How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[chrisl]

33 minutes ago, dan/california said:

We are taking a detour into a nuclear power discussion, but.... Grid disconnection was also a big problem at Fukashima. There just needs to be a new design requirement that nuclear plants  have a completely independent way to run there their own pumps and systems. You could do it by powering the pumps with steam directly, by having a separate small powerhouse that takes reactor steam and run it thru an appropriately sized turbine and generator, or even by the sort of fancy direct heat to electricity thermocouples that are used in many space probes. But if the reactor is hot there needs a to be a grid independent way to use that heat to run the systems that avoid bad outcomes.

Much like the deployable ram turbine that commercial jets have as the backup for the backup for the backup of their electric power generation.  

[acrashb]

21 minutes ago, Huba said:

I read today that Hungary approved the next step of it's stomic power plant project, that is being built by Rosatom. Buggers are so involved with RU that there's no way out for them... 

I'm sure Canada would be happy to, at great cost, help Hungary out.  AECL needs a new source of revenue  and this would help to re-align Hungary westward.

Having said that, we have legitimately discussed the Russo-Ukraine war at the tactical, operational, strategic and political levels.

The games being played at Zaporizhzhia touch each of those, and as we keep hearing that all war is a form of communication, the games communicate at multiple levels (although mostly at the higher ones).  
 

The issue is that pro- and anti-nuclear (fission) people are often passionate and so it's easy for discussions to become uncivil, and to move away from one of the levels and to someone's pet position, now thoroughly disconnected from the current war at any of the t-o-s-p levels.  I'm slightly guilty of the disconnection part, hope not of of the uncivil part.  

Letter from Prague's position boils down to "if parts of Europe weren't beholden to Russian resources, ..." and he's right.  The war may not have started, or if started the sanctions would be much more aggressive and effective (albeit they are relatively effective now, more would be better and perhaps would be working on shorter time scales), and if the war started and sanctions didn't stop it, at least Germans would not be staring at freezing in the dark this winter while core areas of their economy stagger.

How Europe would have been less dependent on Russian resources is where people get tetchy.

 

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by acrashb

[acrashb]

43 minutes ago, sburke said:

"If you are going to insult me, do it properly"

Thank you for noticing

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

And of course, there are the rumors of Greenpeace being FSB project for destabilization of Europe.

If there is an organization or movement in the West that creates friction within society, the safe bet is Russian money is involved.  If the organization or movement has a focus that is directly aimed at industrial or military capacity, it is a sure bet Russian money is involved.  The more successful and impactful the organization, the more money Russia will devote to it.

Greenpeace creates friction, it is directly aimed at BOTH industrial and military infrastructures, and is highly impactful.  Ergo, it's a given that Russian money/influence found its way into it and before that Soviet money/influence.  The Soviets must have been THRILLED when the French government sunk the Rainbow Warrior in NZ waters.  They probably broke out some of the best black market Champaign to celebrate.

That said, Greenpeace is a wildly successful organization with genuine and solid sources of funding.  I doubt the KGB or FSB had much influence over the groups activities, either directly or indirectly.

Steve

[acrashb]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

If there is an organization or movement in the West that creates friction within society, the safe bet is Russian money is involved. 

Exactly.  Remember what happened to all the Marxist groups in the West when the USSR collapsed?  They didn't vanish just because they lost hope, they ran out of money.

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

That said, Greenpeace is a wildly successful organization with genuine and solid sources of funding.  I doubt the KGB or FSB had much influence over the groups activities, either directly or indirectly.

Most members of GP are passionate about the cause (I say most because there can be other motivations), and I'm aware of no credible expose connecting the dots back to Russia or similar states, so influence as you say likely low.  But if I worked at the FSB... I'd be putting money and ideas into every group that encouraged, even indirectly, reliance on Russian natural gas, crude, and so on - any extractive industry.  Tremendous leverage of the investment: a given group is already helping Russian strategic goals, so just help it a bit, no need to build anything from scratch.

Edited August 26, 2022 by acrashb

[Battlefront.com]

24 minutes ago, Huba said:

And to dodge Steve's wrath,

Well done   I don't mind us getting a bit distracted to talk about the specific implications of what happen with the Zaporizhzhia nuke plant, but I really don't think we should get too much into debating the pros/cons of nuclear energy itself.  That's an interesting topic for sure, but not central enough to what we're doing here to warrant taking up space.

24 minutes ago, Huba said:

here is an interesting discussion of RU bloggers, who argue that HIMARS is increasingly hitting troops concentrations. In my understanding, this would be the least priority in NATO type shaping operation, after logistics, C4, AD? Meaning UA is mostly out of such targets to strike, and is now left with just destroying manpower/ materiel. After this phase, what remains is to attack and take ground, fires achieved all that was to be done. 

