
Open thread!
* Full disclosure: I have what is referred to as Burn Pit syndrome. Though in my case it wasn’t just burn pits. It’s that the idiots that decided where to build FOB Hammer situated it on top of the old impact area of the Iraqi Army’s Besmiyah artillery range. So we were living on top of a bunch of bits of depleted uranium and other not so nice materials. But wait, there’s more! The 3rd BCT/3rd ID commander, eventually disgraced and run out of the Army as a 2 star because among other things he was a walking zipper malfunction, did not want to have to wait for a new dining facility (DFAC) to be built. So he had the only one not in use shipped up from Kuwait. Why was it in Kuwait? Because it was supposed to be destroyed as a health hazard as it could not be kept to minimum sanitary standards. How did he get it shipped up? He got the Division commander to issue an exemption to policy. But wait, there’s even more. Someone up the chain in Iraq or the DOD determined that grey water – as in somewhat treated, but not potable and not safe for human ingestion – could be used for the showers, sinks, and laundry, as well as sprayed on the dirt roads to keep the dust down. But wait, there’s even more more! These geniuses sited the base about 12 to 14 km south of the Nahrwan brick factory, which burned heavy fuel oil in the kilns. Many days we’d wake up to a dark black haze of noxious and toxic smoke. The kicker to all this is because I deployed to Iraq before the program that sent my teammates and I there was a program of record, and before all the civilians were converted to civil servants, I was a contractor. And, as a result, I can’t even enter my symptoms in the VA’s database for Burn Pit syndrome because only uniformed personnel and government civilians are allowed to do so. Even though I have a 25 to 35 page supplemental insert in my medical file that my brigade’s public health doctor prepared for everyone that details everything he could document that we were exposed to. As I type this I am suffering from a flare up of one of the health souvenirs I came home from Iraq with. What I was exposed to is nowhere comparable to what Polymeropolous and others have been exposed to in the attacks on them, but I do have experience with both the bureaucracy stonewalling on adjacent problems and, as a result of the contract nature of my service in Iraq, the inability to even just enter my condition and symptoms in the tracking database, let alone get help as I’m not entitled to do so.