Lethaface

Calling 15k troop strength an 'entire army' which had been 'missed', sounds a bit dramatized imo. Although obviously 15k troops reinforcing somewhere where one didn't expect them can be 'problem'.
 

Galeotti linked this article lately, and it is indeed worth to post it here, if someone like to understand why rural Russians, against hopes of some analysts early in the war, are viewing Special Military Operation as something net positive. Not very heartworming but predictable. Urban centers can be different, though.
https://russiapost.info/regions/majority
Also, Shoigu on last conference with General Staff stated that they expect their war to last at least into 2025 and prepare themselves accordingly. There are also reportedly big changes coming in their military structures, namely new military districts are about to be created.

While all media has it's issues with bias at times, even public ones like NOS and Nieuwsuur, I feel it's more farfetched to think they area all (including their European partners) bought by FSB.
FWIW the investigative journalism on the side of Nieuwsuur / NOS is usually of a high level. These are publicly governed and funded news organizations providing among other things the public daily journals in The Netherlands (you know but not everyone here).
The information from the MIVD is also unlikely to be orchestrated by the FSB, unless one believes our military intelligence is compromised. 
Anyway, they don't rule out the Ukrainian assets where in some form used / orchestrated from Russia. Without having access to secrets we don't know how credible the MIVD itself think it's source is. Credible enough to act on it, that is for sure. 
Anyway I think it's dumb to look at this and think 'blablabla Russia is behind it and I won't believe anything else'. At the same time it would be dumb to conclude for certainty, at this time, that the Ukrainian leadership is behind this. There are still many possibilities, but as more information surfaces there is at least some doubt to be cast on the idea 'must be the Russian's. 
Therefore this again proves that it is always imperative to keep an open mind about uncertain things. 
 
Anyway, a 30min video about the findings (some of it is in Dutch):
https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/video/2491937-nord-stream-hoe-alle-sporen-leiden-naar-oekraine
 

My thoughts exactly.
We should not forget that "All is fair in love and war".
I am not saying that I believe that the Ukrainians did blow up Nordstream2, and I wouldn't approve of it, but there is  a real possibility that they did.
If you feel that you fight for your bare existance, you do not (have to) consider the "hurt" feelings/goods of even your closest allies. See ww2 Mers - el Kebir, for instance.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-Kébir
We shouldn't exclude possibilities just because we don't like them.

While all media has it's issues with bias at times, even public ones like NOS and Nieuwsuur, I feel it's more farfetched to think they area all (including their European partners) bought by FSB.
FWIW the investigative journalism on the side of Nieuwsuur / NOS is usually of a high level. These are publicly governed and funded news organizations providing among other things the public daily journals in The Netherlands (you know but not everyone here).
The information from the MIVD is also unlikely to be orchestrated by the FSB, unless one believes our military intelligence is compromised. 
Anyway, they don't rule out the Ukrainian assets where in some form used / orchestrated from Russia. Without having access to secrets we don't know how credible the MIVD itself think it's source is. Credible enough to act on it, that is for sure. 
Anyway I think it's dumb to look at this and think 'blablabla Russia is behind it and I won't believe anything else'. At the same time it would be dumb to conclude for certainty, at this time, that the Ukrainian leadership is behind this. There are still many possibilities, but as more information surfaces there is at least some doubt to be cast on the idea 'must be the Russian's. 
Therefore this again proves that it is always imperative to keep an open mind about uncertain things. 
 
