Canada Guy

After successful referendum and joining Czechia, Kralovec ( former Koenigsberg and Kaliningrad) now has an official twitter profile:
 

I've previously shot overnight on the Toronto Lakefront in January and holy ****ing **** its awful. Just ****ing ****ty **** **** *** **** mother****er **** ****y ****ing awful. And that was with Baffin boots, heating pads, many layers, canada goose level coat, insulated overalls, gloves with heat pads, spare layers, etc. I was fine, in the end, but I was in no bloody hurry to do anymore days on 1st Unit of The Strain, I can tell you.
I've never been so cold - except in the old power station, the Hearn. But that has gigantic concrete floors that hold and radiate the cold, plus wind* and a nice nasty asbesto-y dust to blow around and as it was literally my first day on a film set and I knew nothing, I absolutely was not dressed correctly. 
Which is the point, really.
I don't know if anyone else noticed, but we were all jabbering in the Spring about the expected rains giving a mud season that would slow down RUS ops. Personally I saw very little impediment or hindrance due to surface conditions. Certainly nothing dramatic compared to the Wehrmacht's experience. 
I doubt this coming winter will slow the UA. As has been noted by others, winter hits the unprepared unequally. 
And I dont hear no stories about Ukraine "losing" 1.5 million winter uniforms.
 
*Wind is the killer, it really is. I find Terry Pratchet's description of a "Lazy Wind" as perfectly apt - "It doesn't bother going around, it just goes right through you."

Coming up next in "How hot is Ukraine gonna get?": How cold is Ukraine gonna get?

I think we are way overestimating the power of UA winter. First, global warming is a thing, and the weather is on average much less severe than it used to be. I recall months long periods of negative temperatures and snow lying around, right now it's no longer the case - you get maybe 2 weeks of that per year. In general, mud is much more annoying during winters now than snow. Granted, I live 2K km from Donbas, but I bet the pattern has to be at least somehow similar. Kharkiv is on average 4C colder than my city.
Second, when you look at typical temperatures in UA, it is not that bad at all. There might be periods of nasty weather, with uber cold continental air coming in, but on average it's really not that horrible. It is of course way different in the mountainous areas, but all the fighting takes place in the low positioned flatlands.

Perhaps some of our Ukrainian users could shed a bit of light on that? @Haiduk @krazeIs going around the countryside on snow scooter during the winter possible at all?

Kinophile, you mentioned snowmobiles, but all the UA army needs is a few Aimo Koivunen
https://allthatsinteresting.com/aimo-koivunen
The references to the winter weather are interesting.  I live in a part of Canada that is on average -20C in Feb but last year it dripped down to around -51C (-60F for our American friends).

I assume parts of Ukraine have the same weather patterns.
I was freezing after 45 minutes outside in great gear and good winter boots and keeping up a good pace to keep warm. I am not joking when I say that Canada should ship winter gear to Ukraine instead of anything else. General winter could be a deciding factor. 

I concur and it is also refreshing to see the resuming of the role as a unifying force behind NATO and successfully clearing possible roadblocks to see the possible addition of two new members.

The only reason they didn’t veto the UN forces in Korea, was because the resolution was presented and voted on after the Soviet Ambassador had left the room for some reason. The Soviet or Russian Ambassador has never let that occur again. I suspect the Ambassador has been told that he is to soil himself rather than ever leave the room again.

This loss of the 1.5 mil winter uniforms reminds me of another blunder on the Eastern front where these were not needed as the war would be over by autumn. 
This could be a real disaster as the weather cools and Russian forces are forced to huddle under tents they had to bring themselves. if they really have no winter uniforms, I cannot see this going much past Dec. The West should just start shipping winter gear to Ukr. Winter could be more decisive than another HIMAR.

Indeed...we're very lucky on both sides of the 49th Parallel to have such good neighbours.

Just like RU nats venerate Putin, CA nats venerate Poutine.

"We are not American, sorry if that causes any offence"

Canadian nationalism? And what is that?

For God's sake. His country is under attack. His people are dying. Use the ignore function or shut up. All of you.

