How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

On Pokrovsk direction Russians captured important height - the terricone between Mykhailivka and Marynivka villages, this is about 5 km from eastern outskirts of Myrnohrad.

In Chasiv Yar our troops could push back Russians and recapture some ground in NE part of the town and beyond canal

  

 

Multistorey residential house in Myrnohrad after Russian gliding bomb impact. Myrnohrad in English meaning "peaceful town"

Edited August 17 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

225th separate assault battalion of TD Command has captured Russian officer, who joined to action "change me for Azov captives". Interesting, he says he is junior lieutenant - company (!) commander and by unknown reason of 1st motor-rifle (?) battalion of 810th naval infantry brigade. I was puzzled, why "motor-rifle", not landing-assault" or "naval infantry", but probably this is reflection of some TO&E changes, likley naval infantry battalions now name themselves motor-rifle. In 2022 each naval infantry battlion consisted of two motor-rifle and one landing-assault companies. Maybe something has changed

 

[FancyCat]

Another air strike.

Quote

Kursk Oblast, Ukrainian forces advancing into the town of Vnezapnoe were able to call in air support, with a Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 Flanker dropping a salvo of GBU-39 SDB glide bombs on a pair of Russian strongpoints.

Location (51.236900, 34.879179)
h/t @AndrewPerpetua for the base map

 

[Haiduk]

Hm... Offtop, but.. Chineese carrier (ex-Soviet "Minsk" pr.1143 Kiev-class) cought fire. It considers like "museum", but who knows...

 

Edited August 17 by Haiduk

[sburke]

6 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Hm... Offtop, but.. Chineese carrier, which they bought in Ukraine (ex-unfinished Kiev-class) cought fire and looks like will out of action for long time

 

 

Chinese Navy taking lessons from Russia?

[Haiduk]

6 minutes ago, sburke said:

Chinese Navy taking lessons from Russia?

Sorry, I edited the post. The carrier, which they bought in Ukraine was "Varyag" (1143.6 project), now "Lyaonin" in active service.  

This one is former carrier of Soviet Pacific Fleet "Minsk", which was decomissioned in 1993. This one and her sistership "Kiev" (from Norther Fleet) both were sold to China and formally became "museums"

Edited August 17 by Haiduk

[Kraft]

You can only bomb nazi germany on your own soil churchill, least we provoke Hitler. Good luck with D-day though.

 

 

Edited August 17 by Kraft

[sburke]

40 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Sorry, I edited the post. The carrier, which they bought in Ukraine was "Varyag" (1143.6 project), now "Lyaonin" in active service.  

This one is former carrier of Soviet Pacific Fleet "Minsk", which was decomissioned in 1993. This one and her sistership "Kiev" (from Norther Fleet) both were sold to China and formally became "museums"

LOL doesn't matter.  It was the sight of a burning carrier that triggered the memories of Russia's fleet issues.  

[sburke]

1 hour ago, Kraft said:

You can only bomb nazi germany on your own soil churchill, least we provoke Hitler. Good luck with D-day though.

 

 

The US is not in a state of war with Russia... technically.

[Haiduk]

Allegedly here is Neptun in long-range ground attack version. The missile is much longer than antі-ship version

Edited August 17 by Haiduk

[dan/california]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

conscripts tried to abandon positions, but were met with shooting of "Akhmat", so they returned on positions and surrenderd.

This how Ukraine wins the war, surrendering needs to be the least scary option for Russian soldiers. Work backwards from this, on more or less everything. In an ideal world shooting the blocking troops would be their next option, but I am not even sure how often that happened in 1917. I think it is more or less unheard of since.

[Vet 0369]

23 hours ago, kraze said:

Facing a life/death choice is a different thing from not facing it.
The ones who got to make a life choice - realize they need to stay alive to be able to murder, rape and loot in the future and being dead kinda prevents one from doing that.

When you lower yourself to the level of your opponent, you become that opponent! So, maybe deep down, you are Russian.

[Jiggathebauce]

8 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

 

Being angry at superficial Nazi symbols while ignoring that both Russia and actual German political parties like AfD are following actual Nazi goals and ideas, is either incredibly shortsighted or acting in a bad faith.

Who here is ignoring this? I have been very outspoken about my opposition to ALL nazi following actors in this war, from Vladimir Putin and his government, to his far right supporters in the west, and yes too NATO/ukrainian opponents both appropriating nazi imagery for "trolling purposes only" and the outright fascists. Fascism bad, their symbols bad, anyone endorsing them even ironically or for humor or aesthetic reasons is worthy of criticism and shame, period. 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ukraine-the-latest/id1612424182?i=1000665645049

This was REALLY interesting yesterday. A think tank guy who specializes in EW and comms had a fascinating suggestion. The way the Ukrainians completely bleeped Russian communications in Kursk was by sending special forces behind Russian lines to set up jammers BETWEEN the front line units and their commanders. That gave them the effective signal strength to cut off Russian frontline units more or less completely. He also made the point that the force density in Donestk makes things like tis more or less impossible.

[ArmouredTopHat]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

 

This was REALLY interesting yesterday. A think tank guy who specializes in EW and comms had a fascinating suggestion. The way the Ukrainians completely bleeped Russian communications in Kursk was by sending special forces behind Russian lines to set up jammers BETWEEN the front line units and their commanders. That gave them the effective signal strength to cut off Russian frontline units more or less completely. He also made the point that the force density in Donestk makes things like tis more or less impossible.

Could you not do this with drone dropped jammers in the rear lines too?

Jesus that sounds scary...

[ArmouredTopHat]

A pretty good summary of the Kursk op so far that reflects my own views. This really was a much needed boon to the Ukrainians. 

[dan/california]

8 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Could you not do this with drone dropped jammers in the rear lines too?

Jesus that sounds scary...

I am not entirely clear on the total payload required. I also assume it works better if everything but the antenna is hidden in a basement, or an irrigation culvert. But in terms of a system I would be actively trying to develop, doing it by drone would be high on my list.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

1 hour ago, Vet 0369 said:

When you lower yourself to the level of your opponent, you become that opponent! So, maybe deep down, you are Russian.

This is, for lack of a more elegant word, bollocks. In WW2, the Allies resorted both to indiscriminate bombing of cities and unlimited submarine warfare, in response to what Germans did. Having liberated Dachau concentration camp, US soldiers executed 50 guards on the spot. Having been, unwisely or purposefully, left in charge of Oskar Dirlewanger, the butcher of the Warsaw Uprising, Polish soldiers beat him daily until he died. None of this makes the Allied side morally equivalent to the Nazis.I am sorry, but in real life it matters who was the first, and who was taking his revenge.

[ArmouredTopHat]

The parade monstrosity made an appearance again. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1eub389/the_moment_russian_ka52_helicopter_was_shot_down/

Confirmation and a crazy little snippet of a Manpad kill on the KA-52 in Kursk. Really showed how chaotic the first days were that the Russians had choppers flying over AFU units. 

[The_Capt]

32 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

This is, for lack of a more elegant word, bollocks. In WW2, the Allies resorted both to indiscriminate bombing of cities and unlimited submarine warfare, in response to what Germans did. Having liberated Dachau concentration camp, US soldiers executed 50 guards on the spot. Having been, unwisely or purposefully, left in charge of Oskar Dirlewanger, the butcher of the Warsaw Uprising, Polish soldiers beat him daily until he died. None of this makes the Allied side morally equivalent to the Nazis.I am sorry, but in real life it matters who was the first, and who was taking his revenge.

Easy now.  What we did not see was Allies rounding up civilians and executing them in retribution.  Further, and this is for everyone - just because you like CMBN and Band of Brothers, WW2 is the last historical citation anyone wants to use in the modern prosecution of warfare. In many ways it was as bad or worse than medieval warfare when it came to any laws of armed conflict.  WW2 is the reason we passed the modern laws of armed conflict and stood up an entire international legal mechanism to investigate and prosecute warcrimes.

Illegal "revenge" or "retribution" is not sanctioned under international law.  By this logic, Ukraine could have a few Buchas to "even the score".  This would be 1) illegal, 2) morally wrong and 3) harming to the larger Ukrainian cause.

