How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

Unilateral relative to NATO, not to Ukraine

[arkhangelsk2021]

4 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Unilateral relative to NATO, not to Ukraine

If Zelenskiy agrees, effectively Poland has just taken over the responsibility for defending a chunk of Ukrainian soil. That would seem to make Poland a "co-belligerent", much more so then just sending them a few weapons, and since your plan will have Poland "act independently", they will be bearing all the risks. I know it is fashionable in this thread to count up every Russian reverse, but I can't help but notice how you want to help Ukraine by having Poland take the risks.

[db_zero]

Came across an argument that the Russians only have a few days worth of heavy artillery ammo on hand and will have to start conserving. The ammo factories have been partially cut off from raw materials and wouldn't be able to crank out enough in a short amount of time anyway.

Prediction is if the Ukrainians can hold out for 3-4 days the Russian big guns will be spent.

[John Kettler]

Provided the various weapons and transport have been checked by UA EOD troops for booby traps and found clean or made so, I hope the UA is capitalizing on the free weaponry Putin has unwittingly supplied to it, with BM-21s loaded and ready to go once refueled being especially valuable, along with SPA,  tanks, other AFVs, including what I believe are at least 2 x Typhoon-K, etc. AD systems are, in my view, more precious than gold right now, and the UAs' loss of a Buk TELAR to a Russian attack helo makes that all the more so. At this stage of the war, in which the Russian forces are often little more than a few platoons of armor and maybe a company of infantry (such as VDV on a captured airfield), the ability to suddenly drop even one wholly unexpected BM-21 load of Grad onto the invaders is extremely high leverage and one against which they have no counterfire capability. Bad as things are, in my view, the UA has been given a potentially war-winning gift of powerful weaponry it desperately needs, and given all the BBV command vehicles I've seen, many apparently intact, there is a real possibility for both monitoring Russian encrypted comms and network intrusion to issue false commands, fake intel, etc. 

Regards,

John Kettler

[danfrodo]

6 minutes ago, arkhangelsk2021 said:

If Zelenskiy agrees, effectively Poland has just taken over the responsibility for defending a chunk of Ukrainian soil. That would seem to make Poland a "co-belligerent", much more so then just sending them a few weapons, and since your plan will have Poland "act independently", they will be bearing all the risks. I know it is fashionable in this thread to count up every Russian reverse, but I can't help but notice how you want to help Ukraine by having Poland take the risks.

Yes, Arkangelsk, I agree w what you said except for co-belligerent.  They are a peacekeeping force invited in by a sovereign nation and would fight only in defense of the stated safe zone and its occupants.  And the huge refugee crisis is a nice excuse to keep some portion of western ukraine out of Putin's control.  While also provide a place to stage refugees that is not inside Poland.  It draws a line, a military line, that Putin may not cross.  Hopefully other countries would volunteer to provide some refugee or military support services.  Why Poland?  Because they are right there, have a good military, are bearing the refugee crisis, and could do it. 

This is simply my wish list for what I'd like to see from the west.  Aragorn had one also.  You can have one too. 

[Armorgunner]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Ah, so not specific to Belarus forces then, if even that.  They don't have Tigr as far as I can tell.

OK, the O forces came from Belarus on both southward pushes (Chernobyl and Cherninhiv). Perhaps it has something to do with the recent exercises and they left the markings on.  Curious that they aren't as widely seen as V and Z.

I'm very curious about this.  If anybody else sees images with the O mark, especially ones that can be dated and positioned on a map, I'd appreciate seeing them here.

Steve

P.S. that was a lot of destroyed equipment all in one spot. I know Ukraine identified a couple in that area on the first day, but I didn't see video of it until now.  Thanks!

Near Chernihiv again. T-72B, and T-72B3 with the roof cagearmor that didnt seem to save it. This time saturday afternoon 26/2

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Armorgunner

[akd]

1 minute ago, danfrodo said:

Yes, Arkangelsk, I agree w what you said except for co-belligerent.  They are a peacekeeping force invited in by a sovereign nation and would fight only in defense of the stated safe zone and its occupants.  And the huge refugee crisis is a nice excuse to keep some portion of western ukraine out of Putin's control.  While also provide a place to stage refugees that is not inside Poland.  It draws a line, a military line, that Putin may not cross.  Hopefully other countries would volunteer to provide some refugee or military support services.  Why Poland?  Because they are right there, have a good military, are bearing the refugee crisis, and could do it. 

This is simply my wish list for what I'd like to see from the west.  Aragorn had one also.  You can have one too. 

I am a bit concerned that if Poland smells blood, they may do something crazy, and this is on the borderline.

[OldSarge]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'm very curious about this.  If anybody else sees images with the O mark, especially ones that can be dated and positioned on a map, I'd appreciate seeing them here.

