How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

Ukraine is certainly racking up some pretty significant wins this week.

The rumor of Russian defenses finally having a local collapse (south of Bakhmut) is yet to be confirmed, but it is entirely believable.  It's happened before, it will happen again.  Whether if it translates into anything significant even if true is an entirely different question.

What we do know is that Russia has been pushing its forces VERY hard to retake ground south of Bakhmut, yet it seems they are very under resourced for that sort of continued action.  Given the 3rd Assault Brigade's track record, I can easily see a situation where the Russians crack.

Steve

[danfrodo]

33 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The rumor of Russian defenses finally having a local collapse (south of Bakhmut) is yet to be confirmed, but it is entirely believable.  It's happened before, it will happen again.  Whether if it translates into anything significant even if true is an entirely different question.

This is indeed great news, if true.  It shows that RU forces can locally collapse which is what we've all been hoping for.  Not much gain can be had around Bakhmut, unfortunately, but RU will still be forced to make up for loss of a large number of frontline troops to keep their line intact.  We've got ~4-6 weeks of good weather, hopefully will make the most of it.

[Letter from Prague]

1 hour ago, masc said:

I wouldn't give this channel the views, he's firmly biased towards Russia, just look at his past videos and even the comments on this one are telling. 

His thumbnails are funny though.

 

The general in the background of the meme is Luigi Cardona, who fought 12 battles of the Isonzo in WWI if anyone doesn't know.

Yeah the guy is apparently pro-Russian Serb living in Serbia who is pretending to be pro-Ukrainian Canadian living in Canada. His way of being pro-Russia is being fake-concerned about Ukraine. As the picture shows, he's a joke.

[Kinophile]

Something is afoot.  You don't start an air & naval campaign only to stop it after some success. The enemy just recuperates and hardens,making a round 2 much harder. I suspect UKR has properly begun its Crimea prep. 

 

[danfrodo]

8 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

I suspect UKR has properly begun its Crimea prep

I'm wondering what you mean by that?  Land invasion of crimea?  Front is currently pretty stuck in attrition fight still well away from any terrain that matters operationally or strategically.  Cutting Tokmak rail & road net would be something big, but not even close.  Crimea might as well be on the moon right now, other than as a place to hit RU assets.

[dan/california]

32 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Something is afoot.  You don't start an air & naval campaign only to stop it after some success. The enemy just recuperates and hardens,making a round 2 much harder. I suspect UKR has properly begun its Crimea prep. 

 

They seem to have a well thought out plan to really degrade Russian air defenses in Crimea. i suspect that they are trying to systematically work their way towards the Kerch bridge until they can strike it not just occasionally, but in a continuing way that really does reduce the flow of supplies to near zero. Of course it also works if they can force the Russians to divert a huge percentage of their assets to trying to protect the bridge. Very much like the Pantsirs parked all around Moscow, every asset placed there is not doing something important somewhere else.

[kimbosbread]

32 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I'm wondering what you mean by that?  Land invasion of crimea?  Front is currently pretty stuck in attrition fight still well away from any terrain that matters operationally or strategically.  Cutting Tokmak rail & road net would be something big, but not even close.  Crimea might as well be on the moon right now, other than as a place to hit RU assets.

Maybe there's gonna do the crossing of the river (in large force) or an amphibious operation with the Russians stretched?

[JonS]

An under-resourced and over-ambitious amphib operation is a great way to lose a lot of stuff really quickly.

Edited September 15, 2023 by JonS

[Kinophile]

4 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Of course it also works if they can force the Russians to divert a huge percentage of their assets to trying to protect the bridge. Very much like the Pantsirs parked all around Moscow, every asset placed there is not doing something important somewhere else.

This. Crimea is a multi year campaign. Crunching its defences now,  directly affects front line capabilities now. 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.threads.net/@gtconway3dg/post/CxMEsvKJQqh

NEW: Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed said Thursday his panel is "aggressively probing" national-security issues raised by Elon Musk’s decision to deny a request by Ukraine to extend its use of Starlink to aid an attack on Russian warships.

 

Musk seems to have finally gotten on the agenda of someone that matters. At a minimum that will cost him a great deal of money and hassle. 

[dan/california]

9 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Maybe there's gonna do the crossing of the river (in large force) or an amphibious operation with the Russians stretched?

 

6 minutes ago, JonS said:

An under-resourced and over-ambitios amphib operation is a great way to lose a lot of stuff really quickly.

