Author: John Hanno

Los Angeles Times

War for eastern Ukraine reaches ‘fearful climax’ as European Union approves Ukraine candidacy

Nabih Bulos, Jaweed Kaleem, Tracy Wilkinson – June 23, 2022

Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers appeared to be all but encircled as Russian troops advanced Thursday around two strategically important cities in eastern Ukraine in what a senior Ukrainian official called a “fearful climax” of the battle for the Donbas, signaling that the fall of a significant part of the region was imminent.

The comment, from Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych, highlighted the stark contrast between the battlefield and growing international diplomacy in support of Ukraine as the war approaches its fourth month.

Millions of people are displaced, cities are in ruin and air-raid sirens have become a terrifying part of everyday life across wide swaths of the nation even as Western support for it grows. Meeting Thursday in Brussels, European Union representatives acting with unusual speed granted Ukraine status as an EU candidate. The idea that once faced significant hurdles in the bloc gained greater appeal amid the protracted war and economic sanctions against Russia.

The decision does not guarantee admission to the EU, and the candidacy process could take years. Ukraine will need to fulfill economic and political requirements and gain unanimous approval from the EU’s 27 members. Still, giving Ukraine a candidacy position — which the EU also granted tiny Moldova, another former Soviet republic that borders Ukraine — is a boost to Kyiv’s aspirations to be part of the West and a snub to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This is “a good day for Europe,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Brussels.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded via Twitter: “Ukraine’s future is within the EU.”

Zelensky, who had called the EU meeting a “crucial moment” for his nation, said in an overnight address that the war was reaching a tipping point and repeated pleas for more help from Western powers.

“We must free our land and achieve victory, but more quickly, a lot more quickly,” Zelensky said early Thursday as he asked for bigger and faster armaments.

The U.S. and other Western countries have increased shipments of heavy weaponry to Ukraine. Washington announced another $450-million package Thursday that will include long- or medium-range rocket systems, tactical vehicles, grenade launchers, machine guns and aquatic patrol boats, the latest in approximately $6 billion in U.S. equipment supplied to Ukraine since the Russian invasion.

Still, Zelensky and Kyiv’s military officials say Moscow’s military superiority is hard to match in what has become a sustained artillery battle in the east, where Putin’s forces are backed by separatists. Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzianyk estimated this week that Russian fire often outnumbers Ukrainian fire 6 to 1.

“There were massive air and artillery strikes in Donbas. The occupier’s goal here is unchanged. They want to destroy the entire Donbas step by step,” Zelensky said in his overnight video address.

The president said, “Russian troops aim to turn any city into Mariupol,” the major port city that Moscow overtook last month after relentless pounding.

Zelensky is scheduled to appear virtually at summits this and next week of the Group of 7 major economies and, separately, of NATO’s 30 countries. Major points on both summits’ agendas will be Ukraine and ways to continue to arm it and ease its humanitarian crisis.

The Russian advance around the sister cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk underscored the do-or-die strategy the Ukrainians have adopted for their defense.

Ukrainians have slowed Moscow’s push and Russians have incurred losses as they gain ground in the Donbas. But the cost has been devastating and has often left Ukrainian defenders with no path of escape.

In Lysychansk, Ukrainian personnel said Thursday that the Russian army had made gains along the Seversky Donets River with apparent aims to surround Lysychansk from the north and the south. That would leave leave thousands of Ukrainian soldiers trapped. The river separates Lysychansk from Severodonetsk.

It was not clear Thursday if the Russian encirclement around the cities had fully closed. One aid worker who was delivering assistance to Lysychansk said that he could still make it from the west into the city but that the Russians were pressing closer to cut off access. He said Russians had already overrun suburbs south of Lysychansk.

Alexander, a special forces police instructor in Lysychansk, acknowledged the situation was bad. “It’s hard, we understand,” he said Thursday. “But we stand.”

The war, now largely concentrated in the east, has also continued elsewhere in the Donbas in addition to other regions.

Shelling reported overnight in the second-largest city, Kharkiv, and towns around it left 10 people dead, said regional governor Oleh Sinegubov. The Ukrainian army — whose counteroffensives in the south have reportedly made gains around the Russian-held city of Kherson — said Thursday that three cruise missiles hit nearby Mykolaiv. The army also said two missiles were shot down near the coastal city of Odesa.

