Last week, I said I was posting the shortest Ukraine Update ever. That was until today.
The Russians have stopped all offensive operations except those around the Donbas cockpit of Avdiika and Bakhmut. There the situation remains largely unchanged, with the front lines moving back and forth dozens of meters each day. This is the last gasp of the Russian Winter Offensive that was supposed to gain control of the political boundaries of Donetsk and Luhansk and bring the whole of the Donbas region under Russian control. However, there are signs that Ukraine is moving in the direction of offensive operations, and I’ll hit on that below.
Here are some of my previous updates to enjoy.
Putin’s War, Week 59. Russia Goes ISIS and Waiting for General Mud to Take a Break
Putin’s War, Week 58. All Dressed Up and No Place to Go
Putin’s War, Week 57. Waiting for Godot.
Putin’s War, Week 51. Russia’s Slow-Mo Offensive Gets Underway
Putin’s War, Week 50. The Calm Before the Storm
Putin’s War, Week 49. Waiting for the Russian Offensive
Putin’s War, Week 48. The Logjam Breaks and the Leopards Are About to Roam the Ukrainian Landscape
Putin’s War, Week 47. Gerasimov Shakes Up the Russian Army, and the Russian Spring Offensive Looms
Putin’s War, Week 44. Drones Strike Russian Strategic Bomber Base…Again… Prigozhin Makes His Move
Putin’s War, Week 42. Ukraine Gets the Nod to Strike Targets in Russia and Some Tools to Do It With
Many more are available at this link.
Politico-Strategic Level
Top Secret Document Leak Roil World Capitals
One of the top stories of the past week was the leak of 100+ classified documents, some of them marked as highly compartmented top secret, containing information about US operations in places such as Ukraine (Secret Pentagon Documents Emerge on a Minecraft Players Forum, WTF?). See more coverage at Leaked Pentagon Documents Reveal Extent of U.S. Penetration Into Russian Intelligence, How Did Jack Teixeira Gain Access to the Documents He Leaked, and Why Were MSM Stories About Him Stealth-Edited?, Report: Docs Allegedly Leaked by Jack Teixeira Give Insights Into Chinese Spy Balloon That Crossed US, and Former DNI Kash Patel Confirms Jack Teixeira Would Not Have Had Access to Documents He Leaked.
This kind of document dump, with the unusual provenance first appearing on a Minecraft community Discord server and the fact that some of the documents had been altered, calls everything in the leak into question. For instance, this Washington Post story, based on the leak, claims that Egypt was going to supply Russia with ammunition, but thanks to the mad diplomatic skillz of Antony Blinken and Joe Biden, they decided to send the ammunition to Ukraine. Sorry, I have a lot of trouble believing that.
"Egypt paused a plan to secretly supply rockets to Russia last month following talks with senior U.S. officials and instead decided to produce artillery [152mm and 155mm] ammunition for Ukraine, according to five leaked U.S. intelligence documents."https://t.co/jGYeZAFBN2 pic.twitter.com/stv0IXlHJH
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 17, 2023
Stranger stuff has happened, though I just can’t remember when.
Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Plays Sergeant Schultz During Milley Visit
According to reports, when US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley met with Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi in March, Milley pressed the Ukrainian general on details of his weapons stockpiles and his plans for an offensive, he might as well have been meeting with John Banner’s Sergeant Schultz character from the comedy series Hogan’s Heroes.
The Smartest Man @CinC_AFU
>“Milley pressed Zaluzhnyi for information about how Ukraine would defend itself, including a request for detailed inventories of weapons stockpiles”
>“Zaluzhnyi seemed hesitant to provide any details. Not only was he protective of his plans, he… pic.twitter.com/1bgoBTODRP
— Walter Report 🇺🇦 (@walter_report) April 13, 2023
As leak-prone as Washington is and the way people use classified information for political gain and to settle scores with enemies, it is hard to blame him. What Zaluzhnyi needs to do is keep the supplies coming while letting Milley know as little as possible about dispositions and intentions. I suspect that Milley also wants to remain ignorant of things the Ukrainians are planning so that he isn’t to blame if they are leaked, and he can’t be blamed if targets in Russia are hit.
At Least Putin Knows How to Deal With Failure
Last Friday, the Russian Pacific Fleet received orders for a no-notice exercise involving air units, anti-submarine drills, and surface missile firing. Read the whole thread.
