How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Anthony P.]

Manpower shortage is absolutely an issue for Ukraine - not all the weapons in the world would matter if there's not enough warm bodies around to fire them. Hence why the conscription age has already been lowered.

I'd wager you that if you took all the men who said "it doesn't matter if just I dodge the draft (but also please continue providing me with state services while I live comfortably in a richer country)", you'd get at least enough men to create a couple of divisions, with replacement personnel to spare.

[The_Capt]

33 minutes ago, omae2 said:

But than again, yet there is no need for 18 years old in the trenches, what they need is weapons and ammunition. Thousands could have been saved by those two. But that kid, i doubt he would have made any difference.

And how much better off would Ukraine be if the 860,000 fighting aged Ukrainians were back in their home country defending it as opposed to hiding out in other nations?

"Millions of Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia(opens in a new tab)'s full-scale invasion in 2022, mostly to neighbouring European countries. The European Union's statistics agency, Eurostat, says 4.3 million Ukrainians are living in EU countries, 860,000 of them men 18 years of age or older."

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/ukraine-is-putting-pressure-on-fighting-age-men-outside-the-country-as-it-tries-to-replenish-forces-1.6861301

All those "kids who don't make a difference" add up to brigades and divisions that can definitely make a difference.  Fully agree on weapons, ammunition and vehicles but they are useless without Ukrainian people to use them in their own defence.

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, Holien said:

Court politics...

The fact that they are airing it in public makes it very interesting.

Putler getting revenge or some one else?

One to watch...

 

 

You are understating how crazy this story is, whether it is true is another question, but back to that in a minute. The story is saying that the ENTIRE WAR resulted form an effort by Shoigu and Ivanov to cover the massive extent of their embezzlement. And then not content with that, they tried to take over Prigozhin's empire exactly the way they he said they did, and THIS resulted in the march on Moscow. Now Putin has finally realized what is going on. This is BEYOND NUTS. Yet Ivanov is sitting in prison for something. 

Apparently the Patrushev clan is leading the other faction at the Czars court, and think they finally have the rope to hang their rivals. This doesn't even have to be true, or mostly true, if enough of the Russian elite believe it to start a real power struggle.

I am not sure I believe any of this, but clearly a real argument about something is breaking loose between Kremlin factions. That is not a small thing.

[dan/california]

double post

Edited April 27 by dan/california

[dan/california]

triple post

Edited April 27 by dan/california

[dan/california]

QUADRUPLE POST, bleep me I was on a roll, sorry.

Edited April 27 by dan/california

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ukraine-the-latest/id1612424182?i=1000653701880

Today, we discuss the latest news from Ukraine as the Ukrainian armed forces remove American Abrams tanks from the front line. We deep-dive into the capabilities of the ATACMS missiles and we hear from a British volunteer who works in front line villages across the East of Ukraine.

 

A credible report that Ukraine is pulling its one ~battalion of Abrams out of active combat because current combat conditions are making them ineffective and to vulnerable, especially drones. I am filing this one firmly in the tank is dead file.

[The_Capt]

38 minutes ago, dan/california said:

QUADRUPLE POST, bleep me I was on a roll, sorry.

Someone text the grandkids and have them take the keyboard away....

[Ts4EVER]

43 minutes ago, dan/california said:

You are understating how crazy this story is, whether it is true is another question, but back to that in a minute. The story is saying that the ENTIRE WAR resulted form an effort by Shoigu and Ivanov to cover the massive extent of their embezzlement. And then not content with that, they tried to take over Prigozhin's empire exactly the way they he said they did, and THIS resulted in the march on Moscow. Now Putin has finally realized what is going on. This is BEYOND NUTS. Yet Ivanov is sitting in prison for something. 

Apparently the Patrushev clan is leading the other faction at the Czars court, and think they finally have the rope to hang their rivals. This doesn't even have to be true, or mostly true, if enough of the Russian elite believe it to start a real power struggle.

I am not sure I believe any of this, but clearly a real argument about something is breaking loose between Kremlin factions. That is not a small thing.

That is a weird way to do internal power struggles though, if it calls the reason for the war in question publically. That could have massive ill effects, or am I misunderstanding something here?

