Probus

Some features of the attack on Russian positions from a fighter of the international legion

Multiple flights from Moscow & St. Petersburg seemingly unable to land at Kaliningrad Krabrovo this morning.  It's a long way back!

In mid-July, former members of the battalion recorded a video blaming Zelensky for their losses. “We as fighters of the territorial defense were illegally sent to the fornt lines,” their spokesman said.
Bright example of incompetence of all level - from battalion command to privates. Soldiers say about "we as fighters of TD", but in real 6th SRB is Army Reserve Corps unit , not Territorial Defense Command. SRBs are attached to mech./motorized brigades. So, they even didn't know where they served. Or this is misunderstanding of journalists
Also they say "we were illegally sent to frontline", but indeed as far as on 6th of May Parliament ammended the law about National Resistance, were was directly pointed that TD units can be involved in frontline actions. Before this the law has some unclear provisions.
With this SRBs and TD units we had a double picture. On the one hand many people enlisted to TD with a hope they will stand on checkpoints, receiving army salary and will not be sent to war (especially this actual about western Ukraine TD units). But if TD units mostly were formed from volunteers, that SRBs and 11x th mech brigades of Rserve corps - from mobilized citizens, many of which had only almost useless conscript service in past or never served in army. Officers to theese units also were mostly mobilized with Soviet of 90th-2000th years Ukraine army experience. And this borned other hand problem - they often couldn't adequately make decisions, they maintained poor training to own personnel. So, not very high motivation of mostly village and small town guys, which often turned out in army in some similar way like this was in Donetsk, supplemented by "old school" command incompetence and too short time for training. Alas, the time demanded many infantry and in most cases they got only basic training in 2-3 weeks. 
But when they came to fronline they often didn't understand what to do. So, they expected Zelenskiy personnally must give an order to dig positions to them instead take the shovel and dig it themselves. Unit commanders in own turn gave them stupid orders and couldn't maintain communications with neighbour units and support. And this much more decreased a morale, so many soldiers desertred and filmed a videos "we are betrayed, command threw us to cannon fodder" 
Additionally commanders of mech.brigades sent attached SRBs to hardest defense positions in order to save own "veterans"
So from May to mid of autumn in such conditions with bloody "natural selection" have been forming and hardening enough part of UKR army of 2022 enlistment...  

Mobik morale is maybe not the best, but fire discipline seems to be executed swiftly and without unnecessary ceremonies.
Glad you are back @Grigb.

Lol. Thanks Grigb. And we're all glad you're still with us, however constrained your posting is. Good luck sorting out RL.

Glad your back!

Sorry for not being present for some time (had, and actually still have, issues in IRL).
The execution video is an LDPR fake. It's an LDPR-style execution - these morons have no idea how actual Soviet-based militaries carry out any types of executions, so they imitate their own mob-like executions.
Apart from that - due to vastly enhanced UKR anti-drone defenses, actual RU drone operators stopped flying like this in August. But here RU operator literally flying over UKR heads for some time, risking extremely valuable asset, just to watch bunch of unimportant UKR troops doing some unimportant stuff. 
Go home, Ivan, you are too drunk to make believable fakes. 
Bakhmut's situation is gradually deteriorating, but it is far from grave. It's the standard RU bragging that we're all used to hearing.
In the north, after months of battering Yakovlivka village (northeast of Soledar), RU eventually flattened it, and it appears UKR defenders abandoned it. It means the Northen pincer is now sort of free and moving. Except that it does not give RU much - without Soledar, they are still a long way from surrounding Bukhmut.
After loss at the Industrial Zone, RU decided to shift the axis of assault to Pidhorne village on the outskirts of Bukhmut (northern outskirts of Bukhmut, between Bukhmut and Soledar). Important village, but aside from several talkes, I have yet to come across credible information, implying that things are not going well for RU there.
The Southern pincer is the most alarming. There are no significant UKR defenses there, so RU is gradually grinding toward Ivanivka. They're probing Klishiivka, the last settlement before Ivanivka. That's bad, but the first part of the Battle of the Bulge was also bad. Essentially, we are waiting a UKR counter-attack aimed at destroying the Southern pincer. Question is how far UKR will let RU penetrate. 
Bukhmut itself is not in grave danger, and there is no threat of it collapsing (yet). Fighting is taking place at the outer defenses, and it is not yet dangerous.

Earlier today someone used the phrase "civilian Girkin" and it reminded me I wanted to ask does anyone know the status of @Grigb? We haven't heard from him in a long time. I don't think I missed any earlier posts about him. Anyone have an idea?
His profile pages says he last posted Oct 10th and last visited Nov 6th.

Lololol
 

Thanks to our MoD, a nice DE goodwill gesture will turn into another mutually humiliating tug-of-war. Or a turning point for UA air defense. Didn't made up my mind on it yet...
 

