Bob Homans November 29

20221130

Ukraine – 11/29 Sitrep
By: Robert Homans
November 29, 2022

For the next couple of days, my Kyiv collaborator is working on a project involving a paying customer.  He tells me that he’ll be back on Thursday.

My Interview  With the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative

It’s entitled “Leadership Lessons From Ukraine.”   It was released today.  The interview was conducted last July, but it seems my prediction about “kicking the door down” was spot on.  

I’ve been thinking about this subject for several years, and I appreciate the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative for asking to share my thoughts.   In my opinion it is exactly this subject that was lacking in the lecture by Prof. Marci Shore about Euromaidan, that was part of Timothy Snyder’s ongoing course at Yale.

There is one typo, about Snake Island being a grain export port.   It escaped the attention of all the reviewers, including me.   In fact, the point I was making was that as long as Snake Island was occupied by Russia, that Ukraine’s Black Sea ports were effectively blocked.    We now know that Ukraine put French Caesar 155 mm howitzers on barges, to move them within range of Snake Island.  That was the major reason why Russia was forced to evacuate from Snake Island.   Another example of Ukrainian creativity in the how they use Western weapons.

The other 2 interviews, about Ukraine digital transformation and assisting refugees in Romania, are both very interesting.  They are well-worth reading.

Finally, I’d like to thank my interviewers, Anthony Mohr and Arlene Brock.   Arlene is a lawyer and Tony is a retired Los Angeles County District Court judge.   They asked very insightful questions.  I hope my responses matched the quality of their questions.

Electricity Supply

Earlier today I was speaking with my collaborator.   He said that Ukrainians are finding very creative ways to bring Ukraine’s electricity system back into operation much faster than almost everyone expected, probably including the Russians.  

It is true that the West is supplying replacement parts for Ukraine’s electricity system, generators, transformers, and other critical equipment, but deliveries take time to arrive, and Ukrainians need electricity to stay warm, receive water, and generally be able to continue to live in their homes as opposed to having to evacuate.    

The electricity companies, working primarily with private businesses, have developed workarounds, involving the use of transformers and substations that I am not going to go into in detail but, suffice to say, given the creativity and technical abilities shown by Ukrainians throughout the war, I am not at all surprised.   Going forward, the workarounds are going to make it more difficult, but not impossible, for Russia to cut Ukraine’s electricity supply.

Several days go “Reporting From Ukraine” described how Ukraine’s electricity system is a national grid, allowing power plants in one region where generating stations may not be as damaged, to supply power plants to regions like Kharkiv, where generating stations have been heavily damaged.    His concern was that if the Russian attacks continued that Ukraine’s national grid would break down.

Unlike Ukraine’s, the system in the United States is regional.   When the power grid in Texas failed in February 2021, no other region in the United States was able to supply back-up power to Texas.

“Reporting From Ukraine”

This is a very interesting analysis on how Russia has been setting up  their defense lines in the portion of Kherson Oblast east of the Dnieper River.   From what he said, the Russians have concluded that Kherson Oblast east of the Dnieper is expendable, and its value is to hold up a Ukrainian invasion of Crimea.  I think the focus of a offensive that is described in the video, is Melitopol, and points east, perhaps combined with an offensive going south from Zaporizhia, but not Crimea (at least for now).