How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

The second BMD-2, captured in Vysokopillia. So, two BMD-2 and BTR-D. TG channel claims vehicles were captured by forces of 1st National Guard Special purpose brigade

Edited September 4, 2022 by Haiduk

[DesertFox]

Boom! Balakliya in the Kharkiv Region today.

 

 

[Haiduk]

Pions still in action. On Kherson front too

[dan/california]

12 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Pions still in action. On Kherson front too

That is a REALLY good photo. Is there a truly hi res version. I might make it my background.

[OldSarge]

28 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Pions still in action. On Kherson front too

Thanks! It is just about the right size to add that as a CMBS force background picture to the Z folder.

[stuxneet]

18 minutes ago, dan/california said:

That is a REALLY good photo. Is there a truly hi res version. I might make it my background.

Unfortunately could only find the Getty watermarked original on Google  
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainian-artillery-unit-fires-with-a-2s7-pion-a-self-news-photo/1242731892

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, stuxneet said:

Unfortunately could only find the Getty watermarked original on Google  
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainian-artillery-unit-fires-with-a-2s7-pion-a-self-news-photo/1242731892

If I had that kind of pocket money I would give it to a Ukrainian charity.

[DesertFox]

On level with a crop harvester...

 

 

[dan/california]

Just now, DesertFox said:

On level with a crop harvester...

 

 

Pilots ^$@^ can be seen from space, even on a RUSSIAN satellite.

[Sojourner]

49 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Pions still in action. On Kherson front too

Kharkiv region, 26 August, per caption at Getty site. Photographer has some other nice shots there as well - stuxneet posted the link.

[poesel]

'We Don't Have An Army': Russian Father Volunteers After His Son Killed In Ukraine, But Returns Disillusioned

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-soldier-father-son-ukraine-war/32015966.html

I guess this guy is far beyond from fearing any repercussions for telling the truth.

[DesertFox]

6 minutes ago, poesel said:

'We Don't Have An Army': Russian Father Volunteers After His Son Killed In Ukraine, But Returns Disillusioned

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-soldier-father-son-ukraine-war/32015966.html

I guess this guy is far beyond from fearing any repercussions for telling the truth.

Disgusting! This is telling. He has no remorse to what the orcs are doing there and that they are the aggressor. He is only complaining that they are ill prepared and bad lead.

[Bennie]

2 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Disgusting! This is telling. He has no remorse to what the orcs are doing there and that they are the aggressor. He is only complaining that they are ill prepared and bad lead.

I didn't see it this way at all. He says, "What are we doing here? They are our brothers; it gets hard to shoot." I mean, how much more can he say with current political climate?

[cesmonkey]

6 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Disgusting! This is telling. He has no remorse to what the orcs are doing there and that they are the aggressor. He is only complaining that they are ill prepared and bad lead.

... except in the last part of the video he says he doesn't understand why they are there shooting at "their brothers".

[Zeleban]

4 minutes ago, Bennie said:

I didn't see it this way at all. He says, "What are we doing here? They are our brothers; it gets hard to shoot." I mean, how much more can he say with current political climate?

He directly says that Shoigu and other generals should have been better prepared for the war. He does not say that this war should not be.

Putin and Girkin also insist that the Ukrainians are our brothers, our people. This does not mean that they will stop killing us.

[Zeleban]

Russian words mean nothing at all. They do not decide anything, they have delegated absolute power to their leader. He decides everything for the Russians

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Bennie said:

I didn't see it this way at all. He says, "What are we doing here? They are our brothers; it gets hard to shoot." I mean, how much more can he say with current political climate?

Perhaps it would be better to correct that view in face of what we know about Ruyssian psyche and propaganda. Nothing new here, typical disgruntled veteran. Playing the card of "surprised and dissapointed big brother who wept at old family photos" against Ukrainians is also fairly normal in Russia. It's rather emotional culture, one can easily come from anger and violence to love and sentimentalism. Sometimes in the same sentence.

