Three Russian servicemen are dead after a drone is shot down
Ukrainians vs Iran in a multi-party struggle for freedom and liberty: CNN’s Fida Ghitis’ “All Together we will win”
Fida Ghitis a former CNN producer and correspondent is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The commentary is a commentary on her views. CNN has more opinion on it.
On Sunday, two groups of demonstrators came together. One person was holding a Ukrainian flag while another person held an Iranian flag. They cheered and chanted “All together we will win” when they met.
The Ukrainians have received vital support from the western world, but its spirit of their fight is the most important element in their success thus far. Like the women in Iran, they occupy the moral high ground. They are fighting for their lives, for their freedom. The other side is trying to take over the others.
The bravery displayed in these battles is almost impossible to duplicate in the rest of us.
The spark that lit up the world: The role of the Iranian regime in Syrian civil war and the murder of a woman killed in the streets
The death of a young woman in Iran last month was the spark that lit up the country. She died in the custody of morality police who were charged with detaining her for disobeying rules requiring women to dress modestly.
Iranian women have shown their defiance by dancing around fires in the night, and by tossing hijabs into the flames.
It’s why women are climbing on cars, waving their hijab in the air, like a flag of freedom, and gathering crowds of supporters in city streets, and in universities, where security forces are opening fire to try and silence them.
After all, it was less than a decade ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military entered Syria’s long civil war, helping to save the dictator Bashar al-Assad (as Iran had).
As Washington warned that Zelensky was a “prime target for Russian aggression,” the Ukrainian president sent a message to his country and to the rest of the world, vowing to stay.
It is a sign of US commitment that the US is supplying a high-end capability like the Patriot missile defence system toUkraine. Russia has been successful in trying to deter the US from aiding Ukraine.
Russia has a track of war crimes with hundreds of bombed hospitals, schools, civilian convoys, and mass graves filled with Ukrainians.
The repressive regimes in Tehran and Moscow are isolated, pariahs in much of the world, which is supported by a few autocrats.
Analysts say that the news about Iranian drones isn’t seen as bad publicity in Tehran, despite the denials of the Islamic Republic.
The regimes are similar in how they project power abroad, and have much in common in how they oppress the people.
There have been mysterious deaths of Putin critics. Many fell out of windows. According to Freedom House, Russia and Iran are among the leading practitioners of internationalist repressive regimes, killing critics on foreign soil.
There is more to it than the low probability of the Iranian regime falling. Their countries and their lives would be changed by it. After all, Iran’s constitution calls for spreading its Islamist revolution.
It is a time of uncertainty for the rest of the world. Seven months ago, some viewed Putin as something of a genius. The myth has been destroyed. The man who tried to manipulate elections around the world now looks like he is in trouble.
Ukraine’s attack on Kyiv: a failure of Russian air defenses, and a lesson learned from recent aerial attacks by ANK and UAVs
One video shows a tank running into a minefield and exploding, followed almost obliviously by an infantry fighting vehicle that suffers the same fate. Others show Ukrainian drones dropping small explosive charges on static tanks in open country – and a graveyard of abandoned armor.
“They dropped everything: personal care, helmets,” said the commander, who uses the code name Swat. “I think it was a special unit, but they were panicking. It was raining very hard, the road was bad and they drop everything and move.”
Russia’s aerial onslaught of the last few days has been largely directed at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, using a variety of missiles and newly acquired Iranian drones. But while the damage has been substantial, Ukraine claims that it has taken out around half of the missiles fired – and it expects that success rate to improve as new air defenses arrive from Germany, the US and elsewhere.
The assaults on Kyiv seem to be part of a larger attack that involves drones and missiles. The Ukrainian Air Force said it had destroyed 37 Iranian-made kamikaze drones and three cruise missiles in south and east of the country early Monday. The attacks in the east targeted crucial infrastructure.
Until more arrive, there is the risk – all too familiar to the government and people of Ukraine – that the Russian mix of missiles will wreak much greater havoc among the civilian population, especially if the Russians persist with the tactic of using swarms of missiles, inundating air defenses.
There are still some unanswered questions, such as how far it will deplete Russian inventories, and whether they will resort to older, less accurate but equally powerful missiles.
Moscow had more than half of its pre-war stock of air-launched Cruise missiles, but the Pentagon believed that Russia was the lowest on those missiles.
The Russians have also been adapting the S-300 – normally an air defense missile – as an offensive weapon, with some effect. Their speed makes it difficult to intercept them, and they have devastated Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv. But they are hardly accurate.
Zelensky said in a video message Tuesday that 20 of 28 missiles fired at Ukraine that morning had been shot down. Ukrainian officials have told CNN that more than half the Russian cruise missiles fired on Monday and Tuesday were brought down: 65 out of 112.
