[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

the American strategy in Ukraine, one that gives the Ukrainian people just enough military aid not to lose their war but not enough to win it[...] is slowly bleeding Ukraine, and its people, to death.

[...] Lethal drones and reconnaissance drones alike are reshaping the battlefield at an unprecedented pace. The U.S. military has yet to reckon with this. The current family of low-cost, highly effective drones used by the Ukrainians are all manufactured in China.

Spoiler

No U.S. equivalent exists in the marketplace, as the efforts of several American companies have stalled. [...]

Achilles made his appeal with an urgency that American policy makers don't seem to share. The speed of innovation on the battlefield has made some long-awaited Western weapons systems all but obsolete by the time they were delivered. [...] Ukrainian soldiers at the front told us that any innovation they develop is countered by a Russian response within weeks. Both armies are innovating at a pace that is leaving the sclerotic U.S. and NATO defense industries behind. [...]

Zelensky [...] is now pleading simply for the delivery of weapons that have already been pledged. Currently, these delays are the result of U.S. Department of Defense protocols that affect the drawdown rates of U.S. stockpiles. [...] However, the United States is nowhere near such a crisis. If anything, and ironically, we keep our weapons in reserve for a crisis exactly like the one playing out in Ukraine. We must make those weapons available to those who would use them in our shared defense.

The Abandonment of Ukraine (The Atlantic - msn.com)

The obvious counterargument being that we might "need" some parts of those stockpiles to deter China from invading Taiwan, or in the event of a Chinese blockade and/or invasion... though I'd imagine that many things that are proving useful in Ukraine either couldn't easily be shipped to Taiwan past a Chinese blockade (fighter jets trying to rush in through enemy defenses to airdrop off tanks? not likely... nor rocket launchers, and I doubt there's some secret underground tunnel).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 30 September 2024 - 10:21 PM

[the broken]

Thing about that perspective is, it assumes that there's some magic number of aid that means instant victory, which the US is holding back. It doesn't seem to account for the idea that fighting a war is, you know, difficult, even with a lot of aid, and that the US has some evil mastermind strategy to bleed Ukraine instead of just not being able to do better.

[Mentalist]

As I was worried, once the orcs were able to cross the Kashlagach to the SW of Vuhledar, the situation became dangerous. And the 72nd Mech is attempting to withdraw, but this isn't going as smoothly as one could've hoped. Most likely, Vuhledar will be lost by tomorrow.

Generally, the momentum isn't great. And the UAF still doesn't have an effective answer to the glide bomb problem, which undermines a lot of the defensive works attempts.

[Werthead]

Israel has bombed Hmeimim Air Force Base in Syria, targeting an Iranian cargo plane carrying weapons for Hezbollah. The base is also heavily used by the Russian Air Force in its support of the Assad regime. No sign that any Russians were killed or injured, but Israel clearly not giving a toss.

Israel, which has a somewhat Russia-friendly approach to things, has become much more critical in recent months of Russian backing for Iran and Syria, although not to the point of selling weapons to Ukraine. Ukraine has backed Israel to the hilt in its current campaign.

[Werthead]

Solid video on the new axis that Russia is trying to set up with Iran, North Korea and China, why China does not want to get too deeply involved in it, and the various disagreements that threaten to unravel the whole thing (particularly Russia and Iran backing opposite sides in the Azerbaijan-Armenia dispute, nearly resulting in Iran sending troops to Armenia's aid against Azerbaijan).

[Werthead]

Sobering analysis of Russia's economic performance. The economic is stagnant, export sales to India and China are only overing 35-40% of its former exports to the EU and USA, it is unable to import much-needed electrical components and its budget deficit will overwhelm its state currency reserves in the near future.

Manpower is also a major problem: Russia needs able-bodied adults to work on and power its economy, which it can't do if they are being sent to the front lines in Ukraine. Attempts to make up the shortfall with imported labour have fallen apart due to Russia's structural racism: the bizarre law being passed to limit the ability of immigrants to move to and work in the Moscow area (also the country's biggest economic zone) has led to even some companies providing vital war resources to virtually collapsing (although a few have moved to more remote areas where immigrant labour is more tolerated).

