Russia-Ukraine War

[felter]

[...] Ukrainians destroyed an entire Russian Battalion.

Apparently, they did it using USA-supplied howitzers

Yeah, I would have to agree with that, I was looking at the pictures earlier they destroyed 73 vehicles and they hut them all in one go, no near misses or misses of any kind, so they had to have been using the M777 and M982 Excalibur guided ammunition. The M777 is the biggest headache for Russia, it has a potential effective range of 70KM and with the M982 Excalibur ammo they hit every time first time, so long as they have a drone pinging the target. Meanwhile, the best the Russians's can do is a little over 40KM, and it's touch and go if they hit the target or not. It's not just whether they hit or not, it seems to take the Russians forever to adjust and fire the next round, could take anywhere up to and beyond 2 minutes, while the Ukrainians with the M777 can fire rounds off in a matter of seconds between each round. So long as Ukraine are getting the ammo for the M777 it's a game changer, for example they have pushed the Russians back around the north and northeast of Kharkiv which means they can now use the M777 to hit the Russian main supply line or even Belgorod in Russia, and due to the extra 30KM range the Russians can't do much about it.

Watched a video Yesterday where the Ukrainians were using a DJI Mavic 3 Drone, that's a sub £2K drone. They are strapping bomblets to them flying over the Russians and letting the bomblets drop, they are raining terror onto the Russian soldiers as they do not see or hear the drones as they are so small and flying so high, but they often hear the bomblets dropping onto them as they run and duck for cover, most of the time it is far too late. There is nothing you can do about these drones, you could use radar to detect them but because they are the size of a bird there is no way to tell if it is actually a bird or a drone, so radar will be set to block them out. It's not like the Bayraktar which is 6m long and 12m wide and need a C&C to operate them, that DJI Mavic 3 Drone is less than 350mm wide when opened up and has a control range of 15KM and can be carried around in a backpack. Meanwhile, the Russians are using TU-141 drones which were last made in 1989, the Russians must have looted all of their military museums for some of the equipment they are using, it's so outdated.

[burger1]

People are listing Rand Pauls home address and google map location. Apparently people are upset about him delaying the 40b US aid package. Lend-lease work around this issue?

Turkey mad about pkk and Sweden. They'll probably bargain through the NATO joining process. Sweden and Finland still have safety insurances from several countries.

More oil refineries burn in Russia and someone tried to light a recruiting office on fire.

rumor - switchblade 600 drone haven't been delivered to Ukraine yet?

stats don't necessarily make sense vs recent videos.

May 12, 2022 stats

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/sta ... 73/photo/1

May 13, 2022 stats

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/sta ... 97/photo/1

[Warenwolf]

@Felter

I really want to warn people against forming their opinions regarding this conflict in particular and military hardware in general based on youtube videos and reddit posts.
Nobody who knows what they are talking about will post anything because their national DoD equivalent will hang them by their private parts if they posted anything confidential. If they are lucky.... And note that with confidential, I am not just talking about specifics of operation or hardware.

Which means that 90% of the info being posted online these days is being posted by amateurs or "has beens" who pontificate about stuff they never worked with. And when it comes to this conflict some of it is just plain government BS (Ghost of Kiev story). Remember before this war how many youtube channels talked about Russian equipment as if it was game changer?

DJI drones are made in China. Russians don't need radars to know where such drone is. It basically emits a signal "here I am" and if you know what to look for (and Chinese have shared this info with Russians) you'll know about the drone the moment it is turned on.
Also, drones that are this small can be indeed picked up by radar - periscopes of submarines were picked up by primitive radars already during ww2, couple of kilometers away. Today we can pick up insects (yepp....). Speed filtration that came decades later (not only speed but also flight pattern and frequency of wings flapping) and is available today all over the world (although it was rather bulky 20 years ago and may perhaps be).

Finally Tu-141 drone is indeed used by Ukraine - and perhaps only by Ukraine.... (source: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/ukrain ... 03f80c51ba)
The drone that flew over several countries into Croatian airspace was probably Ukrainian according to Croatian DoD. Russians on other hand still have plenty of stuff like Orlans,Kama and Kub-Bla around (which use foreign made equipment so perhaps their production is limited in the future).
Russian problem is not lack of equipment but the lack of competence.

