Ukraine SitRep: The Power Plant War - Ideological Losses - More Signs Of Corruption

 

moon of alabma

The Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski is lobbying Congress through U.S. media for more weapons and monetary support. It requires him to finally depict the situation as dire as it is:

Speaking to the PBS news hour on Tuesday, April 16, Zelensky underlined Ukraine’s air defences' critical condition.

“I'll give you a very simple example,” he said.

“Eleven missiles were launched towards the Trypillya [thermal power] station, upon which the electricity supply in the Kyiv region depends. We managed to intercept the first seven, but the remaining four hit Trypillya. Why? Because we had zero missiles left. We have exhausted all the missiles that were defending Trypillya,” the President added.
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In response to the targeting of critical infrastructure, Zelensky used this example to once again call upon Ukraine’s allies to urgently supply the weapons Kyiv needs, particularly air defense launchers and missiles.

“Frankly speaking, without this assistance, we stand little chance of victory, because we need to be significantly stronger than our adversaries. The current ratio of artillery shells stands at 1 to 10. Can we endure for much longer? No,” Zelensky said.

It is good to see that Zelenski is finally noticing the situation Ukraine is in.

The electricity infrastructure is indeed a critical point. John Helmer, via Naked Capitalism, suggest that Russia is using the destruction of Ukrainian power plants to press for its unconditional surrender.

Helmer quotes the Colonel Cassad blog site:

Boris Rozhin, whose Colonel Cassad military blog broadly represents General Staff thinking, reports the operational breakthrough demonstrated on April 11, and explains what the maps of current targeting foreshadow for the next round of strikes, and the rounds after that. Rozhin republishes his analysis from RT, the state media organ.

“By the evening of April 11, Ukrainian sources reported that air-launched X-69 missiles could be used to hit the Tripolskaya TPP [Thermal Power Plant]. So far, there is no confirmation of this information, but it is worth studying these missiles in more detail. Their range is almost 20 times less than that of the X-101 missiles [equivalent to about 250-500 kilometres], the carriers of which are strategic aircraft of the Aerospace Forces [Tu-95]. In their [X-69] function, they are closer to the foreign [Anglo-French] Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles, which are being attempted for strikes on the Crimean Bridge. The [X-69’s] long range of the 300 km could be enough if the launches of missiles were carried out from the territory of the Bryansk region. If the use of missiles is confirmed in the future, it will mean that no energy facility of the Ukraine on the Dnieper River can work safely, and the strike capabilities of the Aerospace Forces have multiplied.” https://t.me/rt_russian/197065

The lack of power supply is not the only unsolvable problem Zelenski has.

The situation at the frontline is deteriorating. One of the critical sectors in now Chasiv Yar, some 10 kilometer west of Bakhmut, where the Russian forces recently managed to make some crucial progress.

Chasiv Yar - April 1 2024

biggerChasiv Yar - April 16 2024

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Ground that had been held by parts of the 67th Separate Mechanized Brigade had been given up very quickly.

The Ukraine command investigated and found the root cause in the ideological framework of the 'nationalist' brigade:

After losing some positions on the Chasiv Yar front in Donetsk Oblast, where heavy fighting has been ongoing since the beginning of 2024, the 67th Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Right Sector Ukrainian Volunteer Corps is being investigated and the military personnel who served as the brigade’s backbone are being transferred to other units.
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One of the factors revealed by the audit was issues within the brigade. The leadership allegedly separated the soldiers from the Right Sector and those who were transferred from other parts during the recent replenishment (they were referred to as "pixels", in reference to the pattern on the Ukrainian military uniform). The attitude toward the "pixels" was even worse; they were the first to be sent into combat, and their lack of experience made them lose territory.

According to a source of Ukrainska Pravda, this was not the only reason for the brigade's combat capacity deficiencies, as revealed by the audit.

According to a former Ukrainian Volunteer Corps fighter who served in the unit during the 2014-2018 anti-terrorist operation in Ukraine's east and the first year of the full-scale invasion, the current problem stems from the inability to reform the former volunteer unit into a regular brigade of the Armed Forces.

Following the reformatting of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps into the 67th Brigade, volunteers were forced to live "according to military tenets", as determined by the newly formed army command. The former Ukrainian Volunteer Corps leaders lacked the military experience necessary for high positions.

The street gangs and hooligans of the fascist Right Sector, who played a major role during the so called Maidan revolution, were not keen to be real soldiers. They put the least experienced mobilized men into the frontline and kept their ideological brethren in the back.

Such behavior had been fine under the former Commander in Chief General Zaluzhni who has a well known affinity for the hard right 'nationalists' units. But the new Commander in Chief General Syrski needs real soldiers, not amateurish terrorists:

During the tenure of former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the backbone of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, particularly Andrii Stempitskyi, was able to maintain some autonomy in the brigade while receiving assistance from the General Staff.

Quote: "And when Sirskyi was appointed, they were confronted with the fact that they must only do activities that are appropriate for their official position. They saw it as political persecution. For highly ideological Ukrainian Volunteer Corps combatants, this appears to be the end of a movement, but it is actually the system bringing its combat units up to standard."

Strana adds a bit of history (machine translation):

Recall that the" Ukrainian Volunteer Corps "(DUK) was formed in 2014 by the "Right Sector" during the anti-terrorist operation. After that, for a long time he was not a member of any of the official law enforcement agencies of Ukraine, which raised questions about the ambiguity of his legal status. This continued until 2018, after which most of the DUK joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Like other fascists groupings in Ukraine, i.e. Azov, the DUK or 'Right Sector has multiplied during the war. It has infiltrated more units:

In 2023, the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps was split into two parts: one joined the Special Operations Forces and the other formed the 67th Separate Mechanised Brigade. In February 2024, a portion of the Da Vinci Wolves Unit transferred from the 67th Brigade to the 59th Separate Motorised Infantry Brigade.

'Reforming' the 'nationalist' brigades will be quite a task for the new command under Syrski. As he was born in Russia they may in the end declare him to be their ultimate enemy.

Another problem Zelenski should, but wont, care for, are the signs of corruption which due to the war have only increased:

By law, Ukrainian officials such as lawmakers, prosecutors, and judges must declare their assets to the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NACP).

The NACP received some 664,000 documents by March 31, which was the submission deadline for 2023, Economic Pravda reported.

The news site reported Wednesday that it randomly selected declarations for 2,200 officials to see how their fortunes had changed from 2022 to 2023.

It found that every sixth official had bought an apartment or house, and every third one a car. They purchased 721 cars, 268 apartments, and 90 new houses.

Meanwhile, even with the new asset purchases, the officials’ savings increased.

Economic Pravda found that the cash and bank deposits of the declarants increased by about a quarter during the two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The dire economic situation of Ukraine leaves no explanation but corruption for this (machine translation):

In Ukraine, record sales of luxury foreign cars were recorded last year. Some premium brands were included in the top 10 best-selling cars, which was not even in peacetime. And the number of Tesla cars in Ukraine has increased almost 10 times compared to 2021.

Such a boom in demand for expensive cars in a warring country, at first glance, looks at least strange. But there are explanations for this.

Used Teslas have become a bit cheaper in Ukraine. But the main reason why the sales of luxury cars in Ukraine is booming is this:

Third (and this is the main thing), there is a category of new applicants for luxury cars-people whose welfare has grown significantly since the beginning of the war.

"Before the war, a man drove a modest Volkswagen. And then he sat down on the stream, got money, decided to upgrade the car, bought a Range Rover. And there are a lot of them," one of the car dealerships in Kiev told us.

According to employees of the salon, massively upgrading cars to something "more decent", are in particular, the security forces.

In addition, a whole layer of people appeared in the country, who became very rich during the war. Including on corruption schemes for supplies to the army. They are also a major category of luxury car buyers. Yes, and other expensive things. For example, one of the dealers of luxury watches told Strana that in the last year its sales are breaking records for the entire existence of the business.

While Zelenski is begging Congress it should consider that someone will have to pay for those who 'sit down on the stream' and gain from it.

Posted by b on April 16, 2024 at 15:04 UTC | Permalink  https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/ukraine-sitrep-the-power-plant-war-ideological-losses-more-signs-of-corruption.html#more