How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Hmm... timing of the attacks on Ukraine's electrical grid coincides with this report that the Zaporizhzhia power plant was taken fully offline today:

https://www.brusselstimes.com/world-all-news/287544/zaporizhzhia-power-plant-has-been-shutdown-says-operator

I do not think the two are unrelated.  Russia obviously knew the plant would be disconnected and when, so why not time the strikes to maximize the strain on Ukraine's power grid?

Steve

Why attribute to cunning that which can attributed to a petulant act of acute Russian butthurt?

[Combatintman]

8 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

True, but I think he tracked them with the help of other accounts.

Which speaks to larger problem of popular military analysts (also to others around)- it's difficult to meet competent OSINT-er with all assigned methodology and classical military analysts in one person, with intimate knowledge of organization, equipment and staff work on high levels. And almost impossible to  marry them into specific of both Russian and especially Ukrainian military, without knowledgeable person on the ground.

Given the amount of data that has to be processed I would say it is impossible.  For the ground war alone - this is a Theater Intelligence Cell's job.  That will be a lot of people working in specialist areas - eg current battle, future plans, order-of-battle etc to feed the grown-up who's going to make sense of it and then brief it to the guy who's going to make the decisions.

I am that guy in Afghanistan - On average I read 500 individual reports a day and it takes me about three and a half hours to make sense of them all.  About an hour or so to write up the individual incidents of interest and about 45 minutes to 90 minutes to find and plot where they took place.  About 20 incidents is a busy day for me.  Databasing the incidents takes about 20 minutes.  On top of that it takes me about an hour and a half to write slightly more in-depth pieces for my daily summary.  In-depth collation or in-depth reading?  Forget it ... not enough time in the day.  This is small beer compared to the amount of reporting that's coming out of Ukraine.

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Well, in the end I don't know if any of this is plausible.  I just get the feeling that it might be.  History has plenty of examples of this happening.  Nazi Germany lost Italy, Finland, and Romania for similar reasons.  Hungary switched sides as well, but fascinatingly was switched back by Skorzeny's bold move.

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The other reason for Ukraine to cut some sort of deal with LPR is that taking it over means Kyiv is now responsible for the utter shambles that is Luhansk.  As Colin Powell once warned... "you break it, you own it".  If Ukraine reconquers LPR by force, it's going to be messy and Ukraine will be blamed for everything that happens now and in the future.  Instead, if the LPR is allowed to continue existing for some time, at least, then guess whose mess it is?  LPRs.

Things get more complicated as time goes on. but this is war and sometimes immediacy is more important than long term.  Especially if making a deal with LPR causes the rest of the war to end MUCH sooner.

I don't have an excellent read on Ukrainian public opinion, but I think they would accept some sort of temporary accord that cut Russia out and allowed Ukraine and Luhansk to settle things directly.  Especially if the war ended sooner because of it.  LONG term, I don't know.  It could be a major headache that wrecks future Ukrainian governments (the politicians, I mean), but for now that might not be an important thought.

Notice I'm not saying anything about DPR.  It would be beneficial for Ukraine to get them to go neutral as well, but I don't think they have the immediate pressure to do so.  Luhansk does.  However, if Luhansk got some sort of deal with Ukraine and Russia collapses, I think Zelensky's phone would start ringing pretty quickly.

Again... this is all speculation based on a decent, but still superficial understanding of the dynamics at play.

Steve

Big difference between Nazi Germany and Finland/Romania/Italy, and Russia and the LPR and DPR, this is more akin to Turkey and Northern Cyprus, or Armenia and Artsakh. Or the Soviet Union and the Finnish communists in the Winter War. 

