Ukraine War, 6–7 April, 2022
Good morning everybody,
Good morning everybody,
and a ‘special good morning’ to all the experts in France, Italy, and USA, copy-pasting up to 80% of my summaries and then publishing them as your own work in daily newspapers and specialised press, without a beep about the actual source!
(It’s nothing short of amazing to see what kind of people became experts in the Russian Air-Space Force and its operations in Ukraine, since I’m publishing my summaries….)
Here’s my summary on Ukraine War for 6 and 7 April, 2022.
CAA — Combined Arms Army (Russia)
BTG — Battalion Tactical Group (700–800 troops, Russia)
CBU — cluster bomb units
GCAA — Guards Combined Arms Army (Russia)
GMRD — Guards Motor Rifle Division (Russia)
GTA — Guards Tank Army (Russia)
GTD — Guards Tank Division (Russia)
Keystone Cops in Moscow — Ministry of Defence (Russia)
KIA — killed in action
LOC — Line of Control (old frontline between Ukraine and Separatists in the Donbass)
MBT — main battle tank
Mech — Mechanised Brigade (Ukraine)
MIA — missing in action
MRB — Motorised Rifle Brigade (Russia)
MRD — Motorised Rifle Division (Russia)
PMC — private military company/contractor
RFA — Russian Federation Army
South OSK — Southern Military District (Russia)
Tank — Tank Brigade (Ukraine)
TR — Tank Regiment (Russia)
VKS — Vozdushno-kosmicheskiye sily (Air-Space force, Russia)
West OSK — Western Military District (Russia)
WIA — wounded in action
STRATEGIC
Essentially, all of Ukraine from Poliske (130km north-west of Kyiv) to Velyka Pysarivka (50km south-east of Sumy) is free of Russian occupators — but the battle for south-eastern Ukraine continues to heat up. Unsurprisingly, on 5 April the Ukrainian government has requested all the citizens of the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblast to evacuate, ‘immediately’.
Since yesterday, NATO is discussing ‘possible delivery’ of heavy weapons to Ukraine. I do not feel free to go into details (and not everything I’ve heard and seen in this regards is ‘1000% confirmed’), but I find all the related discussions quite pointless, considering deliveries of heavy wepaons by the NATO to Ukraine are going on already since early March. Thus, I’ll abstain from further commentary in this regards.
AIR
Since 4 April, the VKS — which has evacuated most of its aircraft and at least 20 out of 150 helicopters from air bases in Belarus to air bases in south-eastern Russia over the last week — is flying about 320–350 sorties a day, almost exclusively against targets in the Kharkiv-Izium-Luhansk-Donbas areas. Primary aimpoints are command posts, POL-depots and logistics depots, but the top of Keystone Cops in Moscow (Konashenko) is regularly reporting up to 20 air strikes on ‘strongholds’ and ‘areas of concentration of Armed Forces of Ukraine’ — and that almost every single day. Yesterday, the VKS also bombed the Lozov Railway junction (supposedly targeting ‘foreign-made equipment and weapons’), and the Izium-Slavyansk branch, both of which are used to evacuate civilians (but also bring in Ukrainian reinforcements and supplies).
After something like a ‘break’ in such operations for about one or two days, on 6 April, the Keystone Cops in Moscow claimed strikes with ‘high-precision air- and ground-based missiles’ — see: air-launched cruise- and ground-based ballistic missiles — against POL storage sites in Radekhov, Kazatin, Prosyanaya, Mykolaiv, and Novomoskovsk, a strike on one of Ukrainian Osa-AK SAM-sites, five logistics warehouses and eleven strongholds. Yesterday, the Keystone Cops claimed the ‘destruction of a concentration of military equipment’ at the Novograd-Vlynsky railway station, in the Zhytomir area: supposedly, this ‘destroyed reserves intended for the transfer to a group of Ukrainian forces in the Donbas.
