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Russian invasion of Ukraine


Sonam

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7 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Thread of satellite images showing Russian defensive preparations on the east bank of the Dnieper river.

 

Interesting tactic…doubt it’ll work. They seem to be committing a number of troops to static defensive positions, in a location with supply issues. I’d expect the Ukrainians to finish the drive to the Dnipro and then leave enough force to fix those static Russian forces and then move to cut the Russian land supply route to those forces.

A push south from Velyko Novosilka or so would drive toward Mariupol and threaten Russian supply lines, without needing to cross any major rivers or marshes. It would require the Russians to commit their mobile (trained) reserves to blunt the attack and prevent them from planning and executing any counteroffensives. There is current a 60 mile wide Russian occupied corridor, that’s it. If the Ukrainians can gain even 30 miles, the primary land supply route to Russia’s western forces will be subject to continuous interdiction, and even now the SMART artillery shells could be used to hit convoys, but only at the risk of howitzers very close to the front lines. If they cut that supply line, all the dug in troops will be reliant upon supplies delivered via a damaged bridge and ferries.

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Michael Kofman (born in Ukraine) a well known analyst of Russian military shares his opinions from being on the ground in Ukraine. 

https://warontherocks.com/2022/10/southward-and-eastward-pressure-on-russian-forces/

I think the one thing to focus on is the limits of Ukrainian logistics. Things like good off road trucks are something of a bottleneck. But the precision artillery has been a huge help. The mobiks seem to be more varied than we see, some may be getting good equipment and some training. Its not all the disasters we see in the videos. They also mention that the mobiks may become capable of allowing rotation of forces. 

In other matters, economically sanctions against oil shipments from Russia begin to kick in early December. This will likely push up world oil prices and intensify pressure internally on Russias economy. But for the moment the economic was is still a long game for the west. While Russias gas was in all about the next 3 months (Dec to Feb). 

 

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4 minutes ago, jagfox said:
When did Russia become all religious? 🤔😂

Past 30 years it has become very religious. It has adopted a very apocalyptic version of orthodox Christianity. For years I thought Putin and the others public religiosity was a show. But recently I have come to believe they really really believe it. It has become one of the defining characteristics of the Siloviki other than Shoigu and Kadyerov. They talk like they are the last guardians of true Christianity against atheistic liberalism and Islam. 

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4 minutes ago, dorlomin said:

Past 30 years it has become very religious. It has adopted a very apocalyptic version of orthodox Christianity. For years I thought Putin and the others public religiosity was a show. But recently I have come to believe they really really believe it. It has become one of the defining characteristics of the Siloviki other than Shoigu and Kadyerov. They talk like they are the last guardians of true Christianity against atheistic liberalism and Islam. 

I think the rates of religious observance among the public are pretty low, although higher than in USSR. 

 

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12 hours ago, dorlomin said:

They talk like they are the last guardians of true Christianity against atheistic liberalism and Islam

That very last bit might not be accurate. A major concern of Putin's has always been to keep the different population groups in Russia all consenting to his continued rule. Either alienating the more than 20M Muslim Russians or inciting non-Muslim Russians against their Muslim countrymen would both have made his life much harder. So his public comments on anything related to Islam have always been conciliatory.

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Updates in the war are fairly sporadic at the moment, seems like there is still fighting a lot of different areas but not much conclusive movement.  Russian forces, mainly Wagner according to mutliple sources, continue to press in Bakhmut in Donetsk but are held off substantial advances by Ukrainian defenders.  There were apparently some Ukrainian troops transferred there last week to help hold the line.  Reports of attacks by Ukrainians in Svatove and on the Kremina highway as well as attempted counter attacks by Russian forces there.  Ukraine seems to be inching towards the towns but it's not a fast advance.  In Kherson, there are continuing hints of withdrawal by Russia but no substantive advances by Ukrainian units.

