fireship4

Listen, I found a very interesting thread on Twitter here.
Here, the journalist posted his "mini-investigation".
Apparently, Prigozhin's people are starting a PR campaign against the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
 
 

Obviously it is extremely poor choices in what games to play that has utterly ruined the Russian military. 

Rest of the video further in the thread:
 

Chechen volunteer explains to people why there are no massive uprisings in Russian occupied territories not only in Ukraine but in the Caucasus
 
 
 

Ukraine has launched a state program to help unwilling Russians to surrender safely.

There are 2 things I hate in mission combat
It
and that "shark teeth"

As for the distortion in the ploughed fields, Kieme's mod brilliantly solved the problem.
But for shark teeth alas, it is a constraint related to the engine of the game.
Some scenario maker and map maker make a lot of effort to avoid them.
I am thinking of the Bulletpoint "front contact" scenario where no shark teeth are visible, which gives you some of the most beautiful and realistic map. some other map makers , shift the bend two or three turns to avoid the effect of shark teeth.
However for historical scenarios that rely on a precise map of places there is sometimes no choice.
I recently tried the scenario The Carillon 1 It's Quiet-Too Quiet and I noticed this curious road with an unknown angle of 22.5 °
Revelation !!
The author, (I do not know who) is a genius who managed with the highway tiles to do this feat, opening a new field of possibility in the design of the maps.
The only flaw is the visual
So I created this little mod to give a coherent visual.
Now I like everything !!
Road of Carillon

Change on the map of "Liking up and breaking out"
then and now

this one to compare with the one above that I hate

the different angles of the road

I go back and forth on this, but after Azov being released I think I firmly believe there is little threat of a mass overthrow of Putin. Polling like this which essentially is fine with whatever Putin does, says to me that if he really needed to leave Ukraine in a total loss, the Russian people aren’t going to toss him out. Now, the elite class, different matter. 
 
 

I agree that he has a bit of "sky is falling" catastrophism at times, though I haven't heard any economic speculations that were totally baseless, yet. Admittedly I don't always listen to his "strategic analysis" and sometimes go straight to the rundown at the front. 
I do think his more pessimistic viewpoint can be a decent counterbalance for some of the overconfidence and rah-rah we're winning perspectives. If only to highlight some areas of trouble that perhaps aren't being discussed in the super-optimistic sources.
Regarding Kharkiv running out of steam--I hadn't heard him discuss things that way; he seemed to take the more "operational pause" angle if I'm not mistaken. And just last night he stated what I heard him say many times--that Kherson was doomed to fall and it was a matter of time. I don't think he's ever said that the op has failed, perhaps that certain advances stalled (which they had).

LOL, best diplomatic response yet!! Andrij Melnyk is the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, so it is an official statement!!
 
edit: Sorry for the bad language, couldn't edit but thought it was appropriate.  

⁹
Look at the left corner of that second series of screengrabs - these are from that drone footage vid doing it's rounds yesterday with someone burying something along a road, it's the same ditch. I guess people are trying to nail the location. Some speculated it's chemicals, others that we saw sea mines. I didn't see anything conclusive what would it be.
Edit: Found the vid:
 

Now live started an hour ago (rewindable):
including Kofman
Pretty interesting event as a whole. https://helsinkisecurityforum.fi/hsf-2022/

Putin: "The End of Western Hegemony is INEVITABLE"
The quiet part out loud.
Konstantin Kisin
This is a reproduction of my live Twitter summary/translation of Vladimir Putin's speech:


I wish every single person in the West would listen to Putin's speech. Obviously, that won't happen so let me summarize as a professional translator for 10+ years. He states, as he has done from the outset, what his intentions and complaints are in the plainest terms possible.
Setting aside his brief comments on the recent "referendums", he spends most of his speech discussing the West. His primary complaint isn't NATO expansion, which gets only a cursory mention. The West is greedy and seeks to enslave and colonize other nations, like Russia.
The West uses the power of finance and technology to enforce its will on other nations. To collect what he calls the "hegemon's tax". To this end the West destabilizes countries, creates terrorist enclaves and most of all seeks to deprive other countries of sovereignty.
It is this "avarice" and desire to preserve its power that is the reason for the "hybrid war" the collective West is "waging on Russia". They want us to be a "colony". They do not want us to be free, they want Russians to be a mob of soulless slaves - direct quote.
The rules-based order the West goes on about is "nonsense". Who made these rules? Who agreed to them? Russia is an ancient country and civilization and we will not play by these "rigged" rules. The West has no moral authority to challenge the referendums because it has violated the borders of other countries. Western elites are "totalitarian, despotic and apartheidist" - direct quote. They are racist against Russia and other countries and nations. "Russophobia is racism". They discriminate by calling themselves the "civilized world".
They colonized, started the global slave trade, genocide native Americans, pillaged India and Africa, forced China to buy opium through war. We, on the other hand, are proud that we "led" the anti-colonial movement that helped countries develop to reduce poverty and inequality.
They are Russophobe (they hate us) because we didn't allow our country to be pillaged by creating a strong CENTRALISED (emphasis his) state based on Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. They have been trying to destabilize our country since the 17thcentury in the Times of Trouble.

