Baneman

He escaped to UKR-controlled territory. I can say also that not only pro-Ukrainian people flee frpm occupied territories - both since 2014 and now. Many of "vata" go to Kyiv, western Ukraine, Poland. They continue to hate Ukraine, but don't want to go to Russia. Maybe because true Russian patriots always prefer to love "ideal Russia" on the distance from its terrible reality 

So for the record, calling Jomini a "little conservative" is akin to calling Billy Graham "a little religious" - the man tried to create a deterministic theory of warfare based on geometry, and Clausewitz called him on it...and frankly I think Uncle Carl was extremely conservative by modern standards.
That said, I am not sure what the story is around Severodonetsk to be honest.  I completely disagree with J of the West assessment that Severodonetsk is a "strategic decisive point for the RAF" and by taking it they gain "a pivot for operations" and a "pivot for manoeuvre".  If we look at wiki for the latest situation:

And then a G-Earth shot (I will try and do an MFSF flight later):

None of what J of W is stating as "importance" makes sense.  If this was a break out battle over the river and to take Lysynchansk, maybe.  But his argument that the "undefendable terrain of the western Donetsk Oblast" on the other side of this river, also make no sense as we know the RA advances out of Popasna have stalled.  As have the attempts coming down from the North out of Izyum...this is all the same type of rolling terrain spotty with water features.  The idea that if the RAF somehow takes the far bank town of Severodonetsk it is set up for a rolling breakout manoeuvre battle is sensationalism at best, and applying metrics from the Gulf War to this one at worst.  If the RA takes Severodonetsk, they still have a major water obstacle dominated by a very long ridge line to try and assault, then more urban area, and then rolling terrain which the UA has stopped them on along other axis.  So seriously, WTF "Jomini of the West"?
This battle is likely more along the lines of Verdun albeit what I suspect are for different reasons (I am not sure of the historical angle but Haiduk did mention this was a big fight in WW2).  This is a "I want that" and "you can't have it...jerk" type fight.  The UA is there because it is a spot they can make the RA's life miserable an pull in forces. The RA wants it...well why does the RA want anything?  Likely because Putin has been briefed and figures it is also "really important" for reasons.
This battle is interesting in 1) it is definitely attritional, and 2) it looks like it may be the one spot where the Russians have managed to create information parity (but I have a major caveat to this).  The noise about guns and UA casualties is just that "noise".  The UA is not stupid, that is one thing they have proven in this war.  They would not be holding onto a far bank defence - one they really do not need - unless there was some serious advantage attached to it.  My bet is that it comes down to two things: the concentration of arty and EW.
Lets leverage Jomini for a second and lay it out (in some ways he was not wrong):

I am going to be extremely generous here and say the RA has its guns positioned within 30km of Severodonetsk based on ranges (D-20s do about 18 and the Pions can reach out at about 37, so for arguments sake).  That is a slice of a pizza that is 188 km around.  The Russians can realistically put their guns in about 1/3 of that circle - so about a 63 km arc, which translates into about 942 sq kms.  At "900 guns" that is a density of a gun per sq km.  That is a pretty high density of gun positions - not WWI - but likely the highest of this war.  Further you have all the logistics to support all them guns.  
Finally, the RA has concentrated a lot of EW to try and make this op box go dark for the UA: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-technology-90d760f01105b9aaf1886427dbfba917  All these emitters are pumping out an ungodly amount of EM and easily visible.
So what?  Well there is a lot of talk of Ukrainian losses in this fight, and I believe them.  But war is negotiation and sacrifice.  Those lives are not being spent for the far bank town the UA really does not need.  They are likely being spent to pull in the concentration of arty and EM...so the UA can hit them - attrition, like tracers, cuts both ways.  What is missing from all this is the RA losses on key arty, EM and logistics because  they are concentrating them around and on top of this operationally near-worthless town, that when successfully taken will bring all the joy of a colicky baby because you still have to take that brutal set of ridges...on the other side of a freakin river.
We have no idea how bad the Russians are taking it right now, because "dark box"...but you know who does...the UA.   The one thing all that EW cannot turn off are the space-based ISR assets that the West (primarily the US) are beaming directly to the UA.  All those RA assets are very visible to multi-spectral space-based ISR and I have every faith are being hit regularly in this fight; it is the only thing that makes any sense - the UA are trading infantry for RA arty, EW and logistics right now.  If they wanted to trade infantry-for-infantry they would be doing it from all those ridges, which is the the obvious fallback position.
The Russians on the other hand are trading their own critical resources so that Putin can declare a "great victory" of very little military value - just like they have done throughout this war.

