How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[hcrof]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I have not read the RUSI report yet, but this sounds like the same thing we experienced by people like Kofman at the start of the war.  To paraphrase, he might have said:

1.  Russia is a corrupt country with a lot of waste

2.  Training is poor compared to the West, treatment of conscripts remains horrible

3.  Readiness rates are likely overstated due to under funding and lack of accountability

4.  The core of Russia's military is based on legacy Soviet equipment, some of which is barely modernized

5.  The annual exercises are scripted performances that provide minimal experience for officers to learn their skills.

6.  Their fires are still overly centralized and burdened with inadequate communications equipment or flexible doctrine

7.  The VVS is not well situated to provide CAS, from equipment to doctrine, yet Russian offensive doctrine has an important carve out for CAS.

8.  Russian logistics are relatively poor, especially when compared to NATO countries.  This has been a traditional weakness since before WW2.

9.  The system for appointing and vetting qualified officers for key positions is largely political positioning rather than merit based.

etc.

Yet after able to list all this stuff, and talk about it in granular detail, would then say "but I don't understand the incredibly poor tactical, operational, and strategic performance we saw in February and March."

I mean gosh... talk about not connecting dots.

Steve

Reading the RUSI report really feels like someone has joined the dots but they just don't want to say so explicitly. The emerging threats section seems so weirdly separate to the campaign summary it's easy to read all sorts of stuff between the lines.

Edit: the above sounds a bit conspiratorial: I think there was just disagreement among the authors about the role of drones or something, not anything sinister 

Edited July 18 by hcrof

[Vanir Ausf B]

4 hours ago, A Canadian Cat said:

Nice summary and connecting the dots that the author lays out but cannot connect themselves. It is an interesting moment when you can see a report like this that simultaneously understands the short comings for why the offensive failed.  At the same time also see what caused those short comings be effectively unsolvable (at last by more of same) and yet not connect those together in a meaningful away.

It strikes me that the dome needs to be mostly drone based. After all drones are at the root of what is grinding this all to a halt. So, here are a proposed set of steps:

1. Precision artillery using your own eyes in the sky targeting artillery and air defenses further back from the attack point

2. Allow for some local air support to counter the enemy air

3. AFU needs anti drone drones to hurt the enemy's eyes in the sky and fight their FPV drones which then allow some activity on your own side of the start line

4. FPV drone attack on strong points, enemy drone operators, ATGM sites, local ammo and other supplies

5. Small infantry infiltration activity to push the line forward with some IFV support or perhaps just taxiing in the beginning

6. Repeat 3-5 while 1 and 2 have never stopped

7. Clear some mines

8. Repeat 3-7 while 1 and 2 have never stopped until

9. You have a whole in the mine field, no enemy recon drones, no enemy FPV drones able to operate, no enemy ATGMs in front and no ability for air to come to assist

10. Maybe you can use some mech force to push forward or maybe you just move the lines and setup to do it again except next time #7 is less

The missing piece is an excellent anti drone drone and masses of precision (artillery, drone, missiles)

I don't feel like that is anything new - I am just repeating what we have been talking about really.

 

4 hours ago, hcrof said:

I agree with you both, it's almost as if the authors are deliberately stopping short on connecting the dots there. 

To play devil's advocate, maybe russian use of drones and ISR was still unsophisticated enough at the time that the conventional reasons for why the offensive were a failure were still valid at the time, but they have certainly improved since so those emerging tactical challenges have very much arrived already!

Are we reading the same paper? It seems to me there's a lot to chew on in there if you're a fan of unmanned systems. It's just not all about the drones.

________

Thus, alongside the requirement to protect the force from stand-in observation, it is also necessary to be able to defeat enemy longer-range UAVs, either at low altitude but stood off up to 10 km, or at medium altitude above the MANPADS ceiling

While helicopters are expensive to operate and vulnerable in the face of Russian air defences, UAVs may offer a means to move pallets of food, water and ammunition forwards. Using uncrewed ground vehicles for breaching similarly offers the opportunity to widen and multiply the lanes through which supplies can pass. Uncrewed ground vehicle technology is not currently ideally suited to offensive obstacle breaching, because it is easily knocked out through damage to key sensors and often depends on remote control, while such breaching must be done either from close proximity to the vehicle or via fixed cable. Once behind the FLOT, however, such systems have significant potential, and experimentation in this space could mature the capability until it is able to support offensive breaching operations... Medical evacuation via UAV is more morally complex, but in many instances may improve the rate of survival considerably by allowing casualties to be recovered across complex or denied terrain to a medical facility in a hardened position where a better standard of care can be provided.