Eventually, they managed to "get their hands on our riches" at the end of the 20th century. They called us friends and partners while pumping out trillions of dollars (his ironic game is strong today).
We remember this. We didn't forget. The West claims to bring freedom and democracy to other countries but it's the exact opposite of the truth. The unipolar world is anti-democratic by its very nature. It is a lie. They used nuclear weapons, creating a precedent. They flattened German cities without "any military need to do so". There was no need for this except to scare us and the rest of the world. Korea, Vietnam. To this day they "occupy" Japan, South Korea and Germany and other countries while cynically calling them "allies".
The West has surveillance over the leaders of these nations who "swallow these insults like the slaves they are".
He then talks about bioweapon research (haven't heard about them for a while) and human experiments "including in Ukraine".
The US rules the world by the power of the fi st. Any country which seeks to challenge Western hegemony becomes an enemy. Their neocolonialism is cloaked in lies like "containment" of Russia, China and Iran. The concept of truth has been destroyed with fakes and extreme propaganda (irony game still strong).
You cannot feed your people with printed dollars and social media. You need food and energy. But Western elites have no desire to find a solution to the food and energy crises*they* (emphasis his) created.
They solved the problems at the start of 20c with WW1 and the US established dominance of the world via the dollar as a result of WW2. In the 80s they had another crisis they solved by "plundering our country". Now they want to solve their problems by "breaking Russia".
Russia "understands its responsibility to the international community" and will "do everything to cool the heads of these neocolonialism who are destined to fail".
They're crazy. I want to speak to all Russian citizens; do we want to replace mum and dad with parent 1 and 2?
They invented genders and claim you can "transition". Do we want this for our children?
We have a different vision.
They have abandoned religion and embraced Satanism - direct quote.
The world is going through a revolutionary transformation. A multipolar world offers nations freedom to develop as they wish and they make up the majority of the world.
We have many like-minded friends in Western countries. We see and appreciate their support. They are forming liberation, anti-colonial movements as we speak - direct quote. These will only grow.
We are fighting for a fair world for our country. The idea of exceptionalism is criminal and we must turn this shameful page. The breaking of the West's hegemony is INEVITABLE (emphasis his).
There is no going back. We are fighting for our "great (as in big), historic Russia". Our values are (irony game crescendo): love of our fellow man, compassion and mercy.
Truth is with us; Russia is with us.

(That's the end of the speech)


As I said from day 1, the purpose of what Putin is doing in Ukraine is to throw the West off its pedestal. This isn't about NATO or Ukraine; this is the big play to replace the current world order.
P.S.
Reaction from one of the attendees:
"We'll beat them all, we'll kill them all, we'll plunder all their stuff. It's going to be what we love to do!”
 

This is what it looks like it when you get one boxer overmatched by another. The less of the two fighters might know that that the jab is setting up the cross but he's got to commit to defending the jab or it could knock him out.
Clearly Ukraine over-flexed in Kherson in order to pull Russian reinforcements out of other regions. Russia responded and had to because regardless of whether or not they thought it might be a fake, their forces were so stressed they might already be swimming if they had not. And of course, once that happened, Ukraine was able to push against Lyman, the Kharkiv region, etc. Now Kyiv can simply alternate and let the Russians shuttle ever less capable forces around exterior lines in a fruitless effort to shore things up. And under the gimlet eye of NATO ISR that rules out any chance of maskirovka.

Is it me, or does a lot of the sound in the video of our favourite TikTok warriors sound like it was lifted from Call of Duty or somesuch?
No way was that a phone or Go Pro picking up actual combat sounds.

womp-womp

pretty raw stuff
https://ukrainevolunteer297689472.wordpress.com/2022/09/30/its-a-slaughter/
blog post from here
 

Question not specifically for @Grigb @Haiduk @akd but you guys might have a better feel for it
When reading 503rd Guard MMR, (or what ever other units referenced) do we have a feel for how many boots on the ground this really is. We know its certainly not at full strength, but what does a Regiment mean in this context, 1, 2 or 3 BTG ? It would be nice to strip away the "looks good on paper" and get to the reality of what shape these units are currently in.

