Heirloom_Tomato

Please don't write another love interest fan fic like your Putin Prig love story. I don't know if we can handle it.

Please don't write another love interest fan fic like your Putin Prig love story. I don't know if we can handle it.

Please don't write another love interest fan fic like your Putin Prig love story. I don't know if we can handle it.

I am a veteran of two wars and have likely forgotten more about war and warfare than you based on your contributions to this thread.  
I see that you are taking a “self-imposed” vacation and will come back “when proven right”.  Well problem with that is that you have never really taken a clear position on anything.  At one moment you talk about “diplomacy and negotiation” the next “4 weeks to victory”.  You have not demonstrated any real research or citations in your contributions nor any level of recognizable expertise on the subject matter.  My, and other attempts, to explain are “too complicated” so you dismiss them.  Then when I sit down and actually try to unpack your position and why your assumptions are flawed, I get insults and name calling.  No facts.  No counter analysis.  Just “be quiet”.
So when you come back (and I am sure you will), what exactly constitutes you “being proven right”?  Have the courage to take a position and clearly define it and stop these politically motivated drive-bys.  The way you have ambiguously framed your position does not allow for you to be wrong.  If the war is still going on you can declare “I told you we should have negotiated/stated/invaded”.  If the war ends, you can claim it is because the US finally did whatever you were saying all along.
So I am calling you out.  Clearly give us three strategic “must dos” in order for this war to end.  Clear and measurable strategic actions the US and West must carry out in your deeply informed opinion.  Don’t weasel around it or try to build in wiggle room.  Here let me show you how it is done:
1.  Commitment to win the war. The US/West must continue to own the escalation ladder in this war.  They must continue steady, predictable and clear pressure on Russia through programmed support to Ukraine.  This commitment must be unambiguous and apolitical, we are in it until this is done.  No back doors or side deals.  No renormalization until Russia is out of Ukraine completely.  This is a slow steady path with no sudden movement as we thread a needle between uncontrolled escalation and stagnation/freezing conflict.  This is a long war of attrition and must be navigated as one…it will go slow until the RA collapses militarily or there is a major political shift in Russia.  Either way direct confrontation between US/West must be avoided at all costs - no hard fast win.  Further, victory must be clear and unambiguous as well.  No soft-wins for Russia just to end this. Russian defeat must be clear.
2.  Commitment to win post-war.  Reconstruction and post conflict defence and security mechanisms are a must.  No grey areas or open clauses.  We commit to rebuild Ukraine and pull it into a real security alliance that will guarantee long term security and investment.
3.  Engineer Russian negotiations with its own defeat.  Russia cannot become a failed state, yet it requires regime change.  That is very tricky to manage at the best of times.  A path to renormalization must be developed but it cannot ignore the egregious warcrimes and violations Russia has committed.  This will lead Russia out of being pulled entirely into a Chinese power sphere and provide some multipolar power manoeuvre room.
There you go.  I am on record with my position and advice.  Now if the US goes in hard next week and Russia withdraws with its tail between its legs I will be proven wrong.  If we can suddenly negotiate an end to this war that makes everyone happy, I was also wrong.  So what have you got?

No it wasn’t and I don’t think you need to.  It is a stupid narrative proposed either by opportunists or fools.  The time for “staring” was between 2014 and 2022 and we failed on that at every turn across the entire political spectrum.  The reasons were pretty simple - you can’t just stare, you have to be ready to back it up, and no one in the US or entire western world was going to do that for Ukraine.  The costs were simply too high on too many levels. This entire post-crisis “tough guy” narrative is a pretty oblivious ploy to try and pin the blame for this war on one side or another.  We all watched Russia doing dirty in the region and basically did nothing…in some cases we made it worse.
”But air power!”  Ok dingus, how much do you think positioning that amount of AirPower in the region would have cost?  Air power is not a magic wand, it is a massive military capability one has to surge, stage and keep at readiness levels, costing billions to do so over the timescales the “staring” would have occurred.  The bill for massive overmatch of the Russian air forces would have been (and frankly still is) very high.  Let alone if we really had to do it, and completely ignore escalation risks. Same people would be quacking about “ridiculous government spending in Ukraine” that is would have taken to actually set up “staring” - unless it was their guy in charge, which is a whole other problem.
 One is not an expert “strategist” because you can regurgitate some spin-lines dreamt up by a political ad agency. You are fool being played because it is so much easier to let someone else do all that hard thinking and make this whole complicated world so simple.  And before anyone weighs on on left or right…both sides do it so let’s just not get into that.  Best thing you can do for yourself is get a library card, read a lot of history and a wide range of political sciences/military affairs.  Do the hard work for yourself.  

