Feb 15 — Day 1087b — continued

Plenty of War News

NUCLEAR ATTACKS — Russian drones on Tuesday attacked a convoy from the International Atomic Energy Agency trying to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, and on Friday a Shahed drone hit the protective shelter built around the ruined reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station . The Shahed breached the outer shell but the inner shell held, so no radiation leak. This is a reasonable pretext to plug the FPS game Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. If you have ever been to the real Chenobyl it’s pretty impressive how accurate Stalker is with the buildings and terrain.

Publicity image from the FPS game Stalker, which is set in and around the Chernobyl nuclear power station.

ZSU HOLDS THE LINE — Across the front the Russians are pretty much stopped excepting minor advances in the Kharkiv sector. In Kursk and Pokrovsk sector the Ukrainians have put in minor counterattacks, but the Russians made minor ground gains as well. I’m reading reports this morning about more Russian assaults in the Kurahove sector.

Here’s a video from the paratroopers at 25th Airborne Brigade, nine Russians surrendered after three days of negotiation mostly by drone message.

https://t.me/Khortytsky_wind/5268

LONG-RANGE BOMBARDMENT — The Russians keep sending 50–80 Shaheds nightly at Ukraine with honestly very poor results, and on Wednesday they launched as I understand it six ballistic missiles at Kyiv, of which the Ukrainians say all were shot down. I can confirm two successful intercepts and it looked and sounded to me like Patriots, but it was dark and cloudy. The Ukrainians are still picking apart the Russian C3 network and oil production, this week .

On Thursday the Royal Air Force pushed a sigint spy plane W-A-Y out into the Black Sea, at least as far as they have ever attempted (that one could see with trackers turned on), and possibly the furthest ever. They flew in a pair of Typhoons from Cyprus as escorts. Normally recon sorties like this are followed a few days later by Ukrainian strikes mysteriously hitting Russian air defense installations either in Crimea or the Kuban, but so far I haven’t seen any special strike op like that.

Saturday addition: OK, there was a big Ukrainian drone strike last night, looks like oil refineries was the general target. Volgograd refinery (hit before) was set afire. Another fire reported in Kaluga region. Strikes reported in Tula and Saratov region. So if the Royal Air Force helped, it was to find gaps in the Russian air defense belt. Also there are fires reported burning near Gvardeyskiy airfield/Simferpol in Crimea. Adriushchenko published a decent image of where the strikes went, attached.

Ukraine graphic of Ukrainian drone strikes into Russia early morning Feb. 15

JET STUFF — Ukraine’s military people (Umerov) said this week that all 19 of the Danish F-16s are now in Ukraine, plus a few Dutch F-16s. Plus the first Mirage 2000s showed up, probably 3 of them. We need to manage expectations and we shouldn’t suddenly expect a two dozen aircraft strike on the Kerch bridge. But multiple sources are saying F-16s are in the air above Ukraine pretty much all the time. I know people who’ve seen them. So far the job seems to be mainly air defense, but, there have been a few spots of aircraft flying ground strikes. This is not going to change the direction of the war, but, like Russian ground attacks and the lack of them, Ukraine’s ability to put fighters into the air on an enduring basis means less leverage against Ukraine in ceasefire negotiations. Obviously this is worth an F-16 image. This time: A Danish F-16 over Greenland.

Stock image of a Danish F-16 over Greenland. Last week the US said it wanted to take over Greenland from Denmark, which is not really the kind of thing one expects from one NATO ally to another.

Also on F-16s, WSJ this week reported the single F-16 lost so far in the war, flown by the veteran pilot Moonfish, wasn’t destroyed because he flew into Shahed debris, but most likely, because a Patriot missile shot him down by accident, this because the Pentagon sent Ukraine dumbed-down Patriots with the IFF system taken out of them, but didn’t tell the Ukrainians what they did. This is not confirmed although I consider WSJ as reliable as anyone and more so than most.

A HOLIDAY WORTH MENTIONING: Attached is the classic image of the Red Army retreating from Afghanistan after 10 years of trying to install a friendly government but not succeeding. Today is a Russo-Ukrainian holiday: The Day of Memory of Warriors-Internationalists. Ukrainians since 2014 mark it out of respect for Ukrainian Afghan vets, and also as a reminder that just because the Russians say their troops will be there forever, it doesn’t always work out that way. The geniuses in the US government may have a plan to “settle” the Russo-Ukraine War, but I bet they don’t know about this holiday and how Ukrainians see it.

Red Army leaves Afghanistan, Feb. 15 1989. The White House this week seemed to hint Russian troop presence on Ukrainian territory would be permanent. The Ukrainians celebrate “Russia-Left-Afghanistan” Day every year.

LOOK TO BELARUS — The Ukrainian military intelligence people are saying they have very strong evidence the Russians will deploy 150,000 troops into Belarus by summer. It’s not clear if this is to deter NATO or to make another invasion of Ukraine from Belarus. The official position of Belarusian dictator Lukashenko is that Russian forces invaded Ukraine and tried to grab Kyiv in 2022 without his knowledge or OK. In Ukraine this claim is not taken seriously.

TRUMP TEAM MOVES GOAL POSTS AGAIN — Kevin Kellogg was talking at a conference in Munich on Saturday said that the administration goal was to end the war in “180 days”.

To recap, while running for election Trump said he would end the war in 24 hours. Once elected he said it would take one day after he became President. Kellogg’s first announced “goal” was by Easter, or in April. Prior to going to Munich, that had shifted to May. A strict interpretation of Kellogg’s latest prediction would be 180 days from the moment Trump became President, or July. A wider interpretation would be August.

As of yet, talks on an actual deal haven’t even begun. Kellogg said the format will be the US in between Russia and Ukraine, but Zelensky said today Europe must be at the table.