He told CNN’s Richard Quest that this was the “first time from the beginning of the war” that Russia has “dramatically targeted” energy infrastructure.
Over the past nine months, the Ukrainians have also had plenty of practice in using their limited air defenses, mainly BUK and S-300 systems. There may be losses in combat operations due to these systems being not last forever, according to the Air Force Command spokesman.
Last month, the US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, Sasha Baker, said the US had seen “some evidence already” that the Iranian drones “have already experienced numerous failures.”
Ukraine has repeatedly asked for the US Army’s Patriot – an acronym for Phased Array Tracking Radar for intercept on Target – system, as it is considered one of the most capable long-range air defense systems on the market. The US did not fulfill the request for the first 10 months of the war but a senior administration official said that the reality of what is going on on the ground influenced them to do so.
Ukraine’s wish-list – circulated at Wednesday’s meeting – included missiles for their existing systems and a “transition to Western-origin layered air defense system” as well as “early warning capabilities.”
The system would not control all of the airspace over the country, but it would control priority targets that Ukraine needs to protect, he said. You can see that there are short-range low- altitude systems and then medium-range medium altitude and then long-range and high altitude systems.
Western systems are beginning to trickle in. According to the defense minister, a new era of air defense has begun with the arrival of the first IRIS-T from Germany and the imminent arrival of two US units of the NASAM.
These are not off the shelf. The IRIS-T had to be manufactured for Ukraine. Western governments have limited inventories of such systems. And Ukraine is a very large country under missile attack from three directions.
Ukraine’s suicide drone crisis: the role of the West and the epoch of cooperation in U.S. air defense and homeland security
Ukraine’s senior military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, tweeted Tuesday his thanks to Poland as “brothers in arms” for training an air defense battalion that had destroyed nine of 11 Shaheeds.
He said Poland had provided the Ukranian people with ways to destroy drones. Last month there were reports that the Polish government had bought advanced Israeli equipment (Israel has a policy of not selling “advanced defensive technology” to Kyiv) and was then transferring it to Ukraine.
In recent weeks, Moscow has bombarded several Ukrainian cities with Iranian-supplied drones, and Kyiv appealed for assistance from the West to fight the new challenge.
What is the relationship between drones and the people? Suicide drones are a type of aerial weapon system. They are known as a loitering munition because they are capable of waiting for some time in an area identified as a potential target and only strike once an enemy asset is identified.
The Shahed UAVs in Kyiv: Why Iran Hasn’t Done Arms to the Russian-Ukraine War
In Kyiv, blasts were heard as early as 6:45 a.m. local time, including one in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district. As of 9 a.m., it had been hit four times. One of the strikes hit close to Kyiv’s main train station, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs. Authorities have asked people to stay indoors.
It’s unclear how many casualties there have been, but one person was found dead under the rubble of a destroyed building in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Another person is trapped, he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday there was no need for more strikes. However, a series of Russian attacks over the weekend killed 11 civilians – eight in the eastern region of Donetsk, two in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and one in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
Another disadvantage of the Shahed drones is their speed, said Ret. Marine Col. Mark Cancian, who now serves as a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The problem with them is that they’re slow,” Cancian said. They are not very fast and susceptible to being shot down by missiles or aircraft guns, as they are all propeller-driven drones.
The Biden administration is currently investigating how American-made technology ended up in the weapons after finding a significant amount of US and Western components in Iranian-made drones being deployed in Ukraine.
Iran has never been known as a weapons exporter. The Islamic Republic sent its arms to proxy countries in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon to fulfill its own regional agenda. The Ukraine war, say analysts, is changing that.
“Iran has time and again declared that it is siding with no side in the Russia-Ukraine war. Iran has not given arms to either warring side,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.
Insight into the Middle East from a Cold War Between Russia and the United States. The “Blitz” campaign on Ukranian cities, the US air defenses, and Iran’s enemies
The Russian decision to target cities as it is losing on the frontlines is compared to The “Blitz” campaign by the Germans in World War II.
Many friends of the Ukrainian pilots have been lost in the war. Their main weapon is a better motivation than the Russians. They covet Western aircraft as if their lives depended on them – which they would.
Cancian noted that the Ukrainian military would likely get more time to recover on the front lines if they focused on the cities.
The US plans to deliver the ground-based air defense systems used in the White House in Washington, D.C., as soon as possible, and the systems are expected to arrive in Ukranian in a few weeks.
The story was first published in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East, a three- weekly look at the biggest stories in the region. You can sign up here.
The military aspect of their relationship has increased since Russia invaded, as the two countries cooperate on economic and political matters.
