Russia’s Trump Raid Tantrum Is a Spectacle You Don’t Want to Miss
Julia Davis – August 9, 2022
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
The FBI raid on former U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida triggered shockwaves across Russia, with outraged Kremlin propagandists rushing to defend their favorite American president and going so far as to predict that the raid will eventually spark a civil war in the United States.
When Trump lost the last presidential election to Joe Biden, experts and pundits in Moscow worried out loud that his prosecution for a bevy of potential offenses is imminent. They even contemplated offering their beloved “Trumpushka” asylum in Russia. As time went by, Putin’s mouthpieces became convinced that Trump was in the clear, and their fears subsided.
On Monday’s broadcast of The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, the host and his panelists praised the participants of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and expressed their admiration for Trump and his allies. The same day, appearing on state TV program 60 Minutes, military expert Igor Korotchenko openly called for Russia to support Trump’s candidacy in the 2024 elections.
News of the raid landed in Moscow with a thud, as angry propagandists embellished the search with made-up details, claiming that “one hundred FBI agents” and hordes of police dogs rummaged through Mar-a-Lago. On Tuesday’s broadcast of 60 Minutes, Korotchenko angrily condemned the raid: “There is a straight-up witch hunt happening in America. Trump, as the most popular politician in the United States—who has every chance of prevailing in the upcoming presidential election—was chosen as such a witch,” he raged. “They won’t just be vilifying him, they will be strangling him. These raids, involving dozens of FBI officers and police dogs—this is worse than McCarthyism, my friends! This is a symbol of inordinate despotism.”
In the days preceding the raid, the host of 60 Minutes, Evgeny Popov, who is also a deputy of Russia’s State Duma, repeatedly referred to Trump as Russia’s “friend,” “protégé”, and a favored candidate, but cautiously added that Moscow is yet to decide on who to support in the upcoming U.S. elections. On Tuesday, Popov said: “As soon as Donald Trump complained that Biden was the worst president in the history of the United States, which is fast becoming a third world country, there was a knock on Donald’s door: “Knock-knock, this is the FBI!” More than one hundred agents stormed in and searched Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago.” Popov joked that the agents were said to have found a couple of matryoshka, Putin’s portrait, a pioneer scarf, two icons, a parachute, and a chained bear with balalaika.
Without a hint of irony, the state TV host described the search of the former president’s home as a symptom of political persecution of dissidents in the United States. “Dozens of agents ransacked every office, went through every box, and took every document that was of interest to them. It is thought that the FBI was interested in the Top Secret documents supposedly taken by the ex-president from the White House… Biden, with his dictatorial tendencies, repressions, and persecution of dissidents, is turning America into Ukraine. He already did that, since the opposition is being persecuted by authorities,” Popov said. He fantasized that as the result of the raid, Florida would split from the United States and its new constitution would feature Trump’s assertion that there are only two genders: male and female.
Decorated Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov started Tuesday’s broadcast of his radio program, Full Contact With Vladimir Solovyov, by bringing up the raid of Trump’s Florida digs. He brought on state TV correspondent Valentin Bogdanov, reporting from New York City. “You couldn’t say we didn’t anticipate this turn of events. Machinery, meant to squeeze Trump out of political life, has been activated… They want to deprive him of an opportunity to participate in the upcoming presidential election… All of this is designed to create a nasty aura, to make Trump more toxic.”
Summing up the potential penalties for the suspected removal of top secret government documents, Bogdanov said they weren’t all that bad and were limited to a three-year prison term or a fine. He added: “The scariest consequence is that a person convicted for such a crime can’t be a candidate in the presidential election. Bingo! That’s what his opponents want: to deprive him of the opportunity to take part in this race.”
Assuming that Trump would be knocked out of the upcoming presidential election, Bogdanov speculated that Florida governor Ron DeSantis—whom he described as “Number Two” in the GOP—could easily defeat Joe Biden.
Solovyov asked: “Could this be the beginning of a civil war?” He ominously opined: “This is totally unprecedented, I don’t remember anything like this in American history. If Trump calls on his supporters to come out—and half the states are led by Trump’s allies—there’ll be hell to pay.”
Bogdanov replied: “The civil war is already underway in the United States. For now, this is a cold civil war, but it keeps heating up.”
Russia has seen 70,000 to 80,000 casualties in attack on Ukraine, Pentagon says
Ellen Mitchell – August 8, 2022
Russia’s military has suffered roughly 70,000 to 80,000 casualties since it first attacked Ukraine in late February, the Pentagon’s top policy official said Monday.
