acrashb

Since when did what become an acknowledged fact?  
To restate my point - the Afghan withdrawal pathway started in February 2020 and was supposed to have been put to bed well before it actually was put to bed.  There is an argument to say that it was sooner than that as the previous US administration was widely reported to be on the cusp of a deal in 2019 but stepped away from the dialogue in September 2019 following the death of US personnel in a Kabul IED attack.  From those start points the obvious question to ask in relation to the theory that the Afghan withdrawal is related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February this year is ... was a Russian invasion of Ukraine on the cards in 2019 or 2020?
In my response to the reemergence of this canard ... President Biden announced the withdrawal decision on April 14, 2021 and being an insider on matters Afghan and somebody who regularly attended meetings at the European Delegation, HQ Resolute Support and the UK and US embassies, I can tell you for a fact that nobody in the international community in Kabul had any idea which way President Biden was going to go until the decision was announced.  The supplementary question; therefore, is ... was a Russian invasion of Ukraine on the cards in April 2021?  The article I posted in my last post indicates that this was not the case until September 2021 which was after the last US service member walked up the ramp of a C17 in Kabul. 
The main problem with politically motivated theories of this ilk (and this is one, because it has been doing the rounds for at least over a month now and the handling of the Afghan withdrawal is a subject of justified scrutiny in the US) is that very few people are prepared to run the facts down and, as I said in my August 18 post, the most obvious explanation is usually the right one
Feel free to challenge any of the above (on another thread) but Afghanistan and intelligence analysis is my day job, so it is always handy to have some facts to hand before doing so.
As to "actual proof that there was early intel" - that is a big ask - intelligence is generally classified and/or on a limited distribution.
To bring this back on topic - guess which country beginning with 'R' and ending with 'ussian Federation' has been buying up container loads of medical equipment, body armour, helmets and other assorted military paraphernalia from local suppliers in Kabul this month?

More evidence of systemic collapse:
Thousands of Russian Soldiers Call the Ukraine surrender hotline (eutimes.net)
"
 “The hotline has received a lot of calls from Russians who were called up recently, and even from some who have not even been called up yet.
“They’re calling and asking ‘What should I do if I get called up? What do I have to do, what’s the right way to surrender?’”
"
And, as many here have been calling for, this is how Ukraine says it will treat surrendered Russians:
“Among other things, we are talking about three meals a day, medical care, and the opportunity to contact relatives.”
 

baaaah  stard!

They don't blow up the ammo dumps, they don't disable their abandoned vehicles, they don't bother coordinating withdrawals, they don't blow up equipment that would give Ukraine big advantages, their camps look like **** most of the time, I find it entirely reasonable they forgot a box of gold teeth in their haste to run. 
They don't even deny their actions are horrid, some of the crimes have as evidence social media postings from the accused. 
 
 

toe warmers for the ULTIMATE WINTER WIN.

My god those things are the magic of the angels.

First, congratulations on your Escape From Buffalo (soon to be in a theatre near you starring Wyatt Russell).
 
Second, it isn't the lake, it's being downwind from the lake.  The wind picks up moisture from Lake Ontario and dumps it on Buffalo.  I live upwind from that lake, and our climate is indeed moderated by it - we certainly get snow, but not like in Buffalo or even a bit North / West of here.

Coming up next in "How hot is Ukraine gonna get?": How cold is Ukraine gonna get?

Some interesting thoughts from Tom Cooper on the nature of the ground war.
Full article here https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-4-october-2022-kherson-da84b46d8131
It's a lengthy read, but well worth the effort given previous conversations here 
Quote to whet the appetite
P

I keep saying that Putin is still a rational actor, but letting the regions buy their own gear is edging towards irrational.  At best, it is a "win now, pay later" bet that he is likely to lose.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
Oryx lists "captured" - for RA MBTs, 420 as of now.

 

Murz was talking about Russians communication largely dependent on civilian infrastructure if i remember well?

