Ukraine

[Bact PhD]

Aug 11, 2022 22:19:23 GMT indy said:

I wonder why Ukraine would antagonize Belarus? It seems odd.

I think I remember reading early on that Belarus was a staging area for some of the Russian troops & that their leadership & Putin were BFFs.

[andydp]

Aug 11, 2022 22:24:48 GMT Bact PhD said:

Aug 11, 2022 22:19:23 GMT indy said:

I wonder why Ukraine would antagonize Belarus? It seems odd.

I think I remember reading early on that Belarus was a staging area for some of the Russian troops & that their leadership & Putin were BFFs.

Just a thought: based on Ukraine’s performance against the Russians, I have a feeling Belarus isn’t going to do much besides grumble.
They certainly can’t depend on their BFF Vlad for military support. Isn’t Belarus already under sanctions ?

[LFC]

Aug 11, 2022 22:19:23 GMT indy said:

I wonder why Ukraine would antagonize Belarus? It seems odd.

They're giving serious support to the Russians. One of their railways was sabotaged early because it was used to bring in supplies. This airbase is being VERY heavily used by the Russians who apparently have a lot of equipment and supplies there. They haven't gone after any other targets that weren't directly supporting the invasion.

[LFC]

WTF? Is there some massive multi-pronged campaign going on to rattle the shit out of the Russians? I mean, c'mon. All of these things are hitting in a span of 3 days.

A huge fire burnt military barracks in Dolgoprudny, Moscow, Russia, on the night of Wednesday, August 10.

Video footage of the fire in Russia’s Moscow region has since been shared on social media, with one user taking to Twitter to post:

“Moscow region. Dolgoprudny. During the night of 11.08.2022 a wooden barracks of a military unit burnt down. No information about casualties.”

The fire reportedly broke out on the grounds of a military unit in Dolgoprudny.

A wooden building where the barracks was located caught fire, although the cause has not yet been revealed.

And the brewery going up was apparently an ammonia pipeline explosion. Seriously?

The news of the fire in Moscow, Russia follows reports of a fire in Russian-occupied Donetsk People’s Republic on Wednesday, August 10, that suggested that the fire originated at a brewery resulting in an ammonia pipeline explosion resulting in an ammonia spill.

Instructions from the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the DPR told residents of the Kalininsky district of Donetsk that “there was an accident at the ammonia pipeline with a spill of a hazardous chemical substance – ammonia.

“In this regard, the population must stay in their homes. Take measures for additional sealing of your apartments (houses), and premises. Breathe through cotton-gauze bandages moistened with a 5 per cent solution of citric or acetic acid.

[indy]

Aug 11, 2022 22:24:48 GMT Bact PhD said:

Aug 11, 2022 22:19:23 GMT indy said:

I wonder why Ukraine would antagonize Belarus? It seems odd.

I think I remember reading early on that Belarus was a staging area for some of the Russian troops & that their leadership & Putin were BFFs.

Aug 11, 2022 23:53:48 GMT LFC said:

Aug 11, 2022 22:19:23 GMT indy said:

I wonder why Ukraine would antagonize Belarus? It seems odd.

They're giving serious support to the Russians. One of their railways was sabotaged early because it was used to bring in supplies. This airbase is being VERY heavily used by the Russians who apparently have a lot of equipment and supplies there. They haven't gone after any other targets that weren't directly supporting the invasion.

I understand that Belarus was helping Putin in some ways early on, particularly by letting him run material and troops through the country. However, currently Ukraine controls their side of the entire Belarus-Ukraine border (https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A770/production/_126246824_ukraine_russian_control_areas_map-nc.png) and Russia cannot supply through Belarus anymore nor do they need to. They can still dispatch air power or shoot missiles from there of course so I'm not saying it's a completely benign situation.

However, it seems a really risky proposition to antagonize Belarus, which could potentially result in Ukraine needing to commit additional military resources desperately needed elsewhere to reinforce that northern border if Belarus decides to get frisky.

Again, it doesn't really make sense to me to do this for what is essentially a pretty low priority military gain but maybe I'm missing some information or overlooking something.

[LFC]

Aug 12, 2022 11:10:34 GMT indy said:

Again, it doesn't really make sense to me to do this for what is essentially a pretty low priority military gain but maybe I'm missing some information or overlooking something.

One thing about this string of "incidents" is that there seems to be a LOT of missing information. It's kind of eerie how little is actually coming out.