“The Russians are taking a tremendous number of casualties,” Colin Kahl, Defense Department under secretary for policy, told reporters.
“There’s a lot of fog in war but I think it’s safe to suggest that the Russians have probably taken 70 or 80,000 casualties in the less than six months. Now, that is a combination of killed in action and wounded in action and that number might be a little lower, a little higher, but I think that’s kind of in the ballpark,” Kahl said.
The Russian casualty figure is higher than previous U.S. estimates. CIA Director William Burns late last month estimated that 15,000 Russians have died in Ukraine and some 45,000 have been wounded.
Burns admitted, however, that intelligence estimates of battlefield casualties are “always a range,” and “there’s no perfect number.”
Russia likely accrued the bulk of its casualties in the first phase of its invasion, when it attempted but failed to take Kyiv and western areas of Ukraine beginning Feb. 24. Kremlin forces have since realigned to focus on the industrial heartland in Ukraine’s east, known as the Donbas, using long-range weapons to strike targets.
Kahl said that number of Russian casualties is “remarkable” given that Moscow has “achieved none of Vladimir Putin’s objectives” since invading Ukraine six months ago.
He attributed the stark numbers to Ukrainian morale and will to fight, which he said is “unquestioned, and much higher, I think, than the average morale and will to fight on the Russian side.”
“I think that gives the Ukrainians a significant advantage,” Kahl added.
Putin’s Pals Furious Younger Russians Don’t Want to Die in Ukraine
Julia Davis – August 5, 2022
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marches on, there is a dark undercurrent of waning public support—and it’s coming through even on tightly controlled state television. In the first days of the bloody war, the public was promised a quick victory due to the superiority of Russia’s military. Instead, the Kremlin’s offensive has been plagued by heavy losses and equipment deficiencies, to the point that state TV pundits publicly contemplate seeking aid and assistance from other pariah states—including Iran and North Korea.
Russia has reportedly been involved in discussions with Iran to purchase military drones, due to a severe shortage of its own unmanned aerial vehicles. During Thursday’s broadcast of the state TV show 60 Minutes, military expert Igor Korotchenko suggested that North Koreans could help rebuild destroyed Ukrainian regions and join Russia’s military ranks. Conversations about legalizing the participation of foreign fighters alongside Russian forces have been a recurring topic in state media, and for good reason: everyday citizens are less than enthusiastic about the prospect of going to war or dying for Putin. That doesn’t sit well with top pro-Kremlin propagandists, such as state TV host Vladimir Solovyov—twice formally recognized by Russian President Vladimir Putin for his services in the benefit of the Fatherland.
During Thursday’s broadcast of his show, The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, the host complained: “It irritates me that our society doesn’t understand that a watershed moment is currently taking place. We either stand up, build up and end up on another level, or simply cease to exist.” His guest, political scientist Alexander Kamkin, concurred and suggested that a “cultural special operation” be conducted in Russia.
The Kremlin’s tight control over the information disseminated to the public has failed to curtail access to outside sources, with tensions rising to such a point that on Monday during Solovyov’s show, convicted Russian agent Maria Butina suggested jailing parents whose children use a VPN to access foreign media. The host was likewise disappointed with the younger generation’s lackluster involvement in Putin’s war, complaining: “People who are planning to join [the military] are mainly of the same age as me, some are a bit younger… That is the generation that was raised on Soviet movies, Soviet literature and values. But the very young people I talk to, they faint if they cut their finger—and they see that as their democratic values… The special military operation is our Rubicon. I get the feeling that many here still can’t grasp it.”
Writer Zakhar Prilepin, who is wanted by Ukraine’s SBU security service on charges of “taking part in the activity of a terrorist organization” for his involvement in Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, added: “We really need volunteers, we aren’t hiding that. We need to replenish dislodged personnel. Meanwhile, the topic of death is silenced. The topic of perishing is curtailed. In a society motivated by comfort, you can’t talk about death. Everyone is expected to go to war, win and come back alive. Better yet, not to go in the first place. Let me remind you that the Charter of the Imperial Army included in plain language: if you have three adversaries, go to war and advance, kill all three. If you have 10, then defend yourself. If your death has come, then die. It’s written very plainly: ‘Soldier, death is part of your job. It is part of your duty and your contract with the government.’ The same principles were adopted by [Joseph] Stalin, who had an Orthodox Christian education.”
Prilepin recited the lyrics of an old Soviet song, entitled “In the woods at the frontline”: “If you have to lie in the ground, at least you have to do it only once.” He asserted: “The soldier was openly told: go and fight. If you have to die, you only have to do it once… This is a part of your duty as a citizen, as a soldier, as a warrior, as a Russian man. Today, we’re protecting everybody: the government, mothers, conscripts, everyone. We barely forced our governors to put up murals [of the fallen soldiers]… Everyone is afraid to upset society.”
