AlsatianFelix

Maybe that Kherson pocket is a trap of a different sort.
UA ‘declares’ attack on Kherson, RA moves forces there, UA cuts retreat. Now you have many good RA soldiers in that pocket that can’t be easily transferred elsewhere.
So you attack elsewhere where the forces are missing. Don’t need to (really) attack Kherson where they actually are. Very Sun-Tzuish.

No surprise for me after Butcha. The russians are nothing but human waste. They have to be wiped from Ukraine.

This is war, not a game of chess. You hit the enemy as hard as you can. 

If Putin had a minimally capable son who was 30 or older he would have already had himself crowned as the first Czar of a new Dynasty. Or he would have been "discovered" to be a lost heir of the old one, with free beatings for anyone who dared to so much as blink at the announcement.

Absolutely.  It is the contract of warlords throughout history - “I will abuse and terrorize you but they will do much worse”.  Certainty beats uncertainty almost every time.  
In Putin’s case it appears as though the deal was “I will keep you safe, fairly well off -compared to the post communist crisis of the 90s- and you slowly give me ultimate power, and totally dismantle any chance of democracy.”  It is funny, in Max Brooks’ “World War Z”, he has the Russians re-installing a monarchy (the Czar) after the zombie war.  Made me wonder if it is possible for a nation/culture to become addicted to autocracy?  
History has shown that democracy is rarely lost, it is simply more often abandoned.  Often due it failing to yield results in context, but perhaps some cultures are simply allergic to the idea - takes me back to Afghanistan and our failures there. 

Whatever happens w the war, it's clear that Europe must be free of dependence on RU resources.  That will take time & pain and hopefully voters won't be so stupid as to think there's some magic, simple answer to this complex problem and vote in clowns.  This is a pivot point that is a terrible challenge but also an opportunity.  Some sectors will continue to need fossil fuels, some things can be transitioned away over time to other resources, but many can't.  Fools (yeah, that's me included) who hoped that mutually dependent trade would mostly tame Putin have learned our lesson.  
And while I am reviling dependence on evil Putin, I suppose there's those nasty Saudis that deserve mention.  Weaning off fossil fuels is not just for lefty tree huggers -- it's a military strategic imperative.  We'll need fossil fuel still, but we certainly don't need to use it for nearly as much as we do now.  

The day the Russians will have lost this war, I will go to my cellar, take two bottles of red wine, drink them both and cry from happiness. 

Interesting article for its context. Donbas front. Friction between Ukrainian Greek Catholics and Russian Orthodox civilians. Most of the people remaining in this front line town are the latter and eager for the Russian Army to arrive. This conflict playing out in every village will be a factor in how "easy" it will be to settle the borders at the end of this. Also explains Ru's ethnic cleansing operations.
A Ukrainian priest splits Sundays between church and the front lines

At first glance I thought it was Bono grown old in a hurry :))

Using child soldiers is  a war crime all in itself. Terrible, really terrible...
Defended by RU army. For BA alone you'd need some pointy sticks and few bottles of vodka to make the march more pleasurable  On a serious note, the only part that's worrisome is of course the cost. It is not clear if those additional 300 M1s will be given by US for free, or we'll have to pay for them (perhaps by some "circular exchange" mechanism in place). But even if Uncle Sam gives them away for free, the cost of setting up the whole infrastructure, modernization etc is going to be huge. And it's only the tip of the iceberg regarding the rearmament program. We'll be introducing a whole new integrated AD setup for 25B$ in next decade, new frigates and submarines, doubling the size of land forces, buying 500 frigging HIMARS ( i hope that's just negotiating strategy, it's just a crazy number), F-35,  150K AT grenade launchers, the list is really endless. I only hope nobody get's an idea to drive all of this on Moscow at some point. Or Berlin...
I still think that this is a trap and they'll drop the bridges and strike in Zaporizhya, cutting the landbridge. Kherson Orcs will the run away without a fight, losing all equipment. But I'm sure UA General Staff knows better and follows the best possible plan
 
 

Never use Trukha channel as a sourse of reliable information. This is channel of hype, tracks of owners of wich reportedly lead to Kharkiv administration. Before a war this channel has poorly hidden pro-Russian moods. Now it often shows footage of damage instantly after missile strikes, despaite MoD prohibit to do this, it also throw-in unreliable information. There are no any articles in FT that USA decided to give ATACMS. There was only opinion of two senators, that US shoul give this weapon to Ukraine. But Trukha gives this as acomplished fact.
So, you can use this channel to watch some video, but almost never do not trust all what they write as resonant news

I am really thinking these were remotely triggered IEDs. This was clearly a targeted strike. It will be interesting to see if we ever get any more information, because this was a fair bit of effort for a couple of civilian cars that couldn't have held 8 guys

It is worth pointing out that this corner of Ukraine tucks right up against Romania. It is more than likely that this operation was covered a NATO AWACS putting out enough radar to cook seagulls halfway to Crimea. Anything launched at that artillery would be spotted the instant it launched. The gun would have time to redeploy.
It isn't the Ukr air force that is holding them back, it is the SAMs
The_Capt, we don't deserve you , but we sure as bleep appreciate you!
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/army-to-test-its-biggest-interactive-drone-swarm-ever-over-utah
The U.S. Army seems to have gotten the memo on drones, at least for the most part. Unfortunately they don't seem to have gotten the memo that helicopters are just over.  They are utterly vulnerable in Ukraine now, and as you eloquently point out neither side in Ukraine is playing with anything close to a full suite of modern capabilities
Let me preface this comment by reminding everyone that I am the guy that thinks NATO air power should just join the war and The Polish Army should be passing through Kyiv on the way to the front as we speak. You can't be more anti Russian/pro Ukraine than I am without arguing for a straight up nuclear first strike. 
I don't think we should cut the Russians off from the hybrid seeds. The disruption in food production is one of the strongest levers Putin has at the grand strategic level in this war, and I honestly think hurting Russian grain production costs The Ukraine/NATO/The West more problems than it causes Russia. Putin doesn't care how many Russians starve. He won't even blink if all of Africa does. Honestly, I am right back to NATO joining the war and trying to end this thing quickly...
The world clearly needs to bring more grain production on line as quickly as humanly possible, but it was getting grown in the belt extending from Ukraine thru Russia to Kazakistan for a reason. It is not going to be trivial to replace that production.
Edit: And the U.S. Congress needs to pass the bill to subsidize a BUNCH of U.S. semi conductor production NOW, before China attacks Taiwan and the world economy just dies.

Snake Island is a key area, a control of which is required for assaulting Odessa from sea.
Yet nobody trusts russians here to start demining the beaches.
No agreement with russians is possible, they always break those

This is the first time I've seen a thread with over 1 million views.  Amazing conversation, amazing and insightful contributors.  Must be the best non-professional source on the war online.

I meant for them to just end their own lives. In thinking about it I still wish they would just end their own lives.

Any more news on the Ukrainian advances  in Kherson and  Izyum ?  Really would like to see some more  Ukrainian  War   news on this thread  - but seems like the amount of  details getting out is shrinking ?

Every 2nd bullet and almost all supply trucks were US-made. Try winning the war without bullets or literally no trucks to deliver them with. Heck you can even say every 2nd soviet tank past 1943 existed thanks to US because it was made of metals US provided with the factory tools US provided, resources USSR didn't have.
The whole turning point happened exactly because of lend-lease. USSR was retreating pants down because they lost most of their military potential in a failed "we gotta attack Germany first" plan. That "one rifle per three men" propaganda wasn't far off from reality after that epic fail of giving most your stuff to Germany to tractor away.
And yes - without overabundance of NLAWs and Javelins Ukrainian army would've had extremely harder time defending in the immediate days of the full scale invasion. And yes - we have almost no 152mm shells left - which is the reason frontline is so static because there's not enough western arty and ammo to replace that - YET. Without US/EU support frontlines may have been drawn in a very different place on the map.

