Ukraine War, 27 February 2024

Good morning everybody!

Sorry for all the chaos regarding this update: was disturbed and clicked on ‘upload’ before it was ready. Still cleaning different issues, and adding details as I go.

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The (non-elected, rather ‘selected by oligarchy’) President of the EU Commission, and then the (elected… though no idea by whom) Prime Ministers of Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, and Italy, have all visited Kyiv, the last few days. Thanks whomever, they were then joined by the ex-British prime minister, too…

That itch in my small toe is telling me that the most likely reason is that they all need PR-points at home and thus a few ‘sexy photos with that sympathic guy in olive-green sweater from Ukraine everybody here in garden Europe likes’.

….and also because they’re convinced it’s only them who can babble Zelensky to death.

The super-incompetent in the Élysée - the character who, just a few years ago, was declaring NATO for surplus - didn’t even try to reach Kyiv: in typical fashion of a banker from the acquisition sector, he’s just babbling big announcements from afar. His newest, brilliant idea is something that Ukraine has never asked for: ‘deployment of Western troops in Ukraine’.

….probably because, you know, NATO troops lacking combat experience would do so much better than Ukrainians with 10 years of combat experience…

Alternatively, it could be we’re all just simply lucky, and he, Johnson, Fico, and few Polish generals recalled from retirement have decided to do everybody a big favour, and lead these foreign troops in person? Perhaps they are horny to teach Ukrainians about clearing Russian minefields and surviving near-constant air strikes by MPK/UMPK/KAB, too…?

Seriously now: the true tragedy in this story is that it’s far more likely, they are all just too incompetent to understand few simple things, and thus in need of help.

For example: that they need advice on what artillery shells are looking like?

If the latter, let me offer some help. Here, for those of Western politicians still not getting the message, this is what Ukraine needs:

….and this is what Ukraine DOES NOT need:

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….meanwhile, in the real world…

In the air, the Russians are keeping Ukraine under pressure by nightly attacks with up to a dozen of Shaheds, and very few cruise missiles. The ‘biggest news’ in this regards is that in the night from 25 to 26 February, most of Shaheds came in via the Moldovan airspace. The Russian Air-Space Force (VKS) has suffered a string of unpleasant losses, the last week. However,

a) because Ukrainian units like the PAC-2-equipped-, ‘Roaming 138th’ (Air Defence Brigade) can’t be everywhere at once (read: Ukraine is a huge country, the battlefield is huge, and such units are too few),

b) because Western Experten think the Russians ‘can’t do SEAD’ (read: they are seriously convinced the Russians can’t do, and never do ‘suppression of enemy air defence’ operations), while the GRU and VKS are running a ‘SEAD-operation’ already for days (and claiming, between others, ‘two Patriot systems plus two NASAMS-launchers, and S-300/SA-10 SAM-system each’ for destroyed),

c) and that so much so, in the light of Russian strikes by UAVs, BM-30 multiple-rocket launchers, and other means up to 50-80km behind Ukrainian frontlines, the SBU arrested a group of Ukrainian informants,

…the VKS is all the time continuing its strikes with MPK/UMPK/KAB glide bombs. By day and by night. With other words: even if Ukrainians might have really shot down as many of its Su-34s and Su-35s as they claim (and most of which was meanwhile confirmed; see the illustration below), it was still not enough.

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On the ground, and as described earlier, after realising that the ZSU is facing a critical shortage of artillery ammunition (and that’s unlikely to change before April – at earliest), over the last 6-7 weeks the Russians have re-focused their efforts from exercising their pressure on as many (6-7) points along the frontline, to just three areas: Bakhmut, Avdiivka-Shakhtarsk, and Robotyne. See: have replaced mauled units with fresh ones, and then assaulted again.

….and that so much so, one can meanwhile read their realisations that ‘now is the time’ (to attack, because Ukrainians are out of artillery ammo), even in the Russian social media. One conclusion is unavoidable: one cannot deny that even the Russians happy to follow Pudding, and volunteering to get slaughtered by thousands in Ukraine are cleverer than the politicians in charge of major powers of the ‘United States of Absurdistan’…

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Bakhmut… as of early 26 February, Russian assaults on Bohdanivka and Ivanivske were converted into a massive bloodbath, with fields east of either village rapidly filling with charred remains of armoured vehicles and hundreds of corpses of the VDV. Sure, the troops of the 98th VDV Division and the 11^th VDV Brigade have established themselves in the eastern outskirts of Ivanivske, but, they can’t move further west from there.

The reason is that between Bohdanivka, via Ivanivske, down to Klischchivka in the south, the ZSU has arrayed elements of the 56^th Motor, 42^nd Mech, 93^rd Mech, 5^th Assault, and 92^nd Assault (former 92^nd Mech), plus 241^st TD Brigade, three UAV-units, the 17^th Tank, and one artillery brigade. That is something the VDV cannot overcome on its own - and that although enjoying clear superiority in artillery - which is why the VKS continues heavily bombing Chasiv Yar in the rear, too.

Avdiivka & Shakhtarsk… On 25 February, the 47th Mech (ZSU) has lost its first M1A1 Abrams. This was knocked out by the troops of the Russian 15th Motor-Rifle Brigade, by a combination of FPV-drones and RPGs, about 2 kilometres east of Stepove, during one of local counterattacks.

Further south, from 24 to 26 February, in the light of Russian assaults from the area of Krasnohorivka (run by the 15^th and 21^st Motor-Rifle Brigades) and Avdiivka (see the list of units below), the ZSU withdrew its troops from several points, ‘trading space for time’. For example, the two battalions of the 3^rd Assault involved in the evacuation of Avdiivka - and which were actually supposed to withdraw from this sector entirely - have manwhile been re-deployed into the new defence line, constructed along the line connecting villages of Berdychy (west of Stepove), Semenivka, Umanske, and Yasnobrodivka (5-10km west from the current frontline). Similarly, the 53^rd Mech, which held the line as the 3^rd was marching West, fell back to Tonenke, to avoid an encirclement: namely, the Russian ‘banzai-attacks’ in direction of that village – and that simultaneously from the East and South, were threatening to cut-off Ukrainian positions in Lastochkyne and Sieverne. That’s why on 24-25 February, the VSRF (30^th, 35^th, 55^th, and 74^th Motor-Rifle Brigades) have captured the latter two villages, followed – by the morning of 26 February – by Tonenke as well. From Tonenke, Lastochkyne and the Coke Plant in Avdiivka, the Russians then began assaulting Orlovka, from East and South.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the PSU claimed another Su-34 bomber shot down, somewhere in the Avdiivka area, this morning (confirmation is pending).

Approximate flow of developments west of Avdiivka of the last three days. As of this morning, Ukrainians are still holding Orlivka and Tonenke, but must be expected to withdraw to the newly-constructed defence line stretching from Berdychi in the north of Yasnobrodivka in the south. The local counterattack of the 47th Mech north of Stepove probably served the purpose of distracting the Russians and buying time while units further south were withdrawing.

Robotyne… as reported already late on 24 February, by the morning of 26 February, it was confirmed that the Russians withdrew from southern Robotyne. They were swarmed by so many Ukrainian FPV-drones, that they couldn’t hold even a single position: the ZSU (33^rd and 65^th Mech) assumed all of its original positions. A Russian attempt to reinforce ended in the fashion visible here, and on the video-still attached below. Russian contacts are confirming that the group of ZSU forces holding the frontline south-east of Robotyne (elements of the 1^st Tank, 14^th Assault, 82^nd Airborne, 118th Mech, Kara-Dag etc.) have not only held their positions, but even recovered the terrain lost the last week.