Prilepin openly worried that in the event of total mobilization, the younger generation would opt to escape to neighboring countries instead of joining the fight: “The government assumes that in Russia, there is always 1 million men ready to fight. As for the rest of the country, we try not to worry them… We’ve been discussing difficult topics, which might lead to World War III and the same mobilization we’re trying to avoid right now… It’s difficult to talk about total mobilization, because I suspect that an excessive flood of people will suddenly pour into Armenia and Georgia. Borders will have to be closed. I’m talking about our younger generation.”
Solovyov suggested the rules protecting conscripts from taking part in combat should be changed: “You know what amazes me most of all? That the conscripts in our Army are not supposed to fight… So what are they supposed to do in the Army?” He complained that not many enough volunteers have joined the battle: “We have 150 million people. How many are fighting in Donbas?” The state TV host proposed a massive government-funded propaganda campaign, glorifying the participants of Russia’s so-called “special operation” in film and on television, with songs and poetry.
Gone are the days when state TV propagandists were predicting that other countries would flock to Russia’s side to join the battle against Ukraine and the West. During Thursday’s broadcast of The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, political scientist Sergey Mikheyev summarized the current mood in Russia: “About these constant discussions as to what we can offer the world, the world can go screw itself… We don’t need to offer anything to anybody. We’re special, we need to build ourselves up.” Solovyov agreed: “We are the Noah’s Ark. First and foremost, we need to save ourselves. Ourselves!”
The Western sanctions and widespread corporate exodus from Russia since Feb. 24 have ravaged the Russian economy—and its future prospects look even bleaker, according to a new report from Yale University researchers and economists led by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Yale School of Management professor and senior associate dean for leadership studies. It’s now become clear that the Kremlin’s “finances are in much, much more dire straits than conventionally understood” and that the large-scale “business retreats and sanctions are catastrophically crippling the Russian economy,” the researchers wrote.
Deterioration
As of Aug. 4, over 1,000 companies, including U.S. firms like Nike, IBM, and Bain consulting, have curtailed their operations in Russia. Though some businesses have stayed, the mass corporate exodus represents 40% of Russia’s GDP and reverses 30 years’ worth of foreign investment, says the Yale report.
The international retreat is morphing into a larger crisis for the country: a collapse in foreign imports and investments.
Russia has descended into a technological crisis as a result of its isolation from the global economy. It’s having trouble securing critical technology and parts. “The domestic economy is largely reliant on imports across industries…with few exceptions,” says the report. Western export controls have largely halted the flow of imported technology from smartphones to data servers and networking equipment, straining its tech industry. Russia’s biggest internet company, Yandex—the country’s version of Google—is running short of the semiconductor chips it needs for its servers.
At the same time, Russia’s “domestic production has come to a complete standstill—with no capacity to replace lost businesses, products, and talent,” the Yale report said. Russian producers and manufacturers are unable to fill the gaps left by the collapse of Western imports. Russia’s telecom sector for instance, now hopes to lean on China, India, and Israel to supply 5G equipment.
In the weeks following the Ukraine invasion, the Kremlin largely prevented a “full scale financial crisis” owing to quick and harsh measures, like restricting the movement of money out of the country and imposing a 20% emergency interest rate hike, Laura Solanko, senior adviser at the Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies in Transition, an organization that researches emerging economies, told Fortunelast month. The ruble even rebounded from a March low, when it was valued at less than one U.S. cent.
Yet Russia’s financial markets are the worst-performing in the world this year, the report noted. “Putin is resorting to patently unsustainable, dramatic fiscal and monetary intervention to smooth over these structural economic weaknesses,” which has led to a government budget deficit for the first time in years and drained the Kremlin’s foreign reserves even with its continued inflow of petrodollars, the researchers wrote. The Russian government is giving subsidies to businesses and individuals to mitigate any economic shocks caused by sanctions. This “inflated level” of fiscal and social stimulus, on top of military expenditures, is “simply unsustainable for the Kremlin,” the report said.
And the ruble’s recent dramatic turnaround doesn’t indicate a strong Russian economy, but marks something far worse: the clear collapse of foreign imports. Sergei Guriev, scientific director of the economics program at Sciences Po, in France, and a research fellow at London-based think tank the Centre for Economic Policy Research, previously told Fortune that it represents a “very bad” situation for the nation.
