If Starlink com is down from EW jamming an anti-rf missile should help.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Reminds me of ex Waffen-SS
The above, of course, was a war crime:
The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law > Human Shields
Last edited:
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
bobby g
Member
I will not despise or hate people for what some ancestors did, I let them earn it from their own actions.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Touché. Zelensky with the more legitimate claim:
Kuril Islands belong to Japan Zelenskyy
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a decree recognising Japan’s sovereignty over its Northern Territories (the southern part of the Kuril Islands) that are temporarily occupied by Russia.
Kuril Islands belong to Japan Zelenskyy
The Ukrainians have no shortage of manpower to guard the POWs. They have facilities around Ukraine
Special camp for Russian POW set up in Ukraine
UAH 3000 is about $82 USD
A flood of POWs like the Germans had to deal with in 1941 (600K captured at Kiev alone) can overwhelm resources, but a steady trickle of POWs is a good thing. Intelligence officers interview POWs and see what kind of information they can get. Unwilling POWs can be tight lipped, but willing POWs will tell you everything they know. Even a fairly ignorant POWs can give you some vital information.
The Ukrainians are also taking POWs who say they want to defect. I think some are being held somewhere until the war is over (that may be the people in Turkey), but some are contributing to the Ukrainian war effort.
I saw an interview on War Translated who was one of the Wagner prisoners. He had been picking up dead bodies before he saw a chance to slip away and surrender. The unit that captured him was a tank unit and he volunteered to stay and do some tank maintenance for the unit.
That would be a war crime. The POWs are kept in a safe location and treated per Geneva Convention guidelines. They don't live in luxury, but they are safe.
The Russians also probably wouldn't care if their own people died in an attack.
I concur and I think it's a healthy attitude. I'm sure if you look hard enough everybody has some terrible people in their family history or at least people who participated in atrocity. History is full of atrocities and the decedents of those people are around today.
I don't have any evidence of such people in my own family tree, but I'm sure they are there. 8% of Asian men are direct descendants of Genghis Khan (same Y chromosome). Almost all people of European descent today (and pretty much everyone in mainland western and central Europe are direct descendants of Charlemagne.
Cultural descent has more to do with current cultural behavior than genetic descent. Every culture has deeply embedded memes that anyone born into that culture takes on by osmosis growing up. The US has several of these regional cultures which is at the root of the tensions today.
Russia is culturally descended from the Muscovite culture (there are regional cultures lying underneath the Muscovite culture too, but that i what dominates nationally). When Kyiv was sacked by the Golden Horde in 1240 spelled the end of Kyiv as the center of culture in what is western Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine today and that was taken up by a Mongol ally, Muscovy which was vastly weaker than Kyiv before the sacking.
Because Muscovy was an ally of the Golden Horde, they learned a lot from them and it influenced their culture. As the Golden Horde faded into history and Muscovy grew stronger, Muscovy became the heir to Mongol culture, even though they were genetically mostly Viking. Muscovy started a multi-century program to conquer all of northern Asia and eastern Europe. They built the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever seen. But the Muscovites are a fairly small minority in their empire. Most are people who they call Russians, but are second class Russians to the Muscovites.
The Muscovite/Mongol way of war is historically not very concerned about losses on the battlefield as long as objectives are taken. Both empires had almost unlimited manpower reserves for most of their history. Modern Russia is in a place where the empire has never been with low birth rates and high emigration. For the first time in their history, human capital is a premium and they don't know how to deal with that reality. So they continue to throw warm bodies at the enemy as they always did and they wonder why their army is dying.
The Muscovite/Mongol way of war is also very brutal relying on scare tactics to get the enemy to back down. But that completely fails in the face of an enemy that is willing to call their bluff. They can do a lot of damage that looks horrific on the evening news, and is very hard on civilian populations, but militarily does very little to help their army. As Russia runs out of missiles, even those scare tactics are getting weaker. They have regressed from using late 20th century/21st century high tech missiles to using slow kamikaze drones that are pretty low tech and easy to make. For a population that has been subjected to months of assault with high tech missiles, an overgrown child's toy with a bomb is not that scary. As a scare tactic, it's pretty weak soup.
I just purchased potassium iodide. Sigh. Every bit of this is so sad, pathetic, and depressing. 
petit_bateau
Active Member
Reports online that Starlink capability not available in Russian occupied areas. Mind you that is probably with exception of some defined terminals for SF use. Sounds like the zones needed to be adjusted faster. As Musk rightly says these matters are classified.