For offensive suppression, the utilisation of loitering munitions, provided with target coordinates by EW baselines, could enable strikes on operators of threat systems that are otherwise safe beyond line of sight of their targets. An equivalent to the Lancet-3M would be very useful for this. It would also require an uplift in the density of Ukrainian EW baselines at brigade level to identify enemy UAV operators and engage them.

Edited July 18 by Vanir Ausf B

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, poesel said:

You need to compare relative complexity, not absolute. In today's terms, a Sherman is mostly welded metal. Back then, it was (nearly) the best they could do.

However, we can compare prices. A Sherman cost about $60k in '45 a piece. That is roughly $1m in today's money.
A Bradley sets you back about $3m. So same ballpark range. The factor 3 may very well be the difference between a mass product and a small batch.

Don't forget, we are all sitting on the shoulders of giants. Try to think about the amount of technology necessary to read these very words that have appeared on your screen. This is mind-boggling and yet, literally in everybody's hands.

A Bradley is more complex than a Sherman, but the effort to make one (in its time) is roughly the same. All the improvements in productivity make this possible.

 

This is getting silly   If you are comparing a Bradly to a Sherman, what would you compare an Abrams to?  There is nothing like an IFV in WW2, but you can come close with a Stuart.  The inflation adjusted cost for the M5, which was significantly less expensive than the earlier M3, clocked it at around $472,257.  So no, the Bradley isn't even in the same ballpark.

If you want to compare the Bradley's main role (transporting infantry under armored cover) then you can look at the M3 halftrack and that came in at about $184,042 per vehicle.

Now I even forget why we're talking about this   Oh right, because I made the point that future vehicles should be cheaper, quicker to make, and easier to support than what is in service today.  Even if I accept your apples to cucumber comparisons as valid, you still haven't challenged my point.  And that is if you want to protect infantry you don't need offensive armaments.

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

There are more than a few videos of the Bradleys in close cooperation with infantry, I would not say its exactly a rare thing. They really do seem to be used in a variety of roles, from transporting sections into combat to acting as 'fire brigade' units with the firepower to blunt attempted mechanised assaults. We see enough footage from the 47th to know they seem to be the vehicle of choice to go after the small assaults made on their line. We also know how quickly and efficiently the Bradley can deal with them. I dont see even a platoon of M113s with open top 50 cals doing the same thing.

The videos from the 47th are the result of a) them having Bradleys and not M113s and b) because they have one of the best PR machines out there (nothing compares to 3rd Assault Brigade though!).

Again, I am not saying the Bradley is a bad vehicle at what it does.  I am not even saying that the firepower it brings to the battlefield is unnecessary.  What I am saying is that we should be taking off the shackles of what is and instead envision what could be with nothing more than taking existing (or near future) tech and re orientating it to the lessons of the Ukraine war.

Let me put it another way.  Is the Bradley a better vehicle when assaulting a trench than an unarmed M113?  Yup.  Is it better than a YPR-765 (M113 with a protected MG)?  Sure.  But can you tell me, quantifiable, how much?  Can you then do a lifetime cost analysis and on top of that a predictive model for unit readiness under near peer combat conditions?  Theoretically you could with the right info, but neither of us have that info.

4 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

This is not to take away from FPVs or their effectiveness, but the infantry ultimately seem to appreciate what an IFV can do for them. I would argue the troops on the ground would probably prefer a Bradley to drones, if only so they dont have to walk everywhere! I think the solution is using both really.  Why cant they utilise both to their effective capacity?

You are constantly, consistently, and quite frankly annoyingly disregarding every single time I point out that they are using what they have NOW so yeah, no-duh (as kids used to say when I was a kid) they are putting all of these things to use.  They are putting civilian cars to use as well, but that doesn't mean that's some sort of ideal standard we should adopt for our future near peer wars, right?

It is clear that there's no silver bullet for any of this.  You focus on FPVs as if they are the only thing out there to draw from.  There's attack UAS of several types, including those with standoff potential.  There's ISR UAS that can direct all kinds of pain on a target, such as artillery or other UAS.  There's UGVs which can put down the same effective suppressive fire as a Bradley.  There's different forms of armored infantry protection available, all of which are less expensive than the Bradley.

4 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

As for losses, the 47th seems to be running them consistently despite losses and the modest number delivered. (Bulk of losses were during 2023 as well) This is after months on the field with a lot of FPVs and lancets in the air. I figured if the drones were so effective that there would be no vehicles left. Yet this seems not to be the case (though we of course dont know readiness numbers)

Do you know how carefully husbanded these vehicles are on a daily basis?  I sure don't.  What I do know is if you take a daily frontline combat vehicle that costs $3m and hide it in a barn 5km behind the front line for a week it will definitely survive longer.