Too late, chum!
This is a problem with a televised war, as the Americans found in Vietnam. So the UA really needs to get its troops to shut their damn Gopros off.
As for the moral panic, as most of the grogs on here know well, surrendering to guys whose comrades you and your army have previously been killing and maiming is *always* a chancy thing, whatever the treaty may say or which army you are surrendering to. There's only so much forgiveness one can expect of human beings in that moment.
...ISTR it became standard GI practice to deliver German prisoners a swift kick in the arse as they passed, basically 'kicking them out of the war'.  Gives an outlet for the hatred, but also lets the kid go home intact, eventually. 
The duct-taping and blindfolding is the UA equivalent here. Message is basically: at this particular moment you are just baggage not a human, so just STFU and we will take due care of you in our own good time. If not, you are gonna get hit, or worse.
....Deliberate execution following capture is of course a war crime.

These statements are true if you spent some time watching the video of the incident, including using slow motion and zoom. The guys in the video didn't have that time. At first glance, unarmed people go out of their buildings and lie down on the ground, suddenly shooting starts, your wounded comrade screams. The distance to the enemy is no more than 10 meters. You don’t even have a couple of seconds to orient yourself in the situation and you simply start shooting towards the enemy (I’m sure that 70% of close contacts happen exactly according to this scenario).
In addition, the tweet above on this page indicates that the position of some of the killed Russians does not correspond to the original. This suggests that after the shooting started, some of them tried to hide and began to move, violating the demand of the Ukrainian fighters to surrender, which gives every reason to shoot at them.
The statement that if a person raised his hands, then he does not have a weapon is false. (there were several videos of a surrendering Russian trying to throw a grenade) The Geneva Convention says that the enemy's lack of weapons does not mean that the enemy is no longer a threat to you. For example, he can easily attack you with his bare hands and this is a sufficient reason to use weapons against him.
My legal conclusion is that in the case where your group takes prisoner twice the size of the enemy group. In the event of resistance by at least one enemy, it gives all legal and moral grounds to destroy the entire enemy group without specifying whether they have weapons or not and without waiting for one of them to throw a grenade hidden under your clothes at you (of course, if this this happens in the heat of battle and not after the incident, when the threat is eliminated)

Nice clip (in english).
 

F....ng witch.
 

Nothing indicates that NATO wants to invoke Article 5 and escalate. Most likely, new weapons to Ukraine, maybe finally some ATACMS. The issue is that even tho NATO does not want to escalate, we cannot have a situation where Russia is normalized into striking Polish territory (accidentially or deliberately) without NATO response. So it will be interesting to see what the alliance decides upon. 

Anything coming from Russian offciials is a crap by definition. My preliminary thesis from very early reports ()bound to change): it could be that Russian missile went astray and followed by Ukrainian one. Locals told one source about 2-3 detonations.
Mind anybody with apocalyptic tendencies, that Turks shot down Russian jet with no repercussions. Different circumstances, I know, but panick many people are spreading over Twitter is really getting out of controll.
Probably AA batteries will be moved closer to the border, and supply for Ukraine increased.

they have even made merch with a sledgehammer. I think this is the level of ISIS

Given that orcs have tusks it doesnt seem all too far fetched. 

Russia manipulates the concepts of "fascism" and "Nazism" in the same way as the Soviet Union did in its time

I think that we have to be grateful that no one on the ground was killed or injured as has happened at air shows in the past.

Awful.

This guy is edging towards inexcusable, I mean...

What if
 

If it is, it is the weirdest operational trap I have seen.  I mean if the city was filled with Russian supporters /insurgents one could argue a "war to the knife" baiting.  If the RA had any possibility of operational manoeuvre on the north side of the Dnipro, maybe.  If we were talking a Stalingrad long game to pull the UA in and then cross back over the Dnipro for an encirclement later...but seriously, no.  The RA don't even have superiority of fires anymore really so a retreat so "we can smash you when you enter" doesn't match up.
Serious headscratcher on the "trap" thing to be honest.  Only thing I can think of is a nuke, but we have flogged that one to death...and the Russians don't need all the pretense, they just toss a nuke.
I honestly think it is an RA withdrawal because even their pretty dense strategic military level figured out that trying to defend from the wrong side of a river with your LOCs all shot to pieces is a bad idea.  Snow saw the fog and decided not to get eaten further in detail.
 

It should be clear that Russia can only end this war on favorable terms if it either can militarily compel Ukraine to favorable terms or if it has something Ukraine needs badly enough in exchange for same. Under neither one of these scenarios is a retreat from Kherson remotely a positive thing for the Kremlin. It puts them farther away from either of the conditions above, it stimulates Ukrainian morale, it hurts Russian morale and it shows Ukraine's backers that their aid is working. I'm sure the Kremlin will spin it and the usual suspects will swallow that spin...but the likes of Glenn Greenwald don't win your wars for you.