Ukraine War, 14 and 15 May 2022
Good morning everybody!
Good morning everybody!
STRATEGIC
On Saturday, 14 May, it was the 80th day of Putin’s planed two-weeks-special-operation… The pearl of the day was delivered by the Keystone Cops in Moscow when, obviously in reaction to all the reporting about destruction of their XYth bridgehead on Siversky Donets, they claimed to have destroyed an Ukrainian bridge and a bridgehead (official Keystone Cops website is hard to reach, these days, thus here a link to one of websites forwarding their reports).
BTW, for days already, I’ve been asked by different people from Arab countries if German authorities have really ‘recommended the population to stock up on water and food’. Meanwhile, even the Russian media is reporting something similar. Sure, I can’t say I’m following any German media at all, but — and to close this issue once and for all — at least I do have enough contacts in Germany to say: this is simply nonsense. Should there be any doubts, ask one of many Germans reading this.
Actual problem is this: while the supply with food in the West is no problem at all, Russia is blockading Ukrainian ports and thus wheat exports to Africa and parts of Asia in particular. Furthermore, Russia is currently busy stealing hundreds of thousands of tons of Ukrainian wheat from parts of the country it has occupied by now. Moreover, India stopped exporting wheat because it was hit by a terrible heat wave (temperatures of 50°C and more).
Result: supply of wheat to most of Africa (especially Egypt and Ethiopia are heavily dependent on Ukraine) and parts of Asia — curiously: people in many of countries there seem to be something like ‘big Putin fans’, and expecting him to ‘liberate them from Western imperialism’ — is under such a big question mark, that there are serious concerns about a possible famine.
AIR
Sometimes during 14 May, the VKS was busy trying to track down and destroy a Ukrainian S-300/SA-10 SAM-site that was recently deployed in the Sumy area. Eventually, they claimed the destruction of its early warning radar and two launchers. In turn, the Ukrainians claimed one of involved VKS fighter-bombers as shot down, and reported that two missiles hit the village of Shpilevka, causing material damage, but no casualties. It seems that both sides fired quite a few missiles, hit nothing but, well, the illusion that ‘every missile fired is a hit’ remains quite widespread.
Early on 15 May, the Keystone Cops in Moscow claimed to have hit Ukraine with 17 ‘high-precision air-based missiles’ on the previous day. Perhaps I’ve missed something but I’ve found no Ukrainian reports indicting any kind of such attacks: indeed, it appears as if the Russians didn’t fire a single missile into the depth of Ukraine for something like 24–36 hours — before returning to that aspect of their special failure.
Early in the morning of 15 May, four missiles have hit (and, reportedly: ‘completely destroyed’) an unknown military base in the Yavoriv district, near the border to Poland. Around the noon, two cruise missiles approached the Lviv area from the direction of the Black Sea: both were claimed as shot down. Late in the evening, Ukrainian air defences claimed to have shot down a missile approaching the Kirovohrad area.
In turn, the reinforced air defences of the RFA in the Kherson area have claimed to have shot down a single Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missile on 14 May, and those inside Russia claimed one shot down over the Sumy area, on 15 May.
Ukrainians claimed one VKS fighter jet (unclear if they mean Su-30 or Su-34) as shot down on 14 May, and two helicopters (Ka-52 and Mi-28N) as on 15 May. About a dozen of Russian UAVs were claimed as shot down on these two days, too.
Ah yes… and the RUMINT has it, an unknown crew of a VKS MiG-31 was officially decorated for downing an Ukrainian Su-24M fighter-bomber — at an unknown date.
If truth, this would’ve been the first combat deployment and the first aerial victory by the MiG-31.
BATTLE OF DONBASS
Almost forgot to mention it: although the RFA has rushed the BTG of the 200 Motor Rifle Brigade (bushwacked by Ukrainians already back in March) to the battlefield north of Kharkiv, few days ago, yesterday, 15 May, the Ukrainian 92nd Mech has breached Russian lines between Ternova and the Siversky Donets, and reached the Russian border. If it takes Ternova as next — which is to be expected — then the RFA positions between that village and the E105 highway west of it are going to become untenable.
While the Ukrainians are announcing their offensive in the Izium area (but not supporting this with any kind of details), the Keystone Cops in Moscow announced an offensive of their VDV troops in the Donbass area, and a video was released shown Terminator AFVs somewhere in the Severodonetsk area.
Indeed, it seems that sometimes during the last week, the Ukrainians lost Dovhenke, and the Russians are meanwhile pushing on Bohorodychne.
By now it does seem like the RFA’s attack over the Siversky Donets was brought to a halt: not sure if all the 3–4 bridgeheads were completely eliminated, but at least the’ve suffered such losses that they can’t keep on assaulting south of the river. Instead, the 239th Guards Tank Regiment and the 228th Motor Rifle Regiment (both are from the 90th Guards Tank Division) are attacking Lyman.
In turn, that converted their capture of Popasna by the Wagner and the 150th Motor Rifle Division into the new Schwerpunkt, i.e. primary effort of the RFA. Reinforced by two BTGs of Naval Infantry, the Russians have entered Komyshuvakha (north of Popasna) and are pushing on Druzhba (west of Popasna).
Further south down the LOC, there are reports about Russian attacks north and south of Avidiivka: apparently, the northern prong of this pincer attack is run by the 3rd Motor Rifle Brigade in the Novoselivka Druha area; the southern by the Separatists and the 60th Motor Rifle Brigade in the Pisky area (along the southern side of the Donetsk airport).