If you're going to be arguing what you're arguing, you need a Hell of a lot more data to support your conclusions than you have.  On the other hand, I can support my conclusions without it because I'm looking at cost and rates of production.  Those are knowns.

And so here we are again.  Your arguments boil down to stubbornly looking backwards instead of forwards.  You're a smart guy with lots of knowledge, so why are you so steadfast in your refusal to apply it without preconceived biases?

Steve

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

 

Are we reading the same paper? It seems to me there's a lot to chew on in there if you're a fan of unmanned systems. It's just not all about the drones.

________

Thus, alongside the requirement to protect the force from stand-in observation, it is also necessary to be able to defeat enemy longer-range UAVs, either at low altitude but stood off up to 10 km, or at medium altitude above the MANPADS ceiling

While helicopters are expensive to operate and vulnerable in the face of Russian air defences, UAVs may offer a means to move pallets of food, water and ammunition forwards. Using uncrewed ground vehicles for breaching similarly offers the opportunity to widen and multiply the lanes through which supplies can pass. Uncrewed ground vehicle technology is not currently ideally suited to offensive obstacle breaching, because it is easily knocked out through damage to key sensors and often depends on remote control, while such breaching must be done either from close proximity to the vehicle or via fixed cable. Once behind the FLOT, however, such systems have significant potential, and experimentation in this space could mature the capability until it is able to support offensive breaching operations... Medical evacuation via UAV is more morally complex, but in many instances may improve the rate of survival considerably by allowing casualties to be recovered across complex or denied terrain to a medical facility in a hardened position where a better standard of care can be provided.

For offensive suppression, the utilisation of loitering munitions, provided with target coordinates by EW baselines, could enable strikes on operators of threat systems that are otherwise safe beyond line of sight of their targets. An equivalent to the Lancet-3M would be very useful for this. It would also require an uplift in the density of Ukrainian EW baselines at brigade level to identify enemy UAV operators and engage them.

I think the issue is that the central premise of the piece is that resourcing, training, leadership and planning were the critical failures. It then lists a pretty comprehensive list of emerging tactical issues that read as tacked on - “FYI”.  When in reality if one were to solve for the resourcing, training, leadership and planning, there is no real theory of success given the tactical challenges they lay down.  For example, the exposed logistics lines mean that even if the UA had managed a break through, it could not be exploited because supply would have quickly been overextended by a combination of ISR and precision.  

To my mind, the central issues are the tactical challenges, which are in reality hard problems (a challenge can be overcome by trying harder, a problem must be solved).  The shortfalls in leadership…etc, exacerbated these challenges but were not the core issues.  Based on what they themselves are describing, no amount of conventional mass, training or planning was going to be able to solve the fundamental problem of trying to use tempo/manoeuvre on a battlefield where tactical momentum is not practical.

Further, the situation has gotten harder not easier over the last year.  I am still it sure that UAS that got us into this mess can get us out but frankly no other solutions seem to be viable.  Other than really expensive and relatively untested technologies that we have not seen at scale.  The UA cannot “mission command” or western equip itself out of this thing.

It is not a case of disagreement with the authors, it is the emphasis they have chosen to highlight as the core issues of the failures of last summer.

[poesel]

12 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Tbh looking at the miniaturization of computing and how technologically we have advanced, I’ve been unable to really articulate it, so I appreciate this production discussion, but what prevents us from lowering the cost of anti-Uav systems thru sustained production? A lot of price tags for anti-uav stuff is based on lowered military budgets, lack of urgency, lack of needed production. I think it might be reasonable to say a restarted Gepard production would lower costs to be worth it.

The problem is, that we don't have working (and economic) anti-UAV systems. At least for the small ones like the FPV drones. As soon as someone comes up with one, we can start to mass produce. The R&D phase is always the most expensive one. It is also the one where you can't really predict how long it takes (which is the main line of friction between the engineers and management in those kinds of projects).

12 hours ago, Haiduk said:

About effectiveness of shotguns vs FPV from Russian point of view (spoiler - they missed)

I don't like to give hints to the RA, but I doubt they will read this.

They really should have sawn off the shotguns. With this kind of long barrel at that distance the spread of the pellets is not much more than that of a slug.
I remember seeing a UA soldier running around with a sawn-off gun, but I don't think he shot on that video.

[poesel]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Now I even forget why we're talking about this   Oh right, because I made the point that future vehicles should be cheaper, quicker to make, and easier to support than what is in service today.  Even if I accept your apples to cucumber comparisons as valid, you still haven't challenged my point.  And that is if you want to protect infantry you don't need offensive armaments.

No, you are right. You forgot what we were talking about.

I'm not challenging your point, that vehicles should be cheaper, etc... I even very much agree to it.

