Putin's War, Week 134. Russia Loses Ammo Dumps but Gains 40-kt Explosion, Deep Strike Permission Nears

By streiff | 3:22 PM on September 23, 2024
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.
CREDIT: Iftikhar Alam via vecteezy.com

As we close in on Day 1,000 of Putin's 72-hour flounce on Kiev, it's time to take another look at the state of play. 

Ukraine's President Zelensky is in the US today for the UN General Assembly. He will meet with Joe Biden and former President Trump and visit an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania.

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The major issue hanging fire is the US permitting Ukraine to use weapons made in the US or with key US-made components in deep attacks on Russia. Somehow, Jake Sullivan's brain trust has concluded that an aggressor state has immunity from attacks on its territory and that attacks at C4I and logistics nodes have no effect on the battlefield. That dam of stupidity is crumbling as Jill Biden, or whoever is running the White House this week, is reportedly on the cusp of removing those restrictions. 

This has given rise to a fairly credible rumor that Russia may enter into real negotiations to prevent those deep strikes.

This plan would essentially return to status quo ante on February 24, 2022. This deal looks okay on paper, but it misses a critical point. The territory that Russia would evacuate under this deal has been annexed and is now part of Russia. Unless Russia officially rescinds the annexation, all we have is a breather before another round of fighting.

Supposedly, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov will meet in October to plot Russian strategy for next year. 

Here are some of my past updates.

Putin's War, Week 133. Turmoil in Kursk and Long-Range Strikes Into Russia Possible 

Putin's War, Week 132. Russia's Missile Blitz Meets Ukraine's Drone Blitz – RedState

Putin's War, Week 130. White House Says the Quiet Part Out Loud and a Storm Gathers in Southern Ukraine – RedState

Putin's War, Week 129. The Invasion of Kursk Continues, Putin Unhappy, and the White House Befuddled – RedState

Putin's War, Week 128. Russia Invaded – RedState

Putin's War, Week 127. F-16s Arrive

Putin's War, Week 126. Ukraine and Hungary Square Off, More Peace Talk by Putin, and the Escalation Flop – RedState

Putin's War, Week 125. North Korea Sending Food to Russia Was Not on My Bingo Card

Putin's War, Week 124. NATO Summit Meets and Putin Levels a Hospital

Putin's War, Week 123. F-16s Wait in the Wings, More Weapons Arrive, and the Momentum Shifts – RedState

Putin's War, Week 122. Zelensky Scores, Putin Flops, and Crimea Under Fire 

For all my Ukraine War coverage, click here.

Politico-Strategic Level

NATO Edges Closer to Unified Response to Russian Missile Attacks

Two months ago, Poland proposed that NATO allow member state fighter aircraft to engage Russian drones and missiles heading for targets in Ukraine; see Putin's War, Week 125. North Korea Sending Food to Russia Was Not on My Bingo Card. That proposal didn't go far in Washington or Berlin. Now, another country is raising the issue of Russian drones overflying NATO airspace to hit Ukraine.

Poland and Romania using their air defense systems to engage Russian missiles and drones over their territory, and, inevitably, those missiles and drones that have a track that would result in them hitting their territory if they missed a target in Ukraine is now just a matter of time.

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Russia Accuses Ukraine of "Provocative Action"

Russia has accused Ukraine of herding the residents of Kursk into concentration camps. Ukraine has invited the International Committee of the Red Cross into Liberated Kursk to verify the situation and provide assistance as appropriate. Russia says this would be a "provocative action." Go figure.

Related:

Ukraine Attacks Russian Drone Operation in Syria

Put this in the "say what?" file. 

Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) special forces conducted an operation against a Russian military base in Syria on Sunday according to a source in Ukrainian military intelligence who spoke to the Kyiv Post. The attack targeted a facility on the southeastern outskirts of Aleppo, where Russian forces were reportedly manufacturing and testing strike UAVs.

The Kyiv Post obtained exclusive footage of the operation, which shows a HUR flag visible behind a berm near a garage used as a Russian base. The video, filmed by an intelligence officer, captures an explosion at the Russian facility followed by the detonation of ammunition.

On the one hand, we know Ukraine is active in attacking Russian targets in Africa; see Russia's Wagner Group Suffers Major Defeat at the Hands of Tuareg Rebels in Mali and the follow-up story in Putin's War, Week 127. F-16s Arrive. On the other, shooting explosives with a bullet is something done in movies, not in real life. But a story by a reporter with an overactive imagination doesn't mean the event didn't happen. Color me agnostic on this for the time being.

Russia Makes Territorial Claim on Finland

The vatniks out there are going to look at this newest bit of saber-rattling by Moscow as hyperbole. The pattern is that when Moscow tells us what it is going to do, like invade Ukraine, their trained poodles that come increasingly from the American Right immediately claim that we are mistaken. And when these things come to pass, they pull the "she wore her dress too damned short, she knew this was going to happen, and she had it coming" defense. The prime example of this is "NATO expansion." However, every time one of Putin's vodka-besotted cronies wheezes about nuclear weapons, we're supposed to jump and pull on our brown trousers.

Official Kremlin media have been making a lot of noise about a large section of Finland being part of "historic Russia." 

As I've posted on several occasions, whenever Putin's regime starts talking about "historic Russia" and "tsarist territories," we need to pay attention. I don't think Putin has any interest in recreating the USSR; his vision is the Imperial Russia of Nicholas II and his predecessors. I think Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic states, most of Poland, and Finland are on the menu. 

For more on this, here is Professor Stephen Kotkin, one of the more distinguished Russia scholars we've produced speaking on the subject of Putin's goals. I have his books on Stalin, though I think he has a bit too much of a love affair with Russia for my taste.

 

Molon Labe

About That Nuclear Threat

A year ago, the Russians rolled out a new nuclear missile named after their national mascot. The RS-28 Sarmat (or Satan) was supposed to be the final word in Russia's deterrence of a NATO alliance that seemed hellbent on letting free nations join no matter what the psychopaths in the Kremlin wanted.

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 Things don't always go as one might like.

After my first trip down the Berlin-Helmstedt Autobahn, I came away convinced that the reason the Russians hadn't invaded Western Europe had less to do with their fear of NATO than it did with their knowledge about how f***ed up the Red Army was. If Russia were going to pop a nuke to make a point, it would have done so by now. Watching the events unfold, one can't help but wonder if they are more constrained about the high probability that such a demonstration would end up as a national humiliation than they are about the political and economic consequences.

Corporate Takeover, Russian Style

Armed gangs of opposing factions battled for control of the headquarters of Wildberries, the cheap Russian knockoff of Amazon/Facebook Marketplace. This is how a normal country that is defending Western civilization against the globalists behaves.

Peak Russia

It's Game Over

A drug-addled octogenarian musician says Ukraine is losing. Who are we to second guess his wisdom?

Operational Level

Overall, the front lines remained fairly stable, but there were signs of underlying instability. The Russian counteroffensive in Kursk seems to have come to a standstill while the Ukrainian Army is still making progress in the second penetration they launched. The Russian offensive in central Donetsk has slowed down, and the Ukrainian forces have regained some lost territory. This is due to Russian troops being pulled from the line and transferred to Kursk. Ukrainian attacks are also reducing the Russian lodgement in Kharkiv. 

The main operational story has been the Ukrainian strikes on three major ammunition dumps.

  • Tikhoretsk, Krasnodar Krai Region
  • Toropets and Oktyabrsky, Tver Oblast

The attacks resulted in the loss of about 40,000 tons of munitions—40 kilotons, the size of a small TNT or the combined yield of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts. The Tver explosion registered about 2.8 on the Richter Scale. The stockpiles of North Korean ballistic missiles were specifically targeted.

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Russian officials claimed that all the Ukrainian drones were shot down and the damage was caused by falling debris (as if that made a difference).

This led to some humorous social media items.

This has opened the door to another procurement scandal. The Toropets depot was built to withstand air attack. Ironically, Dmitry Bulgakov was arrested on corruption charges in July 2024; see Russia's former deputy defense minister detained on corruption charges loses an appeal | AP News.

While part of the problem was caused by ammunition stacked on the ground at the railhead, there were also obvious construction problems. Corners were cut, resulting in the storage bunkers not being protected. 

There were also OPSEC issues. Yandex is the Russian equivalent of the Google search engine.

Adding insult to injury, Toropets' website was hacked.

The impact will be felt in the next few weeks as the ammunition currently in the pipeline to the front is used up.

Russian missile attacks are back in a lull after the surge we saw earlier in September. Most of the attacks are by Shahed drones, and nearly all of those are successfully engaged.

Russian War Correspondent Captured

When we last encountered the correspondent for the Russian Telegram channel "Readovka," Anastasia Yelsukova, she had just got her butt loaded with Ukrainian shell fragments; see Putin's War, Week 48. The Logjam Breaks and the Leopards Are About to Roam the Ukrainian Landscape.

She apparently recovered and has been captured by Ukrainian forces in Kursk.

This is a sure sign that Russia's Kursk counteroffensive is not on track.

Russian Propagandist Killed By Ukrainian Intelligence

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New Weapons

AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW)

The US is reported to have authorized the release of the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) now that F-16s have arrived in Ukraine. The weapon has a range of 70 miles.

 

Combat Operations

It Could've Been Worse

In this lengthy video, three Russian soldiers are taken prisoner by an undetermined number of Azov fighters who simply walked into their encampment, sat down, and started talking to them. The punchline is at 12:05. Another noticeable comment made by the Russians is the youth of the Azov men.

