Mar 13: Buonasera Mag
Day 383: Bakhmut Bryansk Kursk Kuleba SpringOffensive Patriot SPAS Iran Kirill Finland UAsanctions Swiss BEL crockpots Zakharova A&P-Lautman Bertrand SameSex Mikozami Avdeeva Snyder Scherba
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Stories we’re following…
On Sunday the Kyiv Independent reported that Ukraine’s military repelled over 92 Russian assaults in five areas over the past day, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces claimed in its morning briefing.
Russian forces strike Kostiantynivka, the village of Mykolaivka near Kramatorsk, and Maksymilianivka near the town of Mariinka, damaging houses, residential buildings, cars and civilian infrastructure. Russian forces fired a total of 335 shells with mortars, MLRS, artillery, tanks, and UAVs over the course of 71 shellings in Kherson Oblast, according to Kherson Regional Military Administration. Russian missiles killed 4 and injured 10 in these areas.
Ukraine’s special forces destroy 2 military watchtowers in Russia. The special forces unit of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kraken, said on March 11 that it had destroyed two Murom military watchtowers in Russia's Bryansk and Kursk regions close to Ukraine's border.
Interior minister: Ukraine almost done assembling new assault brigades. According to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, 28,000 volunteers have already applied to join new assault brigades, also known as the Offensive Guard. The forces are now collecting reservists.
Ukraine’s FM Dmytro Kuleba, says Ukraine will keep defending Bakhmut.
“If we withdrew from Bakhmut, what would that change? Russia would take Bakhmut and then continue its offensive against Chasiv Yar, so every town behind Bakhmut could suffer the same fate.”
Kuleba has also urged Germany in an interview published on Sunday to speed up supplies of ammunition & to start training Ukrainian pilots on Western fighter jets.
Ground Forces Commander: Spring counteroffensive ‘not far off.’ Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, said that the defense of Bakhmut was necessary for the start of the spring counteroffensive, which is "not far off," the Ground Forces reported on March 11.
The Patriot complex can shoot down not only ballistic missiles, but also russian aircraft at a distance of up to 150 kilometers. This was stated by the spokesman of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yurii Ihnat.
ISW: The Ural regional branch of a Russian state-owned news agency claimed on March 10 that Russia is preparing a large-scale recruitment campaign set to launch on April 1.
Russian FM spokesperson Maria Zakharova has reportedly said that there is infighting in the Kremlin’s inner circle, and that the Kremlin has effectively ceded control over the country’s information space.
ISW: Speaking at a forum on March 11 on the “practical and technological aspects of information and cognitive warfare in modern realities” in Moscow, Zakharova mentioned that despite fighting among unspecified Kremlin “elites,” the Kremlin cannot replicate the Stalinist approach of establishing a modern equivalent to the Soviet Information Bureau.
It is unclear why Zakharova — a seasoned senior spokesperson — would have openly acknowledged these problems in a public setting. Zakharova may have directly discussed these problems for the first time to temper Russian nationalist milbloggers’ expectations regarding the current capabilities of the Kremlin to cohere around a unified narrative — or possibly even a unified policy.
Fire reported at Russian propaganda channel headquarters in Moscow. A fire broke out on March 11 at the Moscow office of Spas, a church-funded propaganda TV channel, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Putin unable to immediately fix control over Russia's information sphere. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on March 11 that there is infighting in the Kremlin's inner circle, and that the Kremlin has effectively ceded control over the country's information space.
Iran strikes deal to buy Su-35 fighters from Russia. Iran has developed strong ties with Russia in various sectors over the past year, providing Russia with Shahed-136 kamikaze-drones that Russian forces are using to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has asked Pope Francis and other religious leaders to persuade Ukraine to stop a crackdown against a historically Russian-aligned wing of the church. Patriarch Kirill on Saturday urged religious leaders and international organisations to “make every effort to prevent the forced closure of the monastery, which will lead to a violation of the rights of millions of Ukrainian believers”, said a statement posted on the church’s website.
Monique: Patriarch Kirill has been a staunch supporter of Russia’s imperialist policy, and has been weaponising the orthodox faith towards this end, and demonising Ukrainians. Also for consideration: Kirill was recruited by the KGB when he was a young priest, and the churches across the world serve to collect intelligence and carry out information operations for the Kremlin and the intelligence apparatus.
