How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Huba]

4 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

The fact that Crimea is so emotionally important to Russia seems like a very bad strategic blunder.

It locks in a socio-political AND  military commitment that Putin cannot escape. 

Any realistic (or perceived as "realistic") threat to Crimea, its access or security will necessitate a very strong and very public response. This becomes a military commitment in waiting, a distraction that, if timed right, could detract from other sectors to UKRs advantage.

Crimea could become a Rabaul - sucking up forces, attention and resources to defend against a threat that even if not realistic (for UKR) is pyschological catnip for Russia.

The current advantage is that Crimea is difficult to land attack from Ukraine. But even a threat to its Land/sea  communications would have a disproportionate effect on the Russian mindset, and Ukraine doesnt need to physically attack across the isthmus.

But it does need to destroy the BSF and it's facilities.

Personally, I think its foolish to lock oneself into a strategic commitment based on emotion, but hey, Russia 2022 everyone...

Regarding the bolded part it mostly boils down to US willing to equip UA with appropriate weapons. The Ramstein 2 conference is to take place on Monday, and already voiced UA expectations are quite huge. As much as I'd love to see Sevastopol ATACMSed into oblivion, I doubt Biden has the balls for it, at least at this point

[Kinophile]

Why not? Himars is in play and US absolutely helped sink a major RUS naval asset. So ATACAMing the BSF into a collection of expensive colanders seems like a natural progression.

In for a penny , in for a pound and Biden seems to relish shoving it to Putin.

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by Kinophile

[Huba]

23 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Why not? Himars is in play and US absolutely helped sink a major RUS naval asset. So ATACAMing the BSF into a collection of expensive colanders seems like a natural progression.

In for a penny , in for a pound and Biden seems to relish shoving it to Putin.

 

Up to this point the arms packages were rather incremental in delivered capabilities, I'd expect GMLRS first, followed by antiship missiles (there was talk about US aquiiring some geound launched ones, possibly NSMs or the Israeli ones) and ATACMS. 

But I would really love if You were right and US just flooded UA with long range weapons straight away, and added some aircraft and AFVs on top of it. We shall know soon enough

[dan/california]

Trent is Trent, and we all know that he can be rather messy, but he is right here. The U.S. needs a lightly upgraded version of the Orlan-10, and it needs THOUSANDS of them. We have to assume they are doing recon by death, so you send three at a time and hope one of them lives long enough to locate what is killing them. You just have to be prepared to keep doing this until the bad guys run out of things to kill them with. As discussed at length in this thread, if you are the only side with drones still flying you have basically won assuming anything close to force parity otherwise.

[chrisl]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

Is there a chance in bleep of getting the entire transcript in English? I flunked German comprehensively in high school and was too traumatized to ever try again.

If someone can point to a german transcript I can probably do it.  But I can't type fast enough in german to keep up, and don't have the on-the-fly skillz to just listen in german and spew english out my fingerz.  But here's my best shot at paraphrasing:  

The gist is that Kiesewetter thinks that Scholz and Macron are playing for time and hoping that rather than Ukraine winning, in the sense of Russia being driven out, possibly with regime change or shift of power in Russia, they're hoping that it will lead to a cease fire and withdrawal of Russian troops back behind the borders [I think he referred to January borders]. All that, despite having cover from the Bundestag - he says colleagues in the FDP, the Greens, and the Union [CDU/CSU] are all puzzled.  German industry has been prepared to start delivering and could have sent the first units already, and the numbers that they could send can make a difference for Ukraine.  He [Scholz] seems to have no empathy for the situation that the Ukrainians are in.  Kiesewetter does recognize that Germany does send defensive equipment, and civil supplies, preparation for dealing with war crimes, but not the equipment needed for Ukraine to defeat "this criminal regime".  The German guns are both enough quantity to make a difference, and would send a message to other european nations [subtext: France] to do more. "We all push the Chancellor and expect him to use the tailwind that the Bundestag is providing".  He says a few times that he has no idea why Scholz is being this way. 

