How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, akd said:

This May imagery more clearly shows that each of the targeted locations appear to have ordnance lined up in the open:

 

So I totally get the impulse to unpack this attack, especially from a forum of - let's just say - "detail orientated" wargamers.  Kudos to those that continue to Zapruder this thing, and I am sure in time the details of how the UA pulled this off will come out (my bet is missile strike, but I would not rule out one helluva SOF black bag job - could be both in reality; complex attack).

But for all the lurkers out there I would recommend we all keep an eye on the follow-on impacts of this strike on a strategic and political level.  We bounced around this a few pages back but here are some thoughts:

- All war is communication and that is a complex concept of 'the message', 'the means to send the message', and 'the method of transmission'.  Every piece of those components in themselves create information that is interpreted in multiple dimensions.  For example Ukraine said things thru this attack that create certainty and uncertainty - in case the second one is the most powerful:

1. Ukraine stated, with certainty, that they can hit a high value target with extreme precision at 225km (at least) behind Russian lines.  I say 'extreme precision' because it appears they did more damage with the secondaries than the initial strikes, and that takes a very high level of precision in time and space.  This was not lobbing a missile at a target, they hit exactly where they needed to in order to create a very high profile "boom".  That is communicating 'capability' that I am pretty sure the Russians were sure they understood, right up until yesterday afternoon - based on the scrambling narratives in the Russian info sphere.
2. Ukraine has clearly communicated intent.  If they wanted to hurt Russian airpower, they would have cratered the runway and then FASCAM'd the thing...but this was not about airpower.  They were signaling that they are coming for Crimea, and the Russians were not safe...anywhere.  This will likely create a lot of uncertainty in Russian thinking, as the pretty much figured they had Ukraine pinned down in the Donbas in a grinding war.  We talked about it before but this is strategic manoeuvre thru strike.  The kind of thing the US does by hitting Afghanistan from the other side of the world back on 2001 (https://www.airforcemag.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2016/December 2016/1216hours.pdf).  This was a high profile attack that both demonstrated and signaled intent and resolve in a very visible manner - that is certainty creating uncertainty in their enemy.
3. I don't care how constipated the Russian political machine is, and it is already trying to spin this in crazy directions to blunt the message - they get that much.  No way to dodge it, this is very bad news for the Russians.  They have been relying on the narrative of "hopeless cause": Russian has 'escalation dominance', it can create a never-ending 'stalemate', it can and will fight forever...there is no way Ukraine can win: so stop spending your money in a pre-recession...look we even have Steven Segal!  This is clearly playing on the western psyche and our recent scars from places like Afghanistan. Ukraine just demonstrated that they can still hit a strategic target, with breathtaking precision, at the time and place of their choosing.  That directly attacks the Russian narrative.  
4. Militarily, this type of attack creates enormous uncertainty.  The fact we have people on vacation on a beach watching this happen, and then blow it up all over social media, is a clear indication that Russia considered this area outside the warzone.  You can ignore or sidestep "industrial accidents" and the rash of weird fires we saw back in Mar-Feb, you can ignore HIMARs that hit your logistical system within 70-100kms.  You cannot ignore a strategic strike, that just happened in front of the entire world, at over twice that range.  The Russian military now needs to not only figure out how to secure itself at ranges it thought safe, it has to figure out how to defend Russian certainty, which just got seriously mauled.

So what?  Well the first reaction will be "it was a lucky one off", and "this is war, these things happen".  However, information is funny with humans, we cannot un-think it.  As a minimum, Russian has to re-think the battlespace, significantly.  That is a lot of assumptions that just cracked in military planning - the fact that they did not see it coming in time to interdict is the biggest one.  Russians may try to ignore it, but I am betting western ISR is picking up a lot of scrambling going on in the Russian rear areas right now.  Again, this is more friction being imposed via uncertainty.  And that uncertainty will spread like a virus.  All those beach goers will scramble back home with it.  The Russian reaction will be key to determining just how badly this strike hurt them. 

Now the war is not over.  This was not positively decisive, at least not yet.  The UA will have to follow up with more of these, humans are also able to ignore reality - which is paradoxical I know.  More of these strikes will build up pressure until something gives.  But for the west, this is a clear demonstration that our proxy is not only still in this thing, it demonstrates they are getting better at it.  Better they are emulating warfare we recognize - high precision deep strikes on clear military targets with almost zero collateral civilian casualties.  Nice, clean and very western - worth investing more into.

I have heard at some pretty high levels the idea that "Russia has shifted this war into one that favors them"...well strikes like these send the message that Ukraine is shifting it back.  May have been a 'one-off' or a lucky day; however, it is going to cause the Russians a lot of hot and bother to figure that all out...and in a war, that is good communication.

Edited August 11, 2022 by The_Capt

[Huba]

1 hour ago, akd said:

This May imagery more clearly shows that each of the locations with cratering and massive blast damage appear to have ordnance lined up in the open:

Here you can more clearly see some smaller cratering at the location of the lined up bombs near the workshop building at bottom center of above:

 

It is hard to believe they are that sloppy. I mean, there were photos here in this thread of piles of bombs and rockets thrown just next to aircraft, but somehow my brain rejects that somebody could do it. Come on, it isn't like they lacked space around the base to have a proper ammunition storage. Damn...

We still don't know what initiated the explosion obviously, but given these bombs lying around, a couple (literally!) guys with Switchblade 300 could have easily cause all this damage if they aimed straight at the ordnance.

[Grigb]

45 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Tom Cooper has an interesting perspective on the ground war, and I think it's interesting he doesn't think Russia has problems getting men to throw (at least cannon fodder)

I am sorry. I just want to tell the truth and that might sound rude and arrogant. But that's not my intention. 

 

Quote

For the start, consider what I call the ‘Putin’s Pasdarans’: the Rosgvardia. This is a armed body of about 340,000 outside the chains of command of the Ministry of Defence and/or the Ministry of Interior. The Rosgvardia is responsible to Putin only. Arguably, Rosvgvardia is not really trained for frontline duties, but primarily serving as guards of installations of strategic importance in Russia. However, it has large units (including an entire division for special purposes) capable of conducting combat operations, too.

This is mostly light unmotivated (for combat duty) infantry that by itself is good only to suppress unarmed civilians. They could be useful if the Kremlin feed them into RU regular units as replacement but then who is going to defend the regime? Yes, these guys have some combat units but even they are there to combat RU regular units not fighting UKR. Throw them away and get a coup. 

 

Quote

The groups naming themselves the Russian Cossacks are including another 600,000 trained troops — thousands of which are already serving in the VSRF, which has its own Cossack units and Cossack military educational facilities, too.

RU Cossacks mainly are LARPers or bandits. Often both. And every Cossack that is motivated to fight is already at the frontline. Which is a minority of Cossacks because as I said they are either LARPers or bandits. Here is good quote:

Moscow, July 6. The All-Russian ataman Nikolay Doluda criticized the leaders of the Cossack detachments due to insufficient participation in the special operation on demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. His statements were made during a teleconference between the leaders of Cossack societies.

Doluda stressed that the atamans have not yet been able to withdraw a satisfactory number of Cossacks; in general, their reluctance to play the role of "defenders of the Russian land" is noticeable. According to the All-Russian ataman, the Cossacks' avoidance of participation in the SVO casts doubt on the very meaning of the revival of the Cossack movement in Russia...

In the four months since the beginning of the special operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, the Cossacks have not shown themselves too actively at the front. According to some reports, no more than five thousand people went from the Cossack detachments to fight Nazism, who mainly perform rear functions and do not fight on the front line. At the same time, the Cossacks in Russia do not stop organizing festivals, reconstructions, exhibitions and other cultural events all the time.

 

Quote

Then add the Russian Union of Paratroopers: that’s another 300,000 veterans, renowned for their ‘cohesion’. So much so, over the last two months entire battalion tactical groups of the VDV have been rapidly ‘re-filled’ by their veterans from 5, 10, 15 years ago.

These are even worse than Cossaks. Fountain swimmers are good mostly to fist fight with police while being drunk.  I did not mean they are good at it. I mean it is the best you can expect from them. And again, anyone who wanted to fight is already in the fight. The rest are extremely motivated not to fight.

 

Quote

Then add another 40,000 or so from the OMON (subjected to the control of Rosgvardia), and another 40,000 from the SOBR….

The same as with Rosgvardia except these guys hold the line against criminals. Throw them away and enjoy RU cities overran with criminals. And this is extremely humiliating for Putin as he explicitly built image that under his rule never again RU cities will be overran with criminal like in 90s [which is BS as I do remember 90s].

 

Quote

….and don’t forget over 600,000 Russians working in the Russian private security sector alone.

which consist mainly of old overweight mall ninjas who definitely do not want to fight.

 

1 hour ago, Calamine Waffles said:

He also notes Russian artillery remains a big problem, and the dedicated artillery units have pretty good drone integration

Drone integration is sort of good in units that have close relations with RU Nat volunteers.

 

Quote

 Unsurprisingly, at Pisky they have clearly demonstrated what they can do when focusing the fire of two or three artillery brigades on an extremely narrow section of the frontline: they’ve saturated an area of about 1.000 by 300 metres with 6,000–7,000 shells, on 1 and 2 August alone (this is something nobody can survive).

At Pisky they demonstrated that under favorable CB conditions they can eventually wear down enemy even in serious field fortifications (without drones they could not do even that). That's it.

According to the latest info UKR were still defending the area even under RU barrage and RU could not do anything. However, as I said around 1-Aug RU assault group penetrated into north part (above ponds - check my map) of Pisky not far from dam. The point is both sides were extremely weak and could not dislodge each other. And the problem for UKR was that dam was the only reliable way to retreat toward the main defensive zone. So, UKR commander understanding risks ordered hasty withdrawal (they took their personal belongings but left some non-vital documents).

RU just followed them to around Church and that's it. They are still there because the urban underground is much more difficult than field fortifications.

 

Quote

Finally, contrary to the situations from back in February-April, nowadays, such concentrations are well-supported by UAVs and forward artillery observers (FAOs), and these are well-connected to headquarters and artillery units with help of an ‘application’ with the literally-translated designation ‘Unified System for Managing a Tactical Unit’ (Единая система управления тактического звена, ЕСУ ТЗ).

I would like to see it because so far I see the following: where RU Nat volunteers are present RU FOO stands behind drone operator looking into his phone and says adjustments into his radio. Arty officer listens to him and put data into RU Nat app on his phone and gets result of calculations.

Where there are no RU volunteers it looks like this:

 It is how they shell Bakhmut now.

[Calamine Waffles]

Oh, you don't have to apologise to me, I'm not the one who made the opinion. I was just interested to see what you all, especially those more familiar with Russia, would think.

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, DesertFox said:

Because the blast effect per kilogramm is dependant on the chemistry of the HE compound. Amatol is different to TNT, which is different to Dynamite, which is different to RDX or PETN.

Oh, I get that.  But there's not THAT much difference between the types of conventional explosives.  Since this was what was used (evidence doesn't support thermobaric) I don't see how there could be such a difference between estimated and explosive power and what was hit.

But anyway, as you say there will be more evidence to sift through and more physics nerds to educate us all

Steve

[danfrodo]

Am I correct from this picture in understanding that cossack males can be made pregnant?  Looks like he's got twins in the tummy.  He won't be assaulting across any fields anytime soon.

[danfrodo]

27 minutes ago, Grigb said:

This is mostly light unmotivated (for combat duty) infantry that by itself is good only to suppress unarmed civilians. They could be useful if the Kremlin feed them into RU regular units as replacement but then who is going to defend the regime? Yes, these guys have some combat units but even they are there to combat RU regular units not fighting UKR. Throw them away and get a coup. 

on a more serious note, I suspect one of the best current perquisites of being in 'Putin's Pasdarans' is that you are immune from being sent to die in Ukraine.  Start shipping them to war and they might just do the coup themselves.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Holien said:

just an oddity that I am hoping someone can explain.

Berms protected most from direct hits from fireballs and blast itself.  However, those big ammo explosions produce a lot of erratic shrapnel.  Look at the impaled car.  The ones around it look untouched, but not that "lucky" one.  So when there's that much force and that much metal flying around things get really random.  Large chunk of flaming building or bomb could arc into the otherwise protected spot here and do nothing to the one over there.  That sort of thing is what I'm thinking.

Steve

[Grigb]

Girkin time!

Because this assessment is so small i decided to keep the previous one for easier comparison. Tell me if it is confusing this way.

Discussion:

• For Donetsks direction we can see that the maps and Girkin are mutually confirming each other.
• Girkin opinion is something is going to happen is Zaporojhye
• My opinion Girkin is hiding something about Kharkiv direction
• Be careful with Girkin claims of successes. He is RU and he is getting info from other RU. As I showed with Soledar and Pisky RU claims of success often nothing more but BS. 

 

[Grigb]

6 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

on a more serious note, I suspect one of the best current perquisites of being in 'Putin's Pasdarans' is that you are immune from being sent to die in Ukraine.  Start shipping them to war and they might just do the coup themselves.

True. 

[akd]

@sburke @Kinophile

Another! Lt. Col. Evgeny Vyrodov, Deputy Chief of Logistics for the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division (position was vacant in this roster

Maj. Andrey Gusarov (Polovnikov), unit unknown:

Maj. Pavel Shtepa, unit unknown:

 

[Grigb]

I am putting here preliminary notes about RU Nats response because it looks like they are writing like mad. I am reading from morning and it is already 193 unread posts while usually it is about 60-80. However so far they are writing about anything else. Preliminary Summary:

• They are active but eerily quiet about strike. They did saw maps and analysis but so far give minimal comments.
• They do not comprehend military implications. Their response is we can handle it.
• However subjectively I feel a fracture in RU Nats morale.  While they do not fear military ramifications it looks like they are extremely nervous at other consequences. They are RU Nats. Missile Terror strikes for them is a norm but only when they do it. UKR demonstrated they can do it as well. Imagine these missiles hitting RU cities. You need also understand that RU love terror strikes because they project their own public vulnerability to others. It is RU people that are weak to terror strikes. RU Nats are facing the real possibility of explaining to RU people why they have to suffer from terror just to fulfill RU Nats fantasies. Thats extremely difficult to do.

Please keep in mind that this is a preliminary report. Will confirm when I am out of sewers.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Grigb said:

I decided to translate a couple of cases to show the reality of RU liberation on the ground. There is a reason why UKR calls RU orcs. (Adjusted for better readability)

 

Thanks for the improved translations and drawing attention to these two accounts especially.

It struck me that Russia has a rather unique problem with this war that hasn't been well documented or even discussed.  The Kremlin's primary rationale for going to war was to protect the lives, culture, and prosperity of "Russians" living in the Donbas (and later expanded to other parts).  That's the public story at least, as we all know it's BS.  Unlike the newly occupied parts of Ukraine, the DLPR has 8 years of ties to the Kremlin and to Russians living in Russia.  As such, there are grounds for official complaint to Russian governmental organizations more more than a criminal act against a Russian citizen's family living in some place like Bucha.  DLPR controlled territory is "Russian" in their minds, places like Bucha still "Ukraine".

Unfortunately, Russian citizens with relatives and friends in both DLPR and Ukraine aren't likely a significant part of the overall Russian population.  And the percentage of that who are willing to make trouble for Putin's regime are even smaller.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

I am sorry. I just want to tell the truth and that might sound rude and arrogant. But that's not my intention. 

I stopped reading Cooper's analysis because I found them to be "off the mark" on a regular basis.  Unlike this Forum, there's nobody on his pages to correct or redirect him when he strays too far off track.  That means he tends to keep going down the wrong path instead of doing course corrections.

Checking Wikipedia, adding up some numbers, and making a declarative statement without digging any deeper isn't good analysis.  Cooper obviously doesn't read this Forum.  We've already discussed this stuff several times and came to the opposite conclusions that he did because we did dig deeper. 

The process here is imperfect, but we do have a wide array of knowledge by people not afraid to engage in critical debate.  We definitely don't get everything right, but collectively we do a pretty damned fine job   One person is not capable of doing that.

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

This is mostly light unmotivated (for combat duty) infantry that by itself is good only to suppress unarmed civilians. They could be useful if the Kremlin feed them into RU regular units as replacement but then who is going to defend the regime? Yes, these guys have some combat units but even they are there to combat RU regular units not fighting UKR. Throw them away and get a coup. 

Yeah, that's a fundamental flub on his part.  He also seems to over look the fact that some of the most "elite" of their units did go into Ukraine and were exposed to combat.  They were slaughtered.

This also misses the fact that they are locally based units.  There's politics involved in pulling them out of some place and sticking them into Ukraine.  These guys are also more likely to have connections to make redeployment less likely.  They are, after all, part of the political machinery and not the military machinery.

If Putin was going to commit Rosgvardia in large numbers to Ukraine he would have done so by now.  And not to the frontlines, but to keep the Ukrainian locals from causing trouble.  He's done neither.

The rest of Cooper's missives are also off the mark, as you rightly point out

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

20 minutes ago, Grigb said:

However subjectively I feel a fracture in RU Nats morale.  While they do not fear military ramifications it looks like they are extremely nervous at other consequences. They are RU Nats. Missile Terror strikes for them is a norm but only when they do it. UKR demonstrated they can do it as well. Imagine these missiles hitting RU cities. You need also understand that RU love terror strikes because they project their own public vulnerability to others. It is RU people that are weak to terror strikes. RU Nats are facing the real possibility of explaining to RU people why they have to suffer from terror just to fulfill RU Nats fantasies. Thats extremely difficult to do.

This!  They can intellectually dismiss what is going on, even to themselves, but I do not believe for a second that they aren't afraid somewhere in their soul about the fundamental meaning of what is going on.

The primary problem for the RU Nats is that recently Ukraine has been demonstrating new capabilities that the Russians clearly *DO NOT HAVE*.  Specifically the ability to do precision strikes on critical infrastructure such as bridges and to do it at very long ranges.  Somewhere in their mind, even at the back of it, they understand that blowing up a Kyiv mall is not the same as putting big holes in critical bridges.  They also realize, maybe more than a little, that if Ukraine wants to strike something deep in Russian territory, there's not a thing they can do to stop it.

This is on top of obvious ground defeats, worsening economic conditions, realizing NATO weapons are vastly superior, and other things which they know (at some level) are increasing the chances of Russian defeat.

They can put on brave faces to each other and even to themselves, but at some point the reality will become too much and they will snap.  The coming ground offensive by Ukraine will likely be that breaking point.  When that happens things are going to get much, much, much more interesting in RU Nat circles.

