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Ukraine Invasion Day 510: Russian milbloggers criticize Kerch Strait Bridge road span attack [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-17
In the last 24 hours:- Ukraine attacked the Kerch bridge- Russia confirmed the grain deal is dead - Major air strikes on targets at the ports of Odessa and Nikolaev.
Then there’s issues of counter-battery artillery and no proof of RU nuclear facilities in Belarus.
The July 17 attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge will likely have continuing ramifications on Russian logistics in southern Ukraine. Russian authorities accused Ukrainian special services of conducting an unmanned surface vehicle strike against the Kerch Strait Bridge between Russia and occupied Crimea on the morning of July 17. [1] Footage of the aftermath shows that one Kerch Strait Bridge road span had collapsed and another span suffered damage but remains intact. [2] The Russian Ministry of Transport claimed that the strikes did not damage the rail bridge or supports of the road bridge, and rail traffic across the Kerch Strait Bridge resumed several hours after the strike. [3] Russian occupation authorities rerouted heavy civilian traffic from occupied Crimea to Russia through occupied southern Ukraine, and Russian sources reported extensive traffic jams in Crimea’s Dzhankoy Raion and occupied Kherson Oblast towards Melitopol. [4] Russian tourists fleeing occupied Crimea likely exacerbated traffic and likely impeded Russian logistics from Crimea to rear areas in Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts. Occupation authorities asked civilians to consider alternate evacuation routes to mitigate the immediate traffic issues. [5] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Andrii Yusov declined to comment on Ukrainian involvement in the incident. [6] The Kerch Strait Bridge and military areas in occupied Crimea are legitimate military targets for Ukrainian forces in their defense against the full-scale Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine, as ISW and Ukrainian officials have previously reported. [7] www.understandingwar.org/...
x Russian propagandists are not optimistic about "liberating" Mykolaiv and Odesa - we've not been able to liberate Mariinka for months, now, they say.
A rare case of realism on Russian propaganda TV. pic.twitter.com/RdP4uhE6pT — Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 17, 2023
In the initial weeks of the war, the Ukrainians adapted their tactics in northern Ukraine to embrace small, mobile and semi-autonomous anti-armour teams. These engaged and destroyed Russian forces using the few roads in northern Ukraine. Coupled with deliberate flooding by the Ukrainian government, this adaptation destroyed Russian logistic forces, denied combat units food, fuel and ammunition and forced the Russians to eventually withdraw back into Belarus. www.abc.net.au/...
x Russian snti-tank missile system was destroyed by a direct hit by a kamikaze drone of the Odesa Guardsmen of the "Lastivka" unit of the 11th brigade❤️🔥🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/gX2Jkx1Awa — Per Ekstrom (@PerEkstrom1) July 17, 2023
The introduction of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) in mid 2022 also allowed the Ukrainians to adapt. It provided a capability to strike Russian forces at much longer range than previously possible, and with great precision. It also permitted the Ukrainians to reduce the high attrition close combat operations they were then engaged in. The new long-range precision firepower also forced the Russians to move headquarters and logistics hubs further to rear, making their coordination and support of combat operations more difficult. More recently, the Ukrainians have had to again adapt their battlefield tactics. While a massive effort was undertaken to collect intelligence on the Russian defensive lines in southern Ukraine (called the Surovikin Line), initial Ukrainian attacks in June 2023 did not achieve the tactical breakthroughs hoped for. The minefields, trenches, strong points and anti-tank ditches across hundreds of kilometres may remind some of the First World War. However, Russia's addition of drone and satellite based pervasive surveillance, attack helicopters, air cover and preponderance of artillery has made penetrating the Surovikin Line very difficult. www.abc.net.au/...
Key Takeaways: The July 17 attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge will likely have significant and sustained impacts on Russian logistics as traffic from tourism to occupied Crimea jams Russian logistics to southern Ukraine in the midst of the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south.
Russian and occupation authorities appear to be consumed with mitigating the consequences of the attack rather than leveraging the incident to levy heavy informational attacks with rhetorical inflections.
