G.I. Joe

It takes a younger generation indignant at the status quo with little materially to lose and little appreciation for the long term consequences to push for change. It takes the older generation to keep things in perspective that in fact change is a constant and progress even if slow does occur. Having been on both ends of that experience, I prefer being on the older end.  😎

I really try to avoid getting pulled too deeply into conspiracies.  In my experience humans, while capable of complex and intricate plans within plans involving many players, more often lean into far simpler and lazy calculus - despite what Hollywood and the Internet say.
That said this whole thing right now feels like an exercise in 1) demonstrating that the Emperor is naked and 2) an intermission in a bigger play.  Prig appears to have gotten way further than he or anyone else thought possible.  Putin ran, demonstrated that he is not a god and his noodle is hanging out in the open for the world to see.
So this entire next set of theatrics really feels like everyone is coming to terms with a new reality and figuring out what to do next.  Putin is making the same duck sounds and his cronies look like they are at a wedding where they all know it won’t last the summer.  Everyone is going through the motions because that is what they do but they cannot unsee what has happened.  It has gotten weird and everyone looks like they have one eye on their gun and the other on a back door.  All except Prig, who is still parked down south with still enough firepower to really mess up someone’s day and acting like there are exactly zero f#cks given when by all rights he should already be dead.

If Putin had clearly won this round, there are things you would be seeing and things you wouldn't: 
1. You would be seeing a lot more regime PR folks cheering on the boss and baying for blood. Simonyan, Solovyev, Peskov etc. Instead, most of them are being careful to throw a scrap to Putin but not much more. We would also be seeing folks like Patruschev and other major players being out front with statements, taking steps, making arrests. 
2. The faces at Putin's round table wouldn't have been downcast, exhausted and monosyllabic. The whole point of that exercise was to project strength and they did the opposite. Those are men who still don't know when the music stops. 
3. Putin would not have given multiple speeches and they wouldn't have been in response to Prigozhin's or indicated as the day went on more concessions.
4. Prigozhin would very definitely not have been giving jaunty speeches about the efforts of Wagner for the Motherland and asking that very loaded question "What is to be done?" (See Lenin and Chernyshevky on that one).
All of this screams continued instability and factional deal making with Putin in the center trying to come to grips with his straitened circumstances. If I had to guess from the looks at that table, Putin is trying to order a purge and finding out that he simply can't order it. His flunkies can agree but they don't think the ranks will follow through. And if that happens, a lot of elements will come off the sidelines. 
 

We still got 6 downed helicopters and one very valuable coms aircraft.

Perhaps he'd rather surrender to the West for good reasons ;-).

So if Putin ran to St Petersburg, anyone think it is weird he is running toward NATO borders?  Aren’t we supposed to be the root of all evils?

Putin: "I don't need ammo, I need a ride"

As a Wargamer, one of the greatest joy we have is using various tools (even if they are amateur and used for entertainment purposes) to check if our crazy ideas are feasible. Here, we have a set of tools called CMO. I have created a few scenarios in the editor. Overall, I agree with your perspective that using an F-16 fighter jet to attack a low-flying Ka-52 helicopter within Russian-controlled territory is not an efficient approach.
 
In the scenario, I assumed that Ukraine is using the F-16A MLU donated by the Netherlands, while the Russian military has a Ka-52 helicopter hovering at a low altitude 10 kilometers behind their first defensive line. The F-16's radar can generally detect the Ka-52 at a range of 16nm. If the F-16 is at high altitude, there is only one opportunity for an attack because the Ka-52 will quickly enter the radar's blind zone. If the F-16 decides to dive into low altitude or initiates the attack from low altitude, it must consider the threat from short-range air defenses. However, considering the threat posed by the Russian S-300 system, a low-level penetration might be a more viable option.
 
Subsequently, I added more elements to the scenario, including A-50 and a full suite of short-range and long-range SAM systems for the Russian. The Ukrainian F-16 takes off near Vinnytsia, flies at high altitude over Zaporizhzhia, transitions to low altitude, and turns southeast towards Orikhiv. This brings an additional issue: after flying over 200 nm, the low-flying F-16 only has around 20 minutes of fuel remaining before Bingo Fuel, meaning it can only perform one attack before disengaging.
 
Similar to before, the F-16's radar detects the Ka-52 at 16 nm, but both aircraft are in low altitude, significantly reducing the effective range of the AIM-120B missile due to air resistance (and yes, max range =/= effective range). The F-16 must close in to approximately 7 nm for the Ka-52 to be within the missile's Dynamic Launch Zone (DLZ). However, before reaching this distance, the F-16 pilot receives multiple SAM radar warning alerts.
 
