TheVulture

Hmm well.... the only minister that has proved effective for the UK Govt (and instrumental with delivery of weapons systems) is Ben Wallace, Defence Secretary, very competent and ex military himself, which almost certainly has helped with his grasp, understanding and approach of the UK on these matters. If anyone deserves credit in this shambolic Govt it's him, and when the history books are written I think his performance will shine through only.

I doubt it, more a distraction to help Johnson back home rather than to help Ukraine.
I hope the #ucking lack of visas to Ukrainian refugees was on the table, people in UK want to help but the Government is asking for paperwork even for cat's being brought into the UK. 
I am glad we have sent weapons but we could be doing more to help the refugees. 

The front lines seem to be getting very confused in Kherson Oblast, both here in the south and north in the Kryvyi Rih direction. On this map, I've put in blue Okeksandria which Ukraine definitely holds, then three villages in red that Ukraine says it withdrew from in the last day or two. Yellow is Bilozerka, where there is fighting (and where there was fighting reported 3-4 days ago I believe). And for reference, purple is the frequenly on fire Kherson airport.
If all these reports are still accurate, some of the Russians along the T1501 road are in danger - there would be no way out of there without swimming.
Note, once again, the if those reports are still accurate though.

With 36 years' employment in the field I can reassure you that any such biography in 20 years time will be a work of fiction from someone bigging themselves up.  The US, having recently and with popular assent somewhat untidily extricated itself from one conflict last year is in no rush to become involved in another one directly. 
Enablers such as providing situational awareness, intelligence sharing plus lethal and non-lethal aid are of course being provided.  The old adage of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it" will certainly be uppermost in the calculus of the US and its NATO allies which again makes direct intervention or other capers like officially sanctioned 'American Legions' highly unlikely.  History proves that 'deniable ops' simply aren't and that is particularly so in the current information environment.
'Almost perfect situational awareness' resulting in stuff mysteriously blowing up is also in the realm of 'doesn't happen.'  People are quick to tell me that "the int was rubbish" - "we weren't warned" etc, which is frequently an excuse to hide their own failings (not reading the intelligence or ignoring it (Mr Putin refers) being fairly common) or their misperception about the art of the achievable by the intelligence cell, unit or agency.
The factors for Ukrainian success are well-documented, roadbound columns, little or no attempt to enforce tactical spacings, little or no attempt at camouflage and concealment and the use of insecure communications on the part of the Russians.  On the part of the Ukrainians, once the limited axes of advance have been identified a combination of mark one eyeball, UAVs and tactical SIGINT provide sufficient means to develop a tactical picture of sufficient granularity to strike.   That they have been able to do so is because they have developed a command and control architecture which has allowed this information to be shared and acted upon quickly.  Some of it is very unsophisticated as explained on some of the videos we have seen:  UAV team goes out, launches from a wood near one of the identified road, flies the UAV until a target is seen and passes the target grid over VHF direct to a mortar unit.  BDA sent over same means, rinse and repeat as necessary.  Combat or tactical intelligence isn't particularly hard if you have a tactically incompetent and undisciplined opponent moving along easily identified axes of advance.

not really an apples to apples.  Yes EU is paying for oil and gas.  That doesn't translate directly to war funds.  Russia has an entire economy to keep going.  The money/weapons etc EU is giving Ukraine go DIRECTLY to the war effort.
Would it be nice to cut Russia off completely?  yeah but not realistic at this point. What is happening is a concerted effort to get to that point.  For Russia there is immediate pain caused by some of the sanctions and long term pain of folks looking to stop doing business with them. Putin is digging a helluva big hole for Russia's grave, but nothing happens overnight.

Ammo depot was Tochka U.
Fuel depot was choppers.
There were two separate attacks.

So I am very interested in UA information management.  First of all they have demonstrated information superiority over the Russians almost at every level, which I suspect has been a decisive factor in the war so far and leads to more questions than answers:
- How did they do it?  Based on the level of open source information out there Ukrainian defence looks like it has adopted a "whole of nation" approach to the collection and dissemination of information along with total mobilization of military effort.  From what I can tell this democratization of intelligence has worked and allowed the UA and defenders get ahead (and around) Russian advances before they could gain momentum.  How is that collection happening?  Is it entirely over the internet?  Hotspots?  Are they employing those Startlinks?
- How did they manage information overload?  In the west data overload is a big issue.  As @Hapless notes it can paralyze an OODA loop by over saturation leading to longer orientation times. The UA, on the surface, looks like it has gotten around this...how?  My guess (and it is a guess) is that by adopting a hybrid C2 approach they are relying a lot on self synchronization at a micro level.  Info sharing is not being collected into a giant cloud but is instead in a whole host of little clouds all over the battlefield.  Peer to peer tactical units and groups are sharing to synchronize themselves...a lot of the anecdotal stories shared by @Haiduk seem to point to this.  In western experience this akin to the action of the airborne forces in Normandy, they did not wait for centralized orders, they simply ad hoc re-grouped and "went out to make trouble".  So this is not new, but what is new is the level and resolution of that information.
- What does central information management look like in this war?  The Russian model in this is as important as the UA one because it failed gloriously.  I suspect the Russians have been relying on BTG level centralization of C4ISR and it has not worked.  First this is the Soviet legacy model.  Second, we saw it in 2014.  Problem with this centralized model is that it can either starve or overload, in the Russian case I suspect it starved.  In the UA case how are they handling information flow to the center?  It must be happening but who or how are they deciding what stays at the tactical level and what gets elevated to paint a clear operational level picture.  I can't help wonder if the UA is not getting "big data" support from the US and others, which is very interesting as a lot of those systems have not been tested in conventional warfare. The connection between self-synchronized tactical level and centralized operational level is another dimension of hybrid in this war and it hinges on what appears to be an emergent information management system.  I have no doubt it might look like chaos to the outside observer but it is working.
 