In the west, Lviv has remained among the major cities least affected. The city is a key route for refugees and international workers on their way to Poland, and Lviv’s shops were open and its streets were bustling. At a crossing at the Ukraine-Poland border, the commercial shipping truck lane was crowded while regular travelers came in quickly.

Once through the border, Ukrainian soldiers on their way to training made their way to a bus where an army officer checked off names from a list. The Polish end of the crossing was lined with hundreds of cars waiting to enter Ukraine that formed a miles-long queue.

It was a stark contrast to Ukraine’s east, where blacked-out ghost towns and the disquieting silence after air-raid sirens are most of what can be seen.

Bulos reported from Lviv and Kaleem from London. Wilkinson reported from Washington.

Daily Beast

Distracted Putin Is About to Tumble Into a New Bloodbath, Officials Warn

Kristina Jovanovski – June 22, 2022

ISTANBUL—Russia’s distraction over the war in Ukraine has forced its military presence to decrease in areas that may soon face a Turkish offensive, Syrian opposition officials told The Daily Beast this week.

The officials, including in the opposition Syrian National Army (SNA), said Moscow has withdrawn from several areas in northwestern Syria near the Turkish border, including Tal Rifaat, where Ankara has said it would carry out a military operation to combat the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers a terrorist group.

The SNA, a coalition of rebel groups backed by Turkey, would take part in the possible operation, according to Yusuf Hammoud, an officer and former spokesperson for the SNA.

Hammoud, who is based in northwestern Afrin, Syria, said Russia has decreased its presence in areas around Aleppo and Tal Rifaat.

“It will make it easier for Turkey to win this war,” Hammoud told The Daily Beast.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that his country will carry out a military operation in the northwestern cities of Tal Rifaat and Manbij near the Turkish border to create a “safe zone” where 1 million Syrian refugees could return.

‘Pain in the Neck’: The Most Cursed Member of NATO Revealed

Tensions between Syrian refugees and locals in Turkey have been rising, putting domestic pressure on Erdogan, whose popularity has declined amid an economic crisis a year before national elections are due.

If there is an attempt to take these areas, it risks a direct confrontation between NATO member Turkey and groups allied with Russia.

Beyond engaging in conflict with possibly several armed groups, an incursion could also have a heavy humanitarian toll, leading to the death or displacement of people who have gone through 11 years of Syria’s civil war.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Turkey’s 2019 offensive against Kurdish forces in the northeast led to the displacement of more than 150,000.

Erdogan has not said when the offensive will begin.

“Like I always say, we’ll come down on them suddenly one night. And we must,” the Turkish president stated at the end of May, according to the Associated Press.

Ankara insists the YPG, which has cooperated with the U.S. in its fight against ISIS, is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey, leading to tens of thousands of deaths.

Turkey, the U.S., and the EU consider the PKK a terrorist organization. Ankara has carried out four previous incursions into Syria, including against the YPG.

Turkey’s presence in Syria has put Ankara at odds both with its NATO allies and powerful competitors, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, who backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

While Erdogan has continued support for opposition rebel groups, he has had to placate the competing interests of Russia, a nearby nuclear power with a permanent UN security council seat and a crucial source of energy and tourism to Turkey.

After Moscow put economic sanctions on Turkey for downing a fighter jet in 2015 that Ankara said had violated its airspace, Russia said Erdogan had apologized for the incident.

If the Kremlin now tacitly accepts a Turkish incursion into areas it or its allies controlled, it could be seen as a sign of how the invasion of Ukraine has overstretched the Russian military and it can no longer enforce its interests or its allies, even against a country with less geopolitical weight and military power.

The Turkish government did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on the possible operation.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price has expressed concern over the possible operation, stating it would undermine regional stability, and put U.S. troops and the fight against ISIS at risk.

Moscow’s Syria envoy stated that Russia has tried to convince Turkey not to go ahead with the military operation, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported.

Still, Moscow-based analyst Kerim Has, who specializes in Turkish-Russian relations, said that Russia could give Turkey a green light to launch an offensive, despite its public comments.

Has stated that if Turkey, or groups it backs, take control over Tal Rifaat, that could lead to an attempt to take nearby Aleppo, controlled by Russia’s ally, Assad.

