Russia Invades Ukraine

[Dave from down under]

Update of above ABC linked article

Wagner troops training Belarus forces

Belarus said on Friday that instructors from Wagner were training its troops, following weeks of uncertainty about the future of the group after its failed mutiny in Russia.

The Belarusian Defence Ministry appeared to confirm that at least some Wagner fighters had arrived.

"Fighters of the Wagner private military company are acting as instructors in a number of military disciplines," it said.

The ministry released a video showing what it said were Wagner fighters instructing Belarusian soldiers at a military range near the town of Osipovichi, about 90 kilometres south-east of the capital Minsk.

[Dave from down under]

On integrating Wagner soldiers into the Russian army.

As many/most came from the Russian army.
And the Russian army already uses volunteer “Contract” soldiers with conscripts in the same units.
That, that will not be an issue, what will be is what impact they have in morale/discipline.

My prediction is that most of the capable ex Wagner will get contracts with other Russian PMC/Mafia, and the rest will take contracts with the Russian army.

[MN-Skeptic]

I'm currently attending a family reunion and one of the relatives is married to a woman from Russia. My relative is at the reunion with their 16-year old son. His wife is currently in Russia with their two younger children, visiting her father whom she has not seen in 5 years. The 16-year old son did not go on the trip because his parents were concerned that Russia might decide to conscript him into the army.

[Sam the Centipede]

There is chatter that Putin wants to pull Wagner fighters under his control, but I wonder how that would work? Would they be under Ministry of Defense control or more of less direct presidential control?

If party of the regular army, there would be resistance from the men against being pulled into such an inadequate organization, falling in planning, command, supplies, everything. And surely trepidation that the old army might try to use them as cannon fodder as they have been doing to conscripts, y'know "we'll show those Wagner assholes, tell them to sign that village."

I imagine most Wagnerites are asking themselves "how can I get out of this above and with plenty of cash in my pockets?" Certainly not "how can I best serve the noble Vladimir Vladimirovich?"!

[RTH10260]

Putin says he tried but failed to oust Prigozhin after Wagner mutiny
President tells newspaper he met mercenary chief to negotiate terms for fighters’ continued participation in Ukraine war

Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer
Fri 14 Jul 2023 17.58 BST

Vladimir Putin has said that he sought and failed to have Yevgeny Prigozhin replaced as the leader of Wagner’s fighters in Ukraine after the mercenary chief rebuffed his proposal during a meeting at the Kremlin this month.

Putin’s version of events, which appeared in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, was a surprise admission that the Russian president was still negotiating a takeover of the Wagner mercenary group.

Analysts have suggested that last month’s short-lived Wagner rebellion exposed Putin’s weakness and inability to manage the conflicts among the various power players in his regime.

On Friday, Belarusian state media broadcast footage it said showed that Wagner instructors had begun to arrive in Belarus as part of an exile deal reached with the Kremlin after the aborted mutiny.

Putin told the columnist Andrei Kolesnikov that he met Prigozhin and 35 Wagner commanders at the Kremlin after the mutiny and sought to negotiate terms for the mercenary group’s continued participation in Russia’s war in Ukraine.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... karine-war

[RTH10260]

Live reporting at the link

Russia-Ukraine war live: two killed in Crimean bridge ‘emergency’, Russian authorities say, as explosions reported



https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... -explosion

[RTH10260]

Militia units commanded by Russia named in Izium abuse investigation
Exclusive: Four units from Donbas ‘people’s republics’ allegedly abused civilians in Ukrainian city where mass grave was found

Nick Hopkins and Jamie Wilson in Izium, Luke Harding in Kharkiv
Tue 18 Jul 2023 11.53 BST

An investigation has identified military units under Russia’s command that carried out human rights abuses last year during the occupation of the Ukrainian city of Izium.

In April 2022 Russian forces seized Izium, after a month-long battle. Six months later Ukrainian troops liberated the city in the north-east of the country, during a counteroffensive. They discovered a mass grave, containing 447 bodies including the remains of 22 Ukrainian soldiers, as well as several torture chambers.

The report by the Centre for Information Resilience names four militia units that allegedly abused civilians and prisoners of war. All were from the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics. The Kremlin established these pro-Moscow puppet administrations in 2014 after its covert military takeover of some of the eastern Donbas region.

Investigators found the units based themselves in schools and kindergartens, a pattern seen in other occupied areas. Between April and July 2022 the Luhansk People’s Republic [LPR] 5th battalion, a part of the 204th infantry regiment, lived in Izium’s school number six.

The LPR soldiers were poorly trained, badly equipped and frequently drunk, local people said. They stole “everything”, forcing homeowners to kneel at gunpoint, and even removing double glazing from windows. Russian forces used the soldiers as auxiliaries. Their tasks included manning checkpoints and guarding Ukrainian captives.

“They drank a lot and swapped humanitarian aid for homemade vodka,” one survivor recounted. Drunken LPR fighters shot dead two children – aged 12 and 13 – as they ran to a basement, just before a 6pm curfew. The Russian-controlled separatists resented Ukraine for eight years of war and saw occupation as a chance to get rich, the report said.

School number six in Izium. Photograph: Jamie Wilson/The Guardian
Another survivor – a 48-year-old electrician called Ihor – told Human Rights Watch last October that Russian soldiers arrested him in his flat, put a bag over his head, and beat him as they dragged him to their car. They drove him to school number six and locked him in a storage cupboard, he recalled. He was accused of possessing marijuana.

Half an hour later they took him out, kicked and slapped him, and called him a fascist. A commander asked him to identify members of Ukraine’s territorial defence forces, who had fought against Russia in the Donbas. The next day he was released. Another resident – 19-year-old Zhenia – said he was beaten, and hit on the head.

The investigators geo-located school number six from video taken by Roman Razum, a Luhansk-born propagandist and singer who has been associated with the LPR since 2014. In April 2022 he and his team filmed themselves unloading aid packages from a truck in the courtyard. Soldiers recorded messages for their loved ones and Razum performed, images show.



continued at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... tion-finds

[GlimDropper]

I've been watching this guy's videos for a week or two. He can read both Russian and Ukrainian so is an interesting news aggregator. All in all he strikes me as pretty credible.

[RTH10260]

‘This is barbarism’: shock at Russian strike on Odesa cathedral
Congregation rallies to clear rubble and save precious artefacts as prayers held outside

Shaun Walker in Odesa
Sun 23 Jul 2023 18.24 BST

‘Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.” The priest dabbed tears from his eyes as his sonorous voice emerged from loudspeakers hastily assembled outside his devastated cathedral, the incantation competing with the crash of debris being loaded into trucks and the drilling of repair works on neighbouring buildings.

This was the second time that the vast, sand-yellow Transfiguration Cathedral, which sits in the heart of Odesa’s Unesco-listed historic centre, had been attacked: in the 1930s, it was torn down during Joseph Stalin’s atheism drive. On Sunday morning, the rebuilt version was hit during a Russian airstrike on the city. A missile blew a large hole in the roof, collapsed the altar and left several walls charred by fire.

It was one of several strikes on the southern port city in the early hours. Schools, residential buildings and a revered 19th-century mansion also suffered damage. One person was killed and 14 were hospitalised, the regional governor said.





https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... -cathedral

[RTH10260]

Russia-Ukraine war live: drones hit two buildings in Moscow, says mayor, as Crimea ammunition depot struck
Sergei Sobyanin says no serious injuries after drones hit non-residential buildings in Russian capital’s centre; Ukrainian drones hit depot in Dzhankoi, says Moscow-backed official

todays live-feed https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... w-injuries

[Suranis]

40 year old founder of IT-company Anton Tšerepenikov who offered tech services to the Kremlin found dead at his Moscow office. Official cause of death is a heart attack. His friend Vassili Polonski stated he doesn't believe the official story. He joins a couple of other Tech CEOs who suddenly decided to die lately.

-----

On another subject its starting to seem that the Wagner "rebellion" might actually have been a Stalking Horse, pretending to rebel to see who would offer support. For easy purging later.

When you look at it like that, what happened makes a whole lot more sense.

[Slim Cognito]

I guess that bullet to the back of his head made his heart stop, eh?

[John Thomas8]

[RTH10260]

My understanding from several sources is that the Ukranian army is on its way to surround the city of Bahkmut. Once the Russians retreat or surrender this will be a major propaganda victory. It will also free the access to the railway line (though it has much damage along the tracks, will take several weeks to fix). I understand that Urkainian forces are hammering on Crimea and slowly decimating the military infrastructure.

[Dave from down under]

Nice update

[Suranis]

There's a big muddle of information at the moment as Ukraine has started a serious push. As ever the Ukrainians are saying the are sweeping all before them and the Russians are saying they destroyed them all. It will take a while to see what is really going on.

[RTH10260]

FWIW

GOTCHA Dramatic moment ‘British Starstreak’ missile blasts Russian KA-52 helicopter out the sky killing ‘top commander’

James LiverisJerome Starkey
Published: 19:14, 26 Jul 2023Updated: 1:42, 27 Jul 2023

THIS is the dramatic moment a British-made Starstreak missile annihilated a Russian helicopter.

One of Vladimir Putin's top commanders onboard the Ka-52 was killed when the aircraft plummeted in Ukraine, defence sources claimed.

Gripping footage showed the downing of the Russian war chopper after it was directly struck by the surface-to-air missile.

The Ka-52 Alligator was seen engulfed in flames and descending rapidly through a thick plume of smoke after it was blasted.

