Russia says US facing humiliation in Ukraine like in Vietnam

This content was published on April 21, 2024 - 13:45
4 minutes
By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Sunday U.S. lawmakers’ support for $60.84 billion more in aid for Ukraine showed that Washington was wading much deeper into a hybrid war against Moscow that would end in humiliation on a par with the Vietnam or Afghanistan conflicts.

President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine has touched off the worst fall-out in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Russian and U.S. diplomats.

On Saturday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed with broad bipartisan support a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from some far-right Republicans.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was clear that the United States wanted Ukraine “to fight to the last Ukrainian” including with attacks on Russian sovereign territory and civilians.

“Washington’s deeper and deeper immersion in the hybrid war against Russia will turn into a loud and humiliating fiasco for United States such as Vietnam and Afghanistan,” Zakharova said.

Russia, she said, will give “an unconditional and resolute response” to the U.S. move to get more involved in the Ukraine war.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns warned last week that without more U.S. military support Ukraine could lose on the battlefield, but that with support Kyiv’s forces could hold their own this year.

The United States has repeatedly ruled out sending its own or other NATO-member troops to Ukraine, which is fighting a grinding artillery and drone war with Russia along a heavily fortified 1,000-km (600-mile) front.

The United States lost more than 58,000 military personnel in the 1955-75 Vietnam War, which ended with Communist North Vietnam’s victory and takeover of the South, while hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed.

In the 2001-2021 war in Afghanistan, the U.S. reported 2,459 dead and over 20,000 wounded in the conflict which ended with the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces and return to power of the Islamist Taliban movement.

The Soviet Union lost 14,453 personnel in the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan. Civilian deaths in both the wars in Afghanistan were vast.

UKRAINE WAR

Russia now controls about 18% of Ukraine – in the east and south of its neighbour – and has been incrementally gaining ground since the failure of Kyiv’s 2023 counter-offensive to make any serious inroads against Russian troops dug in behind minefields patrolled by drones and guarded by heavy artillery.

Ukraine has for months been begging the United States to release more money and weapons to help it fight, though Russian officials have asserted that U.S. aid will not change the ultimate course of the war.

Zakharova said that ordinary Ukrainians were being “forcibly driven to slaughter as “cannon fodder” but that the United States was now no longer betting on a Ukrainian victory against Russia. Washington, she said, was hoping Ukraine could hold on until the U.S. presidential election in November.

The U.S. legislative package includes measures that would allow the U.S. to seize billions of dollars’ worth of Russian assets frozen by sanctions imposed on Moscow. That, said Zakharova, was simply “theft”, adding that the true beneficiaries of the whole package were U.S. defence companies.

The leaders of the West and Ukraine have cast the war in Ukraine as an imperial-style land-grab showing that post-Soviet Russia is one of the top two biggest nation-state threats to global stability, alongside China.

Putin presents the war as part of a much broader struggle with the U.S., which he says ignored Moscow’s interests after the Soviet Union’s 1991 break-up and then plotted to cleave Russia apart and grab its natural resources.

The West denies that it wants to destroy Russia, which in turn denies that it intends to invade any NATO member state.

(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Mark Heinrich)

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/russia-says-us-facing-humiliation-in-ukraine-like-in-vietnam/76153574

AP
Ukraine pulls US-provided Abrams tanks from the front lines over Russian drone threats

BY TARA COPP
Updated 8:00 PM EDT, April 25, 2024

POLITICS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine has sidelined U.S.-provided Abrams M1A1 battle tanks for now in its fight against Russia, in part because Russian drone warfare has made it too difficult for them to operate without detection or coming under attack, two U.S. military officials told The Associated Press.

The U.S. agreed to send 31 Abrams to Ukraine in January 2023 after an aggressive monthslong campaign by Kyiv arguing that the tanks, which cost about $10 million apiece, were vital to its ability to breach Russian lines.

But the battlefield has changed substantially since then, notably by the ubiquitous use of Russian surveillance drones and hunter-killer drones. Those weapons have made it more difficult for Ukraine to protect the tanks when they are quickly detected and hunted by Russian drones or rounds.

Five of the 31 tanks have already been lost to Russian attacks.

The proliferation of drones on the Ukrainian battlefield means “there isn’t open ground that you can just drive across without fear of detection,” a senior defense official told reporters Thursday.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide an update on U.S. weapons support for Ukraine before Friday’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting.
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-abrams-tanks-19d71475d427875653a2130063a8fb7a

....as I previously said:

https://www.politico.eu/article/alexei-navalny-vladimir-putin-death-order-russia/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-likely-not-directly-order-navalnys-killing-rcna149663

This is an interesting development. I would not be surprised if he was killed by a Russian entity who wants Putin out. We might never know. I wouldn't remove Putin's name from the list of suspects just yet, but all in all, I'd say good call TD

Ukrainska Pravda

Ukrainian forces dismiss as fake information about withdrawal of Abrams tanks from battlefield due to drones

KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO — SATURDAY, 27 APRIL 2024, 17:19

The 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade of Ukraine's Armed Forces has dismissed as fake the report by the Associated Press that the Ukrainian Defence Forces have withdrawn US-supplied Abrams tanks from the battlefield due to the threat of Russian drone attacks.

Source: 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade on Telegram



Details: The brigade posted a screenshot of the story with a link to an Associated Press report, marking it "Fake".

Quote: "Tanks perform well on the battlefield, and we are definitely not going to hide something from the enemy that usually makes them hide themselves. Moreover, we are not going to leave our infantry without such powerful fire support.

However, we will not comment publicly on the purpose, location, and equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

We ask you to trust only verified information and to contact the press service for official comments before releasing any materials."

Background:

On 26 April, the Associated Press reported, citing US military officials, that the Ukrainian Defence Forces had withdrawn the US-supplied Abrams tanks from the battlefield due to the threat of Russian drone attacks.
Before that, The New York Times reported that Russian forces had taken out five M1 Abrams main battle tanks out of 31 that were sent to Ukraine from the US last autumn. The NYT said that drones can be used to take out tanks.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/27/7453276/

NEWSWEEK
Russia Suffers Deadliest Day in Weeks: Kyiv

Published Apr 25, 2024 at 6:49 AM EDT
Updated Apr 25, 2024 at 11:51 AM EDT

By David Brennan
Diplomatic Correspondent

Ukraine's military reported another 1,040 Russian troops "eliminated" between Wednesday and Thursday, which if accurate would make that 24-hour period the deadliest for Moscow's forces since 1,050 were reported eliminated on March 22.

The latest toll brings the total number of Russian casualties claimed by Kyiv since February 2022 to 462,980. The figure is higher than U.S. estimates, which as of February were at around 315,000 Russian troops dead or wounded.

The Ukrainian military on Thursday also reported another 13 tanks destroyed for a total of 7,255 since February 2022, another 28 artillery pieces for a total of 11,836, and one more air defense system for a total of 772.

Newsweek cannot independently verify the Ukrainian figures and has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.

Neither Kyiv nor Moscow releases their own detailed casualty figures. BBC News Russian and independent Russian media outlet Mediazona have confirmed around 50,000 Russian deaths since February 2022, and another 25,000 or so killed fighting for Moscow from the occupied Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

A New York Times report in August 2023 cited U.S. officials as putting the Ukrainian death toll at close to 70,000. President Volodymyr Zelensky in February acknowledged 31,000 Ukrainians killed in action since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Russian forces appear to be sustaining significant losses as Moscow's plodding offensive grinds on along the eastern front. The Kremlin's troops are on the offensive around the captured Donetsk cities of Avdiivka and Bakhmut, while also pushing forwards in southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast and along the border of Luhansk and Kharkiv Oblasts in the east.

Ukrainian troops are resisting while grappling with a severe ammunition shortage, partially caused by the long delay to the U.S. $61 billion funding package, which was finally signed by President Joe Biden this week.

It was also revealed this week that the U.S. has already provided Ukraine with the long-sought-after long-range MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System—colloquially known as the ATACMS. Ukrainian forces have reportedly already used the weapon, including in a strike on a military airfield in occupied Crimea.

Ukraine is girding itself for an expected summer Russian offensive, preparatory operations for which are now ongoing. Among the possible targets for the fresh thrust is the strategic city of Chasiv Yar.

"Russian forces have been establishing operational- and strategic-level reserves to support their expected summer offensive effort, but likely have been doing so based on the assumption that even badly-trained and poorly-equipped Russian forces could make advances against Ukrainian forces that lack essential artillery and air defense munitions," the Institute for the Study of War wrote on Saturday.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-suffers-deadliest-day-kyiv-casualties-1894085

I do believe Russia eventually will control large parts of Ukraine, but Ukrainian resistance in Russian-occupied Ukraine will be fierce and ugly.

Partisan groups began to be organized in mid-2022 and are getting stronger.
These groups have been involved in intelligence-gathering, sabotage, and assassinations. Much of their activity has taken place in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Their victories are bought in blood.

Thanks bud but as you already said, Putin still remains a suspect.

I believe Navalny still have a lot of support but they have to be very careful.


Russia has reportedly arrested two journalists who have been working with international news outlets.

Sergei Karelin - a Russian and Israeli citizen - was detained on Friday, the Associated Press reported. He has previously worked with the news agency.

He is accused of "extremism" in connection with alleged work for the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny's foundation - charges he denies.

A day earlier, Konstantin Gabov was detained on similar charges.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68915764.amp

Frontline report: Ukrainian drones neutralize Russian air defenses, stall offensive near Robotyne

Ukrainian forces have systematically eliminated 9 Russian air defense systems and 3 electronic warfare assets near Robotyne, paving the way for drone dominance that has stalled the Russia’s offensive operations in the area.

BY REPORTING FROM UKRAINE
30/04/2024
4 MINUTE READ

Frontline report: Ukrainian drones neutralize Russian air defenses, stall offensive near Robotyne

Day 795: 28 April

On 28 April, there are a lot of updates from the Orikhiv direction. Here, Russian forces are continuing their offensive operation in an attempt to finally capture the village of Robotyne as a first step to eliminate the bridgehead created by Ukrainian forces in the counteroffensive last summer. To support their frontal effort, they tried to put as much pressure as possible by conducting a flank attack from the southwest of the village.

Russian forces continue to face fierce Ukrainian resistance in front of Robotyne. The main reason why they struggled to push Ukrainians out of the village with brute force was the fact that Ukrainians had spent the last month destroying enemy air defense and electronic warfare systems.

Ukrainian fighters published dozens of geolocated videos showing precise hits with HIMARS and other systems, including FPV drones, against Russian air defense systems Strila-10, TOR-M2, and BUK. Some of those attacks were coordinated and captured in real-time by the Ukrainian surveillance drone SHARK, which was created specifically to monitor and adjust fire on the battlefield.

Among the most precious targets were the Russian electronic warfare system Palantin and the radar and command center of the S-400 air defense system, both successfully destroyed by HIMARS rockets. It is worth mentioning that based solely on publicly available internet footage, Ukrainian forces managed to destroy an astonishing total of nine air defense systems and three electronic warfare systems within a short time frame in this relatively small segment of the front line in the Orikhiv direction.

This allowed Ukrainians to use drones more openly and in big volumes, which led to Russian military bloggers stating that Russian forces had decreased the tempo of their offensive operations near Robotyne exactly due to these extensive drone strikes. This put pressure on Russian commanders to overcome this localized Ukrainian air superiority.

Ukrainian sources admit that even though Russian electronic warfare is limited, it is still felt by Ukrainian drone units. However, they are adapting to this significant threat in the area by routinely switching their drones’ frequencies. By doing this, even though Russians still retain some ability to control the sky, it is enough for Ukrainians to block any enemy advance in the region.

This effective use of Ukrainian FPV drones not only limited the Russian attacks with armored vehicles near Robotyne, as confirmed by many available geolocated videos of damaged vehicles in the region, but created a deadly fire pocket that prevented all frontal attacks on the village.