Major General Yahya Safavi, a top military aide to Iran’s supreme leader, on Tuesday boasted that 22 countries are now in the market for Iranian drones.
Iran’s production of military equipment has more than doubled since the 1979 revolution, he was quoted as saying by Fars.
“For the Iranians, it is about getting market share, it is about prestige, it is about solidifying alliances,” said Eric Lob, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute’s Iran program, adding that these are incentives for a country that is as isolated as Iran.
Iran’s archenemy Israel, too, is likely to be watching very closely, said Amir Avivi, a retired senior general in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and founder and CEO of the Israel Defense and Security Forum.
“It’s a threat and it’s an opportunity,” he told CNN. It’s an opportunity for us to learn what’s happening in Iran. On the other hand, one of the things that worries us is that [weapons]… might arrive to Hezbollah, for example, [or] to Hamas.”
Regime change instigated from Washington is not part of the Biden administration’s policy on Iran, US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley told CNN’s Becky Anderson on Monday.
“Our policy is to defend and support the fundamental rights of Iranian citizens just as we want to support the fundamental rights of citizens across the globe. The form of government in Iran will be up to the Iranians to decide,” he said.
We will continue to impose sanctions on those associated with the morality police. Envoy to Iran @Rob_Malley talks to me about what the Biden administration is doing to support the protests in Iran. We have a pic.
The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini and the calls for regime change have led to protests across the country over the last month.
Mahsa Amini was accidentally beaten at the Asian Championships by a professional rock climber, Hossein Abdollahian, and a UN ambassador
In an interview with state-run IRNA upon her arrival in Tehran, the professional rock climber said she accidentally competed without a hijab during the Asian Championships in South Korea.
The European Union imposed sanctions on 11 people and four entities for their involvement in the death of Mahsa Amini. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian branded the move “superfluous.”
At least 215 people have been killed since Iran’s nationwide protests started in September, Norway-based Iran-focused rights group, Iran HR, said on Monday. .
The United Arab Emirates on Monday summoned the acting head of the EU mission in the country, asking for an explanation of what it said were racist comments made by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last week. The WAM news agency reported that the comments were disrespectful and discriminatory and that they contributed to a worsening of discrimination worldwide.
Background: In his remarks at the new European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, Belgium last week, Borrell called Europe “a garden” and most of the world a “jungle” that “could invade the garden.” “The gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us,” he said. At a press conference on Monday, Borrell denied that his message was racist or colonialist, news agency EFE reported.
The comments have attracted a lot of attention on social media in the Middle East, with critics calling them a colonial narrative. Most of the Middle East had been under European control until the mid-20th century.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/middleeast/iran-weapons-in-ukraine-war-mime-intl/index.html
Israel Recreated Jerusalem as a Future State: A Prime Minister Explains the Government’s Reversal of the Oslo-Jerusalem Decision
Israel summoned Australia’s ambassador to protest the government’s reversal of its decision to recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, according to the Prime Minister.
Background: Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Tuesday justified the reversal of the move by saying the sovereignty of the holy city is a “final status issue that should be resolved as part of any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian people.”
Why it matters: Israel considers all of Jerusalem its “undivided capital.” The eastern part of the city was annexed in a move that was not recognised by most of the international community. The capital of a future state would be the eastern part of the city.
Background: The US State Department confirmed earlier Tuesday that 72-year-old Saad Ibrahim Almadi has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia after being given a 16-year sentence for tweets critical of the Saudi government. State Deputy Spokesperson He said the State Department is still going through the process to determine whether Almadi will be designated as “wrongfully detained.”
Saudi Arabia has very strict rules about using social media and has sentenced people in the past for doing so. In August, Saudi women’s rights campaigner Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years in prison for her activity on Twitter, according to court documents viewed by CNN. According to a US-based advocacy group, a woman was sentenced to 45 years in prison for using the internet to spread her opinions.
The new speaker has not shied away from controversy. In Gulf states, publicly criticizing neighboring countries is taboo but in 2012, after Saudi Arabia proposed joining Gulf nations into a union, Saadoun, as the-then speaker of parliament, said he supported Gulf integration with conditions.
Following the announcement, Sadoun, who has more than 400,000 followers on social media, was a topic in Kuwait, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Kuwait is a country of 4.3 million people, just under 2 million of whom are citizens.
He said that his own country enjoys freedom of expression and representation, and that his country’s jails are filled with thousands of prisoners of conscience.
Kuwaiti politics are followed closely in the region. The country is seen as the most democratic in the six Gulf states because of a years-long standoff between the government and parliament that has delayed crucial reform.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/middleeast/iran-weapons-in-ukraine-war-mime-intl/index.html
The fate of a Ukrainian pilot killed in the attack on Vinnytsia with a military-grade unmanned aerial system
Yemeni children attend class outdoors in a heavily-damaged school on the first day of the new academic year in Yemen’s war-torn western province of Hodeida on Monday.