I did challenge your point that you wrote that making more of one vehicle/machine/system/... will not bring its price down. That, and only that. No assumptions of complexity of that systems or marketability or whatever. Mass production will bring the price of everything down. And you can mass produce every physical thing (in this military context).

Best example for that is drones. You need a production line each for the microprocessor, GPS receiver, wireless chip, 3-axis sensor (*), camera sensor & motor controller. Then you need an assembly line to put all this on a PCB. You need to cast the case for the motors, wind its coils, produce and place the magnets and assemble it all. Oh, and the rotors and probably 100s of other bits and pieces I forgot. Definitely complex.
Yet, this is a very cheap, mass-produced device.

 

 

(*) Little fun fact: causality is a bitch, but the thing that made this current drone war possible is, of all things, the Nintendo Wii. The Wiimote had a 3-axis sensor, and the huge demand from Nintendo brought the prices down into hobbyist range. These put them on drones and made the public aware of them. That created demand, and now we have Mavic et al. Then private Bohdan put an RPG on it and the rest we know.

[Sgt Joch]

On 7/17/2024 at 9:29 PM, billbindc said:

Picking Vance will likely turn out to be a mistake. Even some 43% of Trump supporters want aid to continue to Ukraine. 

There are tectonics moving on the Democratic side that will likely lead to a much more vigorous campaign. Vance will provide great fodder for it.

As I see it, the only reason Vance is there is to help Trump win Ohio which is a key swing state. VP choices are basically otherwise irrelevant.

On the wider point, Ukraine is basically becoming irrelevant in U.S. politics. I think whoever the next POTUS is, you will see a lot of pressure on Ukraine in 2025 to declare “victory” and agree to a ceasefire more or less along the current front lines. No one will want the Ukraine war to still be an issue as we get closer to the 2028 election when neither Biden nor Trump will be running.

[kimbosbread]

2 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

As I see it, the only reason Vance is there is to help Trump win Ohio which is a key swing state. VP choices are basically otherwise irrelevant.

Vance is presumably Peter Thiel’s choice (and Silicon Valley’s choice). Look at who all lined up behind Trump the other day.

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, Sgt Joch said:

On the wider point, Ukraine is basically becoming irrelevant in U.S. politics. I think whoever the next POTUS is, you will see a lot of pressure on Ukraine in 2025 to declare “victory” and agree to a ceasefire more or less along the current front lines. No one will want the Ukraine war to still be an issue as we get closer to the 2028 election when neither Biden nor Trump will be running.

As much as I hate this, I have to agree.  There is open support for Ukraine everywhere but inside the wire it is becoming an open sore.  I also suspect that all parties want to try and pretend like we are not entering into another Cold War-esque reality.  No matter how much rhetoric is spilled and noises made, no political party wants to commit to that major shift. It is ridiculously expensive, filled with terrible decisions and has pitfalls that can swallow entire nations.

So if we can quietly put the first war of this new thing to bed, we can go back to gradually building new Iron/Bamboo curtains…now with internet. Canada is the absolute worst offender in all this as we promise 2% GDP spending with absolutely no intention in following through. We will come up with clever “big buys” that take a decade to complete in order to shut up the critics but an increase of that level would hit social programs like healthcare. Shifting money from healthcare to defence is basically putting a gun in one’s mouth in this country.

My sense is that this entire political generation just want all this to go away.  But it won’t.

[dan/california]

16 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

As much as I hate this, I have to agree.  There is open support for Ukraine everywhere but inside the wire it is becoming an open sore.  I also suspect that all parties want to try and pretend like we are not entering into another Cold War-esque reality.  No matter how much rhetoric is spilled and noises made, no political party wants to commit to that major shift. It is ridiculously expensive, filled with terrible decisions and has pitfalls that can swallow entire nations.

So if we can quietly put the first war of this new thing to bed, we can go back to gradually building new Iron/Bamboo curtains…now with internet. Canada is the absolute worst offender in all this as we promise 2% GDP spending with absolutely no intention in following through. We will come up with clever “big buys” that take a decade to complete in order to shut up the critics but an increase of that level would hit social programs like healthcare. Shifting money from healthcare to defence is basically putting a gun in one’s mouth in this country.

My sense is that this entire political generation just want all this to go away.  But it won’t.

Xi isn't going to stop wanting Taiwan, either....

[Beleg85]

Curious news: one Russian military  TG channel (difficult to verify) informs that their KA-52 was shot down in friendly fire incident...by their own Uragan rocket launcher.

Seems hard to believe, but poster here showed old clip from Russian propaganda shots, where muscovite airplane was meters away from similar accident.

