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On June 05 2023 19:03 0x64 wrote: Could we rise back above the Godwin point?
I think important things are happening right now.
We have short attention span and until a counteroffensive starts, it's hard to stay focused.
Bahmut was the main location of our attention for months.
It is one thing to defend at all cost but entirely another to send your troop to recapture.
That's the reason this is not ongoing. (Also the leak, which basically means that any failure in the counteroffensive would be attributed to the leak)
The faster the territory is recaptured, the less damage happens to the places.
Strategically, having oligarchs targeted in Moscow suburbs is a genius move. They are an easy scapegoat even if some didn't want the war, the lower class will see them as profiting from the system.
Also the way the propaganda works, they cannot call it a war, they cannot be attacked by a military, only by terrorists.
I wonder if now, the air defense will be focused to defend those "rich people's home" and if so, then I the next strike touches let's say all gaz station in popular area and it is discovered that this was only possible because the air defense was moved to protect the rich...
Attention span is a good thing to be mentioned, I think it's no coincidence that Ukraine sent their ethnic Russian units over the border within days after the fall of Bakhmut. Now attention is diverted to the fact that there is war in old Russian territories and Rublevka being bombed. But there are some other developments that are less noticable because of that.
1) Kiev missile strikes and western air defence. Ukraine is doing their best to not show actual results, but it seems that a) Ukraine is rapidly depleting their missile stocks (in the video posted here coiple of weeks ago we saw Ukraine firing 1,5 months of Patriot missile production in 1 minute) b) Russia seems now to deliberatly hunt western AA systems c) they seem to succed on at least few occasions 2) Russians seem to sucessfully hit few large supply depots, most notably - in Khmelnitsky. This could also contribute to delay in any UA offensive operations. 3) Unclear what exactly happened to Zaluzhniy. He disappeared for quite a while from media after 8th May, Ukraine for a while was answering on claims of his death/ctitical condition with old photos and non-proof claims of him being well, and when he finally appeared, it was for a very short video where he was just sitting and speaking very briefly, just for a few seconds. If he indeed was wounded, it could also affect overall situation. 4) Ukraine is pouncing on different parts of the front, most notably - yesterday, with rather large offensive attempt on Donetsk-Zaporozhie regions border. Russian UAV video from the area showed 1 Ukrainian tank and 8-9 APC and MRAPs destroyed/damaged/abandoned. So most likely actual advancing force was much larger, up to at least couple of batallions, though results are unclear for now as the area is still contested.
As for air defence over oligarchs - Rublevka area no doubt has some means anyway, as there are residencies of Russian president and prime minister in the area. Though it's impossible to cover all objects of importance with proper coverage anyway, since there are too many of them. So I don't think that any attack would trigger a reaction "but they are protecting oligarchs instead of us" from common people. Though nobody would cry a lot about thdm, that's for sure.
Some of the things you mentioned are anything but "less noticeable". The dwindling supply of Ukrainian missiles has been a topic for a long time, and it was predicted that they would run out for some systems at the end of April and be completely gone by mid May. Yet we are in June already and I haven't seen signs that their AA work has slowed down in any noticeable way. Khmelnitsky has also been discussed and reported on in length.
Do you have a video of that engagement? I am frequenting a few different subreddits who are all about things like that and from what I have gathered so far, part of the footage like the KA-52 video is old (cold ground, no leaves on the trees) while the rest only shows visual evidence of 5 MaxxPros that have been either destroyed or abandoned. Apparently the source is also the Russian MoD's telegram channel, who claimed to have killed 300 Ukrainians in this attack. So it is wise to take their claims with a grain of salt. Or all the salt, really.
I think calling that a "rather large offensive attempt" might just not be the most accurate description of what is most likely little more than a probing attack. MRAPs are not designed to lead an armored charge into fortified defensive positions, believe it or not. For those curious: The location of that "rather large offensive attempt" was near Velyka Novosilka.
Russia is claiming to have held off a Ukrainian offensive.
Russia claims, "Ukraine had lost 250 troops as well as 16 tanks".
These claims have not been independently verified.
Now that's interesting. If true, that implies there may not be any massive breakthrough attempts like at the start of the Kherson offensive. That would mean Ukraine is limiting risk and losses but giving-up on making a bigger strategic difference.
Actually it seems that they are making considerable efforts in that direction. Attacks were continuing during today, and Russian tg-channels have started to post these images very recently: https://t.me/boris_rozhin/87992 https://t.me/boris_rozhin/87999 Edit: video on a latter pair - https://t.me/boris_rozhin/88002 Looks like French AMX-10RC light tanks (big flat nose being the main giveaway). According to the leaked documents these should belong to 37th Mechanized Brigade. Russian OSINT (and AFAIK, with some insights from the military as well) Rybar claimed that 37th Marine brigade took part in today's combat. It's not clear though if he or documents are wrong, or brigade was just redesignated. https://t.me/rybar/48037
On June 05 2023 19:03 0x64 wrote: Could we rise back above the Godwin point?
I think important things are happening right now.
We have short attention span and until a counteroffensive starts, it's hard to stay focused.
Bahmut was the main location of our attention for months.
It is one thing to defend at all cost but entirely another to send your troop to recapture.
That's the reason this is not ongoing. (Also the leak, which basically means that any failure in the counteroffensive would be attributed to the leak)
The faster the territory is recaptured, the less damage happens to the places.
Strategically, having oligarchs targeted in Moscow suburbs is a genius move. They are an easy scapegoat even if some didn't want the war, the lower class will see them as profiting from the system.
Also the way the propaganda works, they cannot call it a war, they cannot be attacked by a military, only by terrorists.
I wonder if now, the air defense will be focused to defend those "rich people's home" and if so, then I the next strike touches let's say all gaz station in popular area and it is discovered that this was only possible because the air defense was moved to protect the rich...
Attention span is a good thing to be mentioned, I think it's no coincidence that Ukraine sent their ethnic Russian units over the border within days after the fall of Bakhmut. Now attention is diverted to the fact that there is war in old Russian territories and Rublevka being bombed. But there are some other developments that are less noticable because of that.
1) Kiev missile strikes and western air defence. Ukraine is doing their best to not show actual results, but it seems that a) Ukraine is rapidly depleting their missile stocks (in the video posted here coiple of weeks ago we saw Ukraine firing 1,5 months of Patriot missile production in 1 minute) b) Russia seems now to deliberatly hunt western AA systems c) they seem to succed on at least few occasions 2) Russians seem to sucessfully hit few large supply depots, most notably - in Khmelnitsky. This could also contribute to delay in any UA offensive operations. 3) Unclear what exactly happened to Zaluzhniy. He disappeared for quite a while from media after 8th May, Ukraine for a while was answering on claims of his death/ctitical condition with old photos and non-proof claims of him being well, and when he finally appeared, it was for a very short video where he was just sitting and speaking very briefly, just for a few seconds. If he indeed was wounded, it could also affect overall situation. 4) Ukraine is pouncing on different parts of the front, most notably - yesterday, with rather large offensive attempt on Donetsk-Zaporozhie regions border. Russian UAV video from the area showed 1 Ukrainian tank and 8-9 APC and MRAPs destroyed/damaged/abandoned. So most likely actual advancing force was much larger, up to at least couple of batallions, though results are unclear for now as the area is still contested.
As for air defence over oligarchs - Rublevka area no doubt has some means anyway, as there are residencies of Russian president and prime minister in the area. Though it's impossible to cover all objects of importance with proper coverage anyway, since there are too many of them. So I don't think that any attack would trigger a reaction "but they are protecting oligarchs instead of us" from common people. Though nobody would cry a lot about thdm, that's for sure.
Some of the things you mentioned are anything but "less noticeable". The dwindling supply of Ukrainian missiles has been a topic for a long time, and it was predicted that they would run out for some systems at the end of April and be completely gone by mid May. Yet we are in June already and I haven't seen signs that their AA work has slowed down in any noticeable way. Khmelnitsky has also been discussed and reported on in length.
Do you have a video of that engagement? I am frequenting a few different subreddits who are all about things like that and from what I have gathered so far, part of the footage like the KA-52 video is old (cold ground, no leaves on the trees) while the rest only shows visual evidence of 5 MaxxPros that have been either destroyed or abandoned. Apparently the source is also the Russian MoD's telegram channel, who claimed to have killed 300 Ukrainians in this attack. So it is wise to take their claims with a grain of salt. Or all the salt, really.
I think calling that a "rather large offensive attempt" might just not be the most accurate description of what is most likely little more than a probing attack. MRAPs are not designed to lead an armored charge into fortified defensive positions, believe it or not. For those curious: The location of that "rather large offensive attempt" was near Velyka Novosilka.
