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Ukraine Invasion Day 176: a state sponsor of special military operations gets terrorized [1]
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Date: 2022-08-17
Now Russia wants to make the war about Islam rather than Nazis, because the disinformation about the latter seems not to be working.
Russian leadership and the Russian nationalist information space have become increasingly invested in framing recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian military assets in Crimea as acts of terrorism in order to shift the information narrative away from Russian violations of international law and calls on the West to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Russian sources inaccurately described the strikes on the BSF headquarters, an ammunition depot, and the Saki Airbase as acts of terrorism. The Russian-appointed head of occupied Crimea, Sergey Askenov, claimed on August 17 that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in Crimea had neutralized cells of the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization (an Islamist fundamentalist political organization that has historically been active in Central Asia and in Crimea amongst the Crimean Tatar community and is banned in Russia) in Dzhankoi and Yalta.[4] Aksenov accused the Ukrainian government of coordinating Hizb ut-Tahrir's operations in Crimea without providing any evidence. Russian officials will likely increasingly link Ukrainian partisan attacks against occupied territories with operations conducted by organizations affiliated with Islamist extremism in an attempt to alienate the Ukrainian partisan movement from the international community and undermine Ukraine’s calls to officially designate Russia as a state-sponsor of terrorism. Attacks against legitimate Russian military targets fall well within the purview of legal use of force and are not acts of terrorism, nor is there any evidence to suggest that Islamist extremists conducted these attacks.[5]
Chechnya is reportedly recruiting 4 battalions to fight in Ukraine Chechen recruits are coming primarily from rural areas but backlash is rising amongst Muslims who disdain fighting in a foreign war
x The Russian fascist invaders are trying to hold their positions and prevent Ukrainian defenders from creating favourable conditions for a counter-offensive.
The rashists shelled extensively and launched airstrikes on Bilohirka. Lozove, Bila Krynytsya and Posad-Pokrovs'ke. pic.twitter.com/dFq8zKBg3x — Michael MacKay (@mhmck) August 18, 2022
Subordinate Main Effort—Southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk Oblasts (Russian objective: Encircle Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine and capture the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces conducted ground attacks northwest of Slovyansk near the Kharkiv-Donetsk Oblast border on August 17. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces attempted to advance near Bohorodychne, about 20km northwest of Slovyansk.[6] The Ukrainian General Staff also noted that Russian forces attempted advances in the vicinity of Mazanikva (22km northwest of Slovyansk) and Novo Dymytrivka (35km northwest of Slovyansk).[7] Russian milbloggers previously indicated that fighting on the Mazanivka-Bohorodychne line, which roughly runs along the Kharkiv-Donetsk Oblast border, has been complicated by the densely forested terrain.[8] Russian forces in this area are likely to continue positional battles within tactically challenging forest areas in order to hold ground against Ukrainian counterattacks. Russian forces additionally continued artillery strikes along the Izyum-Slovyansk line and struck Ukrainian positions and civilian infrastructure in and around Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.[9]
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks south of Siversk on August 17. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian troops attempted to advance towards Vesele, about 23km southeast of Siversk.[10] Russian troops also reportedly conducted a ground attack near Spirne, about 20km southeast of Siversk.[11] Russian forces continued air and artillery strikes in the vicinity of Siversk.[12]
Russian forces conducted a series of ground attacks northeast and south of Bakhmut on August 17. Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that Russian forces are fighting in the Soledar-Bakhmutske area (10km northeast of Bakhmut).[13] Units of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) 6th Cossack Regiment continued attempts to consolidate control of the Knauf Gips Donbas gypsum factory on the outskirts of Soledar along the T1302 highway in order to advance southwestward on Bakhmut.[14] The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Russian troops conducted ground assaults in Bilohorivka, about 18km northeast of Bakhmut along the T1302 highway.[15] Russian operations to the northeast of Bakhmut are likely focused on securing control of this segment of the T1302 in order to drive directly on Bakhmut.
www.understandingwar.org/...
x In Kharkiv region, south of the Pechenihy Reservoir: "The enemy tried to break through the defence of our troops in the direction of the settlements of Leb'yazhe and Bazaliyivka but was unsuccessful and retreated."