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Curious news: one Russian military  TG channel (difficult to verify) informs that their KA-52 was shot down in friendly fire incident...by their own Uragan rocket launcher.

Seems hard to believe, but poster here showed old clip from Russian propaganda shots, where muscovite airplane was meters away from similar accident.

Russian bear says air space deconfliction is for sissies....., also what is that burning smell?

 

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, poesel said:

No, you are right. You forgot what we were talking about.

I'm not challenging your point, that vehicles should be cheaper, etc... I even very much agree to it.

Noted!

9 hours ago, poesel said:

I did challenge your point that you wrote that making more of one vehicle/machine/system/... will not bring its price down. That, and only that. No assumptions of complexity of that systems or marketability or whatever. Mass production will bring the price of everything down. And you can mass produce every physical thing (in this military context).

Sure, but I already typed out in longhand why it isn't that simple and it doesn't always work.  The_Capt chimed in as well.  Instead of going over all the points I made again, which you didn't challenge, is that sometimes things are expensive and slow to produce because that is the only viable way to make them. 

In the case of the Bradley, the cost of expanding production to the point or significantly reducing the per unit cost likely exceeds the market demand for said product.  Which means you are unlikely to reach that tipping point and that in turn means expansion will not produce a lower per unit cost.  It could actually do the opposite.  Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if faster delivery times and increasing annual production quotas were the thing you were most interested in.

9 hours ago, poesel said:

(*) Little fun fact: causality is a bitch, but the thing that made this current drone war possible is, of all things, the Nintendo Wii. The Wiimote had a 3-axis sensor, and the huge demand from Nintendo brought the prices down into hobbyist range. These put them on drones and made the public aware of them. That created demand, and now we have Mavic et al. Then private Bohdan put an RPG on it and the rest we know.

Makes sense.  Now if they were going to put Bushmaster 25mm chainguns as a standard Wii feature we might see the cost of a Bradley come down

Steve

[A Canadian Cat]

On 7/18/2024 at 3:07 PM, The_Capt said:

The only thing new in all this might be the levels of FPV in motion at the same time.  You are really describing “mass precision” which we are seeing on defence but have not really seen on offence.  My guess is like everything else for offence they will need 3-4 times as much as they did for defence.  The scale of UAS required to sanitize an area large enough is something we have not seen yet. 

Yep, the number of FPV drones has ramped up lately. I wonder if they might be able to get production ahead of usage for long enough to actually try this on offence.

[zinz]

https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/07/19/the-war-in-ukraine-has-removed-1-7-million-members-of-russias-workforce-en-news

Quote

The Russian economy has to date lost between 1.5 million and 1.7 million people, or about 2.2% of its total workforce, due to the war in Ukraine, data analysis carried out by Novaya Gazeta Europe has revealed.

The vast majority of Russia’s workforce losses are conscripts and professional soldiers who have been sent to the front line, as well as Russians who have left the country due to the war, and combat losses.

The number of Russian military personnel sent to war in 2022 and 2023 is estimated to be between 860,000 and 1.08 million. That figure includes conscripts deployed to fight in Ukraine following Vladimir Putin’s announcement of “partial mobilisation” in September 2022 — official data put their number at 318,000 — and professional soldiers. It is harder to calculate a precise number for the latter, but it’s likely to be somewhere between 540,000 and 740,000 for the first two years of the war.

Russia’s huge combat losses have placed an additional strain on the labour market. The Economist estimated earlier this month that between 462,000 and 728,000 Russian soldiers had been seriously injured in the war, some 110,000–150,000 of whom had been killed.

Many of those who have returned home from the war are disabled, or otherwise unable to resume their previously held positions.

As the Kremlin is showing few signs that it wants to bring the war to an end, based on figures for the first half of 2024, the number of individuals being removed from the economy by conscription or voluntary enlistment in the military could rise by a further 50–60%, depending on whether or not a new wave of mobilisation is announced.

Even if the Russian military only recruits professional soldiers going forward, then the economy will still stand to have lost between 1.7 million–1.9 million people in total between the start of 2022 and the end of 2024, the figures varying due to differing estimates of the number of professional soldiers in the Russian military.

If there is a new wave of mobilisation, however, the number of individuals removed from Russia’s workforce could rise to anywhere between 1.9 million and 2.1 million, the equivalent to 2.8% of the labour force, according to the highest estimates — a figure fraught with macroeconomic risks.

 

[zinz]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Curious news: one Russian military  TG channel (difficult to verify) informs that their KA-52 was shot down in friendly fire incident...by their own Uragan rocket launcher.

Seems hard to believe, but poster here showed old clip from Russian propaganda shots, where muscovite airplane was meters away from similar accident.

Not that hard to believe... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9Q9fiwV3c

We have this glorious footage from am su25 almost having the same fate. 

[zinz]

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/07/19/society-isn-t-prepared

Quote

‘Society isn’t prepared’ The Kremlin fears ‘public discontent’ and a rise in crime as returning soldiers fail to adapt to civilian life

8:36 pm, July 19, 2024

Source: Meduza

The Kremlin’s policy of sending hundreds of thousands of Russian men, including many prisoners, to war with little to no training or equipment has had predictable effects back on the home front: numerous soldiers have committed violent crimes upon returning home, and the country reportedly has a critical shortage of psychologists trained to treat PTSD. The Russian authorities have been reluctant to criticize these veterans, with Putin calling for them to become the country’s “new elite.” But according to Meduza’s inside sources, the president’s team is well aware of the risks the returnees pose and fears Russian society isn’t prepared to accept them. Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev explains.

The Kremlin believes that the return of Russian soldiers from Ukraine will be the country’s “biggest political and social risk factor” during Putin’s current term as president, Kremlin domestic policy czar Sergey Kiriyenko told a group of deputy governors at a meeting in early July.

According to two people who were in attendance and a third source close to the Kremlin, Kiriyenko stressed that returning soldiers are “adapting poorly” to civilian life. He noted that many “volunteers” enlisted in the army as a way of getting out of prison and that some of them have committed new crimes, including murder and rape, after returning from the front.

"They made it clear [at the meeting] that we can expect plenty more of these people. This could lead to public discontent, fear, or, conversely, aggression towards all military personnel, who people will perceive as a single group. An increase in crime. This is a problem,” one of the attendees said.

But Kiriyenko also went beyond former inmates and spoke about returning soldiers in general, according to Meduza’s sources. One source said the deputy chief of staff contrasted the current war with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and World War II. He summarized his remarks as follows:

In Afghanistan, there weren’t so many casualties and injuries. After World War II, soldiers returned to a country that had suffered from the war and knew what war looks like. They took part in the country’s reconstruction and were respected because people understood what they had fought for. Now, [Russian soldiers] are returning to a country where the majority of people don’t know what war is and have only seen it on TV. They’ve been in extreme situations and seen what it looks like when laws aren’t enforced. Society isn’t really prepared to understand them and accept them.

Meduza’s sources noted that in private conversations, Russian officials have even begun referring to soldiers returning from Ukraine as “the new Afghans” and are afraid that, over time, the former servicemen could become disillusioned with civilian life and form their own criminal groups.

The two meeting attendees added that they concluded from Kiriyenko’s statements that the Russian authorities don’t fully understand the scale of the risks that the country might face after the war. A source close to the Putin administration told Meduza that gaining a broader understanding of this situation is one of the Kremlin’s main goals for the first year of the president’s new term.

Sending murderers to do more murders and then expecting them to become the "new elite" and all that with absolutely no mental health help, is about going as well as anyone could imagine 

Edited July 19 by zinz

[Grigb]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Curious news: one Russian military  TG channel (difficult to verify) informs that their KA-52 was shot down in friendly fire incident...by their own Uragan rocket launcher.

Seems hard to believe, but poster here showed old clip from Russian propaganda shots, where muscovite airplane was meters away from similar accident.

The channel seems to be a legitimate helicopter pilot channel (at least according to RU military reporters). But this is not a recent case. He said there had been one such case in the past.

[Grigb]

Interesting comment from RU

Quote

The hospitals!!! 90% of the boys got wounded by the drone drops

 

[zinz]

https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2024/07/russia-central-asia-migrants?lang=ru&center=russia-eurasia

Auto translated below:

Trying to fix your labor problems with immigration while being xenophobic is not quite working out. Also the Russian influence over central Asia is greatly diminished. 

Quote

The end of monopoly. How Russia loses migrants from Central Asia

Only ten years ago it was impossible to imagine that instead of Russia, hundreds of thousands of people from Central Asia would go to work in Asia, and tens of thousands to Europe. Today, this is a reality, and the role of the Russian market will continue to decline.

 

 

 Galiya Ibrahimov

17 July 2024

Despite the growing labor shortage, the Russian authorities at various levels are increasingly struggling with the influx of labor migrants from Central Asia. From the very beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, they are actively used in work in the annexed territories, and those who managed to obtain citizenship are caught and sent to the front.

But it's not just war. The scaring of labor migrants escalated into a real fight against them after the terrorist attack in the "Crocus City Hall," followed by mass raids, reversals at the border and bans on professions. The economic attractiveness of the Russian market has already decreased, and in combination with new restrictions, this forces people from Central Asia to look for other areas for labor migration, and they are getting better, including in Europe.