Has believes Russia’s war in Ukraine has made Moscow more dependent on Ankara, a NATO member that has not imposed sanctions on Russia and which could serve the Kremlin’s interests by delaying NATO membership for Sweden and Finland.

“Mr. Edrdgan’s hands are stronger now in regards to Russia compared to four months ago,” Has said.

He added that since Russia would want Erdogan to win the upcoming election, Moscow could allow the incursion to boost the Turkish president’s popularity among his nationalist base.

Hammoud, with the SNA, said that Iranian forces were taking over some of the areas the Russians have retreated from.

Ahmad Misto, a civil leader in northwestern Syria with a brigade in the SNA, stated that Iranian forces have taken control of areas around Aleppo and Idlib province in the northwest where Russia has withdrawn.

“The Russians still have political power over the [Syrian] regime but the Iranians have it military-wise on the frontlines,” Misto said.

He added that the pullback of Russian forces happened about one to one-and-a-half months after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mohammad Ismail, a senior leader of the Kurdish National Council, based in Qamishli, northeastern Syria, said the increased presence of forces from Iran would provide more motivation for Turkey to go on the offensive.

“Some [areas] have noticed a Russian withdrawal and it was filled by Iranian forces instead. If Iran is increasing their influence, then also Turkey has to get in,” he said.

Turkey and Iran are long-time rivals, battling for influence in the region and taking opposing sides in Syria where Tehran backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Ghosts of Putin’s Bloody Past Are Back With a Vengeance

Ismail added there was a noticeable decrease in Russia’s presence a month ago, specifically in areas around Tal Rifaat, going towards the west of the Euphrates river.

Soon after, Erdogan announced on June 1 that the military operation would be carried out in Tal Rifaat, along with Manbij.

Ismail believes Kurdish forces would hand over territory to the Syrian regime for protection against a Turkish offensive.

The Syrian Democratic Forces said earlier this month that it may cooperate with Damascus if Ankara carries out an incursion.

That would be another motivation for an operation by Ankara as the increased regime presence could push civilians fearful of Assad towards the border, potentially leading to more refugees in Turkey.

But civilians in Syria also fear Turkey and its allies, said Ismail.

In 2020, a UN war crimes expert stated that the SNA may have committed torture and looting in northern Syria.

“There’s no clean war,” Ismail stated. “International forces [are] going to decide everything on the ground.”

Business Insider

The Russian air force’s struggles in Ukraine are surprising because they’re fighting ‘their own systems,’ top US Air Force general says

Christopher Woody – June 22, 2022

• Russia’s inability to achieve air superiority is one of the biggest surprises of the war in Ukraine.
• Russia’s air force has been unable to ground Ukrainian aircraft or overcome Ukrainian air defenses.
• That’s surprising because they use some of the same equipment, Gen. Charles Brown Jr. said Wednesday.

The Russian air force’s failure to gain control of the air over Ukraine and its struggles to operate effectively against Ukrainian air defenses are among the biggest surprises in the four-month war.

Russia’s failure to ground Ukraine’s aircraft and to overcome Ukrainian anti-aircraft weapons contributed to the faltering of Moscow’s initial ground offensive — an unusual outcome because the Russians themselves use many of the same weapons, according to Gen. Charles Brown Jr., the chief of staff of the US Air Force.

“I think for me it’s surprising for the Russians because the systems they’re going against are their own systems. They should know them fairly well and how to defeat them,” Brown said Wednesday at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington DC.

“It kind of begs a real question for me: How come they don’t understand their own systems and how they might defeat their own systems?” Brown added.

Like other former Soviet republics, Ukraine still uses Soviet-origin military hardware. Among its fixed-wing fleet are Su-24 and Su-25 attack aircraft and MiG-29 and Su-27 fighter jets.

The Russian military operates upgraded versions of those jets as well as more advanced fighter and attack jets, many of which were deployed near Ukraine’s borders prior to Russia’s attack on February 24.

Ukraine also operates Soviet- or Russian-origin air-defense systems and missiles, some of which were donated by neighboring countries. It has also shot down Russian aircraft with the Soviet-designed S-300 air-defense system, the vulnerabilities of which should be well known to Russian mission planners and pilots. Ukrainians have also captured Russian anti-aircraft weapons.

