Today’s D Brief: NATO-trained brigades enter combat; Army looks to fix prepositioned stocks; NDAA passes HASC; Random smartwatches; And just a bit more.
Ukraine’s NATO-trained brigades have finally entered the fight against Russian forces in occupied territory, the New York Times reported Friday, citing U.S. officials. That includes about 36,000 troops using U.S.-provided equipment like Bradley Fighting Vehicles as well as German tanks and more.
“The bulk of the nine Ukrainian brigades has yet to be committed to the fight, but the vanguard of that main assault force is already making its mark,” the Times’s Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt write.
U.S. Army chief Gen. James McConville says Ukraine’s counteroffensive is going well. The outgoing Army chief told reporters he was repeating what Ukrainian officials told him during a media roundtable at an event called the 30th Conference of European Armies on Friday in Germany. He also said the U.S. plans to continue training Ukrainian troops as Kyiv’s counteroffensive gets underway. Defense One’s Sam Skove will have more on McConville’s remarks later today.
And in Kyiv, a top advisor to President Volodymir Zelenskyy echoed the president’s remarks from a Wednesday interview with the BBC, asking everyone to have patience since war does not unfold with the speed of an action movie.
“Real war is not a Hollywood blockbuster. The counteroffensive is not a new season of a Netflix show. There is no need to expect action and buy popcorn,” Mykhailo Podolyak advised on Twitter Friday. “Offensive operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue in a number of areas. Formation operations are underway to set up the battlefield. Time is always important,” he said. “Breaking the Russian front today requires a reasonable and balanced approach,” while “The military command focuses on military science and intelligence, not on fans in the stands.”
By the way: Ukrainian forces are practicing removing and overcoming obstacles placed in their way across occupied territory in the south and the east, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliyar said Friday on Telegram, along with about half a dozen photos of troop inspections. “We still have the main events ahead of us,” she said in a separate interview on Friday, according to Reuters. “And the main blow is still to come. Indeed, some of the reserves— these are staged things—will be activated later.”
And there are many, many obstacles of a wide variety that Russian forces have either dug or left behind in anticipation of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. The British military highlighted a few of those on Wednesday, along with satellite imagery, featuring various approaches to Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
Why it matters: “These elaborate defences highlight the Russian command’s assessment that Ukrainian forces are capable of directly assaulting Crimea,” the British Ministry of Defense tweeted. “Russia continues to see maintaining control of the peninsula as a top political priority,” they added.
Also: Russia appears to have expanded port infrastructure in occupied Sevastopol, Ukraine, which is at the southern edge of Crimea, the Brits said Friday. That includes “at least four layers of nets and booms across the harbour entrance,” and an apparent “doubling of floating mammal pens…which highly likely contain bottle-nosed dolphins.” The dolphins “are highly likely intended to counter enemy divers,” the UK Ministry of Defense wrote on Twitter, with supporting satellite imagery.
Trouble in Putin’s upper ranks: Russia’s convict-mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video Friday that Vladimir Putin’s public reasons for invading Ukraine were based on lies all along—that Ukraine was never going to use NATO to attack Russia, that Putin’s military “is deceiving the public and the president,” and that the goal all along, going back to the initial 2014 invasion of Crimea, “was to divide material assets in Ukraine” among Russia’s oligarchs.
Update: A week ago, we learned Israel planned to sell its Merkava tanks to a European customer for the first time ever. On Thursday, we learned at least one of those customers is the spy-infested island redoubt of Cyprus, according to Haaretz.
Meanwhile across the pond, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto is dropping by the Pentagon this morning for discussions with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Crosetto is expected at 11 a.m. ET.
Additional reading:
Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. On this day in 1868, the typewriter was first commercially patented in Milwaukee.
The U.S. Army wants to fix its prepositioned stock program. The storage of huge amounts of materiel in seven sites around the globe underpins many of the military’s global war plans. So when Humvees and howitzers newly drawn from storage were found to have rotted tires and potentially lethal firing problems, the DOD inspector general sounded the alarm.
Now the Army is trying to figure out just what needs fixing, reports Defense One’s Sam Skove. Army senior leaders will “review all aspects of this instance and apply the necessary improvements” to the Army Prepositioned Stocks program, service spokesperson Jason Waggoner told Skove. “The Army is looking at all recommendations to make necessary changes to the APS program.” Read on, here.
Related reading:
The 2023 defense policy bill passed the House Armed Services Committee, 58-1, on Thursday. The topline is unchanged from the White House’s $874 billion request, and includes “a major pay raise for service members, programs and initiatives to counter China, and $300 million to support Ukraine, among other funding needs across the military,” The Hill reports.
Changes: But the draft NDAA, which now goes to the full House, also includes “several amendments targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and other cultural issues. Those measures led to hours of infighting Wednesday between Republicans and Democrats on the committee.” More, here.
Help for vax refusers: In particular, the bill contains several GOP measures that aim to help troops who refused the order to get a COVID vaccine. Defense One’s Caitlin Kenney explains, here.
Lastly today: if a smartwatch appears unexpectedly in your mail, don’t turn it on. That’s from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, which sent out a warning last week that someone is sending such devices to troops. CID can’t divine any pattern yet, but notes that rando smartwatches could carry malware that could connect to Wi-Fi and smartphones, gaining “access to saved data to include banking information, contacts, and account information such as usernames and passwords.” Enjoy your weekend!
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