How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

11 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Serbians want to FAFO it seems. For their sake they better hope they've gotten better at hiding their weapons than 25 years ago.

This journalist has provided more context around Kosovo. I'll quote some relevant tweets. 

Quote

The KFOR (NATO troops part of the Kosovo Forces) have active and regularly updated intervention plans on all the main roads leading into Kosovo in the North, which they can implement whenever they deem the situation to have significantly escalated.

 

After the 1999 NATO bombing of what remained of Yugoslavia (yes the thing Putin always mentions), Serbia withdrew its military and political presence from Kosovo and signed the Kumanovo Agreement which set up a NATO-enforced air and ground safety zone.

While various facets of the agreement were suspended at times as a sign of goodwill (and joint NATO and Serbian army patrols were organized along the border) when a security crisis hits they’re immediately reimposed. This basically the equivalent of NATO Article 5 being violated.

 

As someone who has personally visited Bondsteel (the biggest US army base in the region, found in Kosovo) and the barracks of various NATO members close to the border — I can claim with almost 100% certainty that Russia or Serbia cannot (re)occupy Kosovo overnight.

 

The only thing this frantic fear-mongering (and spreading of alarmist disinfo) will achieve is that (armed) rabble-rousers will feel encouraged to actually go out and shoot people while the whole world is watching. So have that on your conscience while you spread fake news.

Additional NATO and Kosovo police presence has been placed on the bridges between Serb-majority North Mitrovica and Albanian-majority South Mitrovica, to pre-empt spillover tensions. FYI, the main bridge between the two municipalities has been closed off for almost two decades…

… and is guarded by international forces (such as the Italian Carabinieri) to deter ease of access for people who might want to escalate things. (This is for those suddenly interested in inter-ethnic tensions in Kosovo.)

 

NATO-KFOR just came out with a statement saying 1) they’re monitoring things on the ground in Kosovo, as per usual 2) it has a UNSC mandate to intervene if things go badly 3) they’re in touch with authorities in both Serbia and Kosovo. Looks like war won’t break out tonight.

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by FancyCat

[asurob]

33 minutes ago, Huba said:

I think that tweet answers Your question pretty well:

 

Yeah I just read it.  Thanks!

[Battlefront.com]

57 minutes ago, asurob said:

Can a quiet observer get a ballpark estimate as to what you think could happen should that trouble go hot?  I know Kosovo has a very small army, but I imagine with NATO troops and air on the ground there and given the fact that Serbia's neighbors aren't big fans that could be the start of a domino that inflames the region...yet again.

As Huba pointed out already, the post by Desert Fox is your answer... nothing significant.

Worst that might happen is a bunch of thugs rough up some people, perhaps putting some holes in them, and a NATO MP unit moves in to quite things down.  If that is attacked, the response will be swift and proportional.  Serbia will likely have to show some signs of cooperation or the trouble will become theirs as well.

The Serbian state won't let this get out of hand.  They are about 3 years away from full EU membership if all goes well between now and then.  They will not allow a few numbnuts to undermine Serbia's economic future.  There's enough Serbs who remember what the alternatives are like and I have a feeling if push came to shove the majority of the population would shove back hard against the ultranationalists.  It's happened before.

That said, Serbia has a lot of house cleaning to do if they are going to get EU membership.  There's not much appetite to have another authoritarian "problem child" in the house.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Ooooh... Page 1111.  I like it

Steve

[Huba]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

If it were up to me, I'd divert all new Ukrainian units to the western portion of the Zaporizhzhia front.  Small, calculated ground offensives in lots of areas over several weeks could have a significant impact on overall Russian defenses.  Let Kherson stew in its own juices, as the saying goes.

I'll bite off all my fingernails the day these units enter into the fray. I still keep my pet theory that UA will try a decisive, armor spearhead type action on the Melitopol direction, but it is just the tea leaves mixed up with a bit of wishful thinking. We shall see.

One interesting tidbit I got from other podcast by this Wolski guy who I often mention here. Reportedly the newly trained UA forces are being rotated through the frontline already, at company level, for a week or two at a time. No hard evidence to support this claim at the moment, but sounds like something very sensible to do.

[danfrodo]

Kosovo & Taiwan (and Ukraine) are amazing examples of the stupidity of nationalist warmongering.  They are religious zealots, with no attachment to anything rational, wanting wars that have nearly zero upside and monstrous downside.  It's amazing, yet here we are.

[danfrodo]

3 minutes ago, Huba said:

I'll bite off all my fingernails the day these units enter into the fray. I still keep my pet theory that UA will try a decisive, armor spearhead type action on the Melitopol direction, but it is just the tea leaves mixed up with a bit of wishful thinking. We shall see.

One interesting tidbit I got from other podcast by this Wolski guy who I often mention here. Reportedly the newly trained UA forces are being rotated through the frontline already, at company level, for a week or two at a time. No hard evidence to support this claim at the moment, but sounds like something very sensible to do.

you still have fingernails?  I chewed mine off a while ago. I do hope for the Melitopol armored spearhead, though I know it's probably just wishful thinking.  Would be an interesting CM campaign.  I want hostomel as the first battle in the CM version of this war -- I can't wait to wipe the grins off their smug VDV faces.

[FancyCat]

@ChrisO_wiki

Has a very long thread on Twitter about the experiences of a Russian soldier in Ukraine, Pt 1: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1552921299693064194.html

Pt 2: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1553322172847951873.html

Pt 3: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1553833316578631681.html

 

In Pt 2, Viktor Shyaga, a contract soldier who wrote a blog post after serving a contract from March to May, stating many illuminating experiences, of which i will briefly run down, so definitely click on the thread links above to read it entirely. 1, he got nearly no training after signing up in March, had little to no training in his original conscription service, 2, none of the new contractees knew basic weapon handling, neither the duty officer, nor the First Sgt, but a senior praporschik who served in Chechnya got a machine gun unjammed. 3, they were lied to as to their service job, forced to become infantry, many had medical problems, corruption resulted in a lack of supplies and gear, and was blatant and occured in Russia and Ukraine, including stealing food rations and picking it apart for the good stuff. (a bit shocking? I can't see NATO or U.S soldiers going that far with any corruption or such) 

 

Pt 3, Chris says he was part of the 752nd Guards Motor Rifle Regiment near Izyum, a political officer offered them a chance to leave before entering the front line. The senior praporschik took the chance to leave. I wonder if that was the same praporschik who unjammed the MG? The First Sgt. kept away from the fighting. 

 

Okay, WTF, the description of their attacks in Dovhen'ke is legit insane, see the thread, it's just astounding. No wonder the Russians are losing personnel so easily, their attacks are uncoordinated, their infantry are untrained and have little esprit de corps, the Wagner are being used to herd disoriented soldiers back to the bases (so not blocking troops per say), the refusal to fight infected all the unit and officers, no wonder Russia can't do encirclements. 

 

If this is real information, and more widespread, their artillery, elite and specialized units like Wagner, are all they have capable of offensive operations. The fact that much of the shattering of his unit was the result of UKR artillery, is deeply interesting. If Ukraine can shatter Russian artillery before the attack, I wonder how much the capability of Russian front line units to resist a UKR offensive really is. 

 

Of course, Russian Air units and long range missile attacks can still scatter UKR buildup, but the picture painted of Russian infantry and even their armored units is very poor. 

 

[OldSarge]

49 minutes ago, Huba said:

One interesting tidbit I got from other podcast by this Wolski guy who I often mention here. Reportedly the newly trained UA forces are being rotated through the frontline already, at company level, for a week or two at a time. No hard evidence to support this claim at the moment, but sounds like something very sensible to do.

