Ukraine War Watch Thread

[ibm9000]

The U.S. military has depleted considerable stocks of precision munitions and artillery shells after providing large sums of materiel to Ukraine for use in the ongoing struggle against Russia. However, the Pentagon maintains it will not part with so many weapons that its strategic reserves are threatened.
Several sources within the Defense Department told CNN that the U.S. military is running low on some of the weapons that have been the centerpiece of aid to Ukraine during nine months of high-intensity conflict. The officials specifically named Stinger man-portable air defense (MANPADS) missiles, AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM), guided multiple launch rocket systems (GMLRS), and Javelin anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), as well as artillery shells — over 1,000,000 of which have been supplied to Ukraine from the U.S. military alone. We have done reports on the inventories of each one of these systems and the reality that the ability to replenish them quickly is problematic.
...
the Army announced on Nov. 17 that it awarded Lockheed Martin another $14.35 million contract to boost production of the HIMARS...

TheDrive.

[erowind]

.

[caltrek]

The U.S. military has depleted considerable stocks of precision munitions and artillery shells after providing large sums of materiel to Ukraine for use in the ongoing struggle against Russia. However, the Pentagon maintains it will not part with so many weapons that its strategic reserves are threatened.
Several sources within the Defense Department told CNN that the U.S. military is running low on some of the weapons that have been the centerpiece of aid to Ukraine during nine months of high-intensity conflict. The officials specifically named Stinger man-portable air defense (MANPADS) missiles, AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM), guided multiple launch rocket systems (GMLRS), and Javelin anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), as well as artillery shells — over 1,000,000 of which have been supplied to Ukraine from the U.S. military alone. We have done reports on the inventories of each one of these systems and the reality that the ability to replenish them quickly is problematic.
...
the Army announced on Nov. 17 that it awarded Lockheed Martin another $14.35 million contract to boost production of the HIMARS...

TheDrive.

Here is a link to the cited article: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/u ... ons-stocks

[caltrek]

Possible Drone Boat Attack on Russian Port
by Dan Parsons and Tyler Rogoway
November 18, 2022

Introduction:

(The Drive) Unconfirmed footage of what is claimed to be a Ukrainian 'kamikaze' drone attack on Sheskharis Harbor in Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk has been published online by Russian media outlets.

The video appears to be from a closed-circuit television camera system that is trained on the harbor over a road. Cars can be seen driving across the frame before an explosion occurs pierside on the far side of the harbor.

It is impossible to see what sort of craft was used in the attack. A second clip — which comes after the first in the video embedded below — shows another angle of the blast.

Ukraine already has deployed the low-slung drone boats, which resemble kayaks and have a claimed range of about 500 miles, in an unprecedented attack on the Russian Navy's base in Sevastopol on the occupied Crimean Peninsula last month. Through a crowdfunding campaign, Ukrainian authorities hope to raise money enough to buy 100 of the black uncrewed surface vessels.

Read more here: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ ... sian-port



The War Zone examined the drone boats’ capabilities in depth in this previous piece:https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/u ... reak-cover

[wjfox]

Here is a link to the cited article: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/u ... ons-stocks

Thanks, Caltrek. If more of us help ibm9000, perhaps he can learn how to use a forum.

[raklian]

[weatheriscool]

Massive explosion hits Russian Gazprom gas pipeline amid suspicions of sabotage linked to Putin's wa
Source: Daily Mail

An enormous explosion has hit one of Russia's major gas pipelines, sending flames and smoke billowing into the sky above and prompting fears it was a retribution attack for Vladimir Putin's continued invasion of Ukraine.

The fireball was visible for miles in every direction after hitting about 14 miles east of St Petersburg, the nation's second largest city and Putin's hometown.

One source said: 'Everything is automatic there, and such explosions by themselves, without external influence, are impossible.'

The blast is believed to have hit the main gas pipeline belonging to Gazprom Transgaz SPB, and could have potentially impacted up to one million people.

