dan/california

QUADRUPLE POST, bleep me I was on a roll, sorry.

triple post

double post

You are understating how crazy this story is, whether it is true is another question, but back to that in a minute. The story is saying that the ENTIRE WAR resulted form an effort by Shoigu and Ivanov to cover the massive extent of their embezzlement. And then not content with that, they tried to take over Prigozhin's empire exactly the way they he said they did, and THIS resulted in the march on Moscow. Now Putin has finally realized what is going on. This is BEYOND NUTS. Yet Ivanov is sitting in prison for something. Apparently the Patrushev clan is leading the other faction at the Czars court, and think they finally have the rope to hang their rivals. This doesn't even have to be true, or mostly true, if enough of the Russian elite believe it to start a real power struggle. I am not sure I believe any of this, but clearly a real argument about something is breaking loose between Kremlin factions. That is not a small thing.

The thing is, Putin could almost certainly done a smaller, less ambitious, version of the "SMO" and more or less gotten away with it. His epic mistake was to make a great show of his intentions to burn down Kyiv and crucify, or worse, anybody who looked at him sideways. This made it impossible for the West to ignore what was going on and continue business as usual. He really did execute the worst plan since at least Napoleon's march on Moscow with a complete absence of competence. As I have said a number of time a smart autocrat would have declared victory May 1st of 2022, and memory holed the whole thing. Putin is not very smart, he just a psychopath who very unfortunately snuck into the top job.

ISW doing great stuff, as always.

The EU needs to have this little conversation about whether it is a country or a trade confederation. If it decides it is a country it is certainly the third player on the world stage, perhaps the second. If it decides it is a trade confederation, well your going have to worry about US elections forever, Choose wisely...

To put it plainly, the U.S. election is another front in this war, and perhaps the most important one, certainly the second most important one.

If he really was an agent for a foreign power someone has lost an important source. Of course it is quite possible he simply stole something in a way someone more important found inconvenient.

The state of Ukrainian morale has been deeply tied up with the mess in the U.S. Congress. Now that it has been resolved thank bleep, we need to take a deep. breath and see where everything is a couple of weeks.

I am only slightly guilty of bridge lust, I am simply saying that it gets to stay standing because the U.S. NSC thinks knocking it down will cause more problems than it solves. If they ever change their mind a train full of the appropriate munitions will arrive to announce that decision, followed by some truly excellent video.

I agree with this, but whatever Russia is paying to take a square kilometer is about to at least triple. They haven't exactly been getting a bargain rate the last few weeks, so it is about to get TRULY Pricey. Hopefully Ukraine casualties will go down as well.

I am quite sure the ATACMS came with a firm understanding that they would only be used within the 1991 borders of Ukraine. And the simple fact is that Ukraine doesn't NEED them to attack Russian oil infrastructure. For that the drones they are using seem to work just fine, and even ten or twenty of them are cheaper in every sense than an ATACMS. The drones have longer range as well. The ATACMS are far better used on hardened military targets, of which there is no shortage. There was almost certainly an explicit conversation about the Kerch Bridge , one way or the other.

Sanity is optional, you need look no further than the RFK jr campaign....

Three things about this system, it indicates defense contractors are really working on quadcopter based mine detection, which is a very good thing. The system shown is also a really nifty automated mortar. You are still looking at a LOT of ordinance to clear a lane in minefields the size and density the Russians are laying in Ukraine. My first take is that it might make more sense to have a drone deposit the approximate equivalent of a DPICM submunition, rather than using the mortar, but this would need detailed analysis of the rate at which each system can take out mines, and how vulnerable it is to being killed while doing so.

WINNER!

The article has some really good stuff, as quoted above. It also has some completely clueless bits. The author seems to gravely underestimate the size of the miracle it is that Ukraine is still in this fight.

It isn't getting enough press that Ukraine simply can't make a deal with Russia, because Russia simply doesn't keep its word.

Sooner or later I am convinced Putin is going to have this problem.

Two separate issues, apologies if I was unclear. What I was trying to say is that a LOT of ATACMS, and the freedom to employ them against the highest value targets in Crimea, at least, could really move the needle. If Biden's NSC just wants to send a few of them to be able to say they did, it won't make much difference. In that case I think Ukraine would be better off with more Patriots. I think Ukraine has always used them to shoot at planes instead of glide bombs. I am sure some have been used against cruise missiles around Kyiv. If they push them forward again they clearly need better protection, that may or may not be a viable thing to do. A way to knock down Orlan/Zala class drones faster than the Russians can put more in the air remains one of Ukraines great unsolved problems. Those new Laser based AA Strykers can't do anything but that? Every one of them should be in Ukraine doing it.

I think patriots are higher on the list than ATACMS actually. It is glide bombs and cruise missiles seem to be what is hurting Ukraine the worst. If they could impsoe enough air denial to really reduce those it would take a lot of the pressure off. The calculus might be different if they got enough of the right kind of ATACMS to drop the Kerch bridge. But if they get enough missiles to do that it would reflect a major change in the Biden Administration's approach to this war. They would need enough not just to do that, but to REALLY press the other Russian supply links to the land bridge for it to really count.

But full autonomy reduces the ability to jam them by 95% or better. Even now both sides know that jamming is their only hope, they are putting out enough microwave radiation to fry every egg within 10 kilometers of the front. There is still a great deal of video of stuff blowing up from a drone hit, filmed by a drone. And as The_Capt never tires of reminding us, every one of those jammers is radiating an enormous neon sign that says please kill me first. Drones that will home on jam have to be showing up any week now, if they haven't already.

A whole bunch more to say if I get time, but it was great to come back from vacation to goods news the funding, and the bomber shoot down.

Well they have many billions on developing laser weapons, they might as well put the current iteration in Ukraine, and see if it actually works And this is why it probably won't, but at this point it makes sense to try. 100% agree that an almost entirely unmanned battle at the leading edge will be first, and perhaps nearly decisive going forward. Going out of town for a week, hopefully coming back to good news on the funding.