The EU is now phasing out Russian energy, which could hit the Kremlin’s oil and gas profits. Such a scenario would severely strain the Kremlin’s finances, since Western countries have frozen half of its $300 billion in foreign reserves.
Heading toward economic oblivion
Russia’s precarious economic position means that it faces even more dire, long-term challenges ahead.
Sanctions aren’t designed to cause an immediate financial crisis or economic collapse, but are long-term tools to weaken a nation’s economy while isolating it from global markets, the report said. And the sanctions are doing exactly that for Russia.
The country is losing its richest and most educated citizens as its economy crumbles. Most estimates say that at least 500,000 Russians have fled the country since Feb. 24, with the “vast majority being highly educated and highly skilled workers in competitive industries such as technology,” the report said. Many wealthy Russians who flee are taking their money with them. One estimate is that 20% of Russia’s ultra-high-net-worth individuals have left this year. In the first quarter of 2022, official capital outflows stood at $70 billion, according to Bank of Russia estimates—but this figure is likely to be a “gross underestimate” of the actual amount of money that has left the country, the Yale team wrote.
Russian citizens are also set to become poorer, despite Putin’s minimum wage and pension income hikes. A former Putin aide predicts that the number of Russians living in poverty will likely double—and perhaps even triple, as the war continues. Russia “hasn’t seen the worst yet,” Russian political scientist Ilya Matveev, told Fortunelast month.
“There is no path out of economic oblivion as long as the allied countries remain unified in maintaining and increasing sanctions pressure against Russia,” the researchers wrote.
Ukraine’s military intel leaks Russian soldiers discussing absurdity of orders on frontline
August 4, 2022
Russian military vehicle
One Russian serviceman breaks the news that those who are defending will not be given more medals, and will even have those that have already been issued taken away.
His interlocutor complains about the absurdity of the orders being given to the front line by senior Russian commanders:
“They sit there, send 20-200 people to their deaths and that’s it,” he says.
“Thirty people came in, 100 people came in. From the east. They f**king knocked off every single one. We went there previously. We had six 200s (killed), and six 300s (injured). One had bones crushed, and so did another one. So many had one leg hanging loose.”
Russian official says Ukraine carried out drone attack on Black Sea fleet HQ
July 31, 2022
(Reuters) – A senior official in Russian-annexed Crimea accused Ukraine on Sunday of carrying out a drone attack ahead of planned celebrations to mark Navy Day, injuring five and forcing the cancellation of festivities.
The accusation comes hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to oversee Navy Day celebrations in his hometown of St Petersburg and approve Russia’s naval doctrine as Moscow presses on with its military intervention in Ukraine.
“An unidentified object flew into the courtyard of the fleet’s headquarters,” Mikhail Razvozhayev, governor of Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“According to preliminary information, it is a drone.”
He said Ukraine had decided to “spoil Navy Day for us”.
The Ukrainian defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Razvozhayev said that five employees of the fleet headquarters had been injured in the incident and that the Federal Security Service (FSB) was investigating its circumstances.
“All celebrations have been cancelled for security reasons,” Razvozhayev said. “Please remain calm and stay home if possible.”
Navy Day is an annual Russian holiday during which its fleets stage naval parades and honour its sailors.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, prompting a major row with the West which deepened over Moscow’s role in an insurgency of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Fourth phase of Ukraine war with Russia could be decisive — if US sends more weapons | Opinion
Max Boot – July 29, 2022
Phase 1, beginning on Feb. 24, was Russia’s pell-mell attempt to take Kyiv. That resulted in failure thanks to terrible Russian logistics (remember the 40-mile convoy?) and a skillful Ukrainian defense making use of handheld weapons such as Stingers and Javelins supplied by the West.
Phase 2 began in mid-April, when Russian dictator Vladimir Putin concentrated his forces on Luhansk province in the eastern Donbas region. That phase, characterized by relentless Russian artillery bombardment, ended in early July with the retreat of Ukrainian forces from Luhansk.
In the third phase of the war, Ukrainian troops are holding a strong defensive position in neighboring Donetsk province (also part of Donbas) and effectively hitting back with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and other longer-range weapons supplied by the West. The HIMARS, in particular, have been a game changer by allowing the Ukrainians to destroy more than 100 high-value targets such as Russian ammunition depots and command posts.
A Ukrainian battalion commander told The Post that since the HIMARS strikes began, Russian shelling has been “10 times less.” Another Ukrainian officer told the Wall Street Journal: “It was hell over here. Now, it’s like paradise. Super quiet. Everything changed when we got the HIMARS.” President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukrainian fatalities are down from between 100 and 200 a day to 30 a day.
