How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[acrashb]

For the next game (CMTS aka CM Taiwan Strait, which will need to model an opposed landing), not just UGV but air-dropped UGV: (CONSERVATIVE SITE, ENTER AT OWN RISK)

Shocking video shows Chinese robot attack dog with machine gun dropped by drone | Fox News

"A Chinese military contractor created a video showing off its terrifying new military technology, revealing a robot attack dog that can dropped off by a drone."

 

And more directly related to the strategic element of the Russo-Ukraine war: (LIBERAL SITE, ENTER AT OWN RISK)

Putin has been watching and waiting for this moment in Washington | CNN Politics

"For months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has waited and watched, hoping for a fracturing of the remarkable Washington consensus built by President Joe Biden on the need to do everything it takes to defend democracy in Ukraine."

[The_Capt]

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Drones are a prime example.  I remember seeing a Ukrainian special ops team driving into a forest outside of Kyiv and using a drone and a light mortar to target a Russian unit that they already knew (roughly) where it was.  Light mortar means the enemy was only 1000m or so away!   After firing their rounds, the climbed back into their SUV (not even a military vehicle!) and buggered out.  None of this was improvised.

We are going to have to wait until the end of the war but this seems improvised to be honest - I doubt you could find that written down in doctrine or training, especially considering it was SOF.  I also recall a lot of stories of light teams just going out and making trouble. In fact it was the UAs ability to improvise and then lean into what works that demonstrates they had the far superior learning system.

I anxiously await the post-war Ukrainian C2 analysis because I think what Ukraine did do ahead of the game was to create an incredibly agile system.  This was less likely due to perceived Russian weaknesses but instead because they were afraid of exactly what would happen, a massive multi-prong assault with them trying to defend along a border roughly the same length as Detroit to Seattle is you stretched it out.  One has to build improvisation and a lot of empowerment for lower level C2 in order to have a hope that hybrid distributed warfare would work.  

I also suspect we saw so much UA SOF because they were setting up for an insurgency post-invasion.  This also partially explains Javelin, NLAWs and MANPADS up front, artillery next and HIMARs later.   If Ukraine really understood how badly the RA would perform and how vulnerable they were, they would have asked for deep precision fires first - to be fair Ukraine was asking for everything and anything at the start of this…Feb and early March were nuts.

18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Again, they couldn't do these things because Putin's goals were not compatible with the alternatives.  There wasn't enough force available to drive to Lviv as well as Kyiv, for example. 

So now we land on an area where Russia sucking was determinative - politically.  I think a main effort on Lviv with support attacks on Kyiv and Kherson was possible, remember they made deep advances on 5, the problem was consolidation and security when Ukraine did not fall.  By dropping all the Donbas nonsense and whatever that gong-show was around Kharkiv they may have had enough combat power to do it, assuming they established some pre-conditions.  Either way the war would  have taken a different course.

Politically, particularly the interface between the political and military strategic level essentially own this mess.  The RA could tactically and operationally be much better but the objectives and mission they were given were completely upside down.  In the hands of a different political reality in Russia may have actually been able to align strategy and capability or at least not such a disaster.  By being a megalomaniac surrounded by yes-men and all of them smoking their own supply ensured that political meddling and military strategic cronie-ism they doomed this war from the start line. The military apparatus took on objectives and a strategy it could have achieved in the 90s but they were entirely blinded- and still are - to the realities of modern warfare, largely because the guy in charge was a complete amateur.  The RA sucking was just a bonus offshoot of a rotten higher echelon.

All that ran headlong into an opponent who was ready to conduct next-gen hybrid warfare and then, with support of the west, upscaled it into something else. In hindsight it is very obvious on how this would turn out

[acrashb]

18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

[...]They also know how good the West's forensics are and that the chances of them conducting such an attack AND avoiding detection would be slim to none. 

[...] Therefore, I suspect Russia is deliberately holding back some of its capacity out of fear it might escalate out of its control.

 

1) this is a good point.  Right now we have a clear idea as to who did the Colonial Pipeline attack.  However, everyone pretty much knows who blew the Nordstream pipeline(s), and that didn't stop or apparently deter Russia.

2) maybe.  I don't know about military cyber capabilities or more specifically the overall military cyber security posture, but I can tell you that the last ten years, accelerating in the last five, has seen huge strides in industry.  I'd say that on the whole on a 1-5 scale of a capability maturity model, industry has moved one or one and a have points forward (that's gut, not research). There are of course still gaps, especially in Operational Technology (OT) as shown in the Colonial Pipeline attack, but speaking as someone who has responded to NERC requirements, it gets better every year.

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by acrashb

[The_Capt]

22 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I have a clear recollection of some very sober (or not very sober) conversations where I was solemnly assured that the US, Russia, China (in descending order) had incredible cyber offensive capabilities but that defense was for all practical purposes impossible. There are only two options right now; either the Russians are exercising careful restraint or US cyber defenses (in expeditionary mode!) are far more robust than we were led to believe.  

Or like a whole lot of things assessment of Russian capability was way overblown. I can’t see Russia holding back at this point.  In fact it is pretty much too late now. 

If the US was able to project an airtight cyber defence over an entire nation in days, from banking systems to traffic lights…well I don’t have the words for that - we are talking alien level tech (I knew something went down at Roswell!).  If the US can then turn that to offence then why are we still talking about Russia? They should be completely crippled.

I have no idea to be honest but cyber really did not show up for this war, going to be very interesting to find out why.

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

We are going to have to wait until the end of the war but this seems improvised to be honest - I doubt you could find that written down in doctrine or training, especially considering it was SOF.  I also recall a lot of stories of light teams just going out and making trouble. In fact it was the UAs ability to improvise and then lean into what works that demonstrates they had the far superior learning system.

Maybe not written in a MoD manual, but this is the sort of stuff Ukraine had been developing in Donbas over many years.  Those guys who I just mentioned didn't improvise what they did, I'm sure of it.  And I'm only guessing that they were SOF as they were kitted out a bit cleaner than the TD units at the time and also were in a civilian vehicle.  But they could have been TDs for all I know.

7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I anxiously await the post-war Ukrainian C2 analysis because I think what Ukraine did do ahead of the game was to create an incredibly agile system. 

Pinky swear that if you get a report ahead of me that the next thing you do is send me a copy!  I promise to do the same if I land it first.

7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So now we land on an area where Russia sucking was determinative - politically.  I think a main effort on Lviv with support attacks on Kyiv and Kherson was possible, remember they made deep advances on 5, the problem was consolidation and security when Ukraine did not fall.  By dropping all the Donbas nonsense and whatever that gong-show was around Kharkiv they may have had enough combat power to do it, assuming they established some pre-conditions.  Either way the war would  have taken a different course.

There's a ton of logistics problems operating in western Belarus.  As badly as Russia might suck at logistics, I think they recognized that to conduct ops there without first establishing a huge supply base somewhere near Poland, would not work.  And stupidly Putin thought he could keep this whole thing quiet, therefore a big base wasn't a good idea. Plus it would be expensive and time consuming, two other things Putin doesn't like to hear about.

Plus, there were some larger constraints put on the whole operation.  It had to be done quickly and cheaply (no mobilization).  Lviv and the connection to NATO wasn't a threat to a 1-2 week operation, so striking in the west wasn't really necessary if the plan worked, er, as planned.

Putin's plan was pretty solid as far as plans go.  Clearly outlined and internally consistent.  It was just based on some really bad assumptions of capabilities of Ukraine's forces and what his forces could do.

7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Politically, particularly the interface between the political and military strategic level essentially own this mess.  The RA could tactically and operationally be much better but the objectives and mission they were given were completely upside down.  In the hands of a different political reality in Russia may have actually been able to align strategy and capability or at least not such a disaster.  

