Russian special military operation in Ukraine #34

Russia can repair any of its infrastructure. It uses its own industry for its infrastructure.

Another buk lanceted.

To be fair, the army is doing what it can with what it's given, the problem is the suits behind them.

The suits launched this operation and they gave the instructions to minimize friendly military and civilian casualties, and it's absolutely the right call.

Russia cannot let this war go on for years, it just can't. It's not feasible.

Yes it can. And this war will go on for years irrespective of Russia's efforts, as will the tectonic geopolitical shifts going on in the world in the background. So it might as well get nice and cozy and minimize personnel losses.

It must either within a reasonable time frame.

1. Force Ukraine to make a deal by killing as much as possible while taking ground.

When the Ukrainian military is sufficiently reduced, and the mercs and foreign volunteers they send to plug gaps are reduced sufficiently too, then land can be taken at a rapid clip. As it was towards the end of WW1, WW2, well any war really.

2. Completely Annex Ukraine.

Follows on from 1. All in good time.
Assuming no negotiations are successful of course

3. Install a puppet government or pro russian one, but we have seen how this worked out for em last time. So I do not see them taking this risk again.

It's an option only if friendly to Russia forces in Kiev usurp power well before Russia gets there. Then there will be someone to negotiate with, and they can make such worth Russia's while by promising Russia its war objectives and security while cutting short its war losses and expenditure.
Else though it won't happen and the territory will simply be annexed. Russia won't accept the risk of a puppet government that can be overthrown with a new Maidan and freshly resurrected nationalist hordes.

There is no other options either take the country or put your hopes in some "deal" regardless of who you make it with, there is a high high risk it will only back fire in the end.

One does not abrogate the other.
Once enough enemy forces have been crushed, then a deal might be offered and subsequently considered. Of course by then it better be a good deal. More like a capitulation realistically.
But taking territory is not a prerequisite. Peace can be talked when one side's means to wage war have been dismantled. You can do that by taking over territory, or you can do that by targeting manpower, industries, infrastructure and so on at stand-off range.

As I said before Russia cannot **** this up, its statehood depends on it.

No shit

One example of highly creative Ukrainian math goes back to the spring of 2014 and the airstrikes on Lugansk city center.

Locals filmed a Ukrainian Su-25 flying above the city and launching a salvo of S-8 rockets straight into the square/park in front of the city administration.

The strike killed and maimed a big bunch of random civilian pedestrians. Nasty footage from ground zero appeared almost instantly and it became one of the galvanizing moments of the conflict. Those in eastern Ukraine who hadn't yet been convinced of Kievs ill intentions now understood it all quite clearly.

But, the attention it got still became a little bit of a PR problem for Kiev. Not that they ever gave two shits about Donbass civilians, they had made that abundantly clear way earlier, but these overly blatant murders put them in somewhat of a bad light anyway.

The solution they came up with was to loudly proclaim that it was AKSHULLY an Igla/Strela MANPADS fired by the evil "Russian occupiers" or whatever, that swerved 180 degrees in the air and locked onto an air conditioner, but being of poor Russo-Mongolian Muscovite genetics, it naturally missed that too and instead hit the ground in a crowded public place. There it exploded not once, not twice but a dozen times across the park.

Western media was like phew, we were worried there for a second, thanks for the watertight explanation, thine Holiness.

So they've been consistent, kinda. If one little MANPADS did all that, just imagine what 5 drones can do. A lawnmower can bend spacetime, a single charge can explode multiple times in vastly different locations, anything's possible with Ukrainian math.

edit: it reminds me of the Ukrainian-developed truck racing game "Big Rigs"... James Rolfe of YouTube fame once ranted about how unfinished and messed up the game was, saying something like...

"Never lose a race again, you are always winner (sic).. Engines equipped  with quantum-phasing molecular mechanics to pass through solid objects... Rear-spinning tires with warp-drive velocity for interdimensional exploring, leave the game behind and exceed the boundaries of existence!"

18-wheeler trucks reversing at mach 5. Ukrainian math/physics...

NB: There are great Ukrainian game developers, like the guys behind the Stalker and Metro series*. Don't get me wrong. The twisted mechanics of that "Big Rigs" game were probably caused by underpaid coders-for-hire facing a stupid deadline.

But still.

*Though the inspiration/source material in both cases is Russian: Strugatsky bros and Tarkovsky in the case of Stalker, and Glukhovsky in the case of Metro. Anyway.

Lancet vs M777
https://vk.com/video-206639135_456262983

It seems Putin tomorrow is going to announce something important. Wonder what might be?

