How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Putin is completelly not intrested in those people fates,

For sure.  He is a psychopath by many definitions, sociopath by others.  Either way, he cares nothing about people that don't provide him with something personally.  No doubt about that.

What I'm getting at is how detached he is from pragmatism.  Sure, he might not care one caviar egg's mass for a captured soldier from a province thousands of miles away.  But he should care about how the masses of that area perceive him.  Even a confident, fully entrenched autocrat should care to some degree because guess how autocrats get un-entrenched?  By becoming unpopular enough that people are willing to risk challenging his authority.

Putin USED to understand this, years ago.  Clearly over the years he has gotten too confident in his supremacy to keep the basics covered.  With all the obvious ills of his rule, you'd think he could at least "throw a bone" to these people by getting a few of their captured loved ones sent home.  The fact that he isn't indicates, to me, that he's leaving his flanks wide open.

5 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

but it simply is effect of lack of connectivity of those guys within wider Russian system. I don't think Buriats or Kalmuks  discontempt will ever be dangerous for regime (they are too sparcely populated), but disgruntled guys from LDPR's may pose some problems in the very long future.

I agree that there is more danger from LDPR veterans feeling dishonored and neglected.  And yet Putin is willfully dishonoring and neglecting them.

However, when the central authority of the Russian Federation starts to creak and strain, which poses more long term threat to hundreds of years of traditional concept of Russia?  The loss of two tiny non-Russian republics, or the loss of huge chunks of terrain in the middle of the largest country on Earth?

5 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

It speaks more about Kadyrov resoursefunless rather than Putin preferances.

Oh for sure.  Putin knows he needs Kadyrov, so Kadyrov gets what he wants.  The thing I'm focused on here is that Kadyrov knows that getting his "warriors" back is important, so Putin gives him preferential treatment. Kadyrov is playing the autocratic ruler game correctly.  Putin, on the other hand, isn't (see above).  If Putin could get Kadyrov back all the guys he's asking for and still secure the release of another dozen or two captured Asiatic POWs.  It's not like Russia has a lack of bargaining chips (aka more than a million kidnapped Ukrainian civilians).

Bottom line, I see this as being an indicator of how much Putin's practical sense of self preservation has eroded over the years.  His lack of attention to detail is definitely going to bite him in the arse.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, FancyCat said:

I am doubtful the regime will fall apart so in my opinion,

That does definitely lead us in different directions.  Historically I feel it is inevitable.  When has always been the question in my mind, not if.  I think the answer to that question is coming up very soon.

6 hours ago, FancyCat said:

war offers the best chance for Ukraine to regain territories without annoying calls for ceasefire and diplomacy.

For sure, but taking advantage of a disorganized and demoralized nation state makes it all that much easier to take something.  It's the same reason Russia attacked in 2014 instead of waiting.

6 hours ago, FancyCat said:

I'm really not favorable on the opinion of the Russian Navy or Air Force to defend Crimea, not after they let Snake Island fall without so much a fight. I really don't think if Ukraine can beat Russia at Kherson, then run successful offensives into the Donbas, that Russia can both lose the Donbas republics yet hold Crimea. 

If anything, if not mistaken, I believe once Ukraine controls Kherson, and the rest of the right bank of the Dnipro, the Isthmus of Perekop is within range for targeting of HIMARS anyway. 

So what?  Where are the Ukrainian ground forces going to come from to break into Crimea?  They aren't going to come over the Dnepr any time soon, that's pretty much a given.  More realistically they will come from some section of the front between the Dnepr and Donetsk.  That's a lot of territory to cover.  It will take a lot of time and effort to simply get to Azov/Black Sea coasts, not to mention build up for an offensive into Crimea.

Realistically, Ukraine is going to have to wait on Crimea until other things happen.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Here's a great promotion video for joining up with the Russian military.  Where else can you be sent home from 3 months of war only to find yourself back at the front, brutally kept in a dark basement without food or water for days, until you agree to stay.  Yup, great stuff!

 

[Taranis]

7 hours ago, Huba said:

Les VAB sont déjà en Ukraine :

 

They must have also been advised by the French Army on how to use them because the two infantrymen on the rear open hatches were standard employment in Afghanistan. They are there to do close defense and observation (rear, proximity etc)

[Machor]

Excellent reporting by the BBC's former Russia correspondent Sarah Rainsford, who was kicked out of Russia before the war; I will quote only the introduction, a part about possible crimes against humanity, and the conclusion, but highly recommend reading the whole article - it should be accessible to all without a paywall unless if you're in Russia:

Ukraine's shadow army resisting Russian occupation

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62333795

Quote

 

As Ukraine's military steps up its strikes on Kherson, hinting at a new offensive to recapture the region, there is another force working alongside. They are Ukraine's shadow army, a network of agents and informers who operate behind enemy lines.

Our journey to meet the resistance fighters takes us through a landscape of sunflower yellow and sky blue to Mykolaiv. The first major town on Ukrainian-controlled territory west of Kherson, it has become the partisans' headquarters on the southern front.

