beardiebloke

Looks like a very weak blast - he steps on it with his left foot, but it seems still intact as he rolls around. Could have lost his toes and broken maybe.
Since Ukraine is party to the land mine convention, I assume this mine was deployed by Russia, which makes it very fitting that a Russian would also step on it.

https://warontherocks.com/2023/01/manpower-materiel-and-the-coming-decisive-phase-in-ukraine/
In his latest discussion with Ryan on the war in Ukraine, Mike Kofman explains why the coming spring and summer will be strategically decisive. He also offers his analysis on the Russian command reshuffle, new Western kit, and the grinding battle for Bakhmut.
Bulletpoints:
Bakhmut, on the ground Russians have made progress. Difficult grinding fight. Odds about 50/50 that Russia takes Bakhmut in the coming weeks, BUT it doesn't matter which way it ends. What will matter are the casualties on both sides. We need to consider the risk UKR is losing higher quality troops while RUS is mostly using expendable troops. Fighting in Bakhmut might indeed be the smartest thing to do for the Ukrainians. Is there a spot that is more advantageous? There is criticism of UKR accepting this grinding fight,  but Ukraine might not be able choose a better fight at the moment. It is an important open question how much RUS is experiencing or going to experience shell hunger and its causes. We know the RUS shell usage has gone down but the reasons are unclear (smaller need now?, lack of supply lines?, lack of stockpiles? ...). We will know more when the fighting again widens and intensifies. RUS primary goals remain in taking the Dombas On the tank debate: The classifications of weapons (is it a tank or not or offensive weapon or not) depends on the needs of the policy. "It is what you make of it" It is a offensive weapon if the policies require it to be and it is not if the it needs to be policy constrained. About the Challenger 2s actually the AS90 is way more important. Western country giving significant percentage if its modern system. Heading to 2023 there is a quest to make Ukraine succeed in offensive operations under these new constraints. Constraints: RUS has the manpower advantage and next set of fights are going to be more difficult. Increase the qualitative advantage of Ukraine (better equipment and equipment for new formations) Equipment and manpower grind has to be avoided. RUS could sustain this for some time Develop and increase the UKR precision strike abilities. Shift Ukraine has mostly fought this as an artillery war. This is a costly and attrition approach as seen in Kherson. West is unlikely to be able to supply UKR with enough of overmatch of a fires advantage to win in this way. Even at this rate the ammunition and barrel consumption is hard to sustain. Combined arms training. The fix for the point above is to give UKR the skill and equipment to do mobile warfare. This is clearly now being pursued. Spring and summer look to become decisive. Next offensive UKR has a good opportunity to show that it can still advance under these new conditions. There will be lots of people eager to call stalemate Unlike in Kherson&Harkiv now in the next offensive UKR has a very real risk of RUS counter offensive if they fail or fall short. RUS offensive capacity is constrained but now there is a real risk. Lets be frank the Kherson offensive didn't start off well, this time around there will be risks if that happens. It is not clear what is happening with the forces. Have UKR managed to set aside enough units for offensive operations? What is going on with the RUS mobilization? Very little information on the Russian new forces, most like a lot of them are for rotational proposes.  This war going nuclear is matter of two points: Cascading failure and collapse of the Russian force and the campaign. Koffman sees this as low probability event.  what Putin decides to do in the above situation. This probability is pretty hard to judge. talk about internal struggle between the RUS war leadership RUS In Bakhmut interesting to see the changed tactics of no armor, only infantry and artillery. Also the artillery ammo is being rationed or having shortages. They are clearly preserving their mech forces.  RUS is likely not going to announce 500k man mobilization . It never ended, it is going to keep happening in the background. Also there is no way of sustaining such force increase. The war aims are going to stay inside Donbass. So forget about these fanciful plans being talked about in the press.

Worth its weight in gold.  Soldiers unable to really get warm for weeks on end would benefit incredibly from this.  Western allies should earmark money specifically for these.  It's a war-winner!  Hopefully RU mobiks freezing w bad food & bad clothing in muddy trenches w guns at their backs will see these videos somehow.  Heck, UKR should advertise that all new RU prisoners get hot tub within 24 hours of surrendering.  There'd be a stampede of white flags.  

Follow on to last night's earlier report:
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-politics-government-united-states-c9459e1bed9ad7358a59b541b3a5ae8c
Talk about chutzpah:
“Supplies of offensive weapons to the Kyiv regime would lead to a global catastrophe,” Volodin said. “If Washington and NATO supply weapons that would be used for striking peaceful cities and making attempts to seize our territory as they threaten to do, it would trigger a retaliation with more powerful weapons.”
Sense any fear or frustration?:
Medvedev, a former Russian president, warned that “in case of a protracted conflict,” Russia could seek to form a military alliance with “the nations that are fed up with the Americans and a pack of their castrated dogs.”

I agree... I just meant it's weird comparing the amount of discussion/uproar about tanks when it feels like the planes are coming.

Denys Davydov says they are training already.  He says F18s and it's probably just a rumour but I it's hardly inconceivable that they are preparing https://t.me/pilotblog/2298

If UKR did have F16/18s what would they do with them?  I thought the Russian AD still works well enough or can Ukraine get air superiority with enough NATO weapons?  Has Russia used up their S300s on playgrounds and apartment buildings?

I think the answer might be in your question. Every trend in the ZSU is towards NATOization and the basic mission of every NATO air force is command of the skies,  which boils down to SEAD. Everything major follows from that and is not done until at least dominance is achieved.
By contrast RuAur is doctrinally and structurally air artillery. 
So my bet is UKR won't waste a F fleet on ground attack,  they'll go full A$$hole on RUS AD and AF, enabling their SuMig contingent to follow its heart and pound the ground. 
 

There were also rumors circulating about Ukrainian pilots training on British Eurofighters Tranche1. Polish and Slovakian MiG-29s will go too at some points, still can be immensely useful, especially after integration with some NATO munitions.
As for weapons:
HARMs are there already, though Western planes that are integrated with them would up the SEAD game a lot.
AIM-120 are also in Ukraine as NASAMS ammunition. There were some photos of remains of B version somewhere - enough for cruise missile hunting, perhaps for air combat they would get the modern stuff. On top of that, Sidewinders are a no-brainer, perhaps these were sent too with NASAMS.
JDAMs were semi-officially announced some time ago. Getting them the -ER wing kits would make a lot of sense, tough pure speculation at this point. If GLSDB are announced, regular SDBs are also a rather obvious choice. Maybe some SDB II for plinking vehicles at long range?
Brimstones are in the theater already, but EF Tranche1, not to mention US jets are not integrated with them.
If F-18s were to be delivered, these can fire Harpoons that are also already in Ukraine (possibly not in air-launched version, but that's just a small inconvenience) - now that would make situation over the Black Sea rather interesting.

On top of that we are left with speculations. The longer the weapons range, the more useful it is, but also politically more complicated to deliver. JSOW would be my first pick. If cruise missiles are ever considered, then SLAM, Storm Shadow, JASSM in his order of likelihood, but I doubt that we'll ever get there. There's hardly a point in sending them, unless UA gets green light to strike Russia proper.
If Typhoons indeed happen, then Meteor could really impact the A2A combat, hardly anything comparable in RU arsenal.
Edit:
Actually I misunderstood your post a bit, hence the armaments rant🙃 But the types of planes and the available weapons really influence the equation here. Also, As mentioned previously by Steve, there are different levels of capability that can be useful without having all the options.

So at the minimum Ukrainians would gain a great way to defend themselves against cruise missile attacks (if these don't die out due to lack of RU munitions before). Fire-and-forget missiles that can be launched in salvos, plus good radars would be a huge jump over what they have, and all of that can be done over own territory, without much risk.
Close Air Support, or just striking targets along the FEBA are another low hanging fruit. UA are doing it now already with unguided weapons - upgrading that to JDAMs, maybe guided CBUs and such, and throwing in some targeting pods will make these RU field fortifications a proper death-traps. IMO this is the greatest asset UA might unveil when going into the offensive in the spring - let's see. This also is quite safe and doesn't require fighting the Russians.
SEAD is next - again it is being done already, but having aircraft with jammer pods, ability to identify and engage targets on the go etc. will again make RU life much much more miserable.
As for engaging RU fighters head on and fighting for air superiority, it's going to be a lot harder I think - Russians have AWACS, they have MiG-31s with their huge radars, they have numbers. I wouldn't expect more that hit and run tactics, but perhaps much more lethal to the RU side. Now were we to really commit to the air superiority mission, I'd say that F-15s would make much more sense that F-16s, but I'd absolutely thrown in some E-2 into the mix. And probably allowed UA to strike RU fighter bases, at least in Crimea, with cruise missiles. 

Doing penetrations trikes over RU territory is the least likely in my opinion. Perhaps some flights over Black Sea might be possible to threaten BSF and southern Crimea, but apart from mission I don't see a reason to take such risks. 

Lol
"Vladimir, we will be /very/ disappointed if you incinerated the world. Ok? No incinerations."
I'm sure that will moderate his behaviour.

