How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

7 minutes ago, Seminole said:

How do you square this fantasy conversation protecting the pipeline with the steady drumbeat from US politicians?

e.g.

“If Russia invades — that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine — then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” President Biden 

The article states that both the U.S and the European country that got the intel both informed Germany, who's intelligence agency briefed German lawmakers of the intel. 

[RandomCommenter]

Quote

If the U.S pulls out the smoking gun on the dam, what do you think will be the Western reply? I'm thinking ATACMS. Also, what do you think Ukraine is gonna do? I'm 100 percent thinking more attacks in Russia proper, including Ukrainian ground units attacking Belgorod.

This is one hell of a window of opportunity to announce F35s going to Ukraine.

 

Just saying ...

 

[billbindc]

10 minutes ago, Seminole said:

How do you square this fantasy conversation protecting the pipeline with the steady drumbeat from US politicians?

e.g.

“If Russia invades — that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine — then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” President Biden 

The procedural measures the United States would have used and did to shut down Nordstream2 were reversable by design in order to create leverage with a Russia that it was presumed would need the money it could get by selling it's petroleum products. That was the 'steady drumbeat' from US politicians, it was successfully carried out and some of us think the explosion was a direct result of it working as intended on some level. Blowing it up destroyed that leverage and was a lawless act at complete loggerheads with the US and EU role of supporting the international order from which they both benefit. If there's a fantasy, it's imagining that either would so egregiously violate the rules of a game they created for themselves for so little benefit. 

[FancyCat]

Chief of Staff for Navalny suggests not sabotage but engineering failure. Will not endear Navalny to Ukraine. Of course, lets see how the U.S intel changes their stance. 

 

 

[Haiduk]

[Harmon Rabb]

59 minutes ago, RandomCommenter said:

This is one hell of a window of opportunity to announce F35s going to Ukraine.

 

Just saying ...

 

Not F-35s but the Aussies seem to be increasingly interested in sending F/A-18s to Ukraine. Think I remember @Huba bringing earlier reports of this development to our attention.

I do agree with the spirit of your comment. If anyone wants to announce any additional military support to Ukraine, this is a good time to do it.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[Haiduk]

Friendly fire... Good

 

[Beleg85]

31 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Chief of Staff for Navalny suggests not sabotage but engineering failure. Will not endear Navalny to Ukraine. Of course, lets see how the U.S intel changes their stance. 

Btw. Leonid Volkov is a walking joke, who stepped off amid scandal with his connections to one of oligarchs.

 

Another reports of Russian artillery targeting UA services giving aid to people on right bank.

In turn, UA is also shelling Russian troops on other side. They hit something big here (ammo depot?) :

 

[Haiduk]

One more loss among UKR pilots. Major Vladislav Savelyev, probably Su-25 pilot of 299th tactical aviation brigade, though his friend told he was "fighter-pilot". Was shot down on 2nd of June.

He had a dream to travel to Norway with his family and friends. Now they will filful his wish - his ashes will be scatterd over one of Norwegian fiords.

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by Haiduk

[dan/california]

22 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Btw. Leonid Volkov is a walking joke, who stepped off amid scandal with his connections to one of oligarchs.

 

Another reports of Russian artillery targeting UA services giving aid to people on right bank.

In turn, UA is also shelling Russian troops on other side. They hit something big here (ammo depot?) :

 

It seems pretty clear the Russians did not widely inform their own troops that this was going to happen. Thus I expect a bleep ton of Russians are trying to move large quantities of supplies and expensive kit before the water makes that impossible or the stuff gets flooded and ruined. I suspect they will be much easier to target while doing so. Any Russian that doesn't want to be shot at needs to take his chances with a small boat and a large white flag.

Edited June 6, 2023 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Seminole said:

How do you square this fantasy conversation protecting the pipeline with the steady drumbeat from US politicians?

e.g.

“If Russia invades — that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine — then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” President Biden 

You continually astonish me at how hard you try to twist things to conform to a narrative of your own making.