I doubt they are going to do anything more ambitious than pushing more troops across the Dnipro in one of the places they already have. Although given that Russian fighter plane and Ukrainian rubber boat seems to be an even fight, I suspect we haven't seen the last SOF op around Crimea.

[Kinophile]

12 minutes ago, JonS said:

An under-resourced and over-ambitios amphib operation is a great way to lose a lot of stuff really quickly.

Cough Dieppe cough 

[Harmon Rabb]

Translated using Google Translate.

 

Pentagon: Ukrainian pilots will begin language training for F-16 training in September (obozrevatel)

 

Quote

Some of the Ukrainian pilots and technical personnel are already actively studying English. They are the ones who will go to training on American F-16 fighters in Texas already in September.

 

This was announced by Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh, Ukrinform reports . According to a representative of the US Department of Defense, language training should begin this month.

She added that she cannot now announce a specific date for the start of these educational activities.

We will remind that Ukrainian pilots will begin to perform combat missions on American F-16 fighter jets already this winter. This could give the Armed Forces significant new opportunities to fight the Russian invaders next year.

As reported by OBOZREVATEL:

- President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi said that in order to form a powerful Air Force, Ukraine needs to receive 160 modern F-16 fighter jets from allies. They will allow our army to dominate the airspace of their state.

 

The Pentagon confirmed the start of language training for Ukrainian fighter pilots in September (ukrinform)

Quote

Ukrainian pilots, as well as technical personnel, who will learn to operate and maintain F-16 aircraft in the USA, will begin language training at an airbase in Texas already in September.

This was confirmed on Thursday during a briefing at the Pentagon by the deputy spokeswoman of the American agency, Sabrina Singh, Ukrinform's own correspondent reports.

"We expect that language training will begin later this month," said a representative of the US Department of Defense.

Read also: In addition to F-16 aircraft, Ukraine needs weapons for them - the Air Force

She noted that she cannot yet announce a specific date when these trainings will begin.

As reported, at the end of August, Pentagon spokesman General Patrick Ryder said that the US will begin training Ukrainian pilots and technicians on F-16 aircraft in October at the US National Guard's Morris Air Force Base in Arizona.

Read also: Ukraine is grateful to Romania for its support and agreement to train pilots - Shmyhal

Before that, the Ukrainian military must undergo English language training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.

 

 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[Sojourner]

27 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Musk seems to have finally gotten on the agenda of someone that matters. At a minimum that will cost him a great deal of money and hassle. 

Let's all shed a tear for Starlink, their 2022 revenue was only 630% higher than 2021.

SpaceX generated $1.4 billion in revenue from Starlink in 2022, according to company documents. That revenue is a sharp increase from 2021, when the company generated $222 million, as it signs up more customers and enters new markets. SpaceX has more than 1.5 million Starlink subscribers today.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/spacexs-starlink-demonstrates-its-power-but-still-needs-growth-9906c5b0 (paywalled)

 

[Halmbarte]

1 hour ago, Kinophile said:

This. Crimea is a multi year campaign. Crunching its defences now,  directly affects front line capabilities now. 

An isolated Crimea with supplies barely tricking in is a jail for Russians that aren't quite POWs. How long does Putin let Russian soldiers in Crimea die from malnutrition & disease? 

H

[paxromana]

17 minutes ago, Halmbarte said:

An isolated Crimea with supplies barely tricking in is a jail for Russians that aren't quite POWs. How long does Putin let Russian soldiers in Crimea die from malnutrition & disease? 

H

Putin wouldn't care in the slightest ...

[MikeyD]

The word 'revenue' is misleading. Gross revenue, net revenue? Profits above operating costs? Profits before subtracting operating costs? Profits not counting debt burden? 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Sojourner said:

Let's all shed a tear for Starlink, their 2022 revenue was only 630% higher than 2021.

SpaceX generated $1.4 billion in revenue from Starlink in 2022, according to company documents. That revenue is a sharp increase from 2021, when the company generated $222 million, as it signs up more customers and enters new markets. SpaceX has more than 1.5 million Starlink subscribers today.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/spacexs-starlink-demonstrates-its-power-but-still-needs-growth-9906c5b0 (paywalled)

 

Yup.  And as I pointed out yesterday or the day before, Musk promised investors that by now revenue would be around $12m with $7m in profit coming from 20m subscribers.  Which might explain why he was so gung-ho to get StarLink into Ukraine as it gave him hundreds of thousands? of users in one fell swoop.

https://observer.com/2023/09/spacex-starlink-revenue/

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

Yeah the guy is apparently pro-Russian Serb living in Serbia who is pretending to be pro-Ukrainian Canadian living in Canada. His way of being pro-Russia is being fake-concerned about Ukraine. As the picture shows, he's a joke.

GAZ NZ has a bad habit of posting (how shall I put this politely?)... questionable sources.  I don't ban people for posting disinformation sources who don't realize it, but I do take note of those who seem to do so consistently.

GAZ NZ, if you're reading this, know that nobody here is interested in pro-Russian messaging disguised as reliable information.  Nobody is going to buy into it, so if you are doing it deliberately then I strongly suggest you stop.  If you honestly didn't think this was part of the Russian disinformation campaign, I suggest that you seek a different place to find your information because chances are there's a lot more junk like this there.

Steve

[Halmbarte]

1 hour ago, paxromana said:

Putin wouldn't care in the slightest ...

Of course he wouldn't care. Would anyone even be able to tell him the Crimea garrison is dying in place? 

The downside of sending people that bring you bad news to be air defense coordinator of outer Mongolia is that eventually no one tells you bad news. 

H

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-14-2023

The commander of the Russian 247th Guards Air Assault (VDV) Regiment (7th VDV Division) Vasily Popov was reportedly killed in combat in Ukraine.[18] Vasily Popov likely recently replaced Pyotr Popov as commander of the 247th VDV Regiment in August or September 2023, and Vasily Popov is the second commander of the 247th Regiment to be killed in action in Ukraine after Colonel Konstantin Zizevsky died in February 2022.[19] Elements of the 247th Regiment are reportedly operating in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area.[20] ISW has previously assessed that relatively elite VDV forces are conducting limited counterattacks in critical sectors of the front, and Vasily Popov’s death supports ISW’s assessment that these counterattacks will likely attrit these units further.[21]

 

Much good news in todays ISW, not least a dead  VDV regimental commander on the Don-Zap front. Ukraine appears to be advancing on a broad front around Bakmuht. The S-400 in Crimea of course.

What is it with Russian officers named Popov. Their are at least two of them mentioned in today's readout and the relived commander of the 58th CAA isn't one of them. Is this a prominent extended family in the Russian military? Or is that surname just much more common than I realized?

Edited September 15, 2023 by dan/california

[chuckdyke]

3 minutes ago, dan/california said:

What is it with Russian officers named Popov.

This one?

Second Russian regimental commander eliminated by Ukrainian military (yahoo.com)

[kimbosbread]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup.  And as I pointed out yesterday or the day before, Musk promised investors that by now revenue would be around $12m with $7m in profit coming from 20m subscribers.  Which might explain why he was so gung-ho to get StarLink into Ukraine as it gave him hundreds of thousands? of users in one fell swoop.

When he promised that, Falcon hadn't even landed IIRC. So obviously there's some special Musk dust for investors, but these are not bad numbers, given that Starlink has huge demand. I promise you that investors are literally willing to sell their firstborn to get their hands on private SpaceX stock (per several investors I know who tried, and one who couldn't convince his business partners when they had a chance). Nobody in the business doubts that Starlink will be a massive moneymaker.

They've solved their base station cost problem, which is pretty amazing. The next big problem is the larger new satellites require Starship to launch, so that's the gate on more users due to bandwidth constraints. But hopefully we'll have "excitement" in October when the next Starship test launch is likely!

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

This one?

Second Russian regimental commander eliminated by Ukrainian military (yahoo.com)

Think so.

 

[Battlefront.com]

41 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

When he promised that, Falcon hadn't even landed IIRC. So obviously there's some special Musk dust for investors, but these are not bad numbers, given that Starlink has huge demand. I promise you that investors are literally willing to sell their firstborn to get their hands on private SpaceX stock (per several investors I know who tried, and one who couldn't convince his business partners when they had a chance). Nobody in the business doubts that Starlink will be a massive moneymaker.

They've solved their base station cost problem, which is pretty amazing. The next big problem is the larger new satellites require Starship to launch, so that's the gate on more users due to bandwidth constraints. But hopefully we'll have "excitement" in October when the next Starship test launch is likely!

I think it will be a big success too.  My point goes back to the question of "if Musk is so willing to listen to Putin, why did he step up with StarLink?".  The answer maybe as I stated... salesman Musk saw an opportunity AND a smart one at that.

Steve