Driving through military checkpoints, we pass giant billboards showing a faceless, hooded figure alongside a warning: "Kherson: The partisans see everything." The image is designed to make the region's Russian occupiers nervous and boost the morale of those trapped under their rule.

"The resistance is not one group, it's total resistance," the man standing in front of me insists, his voice slightly muffled by a black mask he's pulled up from his neck so I can't see his face as we film him, in a room I can't describe so that neither can be found.

I'll call him Sasha.

Shortly before this war, Ukraine bolstered its Special Forces in part to build and manage a resistance movement. It even published a PDF booklet on how to be a good partisan, with instructions on such subversive acts as slashing the tyres of the occupier, adding sugar to petrol tanks or refusing to follow orders at work. "Be grumpy," is one suggestion.

But Sasha's team of informers have a more active role: tracking Russian troop movements inside Kherson.

...

We can't travel into Kherson now it's occupied, but the mood in this crowd reveals plenty about life there. Even on Ukrainian-controlled soil, people are wary of what they say. "Will the Russians see this?" some of the new arrivals want to know before I film or even record them speaking. Others shake their heads as I approach, and turn away from my microphone.

"It's tough there, the Russians are everywhere," Alexandra tells me, bouncing baby Nastya on her knee in the back of a car. Inside the aid tent an older woman is standing with two carrier bags at her feet looking lost and lonely. Struggling with tears, Svitlana tells me she's fled Kherson because her nerves are in shreds but her husband has refused to come with her. "He said he's waiting for the Ukrainian army to come and liberate us," she says.

As night begins to fall, and more vehicles pull in, a man admits that his own family are running from more than the missiles. "We know people are disappearing, it's true," he tells me, without giving his name. "In Kherson, you don't go out in the evening."

...

Sasha believes many of those who have remained in the city are ready to stay and fight; those I've spoken to say support for Russian rule is minimal and the searches, detentions and beatings in recent months have shrunk that still further.

"When the army starts to invade, then people will be ready and will help," Sasha says.

After his own brutal experience in Russian custody, Oleh is already back on the southern front to fight for his hometown, alongside Ukraine's partisan army.

"They can take the land, but they can't take the people," is how he puts it. "The Russians will never be safe in Kherson, because the people didn't want them there. They don't like them. They won't accept them."

 

"A resistance poster reads: Zaporizhzhia, land of death to the occupiers:"

[Aragorn2002]

18 hours ago, Butschi said:

Do you? I'd rather say you chose the most efficient tools at your disposal to achieve your goals. As the defender who wants to retake occupied territory, killing enemy soldiers with maximal use of force may not be your primary goal. Instead you may want to leave as much of the infrastructure intact as possible so you have to rebuild less later on. Maybe you also want to retake said territory with minimal expenditure of life on your side, because after the war someone has to actually do the rebuilding. With all the PGMs in the world you will still lose lives and destroy infrastructure. Or maybe you are just not able to hit hard enough to do the job in the most straightforward way.

If your goal is not just killing as many enemies as possible, the best idea may really be to make life for the occupying army miserable, leave them a way out and show them that the door to this way out may not stay open forever.

I guess Sun Tzu has some wise words about that.

Yeah, George S. Patton too;

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

[The_MonkeyKing]

 

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by The_MonkeyKing

[Aragorn2002]

15 hours ago, poesel said:

It's rather the other way round: in chess, you hit as hard as possible. There are only two parties - a zero-sum game. Your win is the loss of the other.

In war, there are more parties and people have to live on the battlefield afterwards. If this war had been chess, Russia would have just nuked Ukraine into oblivion.

So if you find an enemy HQ in a factory you wait until  they are relocating to an old barn? War is about killing your enemy, in numbers as great as possible. There's nothing that will bring victory or negotiations faster than that. There's an element of chess in it for sure, but war is an entirely different 'game'.

Your win is the loss of the other? That sounds likely yes.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[Raptor341]

****ing Orcs - - those kinds of people (referring to those who conduct torture executions and physical torture for the purpose of torture) should be dealt with immediately by their own troops in a civilized army. I’m ranting but this kind of activity has no place and only serves to remind me why Ukrainians must win this fight and win it fully. 
 

Rant over. On a side note, does anyone have any recent crowdfunding or support links that they would like to share? 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Raptor341

[Huba]

23 minutes ago, Raptor341 said:

****ing Orcs - - those kinds of people (referring to those who conduct torture executions and physical torture for the purpose of torture) should be dealt with immediately by their own troops in a civilized army. I’m ranting but this kind of activity has no place and only serves to remind me why Ukrainians must win this fight and win it fully. 
 

Rant over. On a side note, does anyone have any recent crowdfunding or support links that they would like to share? 

That was my reaction exactly. They belong in the ground fertilizing the soil. If you're looking for something worthy supporting, here's a fund for Warmate loitering munitions - I'm not sure if it would be easy for somebody outside of PL to chip in due to technical reasons, but for sure it's worth a try.

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

War is about killing your enemy, in numbers as great as possible. There's nothing that will bring victory or negotiations faster than that

If that was true and there were really no other constraints, then WMD are always the best strategy because that's, as the name implies, what they excell at. Strangely, that's usually not what happens.

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

War is about killing your enemy, in numbers as great as possible.

Not quite it is about taking away the will to fight. Killing someone's siblings, father or mother increases the will to fight. Maiming is more effective it takes away more resources and a veteran walking on crutches is a reminder of the war he or she fought in. 

[poesel]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

War is about killing your enemy, in numbers as great as possible. There's nothing that will bring victory or negotiations faster than that.

As an absolute statement, that is wrong. If that were true, 'Unternehmen Barbarossa' was the best plan ever - it killed a lot of enemies.

You state these things as if they are always true. But they are only sometimes true. Measures must be evaluated in context.

[G.I. Joe]

18 minutes ago, Butschi said:

If that was true and there were really no other constraints, then WMD are always the best strategy because that's, as the name implies, what they excell at. Strangely, that's usually not what happens.

Ultimately, I think war is not so much about killing the enemy as it is about achieving objectives. Perhaps even more so, it is about preventing the enemy from achieving their objectives... usually the most effective way of doing so is removing their ability to achieve them. This can mean killing the enemy, but it can also mean interdiction, destroying industrial capacity, outmaneuvering them diplomatically, etc.

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, poesel said:

As an absolute statement, that is wrong. If that were true, 'Unternehmen Barbarossa' was the best plan ever - it killed a lot of enemies.

You state these things as if they are always true. But they are only sometimes true. Measures must be evaluated in context.

Of course they must, but killing the enemy is always a crucial part of any strategy. The German campaign in the East wasn't directed strongly enough at destroying the Russians. Instead of trying to conquer or hold objectives or resources the main goal (especially after Stalingrad) should have been taking out as many Russian soldiers as possible. Manstein knew that, hence his Schlag aus der Nachhand tactics. Draining the enemy by destroying their reserves of manpower. The Germans were closer to that goal than most people think. But they lost because they didn't enough to spare their own reserves of manpower.

So, no, not even as an absolute statement is this wrong. Killing the enemy should of course always be combined with realistic goals like conquering objectives, denying the enemy reaching theirs etc and so on, but should always be the prevailing goal. That's another difference between war and chess. In war blood has to flow to win.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[Aragorn2002]

50 minutes ago, Butschi said:

If that was true and there were really no other constraints, then WMD are always the best strategy because that's, as the name implies, what they excell at. Strangely, that's usually not what happens.

The rather obvious answer to that is that using WMD brings the danger of becoming the target of those of the enemy. So, there's nothing strange about the fact that it usually doesn't happen.

[The_MonkeyKing]

with love from Britain 

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, G.I. Joe said:

Ultimately, I think war is not so much about killing the enemy as it is about achieving objectives. Perhaps even more so, it is about preventing the enemy from achieving their objectives... usually the most effective way of doing so is removing their ability to achieve them. This can mean killing the enemy, but it can also mean interdiction, destroying industrial capacity, outmaneuvering them diplomatically, etc.

As I said, a combination of all those factors, but in my opinion with killing the enemy as the most important one. In this particular war the Russian mood will start to change when the Ukrainian artillery is starting to slaughter more and more Russian soldiers that can't be replaced and will cause a steady stream of body bags that can't be hidden anymore from public view. Despite all the semantics (not yours) that's what will bring the decison. Killing your enemy.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[The_MonkeyKing]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1552942531842871296?s=20&t=y8yxZtdMUhiUIs6WqB6fQg

The fuq is this top attack system? 

[Huba]

5 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1552942531842871296?s=20&t=y8yxZtdMUhiUIs6WqB6fQg

The fuq is this top attack system? 

Given that the munition seems to be travelling upwards before EFP is fired, this seems to be a plausible explanation:

https://man.fas.org/dod-101/sys/land/m93.htm

[The_MonkeyKing]

7 minutes ago, Huba said:

Given that the munition seems to be travelling upwards before EFP is fired, this seems to be a plausible explanation:

https://man.fas.org/dod-101/sys/land/m93.htm

 

indeed looks like it. Only thing this might be longer than 100m. But nothing new that the public information about the range is wrong or outdated with never versions.

[poesel]

3 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Of course they must, but killing the enemy is always a crucial part of any strategy. The German campaign in the East wasn't directed strongly enough at destroying the Russians. ...

The right thing to do in this context would have been to evaluate the Soviet resources and then to stay at home.

But I see that we won't agree, and I will leave it at that.

[DesertFox]

Is this validated? If yes, very good!

“Both parties in the US Congress support sending Ukraine long-range ATACMS missiles, which can hit at a distance of more than 280 kilometers,” reports Elissa Slotkin, a representative of the Democratic Party and a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Armed Forces Affairs.

US Ready to Provide Ukraine with ATACMS Long-range Missiles - KyivPost - Ukraine's Global Voice

[Grigb]

14 hours ago, Haiduk said:

I saw that video. And other, when Russians cut off the head and hands of our soldier and put it on the fence. 

I post a link (GRAPHIC!):  https://twitter.com/dohuyaUmnyi/status/1552738347012980736

Nation of Tolstoy and Chekhov? We at war with hordes of cruel degenerates. 

 

 

 

 

[Huba]