A scenario where Russia is forced out, what keeps Russia out from reentering the LPR and DPR? You would need ZSU forces to reman the border, except, under what scenario can ZSU forces enter the DPR and LPR and set up the proper defense against Russia while letting separatist forces exist? Crimea, they had a autonomous republic, but I'm very doubtful Ukraine will allow any such legitimacy to the puppet republics. Maybe...before 2022 (but im sure others who know more can chime in) but now? Heavy doubt, I don't think Ukraine wishes to give any legitimacy whatsoever to potential separatist entities.  

[dan/california]

10 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

Given the amount of data that has to be processed I would say it is impossible.  For the ground war alone - this is a Theater Intelligence Cell's job.  That will be a lot of people working in specialist areas - eg current battle, future plans, order-of-battle etc to feed the grown-up who's going to make sense of it and then brief it to the guy who's going to make the decisions.

I am that guy in Afghanistan - On average I read 500 individual reports a day and it takes me about three and a half hours to make sense of them all.  About an hour or so to write up the individual incidents of interest and about 45 minutes to 90 minutes to find and plot where they took place.  About 20 incidents is a busy day for me.  Databasing the incidents takes about 20 minutes.  On top of that it takes me about an hour and a half to write slightly more in-depth pieces for my daily summary.  In-depth collation or in-depth reading?  Forget it ... not enough time in the day.  This is small beer compared to the amount of reporting that's coming out of Ukraine.

I have the strongest possible impression that the Russian system for doing what you do is utterly broken? And that that isn't the least of their problems? Might be one the top three actually? And they have a LOT of problems.

[Calamine Waffles]

Quite a good video from Shawshank about all the tanks he has crewed (in Russian, use CC auto translate)
 

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[sburke]

and a slightly different perspective from a Russian soldier

15,000 dead after longest Russian drill weekend ever (duffelblog.com)

[sburke]

It’s Time to Prepare for a Ukrainian Victory (msn.com)

 

[Huba]

New UA GS report is out. Apart from regular shelling and small scale skirmishes, a few bits of info stand out:

- After the successful actions carried out by the Defense Forces in the Kherson direction, the enemy suffered significant losses in manpower. According to available information, the 810th separate brigade of marines (point of permanent deployment in the city of Sevastopol) lost almost 85% of its personnel. The rest of the servicemen have an extremely low morale and psychological state, they massively refuse to return to the combat zone.

- In the Luhansk region, the russian military and their families left the town of Svatove, only the soldiers of the so-called "people's militia" from among the local residents remained.

The second was reported already, but now we have an official confirmation.

And interesiting bit from morning Rybar:

- The AFU breached the Siverskyi Donets River near Zakitne and transported several pieces of equipment to attack Krasnyi Lyman from the eastern direction. In the nearest future, the AFU will continue attempting to take Krasnyi Lyman in order to create a staging point on the left bank of the Oskil River and develop an offensive towards Kreminna .

Edited September 12, 2022 by Huba

[The_MonkeyKing]

Interview of a Ukrainian colonel right out the oven:

https://podcast.silverado.org/episodes/like-ants-to-wet-sugar-how-ukraine-won-the-battle-of-kharkiv-t1YYUr8n

[Grigb]

Interesting snippets I am getting from RU regarding fighting in Lyman.

Even with drones arty/mortars still have issues hitting moving infantry and especially moving vehicles. Attack drones/loitering munitions can easily hit moving targets, but they lack oomph to really hurt prepared defensive positions.  So, UKR combined them:

UKR troops:

• hit RU defensive positions with drone adjusted arty
• use Switchblades/Warmates to isolate position from reinforcements (especially vehicles) or hit retreating RU troops 

I think an infantry platoon needs a strike drone to isolate an enemy position so mortars/arty can pound it to dust.   

[Taranis]

"On a road towards Izium, September 11. LAURENT VAN DER STOCKT FOR “LE MONDE”"

[Pete Wenman]

deleted

 

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Pete Wenman

[FancyCat]

From the Washington Post, non-paywalled article:

https://wapo.st/3RFrz0c

Some choice quotes. Looks like it was a good idea to lock down the border indeed, if Russians took civilian cars, (and we know they regularly do), certainly some of those fleeing to the border were military and not just pro-Russian and Russian civilians.

