How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[kraze]

13 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

To be honest, I don't understand what Putin is trying to achieve. Intimidation doesn't work. We have already gone through this, at the very beginning of the war there were similar attacks on the residential areas of Kyiv and this only caused an increase in hatred towards the Russians. I think the only result of these attacks will be an increase in military assistance to Ukraine.

russians (not putin, people should stop pretending it's just some putin, as much as some "civilized" forum members here may not like it) simply don't know how to do it any other way. It worked in Chechnya and it worked in Syria, so must work here too.

[Letter from Prague]

7 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

 

Although, to be honest, I know. For comments like this. Russians rejoice in social networks shelling residential areas of Kyiv. Finally, they waited for revenge for the Crimean bridge.

I assume everyone will now start apologising to Kraze? No?

(I know nobody will.)

EDIT: I wrote this before Kraze's post, synchronicity I guess.

Edited October 10, 2022 by Letter from Prague

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

 

@Haiduk....? 

Too loud enough... Two impacts in our district (far from center), something is burning, but I suppose they missed at least with one missile if they wanted to hit THIS object...

Edited October 10, 2022 by Haiduk

[Zeleban]

Here is a more graphic explanation of the revenge theory. The Russians found a "strategically important" bridge for Ukrainian logistic and destroyed it. (This is a pedestrian bridge in Kyiv). 

Although it seems that this pedestrian bridge turned out to be much more durable than the Crimean one

Edited October 10, 2022 by Zeleban

[paxromana]

I wish the west wouyld just get it over with and declare Russia to be a terrorist state and kick her out of the Security Council ... heck, just disband the whole UN except for its instrumentalities (which can continue in the same way as the League of Nations' ones did) and form a new 'New UN' or something ... with vetos that can be overridden by majority vote in the General Assembly) ... 

The UN has outlived its usefulness.

[kraze]

9 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Too loud enough... Two impacts in our district (far from center), something is burning, but I suppose they missed at least with one missile if they wanted to hit THIS object...

They missed the other object too, hitting Akhmetov's tower instead (photos are public already).

Their missiles are really **** at precision, but to kill civilians you don't need precision either.

No objects in Shevchenko park though.

[Zeleban]

6 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

Вот более наглядное объяснение теории мести. Русские нашли «стратегически важный» мост для украинской логистики и разрушили его. (Это пешеходный мост в Киеве). 

Хотя кажется, что этот пешеходный мост оказался намного прочнее крымского

 

[FancyCat]

How notable Ukraine attacks a bridge in the dead of night, and Russia attacks in the light of day. And night, right into residential buildings where people sleep.

 

[Haiduk]

8 minutes ago, kraze said:

They missed the other object too, hitting Akhmetov's tower instead (photos are public already).

Their missiles are really **** at precision, but to kill civilians you don't need precision either.

No objects in Shevchenko park though.

I live on left bank, four impacts were here - two more distant (I read as if it was in hydro  energy plant dam area), two other came since 30-40 minutes in our district, likely at our district power plant

Edited October 10, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

8 dead, 24 wounded - first results of strikes in Kyiv

[Zeleban]

 

Zaluzhny said that 75 missiles had been launched by Russia today. Of which 41 were shot down by air defense

[FancyCat]

Pedestrian bridge. 0.5 miles away from the Presidential Palace and other government buildings. Inaccurate missile or terror attack?

 

 

[kraze]

7 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Pedestrian bridge. 0.5 miles away from the Presidential Palace and other government buildings. Inaccurate missile or terror attack?

 

 

Apparently it was Kh-101. This is the precise one, they don't have many of them and these are very expensive.

But it didn't hurt the bridge much.

Irony is that Klitschko was criticized for a supposedly poor bridge quality.

[Zeleban]

2 minutes ago, kraze said:

Klitschko was criticized for a supposedly poor bridge quality.

Yeah, now Klitschko will have something to answer his opponents

[Haiduk]

Lucky one (second video)...