Russian Pacific Fleet snap readiness exercise underway:
"Today, from 9 o'clock (Vladivostok time), the Pacific Fleet in full force was raised on alert and began to bring the Pacific Fleet to the highest degree of combat readiness"
— The Lookout (@The_Lookout_N) April 14, 2023
Even though Putin hailed the exercise as a huge success
Putin hails Russian navy's performance in Pacific drills – ABC News https://t.co/nt5kNEjQ2a
— Eowyn (@pilatesisgreat) April 18, 2023
He immediately replaced the commander, Admiral Sergei Avakyants, who had been in command for a decade and reassigned him to Moscow to oversee military sports and patriotic training.
Vladimir Putin fired the admiral Sergei Avakyants, 66, the commander of his Pacific Fleet. The Russian dictator was probably furious that the military drills, that were meant to send a message of strength to the West, were a flop.
His sacking is a sign that Putin had detected a… pic.twitter.com/tQ6FZRhstw
— Yasmina (@yasminalombaert) April 20, 2023
We seem to move ours to higher positions of responsibility so long as they have the correct politics, grovel at the altar of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity, and make a sincere effort to understand “white rage.’
Russian Troll Outed
A major pro-Russian trolling account was outed earlier in the week. “Donbass Devushka,” who alleged to be a Ukrainian native of Donbas and had been exposed to Ukrainian attacks after the first Russian invasion in 2014, turned out to be a separated/retired (I’m not quite sure which is accurate) US Navy petty officer stationed at Whidbey Island, WA. See Intelligence Leaker Jack Teixeira and the Pro-Russian ‘Donbass Devushka’ Show the U.S. Military Brass Are Not Serious.
Having been outed myself by a former colleague, I’m not a huge fan of going after individual people to just f*** with them. On the other hand, I’m a little less sympathetic when you are supporting a genocidal regime and faking your entire life. I doubt that she’s in any real trouble unless she was being paid by the Russian government or a sanctioned entity for her social media posts, but her usefulness to the Russians is definitely over.
NATO Secretary General Visits Kiev
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made his first visit to Kiev. Part of the itinerary was visiting the site of the ongoing war crimes investigation at Bucha. More than any European head of state, Stoltenberg has been the key man in assembling the support necessary for Ukraine to defend its territorial integrity against Russian aggression.
Nato Secretary General @jensstoltenberg is in Kyiv on an unnanounced visit. He paid tribute to fallen Ukrainian defenders and inspected an exhibition of destroyed Russian equipment in central Kyiv
📽️ @DeutscheWelle pic.twitter.com/b6UL5nFIMR— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) April 20, 2023
Stoltenberg’s invitation to Ukraine to join NATO once this war ends set off fireworks in Moscow.
— Polish text below —
Some dumbhead called Mateusz Morawiecki said that Ukraine had the right to hit Russia, and that he had no worries about NATO’s war against Russia, because the latter would soon lose it. I don’t know who’s going to win, or lose such a war, but…
— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) April 14, 2023
Some dumbhead called Mateusz Morawiecki said that Ukraine had the right to hit Russia, and that he had no worries about NATO’s war against Russia, because the latter would soon lose it. I don’t know who’s going to win, or lose such a war, but considering Poland’s role as a NATO’s outpost in Europe, this country is sure to disappear together with its stupid prime minister
Russia Rolls Out Two New Recruitment Ads
For all the woofing that goes around on the internet about the manpower advantage that Russia has, there is no denying that it is having a very hard time filling its ranks. The Russ-bots fail to grasp the fact that Russia has manpower throughout the country and that much of that manpower, such as police, border guards, customs service, the navy, the air force, the strategic rocket services, fire departments, etc., can’t be diverted to Ukraine. That’s why first Wagner Group’s Prigozhin and now the regular Army is dredging the prisons and lowest socio-economic classes for recruits.
The first one is more traditional; it pimps the pay and benefits and wouldn’t be out of place in any Western military except the US because there aren’t enough gay and trans characters in the ad.
I’m now seeing more and more army recruitment adverts on Russian TV
This one was shown on Gazprom-owned NTV earlier today pic.twitter.com/BRsGuYPteL
— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) April 20, 2023
The second one has aimed specifically at young men stuck in low-pay and low-status jobs with no future.
