How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[akd]

Quote

Vladimir Putin has one advantage only. As a KGB officer he learned to play head games with his enemies, be they dissidents or foreign powers. Fear is not the consequence of Russian actions but rather their object. It is Moscow’s chief weapon, and Russian leaders are adept in its use. But fear is also susceptible to the remedy applied by the Ukrainians today, and by many others in the past. Courage, as Churchill famously said, is the virtue that makes all other virtues possible. Without courage, the West cannot succeed, but with it, it cannot fail.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/strategy-west-needs-beat-russia/626962/

[kraze]

11 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

He has an important point. Confirmation bias and being manipulated. We need to keep that in mind.

 

 

So according to him Ukraine totally asked a russian crew to go and die in a fire so we could make a great movie.

On multiple occasions.

[The_Capt]

8 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

He has an important point. Confirmation bias and being manipulated. We need to keep that in mind.

 

 

Could be an abandoned vehicle kill...doesn't matter.  Fact is a Russian tank got all blown up.  It could be staged, could be real (e.g. no one got out because that all were killed inside)  There is drone footage everywhere, so what?  In fact if that was an abandoned Russian tank being "snuff" killed, that actually makes it worse (see: why abandoned vehicles is a bad sign).

Of course the Ukrainians are doing their own info-ops but two things stand out 1) how easy it has been for them to get all this kill-porn and 2) how well they have managed to get that information out to the world.  One big thing Trent missed is the fact that the Ukrainians can take these shots and still broadcast them globally, which is a major win on its own.  It also highlights a complete failure by the Russians to gain any control of the information domain.

[akd]

Using drones for ambush recon seems like a pretty logical use of the tech on the battlefield.  Uploading the vid is obviously white propaganda.

[danfrodo]

Just now, The_Capt said:

Could be an abandoned vehicle kill...doesn't matter.  Fact is a Russian tank got all blown up.  It could be staged, could be real (e.g. no one got out because that all were killed inside)  There is drone footage everywhere, so what?  In fact if that was an abandoned Russian tank being "snuff" killed, that actually makes it worse (see: why abandoned vehicles is a bad sign).

Of course the Ukrainians are doing their own info-ops but two things stand out 1) how easy it has been for them to get all this kill-porn and 2) how well they have managed to get that information out to the world.  One big thing Trent missed is the fact that the Ukrainians can take these shots and still broadcast them globally, which is a major win on its own.  It also highlights a complete failure by the Russians to gain any control of the information domain.

Might also simply be that the guys w the AT missile are also running the drone.  They might be using the drone to help them find & assess targets & their approach to avoid surprises.  And then the drone video would simply be due to the fact that the drone was actually there.  Even the helicopter video they might have had drone up and then saw helicopter on radar and made sure camera was pointed in correct direction.  And I think we can safely say the helicopter was not already abandoned.

[danfrodo]

oops, was typing while AKD posted above.  yeah, what he said.

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, LuckyDog said:

Steve raised the question about what is the tipping point and when will we recognize it? At this point, the RU forces still have these simplistic options: 1) advance, 2) dig in, or 3) retreat. Which is the tipping point?

...

I know there is a lot more to this, but IMHO, the tipping point is when the RU army stops advancing. I think they will stay immobile until someone realizes that they don’t have the ability to exercise option three, retreat. Then things turn desperate for Putin, which is not a good place and won't lead to rational decisions.

Good post.

Obviously, if this were a democratic country facing this scale of defeat on the battlefield the tipping point would have been the first weekend of the war.  But because this is an autocratic state run by people who care more about their yachts than lives, the war continues.  The distorted "group think" problems inherent in autocratic governance, especially lately in Putin's Russia, is then combined with first shock and desperation to keep pushing off the inevitable consequences of abject failure.

Soooo... there's really two tipping points to look for:

• At what point would a factual, level headed analysis conclude the war is lost?
• At what point does a fanciful, self serving analysis conclude the war is lost?

For sure we have already hit the real tipping point (first consideration), but we have not yet hit the regime's tipping point (second consideration).  Which gets back to your three indicators which is if they are advancing, digging in, or retreating.  I would include mass desertions/surrenderings as a foruth.

Retreating or surrendering are obvious signs that the tipping point has happened, and neither have happened yet.  Nor are they digging in yet.  Which leaves us advancing.

While Russia is not completely prevented from advancing, what we've seen for the past few days has been incremental moves that are weeks behind schedule and themselves have no operational or strategic significance.  One could say they are either already at, or at least near, the inability to advance.  After that they will either progress to digging in or skip to retreating or surrendering.

I think what might happen is Russia for the next few days advances just enough in enough places to keep alive the regime's hope of achieving something other than the worst military defeat of a major power since WW2.

The group think problem is perhaps still convincing the leadership that if they can take Kiev they can still win this.  If that's the case, this means they could go on the defensive everywhere as long as they are working towards taking Kiev.  As soon as that hope collapses, I think things will rapidly slip out of control.  If it even makes it that far.