[LFC]

Belarus claims the explosions at its airbase were due to a "technical incident." Like Russia they seem to have no interest in allowing the world to see that they were hit. Ukraine continues to try to get inside their heads with statements like this one.

After reports of the blasts in Belarus, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak noted what he termed an "epidemic of technical accidents," something he described as a warning to Russian troops.

"The epidemic of technical accidents at military airfields of Crimea and Belarus should be considered by Russia military as a warning: forget about Ukraine, take off the uniform and leave," Podolyak said on Twitter.

"Neither in occupied Crimea nor in occupied Belarus will you feel safe. Karma finds you anywhere," he added.

So much for feeling safe because you're 20km behind the front lines, or even in Belarus.

[LFC]

Russia seems to be moving deeper into the desperation and atrocity phase of their failed war.

[LFC]

It sounds like Ukraine is systematically making things harder and harder for Russia rather than facing them head-on in a slugfest.

[LFC]

This seems to be a recurring theme with one military expert after another, especially those who have trained with the Ukrainians, saying pretty much the same thing.

Here's an example. This is some first rate McGyvering.

[LFC]

Is some real progress starting to be made?

This was an interesting comment.

Herb N Roots Regrows
@roots_herb
22h

Kherson has been desired all along,but so are all territories.
Kharkiv is precariously close to Russia,unlike Kherson.
Kherson could become a Russian trap & quagmire, while the other fronts & axes lose concentrations of troops.
#Ukraine can use Kherson to find openings elsewhere

As they get closer to the border I wonder if Ukraine is thinking about taking a little bit. If Ukraine took even a small piece of Russia it would be a PR nightmare for Putin. Remember what the Americans did in WWII when the Japanese occupied Attu Island? I've been there and it was not remotely worth fighting over except for the PR angle. Putin would be forced to move resources.

[LFC]

Evacuation of top officials? It's really starting to feel that Ukraine has decided to pull multiple triggers at roughly the same time to throw the Russian military into turmoil. It will be interesting to see how many, if any, are real moves forward and how many are just design to break down the strategy and cohesiveness of the Russian military.

[LFC]

The TPM Ukraine discussion group continues to deliver interesting information on what's going on. Russians appear to be losing their grip on the south in part because they have a lot of resources dedicated to protecting the north and also because they're so dependent on bridges to keep supplies flowing. They are now in a tough spot in the Kherson region (just north of Crimea) and Ukraine is continuing to press them. Apparently the organization of resistance well before the invasion is paying off.

Another attack with a big explosion was reported.

It sounds like Russia is pulling back.

Loss of the city along with Ukraine now having HIMARS puts the Russians in an even more precarious position.

I've read that Russia is attempting offensive attacks in the north to try to draw Ukrainian resources from their southern assault. It will be interesting to see if they have enough remaining "oomph" to be able to even do so at any real level. If Ukraine has dug in up north in preparation for this then I suspect Russia's offensive plans won't go very far.

[LFC]

Heavy sigh.

[LFC]

More on Ukraine's offensive in the south.

Ukraine's military said its artillery hit a Russian ammunition depot near a key bridge in the south on Friday and added it now had the ability to strike nearly all of Moscow's supply lines in the occupied region.

The military said the attack killed 11 Russian soldiers in the depot in the village of Vesele, about 80 miles (130 km) down the vast Dnipro river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
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There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities on the report of the attack in Kherson province, or the purported reach of Ukraine's firepower. Reuters could not confirm the reports independently.

Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for Ukraine's southern military command, said Ukraine has nearly all of Russia's southern supply routes under "fire control," meaning that Ukraine is able to hit them with ranged weapons at will.

"Our forces are controlling the situation in the south, despite the enemy trying to bring in reserves even though almost all their transport and logistical arteries have been hit or are under our fire control," she added in a national broadcast.

Vesele - which is near the Kakhovskyi bridge, just metres away from a large dam - is a vital crossing point that Ukraine has attacked to try to weaken Moscow's grip on a sliver of land it occupies on the Dnipro's western bank.
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Ukraine says it has been able to hit dozens of Russian ammunition depots thanks to Western deliveries of long-range multiple-launch missile systems, such as U.S.- supplied HIMARS.

Kyiv hopes that by acquiring new missiles capable of striking Russian logistics deep behind the front lines, it can turn the tide of the conflict in coming weeks.

[LFC]

Slovakia will be receiving U.S. made F-16 jets soon so will transfer 11 ready to go MIG-29 aircraft to Ukraine. They aren't worried about the crossover time because Poland and the Czech Republic agreed to patrol their skies to prevent Russia from trying to punish them with some sort of stunt.

