How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

24 minutes ago, sfhand said:

So, to be clear, you are saying that disagreeing on geopolitics is a bannable offense here now? Well I'm not gonna recant but I am not trying to offend your geopolitical sensibilities. By the way, I'm not conspiring with anyone. I feel like I've been thrown back into the 1950s.

You know, you're right. This just like the McCarthy hearings. 

Do we not, at long last gentlemen, have any sense of decency?

[Harmon Rabb]

While I'm sure it is tempting to see this guy's posting as some sort of April Fools prank or maybe some kid with to much time on his hands trying to "troll" us. Perhaps a paid Russian troll?

The reality is going by the fact that he registered on this forum before 9/11 even happened, he is likely a grown man who has accepted the Kremlin's propaganda as truth.

This is a scary thought but not surprising for me given how many seemingly normal people I've seen on social media who are now parroting the Kremlin's line.

While Russia's military machine leaves a lot to be desired for the Russians, I think their psychological operations like the infamous troll factories are maybe more effective than we care to think about.

A good reminder of how important it is to counter the Kremlin's lies with the truth no matter how we can.

[ASL Veteran]

I think it might be time for some drone footage straight from the front lines:

 

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, photon said:

Whenever you suggest that folks do this, I sit down and make a list of questions I have that I don't think I've seen answers to:

1. Trains. Are there any operative trains in theater? If so, whose and why? Surely whacking locomotives with Lancets is better than hitting individual tanks or even individual C2 vehicles. We've seen both sides targeting fixed rail infrastructure, but I haven't seen videos of locomotives taking hits. Too fast moving? Both sides keeping them far from lines?

2. What do the Ukrainian fortifications look like behind the front lines? Seen some evidence of fortification in the north, and pictures of various types of pre-fab bunkers being tested out. Are the Ukrainians laying mines in volume? If so, where?

3. In the event of a breakout (which seems really hard to fathom right now), how would you secure GLOC against what would be a pants-crappingly terrifying insurgency/asymmetrical fight?

4. Inasmuch as Russia's been able to advance recently, it's by bombing everything down to the ground along the axis of advance. How, hypothetically, would either side take and hold a large urban area with an unfriendly local population armed with FPV drones? In contrast to even a Javelin, the drones have a very small launch signature and a longer range, so you're dealing with trying to triangulate their radio emissions?

These are good questions.  Some thoughts:

- Trains.  We do know the trains are running in both countries and make up a significant portion of their military SLOCs.  We have not really seen a persistent campaign to strike rail infra on either side.  Ukraine has limited long range munitions for strikes into Russia so they appear to be hitting higher priority/lower density targets - oil refineries, ships and aircraft.  Rail infra is large, complex and can be repaired quickly against point strikes.  Why Russia has not focused all those missiles and Lancets on rail is frankly beyond me.  It should have been a priority targeting area right from the start of the war.

- Ukraine and mines.  Have seen no evidence but I suspect they are.  Ukraine had a stock of mines before the war and likely have bought more. Mines work.  Mines plus ISR and artillery…really work.  Ukraine learned this last summer and would be crazy not to employ them to deny Russia options.

- GLOCs.  This is likely one of the biggest unknowns in warfare right now.  Given ISR and long range unmanned systems/strike…how does anyone keep GLOCs open.  I have some ideas on how to break this but we are really off the map.

- Urban operations.  We can see from Gaza a few hints.  UAS definitely have an impact but dense urban operations may actually provide a break from the ISR problem.  UAS don’t appear to be able to navigate a complex building internally but that will likely change.  My sense is urban operations may remain more in line with how we understood it before the war.  It may be one area that is shifting slower.  Of course I might be totally wrong on this one.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, sfhand said:

Did you read the actual agreement, particularly points 9 - 11?

If so, what does restoring territorial integrity to the Ukraine mean to you?