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
CM uses a single core cpu, so while multi cores might be good for other games, high single core performance matters the most for CM. Find the processors you are looking at in the pre-built rigs in the list above and choose the one with the best performance. 

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
CM uses a single core cpu, so while multi cores might be good for other games, high single core performance matters the most for CM. Find the processors you are looking at in the pre-built rigs in the list above and choose the one with the best performance. 

Fascinating insights into NATO training for Ukraine; what worked and what didn't.
https://twitter.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1699193558685618235
 

Personally, I didn't think the guns were too tight to begin with. There are trade-offs with everything, obviously, and with a gun position you want it to be as dispersed as possible, and no more.
Arguing for wider dispersion is the counter-battery threat, which itself varies by enemy, operational situation, tactical situation, and terrain. In general, the Ukrainians seem to have been following an active CB policy (ie, going after Russian artillery assets whenever they get a chance) over the last ... year? But it is unlikely that policy is consistent across the entire front, due to a lack of ammo, deception measures, and lack of sufficient CB C2 infrastructure everywhere. But as a rule of thumb, I expect the Russians would probably want to be more dispersed than perhaps their doctrine would suggest.
Arguing against wider dispersion are a bunch of factors.
Local defence - I'm not sure how porous the front is, or how often Ukrainian raiding parties are hitting battery positions, but a small tight position is MUCH easier to defend against a ground threat that a dispersed position.
Fire mission command and control - in my experience, each section (2 guns) is managed by a junior officer, and he has to keep shuttling between his guns to ensure they are doing the right things in the right way (bearing and elevation is correct, correct ammo, charge and fuse, etc). If the position becomes too dispersed, either those firing checks have to be reduced or overlooked (with consequent increase in risk), or the pace of fire missions drastically reduced. That's on top of the points @BlackMoria made about limited wire and/or radios. A lot of this can be mitigated with fancy-pants new kit, but these are D-30s. I doubt they are very fancy-pants, and I expect they are using methods and equipment that a gunner from the 1980s would feel intimately familiar with.
Terrain - @BlackMoria has noted that this clearing is quite small, which is true, but FWIW to my eye it doesn't appear to be too small for the number of guns being employed*. It's really hard to eyeball, but it looks to be at least 50m between guns, which is a pretty standard dispersion. Also, the entire clearing isn't available for use due to cresting issues with the surrounding trees - get too close to the trees at the front edge of the clearing and you can't safely depress the barrels enough to engage targets - you'd be firing rounds through the trees just in front of you and, um, that's a really bad idea. That's also why you can't just hide your guns in the forest to begin with.
Edit to add: Terrain part 2 - we can't see the wider area around this position. It could concievably be that this is the only, or one of the few, practical positions for this battery to be. Aside from out in the desert, the battlespace rapidly gets clogged up by all the things you want to be there - ammo and logistics dumps, engineer stores dumps, artillery areas, medical areas, helicopter landing zones, reserve fighting positions, staging areas for units moving forwards and backwards, maintenance area, routes for stuff moving forwards, backwards, and sideways, etc. Given that this area also seems to be heavily wooded and sparsely tracked**, there just mightn't be any other good spots for the guns to be, and the battlespace managers at the higher HQ haven't given this battery commander enough ground to be able to disperse they way he might want to.
 
Interestingly, there seems to be only three guns in this battery. I wonder where the fourth is? I'm guessing it is out of action - either broken, or perhaps destroyed in a previous CB engagement - although it could jut be tucked away somewhere out of sight.
Also, the CB mission as shown seemed focused on the guns themselves, which is fair enough because that's what the unaided eye (or drone cam) can see. But somewhere, not too far away - probably within 100m of the centre gun - is a command post. It's a shame they couldn't identify and target that either instead of one of the guns, or in addition to all of the guns. There is probably also an echelon park nearby - probably not more than 200-500m from the command post - with a bunch of trucks and mechanics and technical equipment and other paraphernalia. Replacing a couple of guns is hard. Replacing a couple of guns AND all that other junk, along with the training of the specialists you find there, is really hard.
 
