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cinci zoo sniper posted:If it turns out to be true, I hope he enjoys being wanted basically everywhere, since in the end of the day this was a terror act against a major piece of EU infrastructure. Funnily enough, if there will be enough to indict him in an EU member state court over this, Ukraine is going to have to do achieve UK/Denmark levels of accession bullshit to be allowed to join before they extradite them. At the end of the movie, Poroshenko the villain gets surprised and carried off by law enforcement, while ~the team~ wearing shades and leaning against a nice car looks on. After, they get in the car and drive away. Credits roll. Michael Koffman's subscription podcast "The Russia Contingency" has a new episode, recorded on his most recent trip back from Ukraine. It's worth the $7.50 monthly subscription if that type of thing is in your budget. The thing that struck me the most in this episode is that large numbers of brigade commanders and staffs have been created from older, retired officers. These older officers are very "Soviet" and did not benefit from the training NATO nations provided. Thus, a lot of innovation is happening at the battalion level and below. Brigade leadership quality is very hit-or-miss. For those following this thread who don't know all of the military unit sizes, this picture is a decent approximation. A "Regiment" is roughly comparable to a "Brigade", though it usually doesn't operate on its own. In the Ukrainian and Russian armies a "Regiment" is often a subordinate artillery formation under a Brigade. As an American I find this weird but if you tie "unit name" to "rank of the officer commanding the unit", it makes more sense. 
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Mar 12, 2023 19:13
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Tomn posted:If he did this for reelection cred, isn't he going to have to claim responsibility for it sooner or later? It's not like voters can know or care about black ops secret squirrel poo poo you get up to unless you advertise it to the world. I'm trying not to take the story too seriously at this point. "Reelection cred" was my own addition. It very much would be a "everyone knows it, but there isn't enough evidence for a court of law" situation - not too dissimilar from the usual oligarch corruption. It absolutely would give him brownie points for life with the nationalistic crowd. But sure, even if they can't prove it, German, and presumably also other Western European politicians wouldn't be amused, so any major continued political career for him would be bad for Ukraine's international reputation. Pinning this whole thing on "an unknown Ukrainian private party" would also be by far the least catastrophic outcome for any "It wasn't Russia" scenario, so this is also an excuse for not looking too hard at any Ukrainian intelligence involvement. (Or others - squinting at Poland)
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Mar 12, 2023 19:56
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Ukraine doesn't have the technical resources for a seafloor bombing operation, it needs deep diving explosion specialists and organizing three controlled explosions with such precision that the underwater gas pipes are properly non functional and no one is discovered after that. I'd put my money on intelligence agencies putting out unhinged theories to find leaks rather than Petro managing something so competent, but weirder things have happened
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Mar 12, 2023 21:37
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Definitely a strange career path from chocolate magnate to head of state to international terrorist.
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Mar 12, 2023 21:57
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Hannibal Rex posted:Pinning this whole thing on "an unknown Ukrainian private party" would also be by far the least catastrophic outcome for any "It wasn't Russia" scenario, so this is also an excuse for not looking too hard at any Ukrainian intelligence involvement. (Or others - squinting at Poland) No way Poland is capable of such operation. Even if we ignore resources/cost issues, we managed to let obvious spies go just because they claimed to be "Spanish amber divers".
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Mar 12, 2023 22:40
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Feel like more voices amongst the OSINT regulars I follow are calling for a withdrawal from Bakhmut. I think Rob Lee is fairly credible, but anybody know where he's getting the figures? https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1634907669294112769?cxt=HHwWgoCzzZ73rbAtAAAA Also, Lukashenko is visiting Iran? Not sure what they're going to talk about, I've seen trade being floated, but I guess another sign of further integration between Russia and Iran. https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1634984580322304000?cxt=HHwWgIDRtYb00LAtAAAA https://en.mehrnews.com/news/198438/Lukashenko-arrives-in-Tehran-to-meet-with-Iranian-President
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Mar 12, 2023 22:53
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WarpedLichen posted:Feel like more voices amongst the OSINT regulars I follow are calling for a withdrawal from Bakhmut. I think Rob Lee is fairly credible, but anybody know where he's getting the figures? Rob Lee should have the same quality of connections as Kofman and Muzyka. All 3 of them were in Bakhmut recently together, for instance, together with Franz-Stefan Gady that I know less about. These specific numbers are probably just from their visit, since they were there late February/early March, if I had to guess, but my guess of course is no better than yours.