A true classic, Life of Brian.
I have difficulties with most of what was said earlier about the fiasco otherwise known as Brexit, but as this is not a thread about Brexit I'll keep them to myself.

Thanks ) Just became some more of work, my wife turned back and often occupies PC because her work, also it's hard to live three months 24/7 as war news translator, so I took small vacations 

Eh, I blame the programme manager - he's the one responsible for making SURE discrete elements of the project interact properly. Mind you, no self respecting engineer would be using non-metric in the first place, so theres that.

Aren't they independent republic, people's republic even, says so on the tin. Don't they have a leader elected by said people? Why are they petitioning some guy in a foreign country?

On the slightly off-topic of war videos and entertainment; As I have spent quite a few hours of my life providing ISR and real-time targeting I can say personally that you get used to it pretty quick. I distinctly remember watching my first strike (against ISIS in Iraq, 2015) and being filled with excitement - - finally getting to strike back at these people who were tearing open any form of civilized society and attempting to push the area back into the dark ages. I recall that it really didn't look any different than a video game, which because you are watching it through a monitor, really does make sense. Then I saw my first mass civil casualty event... I really didn't care about watching them get smacked after that. Still don't.

Personally, watching the Russians get hit brings up much the same feelings. It's not a joke, it is real, but so is the war. You want Ukraine to win it? Then they need to kill invaders, and kill them in large numbers. This is the reality of it. Nothing more, nothing less. I'd do it myself if I could, and I don't mean that lightly. Death comes to us all, and killing in war is just that, delivering death for a specific reason or desired outcome. Where I will say that I have ABSOLUTELY no time for is torture and unnecessary violence. If you are going to kill anything you kill it as cleanly and as efficiently as possible - people who enjoy torture or employ it are beyond me (death will happen in war, if you are going to kill someone do it, but to cause pain unnecessarily for your own pleasure is twisted).

All this being said, I find it difficult to watch videos of Ukrainians getting hit because I want them to survive and WIN - yet it also serves as a reminder that the cost is real - not that the cost isn't worth the fight (as much as I can say that without being there myself), but it is real. 
(I am also the kind of wargamer that feels bad when he losses pixel troops unnecessarily, they are my responsibility to use wisely)

The Poles made a massive difference in World War 2. Their skill, attitude and commitment made a difference and set an example in the Battle of Britain, and their contribution towards breaking Enigma is often overlooked.
Poland frequently gets ****ed but I'd always want the Poles on my side.

And then there's this.
As a onetime consultant who hates the entire profession with the heat of a million suns, I think this is a terrible idea.
...In fact, send the entire global McKinsey, BCG and Accenture teams to the Donetsk front and issue them Mosin-Nagants.

How do you think Don Diego de la Vega feels!!!

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

two mines with jet engines strapped to them
You can also say Moskva successfully demilitarized Ukrainian naval defenses by lowering the amount of our antiship missiles by two.

I own(ed?) CMBO (don't have a CD drive anymore), Got it right after release IIRC. Didn't play much because I sucked. Lurked the boards for years and for some reason created the account and never used it, then drifted away.
Back for this thread.
Periscope down.

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.

Torture chambers.  Mass rape.  Genocide.  Threatening their neighbors.  More and more I have to admit this old sailor from the cold war is coming around to the fact that maybe we need to call Ivan's bluff and enter this.  I know it means world war and further the threat of Nuclear war.  I lived through that era and spent 5 years on an aircraft carrier preparing for it and am well versed that there are no winners in that.  But at some point the red line has to get crossed and the world has to say no more.  When the Soviet Union fell I had honestly hoped in the modern world we had seen all the evil that humans could preperatrate on one another, but the reports coming out of "occupied" Ukraine the last couple days have brought me to tears and filled me with so much anger I can hardly control myself.  If I was younger Id already be there doing something carrying the wounded and help the civilians (as I was no soldier) but god damn how much more can we see before we raise our fists?
There has to be more we can do.