[JSDD]

Erdogan regarding Finland's and Sweden's potential membership in NATO:

https://www.reuters.com/world/erdogan-s ... 022-05-13/

My take on it - he wants to hold the two country's application process as hostage in order to get concessions from EU or USA. After all he did ruin Turkeys economy in record time.

thats misleading or .. not quite correct
turkey doesnt want a 2nd greece in NATO with whom they got to struggle about ... those nordic countries are like the US / Britain / Germany / many other "morally superior", telling the turks what to do and whom to give away a big part of their country (namely: the kurds). turkey wont give away anything to the kurds ... and dont want to offend russia either since it has plans to further military projects regarding its air defence (S-400 and i think the S-500, too)

turkey was sanctioned by the US for buying the S-400 (CAATSA), but they wont back down on that deal
(no matter what the US might want another souveran country [turkey] to do)

US "officially" fears that S-400 can be used to spy on the stealth fighter F-35 "secrets" ...
what they really mean is that the radar profile of a F-35 can be detected by an S-400 and maybe transfered to russia (to kind of update the database)
what i find odd then is: why do the US sell the F-35 all over europe, where in the middle of it (kaliningrad) are sitting several S-400s that can detect those "secrets" ??
(that argument doesnt really make sense, but .. who cares, turkey is still sanctioned ^^)

.....................

yesterday i read about an attempt by the russians to cross a river with ponton bridges ... 2 of them being destroyed by the ukrainians, however a 3rd matched carry heavy vehicles across and the russians succeded, making it even harder to withstand russian advances in donbas in the coming weeks (htis sounds quite different from what i read here)

former german military advisor erich vad said yesterday in an interview similar things ... russians have a hard time advancing, yes, but their power is still overwhelming and its likely too late when western heavy weapons actually reach the front to enforce ukrainian defence lines (as we know, russia targeted bridges, refineries, fuel reservoirs and even the stashes of western weapoons directly, so the question remains: do the weapons even reach the frontlines at all ??)

[Warenwolf]

thats misleading or .. not quite correct
turkey doesnt want a 2nd greece in NATO with whom they got to struggle about ... those nordic countries are like the US / Britain / Germany / many other "morally superior", telling the turks what to do and whom to give away a big part of their country (namely: the kurds).

If true he would have complained about Finland and Sweden before. In fact, everyone was surprised that he voiced his objection now, while remaining silent before. The discussion about Finland and Sweden joining NATO has been ongoing within the organization since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Secondly, Finns to my knowledge rarely "preach" anything to anyone and quick google search finds nothing regarding PKK or Kurdish question and Turkey.
Swedes are bit different, since Kurds do have bit more influence there and many critics of Turkish regime have found refuge there. And while they are being treated decently, there was time when Swedish security services counted Kurds as "usual suspects" whenever anything bad happened until recent times.


So I am sticking with my assumption until Erdogan gets bit more concrete on what he wants (probably attention is big part of it too).

PS:
Erich Vad is one of those German political generals who are probably very competent theoretically but have never actually led any unit in a war zone, either in a conventional or an unconventional war. He predicted end of military operations in Ukraine within days in February and modified that to that Ukraine had no chance in long term (saying Battle of Kiev was purely symbolic) in the start of March, finally changing his tune somewhat in April. That is what I have to say about that.

[felter]

@Warenwolf

Everything that I have said so far has been confirmed as true, even yourself is confirming what I am saying. I use common sense, I may watch videos from YouTube and other sites and read what the press is saying but at the end of the day I take what I see with a pinch of salt and say to myself can that be true. You mentioned the Ghost of Kyiv, I never got into that story much it sounded plausible, but something was always off about it, and I have never mentioned it here or anywhere else for that matter. You also mentioned :

It basically emits a signal "here I am" and if you know what to look for (and Chinese have shared this info with Russians) you'll know about the drone the moment it is turned on.

I have never heard that before, can I ask just where did you get that information from, wasn't the Chinese or Russians by any chance.

As for what I said about the drones, I never said that radar can't pick them up, I said it's a waste of time using radar as there is no way to know if what the radar has picked up is a one-foot wide drone or a bird with a one-foot wingspan, even if they did then what, use a $50k missile to shoot it down. Also doesn't matter if they can use electronics to detect the drone either because I doubt that there are many Russians who have that equipment to be able to do just that, certainly those Russians fighting and getting bomblets dropped on them don't have that means, also even if they did have what are those soldiers going to do about them, not a thing. Besides, remember those small drones only have a max broadcast distance of 15KM that means you have to be probably nearer than 15 KM to detect that so called here I am signal, so if you were to use that signal along with radar to determine whether it was a drone or a crow you would need hundreds of thousands of radar all over Ukraine just to pick them up, impossible to do. Common sense or what.

