(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ukraine Invasion Day 701: death from above [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-01-24 Russian information space actors are seizing on the Il-76 crash to sow domestic discontent in Ukraine and undermine Western will to continue giving military support to Ukraine. Russian State Duma Defense Committee Chairperson Andrei Kartapolov claimed that Ukraine deliberately shot down the Il-76 knowing that it contained Ukrainian POWs and called for all POW exchanges to pause indefinitely.[10] Deputy Chairperson of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev accused Ukrainian “internal political struggles” of contributing to the crash.[11] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is currently in New York for UN Security Council (UNSC) meetings, called for an urgent UNSC meeting to address the crash and accused Ukraine of terrorism.[12] Such Russian accusations are meant in part to sow discontent in Ukraine and galvanize distrust of the Ukrainian government, which is consistent with several other Russian information efforts aimed at weakening Ukraine domestically.[13] POW exchanges are a sensitive issue in both Russia and Ukraine, and rhetorical invocations of POWs predictably elicit emotional responses. Russian officials additionally made unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine struck the Il-76 with US- or German-provided missile systems, likely in an attempt to discourage Ukraine’s Western partners from providing Ukraine with critical air defense systems necessary for Ukraine’s continued defense.[14] www.understandingwar.org/... Russia is struggling to breach Ukraine's defenses because its troops keep getting blown up by drones when they gather in groups: ISW www.businessinsider.com/... Germany will give Ukraine six Sikorsky Sea King anti-submarine warfare helicopters, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has announced. "[The Sikorsky] Sea King is a proven and powerful helicopter that will help Ukrainians in areas from reconnaissance over the Black Sea to transporting soldiers. This will be the first German delivery of this type," Pistorius said after the 18th meeting of the Ramstein Contact Group of more than 50 allies of Ukraine, which took place on January 23 online. At the start of the meeting, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called on the members to continue providing assistance to Ukraine. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, click here. www.rferl.org/... Russia appears to have put decoy flares on its cruise missiles, a world first. The flares are meant to confuse Ukraine's air defense and make them harder to shoot down. Experts told BI they are unlikely to be very effective. Fabian Hoffmann, a missile technology expert at Norway's University of Oslo, agreed, citing visual evidence from the wreckage of a recently-fired Kh-101. Hoffmann, though, doubted it would give Russia much of an advantage. "It's probably not that effective," he said. He said it's possible the advantage is basically cosmetic — a "signal to themselves that they're trying to actively improve the success rate and survivability of their missiles." www.businessinsider.com/... x HIMARS is destroying expensive and rare russian weapons. Among them: ◾️1К148 Yastreb-AV counter-battery radar system ◾️Buk-M2 and Buk-M3 Anti-aircraft missile systems ◾️2S5 Giatsint-S Self-propelled artillery ◾️Zoopark-1 counter-battery radar system 📹: 14th Separate Regiment pic.twitter.com/2A3JUGls9B — Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 24, 2024 The war in Ukraine has proven a need to rethink air superiority, the top US Air Force officer said. Gen. David Allvin acknowledged that in future wars, the approach to air superiority may be different. He said there will need to be synchronization with other capabilities in specific situations. After nearly two years of full-scale conflict, neither Russia, nor Ukraine, has managed to achieve air superiority. Ukraine was never expected to, and Russia's failure to do so early in the war by knocking out ground-based air defense came as surprise to many observers. Russia has proven during the course of this conflict it can outmatch Kyiv in the skies because of disparities in force size, missile and radar performance, and technical and electronic capabilities, but formidable surface-to-air missile systems on both sides have left the airspace above the battlefield continuously contested . Russian forces were expected to achieve air superiority in the early days of its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022, but a series operational mistakes and mishaps prevented it from happening. That failure continues to haunt Moscow, according to Western intelligence reports. www.businessinsider.com/... Ukrainian forces destroyed a partially built railway bridge, fuel tanks, and engineering machinery in the vicinity of the village of Hranitne, near the occupied city of Mariupol on Jan. 6, Mariupol mayoral advisor Petro Andriushchenko reported on Telegram on Jan. 7. The destroyed bridge was part of Russian plans to lay down a railway stretching from Russia to Mariupol, said Andriushchenko, adding that the invaders attempted to intercept the missiles used to attack the bridge. english.nv.ua/... Bank of Cyprus leaves Russia Foreign investors expressed interest in purchasing two Ukrainian state-owned banks, Ukrgasbank and Sense Bank, Deputy Finance Minister Yurii Drahanchuk told Ukrainska Pravda, the outlet reported on Jan. 24. Both banks were among the 10 most profitable banks in Ukraine in 2023. Ukrgasbank is a Ukrainian commercial bank founded in 1993. Sense Bank, a Ukrainian branch of Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman's Alfa-Bank, was nationalized in the summer of 2023 as its owner had been placed under sanctions. "We are actively preparing them for sale. We received these signals at the end of last year, starting in the fall," Drahanchuk said. The potential investors are encouraging Ukraine to finalize the deal soon, and the banks themselves are preparing for the purchase, Drahanchuk said. At the same time, the Finance Ministry and the World Bank are working on legal amendments to make the sale as transparent as possible. Drahanchuk added that Ukraine wants to sell the two banks this year. According to the deputy minister, the state has a strategy to reduce its presence in the banking sector. Still, it is not ready yet to sell the country's largest bank, PrivatBank, which generates $1 billion of state budget revenue. kyivindependent.com/... At least 18 people were killed and more than 130 wounded in massive Russian airstrikes on Ukraine on Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. The air raids mostly targeted the two largest cities: the capital, Kyiv, and Kharkiv in the east. Ukraine’s president said more than 200 sites were struck, including 139 dwellings. Russia’s military is carrying out probing attacks with barrages of missiles and drones in an attempt to find weaknesses in Ukraine’s defences as US funding for security assistance is tied up in Congress, Celeste Wallander, a Pentagon assistant secretary of defence, has said. The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said he had invited Sweden’s prime minister to visit and negotiate his country joining the Nato military alliance , a process that Hungary and Turkey have delayed. Turkey’s parliament, though, voted on Tuesday to accept Sweden as a Nato member . Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, has made his first appearance since being hospitalised for cancer treatment – a stay he concealed from both the White House and Congress for several days. Austin spoke via video link at the opening of a meeting on military aid for Ukraine. “ The security of the entire international community is on the line in Ukraine’s fight. I am more determined than ever to work with our allies and partners to support Ukraine and to get the job done,” Austin said. Western allies aren’t supplying Ukraine with enough ammunition and air defence missiles , Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said in an interview with German media. Russian attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv on Tuesday “clearly show the need to provide more anti air defence systems, as well as more surface-to-air missiles ”. As for the ground war, “insufficient quantities of artillery munitions has been a problem from the start”, he said. Kuleba said he was still in talks with the German government about receiving Taurus cruise missiles , even after the lower house of the German parliament voted a week ago against delivering them. “We’ll never give up,” Kuleba said. The finance minister of Germany has said it can’t keep up Ukraine’s defence capabilities on its own in the long term and that others will need to increase bilateral contributions. 20 Days in Mariupol , Mstyslav Chernov’s chronicle of the besieged Ukrainian city and the international journalists who remained there after Russia invaded, has been nominated for best documentary at the Oscars . Poland and the Baltic states were calling for import bans on Russian aluminium and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the European Union’s 13th package of sanctions against Moscow over its Ukraine invasion, a Polish official said. Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, insisted life in the Ukrainian capital was “absolutely normal”, just hours after Russian missiles fell on Kyiv and a day before his first meeting with the Ukrainian prime minister. www.theguardian.com/... Key Takeaways: A Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft crashed in Belgorod Oblast on January 24. Russian information space actors are seizing on the Il-76 crash to sow domestic discontent in Ukraine and undermine Western will to continue giving military support to Ukraine. Russian law enforcement authorities are codifying xenophobic profiling methods suggesting that migrants are predisposed to criminal activity against the backdrop of continued conflicts between Russian citizens and naturalized migrants. The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Ukrainian hackers recently conducted cyberattacks on Russian intelligence and communications infrastructure. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated during the 18th Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany that recent Russian missile strikes against Ukraine underscore the need to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses. Russian and Chadian officials met in Moscow on January 24, suggesting that Chad may be the Kremlin’s next target among former French colonies on the African continent. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) controlled Africa Corps published photos on January 24 claiming to show Africa Corps personnel arriving in Burkina Faso. NATO announced on January 24 that the Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises have started and will run until May 31, 2024. Positional engagements continued throughout the theater. Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov continues efforts to bolster the reputation of Chechen forces. Russian occupation authorities are setting conditions to coerce voter turnout in the upcoming March 2024 presidential elections. x ⚡️ WAR IN #UKRAINE - JAN 24, 2024 ■ Casualties slightly above 7-day average, massive landbased equipment losses including record high artillery losses ■ Strikes far above average & include 🇷🇺 missile strikes, many settlements under artillery fire but fewer engagements ■… pic.twitter.com/Om31XtUciu — Ragnar Gudmundsson 🇮🇸🇺🇦 (@ragnarbjartur) January 24, 2024 Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast) Ukrainian Joint Forces Commander Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev reported on January 24 that Russian sabotage groups attempted to cross the international border between Russia and Ukraine, likely referring to Russian claims that Russian forces captured Pletenivka, Kharkiv Oblast, less than two kilometers from the Kharkiv-Belgorod Oblast international border, on January 23.[39] www.understandingwar.org/... www.understandingwar.org/... Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas) Positional fighting continued near Bakhmut on January 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. ...Russian and Ukrainian sources stated that positional fighting continued northeast of Bakhmut near Bilohorivka and from Vesele towards Vyiimka and Spirne; north of Bakhmut near Vasyukivka; northwest of Bakhmut near Bohdanivka; west of Bakhmut near Ivanivske; southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka; and northwest of Horlivka near Shumy.[47] Elements of the Russian 102nd Motorized Rifle Regiment (150th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th Guards Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) and the 85th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] Army Corps) are reportedly operating near Bakhmut, and elements of the Russian 200th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (Northern Fleet) are reportedly operating on Bakhmut’s northern flank.[48] www.understandingwar.org/... Positional fighting continued near Avdiivka on January 24, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional fighting continues northwest of Avdiivka near Novobakhmutivka and Stepove; in southeastern Avdiivka near the “Tsarska Okhota” restaurant area; west of Avdiivka near Sieverne and Tonenke; and southwest of Avdiivka near Vodyane, Pervomaiske, and Nevelske.[50] Ukraine-based open-source organization Frontelligence Insight reported that Russian shelling has destroyed most of the buildings in Avdiivka‘s southeastern residential area and that Russian forces continue to shell northwest of Avdiivka near Stepove, Berdychi, Novobakhmutivka, and Novokalynove.[51] Frontelligence Insight reported that the situation on Avdiivka’s flanks is more stable, allowing Ukrainian forces to continue defending Avdiivka in the face of ongoing shell and manpower shortages.[52] www.understandingwar.org/... www.understandingwar.org/... www.understandingwar.org/... www.understandingwar.org/... www.understandingwar.org/... x ⚡️To attack NATO countries, russians will need to withdraw 300,000 soldiers from Ukraine and undergo a "recovery period". This was stated by Commander of the Estonian Defense Forces Martin Gerem, – ERR reports. "The better prepared we are, the less likely it is that our… pic.twitter.com/8amjLI2dBI — FLASH (@Flash_news_ua) January 24, 2024 x When Russia says that Ukraine has shot down a plane with POWs, how to verify this?The list of Ukrainian prisoners of war allegedly aboard the crashed IL-76 published by Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan includes at least one soldier who had already been exchanged earlier. — Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) January 24, 2024 x General Staff of Armed Forces of Ukraine: Russian army bringing missiles to attack Ukraine to Belgorod airport with transport aviation. Ukrainian military will destroy any supply of missiles used to attack Kharkiv region https://t.co/qoj9uaSUEe #Ukraine — Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) January 24, 2024 GRAPHIC WARNING: Russian plane carrying Ukrainian POWs crashes: RIA cites defense ministry | REUTERS [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/24/2219227/-Ukraine-Invasion-Day-701-death-from-above?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/