BletchleyGeek

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/krieg-in-der-ukraine-bundesregierung-will-kiew-lange-liste-mit-waffen-anbieten-a-8fe6d35c-d3b3-4ce7-aa60-ea9b62dd3d4b
The German government wants to offer Ukraine more weapons systems as soon as possible to strengthen the resistance against the Russian army. According to SPIEGEL information, a round of state secretaries from the ministries involved agreed on Tuesday to offer the government in Kiev a list of various weapons systems in the next few days. After that, Ukraine is to decide for itself which weapons it can best use.
The Excel list, however, now makes it clear that almost all reservations against arms deliveries to Ukraine have been dropped. In addition to a lot of protective material, the list also includes heavy military equipment such as mortars or heavy machine guns of the type GAM B01 from the manufacturer Rheinmetall. According to the manufacturer's offer, the heavy weapons cost a good one million euros each.
There is also plenty of high-tech material listed. For example, Thales offers to supply ground radar systems of the "Squire" type. Thales also offers twelve mortars mounted on trailers, which, according to the manufacturer, could be delivered to Ukraine as early as this week. The delivery of thousands of night vision devices, protective waistcoats, helmets - but also modern drones to monitor the battlefield - would also be possible.
In total, the list includes possible arms deliveries worth 308 million euros. More than half of this amount is for reconnaissance equipment, such as night-vision devices or radar systems - but also for ultra-modern micro-drones equipped with jammers to cut off the mobile radio signal. A good 40 million are for hand-held weapons, almost 80 million for equipment such as protective waistcoats or helmets

Alpha radiation is bad for this as it isn't very penetrating, unlike gamma rays.
 A gamma ray source is equally dangerous no matter where it is - a certain flux will interact with the entire mass of your body with some degree of probability, and the rest pass through.
Conversely alpha radiation can be stopped by a piece of paper, so if it is external, it is basically not going to get past your clothes and not really cause you a significant problem. But if you breath in dust that is an alpha source, you have the opposite problem - it is now inside you and not getting out, so all the energy from the radioactive particles gets dumped into cell damage inside your body.

I'm struck by how much longer the tank's hull looks with its turret perched on its rear deck...

https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armbrust 
Translation:
Armbrust is a German hand-held non-refractory mortar developed in the late 1960s by the German firm Messerschmitt Bölkow-Blohm. The production of rocket launchers began in Belgium, and was used mainly by units of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Army of Cameroon and several Asian countries.
Development
Mortars began to be developed around 1970 at the German Messerschmitt Bölkov-Blohm factory, which was known for making helicopters, missiles and other high-tech equipment. The development of the mortar took several years, as the weapons differed greatly from the then hand-held non-refractory mortars. Serial production began at the Belgian PRB factory and later elsewhere.
The advantages of this weapon over other hitherto known rocket launchers were: it did not emit flames or smoke from the barrel, bursts less than a pistol, is easy to use, and requires no special maintenance. All these properties mean that the rocket launcher can be used indoors, near flammable substances or. everywhere. The shooter can take up a firing position anywhere without worrying about being betrayed by mortar smoke. Its good feature is also ease of use and training. The mortar allows hitting targets up to 300m. In addition to good qualities, a weapon also has some bad ones: weight, penetration and price.
Description
The armbrust consists of a tube, a sighting device, a trigger and carrying parts. The barrel contains a projectile, propellant powder charge, two pistons and a counterweight. The gunpowder charge is located in the middle of the tube between the two pistons. In front of the front piston is a projectile, and behind the rear piston is a counterweight in the form of a block of plastic tiles. The tube is narrowed at both ends, which prevents the pistons from leaving the tube, which ensures that the powder gases do not leave the tube after launch. These are released slowly so the bang is minimal, only the movement of moving parts is heard. The instability of the mortar is due to the movement of the mine forward and the counterweight backwards.
The measuring device is of the reflex type and is installed in the housing on the left side of the pipe. It is folded in the housing during transport and is turned outwards by the shooter before use. The measuring device has no magnification, on the right edge of the field of view are marked firing distances of 150-500m, and in the middle are crosshairs.
The trigger mechanism contains a piezoelectric element that generates the electric current required to ignite the drive charge when the trigger is pressed. Triggering can be repeated if the first attempt fails.
To wear or. the holder has a mortar pistol grip, shoulder support, front support, carrying handle and strap. These parts also allow shooting from a standing, kneeling, sitting and lying position.
Use
Armbrust is a disposable weapon, so the user discards it after use.
The shooter must not cover the rear end of the barrel with his body, and there must be no obstacles 80 cm behind the rear of the barrel. The mortar must be protected from external environmental influences and cannot be disassembled into smaller parts. A special version of this mortar has been developed for training purposes, which has a built-in 17mm caliber barrel and uses ammunition similar to the original. Unlike the real thing, the training mortar can be reused.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Day_War
https://www.quora.com/How-bad-were-the-Yugoslav-Wars-for-Slovenia
More in the few days.

