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How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?


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19 minutes ago, Huba said:

This are very good news. Quite a bold move, though the true test would come with moving empty vessels TO Ukrainian ports. Forcing Putin's hand at every possibility is the correct way to deal with him, accepting his threats means losing.

Frankly sound all too good, including UN agreeing on anything. I suspect it being a gossip; perhaps Sultan thrown some comments how outraged he is for domestic reasons (Erdogan is fixed on his public image and "respect" from static objects, not even mentioning other people and states); it happenned in the past. I doubt Turkey will make such actions, it would be very atypical for their foregin policy.

We will need to wait.

Edited by Beleg85
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Just now, danfrodo said:

I wonder if NATO will provide air cover to these vessels?  At some point Putin's holding the world's food supply hostage needs to be confronted.  What if these vessels are attacked via mines, where Putin says the mines were UKR?  Or of course the usual culprit, the Brits. 

I am still confident that the Biden admin won't do anything to freak out the US public until after the Nov 8 elections.

The mines seems to be the biggest threat here, and perhaps submarines. RU could also buzz the ships with aviation, though straight out bombing/ launching missiles at  them would IMO create an unacceptable backlash against Russia. 
NATO is permanently flying recce aircraft/ drones above the Black Sea, I doubt any russian craft except sub could get near the convoy. I assume Russians have air delivered mines in their arsenal (?) but I'm not sure they could lay them without NATO noticing and ships taking evasive actions/ perhaps mines being swept. 
IMO the most realistic threats would be submarine-deployed mines, followed by missile strikes at port infrastructure.

As for Biden, it's only a week to the elections, and after that hopefully both US and UA will have their hands untied a bit more. Pure conjecture on my part, but I find it very likely that UA is purposefully abstaining from major actions in last days, and will continue to do so for one more week, both for operational reasons and not to risk some unexpected developments affect the elections, and hence the eventual support.

 

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17 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Frankly sound all too good, including UN agreeing on anything. I suspect it being a gossip; perhaps Sultan thrown some comments how outraged he is for domestic reasons (Erdogan is fixed on his public image and "respect" from static objects, not even mentioning other people and states); it happenned in the past. I doubt Turkey will make such actions, it would be very atypical for their foregin policy.

We will need to wait.

The convoy is supposed to move out tomorrow, so thankfully we'll know very soon. It is now being reported by other sources too, but it might be just the echo effect. In any way, fingers crossed. Oh, and I tip my hat to the crews of these ships, last time merchantmen had to face a risk like this was I think during the Tankers War more than 30 years ago.

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19 minutes ago, dan/california said:

First hints from the Russians, all the stated condition are completely unreasonable of course. It is still a sign the dinosaur that is the Russian state has realized it has a problem.

This could also be attempt to influence US election:  "Look, Biden is endangering the world w his war of choice" -- that is basically what the 'citizens for sanity' ads are saying.  I wish I lived in a country where Putin would look at our main parties and say "either way I'm F-ed!".   Having said that, I still think that both parties will support UKR going forward and Putin's hopes will be dashed -- but it's no certain thing.

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ISW put out a different type of report for today.  It's a look at Putin's manpower situation, in particular how the coming Fall conscription period gives us some ideas for how forces are going to be utilized due to limitations for training and housing conscripts.

Overall, ISW doesn't see how training can be pulled off as the entire Russian training system is non-functional.  Cadres are supposed to train the new conscripts, but those cadres are *all* in Ukraine.  Then there's the equipment issue.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-30

Steve

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Info about the alleged blockade running attempt seems to be coming from Bloomberg, so hopefully there's more to it than claims by this UA Twitter. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get through the paywall :(

 

Also, more jokes:

 

Edited by Huba
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13 minutes ago, Huba said:

Info about the alleged blockade running attempt seems to be coming from Bloomberg, so hopefully there's more to it than claims by this UA Twitter. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get through the paywall :(

Turkey says ships already underway will be continue to be inspected but no new ships will leave Ukrainian ports:
(Google Translation below)
https://www.msb.gov.tr/SlaytHaber/30102022-13612

3. Russian personnel working in the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul are still in the Center. During this period, there will be no ship exits from Ukraine. It is planned to continue the inspection of grain-laden ships waiting in front of Istanbul today and tomorrow. 

