How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Probus]

On 10/17/2022 at 7:20 PM, sross112 said:

Or all he really wants is sharks with freaking laser beams on their heads....

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/intriguing-shark-with-frickin-laser-beam-art-appears-on-exotic-test-jet

Sorry.  Getting a bit off topic.

[acrashb]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Unfortunately, it's worse than that (as a DC guy you already know)

All is not lost:

 

[acrashb]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

COLLAPSE!!!!!! 

 

[danfrodo]

6 minutes ago, acrashb said:

All is not lost:

 

YAY AMERICA!   I am sure I really don't like this guy and right now he's my favorite politician.

Back on the evacuation -- so do the learned members of this forum concur w the opinion on the earlier post that only ferries are available for evac?  

[acrashb]

Finland thinks a wall (mostly fencing) will help.  I wonder if they are anticipating a flood of refugees from a collapsing Russian Federation:

 

 

[acrashb]

1 minute ago, danfrodo said:

YAY AMERICA! 

'Merica.  

Caution: not for the faint of ear and do not turn the sound on at work.

 

[FancyCat]

I seriously doubt Russian morale or strength will hold up even in urban combat. Even Lyman took what?

(Checks wiki)

Hmph. 4 weeks. Okay, I stand corrected. Big difference tho, they had supply lines. We shall see if Russia holds up even if Ukraine reaches the outskirts and supply lines are cut via regular artillery.

[Battlefront.com]

50 minutes ago, acrashb said:

 

The funny thing is that they already did that some time ago, around the time the bridges started getting hit.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

45 minutes ago, acrashb said:

Finland thinks a wall (mostly fencing) will help.  I wonder if they are anticipating a flood of refugees from a collapsing Russian Federation:

 

 

I can't think of any other reason for it.  I mean, it's definitely not going to keep those pesky Swedes out!

This is an interesting thing that I've not seen our humble thread discuss until now.  Nobody has yet discussed what this means for Russia's neighbors in terms of refugees.  We're already seeing the tip of that iceberg with the several hundred thousand Russians who have fled since the start of the war in Ukraine.  And things are going to get much worse.  Even if Russia doesn't collapse into civil war (which is quite possible), the economic and social problems within Russia are going to be extremely unpleasant.  A return to the 1990s level of violence and downward spiral is pretty certain I should think.  So how many Russians are going to try fleeing to the West?  Hundreds of thousands?  Probable.  Low millions?  If things get as bad as they headed, it's not out of the realm of possibilites.

Tying into the discussion a few pages ago about Russians who have fled for various reasons, many don't leave behind their bad habits and loyalty to the state they fled.

Yesh, no wonder Finland apparently found political consensus that they need better border protection.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

OK, I feel that the legitimate point that US financial support of Ukraine might get a bit rocky has been made.  We'll just have to wait and see how things go.  Nothing more to talk about so we should move on from it now.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, OldSarge said:

CNN finally posted the article online.

 

Gee, Russians are lying about the origins of these drones.  What a surprise!

Seriously though, it makes sense that they are lying because it's not good internal Russian PR to know they have to go to a 3rd world country under sanctions to get things that Russia can't make for itself.  Not a good message.

Steve

[Artkin]

12 hours ago, billbindc said:

As I noted earlier on, US aid to Ukraine is not in any way assured after January 21st of next year if the GOP takes the House. There will be a large fight using the debt ceiling to attempt to cut Social Security, Medicare and Ukraine aid. The Senate GOP will take the WH side of this for the most part but we can fully expect an aid crisis by March at the latest. You could call it Putin's greatest hope at the moment.

How smart. We spend 900 billion a year on our military and we're scoffing at the small amount sent to Ukraine? Congress are as dumb as rocks. Or theyre just massively corrupt as I've always suspected. 

A few thousand javelin sets in the right hands managed to severly dampen the combat power of our greatest rival. 

These people can't be serious.

Edit: just caught up now, sorry. But my point is clear. Nato should be very pleased if things dont get dirty from now on.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Artkin

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The funny thing is that they already did that some time ago, around the time the bridges started getting hit.

Steve

I thought that was just the military command that they moved onto the left bank when the bridges were taken out.  They left the civilian "leadership" to face the Ukrainians and the surrounded conscripts.

Watch for Ukraine to already have a couple brigades staged on the left bank who will com around behind Kherson while their forces on the right bank draw the right-bank Russians out to the perimeter with a feint.

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, FancyCat said:

I seriously doubt Russian morale or strength will hold up even in urban combat. Even Lyman took what?

(Checks wiki)

Hmph. 4 weeks. Okay, I stand corrected. Big difference tho, they had supply lines. We shall see if Russia holds up even if Ukraine reaches the outskirts and supply lines are cut via regular artillery.

Not to forget Mariupol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Mariupol

Doubt russia will offer an equal resolve in Cherson like UKR in Mariupol and likely Bakhmut very soon (?). I´d also expect remaining UKR resistance cells in Cherson becoming very "active" once UKR is close enough. Likely one the reasons RU deports (or tries to) the many civilians from the area now.

 

[RockinHarry]

13 hours ago, kraze said:

China, Russia and Iran are allies (or rather one is more and more like a master putting its dragon claws deeper into the other two). Besides Russia and China already helped DPRK get nukes and those are carefully watched by them. Iran would be going all in only if something HUGE like getting nukes was at stake, not to mention it already worked well and there was zero consequences from the West.

They´re all opportunists and mainly act on the scheme "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". With muslims treated like underhumans (more or less) in both Russia and China there´s little left they have in common actually. Iran is on very thin ice now. With drone shipments to russia and the Mahsa Amini incident uprisings things can go only downhill for the mullahs IMO. Also they have a couple not so friendly neighbors, maybe waiting for an "opportunity". Wouldn´t be surprised if we get a new hotspot in middle east very soon. Then we get to see who leaves this unholy Russia-China-Iran alliance first. And russia and china sharing nukes with Iran...no way.

14 hours ago, kraze said:

The truth is that certain Western powers are still very (purposefully) slow in their response, probably due to still hoping Russia and Ukraine will get tired and the war will get "frozen" and everybody will be doing business as usual once again. Hence the West is only being reactive instead of proactive. Hence the ban on tanks and talks about help with ADs only now getting serious, when it may just be too late in a month.

Well we don´t really know what´s going on behind the curtain diplomatically since the war started. Lots of room for speculations. So what ever the reasons are for the slow delivery of needed things in UKR, I believe it´ll speed up now more and more. And going back to business as usual with russia anytime soon, I don´t believe that will happen with the Putler regime or any it´s likewise successors.

[Battlefront.com]

39 minutes ago, chrisl said:

I thought that was just the military command that they moved onto the left bank when the bridges were taken out.  They left the civilian "leadership" to face the Ukrainians and the surrounded conscripts.

I think they evacuated more than they let on.  For obvious reasons

A video a few days ago from one of the senior fake Kherson admins was geolocated to the left bank, yet the message was intended to give the impression he was still in Kherson.  This was one of the "don't panic, we're not evacuating Kherson" messages.  if that is all correct, it is possible he relocated within recent days.  Me?  I think it happened sooner than that.  Russian leadership likes to delegate being left behind to less senior people.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

More oddball observations about the affects of sanctions, mobilization, and repression in Moscow... strippers have less guys throwing money at them, fewer men to bounce at bars, less hair to cut at barber shops, much smaller dating pool for women, and of course less hipsters hanging out vaping.  All the result of Russian men having left in the tens of thousands from Moscow as the war started through to today.  And those staying?  Well, they have to be careful where and when they travel because of the roving bands of thugs rounding up men (well, until yesterday anyway):

Likely behind a paywall:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/19/world/europe/russia-moscow-army-draft.html

Steve

[The_MonkeyKing]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I can't think of any other reason for it.  I mean, it's definitely not going to keep those pesky Swedes out!

