*** MILITARY SITUATION ***
There is an report on Ukraine making the rounds that was allegedly written by the higher command of the Ukrainian army and leaked from somewhere.
Dr.Snekotron @snekotron - 12:50 UTC · Aug 5, 2022
Ukrainian channels are discussing what might be a leaked data from AFU General Staff:
- The AFU are only at 43-48% strength
- medical workers at their limit
- small arms and armor are not enough
- 191 thousand soldiers were killed and wounded (only AFU, not including others)
- there is not enough hydraulics and liquid nitrogen for M777 howitzers
- no one cares about the missing - there are no statistics
- the equipment transferred by the West is running out
- western weapons are operated by amateurs, since there are no qualified specialists
- no way to repair weapons on the spot due to the lack of spares and specialists - everything is sent to Poland
BTW, even with this dire report, I would caution against predicting a decisive break in morale. As with Peski, the walking wounded are sent straight back into the trenches
The documents look legit. The overall numbers and issues mentioned seem plausible to me. The high number of casualties (plus the missing) is not astonishing. It would be astonished though if the Russian army and its allies have more than one tenth of those. This is mostly an artillery war and the Russian side has had a vast superiority in guns and missiles.
*** ECONOMIC & POLITICAL ***
-The US government is reportedly preparing its largest weapons transfer to Ukraine to date, with officials ready to authorize another $1 billion in military aid, including advanced rocket and missile platforms and additional ammunition. The new aid package could be announced as soon as next week, Reuters reported on Friday, citing three unnamed officials. It would bring the total US security assistance to Kiev to nearly $10 billion since Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24. While the officials said President Joe Biden has yet to formally sign off on the transfer, the current proposal would see $1 billion in arms shipped to Kiev, including additional munitions for the HIMARS rocket system, NASAMS surface-to-air missiles, and up to 50 M113 armored personnel carriers, allegedly the ‘medical’ variant. A separate military aid package to Ukraine was announced on Monday, worth around $550 million, and also featured HIMARS rockets. Washington has so far sent a total of 16 HIMARS systems to Ukraine, longer-range platforms capable of striking targets inside Russian territory. Though Moscow has claimed to have eliminated some of the weapons from the battlefield, US military officials have disputed the Russian account, insisting Kiev’s HIMARS remain intact. The new massive arms transfer also comes after a Pentagon decision to allow US military personnel to treat wounded Ukrainian troops at a large US-run hospital in western Germany, though the logistics for that arrangement remain unclear, as the facility is more than 1,000 miles away from Ukraine’s capital and even further from active battle zones in the Donbass region.
-China has decided to cut diplomatic ties with the US in a number of military and civilian areas, the Foreign Ministry announced on Friday. The devolvement of ties is Beijing’s way of retaliating for this week’s visit to Taiwan by Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. The ministry released a list of areas in which there will no longer be communication between Chinese and American officials. It includes military contacts on the level of theater commander and wider defense policy coordination talks. Also suspended are consultations on maritime security, cooperation on the repatriation of illegal migrants, legal assistance on criminal matters, fighting against transnational crime and drug trafficking, and talks on climate change, according to the statement.
-Amnesty International has in a surprise shift placed its human rights scrutiny on Ukraine in a fresh report released Thursday. It immediately sparked a firestorm of criticism as both Western pundits and Kiev officials themselves blasted the findings as "unfair". The Amnesty report said investigators had "found evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from within populated residential areas, as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages" in three war-torn regions of the country from April through July. The report detailed that schools and hospitals, as well as people's homes, were put in harm's way, suggesting 'human shields' type tactics utilized by the Ukrainian military.
-Canada is sending up to 225 Canadian armed forces to the UK to recommence the training of Ukrainian military recruits, the Canadian defence minister has announced. Since 2015, Canada has trained 33,000 Ukrainian military and security personnel but in February paused aspects of the training.
-A leading Russian hypersonics expert has been arrested on suspicion of treason, the state-controlled TASS news agency reported on Friday. Andrei Shiplyuk heads the hypersonics laboratory at the Novosibirsk Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, according to the institute’s website, and has in recent years coordinated research to support the development of hypersonic missile systems, Reuters reports. The Russian news agency cited one of Shiplyuk’s colleagues as saying searches had been conducted at the institute. Last month Dmitry Kolker, another Novosibirsk-based physicist, died of pancreatic cancer shortly after being arrested on suspicion of treason.
-Yesterday, a Russian court convicted the US basketball player Brittney Griner on drug charges, sentencing her to nine years in prison and a 1m rouble fine in a politically charged verdict expected to lead to a prisoner swap with the US. US president Joe Biden released a statement following Griner’s sentencing, calling her detention “unacceptable” and demanding she be released. Now, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has confirmed Russia would be willing to discuss a prisoner swap, but not publicly.
-Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash has written this comment piece about the prospects of the war in Ukraine ending soon. He says Putin is banking on a failure of political will in the west before Russia runs out of firepower and that democratic leaders need to prepare their citizens for a long struggle over Ukraine – and a hard winter.
-Ways to halt the war in Ukraine and the possible launch of a new conflict in Syria are expected to dominate talks on Friday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Turkish leader was riding high from the diplomatic success of helping orchestrate the resumption of Ukrainian grain shipments across the Black Sea when he took most of his top ministers to Sochi for his second round of talks with Putin in 17 days. But there are tensions, AFP reports. Putin told Erdoğan in Tehran last month that Russia remains opposed to any new offensive that Turkey might be planning against Kurdish militants in northern Syria.
-Russia has banned investors from so-called “unfriendly countries” from selling shares in certain strategic enterprises until the end of the year, a presidential decree signed by Vladimir Putin showed on Friday. The ban also applies to stakes in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development in Russia’s far east, Reuters reports. Its operator, ExxonMobil, said this week it was in the process of transferring its 30% stake to another party.
-US Navy ships and planes will transit the Taiwan strait in the next two weeks, the White House announced on Thursday. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby condemned Chinese military drills in the area and said the Pentagon had ordered the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and her escorts to remain near Taiwan to “monitor the situation.” The Reagan and her accompanying ships are based in Japan and were deployed to the East China Sea in recent days, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid a visit to Taipei against Chinese objections. Beijing has responded to Pelosi’s visit by launching extensive drills around Taiwan and firing a dozen missiles across the island.
-Russia’s Defense Ministry says it’s investigating the possible role of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the creation of the Covid-19 virus. In a press briefing on Thursday, the head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, claimed that US-backed bio-laboratories in Ukraine had been conducting questionable research and clinical tests on Ukrainian citizens, and that “over 16,000 biological samples, including blood and serum samples, were exported from the territory of Ukraine to US and European countries.”
He went on to explain that a statement from Jason Crow, a member of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, who warned Americans that their DNA samples could be used to create targeted biological weapons, caused Russia’s Defense Ministry to “take a fresh look” at the origins of the Covid pandemic. “Taking into account the interest of the US administration in the study of narrowly targeted biological agents, such statements force us to take a fresh look at the causes of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the role of US military biologists in the emergence and spread of the Covid-19 pathogen,” Kirillov said.
Covid-19 may have originated in US biolab – Lancet chairREAD MORE: Covid-19 may have originated in US biolab – Lancet chair
Russia now suspects that USAID might have been directly responsible for the emergence of the Covid-19 virus, according to Kirillov, who pointed to a Lancet article by Columbia professor Jeffry Sachs, who suggested that the virus was likely created in a lab with the help of the America’s latest achievements in the field of biotechnology.
-Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema - the lone Democrat holdout on the Biden administration's revamped reconciliation bill - has finally signed off on it, after Democrats agreed to preserve the so-called carried interest loophole that allows investment managers (like her former bosses) to shield the majority of their income from higher taxes. In fact, Sinema told donors at a Wednesday night fundraiser that it makes 'no sense' to squeeze the private-equity industry that will finance various projects for the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure and $280 billion semiconductor bills that were signed into law earlier, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing a lobbyist who attended. "We have agreed to remove the carried interest tax provision, protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy in the Senate’s budget reconciliation legislation," Sinema said in a statement, adding that she would move forward with the legislation following a review by the Senate's parliamentarian - who will rule on whether elements such as domestic content requirements for cars eligible for EV tax credits, caps on insulin, and other provisions, meet strict budget rules.
-The US delayed the test launch of an Air Force Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) following US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan earlier this week, which triggered Beijing to conduct war drills around the self-ruled island on Thursday. WSJ said US officials were planning to launch the ICBM from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California but have delayed the launch to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing.
-The United States says it's watching ongoing Chinese military drills around Taiwan very closely, while condemning the latest series of ballistic missiles fired over the island as a severe provocation and escalation. The White House has ordered the Ronald Reagan carrier strike group to stay in the area. US National Security Council (NSC) spokesman John Kirby said in statements to MSNBC Thursday: "We’ve been watching this very, very closely. It’s concerning. It’s not just concerning to us, but it’s concerning, of course, to the people of Taiwan. It’s concerning to to our allies in the region, especially Japan." "The provocateur here is Beijing. They didn’t have to react this way to what is completely normal travel by congressional members to Taiwan...The Chinese are the ones who are escalating this," Kirby added. He warned further, "One of the things that’s troublesome about exercises like this or missile launches like this is the risk of calculation, the risk of a mistake that could actually lead to some sort of conflict," he said.