My experiences in the Canadian military in winter exercises demonstrated that one can survive in quite harsh conditions but ALL of the below are essential to due so:
1.  High quality and well fitted personal clothing and footwear.  The Canadian military winter gear is very good.   I did have occasion while working with US forces and the UK forces to try their winter gear at the time I was in (mid 70s to mid 90s) and at that time the American and UK winter gear was crap.  Don't know about today's military gear.
2.  Knowledge - this is critical.  You have to know how to fight in winter conditions. How to fit and wear clothes in layers.  Take a layer of clothes off when you start to get sweaty.  How to build shelters.  How to move in the cold.  How to stay warm and DRY while lying prone in snow or on ice for periods of time while on the attack or defence.  Etc.,   And you learn by doing.  Theorycrafting how you get by in the cold just doesn't work.  You learn and modify and improvise your personal cold protection strategies by living and working in the cold.
3.  Mindset - if you think you are going to freeze your arse, you will freeze your arse.   Keeping a positive and stubborn mindset to see you through helps a lot.   Not easy to do at -40C but having all of the above and a positive mindset will see one through.
I have been on winter exercises like Brimfrost 85 were I live in the wilds of the Camp Wainwright ranges in Alaska for 30 days in January.   I have been on several exercises of several weeks duration with the Canadian Rangers in the very far north of Canada in Jan / Feb where I can recall on one exercise in particular, wind chills of -80C.  Without tents.  Each night was burrow into packed snow drifts with 4-5 other people each or we constructed igloos.   And it wasn't that bad a time, as long as you had the three points I outlined above in spades.
The russians do not have point 1 above, point 2 is most likely low or none existent and given the morale and other motivations of Russian forces, they lack point 3.   The basterds are going to have a very, very, miserable existence on the front lines once the cold hit in ernest.  A dare say, if a cold winter, the weather will be more of an enemy than the Ukrainian forces.

Nice boots, the thick rubber on the sole will help insulate your feet for long periods of times. In contrast here are the current Russian issue boots:
Note how they have little to no sole. These are dangerous in the winter. Especially since they aren't made of plastic, but instead probably a rubber.

The ECWCS system is very good, and was designed for this weather in mind. Being able to walk yourself dry in an hour is VITAL on the field. You can't do that in wool, but you can in synthetics.
I own nearly every piece of PCU, fire resistant, stretch goretex, you name it. I couldn't see myself surviving in combat dressed in anything more civilian. The flexibility that these systems provide is incredible. You can seriously get by with only food and bivouacing. It makes sense why these items were pushed toward SOF and recon elements initially (labeled PCU) before being rolled out to the rest of the military (ECWCS).

With a little searching to understand the weather conditions where most of the RA is in Ukraine it shows that there is a very high level of suck. The temperatures don't get very low on average, 20-35F in January, so not too bad from my northern climate perspective. BUT, they also have around an average of 8 days of RAIN in the southern areas mixed with those temps. That multiplies the suck considerably. Especially if it is hovering around the above freezing during the day and below freezing at night. Halfway decent clothing and enough shelter to keep you out of the wind will be enough to keep you alive in those moderately cold temps but you mix in wet and mud and those cold weather casualties will skyrocket.
Now take that with what we know so far about RA logistics. I know this has been covered here but just for reference they have shown an inability to keep their forces supplied with minimum amounts of material needed since the beginning and whenever they get put under stress of any kind they miserably fail. My guess is the RA will be classified by the UN as a humanitarian crisis by the time winter is half over. 
The only way I can see the mobiks being of any use is if the RA somehow manages to get them all there in a short amount of time, probably in between Donetsk and Zaporhoweveryouspellit. Give them all 2 magazines and a bayonet, point them north and charge. The sheer mass may give them some gains and maybe even a break through. The human wave attack will suffer immense casualties on the modern battlefield but if they can throw more bodies at the UA than the UA have munitions to stop, eventually the mass will take ground. This could give Putin and the RA a "successful offensive" and gets almost all the mobiks killed for a few kms of ground which alleviates the logistical problem of keeping them supplied and alive. 
I know that I'm being pretty optimistic today but that is the best case I could think of, the rest are all net negatives for the RA.

heh I have a personal affinity to Dilbert..  Scott  Adams was an employee of Pac Bell.  My background is in telecom out here in Calif. mostly so he's a bit of a legend.
My favorite was when he took a shot at the new Lucent logo.  I was working for Lucent at the time and that dang logo was on the side of my truck.  I took some red tape and changed it to a ban side until I was told I had to remove it.  😎

As best I can recall - it was a long time ago - looked something like this.  Simulated unplanned survival (not full ECWCS gear, and it was before then anyway):

 
Back to my comment about "you can get by with improvised shelters if you know how to build them and have supplies" - the mobiks will not know how.  "get by" wasn't meant as "living in the field", it's surviving long enough for your SOS stamped in the snow to be seen by search and rescue aircraft.
And yes, feet need to be warmed in the improvised shelter(s).  Back to your comments about IR, fire is best.
So we are overall in agreement. Lots of frostbite and hypothermia on the way.