I was mainly talking about psychological overshadowing of events that I've mention, and averting the attention and attitude of general public, who are not following the war that closely.
1. Regarding AA situation - I was talking about recent strikes on Zhulyany airport and subsequent ones, where large use of western AA was shown, still with supposed hit on few of the AA launchers, not the looming shortage of Soviet-era missiles. Many people in general percieved Western-made AA as wunderwaffe over old Soviet S-300 and Buk, so the fact that it is not could give a blow to their morale (though for anyone following wars on Middle East it is clear that Patriot is far from impervious, as Houthi attack on Saudis have shown).
3. Relatevly large. I'm far from believing that Russian forces were capable to destroy all of the attacking force at once and record it, so I believe that it was just a part of a larger force that got the most unlucky. 9 MRAPs is basically an infantry complany (albeit skeleton one), so the offensive attempt itself could be at least as large as a battalion. That's kinda big for a simple "reconaissance by fire". Also they could attack on MRAPs simply because they don't have proper IFVs in the area at all. I'll again refer to the leaked documents, but out of 9 brigades listed there only 2,5 had proper IFV supply (desipite all of them being called "Mechanized"). Rest were either in MRAPs or APCs.
On June 06 2023 01:02 KwarK wrote: We’ve spent the last year watching how difficult it is for a former Soviet army to taken any ground against an entrenched rival former Soviet army without air power or a huge artillery disparity.
I think it’s reasonable to expect all of the same issues that Russia faced in each of its failed offensives to repeat. This will be a costly affair. If a breakthrough could be done easily it would have been done easily when the Russians were on the offensive.
Will there even be a major offensive? The way Ukraine has been fighting until now has been methodical, opportunistic and conservative with their troops. The Russians have had plenty of time to entrench and reinforce, any gains will not come easily.
On June 06 2023 01:02 KwarK wrote: We’ve spent the last year watching how difficult it is for a former Soviet army to taken any ground against an entrenched rival former Soviet army without air power or a huge artillery disparity.
I think it’s reasonable to expect all of the same issues that Russia faced in each of its failed offensives to repeat. This will be a costly affair. If a breakthrough could be done easily it would have been done easily when the Russians were on the offensive.
Will there even be a major offensive? The way Ukraine has been fighting until now has been methodical, opportunistic and conservative with their troops. The Russians have had plenty of time to entrench and reinforce, any gains will not come easily.
They've had a lot of time but as we've seen with the recent Russo-polish foreign legion invasion of the Russian nation, Russian entrenchments leave a lot to be desired. By some measures that invasion has already contested an equal amount of population that Bakhmut had and that took 10 months and counting to get done. Ukrainians are back in Bakhmut and the battle continues btw the rotating units leave a lot to be desired and fighting continues in the city.
On June 06 2023 01:02 KwarK wrote: We’ve spent the last year watching how difficult it is for a former Soviet army to taken any ground against an entrenched rival former Soviet army without air power or a huge artillery disparity.
I think it’s reasonable to expect all of the same issues that Russia faced in each of its failed offensives to repeat. This will be a costly affair. If a breakthrough could be done easily it would have been done easily when the Russians were on the offensive.
Will there even be a major offensive? The way Ukraine has been fighting until now has been methodical, opportunistic and conservative with their troops. The Russians have had plenty of time to entrench and reinforce, any gains will not come easily.
I guess it all boils down to striking the correct targets. UA reports that Russians lost 23k troops in Bakhmut at a 7:1 ratio compared to Ukrainian losses. This is really nice if that's anywhere close to the truth but it illustrates that it's harder to wage war as an attacker. The thing is that Russia has held large swathes of land for a long time now and while probably most of it has rather ramshackle defences there are still plenty of strong points and I'd assume quite a bit of it is also heavily mined (as was shown by Wagner having to remove mines placed behind them by the army in order to retreat).
I'd imagine now that Russia can kiss its frozen funds and assets goodbye now. Would probably all be used to rebuild Ukraine. Hopefully this is proven to be a deep fake or something similar as Russia would have no reason to destroy it. As it would effect them more, and worse, than Ukraine.
Russian state propagandists arguing that the Ukrainian question must be solved and that they need to kill every living thing in the Kharkiv oblast. Man, woman, child.
@stealthblue I've never heard of this dam, is it within Russia or in Ukraine-Russian controlled territory. Also seen other people saying it could be fake. Can you give some deeper information on this if you have it, It's extremely interesting.
Russian controlled. The reservoir that was previously contained by the dam provided the water for the nuclear power plant which is why everyone was previously on the same page to not fuck with the dam. Plus it’s not cool to flood everyone living downstream.
The Russian administration is reporting that the dam is fine and that nothing happened. The Russian media is reporting that the dam collapsed by itself. The Russian military is saying Ukraine destroyed it.
Not ruling out that it has been blown. But apparently no one adjusted the sluices to the spring time rise in volume and the reservoir was at record levels. Combined with possibly no maintenance done for a year this could very well be failure without anyone blowing the dam.
The reservoir behind that dam is huge, it's the big blue lake in southern part of the Dnieper river, visible on google maps even when zoomed out to Europe scale. 240 kilometers long.... This is horrible, will cause huge flooding.
On June 06 2023 13:52 zatic wrote: Not ruling out that it has been blown. But apparently no one adjusted the sluices to the spring time rise in volume and the reservoir was at record levels. Combined with possibly no maintenance done for a year this could very well be failure without anyone blowing the dam.
I mean that would still be Russias fault just as much as blowing it up.
On June 06 2023 14:50 Taelshin wrote: @cuddleykitten yes lets try to finger point while a dam that provided water for a nuclear power plant(I've since done some reading) is broken.
I have not seen if there is a backup option for the cooling but thinking glass half full Id imagine there is.
edit: or at least we can only hope jfc.
How is pointing out a fact fingerpointing?
If you occupy critical infrastructure and it fails because of improper use and maintnance you are responsible for it's destruction.
The only way this is not Russias fault is if Ukraine blew it up themselves.
There is going to be a lot of desinformation over the next couple of days and it helps to clarify on who could be responsible for what early on.
On June 06 2023 14:50 Taelshin wrote: @cuddleykitten yes lets try to finger point while a dam that provided water for a nuclear power plant(I've since done some reading) is broken.
I have not seen if there is a backup option for the cooling but thinking glass half full Id imagine there is.
edit: or at least we can only hope jfc.
The NPP has its own closed cooling pools detached from the reservoar that are more than enough with the plant working at minimum capacity like it is now. The NPP would be in a lot of danger if the dams upstream towards Kiev collapse though. Crimeans also lived without water from the Dnieper for 8 years so saying there is a risk of a humanitarian crisis there because of this is strange too.
A lot hot takes bordering hysterical since this morning regarding the dam but its something both sides have been preparing for for a long time now and its one of the main reasons the Russians pulled out of Herson. Russians evacuated all the civilians from the left bank quite some time ago because of shelling and the dam breaking being a bigger threat to their side of the bank. Still, whats left of the people in Herson city need to be evacuated asap.
Dont know how this will affect the power grid in the area. Looking at the wiki page it generated 1.4TWh yearly
Edit: the settlements closest to the UKR positions were evacuated. Places like Nova Kakhova wernt, hope everyone can get out ok
Russia is claiming to have held off a Ukrainian offensive.
Russia claims, "Ukraine had lost 250 troops as well as 16 tanks".
These claims have not been independently verified.
Now that's interesting. If true, that implies there may not be any massive breakthrough attempts like at the start of the Kherson offensive. That would mean Ukraine is limiting risk and losses but giving-up on making a bigger strategic difference.
I'm not sure the numbers are true (More official numbers seems to be 1 tank and 9 other armored vehicles), but Ukraine definitively did take some losses pushing 2 days ago, pushing into the south regions. They pushed 2-5 kilometers without much issues, and grabbed 3 settlements, but ran into mines and troubles when they tried to push further, and were forced to retreat.
Yesterday, Ukraine pushed down again, and claimed they grabbed Storozheve. Russia on the other hand claims they pushed them out entirely. Ukraine did have to pull back out of Novodarivka tho. There's pretty heavy fighting in the area atm, and the borders are being pushed back and forth rapidly
Blowing up the dam provides absolutely no benefit to Ukraine's war efforts. If anything it would be counterproductive. This was either Russia's doing or an act of sabotage.
On June 06 2023 16:28 zeo wrote: Crimeans also lived without water from the Dnieper for 8 years so saying there is a risk of a humanitarian crisis there because of this is strange too.
It's a risk of humanitarian crisis because I think like 80 settlements will be flooded? It's not much different from regular heavy flood, which is typically a humanitarian crisis.
EPT
