Maciej Zwolinski

My understanding of the facts is different - as far as I know, he was asked to specifically extend the Starlink coverage to the shores of Crimea, over and beyond the usual StarLink range, specifically to allow Ukrainian USVs to make the attack. I think it is a significant difference. In particular, it would not be some kind of unfair restriction on the service which the Ukrainians would have had the legitimate expectation to cover a broader area. To the contrary, it would be specifically aiding and abetting Ukrainians in their attack. Again, my understanding of the situation differs in one significant detail. AFAIK he was approached by the Ukrainians and not the US governement. Were I in the shoes of Musk, I would not be sure of the support of US governement if he went it alone with the Ukrainians - he could be hung out to dry. Once the US Governement bought Starlinks from him, and it was clearly the US decision, not Musks freebooting initiative, the coverage was extended. Assuming these were the facts, I could not fault the man. I would not have the courage to do anything else than wait until I am sure of the political backing of the state. If that was the whole truth, the entire criticism of Musk would be wholly void. Were he in just for the profit, then clearly incurring any (even minute) risk of Russian retaliation for the small increase of revenue arising from the additional service fees caused by the use of Starlinks by Ukrainian UCVs over the sea to Crimea would be completely unjustified. Telling the Ukrainians to f.o. would be the only sensible business decision and his shareholders should keep thanking him all the way to the bank. Somehow, I think it is not only that. I am sure the motivation to let Ukrainians use StarLinks is more political, and the fee aspect is e more intended to cover some of the costs.

Fair enough. But also fair enough for Musk, were it the case - he is a private person after all. Not under a duty to conduct foreign policy in Eastern Europe. He is fully within his rights to have preference for his private business up to the boundaries of treason. And this is far away from treason. I do not get this. What action of Musk you describe by the phrase "jumped the line of his competence"? Was that his lack of agreement to extend StarLink to the shores of Crimea at the request of the Ukrainians? I mean, what other person would have that competence?

From my experience the inference from general behaviour is always a bit suspect because people just like to judge others wholesale and avoid the unpleasant cognitive dissonance, so they rely on it too much and end up in non sequiturs. So as in other cases, I try not to jump on the bandwagon of "Musk's fault" - funnily enough, in Polish politics, we have an ironic saying "Tusk's fault" as the former PM Tusk is blamed by the current governement for all wrongs, including those he could not have any connection with. Another ironic Polish saying underlining the dangers of such reasoning can be translated as "He is a drunk. And a thief. Because every drunk is a thief". Actually on the basis of our domestic politics one can illustrate perfectly the fallacies arising from overreliance on this. The current POL governement is populist-nationalist. A lot of people of more liberal persuasion automatically chalk them up to the pro-Putin camp, whereas looking at the facts they demonstrably are in the most anti-Russian group, up there with the Baltics and Finns. While some foreign journalists or analysts just make such connection because they are weak on facts, some Polish opposition radicals also try to argue so flying in the face of the facts. Imagine the mental hoops they have to jump through. It is literally painful to read. But we have strayed far off-topic, like an USV in Severnaya Bay with its StarLink suddenly cut off.

Absolutely. I merely would like to point out that it is exactly the same rule that is (allegedly) imposed by the US government on the Ukrainians in connection with deliveries of US weapons - they are not to be used e.g. in Briansk oblast over the other side of the uncontested Russian border. I remember the traditionally anonymous US government officials getting their collective panties in an anonymous twist when the Russian Legion drove some Lend Lease Humvees or MRRAPs over the border. Same stupid principle, just different geographical direction. If the US governement is getting away with such idiocy, why Musk is getting a harsher treatment?

Looking from outside of the US, I must say that I do not get the Musk hate/presumption that Musk must be doing bad stuff. Apparently in November 2022 Musk believed Russian propaganda that they will nuke the Ukraine if Crimea is attacked, got scared and refused to extend StarLink coverage to Sevastopol. With hindsight, that was a bad call and unnecessary. However, the US governement with its intelligence apparatus, satellites, gazillions of security advisers also belived all sort of tall tales about Putin's "red lines" and dragged its feet disgustingly over each additional couple of km of range in the next batch of weapons. Artillery, HIMARS, tanks, cluster ammunitions, ATCMS, planes - each time there was a huge discussion over whether this will finally prod the Russian bear into its mighty rage, which always ended with a whimper, but the discussion never goes away. Sure, Musk bottled it that time, but so did the United States of America and the rest of NATO on a number of times. He may be the richest man on the Earth, but still he is a private individual and surely should not be held to a higher standard than the most powerful military alliance in history and its constituent governments.

Actually the same example can be used to defend the_Capt's original description of soldier vs warrior dichotomy as valid. From XVIII cent. we see European armies made up of soldiers fighting in the line of battle, who are forcibly conscripted or tricked to "voluntarily" join, i.e. are carrried away by the recruiting sergeants dead drunk during some country fair. Those people are forced to learn how to load the musket by the threat of running the gauntlet, and prevented from escaping by cavalry pickets and the threat of hangman's noose. Such man is the quintessential soldier-but-not-warrior, and at the same time a wholly contemptible figure, devoid of any agency. Up to late WWI, the European armies always had a strong element of this, because it worked as long as one could put infantry in close order line of fire with the officers at the edges and NCOs behind the line to motivate stragglers. Even Prussian regulations in force at the beginning of WW I proscribed keeping soldiers in close order as long as possible and judiciously releasing them to create and feed the skirmish line, so that they remain under the direct supervision of officers for as long as possible. The result of course was Kindermord bei Ypern. Because of that - although no two persons' associations are the same -the word "soldier" does have the connotation of someone who fights because he is obliged to, whereas "warrior" does bring up the idea of someone who fights because he wants to. On the XXI century dispersed battlefield the second kind is actually needed, hence the reneissance of the term.

