Russia/Ukraine conflict

[SageBrush]

Something very interesting happened and we have all the clues, what happened?

Interesting observation !

What was the timing of the rail bridges destruction ? If the was out was destroyed days sooner than the way in, then this might be a case of forced concentration of Russian logistics into a nice tidy pile before they are lit up. The pictures suggest a LOT of ammo blew up.

 

[JRP3]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1670928417368469504

https://twitter.com/x/status/1670926115773333505

 

[nativewolf]

Both the way in and out was destroyed. That didn’t mean Russia had to keep a train loaded with munitions at the depot, they could have backed it out 5 km and just had it moving back and forth. No they blew the bridges, say it takes Russia a week to replace a rail bridge.

Why not just hit the depot with a storm shadow? Why blow bridges before.

@wdolson is bringing up an interesting point on the use of wire. I have not seen any.

 

[KBF]

demining

‘We couldn’t wait’: Ukrainian farmers improvise to clear their land of mines

As charities press for mine clearance to be at centre of recovery conference, some farmers are tackling the devices themselves

www.theguardian.com

I grew up in a farming community. Gotta love a farmer's ingenuity when forced into it... My dad would be one of those guys slapping together parts.

I thought land mines were against the Geneva convention... But maybe just certain types? The residual danger can last for years or even decades. Unexploded shells as well. Ukraine has a long road ahead, but farmers like these sure help.

 

[petit_bateau]

There was that video of part of the tail falling off a Ka-52 going around. That wasn't a flight critical accident, but there are many things that could break that would result in a lost airframe.

That Ka-52 airframe encountered a SAM earlier in the same flight, hence losing chunks of the tail and jettisoning the drop tanks.

Both the way in and out was destroyed. That didn’t mean Russia had to keep a train loaded with munitions at the depot, they could have backed it out 5 km and just had it moving back and forth. No they blew the bridges, say it takes Russia a week to replace a rail bridge.

Why not just hit the depot with a storm shadow? Why blow bridges before.

@wdolson is bringing up an interesting point on the use of wire. I have not seen any.

Wild guess - the SF groups blew the bridges when it was operationally possible and opportune for them to do so, which in this case was shortly prior to the onset of the thrusts. Irrespective of where the depots are/were the act of dropping the bridges was going to be helpful. Subsequently it became clear enough where a/the depot was and it in turn could be targetted for a missile strike. That amount of explosive in storage was for sure not just one trainload or one week of deliveries. More likely about 6-months worth of accumulated stores (i.e. in excess of the normal winter usage).

Re wire - does Russia have much in the way of a wire manufacturing industry ? and were there sufficient installation personnel to install it ? over and above digging/etc the various ditches we have observed - after all putting out wire entanglements is absolutely a very manual labour exercise. Just a thought.

 

[wdolson]

That Ka-52 airframe encountered a SAM earlier in the same flight, hence losing chunks of the tail and jettisoning the drop tanks.

The part of the video I saw implied the Ka-52s were outbound and the drop tanks were being ejected before going in on the attack, which was standard practice in WW II. Encountering a SAM makes more sense.

Wild guess - the SF groups blew the bridges when it was operationally possible and opportune for them to do so, which in this case was shortly prior to the onset of the thrusts. Irrespective of where the depots are/were the act of dropping the bridges was going to be helpful. Subsequently it became clear enough where a/the depot was and it in turn could be targetted for a missile strike. That amount of explosive in storage was for sure not just one trainload or one week of deliveries. More likely about 6-months worth of accumulated stores (i.e. in excess of the normal winter usage).

Over winter the south was fairly quiet, so the regional command stored up most of their allotment of ammunition which is now gone.

Re wire - does Russia have much in the way of a wire manufacturing industry ? and were there sufficient installation personnel to install it ? over and above digging/etc the various ditches we have observed - after all putting out wire entanglements is absolutely a very manual labour exercise. Just a thought.

Russia doesn't make much, probably not any, but China is a fairly large maker of barbed wire. If they wanted to install it, the could. But Russia has never made big use of wire, even when they encountered the Germans using it in WW II and learned how tough it was to assault positions surrounded with wire.

If the Russians had taken the labor employed digging the third line of defenses and instead put them to work installing wire around the first line, the first line would be much more formidable.

In a dictatorship how things look is much more important than how things actually are. That's why they have military parades. To tell the world they are strong armies that can't be messed with. We have now seen that the strong Russian army was a myth carefully crafted by the Kremlin. Russia did have the ability to trash much of Ukraine, but they aren't strong enough to take the country if the Ukrainians are willing to put up a fight.