Nikitin and Volovyk say they prefer military-grade surveillance drones to commercial ones. Data transfer by military drones is more secure and harder to jam than by Russians.
In March, the Pentagon announced it would send 100 “tactical unmanned aerial systems” called Switchblades. The administration promised another 300 in the next month. The Defense Department said it would dispatch 120 Phoenix Ghost drones to Ukranian. In July, the United States provided funds for Ukraine to buy 580 more of them.
In August, the Pentagon said it would send Puma drones — small aircraft that soldiers toss into the air to launch and then control by remote control from up to nine miles away. Pumas can stay at altitudes of about 500 feet.
In his nightly address on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine had shot down 10 of the 15 drones that Russian forces used. He was unable to verify his tally right away.
The folk hero status of a Ukrainian pilot who shot down five Iranian Shahed-136 drones over the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia was bestowed this month, only for the pilot to crash into the debris of the last one. The pilot, named Karaya by military policy, told the local news media that he and his team were going to destroy the weapon within a short period of time.
He said that Karaya ejected his plane after colliding with the airborne debris. Nobody on the ground was injured when the jet crashed into houses in anoutlying area. Karaya visited the site to apologize.
Two Ukrainian Soldiers, One at a Time: Is It All Beauteous? (The Case of Anatoliy Nikitin and Sergei Volovyk)
He said he apologized for his behavior and showed up in his clothes, but he didn’t have epaulets. He joked that it was a violation of military protocol. He wrote that he lost them while leaving the office.
MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — On the second day of the war with Russia, Anatoliy Nikitin and Stas Volovyk, two Ukrainian army reservists, were ordered to deliver NLAW anti-tank missiles to fellow soldiers in the suburbs north of Kyiv. New orders came in as they stood exposed on a highway, which is when the nickname ” Concrete” came to mind.
“A guy on the radio said, ‘There are two Russian tanks coming at you. In the southern city of Mykolaiv, Nikitin sits on a park bench as he recalls trying to hit one and live stream it.
There was one problem: neither soldier had ever fired an NLAW. They hid among some trees and watched a video about how to do that when the tanks approached. They took their positions and prepared the missiles.
“Then the commander says, ‘Oh, it’s ours! It’s ours! ‘” recalls Volovyk, who goes by the nickname Raptor. “So, we did not fire. It was a close call.
Nikitin and Volovyk have fought in both environments and describe their on-the-job training as a mix of terror, adventure and black comedy. The two men offer an unvarnished view of the fighting and say the first days of the war were filled with confusion.
“It was total chaos,” recalls Nikitin, who is 40, wears a salt-and-pepper beard and heads a construction company. “It’s lucky for us that the Russians were more chaotic than us.”
Volovyk is a 33-year-old software engineer who learned English by playing video games. He says Russian tactics and decision-making have improved during the war, but he found some of their early actions perplexing. For instance, the Russians deployed riot police who headed toward Kyiv, only to be wiped out.
“We see how they advance, we see how they fight and we were like, ‘Okay, is this their best or are they just mocking us?'” recalls Volovyk, who wears a camouflage cap with the message “Don’t Worry, Be Ready.”
The Russians left the suburbs in late March. The two men headed south, after this, to fight a very different kind of war. Outside of the capital, the suburbs left behind the protection of suburban buildings and forests. They started by working the trenches.
“It sucks,” says Volovyk. You dig. You dig. Unless you dig, you are pretty much dead in this war and that’s the only thing you can do.
After two weeks, the men were offered new jobs doing reconnaissance. It’s risky to try to get close to enemy lines and not be detected. But the men leapt at the opportunity — anything to get out of the trenches.
They now operate drones, which can be used to help guide fire on Russian tanks and depots in the Kherson region.
Some soldiers have had heart-rending moments. When they traveled with a team of engineers they came across a Russian soldier in a field.
“He looks at me, I look at him and he just jumps into the bushes,” recalls Nikitin. He told the engineers to shoot the Russian and any of his fellow soldiers.
Nikitin and Volovyk joined the army reserve six years ago, after the Russians invaded Crimea. Nikitin says they weren’t prophets, but they knew Russia would try to take the rest of Ukraine. Down south, their goal is to liberate Kherson.
Anticipation is mounting for a possible battle for Kherson, a Russian-occupied city in southern Ukraine. Kremlin-installed officials are making plans for a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive.
And Ukraine will be watching America’s midterm election results this week, especially after some Republicans warned that the party could limit funding for Ukraine if it wins control of the House of Representatives, as forecast.
The Status of Ukraine from NPR’s Moments on the IAEA Report and the U.S.-Embassies in Crimea
Turkey’s president will host a Swedish prime minister on Tuesday. The Swedish must meet certain conditions in order to join NATO.
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday is scheduled to discuss an International Atomic Energy Agency report, in which Ukraine is expected to be on the agenda.
Russia rejoined a deal to export grain and agricultural goods from Ukraine on November 2. Just a few days later, Moscow suspended its part in the deal after it said that Ukraine had attacked its ships in the Black Sea.
The Pentagon has announced $400 million more in security aid for Ukraine.
You can read past recaps here. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR’s coverage here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.
There are specific and very technical modifications that could be made to make it possible in the near term. Those things are complex and take time to complete.
Does the Army Plan to Substitute the Gray Eagle Drone? The US Department of Defense, CSIS, and the Washington Post: Obtaining the U.S. Military Arms
A US official confirmed that the Army is leading the efforts to study what changes are possible to the drone, which is made by General Atomics and referred to in the Army as the MQ-1C.
“When you’re talking drones, this is about as good as you can get,” says Seth Jones, the director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “These are really sophisticated drones.”
Discussions over the Gray Eagle are ongoing and it has not been ruled out or officially denied to Ukraine, the US official and a Ukrainian official said. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon did not approve of Ukraine’s request.
There is still interest in giving this particular system if we can modify it to be more useful for the Ukrainians on the battlefield.
Pentagon spokesman Colonel Roger Cabiness would not comment specifically on the Gray Eagle, saying only that the Department of Defense continues to consult with Ukraine on security assistance.
It’s a scenario that the US has recently been on the receiving end of. The Washington Post said that the US was able to look at the wreck after the Iranian drones were shot down.
The most sensitive technology on the Gray Eagle wouldn’t be considered escalatory because similar capabilities are being provided, according to a US official.
The technology in question likely centers on the imaging and intelligence-gathering capabilities and sensors, Jones from CSIS said, adding that he believes US fears are really rooted more in escalating the conflict with Russia.’
He said those are going to be far back from the frontlines. “I don’t think you’d risk them up close and you wouldn’t need them up close because they can fire from a distance and they can collect [intelligence] from a distance.”
This wouldn’t be the first time modifications have been made to US systems to get them to Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reported in March that classified components were removed from Stinger antiaircraft missiles by simply taking out several screws. That was enough for the US to be able to ship them out.
President Joe Biden told reporters at a news conference last week that he did not want to start bombing Russian territory.
While the US has given Ukraine a mobile rocket system, they have yet to be offered the longer-range weaponry that goes with that system.
Nor have fighter jets been sent to Ukraine by any NATO country, perhaps the most hotly debated part of any discussion over what weapons should be given to Ukraine.
They are still being considered, three people familiar with the discussions say. The discussion over whether or not US warplanes or Soviet-origin fighters are involved. The US could ask a country like Poland to give Ukraine Mig-29s and backfill Poland with American jets.
“Are we pouring escalatory measures that might be tolerated by Putin into a bucket that at some point overflows?” another person familiar with the discussions asked. What is in that bucket right now? And how much volume are you proposing adding to it? The US intelligence and defense officials are trying to figure out what those are.
Ukrainian officials are frustrated with the administration’s general fears of escalation, point out that they could already have used the US system to hit Russian territory, but haven’t.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Russian drone strikes on the southern port city of Odesa left more than 1.5 million people in that region without power Saturday night, the latest attacks in an ongoing series of assaults on Ukrainian energy infrastructure by the Kremlin.
The constant assaults on the plants and equipment that are used for heat and light have drawn condemnation from world leaders, and thrust Ukraine into a grim cycle in which crews hurry to restore power only to have it knocked out again.
Mr. Zelensky said that the power was out in the capital city of Ukranian. Some are what he classified as “emergency” outages resulting from attacks. Others are what he called “stabilization” outages, or planned blackouts on a schedule.
“The power system is now, to put it mildly, very far from a normal state — there is an acute shortage in the system,” he said, urging people to reduce their power use to put less strain on the battered power grid.
“It must be understood: Even if there are no heavy missile strikes, this does not mean that there are no problems,” he continued. “Almost every day, in different regions, there is shelling, there are missile attacks, drone attacks. Energy facilities are hit almost every day.”
Sanctions have not been enough to shake Russia’s determination to restore its empire at the cost of peaceful neighboring states. The US and other western backers of Ukraine should stop setting up more targets for Russia to destroy. The international community needs to do more when it comes to Russia’s war of aggression and savagery. More direct intervention is long overdue.
