How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

They can do light…but can they upscale and pose an operational threat?  I think they can but there are some aspect that have never been tried before on offensives.  How far can light infantry, unmanned and fires go?  Of course they need ammunition for those fires.  I totally agree this is a good option.  A difficult one but probably the best of what is left on the table.

They did large scale "light" very early in the war and Russia nearly collapsed because of it.  However, as we've discussed it was the meeting of two very optimal conditions... light was all Ukraine could do and Russia was set up to be especially victimized by it. 

Now that Russia has long since shifted gears, that exact recipe won't likely work.  But as I laid out a few pages ago, I think the Russian forces that are there now wouldn't do well with platoon sized dismounted forces running around in their LOCs as artillery and drones smashed things to pieces around them.

Steve

[cesmonkey]

20 minutes ago, sburke said:

Putin bans petrol exports as Russia runs on fumes (yahoo.com)

 

The Kremlin has announced a six-month ban on petrol exports after Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries left Vladimir Putin’s regime scrambling to meet domestic demand.

The ban, which comes into force on March 1, was confirmed by a spokesman for deputy prime minister Alexander Novak who said it would allow for “planned maintenance” of refineries.

It follows attacks on Russian facilities by Ukrainian drones in recent months, which have harmed the country’s ability to refine crude oil into usable products such as petrol and diesel.

Russia previously imposed a similar ban between September and November last year in order to tackle high domestic prices and shortages.

Then, only four ex-Soviet states – Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan – were exempt. This time, more Russian neighbours will be exempt, including Mongolia, Uzbekistan and two Russian-backed breakaway regions of Georgia: South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Oil, oil products and gas are by far Russia’s biggest export and provide a major source of income for the Kremlin’s war economy.

Putin has been working with Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, to keep prices high as part of the broader Opec+ group, which includes the Opec cartel of oil producing nations and its key allies.

 

 

Meaning, they will still export oil but not their own refined petroleum, e.g., gasoline.

[sburke]

4 minutes ago, cesmonkey said:

Meaning, they will still export oil but not their own refined petroleum, e.g., gasoline.

It is all in the article.  

Quote

 

It follows attacks on Russian facilities by Ukrainian drones in recent months, which have harmed the country’s ability to refine crude oil into usable products such as petrol and diesel.

...

Oil, oil products and gas are by far Russia’s biggest export and provide a major source of income for the Kremlin’s war economy.

 

In addition

Quote

Russia is already voluntarily cutting its oil and fuel exports by 500,000 barrels per day in the first quarter as part of Opec+ efforts to support prices.

 

 

[dan/california]

24 minutes ago, sburke said:

It is all in the article.  

In addition

 

 

Ukraine needs to keep lobbing every drone they have at the refineries. If they hurt Russias refining capacity badly enough that Putin has to start IMPORTING refined products, or telling parts of the country to relearn how to drive a donkey cart we are in whole different war.

[Kinophile]

https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1762413281933709718?t=p1K73kamQpdNPgK7p9QpfQ&s=19

Singing the CV90s praises. The barracuda coating works. 

Western tech living up to the promises. 

[Kinophile]

On 2/26/2024 at 6:22 PM, Kinophile said:

@Grigb

 

Follow up

 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://ukrainetoday.org/in-russia-partisans-eliminated-a-fat-target-he-killed-ukrainian-prisoners-video/

In Russian Krasnoyarsk, war criminal Sergei Aleksandrovich Konkeyev was liquidated  . His car was blown up by partisans. 

 

This was reported by the partisan movement ” Extremist “. It is noted that Konkeyev confessed on record to war crimes committed on the territory of Ukraine. He shot 3 Ukrainians and stabbed to death 2 Polish volunteers.

“His place of work is also interesting. According to official employment data, he worked as a guard in pre-trial detention center No. 1 of Krasnoyarsk, which appears many times in investigations regarding the torture of defendants,” the report said. 

 

Do we have any confirmation on this? Seems like brilliant op, and an indication that Ukraines ability to do things inside Russia is only increasing if it is true.

 

Edited February 28 by dan/california

[Zeleban]

11 hours ago, poesel said:

While we talk about Krynky: what happened to traversing the former lake above the Kakhovka dam? Is it dry enough, or will it be impossible to cross for the next years? Or doesn't that make any sense to do anyway?

This area is a real hell for troops trying to cross to the other side. Absolutely open land, visible for many kilometers, cut by many small swamps and branches of the Dnieper. If troops decide to attack here, they will have to cross not just one riverbed, but several, and this under the gun of enemy ATGMs, helicopters and FPVs.

[fireship4]

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1762413281933709718?t=p1K73kamQpdNPgK7p9QpfQ&s=19

Singing the CV90s praises. The barracuda coating works. 

