Spain has shipped armored vehicles – trucks – ammunition to Ukraine

Defense News – Global Security army industry

Spain has shipped armored vehicles – trucks – ammunition to Ukraine

April 23, 2022


During a visit to Kyiv on April 21, 2022, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced that Spain has shipped 200 tons of military equipment to Ukraine including 30 military trucks, 20 4×4 armored vehicles, and ammunition.


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Spanish army truck at a military parade. (Picture source Wikimedia)


The Spanish navy ship loaded with the military vehicles and ammunition departed a port in Spain on Thursday, April 21, 2022, bound for Poland, from where the cargo will be transported to Ukraine, said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

On March 2, 2022, Spain announced the supply of offensive military equipment to Ukraine. All the European countries continue to support Ukraine with military equipment and weapons to counter the invasion of the country by the Russian army.

On April 13, 2022, the European Union (EU) has adopted two assistance measures under the European Peace Facility (EPF) that will allow the EU to further support the capabilities and resilience of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country, and protect the civilian population against the Russian forces deployed in Ukraine.

The EU has allocated a total of €1.5 billion to support EU Member States’ supplies of military equipment to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The agreed measures will finance both the provision of equipment and supplies to the Ukrainian Armed Forces by the EU Member States, including personal protective equipment, first aid kits and fuel, as well as military equipment designed to deliver lethal force for defensive purposes. The duration of the assistance measures is also extended by 24 months.

France agrees to deliver French-made CAESAR 155mm wheeled howitzers to Ukraine

Defense News – Global Security army industry

France agrees to deliver French-made CAESAR 155mm wheeled howitzers to Ukraine

April 23, 2022


According to information published by the French newspaper website “Le Figaro“, on April 22, 2022, the French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled that France will deliver state-of-the-art CAESAR 155mm wheeled self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine.


Army Recognition Global Defense and Security news
French army CAESAR 155mm wheeled self-propelled howitzers. (Picture source Army Recognition)


Citing information from the newspaper website “Ouest France” published on April 22, 2022, during an interview, the French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France will deliver CAESAR 155mm wheeled self-propelled howitzer as well as MILAN anti-tank guided missile weapon systems to Ukraine.

According to French Sources, 12 CAESAR 155mm howitzers will come for the military inventory of the French to be delivered to the Ukrainian armed forces. After the announcement on April 21, 2022, by the United States of new $800 million military aid for Ukraine and the help provided by many European countries, France wants to show its support for the Ukrainian government in its fight against the Russian forces which have invaded the country since February 24, 2022.

On April 12, 2022, Army Recognition reported that France and Italy delivered a few dozen Milan anti-tank guided missile weapon systems to Ukraine between February 28 and March 3, 2022.

For the past few days, Russian forces have launched a large offensive in eastern Ukraine and continue to carry out bombardments throughout the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to declare a battlefield victory by May 9, the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany.

The main goal of the Russian armed forces is to size the Donbas region and southern Ukraine. The Ukrainian President Zelenskyy also said that Russia has increased the movement of troops in the direction of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, as well as the Donbas and the Dnipropetrovsk region. The Donbas region is made up of the two pro-Russian self-declared republics of Luhansk and Donetsk.

The CAESAR is 155mm wheeled self-propelled fully designed and developed by the French company Nexter. This new artillery was presented for the first time to the public in June 1994 and was ordered by the French army in September 2000 and delivered late in 2022.

Since CAESAR entered into service, this outstanding artillery system has become combat-proven during external combat operations in Afghanistan, Mali, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, the Sahel region, the Middle East, and East Asia. The CAESAR has served under severe real conditions of engagement (wind, dust, night, snow, the mountain in winter, jungle, deserts of sand and rocks, during extreme temperature, etc.) and showed its great combat capabilities as an artillery support weapon.

The 6×6 wheeled self-propelled howitzer CAESAR is armed with a 155 mm/52 caliber cannon mounted at the rear of the truck chassis. The cannon inherits the long tradition of cannons by Nexter (ex- GIAT Industries), with the French-made TRF1 155mm towed howitzer and the AUF1 self-propelled howitzer on tracked armored chassis. It can be also mounted on 8×8 military truck chassis to increase mobility in all-terrain conditions.

The 155mm/52 caliber of the CAESAR can fire a wide range of ammunition: among others, LU family (HE, Illuminating, Smoke and Practice) filled with insensitive or conventional explosives, the BONUS (Anti-Tank, smart), ERFB NR (Explosive Extended-Range Full-Bore), as well as the new KATANA 155mm, guided artillery ammunition. It has a firing range from 4.5 to 40 km and a high level of accuracy with the LU family. In direct firing mode, the maximum range is 2 km.

Canada delivers M777 155mm towed howitzers to Ukraine

Defense News – Global Security army industry

Canada delivers M777 155mm towed howitzers to Ukraine

April 23, 2022


According to a statement published by the Canadian Ministry of Defense on April 22, 2022, Canada provides an undisclosed number of M777 towed howitzers and associated ammunition to the armed forces of Ukraine. While this equipment comes from the inventory of the Canadian Armed Forces, the capability will be replenished.


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Members of the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (1 RCHA) hold an M777 Howitzer shooting range practice during a trial for the Canadian Army Trial and Evaluation Unit, Gagetown (CATEU) at Canadian Forces Base Shilo, Manitoba on February 8, 2022. (Picture source  Canada MoD)


Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Canada has already delivered Carl Gustaf anti-tank weapons, body armor, helmets, gas masks, night vision gears, 4,500 M72 LAW light anti-tank weapons, and 7,500 hand grenades.

At the same time, Finally, Canada is also in the process of finalizing contracts for a number of armored vehicles, which will be sent to Ukraine as soon as possible, and a service contract for the maintenance and repair of specialized drones cameras that Canada has already supplied to Ukraine.

According to the Military Balance 2021, the Canadian army has a total of 37 M777 towed howitzers. In June 2008, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Canada of M777 155mm Light-Weight Towed Howitzers as well as associated equipment and services. The Government of Canada had requested a possible sale of 37 M777 155mm Light-Weight Towed Howitzers, spare and repair parts, support and test equipment, publications and technical documentation, maintenance, personnel training and training equipment.

The first M777 towed howitzers entered into service with the Canadian army in December 2005 and were delivered to the 1st Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. The howitzer was deployed by the Canadian army during combat operations in Afghanistan. The second batch of M777 howitzers was ordered by Canada in May 2008.

The M777 is a 155mm caliber lightweight towed howitzer that is manufactured by the company BAE Systems. It is in service with Australia, Canada, India, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and the United States. It made its combat debut in the War in Afghanistan.

The M777 has a weight of 4,200 kg and is towed by a military truck, thanks to its lightweight, it can easily be transported by helicopter sling-load or military transporter aircraft such as the C-130.

