[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: Eight

[Broken_Erika]

Russia and Ukraine trade missile and drone strikes​

Russia and Ukraine have traded air strikes, after a week of intensifying rhetoric in which Russia tested a new missile on Ukraine.
Russia has made close to 1,500 strikes on Ukraine since Sunday evening on about half of the country's regions causing dozens of injuries, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Meanwhile Ukraine's military said it had struck a key oil depot south of Moscow, and targets in the Bryansk and Kursk border regions.
Russia's use of the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro capped a week of escalation in the war that also saw Ukraine fire US and British missiles into Russia for the first time.

US President Joe Biden is reported to have given Ukraine permission to use longer-range Atacms missiles against targets inside Russia as a response to Moscow's use of North Korean troops.
Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehubov said that 23 people had been injured in a missile strike on the city of Kharkiv, where a rescue operation was currently under way.
An S-400 missile was used in the attack, he said.
Odesa's emergencies department said 10 people had been injured in a missile attack, which damaged residential buildings, schools and a university sports hall.
Regional officials said three more people were injured in strikes on Kherson region, and one each in Zaporizhzhya and Chernihiv regions.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military said that overnight they struck the Kaluganefteprodukt oil depot in Kaluga region southeast of Moscow with drones.

Sources told Ukrainian media the attack caused a series of explosions and a fire at the site.

There has been no comment from the Russian military on the attack, but regional governor Vladislav Shapsha said debris from drones shot down by air defences had caused "a fire on the territory of an industrial enterprise". Eight drones in total were destroyed, he added.

Ukraine's military also mentioned attacks in the Bryansk and Kursk regions, without specifying what was hit.

Russian military bloggers, however, said that the Khalino air base in Kursk region had been struck in an attack by eight US-supplied Atacms missiles.

Heavy cloud cover obscured satellite photos of the airfield on Monday, preventing verification of claims that it was hit in the overnight strikes.

Footage posted to social media - which documented bright flashes in the sky above the border region - claimed to show the moment Ukrainian Atacms missiles were intercepted by Russian air defences elsewhere in the Kursk region. Audible explosions could also be heard in the video.

While BBC Verify corroborated that the footage is genuine and filmed in Kursk city, it was not possible to establish whether strikes using the US supplied missiles were the source of the flashes seen based on the footage alone.

US permission for use of the Atacms is said to be restricted to this region because of the presence of North Korean troops there.

They are thought to be involved in a Russian offensive to drive Ukrainian forces out of a small area of Kursk region, which they captured in the autumn in a surprise attack.

Russia's defence ministry said only that it had shot down eight ballistic missiles from Ukraine, without saying where.

Russian forces have also been hitting Ukraine's energy infrastructure in an effort to create difficult conditions as winter approaches.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Both countries are now trying to secure a battlefield advantage before Donald Trump becomes US president in January and seeks to end the conflict.

He has vowed to end the war within hours but has not provided details as to how.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79z0vje935o

 

[Yeekim]

Reason why we see North Koreans on the front:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1846484908446712297

Russian cannon fodder is getting too expensive.

 

[Gedemon]

Ukraine's military also mentioned attacks in the Bryansk and Kursk regions, without specifying what was hit.

Russian military bloggers, however, said that the Khalino air base in Kursk region had been struck in an attack by eight US-supplied Atacms missiles.

Heavy cloud cover obscured satellite photos of the airfield on Monday, preventing verification of claims that it was hit in the overnight strikes.

Someone was very, very lucky there

Spoiler spoiler for langage, I don't speak Russian, but sounds like swearing :

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1gzkm5p/ground_pov_of_a_ukrainian_atacms_cluster_missile

 

[Ordnael]

The massacre (AKA the good cause) of civilians and civilian infrastructure goes on, it's very unfair Ukraine can't respond in kind!

Russia strikes Ukraine's critical infrastructure in war's largest drone attack​

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-kyiv-under-multi-wave-russian-drone-attacks-mayor-says-2024-11-25/

KYIV, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Russian forces staged their largest ever drone attack on Ukraine overnight, cutting power to much of the western region of Ternopil and damaging residential buildings in Kyiv region, Ukraine's officials said on Tuesday.
Intensified nightly drone attacks on Ukrainian cities are coinciding with a major push by Russia along frontlines in Ukraine's east, where Russian forces have made some of the largest monthly territorial gains since 2022.

Of 188 drones used overnight, Ukraine shot down 76 and lost track of 96, likely due to active electronic warfare, the air force said. Five drones headed towards Belarus.
"The enemy launched a record number of Shahed attack UAVs and unidentified drones ...," it said, in addition to using four Iskander-M ballistic missiles. Russia uses cheaply-produced "suicide" drones and low-cost "decoy" drones, which tie up Ukrainian air defences.

"Unfortunately, there were hits to critical infrastructure facilities, and private and apartment buildings were damaged in several regions due to the massive drone attack," an air force statement said, adding that no casualties had been reported.
The attack damaged the power grid in Ternopil, a major city in western Ukraine, and cut power to around 70% of the region, governor Vyacheslav Nehoda said on national television.

Ternopil, some 220 km (134 miles) east of NATO-member Poland, and the surrounding region had a population of more than a million before the February 2022 Russian invasion, which drove many Ukrainians west.
"The consequences are bad because the facility was significantly affected and this will have impact on the power supply of the entire region for a long time," Nehoda said.

WATER CUT OFF​

The attack also cut off water and disrupted heat supplies, the head of the regional defence headquarters Serhiy Nadal said via the Telegram messaging app.

Nehoda said the emergency services had mostly restored the water supply by morning and the local authorities were planning to introduce planned power cuts in the attack's aftermath.
Ukraine's national power grid operator Ukrenergo said emergency power cuts were in effect in the region and that engineers were working to restore power supply.
Electric buses that service the city would be replaced with regular buses and generators would help with power shortages in schools, hospitals and government institutions, Nadal said.

Russia also targeted the capital Kyiv overnight, the military administration of the city said on Telegram, adding that air defence units destroyed more than 10 Russian drones.
Falling debris damaged four private residences, two high-rise apartment buildings, two garages and a car in the region surrounding the capital, its governor Ruslan Kravchenko said.
The drones approached Kyiv in waves and from different directions, but there was no damage or injuries in the city, Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration said on Telegram.
Most of Ukraine was under overnight air raid alert for hours, air force data showed.

Better late then never if it ever comes to happen, it would be a nice addition to EU deterrent.
Also cry me a river Peskov

Russia condemns "irresponsible" talk of nuclear weapons for Ukraine​

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kremlin-says-discussion-west-about-giving-ukraine-nuclear-weapons-is-2024-11-26/

MOSCOW, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Discussion in the West about arming Ukraine with nuclear weapons is "absolutely irresponsible", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, in response to a report in the New York Times citing unidentified officials who suggested such a possibility.
The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested U.S. President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons before he leaves office.

"Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications," the newspaper wrote
, opens new tab.
Asked about the report, Peskov told reporters: "These are absolutely irresponsible arguments of people who have a poor understanding of reality and who do not feel a shred of responsibility when making such statements. We also note that all of these statements are anonymous."

Earlier, senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.
Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union after its 1991 collapse, but gave them up under a 1994 agreement, the Budapest Memorandum, in return for security assurances from Russia, the United States and Britain.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last month that as Ukraine had handed over the nuclear weapons, joining NATO was the only way it could deter Russia.
The 33-month Russia-Ukraine war saw escalations on both sides last week, after Ukraine fired U.S. and British missiles into Russia for the first time, with permission from the West, and Moscow responded by launching a new hypersonic intermediate-range missile into Ukraine.

Asked about the risk of a nuclear escalation, Peskov said the West should "listen carefully" to Putin and read Russia's newly updated nuclear doctrine, which lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons.
Separately, Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said Moscow opposes simply freezing the conflict in Ukraine because it needs a "solid and long-term peace" that resolves the core reasons for the crisis.

The directorate responsible for the good cause reports airbase on fire but mostly peaceful.

‘It’s Exploding!’ A Russian Exclaims As Ukraine’s American-Made ATACMS Rain Down On A Front-Line Air Base​

‘It’s Exploding!’ A Russian Exclaims As Ukraine’s American-Made ATACMS Rain Down On A Front-Line Air Base

Khalino is the closest major airfield to the Kursk battlefield

www.forbes.com

When the news broke last week that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden had authorized Ukraine to fire American-made Army Tactical Missile System rockets at targets in around Kursk Oblast in western Russia, the Russian air force braced for the ATACMS, each packing up to 950 submunitions, to rain down.

The storm finally rolled in early Monday morning. “What the fudge? It’s exploding!” a Russian servicemember exclaimed in a video as at least one of the 3,700-pound ATACMS burst over Khalino air base, in Kursk 70 miles from the Russia-Ukraine border. An ATACMS ranges as far as 190 miles.

The raid may have had the effect of “potentially temporarily putting the airfield out of action,” reported Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian analysis group. That’s good news for the 20,000-strong Ukrainian force holding a 250-square-mile salient around the town of Sudzha 50 miles southwest of Khalino. That force is expecting a massive Russian assault in the coming days.

Khalino is the closest major airfield to the Kursk battlefield, so it makes sense that the Russian air force has been staging its main ground-attack jets, subsonic Sukhoi Su-25s, at the base. The Russian Su-25 force has been badly bled by Ukrainian air defenses in the 33 months of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine: the Ukrainians have shot down or damaged around three dozen of the roughly 200 Su-25s the Russians operated prior to 2022.

The Khalino strike may have knocked out additional Su-25s. But the Russians have been scrambling to build revetments at the base, potentially offering some protection for the planes. And it’s possible many of the Su-25s evacuated just prior to the ATACMS raid. “Activity at the base had noticeably decreased in recent days, leaving it unclear whether significant numbers of aircraft were hit,” Frontelligence Insight explained.

That doesn’t mean the base—specifically, its fuel tanks, command facilities and warehouses and nearby air-defense batteries—weren’t worth striking with one or more of Ukraine’s modest inventory of ATACMS, which may have numbered just a few dozen rockets at its peak.

The hit on Khalino could deprive Russia’s drone force of a critical front-line staging base. And if any surface-to-air missile batteries or radars went up in flames in the raid, there could be a new gap in Russian air defenses. That “could create opportunities for future strikes with more cheap and numerous drones,” according to Frontellience Insight.

Monday’s ATACMS strike is the third major Ukrainian deep strike on strategic targets in and around Kursk since the United States—and later the United Kingdom and France—authorized Ukraine to use its best foreign-made missiles against targets inside Russia.

As the battle for Kursk escalates, more Ukrainian strikes are likely. And further Russian retaliation is likely, too. The terrifying ballistic missile raid on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday is widely viewed as a response to those ATACMS thundering down on Russia.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Ruble continues its negative advance and downward growth.

 

[Kyriakos]

Is there any plan for dealing with the sheer number of Ukrainians who will want to leave the country after peace is signed?
Because I really doubt they will all be welcomed to the Eu. We are talking about many millions of people.

 

[Ordnael]

We already have many Ukrainian refugees in my country, they are very welcomed as they come to work and not looking for handouts, they are also very civilized (they put to shame some of natives on that regard btw) and our cultures do not differ greatly.

 

[Gedemon]

Is there any plan for dealing with the sheer number of Ukrainians who will want to leave the country after peace is signed?
Because I really doubt they will all be welcomed to the Eu. We are talking about many millions of people.

99% will go back in occupied territories we were told.

 

[Snowygerry]

Well yes - it is part of the plan I posted yesterday, in force since 2022.

Temporary protection mechanism

Russia's military aggression against Ukraine has led to an influx of millions of people seeking refuge in the EU and in Moldova.
On 4 March 2022, the EU activated the temporary protection directive. The objective is to alleviate pressure on national asylum systems and to allow displaced persons to enjoy harmonised rights across the EU. These rights include:

residence
access to the labour market and housing
social welfare assistance
medical assistance
access to education for children
legal guardianship for children

The EU is providing member states hosting refugees with constant financial support to ensure that they have sufficient resources to meet the needs for housing, education and healthcare.

Only a few wayward member countries like Hungary would oppose such a plan, and that objection is easily overcome.The EU is capable to reallocate funds if need be.

 

[Kyriakos]

99% will go back in occupied territories we were told.

What about those millions who never were in the territories to be annexed by Russia, but will want to leave Ukraine when the border opens?
Not that I think it would be a good idea to force those others to return to what will then be a different country.

 

[Snowygerry]

The annexation will not be recognized anyway, so that does not matter, legally speaking.

 

[Kyriakos]

The annexation will not be recognized anyway, so that does not matter, legally speaking.

What does that have to do with (say) someone who was living in Kiev for the entire duration of the war(and before the war, obviously), but wants to leave Ukraine because it is ruined?
And a few million of his likeness.

 

[Gorbles]

What does that have to do with (say) someone who was living in Kiev for the entire duration of the war(and before the war, obviously), but wants to leave Ukraine because it is ruined?
And a few million of his likeness.

Hypotheticals are just that - hypothetical. What if Russia levels the entirety of Ukraine into dust? What if Putin trips and falls down a comically-long flight of stairs?

These are things that might have an answer one day, but the only concrete signifier is that Russia's continued aggression is the biggest cause in making any long-term consequence worse off, and not better off.