[Holien]

49 minutes ago, dan/california said:

You are understating how crazy this story is

Brits do understatement.

We leave all that other stuff to our American friends.... (And hyperbole to the Canucks)

Let's see how the story unfolds if any of it is true....

[NamEndedAllen]

21 minutes ago, Ts4EVER said:

if it calls the reason for the war in question publically.

A prelude to some sort of pause in the war? Especially as Putin could conceivably make the case that they, the Russian army, are currently “winning”, on the march, etc. Yes, quite a long stretch, but so much of this terrible war had been bizarre. Adding to this extreme speculation, the time frame for such a series of moves towards a cessation of hostilities lies within the outcome of the USA’s fraught Presidential election. Where once upon a time we did see an “October Surprise”. 

Rather a rickety conspiracy-type speculation, but I got tired of reading the massive number of recent opinions about a Ukrainian kid in Canada….

Edited April 27 by NamEndedAllen

[The_Capt]

21 minutes ago, Holien said:

Brits do understatement.

You tell yourselves this…try going to a soccer game.  Hell get on a train before a soccer game.  Understatement is not how I would describe the experience.

[Battlefront.com]

51 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

You tell yourselves this…try going to a soccer game.

Calling it "soccer" will get the understatements rolling right off of those understated British tongues

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

8 hours ago, Holien said:

Court politics...

The fact that they are airing it in public makes it very interesting.

Putler getting revenge or some one else?

One to watch...

 

 

Sushko is not to be relied on.

Also, Shoigu is no political lightweight, and I wouldn't assume the siloviki can throw him under the bus even if they wished to. I doubt Prigozhin was ever his creature; the guy simply got high on himself and went rogue when Wagner was reined in.

I posted some bio on Shoigu a couple thousand pages ago. Like Putin, he was a handpicked protege of Yeltsin in the late 90s. His family background/ training is in O&G construction (with the accompanying huge self enrichment opps), more than military. He had his own political party, briefly, before throwing in with United Russia. He's NOT an army careerist, in fact Putin likes him for that very reason.

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Calling it "soccer" will get the understatements rolling right off of those understated British tongues

Steve

As my dad explained it to me 50 years ago...

Association (football)* = 'soccer'

Rugby (football) -> 'rugger'

* e.g. the FA Cup

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

You are understating how crazy this story is, whether it is true is another question, but back to that in a minute. The story is saying that the ENTIRE WAR resulted form an effort by Shoigu and Ivanov to cover the massive extent of their embezzlement. And then not content with that, they tried to take over Prigozhin's empire exactly the way they he said they did, and THIS resulted in the march on Moscow. Now Putin has finally realized what is going on. This is BEYOND NUTS. Yet Ivanov is sitting in prison for something. 

Apparently the Patrushev clan is leading the other faction at the Czars court, and think they finally have the rope to hang their rivals. This doesn't even have to be true, or mostly true, if enough of the Russian elite believe it to start a real power struggle.

I am not sure I believe any of this, but clearly a real argument about something is breaking loose between Kremlin factions. That is not a small thing.

Let's remember that the sources for all of this information are inherently Russian.  Therefore, pinches of salt.  That said, I think most of this is likely true.

We can bet our last piece of currency that a) the MoD mafia clan has been enriching themselves to a massive extent, b) Putin was unlikely aware of how bad it was, and c) one or more of the competing mafia clans started to gain some of Putin's ear and the war may have offered an opportunity to buy time.  I think we could also afford to bet our houses on Shoigu's clan deliberately squeezing Priggy to get a hold of his lucrative foreign assets, especially because that's exactly what Priggy said was happening and it is how things ended after Priggy went boom.

With that, the only real question is if Shoigu is if Shoigu's clan cooked up this war to distract Putin from cracking down on them.  I do not think that stands up to scrutiny.

First off, if this war went according to plan, how much would that have bought the Shoigu clan?  According to the premise in the X thread is that Shoigu cooked up the war to get a huge influx of defense money and to get at Priggy's assets.  Given that the war was supposed to be over and done with in 3-14 days... well, that just doesn't jibe as neither of these opportunities would have presented themselves, therefore they couldn't have been part of some master plan.

Second, this theory makes it seem like Putin had no interest in attacking Ukraine except for the whispers coming in from Shoigu.  This is about as counter factual as one can get in the smoke and mirrors world of Russian palace intrigue.  Big fat "no way, Jose" on this one.

Third, this theory also requires us to believe that the rival clans weren't capable of countering Shoigu's moves.  Which is counter intuitive because the theory is arguing that they were out maneuvering Shoigu by starting to uncover how corrupt the MoD clan was.  Putin is an FSB man and Shoigu's biggest rival is the security clan/s, therefore I doubt they would have allowed Putin to be talked into something clearly designed to benefit Shoigu's people.

The more likely explanation is that Putin wanted this, Shoigu saw an opportunity to use it to his clan's advantage, instead it showed how bad the corruption was, Putin figured it out early on but didn't feel he could rock the boat to much, and so he empowered Priggy to start creating a counter balance to the MoD.  But Priggy was out maneuvered by both the security clan (that hated him for their own reasons) and the MoD clan.  The security clan allowed Shoigu's buddies to dig their hole deeper, and now we have the reckoning starting to come out.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

US intel services believe that Navalny's death wasn't planned:

https://thehill.com/policy/international/4626290-us-intel-signals-putin-not-directly-to-blame-for-navalnys-untimely-death-reports/

I've always held the opinion that the prior assassination attempts, beatings, deliberately bad living conditions, etc. are what directly led to Navalny's death, not some edict from Putin to end Navalny's life.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

According to the premise in the X thread is that Shoigu cooked up the war to get a huge influx of defense money and to get at Priggy's assets.

This totally discounts the leadup before the war of Putin and his map, Putin berating his spy chief, US straight up warning Russia we knew what the plan was, 2014, etc. The only conspiracy that made sense to me at all was the Prigogine-Putin love affair fan fiction.

[Ultradave]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

You tell yourselves this…try going to a soccer game.  Hell get on a train before a soccer game.  Understatement is not how I would describe the experience.

Also, get on a train AFTER a football match (riding north home from Manchester one night - ugh!). Personally I'm more of a rugby fan. When those guys fall down and roll around on the pitch you'd better get the medicos out there right away. Those guys don't come out of a game unless someone (or three) drag them out, or they are unconscious (which happens too).

Dave

Edited April 27 by Ultradave

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Let's remember that the sources for all of this information are inherently Russian.  Therefore, pinches of salt.  That said, I think most of this is likely true.

We can bet our last piece of currency that a) the MoD mafia clan has been enriching themselves to a massive extent, b) Putin was unlikely aware of how bad it was, and c) one or more of the competing mafia clans started to gain some of Putin's ear and the war may have offered an opportunity to buy time.  I think we could also afford to bet our houses on Shoigu's clan deliberately squeezing Priggy to get a hold of his lucrative foreign assets, especially because that's exactly what Priggy said was happening and it is how things ended after Priggy went boom.

With that, the only real question is if Shoigu is if Shoigu's clan cooked up this war to distract Putin from cracking down on them.  I do not think that stands up to scrutiny.

First off, if this war went according to plan, how much would that have bought the Shoigu clan?  According to the premise in the X thread is that Shoigu cooked up the war to get a huge influx of defense money and to get at Priggy's assets.  Given that the war was supposed to be over and done with in 3-14 days... well, that just doesn't jibe as neither of these opportunities would have presented themselves, therefore they couldn't have been part of some master plan.

Second, this theory makes it seem like Putin had no interest in attacking Ukraine except for the whispers coming in from Shoigu.  This is about as counter factual as one can get in the smoke and mirrors world of Russian palace intrigue.  Big fat "no way, Jose" on this one.

Third, this theory also requires us to believe that the rival clans weren't capable of countering Shoigu's moves.  Which is counter intuitive because the theory is arguing that they were out maneuvering Shoigu by starting to uncover how corrupt the MoD clan was.  Putin is an FSB man and Shoigu's biggest rival is the security clan/s, therefore I doubt they would have allowed Putin to be talked into something clearly designed to benefit Shoigu's people.

The more likely explanation is that Putin wanted this, Shoigu saw an opportunity to use it to his clan's advantage, instead it showed how bad the corruption was, Putin figured it out early on but didn't feel he could rock the boat to much, and so he empowered Priggy to start creating a counter balance to the MoD.  But Priggy was out maneuvered by both the security clan (that hated him for their own reasons) and the MoD clan.  The security clan allowed Shoigu's buddies to dig their hole deeper, and now we have the reckoning starting to come out.

Steve

It doesn't have to be true, or even believed by Putin, for it to be a useful excuse for the Czar to rid himself of some poorly performing ministers. This is triply true given that we all know the ministers in question are incompetent, and utterly corrupt, even if some or all of the details of the described conspiracy are fiction. It may simply be that Putin has decided it is time to blame someone for the epic, world historical, disaster of this war.

The interesting and important question is whether the new ministers will be any better at their jobs? Or does the snake pit of Putin's system make it impossible for him to put in competent people?

Edited April 27 by dan/california

[Offshoot]

Have Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs Been ‘Thrown Aside’ By Ukraine? - A senior Pentagon official has alluded to a recently deployed long-range ground-launched weapon suffering from Russian jamming and other issues.

 

Quote

"It didn't work for multiple reasons, including [the] EMI [electromagnetic interference] environment, including just really ... doing it on [the] ground, the TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures], the DOTML [the doctrine, organization, training, and materiel] – it just didn't work," LaPlante explained. "And what happens is, when you send something to people in the fight of their lives, [and] it doesn't work, they'll try it three times and then they just throw it aside. So that's happened, too."

 

[Offshoot]

8 hours ago, dan/california said:

 

A credible report that Ukraine is pulling its one ~battalion of Abrams out of active combat because current combat conditions are making them ineffective and to vulnerable, especially drones. I am filing this one firmly in the tank is dead file.

Ukrainian forces dismiss as fake information about withdrawal of Abrams tanks from battlefield due to drones
 

Quote

 

The 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade of Ukraine's Armed Forces has dismissed as fake the report by the Associated Press that the Ukrainian Defence Forces have withdrawn US-supplied Abrams tanks from the battlefield due to the threat of Russian drone attacks.

Source: 47th Separate Mechanised Brigade on Telegram

 

 

[kimbosbread]

Assuming it’s true, it’s a pity about GLSDB. That said, I think the MIC would be well served by turning the system into a smart cluster munition that can basically give a bunch of smaller drones an extra 150km range. So what if it gets jammed a bit? Optically guided sub-drones/munitions (don’t want to mis-something these) would obviate all that.

Many pages ago, I feel like we discussed paragliders as munitions. If your GLSDB-but-not-really drops a 100kg worth of paraglider drones from say 1kft at night, how do you even shoot all those down? Imagine if it’s 100x 1kg bomblets with parachutes and a battery and propellor and some servos for steering the chute, you could mess up a lot of stuff. Or I guess they could have flip out wings and whatnot, and that might be more reliable than a chute.

[Battlefront.com]

56 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

Assuming it’s true, it’s a pity about GLSDB.

I think we should accept that it is true.  I've been waiting for... what, a year?... to see these things have an impact on the battlefield.  Ukrainians are not shy AT ALL about bragging how they've put Western weapons to work, and yet we've seen near zero about GLSDB.  That's a pretty good indication that they aren't working as advertised.  Ukraine can't afford to rely upon something unreliable, so it makes sense they've given up on them.

Steve

[billbindc]

12 hours ago, dan/california said:

You are understating how crazy this story is, whether it is true is another question, but back to that in a minute. The story is saying that the ENTIRE WAR resulted form an effort by Shoigu and Ivanov to cover the massive extent of their embezzlement. And then not content with that, they tried to take over Prigozhin's empire exactly the way they he said they did, and THIS resulted in the march on Moscow. Now Putin has finally realized what is going on. This is BEYOND NUTS. Yet Ivanov is sitting in prison for something. 

Apparently the Patrushev clan is leading the other faction at the Czars court, and think they finally have the rope to hang their rivals. This doesn't even have to be true, or mostly true, if enough of the Russian elite believe it to start a real power struggle.

I am not sure I believe any of this, but clearly a real argument about something is breaking loose between Kremlin factions. That is not a small thing.

Anything coming from, endorse by Sushko is entirely suspect. Caveat emptor.