Exactly! Designated for defending Europe, but from the perspective of defending the US that is expeditionary warfare par excellence. You were so expecting to fight on another continent, that you were practicing getting there on annual basis. And leaving heaps of prepositioned equipment and materiel already in place. Strategically, it was not aggresive , but defensive warfare, yet certainly at the same time of the expeditionary kind. An army geared for home defence would look like Finnish army: based on conscription, equipped to operate in its native terrain, not spending money on power projection to faraway countries, coastal defence batteries vs aircraft carriers, etc. The US looks like the polar opposite of it.

It could make sense. Especially in countries which are not in a war for a long time, those with conscript and/or underfunded armies the popular view and self-image of soldiers can get low. I.e., poor underfed low IQ country boys easily intimidiated by anyone, mostly trying to survive until the end of their term. I remember stories in 1990s Poland of soldiers being slapped around by local gangsters or even hooligans at country discos. Since a soldier needs courage and initiative on the battlefield, it makes sense to try to psych him up and make him more aggressive, if you can get that by referring to him by a more aggresive name than just "soldier"- sure, go ahead. By the way, surely it is evident for everyone the US army is not designed for self-protection but expeditionary warfare. POMCUS? REFORGER? The Marine Corps? Come on.

Do you mean shadows like on aerial photos? They can really stand out. Good idea.

J**us wept, the Russian could not strafe 3 pontoons without being damaged....

That has historically been how Russians got their armies to improve. In WW2 it took them two years become decent, and one more year to be good. Plotting that learning curve on this war's calendar Russians should now be somewhere at the level of Operation Uranus. Luckily, their current counteroffensive in the North-East looks more like Operation Anus, so it looks like they are learning slower.

This is because they are currently in an assymetric match-up vs NATO-supplied battlefield AA weapons, which has come about due to the AA being an afterthought in NATO armies which assume air superiority, and Ukrainians not having air superiority. This is a fairly random capability gap, which can is likely to be eliminated before the next war. I think it will be eliminated soon as part of the effort to reclaim superiority in the up to 2000 m. sphere (per the_Capt's excellent post from yesterday)

I hate to repeat myself but I again encourage everyone interested in this to look up "the Invincible" by Stanislaw Lem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible

He got scared that the Ukrainian drones will be too succesful and turn Sevastopol into the second Pearl Harbour. Following which Elon would be invited by the vengeful Russians for a polonium tea and strychnine cakes party.

Amen. And there are hundreds of ways in which they can be taken out of the fight. For example - with the manned systems approaching USD 100 mil. per unit, I can easily see them becoming something like battleships, so costly that they cannot be risked on many missions, including those which would be feasible for cheaper platforms. For missiles there is a similar problem, already experienced by the Ukraine - once the Russians divided up the large ammo&POL depots into a multitude of smaller ones, they ceased to be economic targets e.g. for Storm Shadows because that would be exchanging "2000 pounds of education" for a "ten-rupee jezzail", to quote Kipling's "Arithmetic on the frontier". Ultimately, the ground forces should be designed to be able to stand on their own, which includes developing a functional battlefield ADA.

I do not think Prigozhin considered it sufficiently safe without the political clout that the engagement in African affairs would have given him. Gierasimov and Shoigu would be after his head and with easy access to Putin's ear. A private person, even exceedingly wealthy one, plays in a completely different league, than a warlord. In 1200 yrs of the Roman Empire in the West, three men famously made a successful transition from warlordism to private life: Cincinnatus to plow, Sulla to drink and fornicate himself to death, and Diocletian to grow cabbage. The chances are not particularly high. So he probably had no safe choice and was bound to chose between risky options.

They were looking for Kuban Cossacks, but there was a mix-up and have recruited Cuban Cossacks instead.

This is just a wild guess, but HEI could be for the relatively softer and potentially flammable Shaheeds and similar drones, whereas HVAPDS to engage relatively more hardened cruise missiles.

I am skeptical about the logic of drawing attention to those planes by pretending they are protected and playing mind games with attack planners (too clever by half), but I could believe in piling up stuff on derelict planes in an attempt to enchance their radar and visual signature relative to the useful ones. Still a desperate action.

That is more like neutralising all anti-tank weapons, whether heliborne or not, by not showing up with the AFVs. But OK, I see now what you meant.

Would you be so kind to elaborate on this? Have you seen any new tactics or equipment by which the Ukrainians deal with RUS helicopters, or is this based only on the lower number of reports that KA 52s are causing trouble (and AFAIK it is lower nowadays)?

Excellent planning. If they take him in the woods, they won't have to take him to the woods afterwards.

If Ukrainians take Crimea, that is 100% certain to happen. The UKR are not going to be fooled twice and leave in place a fifth column ready to make trouble again. This, and some images of Russian PoWs getting a kick on the bottom or some other humiliating treatment. Look at WW 2 images of Germans surrenderring or having surrendered - that kind of behaviour is bound to happen, because soldiers on the good side are not angels themselves, just fighting for a vastly better cause and most of the time, not incentivised to commit outright war crimes. So it is the duty of UKR PsyOps units to counterballance those images with the horrors of Bucha or indiscriminate attacks on cities, etc. They are good at this so I am confident the public opinion effect will be minimised. Unless the Western governements actively look for excuses to cut aid to the Ukraine, in which case their propaganda machine will be engaged to amplify the sad lot of the Russians being ethnically cleansed. But that would be a result of a shift in policy, not a reason for it.

I assume "kamikadze" means remotely controlled. Anyone know how do Russians implement remote control on those vehicles - is there some kind of "Borgwardization" kit or process, or do they stick to the more budget method of tying a brick to the gas pedal?

Yeah, because that worked for them so well when they tried this last time in 1917/1918