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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
petit_bateau
Active Member
A couple of relevant things I picked up whilst doing the daily energy news
First, Russia carries on bullying behaviour
www.eurointegration.com.ua
Secondly, helpful roundup of some of the nuclear extension issues that are relevant in Ukraine/etc context
www.energymonitor.ai
First, Russia carries on bullying behaviour
Lavrov Warns Russia Will Consider “Any Action” Endangering Their “Peacekeepers” in Transnistria Like an Attack on Russia Itself
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow would consider any actions in which it sees a threat to its “peacekeepers” in Transnistria as an attack on the Russian Federation.
Secondly, helpful roundup of some of the nuclear extension issues that are relevant in Ukraine/etc context
Nuclear lifetime extensions: Is the juice worth the squeeze?
The energy crisis has countries pondering what to do with their ageing nuclear plants. Nowhere is the issue more pressing than in Germany.
www.energymonitor.ai
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
When all this kicked if I assumed the oligarchs had at least some control over Putin. That's clearly not the case. Each of these players is only allowed to exist if Putin wishes.
Russia is literally flushing itself down the toilet.
www.cnbc.com
Russia is literally flushing itself down the toilet.
Lukoil Chairman Ravil Maganov is the 8th Russian energy executive to die suddenly this year
Since January, seven other Russian energy executives have died under unusual circumstances, according to reports by Russian and international news agencies.
www.cnbc.com
Doggydogworld
Active Member
Putin initially needed the oligarchs to hold onto his position, but he consolidated power over the years and pushed them and other major internal players to the side. Just as Xi is doing now.When all this kicked if I assumed the oligarchs had at least some control over Putin. That's clearly not the case. Each of these players is only allowed to exist if Putin wishes.
Russia is literally flushing itself down the toilet.
Lukoil Chairman Ravil Maganov is the 8th Russian energy executive to die suddenly this year
Since January, seven other Russian energy executives have died under unusual circumstances, according to reports by Russian and international news agencies.
How very KGBish. "Maganov died Thursday after falling out of a window of the capital’s Central Clinical Hospital,". Nothing suspicious there.When all this kicked if I assumed the oligarchs had at least some control over Putin. That's clearly not the case. Each of these players is only allowed to exist if Putin wishes.
Russia is literally flushing itself down the toilet.
Lukoil Chairman Ravil Maganov is the 8th Russian energy executive to die suddenly this year
Since January, seven other Russian energy executives have died under unusual circumstances, according to reports by Russian and international news agencies.
This caught my attention…
A bit later in the thread -
Then it was noted that they flew toward Latvia and Estonia, not Belarus and Russia. Still a very strong statement.
A bit later in the thread -
Then it was noted that they flew toward Latvia and Estonia, not Belarus and Russia. Still a very strong statement.
petit_bateau
Active Member
Going across the border to deal with the source of the problem is significant. There is no quiet place.
bobby g
Member
Lol. Who said that? You might want to find better information sources.
Russians have huge stockpiles of munitions.
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I don't think anyone was predicting they would be out by the end of March. I was predicating their ability to move supplies from railheads was going to get more difficult. They retreated from the north because they couldn't move supply by rail and moved to Donbas which has the densist rail network in Ukraine. They were able to maintain operations there because they were able to get supplies very close via rail. When the Ukrainians made it much more difficult to move supply by rail in the region, their ability to be on the offensive pretty much evaporated.
Now the Russians are struggling to get supply into Kherson. It's estimated the units there have about 20% of the supply they need.
Trent Telenko did some analysis on artillery ammo usage
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
His conclusion was that the data has enough uncertainty that it ranges from Russia already ran out to they have enough for another year. The USSR had vast stockpiles of ammunition, but a lot of it has either become unstable in storage or won't explode. Throughout this war their dud rate on artillery shells has been very high.
Another thing the Russians are facing is high barrel wear on their guns
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
They technically have thousands of barrels on reserve guns but the reality is the guns worn out in the Chechen wars were simply put into reserve with no rehab. Those guns are useless now.
@petit_bateau posted an article a couple of days ago that did an excellent job of discussing Russian logistic decay between equipment reaching end of life, ammunition usage far beyond production capability, and chronic manpower shortages. I believe the article predicted a breaking point around the end of this year.
Thanks. I'm in the phase where it doesn't hurt much any more but everything is uncomfortable between itching and not really being able to find a comfortable position.
petit_bateau
Active Member
Russian losses
MiG meet AGM
medium.com
MiG meet AGM
Tom Cooper – Medium
Read writing from Tom Cooper on Medium. From Austria; specialised in analysis of contemporary warfare; working as author, illustrator, and book-series-editor for Helion & Co.
medium.com
petit_bateau
Active Member
sensible commentary
rusi.org
The Ukrainian Offensive Must Come in Stages
Deliberate offensive operations must be conditions-based, and the Ukrainian military need assurances if they are to most effectively allocate the resources they have in order to liberate their territory.
rusi.org
Russian losses
MiG meet AGM
Tom Cooper – Medium
Read writing from Tom Cooper on Medium. From Austria; specialised in analysis of contemporary warfare; working as author, illustrator, and book-series-editor for Helion & Co.
