How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sburke]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

This doesn't necessarily mean that Russia is about ready to collapse, but it does seem to indicate that Putin believes his negotiating position is weakening. 

Steve

To quote Nancy Reagan - "Just say no".  If Putin is feeling this is as good as it gets- let it get worse.  At a minimum Ukraine should demand return to pre 2022 as a start.  Until then make the BSF disappear and continue the strain on Russia's oil industry.

[FancyCat]

Has this been reported in official Russian news, not telegram sources? Was the prior strike on April 17th? If not, sounds like Russia wants to keep this stuff quiet for one reason or not.

[FancyCat]

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US-supplied M1A1 Abrams MBT in Ukrainian service, sporting a significant number of field modifications, including Kontakt-1 ERA bricks and improvised cage armor.

 

[dan/california]

 

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/24/2242442/-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-The-arrests-will-continue-until-morale-improves?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

 

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When they come for you at work and take you away in a black bus, you know you’re bleeped.

 

A lot of detail about the purge/changing of the guard at the Russian MOD, mentions several people I hadn't heard about. Popov's trial is already under way. I would bet a lot of money the verdict has already been dictated, too.

[ASL Veteran]

Without the commentary and a bit extended

 

Edited May 25 by ASL Veteran

[danfrodo]

31 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

 

 

A lot of detail about the purge/changing of the guard at the Russian MOD, mentions several people I hadn't heard about. Popov's trial is already under way. I would bet a lot of money the verdict has already been dictated, too.

good lord, what are the chances one of these guys is found not guilty?  That would be really funny, like monty python funny.  I can picture a skit where that famous crazy screaming nazi judge who would berate, belittle and threaten defendants would, right at the end, scream 'NOT GUILTY!' every time, leaving the court shocked and speechless.

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

There is no way the US green lit a strike on Russian strategic deterrence architecture.  Unless this was a whoopsie, and if it was it was a really big one.  No responsible (or sane) strike authority is going to sign off on this, any more than a Russian commander or politician is going to green light strikes on our own NORAD architecture.

I agree it's unlikely that the West even tacitly approved this strike (for all the reasons you stated), however I also don't think we can rule it out completely.

The first possibility is that someone in the West screwed up.  They either didn't know the significance of some action or it was at a lower level and someone there didn't think it was a big deal.  As unlikely as this is, it's possible.  The US had a huge number of safeguards to prevent friendly fire in the no-fly zone over Kurdish controlled Iraq in 1994, yet two Blackhawks were shot down for a loss of 26 lives.  It could be that someone was supposed to run an attack like this by a higher up, but didn't or it sat on a desk under something else by accident.  Shouldn't happen, but could happen.

Second possibility is that there's a deeper game going on here and the West, at some level, understood what Ukraine was going to do, ran a bunch of scenarios, determined the risk of this one incident was unlikely to cause a chain reaction, and allowed it happen.  Purpose?  To enable Ukraine to do what it wanted to do or to send some sort of message to Putin or to see how Russia would response. 

All of this is possible, though I an certainly not saying probable.  We simply don't know enough to be sure of anything.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

The US House of Reps is in the final stages of passing the budget for the US DoD.  Lots of interesting things in there generally, such as apparently the A-10 is FINALLY getting axed, but here are two Ukraine specific items:

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The committee markup did see multiple amendments overwhelmingly voted down, including one from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) that would have banned the U.S. from sending Ukraine cluster munitions, a measure defeated in a 10-48 vote.

Gaetz also tried and failed to insert an amendment into the bill that would have prevented Ukraine from receiving aid from presidential drawdowns.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4683182-house-defense-spending-space-guard-covid/

Gee, I wonder where Gaetz got the idea that cluster munitions should be withheld from Ukraine?

Steve

[dan/california]

57 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

good lord, what are the chances one of these guys is found not guilty?  That would be really funny, like monty python funny.  I can picture a skit where that famous crazy screaming nazi judge who would berate, belittle and threaten defendants would, right at the end, scream 'NOT GUILTY!' every time, leaving the court shocked and speechless.

I suspect both the judge and the defendant would have a failed attempt to learn to fly rather shortly.

[MikeyD]

Ukraine's been systematically going after long range radar for awhile. My opinion is they're 'shaping the battlefield' in anticipation of the imminent arrival of F16. In Ukraine's eyes if it can peer deep into Ukrainian airspace its a legitimate target.

[cesmonkey]

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The majority of the $2 billion will most likely go to purchasing weapons for Ukraine, a State department official told Defense One, speaking on background to discuss the topic. But a “significant” portion will go to incentivizing arms production and other less typical uses for FMF funds, they added.

A portion of the money, for example, could be used to stimulate Eastern European production of arms and munitions that Ukraine needs. The official specifically named Bulgaria, Romania, and Montenegro as potential investment sites.

 

[poesel]

14 hours ago, dan/california said:

How long before an ATACMs class missile can deploy say ~50 of them? You would probably need a braking parachute on the warhead before they dispensed but there isn't anything impossible about that. 

Why would you need to deliver a PGM with another expensive PGM to target?

Remember those wooden planes they had? (...some googling...)

Ok, just did the math here. ATACMs is just under $1,5M a pop. This cardboard plane costs $3k a piece.
https://www.sypaq.com.au/news/sypaq-awarded-logistics-drone-contract-by-army/
and could carry 2 drones. For the price of one ATACMs missile, you get 500 of these drones carrying 1000 drones.
The planes have some obvious pros & cons, but the redundancy & scalability are likely the biggest pros.

[Kraft]

Why is everyone here so hung up on the radar when russia themselfs doesnt seem to care too much?

 

[The_Capt]

13 minutes ago, Kraft said:

Why is everyone here so hung up on the radar when russia themselfs doesnt seem to care too much?

 

So after two years of this thing, you have not noticed that the Russians tend to up-play things they do not care about and stay silent of stuff they do?  An apartment building gets taken down and it is all over the RUS-IO sphere but things that actually hurt - like deep strikes on oil infra - they really don’t make a fuss. Ya think maybe it is a bit of a ploy?

[The_Capt]

10 hours ago, dan/california said:

Which brigs me back to at least the possibility the Russians did this themselves in the attempt to create diplomatic leverage. And whether or not the U.S. three letter agencies know better may not matter. The whole thing might be an information op aimed at places like Brazil and Indonesia to help ensure they stay on the sidelines, or undermine Ukraine at the U.N.. 

Something we are not very good at is keeping up with the state of the propaganda  war outside of European, and English speaking, media and diplomatic environments. 

I dunno and am getting increasingly averse to hitting the “false flag” easy button every time Ukraine might have made an error.  ISW seems confident it was UA:

“Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a drone strike against a Russian early warning radar system in Krasnodar Krai, Russia on the morning of May 23. Ukrainian and Russian sources posted photos of the aftermath of a Ukrainian drone strike on a Voronezh-DM ground-based early warning radar station on the territory of the Russian 818th Radio Technical Center near Armavir, Krasnodar Krai.[52] The sources noted that Russian forces used the radar to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at a range of up to 6,000 kilometers.[53] Radio Svoboda published satellite imagery from shortly after the strike showing damage to the radar system.[54]”

 

[Harmon Rabb]

22 minutes ago, Kraft said:

Why is everyone here so hung up on the radar when russia themselfs doesnt seem to care too much?

 

Wanted to stay out of this discussion for now because I'm not sure we have enough information yet.

Out of curiosity I typed "Russian Radar" into Google News, not much mainstream media coverage of the story. I found articles from Radio Free Europe and Yahoo both of which seem to cite a WarZone article.

Original article: Strike On Russian Strategic Early Warning Radar Site Is A Big Deal (TheWarZone)

Satellite Photos Show Ukrainian Drone Strike Damaged Russian Radar Station (RadioFreeEurope)

Strike On Russian Strategic Early Warning Radar Site Is A Big Deal (Yahoo)

 

Here is a quote from the RFE article that I think is the reason Ukraine hit this target, and this speculation was already brought up here on this forum by some members.

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The blog said the station may have been targeted because it is capable of tracking U.S.-made ATACMS long-range missiles, which were recently approved for distribution to Ukraine by Washington.

 

[Kraft]

24 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So after two years of this thing, you have not noticed that the Russians tend to up-play things they do not care about and stay silent of stuff they do?  An apartment building gets taken down and it is all over the RUS-IO sphere but things that actually hurt - like deep strikes on oil infra - they really don’t make a fuss. Ya think maybe it is a bit of a ploy?

I am talking about communication from top officials, even coked up propagandists know the people wont buy a 'west is planning  preemptive nuclear strike', its not like they are blind to the 2 years of pussy footing around what 50 year old gear to send. Nukes are a little ways off.

The russian fear of nuclear catastrophe can be accurately described by the tons of decade old ammunition they store in a recently active nuclear reactor close to the front line.

Edited May 25 by Kraft

[The_Capt]

10 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Biden and Co have not acted anywhere near being too rash or misplaying on escalation in regards to Ukraine and Russia the entire invasion, many times to my annoyance. If Blinken goes to Kiyv after Ukraine destroyed that radar and comes back and says Western weapons should be used in Russia, I'm certainly not going to worry about escalation, not with this administration's record on Ukraine.

Wow, talk about a tune change. You have ranted for pages on how ineffective the Biden admin has been because they have not sent every M1 in the US inventory, yesterday.  You have railed against Biden and co being too risk adverse about the nuclear threshold.  But now everything is “a ok”.

Blinken is Dept of State and is the signalling agent in this whole thing, not the military policy maker. Ultimately this is a conversation between the Joint Chiefs and CinC as to what controls and limitations there are going to be on employment of US weapons in Russia.  The main leverage the US has is that the strategic ISR needed to fight this war is largely held by the US, a major piece of the support-stick.  So I suspect that there will be pointed conversations on what is on the acceptable target list, and what is not.  I will bet a paycheque that Russian nuclear systems are on the “not” list.

This was a disconnect between Ukraine and its supporters.  It is not a good thing or something Ukraine wants to repeat.  My guess is that this was an error. Some over ambitious commander likely thought they were going after an IAD site and didn’t check the pink sheets.  Likely why Russia is playing it down, they do not want to get too close to this edge either.  But I suspect there were a lot of back-channel phone calls this week to defuse this thing.

The reality is that for some this war is “total”.  It is definitely for Russia towards Ukraine.  For others this war is limited - Russia does not strike into staging areas into Poland, we don’t hit certain target sets in Russia.  This is not “fair” but since when is war ever fair?  We cannot have a total war against a nuclear power…it is the very point of nuclear deterrence.  

[The_Capt]

10 minutes ago, Kraft said:

I am talking about communication from top officials, even coked up propagandists know the people wont buy a 'west is planning  preemptive nuclear strike', its not like they are blind to the 2 years of pussy footing around what 50 year old gear to send. Nukes are a little ways off.

The russian fear of nuclear catastrophe can be accurately described by the tons of decade old ammunition they store in a recently active nuclear reactor close to the front line.

When I hear silence from “top officials” and we are talking about some of whom were openly advocating strikes on the UK.  It means everyone is working to keep a lid on things.  It also means there has likely been a lot of traffic behind the scenes.

The major problem with this strike is that it makes Ukraine appear either incompetent or reckless.  I would actually be more comfortable if Russian officials were publicly making hay.  It would likely mean the site was decommissioned or somesuch and they just want to make noise.  When everyone gets quiet, that is when you need to worry.

Edited May 25 by The_Capt

[billbindc]

16 minutes ago, Kraft said:

I am talking about communication from top officials, even coked up propagandists know the people wont buy a 'west is planning  preemptive nuclear strike', its not like they are blind to the 2 years of pussy footing around what 50 year old gear to send. Nukes are a little ways off.

The russian fear of nuclear catastrophe can be accurately described by the tons of decade old ammunition they store in a recently active nuclear reactor close to the front line.

It is not russian fear of nuclear catastrophe we need to worry about. It's a series of miscalculations and misunderstandings that lead to an irrevocable nuclear exchange. 

[Hapless]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

When everyone gets quiet, that is when you need to worry.

You mean, Ukraine has found some leverage?

[The_Capt]

5 minutes ago, Hapless said:

You mean, Ukraine has found some leverage?

I mean, Ukraine crossed a line and parties are trying to contain it. Poking holes in nuclear tripwires could easily be misinterpreted as a prelude to something else by Russia. Having Ukraine "accidently" degrade their nuclear warning system could easily be misinterpreted by the more paranoid factions as cover for some bigger play by the West. 

I am getting annoyed at the migrant assessment of Russia, which basically gets tailored to fit any situation as opposed to being held as an objective frame. One minute Russian's are blood thirsty maniacs, cynical mercenaries the next.  Paranoid reactionists one day, then pragmatic apathy the next.  None of this is remotely helpful.

The realty is that Russia likely has factions as paranoid as our own.  Let's not make things worse by creating uncertainty error bars on the freakin nuclear equation. 

[danfrodo]

8 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Ukraine's been systematically going after long range radar for awhile. My opinion is they're 'shaping the battlefield' in anticipation of the imminent arrival of F16. In Ukraine's eyes if it can peer deep into Ukrainian airspace its a legitimate target.

I've been wondering this also.  Why knock out all that AD?  I assumed it was to open space for UKR observation/attack drones & missiles to operate more freely.  But maybe it's for actual airplanes??  

[FancyCat]

Right on time, Russia decides Biden needs more persuasion on releasing Western weapons for use inside Russia. As for the radar, that's two taken out. Again, considering that the West has not had to smack Ukraine down for deploying western weapons onto Russia so far, it's reasonable to believe that if Russia wanted to indicate this was a red line, they would have certainly ensured Blinken went to Ukraine ready to warn off Zelensky yet here is the 2nd one damaged.

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Russians just hit an “Epicenter” hypermarket in Kharkiv with two “FAB” aerial bombs.  Deliberately on the weekday when lots of civilians are inside.  2 people confirmed killed, large number of people is missing and many are wounded. There is a big fire going on right now.

 

[Haiduk]

23 hours ago, billbindc said:

No idea...but there should have been bright red "Do Not **** With This" warnings all over these targets on the Ukraine side. Kyiv actively hurt it's cause here. Acton with more detail: 

We already hit command center of similar early warning radar in central Russia and airfield of strategic aviation. Our SSO destroyed Russian Tu-22M3 on airfield in daring diversion raid. Our ATACMS hit S-400, GLONASS control center and sank the ship in Crimea. No nuclear armaggedon happened. This radar can detect targets on 6000 km - not only nuclear missiles, but all our fighters, missiles and drones. So, useful target