Russian special military operation in Ukraine #54

MD
@distant_earth83
The capture of the village by the units of the troop grouping “Center” was announced on March 19. From this moment, the combat situation along the line of contact will change.

What’s important about the capture of Orlovka?

Firstly, the most combat-ready units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this area, including the 3rd OShBr (formerly “Azov,” a terrorist organization), the 110th OMBr, and parts of the 109th TrO brigade, have retreated from Orlovka with heavy losses. Secondly, the capture of Orlovka has pushed some artillery units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine further west towards Uman, including the self-propelled artillery division of the 53rd OMBr.

How will events unfold further?

After the loss of the village, attempts at counterattacks are almost certain. The Ukrainian army has undertaken them even with smaller territorial losses in Orlovka, even if it meant withdrawing from two or three strongholds. The intentions of the operation will become clear after further advancement from Orlovka by the Russian Armed Forces: it is not yet clear whether the strike will be directed towards Uman or towards Semenovka north of Orlovka. In this area, there are now only two Ukrainian outposts left on the LBS: Semenovka, defended by the 25th OVDBr and retreating units of the 3rd OShBr supported by the 63rd OSB, and Berdychev, where a battle is taking place with the 47th OMBr and the 116th TrO brigade.

Presumably, both directions will be reinforced after the loss of Orlovka, as the loss of Semenovka or Berdychev (regardless of the order) essentially renders the defense of neighboring sections of the front meaningless, including the area around Tonenky.

Where is it all going?

Given that Orlovka, Semenovka, Berdychev, and Tonenky are located in low-lying areas, the most likely scenario is the withdrawal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to positions 2 km west. However, there are no major fortified positions there: the terrain west of Orlovka consists of continuous fields. Therefore, in the event of the worst-case scenario, parts of Ukrainian army units will have to retreat to Novoselovka Pervaya and Novopokrovskoye. Another part will be forced to retreat to Uman and hold the defense along the highway. However, the turn to these fortified areas will come relatively quickly, as the Russian Armed Forces’ offensive in Tonenky is in its final stage.

Time for a smile

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:IMO China and Russia should both pressure Kim to enact economic reforms.

you cannot really reform an economy that is heavily sanctioned as the laws of economics are too distorted by sanctions

mnztr wrote:

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:IMO China and Russia should both pressure Kim to enact economic reforms.

you cannot really reform an economy that is heavily sanctioned as the laws of economics are too distorted by sanctions

NK could do business with just the friendly countries - Russia, China and the Global South in general.

Walther von Oldenburg wrote: Near Marinka, 18 VSU officers surrendered at once

Ukrainian fighters from the 59th separate motorized infantry brigade surrendered near the village of Georgievka. The VSU soldiers came under artillery fire during a rotation and realized that the best decision would be to save their lives.

The group commander contacted the Russian command and asked not to shoot.

According to military summary channel They also asked not to be included in the exchange process and wish to be kept as POWs until war ends.

Big_Gazza wrote:

ALAMO wrote:
NK is, mildly saying, not in the best economic shape.

Compared to whom?  Europe?  

NK might not be a neoliberal capitalist engine like SK, but I think the stories of NK ramshackle economy and technological backwardness are akin to the stories the feckless West has long told about Russia.  Same motivations, same authors, same paymasters.

Based on the collapse of Western narratives in Ukraine I think its safe to say that the "establishment wisdom" over the DPRK will also prove to be embarassingly wide of the mark.

Having been to NK and spent 10 days in various parts of country I was surprised it was more developed than the west have U believe, and they even had an IPAD clone that was apparently so good the guides from China were buying loads of them to take back to China. Because NK is such a clinical and disciplined culture it's economy is reliable and works like clockwork. Rural areas were less developed but this is the same in some areas of the UK and Europe. But yes sanctions do hamper it in some areas but sanctions have actually forced NK to become relatively self sufficient and many products are exported to china then re-exported to avoid sanctions. NK has a massive amount of engineering/ construction labour force which will come in very handy when rebuilding projects come into play in areas liberated in Ukraine. Mass Cheap skilled labour will be vital as Russia will want to rebuild and improve these areas as fast as possible to allow a return to normal (and better) living conditions for the population. I remember seeing a dam in NK and they were praised at the time of building it in a very fast, efficient way which western commentators were shocked at.