 



armbrust-486debde-1876-4584-b8a3-7805b3cadac-resize-750.webp

So I think it has become apparent that the feel of this war is changing, or at least that is how I am perceiving it.  Way back I mentioned that when looking at any strategic military picture I always ask "what does the options space look like?".   
We have seen from Day 1 the Russian military options steadily go from "I can attack Ukraine anywhere of my time and choosing...fear me!", to "The quick war may be a loss but I will grind you into powder city by city until you beg me to stop...and my Belarusian attack dog is by my side!!", to "I will hold the ground I have taken and pound you from afar", to "I will try and take/hold ground that will give me the thin veneer of a win while trying to fail-slower everywhere else".
While Ukraine has sustained its option space and now it looks like that space is expanding as they decide where to attack. 
The "so what?" is that this war is not about the militaries that are fighting them anymore.  Nor is it really about military strategy or operations.  It is looking more and more like we have entered a "posturing endgame".  So military action is likely to be governed more by appearances than anything of real substance.  The Russians have literally run out of options at this point, they are down to:
- Stay and likely collapse under their own weight and Ukrainian offensive action
- Withdraw a shattered wreck before #1
- Double down where they can and try to pull a "win" out of this turd pile
- Go full crazy and nuke everything.
When I talk about "options" I really am talking about good ones that may lead to victory, everyone always has bad options, lots of them.  The only good option left to the Russians, barring some fully automatic rabbit they still have in the sock drawer, is #3.  They will have to try and maintain credible threat on other fronts but this Pac Man strategy of slowly munching in the Donbas up to some arbitrary "victory line" is starting to look more and more likely.
For Ukraine, they are under competing demands of 1) to stop the suffering and damage because the cleanup is going to just be nuts and 2) an overriding desire to kill more Russians.  Unlike the Russians, Ukrainian forces of all types have all sorts of options on the table.  They can attrit where they want and simply hold elsewhere.  They can try limited offensive and try and line up an operational knockout blow, but that might run afoul of political desire to get this thing over with.
Either way, I am getting the sense over the last week that we have entered an end-game phase of this thing unless the Russians have dug a tunnel to the mole people and made an unholy alliance with the underworld.  Not sure when this will end but it has that "post-culmination feel".  Of course we sat around in Korea for like 2 years at this state.  What we do know:
- Russia has failed in this war to a point that is historic.  We will be studying this for years trying to figure out what happened.
- Russia will declare victory in this thing even if it means they only took a single square foot of Ukrainian real estate.
- Russian power dynamic will be in for a shake up.  No idea if that means Putin is in or out but people will need to take the blame for this and those oligarchs looked like they were choosing sides.  Gonna get messy back in mother-Russia but at least Putin will be busy in his own house...if he can stay out of the ground.
- Ukraine's biggest problem will be falling off the front page of western news media.  The clean-up and reconstruction effort will be massive but I think their odds are good as the west sees their best interest in a strong functioning Ukraine, plus no small amount of guilt at only being able to do so much.
The West is going to lose its mind for awhile yet.  NATO just secured its funding for the next 25 years (hell the Canadian government might actually buy F35s, something they have dragged heels on committing to for two decades.)  We are going to be all skittish but ever so smug in that the global order has been re-established...huzzah.  It will take time but the smell of BS will eventually overtake the most optimistic - we are entering a time where "power is power" and Russia just proved it by destroying half of Ukraine while we sat around and made duck sounds. Even though Russia failed gloriously, it had little to do with our collective global order, liberal diplomacy and visions of a better world.  It was done by Ukrainians with smart ATGMs killing a LOT of Russians, which is a lesson in 21st century reality right there.
And of course China is still in the backfield looking for its moment... 

I honestly do not know.  Ukraine is in a tricky situation right now. Unless they want this thing to drag on for months they need Russia to have an out (as in "get  the hell out") but at the same time they need to keep up the pressure so that Russia does not get too comfortable.
Second to this I am not sure about UA offensive combat power.  This hybrid/crowd sourced warfare worked very well in basically integrating a bunch of local defence into a living nightmare for invading forces.  If they can somehow point that at something and get it moving we then have to see how it does against conventional troops dug in WW1 style.  My honest bet is this will look like steady chewing until they see an opportunity for an operational move (if they see one).  But again too large a gesture and Russia might dig in a choose the hard way.
UA will definitely pursue c-moves, my bet would be around Kyiv as top priority and then any other major urban centers they can to get the guns out of range.  Then once they do that then it will depend what the political level want to demonstrate.  I am not sure the UA can do large scale offensive actions, it will be Xmas morning if they can take their current approach on the road in a big way.
Donbas (DR/LR) are definitely in play, but I gotta tell you I honestly think Crimea is off the table.  The West was ready to basically live with it, I am sure Ukraine is still pissed but we are talking Sevastopol and the Russians are not going to give that up.  As you point out the Russians might just play the race card and declare it an attack on the homeland, which not only means mobilization but we might still get a chance to see them WMDs we were all worried about.  And I am not sure the West would see a tac nuke on a UA offensive in the Crimea in the same light.  We were definitely not cool with killing civilians but UA conventional troops advancing on Russian soil makes this really awkward and weird because every nuclear power has pretty much declared they will do the same thing.  It probably also explains why we have not seen deep attacks into Belarus and Russia before now, all those railyards are actually in drone range.
So stay strapped in cause it could still get wackier.

@Lethaface
My apologies for the misunderstanding: When I wrote "drone vs. drone warfare," I was referring to the fact that the Ukrainians set out to target Russians with their drones, but ended up getting targeted by Russian drones. This was my first glimpse of what The_Capt has been describing as the naval-like ISR battle.
Re-posting with a new pitch: 'The hunter becomes the hunted: Drone warfare'
 

I subscribe entirely this sentiment of fascinating horror @The_Capt. I am not talking much about what I am watching and reading about to anyone else (other than in these forums and a few email exchanges) because it is just awful. My family and friends aren't up to absorb all of what is happening: my partner saw yesterday for the first time the footage from Mariupol maternity by those AP journalists that escaped and she was very upset for quite a while, when the narrator explained what was going on as the images of a pregnant woman whose pelvis was broken and carried a dead baby in her belly were coming up. I kept to myself that Vice News video about Kharkiv. I am worried that I am becoming insensitive.
Those videos depicting POW mistreatment are just awful, and probably depict a war crime. I say "probably" because I can't help wondering 1) why shooting them in the first place and 2) why record it on your phone. If politicians get busted because of stupid dick pics, or your neighbor gets their private porn posted on Facebook accidentally, I would have wanted to believe that people has become more educated about digital media spreading uncontrollably. Unless this was recording for bragging purposes, of course. 
In any case, a war crime is a war crime is a war crime ...
In the East (and the Southwest on the road to Krivoy Rog) we have seen quite decisive local counterattacks by the Ukrainian forces, ending up in the destruction of large combat units. I say "local" because they're very localised in terms of frontage (along one road).
The counterattacks against the Russian "horns" threatening Kyiv, especially on the western side of the city, do seem to be quite general, spanning a front of about 50 kms (I may be getting my scale slightly off, but not by much). It is very difficult terrain (urban, forests, many water obstacles), and from what I recall from the latest map with Ukrainian unit details from Jomini of the West, involving mostly Territorial Defence Forces (no need to post here sensitive data to tell me how wrong I am about the force composition, send me a private message!).
 