-Barely a month since their delivery, the first German armored self-propelled guns have already ceased service in Ukraine, according to a report by German newspaper Der Spiegel. The German Ministry of Defense was informed by Kyiv last week that an error message appeared on the cannons and that several of them needed to be repaired. According to the Bundeswehr, the reason behind the malfunction may be that the Ukrainians are firing the guns more intensively than the technology is capable of. This means that the stress on the loading systems may be too high. Another problem could be that the soldiers reportedly fire the units from too far away with the special ammunition; the smart grenades used by these cannons were meant for shorter-range, precision hits. The Bundeswehr explained that misuse of the weapons could have contributed to a more accelerated wear and tear. Despite the problems, however, they agreed to supply Ukraine with additional weapons packages.
-Amid a growing wave of corporate layoff announcements, the number of Americans filing for first-time jobless benefits rose to 260k last week (moving its 4-week average to the highest in 8 months). More problematically, continuing claims is now starting to roll notably higher at 1.416mm - the highest since April. Connecticut, Oklahoma, and California saw the biggest rise in jobless claims; while Massachusetts, Kentucky, and Ohio saw the biggest drop in claims. Jobless claims are now completely decoupled from the headlines payrolls data.
-China has kicked off its latest round of war drills Thursday aimed at encircling and pressuring Taiwan in the wake of this week's House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visit to the self-ruled island, the day after she departed and continued on her Asia tour to South Korea. According to China's People's Daily, this has included PLA command dispatching "hundreds" of fighter jets to enter airspace off the northern, southwestern and southeastern airspaces of the island, at a moment Taiwan's defense forces are on a heightened state of alert. On Wednesday some half a dozen jets were reported as having breached the 'median line' separating the Taiwan Strait. Beijing is promising in essence this is only the beginning.
And more alarming, China launched a series of ballistic missiles into waters off Taiwan, with some having flown over the island. "Taiwan has confirmed that mainland China launched 11 Dongfeng series missiles into waters north, south and east of the island on Thursday afternoon, a day after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taipei," South China Morning Post reports. "The island’s defence ministry said the 11 DF series missiles were fired between 1.56pm and 4pm. It is the first time mainland missiles have flown over the island." Taipei's defense ministry immediately condemned the severe provocation: "The defence ministry condemned the irrational actions to undermine regional peace," a statement said. Taiwan further called on Beijing to be "self-restrained".
Meanwhile, China is furious over a prior day Group of Seven (G7) statement condemning its military drills. The G7 warned Beijing not to use Pelosi's visit as "pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait". In protest, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi has within the last hours canceled what was to be a face-to-face summit with his Japanese counterpart. At the same time increased cyberattacks are being reported against Taiwan government websites in local media.
-On Tuesday while media headlines and the world's attention was largely focused on Nancy Pelosi's provocative Taiwan visit, the Biden administration quietly unveiled a massive new arms deal for Saudi Arabia and the UAE - described as the United States' close "Middle East partners". "The US State Department today approved more than $5 billion in arms deals for key Middle East partners, including $3.05 billion in Patriot missiles for Saudi Arabia and $2.25 billion in THAAD systems for the United Arab Emirates," Breaking Defense wrote of the approval. Likely the deal was under preparation for a long time, given its size, with President Biden's July 15 visit to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - where he had his infamous fist-bump greeting and meeting with a grinning crown prince Mohammed bin Salman - having sealed it. Essentially this was the Biden administration bestowing 'forgiveness' for the Saudi state murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
-We have been writing over the last couple months about the coming reverse bullwhip effect - most recently noting inventory of semiconductor chips that is piling up in South Korea - and this week it is being reported that companies are seeking new warehouse space just to keep up with growth in inventories. Retailers are "struggling to find space," the Wall Street Journal reported this week, stating that Prologis expects an additional 800 million square feet of warehouse space to be needed beyond earlier projections to handle the excess inventories". Chris Caton, managing director of global strategy and analytics at Prologis, told the Journal: “We have specifically heard from customers who are looking at carrying more inventories and are leasing space.” Names like Walmart and Best Buy have reported they are dealing with inventory gluts, including in clothes, kitchen appliances and electronics. The gluts are a result of consumers spending less as inflation continues to put pressure on the middle and lower class in the country.
-Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wants to talk directly to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in the hope China can use its influence with Russia to bring the war to an end.
-The US Senate has ratified Finland and Sweden’s accession to Nato, voting 95-1 in support.
-Ukraine is pulling out its 40 peacekeepers from the Nato-led mission in Kosovo, which totals 3,800 members, according to Ukrainian news. In March, Zelenskiy issued a decree for all missions to return to Ukraine to support the war.
-Ukraine failed to stop a Syrian-flagged vessel claimed to be carrying stolen Ukrainian grain from leaving Lebanon. The Lebanese government reported on Thursday that the Syrian-flagged Laodicea had left its territorial waters, despite appeals from Kyiv to reverse a court decision allowing its departure.
-Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has branded “disgusting” the behaviour of the ex German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The former German leader has come under fire, after he went on holiday to Moscow and had a private meeting with Vladimir Putin. Schröder told German media in a lengthy interview he had nothing to apologise for over his friendship with the Russian president.
No comments:
Post a Comment