Atop of this, photographs (see above) have surfaced shown an ancient FAB-3000M-46 bomb about to be loaded into one of Tupolev Tu-22M3 bombers of the VKS (probably at the Dyagilevo AB). This requires some attention and explanation.
Tu-22M3 (ASCC/NATO-codename ‘Backfire’) is a well-known medium bomber from the 1970s and 1980s. Back then, the US Navy was considering it a main threat for its carrier battle groups in northern Atlantic and northern Pacific (with hindsight, it can be said this was a much exaggerated concern). More recently, in 2015–2016, Tu-22M3s were deployed (via Iran and Iraq) to strike…. well, whatever the Russians considered ‘targets’ in north-eastern Syria. Always with ‘dumb’ bombs, of course. There are rumors about Tu-22M3s of the VKA flying strikes on Mariupol already since early March, but it’s only since yesterday that there is visual evidence for this.
What is so ‘special’ now is the weapon used: the FAB-3000M-46 is little else but ‘ancient’. As indicated by the sufix of its designation, it was developed immediately after the end of the Second World War, and then for deployment from contemporary, piston-engined, subsonic aircraft. While a massive shape (weighting 3,000kg or about 6,000lbs), it contains ‘only’ about 1,400kg of obsolete explosives. Foremost: it has a relatively thin casing: one not suitable for deployment from fast jets — even less so from Tu-22M3s, which can fly at supersonic speeds, too (above Mach 1). Indeed, I’m very surprised to see the VKS considers it
a) safe to ‘re-activate’ and deploy FAB-3000M-46s after these have spent some 70+ years in storage, and,
b) to deploy thin-cased bombs from supersonic bombers…
And yet, unofficial Russians sources do claim the weapon was deployed to strike the (ruins of) Azovstal factory in Mariupol… for ‘tankers’ reading this: deploying FAB-3000M-46s from Tu-22 would be like if the RFA would have pulled some of ISU-152 assault guns from museums, and deployed them for providing direct-fire-support of its troops in Ukraine…
(BTW, claims along which the last time the Russians deployed such massive free-fall bombs was in Afghanistan of the 1980s are a nonsense: the last time they deployed them was over north-eastern Syria of early 2016. The only difference is that at the time they were using more recent FAB-3000M-54s, which have a reinforced casing, making them suitable for deployment from aircraft like Tu-22M3. Similar is valid for explanations that the use of FAB-3000M-46s against such targets like the Azovstal factory in Mariupol are ‘no good idea’: such weapons were made for precisely such targets.)
Another ‘new’ weapon reportedly deployed by the VKS in Ukraine is slightly more modern: the UPAB-1500V guided bomb, weighting 1,525kg (including 1,010kg of explosives). Develloped by the Tactical Missile Corporation (aka KTRV) in the early 2000s, the UPAB-1500 is an electro-optically-guided glide-bomb, roughly a pendant to the (40+ years-old) US-made GBU-15. Back at the time the KTRV put its prototype on display (in around 2005), it claimed it as intended for deployment from Su-34s and Tu-22M3s, but I’m not sure if the latter were ever suitably modified.
NORTH-EAST
The Russians have repaired the railway connecting Kursk and Voronezh with Kupiansk, and are now using the same to bring in reinforcements and supplies to the Izium area. Not sure any more if I’ve mentioned it, but if not: it was in this way they brought a BTG of the 38th MRB all the way from Far East.
Kharkiv was bombed and shelled 48 times yesterday, but the Ukrainians are reporting the liberation of the town of Malynivka, east of Chuhuiv, five kilometres down the E40 and P07 highways. While certainly a nice success, I consider this too little to impress the Russian commanders further east….
