Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 430

On May 15 2023 11:04 KwarK wrote:

He has an entire second army, Rosgardia, that has barely been touched.

On May 15 2023 20:22 Manit0u wrote:


Isn't Rosgardia pretty much like the National Guard in the US? I'm not sure they can even be used outside of their borders.

On May 15 2023 20:20 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:

Basically yes

"Belarus is unstable and we need to support them by annexation. But we need a lot of resources from the army for that so we can't keep figthing Ukraine right now. They are almost denazified anyway and we can come back later. Look how much new shiny land we got."

Basically a made up reason to withdraw and enough new clay to hopefully paciify the warhawks.
Sure they can probably do it even with the war in Ukraine but it's a good excuse and a shiny distraction.

On May 15 2023 22:22 KwarK wrote:
They could always pretend they never did that, just like they do when they bomb the “Russian” people of “New Russia” as you call it. Their audience is composed entirely of people who already see through the lies or will swallow any lies. Neither expect consistency.

On May 15 2023 20:30 KwarK wrote:

There isn’t really a US equivalent because the US is a democracy. Russia is a dictatorship which relies on multiple competing bases of power. Rosgardia are an internal army intended to Tiananmen Square people if they try to swing by the Kremlin and to shoot generals if they try a coup. They can be used wherever Putin wants them used and they were used briefly earlier in Ukraine. You generally give them cushy jobs because you don’t want to align their incentives and grievances with the regular army. The regular army is having a bad time and might question the leadership so Rosgardia need to be having a good time.

This kind of duplication of effort is one of the reasons dictatorships are so bad at war.

On May 16 2023 02:29 Dan HH wrote:

Isn't it the same in democracies? The reason gendarmes/national guards beat the shit out of protesters without blinking is precisely because they are "bribed" with cushy jobs, very early retirement and high special pensions. Their incentives are intentionally kept misaligned with those of the workers so that they stay loyal to the existing power structure to protect their benefits in case shit goes down internally.

On May 16 2023 02:43 KwarK wrote:

Yes but you don’t need a second army to stop the first army getting any funny ideas in a democracy. It’s assumed that the first army won’t try to take over.

Dictatorships run on a system of patronage, shifting loyalties, self interest, and corruption. The institutions are by definition discredited by the existence of a dictator. For example you can’t believe in the rule of law at the same time as having a leader who is above law. You end up with a sack of sociopaths trying to backstab their way up and so you build a structure around making them stab each other so nobody is strong enough to stab you.

We’re seeing it in real time with Wagner and the army competing when they should be cooperating. Neither are invested in the success of the overall mission, only how it may help the individual players move up in the game.

KYIV, May 16 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Tuesday it had shot down six Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles in a single night, thwarting a superweapon Moscow had previously touted as all but unstoppable.

It was the first time Ukraine had claimed to have struck an entire volley of multiple hypersonic missiles, and if confirmed would be a demonstration of the effectiveness of newly deployed Western air defences.

Air raid sirens blared across nearly all of Ukraine early on Tuesday and were heard over Kyiv and its region for more than three hours.

"The enemy's mission is to sow panic and create chaos. However, in the northern operational zone (including Kyiv), everything is under complete control," General Serhiy Naev, Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces, said.

The six Kinzhals, ballistic missiles which travel at up to 10 times the speed of sound, were among a volley of 18 missiles Russia fired at Ukraine overnight, lighting up Kyiv with flashes and raining debris after they were blasted from the sky.

Russia's defence ministry said it had destroyed a U.S.-built Patriot surface-to-air missile defence system with a Kinzhal missile, the Zvezda military news outlet reported.

But the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said all had been successfully intercepted.

City authorities in the Ukrainian capital said three people were wounded by falling debris.

"It was exceptional in its density - the maximum number of attack missiles in the shortest period of time," Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's city military administration, said on Telegram.

Zvezda quoted the Russian ministry as saying the attacks had been aimed at Ukrainian fighting units and ammunition storage sites.

Zaluzhnyi said his forces had intercepted the six Kinzhals launched from aircraft, as well as nine Kalibr cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea and three Iskanders fired from land.

Earlier this month, Ukraine claimed to have shot down a single Kinzhal missile over Kyiv for the first time using a newly deployed U.S. Patriot air defence system.

On May 16 2023 21:24 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Kyiv has said that last night's missile attacks on the city, all were intercepted. Including all the supposed "hypersonic" Kinzhal missiles.