The much vaunted defenses are another set of Potemkin villages. They will have some value if the Russians have enough troops to man them when the Ukrainians get there, but they left out or didn't build correctly a number of features that would have made them much more formidable. There is no barbed wire, the dragon's teeth are installed incorrectly and are no more than a mild obstacle, and I don't think they are going to have enough troops to hold those defensive positions. Their forces are stretched thin and instead of plunking warm bodies in trenches and holding the reserves behind the lines and waiting, they decided to counterattack the Ukrainian offensive in front of the trenchlines which is just getting their units beaten up for no reason. Now their artillery is going to be critically short on ammunition.

The Ukrainian offensive may have started out small in an attempt to lure the Russians into thinking the Ukrainians were weak and go on the attack. If so, the Russians fell for the bait hook like and sinker. By getting the Russians to be the ones moving and attacking the Ukrainians could eat up the Russian mobile forces on the cheap.

Russian news sources have been full of stories that the Ukrainian army is spent and the Ukrainians are going to delay the offensive until F-16s and Abrams arrive. And a lot of news sources in the west have picked up the narrative. The truth is we have not seen most of the Ukrainian forces that were trained in the west yet. That is a strong sign Ukraine has not really gotten started. The much vaunted offensive was another shaping operation.

The Russians are like a chess amateur throwing away pieces trying fruitless assaults on the chess master's more valuable pieces while the chess master is thinking many moves ahead and is just taking the pieces, occasionally giving up one of their own knowing that every pawn taken off the board will be one less pawn there to stop them when they go for the king.

BTW there are three countries putting up a lot of wire right now: Finland, Lithuania, and Poland.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

...] Re wire - does Russia have much in the way of a wire manufacturing industry ? and were there sufficient installation personnel to install it ? over and above digging/etc the various ditches we have observed - after all putting out wire entanglements is absolutely a very manual labour exercise. Just a thought.

Wondering how the Dictator's troops would go about putting up wire in front of their first 'defense'-line on the Ukrainian land that they have occupied... I have no personal military experience, but I would guess that UKR would have snipers along that entire front line ready to take out any Russians that would be willing to try something like that. Add Infrared sniper rifle sights, drone surveillance, suicide drones, grenade dropping drones, mortars and regular artillery to that mix and putting up wire in front of the first line seems like quite the suicide mission...

Guessing the Dictator's next line of defense could be different. But even if there is wire there, couldn't UKR just use one of those de-mining tanks or some other tank or IFV or some such to just rip X amounts of holes in that wire?...

 

[RobStark]

In a dictatorship how things look is much more important than how things actually are. That's why they have military parades.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

An accounting error has reduced US Military aid to UKR.

"...] The first accounting error of $3 billion revealed last month triggered frustration from Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, who believe the mistake reduced the amount of US support that went to Ukraine leading up to the counteroffensive.

“These funds could have been used for extra supplies and weapons for the upcoming counteroffensive, instead of rationing funds to last for the remainder of the fiscal year,” wrote House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul and House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers in a statement last month, when the first $3 billion accounting error was publicly disclosed by the Pentagon."

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/20/politics/pentagon-ukraine-accounting-error/index.html

Credit goes to:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671269942988267521

 

[wdolson]

Wondering how the Dictator's troops would go about putting up wire in front of their first 'defense'-line on the Ukrainian land that they have occupied... I have no personal military experience, but I would guess that UKR would have snipers along that entire front line ready to take out any Russians that would be willing to try something like that. Add Infrared sniper rifle sights, drone surveillance, suicide drones, grenade dropping drones, mortars and regular artillery to that mix and putting up wire in front of the first line seems like quite the suicide mission...

Guessing the Dictator's next line of defense could be different. But even if there is wire there, couldn't UKR just use one of those de-mining tanks or some other tank or IFV or some such to just rip X amounts of holes in that wire?...

In many places the Ukrainains haven't reached the first trenchline yet. Those were laid several km behind the frontlines when they were started.

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The French are the only full democracy I know of that does military parades. It is kind of weird.

Apparently Trump went to one and insisted he have one too. The DoD did everything they could to dissuade him and ended up having a military themed 4th of July with some parked vehicles. The city of Washington DC didn't want to have to repave the streets after a bunch of tanks rolled through.

An accounting error has reduced US Military aid to UKR.

"...] The first accounting error of $3 billion revealed last month triggered frustration from Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, who believe the mistake reduced the amount of US support that went to Ukraine leading up to the counteroffensive.

“These funds could have been used for extra supplies and weapons for the upcoming counteroffensive, instead of rationing funds to last for the remainder of the fiscal year,” wrote House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul and House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers in a statement last month, when the first $3 billion accounting error was publicly disclosed by the Pentagon."

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/20/politics/pentagon-ukraine-accounting-error/index.html

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671269942988267521

I think a better way of describing it is the US is adjusting the way it values aid to Ukraine. I have read that most countries value the aid they are sending as the market value of the weapons at time of transfer whereas the US has always valued things based on their replacement cost which is much higher.