1 hour ago, cesmonkey said:

... except in the last part of the video he says he doesn't understand why they are there shooting at "their brothers".

True. But just like Lukoil statement from March, context should be added at the end : UkroNazis forces us to do this.

This is one guy, so he is probably genuine and simply fed up with war. But as it will be more and more apparent Putin is loosing visibly, we may expect more of this kind of virtue signalling from regime. Entire weeping Russian propaganda sessions with theme of unrequited brotherly love will get more  frequent. "We wanted to bring them back to family, but they didn't reciprocated. Their choice; it is just very very sad.", but this time from position of sentimentalism for lost past, not brutal superiority. May help to sweeten Putin failure in face of population.

Of course, as always a lot of tankies/pacifists in the West will inevitably fall for it reading as good signal; they always look out for "good Russian" figures like water in the desert.

Edited September 4, 2022 by Beleg85

[dan/california]

He is in team Steve, nothing matters but inflicting Russian casualties.

[Artkin]

1 hour ago, DesertFox said:

On level with a crop harvester...

 

 

I wonder if it's software controlled, and I also wonder if the helicopters came that way

[kevinkin]

Genghis Khan on steroids. 

[Huba]

22 minutes ago, dan/california said:

He is in team Steve, nothing matters but inflicting Russian casualties.

So I just watched Wolski's weekly summary of the war, this time done in cooperation with col. Lewandowski of the Polish Army. Again, no translations is available, but here are some takes:

1. They are rather pessimistic regarding how cut off russians really are. There are reportedly field pipelines delivering fuel across the river, practically impossible to identify and shut down. RU has a huge fleet of transport helicopters (Mi-26 anyone?), but first and foremost, it is very hard to interdict the ferries. However, artillery ammunition in regular quantities might be a problem.

2. In their opinion, the initall plan was to create rapid breakthroughs to collapse the whole RU position, and that failed. Now we have plan B with slow push. It might still work, but it is far from being clear now.

3. What is critical is pushing the lines so the crossings are withing artillery fire, this would stop any supply going through in any quantities. It would mean enlarging the salient from Sukhyi Stavok further south at least 10 - 15 km.

4. They didn't entertain the idea of attritional battle at all, from their POV RU has more reserves than UA and is able to deploy them (this is a headscratcher to me, as this is exactly what is going on in my an this here forum's opinion). They noted unusually high armor losses on RU side though.

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Huba

[sburke]

2 minutes ago, Huba said:

4. They didn't entertain the idea of attritional battle at all, from their POV RU has more reserves than UA and is able to deploy them (this is a headscratcher to me, as this is exactly what is going on in my an this here forum's opinion). They noted unusually high armor losses on RU side though.

 

you'd think that fact alone would cause them to rethink their assumptions

[Huba]

9 minutes ago, sburke said:

you'd think that fact alone would cause them to rethink their assumptions

Yup, exactly. I value this podcast very much, as it often brings unique pieces of data (like the mentioned underwater pipelines, who would have thought?) but the overall analysis from Wolski is rather narrowed down to traditional "big war" operational thinking, which as we established here, is not working  100% anymore.

Edit:

Bayraktaring is becoming a thing on the Kherson front it seems:

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Huba

[billbindc]

Would Ukraine have that hard of a time figuring out where Russian pipelines were given US ISR and analytical capabilities plus their own on the ground humint? Actually…no, they wouldn’t. That strikes me as one of those things that experts say to sound smart but…well….isn’t.

[FancyCat]

A reminder, betrayal of blood means a harsher response than say, some random people off the street choosing to go to another restaurant. Russian discourse on blood, isn't merely to emphasize the position of familiarity, it's also to justify the brutality of their repression as proper punishment for Ukrainian betrayal of their blood ties. 

Think about honor killings, being done by members of the victims' family, despite the closeness one would assume of the family members. The familiarity is nothing more than justification for control.