How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Huba]

44 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Maskirovka...pretty hard nowadays.

Sure it is. The Russian forces  composition and their dislocation will be probably known in advance, buy I'd think how precisely will they be employed should be a bit surprising, that should be the aim at least I'd think. Or do you think they'll just run straight at the defenses hoping that firepower, numbers(?) and (to quote a classic) " total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see them through" ?

Edited April 12, 2022 by Huba

[akd]

47 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

 according to the democrats sabotaged the US elections to prevent Hilary taking over, (and Trump voters voting to prevent WW3)  

You mean according to a bi-partisan Senate investigation?  Looks like you have some reading to do, which should hopefully keep you from posting for awhile:

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/report-select-committee-intelligence-united-states-senate-russian-active-measures

Edited April 12, 2022 by akd

[dan/california]

Between NATO ISR, and the fact that Russian communications seem to be an open book, it would take a quantum leap for the Russians to generate surprise with more than a platoon sized force. Ukrainian command should be alert in case the Russians suddenly pull it together and try to feed them false information or something, but that would be a  thousand times the level the Russians have operated at so far.

This is the level of detail Nato assets are getting on Russian movements. If Nato got off of its rear end and put it planes in the air there wouldn't be a Russian vehicle in Ukraine in 24 hours. And that is just one system, hiding just isn't a thing anymore for a mechanized force.

 

[womble]

On information infrastructure, and why the Russians didn't ice it on day one, two things:

Was it not the case that Russian comms relied on mobile technology? Given that they were expecting UKR to roll over, maybe they decided they'd be able to use the existing infrastructure, and left all their own portable base units at home (for "safekeeping", or because they didn't exist, because corruption). When it turned out UKR didn't roll over, they had to leave the infra in place, because they needed it too.

Their target list appears to have been confused with the "do not bomb" list of hospitals and other supposedly sacrosanct civilian, humanitarian infrastructure. Maybe they don't know where to hit to splinter the UKR segment of the Internet. Maybe they never even really bothered to find out, because they didn't expect to need to close it down, and/or because they were planning to use it themselves and didn't consider that it would be used against them so effectively.

On why not so much cyberaggression:

Does the early NATO boundary-setting ("Cyberattacks on NATO count for Article 5, Vlad, so think twice...") have much bearing on this? Or would that be water off a Cyberduck's back? I am pleased to hear from a professional that the industry is working hard and effectively to counter the threat, though.

[FancyCat]

The reason why I am emphasizing how their rhetoric and propaganda impacts their decision making is that most analysts have assumed it was just packaged koolaid for the Russian population/foreign consumption and Putin isn't actually a believer.

If the man is truly dying, or aware of his own mortality, if he truly believes in the Russian imperial project, he indeed needs to strike now, before Ukraine gets stronger, and not merely continue the chunk biting previously. Chunk biting won't secure his legacy.

Something else to emphasize, Russian imperialist rhetoric emphasizes Ukraine is key to a Russian Imperial revival. Russia without Ukraine's population, Ukraine's resources is not a viable Russian Empire.

If the actual goal is to freeze Ukraine out of NATO and EU, cause chaos in Ukraine, limited invasion, taking chunks of Ukraine in small bits accomplishes the goals of doing so. I'm no military oriented person but I would say destroying the Ukrainian military via a limited invasion would have played much better to Russian doctrine than this full scale invasion. Limited invasion and Western sanctions would have been of limited impact.

This is why I don't believe that the goal was merely to show off Russian power or anything short of Russian annexation of Ukraine cause a limited invasion would have served those above stated "real" goals of Russia nicely and with much less risk.

No, I think it's very clear that Russia's stated goals are truly it's goals. That when Putin declares the Ukrainian state as illegitimate, and the Ukrainian people as being misled ethnic Russians, I think he believes in it 100%. This is why many people were thrown off about this occurring in the first place. A true believer in the righteousness of their cause is much more different than a power hungry realist.

[Vacillator]

6 minutes ago, dan/california said:

If Nato got off of its rear end and put it planes in the air

We've been over this quite a few times, pretty sure it ain't happening any time soon for obvious reasons.

Disclaimer: Unless something major changes...

And while I'm on, welcome to the new friends on the forum.