Like the Soviet-made aircraft operated by some NATO member militaries, Ukraine’s jets and helicopters are aging and finding spare parts and expertise to keep them in operation has grown harder as time passes and tensions have risen.

Ukrainians have repeatedly asked the US and others to provide advanced Western-made fighter jets, but those countries have declined due to concerns about escalation with Russia and doubts about Ukraine’s ability to use them effectively.

The absence of large-scale Russian air operations in Ukraine perplexed observers and led analysts to conclude that Russia’s air force was not as capable as believed. Russian failure to suppress and destroy Ukrainian air defenses is also seen as a major shortcoming that has reduced Russian ground forces’ ability to seize territory rapidly.

In his remarks Wednesday, Brown contrasted Russia’s performance in Ukraine with the US military’s emphasis on achieving air superiority, pointing to US air operations against Iraq during the first Gulf War of 1991.

“We were able to take out many of the surface-to-air defense systems to clear areas so then we could provide air superiority over the areas where the ground forces were operating,” Brown said. “That’s not the way the Russians have operated. They really haven’t looked at suppressing air defense.

Russian air power has moved closer to where Russian troops have superiority on the ground, Brown added. “They kind of stuck to where they were overhead of where their ground forces were [and] wouldn’t venture very far because of what the Ukrainians were able to do with their air defenses.”

Brown credited the Ukrainians for being “fairly dynamic” with their air-defense systems, which have been bolstered by thousands of portable weapons, including US-made Stinger missiles, supplied by NATO countries.

Being dynamic has “made it more difficult” for the Russians, Brown said. “If you can’t do dynamic targeting very well, you’re going to have a hard time hitting moving targets. That’s something I think we do fairly well and it’s something we’re going to continue to work on.”

While losses on both sides are unclear, Ukraine said in mid-May that it had destroyed 200 Russian aircraft.

Russia appears to have reduced its ambitions in Ukraine in recent weeks, focusing on operations in eastern Ukraine and using bombardment by long-range artillery and other weapons to overwhelm Ukrainian positions.

Eastern Ukraine’s geography is less hospitable to Ukrainian aircraft and air defenses and will likely allow Russia to gain some local air superiority, but shortages of weapons and equipment for close air support and a lack of training for that complicated mission will limit Russia’s ability to exploit that advantage, according to Justin Bronk, an expert on air warfare at British defense think tank RUSI.

Business Insider

Telecom workers in occupied parts of Ukraine destroyed software to avoid Russian control over data and communications

Britney Nguyen – June 22, 2022

• Ukrainian telecom employees destroyed equipment in Russian-occupied areas to avoid Russian control.
• Ukrtelecom is the largest fixed-line operator in Ukraine, its CEO, Yuriy Kurmaz, told Bloomberg.
• Some of the company’s facilities have been destroyed or damaged during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In Ukraine’s occupied territories, workers at one of the country’s leading telecommunications providers destroyed equipment to avoid Russian control of internet and phone services.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Ukrtelecom’s chief executive officer, Yuriy Kurmaz, said employees at the company have experienced threats and some have been imprisoned by Russian forces throughout occupied territories in southern and eastern Ukraine.

As Russian forces try to take over parts of Ukraine, Kurmaz told Bloomberg they’ve tried taking over parts of Ukrtelecom’s network through hacking and cyberattacks, which the company has endured since March.

But instead of letting Russian forces take control of the network, employees at Ukrtelecom facilities in the occupied territories “decided to delete crucial files from computers,” Kurmaz told Bloomberg.

“They put pressure on our employees to obtain the technical details of our network infrastructure,” Kurmaz said about Russian personnel in the area. “But they failed.”

Kurmaz told Bloomberg that his employees “completely destroyed the software,” so the Russians couldn’t connect their own equipment to Ukrainian networks.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, Russian forces have refocused their efforts to the eastern part of Ukraine since it failed to capture the capital city of Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been asking the West for more weapons, while his senior adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, told the BBC that the country was losing 100 to 200 soldiers each day.

Ukrtelecom is Ukraine’s largest fixed line operator, according to Kurmaz, and is used by the public, the Ukrainian military, and some Ukrainian government agencies.

The telecom provider is owned by Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov.