Weisband replies that she doesn't know any better than anybody else what's inside Scholz's head and can't guess.  But she sees Scholz and Macron trying to isolate Germany and France.  She thinks that inside Ukraine people just assume those two are trying to isolate their countries (She's a German/Ukrainian dual citizen)

Kiesewetter is really harshing on Scholz, and Weisband is more resigned.

I'm happy to edit with any corrections that come along.

Edited May 23, 2022 by chrisl

[dan/california]

Thank you!

 

[chrisl]

1 minute ago, dan/california said:

Thank you!

 

All that time at the start of the pandemic watching Dark and Babylon Berlin auf Deutsch mit deutschen untertiteln turned out to be useful.  

I can follow along with their exchanges fine, but had to do more than a little rewinding to get it down.  Seems like an interesting program - that's all just from the short Kiesewetter & Weisband exchange, and they're going on to discuss Poland next. But his statement and position are a lot more complex than the twitter quote.

[Machor]

A schoolgirl in Dagestan protested against the war during the last day of high school ceremony: "No to war!" "Freedom for Ukraine!" "Putin is a devil!" According to a tweet in the replies, her and her mother [Where's the father? This is Dagestan, not Canada.] have since released a video where they fully apologize.

Also of note is the very fact that this video was uploaded and began circulating on social media. Remember that Dagestan has a very large share of the Russian personnel losses in Ukraine [Where's the girl's father?], and is one of Russia's poorest regions, its GDP per capita by PPP equal to Azerbaijan, whereas Moscow is equal to the Netherlands, and St. Petersburg to South Korea [This was in 2009; it had probably gotten better since then, but will now fall down again.]:

I confess when @LongLeftFlank started speculating that the war may lead to the Russian Federation's dissolution some two months (?) ago, I was reading it with a smirk. I'm taking it seriously now.

[chrisl]

31 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Trent is Trent, and we all know that he can be rather messy, but he is right here. The U.S. needs a lightly upgraded version of the Orlan-10, and it needs THOUSANDS of them. We have to assume they are doing recon by death, so you send three at a time and hope one of them lives long enough to locate what is killing them. You just have to be prepared to keep doing this until the bad guys run out of things to kill them with. As discussed at length in this thread, if you are the only side with drones still flying you have basically won assuming anything close to force parity otherwise.

One thing that could (and should) be done, but apparently isn't, is to integrate the switchblade ground stations with whoever is doing sensor fusion.  There are even unarmed versions of switchblades intended for disposable ISR.  The 600 version has enough dwell time and range to be meaningful for surveillance, and can then be used to attack any high value targets it sees.  And there appear to be plenty of companies developing and marketing UAVs, it's just a matter of getting someone to recognize the need and integrate them.  There are no doubt system engineers sitting around at the major defense contractors sketching things up to pitch to the pentagon.

[LongLeftFlank]

4 hours ago, FancyCat said:

Isn't there indication that support for war is much softer than one would think? That when faced with much more frightening realities, instead of doubling down, Russia might well blink due to the fact the population has not been prepped for a actual war with Ukraine?

Yes, lots of bluster from Russia and Russian population but ain't no one volunteering....the volunteers are already mobilized. There wasn't some overwhelming patriotism that causes enlistment to rise was there? It's easy to deny Ukraine is a potent force, when Crimea is threatened, will look much different.

I overpost Galeev, but if anyone has a better source for such things (other than footnoting whole textbooks), please link it.

Meanwhile, despairing young national-idealist Comrade Shayga -- a future Strelnikov? --

....decries the decline in the (fondly remembered, as a child) Moral Fibre of the Great Russian Nation (or was that USSR?):

...In the early 2000's - it was a different society in Russia, there were many times more kind, humane, sincere people... These days you can be incredibly kind, decent, honest and sincere, but if you have no money, no success, then you are seen in the Russian society as a nobody....

Ah, the eternal lament of the social conservative (or deeply frustrated member of the 'striving' classes) who turns to fascism.

Galeev's general topic in this thread is the ongoing pillage of Russian resources -- there really isn't another economy worth noting there -- by its apatrid managerial crony class of 'Varyags'.

(Not very different from what McKinsey and PE types are up to pretty much everywhere else now, btw while mouthing 'progressive' pieties)

Edited May 23, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[SeinfeldRules]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

Trent is Trent, and we all know that he can be rather messy, but he is right here. The U.S. needs a lightly upgraded version of the Orlan-10, and it needs THOUSANDS of them. We have to assume they are doing recon by death, so you send three at a time and hope one of them lives long enough to locate what is killing them. You just have to be prepared to keep doing this until the bad guys run out of things to kill them with. As discussed at length in this thread, if you are the only side with drones still flying you have basically won assuming anything close to force parity otherwise.

Trent conveniently leaves out the RQ-7 Shadow which is equivalent in capability of the Orlan-10, with 2-4 found in every active duty Brigade Combat Team in the US Army (and probably in the National Guard ones as well, I just can't say for sure), and there are even more in most Aviation units. It is used extensively for reconnaissance at the Brigade Level and is a cornerstone of intelligence collection and fires convergence... We literally have the platform he is saying we need.

AND we also have the RQ-11 Raven down to the company level, again in almost every BCT in the Army (probably about ~40 airframes in a Brigade). Now the actual system is underwhelming and desperately needs to be replaced by a more user friendly quadcopter, but you can hardly say the US Army doesn't have disposable UAV capability. He simply has no idea what he is talking about.

Edited May 23, 2022 by SeinfeldRules

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Machor said:

I confess when @LongLeftFlank started speculating that the war may lead to the Russian Federation's dissolution some two months (?) ago, I was reading it with a smirk. I'm taking it seriously now.

Russia is a vast multi-cultural country held together by a repressive government that is very distant geographically.  Ethnicities are concentrated in largely self contained regions with extremely long histories.  Some of those histories have multiple instances of armed rebellion against the central Russian authority.  It is also probable that peoples from these regions have experienced the racist views of ethnic Russians (especially if they spend time in Russia itself).

The glue that's held Russia together since the 2000s has been the authoritarian state and the relatively steadily improving economy.  But the economy has been stagnating for years now and the benefits were never really shared well with the non-ethnic Russian areas.  Not even shared very well within the Russian Republic.  On top of that, the government has been getting far more repressive over the past few years.

Now that the economy is in collapse and there's a war that's impacting them more directly than ethnic Russians, it is not too difficult to envision some significant internal tensions.

Remember, when the Soviet Union had a political crisis many traditional Russian Empire republics bolted to become independent nations.  There's no reason to think this won't happen again if central authority in Russia goes into serious crisis mode.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Another strike against Russian collaborators.  The "Mayor" of Energodar, Andrei Shevchik, survived an explosion outside of his house.  Nobody other than his bodyguards were injured.  As the article states, this indicates that someone planted explosives and waited for him to come out before manually detonating them.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-enerhodar-explosion-andrei-shevchik/31862467.html

And while you're at it, head over to Censor.net to see a recent arrest of a long standing traitor with strong ties to Yanukovych and the 2014 Donbas takeover:

https://m.censor.net/en/video_news/3342409/brother_of_exdeputy_fugitive_tsarev_was_detained_prepared_sabotage_and_counted_on_chair_of_head_of_dnipropetrovsk

Steve

[billbindc]

 

The article Krugman linked is quite interesting on the economics of Russia sanctions but the thread gets at something more interesting. Well worth reading.

[billbindc]

Also, I think a pretty accurate summation of the state play in the Russian government by Aslund.

[Battlefront.com]

Ukrainian forces make a promo video for TB2 drones:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/uvlnin/ukrainian_military_perform_bayraktar/

 

[Battlefront.com]

Interesting follow up to the destruction of the Russian SP 240mm mortar that was on Russian propaganda channel before getting blown up by Ukraine.  It seems Ukraine knew it was inside a large industrial building so they peppered it with some artillery to flush it out in the open, then destroyed it.  I don't see evidence of a lot of artillery being used to take the MOVING vehicle out, so could have been a drone.

