BletchleyGeek

With 36 years' employment in the field I can reassure you that any such biography in 20 years time will be a work of fiction from someone bigging themselves up.  The US, having recently and with popular assent somewhat untidily extricated itself from one conflict last year is in no rush to become involved in another one directly. 
Enablers such as providing situational awareness, intelligence sharing plus lethal and non-lethal aid are of course being provided.  The old adage of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it" will certainly be uppermost in the calculus of the US and its NATO allies which again makes direct intervention or other capers like officially sanctioned 'American Legions' highly unlikely.  History proves that 'deniable ops' simply aren't and that is particularly so in the current information environment.
'Almost perfect situational awareness' resulting in stuff mysteriously blowing up is also in the realm of 'doesn't happen.'  People are quick to tell me that "the int was rubbish" - "we weren't warned" etc, which is frequently an excuse to hide their own failings (not reading the intelligence or ignoring it (Mr Putin refers) being fairly common) or their misperception about the art of the achievable by the intelligence cell, unit or agency.
The factors for Ukrainian success are well-documented, roadbound columns, little or no attempt to enforce tactical spacings, little or no attempt at camouflage and concealment and the use of insecure communications on the part of the Russians.  On the part of the Ukrainians, once the limited axes of advance have been identified a combination of mark one eyeball, UAVs and tactical SIGINT provide sufficient means to develop a tactical picture of sufficient granularity to strike.   That they have been able to do so is because they have developed a command and control architecture which has allowed this information to be shared and acted upon quickly.  Some of it is very unsophisticated as explained on some of the videos we have seen:  UAV team goes out, launches from a wood near one of the identified road, flies the UAV until a target is seen and passes the target grid over VHF direct to a mortar unit.  BDA sent over same means, rinse and repeat as necessary.  Combat or tactical intelligence isn't particularly hard if you have a tactically incompetent and undisciplined opponent moving along easily identified axes of advance.

True but it is the nature of that mass that seems to be in flux.  UA had mass they just distributed it broadly in a hybrid fashion and it worked.  I am not sure why the UA seems to be pairing up for a straight up conventional vs conventional mass fight now.  Could be because they know they can win more quickly.  Maybe they have no choice as the Russian military gets to some sort of critical density.  Or it could be a mistake in the making and we might see some major UA defeats.
This is high risk for the UA as if it gets mauled badly enough it might get caught into a stalemate and have to negotiate out.  Crazy days...we will have to see.

Sorry I haven't been more of a part of this conversation.. i have a lot of thoughts about the BTG... but this part right here... yes I think that is one of the two huge failings of the BTG concept and is a big part of why we aren't seeing a more robust march security.. the other huge failing is the BTG has a poor logistics train, it was sacrificed in favor of other priorities.  

The only thing I would add about the fight in front of us in the E-SE:
- This is a "race to stalemate" for the Russians, and even possibly for the UA - but I would not be surprised them rolling on an overall strategic objective of "cleanse Russian forces from our land"...and from what we have seen in the North that ain't a crazy idea as of today.  So it will be interesting to see just how "all in" the Russians really are in this.  Putin is "all in while riding a bear shirtless" but your average Russian soldier may have other ideas.
- Russians are in much worse shape now than they were 6 weeks ago.  Nothing worse for moral than losing ground a lot of your people died for.  That and making up for the equipment, materiel and manpower losses is going to pull from way down the list of quality with no time for re-tooling or training.  So while the Russians have mass, even more concentrated now along fewer axis, it is even more brittle than it was in the initial invasion.  
- Russians still have not solved their operational pre-conditions problem.  Air Superiority has become a joke, right along with information or C4ISR.  And the Russians have to try and do logistics having lost over 2xCAA worth of logistical vehicles, while not yet having solved for long range PGMs leg-humping their LOCs to further distraction.
   I was not fully on board the Russian Collapse theory in the opening of this war - they did manage a withdrawal of sorts in the North.  However, time is really not on their side now.  A full Russian invasion force collapse is a lot more likely now that the Russian political level is insistent that they take a broken and battered Army and try to go back on the offensive with it.  And the best they have offered is some glue and tape over the busted parts.  The Ukrainian military machine is no doubt also battered but the rub here is "they won".  Their morale has to be high, and now very sharp with the atrocities uncovered, now that they have pushed the Russians well back in the north.  This means more volunteers, winning commanders, more veterans of success and likely enough western firepower to melt entire Russian formations.
  This will all come down to when Putin can go "Mission Accomplished" before his entire military falls apart...crazy.  If he is smart it will be this weekend but one thing I think we can say with confidence is that Putin and the Russian military machine has been a little short of "smart" in this war.

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.

This why Ukraianian artilelry now works mostly by platoons or even by 1-2 pieces, but rare by whole battery. Maybe this give less firepower, but you get flexibillity and survivability. And the tons of steel per square kilomiter compensate with more precise work due to drone usage, special sotware for artillery firing calculations and personnel training.
But working by platoons and by individual guns requires additional spotters and a drone in each platoon, so platoon leaders and even gun comamnders should have spotter skills in full volume. Also at least each platoon should have some artillery equipment like artillery compass. For example in Russian artiillery all this, like in Soviet army have only battery control platoon, so they have limited capabilities to work by lesser units.  
Though,  for the case of situation on the video, the full-battery salvo should be better 

On the pro-Russian side, there's some stories going around that the satellite imagery showing the bodies in Bucha might be fake. This is mostly based on this "analysis" from "Southfront", claiming that none of Maxar's satellite had their orbits going over the region during the dates mentioned on the pictures: https://southfront.org/more-evidence-more-doubts-about-bucha-massacre/ .
I looked into that, and as expected, it's a poorly-made fake counting on people being too lazy to check the satellite tracks themselves, which can be easily done by using tools like this one: https://in-the-sky.org/satmap_worldmap.php
On each of the dates, March 21 & March 19, Maxar's satellites (specifically WorldView-1 & GeoEye-1) passed directly over Kyiv.

Although I think the terms 'left' vs 'right' are inadequate and lead to narrowmindedness, this description is far from accurate or complete.
Anarchists are generally considered / see themselves as extreme left while those that want state enforced rules  for discrimination and oppression of specific groups of people (fascists) are generally seen as extreme right.
FYI large parts of Western Europe have been or are successful social-democracies for a long time. 
To not go off topic too much conceptually left is more about social equality while the right is more about each men for himself. But then there are many more perspectives. Generally the 'extreme' variants of either spectrum are considered to be conceptually similar if implemented in practice by a state. It always leads to autocracy / dictatorship.

Anyway to describe right as freedom and left as control is far to simple besides plain wrong.
 

Russians: Let’s setup up our battery here!
Ukrainians: Ni.
 

Ideal would be having multiple drones that can rotate between being on "duty" and charging but I see a simple stopgap solution that would allow tanks to have much better situational awareness. 

Why doesn't no one develop a tethered drone that uses same kind of propulsion (quadcopter or similar) but has a small cable for charging. I know it's not ideal but it would remove the need to have secure comms to the drone and the drone would be able to stay up indefinitely (as long as tank has electrical power). 

It would mean that the drone can't really go very far from the tank, but imagine situational awareness a tank commander could get with a birds eye view from 100m. 

A launcher similar to how the Switchblade is launched mounted to a tank could provide OTH surveillance for a tank crew.  Those could be launched remotely with the crew buttoned.  

The commander of the Panzerlehrbrigade 9 and and chief of the Situationroom Ukraine in the MoD Germany on the situation of the war including tank warfare and the future of tanks. In german language but english subtitles with automatic translation are available.
 

Note the Russian reinforcement in the Izium area

For me, the hasty deployment of Russian 'elite' units while they are not reorganized is a clear demonstration of the current state of Russian forces. The situation is so critical (no reserve available in manpower and equipment, catastrophic economic situation), that they cannot afford to wait and throw everything into the fray. If even their best units don't have anything to refit and rest (including with obsolete gear), that's saying it all...

Remembering the hasty deployment of german divisions while not ready in the Mortain Counteroffensive or Balaton (Frühlingserwachen). The dog can still bite very violently, but in the long run it will leave its teeth there

One of the first Aussie Bushmasters starting the long trip to UKR - I believe we're going to be airlifting 4 at a time to start with. Not sure how many will be sent, I read a comment saying 50 but IDK if that's true.  I wonder if they'll be changed over to left hand drive

Good one of a Ukrainian ATGM team in action:
Handful of guys, ATGM, pre-prepared ambush site.

I'm a teacher in Germany and already have a few Ukrainian refugees in my classrooms. Sadly I mostly teach English and they don't learn that there, so basically they are at the utterly wrong level for my classes. So I mostly give them German as foreign language material or Ukrainian textbooks on an Ipad for self learning, but all of this is not really a satisfactory solution.

Some people were asking where were the Ukranian armored units. Well, some incredible battle footage of a single ukranian tank engaging a whole column of russian BTR80A/82A and some tanks has recently surfaced:
Impressive stuff. Seems like situational awareness and proper spacing is an alien concept to russian commanders.

