How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kraft]

26 minutes ago, akd said:

Mobilization has begun!

 

As Russia has drawn to a tie with North Korea in regards to nuking the west threats, new means are employed to get ahead in the competition.

 

Short Vice Documentary on some crimes near Kyiv for those interested:

 

Edited May 8, 2022 by Kraft

[Huba]

11 minutes ago, Kraft said:

As Russia has drawn to a tie with North Korea in regards to nuking the west threats, new means are employed to get ahead in the competition.

 

Short Vice Documentary on some crimes near Kyiv for those interested:

 

Wow, Vice keeps on delivering. That's how reporting should be done.

[LukeFF]

8 hours ago, panzermartin said:

But nobody will object that they had every right to do this in german territory as retaliation .

ROFL, no, no one has the right to rape and pillage as retaliation. That's the same sort of effed up logic we are seeing the Russians use right now in Ukraine.

C'mon, get your head on straight.

[LukeFF]

8 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Your sense of logic is beyond comprehension. Terror bombing and atrocities by ground forces prolong a war. The subjective motivation to be merciless is counterproductive. It is once again demonstrated by the defense of the steel works don't expect humane treatment from putin if you have the silly idea to surrender. The behaviour of Soviet forces reinforced the German will to resist and therefore prolonged the war as did the bombing of German cities. The argument I can do it because you can do it is refuted numerous times. The idea of taking away the will to fight is a lot more sophisticated than trying to mimic Ivan the Terrible. 

And on this I fully agree.

[Huba]

Here's a daily update from UA General Staff:

Quote

ENGLISH VERSION | АНГЛІЙСЬКА ВЕРСІЯ

The operational update regarding the #russian_invasion on 18.00 on May 8, 2022.

Video (Spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Pavlo Kovalchuk) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbPmX_1XF4U .

The seventy-fourth day of the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people to a russian military invasion continues.

russian enemy continues to conduct full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine.

russian enemy does not stop conducting offensive operations in the Eastern Operational Zone in order to establish full control over the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and maintain the land corridor between these territories and the occupied Crimea.

The main focus of russian enemy's efforts was to destroy the airfield infrastructure in order to prevent the actions of Ukrainian aircraft, including the Bayraktar UAV, to support the actions of air units in the area of responsibility of the Joint Forces and the Black Sea Operational Zone. Increased the intensity of operational and tactical aviation over the northwestern Black Sea.

In the Volyn and Polissya directions, russian enemy did not take active action. Until May 27 this year, a training meeting of territorial defense units will be held in the Minsk district with the involvement of conscripts who are in reserve.

There is a possibility that the units of the armed forces of the russian federation will launch missile and bomb attacks on the infrastructure of Ukraine from the territory and airspace of the republic of belarus.

russian enemy did not take active action in the northern direction. Intensified units of the Border Guard Service, as well as units of the Armed Forces of the russian federation, continue to be detained at checkpoints and in the border areas of the Bryansk and Kursk oblasts.

Further fire damage to our troops and infrastructure in the border areas is not ruled out.

In the Slobozhansky direction, russian enemy is concentrating reserves in the Belgorod region for hostilities near the state border of Ukraine. The deployment of separate units from the 1st Tank Army of the Western Military District has been confirmed in these areas.

russian occupiers did not carry out active offensive operations in the Kharkiv direction. The main efforts were focused on preventing the advance of Ukrainian troops. The group of russian enemies was strengthened by relocating units from the Western Military District from the area of recovery. Military and civilian infrastructure continues to be shelled.

In the Izyum direction, russian enemy regrouped its units, replenished its reserves in order to increase its offensive capabilities, and conducted air reconnaissance with the use of the Orlan-10 UAV in order to clarify the positions of Ukrainian troops.

In the Donetsk and Tavriya directions, russian enemy is fighting to restrain the actions of units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.

