Even in a special military operation, risk-taking being rewarded is not always characterized as moral hazard. The losses of Russia’s military during its invasion of Ukraine are irreversible. Even GOP senators bristle at Ron DeSantis not thinking that defending democracy is in America’s vital interest. The last time a dictator invaded a European country, it led to WWII.
A Russian fighter jet forced down a US Air Force drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday after damaging the propeller of the American MQ-9 Reaper drone, according to the US military.
The Reaper drone and two Russian Su-27 aircraft were flying over international waters over the Black Sea on Tuesday when one of the Russian jets intentionally flew in front of and dumped fuel on the unmanned drone several times, a statement from US European Command said.
The aircraft then hit the propeller of the drone, prompting US forces to bring the MQ-9 drone down in international waters. Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder added Tuesday that the Russian aircraft flew “in the vicinity” of the drone for 30 to 40 minutes before colliding just after 7 a.m. Central European Time.
“Our MQ-9 aircraft was conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9,” Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of US Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, said in the statement. “In fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash.”
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated on March 14 that Poland could supply MiG-29 multirole fighters to Ukraine within four-to-six weeks. Morawiecki stated that Poland is ready to give Ukraine an unspecified proportion of its total fleet of 28 MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine as part of an international coalition. Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad previously signaled Slovakia’s support for providing Ukraine MiG-29 aircraft on March 9.[18] The Ukrainian Air Force operates MiG-29s and would be able to use them in counteroffensive operations if Ukraine receives them with enough time in advance of its next counteroffensive.
Prominent Russian milbloggers are reamplifying a longstanding Russian information operation that seeks to weaponize religion to discredit Ukraine.
Russian authorities continue measures to mobilize the struggling Russian defense industrial base (DIB) for a protracted war effort.
Two Russian Su-27 aircraft forced down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea in international airspace. US General James B. Hecker stated that two Russian aircraft hit the drone nearly causing both aircraft to crash and resulting in the loss of the drone.[15] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that the drone crashed due to “sharp maneuvering.”[16] The incident will not cause an escalation to direct conflict between Russia and the US. Russian forces have used coercive signaling against US and allied flights and naval vessels for decades in multiple theaters without triggering conflict.[17] The US and Russian presidents retain full freedom to choose how to respond to such incidents, and there is nothing automatic about escalation in such situations. Given President Joe Biden’s repeated commitments to avoid committing US forces to direct conflict with Russia and the Kremlin’s clear and repeatedly demonstrated reluctance to get into a war with NATO, there is no reason for incidents such as these to cause dangerous escalations.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated on March 14 that Poland could supply MiG-29 multirole fighters to Ukraine within four-to-six weeks.
Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces continue building defenses along Russia’s border with Ukraine in order to pin Ukrainian troops to northern border areas.
Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks northeast of Kupyansk and along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces advanced within Bakhmut and continued ground attacks along the Avdiivka–Donetsk City frontline and in western Donetsk Oblast.
Russian forces continue fortifying rear areas in Russian occupied Zaporizhia Oblast.
United Russia Secretary Andrey Turchak announced on March 14 that the Russian State Duma will consider a law simplifying the legal recognition of missing Russian soldiers as dead.
Ukrainian partisans injured the Deputy Head of the Nova Kakhovka Occupation Military Administration in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack.
Oleksandr Filchakov shows the board used by Ukrainian prosecutors. https://t.co/2PMAauxrq8 Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian
Flooded with evidence of Russian war crimes, Ukrainian prosecutors moved swiftly.
Kyiv has compiled hundreds of dossiers, naming more than 600 Russians — many of them high-ranking political and military officials — as suspects. The suspects range from senior officials including the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, to a lesser-known colonel believed to be responsible for some of the most brutal aerial attacks on Ukraine.
As the international criminal court in The Hague opens two war crimes cases tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Guardian profiles some of the commanders and generals accused by Ukraine, based on interviews with former soldiers, defence officials and open-source data.
