How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Fenris]

Couple of new vids from CivDiv, ex US marine I think he is.  Very detailed look his work as part of a drone team operating near Chasiv Yar.

Part 1

Part 2

 

[Pete Wenman]

2 hours ago, Offshoot said:

Meanwhile, General Lapin keeps on going. I'm sure Ukraine don't mind

Russian general weakened border defenses before Ukraine's Kursk incursion, WSJ reports
 

I wonder if this was a sanctioned leak?

Can't help but think of the magnificent "Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy" here 

For this task he was provided with the workname Lapin. Thus Brod became Ivlov and Ivlov became Lapin: of this poor Ivlov was extremely proud. (I did not tell him what Lapin means in French.) That a man’s wealth should be counted by the number of his names! Ivlov’s task was to service a mole. A mole is a deep-penetration agent.....

P

[Beleg85]

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

On this board we have Russian identity as:

Lack of citizen behaviour, depolitization, shauvinism, apaty, nationalism etc. You are right they are often contradictionary... bread and butter of russian studies, that's how it always was, from Western perspective. These are all qualities of Russian polity.

But this doesn't mean it is 'not' a polity and flock will scatter as soon as a shepard got lost or die. Without grevious ethnical, religious or tribal tensions, modern nation-states (hint: USSR was not one) rarely fall just like that.

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The fall of the Soviet Union was not because three old men had a meeting, it was years of internal and external pressures.

Still not internal revolution, though; events you bring up were consequences of actions somewhere else, namely Baltics, Caucasus and sattleites, naturally on top of crisis made by failed Gorbachev reforms (chief background for entire collapse). Analysis of actual process of events leading to dissolution points it was started from outer layer, not Russian core- that is why I deem USSR as artificial state that is difficult to compare with modern Russia. Too many self-concious nations trapped in commie cage and its Quasimodo socio-economy. There is no such potentiall now.

On topic of myths that it was Western pressure that collapsed Soviet Union, there are several books on primary sources (didn't read this one yet, but is highly reccommend by specialists):

https://www.routledge.com/The-Destruction-of-the-Soviet-Economic-System-An-Insiders-History-An-Insiders-History/Ellman-Kontorovich/p/book/9780765602640?srsltid=AfmBOoqQDIe7vlaSOBSHoSVJha9wqhcSWrNKbAdxXWn98_tSKi9k9QiO

9 hours ago, The_Capt said:

But the major problem is that if you are wrong, and in my opinion both of those positions are very wrong, then we are taking some serious risks that could make things much worse for Ukraine and the region as a whole…if not the whole world.  I for one am not comfortable with taking these kind of risks based on soft squishy factors like “Russian identity and culture”. Especially with the history that nation has had in the last 100 years or so (hell the last 35 would be enough).  This is as bad as “Russia has no red lines because they ain’t blown up the world yet” logic.

My only angle here is to cut on fantasies about dissolution or complete collapse of 144 mln nation-state. It can fail (in fact, it is failing its citizens and even its own power imaginations on fairly constant basis), but can it fall? Are Russians  apathetic to such degree? Will there be always someone who guard those nukes? I get that White House may not like to check that, but there is always  risk trying to turn around global power like Russia anyway and we will not necessarly escape these questions by playing it safe.

For example, I would like to know if professionall hangover after complete lack of controll over fall of USSR in DC elites, despite decades of analysis and various "plans of the Game" that plenty of powerful people builded their careers upon (Brzeziński, Scowcroft and many others admitted there was heavy panic in Washington then) may play a part in current approach. Again, not telling Biden crew is necessarly wrong, but there are certainly non-obejctive factors here involved. I'd prefer to be able to discuss them freely here, without being shouted at that we want to start war with Russia or that it has no red lines. None of us here has any power anyway.

