Latest news with #EmilKastehelmi
Miami Herald
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Ukrainian MiG-29 Fighter Jets Bomb Russian Special Services Base
Ukrainian fighter jets have struck a base belonging to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Belgorod region, killing intelligence officers, according to a report. The Telegram channel Soniashnyk, which is affiliated with the Ukrainian Air Force, said the attack was carried out by MiG-29 jets armed with French-developed AASM Hammer precision-guided bombs. Open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysts on X (formerly Twitter) have confirmed the location of the targeted FSB building. Newsweek has contacted Russian and Ukrainian authorities for comment by email. The strike marks a significant escalation in the war, launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022. While Ukraine has previously targeted military sites on Russian soil—such as ammunition depots, logistics hubs, and airbases—the attack on the Glotovo base appears to be the first known strike on a facility linked to the FSB. The Soniashnyk Telegram channel reported that the FSB base, located in Russia's Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border, was hit with two French-made AASM Hammer precision-guided bombs. An unverified video shared by the channel captures the moment of the strike. Filmed by a drone, the footage shows a direct hit on the building, followed by a massive plume of smoke billowing into the sky. "This is what happens when you don't get the message the first time—the Cossacks have to go and repeat the conversation," the channel said in a caption accompanying the clip. "Aviation continues to operate in all directions, MiG-29s destroy enemy forces, including officers of the FSB," it said. Ukraine's military has used AASM bombs extensively in the war to strike Russian military targets, including drone hubs and control centers. Designed by the French Company Safran Electronics & Defense, the air-to-surface weapons are suitable for both deep-strike attacks and close air support missions. The strike comes weeks after Kyiv was reported to have captured the village of Demidovka in Belgorod, and after a Ukrainian long-range HIMARS strike destroyed four Russian helicopters in the region. Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst from Finland-based Black Bird Group, previously told Newsweek that there was no indication Ukraine had made further gains beyond Demidovka in Belgorod. Kyiv's military was likely a fixing operation, not a landgrab with large goals, he said. The Telegram channel Soniashnyk, which is affiliated with the Ukrainian Air Force, said: "This is what happens when you don't get the message the first time—the Cossacks have to go and repeat the conversation." Soniashnyk said the Ukrainian Air Force will continue to "operate in all directions" as the war in Ukraine grinds on. Safran Electronics & Defense told Business Insider that it is significantly ramping up production of AASM Hammer bombs this year, but it's unclear how many will go to Ukraine. Related Articles China Denies Ukraine's Russia Weapons ClaimRussian Bots Roast 'Clown' Donald Trump After Putin CommentsMAGA Divided as Trump Turns on PutinRussia Says Trump's Attack on Putin Due to 'Emotional Overstrain' 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russia pushes forward in Donetsk Oblast, threatening Ukrainian pocket around Toretsk
Russian troops have upped the intensity of their Donetsk Oblast offensive in recent weeks, increasingly pressuring a relatively large Ukrainian pocket between some of the last cities in the region. An unsettling situation for Ukrainian troops is now unfolding south of the town of Kostiantynivka, which has long served as a relatively safe logistics hub for Ukrainian troops defending the areas around the now Russian-occupied Bakhmut. Russian troops have been pushing toward Kostiantynivka from two directions, slowly closing in on the Ukrainian pocket west of Toretsk. Western military experts say that Russia appears to have the resources to keep "creeping" forward, and the question is how much and for how long the Ukrainian forces deployed in the area can hold on. "The problem is this large bulge between Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk has been growing relatively fast," Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst at the Finland-based Black Bird Group monitoring the war closely through open sources, told the Kyiv Independent. Read also: Why Washington failed to end the Russo-Ukrainian War "If it grows at this rate, the Russians will be threatening the supply routes into Kostiantynivka in a couple of months already." Concerns rise over the potential Russian encirclement of Ukrainian troops defending the Toretsk and Kostiantynivka area, according to Kastehelmi. Russia has held the initiative on the battlefield in the Donetsk Oblast since the fall of 2023, after Ukraine's failed summer counteroffensive. The recent Russian push comes as the U.S. continues to insist on peace talks between Russia and Ukraine to end the war at all costs. U.S. President Donald Trump and his team have made numerous threats that Washington could walk away from the peace process if there is no progress made in the near future, putting U.S. military support and intelligence sharing with Ukraine on the line. The experts who spoke to the Kyiv Independent said that the current Russian push in Donetsk Oblast is setting the stage for a major upcoming offensive. "I think that this is a development that will continue to be a growing issue for Ukraine during the summer because, as far as I know, the Russians should have relatively large reserves that they can commit to the battle in the coming weeks and months," Kastehelmi said. Ukraine had largely stabilized the situation on the eastern front earlier this year after Russia ramped up the offensive tempo in the summer of 2024, likely taking