The Steppenwulf

General Roman Gavrilov, deputy chief of Russia's Rosgvardia Unit, has been arrested - reasons for his imprisonment unclear. Head of the Russian Central Bank. Elvira Nabiullina has resigned after arguing with Putin over the devastation on Russian economy caused by sanctions. Early evidence that Putin's 'Special Operation' failure is now transmuting into a domestic crisis?

Dog food - tin pot army!

Not too far removed from the Valkeryie plan too! And half a dozen Roman emperors found themselves vulnerable when they were away from Rome and command of the Praetorian guard was detached. I'd be very surprised if Putin takes one step outside the Kremlin anytime soon.

I agree, it's very questionable that the Russians have enough munitions to keep up sustained bombardment on a city the size of Kiev. I think the "threat" of getting howitzers within range of the city is merely a bargaining chip to add weight to Putin's negotiation position. The evidence is all indicating that militarily, the Russians have entered the 'end game' in this conflict, their position is only going to get weaker, and with that, Putin's way out of this mess without something... anything that he can spin as a "successful operation" will diminish too. My reading is that Putin is close to being objectively defeated militarily, and he's now trying to mitigate the political fall out before it's too late. If that's true, at best he's thinking if he can return to the default territorial position (before the invasion) and maintain his powerbase in the Kremlin without any backlash, he'll be relieved. I suspect Ukraine's leadership is probably stalling on terms for the moment, because they need to find out what intel informs about the military picture so they can better judge the 'end game'.

+1. I spend the day working and the whole evening until the early hours catching up on what I've missed.

With regard to the MiG 29 discussion and the related debate re blocking their transfer to UKR: I was pondering much earlier in this thread why the US did this, given that NATO have armed UKR in other respects, and the clear combat multiplier they would offer to a UKR counter offensive (which could be so significant as to completely roll over the Russians), as well as what I thought previously are perfectly feasibly solutions to circumvent the thorny issue of NATO "directly supplying them". So here's a hypothesis I've been mulling over that might explain the US inaction on this: Firstly let's assume (and I think most of us would agree) that NATO MUST steer a path through this conflict that strikes a balance between NATO fighting proxy (by assisting UKR) but not going as far as escalating the conflict (because no one knows where that ends). But secondly it's NATO's single strategic objective that the result of this conflict MUST result in an outright Russian failure to annex Ukraine, install a puppet Govt or be in any position to seek any sort of favourable terms (IOW it's put in a weak negotiation position). So I reason that both of these aims can be served by NATO carefully just doing enough in its military assistance to ensure that Russia is defeated in its aims, but stopping short of assisting UKR so much that it is seen to have smashed the Russians (due only to the help of NATO). The latter might be shaped for Russian public opinion by the Kremlin as not the "defensive NATO" it purports to be, but the former is perceived across the world as failure due to Russian military ineptitude. This result achieves the same end for the Ukraine conflict (militarily) but it mitigates to the maximum the possibility of further escalation between Russia and NATO. In addition, politically and diplomatically, it provides an excuse for the Chinese to bat off any of Putin's requests to back Russia up in any way, other than offer its sympathies. In conclusion then; given that its now not unreasonable to think that the Russians are slowly falling apart, and NATO intelligence must have been monitoring this development for a while, I wonder if senior NATO commanders knew already that those MiGs were simply not going to be required. "So that's a no go" as long as the war is projected to remain on course to a Russian defeat, a defeat for which, they will only have themselves to blame.

I was reading a wikipedia article a few weeks ago about ancient bog bodies. That is generally Iron & Bronze age people that ritually strangled sacrificial victims in bogs and swamps - archaeologists find them very well preserved 2500 years later. Well apparently bog bodies that are regularly dragged out of swamps in perfect nick most often are WW2 Russian and German soldiers. Most likely I would guess soldiers that went MIA in that swamp region on the Ukraine-Belarus border.

I read the article earlier that Steve posted, pretty shocking stuff: "The Kremlin has only worsened investor fears by greenlighting a rule that allows Russian firms to steal intellectual property from companies that are home to “unfriendly” nations such as the U.S. and its allies. Under the Kremlin’s plans, Russian oligarchs could take over assets such as Coca-Cola’s bottling factories or Ford’s commercial van manufacturing plant and attempt to continue to manufacture and sell those products under the existing brand." It struck me that this sort of thinking leads Russia into the cold, dark economic abyss that is North Korea - a self-imposed asylum!

Not sure if this has been posted already, since it was last week (forgive me if I'm "doing a Kettler"), but I thought this was the most humorous equipment steal of the lot. It's the second clip down - the guy in the side car looks like he's decided this booty is gonna' take pride of place in his front room!

Back to those MREs... tyres however, are not on the list

Problem is that we don't truly know what condition UKR forces are in to engage in such a phase. Optimistically, I've thought that there must be some deployments going on in west of Ukraine preparing for a counter offensive (launched timely at the Kiev siege), but it's also why I keep insisting that UKR really need a couple of squadrons of aircraft to project a lethal threat, and in this exact case take advantage of the inevitable Russian operational pause to regroup and attack them while vulnerable.

