Ukraine War thread.

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Russian milblogger Rybar reports that Ukrainian forces are conducting a complex attack on the Crimean Bridge utilizing UAVs and USVs. pic.twitter.com/SXt02XY21d
OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) August 4, 2023

Russian air defense right now:

Looks like losing a Ropucha-class landing ship to a country with no navy might be the least embarrassing thing to happen to Russia today.

Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK) August 4, 2023

Rybar confirms a hit on RU-flagged tanker SIG. The crew is uninjured, though heavy damage occurred below deck in the engine room.

One drone was shot down near the bridge itself. Situation is calm as of now, but UKR secondary attack is noted as possible.https://t.co/84aD4cNe8Y

Intel Crab (@IntelCrab) August 4, 2023

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First of all, "numerous attacks by small groups that are not spared", they are not self-valuable, they are not made for themselves. When our mortars, artillery and MLRS start helping our infantry to repel these attacks by opening their firing lines, everything starts flying there. Those who stand close get FPVs, farther away are the Himars, and now the 155mm Guided Corrected Excalibur. "Exactly between the legs" - commented on this issue artillerymen.

That is, the enemy, in fact, is not only and not so much trying to squeeze through the defense with infantry, as to take out capable artillery, and, if they are lucky, also demasked control points or groups of command and control personnel on the move in the battle order.

And we should think not so much about this, but more about the fact that the enemy, thanks to the Western allies, has acquired in some quantity and continues to acquire in even greater quantity a structural advantage over us - structurally complete and in terms of manning full-blooded maneuvering formations. The very thing for which he needs this very "defense breakthrough" - to have something to put into it and to receive "dividends" on "investments" in the form of these very "small groups" that are killed at the assaults on our defenses.

And he can introduce part of the forces from these formations into the battle now, the same infantry, lose part of it, and then quickly replenished with a prepared reserve. We have a much more difficult time with trained resupply.

And yes, the talk that started in such a situation that "let's not go into mobilization, let's make peace-freeze" is treason.

It simply means a desire to let the Ukrops crush our depleted forces, surrender everything they can and ask for peace from this position. Which, of course, will not happen.

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Audio recording of the RU-flagged SIG tanker following a UAV detonation near the top deck. pic.twitter.com/igcu9g6lWT
Intel Crab (@IntelCrab) August 4, 2023

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"We cannot move ourselves. Without tug. The engine room is flooded", - a recording from the tanker SIG



The "Mercury" boat, which came to the tanker's aid, is now working on the spot.
— MAKS 23 \uD83D\uDC40\uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDE6 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) August 4, 2023

Very good read

A Ukrainian colonel revealed authorities were on the brink of evacuating the capital last December due to airstrike

The Ministry of Defence has supplied a handful of Supacat trucks rigged by British engineers to fire advanced short-range air-to-air missiles (Asraam). They are deployed primarily to intercept swarms of Russia’s Iranian-supplied Shahed suicide drones, but some of the systems are also supporting Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

The high-mobility vehicles can enter an area where Russian attack helicopters are operating, shoot and move away. Unlike other systems like Starstreak, the Asraam do not require a line of sight and can lock onto targets themselves if fired into their vicinity.

Despite the array of advanced weaponry in Ukraine’s arsenal, the colonel warned that Kyiv would again be vulnerable this winter unless western partners drastically increased weapons production and urgently sent older, mothballed systems to Ukraine.

“You can’t plan a war with an annual production of 150-160 Patriot missiles. We fired those in a month,” he said, sounding the alarm that his men were running out of ammunition. “If we wait until autumn, until mid-October, they will hit the energy infrastructure again. This is a certainty. This winter will be even more difficult than the previous one.”

In recent weeks Moscow’s focus has been trying to take out the Ukrainian airfields from where British Storm Shadow missiles are launched, hitting command and logistical centres deep inside occupied territory.

“The strikes on airfields are a tribute to Storm Shadow. Thank you very much, UK, because they really proved to be very effective. With Storm Shadow, you launch a trap missile and an anti-radar missile. All at the same time in the same direction. So the Russians, if they try to intercept Storm Shadow, get an anti-radiation missile hit on their radar. Plus traps. Very, very effective stuff.”

Ukes circulating this vid to families asking about disappeared soldiers. Brutal but on point.