This. 
If you think "wolf warrior diplomacy" is a sign of a confident, rising power, I have bridge in Guangzhou to sell you. "By 2050 China’s population will be 4% lower than today, while it’s working-age population will have declined by 12%.  At that time roughly 36% of its population will be over the age of 60 and nearly 14% under the age of 15." 
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3039064/chinas-ageing-population-prompts-plan-deal-looming-silver-shock
Things have gotten *worse* for China demographically since this was written in 2019. 
They best way to understand China under Xi is that the leadership sees a closing window of opportunity as growth levels off and the population hasn't yet begun to plummet. They are going to grab what they can as long as the price isn't too high in order to buttress their position. It's a fortress mentality, not a global domination mentality.  

This is 501st marines battalion. They surrendered, because wasted all ammunition.
Despite 503rd was dislocated in Mariupol, but in the day of invasion it held positions near Crimean isthmus, so denying of 503rd battalion that this is not their troops on the video is also true. 

It just kills me seeing stuff like this. My son is but a year older than her. 

I think this is largely because the West thought the Cold War to be over.
The western system won and most people thought russia would learn from the lessons, Putin made indiciations as such in his beginning but in retrospect you can see many hints of his KGB past that point to the contrary, but who would move againsdt the new russia that has all the chances to better itself and improve the world with trade,...
But Putin never had the intention of learning from the past because in his mind the pre sov collapse world order is superior to the current one and he appearently has made it his life goal of restoring that, so now Ukraine (with generous help of the western powers) has to teach this old man the same lesson again 

Yup, and the Russian Army culture where sergeants are selected (as in nearly all non-Western armies btw) for their ability to bully the ranks and act as toadies/bagmen for the officer capos.
The Phd tweetstorm Steve posted a few above seems to nail it.
When you have both an unrestricted mandate and obligation to obey orders without question, BUT you are also treated like the scum of the earth day to day by everyone above and around you, it leads directly to what we're seeing here.
No warmed over Austro-Hungarian phrenology spittle about Mongoloid forest primitives is required.
There are no evil races, only evil cultures. Or more accurately, cultures broken either by privation or to serve the designs of evil men. (Or the pure convenience of careless or self-deluded ones, which amounts to much the same thing).

Kind of puts the knee-capping incident into a different perspective.
This was almost inevitable sad to say.  A lot of this has the whole “civilian reprisals” feel to it.  However I would not rule out some old fashion “ethnic cleansing”.  Not much to add on a military assessment as this sort of thing is a blight on the profession.  I would only add that this either demonstrates an extreme loss of control, or Russian high command has gone to a pretty dark, and stupid place.  Stuff like this results in assassinations and reprisal attacks for a century.  Further any hope of normalization with the west has left the building as any easing of sanctions will now be tied to warcrime investigation and prosecution.
This sort of thing also plays into any anti-war support in Russia itself as these tales of atrocities come home.  
This right here is why war is best left to gaming.

The side bars about the Marders and T-72s and BMPs in the last couple of pages are kind of grimly amusing. On the one hand we're saying that 'the day of the tank is over', while on the other hand we're saying that any old rubbish is fine for the Ukrainian army as long as it has a bit of armour plate and can move itself. Have I read that about right?
I am deliberately exaggerating here, to highlight the cognitive dissonance that's going on.
The obvious deduction, IMO, is that the death of armour has been vastly overstated. Armour is a lot more vulnerable than ... well, maybe than it has ever been, but it still beats the heck out of wandering around an active battlefield clad in not much more than a cotton shirt. And it still, as always, brings the things it always has: mobility and protected direct-fire firepower. That is still super useful, especially if you're trying to move forward.

The Russian retreat from Kiev.
 
Yes, it was a defeat, and yes, some rearguards seemed to be in a rush. What is of interest to me, is the apparent lack of Ukrainian offense displayed. There were no pockets formed, no cutoffs. Were some retreating convoys harassed and fired upon? Yes, but that seems to be the limit of what occurred.
Unless I've missed a massive amount of information being relayed from the area (hey, it is possible), it is disturbing (not quite alarming) that the Ukrainian armed forces seemed to be either unable or unwilling to interdict, destroy, encircle, or press the retreating forces.
What does that matter? Well, it matters because those Russians were pulled out to reinforce the Donbass region. The Russians have gained territory. If the Ukrainian military is unable/unwilling to generate offensive combat during a retreat, how will they fare against an entrenched enemy?
Posting these thoughts because I'm (hopefully) missing something here.