[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: Eight

[Ordnael]

Ukraine says it repelled one of Russia's largest drone attacks of war​

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-launches-drone-attack-ukraine-capital-kyiv-military-says-2024-07-31/

KYIV, July 31 (Reuters) - Ukraine's air force said it repelled one of Russia's largest long-range drone attacks of the war overnight, shooting down all 89 drones launched at Kyiv, the surrounding region and other areas in the early hours of Wednesday.
The attack, which came more than 29 months after Russia's full-scale invasion, primarily targeted Kyiv and the surrounding region where local authorities said more than 40 drones were shot down. An air raid alert remained in place most of the night.

The capital's military administration said no civilian or critical infrastructure took a direct hit, but debris damaged the roofs, windows and facades of 13 private residences in the region, according to authorities there.
"This is one of the most massive attacks by Shahed-131/136 strike drones," the air force said, naming the type of drone it says Russia has used in the thousands for strikes on Ukraine.

A military spy spokesman told Reuters last week that Russia had also started using new cheaply-produced drones, some of them fitted with cameras, to film the location of Ukraine's air defences and results of its strikes, with others acting as decoys.
Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said the latest drone attack was the seventh conducted against the city in July.
Some 11,500 residents sheltered for safety in metro stations in the night as the drones came in several waves from "all possible directions," the city authorities said.

The air force also intercepted a Kh-59 missile fired at the southern region of Mykolaiv, it said. Local authorities had not reported any damage there as of Wednesday morning.
There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Kyiv and most of central and eastern Ukraine were under air raid alerts from 2000 GMT on Tuesday. Air defence systems were engaged on the approaches to Kyiv and the region outside the region several times in the night, Popko said.

Reuters reporters heard numerous blasts that sounded like air defence systems engaging targets.

Are there still more children's hospitals to hit in Kyiv?

 

[EvaDK]

First F-16 fighter jets arrive in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports​

Ukraine has received the first batch of fourth-generation U.S.-made F-16 jets, Bloomberg reported on July 31, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The news comes a year after the allied "fighter jet coalition" took shape at the Vilnius NATO summit under the Danish and Dutch leadership.

The deadline for the transfer of F-16s was late July, the sources told Bloomberg. Ukraine received "a small number" of the planes, the sources said. Ukraine is expected to receive at least 79 F-16s from the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway, with the deliveries to continue in the coming years.

https://kyivindependent.com/breaking-first-f-16s-fighter-jets-arrive-in-ukraine/

There's footage on social media of what is claimed to be the first F-16 spotted in Ukrainian airspace.

 

[Ordnael]

A Two-Pound Ukrainian Drone Just Shot Down A 12-Ton Russian Helicopter​

A Two-Pound Ukrainian Drone Just Shot Down A 12-Ton Russian Helicopter

It may be the first time a drone has destroyed a helicopter in mid-air.

www.forbes.com

Ukrainian forces deploy more than 100,000 explosive first-person-view drones a month all along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 28-month wider war on Ukraine. The drones smash into armored vehicles, chase down exposed infantry and follow artillery fire back to its origin in order to target Russian howitzers.

And today one of the small quadcopter drones—remotely steered by an operator wearing a virtual-reality headset—shot down a Russian helicopter, apparently for the first time.

Photos and videos that circulated on social media depict the Mil Mi-8 transport helicopter burning near Donetsk in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. “A speedy recovery to the survivors,” one Russian blogger wrote.

This new use of explosive drones has been a long time coming. As long ago as September, Ukrainian operators first tried ramming their flying robots into Russian helicopters mid-flight. The drone threat got so serious that the Russian air force began assigning some helicopters to escort other helicopters.

It apparently took at least 10 months of trying before a Ukrainian drone operator finally hit a Russian helicopter. The months of misses are understandable. A helicopter can fly faster than 150 miles per hour at altitudes exceeding thousands of feet—too fast and too high for a two-pound drone to get a clean shot without an enormous degree of skill or luck on the part of the operator.

The Ukrainian drone pilot in the Wednesday shoot-down was very skilled or lucky—or both. They spotted the 12-ton, three-crew Russian helicopter—which performs attack, transport and medical-evacuation missions—while it was still close to the ground. “Caught at the moment of takeoff,” a Russian blogger reported.

An FPV drone normally carries just a few pounds of explosives. But it doesn’t take much firepower to knock down a helicopter if it takes a hit it in the rotors.

