How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[DesertFox]

You have to see it, to believe it. RuZZian clown show.

 

 

[Haiduk]

Khodakovskiy claims UKR forces after couldn't breach Russian defense of V.Novosilky salient considered their positions in previously seized Novodonetske village as disadvantageous and abandonded the village. Now situation on salient mostly calm, UKR forces are regrouping. He also claims Russian EW completely supressed western comms, when their comm systems worked properly under UKR EW assets. Interesting that yesterday he told completely other picture

Shoigu issued level of losses of Russian army, repelled UKR attack (he didn't clarify where exactly, but prbably this aboun V.Novosilky) - 71 KIA, 210 WIA.

[Harmon Rabb]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

True, but in longer term (when war will end) this will be a problem. Add probable grids which may likely be damaged too sooner or later. And bulding dam of this size will probably take years even if territory is well-governed and at peace.

Plus of course catastrophy for agriculture, both in Crimea and Zaporizhia region. Dniepr is traditionally viewed as "great feeder" of the region for centuries, for a reason.

 

Also remember about environmental catastrophy, there are reports of oil being leaked into river already. Oh, and beaver is coming back to this thread like boomerang. Bloody big one (mutated already?):

I can only imagine how many people and animals will suffer because of this. Here are some more videos I found of this dreadful event. Honestly hard to watch.

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[Haiduk]

Several videos, which claimed as "underwater charges explosions of the dam" indeed Russian mines, set on left bank, which were moved by stream of water and detonated

The water is gone and naked such things

Edited June 6, 2023 by Haiduk

[riptides]

Russia seems to have a thing for water...

...cannot cross it effectively...

...cannot keeps ships afloat on it...

...and cannot keep the dams from exploding

[sross112]

2 hours ago, photon said:

I don't understand blowing up the dam now, unless they thought it was now or never? It seems like blowing it now buys the Russians some operational annoyance having to evacuate Kherson for a week, and possibly a week's worth of operational delay for a potential crossing. Unless the AFU was mid-stream (literally) and has maintained good opsec on that?

If the AFU isn't launching an amphibious crossing, keep your dam powder dry for when they are. What am I missing?

I'm betting it is a combination of things that led to the detonation. Undoubtably the Russians mined the damn with explosives so they could blow it. The orders were probably along the lines of "mine the damn so we can blow it up when Ukraine starts their counter offensive". In the tradition of authoritarian states where mistakes like this are made when underlings are executing orders without thinking, the Ensign in charge of the night shift probably woke up at 0200 still half in the bag and heard TASS announce that Ukraine had started their counter-offensive. He immediately thinks he has dropped the ball, panics, and hit the red button. Some General this morning is dirty livid pissed because he has lost his forward fighting positions, probably has a lot of supplies and other goodies under water, and wanted to use the breached damn after the UA had committed to a river crossing.

Or Private Conscriptovich dropped his cigarette while trying to steal some C4 to sell so he could buy more vodka. I would find either scenario equally plausible from the Russian dumpster fire they call the the army. 

[DesertFox]

If in doubt, everything is a Tiger tank, err Leopard 2...

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

OK, let's take a step back and analyze the possibilities of the dam's destruction logically.  Here is every reasonable possibility in no particular order of likelihood:

• Russian incompetence (See further down for details)
• deliberate Russian initiated destruction
• deliberate Ukrainian initiated destruction
• accidental Ukrainian initiated destruction (i.e. they did a raid and some action they too triggered destruction)

When looking at all the facts, motives, past histories, etc. I think we can eliminate Ukraine's involvement.  Although I think they took the dam's destruction into account for their military planning, this is a massive and unmitigated disaster for Ukraine under any and all circumstances.  Has anybody seen Ukraine do anything during this war that has risen even to the level of "ill advised", not to mention outright insane?  No?  OK, then let's have no more talk about Ukraine being responsible for this at all.

The remaining possibilities are Russian incompetence or Russian deliberate action to blow the dam.  Now, while I never like to give Russia the benefit of the doubt, I am going to do that in this case.

The timing of the dam's destruction is not good for Russia and I don't think they are barely competent enough to have known this.  Yet the timing of the destruction certainly is suspicious.  VERY suspicious.  Therefore, I am going with incompetence with the timing not being coincidental.

Here's my theory...

Russia has been preparing for a river crossing since it lost the right bank last year.  It's a VERY long front and they simply do not have the resources to defend it with any degree of certainty.  Therefore, they let the water build up in the reservoir in order to ensure that they could, at a time of their choosing, flood the lower Dnepr in order to disrupt active Ukrainian crossing activity.  This is, in fact, a really good plan.  It is also so obvious that I think even the Russians would have thought of it.