When the budget deficit can no longer be financed, in a matter of months (some conjecture of weeks, but it looks more likely in the second half of 2025), Russia will have to cut all other expenditures to keep funding the war effort at its current levels, but with health, education, transport and infrastructure all cut to the bone already, it's unclear what more they can do.

Ukraine's unexpected economic overperformance in 2023-24 has come as a welcome surprise in contrast, giving Ukraine more options in how to proceed. The analysis is that Ukraine could win the war outright by simply outlasting Russia and rolling back into occupied territories when Russia has no ability to pay its solders to defend them or to buy ammo to supply them (Russia already has minor issues in both departments). This requires steely nerves and possibly a double-down: an extra $50 billion in 2024-25 alone might be enough to do that job.

Whether this can all come fast enough to help Ukraine is another question: the fall of Vuhledar and incremental gains in Donetsk are sapping morale and manpower. Ukraine's biggest success right now is keeping the faith alight, keeping themselves visible in a news cycle fixated on the Middle East, and navigating the fallout of the American election.

[Werthead]

Russia lost more troops KIA in May-September 2024 than they did in the entire first year of the war, which is genuinely insane.

Total Russian KIA now believed with greater certainty to be well north of 200,000, and Ukrainian sources (monitoring Russian casualty reports, which are still being sent in the clear) believe they are approaching 250,000. Russia proceeding in this way is psychotic.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 07 October 2024 - 10:42 PM

[Werthead]

The Russian state has imposed an emergency tax on the wealthy to generate $3 billion to stave off the complete collapse of the coal industry. Coal is collapsing because coalworkers have been pressganged into fighting in Ukraine, and because the movement of coal around Russia - a notably non-tiny country - is reliant on the rail network. But the rail network is also collapsing (new information for me, but apparently a few months ago Russian Railways solved the maintenance problem by...eliminating the maintenance division, sending the maintenance workers to Ukraine, and basically now hoping for the best).

Putin's medium-term plan to shore up the finances was to bet on increased income from oil and gas, but oil and gas income has dropped by around two-thirds because he's been rinsed by India and China, who want to pay far less than Europe ever did. So Plan B was to bet on increased income from agriculture, following a decent agricultural income in 2023. But that income has dropped in 2024, mainly because agricultural workers have been (stop me if you've heard this before) pressganged into going to Ukraine, but also because (deja vu) the rail network needed to transport agricultural goods is also collapsing etc etc.

This loan will only keep things ticking over to the end of January. It's unclear what Plan C will be at that point.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 08 October 2024 - 09:28 PM

[Macros]

Press gang soldiers into working on the railways

[Cause]

I was reminded of this gem.

https://youtu.be/pIL...WoyckkKlYeb62Ra

Is it too simple to suppose that Putin is just Hangin on to see if Kamala or Trump wins before deciding if it’s time to call it a day.

I could see the reasoning but even if trump wins and ended American support I’d imagine the rest of Europe would just double down. So it doesn’t seem like a winning strategy.

I guess it’s a race to the bottom via attrition warfare. Looks like Russia may hit bottom first.

[Abyss]

Werthead, on 08 October 2024 - 09:28 PM, said:

...
This loan will only keep things ticking over to the end of January. It's unclear what Plan C will be at that point.

I suspect it may involve the window industry.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cause, on 08 October 2024 - 11:56 PM, said:

I was reminded of this gem.

https://youtu.be/pIL...WoyckkKlYeb62Ra

Is it too simple to suppose that Putin is just Hangin on to see if Kamala or Trump wins before deciding if it's time to call it a day.

I could see the reasoning but even if trump wins and ended American support I'd imagine the rest of Europe would just double down. So it doesn't seem like a winning strategy.

I guess it's a race to the bottom via attrition warfare. Looks like Russia may hit bottom first.

In the New Statesman today:

Quote

Russia's economy is roaring. The International Monetary Fund has said it will grow faster than those of all the big G7 countries this year – thanks to the war economy effect.

Spoiler

[...]

The Russian war economy is running on steroids and generates huge revenues for the state. Non-oil and gas revenues are projected to rise by 73 per cent next year. Russia is not funding its increased defence through debt, but through a booming economy.

[...] The West's Ukraine war narratives are mainly informed by wishful thinking – about Russia running out of money, about the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy, about our own political appetite to support Ukraine after the initial period of pro-Ukraine euphoria ended. [...]