Slovakia is on the verge of gifting its fleet of Mig-29 fighters to Ukraine, giving Kyiv an injection of familiar combat jets it has been clamoring for since Russia’s all-out invasion began five months ago to the day.

Jaroslav Nad, Slovakia’s defense minister, said on July 25 that the small former Warsaw Pact member is primed to discuss transferring its 11 MiG-29s to Ukraine. The jets are set to be grounded by the end of August, after which Slovakia’s skies will be patrolled by neighboring Czech and Polish jets.

Ukrainian pilots already fly the MiG-29 and so there would be little additional training needed to put Slovakia’s jets to immediate use. President Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded with Western supporters to provide fighter aircraft but NATO members, led by the U.S., have thus far come up short, although they have donated parts that have helped put grounded Ukrainian fighters back in the air.

Slovakia is counting on F-16 jets from other NATO members that are adopting the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and more modern jets to backfill its fighter capacity. Ukraine would welcome surplus western fighters, but training and maintenance requirements will likely not allow the country to effectively field U.S.- or European-built fighters for months or perhaps years. Still, as The War Zone pointed out in this previous story, there is no time to waste in preparing the Ukrainian Air Force to operate new fighters. The 2023 U.S. defense policy bill, passed by Congress earlier this month, includes a plan to train Ukrainian pilots on U.S. jets.

This is why Putin wants to undermine NATO. It's tougher to threaten smaller nations when they band together plus ally themselves with the most powerful military on Earth.

And in the "I wish" category:

Much ink has been spilled over the possibility that the U.S. Air Force could donate the A-10 Warthogs it so badly wants to divest. The tank-killer aircraft was designed to provide close air support and anti-armor capability in exactly the sort of open-field European war currently being waged by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, although its potential performance against the modern air defenses that Russia is fielding near the front lines is highly debatable. Still, senior USAF leaders left the door open for A-10 transfers to Ukraine just last week, but those aircraft also would still require time-consuming pilot and maintenance training.

As Ukraine continues to target Russia's air defenses I suspect A-10s could end up be devastating.

[andydp]

Aug 14, 2022 16:25:08 GMT LFC said:

And in the "I wish" category:

Much ink has been spilled over the possibility that the U.S. Air Force could donate the A-10 Warthogs it so badly wants to divest. The tank-killer aircraft was designed to provide close air support and anti-armor capability in exactly the sort of open-field European war currently being waged by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, although its potential performance against the modern air defenses that Russia is fielding near the front lines is highly debatable. Still, senior USAF leaders left the door open for A-10 transfers to Ukraine just last week, but those aircraft also would still require time-consuming pilot and maintenance training.

As Ukraine continues to target Russia's air defenses I suspect A-10s could end up be devastating.

For those not familiar with the A-10 "Warthog" a couple of things: max speed is about 600 knots.  Done on purpose to provide close air support.  The A-10 is basically a flying tank designed to fly low on the battlefield.  Conversely, this makes it harder for radar to track it and also limits what missile defenses can target it.  The Warthog was designed to fly home with only one engine operating, the pilot is surrounded by armor.  The plane was designed around the main gun.  It was a proven tank killer in Desert Storm.  

Manning a Russian radar is going to be very dangerous soon. The supply of anti radar missiles to Ukraine will increase the survivability chances of all aircraft.  

The more I read, the more I'm convinced we would have kicked USSRs patoot.  They may have some excellent special units but what they're using in the Ukraine show me the non special units (rank and file) are nothing to get too excited over.  (NEVER discount your enemy.) They can still do a lot of damage.  

[andydp]

Someone is "blinking". **

‘Panic-stricken’ Kremlin officials approach the West to end Ukraine invasion: report

A leaked document suggests that a top ranking Kremlin official has approached the West in a bid to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as conflict in the region continues into its sixth month.

“A representative of Putin’s inner-circle sent a signal to the West about the desire to negotiate. The mood of the Kremlin elite is panic,” the document, obtained by journalists in Europe, said.

The document, which was reportedly sent to Western intelligence officials, partially identified the unnamed Kremlin insider as “one of the pillars of the regime”.

They are thought to have reached out via either a Western diplomat or a CIA officer.