Correct me if I am wrong re: what are the ideas of the US Army about this, but to bring about an operationally significant result you have to 1) breakthrough and 2) cut off the LOC of the enemy (or some variation of the above). And this works like a Russian doll: step 1) actually breaks down into smaller scale breakthrough-envelopment engagements. Looks like a hybrid force is entirely capable to achieving the infiltration/breakthrough part at a local level. But if you want to force the Russian army to retreat, what you need to do is to breakthrough (with hybrid forces or traditional "massed fires") and then have a mobile force to maneuver and sit on the roads that bring supply from Belarus. Then you plan for defeating the more than likely counterstroke or breakout attempt.
Maybe the terrain is not good for deploying armour (thinking that you want that armor to run into the enemy depth and cut the line of communications), or maybe those assets are being employed elsewhere (Kherson, JFO are of operations). Or maybe the tactical breakthroughs are too fleeting to be exploited in time by mobile forces, if those are available.
Not too early to start formulating the questions @The_Capt. Will check out Bousquet's paper (available on JSTOR): https://www.jstor.org/stable/25144928
PS: To my colega @Fernando. Salas-Larrazabal book was first published in 1973, and there is only a second edition from 2006. Looking at the reviews of the 2nd edition, the publisher just reprinted verbatim the 1973 text. Salas-Larrazabal is an interesting character, who was motivated to bring about a "balanced" account of the performance of the Spanish Republic army during the Civil War. I say "balanced" within the contex of the late days of Franco's dictatorships. So when you say "the book dispels" many myths about the Spanish Civil War... I guess that was for someone of my dad's generation (born in 1946), not for someone of my generation, raised and educated under our current Democratic regime.
As for the question of how well has Salas-Larrazabal stood the test of time.... not quite well. One of his tenets - that the Spanish Republic was flooded with heaps of military equipment like Ukraine is now by NATO countries - has been proved false and based on the intelligence assessments of the National Army. Recent research - as I requested, from the last 20 years - such as this one (https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/38179/) does a very good job of tracking where was the Spanish Republic sourcing critical military equipment (surprise, surprise, via black market and smuggling!), the very expensive and highly publicised purchases in gold of tanks and aircraft from the Soviet Union notwithstanding. Miguel Campos has gone on to writing a book based on his Thesis
https://www.planetadelibros.com/libro-armas-para-la-republica/343864
I don't have the time to go over every other of the 6 or 7 thesis of Salas-Larrazabal introduction.
Going to the bottom of the specific details of the very early stages of the Spanish Civil War (we're in Month 1 of the Russian War of Aggression on Ukraine) is off-topic. Yet the topic is informative towards the discussion re: people's army/hybrid vs. conventional army, as it is the impact of sanctions and weapons embargoes. For instance, If the West had embargoed weapons as it did back in 1991 - ensuring the temporary military superiority of the Serbs over Slovenians, Croats and Bosniak - to Ukraine, I am pretty sure we would now be watching Yanukovych or some other convenient cat's paw sitting in the Presidential Palace in Kyiv.

Most likely the prisoner abuse is real (who knows what situation these guys are returning from, and it seems to be too chaotic to be some planned out torture, rather than a spontaneous outburst), but I see a real trend spreading to highlight and “both sides” this rather minor and isolated possible war crime (way down the totem pole from raping, torturing and executing civilians).  Bit sickening when this is on CNN but not the 10 or so eyewitness accounts of abuse / killing of civilians I have heard today alone. Me thinks some in the West are seeking relief for their guilt and excuses to turn away and stop looking.  What better excuse to click on that Will Smith link instead.
I don’t see why it really matters since Ukraine already stated their clear policy and indicated reports of abuse would be investigated.  There is really nothing more you can do other than hope that cooler heads prevail in these situations.