The Russians themselves have confirmed that they are using TU-141 drones and have been using them in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The one that I linked was mainly to show what kind of drones they are using compared to what Ukraine are using, mainly showing the size difference, I mean there is no way you're going to think TU-141 drones are a crow. Also notice I never said the drone had been shot down or intercepted by Ukraine, I just showed a video of a downed drone, nothing fake about it. I have no idea where it happened, when it happened or even how it happened, but from the looks of it I personally think it looks like it just fell out of the sky, ran out of fuel or just broke, it doesn't look like it was shot at, but I have no idea and never commented on it.

So that's my personal thoughts on the drones, common sense tells me most of that. So what else do you think I have been telling lies about, surely not the river crossing, as I doubt there is not a mainstream news channel not talking about it (apart from in Russia). The use of the M777 is my own thoughts and I explained how I have come to that conclusion. Is it the range difference I mentioned, that is well documented. There are numerous places you can get all the facts about nearly all the weapons being used, not just Wiki, YouTube or reddit.

[Warenwolf]

@Warenwolf

Everything that I have said so far has been confirmed as true, even yourself is confirming what I am saying. I use common sense, I may watch videos from YouTube and other sites and read what the press is saying but at the end of the day I take what I see with a pinch of salt and say to myself can that be true.

(...)

I never accused you of lying. I just asked you to be more critical. Don't take this personally. And I don't feel that most of you wrote is verified information. Except of Russians failing to cross that river and struggling with Ukr drones. Rest was TV novella quality speculative IMHO and I would be happy if proven wrong. Sorry...

You also mentioned :

It basically emits a signal "here I am" and if you know what to look for (and Chinese have shared this info with Russians) you'll know about the drone the moment it is turned on.

I have never heard that before, can I ask just where did you get that information from, wasn't the Chinese or Russians by any chance.

(...)

I said it's a waste of time using radar as there is no way to know if what the radar has picked up is a one-foot wide drone or a bird with a one-foot wingspan, even if they did then what, use a $50k missile to shoot it down.

It has been known since 2017 publicly via SA troops dealing with insurgents starting to use off the shelf drones (Yemen) - later on rebels in Syria fighting with Russians experienced same issues (just from other side). It was known probably earlier by people who are professional. I don't have documentation at hand because my interest in the military matters is limited. So I don't store news articles.

However most recent indication about this was interview with Ukrainian drone operator who mentioned that their position were bombed right after turning the drone on which confirms 80-90% of my claims.

The interview was done for CNN:
https://youtu.be/b166ecyNBCw?t=117


Also your further writing about realities of warfare shows me that you are not updated regarding development of signal warfare in last 30 years (at least). There is so much to unpack there but lets keep it simple.
- lets take drone vs bird claim:
Rheinmetall must be then on the wrong track then (according to you) : https://youtu.be/pb5_F4_Eod8
I just linked that to their sales pitch because their radar which they kinda use (among other things) to discriminate between birds and small drones. And it is based on a system which is well over 15 years old and was used in artillery radars.

I am gonna on record here and say that you can go much cheaper than Rheinmetall's somewhat over engineered Skynex and use EW equipment to shut down civilian drones which costs in 250-300 euro currently of course with some limitations in range depending on the model and emitter type (google jammers operating at 2.4 to 2.48 GHz and/or 5.725 to 5.85 GHz). . At some point Russians will figure that out and not use mortars to shell positions of activated equipment.
They can also use GPS jammers and glonass filtering to disable navigation and operation in wide range - but I suspect that they don't have filtering capability on their glonass. Bayraktar and other mil drones will not be affected by that but all civilian ones will.

Now, I am not writing all of this because I think that Russians can easily deal with drones - they cannot. Their generals are busy with corruption and easy living instead of analyzing the drone use in Yemen, Afghanistan and Nagorno-Karabah conflict.
But I got bit triggered when you wrote that radar cannot separate between birds and drones with utter confidence (and now doubled down on that). And panicking russian soldiers due to garage modified civilian drones (which sounds like typical war tale) that cannot do anything with that - where is your interview of these troops? Or is the source of type simple "thrust me bro"?

The Russians themselves have confirmed that they are using TU-141 drones and have been using them in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The one that I linked was mainly to show what kind of drones they are using compared to what Ukraine are using, mainly showing the size difference,

Well I have linked to sources in my earlier post saying these drones are used by Ukrainians since 2014 (here is the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-141).
I want you to document that Russians have been using these drones since 2014.