This is an interesting thing that I've not seen our humble thread discuss until now.  Nobody has yet discussed what this means for Russia's neighbors in terms of refugees.  We're already seeing the tip of that iceberg with the several hundred thousand Russians who have fled since the start of the war in Ukraine.  And things are going to get much worse.  Even if Russia doesn't collapse into civil war (which is quite possible), the economic and social problems within Russia are going to be extremely unpleasant.  A return to the 1990s level of violence and downward spiral is pretty certain I should think.  So how many Russians are going to try fleeing to the West?  Hundreds of thousands?  Probable.  Low millions?  If things get as bad as they headed, it's not out of the realm of possibilites.

Tying into the discussion a few pages ago about Russians who have fled for various reasons, many don't leave behind their bad habits and loyalty to the state they fled.

Yesh, no wonder Finland apparently found political consensus that they need better border protection.

Steve

Here are some articles on the matter how Finland prepared for the Soviet unions collapse (and possible civil war ext.):

translated links:

https://www-iltalehti-fi.translate.goog/uutiset/a/2015010718982665?_x_tr_sl=fi&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

https://www-iltalehti-fi.translate.goog/uutiset/a/2015010718982671?_x_tr_sl=fi&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[Kinophile]

https://kyivindependent.com/national/surrounded-and-desperate-how-russia-lost-lyman

Despite its title it doesnt give any military insight that we don't know. Civilian limited and disjointed view of events as they washed back and forth through the town. 

Further reinforcement of the points made by @chrisl and @The_Capt above, about accuracy vs. awareness. RUS knew UKR were crossing the river but not where and especially when exactly, and could only respond with inaccurate weapons systems that just compounded the issue:

Quote

“At first, we could only cross in small groups, one boat at a time... They were throwing everything at us, Grad rockets, mortars,” Artem, 45, said. “They couldn't see us, but they knew we were there, and their job was to cover the whole area we could be crossing with fire.”

Wot Recon doing? SFA, to be clear.

The UKR operational-level corrosion strategy is effective because it permeates and directs efforts all the way down the tactical level. It is reinforced and expanded on at every unit size. Critically, every soldier "gets it", they instinctively see the value and natural superiority of the approach. They don't need lectures and explanatory slideshows, it's the obvious and natural solution to a difficult and nasty problem:

Quote

“On the tactical level,” recounted Vladyslav, “our main aim was to create the worst possible conditions for the enemy in Lyman as long as they stayed there.”

Kherson appears about to Lyman also, as we're seeing from the panicy DONT PANIC speeches by local Quislings. Even so, despite the utterly godawful higher level leadership, the average RUS soldier can still make things needlessly difficult:

Quote

“They would keep fighting, even when they had no chances of surviving,” said Vladyslav. “Some of them chose to change into civilian clothes, hide in basements, and try to blend in with the locals.”

But everyone has a breaking point

Quote

“Our police and security services are doing a good job, and they’re still catching them now,” he said. “That machine gun fire we heard from the forest earlier? That's no exercise, they are still out there.”

Quote

Vladyslav was understandably coy about plans for further Ukrainian offensive operations.

“The enemy will see on the battlefield what the plan is,” he said. “Every settlement is a different situation, and we are always adapting our tactics. This is our biggest advantage, that we use modern methods and they, for the most part, are stuck in 1945.”

Yup, from top to bottom of the RUS MoD there's a skim of modern thought floating on a dense nostalgia of long-past victories. Its as if the US Army tried to fight the 2nd Iraq War using Korean War concepts, tactics and organization. But note that Wagner doesnt have that massive bureaucratic inertia, which is fundamentally what makes them more dangerous.

Finally, ref mobilization numbers:

Quote

“Our guys are doing their job,” said Vladyslav. “If they weren't afraid in the face of a professional army, an amateur army won't change things, whether there is a thousand of them, two thousand, or five coming at you.”

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Kinophile

[Mattias]

12 hours ago, Haiduk said:For two days he shot down two cruise missiles and five Shakheds

Interesting. Is there any information on what weapons are typically used by UA planes for downing drones/cruise missiles, and what tactics are used?

 

Mattias

[Zeleban]

38 minutes ago, Mattias said:

Interesting. Is there any information on what weapons are typically used by UA planes for downing drones/cruise missiles, and what tactics are used?