Steve

 

CNN has been repeatedly showing Ukrainian civilians standing up to tanks. The tanks are clearly marked with 'O' on their skirts. CNN didn't give the village name but the video says Bakhmach.

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by OldSarge
Correct spelling

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, akd said:

I am a bit concerned that if Poland smells blood, they may do something crazy, and this is on the borderline.

It's certainly got risk.  But I am really just looking for a way for the west to hold part of Ukraine w/o attacking.  If you don't like Poland idea we can always have it be the French or Germans or the Dutch I suppose (little shout out for my bud Aragorn), and maybe the Danes and Baltic would send some folks.  The goal is about getting western forces in-country by someone not named NATO by some countries acting on their own to declare and mantain a safe zone.  Putin obsessed w NATO so I like this better.

[John Kettler]

7 hours ago, danfrodo said:

Interesting that Putin, who could've done this anytime, chooses to do it right about time of spring rasputitsa (sp?).  Keeping those russian columns on main roads is a nice bonus for the defense I suspect.

danfrodo,
 

Your spelling is correct. Rasputitsa translates as "quagmire season" and may refer to the condition of the ground, roads, or both. Since Putin has done this, he now has to deal with a crucial Russian defection, for General Mud now fights for Ukraine!  Staying roadbound because of the rasputitsa channelizes the attackers, making their movements highly predictable, stoppable. It turns any attempts to go offroad to bypass defended areas extremely risky to the force attempting it, greatly slows movement, and makes it fuel-guzzling even if not one vehicle bogs. Either way, the UA hugely benefits. 

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Got up only a bit ago and am plowing through 135 posts on what I missed. The below may duplicate something already known, but if not, it's a tremendous development. Germany, you see, has come off the fence and will be supplying major quantities of high-leverage weaponry--ATGMs and Stingers--to Ukraine. Post was made 7 hours ago.

ELINT News

 

@ELINTNews

 

#BREAKING: Germany to send 1,000 anti-tank missiles and 500 Stinger surface-air missiles to Ukraine

Regards,

John Kettler

[Zveroboy1]

If you haven't already had a look, the wikipedia maps of the conflict are quite interesting. They get updated often and you're able to see the direction, size and width of the penetrations a lot more clearly than lieveuamaps for example. I don't know how accurate this is of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg

I get Glantz's flashbacks poring over these. Looking away from Kyiv at what appears to be secondary thrusts, it is hard to tell obviously how deep some of these are going to go, whether they are going to stall or not. They very well might go nowhere or not deep enough to achieve anything. But I have looked at enough operational east front wwii map to know that sometimes an offensive appeared to be going nowhere the first couple of days, only to develop much faster suddenly. Different conflict and era of course.

[akd]

18 minutes ago, John Kettler said:

Got up only a bit ago and am plowing through 135 posts on what I missed. The below may duplicate something already known, but if not, it's a tremendous development. Germany, you see, has come off the fence and will be supplying major quantities of high-leverage weaponry--ATGMs and Stingers--to Ukraine. Post was made 7 hours ago.

ELINT News

 

@ELINTNews

 

#BREAKING: Germany to send 1,000 anti-tank missiles and 500 Stinger surface-air missiles to Ukraine

Regards,

John Kettler

Actually sending Panzerfaust 3, not ATGMs, I believe.

[Commanderski]

This is on Fox News: "A Ukrainian man filmed himself offering a group of Russian soldiers a tow back to Russia after their tank ran out of fuel on the side of the road, video circulating on social media purportedly shows. "Can I tow you back… to Russia," the Ukrainian man asked the soldiers in Russian after they told him they were out of gas. "

https://www.foxnews.com/world/video-purportedly-shows-ukrainian-man-offer-russians-a-tow-back-home-after-their-tank-runs-out-of-fuel

[dan/california]

Time for the EU to really drop the hammer, offer a visa to any Russian soldier that surrenders.

[John Kettler]

The second pic and caption made me weep!

Regards,

John Kettler

[arkhangelsk2021]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

But I am really just looking for a way for the west to hold part of Ukraine w/o attacking.  

My sense is, you don't have to worry too much about that. Because unlike many, I don't even think that Russia's goal is all of Ukraine. I don't even really understand how that worked - the people who say that Russia's Goal is All Ukraine also say Russia can't hold down All Ukraine. Which is true but the question becomes why something you believe they can't do is your best guess of what they want to do.

FWIW, I think ultimately this is a Sino-Vietnamese War 1979 type of punitive expedition. That one was so costly to the Chinese many argue the Vietnamese won that war. Perhaps that's so and at least the Chinese didn't actually make it inside Hanoi. And the Vietnamese never really forgot or forgave that. But, China's message to Vietnam was received loud and clear.