The Guardian has also reviewed a board used by Ukrainian prosecutors to track evidence of Russian war crimes. The board, 4 metres wide by 1.5 metres high, contains a detailed diagram of the entire Russian military chain of command in Ukraine. There are names and mugshots: an array of those under investigation by Ukraine for possible involvement in war crimes. The chart maps hundreds of Russian soldiers, divided by regiment, all the way up to the supreme commander-in-chief, Vladimir Putin.
“We started mapping the Russian commanders and generals last year,” said Oleksandr Filchakov, the chief prosecutor for the Kharkiv region who alongside colleagues in other regions has been working on the board since the Russian invasion. “And we keep updating it, week after week.”
— Ragnar Gudmundsson 🇮🇸🇺🇦 ragnarbjartur@masto.ai (@ragnarbjartur) March 14, 2023
The Russian offensive near Donetsk is nearing culmination as Russia’s invading forces have suffered serious losses and face a shortage of ammunition, spokesperson of the Joint Center of the Tauride Defense Forces Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi said on Ukrainian national television on March 14.
“In fact, the (enemy’s resources) have expired. Compared (to) last week… the enemy has significantly reduced the number of assaults, the amount of shelling,” Dmytrashkivskyi said.
He said that there were up to 250 shellings and 30 assaults per day last week, down from 600 shellings and nearly 100 assaults per day the week before.
Ukrainska Pravda reports that air defense units of the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Mechanized Brigade shot down a Russian Su-24 strike-fighter (NATO reporting name ‘Fencer’) near the city of Bakhmut.
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1— Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and continue offensive operations into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)
Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces continue building defenses along Russia’s border with Ukraine in order to pin Ukrainian troops to northern border areas. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on March 14 that Russian forces continue to construct fortifications along the border with Ukraine in Kursk and Bryansk oblasts and keep troops in Belgorod Oblast to perform demonstrative actions to keep Ukrainian forces from moving to other directions.[19] ISW previously assessed that Russian forces may be constructing defensive fortifications to support an information operation that portrays Ukrainian forces as a direct threat to Russian territory.[20] ISW has not independently observed Russian forces deployed to these defenses, and any Russian personnel or equipment deployed to these areas would likely be better used elsewhere.
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2—Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)
Russian forces advanced within Bakhmut and continued ground attacks in and around the city on March 14. Geolocated footage posted on March 13 indicates that Russian forces have advanced along Sadova Street in southern Bakhmut.[28] Russian milbloggers widely claimed on March 14 that Wagner Group fighters captured the “Vostokmash” plant in the northern part of the AZOM complex in northwestern Bakhmut and posted images reportedly showing Wagner troops inside “Vostokmash.”[29] Russian sources additionally claimed that Wagner is advancing northwest of Bakhmut in the direction of Orikhovo-Vasylivka (12km northwest of Bakhmut), Zalizianske (9km northwest of Bakhmut), and Minkivka (15km northwest of Bakhmut).[30] One milblogger reported that the fighting is increasingly moving towards western Bakhmut and that Wagner fighters are trying to reach the Khromove-Bohdanivka line, 5km west of Bakhmut.[31] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces are conducting positional battles in and around Bakhmut and that Ukrainian troops repelled Russian attacks on Bakhmut itself; north of Bakhmut near Vasyukivka (15km north); northwest of Bakhmut near Yahidne (1km northwest), Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Dubovo-Vasylivka (6km northwest), Minkivka, and Hryhorivka (10km northwest), and west of Bakhmut near Khromove (5km west) and Ivanivske (5km west).[32] Russian forces have not succeeded in completing a turning movement, envelopment, or encirclement of Bakhmut as of March 14.
Supporting Effort—Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)
Russian forces continue constructing fortifications in occupied Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts. Geolocated images published on March 13 show Russian checkpoints and defensive structures south of Tokmak, Zaporizhia Oblast.[41] A Russian milblogger posted footage on March 14 purportedly visiting a Bashkort mobilized regiment and claimed that the regiment built 37km of trenches in Zaporizhia Oblast.[42] ISW previously reported that some Russian milbloggers speculate about a prospective Ukrainian counteroffensive in southern Ukraine suggesting increasing concern in the Russian information space over Ukrainian combat power.[43]
Doomed to Failure - Russia's Efforts to Restore its Military Muscle The Kremlin is adopting measures to restore some of its lost military power by giving priority to quantity instead of quality in its arms manufacturing efforts. Yet increasing the productivity of domestic defense corporations is hard, if not impossible.
