Ukraine, all the details on the offensive by the Russian armed forces
The large-scale offensive by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine meant an epochal turning point not only from a geopolitical point of view, but also from a military strategic point of view. The in-depth analysis by Mirko Molteni for Defense Analysis
From the first day of operations, February 24, 2022 , it became clear that the large-scale offensive by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine meant an epochal turning point not only from a geopolitical point of view, but also from a military strategic point of view.
On the one hand it showed that President Vladimir Putin's Russia has reaffirmed the supremacy of politics over the economy, given that the Kremlin leadership has chosen the difficult path of war, essentially forcing you, in the perception of the Kremlin, by months and years of substantial Western indifference to the perception of Russian strategic security.
And he chose this path despite knowing that it would cause more or less serious damage to the Russian economy and identifying factors in national interests that go far beyond the mere count of GDP. For this reason it can be said that Putin has issued a precise warning to the West, but perhaps, in part also to China, to the point that it is probable that the world trend to increase military spending will be strengthened for several years to come.
With its "special operation", Russia also shocked those, especially in the West, who thought that the very idea of full-scale warfare was to be dismissed, in favor of light and sophisticated, professional, surgical and emergency forces.
The "twentieth-century" steamroller that instead hit Ukraine seems to say the opposite, the number counts, as does the mere force of impact (including that of armored vehicles), which certainly can be directed by today's electronic devices , but of which accuracy may not be the only fundamental requirement.
Traditional artillery and missiles, tanks that move on dusty roads and helicopters that graze the canopy of trees, a balanced mix of timeless and cutting-edge weapons, are there to remind us that war with a capital G, that " at high intensity ”, always remains the main eventuality for which nations and armed forces must prepare.
The operations of international police, anti-guerrilla or humanitarian aid to civilian populations are certainly relevant, but the signal sent by Moscow made them suddenly recede into a secondary if not marginal position among the tasks for which the military must prepare.
In the space of a few hours, the Kremlin brought us back to at least 1991 and if we consider that the mass factor is even more critical in the case of China, the other great strategic competitor of the United States, one wonders if, thinking with a cold mind after the waters, hopefully, have calmed down, NATO and Western forces in general will not have to struggle with second thoughts and doubts about the path followed in recent decades.
For example, considering that, if the number really still matters, there is no need to reintroduce, in some form, some sort of military service.
Returning, however, since in condemning Putin's offensive the ideology of democracy, at the very origin of the concept, was bothered as always, given that in ancient Greece "democracy" was the power of the "damos" or "demos" , which was the "people in arms", meaning that the basis of political rights was the willingness to defend the community.
Consequently, even in the field of military technology, the dilemma between weapons so expensive and sophisticated that they can be manufactured in a limited number of units could perhaps arise again, which, by vicious circle, would make every single loss of a machine very serious. weapons, or less expensive armaments, suitable precisely for mass wars because they can be rapidly mass-produced and whose loss in battle, often inevitable, does not constitute an excessive drain on resources.
The Russian lesson, so far, has not touched us directly, but what would happen if in the more or less distant future it were a giant like China to take a similar path? And this without going so far as to imagine the eventual rise of organized blocks, and determined for everything, in very populous areas such as Africa or South Asia.
HALF A MILLION MEN
In the space of a few hours, and in the middle of the European continent, a total of half a million men, or almost, found themselves fighting, adding up the troops of the two counterparts. According to estimates in recent days, Russia has mobilized about 200,000 men against Ukraine, added to about 34,000 militiamen from the breakaway republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, while Ukraine has 245,000 troops, including reserves, among the army, navy and air force. mobilized.
After weeks of influx towards the Russian border with the Donbass and also in other points of the Ukrainian border, such as the neighboring lands of Belarus or the Isthmus of Crimea, the Russian forces with a significant armored component and field artillery, including missiles, the offensive began in the very early hours of February 24 when Putin was rejected for the last time by Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky, a compromise offer in extremis.
It will be recalled that the day before, February 23, the Russian president had again asked Ukraine to renounce joining NATO, the main concern of Moscow, in addition to requests from Westerners for a written treaty on strategic assets in Eastern Europe, which remained unheard. But Zelensky still replied: "Ukraine confirms its ambitions to join the EU and NATO".
