panzermartin

From the morning I heard terrible artillery sounds from Brovary direction. It's 13 km from my house. More than two hours of heavy guns salvos. Now mostly quiet, but sometime single or double artillery shots heard. On the horizon in Zalissia area something burning. 
At the eraly morning Russians hit residential building in Obolon' - northern district of Kyiv. Artillery shell. Two killed, 3 wounded, 9 traumatized.

 
Also there was either missile or artilery strike at Antonov aviation plant in the western part of the city - 2 killed, 7 wounded
AD reportedly hit two targets over Kyiv and Kyiv oblast. One of them as if a missile. 
Upd. Results of missile interception. It fragments fell on the road and 5-storey building. Trolley is destroyed (fortunately it hadn't the passengers). Alas, one dead, five injured


The moment of missile fragments falling
  

Most losses to Russians now inflicts our artillery, which have targeting superiority due to drones and recon information

This! The historic purpose of armor has been to support infantry by taking out hard points or distance fire locations. Infantry protect armor from AT weapons so the armor can provide their support.

Nah. They were over as fast as they began.
Nobody here gets what's such a big deal about them. Russians seem to think that if they are scared of kadyrov's soldiers so much - then everybody else is. Not the first time they are projecting.
Sure, that human filth is extremely violent and sadistic, but only versus unarmed people. Then in the very first battle against an actual army they suffer such huge casualties down to losing a general, who is also kadyrov's bff - that you stopped hearing about them joining battles completely.
Remnants of those will most likely be used by russians to torture and murder people somewhere and commit various warcrimes that are too hardcore even for other russians, but as a combat force they are effectively done for.
 
 

You can find some videos about Russian VDV and SOF breakthrew in Kharkiv several days ago. There was a street fights and the seizing of school building, where they withdrew and held it until our tank arrived. In most cases we hit Russians on their way, we ambush them, our mobile AT-group on military and civil pick-ups with NLAW, Javelins, RPGs constantly in search&destroy tasks. So, there are not so much "classical" fightings, but they, of course, take place too, but we will know about them later.
There are heavy urban combats now in Mariupol and Volnovakha. But I think our soldiers havn't much time to film....
About Kadyrov's fighters. They just mostly have been looting occupied villages and towns nearby and film boastful videos. If you will see a dead body with silver tape on the arm - this is Kadyrov's trooper.    

The Instagram Battalion has been posting close to Kyiv.

Grill bars didn't help... Ideas?
The big nest like a stork?
Take a cookie!  

Everyone said war with Russia was inevitable during the Cold War too. I spent 10 years as an Army officer during the 70s-80s. We pretty much expected that we'd never grow old.
Yet I just turned 65 and retired. War with Russia never happened, despite numerous proxy wars and some (many?) close calls.
This is in no way to minimize Ukraine's plight at the moment, but I think the inevitability and doom predictions are not a new thing. 
I'm not in any way an expert, (give me a target list and I can blow it up, but grand strategy, international relations is above my pay grade) but I believe the aid being provided coupled with the sanctions Russia is coming under will do the job, without increasing the possibility of US/NATO forces coming into direct conflict with Russian forces. That's the thing that during the Cold War, both sides went to lengths to avoid. 
Dave

here you go.  it is long, but it pretty much covers everything
Ukraine, US Biolabs, and an Ongoing Russian Disinformation Campaign | Snopes.com
 

I'm not much of a fan of this "things never change" talk. All in all I think the world is a much better place than, say, 100-200 years earlier. Still, some good points there. What really strikes me is the bigotry of the so called Western World (Not saying the Autocrats are any better but maybe we should put our own house in order before pointing on others). We kind of have this narrative that because we are democracies we are the good guys. While on average living in the western world is probably much better than elsewhere, from that we kind of derive the narrative that we are also morally better in our relations towards the rest of the world. And that is plain wrong, I think.

Well EU had to make itself dependent on someone, at least until we could get enough renewable energy up and running and gas was supposed to be at least not as bad as oil or coal. So, Russia and the US were candidates.
Now, you really have to understand just how much trust both George W. Bush and Donald Trump shattered over here. During G.W. Bush's presidency German chancellor Schröder laid the foundations for our even further commitment to Russian gas. And Mr. Trump openly tried to blackmail the EU. Several times. Up until now, while everyone knew that Putin is far from being the "Flawless Democrat" former Chancellor Schröder once called him, he never tried that (with the EU). Also worth mentioning (something that came up over here quite often), the Soviet Union and later Russia was always a reliable supplier. Did we trust Putin? Not really. Trump & Co showed us, however, that the USA also were far from being the reliable partner they supposedly used to be.
Personally, I still have trouble believing that the USA support Ukraine because they are a democracy defending western values and not because Ukraine is of geostrategic interest against one the (at least nuclear) superpowers undermining US dominance.
Last but not least. At least German foreign policies was based on Change through Trade. It worked rather well back in the 70s and 80s and so somehow we tricked ourselves into thinking that through trade we could slowly kind of change the autocratic countries around the world towards our values. And also make money while we are at it...