Much is revealed by examining Russia’s defense budget. The planned 2022 national defense (ND) budget was 3.51 trillion rubles ($57.4bn), which rose to 3.85 trillion rubles after the all-out invasion began. In addition, 2.82 trillion rubles were planned for national security and law enforcement (NSLE.)
This latter element plays a significant role in the analysis of Russia’s military spending, because the Russian national guard (Rosgvardia) including its Chechen units, plus some units of the FSB and other law enforcement agencies, are directly involved in the war. Presumably, Russian mercenaries like the Wagner group are indirectly and at least partly funded by this element of the budget, which may amount to a third of the NSLE spend. The rest, some 60%–65%, is usually earmarked for the ministry of internal affairs (police, migration service, etc.), the ministry of justice, emergency providers, prisons, prosecutors, and other services mostly absent from Ukraine.
In ruble terms, the budget is higher than in previous years and inevitably so; that is due to the huge materiel losses in Ukraine, continuing defense industry financial losses and the Kremlin’s decision to make Russia more authoritarian in economic as well as political terms.
[…]
This financial turbulence may become even worse as the budget deficit grows. Fiscal revenues were originally planned to be 25 trillion rubles, with spending at 23.69 trillion rubles. Yet in November, planned revenues were unchanged while total spending is now planned to be 29 trillion rubles
[…]
Meanwhile, the Russian defense industry has been generating net losses for years. For instance, the volume of the industry’s non-performing loans surpassed 1.7 trillion rubles in 2016–2020, with the ultimate responsibility lying with the government. There is no evidence that defense companies improved their economic efficiency in 2021–2022. Consequently, even if the arms budget rises, it changes little in the economics of Russian defense manufacturing ⸺ it merely plugs the holes in the industry’s already dismal financial balance sheet.
Officials are now traveling intensively from onedefense factory to another trying to manage multiple problems arising on production lines. The main challenge is how to maintain productivity; any hopes of actually raising it look almost impossible. The only way to do so would be to simplify manufacturing and give priority to obsolete armaments. Thus, Russia is going to modernize 800 T-62 battle tanks in the next three years. These tanks were first introduced in 1961, the same year that construction began on the Berlin Wall.
According to the latest update British intelligence update, the Russian military has begun deploying BTR-50 armored personnel carriers, which were first introduced in 1954, in Ukraine.
This move comes as Russia continues to experience substantial losses in its armored vehicle fleet.
Additionally, the Ministry of Defence has noted that Russia persists in deploying T-62 main battle tanks, which have been in service for over six decades.
“The Russian military has continued to respond to heavy armoured vehicle losses by deploying 60-year-old T-62 main battle tanks (MBT). There is a realistic possibility that even units of the 1st Guards Tank Army (1 GTA), supposedly Russia’s premier tank force, will be re-equipped with T-62s to make up for previous losses.
1 GTA had previously been due to receive the next-generation T-14 Armata MBT from 2021.
In recent days, Russian BTR-50 armoured personnel carriers, first fielded in 1954, have also been identified deployed in Ukraine for the first time. Since summer 2022, approximately 800 T-62s have been taken from storage and some have received upgraded sighting systems which will highly likely improve their effectiveness at night.
However, both these vintage vehicle types will present many vulnerabilities on the modern battlefield, including the absence of modern explosive reactive armour.”
Journalist @max_solopov has some interesting observations about the Nord Stream bombings: the same day as the NYT/Zeit reports, the Ukrainian military arrested Edward Shevchenko, an ex special ops commander at the 73rd Naval Operations Center in Ochakiv.
Shevchenko is accused of collaborating w Russia, but his decorated record (incl action in Slovyansk and Debaltseve) doesn’t really fit the traitor’s profile. The Ochakiv center is supposedly the only place Ukraine could have trained a team capable of the Nord Stream bombings.
Incidentally, in October 2022, the Russian Defense Ministry said of the Nord Stream bombings that UK specialists allegedly trained men in Ukraine’s 73rd Naval Operations Center.
