Ukraine War Update: On The Steppe

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground this is the ukrainian war intelligence update for the 25th of february 2022 and it is being recorded at 0 100 eastern time on the 25th which is also 0 800 ukrainian time so let's get right to it in the geopolitical sphere throughout europe really the theme has been mostly squabbling over the past 24 to 48 hours when it comes to sanctions to put it lightly attempts to sanction russia with anything meaningful have been a complete and under failure i hate to keep ragging on various european agencies for this even though it's quite easy to do but what we have seen coming from the un and the eu over the past 24 hours has been just quite embarrassing with regards to their sanctions attempts on russia so i think that it's again like i mentioned last time kind of laughable to think that sanctions can impact russia in any meaningful way or you can't sanction your way out of an invasion uh which a lot of people seem to think is an option uh but when it comes to the specific issues that have been plaguing europe at this time and really any time europe tries to get together to sanction an entity it's that everybody wants something differ ve been plaguing europe at this time and really any time europe tries to get together to sanction an entity it's that everybody wants something different most nations in europe want to sanction different things or not sanction certain things in any case nobody seems to want to agree on anything which is a problem a lot of people have brought up the possibility of removing russia from the swift banking system which would be slightly more than a slap on the wrist for russia and that might actually complicate things for them maybe i don't think it'll have too much difference but i'm not a financial expert or really know what ways that would harm russia but my personal guess is that this isn't going to happen i would bet that most nations in europe are just stalling for time on the sanctions front as a side note on the sanctions front whatever slap on the wrist sanctions are going to go through you can bet that this is going to affect your life here in the united states real quick for instance the u.s has tried to talk about sanctioning things like trade and banking well with regards to trade one particular thing that has increased in price over just the past day or so is fertilizer th hings like trade and banking well with regards to trade one particular thing that has increased in price over just the past day or so is fertilizer the united states imports a lot of fertilizer from russia so since that trade is likely to be sanctioned or maybe it already has been sanctioned i just haven't picked it up yet prices for fertilizer go up prices for fertilizer have already gone up in the international sphere and as we've been talking about in our other briefs there has been a mass global fertilizer shortage of all kinds of fertilizers so when the prices for various fertilizers go up the prices for your food goes up as well this applies to other things too like energy but my guess again is that europe is not going to touch the energy sector too much with russia uh europe is again simply too reliant on russian natural resources at this stage for any significant sanctions to hit russia's energy sector something that has also raised many eyebrows today has been the invocation of article four of the nato charter so far uh four nations have invoked article four that would be the classic three estonia latvia lithuania and as and uh poland as well for those of you who don't und nations have invoked article four that would be the classic three estonia latvia lithuania and as and uh poland as well for those of you who don't understand or don't know what article four of the nato charter is really it's just a clause within the nato charter that allows members members of nato to hold consultations when they feel that their territorial integrity is in jeopardy basically it's the dinner bell to bring all nato members together in the same room to talk about what's going on because one native member thinks they're about to get invaded so again it's not uh article five article five is the big one which is basically an attack on one as an attack on all uh and that's that hasn't been invoked just yet article four is kind of like the prelude to that and it makes sense at this stage this is not anything to panic about uh for sure it's a little troubling because you know article 4 means pretty big business but it's not something that's like oh my gosh world war iii is starting because of this so uh this is something to be completely expected especially from you know estonia latvia lithuania and poland these four nations are kind of right there they're the first um kind completely expected especially from you know estonia latvia lithuania and poland these four nations are kind of right there they're the first um kind of or really the last bastion between russia and the rest of europe so um it makes sense for them to kind of trigger this uh and talk about russia's actions in ukraine something also that's kind of interesting i saw being thrown around today was the idea of finland possibly joining nato i don't really think that's a serious thought it is interesting and i think that it would be very interesting to see what russia would do in that front because again russia and finland have a very long history they share a border it's kind of an interesting relationship there i don't think that finland's gonna be up for uh nato membership anytime soon but i think that it's kind of interesting that they're talking about that potential so who knows this might be a chance for finland and you know what sweden for that matter to to join uh nato or or join on i don't know if that's again really a serious thing but it's interesting and i i think that somebody's trying to make us think that it's serious because uh both finland and sweden have been invited to t but it's interesting and i i think that somebody's trying to make us think that it's serious because uh both finland and sweden have been invited to the table uh at the the nato um security conference tomorrow so interesting maybe something to keep an eye on i would not be terribly surprised whatever happens either way but i just wanted to mention it because it's kind of interesting also within russia we're seeing a lot of civil disobedience a lot of protests in the streets over russia's launch of this invasion particularly in moscow as well as st petersburg we're seeing really hundreds and hundreds of protesters take to the streets to protest their own country's involvement in ukraine which is utterly fascinating to be honest so what putin is having to deal with right now again this is something he has normally historically been very hypersensitive to but he's having to deal a lot with domestic concerns right now and i would be very curious as to see how this is going to go go down of course protesting in russia especially especially protesting anything that has to do with vladimir putin that's going to get cracked down with you know an iron fist right so that's just the way this protesting anything that has to do with vladimir putin that's going to get cracked down with you know an iron fist right so that's just the way this is that's what russia has is well known for at this point alexia navalny taught us that right so it's going gonna be interesting to see where these protests go and and how big they get i don't think it's gonna have any impact whatsoever on military actions within ukraine but again it's interesting so i wanted to point it out moving on to the naval updates don't have a whole lot for the north sea so i'm gonna have to come back to that later uh same thing with the med i will say that right now it's there's a lot of russian vessels in the med and in the black sea we don't know exactly where they're at but i'll come back to these russian uh landing ships uh task forces here in just a bit on the grand strategic front here overall russia continues her advance into ukraine on all fronts with some lines of effort making better progress than others which we'll touch on when we get into the specific fronts but one thing that i wanted to mention now because i don't really have anywhere else to put it is an observation that we noticed yesterday b ic fronts but one thing that i wanted to mention now because i don't really have anywhere else to put it is an observation that we noticed yesterday but has become more apparent today and that is russia's hesitance to use large percentages of her forces at this time yes we are seeing attacks and advances along all of the front lines right but it's not to the level of an all-out throw everything they've got forward kind of thing this could change in an instant of course but it seems like russia is moving hesitantly and only committing the bare essential forces to meet an objective now of course if you're into military strategy and things like that that kind of makes sense right you don't want to you know waste a lot of your forces up front when you know that there's going to be a prolonged uh fight ahead of you right uh but this this could also be a problem for russia moving forward because russian forces are already starting to face more resistance than they expected along a couple of fronts and if russian forces get bogged down this is going to present problems for them now whether or not ukrainian forces will be able to capitalize on russia's strategic errors that remains to be k is going to present problems for them now whether or not ukrainian forces will be able to capitalize on russia's strategic errors that remains to be known but in all honesty that's not very likely on the strategic stage though ukrainian forces have demonstrated that some units have learned from their mistakes in the past and can coordinate to fight and win localized victories which is something that russia is certainly taking note of before we move on i wanted to show a brief map of where most of the major significant air strikes or cruise missile strikes or garage strikes have been occurring uh really it's all over the country and and again like i mentioned yesterday uh critical infrastructure military targets military bases that they don't really particularly need or the home bases for political targets and things like that so we're not exactly seeing deliberate targeting of civilians in a lot of areas but we are seeing that in some areas on the northeastern front most of the activity today has been centered in the towns of kharkiv and sumi russia has been conducting strikes on the outskirts of kharkiv all day and night in fact i have a clip here to show you the kinds of strikes and sumi russia has been conducting strikes on the outskirts of kharkiv all day and night in fact i have a clip here to show you the kinds of strikes that have been occurring in kharkiv we haven't been able to 100 verify this specific clip so take it with a grain of salt as always this is really just to show everyone what a strike from a multiple launch rocket system or mlrs looks like [Music] foreign [Music] again with misinformation running rampant right now we couldn't 100 verify that this is karkiv right but even if it isn't this is exactly what the strikes on kharkiv have looked like for hours now to the northwest of kharkiv in the village of sumi locals are reporting that much of the city has been encircled by russian forces we've seen russian armor within the city pretty much all day and that large russian armored columns are now bypassing the city and heading to kiev along the eastern front we have witnessed intense fighting with moropol being the major source of information as it is a decently large city with a civilian population which have been reporting on the shelling that has been occurring since the invasion began shelling which has been intense we don't have a super ation which have been reporting on the shelling that has been occurring since the invasion began shelling which has been intense we don't have a super great idea of how the battle for maripola is going but so far it seems quite brutal both ukrainian and russian forces have claimed to have taken the city or retaken the city but right now as with many other locations along the front the city of marpul remains a contested area the southern front has seen the most significant russian advances today with ukrainian forces tactically retreating or just wide open terrain allowing russian forces from crimea to advance from crimea about 60 kilometers north to kerrson city there fighting has been raging all day as ukrainian forces have been able to mount an effective defense again reports are conflicting as to whether or not russia has taken kirsten yet so this terrain is still very much contested at the moment however once russia does take the city they will have an effective bridge over the danipa river and will begin to threaten odessa's flank also something to keep an eye on is odessa and marpol itself with regards to amphibious attacks we still haven't seen the amphibious craft that we k k also something to keep an eye on is odessa and marpol itself with regards to amphibious attacks we still haven't seen the amphibious craft that we know are in the area uh it's really hard to kind of keep a track on where these guys are at but but really we and lots of others are expecting an amphibious assault to occur sometime pretty soon one minor amphibious assault that has already occurred has been the snake island which is so small that it doesn't show up on the map but you can see it to the left of the slide there that is now in russian control it's a very small training base it's been a historical uh training location very small island outpost uh for ukrainian special forces and uh reporting indicates that all uh all uh 13 or 14 of the ukrainian soldiers were killed while defending that island so 100 casualty rate for that particular conflict there along the western front really no major updates from last time still haven't quite figured out what's going on there it appears to be there's a combination of either celebratory gunfire or legitimate gunfire or or something going on there we do know that moldova itself is actually trying to set up humanitarian operations and set nfire or legitimate gunfire or or something going on there we do know that moldova itself is actually trying to set up humanitarian operations and set up locations for refugees to be staged once they egress from ukraine and that doesn't appear to be affecting anything so i'm not really sure what's going on in transnistria but it doesn't really seem to be significant so we'll skip over it for now along the northwestern front most of the combat we have seen has been in the chernobyl exclusion zone today which we'll get to in just a minute but we've also seen a lot of conflict taking place to the east to the northeast of kiev in the in the town of cherniv in china we have seen significant armored battles with ukrainian forces and russian forces really holding their own against each other pretty much all day and right now it seems like ukraine still holds the city but there has been significant fighting all day and night there before we move on to kiev i briefly wanted to mention what's been going on at chernobyl there have been increased detections of radiation within the chernobyl exclusion zone particularly around the spent fuel storage pools in the vicinity of the actual snowball p detections of radiation within the chernobyl exclusion zone particularly around the spent fuel storage pools in the vicinity of the actual snowball power plant itself of course none of us here are radiological experts but it looks like based on the data coming out of the remote sensors in the area that radiation levels have spiked quite significantly now i based on the data that we're seeing and a lot of what other people are kind of speculating on at the moment this appears to be for two reasons for one there's an awful lot of shelling going on when you've got an mlrs trying to erase grid squares and you know just basically churn the earth in certain locations you're going to turn up a lot of radiological dust and that's going to trip your sensors of course right so yeah stirring up dust is not good but that's more of a localized problem the other cause for this is what everybody's kind of thinking and what the ukrainian government has it's confirmed as much as the ukrainian government can confirm right now uh because chernobyl is currently in russian hands uh the ukrainian government has confirmed that a waste of radiological waste site has been struck by russian artillery and t urrently in russian hands uh the ukrainian government has confirmed that a waste of radiological waste site has been struck by russian artillery and that is you know that splitting open has uh caused the sensors to to pick up these increased levels of radiation again really hard to say because this up until a few hours ago was and it still probably is a very kinetic combat zone lots of fighting going on up there russia barely took this area from the ukrainians and they currently hold the chernobyl power plant so it's really going to be hard to tell what damage has been done international monitors are probably not going to be able to get in there for a while so yeah best we can do and the best rest of europe can do is just like the first time just kind of monitor sensors and and see how this goes but for right now just so everybody has some kind of number to work with the background radiation in chernobyl the chernobyl exclusion zone right there right beside reactor 4 is around about 3 000 nano sieverts per hour and right now this that same sensor whose average is three thousand is now uh picking up over sixty five thousand five hundred uh uh nano sieverts per hour so yeah not super same sensor whose average is three thousand is now uh picking up over sixty five thousand five hundred uh uh nano sieverts per hour so yeah not super great i don't really know what this means from from a health health perspective but it does