Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - June 8

The counter offensive has begun. paywalled? Link from washington post

DAE feel like the news around this is a bit too…cinematic? I expect Ukraine and supporters to deploy pathos to rally support (and I ham hardly immune), but I wish the major press were more responsibly dispassionate. Lots of people are dying, many more suffering severe, life-changing trauma, and the Russian people are as much victims of this as Ukraine. We should not treat this as entertainment.

Radio New Zealand discusses 'the revelation a staff member altered Reuters copy to include pro-Russian sentiment' following a complaint.

Ukrainian man says altered stories on RNZ must be taken seriously

Since Friday, 250 articles published on RNZ back to January last year have been audited.

Of those articles, 15 are now known to have been altered, and an RNZ employee has been placed on leave. Fourteen of the articles were from the Reuters wire service, and one was from BBC.

An independent review of the editing of online stories has been commissioned by RNZ.

It's alway fascinating when RNZ reports on itself. You get little gems like this:

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson declined to speak with Morning Report [a show on Radio New Zealand] on Monday, describing the breaches of editorial standards as extremely serious.

Russia claims it blew up advanced Ukrainian tank, but video shows its helicopter attacked a tractor (AP News)

Almost immediately after the Russian video spread online, multiple weapons experts and military bloggers began casting doubt on social media that the helicopter’s missile struck a tank, much less a Leopard.

The visual analysis by the AP shows that the vehicles seen in the video, which was recorded at night, appear to be large pieces of stationary farm machinery parked in a field, specifically a self-propelled sprayer and two combines used to harvest corn and wheat.

The vehicle struck by the Russian missile has four large wheels and sits high off the ground. Leopard 2 tanks are low slung and have treads, like a bulldozer.

The Russian Embassy also claimed this week that its forces had destroyed three French-made AMX-10 light tanks, which do have wheels. But the AMX-10 has six wheels, not four.

The silhouette of the vehicle destroyed in the video appears to more closely match a self-propelled sprayer, a type of specialized tractor common on modern farms.

Thermal imaging systems like that on the Russian helicopter detect sources of heat to target enemy tanks and trucks in smoky or low light conditions. The stationary vehicles in the video appear black, meaning their engines were cold.

Tank crews operating at the front lines typically conceal themselves in vegetation or behind buildings, emerging only to move and shoot, two experts in military vehicles told the AP. It would be highly unusual for tanks to be parked in the open, where they make easy targets for enemy gunners, they said.

June 9, NYT: Battles Rage as Ukraine Tries to Retake Russian-Occupied Territory

Intense fighting raged across a wide swath of southeastern Ukraine for a second day on Friday, as Ukrainian forces attacked occupying Russian troops in multiple locations, while military analysts and U.S. officials cautioned that it was far too early to gauge the success of Kyiv’s offensive.

...

Two senior U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, confirmed that Ukrainian troops had, as expected, suffered casualties and equipment losses in the early fighting, but said that classified assessments quantifying the losses were still being developed.

There was no information available on Russian losses, but attackers typically suffer heavier initial casualties than dug-in defenders, and analysts warned that breaking through the Russian lines would be difficult and come at a high price.

The Russians have constructed layers of formidable defenses — with trenches, bunkers, minefields, concrete tank obstacles and gun emplacements — and the flat ground leaves advancing troops vulnerable to Moscow’s artillery and air power.

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The Pentagon on Friday announced another round of military aid to Ukraine, this time worth $2.1 billion, including air defense missiles and artillery shells.

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The Institute for the Study of War, an analysis group based in Washington, wrote on Thursday evening that Ukraine had not yet committed all of the newly trained and equipped units it had prepared for the offensive, and was fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region against Russian units that were considerably stronger than those elsewhere along the front.

The reverse OPEC maneuver
Pricing power in the oil industry is shifting, and will shift more.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-reverse-opec-maneuver

This is a really interesting take on how the changing demand for oil, and the war in Ukraine (which is why I posted it here), coupled with the dynamics of OPEC countries, are affecting the price of oil now and in the future. I am far from an economist, so I'm not even going to try to summarize this article, but someone posted a very nice summary on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/144sq4p/comment/jnhcsen/ There are a lot of other good comments and opinions in that thread too.