Yup.  I've said long before this war started, and 2 days before the war when it was clear it would be a full invasion, that if Putin has concentrated on enlarging the Donbas and establishing a land bridge he probably could have done that and held it for the foreseeable future.  Casualties would be high, but not catastrophic, and the unfriendly population small enough to deal with for the short term.  In a way, Ukraine is lucky that Russia gambled everything he has on taking over all of Ukraine.  A lot more pain and suffering now, but Russia will outright lose this war and possibly dissolve into internal chaos.  That would not have been the likely outcome of a more limited set of objectives.

7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

All that ran headlong into an opponent who was ready to conduct next-gen hybrid warfare and then, with support of the west, upscaled it into something else. In hindsight it is very obvious on how this would turn out

Yeah, but shame on the experts because I saw this with foresight, not hindsight

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

16 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Or like a whole lot of things assessment of Russian capability was way overblown. I can’t see Russia holding back at this point.  In fact it is pretty much too late now. 

If the US was able to project an airtight cyber defence over an entire nation in days, from banking systems to traffic lights…well I don’t have the words for that - we are talking alien level tech (I knew something went down at Roswell!).  If the US can then turn that to offence then why are we still talking about Russia? They should be completely crippled.

I have no idea to be honest but cyber really did not show up for this war, going to be very interesting to find out why.

I don't have much faith in defenses and Russia has the capability to attack.  That leans me more towards them deliberately not attacking.  I think the combination of the NATO threat and knowing that the West can cause a lot of damage to Russia are keeping them from going on the offensive.

Steve

[Beleg85]

5 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

On second thought since RU propagandists seem to be getting their ideas from B-movies and video games maybe I should not give them anymore ideas.

Btw. esthetic from American popculture from 80-90's is actually very popular among common population in post-Soviet states, including Ukrainian one. Albeit modern Ukraine army seems to prefer 60's imagined Vietnam. Almost every video showing helicopters or boats with soldiers must contain obligatory Jefferson Airplane, CCR or The Animals background. Maybe after some time they will abandon it into JAG. This serial was immensly popular here in Poland.

1 hour ago, Mattias said:

As a regular reader of this splendid thread I felt very much at home in the reasoning, but I think many of us can still pick up a nugget or two here:

Excellent video, most of the things we discussed here but nonetheless highly recommended to watch. Especially about postmodern character of Russian propaganda, Elvira Nabiullina's guilt (she is worse enabler of this madness than most Russian generals) and Putin utilizing its new mobilized biomass to gradually move population in favour of his war. Especially last point is important here, as it constitutes danger beyond pure military effectivness of mobiks- by simply throwing their lots into whole enterprise of war in Ukraine, they (and their families) will mostly align with Putin's cause. Given how apathetic RU is civic body, we can actually expect slight increase in war support just because they are there.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Beleg85

[Hapless]

24 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I have no idea to be honest but cyber really did not show up for this war, going to be very interesting to find out why.

My money is on cyber being the dog that didn't bark... because it's not a dog. And it can't bark.

[The_Capt]

10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Putin's plan was pretty solid as far as plans go.  Clearly outlined and internally consistent.  It was just based on some really bad assumptions of capabilities of Ukraine's forces and what his forces could do.

It was based on absence of the facts..at which point the plan is really a well constructed delusion.

I had heard of the challenges coming out south out of Belarus - they did have forces up there.  It looks like a massive swamp.  And next to the Polish border.  We are talking one hellava risk and some tight coordination to pull it off…but Russia is currently living what was behind door #2.  Of course the UA may have simply pulled out the same rabbit they did elsewhere and the RA would have died in a swamp too.  My point being that at least it was a viable plan.

Simply creeping in the Donbas, solidifying gains and “liberating” was also a workable plan.  Basically doing Phase II first while they still had half decent troops.  If they did that I am not sure the west would have gotten so worked up, particularly if they played the R2P card and had LRP and DRP leading the charge.  Keep it clean and try not to commit warcrimes.

Well I guess we will never know which is a good thing.  

[The_Capt]

21 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't have much faith in defenses and Russia has the capability to attack.  That leans me more towards them deliberately not attacking.  I think the combination of the NATO threat and knowing that the West can cause a lot of damage to Russia are keeping them from going on the offensive.