Western tech living up to the promises. 

Quote from the translation:

Quote

In the summer, two gays drove two T-90s at our vehicle and did not spare the gunpowder to destroy our vehicle , but it didn't work.

Lol

[Zeleban]

I watched a video about the history of corruption and Russia’s use of “useful idiots” in the West.

Oh my God. This has been going on for literally centuries. During all this time, this scheme has changed little. Cash handouts, flattery and sycophancy force even the smartest and most educated people in the West to serve the interests of Moscow.

Leibniz and Voltaire, Bernard Shaw and Henri Barbusse, Einstein and Romain Roland. And also, of course, a number of human rights and social organizations and communities. All this is painfully reminiscent of the current situation in the West.

Unfortunately the video is without translation

 

[Battlefront.com]

18 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

I watched a video about the history of corruption and Russia’s use of “useful idiots” in the West.

Oh my God. This has been going on for literally centuries. During all this time, this scheme has changed little. Cash handouts, flattery and sycophancy force even the smartest and most educated people in the West to serve the interests of Moscow.

Leibniz and Voltaire, Bernard Shaw and Henri Barbusse, Einstein and Romain Roland. And also, of course, a number of human rights and social organizations and communities. All this is painfully reminiscent of the current situation in the West.

Unfortunately the video is without translation

 

Yup, it is one of the only things Russia, as a state, does really well.  That and giving people heart attacks and fatal falls.

The really successful operations have always been the ones where the tool isn't aware it is being used.  During the 2016 elections here in the US there were documented incidents of Russian agents organizing Black Lives Matter protests using Facebook and other social media.  The people going out to protest were doing so of their own free will and were not paid, but what they didn't know is Russian agents helped get the protest organized according to the Kremlin's agenda.  And don't even get me started on what Russia does to fuel the paranoid right!

It is a race to see if Climate Change or social media kills off our species before AI does.

Steve

[squatter]

16 hours ago, The_Capt said:

And you are basing this on...?

The RUS situation at Kherson was having mech forces on the wrong side of a river with a single LOC, that got blown up.  Now, I think it is possible but will take a lot of force generation and support to do it.  And some of what we are talking about has never been tried before.  But at this point it may be time to try something new because simply sitting back and letting Russia slowly grind away does not seem like the better option.

Frankly, I assess that Ukraine has a lower bar to go over for this sort of sustained light effort at Kherson than to try to do heavy-mech breaches further up the line.  

Well, I'm basing this on my belief that sustaining any scale of operations across a massive water obstacle with no permanent crossings in a near-peer environment is effectively impossible. 

As long as the RUS have sufficient drones and artillery and aviation, I don't believe UKR light forces would be finding themselves at the advantage trying to push inwards from the left bank, but at a huge disadvantage. These light forces would be bumping up again RUS fortifications, they would be vulnerable to everything from AK47 upwards, they would have extreme difficulty receiving resupply without serious interdiction, and they would have no fortifications, no armour support. They would have almost no CASevac and would know that they are on a near suicide mission.

And what would they actually meaningfully do in their 4x4 buggies and on foot other than spot for fires (something drones are doing anyway)? 

Even if some kind of 'shock and awe' multiple crossing and heavy fires assault as put forward elsewhere was mounted successfully, I don't see how it ends up in anything other than a reverse Kherson as experienced by the RUS. 

UKR troops cross Dniepr in shock and awe assault > UKR light forces penetrate 10/20/30kms into RUS LOCs > RUS regroup, reassign reserves to the zone, pile on the drone/artillery/aviation support > UKR forces running low on supply/support and reinforcement with river crossings under constant attack and any vehicles trying to run supplies from river to the front under drone assault > RUS start turning bridgehead into the next Bakhmut/Avdiivka only here the defenders aren't fortified and have extreme difficulty in receiving resupply/reinforcement and have no armour support > UKR forced to retreat back to Dniepr having lost large numbers of crack troops and with national morale depleted

You of course will probably have a more positive vision for the outcome from UKR point of view, and I understand the impulse in searching for a better way than smashing one's head against RUS fortifications elsewhere along the front. But I don't think there's anyway UKR can successfully prosecute an operational offensive any more (without huge change in facts on the ground - ie massive RUS attrition or huge injection of advanced western weapons for UKR).

Which is why if we were both in the room back at UKR high command, I'd be making this argument lest out of desperation we launch the next Market Garden, or Dien Bien Phu.

[Holien]

1 hour ago, squatter said:

sustaining any scale of operations across a massive water obstacle with no permanent crossings in a near-peer environment is effectively impossible. 

Hmmm

Any scale of operation?

Would you like to take a crack at explaining how Ukraine has managed to maintain such a bridgehead which has been in existence for months?

 

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, squatter said:

Well, I'm basing this on my belief that sustaining any scale of operations across a massive water obstacle with no permanent crossings in a near-peer environment is effectively impossible.

Ok, well let’s start there then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington's_crossing_of_the_Delaware_River

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plunder

And of course the big one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Overlord

And let’s pull some doctrine in: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-90-12/fm3-90-12.pdf

So adding this all up, essentially it has and can be done but there are a lot of caveats.  Ultimately it is a question of weight.  How much weight is being projected across the river as combat power?  How much weight is needed under combat conditions to sustain the weight of the combat power on the other side?  There are multiple ways to get that weight across a river other than a fixed bridge.  Fixed ferry, unfixed ferry, tac aviation and now, UAS.  Forward foraging and cannibalization etc.  

Now doctrine agrees with you, the best is solid fixed LOC bridging but any crossing operations, even conventional ones come in phases.  The opening phase is very often lighter more mobile resupply methods until the bridgehead force can push the enemy back far enough that it is safe to build a series of fixed bridges.  Essentially almost every opposed military river crossing in history began with what we are describing south of Kherson - light forces establishing a bridgehead, sustained and then heavy force link up once conditions are established.  D Day being an exception as were other amphib operations which all had to be sustained by air and sea.

So “sustaining a scale of operation” without a bridge is not only possible, it is really the only way to get many water crossing started in the first place.  Now as to “how long and how far?”  Well that depends on a lot of factors.  If the UA stays light it keeps the logistics bill low.  They might not need a fixed pontoon bridge if they can advance - as you say - “10-30kms”.  Pontoon ferry’s might be able to sustain them as they did for the RA for quite some time before the RA withdrew.

So basically as an engineering and logistics problem what we are looking at south of Kherson is not new or novel.  In the current environment it is going to be challenging and dangerous but it is not the thing being invented from zero in all this. 
 

1 hour ago, squatter said:

As long as the RUS have sufficient drones and artillery and aviation, I don't believe UKR light forces would be finding themselves at the advantage trying to push inwards from the left bank, but at a huge disadvantage. These light forces would be bumping up again RUS fortifications, they would be vulnerable to everything from AK47 upwards, they would have extreme difficulty receiving resupply without serious interdiction, and they would have no fortifications, no armour support. They would have almost no CASevac and would know that they are on a near suicide mission.

Ok, so this one opens up the question of how well prepared are the RA forces on the other side?  Light forces have proven pretty important in this war.  They were critical in the first month pretty much everywhere and at Kharkiv constituted the breakout force.  If the RA has built a heavy line of defence as you seem to indicate then you may be correct.  But have they?  We really do not know, but the fact that a small bridgehead at Krynky for months - no massive RA armoured c-attack, and a few maps of force lay down estimates may help:

https://features.csis.org/ukraine-war-map/

https://militaryland.net/maps/deployment-map/

These seem to suggest that the RA have accepted risk in this sector exactly because there is a river there.  So how dense are those RA fortifications?  That map appears to show roughly a single Division covering off 100 kms of frontage.  That is - and let’s be really generous and say that RA division is at full strength - approx 10,000 troops, or 100 troops per km..which is extremely thin.  Estimates of the rest of the RA line are around 300 troops per km.  100 RA troops per km means that there are massive holes in that defensive line.  Light troops can not only cross, they can infiltrate between forces and get into rear areas, which will force the RA to react.  So we are not talking the Atlantic Wall here, we likely have RA hard points on obvious crossing sights, small c-moves forces and a bunch of RA ISR.

So indications are that RA force density is quite low, which makes the light dispersed option a good fit.  Now the UA has much better intel and will have to plan according to that but based on what we can see, the employment of light forces over that river in strength is not only possible, it is viable.

1 hour ago, squatter said:

And what would they actually meaningfully do in their 4x4 buggies and on foot other than spot for fires (something drones are doing anyway)? 

Even if some kind of 'shock and awe' multiple crossing and heavy fires assault as put forward elsewhere was mounted successfully, I don't see how it ends up in anything other than a reverse Kherson as experienced by the RUS. 

UKR troops cross Dniepr in shock and awe assault > UKR light forces penetrate 10/20/30kms into RUS LOCs > RUS regroup, reassign reserves to the zone, pile on the drone/artillery/aviation support > UKR forces running low on supply/support and reinforcement with river crossings under constant attack and any vehicles trying to run supplies from river to the front under drone assault > RUS start turning bridgehead into the next Bakhmut/Avdiivka only here the defenders aren't fortified and have extreme difficulty in receiving resupply/reinforcement and have no armour support > UKR forced to retreat back to Dniepr having lost large numbers of crack troops and with national morale depleted

An and now we get to the crux…but you kinda answer your own question here.  “What can these light forces actually do?”  Well at Kyiv they stopped the RA cold.  Elsewhere they have been instrumental in causing the RA to collapse - please find me one major tank battle in this war?  Hell it is hard enough to find a decent mech battle.  This is a war dominated by fires, not manoeuvres.

