How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Blazing 88's]

7 hours ago, THH149 said:

I saw RF drone footage of a MLRS firing at Rf positions then driving across the city to this Sport Life gym and reverse in. The RF knew what was there and bombed it in the same drone footage YT upload. The explosion seems aimed to flatten the gym and the ground floor adjacent.

Not sure if the rest of the building was flattened as well but the gym doesnt exist anymore.

Good RF use of drones and a precision strike, I guess.

If those units were still there. The strike occurred at night, that vid was during daylight. Wiped out the storage and hiding spot for sure, we'll never know about the launchers.

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, DesertFox said:

 

 

This is wrong photo. If this not our PsyOps operation, Russian tank driver brought to us T-72A. Knowingly, Russians use robbed cell phoes, so our ELINT units of SBU or Intelligence Directorate are sending on this cell.numbers SMS with a terms of surrender. As if one Russian tank driver communicated with Ukraianian side and told he is ready to surrender with own tank. As if other two crewmens alredy deserted, their unit have lack of food, chaotic command&control etc. Their commander threat to all other to shot out if anybody else will deserted.

Our SOF gave to him a place of rendezvous and when the tank appeared, the drone was took off to make shure this is not ambush. The tanker was captured and brought to safe place. Russian trooper reportedly will be interned to the end of war in comfort room with bath and TV. After war will over, he will receive 10 000$ of award for tank and he can apply for Ukraianian citizenship. 

Here the photo of catpturing. 

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Haiduk

[Sarjen]

And again we have Belarus option on the table. This time from a good source.

 

[Haiduk]

Abandoned vehicles of 2nd Guard "Tamanskaya" motor-rifle division, probably Sumy oblast. T-72B3, 2 BTR-80 and some unidentified, likely a truck

 

[Haiduk]

2 minutes ago, Sarjen said:

And again we have Belarus option on the table. This time from a good source.

 

On the other hand official Minsk yesterday claimed their 38th air-assault brigade moved from the border to own barracks. 

[Kinophile]

17 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Not so fast. They moved new units here, Marines in this time. Their NW group try to advance to Zhytomyr oblast

Yah but aren't the Marines a bit unreliable right now? Plus sending up north into the relentless meat grinder of Kiev AO is probably not great for morale, either, no?

But hey, if they want to decimate yet another specialist assault formation in land-locked positional attrition...well go ahead, enjoy...

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Is this not also the "best-case" for Russia as well?  I have no doubt that there are those in the power streams that are thinking exactly this right now.  Questions is, what will it take them to act?  Putin does not have a coherent ideology behind him.  He has patriotism, "Russia world power" and the ideology of "Putin Stay in Power".  This makes him a lot more vulnerable when compared to other autocrats who successfully built a cohesive ideology around them (e.g. communism, fascism, Nazis, whatever is going on in NK).  Further, if he is failing in the first two planks of his platform, "patriotism" vs "dragging the country into a useless war", and "Russia as world Power" vs "losing said useless war", then we are down to "Putin Stay in Power". 

It is becoming in the best interest of a lot of powerful people that he is 1) removed and 2) blamed while they were "just following orders" as it creates a viable exit scenario from this mess.  But we will have to see.

Agreed, but my point was about whether Ukraine would reveal any plots against Putin. If they had real info, I think they would not reveal it, for the reasons I argued.

But if they don't have any intel, then it would be in their interest to pretend they have, in order to portray the Russian regime as on the verge of collapse.

[Battlefront.com]

8 hours ago, THH149 said:

I saw RF drone footage of a MLRS firing at Rf positions then driving across the city to this Sport Life gym and reverse in. The RF knew what was there and bombed it in the same drone footage YT upload. The explosion seems aimed to flatten the gym and the ground floor adjacent.

Not sure if the rest of the building was flattened as well but the gym doesnt exist anymore.

Good RF use of drones and a precision strike, I guess.

The strike was disproportionate to what the intended target was.  And it's not even clear that by the time the rocket hit that the target was still present.  Russian drone footage from this, and other official clips, doesn't show what was present at the time of the strike.

To me this indicates the Russians wanted an excuse to flatten some civilian infrastructure and claim it was within the rules.  There's no rational reason to use such a large guided munition for just one grad truck.  I'm pretty sure the Geneva convention has some wording about appropriate use of force, so this is yet another example of a war crime.

Steve

[Haiduk]

This is colonel-general Mikhail Mizintsev. He commanded Russian troops during operation in Syria. Now he commands of siege of Mariupol. His last known duty was the chief of National center of defense control. 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Haiduk

[Kinophile]

He should be target #1 for every damn bayraktar in the southern AO.

[Bulletpoint]

5 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The strike was disproportionate to what the intended target was.  And it's not even clear that by the time the rocket hit that the target was still present.

I think the size of the explosion proves that there must have been more in there than just gym equipment. But I could be mistaken of course.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, CHEqTRO said:

 

 

Not to take anything away from Kofman's insights, but the Russian invasion plan was pretty predictable.  And anybody who didn't come up with this the day before the war certainly could have drawn it the day of.  The point of saying this is to emphasize how little flexibility the Russians had for conducting the war.

Russia basically had four strategic options available to Feb 23rd:

1. full invasion as Kofman outlined (he got almost everything right)
2. occupation of DLPR with Russian flagged units, no immediate military moves into Ukraine proper.  #1 reserved as bluff or perhaps even real threat into mid March
3. same as #2 but with some degree of territorial expansion.  #1 reserved as bluff or perhaps even real threat into mid March
4. do nothing and slowly start to withdraw forces

Right up until 1-2 days before the invasion I was still favoring #2 as it was the most rational and likely to yield an advantage.  It was also a reasonably low risk gamble.

As we got to a couple of days before the invasion it seemed that #1 was going to be selected.  On the 23rd it was confirmed that Putin committed Russia to the worst option available.

Steve

 

[Haiduk]

UKR artillery strikes at the targets in the forsets

 

[Sequoia]

I thought it might be useful to post what is known as the Rome Statute addition to the Geneva Convention.

 

Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the death of civilians during an armed conflict, no matter how grave and regrettable, does not in itself constitute a war crime. International humanitarian law and the Rome Statute permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives,^[25] even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur. A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) (Article 8(2)(b)(i)) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality) (Article 8(2)(b)(iv).

Article 8(2)(b)(iv) criminalizes intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term, and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.

Article 8(2)(b)(iv) draws on the principles in Article 51(5)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, but restricts the criminal prohibition to cases that are "clearly" excessive. The application of Article 8(2)(b)(iv) requires, inter alia, an assessment of:

[akd]

Quote

One Siberian journalist told the BBC: "At the level of the regional government, all local media outlets were instructed not to publish any data on losses in Ukraine. There are cases when local officials put pressure on the relatives of the victims, ordering them to stay silent.

"They say: 'There is no need to make a fuss now, we will find a way to commemorate your boys later.'"

-BBC

[John Kettler]

On 3/20/2022 at 7:57 AM, Haiduk said:

Destroyed Russian artillery position likely NW from Kyiv. 3 Grads and at least one 2S3, trucks

 

 

That MRL at ~0:56 is the new (relative to Grad) Tornado-G. 

https://www.armyrecognition.com/russia_russian_army_vehicles_system_artillery_uk/tornado-g_122mm_mlrs_multiple_launch_rocket_system_technical_data_sheet_specifications_pictures.html

Regards,

John Kettler

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Is this not also the "best-case" for Russia as well? 

It is.  Putting aside any hopes and dreams of a better Russia for Russians and the world, there's a practical matter that comes with killing Putin (or arresting him, which is less likely).  Russians, even the nice ones, have an over inflated sense of importance.  This is one of the things that Putin has used most to keep himself in power.

Any Russian that is even 1/4 suspicious that the war is going as poorly as it in fact is will be looking for a scapegoat.  Some excuse to explain how Russia could be doing so poorly without also exposing the fact that Russia is a glorified gas station with unrealistic dreams of being a shopping mall.

There is no better solution than to pin all blame on Putin and his corruption.  Putin has spent the last 20+ years taking credit for Russia's "advances", so there is absolutely nobody who owns this failure more than him.  THIS IS TOTALLY ACCURATE by any objective assessment.

If Putin is taken out this allows the Russian people to feel like the problem is solved.  No need to look behind the curtain to know more about the other reasons why Russia got its arse handed to it by a bunch of Nazis hired by NATO to undermine the great Russian Federation.  Nope, no need at all.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I have no doubt that there are those in the power streams that are thinking exactly this right now.  Questions is, what will it take them to act?  Putin does not have a coherent ideology behind him.  He has patriotism, "Russia world power" and the ideology of "Putin Stay in Power". 

Yes, and it's been pointed out for some years now that he's drifted away from what had been cornerstones of his earlier rise to power.  Namely improving the daily lives of enough Russians to convince them they needed Putin to keep things going.

Instead, economic expansion was eventually slowed and then reversed by the kleptocratic nature of his governance.  And so he did what all true autocrats do when the going gets tough... crank up the patriotism and distractions to keep people compliant.  Then, increasingly, crank up repression to keep people compliant.

History is full of examples like this.  They all end the same way... total collapse.  If the dictator is lucky, he dies of natural causes before it happens.

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

It is becoming in the best interest of a lot of powerful people that he is 1) removed and 2) blamed while they were "just following orders" as it creates a viable exit scenario from this mess.  But we will have to see.