What effect those conditions created by the Ukrainians have on the Russian forces can be seen in the following geolocated video published by Russian military bloggers. It shows an attempt to storm the south-west part of Robotyne. A Russian infantry fighting vehicle is trying to get to the outskirts of the village to deploy infantry. It instantly comes under Ukrainian artillery and cluster munition fire even at the early stage of the attack, but even after suffering a hit, it continues to move forward.

Several surviving Russian soldiers managed to deploy in one of the first houses, where they looked for shelter to establish positions. They were quickly eliminated by the Ukrainians with the use of further artillery and FPV drones.

After many such attempts, Russians decided to put further pressure on the Ukrainian defenders in Robotyne by conducting a flank attack southwest of the village, which was again successfully rebuffed by the Ukrainians with the help of FPV drones, artillery, and mortar fire.

As a result, Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Commander Oleksandr Tarnavskyi stated that Russian forces in the Orikhiv direction are now trying to move into small infantry groups.

All attacks on the settlement yielded limited results, and there has been no Russian progress, as stated in previous days by some of the most prominent Russian analysts, who started to doubt whether prioritizing Robotyne in this direction was the right choice. Another Russian military blogger sounded the alarm by claiming that Russian forces operating in the Zaporizhzhia direction do not have enough drones and that those operating near Robotyne lack adequate counter-battery and electronic warfare capabilities.

Overall, Ukrainian forces managed to control the Russian momentum and hold the front line south of Orikhiv stable despite all enemy efforts. The situation remains difficult, as Russians do not relinquish the idea of regaining ground here.

Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief described Russian assaults near Robotyne as localized offensive operations that aim to recover previously lost territory. Ukrainian forces orchestrated numerous strikes targeting Russian air defense and electronic warfare systems to discourage them from potential attacks in this direction.

These precise maneuvers, which led to the crucial establishment of limited air superiority by Ukrainian drones, proved pivotal in countering Russian tactical approaches. Hopefully, the Ukrainian forces will soon receive the much-awaited artillery shells from their Western partners, which will help them to stabilize the front line even more and possibly even retake the initiative.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/04...-defenses-stall-offensive-near-robotyne/

Since their independence from the Soviet Union, Georgia and Ukraine have forged close political and cultural relations.

EU, US urge Georgia to halt ‘foreign agents’ bill as protests continue

https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...ign-agents-bill-unacceptable-2024-05-02/

The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR) announces the mass
desertion of mercenaries from Nepal from the Russian army units fighting in Ukraine.

According to Ukrinform, this was reported by the GUR.

According to the intelligence, "the escape of mercenaries from Nepal, assigned to the military unit 29328 of the Russian Armed Forces, was caused by huge losses in "meat assaults", the cruelty of field commanders, including extrajudicial executions for refusing to obey orders to go to certain death, as well as non-payment of promised money."

Groups of Russian invaders are actively searching for fugitives in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian settlements, in particular in Luhansk region, where the personnel of the military unit 29328 was located, but as a rule, this process does not yield results, the GUR noted.

The leaders of the Russian motorized rifle military unit in their reports and reports to the higher command explain the desertion of the Nepalese by the alleged "departure to their home country due to the earthquake."

However, getting from the occupied Luhansk region back to Nepal alone is not an easy task. In addition, Nepalese citizens may face prosecution in their country for participating in hostilities against Ukraine as part of the Russian army," the GUR emphasized.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-at...-russian-army-en-masse-intelligence.html

Reuters

Europe

Russia breached global chemical weapons ban in Ukraine war, US says


By Jonathan Landay and Daphne Psaledakis
May 1, 20243:51 PM EDT. Updated a day ago

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday accused Russia of violating the international chemical weapons ban by deploying the choking agent chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops and using riot control agents "as a method of warfare" in Ukraine.
"The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident and is probably driven by Russian forces' desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield," the State Department said in a statement.

The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Chloropicrin is listed as a banned choking agent by the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was created to implement and monitor compliance with the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
German forces fired the gas against Allied troops during World War I in one of the first uses of a chemical weapon.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported the Ukrainian military as saying Russia has stepped up its illegal of use riot control agents as it presses its biggest advances in eastern Ukraine in more than two years.
In addition to chloropicrin, Russian forces have used grenades loaded with CS and CN gases, the Ukrainian military says. It says at least 500 Ukrainian soldiers have been treated for exposure to toxic substances and one was killed by suffocating on tear gas.

While civilians usually can escape riot control gases during protests, soldiers stuck in trenches without gas masks must either flee under enemy fire or risk suffocating.
The State Department said it was delivering to Congress its determination that Russia's use of chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops violated the CWC.
Moscow's use of the gas "comes from the same playbook as its operations to poison" the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020 and Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018 with the Novichok nerve agent, the statement said.

Russia denied involvement in both cases.
The department also determined that Russia has breached the CWC's prohibition on the use of riot control agents as a method of warfare, the statement said.
It said it was sanctioning three Russian state entities linked to Moscow's chemical and biological weapons programs, including a specialized military unit that facilitated the use of chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops.

Four Russian companies that support the three entities were also sanctioned, it said.
The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets belonging to the targeted entities and generally prohibit Americans from doing business with them.
Separately, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on three entities and two individuals involved in purchasing items for Russian military institutes involved in the country's chemical and biological weapons programs.
The sanctions were among new measures announced by the United States on Wednesday targeting Russia over its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The CWC bans the production and use of chemical weapons. It also requires the 193 countries that have ratified the convention, which include Russia and the U.S., to destroy any stocks of banned chemicals.
The State Department was expected to convey its determination that Russia has violated the CWC to the OPCW.
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of breaching the treaty in OPCW meetings. But the organization says it has not been formally asked to open an investigation into the use of prohibited substances in Ukraine.
Reuters has not been able to independently verify the use of banned chemical substances by either side.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...pons-ban-ukraine-war-us-says-2024-05-01/

Newsweek
Russia on Course for Deadliest Week in Months: Kyiv

Published Apr 30, 2024 at 11:31 AM EDT
Updated Apr 30, 2024 at 1:06 PM EDT

By Brendan Cole
Senior News Reporter

Russia's daily personnel losses have surpassed 1,000 for the fifth time in the last seven days, according to Kyiv's latest figures.

In its update on Tuesday, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said that Russia had lost 1,250 troops over the previous day, taking the total since the start of the war to approximately 468,720

The latest daily total is the fourth day running that Russian losses have topped four figures, following Kyiv's announcement on Monday of 1,320 the previous day, 1,096 the day before that, and 1,124 on April 27.

Over the past week, the spike in the daily tally, which includes both those killed and injured, follows a push by Russian forces in the Donetsk region, following their capture of the town of Avdiivka in February. It comes as Kyiv awaits the delivery of military assistance approved by U.S. Congress.

According to Kyiv, there were 1,040 Russian casualties on April 25, and the tally over the last week has been 7,660. This is a daily average of 1,094—almost twice the mean of 588 over the entire course of the war, signaling how Russian losses have increased significantly in the latter half of April. In March, the 1,000 daily figure was surpassed nine times, 13 times in February, and only four times in January.

An accurate number of Russian losses in the war is difficult to ascertain with Ukraine's tally higher than other estimates. Moscow has not updated its official number of losses revealed in September 2022 as just under 6,000.

However, a British estimate has come close, with U.K. Secretary of State for the Armed Forces Leo Doherty saying on April 27 that Russia had personnel losses of 450,000, which like the Ukrainian figure, includes those who have been killed or wounded.

Nazar Voloshyn, spokesman for Khortytsia Operational and Strategic Troop Grouping, said on April 25 that 85 percent of Russian losses of personnel and equipment took place in the eastern direction of the front.

In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian losses totaled 180,000 killed and up to 500,000 wounded as he revealed for the first time that 31,000 of his troops had been killed, although this is believed to be an underestimate.

On April 26, independent Russian media outlet Mediazona, along with BBC Russian, confirmed they had the names of 51,679 Russian soldiers killed in the war, an increase of 1,208 since its last update in mid-April.

The outlets emphasize that the actual figures are likely considerably higher since their figures only come from public sources such as obituaries, social media posts and reports by local authorities. Its tally includes over 3,400 officers, with 395 holding the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-losses-deadliest-week-1895619