dan/california

The Wall Street Journal, and the NYT have declared the Ukrainian counter offensive to be more or less hopeless. I am all but certain this means Ukraine will achieve a massive breakthrough very soon. Whatever bit of the "Foreign Policy Blob" that is briefing them has been wrong about every other stage of the war, hard to believe they will start being right all of a sudden.

I have just had a strange thought. The lesson Ukraine has taught the entire world will make it vastly more difficult to manage the break up of Russia, should that unhappy circumstance occur. After Ukraine's/Russia's lesson in what to states with nuclear weapons vs states with out them, no fragment of what used to be Russia would ever give up any weapons it ended up with.

There is a long paragraph between the two bits I quoted. The short version would be that I think Girkins chances of learning to fly, or being chopped into really ugly hamburger garnish is rising by the day. His delightful organization of murderous psychopaths may or may not have coup plan waiting to forestall that possibility.

Now ask yourself what would be a higher priority than a system almost perfectly suited to knocking down drones? Because my read is that everything else coming out of Russian depots, and factories is probably worse.

Could you drop a link to that?

NATO's knockout punch strategy would work against the current state of Russian air defenses. But I think the the west needs to have a very hard think about how long it current model of airpower based on large expensive platforms is viable. There are a number of things happening technologically that certainly aren't going to help Russia in this war, but they might matter a very great deal in Taiwan Straight in 2032, just to pick a number.

Allow me to again suggest the strategic target for the counter offensive is Minsk. Oh and that man really needs to meet his lamp post.

Not worth the PR hit, and what Ukraine really wants is the people in Crimea who are from Russia, or have the closest attachment to the Russian government, to leave. I might be tempted to blow up some bridges BEHIND them, just to make the point they should stay gone.

South Korea and Japan have extensive Nuclear power programs, Japan reprocesses fuel. Taiwan has a couple of reactors. I think in a truly crash program it would take Japan a month to get a fission weapon on a cruise missile in quantity if they were willing to deal with a clean up hassle. South Korea does not have active reprocessing, so they would have to do more work, and make a bigger mess to get the fuel together, my guess is six months. Based on publicly available information Taiwan would need a year or more. This of course assumes all three of them did not start large covert programs a year ago, and I think that is a lousy assumption. I mean they are arguably the three most technically sophisticated countries on the planet, so it is just a case of will and effort. the technology is just this side of trivial for all three. NOBODY wants to be the next Ukraine, and making people think that way is why we should have put two heavy brigades INTO Ukraine in January 2022 instead of pulling out everybody who was there. Water under the bridge at this point, but we will regret it for a very long time.

There is some theoretical clean take over of the Russian MOD that produces a competent, and motivated higher command that is acknowledged by everyone. The actual process of getting rid of Shoigu and Gerasimov by rebellion from below is likely to be a faction ridden mess that will have severe effects on Russian operations in Ukraine, and in the best case scenario basically wreck the Russian war effort. Doubly so as the first rounds of purges seems to be well underway. A competent command structure that takes a year to to actually regain unified control of the war effort, with or without Putin still theoretically in charge is simply going to get to negotiate Russia's terms of surrender in Ukraine. Putin can't just appoint someone truly competent that has the support of the army, because that persons first order would be to have Putin shot.

The above is just half of the bullet points, there is a vast amount of detail if you want to read it all. The really short version is the Putin's incompetence, combined with the Russian MOD's incompetence, and the echoes of Prig's coup are just about to break the Russian chain of command. People all the way up and down are on the edge of simply refusing orders.

I suspect the people in charge of protecting the bridge will be forming their own Storm Z unit very soon. Everybody will be issued a rusty Mosin Rifle and five rounds, and a dull bayonet.

Hurray, bridge debate 2.0, was it ATACMS, Storm Shadow, Or another truck bomb? No one has mentioned AA fire yet... A train bomb would be a neat bit of variety. Regardless I think this is Russia's very last warning to leave while they still have an army. How much do you want to bet the Ukrainians have special presents for Russian ships in the Black Sea all lined up.

I think there are a LOT of analogies to Montgomery's breakthrough at El Alamein. Monty executed a well planned deeply resourced set piece attack against a prepared defense. His casualties were extremely high. But when he broke thru the British smashed the Africa Corps in an afternoon.

This is the same Girkin speech in the tweet just above. I finally worked through twitters ever increasing dysfunction to get the whole text. He seems to think the state of things in Russia is either bad, worse, or never mind.

Either Ghirkin really wants to walk out that window, or his faction is about to make a second coup attempt. I can't square the circle of what he is saying any other way. Says the Russian line in the south could fail anytime, and their are no reserves to speak of. and then he gets really depressed.

If only we had listened to the Ukrainian's a year ago...

This is just the highlights. ISW seems to think that Russia's better field commanders are close to the point of open rebellion as Prig's coup attempt echoes and the MOD just gets stupider. I think it has sunk in that there may just not be a Russian army left if they stay with the current plan. It would be hilarious if a rebellion by the VDV, which was built to be the regimes sword and shield, is what finally sinks it. Although there is no lack of historical precedents.

Are there enough usable bits to be worth the effort after is has been in the water for any length of time? The amount of mud in that one looks like it needs to taken apart to pieces parts.

Title pretty much just says it all.

https://post.news/@/cpu_up/2ScdLqbEFkbAJp1DPj3dyyUjtOf It is a great shark meme. Ukrainians need to start using the music from jaws in videos.

https://post.news/@/topcargo200/2SceYlipXt3QsmJMkr0QDARcTXd anther Russian Airborne battalion commander gone. The pre war Russian officer corps has simply been vaporized in this war.

https://twitter.com/JayinKyiv/status/1679547119542083589 Twitter is being a BLEEP, but the video is a Russian unit unpacking a weapons shipment. The good news, for the Russians is that everything seemed to have been stored in remarkably good conditions. The bad news is the the newest thing in the shipment was from ~1949.

She left out the part about hunting the people that run these monstrosities for the next hundred years.The Russian sub commander with a Strava habit was just a proof of concept.

The fact that a woman made it through is obviously an awesome thing, but the important part is that Ukraine feels it has time and troops to run a seven month school. And they probably need a week or two to recover before they get sent to the front to help make sure every Russian on Ukrainian soil is a good Russian. Good Russians are important for the sunflower crop.