Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Uberhaus]

No matter what happens, Russia will not be able to sparsely defend its borders with Ukraine, especially when Ukraine can attack and then threaten critical infrastructure. 

As to nuclear accidents, I don't think many people would take such dangerous incidents as being happen stance.  The fire and its rapid extinguishment at a Zaporizhzhia cooling tower (https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/08/11/fire-breaks-out-at-cooling-tower-of-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant_6713219_4.html#) is clearly a veiled threat from Russia who are fortifying defences at their Kursk plant.

As to nuclear attack, Stoltenberg may be stepping down shortly as S-G of NATO but NATO's warnings of serious consequences in regards to nuclear weapon usage will stand.  Actual usage would result in rapid reversal of governments winding down their arms shipments to Ukraine and possibly removal of all limitations on their use.  It would massively backfire on Putin and might even shock Putinaboos into reality.

Warranty for this super forecast is null and void in incidence of Global Thermonuclear War.

[Pete Dero]

[JasonPratt]

1000 square km of Russia so far. 

[JasonPratt]

Lots of tanks being captured and turned around.

Naturally, the invasion includes tractors...

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1epsb5f/ukrainian_tractor_crossing_the_russian_border_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[JasonPratt]

The Enforcer's live update last night has a lot of recently released footage (from which the tractor charging into Kursk also came, of course.)

I'll post the war map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?entry=yt&mid=1ar2fbnuQBWZ2yZWff9_ufzFtiaDNUaU&ll=50.90938877070144%2C35.84109628212562&z=9

The most recent news dots on the map are red.

His commentary on the map last night if you'd like it:

[ArizonaTank]

Flying Tigers 2.0?

The suggestion is being made that Ukraine hire retired NATO F-16 pilots.

Not certain this would be legal for US citizens...but I could be wrong.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/retired-us-pilots-could-fly-ukraine-s-f-16s-lindsey-graham-suggests/ar-AA1oIeXf?ocid=msedgntp&pc=NMTS&cvid=d5d63674ef584d1d96fd6e62e1ef5a02&ei=112

[Gusington]

Who knows how much of this is true but this part of Russia looks like Crazytown SSR right now.

[Crossroads]

A UK perspective, from Telegraph: Vladimir Putin's hubris has finally met its nemesis

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/12/putin-hubris-nemesis/

snippet:

The Ukrainian troops operating inside Russian territory are not some rag-tag force, but an army that for the first time in this conflict has demonstrated effective combined arms manoeuvre, the "Western" way of fighting. With a small force of determined and evidently well-trained soldiers, and a small number of tanks, they routed a bunch of unwilling conscripts whose shouts and screams will have rattled the windows of the Kremlin, and are now being heard in the homes of the rank and file in Russia, who hitherto have been fed a diet of Putin's military brilliance.

This is also a harsh lesson for those armchair commentators who, without a whiff of combat experience, have sought to use the Ukraine war to condemn the art of soldiery, of tank warfare and of combined arms manoeuvre, assuring us that the future is drones and cyber and electronic warfare. Perhaps seduced by the devastatingly inept attempt by "elite" Russian forces to conduct armoured manoeuvre at the start of the war, they swallowed the idea that tanks et al are history.

But those of us with a modicum of experience of land warfare saw very quickly that the original Russian attack failed not because the idea behind it was obsolete. It was thwarted because the Russian tank crews were poorly trained and badly led, with tanks being destroyed in their thousands, often by the British NLAW anti-tank weapon.

... and

The current Ukrainian move will harm Putin in at least three ways. First, it means that he will have to divert forces to defend against other incursions across the border, which are no doubt planned to further unbalance the Russian aggressors. Kyiv has introduced an extra element of jeopardy into Russian planning. It is now also clear that Russia possesses no mobile reserve to plug gaps in its defences, and there is certainly no sign that the locals have any desire to pick up scythes and picks to slow the Ukrainian advance.

Second, it is deeply embarrassing and might help to destabilise Putin's rule. The Kremlin cannot defend Russia's own territory, let alone beat Ukraine, and for the first time this appears to be getting significant airtime in mainstream media.

Third, it demonstrates that Ukraine does not need anything like the same number of men or arms as the Russians to change the military facts on the ground. Back in 1943, the Germans attacked with hundreds of thousands of men and thousands of tanks. The Ukrainians have seized a few hundred square miles with a few thousand men and a handful of tanks. In other words, victory for Ukraine is by no means unachievable.

Europe and the United States might now be looking more to the Middle East than Ukraine, but the latter is much more important to our own security. Instead of fretting about "escalation", the West should ensure that Ukraine can reinforce its tactical successes in Kursk as a means of forcing Russia to the negotiating table. Indeed, this is an opportunity to shorten the war, one that no doubt Churchill and Roosevelt would have grasped. Sadly, we do not have their calibre today, but it is a chance for Sir Keir Starmer to make his mark and Joe Biden to leave a decent legacy.