The referendums on territorial autonomy were very messy, see here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27360146

Of course the west supports these types of referendums, i.e. splitting territory from established countries, when it supports their agenda, see here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Croatian_independence_referendum

Like I said, I don't have a dog in the fight and have no interest in justifying any state actions, including our own, but to say these types of events aren't driven by rational reasoning given the state of the world seems a bridge too far for me. Of course I don't expect you or anyone else here to agree, which I am 100% okay with.

Enjoy your evening...

 

Honestly I am really not understanding your point here.  What am I supposed to disagree on?

Territorial integrity for Ukraine means that Ukraine law can be applied across that territory without foreign interference and the nations sovereignty is recognized. They would need this as a precondition to true open and free referendum and constitutional reform on any Donbas question.  And it appears - from your own citation - that they never got it.

“10. Pullout of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, and also mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under OSCE supervision. Disarmament of all illegal groups.”

Yet,

”American Defense Department official Michael Carpenter said on 2 March 2016 that at least 430 Ukrainian soldiers had died since the signing of Minsk II, that Russia maintained "command-and-control links" over the DPR and LPR, and that Russia was "pouring heavy weapons" into the Donbas.^[68] Deputy head of the OSCE mission in Ukraine Alexander Hug said on 25 March 2016 that the OSCE had observed "armed people with Russian insignia" fighting in Donbas from the beginning of the conflict, that they had talked to prisoners who said they were Russian soldiers, and that they had seen "tire tracks, not the vehicles themselves, but the tracks of vehicles crossing the [Russo-Ukrainian] border".”

Russia never left the Donbas. The entire thing was in bad faith. Any elections and constitutional reform was happening while Russia held guns to heads.  In fact the entire scheme has the hallmarks of Russian incremental warfare strategies. The West dithered and failed to actually engage back in 15-16, and here we are.

So what is your point here?  The referendums in Donbas, while they had Russian troops on Ukrainian soil, was legit but the West doesn’t like them so did not recognize it?  And what does Croatia back in 91 have to do with any of this? Croatia was during the total collapse of Yugoslavia as the West grappled with the fallout.  States such as Slovenia, Macedonia and Montenegro all successfully separated and Europe was desperately hoping Croatia could do the same. (No one held out much hope for Bosnia, which was totally accurate.) What was left of Yugoslavia disagreed and tried to pull Croatia back in by force…and hilarity ensued.

So Donbas was a break away province that held fair and free elections but Ukraine tried to pull them back in by force? Russia was simply trying to intervene and protect them? While grabbing the Crimea at the same time?  And ignoring years of Russian interference in the region under the waterline for years?  You will note that modern day Croatia is not occupied by another nation.  And no western powers has declared Croatia a province…like Russia did Sep ‘22 for Donbas, Crimea and Kherson (no less).

What I do not understand is your actual position here. What is your theory?  These are some pretty disjointed point of information from where I am sitting.  Honestly, please stop being oblique and just come out and state your theory here. How did this war start?  What is the Russian side of the story according to you?  What partial justification did Russia have for the invasion of ‘22?

[Vet 0369]

On 3/30/2024 at 4:17 PM, photon said:

Have you read the thread from day 1? The amount of open source information here - from all imaginable perspectives - is enormous. Historians will be able to make much more sense of this war than any in history. Would that we had this sort of information for the ancient world! Or the Battle of Midway!

Ummmm, do you know that the U.S.Navy had already broken the Japanese Imperial Navy’s code previously and knew what the Imperial Navy’s operational plan was? The only thing the USN didn’t know was the actual target. They suspected Midway, but didn’t know, only that was coded as KT or something, so they had Midway send a message in the clear that their water processing plant was down. They waited, and intercepted an IN transmission saying that KT was running out of water. That sealed the intelligence, and the rest is history! Kinda similar to the U.S. warning Ukraine of the upcoming attack and additionally letting Putin know that we knew.

[Vet 0369]

On 3/30/2024 at 4:58 PM, Kraft said:

What has Hunter Biden to do with russian tanks in Ukraine?

You really don’t want to open THAT CAN OF WORMS!