While the mass of Western observers is still announcing a ‘super-big’ Russian offensive in north-eastern and eastern Ukraine for sometimes the next week, this operation remains in full swing for days already. The 1st GTA and the 20th CAA continued pushing south of Izium: they have taken Brazhkivka on 5 April, and a day later the 13th TR re-attacked Sulyhivka while the 237th TR re-attacked Dovhenke, and the fighting for both villages is going on — indicating that the Ukrainians have deployed reinforcements there. The 95th Airborne continued defending Sviatohirsk and nearby Tykhotske (half of which should be in Russian hands, though).
EAST
In the east — i.e. along the LOC — the Russians now seem to be primarily deploying their ‘cannon fodder’. That is: units of what the Keystone Cops in Moscow refer to as
1st Combined Army (‘Donetsk People’s Republic’) and
2nd Combined Army (‘Luhanks People’s Republic’).
Combined, the two might boast a total of around 30 BTGs, though earlier in this war only eight of these have been positively identified: considering all the re-activation of local reserves, it is likely that both the 1st and 2nd CA are now at ‘full strength’.
In combat, they are used to assault the Severodonetsk area, most of all. There, two or three BTGs — supported by artillery of such RFA units like the 4th MRB — claimed to have breached the defences of the Ukrainian 57th Motor, and reached the outskirts of Zamulovka, on 6 April. Furthermore, they claimed to have breached the defences of the Ukrainian 24th Mech and reached Novotoshkivske. Finally, there’s no doubt that the Russia-supported Separatists are inside Popasna. With other words: the 8th CAA is pushing here along two prongs (P66 and T0504 roads), over something like 30km width.
In the Horlivka area, Ukrainians have counterattacked and recovered a part of Panteleimonivka, but the Keystone Cops now claim the 1st CA to have have taken Novobakhmutivka, few kilometres south.
MARIUPOL
Ukrainian garrison has turned down another — I think: fourth in total — Russian offer to lay down their arms. The Russian social media is explaining this with ‘Azov hordes hoping to be evacuated by helicopters’ (quasi in order to avoid ‘being left for slaughter’). In reality, Ukraine Air Force continues maintaining an air bridge to Mariupol: operating at high speeds and critically low altitudes (essentially ‘in between’ of trees and buildings), Mi-8 helicopters are bringing in supplies (ammo, food, water, but also NLAWs), and evacuating wounded. On 4 April, the Keystone Cops in Moscow claimed the destruction of another two Mi-8s that ‘tried to evacuate the leaders of the Azov Battalion’ — both by ‘man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems’. So far, they’ve shown no evidence for this.
Inside the city, the 8th CAA seems to have replaced the ‘crack’ 150th MRD with the militia of the 1st CA (i.e. yet more cannon fodder from the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’) and Chechens, and is supporting these by self-propelled heavy artillery — like 2S3 Akatsiya howitzers calibre 152mm — in direct-fire-support. Over the last two days, the Separatists should have captured the building of the regional SBU (near the Drama Theatre), and might have established fire-control over the Metalurhiv Avenue, thus de-facto ‘connecting’ this area with the Kalmuskyi District Building, further north. If so, then the garrison is now split into two (with the 36th Marines holding the northern part of the city, and the Azov, 56th Motor and 12th National Guard holding the rest of the city).
SOUTH
On 5 and 6 April, the Ukrainians have liberated villages of Dobryanka, Novovoznenske, Trudoliubivka, and Osokorovka (all about 70–80km south of Kryvyi Rih), possibly encircling (or about to encircle) a BTG from the 11th VDV Brigade and the 126th Naval Infantry Brigade each, north of the Kozatke area. The 49th CAA seems to be counterattacking with elements of the 205th MRB, from the south, and neither side released any related reports the last 36 hours, indicating the battle is still going on (and then with results not satisfactory for either side).
In the Kherson area: seems, the Ukrainians have spent the last two days with consolidating positions they’ve reached during the fighting on 4 and 5 April. Apparently, they have secured Oleksandrivka (there are two of these: this one is west of the Kherson)and Shyroka Balka, but had to withdraw from Tomyna Balka and Sofivka.