I am totally supporting Ukraine and have nothing but contempt to the land steal that Kremlin is doing there but that does not mean that I am shutting down my brain just because "my team" says A is B.

That is a Balkan mentality for good or bad - "Distrust and doubly verify". Sorry if that line of thinking offends you because it does question your current conviction*.

Cheers.

[burger1]

Ukraine wins Eurovison. Might host Eurovision next year. Might be hosted in Mariupol ? Russia was banned from Eurovision.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/14/ente ... index.html

[JSDD]

Ukraine wins Eurovison. Might host Eurovision next year. Might be hosted in Mariupol ? Russia was banned from Eurovision.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/14/ente ... index.html

you think thats based on their merit ?? ... that show / those viewers wants to make a "statement of solidarity"
i'd never vote for a few peasants who are singing some traditional chant, thats just not my thing ...

[clakclak]

Ukraine wins Eurovison. Might host Eurovision next year. Might be hosted in Mariupol ? Russia was banned from Eurovision.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/14/ente ... index.html

you think thats based on their merit ?? ... that show / those viewers wants to make a "statement of solidarity"
i'd never vote for a few peasants who are singing some traditional chant, thats just not my thing ...

I think it is partially a political statement, but also partially based on their merits. I for example listened to the band Go_a, they participated for Ukraine in 2021 and were scheduled to do so in 2020 as well, long before the war ever broke out. In fact that was the only band to ever participate in Eurovision I listen to on a regular basis. The music, like that of the band that participated this year, is also a bit...let's call it unusual and they still got ranked high even without the war.

Also this years song was mixed with rap. Rap is a popular genre in many European countries. As examples here are the current number 1 singles from Germany and France.

[JSDD]

Also this years song was mixed with rap. Rap is a popular genre in many European countries. As examples here are the current number 1 singles from Germany and France.

i know, but your linked music is not "really" rap in my eyes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB7A1zJ ... el=BUSHIDO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzxbqGf ... l=AGGRO.TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9zm7jc ... l=AGGRO.TV

... or if you prefer english
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nHcSRQ ... Freak24100
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOhDfZR ... ngs10Bibby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPokr7j ... anDarkseid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j_cOsg ... ThugsMusic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Iqm3tz ... 4AllPeople

<!--end-off-topic-->

... just found a quite interesting map ...
https://liveuamap.com/

[felter]

@Warenwolf

The point I'm really trying to make is you are accusing me of doing something, while at the exact same time you are actually doing what you are trying to accuse me of doing, telling me that I'm bad for doing something, that I don't know what I'm talking about, while doing it yourself. Hypocrisy wins every time, yeah.

@JSDD

There are several maps like that doing the rounds from both sides, yours is more Russian orientated, which is fine. What I do find bad about it is a lot of the markers are for the exact same story, making it look like there is more going on than there is. While some others are pretty much outdated, for example that story on Russia stealing the grain, that's been in the news for the past week, but theirs is from 12 hours ago, old news. Then you have the mundane, showing they are desperate for something to post as one of the stories is "Russian Air Force Ilyushin Il-76MD RA-86906 airborne from Crimea" and that's it, that's big news .

[Vertigo 7]

liveUAmap is not a Russian or pro-russian site (they even go out of their way to tag Kremlin BS). It was developed in 2014 by Ukrainian software engineers and correlates data from government and social media sources and attempts to geo-locate many of the video and photographs that are posted. They've actually been doing a pretty good job of keeping nonsense off the site, so much so the UN and others officials often use it as a resource.

[Warenwolf]

@Warenwolf

The point I'm really trying to make is you are accusing me of doing something, while at the exact same time you are actually doing what you are trying to accuse me of doing, telling me that I'm bad for doing something, that I don't know what I'm talking about, while doing it yourself. Hypocrisy wins every time, yeah.

@JSDD

There are several maps like that doing the rounds from both sides, yours is more Russian orientated, which is fine. What I do find bad about it is a lot of the markers are for the exact same story, making it look like there is more going on than there is. While some others are pretty much outdated, for example that story on Russia stealing the grain, that's been in the news for the past week, but theirs is from 12 hours ago, old news. Then you have the mundane, showing they are desperate for something to post as one of the stories is "Russian Air Force Ilyushin Il-76MD RA-86906 airborne from Crimea" and that's it, that's big news .

Moving the goalpost technique, moving the discussion away from factual into personal Yes, I am terrible human being and all that.

Be that as it may, if you jump to conclusions at effing 0% evidence like you did just now with liveUAmap, claiming it is pro-Russian, and decide to share your "wisdom" to the world, people WILL call you out. If that offends you... sucks to be you, I guess.

[mr.WHO]

Seems like Ukraine success east of Charkiv, Russian positions in Izum are in danger of cut off - aparently Russia is already withdrawing forces from there, to go for (yet again) more shallow encirclement strategy.


One need to admit - for all the sh*tty attack strategy and execution, Russian retreats seem to be among ones of the highest level of professionalism (orderly, swift, with relatively few losses).

This really show the morale problem, as it's probably like:
"Lets attack" - soldiers "F*ck no!"
"Lets retreat" - soldiers "lead the way boss".

[clakclak]

Also this years song was mixed with rap. Rap is a popular genre in many European countries. As examples here are the current number 1 singles from Germany and France.

i know, but your linked music is not "really" rap in my eyes

The music I linked is the number 1 single charts. That is why I linked it not because I like it. I prefer my rap with message and not from childish and homophobic idiots like Bushido who act like they are 'Gangsta' rappers but are under constant protection by the police and doing internships with the CDU. You can not get more establishment than that, it is just laughable.

<!--end-off-topic-->

As for Ukraine I am also constantly suprised by the reports of advances made by the Ukrainien army.

Ukrainian troops counter-attacking against Russian forces in the country's northeast have pushed them back from the city of Kharkiv and advanced as far as the border with Russia, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.

I honestly thought the turning point would come when the Russian Army withdrew from Kiev and regrouped in the east. Yet it seems as if the Ukrainian army is far more capable (or the Russian army far less capable) than I would ever have thought to be possible.

[mr.WHO]

I honestly thought the turning point would come when the Russian Army withdrew from Kiev and regrouped in the east. Yet it seems as if the Ukrainian army is far more capable (or the Russian army far less capable) than I would ever have thought to be possible.

Kiev is the turning point - since then Russia is loosing more territory than it's taking.
Ukraine seems to be going for steady, well planned push, one front a time.

They cleared Kiyv, then North-East, then are finalizing Charkiv.
The next seem like they are going to break norther pince of Izum, which will make Russia fail the enciclement objective.
The summer offensive is projected to go for center (towards Melitpol and Mariupol) to break Russia land bridge.

Seem like Cherson region is the last on the list, but seeing that ENTIRE Russian fron there hold on TWO bridges, Ukraine can cut and trap them any time they want - thus Russian control of Cherson is rather fragile and low priority for Ukraine offensive.

[chew-ie]

This really show the morale problem, as it's probably like:
"Lets attack" - soldiers "F*ck no!"
"Lets retreat" - soldiers "lead the way boss".

There's a choreography in the works:



----

@tomiahonen also has some nice details on why russia won't like the new NATO borders.

https://nitter.net/tomiahonen?cursor=HB ... oAAA%3D%3D

[JSDD]

They cleared Kiyv, then North-East, then are finalizing Charkiv.
The next seem like they are going to break norther pince of Izum, which will make Russia fail the enciclement objective.
The summer offensive is projected to go for center (towards Melitpol and Mariupol) to break Russia land bridge.

Seem like Cherson region is the last on the list, but seeing that ENTIRE Russian fron there hold on TWO bridges, Ukraine can cut and trap them any time they want - thus Russian control of Cherson is rather fragile and low priority for Ukraine offensive.

https://liveuamap.com/

... take a look at it
the encirclement will be smaller, not from isyum on, they gonna encircle tightly around severodonetsk and lysychansk (my guess)
isyum was quite hard to get, and will be even harder to reclaim by ukrainians, cause its a difficult terrain (isyum lies between 2 forests and a river flows through all of it)

// russians too, got to chew several times before they can swallow that big piece ^^

[mr.WHO]

... take a look at it
the encirclement will be smaller, not from isyum on, they gonna encircle tightly around severodonetsk and lysychansk (my guess)
isyum was quite hard to get, and will be even harder to reclaim by ukrainians, cause its a difficult terrain (isyum lies between 2 forests and a river flows through all of it)

// russians too, got to chew several times before they can swallow that big piece ^^

Looking at all previous failures, I wouldn't be suprised if this tiny encirclement would fail as well.
Aparently Severodonetsk and Lysychans are ideal defensive positions for Ukraine (hills and river dominating over fortified city) - if Russia strugle in Mariupol, then this will be Mariupol on steroids, plus Ukrainian reinforcements would actually be in striking range to break encicrlement.

Still, even if it succeed, it will trap much less Ukrainian forces, so strategic impact would be very limited (comparing to originally planned ecicclement).