Obviously, and I mean SCREAMINGLY obviously, Biden was speaking about policy not sabotage.  And guess what happened after Biden made this statement?  On the day before the invasion Germany said it would not certify its operation:

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-scholz-halts-nord-stream-2-certification-2022-02-22/

Soooooo... what do you think is more likely, that Biden spoke about a policy that had been determined along with his German counterpart as part of a much larger coordination of response to Russia's impending war on Ukraine *or* that Biden was speaking about blowing up a pipeline months into the war even though it wasn't being used?

Seriously dude, you need to check your paranoia filter because I think it's clogged up.

You can start by flipping things around the other way and looking at things from the other perspective.  Do you seriously think that the US would be OK with Ukraine committing an act of sabotage, bordering on an act of war, by Ukraine against the EU?  Further, how do you think relations would be affected between the US and the EU if it stood by and tacitly approved of Ukraine committing such an act?

Put that together with the obvious case for Russia blowing it up, then combine it with Occam's Razor principles, and then see what you come up with.  If it's still Ukraine blew it up because the US wanted them to... well, then I guess we have stunning insights from you to look forward to in the future.

Steve

[womble]

32 minutes ago, dan/california said:

It seems pretty clear the Russians did not widely inform their own troops that this was going to happen.

For me, this is an indicator that the total destruction of the dam as a water-retaining installation was not the intended outcome of whatever explosive tinkering they were doing in the turbine halls last night. It might be just another example of the dog's breakfast that the RU armed forces has demonstrated itself to be, but if it's a pre-emptive action to deny the Ukrainians the crossing of the Dnipro in force, they could happily have had the forces and log assets withdraw from the flood areas; either the Ukrainians would recognise what was going on and refrain from attempting to exploit the now-unguarded left bank, or they wouldn't, and would get caught or cut off by the deluge.

Or maybe whoever ordered the breaching just wanted some plausible deniability for the crime they knew they were committing. Not that "Oh no, we didn't think that much plastique would break the dam, we just wanted to render the turbine halls unrecoverable," is much of an excuse.

[akd]

3 hours ago, DesertFox said:

Hard to tell. Anyways looks like we have another vid from the morning showing the dam already breached and a explosion in it. Odd stuff going on. I guess they tried and failed to stage some things. The first vid is from 2:45 am at night, the other one after sunrise. Here:

 

 

The latter is a mine being dislodged and detonated by flood waters.

[FancyCat]

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, womble said:

For me, this is an indicator that the total destruction of the dam as a water-retaining installation was not the intended outcome of whatever explosive tinkering they were doing in the turbine halls last night.

Yes, it absolutely is consistent with the theory that the Russians did something deliberate, but the intention wasn't to cause a catastrophic failure.

However, even if it was an intended catastrophic event, communications and coordination within the Russian forces is not very good.  Neither is its leadership.  The commanding general could have been drunk, panicked or was angry, and ordered it blown.  Nobody would seriously question his order, would they?  For all we know the officer who ordered the destruction (in this scenario) might have a grudge against the officer in command of some of the troops downstream.  "Heh, this ought to fix Igor's wagon!" might have been muttered just after he ordered the attack.

I've said this so many times in this war... due to the extraordinary degree of incompetence, lack of professionalism, poor training, poor quality leadership, criminal activities, etc. it makes it very difficult to rule out possibilities that would hardly be worth considering when examining a Western military.

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

There's plenty of dams in Russia proper...

but a single dam would swallow up a lot of Storm Shadows.

You know that will never happen, don't you?

The Western supporting countries who are so concerned about the Ukraine maintaining the moral high ground to scrutinise uniforms and AFVs for anything resembling SS Pz Div. Truppenkenzeichen would never allow for tit-for-tat reprisals in this area

[Kinophile]

Just now, Maciej Zwolinski said:

You know that will never happen, don't you?

The Western supporting countries who are so concerned about the Ukraine maintaining the moral high ground to scrutinise uniforms and AFVs for anything resembling SS Pz Div. Truppenkenzeichen would never allow for tit-for-tat reprisals in this area

Yah i know. But I'm sure there's Ukrainian SF thinking along the same lines...

[Battlefront.com]

1 minute ago, Kinophile said:

Yah i know. But I'm sure there's Ukrainian SF thinking along the same lines...