–General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 18:00, August 17 pic.twitter.com/nRJVjlIyIK — Michael MacKay (@mhmck) August 18, 2022
Supporting Effort #1—Kharkiv City (Russian objective: Defend ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to Izyum and prevent Ukrainian forces from reaching the Russian border)
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks on the Kharkiv City axis on August 17. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces retreated following an attempt to break Ukrainian defensive lines in the direction of Lebyazhe and Bazaliivka, both about 40km southeast of Kharkiv City and further south than prior Russian offensives around Kharkiv City.[24] Ukrainian General Staff reports have not mentioned fighting in these directions in several weeks. Russian forces also conducted remote mining in the Lebyazhne district.[25] The decision to remotely mine Lebyazhne likely aims to disrupt Ukrainian use of the settlement as a base from which to fight Russian forces further east. A Russian outlet Readovka also claimed that Russian forces took control of Stohnii and Baranivka, both less than 10km from the Ukraine-Russia border.[26] Russian forces conducted airstrikes east and south of Kharkiv City, near Staryi Saltiv and Mospanove.[27] Russian forces launched five missiles at Kharkiv City and continued heavy shelling of settlements surrounding Kharkiv City.[28] www.understandingwar.org/...
x Now the occupiers say many buildings in Mariupol can’t be salvaged & smell bad - so they just bulldoze them to the ground. Which means we won’t even know who died where. People are vanishing with their homes. As if they never existed.#StopRussiaNOW #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/MGD5JEhEgU — olexander scherba🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) August 15, 2022
x The hardest part here will be casualties. "If Ukraine can create a highly contested frontline—as it did outside Kyiv & Kharkiv—w/ attacks on [C2] points, high rates of equipment losses & large Russian casualties, it may again convince Moscow to withdraw."
https://t.co/rMIFPsxMpb — Shashank Joshi (@shashj) August 17, 2022
x This has to be the most pathetic thing you will see today. Russians are begging at the US and UK embassies to stop sending weapons to Ukraine that kills and injures Russian soldiers. Maybe the Russian soldiers shouldn't be in Ukraine?!pic.twitter.com/Pdgbyf0Jmy — Danish NAFO Fella 🇩🇰🇺🇦🇪🇺🇹🇼 (@abnyn1) August 16, 2022
x "Russia has identified Ukraine’s dependence on external support as its greatest vulnerability and has been looking for ways to undermine this support, largely by aggravating the economic crises facing the West." @LawDavF on the war of attrition in Ukraine
https://t.co/uCni5K3EE9 — Alix Kroeger (@AlixKroeger) August 17, 2022
x This one is written from the very bottom of my heart.
6 months ago, many were saying Ukraine was doomed. They were wrong. Ever since then, we have made a long way. And we’re moving on.
Be a part of a solution in any way you can, or get out of the way.
https://t.co/k65SR17U9j — Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) August 17, 2022
x The Kyiv Independent’s investigation reveals endemic problems in one of the wings of the International Legion, a legion created for foreign fighters dedicated to defending Ukraine.
https://t.co/8cQWdYfyVY — The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) August 17, 2022
Top findings:
The leadership of the intelligence-run wing of the International Legion is allegedly implicated in various violations, including abuse, theft, and sending soldiers unprepared on reckless missions.
One of the unit’s commanders and a frequent subject of the soldiers’ complaints is an alleged former member of a criminal organization from Poland, wanted at home for fraud. In the Legion’s unit, he is involved in coordinating military operations and logistics.
The legion’s fighters accuse him of abusing power by ordering soldiers to loot shops, threatening soldiers with a gun, and sexually harassing the legion’s female medics.
