Ukraine: “I don’t need a ride, I need Ammunition”.

[The Dragon Demands]

Current status: 4:20 AM Ukraine Time (2:20 am UTC)

Russians have achieved a breakthrough in the east between Kharkiv and Donbas, reaching the major Ukrainian ammunition depot at Balakliia. Relatively close to Kharkiv, this may be the start of an encirclement of the city.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Current status: 4:20 AM Ukraine Time (2:20 am UTC)

Russians have achieved a breakthrough in the east between Kharkiv and Donbas, reaching the major Ukrainian ammunition depot at Balakliia. Relatively close to Kharkiv, this may be the start of an encirclement of the city.

Where are you hearing this?

[Clueless Northman]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

Yes, taking 3 days to go 50 miles when you committed ground forces on day one is a disaster when the military disparity is so large.

Took 2 full days to US armor to reach Basra outskirts back in 2003, which sits less than 50 km from border with Kuwait. Kiev outskirts were reached on Day 2 here. We'll see what Russian army will do to the cities, that's the big issue, as far as I'm concerned. Potential for mass civilian casualties, alas, and the whole thing can take a long time, as we've seen with Mosul.

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Nothing but big flat plains great for tanks between Crimea and Zaporizhzhia, it's just that they've been concentrating on pushing east to Mariupol because the Dunbas offensive got stalled and failed to take it.  The Russians probably could take Zaporizhzhia very quickly with a sudden tank thrust across the plains if they wanted to...but this would mean abandoning their forces in Donbas - and for what?

Azov battalion is in Mariupol. For obvious reasons, Russia wants to neutralize them and, most probably, to wipe them out entirely. Helps to explain why they focus so much on the city. If one is to take Putin at his word, then he'd probably like to see dead all people involved with Azov and Right Sector...

[Gorn]

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

It does baffle me some that in terms of just manpower, Russia has the 5th largest military in the world, no? So even if you take away all the support personnel, and take away the entire air and naval manpower except the marines, there should still be a few hundred thousand active service members with at least as many reservists. And they need to force 16 years old kids into this?

They also have the longest land border in the world to protect, with Caucasus, Baltics and the Chinese border being especially sensitive.

Their current forces are probably all they can spare without a mobilization.

[Gorn]

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Status as of 2:30 AM Ukraine time (12:30 AM UTC):

• North: massive attack on Kiev, including a push on fuel depot to the west, but large number of Ukrainian forces concentrated here. Much hinges on this. Russians were late getting to the city and they had time to prepare.
• East: the entire eastern front from Kharkiv to Donbas has been a debacle for the Russians, an outright debacle, no progress whatsoever.
• South: most Russian success in the south due to naval support from the Russian fleet. They've reached the Dnieper yesterday, secured some crossings, and may have just captured first major city, Kherson, at the mouth of the river. Pushing east towards Mariupol, even though the eastern force in Donbas was originally supposed to capture it (Donbas was supposed to support the southern thrust, not the other way around). Scattered reports that while they're in Kherson they haven't secured it, heavy Ukrainian counter-attacks. After Kherson unclear if they're willing to make the anticipated push on Odessa port to the west. On the one hand it's one of few places they can bring extensive naval advantage to bear, on the other hand, they're stretched thin so badly in Donbas to the east they might not want to overextend themselves even more.

There's five big cities on the Dnieper, from north to south: Kiev, Kremenchuk, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson at the mouth of the river.

Large number of Ukrainian forces are allegedly holding in reserve at Dnipro in the middle, ready to commit to whichever point the Russians get a breakthrough (which is a sound "defense in depth" strategy against a Russian blitzkrieg style offensive). 

Nothing but big flat plains great for tanks between Crimea and Zaporizhzhia, it's just that they've been concentrating on pushing east to Mariupol because the Dunbas offensive got stalled and failed to take it.  The Russians probably could take Zaporizhzhia very quickly with a sudden tank thrust across the plains if they wanted to...but this would mean abandoning their forces in Donbas - and for what?

So basically four key points of engagement now: Kiev, Mariupol, and Kherson are all tense city battles, though the fourth one at Kharkiv, the Russian advance has floundered. 

Even a medium-sized city cannot be taken easily or quickly if it is stubbornly defended (recent relevant examples: Vukovar, Sarajevo, Grozny).

If their timetable truly requires them to take Kyiv by Monday, it's pure madness. Encircle it, maybe.

[The Dragon Demands]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Where are you hearing this?

Combination of Twitter videos showing explosions there and updates to the locked Wikipedia page which updated its map

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#/media/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg

 

[Lightning Lord]

Mormont brought up a good point earlier in the thread. If anyone has the desire and the means, try to support Ukraine with a donation. I've been donating to a group called Razom (means "together"), which has been around for awhile. I don't have a long history with this group but people I trust recommended it to me. They're focused on getting medical supplies and training.

[SpaceChampion]

*Never mind, not true*

[Martell Spy]

Big Man Putin, levelling apartment complexes with missiles and killing little kids. I would guess he carefully tests each child to see if they are a Russian speaking before the death dealing.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I think it's entirely obvious that posters are holding onto hope for Ukranians even though they are staring a nuclear power in the face.

Part of that holding onto hope involves us seeing the invaders struggle. We can hope against hope that a David slays the Goliath, unlikely as it may be over time.

I will not give up my hope for the resistance.

[The Dragon Demands]

i'm hoping China pressures them to stop

[rotting sea cow]

8 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Maybe he should feel threatened given the performance (or lack thereof) of the Russian army we are witnessing. They look like paper tigers currently.

Bullies can always use a good bop on the nose to send them home.

I'm not sure what to think about the military operations.

During the Syrian intervention (a very complex theater, with Turkey, Israel and US involved in a way or another.) they were quite open regarding their military maneuvers. There is ample footage of bombers launching missiles, fighter jets and drones performing strikes, missile launches from ships, helicopter attacks, special operations, etc.  You cannot find anything of this sort in the interwebs. All footage and information is coming from the Ukranians.

Also, given the rather obscure political objectives for this invasion, we cannot know whether current military achievements are in line with those or not.

[polishgenius]

I mean I dunno about the details of the situation but you know something's not going quite right when they're losing fights to a statue:
 

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

He posed shirtless whilst fishing and hunting, and put on a photo op of driving around with hardy Russian bikers. He's probably far more obsessed with looking macho than Trump, in terms of actual physical prowess. His personal assessment of Trump was that he only walked the walk whilst Putin talked the talk, despite that also being questionable.

We mocked Putins shirtless macho bullshit on this board long before memes about him riding bears shirtless showed up I believe.

[Toth]

What the fuck, Scholz just had a surprisingly inspiring speech in which he announced to put 100 Billion Euro into an overhaul of the German military. That's indeed a surprise... and I seriously hope that this isn't just burning the money into more 'advisor fees', but actually allows us to have something that isn't just low hanging fruit for jokes.

I also hope that parallel to that we are seriously starting talks about a European army. I am sure we can cut a lot of costs on logistics if not every country has to implement their parallel system. Heck, we could even just specialize each military into supplying an arm they might be especially good at. It is horrifically necessary with the prospect of the US electing another Putin stooge, even if not the same one, who then dismantles NATO and takes away the only shield we have.

[Werthead]

Reports that a Russian attack on Irpin, just outside Kyiv, was repelled by Ukrainian territorial defence reservists.

Chinese students in Kyiv appealing for peace. Also, I suspect, a way of reminding the Chinese government to remind the Russian government, in forceful terms, that there are Chinese citizens in Ukraine and it would be unfortunate if anything happened to them (especially after the Russians inadvertently killed a bunch of Greek citizens outside Mariupol). 

Multiple Russian T-90s have been abandoned in fields because they either ran out of fuel or got bogged down in mud.

 

 

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Aren’t there a lot of Chinese in Siberia?  Would China be delighted to get access to the resources of the Russian far east?

The Russians are acutely aware that the entire eastern three-quarters of their country are lightly populated for an area so utterly colossal, and just to the south is a massively populated and arguably over-populated country in need of more land and resources. My guess is that at some point Russia has pointed out, in a very friendly way, it has nuclear weapons and nukes and did they mention the nukes?

[Werthead]

Another report of Ukrainian civilians convincing Russian forces to turn around and leave by talking and jeering at them in Russian, and refusing to roll over.

Extremely brave, bearing in mind Ukrainian civilian militia and ununiformed reservists are attacking Russian forces all over the country, so the Russians might have felt justified in shooting them all.

Lol at the Tolkien reference.

[Werthead]

Civil Aviation Twitter (which is A Thing) has been galvanised by the news that the frankly ludicrous Antonov An-225 Mriya, the largest aircraft ever built, has been rumoured destroyed at Hostomel Airport. The jet has/had six jet engines, 36 wheels for landing (!) and is such an utter bitch to fly it's been used a bare handful of times since it was commissioned in 1988. Its original purpose was to fly the Buran space shuttle around, but the fall of the Soviet Union and the cancellation of the Buran rendered its purpose obsolete (a second An-225 was left half-finished in a hanger nearby, where it's been ever since). Antonov are, quite stubbornly, proud of it and have been using it to do crazy things like set pointless world records for the highest-altitude art installation in history.

Obviously completely trivial, but it's gotten a lot of otherwise apathetic people interested and donating to good causes etc.

[Werthead]

British defence analysts this morning saying that Russia has committed at least 50% of the forces they had surrounding Ukraine already, and what's left is probably their strategic reserve for the operation, which may have been ear-marked for post-conflict occupation and relieving the front line troops. Russia may need to commit them to take Kyiv and Kharkiv (which is somehow still holding out), but will be left with nothing to fall back on. If the Ukrainians weather a second wave of attacks, Russia will have to amass another force to invade (which could take months, during which Ukraine would be heavily resupplied and reinforced), resort to high-damage weapons to force the issue or, well, give up.

 

The main push on Kyiv failed to materialise overnight, with Russian reinforcements reportedly still 10km outside the city and, in some cases, getting bogged down in heavy fighting in areas they'd supposedly already cleared. The expected heavy bombardment of Kyiv also failed to materialise

I'm pretty sure they forgot to scan their ClubCards. Rookie error.

[Luzifer's right hand]

19 hours ago, mormont said:

While there's no harm in digesting and discussing the news from Ukraine, I do encourage everyone to do a little more and support the victims of this unchecked aggression. Give a little to the charities saving lives in the area: I suggest MSF

https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/countries/ukraine

But many others are also raising money.

Great of you to point that out.

Also my charity of choice in such situations.