Red Sea, Black Sea
Red Sea, Black Sea
Riyadh, Damascus, Kogălniceanu and Astana.
[Russian reconnaissance of a Ukrainian airfield; the before of the before and after.]
Published: 2024-07-06
Russian Diplomacy
From The Duran, Alexander Mercouris related that Russia has:
requested that Syria, despite the repeated attacks by Israel on its territory which have been going on for years and years, does not effectively attack Israel.
asked Saudi Arabia if it would be okay with them if Ansar Allah were to receive some super-sonic (not hyper-sonic) missiles?
The second point confirms that which international analysts have been expecting. It does not actually matter whether this occurred. The reporting of it is the warning.
Operation Papa's Garden (as this newsletter renamed 'Prosperity Guardian') is 8 months old, cost the US $1 billion and has had no effect whatsoever on Ansar Allah's ability to attack Zionist shipping. What the US navy is doing there only they know.
They may have had fun shooting down the odd missile and dodging the odd drone. But, in the process they (US + UK) attacked Yemen and Ansar Allah. Ansar Allah will feel fully justified in sinking a US naval vessel, given appropriate weaponry. The have been bombed, starved and blockaded for 10 years by the US, or its proxies Saudi Arabia and the UAE. US weapons have bombed their weddings and school buses. Their land is scattered with bring yellow, unexploded cluster munitions which their children find.
Ansar Allah are unlikely to feel threatened by anything and might like some fast, precision rockets.
The Black Sea
John Helmer informs that Russia appears to be employing a new tactic over the Black Sea in response to the US facilitated attack on the children on the beach in Sevastopol. Well over a year ago a Russian fighter jet dumped excess fuel onto a NATO plane as a non-lethal attack. The current variant against unmanned reconnaissance planes is the creation of serious turbulence in front of their flight path.
One imagines that these types of aerial non-lethal attack maneuvers require an incredibly skilled pilot. They are possibly made slightly safer by the fact that the Global Hawk against which the attacks were being delivered do not have pilots. The robot controlled plane is following a pre-programmed, intermittently updated flight path.
Helmer's quoted sources use the phrase "airsick" to describe the NATO response to this new non-lethal attack. The Global Hawks may not like flying through extremely turbulent air. The US has withdrawn its "Global Hawk" platform from the Black Sea. It is replaced by Poseidon P-8A, which is a submarine surveillance plane, and a British reconnaissance plane. The British plane may have been a RC-135V Rivet Joint. Whatever the British plane was, it was accompanied by two Typhoon fighter jets.
Another source claimed that the Rivet Joint planes were relocated from Waddington, England to Kogălniceanu Air Base base, near Constanta, Romania. When was not specified. To name the operation “enhanced air policing”, Helmer cites a 2017 NATO press release. This informs that the UK's RAF has experience operating Rivet Joint craft from Constanta in Romania and thus it is plausible that these planes are replacing the newly disappeared Global Hawks. The likelihood that the replacement NATO reconnaissance is British is further supported by the fact that it is being guarded by two RAF Typhoon jets when deployed.
The consequence of the change from Global Hawk to the Poseidon P-8A and whatever the other is (with escort) is that these have a lesser range of surveillance and a shorter maximum flight time. This is reducing the information being received through NATO by ground forces in Ukraine to attack Russia's systems. Recall that any air-defense system, missile launcher or radar, lights up when it actively engages to shoot down incoming missiles. This data creates new targets. Or, to put it another way, the longer an air-defense system is active while under surveillance, the more vulnerable it is. The reduced length and range of NATO surveillance gives Russian defense systems more time to reposition to safety.
The military commentators which Helmer quotes note that Russia needs, or very much wants, the sea trade on the Black Sea to continue for at least two reasons: export of oil and import of electronics. Thus, it is disadvantageous to provoke NATO into a air war over the Black Sea. Creating a war zone over the Black Sea would also anger Turkey, which under Erdogan is increasingly interested in the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation), having attended the meeting just held in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Seeing as Russia's use of these new non-lethal attacks on the Global Hawks has caused a change in NATO's reconnaissance operations the commentators advocate pushing a little harder. Their suggestion is that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (AFRF) declare military exercises over some large area of the international airspace over the Black Sea.