If the West was really serious about helping Ukraine defeat Russia, it would have to follow Putin's lead and switch to a war economy: shift money from other parts of its budgets towards higher defence spending, and specifically for weapons for Ukraine. None of the large Western countries are ready to do this. Germany is fast moving in the opposite direction, cutting all of the aid budget it has not yet allocated to Ukraine.

[...]

Whatever happens, the Europeans are not going to fill any gaps left by the US. [...] the new French prime minister[...] just announced a €40bn austerity budget for next year. Austerity has also returned to Italy. But it is Germany where I see the support for Ukraine dwindling the most.

Putin stares down the West - New Statesman

Here's hoping that they're wrong... for EU countries already implementing austerity additional austerity (ultra-austerity?) to provide far more funding for Ukraine may be very difficult...

[Werthead]

Azath Vitr (D, on 09 October 2024 - 06:09 PM, said:

In the New Statesman today:

Here's hoping that they're wrong... for EU countries already implementing austerity additional austerity (ultra-austerity?) to provide far more funding for Ukraine may be very difficult...

I'm a bit concerned about this guy's basic economic illiteracy.

During a military conflict, you can boom the economy by spending massively internally and, as he says, controlling your own currency gives you wide abilities to do this in the short term. But this is not a blank cheque. You're basically printing money out of thin air to fund your war, and you can do that for a while as long as you can also back that up with actual, proper economic measures, even if later on. You're basically making money now on a promise to do stuff elsewhere.

But this has extreme limits. During WWII, Britain and its Empire, one of the world's leading economic superpowers (in real terms, behind only the United States and Soviet Union, and far ahead of Germany and Japan), was initially able to fund its enormous war effort through internal spending and basically drawing on a promise to exploit the resources of the Empire later on. But that faltered within about 3-4 years and the country became dependent on massive lend-lease efforts from the United States (as did the Soviet Union).

But nobody - not even China or Iran - wants to lend Russia money. Russia has massive natural resources it can sell, but only India and China can afford to buy in bulk and they've cut such savagely exploitative deals with Russia that its gas and oil income has collapsed. Russia's infrastructure has not had proper investment spent on it since the Soviet era, and was largely reliant on technical support from countries that have cut it off: Japanese engineers and engineering equipment was keeping its railways running (with some German support) and then only barley, and they've since told Russia to F off, leaving its railway on the edge of total collapse (as the head of Russian Railways said several months ago).

If nobody wants to lend Russia money and it can't sell its stuff for anything like it was getting before the war started, and it's currency reserves have been 50% frozen and the rese have almost run out, then it's main alternative is printing money. Which they've been doing for a while now, with inflation officially at just below 10%. But Russia has had to keep hiking its interest rates, the last hike to 19% and the next will carry it over 20%. That's led to overseas analysts to conclude the Russia's real inflation rate is significantly higher than what's been reported, and that's going to carry massive consequences on just about everything moving forwards.

I'm also not sure what the guy was smoking when he said the currency was doing well. It is not. Since the start of the Ukrainian intervention in 2014 it has lost half of its overall value, and there was a mini-financial crisis just two months ago, including a small run on the banks, that the Russian Central Bank was just able to avert through emergency taxes and other action. But that led to a partial collapse of the Moscow stock market and the re-pegging of Russia's overseas currency to the yuan, not the dollar, which Russia really did not want to do because they know that the Chinese economy is also not great and that Beijing will ruthlessly exploit that as much as they can (a lot of Russia's diplomatic make-nice with North Korea is a cautionary nod towards China as it is towards the United States and Japan). Nobody on Earth wants to buy, trade in or use the rouble, certainly not anyone in Russia itself (where a lot of cash transactions use dollars).

In short, Russia has done a monumental job in keeping its economic plates spinning but it can only do so for so long before getting into real trouble, and we've started seeing the real signs of them hitting those problems. Can it keep the plates spinning until 2026 or 2027? A long shot, but not impossible. Everyone is expecting the wheels to start flying off next year some time. That's why Putin is watching the US election like a hawk. If Trump gets in and cuts a deal unfavourable to Ukraine, Russia can sell it as a massive victory, rather than what it would be, the jammiest outcome possible for them.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Werthead, on 09 October 2024 - 08:13 PM, said:

I'm a bit concerned about this guy's basic economic illiteracy.

Quote

Wolfgang Münchau is considered one of the world's foremost economists and commentators on the Eurozone as well as on the global economy.

Spoiler

[...] Together with economist, Susanne Mundschenk, he co-founded and edits Eurointelligence.com, a news analysis service dedicated to providing information and debate about the economics, finance and politics of the Eurozone.

[...] For many years, he wrote the European economic column of the Financial Times. He is known for his in depth knowledge and analysis of the political economy, both in Europe and globally.

[...] Wolfgang is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. In 2014, he was the John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

[...] Wolfgang co-founded and served as editor-in-chief of FT [Financial Times] Deutschland.

Wolfgang Münchau -Top European Economist | Chartwell Speakers

Granted, he doesn't have a PhD in economics. And it's not clear if the Harvard fellowship had anything to do with his work on economics. But the Financial Times is pretty highly regarded... he might be wrong (as many economists are), but it seems like he's almost certainly not economically illiterate.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 09 October 2024 - 09:00 PM

[Werthead]

Ukrainian Neptune cruise missiles deployed in ground-attack mode (previously the Neptune had been mainly designed for anti-ship operations) hit and destroyed the Russian military storage compound at Yeysk, Krasnodar Krai, 50km or so across the Sea of Azov from Mariupol. The facility was storing a large number of Shahed drones. After the initial explosions, secondary blasts have been battering the site for some time. Unconfirmed claims that 400 drones were destroyed on the ground.

This comes just after a strike on the 67th GRAU Arsenal at Karachev, Bryansk Oblast, which was hosting newly-arrived munitions from North Korea.

Ukraine has successfully utilised the HAWK AA system as a dedicated anti-drone platform. The HAWK is an older AA system and there had been some criticism of western countries sending them to Ukraine, but, whilst ineffective against traditional Russian jets, they've proven to be a godsend against Shaheds.

Russian counter-attacks in Kursk continue to make little ground. During one engagement, the Ukrainian 409th Separate Assault Battalion captured a Russian satellite communication station in perfect condition.

The Feodosia oil facility in Crimea is still burning. This was one of the biggest hits on a Russian oil terminal in recent days, with nine storage tanks destroyed.

The new Ukrainian brigade in training in France will be named the "Anne de Kiev Brigade," after a Kyiv princess who became Queen of France in 1051 after marrying King Henry I.

Zelensky has reiterated that the "battlefield situation" creates an opportunity to end the war by the start of 2025. He's said this a few times and people still aren't sure entirely what he means.

Slovakia seems to be trying to make nice with Ukraine after abruptly realising its gas supplies from Russia, which transit Ukraine, could be shut off within months.

A second peace summit may be held in November, with Turkey as the likely venue. Russia will be invited to participate.

Ukraine is building so many drones that it can't actually use them in combat, so it is now going to re-open its export market and start selling Ukrainian drones to other countries.

The situation in Kherson City is pretty ridiculous at the moment, with Russian drones targeting civilians for fun, rather than being used on the actual battlefield.

[Mentalist]

Azath Vitr (D, on 09 October 2024 - 08:59 PM, said:

Werthead, on 09 October 2024 - 08:13 PM, said:

I'm a bit concerned about this guy's basic economic illiteracy.

Quote

Wolfgang Münchau is considered one of the world's foremost economists and commentators on the Eurozone as well as on the global economy.

Spoiler

[...] Together with economist, Susanne Mundschenk, he co-founded and edits Eurointelligence.com, a news analysis service dedicated to providing information and debate about the economics, finance and politics of the Eurozone.

[...] For many years, he wrote the European economic column of the Financial Times. He is known for his in depth knowledge and analysis of the political economy, both in Europe and globally.

[...] Wolfgang is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. In 2014, he was the John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

[...] Wolfgang co-founded and served as editor-in-chief of FT [Financial Times] Deutschland.

Wolfgang Münchau -Top European Economist | Chartwell Speakers

Granted, he doesn't have a PhD in economics. And it's not clear if the Harvard fellowship had anything to do with his work on economics. But the Financial Times is pretty highly regarded... he might be wrong (as many economists are), but it seems like he's almost certainly not economically illiterate.

I mean, if you look at raw numbers, they can look pretty.

But if you listen to RBK (Russian state-approved business channel), or what the minutes of the CetroBank meetings say, you will hear that they are worried about entering stagflation. The inflation numbers (which the IMF gets from the Russian State) are cooked, and the CentroBank's policy of gradually racheting up the interest rates can't have an effect, b/c the Ministry of Finance keeps injecting money to the populace, which cintinues to drive demand for imported goods. There's a fuckton of money available to newly contracted soldiers (and their families, when they die), edit: as well as skilled workers in the arms industry, who are in dire shortage- and by siphoning them all to refurbish tanks, they are sapping the civillian manufacturing sector even further /edit), and not that much consumer goods for them to spend this money on. At the same time, the military production is peaking, b/c all factories are working at full capacity (since european manufacturing equipment continues to find its way into the country), but they lack the skilled workers to launch additional production lines.

The reason why they aren't imploding is due to the presence of a lot of domestic business that's been forced to keep its money in-house (b/c the West won't let them take it out), and so they are forced to re-invest it. The existence of a (relatively) free market means that we aren't seeing Soviet-style deficits. But their replenisment rates are still abysmal, hence why they are gobbling up DPRK and Iran's ammo supplies.

EDIT: oh, nice. Kadyrov claims that a Dagestani senator put out a hit on him due to them backing different spouses in an ongoing attempt to steal the Russian analogue of Amazon; so now he's declaring a blood feud against said senator and several Duma members.

What a lovely companion piece to the potential shitshows from the upcoming elections in Georgia and Moldova.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 10 October 2024 - 04:56 PM

[Werthead]

The Kremlin appears to be concerned about the growing schism between Kadyrov and Suleyman Kerimov, the Dagestani representative to the Federation Council. Kadyrov has declared "blood feud" against Kerimov and threatened to kill him, and also claims that Dagestani hitmen have been sent after him and his family. Apparently Kadyrov has threatened to recall Chechen forces from Ukraine and Kursk but has been talked down whilst Putin's minions attempt to mediate.

There is a risk here of Chechen-Dagestani conflict and civil conflicts within both areas. Kremline insiders have suggested if this happens, it would impact the military forces in Ukraine as it would require fairly extensive forces to put down. Russia can't afford a third war involving Chechnya at this time.

Most likely Putin will defuse the situation and ride it out, but it demonstrates again that internal relations inside Russia have become more unstable.

Russian sources reporting a "massive" increase in Ukrainian artillery fire along multiple fronts and are warning, yet again, of an impending offensive. Unlikely given the weather situation and Ukraine's manpower limitations. An offensive next year is possible but right now feels unlikely (though granted it would cause maximum surprise).

This post has been edited by Werthead: 11 October 2024 - 11:47 PM

[Mentalist]

2 security guards killed in the Wildberries shootout (by the Chechen MMA hit squad) were Ingush . When their bodies were brought back home for burial, the Ingushes caused an impromptu rally in the airport aimed against "kadyrovites". And Kadyrov called them out in his speech where he proclaimed teh blood feud against the Dagestanis.
And today there was an assassination attempt on a former Federal rep of Ingushetia in Moscow. He was shot 4 times and is currently hospitalized. People are saying this was also Kadyrov's doing.

Reminder: prior to 1991, Chechens and Ingushes shared a single Autonomous SSR within the RFSR. When the Chechens started taking steps to secede, a separate Republic Ingushetia was established. After Kadyrov's rise to power in the 2000s, part of ingushetia was ceded to the Chechens in a "administrative border adjustment". So there's plenty of bad blood for the Chechens from 2 of its 4 neighbors (the other 2 being Stavropol' Krai, and a tiny exclave of North Ossetia)

Which would be truly lovely if this instability actually amounted to something. Kadyrov's Chechens aren't actually fighting, they are the firing squads that prevent the rank and file from refusing orders to attack; the "Akhmat" troops that are actually involved in the frontline are either ex-Wagner, or regular Russians from the mainland who came to Chechnya to sign contracts there, because of high payouts (they were ahead of the curve back then), and also b/c Kadyrov actually offered some basic training at the Akhmat SWAT Academy before getting shipped out. So the threat of "taking the Chechens from the frontline" doesn't really mean much, practically speaking. Though it would certainly be a nice blow to Putler's credibility as a ruler that can hold his vassals in place.

EDIT: oh, and a gas station exploded in Grozny. Lovely.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 12 October 2024 - 03:32 PM

[Werthead]

The petrol station explosion in Grozny.

That's an entire oil tanker being flung down the street like a toy vehicle. Apparently four people may have died in the explosion and subsequent jet-propelled tanker incident (presumably the guy filming survived, if he wasn't live-streaming).

Unconfirmed breaking news that a Ukrainian F-16 engaged and destroyed an Su-34 with an AIM-9X air-to-air missile over the front line.

The report came from Russian sources, so possibly not entirely reliable. It could have been an AA ground system.

In Magas, Ingushetia, three Russian counterterrorism police were executed in a professional hit. A fourth was left severely wounded. Unclear if this was local Ingush forces rebelling against Russian enforces, whom they may have thought were siding with Kadyrov.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 13 October 2024 - 01:46 PM

[Werthead]

There seems to be an escalatory tit-for-tat going on, with further steps to solidify Ukrainian membership in NATO and the EU and long-range missile strikes being held back as a possible answer to North Korean troops going to Ukraine. If that's confirmed, and South Korea now says it has strong intelligence proof that up to 2,000 NK troops are now in Russia with 10,000 to follow, then counter-measures from Ukraine's allies are likely. South Korea is reportedly reconsidering its previous refusal to send artillery shells to Ukraine.

Russia has been launching a series of major attacks with BMPs this week, particularly BMP-3s, possibly due to a tank shortage. Current stockpile analysis suggests that Russia has now denuded its Soviet-era stockpiles of almost all T-90 and T-80 and variant tanks, and T-72s are dwindling quickly. Russia may be figuring that in armoured assaults tanks have not been very helpful and BMPs are just as likely to break through, with most of the fire coming from drones, glide bombs and artillery. The new result has been a lot of BMPs destroyed on the front.

Australia is sending all 49 of its remaining M1A1 battle tanks to Ukraine imminently, with it now receiving upgraded M1A2s from the US.

Putin says he will not attend the BRICS meeting in Brazil, apparently because he is less certain of Brazil refusing to honour the ICC arrest warrant than he was with Mongolia. Putin has also said that he regards the war as "an irritation."

Major General Popov, of the 58th Guards Army, is facing additional charges. The Kremlin has been previously reluctant to pursue further charges against him due to his popularity with his men, as on the battlefield he sought to preserve their lives and only advance after massive waves of drone and artillery had softened the target beforehand. He also had friendly relations with Prigozhin, and according to some rumours he knew of the attempted coup after Prigozhin invited him to join in, but refused (although he also failed to notify Moscow). The Kremlin now seems more certain that the 58th is well in hand, so are accelerating prosecution efforts against him.

Russia agreed to return the bodies of 501 deceased Ukrainian soldiers to Ukraine. This includes 382 casualties from Avdiivka, 56 from Bakhmut, 45 from Marinka, 6 from Vuhledar, 4 from Zaporizhzhia and 7 from Luhansk.

Russia has continued to mount grinding attacks in Kursk and on several areas of the Donetsk front. The 46th Airmobile Brigade destroyed 15 Russian vehicles attacking on the Kurakhove axis. Russia has also bombarded the village of Sverdlikovo in Kursk with glide bombs, despite it still being occupied by Russian civilians.

The 3rd Assault Brigade also went into action on the Kharkiv-Luhansk border, capturing a key supply site and reportedly pushing further. Ukraine wants to take additional territory in Luhansk Oblast to keep the Russians off-guard and prevent Russia from consolidating any of its four claimed regions.

The Russian government has refused to provide the displaced population of Sudzha, Kursk with new housing.

The German opposition has reopened the debate over Taurus missiles.

A Russian storage facility in Karachev, Bryansk, has been destroyed.

Renewed fighting at Chasiv Yar. A Russian thrust towards the Zhovtnevyi district has been interdicted by a Ukrainian counter-attack from the Novyi district just to the south-east. Outcome currently unclear.

The Russian-installed leadership in Mariupol has suggested that Russia could launch a new offensive from the Mariupol and Melitopol areas, possibly northwards to try to retake the area lost in the Ukrainian counteroffensive last year and possibly go further towards the Dnipro.