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Plumes of smoke rise during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army in Khartoum, Sudan, September 26, 2024.
Sudanese Army launches offensive to retake capital
Residents of Khartoum awoke Thursday to dawn airstrikes and artillery shelling as the country’s armed forces launched an offensive against the rebel Rapid Support Forces militia. The Sudanese Armed Forces have reportedly captured two bridges connecting Khartoum, on the east bank of the Nile, to Omdurman on the west, and are pushing toward the presidential palace amid heavy fighting.
What’s the outlook? Sudan’s military counts on air superiority and artillery, but the RSF’s infantry has historically outmatched them. The RSF also enjoys considerable backing from the United Arab Emirates — a significant military power — as well as Libyan warlord Khalifa Belqasim Omar Haftar and the Russian mercenaries formerly known as the Wagner Group.
Sudan’s armed forces can count on less outside backing: Russia’s involvement has led to a limited deployment of Ukrainian special forces, and Iran has provided some drones (which, ironically, Tehran also provides Russia to fight against Ukraine). Even if they do manage to push the RSF out of Khartoum, Sudan’s military faces steep odds for regaining the whole country.
Is there a chance for peace? Only through negotiation, according to Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the head of Sudan’s military. He called for the end to hostilities and a holistic peace process when he spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in New York Thursday. However, his speech was hardly an olive branch: He accused the RSF of genocide for their slaughter of Black ethnic groups in Darfur province and even alleged that women and children had been sold as chattel in RSF-controlled markets.
We’re watching for who wins the fight in Khartoum, and whether the result of the battle might bring relief closer for the long-suffering Sudanese population.
Ukraine’s AI battlefield
Saturday marks the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Over the course of this bloody war, the Ukrainian defense strategy has grown to a full embrace of cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Ukraine has been described as a “living lab for AI warfare.”
That capability comes largely from the American government but also from American industry. With the help of powerful American tech companies such as Palantir and Clearview AI, Ukraine has deployed AI throughout its military operations. The biggest tech companies have been involved, too; Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Elon Musk’s Starlink have also provided vital tech to aid Ukraine’s war effort.
Ukraine is using AI to analyze large data sets stemming from satellite imagery, social media, and drone footage, but also supercharging its geospatial intelligence and electronic warfare efforts. AI-powered facial recognition and other imagery technology has been instrumental in identifying Russian soldiers, collecting evidence of war crimes, as well as locating land mines.
And increasingly, weapons are also powered by AI. According to a new report from Bloomberg, US and UK leaders are providing AI-powered drones to Ukraine, which would fly in large fleets, coordinating with one another to identify and take out Russian targets. There is no shortage of ethical concerns about the nature of AI-powered warfare, as we have written about in the past, but that hasn’t stymied President Joe Biden’s commitment to beating back Vladimir Putin and defending a strategically crucial ally.
Reports about Russia’s own use of AI in warfare are murkier, though there’s some evidence to suggest they may be using the technology to fuel disinformation campaigns as well as build weaponry. But Ukraine might have an advantage: Recently, Russia’s fancy new AI-powered drone-killing system was reportedly blown up by, of all things, a Ukrainian drone.
Ukraine’s stand against Russia has been called a David and Goliath story, but it’s also a battle evened by technological prowess. It’s a view into the future of warfare, where the full strength of Silicon Valley and the US military-industrial complex meet.A Ukrainian serviceman gestures next to a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer before firing toward Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at a position on a front line in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine November 15, 2023
Ukrainian troops fight for key bridgehead over the Dnipro
Ukrainian troops have crossed the vast Dnipro River and established a bridgehead on the eastern shore, a significant breakthrough after months of agonizingly slow progress in Kyiv’s counteroffensive. If they can hold – and it’s a big “if,” as a Russian regional official says “a fiery hell has been arranged” for Ukrainian troops – the largest geographic barrier on the road to Crimea will be at their backs.
The lay of the land: The Dnipro is the longest river in Europe, and flows in a gentle north-south curve along the entire length of Ukraine. It empties into the Black Sea just southwest of Kherson, which Ukrainian troops liberated a year ago, and controls access thence to the Crimean peninsula, a major symbolic and strategic objective for Kyiv.
Ukrainian troops appear to have secured control over a strip of riverfront between Kherson and the strategic village of Krynky about 24 miles east-northeast. Porting the heavy equipment they’ll need to keep up the attack across the Dnipro is challenging, with most of the bridges in the region long-since destroyed, but a temporary bridge near Krynky, where the Dnipro is narrowest, could change the equation.
Don’t expect a rapid breakthrough: Even if Ukrainian troops do manage to bring over the armor and weapons they need to advance, Russia has multiple lines of prepared defenses to fall back upon. There are no easy countermeasures to the minefields and long-range strikes that have stymied Ukrainian progress since the summer. That said, successfully pulling off one of the toughest maneuvers in modern warfare could represent a morale victory, challenging notions that the conflict has ossified into a “stalemate,” as Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhniy put it recently.