During Russia’s war in Ukraine, Kurmaz told Bloomberg that more than 30 of Ukrtelecom’s facilities have been destroyed, and about 100 others have been damaged. But, Kurmaz said the company’s been able to continue serving customers in over 80% of localities where it operates.

In an interview with Ukrinform, a state information and news agency in Ukraine, Kurmaz said Ukrtelecom was able to restore its landline phone network in over 1,200 settlements, and more than 350,000 households have communication services.

Due to the war, Ukrinform reported that telecom service is not available in the Luhansk and Kherson regions of Ukraine.

Bloomberg reported that some smaller internet providers in occupied parts of Ukraine are operating under Russian control, but Ukrtelecom disconnected its networks in those parts of the country.

“Our strong position is we will never collaborate,” Kurmaz told Bloomberg.

Reuters

Ukraine becomes EU membership candidate as Donbas battles reach ‘fearsome climax’

Pavel Polityuk and Vitalii Hnidyi – June 22, 2022

KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine became a candidate to join the European Union on Thursday, a bold geopolitical step triggered by Russia’s invasion that Kyiv and Brussels hailed as an “historic moment”.

Starting on the long path to EU membership will be a huge boost to morale in the embattled country, as Russian assaults on two cities in the eastern Donbas region move toward a “fearsome climax”, according to a Ukrainian government adviser.

“Ukraine’s future is in the EU,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter after the official announcement.

“A historic moment,” European Council chief Charles Michel tweeted, adding: “Our future is together.”

The approval of the Kyiv government’s application by EU leaders meeting in Brussels will anger Russia as it struggles to impose its will on Ukraine. Moldova also became an official candidate on Thursday, signalling the bloc’s intention to reach deep into the former Soviet Union.

Friday will mark four months since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops across the border in what he calls a “special military operation” sparked in part by Western encroachment into what Russia considers its sphere of influence.

The conflict, which the West sees as an unjustified war of aggression by Russia, has killed thousands, displaced millions, and destroyed cities, while the curtailment of food and energy exports has affected countries across the world.

Russia has focused its campaign on southern and eastern Ukraine after its advance on the capital in the early stages of the conflict was thwarted by Ukrainian resistance.

The war of attrition in the Donbas – Ukraine’s industrial heartland – is most critical in the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, which sit on opposite banks of the Siverskyi Donets River in Luhansk province.

The battle there is “entering a sort of fearsome climax”, said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskiy.

HOT SUMMER

Russian forces were trying to encircle Ukrainian troops defending Lysychansk, senior Ukrainian defence official Oleksiy Gromov said in a briefing on Thursday.

Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said separately that all Lysychansk was within reach of Russian fire and that Ukrainian troops there might retreat to new positions to avoid being trapped.

Russian-backed separatist forces said there was fierce fighting underway around Ukrainian positions in Hirske, which lies on the western side of the main north-south road to Lysychansk, and Zolote, another settlement to the south.

Ukrainian forces were defending Sievierodonetsk and nearby Zolote and Vovchoyrovka, Gaidai said, but Russian troops had captured Loskutivka and Rai-Oleksandrivka to the south. Hundreds of civilians are trapped in a chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk.

On the southern front, Russian forces struck Ukrainian army fuel tanks and military equipment near Mykolaiv with high-precision weapons, Russia’s defence ministry said, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

A river port and ship-building centre just off the Black Sea, Mykolaiv has been a bastion against Russian efforts to push West towards Ukraine’s main port city of Odesa.

Zelenskiy urged Ukraine’s allies to speed up shipments of heavy weapons to match Russia on the battlefield. “We must free our land and achieve victory, but more quickly, a lot more quickly,” he said in a video address early on Thursday.

Later, Ukrainian defence minister said HIMARS multiple rocket systems had arrived from the United States. With a range of 70 km (44 miles), the systems can challenge the Russian artillery batteries that have bludgeoned Ukrainian cities from afar.

The United States will provide an additional $450 million in security assistance to Ukraine, including more long-range rocket systems, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

SHIELD FOR THE EU

Russia has long opposed closer links between Ukraine, a fellow former Soviet republic, and Western groupings like the European Union and the NATO military alliance.

Diplomats say it will take Ukraine a decade or more to meet the criteria for joining the EU.

But European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was convinced that Ukraine and Moldova will move as swiftly as possible to implement necessary reforms.