That sounds like a completely reasonable way to get new recruits up to snuff. Getting them up to the front for a few weeks, getting schooled by the veterans who've been there and are still alive to talk about it; the important stuff you need to know that doesn't come from a book, what to do, what not to do and how to stay alive. I can't think of a better way of quickly leveling up a bunch of green troops.

How about the officers and NCOs? Are the recruits under inexperienced leaders? Or is there a cadre of experienced leadership that can keep their wits about them when things get hot and give the new troops a sense of confidence?

[FancyCat]

Galeev went into detail why he felt that Russia was similar to South America than other places. Heres the ending, rest of the thread, he was discussing the stat that 80% of the population was Russian in Russia by pointing out decent chunk is mixed, or Mestizo and self-identification is a very important part of ethnic group identification. Not sure if hes correct regarding his premise, but I was wondering why he felt that way. 

 

 

[Machor]

The BBC reporting from the heart of 'Mother Russia' (though actually very close to Estonia and Latvia) - don't hold your breath for a popular uprising, but mobilization is also not likely:

Reality of Ukraine war hidden from Fortress Russia

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62331061

Quote

 

...

But what of the Russian public? More than five months on, do Russians believe their president took the right decision?

In the big cities, such as Moscow and St Petersburg, it's not uncommon to hear people criticise the Kremlin's "special operation".

But I'm a long way from the capital after a nine-hour drive north-west of Moscow.

I leave the village and head to the regional capital, Pskov. As I drive past a military base, the slogan on the poster outside catches my eye: "The borders of Russia never end!"

...

In town, at a rundown Soviet era sports stadium, they're re-enacting a battle from World War Two.

People posing as Russian partisans are involved in a shoot-out with a group dressed as German Nazis. A mock-up of a Russian village is in flames.

...

"My youngest child says that Russians always win. That Russia will always be victorious. I hope that's true," says one of the spectators, Tatyana. "The past teaches us that people gave their lives so that we could live. That's why we must support our soldiers now."

...

I continue my journey through Pskov region and drive to Novorzhev. Russia may be an energy superpower, but this town has no gas supply - it's still being built.

To heat their homes, many people here burn firewood. One apartment block I visit has no running water. The residents bring it in buckets from a well.

At the local market, I meet senior citizen Natalya Sergeyevna.

More than two decades of Vladimir Putin in power have not given her a comfortable retirement. To supplement her pension, Natalya sells everything she grows at home: from blackberries to potted plants.

At the age of 84, Natalya still toils in the garden, planting and harvesting potatoes to raise extra cash. She doesn't blame her president, though.

"I like Putin and what he's doing," she tells me. "I feel sorry for him. He gets no rest. As for America and all those other troublemakers, they just want to break Russia into parts. They don't understand that they mustn't try to humiliate us."

I have heard the criticisms Natalya makes about Ukraine, the US and the West many times before on Russian TV. It's hardly surprising.

In Russia, television remains the key tool for shaping public opinion. And since the Kremlin controls TV, it pretty much controls the narrative and the messaging in the country. Especially since independent media in Russia have been silenced.

The result: the Russian public is receiving a highly filtered, distorted picture of what is happening in Ukraine. But state propaganda doesn't work in isolation.

Like Natalya Sergeyevna's garden, which produces a wealth of berries, fruits and vegetables, in Russia there is a fertile soil for the idea of Russia as an empire, a superpower, dictating to its neighbours and taking on the West.

The Kremlin knows that its messaging will strike a chord with many here. But striking a chord is one thing. Persuading Russians to join the fight in Ukraine is quite another.

"I support the special military operation. So many of our lads have been killed," says an 18-year-old student in Novorzhev. "If I'm called up, I'll go and fight. But I don't want to sign up."

"It's our duty to fight, if we're enlisted," another student, Konstantin, tells me. "Otherwise I won't go near there. Not for money, not for anything. Family's more important."