Steve

This may be against western targets but I am talking Ukraine itself.  Why hold back against an opponent you are lobbing cruise missiles at?  As I understand it deterrence in cyberspace is incredibly hard, so I am also not sure that is what is holding Russia at bay.

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Hapless said:

My money is on cyber being the dog that didn't bark... because it's not a dog. And it can't bark.

I would accept this except for teenagers that can turn off the US east coast has supply and cripple Canadian healthcare systems.  Trust government to fail where over-caffeinated teenagers thrive.

[NamEndedAllen]

Recent polling reported in yesterday’s ISR daily summary. Russian population attitude not showing widespread opinions that the regime is in trouble with the pubic. In fact quite the opposite. A data point in the endless speculations that Russia will collapse:

 “Russian independent polling organization Levada posted survey results on October 25 showing that the number of Russians desiring change has declined despite recent societal stresses introduced by sanctions, mobilization, and the war in Ukraine.[23] The Levada surveys conducted in late September show that the percentage of Russians who believe that Russia needs decisive, full-scale changes decreased from 59 percent in July 2019 to 47 percent in October 2022. The surveys show that the percentage of the Russian public that believes Russia needs only minor changes increased from 31 percent in July 2019 to 36 percent in October 2022 as did the number of Russians who said that Russia needs no change whatsoever, from 8 percent to 13 percent. The Levada surveys show that of those Russians desiring full-scale change, only 11 percent desire a change of government in some fashion. The Levada surveys also show that of those Russians desiring full-scale change, 10 percent desire that the war in Ukraine ends and that Russia begins negotiations with Ukraine. Many changes that Russians wish for are primarily focused on domestic economic issues.”  https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-25

 

[Haiduk]

Shakhtarsk town, Donetsk oblast (occupied since 2014), something hit Russian military train with fuel on local railway station

 

[A Canadian Cat]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

If Ukraine really understood how badly the RA would perform and how vulnerable they were, they would have asked for deep precision fires first

Oh yeah. Remember those long armoured and supply columns that were just sitting on the roads sometimes for days? Can you imagine the RA losses if UA had HIMARS back then? Talk about a missed opportunity.

[acrashb]

18 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

 Why hold back against an opponent you are lobbing cruise missiles at? 

Partly because cyber attacks famously spread beyond the intended area.  The satellite communications terminal attack I linked earlier was supposed to be isolated to Ukraine, and it leaking into Europe.  The Iran centrifuge attack has now leaked everywhere - "Stuxnet" is now purchasable or just plain downloadable from hacker websites.

And/or because Russian cyber capabilities are overestimated, under-directed and generally a shambles like other elements of their side of the war. "Russia Sucks^TM"

It will be more than one factor.

[Haiduk]

Captured fighter of Wagner PMC, enlisted from jail - you can see his dog-tag with ID, begining from K-letter. All "usual" PMC merceneries have ID with initial M-letter, but former jailed fighters have IDs with K-letter, so among UKR militaries they also named "Kashnyky" (derived from "Ka" - the letter and "-shnyky" - plural form, meaning "belonging to some group")

This guy tells he was jailed for murder, but he claims for "murder becuse of self-defense excess". He also told from his group in 50 men only 12 already left. They all live in one house under total control of Wagner troopers and can't walk away more than 100 m from this house.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Haiduk

[dan/california]

34 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup.  I've said long before this war started, and 2 days before the war when it was clear it would be a full invasion, that if Putin has concentrated on enlarging the Donbas and establishing a land bridge he probably could have done that and held it for the foreseeable future.  Casualties would be high, but not catastrophic, and the unfriendly population small enough to deal with for the short term.  In a way, Ukraine is lucky that Russia gambled everything he has on taking over all of Ukraine.  A lot more pain and suffering now, but Russia will outright lose this war and possibly dissolve into internal chaos.  That would not have been the likely outcome of a more limited set of objectives.

