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Author: John Hanno
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Bogan High School. Worked in Alaska after the earthquake. Joined U.S. Army at 17. Sergeant, B Battery, 3rd Battalion, 84th Artillery, 7th Army. Member of 12 different unions, including 4 different locals of the I.B.E.W. Worked for fortune 50, 100 and 200 companies as an industrial electrician, electrical/electronic technician.
A man was “leaking” information to the Russians about the positions of the Armed Forces and the National Guard in Bakhmut
Roman Petrenko – May 23, 2022
The Prosecutor General’s Office announced that a resident of Bakhmut Donetsk region, had been exposed for treason. The man had been marking the positions of Ukrainian defenders.
Details: According to the investigation, it was in May that the citizen agreed to help the aggressors.
The man had been transferring information on the location and movement of personnel and equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to an agent of the Russian law enforcement agency via the internet, as well as filming the location of National Guard personnel in Bakhmut.
In addition, he had been putting marks on electronic maps and had been informing the invaders about the missiles hitting the city’s civilian infrastructure buildings.
Currently, the man is under arrest without bail.
Reminder: As a result of the Russian airstrike on Bakhmut in the Donetsk region on 17 May, 5 civilians were killed, including a two-year-old child, and 4 residents were injured.
On 19 May, the Russian armed forces made another airstrike on Bakhmut, shelling a five-story building, a private house and an office building.
CBS News poll: More Americans label GOP extreme, but Democratic Party as weak
Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus, and Kabir Khanna – May 22, 2022
With midterm primaries helping set the direction for the Democratic and Republican parties, most Americans, including many of the parties’ own voters, aren’t terribly happy with the parties or what they’re talking about. Given that Sunday’s CBS News poll finds most aren’t happy with the direction of the country either, the major political parties aren’t providing much solace.
For starters, the Democratic Party — which controls Congress and the presidency — is not seen by a majority as either “effective” or “in touch,” which are, no doubt, important measures for a party in power. The Democratic Party is more apt to be described as “weak,” a label applied by a slight majority of Americans, than it is “strong.”
The Republican Party, for its part, is described by a slight majority as “extreme,” a term Americans apply to the GOP more so than to Democrats, though neither really escapes the label. Independents are more likely to call the GOP extreme. The GOP is described as “strong” more often than as “weak,” but it is also described by Americans more often as “hateful” than as “caring” — by double digits.
Primaries tend to find candidates arguing over matters that appeal to their bases, but as different as each side’s campaigns are, there is something voters of each side share: a desire for candidates to focus on inflation. Perhaps that’s no surprise, given how large it looms for most Americans.
Among Democrats, who also want a focus on taxing the wealthy and racial justice, many also want their candidates to focus on protecting abortion rights. In fact, especially among those who care a lot about the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade — almost all say they want the party’s nominees to focus on abortion rights.
Republicans want their nominees to focus on stopping illegal immigration and talk about traditional values. Illegal immigration is especially a priority among self-described conservative Republicans.
A majority of independents also want the Democrats to focus on abortion rights.
And there’s an asymmetry on abortion focus between the parties: even more Democrats want their candidates to focus on supporting abortion rights than Republicans want their candidates to talk about opposing it.
But despite being in power during a time of inflation, Democrats don’t cede that much ground to Republicans on who’s trusted to deal with it. It’s 51% of Americans who trust the GOP, not much more than the 49% who trust the Democrats on inflation. It’s the same nearly even gap on the economy. And that may be because the parties’ candidates aren’t talking about it enough.
Democrats have an advantage being trusted on abortion and coronavirus.
The Trump factor
Within the Republican rank-and-file, there’s a divide over how much they want to hear about loyalty to former President Donald Trump, some of which we’re seeing play out in the primaries right now. A slight majority of Republicans do want their candidates to focus on showing loyalty to Trump, but nearly half don’t. Related to this, four in 10 Republicans want the nominees focused on the 2020 election, but most don’t.
Who is fighting for whom?
We also see such dramatic differences in which people Americans think the parties support — or don’t. The overall picture reminds us of how much Americans see the parties dividing them, not only on policy, but by demographic groups.
