Kinophile

Ref Rep support in Congress - all the hysterical squawking by the MTGs of the world are irrelevant if their social-media oriented "ideas" don't make it through committee, or even past the initial vetting process. They can make announcements till the cows come home, all of it is just for reelection, to be "seen" as "fighting" without being able to actually fight - ie maneuver through the committee tangles, a fight which requires that one thing all extremists find difficult - compromise. I use her as an example of an egregiously conflicted political animal who, due to her extremist positions, has not succeeded in achieving anything of note yet makes a lot of noise, while UKR support has remained steady. There are "left wing" Democrats doing similar, she's just the most immediately recognizable. The danger is when an MTG does get onto a committee and then, even though themselves stalled, use their position to enable a follow-on MTG 2.0. Many people assume winning Congress means owning the legislative process - without knowing they'll need to then eat the barbed-wire burger that is committee process. For that reason I'm confident it'll take a long time (6 months) before there's a noticeable change in financial thresholds of support. Even then, there's a lot, a LOT the Biden Administration can do without Congress.

Interesting but why go so fancy. Id expect UKR to ratchet strap an ATGM to a heavy lift drone by the spring and start popping off T90s as they leave their FOBs.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClZEzcEgcZG/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Drone medevac is on the horizon...

I think you're describing more of a stalling defense...to be corrosive in the UKR tradition (9 months makes a tradition?) I'd expect to see a higher force ratio with a greater depth of tech and metal. Bahkmut seems very much like a mutual throat-grab rather than a higher level UKR corrosive campaign - so far. They might unleash something in a week or two. There's an idea floating (looking at you, NYT) that RUS is seeking to suck in UKR forces and weaken/prevent other UKR offensive actions. That's all well and possible, but it cuts both ways. UKR previously held the entire central portion of the frontline handily while simultaneously launching two wildly separated and successful offensives. So UKR might do better to keep holding at Bahkmut but not waste their better forces and tech in an offensive meat grinder. Hold the line, steadily HIMARS the **** out of the Wagner C&C, rebuild their expended units from Kherson/Kharkiv while corroding somewhere else - Melitopol is my preferential thinking...

This has been on my mind also. If UKR can squanch Wagner (who in no bloody way are all they crack themselves up to be) then RUS has a real crisis on their hands, and not just military. The political side goes off the wall. How will Prig "The Prig" react militarily to his up-gunned Dillinger Gang getting slobbered by HIMARS every night? What will he demand in the political sphere? How will RUS MOD react if Wagner begins to collapse, eating up resources and units? Does RUS even have the capacity to take over the Wagner front, if need be? What kind of morale hit would the RUS military suffer if Wagner is visibly defeated? What about the home front? All that said, 2nd-string TDs plus stiffening SOFs doesn't seem to presage an offensive.

You should comment and chat through twitter or personally with him. Your take is interesting and validated with RL battlefield events, while he is more repeating How It's DoneTM as per every US FM (and his own lived and valid professional experience). Not to denigrate him but the lack of note about current UKR operational approaches vis a vis preventing an approaching deadlock/stalling is worth discussing. He seems like a reasonable and approachable fellow. That is, unless US/CAN mil interactions are sorta like-

Good ol Hertling gives a look over

To summarize the winter fighting process:

Also, time didn't trying to get sheltered and warm is time not spent facing and watching the Ukrainians. Strong Ukrainian logistics this winter will be a long term force multiplier as the winter deepens,, with the converse true for Russia.

Two?!! Well lookee lookee at Mr. Fancy Pants College Boy.