Security Service of Ukraine established that Russia wants to use Wagner PMC to involve Belarus in a full-scale war against Ukraine.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has obtained intelligence indicating that Russians are preparing a large-scale false flag provocation at the strategic facility of Belarus - Mozyr Oil Refinery.

According to available data, a sabotage and reconnaissance group consisting of Russian military personnel and Russian special services officers who were sent to the territory of Belarus under the guise of Wagner PMC fighters is preparing an attack.

This Russian reconnaissance group is supposed to carry out a provocation at the refinery, posing as "Ukrainian saboteurs." The Russian Federation plans to blame Ukraine for the crime in order to once again try to involve Minsk in a full-scale war against our country.

The SSU received information about the planned terrorist attack in Belarus from several sources - in particular, from the testimony of a Russian Armed Forces serviceman, who was captured by Ukrainian defenders in Zaporizhzhia direction.

SSU cyber specialists also recovered and analyzed information on the captured Russian serviceman's cell phone.

Among other things, it was established that he had previously participated in hostilities against the Defense Forces in the South of Ukraine, and recently he was instructed to relocate to Belarus as a member of Wagner PMC.

Already at the stage of changing the place of service, the Russian military received information about a "special mission" at the Mozyr Oil Refinery. Security Service of Ukraine cyber specialists found deleted correspondence with other performers, pictures of the facility and some information about the operation on his phone.

Security Service of Ukraine warns the Belarusian army against participating in a full-scale war against Ukraine. Every invader who crosses the border of our country will be destroyed by our security and defense forces.

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??Security Service of Ukraine established that Russia wants to use Wagner PMC to involve Belarus in a full-scale war against Ukraine.



The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has obtained intelligence indicating that Russians are preparing a large-scale false flag provocation at… pic.twitter.com/G5oBhKxfBd
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 4, 2023

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BREAKING:

The Internal Affairs Ministers of Lithuania and Poland, Agne Bilotaite and Mariusz Kaminski, have issued a joint statement.


The 2 states have created a mechanism for jointly closing all border crossings with Belarus in case the Wagner Group would escalate things


\uD83C\uDDF5\uD83C\uDDF1\uD83C\uDDF1\uD83C\uDDF9 pic.twitter.com/II2Bsfv2LI
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 4, 2023

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Letter from wife of now imprisoned Girkin outlining his roll in the Russian 2014 invasion which continues to be denied by the alt rgt here.

LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION V.V. PUTIN

Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

The wife of Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin (Igor Ivanovich Strelkov) is addressing you.

On July 21, my husband, a retired FSB officer with state awards (see attachments), was detained and later placed in custody on charges of committing a public call to carry out extremist activities (Article 280 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The expert saw signs of extremism in the phrase “Citizens, it’s not enough to shoot for this”, published on the VK social network, and describing the reaction to the publication of E.V. payments due to them.

My husband is the hero of the events in Donbass in 2014, one of the first Russian volunteers. Under his command, Slavyansk was occupied and held, a key point that ensured the existence of the then young Russian Donbass. It was my husband, Igor Strelkov, who has always consistently pursued a policy of annexing the primordially Russian lands of Donbass to Russia. My husband is a church-going Orthodox Christian who does not separate the idea of serving God from the idea of serving the Fatherland, to which he dedicated his whole life.

He is currently being held in a pre-trial detention center on charges that are absurd. My husband's blog was a valuable source of information "from below", from ordinary (and not only) front-line soldiers. It was read not only by ordinary citizens, but also by middle and senior commanders, state security officers and even your administration. The position of my husband, consistently pursued by him in his blog and in all publications, is intransigence towards the enemies of Russia and the Russian people, ensuring a united and indivisible Russia under the rule of the dictatorship of law and in full accordance with the current constitutional order. To say that my husband called for committing extremist actions is stupidity, since my husband is an officer serving his Motherland.

His arrest clearly has another purpose. Either someone wanted to “curry favor”, or someone began to annoy the truth from the front line, which my husband always published, without distorting and without censorship. The purpose of his arrest is to leave the middle and high command of the Northern Military District without independent, truthful and objective information from the front line. In fact, these actions are clearly aimed at causing damage to our troops, heroically defending the sovereignty of Russia during the NMD in Ukraine.

