How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

What type of idiots would put a Ukrainian flag on a boat. A operation where supposedly you cut off contact with command after deploying but you think it's a good idea to put a flag on your boat.

Quote

Witnesses on other yachts moored in Sandhamn noted that the Andromeda was the only boat with a small Ukrainian flag hoisted on its mast.

#OpSec

Polish officials initially refused to hand over the CCTV footage of the port. This year, they told their German colleagues that the footage had been routinely destroyed shortly after the Andromeda departed.
The Polish internal security agency ABW said that no such footage exists

 

Quote

"Inclement weather forced the crew to make an unplanned stop in the Swedish port of Sandhamn. One diver accidentally dropped an explosive device to the bottom of the sea”

Possibly why the last NordStream2 line wasn’t destroyed?

 

[Haiduk]

This is information from Russian TG and questionable, but this quite could be real.

Allegedly representattives of FSB rised a question in front of Putin that it's need to assasinate most famous Ukrianian fundrisers, who accumulate huge funds in very short terms and who are main driver of innovations and their funding, when the state is too сlumsy. FSB considers elimination of these people will huge blow on "parallel military supply" of UAF, because they have huge credit of trust and their loss will be hard to substitute quickly to renew fundrising. 

 

If so, priority targets are

Serhiy Sternenko, 29 y.o. (mass implementation of FPV and now FPV-interceptors), former Right Sector activist, who already survived three attempts of beating and assasination from the side of Odesa mayor Trukhanov (in the fight he killed attacker with his knife)

Taras Chmut, 33 y.o - former "sergeant marine-who-dismissed Naval Forces commander" - acting chief of "Back-and-Alive" fund. Complex and systematic support of Army with new technological stuff (difefrent drones, combat info systems, comms) they also have license to weapon import. So Back-and-Alive in joke also called "Shadow MoD", because their influence on Army supply is very big.

Serhiy Prytula, 43 y.o. - man from show-business, chief of "Serhyi Prytula Fund". Also multiple programs for cool equipment for AFU on dozens and hundred millions. He also tries own forces in policy, so maybe we will see him in next presidental elctions

Ihor Lachenkov (aka Lachen), 25 y.o. - popular UKR blogger and influencer with 800000 of subscribers, who also gathers dozens of millions for a days for AFU equipment.

Really this young people made not less that official military structures and maybe even much more in improvement of army capabilities.

Edited August 15 by Haiduk

[chuckdyke]

Google translate works well, and they also discuss the political side of the present ongoing conflict.

 

[Beleg85]

45 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Polish officials initially refused to hand over the CCTV footage of the port. This year, they told their German colleagues that the footage had been routinely destroyed shortly after the Andromeda departed.
The Polish internal security agency ABW said that no such footage exists

They must not necessarly lie here. Courts sometimes may lag with even banal decisions for months (hard reality here- due to political chaos and missed reforms in recent years simple legal case may take up several years to complete) and without court ruling somebody in charge could destroy tapes as obliged by routine. There were such cases before.

Additionally "gentelman's secret" was that they were afraid tapes may end in Russian hands- even PL-version of German newspaper DW wrote about it. By that time there was scandal after scandal showing how deep Russian penetrated German state services. But yeah, from legal standpoint there are many "unfortunate events" in this case. Validity of charges and practicallity of such small yacht doing such damage is another issue.

[Haiduk]

UKR servicemen explore underground part of Russian company strongpoint, captured yesterday. Well, the level of their mlitary engineer-sapper school still as high as in Soviet times. 

 

Edited August 15 by Haiduk

[Battlefront.com]

Report that Ukraine may have gained access to all of Russia's rail network traffic/schedule data as a result of it's actions inside Russia:

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-kursk-railway-train-station-russia-1938924

Steve

[The_Capt]

Interesting look at just how tightly Putin’s regime is gripping things right now:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/prison-sentence-for-russian-woman-in-treason-case-reportedly-tied-to-us-51-charity-donation-1.7001568

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Butschi said:

Honestly, and no offense meant, it feels like you want it to be the Russians and so can't accept evidence that points in a different direction.

Re your point 1: At least one member of that team was a specialist in diving to these depths.

Thinking that so many people in the German judiciary system plus the journalists from at least three different news outlets are all on the Russian payroll is quite ridiculous. Try to see it from a different point of view: Evidence pointing towards Ukraine is really inconvenient for our government, especially with a bunch of elections coming up that sees the Putin supporters in front. I know, Scholzing and all but we did send a lot of money and equipment to Ukraine. Learning that Ukrainians blew up the pipelines - possibly even with support from the Ukrainian military - would put the government into a difficult position. Well, an even worse position than it is in now. In addition, aggravating the Polish government would have been kind of satisfying when it was still PiS, I guess, but we really don't want this to happen with the new government.

So, whatever the truth will turn out to be in the end, I think it is very unlikely that this arrest warrant would have been sent if there wasn't solid evidence to back it.

I can not stress enough the massive assumption people are making when they say "Ukrainian citizen".  We know VERY WELL that huge numbers of Ukrainian citizens are fighting for Russia.  Until someone can prove the Ukrainian that Germany is looking for is pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia, then put a sock in any conspiracy theories about Ukrainian government involvement.

I will say this again... we don't have any good information to go on.  The little we have is woefully inadequate to draw any conclusions, especially since some of it is contradictory.  The article just referenced does not change that equation one tiny bit.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, zinz said:

The amount of Russian prisoners makes this operation feel different to the ones before. Well might have knock on effects in other areas as well with more Russians willing to surrender 

For sure it is different, but there's a good reason for that -> conscripts.  These units make the unfit units in Ukraine look like supermen by comparison.  In fact, these units are not even supposed to be fighting because there is no declaration of war.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Witnesses on other yachts moored in Sandhamn noted that the Andromeda was the only boat with a small Ukrainian flag hoisted on its mast.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about.  Scant information which may be important or might be just puzzling.  We know, for sure, that the FSB and GRU *LOVE* to plant false information like this when they are looking to frame someone.  We've seen endless amounts of it since 2013, but some of my favorites are the "Sims" and the boxes of Nazi memorabilia that magically turned up whenever they arrested a Ukrainian for anything.

My point is if anybody wants to get speculating on who did this based on tiny bits of fragmented information, then I say the openly Ukrainian guys on a openly rented boat with an openly flying little Ukrainian flag allegedly flying on that ship proves that Russia did it.

See how easy it is to leap to conclusions? 

Steve

(though to be fair to myself, what I just wrote is pretty well grounded in reality even if it turns out not to be true)

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

UKR servicemen explore underground part of Russian company strongpoint, captured yesterday. Well, the level of their mlitary engineer-sapper school still as high as in Soviet times. 

 

Looks really good, but there's few signs of it being used much.  Also didn't see a lot of room for large numbers of soldiers.  Command center?

Steve

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I can not stress enough the massive assumption people are making when they say "Ukrainian citizen".  We know VERY WELL that huge numbers of Ukrainian citizens are fighting for Russia.  Until someone can prove the Ukrainian that Germany is looking for is pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia, then put a sock in any conspiracy theories about Ukrainian government involvement.

I will say this again... we don't have any good information to go on.  The little we have is woefully inadequate to draw any conclusions, especially since some of it is contradictory.  The article just referenced does not change that equation one tiny bit.

Steve

I made no such assumption. The person Germany is now looking for with an arrest warrant is believed to be Ukrainian citizen. A possible involvement of the Ukrainian military is not a conspiracy theory but I referred to an article in "Die Zeit" (one of the news magazines involved in the investigation).

https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2024-07/nordstream-anschlag-ermittlungen-festnahme

It is in German, here a translation of the part I was referring to:
 

Quote

Even before the attack, the Dutch had warned of an attack on Nord Stream based on information from an informant. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, they said, knew nothing about the plan. However, the men would report directly to Valery Salushnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces at the time. The involvement of a “rogue unit”, i.e. a unit of the Ukrainian army acting on its own authority, was also not ruled out in the report.

At the end of last year, the Washington Post and Der Spiegel then reported on a further link to the Ukrainian military. Roman Chervinsky, a decorated colonel with links to Ukrainian military intelligence, was said to have been the coordinator of the attack. He supported the six-man commando with the logistics and received his orders from high-ranking military officers. These in turn reported to the commander-in-chief, Salushnyj. Chervinsky is currently on trial in Kiev because he allegedly tried to persuade a Russian fighter pilot to defect on his own authority and revealed the coordinates of a base in the process.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

That's not really news and no where near conclusive (as the article itself says) but it can't be ruled out, either - which is why I said "possibly even with support from the Ukrainian military". It is certainly not a conspiracy theory.

54 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

My point is if anybody wants to get speculating on who did this based on tiny bits of fragmented information, then I say the openly Ukrainian guys on a openly rented boat with an openly flying little Ukrainian flag allegedly flying on that ship proves that Russia did it.

True but stupid people do stupid things and sometimes even intelligent people do stupid things. Even if the Ukrainian military was actually involved in some way that doesn't mean this group of people were professionals. It was still relatively early on in the war and maybe they simply were patriots and/or wanted to show their support of Ukraine. Stupid? Maybe, unthinkable? No.

Look, we don't know that much more than we knew earlier, on the other hand, as I said before, I doubt our judiciary system would have gone ahead with that arrest warrant without solid evidence to back it. That is not a proof, either, but makes this version a candidate to at least seriously consider.

As you say yourself, "we don't have any good information to go on". Ukraine, like others, had the means, motivation and opportunity to do it and so like in any criminal case I suggest we simply keep an open mind and not exclude leads just because we don't like where they are going or want someone else to be behind this.

Edited August 15 by Butschi

[Battlefront.com]

9 minutes ago, Butschi said:

As you say yourself, "we don't have any good information to go on". Ukraine, like others, had the means, motivation and opportunity to do it and so like in any criminal case I suggest we simply keep an open mind and not exclude leads just because we don't like where they are going or want someone else to be behind this.

Right, which is why we shouldn't waste our time talking about this any more.  It is all pure speculation at this point and there's been no new information to change that.

Steve

[Butschi]

8 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Right, which is why we shouldn't waste our time talking about this any more.  It is all pure speculation at this point and there's been no new information to change that.

Steve

Fair enough.

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, zinz said:

The amount of Russian prisoners makes this operation feel different to the ones before. Well might have knock on effects in other areas as well with more Russians willing to surrender 

The successes capturing POWs in Kursk are unlikely to be repeated in the areas to the south that been fought over for years. In addition to the extraordinarily poor quality of the troops themselves in Kursk, the entire coercive apparatus of the "new model" Russian military hasn't been emplaced behind the lines for tens of kilometers. The people who will shoot you for retreating, the artillery that will shell you for trying to surrender, and, and, and...Kursk apparently had none of that, or almost none of it anyway.

So the only way these kind of large scale surrenders can happen in Donestk is if the Russian military system truly breaks. Now if that did happen I would hazard to speculate the Ukraine wins the war about a day later. Then we can all move on to whether there is a clean and organized coup in Moscow, or whether the Grand Duchy of Uralstan eventually gets a UN seat. Sadly we aren't there yet.

[FancyCat]

I think the best scenario for Ukraine is that Russia keeps trying to generate little value forces to stop Ukraine in Kursk in a bid to stay on the offensive in the Donbas. Ukraine's superior troop quality will keep attriting them, and eventually they will need to move good quality forces and stop offensive action in Ukraine but not before trying secret mobilization of conscripts and other illegal actions that generate loss of social trust so Russia smacks itself in the head twice.

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/DroneCombat/comments/1esqlc3/a_ukrainian_fpv_drone_destroys_a_russian_bm21/

A Ukrainian FPV drone destroys a Russian BM-21 Grad MLRS in a catastrophic explosion after the BM-21 was spotted and followed by a spotter drone.

 

An excellent example of how effective FPV use depends on higher flying recon drones.

[FancyCat]

Quote

The US is reportedly “open” to supplying Ukraine with AGM-158 JASSM air launched stealth cruise missiles, and is already working on upgrading Ukrainian F-16s to fire them, per Politico.

“No final decision has been made on sending the missile, but the administration is working through the complicated details now, according to one Biden administration official.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/15/biden-missiles-ukraine-russia-00174147

 

[billbindc]

6 hours ago, Butschi said:

Honestly, and no offense meant, it feels like you want it to be the Russians and so can't accept evidence that points in a different direction.

Re your point 1: At least one member of that team was a specialist in diving to these depths.

