How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Letter from Prague]

7 minutes ago, womble said:

Russia owns the pipeline, or at least has full scale technical access to it. They could easily have inserted a maintenance pig into the line with the requisute quantiy of explosives on board and sent it downstream until just outside national territory. Piece of the proverbial cake.

Wouldn't you know that something exploded from the inside rather than outside?

(also, I now can't get picture of 'maintenance pig' from my head )

Edited September 28, 2022 by Letter from Prague

[NamEndedAllen]

This seems ominous. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/28/russia-ukraine-war-updates.html

“The U.S. Embassy in Russia has issued a security alert for American citizens in the country, telling them to leave immediately if they can.

The embassy issued a statement Tuesday in which it said “U.S. citizens should not travel to Russia and those residing or travelling in Russia should depart Russia immediately while limited commercial travel options remain.”

… The U.S. Embassy warned Tuesday that “Russia may refuse to acknowledge dual nationals’ U.S. citizenship, deny their access to U.S. consular assistance, prevent their departure from Russia, and conscript dual nationals for military service” and that anyone wishing to leave Russia should do so as soon as possible.“

[womble]

1 minute ago, panzermartin said:

This seems more possible than outside acrion 

Nah. Russia definitely has the expertise to put a dive team or a submersible on the line anyplace they want to. They could even have installed a destruct mechanism when they dropped the pipe into the Baltic in the first place.

Using a pig has quite a big risk of identifiable debris being found by whomever comes in to investigate; a demolition charge would have less material extraneous to the explosion to remain to be found by a forensic examination. I'd say the possibilities are of a similar order of magnitude, at least

 

[BlackMoria]

There is another saying.  "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."   Russian leadership so far has shown that there is 'no bottom' so far for the hole of stupid.  With a huge heaping of Malice on top of this sh*tty sundae to top it off.

[womble]

2 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Wouldn't you know that something exploded from the inside rather than outside?

(also, my imagination gave me unrealistic but very funny image of 'maintenance pig')

I've no background in that field, but I'd say just from physical principles, that you may well. My layman's deductions might bring in "pressurised pipe" that would look blown from inside even if started from the outside, maybe? Wonder if we have any pro's who could offer any potential actual expertise.

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, BlackMoria said:

There is another saying.  "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."   Russian leadership so far has shown that there is 'no bottom' so far for the hole of stupid.  With a huge heaping of Malice on top of this sh*tty sundae to top it off.

yeah I have stopped trying to look for rationale in Russian decision making.  Unfortunately, the wheels came off and the trains derailed. Doesn't bode well... or maybe it does and Putin is gonna  be asked to check out the window view soon.

[Tenses]

Russians are definitly capable of sabotaging the pipes, they are the ones who monitor them and could have a reason to do this. So as have been said, this is possible that someone else did it, but not very likely.

Possible reason is that some more sane fraction at Kremlin could want to push into normalization with the Europe/Germany. Well, they can certainly do this now... 

[JonS]

If the charges were external, the pipe would be caved in first by the explosion then petalled outwards by the gas pressure. If it were an explosive pig then all the damage would be oriented outwards.

But, either way, you'd have to go to the site to have a gander. That will definitely happen, at which point we'll know, but it mightn't be for a few weeks or months. Depending on the higher order objective  a few weeks or months might be long enough to achieve the aim, whatever /that/ might be.

[Kinophile]

7 minutes ago, JonS said:

explosive pig

https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2016/08/13/1270642651671674661/1024x576_MP4_1270642651671674661.mp4

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Kinophile

[Ultradave]

28 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Also I believe technically it was a difficult task for Russia to carry out. Unless there is a way to blow these from inside? How could they approach with submarine /drone and go unnoticed in high intensity waters scanned 24hr by hostile forces ? This perfection in execution doesn't feel very russian to me. 

I would submit that their submarine force is more professional and capable than what we've seen of the ground forces. They have at least one submarine that would be easily capable of this. There aren't NATO ships patrolling normally with active sonar, but listening with hydrophones. Modern subs are exceedingly quiet, especially when loitering, or moving slowly. And the mother ship doesn't have to be right on top of the pipeline. It can launch the minisub (kind of a misnomer - it's not like "Alvin"), from a good distance. 

Dave

[The_MonkeyKing]

 

Those were the times. Anybody who even speculated anything like what we have today were laughed out the room.

[Grigb]

38 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

So the prize is Kremina?  What's defending that? Does UA need to take it or just cut it off (N&S),  pocket the Lyman and Kremina garrisons and pound them out of existence? 

Indeed (if rumor is true) it looks like encirclement of threat of encirclement of Kreminna. I cannot help with forces in Kreminna but I do not think they have a lot of forces there. They have other much more critical areas right now. So, good chance they would just bail out.

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, Grigb said:

Indeed (if rumor is true) it looks like encirclement of threat of encirclement of Kreminna. I cannot help with forces in Kreminna but I do not think they have a lot of forces there. They have other much more critical areas right now. So, good chance they would just bail out.