The M777 is operated by a team of five soldiers. The howitzer is used to provide direct support to combat troops through offensive and defensive fires with conventional and precision-guided projectiles. It can also employ illuminating and smoke projectiles. It has a maximum firing range of 24.7 km with standard ammunition and 30 km with rocket-assisted rounds. It can also fire Bofors XM982 Excalibur GPS / Inertial Navigation-guided extended-range at a maximum range of 40 km.

Photojournalist describes what Russia left behind in Bucha: ‘It’s apocalyptic’

Yahoo! News

Photojournalist describes what Russia left behind in Bucha: ‘It’s apocalyptic’

Caitlin Dickson, Sam Matthews and Yahoo Photo Staff – April 22, 2022

Photojournalist Carol Guzy has witnessed her fair share of death and destruction over the past four decades. The four-time Pulitzer Prize winner has documented the humanitarian toll of some of the world’s most horrific wars and natural disasters, from Haiti to Kosovo.

But from the beginning, there was something different about the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. For one thing, Guzy told Yahoo News, like many Ukrainians, she never expected that Russia would actually invade its neighbor this time around.

Destroyed homes, burnt-out tanks and bodies in the streets of Bucha, Ukraine.
The wreckage of war: destroyed homes, burnt-out tanks and bodies in the streets of Bucha, Ukraine, on April 3. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

For the “first time in 40 years, I’ve had this unbelievable feeling of dread that I couldn’t shake, and I still have it,” Guzy said. “I’m not sure if the dread is like a warning to me [for] my personal safety or it’s just been this overwhelming evil that’s happening.”

Rather than head for the frontlines, Guzy decided she would cover the war from the fringes, focusing primarily on stories about refugees. But as she watched the civilian casualties mount, she found staying on the sidelines in this conflict more difficult than she had expected.

A wrecked vehicle and dead body on a street in Bucha, Ukraine.
Wreckage of war and bodies, including some that appear to be Russian soldiers, in the streets of Bucha on April 3. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

“This is such a weird war. It’s like there’s no place that’s really safe for anyone,” Guzy said, referring to the blatant attacks on civilian sites that have come to define Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

As of Monday, 4,890 civilian casualties had been recorded in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion on Feb. 24, according to the United Nations, with 2,072 killed and 2,818 injured — though the actual figures are likely much higher.

Ukrainian soldiers stand near dead bodies on a highway in Bucha.
Ukrainian soldiers stand near dead bodies on a highway in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

“It’s one thing — soldiers on a battlefield having a war,” said Guzy. “These are civilians that are getting targeted. I’m sorry; that’s just over the line.”

The extent to which Russia has crossed that line became disturbingly clearearlier this month when Ukrainian forces liberated the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin. Guzy was among the journalists who traveled to Bucha to document the horror left behind when Russian troops retreated.

“It was quite a scene,” Guzy said. “It was just horrendous. Its apocalyptic, you know; it’s like you’re walking in a movie set.”

A Ukrainian soldier takes pictures with a cellphone of the wreckage of war in Bucha.
A Ukrainian soldier takes pictures with a cellphone of the wreckage of war in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

Footage from that scene, showing corpses scattered in the streets, along with reports that the bodies of roughly 300 local residents had been found buried in mass graves, quickly spreadprompting widespread condemnation and calls for investigations of possible war crimes. Many of the dead had reportedly been bound and shot in the back of the head, and survivors have described instances of rape and torture by Russian soldiers.

During a visit to Bucha last week, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, which began investigating possible Russian war crimes in March, called Ukraine a “crime scene.”

A War Crimes prosecutor looks at bodies in black plastic bags pulled from a mass grave behind a church in Bucha on April 11
A War Crimes prosecutor looks at bodies in black plastic bags pulled from a mass grave behind a church in Bucha on April 11. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

Guzy said Bucha has remained largely open to journalists and photographers as police and war crimes prosecutors wade through the devastation to collect evidence of alleged Russian atrocities.

“I think most people here know how important this is for history to be documented,” she said.

Such documentation has already proven critical in the face of the Russian government’s attempts to rewrite history. The Russian Defense Ministry has denied responsibility for any violence against the residents of Bucha during its occupation of the city, suggesting that footage circulated after the departure of Russian troops was staged.

A body of a person wearing black clothing and boots lies in the street in Bucha.
A body lies in the street in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

“It’s mind-boggling,” Guzy said, calling the statements put out by the Russian government “blatant lies.”

“That’s why people … want us to photograph it because, you know, the photograph is pretty hard evidence of a lot of things over and over and over again,” she added.

For Guzy, documenting the truth of what happened in places like Bucha and Irpin is about more than just taking photographs of dead bodies — though that’s a big part of it. It’s also about shining a light on the lives that have been lost to war by documenting the things — and people — they’ve left behind.

A distraught woman in a purple coat and wool headscarf carries food aid, including crackers, handed out in Bucha.
A distraught woman carries food aid handed out in Bucha on April 4. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

“They’re not just bodies. They had a life; they had family,” she said. “It’s not just 300 dead bodies in a mass grave. It’s … all these lives and hopes and dreams that were, you know, snuffed out.”

Though the power of these horrific images is undeniable, Guzy, who spent the bulk of her career as a staff photographer, first at the Miami Herald and then the Washington Post, knows editors face a tough choice when deciding whether or how to publish them.

The hand of a corpse in a mass grave in Bucha.
The hand of a corpse buried in a mass grave in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

“The problem as a photographer is trying to document this tastefully,” she said. “There’s a lot of pictures I don’t even transmit because they are too gruesome.” Still, Guzy said, you “can’t sugarcoat reality.”

“This is the reality of the situation here,” she said. “War’s ugly. It’s ugly, and harsh, and awful, and horrible and terrible.”

As difficult as it may be for someone to look at these images, she added, “It’s worse to be here. It’s worse for these people.”

Charred bodies, including those of women and children, lie in a pile in Bucha on April 3.
Charred bodies, including those of women and children, lie in a pile in Bucha on April 3. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

Witnessing such horrors firsthand is traumatic, even for the most experienced photojournalist, and Guzy’s years in the field have taught her not to suppress her emotions.

“We’re not walking cameras, you know. We’re not robots,” she said.

But it’s not the sight of dead bodies that gets to her, Guzy clarified, her voice quavering. “It’s the suffering of the people that are left behind that really… brings me to my knees.”

An arm and shoe are revealed at a mass grave in Bucha.
Remains of the dead in a mass grave in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

Guzy choked back tears as she described the warmth and kindness she’s received from people in Ukraine, like the “babushkas” who’ve welcomed her into what is left of their damaged homes and offered her tea or a hug.

“It makes it harder to see what they’re going through because everyone here has been so kind, and they’re such good people,” she said. “I wish Putin would know the people that he’s doing this to.”

The bodies of Sergei Guryanova and his brother-in-law Roman, who had both been shot in the head, lie in a courtyard as Irina, the wife of Sergei and sister of Roman, quietly weeps.
The bodies of Sergei Guryanova and his brother-in-law Roman, who had both been shot in the head, lie in a courtyard as Irina, the wife of Sergei and sister of Roman, quietly weeps. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)

Ultimately, the stories that are the most emotional for Guzy are the ones that she hopes can offer people hope amid all the pain and suffering.

“I still look for hope. Look for the angels. Look for the people who are here doing the good work and trying to save these people,” she said. “Or the woman who hands me the little vial of tea from her totally destroyed, bombed-out building because she wants to give the stranger a gift. That’s what keeps me sane.”

More of Guzy’s documentation of the horrors found in Bucha and Irpin

A dog stands near a wheelbarrow containing a family dog that was shot dead in Bucha.
A dog stands near a family dog shot dead in a home in Bucha where three people, including Sergei Guryanova, were found executed. Neighbors said he had remained in Bucha to care for his dogs. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
The bodies of two men lie near a damaged home in Bucha as a soldier stands nearby.
The bodies of two men lie near a damaged home in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A dog follows the bodies of its family in a collection truck in Bucha on April 5.
A dog follows the bodies of its slain family members in a collection truck in Bucha on April 5. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A corpse lies in a body bag as investigators begin chronicling civilian deaths in Bucha.
A corpse lies in a body bag as investigators begin assessing evidence of suspected war crimes in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A clothed corpse lies exposed in a body bag in Bucha, Ukraine.
Investigators and volunteers begin the grim work of chronicling civilian deaths in Bucha on April. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A wallet containing a photo of a young girl lies on top of a corpse in Bucha on April 6.
A wallet containing a photo of a young girl lies on top of a corpse in Bucha on April 6. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A corpse lies exposed as investigators and volunteers tally civilian deaths in Bucha after Russian troops withdrew.
A corpse lies exposed as investigators and volunteers tally civilian deaths in Bucha after Russian troops withdrew. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A couple comfort each other next to a man's grave in the shadow of the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints in Bucha.
A couple comfort each other next to a man’s grave in the shadow of the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints in Bucha on April 8. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
Investigators pull bodies from a mass grave near the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints in Bucha.
Investigators pull bodies from a mass grave near the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints in Bucha on April 8. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A worker holds a victim's hand with red painted fingernails as the body is carefully placed into a black body bag on April 8 in Bucha.
A worker holds a victim’s hand as the body is carefully placed into a black body bag on April 8 in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A man comforts an elderly woman in a headscarf as families search for missing loved ones in Bucha.
A man comforts an elderly woman as families search for missing loved ones in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
Numbers identify more than eight bodies pulled from a mass grave behind a church in Bucha.
War crimes investigators tally bodies pulled from a mass grave behind the Church of St. Andrew and All Saints in Bucha on April 8. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
Families gather to identify their loved ones as war crimes investigators photograph corpses found in a mass grave in Bucha.
Families gather to identify their loved ones as war crimes investigators photograph corpses found in a mass grave in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
Dozens of body bags of people recovered from a mass grave and throughout the town of Bucha are lined up at a cemetery for transport to the morgue
Body bags of people recovered from throughout the town of Bucha are lined up at a cemetery for transport to the morgue on April 9. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
The body of a man is hoisted on a wooden door being used as a makeshift stretcher as investigators recover the bodies of more than 400 civilians slain in Bucha.
A body is hoisted on a wooden door on April 11 as investigators recover the bodies of more than 400 civilians slain in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
The body of a woman holding a cross and covered in butterfly-print sheets is recovered in Bucha.
The body of a woman with bound wrists and holding a cross is recovered in Bucha on April 11. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A woman stands over the body of her son as collectors move bodies to the city morgue in Bucha on April 12.
A woman stands over the body of her son as collectors move bodies to the city morgue in Bucha on April 12. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
The body of Marina Naumec, 32, was exhumed by her husband from a makeshift grave in the backyard of a home in Bucha.
The body of Marina Naumec, 32, was exhumed by her husband from a makeshift grave in the backyard of a home in Bucha. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
The body of Marina Naumec lies on a blanket after being exhumed from a backyard in Bucha.
The body of Marina Naumec was exhumed in Bucha on April 12. There were three others buried in this yard, all shot in the eye. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
Military dogtags, a medal and a small cross lie on the body of a Russian soldier killed by Ukrainian forces in Irpin, Ukraine.
Military dog tags, a medal and a small cross lie on the body of a Russian soldier killed by Ukrainian forces in Irpin, Ukraine. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
Blood-stained sheets are inspected in a home in Irpin, Ukraine, where the bodies of two men killed in an airstrike were found.

Blood-stained sheets are inspected in a home in Irpin, Ukraine, where the bodies of two men killed in an airstrike were found. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
Three inspectors work with volunteer body collectors at an improvised burial site in Irpin on April 14.
Police work with volunteer body collectors at an improvised burial site in Irpin on April 14. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
The body of a man covered in a
The body of a man covered in a “USA” T-shirt is exhumed from a home in Irpin that was hit by an airstrike. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
A police officer inspects a passport found in Irpin on April 14 after Russian forces withdrew.
A police officer inspects a passport found in Irpin on April 14 after Russian forces withdrew. (Carol Guzy/ZUMA Press)
See more photo stories from the crisis in Ukraine on Yahoo News >>>

The battle for Donbas: Why the weapons the US is rushing to Ukraine are so critical

Good Morning America

The battle for Donbas: Why the weapons the US is rushing to Ukraine are so critical

Matt Seyler – April 22, 2022

The battle for Donbas: Why the weapons the US is rushing to Ukraine are so critical

As Russia’s military gears up for what it hopes will be a decisive victory over Ukraine in the eastern part of the country, the U.S. is rushing to send weapons and equipment needed to hold off the larger invading force in the rural and open Donbas terrain — a far different battlefield from the urban fighting where Ukrainian forces held an advantage.

What could make all the difference now is the new $800 million military aid package for Ukraine President Joe Biden announced Thursday.

It’s a race against time — maybe a matter of days or weeks.

“Now they’ve launched and refocused their campaign to seize new territory in eastern Ukraine, and we’re in a critical window now of time where they’re going to set the stage for the next phase of this war,” Biden said of the Russian offensive, which U.S. military officials believe is just getting started.

“We know that time is not our friend,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters Tuesday.

Russia gains by being closer to its border

With Ukrainian forces focused in the east, Russia intends to push down from the north, near the city of Izium, and up from the south, surrounding the Ukrainian defenders to “finish them or force them to surrender,” a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

If Russia takes the beleaguered city of Mariupol in the south, it could free up thousands of troops to join the push north to trap Ukraine forces, according to the official.

