Machor

Russia's force projection in the Caucasus is down to nil:

FancyCat already posted a tweet linking to this, but I think it's worth posting more detail: The Bellingcat report on the latest Russian torture/murder videos is out. I'll quote the introduction as a summary; TL;DR: 1. The primary suspect is a Siberian ethnic minority fighting alongside Chechens. 2. It looks like the Russians considered charging him, but changed their mind and claimed that it was Ukrainian soldiers who tortured and murdered the Ukrainian victim. Tracking the Faceless Killers who Mutilated and Executed a Ukrainian POW https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/08/05/tracking-the-faceless-killers-who-mutilated-and-executed-a-ukrainian-pow/ And a new atrocity:

The BBC reporting from the heart of 'Mother Russia' (though actually very close to Estonia and Latvia) - don't hold your breath for a popular uprising, but mobilization is also not likely: Reality of Ukraine war hidden from Fortress Russia https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62331061

Excellent reporting by the BBC's former Russia correspondent Sarah Rainsford, who was kicked out of Russia before the war; I will quote only the introduction, a part about possible crimes against humanity, and the conclusion, but highly recommend reading the whole article - it should be accessible to all without a paywall unless if you're in Russia: Ukraine's shadow army resisting Russian occupation https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62333795 "A resistance poster reads: Zaporizhzhia, land of death to the occupiers:"

Everything has its time and place... You know what that move Russia made towards Kyiv in the beginning of the war was? Putin's Gambit - where you screw up, then say it's all part of the 'plan'.

Posting this as a warning to those who may want to watch the videos: The video that Haiduk linked to shows the mutilated body of a Ukrainian soldier. I at least hope that he was already dead before this barbaric act was carried out. Before I ran into the castration video on Twitter, I had thankfully read warnings from people who had watched it about how traumatizing it was, and I stopped watching it after two seconds - it is extremely disturbing!

@Aragorn2002 I would like to make a correction to the widespread misuse of chess as a metaphor, but not for pedantic reasons - I think it's something worth keeping in mind when playing CM or any other tactical wargame: Most chess games between grandmasters end in a draw. You do not win at chess by outsmarting your opponent; you win by waiting for him or her to make a mistake, and capitalizing on it. If neither player makes a mistake - and grandmasters rarely make mistakes - the game ends in a draw. From Wikipedia: "In chess games played at the top level, a draw is the most common outcome of a game: of around 22,000 games published in The Week in Chess played between 1999 and 2002 by players with a FIDE Elo rating of 2500 or above, 55 percent were draws. According to chess analyst Jeff Sonas, although an upward draw rate trend can be observed in general master-level play since the beginning of the 20th century, it is currently "holding pretty steady around 50%, and is only increasing at a very slow rate". Draw rate of elite grandmasters, rated more than 2750 Elo, is, however, significantly higher, surpassing 70% in 2017 and 2018. In top-level correspondence chess under ICCF, where computer assistance is allowed, the draw rate is much higher than in the over-the-board chess: of 1512 games played in the World Championship finals and the Candidates' sections between 2010 and 2013, 82.3% ended in a draw. Since that time, draw rate in top-level correspondence play has been rising steadily, reaching 97% in 2019."

Good reporting from the front by the BBC - @Taranis will like this: Ukraine war: West's modern weapons halt Russia's advance in Donbas https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62317366 And support for my observation on the previous page of the thread that Ukraine is closing the 'artillery gap':

Helpful infographics from Volodymyr Dacenko (https://twitter.com/Volodymyr_D_/status/1551964492606709767?cxt=HHwWjoC93ffe14krAAAA ) According to the current balance of power infographic, Ukraine seems to be closing the 'artillery gap' - but ATACMS should have been arriving yesterday; any number of crappy old APCs would also be appreciated: And another one on Ukraine's AFV numbers at the start, losses, and replacements:

@dan/california @danfrodo @panzermartin The bearded 40+ guy yells "Allahu Akbar" before starting to shoot - I'm assuming they're Kadyrovites.

I don't want to take the thread OT either, so leaving this here without comment - as factual as it gets: F1 driver says 'what happens in Alberta is a crime,' feels responsibility to speak about climate change https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/sebastian-vettel-oilsands-alberta-climate-change-1.6493309 "Sebastian Vettel arrived at the Montreal Grand Prix wearing his thoughts about climate change on his T-shirt. The Formula One star from Germany arrived at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in a T-shirt with "Stop Mining Tar Sands," and "Canada's Climate Crime" under the picture of a pipeline. He's wearing a helmet with the same slogan this weekend. "I think what happens in Alberta is a crime because you chop down a lot of trees and you basically destroy the place just to extract oil and the manner of doing it with the tarsands, oilsands mining, is horrible for nature," Vettel said, when asked about the T-shirt at a news conference Friday. ... His team Aston Martin is sponsored by Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil giant Aramco."

I guess it had become unavoidable at this point: Russia to pull out of International Space Station https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62308069 "Russia says it will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 and build its own station instead."

The Czechs are learning lessons from the Ukrainians: Czech police add Ferrari taken from criminals to fleet https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62295674 "Police in the Czech Republic have unveiled the latest addition to their fleet of cars - a Ferrari capable of speeds up to 326km/h (202mph). Police said the car had been confiscated from criminals."

What is your take on the video that is in my second past post that I linked to? - Those Ukrainian Mi-8s seem to be firing almost vertically for a reason. (A less interesting explanation would be that they were loitering too close to their target when they were called in.)

Judge for yourself - I think, yes, and that seemed to be the consensus here when I posted this, as well as with the comments on Twitter: There's also this unique advantage that you can fire the rockets at a very high angle, to overcome deep trenches: