The D Brief: Kyiv hits Russian bases; Gaza effort, assessed; China hamstrings defense minister; Lone Arctic cutter withdraws; And a bit more.
Ukrainian drones attacked several Russian bases early Wednesday, inflicting damage visible via satellite just a few hours later, officials in Kyiv said. That includes two hangars at Borisoglebsk Air Base well away from the frontlines, and apparent evidence of a strike (but no damage) at Savasleika Air Base east of Moscow, the Associated Press reports using Planet Labs imagery.
Other strikes allegedly occurred in Kursk City and Voronezh City, all with the intention of degrading Russia’s ability to carry out devastating glide bomb strikes inside Ukraine. One Ukrainian described the strikes as the largest of their kind since the start of the war.
Those attacks also run in parallel to Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into Russia, which has slowed since it began last Tuesday, but it is still advancing through Kursk oblast, according to open-source mappers (here, e.g.) using imagery from Ukrainian forces.
One way to look at the incursion: “Ukraine seizes more land in a week than Russia managed in eight months,” as the UK’s Telegraph described the situation Wednesday.
Developing: Russian forces are digging trenches and obstacles to slow Ukraine’s advance in Kursk. That includes ditches across fields you can see in this satellite imagery taken Monday over Russia and shared online Wednesday by George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.
“Russian forces appear particularly concerned about major highways and are likely trying to preemptively safeguard important ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to inhibit Ukrainian maneuver, particularly along the E38 and 38K routes,” ISW wrote in its Wednesday evening assessment.
Pentagon: “We didn’t get any advanced notification” of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion last week, a senior defense official told Defense One’s Audrey Decker on Wednesday.
“What the Ukrainians were able to do was operational security, and that is something that I think we should be giving credit for. It definitely surprised the Russians.”
WH: “Putin and the Russians have had to make adjustments” because of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters Thursday. But the U.S. isn’t adjusting its approach toward Russia, he said. “We haven’t seen or heard anything that would cause us to change our own strategic deterrent posture or calculus,” said Kirby.
The big question now: What comes next for Ukraine’s forces in occupied Russia? U.S. defense officials are “asking the Ukrainians what their real intent is, kind of long term, and how it plays into future negotiations,” the official told Decker. A bit more, here.
New: Ukrainian forces were indeed behind the Nord Stream pipeline bombing in September 2022, according to a lengthy report published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal (gift link). According to several sources, Ukraine’s top military officer at the time, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, forged ahead with the project despite President Volodymir Zelenskyy requesting the operation be called off.
The story is packed with interesting details, including apparent opsec blunders, which Dmitri Alperovitch recounted in a social media thread Wednesday evening.
For what it’s worth, Zaluzhniy denies the allegations. Story, here.
Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1971, Bahrain declared its independence from Great Britain.
Fire forces Coast Guard to withdraw the only U.S. cutter on Arctic patrol, USNI News reports. An electrical fire in a transformer forced the medium icebreaker Healy (WAGB-20) to leave the Chukchi Sea and head south for repairs.
But even those repairs are uncertain because “much of the machinery aboard is antiquated” and parts may no longer be available, Coast Guard Via Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday said at the Brookings Institution earlier this month. “If you want to get under way on a major Coast Guard cutter today, you have to do what we call a controlled parts exchange with other ships at the pier. That’s a fancy term for cannibalization. We’ll steal parts or borrow, actually, from the other ships just to get another ship under way.”
“If Healy can’t continue that patrol, the U.S. will have no icebreakers in the Arctic this summer,” Lunday said at Brookings. Read on, here.
New: Army creates Arctic Aviation Command. Part of the 11th Airborne Division, the new command at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, has direct control of two Alaska-based active-duty aviation battalions that formerly reported to units based in Washington state and Hawaii: 1st Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment, and 1st Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, Army officials said Thursday. Military Times has more, here.
Related reading:
Israel’s military has done all it can to weaken Hamas in Gaza, and further bombings will only hurt civilians, unnamed U.S. military officials tell the New York Times. The officials said Israeli forces had destroyed about half of Hamas’ brigades, cut off supply routes from Egypt, and even established the ability to move about freely in the Gazan enclave. But, they said, Israel would be unable to completely eliminate Hamas as a fighting force, or be able to militarily force the return of roughly 115 living and dead hostages seized in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. Read on, here.
Did China just demote its defense ministry? Adm. Dong Jun, the first admiral ever appointed to lead the country’s Ministry of Defense, did not receive two other appointments that his predecessors did. This reduces the ministry’s power, and likely forces the U.S. to reassess how it engages with the Chinese military structure. RAND’s Shanshan Mei and Dennis Blasko explore why in Defense One, here.
Additional reading:
Lastly: Lockheed eyes Florida satellite designer (at a discount). After seven years working together, U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced Thursday that it’s acquiring the debt-ridden satellite-and-space-vehicle design firm Terran Orbital.
The transaction, valued at $450 million, “is expected to close in [the] fourth quarter of 2024,” Lockheed said in a Thursday statement. The acquisition gives the defense giant greater access to Terran Orbital’s satellite design, production, launch planning, mission operations, and on-orbit support capabilities—several of which have already been used with the Space Development Agency’s Transport and Tracking Layer programs, the statement said.
Worth noting: The new price tag is well “below Lockheeed’s previous bid of nearly $600 million in March,” CNBC reports.
And the new purchase bails out Terran’s dismal financial situation, which included cash reserves of “less than $15 million at the end of July,” as well as “about $300 million in debt,” according to CNBC. Read more, here.
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