Russia's War Against Ukraine

[GDS_Starfury]

so far these tanks have been used as indirect artillery 

[acctingman]

scraped from the bottom of the barrel and arriving at the southern front, the russian army in retrograde.

shit...is that a T-62?

So, in a conventional war, NATO would absolutely wax Russia

[SirAndrewD]

shit...is that a T-62?

So, in a conventional war, NATO would absolutely wax Russia

Yep.

They pulled T-55's out of storage as well. 

As Star said, they're using them as either static fortifications or indirect artillery. 

Currently massed, endless artillery fire has been about the only tactic the Russians have used that has reliably worked for them. 

[Uberhaus]

From the location of the bore evacuator isn't it a T-54?  T-62s have it about halfway down the barrel.
When they bring out the T-34s, those'll be easy to ID.

[SirAndrewD]

From the location of the bore evacuator isn't it a T-54?  T-62s have it about halfway down the barrel.
When they bring out the T-34s, those'll be easy to ID.

I thought the same but not sure, the profile is a lot more '62. 

Should be noted that they've been upgrading the old armor over the decades.

[ArizonaTank]

The large space between first and second road wheel is always the T-54/55 giveaway.

[SirAndrewD]

The large space between first and second road wheel is always the T-54/55 giveaway.

Yep, great point.  T-55's then.

[Gusington]

What is the next oldest tank in the Soviet arsenal beyond the T-54/55?

[SirAndrewD]

What is the next oldest tank in the Soviet arsenal beyond the T-54/55?

Technically the T-62 is the oldest operational Russian tank, and that still is likely on the books by the Russians as the oldest.

Russian policy though was to stockpile everything and put their tanks into operational reserve.  This is where the Western media kept coming up with the "20k Russian Tank" numbers back before the beginning of hostilities with Ukraine.  That number encompasses the obscene number of T-55's produced.

So, the long answer is that the oldest operational is now, the T-54/55.  They were mothballed until now, but now that the Russians have had such extreme losses on modern platforms they are having to activate their boneyards for combat. 

I read an interesting article recently that said the T-90 and T-80U have ceased to be the Russian Army primary front line tank due to losses, and now even new production is going back to the T-72 just because of simplicity and numbers.   

[GDS_Starfury]

yes, its a t-54/55 and speaking of losses:



Ukrainian forces breached dense mine fields and formidable defenses in a well-planned operation near Klishchiivka, south of Bakhmut, that advanced so rapidly it cut off an entire Russian airborne company, which surrendered after realizing too late it was surrounded, Euromaidan Press says in its latest frontline report

The entrenched Russian forces "required a lot of preparation and technical excellence to overcome," but Ukrainian troops cleared multiple paths through the mine fields with a special line charge, then quickly closed the distance while suppressing enemy fire and handily breached the first defensive line

Pushing immediately onward, Ukraine's 80th Air Assault Brigade troopers cleared a labyrinthe of trenches with the help of drones (and liberal use of grenades -- see video)
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1674070461221617665

"Ukrainian drone operators continuously notified the troops on the ground about the number of Russian soldiers in front of them, the movement of these soldiers, how many turns they are away from them, and especially when Russians were reloading"

The rapid breakthrough left Russian paratroopers in a pocket, realizing too late they'd been encircled and quickly agreeing to a Ukrainian offer to surrender

https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/06/29/frontline-report-ukraine-captures-stranded-airborne-company-near-bakhmut-uses-increasibly-flexible-tactics/

Map source: Euromaidan Press report

[GDS_Starfury]

this is where russia is at today........   

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-replace-shoigu-steven-seagal-iranian-reports-defense-minister-1809628?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1687984525

[Sir Slash]

Probably getting ready to be, "Under Siege". 

[JasonPratt]

https://t.me/DIUkraine/2497

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-forces-begin-to-flee-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-ukrainian-defence-intelligence/ar-AA1df7or?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=9f2f6cc399814dc3bb76a491c5866fd6&ei=38

(The article is based on the "Telegram" DIU entry first linked, which is in the original Russian. Or Ukrainian.)

The main news is that Russian patrols in the area of the nuke plant are "gradually" decreasing, while Russian troops and some plant personnel are withdrawing into Crimea. Ukrainian contract workers have been advised to leave the area by July 5th. Meanwhile, Ukraine has decided to conduct large-scale special civil defence training in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

[Gusington]

Wow...everything old really is new again in so many ways.

[JasonPratt]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-wagner-coup-was-staged-by-putin-and-the-west-fell-for-it-opinion/ar-AA1dehXU?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=e04cf12e9c124d50ac58e8bf4aaf8621&ei=39

Rebekah Koffler's op-ed in Newsweek yesterday was rather overwrought, and doesn't seem to be taking enough factors into account (would Putin really want to flush his economic alliance with China straight down the toilet??), but does present something like a coherent argument for the coup being Putin's hoax operation, as far as it goes. (She's the president of a strategy think tank, and a former DIA analyst, plus author of a book on Putin's plans to destroy America.)

One detail I hadn't picked up on yet, but had wondered about, was who Prigo was chatting with on that bench in Rostov: that was Russia's deputy minister of defense, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and deputy head of the GRU, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev.

Her evidence in favor of a coup is somewhat wrong, of course: "Think about it: An army invades Russia, race right up to Moscow, and no one gets hurt? With just a few thousand men, it achieved what Hitler with almost a million men wasn't able to? And Putin holds his military back?"