Russia will keep doing this because it works. US President Joe Biden and the rest of the Western leaders tell Russia that it works by referring to the fear of escalation.
It would be hard for any other country to wage the same kind of campaign as Russia has in Ukraine and in Syria because of their overt agenda of exterminating the Ukrainian people.
And yet, Russia’s UN Security Council veto and the fear it has instilled through nuclear propaganda have given it a free pass to behave as it wishes, without fear of interference from a global community looking on in either ambivalence or helpless paralysis.
Russia’s most effective tool of deterrence remains nuclear threats. If Russia were to be cornered or humiliated, it would likely use nuclear weapons, but recently the talk of using them has died down.
That sets a disastrous example for other aggressive powers around the world. It says possession of nuclear weapons allows you to wage genocidal wars of destruction against your neighbors, because other nations won’t intervene.
If the US and the West do not want other countries to receive the same message, then we should be more assertive in our attempts to get Russia to change its mind.
The Patriots: Defense and Counterattack in the War of the Cold War. The US Army defends Ukraine, but it doesn’t defend it
“It increases accuracy, it increases the kill rate, so it really does exactly what you want it to do which is protection on the ground on very specific targets,” retired Maj. Gen. James “Spider” Marks previously told CNN of the system’s capabilities.
Indeed, Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at CSIS, told CNN that the Patriot is “not a game-changer” because it is “still only able to defend a relatively small piece of dirt.”
Hertling says offensive operations are more important than the security system in Ukraine. CNN first reported last month that the US was considering a dramatic increase in the training provided to Ukrainian forces by instructing as many as 2,500 troops a month at a US base in Germany. The Pentagon said this month that combined arms training of battalion-sized elements, which will include infantry maneuvers and live fire exercises, would begin in January.
Hertling said the systems don’t pick up and move around the battlefield. “You put them in place somewhere that defends your most strategic target, like a city, like Kyiv. If anyone thinks this is going to be a system that is spread across a 500-mile border between Ukraine and Russia, they just don’t know how the system operates.”
Not to mention the significant logistical needs; just one battery is operated by roughly 90 soldiers, and includes computers, an engagement control system, a phased array radar, power generating equipment, and “up to eight launchers,” according to the Army.
CSIS recently said in a report that the missile rounds for the Patriot come in at roughly $4 million each. Rounds that cost a lot of money aren’t likely to be used to shoot down every missile Russia launches toward Ukraine.
The system has been purchased by other US allies, including Israel, Germany, and Japan, and was sent to Poland in an effort to help them defend themselves against Russia as it invaded Ukraine on its border. The US military made it clear when they sent the system to Poland that it was just for defensive purposes and wouldn’t support offensive operations.
The weapon system that Hertling referred to as the Patriots is defensive, anti-ballistic and anti-aircraft. You do not win war with defensive capabilities. You win wars on the offensive side.
Ukrainian troops and civilians of Engels-2 were killed in attacks on an airfield in Saratov on Dec. 5. The United States responded strongly to the Dec. 5 attack
Three Russian servicemen were killed Monday after a Ukrainian drone was shot down by air defenses as it approached a military airfield in Saratov Oblast, deep inside Russian territory, according to Russian state news agencies, citing the defense ministry.
The event took place in the western port city of Engels, some 500 miles southeast of Moscow and on the Volga River. It is the second such attempted attack on the city, which houses the Engels-2 military airfield, a strategic bomber airbase, this month.
The governor of Saratov Oblast said on Monday that law enforcement agencies are looking into the incident. He commented after the reports of an explosion in the city.
There were no emergencies in the residential areas of the city, and the infrastructure was not damaged. He also extended his condolences to the families of the servicemen, saying the government would provide them with assistance.
“If the Russians thought that no one at home would be affected by the war, then they were deeply mistaken,” Colonel Ihnat said. He said that attacks on Russian airfields complicated the bombing campaign against Ukrainian troops and forced Moscow to relocate some of its aircraft.
The events of December 5 remind me of this situation, which after the missile strike by the Russians, resulted in another round of bloodshed. “Therefore, we should be prepared for this, take it into account in our plans and do not forget to proceed to the shelter.”
The explosion that was shown in the clips was in the sky over the town of Engels. There was no damage to civilian infrastructure or any information about incidents at military facilities being checked by law enforcement agencies.
The U.S. reaction to the Dec. 5 assaults was muted. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said, “We are not working to prevent Ukraine from developing their own capability.” Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, said only that the US was not encouraging or enabling attacks on Russia.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told The Associated Press on Monday that his government wanted to hold a “peace summit,” hopefully mediated by the United Nations’ secretary general, António Guterres, by late February, but that Russia could not be invited unless it first faced prosecution for war crimes. It was the latest in a string of claims by each country to be open to peace talks — but only on terms that are unacceptable to the other.