Russian MoD declared a “special military operation” against the state of fragile masculinity pic.twitter.com/YqnXiqFMS2
— Kirill Shamiev (@kirlant) April 19, 2023
The tagline (0:37) is Ты ЖЕ МчжИК. Бчдъ им, which I’m told renders as something like “You’re a man. Be one.” The campaign slogan is “ты чё как не мужик?!” or (something like) “How come you’re not man enough?” The word used for “man” is Muzhik, a word loaded with social connotation in Russia depending on who is saying it to whom. I’m not sure how successful either will be given the growing disaffection with the idea of serving in Ukraine, but if I were to bet on either, I think #2 is going to appeal more to the target audience than #1.
Russian Media Proposes Its Final Solution to the “Ukrainian Problem”
When all the fluff, and fluffers, are stripped away, the real cause of Putin’s war in Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO or Donbas or Nazis in Kiev. Instead, it boils down to resentment at the actual presence of Ukraine, a nation that Putin and Russian nationalists believe should not exist. Dmitry Medvedev, “Deputy Chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation,” reaffirms this nearly weekly.
Medvedev saying that Ukraine is and has always been a part of Russia.
This is Russian imperialism https://t.co/po9sAFPMpV
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 1, 2023
Medvedev:
Nobody needs Ukraine, so it will disappear & it won’t be on the planet. pic.twitter.com/EOgMQccpHW
— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 8, 2023
Now the state-owned RIA Novosti has published a story on how to solve the Ukrainian problem. Read the whole thread, open the article, right-click, and select “translate” to read the original. The synopsis is below.
Yesterday, RIA Novosti published a lengthy piece titled "What Russia should do with Ukraine", which explains in detail what Russia understands by denazification. It's truly horrific: 1/6 pic.twitter.com/tqvEHco7nl
— Tadeusz Giczan (@TadeuszGiczan) April 4, 2022
The special operation revealed that not only the political leadership in Ukraine is Nazi, but also the majority of the population. All Ukrainians who have taken up arms must be eliminated – because they are responsible for the genocide of the Russian people.
Ukrainians disguise their Nazism by calling it a “desire for independence” and a “European way of development”. Ukraine doesn’t have a Nazi party, a Führer or racial laws, but because of its flexibility, Ukrainian Nazism is far more dangerous to the world than Hitler’s Nazism
Denazification means de-Ukrainianisation. Ukrainians are an artificial anti-Russian construct. They should no longer have a national identity. Denazification of Ukraine also means its inevitable de-Europeanisation.
Ukraine’s political elite must be eliminated as it cannot be re-educated. Ordinary Ukrainians must experience all the horrors of war and absorb the experience as a historical lesson and atonement for their guilt.
The liberated and denazified territory of the Ukrainian state should no longer be called Ukraine. Denazification should last at least one generation – 25 years.
Keep in mind this essay has the imprimatur of the Russian government; otherwise, it would not be published.
The Russians aren’t fighting for Christianity or to stop NATO. They are engaged in a genocide they are advertising to the world. Somehow “globalism” and “corruption” are supposed to be talismans to make people forget what they are really supporting when they assist Russia in any way.
Operational Level
There are a lot of signs that Ukraine is putting pieces in place for an offensive. Leopard tanks and Bradley IFVs have arrived and are in the process of repainting to Ukraine’s vehicle color scheme. Training at the battalion level is taking place in secure Ukrainian maneuver areas. The Germans suddenly transferred a Patriot battery to Ukraine this week, just as the first class of Ukrainian air defense troops was finishing training at Fort Bliss Sill, OK. There are also examples of shaping operations taking place. Supply dumps and troops concentrations behind the lines are receiving more attention. One of the most significant shifts is the number of destroyed Russian electronic warfare and radar units. The Open-Source Intelligence site offers intriguing analysis.
This is a classic shaping operation to deprive the Russians of counterbattery, air defense early warning, and electronic collecting and jamming capability. The arrival of Patriot will allow less capable systems to be moved forward and create a high-threat environment for Russian aircraft. In addition, the new Gepard and Avenger systems will be able to prevent Russian drones from seeing Ukrainian assembly areas and movements.
Prisoner Exchanges Continue
Prisoner-of-war exchanges continue. This week 130 Ukrainian combatants were exchanged for an undisclosed number of Russians.
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy shared footage of the prisoner exchange that returned 130 Ukrainian defenders home in time for Easter
As of February 24, Ukraine has brought back 2,235 Ukrainian men and women from Russian captivity
More news 👉 https://t.co/S95ZiWHXi6 pic.twitter.com/fnXkrDlauU
— The New Voice of Ukraine (@NewVoiceUkraine) April 18, 2023
130 more #Ukrainian defenders were returned home from #Russian captivity today, on Easter. 48 of the 130 released warriors were considered missing ❤️🩹
Glory to the Heroes!