During the last day, russian enemy intensified hostilities. It is trying to reach the administrative borders of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Carried out regrouping, replenishment of losses, increased air defense systems and logistics, presumably in order to intensify hostilities in the settlements of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

In the Lyman direction, separate units of the 90th Tank Division tried to take full control of the settlement of Oleksandrivka, as well as, with the support of artillery, to gain a foothold in the northern outskirts of the settlement of Shandryholovo. It was not successful.

In the Severodonetsk direction, russian enemy is trying to seize the settlement of Rubizhne, but without success.

In the Popasna direction, russian enemy is trying to take up positions in the settlement of Popasna and take control of the section of the Popasna-Bakhmut highway.

russian enemy is advancing in the direction of the settlement of Novoselivka, it has no success, the fighting continues.

In the Kurakhiv direction, russian enemy is trying to improve the tactical situation in the direction of the settlement of Novomykhailivka, but has no success.

In the Mariupol direction, the intensity of hostilities has been reduced.

In the Novopavlovsk and Zaporizhzhya directions, russian enemy intensified air reconnaissance in the areas of the settlements of Orikhiv, Huliaipole, Komyshuvakha, and Yasna Polyana.

In the South Buh area, russian enemy is trying to hold positions with forces of up to 15 battalion tactical groups. It does not carry out active hostilities. It fired mortars, artillery and rocket-propelled grenades at positions of our troops. Carried out replenishment of losses. It used military aircraft in the area of the town of Careyerne.

Measures of the administrative-police regime in the temporarily occupied territories are underway. Thus, there is an intensification of filtering measures by rosguard units in the areas of Heroyske, Hola Prystan, and Kherson settlements.

There is a possibility that assault operations will be carried out in certain areas in order to improve the tactical situation, bind our troops and prevent the transfer of reserves.

The moral and psychological condition of russian occupiers remains low, there is a systematic use of alcohol and desertion. The personnel of russian enemy's units complain about the ineffectiveness of their attacks on the position of the Defense Forces of Ukraine in the Huliaipole area.

We keep the line! We believe in the Armed Forces of Ukraine! Together to victory!

Glory to Ukraine!

 

Edited May 8, 2022 by Huba

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

I think the way I would put this is that Putin's approach is instrumental and but not just in a direct sense of immediate benefit to Russia. What he's also looking for a more general hostility to the international status quo. Thus, Russia can be friendly with Cuba, Orban's Hungary, China or Nicaragua. The ideology, such as it is, is rejection of American hegemony and the rules based order. 

In that sense, those allies are not useful idiots. They *know* why they are doing it, whether those reasons are Cuban fears of being overwhelmed by Miami, Venezuelan paranoia about regime change or Hungarian ethnic resentment and annoyance at those irritating EU penalties for rank corruption. Essentially, all of these regimes want freedom of action without consequence. 

Largely agree, however I'm not sure of the degree that these nations are aware of how much Russia is willing to gamble their futures away on something that is mostly designed to benefit Russia.  In that way they are not aware of how much Putin views them as expendable.  They might think the relationship is as unbalanced as it is.  Or perhaps they do know and aren't all that concerned. 

Steve

[danfrodo]

Interesting night of posts from y'all, just got caught up.  I don't post anything until I've reviewed them all, which took a while this morning.  My takeaways:

1.  Yet more utterly pointless discussions of "who was worse", Hitler or Stalin.  Please, just stop.  It's about as useful as arguing Superman vs Dr Strange (note, when I die and go to hell, these gawd awful superhero movies will be playing non stop, I am sure, which will be infinitely more punishing to me than burning in an eternal lake of fire)

2.  Amazing footage of UKR drone hitting RU Mi8, squad of bad guys obliterated also. 

3.  Ukraine must have quite a thriving music industry.  All the videos have this epic, super cool music that's a mix of metal, hip hop and traditional -- I'm assuming they are all singing in Ukrainian?

4.  Not much news today on the front, though hoping more will filter in over (my) day.  Looks like Kharkiv offensive picking off a few more villiages.  And in the south the russians attacked for some pointless reason and are reported to have lost ~300 casualties in a defeat.

5.  From Huba's post above quoting UKR general staff: I think the west should send hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to RU.  In the form of hard alcohol. 

6.  We saw an interesting post comparing first aid kits of RU & UKR soldiers, w UKR looking much better equiped.  The RU kit didn't even have ivermectin, no wonder RU readiness is low. 

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

More Ukrainian TB2 footage.

I'm curious... does anybody know how many of these fast attack boats are available to Russia in the Black Sea region?  I assume quite a few, but haven't a clue.  Taking 4 out of action from a fleet of 50 is very different than 100.

Steve

[womble]

10 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

5.  From Huba's post above quoting UKR general staff: I think the west should send hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to RU.  In the form of hard alcohol.

You may be right. Does alcohol have a calming effect on someone who's huffing angel dust while dropping LSD?

[Huba]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'm curious... does anybody know how many of these fast attack boats are available to Russia in the Black Sea region?  I assume quite a few, but haven't a clue.  Taking 4 out of action from a fleet of 50 is very different than 100.

Steve

From Wikipedia (data seems to be from November 2020):

Planned	24
Completed	17
Active	11 (9 Baltic, 1 Black Sea, 1 Caspian)[1]

So, best case they lost 4 out of 24, worst case half of the available ones. Anyway - ouch!

[db_zero]

1 hour ago, kraze said:

Didn't know evil putin was so good at dressing up like innocent, oppressed russian kindergarten teachers and switching between costumes so simultaneously.

I'm curious to hear your take on a few things. I see you consistently post statements like "you view things through western eyes"

I agree with that. I'm an American but lived overseas and one of the things I learned quickly was the way Americans view themselves, their country and how others perceive America is often at odds with how everyone else views America.

Aside from the divergent attitudes there is the fact America is surrounded by 2 massive oceans and hasn't had a modern war fought on our territory. Wars are fought in far off places using massive American firepower and money. When you look at the placement and reach of US military bases and outposts its truly amazing. Nothing past history rivals it.

The existing world order is one that arose out of 1945 where basically America imposed a global set of rules predicated on free trade, dominance of the USD and backed by the US military, primary to promote US economic growth and dominance.

I'm hearing from knowledgeable people who think this whole notion that Russia will come to it senses willingly or unwillingly is fantasy based on western bias. In western thinking losses already suffered, the failure to achieve even basic objectives and the cost would logically lead to finding a way to exit. That is a western way of thinking.

Russia on the other hand they believe is not that way. Russia will continue this fight even if they suffer losses in the hundreds of thousands and they have a history of enduring losses that are incomprehensible to the west. Russia has food, oil, natural gas and the basic resources to continue to fight a primitive style of war. Just use massive artillery and back it up by massive manpower.

I've heard all the arguments for Russia to cry uncle and they are logical and based on some sound reasoning, but once again is this western biased thinking?

I've also heard a retired US general say that summer is the key period. Ukraine has to win or make big gains then otherwise once winter come around things will start to move away from Ukraine's favor. He believes the long war strategy is the wrong on for Ukraine.

 

 

 

[dan/california]

8 hours ago, Machor said:

Steve,

OT, but honest question for a historian like yourself, coming from someone ignorant about the ACW, and without any personal stake in the history: I had read that Southerners were not traitors because, in the US system, their allegiance was first and foremost to their native State. What is your take on this?

Please don't ban me - It really is an honest question. 

P.S.: Should Ukraine ever retake Donbas, or even Crimea, the question would have relevance today.

That is not what the oaths they had preciously taken to the United States Constitution said. The Civil war was about one thing, and one thing only. The top one % in the Confederacy got and stayed filthy rich because you don't have to pay your workers when you can torture them instead. That is what chattel slavery was. The top tier managed to bring the rest of the south with them by the use of the 1900s equivalent of a certain TV network that rhymes with box. It took a ~million dead and another 100 years of miscellaneous unpleasantness to almost clean up the mess.