Americans overall are more likely to see the Republican Party as fighting for White people than for Black people — by more than two to one. In fact, more say the Republican Party fights against the interests of Black Americans than is neutral toward them. It’s similarly true for views of the Republican Party’s approach to Hispanic people, with more feeling it works against them, rather than for them, and by more than two to one, against LGBTQ people than for them. Americans do think the GOP fights more for people of faith than do Democrats.
Conversely, they see the Democratic Party as fighting for Black and Hispanic Americans more so than for White Americans.
Americans are more likely to believe the GOP fights more against the interests of women than for women, and women overall describe things this way.
Men, meanwhile, are much more likely to think the Democrats fight more for women than for men, but a majority of men think the Republican Party fights for them (and more so than for women).
Echoing some of these perceptions are big differences in how partisans within the parties approach the country’s racial diversity — and each group’s partisans tend to think they’re not being treated fairly.
Big majorities of Democrats think immigrants make America better in the long run; a majority of Republicans say they make America worse.
Republicans are more likely to say White Americans suffer “a lot” of discrimination than they are to say Black Americans do.
Democrats see quite the opposite. And Democrats are more likely to say it’s very important for political leaders to condemn White nationalism.
Republicans tend to see America’s changing diversity as neither good nor bad, but those who take a position tend to say bad. Democrats (whose ranks are made up of more people of color) say it’s a good thing.
This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,041 U.S. adult residents interviewed between May 18-20, 2022. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as to 2020 presidential vote. The margin of error is ±2.5 points.
‘Solid symbol of United States strength’: USS Nimitz introduced an enduring era
Hill Goodspeed – May 22, 2022
The scene in Norfolk, Virginia, on May 4, 1975, awakened memories of earlier ceremonies in the historic place where many Navy ships embarked upon their service on the Seven Seas. Historic aircraft carriers under the overall command of an admiral whose namesake ship entered service that day. Amidst pageantry that included a 21-gun salute, colorful flags fluttering in the breeze and martial music, President Gerald R. Ford marked the commissioning of the USS Nimitz (CVN 68), the world’s second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
President Gerald R. Ford and other dignitaries are pictured during the commissioning ceremony for USS Nimitz on May 3, 1975.
“I see this great ship as a double symbol of today’s challenging times. She is first of all a symbol of the United States, of our immense resources in materials and skilled manpower, of our inexhaustible energy, of the inventive and productive genius of our free, competitive economic system, and of our massive but controlled military strength,” said the president, who during World War II sailed as a crewman on board an aircraft carrier in Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet. “Wherever the United States Ship Nimitz shows her flag, she will be seen as we see her now, a solid symbol of United States strength, United States resolve — made in America and manned by Americans. She is a movable part and parcel of our country, a self-contained city at sea plying the international waters of the world in defense of our national interests. Whether her mission is one of defense, diplomacy or humanity, the Nimitz will command awe and admiration from some, caution and circumspection from others, and respect from all.”
President Ford’s words were prophetic and still ring true today for not only Nimitz, but also the nine Nimitz-class carriers that have followed her down the ways, the last being USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), which was commissioned in 2009. Though the Gerald R. Ford-class carriers, the lead ship of which was commissioned in 2017, represent the Navy’s newest flattops, the ships of the Nimitz class will remain a vital component of the Navy’s arsenal.
With the final decommissioning of USS Enterprise (CVN 65) on Feb. 3, 2017, Nimitz became the oldest active aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy. In today’s digital world, it is humorous to read a newspaper account from 1975 lauding the technology on board the ship, where her first commanding officer, Capt. Bryan Compton, could address the crew on color television, which also boasted three channels for viewing by off-duty sailors and Marines. That she now operates with sophisticated 21st century technology speaks to the soundness of the Nimitz-class design, the lead ship having adapted to the times in her 47th year of service.
The USS Nimitz operates in company with the battleship USS Missouri in 1987.
After a brief shakedown cruise in the Caribbean and North Atlantic following her commissioning, Nimitz deployed to the Mediterranean in July 1976 with the guided-missile cruisers USS South Carolina (CGN 37) and USS California (CGN 36), marking the first time in a decade that nuclear-powered ships deployed to the Mediterranean. In 1979, the carrier played a starring role on the silver screen, the ship’s spaces transformed into a Hollywood set for the filming of “The Final Countdown” starring Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen. The plot involved Nimitz and her crew going back in time to the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack and the decision on whether to alter the course of history. The film provided a number of crewmen the opportunity to speak lines and featured aerial sequences showing VF-84 Jolly Rogers F-14 Tomcats with their colorful skull and crossbones tail markings.