seem like this is largely localized in the area for now but again you know chernobyl has a way of of kind of being way worse than anybody thought right so again we'll be keeping an eye on this as we move forward in kiev most of the combat today has been centered around the antonov airport historically this airport is mostly used for super heavy cargo operations and is you know obviously a primary goal of russian airborne forces who have been trying to take it all night last night and all day today as well earlier today reporting indicated that ukrainian forces had defended off russia's assault and downed as many as six russian helicopters that were taking part in the assault for the airport and subsequently engaging russian forces decisively requiring the survivors of the assault to disperse into the nearby countryside however it seems that at some point russia regained the initiative and retook the airport sometime during the day but then los the nearby countryside however it seems that at some point russia regained the initiative and retook the airport sometime during the day but then lost it again either way it's really hard to say what actually went down today at the antonov airport but it would be safe to say that the antonov airport has traded hands a couple of times today and since russia has demonstrated that the antonov airport facility is an important strategic objective we will consider this location as contested for the time being out east at the major civilian airport of borgesville there hasn't been much news other than sporadic fighting in the immediate area of the airport presumably by russian airborne forces several russian helicopters are reported to have been shot down during the initial raid on this airport and some video footage indicates this as well but again information is really murky surrounding the boris bill airport right now but again thinking strategically every day that russia has to fight for an objective and loses is a day that they are behind schedule and it seems like most analysts and entities out there ourselves included think that it's pretty clear that russia fell short of meeting ind schedule and it seems like most analysts and entities out there ourselves included think that it's pretty clear that russia fell short of meeting her day one goals ukrainian president zielinski is still in kiev though he himself has confirmed that his family is in a safe location additionally he has stated today that russian special forces and saboteurs are within the city this is to be expected uh russian forces would have had to have been on the ground in kiev for many days before this invasion began also another interesting bit of information is a rumor that's been going around surrounding a lone ukrainian pilot flying around kiev in an old mig-29 today who has allegedly downed between four and six russian aircraft again this is just a rumor right now but dozens of people in the streets have seen and photographed this unknown pilot or possibly pilots it might be more than one person so obviously this very well could be just morale boosting propaganda right when wars break out these kinds of romantic stories come out right but this unknown pilot has been dubbed the ghost of kiev so i thought it was kind of interesting so i thought i'd share it moving back to a more strategic his unknown pilot has been dubbed the ghost of kiev so i thought it was kind of interesting so i thought i'd share it moving back to a more strategic view for a moment i briefly wanted to talk about the civilian front or some considerations that civilians are going to have moving forward in trying to egress from the country or being informed enough to stay if that's their choice so far the united nations if you can trust their numbers estimate that roughly 100 000 people have been displaced from their homes but again this has happened so quickly and there are so many fronts that are open all at the same time that it's really hard to guess and that number is almost certainly much much higher than that for those who are trying to leave ukraine there are quite a few challenges uh first up are logistical challenges right uh there is of course a nationwide gasoline shortage this is this occurs because people are of course uh trying to buy all the gas at once and with traffic jams the you know already strained logistics basically come to a grinding halt right so some people might find that they have no trouble finding gasoline to fill up their cars uh but others might find that they have grinding halt right so some people might find that they have no trouble finding gasoline to fill up their cars uh but others might find that they haven't had gasoline since the invasion started so really hard to say where these shortages are going to occur at but you can bet that it's probably going to affect the entire country over the next few days as far as russia targeting civilians i want to i'll talk about that here in just a moment but i wanted to briefly on this slide mention that uh civ cas or civilian casualties are being reported in odessa which makes makes a lot of sense due to the close proximity of the port it's very dense densely populated area it's not a very big city but it's pretty dense the military base is kind of cramped there a little bit so it would make sense that russian forces targeting those areas would result in a lot of civilian casualties plus the of course the civilian port city side of things and also in kharkiv we're seeing a lot of residential areas be targeted in kharkiv and that will likely continue uh as as ukrainian forces pull back into the city so far we're not seeing uh too many strikes occur within the city of karki but we are seeing the od uh as as ukrainian forces pull back into the city so far we're not seeing uh too many strikes occur within the city of karki but we are seeing the oddball strike here and there and they're not exactly hitting military targets although military targets were like the first ones taken out so an apartment building here you know another