This debrief covers many interesting topics. I recommend pausing it and dragging the counterline forward to read the captions.

Suddenly, Rum, Buggery, and the Lash Look Damned Good

The Russian "aircraft carrier" Admiral Kuznetsov has been in drydock for two years.

Donetsk Attacks Turned Back

Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

Russian Rescued By Ukrainian Drone

When I Grow Up, I Want To Be Just Like Him

I will be the first to admit I don't understand the Russian military psyche. Here, a Russian commander in shorts and flip-flops, replete with potbelly and moobs, issues orders to troops going out on a combat mission. According to the second video, the mission didn't go all that well. If I had tried that with my troops, I'm not sure I would've liked the response. Of course, they could have been so overawed by my studly body and speedo that they just did what they were told... Seriously, how much will it take until fragging becomes a thing? 

Another Day, Another Training Ground

I've posted several times on Ukrainian HIMARS strikes on training facilities, primarily in Donetsk, where new units are being put through their paces. The most recent was just a couple of weeks ago; see Putin's War, Week 132. Russia's Missile Blitz Meets Ukraine's Drone Blitz.

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This video is an up-close view of the aftermath of yet another strike that, according to Russian Telegram, resulted in over 50 casualties.

People are starting to take notice of it.

Sucks to Be Them

It's the One You Don't See

You Can't Lie on the Internet

When Reach Exceeds Grasp

Russian Front

Kursk

The Russian counteroffensive has basically stopped. Ukrainian forces continue to advance in some areas.

Over the weekend, the Ukrainian Army opened a new axis of advance into Kursk to the west of the last axis.

The operational concept seems to be to open new fronts inside Russia every couple of weeks. Each new front is to the west of the last one. This forces Russia to move more troops over a longer distance to confront the new threat or risk having troops engaged in combat encircled.

The Guardian reports that the Russians were not surprised by the Ukrainian offensive into Kursk; see Revealed: Russia anticipated Kursk incursion months in advance, seized papers show | Russia | The Guardian. 

Russia’s military command had anticipated Ukraine’s incursion into its Kursk region and had been making plans to prevent it for several months, according to a cache of documents that the Ukrainian army said it had seized from abandoned Russian positions in the region.

The disclosure makes the disarray among Russian forces after Ukraine’s attack in early August all the more embarrassing. The documents, shared with the Guardian, also reveal Russian concerns about morale in the ranks in Kursk, which intensified after the suicide of a soldier at the front who had reportedly been in a “prolonged state of depression due to his service in the Russian army”.

Northern Front

Kharkiv

Hlyboke-Vovchansk

Russian troops made minor advances in the area near Hlyboke, while Ukrainian forces made more substantial advances around Vovchansk, effectively liberating most of the city. 

Kreminna-Kupyansk-Svatove

Combat continues, but the front remains stable.

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Donbas

The most notable development in this sector is that the Russian offensive on the Pokrovsk axis, which was beginning to look problematic for the Ukrainian Army a couple of weeks ago, seems to have stopped, and the front has stabilized.

Bahkmut-Klishchiivka-Andriivka

There have been minor Russian positional gains, but the front lines seem to be stable.

Avdiivka

The Pokrovsk area seems to have stabilized and there have been some successful local counterattacks.

The Russian offensive has been stymied primarily because of the transfer of units to Kursk.

Southern Front

Zaporizhzhia

There was a low level of combat in this area, and the front lines remain stable.

Kherson

Combat operations continue in this area but with no changes in the front lines.

Rear Areas

Russia

Various Railways

What's Next

The Ukrainians seem to have called a lid on major offensive operations for 2024. The operation in Kursk is looking more and more like an operation designed to pull Russian units out of Donbas and prevent Russia from gaining the administrative boundaries of that region. Allegedly, that is one of the issues that Putin wants to discuss with Gerasimov when they meet in October. I haven't given up hope yet, but the time is running out.

Ukraine's deep strikes against Russian ammunition supplies and oil refineries will begin to bite hard in the next 60 days as stocks closer to the front lines are run down. This should reduce the operational tempo of the Russian forces.

Ukraine seems to be gambling that Russia's very real economic and manpower issues will make a negotiated settlement possible next year or in 2026. Even if a Trump victory results in reduced aid to Ukraine, and I'm not convinced it will, the new flow of funds from frozen Russian assets will take up a lot of the slack. Politically, I don't think Trump will want to get saddled with the blame for withdrawing military support from two nations supported by the US.

Streiff

Former infantry officer, CGSC grad and Army Operations Center alumnus. Also an amateur historian (Colonial America) and a dabbler in historical fiction.
RedState member since 2004. "He would rather pinch off his own head than admit he's wrong" -- Daily Kos. Follow me on Twitter. 

Read more by Streiff
Tags: RUSSIA UKRAINE PUTIN'S WAR

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