FP wrote:I'm pretty sure this historylegends guy that you and some others embed here is a NATO plant

He's just a kid. He doesn't buy into most of the propaganda tropes and challenges the narrative when it comes to losses and etc. But yes, his lack of ability to read current Russian sources makes him sound bit out of the water. He should stick with history, as he is quite good at covering various historical subjects.

Then again, who covers it better in English?

Russians with attitude might be fun to listen to, but as soon as they touch military subjects, damn... They said, they will not predict anything at least...

Andrei Martyanov got himself into a rut and apart from hating western "presstitutes" he doesn't say anything new in what, 10 videos in a row?

Mercouris and the gang? They cover geopolitics bit, but they can't touch military matters.

But maybe I am too harsh as there is a deafening silence on the Russian military community as well. Even Bakhmut is covered very little.

It's almost as silent as before it all kicked out. Maybe T-80s in winter camo in Belarus are not just for the show...

Baron of the Taiga
@baronitaigas
·
6h
: Russia claims to have captured two officers of the 80th Airborne Brigade of Ukraine, responsible for the recorded mass execution of surrendered Russian troops in Lugansk.

President of Croatia: "Ukraine is not our ally."


https://www.rt.com/news/568616-croatia-ukraine-not-ally/

Massive russian progress in 6 months

They wiped out their air force and their armour and their navy and have killed most of their trained soldiers that went to the front line or got caught out in a strike.

In 8 months they have broken the back of the Orc army... this winter and perhaps a few offensives could be all that are needed to break them, but perhaps they might want to spread this out over a couple of years...

Yes it can. And this war will go on for years irrespective of Russia's efforts, as will the tectonic geopolitical shifts going on in the world in the background. So it might as well get nice and cozy and minimize personnel losses.

All their efforts to get Russia to attack Ukraine they never thought through the fact that this is a survival thing for Russia, so losing soldiers is not a good thing and they are doing everything they can to minimise their loses, but this conflict is necessary, they are not fighting for fun or for the spoils of war like the west does, this is survival, so if it has to go on for 20 years like the west did in Afghanistan just to mine a country that has not been mined on an industrial scale before, then so be it... set things up to minimise Russian losses and maximise the dead enemy combatants, and make it affordable and this is what they have done and are doing.

When the Ukrainian military is sufficiently reduced, and the mercs and foreign volunteers they send to plug gaps are reduced sufficiently too, then land can be taken at a rapid clip. As it was towards the end of WW1, WW2, well any war really.

They will collapse at some stage and then it will change in nature to organising acceptable Ukrainians to take over... no way Zelensky can continue... he wont want to live in such a shit hole anyway... his family already went to Israel... wonder how him moving there and being the Ukrainian government in exile will effect Russian relations with Israel...

Andrei Martyanov got himself into a rut and apart from hating western "presstitutes" he doesn't say anything new in what, 10 videos in a row?

The problem for him is that the Orcs could listen to his common sense and come up with counter tactics and ideas that could become a problem for Russia... why feed the enemy?

Hopefully an operation or maybe a referendum on establishing a Russian, Belarussian, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz Union State. More likely? New Years Truce.

Zero chance for a new years truce... why let the enemy rearm and prepare...

No the suits have held the army back, This war would have been over by now if the army had been able to do what it was allowed to from the start.

I call bullshit. Even if they went in with millions of soldiers and killed millions of Orcs, the enemy might simply continue to fight... it is like saying the US could have won in Vietnam if they had just been more brutal... it is just an over estimation of the effects of military power.

All of HATO was in Afghanistan and they were there for 20 years and spent trillions... and there were plenty of non HATO countries there too helping... New Zealand sent troops as did Australia and other countries... yet despite all that what have they got to show?

Extreme violence with military power doesn't work they way many think it might.

No, it cannot, The more time goes by the worse it will get for them.

How?

Will the next tranche of EU sanctions include all 150 million Russians... who gives a **** about the west any more... Putin has managed to make Russians realise the west is their enemy and Russia has no near future with the west as anything but enemies and that Russia needs to look to itself and the rest of the world for its future and for its technology and entertainment etc etc.

Losing soldiers even at a reduced rate is not good for Russia, but the west gave them no choice and even today western demands are for Russia to leave what is now Russian territory including the Crimea so that is not a choice either.

You say they can't continue, but the west gives them no other option, while feeding the flames with new weapons and ammo... Russia understands... better than the west does I think.

footage from Ukrainian mi 24 wingman of the MI-8 shot down over the DPR.

Both were Mi-8.
Just take a look how dynamic and low they must fly to get a single chance of survival, yet it still is one way ticket mostly ...
The thing seems to be taken down by Tor/Pancyr, I can spot a starting place for Igla or something... Maybe you have better eyes?

