August 9 — Day 167b — continued
HARMS can harm you
Of course, not everything. Over the weekend the UAF recorded a big, eyebrow-raising spike in destroyed Russian anti-aircraft systems, particularly the vaunted S-300. According to some unconfirmed counts, as many as 20 Russian major weapons systems designed to shoot stuff down, were blown up since Friday.
On Sunday, Russian state media posted images of what looked very much like the identification plate of a US-made HARM missile, reported dug out of the remains of a smoked S-300 in the Kherson sector. The independent observers noted it but reserved judgement until Monday, when a US assistant defense secretary named Colin Kahl told Washington reporters yep, Uncle Sam is sending the Ukrainians HARMs, and what’s more, the clever Ukrainians have figured out a way to launch that NATO-standard weapon from Ukrainian aircraft. Ukrainian media speculation is generally of the opinion they’re MiG-29s from one of the NATO eastern tier nations, that had been upgraded with western electronics.
It is difficult to overstate how bad this news is for the Kremlin. This is not leftover Soviet junk like most of Europe has been sending Ukraine. The HARM missile is a first-line advanced technology missile currently in use with US air and naval forces, it’s designed to home in on anti-aircraft radars and to target the radars’ last location, even if the radar operators turn the anti-aircraft system off. A cheap one costs about $280,000, and an expensive one about $800,000. The combat range is at least 150 km so, knowing the Ukrainians, you can’t completely discount the theory all these strikes at Saki, was a wave of HARMs either walloping the air defense the Russians have around there, or, (even better) the Ukrainians modified HARMs or anti-ship missiles to be able to shoot twice as far as the Russians expected.
Short of sending their own fighters deep into Ukrainian air space to hunt the Ukrainian jets dropping the HARM — and word is, the Russian air force stopped flying penetration missions into Ukrainian air space in April — the mighty Russian military has pretty much no counter to the missile. Every time they turn on an air defense radar, even for a few seconds, potentially, the Ukrainians can launch one of these missiles and pick off the system. The situation looks even worse when you remember, that if there is any agency and country in the world capable of using satellites to pinpoint air defense radars and get that targeting information to a pilot flying a jet carrying a HARM missile, it is without question the NSA and the United States.
First the ammunition dumps, then the critical bridges, then the anti-aircraft systems, and then the actual airfields. None of this is random. We are watching a systematic and scary effective campaign, in progress right now, to degrade Russia’s ability to fight a coherent battle in the south, by picking apart key pieces of the Russian defenses at ranges where the Russians can’t retaliate. If this doesn’t look to you like the air phase of Desert Storm, then I’m Norman Schwartzkopf.
Image of the HARMS missile scrap, a HARMS missile, and good ol’ Stormin Norman attached.
Donbass
With all the missiles flying and orange explosions, it’s easy to forget about the guys fighting on the ground. According to RF sources, the 6th Cossack Regiment of the People’s Militia of the LPR has broken into the Knauf construction material (sheet rock) factory in the town Soledar, assisted by the Chechen special forces “Akhmat”, and the “successful cooperation” is gaining ground and killing Ukrainians. However the Ukrainian Army General Staff (AGS) and other sources, say the Russians are stuck in a loop: they advance in company strength, they get shot up, and they fall back with losses.
Same deal around Artemovsk. Here, supposedly, the “Wagner” mercenary group is fighting its way into the eastern part of the city while, according to the Ukrainian joint forces command (east), UAF positions are holding and the Russians keep walking into walls of artillery fire. Allegedly, the UAF put in fire strikes near Velika Vasilyvka and Vremenivka — places I’ve patrolled to in my day — and “forced the enemy to run”. The ground is really open out that way. Short of tree lines, there’s not much place to hide. Map with red arrows attached.
The southern offensive
A UAF major general named Dmitro Marchenko went on a talk show Monday evening and dropped this piece of analysis: according to him (and therefore, one supposes, the common view in the UAF) the Russians have decided to fight for Kherson, which explains why they keep trying to move troops to an exposed city with supply lines constantly under UAF fire, and bottlenecked over bridges crossing the giant Dnipro River. The Kremlin is so afraid of the shock to morale the loss of Kherson might cause to the Russia and the Russians, that the Russian high command literally has decided to commit major forces to a hard defense of a city on the wrong side of a river — by almost any standard a properly stupid move, tactically and operationally.
The second point I would like to make is, as far as I can see, the offensive is properly in progress. We see the Ukrainians working their way systematically down target lists, only allowing themselves impromptu attacks, like for instance a repeat HIMARS strike on the Antnonovsky Bridge, the day after Russian propaganda TV announced the Ukrainians had no more HIMARS because the mighty Russian military had wiped them out. (Image)
We are seeing the Ukrainians unlimber long-range strikes against a far target — Saki airfield — they probably have been itching to hit, since day one of the war. Why now? My thinking is, the Ukrainians have committed to breaking down the Russian army in the southern sector with long-range fires, until such time the Russian defenses are so tattered, that a ground assault will be a walkover. When will that be? The answer is anyone’s guess, but here’s one from Washington: Kurt Walker, US State Department, said yesterday that a major Ukrainian counter-offensive will come “before the end of the year”.
Energodar nuclear station
As you will have seen there is firing again around Europe’s largest nuclear power station and the Ukrainian media is revving up to warn anyone who’ll listen that if there’s one thing the Ukrainians know about it’s radiation (Chernobyl), and trust us, the Russians stationing troops around the power plant cannot end well for anyone. Several scary images attached.
The Russians, for their part, have been promising all and sundry they are just working to shift the plant’s capacity away from Ukraine and towards captured territory, the process is ongoing, the Russian engineers know what they’re doing, and of course Russian troops never take cover among civilians or nuclear power stations, and anyone who suggests that is probably a sexual deviant or a Nazi-lover, and most likely both. Meanwhile, the troop presence at the plant and the fact the Ukrainians will have to attack it sooner or later serves the greater Russian goal of frightening the Europeans enough to pressure the Ukrainians into surrendering, just so the war will stop.
This was a reasonable enough Russian strategy for a while. But now, the Europeans face a different question: How to end the war, if Ukraine and countries like Poland and the US are dead set on breaking Russia militarily? Which policy is more likely to succeed (a) Getting the Americans to back down in their confrontation with Russia, so Ukraine can be sold out or (b) Help engineer the worst military defeat Russia has seen in a century, but keep the pace of the defeat slow enough, so that at no point the idiots in the Kremlin feel like they have no other option but to use nukes, and at every point the guys in Moscow can keep telling themselves: “Just a little more, just a bit longer, and we’ll definitely turn this thing around.”
Perhaps the most powerful weapon Ukraine and its allies have, is the Kremlin’s ability to deceive itself. Of course, arguably, that’s what started the war in the first place.
Speaking of the reality-challenged, according to some reports, Steven Segal was in the DPR meeting with local despot Denis Pushilin. According to Russian state media, Segal was convinced the Ukrainians killed all those Azov troopers at Elenevka. Not making this up, but not confirmed any place reliable. Image attached.