Counter-Terrorism vs Tajiks

For a long time, the Russian market remained the main source of income for labor migrants from Central Asia. Even after the invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of migrant recruitment to the war, their mass outflow from Russia did not happen. But the situation began to change rapidly after the terrorist attack in the "Crocus City Hall."

Infinite checks, raids at enterprises, dismissals, delays of flights from the countries of the region to Russia and back, many hours of waiting on the border with Kazakhstan, sending to the war in Ukraine under the threat of expulsion, torture is all a new reality in which after the terrorist attack in the Crocuse live labor migrants. Even diplomats were hit. The apartment of the adviser to the ambassador of Kyrgyzstan in Moscow, where his wife and children were, broke into the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to allegedly establish the identity of the residents.

The Central Asian authorities usually ignore such problems in order not to spoil relations with Moscow, but the pressure has reached such a scale that they had to stand up for compatriots. The foreign ministries of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan sent notes of protest to the Russian ambassadors, but they called the actions of the security forces a forced measure in connection with the threat of terrorist attacks.

President Emomali Rahmon also stood up for Tajik migrants. In May, at a meeting with Vladimir Putin, he urged to fight not with the Tajiks, but with terrorism. The pressure on migrants has not stopped. As a result, their outflow from Russia began. For example, since the beginning of April alone in St. Petersburg - the second most attractive city for migrants - the number of applicants from Tajikistan has decreased by 60%, from Uzbekistan - by 40%.

More than a dozen Russian regions have imposed restrictions on the work of migrants. For example, in the Krasnodar region, which occupies the first place in Russia in the production of wheat, corn, sunflower and rice, this has already led to a shortage of workers in agriculture. The shortage of personnel is experienced by industrial enterprises, including the military-industrial complex, in the Urals. In Yakutia, migrants were forbidden to work in a taxi and engaged in transportation. In Dagestan, there are not enough workers to remove garbage.

The ban on hiring migrants, as a rule, comes from regional authorities. They explain this by the fact that the dominance of migrants deprives the jobs of Russians and leads to lower wages. In reality, the opposite is true: the Russian economy is experiencing an acute shortage of workers, so wages are growing rapidly. But the authorities, apparently, consider the fight against migrants a manifestation of patriotism and are not going to stop.

If the pressure on migrants continues, it will exacerbate the problem of the shortage of personnel in Russia, which worsened after February 24, 2022. According to the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the shortage of personnel reached 4.8 million people. Most of all, it is tangible in industry, agriculture, trade, construction, housing and communal services - that is, just in those segments where migrants most often work.

The logic of Russian officials who are replacing the fight against terrorism with the fight against migrants seems strange also because at the expense of migrants Russia managed to mitigate its demographic problems. Now the death rate in the country is almost twice the вышеbirth rate, and it is possible to maintain the population at the current level only due to the large-scale influx of migrants.

Over the past two years, the number of migrants entering Russia has been held at about 3 million people. But most of the visitors are seasonal workers who do not stay for a long time. If in the pre-war 2021 migration growth (the difference between the outgoing and arriving migrants) reached almost 500,000 people, in 2022 it fell to 62 thousand. This is due to the fall of earnings of migrants due to sanctions, and most importantly - the recruitment of migrants to the war in Ukraine.

Migrants and the Russian World

It would seem that it is unprofitable for Russia to spoil relations with Central Asia, escalating anti-migrant sentiments. After the outbreak of a major war in Ukraine, the countries of the region were among those who maintained good relations with the Kremlin. But, it seems, Moscow is confident in the lack of alternatives of the Russian labor market for neighbors, and therefore no retaliatory measures will follow.

In the past, Russia has repeatedly used anti-migrant campaigns to pressure its neighbors. Suffice it to recall raids against Georgian migrants in 2006 in retaliation for the arrest of Russian agents in Tbilisi. Or the mass detentions of Tajiks in 2011, when Russian pilots were arrested in Dushanbe on suspicion of smuggling. Another case occurred in 2012, when the Tajik authorities decided to charge rent for the deployment of the Russian military in the country. Moscow then raided the Tajiks, and the free stay of the Russian military base in Tajikistan was extended for 49 years.

The migrant factor allowed the Kremlin to seek what was desired from the Central Asian countries and other issues, whether it was the preservation of the Russian language, the promotion of Russian business interests, the rejection of cooperation with the West or join Russian integration associations. It is not that the Central Asian elites feared the tightening of the migration legislation of Russia and forging the well-being of their citizens. Money transfers have always been extremely important for national economies.

For example, in Tajikistan, they provide up to 40% of GDP, in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan - more than 20% of GDP. To preserve this source of income, the Central Asian authorities indulge the Kremlin. They could not employ all of their citizens at home. In addition, the further from the homeland of migrants worked, the lower the level of social tension in the region and the more stable the local political regimes.

