Russo-Ukrainian War Roundup for March 28, 2022

Despite last week’s announcement that Russia was going to confine operations to the eastern part of Ukraine, there seems to be a lot of activity around Kiev, possibly of “one last push” variety, though Ukrainian forces have retaken Irpin, and Russian forces have reportedly finally taken Mariupol.

  • Is Putin going to declare victory May 9 no matter what?

    Vladimir Putin has already declared the ‘end’ of the war in Ukraine, officials in Kyiv have claimed, matching the same date Russia celebrates defeating the Nazis in World War Two.

    The general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian propaganda ‘imposes the idea that the war must be completed before the 9th of May 2022’.

    Russia holds an extravagant victory day parade in Moscow’s Red Square on that date every year to mark Nazi Germany’s surrender and the end of the Second World War.

    In a Facebook post, the general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said: ‘According to the available information, among the personnel of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, propaganda work is constantly being carried out, which imposes the idea that the war must be completed before the 9th of May 2022.’

  • Ukrainian forces retake control of irpin, which is northwest of Kiev right at the edge of Hostemel Airport.
  • Russia is hitting Ukrainian fuel storage facilities. Also, a bit about Russia’s scaled-down goals:

    Ukrainian intelligence is warning that Russia may attempt to bifurcate the country. This is could very well be part of a pivot to a less ambitious strategy that Moscow is framing as their original intent, which is a lie.

    Still, this makes sense as trying to secure a large part of Donbas, or more realistically from the Dnipro River to the south to somewhere east of the Vorskla River to the north, is a far more attainable goal than taking the entire country or even half of it. This would be sold by Putin as a measure to provide security to the newly-recognized (by Russia) ‘republics’ of Donetsk and Lugansk in Ukraine’s far east, but it could possibly allow Russia to maintain a land bridge to Crimea and control every port on the Sea of Azov. These separatist republics may soon ‘vote’ to actually join the Russian Federation, which would give further pretext to such an operation.

    Above all that, it would give Russia a major foothold to degrade, undermine, and outright attack Ukraine over the long haul. It would also be better situated than ever to launch a new invasion of more territory to the west in the future under such a setup.

  • Some realism from Zelensky:

  • Russian morale is poor. “Professor Michael Clarke, former director of the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said: ‘The Russians are making almost every tactical mistake it is possible to make.'”
  • Are Russian troops fragging their own officers? It’s certainly possible, given how unpopular the war is and how ill-prepared Russian troops were for the invasion, but I’d treat this report with several grains of salt. Speaking of things that need to be taken with grains of salt…
    
  • I simply don’t buy this report that Ukraine has captured more tanks from Russia than its lost.

    Ukraine has lost at least 74 tanks—destroyed or captured—since Russia widened its war on the country starting the night of Feb. 23.

    But Ukraine has captured at least 117 Russian tanks, according to open-source-intelligence analysts who scrutinize photos and videos on social media.

    In other words, the Ukrainian army might actually have more tanks now than a month ago—all without building a single brand-new tank or pulling some older vehicle out of storage.

    The Russians meanwhile have captured at least 37 Ukrainian tanks—a sum inadequate to compensate for the roughly 274 tanks it is believed to have lost to all causes.

    1. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 2. I believe the Russia loss numbers are probably a good floor, given their poor preparation and numerous reports of lack of fuel. But I suspect the Ukrainian loss numbers are probably low. 3. A captured tank is not necessarily a usable, fieldable tank. That said, it is easier for Ukraine and Russia to field each other’s captured armor that most belligerents, given both have the same Soviet roots.

  • Why Putin is bombing Russian speaking parts of Ukraine.

    Putin claims he’s come to save the Russian world and the Russians from Nazism — but he’s mostly bombing Russian-speaking cities. Kherson, Mariupol, Odessa, Kharkiv, these are all cities where the majority of the population speaks Russian.

    The fact that a big portion of the current Ukrainian leadership is of Jewish descent is no accident — they are fighting for a new, contemporary Ukraine. We want to live like normal people, not like animals: not to be poor, not to be under someone’s thumb, or someone’s boot. We don’t want to be dominated.