CBC: Trudeau commits $500M more in military aid during surprise visit to Kyiv

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid a surprise visit to Kyiv on Saturday and announced $500 million more in Canadian military aid as Ukraine has stepped up its long-anticipated counteroffensive to drive Russia's army out of occupied eastern and southern regions of the battered country.

Earlier in the day, Trudeau, who was accompanied on the trip by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Trudeau said that since last year, Canada has committed over $8 billion in funding assistance to Ukraine, including over $1 billion in military aid, since the start of the Russian invasion early in 2022.

The prime minister offered no details on how the new funding would be spent. However, he indicated Canada would also extend its military training mission — known as Operation Unifier — until 2026 and offered to help train Ukrainian pilots, along with other countries, on the F-16 fighter aircraft.

Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Begins: Shall the Leopards Break Free?

Given these threats, the Ukrainian military is currently trying to achieve three things. Firstly, there is an intense counterbattery duel being fought, with both sides trying to strike each other’s logistics, command and control, reconnaissance, and artillery systems. The Russians are hunting for Ukraine’s artillery with Lancet UAVs. The Ukrainians are utilising Storm Shadow and GMLRS to try to destroy Russian command and control and munitions stockpiles.

Secondly, the Ukrainians are trying to get the Russians to commit their reserves, moving troops from the third defence line to bolster sectors under pressure. Once these troops are pulled forwards, it will become easier to identify the weak points in the Russian lines, where a breakthrough will not be met by a new screen of repositioned forces.

Thirdly, the Ukrainian military is trying to put pressure across the front to advance through the first line of defences in as much breadth as possible. The reason for this is to increase the options for attacking the main defence line and to keep Russian forces uncertain as to where the main effort will be launched. Furthermore, with such a long front, stretching out Russian troops limits their ability to stack units in depth, pulling more forward.

At some point, the Ukrainians will have to decide where to commit their main assault units, and the offensive will enter its decisive phase. This decision must be conditions-based. It isn’t about adhering to some fixed timeline. When these units are committed, the offensive will either achieve a breakthrough or fail. Success is binary, not linear. The line is either broken or it is not, and Kyiv must shape the battlefield to maximise the probability of a breach.

Putin asserts Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun, while drones strike within Russia

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted Friday that Ukrainian troops have started a long-expected counteroffensive and were suffering “significant” losses.
Link to AP Article

With Russia's significant attack on the Dnieper River dam that was blown to pieces, honestly not surprised if that's the case.

However Kyiv has not made an official mention of this yet.

Kyiv has not specified whether reservists have been mobilized to the front, but its Western allies have poured firepower, defensive systems, and other military assets and advice into Ukraine, raising the stakes for the expected counteroffensive.

WSJ: Nord Stream Sabotage Probe Turns to Clues Inside Poland [archive.is]

German investigators are examining evidence that suggests a sabotage team used Poland, a European Union neighbor and NATO ally, as an operating base to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines built to transport Russian gas through the Baltic Sea.

The probe by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office is examining why the yacht they believe was used to carry out the operation journeyed into Polish waters. Other findings suggest Poland was a hub for the logistics and financing of last September’s undersea sabotage attack that severed the strongest bond tying Berlin to Moscow. Poland, which is conducting its own inquiry, has struggled for months to learn what Germany is investigating.

German investigators have fully reconstructed the entire two-week long voyage of the Andromeda—the 50-foot white pleasure yacht suspected of being involved in one of the biggest acts of sabotage on the continent since World War II—and pinpointed that it deviated from its target to venture into Polish waters.

...

German investigators say they are also looking into why the yacht was rented with the help of a travel agency based in Warsaw that appears to be part of a network of Ukrainian-owned front companies with suspected links to Ukrainian intelligence, according to people familiar with the investigation. And while recent findings appear to have strengthened the view of investigators that Ukrainians staged the plot, they are also examining whether Polish territory might have been used for the attack. Their investigation also found that a white van—sighted in a German port by security cameras and eye witnesses—carried Polish license plates and was used to supply its crew, according to people familiar with the investigation.

NYT: Ukraine Claims First Gains, if Slight, in Counteroffensive [archive.is]

After a week of mostly silence about its newly launched campaign to drive Russian occupying forces from Ukrainian territory, Ukraine’s military on Sunday claimed its first small gains as fighting raged in at least three sectors of the front.