I'm going to say that some of this is Russians simply attributing sudden death from the sky to being HIMARS.  Let's not forget that Ukraine has Excalibur rounds and can also simply get lucky with standard artillery.  HIMARS is the new Javelin obsession

The points raised by the Russian bloggers, however, are good ones.  Accurate weaponry can't hit something that the Ukrainians don't know about.  The targeting is exceptional due to some combination of horrible Russian OPSEC, outdated Russian logistics practices, HUMINT resources EVERYWHERE, electronic intercepts (domestic and from the West), drones to confirm locations, and of course excellent intel from the West.  This plus long range accurate weaponry is, obviously, is very effective.

Now, if it is true that Ukraine is hitting concentrations of Russian forces beyond high value ones (HQs in particular), then something has changed.  And yes, it would suggest that Ukraine is either running out of high value targets within its primary area of operations *or* it is deliberately shifting to them as part of the bigger effort to undermine Russian defenses.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, acrashb said:

But if I worked at the FSB... I'd be putting money and ideas into every group that encouraged, even indirectly, reliance on Russian natural gas, crude, and so on - any extractive industry.  Tremendous leverage of the investment: a given group is already helping Russian strategic goals, so just help it a bit, no need to build anything from scratch.

Yes, for sure.  And it could be that at a micro level some KGB/FSB influence nudge or well timed cash infusion achieved something that that might not have happened.  But again, in the big picture Greenpeace would be just as much friction in the West even without KGB/FSB influence. 

This is quite different from extreme political parties.  Le Pen didn't secure a massive "loan" from Russian oligarchs just for the heck of it.  They needed that cash and needed it badly at the time.

An interesting hybrid is something like the American National Rifle Association (NRA).  Like Greenpeace it is a hugely successful, long term influence group with a massive and enthusiastic support base and a genuine ability to raise lots of money for its activities.  Honestly, I was surprised by the extent of Russian money in the NRA because, like Greenpeace, I didn't think it needed it.  However, as it became clearer how corrupt and inept its leadership was it made perfect sense.  Hard to get another $5000 suit, gold watch, or luxury vacation for yourself if you're at the same time incompetently running the organization into the ground.  Russian money to the rescue!

BTW, what Russia did to the NRA is the same thing organized crime organizations do to previously legitimate businesses that find themselves in financial trouble.  Loan sharks and money laundering don't cater to upstanding citizens with good business practices.  Anybody who has watched Ozark knows what I'm talking about

But now I digress!  The important point here is that Russia being cut off from the world as it is and getting poorer by the day, I think we're going to see another period of collapse amongst Western groups formally funded/influenced by Russia in the past 20+ years.  From reports I'm reading, it's already being felt in the far right political movements in Europe.

Good riddance.  We have enough domestic ways to corrupt things, we don't need damned foreigners doing it too

Steve

[Ultradave]

3 hours ago, JonS said:

But, see, this is the issue with the pro-proton mob: "everything is fine, it's totes safe (as long as you ignore this totally unsafe but likely operating condition)!" It all feels like a bait a switch. Probably because it is.

And even then, assume the best run, perfectly maintained plant, with excellently trained and adequate staff, that isn't hit by earthquake, tsunami, cyclone or war throughout it's operating life of maybe 100 years. Cool. /NOW/ what? What do we do with the site and waste for next few thousand years?

Decommissioned plants have been disassembled and the sites returned to green space successfully. One is only about 15 miles from me. The storage/disposal/conversion of spent fuel waste is a political problem and not a technical problem.

And with that, I'm done with this, which Steve will be happy for. 

Dave

[Huba]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The important point here is that Russia being cut off from the world as it is and getting poorer by the day, I think we're going to see another period of collapse amongst Western groups formally funded/influenced by Russia in the past 20+ years.  From reports I'm reading, it's already being felt in the far right political movements in Europe.

RU soft power detoriation is a thing for sure It will make the whole West much good to start frowning upon anyone accepting RU money. 

[Letter from Prague]

According to "secret NATO source" (huh), Russia is pulling its planes from Crimea.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-pulling-fighter-jets-from-crimea-secret-nato-report-2022-8

They seem to have such thorough air dominance they don't even need planes anymore! 

[G.I. Joe]

29 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

According to "secret NATO source" (huh), Russia is pulling its planes from Crimea.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-pulling-fighter-jets-from-crimea-secret-nato-report-2022-8

They seem to have such thorough air dominance they don't even need planes anymore! 

Reminds me a bit of the Iraqi Air Force fleeing to Iran during Desert Storm...

[poesel]

2 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

I mean it kind of is related to the war - Germany's anti-nuclear stance is what drove it to Russian gas,

No, that is not right. Germany's deal with Russian gas started in 1958 when Germany started to deliver gas pipes to the Soviet Union.  The first gas came in 1975. The decision to close the nuclear plants came in 2011.
The big mistake of Merkels government was not to do anything about it after 2011.

The anti-nuclear movement in Germany was started by conservative citizens and was only later joined by pro-peace and environmental groups. But don't think those were some fringe groups - the movement had and has broad support in many different parts of the population.
Greenpeace had historically nothing to do with this, although it probably shared many of its goals and supporters.

Germany's reliance on Russian gas is a mixture of opportunity, greed & ignorance. Very simple. No need to drum up conspiracy theories.

[sburke]

2 hours ago, acrashb said:

Exactly.  Remember what happened to all the Marxist groups in the West when the USSR collapsed?  They didn't vanish just because they lost hope, they ran out of money.

no they did not vanish.  Those that were dependent on Russian money and completely divorced from any real political reason for being like the CPUSA yeah, but that isn't the same as saying every marxist or socialist group is somehow dependent on Russian money. Read up on Cointelpro if you want to really understand what happened to the american left social movements.  COINTELPRO - Wikipedia

Western society has gone through a lot as well since the fall of the Soviet Union.  Many of those radicals of the sixties and seventies now sit in public office pushing for the social programs that were really the heart of the social movements of the time.  Heck the former DA of San Francisco is the son of members of the Weather underground.  People grow up, have kids and those kids pursue their own dreams sometimes based on the social perspective they have been exposed to.  Society changes.  Russia generally doesn't give money to the left anymore so much as the right.  Opportunistically they judged the left has much less ability to undermine the social fabric in their favor.  It used to be the reverse but times change.

The experience in western europe is likely very different.  Russian influence on Direct Action. RAF, Baader Meinhof would have been more pronounced not just due to money but organization of safe houses, training camps in the eastern bloc etc.  The US had nothing like that.  If anything, the Soviet Union was singularly inept and counterproductive in the US throughout the sixties.  Heck they helped fragment SDS the single biggest antiwar organization of the sixties.

[danfrodo]

Let's see if I can summarize what I came away with today from this thread:

1. UltraDave, thanks for your expert insights into the nuke plant

2.  Today we saw video of UKR strikes on Antonovsky bridge -- anyone seen any video of the damage to bridge or pontoon bridge?  And first hand reports? 

3. Hungary hiring RU to make nuke reactor -- sure, that's insane, but not if you got $millions in bribes.  Then it's just good business decision.

4. Denys Davydov's video today seemed to indicate that Pisky is soon to fall.  Can't wait to hear RU nats act like they just took that really mattered.  I wonder what the cost was to RU side for that little town, now rubble.  How many men, vehicles, shells, etc.  I have a feeling they overpaid.

5.  Someone killed Dugin's daughter and aint no one  knows who, 'cept the perpetrators, it seems

6.  NRA took RU money?  well, I'll be danged.  Did not know that though not surprised.

7.  no real movement on the front.  maybe 6-10 weeks of dry weather?  Does that sound correct?  Is UKR gonna go for Kherson territory before the mud comes?  When the leaves fall both sides lose concealment, so not sure who that would favor.

Probably some other stuff, but that's my takeaway. 

[sburke]

2 hours ago, Ultradave said:

Decommissioned plants have been disassembled and the sites returned to green space successfully. One is only about 15 miles from me. The storage/disposal/conversion of spent fuel waste is a political problem and not a technical problem.

And with that, I'm done with this, which Steve will be happy for. 

Dave

wait.. is that why you have an eye protruding from a tentacle on your forehead?  Can I get one of those?

Edited August 27, 2022 by sburke

[Offshoot]

7 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

2.  Today we saw video of UKR strikes on Antonovsky bridge -- anyone seen any video of the damage to bridge or pontoon bridge?  And first hand reports? 

Not video but this is the latest. The bridge still stands and the barge bridge is around 2/3 complete. It is also quite narrow compared to the bridge, at least from directly above, so is it an easily hit target?

 

[sburke]

200 sounds way over inflated, but still...

Ukraine Strike on Russian Headquarters Kills 200 Paratroopers: Official (msn.com)

 Ukrainian regional governor says the country's soldiers have killed 200 Russian airborne troops in an assault that toppled a base in Ukraine's occupied east.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Ukraine's Luhansk administrative district, said on Friday in a Telegram post that Ukrainian troops had successfully attacked the Russian base set up in a hotel in the occupied city of Kadiivka. Haidai's claim to victory comes as Russia's advance in Ukraine's eastern regions has reportedly stalled as the conflict reaches six months.