[danfrodo]

29 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Imo, this illustrates that Russia still hopes to conquer all of Ukraine, yes I'm sure many Russian analysts are aware it is impossible, but in the same vein that Russia undertook the option most unlikely to succeed and therefore the most dangerous, outlandish and unthinkable to occur in a full scale invasion of Ukraine, I think we underestimate just how screwed up Putin/Russian government is calculating the odds right now.

I know Putin has a aura of being right, but part of it isn't just choosing right, it's also knowing when to walk away. Had he chosen a limited invasion, he probably could have taken the rest of the contested oblasts, damaged the Ukrainian military heavily, kept his own forces intact largely, and limited Western involvement.

Rinse, repeat every few years, boil the frog. Also, a limited invasion would have damaged the hell out of Zelensky's government, by forcing a calculation between peace or heavy fighting. Full scale invasion with overly loud signals of full annexation and of near genocidal intent for the Ukrainian population, the frog is jumping out.

Meshes well with reports that many Ukrainians were shocked this invasion happened (tho I will readily accept being wrong if resident Ukrainians chime in)

Yes, very very good point here.  Putin may accept that he has lost this battle, but he will never give up his idiotic dreams of conquest.  He is Sauron. 

So he'll try to salvage what he can out of this mess.  Then he'll work through social media and other sources to undermine Ukrainian democracy, hopefully ending in the election of some puppet who will be like Belarus. 

[danfrodo]

13 minutes ago, womble said:

On information infrastructure, and why the Russians didn't ice it on day one, two things:

Was it not the case that Russian comms relied on mobile technology? Given that they were expecting UKR to roll over, maybe they decided they'd be able to use the existing infrastructure, and left all their own portable base units at home (for "safekeeping", or because they didn't exist, because corruption). When it turned out UKR didn't roll over, they had to leave the infra in place, because they needed it too.

Their target list appears to have been confused with the "do not bomb" list of hospitals and other supposedly sacrosanct civilian, humanitarian infrastructure. Maybe they don't know where to hit to splinter the UKR segment of the Internet. Maybe they never even really bothered to find out, because they didn't expect to need to close it down, and/or because they were planning to use it themselves and didn't consider that it would be used against them so effectively.

On why not so much cyberaggression:

Does the early NATO boundary-setting ("Cyberattacks on NATO count for Article 5, Vlad, so think twice...") have much bearing on this? Or would that be water off a Cyberduck's back? I am pleased to hear from a professional that the industry is working hard and effectively to counter the threat, though.

Womble, that was my understanding also: NATO said cyperattacks would be treated as physical attacks.  And Putin is terrified of NATO getting physically involved, that's why he throws around the nuke threat -- it's from a position of weakness, not strength. 
I also suspect Putin knows that if the west chose to go all out cyberattacks on Russia, there wouldn't be a working bank machine in the whole country.  Putin would have led his country into the stone age.

[Vacillator]

Interesting piece on the BBC just now about the Russian Orthodox Church backing Putin's invasion as a holy war.  Not that old horse manure again?

Edited April 12, 2022 by Vacillator
Typos abound

[Huba]

24 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Between NATO ISR, and the fact that Russian communications seem to be an open book, it would take a quantum leap for the Russians to generate surprise with more than a platoon sized force. Ukrainian command should be alert in case the Russians suddenly pull it together and try to feed them false information or something, but that would be a  thousand times the level the Russians have operated at so far.

This is the level of detail Nato assets are getting on Russian movements. If Nato got off of its rear end and put it planes in the air there wouldn't be a Russian vehicle in Ukraine in 24 hours. And that is just one system, hiding just isn't a thing anymore for a mechanized force.

 

Do we know for sure that it comes from NATO asset outside of Ukraine airspace? Was it satellite or something like E8? Either way, holy crap that's impressive.

[Harmon Rabb]

8 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

Interesting piece on the BBC just now about the Russion Orthodox Church backing Putin's invasion as a holy war.  Not that all old horse manure again?

If this holy war does not work for Russia, Patriarch Kirill may need to back to selling cigarettes like he did in the 1990's. 

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Maskirovka...pretty hard nowadays.

You know the funny thing is, Russia did pretty well in carrying out Maskirovka, in deceiving France and Germany and their populations in concealing their intentions of annexing Ukraine, and in countering American and British warnings about what was coming.

Maybe too well. I think the shock of what Russian intentions truly were, had a big impact on shifting German public opinion on Russia and Ukraine. Maybe there was no other way of keeping Germany from shifting her foreign policy and military policy after invading, but I have no doubt Russia delivered the equivalent of a knife into the back of Germany in terms of destroying public and government consensus on Russia.

Germany had always betted on increasing economic ties with Russia to be key to ending Russian aggression. The fact that Russia undertook a full scale invasion with a intent of annexing all of Ukraine plays too close to German history to ignore. Had Russia only undertook a operation to kick Ukraine out of the contested oblasts, no doubt this public and government change have been more limited.

[BlackMoria]

Maxar Satellite images are incredible.  They are scattered throughout this tread if you want to see what I am talking about.  They can even pick up bodies in the streets.  One of the images was used to debunk the russian claim that the bodies in the streets of Bucha were done by Ukrainian soldiers or British Intelligence after the russians left Bucha.  The image debunked that as the bodies were already there before Russian forces left.   

Maxar is a private satellite imaging company.  Imagine the even greater fidelity of military spy satellites.   The russians can't pull off any strategic or operational surprises with all the electronic eyes on them, to answer a question you asked earlier, Huba.

[Nicdain]

16 minutes ago, Huba said:

Do we know for sure that it comes from NATO asset outside of Ukraine airspace? Was it satellite or something like E8? Either way, holy crap that's impressive.

It's satellite. It's a constellation of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite-borne sensors owned by this private company (Capella Space https://www.capellaspace.com). Usually this constellation is meant to be used for weather purposes. 

[asurob]

32 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

Interesting piece on the BBC just now about the Russian Orthodox Church backing Putin's invasion as a holy war.  Not that old horse manure again?

Not really a surprise...The Russian Orthodox Church is basically part of the Russian government and certainly part of their propaganda

[Nicdain]

14 minutes ago, BlackMoria said:

Maxar Satellite images are incredible.  They are scattered throughout this tread if you want to see what I am talking about.  They can even pick up bodies in the streets.  One of the images was used to debunk the russian claim that the bodies in the streets of Bucha were done by Ukrainian soldiers or British Intelligence after the russians left Bucha.  The image debunked that as the bodies were already there before Russian forces left.   

Maxar is a private satellite imaging company.  Imagine the even greater fidelity of military spy satellites.   The russians can't pull off any strategic or operational surprises with all the electronic eyes on them, to answer a question you asked earlier, Huba.

What seems strange to me is that Russia should have spy satellites too. Why can't they have the same level of intelligence on UA positions or movements?

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Mariupol. Reportedly several hundreds of marines could in unknown way to join with Azov and other forces in Azovstal plant and port area:  https://t.me/mariupolnow/6227

 

@Haiduk Can you clarify?

Is this marines within Mariupol who have consolidated into Azovstal etc, or is it fresh reinforcements infiltrated through the RUS cordon?

 If the latter, and UKR is able to reinforce Mariupol, well -

1) RUS battlefield security fail #2,371

2) Mariupol will stand longer, messing with the southern "pincer" of the RUS Donbass Op

3) Putin might finally press the button and WMD (non nuclear) Mariupol into extinction.

 

 

[dan/california]

 

18 minutes ago, Huba said:

Do we know for sure that it comes from NATO asset outside of Ukraine airspace? Was it satellite or something like E8? Either way, holy crap that's impressive.

I am honestly not 100% certain for this particular image. But my point is that NATO receives this kind of data from SEVERAL sources, and the Russians would have to fool all of them, and every Ukrainian farmer with a cell connection, to generate meaningful surprise at this point.  If the Russian's had any brains at all they would think about that for 90 seconds, and then go home. Really spoofing NATO/Ukr ISR would require six orders of magnitude more operational agility, comms security, and electronic warfare capability than they have shown so far. Impossible, no, and the Ukrainian General staff should be alert to the Russians trying to pull something, but isn't bleeping likely.

[Huba]

13 minutes ago, BlackMoria said:

Maxar Satellite images are incredible.  They are scattered throughout this tread if you want to see what I am talking about.  They can even pick up bodies in the streets.  One of the images was used to debunk the russian claim that the bodies in the streets of Bucha were done by Ukrainian soldiers or British Intelligence after the russians left Bucha.  The image debunked that as the bodies were already there before Russian forces left.   