* although, I suppose you could argue that it really was too small, given that all three guns seem to have been taken out. On the other hand, the Ukrainians seemed to be adjusting between the three guns as if they were three point targets. At that point it wouldn't have mattered if the guns were twice, thrice, or ten times as far apart - once the enemy gunners have the intel and time to accurately adjust between your positions you're screwed, regardless of dispersion. It doesn't matter whether that's a battery of guns or a dug in platoon.
** artillery units need access to good routes - ammo is heavy, and in a sustained battle an artillery unit needs a LOT of trucks coming and going to keep it fed.

Lol!

https://imgur.com/gallery/WcprcQ5
A good joke for this thread.

https://imgur.com/gallery/WcprcQ5
A good joke for this thread.

https://imgur.com/gallery/WcprcQ5
A good joke for this thread.

https://imgur.com/gallery/WcprcQ5
A good joke for this thread.

Re: possible insurgency
1. First off, as Steve already said, things can theoretically happen. We're talking about the most likely scenario. Anyone who predicts future with 100% certainty is a fraud.
2. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of bad blood. Just as you saw a lot of Crimeans genuinely cheering up and supporting the invaders in 2014, the Crimeans saw people on mainland Ukraine cheer powerlines being blown up as 2 million people plunged into darkness, water channel being cut off, the roads being blocked for cargo traffic, with all the little nasty consequences that were actually physically felt here. The reactionary post-2014 policies, laws and rethoric weren't great either. But compared to all the mayhem what's been happening since Feb 2022, this is nothing. And people are TIRED of chaos, flying jets, drones, explosions and death. Those who are currently in the trenches or came from there are tired as well.
3. What would be "the cause" to rally behind? They can't even formulate victory conditions for the current war. Nor can they achieve anything significant, with all their men and equipment in the field. Rallying (who, civilians?) to do something a huge army can't do? That requires guts and there's none. Only stupidity and hubris. They are unable to say NO when told to do something stupid or illegal. Saying no requires guts.
4. You need to understand the reality on the ground. Pretty much all Crimeans who haven't left have Russian passports. What, 1.5-2 million people? Myself included. Because living here without one is practically impossible. Hell, I know Crimeans who left and are currently on mainland Ukraine that also have Russian passports, issued in Crimea in 2014 (illegaly, obviously). For Ukrainian government to take back control, they'll have to deal with it somehow. And bunch of other documents. There's already been laws and decrees passed aimed to make the transition back as painless as possible. There's a whole ministry that's dealing with issues like these. Refer to Ministry of Reintegration sources for more information.
5. That being said, it's been nine years, and nobody can pretict how much more time will pass before that. It can happen in two months, or in two years, or in ten. And with every single day, people are growing more tired. They are trying as hard as they can not to notice what's happening now. And there's no land warfare close by yet. When it comes, they'll have much more incentive to make it stop ASAP.
 
