Month: May 2023

The War Zone

Massive Shockwave From Russian Strike May Have Been A Rocket Storage Facility Detonating

Howard Altman – May 1, 2023

The massive explosion and ensuing shock wave seen in video from the Ukrainian city of Pavlograd in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was most likely the result of a giant secondary detonation. What seems to have been hit, although not confirmed as of yet, was a plant that is used for missile fuel and other highly volatile explosive applications. The facility has been a cause of great concern for locals in the past.

Ukraine claims it downed 15 of 18 Russian cruise missiles launched by Tu-95MS Bear-H strategic bombers, but three missiles apparently evaded air defenses. Videos posted on social media after the Russian barrage show explosions and their aftermath brightly lighting up the night sky.

https://twitter.com/Capt_Navy/status/1653034719502643202 https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1652771900198723593 https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1652762984727429127

Ukrainians say a residential area and an industrial complex were hit while Russians claim that Ukrainian supplies for its looming counteroffensive were targeted.

“An industrial enterprise was damaged in Pavlograd,” Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration Serhiy Lysak said Monday on his Telegram channel. “A fire broke out there, which the rescuers have already put out. In the residential area, 19 high-rise buildings, 25 private houses, six schools and pre-school education institutions, and five shops were mutilated.”

There were also dozens of buildings in the surrounding communities damaged as well, Lysak said, including almost 40 residential buildings In Verbkivska. It was the second devastating Russian missile strike on Ukraine in the past several days. More than 20 civilians, including at least four children, were killed Friday in the first mass Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities in more than a month, officials in Kyiv said last week.

More than 30 people were injured and dozens of buildings were damaged or destroyed by a Russian missile strike on Pavlograd, said Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration Serhiy Lysak.(Serhiy Lysak Telegram channel photo)

The Russians, meanwhile, say they were targeting military facilities.

“The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a long-range high-precision air and sea-based missile strike against Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities,” the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) reported on its Telegram channel Monday. “The goal of the attack has been reached. All the assigned targets have been neutralized. The enterprises producing ammunition, weapons and military equipment for Ukrainian forces have been disrupted.”

The city is strategically located in an area through which that counteroffensive drive toward Crimea could take place, a route we examined in December.

Pavlograd is located on one possible route for a Ukrainian counteroffensive toward Crimea. (Google Earth image)

But it is also home to the Pavlograd Chemical Plant. That’s where fuel for Ukrainian missiles is produced, according to Euromaidan Press.

“The plant participates in tests of the rocket firing system with corrected ‘Alder-M’ [guided rockets] and anti-ship cruise missile Neptune,” according to the Ukrainian Dnipr Bridge media outlet. Domestically produced Neptune missiles were used to sink the Russian Navy’s Project 1164 Slava class cruiser Moskva. You can read about the Alder-M, known by its Ukrainian name Vilkha-M, in our deep dive here.

The plant is also where old Soviet-era SS24 ICBMs were stored and ultimately supposed to be dismantled as part of the Defense Department’s (DoD) Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program. Also known as the Nunn-Lugar program, the CTR was created “for the purpose of securing and dismantling weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their associated infrastructure in the former states of the Soviet Union,” according to the U.S. State Department.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency said it completed the provision of technical assistance to the State Space Agency of Ukraine and Pavlograd Chemical Plant in December 2018 to: “safely store SS-24 loaded solid motor cases; support the safe removal of propellant; and deliver and commission a complex Eisenmann incinerator to eliminate empty motor cases.”

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In 2020, the BBC reported on local residents’ concerns about what would happen if the plant were to explode, with some people calling it a “ticking time bomb” where more than 1,800 tons of expired rocket fuel was stored.

“If we already have a strategic facility in the city with a large amount of explosive fuel, then under no circumstances should the disposal process be stopped,” Svitlana Shaperenko told the BBC at the time. “We’re just a ticking time bomb. If there’s an explosion, that’s the end.”

The administrative building of the Pavlograd Chemical Plant as photographed in 2020. (Mykola Miakshykov / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Old ICBMs aren’t the only explosive items stored at Pavlograd.

The facility is also used to store part of the 55 million stockpiled antipersonnel landmines designated for destruction under the Mine Ban Treaty, according to the International Campaign to Band Land Mines (ICBL).

“In Ukraine, we regret that has been no stockpile destruction since 2020 and the end of an agreement between Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and NATO’s Support and Procurement Agency to destroy the remaining stockpiled mines at the Pavlograd Chemical Plant,” ICBL stated in November 2022.

What appears to be a large storage facility to the north of the town could have been targeted, although the plant has extensive facilities in the city. We are working to clarify this. (Google Earth)

Whatever the case, the explosions in the town of Pavlograd were remarkably powerful. Obviously any production capability for rocket propellant would be a prime target for Russian forces, but a storage area with large decommissioned rockets could have presented a huge secondary explosive potential that Russia specifically pursued.