And now I'm in the same boat
Yes,  Scott Adams invented Elbonia.
 

I think that is actually from Dilbert
 
Elbonia | Dilbert Wiki | Fandom
Elbonia is an impoverished Eastern European country in the Dilbert universe. In the comic strip, and originally in the TV show, its major commerce was mud. There are also mentions of a currency called the Eye-Crud. Path-E-Tech Management often outsources work there, and has a factory for their subsidiary ElboCo. 

Bullsh#t.  Military doctrine and NATO Stanags both treat them differently - there are two completely different recording documents and procedures.  The CCW at Geneva, the actual international law, treats them differently - different legal restrictions.  And the use of non-explosive boobytraps, which pre-dates written history is well outside the convention.
Just because the treaty writers made sweeping definitions resting on sand and weasel words does not clarify anything.  The Geneva convention is very clear on the term boobytrap vs land mine.  You may have overlooked it on the ICRC webpage:
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Article.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=C247A97A7ABA5900C12563FB00611D94
 
It also has a definition for “other devices”which encompass IEDs.
The treaty itself is the legally binding document.  A committee meeting opinion, or legal opinion by the Red Cross legal are just those, opinions…good for them.  The treaty itself has holes one could drive a truck through, but people wanted to feel good and keep trying to make it more than it is.
I have heard more nonsense attributed to the Ottawa Treaty than I can recall, largely by enthusiastic amateurs.  Some actually believe it is a warcrime to employ AP mines (it isn’t).  The treaty itself was conducted outside of the CCW, largely by political operators (and it shows).  It is not airtight, binding or clear.  In the end it is left up to a state to determine what a “munition” is or is not, which is key to defining “mine”, which is central to the definition of “land mine”.
People can spin it however they want but I have to ask why did not the Ottawa Treaty define them beyond “well we all know what they mean”?  Even when they used the CCW definition for “mine” verbatim.  Answer: because they could only sell the largely symbolic treaty they had.

I believe article 9 is: "‘all appropriate legal, administrative and other measures, including the imposition of penal sanctions, to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention undertaken by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control’"
That is a masterclass in weasel words, essentially turning the Ottawa treaty into a virtue-signaling exercise; and apparently there are more AP landmines in the soil today than before the treaty, so the effect of it is at best limited.

I think the US position on the whole things has merit.  From Wikipedia:
"the position of the United States is that the inhumane nature of landmines stems not from whether they are anti-personnel as opposed to antivehicle but from their persistence. The United States has unilaterally committed to never using persistent landmines of any kind, whether anti-personnel or anti-vehicle, which they say is a more comprehensive humanitarian measure than the Ottawa Convention. All US landmines now self-destruct in two days or less, in most cases four hours. While the self-destruct mechanism has never failed in more than 65,000 random tests, if self-destruct were to fail the mine will self-deactivate because its battery will run down in two weeks or less. That compares with persistent anti-vehicle mines which remain lethal for about 30 years and are legal under the Ottawa Convention."
 
I don't know about Ukranian winters; but from survival training in Canadian winters (and not on unusually cold days) you can get by with improvised shelters if you know how to build them and have supplies (including snow) around.  If not, you need fire, as you stated.
Maybe they wanted to learn how to sing.
At least this way they get to die heroically.
 

I believe article 9 is: "‘all appropriate legal, administrative and other measures, including the imposition of penal sanctions, to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention undertaken by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control’"
That is a masterclass in weasel words, essentially turning the Ottawa treaty into a virtue-signaling exercise; and apparently there are more AP landmines in the soil today than before the treaty, so the effect of it is at best limited.