This is the key point at the highest world politics/strategic level. Putin made a HORRIBLE set of initial assumptions, about both Ukraine and his own military. These assumptions led to a plan so awful that it opened a trap door of epically, are you kidding me level bad outcomes under the entire Russian state.  And then at every decision point, except possibly the retreat from Kyiv, Putin has doubled down AGAIN. After the retreat from Kyiv Putin could have retreated to the 2/24 lines and probably gotten a cease fire on the basis of let us pretend it is 2/23 and this never happened. He didn't. He mobilized, with catastrophic incompetence, rather than dumping the L/DPR and just trying to hold Crimea. Now he is systematically feeding what is little is left of his better troops into a meat grinder in Kherson under impossible conditions.

Contrast this with the war between China and Vietnam in 1979. The Chinese realized it wasn't going well, withdrew to their own border and memory holed the whole thing so well that not one percent of the world population outside of this forum and/or a military staff college have the slightest idea it ever happened. Putin is just not the high functioning guy he was even five years ago. That or his hold on power is MUCH more fragile than we think, and he just can't survive admitting to a mistake.

[A Canadian Cat]

22 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This may be against western targets but I am talking Ukraine itself.  Why hold back against an opponent you are lobbing cruise missiles at?

That is what makes me lean towards their cyber is not as good as they claim / project.

I'm no expert hacker but I do know it takes some organization and patience to be ready to disrupt another country's power distribution or net work infrastructure. You have to probe their systems and verify that you have zero day vulnerabilities mapped out for each. For some you can insert something and wait but for most you cannot do that because it will likely be detected. Then you have to pay attention to when systems get updated because it might close your zero day attack plan and if that happens you have to develop another one. A cyber attack plan is not like a ransom where attack. For a cyber attack you have to be able to disrupt systems A, B and C all at the same time at H Hour. Otherwise it's just not useful.

The standard ransomware attack we read about is the success (from the criminal's point of view) story that is the one out of 1000 random and semi random phishing attacks the bad guys did last month. In other words they did not set out to disrupt gas supply or hospital systems those were just the places where some dummy clicked on a link and let some trojon horse into their system.

Having the capabilities to create havoc on some system you might get lucky to access is *not* the same as a directed cyber attack against an enemy.

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Or like a whole lot of things assessment of Russian capability was way overblown. I can’t see Russia holding back at this point.  In fact it is pretty much too late now. 

If the US was able to project an airtight cyber defence over an entire nation in days, from banking systems to traffic lights…well I don’t have the words for that - we are talking alien level tech (I knew something went down at Roswell!).  If the US can then turn that to offence then why are we still talking about Russia? They should be completely crippled.

I have no idea to be honest but cyber really did not show up for this war, going to be very interesting to find out why.

I was being a bit coy so to say it flat out I think two things happened.

1. The US effectively convinced peer competitors that it was a MAD situation in cyberwarfare when it reality the US possesses preponderant dominance.

2. Just as NATO would treat a strong cyber attack on NATO states as violating Article 5, doing so to Russia would have an unacceptable escalation risk.

  

[dan/california]

46 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Given how apathetic RU is civic body, we can actually expect slight increase in war support just because they are there.

The question is how they will feel when 100,000 of them have come home in cheap plywood coffins, because there isn't enough zinc? KIA running close to five hundred a day and winter is just barely thinking about making an appearance. I personally am predicting that weather and disease double that number.

[hcrof]

38 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This may be against western targets but I am talking Ukraine itself.  Why hold back against an opponent you are lobbing cruise missiles at?  As I understand it deterrence in cyberspace is incredibly hard, so I am also not sure that is what is holding Russia at bay.

Just like the physical fighting, the Russians have been cyber-attacking Ukraine since 2014 (and already took down the power network before) so I assume Ukraine is pretty resilient by now. 

[Letter from Prague]

Russia did bunch of cyberattacks. Both over the years (they managed to turn off utilities in Ukraine a few times in last decade and there was the whole NotPetya thing - for details, I remember excellent podcast Darknet Diaries) and recently, they attacked Romania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_DDoS_attacks_on_Romania

I agree that lot of the cyberattacks are spent when they execute, so I would speculate that Russia attacking Ukraine over the last decade kind of served as inoculation of sorts.

