Here are the key takeaways from this evening’s Ukraine Update from the great team at ISW
General David H. Petraeus, US Army (Ret.) • FollowingPartner, KKR & Chairman, KKR Global Institute
11 October 2022: Here are the key takeaways from this evening’s Ukraine Update from the great team at ISW:
– Russian forces conducted massive missile strikes across Ukraine for a second day in a row. Russian forces fired nearly 30 cruise missiles from strategic bombers and damaged critical infrastructure in Lviv, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia oblasts.
– Ukrainian air defense reportedly destroyed 21 cruise missiles and 11 unmanned aerial vehicles. Russian forces additionally continued to launch attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure with Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.
– Army General Sergey Surovikin’s previous experience as commander of Russian Armed Forces in Syria likely does not explain the massive wave of missile strikes across Ukraine over the past few days since his assumption of command there, nor does it signal a change in the trajectory of Russian capabilities or strategy in Ukraine. Surovikin has been serving in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as have many senior Russian commanders similarly associated with Russian operations in Syria. Disregard for international law and brutalizing civilian populations was standard operating procedure for Russian forces in Syria before, during, and after Surovikin’s tenure.
– Russia cannot further “Syrianize” the war largely because of its failure to gain air superiority, which precludes its ability to launch the kind of massive carpet-bombing campaigns across Ukraine that it could, and did, conduct in Syria.
– The Russian Federation is likely extracting ammunition and other materiel from Belarusian storage bases—activity that is incompatible with setting conditions for a large-scale Russian or Belarusian ground attack against Ukraine from Belarus. A train with 492 tons of ammunition from Belarus reportedly arrived at the Kirovskaya Railway Station in Crimea. Belarusian officials plan to send an additional 13 trains with weapons, equipment, ammunition, and other unspecified materiel from five different Belarusian bases in the future.
– Russian and Belarusian forces remain unlikely to attack Ukraine from Belarus. Belarus does, however, remain a co-belligerent in Russia’s war against Ukraine, materially supporting Russian offensives in Ukraine and providing Russian forces with havens from which to attack Ukraine with precision munitions.
– Ukrainian forces in the east continued to conduct counteroffensives east of the Oskil River and in the direction of Kreminna-Svatove, and also continued ground attacks in the south in Kherson.
– Russian reporting of explosions in Dzhankoy, Crimea, indicated panic over losing further logistics capabilities in Crimea following the Kerch Strait Bridge explosion.
– Russian federal subjects are announcing new extensions of mobilization, which may indicate that they have not met their mobilization quotas. #ukrainewar#ukrainecampaign#Intelligencecommunity #linkedintopvoicesInstitute for the Study of War
– Russian forces conducted massive missile strikes across Ukraine for a second day in a row. Russian forces fired nearly 30 cruise missiles from strategic bombers and damaged critical infrastructure in Lviv, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia oblasts.
– Ukrainian air defense reportedly destroyed 21 cruise missiles and 11 unmanned aerial vehicles. Russian forces additionally continued to launch attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure with Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.
– Army General Sergey Surovikin’s previous experience as commander of Russian Armed Forces in Syria likely does not explain the massive wave of missile strikes across Ukraine over the past few days since his assumption of command there, nor does it signal a change in the trajectory of Russian capabilities or strategy in Ukraine. Surovikin has been serving in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as have many senior Russian commanders similarly associated with Russian operations in Syria. Disregard for international law and brutalizing civilian populations was standard operating procedure for Russian forces in Syria before, during, and after Surovikin’s tenure.
– Russia cannot further “Syrianize” the war largely because of its failure to gain air superiority, which precludes its ability to launch the kind of massive carpet-bombing campaigns across Ukraine that it could, and did, conduct in Syria.
– The Russian Federation is likely extracting ammunition and other materiel from Belarusian storage bases—activity that is incompatible with setting conditions for a large-scale Russian or Belarusian ground attack against Ukraine from Belarus. A train with 492 tons of ammunition from Belarus reportedly arrived at the Kirovskaya Railway Station in Crimea. Belarusian officials plan to send an additional 13 trains with weapons, equipment, ammunition, and other unspecified materiel from five different Belarusian bases in the future.
– Russian and Belarusian forces remain unlikely to attack Ukraine from Belarus. Belarus does, however, remain a co-belligerent in Russia’s war against Ukraine, materially supporting Russian offensives in Ukraine and providing Russian forces with havens from which to attack Ukraine with precision munitions.
– Ukrainian forces in the east continued to conduct counteroffensives east of the Oskil River and in the direction of Kreminna-Svatove, and also continued ground attacks in the south in Kherson.
– Russian reporting of explosions in Dzhankoy, Crimea, indicated panic over losing further logistics capabilities in Crimea following the Kerch Strait Bridge explosion.
– Russian federal subjects are announcing new extensions of mobilization, which may indicate that they have not met their mobilization quotas.
#ukrainewar #ukrainecampaign #Intelligencecommunity
#linkedintopvoices Institute for the Study of War