I think the US position on the whole things has merit.  From Wikipedia:
"the position of the United States is that the inhumane nature of landmines stems not from whether they are anti-personnel as opposed to antivehicle but from their persistence. The United States has unilaterally committed to never using persistent landmines of any kind, whether anti-personnel or anti-vehicle, which they say is a more comprehensive humanitarian measure than the Ottawa Convention. All US landmines now self-destruct in two days or less, in most cases four hours. While the self-destruct mechanism has never failed in more than 65,000 random tests, if self-destruct were to fail the mine will self-deactivate because its battery will run down in two weeks or less. That compares with persistent anti-vehicle mines which remain lethal for about 30 years and are legal under the Ottawa Convention."
 
I don't know about Ukranian winters; but from survival training in Canadian winters (and not on unusually cold days) you can get by with improvised shelters if you know how to build them and have supplies (including snow) around.  If not, you need fire, as you stated.
Maybe they wanted to learn how to sing.
At least this way they get to die heroically.
 

If so, he would be on a plane to Beijing for a permanent vacation.  You may dislike Fox's politics; many or most (I haven't counted) of the commentators are maniacs (Tucker C?); the headlines are florid and the editorials as slanted as in any 'news' organization, but the straight reporting is sound.

Ukraine | Fox News - ignore the talking-head / commentator videos and enjoy the rest.
Compare the Fox headline - "Putin expected to seize parts of Ukraine as 'sham' referendums end today" to the Reuter's headline:   "Over 96% said to favour joining Russia in first vote results from occupied Ukraine regions" - although I will say that Reuters appears to have caught up and is now using "sham" to describe the referenda.

I see a window in his future followed by a couple flights of stairs.

That is the most important part; once momentum builds in the right direction the change of opinion is no longer linear in time and will explode exponentially. The loss of Lyman counters / neutralizes the Putin / Russian narrative they attempted through annexation and will accelerate the reduction in war support.  Near-term future losses - Kherson pocket? - will, I think, seal the deal.

Then it's rebellion in multiple layers of Russian society.
Ritter: multi-time sex offender and now sock puppet / asset for Russia.
"These leaders [Putin's position where he is an authoritarian but not absolute leader], Goemans found, would be tempted to “gamble for resurrection,” to continue prosecuting the war, often at greater and greater intensity, because anything short of victory could mean their own exile or death."
 
A comfortable exile in China is the best possible outcome now, as so many other doors have been closed.  Based on Putin's ego and Goemans' research, I don't think he'll take it.

So things will grind on.

Freedman extremely on point this morning: 
 