Finnish authorities back out on PM's suggestion that Finland could give Ukraine fighter jets. Finland's defense minister and air force commander ruled out the delivery of F-18 Hornet fighter jets to Ukraine in the foreseeable future.
President Zelensky has sanctioned 120 individuals, 287 legal entities. He signed a decree on March 10, approving a proposal by the National Security and Defense Council to sanction 120 individuals and 287 legal entities, including those related to gambling.
Natasha Bertrand, Russia-linked individuals working to trigger insurrection against Moldovan government, US believes- CNN
The US intelligence community believes that individuals with ties to Russian intelligence are planning to stage protests in Moldova to try to foment a manufactured insurrection against the Moldovan government, with the ultimate goal of seeing a more pro-Russia administration installed there, White House officials said Friday.
The US believes that Russia is working to weaken the Moldovan government which is seeking closer ties with the European Union, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby said, The US is also seeing signs that Russian government-linked actors could provide training to anti-government demonstrators in Moldova. The country’s capital, Chisinau, has been rocked by anti-government protests in recent weeks, largely organized by Moldova’s Russia-friendly Shor Party.
The Biden administraiton also believes that Moscow is working to sow disinformation about Moldova’s overall stability. One example was the Russian Ministry of Defense’s claim last month that Ukraine has been planning to invade Transnistria, Moldova’s Moscow-backed separatist region. US officials said those allegations are “unfounded, false, and create baseless alarm.”
Staff, Anti-Russia guerrillas in Belarus take on 'two-headed enemy'- The Independent
After Russia invaded Ukraine, guerillas from Belarus began carrying out acts of sabotage on their country's railways, including blowing up track equipment to paralyze the rails that Russian forces used to get troops and weapons into Ukraine.
In the most recent sabotage to make international headlines, they attacked a Russian warplane parked just outside the Belarusian capital.
“Belarusians will not allow the Russians to freely use our territory for the war with Ukraine, and we want to force them to leave,” Anton, a retired Belarusian serviceman who joined a group of saboteurs, told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
Activists say the rail attacks have forced the Russian military to abandon the use of trains to send troops and materiel to Ukraine.
The retired serviceman is a member of the Association of Security Forces of Belarus, or BYPOL, a guerrilla group founded amid mass political protests in Belarus in 2020. Its core is composed of former military members.
Kyle Mizokami, As Russia’s War in Ukraine Drags On, Its Military Equipment Gets Worse and Worse- Popular Mechanics
One year into its invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Russia’s Ground Forces increasingly resemble a traveling museum, with “new” replacement vehicles dating back to the mid-20th century. Armored vehicles such as the T-62 medium tank (seen above) and the BTR-50P armored personnel carrier are serving on the front line or headed that way, while Russia’s new generation of Armata, Bumerang, and Kurganets fighting vehicles are missing in action.
Thanks to corruption, the two trend lines don’t look good for the future of the Russian Army.
Read on and you’ll find out about the T-62 Zombie tank back from the dead, the APC that is older than the Mustang, and rusty AK-47s. Mizokami rightly asks: Where’s all the new stuff? And what happened to all the cash?
A May 2022 report by the Royal Armed Services Institute lays the blame squarely on corruption. Money is siphoned away from equipment, construction, training, and other official purposes and lines the pockets of government officials, industry, and military leaders. Equipment is stolen by lower ranks and sold online, even on eBay. Unit commanders buy cheap truck tires instead of quality ones and pocket the difference, and no one is the wiser unit the unit rolls into combat. [continue reading]
Programming note…
Timothy Snyder, The Making of Modern Ukraine, Lecture 5
The subject of this lecture, the fifth in my open Yale course, is the genesis of a state centered around Kyiv around the year 1000. I try to establish some of the fundamental realities of European politics, the basic setting in which any European state emerged at the time: 1. the earlier withdrawal of Roman legions; 2. the spread northward of Christianity (and simultaneous spread of Islam in northern Africa); 3. the political competition in Europe between two models of Christianity, western and eastern; 4. the rise of the Vikings.