As of now, cloud cover has made commercial satellite imagery impossible to obtain, so we can’t see exactly what was struck or the extent of the damage. We will update this post when we find out more.

Ukrayinska Pravda

Ukrainian units go for counterattack in Bakhmut: Russians leave some positions

Ukrainska Pravda – May 1, 2023

Ukrainian defenders repelled all Russian attacks on the Lyman front and captured 10 occupiers; in Bakhmut, the defence forces made invaders leave some occupied positions with their counterattacks.

Source: Military Media Center citing General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander of the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Quote: “To advance, the enemy uses maximum effort and does not care about anything. Despite significant losses, new assault groups of Wagner, fighters of other private companies, and paratroopers are constantly rushing into battle. But the enemy is unable to take the city (Bakhmut – ed.) under control.

The situation is quite complicated. At the same time, the enemy was counterattacked by our units and left some positions in some parts of the city.”

Details: According to Syrskyi, intensive combat operations continue on the Bakhmut front, but Russians have not succeeded in breaking through the defence of Ukrainian positions.

During the last few days, defenders of Ukraine have repelled numerous assaults on the Lyman direction. Russians were also unable to seize Ukrainian positions. The occupiers suffered losses, and 10 invaders were captured.

Associated Press

US says 20,000 Russians killed in Ukraine war since December

Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller – May 1, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Monday it now estimates that just since December Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties, including more than 20,000 killed, as Ukraine has rebuffed a heavy assault by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

In what has become a grinding war of attrition, the fiercest battles have been in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is struggling to encircle the city of Bakhmut in the face of dogged Ukrainian defense.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. estimate is based on newly declassified American intelligence. He did not detail how the intelligence community derived the number.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November that Russia had suffered well over 100,000 killed or wounded in the first eight months of the war. The new figures suggest that Russian losses have dramatically accelerated in recent months.

Troops from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group and other forces are fighting Ukrainian troops house-to-house to try to gain control of what has become known as the “road of life” — the last remaining road west still in Ukrainian hands, which makes it critical for supplies and fresh troops. Both sides have cited gains in recent days.

Kirby said nearly half those killed since December are Wagner forces, many of them convicts who were released from prison to join Russia’s fight. He said the Wagner forces were “thrown into combat and without sufficient combat or combat training, combat leadership, or any sense of organizational command and control.”

The White House has repeatedly sought to highlight the cost — both human and weaponry — to Russia of Bakhmut, which it argues has limited strategic importance to the overall trajectory of the war. Some analysts, however, note that taking control Bakhmut could be helpful to Russian efforts to advance on the larger cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in the Donetsk region

Kirby said the Russian casualty count for “this little town of Bakhmut” was in line with some of the fiercest periods of fighting during World War II, including the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front, and the Guadalcanal campaign, the first major Allied offensive against Japan.

”It’s three times the number of killed in action that the United States faced on the Guadalcanal campaign in World War II and that was over the course of five months,” Kirby said.

Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of Ukrainian ground forces, said Russia continued to exert “maximum effort” to take Bakhmut but that it so far had failed.

“In some parts of the city, the enemy was counterattacked by our units and left some positions,” he said.

Kirby declined to say how many Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded in the fighting. Milley said in November that Ukrainian casualties were probably also about 100,000.

AP writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed reporting.

Reuters

Ukrainian defenders oust Russian forces from some positions in Bakhmut -Ukraine general

Reuters – May 1, 2023

KYIV (Reuters) -Ukrainian units have ousted Russian forces from some positions in Bakhmut amid fierce battles, a top Ukrainian general said on Monday, as the White House believes that more than 20,000 Russian fighters have been killed in Ukraine since December.

“The situation (in Bakhmut) is quite difficult,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Ukrainian commander of ground forces, said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

“At the same time, in certain parts of the city, the enemy was counterattacked by our units and left some positions” in recent days, he said.

The 10-month-long battle for the eastern Ukrainian city has taken on a symbolic importance for both sides. It has become the fulcrum of a war that has seen little shift in front lines since late 2022, leaving both sides looking for a breakthrough.

On Monday, Russia unleashed a fresh volley of missiles on Ukraine overnight that killed two people in the east, set off huge blazes and damaged dozens of homes and other buildings.

The White House said on Monday that Russia has exhausted its military stockpiles and its armed forces with some 100,000 Russian troops killed or wounded in Ukraine in the past five months. Of the 20,000 killed, half have been from the Wagner Group.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Wagner, said on Telegram on Monday that his fighters needed some 300 tonnes of artillery shells a day for the assault on Bakhmut, but were receiving only a third of that amount.

“Three hundred tonnes a day is 10 cargo containers – not a lot at all,” said Prigozhin, who has often clashed with Russia’s defence establishment over its conduct of the war in Ukraine.