Re: how am I doing?
My life isn't as horrible as for some others out there. But things can change literally any minute, as for everybody else in the region. So I am trying to live in the moment while I can.
For those who don't know, I tried to get to Estonia via St.Petersburg back in September. Before Feb 2022, it was illegal (by Ukrainian laws) thing to do. I managed to contact some Ukrainian officials and learned that it is okay during the war, if your purpose is to leave the occupied areas/Russia.
But, as I also have Russian passport (issued locally after 2014, and almost impossible to get rid of without being put into danger), Russia views me as Russian citizen first, and by their laws, I had to get foreign travel passport in order to leave. I did that, and it took time. I also had to prepare money and other affairs. Thus I managed to get to the Estonian border only in September. My thinking was that it would be safer to deal with Russian documents after I cross the border, not before.
I knew that Russian passports issued in Crimea are not recognized by the EU. My Ukrainian foreign travel passport was outdated by that point. The rules are: you can apply for asylum if you have no valid travel documents. But when I got to the border, Estonian police and border guard told me that everything is fine with my Russian passport (the travel document I had to use to leave the Russian side of the border, because Russian laws) and thus I cannot ask for an asylum.
I told them many things about myself, and that I would be in danger if I return, but they did not care. They were angry and not cooperative, unwilling to listen. They blamed me for not coming sooner and for other things I had no control over. That night at the border is something that still haunts me to this day. Being rejected by the people who you considered to be good and being sent back to modern day neo-USSR. And there are things that I am not telling you here, because it is dangerous...
Anyway.. I came to St.Petersburg. Got seriously ill. Still, I got tickets to Vladikavkaz in order to try crossing into Georgia. But soon I found a lot of info online that told me the same story would happen there as well. There were no other good alternatives that came to my mind. Going somewhere else eastward wasn't looking like a good idea either, legally, logistically and for other reasons.
At that time, my little sister was still in Crimea. I've decided to come back here and deal with whatever happens to all of us together. Since then, there was a harsh winter without work. Serious depression, from which I barely managed to recover on my own, without meds or therapist. The dangers that are lurking out there are real. But I know who I am and what I stand for, and where my allegiance is.
Most importantly, I know that the bastards have already lost. I knew that back in Feb 2022. They will not succeed, no matter what happens to me personally. They can't do anything good in this world, and there's no "winning" for them in any shape or form.
I've stopped working on my Unity dev career for now. I tried to find some remote work, but failed and had to return back to working in a store. I do see a future where things go at least a little bit better. But for that to happen, a lot of people have to put in a lot of effort. There's nothing free, and freedom itself is not free. We all have to work for it.
Alright, I've already said much more than I should've. Over and out.

I wonder, how our diversion group could land to destroy radar site, if it located from the side of cliffs, where no place to land personnel?
This is typical landscape of Tarkhankut from the south, closesest place to radar site
 
Possible landing zones only on northern part, were the beach and camping and from the west, where lighthouse, village Mayak and barrack of radar personnel. More lileky this could be a raid on barrack. But maybe later some video will appear.

The Ukrainians are trying to use "something" like this by sappers (in the rear) who are clearing the fields of mines. Supposedly quite effective when undetected and stepped on mines such as the PFM-1, which contain only 40g of explosive, but you can lose a leg if you step on it.
 

Reportedly both bridges were attacked - Chonhar and Henichesk. Early Henichesk bridge was closed for civilian passing and used for military movement. 

Allegedly damages on Chonhar bridge

Henichesk bridge. Video of impact and photo of results - the flame on background is of gas pipe 

 
A few moments before. A SCALP missile on the bridge with personal autograph of Zelenskiy )

An interesting and educational video recently released by Veritasium on fireworks illustrates the impact of confining an explosive quite nicely (see around 6-8 minutes and the 12:34)
 

Of course, Slavic settelmnent names are like abrakadabra for western readers, especially if it has more that 15 letters ))), but yes each name of city, town and village can be roughly translated in English. 
Urozhayne is adjective, so it better to translate not like "harvest", but "fruitful"  ) Though, of course geographical names aren't translated, even partilly like Velyka Novosilka can't be Large Novosilka ) - full rough translated name will be "Large Newcomerville" )
Typical Ukrainian village or rarely setlement/town name has ending -(il/in/ian/iv)ka. Then this in noun. It consists from some significant part and the ending. This "-ka" usually means founding /belonging/first settlers name/name originated from some charakter - so, for example Ivanivka - "Ivan's village", "originated from Ivan", "belonged to Ivan" or Dubivka - "originated from oaks".  Nesterianka - "originated from Nestor"
Some villages and towns rarely have only significant word, without ending.  For example Kopani  - old Ukrainian word "Kopan' ", means "the pit for keeping a water or the well without the frame", so it translated like "Waterpits", or Lyman - despite this word is equal to "liman, firth" for Donbas it has local means "the lake". Or Tokmak - name derived from name of the river Tokmak, which has turk origins means "poll/butt"
Many villages have endings in the names "-le", "-ne", "-te", "-s'ke", "-ve", "-che" and then this is just adjectives. Verbove - from "verba" ("willow"). Sometime it has means of belongings like "-ka". If Ivanivka is "originated from Ivan", that "Ivanivs'ke" is "belonging to Ivan". Robotyne, btw, it more similar to the noun - it's from the word "work", so maybe "place of [field] work", but I think it likely was initially Russian name "Rabotino" more typical for Russian names, which was just translated on Ukrainian manner.   

