Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Crossroads]

Something's up in Kherson, for instance:

Russian flag is removed from the main administrative building in Kherson

https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1588100657394745344

Kherson update, people driving around Kherson city, are reporting all roadblocks, and soldiers are gone. Flags are taken down from governement buildings. Defensive positions north of the city are abbandoned

https://twitter.com/NLwartracker/status/1588113705807581184

[JasonPratt]

The pessimistic side of my brain (which tends to cough up things when I've got a head cold) just quipped bitterly: 'The Orcs didn't want their flags singed by the incoming nuclear fire'.  Or maybe drowned in that dam bursting upriver. Or both.

Otherwise I'd say this bodes well for TeamUk!  <:-)

[Gusington]

I keep worrying that the Russians are trying to draw the Ukrainians into 'pockets' to then ambush and destroy them every time there is a Russian retreat. Then I snap back to reality and realize that the Russians have not done that once. Yet.

[Uberhaus]

Why February 24 for the start of the invasion?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russia-ukraine-kyiv-electricity-grid-1.6638410

Oleksandr Kharchenko doesn't believe in coincidences.

The seasoned energy adviser to multiple Ukrainian government departments, agencies and parliamentary members told CBC News he saw a point last winter when his country's electrical grid was at its most vulnerable.

At the time, Ukraine was in the final throes of an almost decade-long process of disconnecting from the Russian and Belarusian energy network and connecting to the European grid.

To do so, Ukraine had to overcome a number of technical challenges, including conducting a test known as "isolation mode" which required it to operate independently without importing any energy over several days.

The critical date when Ukraine's grid entered this fragile state was ... Feb. 24, 2022, the day Russia invaded.

Kharchenko said it came as no surprise to him that Moscow chose that date to launch major hostilities.

...

Over the past few weeks, the Russian military has attempted to do with missiles and "kamikaze" drones what it failed to do by stealth last winter — take down Ukraine's power grid and plunge the country into darkness and cold.

CBC News has spent several months testing Kharchenko's assessment with both current and former top allied military commanders, and hybrid warfare experts.

A blackout with a 'light touch'
They concur with Kharchenko and say Moscow's aim appears to have been to switch off the lights and heat without damaging the infrastructure — in the hopes of occupying the country without being forced to go through a costly rebuild.

...

The system held up
All of the technical preparations, said Kharchenko, were completed at 1 a.m. Eastern European Time (EET) on Feb. 24. The Russian invasion began four hours later.

"I believe that many people in Russia could be sure that if they will attack when we are in isolation mode, we will lose management of the system," said Kharchenko, the managing director of Ukraine's EIRCenter, an independent energy research organization.

"If they attack on that day, it means blackout in many parts of Ukraine. You could imagine, yes? We have a rocket, shells, Russian military and no electricity."

An impressive piece of journalism from the CBC.

[JasonPratt]

Yesterday Newsweek reported (via MSN feed) that Russians are building (yet another) secret structure near one of the seven nuclear plants at Zaporizhzhia.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-seen-building-mysterious-structure-by-nuclear-power-plant-in-ukraine/ar-AA13EDsi?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=38450f0e00b645afab1a7addbe76c980

The Energoatom statement said it "assumes" that Russian officials controlling the area "are preparing a terrorist act using nuclear materials and radioactive waste stored at" the plant.

According to the Energoatom statement, 173 containers containing spent nuclear fuel were at the plant's dry spent fuel storage facility.

"Destruction of these containers as a result of [an] explosion will lead to a radiation accident and radiation contamination of several hundred square kilometers of the surrounding area," Energoatom said.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was seized by the Russian military on March 4, and since then, the occupying forces have used the facility to store equipment and ammunition, Ukrainian officials have said.

So the theoretical plan here would be:

1.) Build storage containers for ammunition near the nuclear plants, some of them secretly wired to blow.
2.) Withdraw from the area.
3.) Blow the ammunition dumps.
4.) Blame the destruction of the ammo on Ukrainian shelling.
5.) Revel in the scorched-earth radioactive dirty bomb results supposedly inflicted by Ukraine upon itself, lolz.

[Gusington]

^Wow. Ukraine attempting to disconnect from Russia on multiple levels in that piece Uberhaus posted.

[Gusington]

And that post from MSN is nothing to sneeze at either. 'Jesus Christ Russia' again.

[GDS_Starfury]

I keep worrying that the Russians are trying to draw the Ukrainians into 'pockets' to then ambush and destroy them every time there is a Russian retreat. Then I snap back to reality and realize that the Russians have not done that once. Yet.

ya, aint gonna happen.  Ive read enough about how the infantry fight is going to know that small team recon has been one of the key elements of Ukrainian success.  they are really winning the information war on every level.

[GDS_Starfury]

how not to transport anti-tank mines.
before:


after:

[JasonPratt]

At least they weren't also carrying infantry on the back. Guess they didn't have any infantry to carry...  >:D

[bobarossa]

At least they weren't also carrying infantry on the back. Guess they didn't have any infantry to carry...  >:D

Would you want to have a bumpy ride while sitting on an antitank mine?  Wonder if they checked to see if they were inactivated (defused?).

[GDS_Starfury]

oh, theyre definitely diffused now.   :DD

[Dammit Carl!]

Can only imagine some Ukrainian drone driver seeing the poor thing loaded up with danger cakes on it's top deck like that and getting an erection so hard and so fast that it ripped his pants.

[Gusington]

 :o

[JasonPratt]

GAH STOP IMAGINING STAR!!  :hide:

At least they weren't also carrying infantry on the back. Guess they didn't have any infantry to carry...  >:D

Would you want to have a bumpy ride while sitting on an antitank mine?

Why not? A properly designed and assembled anti-tank mine shouldn't detonate at merely human weights.... oh, right, Russian 'quality'.

So, in that case, what would be the Russian Roulette odds spread, on functional : non-functional : too light? Assume a standard six-shot revolver.