Steve

 

[Machor]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

- Black Sea.  NATO has naval forces in the Mediterranean, is there an option to put them in the Black Sea (they have done it before) either in Turkish or Romanian waters.  This is definitely an escalation but perfectly legal.

As requested by Ukraine, Turkey has recognized the current situation as a 'war' (even though Russia never declared one) and closed the straits to all naval vessels as per the Montreux Convention. The purpose is to stop Russia from reinforcing its assets in the Black Sea.

1 hour ago, Combatintman said:

airspace I believe has been done already

I don't know what the legal details are, but scheduled flights are continuing into and out of Kaliningrad; here's a flight coming in now from St. Petersburg:

https://www.flightradar24.com/PBD529/2b141082

 

[sburke]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

The group think problem is perhaps still convincing the leadership that if they can take Kiev they can still win this.  If that's the case, this means they could go on the defensive everywhere as long as they are working towards taking Kiev.  As soon as that hope collapses, I think things will rapidly slip out of control.  If it even makes it that far.

Steve

 

Ironically they seem to be stuck on that same laser focus the German high command had on Stalingrad. 

[BlackMoria]

19 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

He has an important point. Confirmation bias and being manipulated. We need to keep that in mind.

 

 

That is a tank kill of a functional crewed tank.  If you watch the video, the tank is just forward of the T intersection and is moving retrograd (backing up) when it got hit, so it ends up nearly on the other side of the intersection when it stops moving.    And the drone was probably being the spotter for the Javelin team to initially spot the tank, move the Javelin team to a place they can get eyes on to do the engagement.

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Could be an abandoned vehicle kill...doesn't matter.  Fact is a Russian tank got all blown up.  It could be staged, could be real (e.g. no one got out because that all were killed inside)  There is drone footage everywhere, so what?  In fact if that was an abandoned Russian tank being "snuff" killed, that actually makes it worse (see: why abandoned vehicles is a bad sign).

Whomever posted that Twitter thing seems to not understand how Ukraine is using their drones.  The drone goes up, it finds a target, the operator communicates to someone on the ground, keeps the drone in position to ensure the tank is successfully engaged, and then they upload the video.  We even saw Ukraine put up a drone ahead of ambushing a helicopter, which clearly wasn't a faked incident.  No crew survived that one either by the looks of it.  If the crew was in that tank they would have either.

Though what The_Capt said is still true.  Whether this was a staged event or not, abandoned or active, the result is the same... a knocked out Russian tank.

BTW, if that was a Javelin it appears to have been used in Direct Attack Mode, not Top Attack Mode.  Appears to have struck the turret or upper hull side from a fairly flat angle.  NLAW would have produced a similar result.

Steve

[kraze]

1 minute ago, sburke said:

Ironically they seem to be stuck on that same laser focus the German high command had on Stalingrad. 

Kyiv right now has a lot more people enlisting than a number of weapons and equipment that can be provided. To a point that military accepts only people with previous combat experience before anyone else and even those have problems with aforementioned weapons.

And not because there is a small amount of rifles.

Add to this about a thousand foreign volunteers arriving in Kyiv and already scoring first victories and trophies.

So not exactly sure how russians expect to take and, most importantly, hold Kyiv with what they have.

[Bulletpoint]

I believe the tipping point will be when we start seeing the frontline start to move back towards Russia, even just in some places. So far, Ukraine has resisted the attack, but not really started to push the Russians back on any large scale.

Once/if they do, that will be a signal that the Russian army is crumbling, and then it could be over very fast if a general retreat turns into a complete rout.

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, sburke said:

Ironically they seem to be stuck on that same laser focus the German high command had on Stalingrad. 

Or the Hitler's notion that holding Berlin mattered.  In fact, even taking something like Paris wasn't important because by the time the Germans arrived on the outskirts the war was already decided.

Now, taking Moscow would have had a significant impact on the Soviet Union's ability to fight as it was a major logistics hub for a nation that was extremely deficient in logistics.  But would the fighting have stopped if the Germans took it?  Not likely.  Would the Germans still lost the war even if they had taken it?  Most likely.

A conclusion that should be easily reached is that Kiev isn't important to take in terms of ending the war in Russia's favor.

Steve

[billbindc]

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Whomever posted that Twitter thing seems to not understand how Ukraine is using their drones.  The drone goes up, it finds a target, the operator communicates to someone on the ground, keeps the drone in position to ensure the tank is successfully engaged, and then they upload the video.  We even saw Ukraine put up a drone ahead of ambushing a helicopter, which clearly wasn't a faked incident.  No crew survived that one either by the looks of it.  If the crew was in that tank they would have either.

Though what The_Capt said is still true.  Whether this was a staged event or not, abandoned or active, the result is the same... a knocked out Russian tank.

BTW, if that was a Javelin it appears to have been used in Direct Attack Mode, not Top Attack Mode.  Appears to have struck the turret or upper hull side from a fairly flat angle.  NLAW would have produced a similar result.