Source: Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War pic.twitter.com/CLaXGh761W
— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) April 16, 2023
Are Atrocities Only Committed by the Russian Army on Days Ending in “Y”?
Last week I posted about a graphic beheading of a Ukrainian soldier by Russian troops. Another video displayed last week, though not included in my post, was of several heads of Ukrainian soldiers on posts near Russian positions. Aleksandr Cherkasov, a Nobel Laureate and Russian human rights advocate who now lives in exile, says it is all in a day’s work.
Russian man explains why it’s so common for Russian soldiers to behead prisoners-of-war pic.twitter.com/H08FU6kTY2
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 17, 2023
We know the same thing happened in the 2008 invasion of Georgia.
Not only in Chechnya, they did the same in 2008 in Georgia, they beheaded people and played football using head as a ball. https://t.co/5KeWGtdI6F
— depressed millenial🇺🇦 (@notrichnotyoung) April 18, 2023
And we know the Wagner Group has routinely committed atrocities in Syria.
Taken in context with the internationally vetted massacres at Bucha and other places, it is hard to disagree.
Northern Front
Kharkiv
Donbas
Bakhmut Still Holds
Weeks after being assured by Gateway Pundit that Bakhmut had fallen, it was shocking to find there is still fighting there.
A close-up map of the approximate situation around the city of Bakhmut.
🇷🇺 forces have advanced westward across the rail line from the city centre, pushing further into the western districts of the city. pic.twitter.com/JAJwXqROEm
— War Mapper (@War_Mapper) April 20, 2023
The lines are approximate and in constant flux.
Sloviansk Targeted by Russian Missiles
Sloviansk is nowhere near a combat zone, and the missiles struck nowhere near military targets. These strikes have no other purpose than to terrorize and make life miserable for the residents.
Another monstrous Russian war crime. Yesterday, S-300 missiles were fired at residential areas in Sloviansk and killed nine and injured 21. Emergency forces are racing to find survivors beneath the rubble…
Pictures: Ukrainian State Emergency Services https://t.co/trw1IvFY8J pic.twitter.com/XsKVTsk9yc
— Mattia Nelles (@mattia_n) April 15, 2023
I cried when I saw this. I’m still in tears while writing this. This is Slov’iansk after russian attack yesterday.
Just look at this kid on first photo. Just look at the man on that destroyed floor. This is what russia brings.
📸 Anatolii Stepanov, Source: Grnt media, Suspilne pic.twitter.com/i8v91Js5Mj
— Margo Gontar 🇺🇦 (@MargoGontar) April 15, 2023
Southern Front
Zaporizhzhia
On Easter Sunday, the Russians Target Ukrainian Churches
Here's what left from a church in Komyshuvakha, a town 30 km near Zaporizhzhia after today's strike by Russians. Most of Ukrainians celebrate Easter today. Russians say they celebrate Easter today too. But that's just verbal declaration. Their true beliefs you see on the photo pic.twitter.com/EDnehtROYd
— Olya Vorozhbyt (@vorozhbyt) April 16, 2023
In addition to a church in Komyshuvaha, Russians also shelled one in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Seems like a retaliatory message for stripping Russia's Orthodox Church of its control in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/POHQpKMvlU
— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) April 16, 2023
Rear Areas
Russia
Belgorod Electrical Transformer Complex Damaged
There is a fire at an electrical substation in Belgorod. Preliminary reports suggest it was a UAV attack. https://t.co/WHYiZ4AZkrhttps://t.co/oSmhDSSYTE pic.twitter.com/pC9HpX7E2H
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) April 16, 2023
This could conceivably be an accident. What makes it curious is that the transformer substation had heavy-duty transformers needed to power the electric freight trains supplying the Russian Army in Ukraine. There is no admission of hostile action by the Russians or claims of responsibility by the Ukrainians, which is par for the course.
What’s Next?
We wait. The Ukrainians have a plan that they are keeping close to their vest. The fact that we haven’t seen Bradley IFVs involved in meaningless skirmishes shows that the Ukrainians might have overcome that strong temptation to give everyone a little of the “good stuff” and are hoarding it to use in a coordinated offensive.
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