After more than two years of war, Ukrainian drone operators have become extremely adept at targeting the most vulnerable parts of Russian targets: flying drones into the open hatches of armored personnel carriers, under the add-on armor on so-called “turtle tanks” and through the doors of reinforced infantry dugouts.

Compared to a 36-inch-wide hatch, an Mi-8’s 12-foot-diameter rotor disc is an easy target.

What might be most impressive is how far the Russian helicopter may have been from the front line. The western edge of Donetsk is just three miles from the front line—well within the range of an unaided FPV drone.

But the eastern edge of the city is closer to 10 miles from the front line. That’s apparently where the shoot-down took place. “The distance,” the second blogger explained, “is very significant.”

To travel 10 miles, an FPV might need help from a second drone, trailing a few miles behind, that captures and rebroadcasts its short-range command signal. It’s a complex operation requiring careful coordination.

The Russian military has hundreds of helicopters and, so far, has lost just a hundred or so to Ukrainian action. One more loss isn’t catastrophic for the Russians. But now that the Ukrainians have droned their first helicopter, they may redouble their efforts to take down Russian rotorcraft.

Considering how many FPV drones the Ukrainians deploy every month, the threat to Russian helicopters could intensify—a lot.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

I feel compelled to revisit a story I posted earlier about Evan Gershkovich, who is now being released in (of course) a prisoner swap. Gershkovich was the first US journalist to be arrested for espionage in Russia since the Cold War:

U.S., Russia prisoner swap secures release of Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and others

The Biden administration announced it has secured the release of three U.S. citizens from Russia, including Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, as part of a complex 24-person prisoner swap.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Sommerswerd]

First F-16 fighter jets arrive in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports​

Ukraine has received the first batch of fourth-generation U.S.-made F-16 jets, Bloomberg reported on July 31, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The news comes a year after the allied "fighter jet coalition" took shape at the Vilnius NATO summit under the Danish and Dutch leadership.

The deadline for the transfer of F-16s was late July, the sources told Bloomberg. Ukraine received "a small number" of the planes, the sources said. Ukraine is expected to receive at least 79 F-16s from the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway, with the deliveries to continue in the coming years.

https://kyivindependent.com/breaking-first-f-16s-fighter-jets-arrive-in-ukraine/

There's footage on social media of what is claimed to be the first F-16 spotted in Ukrainian airspace.

63 million USD apiece, those things...

 

[red_elk]

NYT article about loss of Staromayorskoe and Urozhaynoe.
In today's news, Russia has cut Ugledar-Konstantinovka supply line.

After Furious Battles, Ukraine Loses a Pair of Hard-Won Villages​

An account of the fierce defense and loss of Urozhaine and Staromaiorske was pieced together through conversations with Ukrainian soldiers who served in the villages, as well as through one survivor’s post on social media. Official Russian posts on social media confirmed many of the details.

The loss of the villages was a blow for Ukraine, coming amid recent Russian gains along many parts of the 600-mile front line, and because Ukrainian marine infantry had fought so hard to capture them during the bloody counteroffensive.

For the men of the 58th brigade, who had been defending Urozhaine since October, and units of the National Guard attached to them, it was doubly hard. Up to 100 men were killed or went missing over three months of fighting in the village and commanders were bracing for recriminations from the military high command, which usually demands its soldiers hold their positions to the last.
Soldiers and officers who had been inside the two villages said there were no civilians living there and the houses were so destroyed there was nothing left to defend.
“The battles took place in ruins, from basements,” said Karay, 43, an army major who was inside Urozhaine and saw some of the earlier fighting. “There were a few trenches, but there were no defensive structures, and it was impossible to build them.” He asked that he only be identified by his call sign, Karay, according to military protocol.

Urozhaine consists of just two streets and Russian troops had already occupied half the village in June, Karay said. “For a month and a half, it was like a fight between two packs of dogs,” he said.
“So much was flying around, the wounded could only be evacuated at night,” he said. “So there came a moment when it made no sense to keep people there.”
The end, when it came, was lightning fast and forced a rapid retreat from the village.

Those of the 58th Brigade who survived the final retreat were in the hospital and not available for interviews, officers of the brigade said.