Steve

A question: how much is abandonment of tanks driven by the lethality of Javelins, etc. In other words, how much is low morale and how much is a rational reaction to vulnerability?

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, billbindc said:

A question: how much is abandonment of tanks driven by the lethality of Javelins, etc. In other words, how much is low morale and how much is a rational reaction to vulnerability?

Abandoning a fully functional tank without any immediate sense of pending death is not to be expected.  But yeah, if I was sitting at a road junction all on my own, the LAST place I'd want to be is inside that tank.

Steve

[sburke]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

I wonder if Russia is withholding notices of death or injury from families of soldiers.  Having ~10,000+ casualties in a couple weeks is enough to start to get folks talking.  The conscript lie from Putin shows he's scared of public opinion, of these conscripted kids getting killed and the families spreading the word.  

More than 13,000 anti-war protesters arrested in Russia (msn.com)

And they tell 2 friends, and they tell 2 friends...  

[A Canadian Cat]

34 minutes ago, BlackMoria said:

That is a tank kill of a functional crewed tank.  If you watch the video, the tank is just forward of the T intersection and is moving retrograd (backing up) when it got hit

I just want to remind people that @BlackMoria called it - watch the video again - that's a functioning tank NOT and abandoned one.

[John Kettler]

22 hours ago, kraze said:

This answers the question if copium cages stop anything

kraze,

As I told OSINTtechnical on their Twitter page, absent credible eyewitness testimony, survey of wreck and surrounds or both, there is NO way to tell from this pic what hit the tank and where. Based on what little I can see, would say the visuals tend to support a left flank hit, not an overhead strike. If we could get more pics covering the now unseen sides, we could likely be able to make some sort of reasonable determination based on what part of the tank was hit and any other resultant damage.

Regards,

John Kettler

[womble]

8 minutes ago, kraze said:

So not exactly sure how russians expect to take and, most importantly, hold Kyiv with what they have.

If it gets to the point of actually trying to take Kyiv with a maximum effort, it seems to me that either they have enough HE and thermobarics to make actual streetfighting mostly irrelevant, or they will fail. 

 

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

A conclusion that should be easily reached is that Kiev isn't important to take in terms of ending the war in Russia's favor.

Since the beginning "commentators" have equated the fall of Kyiv with the fall of Zelensky's government. This has always been a false equivalence, in the same way that a successful Sealion in '40 wouldn't have seen the fall of Churchill's Government. They'd've gone into exile, but the PM would have been the same. If Kyiv falls, Zelensky moves the capital to Lviv (or even out of the country) and the only people who recognise the puppet government that Putin would install would be Russia and the ones who voted against condemning the invasion, last week in the UN.

[EndDirectResponses]

More generally, I have to wonder what "holding" action would look like. It's all very well retreating into all-round defense fire bases (because they simply don't have the manpower to create a contiguous linear defense), but how do the troops there get supplied (and relieved, as they would have to be if the occupation lasted)? Sending supply convoys overland seems to be a recipe for ambuscade and loss, given the demonstrated determination and capability of the UA, and supplying the positions by air in the face of Stinger and its various colleagues looks equally fraught. Sure, the Russians would probably be mostly safe within their enclaves, able to counterbattery any UA artillery and provide a home base for hunting patrols. But could they maintain them?

 

[danfrodo]

So some comments above about pushing Russian forces back.  We all know (from CM) that attacking is a much nastier proposition than defending against mostly roadbound attackers.  I think UA should focus on continuing to attack supplies & any thing that strays away from the more powerful units.  If they can can reduce supply of artillery shells to units N & NW of Kyiv that would be great, but don't know if that's possible.  Advancing against strong russian units anytime soon would play into the strength of Russian firepower. 

Those two single road advances that are now east of Kyiv look particularly tasty.  Once their supplies are exhausted, hopefully they will be ready to run away or surrender.  I suppose they might go pillaging for food but then they'll face angry bloody-minded militias w guns. 

[akd]

Children’s / Maternity hospital destroyed in Mariupol.  Looks like a very large aerial bomb or ballistic missile struck right in the center of the hospital courtyard / parking area:

 

[John Kettler]

21 hours ago, DesertFox said:

 

 

 

That Georgian ex-Defense Minister has both style and gonads, sitting in one pic with an NLAW on his lap like some bizarre overnight case, then going more or less straight into battle as a squad leader. Definitely no REMF!

Regards,

John Kettler

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, akd said:

Children’s / Maternity hospital destroyed in Mariupol.  Looks like a very large aerial bomb or ballistic missile struck right in the center of the hospital courtyard / parking area:

 

I think selling the Ukrainians cruise missiles for a dollar a piece as they cross into Ukrainian airspace has a certain appeal. Maybe sell them 10 or 25 every time the Russians do something this unspeakably awful. 

[John Kettler]

On a lighter note, this is priceless. Had I still been eating when I saw this, I would've choked.

 

Ukrainian Memes Forces

 

@uamemesforces

·

6h

Regards,

John Kettler