[JonS]

4 hours ago, acrashb said:

Thank you for noticing

Eh. I know the difference and the mechanisms, but I liked the alliteration more so went with that.

Sometimes having a broad rather than narrow education is a curse.

Sometimes.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, poesel said:

Germany's reliance on Russian gas is a mixture of opportunity, greed & ignorance. Very simple. No need to drum up conspiracy theories.

I think you misunderstood his point.  Or maybe I did?    I took his comment to mean that one of the only reasons Germany was able to phase out both coal and nuclear power was because it had cheap Russian gas to replace it with.  If there was no anti-nuke movement then maybe there wouldn't be the dependence on Russian gas.  Or put another way, if there was no Russian gas the anti-nuke movement would likely not have been so successful.

The irony is that the German people genuinely wanted to have a better and safer environment, now they are sitting downwind from a potential nuclear catastrophe caused by a war that the German people partially funded and enabled through Ostpolitik.  This is what happens when people don't carefully examine the fine print or long term costs of the "cheap" thing they purchase.  And before anybody thinks I'm picking on Germany, don't.  My own country has the same problem (cough... Saudi Arabia... cough... fracking... cough... deep sea drilling... cough)

Steve

[chuckdyke]

putin was up to a few years ago a friendly head of state you could do business with. Now he has become a reptile you can't do business with. Germany was not the only country who got it wrong.

[Battlefront.com]

43 minutes ago, Offshoot said:

Not video but this is the latest. The bridge still stands and the barge bridge is around 2/3 complete. It is also quite narrow compared to the bridge, at least from directly above, so is it an easily hit target?

 

Anybody seen a good image of the eastern side of the bridge?  I think I see the part of the span that one of the night strike videos appeared to show dropping into the river.  I'm still trying to verify if that indeed happened.  These images are focused on the western end and I've not seen anything else recent enough to show what I'm interested in seeing.

Steve

[billbindc]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think you misunderstood his point.  Or maybe I did?    I took his comment to mean that one of the only reasons Germany was able to phase out both coal and nuclear power was because it had cheap Russian gas to replace it with.  If there was no anti-nuke movement then maybe there wouldn't be the dependence on Russian gas.  Or put another way, if there was no Russian gas the anti-nuke movement would likely not have been so successful.

The irony is that the German people genuinely wanted to have a better and safer environment, now are sitting downwind from a potential nuclear catastrophe caused by a war that the German people partially funded and enabled through Ostpolitik.  This is what happens when people don't carefully examine the fine print or long term costs of the "cheap" thing they purchase.  And before anybody thinks I'm picking on Germany, don't.  My own country has the same problem (cough... Saudi Arabia... cough... fracking... cough... deep sea drilling... cough)

Steve

This is the best rundown I've seen in a long time on the long running and complicated factors that lead to the current mess Germany finds itself in. 

https://www.dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-50-year-relationship/a-61057166

Like most debacles on a national scale, it happened for a lot of both good and bad reasons which were all pretty obvious for a very long time. The deal depended on the parties involved basing their national decisions strictly on the positives and negatives of the deal itself. Germany couldn't envision anything that would induce the Russians to screw up something so obviously and mutually beneficial while the Russians saw the the arrangement as a temporary quid pro quo that could be turned from a carrot into a stick. Neither the Germans nor the Russians were crazy strictu sensu to stick with it for as long as they did. It fit their worldviews. And in the end, it's going to be clear that Germany got a lot more out of it than Russia did.

[akd]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Anybody seen a good image of the eastern side of the bridge?  I think I see the part of the span that one of the night strike videos appeared to show dropping into the river.  I'm still trying to verify if that indeed happened.  These images are focused on the western end and I've not seen anything else recent enough to show what I'm interested in seeing.

Steve

 

it’s a N-S bridge and the damage is all shown in the closer view you quoted.  The rest is not damaged. No collapse of any part, but concentrated holes and structural degradation of the bridge deck.

Edited August 27, 2022 by akd

[Offshoot]

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Anybody seen a good image of the eastern side of the bridge?

The fourth pic showing the barge bridge also shows the entire bridge as of 25th August. Is that recent enough or were the night strikes after that? (Ninja'd)

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Offshoot

[JonS]

11 minutes ago, sburke said:

200 sounds way over inflated, but still...

200 pers would a bde HQ at least. /Killing/ 200 at a single HQ would make it a div or corps HQ. Not sure if Rus airborne has HQs that big?