The Wired World in 2023: A Survey of Modern Technology and the Rise and Fall of the Armed Forces in the 2023 Digital Age
In 2023, digital technologies will transform confrontation and conflict, as transparency and precision will merge with advances in robotics, autonomy, connectivity, data in secure cloud, and AI. It is expected that armed forces will be no longer just people operating equipment but also rapidly evolving teams of inhabited, uninhabited and autonomously capable. This process of augmenting how the armed forces operate, organize, and train begins as a way to make technology more useful and it will be as transformational as when it first began. The Digital Age will change the way states and conflicts are confronted. The winner will be bold enough to move quickly and the loser will give in to the comforts of change.
This story is from the WIRED World in 2023, our annual trends briefing. You can order a copy of the magazine, or read more stories from the series here.
The susceptibility of the whole of Ukraine to Russia’s long-range cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as the sinking of the Russian carrier Moskva, are all attributed to the success of both shoulder-launched and heavy anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles against columns of armored vehicles Even if a missile costs a lot of money, it can destroy the platform and put the lives of the crew in danger. This will transform how armies, navies, and air forces organize, equip, and operate. As the world is going through a Great Power Conflict, the need to drive down costs and increase inventory will only increase, because the restraining factor is the complexity of these weapons.
Despite this transformation, the nature of war will never change: It will be about killing people and breaking their stuff faster than they can do it to you. It’s still a contest of wills, an aspect of the human condition that is far from being eradicated for it’s brutality, irrationality, and despair. The outcome will be an expression of reason, emotion, and chance. Technology only changes how we fight, not why.
Creating a Tech Company: The Case of the Shahed-131 Warhead, a Cold Warhead from the U.S.
Conflict Armament Research and the Ukrainian military examined the Warhead from the Shahed-131 drone found in the Southern Ukrainian region of Odesa. CNN was the first to receive CAR’s findings.
Warheads targeting battlefield assets such as tanks or artillery pieces might be designed differently, Spleeters explained, with a frontal shaped charge that is used for more concentrated targets. The warhead examined by CAR, though, has a radial shaped charge effect, which can result in a larger area of impact.
Russia and Iran have agreed to set up a drone manufacturing facility inside Russia, however, which Western officials believe will allow Russia to replenish its supply more quickly.
The search engine had only a few hundred employees, and was barely making money. He stepped away from Alphabet in 2017 after building a sprawling, highly profitable company with a stacked portfolio of projects, including cutting-edge artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, and quantum computers.
The US government is in a competition with other world powers for dominance and that could lead to technological re-engineering, which has been shown to lead to domination. He may be uniquely well positioned to understand what the Pentagon needs to reach its technological goals and to help the agency obtain it. But his ties to industry raise questions about how the US should aim to align the government and the private sector. And while US military power has long depended on advances in technology, some fear that military AI can create new risks.
The most powerful military operation on earth would have to be restructured as a result of a better war-fighting system. “We would just create a tech company.” He goes on to sketch out a vision of the internet of things with a deadly twist. It would make a lot of inexpensive devices that were highly mobile and attritable, with drones that would have weapons, and they would be connected together.
The Battle of Bakhmut, Ukraine: The State of the Art, the Science of the People’s Republic, and the War on the Territories
Russian soldiers are torn apart and burned in the battle for the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, as the ground erupts in anger when the rockets find their target. There’s no time to reflect – the effect of the rockets will get passed back to the pilots later. Their job now is to stay alive.
But attacks launched in the last week of January were fatally flawed, he said. Cooper wrote that they advanced along a relatively narrow route, facing an expanse of empty land on the eastern side of the town.
At least two dozen Russian tanks and infantry vehicles have been disabled or destroyed in a matter of days, according to the videos, which were released by the Ukrainian military and analyzed by CNN and military experts. Satellite images show a pattern of impacts along tree lines where Russian tanks tried to advance.
The Russian Defense Ministry has insisted the assault on Vuhledar, where the 155th Marine Brigade is prominently involved, is going according to plan. In remarks recorded for a Sunday television show, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the “marine infantry is working as it should. Right now. Fighting heroically.
But the leader of the self-declared, Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, acknowledged Friday that the area was “hot” and said “the enemy continues to transfer reserves in large quantities, and this slowed down the liberation of this settlement.”
The name of the nearby coal mine is the gift of coal and it lies above the plains. Its high-rise buildings have defenders from the Ukrainian 72nd. A major advantage is Mechanized as well as hardened underground cover.