Steve

[sburke]

34 minutes ago, akd said:

@sburke @Kinophile

Another! Lt. Col. Evgeny Vyrodov, Deputy Chief of Logistics for the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division (position was vacant in this roster

Maj. Andrey Gusarov (Polovnikov), unit unknown:

Maj. Pavel Shtepa, unit unknown:

 

damn the tally on 20th MRD continues to climb.  This is what we have over the last couple days

Col. Alexey Gorobets, commander 20th Guards MRD
Col. Aleksey Avramchenko (a Crimean defector) Deputy Commander for Military-Political Affairs (Zampolit) 20th Gds MRD
Col. Nikolai Kornelyuk artillery chief  20th Gds MRD
Col. Kanat Mukatov, deputy commander of 20th Guard Motor Rifle Division (confirming that basically the entire senior command staff of the Division was killed in the HIMARS strike on July 9th)
Lt. Col. Evgeny Vyrodov, Deputy Chief of Logistics for the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division

[Bannon]

With so many cameras turned in the direction of the explosions would we have seen some trace of the follow-on missiles?

[chrisl]

56 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Oh, I get that.  But there's not THAT much difference between the types of conventional explosives.  Since this was what was used (evidence doesn't support thermobaric) I don't see how there could be such a difference between estimated and explosive power and what was hit.

But anyway, as you say there will be more evidence to sift through and more physics nerds to educate us all

Steve

The Beirut fertilizer explosion is estimated to have an energy of ~0.6 kT with large error bars, so possibly as low as 0.3 and as high as 1.1, based on speed of the shock front.  That was much more destructive than this looks like, and it took about 2.7 kT of ammonium nitrate in a warehouse to do that.  The explosive energy is lower than the amount of stuff partly because ammonium nitrate is lower stored energy density than TNT and partly because it was very non-optimized for producing a big blast.  Bombs designed to be bombs should produce about what you expect from the mass, +- something due to different energy densities. 

NUKEMAP is probably overestimating because of multiple warheads blowing up moderately far apart.  But to get an 0.5 kT explosion you still have to have something on the order of 0.5 kT of something.  Thermobarics can give you more explosive energy for the same warhead mass because they don't have to supply their own oxidizer, but not orders of magnitude higher.

[akd]

7 minutes ago, sburke said:

Col. Kanat Mukatov, deputy commander of 20th Guard Motor Rifle Division

@Haiduk added that he was Deputy Commander for Combat Training for the Division.

[sburke]

6 hours ago, Holien said:

Not so sure as I can think of better places to hit within the airfield, but super accurate when compared vs Russian attacks.

I dunno.  From that distance they hit Putin right in the testicles.

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

All war is communication and that is a complex concept of 'the message', 'the means to send the message', and 'the method of transmission'. 

Of all the aspects of warfare that Ukraine has demonstrated competency in, and it is a long list, information warfare is the one I'd rank up there as the top of the top.  Their strategy and execution of it is not only better than Russia's, it is better than probably anything since WW2.  They are not only catering their communications to events, they are coordinating them with military planning in a way other nations rarely do.

Think of the public comments that have come from Ukrainian military and political figures.  Paraphrasing:

• we're just getting started
• we're coming for Crimea
• you can't hide
• this was our idea and our weaponry

Some of it was even done with surgically applied humor, like the video from the MoD.

Ukraine's got its messaging down to a science.  Many thought Russia was the king of this sort of thing, but what we're seeing out of the Kremlin is 2 bit third world amateur hour.  Baghdad Bob is their inspiration and it shows.

I don't think anybody has used this term yet.  If so, then allow me to be the first...

The strike on Crimea is the very first thing that has caused panic on the Russian population's side.  The long lines of vehicles backed up for more than a day already trying to leave Crimea is evidence of that.

