Vanir Ausf B

Please, guys, it's bad enough this thread has been dallying with conspiracy theories about how Russia invaded Ukraine because of Canada or something. I don't think it illuminates much about what's happening in Ukraine right now to theorize about how a conflict happening thousands of kilometers away - one which has been happening for decades longer than either Russia or Ukraine existed in their current incarnations - is actually all masterminded by Putin in order to... elect Trump?! I love political thrillers and spy stories too, but sometimes stuff around the world just happens, it doesn't all need to be connected to a sinister grand plan. For sure everything that happens everywhere in the world is connected in some way or another because that's the nature of human civilization, but that's a less interesting insight than I hope for given the expertise of people on this thread.

Evil Axis became more strong
Dramatic Increase in DPRK-Russia Border Rail Traffic After Kim-Putin Summit
https://beyondparallel.csis.org/dramatic-increase-in-dprk-russia-border-rail-traffic-after-kim-putin-summit/
 
Developments elsewhere at the Tumangang Rail Facility indicate that North Korea is not simply planning to resume border traffic to pre-Covid-19 levels, but further expand the facility’s capacity at this border crossing.   Military transfers between the two countries would violate multiple UN Security Council resolutions and be subject to additional sanctions by the United States and its allies.   In the aftermath of the Kim-Putin summit, satellite images as of October 5, 2023, captured a dramatic and unprecedented level of freight railcar traffic at North Korea’s Tumangang Rail Facility located on the North Korea-Russia border. In light of a U.S. government official’s statement yesterday that North Korea has begun transferring artillery to Russia, it is probable that these shipments are to support Russia in its war with Ukraine.1 

Somber post about the daunting task still facing Ukrainian forces:
 

There are five driving factors in U.S. politics right now. The first is that the balance is is close to even between the parties.  The second is the coalitions are extremely locked in, very few people actually switch sides from election to election. The winner is determined by marginal turnout differential, not anybody switching sides. Third, as The_Capt detailed exquisitely yesterday, being able to pick your own social media effectively becomes the ability to pick your own facts/reality which makes side switching even less likely. Fourth is that less locked in, less motivated voters who matter enormously at the margin just don't pay much attention to politics at all, which makes them unpredictable. Fifth and last is that the recent Supreme court decision to rip open an abortion debate most of the country thought was settled has confounded most of the first four things I just wrote. The many trillion dollar question is by how much?
Obviously i am trying to jam a book into a paragraph here, I hope it is somewhat useful.

Some of the original mistakes go back to the writing of the Constitution, the founders had a huge blind spot with regard to political parties. They were opposed to them in principal and had a severe attack of wishful thinking about their ability to create a system that would discourage them in practice. The great historical irony is that they were all founding parties of their own within an election cycle or two. Some of the details of the Constitution do more or less lock in a two party system.  Then they figured out how effective it was to draw districts with ever more artistic license, a task now designated to merciless computer programs. There is a reason that very, very few countries have tried adopt the U.S model wholesale, or even anything much like it.
The only electoral reform that that doesn't require an utterly impossible constitutional amendment is a combination of  nonpartisan unified primary with instant runoff voting. That why we have nice sane person as Alaska's only Congressional representative instead of Sara Palin. I think that needs to go nation wide myself. But it is a state by state decision.

Update from Tatarigami_UA
Russian military is expected to deploy at least a brigade-sized force with enhanced offensive capabilities in the near future. Russian forces made multiple unsuccessful attempts to reclaim positions south of Bakhmut, resulting in significant losses. Russians are currently facing challenges with their artillery barrels, but they are actively pursuing solutions to address them. Recent Ukrainian forces' attacks deep into russian territory have necessitated adjustments to russian logistical routes and methods, leading to added challenges. Russian command appears to maintain confidence in their ability to defend Tokmak and its surrounding areas. At the same time, it continues to struggle with communications and the supply of high-quality communication devices to its units. https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1709291611539087368
 

Update from Tatarigami_UA
Russian military is expected to deploy at least a brigade-sized force with enhanced offensive capabilities in the near future. Russian forces made multiple unsuccessful attempts to reclaim positions south of Bakhmut, resulting in significant losses. Russians are currently facing challenges with their artillery barrels, but they are actively pursuing solutions to address them. Recent Ukrainian forces' attacks deep into russian territory have necessitated adjustments to russian logistical routes and methods, leading to added challenges. Russian command appears to maintain confidence in their ability to defend Tokmak and its surrounding areas. At the same time, it continues to struggle with communications and the supply of high-quality communication devices to its units. https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1709291611539087368
 

