Attacks and counterattacks in most areas were limited by the Russian “operational pause” and the reports of emerging missile shortages.

In his first interview with a British newspaper since the invasion began, Oleksii Reznikov said President Zelensky had ordered Ukraine’s military to retake occupied coastal areas which are vital to the country’s economy

Nothing special, just the beautiful landscape from #MiG29 pic.twitter.com/6XQbi8BOiz

#Ukraine #UkraineRussiaWar A Russian AWACS A-50 reconnaissance aircraft is now on duty in the sky over Belarus, which can be used to aim missiles at air and ground targets. A-50 arrived there last night along with two Il-76 heavy transporters. pic.twitter.com/okBwkxCxbP

South of occupied Izyum, in the direction of Mazanivka, Ukrainian defenders defeated combat reconnaissance by the Russian fascist invaders. The rashists retreated with losses. –General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine operational information as of 18:00 on 10 July 2022 pic.twitter.com/MksnK1ZRry

(continued)… Russian terrorists shelled Ivano-Dar'ivka, Shumy and Pereizne settlements with barrel and rocket artillery. They used aviation to carry out a strike near Bohorodychne.#RussiaIsATerroristState pic.twitter.com/87mRUzTQAj

Ukraine’s 40th Artillery Brigade hit Russian military hardware in Kharkiv Oblast.#Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/DDt5u3pU4F

pic.twitter.com/h18UHKthpA

The Russian military is finally quite convinced that, in this big war, the Russian Army is on the losing end. The Ukrainian Army is a completely mobilized, with the best weaponry NATO can provide & Russia is suffering heavy losses from the NATO weaponry. https://t.co/NRO4utW5Tl

A long thread rom Michael Bond:

We received more detail on previously announced UK drones being delivered to Ukrainehttps://t.co/KfeYiiOyw6

“Skibitsky noted that 105 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) are taking part in the war in Ukraine and that Russian reserve capabilities could increase this number to anywhere between 150 and 160 BTGs but did not specify a timeframe for this mobilization.”

Institute for the Study of War

Here is the recent history of Russian BTG counts in Ukraine

There are regularly articles written that spell out the challenges facing those fighting for Ukraine both at the strategic and tactical levels. Here is a sampling

Interviewing a foreign fighter about battles in Severodonetsk

Rob Lee on new Ukrainian challenges now that they are attacking on some fronts

However, there are more positive assessments. US defense officials note that Ukraine is in better defensive positions

Retired general Mick Ryan writes about understanding Russian goals in an effort to develop plans to counter them

Kamil Galeev writes about how, in his opinion, the unequal distribution of economic consequences of the war within Russia will doom it in a long war

Attacks on Ammo Depots There have been so many attacks on Russian ammunition depots that to keep them straight it is easier to list daily strike locations. Today’s list:

Therefore, maps like this one quickly fall out of date

Phillips O’Brien wrote about how these attacks seemed to be very systematic and they may be tied to other efforts to disrupt rail resupply ties

Professor O’Brien also noted the apparent reduction in volumes of artillery fire from Russia and the increasingly deep strikes being conducted by the Ukrainians as reflected in satellite mapping of evidence of fires

The impact of these strikes has the potential to be significant, as estimates of the volume of Russian artillery fire ranges from tens of thousands of rounds per day, up to this estimate from Ukrainian advisor Arestovych of 45k artillery shells per day

As Trent Telenko notes in this detailed thread, these developments considerably change the back of the envelope math previously applied to Russian logistics and makes their situation much more difficult

While discussing logistics, I also note this serious blow via destruction of a large number of Russian supply vehicles, which are becoming more and more important

Through translations of critical blog posts by several Russian military observers, we see that concern over these attacks on ammo depots is shared Roman Saponkov

Satellite photo comparison of strike location

This week, there were videos captured of several missile launches, of a variety of missile types and from both land based and ship based missiles, apparently failing. Missile failure on a launch from a ship

Could this indicate poor storage or reliance on older munitions?

There were also several videos produced of Russian led forces using and transporting Tochka-u missile systems that Russia has claimed to retire. Video of Tochka use by Russian PMCs

There were also reports of apparent failures of S-400 air defense systems to intercept presumed HIMARS strikes and even a report that an S-400 was directly destroyed in such a strike

There were also claims that S-300 air defense missiles have been used in surface to surface strikes

While it has been noted that this mode of use has been previously tested, there is doubt about its usefulness against ground targets

Partisan Resistance Further to previous reports of increasing partisan resistance, there were several attacks noted this week: This attack resulted in light damage to the train, none to the tracks pravda.com.ua/news/2022/07/9… Sabotage of rail line video

In another attack, partisans reportedly blew up a railway bridge near occupied Lyubimivka

While it is not known if it is destined for railroad repair in Ukraine, several train loads of Prefab rail lines were spotted being moved along the Russian side of the Ukrainian border

As a result, Russian is publishing videos of counter insurgency efforts

Russian industry is still producing fighter aircraft, in this case for export sale

In personal equipment we see: Russia using old soviet helmets

Russian soldiers marveling at the superiority of Ukrainian equipment

Advance limited by numbers of UAVs to laze targets for PGMs

We continue to see Russia relying on crowdsourced gear

Chinese scopes on Russian machine guns may be among the privately funded equipment

It is also reported that individual Russians are also donating to Ukrainian crowdfunding efforts and suffering the consequences from authorities, including fines and arrests

This increase is partly based on reports that Ukraine now has several companies made up of captured tanks

Lysychansk – however, as this thread makes clear, most of these are previous captures now being displayed and not new captures in Lysychansk

Why are things abandoned and capable of being captured? Well, Ukraine will destroy equipment that they must abandon

However, some vehicles are abandoned in places where they are believed that they can be recovered. Sometimes the other side will make it a point to get there first, as in this example of capture of an abandoned tank in disputed territory

New Equipment for Ukraine For an effort to keep an ongoing count of equipment supplied to Ukraine see oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answer… Here is another helpful collection of the data ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-aga…

Here is the list of the value of the drawdowns of US military aid as of a week ago

Interestingly, in a recent video a Ukrainian defense official argued against seeking former Soviet equipment in Africa and Asia

and more UK artillery is on the way

Ukrainian advisor Arestovych notes that weapons factories in some NATO countries are now working 3 or 4 shifts to increase production

Artillery and MLRS Danilov stated that Ukraine had 9 HIMARS (however, only 4 were known to be in country with 4 more on the way at the time. His comments may have included some m270). Four more were included in this week’s US commitment, for a total of 12

While Ukrainian advisor Arestovych previously said he believed the west side of the Dniepr near Kherson could be recaptured with just 5 HIMARS, here is what the coverage of the eastern front line would look like with 13 units

Despite Russian claims, the US says no HIMARS destroyed

While HIMARS are being used to very good effect (as per the discussion of attacks on ammo depots above) Russian adaptations to HIMARS in process

Spartans from the UK arrived in Ukraine

a promotional video for Mastiffs from the UK was produced upon their arrival

I don’t know how to reconcile these US claims with reports from the ground that ammunition can be in seriously short supply, for example as included here

However, a Ukrainian defense official reported an informal remark that Ukraine had passed the test on HIMARS precision leading to speculation that eventual provision of the long range ATACMS ammunition was more likely

Germany also secured a supply of Gepard ammo from a Norwegian manufacturer, clearing the way for Germany to consider delivering these eventually

There was a brief mystery as some claimed mortar rounds were sent by Taiwan

Taiwan officials said they did not provide them

and they were ultimately traced as Japanese manufactured bombs supplied by the US

Drones, Planes and Missiles The Lithuanian purchased Bayraktar TB-2 was briefly put on public display and then transferred to Ukraine

We received more detail on previously announced UK drones being delivered to Ukraine

Various home made drone innovations were shown, including a launcher

and an even simpler drone loading mechanisms

Ukrainian advisor Arestovych hinted that Ukraine had ‘something new’ to recently improve its ability to intercept missiles. It is not believed that the recently announced NASAMs air defense systems from the US are in Ukraine yet

Russia has focused efforts on attacking Ukrainian logistics capacity in the past several weeks, but these efforts have repeatedly failed to stop the flow of military aid. Tragically, infrastructure damage in occupied territory is much more common

It is the Russians who seem to be afraid of attacks on infrastructure, employing a reflective barge near the bridge over the Kerch strait to dazzle missile guidance systems

and practicing drills to obscure the bridge in smoke

This is an interesting article with additional detail on this training

In a video interview, a Ukrainian defense official noted: Retraining crews on western tanks is possible, but it would take valuable time

The value of training via combat

A Ukrainian defense official gave several insights: Tank repairs are conducted well behind the front lines, as personnel and repair equipment are too valuable to risk

Ukrainian tanks repaired out of country at 20-30/month

This same official claims that there are only 3 tank repair plants left in Russia

We got insight into Russian repair facilities at two sites: