(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ukraine update: Russia launched another 'big offensive' at Donetsk ... and got another big disaster [1] ['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-10 There are some pretty good reasons to doubt the reports that Russia has crossed the highway at Zaliznyanske. For one thing, Wagner forces were reportedly repulsed from an area east and south of that village on Wednesday. There were also other Russian reports that contradicted the idea of moving south across the highway, saying that Russia was actually circumventing that location and continuing west for an attack on Minkivka. In any case, Russian sources are absolutely convinced that Bakhmut has already been encircled, somewhere, that all its lines of supply have fallen, and that now—right now—Russia is about to take the city over the bodies of 100,000 trapped Ukrainian soldiers. In the words of one of Russia’s most popular propaganda shows … time will tell. A quick note: I’m aware that many of the highways in Ukraine got renamed some time ago. What I routinely call the M03 is also known as the E-40, and other roads like the P66 also have new names. My intention isn’t to cause confusion. It’s just that the Google Earth maps have one set of names, and if I don’t stick to that, the images and the text will be constantly out of sync. Sorry. While everyone was looking at Bakhmut, Vuhledar, and Kreminna, Russia launched another major attack just west of Donetsk into the town of Avdiivka. This is an area that has seen fighting every single day since the invasion began, and every single day Russia has failed to move the line. However, this time, Russia sent multiple armored companies and engaged in a battle running over three days to finally break the defenses at Avdiivka once and for all. So how did that go for them? x You see news from Bakhmut everyday. You’ve heard about Vuhledar recently. And you still wait news about Russian future big advance? Well, it already started. What have you heard about enemy advance near Avdiivka? Let’s take a look👇🧶 pic.twitter.com/VFZT5XBkyo — Kriegsforscher (@OSINTua) February 10, 2023 Another Russian disaster that left at least seven tanks and 30 BMPs destroyed, along with an unknown number of Russian fighters. In a war where Russia has already lost over 1,700 tanks and 2000 infantry fighting vehicles, that may seem like a drop in the bucket. But the bucket has been getting a lot of fresh drops in the last week. Some reports are putting Russian losses in this one assault on Avdiivka at three full companies. But here’s the part that may be even more amazing: Russia is trying it again right now. As in … right now. Just as with Vuhledar, it seems Russia is insisting on directing armor along the same highway day after day, expecting different results. Have they heard that Ukrainian forces were running out of bullets? Because otherwise, it’s hard to understand the tactics of this “big offensive” so far. Aftermath of an anti-ship missile striking a residential building in Dnipro. 15 Jan 2023 On Thursday, Russia sent a small wave of Iranian-made drones toward several cities in Ukraine. Now that Ukraine has experience with these drones, and has both acquired and positioned more anti-aircraft guns, most of these drones were shot down. In fact, it’s possible that all of them were shot down, as Ukrainian officials didn’t report any damage caused by this latest wave of drones. However, there was another reason to be concerned. In the last two months, Russia has often followed a wave of drones with air strikes and missiles. Why? That’s unclear. Maybe they think the drones somehow “soften up the targets.” Or maybe all these weapons are intended to arrive at the same time, but Russia’s timing is bad. In any case, the drones-followed-by-missiles pattern has repeated several times, and that happened again late on Thursday night and into Friday morning. The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces reports that Russia launched a total of 71 missiles, of which 61 were shot down. Reportedly at least two of these missiles passed over Moldova before aimed aat targets in Ukraine. The missiles in both cases appear to have been destroyed. [Update: The latest UA update puts the total at “over 100” missiles in the overnight attack, with 71 being cruise missiles.] The incident has caused the Moldovan Foreign Ministry to summon the Russian ambassador. Perhaps more significantly, Ukraine claims that at least one of the missiles also passed into the airspace of NATO member country, Romania, which scrambled fighter jets to intercept a cruise missile launched from a ship on the Black Sea. x ⚡️ Volodymyr Zelenskyi: "Several russian missiles passed through the airspace of Moldova and Romania. These missiles