Although Russia and Ukraine have been battling over Donbas for eight years, Russia’s concentrated flow of troops and weapons into the region could bring “a whole different level of fighting,” Kirby said Tuesday.

There are now 85 battalion tactical groups (BTGs), Russia’s main fighting units, inside Ukraine, according to the official. Each BTG is made up of roughly 800-1,000 troops. About 10 of them crossed into the country this week, most heading to the Donbas region.

PHOTO: Damage is seen on apartment buildings after shelling from fighting on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, in territory under control of the separatist government of the Donetsk People's Republic, March 29, 2022.  (Alexei Alexandrov/AP, FILE)
PHOTO: Damage is seen on apartment buildings after shelling from fighting on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, in territory under control of the separatist government of the Donetsk People’s Republic, March 29, 2022. (Alexei Alexandrov/AP, FILE)

Kirby said the U.S. is focused on sending Ukraine weapons and systems that are not only useful for the rural eastern terrain, but that the Ukrainians can use in the fight without much training.

Russia, meanwhile, is trying not to repeat blunders it committed in northern Ukraine, and will enjoy certain geographic advantages in Donbas.

Early on, Russian invaders in the north were beset by supply problems, running out of food for troops and fuel for vehicles, failing to achieve any major victories. Pentagon officials believe they did not expect such strong resistance from Ukrainians so didn’t adequately prepare for a prolonged fight.

But since withdrawing its troops in the north to focus on Donbas, Russia has been putting equipment and support forces in place ahead of its combat troops to favorably condition the battlefield.

PHOTO: A Russian military convoy moves on a highway in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces near Mariupol, Ukraine, April 16, 2022.  (Alexei Alexandrov/AP, FILE)
PHOTO: A Russian military convoy moves on a highway in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces near Mariupol, Ukraine, April 16, 2022. (Alexei Alexandrov/AP, FILE)

“We believe that they are trying to learn from past mistakes, and you can see that in just the way they are conducting these shaping operations,” Kirby told reporters Monday. “They’re conducting themselves in ways that we didn’t see around Kyiv, for instance.”

Another advantage for Russia is that its logistics will be simplified by fighting closer to its own border, while Ukraine will now face the challenge of transporting heavy weapons and ammunition coming over its western border all the way across the country, meaning more miles for something to go wrong, and more chances for Russia to strike these vital shipments.

How US-provided artillery and radars could make a difference

To stand a chance fighting in the open Donbas landscape, Ukraine will need more long-range weapons and the ability to quickly move troops on the ground and in the air, according to Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and ABC News contributor.

The U.S. has sent Ukraine $3.4 billion of aid since the beginning of the invasion, including many thousands of shoulder-fired missiles, small arms and ammunition, body armor, and medical supplies. The two most recent packages, dedicating $800 million of aid each, announced April 13the and 21st, were tailored to reflect the new battle space.

“It’s different,” Biden said Thursday. “It’s flat, it’s not in the mountains, and it requires different kinds of weapons to be more effective.”

PHOTO: Marines from Battery M, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment fire an M777 howitzer during a training exercise aboard Camp Fallujah, Iraq, April 19, 2008. (U.S. Marine Corps)
PHOTO: Marines from Battery M, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment fire an M777 howitzer during a training exercise aboard Camp Fallujah, Iraq, April 19, 2008. (U.S. Marine Corps)

To that end, the U.S. is sending 90 of its 155mm howitzers, which officials say will begin arriving over the weekend.

“This is going to be the king of battle out there,” Mulroy said.

While Ukraine already has Russian-made artillery pieces, the U.S. and most Western nations do not have the 152mm ammunition to offer as it run through its limited stockpiles. The incoming U.S.-made 155mm guns will bring Ukrainian forces extra firepower, but also the ability to be better resupplied by the West.

To start, the U.S. is sending 184,000 artillery rounds along with the 90 weapons.

Russia has been flowing its own artillery into Donbas in preparation for its renewed offensive. To help Ukraine counter the threat, the U.S. is sending 14 radar systems that can detect incoming artillery and other indirect-fire attacks and find where they’re coming from.

“Right now the Russians are kind of just lobbing artillery without any consequence,” Mulroy said. “They want to give them a whole lot of consequence.”

The radar systems can help the Ukrainians accurately fire back.

“The counter radar is moving to theater this week,” a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday, adding that the howitzers and radar systems complement each other, but can also be used independently.

PHOTO: M113 armored personnel carriers with the New Jersey Army National Guard, travel on a road at Fort Drum, N.Y., June 8, 2000.  (U.S. Air National Guard )
PHOTO: M113 armored personnel carriers with the New Jersey Army National Guard, travel on a road at Fort Drum, N.Y., June 8, 2000. (U.S. Air National Guard )

Training will be critical

About 50 Ukrainians are being trained on the U.S. howitzers outside of the country. This first group of trainees is expected to finish around the same time as the first artillery pieces arrive in their country, likely Sunday or Monday, according to a U.S. official. The U.S. is using a “train-the-trainer” approach so as not to pull to many high-demand troops away from the front — the small group of Ukrainians learning to use the new systems will return to their country to train fellow Ukrainian troops there.

The U.S. took a similar approach with the small, explosive Switchblade drones, hundreds of which are headed to Ukraine.

A small number of Ukrainians were in the U.S. for pre-scheduled military education when Russia invaded their country. The U.S. capitalized on their presence to add a couple days of training on the Switchblades, which are designed to fly directly into targets and explode.

“Although it’s not a very difficult system to operate, we took advantage of having them in the country to give them some rudimentary training on that,” a U.S. defense official said on April 6.

MORE: US ‘Switchblade’ drones heading to Ukraine can target Russian vehicles and artillery: Pentagon official

PHOTO: U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Graham Rouse launches the Switchblade 300 1-20 on Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif., Oct. 23, 2019. (U.S. Marine Corps)
PHOTO: U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Graham Rouse launches the Switchblade 300 1-20 on Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif., Oct. 23, 2019. (U.S. Marine Corps)

U.S. officials have said other systems being sent to Ukraine will also require a small period of training, likely to also take place outside of the country. Officials have declined to specify where such training could take place, citing operational security concerns.

With Russia intent on surrounding and trapping Ukrainian forces, the ability to move troops quickly by ground and air will be essential, according to Mulroy.

“They’re going to try to envelope the Ukrainians and cut them off and starve them,” he said. “So, the Ukrainians need to have the ability not to let that happen.”

Since the beginning of the invasion, the U.S. has given Ukraine 16 Mi-17 transport helicopters, each able to carry a three-person crew and up to 30 passengers.

Mulroy said an advantage of the Soviet-designed Mi-17 is that Ukrainian pilots already know how to fly them.