The Kremlin may dominate the information landscape. But there are limits to its powers of persuasion.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, Machor said:

At the age of 84, Natalya still toils in the garden, planting and harvesting potatoes to raise extra cash. ...

"I like Putin and what he's doing," she tells me. "... As for America and all those other troublemakers, ... They don't understand that they mustn't try to humiliate us."

Well, nobody was trying to humiliate Russia.  Seems it's been taking care of that all on its own for some time now.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Possible additional evidence that the mass murder of Ukrainian POWs was planned out days in advance.  This time it's satellite images of possible graves dug a few days before the massacre.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

A couple of interesting articles in RFE/RL.

First is from a prominent Russia expert in Norway.  Read this and you'll feel good about your time spent here, as there's not a thing in this article we haven't already talked about in depth   When I read things like this I am reassured we're doing good work here, which is always comforting to confirm:

Quote

That has some questioning whether Putin’s hold on power could become tenuous, including Iver Neumann, the director of Norway’s Fridtjof Nansen Institute and an expert on Russia.

He boldly predicts that Putin’s refusal to reform the country’s economy, magnified by the current invasion of its neighbor, could be “the beginning of the end” of his regime, although when this will occur is hard to predict.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-war-putin-neumann-interview/31966753.html

Second is there's more evidence to show that China isn't going to come to Russia's rescue.  In fact, it seems China is becoming generally more risk averse to extending credit to its traditional customers because China has some significant financial troubles of its own.  However, the more notable thing is that this is the first year that China hasn't invested in any major Russian projects.  That much is known, the why is not:

Quote

RFE/RL: But are these drop-offs surprising to you? It seems like a noteworthy shift, especially for Russia, given where things stood in previous years.

Nedopil Wang: It was definitely a surprising finding. It's the first time that we did not see any engagement in Russia for any period of time.

https://www.rferl.org/a/china-investment-russia-pakistan-standish/31967420.html

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Bellingcat's usual exhaustive methodology used to (probably) show that Girkin was an active FSB agent when he was leading forces in Ukraine and that he still uses an FSB assigned passport.  Not that this is any surprise.  Only a fool would think that he was operating independently in Ukraine 2014.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/07/18/donbas-doubles-the-search-for-girkin-and-plotnitskys-cover-identities/

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Some support is building in the US Congress to supply Ukraine with ATACMS:

https://www.kyivpost.com/russias-war/us-ready-to-provide-ukraine-with-atacms-long-range-missiles.html

I bet there's more than a few Russians in high places not liking where this is headed.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Looks like the train car hit the other day was not in Kherson City as implied in earlier reporting, but instead was in Brylivka on the eastern side of the river.

Here is the details from the July 31st ISW report:

Quote

Advisor to the Ukrainian Internal Affairs Minister Anton Herashenko also confirmed that Ukrainian forces used western-provided HIMARS to strike a 40-car train with Russian equipment and personnel in Brylivka (about 47km southeast of Kherson City) on July 30, resulting in 80 dead and 200 wounded Russian servicemen.

The report notes a number of other significant deep strikes, though they appear to be from partisan activity.  I poked deeper into this and found a good English restating of the Ukrainian GUR report cited in ISW:

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/07/31/7361188/

Basically, Russia withdrew the bulk of its forces from two areas around Tokmak and redeployed them to larger bases, leaving behind only 100 or so soldiers to man checkpoints.  The reason is Ukraine hit both places hard and causes a large number of casualties.  Therefore, it seems that Russia doesn't feel it can either replace the units (i.e. they are too weak and no reinforcements available) or they figure they can't protect them any more and have to move them to someplace better defended.

The question is... what did Ukraine hit them with?  I'm assuming Smerch or Tochka as they are outside the range of HIMARS.  The strike happened on the 29th.

In any case, to me it seems significant that there are withdrawals from locations well behind the lines.  No place is safe, eh?  This is not going to be good for Russian morale.

