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☆ Attack helicopters are giving Russia the edge in the skies over southern Ukraine, says UK intel
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Bethany Dawson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The UK Ministry of Defence said Russia's attack helicopters gave Putin's forces "a temporary advantage." Of all the Russian Air Force's attack helicopters, the Ka-52 is perhaps the most widely used. According to the latest UK Ministry of Defence briefing, Russian troops have reinforced its attack helicopter forces, allowing them to gain "a temporary advantage in southern Ukraine, especially with attack helicopters employing longer-range missiles against ground targets." Of all the Russian Air Force's attack helicopters, the Ka-52 is perhaps the most widely used. Featuring an unusual coaxial rotor design and a side-by-side crew seating arrangement, Insider reported that it has been on the frontline and involved in the thickest fighting more than any other Russian attack helicopter since Russia's attack began in February 2022.

Persons: —, h. Organizations: UK Ministry of Defence, Russian Air, Service, — Ministry of Defence Locations: Ukraine

☆ Opinion: In Ukraine, the Russian military response to the counteroffensive shows how it’s improved – and how it hasn’t
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Opinion Sébastien Roblin | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —The beginning of the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia seems not to have been a resounding success for Kyiv. But they don’t mean that all is lost for Ukraine – or even that Ukraine is now losing. Russia’s artillery ammunition, missile stockpiles and most-modern ground combat vehicles were gravely depleted, so 60-year-old tanks have been withdrawn from storage. It was while attempting to breach a path through one such fortified minefield that the 47th Brigade’s vehicles bogged down last week. Notably, a parallel drive toward Mariupol at the same time as the 47th’s failed attack last week has made fast gains, compelling Russian forces to withdraw from several settlements.

Persons: Sébastien Roblin, Bradley, ” Sebastien Roblin, Sebastien Roblin, Putin, Biden, —, Jens Stoltenberg, ” Organizations: Popular Mechanics, NBC, Forbes.com, Georgetown University, Peace Corps, CNN, Kyiv, Ukraine’s 47th Brigade, Ukraine, Red Army, 47th Brigade, NATO, Twitter, Facebook Locations: China, Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainian, Kursk, Kherson, Normandy, Berdyansk, Crimea

☆ Ukraine reports gains, says Russians 'doing everything' to hold positions
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

KYIV, June 13 (Reuters) - Ukraine reported more gains in the early stages of its counteroffensive on Tuesday, but said Russian forces were "doing everything" they can to defend the territory they have occupied. Maliar said Ukrainian forces had gained control of an area of up to 3 square km (1.16 square miles) but did not say over what period. She said late on Monday that Ukrainian forces had advanced 6.5 km and taken control of an area of 90 square km. That was still only a fraction of the 40,000 square miles that remains under Russia's occupation. She said Russian forces had air support and were showering Ukrainian troops with intense artillery fire, and that Ukrainian troops were encountering "continuous minefields which are combined with anti-tank ditches."

Persons: Maliar, Anna Pruchnicka, Timothy Organizations: Defence, Reuters, Timothy Heritage, Thomson Locations: Ukraine, Bakhmut, Berdyansk, Russia, Kyiv

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke in Finland Friday about peace talks in Ukraine. "The prerequisite for meaningful diplomacy and real peace is a stronger Ukraine," he said. Blinken described the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a catastrophic strategic failure for Moscow that had strengthened NATO, the European Union and Ukraine. Ukrainian officials acknowledged their forces were responsible and claimed Russian ships were evacuating the port. The U.K. Ministry of Defense said the incursions could be a Ukrainian strategy to disperse Russian forces before a counteroffensive.