Panic works in Ukraine's favor, certainly not Russia's.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

15 minutes ago, sburke said:

damn the tally on 20th MRD continues to climb.  This is what we have over the last couple days

Col. Alexey Gorobets, commander 20th Guards MRD
Col. Aleksey Avramchenko (a Crimean defector) Deputy Commander for Military-Political Affairs (Zampolit) 20th Gds MRD
Col. Nikolai Kornelyuk artillery chief  20th Gds MRD
Col. Kanat Mukatov, deputy commander of 20th Guard Motor Rifle Division (confirming that basically the entire senior command staff of the Division was killed in the HIMARS strike on July 9th)
Lt. Col. Evgeny Vyrodov, Deputy Chief of Logistics for the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division

That's a lot of senior posts to have vacant for the primary unit defending Kherson.  It's almost like someone on the Ukraine side decided to do this on purpose.  Nah, probably a lucky coincidence

Steve

[rocketman]

57 minutes ago, Grigb said:

I am putting here preliminary notes about RU Nats response because it looks like they are writing like mad. I am reading from morning and it is already 193 unread posts while usually it is about 60-80. However so far they are writing about anything else. Preliminary Summary:

• They are active but eerily quiet about strike. They did saw maps and analysis but so far give minimal comments.
• They do not comprehend military implications. Their response is we can handle it.
• However subjectively I feel a fracture in RU Nats morale.  While they do not fear military ramifications it looks like they are extremely nervous at other consequences. They are RU Nats. Missile Terror strikes for them is a norm but only when they do it. UKR demonstrated they can do it as well. Imagine these missiles hitting RU cities. You need also understand that RU love terror strikes because they project their own public vulnerability to others. It is RU people that are weak to terror strikes. RU Nats are facing the real possibility of explaining to RU people why they have to suffer from terror just to fulfill RU Nats fantasies. Thats extremely difficult to do.

Please keep in mind that this is a preliminary report. Will confirm when I am out of sewers.

Thank you for willingly spending so much time ”in the sewers” as you put it, so we can take part of your excellent reporting. Valuable insights into the behind the curtains machinations for sure.

[danfrodo]

23 minutes ago, sburke said:

damn the tally on 20th MRD continues to climb.  This is what we have over the last couple days

Col. Alexey Gorobets, commander 20th Guards MRD
Col. Aleksey Avramchenko (a Crimean defector) Deputy Commander for Military-Political Affairs (Zampolit) 20th Gds MRD
Col. Nikolai Kornelyuk artillery chief  20th Gds MRD
Col. Kanat Mukatov, deputy commander of 20th Guard Motor Rifle Division (confirming that basically the entire senior command staff of the Division was killed in the HIMARS strike on July 9th)
Lt. Col. Evgeny Vyrodov, Deputy Chief of Logistics for the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division

I suppose those are officially going to be called suicides?  Wouldn't want the world to think Ukraine can kill this many high ranking officers in such a short time.

So UKR has had some good fun with the long range hits, and hopefully those will keep coming, spreading panic in lots of rear areas. 

But sooner or later they need to actually take Kherson.  I wonder how the RU supply situation is for the Kherson region?  If there's not much fighting RU won't run out of ammo, so sooner or later need to push.  When??  Reducing RU airpower certainly makes that day sooner.

[Battlefront.com]

29 minutes ago, Bannon said:

With so many cameras turned in the direction of the explosions would we have seen some trace of the follow-on missiles?

Not if they are supersonic.  Way too fast for the eye or a consumer level camera to pick up.  And as someone pointed out earlier, the audible sonic boom would likely be masked by the explosion itself.  Or confused by it.

We might see or hear other forms of attacks, such as cruise missiles or drones.  But we've ruled those out.

The seemingly important characteristics of the attack are:

• extreme range from any Ukrainian held position
• extreme precision (CEP of maybe 10m by the looks of it)
• 3 very uniformly sized craters despite there being different variables on the ground
• they were of sufficient power to get all the ground munitions to detonate simultaneously vs. hours of cooking off as we've seen at other dumps
• 2 explosions that were within a split second of each other
• no witnesses saying they saw/heard anything prior to the strikes, unlike strikes in places like Belgorod
• vast quantities of smoke obscuring the target areas starting with the first strike

These things seem to indicate a uniform attack by very large missiles that have both range and precision guidance.  They also seem to rule out other possible explanations.  Especially this one:

Steve