Replies

“On the 5-year anniversary of the Battle of Khasham, the Grey Zone channel admits that Wagner’s assault on US positions was pre-planned. They say the Russian military’s Aerospace Forces and Air Defense Forces were supposed to support the operation.”

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1622878520216113153

“THAT TIME US FORCES TORE HUNDREDS OF RUSSIAN WAGNER GROUP MERCENARIES TO PIECES IN SYRIA”

“It’s been one month since Russia invaded Ukraine. What Vladimir Putin and much of the world originally expected to be a quick and easy victory over their smaller neighbor has rapidly devolved into a military disaster for Russia. The Pentagon estimated more than 7,000 Russian soldiers had been killed since the invasion started, while NATO believes the number could be as high as 15,000. Russian generals continue to die, and reports are describing mass desertions and fratricide on the front lines. As much of the world celebrates the modern David versus Goliath story, cracks in the veneer of Russia’s supposed military might have shone through long before the invasion of Ukraine, and a four-hour battle that unfolded in Syria in 2018 is one of the most striking examples.

When the US launched Operation Inherent Resolve in June 2014, its goal was to destroy the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. US forces and their allies sought to degrade and destroy the notorious terrorist organization, but the conflict eventually evolved into a proxy war between two superpowers as Russia committed its military forces to defending the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The US was allied with Kurdish fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces against the common enemy of ISIS, but the regional conflict involved an intricate web of disparate factions and objectives.

Against that backdrop, Russia and the US opened up a communications hotline to avoid direct conflict with each other while supporting their proxies on opposite sides. In February 2018, after three years of gingerly avoiding a direct confrontation, the two world powers went toe to toe for the first time since the end of World War I in what came to be known as the Battle of Khasham — a roughly four-hour battle in which the mighty Russian bear (with its Syrian allies) was reduced to a whimpering pup by a much smaller force of American commandos.

As the afternoon sun began to sink over the cradle of civilization on Feb. 7, 2018, a group of US Marines and Army Special Forces soldiers watched surveillance drone feeds in disbelief as a large enemy force amassed 20 miles away near the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. The combined group of Syrian forces and Russian mercenaries from the infamous Kremlin-linked Wagner Group swelled to an estimated 500 troops by early evening. With them were 27 vehicles — including Russian T-72 tanks and armored personnel carriers.

American brass monitoring the situation at the air operations center at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and the Pentagon were baffled as they watched a massive enemy force positioning itself to attack a nearby outpost where about 30 US Army Rangers and Delta Force commandos from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) were working alongside Kurdish and Arab forces. American commanders readied aircraft and ground crews, and the members of the JSOC detachment prepared to defend themselves.

The Marines and Green Berets at the mission support site 20 miles away from the JSOC outpost in Deir al-Zour in northwestern Syria prepared a quick-reaction force of about 16 troops, loading four mine-resistant vehicles with anti-tank missiles, thermal optics, food, and water.

At 8:30 p.m., as three Russian tanks moved in closer, it became clear an attack was imminent, and the quick-reaction force prepared to launch.

At approximately 10:30 p.m., the approaching column of Russian and Syrian vehicles opened fire on the tiny outpost. Tank, artillery, and mortar fire bombarded the Americans as they ran for their defensive positions and returned fire with machine guns and anti-tank missiles.

During the opening minutes of the battle, then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis contacted his Russian counterpart.

“The Russian high command in Syria assured us it was not their people,” Mattis testified to Congress later. The secretary of defense then directed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. “for the force … to be annihilated.”

“And it was,” the former Marine general, whose troops nicknamed him “Chaos,” added.

With the expert direction of Air Force combat controllers and others calling in air and indirect-fire support, waves of F-22 fighters, F-15E strike fighters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, AC-130 gunships, B-52 bombers, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and heavy Marine artillery relentlessly punished the enemy force.

The quick-reaction force sped toward the battle but was slowed by myriad obstacles, damaged roads, and the fact it was driving blacked out and relying on night-vision equipment. As the convoy of four vehicles made slow progress, American airpower and Marine artillery cut through the Syrian and Russian attackers like a scythe through hay.

“We should never have been there; our leadership messed up. The Americans knew exactly where we were,” former Russian mercenary and survivor of Khasham Marat Gabidullin told The Guardian in February 2022.

Around 1 a.m. — with the enemy artillery and tanks finally silenced — the QRF reached the outpost and joined the turkey shoot.

Fighting from their vehicles, the Green Berets and Marines engaged the rapidly diminishing enemy force. Several Marines ran much-needed ammo to the commandos’ defensive positions while combat controllers guided a second wave of lethal strikes from American aircraft. An hour after the QRF’s arrival, the remnants of the attacking force fled the field. In their wake lay between 200 and 300 dead fighters. Inside the JSOC outpost, one allied Syrian fighter was wounded, and no Americans were harmed.

In the aftermath of the slaughter, Russian state media downplayed the battle. Maria Zakharova, press secretary for the Foreign Ministry of Russia, said only five Russian contractors were killed. Reports of audio recordings purportedly featuring Russians describing the battle tell a much different story.

“To make it short, we’ve had our fucking asses kicked,” one Wagner Group veteran reportedly says in a recording. “Yeah so, one squadron fucking lost 200 people immediately … Another one lost 10 people, and I don’t know about the third squadron, but it got torn up pretty badly too … They tore us to pieces.”

The lopsided American victory worked as a deterrent a month later when another group of Syrian fighters and Russian mercenaries began a similar buildup near American forces along the Euphrates. This time, when Mattis called his Russian counterpart, the enemy force dispersed, successfully avoiding a second curb-stomping.

The Wagner Group is trained at Russian Defense Ministry bases, and the group’s leaders have received awards in the Kremlin, but Russia downplayed its involvement in the engagement that’s come to be known as the Battle of Khasham. Russia claimed the clash was a result of American aggression.

Similar Russian misinformation is rampant in the war in Ukraine, and like in the Battle of Khasham, Russia’s numerical superiority isn’t translating to tactical success. In hindsight, perhaps Russia’s humiliating defeat in Syria was a sign of what was to come in Ukraine, where many analysts predicted Russia would “steamroll” that nation’s military and defense forces.”

Ukraine: military situation update with maps, Feb 6, 2023
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)

War in Ukraine Explained/Reporting from Ukraine:
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU

Artillery (key to success in this war), Fuller explanation of Orc military structure, Other Bonus articles - see previous postings in “Attack on Europe” (FR title search).

(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)

••Denotes Transcribed Dialogue. The entirety of the analysis is from a Ukrainian guy named Reporting from Ukraine’s daily video - I only transcribe it. Extras are just that - from other sites, or my comments marked (Edit: .... ) or { } or [ ].

-—> Current to date and past MAPS: <——
https://militaryland.net/

-—> The True State of Russian Army <——
posted 2 months ago, 21.13 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KiII_2qabk

———————————————————————————————————————
Extras:
-—> Ukraine Situation Report: Possible Tu-141 Strike Deep In Russia Shows Repurposed Warhead <——
Russia reported another attempted Tu-141 drone attack deep inside its borders, the latest in a series of such incidents.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-possible-tu-141-strike-deep-in-russia-shows-repurposed-warhead

Excerpt:

—
“Mr. Prigozhin seems to be the most interested in taking Bakhmut,” Kirby said. “We think it’s because of selfish personal gain, not only to improve his elevated status within the Kremlin hierarchy, but also because there are gypsum mines there and he might have some economic gains to be made by taking that route and he’s not afraid to throw convict after convict into the fight.”

Speaking of Prigozhin and Bakhmut, the Wagner capo di tutti capi claimed that he flew over the city in an Su-24M Fencer strike jet and challenged Zelensky to an aerial duel.

A clip of that flight was released by Prigozhin’s press service, which said it was filmed aboard a Fencer operated by Wagner.

[and in accepting that challenge, Z arrived in an F-22 ... and the game was quickly over for Prigozhin’s MiG-29, with the next in command, D. Utkin, assuming command of the Wagner Group, named after his call sign.]

—
-—> The Shooting Down Of China’s Spy Balloon In Moment-By-Moment Audio <——
Audio of the complex aerial ballet that downed the Chinese spy balloon at just the right time and place adds new detail to the operation.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-operation-to-down-chinas-spy-balloon-in-moment-by-moment-audio

Excerpt:
We are now getting a sense of what it was like for the pilots and ground controllers involved in executing that mission from a fascinating 24-minute-long copy of their audio communications beginning at about 2:02 PM local time on February 4th. It was recorded by Ken Harrell, a military aviation radio monitor from South Carolina who frequently listens to and records aviation radio chatter.

