kluge

I understand that "Marine" is actually an acronym: 
Marines
Always
Ride
In
Navy
Equipment

 

This will not be very informative to such a group as this but I enjoyed it hearing from Mr. Glantz.
 

He is a fan of ISW and prints out the daily reports.

It would also be no surprise to me if UA pilots had started training months ago and it was only announced because some indication got out that it was happening.

The quote about mortar ammunition provides an interesting new angle to the discussion why the Ukrainians decided against retreating from Bakhmut and whether it was worth it. Perhaps it was not about attrition of personnel and achieving a favourable casualty ratio as much as about making RUS burn through ammunition before the offensive. The ammo expenditure ratios must have been been much bigger among RUS. According to the reports from the last stage of the siege, they reverted to house by house demolition by artillery and glide bombs, using up ammunition without any constraints.
BTW, the Ukrainians are reporting crazy numbers of destroyed RUS artillery. Yesterday it was 40/day or something similar. It used to be 1/10th of that number earlier in this war. Any ideas what happened and if those figures are  at all reliable?
 

Probably this. If the drones are the cause, then this is a very important observation. In trench warfare there is the phenomenon of "race to the parapet", i.e. the attacker tries to suppress the defender with artillery, but the barrage has to lift some time, and then whoever is first at the parapet of the trench either bombs the defender emerging from his dugouts with grenades, or shoots the attackers in the open. If the defender can be driven away from the trenches and into shelters by drones, the race is unwinnable for him. As opposed to artillery barrage, the drones can stop lobbing grenades into the trench when the attackers are just a few metres from it. And there is no need to spend thousands of artillery shells to achieve this!

1+2+3+4+5+6+7 = 8.  
This raid has the hallmarks of strategic shaping, but shaping takes time and effort.  Uncertainty has been projected upon Russia, how much and how intensely remains a question.  Russian intelligence likely has been aware of this troublesome border region for a long time, people do not suddenly decide to become disenfranchised.  But this was an overt attack in broad daylight that is going to create pressures, most of them negative - this raid just undecided the integrity of Russian Ukrainian border, that alone is going to induce a response even if it is below the waterline.
War is communication and Ukraine just signalled that it is willing to support back door resistance within Russia, and it was very likely backed, at least indirectly, by western powers - does anyone think we did not know this was in motion?  Communication, once received and processed, shapes perception. Perception drives action/reaction.  War is also certainty, so communication and certainty are in constant tension with perception in between.
And Russia has a lot of back doors.

Are we sure that's a "get me the hell out of here" traffic jam, and not just "normal Monday morning rush hour in Belgorod" traffic jam?

Beating my usual drum on this...I would suggest that what is militarily sound will take a back seat to what is politically necessary in Moscow. That goes beyond what Girkin and his ilk commentate and gets at who can knife who to Putin. If events in Belgogrod get embarrassing enough...and it's already pretty embarrassing for the Kremlin that it had to threaten to nuke it's own city to defend the Motherland...you will see the political necessities diverting efforts better spent elsewhere. As the Capt likes to say...war is communication...and this war has consistently been about communicating to Russians that their reactionary dictatorship isn't going anywhere.

Maybe in the next aid package they can include funding for a Black Sea module - "Civil war in Russia".  With BFs track record that might be enough to push Putin over the edge.

This is very important issue.
I also don't think Russian command will be stupid enough to take the bait and relocate frontline forces toward the border- at least judging by milbloggers, they are perfectly aware why Ukraine is conducting this kind of operations, so will probably keep their cards close to them, just in case. Unless highest political factor would kick in, which isn't impossible. Or maybe they will try to create some air-mobile counter force for quick deployment.
But inter-service rivalry between various Russian state organizations may rage up even more. Already, in the words of one of our russianists (guys who deal with Russia, but not from military standpoint) in Russian popular narrations there are more visible accusations of treason/bribery between supporters of various groups, reminescent of Budionnovsk security failures, which reportedly sits deeply inside Russian collective psyche as a symbol. References to these events are appearing more oftne than 6 months ago.
She suggested that for example one of most popular versions of events when 4 airframes were shot down lately is still "Ukrainian sabotage groups with manpads", and it is because it can be used by various coteries in Russia to internal blame game (note, nobody was captured afterwards not any such group eliminated as far as we know). Budionnovsk and similar events also brings memories of blatant corruption and treason.
Today's attack can also be framed along those lines (if we read Girkinoids carefully)- somebody bought somebody, competences between military, security and police operation get blurred. That may also be Ukraine win in longer term, as muscovite psyche was always susceptible to this kind of disbelief in own instiitutions.
 

So reportedly Ukrainians captured a R-330Zh „Zhitel”” EW/ satellite jamming set, in it’s absolutely newest version during todays raid…
 

Do you know the source? 7k seems very large for this kind of operation, basically 2 brigades equivalent, while most analytics here seem to compare it more to commando raid. So rather around batalion size, maybe even less.
 
Ok, no end of this feast:
 

There is no way this can be more interesting than what is going on in Belgorod.

Ganz is a cantankerous old man (he's 30, I think) who has read virtually everything and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the antecedents, history and current manifestations of the reactionary right. He comes from the left but his analyses are unfettered by ideological shackles. Strongly suggest everything he writes on Dreyfuss, the Second Republic and the February 1934 riots in Paris as they inform much of our current experience.

If the reported forces are broadly correct, it seems too large and well equipped to be a raid  and too small to be a serious attempt to hold a significant piece of territory indefinitely,  so the implication has to be that they want to hold it just to compel Russia to assemble enough combat power to evict them,  and then get out before the counter punch lands.

