Russia/Ukraine conflict

[madodel]

Everyone keeps talking about the wrong dams. It's not the Kremenchuk up in central Ukraine or the Kakhovka down on the Dnipro River near Kherson. This was the Karachun dam on the Inhulets River in Kryvyi Rih. It did have a large reservoir. You can see it on Google Maps and catch a glimpse of it at this end of this clip:

After flowing through parts of Kryvyi Rih, the Inhulets continues past a large quarry then into farmlands and small towns until it flows into the Dnipro a few miles upstream of Kherson.

Yes, mentioned on MSNBC just a few minutes ago. They didn't say the name that I heard but did say it was near the town Zelinsky was born in.

Ukraine war: Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town Kryvyi Rih flooded after Russian missile strikes hit dam

Putin has no soul. It's all about revenge.

 

[dm28997]

Awesome gesture. Thanks UCSD alumni and all those working on this:

UC San Diego Physician, Alumni Partner to Provide Prosthetic Limbs for Ukrainian Amputees

A pilot program organized in Ukraine by LIMBER Prosthetics and Orthotics, a company co-founded by two alumni of UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering was a first step in a much more ambitious endeavor: providing 100 custom, 3D-printed prostheses to people around the world.

ucsdnews.ucsd.edu

BTW Jacobs school of engineering is named after Irwin Jacobs who started Qualcomm.

 

[iPlug]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1570390048885080065

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

Allegedly:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1570341055224221696

Credit goes to (in Swedish):

Ryssland stärker försvaret men räddar undan luftvärn - Ukraina nära Chornobaijivka utanför Cherson

Ryssland uppges förstärka försvaret av de ockuperade delarna av Donbas med de förband som flydde från Charkivområdet. Samtidigt drar räddar man undan sitt tunga luftvärn tillbaka till Ryssland, för att det inte ska kunna harmas. På Chersonfronten har Ukraina gjort framsteg mot själva staden och enda

cornucopia.se

 

[petit_bateau]

AGM integration

https://twitter.com/x/status/1570426686872715265

Logistics integration

Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App

@TrentTelenko: At a rough guess, Russia abandoned a mechanized division worth of fighting vehicles, a reinforcing brigade's worth of artillery, and between a fifth and a third of it's artillery shell reserves in Ukr...…

threadreaderapp.com

 

[bkp_duke]

If Russia continues to attack power infrastructure, the gloves need to come off and the US needs to:
1) Give permission to use HIMARS on Russian soil
2) Supply ATACMS long-range and much heavier missile to hit some key targets like the Kerch bridge and airfields/bases in Crimea and take them out, once and for all.

 

[Fred42]

If Russia continues to attack power infrastructure, the gloves need to come off and the US needs to:
1) Give permission to use HIMARS on Russian soil

Ukraine attacking Russia could be a grave mistake:
- unprecedented Russian attacks and destruction in Ukraine;
- potentially effective use of the attack on Russia by Putin and his supporters against internal adversaries who would like to replace Putin. 'Our homeland is endangered and these Western sympathizers want to replace me.' Replacement of Putin is the most ideal step to bring the war to a good conclusion.

The US is still paying for Truman's foolish decision to invade North Korea.

 

[bkp_duke]

Ukraine attacking Russia could be a grave mistake:
- unprecedented Russian attacks and destruction in Ukraine;
- potentially effective use of the attack on Russia by Putin and his supporters against internal adversaries who would like to replace Putin. 'Our homeland is endangered and these Western sympathizers want to replace me.' Replacement of Putin is the most ideal step to bring the war to a good conclusion.

The US is still paying for Truman's foolish decision to invade North Korea.

I disagree. The only way to get a bully to back down is stand up to him. If Putin backs off to Russian territory and continues to lob missiles into to Ukraine, then he needs a bloody nose.

EDIT - and Russia is seriously running low on gear.
1) buying drones from IRAN. That's scraping the bottom of the international barrel for kit.
2) T-62 tanks being shipped routinely to Ukraine. That's a 50 year old design. Let's let that sink in for a minute.
3) Completely unable to establish air dominance. RAF is an absolute joke. JOKE.

No, Nukes aside, Russia doesn't have the ability to do "unprecedented Russian attacks and destruction in Ukraine"

 

[iPlug]

If Russia continues to attack power infrastructure, the gloves need to come off and the US needs to:
1) Give permission to use HIMARS on Russian soil
2) Supply ATACMS long-range and much heavier missile to hit some key targets like the Kerch bridge and airfields/bases in Crimea and take them out, once and for all.