FRANK01 is the lead F-22 that took the kill shot. FRANK02 is its wingman.

HUNTRESS is the U.S. Air Force’s Eastern Air Defense Sector, or EADS, part of the U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which was controlling the operation from the ground in Rome, New York.

EAGLE01 is an F-15C and EAGLE02 is its wingman. The Eagles backed-up the F-22s and used their SNIPER targeting pods to record the shoot down and mark areas of debris for recovery.

TIGER09 is a Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.

TOI is Target Of Interest, in this case the Chinese spy balloon.

Note: In uploading the audio to YouTube, approximately 20 seconds appear to have been cut from the beginning of the recording. While nothing substantial was lost, this means the time-stamped entries below occur around 20 seconds earlier in the YouTube runtime.

-—> Radio audio of Chinese spy balloon shoot down <——
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUwvJ_RU2D4

—
-—> U-2 Spy Planes Snooped On Chinese Surveillance Balloon <——
U-2 Dragon Ladies had the ability to actually fly above the balloon and gather multiple types of intelligence about it from its perch.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/u-2-spy-planes-snooped-on-chinese-surveillance-balloon

Excerpt:
The Dragon Lady is the only aircraft in U.S. military inventory, at least that we know, that can fly persistently at altitudes even higher than where the balloon was soaring, which was between roughly 60,000 and 70,000 feet throughout its trip across the United States and Canada ...

On top of that, each U-2S can be configured to collect multiple types of intelligence simultaneously ...

One common sensor loadout for the Dragon Lady consists of the Senior Glass signals intelligence suite, components of which are spread between bays in the fuselage and two underwing ‘Super Pods’ when it is installed, together with either the Senior Year Electro Optical Reconnaissance System-2 (SYERS-2) or Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System-2 (ASARS-2) in the nose.

SYERS-2 is a multi-spectral camera system that can produce high-resolution imagery of a target, even at night. ASARS-2 also produces images, but by using a radar operating in a synthetic aperture mode, giving it an all-weather capability ...

With any array of sensors like this, a U-2S could gather high-quality visuals of the balloon, as well as soak up any electronic emissions that it might have been pumping out. The Dragon Lady can further carry robust data links that allow for sharing the information it gathers with personnel on the ground in near-real-time.

The ability of the U-2 to get above the balloon is critical for a number of reasons. Just surveilling it from a top-down perspective using various sensors could provide additional intelligence as to its design and capabilities. Even what could have been hidden within its envelope would have been important to find out.

But most importantly, it would provide a way to intercept directional satellite communications from the balloon with greater reliability. This is a critical form of intelligence collection on such a long-range and sensor-laden device like this.

Finally, the U-2 possesses a highly capable electronic warfare suite. Flying in relatively close proximity to the balloon, and especially above it, it’s possible it may have been able to jam any communications being sent to satellites above ...

[On not shooting the ballon down earlier] “So there was a potential opportunity for us to collect Intel where we had gaps on prior balloons. And so I would defer to the intel community, but this gave us the opportunity to assess what they were actually doing, what kind of capabilities existed on the balloon, what kind of transmission capabilities existed,” Gen. VanHerck himself stressed at the press conference today. “And I think you’ll see in the future that that timeframe was well worth its value to collect.”

“I would point out, and I think it’s important to talk about, is day-to-day we do not have the authority to collect intelligence within the United States of America,” VanHerck added. “In this case, specific authorities were granted to collect intelligence against the balloon specifically and we utilized specific capabilities to do that.”

———————————————————————————————————————
••Day 348.

Today there is a lot of news from Bakhmut. Here, the Russians are desperately trying to put the Ukrainians in a pocket.

But because their progress has been so slow, the Ukrainians started using this time to adjust their defense, and the Russians conducted an aggressive assault in an attempt to encircle at least some troops.

However, they underestimated the level of protection of Ukrainian flanks and were destroyed.

In the northern part of Bakhmut, there are a lot of important changes. Last time I told you that the Russians started assaulting Paraskoviivka from the north and that any progress here would force the Ukrainians to step back from Krasna Hora to avoid operational encirclement.

I also told you that there are a lot of natural and artificial barriers in this region, such as a river and a railway embankment, that limit their room for maneuvering significantly.