Was going to say about 90 things, someone else got o most of them first.
We are sort of stuck off topic, or at least on the uppermost political level of the topic. Even with very interesting tactical, and operational developments.
Steve needs to go for the last option to bring things back into line. Release real info about the new game. So we can all tell him he is doing it wrong, while we frantically pre order it. I suggest he double the price and send the proceeds, and a complementary copy, to the Ukrainian MOD. It solves about five problems at once. It isn't a cold hearted attempt to take advantage, its a fundraiser!  
 

To continue with the full disclosure policy, I should be done with the getting married part 15 hours from now, so it will be down to the work being BS  

Well here is Perun's spin - have not watched it all the way through but his track record has been solid:
So the question, I think, is - the UA has solved for offence, but have they solved for all offence?
First off I am not sure how many casualties they have taken in Kherson.  Report of "mass casualties" are likely overblown, or very localized, mainly because the offensive itself it continuing.  Sure the UA is taking casualties but I do not think we are talking the opening of the Somme here.
So what about "prepared defence"?  The Maginot Lines that Russia has been able to throw up all over the place?  Thoughts:
- This war is asymmetric, and has been from day 1.  The UA has access to much, much, better C4ISR, and its logistical lines have never been challenged in any meaningful way by the RA. [Aside: I think it is safe to discuss now; however, the only shot Russia had at winning this war was way back in Feb.  IF the RA had made the main effort of the war Lviv, and to cut off the western support corridor by land - I think we would be in a very different reality.]  Russia has had access to mass, beyond manpower - for which there has been rough parity - the RA has significant advantages in just about every other metric of military mass; tanks, IFVs, guns, EW/support vehicles.  The thing is, the UA advantages once they were given access to western smart-weapon systems (by 'smart' I mean weapon systems that can sustain approaching -1:1 shot to kill ratios through a much better organic TA and lethality designed to offset RA protection) and combined it with the C4ISR asymmetry - they effectively dislocated all that RA mass.  And did it with largely 'light' forces - Phase 1 of this war was mind-blowing, frankly, it was far more that 'Russian's suck'.  In reality the UA managed a hybrid distributed defence along ridiculous frontages that made the RA "suck more" - to the point of failure.
- So building on that asymmetry, over the summer the UA were able to expand their options significantly when they gained more access to deep precision strike capability.  I will say it loud and proud - HIMARS were an absolute game changer.  It gave the UA something akin to ersatz airpower without the bother of airfields and infrastructure.  They have employed this system, along with others, in both deep strike and CAS-like roles - there has been hand wringing over the tank but I would think air power advocates should take note of this as well.  With this capability they did pretty much what they did with SOF and Light infantry in phase 1, but much further and faster - they corroded the entire Russian operational system: logistics, C4ISR, EW and morale, to the point that the RA never were able to regain offensive initiative after the summer in the Donbas.     
- Then we saw the very visible result/end-state of this work in Kharkiv, which appears as much about RA taking insane risks to shore up other areas of the front - they did so because their system is in failure.  Kharkiv was "easy" because of this...slow....until it is not.  Kharkiv is an obscenely fast advance and an RA collapse, it will likely be the blueprint for the course of the rest of this war.
"Ok that was great but what about...?!!"  War is not a fast food industry - quick, cheap and tasty; we have become addicted to quick short wars, followed by an insurgency hangover in the west since 1991.  It is dangerous thinking and we needed a lesson on what a real war looks like - brutal, long and all up in your face.  No more of this video-game warfare nonsense.  You want to get into a peer fight?  This is what you get - except now with nuclear apocalypses hanging overhead.  A lesson both China, and I hope the West walk away with.  We have been sold on the idea that war is an inconvenience - to the point that they are teaching this in some academia circles to future policy workers and government leaders.  Some unpleasantness to get over with and then put the military back into a box and get back to the "real business".  Pinker was, and is wrong - this is the business of humanity, history backs me up on that one.
So back to Ukraine, well the UA is well ahead of force generation estimates, the double operation Kharkiv-Kherson demonstrates this, so I am not sure where they really are at to be honest but "well ahead" is a good place to be.  The next question is "how far behind is the RA?", and how fast is that getting worse? - it is getting worse.  The UA has been very smart, and they learn faster than the RA - I go on about options being a key indicator of how things are going; however, collective learning has to be another.  Both sides in this war are learning, it is that kind of experience, but the side that can learn faster and more broadly has a clear advantage - that would be the UA.  So the UA will likely go back to slow, until the conditions are ready for them to go fast.  As to Kherson, it does not take a military genius to know that fighting with a river to your back is likely the worst position to be in.  We know the RA supply lines are heavily damaged and the troops in those "hardpoints", know it too.  In the end the Maginot fell with a whimper because it was totally dislocated - RA hardpoints in Kherson will likely go the same way - it is the biggest vulnerability of a 'hardpoint', it cannot move.  However before that happens the RA needs to be further corroded until the holes outnumber the metal and, like Kharkiv the whole rotten house collapses.  
"How long can the RTA hold out" - see my para on real war: no freakin idea.  It is not forever, based on how hard the UA is still pushing, they think the RA will fail before the weather changes.  Does Kherson have the only decent RA General and leadership?  Did they stockpile more than we thought?  How bad is the RA system in that area?
We do not know.  But I will put one thing out there - time is on the Ukrainian side, not Russia.  Which is what this is really about - we need to move past that myth.  The UA could sit back and hammer the RA positions with impunity in Kherson.  They could do it during the muddy season and into the winter - they can find, fix and finish target from well outside of RA retaliation capability.  Precision means they do not need an ocean of ammo to do it either - 1000 rounds equals 1000 effective hits, kind of thing.  Russia could not mobilize anything that looks and fights like a real military on the scale they need for years and western resolve should get us well into 2023, particularly once the Dark Winter is over. 
My guess is that Ukraine wants a short war because their people are dying, but they can win a longer one as well.  They are pushing hard and up-close at Kherson because they are assessing it will fail soon.  Ukraine will likely win this thing enough (all war is negotiation) in 2023 - assuming it does not happen sooner - if the current paradigm holds.  If we get a major strategic shift then we would have to re-asses.  How they are going to do it is to likely stick with the same game they have been playing all along - exhaust the RA operational system and then kick it in the walnuts from multiple directions at once.  Watch the RA collapse - meme the hell out of that, document the war crimes the Russians were stupid enough get into and show them to the world, get more western support while Russia and its cronies make quacking noises and write bad fiction, rinse and repeat until one hits the Russian border or someone finally puts a piece of metal into one 70 year old's brain pan and the Russians leave sooner.  It is the winning recipe so far.