 
Tom Cooper suggests the following units in the Lyman are
Russians in Lyman: gauging by reports from the social media, the group of forces encircled there is controlled by the 20th Combined Arms Army. At the first look, one might say, 'ah, VSRF'. That's wrong. The troops there are including:
- Bars-13
- Bars-16 (also known as 'Kuban' unit; this unit used to have 1,000 combatants; about 400 are inside Lyman)
- 208th 'Cossack' Motor Rifle Regiment (LPR)
- 503rd GMRR/19th MRD seems to be holding the way in/out
It is possible that the 204th Motor Rifle Regiment is around, too. That said, what's left of the 144th MRD is outside the pocket: this is on the northern side of it, in the Borova area.
Re. BARS: this is a Russian abbreviation for 'Special Combat Army Reserve' (full designation is actually BARS-2021). This was a program to mobilise 100,000 volunteers from former veterans of the VSRF for a 3-years contract. If the Rosgvardia is 'Putin's Pasdaran', BARS is something like 'Putin's Republican Guards': they're drafted from the Russian Cossack Association, handsomely paid (US$3,500 a month, plus allowances and awards), highly motivated, and well-equipped.
Other known BARS units are battalion-sized, and, when fully mobilised, about 1,000-strong. Nearly all are meanwhile deployed in Ukraine. The few others I've heard about so far are:
- Shironin Battalion (from Kirov)
- Bars-14 (I know this is one of units the ZSU considers 'criminals' and is taking no POWs from)
- Bars-15 (also known as 'Piatnashka'; receiving same treatment like -14)
- Bars-18 (ditto)
For involved ZSU units, the following can be assessed:
Kupyansk
- 92nd Mech
- 3rd Tank
- Kraken SF (battalion)
- possibly a battalion of the 80th Motor
Oskil
- 1st 'Ivan Bohun' Special Purpose Brigade (est. 4 Mar 22; including troops from 19 countries; has 6 battalions)
- 25th Airborne
- 66th Mech (persistently ignored by Ukrainian social media, but reported often by the Russians)
- 17th Tank
- 4th NG Brigade
- Azov SF (battalion)
Lyman
- 4th Tank
- 79th Airborne
- 81st Airborne
Siversk
- 80th Airborne
- 114 TD
- 115 TD
Bakhmut is defended by
- 58 Motor
- 72nd Mech
- 93rd Airborne
- 28th Artillery
- at least a brigade (in total) of the TD, but I'm not sure what units are involved.
Additional units 'detected', but not localised, yet known as involved 'somewhere in northern Donbass' are:
- 1st Tank
 

Germany has export control on Leopards so…..we have the British Challenger, French Leclerc, and American M1, that’s it for Western MBTs. Both the Challenger and Leclerc have probably less than 200 in active service with no European state other than the original makers using them. 
In comparison, Greece has 500 Leopard 1s, a ring exchange for Leopard 2s would actually be applauded. Leopard 2, if you recall the proposal by Huba, a scheme where every European state gives a few tanks would amount to a lot, enough for a unit in Ukraine. M1, again, relies on American logistical prowess to operate, the Leopard is the only suitable tank, and the only widely used European tank, and we have rumors of Germany denying the export of the Leopard to Ukraine by other countries.
Germany acting like it is going alone, makes no sense cause literally no European state can give a Leopard tank to Ukraine without German approval.

Something to point out, the West/NATO must appear united, and we know pre-invasion, the U.S and Germany had reached a agreement on Nord Stream 2 being shut down in the event of invasion IF Germany and France were allowed to operate diplomatically to try and defuse the conflict. 
We have rumors that the main reason why no IFVs or MBTs is due to German reluctance, and therefore in order not pierce the alliance unity, all countries adopt the same stance. As already stated, its rumored that several European countries have indicated willingness to give the Leopard to Ukraine, but Germany is shooting down the export. 
We have rumors abounding from the German military industrial sector of a ability to fulfill contracts, but the government is slow walking or ignoring their offers. 
The way Scholz and the German Government has been acting, in completely contradicting circumstances, one week saying no armored cars, the next week saying yes after public pressure is too high to ignore, gives very little credibility to Germany's excuses. 
Something else to point, Germany exports military hardware to many countries with less than acceptable human rights policies, but for Ukraine, drags its feet like it is in quicksand. The fact that the Dingo, a MRAP caused so much anguish for Germany, even as Ukraine finds more and more war crimes and endures the loss of its personnel in offensives, is just unacceptable. 
Germany is also acting like smug ****s, when they haven't done anything worth talking about, nothing unique, and tried to assert they needed the Dingo to defend Poland and the Baltics, considering their stance on Ukraine, that must get Poland and the Baltics seething. 
Also, handing over Marders to Greece so it can give BMP-1s to Ukraine, is just insulting. Absolutely insulting. Does not matter if logistically hard for Ukraine, it looks really bad for Germany to hand over Marders that are better to a non-combatant so they can offload their junk to Ukraine. 
Germany has no problem selling military hardware generally. I will bring up the fact that the Inspector General (Secretary of the navy?) had to resign in January of this year due to saying that Putin needed respect, Russia and Germany should be cooperating against China, and that Crimea was gone from Ukraine. Very little for any of the states between Germany and Russia to feel pleased about, considering the carving of Poland and the Baltics in WW2 and prior. 
Does not seem like a lot of studying was done by the German government towards how the Baltics, Poland and Ukraine might feel about deals between Germany and Russia now eh? Not a lot of consideration for how they feel and the wounds inflicted on them by Germany historically hmm? 
On one hand, saying the Soviet Union's successor is Russia, and therefore is a former rival to Germany is right, but Ukraine was also part of the Soviet Union, and enjoyed German tanks rolling over the same hills and plains Ukraine is attempting to liberate from Russia, yet instead of a pledge to do right for Ukraine, we get this bull**** of a Marder being exchanged to Greece. 
On that note, so much money into Germany by Russia, a lot of politicians, including a former Chancellor owned by that money. It really comes down to the fact that Germany has a lot of incentive to not supply Ukraine, and a lot of factors that influence it to not do so, which would be less of a issue had Germany been revving to support Ukraine like Poland or the UK, or even the quieter U.S. but alas, none to be seen, so yes, Germany is gonna get slammed for being useless. 
 I mean look at these quotes from a NYT article on a interview he did two days ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/25/world/europe/olaf-scholz-germany-ukraine-war.html
How the **** can Ukraine not scream at Germany rightly when it Scholz says this? How can the Baltics, Poland, Finland or any other country in the target lens of a Russia intent on genocide and destruction be fine with that statement?!? I think we can all agree by now that the risk of NATO vs Russia is very low, (again, air defense batteries defending Moscow and the St. Petersburg region have been moved to Ukraine, and the Western Military District, supposed to fight NATO has been similarly drained of resources and personnel as well) and the fact that Ukraine unable to make offensive moves without NATO support is just doomed to have its people genocided on occupied land is just astoundingly insulting. 
"Russia can't win"?!?! Makes Macron look like a ****ing Ukrainian nationalist in comparison. 
Germany does not get to hide behind WW2 and act like it is killing Russia by sending tanks to Ukraine. Actually, Germany is letting Ukrainians die so they don't hurt Russian feelings. Just complete erasure of Ukraine and Ukrainians in enduring Nazi crimes and marching to Berlin and achieving Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. 
Why Russia has attempted for so long and hard to gloss over Soviet contributions by Ukraine over WW2 victory, is to diminish Ukraine in the eyes of Germany, so long wedded to atoning for their sins. Except the German public wants tanks sent! It is clearly not a unpopular move, which just leads us to the more cynical explanations. 

From 'Map Sketcher'. Note the soft ground anchoring the left and the woodlands on the right.

EDIT: Per the below, it looks like the UA has broken through in force further east, directly threatening Kreminna, so this is now just a face of a larger cauldron. 🇺🇦
...Posting as a useful reminder of the major N-S arteries in Luhansk.

 

Rybar just wrote an update regarding the situation there. Looks ZSU finally managed to clear the forests north of Bilohorivka, flanking the whole RU position east of Zherebets. Seems to be a huge chance that we'll see first mass encirclement of RU troops.

 

If somebody wasn't convinced that common EU defense policy is a complete dumpster fire, this Politico article explains it very nicely. Very well worth reading:
https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-olaf-scholz-defense-europe-strategic-autonomy-ukraine-war/

Thank you.
In return, I can only offer you "big nasty pointy teeth".
 

It is directly from RU journalist/propagandist Herman Kulikovsky who is responsible for reporting from Kharkive direction. If you wash, shave and cut hair of RU Nats you will see familiar face of German Nazi but with nuclear balalayka.  
 
There are UKR rumors that they are already running. Maybe the brave ones are already dead.

Finally useful Girkin post