A 40-year-old member of the National Guard, who asked only to be identified by his first name, Mark, posted a dramatic account on the X social media platform. The New York Times was able to verify his identity.
Ordered in to help defend Urozhaine on July 8, his unit “hit the jackpot,” he wrote. Sheltering in the basement of a house, they endured four days of heavy Russian bombardment.
By July 12, their house was being targeted by drones. His commander warned them that the Ukrainian unit in front had retreated and Russians had taken up positions in a house opposite. At first light the men were ordered to pull back to another position, which they did safely as another bombardment began.
Official Russian news reports described the same events. “A motorized rifle unit and tank crews of the Vostok group exhausted the enemy, creating suitable conditions for the final assault,” a journalist with Russian troops reported on First Channel. “Then, armored groups with assault units moved out from three directions.”
Mark, the Ukrainian National Guard member, described three Russian troop carriers racing past his position at 6 a.m., inserting infantry that blocked their retreat. The main assault had begun.

First Channel reported that Russian marines carried out the main assault, using dune buggies for a speedy attack on the village.
“We cleared it so quickly, the guys did not even realize it, in hour and a half, maybe two hours,” a Russian soldier, who gave his call sign, Hors, told the reporter.
Mark’s unit were ordered to withdraw through the fields because the road was under Russian control. That began in orderly fashion but within a few hours, it became a desperate scramble under shellfire with wounded and dead left behind.

After Furious Battles, Ukraine Loses a Pair of Hard-Won Villages

“It was like a fight between two packs of dogs,” said an officer, describing the struggle for one of the areas, Urozhaine. But “there came a moment when it made no sense to keep people there.”

www.nytimes.com

 

[Verbose]

NYT article about loss of Staromayorskoe and Urozhaynoe.
In today's news, Russia has cut Ugledar-Konstantinovka supply line.

After Furious Battles, Ukraine Loses a Pair of Hard-Won Villages

“It was like a fight between two packs of dogs,” said an officer, describing the struggle for one of the areas, Urozhaine. But “there came a moment when it made no sense to keep people there.”

www.nytimes.com

At a pace that puts the Russian forces in Kiev sometime in 2300's, at casualty rates that does so using the entire current population of Russia.

And sanctions are working.

 

[red_elk]

At a pace that puts the Russian forces in Kiev sometime in 2300's, at casualty rates that does so using the entire current population of Russia.

And roughly eight populations of Ukraine.

 

[Gorbles]

And roughly eight populations of Ukraine.

Yes, that's what tends to happen when a country illegally invades another. Massive casualties. But I believe the term is "pyrrhic victory", in that hypothetical.

 

[Snowygerry]

Biggest prisoner swap of mostly Germans and US Americans vs. Russians since the Cold War, probably in an attempt to anticipate the US election...

Russia prisoner swap: 24 freed in biggest exchange with West since Cold War

Some 16 prisoners were released by Russia, including US citizens Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan.

www.bbc.com

The exchange comes after days of speculation about a major swap between various countries, which increased after several dissidents and journalists jailed in Russia were moved from their prison cells to unknown locations.

Although secret prison transfers are common in Russia, the multiple disappearances of well-known prisoners was unusual.

 

[red_elk]

Missile strike on Sevastopol reported by Russia.

Fragments of ATACMS with cluster munition warhead, shot down by air defense.

 

[Birdjaguar]

^^^ idk, I thought it was a wrecked Lada.

 

[Ordnael]

Did it hit a children's hospital?

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Back to news please.

 

[red_elk]

Exchanged prisoners arrived in Russia.

 

[Sarin]

Exchanged prisoners arrived in Russia.

Putin hugging a hired thug who shot a man in front of children. Quite descriptive of Russia as whole, actually.

 

[Verbose]

Putin hugging a hired thug who shot a man in front of children. Quite descriptive of Russia as whole, actually.

Turns out that guy was key to the whole swap. He's the one Putin really wanted to spring, above and beyond everyone else.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Turns out that guy was key to the whole swap. He's the one Putin really wanted to spring, above and beyond everyone else.

Putin collects hostages for future trades of his criminal gang.

 

[Verbose]

Putin collects hostages for future trades of his criminal gang.

The whole situation bears out a couple of things:
1: Putin does value loyalty above all else.
2. The spooks really have taken over Russia, and are running it on their own behalf.

 

[Sarin]

The whole situation bears out a couple of things:
1: Putin does value loyalty above all else.
2. The spooks really have taken over Russia, and are running it on their own behalf.

There was a saying: Most states have an army. In Prussia, army has a state.

In Russia, it seems to be the same, just with spooks instead of army.