How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

 

[kraze]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Something to be said.  We are fortunate to have at least four Ukrainians in the Kyiv area who regularly post to this thread.  Since the terror strikes disrupted their lives we haven't seen much activity from them.  That is perfectly understandable.  I presume their daily routines got seriously upended in addition to it being more difficult to maintain connections to the internet.  The interactions with our Ukrainian members ensures we have a direct connection to this war each and every day we discuss it.  It is of great benefit to us all, as thinkers and as caring Human Beings, and I'm sure we all miss their contributions.  But the connections they have helped make between us and this war remains even in their temporary absence.

Slava Ukraini!

Steve

It's just that there's not much to post when nothing major happens daily apart from the usual things.

On Oct 10th when strikes happened in my district electricity was turned off only after missiles stopped coming (probably to do load balancing). It was off for 12 hrs and that's it, but it wasn't much of a problem, just an annoyance because I (just like many others) expected russians to do it, so I bought a portable power plant - which was enough for phones and a laptop - among other things like canned food and an oil eater. So in my case a large part of the evening was spent playing boardgames with my gf using candles and flashlights and watching neighbors using theirs too.

I just didn't expect them to do it too early, when it's 15C+. Crimean bridge certainly forced them to make stupid decisions.

[Haiduk]

Meanwhile Russian PMCs likely leveled up to private army corps, due to LostArmour talks

 

They write PMCs enlisted about 6000 of jailed and enlisting is going on. Also "usual" enlistment is continuing and for September as if two brigades trained. In presert time Wagner as army corps has about five brigades, artillery brigade (howitzers+ heavy MLRS+Malkas), engineer-sapper brigade, aviation squadron (Su-25, but likely it will be expand soon to mixed aviation regiment with MiG-29SMT and Su-24M) 

"Wagner coprs" already almost completely conducted warfare in Bakhmut itself and is taking some neighbour areas - this allowed to free one LPR "regular" brigade to move it to "Kharkiv front" 

Weapons of PMC units:

This is some mistakingly opinion, that Russians don't want to make war. Wagner public in Rissian social media VKontakte has about 300 000 subscribers. Russians maybe don't want to go in regular army, but Prigozhin's propaganda and really more successfull actions of PMC in Syria, Africa, Ukraine, than Army make the hiring much more good alternative for motivated people. 

Russian PMC have very tough, skilled and motivated comamnders and main core of "sergeants" and veteran-soldiers  - they are either real "dogs of war", passed not one local war, or just people, who like to shoot, kill and plunder and they can keep in tough subordination other new-enlistment people. They can be w/o military experience (though in Wagner 2014-2016 were only experienced troopers) or just venturers, or money seekers, or jailed, but unlike in army they can't be "refuzenik" in PMC. They can be shot out by own commander immediately. And nobody will know about it. 

Other strong side of PMCs - their commanders, like and their Azov vis-a-vis are real "battllefield soldiers", and actively absorb best experience of other troops, try some own developments and have much more flexible tactic, that regular Russian army, which deadly stuck to textbooks. So, PMC can have many "cannon fodder" with mimimal training, but actig with crack merceneries under command of "dogs of war" they can achieve results.

What more - motivation and awarding. If you good fighter, you can do fast carrier, and get more money much faster, than in the army. But as told one of Wagner fighters - PMC is a "elite club", but with only one ticket to enter. You can leave PMC only in three cases - death, heavy wound or age retirement. 

So, now we can see how to establish this DerliWagner - absolutely illegal military structure for Russian law system, but much more effective, than regular army.  

Edited October 14, 2022 by Haiduk

[Zeleban]

16 minutes ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:

In the category of "we are very lucky they are so F-ing stupid" (not a category designed to narrow things down, I admit) we have this:

Yes, those do appear to be ERA blocks attached to the cab of a truck.

Not entirely sure what he thinks it will do for him.

 

What's the difference, the main thing is that it looks cool.

[Bulletpoint]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Well, it was only a matter of time before Putin would have to do this.  The only other way to end the mil blogger problem would be to win the war.  That ship already sailed and sunk.

Why doesn't he just mobilize them all and send them to the front? If anyone complains they are too old or infirm, it's a regrettable mistake by a too eager recruitment officer who has now been reprimanded.