Also, wtf, did they really just leave a body lying on the floor of a gravel elevator and went past it everyday? Why the hell do they live so trash like? Review of photos and such of Russian military garrisoned in Ukraine is just almost universally just unkempt and dirty. Am i missing the cleaner photos or something? 

Quote

The team from Kharkiv collected two other bodies during their visit, including a security guard whose remains have been rotting on the floor of a gravel elevator at an asphalt plant for months, even as the Russians used it as a sniper tower. One investigator vomited over a guardrail repeatedly as officers collected the remains.

Half of the soldiers fled in their vehicles in the first hours of the offensive, they said. Those stranded grew desperate. Some residents overheard their radio pleas to unit commanders for someone to come get them.

“They said, ‘You’re on your own,’ ” Matvienko recounted. “They came into our houses to take clothes so the drones wouldn’t see them in uniforms. They took our bicycles. Two of them pointed guns at my ex-husband until he handed them his car keys.”

 

[Zeleban]

It looks like something is brewing on the Kherson front

[Zeleban]

Sailor tanker, yes, yes, you heard right. The sailor - torpedo operator of the Baltic fleet was retrained as a tanker in a week and thrown into battle, here is the result.

[Huba]

Just now, Zeleban said:

Sailor tanker, yes, yes, you heard right. The sailor - torpedo operator of the Baltic fleet was retrained as a tanker in a week and thrown into battle, here is the result.

Bottom of the barrel, definitely.

So it looks like at this point there are no confirmed UA advances (perhaps some around Lyman/ Lysychansk, but it doesn't look like serious attempts). There seem to be a lot of PSYOP/ pressure being affected around almost whole line of contact... except on Zaporozhya - Melitopol line. This is of course my impression, but if another big push was to happen, I'd be looking there.

[Huba]

16 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

It looks like something is brewing on the Kherson front

Mass surrender would be perhaps even more demoralizing than straight out defeat, let's hope it's true. I didn't hear any more mentions about the negotiations though, unless we count this vid  

 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

33 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Also, wtf, did they really just leave a body lying on the floor of a gravel elevator and went past it everyday? Why the hell do they live so trash like? Review of photos and such of Russian military garrisoned in Ukraine is just almost universally just unkempt and dirty. Am i missing the cleaner photos or something? 

 

Just look at this dump. Don't you have any goddam pride?

 

 

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

interview from the weekend with Frederick Hodges, retired commander of the United States Army Europe

 

[The_MonkeyKing]

I am sure the main problems in the negotiations are that the Russian would like to retreat but Ukrainians would like them as POWs.

Maybe compromise of retreating without any ammo or armaments could be made. This could be profitable deal for Ukraine.

 

[Zeleban]

Yesterday there were rumors that a Russian Su-25 crashed. Here is confirmation

[LongLeftFlank]

17 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

I am sure the main problems in the negotiations are that the Russian would like to retreat but Ukrainians would like them as POWs.

So is it too early yet for Zelenskiy to reply:  "Yeah? You and whose army?"

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Grigb]

RU (Pegov) reports that UKR are closing on Bilohirka (DPR North - most likely at the left bottom corner of the map)

[Bulletpoint]

14 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Dirty bombs... that's the thing we all need to be worried about, not who can use a ICBM.  Even without a proper detonator or a way to create one, the field of nutjobs is wide open for making the center of an urban area unlivable for a couple hundred years.

Steve

You can decontaminate the area by demolishing nearby buildings and scraping off the surface layer. Without the nuclear explosion, it's difficult to vapourise the radioactive material and scatter it widely.

I'm more worried about old fashioned gun/explosives terrorism and chemical agents such as sarin than I am scared of dirty bombs.

[LongLeftFlank]

It's still up!

 

...No it ain't.