Der Zeitgeist

It's like I said several times already. Germany is scared of "Alleingänge". If you want weapons from them, increase the pressure until not delivering stuff becomes the "Alleingang".

But did he even say that? We need a better source than this account, which often posts outright disinformation.

Outside your preferred timeframe, but anyway: I greatly enjoyed reading "The Billion Dollar Spy" by David E. Hoffmann, which tells the story of Adolf Tolkachev, a Soviet engineer who worked as a CIA agent in the early 80s and gave up detailed information about various Soviet missile and radar systems.

I must say, on the entire nuclear issue: One good thing this war has shown is that nukes don't help. Sure, they can prevent the West from directly intervening, but they don't help you win a war by themselves. You can be the strongest nuclear power on earth but in the end, it's all just useless holes in the ground with missiles and warheads in them, a huge waste of money and resources with no military application whatsoever, even in the greatest war your country has ever fought.

These are 9M22S thermite incendiary munitions, fired by Grad MRLs. Russia used these in Syria and also in Ukraine. Not sure if any uses by the Ukrainian army have been documented so far.

That's an overspecific denial.

Especially with the war still running and Putin still in power. I don't think we ever had a constellation like this with war crime trials before. Not much they can do about it, though. Can't exactly invade the Netherlands.

Just like in Lord of the Rings, how they filmed Gandalf and Bilbo with these forced perspective tricks.

It's a message.

Hmmm, interesting. Our government didn't announce yet when they were supposed to arrive.

I think it's more likely they'll go for sabotage actions against the energy sector. We already had the unexplained explosion at the LNG terminal in Freeport, Texas, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more "incidents" like this when the European energy crisis really starts during the winter.

This. I like to bring up this leaflet the Royal Air Force dropped over Germany during WW2. "Remember with every bomb: Hitler started this war." (The German version rhymes more nicely, though.)

This "both sides" whataboutism is entirely pointless in a war where one side is engaged in an aggressive war of conquest against a defending neighbouring country. It's a useless distraction, and a transparent attempt to create moral equivalency where no such thing can exist.

I was going to say, my linear artillery missions in CM are never as accurate as this one.

Maybe they promised us Klitschko as new Ambassador to Germany.

Reznikov apparently had a conversation with German MoD Lambrecht today. Maybe something was agreed on there.

The "Visegrad24" account is mostly about bashing Western Europe (especially Germany) from an Eastern Europe (especially Polish, and specifically PiS/Fidesz-party) perspective. It tries very hard to look like a reputable online news site, but it's actually an account that mostly posted pro-PiS and pro-Orban propaganda before the war.

I guess it simply isn't all that easy to do. They had some success with sabotage teams blowing up some bridges and embankments a few months ago, but it takes some serious munitions to cut a rail line via air or missile attack. Maybe if they get unitary ATACMs, who knows....

There were some interesting discussions about this on Twitter. A big factor seems to be the complete lack of mechanization and containerization in their logistics. They don't even use pallets most of the time, so everything gets carried around by hand. Also, they're highly dependent on rail trainsport. Taken together, this all leads to these huge centralised depot locations.

That casualty count might be accurate and seems to match with the pictures and videos from the scene around the explosion (some collapsed buildings, lots of broken glass in the apartment blocks). There were probably a lot of people injured who were watching from their windows and then hit by the blast wave.

Looks like Reznikov was right.

The German military put another video up with the commander of the German artillery school in Idar-Oberstein, providing some insights into the training of the Ukrainians on the PzH 2000. Unfortunately only in German: Some notable details: The Ukrainians were trained in Germany using their own app-based fire direction systems. The guys getting trained were all from active artillery units that were already engaged in combat. There is ongoing contact between the Ukrainian PzH 2000 battalion now engaged in combat and the Germans. So far, they were quite successful, particularly with the SMArt 155 munitions, and the PzH 2000 were also hit with counter-battery fire a few times already, without much damage, apparently. One challenge was memorizing the computerized fire control systems on the PzH 2000 in a foreign language. Some labels inside the vehicle were taped over with cyrillic markings. One problem is the big variety of systems that Ukraine is now receiving from the West, that all have different tactical considerations, training aspects and logistical footprint. The different Western 155mm systems use different types of munition, that are not necessarily compatible, because the fire control systems inside the different guns are configured to particular munitions. To help with that, the Ukrainian PzH 2000 received a software update with the ballistics data of all the different 155mm types now available to Ukraine (German, French, Czech, Polish, US...)

I completely disagree. All it takes is one ignorant article in a tabloid or wherever and BFC could be in a world of hurt. Selling DLC with a Russian campaign that lets the consumer play the Invasion of Ukraine might even be construed as supporting a war of aggression in some countries (like Germany), which could lead to serious legal troubles, a ban on sales, or anything else that a small company wouldn't want to take a chance with.

I think from the Russian perspective, it's pretty simple. Taking Severodonetsk and Lysychansk completes the political objective of "liberating" the entire "Luhansk People's Republic". With the entire Oblast now taken, they can move towards setting up administrations, hold elections or whatever else they might want to do with it.

Yes, I needed a bit of a "vacation", so to speak and got out of the constant drumbeat of Twitter, Telegram, Discord and forum threads about the war for a month or so. I highly recommend it to clear one's head.