The Russian milblogger response to the Kerch Strait Bridge attack largely criticized Russian authorities for failing to secure the bridge.
The Wagner Group continues to prepare to establish a permanent presence in Belarus.
Russia continues efforts to reorganize its domestic security apparatus in the wake of the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion.
Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least three sectors of the front over the backdrop of increased Russian offensive operations along the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border on July 17.
Russian forces conducted active offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove line and have likely made marginal tactical gains in this direction.
Russian forces continued limited ground attacks southwest and south of Kreminna, around Bakhmut, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.
Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area and advanced near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia administrative border.
Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks in western Donetsk Oblast.
Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued unsuccessful ground attacks in the Orikhiv area in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
Russian opposition outlet Verstka reported that Russian authorities have removed at least eight Russian military commanders without reappointing them to new positions since the start of the war, which is largely consistent with ISW’s previous assessments.
Russian occupation authorities continue to artificially increase the number of Russian citizens in occupied Ukraine ahead of the September regional elections. www.understandingwar.org/...
x ⚡️ WAR IN #UKRAINE - JUL 17
66:13 🇷🇺/🇺🇦 by @Rebel44CZ 🇨🇿 (62:12 net change after duplicates and/or corrections)
VISUALLY CONFIRMED:
2.9x losses to date ➡
2.4x since last year's 🇺🇦 counteroffensive ➡
2.0x 30-day average (current counteroffensive) ➡
📈
https://t.co/3vuuEcQl56 pic.twitter.com/KaDDZBYHad — Ragnar Gudmundsson 🇮🇸🇺🇦
[email protected] (@ragnarbjartur) July 17, 2023
New satellite images show that the construction of a double-fenced security perimeter is underway at a weapons depot near the town of Asipovichy in central Belarus. The US Central Intelligence Agency reported in late-February 2023 that a senior officer from the Russian Ministry of Defense had inspected a facility in the vicinity of Asipovichy (occasionally also spelled Osipovichi) for a potential upgrade to nuclear weapons storage. Asipovichy is the deployment area for the dual-capable Iskander (SS-26) launchers that Russia supplied to Belarus in 2022. Interestingly, the weapons depot featured in this article is roughly only 25 kilometers southeast of a vacant military base that, according to the New York Times, could be used to house relocated Wagner Group fighters in Belarus. This does not, however, imply any connection between the Wagner Group and Russian nuclear deployments in Belarus, which would be overseen by the Russian Ministry of Defence’s 12th Main Directorate (also known as the 12th GUMO). President Vladimir Putin announced in March that Russia plans to complete a nuclear weapons storage site in Belarus by July 1st, 2023, but he later modified the timeline to July 7th-8th, apparently due to delays with preparing the storage facilities. It is important to emphasize upfront that at this stage, we are not able to make a positive identification that this site is intended for or will definitively be used to store Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus. As we discuss in detail below, while the construction timeline and some signatures correlate with a potential nuclear storage site, other signatures do not, and these raise uncertainty about the purpose of the upgrade at the Asipovichy depot. In fact, overall, we are underwhelmed by the lack of visual evidence of the construction and infrastructure that would be expected to support the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus. We have also surveyed satellite imagery of numerous other military facilities at locations mentioned in various reports, but we have yet to find visual evidence that conclusively indicates the presence of an active nuclear weapons facility on the territory of Belarus. fas.org/... x Posable nuclear weapons storage site near Asipovichy in central Belarus, 8 July 2023, 53.310519, 28.809246. Left image is the entire complex, right image is zoomed into a spot @FAScientists pointed out in the linked article. Imagery: Planet / SkyWatch. #OSINT… pic.twitter.com/YLNJUlPxR8 — Radio & Nukes 🇺🇦 (@HamWa07) July 9, 2023 The Wagner Group continues to prepare to establish a permanent presence in Belarus. Independent Belarusian monitoring group “The Hajun Project” reported on July 17 that another Wagner vehicle convoy traveled towards the Tsel village tent camp near Asipovichy, Mogilev Oblast, Belarus, and that two other Wagner columns had traveled along this same route between July 11 and July 17. [27] Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels relatedly posted footage on July 17 of a Wagner column moving between Voronezh and Oryel oblasts before arriving at the training ground near Asipovichy. [28] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that over 700 Wagner fighters have recently settled in the Tsel-Asipovichy area and that Belarusian authorities have formed three Belarusian special-purpose units to train under Wagner leadership in these training areas. [29] ... Wagner fighters will likely continue to redeploy to Belarus from training areas in Molkino and staging grounds elsewhere in Russia over the coming month. www.understandingwar.org/...