Underrated? Personally I found some of what they had to say was guff! Just a few notable examples of crap (by no means exhaustive) that stood out for me:- "Intelligence" was actually either non existent or fatally flawed - this partly explains why the Russians have ended up running such a bad campaign from the off. Lots of examples! I haven't observed an "initial recon in force" - from the off, the aim was to seize airfields with elite forces (which failed), and simultaneously assault along lines of attack with low quality troops, expecting that might be all that was needed for a quick and easy occupation of territory. Overall it looked unsophisticated compared to the pre planning and implementation of either of the Iraq campaigns, which are hallmarks in all respects here. "Well supplied forces" - Russians have been vastly under supplied. there's plenty of evidence of this! "Airforce involvement is low because Russia doesn't want to damage too much infrastructure" - huge, huge lol on that one! "Winter campaign chosen wisely to prevent potential allies intervening" - No one is intervening in UKR (regrettably) for "escalatory reasons". It's more likely Putin attacked at the end of Feb to take advantage of what appeared to him to be a narrowing window of opportunity, it was a simple "now or never" moment in his risk board-game world perspective. Ethnic Russians make up 17% of pop, not 30% - these guys are NOT even in command of basic facts. I could go on...but no, this is a very unimpressive analysis in my view

I'd say operationally the Russians have succeeded in the approach, attack and capture of Kherson... but they've demonstrated concrete failures in the implementation of effective operational plans everywhere else in their campaign (thus far).

Caveat emptor: Unless they resort to use of WMD, and as a consequence, UKR Govt capitulates. But even then we should separate the local strategic goal of victory over Ukraine and the broader geo political ambition of Putin, which is shattered, regardless of what colour flag flies over Ukraine in the short, medium or long term.

BREAKING: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergie Ryabkov, says Russia now considers arms supplies to UKR forces as legitimate military targets. How does that work? I mean any arms within UKR border are already legitimate targets, and I don't think Russia has the military capacity to attack anything beyond Ukraine's borders. It's tempting to read this as another empty threat to the west and actually betrays frustration with their military situation.

What may be overlooked in this comment is an assumption that the Russian population comes out on the streets to demonstrate against the war or Putin. Events could unfold in a different way. Perhaps a situation in 6 months hence when the economic collapse is so bad in Russia that there is a return to food distribution coupons that were introduced in the 80's when all Russians queued for rations during the period of the slow collapse of the CCCP! The majority of the population will still remember and utterly dread a return to those dark days. In this scenario I doubt it will be a street uprising against Putin's war that brings him down, it will be general strikes and civil disturbances in protest at the unacceptable privations that are quickly becoming the everyday experience of its citizens. You cannot lock the whole population in jail or shoot them in the streets for growing sick of their impoverished predicament; persistent high unemployment; decimated public services; poor health care; as well as having to queue to receive basic provisions.. Unless of course Russia goes down the route of N Korean levels of civil control, but that's what Putin might be forced to do to stay in power in this end game scenario. I don't expect it will even get that far.

It's tempting to speculate even now that this could happen sooner, rather than later, probably around Kiev. And once it does it could easily ripple throughout the Russian forces turning into a general collapse. We saw exactly the same with dispirited troops unsure what they were fighting for in Iraq under Saddam.

No, it's just what happens with all tyrants who operate a regime based on terror - they end up living in an echo chamber and their advisors tell them what they think they want them to hear, rather than the truth.

We've seen this pattern many times before -the actions of tin-pot dictators the world over when they realise that their war effort is on the verge of falling apart.

^ And this.... but I wouldn't want to mount any counter offensive without substantial ground attack support. And in the absence of tank busting helis, two squadrons of MiGs are the next best thing.

^ This, also that statistically, there's more rain in Ukraine during March, April, May. I said at the beginning of the campaign, this would have an effect on RF forces being able to deploy in open country and the only alternative - having narrow avenues of approach on the roads - makes them vulnerable to ambush. It can only get worse! With regard to the drainage ditches, if you go down on google maps and look at the terrain to the west of Kiev (e.g. Irpin) it's exactly as described; the only way across are a series of elevated tarmac road causeways. They serve as perfect bottle necks, and from what I've seen, they seem to be well prepared with road blocks and set defence in place. I'm sure this explains why the RUS encirclement in the west of Kiev has been very slow.

As discussed yesterday, the effect of the time of year on an already mired campaign could debilitate Russian forces further: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ukraine-weather-how-extreme-cold-could-stall-russias-invasion-as-it-damages-equipment-and-drains-troops/ar-AAUQ6kQ?ocid=mailsignout&li=AAnZ9Ug

The MiGs - why doesn't UKR buy them from Poland? On the credit card perhaps, but who cares given the advantage that 2 squadrons would make to UKRs war effort. This is a perfectly feasible work around and surely would have been considered if the reasons provided against are genuine. That's why I strongly suspect that there's some other reason that underpins the ostensible objections.

Yes fair enough. It's hard to see how Ukraine can mount any sort of counter offensive without increasing their air power though. I figured this is why they are now petitioning to be supplied with aircraft.

Wow that is a really interesting point! Russian oligarchs might not have any hard power in the Kremlin, but they can still hit the regime hard through their direct and indirect control of commodities and the supply chain?! Is this their opportunity to kick back?!