 

[FancyCat]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

I overpost Galeev

One reason why I appreciate Galeev and why I think he's worth listening to despite some detractors that are Russian experts, is partly cause he is from a ethnic minority in Russia, the Volga Tatars. What better way to see rot in Russian society than those of it's under status who lived it? Your not likely going to get the same analysis as Galeev from a Russia expert soaked in Russophilia or a Russian in the opposition.

The war has not been able to impact wealthier Russians yet. If Russia begins mobilization, I'm certain the wealthy will escape conscription, and certainly that will drive the minority and poor resentment to the government.

[fireship4]

I agree with Mr. Telenko here:

https://nitter.net/TrentTelenko/status/1528521329275768832#m

The video was posted here some pages back (it's the video of a T72B3 on the run being hit in the rear for those that don't follow the link) and it's the first time I've seen an RU tank use smoke - not pop smoke, since it's apparently using diesel injection.  Why?  Are all the RU smoke launchers broken?  No grenades?  Poisonous?

There is a miraculous escape for the crew - Trent seems to think there were tank riders who may have blocked the smoke launchers and my count of 5 survivors at the end of the video (standard crew should be 3) seems to confirm their presence (perhaps rescued from the wrecked vehicle at the beginning), from the grainy footage of the tank in motion I couldn't make out anything that couldn't be standard crew turned out.

EDIT: Oh and by the way, thanks @Battlefront.com Steve for the link to the prisoner interview (how legal are those by the way?), it seems the channel has some content from https://www.youtube.com/c/VolodymyrZolkin/videos which I had put on the back burner as it rarely had human translated subtitles.

EDIT 2:

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

...if I understand correctly, they even destroyed two of their tanks in order to surrender to Ukrainians.

I think you have this wrong.  He said they had two tanks driving ahead, then the 2IC said the way ahead was clear and gave the order to shoot.  Spotters called artillery on the tanks, resulting in one destroyed and one with an injured crew.  The 2IC was seemingly later the one discouraging surrender.

Edited May 23, 2022 by fireship4

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, SeinfeldRules said:

Trent conveniently leaves out the RQ-7 Shadow which is equivalent in capability of the Orlan-10, with 2-4 found in every active duty Brigade Combat Team in the US Army (and probably in the National Guard ones as well, I just can't say for sure), and there are even more in most Aviation units. It is used extensively for reconnaissance at the Brigade Level and is a cornerstone of intelligence collection and fires convergence... We literally have the platform he is saying we need.

AND we also have the RQ-11 Raven down to the company level, again in almost every BCT in the Army (probably about ~40 airframes in a Brigade). Now the actual system is underwhelming and desperately needs to be replaced by a more user friendly quadcopter, but you can hardly say the US Army doesn't have disposable UAV capability. He simply has no idea what he is talking about.

You are/were an artillery officer, I'm not, don't take this as not respecting your experience., I do, beyond immensely.

But in this case you are bordering on counter-acting your own point. 3 RQ-7s gives you one instance of the scenario I described above. Against a more competent opponent than the current version of the Russians that gets you to ten AM on opening day. The Ukrainians ares shooting down ~5 Orlans a day with shoulder fired SAMs, Soviet era radars and maybe a few modern jammers. The Russians have shown the intellectual flexibility of a Brontosaurus, so in this war both sides are keeping stuff in the air, and inflicting major losses with drone directed fire. And yes I realize it is not nearly as simple as the videos make it look, but one army that no one gave any credit three months ago, and one army that turns out not to deserve any credit to speak of seem to be capable of making it work. 

It is quite possible that the other side in the next war might be minimally competent, and not utterly crippled by rampant corruption. They are going to think REALLY hard about how to shoot down drones, and how to bring enough of them to deal with losses. A certain large Asian country is known for it competence at mass production, they are going to show up with every intention of just drowning us in eighteen wheeler loads of something like switch blades, launch things like Orlans in flights of thirty or forty, and Baryaktar equivalents  in flights of ten and twenty. The only job of the first wave is to spot most of what killed it, because they will have another wave, and another one after that. Drone warfare is going to become as attritional as the current artillery slugging match in Donbas. We have to learn to think of them like ammunition. The side that shows up with most, wins. And again, no disrespect intended. 

