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fatherboxx)
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Chill Monster posted:Access to this water is so important that I imagine Putin to be utterly furious over losing it, especially after briefly regaining it. Puzzling a motive out is difficult since deliberately overfilling the reservoir in order to maximize the damage done by blowing the dam looks exactly like completely neglecting and mismanaging the dam to the point that it overfills and fails, although I have seen plausible analysis suggesting that the middle of the dam collapsing makes it more likely that it was deliberate demolition. The timing does seem off, so it seems entirely possible that Russia wanted to have this as an option and then someone jumped the gun and/or hosed up. If the loss of the dam and/or canal was a foregone conclusion then going scorched earth would make a barbaric sort of sense but Ukraine's offensive has barely begun and even optimistic progress reports don't paint a picture of dire urgency.
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Jun 7, 2023 18:25
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fatherboxx posted:Kofman with a surprising take but as always I'd trust him here Not surprising at all. At no point in time was a cross river op an attractive option for the Ukrainians.
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Jun 7, 2023 18:55
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I'm curious of whether Ukraine might consider a cross-river assault after the water recedes considering the water level is now controlled by nature (not the Russians anymore) and the river bank defenses are damaged.
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Jun 7, 2023 19:15
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RockWhisperer posted:I'm curious of whether Ukraine might consider a cross-river assault after the water recedes considering the water level is now controlled by nature (not the Russians anymore) and the river bank defenses are damaged. Yeah, this is why I wonder if the timing might have been an oops even if this was part of the plan. Surely the threat of being able to flood the river would have been a better defense than having already flooded the river?
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Jun 7, 2023 19:18
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RockWhisperer posted:I'm curious of whether Ukraine might consider a cross-river assault after the water recedes considering the water level is now controlled by nature (not the Russians anymore) and the river bank defenses are damaged. Interesting idea though I think part of Russia's "strategy" in blowing the dam is that Ukraine will be so busy doing clean up that even with Russia's side basically undefended, a river crossing still won't be worth the cost at this time. Additionally, the resources needed for cleanup and rescue could have been why Russia blew the dam so early in Ukraine's offensive; give them a humanitarian disaster right when they need to pour the most resources into attacks elsewhere. They've also turned the south bank into the most difficult terrain possible, it is now both a ruined urban environment AND flooded. I do not envy any large military equipment trying to make their way through that, potentially under artillery fire whenever Ukraine decides to retake the south bank.
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Jun 7, 2023 19:30
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the holy poopacy posted:Yeah, this is why I wonder if the timing might have been an oops even if this was part of the plan. Surely the threat of being able to flood the river would have been a better defense than having already flooded the river? I looked briefly and notice Ukraine safely holds the next reservoir upstream if I'm reading this right. With several days of planning, they could raise the water level to help with big boat navigation or lower it if that might allow for easier traversal by small craft. There's no major tributary between the tailwaters and the Dnipro reservoir either.
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Jun 7, 2023 19:35
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https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1666505684026785792 Quite a few squads(?) still out on the spit. Maybe this will help alleviate artillery spotting in Kherson oblast.
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Jun 7, 2023 19:41
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gently caress https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1666529410709692418?s=20
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Jun 7, 2023 21:24
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Has this been seen or discussed anywhere? https://twitter.com/Ukrinform_News/status/1666510475226390531
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Jun 7, 2023 22:01
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Willo567 posted:Has this been seen or discussed anywhere? I think that Russian volunteers news have largely been overshadowed by the tragedy in Kherson and the wait over the counteroffensive. The general consensus is that it's a distraction, since they are not holding terrain, at least officially.
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Jun 7, 2023 22:12
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the holy poopacy posted:Puzzling a motive out is difficult since deliberately overfilling the reservoir in order to maximize the damage done by blowing the dam looks exactly like completely neglecting and mismanaging the dam to the point that it overfills and fails. To quote Michael Kofman, it's not yet clear whether this was a deliberate act of sabotage on the part of the Russians or gross negligence. Either way, it's utter stupidity. Hopefully as more information comes out we'll be able to figure out what happened. Another very concise analysis of recent events here: https://warontherocks.com/episode/therussiacontingency/28898/ukraines-counter-offensive-begins/
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Jun 7, 2023 22:35
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I looked it up and going by google maps in the whole of Ukraine there were 14 road crossings of the dnieper pre-war which even for peacetime and just like having an economy seems like not enough
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Jun 7, 2023 22:39
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:gently caress Holy poo poo https://goo.gl/maps/KG1LBUsQfGyWQrE77 Even the flood of 1993 wasn't this bad.
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Jun 7, 2023 22:54
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:I looked it up and going by google maps in the whole of Ukraine there were 14 road crossings of the dnieper pre-war which even for peacetime and just like having an economy seems like not enough What exactly do you mean by "road crossing"? What about railroads?
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Jun 7, 2023 22:58
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jaete posted:What exactly do you mean by "road crossing"? What about railroads? Yellow lines that cross the dnipro on google maps This is extremely unscientific
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Jun 7, 2023 22:59
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In NATO & Ukraine news: Nato members may send troops to Ukraine, warns former alliance chief This idea of an extra speedy NATO membership for Ukraine seems like Clancychat... not sure how seriously to take this assessment
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Jun 7, 2023 23:03
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jaete posted:In NATO & Ukraine news: Nato members may send troops to Ukraine, warns former alliance chief He's talking about after the war is over, as an alternative if NATO won't admit Ukraine directly. Nobody's going to do anything while the war is still active.
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Jun 7, 2023 23:05
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jaete posted:In NATO & Ukraine news: Nato members may send troops to Ukraine, warns former alliance chief Sending in what would essentially be peacekeepers would be a lesser alternative to NATO membership, not a shortcut to membership.
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Jun 7, 2023 23:16
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RockWhisperer posted:I'm curious of whether Ukraine might consider a cross-river assault after the water recedes considering the water level is now controlled by nature (not the Russians anymore) and the river bank defenses are damaged. The odds of that are zero unless the Russians themselves evacuate the area and there is no resistance left. Crossing contested rivers is one of the hardest things you can do in war. You have to establish a foot hold on the far bank, and then proceed to be able to move men, vehicles, and supplies across the water obstacle in large quantities. The more units you put on the far side, the bigger the strain on whatever crossing equipment you got whether it be ferries or ad hoc bridging equipment. Existing crossings such as road and rail bridges are limited so the possibility of the foot hold, the bridges, and the area on your side of the bank which will be heavily congested, coming under punishing artillery fire is very high. If you remember the Kherson offensive that lasted 2 months, the Ukrainians tried to force themselves across a much smaller Inhulets river that was fordable in several places and was stone walled by the Russians who were stretched thin with a diminished supply capacity since their own logistics line across the Dnipro was getting hammered by ATACMS. The fighting near the area of Davydiv Brid on the Inuhlets held up the Ukrainians for almost 2 months and by all accounts was a blood bath with the Ukrainians suffering high casualties in men and vehicles. I think you can understand why Kofman is skeptical that this changes anything. The Ukrainian army couldn't take advantage of a depleted Russian force, got held up for 2 months along a much smaller river that didn't even need crossing equipment in places and ultimately the Russians pulled out on their terms. Crossing the Dnipro would be a much bigger ask. Even if you say that the Ukrainians have newer toys and maybe better trained troops after a winter of consolidation, do you really think they would commit them to the most difficult of tasks when they could be unleashed further north where the Ukrainians can attack without having to cross a massive river?
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Jun 7, 2023 23:16
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MikeC posted:The odds of that are zero unless the Russians themselves evacuate the area and there is no resistance left. Crossing contested rivers is one of the hardest things you can do in war. You have to establish a foot hold on the far bank, and then proceed to be able to move men, vehicles, and supplies across the water obstacle in large quantities. The more units you put on the far side, the bigger the strain on whatever crossing equipment you got whether it be ferries or ad hoc bridging equipment. Existing crossings such as road and rail bridges are limited so the possibility of the foot hold, the bridges, and the area on your side of the bank which will be heavily congested, coming under punishing artillery fire is very high. If you remember the Kherson offensive that lasted 2 months, the Ukrainians tried to force themselves across a much smaller Inhulets river that was fordable in several places and was stone walled by the Russians who were stretched thin with a diminished supply capacity since their own logistics line across the Dnipro was getting hammered by ATACMS. The fighting near the area of Davydiv Brid on the Inuhlets held up the Ukrainians for almost 2 months and by all accounts was a blood bath with the Ukrainians suffering high casualties in men and vehicles. Seeing video of current flooding, I now put the chances of an attack at zero. It's way worse than I thought despite having seen the flooding projection maps before. It's not even worth entertaining at the moment.
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Jun 7, 2023 23:34
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Young Freud posted:I think that Russian volunteers news have largely been overshadowed by the tragedy in Kherson and the wait over the counteroffensive. The general consensus is that it's a distraction, since they are not holding terrain, at least officially. Isn't Crimea heavily protected anyways?
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Jun 7, 2023 23:46
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Willo567 posted:Isn't Crimea heavily protected anyways? That's not very relevant, since it's not adjacent to anything presently controlled by Ukraine.
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Jun 8, 2023 00:08
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Willo567 posted:Isn't Crimea heavily protected anyways? https://deepstatemap.live/en#8/46.269/35.244 Just check out the map and see how much of territory is under Russia control before Crimea and think for yourself whether it would be easy for some dudes (who are not really delta force) to just waltz there.
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Jun 8, 2023 00:10
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:gently caress Twitter unresponsive. What was the content?
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Jun 8, 2023 00:12
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Ynglaur posted:Twitter unresponsive. What was the content? It was an arial photo showing how bad and extensive the flooding is.
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Jun 8, 2023 00:21
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Ynglaur posted:Twitter unresponsive. What was the content? Text is still loading for me. Sounds like it was drone video of the flooding.
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Jun 8, 2023 00:21
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https://www.youtube.com/live/qbSczd1_DgM There's been a panel discussion a few hours earlier, with Michael Kofman, Anatol Lieven and Andrew Michta. Michta is on the hawkish side, Lieven is one of the few peace (ceasefire, more precisely) advocates who does actually have regional expertise.
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Jun 8, 2023 01:39
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some guardian reporting on the dam destructionquote:As Ukrainians along the Dnipro struggled to survive after the dam collapse, Ukraine’s ministry of agrarian policy and food predicted an even greater disaster next year, with global implications, as a result of the loss of the Kakhovka reservoir, one of the largest in Europe, and its impact on some of Ukraine’s most fertile regions. so tens of thousands displaced and added to the refugee count of the war, disrupted drinking water for hundreds of the thousands, and even more reduction of agricultural output for years to come. the war continues to find new lows of insanity and pointlessness the worst immediate humanitarian impacts from the flooding seem to be on the left bank where the russian rescue effort seems to be almost non-existant. aerial footage out of oleshky shows many people trapped in their attics, locals in the area say that the russian army has set up checkpoints around the town which are hampering any sort of civilian rescue effort.
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Jun 8, 2023 06:49
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an ammonia pipeline from russia to ukraine near kharkiv has been damagedquote:A pipeline used to transport ammonia fertilizer from Russia via Ukraine that may be central to the future of the Black Sea grain deal has been damaged, according to both Kyiv and Moscow, potentially complicating talks around the accord. as noted, russia has loudly been complaining that it has not been able to export as much ammonia fertilizer as the grain deal is supposed to guarantee. if either side felt like trying to scuttle the deal, continuing to keep this pipeline down would be a good start
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Jun 8, 2023 06:56
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:the worst immediate humanitarian impacts from the flooding seem to be on the left bank where the russian rescue effort seems to be almost non-existant. aerial footage out of oleshky shows many people trapped in their attics, locals in the area say that the russian army has set up checkpoints around the town which are hampering any sort of civilian rescue effort. Whether or not they actively blew up the dam, it's starting to feel like Russia is deliberately exacerbating the humanitarian disaster to extort a halt to the Ukrainian offensive, with the threat of attacking any and all rescue efforts in range of Russian forces if they don't.
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Jun 8, 2023 08:55
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Today in Second Army in the World news: The lieutenant colonel that Wagners took hostage recently has recorded a video accusing Wagner of some horrid things https://zona.media/article/2023/06/08/capture quote:- Fighters of the "Wagner PMC" constantly attacked his subordinates of the 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade. In addition, the soldiers were kidnapped and threatened with death.
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Jun 8, 2023 11:31
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fatherboxx posted:Today in Second Army in the World news: The lieutenant colonel that Wagners took hostage recently has recorded a video accusing Wagner of some horrid things and Prighozin wonders why the Russian army hates Wagner so much they secretly mined some of their retreat lines from Bakhmut
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Jun 8, 2023 11:38
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The bigger part of that to me seems to be that Wagner and the Russian military are outright fighting in some sense, seemingly brought on by the Wagnerites having to do so to get supplies. Also that they are winning these clashes. What the hell is going on?
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Jun 8, 2023 11:41
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Randarkman posted:The bigger part of that to me seems to be that Wagner and the Russian military are outright fighting in some sense, seemingly brought on by the Wagnerites having to do so to get supplies. Also that they are winning these clashes. What the hell is going on? When on one side you have volunteers and prisoners and on the other side ordinary mobiks, it's easy to see who know all the dirty tricks and who just want to survive intact.
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Jun 8, 2023 12:10
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Ynglaur posted:Twitter unresponsive. What was the content? Basically this. I think the twitter account reuploaded a higher quality version. iirc, the original post was a phone recording a screen, this is an actual video. https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1666754250347520003?s=20 It seems like the water is receding in the towns near the dam, but still rising downstream near Kherson. Lots of videos of Russians shelling near evacuation efforts which is just so on brand for them.
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Jun 8, 2023 14:08
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ummel posted:Basically this. I think the twitter account reuploaded a higher quality version. iirc, the original post was a phone recording a screen, this is an actual video. The dipshit standard in russia apologetics this week is "oh so you're calling this a war crime? hmm? doesn't everyone do war crimes? what is a war crime anyway? and how is the solution to war crimes letting Ukraine do war, which is the real crime, which you can't have war crimes without??" So pretty bad even by their usual standards
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Jun 8, 2023 14:57
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How can anyone even know what a war crime is? How can anyone know what anything is? Its a pretty common and long-running technique of theirs - muddy the waters and either actively deny or just create the impression that there is no such thing as truth and we can't know or trust anything.
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Jun 8, 2023 15:11
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Tigey posted:Its a pretty common and long-running technique of theirs - muddy the waters I wonder if people subconciously choose apt metaphors sometimes.
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Jun 8, 2023 16:10
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Tigey posted:How can anyone even know what a war crime is? Honestly, the Russians might tend to use it often but it's pretty common everywhere these days when people find themselves standing on a weak position. "But how can we really KNOW that the world isn't run by reptilian skinshifters and that acupuncture isn't the key to removing them? Sure, you can cite your "facts" and "statistics," like you really think you know everything, but do you REALLY know where your information is coming from? There's a lot that goes on we don't know about, you know. The reptiles have a lot of incentive to cover it all up, right, follow the money dontcherknow. Anyways now that we've established that there's no such thing as objective truth I no longer feel the need to actually back up my position in any single way because in an informational vacuum one position is as good as another so why not believe in reptilian overlords?" It's one of the most irritating trends of the 21st century, and actively corrosive to getting anything at all done when everyone starts going off pure tummy-feels and it's no longer possible to have an honest conversation about what's actually happening on the ground.
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Jun 8, 2023 17:06
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Tomn posted:It's one of the most irritating trends of the 21st century, and actively corrosive to getting anything at all done when everyone starts going off pure tummy-feels and it's no longer possible to have an honest conversation about what's actually happening on the ground. These ways of thinking have been created and/or massively stimulated by Russian social media manipulation together with rear end in a top hat billionaires (pleonasm) doing similar things for their own interests. Some proof of this has come out (British Analytica) but I strongly believe we have only seen a tiny tip of the iceberg on this. I do wonder if Russia's economy collapsing and being redirected to the war will reduce this a bit but unfortunately the billionaires are still there and the techniques are now known and the easily influenced groups have been cultivated. Griefor fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Jun 8, 2023 |
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Jun 8, 2023 17:43
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