[Kraft]

I am unsure if part one of the artillery attack on Russian vehicle depot? supposedly near Izyum has been posted, but here is part 2  

They were obviously expecting shelling as half the vehicles were dug in. One might still wonder why you'd park those in artillery range in the first place. And I always thought those collections of defenseless vehicles parked in some field were unrealistic in DCS & IL-2 Simulator

Edited May 8, 2022 by Kraft

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, Huba said:

From Wikipedia (data seems to be from November 2020):

Planned	24
Completed	17
Active	11 (9 Baltic, 1 Black Sea, 1 Caspian)[1]

So, best case they lost 4 out of 24, worst case half of the available ones. Anyway - ouch!

Oooo... that's interesting!!  I was thinking they might have upwards of 50 of these in total (maybe not all same type).  Even losing 4 out of 50 is significant, but 4 out of 24 is huge.  4 out of 11 is even better

Steve

[billbindc]

15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Largely agree, however I'm not sure of the degree that these nations are aware of how much Russia is willing to gamble their futures away on something that is mostly designed to benefit Russia.  In that way they are not aware of how much Putin views them as expendable.  They might think the relationship is as unbalanced as it is.  Or perhaps they do know and aren't all that concerned. 

Steve

I think the universe of Russian 'allies' is pretty much defined by countries with high levels of corruption and/or low levels of civic culture. By definition they aren't thinking much in the long term because they don't have much incentive to do so. 

And before anyone asks...no, Chinese political and strategic culture is *not* especially noted for long term planning or any special ability to carry such out. That's an orientalist fantasy created, ironically, when China was at its weakest.

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, Kraft said:

I am unsure if part one of the artillery attack on Russian vehicle depot? has been posted, but here is part 2  

 

They were obviously expecting shelling as half the vehicles were dug in. One might still wonder why you'd park those in artillery range in the first place

This is something I've been seeing all over the place, but this video shows it to the extreme.

A standard Russian defensive tactic is to dig in their vehicles with berms around at least 3 sides.  The concept is that a direct hit is rare, so the berms will protect the vehicle from the blast effect.  However, there are two fundamental flaws with this:

1.  It seems Ukraine is able to land rounds directly on target with great regularity.

2. The closer the positions are to each other the greater the chance that there's going to be a direct hit.  Or in the case of this video, lots of direct hits.

True to Russia's nature, it continually repeats rote drills without anybody taking responsibility for adjusting them to conform to battlefield reality.

Contrast this with the US Army in Normandy when they found hedgerows to be a huge problem.  In a fairly short period of time soldiers on the ground discovered a work around, proved its effectiveness, and next thing you know they were in mass production by frontline units and put into action within days or weeks.  This is exactly the sort of thing that the Russians have demonstrated they are incapable of doing.

Steve

[womble]

12 minutes ago, db_zero said:

Russia on the other hand they believe is not that way. Russia will continue this fight even if they suffer losses in the hundreds of thousands and they have a history of enduring losses that are incomprehensible to the west. Russia has food, oil, natural gas and the basic resources to continue to fight a primitive style of war. Just use massive artillery and back it up by massive manpower.

Which wouldn't even work if they had the resources to produce all those tubes and the manpower to throw at the problem.

Ukraine seem to be providing some pretty solid evidence that "massive artillery" isn't enough in the modern battlespace. What use is an overwhelming number of tubes if they can be hunted down and killed by UAV-guided counterbattery missions? Missions fired by weapons that outrange the RU systems and are more precise and more agile.

While 140M people might be able to turn up quite a few warm bodies able to struggle across rough terrain in the face of determined opposition, what are the Russians going to equip them with? Again, an AK and a tin hat isn't going to cut it in the modern battlespace. They need comms gear and battlefield intel equipment that Russia simply doesn't have the tech base to produce out of their domestic supply. While the sanctions hold, they're boned in that department.

At some point the reality will catch up with the Russian mood. In '89, they celebrated the demise of the Commissars who'd been oppressing them for 60 years, and missed the chance to take hold of their own futures. If they miss the next chance, they won't have any futures to take hold of, since they'll be "pumping gas for China". What Russia "believes" doesn't change the facts on the ground: they can stop, or they can drive themselves into the ground until they're so mired they can't carry on. Bit like a T-72 in the good black earth of Ukraine.

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I think the universe of Russian 'allies' is pretty much defined by countries with high levels of corruption and/or low levels of civic culture. By definition they aren't thinking much in the long term because they don't have much incentive to do so. 

Yeah, for sure the major personalities behind alliances with Russia are active participants in short term, self-serving financial/power benefits.  That kinda puts them outside of the "useful idiot" concept because they are aware they are participating.  However, they still fall into the "useful idiot" concept exactly because they are helping Russia with its selfish aims without questioning the long term benefit to themselves.  In other words, idiots

6 minutes ago, billbindc said:

And before anyone asks...no, Chinese political and strategic culture is *not* especially noted for long term planning or any special ability to carry such out. That's an orientalist fantasy created, ironically, when China was at its weakest.

I do think that Chinese political class has a much better process of decision making than in Russia.  They seem to have a better handle on reality, more akin to Russia in the early days of Putin.  However, it does seem that China is drifting more down the same autocratic road that Putin went down.  History makes it pretty clear that this road is generally a dead end.

Steve

[panzermartin]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

ROFL, no, no one has the right to rape and pillage as retaliation. That's the same sort of effed up logic we are seeing the Russians use right now in Ukraine.

C'mon, get your head on straight.

 

You don't have an idea what it was like to be under the Nazi boot. You go to a country to exterminate certain "species" with 25 million dead and you expect they will handle you like porcelain in return. Now thats ROFL. You reap what you saw. Germans accepted that, time for you to accept it as well. 

 

Edited May 8, 2022 by panzermartin

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, womble said:

Which wouldn't even work if they had the resources to produce all those tubes and the manpower to throw at the problem.

Ukraine seem to be providing some pretty solid evidence that "massive artillery" isn't enough in the modern battlespace. What use is an overwhelming number of tubes if they can be hunted down and killed by UAV-guided counterbattery missions? Missions fired by weapons that outrange the RU systems and are more precise and more agile.

While 140M people might be able to turn up quite a few warm bodies able to struggle across rough terrain in the face of determined opposition, what are the Russians going to equip them with? Again, an AK and a tin hat isn't going to cut it in the modern battlespace. They need comms gear and battlefield intel equipment that Russia simply doesn't have the tech base to produce out of their domestic supply. While the sanctions hold, they're boned in that department.

At some point the reality will catch up with the Russian mood. In '89, they celebrated the demise of the Commissars who'd been oppressing them for 60 years, and missed the chance to take hold of their own futures. If they miss the next chance, they won't have any futures to take hold of, since they'll be "pumping gas for China". What Russia "believes" doesn't change the facts on the ground: they can stop, or they can drive themselves into the ground until they're so mired they can't carry on. Bit like a T-72 in the good black earth of Ukraine.

And who says RU is going to have sufficient arty tubes to defend all the weak spots in their ~800km front?  If I am UKR one of my highest priorities is destroying RU artillery using the nice toys they are receiving. 

RU can probably replace the towed guns pretty easily, but destroyed tubes usually have destroyed crews.  So both number and effectiveness of RU artillery would hopefully decrease significantly.