The Russians also definitely, without any doubt, rigged the turbines to blow.  There is no way, none, that the Russians would give up a fully functional hydro power source to Ukraine even if they decided to leave the dam intact.  Zero.  I doubt they would leave the dam intact either.

 

What I think happened is that Russia decided to blow the turbine room and through incompetence of how it was rigged, or in combination with all the extra stress from the reservoir and/or damage from last year, a major section of the dam weakened enough to have a catastrophic failure.  This was an unexpected result and, even by Russian thinking, suboptimal.  They would rather have blown the turbines and withheld the flooding option for later.

 

Note that there would be little to no visual or audio evidence of a turbine room explosion as it is deep inside an incredibly thick concrete structure.  Blowing the dam itself, however, would have been noticed by the Ukrainians.  It is significant to note that Ukraine hasn't put forward any evidence of the dam itself being blown, but has officially claimed Russia blew the turbine room.

Steve

[Haiduk]

UKR sources claimed Russian colonel general Oleg Makarevich, commader of Troops Grouping "Dnepr" gave an order to blow up the dam. 

Direct acomplishing of this order lays on commander of 205th motor-rifle brigade lt.colonel Eduard Shandura (how concidently - this is UKR surname derived from western Ukrainian "shandor" - the gate of dike, but also can be from "shandar" - western Urkainian name of gendarme in 18-19 centuries)

Edited June 6, 2023 by Haiduk

[paxromana]

1 minute ago, Haiduk said:

UKR sorces claimed Russian colonel general Oleg Makarevich, commader of Troops Grouping "Dnepr" gave an order to blow up the dam. 

Direct acomplishing of this order lays on commander of 205th motor-rifle brigade lt.colonel Eduard Shandura (how concidently - this is UKR surname derived from western Ukrainian "shandor" - the gate of dike, but also can be from "shandar" - western Urkainian name of gandarme in 18-19 centuries)

Two more for The Hague.

[Haiduk]

225th TD battalion of 127th TD brigade (Kharkiv city), has taken prisoners during assault actions on northern flank of Bakhmut. POWs, which looks like convicts or even bums, say they mostly from Astrakhan' and Smolensk and belong to PMC "Veterans".

PMC "Veterans" is one of several PMCs, establishing by MoD. But Russian official or commercial structures like Gazprom with own PMC "Potok" just formally repeats ideas of Wagner, but can't repeat their effective control and havn't enough of professional core. So, despite such name "Veterans", likely to this PMC enlisted these scared convicts. Prigozhyn already blamed "Veterans" about month ago they abandonend own positions

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by Haiduk

[Centurian52]

1 hour ago, Ultradave said:

I could talk about this stuff all day

I wouldn't mind if you did exactly that. I'm learning a lot.

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

UKR sources claimed Russian colonel general Oleg Makarevich, commader of Troops Grouping "Dnepr" gave an order to blow up the dam. 

This is compatible with my theory because whatever happened I'm sure it was command initiated.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

225th TD battalion of 127th TD brigade (Kharkiv city), has taken prisoners during assault actions on northern flank of Bakhmut. POWs, which looks like convicts or even bums, say they mostly from Astrakhan' and Smolensk and belong to PMC "Veterans".

PMC "Veterans" is one of several PMCs, establishing by MoD. But Russian official or commercial structures like Gazprom with own PMC "Potok" just formally repeats ideas of Wagner, but can't repeat their effective control and havn't enough of professional core. So, despite such name "Veterans", likely to this PMC enlisted these scared convicts. Prigozhyn already blamed "Veterans" about month ago they abandonend own positions

 

It occurred to me that convicts are more likely to surrender than regular Russians.  Why not?  They were already in prison so worst case for them is returning to what they already know.  Plus, they likely believe that retreating will result in death.

Steve

[Huba]

35 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

If in doubt, everything is a Tiger tank, err Leopard 2...

 

 

"Radio Erewan News:
Incident in Khabarovsk Krai! Chinese Army fired mortars at soviet harvesters working the potato fields.
Harvesters returned fire with salvoes of rockets, obliterating the intruders, and then safely flew back to Moscow"

That's more or less how the old joke went; heavy equipment is heavy equipment, no one will be splitting hairs here.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Huba

[Beleg85]

Regarding non-military repercussions, danger for agriculture alone is massive,on both sides of the river. Here a short thread regarding local irrigation and role Dnieper play in this regard, charts are in english so you can read them.

