G.I. Joe

Well beyond the hard left turn at pro-proliferation, for which I can think of about a dozen arguments against with respect to Ukraine or any other small power nation for that matter - back to my question: “so what is the Russian redline?”  The pro-“give them everything” crowd has either undersubscribed this factor or simply sidestepped the question.  
“We should do everything from no-fly zones to providing Ukraine with ATACMS to F22s and M1 Abrams.  We should feed them targeting data on Russian targets everywhere and hope they stick to them.”  Ok, so again, people in this camp have highlighted what they are pretty sure are not Russia escalation tolerance lines but have offered no insight as to what those lines may actually be.  What would it take for Russia to be forced into a corner enough to escalate to WMDs?  If the answer is “they will never escalate” then prove it - post some studies that support this.
I have no idea what those Russian red lines are, or are not.  75k dead clearly is not, how about 150k?  A few strategic hits, how about 20 or 30, or 300?  Try and kill Putin and hit the Kremlin?  Really hit their nuclear arsenal and not a single airbase?  I don’t know and I am betting neither NATO, nor the US knows either.  This is not a schoolyard fight, it is a really dangerous war.  If we are going to get serious about hitting Russia fast and hard, we are talking about doing it to the point where the entire Russian war machine collapses.  Widening the war to hitting their entire military strategic system - not some amateur hour lobbing of a few ATACMS.  So is that going to trip the trigger?
I am glad some of you are very confident in your positions - but these levels of confidence in warfare make me very nervous.  War is all about uncertainty and we are in the middle of a high consequence big uncertainty right now.  I applaud the US and the west for playing this one so carefully and still ensuring Ukraine is coming out on top. This has been a masterclass in smart incremental warfare.

https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/act-of-war
Act of war definitions are pretty broad and being integrated into a kill chain by essentially doing the targeting on another sovereign nation is going to be an escalation…no “poo pooing” that one.  

I have said this repeatedly - look at the whole system.  ATACMS are of very limited utility without real-time hi resolution ISR.  We know the US is already providing this to the UA for targets in Ukraine - even the unrecognized annexed territories.  However, the US direct supporting targeting of Russian strategic installations and/or capability directly is not a step to be take lightly.  Sorry but to try and spin it otherwise is being disingenuous.
Ok, so Russia has been hit and have not started WW3 - it is a leap of extreme logic between a few “dropped cigarettes” or “industrial accidents” and the very broad strategic precision strike campaign the UA would need to do in order to actually change operational conditions, which are already in their favour btw. To hit things like Russian strategic ISR, industrial capacity, Strat LOCs and even political HVTs (aka Decapitation Strikes) effectively, meaning beyond symbolic or on the scale that Russia is doing to Ukraine, will take an enormous effort.  We are talking hundreds of HIMARs all hooked into a US based ISR/target enterprise.  
We can quibble “act is war” all day but I am pretty confident that meets the threshold and if the situation was reversed we would also consider it an act of war.  I am also pretty sure we are risking getting pulled directly into this war as western strategic ISR would now become legitimate military targets for Russia - arguable they are now but likely only if they are in or over Ukraine.
If strikes are “highly restricted” then what is the point?  For example, in order to cripple SLOCs one would be talking a sustained campaign against Russian rail infrastructure. To hit one or two bridges is basically worthless but comes with significant risks.  A strategic harassment campaign is likely to stiffen Russian resolve and not actually degrade their ability to sustain this war.  No, if we are going to do this it cannot be half-assed and will be one hell of an escalation. 
 

Serviceman of 93rd mech.brigade says, their 4-months campaign in Bakhmut is over. They inflicted alot of losses to the enemy, but their losses also enough big. They are going to rotation for R&R (or likely already left the sector) and wish good luck to those, who will come to substitute them.
 
Maybe toughest brigade of AFU. Heavy fights since May under endless Russian arty rains southern from Izium and after this heaviest fights since autumn near Bakhmut. Thanks, guys, you are titans and no one Marvel superhero can't stand nearby
 

I have zero access to nonpublic information, but I REALLY question the extent to which the strategic rocket forces have escaped the corruption that is consuming the rest of Russia. That is one of the three  most important intelligence evaluations out there. The others of course are the actual state Putin's opposition within the Russian regime, and Xi's real intentions about Taiwan.

