How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Beleg85]

2 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

General Waldemar Skrzypczak's opinion vis-à-vis Poland and Lukashenko's opponents on Belarus.

Seeing as Lukashenko was attempting to weaponize the migrant crisis since 2021 to destabilize Poland and the rest of the EU, after the anti-Lukashenko protests in Belarus in 2020. I think Poland would be more than happy to turn the tables and use "hybrid warfare" against Belarus.

If memory serves it was @dan/california who said when Lukashenko falls from power Putin will come next.

You know this kind of respected, sympathetic retired officer who on family gathering start to play plastic soldiers with kids, telling them stories about wars, armies and history? That is gen. Skrzypczak, and we are the kids.

Fuelling Lukashenko propaganda this way is irresponsible, and not the first time unfortunatelly. It's VIS24, so ofc. all OSINTers hungry for sensations multiply these "news" without actually reading article nor poviding context.

Not worth to bother, trust me.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Beleg85

[Eddy]

11 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Hmm, now why would the RA be conducting water xing drills way back there in the Crimea?

And that's the difference between a professional and a bloke sat on his sofa - I thought it was for obscuring the bridge somehow

[sburke]

2 minutes ago, Eddy said:

And that's the difference between a professional and a bloke sat on his sofa - I thought it was for obscuring the bridge somehow

nah it is just Russians having a smoke after getting fk'd in Belgorod.

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

I have to concur with this. Prigozhin is starting to get beyond comments that benefit Putin. The tool is starting to cut the hand that wields it. Putin will have a lot of factors obscure to us to consider if he wants to put Prigozhin out of his misery and timing will matter. Doing it while Wagner is “reconstituting” would make sense except that he may really need Wagner to hold the line somewhere if Ukraine scores a major breakthrough in the next few months. Interesting times. 

I’m not sure the general Russian public cares about convicts. Assuming these comments reference only Wagner mercs, I think the difference between paid/convicts vs drafted will allow the Russian public to be unconcerned about their losses.

[Centurian52]

42 minutes ago, sburke said:

why are we holding Ukraine to a different standard than ourselves?

We aren't. I strongly disapprove of Nazi and Confederate symbols being used in the US military and government as well.

[sburke]

oops...

Wagner boss Prigozhin says Putin's plan to 'demilitarize' Ukraine has been a bust as Ukraine now has one of the 'strongest' armies (yahoo.com)

Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said this week that Russia has failed to achieve one of its main goals, demilitarizing Ukraine, and has actually made Kyiv's army stronger through its invasion.

"So how did we demilitarize? It turns out that on the contrary, we have militarized Ukraine," Prigozhin said in a video interview now circulating around social media.

Prigozhin, who has in recent months taken repeated shots at the Russian defense ministry and Russian failures in Ukraine, said that Kyiv has gained more troops and more weapons since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

He refers to "demilitarization" as a "sore" spot, according to a translation of the video published to Twitter on Wednesday by Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs. 

The nod to demilitarization refers to one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's key ambitions in the unprovoked assault on Ukraine in February 2022. At the time, Putin announced a "special military operation" with the goal of "demilitarization and denazification" of Ukraine, a democratic country that is led by a Jewish president.

Prigozhin said his mercenaries have battled in "many places" and against "many people," including American, French, and United Nations troops in the various locations that Wagner tried to operate secretly in before its role in Ukraine quickly thrust the group into the public eye in a major way.

[Beleg85]

Today Russians noted attack on their ship "Ivan Khurs" and even punlished video. There are still some disbelievers attack did happen, though.

Worth to note that grain deal was on agenda lately, and in last several days Russians started to concentrate their air patrols over Black Sea 2-3 times more often than usual.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Beleg85

[Centurian52]

On 5/21/2023 at 8:58 AM, TheVulture said:

If you were close (too close) perhaps - but different frequencies of sound travel at different speeds (dispersion), plus echoes and non-linear paths through the atmosphere smear everything out quite rapidly. Which is why you can hear the thunder from a single lightning strike several km away as a rumble that lasts several seconds, rather than the single sharp crack that was actually produced.

That makes so much sense out of something that I had always noticed but never thought about.

[sburke]

and more from Prig, he is on a roll.

Putin could have a 'revolution' on his hands because Russian elites refuse to send their kids to die in the Ukraine war, Wagner boss Prigozhin warns (yahoo.com)

Russian President Vladimir Putin could have a "revolution" on his hands over his botched war in Ukraine, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said.

In a profane rant during an interview with pro-Kremlin blogger Konstantin Dolgov, the head of the Wagner Group called out Russia's elite for protecting their children from being drafted into the war, according to a translation from The Times.

"The children of the elite smear themselves with creams and show off on the internet, while ordinary people's children come home in zinc [coffins], torn to pieces," he said, according to The Times. "I recommend that the elite of the Russian Federation gathers up, bitch, its youth and send them to war."

Prigozhin said their "fat, carefree" lives could spark outrage and a "revolution," leading working-class citizens to storm the elite's "villas" with "pitchforks."

That revolution, he concluded, "might end as in 1917," referencing the Russian Revolution of 1917, when citizens overthrew Tsar Nicholas II and his family.

[Centurian52]

On 5/21/2023 at 12:21 PM, Haiduk said:

Video of yesterday or today's 3rd brigade push, some corpses of Russians, damaged and abandoned Russian BMP-2, burned pick-up

 

Wow. 25 killed, 40 wounded, and 4 taken prisoner adds up to 69 Russian casualties. With only 4 Ukrainian casualties that's a 17.25:1 loss ratio. Even if the enemy casualties are overestimated that's still a very impressive result.