"I think that people in Moldova and in the Baltics should be extremely, extremely nervous right now."
I tend to think that it's the Russians in Moldova, Georgia etc. who should be extremely nervous.
 

Not really Drug Dealers. A primary purpose was deterring 'snitches' to the British forces.  I personally, deeply vividly remember as a kid watching a news story about a boy in the north, accused by the local IRA of snitching, who had been kneecapped. He was 12. I'll always remember my Dad say "If you think kneecapping children is a legitimate tactic then you have lost all legitimacy".  Which is one reason why the IRA and its spawn remains banned to this day in the Republic- no moral legitimacy.
 The whole drug dealers crap became hollow once it was revealed that the IRA itself had ties to cocaine gangs, and with the Good Friday agreement there was a definite influx of IRA into criminality - as is always with long civil wars, the demobbed fighters had a very specific, and limiting, set of skills. Witness Colombia also.
The longer a war goes on, the more criminality seeps in and starts to corrode the political aspects.

At the rate Russia is wrecking it's army and economy I think Monaco will qualify.  

Aerorozvidka stuff has been long integrated with the army.
Nobody is using common apps
The DIY drone is Leleka, it's quite fine, a lot of arty footage you see is filmed by it. Over 300 such drones are used by the army.
One of the reasons counter-offensive may be "slow" is because our army is about keeping losses as low as possible - while russians simply human wave our positions again and again since they don't care about the losses.
Which is why they already suffered more casualties in one month here than in all 1.5 years of the first war in Chechnya.

As soon as you see the words "crisis actor", you should know whatever the story is, it's nonsense.
I'm not aware of any event in the world that was actually staged using "crisis actors" - it's just a right-wing meme.
In fact, if you thought about it critically for a bit, you'd realise that such a thing would be almost impossible to pull off - you'd have to get everyone for miles around to buy into it, or someone would be saying "they're not from around here" and variations on it.
PS: the woman you're calling a "crisis actor" died of her wounds.

As soon as you see the words "crisis actor", you should know whatever the story is, it's nonsense.
I'm not aware of any event in the world that was actually staged using "crisis actors" - it's just a right-wing meme.
In fact, if you thought about it critically for a bit, you'd realise that such a thing would be almost impossible to pull off - you'd have to get everyone for miles around to buy into it, or someone would be saying "they're not from around here" and variations on it.
PS: the woman you're calling a "crisis actor" died of her wounds.

As soon as you see the words "crisis actor", you should know whatever the story is, it's nonsense.
I'm not aware of any event in the world that was actually staged using "crisis actors" - it's just a right-wing meme.
In fact, if you thought about it critically for a bit, you'd realise that such a thing would be almost impossible to pull off - you'd have to get everyone for miles around to buy into it, or someone would be saying "they're not from around here" and variations on it.
PS: the woman you're calling a "crisis actor" died of her wounds.

As soon as you see the words "crisis actor", you should know whatever the story is, it's nonsense.
I'm not aware of any event in the world that was actually staged using "crisis actors" - it's just a right-wing meme.
In fact, if you thought about it critically for a bit, you'd realise that such a thing would be almost impossible to pull off - you'd have to get everyone for miles around to buy into it, or someone would be saying "they're not from around here" and variations on it.
PS: the woman you're calling a "crisis actor" died of her wounds.

As soon as you see the words "crisis actor", you should know whatever the story is, it's nonsense.
I'm not aware of any event in the world that was actually staged using "crisis actors" - it's just a right-wing meme.
In fact, if you thought about it critically for a bit, you'd realise that such a thing would be almost impossible to pull off - you'd have to get everyone for miles around to buy into it, or someone would be saying "they're not from around here" and variations on it.
PS: the woman you're calling a "crisis actor" died of her wounds.

As soon as you see the words "crisis actor", you should know whatever the story is, it's nonsense.
I'm not aware of any event in the world that was actually staged using "crisis actors" - it's just a right-wing meme.
In fact, if you thought about it critically for a bit, you'd realise that such a thing would be almost impossible to pull off - you'd have to get everyone for miles around to buy into it, or someone would be saying "they're not from around here" and variations on it.
PS: the woman you're calling a "crisis actor" died of her wounds.