Anyway, a 30min video about the findings (some of it is in Dutch):
https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/video/2491937-nord-stream-hoe-alle-sporen-leiden-naar-oekraine
 

Yesterday I mentioned Eric Hartmann, whose callsign Karaya has taken UKR pilot (clear sign he is hidden nazi! %) ). After 10 years of camps in USSR he became commander of FRG (already NATO-country) aviation unit and several times visited USA, where he was instructor of US pilots and tester of some types of US jet aircraft. 
Many of military strengts and technologies West got after the war from former Nazi scientists, engineers etc. 
Many of those, who fought against USSR and received a shelter in Westren countries, where used by CIA, Mi6 in those fight against communism as agents, influencers and diversants. And likley most of them should be mobilized to fight USSR in case of big war. And I doubt many journalists in that time rised a wave "Nazi! Nazi! We invite nazi! What a shame!"
Russian propaganda maybe will shout some time and shut up soon (who interested in their blah-blah-blah?), but this gift for them made not so Canadian Speaker, but local journalists.
 

Very informative posts from @Haiduk and @Beleg85 regarding the 14th SS Division (UKR). 
 
As soon as a I read the headline in the CBC yesterday I knew nothing useful was going to come of this drama. Should he have been given a standing ovation in Parliament, no, but as a country we have already been over this regarding the legal status of former members of the unit (provided there was no evidence of war crimes against civilians). 
 
History is complicated, I don’t need to tell that to anyone in this forum. Does his affiliation with the SS mean that as a Canadian I would have fought him during the war? Yes. Do I blame them to trying to fight against the USSR for the possibility of an eventual independent Ukraine? No. After the war, do I regret the Canadian government giving former members a place here? No. As @Beleg85 pointed out the devil is in the details. So find them out and be clear about it. Presuming he is innocent, then we should all just move on from this, lesson learned. 
 
I get a little upset about a lack of historical context from wider society at times, but as pointed out, a lot of us are learning more about the complex history of CEE since this war started. At least whoever wrote the CBC news article tried to give it some context, it could have been worse. 
 
Edit: Steve also adds extra context to the various reasons why people (non-German) may have voluntarily joined the SS, or later found themselves in it. 

Don't work ) Here longer video with drone attack over these nets
 

If he is "evil-nazi-SSman", why he lives in Canada alredy more than 70 years? Maybe because after the war all former members of Division were verified and didn't found guilty? Like and division itself. Canada, USA and UK gave a shelter to members of "Halychyna" division and they never were given to USSR and under justice, despite several attempts of USSR to initiate pursuit. 
WWII in Eastern Europe wasn't so black&white like for Western. Here was a war all against all, with situative alliances, double games etc. Germans perfectly played on hatred of western Ukrainians and Baltic states to Stalin's USSR (and not only them),  so local national movements used this idea of national Waffen-der-SS divisons as opportunity to establish own trained regular troops, which would be capable to fight directly with Red Army and not sneak in the forests. Most successful in this were Estonians. Their units fought so tough, that Russians to this time consider Estonians more "fascists", than Lithuania and Latvia, having also own Waffen-der-SS units. I think it's no need to expalain here that "true" SS-division is not the same that Waffen-der-SS division, which had common only structure, equipment and name ranks, but no one in latter wasn't member of SS, because only true "Aryans" could be a members, not untermenshs.  
In western Ukraine, when 14th division was established, about 40 000 of volunteers came to enlist "to fight with Bolsheviks". Whole student classes had been come to enlistment centers. Were all they nazists? Of course, no. Ukrainian wing of OUN (M), led by Melnyk supported idea of regular UKR army establishing under German protectorate, but the wing of OUN (B), led by Bandera was strictly agaisnt any co-operation with German authorities and had seen a way of liberation only in active partisan actions and total uprising. Also most part of western Ukarine was under power of General-Governorship, where regime was more "soft", than in Raichskommissariat Ukraina and was more similar on occupation regime in Western Europe, so for locals German power seemed more "civilized", than USSR, when dozen of southands were sent to Syberia or executed during 1939-1941 (about half of them were ethnic Poles).
In Ukraine the question of "Halychyna" division (in 1945 they changed own name on 1st Ukrainian division) is disputable, but let historians study this. Officially they equalized in status with veterans of WWII, who fought in Red Army and UPA. These people lived in hard times and their choice was that. From the point of view of fighting for Ukrainian independence (= liberation from USSR) we can't blame them for their choice. 