It did not take long for the nation’s newest flattop to also assume a leading role on the real world stage. In 1980, while underway in the Indian Ocean during a deployment marked by 144 consecutive days at sea, RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters launched from the ship to take part in Operation Evening Light (also known as Operation Eagle Claw). The attempted rescue of 52 American hostages held in Tehran ended in tragedy at a landing site in the Iranian desert. The following year, while Nimitz conducted exercises in the Gulf of Sidra near Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s “Line of Death,” two of her embarked F-14 Tomcats of the VF-41 Black Aces shot down a pair of Libyan Su-22 Fitters after the enemy aircraft fired upon them.
RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters are pictured on the flight deck of the USS Nimitz prior to the attempted rescue of the Iran hostages.
Shifting to her new homeport of Naval Station Bremerton, Washington, in 1987, Nimitz spent the ensuing years participating in Operations Earnest Will, protecting the shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf and flying combat air patrols as part of Operation Southern Watch. In the Far East, she provided U.S. Navy presence off Taiwan during a volatile standoff between that nation and China in 1995. In 1997 to 1998, she completed an around-the-world cruise, concluding it at Norfolk, the place of her birth, where she entered the yard for refueling and overhaul.
She emerged in June 2001, and just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks put to sea and set course for her new homeport at NAS North Island. California. In March 2003, she deployed for the first time to the Fifth Fleet Area of Responsibility and launched air strikes in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The cruise marked the first deployments of both the F/A-18F Super Hornet and E-2C Hawkeye 2000, with Nimitz also becoming the first aircraft carrier to deploy with an air wing containing two Super Hornet squadrons.
In 2005, the carrier commemorated 30 years of service, film crews spending the entire deployment on board for the PBS documentary “Carrier,” which provided an intimate look at life aboard the ship. Amidst deployments supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Nimitz shifted her homeport to Everett, Washington, and helped evaluate the future of carrier aviation as the platform for the first carrier landings of the F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. The carrier’s 2017 deployment included combat operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, followed by a period in overhaul.
An F/A-18C Hornet from the VMFA-323 “Death Rattlers” makes an arrested landing on the flight deck of the USS Nimitz in 2021.
A testament to the ship’s longevity occurred during her most recent deployment in the shadow of COVID-19, an 11-month cruise in which the carrier and embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17 conducted over 35,345 flight hours and 14,141 traps. Among the latter was a landing by an F/A-18C Hornet assigned to the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 323 Death Rattlers. It marked the final time that the venerable aircraft, which equipped the famed Blue Angels from 1986 through 2020, deployed on board an aircraft carrier. When Nimitz entered service in 1975, the Hornet had yet to make its first flight.
In a message to the personnel of the U.S. Pacific Fleet on Sept. 2, 1945, Fleet Admiral Nimitz wrote about what they owed to those who made the ultimate sacrifice during World War II.
“To them we have a solemn obligation … to insure that their sacrifice will help to make this a better and safer world in which to live,” he stated. “It will also be necessary to maintain our national strength at a level which will discourage future acts of aggression aimed at the destruction of our way of life.”
The number of times Nimitz will leave the shores of the United States are numbered, her decommissioning slated for 2025, a half century after President Ford so eloquently captured in words what she represented. In that time, she has more that met the obligations her namesake outlined in 1945, and the class of carriers that followed her will carry that torch for many decades to come.
Hill Goodspeed is the historian for the National Naval Aviation Museum and a columnist for the News Journal.
Russia’s Ukraine invasion ‘makes no sense,’ according to a leading historian who once angered Putin by asking him about energy
Ryan Hogg – May 22, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council via teleconference call at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, on May 20, 2022. AP Russia’s Ukraine invasion ‘makes no sense,’ according to a leading historian who once angered Putin by asking him about energy
Daniel Yergin is a leading energy historian and vice-chairman of S&P Global.
He said Russia’s days as an energy superpower were “waning,” and called the invasion “irrational.”
Yergin said he’d once angered Putin by asking about shale energy at a conference in 2013.
A leading energy historian, who claims to have enraged Vladimir Putin by asking him about shale energy, has said Russia overestimated the West’s reliance on its oil and gas when it invaded Ukraine.