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... raine.html

[weatheriscool]

Iran will help Russia build drones for Ukraine war, Western officials say
Source: Washington Post

After weeks of savaging Ukrainian cities with Iranian-made drones, Moscow has quietly reached an agreement with Tehran to begin manufacturing hundreds of unmanned weaponized aircraft on Russian soil, according to new intelligence seen by U.S. and other Western security agencies.

Russian and Iranian officials finalized the deal during a meeting in Iran in early November, and the two countries are moving rapidly to transfer designs and key components that could allow production to begin within months, three officials familiar with the matter said in interviews.

The agreement, if fully realized, would represent a further deepening of a Russian-Iranian alliance that already has provided crucial support for Moscow’s faltering military campaign in Ukraine, the officials said. By acquiring its own assembly line, Russia could dramatically increase its stockpile of relatively inexpensive but highly destructive weapons systems that, in recent weeks, have changed the character of the nine-month-old Ukrainian conflict.

Russia has deployed more than 400 Iranian-made attack drones against Ukraine since August, intelligence officials say, with many of the aircraft used in strikes against civilian infrastructure targets such as power plants. After being forced to abandon Ukrainian territory its forces captured early in the war, Moscow has shifted to a strategy of relentless air assaults on Ukrainian cities, using a combination of cruise missiles and self-detonating drones packed with explosives to knock out electricity and running water for millions of people.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... cret-deal/

[caltrek]

Massive explosion hits Russian Gazprom gas pipeline amid suspicions of sabotage linked to Putin's wa
Source: Daily Mail

An enormous explosion has hit one of Russia's major gas pipelines, sending flames and smoke billowing into the sky above and prompting fears it was a retribution attack for Vladimir Putin's continued invasion of Ukraine.

The fireball was visible for miles in every direction after hitting about 14 miles east of St Petersburg, the nation's second largest city and Putin's hometown.

One source said: 'Everything is automatic there, and such explosions by themselves, without external influence, are impossible.'

The blast is believed to have hit the main gas pipeline belonging to Gazprom Transgaz SPB, and could have potentially impacted up to one million people.

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... raine.html

This needs further corroboration as I have only been able to find this story in The Daily Mail

[Time_Traveller]

Ukraine war: We will rebuild, vows mayor of flattened Mariupol

5 hours ago

Vadym Boychenko is under no illusions. The Russians, says the mayor of Mariupol, will never leave the city voluntarily.

But the Ukrainian Army, he adds, will expel them.

In fact, he is so confident that day will come that he has just been in Poland signing a deal with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to rebuild his shattered city when the Russians depart.

Working together with the World Bank, a "Damage, Loss and Needs Assessment" report is being compiled to quantify the damage to water, sanitation, public transport and lighting. Once this is complete, it's intended to produce The Mariupol Revival Plan.

Mariupol will go down in history as one of the most heavily bombed, shelled and rocketed cities since World War Two.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63694707

[Time_Traveller]

Germany to offer Poland Patriot system after stray missile crash

November 20, 20226:18 PM GMT

BERLIN, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Germany has offered Warsaw the Patriot missile defence system to help it to secure its airspace after a stray missile crashed in Poland last week, Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht told a newspaper on Sunday.

The German government had already said it would offer its neighbour further help in air policing with German Eurofighters after the incident, which initially raised fears that the war in Ukraine could spill across the border.

"We have offered Poland support in securing airspace - with our Eurofighters and with Patriot air defence systems," Lambrecht told the Rheinische Post and General Anzeiger.

The missile that hit Poland last week, killing two people, appeared to have been fired by Ukraine's air defences rather than a Russian strike, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ge ... 022-11-20/

[Xyls]

Russians accused of burning bodies at Kherson landfill

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... n-landfill

Yes, Russia has so much respect for it's own soldiers that it honours them by burning their bodies at the local landfill. Russia tries to complain of traitors, but who wouldn't betray this kind of country if this is how they would be treated.

[caltrek]

Russian and Non-Russian Opposition Movements Increasingly at Odds
by Paul Goble
November 21, 2022

Introduction:

(Eurasia Review) It was inevitable that the Russian and non-Russian opposition movements, especially as their representatives have been forced into emigration and become more radicalized, would clash, with each side seeing the other less an ally against the Putin regime than an opponent.

The reason for that lies in a fundamental difference between the two groups. On the one hand, the former sees itself as speaking for the entire country rather than just for the ethnic Russians and thus appears to the non-Russians as being as imperialist in its pretensions as the Putin regime however often the Russian opposition proclaims its commitment to democracy.

On the other, the non-Russian movements, which for national groups which have been oppressed by the central government and seek radical forms of autonomy or even independence, are viewed by the Russian opposition as strikebreakers who are weakening the anti-Putin coalition, especially when the non-Russian activists take up the cause of Russian regionalists.

As recently as a year ago, representatives of the Russian opposition and the non-Russian opposition could at least meet together even if each was uncomfortable with the other (idelreal.org/a/31597454.html), but now they increasingly trade attacks because each views the other as wrong both in principle and tactically.

The break has now come. Earlier this week, the Russian opposition formed The Secretariat of European Russians to meet and cooperate with the leadership of the European parliament, a move that followed calls to distribute special passports to “good Russians” opposed to the Putin regime (…idelreal.org/a/32014204.html).

[caltrek]

Attack of the Killer Robots
by Roberto González
November 23, 2022

Introduction:

(Counterpunch) Imagine you’re living in Kyiv, a city that has been relatively calm for most of the war in Ukraine.

One chilly morning, you’re awakened by a faint buzzing noise, like the sound of swarming wasps. It gets louder and louder—until suddenly, intense flashes light up the windows of your apartment.

You peek outside, just in time to see part of a residential building—your neighbors’ homes—collapse in flames. Acrid clouds of smoke billow from a hole in the side. Down below, you see the wreckage of several small delta-winged drones.

Welcome to the world of virtual warfare.

Last month’s Russian assault on Kyiv is a stark reminder of how automated weapon systems threaten to make wars more traumatic than previous conflicts—and potentially lethal.

Read more here: https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/2 ... r-robots/

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Moscow Will Continue Bombing Ukraine - Russian UN Envoy
Source: The Kiev Post

Vasily Nebenzya, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has said that Russia aims to impair Ukraine’s military potential in order to force it to negotiate on what he describes as more realistic terms.

Speaking at the latest UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2022, summoned due to Russia’s massive strikes of Ukraine’s infrastructure including critical energy facilities, he openly admitted why Russia is bombing Ukraine.

“One of the goals of the special military operation is to undermine the Ukrainian army’s combat capabilities. And it will be attained by military means until the Kyiv regime takes a realistic position, which will make it possible to discuss and try to settle those problems, which have prompted us to launch the special military operation,” he said.

Claiming that Western military aid is flooding the country, and describing the calls for Kyiv to defeat Russia as reckless, Nebenzya emphasized that Russian forces are deliberately bombing Ukraine’s infrastructure facilities.

Read more: https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi ... envoy.html

[wjfox]

[Xyls]

^ Love it. Ukraine is going to chew these guys up over the winter.

It's been quiet over the last few weeks, other than the bombardment of Ukraine's electricity grid which at this point is reaching the maximum effectiveness they could hope to achieve as Ukraine will start to decentralize with microgrids and solar panels/renewables. I'm assuming the Ukrainians are waiting until the ground is consistently frozen before they begin the next round of offensives into Svatove and Kreminna.

Russians will have a hard time building defences at that point, and with hypothermia rampant expect Russian casualties over the December-early March period to explode.

[Water]

Kinda curious..

Russia has burned through competent manpower to push the invasion forward anywhere in Ukraine.
Russia is now burning through their arsenal of ancient missiles with the sole purpose of making Ukrainian citizens miserable.

Whoever is still pro-Russia despite this, how on earth do they back it up nowadays? The only ways I can come up with are all crazy.

• They realize it's now clear that Ukrainian citizens, men women children, truly are anti-Russia. Therefore they decide all these people are accomplices of the enemy and they get what they deserve.
• They warp around responsibility and blame the Ukrainian for not surrendering and therefore "force" Russia to kill innocents.
• They flat out deny any of that happens and insist all targets are military ones and the countless of videos you see is the government destroying their own cities

[Xyls]

Lol....