Ah thanks, that makes a lot more sense... why not?  It's just one more axis they need to sustain.  

I was kinda hoping they could tell me what is happening to be honest.  From a human being standpoint every minute of this war has been a horror show.  From a professional military standpoint every minute of this was has been a fascinating horror show.  I say this with no small amount of guilt but I chose the red-handed path far too long ago to flinch away now. 
I think we are all watching to see how the Ukrainian Doctrine works on the offense.  I am not sure how much is "slow" and how much is "deliberate" at this point.  I also suspect that there is a lot of collective learning and adaptation happening right now.  We saw hints of this in Mosul, as light/SF forces would push to contact and then "stonk" forces would come forward when the enemy was "Found and Fixed".
In this war, I am thinking we might see more "Isolate, Find, Fix" then stonk.  The tempo and pace of that action will be a key indicator of where offensive action may be heading.  On the downside you still basically have hybrid forces for the most part, or at least until the UA figures the time is right for conventional mass; however, the Russians have taught all one thing, use conventional mass carefully.  So hybrid forces do not normally move with the speed and tempo of large conventional ones, it is one of the reasons we look down on them as a "poor mans force".
What hybrid forces do have, particularly in this war, is more freedom of movement.  That and a very high level of self-synchronicity which is a big plus for tempo as it becomes decentralized.  A guy named Antoine Bousquet wrote about "chaoplexic" warfare, a war on the seam between chaos and complexity, and hinted at a lot of what Ukrainian forces appear to be doing, whilst the Russian forces were more rigidly adhering to our old solution.  I think we can all agree how the defensive phase for Ukrainian forces went, I am going to be watching closely as the offensive phase occurs. But it is probably way too early to draw any solid conclusions.

La fuente es la excelente obra en cuatro volumenes "Historia del Ejército Popular de la República" de Salas Larrazabal, que te aconsejo revisar porque elimina muchos mitos sobre el asunto. Sigue de manera muy precisa todo el proceso de organización que dió lugar al Ejército Popular. La mayoría de las columans republicanas al comienzo d ela guerra estaban bajo mando militar, y no de capitanes sino de comandantes, coroneles, e incluso algún general. Otra cosa es que las fuerzas milicianas aceptaran las ordenes de mandos militares profesionales de los cuales desconfiaban. Por ello se retiraban o desplegaban cuando y como querían, a pesar d elo que el mando militar ordenara, y en algún caso hasta lo fusilaron.

En el caso del ejército Popular, muchos oficiales superiores siguieron con la República. La organización militar republicana fue Muy superior a la nacionalista. Mientras las fuerzas de Franco luchaban aún encuadradas en columnas y algunas superdivisiones, las fuerzas republicanas ya habían adoptado una organización moderna y eficiente con brigadas mixtas, divisiones, cuerpos de ejército y ejercitos. Eso fue producto de oficiales profesionalers con experiencia en Estado Mayor y que estaban al servicio del a República.

https://www.amazon.es/Historia-del-Ejército-Popular-República/dp/8497344650

--------
The source is the excellent work in four volumes "History of the Popular Army of the Republic" by Salas Larrazabal, which I advise you to review because it eliminates many myths on the subject. It follows very precisely the entire organizational process that gave rise to the People's Army of the Republic. Most of the republican columns at the beginning of the war were under military command, and most of the time they were not captains but lt. colonels, colonels, and even a few generals. It doesn't mean that the militia forces accepted the orders of professional military commanders whom they distrusted. That is why they withdrew or deployed when and how they wanted, despite what the military command ordered, and in some cases they even shot their commanders.
In the case of the People's Army, many senior officers remained loyal to the Republic, more than we usually think. The facts is that the Republican military organization was far superior to the Nationalist one. While Franco's forces were still fighting in columns and some superdivisions, the Republican forces had already adopted a modern and efficient organization with mixed brigades, divisions, army corps and armies. That was the product of professional officers with experience in the General Staff who were at the service of the Republic. 
 

