Kraft Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 (edited) 31 minutes ago, Holien said: and it isn't Russian BS propaganda but does interview those fighting for Russia and the separatist If you give blatantly incorrect viewpoints a platform without challenging them, you are no journalist but a propagandist. Example, russians denying civilian massacrers in his interviews, which was not questioned or challenged but instead just accepted. It is not even bothsideism, as there is no other side in this creation. Have they interviewed resistance in hiding? The people who dissapeared or are afraid to speak up? No. Just russians and their stooges. Quote it kinda of backs up (I hate to say) the Capt pov that it might be better for Ukraine to cut Donbass loose. ... Edited February 23 by Kraft 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danfrodo Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 16 minutes ago, The_Capt said: The Exec sum points hold up for the most part. I don't think they had a "2 day" plan...Ukraine is a big country. But the whole thing was supposed to be over in a week or two. I think they may have been ready for resistance in Western Ukraine in the longer run but more insurgency. They had one helluva nasty occupation plan : https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/preliminary-lessons-russias-unconventional-operations-during-russo-ukrainian-war-february-2022 As has been stated many times, hundreds of pages ago, it was an attempted coup backed up by a military invasion. When it didn't work Putin was stuck. So he just keeps mass murdering Ukrainians and throwing RU lives at it until he can get some kind of face-saving outcome. Meanwhile he'll keep undermining western political systems w disinformation and bribery -- cheap and effective. And once he's rebuilt he'll be at it again in the next ex-soviet republic, or in Moldova, or wherever else. Actually I'd like to see UKR take a brigade or so and overrun Transnistria (sp?). That would be fun. I know they probably can't right now but would be dang good punch in the nose for ol' Putin. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 6 minutes ago, Kraft said: Case in point, russians denying civilian massacrers in his interviews, which was not challenged. Hmmm I think he was fairly clear off camera about his views and he was interviewing folk with guns so he was never going to challenge them strongly, especially as he got quite a bit of hostility towards him. I found it interesting that Wagner were operating ahead of the Russian forces in Kyiv and his assertion that there was no killing blatantly untrue. So from my POV it was worth watching. The details I picked up just watching the images we're worth it. YMMV 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FancyCat Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Attempted coup with big show of power to dissuade those "azov" elements in the military and civil society from fighting back. Would explain why we saw dress uniforms, massive bombardments, massive armored columns and police units attempting to enter Ukraine. The picture we have of Russian intelligence on Ukraine indicates they really believed it was a rotten structure ready to collapse at the first bang and that Putin and Co were deluded enough to ignore warning signs and detractors. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 1 hour ago, A Canadian Cat - was IanL said: No one took a shot at this. I don't have a source that proves it but I think you can look at the attack actions and infer the plan was to take out the head and end the whole thing in a few days: Columns of mech streaming in from the north and just trying to drive on the roads to Kyiv Air mobile landings at air ports around major cities especially Kyiv Saboteurs activated in the capital as the attack got started. You don't drop air mobile guys that far behind enemy lines with a plan that says it will take three weeks to get to where you dropped them off. You don't just start driving on the highway if you expected significant resistance. The combination of these actions points, in my opinion, strongly towards a 2 day plan. Or at least a quick win plan. To me it looked like a plan to attack on a broad front in the east and south but the victory path was to take over the capital. Decapitate the current regime and insert a favorable one that would then take over the army and have it stand down. With that new government in place your forces in all parts of the country can then concentrate on mopping up those that choose not the listen to the new leadership. Maybe not a 2 day plan but 2 days to be a unstoppable several week process. The fun thing is... it doesn't matter if the original plan was 2 days, 2 weeks, or even 2 months. It's now going on 2 years and they've had as many Human casualties as 10 years of war in Afghanistan TIMES TEN. So anybody that wants to try and argue Russia is competent at war has to explain the reality of February 2024, not the plan from February 2022. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Another Rus A50 gone? 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Lol 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 (edited) Plus possibly an Il-22M damaged, but landed. Aww. Since Mariupol Theatre I have wished nothing but a screaming horrified fiery death on every RuAF pilot and crew. All of 'em. Edited February 23 by Kinophile 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Capt Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 42 minutes ago, billbindc said: Where could I find that plan or a good description of it? It would help with some of the people I deal with. I am not sure if anyone has The Plan because that would probably be held by captured intel, piecing together what they have pull in, so classified. This one was written in Jan 22, and damn if it did not call the ball - these guys had to be hooked in because this is basically what happened...and then didn't. https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/220113_Wasielewski_Jones_RussiaUkraine.pdf?VersionId=11uM1oad1HbgqtEL7bwkMjYzNHThWW8I And Ch 1 of this doc lays it out pretty well too. https://static.rusi.org/359-SR-Ukraine-Preliminary-Lessons-Feb-July-2022-web-final.pdf I think the May timeline to do the whole thing is realistic, or at least be at a point to declare victory of some sort. As per that CSIS doc they really opened with 2a, which I suspect that is what they wanted in 10 days. The follow on ops (2b and 2c) realistically would be another 2 months as resistance increased in the West, backed by western powers. They also would have had to have been deliberate and cautious the closer to the Polish border they got. My bet it was 7-10 days for political decapitation and securing Kyiv along with other power nodes in the East, the theory was likely once Kyiv fell places like Kharkiv would not hold out for long. That RUSI Unconventional Operations piece outlines what the occupation/pacification plan was and it is pretty damned brutal. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Capt Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 (edited) 3 hours ago, danfrodo said: As has been stated many times, hundreds of pages ago, it was an attempted coup backed up by a military invasion. When it didn't work Putin was stuck. So he just keeps mass murdering Ukrainians and throwing RU lives at it until he can get some kind of face-saving outcome. Meanwhile he'll keep undermining western political systems w disinformation and bribery -- cheap and effective. And once he's rebuilt he'll be at it again in the next ex-soviet republic, or in Moldova, or wherever else. Actually I'd like to see UKR take a brigade or so and overrun Transnistria (sp?). That would be fun. I know they probably can't right now but would be dang good punch in the nose for ol' Putin. I am not sure we have enough evidence to call "coup". That is normally done with internal security services and the military. There is no evidence the UA was directly involved but there may have been passive insiders. The initial op was supposed to Afghanistan in 1980 - in some ways it looks like they simply pull that one out of a drawer. Massive multi-front/axis roll over with deep strike airborne air assault at the capital. I honestly do not think they expected resistance in Eastern Ukraine, let alone what they got. I have a hypothesis that it was IT that enabled the resistance happen. Strikes like this depend on isolating people from each other, so they go hide in their houses. If people feel connected and can communicate, they rally together. That is what we saw back in Feb/Mar '22 and they did a lot of that over cell/internet (hell Haiduk was broadcasting the whole time). People could see others a few towns over resisting, which reinforced their own resistance. The UA rolled with this instead of telling people to "stay in your homes, we will take care of it" which would have been a mistake. The UA enfranchised - and in doing so, empowered, local resistance. That created friction for the RA everywhere, all at once. Bog down and start losing important stuff to UA SOF...run out of gas and walk home... And that is how Russia lost the war. Now this war needs to stay lost for them. Edited February 23 by The_Capt 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 (edited) A50 strike video with eng translate/ Looks like it fired off all its flares, 1, maybe 2 missiles were deceived but the rest of the salvo kept going. Edited February 23 by Kinophile 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 28 minutes ago, The_Capt said: I am not sure we have enough evidence to call "coup". Probably "coup de main" is more accurate for what they intended. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Graphic warning. Results of UKR ambush of RUS during retreat from Avdiivka. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pablius Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 (edited) 24 minutes ago, Kinophile said: A50 strike video with eng translate/ Looks like it fired off all its flares, 1, maybe 2 missiles were deceived but the rest of the salvo kept going. Why flares? Aren´t heatseeking missiles (mostly) short range? Edited February 23 by Pablius Typo 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraft Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 10 minutes ago, Kinophile said: Graphic warning. Results of UKR ambush of RUS during retreat from Avdiivka. That looks like the spot the thermal marksman was watching in one video, very nice seeing them lying there in color and not just as white blips. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grigb Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 256 km from frontline. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tux Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 15 minutes ago, Pablius said: Why flares? Aren´t heatseeking missiles (mostly) short range? My thought as well. I’m not aware of a long range SAM that uses an IR seeker. I assume either the A-50’s pilot was panicking and releasing every type of countermeasure he could think of or maybe he couldn’t choose between chaff/flares (i.e. he could either release both or neither). Both of those feel an order of magnitude more likely than that some enterprising Ukrainian pilot got within Fox-2 range of an AWACs 250km behind the front line, although at this point nothing would completely surprise me! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grigb Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 On the footage, the first missile strikes the flare. So, unless chaffs and flares were launched and stayed close together, it was a short-range missile. Looks like UKR SF raid. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 1 hour ago, The_Capt said: Bog down and start losing important stuff to US SOF. ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Letter from Prague Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 (edited) But if it was ambush, why would he start firing flares? Is heat-seeker warning something planes normally have? edit: they do and it took two minutes on wikipedia to confirm that. I could have avoided this post. Edited February 23 by Letter from Prague I'm dummy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 3 minutes ago, Grigb said: On the footage, the first missile strikes the flare. So, unless chaffs and flares were launched and stayed close together, it was a short-range missile. Looks like UKR SF raid. Or air launched? Flight angle seems S-> A though. To clarify - it was hit overland and snotted down near Mariupol? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinophile Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 Just now, Letter from Prague said: But if it was ambush, why would he start firing flares? Is heat-seeker warning something planes normally have? If I was hauling that double deck bus anywhere and got a missile warning I would start mashing everything in reach... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Letter from Prague Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 If Ukrainian pilot in a fighter jet snuck 250 kilometers into Russian air defense and shot down AWACS then I don't know how he would fit into his plane with those enormous balls (or ovaries I guess). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 When this war started and there was the first talk of Putin possibly freezing the conflict, I said he wouldn't do it without a solid mechanism for getting the fighting to stop (unlike 2015-2022). Why? Because Ukraine would just keep doing stuff like shooting down high value planes and sinking ships. What would Russia do about it, complain to the UN that the ceasefire isn't holding? Restart the hot war? Get another interview with Tucker? It's pretty clear why Russia is in it to win it. The alternative is to fully surrender to Ukraine by withdrawing and suing for peace. That's not going to happen unless Putin is deposed and someone smarter takes the throne. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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