In an interview with the New York Times, Daniel Yergin called the invasion “irrational,” adding: “One of Putin’s many miscalculations was his assumption that, because of Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, it would protest but stand aside, as it did with Crimea.
“It has had just the opposite effect. Europe wants to get out of that dependence as fast as it can.”
Yergin, who is vice-chairman of S&P Global, told the Times Putin was “like a CEO when he talks about energy markets,” and that he had timed the invasion to when those markets were at their tightest, as supply chains unwound after the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said the invasion heralded “a new uncertain era,” adding: “As we talk, the risks are going up.”
In a separate interview on Friday, Yergin told Bloomberg’s “What Goes Up” podcast that he asked the first question of Putin after the Russian president had spoken at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2013.
The historian said he asked about shale gas and Putin “started shouting at me saying, ‘shale is barbaric!'”
“He knew that US shale was a threat to him in two ways: one, because US natural gas would compete with natural gas in Europe, and secondly, because this would really augment the US’s position in the world and give it a kind of flexibility it didn’t have when it was importing 60% of its oil,” Yergin told the podcast.
He added that growing American shale oil and gas production had reduced the country’s dependence on Russian energy, which “had a much bigger impact on geopolitics than people recognize.”
Yergin said on the podcast that “Russia’s door to the West is closed,” and that it would be forced to pivot toward China as Europe moves away from Russian energy.
Office of the President: Ukraine itself will unblock the Black Sea if it receives MLRS systems
Roman Petrenko – May 22, 2022
Photo from the Militarnyi website
The President’s Office notes that Ukraine needs the American MLRS multiple launch rocket system, including for unblocking the Black Sea.
Source: Head of the Office of the President Andrii Yermak in Telegram; his adviser Mykhailo Podoliak on Twitter.
Yermak’s Quote: “We need to get high-precision missiles, drones, anti-aircraft defence systems and ammunition. We are still waiting for MLRS.”
Podoliak’s Quote: “1.6 billion people may become malnourished due to lack of food. Hundreds of millions will fall below the poverty line due to rising prices.
The Economist predicts the consequences of Russian aggression and invites the world to agree with Ukraine and Russia on international food convoys in the Black Sea.
Bargain with a country that has taken hundreds of millions of people hostage? We have a better idea: the world should agree on the transfer of MLRS systems and other necessary heavy weapons to Ukraine to unlock the Black Sea. Then we’ll do everything ourselves.”
Recall: The UN warned that the closure of ports in the Black Sea could provoke a global food disaster, which will lead to famine, mass migration and political instability in the world.
Russians prepare to resume offensive on Sloviansk – General Staff Summary
Denys Karlovskyi – May 21, 2022
MAP OF HOSTILITIES IN DONBAS. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Russian occupying forces are preparing to resume offensive operations from Izium to Sloviansk.
Source: evening summary of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for 21 May
Quote: “The occupying forces are preparing to resume their offensive on the Sloviansk front. During the day, the enemy carried out artillery shelling in the areas of Velyka Komyshuvakha and Dovhenke in Kharkiv Oblast.
On the Slobozhansk front, the enemy continues to conduct hostilities in order to hold the occupied frontiers. In order to prevent our troops from reaching the state border, they launched air strikes and fired artillery at the areas of Chornohlazivka, Prudianka, Dementiivka and Ternova.”
Details: Russian troops are also preparing for an offensive on the Lyman front.
On the Donetsk front, the enemy is trying to break through the Ukrainian troops’ line of defence and reach the administrative border of Luhansk Oblast.
Supported by aircraft and artillery, they carried out assault operations in the areas of Lypove, Vasylivka, Marinka and Novomykhailivka in Donetsk Oblast, but without success.
The Russians launched air and artillery strikes on civilian targets in Bakhmut and Vrubovka. An air strike was also launched on Mykilskyi in the Volnovakha district.
The aggressor did not carry out offensive operations on the Novopavlivsk and Zaporizhzhia fronts. Civilian infrastructure was shelled in the areas of Vremivka in Donetsk Oblast, and Olhivske, Zatyshshya, Guliaypole, Orikhiv, Novodanylivka and Kamianske in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
On the Pivdennyi Buh, Siversk, Volyn and Polissia fronts, the situation has not changed significantly.