“Even by his own standards Vladimir Putin’s speech on 30 September in the Kremlin’s St George’s Hall was unhinged. For those who can face reading it, it can be found here. As he ranted about the west, denouncing it in lurid terms for a range of evils, from imperialism to satanism, it seemed, as Mark Galeotti observed, that he was trying to convince himself as much the outside world about this grand civilisational struggle with the West. The rant had a purpose, which was to demonstrate the irrelevance of legality. The annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, now to join Crimea as part of the Russian Federation, goes directly against the Charter of the United Nations. Instead of this being acknowledged as a foundational document of international law, it was wrapped up in a denunication of the West’s claims about a ‘rules-based international order’, which only reflected their selfish and malevolent interests. Russia was under no obligation to follow those rules. If it wanted to expand its borders, it was fully entitled to do so. 
Ever since the Kosovo War in 1999, and NATO’s use of the principle of self-determination and reports of atrocities to justify their support of the Kosovar Albanians, he has employed this same combination of claims to rationalise his violations of the sovereignty of neighbouring countries. Hence the contrived processes of sham referendums and fake claims of Ukrainian terror. 
Implications for Diplomacy
Although it is always disturbing listening to these rants, the conclusion was not surprising. He explained that this was an irreversible move. This was his political offer:
Should Kyiv do as he asked and accept the permanent transfer of these provinces, it is not clear what they would be getting in return: Putin presumably would be looking for Ukrainian neutrality and the ending of sanctions. If he was negotiating from a position of strength then these demands might have some credibility. But his position is weak. Ukraine’s only interest is total Russian withdrawal which Putin now says in constitutionally impossible.
Even those in the West most keen to push for a negotiation around the current territorial holdings should appreciate that however difficult it is to get Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, they are not going to convince Ukraine to withdraw from Ukraine. In addition, while Crimea had a separate status of all its own, because of its annexation back in 2014, it was possible to imagine how it might be dealt with in negotiations by special measures. Now it is just one of five illegally annexed provinces whose fate is tied together.
Putin has boxed himself in with these moves. Before it was possible to imagine, if always unlikely, that there could be some diplomatic means to bring the bloodshed to an end, for example by discussing forms of shared citizenship for those who wished to be attached to Russia or new forms of security arrangements. That path has now been blocked. The Ukrainian government’s response to the speech was to insist that that they could not negotiate with Russia so long as Putin remains in power. The war is now destined to carry on to its own bitter end. It also means that even should the fighting end it is not clear how issues such as war crimes, reparations and the unwinding of the sanctions’ regime will be handled.
Implications for Nuclear Use
Nuclear threats were not as prominent in this speech as they had been in the mobilisation announcement of 21 September. There was a strong implicit reference when he spoke ofRussia’s willingness to use ‘all available means’ to keep safe Russian territory, in its new expanded definition. There was also an explicit hint, when he referred to the US as ‘the only country in the world that twice used nuclear weapons, destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.’ He then added, ‘Incidentally, they created a precedent.’ In the years since 1945 enormous international efforts, many involving the first the Soviet Union and then Russia, went into ensuring – successfully - that this precedent was not followed. But at least Putin did not follow this up with any overt nuclear threats. Conveying a sense of of nuclear menace is part of his strategy, but that is not the same as identifying ways of employing these weapons to help turn the tide of this war without making everything a whole lot worse. 
The nuclear issue does come into play with Zelensky’s response to Putin’s statement. He announced that he would seek to fast track the country’s accession to NATO. Holding back on that aspiration was the one big concession that Zelensky was keeping available as something that might be put on the table in a serious negotiation. But the Biden Administration quickly dismissed the idea that this could be addressed at speed. Once Ukraine joined NATO it would benefit from the alliance’s Article V and expect active engagement in Ukraine’s defence. This is exactly the development that Putin has been using his nuclear forces to seek to deter. But the application can stay on the table, a reminder to Russia that once nuclear weapons were used in any form they would no longer be serving a deterrent purpose. 
Biden’s main response, as he dismissed the legitimacy of Putin’s move, will affect the course of the war. He announced that he was pushing forward with the next $12 billion assistance package to Ukraine and imposing more sanctions on Russia and members of the elite responsible for the prosecution of this war.
The Implications of Lyman
Meanwhile as this elite gathered to listen to Putin’s speech news was coming in from eastern Ukraine of the effective encirclement of the town of Lyman, a key logistical hub for the eastern Donbas, as anticipated in my previous post. I pointed there to the tension between a political strategy that must have the Russian flag in as many places as possible and a military strategy that should conserve scarce resources, and so trading space for time, abandon vulerable positions to establish stronger defensive lines that might be held until the newly mobilised forces can fill out the front lines. The political strategy has won. Putin’s fixation with taking and holding pieces of territory at whatever cost has made a full defeat more likely. 
There were believed to be some 2,500 troops in Lyman along with a similar number already pushed out by Ukrainian forces from surrounding villages. Cut off from logistical support, the Russians do not appear to be settling down for a long drawn out defence of their position but instead are trying to get out in some shape or form. There are reports from Ukrainian sources that the Russian troops asked for permission to evacuate but this was denied. Now their position is even wose than shown in the above map. They are trapped, without supplies or reinforcements, and must either surrender or try to find their own way out in the face of heavy Ukrainian artillery fire. Ukrainian forces do not need to storm Russian positions. Instead they can use available forces to press on, making a point of crossing the border into Luhansk. The absence of the forces caught in Lyman, and growing logistical difficulties, means that Russian forces will continue to be pushed back. Ukrainian forces are reported to be pressing Kreminna and may soon threaten the Russian positions in Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, taken in June after a long and costly (for both sides) struggle.
All this mocks Putin’s announcement, demonstrating that he can’t hold what he has just annexed. The qustion now is how long the Russian people and, most importantly, the members of the power elite, put up with this recklessness. Polling suggests that support for the war has fallen sharply. The latest shows that from 48% of Russians wanting the war to continue in August now only 29% are detrmined about pressing on. Another 15% are lukewarm and 48% want peace. Putin offers no way to fight or negotiate a way to victory. More men may so far have fled the country than joined the army. The audience at St George’s Hall look more perplexed than inspired, watching a man who has lost his swagger, caught up in a deluded world of his own construction, but out of which he has inflicted a real-world catastrophe.”