If Ukraine is able to fight back so effectively with only 12 HIMARS (soon to be 16), imagine what it could do with dozens more and, better still, Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which use the same platform but have nearly quadruple the range. These rocket systems should be supplemented by Western tanks and fighter aircraft. If the West were to supply all these weapons, Ukraine could mount a counteroffensive to take back lost land in the south and east and help end the war.
No third world war
The Biden administration is slowly supplying more HIMARS and, for the first time, is even discussing the provision of Western fighter aircraft (after nixing a Polish plan to send MiG-29s in March). But ATACMS appear to be off the table because, as national security adviser Jake Sullivan explained last week, the administration does not want to head “down the road towards a third world war.” Ukraine isn’t even allowed to use its HIMARS to end the shelling of its second-largest city, Kharkiv, because the Russian artillery batteries are located on Russian soil.
This strategic calculus makes no sense. Does Sullivan really believe that Putin will launch World War III if the United States supplies rockets with a range of about 180 miles but will hold off as long as we’re supplying only rockets with a range of about 50 miles? Or that the provision of HIMARS, NASAMS air-defense systems, 155mm howitzers, Phoenix Ghost drones, Javelins and Stingers isn’t too provocative — but fighter aircraft and tanks would be?
President Biden is right not to send U.S. forces into direct combat with the Russians, but everything else should be fair game, from ATACMS to F-16s to Abrams tanks. The Soviets didn’t hesitate to supply North Korea and North Vietnam with fighter aircraft to shoot down U.S. warplanes. (Soviet pilots even flew for North Korea.) Why shouldn’t we return the favor?
At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, some feared that Putin was acting so irrationally that he might resort to nuclear weapons. But if the past five months have taught us anything, it is that, while the Butcher of Bucha is evil, he is not suicidal or irrational.
Putin pulled back from Kyiv when it was revealed to be a losing cause and made sensible, if brutal, use of Russian artillery in Luhansk. Putin has basically ignored rumored Ukrainian strikes on military targets inside Russia. He hasn’t attacked Poland, which has become the main staging ground for weapons to Ukraine. He hasn’t lashed out since Finland and Sweden set about joining NATO, thereby putting more NATO troops on Russia’s border.
This is of a piece with Putin’s history. He is a classic bully who picks on the weak (Georgia, Ukraine, the Syrian rebels) while shying away from direct confrontations with the strong (the United States, NATO). Putin is rational enough to realize that if his military is having trouble handling Ukraine, it would have no chance in a war with the Atlantic alliance.
The United States matches Russia in nuclear forces and far exceeds it in conventional capabilities. Biden is in a far stronger position than Putin, but he is acting as if he were weaker. Stop letting Putin deter us from doing everything we can to aid Ukraine. Putin should be more afraid of us than we are of him.
The war has already proved costly to Russia: It has lost about 1,000 tanks, and roughly 60,000 soldiers have been killed or wounded. There won’t be much left of the Russian military if the Ukrainians are armed with lots more HIMARS and ATACMS, along with tanks and fighter aircraft. The fourth phase of the war could prove decisive — but only if the United States finally makes a commitment to help Ukraine win.
Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.”
Russians have so few troops left, they make one battalion out of three intercepted call
Kateryna Tyshchenko – July 23, 2022
A Russian serviceman says in an intercepted conversation that several battalions are being withdrawn from the combat zone due to high losses, and three battalions are to be made into one.
Source: intercepted phone call posted by the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence
Quote: “Now they’ve withdrawn the battalions, they’ll make one out of three, because … there are no people left. And then, f**k knows whether they’ll make one.”
Details: The Russian soldier complains that 2,000 reinforcements have arrived in six months, of which 500 at most are still there.
He says that psychologists will be working with the personnel for 10 days since no one wants to go back to Ukraine.
The occupier also complains about the new artillery systems being used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Quote: “Two days ago it flew into the building. They fire some kind of sh*t, you hear f**k-all when it’s coming out… Just two seconds – bam. Some kind of MLRS, like a Grad or Uragan. Only it’s silent. Everything they say on TV about our losses being minimal, that’s all crap.”
Russia hasn’t destroyed any of the devastating HIMARS artillery given Ukraine, US says, contradicting Russia’s claims
Mia Jankowicz – July 22, 2022
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Gen. Mark Milley on Wednesday said Russia hadn’t “eliminated” US-donated HIMARS.
This stands in stark contrast to Russian claims of having destroyed four of the weapons.
HIMARS are a prized piece of Ukraine’s attempt to hold Russia back in the east of the country.
Gen. Mark Milley says Russia hasn’t destroyed any of the HIMARS artillery the US has given to Ukraine.