8 hours ago, billbindc said:

It is very important to understand that the oligarchs, as understood to be the industrialists and opportunists who grabbed large sectors of the Russian economy after the collapse of the USSR are now either dead, driven into exile or reduced to occasional contributions from the sidelines (see: Deripaska, Oleg). The big Russian power players are mostly of the lineage of the Leningrad KGB and/or other former security service members who managed to attach themselves to Putin's rising star. 

This. Oligarchization is one of most played-over themes when thinking about modern Russia.

(sorry for grammatical mistyakes, writing from a train; will be out for some time but discussion is very interesting)

Edited August 22 by Beleg85

[The_Capt]

8 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

I must say I lean towards @Beleg85 in this quarrel, while appreciating your sense of the risks. 

Russians do have a pretty strong sense of 'Russianness', compounded by the fact that (like us in the Americas) they've colonised the majority of today's 'Russia' in the last 2 centuries, displacing or absorbing the indigenes.

That said, however....

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.--That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. 

.... It may therefore be that such very much self-identified culturally 'Russian' societies as Kuban and Novgorod decide that they've had a bellyful of 'absolute despotism' from Moscow -- by then effectively a satrapy to the Throne of Heaven in Beijing! -- and that they are better off going their own way (presumably as part of the European confederation, especially when a victorious postwar Ukraine proves to be thriving).

So you would tell them:  sorry kids, you must groan under Moscow's misrule forevermore, cuz loose nukes?

Wow that is one weird road to take to get somewhere.  So we are citing the US Constitution in relation to Russian stability?  So we are somehow supposed to transplant the US version of freedom and democracy to the people of Kuban and Novgorod?  You do recall that little tussle called the Revolutionary War?  So that with nukes?  Yes, based on your model they would have to groan.

If Russia could somehow reinvent itself peacefully, hey great.  But I am highly skeptical based on historical fact.  It is pretty arrogant and western-centric to try and somehow apply western political evolution to a nation that has demonstrated repeatedly a very different historical arc.

Edited August 22 by The_Capt

[zinz]

Quote

#Ukraine analysis of #Russia infantry tactics - translated from[^1] (all below text is a quote)

 

Russian ‘banzai charges’ on the #Pokrovsk direction

 

This very ‘banzai charge’[^2] term has already been used in some places by some observers. And it seems to me that it is mostly perceived as purely suicidal attacks without meaning and content. I understand it a little differently.

 

Recently, Mashovets had a review of Russian forces in the Pokrovske direction. Tens of thousands of personnel, more than 300 tanks, etc. So, all this force is being used in an extended period of time. Having large resources, i.e. equipment, combat vehicles and people, the Russians are still limited in their simultaneous use in a small area, due to the peculiarities of the terrain and the nature of the fighting. 

 

They have to advance along a limited number of roads and forest plantations. Accordingly, it makes no sense to accumulate dozens of vehicles in one wave. Instead, a certain set, a combination of forces and means is used for a specific attack. At the same time, the enemy obviously has a certain calculation of what it can afford to lose over a certain period of time and can calculate the use of it.

 

The less visible the assets are, the closer they can be pulled up and accumulated. They try to keep large equipment away from the contact line or well camouflaged in #Ocheretyne and the surrounding areas. Mortars, towed artillery, ammunition depots and infantry are also concentrated there. 

 

According to my observations, in one of the areas where an active offensive is taking place, in addition to the usual infiltration of soldiers through the landings and folds of the terrain for replenishment/rotation, there is an average of one concentrated attack with a combination of means every day.

 

Armoured vehicles include BMPs/BMDs or APCs that deliver personnel, tanks that support and cover them, all synchronised with artillery fire to nail the defenders to the ground, hide our art and drones. Sometimes even synchronised air strikes. All of this is spiced up with powerful electronic warfare systems on armour to combat FPV drones. 

 

They are also trying to cover the main routes of approach to the conditional attack line with electronic warfare. Ocheretyno is used as an intermediate stronghold, where they bring BCs and sometimes try to hide equipment. Obviously, everything is coordinated with the support of UAVs. 

 

Everything happens in a short period of time. Quickly, so that the defence has a minimum of time to react. In particular, a certain conditional brigade RUBAK 15 km from the contact line already knows about the movement of the group. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. This distance must be covered in a flash. 

 

The armour drops the troops - or doesn’t, if the artillery and drones are accurate enough. Tanks shoot back and run away if they can. Armour also, if it manages to survive. Infantry runs into the landing and tries to disperse and hide in the greenery. They approach their lines in small groups. 

 

At first glance, it really looks like a suicide attack, because we almost always inflict losses on them. The equipment either burns down irretrievably or suffers damage that requires repair. But in general, the task is accomplished to a certain extent. The attack often ends with a certain number of personnel surviving and reaching the position. This is followed by losses during assault operations and from drones that are constantly chasing the occupiers. Regardless of whether they attack or try to hide. 

 

Sometimes the armour that moves to the front line on a mission becomes the object of close attention of artillery and fpv units. If the enemy realises that it is impossible to get through, they sometimes try to hide their equipment. In the same Ocheretyne.

 

The video (https://t.me/silukr/370) shows an example of the destruction of an armoured personnel carrier and a car that the racists tried to hide.

 

Even without reinforcements in the area, the Russians can conduct hundreds more such assaults. What is important here is not only that they are trying to break through to the road from Pokrovsk to Kostiantynivka, but also that they are constantly honing the organisation and coordination of such attacks with a combination of their necessary means. In other words, they continue to adapt. That is why repelling such attacks is a very difficult task. Each unit of destroyed armour, logistics vehicles and personnel is the result of enormous efforts. 

 

[^1]: https://t.me/mortisaeterna/7636

[^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banzai_charge

Via: https://mastodon.social/@kravietz@agora.echelon.pl/113005106189538403

[The_Capt]

21 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Lack of citizen behaviour, depolitization, shauvinism, apaty, nationalism etc. You are right they are often contradictionary... bread and butter of russian studies, that's how it always was, from Western perspective. These are all qualities of Russian polity.

But this doesn't mean it is 'not' a polity and flock will scatter as soon as a shepard got lost or die. Without grevious ethnical, religious or tribal tensions, modern nation-states (hint: USSR was not one) rarely fall just like that.

Well we can add “a White Jesus instilled yearning to be American” based on LLFs last post.  I do challenge the notion that Russia does not have internal tensions, be they ethnic or otherwise.  A nation that is truly unified, holding hands as they try and find their inner Yankee, does not need an internal security force like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Security_Service

https://cicentre.com/page/191

That second source has the FSB manning at 400k.  For compassion the US FBI is manned at 35k

https://www.fbi.gov/about/faqs#:~:text=The FBI employs approximately 35%2C000,No.

Homeland Security - 260k…and they are doing a lot of jobs FSB does not.

https://www.dhs.gov/about-dhs#:~:text=The Department of Homeland Security,analyst to chemical facility inspector.

NSA - 32k

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency#:~:text=The NSA has roughly 32%2C000 employees.&text=Fort Meade%2C Maryland%2C U.S.&text="Defending Our Nation.

So all up for a nation of twice the size of Russia we see a smaller internal security service.  This tracks as the US fragility index is 44.5 vice 81 for Russia.

https://fragilestatesindex.org/country-data/

As we are well aware, the US has a strong national identity but they also have internal regional differences and frictions.  So I have serious doubts as to this vision of a wholly unified Russia based on identity.  Again, it is a factor but it glosses over the fact that a strongman with a police army is clearly at work here to hold the place together… much like the KGB did…and the Tzars for that matter.  For a country lacking “grievous ethnic tensions” it has a long history of large centralized internal security services whose sole job is to ensure everyone stays in line.

36 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

My only angle here is to cut on fantasies about dissolution or complete collapse of 144 mln nation-state. It can fail (in fact, it is failing its citizens and even its own power imaginations on fairly constant basis), but can it fall? Are Russians  apathetic to such degree? Will there be always someone who guard those nukes? I get that White House may not like to check that, but there is always  risk trying to turn around global power like Russia anyway and we will not necessarly escape these questions by playing it safe.

For example, I would like to know if professionall hangover after complete lack of controll over fall of USSR in DC elites, despite decades of analysis and various "plans of the Game" that plenty of powerful people builded their careers upon (Brzeziński, Scowcroft and many others admitted there was heavy panic in Washington then) may play a part in current approach. Again, not telling Biden crew is necessarly wrong, but there are certainly non-obejctive factors here involved. I'd prefer to be able to discuss them freely here, without being shouted at that we want to start war with Russia or that it has no red lines. None of us here has any power anyway.

Ok, so on collapse.  As billindc points out, there is a spectrum here. There is full on Mad Max/Haiti (which has a Fragility Index of 103.5 and likely being generous) which would very likely mean a second Russian Civil War.  And then there is a scale from that back up to “Putin takes a forever nap and some guy who looks just like him steps in”.  Oh and let’s not forget the possibility of free and fair elections in Novgorod, complete with peaceful Independence day games and the opening of a new Chucky Cheese franchise - this last one is for @LongLeftFlank.

There are levels of regime change that Russia can tolerate. And there are levels it cannot.  So the problem is that while everyone has an opinion, no one really knows where the breaking point is or is not.  Let’s say there is a military coup at the top and those freedom loving Novogrodians decide “Nope, we are out.” And the that military junta does what Russians do and clamps down by force.  That is an oblast of over a half million people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod_Oblast).  Clamping down on that will cause enormous internal strains, most impossible to predict.  Is pulling forces away from one region to deal with this going to allow for someone else to buck?  Will the Kubans also suddenly discover they have yearned for the US Constitution and decide to bolt.  We then go from single point to systemic failure as things start to unravel.  In good old Russian fashion, the new military junta doubles down and gets really ugly, tanks firing on Kuban’s waving their new Stars and Stripes. The strains and pressures build - to the point we really do not know where it will end.  

Maybe controls kick in, maybe they do not.  But the problem, from a western political and security point of view is 1) we do not know and 2) we cannot control the thing.  Both of those conditions are very bad. So we are not likely talking the Night of the Living Dead where everyone wakes up and starts killing each other…that was Rwanda and the Balkans btw. But even the most benign power shift can have follow on effects, particularly in a nation already under enormous self-inflicted strain.

So maybe we get lucky and the whole thing stays in a Chinese-satellite wheezy box.  Or maybe the whole thing ends in conflagration. The real problem is that once the fuse is lit no one can do math, rely on soft cultural factors, or the Russian inner-American to save the day.  So what do we do?  We what we are seeing.  A slow steady ratcheting of pressure, frog boiling, work the backfield - US intelligence has no doubt already reached out and that maybe why rich guys went window diving - and hope.  What one does not do is make violent motions or fully back Russia into a corner.

 

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Beleg85 said:

For example, I would like to know if professional hangover after complete lack of control over fall of USSR in DC elites, despite decades of analysis and various "plans of the Game" that plenty of powerful people built their careers upon (Brzeziński, Scowcroft and many others admitted there was heavy panic in Washington then) may play a part in current approach. Again, not telling Biden crew is necessarily wrong, but there are certainly non-objective factors here involved. I'd prefer to be able to discuss them freely here, without being shouted at that we want to start war with Russia or that it has no red lines. None of us here has any power anyway.

Where did you read there was 'panic' in DC during the fall of the USSR? I was around and I can tell you that there was concern certainly, an extraordinary amount of effort made to safeguard the Soviet nuclear arsenal and many hours put into...quite successfully I might add...ensuring as many non-violent outcomes to the breakup of that state as possible but panic? No. The reaction was flat out euphoria. Nobody expected it. The  analysis back then was that the Soviet state was an enduring fact for the foreseeable future whose cohesion was not in serious question. There was an understanding that the satellites were maybe spinning away at sometimes imperceptible degrees from the mid-1980's onwards but the Baltics? Ukraine? The 'stans? Not a chance. Just a dream.  

Something to consider when we talk about the future of things now.

[ArmouredTopHat]

Pretty severe case of friendly fire happening again, this time at point blank range. 

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

There are levels of regime change that Russia can tolerate. And there are levels it cannot.  So the problem is that while everyone has an opinion, no one really knows where the breaking point is or is not.  Let’s say there is a military coup at the top and those freedom loving Novogrodians decide “Nope, we are out.” And the that military junta does what Russians do and clamps down by force.  That is an oblast of over a half million people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod_Oblast).  Clamping down on that will cause enormous internal strains, most impossible to predict.  Is pulling forces away from one region to deal with this going to allow for someone else to buck?  Will the Kubans also suddenly discover they have yearned for the US Constitution and decide to bolt.  We then go from single point to systemic failure as things start to unravel.  In good old Russian fashion, the new military junta doubles down and gets really ugly, tanks firing on Kuban’s waving their new Stars and Stripes. The strains and pressures build - to the point we really do not know where it will end.  

Maybe controls kick in, maybe they do not.  But the problem, from a western political and security point of view is 1) we do not know and 2) we cannot control the thing.  Both of those conditions are very bad. So we are not likely talking the Night of the Living Dead where everyone wakes up and starts killing each other…that was Rwanda and the Balkans btw. But even the most benign power shift can have follow on effects, particularly in a nation already under enormous self-inflicted strain.

So maybe we get lucky and the whole thing stays in a Chinese-satellite wheezy box.  Or maybe the whole thing ends in conflagration. The real problem is that once the fuse is lit no one can do math, rely on soft cultural factors, or the Russian inner-American to save the day.  So what do we do?  We what we are seeing.  A slow steady ratcheting of pressure, frog boiling, work the backfield - US intelligence has no doubt already reached out and that maybe why rich guys went window diving - and hope.  What one does not do is make violent motions or fully back Russia into a corner.
 

Nice, you have wilfully missed the point of my quoting Jefferson, who himself was quoting (European) Enlightenment thinkers,  to go in for cheap Yankee bashing.

Do you have a better future in mind for Ukraine (and Russia) than, ahem 'Chuck E Cheese', or is it basically Okrajina, a perpetual armed camp with Ukrainians under 50 all emigrating?

Hey, reelpolitik bites, but history shows nothing better can really be expected of you Slavs. Otherwise, it's SS-18s in pawnshops.

Gosh, I feel so strategic now, thanks.

[Pete Wenman]

Interesting the Fight Club want a speaker on drone warfare, but are not sure who or where to look for them. Pretty much sums up the issues discussed here.

[Bearstronaut]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Wow that is one weird road to take to get somewhere.  So we are citing the US Constitution in relation to Russian stability?  So we are somehow supposed to transplant the US version of freedom and democracy to the people of Kuban and Novgorod?  You do recall that little tussle called the Revolutionary War?  So that with nukes?  Yes, based on your model they would have to groan.

If Russia could somehow reinvent itself peacefully, hey great.  But I am highly skeptical based on historical fact.  It is pretty arrogant and western-centric to try and somehow apply western political evolution to a nation that has demonstrated repeatedly a very different historical arc.

Hate being that guy but that was the US Declaration of Independence, not the US Constitution.

[A Canadian Cat]

16 hours ago, Eug85 said:

Russia cannot exist within its current borders as a free, democratic state. In the early nineties, there was an attempt to make Russia a free state. Without a strong government built on violence, Russia began to literally disintegrate. 

Exactly. One of the collapse scenarios is disintegration.

 

14 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

And they somehow survived 500 years of basically uninterrupted statehood in this way (minus several years in XVIIth and XXth century). As much as repulsing their polity is, don't you folks think there must be something more beneath it than pure coercion and yeasts of imperialism?

My bold: Nope see above.

I totally get that @The_Capt has written more and provided sources but it kinda comes down to this. Russia today is held together by force. If that force falters it can break apart. We just don't know how it will play out or when it might happen (or not - that is still possible).

[billbindc]

10 minutes ago, A Canadian Cat said:

Exactly. One of the collapse scenarios is disintegration.

 

My bold: Nope see above.

I totally get that @The_Capt has written more and provided sources but it kinda comes down to this. Russia today is held together by force. If that force falters it can break apart. We just don't know how it will play out or when it might happen (or not - that is still possible).

Come on now...Russia is *not* just held together by force. Shared language, culture, economics, infrastructure and external geopolitical pressures all have their part to play. It may decohere at times and the periphery may expand and contract but there has been an identifiable polity centered there since at least the 13th century. We need look no farther than the evident nationalism still supporting the war in Ukraine to see that that identity is still a powerful force. Unbreakable? No but it is bad analysis to underestimate it. 

[danfrodo]

If Putin goes I am gonna throw out a wild guess that RU will be run by ...... the strongest warlord available.  Probably high ranking officer of the security forces.  And if he brings about law & order & some stability the people will support him.  High falutin' political philosophy notions, in regards to RU, are quite lovely but seem to me quite unlikely.  

[akd]

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Pretty severe case of friendly fire happening again, this time at point blank range. 

Possibly started as parallax error (gunner’s sight is to left of barrel and some shells are impacting near the retreating Kozak), then evolved into panicked blind firing as the gunner’s vision was obscured.

Edited August 22 by akd

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Pretty severe case of friendly fire happening again, this time at point blank range. 

I'm not surprised.  I think it was reasonable for the BMP-3 crew to think the BMP-2 was Ukrainian based on where it came from and how it approached the intersection.  So the real issue here is that the Russian vehicles had no sense of where each other was.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

11 minutes ago, akd said:

Possibly started as parallax error (gunner’s sight is to left of barrel and some shells are impacting near the retreating Kozak), then evolved into panicked blind firing as the gunner’s vision was obscured.

Insightful as always!!  Yes, it cold simply be that the BMP-2 driver stopped just short of being spottable by the gunner, but not short enough being in LOF.

Though really, something should have dawned on the gunner when the rounds he was sending downrange were producing flashes within a few meters.  But like you suggested, panic and possibly inexperience would explain why that didn't happen.

Steve

[FancyCat]

Quote

Moments ago, a Ukrainian Navy Neptune cruise missile successfully struck a Russian ferry carrying fuel tankers in the Kavkaz port, near Kerch.

A series of explosions have ripped through the port area.

3rd tweet in chain: Location (45.341405,36.672914)

Reportedly the ferry Conro Trader

 

 

[Astrophel]

46 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Come on now...Russia is *not* just held together by force. Shared language, culture, economics, infrastructure and external geopolitical pressures all have their part to play. It may decohere at times and the periphery may expand and contract but there has been an identifiable polity centered there since at least the 13th century. We need look no farther than the evident nationalism still supporting the war in Ukraine to see that that identity is still a powerful force. Unbreakable? No but it is bad analysis to underestimate it. 

My impression is different.  From memory, in the last census, it was only 60% of people who identified as being russian and over 200 languages are being spoken.  This "empire" has been suppressed for centuries and we should have no illusions about its fragility but I will never forget travelling through Germany with our German Territory Manager a few weeks before the wall came down and BOTH OF US agreeing from our different perspectives that it would never happen in our lifetime.  A couple of months later USSR was no more!

On this track record I will not make a new prediction.  I do however think we could and should do a lot more to influence hearts and minds in "Russia" - whatever russia is.  Message 1) West is not a threat.  Message 2) It is fun to be free.  Message 3) West will help! 

We need to get soldiers surrendering and people choosing their own directions.  There are complete provinces ready to breakaway with a little encouragement.

Some of our thinkers in high places are overthinking this.  The nuclear threat is real but it is a lot more real with Putin in charge!  In my judgement the russian peoples - all of them - are motivated by fear.  We should be doing everything we can to make them feel safe.