There's a cast of characters that people will want to go down with Putin as well.  Middle managers can survive the blame game that follows, the top level guys can not.

If I were Lavrov I'd make sure I did a lot on location foreign diplomacy between now and then.

Steve

[John Kettler]

6 hours ago, Combatintman said:

That is a T variant, the clue's in the number of seats - this is a Hawker Hunter F6

 

Combatintman, 

Good eyes! It never occurred to me that Wiki would use a trainer pic for the baseline single seat fighter, so I didn't check. The flight crew size point aside, my main one still stands. Tunguska is so old the design threat was a near supersonic aircraft firsat fielded in the 1950s.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Haiduk]

22 minutes ago, akd said:

-BBC

Our OSINT twiterr account Necromancer666, which specilizes on searching of enemy losses (LDPR and Russians) already have found more than 500+ names (Russains only). Interesting, big part of them are sergeants anf officers. Looks like privates corpses are identified in the second place. Also many reports in Russian social networks, when soldier got lost as far as in February or in the beginning of March, but the message about his death came only now. 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Haiduk

[Pete Wenman]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

Russian tank driver brought to us T-72A. Knowingly, Russians use robbed cell phoes, so our ELINT units of SBU or Intelligence Directorate are sending on this cell.numbers SMS with a terms of surrender. As if one Russian tank driver communicated with Ukraianian side and told he is ready to surrender with own tank. As if other two crewmens alredy deserted, their unit have lack of food, chaotic command&control etc. Their commander threat to all other to shot out if anybody else will deserted.

What a state the RU forces must be in, if this is true, that one man can be in a tank on his own, and then just drive off in it.

 

[akd]

2 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Our OSINT twiterr account Necromancer666, which specilizes on seeking of enemy losses (LDPR and Russians) already have found more than 500+ names (Russains only). Interesting, big part of them are sergeants anf officers. Looks like privates corpses are identified in the second place. Also many reports in Russian social networks, when soldier got lost as far as in February or in the beginning of March, but the message about his death came only now. 

I noted same yesterday about the deaths Rob Lee has been cataloguing on his twitter account:

 

[John Kettler]

11 hours ago, Machor said:

Russian Tunguskas have thermals; can't they just engage drones optically?

Machor,

The Tunguska Wiki says nothing about FLIR or thermal sights, just optical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K22_Tunguska

Nor does WeaponSystems.net
 

https://weaponsystems.net/system/60-2S6 Tunguska

The same holds true of MilitaryToday.com. 

http://military-today.com/missiles/tunguska.htm

Given this, am surprised CMBS equipped it with thermals.


Regards,

John Kettler

[Sarjen]

Ukraine is going to take back territory. 
 

 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

This is wrong photo. If this not our PsyOps operation, Russian tank driver brought to us T-72A. Knowingly, Russians use robbed cell phoes, so our ELINT units of SBU or Intelligence Directorate are sending on this cell.numbers SMS with a terms of surrender. As if one Russian tank driver communicated with Ukraianian side and told he is ready to surrender with own tank. As if other two crewmens alredy deserted, their unit have lack of food, chaotic command&control etc. Their commander threat to all other to shot out if anybody else will deserted.

Our SOF gave to him a place of rendezvous and when the tank appeared, the drone was took off to make shure this is not ambush. The tanker was captured and brought to safe place. Russian trooper reportedly will be interned to the end of war in comfort room with bath and TV. After war will over, he will receive 10 000$ of award for tank and he can apply for Ukraianian citizenship. 

Here the photo of catpturing. 

 

Very interesting report.

As I've said for more than a week now (man, I'm losing track of time!) all the preconditions for a sudden collapse of Russian forces are in place.  We are already seeing the beginning stages of it.  Multiple credible reports of Russian soldiers/marines refusing to go into action, at least one report of a large mutiny, and endless examples of desertion (either temporary or permanent).

What nobody knows is when all of these factors will hit some sort of tipping point.  Usually tipping points are marked by one or more discrete events that are more obvious with hindsight than foresight.  However, I think there's a couple of ones we can keep our eyes open for:

• Belarus becomes hostile to Russian base of operations
• coup attempt in Moscow (doesn't even have to be successful, just apparent)
• some event that brings NATO into the war directly
• Ukrainian counter attack that results in elimination of a sizeable Russian force (say 2-3 BTGs)
• Ukrainian counter attack that pocket a large Russian force (several thousand men)
• any single concentrated surrender of Russian forces (100s of soldiers)

Any one of these has the potential for pushing things right into collapse, but the first three would likely be so large on their own that collapse could happen within hours or 1-2 days.

Steve

 

[DesertFox]

6 minutes ago, Sarjen said:

Ukraine is going to take back territory. 

I hope they don´t fall for the trap to only take territory. That is meaningless unless they don´t take away huge amounts of enemy soldiers.