Russia’s Dominance in the Ukrainian Theater Continues

by Simplicius The Thinker

The day starts with a massive Russian missile strike that has wiped out another chunk of the remaining Ukrainian energy capacity. It’s now confirmed that Russia is hitting precisely the turbine rooms causing long-lasting, if not permanent, damage.

 
Here’s Ukraine’s own Centernergo energy concern declaring it to be the worst day in their history, as the Trypil Thermal Power Plant in the Kiev region was wiped out:

 

 
Here’s a before and after:

 

 
The regime apologists are in conniptions over this:

 

 

 

 

 
The Kharkov plant and several others were struck as well. Full report:

 

Missile attack on the territory of Ukraine on April 11: details

Tu-95MS missile carriers and Geran-2 loitering ammunition hit many targets, including both military and infrastructure/energy facilities.

What objects were hit?

▪️Tripolye (Kyiv region). Trypilska Thermal Power Plant.

▪️Kharkov, CHPP-3.

▪️Kharkov, plant named after. Malysheva, workshop No. 510 and building No. 400.

▪️Chuguev (Kharkov region). Central warehouse of engineering ammunition of military unit A-2467.

▪️Kharkov, Turboatom plant. Foundry shop and KEMZ building.

▪️Stry (Lviv region), gas collection point No. 2.

▪️Susk (Rivne region). 1448th Central Artillery Weapons Base.

▪️Chervonograd (Lviv region). 72nd separate mechanization battalion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

▪️Chervonograd (Lviv region), substation “Chervonograd-2” 110/35/6 kV.

▪️Odessa, substation 330/110/10 kV “Usatovo”.

It is noteworthy that during attacks on electricity generation facilities, eyewitnesses recorded multiple arrivals, as in the case of the recent finishing off of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station. Indirectly, this indicates that the Russian Aerospace Forces have been tasked with completely destroying or critically damaging ALL large non-nuclear generation facilities on the territory of Ukraine.

Taking into account the fact that the attacks on Ukraine’s energy system are systemic in nature (and some facilities, such as CHPP-3 and substations in Odessa, have been hit not for the first time), the cumulative effect of a sharp shortage of electricity generation may appear in the near future.

It’s difficult to truly estimate how catastrophic the situation is becoming because every ‘expert’s’ opinion seems to differ, and many were disappointed with last year’s energy grid strikes. However, one thing that can be objectively said is Russia has demonstrably been hitting engine rooms, as we’ve seen in actual video from the Dnipro HES hydroelectric station. In the Centernergo note above, they also admit a ‘large fire’ in the ‘turbine workshop’.

And by the way, for those wondering why Russia didn’t begin such a devastating campaign in winter, here’s what Putin is alleged to have told Lukashenko at their soiree today:

Russia did not strike Ukrainian energy sector in winter for humanitarian reasons – Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with Lukashenko, said that Russia was forced to respond to the Ukrainian series of attacks on the energy sector. Our country did not carry out such attacks in winter for humanitarian reasons, so as not to leave hospitals and schools without electricity.

If only Netanyahu had 0.01% the compassion.

Now that things are heating up in this way, Ukraine is in a froth over those Patriot systems:

 
In fact, Bild’s Roepcke appears to claim that Ukraine has completely run out of the flagship AD missiles:

 
Update:

 
Unfortunately, here’s Germany’s Annalena Baerbock’s response:

 
If you want to see how truly desperate the situation has gotten, get a load of this unhinged rant by EU lunatic Guy Verhofstadt:

 
During all these urgent calls for new Patriots to be sent has anyone bothered to ask where the previously delivered Patriots have gone, by any chance? We were told they were totally unscratched after stopping all those Kinzhals. It seems perhaps that wasn’t entirely accurate.

In the meantime, Russian MOD published another video of a new Ukrainian S-300 being taken out by what’s likely an Iskander or Tornado-S near Odessa:

 
But here’s where it starts getting interesting. What began as mere improbable rumor weeks ago is slowly starting to spin into a common thread of something going on in the Kharkov direction. My readers know I’m very open and honest about these things—when something feels speculative and merely ‘rumor’-based, I readily say so, as I hate clickbait and groundless rumorbait just as much as you do.

But when a certain critical mass of rumors and information is reached, sometimes our ears perk up and we’re forced to pay attention. Kharkov is a particularly sore spot in this regard merely because we’ve heard rumors for so long about all the possible “big arrow” offensives that could come down from the north. However, we must objectively admit that Russia has never gone after the Ukrainian energy infrastructure with as much commitment as is happening now.