Would argue it feels like the right thing to do and Putin certainly deserves it. But Putin may actually want this as internal support for him is worsening by the week and it would buy Russian civilian deep sympathy for the war as it would become personal to them.

We should not rule out HIMARS on Russian soil or ATACMS but would hold these in reserve in case a tactical nuke is used. In the mean time, we need to markedly increase our training of Ukrainian troops and double down on weapons supplies/ammo and sophisticated defense systems and rebuild their Air Force.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Ukraine attacking Russia could be a grave mistake:
- unprecedented Russian attacks and destruction in Ukraine;
- potentially effective use of the attack on Russia by Putin and his supporters against internal adversaries who would like to replace Putin. 'Our homeland is endangered and these Western sympathizers want to replace me.' Replacement of Putin is the most ideal step to bring the war to a good conclusion.

The US is still paying for Truman's foolish decision to invade North Korea.

I saw in the news Ukraine have attacked military targets in Russia soil before already, although not with HIMARS. This is aided by the fact Russia has a need to keep up a propaganda campaign (both internally and externally), so typically they report it as an internal accident, if they report it at all. Ukraine also does not always claim responsibility (which Russia is ok with, as it helps maintain their propaganda that everything is going swimmingly in Russia). So as long as all attacks are done against what are clearly military targets near the border, that seems to be fine so far. As Ukraine regains territory nearer to the border, Russia definitely will launch artillery, rocket, or missile attacks from Russian soil, and any counterfire would definitely be seen as fair game.

Of course it is a different story if they do revenge attacks against civilian targets (as Russia has done), but there is no reason for Ukraine to do that (nor are there any indications Ukraine wants to do that).

 

[bkp_duke]

I saw in the news Ukraine have attacked military targets in Russia soil before already, although not with HIMARS. This is aided by the fact Russia has a need to keep up a propaganda campaign (both internally and externally), so typically they report it as an internal accident, if they report it at all. Ukraine also does not always claim responsibility (which Russia is ok with, as it helps maintain their propaganda that everything is going swimmingly in Russia). So as long as all attacks are done against what are clearly military targets near the border, that seems to be fine so far. As Ukraine regains territory nearer to the border, Russia definitely will launch artillery, rocket, or missile attacks from Russian soil, and any counterfire would definitely be seen as fair game.

Of course it is a different story if they do revenge attacks against civilian targets (as Russia has done), but there is no reason for Ukraine to do that (nor are there any indications Ukraine wants to do that).

Agreed. Ukraine is not going to revenge attack civilian targets. That would seriously piss off their Western benefactors that are supplying advanced gear, and there is no way they want that gravy train to stop.

 

[CatB]

If Prigozhin is alive, is he cleaning house, or if he is not, who is cleaning house? There aren't really any known names on that list, yet.

According to this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/15/russia-war-mercenearies-prisons-recruit/, he was just seen in a video.

Apparently, in exchange for 6 months' combat duty, prisoners will get a pardon. He identifies himself as representing Wagner, but Concord (the catering company) only admits that he "bears an enormous resemblance to Yevgeny Viktorovich [Prigozhin]"

Oh this is thick!

Another equivocate statement posted by Concord’s press service came from Prigozhin himself: “If I were a prisoner, I would dream of joining this friendly team in order to not only redeem my debt to the Motherland, but also to repay it with interest.”
“Those who do not want mercenaries or prisoners to fight … who do not like this topic, send your children to the front,” Prigozhin said. “It’s either them or your children, decide for yourself.”

 

[wdolson]

I disagree. The only way to get a bully to back down is stand up to him. If Putin backs off to Russian territory and continues to lob missiles into to Ukraine, then he needs a bloody nose.

EDIT - and Russia is seriously running low on gear.
1) buying drones from IRAN. That's scraping the bottom of the international barrel for kit.
2) T-62 tanks being shipped routinely to Ukraine. That's a 50 year old design. Let's let that sink in for a minute.
3) Completely unable to establish air dominance. RAF is an absolute joke. JOKE.

No, Nukes aside, Russia doesn't have the ability to do "unprecedented Russian attacks and destruction in Ukraine"

Just attacking Russian soil is not going to stop Russian cruise missiles. The only thing that will stop them is the dwindling supply in the Russian arsenal combined with missile defense systems. Ukraine has a few of these now and more on the way as fast as crews can be trained. Even then missiles can't be stopped entirely because the missile defense systems aren't 100% and each system can only protect a few square miles of ground. There are not enough systems in the world to protect all of Ukraine.

