How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Lethaface]

3 hours ago, jatmi026 said:

It's not irony, it's a must for a global policeman to put its fingers everywhere. 

USA has also threatened to invade The Hague if USA soldiers/* would be tried at the ICC and has implemented legal action against the prosecutors / judges for supposed corruption ;-).

[womble]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65015289

Just another factor in the lack of populist opposition to the War from the Russian people. If you don't live in a totalitarian police state, you have to stretch your mind a bit to recognise how the disproportionate responses to mild opposition can eliminate any potential tendency to stand up to the bullies in charge.

Then you add in the lack of contrary opinion in the publicly available media, and you have a fermenting vessel for the zombies who grumble only about the conduct of the war, not that it is being waged at all. Those Russians who have the most Western-shaded comprehension of exactly what an atrocity the whole "Special Operation" is, are the ones with the most to lose, and still haven't enough power to make the damndest difference to State policy, so they're clearing out in their droves, where they can.

[Tux]

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Chris_O has an interesting thread on the costs to the Russian governmental budgets for their "Cope Defenses" of Russian territory:

What's really funny is all the Russian talk about the threat of Ukraine before this war, yet no fortifications were built on even close to this scale.  Apparently Russia really wasn't all that scared of Ukraine until after it attacked.  Yeah, shocking news!

Steve

To my mind these kinds of things are highly revealing because, to external eyes, they clearly *weaken* Russia's nuclear deterrent.  How so?  Because by building tank traps a distance behind the Russian border they are implicitly agreeing to fight a conventional conflict over Russian land.  The concurrent implication is therefore that any invasion of Russian soil will not necessarily be met by a nuclear response.

Now I am not for a moment thinking that's the intended message, nor that Western leadership should or will read it that way.  That's what's interesting: this seems to me clearly (as is often the case with these things) intended almost entirely for internal Russian consumption.  Either:

1. To help address growing fears of those in the Kursk region that the Ukraine 'SMO' is not going well and it is not going well near their homes, or...

2. To encourage a bit of fear in the locals of Kursk and maybe elsewhere (how widely within Russia is this effort being reported?) in order to reinforce the idea that this is an existential war for Russia and that they are responding to an external threat.

My money's on #2 but it would be interesting if this level of investment and action was considered necessary because of #1.

Someone mentioned a few pages back that Russia has not begun to negotiate with itself around possible defeat, yet.  I think this kind of action has to be seen as internal communication at the expense of the most effective possible external communication and is therefore symptomatic of an ongoing internal Russian war negotiation which at the very least is preparing the stage for a potential future defeat negotiation.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Tux
used the wrong formatting

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, JonS said:

Can we all just take a moment to enjoy the irony of an American calling for more action by the ICC

Meow.

[cesmonkey]

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

"UKR Air Force to allow Foreigners as Pilots".

https://www.businessinsider.com/celebrated-former-us-air-force-pilot-to-fight-in-ukraine-2023-3
https://ukrainian.voanews.com/a/7002504.html

[cesmonkey]

18 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Damage control, it seems.  Ripley's Heroes has been suspected of being a fraud by some and their association with Vasquez wasn't helping.  Better to try and pawn the fraud off as PTSD than outright swindling.

Steve

https://www.1stmardiv.marines.mil/Leaders/1st-Marine-Division-Leaders/Article/578806/lieutenant-colonel-rawlings/
https://riprawlings.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Ripley_Rawlings_IV

[Billy Ringo]

Russian tank factories idling....due to lack of certain components/parts.

 

[Battlefront.com]

6 hours ago, JonS said:

Can we all just take a moment to enjoy the irony of an American calling for more action by the ICC

The whole concept of international law being voluntary and philosophically inconsistent makes me both angry and sad.  Everybody should be held equally accountable, but also the system of laws and oversight need to be far less arbitrary. Case in point... Russia is about to head the UN's Security Council. 

Quote

Known burglars are not given banks to run, nor are convicted sex offenders given charge of daycare centers. In the same vein, Putin should not be allowed to make a mockery of international diplomacy by becoming the face of global peace as he escalates his unjust invasion of Ukraine with new attacks daily.

The potential damage of a gavel-wielding Putin is hard to overstate. Even beyond its symbolic value; the Presidency of the U.N. Security Council carries very real institutional power within the U.N., chairing all discussions, applying the rules, controlling the docket, schedule, and credentialing for all debates, and managing all draft resolutions. And Russia has proven adept in the past at abusing the vast procedural power of the Security Council Presidency.

https://time.com/6262698/danger-russia-president-u-n-security-council/

It will now be impossible for the West to legally intervene in another country because Russia controls the agenda, so if it does become necessary in legal terms the West would be on uncertain grounds with the ICC.  And don't even get me started with the fact that nobody declares war any more.

