'..If Western governments want to see more successes on the battlefield, providing Ukraine with more and longer-range missiles to continue denying Russia the freedom to move in Crimea would be a good place to start. Either way, Western observers should stop focusing only on the land war and put these remarkable Ukrainian achievements into the context they deserve. Otherwise, arguing in favor of providing Kyiv with the tools it needs to liberate its territories will be harder than it needs to be.''..over the last several months, Ukraine has achieved a series of startling victories in and around Crimea, including missile strikes against the Kerch Strait bridge and multiple daring attacks on the Black Sea Fleet itself—with major impacts on the Russians’ ability to operate on the peninsula and in the western Black Sea.
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..The fact that Kyiv only has a limited arsenal of Western-provided precision long-range missiles means that the Ukrainians have had to be very resourceful with their deployment, including by eliminating as much of Russia’s air defense as possible before launching them.
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..British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said, “The functional defeat of the Black Sea Fleet, and I would argue that is what it is, because it has been forced to disperse to ports from which it cannot have an effect on Ukraine, is an enormous credit.”
Given that the total liberation of Crimea is a key objective for Kyiv, these significant Ukrainian successes must be put into the same context as the other developments in this multifront conflict—something that much of the Western press and commentariat have failed to do. By effectively dislodging the Russian Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol and unilaterally opening a grain shipment corridor, Kyiv has achieved stunning successes with only limited naval capabilities. While Ukraine is still a long way from hoisting its flag over Simferopol, the Crimean capital, this kind of progress would have been unthinkable last year.
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The Ukrainian military has proved itself capable of incorporating new equipment into its arsenal quickly and to devastating effect—whether that be homegrown sea drones or Anglo-French-supplied missiles. If Western governments want to see more successes on the battlefield, providing Ukraine with more and longer-range missiles to continue denying Russia the freedom to move in Crimea would be a good place to start. Either way, Western observers should stop focusing only on the land war and put these remarkable Ukrainian achievements into the context they deserve. Otherwise, arguing in favor of providing Kyiv with the tools it needs to liberate its territories will be harder than it needs to be.'
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Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Is More Successful Than You Think, October 20, 2023
'Can we just give Ukraine the full suite of conventional ranged capabilities it needs to liberate its own land (ATACMS, Taurus, F-16s, etc) and end this war as soon as possible? Is that too much to ask?''..If only Ukraine had more ATACMS instantly available, they could have probably wreaked even more devastation on Russian facilities that the Russians had previously thought were safe. But so far it seems the supplies were quite limited, and that reveals once again that Washington still does not understand how to properly support Ukraine. It might make sense to divide the ATACMS summary into good news and bad news.
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Its the same bad movie we have had to watch over and over again. From HIMARS, to MBTs, to F-16s, to Cruise Missiles, to ATACMS we limit what we give to Ukraine in terms of conventional weapons (and mostly older conventional weapons at that) because its said that Putin will react by crossing the nuclear threshhold. This makes no sense for many reason (will write a substack about that soon). Yet here we are seeing the same halting approach again.
So while I would like to stress the good news, for some reason this whole series of events leaves me with a strong nagging sense of pessimism. Its now clear (as it always should have been) just how effective ATACMS could be. All those saying they would not make a major difference had no idea what they were speaking about. However, the US seems only to have handed over a small number, and having its policies governed by a Russian intelligence operation that has shown to be false time and time again.
Can we just give Ukraine the full suite of conventional ranged capabilities it needs to liberate its own land (ATACMS, Taurus, F-16s, etc) and end this war as soon as possible? Is that too much to ask?
If Ukraine’s supporters are still prevaricating, the Russians are at least doing their part in helping Ukraine progress to eventual victory by continuing to lose massive amounts of equipment launching massive assaults against targets of no strategic value. What we have seen during the fighting over Avdiivka over the last two weeks.
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Well, if they refuse to learn, Ukraine should continue to take advantage of this willingness of the Russians to sacrifice power for pointless gains. Its why the Ukrainians were right to fight for Bakhmut in the first half of 2023 and why they are right to continue fighting for Avdiivka now. Hopefully the Russians will continue to throw everything they have into these attacks.'
- Phillips P. OBrien,
Weekend Update #51 ATACMS arrive, October 22, 2023
ContextWe must ditch the ‘stalemate’ metaphor in Ukraine’s war, October 20, 2023
'What are Ukraine's borders? .. they’re internationally recognized and defined in 1991.' - Navalny'A lack of defense production .. the U.S. Is Unprepared for War'