In a separate posting on Monday evening, Prigozhin said his troops had advanced some 120 metres (400 feet) into Bakhmut at the loss of 86 of his fighters.

Syrskyi said that new Russian units are being “constantly thrown into battle for Bakhmut” despite taking heavy losses, Syrskyi said, adding: “But the enemy is unable to take control of the city.”

Russian forces have steadily made incremental gains in Bakhmut, but Ukraine said on Sunday that it was still possible to supply the defenders with food, ammunition and medicine.

Kyiv is widely expected soon to launch a counter-offensive to retake swathes of territory in the east and south that were occupied by Russian forces following the invasion 15 months ago.

(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk; Olekshandr Kozhukhar, Ron Popeski and Lidia Kelly; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Gareth Jones, Cynthia Osterman and Michael Perry)

Politico

The little-known group that’s saving Ukraine

Lara Seligman and Paul McLeary – May 1, 2023

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — When U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin brings together the defense chiefs of more than 40 nations here in southwest Germany each month, the hours-long gathering typically ends the same way: Celeste Wallander, the Pentagon’s head of international security affairs, calls on each participant to read out what weapons their nation is ready to donate to Ukraine.

It’s a question — perhaps the question — that will help determine Ukraine’s future more than a year following Russia’s invasion.

And it’s made the monthly closed-door grouping of leaders — known by the anodyne bureaucratic title of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group — an under-the-radar yet central force in equipping the Ukrainian military with everything from precision rockets to main battle tanks. It’s also helped the nation create an ad hoc yet astonishingly modern military that would be capable of outgunning some long-standing NATO members.

But on the sidelines of the group’s April 21 meeting in a cavernous, wood-paneled ballroom here at the American-run Ramstein Air Base, it was clear that staying united — which the group has succeeded at for more than a year — will be an increasing challenge.

A number of fissures have emerged recently in the group, particularly over whether and when to send Western fighter jets to Ukraine, and delays in certain weapons shipments — most pressingly, German and Spanish tanks. Meanwhile, the mass transfer of weaponry to Kyiv has left donor nations worried about their own stockpiles, and recent meetings have started to turn to the issue of NATO allies reequipping themselves as well as sustaining the weapons donated to Ukraine for the long haul.

“We have done a lot already in terms of the donations, but now the question is more on sustainability,” Esa Pulkkinen, the permanent secretary, or deputy, in Finland’s defense ministry, said as military leaders gathered at Ramstein last month.

“Besides supporting Ukraine, we also need to replenish our own stocks, right?” one European diplomat said.

Austin, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley and Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov sit at a head table draped in white tablecloths, flanked by American and Ukrainian flags. Crystal chandeliers hang over their heads. Aides sip coffee and mingle in hushed voices on the sidelines.

The meeting starts, as always, with a battlefield update from the Ukrainians. The other members sit at two narrow tables perpendicular to the leaders’ table, forming three sides of an open rectangle. Each country is represented by a miniature flag next to its member’s microphone.

Austin leads the discussion, making opening and closing comments, but typically spends more time listening to the presentations. Wallander emcees, moving each presenter along. During the latest meeting, members devoted one 90-minute block to discussing sustainment and industrial base challenges; the entire meeting can last more than six hours.

The impetus for the Ramstein gatherings came about without fanfare early on in the conflict. While readying a secret trip to wartime Ukraine just a month after the Russian invasion, the people attending Austin’s daily 6:30 a.m. staff meeting on the third floor of the Pentagon — called a “policy op sync” and modeled off the twice-daily meetings he chaired during the Afghanistan evacuation — realized a major problem was brewing.

Kyiv had survived Russia’s initial onslaught, yet it was becoming clear that the U.S. and other countries would need to overcome past misgivings about arming Ukraine and commit for the long haul. In those early days, no one was coordinating the equipment that countries were quickly beginning to pledge, risking a serious miscalculation for the Western nations aiding Ukraine.

“I did a lot of phone calls talking to countries, ‘can you send this,’ and I think it was at that point that the idea developed that the secretary had, ‘no, we need to bring the key contributors to Ukraine together so we can understand what the scope of this is,’” said Wallander in an interview at the Pentagon.

Austin named it the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which met on April 26, 2022, at Ramstein. It was the meeting — which was conceived and planned in about a week’s time — that kick-started the process of saving Ukraine.

Although disputes do break out between the participants, the sniping typically stays outside the room — a remarkable feat that members say is due to Austin’s steady leadership, calm presence and deep military knowledge. Austin’s attention to bilateral relations — including always giving countries public credit for their donations — has won him credibility, according to officials involved in the Ramstein meeting.

POLITICO spoke to 17 people directly involved in the discussions for this story, many of whom were granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door meetings.

Tensions brewing

The Ramstein meetings are typically scripted affairs, during which ministers read from prepared notes. But the orderly gatherings mask significant differences between the governments working to arm Ukraine. Eastern European countries such as Poland and Estonia have leaned forward in providing aid, while Germany and France often lag. The United States — specifically Austin — at times must straddle the two sides.

Meanwhile, Kyiv is constantly asking for more — and better — equipment. The ink was barely dry on the decision to send Abrams main battle tanks in January, for example, when Ukrainian officials renewed a push to receive F-16 fighter jets.

The fighter jet question is still a live issue, and the split between the various participants over whether to send Western warplanes was on display at the most recent Ramstein meeting. While Austin and other U.S. officials have been clear that they do not believe F-16s are necessary for the current fight, others say that the group is still debating the issue.

“There’s an ongoing discussion about also other types of jets,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking to reporters on the balcony while participants stretched their legs during a break in the meeting.

Still, others seemed sure that Western jets will be heading to Kyiv at some point.

“Western fighters will be a part of the Western military integration of the Ukraine armed forces, whether the time is now or perhaps later,” Pulkkinen said.

President Joe Biden has at times called on Austin to use the Ramstein meeting to appeal to his counterparts directly to do more to help Ukraine. In January, after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to send Leopard tanks without the U.S. first sending its own Abrams tanks, the president turned to Austin to make one final appeal to his brand-new German counterpart, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, at that month’s gathering.

Biden had reason to hope Austin could clinch a deal. Throughout the conflict, the defense secretary has consistently managed to turn his relationships into concrete aid for Ukraine. Early in the war, Austin personally brokered a deal with Slovakia’s defense minister for the eastern European country to send one of its Russian-made S-300 air defense systems, in exchange for the U.S. repositioning one of its Patriot missile systems to Slovakia.

But this time, Austin could not break through Berlin’s hesitation. Ultimately, Biden ended up greenlighting the Abrams, paving the way for Germany to send the Leopards.

Some nations are still frustrated with the slow pace of Berlin’s donations.

Germany should be “sending more weapons, sending more ammunition, and giving more money to Ukraine, because they are the richest and the biggest country by far,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told POLITICO. He added that the Germans “were not as generous as they should have been” with Ukraine since the start of the war.

“Collectively we have to, and we can, do more. We all understand what is at stake,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told POLITICO at Ramstein. Referring to his own government, he said, “we have done a lot definitely.”

Despite differences between the various countries, participants said Austin’s consistency and attention to personal relationships keeps each gathering running smoothly and is the reason the members return to Ramstein time and again to discuss new ways to support Ukraine.

Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand recalled how Austin encouraged her to donate some of Canada’s 82 Leopard 2 tanks. Parting with those tanks was “no small thing,” she said. Her personal relationship with Austin — who she calls a “constant gentleman” — was crucial in Ottawa’s decision to ultimately send four tanks.

“This is why we have to gather. This is why we have to come together and that’s to say why we have to help Ukraine,” Pevkur said.

But the tensions over the tank decision could foreshadow more angst in the months ahead as Ukraine continues to suck up billions in munitions. Replacing all of that takes time, planning and significant investments.

New challenges

The last several meetings of the Ukraine group have seen allies starting to think hard about how to find the money — and the industrial capacity — to replace the gear sent to battle the Russians.

“It still is the only effective format when it comes to coordination of deliveries but also of the needed materiel,” one senior European diplomat said. “Regardless [of] the differences in opinion.”

Plus, they need to wade through a thicket of parochial interests and find a way to do something even more difficult: jointly manufacture ammunition and other materiel as the war in Ukraine grinds on and individual production lines reach their breaking point.

Another divisive issue is how defense spending is split among allies. NATO’s annual report released in March showed that despite an entire year of pledging increased defense spending, only seven countries out of 30 have met the nine-year-old goal of spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense — two fewer countries than hit the mark in 2021.

Other trends have emerged at the Ramstein meetings that have also frustrated some participants. According to the two European diplomats, a handful of countries have consistently promised equipment that never seems to arrive but is recycled at each meeting with no timeline attached.

“They somehow never mention when that will happen, and then we have another Ramstein format happen and you are still claiming the same thing,” one of the officials said.

Despite these emerging fissures, sticking with Kyiv for the long haul has been a talking point for all NATO allies since the start of the war, and even with some delays in promised equipment, donations continue to flow over the border to Kyiv. And 14 months in, with new spring and summer offensives on the way, there has been no change in that rhetoric.

“We cannot let war fatigue in our societies and politics take hold,” Latvian Defense Minister Inara Murniece said while visiting Washington just before the latest Ramstein meeting. “We must grab this momentum and do everything possible to make the spring and summer Ukrainian offensive successful. We can’t lose this moment.”

Lili Bayer in Brussels contributed to this report.