Here is one more of back side of medal of UKR successes from the servicemen, he is a sniper, probably of 73rd Maritime SOF Center. He says about phrase "remember a cost", which media became to share after Kherson liberation.
Translation: Now a time to say about Kherson. "Remeber a cost". Remember a cost of unprofessionalism and untraining of soldiers, which weren't trained by platoon commanders, because they filled in journals, because thier company commnaders wanted more [of journals], because battalion commander was bored.
Remember a cost of stolen diesel and fuc..g bad tenders /means official MoD purchases for army/.
Remember a cost of liaison absence. And a cost of communication absence between units. A cost of fu...g unreasoned tasks with shouts "an order is an order!"
Remember a cost of unprepared assaults. A cost of fuc..g lost minefileds maps. A cost of cowards remember too and cost of people, who slept, standing on watches...

It is not in the least.
There is one very big caveat to this that everyone is glossing over- who is developing the targeting packages, and with what?
The risk of escalation is not so much weak-kneed western resolve it is trying to avoid direct acts of war between the US and Russia. Of course Ukraine can hit legitimate military targets in Russia, particularly if they are part of this “special military operation”.  And the nuclear escalation equation is also part of all this but the spin here is that the US is avoiding direct involvement in this war because then it turns the war into something else.
For the same reason the US is not conducting airstrikes, they are pretty cautious with their ISR data. So Ukraine get ATACMS or whatever - whose data are they using to hit the right targets in Russia?  If the UA fires blind they could wind up hitting a civilian neighbourhood, which is going to harm their cause - and I get the unfairness as Russia pound civilians in Ukraine but as we discussed before one warcrime does not justify retaliation warcrimes.  And there is the risk that a Google Earth long range fire hits something Russia does take seriously enough to escalate over.  
For those in the “Russia is full of crap on escalation, always” camp - ok Tex, what is the Russian red line then?  Would a NATO ground invasion of Russia set them off?  If you answer is “yes” - ok, let’s walk it back from that and in your professional opinion tell me when to stop. A direct strike on Russian political leadership?  A strike on Russias nuclear arsenal?
 If your answer is “no” - please leave for a bit because you are no longer part of a rational conversation.
Regardless, we are back to “where is the ISR coming from?”  If the US or any other western nation is developing targeting data or packages for direct strikes on another nation it is an act of war.  Imagine if Russia or China was a third party in a conflict and was providing targeting data into a western nation…ya, that. I am pretty sure the US ISR architecture is tying itself in knots to avoid being pulled into Russia right now.  If the UA can use their own ISR - and I suspect HUMINT is being employed - good on them and please don’t do something dumb. However, Ukraine is a free independent nation defending itself with its own resources.  The US developing data and packages on Russian targets, in Russia, is an escalation on our end - a pretty serious one. It definitely shift to strategic offence which is a pretty severe line to cross just because we will feel better.  Further, it may not shorten this war, it may lengthen it.
The single biggest fear in the west is that Russia will widen the conflict and directly strike out at a NATO nation.  Why? Because we would have to respond, NATO is too big to fail.  If Russia calls our bluff and we do directly respond the whole thing gets crazy fast. Now Putin has justification for broader escalation and that is a train we might not be able to get off.  Further it may split resolve in the western world - I am not sure how keen the rest of Europe is on dying for Ukraine. The evil truth is that Ukraine may be more important to Russia than it is to the West when we get into that sort of calculus…maybe.
The US president was pretty clear and I agree with him - the second this conflict widens into the western sphere, pulling NATO in, we are talking about WW3. And that will involve strategic nuclear escalation because it is all Russia really has left in the bag for a conflict of that scale.  We might get lucky and Russia blinks and someone shoots Putin in the head before it comes to it - but that is a hope, not a plan.