 

[Snowygerry]

What does that have to do with (say) someone who was living in Kiev for the entire duration of the war(and before the war, obviously), but wants to leave Ukraine because it is ruined?
And a few million of his likeness.

As he long he's not a Russian in disguise he's welcome.

Seriously we've had Russians pretending to be Ukrainians here, we'll have to keep a close guard against those

 

[Birdjaguar]

Moderator Action: Back to news.

 

[red_elk]

Took a while, but it's over half now. Good trend.

51% of Americans oppose military aid for Ukraine, poll shows

U.S. citizens remain split on whether to continue sending military support to Ukraine, with a razor-thin majority voicing opposition, according to a CBS/YouGov poll published on Nov. 25.

www.yahoo.com

 

[Gedemon]

Russia advances past months is the fastest since 2022, it's also the deadliest months since 2022

Russia Reportedly Suffered Record 1,500 Casualties Daily In October

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on November 10 that its forces had captured the town of Voltchenka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have been making advances in recent weeks.

www.rferl.org

An average of around 1,500 Russian soldiers were killed or injured per day in October -- Russia's worst month for casualties since the beginning of the invasion, according to Britain's Chief of the Defense Staff Tony Radakin.

"Russia is about to suffer 700,000 people killed or wounded -- the enormous pain and suffering that the Russian nation is having to bear because of [President Vladimir] Putin's ambition," Radakin told the BBC on November 10.

At those rates, it would take only one year and 547,000 more casualties, so a total of 1.2 millions of dead and wounded to capture those 4 oblasts, that is if they manage to keep those rates against fortified/larger cities. It seems the WWII Red Army losses per km² of conquest wasn't that high in comparison.

Institute for the Study of War

Russian officials continue to demonstrate that the Kremlin aims to seize more territory in Ukraine than it currently occupies and is unwilling to accept compromises or engage in good faith negotiations, no matter who mediates such talks. Russian Foreign

www.understandingwar.org

ISW recently assessed that Russian forces still need to seize over 8,000 square kilometers of territory to achieve the Kremlin's self-defined objective of seizing the territory of Donetsk Oblast. Russian forces would seize the remainder of Donetsk Oblast in roughly one year should Russian forces continue their recent relatively quicker rate of advance — which is not a given. Russian forces notably have been bypassing Ukrainian strongpoints, and Ukraine still has several well-defended cities in Donetsk Oblast, such as Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, that Russian forces likely cannot seize as rapidly as they have with the rural fields near Pokrovsk. ISW continues to assess that Russian forces have not been able to restore operational maneuver to the battlefield to make deep penetrations into Ukrainian positions, as seen in the initial months of the full-scale invasion. Russian forces have instead been exploiting identified vulnerabilities in Ukrainian defenses to make gradual advances.

 

[Kyriakos]

Half of Ukrainians want quick, negotiated end to war

Nov 22, 2024 // Gallup’s latest survey of Ukraine found a sentiment shift about the future of the war. Just over half of Ukrainians now favor a negotiated end to the war as quickly as possible, writes Benedict Vigers.

www.diplomaticourier.com

About the public in Ukraine by now wanting a quick, negotiated end to the war, with territory being given to Russia viewed as acceptable. More than half want the war to end with negotiations in the coming months, and more than half (of those having that view) agree that land has to be given to Russia.

It's not a surprise. They fought very bravely, but 2,5 years later the citizens in Ukraine clearly see which way this is going.

How many russians die doesn't matter to russians, so it's beating a dead horse imo. They are (for their own reasons) viewing this war as a patriotic one, and will celebrate the new territories as a return to previous borders (again, doesn't matter what non-russians think there).
It also highlights how false the narrative had been that Russia will be deterred by sanctions. It was clear as day, from the start, that they prioritize the change of land and were willing to take the diplomatic/economic hit too if it came to that. Paradoxically the only way land would not de jure change hands (de facto it still would) would had been if the original Schlieffen-type assault of Kiev had succeeded; then Russia would had installed a pro-russian government and called it a day.

 

[Verbose]

The problem with polling like this is that while it captures attitudes, it has the loosest connection possible to actual enactable politics.

The polity as a whole may want several things at the same time, including things that are mutually exclusive, or even just impossible – especally is the nation is being put in an impossible situation (viz how the Ukranians have clearly gone off the US as a partner, at least relatively).

Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War

Ukrainians are growing increasingly weary of the war with Russia. Gallup's latest surveys of Ukraine show 52% would like to see the war end as soon as possible.

news.gallup.com

 

[Kyriakos]

Due to the war, there haven't been elections, so trusted polling is the only way for citizens to express themselves.