[danfrodo]

2 hours ago, sfhand said:

So, to be clear, you are saying that disagreeing on geopolitics is a bannable offense here now? Well I'm not gonna recant but I am not trying to offend your geopolitical sensibilities. By the way, I'm not conspiring with anyone. I feel like I've been thrown back into the 1950s.

This is a Ukraine war forum, not "open mic night for arrogant narcissists".  Your spiel is so classic, you know lots of 'facts', some actually true, but mostly not.  So you strut like a f--ing rooster "what about article X of broken treaty Y!".  Yeah, what about it?  What is actually happening is mass murder, mass destruction, nuclear extortion and a general threat to world peace the the world economy.  How does minsk treaty language matter when one party physically invaded the other and is actively killing its people and trying to enslave the entire nation?  

But I guess you're right, we need to start seeing things from Putin's point of view, he was very oppressed and had no choice but to fight back.  I am sure we could all develop  a more balanced view by sympathizing with mass murderers more often.  More 'what abouts' and less paying attention to the horrific reality of Putin's choices, day after day, is what's in order -- thanks Dude, I am feeling so much more enlightened.

[photon]

20 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

Ummmm, do you know that the U.S.Navy had already broken the Japanese Imperial Navy’s code previously and knew what the Imperial Navy’s operational plan was? The only thing the USN didn’t know was the actual target. They suspected Midway, but didn’t know, only that was coded as KT or something, so they had Midway send a message in the clear that their water processing plant was down. They waited, and intercepted an IN transmission saying that KT was running out of water. That sealed the intelligence, and the rest is history! Kinda similar to the U.S. warning Ukraine of the upcoming attack and additionally letting Putin know that we knew.

Sure - but there a lot about Midway we don't know. See Parshall and Tully for an explanation of how Fuchida's account can't be reconciled with the (scant) documentary evidence that survived. Parshall and Tully infer the state of the Japanese carrier's deck cycling rhythm from, like, two photographs. Heck, we're not totally sure which American pilots bombed which carriers with how many bombs. We have good guesses. Compare that to the video of the Ukrainian Sea Baby swimming into the hole blown by the previous one. Historians will know a lot more about this war than one less than a hundred years ago.

[Vet 0369]

On 3/30/2024 at 5:50 PM, The_Capt said:

The “truth” is a Governments leak like sburke after a few beers on a good day.

 

Actually, I suspect most of SBurke’s “leaks” are caused by his advanced age, as are most of ours’

[Erwin]

Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer got it right, saying, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

[danfrodo]

I actually have a positive suggestion:  @sfhand -- how about you start a new thread, something like "open debate on global geopolitics"?  

And meanwhile, good video of the failed RU attack that cost them 20 armored vehicles -- mostly to ATGMs it looks like  -- apologies if this one was already posted. And other RU stuff blowing up.  And sadly, an RU advance to Chasiv Yar, I think it's called.  Dang it.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/4/1/2232830/-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-Ukraine-downs-an-expensive-new-Russian-drone?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

 

[dan/california]

• Quote

   

  • https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-1-2024
  • A joint investigation by 60 Minutes, the Insider, and Der Spiegel strongly suggests that the Kremlin has waged a sustained kinetic campaign directly targeting US government personnel both in the United States and internationally for a decade, with the likely objective of physically incapacitating US government personnel.
  • The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is intensifying efforts to falsely implicate Ukraine in the March 22 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack while denying any Islamic State (IS) responsibility or involvement in the attack.
  • Russian authorities are taking measures to further crack down against migrant communities in Russia following the Crocus City Hall attack.
  • Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and in the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on April 1.
  • The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) continues to reassure the Russian public that Russian military conscripts will not deploy to most of occupied Ukraine nor participate in combat operations in Ukraine amid the start of the spring semi-annual military conscription call-up that started on April 1.

   

  Other possible topics to argue about...
•  

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer got it right, saying, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

So what you're saying is there's hope that sfhand will someday realize that he's parroting Russian propaganda nonsense?  I hope you're right, but I doubt it.  My experience with conspiracy theorists and "alternative facts" types is that they rarely move on.

Or... wait.  Were you referring to us?  Nah, I'm sure you weren't implying that those of us who have spent 10s of thousands of hours studying and discussing this war need to admit that Putin's had it right all the way along.

Seriously dude... compare sfhand's accounting of this war with things that Putin says.  As a reminder, that's guy who murders people, invades countries, and is throwing away 10s of thousands of lives every month because Victoria Nuland gave out cookies with secret instructions to the Maidan protestors.

Steve

[chrisl]

6 hours ago, dan/california said:

I can tell you from painful personal experience that you can be bleeping near crippled from long COVID while every test they can think to run comes back negative. On some level Havana Syndrome is same kind of the same thing. 

That's the thing about diseases and medicine in general.

Doctors are usually pretty good about telling whether you're alive or dead.  Usually.  In between is an extremely sliding scale, and if you can feed yourself and make to the bathroom on your own most of the time a lot of doctors will say you're fine.  Even if you won the a Nobel prize the previous week.  

And the problem with biological damage in general is that we have terrible resolution on a lot of things, and things at very tiny scales can matter a lot in how your body functions.  Other tiny things (like a virus) can do microscopic damage and then be cleared from your system so they're undetectable.  But you're still messed up because maybe a whole bunch of capillaries aren't acting the way they're supposed to.  Or your clotting system is doing weird intermittent things in your organs. Or some intermediate chemical process that people have mostly ignored, except for maybe one poorly paid graduate student, is completely broken and we won't learn that it matters for another decade.  But there's nothing chemically or macroscopically detectable (at least not without slicing you into thin sections, which would probably annoy you) because your body cleared out the actual virus a long time ago.  To get a sense of how tiny things can be and matter: at peak covid there was probably about 10 (or maybe a few tens) total kilograms of virus on the entire planet.  Biology is complicated stuff.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, sfhand said:

So, to be clear, you are saying that disagreeing on geopolitics is a bannable offense here now? Well I'm not gonna recant but I am not trying to offend your geopolitical sensibilities.

No, I'm saying that coming into a well sourced, long running factual based discussion armed only with a confusing hodgepodge of muddled talking points, mostly from Moscow, is not productive.  It's like going into a serious and open discussion about climate change and trying to convince people it isn't happening because the Earth is flat.  You are a distraction from the pursuit of knowledge, not a contributor to it.

5 hours ago, sfhand said:

By the way, I'm not conspiring with anyone. I feel like I've been thrown back into the 1950s.

Persecution complexes don't impress me, especially when nobody is censoring you. 

Also, nobody said you are part of a conspiracy.  However, the sad fact is that you're what the Russians call a "useful idiot" because you come here of your own free will to repeat easily debunked Russian propaganda talking points.  Moscow would thank you for your service if it cared.

Know that it saddens me that someone can dupe themselves into conspiracy theories and "alternative fact" systems of belief.  I've seen it more times than I can count (like a friend who followed Glenn Beck and asked me one day "why does George Soros hate America?").  

Don't you find it suspicious that all of your supposed independent and free thinking is almost word for word the same messages that the Russian government has openly and aggressively pushed since before this war started?  Doesn't it make you wonder if all those non-mainstream sources of information you're tapped into aren't what they appear to be?  Especially given the deep and thorough documentation of Russia's nefarious influence campaign over the years. 

Don't you see any red flags with your belief system when you on the one hand believe Hunter Biden should be in jail for something his detractors can't prove, yet you are in total sync with the stated positions of a guy who is well documented to have people murdered on a fairly regular basis for any number of reasons?  Not to mention this is the same guy who directed his nation to wage a genocidal war against a peaceful neighbor, with the accompanying well documented cases of mass scale murder, rape, kidnapping, and ethnic cleansing?  Oh right, you don't think Putin's half as bad as we think he is.  So another red flag... who convinced you of that part of your belief system?

Sorry sfhand, your point of view is being rejected because we've seen it before, we've debunked it before, and we don't think we've missed anything in the previous go-arounds.  The irony is rejecting this kind of BS is exactly what a free and open society needs to do to remain open and free.

Steve

[chrisl]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

- Urban operations.  We can see from Gaza a few hints.  UAS definitely have an impact but dense urban operations may actually provide a break from the ISR problem.  UAS don’t appear to be able to navigate a complex building internally but that will likely change.  My sense is urban operations may remain more in line with how we understood it before the war.  It may be one area that is shifting slower.  Of course I might be totally wrong on this one.

Getting good RF in buildings can be a pain.  It's why I still have a desk phone at work - I'm in the middle of a building and my cell reception sucks there (though VOIP mostly mitigates that now, so I could probably let it go).  Cell reception sucks in my house that isn't even all that large and is all wood, but is surrounded by hills and trees and things.  And that's with trying to get reception.  Effective drones much beyond the entryway of buildings is still DARPA Grand Challenge territory.  They'll get there, and probably sooner than we think, but that's where you really need to have a lot of autonomy.  Even if you have decent reception in the building sometimes, it can easily disappear in good sized regions and you need the drone to be able to take care of itself without comms and not be taken out by a bunch of curious cats.

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, chrisl said:

That's the thing about diseases and medicine in general.

Doctors are usually pretty good about telling whether you're alive or dead.  Usually.  In between is an extremely sliding scale, and if you can feed yourself and make to the bathroom on your own most of the time a lot of doctors will say you're fine.  Even if you won the a Nobel prize the previous week.  

And the problem with biological damage in general is that we have terrible resolution on a lot of things, and things at very tiny scales can matter a lot in how your body functions.  Other tiny things (like a virus) can do microscopic damage and then be cleared from your system so they're undetectable.  But you're still messed up because maybe a whole bunch of capillaries aren't acting the way they're supposed to.  Or your clotting system is doing weird intermittent things in your organs. Or some intermediate chemical process that people have mostly ignored, except for maybe one poorly paid graduate student, is completely broken and we won't learn that it matters for another decade.  But there's nothing chemically or macroscopically detectable (at least not without slicing you into thin sections, which would probably annoy you) because your body cleared out the actual virus a long time ago.  To get a sense of how tiny things can be and matter: at peak covid there was probably about 10 (or maybe a few tens) total kilograms of virus on the entire planet.  Biology is complicated stuff.

Yup, totally.  Last night I was with a friend who just had a heart attack.  His wife is an ER nurse (amongst other things).  She was telling us how difficult it is to detect certain types of heart attacks even though the patient is saying "I'm having a heart attack".  What they do is take it on faith, do all kinds of things one should do for a heart attack patient, and then eventually something will show up on a test.  And no, I can't remember the medical jargon for that type of attack.  All new terms for me, so in one ear and out the other.

Another reminder of the detection limitations of diseases are things like Lupus and early onset MS.  For the most part they are diagnosed based on symptoms, not on lab results and scans.  There are things like cancer variants which can only be identified through genetic markers which, if you're lucky, someone has already discovered.

This is no fault on the medical establishment at all.  They shouldn't be expected to know everything and they definitely can't know what they don't know much about.  Or perhaps anything about in the case of some top secret Soviet/Russian tech, chemical, or bio capability.

Steve

[sburke]

3 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

Actually, I suspect most of SBurke’s “leaks” are caused by his advanced age, as are most of ours’

what?!!!! On a related note, today was my first day being eligible to sign up for medicare... April fool's day.  Somehow it figures.

[chrisl]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yup, totally.  Last night I was with a friend who just had a heart attack.  His wife is an ER nurse (amongst other things).  She was telling us how difficult it is to detect certain types of heart attacks even though the patient is saying "I'm having a heart attack".  What they do is take it on faith, do all kinds of things one should do for a heart attack patient, and then eventually something will show up on a test.  And no, I can't remember the medical jargon for that type of attack.  All new terms for me, so in one ear and out the other.

