LongLeftFlank

On pure military matters, there's no better info than here, of course. Yay us. Kamil grew up in Moscow's elite circles and is a history professor. Obviously, if there are other good Russian sources not spewing RT agitprop, please do suggest them. I try to read around. Archvillain "Strelkov" (Igor Girkin*), in his depths of despair, seems to occasionally tell a home truth or two in his various commentaries, but noise to signal is too high to follow him regularly. And Dmitry Orlov, who used to pull few punches on anyone, has sadly gone into the: "We Know The Imperial USA Is The Root Of All Evil So Therefore Its Enemies Must Be the Good Guys" fever swamp. * There's a Russian language Twitter feed in this name, although there's no way it's him, which posts feeds from both sides (including retweets of the various soldier funeral shots with the same creepy stock photo of the Holy Tsar on the right. In case anybody forgot what this war was about.)

"If only Stalin knew!" Alas, though, those grieving mothers will continue to give Good Tsar Vlad a pass, while blaming the 'corrupt boyars' (including military commanders) for any and all misfortunes. There's only so much Truth they can handle, it seems. It's those very same boyars, though, who will need to end this. Taking it back down from the political realm to 'war aims': 1. for even that kind of reckoning to occur, I think the military defeat is going to need to be total. That includes more or less full destruction of the Russian ground armies in South Ukraine and Donbass -- their vehicles, artillery and officer cadre. It remains to be seen how the Ukrainian forces can accomplish that in their current mode. 2. As well as a substantial winnowing of their air forces, on top of the attrition that is already occurring from shortages. Which likely requires some fairly advanced though thinly deniable kit from the West. Yes, I'm talking about Patriots -- or at least their tracking systems -- but maybe also bigger drones that can hit their bases in Russia and destroy aircraft in numbers on the ground. Or at least force them to fly more, until they drop. 3. Conclusion: I just don't think rolling the invaders back to the Feb 2022 frontiers will cut it tbh. Because given a respite and the usual pattern of Western ADD, I fear the next move by the wounded bear could take us a lot closer to Armageddon than we are today. 4. Specifically, an uprising in Belarus. If that happens now, it will be very helpful. If it happens later -- with Russia in a position to respond -- it lights the fuse to Doomsday.

Well regretfully, there's the matter of 2000 more or less functional nuclear weapons that says the rest of humanity needs to pay close attention to this elegant heartfelt tosh. And that includes Chinese. ...And remember, while this Zi Namy Bog / Divine Right thing is sadly the *majority* view in Russia, there are still plenty of Russians -- as there always have been -- who see it for the poison it is. Some people here may snarl and call them 'smarter Orcs / let Bog sort em out' but they are in the end the same Russians who had the tolerably good sense to cut their losses, down tools and simply walk out of the Cold War (it doesn't appear that Honoured Chekist Putin was among them). We are going to need all the allies we can get.

Welp, fight to the finish then....

Lotsa craters in those fields around. So far from every round fired is a direct hit....

Reposting this handy map.

Sorry mate, there is no way that does NOT end up as 'ethnic cleansing'. And that's just about the worst direction Ukraine can possibly take postwar. Remember, well over half of Ukrainians have some form of Russian ties, ethnic, linguistic or marriage. Especially in the East. You want a huge chunk of your own citizenry looking nervously over their shoulders wondering if some dirtbag will denounce them to take their home? Anyway, Ukraine is like Russia, a declining birthrate country. Who will resettle those 'cleansed' areas? Turkish migrants? .... I would suggest the reverse. One great way to defang Russia is to brain drain it -- offer visas to their young technorati.

Galeev agrees...

Tweet thread goes on to note that these helos are forced to stay down on the deck, increasing crew losses. 2. Second Guards Tank Battalion has learned the first lesson in How Not To Be Seen: not to stand up! However, they have chosen a rather obvious bit of cover.... 3. On the not quite so funny side, amazing CM-level 4 style drone footage of a tactical infantry ambush, with some grim mop-up at the end. It's all shot from a distance, but still.... Looks to me like hapless OMON cops being whacked, based on the black uniforms and body armour (and civvie vehicles)... and total absence of tactical drills. You guys were talking about cops....

Regaining road access. To your own front.

Interesting thread on who joins the RA (not Muscovites)

Fire for effect!

I dunno, but was Putin's dad (or mom) in that guy's oblast, oh, about 9 months before he was born? ...Reminds me of the PJ O'Rourke (RIP) line on 1990s Yugoslavia: Come to think of it, the Serbs *are* a bit different than the Croats. The Serbs look more like John Belushi, while the Croats look more like the rest of the cast of Animal House.

Yup, all absolutely relevant questions. If I'm Poor Bloody Infantry, no matter where, I will love the Machine -- robot or not -- for carrying my ammo, better chow and some less shell shocked guy to medevac my arse out if I get shot. But I also make sure I've personally taken out of its loadout anything I absolutely need to have to eat and kill Ivan for the next 10 days. Because at the end of the day, 'dismounts' will be the ones who get to decide Who Won. That 'Facts on the Ground' thing. While if I'm UGV 'crew', I don't sleep too close to my beloved vehicle.

Yes! the very thing about the UGV, and any other vehicle for that matter: up until 23/02/22 its armour protection has been dictated largely by 'survivability' concerns which in turn have to do with preserving its [heirs to the sins of all mortal flesh] crews' ability and gumption to place 125mm flat trajectory APDFSLBGTXYZPDQ kinetic rounds downrange in volume, to the (hitherto) dismay of its foes. Or, less successfully, to taxi and provide 30mm/73mm/12.7mm direct fire support to about half a dozen 18 year old Kalash toting human beans to 'control' of territory (+3 Stone Buildings? Objective squares?) which is [presumptively] tactically more valuable to their commanders than to the enemy. Sounding familiar yet, fellow CM armchair generals? ...But which in the case of UGV, may now have precious little to do with the 'survivability' of human bean crews inside [not junior high school grads from Chelyabinsk but compsci whiz kids from Caltech [or more likely Krakow, Bratislava or Dnepro or Hyderabad Polytechnic looking to pay off their student loans and move on to their crypto startups sitting in air conditioned facilities in __________]....And far more to do with whatever weapon or cargo they are taxiing about the battlespace (yeah, that basic term just got redefined as well). ...And as we all know, armour dictates weight, which largely dictates engine power and fuel consumption and logistical burden and...... cost to produce said UGVs in volume. Oh, and did I mention -- terminating with extreme cynicism -- that up until the AI Paper Clip / Robot Dog Factory decides leaving decision in the hands of the Carbon Based Units is inherently 'inefficient' [see clip] mastery of this New Paradigm is hard wired to the ability and Will (in the full @The_Capt sense of the term) to fund it? [enter new rabbit hole]

Perhaps a hybrid of the Israeli Nagmachon (tank chassis) and the old Swedish S-tank which could dig out its own berm. 1. As someone else astutely noted earlier, a weapons/gear carrier that digs in to become a mobile bunker when not on the move, with its best armour overhead. Plus maybe some kind of ceramic/composite (shaped charge diffusing) 'umbrella'. Such a thing could raise the profile but might also provide some camo/IR masking (like the foam mats the UA grunts are carrying around). 3. Also, in addition to manpads, some kind of remote control gatling -- can be roof mounted or dismounted -- for popping helos and drones, or enemy snipers if needed. But this is NOT an AFV, not intended for frontline combat facing direct fire weapons. 4. Sorry if this is all starting to sound like the old definition of a camel....

Hmm, in another 2015 piece fellow Chekisty challenge the prevailing view of Putin as a strategic chessmaster and instead suggest a thuggish apparatchik.... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/vladimir-putin-failed-spy/2015/08/07/1b51170a-3c72-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html “Wait!” my interlocutor barked. “The truth is he is not one of us.” I blinked. Another veteran of Soviet intelligence at the table nodded briskly in support of this comment.... “He was seen in the system as a risk-taker who had little understanding of the consequences of failure.... I was pointed to the fact that he was given a backwater assignment in Dresden rather than in the East German capital in 1985, and then was sent to do counterespionage in Leningrad rather than Moscow at the end of that tour. "It was a message that he should seek another career." Putin’s rise from that point — with the help first of Leningrad Mayor Anatoly Sobchak and then-President Boris Yeltsin — is another story. He has shown cunning, tactical skill and, at times, statesmanship.... But he has also shown a disturbing willingness to bet the farm even as his plans come a cropper.

Galeev sums up the pointless 'Nazis are whomever Holy Russia says they are' red herring quite nicely here. Hopefully we can all move along..... (Note: somebody will no doubt point out Galeev greatly exaggerates the influence of the Red Army in building up the prewar German war machine. I agree, he does. That isn't the relevant point here though)

TBH, the only kinds of Russian officers who would be intellectually open to benefit from it are the very kinds needed to build a new, better Russia, focused on human development and not graft (yup, that's a pretty hard road, no illusions on that score) As most people here will know, Chekists and foreign service types were early backers of Gorbachev and glasnost, not because they were liberals, but for the simple reason that they had access to hard info on just how hopelessly far behind the USSR was falling. Putin was one such although, significantly, his posts kept him behind the Curtain (DDR). Which may, unfortunately, have inclined him to take only his own advice regarding the, ahem, pacification of former 'satellites.' https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32066222 "Their German friends give them a 20-year-old washing machine and with this they drive back to Leningrad," says Putin biographer and critic Masha Gessen. "There's a strong sense that he was serving his country and had nothing to show for it." ...And it's not only former Russian colleagues who've stayed close to Putin. Take Matthias Warnig - a former Stasi officer, believed to have spent time in Dresden when Putin was there - who is now managing director of Nordstream, the pipeline taking gas directly from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea.

Let's keep it civil here, s.v.p.

Russian cheerleaders elsewhere claim the more advanced Slovak S300 system that just arrived has been hit at Dnepro airport. Any harder info on this?

Putin's very own Alfred Rosenberg, great. I'd sooner get a root canal than listen to anything this scumbag has to say.

Nailed. It. I am starting to think that total destruction of Russian ground forces in Ukraine with televised commander surrenders, including full restoration of the Don river frontier, PLUS a threat to retake Crimea is pretty much the only thing that is going to sink in with these people at this point. My money is on Russian media deciding that perfidious Yankee / British imperialists were the ones who sank the Moskva and then making more noises about escalation. That's all a lot more palatable to Russians that admitting those pig farmers did it, or that it was yet another blunder by your own forces.

I find the whole nuclear topic to be pretty much unthinkable and therefore TLDR. Just one geek's opinion though, carry on.... One observation, the winds change direction a *lot* at this time of year, so it would be spin the fallout bottle for a lot of Russians and Belarusians too.

This Organization Will Not Tolerate Failure! (sorry, last one I promise)