===========
Somethin significant ? located on one of the Nordstream gas lines ?
=============
Something appears to have occurred on the Kerch Strait bridge, specifically the railroad part of it. Unclear whether accident, sabotage, or missile/etc strike. Some of the road bridge has collapsed (about half the width gone) and there is a stationary train completely ablaze on the rail bridge - seems like a fuel fire. The rail bridge surely has to be damaged at least to an extent by a fire of that nature.
===========
Somethin significant ? located on one of the Nordstream gas lines ?
=============
Something appears to have occurred on the Kerch Strait bridge, specifically the railroad part of it. Unclear whether accident, sabotage, or missile/etc strike. Some of the road bridge has collapsed (about half the width gone) and there is a stationary train completely ablaze on the rail bridge - seems like a fuel fire. The rail bridge surely has to be damaged at least to an extent by a fire of that nature.
Last edited:
petit_bateau
Active Member
This video (the one that is 44-sec long and is from the surveillance cameras looking East along the centreline of the road highways, explosion is at 33sec) suggest the truck was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something seems to go off in the space between the bridge pier and the bridge deck, on the Russia-bound highway (I think that is the South one). The debris that blows S-N must be something lighteweight as the wind is also blowing S>N (we can see that from the smoke on the railtanks). I think the train may also have been happenstance. Actually I am unsure, maybe two piers are carrying explosives ?
This is the ideal location for Ukraine to pick. It is undeniably in their teritorial waters. It is not in the shipping channel which a) they want open and b) they want to avoid legal hassle over).
But how did explosives get there ? Not necessarily placed by Ukraine given the factional infighting in Russia ?
More images. Perhaps two sets of charges in the span centres ?
This is the ideal location for Ukraine to pick. It is undeniably in their teritorial waters. It is not in the shipping channel which a) they want open and b) they want to avoid legal hassle over).
But how did explosives get there ? Not necessarily placed by Ukraine given the factional infighting in Russia ?
More images. Perhaps two sets of charges in the span centres ?
petit_bateau
Active Member
Regarding the train: in the centreline roadway video we can see that the train is stationary, not even slowly moving. In the long distance shots we can see that the now-burning train has no locomotive attached. My best guesses is that i) less likely, they are short of locos and parked the tank train there overnight as it ought to be a SAM-protected area, or 2) more likely, the train was waiting at signals to proceed, but that the loco driver then sensibly got him/herself out of there.
Regarding the source of explosion : either explosives placed on the piers or one+ of those fancy boats. Given the size of the blast(s) I tend towards the boat(s). Something like that can carry a tonne or so of explosive and with the right sort of charge shaping the effect would be upwards. The sensor set on the boats washed ashore includes some things that would enable the necessary precise positioning. That in turn tends to suggest a Ukraine job, rather than an internal faction within Russia. I am also tending towards just one device with the multiple spans being dropped just being shockwave effects, that would account for the clean road-deck end in one of the stills.The damage to the adjacent road carriageway deck was happenstance imho. Whether they always park tanktrucks at that point overnight is something I am sure intel would have been aware of, and might have played a part in precise target selection, who knows. Nice coincidence mind you
Regarding the source of explosion : either explosives placed on the piers or one+ of those fancy boats. Given the size of the blast(s) I tend towards the boat(s). Something like that can carry a tonne or so of explosive and with the right sort of charge shaping the effect would be upwards. The sensor set on the boats washed ashore includes some things that would enable the necessary precise positioning. That in turn tends to suggest a Ukraine job, rather than an internal faction within Russia. I am also tending towards just one device with the multiple spans being dropped just being shockwave effects, that would account for the clean road-deck end in one of the stills.The damage to the adjacent road carriageway deck was happenstance imho. Whether they always park tanktrucks at that point overnight is something I am sure intel would have been aware of, and might have played a part in precise target selection, who knows. Nice coincidence mind you
In the video by Rob Lee you posted, it looks like possibly a submarine surfacing in the lower right corner of the image just before the blast. You see a wake from something that is growing, then the screen goes white. My partner tried to view it on her iPad, but I had to view it on my 24 inch desktop monitor to really see it. I circled it on this screen shot.
I think the Ukrainians made a submersible version of the bomb boat and blew it up under the bridge. I suspect they hacked the security cameras and waited until a train loaded with something explosive or flammable was on the rail section. Get the most bang for the buck.
A video after the fires either went out or were put out. It looks like one direction of the vehicle bridge is not too badly damaged, but I would expect the supports are pretty badly damaged even though the panels didn't fall in.
The Kerch Strait bridge was made with pre-cast concrete sections. It is a common construction technique in the west these days, but Russia has no native capacity to make pre-cast concrete structures. I believe they brought in the sections made in Europe. The US and Europe are big in that industry. The Chinese make prefabricated concrete too, but replacement sections need to be brought in by ship and the Turks don't have to allow the ships through the Bosporus.
It's likely that the bridge is out of service, or at much reduced service for the foreseeable future. This puts the Russians in a major supply bind. Their only way to get supply to the southern front is via the rail line they hold through Donesk and Zaporizhia oblast or by sea across the Sea of Azoz. They also need to supply Crimea that way too. Their wobbly supply system just took another hit.
The Kerch Strait bridge was made with pre-cast concrete sections. It is a common construction technique in the west these days, but Russia has no native capacity to make pre-cast concrete structures. I believe they brought in the sections made in Europe. The US and Europe are big in that industry. The Chinese make prefabricated concrete too, but replacement sections need to be brought in by ship and the Turks don't have to allow the ships through the Bosporus.
It's likely that the bridge is out of service, or at much reduced service for the foreseeable future. This puts the Russians in a major supply bind. Their only way to get supply to the southern front is via the rail line they hold through Donesk and Zaporizhia oblast or by sea across the Sea of Azoz. They also need to supply Crimea that way too. Their wobbly supply system just took another hit.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
Blast damages only bridge linking Russia and Crimea; Zelenskyy advisor calls it 'the beginning'
Russian authorities reported on Saturday that a large blaze erupted on the only bridge linking mainland Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
www.cnbc.com
Blast damages only bridge linking Russia and Crimea; Zelenskyy advisor calls it 'the beginning'
Russian authorities reported on Saturday that a large blaze erupted on the only bridge linking mainland Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.
I don't believe them. Looking at the videos, it clearly looks like at least the first blast came from underneath the bridge. It also looks like there were three blasts. I think it was a kamikaze submarine (submarine drone).
Plus the Russians scan all vehicles before they get on the bridge
I was looking to see if Trent Telenko has weighed in, but he may not have heard yet. I did see this analysis comparing Russian artillery in this war to what Iraq was able to throw in 1987. Iraq was vastly better.
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
The quote from Mark Hertling is great:
"During the Desert Storm ground war of 1991, we observed the deplorable conditions & indiscipline of front line Iraqi troops as we rolled past.
"Compared to Russian criminal “forces,” Saddam’s soldiers were Spartans."
petit_bateau
Active Member
The local time of explosion was approx 6:07 am or so. Local sunrise is 7:01 am. It was dark, you can see that in the cameras. There was some sea running with some wave action. I think that bomb-boat is sufficiently low in the water to not be easily detected. (This is actually how the earliest 'semi-submersibles' operated, basically just awash). The sensor fit on that bomb-boat is enough to place it accurately under this, even in a degraded GPS environment.
Whether that is the bow of a bomb-boat just coming into the picture frame I am unsure. It could actually be a security boat (RIB) taking a closer look at a bomb-boat at just the wrong moment. In later film one can see the security RIBs moving around. That picture frame looks to be moving too fast and making too much bow wave for a bomb boat, plus it doesn't appear to be in quite the right position for the blast location.
The Russians built this bridge. I suspect they cast these sections fairly locally. That is normal construction technique all over Europe including Russia. The sections are not terribly large. Whether they have three spare sections sitting onshore is not so obvious. Doing a wartime repair with steel sections is perfectly feasible, just a matter of time. Winter is coming in mind you. The rail bridge may be more difficult, who knows what the remaining safety factor is (if any) and ascertaining that very important number is quite difficult. A lot depends on how much fuel went straight into the sea as opposed to pooling and burning on the bridge itself.
I don't think it was just explosives. I think there was something else, quite likely copper or aluminium to act as a penetrator. That likely is what also impacted the train of fuel rail cars.
Last edited:
RobStark
Well-Known Member
I just found it curious they didn't claim it was just an Ivan smoking cigarettes accident.
Similar threads
