Ukraine War, Q&A Session for June, 20224, Part 4
Hello everybody!
A brief update for the start…
Another Ukrainian ATACMS strike on positions of the 31st Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade VKS, in the occupied Crimea, hit yet another S-300 surface-to-air missile site (SAM-site) – this time in the Balbek area. Blew up a 92N6E radar, a BAZ-6303 tractor, and a 51P6 launcher.
In Vovchansk yesterday, the Russians reinforced their troops through the deployment of the Aida Group (Chechens) and then launched a local counterattack from the area of the School No. 2 and Kindergarten No. 6: this was repelled by artillery and FPVs.
There were similar Russian assaults almost everywhere along the frontline, but most were repelled. Sadly, there were four exceptions, too:
a) The Russians seem to have secured most of Novooleksandrivka (northern Avdiivka-Pokrovsk Sector). Indeed, they’re meanwhile pushing further north and west, around the sides of this village and along the railway berm south of it;
b) A big, three-prong mechanised attack on Novoselivka Persha (central Avdiivka-Pokrovsk Sector): it didn’t manage to reach the village, but that’s going to happen in the coming days;
c) Massive infantry attacks on Karlivka (southern Avdiivka-Pokrovsk Sector), and
d) the Russians have managed to secure Heorhivka (west of Mariinka); i.e. the ZSU failed to recover its positions in that village on time.
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To get back to answering diverse of your questions…
1.) How to interpret/understand Putin’s latest conditions for a cease-fire, in which he demands Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson, plus Ukraine not to join NATO etc.?
On one side, this is the usual Russian method of negotiations: demand the maximum, then see what you get. Some are falling for it (good example is Erdogan, when ‘negotiating’ with Putin regarding Idlib, back in March 2020): fewer in numbers are those clever enough to know this doesn’t mean anything final.
However, on the other hand: yes, this does mean that Putin remains insistent on his illusions. This because his forces might be in control over something like 95% of Luhansk, but are still not in control of more than 60% of Donetsk, and even less so of all of Zaporizhzhya and Kherson (indeed, he’s lost the northern half of the Kherson Oblast almost as soon as annexing it to the Russian Federation, back in 2022).
….and, if nothing else…. well, there you have them: Pudding’s plans for this war. See: secure all of these four Ukrainian oblasts.
Right now, the point is: he knows that Ukraine is never going to accept such conditions. But, he also knows that there are enough Zombie Idiots in the West who are going to seriously consider his ‘offer’. With other words: he’s trying to saw disagreement between Ukraine and its western allies pending the coming NATO meeting and that ‘peace conference’ in Switzerland.
Bottom line: my advice is the ‘usual one when it comes to Putin’. Read: ignore.
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2.) What happened with Ukraine’s Ballistic Missile Program?
Cool question!
Ironically, most of what I happen to ‘know’ (which is next to nothing, which in turn is the primary reason why am I emphasising this question) about this topic – is based on what I’ve got to hear from contacts in the Russian Federation.
According to them, Ukraine launched a project to reverse engineer the Iskander-M (aka 9M723 or 9M723K1 missiles) already in 2014. This ended nowhere: appears to have been cancelled for the lack of money and because there were other priorities. Instead, the Ukrainians ‘only’ focused on overhauling some 500 9M79 Tochka-U missiles inherited from the USSR in 1991, and/or making new transporter/erector/launchers (TELs) for them. Thus came into being the Hrim-2/Sapsan system, which the Russians call ‘Grom-2’ and was shown in the public in 2018, and even offered for export. Through 2022 and 2023, the Russian Ministry of Defence (MOD) then several times reported that ‘Grom-2’ ballistic missiles were shot down by air defences of the Russian armed forces.
That said, I must admit I never managed to figure out with any dose of certainty if the Russians really mean that this ‘Grom-2’ is a Ukrainian variant of the Iskander-M, or – as explained by Wikipedia – modified (even expanded-size) 9M79s?
Can only say that, yes, the 19th Missile Brigade ZSU was firing a lot of 9M79s from its TELs like the one visible on the photo below - and that during the early months of the war (especially in support of the troops defending Chernihiv).
Ever since, everybody’s quiet about Ukrainian-made ballistic missiles: at most, one gets to hear about Ukrainians deploying their SAMs from the S-200-system (‘SA-5 Gammon’) as ballistic missiles… or US-American concerns about the Russians recovering enough pieces of the US-made MGM-140 ATACMS to reverse-engineer that one….
