Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - March 9

Drunk Drivers’ Cars Are Being Sent to Ukraine by Latvia (Bloomberg)

Cars seized by Latvian authorities as part of drunk-driving violations are being shipped to Ukraine in an act of solidarity with the war-battered country.

Authorities in the Baltic nation, which began confiscating cars from motorists driving under the influence of alcohol in November, transported eight vehicles this week, the state revenue service said. They’ll be used for the Ukrainian military and hospitals. As many as 200 more are awaiting transportation, it said.

The auto deliveries are the latest gesture of support from the nation of 1.9 million, which has been among the staunchest European Union member states backing Kyiv. Latvians have launched crowd funding campaigns for generators, chainsaws — and even drones — as the military ships missiles and ammunition.

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Motorists who have a blood-alcohol level of three times the legal limit risk having their cars seized. Latvia’s state revenue service showed a photo of cars on a transport prepared for delivery.

Defending Ukraine’s ‘highway of life’ — the last road out of Bakhmut (Washington Post, March 12)

Russia has committed hordes of soldiers and mercenaries to capturing Bakhmut. Those fighters have pushed Ukrainian troops to the city’s western edge and, like an alligator’s maw, are closing in from the south and north, aiming to encircle and annihilate them.

The maneuver has cut off virtually all roads — except Highway T0504, a two-lane hardball that connects to Bakhmut’s southwestern edge and is so vital that troops have branded it “the highway of life.”

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The laser focus on Bakhmut has drawn skepticism on both sides. Russia is intent on taking it to claim a victory after a row of setbacks, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has turned the stubborn defense of the city into a rallying cry.

While Bakhmut sits along key roads and railways in the Donbas region, control of the city is unlikely to tip the war’s outcome. The benefit to Ukraine of killing waves of Wagner mercenaries and Russian soldiers may not outweigh the cost of its own steep losses, given that Kyiv needs resources for an anticipated spring offensive.

But orders are orders, and the 24th is here to fight until Russia retreats, or until everyone is dead.

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While Western backers proclaim that they are streaming equipment into Ukraine, soldiers said the supply becomes a trickle when the gear is doled out — even at the epicenter of fighting closely watched by senior Ukrainian officials. This has made their task of holding the road and stifling Russian advances harder and riskier, they said.

A surveillance-drone operator called Aviator said the battle for the skies has come down to commercial equipment often sourced from China. He uses a DJI Mavic 3 drone to search for enemy positions and patch in live video for artillery commanders so they can refine strikes in real time.

The Russians, in turn, have a DJI device that can detect his drone’s flight path and launch location — information used to fire at Ukrainian positions, he said.

Russian troops also wield a Chinese-made device that can sever the link between his controls and the drone, Aviator said, forcing him to get close to enemy positions to maintain a strong signal. That puts him in range of mortars and snipers, where he can feel the organ-rumbling crash of howitzer strikes.

Aviator and other drone operators pipe their feeds to a dimly lit farmhouse turned command post in the Donetsk region. Inside, soldiers rest their Kalashnikovs against the wall, drink coffee from plastic cups and comb over videos on two big-screen TVs.

Chichen, 26, an artillery battery commander, his brow furrowed and pierced, constantly shifts between his phone, tablet and the aerial shots of Bakhmut’s apocalyptic landscape, looking to turn more Russian positions into smoldering rubble with his set of four D-30 howitzers.

The Bakhmut battle has taken a toll on the unit, he said. Of about two dozen assault operations in the area, only one ended without casualties. The darkest day, he said, involved an operation northeast of the city in the fall that left more than 150 soldiers dead, wounded or missing. “Even if you win, you still lose,” he said. “You go in knowing it will be hell.”

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And there are not enough shells. At the start of the invasion, Chichen said, he would fire about 300 rounds a day. Now, it’s closer to 10 a day, with far more targets than the ammunition needed to hit them.

Russian jets force down U.S. drone over Black Sea, military says (Washington Post)

A pair of Russian fighter jets intercepted and forced down an American surveillance drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday, U.S. officials said, with one Russian jet colliding with the propeller of the unmanned aircraft after both Russian warplanes dumped fuel on it.

The incident prompted Air Force drone pilots to bring down the MQ-9 Reaper in international waters in what U.S. officials said has become a “pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots” while interacting with American and allied aircraft in international airspace. The actions, U.S. military officials said in a statement, “could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation” between the two countries.

Weird. I guess that’s supposed to be less provocative than shooting it down?

Russia fires barrage of hypersonic missiles, piercing Ukrainian air defenses (Washington Post)

The overnight and early-morning barrage Thursday — which included 81 missiles of different types as well as Iranian-made drones — sent a clear message from Moscow that Russia would not be cowed by international pressure into abandoning its war aims, which include the illegal annexation of at least four regions in southeast Ukraine.

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“What was special about last night’s attack is that they fired six Kinzhal missiles at once,” Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said by telephone, referring to Russia’s hypersonic weapons. The entire barrage was launched from different points, he said — from Russia’s Kursk region, as well as from the Caspian, Azov and Black seas.

The Kinzhal hypersonic missiles Russian used Thursday were first fired against Ukraine last March and have been used several times since, with Ukrainian officials noting that their air defenses are powerless to stop them because of their speed.

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Russia has a limited supply of such missiles and has never sent so many into Ukraine in a single attack. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov claimed in November that Russia had used 16 Kinzhal missiles over the course of the war and retained a stock of 42 missiles after replacing those it had fired.

Ihnat said that Ukraine’s air defense systems were capable of intercepting 48 of the 81 missiles that were fired Thursday. Of these, Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down 34 missiles. “This is a good sign,” Ihnat said.