I hope they don't do more than think.

One of the biggest advantages Ukraine has is the moral high ground.  There is a significant percentage of Westerners who either overtly support Ukraine or, at the least, are not actively opposing it that would be lost to the coalition who actively oppose helping Ukraine.

In sports, it would be labeled an "unforced error" that could very well "cost them the game".

It would also present an opportunity for Ukrainians to sit in the same jail cells in The Hague as the Russians. 

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

3 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Yah i know. But I'm sure there's Ukrainian SF thinking along the same lines...

Actually, unless it washes away actual Russian units in some weird crossover between "Force 10 from Navarone"  and "The Ten Commandments", blowing up a dam in deep Russian rear would be less useful than using those SF guys to destroy railway tracks or shoot up an airifield at this stage of the fighting.

 

[Beleg85]

Pictures of towns and villages flooded are coming out. It's twice tragic, esecially given that in war zone normal removal of damages will likely not be possible. A lot of those houses will be left to rot probably for incoming months, unless front will move away.

One volunteer speaks of number of refugees from Kherson region, now evacuated into western Ukraine, who want to go back and rescue whatever possible before water/mud/weather/robbers take in possession their belongings. Note many of them left their homes in the fear of shelling, not flooding.

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

More imagery is coming out that shows how devastating the flooding is:

I for one do not think this flooding will have any negative impact on Ukraine's plans to send forces across the river as part of the counter offensive.  Mostly because in my mind the optimal time to cross the river is after Russia is fully engaged on the left bank.  This will cause Russia to further thin positions and divert resources elsewhere.  Such a situation will take time, quite a bit of time.  Month or maybe even more.

By the time conditions are optimal (in my view, obviously), the ground should be more-or-less back to normal.  The waters rose slowly enough that most of the pavement should be intact and given some sun and warmer temperatures, sufficient to use for landings.

Which is why we should question if Russia intended to blow the damn now or if it was the result of an unintentional action.  Earlier someone joked about a Russian soldier falling asleep on the "red button" and accidentally blowing up the damn.  Besides that humorous possibility, it could be something like there being two red buttons (one for the dam and one for the turbines) and the moron conscript pushed the wrong one

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

It's twice tragic, esecially given that in war zone normal removal of damages will likely not be possible.

Triple tragic as most of these areas have not been physically damaged by the war so far.  It just adds to the senselessness of all this destruction.

Steve

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, womble said:

For me, this is an indicator that the total destruction of the dam as a water-retaining installation was not the intended outcome of whatever explosive tinkering they were doing in the turbine halls last night. It might be just another example of the dog's breakfast that the RU armed forces has demonstrated itself to be, but if it's a pre-emptive action to deny the Ukrainians the crossing of the Dnipro in force, they could happily have had the forces and log assets withdraw from the flood areas; either the Ukrainians would recognise what was going on and refrain from attempting to exploit the now-unguarded left bank, or they wouldn't, and would get caught or cut off by the deluge.

Or maybe whoever ordered the breaching just wanted some plausible deniability for the crime they knew they were committing. Not that "Oh no, we didn't think that much plastique would break the dam, we just wanted to render the turbine halls unrecoverable," is much of an excuse.

Do not underestimate how badly this will be taken in New Delhi and Beijing…not to mention the rest of the world that depends on cheap wheat. They are going to be about as unhappy about this as they would about anything short of a reactor accident or a tactical nuke. Governments fall from high food prices. Dependable price trends get a shock…again. It seems clear to me that the Russians are panicking, that the regime is in disarray and that an air of desperation has set in…which is why they did this…but there’s no way they would not try to pass the buck.

[Battlefront.com]

Good summary of recent developments around Bakhmut:

Pushillin is even saying the sorts of things people say when the situation has turned unfavorable:

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1665691495712555012

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

In happier news, Storm Shadow was used to lay waste a barracks (or something like that) far behind the front.  The information is scattered, so look at Def Mon's video documenting lots of Russians going into the building (he corrected the 200 to be 100) and Noel's documenting the building isn't still standing:

Steve