The U.S. has also offered Ukraine hundreds of armored personnel carriers that have tracks similar to those of tanks as well as armored Humvees.

Weather will likely play a factor, and muddy conditions during Spring could limit vehicle mobility for both sides.

“Even just this week, the ground as it is makes it harder for them to operate off of paved roads and highways,” Kirby said.

Time is of the essence

Mulroy said the U.S. is doing a great job shipping military aid to the region, but believes more can be done to speed things up.

“We just have to take every opportunity to increase production and improve the flow, because it is going to make a difference,” he said.

The U.S. has not sent Ukraine any of its M1 Abrams tanks, officials saying they are too different from Ukraine’s T-72s to be useable in the short term. But other nations with the Soviet-era tanks have given theirs.

In total, Ukrainian forces have more tanks in their country than Russia’s military, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday.

A less tangible but very real factor in the fighting so far has been troop morale.

PHOTO: A Ukrainian service member shows a kindergarten damaged by a military strike, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Sivierodonetsk, Luhansk region, Ukraine April 16, 2022.  (Serhii Nuzhnenko/Reuters)
PHOTO: A Ukrainian service member shows a kindergarten damaged by a military strike, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Sivierodonetsk, Luhansk region, Ukraine April 16, 2022. (Serhii Nuzhnenko/Reuters)

The Pentagon sees evidence Russian forces are still suffering from low motivation and poor unit cohesion, according to officials.

“Almost half of their enlisted troops are conscripts who don’t receive a lot of training and who we have evidence, even recent evidence, that they’ve been disillusioned by this war,” the senior U.S. defense official said. Meanwhile Russian officers are frustrated with the performance of other officers and of their own troops, according to the official.

Ukrainian troops have not seemed to suffer any significant morale problems, and throughout the war have been described by U.S. officials as brave and wily in defense of their homeland.

Biden praised the resolve of Ukrainians in a meeting with top military leaders at the White House Wednesday.

“I knew they were tough and proud, but I tell you what, they’re tougher and more proud than I thought,” Biden said.

Russian official admits sanctions are crippling the economy as the country grapples with a selloff and mass shortages

Fortune

Russian official admits sanctions are crippling the economy as the country grapples with a selloff and mass shortages

Christiaan Hetzner – April 22, 2022

Sefa Karacan—Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The ruble may not be showing it, but Western economic sanctions imposed against Russia are working.

In revealing testimony before the Duma parliament, the head of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) told the country’s lawmakers she had to throw everything but the kitchen sink just to prevent a full-blown run on the banking system.

“The sanctions imposed against Russia affected the situation in the financial sector, spurred the demand for foreign currencies, and caused fire sales of financial assets, a cash outflow from banks, and surging demand for goods,” said Elvira Nabiullina in prepared remarks first published in English on Friday.

The frank assessment of Russia’s economic problems contrasts sharply with political attacks launched against the current U.S. administration for a sanctions policy that failed to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

Presenting the CBR’s annual report to parliament this week, Nabiullina painted a picture to lawmakers of just how grim the situation was that confronted her.

Depositors withdrew 2.4 trillion rubles in the first weeks after the war broke out, eating up a year’s worth of bank profits and a third of its accumulated capital cushion.

Without the imposition of strict capital controls, there would have been “a series of defaults and a domino effect” throughout the financial system, she argued.

It doesn’t end there, either, not by a long shot, as businesses have flashbacks to what it was like when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

“Loan repayment holidays were resumed. Currently the demand for them is comparable with the first month [of] the 2020 lockdown.”

Numerous moratoriums have also been granted that ease the regulatory requirements for banks, with accountants effectively allowed to freeze the value of the assets on their balance sheets at artificially high pre-crisis levels.

Marking them down to reflect the reality of Russia’s shrinking economy would only trigger a crippling wave of deleveraging among lenders—either through divestments, a withdrawal of credit to the economy, or a mixture of both.

“Today’s scale of the regulatory easing is unprecedented,” she admitted, arguing that otherwise easing measures would not have been commensurate to the scale of problems faced.

Since foreign reinsurers are canceling their contracts with Russian companies, Nabiullina’s central bank was forced to hike the guaranteed capital to the Russian National Reinsurance company 10-fold to ensure there was enough reserves to cover insured losses.

Pain only now beginning

While all of these measures and many more the CBR instituted may have prevented a meltdown in the banking system, companies starved of key raw materials and choked off from their export markets will experience severe pain as they scramble to adjust.

“The sanctions have affected the financial market, but now they will start to impact the real economy increasingly more significantly,” the governor said.

Despite inflation surpassing 9% in February, her monetary policy committee will target a return only back to 4% for 2024. Nor would they intervene if consumer prices run hot in the meantime.

Nabiullina said this was a natural and inevitable process as supply chains adjust to the sanctions. The central bank, in other words, is helpless in this regard as hiking its 17% benchmark rate would not resolve the coming supply-side restrictions.

“Currently this problem might not be as acute because the economy still has inventories, but we can see that the sanctions are being tightened almost every day,” Nabiullina added, predicting there was no way of telling how long this will potentially last.

“Already in the second quarter, beginning of the third quarter, we will actively enter a period of structural transformation and the search for new business models for many enterprises.”

Translation: Russian companies haven’t even begun to feel the pain.

Ukraine battered again; Zelenskyy says US officials to visit

Associated Press

Ukraine battered again; Zelenskyy says US officials to visit

David Keyton and Yesica Fisch and – April 22, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces in Ukraine tried to storm a steel plant housing soldiers and civilians in the southern city of Mariupol on Saturday in an attempt to crush the last pocket of resistance in a place of deep symbolic and strategic value to Moscow, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, announced he would meet Sunday in his nation’s capital with the U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the U.S. secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin. The White House declined to comment.

Speaking at a news conference, Zelenskyy gave little detail about logistics of the encounter but said he expected concrete results — “not just presents or some kind of cakes, we are expecting specific things and specific weapons.”

It would be the first high-level U.S. trip to Kyiv since the war began Feb. 24. While visiting Poland in March, Blinken stepped briefly onto Ukrainian soil to meet with the country’s foreign minister. Zelenskyy’s last face-to-face meeting with a U.S. leader was Feb. 19 with Vice President Kamala Harris.

In attacks on the eve of Orthodox Easter, Russian forces pounded cities and towns in southern and eastern Ukraine.

A 3-month-old baby was among eight people killed when Russia fired cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odesa, officials said. Zelenskyy said 18 more were wounded.

“The war started when this baby was one month old. Can you imagine what is happening?” Zelenskyy said. “They are just bastards. … I don’t have any other words for it, just bastards.”

The Ukrainian military said Saturday it destroyed a Russian command post in Kherson, a southern city that fell to Russian forces early in the war.

