[Tee tiong huat]

Ukraine Formed A Powerful New Brigade. One Problem—It May Be Missing Drones. The 155th Mechanized Brigade has Leopard 2 tanks, Caesar howitzers. Now it needs drones & drone jammers. Ukrainian newest brigades has arrived in Ukraine after nearly 3-mths training in Poland & France. 155th Mechanized Brigade is arguably best & certainly most heavily-armed—of dozen or so new brigades, Ukrainian forces have formed in recent mths, doesn’t mean 155th Mechanized Brigade is ready for combat. It may be missing critical equipment.  

Expansion following Russia’s wider invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022, Ukrainian ground forces, army, air assault forces, marine corps, national guard & territorials—could deploy a hundred brigades, each w/around 2,000 people. One of biggest forces in world but wasn’t enough. Out numbered, out gunned & overstretched along the 800-mile frontline, even best Ukrainian brigades never got a chance to disengage for rest. The elite 47th Mechanized Brigade, main user of US-made armored vehicles, was in bloody combat for 15-mths be4 finally rotated off frontline, even this break came to an abrupt end with invasion of Kursk Oblast in western Russia drew the brigade back into action.

Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine’s southern Donetsk Oblast, 72nd Mechanized Brigade spent 2-years defending fortress town of Vuhledar. Ground down desperate for relief never arrived, the brigade finally retreated in September, surrendering a key sector to the attacking Russians. Ukraine’s war-weary brigades need help. 4 new army brigades formed in late 2023 offered only partial relief. It
doesn’t mean 155th Mechanized Brigade is ready for combat, is missing critical biggest problem —and it wasn’t enough.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/20...ng-drones/

Russians ‘Panic’ As Ukrainian Forces Fling 40 Cruise Missiles, Ballistic Missiles And Drones At Targets In Crimea. The Nov. 27 raid may have been a powerful and elaborate diversion. In a powerful coordinated strike on Friday, the Ukrainian military bombarded Russian bases in occupied Crimea with no fewer than 40 deep-strike munitions. “Russian channels are in panic as debris is hitting targets,” the Estonian analyst War translated reported.

Updated Dec 1, 2024....An archival image of Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-24 bombers dropping Storm Shadow missiles. For all mass & sophistication, it appears raid was primarily a feint—one, Ukrainians hope will compel Russians to divert additional air defenses from elsewhere along 800-mile front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine. In that way, the Ukrainian attack on Crimea could facilitate later Ukrainian attacks that aren’t feints. Say, raids targeting Russian command posts and supply lines in Kursk Oblast in western Russia—where 60,000 Russian and North Korean troops are counterattacking 20,000 Ukrainian troops holding a 250-square-mile salient. Or targeting key Russian infrastructure in Donetsk Oblast, currently the locus of a powerful Russian offensive that kicked off a year ago.

For the Friday assault, the Ukrainian air force, intelligence directorate and other commands assembled one of the most diverse mixes of munitions for a single operation so far in the 33-month wider war. According to the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C., they included British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles launched by air force Sukhoi Su-24 bombers, air force S-200 air-defense missiles converted into long-range surface-to-surface weapons, strike drones from the intelligence directorate as well as unidentified ballistic missiles, presumably fired by the army.

The mix of weapons—some coming in high and fast, others coming in low and slow—surely complicated Russia’s efforts to defeat the attack. “Ukrainian forces continue to leverage Western-provided weapons to conduct strikes using more complex strike packages against military objects in Russia's deep rear,” ISW noted.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/20...in-crimea/