Ukraine War, 8 September 2024: Part 1
Hello everybody!
While waiting for ‘news to settle down’ and get cross-confirmed, too, have made an ‘operational pause’, the last few days. Didn’t help much, though: to say I’m growing frustrated, furious - and particularly sarcastic - would be an understatement. Thus, my recommendation: whoever has problems with sarcasm, do both of us a favour and stop reading right here.
Thanks a lot.
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STRATEGIC
After Reuters – which is ‘reporting’ about this for years already – meanwhile also Bloomberg is full of news about Iranian-made tactical ballistic missiles being sold to Russia for operations against Ukraine. So much so, reportedly, even some of (anonymous, like always) ‘Ukrainian officials’ should be extremely upset about such reports. And they are threatening Iran with retaliations. Which reminds me that already since February, I owe you the rest of that story: i.e. an explanation why do I think that’s not going to happen any time soon. Must catch with that in the coming week….
For the time being, must keep you happy with other reasons for my…. ‘happiness’, and ‘delight’… Indeed: there’s a big party on my yacht in Monte Carlo, going on for a week already.
Reason?
The Trio Fantasticus is so concerned about the safety and well-being of the Russian Su-34s and their air bases inside Russia that it continues banning Ukraine from deploying ATACMS ballistic missiles against these. Meanwhile, even if it would let the Ukrainians use such US-made tactical ballistic missiles against targets inside Russia, the Trio Fantasticus has bought enough time for the VKS to withdraw all of its Su-34-units (plus all the VKS’ Su-24-units) outside ATACMS-range.
Why?
OK, I’m certified as having no clue about diplomacy, but let me explain you: because for the zombie idiots of the Trio Fantasticus, the safety of the Russian bombers (that are regularly massacring Ukrainian civilians) is a more pressing issue (than the safety of Ukrainian civilians). Is also the reason why they – and all of the other zombie idiots in the West – continue dragging feet with deliveries of surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine, and that at every opportunity…
Above all of that, for the zombie idiots in question, everything is better – especially prolonging this war – than doing what’s necessary to end it. Because endless war are the best for profit. That’s nothing personal. Just business…
Now you know better.
But hey: Van der Leyen has granted €40 million for repairs of the Ukrainian power-supply infrastructure. Arguably, this is such a massive sacrifice, all of the EU is now going to have nothing to eat, and will be freezing, this winter, but hey… I simply love our President of the EU Commission: right now, no other politician excelling more in double standards and hypocrisy is coming to my mind.
Lets change the topic before I get really mad… because there’s also no reason to be mad: there was another NATO-Ukraine meeting in Rammstein, and now everything’s fine. After all, Madrid is sending another MIM-23 SAM-site to Ukraine, Italy is sending another SAMP-T SAM-site, the USA are going to donate another 200 M113s, and Germany no less than 12 PzH2000s… and thus, the issue of Ukrainian air defences is going to be solved, once and for all… especially with help of M113s and Panzerhaubitze 2000s…. and whenever anything of this reaches Ukraine…. sometimes in 2025 or so…
Which is reminding me that this week the People in Need of fresh Air (the Pentagon) have announced they’re going to find a solution for replacing Ukrainian S-300 SAMs, and R-27 air-to-air missiles. Took them only between 2,5 and 10,5 years to figure out there’s a need for such replacements.
But, that was not the reason. The actual reason for this descision is that even they have meanwhile figured out the Ukrainian Luch design bureau has suitable projects on its drawing boards since years, researched and developed, and now only needs money to press them into production – probably by Artyom Works. Therefore, both the Pentagon and NATO have concluded the obvious: there is an urgent need to prevent Ukrainian defence sector from growing.
Why and what do I mean?