A key aspect might well be the ethnic nature of the victims. The violent armies you mention all functioned within a coherent narrative of Subjugation Of The Other, by right of the ethnic superiority of the perpetrators. Within that framework what would be considered violent, heinous crimes back home (mass rape, murder of civilians, bayoneting of babies, etc) was inherently not a crime in the warzone as the acts were committed against Others, who were by definition less human than the home nationality. Horrific acts of ultraviolence against them was thus at most a misdemeanor, on par with a traffic violation back home in punishment and opprobrium. Russian military war crimes are not war crimes within the Russian social and official narrative because the violent acts are committed against an Other ethnicity, Ukrainians, who are subhuman and are themselves instinctively and helplessly violent. It's like beating a savage dog, not a human being. So using war crimes as a metric against Russian Army unit cohesion is difficult without the social context of the wider narrative of who is Other (khohols), what is allowable against them (pretty much anything) and what the punishments are (negligible). How can there be a war crime against Ukrainians if non-military violence against any Ukrainian is not a crime? If beating my neighbour to a pulp is ok with everyone I know, spoken of approvingly every day on TV and dismissed by the local policeman as no more than naughtiness, then raping his daughters is not that big a deal, right? To us the entire invasion is a crime but if it is not, if the wholesale institutional murder and violence against a clearly different ethnic group is not considered a criminal act within the Russian social narrative then how can there be any war crimes? How can there be a crime if the victim deserves it by their very existence? Adolf would be proud. I'm not inclined to think of war crimes as degrading the cohesion of the RUA, because Russian society as a whole considers violence against Ukrainians acceptable in ways that against Russians would be utterly unacceptable. The notion of Ukrainian Otherness permeates Russian social structures from top to bottom, with the Russian army being nothing but the organized, sanctioned and overt expression of "defensive" violence against that "offensive" concept. Part of the RUS Army's reason for existence is defending against Outsiders, against Others, so force cohesion is not affected by violence against Others in any shape or form. It's part of what the Russian army is, not even its "Way of War", but it's very nature as an expression of a fascist government. War crimes against Ukrainians are a function of that nature, that ideology, not a corrosion of the military force. Violence against Ukrainians as the Other is the purpose of the Russian Army.

Oh absolutely. But the situation in this video was not tied off, the UKR soldiers were not yet safe. So a group violent response to an act of "perfidy" in an extremely tense situation was inevitable. Legalities aside, that one stupid asshat put all his comrades lives at risk. Hell, the UKR on the spot don't know in that instant if the entire surrender is now a trap. By simple brutal combat logic, to ensure they live, it's a very simple decision by the UKR soldiers - open fire now, shoot anything that moves. What other combat choice do they realistically have? It's not "just in case" , it's now "all bets are off" - the situation has flipped and we're in potential mortal danger.

It clearly wasn't. It was in the final stage, sure, possibly. But until those POWs were secured nothing was finished. That's why the UKR troops were pointing weapons at them- because risk still existed and with that stupid nutjob, QED. Until your enemy is tied up, sitting down and possibly also blindfolded they are still a potential threat. History is replete with surrendering soldiers turning on their captors at the last second. Surrendering is dicey for both sides. Plus, fighting an enemy as cruel, ruthless and rules-adverse as the Russian army means UKR absolutely no cannot trust them an inch. If you mean the active combat stage had finished and surrender stage was occurring, that is too vague a transition to apply here. The situation was not fully resolved, there were still armed Russian soldiers, at least one that we see, so no, it doesn't appear that the combat stage had completed.

And a little info on Kropyva

Separately, Nord Stream blast site dive. 94 tonne pipe sections tossed 200m from Blast.

I can't tell, did they even attempt fire suppression, FWIW? Pretty chilling video.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/engineers-are-setting-up-positions-using-underground-modules/

Another 12 ceasars.

It's smart for the UA to not "slack off" at the Dniper. Cross the river and continue the "infiltrate, decimate"(tm) tactics. The Ivan desperately need a window to reorganize and rebuild, and with their successful evacuation theyve already begun that process. So UA needs to grab Em by the nuts and stay close, right in their face. Don't give them breathing room.

What are they shooting at? Infantry?

Fiiine: Crimea liberari debet.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/election-results-congress-senate-house-11-12-2022/index.html Bipartisan support or no, the facts of Democratic control of the Senate and a very slim Republican majority in the house absolutely guarantees US support and an inevitable Ukrainian victory. Even a premature death/incapacitation of Biden would do little to affect long term and sustained support. For Biden personally, I'd say beating Trump and Putin are too massive legacies he will probably look back on with unending satisfaction. Crimea delenda est.

It would be essential for UKR to have even small bridgeheads across the river before RUS forces solidify their defense. Classic soviet tactic from Bagration onwards, I believe? Have something, anythingon the far side of whichever river that 1) enemy cannot ignore and 2) you can steadily reinforce and expand from. Attacking from contested, observed and zero-d in bridgehead is still far far better than opposed amphibious attack.