Another reminder of the detection limitations of diseases are things like Lupus and early onset MS.  For the most part they are diagnosed based on symptoms, not on lab results and scans.  There are things like cancer variants which can only be identified through genetic markers which, if you're lucky, someone has already discovered.

This is no fault on the medical establishment at all.  They shouldn't be expected to know everything and they definitely can't know what they don't know much about.  Or perhaps anything about in the case of some top secret Soviet/Russian tech, chemical, or bio capability.

Steve

MS is still basically a cipher.  Unbelievably mysterious and bizarrely correlated to the latitude where you grew up.

Biology is insanely complicated. I spend a lot of time among physical scientists who fancy themselves to be doing biology research (a description that fits me a lot of the time, too).  Many of them don't have any hands on bio experimental experience and you end up with people who think that easy (and solved) things are impossible, and that things that are currently well beyond our knowledge and available data are trivial.  And that's in research labs where you can isolate questions reasonably well.  Doctors are basically working with horribly complicated systems that are hard to understand and have huge variations when functioning normally, and can break in a unbelievable number of obscure ways.

[sburke]

7 hours ago, Kinophile said:

Oh for God's sake, are we still engaging with this guy? 

yeah, I've been avoiding this thread while sfhand is monopolizing its subject matter.  For a guy that was gonna post just once, he's sure proven to be long winded.

[Carolus]

Thread on Russian logistics and potential (maximum) force numbers. Of course there are a lot of assumptions in there, but it's an interesting piece.

The attacks on Russian refineries are not significant enough yet, but they increase the stress on the Russian logistics.

 

Edited April 2 by Carolus

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Thread on Russian logistics and potential (maximum) force numbers. Of course there are a lot of assumptions in there, but it's an interesting piece.

 

 

I can't vouch for the methodology he used to arrive at his estimate of Russia's force size earlier in the winter (just north of 300,000), but it's likely within the right ballpark.  Which is slightly higher than the initial invasion force, but not by much.

I've always felt the 400,000 estimate was too high.  What that sort of force ratio advantage I'd expect to see much larger and more widespread attacks by a wider array of Russian units.  Instead, we have a few concentrated efforts with familiar units that are used up until there's nothing left of them.

The only thing I'd quibble with is his conclusion that supply constraints are holding back Russian force expansion.  It might be a factor, but we've seen Russia have no problem putting troops into the line without food, clothing, or even weapons.  Logically, provided they've not learned any lessons from past failures, this means the force size is constrained by manpower limitations.  The logical reason for manpower limitations is the reliance upon "volunteers" instead of mobilization in the context of massive losses of life (Avdiivka being the most recent and extreme).  Taking in 20k new recruits every month doesn't get you ahead if you're losing about the same in pointless battles.

Which is to say we don't know what the primary constraint is on Russian force size, however it's pretty clear there are limitations in play.  Otherwise, Russia would have a 500k force in the field because that sort of manpower advantage would probably work very well with Russia's meat wave assault strategy.  I mean, if Ukrainian soldiers complain that they can't hold positions due to "endless" meat waves from a 300k or perhaps 400k force size, just imagine how much worse it would be if Russia had a 500k force.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

19 minutes ago, sburke said:

yeah, I've been avoiding this thread while sfhand is monopolizing its subject matter.  For a guy that was gonna post just once, he's sure proven to be long winded.

No to worry, it will resolve itself today in some shape or form.  We gave him a chance to express himself, he finally did that, it's been explained why nobody wants to engage with true believer in "whataboutisms", and now we all need to move on.

Steve

[Carolus]

26 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I mean, if Ukrainian soldiers complain that they can't hold positions due to "endless" meat waves from a 300k or perhaps 400k force size, just imagine how much worse it would be if Russia had a 500k force.

Steve

Russian government announced a mobilisation for 150k men this weekend.

Unless that was an April's Fools joke, they might reach 500k with that.