Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Mon Nov 07, 2022 2:00 pm

They've been playing the card for a while, but yeah, it's never once had anything close to the desired results.
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Wed Nov 09, 2022 4:55 am

British outlet Sky News reported on November 8 that the Kremlin flew 140 million euros in cash and a selection of captured British-made NLAW anti-tank missiles, US-made Javelin anti-tank missiles, and a Stinger anti-aircraft missile to Tehran on August 20 in exchange for 160 additional Shahed-136 drones for use in Ukraine.

The Iranians have done a lot of successful reverse-engineering over the past couple decades, with an impressive domestic manufacturing base considering how starved for resources and tech the sanctions have left them. Iranian production of extremely modern anti-tank weaponry won't come in the near term, but will likely have repercussions for the mideast down the line.
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Sat Nov 12, 2022 5:31 am

So Kherson is free.

In a more general sense it's interesting to see widespread truth-seeking erupting in unconventional Russian media (social media channels etc.). While the Russian military blogger community remains overwhelmingly nationalist and pro-invasion, they're also putting two and two together, like "If the referendum was true, why are the Ukrainian civilians welcoming back the Ukrainian army?", having hard looks at the real state of the Russian army and the war, and generally unravelling the months and years of lies.

A few are calling for "the death of a Tsar", after Putin's (former?) favourite philosopher-pundit, Dugin, used that phrase.

Also, apparently the Kherson withdrawal was delayed so as not to give Biden a boost before the midterms. Imagine being a Russian soldier who got blown up for that.

On a more concrete note it appears the Ukrainians did manage to interdict the Russian withdrawal to some extent (it was Ukraine that blew up the Antonivskiy bridge and the pontoon bridges it was covering, which forced the last waves to use small boats if they could make it), capturing a fair amount of Russian equipment as well as a significant number of draftees. The more hardened and elite Russian troops were evacuated earlier this week, but many of those units lost equipment.

All in all, not as devastating for the Russians was the rout from Kharkiv, but a serious blow and just as psychologically harsh, in spite of weeks of media preparation in anticipation of the retreat. The Ukrainians also managed it while never having to commit to a pivotal battle or a brutal fight for the city itself, and largely retook the entire region without suffering major losses of any sort, really. Starving the Russians out again has given the Ukrainians another big win.

Last note for now, it looks like the US is going to send the long-range HIMARS shells (160 miles), which would mean no Ukrainian territory, including all of Crimea, will be out of range.
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Grath » Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:45 pm

So it turns out forcibly recruiting people and then mistreating them might be a bad idea when they have access to international communications and the coordinates of your command centers.

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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Mon Nov 28, 2022 3:41 pm

Why frag your commander when you can let the enemy do it and get paid at the same time!

Georgian Legion might be pulling an op claiming this, but it's credible, and if it's an op it's a fucking brilliant idea. Luckily they're not just going to leave it at at that:
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Mon Nov 28, 2022 4:07 pm

In somewhat wilder and grimmer (but also possibly hopeful) news, you may have seen the Russians have been destroying Ukrainian infrastructure to try and break the Ukrainian spirit, which is working about as well as you'd think it would (not at all: "If we have to freeze, we will.")

In order to do this Russia is expending their stock of missiles of all sorts at an incredibly high rate. By the time these massive strikes started in October it was estimated that Russia had slightly over half of their entire stock of precision missiles left from prewar supplies, with no really relevant amount of domestic replacement. At the time, it was assumed they could husband them well enough to last for another six months or longer and that the first massive strike (after the Kerch bridge was blown up, though the mass strike that day had been planned beforehand) was simply an expensive show of force. Nope. The pro-war Russian nationalist community wants blood.

The Good: This dramatic acceleration in use means they will likely run out of ballistic/cruise missiles sometime in January, possibly even the anti-air missiles they've been wasting on ground targets as well.

The Bad: Iran has signed a contract to build and supply Russia with Iranian missiles. As wild as it sounds for Iran to supply Russia with modern ballistic missiles, Iran has been doing quite a bit better at this autarchy thing, you see. That said, this may yet go off the rails, as China of all countries seems to be pressuring Iran not to ship Russia any missiles (as are several other countries), and even without pressure, it's a lot more difficult logistically to ship these things over than it is a planeload or two of drones - which the Iranians HAVE been successfully supplying Russia with.

The Ugly: Ukrainian air defences, using the new EU and US systems as well as some of their old Soviet ones, have had a very good interception rate for Russian missiles; the US/Norwegian NASAM systems supposedly has had a 100% interception rate. But there aren't simply enough AA systems over there to protect a country the size of Ukraine, which (to be fair) would take a lot of time to set up even there had been triple the number of anti-air systems imported in the last month (yes, the US and EU are sending more systems). In an attempt to simply overwhelm Ukrainian air defences, the Russians are now firing dedicated nuclear missiles, with the warheads removed, as decoys(!) to try and distract anti-air systems.
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Wed Dec 21, 2022 4:17 am

So, while people are still fighting and dying every day, it can seem like not much has changed; and it's true the that frontlines haven't shifted much since Russia withdrew from Kherson on Nov 11th.

Past few days have been low-key interesting though.

For one, the Ukrainians are seriously considering the possibility of Russia trying to attack Kyiv directly again, in January or February. Just yesterday Putin was in Minsk for the first time since 2019 to try and apply his strongest pressure yet on Lukashanko to join in the war, but he appears to have failed once again (Putin's press secretary denied that anything of the sort would be asked, that such an idea was idiotic). Russia still doesn't have near enough troops in Belarus to do it, and the Belorussians already gave a ton of their equipment to the Russians, but enough conscripts are training in Belarus - without any orders in pace for them in the new year - that it's back in the realm of possibility.

Meanwhile, a number of prominent Russian voices who are either fighting on the frontlines or have direct connections to those who do, and who regularly broadcast blogs or videos about the war to Russian audiences, have taken a turn for the dismal. Based on their opinions of the current state of the Russian, proxy, and mercenary forces, and the continued corruption and incompetence of senior and mid-level army leadership, many of them are predicting that current Russian lines will soon fall to a major Ukrainian counter-offensive, or perhaps multiple ones; many seem bitterly resigned to death now, be it with a rifle in their hands or "hung at the Hague". Pickled Igor went so far as to predict a Ukrainian strike on Moscow around new year's.

Of course before feeling too sorry for these particular Russians, it should be noted that these are of course the strongest voices of the hypernationalists, who alternate their hatred of their own command with hatred for Ukrainian "subhumans", reiterating their desires to see them all dead or conquered, singing the praises of the mythical "Russian World" and the return of a glorious Russian Empire - under other leadership. Their description of current Russian leadership as "traitors" is perhaps yet another hint of things to come.

Purely militarily, circumstantial evidence (also from grumbling Russian sources) seems to indicate that the Russians are in fact running out of artillery shells, or at least cant supply their artillery properly (the Ukrainians have never stopped blowing up ammunition dumps and warehouses), and wearing out barrels on tanks and artillery pieces. Whatever the reason, Russian artillery has started to falter, though tanks (whose barrels are far more expensive and short-lived than artillery) are being pressed into service to partially cover the shortfall. As for the big missile strikes on Ukraine most foreign intelligence assessments best guesses is that Russia has enough long range missiles left for only three or four more of the Russians' nationwide attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure which have been the main story of the past month (and which the Ukrainians have gotten better about shooting down).

Also with full winter snow, not only will the ground be hard again for heavy vehicles, but Russian artillery has no camo netting, no forests to hide in, and the snow will telegraph their every move (another fact bitterly noted by spurned ultranationalists). Oh and in a particularly modern twist, Russia's Yandex reported hundreds of thousands of searches for "surrender" in the past couple weeks, an explosion as the weather takes a turn for the frigid, and Russian forces are reportedly suffering huge waves of bronchitis, pneumonia, frostbite and all sorts of "sanitary ills".

Russia is supposed to buy more missiles from Iran (which they are paying for both in cash and with unprecedented transfers of samples of Russia's most modern military equipment and technology), but crucially, the existing deal which lifted some sanctions on Iran stipulate that Iran may not export missiles of a certain size or range before October 2023, and not only is Iran is not eager to give anyone an excuse to reimpose the most drastic levels of sanctions they faced in the past, there's both enormous international pressure on Iran (including from the east as well as the west), so there's a lot of prevarication. Iranian drones, which are now being manufactured in Russia, won't help either because their effectiveness is rapidly diminishing as the Ukrainians are getting better and better at shooting them down (one recent wave of attacks against Odessa had a 100% failure rate, as the Ukrainians shot down every one of the over 30 kamikaze drones sent at them).

So while it might seem like a bit of a stalemate or a pause at the moment, things may begin moving quickly again.

The Ukrainians themselves have continued to be inscrutable, though Zelenskyy did visit the troops in the heart of the meatgrinder of Bahkmut to issue awards for valour to the frontline troops, on the same day Putin went on TV to award more medals to the senior leadership of the Russian army. The rather deliberate contrast did not go uncommented upon by the Russian ultranationalists.
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Sat Dec 24, 2022 5:00 am

Sooooo several intercepted Russian phone calls talking about ever-harsher attempts at enforcing some vestigial discipline have confirmed that the Russians aren't just shooting deserters anymore, but that some units have expanded this to shooting any of their own who are drunk (or high). Previously they were "only" wounding drunken mobiks by shooting them in the legs, but have escalated to straight up executing them on the spot.

I mean... I don't even know what to say to that. The stories and tropes of the insatiable Russian thirst aren't really an exaggeration. Is half the Russian army going to have shot the other half by New Years?
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby zaratustra » Sat Dec 24, 2022 8:57 am

Not sure how reliable the specifics of this are, but it's a pretty plausible scenario - Russian army weapons getting diverted into Russian gangs


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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Sat Dec 24, 2022 2:18 pm

With abandoned soldiers actually selling out their officers' or other units' positions. What's a little gun-running? Plus a central reason this has all gone to shit from the beginning was the obscene level of corruption in the military, and war never stops that sort of thing when it's as bad as it was/is in the Russian army.

FWIW, at least some of that violent crime is being actively and openly committed by soldiers themselves when they're away from the front lines. As soon as anyone gets back to town it's 50-50 odds on them just running around stealing anything they like at gunpoint. They're doing it in occupied Ukraine, they're doing it in Russian towns too. Of course, what published Russian news stories about this exist usually describes the perpetrators being caught after getting blind drunk and crashing a stolen car.
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Büge » Sat Dec 24, 2022 2:37 pm



This war is getting nuts
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Sun Dec 25, 2022 7:22 am

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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Wed Dec 28, 2022 3:58 am

Sporadic bank runs going on in Russia. Unclear if it will stabilize or get worse, but it's now been happening for a couple days.

Also seemingly confirmed after several days waiting for public satellite imagery to come in, is that with the second Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's Engels Air Force Base was also successful, and that between that and the two earlier strikes on that and another airbase, Ukraine has very likely put close to or even more than half of Russia's entire strategic bomber fleet out of action.

If that seems unlikely, understand that Russia never had a huge fleet of strategic bombers (perhaps 40-60, likely closer to 40), and that due to cost-cutting measures they had concentrated almost all such planes in just two airbases in western Russia; airbases which we now know lack any serious defences against drone attacks. At a minimum, ten bombers were damaged or destroyed in the first double attack (6/4 split), and at least four more in the second - those are the cases where a bomber was so damaged that this was visible in public satellite imagery.

As a result, the remainder of Russia's strategic bomber fleet has now been entirely relocated to a base in the Russian Far East. This also caused the postponement of another mass missile strike across Ukraine which had been scheduled by Russia to take place yesterday.
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Thu Dec 29, 2022 3:43 pm

In a glorious year-end show of Russian unity, two of the most dedicated and well known nationalist agitators of the "Russian World" - Solovyev, arguably the most prominent Russian TV presenter, and Girkin (Pickled Igor), definitely the most prominent Donbas blabberer - have turned on each other in an extremely public feud, with Girkin calling out Solovyev as a Jew and armchair commentator, and Solovyev calling out Girkin as an incompetent idiot and anti-semite.

Both fascists have spent months and years spreading hate and lies, both have repeatedly called for the extermination of Ukrainians, other ethnic groups, as well as various and sundry other horrible hateful things, (and in Girkin's case doing no small amount of actual murder, but Solovyev has plenty of stochastic murder on his hands), so watching the two loudest voices in the Russian choir of hate turn on each other like cornered, drowning rats is :chefkiss:
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:32 pm

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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Upthorn » Fri Dec 30, 2022 4:38 pm

Hey, uh... We probably don't need daily updates on this?

In fact, in general, if one finds that no other people are posting talking in a thread, it may be a good sign that the community may not find the thread useful or worthwhile
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Fri Dec 30, 2022 6:33 pm

Been a few stories in the past few days just because that's the way year end tends to go - stuff happens; don't worry, I wasn't planning on resuming daily updates or anything.

The war is literally one of the biggest events of our lifetimes (so far!), as well as arguably one of the top-2 or top-3 news events this century so never speaking about it at all feels INCREDIBLY awkward, and playing a weird no-feedback guessing game of "how many days to wait between posts?" seems even worse, but hey, maybe I'm alone in that opinion. Anyway, that's fine, I'll leave off for a while since... *waves hands in direction of stuff*.

But if the consensus is that The War is some kind of bronto-kryptonite, and that the mere act of posting in a thread about it on consecutive days (or at all) risks opening a yawning portal to hell, then the thread should just be locked.
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby beatbandito » Fri Dec 30, 2022 6:35 pm

I am of the opinion that the last post belongs in the "hot tweets" thread or some such. This is a thread on a war, not a thread for making fun of Russia.
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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby zaratustra » Fri Dec 30, 2022 6:38 pm

Right now it seems it's all the same cruelties and shuffling of lines around that's just depressing and unlikely to shut this down soon

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Re: Working Out Some Issues in Ukraine

Postby Mongrel » Fri Dec 30, 2022 6:41 pm

beatbandito wrote:I am of the opinion that the last post belongs in the "hot tweets" thread or some such. This is a thread on a war, not a thread for making fun of Russia.

I mean, that's fine, I just figured we also didn't want Russia stuff everywhere.

Honestly, I don't mind saying my bad on that one, it's a bad post. Joking about it actually obscures the core of the story which is that Russia is killing so many of its own that Russian leadership thinks such a program is necessary (and have implemented it in less than a week after it came up). I've edited the post.

zaratustra wrote:Right now it seems it's all the same cruelties and shuffling of lines around that's just depressing and unlikely to shut this down soon

Superficially yes, the undercurrent is that an ever-increasing toll on the Russian army over the past 2-3 months is weakening it tremendously. They really are running out of shells, running out of missiles, and running out of men; not potentially, or in future, but now. Russian leadership is increasingly turning on each other as well.

What happens next, and when, I don't know. The Ukrainians say they're waiting for more weapons, but maybe they will surprise us again.
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