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Mar 12, 2023 23:03
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Rob Lee should have the same quality of connections as Kofman and Muzyka. All 3 of them were in Bakhmut recently together, for instance, together with Franz-Stefan Gady that I know less about. These specific numbers are probably just from their visit, since they were there late February/early March, if I had to guess, but my guess of course is no better than yours. The thing that stood out to me is the talks about attrition ratio because Ukraine has been very very hush hush about their own casualty numbers and I'm pretty sure even top US officials have been presented with the numbers. So I would assume any claims about it would be based off of rough anecdotal back of the napkin math type assessments (interviews etc), but I'm not sure what level of access they would've gotten.
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Mar 12, 2023 23:45
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WarpedLichen posted:The thing that stood out to me is the talks about attrition ratio because Ukraine has been very very hush hush about their own casualty numbers and I'm pretty sure even top US officials have been presented with the numbers. So I would assume any claims about it would be based off of rough anecdotal back of the napkin math type assessments (interviews etc), but I'm not sure what level of access they would've gotten. To me, both 2 and 3 speak of the attrition ratio in Bakhmut exclusively, which concerns a few thousand soldiers. So, they went there, did some math over what they could see, and extrapolated it to the town. That leaves us with an okay-ish idea about ratio, and then from ratio the most logical interpretation is that “ratio is poo poo” (and thus it's better elsewhere). The % of elite casualties is trickier, but can follow via, e.g., “Russian non-elite troops can't do offence” and “the front has been moving here slowly”.
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Mar 12, 2023 23:59
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cinci edit:  video starts with a close missile call against a dash camhttps://youtu.be/OQzAjCZr0BM This is a pretty interesting video about the Russian military historically cheating. Tangentially related to the conflict. Russian culture remains fascinating and abhorrent. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Somebody fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Mar 13, 2023 |
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Mar 13, 2023 03:16
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saratoga posted:If it has a computer chip in it that isn't already in mass production, you're basically out of luck given the months and months it takes to get the first chip back from a fab even if they start on it that same day. If the government isn't going to order the fab to drop what they're doing and put you at the front of the queue, you could easily wait a year or more for just a batch of ICs. Wouldn't thousands of lovely jets thrown together quick be more useful than a few hundred state of the art 5th generation jets several years too late?
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Mar 13, 2023 03:53
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Charlz Guybon posted:Wouldn't thousands of lovely jets thrown together quick be more useful than a few hundred state of the art 5th generation jets several years too late? Depends if you have expendable pilots to fly them.
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Mar 13, 2023 04:27
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Even a "lovely" jet isn't like bolting together a technical. And obsolete models don't even have the production lines/supply chains available anymore.
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Mar 13, 2023 06:57
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Charlz Guybon posted:Wouldn't thousands of lovely jets thrown together quick be more useful than a few hundred state of the art 5th generation jets several years too late? Do we really need to "throw together" a thousand lovely jets when thousands of F-16s and F-18s already exist? All the needed jets and tanks already exists, it's just a matter of will to actually supply it.
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Mar 13, 2023 09:44
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Russia has the second largest and second or third strongest air force in the world and the amount of assistance that it would take to Ukraine to neutralize that would massively dwarf everything else already sent. Even sending Ukraine a few dozen modern jets is a drop in the bucket. There's good reason to keep Ukraine with the capability to launch attacks from the air, but that's an entirely separate beast from providing Ukraine with the airframes and related training, parts, maintenance etc. to actually overpower Russia's massive airpower advantage. This is why everyone knowledgeable keeps hammering the primacy of getting Ukraine more and more effective AA weapons
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Mar 13, 2023 10:14
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WarpedLichen posted:
Usually, when Lukashenko is jet-setting he's asking for money.
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Mar 13, 2023 10:56
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Russia has the second largest and second or third strongest air force in the world and the amount of assistance that it would take to Ukraine to neutralize that would massively dwarf everything else already sent. Even sending Ukraine a few dozen modern jets is a drop in the bucket. There's good reason to keep Ukraine with the capability to launch attacks from the air, but that's an entirely separate beast from providing Ukraine with the airframes and related training, parts, maintenance etc. to actually overpower Russia's massive airpower advantage. This is why everyone knowledgeable keeps hammering the primacy of getting Ukraine more and more effective AA weapons  As I posted earlier, I don't think this means we have to immediately do giant air battles to neutralize their whole air force. Both sides operate in limited capacity now (Ukraine obviously even more limited) and Ukraine's been using HARM missiles strapped to the Migs operated through loving ipads. Having something actually designed to use modern armaments could be extremely helpful for increasing effectiveness and survivability. Also we can do both AA and aircraft. The pilots aren't going to be sitting in trenches with Stingers anyway.
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Mar 13, 2023 11:33
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According to Perun, the source for all of the claims that the US/Poland/Norway/Denmark/anyonebutRussia exploded the North stream pipeline is a single journalist who has worked for Russia Today. He claims to have an "anonymous source". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmO1kfCr_II&t=843s So it was definitely Russia.
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Mar 13, 2023 11:44
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RBA-Wintrow posted:According to Perun, the source for all of the claims that the US/Poland/Norway/Denmark/anyonebutRussia exploded the North stream pipeline is a single journalist who has worked for Russia Today. He claims to have an "anonymous source".
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Mar 13, 2023 12:16
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I just hope whoever did it keeps it up. Maybe Keystone could be next, to keep things even- then Kazakstan-China to be inclusive. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 13, 2023 12:24
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Honestly at this point I kind of wonder what Russia's thinking with Bakhmut is. Is it entirely just sunk cost fallacy playing up or do they actually want it for a staging area due to it's defensive utility?
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Mar 13, 2023 12:25
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It looks like Verdun 2.0 to me, with the repeated stupidity of both sides using it as a meatgrinder beyond any utility.
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Mar 13, 2023 12:27
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Bakhmut is a fortified position blocking the Russian advance through the rest of Donetsk Oblast, a massive salient, nearly cut off from supply, and at this point half under Russian control already. It would seem utterly bizarre to me at this point if Russia decided to stop attacking there.
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Mar 13, 2023 12:37
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Honestly at this point I kind of wonder what Russia's thinking with Bakhmut is. Is it entirely just sunk cost fallacy playing up or do they actually want it for a staging area due to it's defensive utility? If they want to complete the conquest of Donetsk their only options are to take Bakhmut or to expand the front for a wider envelopment. They already tried attacking a broader front in the initial invasion and it led to an expensive reversal, so they're not unwilling and quite possibly unable to try it again.
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Mar 13, 2023 13:20
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Nothingtoseehere posted:It looks like Verdun 2.0 to me, with the repeated stupidity of both sides using it as a meatgrinder beyond any utility. If the Ukranians wish to avoid more towns getting razed to the ground by Russian artillery, and avoid more civilians getting displaced or suffer Russian occupation, I guess it makes some sense to try and hold the advance at Bakhmut.
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Mar 13, 2023 13:21
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Honestly at this point I kind of wonder what Russia's thinking with Bakhmut is. Is it entirely just sunk cost fallacy playing up or do they actually want it for a staging area due to it's defensive utility? They're attacking along virtually the entire front line, not just bakhmut. If you look at oryx, most of the losses recently are elsewhere. If the spirit of your question is "why did they spend months attacking strong and weak points alike rather than concentrating on just the weak points?", then there are different interpretations. Mine is that logistically they're only able to organize relatively small formations backed by artillery and limited armor in a given sector. Since they can't concentrate and break through we are getting this Verdun redo.
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Mar 13, 2023 14:26
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saratoga posted:They're attacking along virtually the entire front line, not just bakhmut. If you look at oryx, most of the losses recently are elsewhere. Yeah, it seems like some of the same constraints as in WWI, though not for the same reason. In WWI the absolute devastation along the front meant reinforcing and resupplying a breakthough across no-mans-land was close to impossible, so it was relatively easy for the defender to retake captured trench lines. In Ukraine the artillery and HIMARS makes any Russian concentration of force near the front lines equally impossible, as they'd be targeted and destroyed immediately. Forces have to be relatively dispersed, and that also means no follow-up forces close at hand to the rear, ready to exploit.
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Mar 13, 2023 15:41
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Has there been any insight into whether Russia is holding anything back or is building up for the end of the mud season? For months it seemed like everyone was waiting for the late spring offensives to define the next stages of the war, but all reporting is so focused on Bakhmut. Is this because they are actually throwing everything they have into Bakhmut or just because it's the most active and obvious battle to suck up coverage?
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Mar 13, 2023 15:49
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Pook Good Mook posted:Has there been any insight into whether Russia is holding anything back or is building up for the end of the mud season? For months it seemed like everyone was waiting for the late spring offensives to define the next stages of the war, but all reporting is so focused on Bakhmut. Is this because they are actually throwing everything they have into Bakhmut or just because it's the most active and obvious battle to suck up coverage? You could at least read the couple of posts above yours, first.
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Mar 13, 2023 15:56
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Quixzlizx posted:You could at least read the couple of posts above yours, first. As interesting as Nordstream and F-16 chat is (for the 12th time), the only other thing I'm seeing is OSINT discussions about casualty numbers and attrition rates in Bakhmut. If you're uninterested in being helpful, you don't have to post.
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Mar 13, 2023 16:08
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Pook Good Mook posted:Has there been any insight into whether Russia is holding anything back or is building up for the end of the mud season? For months it seemed like everyone was waiting for the late spring offensives to define the next stages of the war, but all reporting is so focused on Bakhmut. Is this because they are actually throwing everything they have into Bakhmut or just because it's the most active and obvious battle to suck up coverage? By all reports Russia has only committed about half of the last mobilization wave, so that's 100-150k recruits in reserve. They (theoretically) have bodies, whether they have the morale and equipment to do anything with them is more questionable.
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Mar 13, 2023 16:18
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Pook Good Mook posted:Has there been any insight into whether Russia is holding anything back or is building up for the end of the mud season? For months it seemed like everyone was waiting for the late spring offensives to define the next stages of the war, but all reporting is so focused on Bakhmut. Is this because they are actually throwing everything they have into Bakhmut or just because it's the most active and obvious battle to suck up coverage? This is the Russian Spring Offensive. It's not all going onto Bakhmut, there were unimpressive assaults along the front that are still continuing to little gain.
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Mar 13, 2023 16:26
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Honestly at this point I kind of wonder what Russia's thinking with Bakhmut is. Is it entirely just sunk cost fallacy playing up or do they actually want it for a staging area due to it's defensive utility? This is pure speculation, but Russia probably brings in reinforcements and supplies from the Gukovo border crossing to the Debaltseve railyard (highlighted in blue) and then buses infantry from Debaltseve to the Bakhmut front along the M03 (highlighted in red). My guess is they're still attacking Bakhmut primarily because it is the easiest part of the front to reinforce. 
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Mar 13, 2023 16:27
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The noticeable thing about Bakhmut is it's the only place that Russia/Wagner has made actual progress in taking, while still by all metrics taking considerable losses, while compared to the outright failures on the rest of the front.
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Mar 13, 2023 16:28
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Pook Good Mook posted:As interesting as Nordstream and F-16 chat is (for the 12th time), the only other thing I'm seeing is OSINT discussions about casualty numbers and attrition rates in Bakhmut. It's literally two posts above your post, replying to someone who had basically the same question you did.
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Mar 13, 2023 16:52
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Quixzlizx posted:It's literally two posts above your post, replying to someone who had basically the same question you did. Not as far as my reading comprehension is concerned, calm down.
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Mar 13, 2023 16:57
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enigma74 posted:Why borrow war material at 90% markdown price, when you can just ask and get it for free anyways? Lend-lease is a kind of insurance policy against trump republicans controlling super-majorities in congress and refusing to approve financial packages for Ukraine. Hang on, that bill says for fiscal 2022-2023. The mid-terms didn't go the way some had feared but the bill isn't a long-term workaround to a hostile congress either.
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Mar 13, 2023 17:23
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Pook Good Mook posted:Has there been any insight into whether Russia is holding anything back or is building up for the end of the mud season? Most of it is being thrown into this offensive or used to reinforce defenses depleted in fighting last summer and fall. This is the end of the mud season offensive, just started early.
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Mar 13, 2023 17:40
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saratoga posted:Most of it is being thrown into this offensive or used to reinforce defenses depleted in fighting last summer and fall. This is the end of the mud season offensive, just started early. Using this and the posts before you, I guess I'm surprised the same way we were a year ago. I had assumed that Russia had taken a look into the mirror, was going to re-assess, and would open up with another armor thrust somewhere on a poorly defended stretch and force the Ukrainians to disburse forces. The fact that Bakhmut is "it" is surprising. But it's surprising in the sense that "I really thought Russia's army was better than this" the same way I felt in 2022.
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Mar 13, 2023 17:44
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Pook Good Mook posted:Using this and the posts before you, I guess I'm surprised the same way we were a year ago. I had assumed that Russia had taken a look into the mirror, was going to re-assess, and would open up with another armor thrust somewhere on a poorly defended stretch and force the Ukrainians to disburse forces. The fact that Bakhmut is "it" is surprising. But it's surprising in the sense that "I really thought Russia's army was better than this" the same way I felt in 2022. Oh, they definitely tried. It's that their other offensives were massive failures - see Vuhledar.
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Mar 13, 2023 17:51
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