In early May, a lieutenant from Brazil arrived in Ukraine to join the International Legion following President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to “citizens of the world” to come and help defend Ukraine.
He thought his vast experience in the Brazilian army had prepared him for pretty much any task.
Yet he was neither ready to carry out suicide missions by order of his command, nor to tolerate orders to loot and steal.
As a platoon commander of the International Legion, he was ordered to do just that.
The Brazilian officer recalls his subordinates saying, before resigning from the legion: “We came here to help these people to fight for this country, against this invasion. We didn’t come here to do exactly what f*cking Russian people do when they’re on Ukrainian soil.”
The Kyiv Independent’s investigation reveals endemic problems in one of the International Legion’s wings that is overseen by Ukraine’s intelligence.
Some of the unit’s commanders are implicated in arms and goods theft, sexual harassment, assault, and sending unprepared soldiers on reckless missions, according to multiple sources.
The allegations in this story are based on interviews with legionnaires, written testimonies of over a dozen former and current members of the legion, and a 78-page report they’ve put together about problems within this particular unit of the International Legion.
For about four months, foreign fighters have been knocking on the doors of high offices asking for help. The report was filed to the parliament, and written testimonies were sent to Zelensky’s office. Alyona Verbytska, the president’s commissioner for soldiers’ rights, confirmed she had received legionnaires’ complaints and passed them on to law enforcement.
But authorities, soldiers say, are reluctant to solve the issue.
kyivindependent.com/...
x ⚡️Update: Death toll from Russian attack on Kharkiv rises to 7.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported that 7 people were killed and 17 more injured in Russian shelling of a residential building in Kharkiv's Saltivka neighborhood. — The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) August 17, 2022
x MASS PUNISHMENT: After a series of Partisan attacks and a bombing of the HQ of the RU occupiers, Russian security forces have sealed exits from the city of Melitopol. Sources indicate that a round-up of Ukrainian citizens is underway-- mass arrests & deportations are likely. pic.twitter.com/LfJWAn6EOd — Chuck Pfarrer (@ChuckPfarrer) August 18, 2022
x Russia's top propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, twice honored by Putin for his "service to the Fatherland," threatens the US & Europe with nuclear war if they defend the Baltics from Russia. Solovyov's bombast falls flat when he asks for 100k North Koreans to help Russia in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/6fwqxKMTHo — Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) August 18, 2022
x It nearly 6 months since the Russian invasion of #Ukraine began. Today, I explore Ukraine’s potential counteroffensive in the south, and the considerations for planning and conducting such a large-scale campaign. 1/25 🧵 pic.twitter.com/xoR4KhjNBG — Mick Ryan, AM (@WarintheFuture) August 17, 2022
2/ First, a little history. In 2002-3 I attended the @USMC School of Advanced Warfighting. Its focus was campaigning and campaign design. We used history to foster these skills, including designing a campaign to successfully invade Russia in 1812 with Napoleon! @MarineCorpsU
3/ So campaign design is something that I really enjoy studying, and I have done a bit of it for real overseas as well. Why does this matter? Well, I use my experience, my schooling and my studies over two decades when I look at the Russian and Ukrainian campaigns in this war.
4/ It helps me get into the minds of campaign planners and commanders. I don’t pretend I can predict outcomes. I previously explored the southern campaign here:
Unroll available on Thread Reader
5/ So, let’s discuss the southern campaign by starting at the beginning – it is important context. Russia has made many errors in this war. It commenced with a bad strategy, underpinned by flawed assumptions.
6/ From this has flowed multiple military shortfalls. Russia’s poor tactics & logistics meant it wasted large amounts of manpower and weapons in unsuccessful advances on #Kyiv and #Kharkiv. This & its troubled reinforcement system has constrained its offensive capacity since.
Image
7/ Therefore, to make some progress somewhere, the Russians had to concentrate a large proportion of their offensive capacity (not all their forces) in the east to meet Putin’s declared outcomes for the Donbas. This left the Russians vulnerable elsewhere.
