Ukraine: Ongoing…

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

What’s with all the Ukraine UFO memes?

 

[Spockydog]

A meteor burnt-up over Kyiv.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Spockydog

[Makk]

It sounds likely the counteroffensive will begin quite soon, possibly the next few days. There has been some action in the south already. 

[Corvinus85]

Is it me or is this new counteroffensive being advertised more than previous ones? Like when the Ukrainians outmaneuvered the Russians and pushed them out of Kharkiv and pushed into Luhansk. That took everyone by surprise.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Corvinus85

[Which Tyler]

5 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Is it me or is this new counteroffensive being advertised more than previous ones? Like when the Ukrainians outmaneuved the Russians and pushed them out of Kharkiv and pushed into Luhansk. That took everyone by surprise.

To the point where I won't believe it until it's already happened

[A Horse Named Stranger]

32 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Is it me or is this new counteroffensive being advertised more than previous ones? Like when the Ukrainians outmaneuvered the Russians and pushed them out of Kharkiv and pushed into Luhansk. That took everyone by surprise.

Well, last counter offensive was also heavily advertised, just that Ukraine's PR department told everyone they'd strike in a different place than they ultimately did.

 

[Corvinus85]

4 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Well, last counter offensive was also heavily advertised, just that Ukraine's PR department told everyone they'd strike in a different place than they ultimately did.

 

Inconceivable!!! 

[The Anti-Targ]

Didn't the leak say the counteroffensive would happen on 30 April? Which of course would mean almost everyone expecting  Ukraine to delay. Perhaps the leak was some 4D chess and it was done to deliberately make everyone (esp Russia) think about time rather than place (whereas last time it made people think about place) and to believe the counteroffensive would be later, but Ukraine was ready to go basically when the leak happened.

There is certainly something fishy about an Air National Guard soldier (wasn't that Bush the lesser's old Viet Nam war thing? Though in Texas not Mass.) leaking such sensitive secret material. It was either a Russian sympathiser higher up in the spy network that fed legit info, or it was counter-intelligence using them as a useful idiot to feed out false information. There is a conspiracy in there somewhere the only question is whether it's pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine.

[Maithanet]

12 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

There is certainly something fishy about an Air National Guard soldier (wasn't that Bush the lesser's old Viet Nam war thing? Though in Texas not Mass.) leaking such sensitive secret material. It was either a Russian sympathiser higher up in the spy network that fed legit info, or it was counter-intelligence using them as a useful idiot to feed out false information. There is a conspiracy in there somewhere the only question is whether it's pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine.

Over a million people in the US have Top Secret clearance.  The idea that this seemingly unimportant guy would have access to documents like this isn't crazy.  Plenty of important information is first filtered through low level, relatively young, analysts, before being distilled for more important higherups. 

Not to dismiss a conspiracy outright, anything is possible and I haven't been following this closely.  But the idea that it's just common sense that this guy couldn't have gotten access to such material is false. 

[SeanF]

@Werthead18th century Russia was governed by Germans who spoke French.  The vernacular was despised.  Remarkably, it was ruled by women for 67 years.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

13 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Didn't the leak say the counteroffensive would happen on 30 April? Which of course would mean almost everyone expecting  Ukraine to delay. Perhaps the leak was some 4D chess and it was done to deliberately make everyone (esp Russia) think about time rather than place (whereas last time it made people think about place) and to believe the counteroffensive would be later, but Ukraine was ready to go basically when the leak happened.

There is certainly something fishy about an Air National Guard soldier (wasn't that Bush the lesser's old Viet Nam war thing? Though in Texas not Mass.) leaking such sensitive secret material. It was either a Russian sympathiser higher up in the spy network that fed legit info, or it was counter-intelligence using them as a useful idiot to feed out false information. There is a conspiracy in there somewhere the only question is whether it's pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine.

Rumoredly that idiot kid was in charge of the Burn Bag. At least I heard/read that somewhere. 

[Corvinus85]

The Russian Air Force has once again shown its excellent capabilities by bombing Belgorod.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-belgorod-bomb-4c806ca6765e018ffccef16c233013a7

[ThinkerX]

This article claims that one in five of the Russian convicts recruited to fight in Ukraine is HIV positive. This makes me wonder just how many regular troops/draftees are also HIV positive, along with the broader population.

Then again, the article could be wildly in error.