We have the technology to broadcast our message but we are not doing it for some bizarre reason I do not understand.  Perhaps in the Harris Era we can make a paradigm shift - I hope so!

[Battlefront.com]

I think Beleg85 is being helpful in distinguishing between a systemic institutional collapse and a societal one.  I agree with him that Russians are predisposed to sacrificing long term interests in exchange for short term security.  This is, after all, the #1 reason cited for Putin's successful transformation of Russia back into a complete authoritarian regime.  Basically, Russians were content to take the quick and easy solution to their problems (authoritarianism) over the more difficult one (democracy).  Over time Putin has changed the original conditions of the deal and the Russians have continually opted to stick with it instead of "renegotiating".  2011 was the closest we came to seeing Putin challenged and he's worked diligently since then to make sure that didn't happen again.

That said, I agree with the others that Beleg85 is way, way underestimating the possibility of Russia having a societal level collapse.  While I do agree that Russians are predisposed to (once again) take the easy road of authoritarian in order to stabilize daily life, I think he's wrong to assume that the ONLY one that can offer this is centralized Moscow rule.

While I definitely agree with Beleg85 that the impetuous for the collapse of the Soviet Union was *mostly* due to non-Russian breakaways (Baltics and Warsaw Pact countries), that's not the whole story.  The Stans offer a contrary view, where these regions had been a basic component of both Tzarist Russia as well as the Soviet Union.  And yet, they did not stick with Moscow and instead became independent states.  And as close as their relations to Moscow might have been after, it's very clear that Moscow does NOT ultimately control them.

What I've been saying for years, not just since this war started, that the current power structure between Moscow and the peripheries is very fragile.  It is being held together more by fear, corruption, and economic interdependence more than a sense of share cultural and political identity.  Any situation that reduces the level of fear and economic incentives risks having the corruption become more localized and offer the people their own version of Putinism, but from their regional seat of power instead of Moscow.

Another way to view it is if the central authority in Moscow fails, it is more likely that regional players will fill the vacuum than having all of them re-unite under a new central authority.  That already happened with the Soviet Union in our lifetime, but it was incomplete.  I think we're headed towards something that is likely to take the dissolution of Tzarist Russia a step further.

Steve

 

[Holien]

40 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think it was reasonable for the BMP-3 crew to think the BMP-2 was Ukrainian based on where it came from and how it approached the intersection.

Could it have been Ukrainian?

Not sure how we can be certain it wasn't?

Just because someone edits video with a Russian flag?

Of course I am truly happy if it was a Russian...

[Eug85]

It appears that the airbase in Marinovka has sustained significant damage and satellite images confirm this.

[sburke]

1 hour ago, Bearstronaut said:

Hate being that guy but that was the US Declaration of Independence, not the US Constitution.

He's Canadian, what can you expect.  After all we did invade them once.

[billbindc]

2 minutes ago, sburke said:

He's Canadian, what can you expect.  After all we did invade them once.

I think you have to count the Fenians. So, twice. 

[Twisk]

26 minutes ago, Holien said:

Could it have been Ukrainian?

Not sure how we can be certain it wasn't?

Just because someone edits video with a Russian flag?

Of course I am truly happy if it was a Russian...

 

If you watch the video at the 6 second mark the BMP-2 fires at the Ukrainian vehicle.
 

 

- BMP-3 is looking away from the Ukrainian humvee

- BMP-2 drives down towards the BMP-3 and fires on the humvee. The BMP driver doesn't stop though and the gun can no longer turn and engage due to the drone cage.

- BMP-3 gunner/TC notices the Ukrainian vehicle and slews the gun 180 beginning to fire.

- BMP-2 is in the line of fire

 

My guess is that the BMP-3 crew was panicked by the appearance of the Ukranians behind them and this would give some credence to them firing on the BMP-2 as if it were an enemy. The only question I have is what the heck the Ukrainian humvee team was expecting to do driving up on the BMP-3 like that?