As Alamo has already stated NK have been stockpiling ammo for decades so having a clear out with no labour intensive and costly disposal this is a win win situation for NK they get rid of a future potential problem and get various assistance, and resources in return. Russian might once the war is over may produce more ammo and return it to NK for all we know. Nobody actually knows what deals were done what both parties seem happy enough with the deal.

At sepheronx not sure if U meant me or someone else.

RUSSIAN FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE CONFIRMS FRANCE DEPLOYING FORCES IN UKRAINE

On March 19, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (SVR) Sergei Naryshkin confirmed the reports. He claimed that Paris is already preparing the military personnel for deployment in Ukraine. At the initial stage, France is going to send about 2, 000 servicemen to the war-torn country.

Moreover, last night, two planes with French military was spotted landing at Sofia airport in Bulgaria. The group likely included about 500 servicemen. The French got on the closed trucks. The drivers, who locals were not told where they were going. They are supposedly traveling through Romania – Izmail – Odessa.

The official claims by the Russian SVR is a response to Macron’s policy. Moscow warned the French military leadership that the Russians are aware of what is happening on the French territory. Foreign servicemen will have much less chances to hide from the Russians in Ukrainian rear and risk to be destroyed by precision strikes before they come to the frontlines.


https://southfront.press/russian-foreign-intelligence-service-confirms-france-deploying-forces-in-ukraine/

Russian elections have driven Western leaders into a diplomatic trap, by Gevorg Mirzayan for VZGLYAD. 03.19.2024.

Europe will do as the Americans do when it comes to recognizing the Russian elections. And Washington has already begun to take the line of de facto recognition. They stated that they would act based on reality. And it convincingly demonstrates the victory of Vladimir Putin.

Another victory of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the elections caused a mixed reaction in the world. Leaders of the countries of the Global South have already congratulated their Russian counterpart on his impressive result - and thereby recognized his victory, which is an expression of the will of the country's population. “Your re-election fully reflects the support of the Russian people. I believe that under your leadership, Russia will be able to achieve great success in national development,” said Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

However, Western leaders did not say such words. On the contrary, they refused to recognize even the very fact of an honest expression of the people's will. “Russian authorities continued to increase the scale of internal repression, which resulted in an alarming increase in the number of violations of civil and political rights,” the EU foreign policy agency said in a statement. The French Foreign Ministry said that “the conditions for organizing free, pluralist and democratic elections were again not met.” And the German Foreign Ministry, which called the expression of will “elections without choice,” decided in its documentation no longer to call Putin president. And finally, everyone unanimously declared that they would not recognize the elections held in the new Russian territories.

However, none of them - even the Germans with their exceptions of words - directly and clearly stated that they refused to recognize the elections throughout Russia. And Putin is a legitimate, elected president. In essence, Europe has driven itself into a diplomatic trap.

After all, on the one hand, it is beneficial for the EU not to recognize the legitimate Russian elections. Otherwise, Russia (where elections were held) will differ very favorably from Ukraine, where the head of the Kyiv regime, Vladimir Zelensky, canceled them, and in violation of the laws and the Ukrainian constitution. And the legitimately elected Putin has every reason to demand negotiations with the legitimately elected European leaders, and not with someone unknown in Ukraine. Having no mandate to conduct discussions, much less legal grounds to sign anything.

Europe doesn’t want to negotiate with Putin yet. Not to mention the fact that the very fact of conducting such negotiations on Ukraine will be a recognition not only of Putin’s legitimacy, but also of a rejection of the policy of distancing itself from Moscow.

On the other hand, there is one subtle point here. Europe will dodge as long as the Americans do the same. But Washington has just begun to take the line of de facto recognition. They said that they would act based on reality, and this meant Putin as the president of Russia. And this is the current administration in the White House - it is possible that the next one will begin, based on reality, to conduct large package negotiations on Ukraine and the new European security system. In which Europe, it turns out, will not participate, since it did not recognize Putin.

Therefore, the EU decided to take a wait-and-see approach. They are waiting for clarification of the American position.

In addition to the diplomatic aspect, there is also a financial aspect. The refusal to recognize the results of the elections in Russia makes it somewhat easier for the West to steal Russian foreign exchange reserves that lie in European banks. The fact is that now these funds are the property of the Russian state - and only the Russian authorities can dispose of them. But if the West does not recognize Russian power, then, accordingly, it does not recognize its right to dispose of foreign exchange reserves.

