Posts Tagged ‘Black Sea’

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Crimea Booming Continues

Saturday, August 20th, 2022

Previous stories on Ukraine hitting Russian military bases in Crimea have focused on the possibility of long-range missile strikes. As those strikes have continued, it’s now proven that some have been carried out by drone, and others appear to be the work of Ukrainian special forces or resistance fighters hitting the Russian deep behind the front lines.

None of these is good news for Russia.

Ukraine used a drone to hit the headquarters of the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol:

Some takeaways:

  • It was a hit, not a drone shoot-down.
  • “The new Black Sea commander was there. There are some reports saying it’s his first day in office. So, welcome to the new job, Chuck.”
  • I assume he’s referring to Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov.
  • Appears to be a Mugin 5 Chinese drone.
  • The author thinks that a number of Ukrainian special forces might be operating drone from a point inside Crimea.
  • He says another possibility is it’s controlled via repeaters across the Black Sea, but I don’t see why you couldn’t also control it via satlink from orbit.

    • Ukrainian forces also hit the nearby Belbek Airbase:

    More targeted Russian military infrastructure:

    Those attacks at Timonovo and Stary Oskol Airfield happened in Russia proper, not occupied Ukraine.

    The Wall Street Journal has a Crimea 101 explainer up:

  • Russia used Crimea as a huge staging area for the southern part of the invasion.
  • Right now Ukraine is seeking to degrade Russian forces rather than battle them directly. “A thousand stings from a bee.”
  • Airfield strikes have forced Russia to move planes out of Crimea.

    • Despite air superiority, Russia clearly doesn’t have the manpower, organization and equipment to protect their rear echelon from ongoing supply and infrastructure attacks. This exacerbates Russia’s well-documented logistics problems, especially given the Russian doctrinal preference for smaller numbers of support personnel maintaining fewer, larger supply depots.

    All that would tend to argue against Russia gaining much further territory in what remains of the summer.

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    Posted in Media Watch, unions, video | 5 Comments »

    Russia Signs Grain Export Corridor Agreement With Ukraine, Then Promptly Attacks Export Port

    Sunday, July 24th, 2022

    Amid fears of worldwide food shortages due to the Russo-Ukrainian war, Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to reopen sea corridors to allow food exports from the Ukrainian port of Odessa to recommence.

    Then Russia hit Odessa with missiles.

    World leaders swiftly condemned the Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian port, a dramatic revelation amid a U.N.-brokered deal that secured a sea corridor for grains and other foodstuff exports.

    A day prior, representatives from the U.N., Turkey, Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to reopen three Ukrainian ports, an apparent breakthrough as the Kremlin’s war on its ex-Soviet neighbor marches into its fifth month.

    The deal, signed in Istanbul and set to be implemented in the next few weeks, follows a months-long blockade of dozens of Ukrainian ports sprinkled along the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

    The strike on Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port, illustrates yet another anxious turn in fruitless efforts to mitigate a mounting global food crisis.

    Given how many agreements and treaties Putin violated by occupying parts of Ukraine and then launching the current war, there’s no reason to believe that Putin will adhere to the terms of any agreement.

    The path to lasting peace in Ukraine is complete destruction and ejection of invading Russian forces.

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    Posted in Elections, Military, Obama Scandals | 7 Comments »

    Russia Reorients

    Friday, April 8th, 2022

    Just because Russia is obviously retreating from Kiev due to getting mauled doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth in the argument that their biggest aims lie in eastern Ukraine. This video suggest three main remaining goals for Russian forces:

  • Restore and control the flow of water to Crimea (Ukraine dammed up the Dinappa river following the seizure of Crimea, which has put them in a world of hurt).
  • Gain control of “the Yokosuka Gas Field, which was discovered in 2010 and it has about 42 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, that could threaten Russia’s oil dominance in the region.”
  • Controlling all Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

    • More details on each in the video.

    If they can achieve those goals, if Russia can achieve capturing those three goals they will have landlocked and absolutely wrecked Ukraine’s entire economy. So when they say that the main war is in the east, they’re actually, on some level, telling the truth. The problem for Russia, though, is that without having captured Kiev their chances of holding on to those objectives is greatly reduced.

    (Between getting my house cleaned, relatives visiting (Yes, those two are related), and tax season, no time to put up a LinkSwarm today. Tomorrow is not looking good either…)

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military, video | 2 Comments »

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