 

Yes but is it for this thread? We keep getting distracted by other topics which, while fascinating in themselves, are not really about military developments in the war.
My apologies in advance (I've lived in Canada for too long, pre-emptive self shaming is ingrained!) as I don't want to come across as a dogmatic Thread Guard.
But...I'm personally more curious about Kherson and the developing decisive battle in the East, than proving that RUS propaganda drivel is...yep, Russian propaganda drivel.
We all know this, it's a bit of Singing To The Choir, eh…?

I'd love for this topic to be about the war and not a coffee house academic discussion about the differences between the political Left and Right. 

Our troops is trying to take the town Beryslav, this can cut off Russian forces around Velyka Olexandrivka area 

It's not quite as simple as she's making out.
They didn't give it to him, it's not a hand out. It's not charity. It's business, and for a critical resource that frankly, without it, makes making and doing things in Europe a good deal more expensive and awkward.
Those billions paid for gas etc to heat homes, run power and importantly support industry, manufacturing, science and research.
Sure he's getting money, but he has pretty high costs and that money loses significant use if he can't buy whizzbang Western tech or products (civ or mil).
I'm not saying it's a good thing (it absolutely ISN'T) but that's the blunt reality.
Think of it like this - Russia's gas is powering and heating the societies and industries that are now ****ing with his invasion in all sorts of delightfully maddening ways. Hell, his gas helps make the damn NLaws, Javelins and Panzerfausts that are slaughtering his tanks.
 

Another variant popular in politics has 4 stepe:
1. It's not true
2. It's not true
3. It's not true
4. It's old news

Are you being deliberately dumb here?  The reason you are correctly being accused of trolling isn't what you say about the Russians.  It's because you have decided that it's the "PC and woke" brigade that are the entire problem in the west. 

Another variant popular in politics has 4 stepe:
1. It's not true
2. It's not true
3. It's not true
4. It's old news

Are you being deliberately dumb here?  The reason you are correctly being accused of trolling isn't what you say about the Russians.  It's because you have decided that it's the "PC and woke" brigade that are the entire problem in the west. 

Another variant popular in politics has 4 stepe:
1. It's not true
2. It's not true
3. It's not true
4. It's old news

Are you being deliberately dumb here?  The reason you are correctly being accused of trolling isn't what you say about the Russians.  It's because you have decided that it's the "PC and woke" brigade that are the entire problem in the west. 

Are you being deliberately dumb here?  The reason you are correctly being accused of trolling isn't what you say about the Russians.  It's because you have decided that it's the "PC and woke" brigade that are the entire problem in the west. 

Are you being deliberately dumb here?  The reason you are correctly being accused of trolling isn't what you say about the Russians.  It's because you have decided that it's the "PC and woke" brigade that are the entire problem in the west. 

To add to the absurdity, the "woke brigade" in DC is beating down the doors of the administration to give more aid to Ukraine. Please stop the trolling, you just look dumb.

if you use "woke and PC" you are just another brainwashed tool.  This is just a shiny object meant to ignite culture wars.  We have much bigger problems.  Like in the USA we are considered now a failing democracy.  And it's not because of some "woke & PC" horses-t.  It's because of a very different brand of propaganda.
So how about we all call a truce on this foolishness and get back to Ukraine?  Do we not (nearly) all here have a shared interest in seeing the new Hitler defeated?  What I care about is that the west (and the world) stays united and that Ukraine can emerge 'victorious', although that's an odd word for having a big part of one's country laid to ruin.

This comment...

This is what the PC and Woke Brigade of the West cannot grasp about Russia

...has absolutely nothing to do with Ukrainians being angry about Russian war crimes!

I KNOW exactly what it represents, and it has no place in this thread and that's why I'm calling it for what it is.

That's whether you, or anyone else likes it or not... it is trolling! 

Now I joined this thread after the first week of the war to read others views about the conflict, not to read about this sort of nonsense. Quite frankly, there's nothing that I am going to learn from this sort of socio-political diatribe, but there is a lot that I can learn about the military conflict. But these particular comments have no place here and are irrelevant to the topic. 

Tiresome and boring! Stop trolling!

For Pete's sake, it is not RACISM!! Not everything is RACISM!! It's simple BIGOTRY for crying out loud!!
If you want to be all woke and politically correct about this horse****, at least use the right friggin words.
And personally, I don't agree with either of your positions. The people of Russia, I think the gray masses in Russia should suffer under sanctions for allowing a criminal regime to exist. They should be despised and ostracized from civilization until they change, but they should not be condemned to torture and death. The RA should be brutally killed to the last man for their heinous inhumane barbarous conduct to the Ukrainian civilians. They are friggin savages and should be treated like such. There is no difference between them and ISIS at this point. Their torture, rape and murder can't be condoned and every member of every unit is responsible for the conduct of that unit and especially it's officers and NCO's, but that does not alleviate private Ivan for following orders, doing it on his own or standing aside and allowing it to happen. You play, you pay.
But I'm an idealist and believe in right and wrong, good and evil. A hate filled heart is not a bad thing when it is aimed at evil. If this was happening on my soil, to my people, to my family, Kraze would have to push me out of the way to take his turn on the kill, maim, mutilate merry go round on those bastards.
Man, if I get any  more fired up I might tell you how I really feel.  

Let's stay on topic guys. If you want to discuss racism do it with personal messages not forum posts please.