One example of highly creative Ukrainian math goes back to the spring of 2014 and the airstrikes on Lugansk city center.

What is a really disturbing part of the whole story - that is true and everyone who follows this mess since the beginning could watch that from the first row - is how shameless the Ukro regime officials used to be even back then.
Turchynov really was talking this outrageous nonsense about exploding AC in front of western presstitutes without any single eyeblink. And nobody was asking questions to this nonsense, they have just forwarded those to the audience.
That is why I really don't blame the native English speakers for having twisted conception of the whole situation.
They used to be convicted to hear and read such a bullshit from the beginning, that they just get used to it.
It is like telling someone that a democratically elected government ordered dropping a cluster warhead of a tactical ballistic missiles on heads of their own citizens, whom they asked to mass for evacuation first.
Nobody sane would believe in that.
It is just shockingly unbelievable.
Democratic govts don't do that. As simple as that.
To understand the mechanics, one must understand that it is not a democratic govt, but a coup regime. A regime that has nothing to do with Ukraine as it was before 2013. A chauvinistic herd of thugs, who care little about anything other than power and money.
People often are telling that "ok, there was a coup, but they had an acting power structures like Rada, that acclaimed the effects after, legitimizing it, right?!"
And how one can respond to that? Is someone haven't seen the nazi thugs keeping a whole hands of voting cards robbed from killed, jailed, terrorized envoys? How can you explain "democracy" concept in a country that kidnapped a vice chairman of Rada, third person in line of the power structures, who was covered by the parliamentary immunity, to someone who has not seen that? How you can explain the freedom and pluralism to someone, who has not watched the Ukrainian TV, and can't remember how those were closed and liquidated one by one?
It is impossible.
That is why I do not blame the people. To see is to believe. They just haven't seen that, because nobody showed it to them.

Post  SeigSoloyvov Today at 5:20 am
No the suits have held the army back, This war would have been over by now if the army had been able to do what it was allowed to from the start.
No, it cannot, The more time goes by the worse it will get for them.
You way overestimate your logic, just like Kherson was a "trap".
You are wrong and sure you might think you are right but to avoid a pointless argument, I'll leave it at that.

And again, you ae talking the things lacking the wider perspective and memory.
This strategy worked perfectly well.
Only you must remind yourself the situation and mood back then in March/April.
In March, Ukrainian army was gone. It was obvious. Anyone who watched that saw a bands of marauders, with empty eyes. Russkie advanced 600 km inside the territory, taking 1/4th of Ukraine, including 70% of it's economy. Negotiations in Turkey started, and more and more pieces of puzzles were coming out that  they are getting some deal.
Cocainsky was stating that non-block status is not so bad. That they can consider it again. Give some guarantees.

What was going on in Europe? You might missed that, so I will tell you. More and more voices arrised, that it was a mistake to ignore the Russkie position concerning security. That it was a mistake to push NATO east, without taking under consideration the Russian point of wiev, and - now focus - historical memory that created social feelings. That no weapon will be delivered, as that will just prolong the conflict and inflict more harm&damage to the Ukrainians. The things used to be stated wide open, loud. At the official levels.
Common sense started to reveal in both Ukr and Europe.

And what happened next?

Well, Crazy Boris arrived Kiev in April, calling the Cocainsky to back off from any kind of agreements.
I do not know how he supported, threatened, or corrupted the clown, yet he succeeded.
Ukrs started to flood the Russkie with overwhelming manpower, substituting the technical disadvantage.
With 200k people involved, they simply could not hold a 2000 km line of contact against - by that time - half a million Ukrs, even if these would have just sticks&stones.
Yet we know that they had much, much more. April on, a constant stream of supply was pumped into 404 from all over the NATO/EU.

That was an end of plan A of Russian operation that de facto worked amazingly well, yet was paralyzed by unlogical Anglosaxon agreement.

So Russkie mover to the plan B, without many issues and doubts other than the Russkie infosphere.
And the B plan is devastating to the 404, and will be devastating to the westerners either.
Ukraine is gone.
There will be no such country anymore other that a shithole wastelands. Depopulated, deindustrialized, deelectrified.
They now have some 20 mln people left.
You do realize that winter barely started here? It will go on till March. With the peak low of temperature usually at the break of Jan/Feb.

No the suits have held the army back, This war would have been over by now if the army had been able to do what it was allowed to from the start.

Without knowing what the army allegedly, wanted to do, I can't possibly judge about that.

No, it cannot, The more time goes by the worse it will get for them.

I'd say things are going better for Russia than they were back in Feb/March, when the financial attack was squeezing it and Washington strong-armed a lot of support at the UN. And indeed, when Western populations themselves were behind the anti-Russian effort, and the Ukrainians were sure that the West would crush Russia.

Now though, Russia's economy has stabilized while the EU's has started de-industrialization, the emergence of a multipolar world order is in full swing, Africa/Asia have distanced themselves from Washington, coups even had to be performed in Pakistan and Peru. Western populations have lost their enthusiasm and come to a deeper more balanced understanding of the conflict, while Ukrainians are increasingly demoralized.

I wonder what things will look like in another 9 months time.

You way overestimate your logic, just like Kherson was a "trap".

Kherson is a slow-burning trap. The Ukrainians get attrition'd there, and have taken to organizing the same evacuations the Russians were.

You are wrong and sure you might think you are right but to avoid a pointless argument, I'll leave it at that.

k

Regular wrote:He's just a kid. He doesn't buy into most of the propaganda tropes and challenges the narrative when it comes to losses and etc. But yes, his lack of ability to read current Russian sources makes him sound bit out of the water. He should stick with history, as he is quite good at covering various historical subjects.

Then again, who covers it better in English?

Russians with attitude might be fun to listen to, but as soon as they touch military subjects, damn... They said, they will not predict anything at least...

Andrei Martyanov got himself into a rut and apart from hating western "presstitutes" he doesn't say anything new in what, 10 videos in a row?

Mercouris and the gang? They cover geopolitics bit, but they can't touch military matters.

But maybe I am too harsh as there is a deafening silence on the Russian military community as well. Even Bakhmut is covered very little.

It's almost as silent as before it all kicked out. Maybe T-80s in winter camo in Belarus are not just for the show...

Best English-language source is right here bud

Don't let me stop you from listening to historylegends or whoever else though. Without people referencing facts and theories from a variety of sources here, there wouldn't be anything to discuss

In terms of talking heads though, the best English-language source IMO is Mercouris. He brings up a lot of up-to date battlefield developments from Telegram, including those from Russian-only sources seemingly, references the political side of things and various meetings and ties them into the evolution of the war, and delves into a lot of history and comparisons too, such as the American Civil War or that Russian general who fought the Turks by setting up incremental defensive lines.

In terms of Russian sources, the one I listen to is Dmitry Vasilets
https://www.youtube.com/@vasiletsD
He's on the Russian payroll but doesn't sugarcoat anything, brings up a lot of facts others have missed, and his remarks are on point

IMHO , since towns like Bakhmut and Maryinka .............are fought over by Ukrs , inside the city with some civilian hostages ,  and by the looks of things all buildings are destroyed above ground by Artillery or Tank or Mortar or Grenades , and all or most  civilians above ground are killed , then it is better to save ground troops and instead just bomb by air , the Orcs that are in the town and above ground . If the Orcs take hostages to underground shelters , and they have to do this to survive , then they will mostly survive air bombing . But the Orcs can not go above ground , and RF then can pass over them or encircle them . They are trapped underground , like Mariupol Azov plant scenario . If no underground shelters available , then all civilians are killed anyway , together with the Orcs . But friendly troops are saved . Patriot can not come close , because taken out by drones . And if bombardment done by heavy Mortar or Artillery or SRBM ( cheap mass produced ) , then no planes are put at risk either . Alternate way is to send converted Bus , Truck , APC or Tank , full of explosives ( many Tons )  like ROV , into Town , like ground FOAB , may need only a few like this . Advance covered by smoke .

Ukraine Battle Map
@ukraine_map
·
6h
USA will provide $1.8 Billion in military aid to Ukraine

The package will include:
1. A Patriot Air Defense System
2. Precision Guided Bombs JDAMs
3. HIMARS Ammunition
4. AGM-88 HARM Missiles
5. Artillery and Mortar Shells
6. Trucks, Training, Weapons, and Other Assistance

VKS active. Early Christmas presents?

Ukros erected some mesh around an M777 to stop drones. Lancet was not impressed.

On the topic of the delivery of patriot systems, some on point statement during the interview. Always like these guys, unbiased and critical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppcI4qVU6cY

- The delivery of patriot systems is a purely symbolic gesture. System won't show up on the battlefield for months, war basically will be over then.
- Each patriot battery requires a team of around 90+. These Ukraine people have to be trained on a apparently very complex system.
- The system doesn't work. Didn't shoot down any scud missiles in Iraq Freedom, did shoot down lots of ally aircraft.
- Was unable to protect Saudi Arabia against Houthis drone attacks.
- Can not be integrated in the Ukraine air defense network.