I think the reason the EU has become reliant on Russian gas in in part because Putin used to be seen as someone who was reliable, which was something sorely needed after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. Not a nice guy, but reliable.
Then as he became ever more unpleasant (poisoning people,strangling Russian democracy in its infancy, invading countries, propping up Assad and committing warcrimes etc), we've been in a "frog in the pot" situation. At which point could EU politicians decide that enough was enough? After we have become increasingly reliant on Russia?
Secondly because there has been the general idea that trade between countries is in itself a factor for peace and stability. Until recently, I was certain that Putin would never actually attack, not least because that might risk his oil and gas exports.

This is horrible 

This is horrible 

I think that touches a larger geopolitical issue of blocs, spheres of influence and whether people think (or thought) these were still into play.
The easy argument to make is that nobody in EU would have been surprised that USA rather sold it's own gas to EU than Russia's gas. 
Some people in the EU (including me) feel/felt that the EU should be more independent as a 'bloc'. The other side of the medal is that independence also comes with security (which we can't manage ourselves yet) and for the EU there is/was an issue about unity as well.
Coupled with politics, bureaucracy and 25 nations 'in discord'.
I don't think anyone really expected Putin to go for regime change in Ukraine. And yes in hindsight it is a fair point to make imo, that EU has partially funded this war. Then again anyone who traded on large/state level with Russia has partially funded this war.
I think people aren't saying much about it because of, well, the political sensitivity ('we were wrong' is difficult to say for politicians). 
Between the sheets it's easy to validate though, Germany is moving towards energy independence and investing EUR 100 Bn plus 2%+ per year in it's defense. 
So clearly a case of a paradigm shift.

At the same time there are geopolitical analysts (on both sides of ocean) stating that aggressive Western (USA) geopolitical strategy is the cause of this and that all could have been diverted if we would have allowed Russia in NATO or had made clear that Ukraine wouldn't join NATO.
Personally I'm not in that camp, although I think that NATO / West should also look at itself. 
But that 'ship' has sailed so I doubt there will be much looking in the mirror.

This is horrible 

Thinking more, about it.  How difficulty would it be to hide an S300 battery in Ukraine near the current battle zones.? Isn’t the country relatively flat and open ? I would imagine Russia will having no difficulty finding deployed ones and taking them out with Ballistic or cruise missiles launched from the Black Sea or from Russia itself.   
Might be better off announcing it, then send in some inflatable ones. 

Are they willing to give them up? They may still have tension with Turkey.

Drone footage of combat in Kherson near the Antonov Bridge
 

That does map onto how the Soviets started fighting the Germans in WWII. 
The problem was the Germans didn't win quickly enough, so they ended up giving the Soviet army a pass/fail education in effective combined arms operations. 
The result of the final played out in Berlin in '45. 
H

At the same time. They undoubtly used their army elite. The 1st Guard Tank Army. Both the 2nd MRD, and 4th Guards Tank Divisions tanks, and IFV are blown up, or captured. Lots of T-80U's from 4 GTD on picture. 

A reminder to the trigger happy crowd from Einstein himself :
 I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones

A reminder to the trigger happy crowd from Einstein himself :
 I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones

I guess my last post didn't go through so here goes again. I am disgusted by the likes of danfrodo and dan/california as they shout for war, war by my countrymen, because I feel that anybody hollering for war that loud obviously has never been to war. I have. I joined the USMC in 1966 and deployed to RVN in 1967. I was assigned to I Corps, 1/9 Marines. I understand sacrifice. I understand death. I do not understand these things when they do not benefit my nation in any way and that's what this amounts to. I joined, and I'll be the first to admit that it was not out of patriotism but out of "I'm gonna get drafted so %$^& it". I DID however think that I should contribute to the larger war against communism. That, unfortunately was BS too. It was all BS. My belief in America and what it "stands for" led to my son being a casualty of my own retarded beliefs as well. He joined in time for the glorious "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and hes now a mind$%#@ too. He was an 0311 in Fallujah and now 18 years after? Yeah, hes $##^ed. Rah rah USA. I'm sure I'll be belittled and talked down to over this but I could give a %^$' less, walk a mile in my shoes, walk a mile in my son's shoes...

I'm sorry but some of the boycott things are rather retarded . A university in Milan thought to ban Dostoyevski. And on the funny but still retarded side a girl in a sandwichery told me they are banning russian salad. Freedom fries anyone?