Their move to join the EU runs alongside applications by Sweden and Finland to enter NATO in the wake of the Russian invasion – indications that the Kremlin’s military actions have backfired on its geopolitical aims.

In Kyiv, where mass protests eight years ago ousted the then-president after he broke a promise to develop closer ties with the EU, 22-year-old serviceman Volodymyr Yanishan welcomed Ukraine’s candidate status.

“It means that people almost reached what we have been striving for since 2014, in a bloody fight which cost us much effort… I think the majority will be glad and it means changes for better.”

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; writing by Angus MacSwan, Alexandra Hudson and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Catherine Evans and Rosalba O’Brien)

The New Voice of Ukraine

200 Russian deserters wandering in woods in Kharkiv Oblast

June 21, 2022

The Russian deserters were noticed by residents of Borova, a small town near the city of Izyum, close to Kharkiv. Borova community council in turn wrote about them on social media.

Read also: Ukraine’s General Staff reports that low morale is leading Russian soldiers to disobey order

“They (the Russians) came back here – injured, covered with dirt, hungry, full of anger, with their equipment damaged,” an official with the council wrote.

“Then they found a place for refuge in our village to recover. We have information that approximately 200 Russians are now hiding in the woods close to our village. They’re being sought by their commanders.”

After suffering losses in another battle for control over Izyum, a group of Russian soldiers retreated to Gorohovatka, a small village on the outskirts of Borova.

Another group of Russian servicemen went into hiding in the local woods. While Borova is located on the eastern bank of Oskil river, Gorohovatka is located on the western bank. The two locations are connected by a bridge.

Read also: Uncaring Russian elites are fueling Russian military de-motivation, suggests Ukraine’s International Legion

Vast areas in this part of the country are covered with woods. The closest Russia-controlled area is likely to be Severodonetsk in Luhansk Oblast, while the distance to Russia’s Belgorod Oblast is pretty much the same.

This week, the Ukrainian army destroyed the command and intelligence center of Russia’s 20^th army, which was located in Kharkiv Oblast, leaving many Russian troops without tactical guidance.

In the northeast, the Russian army has been experiencing interruptions in logistics bringing supplies, including food and ammunition, since the beginning of the war.

Associated Press

Despite Western arms, Ukraine is outgunned in the east

Andrea Rosa and Jamey Keaten – June 20, 2022

BAKHMUT, Ukraine (AP) — Holed up in a bombed-out house in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian troops keep a careful accounting of their ammunition, using a door as a sort of ledger. Scrawled in chalk on the door are figures for mortar shells, smoke shells, shrapnel shells, flares.

Despite the heavy influx of weapons from the West, Ukrainian forces are outgunned by the Russians in the battle for the eastern Donbas region, where the fighting is largely being carried out by way of artillery exchanges.

While the Russians can keep up heavy, continuous fire for hours at a time, the defenders can’t match the enemy in either weapons or ammunition and must use their ammo more judiciously.

At the outpost in eastern Ukraine, dozens and dozens of mortar shells are stacked up. But the troops’ commander, Mykhailo Strebizh, who goes by the nom de guerre Gaiduk, lamented that if his fighters were to come under an intense artillery barrage, their cache would, at best, amount to only about four hours’ worth of return fire.

Ukrainian authorities say the West’s much-ballyhooed support for the country is not sufficient and is not arriving on the battlefield fast enough for this grinding and highly lethal phase of the war.

While Russia has kept quiet about its war casualties, Ukrainian authorities say up to 200 of their soldiers are dying each day. Russian forces are gaining ground slowly in the east, but experts say they are taking heavy losses.

The United States last week upped the ante with its largest pledge of aid for Ukrainian forces yet: an additional $1 billion in military assistance to help repel or reverse Russian advances.

But experts note that such aid deliveries haven’t kept pace with Ukraine’s needs, in part because defense industries aren’t turning out weaponry fast enough.

“We’re moving from peacetime to wartime,” said Francois Heisbourg, a senior adviser at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research think tank. “Peacetime means low production rates, and ramping up the production rate means that you have to first build industrial facilities. … This is a defense-industrial challenge which is of a very great magnitude.”

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany last week reported that the U.S. has delivered about half of its pledged commitments in military support for Ukraine, and Germany about one-third. Poland and Britain have both come through on much of what they promised.