The town is at the forefront of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have been trying to take it for three months. Victory for Moscow here would make it harder for the Ukrainians to shut down a nearby railroad that links Donetsk with Russian-occupied Crimea and allow the Russians to begin a northern “hook” as part of their anticipated spring offensive.
Critics of Russia’s military high command say the handling of the latest offensive is worse still, with one military writer describing it as a “shameful debacle.”
A lot of good T 72B3/T 80BVM tanks and the best infantry were killed in the war.
The only thing worse than an attack by morons in the same place is the difficulty for the attackers for a long period of time.
The Russian military has tens of thousands of Telegram subscribers. They have been very critical of previous episodes.
Moscow Calling said that the driver of older T-72 tanks don’t get the upgrades that would improve their vision. That may help explain several instances in which Russian tanks seemed to get entangled or reverse blindly.
“How are blind, deaf tanks, armored personnel carriers, with equally blind, deaf infantry supposed to fight without columns? How to coordinate actions if communication and situational awareness are absent? He wrote it down.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/13/europe/russia-ukraine-vuhledar-donetsk-fiasco-intl/index.html
The 155th Naval Infantry Brigade: Where are we going? How our military colleagues at the Vuhledar site and in the country of the DPR
Several Russian commentators have called for the dismissal of Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, the commander of the Eastern Grouping of Forces. The men of the 155th protested that his tactics caused disastrous losses, when he was in charge.
The pro-Wagner Telegram channel Grey Zone said of the man that he was lying down at the control point and sending column after column until the commander of one of the brigades was dead on the contact line.
But the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says that poor leadership is only part of the problem: the “highly dysfunctional tactics are far more indicative of the fact that the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade is likely comprised of poorly trained mobilized personnel than of poor command.”
Ukrainian military officials say there is a random mix of Russian forces in the Vuhledar area, including professional units, the recently mobilized, militia of the DPR and infantry of a private military company called Patriot, which is said to be close to the Russian defense ministry.
According to the commander of Ukrainian forces, effective fire damage is one of the keys to success on the battlefield.
The horizon disappears for a moment as the nose of the helicopter rears. There’s a faint thump as rockets trailing brown smoke arc ahead. The aircraft is made of metal and acts as though it is rolling on its side.
We are always surprised that we are here. But, well, we are and we’re never going to stop,” says the deputy commander of the Sikorsky Brigade – his name and location are military secrets.
Serhiy and Hennady are both middle-aged pilots who have been flying for a long time. They spent much of the early 2000s flying for the United Nations on peacekeeping missions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The experience was valuable, they say. It gave them experience in low and difficult conditions, like the civil war in theDRC, because it kept their hours up.
The Mi-8s in this flight were conceived as transport helicopters in the 1960s, but are now mounted with rockets. Unlike modern, or even Soviet-era attack helicopters, they’ve got no armor to protect the pilots.
He was close to the front line and couldn’t stay on the ground, so he took off from his damaged blades. He flew to a rear location where engineers could swap the damaged equipment with three others cannibalized from a different helicopter.
The Soviet pilots of the Ukrainian Air Force, Zelensky, and his wife Serhiy, say they need new helicopters
President Zelensky has begged NATO and other allies for jets and other aircraft. The response so far has been close to nil.
The United Kingdom has offered to boost Ukraine’s helicopter fleet with a handful of ancient Sea King aircraft that have been decommissioned from the military. The defense minister for Portugal said thatUkraine would have to fix itself because the six Russian-made а-3211VS, none of which are even airworthy, were given to it.
Serhiy, the Ukrainian pilot is not able to wait too long. Speaking to CNN at the brigade’s operation base, he says, “Of course we need newer helicopters because we have aircraft from the Soviet era. We are squeezing everything possible and impossible out of them.
His team has set up temporary locations near the front line where they hide fuel and ammunition. Support crews tuck themselves out of sight. Perimeter security is invisible.
But he had to wait a day and a half to hear about it from the people who called him. He was going to run away below the tree height before his rockets hit the ground.
The Russians can find and hit us more than 30 km away. We have radar that can track them so they can sometimes shoot at us or hide behind hills.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/17/europe/ukraine-pilots-helicopter-russia-intl-cmd/index.html
The pain of losing a close friend: AI-guided weapon systems, humanitarian disarmament, and the slippery slope of the war in Ukraine
The pain of losing a loved one continues to be raw. “In December, a very close friend of mine died,” says Serhiy. A lot of my friends have already died. I am very upset and it is very painful.
“The massive use of drones in the war in Ukraine is pushing for more AI-guided weapon systems,” says Wim Zwijnenburg, project leader in humanitarian disarmament at PAX, a Dutch organization that campaigns to end armed violence. This, he warns, would create a slippery slope. When the genie is out of the bottle, justification for defensive purposes can change into offensive use.