People did get hurt, though not a lot of them.

Hitler had 16 armies in his way (each with enough armor, technically, to equal a Nazi Panzer Group, and a few with enough armor to equal all of Hitler's Barbarossa armor), and another 7 or 8 armies in the 2nd Strategic Echelon on the way (not counting some number of free-floating corps, divisions, brigades, etc.), and did get closer to Moscow than Prigo did.

Putin didn't hold his military back: he got the Chechens to race up the road after Prigo, plus some other mainline Russian units (such as they are), all from in front of Ukraine, weakening the defensive line (such as it was.) The rest of Putin's national guard is stretched thin around the nation. Putin (correctly) isn't expecting Urkraine to invade Russia to any real degree, so hasn't set up defenses to amount to anything. (Much of the point to the recent Free Russian invasions was to force Putin to shuffle forces around to prevent rebel Russians retaking land, but that isn't anywhere near the same as Ukraine trying to invade for Moscow.)

By all accounts, Prigo thought (or looked like) he expected Russian military forces in front of him to flip to his side, which would help in taking Moscow, so more than the 8Kish troops he had on the road going north. This was enough of a problem (apparently) that some Russian troops started fighting each other near Moscow!

So she has some problems. That said, what would be Putin's motivation for this being a false-flag op?

1.) "The Russian strongman is up for re-election on March 17, 2024. With no end in sight to the Russia-Ukraine war, Putin has to convince the Russians of the need to bear even more sacrifices in order to maintain popular support for the war in Ukraine."

This assumes Russia has real elections, which isn't true. However, Putin does need to convince his people of the need to bear even more sacrifices etc.

Koffler's argument hangs on Putin wanting to trick the West into seeming weaker than he is, but Koffler (somewhat indirectly) acknowledges the failing war in Ukraine makes Putin look dangerously weak. So is the whole war supposed to be a maskirovka now to trick the West into thinking Putin is weak?!


2.) "As Putin knows, if you want to scare a Russian, tell them they are going to go through the horror and disorder of the Bolshevik revolution again. These claims became the pretext for Putin to gain more power, not less. He declared a "counter-terrorism operation," effectively marshal law, requiring extreme security measures, including constant monitoring of citizens communications. And he reversed the rule that prohibited people with a criminal record from joining the military, which will enable additional military mobilization."

This part I agree with, but Putin has to do this because he has appeared increasingly too weak thanks to the failing war (among other things). So his solution is to appear even weaker, to trick the West? No, but I'd buy the idea of using Prigo (one way or another) to seize more power over his people and try to scare them into compliance with more of his tyranny. On the other hand, using a very popular more-or-less self-made general to do that, runs somewhat against the grain of scaring people into trusting Putin to save them! It also doesn't fit Putin's efforts since then to undermine Prigo's popularity.


3.) "Of course, what Russians view as strength -- Putin was able to squash a major armed mutiny -- Western media and Biden's 'experts" interpreted as weakness,' which per Koffler's argument was a key goal of the pseudo-coup.

But Putin didn't squash the coup. He got Lukashenko to talk Prigo out of the coup. Putin's population might not realize this, but the West sure does! -- so much so that Luka's involvement is suspicious in itself (though also embarrassing Putin by going too far.) Even Putin's internal propaganda doesn't really show him and his forces strongly squashing the coup, however much his trained seals in the media may clap about it.


4.) "And this, too, is as Putin wants it. The perception in the West that he is weak and his military is incompetent suggests that the West need not provide so much assistance to Ukraine, a key goal of Putin's."

He's desperate to reduce that aid, sure, but this doesn't look like the best way to go about it. On the contrary, his (apparent?!?1) weakness shows our efforts are working.


5.) A pseudo-coup also "remind{s} the world that the longer the Ukraine war continues, the greater the chance for unpredictable consequences, like, say, nuclear Armageddon."

Hardly needs a fake coup for that.


6.) "There's an entire doctrine in the Russian military science called Reflexive Control, which is designed to trick the enemy by serving him information he is likely to believe because of his pre-existing bias."

In this case, the pre-existing "bias" of Putin being freakishly weaker than he seemed for years, and getting weaker all the time, "pre-exists" due to his ongoing war failures at many levels, including his inability to get reliable allies on his side. A psuedo-coup attempt hardly adds to this, especially if its falsity is supposed to be emphatically obvious. ("the obvious truth")


7.) "Meanwhile, the Wagner Group has used its trip to Moscow to land itself in Belarus, which just received a gift of tactical nuclear weapons from Putin. This points to yet another potential goal of the false flag operation: opening a second front to Ukraine's north while directly threatening NATO's eastern flank with the weapons of Armageddon. This time, Putin is doing it with Russia's most effective fighting force."

The problem there, among other things, is that Lukashenko has retracted a lot of his offer to Prigo: they can set up tents on abandoned land, that's all. Also, the Wagner Group isn't there yet and is being piecemealed there, at best. Also, Wagner doesn't have to be there, much less a false coup staged to get them there, for Putin to threaten NATO's eastern flank with tactical nukes.


What MIGHT make more sense for a false-coup plan, is to position Prigo in place to take over Belarus. However, that doesn't fit Putin's recent attempts at undermining Putin's credibility with the people. Although maybe that doesn't matter for such a purpose, and is meant to throw us off from guessing that Putin plans to upgrade Prigo in authority this way. A false-coup plan which leaves Prigo actually weaker than he was, doesn't seem like a plan he'd agree to.