Infighting and drone strikes follow Russian taking of Bakhmut
Russian forces conducted the largest Shahed drone strike against Ukraine since the start of the war overnight on May 27-28. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 59 Shahed-131/136 drones, of which Ukrainian forces shot down 58.[1] Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat characterized this strike as the largest drone strike since the start of the war and stated that Russian forces chiefly targeted Kyiv.[2] Zhytomyr Oblast Head Vitaliy Bunechko reported that Russian drones struck an unspecified infrastructure facility in the oblast.[3] The Russian allocation of aerial munitions to targeting Kyiv rather than prioritizing infrastructure or military facilities continues to constrain this limited Russian air campaign’s ability to meaningfully degrade Ukrainian offensive capabilities for the upcoming counteroffensive, as ISW has previously assessed.[4]
...
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have again indirectly undermined Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority and regime. Prigozhin responded to a journalist’s question about Russian state media banning any discussions about Wagner forces, stating that unnamed Russian bureaucrats will only benefit from such censorship in the near term of one to three months before the Russian people will push back and start hating the bureaucrats.[19] Prigozhin stated that Russian officials would have been able to enjoy their historic ability to censor Russian society if Russia had not started the war in Ukraine. Prigozhin then gave advice to an unnamed official: “If you are starting a war, please have character, will, and steel balls - and only then you will be able to achieve something.” Prigozhin implied that accomplishing real achievements would let the official avoid lying about the construction of new buildings, metro stations, and bridges in an effort to look good. Prigozhin notably shifted the discussion from talking about unnamed Russian officials to directly addressing a single man. Prigozhin’s comments are likely targeted at Putin whom the Russian state media has routinely portrayed as a leader minutely involved with small infrastructure projects and the lives of ordinary Russian people. Putin used to host annual hours-long “Direct Line” press conferences with constituents in which he often responded to inquiries that are best suited for local governments, for example.[20]
Prigozhin may be attacking Putin for failing to give Prigozhin some promised reward for seizing Bakhmut. Prigozhin’s previous attack on Putin’s character occurred on May 9 – a symbolic holiday that Putin may have wanted to use to portray Russia’s claimed victory in Bakhmut as an achievement equivalent to Soviet Union’s drive on Berlin in 1945.[21] Kremlin state media compared the seizure of Bakhmut city to the Soviet victory in Berlin on May 21, which likely indicates that the Kremlin was preparing to associate the victory in Bakhmut with Victory Day.[22] Prigozhin claimed that Wagner had effectively captured Bakhmut by May 10 and cleared the city by May 20, and attempted to blame the delay in Wagner’s capture of the city on the Russian Ministry of Defense’s (MoD’s) withholding of ammunition.[23] Prigozhin also claimed that his ”Bakhmut meatgrinder” offensive operation killed half of the Ukrainian army, a statement that Russian ultranationalist Igor Girkin declared to be false.[24] Prigozhin also claimed that Wagner opened a springboard for further offensive operations in Donbas and sarcastically noted that Russian regular forces subordinated under the Russian MoD will be able to reach the Dnipro River, capture the territories of the four annexed regions, and capture Ukrainian strongholds west and north of Bakhmut.
...
The biggest advantage of the Iranian drones to the Russians is the expenditure of anti-aircraft missiles by Ukraine in shooting them down. Otherwise, they present very little damage to the Ukraine infrastructure they are allegedly targeting.
The infighting is interesting from several angles. The taking of Bakhmut has always been an overrated event and now that it is completed the Russians are finding how worthless the fight was. Both Prigozhin and Putin are overrating the event. At this point, Russia's MOD apparently does not have the resources to "exploit" the so-called victory. Russia is still scrounging for troops for any follow on attacks Prigozhin seems frustrated by the lack of appreciation for his efforts.
See, also:
Putin is in a panic over the expected Ukrainian counteroffensive, which may already be in its preliminary “battlefield-shaping” stage. He doesn’t know, any more than the rest of us do, when the offensive will be launched, where it will strike or whether it will succeed. What he does know is that if it achieves significant success, his own days might be numbered, with fissures already opening inside the Kremlin and between its most important henchmen.
The Russian army’s thinly stretched troops have been preparing strong defensive positions all along the front line to repel an attack or series of attacks, and planning their own spoiling operations. But, aside from the balance of forces, critically important to Ukraine’s success or failure is morale.
Putin knows it is fragile among his own troops, many of whom don’t know why they are expected to fight a war they don’t even begin to understand. He knows he has to break the morale of Ukrainian soldiers on the battle line and civilians on the home front. That is why he has recently intensified air attacks on cities and towns. They are intended to kill civilians, destroy infrastructure, disrupt the war economy and make life a misery – both for those in the cities and their relatives at the front.
On Saturday night, Russia launched the largest wave of explosive drone strikes since the full-scale invasion began. Fifty-two of the 54 Iranian-supplied Shahed drones were knocked out of the sky. Forty were aimed at Kyiv, the most intensive barrage targeting the city so far, killing one.
The next day, Kyiv, celebrating the 1,541st anniversary of its founding, was straight back to normal. No mass panic, no serious disruption to life. Putin’s attempts to intimidate the Ukrainian people and their leaders simply don’t work. He tried it first in February last year, expecting Kyiv to fall in a matter of days simply with rocket fire and Russian forces heading towards the capital. Like London in the Blitz and later under Hitler’s rain of V1 and V2 rockets, these Russian war crimes have the opposite effect to what is intended, serving only to harden the people’s will to resist.
...
And:
Ukraine Situation Report: Suspense Builds As Counteroffensive Looms
At the frontline and online, Ukrainian forces appear to be making final preparations for the long-awaited counteroffensive, with the help of Western-supplied equipment, after surviving the Russian onslaught through the winter.
Having blunted Russia’s winter offensive in the Donbas and enduring near-endless waves of air raids on targets across the country, top Ukrainian officers and spokespersons are putting the word out that the counteroffensive isn’t just ready, it’s already begun. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with The Guardian that preliminary operations were already underway.https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1662443000625082370
“It’s a complicated process, which is not a matter of one day or a certain date or a certain hour,” Podolyak told The Guardian. “It’s an ongoing process of de-occupation, and certain processes are already happening, like destroying supply lines or blowing up depots behind the lines. The intensity is increasing, but it will take quite a long period of time.”
...
And:
Russians pushed to work six-day week and volunteer in weapons factories to boost war effort
...
The Kremlin has shifted the Russian economy onto a war-footing, prioritising military manufacturing over civilian products. Although Russia’s economy only shrank by 2 per cent last year, analysts said that a huge increase in state spending on the military disguised a drop in the civilian economy and standards of living.
The surge in arms spending includes the repurposing some civilian businesses as weapons and drone factories.
In Izhevsk, a city 630 miles east of Moscow, a shopping centre is being turned into an ammunition factory and, further south in Tambov, employees at a bread factory have switched to assembling drones instead of baking.
...
And:
Russian state media calling for unpaid 6th day of work to fund Ukraine invasion, Western intel says
...
The ministry also cited Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of state media broadcaster RT and a prominent Russian propagandist, who said last week that citizens should clock into munition production factories for two hours each day after their regular jobs.
...
And:
Storm Shadow missiles show 100% efficiency in Ukraine – Ukraine's Defence Minister
This is a stark contrast with the Iranian missiles used by Russia.
And:
And:
General Staff: Over 100 Russian soldiers desert in occupied Lysychansk and near Bakhmut
And:
Russia's maximum goals are absurd, especially in a war it is losing. They sound more like something from a Monty Python Black Knight skit.
Comments
Post a Comment