Speaking at a Wednesday Pentagon press conference, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said: “To date, those systems have not been eliminated by the Russians.”
Milley acknowledged that the systems were at risk, adding: “I knock on wood every time I say something like that.”
His statement contradicted several claims by Russian officials and media outlets that Russia has destroyed some of the prized weapons, which Ukraine lobbied hard for and says give it a much-needed way to blunt Russia’s invasion.
The truck-like mounted units can fire precision-targeted heavy artillery about 50 miles, depending on the rounds used.
The US has given Ukraine 12 units so far, with another four on the way, Milley said.
His remarks followed several Russian claims to have destroyed as many as four of them.
In a briefing reported by the state-operated media outlet Zvezda, a Russian defense ministry representative said Russian forces had destroyed four HIMARS launchers from July 5 to Wednesday.
A July 6 Russian MOD Telegram post said two of these were taken out in Malotaranovka in the Donbas along with two ammunition depots for the weapon.
Milley didn’t specifically address the Russian claims in his briefing, instead saying in broad terms that the HIMARS hadn’t been destroyed.
When Insider approached the Pentagon for comment, a representative pointed to a July 8 briefing during which an unnamed senior defense official said the Russian claims were “not correct.” Insider requested an updated response to the most recent Russian claims.
The Russian Ministry of Defense didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
As well as supplying the units themselves, the Pentagon is sending hundreds of rounds for them and providing training in how to use them.
Milley said the HIMARS had been used “against Russian command-and-control nodes, their logistical networks, their field artillery near defense sites, and many other targets,” adding that strikes made by HIMARS were “steadily degrading” Russia’s efforts.
U.S. agrees to send Ukraine more HIMARS launchers, weaponry that is taking a toll on Russian forces
Michael Weiss, Sr. Correspondent – July 21, 2022
To hear Ukrainian military officials tell it in recent days, the indispensable weapon in month five of their defensive war against Russian invaders is the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, an armored-vehicle-mounted long-range artillery launcher.
“HIMARS have already made a HUUUGE difference on the battlefield,” tweeted Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov on July 9. “More of them as well as [U.S.] ammo & equipment will increase our strength and help to demilitarize the terrorist state,” he wrote, referring to Russia.
So it no doubt came as gratifying news in Kyiv that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed Wednesday that Washington would send another four HIMARS platforms, which, he added, Ukraine has been “using so effectively and which have made such a difference on the battlefield.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday. (Alex Brandon/AP)
HIMARS strikes have indeed been devastating, and the Russian military simply has no counter for their range, accuracy and mobility; the M31 series rockets that have been supplied with the HIMARS have the ability to hit a target within a 16-foot radius at a range of 52 miles. Because it’s on wheels, the launcher can be on the move seconds after firing, making it incredibly well protected against Russian counterbatteries.
Since the U.S. began supplying HIMARS in late June, the Ukrainians have managed three things simultaneously. First, according to Valery Zaluzhny, commander in chief of the Ukraine Armed Forces, their use has been an “important contributing factor” in “stabiliz[ing]” the front in the Donbas region, where Russia had been making slow but unmistakable gains, including capturing the sister cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. The situation there, Zaluzhny said, is “complex, tense, but completely controllable.” (Contrast that sanguine tone with the catastrophic losses in manpower that Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, were citing just weeks ago, when 100 to 200 Ukrainian soldiers were being killedper day.)
A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, at a Marine Corps base camp in Jacksonville, N.C. (Lcpl. Jennifer Reyes/U.S. Marines/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire)
Scores of Russian ammunition depots deep inside occupied parts of the Donbas have now gone up in smoke on a near daily basis in the last few weeks, prompting a host of new memes on Twitter and war watchers to routinely refer to the arrival of “HIMARS o’clock.” These strikes have been so punishing to the Russians’ efforts to resupply their own artillery systems, which far outnumber the Ukrainians’, that Moscow announced an operational “pause” in its campaign in the Donbas on July 7.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered generals to prioritize destroying the HIMARS and other long-range artillery during a visit to the front in Ukraine on July 18, a tacit acknowledgment of how significant their impact has been.
Second, HIMARS helped Ukraine recapture the strategically vital Snake Island, in the Black Sea, scene of the famous retort to a Russian battleship from a besieged Ukrainian soldier, “Russian warship, go f*** yourself.” Even though not directly used against Russian positions on the island, the very presence of HIMARS weapons on the battlefield, in conjunction with Western-supplied anti-ship missiles such as Harpoons, has weighed heavily in Russia’s strategic calculation that holding the island would prove impossible in the long term.