But it is also a big signal to the UK's new Strategic Defence Review that warfare has not been fundamentally changed by cheap drones. The officials running the review should not listen too much to the brilliant academics who seem to know every inch of every battle but little of fighting in one. They should canvass the opinions of those of us who have actually won a few.

Colonel (Retd) Hamish de Bretton-Gordon OBE is a former commander of UK & NATO CBRN Forces

Quantity may well be a quality on its own, but maybe quality is still quality, too.

[Con]

Hi level trolling in action
Ukrainian forces are publishing reviews on Kursk establishments
Not able to fit the Stryker through the car wash is my favorite
https://x.com/prestonstew_/status/1823704154076012658?s=46&t=_eVzPYU6KRejucXriPglUA

[al_infierno]

Hundreds of Russians who have refused to fight for various reasons – age, sickness, mental health – are reported to have been taken from a military base where they were being held and flown to Kursk, where they will likely be used in efforts to repel Ukraine's incursion.

ASTRA reports that hundreds of 'refuseniks' have been held at Kamenka near St Petersburg, where the 138th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade is based. Relatives say that some are unfit to fight, one man is 70 years old and can barely walk, and another has only one eye

The existence of the Kamenka military detention facility does not seem to have been reported previously. It suggests that different regimes are in place in Russia and occupied Ukraine, where refuseniks have been tortured, beaten and starved.

According to relatives, on 12 August "at about 6 pm they received a message from the men who were there that they had been suddenly called to line up, and then, without any explanation, they were put in KAMAZ trucks and taken to a military airfield under guard."

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1823860031223386532

[JasonPratt]

Russia's gonna Russia.

In a different example of Russia Russiaing: Russian attack helicopters mistook a retreating Russian convoy for advancing Ukrainians yesterday, and blew the hell out of them. I can't decide if it's worse that this was only an accident, or if it would have been worse for this to have been a blocking-squad effort. 

[Gusington]

'Jesus Christ Russia' to the last 4-5 posts :/

[FarAway Sooner]

Have we heard anything about the recent attacks on 4 Russian air bases, aside from the fact that they happened?  Ukrainian OpSec seems pretty tight at the moment, but if there was any real damage to show, I assume somebody would be talking about it on one side or another?

[Uberhaus]

Have we heard anything about the recent attacks on 4 Russian air bases, aside from the fact that they happened?  Ukrainian OpSec seems pretty tight at the moment, but if there was any real damage to show, I assume somebody would be talking about it on one side or another?

Reuters:  https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-carries-out-largest-drone-attack-yet-russian-airbases-kyiv-source-says-2024-08-14/

KYIV, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Wednesday it carried out its largest long-range drone strike of the war on four Russian military airfields overnight, which were hailed by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "timely" and "accurate".
The General Staff said on Telegram that air bases "Khalino", "Savasleyka", "Borisoglebsk" and "Baltimor" in Voronezh, Kursk and Nizhniy Novgorod regions were hit.
"The main targets were warehouses of fuel and lubricants and aviation weapons," it added, saying the results of the attack were being clarified.

CBC also has a decent article on the use of drones and EW to break into Kursk.  https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-kursk-offensive-drones-russia-1.7292736 

Along the front line, troops from both sides are constrained by the hovering threat of the drones above. Small, first-person view (FPV) drones are routinely used to hunt individual soldiers.

Yet these same obstacles did not stop Ukraine from advancing into Kursk, raising the question of how.

A handful of published reports — some citing the observations of Russian war bloggers — suggests that Ukraine used drones and signal-jamming devices to down Russian surveillance capabilities and then attack the ground ahead, as Ukraine's own troops made their advance.

Bendett said it's not a surprise that Ukraine would be using such approaches. He, along with others, saw other factors beyond drones as being key to Kyiv's early success in Kursk, such as operational secrecy and the element of surprise. However, he said, the technology is something that Ukraine has been developing, testing and ultimately competing with Russia on.

"We know Ukraine are ahead of Russia, when it comes to developing [these] tactics and techniques," he said.

You need more than just élan.  Nick Ryan of RUSI is skeptical though, from the CBC article.

He said via email that it's unclear how much planning was needed for the Kursk offensive, and also to what degree Ukraine has been able to integrate its drone-and-jamming tactics with planned manoeuvres.

It also remains to be seen if Ukraine can repeat "the same effects when they are not conducting a meticulously pre-planned operation."

[JasonPratt]

Pres Luka today: "WE WILL INSTANTLY NUKE ANY ENEMY CROSSING BORDER OF THE UNION STATE, NO WARNINGS!"

Someone probably whispers: "uh, sir, Ukraine has crossed Russian borders already for like a week now."

Pres Luka: "CROSSING BORDER OF RUSSIA AND BELORUS!"

Putin probably: "Whoever authorized giving nukes to this moron traitor should be shot out through a window!" {slams fist}

Also Pres Luke today: "Let us sit down at negotiation table and end this war, no one needs it anymore."

Pres Zyl: {eyerolls so hard he goes blind}