I think the Biden administration is redoing the valuation of aid to allow the US to transfer more equipment to Ukraine on the same budget.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Allegedly:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671235455608582144

 

[MC3OZ]

An accounting error has reduced US Military aid to UKR.

"...] The first accounting error of $3 billion revealed last month triggered frustration from Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, who believe the mistake reduced the amount of US support that went to Ukraine leading up to the counteroffensive.

“These funds could have been used for extra supplies and weapons for the upcoming counteroffensive, instead of rationing funds to last for the remainder of the fiscal year,” wrote House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul and House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers in a statement last month, when the first $3 billion accounting error was publicly disclosed by the Pentagon."

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/20/politics/pentagon-ukraine-accounting-error/index.html

Credit goes to:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671269942988267521

I've double-checked our household budget here, sadly we don't have $6.2 billion to spend

 

[Artful Dodger]

20 Jun: Russians Try Counterattack. FAIL MISERABLY & GET DEMOLISHED | War in Ukraine Explained

 

[Bet TSLA]

Sacks is demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

He thinks he understands a lot more about war everything than he actually does.

Fixed that for you.

 

[petit_bateau]

ZNPP

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671208637933694977

F16 ranting, YMMV

Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App

@TrentTelenko: The Polish & Slovak Mig-29's are now in front line Ukrainian PSU service defending Ukrainian air space. These fighters help replace losses, but do not provide the increased capabilities needed from 4t...…

threadreaderapp.com

Sanctions

Western companies are still financing the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Despite tremendous business interest in Ukraine’s reconstruction and development, a large number of Western companies continue to undermine Kyiv’s efforts by contributing to the Kremlin’s war chest.

www.atlanticcouncil.org

France - NATO - Ukraine

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671209191506161679

reservoir, gone

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671207967843139584

 

[Artful Dodger]

Where the students [at the Artillery School] High Calibre?

[Replying here rather than in Main seems more appropriate]

Literally the best and the brightest. My Phase 2 Officer Training course at the Combat Training Centre, CFB Gagetown, started with 57 candidates. Just 17 completed Phase 2, and there are 4 Phases. One of my course-mates on Phase 3 went on to become a Lt-Gen (2nd highest rank of General Officer), and the senior serving Gunner in Canada. Another Ph 2 crse mate became a B.Gen (Brigader General). Good bunch of guys, overall.

BTW, I visited the RAA Museum in Sydney, Australia in 2004. Funny, they used the exact same kit as we had in the RCA, right down to the ammo and guns. Indeed, one of my men did enlist in the Army there, but I think that story involves a certain Base Commander's daughter...

Circling around to the point, it is this INTEROPERABILITY of NATO armies (indeed, ANZAC forces too) that is a force multiplier for the West. Think of Fire Fighters facing a huge forest fire in Nova Scotia. They could call upon trained smoke jumpers from British Columbia, Water Bombers from Spain, and Heavy Equipment from the U.S.

It's the same in Ukraine right now. All the West is united in a way we haven't seen since VE day in May 1945. And I will say it right now, out loud, that if Putler thinks he can trigger the demolishion charges he's planted at ZNPP, he's got another think coming. The West will roll it's ARMY into Ukraine, and AIR FORCES will unleash hell upon the Russian heartland.

It won't be pretty, but it will be fast, and permanent.

Elon, get 6 TBMs warmed up, they're gonna need to be airfreighted to UA on a day's notice to do some 'remedial digging'. Make a hole, headed down toward Siberia...

 

[madodel]

ZNPP

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671208637933694977

F16 ranting, YMMV

Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App

@TrentTelenko: The Polish & Slovak Mig-29's are now in front line Ukrainian PSU service defending Ukrainian air space. These fighters help replace losses, but do not provide the increased capabilities needed from 4t...…

threadreaderapp.com

Sanctions

Western companies are still financing the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Despite tremendous business interest in Ukraine’s reconstruction and development, a large number of Western companies continue to undermine Kyiv’s efforts by contributing to the Kremlin’s war chest.

www.atlanticcouncil.org

France - NATO - Ukraine

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671209191506161679

reservoir, gone

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671207967843139584

Why does the phrase "Brennt Paris?" / "Is Paris burning?" come to mind?

All lunatics in their final throws can think of is destroying the world.

The Allies have to tell Putin that if he does this (blowing up ZNPP) then that will be considered an attack on Europe and NATO will respond accordingly. They want the end of the world then make sure Moscow goes first.

 

[madodel]

Russian-occupied Volnovakha has been hit by what looks and sounds like HIMARS missiles.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1671211667957350418

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Sacks is demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

He thinks he understands a lot more about war than he actual does. [...

A thread about Sacks:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1643320887779762176

 

[Just a Reader]

...
The French are the only full democracy I know of that does military parades. It is kind of weird.
...

So does the UK. Chile as well (using the parade uniforms of the pre WWI German Imperial Army).