[John Kettler]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Interesting post about the truck disguises.  I bet Putin loves the Tansformer movies!

As for the symbols, V is for forces coming out of Belarus.  Z is for forces coming out of Russia.  O is something new as of this morning.  First time I've seen it and not sure what it might be.

Steve

Steve,

Have seen pics with the O over a day ago and posted on this thread. According to the caption on the pics, these were Russian and coming from Belarus. Since at that time the only invasion marking we'd seen on Russian vehicles was the Z, and I could never recall seeing the Russians having used more than one recognition marking for an operational-strategic offensive, I opined that a reasonable conclusion might be that they were from Belarus. My recollection is that one of the AFVs was a TOS-1 series and the other was a MTLB-M.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

5 hours ago, akd said:

“V” marked armor arriving at Brest on border with Poland:

 

That train MUST be stopped, with the contents either destroyed or, better, yet, captured!

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

5 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

It came as quite a surprise to me Belarus is not independent at all, but a puppet state of Russia. I knew of course it had close relations with Moscow, but not that close. So we can safely assume Putin was behind the stream of refugees from the Middle East that flooded the Polish border some months ago. 

Aragorn2002,

Were you aware the Russians have long had a substantial force in Moldova, specifically Transistria? Moldova may not be directly a puppet state de jure, but it's effectively one de facto.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/ogrv-moldova.htm

Regards,

John Kettler
 

[dan/california]

14 minutes ago, arkhangelsk2021 said:

My sense is, you don't have to worry too much about that. Because unlike many, I don't even think that Russia's goal is all of Ukraine. I don't even really understand how that worked - the people who say that Russia's Goal is All Ukraine also say Russia can't hold down All Ukraine. Which is true but the question becomes why something you believe they can't do is your best guess of what they want to do.

FWIW, I think ultimately this is a Sino-Vietnamese War 1979 type of punitive expedition. That one was so costly to the Chinese many argue the Vietnamese won that war. Perhaps that's so and at least the Chinese didn't actually make it inside Hanoi. And the Vietnamese never really forgot or forgave that. But, China's message to Vietnam was received loud and clear.

China at the time didn't have much of an economy for West to destroy, and Vietnam was not exactly in good enough odor for the west to even try. Both of those factors are radically different in this situation. China had absolute control of what their people saw too.

[Zveroboy1]

Regarding Belarus, it must have caused a bit of a headache for Ukrainian military planners. I imagine that border wasn't left undefended before and the Russian troop build up and military exercises there gave them ample warning, yet that made their task more complicated for sure. And it doesn't sound too far fetched that Ukraine had to divert and redeploy troops as a result. Could it have weakened the defenses elsewhere in a significant way?

[akd]

2 minutes ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Regarding Belarus, it must have caused a bit of a headache for Ukrainian military planners. I imagine that border wasn't left undefended before and the Russian troop build up and military exercises there gave them ample warning, yet that made their task more complicated for sure. And it doesn't sound too far fetched that Ukraine had to divert and redeploy troops as a result. Could it have weakened the defenses elsewhere in a significant way?

Apparently tomorrow Belarus decides if it will join invasion as Putin demands.  Should be interesting…

[John Kettler]

5 hours ago, borg said:

So ….. let’s actually discuss this 

does anyone know how it works ? As in …. I’m noob when it comes to launch codes etc. is it just president.  ? Are there multiple codes that need to be synchronized ? Who presses the button etc. is there a protocol . And lastly …. Can nuke missiles be stopped in situ in mid air ?

borg,

The Russians have or had a system called Dead Hand which, given certain things occur and are detected, automatically trigger a strategic nuclear response. Outside of that, their nuclear release approach seems to be quite different from the US approach. Ours  isn't a button, but a series of options, codewords and EAMs (Emergency Action Messages and associated authenticators) in a special case that goes everywhere POTUS goes. Theirs is apparently, at least circa mid-80s, a device with an actual  button. There is a fascinating account of a strategic exercise in which Brezhnev had to be repeatedly assured that pushing the button offered him by the  generals would not, in fact, initiate Armageddon. Have never seen anything on a command destruct capability for Russian (or Soviet) ICBMs and SLBMs. Will say, though, that providing such capabilities has long been standard practice by the US for military test firings during development and maybe later, too. Command destruct capabilities for real deal strategic weaponry are both good and bad, enabling last minute disaster avoidance on one hand and creating a potentially devastating vulnerability on the other.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Benjamin Ritchie-Hook]

Looks like the Ukrainians are putting up a jolly good fight, despite having taken a hell of a pounding. That great puffed-up pigeon in the Kremlin might have bitten off more than he can chew this time. Keep on biffing lads, Slava Ukraini!