Russia stealing the fire trucks in Kherson and sacking the city. Only reason I can see that they would make off with the fire trucks is so they can burn the city to the ground. Maybe before flooding it and the surrounding territory. Evil, evil...
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
I just don't get this. This isn't the dark ages, word of stuff like this spreads FAST. They are just going to harden the population against them further.
Did anyone with any intelligence get killed off earlier in the war?
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Another Kings and Generals summary, I like these for their detail of troop movements, but they are of course weeks behind.
BitJam
Active Member
Unfortunately the NE corridor along the Azov sea is the only place on the front where the Russians and not the Ukrainians are advancing.
The Russians in the Kherson region north of the Dnieper River have already been be mostly cut off from re-supply for over a month. Ukrainian telegraphed an attack in the south which caused Russia to pull troops from the north to reinforce the south. Ukrainian attacked in the weakened north and cut off supplies to the enlarged force of Russian troops in the south by blowing up bridges across the Dnieper (thanks HIMARS).
Armchair quarterbacks fussed and fumed when Ukraine's telegraphed attack in the south did not occur. Instead, Ukraine waited and basically starved out the Russian forces north of the Dnieper. Eventually Ukraine did attack in the south and made rapid progress against the depleted Russians. This is why Russia is now evacuating that entire region. They are able to get people across the river but they are not able to bring in large stocks of supplies or heavy military equipment. I don't know if Russia is (or will be) able to get their heavy military equipment out of the region.
Sources:
Anders Puck Nielsen is a professional military analyst who provides weekly updates on the big picture and strategy.
Denys Davydov is a Ukrainian commercial pilot who now provides daily updates of what is happening on the ground, kilometer by bloody kilometer.
Beau of the Fifth Column provides insightful commentary on the war but most of his videos cover US politics.
Perun provides weekly deep dives into various aspects of the war with staggering amounts of detailed data.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
What? Sowing fear amongst the masses? Its worked for the Russians since 1917. They'll keep doing it until it doesn't work. In this case, meaning overthrow of the regime. The oiligopolists think they can beat down the masses for ever.
So did the Tzar.
BitJam
Active Member
The problem is the idiots are encouraging Russia to threaten and then use nuclear weapons in order to achieve their objectives. See:
I thought @mars_or_bust summed it up well.
Also Putin and his butcher may be playing to the audience in Russia. Devastating Kherson may help appease those arguing for more violence against the Ukrainian population. Isn't this what Kadyrov wants? This General may be giving him what he wants.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Yes, and I have seen estimates of ~5 Million Ukrainian citizens who have been involuntarily relocated to remote Russian oblasts as forced labor. This is the new gulag. This war can not, will not, end until there is a full accounting and repatriation of detained persons, and reparations.
The West is dreaming if they think they can force an unequiable settlement upon Ukraine. Punitive damage comes later, if there is an attempt to force and unjust peace.
petit_bateau
Active Member
Berlusconi confirms membership of Friends Of Putin Fan Club. "Meloni, who has promised to continue Italy’s support of Ukraine and the EU sanctions against Russia over the invasion, gave Berlusconi an ultimatum to either support Nato’s stance against Russia or else not join her nascent government."
www.theguardian.com
Italy’s far-right coalition in turmoil over Berlusconi Ukraine comments
Former Italian PM accused Ukraine’s president of provoking Russian invasion in leaked recording
www.theguardian.com
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Part of this is posturing for the internal audience in Russia. It's not fooling the younger people in Moscow and St Peterburg, but in the rural provinces there is little internet and Moscow controls what there is. The older generations also get their news from Moscow controlled sources.
Russia is a country founded by the Mongol Hoard and they have always fought like and thought like Mongol rulers. I have posted a link to the Yale lecture series on the history of Ukraine. The professor also covers the history of Ukraine's neighbors. Lecture 7 was about what happened after the Mongols destroyed the capital of Rus, Kyiv and how the territory of Rus was broken up into many pieces. One of those pieces was a vassal province of the Mongols called Moscow. The Muscovites paid tribute to the Mongols for a time, but when the Mongols got weak, the Muscovites quit paying tribute and started expanding to take over the rest of Rus. Over the next 5 centuries they took over most of northern Asia.
He made the point that Moscow quit paying tribute to the Mongols, but not much else changed. They thought like the Mongols and fought like the Mongols. They still do.
One thing the Mongols did was make an example of one group of people to scare the next group of people into submission. It worked for the Mongols in the 15th century, and it worked for the Muscovites much of the time since. Russian leadership today still think the way Mongol leaders did. They keep trying the same old tactics even when the rest of the world knows they don't work in the modern world against a well equipped modern army. All it does is cause a lot of suffering, kills a lot of innocent people, and leaves a big mess to clean up when the war is over.
Putin and his inner circle are trying to apply 15th century solutions to a 21st century problem. You could call it stupidity. They haven't learned that the world changed and the old ways just make the enemy more angry and more determined.
I wouldn't call it advancing. The Russians keep throwing people into the meat grinder trying to take ground, but what ground they do take is usually taken back after a short time. The war of attrition is still going on there and the Ukrainians are happy to let the Russians try because it ties down a lot of Russian troops and gets a lot of Russians killed and wounded which takes them out of the fight.
The Donbas is easy to defend east to west, but very difficult to defend north to south. The Ukrainians are on the offensive on the north end of Luhansk. So far the Russians have been slowing them down, but the Russians are running out of defensive positions. Once that breaks, Luhansk and Donesk will be impossible to defend as the Ukrainian army pours down from the north. The front in Donesk now will either collapse as the Russians flee trying to get back to Russia or will be trapped in an encirclement.
Perun is first rate. I'm not as familiar with the others, I'll check them out.
In other news, Trent Telenko has a piece arguing the drone attacks on Kyiv are actually a form of SEAD. He may have a point
Thread by @TrentTelenko on Thread Reader App
I was thinking why not dedicate some ground attack helicopters with guns to this job? They could match speed with the drone and gun them down fairly easily. He talked about a MiG-29 that was lost when a drone blew up and the debris was sucked into the engine. A MiG is the wrong tool for the job, the speed differential is too high and the fighter runs the risk of flying into the debris cloud. Something flying closer to the drone's speed could take evasive maneuvers to get out of the debris cloud.
Another good weapon for this would be small COIN aircraft with guns. They are slow and also have the advantage of being cheap so a loss would not be all that critical.
Counter-insurgency aircraft - Wikipedia
It would be overkill, but the A-10 with regular HE rounds in the 30mm cannon would do the job too.
BitJam
Active Member
I was repeating what Denys has been reporting. For example:
Meatgrinder? sure. Some Ukrainian counter-attacks? Sure. But it's still the only part of the front where Russia is advancing. Perhaps we can agree it's much better for Ukraine to be on defense rather than offense in that area. Which was my main point.
I would agree the Russians are trying to be on offense there, but they aren't doing a great job of it. They are just burning up resources and getting people killed trying to take ground long after it's clear to everyone else that they have completely lost the initiative.
No military analysts understands the strategy in Bakhmut. The only logical explanation is that Wagner is paid to capture territories and not penalized for losing. So they capture and give back all summer/fall and make huge $. They are mercenaries, what do they care, the guys in the way of bullets are literally criminals.
It is the case though that this approach, just like the mass drone attacks, is using up Ukraine's ammo and keeping them tied up in that area, so it may be another blunt tactic, but if Wagner are involved it is undoubtedly money driven as well and relatively risk-free for them if they can send waves of untrained mobilised troops ahead to attract enemy fire and act as a buffer.
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Hard to see how waiting a few weeks/ months to see if the Republicans can sink US support for Ukraine wouldn't be on the strategy board for Russia. As would be making that happen.
Putin will be grasping for any straw he can get, but time is running out fast for him.
Strong message to Iran if accurate:
Again??
About a week ago Ukraine killed a group of 10 Russians & 10 Iranian instructors were training them, didn’t they?
Isn’t this just old news about the same event??
Edit- unless Iranian drone Instructors grow ten-on-the-cob or something.