There’s a growing number of reports about the Ukrainians in the Severodonetsk area being short on artillery ammunition: might explain certain of Russian advances. In turn, the Russians are complaining about their commanders doing everything possible to increase their losses.
….or at least some of Russians are complaining that way. Others are complaining about Ukrainians. Like, for example, an article about experiences of a Russian tank commander that can be found here. Reading between the lines, it transpires that the Ukrainians are very unfair cowards, not engaging in tank battles at all, just running away. While running away, they are unfairly targeting supply columns, regularly letting Russian tanks to run out of ammunition or fuel. If there is an engagement then at ranges of 3,000–4,000 metres, with Ukrainians targeting RFA’s tanks by Stugna-P and Javelin anti-tank guided missiles. That is unfair because Javelins are made in the USA.
Then the Ukrainians target them by artillery, which is unfair because Ukrainian artillery spotters are using ‘NATO-standard’ the Krapiva automatic tactical management system (ATMS), which is including laser-rangers that are providing GPS-coordinates (hear, hear… wasn’t it so that somebody bragged — or complained — that all the GPS in Ukraine is severely disturbed?): coordinates are ‘automatically’ forwarded to artillery units. And, imagine, these nifty Ukrainians are ‘ambushing’ and ‘sabotaging’ their columns, and always first targeting medical vehicles so that the wounded cannot be evacuated… which means it is Ukrainian unfairness which is responsible for the mass of RFA’s casualties, no all-out attacks regardless the price. Simply unfair and non-cooperative, through and through, these Ukrainians…
Since I’m digressing into discussing ATMS’ (I know: many dislike me ‘getting too technical’, but can’t help it: modern warfare is dominated by technology): actually, it’s so that it’s the Keystone Cops in Moscow who are dreaming about having such systems — and then already since the 1950s. Because all generals — not only Russian — are all day-dreaming about ‘fighting battles per remote control’ since ages already.
Now, the Russian (i.e.: at earlier times: the Soviet) problem was always the lack of advanced high-tech: their early ATMS’ — like Vozdukh, just for example, which was coordinating the work of 2–3 air defence divisions, back in the 1960s — were based on ‘computers’ the size of an average family home, yet was capable of coordinating simultaneous operations only against 41, then 82 targets.
In Syria, back in 2015, the Russians were bragging a lot about their Metronome ATMS. This in turn prompted lots of usual sensationalising in the West. However, already at the time it became obvious that the system was limited to use by the VKS and heavily dependent on near-perfect function of the GLONASS satellite positioning system. Much of the GLONASS was still in disrepair even as of 2015, even more so over Syria. Thus, the RFA was forced to deploy dozens of so-called differential stations (essentially: a mast enhancing and correcting the signal from the satellite navigation system) — and that for a battlefield, essentially, some 60 by 50 kilometres in size (northern Lattakia and western Idlib). With this still proving insufficient, the VKS ended flying that campaign on basis of coordinates collected by communication intelligence and photo-reconnaissance by old aircraft like Antonov An-30 and (Syrian) Su-22M-4s equipped with KKR-1 reconnaissance pods. It rarely operated with help of forward air/artillery controllers.
Rather unsurprisingly, by around 2017, the Metronome ATMS was, reportedly, concluded for ‘near useless’ and replaced by…. ‘something better’.
What exactly was that ‘something better’ remains unclear to me — because reports are much too contradictive. For example, already in 2014, the VNII Signal announced its Kapustnik/Kapustnik-B ATMS (supposedly under development since 1993–1994), and more recently there was some talk about systems named Constellation and Sozvezdie. What and how much of all of this was really introduced to service with the RFA remains unclear. If you check my earlier reporting, you can find a video supposedly released by the Keystone Cops and supposedly shown forward air/artillery controllers of the 150th Motor Rifle Division operating something of this kind in Mariupol. However, that was an official release: all one gets to hear from the frontlines (and then the Russian side of the frontlines) is that the coordination between the RFA’s ground troops, artillery, and VKS is extremely poor, and no forward controllers are present at all.
….and, well, gauging by maps, seems the battlefield in Ukraine is about 10 times bigger than that in north-western Syria where the Russians were seriously involved, back in 2015–2017. Thus, it could be the actual problem is once again the same: ‘that’ with GLONASS coverage.
Geography… meh… why should anybody care about it — especially on a modern battlefield…?
MARIUPOL
Since Saturday, 14 May, the Russians are deploying incendiary ammunition to target the Azovstal complex. The defenders there are holding out, no matter what — and indeed: it turns out their losses since withdrawal into the complex are ‘relatively light’ (from my POV, not one loss is ‘light’, actually): 15 killed in 1,5 months. But, they have a growing number of wounded to care about, which is even more complex because the Russians are constantly targeting the local hospital. Negotiations about their possible withdrawal are going on, still with lots of Turkish involvement (it’s going to sound strange to many, but Erdogan is one of Putin’s closest friends: as reported already back in March, they’re talking on the phone several times a week).
SOUTH
Generally, the frontlines were ‘quiet’, the last three days — down to sporadic shelling. For example, during the night from 14 to 15 May, the RFA shelled Shyrokiv, south of Kryvyi Rih with BM-27s. I consider this for unsurprising: the 58th CAA is bogged down south of Orikhiv and in the Velyka Novosilka area, east of Dnipro. The main concentration of 49th CAA, west of Dnipro, is north of Kherson, but obviously unable to do more but keep Ukrainians on their toes. Both sides lack troops and supplies for ‘more’.