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4 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Turkey says ships already underway will be continue to be inspected but no new ships will leave Ukrainian ports:
(Google Translation below)
https://www.msb.gov.tr/SlaytHaber/30102022-13612

3. Russian personnel working in the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul are still in the Center. During this period, there will be no ship exits from Ukraine. It is planned to continue the inspection of grain-laden ships waiting in front of Istanbul today and tomorrow. 

Heh, so Turkey will only turn the lights out and that's it 😕 Now I'd like Ukraine to announce that Kerch strait has been mined by their UUVs and whole RU  Black Sea trade stopped. Then I imagine could be room for some more negotiations...

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34 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Æh?

Hamlet was prince of Denmark. A joke.

Ok, nevernmind.:) It was weak one.

44 minutes ago, Huba said:

Heh, so Turkey will only turn the lights out and that's it 😕 Now I'd like Ukraine to announce that Kerch strait has been mined by their UUVs and whole RU  Black Sea trade stopped. Then I imagine could be room for some more negotiations...

Unfortunatelly, it looks like it was fake. Too good to be true.

Edited by Beleg85
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There has been a backlog in vessels being inspected before going thru the corridor,

From October 24, only 5 inspection teams. https://www.un.org/en/black-sea-grain-initiative/information-note-24-october-2022

The latest release indicates 10 teams are being provided by Turkey and the UN after Russian withdrew their teams. So in a sense, without Russian input, it looks like Turkey and UN are moving ahead without Russian participation and hopefully without Russian input, this is designed to simply push thru with the inspections, of which there are large numbers of vessels underway and awaiting inspection in Turkish waters.

Not a issue for new ships to not leave Ukraine if they never get past the backlog due to lack of inspection.

 

Edited by FancyCat
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38 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

97 vessels are waiting to cross the straits but cannot due to lack of inspections. Hopefully without slow *** Russian inspectors slowing **** down, this will proceed faster.

https://www.un.org/en/black-sea-grain-initiative/information-note-30-october-2022

 

If Russia isn’t participating can they just skip inspections?

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19 minutes ago, sburke said:

If Russia isn’t participating can they just skip inspections?

Probably yes, but then this risks Putin saying "arms are being supplied and so we're sinking ships now".  If Turkey is still performing the inspections Russia will have to call Turkey liars.  That's a bridge Russia might not want to burn down.  Turkey has been useful to it a couple of times so far, which is less likely if Russia sank a ship that Turkey verified was empty and then blamed Turkey for lying.

Steve

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5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Overall, ISW doesn't see how training can be pulled off as the entire Russian training system is non-functional.  Cadres are supposed to train the new conscripts, but those cadres are *all* in Ukraine.  Then there's the equipment issue.

As I was saying...

And then there's what Mobiks might do equipment so they stay out of combat.  Here's a video allegedly showing a Mobik putting sand in the tank of a BTR.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/yhk4kt/russian_mobik_pours_sand_into_the_fuel_tank_of/

 

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Full video of the truck rollover and it has captions.  A really good sense of battlefield confusion and problems arising from hearing loss due to shelling.  The lack of organization and chains of command are likely seen in action during the first part of the video:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/yhvh5q/the_full_video_of_the_russians_fleeing_kherson/

ChrisO has posted some idea when and where this video happened:

Steve

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Quote

A really good sense of battlefield confusion

Have you ever tried to play CM just staying at ground level and only looking over the shoulders of your own troops, realtime only, no 'eye of God' camera view or rewinding? The difficulty level climbs x100.

Edited by MikeyD
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