Apologies if this has already been covered but if so I missed it (not unlikely). 
What we are seeing in Ukraine is pretty much the first widespread and numerous usage of drones, both for observation and for attack - sniping really, even if the sniping is dropping a grenade down a turret hatch, which is pretty impressive to me.
What we aren't seeing is the widespread deployment of drone countermeasures.... yet. Of course there are many types of drones, but most have some characteristics in common, such as optical sensors, a datalink, and an operator on the ground. And by their nature the smaller ones require the operator be reasonably close and not say, in Las Vegas, like some of the US UAVs.
Once a force devises and deploys some countermeasures on a wide scale, this drone effectiveness/tank replacement argument may well die down a lot, with drones becoming another complementary weapon system. 
Could an autonomous system be developed to track and then laser blind small drones that could be mounted on a vehicle, or even small enough that individual AFVs could carry their own? A laser powerful enough to actually disable the drone might require a dedicated vehicle. Don't know - not up on my laser technology. EW capability that could scan for the drone signal (you know it's emitting VERY close to you), and jam it. And yeah, I know all about frequency hopping transmissions, but that doesn't mean there isn't an effort to follow or counteract that, at least enough to disrupt, if not negate the transmission.
Can Russia develop and deploy systems like this in the midst of this war, in enough concentration to be very effective? I'm very doubtful of that. Could other countries already be working on solutions like this for the next conflict? Probably.
Like tank and anti-tank weapons, it will become an another arms race, with more capable and resistant drones and more effective countermeasures against them.
There is a constant similar race in the submarine world (which I'm more familiar with). Sound detection capabilities get better and better, and noise silencing technology gets better and better in order to better hide. Silencing technology is the US submarine world's most closely guarded secrets. 

Dave

We want the one above “breakthrough”.  Ignore “encircled”.  Breakout, is regaining freedom of movement and therefore tempo, therefore creating decision superiority and expanding options spaces.  Last Fall we saw UA breakout battle, we want that.  Enough of these tactical breakthroughs adding up as the RA system erodes might just do it yet.

No it wasn’t.  It was about victory.  If they wanted to stop the killing they could have done it much sooner any number of ways.  Or here is a crazy idea, don’t start the war in the first place.
The tank was not about the preservation of human life on the Western Front, it was about breakthrough and killing more Germans.  It was about winning.  Both sides had spent millions of lives in that useless war by 1917 and it wasn’t compassion or sanctity of human life that drove them to create the tank, it was the fact that they were afraid they were running out before the other side would.
They saw humans as a resource they were at risk of running out of so they needed to break the deadlock, breakout and yield a victory.  Victory is all that mattered and why they were slaughtering a generation in the first place.  The idea of “hey we need a machine because too many lads are dying.  Huh, oh yes send them over the top again for now” is absurd.
In any war one tries to reduce loss of human life for largely resource reasons.  A human being is extremely replaceable…we have a lot of them.  And once wars of this scale start it is all about preserving resources because resources equal options.  The value of human life in war rests solely on its utility to prosecute the war and drive it towards winning - this is the harsh calculus I keep talking about. Does anyone think Ukraine is going to hit a magic number of 18 year olds, do some math on their lifetime earning power and go “oops that was the one too many…we surrender”? Or that is some basement they have done the maths on how many they would have lost under Russian rule and when they cross that line they will also quit….no freakin way.  