 

Mattias

 

I think this is R-77 heat-guided missiles, it is possible to use a gun with a lock from the radar. In this case, a locked target is marked on the pilot's HUD, which is very useful when aiming at such a small target as a drone. It is also quite possible to use passive R-27 radar missiles, but this is a more expensive, long-range weapon, which is more appropriate to use in combat with Russian aircraft. At least the fact that one of the MiGs was lost from fragments of the drone it destroyed indicates that the interception took place at a very close range.

[Grossman]

2 stories on London this morning 

 

1   London Guardian

Pro-Russian forces claim to have repulsed Ukrainian attempt to retake nuclear plant

An attempt to retake control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) by boats loaded with Ukrainian special forces has been repulsed, according to one of the Russian-installed officials in occupied eastern Ukraine.

The state-owned RIA Novosti news agency quotes Vladimir Rogov, one of the Russian-installed leaders in Zaporizhzhia, saying:

Last night , a large group of landing boats, crowded with militants of special operations forces, left the southern region of the city of Zaporizhzhia and other directions. The attempted landing was repulsed.

Rogov told the news agency that about 30 boats participated in the landing attempt, but that the situation was under control, and there were no plans to evacuate Enerhodar, the settlement attached to the ZNPP. RIA did not publish any evidence to back up the claims other than Rogov’s words.

Russian forces have occupied Europe’s largest nuclear power plant since the earliest days of the war. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of firing on the power plant and risking a nuclear accident. Attempts to have the area declared a demilitarised zone for nuclear safety reasons have floundered. The ZNPP is located in Zaporizhzhia, one of the regions that Russia has claimed to “annex”.

2  The Sun reports that Mad Vlad is considering a nuclear demonstration. 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20152793/vladimir-putin-nuclear-weapons-black-sea-ben-wallace/

•  
•  

 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

...I don't personally believe in Vlad's nuke, but if I did, it could take the form of a high altitude 100kt EMP blast aimed at destroying central Ukraine's power grid.  The USSR tested a series in Central Asia in the 1960s. That way he can 'absolve' himself of killing civilians, directly.

[Mattias]

53 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

 

I think this is R-77 heat-guided missiles…

Thank you for answering Zelban. I was thinking a bit more next level. For example do we know what systems that has been shown to be effective/ineffective in this particular context/time? Has there been any particular tactics employed, any new revelations/experiences in the man/machine/effect matrix? 
 

This, of course, links with the AD/laser/air superiority etc discussions. But I guess it is too early to say anything about it.

 

Mattias

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Grossman said:

2 stories on London this morning 

 

1   London Guardian

Pro-Russian forces claim to have repulsed Ukrainian attempt to retake nuclear plant

An attempt to retake control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) by boats loaded with Ukrainian special forces has been repulsed, according to one of the Russian-installed officials in occupied eastern Ukraine.

The state-owned RIA Novosti news agency quotes Vladimir Rogov, one of the Russian-installed leaders in Zaporizhzhia, saying:

Last night , a large group of landing boats, crowded with militants of special operations forces, left the southern region of the city of Zaporizhzhia and other directions. The attempted landing was repulsed.

Rogov told the news agency that about 30 boats participated in the landing attempt, but that the situation was under control, and there were no plans to evacuate Enerhodar, the settlement attached to the ZNPP. RIA did not publish any evidence to back up the claims other than Rogov’s words.

Russian forces have occupied Europe’s largest nuclear power plant since the earliest days of the war. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of firing on the power plant and risking a nuclear accident. Attempts to have the area declared a demilitarised zone for nuclear safety reasons have floundered. The ZNPP is located in Zaporizhzhia, one of the regions that Russia has claimed to “annex”.

2  The Sun reports that Mad Vlad is considering a nuclear demonstration. 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20152793/vladimir-putin-nuclear-weapons-black-sea-ben-wallace/

•  
•  

 

 

Yes, this is the 5th time they are repulsing Ukrainian special forces trying to retake ZNPP. As usual no bodies or boats to show.