Russia's War Against Ukraine

[JasonPratt]

Last night's Enforcer news digest:

They raised a little over $20K last night for the Ukrainian branch of the "Save the Children" charity (which dates back to 1919).

The somewhat clickbaity marketing title (naturally), refers to new evidence of Russia's financial collapse: removing practically all infrastructure from their national budget; as well as arrests of wealthy Russians (i.e. supporters keeping the regime going) in unlawful meetings.

[JasonPratt]

As an interesting side-update to one of the more amusing stories from Saturday: one of the guys in the attempted Russian propaganda film who was trying to show off the Russian drone system, who got his drone zorched and/or stolen by nearby Uk troops, was outed as being a more overtly (Duginian?) Nazi-ish Russian Nazi!

Also, to no one's surprise anywhere, after the disastrous strike on that airbase a week or two ago, Russia is pulling its jets out of Crimea.  :clap: <:-)

[JasonPratt]

Roughly 2 hours ago, tweets have started saying that the Ukrainian Kherson counter-offensive has begun, breaking through the first line of Russian defenders.

Primarily this comes from the KyivPost twitter. Russian propaganda sort of confirms this, stating that HIMARS is going after the supply bridges again (including the one across that dam at Nova Kharkova, iirc?), this time targeting infantry which would be a first (so far) if confirmed -- more likely the rounds are hitting troops trying to get across the bridges and/or on the floating bridge(s) nearby (such as at the main Kherson bridge, which as reported on Saturday also has a functioning ferry still operating. Or did. ;) )

But of course, the troops themselves may be targeted directly in various places, don't know yet. Certainly Uk arty has been filmed zapping troops in trenches before now, using drone spotting.

This puts a new spin on the air force evacuating Crimea this weekend...!  ^-^

[JasonPratt]

I wonder if the green-old 3rd Army Corps will get there in time!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-is-sending-a-fresh-army-corps-to-ukraine-its-troops-are-unfit-and-old/ar-AA11e3Ga?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=e2c1af546b47839a40e18f2c1ac2ec85

Also unclear how large this 'corps' really is. Russia has a history of creating container units to be filled out later and putting them on the front line. This can actually be very effective: a shell 'army' of a few divisions can suddenly bulk up into the largest armed force on earth without looking any different on paper (perhaps most famously right before the 1939 Winter War); and the same principle can be used to hulk out otherwise weakling corps. But that only works if the manpower, equipment, training, and logistic support (at many, many levels) is already in place. It's entirely possible that any serious armored corps will strain Russia's local (and even backfield) logistics to the breaking point upon arrival.

[JasonPratt]

"My army's crappier!" "NO, MY ARMY'S CRAPPIER!" "But mine is a wrecked shell of a crappy army!"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-to-host-war-games-with-china-amid-ukraine-tensions-as-west-joins-in-exercise-pitch-black/ar-AA11e0yR?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=2db5fdc102de9a27acb6b17bb554f256

Russia and China vow to drill for "repelling aggression". Russia has already been drilling hard for 6 months, on some pretty repelling aggression, so its 50 troops free to be at the exercises will be able to give up-to-the-minute tips to the Chinese on this topic no doubt.  >:D

(Tip 1: "Do something else with your life choices.")


Edited to add: meanwhile, the US will be joining 12 other nations in Australia for the "Pitch Black" horror exercises.

OpForce China: "How's it look?"
OpForce Russia: "Looks clear."
OpChina blitzes and gets destroyed immediately.
"Dammit, you said it was clear!"
"I said it looked clear!"
"Well, now what?!"
"....looks clear."  >:D

[JasonPratt]

A few more details confirming the Kherson Counter-offensive has started rolling!

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-launches-military-push-south-possible-counteroffensive-russia-war-2022-8

[JasonPratt]

A short zoomed-in satellite photo and commentary on that Nova Kakhovka bridge (why I thought that had an 'r' in it, never mind  ::) ::) ::) ):

About to be a bad day for any SovOrc troops on the west side of the river...!

Also, Melitopol's military base is on fire.

[GDS_Starfury]

Reminds me of some rumor about a dude tossing his SAPI plates and replacing them with cardboard.

confirmed that at least one of these idiots did just that but replaced it with a mac book that he stole.  L:-)
the mac book didnt stop the bullet that killed him.  :DD

[GDS_Starfury]

Also unclear how large this 'corps' really is.

slightly smaller then regimental size.

[GDS_Starfury]

and heres your helmet video:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1563628411255496704

[JasonPratt]

Also unclear how large this 'corps' really is.

slightly smaller then regimental size.

I lol'd unreasonably hard at that. 

[bobarossa]

Also unclear how large this 'corps' really is.

slightly smaller then regimental size.

Best quote from the twitter feed:

𝑰𝒏 𝑺𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒕 𝑹𝒖𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒂 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒎𝒆𝒕

[JasonPratt]

Last night's Enforcer show accidentally triggered a copyright strike, so he has uploaded a quick commentary on the Ukrainian Counter-offensive:

Since he doesn't have solid news about the details of the counter-offensive yet (due to a request of a media blackout by Ukraine), he has settled for looking at the bridge situation again with an eye toward how this will affect the Uk attack and the Orc defense.

[FarAway Sooner]

I've been out of pocket for a few days (hardware problems), but I wanted to chime in with one quick bit of context around how "the U.S. isn't even willing to produce enough surplus energy to help the Europeans this winter".  This is based on growing up in oil country, but it's also based on talking with lots of people in the industry (including but hardly limited to my own brother).

The challenge with energy sources is that, in the short term, they aren't really fungible.  In particular, Germany relies a lot on natural gas for its heating and electricity generation.

Coal can be shipped by train cars, which can be shuttled around.  Oil can be shipped by tankers, which can be rerouted.  Liquid natural gas (LNG) mostly travels by pipeline. 

There have been some headlines that indicate that the Greens in Germany have been unwilling to reactivate/postpone shutting down a few nuclear plants that could go a long ways towards addressing the electricity shortfall this winter, if not the heating shortfall.  If there's another side to the story, I've not heard of it.

In terms of "the US producing more energy", actual investments in big-iron energy production take YEARS.  Drilling new wells and/or reactivating oil fields often takes 18 months.  Refineries and generation plants take longer than that and cost BILLIONS of dollars.  Those investments last for 20 or 30 years, but they are NOT cheap.  To add to the complexity, not all oil refineries are equal (some refine "light, sweet crude" like the Saudis produce, while others produce "heavy, sour crude" like the Russians produce).

All you can really conclude about US energy companies in recent times is that, when they had to choose between investing in additional capacity (which they might not need) or investing in shareholder buybacks (which would undoubtedly increase shareholder value), they chose the buybacks.  This is one of the contributors to inflation, but only one of them.

Even if, on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine, the US started drilling like crazy and building more refineries, etc., it wouldn't start to affect the price of energy for 1-2 years.  It is what it is.  A competitive, free market is VERY good at many things (efficiency being near the top of the list), but "long term planning" is seldom one of them.  This is why the US outsourced the procurement of all surgical masks to China 10 or 15 years ago...

[ArizonaTank]

and heres your helmet video:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1563628411255496704

Stay away from that guy in a head-butting fight...well actually just stay away from that guy in any fight...