You guys all wanna be pro-Ukrainian hawks?  No comprise, no surrender?  Well welcome to the harsh reality of the business.  Of course the UA should not throw their people’s lives away - no professional military should.  But do not think for a second they won’t spend those young people toward victory for as long as they can.  Until it breaks the Ukrainian will to fight (which is pretty far off as of now) or Ukraine runs out of fighting aged adults - and plenty of nations have then gone on and sent in children and old people.
In war people are no longer people.  They are part of a big machine smashing and grinding away at another machine.  They are fuel we keep feeding into those machines.  How efficient the machine is on burning them up is based on how professional a military is or how desperate the situation is.  
Take any high minded thoughts about “humanity” and save them for when the war is over, and then really remember them so we don’t keep doing this (but we will).  This is about more Russians dying faster than Ukrainians until the Russian military organization breaks.  And only military capabilities that can make that happen are going to continue to thrive and survive on the modern battlefield.

knock-knock...
 

Even that lost productivity has been quantified by the actuaries.  I don't keep close track, but it's in the few $M range - that's what an insurer will pay out to compensate a family for the loss of a person.  Last I knew (quite a while ago) it was about $3M.  Call it $5M today, and that's the lifetime earning value + loss of companionship.  Figure that the economic value to the economy is maybe 3x that because their employer is on the exploitive side, and it's about the cost of one MBT.
Coming from the POV of someone who develops technology that is MilTech adjacent, it's not necessarily the direct fire high velocity gun on a moving platform that's dead (although I think its role is going to change), it's the huge pile of junk that you have to pile onto that platform to protect it that's dead.  We're at a point that modern infantry-carried AT weapons have a range to the horizon (or at least to the next treeline for NLAW) and the warheads can penetrate *any* amount of armor that you can reasonably slap on, including ERA and maybe APS.  If your APS is firing, you probably need to hope you have a fast enough reverse gear, because the cheap AT weapons are going to come in fast enough to overload it.  
So that pile of armor/era/electronics/CIWS that you're hauling around is mostly just sucking up resources (fuel, maintenance) and not helping you offensively because things are at a point where "If you're seen, one shot will kill you".  If you want a high velocity gun on a mobile platform, the system to protect it probably needs to revolve more around keeping it invisible and in motion more than protecting it from things that go boom.  Maybe light armor for protection from small arms/shrapnel, but anything more is just reducing mobility.  Which is the AMX-10, or the CAESAR for indirect fire.  Remove the need to put people in it and you have Steve's UGV mini-tank.  Way smaller logistics tail, way less energy consumption, and you can make it electric or PHEV so that its idle power consumption (and waste heat signature) is close to nothing.
Back to the high velocity direct fire guns.  We're already seeing how direct fire isn't that great against guys in holes - the flat trajectory limits you to hitting the edge of the hole, which is a tough target and doesn't distribute the boom very well.  So indirect fire or drones are better there.  Trench clearing really seems like it should be done by LandShark Mk I or CandyGram drones that can fly in and go around the corners or blow the doors to the dugouts.  Those can be cheap and autonomous and even launched from close outside the trench.  Like hand delivered DPICM with some minimal brains.  And why send a guy when you can send a grenade with wings?  But  if you need to hit a vehicle near the front lines, direct HV is effective and harder to defend against than a slow rocket.  But in an environment where the average infantryman can hit a vehicle out to his LOS (even at the horizon) you don't want to expose that gun.  "Direct fire" will start to include flat trajectory indirect fire slightly over the horizon, like a tank version of the Apache longbow.  And to avoid radiating a "send your precision guided arty here" signal with the radar system, it will be directed by targeting systems (drones or radars) that are physically separated and may have at most a minimal two-way connection to keep the radiated signals down.