Sorry for not being present for some time (had, and actually still have, issues in IRL).
The execution video is an LDPR fake. It's an LDPR-style execution - these morons have no idea how actual Soviet-based militaries carry out any types of executions, so they imitate their own mob-like executions.
Apart from that - due to vastly enhanced UKR anti-drone defenses, actual RU drone operators stopped flying like this in August. But here RU operator literally flying over UKR heads for some time, risking extremely valuable asset, just to watch bunch of unimportant UKR troops doing some unimportant stuff. 
Go home, Ivan, you are too drunk to make believable fakes. 
Bakhmut's situation is gradually deteriorating, but it is far from grave. It's the standard RU bragging that we're all used to hearing.
In the north, after months of battering Yakovlivka village (northeast of Soledar), RU eventually flattened it, and it appears UKR defenders abandoned it. It means the Northen pincer is now sort of free and moving. Except that it does not give RU much - without Soledar, they are still a long way from surrounding Bukhmut.
After loss at the Industrial Zone, RU decided to shift the axis of assault to Pidhorne village on the outskirts of Bukhmut (northern outskirts of Bukhmut, between Bukhmut and Soledar). Important village, but aside from several talkes, I have yet to come across credible information, implying that things are not going well for RU there.
The Southern pincer is the most alarming. There are no significant UKR defenses there, so RU is gradually grinding toward Ivanivka. They're probing Klishiivka, the last settlement before Ivanivka. That's bad, but the first part of the Battle of the Bulge was also bad. Essentially, we are waiting a UKR counter-attack aimed at destroying the Southern pincer. Question is how far UKR will let RU penetrate. 
Bukhmut itself is not in grave danger, and there is no threat of it collapsing (yet). Fighting is taking place at the outer defenses, and it is not yet dangerous.

https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/what-ukraine-means-for-lithuanians-haunted-by-soviet-past/
This is why Lithuania supports Ukraine,  its why Ukraine fights, they know full well what awaits them as an entire society if they let the Ivan win. 

Time magazine names Ukraine’s Zelensky as ‘clear-cut’ Person of the Year
 

UKR pilot with codename KARAYA issued own photo from incident on 12th Oct over Vinnytsia, when he is wounded and in process of parachuting after bailing out of own MiG-29, damaged by close explosion of Shakhed, which he could destroy, but has flew too close. 
A guy from engineer personnel told, KARAYA made this selfy and sent to them with words "Guys, you can not wait my jet today back"
 

An article (in Ukrainian) how Ukrainian volunteers-engineers from Respeechers and i3 Engineering companies and programmers, serving in 125th TD Brigade, created AI warning system ZVOOK (from UKR. "zvuk" -  "sound"). This system allows to complement possibilities of Air Defense radars to detect approaching missiles and kamikadze drones - it's sound sensors listen the air, select suspicious sound, AI analyzes it and if the signal is matches to threat sound, it transmits alarm via cell phones towers to Air Defense datacenters. By the placement of activated sensor,  AD can decide to react on that direction. 
This system had been developing four months and was set up immediately after AI could detect true signal at 50/50 level - because we had a lack of radar covering - on the meeting develppers with Lviv oblast administration, representatives of cell phone operators and militaries they got permission to launch the first trial systems. Gradually engineers enchanced sound mirrors, electronics and could learn AI to work almost without mistakes. Interesting, that most problematic was to learn AI to differ a sound of cruise missile from cows mooing.
In present time 40 ZVOOK sensors already installed on more critical directions, but developers say there are need 600 sensors throughout all country in several echelones to be effective complement of radars. In plans of developers - to make the system capable to determine a coordinates, speed and course of target. Now it can determinate approximately a bearing and elevation angle. Also developers want to scale the project and turn it in future to commercial product.
 https://www.epravda.com.ua/publications/2022/11/28/694314/
 ZVOOK sensor on cell phone tower

And "prototype" of ZVOOK - Dutch soldier of 30th years with acoustic system. But now human ears and brain substituted with electronic and AI
 

First, I need to explain, who these guys are. A "Reichsbürger" (translates to 'citizen of the (Kaiser)Reich') is someone who does deny the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany. Instead, they believe that the Kaiserreich still exists. There's some quite funny legalese reasoning to explain this.
They wanted to topple the government and even had some old royal descendant who would then become Kaiser(?).
There is no connection to the Reichstag which is just the building of the parliament.
The round-up is the biggest ever here, even bigger than the ones we had against the left-wing terrorists in the 70s. It is of course all over the news here.
 
