TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org

(2/2)

“Destruction for destruction’s sake” is how Farrell described the bombardment. But it’s not. It’s standard practice for Russian warplanes to destroy civilian buildings in front-line communities in order to deprive Ukrainian troops of shelter. That the Russians are glide-bombing Vovchansk could be an indicator they intend to escalate their ground assault on the city.

If Russia’s northern campaign is a feint, then the aim is probably to draw—from the east to the north—Ukrainian brigades defending battleground cities such as Chasiv Yar. If the campaign is a real offensive, then entire regiments might attack Vovchansk in the coming days.

The dilemma, for Ukrainian leaders, is that a feint can turn into an offensive with little notice—as long as the Russians can spare the forces from their operations in the east. “It is a shrewd approach, considering Ukraine's manpower constraints,” Finnish analyst Joni Askola wrote.

*The Ukrainian military isn’t taking chances. Elements of several brigades, including the 59th Motorized Brigade and the 93rd Assault Brigade, are already in Vovchansk—or on the way. Notably, the 93rd Assault Brigade is bringing its best CV90 IFVs.*

Ukrainian commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskyi insisted his troops would deploy and redeploy to match the Russians’ moves. “We are aware of the enemy's plans and can respond flexibly to all of his actions,” Syrskyi said.

But even Syrskyi’s optimism concedes one important fact: Russia is acting; Ukraine is reacting. That means the Russians have the initiative.

- David Axe, Forbes

(2/2)

Joyce Vance

https://open.substack.com/pub/joycevance/p/the-week-ahead-40a?r=70k1h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Ukraine’s CV90 Fighting Vehicles Are Rolling Into Vovchansk, Their Crews Expecting A Russian Invasion From The North

Russian forces captured Vovchansk in the early days of the wider Russian invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian forces liberated the city seven months later as part of their first counteroffensive. Now thousands of residents are fleeing—some for the second time in just over two years—as elements of three Russian regiments close in on the city.

The battle for Vovchansk could be one of the first big fights of Russia’s new campaign in the north. After several days of probes, the main dynamics are taking shape.

It’s possible Ukrainian defenses in and around the city are thinner than they should be. “The first line of fortifications and mines simply did not exist,” Ukrainian army officer Denis Yaroslavsky claimed, partially blaming Ukrainian territorial troops who previously held the purportedly incomplete defenses.

Russian commandos are deliberately probing for gaps in Ukrainian lines like might be present in and around Vovchansk. And they’re concentrating their probes in sectors where the geography is advantageous to Russian moves.

In the case of Vovchansk, that means approaching the city from the northwest, where the Donets River forms a protective barrier on the Russians’ right flank. Hugging the river on the way to Vovchansk “allows the enemy to conserve forces,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies explained.

Having identified a vulnerable settlement on favorable terrain, the Russians direct their satellite-guided glide bombs at the settlement as a prelude to a wider attack. According to volunteer Francis Farrell, 20 glide bombs struck Vovchansk on Saturday. “Most of them that we saw just flattened random civilian houses, killing and injuring people and animals,” Farrell wrote.

(1/2)

https://t.me/noel_reports/11833

An airliner flew over Bahkmut

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/32557

✉️Ukrainian postal service 'Nova Poshta' has opened its first two branches in the capital of Great Britain, London, as reported on the company's website.

In addition, 'Nova Poshta' has launched courier delivery services there. This is already the 13th European country where the company has begun operations.

The delivery time from Ukraine to Great Britain is five days. Later, they plan to also offer the option to send and receive parcels through the InPost parcel locker network.

One of the branches in London is a postal office located at 42 Fleet St, Temple, EC4Y 1BT. The other branch is a freight office located at Unit 7, Falcon Court, St. Martin's Way, SW17 0JH.

Worried about his reputation. Good thing he didn’t say "good reputation" because he does not have one.

https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/clarence-thomas-is-rattled/56046/

https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/donald-trump-has-unhinged-late-night-meltdown-about-whoopi-goldberg/56058/

Good morning Resisters everywhere. Looking like rain here. But warm enough for cargo shorts at 65⁰.