The command post was hit on Friday, killing two generals and critically wounding another, the Ukrainian military intelligence agency said in a statement. The Russian military did not comment on the claim, which could not be confirmed.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a Zelenskyy adviser, said in an online interview that 50 senior Russian officers were in the command center when it was attacked.

The fate of the Ukrainians in the sprawling and besieged seaside steel mill in Mariupol, where Russia says its forces have taken the rest of the city, wasn’t immediately clear. Earlier Saturday, a Ukrainian military unit released a video reportedly taken two days earlier in which women and children holed up underground, some for as long as two months, said they longed to see the sun.

“We want to see peaceful skies, we want to breathe in fresh air,” one woman in the video said. “You have simply no idea what it means for us to simply eat, drink some sweetened tea. For us, it is already happiness.”

Russia said it took control of several villages elsewhere in the eastern Donbas region and destroyed 11 Ukrainian military targets overnight, including three artillery warehouses. Russian attacks also struck populated areas.

Associated Press journalists observed shelling in residential areas of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city; regional Gov. Oleh Sinehubov said three people were killed. In the Luhansk area of the Donbas, Gov. Serhiy Haidai said six people died during the shelling of a village, Gorskoi.

In Sloviansk, a town in northern Donbas, the AP witnessed two soldiers arriving at a hospital, one of them mortally wounded.

Sitting in a wheelchair outside her damaged Sloviansk apartment, Anna Direnskaya, 70, said, “I want peace.”

One of many native Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine, Direnskaya said she wishes Russians would understand that Ukrainians are not bad people and that there should be no enmity between them.

“Why is this happening?” she said. “I don’t know.”

While British officials said Russian forces had not gained significant new ground, Ukrainian officials announced a nationwide curfew ahead of Easter Sunday, a sign of the war’s disruption and threat to the entire country.

Mariupol has been a key Russian objective and has taken on outsize importance in the war. Completing its capture would give Russia its biggest victory yet, after a nearly two-month siege reduced much of the city to a smoking ruin.

It would deprive Ukrainian of a vital port, free up Russian troops to fight elsewhere and establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014. Russia-backed separatists control parts of the Donbas.

An adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, Oleksiy Arestovych, said Russian forces resumed airstrikes on the Azovstal plant and were also trying to storm it, in an apparent reversal of tactics. Two days earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin had given an order not to send troops in but instead to blockade the plant.

Ukrainian officials have estimated that about 2,000 of their troops are inside the plant along with civilians sheltering in its underground tunnels.

Earlier Saturday, the Azov Regiment of Ukraine’s National Guard, which has members holed up in the plant, released the video of about two dozen women and children. Its contents could not be independently verified. But if authentic, it would be the first video testimony of what life has been like for civilians trapped underground there.

The video shows soldiers giving sweets to children who respond with fist-bumps. One young girl says she and her relatives “haven’t seen neither the sky nor the sun” since they left home Feb. 27.

The regiment’s deputy commander, Sviatoslav Palamar, told the AP the video was shot Thursday. The Azov Regiment has its roots in the Azov Battalion, which was formed by far-right activists in 2014 at the start of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine and has elicited criticism for some of its tactics.

More than 100,000 people — down from a prewar population of about 430,000 — are believed to remain in Mariupol with scant food, water or heat. Ukrainian authorities estimate that over 20,000 civilians have been killed in the city.

Yet another attempt to evacuate women, children and older adults from Mariupol failed Saturday. Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Mariupol’s mayor, said Russian forces did not allow Ukrainian-organized buses to take residents to Zaporizhzhia, a city 227 kilometers (141 miles) to the northwest.

“At 11 o’clock, at least 200 Mariupol residents gathered near the Port City shopping center, waiting for evacuation,” Andryushchenko posted on the Telegram messaging app. “The Russian military drove up to the Mariupol residents and ordered them to disperse, because now there will be shelling.”

At the same time, he said, Russian buses assembled about 200 meters (yards) away. Residents who boarded those were told they were being taken to separatist-occupied territory and not allowed to disembark, Andryushchenko said. His account could not be independently verified.

In the attack on Odesa, Russian troops fired at least six missiles, according to Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister.

“Residents of the city heard explosions in different areas,” Gerashchenko said via Telegram. “Residential buildings were hit. It is already known about one victim. He burned in his car in a courtyard of one of the buildings.”

Zelenskyy’s news conference was held in a Kyiv subway station, where he paused at one point as a train noisily passed through. The subway system, which includes the world’s deepest station, attracted widespread attention early in the war when hordes of people took shelter there.

Regarding the expected visit Sunday by U.S. officials, Zelenskyy said: “I believe that we will be able to get agreements from the United States or part of that package on arming Ukraine which we agreed on earlier. Besides, we have strategic questions about security guarantees, which it is time to discuss in detail, because the United States will be one of those leaders of security countries for our state.”

Fisch reported from Sloviansk, Ukraine. Associated Press journalists Mstyslav Chernov and Felipe Dana in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Inna Varenytsia in Kviv and Associated Press staff members around the world contributed to this report.

Looking to deepen pain for Putin, West studying oil and gas

Associated Press

Looking to deepen pain for Putin, West studying oil and gas

Ellen Knickmeyer – April 22, 2022

  • FILE - The tanker Sun Arrows loads its cargo of liquefied natural gas from the Sakhalin-2 project in the port of Prigorodnoye, Russia, on Oct. 29, 2021. The United States unleashed some of its toughest actions against Russian President Vladimir Putin right after he rolled his troops into Ukraine. Polls show people want the U.S. to do more. (AP Photo/File)The tanker Sun Arrows loads its cargo of liquefied natural gas from the Sakhalin-2 project in the port of Prigorodnoye, Russia, on Oct. 29, 2021. Polls show people want the U.S. to do more. (AP Photo/File)
  • FILE - The landfall facilities of the 'Nord Stream 2' gas pipeline are pictured in Lubmin, northern Germany, Feb. 15, 2022. Nord Stream 2 is a 1,230-kilometer-long (764-mile-long) natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, running from Russia to Germany's Baltic coast. The United States unleashed some of its toughest actions against Russian President Vladimir Putin right after he rolled his troops into Ukraine. Polls show people want the U.S. to do more. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)The landfall facilities of the ‘Nord Stream 2’ gas pipeline are pictured in Lubmin, northern Germany, Feb. 15, 2022. Nord Stream 2 is a 1,230-kilometer-long (764-mile-long) natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, running from Russia to Germany’s Baltic coast. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States unleashed some of its toughest actions against Russian President Vladimir Putin right after he rolled his troops into Ukraine. Polls in the U.S. find that people want Washington to do more. So what’s left, financially, diplomatically and militarily, to step up the pressure?