One would think that totalitarian empire keeping largest mechanized force on this planet in constant readiness for 45 years, with only one goal in mind- offensive (preferably over nuked battlefield), would be enough to convince some people Russians indeed were/are a threat to the West as well. This studio even made entire game about it.
Just to give addendum to previous discussion about validity of muscovite danger. Since perhaps many viewers of this forum not reading Russian are not familiar with state of collective current Russian psyche, as expressed in myriads of their TV channels, internet discussons on media platforms as well as in private conversations, it is worth to reitorate how things stand now:
1. Large swath of population seems to be convinced they already wage kinetic war with NATO, but limited in scope to Ukraine. Kinetic, not just proxy- NATO officers and special forces are everywhere in banderistan, according to them. This notion is far more widespread than just core nationalists; it is common among less literate strata of population, probably a minority but still large, maybe 20-40% overall (no hard and undisputable sociological data make assessment difficult). But surely many more than 50% are at least convinced this is purely defensive (= rightous or even holy) war ont heir behalf that West started, though. For quite many Russians hot "war with NATO", even if geographically limited*, wouldn't be totally new quality, but just formalization of current state of affairs. Many would probably even be relieved in that case- mental blocks nurished by propaganda of Great War for motherland, heroic soldiers, imagined social solidarity would finally fit in right place. It is minority of population, but growing.
*Yes- basically CMBS setting.
2. I don't even enumerate soft actions like spy attacks, use of nerve agents on foreign soil (let's count this as "Whoopsie..."), countless provocation by planes and ships, political meddling, etc. Many of them in other historical context, and with actors less patient than the Western states, could lead to war by themselves.
3. They made artificial flood on largest river in Europe, stationed tanks in the centre of Chernobyl zone and are possibly not far from considering blowing another nuclear power plant.
4. Western Europe in popular Russian imagination (especially older generations) starts on Elbe, not even Odra river. Just a reminder for our German friends. Reason? Beginning of this post. ^
5. Again, perhaps many people are unfamiliar with Russian media (or understandably unwilling to dive in this sewer)- potentiall use of WMD was long ago inernalized and is opnely being discussed daily. To the point they have special programms in public TV (with folks who claim to personally dine with the Tsar) dedicated only to this issue of "preventive" nuclear attacks, with real specialists discussing potentiall fallout, how many nukes would be needed to blow off Amsterdam, Hague ("Hehe, you know why..."  as Skabaieva once giggled joyously with her guests) or London. Highest Russian officials, including twice the president of this country, routinely throw their nuclear phantasies publically. Public, sory for words, intellectual mastrubation with Cossacs drinking their horses in Paris 200 years ago or Soviet Army soldiers "teaching German women proper behaviour" in 1945 are part of very normal, mainstream discourse now.
Now of course this is internal game and a pose to bargain something, one could say; they surely really don't mean it, right? Perhaps. But sole fact that nuclear devastation became a casual topic they are very proud upon, touched even during morning breakfast with kids or being shared by Russian teenagers with girlfriends in chats, should make us much more worried of Russia than we did for last 30 years. I am pretty sure many professional people dealing with MAD in Washington and other places are scratching their heads how to proprely assess what is real in this nev environment, and how to differentiate between real and token danger. Muscovia AD 2023 is much less predicatble even than late Soviet Union in this respect. Especially after we saw how its internal system of power is vulerable in last months.
So yeah- even if you live in charming Provence countryside, well-connected commercial megalopolis like Amsterdam/London/Berlin or some Greek island- it doesn't matter, Russian madness and never satisfacted urge to being proper Empire can reach you in various ways.  Don't fool yourself folks; there are many more ways to do this than just conventional military power.
 