Update from Tatarigami_UA
Russian military is expected to deploy at least a brigade-sized force with enhanced offensive capabilities in the near future. Russian forces made multiple unsuccessful attempts to reclaim positions south of Bakhmut, resulting in significant losses. Russians are currently facing challenges with their artillery barrels, but they are actively pursuing solutions to address them. Recent Ukrainian forces' attacks deep into russian territory have necessitated adjustments to russian logistical routes and methods, leading to added challenges. Russian command appears to maintain confidence in their ability to defend Tokmak and its surrounding areas. At the same time, it continues to struggle with communications and the supply of high-quality communication devices to its units. https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1709291611539087368
 

Update from Tatarigami_UA
Russian military is expected to deploy at least a brigade-sized force with enhanced offensive capabilities in the near future. Russian forces made multiple unsuccessful attempts to reclaim positions south of Bakhmut, resulting in significant losses. Russians are currently facing challenges with their artillery barrels, but they are actively pursuing solutions to address them. Recent Ukrainian forces' attacks deep into russian territory have necessitated adjustments to russian logistical routes and methods, leading to added challenges. Russian command appears to maintain confidence in their ability to defend Tokmak and its surrounding areas. At the same time, it continues to struggle with communications and the supply of high-quality communication devices to its units. https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1709291611539087368
 

Update from Tatarigami_UA
Russian military is expected to deploy at least a brigade-sized force with enhanced offensive capabilities in the near future. Russian forces made multiple unsuccessful attempts to reclaim positions south of Bakhmut, resulting in significant losses. Russians are currently facing challenges with their artillery barrels, but they are actively pursuing solutions to address them. Recent Ukrainian forces' attacks deep into russian territory have necessitated adjustments to russian logistical routes and methods, leading to added challenges. Russian command appears to maintain confidence in their ability to defend Tokmak and its surrounding areas. At the same time, it continues to struggle with communications and the supply of high-quality communication devices to its units. https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1709291611539087368
 

Update from Tatarigami_UA
Russian military is expected to deploy at least a brigade-sized force with enhanced offensive capabilities in the near future. Russian forces made multiple unsuccessful attempts to reclaim positions south of Bakhmut, resulting in significant losses. Russians are currently facing challenges with their artillery barrels, but they are actively pursuing solutions to address them. Recent Ukrainian forces' attacks deep into russian territory have necessitated adjustments to russian logistical routes and methods, leading to added challenges. Russian command appears to maintain confidence in their ability to defend Tokmak and its surrounding areas. At the same time, it continues to struggle with communications and the supply of high-quality communication devices to its units. https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1709291611539087368
 

I find a lot of this sort of analysis wrt escalation as "easy to say, very hard to do."  I do not think people fully understand what is at risk in widening this conflict.  The standard justifications are:
- Russia will never go nuclear.
- Russia will back down - they are full of BS.
- We got all the guns, what are they going to do?
Ok, I will buy the first one for arguments sake.  A functioning Russia will very likely not use the nuclear option unless we are talking foreign troops invading Russia itself. (a broken Russia is another story)  Russia may even back down.  They definitely talk a good game but so far those red lines have been pretty mobile.  And we do have a lot of military power within NATO...but herein lies the rub.  It only works if it is unified.
Professionally speaking, the single largest risk of escalation with Russia is a Russian response - controlled or otherwise - that triggers a NATO Ch 5.  We have already had errant missiles in Poland that became Ukrainian ones pretty damned quick.  If Russia starts lobbing them at a NATO nation in response to significant escalation within Russia...what happens?
Well, we essentially move to a NATO Ch 5 escalation, which will get out of hand pretty quick.  Or more likely, NATO falls apart.  An Article 5 could actually break NATO.  It could nations deciding that maybe Poland, or Estonia, or Latvia are not worth dying for.  We have had a single Article 5 declaration in the history of the alliance - 9/11.
 https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm#:~:text=NATO invoked Article 5 for,the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And most of this was intelligence sharing and overflights/port usage permissions.  NATO stayed out of Iraq in '03 completely, GWOT as a concept was not sold in its entirety in the least - even given 9/11.  ISAF in Afghanistan did not come into play until much later in that war, and a lot of NATO nations kept their forces out of combat...and that was the Taliban FFS.
I am betting that those in power have already done this calculus and know exactly how vulnerable the alliance is right now.  A lot of people on this board have been asking "well why don' they just do X?"  "It about ATACMS stupid!"  Well it is likely because they know what is actually at risk and a lot of these capabilities are just not worth those risks...at this time.  In fact a lot of those capabilities value right now is as a threat to Russia as opposed to actual use.
This war is not simple, and there are no simple solutions.  If anyone starts believing that there are you are likely missing something.

