This week doesn’t break neatly into three sections, but the overall theme is: Things are dynamic, there are all manner of developments and changes in the war, some bad-for-Russia trends are continuing.
So honestly I am scratching my head on why the White House this week was talking like the Russo-Ukrainian War is a frozen, static conflict that can be turned off like a light switch. Maybe they were talking about a different war than the one we are in.
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The key connector in this thread of seeming, er, disconnects, is the fine old abbreviation that used to be something people would read in English and just understand: Q.V., or spelled out “quod vide” – It means there’s something pertinent later in the text.
The Koreans and Ukraine’s invasion of Russia and Kursk region
Here the big news is that the NYT followed by a few other major outlets reported the North Koreans had been pulled off the line due to heavy casualties, and at least had been yanked from Kursk region and possibly were being sent home.
This wasn’t really news for those of us following the battle reports as we have seen no substantial Russian attacks in Kursk region, by North Koreans or anyone else, for at least the past two weeks. The impression of most war-watchers here is, the Russian offensive in Kursk region ran out of steam about a week ago and whatever they hoped to achieve by throwing North Koreans at prepared Ukrainian positions didn’t pan out.
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Recent information feeds from key units defending inside Russia, this would be the usual suspects like 47th Mech, 82nd Air Assault, 36th Marines among others, all are upbeat and saying, in effect: “Every time they attack we pretty much wipe them out.”
Most observers guess about 11,000 North Koreans got committed and more than 1,000 were killed and 4,000 were wounded. A “Surrender Don’t Die For Kim” leaflet surfaced on the Ukrainian internet, image attached, don’t know if it’s real.
Ukrainian internet images of a leaflet supposedly dropped on North Korean troops suggesting they run away and not die for Dear Leader Kim.
But what is clear, Vladimir Putin’s latest deadline to eject the Ukrainian Nazis from Mother Russia – Feb. 1 – has come and gone like all the others.
Some might say this is evidence Ukraine is in a strong strategic position with its incursion into Russia and operationally and tactically, here the Ukrainians have the initiative. At least, it’s not so easy to look at Kursk region and then make the leap to “Ukraine is about to collapse,” or, Ukraine can’t/wouldn’t want to sustain its invasion of Russa. Q.V.
And speaking of leaps, attached is a photograph of Irina Musyalk, a former senior official in Russia’s Kursk region. This week she resigned from her job, which specifically was “vice minister for the protection of cultural objects of the Kursk region population.”
Overtly, this was because of a scandal developing from Russian social media finding out that she had spent a portion of the holiday season in India at a nice tourist base, when a war was in progress in Kursk region and thousands of Kursk region residents are displaced persons somewhere in Russia.
A Ukrainian reading the news would suspect she could be a scape goat for all the government sites the Ukrainians have managed to blow up in Kursk region, to protect officials above her.
This is not the sort of news item that makes it outside the Russia/Ukraine media spectrum, but if you do read it, it undermines Kremlin narratives that Russia is a mighty military power and that the Russian government is a monolithic, robot-efficient organization. So again, Q.V.
Negotiation Tactics and Anger Management
Yesterday, the Russians fired two or more likely three ballistic missiles at the center of Odesa and they hit in the central neoclassical tourist district. The worst damage was to the Bristol Hotel, which is a really pretty wedding cake affair, two images of that.
The Odesa Philharmonic – it would take far too much space for me to explain how culturally significant the orchestra is to Odesa and Ukraine so you’ll have to trust me on this – was badly damaged as well.
This was two blocks from the Deribasovskaya (Ukr: Deribasivka), down the street from the Richileau statue, about a 10 minute walk from the Privoz, and a five minute walk from all the name brand knock-off shops on Mala Aranautskaya.
In Odesa terms, it was like Russia had launched a missile at the NYC Met, the Paris Louvre, or London’s Trafalgar Square.
Bristol Hotel, pre-strike
Bristol Hotel, post-strike
I know most people in the West know very little about all the history in Odesa, but trust me on this as well, if you want to make Odesites mad, blow up the Old City. Even though Russia has been systematically bombarding Odesa’s power grid for years in an attempt to keep people sitting in apartments without light or heat, this was a new low.
It would be difficult to find a better, material manifestation of Russian state barbarism, from an Odesite’s point of view, than the Kremlin firing Iskander missiles into the heart of the Odesa, the capital of Ukraine’s Black Sea “New Russia” territories Russia keeps saying want to be part of Russia.
I think I am on very firm ground in guessing that the overwhelming Odesa response must be an even deeper, public, politically-significant, across-civil-society conviction never, ever to back down to that uncultured thug Vladimir Putin who, as every Odesite knows (I am not kidding), was born, raised and formed his personality in that awful, cold, unhappy, Imperial city that has envied mercantile and sunny Odesa every day that Odesa has existed: Leningrad/Petersburg.
Reports are conflicting but it seems that at least one warhead was a cluster munition. Seven Odesites were injured.
Historically, trying to bomb people into submission doesn’t work, it makes them angrier.