 

[Beleg85]

Perfection from traitor Saldo:

 

[BlackMoria]

48 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

If in doubt, everything is a Tiger tank, err Leopard 2...

 

 

For FFS!!!  This is basic vehicle recognition 101, which any combat soldier in NATO can do.  With the russians, there is just no bottom to the stupidity.

Edited June 6, 2023 by BlackMoria

[panzermartin]

At last russians take revenge on the ukrainian tractors 

Edited June 6, 2023 by panzermartin

[kevinkin]

Certainly Washington, and its NATO allies, should do everything to help democratic reformists in Russia bring about change from within. But we should be clear-eyed about their prospects of success. Western countries should degrade the ability of Russian intelligence to operate overseas by instigating mass expulsions of its officers posing as Russian diplomats. History shows that expulsions degrade the Kremlin’s clandestine capabilities. Russian embassies and consulates in the West should be reduced to shells.

The U.S. needs a new grand strategy of containment for Russia. That strategy should be based on an uncomfortable truth: the West has a Russia problem, not a Putin problem.

https://time.com/6284209/after-vladimir-putins-rule-in-russia/

[Battlefront.com]

Russian liberation forces report a new attack on yet another border control point:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/142a80n/the_border_guard_of_the_bryansk_region_reported/

Some footage of tanks crossing into Russia:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/142cie4/freedom_russia_legion_662023_as_you_can_see_the/

More Russians taken prisoner by Russians in Russia:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/141adwi/adventure_in_bnr_bunch_of_ruzzian_pows/

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/141a92d/the_russians_take_the_russians_prisoner_rdk_and/

And a probable example of what types of targets Ukraine has in mind as it smuggles drones into Russia for its operations there... communication infrastructure:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/141fmjz/guerrillas_destroy_the_muromm_surveillance/

Steve

[BlackMoria]

19 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Perfection from traitor Saldo:

 

*eyeroll*  The new Bagdad Bob.   

[FancyCat]

Excerpts:

Quote

Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Details about the plan, which have not been previously reported, were collected by a European intelligence service and shared with the CIA in June 2022. They provide some of the most specific evidence to date linking the government of Ukraine to the eventual attack in the Baltic Sea, which U.S. and Western officials have called a brazen and dangerous act of sabotage on Europe’s energy infrastructure.  The European intelligence reporting was shared on the chat platform Discord, allegedly by Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira. The Washington Post obtained a copy from one of Teixeira’s online friends.  The intelligence report was based on information obtained from an individual in Ukraine. The source’s information could not immediately be corroborated, but the CIA shared the report with Germany and other European countries last June, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence operations and diplomatic discussions.

Officials in multiple countries confirmed that the intelligence summary posted on Discord accurately stated what the European service told the CIA. The Post agreed to withhold the name of the European country as well as some aspects of the suspected plan at the request of government officials, who said exposing the information would threaten sources and operations.

The intelligence summary says that the Ukrainian military operation was “put on hold,” for reasons that remain unclear. The Ukrainians had planned to attack the pipeline on the heels of a major allied naval exercise, known as BALTOPS, which ran from June 5 to 17, 2022, according to the report.

But despite any reservations the CIA might have had, the agency communicated the June intelligence to counterparts in Germany and other European countries, officials said. The European service also shared it with Germany, one person said. German intelligence personnel briefed lawmakers in Berlin in late June before they left for their summer break, according to an official with knowledge of the closed-door presentation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/06/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-ukraine-russia/

 

[Ultradave]

1 hour ago, Butschi said:

I did realize that (from the answer to that, I admit). And damn, now you highlight it, I see that I should have phrased it the way I meant it: that certainly there are people here who know better than me. @Ultradave sorry if that came over in a wrong way.

No, not at all. We're good.  I didn't take it in any wrong way.

Dave

[Haiduk]

49 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

It occurred to me that convicts are more likely to surrender than regular Russians.  Why not?  They were already in prison so worst case for them is returning to what they already know.  Plus, they likely believe that retreating will result in death.

Steve

Fail of using of convicts in MoD sructures (PMCs and Shtorm-Z "penalty companies") caused also by lack of effective keeping them in control by officers and guarding troops. Yes, they have orders to shoot them in case of open riot or deserting, but in Wagner fear control was more effective and caused immediate death in case of ANY form of disobedience. And not always by shooting. To be sledgehammered or slashed on pieces with axe is more terrific death.

So, in MoD units number of deserted convicts (i.e. with a weapon) already count itself by hundreds, when in Wagner its were single incidents