However, the growing outflow of migrants from Russia, which began in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has intensified due to the war and recent restrictions, pushed the Central Asian authorities to help their citizens to seek work in other countries. So, in Uzbekistan in 2023, transfers of migrants fell by 42%, in Kyrgyzstan - by 12%, in Tajikistan - 8%.

In the Ministries of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Labour, units are established to supervise labor migration. The authorities are negotiating with foreign partners on the employment of their citizens in their countries, help them with the collection of documents and obtaining visas, organize vocational training at home. Thus, the countries of Central Asia are trying to mitigate the blow from the reduction of incomes from Russia.

Demand in Europe

Some of the results of these efforts are already visible. For example, the second destination for labor migration after Russia was Turkey, where more than 200 thousand people from Central Asia are working. The top of popular routes includes South Korea, which expanded in 2024 the quota for Uzbeks to 100 thousand people. The UAE, which annually received up to 15,000 Central Asian workers, recently increased the quota to 1 million people at once. Saudi Arabia also drew attention to the labor potential of the region, allolating 100,000 jobs at once.

Perhaps the most notable trend - labor migrants from Central Asia are interested in the West. In 2022, up to 6,000 citizens of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan worked in the UK alone. British demand for Central Asians splashed the war in Ukraine - most seasonal workers came from Ukraine.

He played his role and Brexit. The hiring of residents of the EU countries is now associated with a larger bureaucracy, while their salary requests are higher than that of Asians. As a result, in 2024, Britain increased quotas for Uzbek migrants to 10,000, for Kyrgyz - to 8 thousand, for Tajik - to 1 thousand people.

Interest in workers from Central Asia is also growing in the EU countries, especially in Eastern Europe. This is due to the outflow of their own citizens to earn money in the richer Western European countries. For example, in Slovakia, 75% of enterprises are experiencing a shortage of personnel, so in 2023, more than one and a half thousand Uzbek migrants worked at the Volkswagen Slovakia plant. Their average earnings are 1200-1600 euros, which is much more than Russian salaries.

There is also demand for Central Asian workers in Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Bulgaria. So far, there are not so many labor migrants from the region - from 2 to 5 thousand people - go to these countries. But the flows are growing. Recently, the Polish authorities proposed to add Uzbekistan to the list of countries for which there is a simplified procedure of legalization for work in the country. Now in Poland there are up to 3 thousand Uzbeks.

Of course, while Russia, where a million labor migrants enter annually from almost every Central Asian country, still in the first place, ahead of the rest of the countries by a large margin. Neither European nor Asian markets can replace Russia for migrant workers from Central Asia. Difficulties with collecting documents and obtaining visas, ignorance of languages, a new cultural environment further inhibit the process.

Nevertheless, it was impossible to imagine only ten years ago that instead of Russia, hundreds of thousands of Central Asians would go to work in Asia, and tens of thousands of people in Europe. Today, this is a reality, and the role of the Russian market will continue to decline. The reorientation of migrant workers to other countries is another loss that Russia suffered due to the invasion of Ukraine.

 

[zinz]

https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/07/19/gunman-assassinates-former-ukrainian-lawmaker-iryna-farion-outside-her-home-in-lviv

Ukrainian sabotage and political killings have been a feature since the start of the war. Now sabotage is also happening regularly inside Russia. 

I haven't heard that much the other way around though. How successful has Russia been in getting people in Ukraine to act on their behalf? 

[MikeyD]

On the topic of M113, Bradley, and expanding production lets remember the Bradley-based M113 replacement the... (let me double-check the name) M1283 AMPV. Army plans for 3,000 vehicles over the next 20 years. I don't think I can say the design has been streamlined for most efficient production but at lest its not Bradley.

Edited July 19 by MikeyD

[dan/california]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ukraine-the-latest/id1612424182?i=1000662762706

A lot of interesting stuff today. The most interesting bit is that the prospect of a change of government in the U.S.  is going to be the last and final nail in the Non Proliferation Treaty, there is talk about a joint crash effort in Eastern Europe. I am just assumming that Japan and South Korea quietly started a a week or three ago. They won't be the last. And these are just the countries that our on our side, at least historically.

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1e78ac5/ukraines_security_service_sbu_struck_and/

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) struck and destroyed a Russian self-propelled 240mm mortar (2S9 Nona-S) using a type of loitering munition, with aftermath later filmed by Russian soldiers (second part of video). From TG russianocontext. Published July 19, 2024

 

I thought it looked more like a TOS-1, or the reload vehicle for same. Both the TOS-1 and the heavy mortars seem to be very high priority targets for the entire Ukrainian military.