So, to dress the table, here’s head of the Kharkov administration announcing they’ve made their decision on evacuating nearly 50 settlements and villages in the north Kharkov region close to the Russian border:

 
Recall the parallel thread I’ve been following here with many citizens beginning to slowly flee Kharkov, sensing what may be coming their way. Also recall my own personal on the ground intelligence, which I wrote about several weeks ago, that said Russian villages on the border of Sumy were being quietly evacuated, with residents being offered money by Russian authorities to leave within a two month frame.

Russian ex-general and current Duma member commented on just this:

 
And Ukrainian pundit Max Feigin even stated on air that Kharkov is in danger of being evacuated, and appears to state that city services are already removing secret documents—if I’m understanding correctly—so they don’t fall into Russian hands in the event of Kharkov’s fall:

 
Josep Borrell, too, seemed to signal something big being imminent:

 
But the most eye-opening piece of new information came in the latest Economist article centered on Kharkov:

 
First, might I mention that the article begins with this quite thematic quote which shows the nature of what Russia’s up against:

 
While describing the huge uptick in strikes on Ukraine’s “second city”, they make the first notable admission—that Russia may be looking to effectively force the city’s evacuation, as reportedly opined by ‘military sources’ in Kiev:

The escalation had military sources in Kyiv suggesting that Russia has resolved to make the city a “grey zone”, uninhabitable for civilians.

This is important because all the lead-ups I had mentioned earlier certainly appear to paint the picture of an increasing campaign to shut the city’s power down and purge it of civilians in the run-up to a potential large-scale ground assault of some kind.

They appear to further admit that Russia has destroyed Patriot systems guarding Kharkov:

 
But then comes the big one I’ve been setting up:

 
So: according to them Russia is preparing for a ‘major summer offensive’ and is training a massive two-corps field army of six divisions in ‘eastern Siberia’, according to a high-ranking Ukrainian official.

That is extremely interesting because it gives us the first potential intel on what some of Shoigu’s newly constructed army corps could be doing. But more importantly, and what most will miss about this news, is the following:

The 120k number matches almost precisely with the number of troops Russia has been designating for each given sector or front. For instance, the Kupyansk-Kremennaya theater was said to have about 120-150k men. The Zaporozhye theater was said to have roughly that amount as well; and then the Donetsk also. Most of that information is compiled from various sources such as the Pentagon leaks, which gave Russian troop dispositions. But as an example, here’s an older out of date graphic I happened to find in my collection just to give a rough idea:

 
You can see the Kupyansk theater with ~130k, the center group with 50k + 60k, and Zaporozhye with 50k that later grew to much more, not to mention they don’t count the nearby Kherson region’s grouping.

My point is that this number roughly corresponds to what Russia has been using for an entire given major front or sector. So if we are to assume, hypothetically, that this potential new 120k man structure is being trained as one cohesive grouping—an assumption based on the fact that they’re reportedly training together in the same region—under one command, ergo we can make the logical extension that this grouping is intended for a new theater. And what possible new front or theater could be opened up with such a large grouping? There is no room anywhere else to inject such a group other than into the north.

Admittedly, these are all very preliminary assumptions. No one really knows anything quite yet—the grouping could very well be meant as reserves to replace and rotate men all along the front, or the Economist’s “report” could be entirely fake. There were other rumors that Russia intended to inject a huge amount of new men into the Zaporozhye front and push a large new offensive there. But it really does strike me as quite ‘coincidental’ and my personal suspicions are up about a potential Kharkov direction.

However, one thing I’ll say is that even if that were to happen, I’m not necessarily expecting it to be any time soon, or even necessarily this year. We see now Russia moves fairly methodically at its own pace. The coming ‘summer offensive’ could very well be an increased tempo of actions along the current front, and the phantom 120k man group could be meant to open the Kharkov theater for winter or even spring next year, for example. After all, one thing to remember is that it takes up to a year to properly train a new recruit. It’s unknown what training level all those enlistments have, which have been coming in over the past year at a rate of ~30k per month. Many of them could be in training for a long time before being allowed to see any action.

And in case anyone asks: I’ve been talking for a long time about Shoigu’s new 500k man army meant to be a reserve against potential NATO attack. But they’ve already raised the full 500k, yet have not stopped recruiting. That means this year alone, they’ve already raised a new 50k—as of last reporting by Medvedev and Shoigu several weeks ago—and so, potentially taking 120k of the reserves for SMO action would not be a major reduction given that, at 30k per month, in only a few more months they can already replenish the total.

Russia appears to know something—here’s UN rep Nebenzya’s latest statement to the committee:

“Very soon, the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional surrender of the Kiev regime, I advise all of you to prepare for this” – Nebenzya

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