 

[Haiduk]

 

[Grossman]

A poster in the London Financial Times makes this assessment of the impact of the strike on the Kerch bridge

 

On whether this bridge was important or not, let's do some maths:

 

A train can easily ship 1000 soldiers across, or, say, 50 tanks (or heavy armour equivalent), and given that Russia can set up these trains from anywhere and need to leave a, say, 10 minute break between trains, the limiting factor is how quickly you can unload this at your point of destination. So shipping 300 000 troops could be done quite quickly (assuming you find these guys drunk enough to step on it, and can equip them (materially and in terms of competence). We know from urban railways that London can ship out 50 000+ football fans using the tube within hours of their favourite club losing.

 

The blow-up has reduced the 4 lanes into one lane in both directions, Russian official announcements are that this has a current capacity of 20 cars in both directions until more of the defunct road lanes can be opened. So one train full of people would need to be replaced by 1000/5= 200/20=10 hours of car trips (with nobody else using the bridge). The remaining road cannot be used for trucks with more than 3.5t weight. So the car bridge cannot replace the volumes transported by rail. This has implications for Crimeans as well - fuel, food, all sorts of stuff needs to be shipped across that bridge.

 

The railtrack has been damaged, and there are varying estimates how much damage the prolonged heat has had on the structural integrity of the railtracks, the steel inside the concrete, the concrete itself etc. The train that carefully rolled across the damaged section was empty and it would be misleading to think that an empty train is the same as a military train. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btjoMLADLp4showing two tanks sharing 6 axles. At 50t a pop, that's a point load of 16t per axle (plus the weight of the wagon). We know that the bridge was used for heavy armour, the video just shows how quickly lots of tanks can be shipped. So every hour the bridge is limited is good news for Ukraine. Let's not forget that tanks (etc) also use ammo. There are estimates that Russia has used 20-30 000 shells on average every day, in May this went up to 60 000/day. So for every tank in the field, there needs to be a steady supply of ammo that is large enough to cope with these volumes. Maybe that is the reason why Ukraine has blown up more than 5000 trucks etc - 40% of all military trucks russia has? Driving a tank across 100s of miles is very expensive, and it only increases the problem of fuel supply and provide juicy targets for Ukraine hitting refuelling stations.

 

With recent re-gains in the East, Ukraine has cut off the land-based railway supply from Russia into Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and has blown up several military train stations (they are very juicy targets, as not only would this interrupt transport nodes, but they also allow Russia to warehouse stuff that Ukraine then can blow up at their leisure). There is no railway supply chain from Russia into the occupied territories that are not in HIMARS range.

 

There is a ferry service from Russia into Kerch! This is the ferry they are using: https://crimeaports.ru/assets/cache_image/resources/79/maxresdefault-1956x1200-593_1956x1200_593.jpg. This one (https://crimeaports.ru/en/affiliates/kerch-ferry-service) says 60 people max each, carrying capacity is max 37 light-load trucks. There is no way you can transport a 50t tank on a ferry that has a carrying capacity of 37*3.5t= 130t. Not sure the hull would hold, the weight distribution is going to make it impossible to drive it on and off the ferry without sinking the ship at port.

 

The damage to the bridge is going to be a problem for however long repairs will take. The attack does make the bridge militarily unsafe for the future even if repaired as whoever did this can come back. The implications for the military situation in the occupied territories are not good at all. And just in case this makes no sense, spare a thought for the 20-30 000 Russian troops stuck on the West of the Dniepr who have been cut off from supplies because Ukraine has blown up all the bridges and now patiently waits until Russia made a provisional bridge to then blow up that one too.

Would have been nice to see the whole thing fall apart, but it still is a serious problem for the Russian army (and the about 50 000 Crimean tourists from Russia staying there).

[Grigb]

On 10/8/2022 at 4:23 PM, Pete Wenman said:

Loads of speculation here and elsewhere (no surprise)

But lets try a different angle - what can we gleen from this image - not the CCTV footage but the wider image

 

We appear to be in a CCTV monitoring room. It's being filmed by a phone or equivalent and has been released into the public domain. Who is this content meant for.

The camera (looks to be fixed)and  is showing pretty much the exact spot the explosion occurred.

It seems an odd location for a typical CCTV, and so you assume this is part of the bridge defence network, with the camera not monitoring traffic flow, but the actual bridge structure.

Above the main screen appears to composite views showing 18 other camera views

It seems the footage is being watched after the event as there is little emotion in the voices that can be heard

@Grigb - Can you translate 

On the video itself 

The wave seen in the video under the span closest to right screen edge is being suggested as a boat by some, but the explosion and span that collapses is the other side of the nearest bridge support. 