How dangerous is this group? Depends on the scope.
As a group to Germany itself, not so much. They have no backing in the population, and their plans are just delusional.
As individuals who cause acts of terrorism, more likely. They had the skills and the means.
The whole thing is bizarre, but unfortunately not the funny kind. I'm very happy that the state caught this group before something happened.
 

Very good point. The T-34 was developed in Kharkiv, most of the Soviet Union's military transport aircraft were developed by Antonov, the list goes on...

Very good point. The T-34 was developed in Kharkiv, most of the Soviet Union's military transport aircraft were developed by Antonov, the list goes on...

Fun fact that many people seem to forget, Ukraine was a essential part of the Soviet Union, a source of manpower, including educated personnel and schools, and manufacturing, for example, the Tu-141 was produced in Kharkiv. Not to mention the Moskva, from Mykolaiv, etc. Always annoys me when I see prowess of the Russian military based on the Soviet era, both WWII and cold war used to denigrate Ukraine, probably the best PR feat Russia accomplished was both casting Ukraine and Ukrainians as Russians while ignoring Ukraine as a vital part of the Soviet Union.

Hmmmm....😏
 

The famous WW2 Soviet push-back that ended at Berlin has been brought up a few times in this war.  It is the dreaded spectre of “Russian ‘real’ mobilization” and human waves of vodka soaked killers.
A few problems with projecting this older model onto the current conflict:
- The bar of effectiveness in modern warfare is much higher.  One cannot simply push out burp-guns, grenades and unpainted T-34s onto farm kids and drive your enemies before you - well not so long as those enemies have what the UA are currently fielding.  Even in WW2 the Soviets took horrendous loses before German attrition from many directions took hold.  In the modern era all those ski troops will be seen from space and targeted along with their already broken logistical system.
- Russia 2022 is not the Soviet Union - no matter how much Putin wishes it so.  Russia does not have the demographic depth the Soviets had, nor the self-contained industrial base.  Globalization cuts in many ways and Russia is feeling it.  So a massive manpower surge has to be equipped, trained, projected, integrated and sustained into the fight - Russia has shown it is straining to do this with its force in being, let alone another “250 independent battalions”.  The weight of that extra load would likely break the already fragile Russian military operational system.
- Russia would have to see the Ukraine as existential.  Putin and his cronies definitely see it as existential.  Some on the nationalist side within Russia agree.  How much does your average Russian?  I mean when it really comes down to it, how ready is your average Russian teenager willing to risk death or life-long injury to invade Ukraine?  The Soviets had a clear existential threat, zero confusion - modern day Russia not so much.
So basically we have a nation that is not likely to make the sacrifices of WW2 in a situation nowhere near WW2 while completely lacking the ability to generate and sustain comparative capability - let alone competitive.  If it wasn’t for the nukes this thing would already be over.  Lesson: when you are down to nuclear power as your only real card, you are in rough shape.
Finally, and I cannot stress this enough, time is on the Ukrainian side, not Russia’s side.  Ukraine is the one who is getting force generation advantage - training, equipment and support.  The longer this goes on, and the last 9 months demonstrates it quite well, the UA gets stronger while the RA gets weaker.  The UA now has experienced formation commanders and has had time to build a western C4ISR enterprise.  They have integrated western hardware into that and driven the might RA back dramatically.  The RA has wasted the modern military is had and has no force generation advantage here.  Large dumb mass is suicide under these conditions and the RA keeps proving it on a daily basis.  The only way any of this changes is if western support falters or fails.

Rare news from the EW front:
 

GFM von Brauchitsch called from OKH; he wants his map back.