 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

 

The article Krugman linked is quite interesting on the economics of Russia sanctions but the thread gets at something more interesting. Well worth reading.

Worth the read, both the thread and the article.

[Battlefront.com]

Just checked out the "War In Ukraine" channel that many of us keep up with.  Seems they are also concluding that the Russians in Popasna do not have enough strength to continue pushing in any direction, not to mention the three they started off pursuing.  They cite lack of fuel, but also mention troop density.  If that sounds familiar, then you must have ready my post a few pages ago   Interestingly, they also don't put much stock in the 150th MRD units that are off to the east as they didn't even mention them, but I'm sure they are aware of them.

This is something we've seen time and time again.  Russia bleeds itself getting a breakthrough, exploits a little bit with the forces on hand, they get exhausted quickly, and then there's nothing immediately available to keep the momentum going.  Which is why I don't freak out when Russia makes an advance somewhere.

I've queued the video to the Popasna segment:

 

[Battlefront.com]

33 minutes ago, fireship4 said:

There is a miraculous escape for the crew - Trent seems to think there were tank riders who may have blocked the smoke launchers and my count of 5 survivors at the end of the video (standard crew should be 3) seems to confirm their presence (perhaps rescued from the wrecked vehicle at the beginning), from the grainy footage of the tank in motion I couldn't make out anything that couldn't be standard crew turned out.

I didn't see anybody else on the tank, but I did miss the apparently flaming tank commander bailing out, so it does seem the three crew did get out.  There's too many jump cuts and passage of time to conclude much more than that.

33 minutes ago, fireship4 said:

EDIT: Oh and by the way, thanks @Battlefront.com Steve for the link to the prisoner interview (how legal are those by the way?), it seems the channel has some content from https://www.youtube.com/c/VolodymyrZolkin/videos which I had put on the back burner as it rarely had human translated subtitles.

Unfortunately, most of the interviews have yet to be translated into English.  There's been at least, oh I dunno, 10 or so very interesting ones posted here over the past couple of months.  They are always interesting, however I have not seen anything from more recent days.  I am sure they will sound very different than the earlier ones.

As for legality, it is legal for a POW to voluntarily give an interview.  As long as it really is voluntary and the interview is not being used for propaganda purposes, then it is legal.  Since the interviews are conducted by journalists who are focused on hearing the stories of these guys, I don't think it is reasonable to conclude this is propaganda.  Propaganda requires a directed effort to distort truth and to use it as part of a state sponsored information campaign.  At least that's been the traditional view and that isn't what is going on with these interviews at all.  Some of the early war videos of bloodied Russian POWs saying thing in front of a camera held by an armed captor is quite different.  Fortunately it seems Ukraine has largely put a stop to that.

Steve

[MikeyD]

Putin shoots himself in the foot in refusing to officially declare this a war, because whatever the Russians are doing in Ukraine, it doesn't strictly fall under the Geneva convention. Since its not a war, Ukraine could declare all Russian soldiers bandits if it wanted to.

[sburke]

6 hours ago, billbindc said:

2. Don't believe the hype on world food stocks: https://asmith.ucdavis.edu/news/russia-ukraine. Yes, prices will rise and countries with marginal ability to cope are going to get hurt but it's one factor among many (as you note) in regard to Sri Lanka and many others. There's a global recession beginning to shape up and that's a much bigger factor.

was just reading this on conditions in India.

 

India — the world’s second-largest wheat producer after China — banned most exports last week after its hottest March on record hit harvests across the north of the country. This caused the price of wheat, already up some 60 percent this year because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to shoot up once again.

'Torturous' heat is breaking records and livelihoods in India. It's only going to get worse. (msn.com)

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by sburke