[TheVulture]

20 minutes ago, Kraft said:

I am unsure if part one of the artillery attack on Russian vehicle depot? has been posted, but here is part 2  

They were obviously expecting shelling as half the vehicles were dug in. One might still wonder why you'd park those in artillery range in the first place. And I always thought those collections of defenseless vehicles parked in some field were unrealistic in DCS & IL-2 Simulator

I'm 90% sure that's the exact same location as in the video last week of the MLRS strike that nearly got Gerasimov and killed one of the Russian generals with a direct hit on the farmhouse. At least we can see here what the 'ground clutter' that was kind of visible in the first video is. 

[danfrodo]

6 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

 

You don't have an idea what it was like to be under the Nazi boot. You go to a country to exterminate certain "species" with 25 million dead and you expect they will handle you like porcelain in return. Now thats ROFL. You reap what you saw. Germans accepted that, time for you to accept it as well. 

 

Can you just please stop?  I don't want to block you because you so often have something interesting to say.

We are nearly all military history buffs here, we KNOW.  Hitler's forces committed horrible atrocities and so did Stalin's forces (before and after WW2 in Stalin's case).  We KNOW.  I am not trying to disagree or diminish with what you are saying, it's true.  But we all already know all of this.  So maybe start a new "Germans vs Soviets vs US-Brits, who was more evil" thread?  You guys can go at it all day & night.

So, does anyone have any updated maps of Ukraine war?  My usual site is not posted yet.  Any news? 

 

[Huba]

8 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

And who says RU is going to have sufficient arty tubes to defend all the weak spots in their ~800km front?  If I am UKR one of my highest priorities is destroying RU artillery using the nice toys they are receiving. 

RU can probably replace the towed guns pretty easily, but destroyed tubes usually have destroyed crews.  So both number and effectiveness of RU artillery would hopefully decrease significantly.

Also, if they decide to go with this tactic, rhey better start building ammo factories now - no matter how much ex- USSR stocjs are there, they'll run out at some point. 

[Vanir Ausf B]

10 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

I'm 90% sure that's the exact same location as in the video last week of the MLRS strike that nearly got Gerasimov and killed one of the Russian generals

I'm 99% sure you are right.

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, Machor said:

Steve,

OT, but honest question for a historian like yourself, coming from someone ignorant about the ACW, and without any personal stake in the history: I had read that Southerners were not traitors because, in the US system, their allegiance was first and foremost to their native State. What is your take on this?

Please don't ban me - It really is an honest question. 

P.S.: Should Ukraine ever retake Donbas, or even Crimea, the question would have relevance today.

Dan provided a good answer already, but I'll put it to you this in a context that might help you understand...

Think about Quebec finally passing a referendum separating itself from Canada.  It is not ratified by the Canadian government and, therefore, not constitutionally legal.  Quebec doesn't see it that way and seizes all federal property within its borders for its own uses.  Soldiers that had sworn an oath to defend the Canadian constitution now swear to fight against Canada on behalf of an unrecognized Quebec nation.  They utilize the equipment, training, and doctrine developed and paid for by Canada in order to advance their separatist cause.  New soldiers raised might not have this history, but they were born citizens of Canada and as such are expected to follow its Constitution.  They attack into Ottawa with the intention of defeating the Canadian government and are eventually defeated. 

It would be difficult to describe this as anything other than treason.  It's what happened in the US so... treason is the best term for those Southerners who took up arms against the United States.  Terrorists is another term, but it doesn't exactly fit.

To tie this into Ukraine, those citizens of Ukraine who have switched sides to support Russia are traitors by any reasonable definition of the term.  It gets a bit murky with "collaborationist" who do not actively fight on behalf of Russia.  Some are otherwise good people who are focused on keeping themselves and/or their fellow citizens alive under very difficult circumstances.  Others are zealots, others still are looking to take advantage of the situation for their own benefit.  It's extremely messy to sort all this out.  Extremely.  But taking up arms against Ukraine or providing direct assistance that leads to the deaths of Ukrainians (civilians or military) is very easily sorted... traitor.

Steve