[Mentalist]

 Werthead, on 28 October 2023 - 10:45 AM, said:

Current estimates are of 4,000 Russian fatalities in the assault on Avdiivka so far, more wounded. Given the intensity of combat there, that may be an under-estimate.

Oleg Tsaryov, the pro-Russia Ukrainian "traitor" MP who was living in Crimea and was tapped as a possible ruler of a post-war Ukrainian vassal state, has been stabbed at his home in Yalta and is in critical condition.

Russia has begun transferring equipment and assets seized from Wagner to Chechnya, where Kadyrov is raising and equipping two new battalions. It looks like Putin is looking to Kadyrov to act effectively as Prigozhin's successor, which seems like very shaky ground to stand on.

Ukraine experimenting with micropilots for their drones.

Someone figured out WTF is going on with the ROUSes. Along the combat front, grain was not harvested because of the risk of extreme death, so rats and mice have gorged themselves to massiveness over the summer and are now looking for somewhere warm to ride out the winter, so have made a bee-line for the trenches. Both sides are reporting the situation is getting out of control.

Tsaryov is a walking meme. He is a self-proclaimed speaker for the parliament of "Novorossiya"- a hypothetical union state comprised of the self-proclaimed DNR and LNR puppet republics. So that's like, ionno, non-existent title cubed? or to the 4th degree?

The orcs seem to have given up trying to blitz Avdiyivka and are now alternating attacks from the N and S. UAF brought in the 1st Tank Brigade and the 47th Mech as reinforcements. 47th Mech earlier spearheaded the assault on Robotyne, and supposedly it was reshuffled here earlier in an attempt to "let it rest", but that's unclear.

Even more probing attacks on the L bank trying to keep the orcs pinned down there. It appears the marines are holding a big chunk of Krynky- but that's a village that stretches about 7 km along a road from Kahovka to Oleshky, so saying it's "secured" would require controlling a major chunk of territory, which isn't gonna happen overnight.

[Mentalist]

Some bright person spread a rumour in Makhachkala (capital of Dagestan) that a plane full of Israeli refugees is arriving there.

A mob formed up in order to prevent this. They stormed the airport, and occupied the landing strips. So far, all they found was a Russian-speaking Uzbek immigrant.

The extra murderous mood could possibly be explained by the fact that the city has had problems with running water all summer, due to Moscow not sending any money to fix the issue.

Kadyrov's been founding new Chechen units and naming them after 18th and 19th century heroes of anti-Russian resistance. He is also pressuring leaders of other Muslim-majority national republics to honour his son (who posted a video of himslef kicking the stuffing out of a young man imprisoned in Chechnya for burning a Quran in Volgograd). So far the heads of Tatarstan and Karachayevo-Cherkessiya have presented Adam Kadyrov with republican-level medals.

This is certainly odd behaviour, suggesting things are heating up in Orcland.

In brighter news, an oil refinery in krasnodar Krai that produced aviation fuel is on fire. And the gains on the L bank seems to be significant enough that the orcs sacked the head of AC "Dnepr" and replaced him with General Teplinskiy- who was the head of the VDV until very recently- he got removed in the aftermath of Prigozhin's putsch

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 29 October 2023 - 07:45 PM

[Werthead]

Russia's northern advance round Avdiivka has been stretched so thin that Russia stripped troops from the flanks to focus on the front, hoping the Ukrainians didn't notice. The Ukrainians did notice and have launched a counter-assault right down the H20 highway, penetrating more than a kilometre into the Russian lines outside Krashnohorivka. The Russians are sending in the few reserves they have. Depending on your Telegram channel of choice, the Russians are stabilising the front after heavy losses, or the entire northern hook around Avdiivka is in danger of collapsing.

Ukraine has also hit the command centre for the Russian Dnipro front (which holds the line of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast). Former VDV commander Colonel General Teplinsky, noted for being one of the few competent, high-ranking Russian generals, has just taken command of the grouping. Some suggestions they might have been trying to take him out personally to further confuse the situation on the Dnipro front.

The Russian Yabloko party has broken with political unity in the Legislative Assembly for St. Petersburg by calling for a ceasefire and peace talks with Ukraine. Yabloko is arguably the most pro-west, liberal Russian political party to be allowed to exist, which may not be the case for much longer. It's a pretty minor group though.