In Chernihiv Oblast, Russian invaders fired on the settlements of Semenivka, Bleshnia and Hirsk. Missile strikes were separately launched on targets in the Poltava and Zhytomyr regions.
Ukrainian intelligence continues to record that the Russian command is carrying out covert mobilisation to rotate troops that have suffered losses during the hostilities against the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Compulsory measures to enlist men from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are also continuing.
Under the slogan of “nationalisation”, Russian invaders are looting the property of telecommunications companies in the occupied territories of the southern oblasts of Ukraine.
Background:
In its morning summary, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported the aggressor’s plans to attack Sloviansk from the east – from the side of Siversk on the border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
As of the morning of 21 May, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have killed 28,500 Russian soldiers and destroyed 1,278 tanks, 3,116 armored combat vehicles and 462 drones.
Zelenskyy says UN, Red Cross order Russia to take its ‘mountains of corpses’
Caitlin McFall – May 21, 2022
The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have directed Russian President Vladimir Putin to remove his “mountain of corpses,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday.
“They abandoned their military,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with a Ukrainian news outlet. “They were dying, but they didn’t care. Recently I was told that they are only now thinking about taking the corpses.
“When the war started…they used to pretend that there were no corpses,” he continued. “The UN and the Red Cross said – take these bags away. Mountains of corpses of their military.”
A Russian Armoured personnel carrier (APC) burns next to an unidentified soldier’s body during a fight with the Ukrainian armed forces in Kharkiv. Photo by SERGEY BOBOK/AFP via Getty Images
Moscow has long relied on its propaganda machine to fuel support for its conflict in Ukraine and Putin has refused to declare open war on Kyiv, instead calling it a “special military operation.”
Reports surfaced early in the invasion that Russia was potentially relying on a “mobile crematorium” to dispose of dead soldiers to help cover the evidence of mounting causalities.
The Pentagon has assessed that Russia is behind schedule in eastern Ukraine, where it intends to gain “full control.”
But press secretary John Kirby said Friday that the U.S. has assessed that Russian forces are still making “incremental gains” in the Donbas and a senior U.S. defense official told reporters this week the U.S. believes Moscow is making some headway in the Black Sea as well.
“The Russians are still well behind where we believe they wanted to be when they started this revitalized effort in the eastern part of the country,” Kirby said from the Pentagon. “And while they have made, and we have been very honest about this, they have made some incremental progress in the Donbas. It is incremental, it is slow, it’s uneven, and the Ukrainians continue to push back.”
UKRAINE MORALE IS ‘HUGE’ BOOST IN WAR WITH RUSSIA, NATO MILITARY CHIEFS SAY
The Ukrainian president said he signed a decree in early 2022 to add 100,000 additional troops to its fighting force by next year, but warned he is not sure that this will be enough to take on the entire might of Russia.
Western defense officials have argued Russia does not appear to have properly planned for its major offensive against Ukraine, and Zelenskyy said Saturday his nation had been bracing for an attack since September 2021 as Russia started to amass troops along its southern border.
But Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is fighting more than just Russia and has Belarus to contend with as it has backed Putin’s deadly campaign.
“We have to look at the cost of this war,” he said. “We broke the back of one of the world’s strongest armies. We have already done it. Psychologically we have done it.
“They will not stand on their feet for the next few years,” he added.
Putin is losing his grip on power and top Russian security officials think the Ukraine war is ‘lost,’ expert says
Joshua Zitser – May 21, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin seen during the Summit of Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) at the Grand Kremlin Palace on May 16, 2022.Contributor/Getty Images
Top Russian security officials think the war in Ukraine is “lost,” according to an expert.
These officials are now preparing themselves for a post-Putin Russia, said Bellingcat’s Christo Grozev.
Some of them are already looking for opportunities to take their families out of Russia, Grozev said, per Metro.
Top Russian security officials think the war in Ukraine is “lost,” suggesting that Vladimir Putin’s regime might be coming to an end, according to an expert on Russia-related security threats.
The “informed elite” within the security forces “understand that the war is lost,” said Bellingcat’s lead Russia investigator Christo Grozev in an interview with Radio Liberty, per Metro.
To have a chance of winning the war, Grozev said, the Russian president would need full mobilization but this would cause problems for him at home. Mass mobilization would lead to a “social explosion” in Russia, Grozev added, according to Metro.