See what you did?  You got me ranting on a beautifully sunny Friday morning!  Shame on you

Steve

[Eddy]

2 hours ago, Tux said:

To encourage a bit of fear in the locals of Kursk and maybe elsewhere (how widely within Russia is this effort being reported?) in order to reinforce the idea that this is an existential war for Russia and that they are responding to an external threat.

This ties in a bit with this good article I read (  https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/putins-forever-war : free to read) concerning with how Putin is attempting to make this appear as an existential as one of his strategies to keep the war going.

The article itself is looking at the war from Putin's perspective as an authoritarian leader and argues it is in his interests to keep the war going. The arguments made will be nothing new to anyone who has read all of the 2,224 pages (jeez - TWO THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR!!!!!!) of this thread but I found it helpful to see them laid out in one place and have them backed up by academic research.

Well worth the read IMHO. 

Spoiler: The conclusion is send more and better weapons to Ukraine btw.

[Vet 0369]

On 3/21/2023 at 12:37 PM, The_Capt said:

Don’t have an acronym but I had NCOs back in the day who would have described as an operation “that looks like a dog humping a football”.

LOL! We had the same basic expression in the USMC, except that we said a monkey. We had a stencil in the Squadron metal shop that would be used to paint in numerous places on any USN, USAF, or rival USMC Squadron F4 that was unfortunate enough to be in our squadron area long enough for us to make an assault. Thank you got that. It brings back good memories from 50 plus years ago.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Tux said:

To my mind these kinds of things are highly revealing because, to external eyes, they clearly *weaken* Russia's nuclear deterrent.  How so?  Because by building tank traps a distance behind the Russian border they are implicitly agreeing to fight a conventional conflict over Russian land.  The concurrent implication is therefore that any invasion of Russian soil will not necessarily be met by a nuclear response.

Oooo.  I hadn't thought of that, even though I've argued this exact point with Russians in the past.  You know, "Don't you understand Russia needs to have a massive military force along the NATO border in order to defend against a NATO invasion?". 

My answer was something like "NATO is defensive so there is nothing to that argument, however if you really are concerned you could have one guy named Yuri guarding the border pointing to a sign that reads 'cross this line and we nuke you'.  That is all you'd need to keep NATO out".

Obviously there's a lot more too it, but deterrence really does boil down to Russia having nukes and likely having the will to use them in the event of an invasion.  Russians fundamentally don't understand that nobody in the West wants Russian territory.  There once was a time when that wasn't true, but that was long ago.

3 hours ago, Tux said:

Now I am not for a moment thinking that's the intended message, nor that Western leadership should or will read it that way.  That's what's interesting: this seems to me clearly (as is often the case with these things) intended almost entirely for internal Russian consumption.  Either:

1. To help address growing fears of those in the Kursk region that the Ukraine 'SMO' is not going well and it is not going well near their homes, or...

2. To encourage a bit of fear in the locals of Kursk and maybe elsewhere (how widely within Russia is this effort being reported?) in order to reinforce the idea that this is an existential war for Russia and that they are responding to an external threat.

My money's on #2 but it would be interesting if this level of investment and action was considered necessary because of #1.

Someone mentioned a few pages back that Russia has not begun to negotiate with itself around possible defeat, yet.  I think this kind of action has to be seen as internal communication at the expense of the most effective possible external communication and is therefore symptomatic of an ongoing internal Russian war negotiation which at the very least is preparing the stage for a potential future defeat negotiation.

For sure it is both.  Putin needs to instill fear in Russians that there are worse things than his crappy autocratic regime... the West could invade and make everybody change their gender and worship Satan.  Trying to mimic scenes of the Great Patriotic War to show that Russia's leaders are determined to not let that happen is the obvious "go to" move for Putin:

The other example is the Berlin Wall.  Propaganda stated it was to keep NATO out, reality was it was to keep people in.  Made Russians fearful and yet hopeful they would be protected, but also it served a practical purpose for the regime.  Dual use seems to be at work now as well.

Steve

[sross112]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

The second thing is how many grenades it took to knock this position out!  Despite Ukrainians accurately dropping a half dozen grenades directly into the position there was still some resistance at the end.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/11zfjco/pushing_wagnerites_off_the_road_to_bakhmut_by/

Steve

Seen several videos where multiple grenades were needed. I've been wondering when the return of the satchel charge will be seen.