Sorry for long post. As a bonus, clip of Kornets bouncing off of Leopards 2A6 :
 

The problem is we might actually be in a perpetual world war, we just don't fully realise this yet. I admit, my feelings and thoughts are a bit hawkish on this matter. 
It is not a conventional war for sure. It might never end up as another one after Ukraine, or it might. But it is already going and and it is not a war the vast majority of the Western peoples and their governments are even acknowledging that they are involved in.
The West and our democratic systems have an enormous amount of self-made problems we need to solve and plenty of moral flaws. 
But the alternative that is currently trying to flip as many government around to globe to its side is one of completely nihilistic exploitation at best or one of ethno-fascist state ideology at worst. The question whether Putin, Xi, Kim Un, the Iranian regime or Assad and their apparatuses and followers will do completely unspeakable things to anyone in this forum and our families is not one of morals to them - it is merely one of whether it is useful to them and whether they have the  opportunity to do it and maybe to get away with it.
There has been an embarrassing but small social media campaign a while ago in Germany of people from the right-populist to neo-fascist spectrum adopting pfps with a Russian flag and a message like "I'm not at war with Russia" or "I am a friend of the Russian people", which was sparked after a comment of the German foreign affairs secretary describing Germany or the West to be "at war" with Russia (diplomatically wrong and it might have been just a side comment, but it might also hint at her actually having a deeper understanding of the situation at large).
I could only think at how many of these people would end up if Russia established a regime just like in the occupied zones in Ukraine in Germany. "This must be a mistake, I called NATO bad on twitter" - "You have a nice daughter, German. And now dig the f*ing hole."
It is a new cold world war between "the worst system of government except for all other systems" and "the difference between you and the Uyghurs is that the Uyghurs are handily in reach of the CCP, but Xi promised the next illegal Chinese police station will come to a port city near you shortly", with Russia and China pouring enormous amounts of resources into psyops, cyber, social networking and industrial espionage. Information warfare which makes their own populations and the populations of their enemies forget the extent of their own crimes and massacres. People openly clamour that the Tianamen Square massacre is a Western psyop and don't forget one million dead Russian babies in Donbass CNN is telling you nothing about.
Look how we in this forum needed to brainstorm for a bit to remind ourselves what Russia has actually done in the past. Blatant murders of journalists and dissidents, in our own countries, while grinning into our faces. China just put out bounties for the heads of dissidents from HongKong. The next polonium tea is green. 
All of it fields in which the West is currently not able and/or not willing to compete in, and/or largely unable to defend itself against. And every country in Asia, Africa, America and Europe that is flipped through corruption, military support and propping up dictators will make economic sanctions more toothless, and the global order more hollow, turning their societies isolationist to achieve Schmittian multipolarity, or blocking decisions in entities like NATO, EU or UN. 
It very much does look like a global underhanded war of systems to me.
There is nothing in history that says things always have to improve or that the Western Man is the rightful God-given owner of global power, and thank goodness we majorly don't believe in the latter anymore. But I always hoped whichever hegemony eventually replaces the West would be more or at least equally humane, not gleefully more cruel. And I don't think a hope like that is a bad thing to work towards.
 