A high-ranking Ukrainian military intelligence official told Yahoo News that Russia’s withdrawal from Snake Island, which the Kremlin tried to spin as a “goodwill gesture,” demonstrated a “real fear of our new long-range artillery capability.”
A satellite image shows smoke rising from Snake Island, off the coast of Ukraine, on June 29. (Planet Labs PBC/Handout via Reuters)
“We’ve hugely expanded our range of operational control over the Black Sea coast, and we’ve stopped the Russians from conducting amphibious operations in this area,” the official, who requested anonymity, said.
The official added that Russia’s hasty pullback has yielded a bonanza of actionable intelligence and matériel for Ukrainians. “Our team was able to find ammunition, different types of weapons, combat and personnel documents and even packed-up-and-ready-to-use aerial reconnaissance systems that the Russians absolutely need,” the official said.
Third, HIMARS has allowed Kyiv to prepare for an upcoming counteroffensive in the southern region of Kherson, the first major population center to fall to Vladimir Putin’s forces since the Russian invasion was launched on Feb. 24.
On July 11, HIMARS destroyed a Russian command center at the serially pummeled Chornobaivka Airport, killing 12 senior Russian officers, including Maj. Gen. Artem Nasbulin, chief of staff of the 22nd Army Corps, according to Serhiy Bratchuk, a Ukrainian official in the Odesa regional military administration.
This is an impressive troika of accomplishments for any weapons platform in just under a month of operations, especially given how few HIMARS launchers there are in Ukraine.
The United States supplied an initial four systems on June 23. In what is now a familiar “proof of concept” pattern of American security assistance, more were approved once the Ukrainians demonstrated their effectiveness on the battlefield.
A Ukrainian military commander with the rockets on a HIMARS vehicle in eastern Ukraine. (Anastasia Vlasova for the Washington Post via Getty Images)
As of July 20, a total of 16 U.S.-supplied HIMARS systems are either in the country or on their way, in addition to European equivalents: The Ukrainians have been purposefully ambiguous on how many systems are active for reasons of operational security. The U.K. has pledged six of the M270B1, an even more powerful version of the HIMARS, of which three have already arrived, and the Germans have committed three MARS II MLRS, another HIMARS cousin, that are due to arrive at the end of July. In total, Ukraine will soon take possession of 25 long-range Western artillery systems.
Reznikov, the Ukrainian defense minister, said at a July 19 event hosted by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Atlantic Council that Ukraine needs double that number to deter Russia, and quadruple it to wage any successful counteroffensive.
For Ukrainian troops who have long complained about Russian artillery supremacy in the Donbas, the arrival of HIMARS and its European equivalents would prove a much-needed shot in the arm, Ukrainian military officials say. For Ukrainian civilians, the weaponry delivered to date has meant a respite from unremitting carnage. The United Nations assesses that 4,731 civilians have been killed and 5,900 have been injured.
Originally designed to monitor forest fires, NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) satellite network has beenused throughout the war by professionals and amateurs alike to chart the blazes that have resulted from artillery fire.All the recent FIRMS data points to a large reduction in Russia’s activity along the line of contact as its heavy gunsand multiple rocket launchers well beyond that line are destroyed in nightly HIMARS attacks by Ukrainian forces.
One of the key features of the HIMARS system is its modular nature, giving it the ability to fire a range of different rockets. In addition to being capable of firing M31 rockets, the system can fire one of the larger and more destructive Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) ballistic missiles.
An Army Tactical Missile System in action. (U.S. Army via Wikicommons)
With a range of up to 186 miles and the same pinpoint accuracy of M31, the United States had held off supplying ATACMS to the Ukrainians for fear they would be used to strike targets within Russia itself and set offan escalatory spiral that could drag NATO countries and Russia into a direct conflict.
President Biden appeared to rule out sending ATACMS to Ukraine in a May 31 New York Timesop-ed in which he emphasized the limits to American military support.
“We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders,” he wrote.
Of late, however, fears that Ukraine would use long-range artillery to attack targets inside Russia seem to have subsided. Kyiv has stuck to its agreement with Washington not to use HIMARS to hit inside Russia. And Reznikov recently told the Financial Times that he was confident Ukraine would eventually receive the ATACMS tactical ballistic missile.
If the U.S. does decide to send ATACMS, that too could fundamentally change the course of the war, putting the Kerch Bridge — Russia’s only direct connection to the occupied Crimean Peninsula — and the Sevastopol Naval Base, home to what remains of its Black Sea Fleet, well within striking distance.