In summary, after conducting a single AMRAAM attack, the F-16 must turn and disengage. The success rate is not high, with a small probability of the F-16 being shot down by SAMs, and the chance of the AIM-120B hitting the Ka-52 at the extreme edge of its effective range is also low. According to the PoH calculation formula in CMO, this probability is only 29%.
 
Please note that this simulation only considers the Russian ground-based SAM systems, and if a group of Su-35s are added to provide CAP, the F-16's chances of a successful attack would be extremely low.
 
The conclusion drawn from this simulation is that the Ukrainian F-16 should focus on its main tasks, such as gaining air superiority and conducting SEAD, plus attacking Russian airfields and ground support. The mission of hunting down the airborne Ka-52 within Russian-controlled territory should be assigned to other weapons and equipment.

Rostislav Lazarenko, pilot of Su-25, 29 y.o. 336 combat sorties. 
"Zuni" rockets are seen in containers. 
 

Organisations scale for the scale they are. The Belgian army's training establishment (to take a completely random example), is scaled to the needs of the Belgian army which currently is a maneuver brigade plus various 'non-divisional' elements. Each year the Belgian army can train its new recruits, plus provide promotion and corps-courses for some mech and mot inf, some light inf, some gunners, some sappers, etc. What they can't do is suddenly scale up to training two brigades (ie, 6,000 soldiers) concurrently. They can help, they can train some of them - while maintaining their own national defence outputs. And they certainly can't provide specialist training; the Belgians, even with the best will in the world and completely ignoring their own national defence outputs, could not provide training for Patriot or Ceasar, or PzH2000, or Challenger, or Bradley, or whatever, let alone some really esoteric stuff like HOWTO corps-level operations. And the same is true of every other country: everyone lacks the capacity and knowledge to train the Ukrainians on all the things they need to learn. Including the US. But the Belgians, like everyone else, does have some spare capacity that can be gifted to the Ukrainians, especially if they pay off some domestic capability over the short term. Pooling together there is enough overall capacity to train 6,000 Ukrainians concurrently - that is no mean feat.
You're right though, in a way: it would be better if all the training could be done in one place by one training organisation (although I'll also note that even the US has training facilities for it's own use spread right across CONUS and across the world). But that's like saying it would be better if we had a cure for cancer or everyone had an EV. It's true, but not remotely realistic, and pining for that unreality doesn't advance the discussion in any useful direction.
tl;dr: Perfect is the enemy of good.

Saving private Fox
 

That, is what we refer to as HUMANITY!
KUDOS TO THOSE SOLDIERS.

Are we sure we observe the same genocidal, simple war of conquest? If you are so afraid of "undermining" Russia, here is you adress of complains and source of all of the fuss : http://www.en.kremlin.ru/contacts
You are not rightfully criticizning, you get whacked by arguments and are now doing another virtue signalling, while clearly parroting Putin propaganda matrix you saw on some Russian forum. And you don't even get that- that's btw. how propaganda of this type works. Its victims are always people who think of themselves as freethinkers, outside constraints of mainstream media, but who are in fact mentally not equipped to properly build their own worldview that would be anchored in both political realism and some basic ethics. Ukrainians and "American overlords" guilty of Larissa rail accident, USA building bases to "force" others to watch Micky Mouse, poor bombed Nazis in WWII etc. These are the same, unmistakeable symptoms of reducing everything toward symetristic bull*hit.
I am more and more inclined to believe that if world in 1939 would have internet and contrarian keyboard warriors, whole Europe would be foocked royally, divided between Brown and Red totalitarian empires up to this day, doing whatever they want.
Ok, I have enough of this, so where was this mute button...

A little off topic since I know we are all laser focused on the counteroffensive.
But wow, the president of Czechia seems like a really good guy.