[Joe982]

I don't wish to make a post, rather I am trying to work out why Battlefront thinks I am not logged in.

[billbindc]

58 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

I’m not sure the general Russian public cares about convicts. Assuming these comments reference only Wagner mercs, I think the difference between paid/convicts vs drafted will allow the Russian public to be unconcerned about their losses.

Prigozhin is talking about revolution, the preponderant power of the Ukrainian state, confirming that tens of thousands of casualties, etc. And he is quite specifically pointing at Russian elites being the cause. There may be an argument that this sort of talk helps Putin on some level but I have yet to see it.

[Ts4EVER]

Maybe by stoking fear of a revolution in the middle classes?

[billbindc]

Just now, Ts4EVER said:

Maybe by stoking fear of a revolution in the middle classes?

"Fight for us....we suck!" is a hell of a message.

[Astrophel]

51 minutes ago, sburke said:

 

Prigozhin said his mercenaries have battled in "many places" and against "many people," including American, French, and United Nations troops in the various locations that Wagner tried to operate secretly in before its role in Ukraine quickly thrust the group into the public eye in a major way.

One day soon the UN General Assembly should wake up to the fact that the current Chair of the Security Council is battling the UN's own troops.  Otherwise, before long, the role of the UN will be taken over by groups like the G7 who are paying most of the bills anyway.

[Eddy]

Speaking of Prigozhin this is a rather detailed and interesting first draft of history for the Battle of Bakhmut:

The Kremlin’s Pyrrhic Victory in Bakhmut: A Retrospective on the Battle for Bakhmut | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org)

It's well worth the read although reasonably long. One assessment made by the author is that Wagner will need a couple of months to reconstitute as they are exhausted, which means they will not be available if the Ukrainians offensive starts soon

[riptides]

4 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Prigozhin is talking about revolution, the preponderant power of the Ukrainian state, confirming that tens of thousands of casualties, etc. And he is quite specifically pointing at Russian elites being the cause. There may be an argument that this sort of talk helps Putin on some level but I have yet to see it.

Blame shift, elites are the issue. Now go grab their wealth. He is still protecting Putin.

[sburke]

54 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

We aren't. I strongly disapprove of Nazi and Confederate symbols being used in the US military and government as well.

I understand that, however considering how much of that we see here, why would we expect the UA to be totally without any aspect? it is an unrealistic expectation that then feeds a narrative and an unfair standard.

[Ts4EVER]

True, but I am reminded of how in Nazi Germany one of the cliche phrases was "Wenn das der Führer wüsste" - "If only the Führer knew". Because people never associated the corruption and crime of the Nazi regime with Hitler directly. So arguably this could be a move to consolidate power against other elites. That said, I am not really arguing this, just throwing it out. May well be that he feels empowered enough to move into open opposition.

[sburke]

3 minutes ago, billbindc said:

"Fight for us....we suck!" is a hell of a message.

I once worked for a dotcom and someone proposed a company slogan of "we suck less!"  

[Eddy]

Report from Channel $ News in the UK 

They spoke to Ilya Ponomarev (I have no idea who he has - presumably some one big in Freedom of Russia) who stated that there were NO casualties on their side on their jaunt into Belgorod.  

[Tux]

12 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Prigozhin is talking about revolution, the preponderant power of the Ukrainian state, confirming that tens of thousands of casualties, etc. And he is quite specifically pointing at Russian elites being the cause. There may be an argument that this sort of talk helps Putin on some level but I have yet to see it.

As others have noted, my best guess would also be that he is using his/Wagner’s cache among working Russians to start framing a scapegoat for the war: the entitled elites.  ‘They have betrayed Putin and they have betrayed Russia’.

 

If it’s to be assumed he is still speaking at Putin’s behest. 

[sburke]

16 minutes ago, Joe982 said:

I don't wish to make a post, rather I am trying to work out why Battlefront thinks I am not logged in.

clearly you are logged in, you have to be to post.  I also looked and saw it noted you as active in your profile.  You aren't by chance referring to the BF website are you?  That is a totally different login.

[billbindc]

5 minutes ago, Ts4EVER said:

True, but I am reminded of how in Nazi Germany one of the cliche phrases was "Wenn das der Führer wüsste" - "If only the Führer knew". Because people never associated the corruption and crime of the Nazi regime with Hitler directly. So arguably this could be a move to consolidate power against other elites. That said, I am not really arguing this, just throwing it out. May well be that he feels empowered enough to move into open opposition.

One thing not to sleep on is the pervasive cynicism that exists in the Russian milieu. Russians assume there are nefarious motives for people on Prigozhin's level and they assume that they are lying to put the best face on things. That Prigozhin is admitting to 20k+ losses and that Ukraine (rather than NATO) has been turned into a formidable opponent aren't taken at face value. They are taken as the *best possible way to describe what's going on*. In other words, what they are hearing from Western media using VPN is right. 

[Centurian52]

On 5/21/2023 at 1:19 PM, danfrodo said:

Ya know how when you are playing CM & your men are in wooded area w shrubbery and you just can't believe your men can't see the bad guys?  Always frustrating.  Then I go out in the woods or see a video like above and say "oh, yeah, can't see nuthin'.

CM becomes a whole lot less frustrating when you remember that the graphics you are seeing aren't quite the same thing as what your pixeltruppen are seeing. Also, now that I'm playing a lot more WEGO, I like to turn the icons off so that I can see things "as they are" (after viewing the turn a couple times with the icons on). And even with the CM graphics being simplified compared with real life, it is still a lot harder to see things when I don't have a brightly colored symbol to draw my attention to it.