Reports claim insiders close to Putin are growing increasingly worried about the Russian economy amid crippling sanctions imposed by the West.



www.news.com.au/world/europe/panicstricken-kremlin-officials-approach-the-west-to-end-ukraine-invasion-report/news-story/bb8b34790e682bfd77b2d104bde391e8

** Super, incredible, bonus points if you know the background for that quote/paraphrase

[jackd]

If the someone blinking isn't Putin, it probably doesn't mean much.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 16, 2022 12:13:22 GMT andydp said:

Someone is "blinking". **

‘Panic-stricken’ Kremlin officials approach the West to end Ukraine invasion: report

A leaked document suggests that a top ranking Kremlin official has approached the West in a bid to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as conflict in the region continues into its sixth month.

“A representative of Putin’s inner-circle sent a signal to the West about the desire to negotiate. The mood of the Kremlin elite is panic,” the document, obtained by journalists in Europe, said.

The document, which was reportedly sent to Western intelligence officials, partially identified the unnamed Kremlin insider as “one of the pillars of the regime”.

They are thought to have reached out via either a Western diplomat or a CIA officer.

Reports claim insiders close to Putin are growing increasingly worried about the Russian economy amid crippling sanctions imposed by the West.



www.news.com.au/world/europe/panicstricken-kremlin-officials-approach-the-west-to-end-ukraine-invasion-report/news-story/bb8b34790e682bfd77b2d104bde391e8

** Super, incredible, bonus points if you know the background for that quote/paraphrase

Do you mean the staring contest?  My brother and I used to do that, a way of combat that didn't make my mom yell at us for fighting.

The situation around the nuclear facility is unnerving.  And what's also unnerving are some of the comments below the article.  This is an Australian media and it's clear that Russian trolls are busy there too.

 

[goldenvalley]

Here's a long read in The Washington Post about US intelligence on Russia's plans for Ukraine.  Essentially the conclusions were dead on except for the part about Zelensky not being up to the challenge.  

As Milley laid out the array of forces on that October morning, he and the others summed up Putin’s intentions. “We assess that they plan to conduct a significant strategic attack on Ukraine from multiple directions simultaneously,” Milley told the president. “Their version of ‘shock and awe.’ ”

According to the intelligence, the Russians would come from the north, on either side of Kyiv. One force would move east of the capital through the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, while the other would flank Kyiv on the west, pushing southward from Belarus through a natural gap between the “exclusion zone” at the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear plant and surrounding marshland. The attack would happen in the winter so that the hard earth would make the terrain easily passable for tanks. Forming a pincer around the capital, Russian troops planned to seize Kyiv in three to four days. The Spetsnaz, their special forces, would find and remove President Volodymyr Zelensky, killing him if necessary, and install a Kremlin-friendly puppet government.

Separately, Russian forces would come from the east and drive through central Ukraine to the Dnieper River, while troops from Crimea took over the southeastern coast. Those actions could take several weeks, the Russian plans predicted.

After pausing to regroup and rearm, they would next push westward, toward a north-south line stretching from Moldova to western Belarus, leaving a rump Ukrainian state in the west — an area that in Putin’s calculus was populated by irredeemable neo-Nazi Russophobes.

The United States had obtained “extraordinary detail” about the Kremlin’s secret plans for a war it continued to deny it intended, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines later explained. They included not only the positioning of troops and weaponry and operational strategy, but also fine points such as Putin’s “unusual and sharp increases in funding for military contingency operations and for building up reserve forces even as other pressing needs, such as pandemic response, were under-resourced,” she said. This was no mere exercise in intimidation, unlike a large-scale Russian deployment in April, when Putin’s forces had menaced Ukraine’s borders but never attacked.

Some in the White House found it hard to wrap their minds around the scale of the Russian leader’s ambitions.
“It did not seem like the kind of thing that a rational country would undertake,” one participant in the meeting later said of the planned occupation of most of a country of 232,000 square miles and nearly 45 million people. Parts of Ukraine were deeply anti-Russian, raising the specter of an insurgency even if Putin toppled the government in Kyiv. And yet the intelligence showed that more and more troops were arriving and settling in for a full campaign. Munitions, food and crucial supplies were being deposited at Russian encampments.

Clearly we're not dealing with a "rational country."

The real difficulty was convincing European countries that US intelligence was any good.

“American intelligence is not considered to be a naturally reliable source,” said François Heisbourg, a security expert and longtime adviser to French officials. “It was considered to be prone to political manipulation.”

Gee I wonder why that was.  