The next day, while the UN Security Council was underway in New York during the night and the Russian ambassador to the UN Headquarters, Vassilj Nebenzya declared that the Russians "would aim at the Ukrainian political regime", which Putin in the days earlier he had accused of corruption and servility towards the United States, a remarkably complex combined operation was triggered.
The first strategic attacks were carried out with KH-101 and Kh-555 cruise missiles fired by Tupolev Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3 and Tu-160 heavy bombers on the major Ukrainian defense command centers, devastating air bases, arsenals, barracks. The explosions were already warned before dawn near Kiev itself, while also anti-aircraft batteries, notably of S-300 missiles, were annihilated with their radars thanks to the SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defences) missions, conducted by Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bombers armed with Kh-31P anti-radiation missiles.
Kalibr missiles, fired from ships of the Black Sea Fleet, have also contributed to softening the Ukrainian military infrastructure from the early hours, in particular at the naval bases of Mariupol and Odessa, effectively eliminating the operational capabilities of the Ukrainian Navy, already limited to a few low tonnage units.
The Kalibrs also reportedly pounded the Melitopol airport, the Ivano-Frankivsk air base of a Mig-29 squadron of the 114th Air Force Brigade of the Ukraine, and the Genichesk bridge while the Iskander-M ballistic missiles hit several bases. , depots and barracks and the Dnipropetrovsk air base used by Mig 29 and Sukhoi Su-25.
Estimates of the days preceding the attack indicated that about 500 Russian planes were engaged against an aviation, the Ukrainian one, estimated at 220 aircraft, of which only half were combat aircraft. In the early hours of the day it was reported that some Russian helicopters and planes were shot down by the Ukrainian side, including a Kamov Ka-52 filmed in a video posted on the net, but the Kiev Air Force was given in the evening for substantially annihilated, although the only visible evidence were the images of the wreck of an Antonov An-26 transport, while the shooting down of at least two Ukrainian Su-24s are claimed by the anti-aircraft of the pro-Russian militias in Donetsk.
The extent of the Russian air and missile offensive in the first hours of the invasion was assessed by the United States in "over 160 missiles and 200 attacks", while for its part the Ministry of Defense in Moscow spoke of "83 targets hit, including 11 runways, a naval base and three command centers ”.
THE THREE DIRECTORS OF THE OFFENSIVE
The combined offensive on the ground unfolded along three basic lines. One from the Donbass to the West and Southwest, also aiming at the important port of Mariupol, Ukraine's outlet on the Sea of Azov.
One from the south, with amphibious landings in Mariupol itself and Odessa. And finally the third, the most politically important one, with troops entered from the northern borders of the country, and directed to Kharkiv and above all to Kiev. Precisely the fall, or at least the siege, of the capital, which was now given for imminent in the night between 24 and 25 February, had been evoked since the morning when first confused information spoke of "Russian troops trying to take control of Kiev airport ".
Among the first to spread this indiscretion was the American Senator Marco Rubio on Twitter, who as a member of the intelligence commission of the Washington Senate had to rely on first-hand information. Also at the beginning of the morning, the fighting on the northern front was reported 120 kilometers from Kiev, still relatively far away but already in the early hours of February 25, Russian troops were reported 30 kilometers from the city.
Over the course of the hours, however, it became increasingly clear that a direct attack on the Ukrainian capital was underway, supported by continuous raids from the air, but based on what would appear to be a revival, at least in broad terms, of an offensive in style " Kabul 1979 ".
When the Soviet Union started the invasion of Afghanistan, it immediately aimed to occupy the airport of the capital Kabul, with a blitz of airborne troops who from 24 to 27 December 1979 landed by surprise at the airport, securing the perimeter and making them arrive in a few hours a total of 300 Antonov An-12 and An-24 transport airplanes from which 6,000 Red Army soldiers landed. In concert, a mechanized column of 15,000 soldiers dropped from the Soviet-Afghan border to clear the way to Kabul and support the advanced garrison at the airport.