Ok, well things are getting clearer.  Retreating Bradley’s are extracting.  One flies by, second one clearly hit a land mine.  Troops de-bus, no panic the take cover while the gun camera Bradley provides covering fire (ballsy not to simply bail).  Everyone starts popping smoke and troops jump on Bradley to get out of there.
First point shows why it is a bad idea to try to drive back out.  Always push, if you get hit at least you have cleared as far as you got. But I suspect things had gone so wrong they abandoned the mission.  Second troops were controlled and did the right thing post mine strike. Third, no RA artillery. Now I am sure they were very concerned it was going to start dropping but that minefield is not being effectively covered.  Those two videos are four minutes, RA mortars should at least be hammering them - and we are glad they weren’t but that is poor cover of an obstacle.
Lastly, no idea what they were shooting at but obviously in treeline in direction of gun and popped smoke.  So best guess, a recon in force got hit by ATGM from a treeline.  Likely lost breaching vehicles.   At least two Bradleys tried to drive back out (bad) other may have been hit coming or going.  Hit more mines because they were in a Devils OODA loop but that gun Bradley looks like it kept it head and got those troops out because we don’t see a lot of bodies in the Russian videos.  
So bad day in a minefield, looks like most of the troops out alive, so they live to fight again and have proven recon is a dangerous job.  RA still have tank hunting teams and their arty support is questionable (at least in this area).  Hardly a disaster, some AAR points but no need to start calling the Kremlin to discuss terms yet.

These sorts of reactions are delusional - Just stop it guys - The only thing that matters is the  operational level goals at this point . We should not be freaking out about tactical losses - these are guaranteed to happen .  I mean seriously - please restraint the doom and gloom posts and  just thanks your lucky stars you are not at the leading edge of these attacks . The Ukrainians are  the ones shedding their blood to retake their own territory back from the orcs  . Give them some room please ! .

Well that is what a minefield breaching operation going very wrong looks like.  
Before everyone freaks out the vehicles that kept pushing are supposed to do that.  Backing out is just asking to die and impossible to do in column, he saw the RA prove this over and over again.  If your breaching vehicle takes a hit - and that appears to be the Leo, you keep pushing even if it means taking casualties.  We would do the exact same thing.  I mean what are the options?  Stop, wait for help or talk things over while the enemy kills you inside a minefield?  Back out along the one cleared path…while the enemy kills you in a minefield?  Nope you push.  Difference between the UA and the RA is that the Leo has a mine plow on the front (which is odd, that is the deep end of clearance, they should be sticking with rollers).  The RA was just straight pushing.
What is interesting is again the lack of any real RA artillery.  No big craters or impact marks.  Vehicles look like they took mobility hits (except that one) and the crews bailed and ran.  When we do these ops each Combat Team would do two breaches and accept that one is going to die.  This is the video from the failed one.
We said this from the start - western kit does not come with magic wizard shields that allow them to float above the ground and drive their enemies before them.  They blow up just the same as Russian kit.  We were always going to see this, and we will likely see more.  Russian info sphere is going to push out any and all of these that it can.  So buckle in and put your helmets on.

So recall the UA Fall offensive took about 3 months to shape, form up and culminate.  Early days in what is likely going to be an operation that will last all summer.  
These guys are operating in a different war…things will likely go slow until they go fast.  Unless the RA is so rotted that they shatter early but we will see.  This whole thing right now looks like probing and prodding to be honest.  This is not to see the enemy - the UA can do that already - it is to see what the enemy can and will do as a reaction.  My guess is that we have moved into a more active shaping phase, the main assaults have yet to come.

So true...
 

What's a definitive history? I don't think such an animal exists.
Good scholars continually reassess what they think they know about a period of history. The process never stops. We don't even have the final draft of the histories of the two world wars of the 20th century yet. We are writing the first draft of the history of the Russo-Ukrainian war at this very moment.

They weren't trying to kill anybody, it was pure messaging.
 

Yes, we memory holed our failures in the War of 1812 utterly. I will simply point out that that the rather thorough forgetting has led to two hundred years of extraordinarily harmonious relations between the two countries, which probably makes it the most successful propaganda campaign in written history.  

Again?!  I mean how did Operation Canuck Freedom go last time?  https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/war-of-1812
 
Of course the old adage “History is written by the losers who only remember New Orleans, and left unchallenged by the winners who are too polite to bring it up and still feel bad about burning the White House” applies here.

Sunflowers for Peace is doing a specific campaign for evacuees from the flooded areas.  Seems the founder is from Nova Kakhovka.
Support Victims of Kakhovka Dam Flood (sunflowerofpeace.com)

this is exactly the point.  People suggesting Ukraine would blow the dam are viewing this in the most simplistic terms of what may or may not help Ukraine in the current military conflict. Ukraine however has to view the consequences for the nation as a whole and the cost in human lives as well as the economic consequences post war.  While I could see the idiots in the Kremlin making a stupid decision on this scale, not so with Kiev.