I don't really follow this logic. What makes you think that having a weapon that theoretically could crack a big dam is going to stop an authoritarian government from its expansionist goals? The CCP has proven time and time again that they are willing to suffer huge economic hits and lose tens of millions of lives in pursuit of their political objectives. And the people of China have spent almost a century living under this regime, developing a fatalist worldview that sounds similar to how Russia watchers on this thread describe the people of Russia.
There is no critical mass of disgruntled citizens sitting on a knife edge, just waiting for a single catastrophic event to have them storm Zhongnanhai and boot out their great leader. Protests in the country are small and localized and rapidly squashed. News of them - or any kind of activity that undermines the party line - is suppressed. Dissent is largely kept behind closed doors, expressed only in close social circles. The focus for most people is staying under the radar, trying to get rich (but not so rich it will attract attention) and - for some - to get their family out. Anyone who legitimately cares about the broader success of the country and not just their own personal advancement has necessarily bought into the current political structures and thus will not challenge them in any significant way.
My current feeling is that China definitely under Xi, and probably under the CCP more broadly, is going to push Taiwan till the very end. I do not see any face-saving escape hatch at this point. Even if they cannot win the war, if they start it, they will keep fighting it, just as Russia appears to be doing in Ukraine. But for Taiwan the pre-war status quo is worse, because nobody formally recognizes it as the independent country it clearly already is, so it's already excluded from being an active player in global affairs, thanks to the overwhelming economic pressure China is able to apply to the rest of the world. Is there any wunderwaffe Taiwan could point across the Strait that would nullify that pressure? I don't think so.
In standing up to China, I think the pen will be mightier than the sword. But, of course, the CCP knows that, which is why they have invested so much into controlling the public discourse and exchange of ideas - not just in the country they govern but increasingly around the rest of the world too.

I could be wrong, but AFAIK the APM munition has not yet entered serial production. AMP also requires the SEPv3 data link. Could the Pentagon have upgraded the M1A1s to SEPv3 and shipped some pre-production AMP rounds to Ukraine for real-world testing? I wouldn't rule it out but it seems unlikely since the main rationale for sending the M1A1 was to get it into Ukraine as fast as possible.

Destroyed, damaged/abandoned UKR vehicles on the way to Surovikin line toward Verbove. Price of our advance is very high 
 

"Show me on the map where the Russians touched you."

It's Scott Ritter...

Technically,  he doesn't - in the film at least. The Battle at the gates happens outside the gates, commonly understood as the "border" for want of a better word. 
Hello,  I'm your self-nominated Pedant Of The Day. 

FWIW in the video and text this subject is addressed; I'd say the complexity of the operation was overestimated / bit of a myth.

According to a dive instructor interviewed in the video, who teaches people to dive at the depths involved (70-80m) in the Baltic sea, this is a complicated dive, but not 'overcomplicated' and well doable for experienced divers. It is his dayjob to train people to do this. He told he was laughing a bit when he heard the same things you post on the news after the attacks.
They mention minimum of ~50kg of explosive per charge. So a group of 5-6 experienced divers with professional diving equipment could in theory very well have done this from a small boat like that sailing boat.
One interesting bit also featured is that one harbour master in the area said that it was quite an achievement to do dives like that without anyone noticing (coastguards, navies). 

According to the research German police have found traces of the same explosive (HMX) that was used for the attack on a table in the ship, which itself was located after info from the MIVD source. Phone numbers / e-mail addresses involved with hiring of the ship point to Ukrainian individuals. 
All in all I think it's safe to conclude that either someone really wanted to make it look like Ukraine did it, or Ukraine/Ukrainians did it. 
The ship involved in the evidence could have well been the ship that did it, but could also be part of a larger effort or just a ruse to make it look like Ukrainians did it.

Galeotti linked this article lately, and it is indeed worth to post it here, if someone like to understand why rural Russians, against hopes of some analysts early in the war, are viewing Special Military Operation as something net positive. Not very heartworming but predictable. Urban centers can be different, though.
https://russiapost.info/regions/majority
Also, Shoigu on last conference with General Staff stated that they expect their war to last at least into 2025 and prepare themselves accordingly. There are also reportedly big changes coming in their military structures, namely new military districts are about to be created.

"Show me on the map where the Russians touched you."

"Show me on the map where the Russians touched you."

"Show me on the map where the Russians touched you."

"Show me on the map where the Russians touched you."