Ukraine Blog 12 - Azov, New Ukrainian Tactics and Russian Affairs
Dear friends, family and colleagues,
We are now
entering the third week of Russia’s invasion and the Russian advance is definitely
stalled. I hear the Western media crying that Kyiv is surrounded, but that’s
far from true. I do think that the Russians actually did some force posturing
and that they are making preparations for a push on Kyiv. As discussed in the
previous blog, I do expect them to get massacred in bloody street fighting. Is
Russia able to take Kyiv. Yes, but they will have to level it.
As a matter
of fact, almost no city in Ukraine is yet encircled in siege (the only exception
being Mariupol). Sure, Kharkiv took and still takes a heavy beating, but it’s
targeted by longer range guns. It’s still completely open on the Western side
and the Ukrainians can still supply it with ease. The one city that’s really under
high risk of falling to the Russians soon, is Mariupol. The city is completely
surrounded and takes enormous amounts of MLRS fire. Besides the army, it’s defended
by the National Guard’s Azov battalion.
So let’s talk
a little bit about Azov. There’s some truth in the Russian claims that at least
some Ukrainian units have national socialist sympathies and the Azov battalion
is the most prominent of them. They are indeed an ultra-nationalist former
paramilitary unit that was incorporated in the national guard of Ukraine. Ironically,
like Russia with Rosgvardia, Ukraine performed a similar reform of all paramilitary
groups under a national guard umbrella. Azov’s fighters are notorious for their
ability to hold positions and as such any force that will be send out by the Russians
will likely suffer heavy casualties. Ultimately, without significant air
(drone) support, I think Mariupol will fall to the Russians.
One more
thing about Azov: does Azov make Ukraine a country full of Nazi’s? By far not. Consistently
of the past eight years extremist parties like Svoboda and Pravyi Sektor (Right
Sector) never gained more than eight seats in Ukraine’s parliament, the 450
seat Verkhovna Rada. By comparison, the Netherlands has with 17 seats for the
PVV and 5 seats for Forum for Democracy a far larger share of extremist right
wing parties in their 150 member parliament. Even with 21 seats in the State Duma,
Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s, extreme nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia,
ironically has a higher share in their 450 member parliament than the one seat
that Svoboda currently holds in Verkhovna Rada.
Back to the
battlefield. The two main developments came from the Ukrainian side.
1. Ukraine owes a big thank you to what’s
now their largest arms supplier: RUSSIA! The Ukrainians clearly spent the last
couple of days cleaning and repairing captured Russian equipment. Sure, the
Ukrainians have lost quite some equipment as well (especially in the Donbass
region). However, I’m pretty confident that the Ukrainians have gained more
than that they lost. In addition, the equipment they capture from the Russians
is of better quality (and the Ukrainians know how to operate it properly).
Ukraine lost quite some T-64 tanks, but got quite a lot of the most modern Russian
T-80PBV’s and some T-90’s. Both tanks use the same ammunition that Ukraine uses.
The amount of vehicles that Ukrainians have captured so far is staggering and
puts a big doubt on Russia’s demilitarization mission
2. The Ukrainian Bayraktars have made a
shift in targets. They are not only targeting armored vehicles, artillery and
supply columns, but they now started to actively hunt Russian command and
control vehicles to seriously impact the communication and effectiveness of the
command structure. This is an incredibly smart move since it will make already
isolated Russian troops even more isolated. Moreover, over the past three days,
Russia lost three major-generals in Ukraine (which is staggering). I highly suspect
that those generals were taken out by the Bayraktar drones. It shows that Ukraine
is very agile and that they can adjust their strategy very easily as opposed to
the Russian who as of yet still have to show a change of tactic.
What’s
really interesting on the Russian side, that acts of defiance start slipping
through the propaganda shield.
1. Below clip is from Zvezda (star) tv.
Remember: this is the official Russian armed forces propaganda channel. An
officer complains that many Russians are dying and that they deserve recognition.
The moderator goes full North-Korea by interrupting him that this is for a just
war for the existence of Russia
2. Next clip is from Russian filmmaker Karen
Shakhnazarov on live tv, stating very strong opposition towards the idea of
fighting in Ukraine “"Do we need to get into another Afghanistan, but even
worse? There are more people and they’re more advanced in their handling of
weapons. We don’t need that. Enough already. As for the sanctions, the world
has never seen such massive sanctions.”
shavhnazarov Russian propagandist admits Russia under estimated Ukraine people! subscribe! - YouTube
3. Following clip is from a Russian
pilot voicing his opposition to Russia’s invasion
4. Most importantly: Putin seems to
have started a purge within the security service, FSB (Russia’s successor to
the KGB). Several officers have been arrested. Of very much interest: the
trigger for the arrest seems to have been the release of “the FSB” letters.
They can be read in full here
Igor Sushko .com - Racing and Beyond
Igor Sushko has been around for many years on Twitter and he has always
been a source of good OSINT (Open Source Intelligence). His source is an FSB
officer that he is in contact with via message service Telegram. Even after the
arrest, the FSB officer in question does not appear to have been compromised. The
FSB papers paint a picture of the internal structure of the FSB that seems to
be very consistent with how Russia is performing on the battlefield (it’s an absolute
must read, but buckle up, it’s a quite a lot of text). If Putin indeed has
started a purge, he will be really walking on thin ice. Purges have always been
a factor where armed forces started to perform worse as oppose to better. Most
notorious example is Stalin. The Soviet-Union was only able to mount an effective
defense against Nazi-Germany after he halted the purges and actually put capable,
but not necessarily loyal, officers in place. Not that it completely changed
his mind. At the moment of his death, he was already planning a new purge.
A lot is
going on outside of the battlefield, including some things that will see future
Hollywood movies be made about them.
Best
regards and "Slava Ukraini!"
Niels
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