SITREP 4/19/24: A Small Gust for Ukraine's Sails?
Simplicius
Apr 20, 2024
Today we have some interesting thematic developments in the context of Ukraine’s future sustainment outlook.
The most talked about of course is the headway being made for the Ukrainian aid bill, which is set to be voted on in both the House and Senate this weekend and early next week, owing to Speaker Mike Johnson’s eye-opening U-turn. The U-turn was in fact
so ‘sudden’ as to imply sinister developments behind the scenes—perhaps kompromat waving, threats, and the like. From an alleged CIA/NSA whistleblower:
You can see below how drastically his tone has changed into an uncharacteristically histrionic one:
This comes after he suddenly proclaimed himself a “wartime speaker”, which was echoed ominously by other congressmen:
In any case, the voting is moving forward, though there is no clear indication yet what will happen; Matt Gaetz has reportedly signaled that unfortunately the vote stands a good chance to pass, though they are still bitterly fighting it. Here’s the latest update:
However, while the pro-Ukrainian crowd rejoices, it’s not clear what real benefit the aid would bring, should it pass. For instance, days ago the provisions of the alleged bill had leaked which apparently showed the vast majority of the $48B Ukrainian aid going to various American DOD scams:
If there’s any accuracy to the above, it appears that when you take away the civil funds to the Ukrainian government, and the DOD’s own beak-wetting double-dip, all that’s really left for Ukrainian ‘weapons’ is about $14B or less. And in fact Johnson appears to confirm this when he says that he changed the bill so that 80% of it now represents replenishment of American stocks, rather than new weapons for Ukraine:
Certainly that’s still a fairly significant amount of money, all things considered, but it doesn’t even begin to address the much bigger issue of there not being any arms left to spend that money
on.
For instance, recall the claimed million shells that Czech Republic was said to have found for Ukraine. Now Peter Pavel has confirmed they’ve only made agreements for an alleged 180k and have possibly found another “120k” shells, though they haven’t been purchased yet. That entire number is basically what Russia manufactures per month.
That’s not to mention the fact that Western ammo factories continue to mysteriously go up in smoke these past two weeks:
I wonder what it could be?
Some logically suspect that the urgent increase in production schedules has simply overtaxed the aging and stressed infrastructure and workforce at these sites, which understandably results in elevated risks of industrial ‘accidents’.
But moving on.
The other significant event which dovetails with the aid bill is that
Zelensky has finally signed the mobilization bill, which—most significantly—lowers the mobilization age from 27 to 25. By far the most controversial was the removing of the provision that allowed Ukrainian servicemen who’ve served 36 months to be demobilized. This has created an uproar with soldiers posting death threats to the Rada, like this one:
In spite of that, the final ratification of the bill means Ukraine could now stand to mobilize a significant amount of new troops, some estimating 200-500k—or at least that’s the wishful target.
This new chart purports to show the amount of eligible men in each age group. Each bar below represents a year, so one can see for instance that 25 and 26 are somewhere around the 180k or so:
Since the mobilization opened up those two extra years, together that would open up a bit under 400k newly eligible, if the chart is accurate. But when you factor in all the various forms of attrition that realistically happen, i.e. draft dodging in all its varieties, then the real amount could be less than half of that, or even worse.
And for those wondering why there is such a dip in Ukrainian men in their 20s, the explanation I got was that these were men born precisely in the ‘dark ages’ period of the post-Soviet collapse, which means the birthrates were falling drastically then, resulting in far less people being born. It shoots up for the age 5-15 group because presumably in the 2000s the birthrate rose a bit in those brief economically hopeful internet bubble years, before collapsing again in the post-Maidan period.
Anyway, this further means that we’re set for quite a showdown for sometime this summer. That’s because if the aid bill is to pass and the heavy mobilization begins, the influx of new money, weapons, plus large amounts of men could coincide with the long-expected Russian offensive. Of course, it will not change the course of the war, but it
could mean a much bloodier meatgrinder that will result in Russia incurring far more losses as it advances. That’s because the cheap defensive weapons most effective against advances, like mines, basic RPGs, small arms ammunition, drones, mortars—are things that have never been in short supply, and a flush of new aid cash could bring a new bonanza of replenishment for them.
Another example. Some sources state that a large batch of new ATACMs missiles will be opened up with the aid bill, and these missiles have proved to be relatively effective. Not wunderwaffe by any means, but effective enough to incur losses and potentially—in large enough number—hamper Russia’s logistics rear to make advance much more painful. A new ATACMs strike has just successfully been carried out on Dzhankoi airbase in Crimea, destroying what’s said to be an entire deployment of S-300s, or what Ukrainians claim were S-400s. The missile parts have now been recovered and identified as ATACMs:
Ukraine released the launch footage, showing around 6 ATACMs being launched from the right bank of the Dnieper, while Russian sources claimed there were up to 12 missiles, with 7+ being shot down:
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Today we have some interesting thematic developments in the context of Ukraine’s future sustainment outlook. The most talked about of course is the headway being made for the Ukrainian aid bill, which is set to be voted on in both the House and Senate this weekend and early next week, owing to...
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