Damn. It's very bad. Chief sergeant of 47h mech.brigade Valeriy Markus blamed command of brigade in incompetence and wrote a report to move him on lower duty of squad leader. 
This is real scandal, because Markus is a "face", "frontman" and "PR-manager" of this brigade, who was one of founders of this unit as far as it was 47th separate rifle battalion. He was in the list of Forbes Ukriane among most influent military of Ukraine, he is founder of charity fund "Markus Fundation"
In order to you could understand why this is bad, I have to tell about Valeriy Markus and history of 47th mech. brigade "Magura". 
29 y.o. Markus is very popular in Ukriane - he fought in ATO from 2014 to 2016, he passed a hell of Shakhtarsk battle with 25th airborne brigade. His popularity came to him via his Facebook - his posts were always true and wise. He got heavy shell-shock and was forced to retire from service. He fought with heavy PTSR via sport and travelling and became a classical "self-made man". He wrote a book about his life and war "The traces on the road" (as Valeriy Ananyev - later he changed his surname), which became bestseller and beat up circullations of all modern Ukrainian writers, causing sometime envy and hatred from their side to the "upstart"
Markus is one of servicemen, who promoted a question of strong sergeant corps establishment in Ukrainian army as an earnest of effectiveness. Despite he was retired, his popularity allowed him to have aquintances with influent military and civill volunteers, which promoted the same thoughts. In 2023 his open lection to sergeants of 47th brigade in Youtube got 1 million reviews.   
When the war began, Markus returned to army and some time served as recon in 30th mech.brigade. In April 2022 high command (Markus likely has good relationships with Zaluzhnyi) offered to him to participate in forming of 47th separate rifle battalion, where he got a duty chief sergeant of battalion. The unit fought, defending Svitlodarsk, after Russians brokethrough Popasna front. 
Ideas of Markus and some officers about creation of modern effective large unit, free from old Soviet s...t, found the response of High Command and in Autumn there was announced about forming of 47th assault regiment (since Novenber 2022 - brigade). According to idea of Markus and his like-minded people, the unit should have been free from сasual people. Only competitive selection, only volunteers with leadership, motivation, readiness to learn and fight. Enlistment points of regiment were gathering many people, many servicemen wanted to transfer to "Markus brigade". But... something go wrong as later wrote Markus himself. Either General Staff, or MoD decided by unknown reasons to finish this "experiment" and to brigade were directed enough officers and personnel, which didn't  match to initial requirements. Yes, most command of brigade almost all was taken from famous 93rd mech.brigade. Brigade commander lt.colonel Oleksandr Sak "Staff" is a youngest brigade commander in UKR army - he is 28 y.o. He fought since 2015, has four injuries. Thanking to Markus PR the brigade became so popular like Azov or 3rd assault brigade. All expected a miracle from the unit, which have been training more that 8 months and got modern equipment. 
And now THIS. Translation of Markus report. 
Tweet: 
I categorically don't agree with decisions about usage and development of 47th brigade. We were not allowed to build a muilitary unit, according to our values, which we declared at the beginning of forming. I havn't more any opportunity to influence on situation or change it. I no longer consider my tenure of chief sergeant to be expedient. I can't abandon my people, so I go on lower duty by my own will in order to be closer to them on the battlefield. 
Report:
 
Because of systematical humilitation of brigade's sergeant corps work, of misunderstanding by brigade command an importance of fighters moral spirit for effective tasks acomplishing, because of absence of punishment for <self-censored> and incompetence of persons of highest officer corps of brigade, rejection and sabotaging traditions and mythiology of brigade on all levels of officers chain, because of absence of the will of brigade's command to protect interests of brigade in front of higher command, I ask you to transfer me, chief sergeant of 47th brigade Valeriy Markus to lower duty of combat vehicle commander - the leader of mech.squad of mech.platoon of x mech.comapny of  x mech.battalion.
Also valid reporting, that by my opinion, the deputy commander of 47th brigade major Ivan Shalamaha is immorale degenerate, being with which in one team humilitates my honor and dignity. 
 
 
It's will be very interesting about reaction of Zaluzhnyi. Because in Ukrianian social network already holywar is setting on fire...

Well it kinda does change the rationale.  The fact that you are seeing this as a hard "pro" or "against" DPICM situation is evidence that this entire thing has been hijacked by slippery principle as opposed to reality.  I for one am highly against the use of DPICM in urban areas on a low-level conflict/counter insurgency, such as Southern Lebanon.  I am, however, for their legal use in Southern Ukraine when the UA is running out of ammunition and needs to sustain an offensive to keep momentum or risk stalling out into a frozen conflict.  See that?  I can actually have two opposed opinions on the use of these weapons based on context.  Anyone who is able to do that is living in the real world as we try and balance the hope and desperation.
If, however, one stands on principle regardless of context, then they are "pearl clutching" and being self-righteous in my opinion.  Tossing around "but the children!" arguments that lead to hypocritical cul de sacs is just as bad as blood thirsty genocidal sentiments we have also clamped down on.  Of course being someone who has had spent their adult life going out into the world and dealing with the worst while 99.9% of my home population is more worried about whether Taylor Swift is going to do a concert in Toronto has likely jaded me somewhat.

Not that anyone had any doubts, but it is good to hear that russia spoke it out in front of the world. Wagner is the state terror organization of russia. So all atrocities of Wagner are atrocities committed by the russian state.