This thread might have to be moved to the CMBB page.

https://twitter.com/aNdr0iz/status/1534844692797476864?s=20&t=IZacsGZji8LLKNkQWzMuLw

The contract Ukraine just signed with Poland makes it pretty clear that is going to be their SPG going forward. That will give them ~80 of them total. I assume the will be happy to equip all their towed units with 777s eventually.
All of this is a classic case of doing something in a very great hurry because their just isn't any other choice. Things will break that wouldn't have if we had started equipping Ukraine three years ago in a rational way. People are DYING who wouldn't be if we had started equipping Ukraine three years ago in a rational way. We didn't all we can do is accept that doing it now this way is unavoidably inefficient, and just keep sending them everything they can physically use, as fast as it can be moved.
We can also get the bleep over idiotic fine distinctions in what we send. They need MLRS yesterday, they need better AA yesterday. They need those bleeping Marders YESTERDAY. Brave people are dying, and a fair chunk of the third world is getting very hungry while we worry about distinctions that just don't make any sense. The Russians would attack the supply bases in Poland if they thought they could, and still have an army three days later. They haven't, they aren't going to because the only two scenarios are they lose in days instead of months, or civilization gets an unpleasant reset, and even the Russians are not that stupid.

Nope, he'll send a body double, deep fake his face on and meet with that worker/wounded soldier a third time.
 

I wonder how (if) this will be covered in state TV?  I'd say it was all faked and that Zelensky was actually in Lviv or even inside Poland because he's a spineless coward.  I would've been saying stuff like that from the start.  Enough of the brainwashed will buy it that it will take on a life of its own.  Have a point of contact for all the pundit clowns to check in every day w the current message and repeat it ad nauseum on every show.  It goes on all day, every day, in the US, and the talking point discipline here is really quite remarkable. 
Which is another odd thing:  if Putin can tell the populace anything he wants, why does it actually matter how much of Donbas he controls?  Who's gonna know?  We keep hearing about how Putin needs this or that to get enough victory to go on the defensive, but really why does it even matter?  He's got plenty and can simply claim whatever he wants.

Several times in my career (well, two different careers), it was brought home to me how much can be determined with a few pieces of information from varied sources, when presented to subject matter experts. And we have some of that here as well - a number of people who have real life experience at certain aspects, in which I include a comprehensive knowledge of history, military or otherwise.
In the Army we routinely and on "special occasions" got intelligence briefings on things. Sometimes it was political/military situations in general because being in the 82d always meant you were on call to be sent to the next hot spot, like, this afternoon if necessary, so we were briefed a lot on what was going on in the world. Some general, some classified. Then there were briefings on new equipment. One time in particular we got a picture of a new Russian tank in a factory. Someone mentioned seeing the exact same picture in Newsweek. But what the Newsweek pic didn't show was the factory. The tank was on a white background. Including the factory would have given a clue (maybe pointed right at) WHO took that picture. Sources. We got to see the assembly line. Newsweek readers saw the tank.
At Electric Boat (US nuclear submarine shipyard for those not familiar) I had occasions to participate in some studies for the Office of Naval Intelligence. I can't say a lot about these but let's just say we were trying to reverse engineer new Russian sub designs from bits and pieces of data the ONI would feed us. We could ask questions too, and sometimes in a week or two we might get an answer, sometimes they'd say not available, use your judgement. What was impressive was that when you put 20 experienced submarine design experts from various fields together, and with just a scattering of facts provided how scary close you can get to the answer. And we know how close because several years later we could compare our "guess" to what we could see of the real thing from open sources. My part was determining the reactor shield design, which is a significant weight account. Had to do this using what we knew from Russian naval reactor designs, and some assumptions on what Russia allows for radiation exposure (more than the US/UK and I assume France). But I designed reactor shielding for a living. Physics doesn't change and there are limited materials that are useful.
That in particular emphasizes how easy it is to have something compromised by just feeding a few bits of good info to real experts and having them analyze and collate.  And many times individual facts are not classified, because they don't show the whole picture. But given enough individual facts you can find the big picture, which makes you think that more facts should be classified 🙂 .
Bottom line is that even data from open sources, put in the right hands or group of hands, can come remarkably close to classified secrets.

Dave

For the most part agencies run autonomously once they receive their funding. with competent leadership at agency level there is little need for the upper politicos to become involved in day to day affairs unless something becomes 'Breaking News'.