"FROM THE ANALYST"
DRONE VICTORY & RUSSIAN MURDER
The Ukrainians managed another successful strike on another Russian Corvette yesterday. This time in quite rough weather.
A new type of SeaBaby designed to operate in rougher seas which make it more difficult for ships to see them was used on a Nanuchka Class missile corvette.
These are not exactly new, dating back to the early eighties, but they have remained reliable and effective. The Russians keep sending ships west of Crimea to prove they’re still in control when they obviously aren’t. At the best they could claim it was contested waters. The ships was hit in the stern, lost propulsion and was listing. It was dragged back to Sevastopol, but it could be months before, if it ever is, repaired.
With the clear evidence that the Russians have been forced out of the ruins of Andrivka came another war crime. It’s disturbing to me to see how easily Russians do these things.
The village is overrun, the men left there deliberately abandoned while the rest have retreated.
A Ukrainian drone is watching as infantry accept the surrender of three Russians who clearly, visibly, surrender, hands up, and lay down as instructed. From the Russian side a mortar lands right on one of them, after the smoke clears the Ukrainians quickly recover and two of the stunned Russians are taken quickly away. The third has ceased to exist.
A Russian commander deliberately ordered an attack in his own men who had no choice but to surrender. They are barbaric and inhuman.
On the diplomatic front US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has confused the rule over what can and can’t be used against Russian territory. Talking about the possibility of ATACMS, he left the interview having created the possibility that, the US would rather the Ukrainians didn’t use them on Russian soil, but the Americans sort of accepted that if they did, they did. That of course is not as rigid a ‘no’ as it has been in the past, leaving observers confused as to where things stand. I suspect we’ll get things clarified in the coming days. Maybe he was just testing the Russian reaction.
The supply of ATACMS is still something the US military wants to do in principle but at the same time they don’t want to loose the only battlefield missile they have when nobody makes them anymore. I think what has convinced them is the Ukrainian campaign of base destruction, logistics interdiction and the results being worth the cost. We will find out by Thursday I suspect when President Zelensky arrives in Washington DC.
Slava Ukraini