The helicopter then smashed into the ground and exploded as flames appeared to rage into the sky.

According to Moscow defence sources, the rockets were reportedly fired from a Stormer light tank donated last year after Putin’s invasion.




https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/23198166/ ... commander/

[RTH10260]

Ukrainian counteroffensive’s slow going offers reality check but could yet pay off
Hopes of a rapid breakthrough proved over-optimistic in the face of entrenched defences but Russian forces are suffering major damage

Julian Borger World affairs editor
Wed 2 Aug 2023 09.30 BST

The first casualty of the Ukrainian counteroffensive was wishful thinking. Any hope that Russian troops would abandon their trenches and flee has now been left far behind on the battlefield.

The occupying forces held firm and have mostly kept their discipline in the first seven weeks, absorbing one attack after another, often counterattacking to recover lost ground, and mounting offensives of their own in Luhansk and other spots on the frontline where they sensed weakness.

Initial Ukrainian assaults got mired in dense, overlapping minefields. For all the focus on the delivery of Leopards and other western tanks in the run-up to the launch of the offensive on 4 June, Ukrainian armour failed to provide the clenched fist needed to breach the lines.

Tanks, as the military experts had warned, were not a solution on their own. Without air superiority in the skies above and overwhelming artillery support, they were vulnerable to Russian anti-tank missiles fired from the trenches and from gunships able to strike them over the horizon.

The Ukrainians had mine-clearing vehicles but not enough. They were priority targets for the Russians, who learned to stack anti-tank mines on top of each other to hobble them.

“You just can’t overstate the role that these Russian minefields are playing,” Matt Dimmick, a retired US colonel and former national security council director for Russia, said. “The stories that we’re hearing from the frontlines is Ukrainian units come up against these defences where mines in some places are every metre or every two metres … and it requires the Ukrainians to stop, dismount and push soldiers forward to clear those minefields and create lanes.”

The Ukrainians adapted their tactics, switching to platoon-sized infantry units, often at night, to pick their way through the minefields. But that has meant that progress has been slow, at walking speed, with frequent halts and withdrawals. Pathways cleared through minefields have been quickly reseeded remotely by Russian drones or artillery.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... russia-war

[RTH10260]

comment w/o links for Rikker.

What I have gleaned from the web is that Ukraine has started a sweep to the south of the occupied territory in direction of Crimea. It looks like they have in the last days managed to damage the one bridge that connects Crimea in the north to the mainland. It was carrying the rail road tracks that was the main supply line for Russia to its forces on Crimea. Also too Ukraine seems to have been able to send certain guided missiles far longer distances than nominally listed. They seemed to have hit a couple of Russian bases on Crimea that formerly were out of range.

[RTH10260]

opinion piese

The perplexing aftermath of the Wagner mutiny shows Putin is more vulnerable than ever
Yevgeny Prigozhin seems largely unscathed, while faith in the Russian president’s invincibility has taken a battering

Kimberly Marten
Fri 4 Aug 2023 10.00 BST

In late June, thousands of Wagner group paramilitary forces launched a mutiny in Russia. It seemed to constitute a significant challenge to Putin – the first from within his own country since the invasion – and yet it was over within 48 hours. What can its aftermath tell us about Putin’s position? And does the group still pose a threat?

The mutiny began after the country’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, ordered the mercenary soldiers to sign new contracts directly with his ministry. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mutiny’s leader and Wagner’s longtime contractor and fixer, called for the ousting of both Shoigu and the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov. A vociferous critic of how the war in Ukraine was being waged, Prigozhin also said that Vladimir Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine were falsehoods.

Wagner occupied Russia’s war headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, and sent a vehicle convoy to within 125 miles (200km) of Moscow. Wagner forces shot down six helicopters and an aeroplane, killing 13 Russian military pilots, and severely damaged buildings, roads and an oil refinery.

In the wake of these incidents, President Putin seems neither to have disbanded the Wagner group nor to have got rid of Prigozhin, although authorities did confiscate the mutineers’ heavy weapons. Several thousand Wagner forces have instead congregated in neighbouring Belarus, fulfilling the mutiny-ending deal negotiated by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko. Meanwhile, Shoigu and Gerasimov remain in office.

The situation is fluid, and many reports and images emerging from Russia cannot be verified. It is therefore impossible to make predictions with any degree of confidence. But these events may sap Russian military morale in Ukraine, while causing powerful members of Putin’s inner circle to doubt the president’s authority and competence.



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... hin-russia

[Reality Check]

Thanks RTH, that is an interesting read. From this side of the pond the mutiny seemed to come out of no where and was a complete mystery. This puts some context to it.

[RTH10260]

Russia just lost another vessel of their Black Sea fleet

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

some Ukraine propaganda, eg only their successes, some included sequences are older, non-government poster iirc