Ukrainian War Developments

More details about the cargo ship "rescue"

Ship Attempted to Break Through Russian Naval Blockade of Mariupol to Rescue Azov Commanders: MoD, 09.04.2022.

Russian forces and Donetsk People's Militia units encircled the Azov Sea coast city of Mariupol in early March, trapping thousands of Ukrainian troops, neo-Nazi Azov Regiment fighters and foreign mercenaries in the strategic port hub. In recent days, Ukrainian forces have made several attempts to evacuate commanders from the city's ruins.

The Apache, a dry cargo ship sailing under the Maltese flag, abruptly changed course while en route through the Azov Sea and attempted to break through the naval blockade of Mariupol enforced by ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and border patrol, Russian Ministry of Defence spokesman Igor Konashenkov has announced.

"On the evening of 8 April, the regime in Kiev made a new unsuccessful attempt to evacuate the neo-Nazi fighters' leaders [trapped in Mariupol] by sea. In the evening darkness the Ukrainian dry cargo vessel Apache, assigned to the Maltese port of Valletta and flying the Maltese flag, followed a caravan of ships from Taganrog Bay to the Kerch Strait," Konashenkov said in a briefing Saturday.

"At 10:38 pm, 30 km southeast of Mariupol, the vessel abruptly changed course and attempted to break through to the Mariupol port, blocked from the sea by forces of the [Russian] Black Sea Fleet," the officer said.

The vessel ignored demands by Russian patrol vessels to communicate via an international channel, and warning fire failing to alter its course, according to Konashenkov. Instead, the ship's radio transmitted the message "This is 'Maniac', I am coming for you," and signal fires were observed from Ukrainian-controlled areas of the shore.

In order to block the further movement of the intruding vessel, a ship of the Black Sea Fleet and Russian border patrol boats opened fire on the Apache. A blaze broke out aboard the vessel after a direct hit to the stern. The ship began to drift, and its crew initiated communications with Russian vessels asking them to hold fire and promising to carry out their orders.

The Apache's crew was not injured, and managed to extinguish the fire independently. After inspection, the ship was escorted to the port of Yeysk in Russia's Krasnodar region.

The suspected rescue attempt is the latest in a series of failed efforts to evacuate commanders from Mariupol as Russian and Donetsk People's Republic forces continue to chip away at the areas of the city controlled by Ukraine. On Tuesday, two Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters were shot down with man-portable anti-aircraft systems while trying to break through the lines.

On Friday, the Russian MoD reported that its analysis of intercepted radio traffic revealed that at least six languages besides Russian and Ukrainian were being used by forces operating in Mariupol, signalling the presence of large numbers of foreign mercenaries.

The increasingly brazen attempts to rescue forces out of the besieged city, where some of the most brutal house-to-house fighting of the conflict in Ukraine has taken place to date, has led to speculation in Russian media about just what kind of forces are operating there, and why their evacuation from the city's ruins is such an important priority.

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A resupply mission I can imagine, but a rescue? How could they have pulled that off?

Abominable said:

More details about the cargo ship "rescue"


A resupply mission I can imagine, but a rescue? How could they have pulled that off?

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Maybe there is a hidden small submarine on board that will detach while the rest of the ship and crew sinks to the depths.

Coalescence said:

The problem with this method, is you need to confirm on your own whether the task is being completed, as you may not receive a confirmation unless the completion of task produces something visually noticeable. Another issue is redundancy, as multiple groups or individual might ended up taking the same task, unless there is a way to signal to everyone that the task is already taken.

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I think these issues doesn't really matter if you are on the defensive and the only goal is inflicting as much casualties to the enemy as possible. Also, pretty sure Ukrainians basically just used social media instead of command chain to communicate their result to HQ.

Pmichael said:

China discovers mission type tactics. That's remarkable. With Russia and China having quite the top heavy command structure any meaningful changes would take more than a generation of military theoretical work.

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Nope, that's not it. Typically ANY military would not function if the chain of command is cut off to the platoon level. That's the whole point of crippling enemy command & control in the first strike. Traditionally, even US military shouldn't fare any better if entire divisions were cut into platoon/company sized units unable to communicate/link up with the chain of command and each other. That's the whole point of Deep Battle as well - divide the enemy into disorganized, uncoordinated, bite-sized pieces, and break them one at a time. What the Ukrainians did might change all this.

RottenPanzer said:

Pretty weird their Warsaw Pact era equipment storage were depleted pretty fast....

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40+ year old equipment mothballed and sitting in storage don't work so well. What did you expect?

I'm curious if Russia still hold ground forces in Belarus. There are SAM's and Iskanders there but i'm curious about their army there. are they gonna thrust again or just there for some feint ?

A bunch of Ukro Nazi losers caught harassing random Russians lol

Wow! What a thread this has become! I expect in a month any hiatuses I take are going to be hilarious to return and read through the posts here. I have to say this thread has a wild tendency to degenerate into arguments over things having little to do with the Russo-Ukrainian War. I saw one warning. We should heed it. There might be one more after that, but we had a thread lock once, folks.

Some thoughts.

1. Kramatorsk's train station. I don't think the Russians did it. I don't think the Ukrainians did it. There is a 'third' party to this war, another set of combatants known to fsck up. Ones that known for shooting down 'cute birds' the last time fighting in the Donbas was really hot. Ones known to be given captured Ukrainian equipment. Ones noted for using the phrase 'for the children.' If you haven't guessed it, I'm disappointed. They are the LNR and DNR. It makes no sense for the Russians to hit the station intentionally. A false flag by the Ukrainians seems more likely to cost them support than gather it: the truth will out. The DNR+LNR use a lot of captured Ukrainian equipment and they are not as professional as the Russians and Ukrainians for their targeting. I don't think they intentionally targeted the train station. I can't imagine a handed over Tochka would be terribly accurate. However, LNR+DNR feet fit the slipper the best of the groups involved.

2. The losses described of the Russian BTGs. I've been tracking the photographic evidence and keeping a rough tally of the losses of IFVs, APCs and tanks. I have equipment losses for at least 18, almost 19 BTG for their APCs, IFVs and tanks plus another 8 tank battalions. 35% of the tanks the original 130 BTG had have been lost (neglecting the non BTG tank units). That's...bad.

The death guessimate I have now hits over 4,100 dead. This is based on the destroyed tanks, apcs, ifvs and MT-LBs. This does not count rear echelons, infantry not associated with that equipment, or other vehicles' crew and passengers. I definitely believe the infantry have suffered more than what I am guessimating - they always do - and I also believe t he rear echelons have been targeted a lot, but I don't have a good feel for deaths there.

If we go with a 3x deaths for wounded, we get 12,300 wounded. That would bring casualties to a total of 16,400 or more than 20 entire BTG.

Could 25% of the units deployed be combat ineffective? A total of 32 BTG mauled? I believe that is possibly true. It could be worse: remember the Russians have been reinforced and the total BTG deployed into Ukraine are more than the original 130 BTG.

Remember: combat ineffective does NOT mean everyone in that unit has died. It means between 20 to 40% of the personnel or equipment has been destroyed, killed, wounded, or requires significant repair.

With the admission by the Russian government the losses have been bad, even in an off the cuff remark, I definitely believe they have been chewed up. How much? We will have to wait and see. I don't think we have a good number just yet, even and especially me, despite tracking everything I can.

3. Czechia and Slovakia sending combat vehicles to Ukraine is a bluff call of Russia. If Russia doesn't do anything, we will see more nations doing the same thing, overtly or covertly. I have a feeling more equipment has been shipped covertly, but it's not based on anything other than a feeling. I am starting to think, for this war, IFVs might be the best AFVs to get: move lots of infantry fast and have them hop out with ATGMs... IFVs and artillery. Lots of artillery. And drones. Where is our resident drone salesman?

4. I want to call people's attention to the T-80s in the Kharkov Oblast that was recently posted. There's a detail I suspect most people missed: dust. Lots of dust. We could be seeing an early drying of the raputitsa. That would be bad for the Ukrainians and beneficial for the Russians. The Ukrainians need another month, IMO, of reinforcement by general mud to get into a better position by killing tanks, APCs, IFVs and trucks limited to the roads...and, therefore, easy to kill by infantry and very hard to pursue by tanks, etc. Mud will win or lose the war.

5. The Ukrainian army seems to be practicing what western armies claim they like to do, but rarely actually do: lots of initiative and independence by the local forces in contact. The West often talks this, but when faced with real combat, the commanders on high intervene a LOT. Even down to the squad from the colonel level. Here it seems, the Ukrainians are showing exactly how effective the model could be if anyone actually followed it. Huh. Hypocrisy and deviation from military doctrine when actually facing combat. Can't imagine who else has done that besides the West. Huh, Russia?

6. Finally, I don't think Russia is winning. I don't think she's losing either. Everything hinges on what happens in the next month. The keys will be the raputitsa and logistics. Whoever gets there to the fastest with the mostest will win this. If the Russians can pull together enough forces to finally produce the kessel (Baba Yaga's pot!) and the mud relents, they'll win. If the Ukrainians can reinforce their flanks enough to chew up the Russian offensive and the muck stays for a month longer, I think they have a solid chance at beating the Russians back across the ante bellum borders.

More scenes of the street to street fighting in Mariupol.

Stealthflanker said:

I'm curious if Russia still hold ground forces in Belarus. There are SAM's and Iskanders there but i'm curious about their army there. are they gonna thrust again or just there for some feint ?

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I think there is a lot of fog of war involved (Unless if you work for NATO or RU forces), there is no way we as individuals would know the specific details of each unit's deployment and position down to the minutia, but given how we have not seen concrete proof of actual mobilization amongst the Russian side for the war effort we can make an educated guess that there is not much units left in Belarus for a feint or actual offensive as they would need to rest and recuperate a lot of the units that advanced along the Kiev front, this entails a lot of the things that anzha has said with Russian losses. These units could end up anywhere but it seems like a lot of people here and elsewhere think they will end up in Donbass given how there is a large concentration of Ukrainian conventional forces there that have the potential to be encircled (They represent a significant portion of Ukraine's conventional army and mechanized forces).

These things cannot be said for certain however and one cannot downplay how tenaciously a lot of the Ukrainian units are fighting. There seems to be footage of russian vehicles crossing pontoon bridges around izyum (Kharkov Oblast), we can try to make an educated guess that there will be attempts to try and defeat the Ukrainian forces in that region, perhaps the rested units pulled from the Kiev direction and elsewhere will help, as otherwise the militias have demonstrated they simply don't have enough and are punching into a brick wall attacking directly into entrenched ukrainian positions where the so called victories are fought inch by inch for minor settlements and entrechments, meanwhile the Ukrainians pull back and still can pull torwards the major settlements in the region if push came to shove such as Kramatorsk and Slaviansk which are adjacent. There is a likelihood that the Ukrainian defenses and usage of ambushes, raids, and artillery hit and run can bleed the Russian forces heavily. In the end we will have to see, logically the Russians will not drive in like it is a policing action like we have seen earlier in the war where you have gendarme units speeding along the roads in some crazy thunder run to seize key settlements like this is '68 prague (without the manpower of such operation), but honestly anything can happen as we can only observe, the way the war started gave me a huge surprise afterall as people can make assumptions on how things will be executed but such a thunder run in the beginning from the Russian side was something I was not even taking into consideration.