[acrashb]

52 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

OK, count me as now being a member of Team Truck   He's finally convinced me.

That wasn't so hard, was it?  

Part of the reluctance for several people was the assumption that Russia always lies - and they said it was a truck bomb.  It's more helpful to think of their statements as Bull**** in the academic sense.  Statements that, while they may be true or false, are made without regard for truth but instead with an intended effect.

Regards why truck bomb vs. rail car, it's possible that this was a matter of various irons in the fire and opportunity.   Or it communicates that no-one in Russia is safe, regardless of whether or not they live by a rail line

And there's no reason to suspect a suicide bomber.  While it is possible, as sross112 says, that Ukraine could generate such, many suicide bombers are caught because of stress behaviours pre-detonation.  Hard enough to get a truck bomb setup in Russia without adding that layer.  GPS-triggered detonation would be more reliable and precise in any event.

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by acrashb

[Bulletpoint]

On 10/10/2022 at 6:18 PM, Battlefront.com said:

I'm willing to eat crow by favoring a missile  

  

55 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

OK, count me as now being a member of Team Truck   He's finally convinced me.

 

[dan/california]

99% this is Russians falling for a plywood dummy. No secondaries at all. Interesting that they released the vid.

[Sojourner]

9 minutes ago, dan/california said:

99% this is Russians falling for a plywood dummy. No secondaries at all. Interesting that they released the vid.

Well, they did hit something, that's new.

[sburke]

16 minutes ago, Sojourner said:

Well, they did hit something, that's new.

that wasn't a civilian

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

Mobiks not having a good time

Ukrainains to differ LDPR and Russian mobilaized name the first "mobiks" and latter "chmobiks"

Chmobiks is a playword, derived from Russian "chastichnaya mobilizatsiya" (eng. partial mobilization) and a soubriquet of Russian soldier "chmonya" from offensive word "chmo"  - some sort of "ugly, disgusting lout". But + "-nya" turns this word in contemptus diminitive: "ugly disgusting lout and pityful looser". Ukranians were amazed, when seen first Russian POWs. Instead "tall athlets" we have seen... this... in dirty oversized uniform... So regular Russian soldier-contractor is "chmonya" and mobilized is "chmobik" ) 

 

 

[Haiduk]

@sburke

Lt.colonel Dmitriy Proskurin, likely some logistic unit (in June 2022 he finished Logistical support Academy)

Lt.colonel Rustem Gataulin (old photo, where he is major), artillery chief of some motor-rifle brigade

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

  

 

Heh... yup!  I've tried, quite hard, to not be dismissive of the truck bomb theory.  I always thought it was possible, I just didn't think it was the most likely case. 

I am still surprised, but then again Ukraine does like to keep this war interesting by changing things from time to time.  Then again, the Russians change things too, like going from T-90 to T-62 and from AK-74 to AKM

Steve

[Probus]

2 hours ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:

In the category of "we are very lucky they are so F-ing stupid" (not a category designed to narrow things down, I admit) we have this:

Yes, those do appear to be ERA blocks attached to the cab of a truck.

Not entirely sure what he thinks it will do for him.

He's in for a double surprise.  Surprise, surprise (but just a few milliseconds apart).  The clue should be in the title, Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA)...

[Beleg85]

2 hours ago, sross112 said:

There were thoughts both ways as to whether an unsuspecting driver or a suicide bomber was used. I believe in one of your posts you questioned the ability of Ukraine to produce suicide bombers. I'm personally in favor of the unsuspecting, but it could be either way. As for suicide bombers I've seen a couple videos now of men who have lost their wives and children to Russian missile attacks. Throw in the rape, torture and kidnapping of relatives throughout the occupied areas and I'd bet strongly there are more than a handful of people that would step forward to take an explosive revenge on Russia even if it means forfeiting their lives. 

We normally equate suicide bombers to religious radicals, and that makes sense as that is predominantly what we've seen for the past several decades. There are many more reasons for making the ultimate sacrifice though and strongest among them would be love, loss and hate. All of which appear to run deep in Ukraine due to this war and the actions of the invaders.

There was enough people during WWII that would voluntarily ask for suicide missions. By comparision, in years 1937-39 several thousand in Poland declared themselves as willing to become living torpedoes or early "kamikaze" in case of hostilities. Program was not put in motion, but similar ideas were theoretically run even in UK, Italy etc.

The best argument against conscious suicide bomber is probably difficulty to keep your face straight and emotions checked during search before entering a bridge. It may be too much to look normal when scrutinized by guards; unless there was no search and truck simply entered bridge area.

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

MoD doesn't have the power to do this sort of thing without Putin's blessing.  Which means Putin might have picked a side.

Interesting development, but perhaps too early to tell if Putin favours military now. Some milbloggers were harassed from time to time anyway, and considering the stakes are now higher due to mobilization, regime may simply wish to have tighter control over them.

 

Interesting thing...it seems French company that supplied Russians with fuel may face official (criminal?) charges:

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20221014-france-s-totalenergies-faces-legal-case-for-allegedly-fuelling-russian-bombers

+1 for France

[poesel]

I think this infographic (not mine) shows the effect a tactical nuke would have:

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, acrashb said:

That wasn't so hard, was it?  

Nope, wasn't hard at all.  I'm only interested in what really happened, not what I might imagine happened.  I thought people were too quick to jump onto the truck bomb explanation.  Especially MSM, because they just took the Russian explanation at face value and ran stories with it.

2 hours ago, acrashb said:

Part of the reluctance for several people was the assumption that Russia always lies - and they said it was a truck bomb.  It's more helpful to think of their statements as Bull**** in the academic sense.  Statements that, while they may be true or false, are made without regard for truth but instead with an intended effect.

Yeah, I wrote a couple of detailed posts about this.  As I said in that, the Russians had to go with the least embarrassing reason their bridge blew up.  I expect most of the "evidence" and arrests they did after were complete bogus, but that isn't incompatible with it being a truck bomb.

2 hours ago, acrashb said:

Regards why truck bomb vs. rail car, it's possible that this was a matter of various irons in the fire and opportunity.   Or it communicates that no-one in Russia is safe, regardless of whether or not they live by a rail line

Certainly the truck bomb sends a more powerful message to the Kremlin.  I've been thinking for several days that it could be due to unique circumstances that "fell into Ukraine's lap".  It might be difficult to replicate the success.

Another problem I had with the truck  bomb theory, but didn't specify in any? of my posts, is that a truck bomb has the potential to have blowback from its Western allies.  Using the same tactics that terrorists use, no matter how legally and morally justified, is not a concept that Westerners are likely comfortable with.  Which is both good and silly at the same time.  Good because Westerners do, generally, believe there should be rules to war and silly because Russia doesn't and is actively trying to wipe Ukraine out of existence.

War is inherently icky.

2 hours ago, acrashb said:

And there's no reason to suspect a suicide bomber.  While it is possible, as sross112 says, that Ukraine could generate such, many suicide bombers are caught because of stress behaviours pre-detonation.  Hard enough to get a truck bomb setup in Russia without adding that layer.  GPS-triggered detonation would be more reliable and precise in any event.

There are a whole bunch of unanswered questions.  Here are mine in order of importance in my view:

1.  "Why not a fuel or ammo train?" - we've discussed this enough that I'll skip explaining why this is #1 for me.

 

2.  "Who drove the truck?" - obviously the most straight forward possibility is a suicide driver with a command trigger in the cab with him.  It offers superior control of unanticipated variables, including targeting the train or prematurely detonating if discovered.

The second option is random driver for hire.  The guy picks up the loaded trailer, drives to where he's told, and the bomb is detonated by an external source (I include GPS as external).

We don't have enough reliable information to even guess.  However, from a International Law standpoint the suicide bomber is acceptable provided there was on coercion, while deliberately killing a civilian (and hiring him knowing he's going to go boom is deliberate) is illegal.  There is no room in the law for exceptions, so if Ukraine went with the random civilian trucker then they just lost some points in the eyes of the West.