advantage of multiple elite Ukrainian units being deployed to Russia's Kursk Oblast for a surprise cross-border incursion. One such unit, the 80th Air Assault Brigade, had manned the defense near Klishchiivka, a village south of Chasiv Yar and north of Toretsk that Ukraine liberated in 2023. "Whilst the offensive is still underway, they're probably building momentum for higher tempo and more intense offensive operations in the coming months." Factors such as Ukraine's manpower shortage and the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian units deployed in the area would dictate how Ukrainian troops will hold onto the pocket south of Kostiantynivka, according to Kastehelmi. The lack of well-trained troops remains the army's weakest spot, with Ukraine struggling to recruit new soldiers and train them to prepare for the brutal reality of the war, experts and officers say. Ukrainian monitoring group DeepState said in April that Russian troops were preparing to advance in an area southwest of Toretsk by solidifying their presence in the village of Kalynove down south. The question hangs over the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian units deployed in the area, as reinforcing the area with units that aren't battered after fighting in hot spots of the war, such as Kursk Oblast, would be a challenge, according to Kastehelmi. "The Ukrainians need to make some difficult decisions on what directions they can prioritize and what reserves they can commit," the expert said. Retired Australian Army Major-General Mick Ryan, who has closely observed the war in Ukraine, said that even if Ukraine were to lose the pocket south of Kostiantynivka, he doesn't believe that it would bring "any significant shift in the trajectory of the war at this point." While it is still "a significant bit of territory," the more pressing concern is for Russia not to gain momentum after potentially conquering it, according to Ryan. "The last thing you want is for the Russians to become more confident and think they can generate additional momentum because they take this area," Ryan told the Kyiv Independent. The Australian expert said that Russia is adapting its tactics on the front line, for example, increasingly using fiber optic and first-person-view (FPV) drones, enabling Russian troops to achieve better results. "Whilst the offensive is still underway, they're probably building momentum for higher tempo and more intense offensive operations in the coming months," Ryan said. For now, the question is whether Ukraine would make the timely decision to withdraw from the pocket, rather than holding onto unfavorable positions at a heavy cost, according to Kastehelmi from the Black Bird Group. Ukrainian soldiers who spoke to the Kyiv Independent often criticized their command to "hold until the end," even if the positions would soon be overrun by Russian troops and the Ukrainians would be left without proper evacuation or orderly withdrawal. "This summer and the next fall will look really difficult," Kastehelmi said. Read also: 'It's okay, Mom, I'm home' —Ukraine, Russia hold largest prisoner swap of the war We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
France 24
21-05-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Could the Finland-Russia border be the next conflict zone after the Ukraine war?
As beleaguered efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine drag on, Russia has been quietly rearming along what is now its longest line of direct contact with NATO – the 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border it shares with new alliance member Finland. Recent satellite images show that Russia has reinforced its military presence over the past few months along the border with Finland, which broke with its decades-long policy of neutrality by joining the NATO military alliance in 2023 in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The images, reported by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and confirmed by NATO officials, show rows of new tents, new warehouses that could be used to store military vehicles and newly renovated combat aircraft shelters. At Kamenka, just 60 kilometres from the Finnish border, more than 130 military tents have been set up since February 2025. The area, which was still undeveloped in 2022, now appears capable of housing up to 2,000 soldiers. Some 160 kilometres from the border at Petrozavodsk, three large warehouses have been built, each one capable of storing 50-odd armoured vehicles. The Kremlin also plans to establish a new army headquarters in the city to oversee tens of thousands of troops, the WSJ reported. Military build-up Finland applied to join the NATO alliance in 2022, prompting Russia to announce plans to increase its military readiness, including expanding its troop force from 1 to 1.5 million. High up in the Arctic circle, the Severomorsk-2 helicopter base is being renovated. The base, which was shuttered in 1998, reopened in 2022. 'Before 2022 there was an unmanned aerial vehicle regiment somewhat operating in the field – so it wasn't totally abandoned. But it wasn't being used for larger equipment such as helicopters,' said Finnish military historian Emil Kastehelmi, who worked on the satellite images as part of a team of analysts dubbed the Black Bird Group. 'But now, after 2022, they have been refurbishing it, renovating it, clearing the overgrown areas – so it seems that they are intending to also ramp up their activities in that area too.' 'We are seeing military activity, and we are seeing the Russians developing their military infrastructure and most likely training new soldiers,' he added. 'But it's not anything too radical at the moment.' Finland officially joined the alliance in April 2023 – followed the year after by Sweden – sparking a furious response from the Russian government, which vowed to take ' counter-measures '. "The enlargement of NATO is an encroachment on our security and on Russia's national interests,' Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said at the time. 