It could be the wake from a fast moving boat that goes under the next span/rams the next bridge support, or it could just be a wave.

The explosion itself seems not so much a flash and bang, but rather to be a flash and burn with something on the right being a smoke source for some several seconds - can be seen in the video around the 45 second mark.

Disclaimer - I have no real idea what I'm talking about, but there are some interesting aspects to this video.

 

P

There are two man and two women. Women are in background. Their voices are barely audible. I can hear the following conversation:

• [Nothing] blyat is seen
• What kind of truck is this? [mean that explosions could not be from that truck]
• I don't think it's a truck
• Of course
• Not a truck, such power [of explosion]
• It seems [not sure] to me that there are two explosions, no? 
• If it had been a rocket [missile], it would have hit the second bridge as well

[Haiduk]

Update on 11:35 - 83 missiles were launched, 43 shot down. During last hour at least three were shot down in Kyiv oblast

Main part of missiles are Kh-101, being launched by 10 Tu-95 and 4 Tu-160 simultainoulsy. There were two waves already. Also Kalibr missiles were launched from Black sea and S-300 from border areas

RUMINT - Ukrainian forces strike back on Russian territory of Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod oblasts. As if S-300 site was hit near Tyotkino and drone control station    

Edited October 10, 2022 by Haiduk

[RockinHarry]

14 hours ago, dan/california said:

 

Musk was not born in the U.S. and therefore cannot be President. I doubt there is any other political job he wants.

Thanks but wasn´t meaning the president job explicitely. We´ll see. But who would have thougth that i.e an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Donald Trump goes political long time ago. For Elon I wish he keeps Starlink up and otherwise mouth shut when it comes to "peace solutions" and such.

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, paxromana said:

I wish the west wouyld just get it over with and declare Russia to be a terrorist state and kick her out of the Security Council

I doubt that's going to happen. Sadly, condemning the Russians for hitting civilians would set a dangerous precedence for everyone who bombed cities in the past "to break the enemy's will to fight" or doesn't want to rule it out for the future, Western countries included.

[Grigb]

Crimea bridge reality - yesterday, 6 PM

Quote

Trucks are not allowed to pass through the Crimean Bridge. Sent by a [our] subscriber [/reader]:

Good afternoon, Roman [channel author].

We are returning on an empty semi-truck from Krasnodar through the Crimea.

We have been standing in line for the ferry since yesterday.

Only the military passes us in the direction of the [ferry] crossing.

Trucks have been waiting in line for a day, no one has been allowed to pass yet.

Now [passenger] cars and busiks [Soviet type vans] have started to drive into our parking lot.

They have been standing in line at the Crimean Bridge since yesterday and no one was allowed [to pass] and [they were] turned [/ordered] to go to the ferry.

So, in fact, there is no travel to Crimea?

 

[Grigb]

3 minutes ago, Butschi said:

I doubt that's going to happen. Sadly, condemning the Russians for hitting civilians would set a dangerous precedence for everyone who bombed cities in the past "to break the enemy's will to fight" or doesn't want to rule it out for the future, Western countries included.

In reality it does not. RU explicitly aim for mass civilian casualties and genocide. The cheer in RU telegram you see is not about UKR civilian casualties due to missile strike.

They cheer because they believe Kremlin finally started proper full-scale genocide of UKR - they belive RU missile strikes aimed at power and heat infrastructure will lead to UKR mass civilian casualties during the winter and cause at least collapse of UKR state or preferably disappearance of UKR nation.

RU having a seat in Security Council of UN undermines whole idea of UN. 

[kraze]

2 minutes ago, Grigb said:

In reality it does not. RU explicitly aim for mass civilian casualties and genocide. The cheer in RU telegram you see is not about UKR civilian casualties due to missile strike.

They cheer because they believe Kremlin finally started proper full-scale genocide of UKR - they belive RU missile strikes aimed at power and heat infrastructure will lead to UKR mass civilian casualties during the winter and cause at least collapse of UKR state or preferably disappearance of UKR nation.

RU having a seat in Security Council of UN undermines whole idea of UN. 