The military operation is expected to be vast, but for the moment it appears to consist mostly of probing attacks and feints.

At least three of them are said to have paid off.

Ukraine’s 68th Brigade posted video on Facebook of its soldiers raising the nation’s blue-and-yellow flag over the village of Blahodatne, in the eastern region of Donetsk. A deputy defense minister said Ukraine’s forces had also taken the nearby village of Makarivka, and the Ukrainian Volunteer Army said it had reclaimed a neighboring settlement, Neskuchne.

“We are driving the enemy from our homeland,” an unidentified soldier says in the video. “It’s the most pleasant feeling. Ukraine will be victorious.”

The claims could not immediately be independently verified, and their defiant tone notwithstanding, they were made in the face of unquestionable losses for Ukraine over the past week of both troops and equipment as the counteroffensive has begun to take shape.

It was also not clear whether the villages were beyond the first lines of Russian defenses — meaning it remains to be seen whether the announcements signaled that Ukraine had managed to break through them.

But after months of speculation, one thing did appear clear over the weekend: The long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive is underway, if not fully. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said as much on Saturday during a surprise visit from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. “At what stage, I will not disclose in detail,” Mr. Zelensky said.

NYT: Root Canal Forces Biden to Postpone Meeting With NATO Chief

A root canal forced President Biden to cancel his public events on Monday and postpone his meeting with Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, to discuss the war in Ukraine.

The White House said that Mr. Biden would not be put under general anesthesia and that the 25th Amendment, which would temporarily transfer power to Vice President Kamala Harris, would not be invoked.

Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor, Mr. Biden’s physician, said in a memo that Mr. Biden had experienced dental pain on Sunday and underwent some initial procedures at the White House.

“The president tolerated the procedure well,” Dr. O’Connor said. “There were no complications.”

But Dr. O’Connor said the president felt “further discomfort” on Monday morning, “which was anticipated.”

He said the “endodontal specialty team” from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center would complete the root canal on Monday at the White House.

Mr. Biden canceled his public events, including a White House reception for diplomats, and Ms. Harris filled in for him at a Monday morning event celebrating college athletes.

He also delayed his meeting with Mr. Stoltenberg until Tuesday.

NYT: C.I.A. Told Ukraine Last Summer It Should Not Attack Nord Stream Pipelines

The Central Intelligence Agency told Ukrainian officials last summer that it had learned of what it thought was an aborted plot by the Ukrainians to attack the Nord Stream pipelines, and the agency reinforced its objection to any such operation, U.S. officials said.

In June 2022, Dutch intelligence officials shared information with the C.I.A. that they had learned the Ukrainian military had been planning an operation using divers to blow up one of the pipelines, according to U.S. and European officials. But the original tip by the Dutch, according to U.S. officials, was that Ukraine had already reconsidered and canceled the operation.

In reality, American officials now believe, the operation was not aborted but delayed, potentially with a different Ukraine-aligned group carrying out the attack.

Explosions destroyed parts of the pipelines, which carry natural gas from Russia to Europe, in September. The Ukrainian government has repeatedly denied responsibility for the attack.

But German investigators later learned that a group of Ukrainians had rented a boat, loaded it with explosives and attacked the pipeline. American intelligence agencies now believe the operation was carried out at least with the loose direction of the Ukrainian government, but they do not know who exactly planned the operation.

It is unclear which U.S. official delivered the message about the pipeline attack to Ukraine. It was not delivered by senior level officials, however, because the United States already believed that Kyiv had reconsidered the wisdom of the attack, according to the American officials. It was also not clear how the Ukrainians responded to the Americans’ message.

The original warning collected by Dutch intelligence included details similar to the final operation, but it also differed in some key respects, according to the European official. The original intelligence said Ukraine intended to attack Nord Stream 1, whereas the actual attack was against both the older pipelines and the just-completed set, known as Nord Stream 2.

Dutch intelligence also reported that the plan would involve using fake Estonian passports, the European official said. At least some members of the group that European investigators believe carried out the attack used fake Bulgarian passports.

The original plan also involved using Ukrainian special forces personnel to rent a submersible and a boat to attack the pipelines, near a spot popular with divers, the European official said.