Russian soldiers are as disciplined as the rabble participating in Trump rallies...

Hey, stop this, this thread belong fully to Tolkien nerds!😉
 
Ok, so can we try to assess scale of Ukrainian success now on 11 PM here in Europe, with some buckets of cold water. We have massive happy hours and probably a lot of rumours/ Ukrainian PsyOps, so let's try to stay sober (for a moment)
1.Frontline will probably stabilize on Oskil...or not? Russians are trying to form something resembling defence in the east of the river but have giant problems. Ukrainians are probably very tired and we have only speculations on second wave joining.
2. I read some magical numbers regarding captured POW's and vehicles...like 450+ tanks,7000 POW's and similar. Very unreliable. We don't know how many Russians managed to escape or if kessel is formed (probably not, because of fluid nature of frontlines). Certainly gains at Izyum are truly massive, but we don't know numbers just yet so scale may be little lower than expected (my guess, happy to be proven otherwise).
3. Capture of Yampil is not confirmed, state of Lyman is disputable. Vovchansk and Vielyky Burluk under shelling but probably still not captured; since they are close to Russia they may be reinforced in time (let's hope not).
4. Donbas lines are roughly stable as well, with Russians traditionally pushing towards Bakmut like drunk rhinocero.
5. Oil rafinery areas near Lysychansk is probably contested; something is happening in this axis but still we don't know what.
6. As of now, Donetsk airport, Severdonetsk, big breach in Kherson etc. seem like rumours.
7. Putin is well, Moscow just have celebrations. Nothing suggesting change of power for now.
8. Situation is very dynamic....5 days in and Russians barely try to counterattack. Their "maneuver to regroup in republics" may even be true from RUGenStaff point view...but it somehow mifired.😉 Reality knocks the door.
9. Russian nationalists have butthurt of the century, one can feel their pain and tears throuht the screen.
10. Ukrainain morale sky high, at least in the north. If not death of queen Elizabeth headlines would be full of info about Ukraine for 24/h. Apparently international attention span is not short when for hours describing such vital issues as names of Royal corgies or tapestry of new King's seat while barely mentioning that Ukrainians just gave us most brilliant example of massive manouvre world have seen from WWII (ok, Desert Strom not counts).
 