Persons: Antony Blinken, —, Blinken, Potemkin, Grigory Potemkin, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Zelenskyy, Putin, Dmitry Peskov, Washington, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Serhii Popko, Denis Pushilin, Vyacheslav Gladkov, Roman Starovoit, Alexander Bogomaz Organizations: Service, —, Kremlin, NATO, European Union, General's, Gov, Russia Legion, Air, Ministry of Defense Locations: Finland, Ukraine, United States, Russia, China, Moscow, Kyiv, Crimean, Sweden, Baltic, Beijing, Brazil, Western, Azov, Berdyansk, Russian, Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian, Ukraine's, Donetsk province, Russia's Belgorod, Belgorod, Kursk, Russia's Bryansk, Russia's, Smolensk, Belarus

☆ Russian-backed official says Ukraine shelled port of Berdyansk
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

June 2 (Reuters) - A Russian-installed official in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region said on Friday that Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-controlled port city of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov and that nine people had been reported injured. He shared a video that appeared to show a large cloud of grey smoke rising from near the port area. Reuters was able to confirm the location of the video as Berdyansk but could not independently verify the date the video was filmed. Zaporizhzhia is one of five Ukrainian regions, including the Crimea peninsula, that Russia claims to have annexed. Reporting by Reuters Editing by Gareth JonesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Vladimir Rogov, Gareth Jones Organizations: Reuters, Thomson Locations: Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia, Berdyansk, Azov, Crimea, Russia

“Today our task is training and cleaning the trenches,” a Ukrainian soldier with the call-sign Jenia says. The strikes Podolyak mentions are often referred to as shaping operations – so-called because they aim to ‘shape’ the battlefield – in this case, in Ukraine’s favor. And despite the clear signs that a counteroffensive is coming, Podolyak also refuses to commit to specific dates. Vasco Cotovio/CNNBack on the training grounds, the Offensive Guard’s commander, call sign Kyiv, shares a similar combat philosophy. “We improve our fighting skills in special combat training every day to liberate our lands,” he says.

☆ Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine says still controls part of Bakhmut
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 21 (Reuters) - Russia and Ukraine gave conflicting accounts of the situation in Bakhmut with Kyiv saying its forces still controlled part of the besieged eastern city, while Moscow congratulated the Wagner mercenary force and Russian troops for "liberating" it. FIGHTING* Ukrainian forces have partly encircled Bakhmut along the flanks and still control a part of the city, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Sunday. * Russia claimed on Saturday to have fully captured the destroyed city, which would mark an end to the longest and bloodiest battle of the 15-month war and Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated troops. * U.S. President Joe Biden said the Russians had suffered over 100,000 casualties in Bakhmut. * INSIGHT-How Russians end up in a far-right militia fighting in Ukraine.

☆ Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine says closer to encircling Bakhmut
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

FIGHTING* Ukrainian forces have partly encircled Bakhmut along the flanks and still control a part of the city, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said. * Russia claimed on Saturday to have fully captured Bakhmut, which would mark an end to the longest and bloodiest battle of the 15-month war and Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated troops and Wagner. * A Russian-installed official in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region said Kyiv had struck the Russian-held port city of Berdyansk with British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles. * Leaders of the world's richest democracies at the summit said they would not back down from supporting Ukraine. * INSIGHT-How Russians end up in a far-right militia fighting in Ukraine.

☆ Russian forces lash out indiscriminately as Ukraine increases military pressure on frontline towns
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Nick Paton Walsh Natalie Gallón Kosta Gak Peter Rudden | Nick Paton Walsh | Natalie Gallón | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Local residents stand next to a building that was damaged in the night, following Russian shelling in Komyshevakha, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine on Monday, May 8. Polohy is one of over a dozen frontline settlements that occupying forces announced Friday would be emptied of civilians. It is as yet unclear what impact these evacuations – which on Sunday Russian occupation officials said amounted to 1,600 people – will have on Moscow’s ability to hold frontline towns. He evaded their tight scrutiny of his whereabouts when a local occupation official failed to turn up to work one day, and he drove a minibus of civilians out. The regular effective targeting of Russian positions by Ukrainian firepower sparked a manhunt in the town for an informant.