There are those in Putin’s inner circle who may pressure him to use nuclear or chemical weapons, Grozev continued, but others will say “enough is enough.” These people would say “it is better not to waste another 10,000 lives of our soldiers and officers,” Grozev said, per Metro.
Western officials say Russia, facing military setbacks, is losing momentum as the war in Ukraine goes on.
Grozev said that security officials with the FSB, who know how many Russian soldiers have died, think Putin is losing his grip on power. ‘These are those parts of the security forces who know the dangers for the regime, and they themselves are now preparing their future,” he said, per Metro.
A number of officials from the FSB and GRU are preparing for a post-Putin Russia, according to the expert. “Some of them are looking for an opportunity to take their families out of Russia,” Grozev said.
A Ukrainian serviceman walks amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 6, 2022.AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File
Last week, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief told Sky News that a coup to overthrow Putin is already underway. “It is impossible to stop it,” said Major General Kyrylo Budanov.
Insider previously reported that the grievances that typically motivate a coup against a dictator are in place — a struggling economy, military setbacks, and floundering morale. However, Putin has spent decades making his regime coup-proof, an expert told Insider.
Ukraine’s stymies Russian efforts to cut off Luhansk in Bilohorivka
May 21, 2022
Siversky Donets River
Despite the fact that heavy fighting is still going on in the region, thanks to the extraordinary professionalism of the Armed Forces, this episode has already gone down in the history of war with Russia.
Deployment of forces as of May 13, 2022, one of the circles marks Bilohorivka www.understandingwar.org
A strike on a school in Bilohorivka and construction of a pontoon crossing: what the invaders were trying to achieve
Before the Russian invasion, about 1,000 people lived in the village of Bilohorivka (Sievierodonetsk district, Luhansk Oblast). However, in early May 2022, this small town gained exceptional strategic importance on military maps.
It was in this area that Russian troops tried to ford the Siverskyi Donets River, a natural barrier between the Armed Forces and the invaders in the hottest parts of the front.
A successful breakthrough and the development of the Russian army’s offensive near Bilohorivka could allow it to take control of the Lysychansk-Bakhmut route, which Luhansk Regional State Administration Chairman Serhiy Hayday calls the “road of life” — it connects the region with Ukrainian-controlled territories. In addition, such a breakthrough could increase the threat of the encirclement of some Ukrainian forces defending the settlements of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
On May 7, the Russian army resorted to “preparatory” actions, launching an airstrike on a school in Bilohorivka, where almost 90 civilians were hiding. About 60 of them are believed to have been killed in the attack.
“If [the invaders] entrench themselves, they can develop an offensive and get closer to the road, cutting off Luhansk Oblast — it will mean the loss of the single path to safety and communication with other regions,” Hayday stated in his morning report on May 9, when Moscow pompously celebrated Victory Day.
“Today is decisive. Let’s fight for the “road of life” […] Trust in the Ukrainian Armed Forces! We have everything to defeat the ogres. As they crossed the river, so will they swim back.”
Ukrainian Airborne Forces Command Handout via REUTERS
The Ukrainian army managed to realize such hopes almost literally: in the following days, Ukrainian defenders destroyed several such crossings, forcing the Russians to flee, even by swimming. At the same time, a huge amount of enemy equipment and personnel was destroyed, comparable to the staffing of one or two battalion tactical groups (BTG) of the Russian Federation.
Bilohorivka as a new Chornobaivka: what losses and how exactly the Armed Forces inflicted them on the Russians
According to journalist Yuriy Butusov, the most active phase of fighting in the Bilohorivka area took place on May 5-13, when units of the 58th Motorized Infantry, 80th Air Assault, 128th Mountain Assault, and 57th Motorized Brigades of the Armed Forces repulsed Russian troops.
With strong artillery support, the Ukrainian military managed not only to destroy the original crossing and enemy forces that were trying to form the first bridgehead but also to crush several other attempts by Russia to build pontoon bridges.
According to the New York Times, Russian commanders sent about 550 servicemen of the 74th Motor Rifle Brigade of the 41st Army to ford the Siverskyi Donets near Bilohorivka.
At least 485 of them were liquidated by Ukrainian defenders, along with more than 80 units of Russian equipment, according to the Institute for the Study of War. These are the most conservative estimates: according to Butusov, Russia has lost even more near Bilohorivka — over 100 units of military equipment.
Similar assessments were made by analyst Pavel Voylov, who meticulously summarized all available photos and videos from Bilohorivka and published an extremely detailed database of the defeat of the invaders in their attempt to ford the Siverskyi Donets.
This database contains 110 objects (equipment and engineering constructions) in Bilohorivka and its vicinity. Among them are tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, tugboats needed to construct the crossing, and other Russian military equipment, such as:
58 destroyed and sunken objects: they are marked in red on the map below (10 tanks, 31 infantry fighting vehicles, 3 airborne combat vehicles, 3 floating armored personnel carriers, 1 armored repair and evacuation vehicle, 1 landing armored personnel carrier, 2 tugboats, 1 pontoon park vehicle and 6 unknown objects);
31 possibly destroyed or damaged objects marked in khaki (2 tanks, 9 infantry fighting vehicles, 4 floating armored personnel carriers, 1 floating conveyor, 9 pontoon park vehicles, 3 pontoons on the shore and 3 unknown objects);
4 objects without any damage, displayed in white (2 tanks, 1 infantry fighting vehicle, and 1 unknown object).
“The total number of destroyed, sunk, possibly destroyed or damaged objects today [May 18] is 89 units,” Voylov says.
Of this number, some of the objects may be only damaged, but, on the other hand, there are very few photos and videos of Bilohorivka-North – only one reliably destroyed object has been identified there so far. Given that the enemy was forced to retreat to the crossing as a result of the battle, its losses there are probably uncounted.
According to sources cited by the Ukrainian military news outlet Defence Express, after the devastating defeat near Bilohorivka, remnants of the Russian 74th Motor Rifle Brigade withdrew from Ukrainian territory to the Voronezh region of the Russian Federation, due to a complete loss of combat capability.
This data suggests all three motorized infantry battalions of this brigade were defeated, and in the tank battalion of 31 vehicles, there were only five tanks capable of moving by themselves.
It is worth noting that this brigade, from the beginning of the invasion, operated near Chernihiv and Nizhyn, where it had already suffered losses, and after the Russians retreated from northern Ukraine, it was transferred to the Izyum axis.
Butusov, who visited the battlefield near Bilohorivka shortly after a successful counterattack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said that at first the enemy managed to transport several dozen units of equipment to the Ukrainian-controlled bank of the river.
The invaders tried to gain a foothold in 1 square kilometer area, “and this could be — and was — a really big problem for us,” Butusov said.
“But our troops in very difficult conditions, where the situation was constantly changing, went into battle, and the attacks of our infantry stopped the advance of the enemy on the bridgehead,” Butusov said in a video dated May 15, after returning from Bilohorivka.
“And after the infantry restrained a further offensive, our artillery precisely targeted Russian equipment, Russian reserves, Russian infantry — now everything has been driven out of our bank of the Siverskyi Donets.”
Figures indicate damaged or destroyed objects in the area of the Russian forces’ attempt to force the Siversky Donets near Bilohorivka Pavel Voylov via Facebook
The YouTube channel Ukrayinskyi Svidok (‘Ukrainian Witness’), which documents the war with Russia, also released a video of a “cemetery” of Russian equipment from the area where the enemy army tried to ford the Siverskyi Donets.
These shots were taken by one of the Ukrainian service members who took part in the hostilities.
Around the same time, Russians tried to cross a river in the Dronivka area, 12 km west of Bilohorivka, but failed there as well.
The 30th Prince Konstantyn Ostrogski Mechanized Brigade reported that Russian troops were trying to create three bridgeheads near the village of Dronivka.
“But the heroism and resilience of our infantry, artillery, and tankers of the 30th Mechanized Brigade and other units of the Armed Forces managed to stop the Russian troops and inflict heavy losses on them,” the Ukrainian military noted, releasing video footage of the act.
The clip shows the destruction of about 15 units of enemy military equipment, including three infantry fighting vehicles, two tanks, pontoons, boats, and amphibious, and engineering vehicles, according to Defence Express.
Consequences and assessments of the enemy’s defeat near Bilohorivka
As of May 20, heavy fighting continues in Luhansk Oblast. The invaders are destroying local towns and villages, and Russian forces still control one of the banks of the Siverskyi Donets. However, new attempts to ford the river near Bilohorivka have not been observed yet.
“The orcs are not fording the Siverskyi Donets yet,” said Hayday on May 17.
“(They are) scared. Foreign media reports that (Putin) is personally devising a plan for how this can be done. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are doing everything possible to prevent the Russians from crossing the river, creating a bridgehead for the offensive and cutting us off from the road of life.”
Meanwhile, the global media has noted the proficiency of the Armed Forces in preventing a Russian crossing.
The NYT says that if the reports on the nearly 500 invaders killed while fording the river are confirmed, it will be one of the biggest combat losses of the war with Russia.
The NYT points out that about 500 people were on the sunken Russian cruiser Moskva, but their fate in Russia has been kept under wraps, and the exact number of dead is still unknown.
Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War in its reports noted that as a result of the defeat near Bilohorivka, the Russian army “likely lost the momentum necessary to execute a large-scale crossing of the Siverskyi Donets River.”
“The attempted river crossing showed a stunning lack of tactical sense as satellite images show (destroyed) Russian vehicles tightly bunched up at both ends of the (destroyed) bridge, clearly allowing Ukrainian artillerymen to kill hundreds and destroy scores of vehicles with concentrated strikes,” the Institute pointed out.
It also said that the defeat near Bilohorivka has provoked a barrage of criticism of the Russian military command, even among pro-Kremlin military bloggers.
Among them is Yuri Podolyaka, a Russian blogger with 2.1 million subscribers on his Telegram channel, who said in a recent video: “I kept silence for a long time. The last straw that overwhelmed my patience was the events around Bilohorivka, where due to stupidity — I stress, because of the stupidity of the Russian command — at least one battalion tactical group was burned, possibly two.”
According to analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, against the background of Russian informational secrecy and propaganda efforts that obscure the real picture of developments in Ukraine, these bloggers’ comments “may fuel burgeoning doubts in Russia about Russia’s prospects in this war and the competence of Russia’s military leaders.”
Steele’s comments follow weeks of rumors about the Russian president’s health.
President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power is fading, and he has to take regular breaks for medical treatment, according to former British spy Christopher Steele.
Steele is a former MI6 operative who worked for many years in Russia, including heading up the spy agency’s Russia desk for three years.
President Vladimir Putin with Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev on a state media photo dated to May 19 2022Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP Photo
He told LBC: “There’s no clear political leadership coming from Putin, who is increasingly ill, and in military terms, the structures of command and so on are not functioning as they should.”
He did not cite his sources but said he was “fairly confident” of his claims. Putin’s top spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has repeatedly denied any issues.
“What we do know is that he’s constantly accompanied around the place by a team of doctors,” said Steele. Government meetings — many of which are televised — have to be broken up into sections so that Putin can go out and receive regular treatments, Steele claimed.
“It’s certainly having a very serious impact on the governance of Russia at the moment,” he said.
Putin is unlikely to withdraw from Ukraine “because of the sort of political corner he’s painted himself into,” Steele said. He added: “It’s probably driving his wish to solidify his legacy as he sees it.”
Rumors about Putin’s health have circulated for months. On May 14, Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told Sky News that Putin is “very sick” and suggested that a Kremlin coup is underway.
And the rumors went into overdrive after recent television appearances revealed the president looking pained, fidgety, and puffy. They led to speculation that the president may have dementia, Parkinson’s disease, or a type of cancer.
Some tabloidspeculations have been attributed to an anonymous Telegram account named “General SVR.” It claims to be a former high-ranking Kremlin official but Insider has been unable to verify.
But in his interview with LBC, Steele gave credence to the Parkinson’s rumor, saying Putin is “probably” ill with the disease. Nonetheless, “we don’t know the exact details of what his ailment is,” Steele said.
In April, an in-depth investigation by the independent Russian outlet Proekt also found, by examining flight records, that Putin has for the last decade had a medical entourage, with up to a dozen doctors with him at any one time — including numerous visits from a thyroid cancer specialist.
Steele is the author of the Trump-Russia dossier that included obscene allegations about the former US president, including the rumored “pee tape.”
No evidence has since been found of that tape, and other headline claims have been discredited or are yet to be independently confirmed, as CNN reported.