Moreover, on the same 27 December, the Russians advanced from the airport to the Afghan presidential palace with a column of 700 soldiers with armored vehicles disguised as Afghan soldiers, but which were actually special troops of the KGB Alfa and Zenit nuclei. They broke into the palace in total surprise, led by Colonel Grigorij Bojarinov, who died in the action.
UKRAINIAN MILITARIES ARREST TO RUSSIAN TROOPS
In today's Kiev, could something similar be envisaged? At midday on February 24, the building that housed the Ukrainian military intelligence could be seen burning amidst conspicuous volleys of black smoke. In the afternoon, from images and videos, it was finally confirmed that Russian airborne paratroopers of the 31st Air Assault Brigade of the Guard had taken possession of the Hostomel airport, about 30 kilometers north of Kiev, also used as a test runway for the aeronautical company Antonov.
The paras of the 31st, which is framed in the Airborne Forces VDV (Vozdushno Desantnye Voyska) must have suffered various casualties if it is true that some of their Mil Mi-8 helicopters, as well as Kamov Ka-52 for fire support, were shot down in the early stages of landing, as announced by Kiev.
An air boarding allegedly also took place at the Boryspil international airport in Kiev. Since the paratroopers are generally lightly armed troops who can hold a position for a limited time, waiting for reinforcements, it is clear that the air-landings in the airports around the capital anticipate the land offensive towards the capital whose defense would be entrusted mainly to the 1st Armored Brigade with three battalions of T-64BM tanks, plus a battalion of mechanized infantry and BMP1 armored vehicles, with an estimated total force of approximately 1,600 men, 120 tanks and 40 armored vehicles plus artillery supports with 2S1 and 2S3 self-propelled and field rocket launchers BM-21 as well as anti-aircraft batteries with Strela 10 and Tunguska systems.
The Russians also seem to have advanced rapidly in the area of the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant, infamous for the 1986 radioactive accident. part of the Russian soldiers ".
In the evening, after rumors signaling "Russian troops on the outskirts of the capital", President Zelensky provided a provisional toll of human losses, speaking of "137 dead Ukrainians, including civilians and soldiers, and about 50 Russian invaders" while in the morning others sources attributed to the Ukrainian government reported 800 fallen Russians.
Ukrainian Chief of Defense General Valery Zaluzhny (pictured below). he said the Russians lost 30 tanks, 130 armored vehicles, 5 planes and 6 helicopters in combat on the first day of the war – numbers that Moscow denied.
Zelensky declared a state of general mobilization, also having 10,000 rifles distributed to civilians to defend Kiev, also decreeing "a ban on all males aged 16 to 60 to leave the country", so that they participate in the fight against the invader. During the night, around 2.00 am on February 25, while we are writing these lines, Zelensky informed that he would remain in his post despite the entry into Kiev of Russian troops, although the Americans estimated the encirclement of the city from Washington.
The Ukrainian president also dramatically denounced that “groups of Russian saboteurs have entered Kiev, with the aim of destroying Ukraine politically, eliminating the head of state. According to our information, the enemy has me as their number one target, my family as their second target. I remain in the seat of the government together with others ".
Net of the inevitable propaganda language especially in war, this would agree with the most plausible hypothesis formulated in these hours by most analysts, namely the fact that Putin does not intend to conquer the whole of Ukraine but to impose a change of regime by overthrowing the current one. government, after having demolished the country's armed forces, in order to avoid or minimize any more predictable pockets of resistance in the western regions such as Lvov, where, moreover, a possible anti-Russian resistance movement could be supplied with weapons by NATO through the Polish border.
DIFFERENT LANDINGS
Confusion still reigns supreme and it's not easy to understand what's really going on on the pitch. Certainly, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry itself had raised the alarm since the morning of February 24 about the risk of Russian or pro-Russian infiltrators and saboteurs. On the social networks an invitation to Ukrainian citizens to report all possible suspects by calling the special number 102 has been disseminated. According to the Ministry, it even invited them to beware of people wearing red clothing over a camouflage suit.