A fifth of Russian prisoners recruited to fight in Ukraine are HIV positive, with convicts promised anti-viral drugs if they agreed to fight: report (msn.com)

• A fifth of recruits in Russian prisoner units are HIV positive, says Ukraine, per The New York TImes.
• Prisoners were recruited to join the Wagner Group in Ukraine with promises of anti-viral medication.
• Captured soldiers said they agreed because Russian prisons deprived them of effective HIV treatment.

[Lord of Oop North]

1 hour ago, ThinkerX said:

This article claims that one in five of the Russian convicts recruited to fight in Ukraine is HIV positive. This makes me wonder just how many regular troops/draftees are also HIV positive, along with the broader population.

Then again, the article could be wildly in error.

A fifth of Russian prisoners recruited to fight in Ukraine are HIV positive, with convicts promised anti-viral drugs if they agreed to fight: report (msn.com)

• A fifth of recruits in Russian prisoner units are HIV positive, says Ukraine, per The New York TImes.
• Prisoners were recruited to join the Wagner Group in Ukraine with promises of anti-viral medication.
• Captured soldiers said they agreed because Russian prisons deprived them of effective HIV treatment.

Russia has a very large population of HIV positive individuals, the highest in Europe. Something like 1-1.5MM people.

[Werthead]

The sheer volume of Russian casualties involved in the assault on Bakhmut is almost impossible to fathom. A single Ukrainian forward observation post with 5 people manning it repulsed at least half a dozen "human wave" attacks involving dozens of Russian soldiers walking "straight at them" with no effort made to take cover. The Ukrainian soldiers defending the position believed that the Russians wanted the defenders to open fire so they could try to zero their position for mortar fire. When that proved ineffective, they sent in a single tank that was able to take the position and force the Ukrainians to retreat (they didn't a Javelin, otherwise the tank would have been toast as it had no infantry screen). In order to take the very minor position the Russians had lost around two dozen lives.

This system is not really working very well. Not only does it expend lives, it devastates Russian morale. We're again hearing about Russian formations that turned round and walked off the battlefield after sustaining so many casualties they were no longer combat effective. Apparently "blocking troops" have been assigned in key sectors to fire on Russian troops who retreat, but in some cases they've refused or apparently have retreated themselves when coming under fire. Some Russian formations have been obliterated, so their "blocking troops" have then been told to take their place on the front line, which is causing the whole system to collapse.

The reason for Russian successes, limited as they are, is the use of penal battalions and troops who have very little to live for, and their expenditure of massive amounts of artillery to take bafflingly unimportant positions. The Ukrainians have been hoarding their own artillery reserves for their own offensives, so have not been using counter-battery fire effectively, which is one of the reasons they were able to drive the Russians back from Kherson.

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

The sheer volume of Russian casualties involved in the assault on Bakhmut is almost impossible to fathom. A single Ukrainian forward observation post with 5 people manning it repulsed at least half a dozen "human wave" attacks involving dozens of Russian soldiers walking "straight at them" with no effort made to take cover. The Ukrainian soldiers defending the position believed that the Russians wanted the defenders to open fire so they could try to zero their position for mortar fire. When that proved ineffective, they sent in a single tank that was able to take the position and force the Ukrainians to retreat (they didn't a Javelin, otherwise the tank would have been toast as it had no infantry screen). In order to take the very minor position the Russians had lost around two dozen lives.

This system is not really working very well. Not only does it expend lives, it devastates Russian morale. We're again hearing about Russian formations that turned round and walked off the battlefield after sustaining so many casualties they were no longer combat effective. Apparently "blocking troops" have been assigned in key sectors to fire on Russian troops who retreat, but in some cases they've refused or apparently have retreated themselves when coming under fire. Some Russian formations have been obliterated, so their "blocking troops" have then been told to take their place on the front line, which is causing the whole system to collapse.

The reason for Russian successes, limited as they are, is the use of penal battalions and troops who have very little to live for, and their expenditure of massive amounts of artillery to take bafflingly unimportant positions. The Ukrainians have been hoarding their own artillery reserves for their own offensives, so have not been using counter-battery fire effectively, which is one of the reasons they were able to drive the Russians back from Kherson.

The sheer incompetence of the Russian commanders leaves me scratching my head.  It’s as if their commander were General Melchett.

[Maltaran]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The sheer incompetence of the Russian commanders leaves me scratching my head.  It’s as if their commander were General Melchett.

If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through!

[Toth]

9 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The sheer incompetence of the Russian commanders leaves me scratching my head.  It’s as if their commander were General Melchett.

The issue is that their whole culture is rotten to the core by lies and distrust. I recently caught up on the much lauded analysis videos by Perun and what he said about what likely happened just fits the facts like a glove. Basically the scouts don't dare to get close to the Ukrainian positions, but still deliver a rough guess that underestimates the strengths of the Ukrainian positions. So the first wave gets sent in to take it, but get slaughtered because their force is far too small. Their officers, in an attempt to avoid punishment for their failure/to look good compared to the other officers reporting faked success stories, embellish in their report that they inflicted massive casualties on the Ukrainians and only need some armor for a final push to give them the rest. The general receiving that report has to think the Ukrainians are at the cusp of faltering, so stretched thin as the Russians are, sends in just enough reinforcements to finish the job, only for them to get slaughtered again. Then the officers of those reinforcements lie about what happened, rinse and repeat.

It also feels just right when considering how many high-ranking generals we have seen inspecting the frontlines themselves in a brief window after the first failures and then getting HIMARS to the face. The Russian generals likely all suspect that all their reports are fabricated, but checking the situation themselves is too deadly to risk it. And dismissing these reports and give orders trusting their gut makes them personally accountable for if things go wrong this way. Therefore they act like they blindly trust the fake reports and send in the next wave to their deaths, knowing that when someone even higher comes knocking, they can say they gave out utterly sensible orders that fit to the picture they had, so those giving the intel were to blame, not them for giving the stupid orders.

It is utter insanity, but... it's vranyo at its most insidious expression and the only rational explanation why the Russians keep running in small groups one after another against heavily fortified positions just about everywhere at the contact line. Amusingly I just had to think that I unwittingly used that same concept in one of my Star Wars fanfics. An Imperial backwater outpost with horrifically outdated equipment that skimped out on training exercises for a decade gets utterly trounced by Rogue Squadron. Later as a small subtle joke when Darth Vader reads the report that ticks him off to where the rebels are, the commander claims a massive Rebel Attack with capital ships that they heroically fended off, instead of a single squadron blowing all their shit up and escape unscathed. At the time I didn't really think that any real military would be doing stuff like that in the middle of an actual symmetric war, but... here we are. I guess I have lots of new material to portray the Empire as frustratingly corrupt in the next installment...

[SeanF]

7 minutes ago, Toth said:

The issue is that their whole culture is rotten to the core by lies and distrust. I recently caught up on the much lauded analysis videos by Perun and what he said about what likely happened just fits the facts like a glove. Basically the scouts don't dare to get close to the Ukrainian positions, but still deliver a rough guess that underestimates the strengths of the Ukrainian positions. So the first wave gets sent in to take it, but get slaughtered because their force is far too small. Their officers, in an attempt to avoid punishment for their failure/to look good compared to the other officers reporting faked success stories, embellish in their report that they inflicted massive casualties on the Ukrainians and only need some armor for a final push to give them the rest. The general receiving that report has to think the Ukrainians are at the cusp of faltering, so stretched thin as the Russians are, sends in just enough reinforcements to finish the job, only for them to get slaughtered again. Then the officers of those reinforcements lie about what happened, rinse and repeat.

It also feels just right when considering how many high-ranking generals we have seen inspecting the frontlines themselves in a brief window after the first failures and then getting HIMARS to the face. The Russian generals likely all suspect that all their reports are fabricated, but checking the situation themselves is too deadly to risk it. And dismissing these reports and give orders trusting their gut makes them personally accountable for if things go wrong this way. Therefore they act like they blindly trust the fake reports and send in the next wave to their deaths, knowing that when someone even higher comes knocking, they can say they gave out utterly sensible orders that fit to the picture they had, so those giving the intel were to blame, not them for giving the stupid orders.

It is utter insanity, but... it's vranyo at its most insidious expression and the only rational explanation why the Russians keep running in small groups one after another against heavily fortified positions just about everywhere at the contact line. Amusingly I just had to think that I unwittingly used that same concept in one of my Star Wars fanfics. An Imperial backwater outpost with horrifically outdated equipment that skimped out on training exercises for a decade gets utterly trounced by Rogue Squadron. Later as a small subtle joke when Darth Vader reads the report that ticks him off to where the rebels are, the commander claims a massive Rebel Attack with capital ships that they heroically fended off, instead of a single squadron blowing all their shit up and escape unscathed. At the time I didn't really think that any real military would be doing stuff like that in the middle of an actual symmetric war, but... here we are. I guess I have lots of new material to portray the Empire as frustratingly corrupt in the next installment...

Utter absurdity.

No organisation can function if people can’t report unwelcome truths.

[Kalbear]

I think there's also another potential boon - killing a whole lot of prison population that is costly and isn't of much value. Obviously that's not all of it, but it is certainly better than, ya know, paying them.