Ukraine Developments--And A Caution

Lately we haven’t been covering the conflict in Ukraine—the kinetic military front of the overall World War III—too closely. Attritional wars of the sort Russia is waging in its “de-militarization” campaign don’t offer dramatic developments. On the other hand, there have been developments on the Ukrainian side during the last few days that are worth covering. I don’t want to dwell on nitty gritty details, but these developments my help understand what will come in the next few months.

Now, the caution I refer to in the title comes from Brian Berletic, in a worthwhile Youtube:

Ukraine Receiving Storm Shadow Cruise Missiles + the Propaganda Storm around Bakhmut

First of all, Brian cautions against becoming absorbed in who-struck-John tactical details and then attempting to project those day to day events to the big picture scheme of things—tactical to strategic, if you will. This caution, he states, applies not only to the grueling urban combat at Bakhmut—where daily progress is measured in buildings take or destroyed, meters of territory gained—but also to the introduction of new weapons systems, such as the Storm Shadow air launched cruise missile.

We speculated yesterday, along with others, that the attack on a factory in Donbass may have been the first use of the Storm Shadow. If so it was likely a test use of the system, probably as adapted to launch from specially modified Soviet era Su-24 bombers (still capable). The targeted factory didn’t appear to be a military target and there were no secondary explosions to suggest that the factory was being used as a munitions storage site. It’s important to note that the Russians have ample experience in countering the Storm Shadow from Britain’s was against Syria. As Brian points out, this is unlikely to be any sort of game changer, but it may afford favorable headlines from time to time. Russia has demonstrated the ability to counter everything the West has thrown at it and when, as in the case of the Storm Shadow, Russia has prior experience the counter measures will come quickly. Another note—there is speculation that the missiles provided to Ukraine may be the ‘for export’ variant, with a much shorter range. If so, that might be a tacit recognition that Russia’s redlines, while flexible, do have a breaking point.

Here is Brian’s summary of what he covers in the video. Most of these points have already been covered here, or we will provide examples below:

- Russian media space panics over false claims of Ukraine’s offensive beginning;

We covered this typically Russian social phenomenon yesterday.

- The trading of territory in Bakhmut is typical of urban combat operations and does not indicate a “momentum shift” until the vector sum of the fighting begins favoring Ukraine rather than Russian forces;

New reporting shows that there does not appear to have been any “breakthrough” at Bakhmut, just relatively minor jiggering of lines. That, however, is not without short term tactical significance.

- Additional evidence has surfaced that Ukraine is using some of its best military hardware in and around Bakhmut including German-made self-propelled howitzers, indicating that Russian plans to draw in and destroy Ukraine’s best troops and equipment is working;

As usual, however, these weapons systems are not available in sufficient numbers to make a major difference and will end up being “attritted.”

- Ahead of Ukraine’s offensive, both sides are conducting long-range strikes. For Russia it is about disrupting Ukraine’s offensive potential. For Ukraine it is about shaping the psychological and media landscape of the conflict;

The relative lack of reports of Ukrainian attacks taking out major supply depots, for example, contrasts sharply with the results of Russian attacks. Follow this link for a video of a recent Russian strike—the cloud formation signals that there was a massive explosion at the site of the strike.

- The Storm Shadow cruise missile is air-launched and for targets deep inside Russian territory to be under threat, Ukrainian warplanes must travel dangerously close ot the line of contact and expose themselves to Russian air defenses. The missiles themselves must circumvent Russian air defense systems and electronic warfare measures;

- The terrain mapping feature most likely will require intelligence sharing between Ukraine and the US-UK in order to make the missile’s use most effective;

- While Storm Shadow missiles and other long-range weapons Ukraine may have will inevitably make it through to their targets these are not capabilities Russia doesn’t already have and in greater abundance. If these are war-winning capabilities, Russia is going to win the war first;

Now, a more significant development took place overnight. Ukraine managed to sneak surface to air missile (SAM) batteries close to the Russian border, specifically to the Bryansk Oblast. The result was the downing of 4 Russian aircraft. Bryansk is located basically to the north of Ukraine, a bit east of Kiev but to the north. These aircraft were part of Russian electronic countermeasures operations—blinding Ukrainian air defenses to incoming missiles, pinpointing the location of air defenses, etc.

OSINTdefender

@sentdefender

At least 1 of the Mi-8 Helicopters of the Russian Air Force that was Shot Down over the Bryansk Region today appears to have been a Mi-8 MTPR-1 Variant which has Electronic Warfare Capabilities and is specifically used to Suppress Enemy Air Defense Systems, the Russian Military only has roughly 20 of these Helicopters.