Does this "tit-tat" stuff happen on the battlefield...definitely. Is it still illegal, yep. What civilians do not understand is that the hard part is not to get the guys to kill people, it is getting them to stop. (And before anyone pulls out Grossman and Marshall their conclusions are highly disputed, and from personal experience, simply do not add up to observations in the modern era.)  

[sburke]

6 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Easy now.  What we did not see was Allies rounding up civilians and executing them in retribution.  Further, and this is for everyone - just because you like CMBN

I swear I have had a couple CM battles where I was pretty sure my guys executed prisoners....    They said it was by "accident".  Not sure I should buy that excuse.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Easy now.  What we did not see was Allies rounding up civilians and executing them in retribution

That’s indeed a type of war crime that Western Allied troops seemed not to have engaged in in significant amount. However, it is a bit selective to focus on this. Because e.g looting and rape was going on (French Moroccan troups infamously raping 12000 women in Italy around the Cassino battle alone), as well as executions of German POWs in more or less justified reprisals for war crimes. In any event, by focusing on reprisals against civilians you seem to be doing what I would advocate:  looking at what war crimes were committed by each party and making a judgment based on all circumstances, as opposed to saying in a blanket way „if we commit war crimes, we become like them”. This is intellectually lazy. All parties to a war will commit some war crimes, that is statistically inevitable, but there are ways to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

 

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

WW2 is the last historical citation anyone wants to use in the modern prosecution of warfare. In many ways it was as bad or worse than medieval warfare when it came to any laws of armed conflict.  WW2 is the reason we passed the modern laws of armed conflict and stood up an entire international legal mechanism to investigate and prosecute warcrimes.

Come on, this is a bit disingenuous. Ever since the WW2 the mainstay of Western grand strategy is MAD and the threat if the US executing the SIOP. That is the plan of indiscriminate killing of hundreds of millions of Soviet and Russian civilians for no other reason than reprisals for their country’s doing the same to the US. It has not come to pass. But it is still on the books, one push of the button away. 

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

That’s indeed a type of war crime that Western Allied troops seemed not to have engaged in in significant amount. However, it is a bit selective to focus on this. Because e.g looting and rape was going on (French Moroccan troups infamously raping 12000 women in Italy around the Cassino battle alone), as well as executions of German POWs in more or less justified reprisals for war crimes. In any event, by focusing on reprisals against civilians you seem to be doing what I would advocate:  looking at what war crimes were committed by each party and making a judgment based on all circumstances, as opposed to saying in a blanket way „if we commit war crimes, we become like them”. This is intellectually lazy. All parties to a war will commit some war crimes, that is statistically inevitable, but there are ways to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

 

Come on, this is a bit disingenuous. Ever since the WW2 the mainstay of Western grand strategy is MAD and the threat if the US executing the SIOP. That is the plan of indiscriminate killing of hundreds of millions of Soviet and Russian civilians for no other reason than reprisals for their country’s doing the same to the US. It has not come to pass. But it is still on the books, one push of the button away. 

So MAD is justification for such legal frameworks of “they did it first, so we can too”?  MAD is outside of the laws of armed conflict.  In fact MAD is outside warfare itself.  It is an action of species suicide - taking you with me over the cliff.  You are conflating prosecution of conventional warfare with an activity outside of the legal frameworks we have constructed…to avoid freakin MAD.

If Ukraine starts committing the same level and intensity of warcrimes, what do you suppose will happen to support from the West? It is in fact intellectually lazy to simply dismiss the whole “warcrimes thing” as “boys will be boys”.  There is never justification or legal normalization of war criminal behaviour.  To throw the LOAC out the window is to pretty much toss the international rules based order out with it.  At that point what are we fighting for?  If we destroy the rules based order we built, because we are angry or pissy with Russia - we basically erode or destroy why we are supporting Ukraine in the first place.

Trust me I get the impulse and the realities of warfare, but a major difference between a professional military and the RA is adherence to laws of warfare…even when it gets hard. Actually, especially when it gets hard.  Any military that starts to slip, forgiving or looking the other way on unrighteous shoots, is on a slippery slope.  Let it get too far and we won’t be able to tell the difference and that has serious strategic repercussions.

[ArmouredTopHat]

Crazy evac under close fire.