Last night the Russians hit an apartment building in Poltava. Five dead. Fourteen injured.
Poltava apartment building hit by a Russian ballistic missile today.
As an additional insight into Ukrainian will to resist, I’m tying in here a pretty grim account by a Ukrainian female medic.
According to an account she put on social media a few days ago (photograph) there was a wounded soldier whom medics couldn’t get to for hours because of Russian drones. A company commander put together a raiding team and they extracted him. Bila did the first aid and stabilized the wounded man. He was going to live. An ambulance showed up and he was evacuated. A Russian drone blew up the ambulance and killed the wounded soldier.
The photograph is Bila after she found out what happened to her patient. She now has little sympathy for Russian soldiers, she wants them all to die.
When it comes to Russians, the Hippocratic oath doesn’t apply.
Face of war: this is a Ukrainian medic whose patient just died in a Russian “double-tap” drone strike.
My point is, this is a woman born and raised in Ukraine, a country whose society really doesn’t encourage aggression in women, and does encourage empathy and care as female virtues. In academic-speak, this is an anecdotal example of “radicalization.” However, in Ukraine, it’s simply the only possible human response. A link to the account is available here.
I contend that tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers going through life-changing combat situations like this will become, over time, more committed to fighting Russia than seeking peace. So Q.V. on that.
It’s Probably an Indicator of Something, When Another Russian Oil Refinery Burning Isn’t Big News
This week saw Ukraine’s drone bombardment campaign of Russia continue. There were multiple raids, almost nightly.
Probably the most successful was an oil pipeline pumping station up by Petersburg/Leningrad on Wednesday which effectively shut down oil export from Russia’s main Baltic seaport, a place called Ust-Luga.
The campaign is already way beyond pin-prick raids and online content the Russian internet is still trying to spin these Ukrainian strikes as. No less than Bloomberg, this week, declared Ust-Luga shut down and that constitutes an overnight 12% cut, nationally, until they get it fixed, in Russian state oil export revenues.
This of course was substantial general news in Ukraine and the energy and business media of course went to town calculating how strikes like this hit Russian capacity to pay for its war.
Numbers varied but everyone agreed that if Ukraine keeps it up, it is very possible to talk about a Russian financial crisis with hyperinflation, non-paid salaries and collapsing social services sometime in 2025.
When and how bad seemed to be open questions, but again, what was absolutely clear is that Ukraine’s long-range bombardment campaign of Russia is succeeding and accelerating.
(Another) oil refinery set on fire by Ukrainian drones, in Nizhny Novgorod this time.
On Friday, yet again, Russian senior officers gathered in the Kursk region city Ryslk, and yet again, the Ukrainians smashed the site with a long-range strike. Russian social media, which of course the Ukrainians can read and follow, confirmed much of it.
An announcement from 14th Special Operations Drone Regiment confirmed some of the most punishing of these long-range strikes are being made by drones that look like a Cessna and carry a 250-kilogram (551-pound) High Explosive (HE) bomb, and that can fly 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles).
According to a commander of Ukraine’s joint forces north, these aircraft – and literally, except the absence of a pilot with a rising sun bandanna tied around his head, it’s really hard to see these things as anything but textbook kamikaze planes – executed the Rylsk strike. It is not exactly a good look for Russian modern air defense credibility, when a flight of World War II-type aircraft can hit your headquarters with an effective kamikaze attack.
Not a great image but this is a 250-kg. bomb the Ukrainians can get to a target 2000 km. away using a kamikaze drone
And speaking of drones, attached is an image of a “Gromylo” drone, a First Person View (FPV) that the Ministry of Defense officially approved as a standard weapon system for the use in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).
Operates day and night, composite frame, Electronic Warfare (EW)-resistant, probably (my guess) costs about $500, will take out a $2 million tank, to manufacture one you need parts, one skilled assembler, one trainable assembler, and about 15–20 hours of labor.
It is possible of course not to consider this important to the course of the war, but if you ask any – and I mean any – soldier, either side, they will tell you absolutely the weapon dominating the battlefield is the FPV drone.
A standardized Ukrainian FPV-drone – finally
3D-printed Ukrainian drone munitions
So if you are a pessimist, you could say Ukraine is doomed because look, they can’t attack Russia with anything but a 1940s-era plane diving-in on a suicide strike, and it took them three years to standardize FPV drones.
But if you are in Ukraine, breathing and not hiding underground, this week sure didn’t look look like the Ukrainian military won’t be getting thousands more FPV drones in future, or that Russia is in a position to handle more strikes by long-range Ukrainian drones. Q.V.
(As an aside, 14th Special Ops is the fourth UAV regiment I’ve identified as in the field and in combat operations.) Compare this to most NATO armies, which only rarely field UAV companies, and in most cases consider UAVs a nice-to-have extra piece of equipment for the tankers or infantry.)
To be continued…
Reprinted from Kyiv Post’s Special Military Correspondent Stefan Korshak’s blog. You can find the original here.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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