Do you like arguing strawmen or do you simply not read what i write?
To requote myself
 
To clarify my overall position. I think this war is the best study case for a peer war in the near future and wed be well served carefully analyzing it and taking its lessons to heart.
 
And in regards to AFVs there are 2 overarching lessons learned
1. AFVs are vulnerable
2. AFVs are essential for offensive operations
The first lesson learned really doesnt need further explaination just look at the losses
The second one aparently does need so lets deal with that.
 
The core issue starts at another lesson this war reemphasises namely determined infantry cannot be shot off an objective with firepower alone. You can cause casualties but you still need to clear it with your own infantry. This point i dont think i need to elaborate on.
The next iussue is that infantry has difficulty gettin onto an objective using its own firepower and artillery only slightly changes that. This difficulty increases and decreasess with force density. Just compare the charkiv to the kherson offensive. Or if you want to experience it yourself atka a random cm map and fight a series of attacks starting at tiny size and eventually going to huge.
What tanks do is provide the firepower to get infantry onto an objective. They also provide supression via the threat of applying their firepower but thats a secondary effect they share with several other weapons systems. Their morale effect obviously decreases with at weapons available for the oponent but if they dont have any that can on its own win the fight.
This is the core reason why tanks exist now for over 100 years and are quite likely to continue existing for quite some time. Id love to see your argument for how this is weird twisted logic and what your suggested replacement is and please tell ukraine aswell because right now theyre still asking for tanks.
 
Im not going in detail over the rest of the post because it basically boils down to whatever you can think of to kill the tank it usually kills infantry easier and at greater rate, AFVs evolve with the threats, Soldiers dont.
 

I think the general Idea The_Capt has suggested repeatedly is that the treaty bringing Ukraine into NATO and the EU is signed at the same table, by the same people, at the same time, as the one resolving claims to Crimea, and the L/DPR. This would mean the very next Kaliber/Iskander launched at Kharkiv would be a CONSIDERABLY higher cost mistake for Russia. It might also make it sellable in Ukraine.

Interesting.  I wonder if this will play out like the other recent RU gains.  RU pushes, takes big losses, gets pushed back a little and is too spent for another push.
 

These are all behind-the-curtain machinations of this fishy individual called Tom Bombadil. Probably a Mordor spy anyway.😎

A unilateral ceasefire for Christmas?
The grinch in me says they are only doing this so they can point out how the Ukrainians are unholy satanists when there is an inevitable 'violation'.

I think there is a coherent argument that the Russian military is in collapse, the rate of that collapse is really the outstanding question.  Personally I see collapse a "a failure to be able to sustain option spaces".  Collapses come in many flavors, the dramatic cascade failures get all the ink but I think history demonstrates that these are really just the punctuation marks on a longer process of systemic degradation.
Russia has seen its option spaces continually shrink in the prosecution of this war.  They had the most options on 24 Feb, and ever since then it has been a slow and steady compression.  Some has been forced by the UA and some by Russia itself.  Examples:
- On 23 Feb 22 Russia had pretty broad options, which included to not-invade.  Then on the 24th those options began to shrink.  They committed pretty much their entire ready-force on one Hail Mary plan: no Lviv cut-off back up, no strategic erosion campaign fall back.
- By the end of March, they had lost all viable options in the North around Kyiv and their main effort.  So they politically weaseled into new "real" objectives, which was simply accepting and re-selling the reduced options they already had.
 -  By the summer, they had run out of strategic options that relied on manoeuvre.  Recall those maps with sweeping red arrows drawn all over them - those were utter fiction.  The RA had lost an ability to sustain that sort of warfare over the Spring.  So they were down to attrition and mass based options at Severodonetsk, making incremental gains while simply trying to hold on everywhere else.
- Enter the HIMAR campaigns, along with other capability and by Aug/Sep 22 Russia no longer had viable offensive options at the operational level. 
- Then they lost any an all options around Kharkiv and Kherson over the Fall.
They are literally down to symbolic tactical grinding at Bakhmut and holding on by their fingernails everywhere else.  Their force generation capability is slumping downward and their last option of nuclear weapons is a dead end.
All the while the UA develops capability and a broader array of options in an expanding portfolio.  Simple equation that says a lot about this war:
Capability x Speed/Agility/Precision = Options.  Options x Cognitive Advantage (Information) = Outcomes.
A whole lot is trending towards zero  for Russia.  As to when the whole thing starts failing fast...l that is the big question.  My money is the next major move by the UA is flank pressure to pull the RA east and west simultaneously.  Lotta opportunity on that Eastern flank and keeping pressure up south of Kherson - in my dreams an amphib action is on the table, but that is likely asking way too much (now there is one interesting CM campaign).  And then when the the RA is stretched thin in the middle, they will try to cut that corridor and separate the two.  A drive to Melitopol is the most likely, but there are other...wait for it...options.
With the strategic corridor cut the two AOs are now connected by land only thru that bridge Ukraine already damaged, and air/sea but those are not optimal if the UA hold the North Coast of the Azov Sea.  All traffic basically has to go around the back across the Black Sea while that big bridge gets HIMARsed - Crimea basically becomes another larger Kherson pocket on the wrong side of a water obstacle.  The UA can then squeeze until things turn purple.
Will this be enough for the political house to come down - unknown, but I definitely think it has potential.  Someone in the Russian power mechanism, as ponzi as it is, has to realize that one 70 year old losing a major land war is simply not worth it at some point.  