Hence why I say it's us or them. There can be no other outcome. Everybody who says that Russia should keep existing is explicitly taking the russian side and suggesting Ukraine should cease existing. Even if hypocritically pretending to be "civilized".

[Huba]

44 minutes ago, Grossman said:

A poster in the London Financial Times makes this assessment of the impact of the strike on the Kerch bridge

 

On whether this bridge was important or not, let's do some maths:

 

A train can easily ship 1000 soldiers across, or, say, 50 tanks (or heavy armour equivalent), and given that Russia can set up these trains from anywhere and need to leave a, say, 10 minute break between trains, the limiting factor is how quickly you can unload this at your point of destination. So shipping 300 000 troops could be done quite quickly (assuming you find these guys drunk enough to step on it, and can equip them (materially and in terms of competence). We know from urban railways that London can ship out 50 000+ football fans using the tube within hours of their favourite club losing.

 

The blow-up has reduced the 4 lanes into one lane in both directions, Russian official announcements are that this has a current capacity of 20 cars in both directions until more of the defunct road lanes can be opened. So one train full of people would need to be replaced by 1000/5= 200/20=10 hours of car trips (with nobody else using the bridge). The remaining road cannot be used for trucks with more than 3.5t weight. So the car bridge cannot replace the volumes transported by rail. This has implications for Crimeans as well - fuel, food, all sorts of stuff needs to be shipped across that bridge.

 

The railtrack has been damaged, and there are varying estimates how much damage the prolonged heat has had on the structural integrity of the railtracks, the steel inside the concrete, the concrete itself etc. The train that carefully rolled across the damaged section was empty and it would be misleading to think that an empty train is the same as a military train. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btjoMLADLp4showing two tanks sharing 6 axles. At 50t a pop, that's a point load of 16t per axle (plus the weight of the wagon). We know that the bridge was used for heavy armour, the video just shows how quickly lots of tanks can be shipped. So every hour the bridge is limited is good news for Ukraine. Let's not forget that tanks (etc) also use ammo. There are estimates that Russia has used 20-30 000 shells on average every day, in May this went up to 60 000/day. So for every tank in the field, there needs to be a steady supply of ammo that is large enough to cope with these volumes. Maybe that is the reason why Ukraine has blown up more than 5000 trucks etc - 40% of all military trucks russia has? Driving a tank across 100s of miles is very expensive, and it only increases the problem of fuel supply and provide juicy targets for Ukraine hitting refuelling stations.

 

With recent re-gains in the East, Ukraine has cut off the land-based railway supply from Russia into Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and has blown up several military train stations (they are very juicy targets, as not only would this interrupt transport nodes, but they also allow Russia to warehouse stuff that Ukraine then can blow up at their leisure). There is no railway supply chain from Russia into the occupied territories that are not in HIMARS range.

 

There is a ferry service from Russia into Kerch! This is the ferry they are using: https://crimeaports.ru/assets/cache_image/resources/79/maxresdefault-1956x1200-593_1956x1200_593.jpg. This one (https://crimeaports.ru/en/affiliates/kerch-ferry-service) says 60 people max each, carrying capacity is max 37 light-load trucks. There is no way you can transport a 50t tank on a ferry that has a carrying capacity of 37*3.5t= 130t. Not sure the hull would hold, the weight distribution is going to make it impossible to drive it on and off the ferry without sinking the ship at port.

 

The damage to the bridge is going to be a problem for however long repairs will take. The attack does make the bridge militarily unsafe for the future even if repaired as whoever did this can come back. The implications for the military situation in the occupied territories are not good at all. And just in case this makes no sense, spare a thought for the 20-30 000 Russian troops stuck on the West of the Dniepr who have been cut off from supplies because Ukraine has blown up all the bridges and now patiently waits until Russia made a provisional bridge to then blow up that one too.

Would have been nice to see the whole thing fall apart, but it still is a serious problem for the Russian army (and the about 50 000 Crimean tourists from Russia staying there).

He missed the fact that there is also a train ferry and all the required facilities just next to the bridge. According to wiki article it stopped operation after the bridge was opened, but I think it's a safe bet that it can be re-commissioned again quite quickly.
Still if RU are forced to use the ferry, it will be a huge inconvenience. And the ferry itself and associated facilities would be a relatively easy targets, and rather hard to fix/ replace.