Source

On May 17 2023 00:03 marwin wrote:
Shifting the focus from AA success, kremlin bots are forcing the narrative that something hit the target on that video, though there are no clear evidences, yet you claim it happened. And how did you come to the conclusion it was only Patriot systems that fired?

Russian soldiers who have taken over military positions in Bakhmut from Wagner troops have quickly abandoned them out of fear, a Ukrainian officer told The Times of London.

The head of intelligence for Ukraine's 228th Battalion, who goes by the call sign "Zulu," said Ukraine's efforts have been aided by soldiers from the traditional Russian military taking over from the mercenary force.

"As soon as Wagner left and the regular Russian troops stepped in, they abandoned their positions," he said, adding: "The Wagner fighters would hold positions until the very end. Many of them were prisoners, right? So they knew it was either fight or go back to prison."

The Wagner Group, which has thousands of mercenary fighters and prisoners serving in Ukraine, has spearheaded Russia's efforts to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

The battle is considered the longest and bloodiest of the war to date.

Zulu said that Russian soldiers "have no motivation. They don't understand what they are doing here. So as soon as they are afraid, they just run."

The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, complained earlier this month that some of the main army's forces had "abandoned their positions" near Bakhmut, while blaming "stupid" and "criminal" orders given by senior military commanders.

The Kremlin has not responded publicly to the allegations.

Kostiantyn Zhydkov, the commander of the 228th Battalion, described the brutality of the fighting to the Times: "I haven't seen anything as terrifying as this during the entire war."

"It was like something I had only previously seen in films about the Second World War. It's like the Battle for Stalingrad," he added.

Zhydkov described a day when Russian soldiers used a grenade launcher to get into a five-story apartment building that was controlled by Ukrainian forces.

"They got into the basement. But we could see them from above. And so we just dropped grenades down. They all died."

Commanders on both sides have called the battle for Bakhmut a "meat grinder."

On May 17 2023 00:58 Ardias wrote:

Missiles launched from the same vicinity hinting about launchers being in close proximity, which makes it unlikely to be 2 different batteries. Similar visual of missiles also suggests it was the same kind of system, not two different ones.
Then, there were 31 missiles launched on the video within 2 minutes. By the combination of possibly tracked targets by the battery radar station and loaded missiles in the batteries, only Patriot PAC-3 and Iron Dome would fit that number.
There is a possibility it could be IRIS-T, since they could launch few missiles on 1 target (IRIS-T radar is capable of tracking only 24 targets, but they can have 4 launchers of 8 missiles each), but faulty missile found in Kiev matches with PAC-3 one.
Missile in Kiev as reported by CNN
https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/digital-images/org/5694b497-6d64-46b9-b226-4c0bd1819284.jpeg
Image of PAC-3 MSE missile
https://www.thedrive.com/uploads/2023/01/10/pac-3-details-1.jpg?auto=webp&optimize=high&quality=70&width=1440
And another one
https://lostarmour.beseda.space/api/v1/picture/email_d8c781711558e05d34684a89e04acc0f19639002/chhlv4kigdggi6gn6i20

Attitude control section (section with many dots in it) looks very similar. Kinzhal, Kalibr, Iskander-K and even IRIS-T do not match the visual.

On May 17 2023 01:40 Artesimo wrote:


It should be noted that an intercept can still result in a missile hitting the ground and exploding, just not at its intended target, so the explosions seen could be from missiles that got intercepted but not sufficiently destroyed. That would make the ukrainain statement that all got intercepted still true, although deceptive.

Also great freudian slip, "Attitude control". Very fitting given the post your responded to, gave me a lil' chuckle

In an interview with TF1 on May 16, French President Emmanuel Macron said that France would provide missiles with a range that would "allow Ukraine to resist."

Macron did not specify the type of missiles, but he emphasized that France is providing Ukraine with weapons to defend itself against Russia, not to attack it.

"We are not waging war with Russia, we are helping Ukraine to resist the Russian aggressor. This means that we are not supplying weapons that can reach Russian soil or attack Russia," Macron said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Macron in Paris on May 14 during his European tour, which also included trips to Germany, the U.K., and Italy.

"Ukraine's connection to Europe is only growing stronger, while pressure on Russia is increasing," said Zelensky prior to the meeting with Macron, adding that the "most important questions of bilateral relations" would be discussed.