The tank is dead.  Long live the the tank. :Shrug:
To reiterate, I'm fully in agreement that 60 ton armored monsters are not going to operate as they have been in the past. The long range sniper role of Challenger 2s in Ukraine is established. The only kill we've seen was when a C2 advanced closer to the lines,  but my impression is it was a helo/air kill rather than ATGM/Arty. Happy to be corrected. So is the C2 doomed? 
A heavy-effect, mobile, direct fire weapon will always exist. For want of a better word,  we're stuck with "tank". 
A UGV is just too broad a term,  like saying Mobile Machine. In this case it's an  (unscrewed) Mobile Machine, and it feels like we're rooting around in a Lego box of semantics and acronyms. 
Perhaps we can move thus a step further along and discuss what type and formatting of UGS would fill that role? How heavy is too heavy?
I'm personally in huge favour of treating it as a platform with a plug n play ability, shifting from a lighter mobile config to a heavier direct support. In theory customize your force for each action. 
I don't think one can interchange the roles of real arty v tank/IFV/APc-types,  the physics of the weapons and job are vastly different. 
But within a category, it could be very useful to physically adapt what you have to the task assigned. If an attack is ongoing over a week or so then you could be adjusting your vehicle formatting "on the fly",  relatively speaking. 
 

Yes, if you fight abroad for someone else or an idea.
No, if the Russians march into <your country>. Or anyone else, but in this context it's the Russians.
A misconception which was the downfall of many a dictator.

As a professional soldier who has led men and women in combat the cost of a single person to too high.  But in order to make war, let alone win one, you have to box that one up or you will be useless in a week.  The human cost of a war is something that is in the calculus but if you let it drive the agenda it will only make things worse.  This is why politicians (and the people, in democracies) need to be damn sure they understand what this thing is.  We are talking about using people as ammunition, no dressing it up, no sugar coating it.  We use them as ammunition for effects, effects to decision, decision within options, options + decisions = outcomes.  
Human cost in war should not and cannot drive the agenda (although it very often does).  We enter into the lands of vengeance and fear too deeply.  If Ukraine let the shocking human cost drive their thinking then they would have surrender on Day One.  No they understand that cost but they are spending their young people for a reason worth that cost.
Now to try and play the “blood” card in defence of tanks, well that is just poor form.  People as a military capability are a completely different set of metrics.  Cold, harsh metrics but not the same in any way to human being costs.  Muddling the two is a fast path to really bad strategy and emotional arguments, not professional military advice.

But ... didn't they? The roles of the light and heavy cavalry (screening and recce on the one hand, and shock action on the other, exploitation for both) are still being fulfilled today. Hell, the squishies have even gone back to wearing breastplates
Light horsed cav -> armoured cars -> light tanks -> heavy tanks -> light tanks/IFVs
Heavy cav -> infantry tanks -> cruiser tanks & infantry tanks -> universal tanks/MBTs
The equipment evolution has been pretty dynamic, but the role evolution hasn't been nearly as exciting. In most militaries the relevant units have also kept the traditions (hats, spurs, etc) and naming conventions (trooper, squadron) from the past, to emphasise the continuity within the change.

We're still in danger, as the old saying goes, of 'planning to fight the last war' (this war, in the future, being the last war). Insights we take away from this conflict are valuable but will those lessons be applicable to unimagined future war X versus opponent Y in country Z? 6-ish years ago there was a (perplexing) push, in some quarters, to have the US invade Venezuela(!), a country a third larger than Ukraine with a population of 30 million, two mountain ranges and a large portion covered in triple canopy rainforest. It would be difficult to imagine how Ukraine war 'lessons learned' would apply to such a conflict.

I've seen this idea many times and I've never bought it, specifically the trope that the Navies though this or that. They didn't. Certain factions or leaders thought this or that but not having dominance over naval budget they were able get their particular ideas built but not change or maintain the service's ideology as a whole.
Post PH, it's not like suddenly everyone at the top  was OMG - Carriers, Dude! Amiright?! If only we'd known! They had both already built bloody large carriers in large enough numbers to rapidly start dukeing it out with the opposing carriers. There was already a gigantic future financial commitment to carriers. People already knew what they could potentially do. 
The Battleship boys were entrenched beaurocratically but out-maneouvered strategically. The top brass in both Navies were correct in viewing both arms as mutually dependent and supportive, amplifiers of each other's effects. It wasn't that the battleship would decide things,  but that without them you were vulnerable to a force that did have both carriers and battleships. 
What was certainly a surprise to many in the IJN was just how overmatched Battleships were on their own. But was that because the idea of a battleship was "stupid"?  Or because they hadn't yet developed the idea of AAA Cruiser escorts? Because those US escorts sure kicked the guts out of many IJN air attacks while the USN flyboys eviscerated the jap carriers. Towards the end of the war US Battleships themselves had vastly improved onboard AA defences, as well as local squadron & Fleet coordination - while IJN stagnated and only incrementally improved. 
This to me is where the echoes are with tanks today. It's not that tanks are doomed,  it's that in their current iteration and handling they are extremely vulnerable to an opposing force that has both tanks and drone swarms. If you both do then it gets down to a software/BioWare contest, coming up with the next idea that gives temporary advantage until countered. Oh look - war as its ever been. 
Tanks need to change (both formatting,  size, power source and weapons) and they will properly warp into something new under the pressure of a true drone war.
But there will always be a use for a fast moving ground platform that can send an insanely fast and heavy projectile downrange. 
Possibly a primary need with Future Tank will be the ability to drastically and rapidly shift/change its production processes in response to evolving battlefield realities. The current behemoths take too long to design,  build and get into service -  just like ye battleships of yore. 
Give me a lighter platform that can morph its form within a few months and still shove a 125mm shell up a Russian's arsehole from 3km away. 
 
 

Some combat videos
UKR Marder of 82nd air-assault brigade got two ATGMs in front projection near Verbove. First hit didn't cause an ignition, about second one hard to say, we can see white smoke, but video ends. 
Russian counter-attack attempt somewhere near Novoprokopivka. Likely close hits of IFV gun and several FPV strikes forced them to retreat along the trench
Next two videos are enough brutal
Russians got hell in the trench
Despite popularity of FPV, 30th brigade on northern flank of Bakhmut successfully uses grenade dropping too
On what I want to pay attantion - it's enough high level of survavibility of infantry under fire. Looks like body armor gives enough chances to survive and get mostly light injuries from close grenades or HEAT charges explosions. To take out a soldier you should to hit it with light explosive directly or at least in a step near his legs 

Crimean ATESH resistanse writes today's the strike would be impossible without work of usual pro-UKR citizens of Sevastopol and ATESH agents. It's also claimed because of Russian MoD delays payment of officers, it's more easy to induce cooperation with BSF staff officers. 
I think, last statement is a sort of PsyOps, like a statement of Budanov, that GUR now prepares desertion of several other pilots with own aircrafts. This should to cause the wave of untrusting, total verifications and suspicious inside Russian command staff. 
 

This...
... and this precisely.
Nobody doubts what the Polish people have done for Ukraine. But other countries (incl. Germany) have also taken many, many refugees. And other countries (incl. Germany) have contributed equipment from their active units or equipment that was supposed to go to active units. And yes, Poland has contributed equipment that was supposed to be replaced, anyway. That's perfectly ok because other countries did that, too, or sent stuff that has been deprecated already (Leopard 1s).
What other governments didn't do was try to squeeze out every little bit of profit there was to gain for their election campaigns. Other governments didn't claim the moral high ground the way the Polish government did. Others also didn't spread anti EU and anti Germany sentiments while gladly taking their money. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword, as the saying goes. So, if the Polish government sings the song of solidarity with Ukraine, while bashing others, they had better make good on their words.
Anyway, let's not escalate this too much. Scholz & Co deserved a lot of the criticism they received and we German forumites just had to deal with it. I think the Polish government had this coming a long way, so the Polish members here will have to just deal with it, too. I admit to enjoying some Schadenfreude but I'll enjoy it quietly.

If ultimately there is no more Black Sea Fleet good enough to protect any Russian shipping / ports in the Black Sea and it's ports, that might become problematic for any Russian shipping in the Black Sea. (and like others said, will help allow Ukraine shipping)