[dabigv13]

Good new article on US intelligence sharing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nationa...-rcna26015

As Russia launched its invasion, the U.S. gave Ukrainian forces detailed intelligence about exactly when and where Russian missiles and bombs were intended to strike, prompting Ukraine to move air defenses and aircraft out of harm’s way, current and former U.S. officials told NBC News.

That near real-time intelligence-sharing also paved the way for Ukraine to shoot down a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the war, the officials say, helping repel a Russian assault on a key airport near Kyiv.

Sounds like the unverified IL-76 shoot down did happen, or at least that anonymous US officials are willing to say it did and NBC is willing to go with it.

The CIA is also devoting significant resources, current and former officials say, to gathering intelligence with the aim of protecting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom the Russians want to kill. The agency is consulting with the Ukrainians on “how best to move him around, making sure that he’s not co-located with his entire chain of command, things like that,” a U.S. official said.

Very good long read here on the war-

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/pu...l-delusion

The VDV – Russia’s airborne forces – spearheaded the invasion. In December, specialist units of
the VDV had wargamed out their role in the repression of Ukrainian civil society alongside the 9th
Directorate of the Fifth Service of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).9 The VDV assault units
received the plan three days before the invasion and started excitedly talking in anticipation of
their daring operation. VDV commanders started discussing their primary objective at Hostomel
in clear. When they landed, therefore, they were met with Ukrainian artillery and a coordinated
counterattack, quickly being driven from the airport.

Dumb dumb dumb.

The question for the Donbas campaign therefore is not where
the exact frontline ends up by the end of May, but instead how this sets the conditions for
subsequent rounds of operations over the summer. For the Ukrainians, there is the question of
reconstitution and staving off exhaustion among their combat units. For the Russians, there is
the challenge of ensuring there are sufficient units in reserve. Both countries are therefore now
preparing for a more protracted fight. In Russia, this preparation has been visible in a steady
shift in rhetoric, which has been paving the way for the continuation of the struggle.

So far, Russia’s attempts to expand its available military manpower has rested on pressuring
conscripts to sign contracts of service and reducing the requirements for people to join without
prior military service. For Russia to significantly increase its numbers it would need to retain its
last round of conscripts and call up reserves. Both of these are politically contentious in Russia.
Nevertheless, the propaganda narrative and local initiatives to rally support appear to be creating
an environment in which 9 May can be used as a fulcrum to mobilise a much larger force. It
appears increasingly likely that rather than use it to announce victory, the Russian government
will instead use 9 May as the day on which the ‘special military operation’ is officially framed
as a ‘war’. The shift towards mobilisation also points to the preparation for a longer struggle.
Perhaps the best demonstration of this is that, parallel to the transition in rhetoric about the
war, the Russian government also embarked upon a process of transitioning its economy on to
a war footing to ensure the long-term supply of critical armaments.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has made extensive use of cruise and ballistic missiles to hit targets of
military, political and economic importance. Given the underperformance of the Russian Air
Force,50 these weapons are vital to the ongoing war effort. Exact stockpiles of these weapons
are not available but as the war has progressed Ukrainian officials have noted a downgrading
of the weapons systems employed for a range of mission sets, including a reversion to Grad-1
systems off the main axis.51 US assessments note that the Russian military appears to be
running low on precision-guided weapons.52

The authors physically inspected one
of these computers recovered from a crashed 9M727 during fieldwork in April. This computer
is roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper and sits inside a heat shield able to withstand the
pressure as the missile accelerates and the heat that engulfs the system. The computer must
be remarkably robust, its components able to continue to function even as the structure
around it is warped by temperature changes. This requires highly specialised materials and
components. Of the seven socket attachment points allowing data to be moved through the
heat shield, one is of Soviet-era design and manufactured in Russia. The remaining six are all
products of US companies. The rails connecting the circuit boards to the computer housing,
which must maintain the alignment of the components under immense forces, are similarly of
US manufacture. The circuit boards themselves are sourced from the US.53

The FSB was managing large-scale penetrations
of the Ukrainian government prior to the invasion. Before the conflict, Ukraine’s domestic
counterintelligence agency, the SBU, was constrained in what it could do to counter these activities,
neither wanting to fracture Ukrainian politics by targeting political parties, nor being confident
that it could ensure prosecution through a compromised courts system. As soon as Russian forces
crossed the border and martial law was declared, things became simpler. In a series of raids the SBU
rapidly closed down the most dangerous elements of Russia’s networks on Ukrainian soil. Many
of Russia’s potential collaborators were left free, since the poor performance of Russian arms saw
their enthusiasm to cooperate with the losing side severely curtailed. Many took their money and
severed communications with their erstwhile handlers. The blame game between the FSB and the
Russian military has been intense.72

Huh, sounds familiar....

Finally, the Russian decision to double down is a high-stakes gamble. If Russia mobilises and
eventually overcomes Ukrainian resistance then NATO will face an aggressive, isolated and
militarised state. If Russia loses then President Putin has now begun radicalising the population
in the pursuit of policies that he will struggle to deliver. Failure to defeat the Ukrainian state after
relentlessly comparing it to the Nazi regime may have serious consequences for Putin and those
around him. To frame a conflict as existential and to lose must necessarily call the suitability of a
leader into question among Russia’s political elites. NATO states therefore need to consider how to
manage escalation pathways that follow if Russia is not only defeated in Donbas but finds its newly
mobilised and poorly trained troops, with few remaining stocks of precision munitions, unable to
deliver a victory in the summer. The death of Putin’s political project is plausible, but it has already
inflicted immense damage internationally and risks doing considerably more.

[dabigv13]

Good new article on US intelligence sharing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nationa...-rcna26015

As Russia launched its invasion, the U.S. gave Ukrainian forces detailed intelligence about exactly when and where Russian missiles and bombs were intended to strike, prompting Ukraine to move air defenses and aircraft out of harm’s way, current and former U.S. officials told NBC News.

That near real-time intelligence-sharing also paved the way for Ukraine to shoot down a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the war, the officials say, helping repel a Russian assault on a key airport near Kyiv.

Sounds like the unverified IL-76 shoot down did happen, or at least that anonymous US officials are willing to say it did and NBC is willing to go with it.

The CIA is also devoting significant resources, current and former officials say, to gathering intelligence with the aim of protecting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom the Russians want to kill. The agency is consulting with the Ukrainians on “how best to move him around, making sure that he’s not co-located with his entire chain of command, things like that,” a U.S. official said.

Very good long read here on the war-

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/pu...l-delusion

The VDV – Russia’s airborne forces – spearheaded the invasion. In December, specialist units of
the VDV had wargamed out their role in the repression of Ukrainian civil society alongside the 9th
Directorate of the Fifth Service of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).9 The VDV assault units
received the plan three days before the invasion and started excitedly talking in anticipation of
their daring operation. VDV commanders started discussing their primary objective at Hostomel
in clear. When they landed, therefore, they were met with Ukrainian artillery and a coordinated
counterattack, quickly being driven from the airport.

Dumb dumb dumb.

The question for the Donbas campaign therefore is not where
the exact frontline ends up by the end of May, but instead how this sets the conditions for
subsequent rounds of operations over the summer. For the Ukrainians, there is the question of
reconstitution and staving off exhaustion among their combat units. For the Russians, there is
the challenge of ensuring there are sufficient units in reserve. Both countries are therefore now
preparing for a more protracted fight. In Russia, this preparation has been visible in a steady
shift in rhetoric, which has been paving the way for the continuation of the struggle.

So far, Russia’s attempts to expand its available military manpower has rested on pressuring
conscripts to sign contracts of service and reducing the requirements for people to join without
prior military service. For Russia to significantly increase its numbers it would need to retain its
last round of conscripts and call up reserves. Both of these are politically contentious in Russia.
Nevertheless, the propaganda narrative and local initiatives to rally support appear to be creating
an environment in which 9 May can be used as a fulcrum to mobilise a much larger force. It
appears increasingly likely that rather than use it to announce victory, the Russian government
will instead use 9 May as the day on which the ‘special military operation’ is officially framed
as a ‘war’. The shift towards mobilisation also points to the preparation for a longer struggle.
Perhaps the best demonstration of this is that, parallel to the transition in rhetoric about the
war, the Russian government also embarked upon a process of transitioning its economy on to
a war footing to ensure the long-term supply of critical armaments.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has made extensive use of cruise and ballistic missiles to hit targets of
military, political and economic importance. Given the underperformance of the Russian Air
Force,50 these weapons are vital to the ongoing war effort. Exact stockpiles of these weapons
are not available but as the war has progressed Ukrainian officials have noted a downgrading
of the weapons systems employed for a range of mission sets, including a reversion to Grad-1
systems off the main axis.51 US assessments note that the Russian military appears to be
running low on precision-guided weapons.52

The authors physically inspected one
of these computers recovered from a crashed 9M727 during fieldwork in April. This computer
is roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper and sits inside a heat shield able to withstand the
pressure as the missile accelerates and the heat that engulfs the system. The computer must
be remarkably robust, its components able to continue to function even as the structure
around it is warped by temperature changes. This requires highly specialised materials and
components. Of the seven socket attachment points allowing data to be moved through the
heat shield, one is of Soviet-era design and manufactured in Russia. The remaining six are all
products of US companies. The rails connecting the circuit boards to the computer housing,
which must maintain the alignment of the components under immense forces, are similarly of
US manufacture. The circuit boards themselves are sourced from the US.53

The FSB was managing large-scale penetrations
of the Ukrainian government prior to the invasion. Before the conflict, Ukraine’s domestic
counterintelligence agency, the SBU, was constrained in what it could do to counter these activities,
neither wanting to fracture Ukrainian politics by targeting political parties, nor being confident
that it could ensure prosecution through a compromised courts system. As soon as Russian forces
crossed the border and martial law was declared, things became simpler. In a series of raids the SBU
rapidly closed down the most dangerous elements of Russia’s networks on Ukrainian soil. Many
of Russia’s potential collaborators were left free, since the poor performance of Russian arms saw
their enthusiasm to cooperate with the losing side severely curtailed. Many took their money and
severed communications with their erstwhile handlers. The blame game between the FSB and the
Russian military has been intense.72

Huh, sounds familiar....

Finally, the Russian decision to double down is a high-stakes gamble. If Russia mobilises and
eventually overcomes Ukrainian resistance then NATO will face an aggressive, isolated and
militarised state. If Russia loses then President Putin has now begun radicalising the population
in the pursuit of policies that he will struggle to deliver. Failure to defeat the Ukrainian state after
relentlessly comparing it to the Nazi regime may have serious consequences for Putin and those
around him. To frame a conflict as existential and to lose must necessarily call the suitability of a
leader into question among Russia’s political elites. NATO states therefore need to consider how to
manage escalation pathways that follow if Russia is not only defeated in Donbas but finds its newly
mobilised and poorly trained troops, with few remaining stocks of precision munitions, unable to
deliver a victory in the summer. The death of Putin’s political project is plausible, but it has already
inflicted immense damage internationally and risks doing considerably more.