It’s unlikely that Ukraine will be able to station SAMs close to the Russian border on anything remotely like a permanent basis, so this event probably indicates the success that Russia is having in suppressing Ukrainian air defenses and devastating rear supply and logistics centers—with consequent effects on Ukrainian “offensive” operations. No doubt this was a nasty surprise for Russia, but one they will adapt to.

dana

@dana916

According to updated data, 2 Mi-8 helicopters, a Su-34 bomber, and a Su-35 fighter were shot down All aircraft fell in the Bryansk region. Helicopter pilots and Su-34 bomber died ...

The enemy carried out a planned operation, having made a massive launch of missiles from the territory of the Chernihiv region.

Intel Slava Z

8:21 AM · May 13, 2023

Filippo Neri

@Fil4410Fil44

I guess that modified (in Poland) Su-24s and/or Mig-29s are doing both the Storm-Shadow attacks and the anti-air missions. They have sophisticated EW suites and decoys that protect them from radar.

This, at least, explains why these two kinds of operations are starting simultaneously.

9:12 AM · May 13, 2023

Mikael Valtersson

Former officer Swedish Armed Forces/Air Defence, former defence politician and chief of staff Sweden Democrats. Current political and military analyst.

comments:

Mikael Valtersson

@MikaelValterss1

NEWS UPDATE AIR WARFARE

A russian Su-34 fighter aircraft and a Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in the Bryan's region over russian territory. The 2-man crew of the Su-34 was killed instantly in the air. The strength of the explosion and the fact that the downing of the Su-34 was over russian territory implies that UkrAF has at least medium range SAMs near both the frontline and the russian border in that region. This is the first russian fighter aircraft shot down for many weeks.

7:18 AM · May 13, 2023

This morning—a nasty surprise led to adaptation, but not cancelation:

OSINTdefender

@sentdefender

Russian Mi-8 Military Helicopters are continuing to Fly over the Bryansk Region of Western Russia today but are now appearing to Fly at a much Lower Altitude than the Aircraft which were Shot Down earlier this morning.

Turning to the Bakhmut front, Valtersson offers some restrained and sensible analysis. After the initial Russian media panic it appears that the Russian units held their positions for about 5 hours and then withdrew in good order to more defensible lines, after inflicting casualties. The Russians had probably been occupying former Ukrainian trenches.

Mikael Valtersson

@MikaelValterss1

NEWS UPDATE BAKHMUT AFTERNOON MAY 12

There have been a russian withdrawal in the area east of Bohdanivka and North of Khromove. The last days ukrainian forces has attacked the positions of the russian 9th Motorized Rifle Regiment. After heavy clashes they where forced back from the Khromove road and the recently captured trenches. At the end of yesterday UkrAF had taken area 1.

Today russian forces decided to withdraw from the open fields in area 2 to new and better defensive positions. The new russian positions are covered by much water and are shorter so they will probably be easy to defend, but it's clear that RuAF has abandoned offensive operations for at least a couple of weeks east of Bohdanivka and near the Khromove road.

The new russian lines will probably stop further ukrainian advances, but the Khromove road will again be usable for the ukrainian side. This will put more pressure on the russian forces in Bakhmut to press on towards the road junction (1) where the Khromove road (road 0506) and the local supply road from Ivanivske (Vulytsya Tolbukhina) meet in western Bakhmut. If this crossroad is taken or russian forces at least come very close to it ukrainian supplies will be cut to Bakhmut. But until then the ukrainian supply situation has improved considerably.

I think that the retreat make sense in military terms, but I'm surprised that russian defence on the northern flank where as weak as Prigozhin said in advance. This will probably strengthen Prigozhin and are a loss of face for the russian MoD. It might also increase the time it takes for Bakhmut to fall with several weeks. It [w]as a well executed operation from the ukrainian forces.

9:41 AM · May 12, 2023

IOW, the Ukrainian “offensive” was a limited tactical operation intended to ease—but hardly to remove—Russian pressure on Bakhmut, which is already 90% under Russian control. It came at the expense of some significant losses in men and materiel—reportedly including a Leopard tank that Ukraine can ill afford to lose—and fits within the overall pattern of Russian operations in this war of attrition. Meanwhile, Wagner continues its advance within Bakhmut without much regard for any of this.

At this point, we can only wait for further developments. What we’re seeing now doesn’t appear to change the overall dynamics of the war. Russia continues to control events and can escalate at will—but chooses not to for reasons it doesn’t share publicly.