The U.S. could get strong results from any number of next steps, economists and current and former U.S. officials say. It could simply persist in pouring cash and potent weaponry into Ukraine — a likely course. It could even commit to shutting down some of the inroads the Kremlin has made into U.S. political and financial systems, also conceivable.

But the mightiest trigger the West can pull now on Russia, many experts agree, is the one on a gas pump nozzle. Cutting off Russian profits from oil and natural gas sales has become a main topic among world leaders looking at what else they can do to force Putin to end his invasion.

“It would be very useful to try to devise a way to reduce proceeds from those sales and that really is the proper objective, I think, of a ban,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a meeting of world finance leaders Thursday.

“But if we can think of a way to do that without harming the entire world from higher energy prices, that would be ideal,” Yellen said.

President Joe Biden already has ended the relatively minor U.S. imports of Russian oil and other fossil fuel products. But the U.S. would be central if allies move to cut the global flow of Russian fuel and punish nations and businesses that fail to comply.

Global purchases of Russian oil and gas production account for at least 40% of government revenue for Moscow. Exports are keeping Russia’s economy afloat despite the sanctions enacted so far and financing the war.

Cutting back further on Russian petroleum to the market would make a global supply crunch even worse, increasing prices for everyone, including in the United States.

Republicans already are making gas price increases that stem in part from Russia’s war a top campaign point against Biden.

“Everybody wants a pain-free option, right?” asked Daniel Fried, a former assistant U.S. secretary of state for Europe, and one of many urging the U.S. to take tougher action as Russia builds forces for a new phase of attacks in Ukraine. “Yeah, they seldom exist.”

“If anybody writes they can do this thing without some effect on gas prices, you know, without taking a hit — you’re crazy, because you can’t,” Fried said.

The U.S. is already being asked to assure the world that U.S. producers can help make up for lost Russian supply, if Europe moves to cut the hose on Russian oil purchases quickly. The U.S. would likely be an administrator and enforcer in any secondary sanctions to penalize China or other nations or businesses if they buy from or enable Russia’s oil and gas industry.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said European nations have considered diverting their payments for Russian oil and gas into escrow accounts, similar to deals forced on Iran and Iraq as part of sanctions.

A poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that more than half of respondents want Biden to be tougher on Putin.

People in the U.S. may just be coming around to accepting that doing that could mean financial hardships for them. By 51% to 45%, respondents in the AP-NORC poll said the U.S. should focus on sanctioning Russia as effectively as possible more than on limiting damage to the U.S. economy.

But ask Alan Gold of Potomac, Maryland, if he’s willing to pay more for gasoline as part of any global move to starve Russia of money for the Ukraine war, and the answer you get is a growl.

“I’m paying $5 a gallon now,” Gold said this past week at a strip mall gas station, jerking his head at the price tally rolling upward as he pumped gas into his vehicle.

Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist of the Institute of International Finance, said Russia’s war is boosting the price it gets for its oil and gas, driving the surplus in Russia’s current accounts to nearly $60 billion, a recent high despite all the West’s sanctions.

Economists and policymakers have to decide next steps as part of the larger context of militaries at war, the risks of nuclear war and the cost of Ukrainian lives, Ribakova told an online panel with Princeton’s Bendheim Center for Finance this past week. “This is the cost we’re thinking about when we think about sanctions … not just about economics.”

Barring major shifts, the financial realm is the one where the next major U.S. actions against Russia will come from.

Militarily, the U.S. is unlikely to send in many new, complex weapons systems, like U.S. tanks or fighter or bomber jets. Doing so would tie up Ukrainian fighters in training on unfamiliar weapons when they’re needed for fighting, by the Pentagon’s reasoning.

Instead, the U.S. is expected to keep doing what it’s doing militarily, only more so, pumping in more cash and basic battlefield weapons and resupplies. On Thursday Biden pledged an additional $1.3 billion for heavy artillery, 144,000 rounds of ammunition and other aid.

Further boosting U.S. intelligence-sharing to help Ukraine in the fight is an option.

On the diplomatic front, the U.S. and likeminded nations are exploring ways Russia could be further isolated. Russia has already been suspended from the U.N. Human Rights Council and is facing a push at the world body’s educational, scientific and cultural organization to strip it of its UNESCO presidency and bar it from hosting a June meeting of its World Heritage Committee.

Russia is unlikely to be suspended from the International Civil Aviation Organization, World Health Organization or Food and Agriculture Organization, however. Any attempt to remove it from the world body’s most powerful grouping – the U.N. Security Council – would fail on a Russian and likely Chinese veto.

Talk of the U.S. officially designating Russia or Russian mercenaries as terrorists or supporters of terrorism hasn’t gained traction.

There is another big step the U.S. and its democratic allies should take, that doesn’t get as much attention, argues Alex Finley, a former officer of the CIA’s directorate of operations: Clean up their own act.

“We need to examine our own role,” said Finley, who tracks seizures of Russian yachts and other Western penalties on Putin. She and others say lax regulation and enforcement in the West have allowed Putin and Russia to influence U.S. elections, park cash from corrupt enterprises in shell companies and offshore tax havens, and buy visas and passports to Western countries.

It’s all served to erode transparency and the rule of law in Western democracies, as Putin intended, said Finley.

The West got lax because “we made money with it,” Finley said. “But we did it in a way that we sold … part of the soul of democracy.”

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Robert Burns and Fatima Hussein contributed from Washington.

The Embarrassing Truth Behind Putin’s War Failures

Daily Beast

The Embarrassing Truth Behind Putin’s War Failures

David Volodzko – April 22, 2022

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

The ongoing war in Syria was supposed to be a crucible for the modern Russian war machine, reforming its operational capabilities in preparation for future conflicts. Now that Russia is facing a test of those skills in Ukraine, it is turning into a disaster that they should have seen coming.

Moscow officially lost only 112 servicemen in six and a half years in Syria, compared to what it admits are 1,351 in a single month in Ukraine—the true numbers are likely to be far higher. And they have been forced to humiliatingly pull out around 40,000 troops from around Kyiv and Chernihiv having failed to make any significant progress in those regions and falling back to their old targets in eastern Ukraine. This raises the question of exactly what the Kremlin learned in Syria and, more importantly, what it should have learned but obviously has not.

Unlike Ukraine, Syria’s cities would never be part of the Russian federation and could therefore be flattened. Meanwhile, its non-white population was framed as foreign terrorists. Jabhat al-Nusra fighters, ISIS, and hundreds of children were portrayed to the voters back home as equally fair targets. By contrast, Ukrainians are largely seen by the Russian public as Russians themselves or, at the very least, close cousins. These factors freed Russia up to use Syria as merely a means to an end, or more specifically, two ends.