Thinking that so many people in the German judiciary system plus the journalists from at least three different news outlets are all on the Russian payroll is quite ridiculous. Try to see it from a different point of view: Evidence pointing towards Ukraine is really inconvenient for our government, especially with a bunch of elections coming up that sees the Putin supporters in front. I know, Scholzing and all but we did send a lot of money and equipment to Ukraine. Learning that Ukrainians blew up the pipelines - possibly even with support from the Ukrainian military - would put the government into a difficult position. Well, an even worse position than it is in now. In addition, aggravating the Polish government would have been kind of satisfying when it was still PiS, I guess, but we really don't want this to happen with the new government.

So, whatever the truth will turn out to be in the end, I think it is very unlikely that this arrest warrant would have been sent if there wasn't solid evidence to back it.

I get this and have certainly dialed back my own certainty just a bit that it was a Russian operation rather than a Ukrainian one. But there’s a detail noted elsewhere that really sticks in my craw…the report that there was a Ukrainian flag on the boat assigned to the task. These are the guys who wiped out Dugin’s daughter without leaving foot prints. Who conduct operations routinely with nary a trace. And yet, in this one, where it would really be a huge problem if Germany and others find out that they did it…they quite literally stick their flag on it. Maybe they did but there’s a more obvious false flag interpretation that seems more compelling to me. 

[Mindestens]

Unfortunately, Russians managed to hit Himars working close to the russian border in support of Kursk operation, supposedly with Iskander. This time it really doesn't look like some tomfoolery with weird camera cuts.

https://x.com/Fitek69/status/1824095099447296072

Edited August 15 by Mindestens
Forgot how to add Twitter things

[ArmouredTopHat]

6 minutes ago, Mindestens said:

Unfortunately, Russians managed to hit Himars working close to the russian border in support of Kursk operation, supposedly with Iskander. This time it really doesn't look like some tomfoolery with weird camera cuts.

https://x.com/Fitek69/status/1824095099447296072

There is literally a cut before the strike, and you see a HIMARS booking it on the right side after the strike.

Honestly hard to verify thanks to Russian potato cam as usual. 

Edited August 15 by ArmouredTopHat

[Butschi]

36 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I get this and have certainly dialed back my own certainty just a bit that it was a Russian operation rather than a Ukrainian one. But there’s a detail noted elsewhere that really sticks in my craw…the report that there was a Ukrainian flag on the boat assigned to the task. These are the guys who wiped out Dugin’s daughter without leaving foot prints. Who conduct operations routinely with nary a trace. And yet, in this one, where it would really be a huge problem if Germany and others find out that they did it…they quite literally stick their flag on it. Maybe they did but there’s a more obvious false flag interpretation that seems more compelling to me. 

I don't know where this information really comes from, I can't remember having read about it except for that one X post. What's odd is not that there was a Ukrainian flag, I think. Having done some sailing myself, having your national flag is what you do and it might even be a legal requirement (I think it is in Germany?). So not having a flag might look suspicious. And since those people probably spoke Ukrainian it might have looked more suspicious to have a different flag. So maybe weighing not raising suspicion until the operation is done was more important than not leaving evidence? But then you usually put your national flag at the rear of the boat not on at the mast. That is where the courtesy flag, the flag of the host country, belongs. Then it might have been false flag (huh, pun intended, I guess), hubris, stupidity and a number of other reasons. Those people weren't necessarily SOF types or really connected to the military. Anyway, this really is pure speculation now. <- And Steve is already unhappy with this topic...

Edited August 15 by Butschi

[ArmouredTopHat]

12 hours ago, dan/california said:

 

 

Additional footage that verifies that AFU special forces are infiltrating with Russian uniforms to sow chaos. This is truly the devils playground and the AFU seem to want exactly that. No wonder conscripts are surrendering in droves. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

Further evidence that Challenger 2s are operating in Kursk. Chobham eating those HEAT warheads as expected. 

[dan/california]

52 minutes ago, Mindestens said:

Unfortunately, Russians managed to hit Himars working close to the russian border in support of Kursk operation, supposedly with Iskander. This time it really doesn't look like some tomfoolery with weird camera cuts.

https://x.com/Fitek69/status/1824095099447296072

 

45 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

There is literally a cut before the strike, and you see a HIMARS booking it on the right side after the strike.

Honestly hard to verify thanks to Russian potato cam as usual. 

If HIMARS are so effective that Russia feels the need to hunt them with Iskanders, well all I can say is send more HIMARS. Send ALL the HIMARS!

Edited August 15 by dan/california