His detention was justified by the fact that he could hide abroad, destroy evidence in the case or put pressure on witnesses. These standard formulations, none of which were considered by the court on the merits, are simply meaningless in relation to him specifically: abroad, my husband was convicted in absentia by the Hague Tribunal on a knowingly false charge, and going abroad for him is tantamount to life imprisonment; evidence of the act incriminated to him is contained in the social network “telegrams”, and the witnesses of this “crime” are all over the Internet.

I know that all three branches of power in the Russian Federation are independent, and that the President, being the guarantor of the Constitution, cannot influence any of them. At the same time, you are the guarantor of the Constitution for everyone and everyone, and the Constitution gives my husband the right to legitimacy from state structures. His detention is not only illegal and unreasonable, but also clearly contrary to the interests of Russia and its citizens.

My husband is an officer, and will accept with due honor and firmness any legal and fair decision of the court. However, his detention under the article, according to which the punishment may be limited to a fine, is clearly absurd, contrary to the interests of the whole country and cannot be justified.

I ask you to fulfill your function as the guarantor of the Constitution and ensure that my husband, a Russian officer, a worthy member of society, has the right to fair and legal treatment during the investigation and in court.

Sincerely,

Miroslava Reginskaya

https://t.me/strelkovii/6230

Vid of the Uke drone striking the Russian tanker Sid last night. The tanker was on the sanctioned list for years as a Russian Mil contract ship ferrying illegal arms and material for Wagner etc.

Given the state of the Russian Navy, might be a good idea to put export controls on the "Flex Seal family of products." https://t.co/mHFOogQkRM

— Admiral James Stavridis, USN, Ret. (@stavridisj) August 4, 2023

Day 528 of my 3 day war. It turns out the grain deal I pulled out of protected Russian shipping as well as Ukrainian so I’m again losing ships to a country without a navy.

I remain a master strategist.

Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) August 5, 2023

Battle of the Black Sea escalates: Ukraine has issued an official statement confirming all Russian Black Sea ports are now a "war risk area" with shipping subject to possible engagement in line with the international rules of war pic.twitter.com/NUuWI6UyZi

— Business Ukraine mag (@Biz_Ukraine_Mag) August 5, 2023

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The creator of Rybar channel who now has a live TV program admits that Russian VDV forces lost 50% of personnel by September last year. pic.twitter.com/erKY6EMqiB
Dmitri (@wartranslated) January 31, 2023

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BREAKING:



Ukrainian Storm Shadow missile strike both the Henichesky bridge and Chonhar Bridge.

The two bridges connect Crimea with the Kherson region

If precise, the 2 strikes will further complicate reinforcements to arrive from Crimea to the Russians fighting in Zaporizhzhia pic.twitter.com/Pp8YcZhGTl
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 6, 2023

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Chongar Bridge \uD83D\uDE2E pic.twitter.com/IRTYgHXmOJ
— MAKS 23 \uD83D\uDC40\uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDE6 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) August 6, 2023

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\uD83C\uDF09/5.2. Damage to the Henichesk-Arabat Spit bridge. (Marked with red square on map)

(46.1482518, 34.8076064) pic.twitter.com/eczjuo1Rxw
— Special Kherson Cat \uD83D\uDC08\uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDE6 (@bayraktar_1love) August 6, 2023

oh Russia...

Russian milbloggers now grumbling that Ukraine must be flying missions from NATO bases in Romania because their Russian cruise missiles have destroyed all of Ukraine's airfields and all of the Storm Shadow missiles

Malcontent News (@MalcontentmentT) August 6, 2023

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Russia kill 32 Orcs who wanted to disguise themselves as Ukrainian Soldiers to attack Ukraine Soldiers Position in Zaporozhia direction \uD83D\uDE02 pic.twitter.com/apd97aZAj6
Getty (@region776) August 6, 2023

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#BREAKING \uD83D\uDC2C On the coast of Miami, Florida, USA, an enraged dolphin attacked a Russian woman and tried to drown her.#RussiaIsLosing #RussiaIsCollapsing #Russia #Miami #USA #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/PDdBFbxV4Z
Intermarium 24 (@intermarium24) August 7, 2023

Russia half devastated the largest warehouse of Soviet armored vehicles

During the war in Ukraine, more than 40% of old Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers were removed from storage at the largest known base of mothballed military equipment Vagzhanovo in Buryatia, according to fresh satellite images from Google Earth.