A new word in military technology, Russian tanks are terrified😁

The problem is that Ukraine, even if provided with ATACMS and whatnot,  hardly has a chance to seriously affect the RU missile campaign. Engels base in Saratov is 700km from UA eastern border, and even if they got some JASSM or similar system, RU can re-base their strategic bombers to Murmansk, or even freakin' Vladivostok without serious degradation to their ability to launch the strikes.
Now striking back at RU in eye for an eye manner, while certainly appealing and in my (non-Christian) opinion morally justified, wouldn't really achieve nothing except quenching the thirst for vengeance. No way Ukraine could launch a campaign significant enough to physically destroy RU warfighting capability. And anything less than that will just rally public support for the war in the RU civilian population, as proven by multiple historical analogies. It would also feed RU propaganda and could diminish the moral highground that UA currently occupies, which int turn could have really serious impact on the Western support, at least from some countries. IMO the best course of action for Ukraine is to just take it, shoot down as many missiles and rebuild as fast as possible, while kicking Russian *** on the ground.
I really have high hopes for the GLSDB though - it seems to have just enough range and destructive power to completely wreck RU rail GLOCs leading to Ukraine, forcing them to channel all rail traffic through Volgograd and Rostov, basically strangling them. It will put entire land-brigde in range, and after it's broken allow attacking the whole Crimea including the bridge and base in Sevastopol. IMO this is as much long range firepower as UA needs to wreck RU logistics beyond the point of usefulness and push them out of it's territory.
In the meantime, let's see how mobilized Russian masses do during the winter. IMO the endgame of all of this, apart from UA physically re-taking it's territory, is creating enough instability in Russia to force it to concentrate on internal problems (meaning threatening, or even toppling the regime) as more immediate and agreeing to humiliating peace - and achieving that should be done is as non-volatile way as possible, which unfortunately means the "boiling the frog slowly" approach.
In the meantime, B21 unveiling ceremony is taking place:
https://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/air/b-21-raider/
 

If you keep reading the blog, you understand why, and also believe that this is not a fake, unless it's an amazingly elaborate one. He's what an old buddy used to call 'a war whore'.
There's a couple guys in their 80s I drink with in Manila who could still punch me in the throat pretty hard if they had to: LRRP and SAS. Still randy too.
...UV is an outlier for 76 (especially with the smoking and drinking) in that he can still keep up with the younger grunts (more or less), has practical skilz and wisdom that keeps them alive, and is ok dying with his boots on.
A Tennessee mountain man.

Does the "Western level" even exist in near-peer conventional war setting?

No. RED team are not seriously trying an opposed landing on the (densely populated) northwest coast?
....Where reservists can guide spotter drones and fire Javelins from their bedroom windows into landing craft, as they struggle to steer around the breakwaters and shoals to reach the very limited landing sites.
But PLAF has won air supremacy (at some cost)! Great, so what targets are your (fixed wing) CAS going to pinpoint and neutralise, in that string of beach towns?
...Let me guess, they're also going to try a bold heliborne coup de main to capture Taoyuan airport, then send commandos in cars straight into the center of Taipei. Decapitation strike! 
(I hear those work really well when the local population is longing to be liberated from its own elected government in favor of brutal satraps appointed from a distant imperial capital)

Good point, though a couple minor detail points:
Although the Eagle Squadrons were formed at the height of the Battle of Britain, they were not operational until early 1941. Numerous American pilots fought in the Battle of Britain, but they were serving in regular predominantly British-manned or mixed nationality RAF squadrons. Also, the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers) are the exception to that last statement - their formation was directly authorized by President Roosevelt and organized by the U.S. government. I suspect the Eagle Squadrons also had at least tacit approval from Roosevelt and others within the U.S. government and, like the AVG, they were reabsorbed into the USAAF after the United States formally entered World War II.
Edit 2: Also, similar to the Eagle Squadrons missing the Battle of Britain, although the AVG were organized before the Second Sino-Japanese War became part of WWII, contrary to the John Wayne movie, they did not see combat until very shortly after Pearl Harbor.