The Kerch Bridge was covered in smoke for a large part of this morning. Unclear if there was any fire directed at it, but some locals claimed it was a drill with boats pumping out smoke from nearby to camouflage the bridge.

An entire battalion, the 1st of the 1251st Motorised Rifle Regiment, was devasted when Ukrainian forces pinpointed their mustering point for deployment to the front. One HIMARS strike later, most of the unit's vehicles were destroyed and numerous soldiers wounded. Number KIA unclear.

Another TOS thermobaric launcher has been destroyed on the front.

[Mentalist]

Yabloko is the one "pocket opposition" party allowed to exist (but not have any mainstream media presence). Their position is to freeze the conflicts "stop shooting and engage in protracted negotiations". Party leader, Yavlinskiy, despite being born in L'viv (his mother still lives there) is very much a closet war apologist in the "Ukraine provoked Putler and should've known better" realpolitik mold.

I've been seeing a lot of orc crowing that their anti-air in the S and Crimea is getting better at neutralizing western cruise missiles and even ATACMs. Though we hear reports about supposed hits, we aren't seeing nearly as much confirmation of damage, so I am getting somewhat concerned, tbh

Zaluzhnyj published a big editorial in The Economist regarding the war becoming positional/attritional, and all the things UAF will need to stay in the fight (ammo, drones to make up for airpower imbalance, EW stations, and ways to effectively demine terrain).

North Korea supposedly gave about a million shells to the orcs. Would sure be nice if RoK responded in kind, but Ukraine's oriental diplomatic game is fairly weak, so not holding my breath.

[Werthead]

Excellent analysis by the Ukrainian commander-in-chief of the conflict so far, the current risk of it transitioning to a frozen front and what is needed to defeat Russian forces in detail and drive them from Ukrainian territory. He also briefly outlines the danger of a domino effect, where major regional wars erupt in short order in close temporal proximity to one another (Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Hamas possibly escalating to bring in Iran, South Kore/North Korea, China/Taiwan) which would culminate in a global crisis.

The argument is briefly made, successfully I think, that Russia's defeat in Ukraine is now a major geopolitical necessity which should be brought about as quickly as possible. Doing so would demonstrate the depth of western commitment to the international order and strengthen the deterrence factor.

The report notes the technological superiority of Ukrainian forces armed with western weapon systems, but also notes the Russians are learning to adapt, and shortages of western systems means Ukraine has to be right almost every time with every decision it makes: Russia is making a lot of bad decisions, but it can afford to make them.

[Mentalist]

RIA Novosti confirms impacts on the Kerch Shipyards.

Apparently, another missile corvette down for the count.

I'd like to know how much of the dry dock remains intact.

[Werthead]

Video footage of the Karakurt-class antimissile corvette Askold taking three British Storm Shadow missiles one after the other (maybe four, but I think that was a secondary detonation).

Not sure if a corvette is worth three very expensive cruise missiles, but I think maybe this was more about the message it was sending, hitting a Russian warship in a Crimean dockyard not far from the bridge.

[Mentalist]

34 million for the tub, smt like 3 million each missile.

The math checks out, unless they actually fired a volley of 15 Storm Shadow/SCALPs, like the orcs initially claimed.

One of the Z-heads posted a pic of a ferry carrying a BTR-4 over Dnipro to the L Bank. That'd be the first indication that the marines trying to set up a bridgehead are getting armor.

[Werthead]

Ukraine ambushed a Russian military column near Novomykhailivka, Donetsk Oblast. 3 tanks and 4 BMPs destroyed.

Lavrov has asked to attend the annual OSCE meeting and has been again told to bugger off. Russia technically has observer status at the organisation, but it's up to the hosting country if they let Russian planes land or not. Last year's host, Poland, and this year's, Macedonia, have refused to lift their bans on Russian planes landing.

Live F-16 training for Ukrainian pilots has begun in Romania, with the first planes arriving from the Netherlands.

The Russian economy has taken another hit due to non-payment of bank loans by citizens. Almost 50% of Russians with bank loans have refused or been unable to make their payments for the last two months. Russian banks are, unsurprisingly, unimpressed but are simply unable to enforce the payment system due to a lack of manpower to arrest/repossess tens of millions of homes.