Thanks for the efforts to break through the language barrier @Haiduk, it is much appreciated.

The Guardian catching up with Aerorozvidka 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/28/the-drone-operators-who-halted-the-russian-armoured-vehicles-heading-for-kyiv
Some interesting takeaway points from the article:
So:
- Completely DIY, no idea how they link up with artillery (maybe over Watsapp?). If the war effort around Kyiv and Chernihiv is so DIY - very much like the opening stages of the Spanish Civil War, with the Republican forces being militias organised in "columns" endorsed by parties, trade unions or civic associations - then one possible reason for the counterattacks NW of Kyiv to be developing slowly may be the inability to coordinate offensive operations.
- The Ukrainian army doesn't support these initiatives very much or at all. Which leads me to think that perhaps, just perhaps, they are as surprised to have stopped cold the Russian Federation war machine as many people is. Like perhaps @The_Capt should write a letter to the Ukrainian general staff collating his thoughts, when they are less busy with the fighting in the East (where I think the "command capacity" of the Ukrainian army is being applied).

I used to think Tom Clancy was schlock and hokum, enjoyable, but schlock and hokum nevertheless. 
Now I'm thinking the man, God rest his soul, was on to something with his plot device in RSR where the KGB "present the best case scenario of an invasion" to the Kremlin in order to score some political points. I would love to have heard the intel briefings given to Putin throughout February. Or perhaps Putin was more like MacArthur, and just ignored what his intelligence types told him. 

I totally missed the drone on drone aerial combat. They had an unidentified uav flying over them and then a (rather friendly) German Sheperd comes to check on them...

This is exactly what my wife and I have been saying. We seem to think, and Putin reinforces, that there are red lines we (being NATO/US/EU) cannot cross, but that it's about time there were some red lines laid down to Putin. Past time, IMO.
Dave

That was an excellent talk, thank you for forwarding it.
Definitely a procurement & planning guy, the joke about Robert McNamara was really funny.

Terrain means a lot less, rethink of key terrain and vital ground
Denial and control as transient concepts, not take and hold.
Attritional based on a competition of overwhelming Shield capability
Very long engagement ranges, over the horizon
Power projection and shaping means something quite different, which calls into question decisive land outcomes.
Positioning, not manoeuvre.
These are just for a start. 

UKR commercial drone destroyed Russian SP-howitzer (2S3 of 2S19) with RKG-1600 bombs. The first bomb didn't explode, the second hit the target. Looks like this is night acion with thermal camera and probably light EW interference (unstable transmittion of video)
 

Yes, I posted this 1-2 days ago. Russians bypassed Izium from SW and crossed Siverskyi Donets river. Our troops stopped them near Topolske village with heavy artilelry strikes. Now there is a fighting to eliminate their bridgehead in this area. Also as you ould see aboove Russians are movins several BTGs from Sumy oblast to Izium and Siverodonetsk.

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

The fact that several unupgraded T-72A's have already been spotted in the 2nd week with Russian markings! not belonging to DPR/LPR shows that Russia is lacking in armor to field.
Their operational high value assets are already in a poor state, I do not think much care was given to the tens of thousand rust buckets sitting in a snowy lot somewhere since 1991.
And once they manage to cannibalize a working tank unit out of those, who is going to drive them without full mobilisation?
Surely not the charred bony remains of what used to be semi trained troops.
 
And whoever posted the vice video about Kharkiv.. just tragic.
I saw a twitter video today of corpses in Mariupol being stacked in trucks and on the stairs and hallways of the morgue as the personel is unable to bury any bodies and the inventory is filled.
I wish Zelensky strengh in withstanding the Russian Terror doctrine to hold and keep the Russians engaged. A ceasefire / negotiations are not wise atm in my opinion.

Edit.. soory, quoted the wrong post.. should have been this one from @Probus
I know the Russians have small vehicle mounted jammers that could do this right now... however once used your location will be lit up like a Christmas tree for enemy EW teams to call fire on.  I think the lifespan of such units would be short and of dubious effectiveness overall.
Bil