Many foot soldiers say they can’t even begin to match the Russians shot for shot, or shell for shell.

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s ambassador in Madrid, Serhii Phoreltsev, thanked Spain — which trumpeted a shipment of 200 tons of military aid in April — but said the ammunition included was enough for only about two hours of combat.

Ukrainian filmmaker-turned-fighter Volodymyr Demchenko tweeted a video expressing gratitude for guns sent by the Americans, saying, “It’s nice guns, and 120 bullets to each.” But he lamented: “It’s like 15 minutes of a fight.”

Part of the problem, too, is that the Ukrainian forces, whose country was once a member of the Soviet Union, are more familiar with Soviet-era weaponry and must first be trained on the NATO equipment they are getting.

An untold number of Ukrainians have traveled abroad to get training on the Western weapons.

Of the $1 billion pledge from the U.S., only slightly more than one-third of that will be rapid, off-the-shelf deliveries by the Pentagon, and the rest will be available over a longer term. The pledge, which includes 18 howitzers and 36,000 rounds of ammunition for them, addresses Ukraine’s plea for more longer-range weaponry.

That’s still far short of what the Ukrainians want — 1,000 155 mm howitzers, 300 multiple-launch rocket systems, 500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles and 1,000 drones — as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s adviser Mikhail Podolyak tweeted last week, before the latest big Western pledges.

“What the Ukrainians have got to do is conduct what military people tend to call a counter-battery operation” to respond to Russian artillery fire, said Ben Barry, a former director of the British Army Staff who is senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “To do this, you need accurate weapons with a high rate of fire and a range that allows them to keep out of the way of the other side’s artillery.”

“The Ukrainians are saying they don’t have enough long-range rockets to adequately suppress Russian artillery,” he said. “I think they’re probably right.”

As it now stands, Ukrainian fighters often have to use “shoot and scoot” tactics — fire, then move before the Russians can zero in on them.

Better NATO hardware, even in small quantities, is often welcome.

On a nearby front on Saturday, a Ukrainian unit granted The Associated Press rare access to the firing of U.S.-supplied M777 howitzers — towable, 155 mm weapons — on Russian positions.

A lieutenant who goes by the call sign Wasp touted the M777’s precision, speed of fire, simplicity of use and the ease with which it is camouflaged, saying the new hardware “raises our spirits” and “demoralizes the enemy because they see what the consequences are.”

Denys Sharapov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of defense in charge of procurement, told a publication of the U.S.-based National Defense Industrial Association that the weapons systems that have been received cover only 10% to 15% of the country’s needs. He noted the breadth of the challenge — a front line with 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) of active combat.

Interviewed by National Defense magazine in an article published Wednesday, Sharapov said no single supplier could satisfy Ukraine’s needs alone.

“Quite unfortunately for us, we have become the biggest consumer of weapons and ammunition in the world,” he said.

Friends of Ukraine are digging in for the long haul.

Time may be on Ukraine’s side, the experts say. Ukrainian fighters are both motivated and mobilized — all men in the country of 40 million have been called to fight, whereas Russia has so far avoided a call-up of conscripts, which could vastly tilt the war in Russia’s favor but may not be popular domestically.

As for how long such fighting could last, analyst Heisbourg said a years-long war of attrition is “quite possible.”

Keaten reported from Geneva. Srdjan Nedeljkovic in Bakhmut, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

Business Insider

Russia is facing its worst recession in 30 years — and the ‘Putin Generation’ is paying the price

Huileng Tan – June 20, 2022

• Russian youths face shrinking professional opportunities as multinational firms exit the country.
• Young Russians will also find it tougher to pursue higher education in Europe.
• The Russian economy will contract 11.2% in 2022, per a World Bank forecast released in April.

Russian youths entering the job market and pursuing higher education are in for a rough ride.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, multinationals have left Russia in droves, while sanctions from major world economies are intensifying. Meanwhile, there are changes taking place at Russian universities that stand to make it difficult for the country’s students to pursue higher education elsewhere.

“We’re really entering a kind of uncharted territory in so many ways,” Hassan Malik, a senior sovereign analyst at Boston-based investment management consultancy Loomis Sayles, told Insider.