Steve

[Taranis]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Possible additional evidence that the mass murder of Ukrainian POWs was planned out days in advance.  This time it's satellite images of possible graves dug a few days before the massacre.

Steve

"On Friday, the explosion of a hangar housing Ukrainian soldiers prisoners in Olenivka, in Russian-occupied territory in the Donetsk region, left 50 dead and 73 seriously injured. A "deliberate Russian war crime", according to Mr. Zelensky. The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday it had still not received official permission from Moscow to visit the scene."

Souce : Le Monde

[FancyCat]

 

 

 

[Grigb]

8 hours ago, FancyCat said:

If this is real information, and more widespread, their artillery, elite and specialized units like Wagner, are all they have capable of offensive operations. The fact that much of the shattering of his unit was the result of UKR artillery, is deeply interesting. If Ukraine can shatter Russian artillery before the attack, I wonder how much the capability of Russian front line units to resist a UKR offensive really is. 

 

Of course, Russian Air units and long range missile attacks can still scatter UKR buildup, but the picture painted of Russian infantry and even their armored units is very poor. 

They guy seems legit. And the description is similar to descriptions of other similar soldiers. However, we still need to keep in mind that apart from Speznaz, Wagnerites, RU has also hardcore LDNR units. They are all different than RU regulars.

But anyway, when arty is gone all of them will collapse (arty shell does not care if you are special or not) 

[Grigb]

5th day of Ru offensive. RU propagandist grumbling about essence of RU BTGr.

Quote

Military lessons.
When a unit has little strength to perform a task, it is supplemented by others. It happens that different brigades and even different departments [Rosgvardia] operate on a small section of the front.

The idea is that if there are not enough forces, then it is necessary to push there everyone who is available. As I wrote earlier: quantity does not mean efficiency. Often, each unit begins to fight parallel to each other in the same area, mixing with friendly fire.

When planning, you need to think about how many people to send to one or another section of the front, and how many people will be able to REALLY interact effectively.

Actually, this is how, back in Germany, the idea of BTGr was born, when all the firepower and reinforcement units were controlled from one headquarters.

For us, so far, the BTGr is not a reinforced battalion, but simply all those who could be gathered in the brigade.

 

[Grigb]

Donbass Morning Map.

 

 

[Grigb]

Small Kharkiv map. Not much info yet.

[UPDATE] added info from UKR Donik

Edited August 1, 2022 by Grigb
Map update

[Grigb]

Civilian "Girkin" (Nesmyan) about Ruble exchange restriction

Quote

The [RU] Central Bank did not wait for September 9 and has already extended restrictions on the withdrawal of foreign currency cash for another six months — until March 9, 2023.

The reason is the same: the ban on the supply of cash dollars and euros to Russia. Physically, the cash currency today is only in the cups [cash on RU citizen hands]. And this is the last thing people will part with - only because of absolutely extreme necessity.

And if it so, then there is nothing to give out. Therefore, the extension of the ban.

Technically, banks can exchange rubles for foreign currency - but only within the volume of the currency that was sold to them earlier.

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by Grigb

[The_Capt]

On 7/31/2022 at 12:27 AM, dan/california said:

The_Capn I am only on page four of this paper but I am absolutely sure you want to read. So does Steve.

So my advice is get to know the sources.  This is deep in the Gray camp (The Strategy Bridge is the name of his book), which is not a bad thing but a lot from this camp take Clausewitz to an unhealthy extreme.  It is like when people translate Nostradamus, seeing things that are not there.  Further, translating these leaps of logic into practical application that works in pretty much random in success rates.  That said, there is some very good stuff here but we need to spend less time trying to cram it into Clausewitzian doctrine and saying “see!?”, and more time applying to actual modern warfare.  The Clausewitzian priesthoods waste energy trying to defend their system, that would be better spent moving forward.

I have counter-notes but no time to post them now.  That all said, it is worth reading Antoine Bosquette’s book “Scientific Way of Warfare”.