Five months before the full-scale war in Ukraine - in September 2021 - about 3,840 armored vehicles were stored in Vagzhanovo under the open sky, The Moscow Times calculated based on Google Earth images. After 8 months of the war - in November 2022 - about 2600 armored vehicles remained at the base, and by May 2023 - about 2270. Thus, during this time, 1570, or 40.8% of armored vehicles, were removed from the base. Moreover, most of them (32%) left after the announcement of mobilization at the end of 2022.

The fact that the Vagzhanovo base in Buryatia is the largest in Russia is evidenced by The Moscow Times calculations based on Google Earth data. Vagzhanovo is located near Ulan-Ude and occupies about 13 sq. km, which is much larger than the area of two dozen other well-known military equipment storage bases in Russia.

https://t.me/moscowtimes_ru/14845

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/20/bradley-ukraine-war-vehicles/

Some Bradley repairs can take just a few hours. Others need a few days. Some vehicles are labeled “donors,” meaning the Ukrainians will strip out the usable parts to install in other, less-damaged Bradleys and then fill the donor vehicle with the broken bits before shipping it off for a larger-scale repair at the facility in Poland. One early limitation for how quickly the Ukrainians can fix the Bradleys and get them back on the battlefield: not enough spare parts, military personnel said.

About a dozen Bradleys have been destroyed, a senior U.S. defense official said.

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Ukraine’s new Bradley Fighting Vehicles face damage and quick repairs

Alex Horton

July 20, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EDT

Soldiers and mechanics from Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade stand near a U.S.-made Bradley Fighting Vehicle last week at a secret workshop in a wooded area in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)

ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION, Ukraine — The Ukrainian commander of the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle was unloading troops at the front and then planned to transport three injured soldiers back to a field hospital. “But in that one minute, you suddenly have 30, 40, 50 shells flying in — everything explodes, soil is flying around, everything lights up,” said the commander, who asked to be identified by his call sign, CZ, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol.

The Bradley — a heavily armed troop transporter that can destroy other armored vehicles — was damaged by shrapnel, but CZ and his crew survived. In the opening month of Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive, newly provided Bradleys and German Leopard tanks — predictably — have taken hits.

About a dozen Bradleys have been destroyed, a senior U.S. defense official said. Data from Oryx, a military analysis site that counts losses it has visually confirmed, shows that a couple dozen more have been damaged to varying degrees. Many have been fixed and returned to the battlefield. Some must be sent to Poland for more extensive repairs.

CZ’s vehicle is now nestled in a wooded area in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, one of several secret locations near the front line where the 47th Mechanized Brigade rushes to repair its new Western weaponry.

The 47th Brigade, the only unit known to have received the Bradleys, was set to get 99 before the start of the counteroffensive, according to leaked U.S. intelligence documents. The United States has committed 190 Bradleys overall, with more than half delivered to operational units in Ukraine, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The U.S. military typically considers a vehicle destroyed when it cannot be salvaged or refurbished after what is commonly called a “catastrophic kill,” though some parts could still be stripped. Damaged vehicles can be recovered and repaired to working condition.

Losses of equipment were expected — and have not rattled Ukrainian commanders who said any hopes that the new weaponry would overwhelm the Russians were misplaced. In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s military chief, said Kyiv didn’t get the vehicles to ride them in parades, and on the battlefield, they’re targets. “Yes, we lose them. Not much, let’s say, but there are losses. You can’t get away from that,” he said.

“It’s a normal phenomenon,” Zaluzhny said. “Don’t treat the Leopard as a panacea — that a battalion of Leopards will decide the outcome of this war. Why all of a sudden? Who’s the one who decided that it’s going to solve it?”

But even amid the early damage, Ukrainian troops have experienced the benefits of the new equipment. In the biggest plus, soldiers said, the Bradley protects everyone inside — typically, soldiers suffer just minor injuries if the vehicle hits an antitank mine, for example. Each Bradley is designed to carry a three-person crew and six soldiers as passengers.

In a post on Facebook, Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker and platoon commander in the 47th Brigade, wrote that he came under heavy artillery fire on a combat mission over the weekend. Sentsov and others were wounded by shrapnel, but “Bradley saved our lives again,” he said.

However, “there are a lot, a lot, a lot of mines — not thousands, but hundreds of thousands,” CZ said.

And Bradleys will stop because of damaged tracks depending on what kind of mine they run into, limiting the Ukrainians’ ability to breach the Russians’ defenses with them. Most of the Bradleys getting repaired — reporters from The Post saw at least six at the wooded location they visited — were damaged by mine explosions.

The fighting vehicles were meant to be used in a strategy called combined arms, in which infantry, armor and aviation units work in concert to protect one another and inflict maximum violence. Ukrainian troops received U.S.-led combined arms training in Germany to shed Soviet-era habits of units operating in a vacuum without close coordination.

Ukrainian units have in many cases used the Bradleys as part of that philosophy, the senior U.S. defense official said. But there are anecdotal reports to the contrary, too. Ukraine also still does not have extensive air capabilities.

In some cases, Ukrainian units are “just not using them to their fullest potential with all their other assets that they have available,” the official said. It could be that some commanders feel more comfortable with how they were originally taught and fall back on that experience, the official said.

Ukrainian military personnel have described a change in strategy after some early equipment losses. Because of the dense minefields that will damage the vehicles, soldiers are now advancing in small groups and in foot.

Some Bradley repairs can take just a few hours. Others need a few days. Some vehicles are labeled “donors,” meaning the Ukrainians will strip out the usable parts to install in other, less-damaged Bradleys and then fill the donor vehicle with the broken bits before shipping it off for a larger-scale repair at the facility in Poland. One early limitation for how quickly the Ukrainians can fix the Bradleys and get them back on the battlefield: not enough spare parts, military personnel said.

Any request for spare parts has to be made formally to a senior commander, who has a limited reserve and multiple units that need them. An American M109A6 Paladin self-propelled howitzer is currently not in use by the 47th Brigade because of a mechanical issue that the soldiers do not yet have the parts to fix.

The U.S. official was unaware of issues that affected the delivery of parts from U.S. stocks and suggested bottlenecks could exist within the Ukrainian supply chain.

“When the first Bradleys came in for repairs, the decision of, ‘Is this one a donor or not’ wasn’t being made yet,” said the chief of staff for the 47th Brigade’s repair and recovery battalion, whose call sign is Maz. “So where do we get the spare parts from? When the donors started appearing from which we could take the spare parts, then we started fully repairing them. But before donors, we were just doing minimal repairs and waiting for others to be damaged.”

The fewer vehicles that have to be sent to Poland for major repairs, the “more lives saved,” Maz said, because troops cannot afford to wait weeks for a Bradley to return to the front line. Training at a U.S. base in Germany earlier this year taught Maz and others from the 47th not just how to operate the Bradleys but also how to fix them.

“When I chose my crew, I made sure that the ones I picked loved technical equipment,” Maz said. “A tractor driver who has worked on the fields, or a trucker, who lives this stuff. I sometimes give them so much s--- for their work. I tell them, ‘This is like your house, you should be able to sit there in slippers.’”

Fewer than a dozen Bradleys have been sent to Poland for repair, the U.S. defense official said, and in some cases fresh vehicles were sent to replace those shipped out instead of waiting on repairs. Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hinted Tuesday at a news conference at those unused stocks, describing a “robust Ukrainian reserve force [that] lies in wait to be committed at the optimal time and place of Ukrainian choosing.”

Just as the Ukrainians often publish photos and videos showing destroyed Russian equipment — some burned tanks and fighting vehicles have even been displayed in downtown Kyiv for people to take photos with — Russian forces have circulated drone images of damaged Bradleys and Leopards to embarrass the Ukrainians and try to undermine the West’s pledge to continue supplying Kyiv with the expensive materiel.

A cluster of Ukrainian vehicles got trapped in a minefield during the first days of the counteroffensive and was then attacked by Russian helicopters overhead. The image of the destroyed Bradleys and Leopards was then circulated widely by Russian accounts on the Telegram social messaging app. Ukrainian forces have since changed tactics — clearing pathways of mines manually and then advancing by foot — to better safeguard the equipment.

Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine does not hide how much Western-provided materiel is destroyed or damaged, relaying those numbers to partners. “In every new aid package, we’re getting spare parts,” he said.

“For now, we’re able to repair them ourselves, and even if there is some damage, our crews are repairing it,” Reznikov added. “Very few have been completely destroyed.”

Horton reported from Washington. Anastacia Galouchka in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Missy Ryan in Washington contributed to this report.

Understanding the Russia-Ukraine conflict