8/ And since the start of the invasion, #Ukraine has played its inferior hand well. It is a country that is smaller in size, population, economy & military forces than Russia. As I have written previously, in this war Russia got the mass, but Ukraine got the brains and the heart.
9/ While for a time the Ukrainians were drawn into an attritional fight in the Donbas, the introduction of #HIMARS allowed them to ‘break contact’ in some respects and return to targeting Russian operational vulnerabilities in the east and south.
10/ And while the Ukrainians still face a difficult defensive campaign in the east, they have been able to conduct operations to take back territory in the south, which is probably the most important and decisive theatre in the war.
Pockets of resistance: Why the southern Ukraine front matters
Guerilla warfare is now being waged in southern Ukraine as the defenders seek to disrupt, distract and destroy Russia’s invasion from behind-the-lines.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/pockets-of-resistance-why-the-southern-ukraine-front-matters-20220621-p5av9z.html
11/ So, we are at a point where many are waiting on a large Ukrainian offensive in the south. Over the past two months, the Ukrainians have been shaping the environment for this, including deep strikes. What might be some of the important considerations in such an offensive?
12/ Politics. The Ukrainian government probably feels pressure to undertake an offensive before the northern winter to sustain western support. The Ukrainian President will be seeking a balance of reclaiming Ukrainian territory and retaining Western support.
13/ This objective exists in tension with military capacity (this is normal in war). Remember, war is about achieving political objectives. And as @MassDara notes, Ukraine can’t afford static front lines to be normalised. Russian annexation is pending.
Russia’s Repeat Failures
Moscow’s new strategy in Ukraine is just as bad as the old one.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russia-repeat-failures?utm_medium=social
14/ Operational Design. Operational design is an important component of military professionalism. Through good operational design, commanders and their staffs’ sequence and orchestrate tactical goals and actions to meet strategic and political objectives.
15/ For Ukraine, their design will be to achieve an operational outcome in the south. It might an enemy-centric objective such as ‘destruction of all Russian forces west of the Dnipro’. Alternately it might be their isolation to force their withdrawal.
16/ Or it could be a geographic objective, centred on ground re-captured or cities retaken. But either objective will also include the degradation of Russian morale. And it will aim to impact on the confidence of the Russians (and their people) to continue this war.
17/ A vital aspect of a Ukrainian campaign design will be prioritization for allocation of forces, logistics, intelligence, transport, and inter-service collaboration. This demands a design that considers how many offensives at once, and how each advance is sequenced.
18/ Timing. In war, the clock is always ticking. The ability to exploit time is one of the most important considerations in the planning and execution of military campaigns. Colin Gray writes that “every military plan at every level of war is ruled by the clock.”
19/ The Ukrainians will be wargaming the best time to conduct an offensive. This is a more significant activity than most appreciate. It will require excellent intelligence on Russian reserves, combat potential & logistics, particularly in light of recent Russian reinforcements.
20/ There will be a political dimension to timing. Even if the military are not fully ready for an offensive (there could be multiple reasons for this), political imperatives might force the timing. (Pic: CNN)
21/ Importantly, timing will be influenced by Ukrainian ability to concentrate & coord forces required for close combat, engineer support, artillery, air support, communications, logistics, psyops, EW, etc. This is really hard!
22/ Offensive operations are expensive in recon assets (to find, fix and kill the enemy), artillery, long range strike, armour and mobility support (engineers. Multitudes of each, combined in Brigades and Divisions, will be needed. It is all underpinned by training & rehearsals.
23/ Finally, strategic support will also be necessary. Ukrainian industry, and western aid donors, will be required to provide weapons, ammunition, intelligence, and other support for an offensive. Offensive ops are enormously expensive in military material and munitions.
24/ There have been many speculative articles on when a Ukrainian offensive in the south might occur. My aim here is not to discuss exact timings or outcomes, but to discuss how Ukrainian campaign planners might think about the fight ahead. End.
[END]
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