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/100ujjh/reportedly_himars_attack_on_a_school_housing/  
If I had to guess, they Incoming HIMARS made her go look, and then the ammo went. AFU wanted to make a new years statement in Donetsk, and the Russians served the perfect target.

Last night Kyiv and Kyiv oblast again was under atatck of Shakheds. 20 were shot down, but at least two or three hit some power objects (one in Kyiv), but damages weren't serious, electricity was turned off in several districts for several hours in the night and morning. 
This time in attack repelling participated also fighter jets, on the video below one of them shot down Shakhed, likely over Irpin' 
Probably Gepards or Tunguskas
Typical sound of Shakhed (Ukraiaians called them "mopeds")
Mobile group with HMG technical and projector awaiting of Shakeds approaching

 

Except it also possibly caused the missile strike on the foreign volunteer barracks in March. I read a personal account of a more experienced volunteer who was so appalled at what was happening there that he left before the strike.

Yup, put hundreds of ill-disciplined conscripts in one place and at least tens of them are going to have active phones. Any EMS surveillance unit will immediately spot the concentration and relay it. The beauty of HIMARS is that they can swiftly change intended targets and react to the opportunity.
 

The defence forces might have felt it was chaotic but it was lead by someone, some small tight group of people. Even if your forces are inexperienced, so long as theyre in the right place at the right time then you maximise their effectiveness (true with regular troops of course). Without western ISR but very detailed and timely local ISR the coordinating group was able to receive, digest and prioritize locations at speed, making them able to be where they should be and to shift away when needed. They also struck back and hit the weakest link of the Ivan, the fuel trucks.
Very smart work, for a "civilian" force. But that HQ group must have had people with experience from 2014 onwards, no? Maybe not the top leaders but you could not mount an effective defense (with counter attacks) without some military/battle knowledge in the group.
If so, then it underscores that additional data point against the success of the invasion - while Russians were doing stupid scripted "maneuvers" for show, a percentage of the Ukrainian population was getting shelled, shot at and veteranized on the Donbass front. Not a large percentage but time and again a margin that existed and was often enough and, crucially, was spread throughout the entire population and by inference its geographic extant. So wherever the Feb 24th invasion force struck there were bound to be people with battle experience, motivation and discipline to organize, resist and fight back.
By contrast the D/LNR veterans were concentrated in the Donbass and stayed there - their experience was thus not disseminated throughout the Russian forces. The RUS MoD doesn't seem to have been remotely interested in any lessons learned and, post-ceasefire, seems to have deliberately kept its personnel back from the front lines. The rebel forces were structured similarly but kept separate and not properly integrated into the AFRF until the invasion started, and then just as cannon fodder. Their knowledge of drones and how to use them was ignored for at least two months. I think It was May that we heard of DLNR instructors training Russian forces on the use of Mavics? 
@Zeleban or @Haiduk do you know more of this episode? Do we know who lead the fight and where they are now?

There have been major concerns about the mobilized conscripts becoming a bigger liability in many ways than an advantage. This may end up being glaring proof of such sentiments.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-troop-loss-catastrophe-in-donetsk-outrages-russias-military-bloggers

I think we discussed this at length back last Fall during the “dreaded” Russian mobilization.  This is not 1941, you cannot simply put a rifle into someone’s hand and expect them to be able to fight effectively on the modern battlefield.  
Back in 1941-42 how many of those Russian conscripts were farm kids?  How many are coming from urban centres today?  I am willing to bet most of the urban conscripts do not even know how to survive under field conditions let alone fight in them.
Russia can mobilize all it wants but it is going to make things worse for them not better.  Only a total amateur would think that more poorly trained and equipped - and apparently concentrated, human mass is a good thing in this war.

For example, here is what the TD fighters of the Chernihiv region are doing on the border with Belarus (unfortunately, the video has no subtitles)

frozen ground grogs?  🤣  love this forum