x Russian Sources are reporting that a 3M54-1 “Kalibr” Cruise Missile has Targeted the Large Commercial Port in the Ukrainian City of Odesa tonight, with a Pillar of Black Smoke seen coming from the Location after the Explosion; the Port of Odesa was the Primary Port during the… pic.twitter.com/Nc1oOMemhT — OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 18, 2023
www.understandingwar.org/... Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast) Russian forces conducted active offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove line and have likely made marginal tactical gains in this direction as of July 17. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that Russian forces have been advancing in the Kupyansk direction since the end of last week and are attacking Ukrainian positions near Masyutivka (13km northeast of Kupyansk) and Novoselivske (14km northwest of Svatove) in order to push Ukrainian forces across the Oskil River. [39] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations south of Masyutivka, ... ISW previously observed that Russian forces were drawing “Storm-Z” assault units to the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border area over the past month, and it appears as though Russian forces have launched small-scale localized offensives in this sector using “Storm-Z” elements in order to try and take advantage of Ukraine’s operational focus elsewhere along the front. [42] ISW previously assessed that “Storm-Z” units are largely ineffective in pursuing more than small-scale, tactical breakthroughs, and the launch of Russian offensive operations on this front is unlikely to capture significant territory due to the force composition and capacity of the Russian grouping in this area. [43] Russian forces continued limited ground attacks southwest and south of Kreminna on July 17. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian troops conducted unsuccessful offensive actions west of Dibrova (6km southwest of Kreminna) and east of Vesele (30km due south of Kreminna), and Malyar also noted that Russian forces continued unsuccessful attacks in the Serebrianske forest area (about 10km southwest of Kreminna). [44] www.understandingwar.org/... www.understandingwar.org/... Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian Objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas) Russian forces continued ground attacks around Bakhmut but did not make any confirmed gains in the area on July 17. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut), Hryhorivka (8km northwest of Bakhmut), Ivanivske (6km west of Bakhmut), Kurdiumivka (12km southwest of Bakhmut), and Bohdanivka (5km northwest of Bakhmut). [46] Russian sources also claimed that Russian forces are drawing reserves to Bakhmut and counterattacking on the flanks in order to restore lost positions. ...Footage published by the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) on July 17 purportedly shows unspecified VDV units using flamethrowers to repel Ukrainian forces attempting to enter the outskirts of Bakhmut. [48] Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area on July 17 and have likely made limited gains. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that Ukrainian forces have advanced in unspecified locations on the southern flank of Bakhmut. [52] www.understandingwar.org/... www.understandingwar.org/... www.understandingwar.org/... Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes) Ukrainian forces continued ground attacks and advanced near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia administrative border on July 17. Geolocated footage posted on July 17 shows Ukrainian forces reaching the outskirts of Staromayorske (about 8km south of Velyka Novosilka), before Russian active elastic defensive maneuvers pushed them back to previous lines. [61] ...Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported that Ukrainian troops continue successful counteroffensive operations in the Berdyansk (western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia oblast) direction, specifically south of Velyka Novosilka near Makarivka, Staromayorske, and Novodarivka. [63] Russian forces conducted limited counterattacks in western Donetsk Oblast on July 17. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces attacked towards northern Staromayorske. [64] www.understandingwar.org/... www.understandingwar.org/...
x Even before the unilateral termination of the deal by Russia, few ships were making it through the choke point in Istanbul, reportedly due to RF inspectors slowing their work. My video from last week shows no ships on the Odesa horizon. Normally there’s up to a half dozen… pic.twitter.com/bRVRIgLIEE — Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) July 17, 2023
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