This is getting very exciting!  For sure will get some equipment and supplies from the new Lyman kessel, and hopefully lots of POWs.  But what waits in the next defense line?  Mobiks?  Putin's already feeding in these useless troops to the area, so is that all he's got?  If he pulls better units from elsewhere then those areas are open to exploitation given that UKR seems faster to reposition than RU.  

And Putin now has to look at his situation map every day and see ~15-20k of his best units bottled up doing nothing in Kherson Kessel, which he desperately needs elsewhere.  The gift that just keeps on giving.  The old saying stays true:  he that defends everything, defends nothing.

[Grigb]

2 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

This is getting very exciting!  For sure will get some equipment and supplies from the new Lyman kessel, and hopefully lots of POWs.  But what waits in the next defense line?  Mobiks?  Putin's already feeding in these useless troops to the area, so is that all he's got?  If he pulls better units from elsewhere then those areas are open to exploitation given that UKR seems faster to reposition than RU.  

And Putin now has to look at his situation map every day and see ~15-20k of his best units bottled up doing nothing in Kherson Kessel, which he desperately needs elsewhere.  The gift that just keeps on giving.  The old saying stays true:  he that defends everything, defends nothing.

There are RU rumors that there is indeed nothing to send there (hence mobilization). In this case Steve is right - RU is desperately trying to stall UKR offensive before Svatove with No Step Back defense hoping for mud season arrival.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, IanL said:

I think that sounds like a good plan. I worry that even if this plan is adopted that it might not be executed very well. There will be a lot of wealthy people who will want to get back to business as usual ASAP. I would be concerned that our western governments might not be able to follow through like they should. Especially if the time line drags on past 15ish years before any progress is made 

The best example I can think of is Serbia.  Genocidal war of aggression against its neighbors.  Massive problems with populace and nationalism. Was militarily defeated and economy in tatters, but was not occupied.  Sounds a lot like Russia, doesn't it?

Serbia still has a lot of problems (this war highlights that) and can not be completely counted on to be a good neighbor, but it is largely out of the war making business and it's old cultural habits seem to be improving over time.  Imperfect as it might be, it's working.

Steve

[Kinophile]

30 mins ago... 

 

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, Kinophile said:

30 mins ago... 

 

Not sure I BELIEVE that, but if it is true it is an indication even the Kremlin knows the wheels are coming off. Would that also indicate that Putin has been quietly retired one way or another? 

[danfrodo]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Sorry for interrupting a lovely conversation about a deeply relevant topic but we have an interesting UKR rumor

GrigB, thanks for your work on annotating this map, so excellent.  This is putting a great big smile on my face.  I thought UKR would just stop at the Oskil line -- maybe UKR thought that also but when they saw weak forces they decided to keep pushing?  Someday we'll know I hope.  And thanks for getting the thread back on track.  I'm out of likes so this is a long winded like.

[NamEndedAllen]

5 hours ago, Probus said:

Ah ha! Someone is finally catching on!

I think it was either 007 or Spectre, but I'll have a hard time proving it.  Everyone seems to think it was from Russia with love because, for them,  the world is not enough. 

Red Skull! Red Skull! Clearly.

 

[akd]

5 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

30 mins ago... 

 

Umm…quick guys, take all that down.

And…uh…they all came into town for a wedding!

 

[FancyCat]

 

 

 

[danfrodo]

4 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

 

 

 

yeah, why not just put up a post on tiktok saying "I am a war criminal.  If I am ever seen outside Russia, please arrest me."

[acrashb]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

You would have to blockade the Baltic Sea more or less. I think that is more or less declaring war.

As someone else pointed out, submarines are a lot stealthier than surface ships - and if we find one, then what?  Do we sink it?  What if, when it is attacked, it retaliates? 

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes, but you said 100 kilos per explosion, and there were three blasts. In total, they would need 300 kilos. Not easy to source even on the black market I would guess.

Thanks for the clarification - I misread the intent of your post.  And, agreeing with you, if 300kg of high explosives were 'easy to source', there would be a lot more violence in the world than there is now.  Every instance of that quantity of explosives, that I am aware of, in a 'modern' or first-world country is home-made fertilizer bombs (I think these are "low explosives").

1 hour ago, womble said:

They could easily have inserted a maintenance pig into the line with the requisute quantiy of explosives on board[...]

I never thought of that.  It would leave obvious traces not requiring Horatio Cane to point back to source - but Russia could be beyond caring, and it could not be stopped by any blockade.

49 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2016/08/13/1270642651671674661/1024x576_MP4_1270642651671674661.mp4

Good grief.  Some idiots with too much tannerite and low morals.

Edited September 28, 2022 by acrashb

[Probus]

1 hour ago, Grigb said:

Sorry for interrupting a lovely conversation about a deeply relevant topic but we have an interesting UKR rumor

Thanks Grigb!  Out of likes but I have a 

[The_MonkeyKing]

i wonder what is this about? "In few years"?

For a purchase order I would understand this but not for these aid packages.