Ironically, nobody is coming to the idea that Ukrainians do have the know-how, the tools, facilities capable of reverse-engineering ATACMS, and a lots of motivation to do so, too.
OK, it’s certain to appear like if Ukrainians have no idea how to make ballistic missiles – even if being neck-deep involved in development of cruise missiles. Primarily because ‘quick googling’ is more likely to turn up reports about the Kh-55 cruise missile (predecessor of the Kh-555 nowadays regularly deployed by the Russians against Ukraine) being designed by the Yuzhnoye State Design Office in Dnipro, and manufactured by the Kharkiv Aviation Plant, while its mini-turbojet engines were made by the Motor Sich (Zaporizhzhya), back in the 1970s-1980s (AFAIK, Motor Sich was still manufacturing and exporting turbojets to Russia, right up to early 2014) – than about Ukrainian-designed ballistic missiles
Me thinks: the question is not if they can, but if they – Ukrainians – have the money and time to fiddle around with ballistic missiles in the weight-class of around 1000-3000kg (i.e. range of 300+ km), too. AFAIK, back during the Soviet times, corporations like Yuzhmash and/or Pvdenmash were manufacturing motors for R-36 intercontinental ballistic missiles (‘SS-18 Satan’), and Pivdenne was working on a tactical ballistic missile with a range of 280(+) km as early as of 2008 (was it named ‘Borysfen’?)…. Sure, not much happened ever since, and thus no surprise: last year the gent in charge of the country’s missile programes was fired and replaced. But: I do think to recall it was already back in spring, and certainly in summer and autumn 2023 that one of talking-heads in Kyiv said a weapon (or two….or three?) in this class was then deployed against Russia….
Overall, considering what I’ve mentioned above – and, but even more so: general silence about this topic, and then scant media reports of this kind – well, I would say ‘never say never’. Most likely, this was ‘just the start’. And that start was as badly delayed for lack of money, lack of vision, as for the usual systemic incompetence in the politics and similar factors.
But, not for the lack of ability.
If nothing else, mind the following constellation: ever more Ukrainians are understanding they can’t count on continuous and reliable Western support; and, well, with ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ like those of Ukraine, and when the country is facing a Russian war of extermination, then there’s no other option but to develop such stuff like ballistic missiles – and reconnaissance satellites, too. And then manufacture them in series – if necessary: in secret, underground facilities, in complete silence, and without letting ‘allies’ know about this. With other words: I think it’s less than a year since the reform of the Ukrainian missile sector and thus simply too early. However, I’m quite sure we’re going to see much more in this regards in the coming months and years.
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3.) Isn’t there a way to protect air bases from reconnaissance drones?
Yesno. In theory: of course there is… and not just one: there are ‘hundreds’. Literally. But…
a) Ukraine is huge: there is no way to seal its entire airspace for literal dozens of reconnaissance UAVs with suitable range deployed by the Russians every day;
b) or, perhaps there is a way, but if so: right now, Ukraine does not have that capability. It doesn’t even have enough air defence systems to properly protect its most important urban centres, the energy sector and industrial facilities.
Foremost: as the latest round of Arab-Israeli wars have shown: even such a small area like Israel cannot be given ‘100% certain protection’ – and that regardless of deployment of a particularly dense, integrated, multi-layer network of all sorts of most advanced air defence systems available, plus support from the West, and cooperation of multiple neighbours.
The core reason is that the nature of warfare is such that research and development of new combat methods never end: ‘the other side’ is always on the search for new solutions, and – if only given enough time and opportunity – is near-certain to find them. In Ukraine, that ‘other side’ is not only given enough time and opportunity, but also plentiful of money, own- and foreign know-how, and far more space because of the sheer size of the country.
That’s the ‘basics’.