are a challenge to NATO, collective security. This is terror that can and must be stopped. The world must stop it. pic.twitter.com/XxfZQfuuX2 — FLASH (@Flash_news_ua) February 10, 2023 However, as of Friday morning, Romania is saying no. Their military says that the missile skimmed along the border, but didn’t actually violate NATO airspace. Ukraine is clearly pushing the idea that Russia fired missiles over Romania. It’s a similar position to the one they claimed that a Russian missile had hit near Przewodów, Poland, in November 2022. However, in that case, NATO investigators determined that the remains of the debris indicated that it had come from a Ukrainian S-300 launched to intercept the incoming Russian missile, rather than being parts of the Russian missile. Did Russian missiles overfly Romania? It seems as if it was a very close thing (see the part about how Romania scrambled fighter jets for a possible intercept). It also seems that Romania is not ready to make the claim that Russia sent missiles through NATO airspace, which would certainly have consequences. As for Moldova, there seems to be no doubt that Russia flew its missiles over Moldova, and not for the first time. But since Russia has been able to park forces in Transnistria since 1992, they have little concern about what Moldova thinks. As many as 35 of the missiles launched overnight appear to have been aimed at two targets: the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv. Both cities have been mentioned as potential targets in the “big new Russian offensive,” and Luhansk governor Serhiy Hayday indicated that he believed the attacks were signals of cities Russia intended to assault in coming days. However, that big offensive continues to be less big than people had expected by this point. There’s also a question of just how much longer Russia can keep up attacks like the one launched overnight. The number of missiles launched made it by far the largest attack in 2023, and it’s likely no coincidence that the launch followed immediately on Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meetings with European leaders this week. Russia wasn’t just launching missiles, it was sending a signal—though what it means is open to interpretation. A rescuer on the top of the National University in Kharkiv after a cruise missile strike. 5 Feb 2023 It appears that missiles in this wave aimed at civilian areas were all shot down, including 10 missiles that were targeted at Kyiv. Six missiles reportedly impacted various energy-related targets, including electrical substations. There’s no indication of how this will affect Ukraine’s electrical supply. Missile launches against Ukraine rose sharply in October, following the successful Ukrainian counteroffensive east of Kharkiv. The regularity and intensity of these attacks were such that, in November, Ukraine’s defense minister released estimates suggesting that Russia was burning through its supply of precision weapons and would likely be all but out of any such weapons before spring. The minister suggested that this would mean Russia would have difficulty in conducting any new offensive and would “struggle” to hold onto occupied territory. However, heavy and regular attacks continued into December. Some of those attacks reportedly featured as many as 120 missiles. By the middle of that month, articles began to appear noting the changing mix of weapons used in these attacks and speculating about what that meant for Russia’s stockpile of missiles. There was one aspect of this that everyone seemed to notice: Another sign that Russia's stock of precision missiles is running dangerously low is the repurposing of air defense and anti ship missiles into a ground attack role. These systems are ill-suited for use against ground targets, lacking the firepower and accuracy. A memorial to victims of the Dnipro missile strike. The use of these systems is tied directly to incidents like the one on Jan. 15, when an anti-ship missile struck an apartment building in Dnipro, resulting in horrific scenes and at least 30 deaths. That incident helped to bolster international determination to end Russia’s invasion and was likely important in breaking the logjam over sending Western tanks into Ukraine. So … is Russia running out of missiles, as some analysts have now been suggesting for months? It certainly doesn’t seem that way when they’re still able to loft 71 missiles in a single night. But the real answer is a little bit of a yes and a bit of no. Russia has almost certainly reduced its stocks of ground-launched S-300 missiles by a massive amount. It went into the war with something like 7,000 of these weapons. It’s likely they now have fewer than 1,000. It’s worth noting that the S-300 missile is not just used as an offensive weapon, but as part of the S-300 air defense system. So Ukraine is often shooting down S-300 missiles with … S-300 missiles. Some of the S-300s, perhaps most, that Russia has launched against Ukraine were repurposed air defense missiles. That’s part of what makes the identification of that missile debris in Poland a little less than certain. Keeping some of these for its own defense is certainly something Russia should be concerned about (people in Belgorod would likely approve). Even so, Russia reportedly expended 35 of its remaining S-300 stock in its attack last night, which may be a record. Houses damaged by an S-300 strike in Kharkiv. 21 Jan. 2023 Russia has also burned through hundreds of its P-800 cruise missiles (also known under a number of other names, including 3M55, Oniks, and Yakhont) and the air-launched variant, Kh-61. Better than 400 of these missiles have now been fired, either from ground locations or air-launched by aircraft circling over Russia. Russia really likes this missile. It’s very fast—Mach 2.5 or better—and it’s been difficult to intercept. However, the use of this missile was declining even before the fall. Likely because Russia’s remaining supply is far less than what it has already used. Russia has also been burning through its stock of the Kh-101 in some of the attacks, including on Thursday night, but Ukraine seems to have no trouble shooting down this supposedly stealthy missile. Russia has used up better than half the Kh-101 it ever made, firing them into Ukraine, and has only enough left to involve this missile in another one or two attacks. Production of this missile has always been in the form of a trickle, so don’t expect them to make a rapid reappearance once they’re gone. x Maksym Marchenko, Head of Odesa Oblast Military Administration, has reported that air defence units shot down 13 Russian missiles over Odesa Oblast. The Kyiv mayor reported that 10 Russian missiles were shot down over the capital. Source: Maksym Marchenko, pic.twitter.com/DApRNqt4U5 — Ukrainian News24 (@UkrainianNews24) February 10, 2023 The not-so-speedy Kh-35 cruise missile—launched by planes, ships, or even helicopters—has often replaced its zippier, sneakier cousins in the mix. But Russia has two problems with these. First, they’ve also burned through a majority of their stock (repeat this for pretty much every missile in their arsenal). Second, these are slower, older, less capable cruise missiles of the “follow a fairly limited set of paths” variety. Ukraine has gotten very good at picking them off. Even so, they keep getting used. In part, that’s because the mechanisms of the Kh-35 (a jet engine, not a liquid-fueled rocket, and electronics that go back to the 1980s) make it one of the two missiles—along with the Kalibr anti-ship missile—that Russia seems capable of building in quantity at this point. In recent attacks, Russia has really dusted off the old stock to employ the Kh-55 cruise missile, which left official production in 1981 and is another generation cruder in every way. To put all this very long wandering into a much shorter package: Russia is running low on high-precision missiles that are difficult to intercept, so it keeps building more of what it can. Some of those missiles are decently accurate, but old, slow, and easy to knock down. Others are harder to intercept, but also hugely inaccurate. That’s how you end up with nights like last night: 71 missiles launched, 61 missiles shot down, 6 missiles apparently impacting near targets, 4 missiles going seemingly into nothing at all, and at least 2 missiles generating international incidents. And even though it’s building low-end missiles, Russia is not apparently building enough to keep up with what it’s using. Six missiles striking infrastructure or residential targets might be something to brag about for Russia, but the cost to results ratio of these attacks has never been good in the sense of affecting the course of the war, and now they’re all but insignificant. Why doesn’t Russia target its missiles to take out more important Ukrainian military targets? Because it can’t. As Ukrainian defenses improve and Russian missiles get worse, these waves of attack are becoming increasingly symbolic, and could soon reach a point where they’re a bigger threat to Russia than they are to Ukraine. And more Western air defenses are arriving in Ukraine all the time. We’ll be watching this, though every previous “Big Putin Speech” has turned out to be about as impactful as the current “Big Russian Offensive.” You never know. Maybe he’s going to resign. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/10/2152218/-Ukraine-update-Russia-launched-another-big-offensive-at-Donetsk-and-got-another-big-disaster Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/