I think they may be leaving out a piece of the puzzle. It wouldn't make much sense for American aggressor units to convert their Russian made aircraft to carry NATO weapons. Those aircraft are used for training only. However NATO air forces fly combat ready Russian kit. I suspect Raytheon has quietly upgraded many NATO Russian made fighters before the war to carry NATO weapons.
The Ukrainians started taking out SAMs with AGM-88s right about the time they got some NATO MiGs. It's possible that none of Ukraine's pre-war MiGs were upgraded. All the HARM carriers are ex-NATO.
Some redirection is going on because the program to upgrade NATO MiGs is still secret.
NATO is big on ammunition compatibility so it would make sense to convert the old Soviet aircraft to use NATO weapons.
Here is another scoreboard I came across
Tracking Russia's losses in Ukraine
I don't have a good bead on Ukr force strength. They have fully mobilized and they have gotten lots of NATO equipment and training. Is what we're seeing all their NATO trained force or is there a bigger force in reserve? If there is a bigger force in reserve, I expect an end run from the east bank of the Dnipro. That might be why the Ukrainians are so intent on disabling the bridges.
If what we're seeing is the entirety of their offensive force they will be unable to cross the river with no working bridges and the Russians on one side. But if they capture the south shore of the river from the east, they can move their troops from the north shore once fighting is done in the north at their leisure.
If the Ukrainians can destroy 1/2 Russia's army in a large pocket, that should make rolling up the remaining territory fairly easy.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Easy peasy.
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www.reuters.com
I guess this is why you run a 2% surplus every year.
Scholz promises 65 bln euros to shield Germans through tough winter
Germany will spend at least 65 billion euros ($64.7 billion) on shielding customers and businesses from soaring inflation, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday, two days after Russia announced it was suspending some gas deliveries indefinitely.
www.reuters.com
I guess this is why you run a 2% surplus every year.
Retired general Ben Hodges believes we may be seeing the beginning of the end for the Russian Federation
petit_bateau
Active Member
1. Regarding the MiG conversion there are the two hypothesis. Yours (and mine, I recall saying that here a few weeks ago) is plausible, i.e. that the Polish MiGs received new wiring looms, avionics, etc to carry the HARMs; and that either those MiGs got relocated to Ukraine (so far unlikely) or that the same conversion job was replicated on the Ukraine MiGs (more likely). The alternative which this video is suggesting is not that the USA 'aggressor' MiGs were retooled fully to carry HARMs by Raytheon over the last 30-years. Instead the way I interpret the video is that Raytheon techs have been rebuilding the aggressors for so long, and carrying out upgrades for them in such a way as to make them interoperable with Western kit (they have to carry Western range pods, Link, etc if only for range safety and to maximise range effectiveness) that it was then very easy for Raytheon to do a crash programme to develop a HARM add-on as well as all the other stuff. And then they could issue conversion kits and drawings etc to Ukraine. So a slightly different nuanced take on it.
2. I get the feeling only some of the first wave of Western-retrain troops are involved in the ongoing Kherson operation. I agree very much with RUSI's take on this, i.e. that the Ukraine has though at least three steps ahead with a programme that continues right through to late 2023 as a minimum.
petit_bateau
Active Member
I interpreted the claim from the video the same way you did. I've done a lot of R&D engineering over the last 35 years. While it may be possible that a crew of engineers very familiar with the MiG-29 could adapt a MiG to take AGM-88 in a short time, they would have to add a lot of equipment to a Soviet stock MiG to make it work. The plane needs to be plumbed with 1553 date buses from hardpoints on the wings to the cockpit as well as the electronics bay. Possibly other places too. Then the electronics to support the bus need to be installed. The hardware is certainly going to have a different form factor than the Soviet gear so adapter brackets need to be fabricated and installed. Once the backbone is in the control pods need to be integrated as well as the control module in the cockpit. Some equipment in the cockpit either needs to be moved or functionally replaced with western equivalents. All of this needs to be mounted securely, then thoroughly tested.
If Raytheon had already done this for NATO MiGs and it was a known package they could have made some and installed them on Ukrainian MiGs. But making a kit from scratch in 6 months would be pushing it.
The Ukrainians have shown a lot of foresight and they seem to plan several moves ahead. That's a reason I think the Ukrainians are holding back forces they will be unleashing soon. If Ukraine can't capture the south bank of the Dnipro without a river assault, that could really stall out their offensive. If they can swoop in from the east and capture the south bank of the Dnipro their offensive won't slow when Kherson is back in friendly hands.
The Russians on the other hand are just reacting without thinking very deeply. They are shifting a lot of units to the south without thinking through how they are going to supply them. It also doesn't look like they are really thinking through their defense very much. They don't have a Georgy Zhukov to create a Kursk style defense.