In the same hours in the port of Odessa an amphibious attack by the elite troops of the 810th Marine Infantry Brigade (Morskaja Pechota), which had already distinguished itself in Syria between 2015 and 2018 against ISIS, under the command of Colonel Dimitri Uskov, and which would now be commanded by Colonel Alexei Sharov.
It is not known whether they used landing ships such as the Ropucha or Gren classes, or large hovercraft of the Zubr type to land. Landings also took place in Mariupol, where Ukrainian resistance is said to be very fierce, so much so that "hundreds of explosions" were heard, a sign of a fierce battle.
After all, Mariupol is an objective of strategic value for the Russians who, with its conquest, would take away from the Ukrainians the outlet on the Sea of Azov and the achievement of territorial continuity between Russia and the Crimean isthmus.
The city would find itself attacked by two directions: by the Russian troops arriving from the sea and by those, flanked by the militias of Donetsk and Lugansk, who would have already broken through the Donbass front, to take the port city behind, from the hinterland.
A Russian landing also occurred on small Snake Island, which was occupied late yesterday evening after it had been surrounded by ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and shelled. It cannot be said how much Ukraine can still resist the paws of the Russian bear, whether hours or days. From Washington, the Pentagon estimates: “We expect different phases in the attack. In short, we are only at the beginning, unless there is a surrender, because the offensive aims to behead the government in Kiev ”.
The Russia-Ukraine confrontation is uneven from the beginning and Russian air superiority, as well as the preventive destruction of command, control and communication centers, makes it very difficult for the forces of Kiev to resist, which even on the ground would not be, on paper, negligible.
The Ukrainian Army deploys about 160,000 troops, but the reserves would exceed 200,000 men. At the front, as mentioned, the Russians would deploy 200,000 men, of which over 150,000 advancing from the Russian-Ukrainian border and 30,000 from Belarus alone, but it is known that the Russian Army has a total of 800,000 men with estimated reserves. in 2 million. The Ukrainian armored component is important, with 1,100 tanks (but many are in the depots) and, moreover, the same geographical environment of the Ukrainian plains, makes it an ideal chessboard for tank warfare.
As is well known, those in Kiev have inherited many tanks from the former USSR and in addition the Malyshev plant in Kharkiv, historically the “heart” of the Soviet tank industry. In addition to the T-64s and T-72s, the Ukrainians also have a few hundred T-80s and also the T-84s, these of local design. With minor differences, they are tanks of the same type as those deployed from Moscow, except for the T-84. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Russia's two most important wagon “forges” remained, Nizhny Tagil's Ural Vagon Zavod and Omsk's Omsk Trans Mash, located in the remote and protected regions beyond the Ural Mountains.
Moscow also deploys many T-72s of the most updated versions, which numerically is still the most important type, updated by covering the hull and turret with increasingly effective types of explosive tiles that act as "reactive armor", that is, they explode when it hits them. an anti-tank weapon, which breaks down its kinetic energy.
Russia also has T-80s, like the Ukrainians, and T-90s (also supplied to India and Egypt) while the new T-14 Armata, which first appeared in public at the 2015 Red Square parade but in service in only 100 units for evaluation tests at the 2nd Taman Division of the Guard and which does not appear to have been sent to the front.
Moscow would have between 2,500 and 3,000 tanks in service plus thousands of others stored in reserve. In total, in the hypothetical case of a general war, such as it could be against NATO or, in the hypothetical future, against China, Russia could deploy over 10,000 battle tanks.
Against the double armor (the hull and the reactive one) of the Russian tanks, the Americans supplied Ukraine with FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles with double hollow charge arranged in tandem, the first to destroy the reactive tile, the second to penetrate the hull or turret, of the wagon.
Although, in theory, a terrestrial confrontation of infantry and chariots between Russians and Ukrainians may be a little more balanced, the Russian domination of the air and the preventive disruptions of Ukrainian networks and infrastructures clearly make a protracted resistance to ' invasion.
(Extract from a long article by Defense Analysis, here the full version )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/ucraina-tutti-i-dettagli-offensiva-delle-forze-armate-russe/ on Fri, 25 Feb 2022 13:28:20 +0000.