'We're going to be following what happens in Finland closely … and how it threatens us.' A few months later, the Russian response took the form of an attempt to organise a migration crisis on the Finnish border, although Russia has denied involvement. Although the operation was a failure, it pushed Helsinki to close its land border with Russia in November 2023. The Finnish government also announced that it would no longer be accepting demands for asylum anywhere except at border-crossing points open to air and sea traffic – that is to say, ports and airports. Arctic rivalries Although the military buildup falls far short of that seen at the Ukraine border ahead of the February 2022 invasion, analysts say the movements may be the first signs of a steadily growing Russian military presence along the Finnish border in the years to come. For Moscow, the area has a great deal of strategic significance. The Finnish border brings Russian into direct contact with a NATO member across more than 1,000 kilometres. The Kremlin views this area as crucial for the defence of St Petersburg and the surrounding region. And Finland could play a key role in any future conflict between Russia and NATO. 'The long term is just that Russia needs to take defence on the border with Finland more seriously now that Finland is a NATO member,' said Ed Arnold, senior research fellow for European security within the International Security department at UK's Royal United Services Institute defence think tank. 'If NATO and Russia go to war in the Baltics, the Finns aren't going to just sit there. They're likely going to counterattack and annex the Murmansk Peninsula – and the Russian nuclear forces and the Northern Fleet are all based in Murmansk. So the Finns can do quite a lot in terms of disrupting that by cutting the supply lines between St Petersburg and Murmansk.' Kastehelmi said that whether or not the Finnish-Russian border could become the site of a new hotspot following the eventual end of the Ukraine war was far from clear. 'It's really difficult to say yet, because the war in Ukraine is still heavily ongoing, and achieving a truce seems to be extremely difficult,' he said. 'The future will show just how heavily the Russians will invest in all of this – military bases, new units, soldiers and so on. But as far as we know now, it's going to be significant.' Russia's military build-up on the border also fits within the broader framework of growing geopolitical rivalries in the increasingly strategic Arctic, which holds a wealth of energy resources and is home to key shipping routes. US and Finnish troops are participating this month in a massive training exercise across the Nordic states simulating an all-out conflict with Russia. And in November, thousands of NATO troops participated in large-scale artillery exercises in Finland's Arctic territory. Finland on a war footing For Helsinki, which fought the Soviet Union during World War II, Russia remains as much tomorrow's enemy as yesterday's. Faced with President Vladimir Putin's imperialist ambitions, Finland has redoubled its efforts to modernise its armed forces. The country in particular wants to increase its military expenditure with the aim of reaching 3 percent of GDP by 2029. Helsinki is also planning to raise the upper age limit of its reservists to 65, giving it a million people capable of being mobilised by 2031 – almost one in five Finns. At the start of April, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo announced that the country would be pulling out of the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel mines, following similar moves by other nations bordering Russia – Poland, Estonia, Latvia as well as Lithuania left the treaty in March, citing increasing threats from Moscow. '[The Finns'] whole position was … we need to be ready to be able to face the Russians on our own,' Arnold said. 'So that's their mindset, and it's how their military is configured. They can get 284,000 troops on declaration of war. That's significant. That's probably more than the UK can get together, probably more than Germany, more than France – probably more than anyone else bar Poland at the moment.' Arnold said that Finland was not only in possession of the most powerful artillery in the European Union, but massive stockpiles of arms and munitions. Finland has at its disposal a large number of self-propelled artillery pieces including dozens of South Korean K9 Thunder and M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) – missile launchers similar to the HIMARS that caused the Russians so much grief in Ukraine. And as of this year, Helsinki should also be able to put its first US-made F-35 joint strike fighters into service, currently the most expensive and sophisticated combat aircraft in the world. In 2021, the Finnish government placed an order of some €8.4 billion with Lockheed Martin for 64 of these aircraft to renew its fleet of F/A-18s. The country certainly isn't making itself an easy target. 'It's probably one of the best-equipped forces not just for conventional, but also hybrid deterrence as well,' he said. 'The Russians would be very foolish if they decided to go up against the Finns as an act of deliberate policy.' Even if a massive redeployment of Russia's armed forces to the border with Finland after an eventual ceasefire in Ukraine seems likely, the remilitarisation of NATO's eastern flank has likely made the task exceedingly complicated for Moscow. 'It's not only about the Baltics now – the Russians need to resource the whole border with Finland, and also the border with Ukraine, wherever it is,' Arnold said. 'It's ultimately going to need more forces, but those forces are going to be far more spread out.' 'So the Russians have not been very clever with the whole war in Ukraine from a strategic perspective.'