Russia is failing and they are going to try and create the biggest mess possible on their way down. Unfortunately it's impossible to stop them from creating all messes.

Oh and the T-62 is a 60 year old design. The T-62 may be a bit safer than newer designs because it doesn't have the autoloader that is responsible for many turret launches. The Russians are reaching way back into their reserves for equipment.

 

[heltok]

Xi and Putin hold first meeting since Ukraine invasion began

Putin said he supports Chinese claims on Taiwan, Xi said nothing about Ukraine.
"China released a statement after the meeting noting that it was "ready to work with Russia in extending strong support to each other on issues concerning their respective core interests," per the Times."

Symbolic picture. Coffin in the middle, two dictators not wearing masks while forcing their old farts yes men next to them to mask. Nobody speaking English so they need translators. Not a single woman in the picture, nobody in their physical or mental prime. Old men caring only about their legacy, not about their people.

 

[petit_bateau]

I disagree. The only way to get a bully to back down is stand up to him. If Putin backs off to Russian territory and continues to lob missiles into to Ukraine, then he needs a bloody nose.

EDIT - and Russia is seriously running low on gear.
1) buying drones from IRAN. That's scraping the bottom of the international barrel for kit.
2) T-62 tanks being shipped routinely to Ukraine. That's a 50 year old design. Let's let that sink in for a minute.
3) Completely unable to establish air dominance. RAF is an absolute joke. JOKE.

No, Nukes aside, Russia doesn't have the ability to do "unprecedented Russian attacks and destruction in Ukraine"

- Please, RuAF. The crabs may be a joke, but they are our joke, so at least don't confuse them with the Russians. They actually are very active at present for obvious reasons.

- As many have said limited cross-border counterbattery-type fire against active military targets by Ukraine is entirely legitimate in the situation where it becomes necessary. However in its target selection process Ukraine needs to weigh up one of the tripwire mechanisms in the Soviet Russian nuclear doctrine, i.e. strikes against Russian strategic internal targets, and that is Ukraine's call to make and only Ukraine's. Another Soviet Russian nuclear escalation doctrine, that of "escalate to de-escalate" should continue to be disregarded by Ukraine as simple blackmail in the current conflict.

 

[nativewolf]

@bkp_duke is spot on in one regard though (I agree that the RAF should be left for the Brits- and is not the joke that the russians are) and that is that the russian air power and air defense is being exposed. Why does this matter? It (aircraft and air defense) is the vast vast majority of the $ in russias overseas weapon sales that are already slowing. One of the posters here had pointed us to a great presentation on the value of russias weapon sales, how russia had consolidated companies after the fall of the USSR and had created a credible low cost "alternative" to western weapons. It was a major export earner and allowed the russian MOD to piggyback on overseas orders to get weapons for home.

Who's going to want an su24 or 25 anymore? Or a palantir air defense or even an s300? Will turkey still standup the s400 system that they bought at the risk of rupturing ties with EU and other NATO countries? China has been hard at work stealing russian design secrets but if you steal and copy crap you just have fake crap. How will it perform? Will this force china to rethink air and air defense?

Anyway, there is a huge longer term negative for the russian MOD in this war, far beyond the exposure of the entire army and navy and airforce. It is that any weapon development is going to have to be borne by russia because nobody (india) is going to be willing to sign up for $20 billion in airframe orders for a flying pile of donkey doo. I don't think 2 billion in bribes could get that done. So the russian MOD will finally have to pay for weapon research for domestic purposes and then try to export and that's not in the budget so russia will finally have to spend big $$$ on the military and they are so freaking corrupt that we all know how that will go. China will get every secret before putin even knows it was in development. For example, russia recently arrested and killed several researchers on their hypersonic rocket program for spying. China was the buyer of the secrets, not the west.

Lastly it shows just how much money russia would have to spend to build a credible defense dept. Trillions. The world is transitioning every faster from fossil fuels and I don't know if Russia has trillions after it pays a trillion in war damages to UKR.