 

3.  "How does the train play into all of this?" - if this had been a missile hit then ISR capabilities we know Ukraine has would likely allow them to have planned on hitting the train.  But with a truck bomb it becomes far more difficult to time things correctly, especially if the driver is not part of the plot.  Lots and lots of random things could cause a delay getting onto the bridge that would preclude targeting the train.  However, an unaware driver would not be aiming to be on the bridge at a specific enough time to make targeting a train plausible.  He could have eaten a bad batch of borscht that caused him to pull over to a rest stop for 20 minutes to "clean out the pipes" or fancied a stop at a favorite strip club.

If the driver was unaware then it is likely the bomb was remote detonated by someone pushing a button and not by GPS.  That someone was probably watching from a drone.  The winds weren't that bad and a small quadcopter would not likely tripped any air defense alarms (and even if it did, it wouldn't likely matter).  A chase car is possible, but it would be very risky as the driver could have been killed, injured, or captured.

 

4.  "Was this specific section of bridge targeted over the more obvious suspension section?" - whether or not the driver was part of the plot or unaware the specific point of detonation would be deliberate, but we don't know if it was their first choice or if it was due to the train being where it was.  The plotters might have determined the detonation should be mid span vs. over a pier, though given what we've seen of the engineering I think directly over a pier would have worked just fine.

 

Anyway, just some thoughts to show that I've been pondering this truck angle way more than I might have led on

Steve

[Sojourner]

A lot of unanswered questions hinge on how the bomb was detonated - driver, timer, GPS, remote observer, .. ?
Not sure how good Russian forensics are and whether they would be able to find the "smoking gun", and if they did announce it could it be believed?

I'm entertaining a theory that it might have been an inside job to provoke Putin into getting more aggressive, or to just make him look bad. They probably didn't expect to cause as much damage - either miscalculated the amount of explosive or didn't account for the flimsy nature of the bridge, and the proximity of the fuel train was an unlucky accident (or lucky depending on your point of view).

[paxromana]

11 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The second option is random driver for hire.  The guy picks up the loaded trailer, drives to where he's told, and the bomb is detonated by an external source (I include GPS as external).

We don't have enough reliable information to even guess.  However, from a International Law standpoint the suicide bomber is acceptable provided there was on coercion, while deliberately killing a civilian (and hiring him knowing he's going to go boom is deliberate) is illegal.  There is no room in the law for exceptions, so if Ukraine went with the random civilian trucker then they just lost some points in the eyes of the West.

I am noit entirely sure that your reading of IHL on this is entirely correct ... 

Say a civilian truck with a civilian driver was carrying a military cargo (even military issue toothpicks) - then it would be 100% legitimate to plant a bomb in said truck and blow it to kingdom come. Arguably, since it was transiting a military target (the bridge) it became a legitimate target simply by doing so ... so a GPS trigger set to go off only on the bridge would probably be legitimate(ish)

IHL (well, the Geneva & Hague Conventions, at least) can be remarkably brutal when push comes to shove - for example, in a siege it is legitimate for the besieging force to shoot and and kill any civilians attempting to leave the besieged locality on the basis that it could be a ruse by the besieged forces to get rid of useless mouths and therefore extend the period they can feed themselves.

And, in general, while the deliberate targeting of civilians and purely civilian infrastructure is prohibited IHL acknowledges that even 'smart' weapons are not 100% accurate and may therefore, regrettably, hit civilian targets which are close by (and that dumb weapons are even less accurate) ... and also allow as how many items of mostly civilian infrastructure are dual use ... power plants, for example, provide power to civilian and military users which makes them legitimate targets despite all the hand wringing about 'war crimes'

(As an aside, the whole of the war is a War Crime ... planning and waging a war of aggression ... but not all of the individual events are crimes in and of themselves).

 

[MSBoxer]

24 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

If the driver was unaware then it is likely the bomb was remote detonated by someone pushing a button and not by GPS.  That someone was probably watching from a drone.  The winds weren't that bad and a small quadcopter would not likely tripped any air defense alarms (and even if it did, it wouldn't likely matter).  A chase car is possible, but it would be very risky as the driver could have been killed, injured, or captured.

This has been my thought; except I would have the "chase car" follow the truck onto the bridge and then pass the truck.  Get 100 yards ahead and then once I spotted the train, wait for the truck to get into position then detonate.

The trigger man could then proceed into Crimea un-scathed and continue home or to next mission.

Judging by the spray and waves I would not risk using a drone.