apartment building there that's kind of what we're seeing in car keep but let's move on to the traffic just briefly wanted to show kind of a screenshot of google maps at the moment now of course google maps is highly dynamic and of course using people's smartphones to track where they're at to give us these nice traffic maps right but as you can see the main highway heading uh heading west um highway 40 there has significant portions of that highway closed and that is heavily affecting all of the other secondary roads which are now showing up as orange because they have significant delays moving just a little bit further west we can see again just a sea of orange roads as people try to maneuver their way around either military actions or traffic it's really hard to say if there's a clear route at all to the border right now it's just taking forever to g round either military actions or traffic it's really hard to say if there's a clear route at all to the border right now it's just taking forever to get from one place to another and it's it's going to be a long uh drawn out affair if you try to make it to the border by vehicle and again once you get to the border you face other challenges as well right now pretty much every checkpoint along the polish border looks exactly like this it's backed up for many many miles as people try to make their way into poland right now we don't even know if poland is actually taking ukrainian citizens uh we know that poland has over the past few days said that they're taking american citizens you can get your visa and and stuff right there at the border um that should be no problem for americans i'm not sure about any other nationality though but um really a lot of nations throughout europe are being really hesitant uh on taking ukrainian uh refugees so so you might find that you can get all the way to the border but you have trouble with immigration right so something also to consider is ukraine's martial law and declaring a general mobilization basically meaning that every male aged 18 to 60 are right so something also to consider is ukraine's martial law and declaring a general mobilization basically meaning that every male aged 18 to 60 are now prohibited from leaving the country so yeah this is uh this is a very tough time obviously so that's something to think about as well for egress so jumping back to civilian casualties for just a moment a lot of people have brought up the idea that russia is only going for military targets and is looking to topple the ukrainian government not really going after civilians our thoughts on that are that this is generally true but we also must remember the unspoken caveats that come with russian combat actions the russian military doesn't really have any regard at all for civilian casualties we have seen this in syria we've seen it in georgia we've seen it in chechnya and we saw it yesterday in ukraine so right now it doesn't look like the russians are intentionally targeting civilians as a whole although like i mentioned there is evidence of this in kharkiv but the russians clearly do not care if civilians are in their way russians don't have to meet the six pillars of targeting they don't have a cat one no strike list and they don't ot care if civilians are in their way russians don't have to meet the six pillars of targeting they don't have a cat one no strike list and they don't care at all about civ cash or population density estimates so with that in mind if civilians can weather this invasion or are already behind enemy lines staying put might be the better option for now and like i mentioned we also have to remember that as this humanitarian crisis grows fewer and fewer nations will be accepting of refugees so you might travel all the way across ukraine through a war zone just for a polish border guard to not grant you a visa nothing is certain right now and european nations have been extremely hesitant to confirm that they will be providing refuge for displaced persons like i mentioned moldova has stepped up but again they haven't taken that many yet and their tone might change with time for the people who are living in cities or heavily urbanized areas just know that these areas are already targets and as russian forces close in on these urbanized areas where the defender has the advantage the civilian casualties that we will be seeing will most likely rise very sharply as russia begins targeting the c here the defender has the advantage the civilian casualties that we will be seeing will most likely rise very sharply as russia begins targeting the civilian populace even more deliberately than they already are so the decision to stay and hopefully make it through an invasion unscathed to eventually become a russian citizen that might be an option for many one thing that people tend to forget a lot of times is that some people either cannot or will not leave their home some people simply do not have the option to flee and resettle to a different country so we are keeping these tough choices in mind as well so that's all we've got for right now everyone uh thank you for your support and thanks for watching remember everything is subject to change and even though russia's advances right now are decently slow or at least slower than russia would like them to be this can change very quickly so remember this is going to be a video that's going to be on the internet for literally ever and we can't change it after it's uploaded other than making some minor corrections in the description box but again we'll update you as time goes on i don't know if we're going to be able to keep up these aking some minor corrections in the description box but again we'll update you as time goes on i don't know if we're going to be able to keep up these daily updates we're certainly going to try at least until things reach sort of a status quo but for the moment everybody's kind of doing what we're doing which is watching and waiting so again thank you for your support and we will see you next time and as always fight in the shade