 

[Artful Dodger]

AGM integration

https://twitter.com/x/status/1570426686872715265

Logistics integration

Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App

@TrentTelenko: At a rough guess, Russia abandoned a mechanized division worth of fighting vehicles, a reinforcing brigade's worth of artillery, and between a fifth and a third of it's artillery shell reserves in Ukr...…

threadreaderapp.com

Russian has now provided more tanks to the Ukrainian war effort than Germany. /S

 

[petit_bateau]

@bkp_duke is spot on in one regard though (I agree that the RAF should be left for the Brits- and is not the joke that the russians are) and that is that the russian air power and air defense is being exposed. Why does this matter? It is the vast vast majority of the $ in russias overseas weapon sales that are already slowing. One of the posters here had pointed us to a great presentation on the value of russias weapon sales, how russia had consolidated companies after the fall of the USSR and had created a credible low cost "alternative" to western weapons. It was a major export earner and allowed the russian MOD to piggyback on overseas orders to get weapons for home.

Who's going to want an su24 or 25 anymore? Or a palantir air defense or even an s300? Will turkey still standup the s400 system that they bought at the risk of rupturing ties with EU and other NATO countries? China has been hard at work stealing russian design secrets but if you steal and copy crap you just have fake crap. How will it perform? Will this force china to rethink air and air defense?

Anyway, there is a huge longer term negative for the russian MOD in this war, far beyond the exposure of the entire army and navy and airforce. It is that any weapon development is going to have to be borne by russia because nobody (india) is going to be willing to sign up for $20 billion in airframe orders for a flying pile of donkey doo. I don't think 2 billion in bribes could get that done. So the russian MOD will finally have to pay for weapon research for domestic purposes and then try to export and that's not in the budget so russia will finally have to spend big $$$ on the military and they are so freaking corrupt that we all know how that will go. China will get every secret before putin even knows it was in development. For example, russia recently arrested and killed several researchers on their hypersonic rocket program for spying. China was the buyer of the secrets, not the west.

Lastly it shows just how much money russia would have to spend to build a credible defense dept. Trillions. The world is transitioning every faster from fossil fuels and I don't know if Russia has trillions after it pays a trillion in war damages to UKR.

Whilst I agree with some of the sentiment re Russian weapons systems, I don't agree with all. Note that the same Russian systems operated by Ukraine military have been remarkably effective. Note also that in fact a lot of Russian kit - inc ballistic missile etc, the full range in fact - was in fact both designed and manufactured in Ukraine.

For most of the aircraft this doesn't matter to Ukraine, and I agree that Russia is in a pickle. But its worse, as the war is highlighting that Ukraine designs and manufacture are also very good.

One particular aircraft opportunity for Ukraine if it were to seize it in a post-war situation in conjunction with Georgia, esp if Georgia can break free from Russia as well. The Su25 has worked well for both sides and is as good an aircraft as any equivalent Western design. And notably it can potentially be produced in Georgia. See Sukhoi Su-25 - Wikipedia . So there is an opportunity here to go after the upgraded production restart for the Su25. (I also note that the USA may wish to spike that opportunity by supplying A10 in a postwar period, so as to nip a competitor in the bud).

There are many other defence/aerospace/AFV/drone/etc opportunities for Ukraine in a post war situation. So irony is that Ukraine may become a significant defence arms exporter in its own right, competing very effectively with Russia for partnership programmes.

 

[nativewolf]

Hmm, I guess I have a slightly different view on the airpower situation and I clearly did not write it out very well. I've seen it as completely inconclusive for either side and thus...why spend millions per airframe and training. In fact i would go so far as I see this war as very very damaging to the proponents of the f35 as a ground attack platform and irrelevant for air-air.

I believe drones and precision guided rockets have won this war and that's the future and I agree that Ukraine may have a very profitable future in this regard. I think that if I were India I would be looking at a fleet of drones, a huge fleet of drones vs spending any more money on ground attack and I would invest in interdiction systems designed to stop rocket attacks. Just me, I think this war has seen the beginning of the end to manned air combat.

 

[wdolson]

@bkp_duke is spot on in one regard though (I agree that the RAF should be left for the Brits- and is not the joke that the russians are) and that is that the russian air power and air defense is being exposed. Why does this matter? It (aircraft and air defense) is the vast vast majority of the $ in russias overseas weapon sales that are already slowing. One of the posters here had pointed us to a great presentation on the value of russias weapon sales, how russia had consolidated companies after the fall of the USSR and had created a credible low cost "alternative" to western weapons. It was a major export earner and allowed the russian MOD to piggyback on overseas orders to get weapons for home.

Who's going to want an su24 or 25 anymore? Or a palantir air defense or even an s300? Will turkey still standup the s400 system that they bought at the risk of rupturing ties with EU and other NATO countries? China has been hard at work stealing russian design secrets but if you steal and copy crap you just have fake crap. How will it perform? Will this force china to rethink air and air defense?

Anyway, there is a huge longer term negative for the russian MOD in this war, far beyond the exposure of the entire army and navy and airforce. It is that any weapon development is going to have to be borne by russia because nobody (india) is going to be willing to sign up for $20 billion in airframe orders for a flying pile of donkey doo. I don't think 2 billion in bribes could get that done. So the russian MOD will finally have to pay for weapon research for domestic purposes and then try to export and that's not in the budget so russia will finally have to spend big $$$ on the military and they are so freaking corrupt that we all know how that will go. China will get every secret before putin even knows it was in development. For example, russia recently arrested and killed several researchers on their hypersonic rocket program for spying. China was the buyer of the secrets, not the west.

Lastly it shows just how much money russia would have to spend to build a credible defense dept. Trillions. The world is transitioning every faster from fossil fuels and I don't know if Russia has trillions after it pays a trillion in war damages to UKR.

Perun gave this an excellent treatment

Personally I don't see Russia coming back from this. It was already a decaying empire, but Putin bet the farm with a weak hand and lost. If he managed to get Ukraine to fold without a fight it would have breathed new life into the empire, but Ukraine put up a fight and the bet blew up in his face. Putin thought he would break NATO, eliminate Ukraine, and make Russia great again. He has grown NATO and made it stronger than ever and pushed Ukraine forever out of Russia's sphere and solidly into Europe. Even if Ukraine doesn't join NATO he will have a very strong NATO trained army sitting on Russia's border and Russia is not going to have an army worth a spit for decades at minimum. Likely never again. Russia's birthrate is too low and their economy too weak. They were already fading and this accelerated it.

Whilst I agree with some of the sentiment re Russian weapons systems, I don't agree with all. Note that the same Russian systems operated by Ukraine military have been remarkably effective. Note also that in fact a lot of Russian kit - inc ballistic missile etc, the full range in fact - was in fact both designed and manufactured in Ukraine.

For most of the aircraft this doesn't matter to Ukraine, and I agree that Russia is in a pickle. But its worse, as the war is highlighting that Ukraine designs and manufacture are also very good.

One particular aircraft opportunity for Ukraine if it were to seize it in a post-war situation in conjunction with Georgia, esp if Georgia can break free from Russia as well. The Su25 has worked well for both sides and is as good an aircraft as any equivalent Western design. And notably it can potentially be produced in Georgia. See Sukhoi Su-25 - Wikipedia . So there is an opportunity here to go after the upgraded production restart for the Su25. (I also note that the USA may wish to spike that opportunity by supplying A10 in a postwar period, so as to nip a competitor in the bud).

There are many other defence/aerospace/AFV/drone/etc opportunities for Ukraine in a post war situation. So irony is that Ukraine may become a significant defence arms exporter in its own right, competing very effectively with Russia for partnership programmes.

I came across this the other day

It appears the A-10 was never that great. I have a sentimental soft spot for it, but even if it was OK in the 80s (which it may not have been), it's almost as obsolete as a Spitfire now.

I think the "bargain" plane is going to be the F-16 with the F-35 being the top fighter for many years to come. The Su-25 isn't bad, but i think much of the world is going to shy away from Russian designs. The back up to NATO kit is probably going to be Chinese.

Hmm, I guess I have a slightly different view on the airpower situation and I clearly did not write it out very well. I've seen it as completely inconclusive for either side and thus...why spend millions per airframe and training. In fact i would go so far as I see this war as very very damaging to the proponents of the f35 as a ground attack platform and irrelevant for air-air.

I believe drones and precision guided rockets have won this war and that's the future and I agree that Ukraine may have a very profitable future in this regard. I think that if I were India I would be looking at a fleet of drones, a huge fleet of drones vs spending any more money on ground attack and I would invest in interdiction systems designed to stop rocket attacks. Just me, I think this war has seen the beginning of the end to manned air combat.

HARM missiles have been used very little in this war. US and most of its allies built their air doctrine around HARM missiles clearing out all the AA in the first days of the war then the air power rolling in after that. We don't know how the air war would have gone if Ukraine started the war with fully upgraded F-16s and a bunch of Wild Weasels with full HARM suites. We may have seen a very different air war.

We've learned a lot about new weapons and their impact. Drones with small bombs are going to be a thing from now on, but we don't know if all the old weapons are obsolete or not. The Russians have a large army but their small unit tactics are on par with a banana republic. They have lost a lot of equipment because they are just plain awful at combined arms.

The Ukrainians starting with much of the same equipment have used them far better. Ukraine's problem was they were outnumbered until quite recently.