First, it used Syria as a proving ground to enhance command-and-control coordination. Like its Soviet predecessor, Russia’s military is an artillery force with armored battalions and the ground-based nature of its power is not as fast nor flexible as air or naval forces, making such coordination critical. Not to mention, if such command coordination is achieved, then as the Institute for the Study of War’s lead Russia analyst, Mason Clark, wrote in a 2021 report, it “will erode one of the United States and NATO’s key technological advantages.”

Second, Moscow declared a withdrawal from Syria in March 2016, then again in January 2017, and again in December of that year. This wasn’t just a feint to get its enemies to lower their guard, it also helped prevent Russia from being pulled too deeply into the war, thus minimizing losses. But just as importantly, it broke the war into a series of campaigns, allowing Moscow to rotate its forces through Syria, giving them ample combat experience. As Michael Kofman, director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), wrote in a 2020 report, “The entire Russian military must now serve [in Syria] in order to progress in rank.”

According William Alberque, the director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), some of the lessons that were not learned well enough include use of drones for artillery spotting, the danger of MANPADS on the contested battlefield, and the need for secure supply lines. Each of these factors have proven devastating for Russian forces in Ukraine.

But the biggest lessons, he said, have been how to detect, disrupt, and destroy small groups of fighters, the importance of the destruction not just of suppression of enemy air defenses, the use of secure comms, the value of precision-guided missiles, and the benefit of drawing the enemy out rather than engaging in urban warfare.

Albuquerque added that Russia learned a few more things in Syria. Namely, “how to destroy cities, terror tactics to make civilians flee, and the use of proxies as holding forces/cannon fodder.”

So what went wrong? For one thing, Russia is one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and by far the most corrupt major power. Ruling a mafia state has its advantages if you’re the Godfather, but it’s hard to know who to trust. Moscow recently purged 150 Federal Security Service (FSB) agents and sent Sergei Beseda, the head of the FSB’s 5th Service, which handles intelligence in Ukraine, to Lefortovo Prison, which was used under Stalin to conduct torture-based interrogations and mass executions. One theory says Beseda gave information to the CIA, but the official reason, which may very well be true, is that he lied to the state and stole funds meant for espionage activities in Ukraine. If true, this means Putin’s own spy chiefs not only let him bring a knife to a gun fight—they sold off the combat blade and bought a cheap butter spreader.

Another thing that led Putin astray was his own over-confidence. Since taking office in 2000, he has been involved in six wars—Chechnya, Georgia, the North Caucasus, Syria, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Ukraine.All but the last have been victorious. Syria and the CAR are ongoing, but the preservation of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Faustin-Archange Touadera’s administration represent strategic wins. Putin thought he couldn’t lose.

Corruption and over-confidence prepared a path, but the biggest problem was Putin’s lack of experience ina war of this scale. Syria was a limited deployment in a far-off desert nation with minimal ground forces, Georgia only lasted 12 days, and Russia supported Touadera in the CAR from a distance with weapons, military instructors and Wagner mercenaries. Besides, even if Ukraine was the same game as Syria, and Russia could simply copy/paste its lessons, it still wouldn’t help since Moscow has apparently forgotten those lessons.

Russia did apply its Syria lessons in Ukraine—but it did so in 2014, when it used Crimea to train a rapid-reaction professional force. Now, however, Moscow is running four combined arms headquarters independently with only partial management at the defense center in Moscow. Why? Partly because it’s not just propaganda when Putin talks about a “special military operation.” He truly believed the rest of Ukraine, like Crimea, would offer little resistance and that the war would only last a matter of days.

In Syria, says military historian Peter Caddick-Adams, “They were not up against a peer adversary—in fact they have never been: Afghan, Chechnya, Georgia, Syria—unlike in Ukraine. Syria was predominantly an air war, with little threat, so Russian pilots treated it more as range practice, dumping munitions on preselected targets” he told The Daily Beast.

“Thus, what Russia did not learn from Syria was how to coordinate an all arms battle (artillery, armor, anti-tank, air defense, infantry, engineers, etc) at high tempo in complex terrain with aircraft of different types, helicopters, airborne and marine troops, with a well-balanced logistics and supply system—which is what they have needed for Ukraine.”

He added, “Russian communications are very lowbrow, and they are using unencrypted mobile phones in Ukraine, a bad habit picked up in Syria, where few opponents could understand Russian or had the technical competence to intercept.”

Simply put, Russia’s PhD in desert warfare is making for a poor career in Ukraine. Indeed, few things have revolutionized the modern Russian military like the war in Syria, but nothing will affect it quite like Ukraine. One might even call this Russia’s Vietnam moment. But one thing’s for certain, Russia looked at Ukraine and mistook a tiger for a cat. Now even if it decides to cut its losses and completely withdraw, it may not be so easy. As the old Chinese saying goes, when you’re riding a tiger, the hard part is getting off.

Russia is bombing the same targets moments apart to kill Ukrainian rescue crews that arrive to save survivors

Business Insider

Russia is bombing the same targets moments apart to kill Ukrainian rescue crews that arrive to save survivors

Jake Epstein – April 22, 2022

Rescuers carry a wounded person on the stretcher as they respond to shelling by Russian troops of central Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, on March 1, 2022.
Rescuers carry a wounded person on the stretcher as they respond to shelling by Russian troops of central Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, on March 1, 2022.Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
  • Russian forces are using a vicious bombing strategy to target rescue workers in Ukraine, according to multiple reports.
  • Putin’s troops have fired on the same target moments apart, catching rescue crews helping survivors in the second attack.
  • Russia was accused of carrying out these ‘double tap’ attacks during the Syrian Civil War.

Russian forces are bombing the same targets just moments apart to try and kill Ukrainian rescue crews that arrive to save survivors, according to multiple reports.

In two months of war, several ‘double-tap’ attacks have been reported in the bombarded northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

As recently as April 17, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that it witnessed a double-tap attack in Kharkiv.

An ABC team was following a local Red Cross unit when Russian missiles hit a nearby building. A few minutes later, after the Red Cross, paramedics, and Ukrainian troops arrived at the scene to help survivors, a second missile attack hit the building.

Five civilians were killed that day, according to the ABC.

Another double-tap strike in Kharkiv was recorded last month, according to a recent report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Russian forces on March 1 launched a cruise missile strike at a government building in the city’s Freedom Square. A few minutes later, when rescuers arrived to look for survivors, a second rocket hit the building.

At least ten people were killed and dozens more were injured in the attack, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a “war crime” and “state terrorism.”

Despite the danger caused by double-tap strikes, firefighters in Kharkiv have routinely showed up to put out fires caused by strikes, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The double-tap strategy is not new to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s playbook, either.

Russia was accused multiple times in recent years of launching double-tap attacks during the Syrian Civil War, killing scores of civilians and rescuers.

The OSCE has said the vicious attacks are a violation of international law. It’s not immediately clear if double-tap strikes have occurred in other cities around Ukraine.