That is why over the last four days, all Russian attacks here have been rebuffed, and the Russians were forced to shift their focus somewhere else.

Their new target became the northern part of Bakhmut, which is in front of Yahidne.

At first, attacking it was extremely dangerous because the Ukrainians were controlling the outer streets south of Pidhorodne, but as the Ukrainians inside Bakhmut started slowly withdrawing from the eastern bank and moving to the central part of the town, the Russians were able to assume their positions here and secure their flanks for an attack towards Yahidne.

After reevaluation of the situation, the Russians assaulted this area and started pushing towards the railway station.

The Ukrainians here established their main defense behind the railways because here they are basically attached to the biggest industrial area in Bakhmut, meaning that supplying this group and maintaining positions is not difficult.

So far, heavy fights are taking place in the outer streets.

When it comes to Bakhmut itself, a lot of sources confirm that the Ukrainians are withdrawing troops from the eastern part of Bakhmut in order to not allow the Russians to carry out a tactical encirclement of the Bakhmut group.

As predicted, most Ukrainian troops are withdrawing near the first bridge, while some troops are holding key defense points, such as the meat processing plant, the high-rise buildings, and the river.

According to the latest reports, the Ukrainians have withdrawn from the northern part almost completely, they have withdrawn from the park and half of the residential area.

The Russians saw that their window of opportunity was closing and decided to attack the withdrawing Ukrainians from the southeast.

If successful, they would be able to completely encircle Ukrainian troops in the high-rise buildings.

They launched their assault across the small river, and even though they successfully crossed it, they failed to develop their attack and were stopped at the cemetery.

When it comes to the southern part of Bakhmut, here the Russians have two axes of advance: towards the southeastern suburbs and towards the forest near Ivanivske. The main goal here is to establish direct fire control over the Ukrainian supply road.

Ideally for the Russians, they needed to enter the southeastern suburbs because it would give greater visual control over the road, however, the Ukrainians understand this, and so far, all Russian attacks have been rebuffed.

Nonetheless, the Russians did advance inside the forest, and according to the unconfirmed reports, the fights are already taking somewhere close to Ivanivkse.

The main weakness of the Russians here is that they are advancing along a very narrow passage, which makes them extremely vulnerable to flank attacks.

Since the Ukrainians are controlling the whole area on the other side of the canal, the Ukrainians can conduct a counterattack from the south and completely encircle the Russian group.

And as you remember, the weather in February is freezing, so this little 10-meter-wide canal will be covered with ice, making it easy to cross at any point.

And interestingly, Russian sources reported today that the Ukrainians are preparing to conduct a series of counterattacks in different areas around Bakhmut, and the forest near Ivanivske is likely one of their targets.

Overall, the Ukrainians are tightly holding the northern and southern parts of Bakhmut and not allowing the Russians to encircle it from two sides.

Simultaneously, the Ukrainians are slowly withdrawing from the eastern bank of the river and have already completed the process by around 50%.

A complete withdrawal from the eastern bank will mark the beginning of the second stage of the Battle for Bakhmut, and we will likely see another spike in Russian losses, as they will have to storm fresher and more formidable fortifications, and as the Ukrainians will conduct a series of counterattacks.

This will prolong the Battle for Bakhmut, drain Russian reserves, and complicate the development of the upcoming Russian offensive operation in the Luhansk region.

—
Denys says the Ukraine government final canceled the taxes and customs fees on commercial drones, thermal cameras, and other stuff needed by the troops at the front. All the time it took to do the paperwork, pay the fees delayed the arrival of those things needed immediately on the front.

Prigozhin, after his recent trip to Moscow and meetings with Putin and Shoigu, may have lost control of the Wagner Group, and it may now be under the control of the RGF, according to Denys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03x5pTX-J0w

—
Russia: 57% of companies polled report they are funding the mobilized, 43% report they helped purchase needed equipment for them, 30% provided legal support, 13% provided psychological support, 21% spent <5,000,000 rubles supporting the mobnicks and families, have lost 3% of their workforce to mobilization, more than 200 medium and large businesses from different regions of Russia are experiencing a shortage of workers. Desertion continues to increase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJBbCoweyik

—
Warthog Defense reports Wagners axed to death their commander after he got wounded - drone footage captures incident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSXaUicLabs