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Hoodat:
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https://twitter.com/Archer83Able/status/1792974125595521320
Hoodat:
Ukrainian Missiles Are Blowing Up The Black Sea Fleet’s New Missile Corvettes Faster Than Russia Can Build Them
A Ukrainian ATACMS raid on Sunday reportedly struck two Russian ships in Sevastopol (The second ship was a minesweeper)
David Axe | May 21, 2024 | 06:05pm EDT
The Russian navy missile corvette Tsyklon entered service with the Black Sea Fleet in July 2023, three years after launching at Zalyv Shipbuilding Yard in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Ten months later, on Sunday, a Ukrainian strike sank the 220-foot Karakurt-class vessel in Sevastopol, in Crimea, 150 miles from the front line of Russia’s 27-month wider war on Ukraine. Satellite imagery from Monday confirmed that Tsyklon is resting on the seafloor.
Russian navy officials should be very worried about the future of the Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine is taking out the fleet’s warships faster than Russia can build or reinforce them with ships from other regional fleets.
The Black Sea Fleet is getting seven of the cruise-missile-armed Karakurts. Tsyklon was the first to commission into front-line service. Another Karakurt, the incomplete Askold, was damaged in a November Ukrainian missile raid on a shipyard in Kerch in Crimea.
Since Russia widened its war on Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian forces have steadily degraded the Black Sea Fleet, sinking around 15 of its pre-war force of around three dozen large warships—and damaging several others.
As long as Turkey blocks warships from passing through the Bosporus Strait connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Black Sea, the only way for the Russians to reinforce the shrinking Black Sea Fleet is to transfer smaller vessels to the Black Sea by river—or to build them in Black Sea shipyards.
It’s not for no reason that, in April, Ukrainian commandos sabotaged the Russian missile corvette Serpukhov in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. The Buyan-class corvette was one of the few Russian warships small enough to travel to the Black Sea via canals, the Volga River, the Don River and then the Sea of Azov.
In addition to the damaged Askold and the wrecked Tsyklon, five more Karakurts are under construction at shipyards in Crimea or on the Volga River, which connects to the Black Sea by way of the Don River. . . .
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/05/21/ukrainian-missiles-are-blowing-up-the-black-sea-fleets-new-missile-corvettes-faster-than-russia-can-build-them
Hoodat:
Putin’s poorly prepared assault on Kharkiv has achieved nothing but record Russian casualties
Today is not that day
DAVID AXE • 21 May 2024 • 12:39pm
Everyone expected Russia to launch a new offensive in Ukraine on May 9. That’s because May 9 is Victory Day in Russia – the day the country celebrates the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
It’s a symbolic day for a war of choice that’s less about territory or resources than it is about Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s conception of himself as a new Russian emperor lording over a thriving Russian empire.
But Putin’s new Russian empire is a farce, albeit a nightmarishly bloody one. And his Victory Day offensive is a farce, too. Less than two weeks after the first Russian platoons marched across Ukraine’s northern border with Russia, just north of Kharkiv, the Russian operation has ground to a halt after just a few miles.
Even worse for the nearly 500,000-person Russian army of occupation in Russia, the northern offensive has overextended Russian logistics and armor support and forced unprotected infantry to attack on foot. The Russian casualty rate was high before Victory Day. Now it’s catastrophically high as Ukrainian mechanized brigades reinforce the northern front.
It’s even possible the Russians suffered their bloodiest day of the 27-month wider war as the northern offensive culminated. There were a record 1,740 Russian casualties on May 12, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry. That’s hundreds more daily casualties than the Russians suffered in previous weeks.
No one outside of the Kremlin knows what the offensive’s actual military objectives were supposed to be. But in strictly military terms, the offensive almost certainly wasn’t worth it. Not only did the Russians fail to gain control of any important terrain, they also squandered offensive firepower that might have made more of a difference elsewhere along the 700-mile front line. . .
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/21/ukraine-war-russia-putin-kharkiv-attack-failure-brigades/
PeteS in CA:
The Black Sea fleet may have lost (or lost the use of) its last surface vessel missile carrier, but I think there are still several missile-carrying submarines (Kilo class?) in the fleet not permanently submerged.
Hoodat:
A Ukrainian commander had Russian troops in his sights but couldn't attack. He says a US rule is to blame.
Thibault Spirlet • 6h
A Ukrainian commander operating near the Russian border described how his unit watched as Russia amassed a huge force but had to wait for the troops to cross the border to hit them.
"There were a lot of Russians gathering, and we could have destroyed them on the way in, but we don't have many ATACMS, and we have a ban on using them over there," he told The Times of London.
Drago, a special forces commander with Ukraine's Kraken detachment, was redeployed, along with his unit and other special forces troops, in April from the eastern Donbas region to Kharkiv to strengthen Ukraine's forces there, per the Times.
But instead of hitting the Russians, he and his unit were forced to watch as the troops gathered on their side of the border, according to the outlet.
"We had to wait for them to cross," he said, referring to a US policy that bans Ukrainian forces from using US-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia. . .
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-ukrainian-commander-had-russian-troops-in-his-sights-but-couldn-t-attack-he-says-a-us-rule-is-to-blame/ar-BB1mQbnU
Sound familiar?
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