So the answer to your question is right in your post:

”RUS regroup, reassign reserves to the zone, pile on the drone/artillery/aviation support”.  

That is exactly the objective of a bunch of light forces running rampant in the backfield.  Why?  Because the RA will have to pull these (shrinking) assets from somewhere else.  This is the minimum objective by the way.  If the RA cannot or does not have “reserves” then an opportunity to redraw the lines south of Kherson presents itself.  If those light forces can actually establish a bridge head then options open up for heavier forces and other crossing options.  By that point the entire left end of the RA line is in trouble. But let’s leave that all as a branch plan and stretch goal.

So the real question is not in your response or reasoning.  They are not “can it be done” or “will it do anything?”  The real question is: does the UA have the forces and capabilities to do it at scale?  This we do not know and will have to simply wait and see.

Edited February 28 by The_Capt

[Zeleban]

The Russian opposition channel Meduza noted the growth rate of money in the accounts of Russians from some regions after the start of the war. The following regions are noted: Tyva, Chechnya, Buryatia, Altai, Dagestan, North Ossetia, Adygea, Mari Earl, Trans-Baikal Territory. Despite the war, Russians are getting richer

 

[Rokko]

1 minute ago, Zeleban said:

The Russian opposition channel Meduza noted the growth rate of money in the accounts of Russians from some regions after the start of the war. The following regions are noted: Tyva, Chechnya, Buryatia, Altai, Dagestan, North Ossetia, Adygea, Mari Earl, Trans-Baikal Territory. Despite the war, Russians are getting richer

 

This would be an effect of the meat-for-money exchange between Russia's poorer regions and the central government, no? The question is, where does this money come from and how is Moscow paying for it?

[Zeleban]

An example of how Russians continue to purchase equipment in the West, circumventing sanctions

[The_Capt]

38 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

The Russian opposition channel Meduza noted the growth rate of money in the accounts of Russians from some regions after the start of the war. The following regions are noted: Tyva, Chechnya, Buryatia, Altai, Dagestan, North Ossetia, Adygea, Mari Earl, Trans-Baikal Territory. Despite the war, Russians are getting richer

 

Well some Russians are, but their government…not so much:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_budget_of_Russia

[Kinophile]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1762822972111282686?t=uP6IUSsZdyMYJ13XLolToQ&s=19

[The_Capt]

Digging around on this wars impact on the Russian economy and found this:

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA2400/RRA2421-1/RAND_RRA2421-1.pdf

Originally written in late ‘22 there is a Ch 6 update written in late ‘23.  So the punchline as far as I can tell is that Russia can sustain this war at current intensity (note that important proviso) for several more years.  However, the hurt is starting to settle in.  Russia as a nation is definitely not becoming more wealthy as a result of this war.  This report does not cover the overall cost to rebuild its military to pre-war levels, adjusting for military and sanctions inflation.

So as we have discussed at length. Sanctions do work, but not how most people think.  They apply strategic pressure over time while eroding the overall Russian economy.  Further they will make it harder for Russia to rebuild after this:

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
(have not looked in awhile but these numbers are truly staggering - for those still counting tanks, Russian losses are coming up on 3x of the entire UA pre-war fleet. AFVs are similar).

 

 

[Kinophile]

 

So... It's so great and stealthy it had to be escorted by a flight of Su35s... And it's oh-so-special Missile faceplanted into a field. 

Pretty sure the 35s were intended as meat shields to literally take a Missile hit, not  just engage UKR aviation /AD. 

[Kinophile]

I posted previously about Japan promising aid. Well they came through in nicely timely fashion. Norway too! 

 

Edited February 28 by Kinophile

[Kinophile]

No delivery date so likely months. 

[Kinophile]

You know what we haven't had in here for a short while? A nice nuclear punch up. 

 

[The_Capt]

17 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

You know what we haven't had in here for a short while? A nice nuclear punch up. 

 

"William Alberque, director of strategy, technology, and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the FT that Russia likely has a higher threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine due to fears it would likely "escalate the conflict and lead to direct intervention by the U.S. or U.K."

Heh, maybe the poor weak old West is having a bit more of a deterrent effect than popular opinion on this forum believes.

Of course a major nuclear power bogged down in a losing war and nervous at both ends is not exactly good news either.