[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Mentalist, on 06 December 2022 - 06:59 AM, said:

Oil depot on fire this morning in the Kursk Airbase. That's only 150 km from the border, so pretty minor news.

This is how the orcs will get conditioned to the idea that military targets within Russia proper are, in fact, fair game.

'"There is so much poetry coming out of Ukraine now that I'm barely keeping up with it," the Ukrainian translator and scholar Oksana Maksymchuk tells me. It is hardly the first thing that one would expect of a country at war. But poetry's ability to, as she says, "crystallise a particular moment in time, or an emotion that is fleeting", has led to an outpouring of poems [...]

[...] "Every poem, every line, every word is part of Ukrainian history," [...] "We know for sure that wars end, but poetry does not." [...]

Some poets, during the current full-scale invasion, have found themselves harnessing their words to song, attracted to the direct catchiness of lyrics.'

For Ukrainians, poetry isn't a luxury, it's a necessity during war

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 11 December 2022 - 11:37 AM

[Werthead]

The Russian Ambassador to Kazakhstan has suggested that there are "Nazis" in Kazakhstan and Russia may need to carry out a "special military operation" along Kazakhstan's border.

The response from Arman Shuraev, a prominent Kazakh journalist, was quite remarkable.

Quote

“For NINE MONTHS you have been recieving a beating from the valient Ukrainians.”

“And I can say, God forbid you try to come to us for an easy victory.”

“The entire Kazakh steppe will be strewn with the corpses of your conscripts”

Worth remembering that Kazakhstan is something like five times the size of Ukraine (which is still the largest country in Europe, aside from Russia itself) and has nothing like the rail infrastructure that allowed Russia's initial invasion of Ukraine to be even vaguely successful, so invading Kazakhstan would have been a dodgy idea even before half of Russia's active military hardware was ground into powder in Ukraine. Now it's absolutely untenable.

[Tsundoku]

Wow, that clip of Shuraev was something else. About as absolute a verbal smackdown as I've ever seen and all without using any profanity.

[Werthead]

Strong reports circulating that the United States will authorise deployment of multiple Patriot missile battery systems to Ukraine in the next week, and Ukrainian forces may have already been training on the batteries in Poland and Germany for a while.

This is a moderately risky strategy for the US. Not in terms of material escalation because that is highly improbable, but because Patriot batteries are relatively easy to detect, unlike the current high-end weapon systems deployed to Ukraine which can shoot and scoot. Patriots need to sit embedded and switch on their own radars before firing, which can in turn be detected by other radar systems. The Russians could fire off a salvo, lock onto a Patriot and try to hit it with a second salvo. If they have any Kinzhals left in their inventories, that'll be a hell of a tempting target, and blowing a Patriot missile battery to pieces on Ukrainian soil with a hypersonic missile would give the Russians a propaganda victory and might also make them feel more confident about overcoming Patriots to hit vital US and NATO military targets across Europe in the event of a wider conflict, whilst right now they don't know if the Kinzhal would be even effective.

However, multiple Patriot batteries could effectively seal Ukrainian airspace to almost everything the Russians have other than hypersonics, which would be a huge improvement over Ukraine's already-impressive interception rate.

[Mentalist]

Patriots (if they get deployed) are primarily aimed at dealing with the (equally rumored) Iranian ballistic missiles.


They are unlikely to be seeing constant use against Shaheds and regular cruise missiles. So the risks aren't that crazy. Especially if they get layered to protect each other.

[Chance]

It also be that it is easier to make a few patriot batteries hard targets then it is to make all the infrastructure of Ukraine hard targets. Especially for relatively crappy weapons like those drones.

Basically make the Patriots seemingly good targets or must take down targets but also really really tough by placing a lot of shorter ranged AA in the area.

This post has been edited by Chance: 14 December 2022 - 04:06 PM

[Werthead]

The BBC reporting Ukrainian government sources saying they believe Russia will attempt another offensive after the New Year, between the end of January and start of April. They seem to be divided on whether Russia will attempt another multi-front push or a single concerted effort, possibly via Belarus towards Kyiv (again). There seems to be very low estimations of success, but ~150,000 Russian troops, even under-equipped, attacking towards Kyiv would be something Ukraine could do without.

What will be interesting is if Ukraine can launch another offensive before then. Very heavy shelling and HIMARS activity running along the front from roughly Mariupol to Donetsk city.

[Mentalist]

Werthead, on 16 December 2022 - 07:56 PM, said:

The BBC reporting Ukrainian government sources saying they believe Russia will attempt another offensive after the New Year, between the end of January and start of April. They seem to be divided on whether Russia will attempt another multi-front push or a single concerted effort, possibly via Belarus towards Kyiv (again). There seems to be very low estimations of success, but ~150,000 Russian troops, even under-equipped, attacking towards Kyiv would be something Ukraine could do without.

What will be interesting is if Ukraine can launch another offensive before then. Very heavy shelling and HIMARS activity running along the front from roughly Mariupol to Donetsk city.

It certainly appears that there's some shaping going on in the S and also towards Luhans'k.

starting next week the weather's supposed to be staying in steady minus, so maybe by NYE the ground will freeze enough for the UAF to regain the initiative with their armored pushes.

Essentially, it's a race against time to prevent the orcs from clogging the frontlines with too many mobiks up to the point where there'll be too many to kill. Then you're basically stuck in a long war, waiting for some shifts inside Russia itself, which is a pretty risky proposition in and of itself

[Werthead]

Our Prime Minister is being a dickhead.

The UK has been instrumental in pushing hard for major military supplies to Ukraine, not just from our own stocks (which are not immense) but also from our allies. Boris Johnson's bullish pressure is believed to have been instrumental in convincing Biden, Macron and the Germans into taking a harder line against Russia at various moments when they were wavering, and British military intelligence has played a critical role in assessing the conflict and correctly projecting the moments of maximum Russian weakness. Clearly our practical support is dwarfed by the Americans', but it is not trivial and it is more than any other country involved in backing Ukraine hard. We have also trained over 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers here and entered into comprehensive new security arrangements with Finland and Sweden during their NATO accession process. Given what a complete balls-up Britain has made of everything else diplomatically for the last six years, Britain's stance on Ukraine has won it renewed support and respect across Europe. Britain's position of one of three nuclear powers opposing Russia is also believed to be a hefty calculus holding Russia back from a major escalation of the conflict. If NATO enters the war for any reason, British forces will likely play a key and major role, particularly our substantial cruise missile stocks and air and naval power.

The reason Britain has taken this stance, despite hefty Russian financial interference in British affairs for the last decade and a half or so, is pretty damn simple (beyond the fact we regard Ukraine as a friend and ally and Russia not so much): in 2018, three British nationals and two Russian defectors were poisoned in Salisbury, one of them dying, as a result of a botched Russian assassination attempt. Subsequent analysis of the poison used concluded that, had a frankly insane number of coincidences not happened, tens of thousands of people would have died, in which case Britain would have had no choice but to invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter and militarily retaliate against Russia, probably leading to World War III. For that reason, Britain - up until now, anyway - has seen Russia's defeat in Ukraine as a geostrategic necessity.

Sunak sending any message that could be interpreted as weakness is a very bad idea. In fact, if he goes too far down that road he may find himself Liz Trussed in very short order.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 16 December 2022 - 09:19 PM

[Tsundoku]

I like that "Liz Trussed" has entered the lexicon.

[Werthead]

The Russian regular forces and the Rosvgardia are, unsurprisingly, not getting along, to the point of a tank commander attacking a Rosvgardia checkpoint.

[Werthead]

Excellent speech by Zelensky, correctly identifying the faultlines in the USA's internal politics and playing those divides quite well.

Fairly astute as well, stating that the USA funding Ukraine is not a gift, but an investment and a loan because if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, the United States will probably have to intervene more forcibly later on, at much greater expense and risk to its people, to stop Russia somewhere else. In that sense, American investment in the war is dirt cheap.

Fortunately even most Republicans seem to get that.

[Mentalist]

Werthead, on 22 December 2022 - 05:27 PM, said:

Excellent speech by Zelensky, correctly identifying the faultlines in the USA's internal politics and playing those divides quite well.

Fairly astute as well, stating that the USA funding Ukraine is not a gift, but an investment and a loan because if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, the United States will probably have to intervene more forcibly later on, at much greater expense and risk to its people, to stop Russia somewhere else. In that sense, American investment in the war is dirt cheap.

Fortunately even most Republicans seem to get that.

Senate approved the 44.9 billion military assitance to UA package for next year's defense budget. Waiting on Congress now.

Also, Senate unanimously approved amendment to use seized Russian assets for restoration of Ukraine.

Good stuff all around.

[Chance]

Mentalist, on 22 December 2022 - 08:54 PM, said:

Senate approved the 44.9 billion military assitance to UA package for next year's defense budget. Waiting on Congress now.

More than half the russian military budget 2022 (75b$) from just the US and without the legacy naval, air, nuclear and internal security force. Well Ukraine is probably spending more on its functional/useful military than russia is at this point.

Seems like Putin and his flunkies are in for a tough next year

[Werthead]

Chance, on 23 December 2022 - 04:47 PM, said:

More than half the russian military budget 2022 (75b$) from just the US and without the legacy naval, air, nuclear and internal security force. Well Ukraine is probably spending more on its functional/useful military than russia is at this point.

Seems like Putin and his flunkies are in for a tough next year

Yup, Ukraine's military spending on its infantry, tanks, artillery and drones outranged that of Russia in 2022 and will do so again in 2023. Russia's military budget is effectively crippled by having to spend so much on its nuclear forces and things like stopping its landlocked aircraft carrier from bursting into flames (as it did again this week, renewing calls for it to be scrapped).

When Russia is bringing in equipment from Iran and North Korea - and it's not like those countries have tons and tons in reserve they can spare from their military readiness stockpiles - you know they're in trouble.

Also a lot more bellicose rhetoric flying around over the Iranians holding up the nuclear deal, and some hawkish talk from the US and Israel that if Iran continues with its current enrichment programme, they may be forced to take pre-emptive action. I suspect if the US and Israel did mount air strikes, the US would also target Iran's production facilities for the weapons it is sending to Russia (and of course the likelihood such threats are meant to dissuade Iran from sending more stocks, and hinting they might need them for defence; the US has little appetite for air strikes whilst there's even a 0.1% chance that the Iranian regime might be overthrown by internal revolution).

[Werthead]

Russia's official crime figures for the year are making for interesting reading. Kursk has seen a 675% rise in violent crime. Apparently most of the oblast's police and almost all of its Rosvgardia was sent to Ukraine (just next door), leaving behind the criminals who wasted no time in taking full advantage. And this is the official figure, which is likely sugar-coated to the point of lunacy. Apparently the last time it was this dangerous to be in Kursk was in 1943 and the largest and most intense tank battle in human history was going on around the city. That's not even counting the danger from Ukrainian drone and artillery attacks across the border against military targets.

Even Moscow, which has done its absolute best to minimise law enforcement losses to the war, has seen a 200% rise in violent crime. There's a lot of fuming anger building up, especially in the oblasts which are taking the brunt of the losses from the war, and their boldness in saying F-You to Moscow seems to be getting stronger and stronger, the weaker and weaker Russia's military becomes. This could become existentially dangerous for the Russian Federation in the next year or two (and Kadyrov seems to be still succeeding in his game of keeping Chechen forces away from the front lines and minimising losses whilst vocally voicing his support for Putin).

[Mentalist]

more bavovna at Engels strategic bombers airbase. This time, the control tower might be gone. And 5 bombers damaged, with another 4-10 being shuffled off to the Chinese border in the Far East (Ukrayinka airbase in Amur Oblast') just to be on the safe side.

We'll need some satellite images to confirm just how much damage was done. But the fact we haven't had a massive cruise missile barrage over the holiday (so far) is somewhat telling.

[Cause]

https://en.m.wikiped...%20this%20year.

The latest one, an oligarch fell out the same window that his colleague fel out of 3 days before.

[Mentalist]

Cause, on 27 December 2022 - 09:10 PM, said:

https://en.m.wikiped...%20this%20year.

The latest one, an oligarch fell out the same window that his colleague fel out of 3 days before.

Not quite.
The 1st one reportedly had a heart attack. The second fell out of a window.

Same hotel in India, though.

[Werthead]

Russian TG reports that Kreminna is taking an absolute pounding and they need to withdraw or be reinforced ASAP. Some Ukrainian sources reporting the city is capitulating, but the Ukrainian military is saying this is premature.