[FancyCat]

Long thread on Russian logistics. 

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1581023172346118144.html

Nothing new, Russia will need to either repair the bridge, or effectively use the road network via Novoazovsk-Mariupol-Berdyansk-Melitopol to supply the southern front. 

 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

55 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Long thread on Russian logistics. 

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1581023172346118144.html

Nothing new, Russia will need to either repair the bridge, or effectively use the road network via Novoazovsk-Mariupol-Berdyansk-Melitopol to supply the southern front. 

 

 

This.

Russian military logistics is in every way a step backwards: it is built exclusively around railways and is highly dependent on a network of large logistics centers.

Also

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[danfrodo]

Some items not seen here yet, some funny comments.  Update from Markos of dailykos.  Interesting bit about US ranger school -- sounds way worse than I imagined.

LIBERAL SITE, ENTER AT OWN PERIL (I see complaints about this, but still I think it's a nice gesture.  I could change my mind, but haven't yet)

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/14/2129010/-Ukraine-update-Ukraine-inches-closer-to-Svatove-as-Russia-shells-its-own-city-Belgorod-twice

 

[LongLeftFlank]

Great little 15 minute YT mini-doco of a 'day in the life' of a UA drone operator supporting a tactical attack in the Kherson direction. Very well done and worth a look.

Part 1 of 2  Cliffhanger ending, sorry.  I don't think Part 2 is up yet. The Terra Ops YT feed has some good (i.e. long takes, not jumpcut to incoherence) dronecam action vids, but this is the best I've seen yet in terms of telling the story. 

It is like the commander (callsign TALMUD lol) is playing CM but having a second party describe the visuals to him based on a level 5 view (and not being allowed to click on units for their exact status).

(plug:  This is why I so want CM to have designers allowed to assign 'execute until interrupted' AI plans to selected player side forces)

Edited October 15, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Kinophile]

6 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Meanwhile Russian PMCs likely leveled up to private army corps, due to LostArmour talks

 

They write PMCs enlisted about 6000 of jailed and enlisting is going on. Also "usual" enlistment is continuing and for September as if two brigades trained. In presert time Wagner as army corps has about five brigades, artillery brigade (howitzers+ heavy MLRS+Malkas), engineer-sapper brigade, aviation squadron (Su-25, but likely it will be expand soon to mixed aviation regiment with MiG-29SMT and Su-24M) 

"Wagner coprs" already almost completely conducted warfare in Bakhmut itself and is taking some neighbour areas - this allowed to free one LPR "regular" brigade to move it to "Kharkiv front" 

Weapons of PMC units:

This is some mistakingly opinion, that Russians don't want to make war. Wagner public in Rissian social media VKontakte has about 300 000 subscribers. Russians maybe don't want to go in regular army, but Prigozhin's propaganda and really more successfull actions of PMC in Syria, Africa, Ukraine, than Army make the hiring much more good alternative for motivated people. 

Russian PMC have very tough, skilled and motivated comamnders and main core of "sergeants" and veteran-soldiers  - they are either real "dogs of war", passed not one local war, or just people, who like to shoot, kill and plunder and they can keep in tough subordination other new-enlistment people. They can be w/o military experience (though in Wagner 2014-2016 were only experienced troopers) or just venturers, or money seekers, or jailed, but unlike in army they can't be "refuzenik" in PMC. They can be shot out by own commander immediately. And nobody will know about it. 

Other strong side of PMCs - their commanders, like and their Azov vis-a-vis are real "battllefield soldiers", and actively absorb best experience of other troops, try some own developments and have much more flexible tactic, that regular Russian army, which deadly stuck to textbooks. So, PMC can have many "cannon fodder" with mimimal training, but actig with crack merceneries under command of "dogs of war" they can achieve results.

What more - motivation and awarding. If you good fighter, you can do fast carrier, and get more money much faster, than in the army. But as told one of Wagner fighters - PMC is a "elite club", but with only one ticket to enter. You can leave PMC only in three cases - death, heavy wound or age retirement. 

So, now we can see how to establish this DerliWagner - absolutely illegal military structure for Russian law system, but much more effective, than regular army.  

Jesus Christ,  it's like as if the Marines were owned by Peter Thiel.