Then with the drone centric warfare I remembered seeing a video of this baby awhile back:

Chase them into the bunker with the dropped grenades and then send in the flamethrower. I shudder as I type this, but kind of surprised we haven't seen these used already. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by sross112

[Battlefront.com]

A couple of new videos from Hromadske about Ukrainian artillery operating in the Avdiivka area.  There's a lot of good details here for anybody that wants to know more about how these systems work.
 

First one is from a 59th Mech mortar position.  A lot of older, long serving crew.  The 82mm Mortar looks like it's been around for a very long time, but it still does the job.

And a second video centering on a crew of a Czech RM-70 MRLS crewed by 110th Mech:

Steve

[Sequoia]

5 hours ago, Kinophile said:

We had alot of that signalling before Kherson, no? There was obvious questions if it was the right thing to do, ultimately we landed on operationally Yes,  but for the PBI,  NOPE.  So it turned out. 

 

 

Folks, lighter on the acronyms please. My guess here, after googling it, is poor bloody infantry, but I'm not sure.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Oooo.  I hadn't thought of that, even though I've argued this exact point with Russians in the past.  You know, "Don't you understand Russia needs to have a massive military force along the NATO border in order to defend against a NATO invasion?". 

My answer was something like "NATO is defensive so there is nothing to that argument, however if you really are concerned you could have one guy named Yuri guarding the border pointing to a sign that reads 'cross this line and we nuke you'.  That is all you'd need to keep NATO out".

Obviously there's a lot more too it, but deterrence really does boil down to Russia having nukes and likely having the will to use them in the event of an invasion.  Russians fundamentally don't understand that nobody in the West wants Russian territory.  There once was a time when that wasn't true, but that was long ago.

One thing that is becoming increasingly clear to me over the course of this war is just how decentralized Russia really is, at least culturally.  Any nation is a collection of "us and them" but things like egregious casualty asymmetry by internal region highlight that there are parts of Russia that really could care less about each other, beyond some weird "We are us because if we were not everyone would kill us" narratives.

I have no doubt that if Russia was invaded that tac nukes and chemical WMDs would be on the table; however, strategic nuclear use is a big step.  I think Moscow would be will to trade rural border regions for negotiation space if it came to that - likely why a lot of their nuclear infrastructure is still central or at sea.  This would be akin to a conventional invasion of Canada, sure the US would get in the game but I do not believe for a second that they would start lobbing ICBMs right away.  WW3 is likely a slow-then-fast conflagration.  The true strategic nuclear exchange threshold is likely pretty high, but it is also a slippery slope as the closer to it we get the easier it is to talk oneself into it.

 That all said, it is one helluva high stakes game everyone is playing here.

[A Canadian Cat]

19 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

it is one helluva high stakes game everyone is playing here.

As the saying goes: the only way to win is not to play the game.

[billbindc]

15 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

One thing that is becoming increasingly clear to me over the course of this war is just how decentralized Russia really is, at least culturally.  Any nation is a collection of "us and them" but things like egregious casualty asymmetry by internal region highlight that there are parts of Russia that really could care less about each other, beyond some weird "We are us because if we were not everyone would kill us" narratives.

I have no doubt that if Russia was invaded that tac nukes and chemical WMDs would be on the table; however, strategic nuclear use is a big step.  I think Moscow would be will to trade rural border regions for negotiation space if it came to that - likely why a lot of their nuclear infrastructure is still central or at sea.  This would be akin to a conventional invasion of Canada, sure the US would get in the game but I do not believe for a second that they would start lobbing ICBMs right away.  WW3 is likely a slow-then-fast conflagration.  The true strategic nuclear exchange threshold is likely pretty high, but it is also a slippery slope as the closer to it we get the easier it is to talk oneself into it.

 That all said, it is one helluva high stakes game everyone is playing here.

In terms of power distribution, this version of the Russian dictat is much more highly centralized than it's predecessors the USSR and the Tsarist era. What is different is that it a highly demobilized state. There are no popular rallies, no Black Hundreds, no katorga or gulag. The social contract is that as long as you shut up and do your job the state won't notice you. But within that settlement resides the same imperial Russian mentality. So to Muscovites, the 'us v them' isn't just experienced with Ukrainians, Americans or Poles. It's toward Ingush, Chechens and Kumyks too. 

What does that mean for a direct invasion of Federal Russia? I think it would mean theater nukes quite quickly to obliterate the threat before it reached deeply into core Russian territory but would be much less likely in areas considered peripheral to it. 

[Harmon Rabb]

For all of you here mockingly suggesting Russia will start using T-34s in this war soon.

Using T-34s in 2023 is no Joke!

[NamEndedAllen]

Without comment!

 

[dan/california]

I don't believe a word Prighozhin says, but it is worth keeping track of what he is trying to convince various parties of. The bit about Belgorod is obviously B.S.. It would be brilliant if Ukraine could smash through the lines at Bakmuht, split the DPR from the LPR, and then drive to the Azov behind Donestk. This is , however, just about the most ambitious plan the Ukrainians could attempt. If they are strong enough to do it this thing is a wrap by July, because the Russian army will have just blown away in the wind. I am thinking that is a wee bit optimistic.

Edited March 24, 2023 by dan/california

[kevinkin]

The UA should get ready to serve the chef a bowl of Okroshka. Like revenge, it's best served cold.  

[JonS]

What a weirdo

[Haiduk]

Russian mobiks filmed next blamings of "meat attacks". Most of those, who present on this video - mobilized of territorial troops of Kaliningrad oblast. They were attached to 5th motor-rifle brigade of DPR and included to assault detachment "Shtorm". The unit had 161 men. They got an order from brigade commander to move in Vodiane village area SW from Avdiivka and to hold positions about 1 km of length. During 14 days, as say their acting comamnder (detachment comamnder was killed during these days), they were holding the line and attacking of UKR position. But brigade command didn't maintan their support, sitauation info, recon etc. More, during their attempt of advance, when they were suppressed by UKR mortar and MG fire and couldn't move forwad anymore, brigade commander has sent "barrier detachment" with order to shot at them in order to rise them to attack again (radio interception of this order was issued recently in UKR social media and, thus, this is confirmation it was true). They tried to appeal to higher command, but command of 5th brigade knew about this and became to threaten that all detachment will stay dead on battlefield and nobody will come back. They claimed they complete own task and hold the line, when other troops, which came nearby couldn't stand even several days and were retreating from positions. During this time they lost 22 KIA, 34 WIA (but unclear, where other 90, when these 12-15 are "remains"). They also say about extortion from the side of brigade command -  soldiers, which reject to pay are threatened with being sent to one-way assaults. Light wounded in brigade hospital don't get proper treatment - after three days commanders forced them to return back. 

    

 

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Russian mobiks filmed next blamings of "meat attacks". Most of those, who present on this video - mobilized of territorial troops of Kaliningrad oblast. They were attached to 5th motor-rifle brigade of DPR and included to assault detachment "Shtorm". The unit had 161 men. They got an order from brigade commander to move in Vodiane village area SW from Avdiivka and to hold positions about 1 km of length. During 14 days, as say their acting comamnder (detachment comamnder was killed during these days), they were holding the line and attacking of UKR position. But brigade command didn't maintan their support, sitauation info, recon etc. More, during their attempt of advance, when they were suppressed by UKR mortar and MG fire and couldn't move forwad anymore, brigade commander has sent "barrier detachment" with order to shot at them in order to rise them to attack again (radio interception of this order was issued recently in UKR social media and, thus, this is confirmation it was true). They tried to appeal to higher command, but command of 5th brigade knew about this and became to threaten that all detachment will stay dead on battlefield and nobody will come back. They claimed they complete own task and hold the line, when other troops, which came nearby couldn't stand even several days and were retreating from positions. During this time they lost 22 KIA, 34 WIA (but unclear, where other 90, when these 12-15 are "remains"). They also say about extortion from the side of brigade command -  soldiers, which reject to pay are threatened with being sent to one-way assaults. Light wounded in brigade hospital don't get proper treatment - after three days commanders forced them to return back. 

    

 

If Ukraine could get a whole unit to surrender in the right place and  at the right time the big breakthrough would all of a sudden be moving at warp speed. 

[Haiduk]

And one more complaining. Recon company of 504th tank regiment of territorial trops of Omsk oblast were sent to Donbas and attached to 267th rifle battalion of 1st "Slaviansk" motor-rifle brigade of DPR. It's cool - rifle battalion is also "not origin" part of brigade, but formed from DPR mobiks. Thus, for Russian command Russian mobiks - recons, attached to DPR mobiks -riflemen are not even 2nd sort, but 3rd sort so far. Sodier complains that brigade command has sent them in meat attacks in Avdiivka area, all their requests and coordinates of UKR firing positions were ignored. For 15 days they suffered heavy losses, but brigade command even didn't assist in evacuation of fallen and wounded soldiers from battalefield

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by Haiduk