As for cyberattacking the West, Russia is doing that - do not forget that Russia's strongest weapon is misinformation, media manipulation, changing scope and topics of public debate, what is trending, etc. Brexit, Clinton's emails, Wikileaks, Antivaxxers, and so on. It is happening now more than ever before. Here in Czechia there's presidential elections soon, the leading candidate is a former Chair of the NATO Military Committee and suddenly there's hundreds of comments under every article how terrible he is. I'm pretty sure it is going to work and we'll get another Kremlin puppet after the last two.

As for attacking utilities and so on, I think some NATO spokesperson said that this will be responded as to actual attack. I'm not sure it would be, but Russia is pretty scared of NATO so that deterrent seems to be working.

[chrisl]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

There is a third option too: Russian cyber capabilities are also overblown and not nearly as good as they claimed.

And anybody they had who is good can do a lot better working on commercial software for western companies.

[dan/california]

 

[sross112]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks again for the translations!

Interesting.  So it seems the facts on the ground indicate that Russia is not withdrawing fighting forces, but instead reinforcing them?  If the reports are accurate, and there's no reason to doubt them, it indicates that Putin is unwilling to do the sensible thing, militarily, and withdraw.  In fact, he's just giving Ukraine more opportunity to kill or capture Russians. 

It sounds like the fighting is going to get tougher for Ukraine, but I'm really unsure how much.  These units, even if fairly rested and equipped, are just as unlikely to stop Ukraine as the previous units were.  And as the Russian perimeter shrinks, it's easier for Ukraine to find and degrade the defenders.

The extra reinforcements puts additional strains on Russia's overstretched logistics.  That's not something they can magically fix.  Which means the units there are going to have to compete with the resources they need to keep fighting.

Kherson is definitely a battle I'm going to want to read about in great detail when the history books are written, that's for sure.

Steve

I think the Russian primary military and political goal is to hold Kherson (I know, kind of a no brainer). With that being said, I also think that most military people from around the world would look at the situation and come to the conclusion that it can't be held indefinitely with the compromised logistics that the RA is operating with. So the secondary objective becomes, in true Russian abusive relationship fashion, that if they can't have her no one will. I think they are going to try to turn Kherson into a Mariupol or Stalingrad. Basically try to make it a pyrrhic victory for the UA by causing as many casualties as possible and having Kherson be a pile of rubble in the end that they can get Amnesty International to blame on Ukraine.

I don't think the UA is going to play their game though. I think they are smarter than that and they will instead keep up the slow grind on the RA assets as they are presented. They get to inflict losses on the best units the RA has to offer as well as degrade their systems in depth. The Kherson area may look like it is the most favorable to a defender with the long sight lines and flatter terrain with less cover, but that is more applicable to the battlefields of 40 years ago and not today. With the ISR, PGM and long range fire advantage held by the UA it actually makes that terrain less defensible due to it being harder to conceal your forces. This also explains why we see so many more strikes down south on logistics, AA, arty and command centers. I think the UA will just keep killing them until what is left of the RA around Kherson leaves or surrenders on their own. I'll be surprised if they take the bait and try to fight for Kherson block by block before the RA is thoroughly broken and dissolving on its own. 

I could be wrong in my assessment but it will be very interesting to read about the planning of these operations in the years to come. Kharkiv makes sense to me being about taking area back because it was more about breaking the logistics chain out of Belgorod than the actual liberation of the area itself. I know that liberating territory and the Ukrainian people living under the Russian occupation is very important politically and to the Ukrainian people, but I think the UA has done a very good job of keeping its eye on the military ball of killing Russians and degrading their systems and logistics as that allows them to eventually liberate everyone without taking immense losses trying to force the outcome before they have shaped the battle. When looking at Kherson, to me it is a long series of shaping with short bursts of clearing when the time and conditions are ripe.