Kaimo Kuusk, the Estonian ambassador to Ukraine, told Yahoo News that the Russians have already grown skittish over Ukraine’s long-range fire capability, as evidenced by the relocation of a “significant number” of ships in the Black Sea Fleet from its home port of Sevastopol in Crimea to Novorossiysk in southern Russia. “As the Ukrainians advance, Sevastopol will be within reach, and Moscow cannot afford another humiliation like the sinking of the Moskva,” Kuusk said, referring to Ukraine’s sinking of the flagship Russian cruiser on April 14 with domestically manufactured anti-ship missiles.
The South Korean military launches an Army Tactical Missile System during a military exercise. (Defense Ministry via Zuma Press Wire)
Maj. Gen. Volodymyr Havrylov, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, told Yahoo News that the relocation could well be Moscow’s way of hedging its bets against heavier-duty artillery being sent to Ukraine. Asked if the Black Sea Fleet was quitting Crimean ports in anticipation of ATACMS, Havrylov responded, “I think so.”
According to Thomas Theiner, a former artillery specialist in the Italian army, ATACMS would dramatically worsen Russia’s growing strategic nightmare. “These missiles are 100% accurate up to a range of 186 miles,” he said, adding that the two most recent ATACMS versions, the M48 and M57 with the WAU-23/B warhead, carry 216 pounds of high explosives, “making them ideal to take out things like bridges.” The Russians, moreover, can’t intercept these rockets, which travel at more than three times the speed of sound, because their guidance software varies their flight patterns to confuse enemy air defenses.
ATACMS can eliminate even Russia’s best air-defense platform — the S-400 — and apart from destroying ammunition depots and command centers, they could also wipe out stocks of Kalibr cruise missiles stored in Crimea, which the Russians have fired on Ukrainian cities, often in retaliation for military losses.
“Even if the U.S. forbids the Ukrainians from targeting the Kerch Bridge,” Theiner said, noting that it could be interpreted as an attack on infrastructure that extends into Russian territory, “a few kilometers from it is a rail tunnel, which ATACMS can easily destroy by hitting it from either end. It would spell the end of all Russian logistics in the peninsula.”
The Ukrainians appear to be preparing the battlefield for a counteroffensive just north of Crimea. They struck the Antonovskiy Bridge in Kherson Oblast twice, on July 20 and 21, the second time forcing the Russians to close the bridge for repairs. The bridge is the main road link across the Dnieper River and a key artery for the logistics and reinforcements flowing to Russian occupiers in Kherson.
Ukrainian artillerymen checking equipment before advancing to the frontline in Kherson, Ukraine. (Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
These preliminary strikes are believed to be largely symbolic, and the Antonovskiy Bridge was not heavily damaged. A former Western intelligence official told Yahoo News that hitting it twice was “an attempt to put psychological pressure on the Russians, to make them afraid that at a certain point they won’t be able to evacuate their troops from the west bank of the [Dnieper].”
“If we take for granted that in the event the Russians leave Kherson, they’ll destroy the two bridges crossing the river anyway,” the ex-official said, and added, “The Ukrainians may think it’s better not to give them a chance of a more or less controlled withdrawal.”
Pro-Russian military commentators on social media have grudgingly admitted that Ukrainian artillery strikes run the risk of making the bridge unusable for heavy military traffic, assuming it isn’t collapsed completely. The highly trafficked “Starshe Eddy” channel on Telegram was downright envious of Ukraine’s new capability and determination.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine are doing what we should have done a long time ago, namely, they are destroying the bridge across the Dnieper in Kherson. The goal is obvious, to interrupt military logistics between the left bank and our foothold on the right bank,” a recent message read. “It is difficult to physically destroy the bridge itself, but to make its work impossible or extremely difficult is quite a feasible task. To do this, they will strike every day, preventing repair teams from restoring what was destroyed. Why we don’t do the same with the Ukrainian bridges across the Dnieper, I don’t understand.”
For the Ukrainians, the upcoming push in the south, which Reznikov has claimed will be made up of “a million-strong army,” has been given new impetus by Russian designs, according to U.S. intelligence, to hold sham “referendums” and then annex occupied Donbas territories à la Crimea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared to confirm those plans in an interview with Russian state media on July 20. “Now the geography is different,” he said. “And it is not only [Russian-occupied areas in Donbas] but also the Kherson region, the Zaporizhzhia region, and a number of other territories, and the process continues, and it continues consequently and persistently.”
Tellingly, Lavrov specified that “if the West delivers long-range weapons to Kyiv, the geographic goals of the special operation in Ukraine will expand even more,” in a further indication of just how seriously Moscow views these weapons systems.
With additional reporting by James Rushton in Kyiv