Now, throw knived at me but I would call to curb our enthusiasm now. It is glorious day indeed, but there are so many rumours and fake stories that we easily can fall into high expectations trap.
 

Usually I don't care for this sort of thing, but these are getting ridiculous 😂😂😂😂😂😂

No significant updates yet. But there is interesting post
 
It describes possible UKR intent for the whole Izum offensive operation:

UKR capture/block Kupyanks UKR Advance from Dolyna area toward Oskil cutting several roads from Izum UKR destroy few bridges And the whole RU Izum grouping is in zh*pa.  

Reports coming in from all over the globe that sunflowers are standing significantly taller and shining much brighter today.  Evidence from my yard verifies.  Wonder what this means?

unregulated free markets would quickly evolve to trusts and monopolies.  Free market requires competition, which companies all hate, of course, and would smash if they had the market power and capital to do so. 
Free market capitalism, like democracy, is the best system humans have.  But it's not a magic rainbow pony and requires some amount of regulation.  Too much and you stifle innovation.  Too little and the free market has no competition and consumers get fleeced w/o recourse.  People love to think they are 100% free market proponent -- until they need health care at age 65, where there is no free market solution simply because old people are so expensive to insure that no one could afford it except the very rich.  Then they wants that awful socialism.  None of this stuff is black & white, it's all a balance that is constantly being adjusted.
The big picture is that gov'ts intervene when for whatever reason the market gets wrecked in a way that hurts the people too much -- like now, w Putler.  The market will adjust to Putler's extortion racket but it can't do it instantly.  Meanwhile the gov't can't have thousands of old & children freezing to death because they can't afford heat.  So might be subsidy, might be price control, or any of a number of tricks, all of which would hopefully be temporary until a functioning market can return.
For this Ukraine discussion, what matters is that gov'ts do what they can to soften the economic damage so that support for Ukraine continues and we don't get pro-Putin demagogues elected due to angry populace. 
Having said all that, I must now leave for religious obligations.  The Ohio State Buckeyes Football Team, most beloved in The Creator's eyes, is on the telly!

Exactly European Social Safety Nets are non-negotiable for Europeans. Apart from them they embrace capitalism. This concept is not always understood in the US.

Never underestimate the ability of people to back issues that actually aren't in their real interest.

I agree w the esteemed Dan/CA.  NOthing would be better than seeing Saudi Arabia become what it should be, an uber-impoverished wind-bitten wasteland. 
On China, this got me thinking:  Do we want to think of China as an enemy?  Rival, most definitely.  Potential enemy, for sure.  But I wonder about throwing around enemy w a country with which we have massive trade, and where US companies are deeply ingrained. 
Will Chinese nationalism and pride push it to war at some point?  Would sure be dumb.  Spend multiple generations using the greed of capitalism (race to the bottom for wages) to become the manufacturing center of the world then throw it all away over Taiwan?  War would cripple the american economy but it would destroy China's.  So talk of China taking steps to prepare, financially, for war, would signal that they consider the insane somehow potentially feasible. 
Humans are truly unbelievable (US very much included).  We seem to have a complete inability to do a basic cost-benefit analysis where war is concerned.  Like drunks in a bar who think that some perceived slight is worth getting half their teeth knocked out and next day not even remembering what they were fighting about.  What's the saying ?-- (paraphrase) "wars start for reasons.  But once started they continue for the sake of the war itself, the reasons nearly immediately forgotten." -- WW1 being the perfect example.