In the case of this war, and since February 2024, the development went something like this: both sides began deploying a wide range of UAVs; both sides countered these with electronic warfare (including both big, APC/Truck-mounted systems and ‘portable’ systems like ‘anti-UAV rifles’), mobile heavy machine guns, and by MANPADs. So much so, after two years of war, the ZSU spent its own and NATO’s stocks of MANPADs while shooting down thousands of Russian UAVs. What happened? The Russians are nowadays searching for ‘gaps’ in the Ukrainian integrated air defence system, then infiltrating these with their medium-range and small UAVs, to reach places like Dnipro, or Poltava, 100km behind the frontline. And they are proving capable of doing that in numbers, too. The UAVs are small, but can still reach altitudes above 2,000 metres: there, they are safe from MANPADs and the mass of heavy machine guns and light anti-aircraft artillery. Electronic warfare is sometimes effective against Zalas, but other times not – and when it’s not, then the Russians employ their RUK concept to strike whatever they’ve found with Iskander-Ms. And the Ukrainian air defences are neither numerous enough, nor effective enough to intercept everything coming their way. The resulting blows are painful…
For months already, the PSU is trying to counter ‘infiltrator’ Zalas with Yak-52 training aircraft, armed with machine guns. They are patrolling such areas like Dnipro and shooting down whatever they can find. But, there is simply no way to kill everything coming their way.
To make sure: not only Ukraine has this problem. Russia has it too. Otherwise, it couldn’t happen for Ukrainian UAVs the size of light sports aircraft to range 700+ kilometres deep into Russia to strike selected targets there. Nor could Ukraine ‘swarm’ air bases like Taganrog or Morozovsk with dozens of attack UAVs.
Indeed: NATO would have a massive problem with any such strike, too – just like Israel had it, back in April.
Point is: there is no ‘instant’ solution in sight. At least no ‘wonder-solution’ working 100% - even less so - 1000% sure all the time. Because the entire technology of UAVs is relatively recent; because the mass of armed forces world-wide ignored ‘such toys’ (and that intentionally) for decades (at least since the Vietnam War, and usually for such important reasons like ‘UAVs are not manly enough, nothing as cool as billion-Dollar-expensive jet fighters’); because the glorious ‘defence sector’ was bribing and dictating the armed forces to waste billions for big, complex, heavy weapons - ‘instead for toys’. So much so, the Pentagon (just for example; be sure, authorities like the Beschaffungsbehörde in Germany were not much different)) was doing its utmost to turn down, if not to kill any related projects, just two years ago….
Thus, the development of counter-measures is lagging behind: sometimes in the future, concepts like ‘swarms of AI-controlled UAVs’ are going to take over and then ‘eat’ any kind of Zalas or the likes on their own. But, right now, such solutions are not available, and the Ukrainians have to make do with what’s on hands.
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For the end (today; I’ll get back to your other questions asap), special thanks to Jeff for drawing my attention at the following online presence. When one is checking the Google’s Street View for Vovchansk, one can find the following takes from the old and abandoned air base near that town:
The base was constructed at least back during the Second World War (perhaps even earlier: mind that the history of military flying in Ukraine is very long, dating back to the times of the First World War). In the second half of the 1950s the Vovchansk AB was relegated to training purposes and handed over to the DOSAAF: the Voluntary Society for Assistance to Army, Aviation, and Navy - a sort of a paramilitary flying club in the former USSR. Essentially, this was attracting youngsters to flying and/or military service, and, if these had enough interest, then also to serve in the armed forces. Especially in the Soviet air force, and particularly in the 1970s: mind that due to massive downscaling of the Soviet conventional armed forces during the Khrushchev era, the Soviet air force was critically short on pilots and ground personnel at the time.
Anyway… in the second half of the 1950s, the DOSAAF took over and established a training centre equipped with Aero L-29s, Antonov An-2s, Lisunov Li-2s, and Yakovlev Yak-18s aircraft at that site.
Unsurprisingly, visible on the online tour are (foremost) Aero L-29 Delfin training jets (‘silver aircraft with fins in T-shape’): these were manufactured in Czechoslovakia, back in the 1960s and early 1970s, and served as jet trainers in all of the Warsaw Pact air forces – so also that of the Soviet Union.
Also visible are few wrecked Antonov An-2s (biplanes). They were used for almost everything: for training purposes, for training of paratroopers, even in agriculture. Finally, think to have caught a sight of one or another Mil Mi-2 helicopter: they were also used for training purposes.
Before the war, there used to be a local tourist guide offering guided tours:
“corporations like Yuzhmash and/or Pvdenmash”
Tom, it is the same organization: Yug/Pivden are Ru/Ua equivalents for South. So, Southern machinery plant
I agree with the conclusions in the second reply, but I have a little remark. Ukraine has capabilities to design a guided/ballistic missile, but the most vulnerable point is the staff. A little salary doesn't engage young specialists, especially if you can earn more money to collect strawberries in the EU. The average age of the engineer staff is approaching 55 years.