Goodnight Resisters everywhere

The 47th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has announced its results on the Avdiivka direction - over 7,000 destroyed Russians, over 100 units of equipment (including two T90 tanks), and 25 drones (ZALA, "Lancet", SuperCam).

In addition, the artillery of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade struck 3 command posts, 12 warehouses, 16 mortar teams, 6 cannons, and 18 trucks. The brigade continues to repel the Russian advance

Other news from the world:

🇬🇧 In Great Britain, for the first time in the world, a person's hearing was restored with the help of gene therapy.

18-year-old Opal Sandy has been deaf since birth due to auditory neuropathy. She was injected with a working copy of the OTOF gene into her ear. The operation lasted only 16 minutes - now the girl hears almost perfectly.

Doctors believe that the trial is just the beginning of gene therapy and marks a new era in the treatment of deafness.

@ukrainejournal

Floods continue in Putinistan. In the Omsk region, a dam broke, in the Tomsk region - 12 settlements were flooded.

Spring floods continue in Russia. In the Ust-Ishim district of the Omsk region, a dam broke again a few days ago, residents are being evacuated from the nearest territories. The village of Ashevany was completely flooded, the water hid cars and the first floors of houses. According to local media, 13 settlements are now flooded on the territory of Kailinsky, Orekhovsky, Slobodchikovsky and Ust-Ishimsky rural settlements. Also, the water washed away 4 roads of district significance, residents are forced to travel by boat. In addition, the Tevrizsky and Tarsky districts were under the threat of flooding.

In the Tomsk region, the most tense situation has developed in the Chainsky district, 12 settlements are flooded there. In the Kolpashevsky, Molchanovsky, Krivosheinsky, Teguldetsky and Bakcharsky districts, some sections and roads are flooded.

The administration of the Chainsky district notified that ten settlements were cut off from the "mainland" due to the flood.

According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, a total of 317 residential buildings and 467 adjacent territories remain flooded in the Ust-Ishim district of the Omsk region.

According to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Tomsk region, more than 100 residential buildings are flooded in the region. The water level in the Tom and Ushayka rivers continues to rise. In addition, the fire season has already begun in the region.

Source

@freerussia_report

(2/2)

The 47th Brigade’s Bradley crews have been fighting hard. One crew recently scored one of the longest direct tank-kills of the Russia-Ukraine war when it hit a Russian T-80 tank with a wire-guided TOW missile from a mile away under the cover of darkness.

This year of fighting has cost the 47th Brigade nearly 80 Bradleys that the analysts at Oryx have identified: 37 destroyed and dozens more damaged, abandoned or captured. Some of the damaged and abandoned vehicles are recoverable and fixable; some surely are write-offs.

All that is to say, the 47th Brigade was burning though its reserves of M-2s fast—until fresh U.S. aid finally arrived.

Now there are enough replacement M-2s in Ukraine, or on the way to Ukraine, to bring the 47th Brigade back up to full strength, make good another year’s worth of losses and also equip a second brigade with the tough IFVs with their powerful 25-millimeter auto-cannons and tank-killing TOW missiles.

(2/2)

The United States Has Given Ukraine a Hundred M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles in Just Two Weeks

In two weeks, the United States has shipped around 100 M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine.

That’s a lot of Bradleys: enough to replace all the 33-ton, 10-person M-2s the Ukrainian army’s 47th Mechanized Brigade—so far Ukraine’s only Bradley-operator—has lost in a year of non-stop combat in southern and eastern Ukraine.

And there should be enough M-2s left over to equip a second brigade with the type.

The U.S. Defense Department has announced two aid packages for Ukraine since the U.S. Congress finally approved $61 billion in fresh financial support for Ukraine on April 23.

Russia-friendly Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives managed to delay that vote for six month before caving.

The two aid packages together are worth $1.4 billion and include ammunition, vehicles and air-defense equipment. Both mention fresh shipments of M-2s without specifying how many M-2s Ukraine would get.

