dan/california

48 minute video! only had time to skim it but there is a lot here. Including english subtitles!

There is a whole lot of video proof from this war that throwing a grenade well is the difference between living and dying. Infantry in all NATO armies should drill and practice it a lot more than than i think they do. Among other things it is easier and cheaper to practice than a lot of combat skills. They should hold brigade level competitions and the whole bit.

This is good assessment of what Russia might be trying to do, but as you say it is a strategy born of blind panic. A lot of countries might decide that the best way to restore peace, and therefore agricultural production, in Ukraine is to get the Russians OUT, permanently.

About as much good news as we could hope for, the land bridge is only ~100k wide.

It seems pretty clear the Russians did not widely inform their own troops that this was going to happen. Thus I expect a bleep ton of Russians are trying to move large quantities of supplies and expensive kit before the water makes that impossible or the stuff gets flooded and ruined. I suspect they will be much easier to target while doing so. Any Russian that doesn't want to be shot at needs to take his chances with a small boat and a large white flag.

You sir, are simply brilliant! The protected zone must of course include the nuclear plant. The video is was probably taken by the guy who set off the charges. Can he go to the Haugue for that?

It will have enormous non-military impacts. The nuclear plants water requirements have been greatly reduced by the six plus months it has been shut down. But you probably need some sort of temporary dam to even attempt to turn it back on. Ukraine lose the hydroelectric capacity of dam itself, and it completely bleeps the irrigation scheme for some of the worlds most productive farm land. Their will be vast civilian flooding damage, and I am sure I am not even five percent of the way through the actual list. but none of it can be fixed until the last orc is dead or gone. I will leave my preference on that last bit as exercise for the reader.

Crimea's water came, I emphasize came, from the dam they just blew up. They won''t see a drop for the better part a decade now, probably. It implies the Russians are not exactly confident of holding on. It is an interesting question how many of the mobiks are smart enough to figure that out.

It is a huge problem seven ways from Sunday, But will the flooding on the Russian side push Most Russian artillery out of range of Kherson city? Edit: Also Moscow delenda est!

It was extremely successful at reducing the number of Russians in Ukraine, and improving the nitrogen content of certain agricultural tracts.

Just put them in the F-35 program and be done with it.

To my mark one eyeball the guy in the film looks like a soldier, not a partisan. Edit: and if the geolocate is correct and Russia supply convoys are going to get shot at in every. one horse town in the land bridge the Russians are about to have a VERY bad week.

Just to clarify. Novaya Tavolzhanka is on the RUSSIAN side of the border, albeit not very far into Russia.

Oddly enough the attack is happening in one of the least fortified areas.

some Russian drone camera footage of the attack, camera quality is so bd you can't tell much. But to the extent I can tell anything it doesn't look like one of the new brigades.

I am thinking Ukraine might poke the 72 brigade in the morning their time, just to see if anybody is home.

This was discussed some infinity of pages ago, but if Russia has gotten 75% of the adult male population of the D/LPR killed or crippled for life they would not nearly as problematic for Ukraine to run after the war as many people assume.

"Moscow is silent " is the most important moment in Putin's life until Yeltsin brings him to Moscow. It is some sort of grand historical joke that he has built a regime that seems to be in the process of repeating the mistake.

Both sides fight at night to the extent the they have the gear. More thermal capability is always VERY sought after. It is assumed that they NATO brigades being prepared for the counteroffensive will have NATO grade night vision/thermals at least for the most part. Some people think the Ukrainians are waiting for moonless night to take advantage. Just one theory among many of course.

The Ukrainian forces in Belgorod oblast just need to keep pushing towards Belgorod city proper. If the Russians are not willing to divert troops to stop them there is no shortage of military and dual use infrastructure there that needs a bit of C4 love. I also like the idea of hooking the Russian line just north of Kupiyansk and at least faking hard towards Staroblisk. once they were back on the Ukrainian side of the line they could be supported by the full array of U.S. systems in Ukrainian service. Again the Russians can move to stop them, or suffer the pain of NOT stopping them, and they lose either way.

It might be time to revisit offering Prigozhin the chance to be an out and out king In Krasnodar and the surrounding part of Southern Russia if he was to head that way and wreck the Russian army's logistics in the process of taking over. Edit: Of course there is value in just convincing Putin he is considering it.

Further down it implies none of the top grade NATO gear has been committed yet. I have always suspected Ukraine would conduct most of the initial breaching with Soviet legacy gear, and save the best NATO stuff for exploitation and the inevitable fight with whatever competent mobile forces the Russians have left. It could also be the first of who knows how many diversionary attacks to run the Russians ragged

And within two years, at the MOST, these things will not need operators. Some countries will pretend somebody is glancing at the video screen and approving the target, and some countries won't bother. either way you just draw a kill box on a map and tell them to go hunting. Have a rock solid solution to this threat, or don't show up the for next war. Without operators, or the need for much comms band width, if any, the will show in tens and twenties, and hundreds. As Steve just said, one Excalibur or ~25-50 kamikaze drones. Ukraine may get there by January 2024 if that CNN article is not entirely hype/propaganda. I think the Ukrainians will say something like "the unit commander used to be a lawyer, and he says he likes his orcs deep fried in their own diesel, works for us".

I think this is pretty close to the Russians final warning to shoot their officers, and either surrender or go home.