    Putin doesn’t believe that Ukrainians exist. And he can’t let the new Ukraine state stay alive — he can’t let it slip away from him. So he has to derail the project. He has tried everything. The fact that he had to go to war is already proof that he wasn’t successful, that he couldn’t achieve his goal in any other way.

    Another Russia is possible, but for that to happen, Russians have to repudiate today’s Russia — a complex and probably bloody process. They have to repudiate Putinism, the gulag, their nostalgia for the Soviet Union and for the Russian Empire. And if they don’t, then they can’t have a free and democratic Ukraine on their border, since it’s a bad example for Putin’s Russia. Ultimately, this is as much about them as it is about Ukraine.

  • Fifth Russian general reported dead. “Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, 48, commander of the army’s 49th combined arms division, became the fifth general to be killed after being taken out in a strike by the Ukrainian armed forces, sources in Kyiv said.”

    Yakov?

  • Is Russia suffering from a higher than usual percentage of dud munitions? It’s entirely possible, given the substandard maintenance we’ve seen for the rest of their armed forces over the past month.
  • R. S. McCain has reports of Ukrainian forces pushing back at Makariv, Borodyanka, and other villages as yet unnamed.
  • Food for thought:

  • “Ukrainian forces have seized part of one of Russia’s most advanced electronic warfare systems, which could reveal its military secrets, reports say. The Krasukha-4 command module was found abandoned on the outskirts of Kyiv partly damaged but otherwise intact, The Times of London reported.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of captured interesting captured Russian tech:

  • Russian warship destroyed in occupied port of Berdyansk, says Ukraine.” There’s also video:

  • Reports of cut rail lines in Belarus. Source is Ukraine, so grains of salt apply.
  • Who are the Russian oligarchs?

    The richest person in Russia, Vladimir Potanin, has a 35% stake in Moscow-listed Nornickel.

    The company is the world’s biggest producer of palladium, a metal used in vehicle catalytic converters, and also the world’s largest producer of nickel, an essential metal for EV batteries and renewable energy.

    Former First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia and a close associate to President Vladimir Putin, Potanin is a major benefactor of the arts. He recently stepped down from the board of the Guggenheim Museum, after 20 years as a trustee.

    Arts and luxury are common among the Russian oligarchs.

    The Russian ultra-rich are also among the biggest owners of private jets and superyachts⁠—some of which are getting snagged by law enforcement as part of the sanctions designed to crack down on Russia.

    The fifth-richest man in Russia, Alisher Usmanov, owns Dilbar, the largest motor yacht in the world by gross tonnage. The boat is 512-feet long and reportedly cost $800 million, employing 84 full-time crew members.

    Named after Usmanov’s mother, the yacht was seized by German authorities who later discovered that it’s really owned by a Malta-based firm and registered in the Cayman Islands.

    Besides art and luxury, the Russian oligarchs are also deeply involved with sports.

    Roman Abramovich, once Russia’s richest man, is the departing owner of Chelsea Football Club, a London-based soccer team. He was sanctioned by the UK while trying to sell the club for $3.9B.

    Besides Abramovich, Mikhail Prokhorov—founder of Onexim Group, a Moscow-based company with interests in banking, insurance, and real estate—owned the Brooklyn Nets basketball team and its home arena from 2009 to 2019.

    The list also includes Vladimir Lisin, chairman of the steel group NLMK. A shooting sports enthusiast, he is the president of the European Shooting Confederation.

  • UK sanctions Alfa, Gazprombank and Lavrov’s step daughter.”
  • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    2 Responses to “Russo-Ukrainian War Roundup for March 28, 2022”

    1. ruralcounsel says:

      The sudden outburst of vicarious Ukrainian patriotism on the part of many Americans—as well as people in similar North Atlantic democracies—seems like a Freudian “return of the repressed.” Taught that celebrating their own national traditions is racist and xenophobic, and deprived of opportunities to play a meaningful role in national defense, many Americans and Western Europeans have found an outlet for a lost sense of belonging by borrowing the national pride of another nation.

      Ordinary people in this country are proudly loyal to America and don’t give a @#%&% about Ukraine. For the progressive elites, it’s the other way around.

    2. […] been almost a month since we did the last general Ukraine-Russo War update, so let’s catch up. The biggest change is that Russia has given up on trying to take Kiev and has […]

    Leave a Reply