Experts told Insider it’s impossible, just months into the war, to quantify the impact of the war on Russian youths. But they also said the generation that grew up under the presidency of President Vladimir Putin — which started in 2012 — is now experiencing a very different Russia from the one it grew up in.

Loosely termed the “Putin Generation,” this group of young people grew up knowing only one president in its formative years and is between 17 and 25 years old, according to the Wilson Center. They grew up eating McDonald’s, watching the latest Hollywood films, and posting on Instagram — all of which are, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, no longer available in Russia.

Two experts Insider spoke to broke down how much tougher it’ll be for young Russians at work and in school.

Multinationals are leaving en masse, limiting professional opportunities

Like in many countries, the value of a good education in Russia is that it opens up doors at not just homegrown employers, but also at multinational companies that present opportunities for employees to enter and leave the European job market freely. These windows are closing fast.

“A lot of multinational corporations had promised good stable careers, where one can advance on their merits in a kind of traditional Western capitalist model,” said Andrew Lohsen, a fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Those opportunities are drying up as these companies leave Russia, and some of the industries that have promised high salaries are starting to be hamstrung by sanctions.”

Lohsen cited oil and gas and IT as some sectors where multinationals are departing in droves, leaving a future of uncertainty for those looking to enter these major industries. Earlier this month, American tech giants IBM and Microsoft laid off hundreds of employees in Russia as companies continued to pull out of the market.

Such exits are not just about the job market. They will also curtail training and professional networks for Russian professionals, Malik told Insider.

In response, many Russian tech employees are leaving, Insider’s Belle Lin, Masha Borak, and Kylie Robison reported in April. While many made their exits due to fear of being conscripted to fight the war, some said they were driven by the impact of sanctions on their jobs.

In April, the World Bank said the Russian economy is expected to contract 11.2% in 2022, marking its worst economic contraction in three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russian universities and education will quash open debate, push for top-down thinking

The experts Insider spoke to also expressed concern about the future of Russia’s academic system, as the country looks to exit the Bologna Process in which European governments align education standards and qualifications.

“What that means is that Russians who are thinking about getting a higher education in Europe — especially a professional or doctoral degree — will find it much harder now to try to enter European universities,” Lohsen told Insider. Russia is planning to revert to the Soviet standard, which makes it very difficult for any sort of European University to verify their academic credentials, he added.

Europe’s academic community is especially concerned about the freedom for open debate in Russia after 700 rectors and university presidents from Russian universities signed a letter nine days into invasion endorsing the Kremlin’s version of events — namely, that Moscow is aiming for a “demilitarisation and denazification” of Ukraine, the Times Higher Education magazine reported, citing the letter, which has since been taken down.

“What we are seeing is the politicization of the education system, and that goes from the top to the bottom,” said Lohsen. “There’s a real sharp turn in the Russian education toward embracing the state narrative and excluding any sort of doubt or alternatives, and punishing those who step out of line.”

Malik said he had participated in conferences with Russian and international institutions in the past where there were dynamic exchanges of ideas. He now thinks this would now be extremely difficult, especially since Russia passed a law in March that would jail for up to 15 years those intentionally spreading “fake” news about the military.

A political upheaval is unlikely even if Russians are unhappy, experts say

While the situation looks grim, Moscow has been ramping up propaganda in recent years to promote a top-down structure with the state, the military, and the church at the core of Russian society, said Lohsen. Alongside a mass media environment that’s largely controlled by the state or linked to the Kremlin, such messages could distract the populace from impending economic hardship, he added.

Some young Russians who are unhappy with Putin’s rule fled the country after the war broke out. But there are everyday practicalities to consider for Russians who wish to start afresh outside of their home country — such as long-term visas, employment, and financial resources, all of which are now harder to come by due to sanctions over the war, Malik and Lohsen told Insider.

Inside Russia, support for the war remains. In late May, an independent Russian pollster called the Levada Center conducted a survey of 1,634 Russian people and found that 60% of 18- to 24-year-old Russians supported the war.

There’s little indication anything will change politically — even if there are pockets of dissent, said Malik.

“A revolution is more likely in an democracy than in an autocracy — because in a democracy, you can just have an election,” he told Insider. After all, the economic conditions in the former Soviet Union were worse than what they are now in Russia — but nothing changed for decades, he added.

“For discontent to translate into policy change, and let alone regime change in an autocracy is a very high bar,” he said.