Maxar is a private satellite imaging company.  Imagine the even greater fidelity of military spy satellites.   The russians can't pull off any strategic or operational surprises with all the electronic eyes on them, to answer a question you asked earlier, Huba.

 

1 minute ago, Nicdain said:

It's satellite. It's a constellation of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite-borne sensors owned by this private company (Capella Space https://www.capellaspace.com). Usually this constellation is meant to be used for weather purposes. 

I'm aware of those Maxar images, they keep popping up quite often. I'd think that at least during the force build-up phase you could hide from/ obscure optical reconnaissance from the satellites, given their known trajectories and overfly times, clouds etc. IIR is not a thing on the satellite level afaik? But this SAR really looks like a game changer. I recall Soviet naval radar satellites  from the old times, but those were very low orbit and quite limited - it is logical though that this technology would improve after a few decades. It's nice to learn about something new  One can imagine what the capabilities of military constellations might be. 
Given that Ukrainians are fed data from those satellites in the real time, the only missing piece of the puzzle seems to be weapon systems able to capitalize on this.

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, Kinophile said:

@Haiduk Can you clarify?

Is this marines within Mariupol who have consolidated into Azovstal etc, or is it fresh reinforcements infiltrated through the RUS cordon?

 If the latter, and UKR is able to reinforce Mariupol, well -

1) RUS battlefield security fail #2,371

2) Mariupol will stand longer, messing with the southern "pincer" of the RUS Donbass Op

3) Putin might finally press the button and WMD (non nuclear) Mariupol into extinction.

 

 

My understanding is that the Russians had sort of cut Mariupol into two pockets, The marines were able to break out of their pocket and combine with Azov. So not a miracle unfortunately, but that much harder and longer the Russians will have to fight to finish things there.

[dan/california]

8 minutes ago, Nicdain said:

What seems strange to me is that Russia should have spy satellites too. Why can't they have the same level of intelligence on UA positions or movements?

To some extent they probably do. They seem to utterly lack the command and control capabilities to do much with in real time though. And in the earlier fighting around Kyiv, light infantry dug into an endless suburb with heavy forest cover would be about the hardest thing to see I can think of.

[akd]

N/t

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by akd

[Huba]

3 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

I am honestly not 100% certain for this particular image. But my point is that NATO receives this kind of data from SEVERAL sources, and the Russians would have to fool all of them, and every Ukrainian farmer with a cell connection, to generate meaningful surprise at this point.  If the Russian's had any brains at all they would think about that for 90 seconds, and then go home. Really spoofing NATO/Ukr ISR would require six orders of magnitude more operational agility, comms security, and electronic warfare capability than they have shown so far. Impossible, no, and the Ukrainian General staff should be alert to the Russians trying to pull something, but isn't bleeping likely.

In light of the discussion above it looks like it's hardly possible to hide your forces, but I'd think that until those start moving, you can't fully predict how are they going to be used and plan accordingly, you have to make some assumptions. 

What I was wondering is if it is possible to achieve some surprise on this level. Let's say that the Russian northern group of forces around Izyum doesn't push south at all, instead going west trying to encircle Kharkiv (not saying that this particular scenario is realistic, just an example, probably on a lesser scale too). Does this kind of thinking make sense at all ?

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, Saberwander said:

Thank you for the article. Hertling is quite interesting to read on Twitter as well.

This made me realize that Russia did not go after the infrastructure. I could understand not bombing the bridges when they expected to roll onto Maidan and hold a victory parade on Day 3 but why are they not destroying all the bridges over Dnieper? Why are Ukrainian railways mostly functional across Ukraine? They retreated from the north, there is no real need for them to keep those bridges functional (and other bridges over Dnieper to the south).

Surely it can't be that they are "saving" the infrastructure as they expect to occupy it? Is it just being unable to target it without losing many aircraft?

By focusing on destroying bridges across Dnieper and/or adjacent areas they could make Ukrainian supply that much harder. The fact that Russians seem unable or unwilling to do that shows another issue in their war plan. They are just not fighting this in a way that can achieve victory.

Ah but with what?

Did you see that PGM usage graph I posted?

[dan/california]

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/science/angkor-wat-cambodia-archeaology.html

A not terribly recent article about how airborne LIDAR systems can pull centimeter level resolution of the actual ground out of otherwise impenetrable Southeast Asian jungle. Now imagine trying to hide a tank company in Ukraine from the Pentagon's current best efforts.