In Donetsk there is a lot of talk about heavy Russian losses in the battle for the village of Pavlivka, where there are reports of hundreds of naval infrantry being killed and some videos of counter strikes and attacks by Ukrainian troops taking out a lot of Russian forces.  Reports from the Russian side mention hundreds of killed, all from one of the remaining elite units.  The utility of the attack is a bit puzzling as well - like Bakhmut there isn't much strategic value in seizing Pavlivka.  There have been repeated reports that attacks here and in Bakhmut are being made for political reasons, ie individual commanders wanting to be able to report advances and seizure of towns/villages/territory.  

This is an open letter written by members of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Russian Pacific Fleet about Pavlivka.

Quote

 

Dear Oleg Nikolaevich [Governer of the units home region, Primorsky Krai. The Marines of the 155th Marine Brigade are appeal to you. Once again, General Muradov and his fellow countryman Akhmedov threw us into an incomprehensible offensive in order for Muradov to earn bonuses from Gerasimov, and Muradov promised to Akhmedov the Hero of Russia award.

As a result, us and Kamchatka marines are advancing on Pavlivka. As a result of the "carefully" planned offensive by the "great commanders", we lost about 300 people killed, wounded and missing in 4 days. 50 percent of vehicles. This is just our brigade. The command of the district, together with Akhmedov, hide this and replace the official figures of losses for fear of responsibility.

How are they planning to capture the settlement by slipping through the tree plantations in which the enemy remained, now destroying our guys on the wounded evacuation and ammunition supply routes? In addition, Pavlivka is lower than Uhledar, they're striking us from the latter.

Oleg Nikolaevich, Primorye people! For how long will such mediocrities like Muradov and Akhmedov be planning military operations for the sake of their reports and receiving awards at the cost of the lives of so many people? They don't care about anything but demonstrating themselves. They call people meat.

We ask you to turn to the Supreme Commander so that they would send a commission, not from the Ministry of Defense where Muradov is protected by Gerasimov, but an independent one. Let them be asked about the purpose of such actions, their supply, and the results, without any embellishment.

How long can we endure this?

 

There are also videos of Ukrainian artillery strikes on Russian tanks and personnel in the village.

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Once everything freezes things can still be quite active in that part of the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Debaltseve

The Russian military (everybody chose to pretend it was local "separatists" at the time) seized a town called Debaltseve from the Ukrainians back in Jan & Feb 2015. The lull is more likely to be when it is muddy which is the case right now. An example further back in time would be the unfortunately named Operation Uranus back in late Nov 1942 during WWII:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Uranus

which was very bad news for Friedrich Paulus and the boys in Stalingrad, who fought on until late Jan after being surrounded.

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On 06/11/2022 at 21:11, dorlomin said:

Past 30 years it has become very religious. It has adopted a very apocalyptic version of orthodox Christianity. For years I thought Putin and the others public religiosity was a show. But recently I have come to believe they really really believe it....

Not convinced on that. Think they know that opposition to a woke cultural agenda plays well across broad swathes of the globe and that talking about Satan so they are viewed as fellow bible thumpers just helps to provide a point of difference from the "decadent West" at this point.

I always try to keep in mind how my grandfather (born not long after Queen Victoria had popped her clogs) reacted to finding out that the Village People were gay back in the 1970s after a lifetime spent with very different social attitudes from what is now the norm in the West. How are they no in jail? Whit are they daein on the telly? Switch that aff! etc etc.

Suspect a lot of what has been pushed in recent years on transgender rights has evoked similar deeply visceral responses in a great many people around the world. When that happens cynical politicians will find ways to push people's buttons and use it to their advantage with stuff like this:

Brian Soutar & Cardinal Winning but this time using RT rather than the Daily Record and with nuclear weapons and a plan for global domination is where we are currently at.

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On 03/11/2022 at 12:54, welshbairn said:

There's talk of shipping them via the Middle East which seems a bit unnecessary and hazardous compared to just sticking them on a train, joining up with the Vladivostok - Moscow line north of Tumangang.

Voila, a few days old…

https://www.38north.org/2022/11/first-traffic-observed-on-north-korea-russia-railway-link-in-several-years/

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