dan/california

Great article, Ukraine needs to keep killing Russians and taking back territory. The more successfully it does that, the more likely the pressure on different factions in Russia will give them a reason to go home.

Watch the whole thing. If I was Russian I would be looking to follow those two guys across the Bering straight. With or without a boat. "Crowd funding and local authorities are going to save the Russian army". I did NOT make that up. It is about half way through.

Good video of a Ukrainian grad strike on a Russian position. Interesting to contrast how NATO gear would have addressed the same target.

The_Capt's heart has never been so warm!

Does Russian have a word for plan? Not much evidence of it.

The mobiks are "training " on a bizarre mix of fifty+ year old junk. and brand new stuff. Just more proof of how badly improvised tis whole thing is. It has to work, though. They are not launching it until things are ready. Not sure "shelling" is the right description. More of a final assault. When your calvary is sabering their artillery, you are winning. As true now as it was 500 years ago.

In our defense this might be the most important topic of the next four months. Because if Ukraine has functional gear and the logistics to KEEP it functional, and the Russians are losing even three to five percent of their force to weather/exposure casualties a week this war won't last till spring. And "We will nuke you if you send the Ukrainians any more socks" is the least convincing statement ever.

Yes, But that is in extremely cold, extremely dry environments, bone dry snow, and usually a plastic outer boot designed to work with crampons. A muddy trench with three inches of standing water is a very different. It is actually a worse environment for water infiltration. I am not saying the moisture barrier wouldn't help, but you will still need to rotate and dry socks and boot liners. Trench foot is a BAD thing. I fully expect the Russians to demonstrate that before spring.

You sir have won the board for today! Brilliant!

Right bank is not holding much longer....

Clearly looking to envelope Svatove if this map has any bearing on reality.

It is all about relative risk, If it is raining shrapnel other things become less relevant. And that design might provide a fair bit of blast protection unless the shell is so close your bleeped anyway. The hole might have some supports in it, didn't get a look. Yes, rain is a problem, but the idea is to live that long and then figure it out all over again.

Was the name confusion intentional? I mean...

Well they scared the western world into redoubling assistance to Ukraine, so excellent work....

posting error

This is one of those things we won't REALLY know for years. She was a bad person and an enemy of Ukraine, but not worth burning a very valuable match eliminate. Unless Ukraine has ten plus agents deep enough into the right parts of Moscow to kill semi significant figures in the Russian government/establishment. I am going to speculate a little here.... I think the U.S. has gotten wind of some OTHER operation inside Russia to eliminate someone who actually DOES matter, and they are trying to warn the Ukrainians off from carrying out the operation. It is the only reason I can see to talk about this publicly, now. Edit: From the article "Countries traditionally do not discuss other nations’ covert actions, for fear of having their own operations revealed, but some American officials believe it is crucial to curb what they see as dangerous adventurism, particularly political assassinations."

Nuke aside, we have discussed that one to death, the Russians appear to have approximately nothing. And if they really start rearranging things in the rest of the south to support Kherson it is at least 50/50 the Ukrainians have another force waiting to show them the error of their ways. If the Russians get caught with too many units in transit do to bad orders and general command incompetence Ukraine will break the whole Russian army by Christmas.

This is the greatest bargain in history, LITERALLY! Ant resemblance between this and 1917 is purely coincidental... This is too funny. My prediction is the outskirts of Kherson city in a week, and the surrender of anyone to stupid to escape a week later. The Russians on the right bank are done. The only question is how many run, how many die, and how many surrender. I suspect the AFU intentionally waited until the water was cold. I still don't rule out a dam of Russian bodies at the mouth of the river, but I think the needle is moving towards large scale surrenders.

Obviously it is extremely poor choices in what games to play that has utterly ruined the Russian military.

At some point in the future you and The_Capt need to write a book about Afghanistan. Between the two of you there is is just too much knowledge, history, and lessons learned not to get it all on paper. We will do a kickstarter if needed to get you off the ground on the project. I realize it might be five years from now, depending on who knows what, but it needs doing.

Snihurivka probably hasn't fallen as of ten thirty pm west coast time. Apparently there was a joke on telegram that went viral with exaggerations. But as LLF pointed out earlier when things start to go this wrong for an army the usually don't stop. So by morning west coast time I wouldn't be surprised if it was a self fulfilling prophecy. Ukrainian propaganda/info ops are simply flawless. I hope the U.S. has some prefab prison camps in containers in the desert somewhere. They are going to need them.

Fascinating interview, from 1995, guy was right about a LOT.

Almost wrote a whole bunch, but the picture speaks for itself..... Send the Ukrainians every weapon system they can crew, really tempting to put a boomer on that list.

Are they even going try and stop running north of the Inhulets? Extra points to the AFU General Staff for waiting until the water is cold enough to make swimming extra special.