Imagine the mess if the Ukrainians develop their own replacements for S-300s and their own long-range air-to-air missiles?!? And ballistic missiles, too…? The Trio Fantasticus – and whatever might follow starting with January 2025 – would have nothing left with which to blackmail Kyiv any more. Worse yet: Kyiv could come to the idea to press its own designs into series production, solve its problems with the lack of air defence missiles, the lack of long-range air-to-air missiles, the lack of ballistic missiles… and then, and as first, target Kremlin… where one would have expect it to do that as first, because that’s making so much sense at the time Ukraine is fighting a war for its naked survival.
…and that’s not to talk about an even bigger and far more urgent concern: whenever this war might be over, the Ukrainian defence sector would be a serious competition to the US defence sector.
This is something the USA cannot tolerate. After all, the Pentagon now has nearly 80 years of tradition of ruining the European defence sector. Therefore, such Ukrainian fantasies must be prevented. Regardless the cost. And, therefore, the glorious US defence sector is going to assume responsibility for such issues. Considering the fact that’s certain to include the likes of Boeing and Musk, we can expect the first flight testing of the US-made ‘Replacement S-300’ to take place already in 2035. Followed by the ‘US-made Replacement R-27’, in around 2040….by when they’re also going to find out the result is actually obsolete – though only amid at least 27 scandals regarding over-pricing, delays, corruption, incompetence, and the use of parts made in the PR China…
….while the ‘classic/regular’ Ukrainian defence sector is working so much better. For example, the last week, somebody asked something like why don’t the Ukrainians simply reverse-engineer the Russian UMPK glide bombs.
I’ve answered that there would be no point in just reverse engineering these, because the tactical situation resulting in attempts to deploy them the way the Russians must deploy their UMPKs (because these are crude and non-powered designs), would result in heavy losses for the PSU.
Well… meanwhile, I’ve been corrected. Mere 10,5 years since the Russian invasion of the Crimea and Donbas, just 2,5 years since the all-out Russian invasion, and only about a week since the dismissal of General ‘our holly US-American allies’ Oleschuk, the Ministry of Defence in Kyiv and the PSU seem to be on the way to catch with that part of the Ukrainian public clever enough to figure out the Trio Fantasticus’ concerns for the safety of the Russian bombers, and the general incompetence of the Western zombie idiots. Ended developing the first (genuinely) Ukrainian-designed precision guided bomb/missile. AFAIK, the weapon in question is using the warhead of the (Soviet-designed) FAB-250M-54 bomb: this has received an aerodynamic cover at the front, a set of flip-out wings at the top, and – and that’s something really different – what looks like a guidance- and power section at the rear, apparently including a rocket motor or even a small jet engine. Nobody would say anything about the latter, but the RUMINT has it that the range should be around 200km.
Another piece of RUMINT is that, late on Friday, or early on Saturday, either one of such weapons – or ‘just another’ of Ukrainian attack UAVs – blew up a Russian ammunition dump in Soldatskoye, in the Voronezh Oblast (reportedly: this contained a stock of North-Korean-made NK-23s, too). Of course, everybody is free to consider this another of spontaneous smoking accidents, so frequent in the Russian Federation of our days, too: after all, especially the Russians know that the Ukrainians could never do anything of this kind on their own…
….just imagine all the horrors the grandiose strategists in the White House must be going through, these days. I bet Sullivan has a problem with finding sleep at night…
That said, one might wonder how comes things of this kind take so long to develop… in Ukraine?
No idea. Can only offer another example. Since subjected to the control of the Zelensky Administration, the Ministry of Defence in Kyiv did it utmost not to finance the research and development of the Bohdana self-propelled howitzer.
Why?
It’s pure logic! So much so, can’t say!
Because the factory manufacturing Bohdanas is owned by Petro Poroshenko – and it so happens, he’s a businessman/oligarch, and a former president of Ukraine, and thus Zelensky’s political opponent. And so, at the time of the Russian all-out invasion and Putin’s war of extermination of Ukraine, the first prototype of Bohdana was laying disassembled, forgotten in some hall in Kramatorsk. Wasn’t it for somebody (well down the chain of command) to evacuate all of its pieces and then order their re-assembly, at own discretion – it would not have been used even during the operations to recover the Snake Island, back in summer 2022, not to talk about entering series production… (yes, Bohdana is meanwhile in series production, but only since Zelensky has found a way to exploit this fact for own PR-purposes).
I love this. There’s nothing like politicians and their own priorities at the time the country (which they’re supposed to administer ‘in interest of the people’) is facing a war of extermination…
….no idea why is it exactly at this point in time, a random thought came to my mind without any particular reason: is it me or is the conclusion on hand, that East European countries that are former members of the Warsaw Pact or even former parts of the USSR, and that have subsequently introduced constitutional republics as political system, instead of the scam ‘democracy through electing presidents that then rule as they like’ - are politically stable and doing better?
Why do I ask?
Oh, sorry… no particular reason. Was, really, just a random thought… in the case of doubt: I’m asking for a friend…
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AIR/MISSILE WAR
Through this week everybody involved was excelling. Ukrainian top commanders with never learning the lesson about avoiding to bunch too many of their people into one place within range of the Russian ballistic missiles; and with continuing to declare BM-30 artillery rockets for ‘S-300 SAMs’; and the Russians with not only striking big concentrations of Ukrainian troops behind the frontline, but also ever additional Ukrainian civilians.
And so…
3 September: two Russian ballistic missiles have hit the Military Institute of Communication and the 179th Joint Training Centre in Poltava. Now, what’s still unclear is the number of casualties: AFAIK, as of this morning, the official figure was at 58 killed and 328 wounded; however, back on 3 September, talk was already about 80 delivered to the local morgue… One way or the other, it’s infuriating to hear the ZSU’s generals are still so super-clever as to bunch this many troops in one spot within easy reach of the Russian missiles. Additionally, the PSU claimed to have shot down all 27 Shaheds detected, while two others disappeared over Russia and the occupied Donetsk.
4 September: 2 Kh-22, 11 Kh-101s, 3 Iskander-Ks, 29 Shaheds; 7 Kh-10s and 22 Shaheds claimed as shot down; six additional Shaheds claimed as crashed due to electronic warfare. Sumy was heavily hit (8 wounded), and a hotel in Kryvyi Rih demolished by another Russian missile (about a dozen of injured, but no fatalities).
5 September: 78 Shaheds, 1 Iskander-M; 60 Shaheds claimed as shot down.
6 September: at first, 27 Shaheds were reported as detected, and all 27 claimed as shot down; then the number of Shaheds claimed as shot down grew to 60, and the PSU added that 15 (‘others’?) crashed due to electronic countermeasures. Artoym Works in Kyiv were between targets of this strike. Five Shaheds and one cruise missile were claimed as shot down over Dnipro, and something is known to have been hit in Kryvyi Rih again. Additionally, the VKS is known to have heavily targeted the Sumy area with UMPKs.
7 September: 57 Shaheds: 58 claimed as shot down; the VKS has primarily targeted Pokrovsk with UMPKs.
8 September: 23 Shaheds and 1 Kh-59/69, of which 15 Shaheds and 1 Kh-59/69 were claimed as shot down. As far as is known, energy-related facilities were hit in six oblasts of Ukraine.
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(….to be continued…)
Sad to see that internal politics is a factor in Ukraine's weapons development and production when the stakes are so high.
Just as the fact that complaints from the Isolationists in the US on the amount of aid to Ukraine miss the facts that -
Don't know the current status, but in July, 2023 only about half of the promised heavy hardware had been delivered;
Values of the munitions shipped is undoubtedly calculated on replacement cost spent in the US economy and often for munitions that would have reached end of service life and would have had to be destroyed in some cases (at an additional cost) or refurbished.
Battlefield experience is pushing military strategy, tactics, end technology in rather new directions and areas.
Finally, the US military has had a rude awakening on just how much an actual ground war (rather than a 'police action') requires in reserves of ammunition leading to expansion of production facilities in the US - something that would have been a major shortfall were the feared 'War with China' to occur.
How could you miss the biggest reason for a party: Portugal has finished delivering 6 Ka-32 helicopters promised back in 2022!