Don's Weekly, 29 July: Part 4

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 3…)

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Mariinka

Russia is slowly and inevitably advancing through Krasnohorivka, but they must still transport infantry into the city and their vehicles still suffer damage.

The Russians assembled a force of 57 armored vehicles, 12 motorcycles and 200 infantry. Ukraine detected the large force and started to engage them at least 7 km behind the front lines with drones and artillery, and eventually mines and ATGMs. At least 6 tanks, 7 IFV/APCs and all 12 motorcycles were destroyed and 40 personnel were killed and 37 wounded. When the first wave was destroyed, the rest of the force retreated.

That was the largest attack in weeks. That said, there were other large attacks, too. From Mariinka to Vodiane, Russia suffered 55 vehicles damaged or destroyed. Russian infantry accompanied this attack, as well, and when they lost their transport they were hunted by drones for hours and suffered a lot of killed and wounded. In past wars, there are usually three wounded for every soldier that is killed. When Russian infantry lose their transports and are exposed in the open, the ratio is closer to only one wounded for each soldier killed.

Ukrainian artillery engages Russian assault groups as they approach Kostiantynivka. If you look at the map you’ll see that 21 vehicles were eventually damaged or destroyed there.

A couple weeks ago, a Ukrainian tank was hit by a drone and set on fire. The tank turned around and while it was moving towards friendly lines, the commander exited the turret and put out the fire with an extinguisher.

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Somewhere in Ukraine…

Video of a laser-guided Vampire SAM shooting down a Shahed drone. At $27,500, rockets of this kind are relatively cheap. The range of the rocket fired from a ground system has only been described as “far less” than the 5 km range when it is fired from a helicopter.

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Crimea

In 2018, Russia had four ferries in the Black Sea that could transport trains and rail cars by moving directly from the tracks to the ferry by a method called Roll On, Roll Off (RORO). In May of that year, one of those ferries, Annenkov, collided with a pier at Port Kavkaz but was found to be unharmed. Less than two months later, cargo from a rail car fell onto the deck, creasing the hull and tearing ten holes that caused the engine room to flood. After repairs, it continued in service but in 2020, leaks forced it to be beached at Aliaga on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

On October 8, 2022, a truck that was carrying explosives planted by Ukraine blew up while on the bridge. On the adjacent railway bridge, a train carrying fuel just happened to be traveling by and the fuel cars burned for hours after the blast. The heat from those fires permanently weakened the rail bridge even after it was repaired. In its weakened state, the bridge regularly supported passenger train traffic but the heavy loads of fuel cars rarely crossed the bridge anymore. Instead, the Russians would move the fuel cars to Port Kavkaz, load them on to the three remaining RORO train ferries and offload them at another port located 4.5 km across the Kerch Strait.

With Russian military vehicle traffic mostly using roads through Zaporizhzhia, and Russian rail traffic mostly using the rail ferries, the military importance of the Kerch bridge was reduced.

The Avangard (left), Conro Trader (center) and the oil tanks at Port Kavkaz (right) were attacked.

On 30 May 2024, the rail ferries Avangard and Conro Trader were both hit by ATACMS and damaged. The oil tanks at Port Kavkaz were also attacked and four tanks burned. Since its ability to transport oil across the Kerch strait was reduced by 66%, the Russians sent a train with oil cars over the Kerch bridge on June 9th. It was the first time they did that since February. The Kerch bridge became a little more important.

This left the Slavyanin as the only rail ferry left in the Black Sea. It was carrying cargo from Bulgaria to Turkey on November 8, 2023, when it collided with another ship, damaging its railing and its ballast tanks, which took on water. On July 23rd, it was hit by a aerial drone and damaged.

The railing and ballast tanks of the Slavyanin were damaged after colliding with a ship in 2023 (left). Then, on 23 July, it was hit by a drone (right).

Satellite image of damage to the Slavyanin.

There are not published estimates of how long it will take to repair the ferries, but until they are repaired, Russia lost one of its routes to deliver oil to Turkey, and it must deliver oil through Zaporizhzhia, within range of HIMARS/MLRS, or use the Kerch bridge.

NATO regularly sends manned and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft to the Black Sea. A month ago they sent a plane from the UK to the international waters of the Black Sea in order to locate the source of Russian electronic emissions and determine the type of device that sent the signals. Last week they sent another plane from the UK with two fighter escorts. NATO sent other aircraft to the Black Sea to provide more traffic for Russian radar operators. When the reconnaissance plane and its escorts approached Crimea, they turned off their transponders for 90 minutes as they likely came closer to locate Russian air defenses. The Russians scrambled an Su-27 to intercept but the reconnaissance team ignored it and completed its mission. The Russians know that NATO is passing on intelligence to Ukraine, saying that within two days after a reconnaissance flyby, Ukraine launches an attack against targets that have been located.

At the same time, Atesh - the Ukrainian resistance group in the occupied territories, report that Russia does not have enough air defenses to protect the entire Crimean peninsula so they are focusing on the defense of the Kerch bridge.

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Ukraine

In occupied Mariupol, a Russian report said that a couple offered Russian soldiers watermelon to thank them for their service. It was laced with arsenic. 12 died and 4 ended up in the hospital. Russians report that since the beginning of May, 7 other soldiers in Mariupol died from poison, gunshot and stab wounds.

Last April, 4.2 million Ukrainian refugees were given another year’s extension to receive service from their host country and to work there, as well. Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic are where most of the refugees are located. In Poland, between 225-350,000 refugees are working, contributing an estimated 0.7-1.1% to Poland’s GDP. Six million Ukrainian refugees are located in Europe and 500,000 are located elsewhere. 10% of the refugees wish to settle outside Ukraine but 66% want to return home. Ukraine has a 35% energy deficit which causes both scheduled and unscheduled power outages. The aerial bombardments across the country also contribute to concerns about living in a war zone.

(…to be continued…)