This would mean that should NATO craft enter the area and get stunned and fried by Russia's electronic warfare systems, or shot down by missiles, it would be their fault. After a pause, Russia can declare another exercise. Rinse and repeat.
It will be interesting to see how Russia proceeds. Its political leadership are under pressure to secure the safety of the people. Its summer and people want to enjoy the beaches.
On the ground in what remains of Ukraine
The two fronts north of Kharkiv inside Ukraine created by the AFRF in Lypsi and Vovchansk remain. Russia's strategy of forcing the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to reposition soldiers and support in an attempt to defend against further incursions or to push the AFRF back have succeeded. The AFU has lost tens of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of armored vehicles in their attempts. Many of these have been lost in deployment as the AFRF's surveillance saw the AFU units moving and destroyed them in transit.
Russia has not only held the strategic locations it captured, but also built defensive lines behind them for both of these two new fronts.
Predictions by some of new fronts being created in the Sumy region have been partially vindicated. Ukraine has successfully attacked some AFRF units on Russian territory approaching the Sumy border, but these successes are rare. Four small to medium incursions into Ukraine have been created by the AFRF across the border region from ranging Sumy to Kharkiv. This has required the AFU to maintain their presence. These four small incursions are in addition to the two significant fronts north of Kharkiv. All of them are fixing in place significant AFU resources and soldiers.
These threats, provocations and attacks have denuded the AFU of reserves which are very much needed in the east. Russia has been advancing carefully and consistently from east of Lugansk (Kupiansk), southward through all of Donetsk and all the way down to Zaporozhye. There is activity in Kherson, but very little change of territory.
Which areas are more significant in the AFRF advances, changes from fortnight to fortnight. The AFRF have maintained constant pressure on the major town of Chasiv Yar to west of Bakhmut. At some cost, the AFRF have captured the "citadel" (high rise complex) to the east of the Siversk-Donetsk canal (some of which is above ground in pipelines) which divides the city.
Other advances are happening all over Donestsk, with a few more in Zaporozhye, and a potentially significant one in central Kupiansk. That potential advance is to Borova. The capture of it would deny the AFU almost all logistics to northeast of Kharkiv all the way around to the middle of the existing north-south Kupiansk front. This would be an utter disaster for Ukraine.
Ukraine is being pressured everywhere.
The Daily Grind
The conflict is dominated by surveillance platforms (drones) with tree-lines providing cover. Russia's most common tactic is envelopment (creating a cauldron). Advances are made using rapid forces (motorbikes!) to reach tree-lines. From there, further vision is acquired (more drones). Artillery are used to soften some positions, with air delivered glide bombs (FABs) to break the fortifications of others. Each capture of new territory threatens supply to AFU positions to the sides (commonly north and south). Multiple successes in an area threaten to collapse supply, envelopment and thus surrender by local AFU units. When these successful advances occur, the AFU has to retreat.
The AFRF's new weapon is the FAB-3000. 3 tonnes of TNT will destroy just about anything. It leaves the AFU with no front-line position which can be defended for any extended period. The AFRF advance is constant, cautious, devastating and unstoppable. There are pauses as Russia re-evaluates which areas are more vulnerable, and to rotate troops. These pauses are brief.
Ukraine's universal mobilization has reached its prison population. Reports from the north (Kharkiv) are that units are refusing to attack. Reports from the east are that new recruits (dragged off the streets) are surrendering and also providing their captors with the coordinates of command HQs. This is creating distrust between Ukrainian veterans and new soldiers. The new recruits are often brought to the front lines blindfolded so that they cannot provide intelligence if they surrender or are captured. In summary, the AFU is short on both troops and morale.
On the 2nd, 3rd and 4th July Russia released videos of the destruction of aircraft on 3 airfields. These were variants of Su types (Su-24,25,26) and helicopters. A fuel depot was also destroyed. The released videos show the before and after of these attacks. This implies that the AFU were either unaware that their aircraft were being surveilled, or that the time for an AFU response was longer than that for Russia to act on the intelligence. Either is terrible news for the AFU. They cannot protect aircraft at airfields.
Dima (from Military Summary) stated "from this one can conclude that whenever F-16s arrive, they will be immediately destroyed". This will be the AFRF's top priority for multiple reasons. F-16s can carry nuclear warheads. F-16s will threaten the AFRF's domination of the sky. The F-16s will be not be tolerated.
The situation, of forces destroyed in transit, of devastating air delivered FABs and of low morale are all a result of the AFRF having destroyed Ukraine's air defenses. For the year preceding, every single PATRIOT component detected was destroyed as soon as possible, usually with hypersonic missiles. NATO has none left to provide. Russia rules the skies over Ukraine and there is nothing that NATO can do about it apart from supplying the long awaited F-16s which will the priority target for the AFRF.
Russia is in no rush. It would like someone to negotiate with, but as they are not forthcoming, Russia can just slowly, methodically, atrit the AFU into dust. There are no more theatrical moments for the West to get excited about. There are no wunderweapons. There are scared, untrained soldiers, some very young, others old, trying not to die at the hands of their Ukrainian possibly-Nazi commanders.
Russia's political leadership is certainly not happy that Russians are dying. They, however, have no trouble recruiting. Russian men are volunteering in the tens of thousands a month.
Doctrine and Direction
What Russia has demonstrated is exactly the doctrine which Jacques Baud spoke about with The Duran half a year ago. This is how a super-power fights a long war.
Once it became crystal clear that NATO would not permit negotiations, Russia re-commissioned its WWII era military-economic council. Its dormant weapons production industries were awoken. They are running multiple shifts. Russia has called upon its allies and trading partners to secure its economy and supply.
Russia is ready to be invaded by the entirety of NATO. NATO would lose.
Conversely, Russia is totally uninterested in conquest beyond some parts of Ukraine which NATO offered it by arming its Nazis and running the 8 year long civil war. As Gilbert Doctorow correctly noted, Russia has been looking for a new security architecture. It tried to engage Europe and NATO in 2008 and again in 2021.
Russia was rebuffed and has lost interest in even talking to Europe. Europe does not yet realize it, but it is in serious trouble. Russia knows this and wants nothing to do with it. Russia is the 4th largest economy and has the largest, China, as a Strategic Partner. Europe, frankly, is not worth pissing on. The EU is a dysfunctional, vassalized technocracy and Europe’s part of NATO couldn’t fight its way out of a wet paper bag.
The SCO is integrating Asia. Southwest Asia, the energy rich region, is sick of being called "the Middle East", a vassal of some bygone European powers. Iran and Saudi Arabia are trading energy with China in Renmimbi. As soon as Iraq is able to stop using US banks, it will also de-dollarize. The Petro-dollar died over a year ago. There is only so much advantage can be gained from chaos. Southwest Asia is sick of the US, and Israel too.
When Russian Federation Foreign Minister Lavrov stated that it will be generation before Russia wishes to speak to Europe again many people may have thought that he was speaking of a period of time. Did he mean 20 years? No, he meant that Europe will need to train a new generation of leaders and diplomats who are not ideologically invested in some post-WWII fantasy but understand the world as it is.
Doctorow's conclusion from the small amount which has been revealed from the SCO meeting in Astana is that Russia is again looking for a new security architecture.
Europe, and by extension the US, are not included in it.
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Sources
June Saw the Most Houthi Attacks on Red Sea Shipping of the Year, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar, 2024-07-03
Russian tactics have neutralized US drones over the black sea – they have been replaced by manned aircraft, Rivet Joint and Poseidon, John Helmer, Dances with Bears, 2024-07-03
Significance of the latest Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, Gilbert Doctorow, Gilbert Doctorow, 2024-07-05
New ATACMS airbase plan as Ukraine offensive plan fades, Christoforou and Mercouris, The Duran, 2024-07-04
The Heat🔥Niu-York Front Is Collapsing💥3 Destroyed Air Bases In 2 Days. Military Summary For 2024.7.3, Dima, Military Summary, 2024-07-03
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