Sydney Morning Herald
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Russia beefs up forces near Finland's border
From Moscow's perspective, the Russians need to bolster their defences to protect themselves from NATO expansion, which has always been a sore subject. The Baltic nations were the first members of the former Soviet Union to join NATO, bringing large stretches of Russia's border up against NATO's. The prospect of Ukraine, an even bigger former Soviet republic, following suit was so threatening to Moscow that it became one of the causes of the most devastating land war in generations. 'The Russian military has undergone a significant force expansion,' said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. 'After the war, the ground force will probably end up larger than before 2022. Looking at the planned restructuring of military districts, it seems clear that they're going to prioritise areas facing NATO.' NATO officials agree. Whenever the war in Ukraine ends, a senior NATO official said, Russia would redeploy troops farther and farther to the north. Russia believes that the Arctic and access to the Arctic are key to great power status, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. According to satellite imagery, Russian helicopters returned to a base near Murmansk, a port city in the Arctic Circle, after they had not been there for two decades. As Ukrainian drones target airfields across Russia, Russian command has moved assets north to get out of range. This has put them much closer to NATO territory. Dozens of Russian warplanes were recently spotted at the Olenya air base, also in the Arctic and fewer than 100 miles from the Finnish border, according to the satellite imagery. Other recent activity includes more than 100 new tents that appeared about a year ago at Kamenka, a Russian base fewer than 40 miles from Finland. 'They are expanding their brigades into divisions, which means that the units near our borders will grow significantly – by thousands,' said Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst with the Black Bird Group, a Finnish organisation that analyses the military developments in the north and in Ukraine. Loading Kastehelmi, who analysed dozens of recent images for The New York Times, said that the next few years could bring massive changes to the Finnish frontier, depending on how and when the war in Ukraine ends. At Alakurtti, which is also close to Finland, and Petrozavodsk, a little farther away, the Russians have new buildings that can house at least dozens of vehicles. Activity has also increased elsewhere. New tents and military equipment recently appeared at a base about 80 miles from Estonia. The Finns have an old expression: Russia is never as strong as it looks and never as weak as it looks. So, Finnish defence leaders have been characteristically matter-of-fact about the build-up.
The Age
20-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
Russia beefs up forces near Finland's border
From Moscow's perspective, the Russians need to bolster their defences to protect themselves from NATO expansion, which has always been a sore subject. The Baltic nations were the first members of the former Soviet Union to join NATO, bringing large stretches of Russia's border up against NATO's. The prospect of Ukraine, an even bigger former Soviet republic, following suit was so threatening to Moscow that it became one of the causes of the most devastating land war in generations. 'The Russian military has undergone a significant force expansion,' said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. 'After the war, the ground force will probably end up larger than before 2022. Looking at the planned restructuring of military districts, it seems clear that they're going to prioritise areas facing NATO.' NATO officials agree. Whenever the war in Ukraine ends, a senior NATO official said, Russia would redeploy troops farther and farther to the north. Russia believes that the Arctic and access to the Arctic are key to great power status, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. According to satellite imagery, Russian helicopters returned to a base near Murmansk, a port city in the Arctic Circle, after they had not been there for two decades. As Ukrainian drones target airfields across Russia, Russian command has moved assets north to get out of range. This has put them much closer to NATO territory. Dozens of Russian warplanes were recently spotted at the Olenya air base, also in the Arctic and fewer than 100 miles from the Finnish border, according to the satellite imagery. Other recent activity includes more than 100 new tents that appeared about a year ago at Kamenka, a Russian base fewer than 40 miles from Finland. 'They are expanding their brigades into divisions, which means that the units near our borders will grow significantly – by thousands,' said Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst with the Black Bird Group, a Finnish organisation that analyses the military developments in the north and in Ukraine. Loading Kastehelmi, who analysed dozens of recent images for The New York Times, said that the next few years could bring massive changes to the Finnish frontier, depending on how and when the war in Ukraine ends. At Alakurtti, which is also close to Finland, and Petrozavodsk, a little farther away, the Russians have new buildings that can house at least dozens of vehicles. Activity has also increased elsewhere. New tents and military equipment recently appeared at a base about 80 miles from Estonia. The Finns have an old expression: Russia is never as strong as it looks and never as weak as it looks. So, Finnish defence leaders have been characteristically matter-of-fact about the build-up.
