This edition of This week in the World covers events from the last two weeks.
Ukraine-Russia
Whilst the Russian advance towards Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine has been greatly slowed, Russia has opened a new offensive towards the town of Vuhledar. Russia previously attempted to capture the town in 2023 and earlier this year but were defeated. This time however Russian troops have mostly surrounded the town and have begun heavy assaults on it. Ukrainian military bloggers suggest Ukraine may soon have to withdraw from the town.
On the 18th of September, Ukraine used a swarm of drones to hit the massive Russian ammunition storage depot in Toropets. Open-source satellite photos and local reports suggest that Russia had been storing ammunition in the area in the open to make it easier to load into trucks and trains for transport. This meant that the drone attack set off a chain reaction of fires and explosions which lasted for hours. Satellite photos taken after the fact suggest that a significant proportion of the huge ammo storage facility was destroyed along with thousands of tons of ordinance. This is expected to create significant logistical problems for the Russian forces ammunition supply.
Middle East
On the 17th and 18th of September, pagers and walkie-talkies used by the Shia militia and political party, Hezbollah, suddenly exploded.
These devices had been selected for use by Hezbollah’s leadership as part of efforts to protect from hacking attempts by Israeli spies by removing cellphones from operations. Whilst no one officially claimed responsibility for what was found to be a triggered explosion of subtly sabotaged devices, unofficially Israeli officials have admitted to the attack.
A complex operation which involved injecting these tampered with pagers into the Hezbollah procurement networks, the Israeli attack is possibly the most impressive intelligence operation ever carried out. In resulted in at least 42 deaths and over 3 500 injuries of mostly Hezbollah operatives from the lowest to the highest ranks. It also killed a small number of civilians.
Israel followed these attacks with a huge wave of targeted and directed airstrikes on Hezbollah missile and rocket stockpiles. These attacks have placed Hezbollah in a severely weakened position. They have also exposed the deep infiltration of Hezbollah by Israeli intelligence.
Israel is considering a ground invasion of Lebanon to push Hezbollah forces back from the border and allow the tens of thousands of Israeli civilians who have been internally displaced by Hezbollah attacks on the north of the country since October 7th to return.
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