*But when the Pentagon updated its main Ukraine fact sheet on Friday, the new language described “more than 300” M-2s. The previous version of the fact sheet, dated April 26, mentioned “more than 200” M-2s.*

The 47th Brigade equipped three 30-vehicle battalions with Bradleys from the initial consignment of 200 M-2s and deployed the vehicles in combat starting with Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive, which kicked off in early June 2023.

Six months later, the [seasoned] brigade sped east to bolster Ukrainian defenses west of Avdiivka. After Avdiivka fell in February, the 47th Brigade fought a rearguard action for a few weeks and, in late April, was preparing to withdraw for its first brigade-wide period of rest and reset in nearly a year.

But then the Russian 30th Motor Rifle Brigade broke through Ukrainian lines east of Ocheretyne and advanced several miles, compelling the 47th Brigade to rush back to the line.

(1/2)

Every year, on the second Sunday of May, Ukrainians celebrate Mother's Day.

Iryna's son volunteered for the war in the spring of 2022 and has been in the war zone for two years.

His mother made the decision to join the ranks of the Armed Forces a little later.

Iryna knew that not everyone would understand her choice, but in December 2022, she returned from abroad and applied to the TCC .

Why are there so many heroes in Ukraine?

Because every Ukrainian mother is a heroine.❤️

Happy holiday to you! And thank you for everything.

Armed forces of Ukraine.

🇺🇦@ukraine_report 🇺🇦🔱

Interesting information from Agents Atesh.

The African Mercenary Corps is involved in the attack on the Kharkiv region.

Agents of the ATESH movement from the headquarters of the 44th AK report that Russia is using the African Corps in an attack on the Kharkiv region. They are already suffering huge losses.

The mercenaries were not ready for such a war. The Russians send them to the advanced pens, knowing that most of them will not return from the assaults.

We could see all the preparation of this corps at the parade, where 20 people performed their traditional war dance.

There is evidence that there are also mercenaries in the Kharkiv region who have already fought in Mali and Libya.

The Russians are recruiting and using mercenaries from poor countries in an attempt to recoup their losses. All countries in the world should consider whether it is worth interacting with such a country.

🇺🇦@ukraine_report 🇺🇦🔱 Liz

The following is a transcript of an interview with Secretary of State Antony Blinken that aired on May 12, 2024.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Mr. Secretary, I have so many more questions about this, but I have to also ask you about Ukraine because Russia is making this push, as you know, into Kharkiv and the White House says that Russia is expected to increase troop levels. Is this the reality? Is this the cost of the delay in the U.S. delivering weapons to those frontlines?

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Look, there's no- there's no doubt there's been a cost in the months-long delay in getting the supplementary budget request approved and the equipment sent out to- to Ukraine. Just this week, we did a drawdown of about $400 million in defense equipment for Ukraine coming from the supplemental. So we're doing everything we can to rush this assistance out there. Europeans are doing the same. Look, I'm convinced that Ukraine can effectively hold the line in the east, it can continue to press the advantages achieved for itself in the Black Sea, where it's getting as much out through the Black Sea, feeding the world as it did before the Russian re-invasion of Ukraine, as well as to hold Russian forces at risk, including in Crimea to make it more difficult for them to continue this aggression. We've been providing the systems to do that, but it's a challenging moment. We are not going anywhere, and neither are more than some 50 countries that are supporting Ukraine. That will continue and if Putin thinks he can outlast Ukraine, outlast its supporters. He's wrong.

CBS news.

🇺🇦@ukraine_report 🇺🇦🔱 Liz

💥🔥Donetsk Oblast, a Ukrainian FPV munition from the 47th Mechanized Brigade hits a Russian tank, causing a catastrophic cookoff. 👏

⚡️US General: 'Russia will not stop with Ukraine unless they're stopped in Ukraine.’

An autocratic regime like Russia can readily prioritize the expansion of its defense industries over economic well-being to sustain their military actions in Ukraine, along with help from Iran and North Korea, said Lt Gen. Steven L. Basham, U.S. Air Forces in Europe deputy commander.

"Make no mistake. No matter how this ends in Ukraine, Russia will not stop with Ukraine unless they're stopped in Ukraine,” he said.