Yes
@wdolson I think that set of articles from Galeev really was illuminating: Navalny same species just different stripes. Thanks for linking to that one. I think you'll enjoy the institute for the study of war analysis from today. Very interesting...Kiev is making a strong push in the north, Russia putting in a new tank division.
I read it from the link you posted. I think you mean around Kharkhiv? The Russians left the Kyiv area some weeks ago.
The article also says there are elements of the 1st Tank Army being deployed around Kharkhiv. There have been elements of this larger unit involved in Ukraine since the start of the war. They were initially used in the north and withdrawn with the other units. They have probably gotten some replacements to a point where they might be up to something resembling fighting strength.
1st Guards Tank Army - Wikipedia
The Russians have always had smaller units than other armies. A WW II division was usually about 10,000 men in most armies, but many Soviet divisions were closer to 5000. A corps is a group of divisions, in most armies 3, but Soviet corps were often just 2 divisions. An army is a group of corps. In 1945 it was 2 corps.
Today it's composed of:
1st Guards Tank Army (Russia)
The only units I have read about in the fight are the 2nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division and the 4th guards Tank Division.
Guards units were the elite units in the Imperial Russian army and the title was restored under Stalin and given to units that performed well in combat in WW II. Any unit of any size could become a Guard unit, so there were some units smaller than divisions, divisions, corps, and armies that got the distinction. Many units were disbanded during the cold war or after the fall of the USSR, but have been rebuilt in recent years. For example the 1st Guards Army was reinstated in 2014.
The first T-90M was knocked out near Kharkhiv the other day. The T-90M is Russia's newest operational tank. The 2nd Guards Motorized Rifle Div has all the T-90Ms in the Russian army. They only have about 100 of them and they have no ability to make more.
Kharkhiv is important for Ukraine. They want to push the Russians out of artillery range so they can start cleaning up the city. That part of the war is probably less important to Russia right now, except for the threat to their supply lines to Izium. If the Ukrainians can push far enough east south of Kharkhiv, they can slice the supply lines to their sizable forces in Izium and trap them in a pocket.
So they can only take out the top 200 cities in the world with 2MT nukes?
This is insane to entertain ‘questions’ about a nuclear war. The answer is pretty simple: we all lose.
Seems mutually assured destruction doesn’t impress like it used to.
They don't want to chance it because on a first strike, it's quite possible a large number of ICBMs won't make it out of the silo and the return strike would wipe Russia off the map. The fuel those missiles use is very corrosive and eats up the missile over time. During the Soviet era they would launch the ICBMs without a warhead into Siberia every few years and put in a new missile. The US rebuilds its missiles. The Russians haven't cycled many of those missiles in 30 years.
My point is they don't want to start a nuclear fight because they probably know they can't carry through.
Hitlerjugend.
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I am honestly starting to think that Putin tries sincerely to follow into Hitler's steps. History doesn't repeat itself but sure at hell, it rhymes. Let speed it it up to the part where he kills himself in the bunker under Kremlin.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana
Putin just finished giving his May 9th speech and said just the usual things. If anything about Russia's strategy in Ukraine is changing, news about it wasn't delivered today.
Yup, looks like last option from my list: not much that was newsworthy.
So they cancel the fly past because the planes are all in Ukraine or shot down or that they don't trust the russian airforce not to drop a real bomb on putins head?
All those soldiers marching past were carrying unloaded weapons, but a pilot could decide to go kamikaze and there would be little anyone could do to stop them.
The Russians did manage to wipe out one of their own positions with a thermobaric rocket attack
In the Zaporizhzhia direction, the occupiers burned their own positions with the Solntsepek system