[LFC]

Equipment destruction update:

Date   Vehicles     Tanks       Since 2/24
3/18:  1574         244         3 weeks
3/25:  1831 (+257)  289 (+45)   4 weeks
4/01:  2175 (+344)  359 (+80)   5 weeks
4/07:  2614 (+439)  449 (+90)   6 weeks
4/14:  2885 (+271)  505 (+56)   7 weeks
4/21:  3068 (+183)  528 (+23)   8 weeks
4/28:  3248 (+180)  580 (+52)   9 weeks
5/05:  3417 (+169)  605 (+25)  10 weeks
5/12:  3623 (+206)  664 (+59)  11 weeks
5/19:  3675  (+52)  671  (+4)  12 weeks
5/27:  4150 (+475)  733 (+62)  13 weeks
6/02:  4207  (+57)  747 (+14)  14 weeks
6/09:  4273  (+66)  762 (+15)  15 weeks
--
7/05:  4573 (+200)  830 (+68)  19 weeks
7/12:  4683 (+110)  865 (+35)  20 weeks
7/19:  4738  (+45)  869  (+4)  21 weeks
7/26:  4822  (+84)  887 (+18)  22 weeks
8/02:  5038 (+216)  922 (+35)  23 weeks
8/09:  5103  (+65)  930  (+8)  24 weeks
8/16:  5200  (+97)  952 (+22)  25 weeks

We're closing in on 6 months and continues to bleed over their ill-advised war.

[andydp]

Aug 16, 2022 14:10:58 GMT goldenvalley said:

Aug 16, 2022 12:13:22 GMT andydp said:

Someone is "blinking". **

‘Panic-stricken’ Kremlin officials approach the West to end Ukraine invasion: report

A leaked document suggests that a top ranking Kremlin official has approached the West in a bid to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as conflict in the region continues into its sixth month.

“A representative of Putin’s inner-circle sent a signal to the West about the desire to negotiate. The mood of the Kremlin elite is panic,” the document, obtained by journalists in Europe, said.

The document, which was reportedly sent to Western intelligence officials, partially identified the unnamed Kremlin insider as “one of the pillars of the regime”.

They are thought to have reached out via either a Western diplomat or a CIA officer.

Reports claim insiders close to Putin are growing increasingly worried about the Russian economy amid crippling sanctions imposed by the West.



www.news.com.au/world/europe/panicstricken-kremlin-officials-approach-the-west-to-end-ukraine-invasion-report/news-story/bb8b34790e682bfd77b2d104bde391e8

** Super, incredible, bonus points if you know the background for that quote/paraphrase

Do you mean the staring contest?  My brother and I used to do that, a way of combat that didn't make my mom yell at us for fighting.

The situation around the nuclear facility is unnerving.  And what's also unnerving are some of the comments below the article.  This is an Australian media and it's clear that Russian trolls are busy there too.

 

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dean Rusk was approached by a US news reporter about Russian willingness to talk.
At some point it was commented the other side had “blinked”.

[LFC]

Another strike on Crimea, this one 200km from the front lines.

Another report said that the scene at one of the train stations in Crimea appeared like a mass evacuation was occurring. It sure sounds like the Russians living and visiting there are shocked that the war has landed on their doorstep.

[LFC]

Ukraine hit the HQ of Russia's Wagner mercenary / war criminal / terrorist group. A Russian journalist accidentally posted enough information to figure out where it was. Dumb-ass.

Ukrainian artillery has struck a headquarters of Russia's shadowy Wagner paramilitary group of mercenaries in eastern Ukraine, reports say.

The extent of damage to the military base of the group - which has been linked to war crimes - is not clear.

Luhansk's governor claims its secret location was revealed after a Russian journalist shared its address.

Last week, pro-Kremlin correspondent Sergei Sreda posted a photo on Telegram of the base with its apparent address.

The image, shared on the social media site but since deleted, shows five people in military uniform with a street sign in Popasna, Luhansk visible in the top left corner.

While the BBC has not been able to confirm the connection between the photo and the strike, Governor Serhiy Hayday wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian forces "hit an enemy HQ whose whereabouts were established thanks to a Russian journalist".

"This time, the successful strike destroyed the Wagner PMC HQ in Popasna yesterday," he said. He added that "the number of dead is being clarified".

The Wagner group was deployed to Crimea and Ukraine's Donbas region in 2014, when Kremlin-backed forces ousted Ukrainian troops from areas they later declared to be part of Russia.

Wagner units have also been sent to Syria, Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic.

The Kremlin does not acknowledge Wagner's existence, but Western intelligence links the group to Yevgeny Prigozhin - nicknamed "Putin's chef" because his catering business has long helped President Vladimir Putin and the armed forces.