☆ Russian forces evacuating town near occupied nuclear plant, Kyiv says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

KYIV, May 7 (Reuters) - Russian forces are evacuating residents from the town that serves the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainanian military said on Sunday. In its morning update, Ukraine's General staff said Russian forces were evacuating local Russian passport-holders to the port city of Berdyansk and the town Prymorsk, both on the coast of the Sea of Azov. "The first to be evacuated are those who accepted Russian citizenship in the first months of the occupation," it said in a statement. The head of the U.N.'s nuclear power watchdog said on Saturday the situation around the station, Europe's largest, has become "potentially dangerous". Both sides have accused one another of shelling the plant and efforts to secure a safety zone around it have failed.

☆ Fact Check-Photograph shows July 2022 explosion in Russian ammunition depot, not recent airfield airstrike
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

A picture of a large explosion has been miscaptioned online as if showing a recent Ukrainian strike on a Russian airfield. The image dates from July 2022 and shows an attack on a Russian ammunition depot in Kherson. Reuters found one recent report about a Ukrainian strike in Berdiansk, published on May 1 by Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform (here). The photograph dates from July 2022 and shows a strike on a Russian ammunition depot. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team.

☆ Ukraine could launch its offensive against Russia any moment now. Here's what's waiting
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Tim Lister | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

The defenses continue for hundreds of miles across the meandering southern front – where Ukrainian forces are expected to concentrate their counter-offensive in the coming weeks. This area will be critical should Ukrainian forces try to advance towards the city of Melitopol and split Russian forces in the south. It’s unclear where the equipment went but likely that it was sent north to reinforce Russian defensive lines. Russian-appointed officials in Zaporizhzhia claim there is already a large build-up of Ukrainian forces in the area. Ukrainian officials do not disclose the movement of units.

☆ Russia's troops are tied down in Ukraine, but some of its best subs are still holding the US 'at risk,' top US commanders say
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Christopher Woody | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

US military leaders have warned that Russia's Severodvinsk-class subs are operating near US coasts. Severodvinsk-class subs have a mix of stealth and striking power that worries US and NATO navies. Russia plans to build nine Severodvinsk-class subs, which it calls the Yasen class, and may add more in the future. In addition to nuclear propulsion, Severodvinsk-class subs have advanced quieting technology and are built with low-magnetic steel, making them harder to detect. They demonstrated it in the mid-2010s by firing Kalibr cruise missiles at ISIS targets in Syria, surprising some US officials.

Ukraine’s military said it was inflicting heavy losses on Russian forces in the south of the country in an area that military analysts suggest could be the next target for a Ukrainian offensive. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that the losses had forced Russian troops to set up a field hospital at a hotel complex in the city of Berdyansk.

☆ Drone strikes leave more than a million without power in southern Ukraine, officials say
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Mithil Aggarwal | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

Russia used Iranian-made drones to target energy infrastructure in and around the port city of Odesa, leaving more than 1.5 million people without power, Ukrainian officials said Saturday. “The situation in Odesa region is very difficult,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address posted to his Telegram channel. People watch the soccer World Cup in a restaurant powered by a generator after a drone attack knocked out power in Odessa, Ukraine, on Saturday. The strikes were launched by the U.S.-supplied HIMARS missiles, Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-appointed governor of the region, said on his own Telegram. He added that that it would help Ukrainian forces cut supplies to Crimea, which Russia has been using as a launchpad for its offensives and missile strikes.

"Whatever (the Ukrainians) do, it will be carefully planned, kept secret and will likely be extremely well executed," Ingram added. Some residents in Kherson, meanwhile, are concerned about the risk of Russian shelling of the city once its forces regroup further east. "This Kherson fire support base becomes the anchor to support further manoeuvre by the left flank as it fights its way ... towards Mariupol, Berdyansk, and Melitopol." White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Friday that the United States would continue to support Ukraine militarily "to put Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield" and would not seek to tell it what to do. They still control large parts of Ukraine ... What we should do is strengthen Ukraine's hand," Stoltenberg added.

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