Something big blew up at Taganrog Airport, Rostov. Unclear what it was so far.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 07 November 2023 - 07:15 PM

[Werthead]

A Liberian-flagged, Philippine-crewed vessel entering Odesa port was hit by a Russian missile. Four people injured, one killed.

The US Congress has approved a bill to transfer seized Russian assets to Ukraine.

Kadyrov has unilaterally ruled that Chechen children must be taught Chechen as their first language. Russian will also be taught, but Chechen must be considered their mother tongue (note: this is very illegal under Russian law). He has also ignored the new law saying that all Russian government officials must buy Russian-made cars, but importing a bunch of foreign-made SUVs for his leadership team.

Japan has made a pledge to help fortify Ukraine's electrical grid to ensure it doesn't suffer the blackouts it did last winter. Japan also wants to make substantial investments in Ukraine's reconstruction and rebuilding efforts after the war.

The EU is ready to begin the next round of EU accession talks with both Ukraine and Moldova, citing progress in both nations on fighting corruption.

There is a cat cafe in Poland which has been taking in cats rescued from the war front in Ukraine. Some of the cats are traumatised and respond poorly to sudden loud noises, so they are being gradually acclimatised back into a safe environment.

Ukraine hit a technical college in Donetsk which was being used as a UAV/drone pilot school.

The situation in Kherson is deteriorating (for the Russians), with confused reports of Ukrainian advances and some villages that were fully secured now apparently seeing skirmishing. Doesn't seem to be a concerted Ukrainian push, but they are operating under drone cover, well within Ukrainian artillery range, whilst Russian artillery seems to be increasingly eroded in this area. However, Russia does continue to strike the area with drones. Some recent indications that Ukrainian forces have pushed out of Krynky and are securing roads in the area, forcing Russians further back from the river.

Russian attacks on Avdiivka are continuing, and Ukraine now believes more than 250 Russian vehicles, artillery systems and helicopters have been destroyed in this area alone. OSINT sources seem to agree it's in that ballpark. Ukraine has apparently received so many drones to use on this front they've been using them to target individual Russian soldiers.

Confirmation it was French-supplied SCALP missiles (rather than UK-supplied Storm Shadows, which are effectively the same weapon) which hit the Kerch Shipyards over the weekend.

The Ukrainian intelligence service has used a car bomb to kill Mikhail Filiponenko, a former Luhansk separarist leader and current member of the region assembly. 

This is interesting.

[Mentalist]

UAF apparently broke into the forests S of Krynky on the L Bank. One of the bigger Z-head channels is whining that the marines have a low-altitude helicopter providing fire support.

A hit on a hotel/HQ building in occupied Skadovs'k (Black Sea Coast, occuped portion of Kherson Oblast'). Both sides agree that there were some "juicy targets" there- we'll have to wait for some obituaries. We recently got 3 such for 3 VDV colonels that got hit in the OC "Dnepr" HQ in Heniches'k when the UAF thought the new commander, Teplinskiy will be there. Hopefully Skadovs'k can at least match this result.

The Magyars appear hellbent on blocking EU Accession talks, so I'm not holding my breath.

An orc barge was apparently rammed by a Liberian-owned (karma?) vessel from Palau in Bulgarian waters. What I really wanna see is the scuttling of those 'grain thief" barges that keep taking our grain from Crimea to Syria.

[Werthead]

Putin mispronounced President Tokayev's name for the fourth time in public on a trip to Kazakhstan, causing the President to get annoyed and, during a later press conference, switched to speaking Kazakh, leaving the Russians present standing there like lemons because they didn't know WTF was going on (in former Soviet countries, it's been traditional to speak Russian with Russian delegations present).

The Tambov munitions factory, 250 miles SE of Moscow, has exploded. Unclear as to who was responsible at the moment.

Russian forces continuing their push on the north hinge of Avdiivka got to the Ukrainian lines, but overextended and were cut off by US-supplied IFVs. They suffered heavy losses before retreating. But concerning they were able to get to the lines.

Major sea drone attack on Crimea. The Ukrainians targeted and damaged a series of Serna-class landing craft.

South Korean intelligence believes a small number of short-range ballistic missiles have been transferred from North Korea to Russia.

Ukrainian intelligence located a major mobile electronic warfare platform operating near Obryvka, Kherson Oblast, and destroyed it with HIMARS. This complex was possibly a mobile system trying to replace the system destroyed on Crimea's west coast a few months ago (geolocated after an idiot Russian tourist photographed it and posted it on social media). This should dramatically improve drone use, EW coordination and short-range communications as Ukraine attempts to break out from the Kherson bridgehead. A Russian resupply convoy was also destroyed in Hladkivka, Kherson. The Ukrainians are building up pressure on this front.

An FSB officer was assassinated in Bryansk yesterday, in Russia itself.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 11 November 2023 - 02:13 AM

[Mentalist]

RVC claim responsibility for Bryans'k Oblast- it was another mini-raid in the border area.

The 2 landing crafts (one is a Serna, the other is an older Ondatra-class) were both sunk. They may have carried a TOR SAM battery each, making these worth double.

In Kolomna, Moscow oblast' explosion in a machine building institute.

Left Bank pressure is difficult to build up, b/c the orcs are going nuts with the glide bombs. We need either a few SAM batteries in Kherson and Nikopol', or those airbases in Crimea need to go.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 11 November 2023 - 04:19 AM

[Werthead]

Oh this is interesting.

The assertion is that Ukraine is not planning a massive, all-out assault across the Dnipro but is instead using ever-improving technical capacity to create an area-denial radius across the neck of the Crimean Peninsula. As this circle widens, as it has in recent week, it pushes Russian forces back and allows Ukraine to move forward even without a major armoured assault. The advent of ATACMS has forced Russia to withdraw its helicopter coverage from the area (explaining why the Kherson offensive, modest as it has been, has not run into the same helicopter defences we saw around Robotyne), and even allowed Ukraine to push forwards with its own helicopters in a similar manner (although not on the same scale in terms of numbers; I wonder if Apaches or other western helicopters will be the next major request, and they should be much less controversial than F-16s). With Crimean AA coverage degraded and the helicopters forced out of the area, and Russia paranoid about using jets in close ground support, it leaves the aerial defence of the area down to drones and glide bombs, which it has tons of, but Ukraine has counters and are now backed by being in heavy artillery range from across the Dnipro.

The sum total of this is increasingly perilous logistics operations carried out by Russian forces to resupply their troops along the Dnipro in western occupied Kherson, but growing Ukrainian capacity is reducing this ability. This is why Russia abruptly announced plans to build a rail line via occupied Mariupol to Crimea, to try to shore up the logistical pipeline. I can't see this helping very much. The goal here is to try to starve Russian forces into abandoning western Kherson the same way they had to abandon the area NW from the Dnipro a year ago. It's a slow-boil operation, and potentially harder to fully implement than the Kherson operation, but as Ukrainian forces press forwards it might be possible to start bringing over heavier equipment behind them and force a decisive battle in this area to speed that up.

Telenko has good logistics knowledge, and has predicted some things quite well (the ever-increasing technical crises afflicting Russian civil and military aviation) though others he's been off on the timescale (the supply problems to keep Russian freight seem to be kicking in, but way slower than he expected despite the only country able to supply Russia with those resources being Japan; possible signs that Russia is successfully getting third-country parts).

[Cause]

 Werthead, on 11 November 2023 - 02:12 AM, said:

.

South Korean intelligence believes a small number of short-range ballistic missiles have been transferred from North Korea to Russia.

Ukrainian intelligence located a major mobile electronic warfare platform

I know better than to completly dismiss North Korea, they manage to find funding and expertise to craft nuclear weapons and icbms but still I cant but think that relying on their military hardware is a sign of desperation.

Any reports on how their ammunition or hardware has actually fared in use?

[Cyphon]

Wouldn't part of the point from a NK perspective is they get live action testing information from which to improve what they've got?

[Mentalist]

Yesterday RIA and TASS posted news reportedly from the MpD that AC "Dnepr" was "relocating from the L bank to more suitable defensive positions".

This was retracted about 5 mins later, with a discalimer that it was posted "in error".

Z-heads tried to explain this away by saying this was actually last year's news that got "accidentally" reposted... except AC "Dnepr" wasn't organized until this spring, way after the orcs abandoned Kherson.

Obviously, the orcs haven't actually pulled back, so I'm not sure wtf is happening. best case scenario, they are considering/discussing/arguing about it, and someone somewhere let things slip.

Another boom in Kolomna (Moscow Oblast) next to a machine-building research institute. That's two days in a row, I wonder what they're trying to cook up there?

[Werthead]

Apparently Russian forces in Luhansk Oblast, Kreminna area are being driven to extensive paranoia. In recent weeks, their energy drinks have been laced with sulphur, their water has been poisoned, their food has been mixed with laxatives and their vapes and lighters have developed a tendency to straight-up explode when ignited. One story (I'm taking with half a pinch of salt, but still) is that a group of Ukrainian teenagers got some Russian soldiers drunk on vodka and got one of them to talk about where their secret barracks was located. They then bombed the barracks with a multi-barrelled mortar they constructed with instructions from the Ukrainian military off the Internet.

This is relatively Russian-favouring, Russian-speaking Luhansk Oblast. Apparently the situation around Melitopol is horrendously worse, with Russian police and military patrols sometimes just vanishing and maybe, if they're lucky, their remains turn up in the woods weeks later, and sometimes Russian forces being gunned down in broad daylight with somehow no witnesses seeing anything.

This isn't going to win the war but it is making Russian forces ask questions like, "why the hell are we here?"

This post has been edited by Werthead: 15 November 2023 - 09:15 PM

[Werthead]

Putin may be facing another indictment by the International Criminal Court. They have mounting evidence that Russia planned to forcibly export Ukraine's stocks of food in the result of a successful invasion, leaving most of the civilian population to starve. Russia bought three new bulk cargo ships to ship immense amounts of grain out, and food infrastructure has been reportedly targeted during the conflict.

Russia's attempts to encircle Avidiivka are still being thwarted (despite some hairy moments), but they decided to launch a series of head-on main assaults on the town's heavily-fortified industrial zone. This resulted in the devastation of the attacking forces. Some suggestions that Russia wants to seize the town as early as possible for PR purposes. This is a huge mistake, as Russia is better to try to complete the encirclement before trying to storm the centre.

Ukraine has acknowledged that its activities in Kherson now constitute a further arm of the counter-offensive effort, and have made significant gains along and beyond the south bank.

Kadyrov interviewed at a firing range teaching his 15 and 18-year-old sons to shoot (in a Guccia tracksuit). He said he is preparing for war and "the best part is ahead," although not specifying war against whom.

The wives of Russian servicemen killed in Ukraine, seeking the repatriation of their bodies, have been told to go to the front and dig them up themselves.

Ukrainian HIMARS systems have been deployed to the Luhansk front to shore up the regained territories up there. In particular, they've been hitting Russian ammo depots and even convoys on the move. A Russian armoured assault attempted a truly deranged breakout towards Kupyansk but was torn to pieces by antitank platoons armed with Javelins attacking their unguarded flanks.

The FT has received information from confidential Chinese sources - possibly a deliberately-permitted leak for political purposes - that the Chinese government is unhappy with the global destabilisation caused by Russia's invasion (this coincides with some UK and US intelligence assessments that China was/might still be planning a military operation against Taiwan later this decade and absolutely did not want NATO arming like a motherfucker years before that could happen, as is now the case). China was notified by Russia ahead of the invasion that the situation in the Donbas had become more serious and Russia was planning preventative measures to stop the war spreading to Russian soil, which China interpreted as serious bullshit designed to cover options ranging from additional "little green men" Russian forces entering Ukraine to an open-but-limited Russian offensive in the Donbas only. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine from three fronts took China by surprise, and apparently irritated the Chinese leadership by making it appear (via the "no limits" joint statement) that China was backing the invasion. A senior Chinese intelligence official was demoted by two full levels for apparently not catching that Russia was about to launch the invasion.

Chinese sources have said they now consider Russia's outright defeat in Ukraine is possible, or an incredibly costly victory which they will struggle to benefit from. China's recent diplomatic pivot to lessening tensions with the US, Australia and Europe can be seen as a sign that China is distancing itself from Russia's problems whilst attempting to shore up its faltering economy.

[Cause]

 Werthead, on 17 November 2023 - 07:42 PM, said:

Putin may be facing another indictment by the International Criminal Court. They have mounting evidence that Russia planned to forcibly export Ukraine's stocks of food in the result of a successful invasion, leaving most of the civilian population to starve. Russia bought three new bulk cargo ships to ship immense amounts of grain out, and food infrastructure has been reportedly targeted during the conflict.

Why would they do that? Its not like Russia is starving and there has to be better ways to make a profit from conquering Ukraine. This seems crazy?