Putin: how 3-day SMO is going?
Shoigu: Russians are advancing!
Putin: Where?
Shoigu: to Belgorod

Always appropriate themes for this war.
Ok, we laughed, now get back to serious business.😎

I think some people on this thread had this listed as a serious risk for about a year now.  A Russia in free fall could definitely see Putin lobbing WMDs at his own people.  And then someone is going to get their hands on WNDs and start lobbing them at Putin.  Before you know it the damn things are swinging everywhere.
"Well so long as they stay in Russia, why do we care?"
Because they won't.

It would be difficult to find a part of the front that is more distant on exterior lines from where the big fight is likely to be and it's being done in a way that Russia, caught up in the coils of its own propaganda, cannot ignore. Somebody in Kyiv decided to demonstrate the concept of initiative in the most humiliating way possible for Moscow.

So this is what shaping looks like.  If true, this would be a very effective way to get Russian forces moving away from the areas of a planned major offensive.  Indirect approach of employing Russian insurgents is a brilliant stroke, a proxy war within a proxy war.  Not sure if this is just hopeful rumor but we could be seeing the start of the offensive.

Here is the full document: https://static.rusi.org/403-SR-Russian-Tactics-web-final.pdf
First time I have heard any credible reporting that the RA is capable of intercepting HIMARs - albeit within a pretty narrow context.  All other sources of RA AD on HIMARs is a cesspool of Russian propaganda.
However, a lot of this report does ring true on what needs to be prioritized in supporting the UA - and it is not tanks or F16s.  It is artillery, counter-battery specifically along with ammunition. EW - particularly C-UAS. Assault Engineering. And training.
The authors themselves put a lot of provisos up front. What is curious is that if the RA has solved for a lot of UA capability, then why have they continued to fail on the offence?  For example if thermal camouflage is so effective then why are Russian tanks still staying back kms?  If they have created advanced tactical C4ISR networks, why are those tactical units still unable to really make gains?
Of course the UA, which is the primary source of the information of this report are not stupid.  It is in their best interest to emphasize the challenges in order to build up sufficient support for the upcoming offensive.  I would not accuse the interviewed pers of outright lying but emphasis in a certain direction does make a lot of sense. I recall hearing similar stories back last summer as well.
One way or the other we are going to find out just how robust the RA defence is or is not. I strongly suspect the RA is as capable as described in this report, however, only in selected and prioritized locations.  That is a massive frontage that they are trying to hold with a severely mauled force. The ability to create and sustain a massive HIMARs-proof wall of AD in depth along a 850km frontage is highly doubtful. As is an ability to sustain indirect fires superiority, everywhere.
Now if Russia is able to do this, however, it can only do it on static defence.  And if the UA cannot crack it.  Well we truly have entered into a defensive warfare primacy era.  Corrosive warfare for the UA will have been blunted and we are back to slow grinding attrition that could take years.  Personally, I do not believe this is the case.  Too many signs of systemic failures within the Russian military machine. I also do not see the RA able to match or cope with Ukrainian C4ISR superiority at operational and strategic levels.  
Out of all of this the largest threat is evolution of Russian AD - if the RA can start to create scions of Iron Dome then a key pillar of the UA capability suite starts to fail - long range precision fires.  If that goes, then the ability to interdict LOCs/C-moves, hit RA C2 nodes and hammer logistics becomes challenged.  So I am not sure what advanced SEAD capabilities we have in the back but I would start shouting about them far more than tanks, F-whatever’s and better missiles.  That and other long range systems that RA AD cannot solve for, like stealth mesh net drone swarms.
The authors also hit on the primacy of evolving tactics and training.  The problem here is that the west doesn’t have that.  We have our tactics and training, of which there is little proof of their effectiveness on these battlefields. The experts on whatever this war has turned into are in the UA fighting it.  We can support them on the basics, such as field craft, small unit organization etc.  But the larger evolutions are well outside out experience - that one is going to have to be the UA, and then we can hire them to teach us once this war is over.
In warfare the answer to an evolving opponent is very simple: evolve faster.

Ya know how when you are playing CM & your men are in wooded area w shrubbery and you just can't believe your men can't see the bad guys?  Always frustrating.  Then I go out in the woods or see a video like above and say "oh, yeah, can't see nuthin'.

Netherlands has 40 it is phasing out for F-35's. Pretty sure they will move them.

Nah, we just take a dim view of people using deadly nerve agents in one of our cities. Bang out of line.   
Edit: by which I mean the average Brit probably didn't have much of an opinion on Putin. After that they did, and it wasn't a good one. 

I pretty strongly disagree with this. Russia doesn't have rule of law. It has what some like to call a rule-by-law state. What that means is that the law exists on the books but it is only selectively enforced. Anyone with krysha can ignore the law at will and at the upper levels competition virtually requires that one does. Conversely, the power structure...meaning Putin...can at any time decide to activate the law against those he wishes to destroy or punish. This is not an esoteric subject within Russia. Everybody knows it and must adhere to the system. Wagner's slightly nebulous status heretofore was not to fool Russians...it was aimed at providing convenient myopia to decision makers in the West.
In the context of Prigozhin, the situation is the reverse of your description above. The mercenaries under Prigozhin's wing can push back against  him...precisely because they all work for Putin and Prigozhin's perceived maneuvering isn't arm twisting Putin...it is to curry favor with him by balancing out the war primed influence of the MoD. Make no mistake...in every sense that matters, Putin is the Russian state and the Russian state owns Wagner. The day Prigozhin forgets that is the last day you will hear from him.