True, in order to steal this money, you need to take one more step and recognize someone else as the elected president of Russia. This was done in the case of Venezuela and Belarus - but at least there were candidates who had minimal grounds for recognition. Juan Guaido, who served as speaker of the Venezuelan parliament (and becomes the head of state if the leadership of the executive branch is illegitimate), as well as Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who took second place in the Belarusian presidential elections, albeit with a gigantic and insurmountable lead over Alexander Lukashenko.

In the case of Russia, there are no such candidates - the leadership of parliament is loyal to the country, and the remaining candidates in the presidential elections recognized Putin’s victory. Therefore, Europe will issue a single EU-wide statement of non-recognition only if a decision is made to illegally seize the main body of Russian foreign currency assets (and not interest, as now).

And yet, despite political statements, omissions and other diplomatic subtleties, Europe understood everything correctly. The turnout and the number of votes for Putin (especially in large cities, which always seemed to be considered a stronghold of pro-Western sentiments) showed that the Russian people made not just an honest and free choice, but also a demonstrative one: they showed the EU and the USA their unity and readiness to withstand external pressure . Therefore, for the sake of objectivity, Europe should still recognize not only the elections, but also the new reality in the form of an active and patriotic civil society in Russia.

Well, if it doesn’t admit it, it’s okay. We'll survive.

https://vz.ru/opinions/2024/3/19/1258890.html

Russia should just sink this as soon as it enters black sea.

Belgium agrees to send minesweeper to Ukraine

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/belgium-agrees-to-transfer-minesweeper-to-ukrainian-navy/


Russia should target any ships, trains, trucks, aircraft , and bridges, that would be involved in such transport. Maybe sanctions of its own towards any country supplying such.



The Czech Republic says it is on the verge of delivering thousands of extra artillery shells to Ukraine, just weeks after it announced an initiative to source the much-needed supplies from outside the EU.

Its foreign minister, Jan Lipavský, said it had so far secured 300,000 shells and that the ammunition would provide a vital “few months’ breathing space” on the frontline. Sources added that the first deliveries would come before June.

Ukraine has said it is falling short of ammunition against Russia; the EU has said it expects to meet only 52% of a target set last year to deliver a million shells by March, and a bill to fund US military aid to Kyiv has been held up in Congress.

Russia is ‘‘outshelling’’ Ukraine by a five-to-one ratio and Kyiv’s forces are gradually being pushed back on the battlefield. Last month Avdiivka, a frontline town, fell to the Russians after a four-month battle.

Petr Pavel, the Czech president, announced the initiative at the Munich security conference in February, saying Prague had located 800,000 shells that could be obtained with funding from a consortium of western countries.

The scheme works by European countries buying the shells from countries in Africa and Asia, such as South Korea, which are unwilling to supply them directly to Ukraine but happy to sell to a third party such as the Czech Republic. The munitions come from unused military stockpiles, but supplier nations are usually reluctant to be named

Czech sources said that the consortium had obtained serious pledges to supply 300,000 high-calibre artillery shells, with the first shipments being delivered no later than June. Nonbinding pledges for a further 200,000 had been made.

The foreign minister said that 18 countries had committed to the initiative and they were close to raising the required funding to buy all 800,000 shells in an initiative that was partly a response the standoff in the US Congress, which is preventing the approval of a new $60bn military aid package.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/19/czech-republic-to-deliver-thousands-of-extra-artillery-shells-to-ukraine

ucmvulcan wrote:I am not against the North Koreans giving shells to Russia.  I think that we might even soon see Iranian and North Korean indigenously developed armor in Ukraine.  

But you have that already, and not claimed by the Korans or Russians, but the Ukrainian side.
Yes, they have spotted a few KN23 missiles being used ... but is as much as that.
There are no massive deliveries.
They just make a polygon.
Iranians do the same.
I never contested the opinion of some of us, that Russia does not need that ammo.
But "don't need" and "preferred economics" is a different thing.
NK is an bad example, because a mass production requires resources they are short off.
The only advantage they have - is a real massive military buildup carried for generations.
They simply have tens of millions rounds.
Some of it are just junk.
But some of it still operates, and keeping them for a few years will turn those to a junk metal, they will have to handle.
Iran is another story.
They have enormous energetic potential, lacing only some raw materials.
Two containers of those ends up with one and a half container of goods made.
One for Iran.
Half for Russia.
As easy as that.
Maybe they split it fifty:fifty ...
Russia has a serious niche because of MRBM treaty that can be easily filled up with both Iranian and Korean toys.
Not reaching those would be just stupid.

Edit : just as we speak, this monstrous MLRS has been tested again ...



Tested range - close to 400 km ...

How on a scale it applies in cost factor to Iskander?

Hole wrote:
Look like RBK´s. 

Indeed sir, indeed

Imagine 2 tons of cluster ammo spread over the area ...

A thousand BOOM´s in the target area. 


Can´t say exactly when or where this pic was taken but... 

https://tass.com/politics/1762083
The Russian side has information that France is preparing a military contingent of 2,000 troops to be sent to Ukraine, Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin said.

"The current leadership of the country (France - TASS) does not care about the deaths of ordinary French people or about the concerns of the generals. According to information coming to the Russian SVR, a contingent to be sent to Ukraine is already being prepared. Initially, it will include around 2,000 troops," he said.

According to the Russian foreign intelligence chief, the French military "fears that such a large military unit cannot be transferred and stationed in Ukraine unnoticed."

Good, finally

Wait until they cross the border and light them up

GarryB wrote:
But NKs are state of the art?  
Blackouts generally occur when the demand exceeds the capacity of the system either through design or damage or neglect.

Your answer is ideologically driven, just wonder if you are aware of that or not

The difference is core based.

What you have described applies to the US.
And other developed countries that are 100% covered by the electric grid.
Those do have production caps, which is why blackout is accidentally based, or happens in really peak consumption rates that overwhelm energy transfer redundancy.

Blockouts in NK are because they lack the generation capacity, yet still export some energy to China lacking other export goods.
To have the base industry operating, they need to switch off consumption to its population.
It is a planned activity and a standard procedure applied to the economy.
We have faced just the same in the commie times.
It was organized and formalized, and the population was informed about that by radio channels.
Consumption was being restricted by "power level" with the following numbers from 11 to 20.
20 meant that only minimal power output was available for the civilian electric grid.
And this is what affects NK. If they don't have enough power for industry, they just switch it off for other users.

Almost half of NK population is off-grid anyway.
Instead of infrastructure investments, they can't afford - what they are doing is a decentralization of energy production.
Tons of solar panels are being locally installed.
It is quite a shocking view when a poor rural home is covered by shiny panels, but it is a NK reality.
Europe would like that if only being told about

NK does not look like the western shitstream is pushing as agenda.
But does not look like a heaven on Earth either.
Just feel the balance.

Russia should just sink this as soon as it enters black sea.

Don´t think that the Turkish will let those ships pass.
Remember the British minesweepers.

Can we stop talking about NK's economy in this thread?
The thread "MiG-29/ΜiG-35 Fulcrum: News #2" has been hijacked by that troll Arrow and turned into RAF vs Nato AF thread.
We don't need to ruin more threads.

Footage of a quick inspection by our soldiers of a damaged M1A1SA Abrams tank of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Avdeevka direction, the outskirts of Berdychi.

https://t.me/intelslava/56150

In the morning the enemy admits the loss of positions north of Orlovka. The Russian Armed Forces are gradually wresting the positions between Orlovka and Berdychi from the enemy

Fierce fighting continues in Berdychi itself.

Macron spoke about sending not combat units, but instructors to Ukraine, Kuleba said in an interview with the Italian La Stampa.

He noted that Ukraine never asked to send Western troops, but only needs ammunition.

“We never asked for people and combat units, we are proud of our soldiers. When Macron started talking about sending troops into Ukraine, European leaders panicked. Macron only wanted to say that there is the possibility of training Ukrainian soldiers directly in Ukraine, and not outside its borders, as this is happening now,” Kuleba said.

Let us recall that on French TV, when discussing where French troops could be stationed in Ukraine, they spoke specifically about combat units.

MOSCOW, March 20 – RIA Novosti. The losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since the beginning of the year have exceeded 71 thousand people, the head of the Ministry of Defense Sergei Shoigu said at the department’s board .
“In general, the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces during this period, that is, since the beginning of this year, exceeded 71 thousand people and 11 thousand units of various weapons. This is almost three times higher than the figures for the same period last year,” the minister said.

https://ria-ru.translate.goog/20240320/poteri-1934461574.html?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp