What's going on in Ukraine?

[petej]

Twitter was indicating that Ukraine are going on the offensive in kharkiv oblast as well.

[tabascoboy]

Twitter was indicating that Ukraine are going on the offensive in kharkiv oblast as well.

[yermum]

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1565 ... 41538.html

Interesting perspective on ”officer slavery" in the Russian army

[fishfoodie]

It's getting to the point where China might be thinking that they wait a little longer, & they could invade Russia, & gobble up vast amounts of it's natural resources, & there's SFA that Moscow could do about it, & I doubt the rest of the world would really give a shit.

[tabascoboy]

Predictably Russia have dismissed this proposal

[petej]

It's getting to the point where China might be thinking that they wait a little longer, & they could invade Russia, & gobble up vast amounts of it's natural resources, & there's SFA that Moscow could do about it, & I doubt the rest of the world would really give a shit.

China doing that would lead to potential nuclear war. It doesn't need to. At this rate Russia will fall over on its own so they might as well let it do so and take the territory afterwards.

[_Os_]

It's getting to the point where China might be thinking that they wait a little longer, & they could invade Russia, & gobble up vast amounts of it's natural resources, & there's SFA that Moscow could do about it, & I doubt the rest of the world would really give a shit.

That would be existential for Russia, they would nuke China assuming they have functional missiles, China would nuke them back of course.

I've read some analysis on nuke use during this conflict (not old Cold War/game theory stuff), the thinking is Russia has broken a taboo by invading Ukraine (this war is different to Iraq/Afghanistan, in that it's clearly imperial the intention is to take Ukraine and turn it into part of Russia permanently) so Russia could potentially use a nuke on Kyiv and break another taboo. Putin clearly isn't an entirely rational actor, game theory and all the rest of it depends on rational actors not doing crazy shit. So maybe Putin just gets mad and uses a nuke.

The current thinking seems to be, using a nuke creates a problem for Russia. Because much like launching a full scale invasion of Ukraine, it doesn't really work if can't be backed up. What ground forces does Russia push in after it uses a nuke? It would be foolish to use a nuke, have nothing to follow it up, be sanctioned almost literally to death, then who knows what (chaos and civil war?).

Haven't read anything on China v Russia. My understanding of the Chinese military is they're geared for an amphibious conflict over Taiwan. Russia definitely couldn't sustain a conflict with China though, they depend on China for electronic components their military uses and now also North Korea (a Chinese client state) for finished ammunition. China would have to decide if it's worth potentially losing millions of citizens for the eastern half of Russia, when the way Putin/Russia are going all those resources will be Chinese anyway.

Your general point holds though I think. It's a point I immediately made when this phase of the conflict started. From memory I said 10s of thousands would die in the conflict and Russia would struggle, this would lead to a weakening of Russian military strength with a decent chance of conflicts sparking elsewhere because of that and Russia being impotent to do much about them. 6 more months of this and Russia won't have the strength to deal with Moldova if they start doing a Ukraine, and if any of Georgia/Chechnya/Dagestan heat up again they may not be able to put the lid back on like they have before.

[fishfoodie]

Predictably Russia have dismissed this proposal

Well Kursk I & II are within 50km of the Ukraine border; & while so far, the incidents involving carelessly discarded matches have been military targets; if the Orcs decide to make a civilian Nuclear reactor a target, they need to understand that that blade cuts both ways, & they've just put ever Russian reactor on the list of legitimate targets, & the one closest to Moscow will be first on the list !

[Edit] Or perhaps St Petersberg, seeing as that's Vlads hometown ?

[lemonhead]

Predictably Russia have dismissed this proposal

Well Kursk I & II are within 50km of the Ukraine border; & while so far, the incidents involving carelessly discarded matches have been military targets; if the Orcs decide to make a civilian Nuclear reactor a target, they need to understand that that blade cuts both ways, & they've just put ever Russian reactor on the list of legitimate targets, & the one closest to Moscow will be first on the list !

[Edit] Or perhaps St Petersberg, seeing as that's Vlads hometown ?

You'd have to hope collectively they'll know when to stop gambling over this.

Only goes postal through Vlad himself. Just suppose he did spend a lifetime believing his own bullshit and only has a few short, painful years left on this earth....would he really give two f#cks what happens next or who's left to pick up the pieces?

[fishfoodie]

Predictably Russia have dismissed this proposal

Well Kursk I & II are within 50km of the Ukraine border; & while so far, the incidents involving carelessly discarded matches have been military targets; if the Orcs decide to make a civilian Nuclear reactor a target, they need to understand that that blade cuts both ways, & they've just put ever Russian reactor on the list of legitimate targets, & the one closest to Moscow will be first on the list !

[Edit] Or perhaps St Petersberg, seeing as that's Vlads hometown ?

You'd have to hope collectively they'll know when to stop gambling over this.

Only goes postal through Vlad himself. Just suppose he did spend a lifetime believing his own bullshit and only has a few short, painful years left on this earth....would he really give two f#cks what happens next or who's left to pick up the pieces?

For the last few decades the West has made the mistake of hoping that Vlad was a rational actor, & he would understand that what was in Russia's best interest,was what was in his best interest. IT HASN'T WORKED !!!

Now it's time to speak over his head; & point out to the Russian people; that what's in their interest isn't what's in their Dictators.

I was struck by one of those twitter translations of phone calls, where the soldier referred to the recent Chernobyl TV series; the Russians don't trust authority, & Chernobyl was the epitome of why that was.

If Ukraine starts broadcasting over the border, & makes it clear that if the Orcs cause a nuclear accident in their territory, then they'll reciprocate, Putin might not care, put the people down wind will !

Russians around the border are already seeing consequences, that aren't visible elsewhere, & these are towns that know what way the wind blows, & know where the contamination will blow.

[tabascoboy]

Interesting, Iran selling to both sides or being supplied through a proxy? There are arguments against these being captured from past or current operations

[Hellraiser]

The Russian front line in Kharkiv is collapsing. This map is already out of date, Russian sources already confirm UAF have retaken Semenivka and Bryhadrivka.

Izyum is going to be cut off.

[tabascoboy]

Seems to be a hell of a lot going on in the last 24 hours, with the only negative being a claimed advance by Wagner Group. I don't want to raise my hopes and expectations too soon though. With the well known RU aversion of passing bad news up the chain of command, this is only likely to hamper their ability to react. Also the fear is that even though RU may be pushed back in more places it doesn't much hinder their ability to keep launching malicious reprisal attack by rocket and missile against cities such as last night yet again in Kharkiv city centre, hopefully the decrease in stocks will have more and more of an effect ( though the new supplies from North Korea are concerning).

[robmatic]

The Russian front line in Kharkiv is collapsing. This map is already out of date, Russian sources already confirm UAF have retaken Semenivka and Bryhadrivka.

Izyum is going to be cut off.

Many of the pro-Russian Twitter accounts have gone amusingly quiet today.

[Hellraiser]

UAF have retaken Chkalovske, the M03 is now clear between Kharkiv and Volokhiv Yar.

[Hellraiser]

[Hellraiser]

[_Os_]

Igor Girkin on the Ukrainian offensive. You have to be careful with Girkin, he's an FSB agent and general bad guy, but he's also quite clever in how he uses social media so he sometimes sounds like he's against Russia. Really his gripe with Putin is that he doesn't think Putin has gone far enough (he wants full Russian mobilisation and conscription). Anyway, given all that Girkin's take.

[Hellraiser]

[Flockwitt]

Igor Girkin on the Ukrainian offensive. You have to be careful with Girkin, he's an FSB agent and general bad guy, but he's also quite clever in how he uses social media so he sometimes sounds like he's against Russia. Really his gripe with Putin is that he doesn't think Putin has gone far enough (he wants full Russian mobilisation and conscription). Anyway, given all that Girkin's take.

yes, it's carefully worded... the Ukrainians hit 3rd rate troops who weren't properly supported by heavy units might be more accurate. Still it's positive enough, given the vulnerability here of the now exposed Izym bridgehead the Russians have a major headache about what to do.

[laurent]

Igor Girkin on the Ukrainian offensive. You have to be careful with Girkin, he's an FSB agent and general bad guy, but he's also quite clever in how he uses social media so he sometimes sounds like he's against Russia. Really his gripe with Putin is that he doesn't think Putin has gone far enough (he wants full Russian mobilisation and conscription). Anyway, given all that Girkin's take.

yes, it's carefully worded... the Ukrainians hit 3rd rate troops who weren't properly supported by heavy units might be more accurate. Still it's positive enough, given the vulnerability here of the now exposed Izym bridgehead the Russians have a major headache about what to do.

That is pretty much all the reserve they have while the Ukrainians have been training their reserves for a while now. Being unable to equip them early on they have been unwilling to throw them in with poor gear and no training.

The Russians are not ...

[laurent]

and a light heated moment

[_Os_]

Noticing something new, I've seen 3 or 4 videos by Russians of Russians in entrenched positions basically being destroyed. Usually split into multiple parts, I suspect by Ukrainians so the earlier PG rated parts can be shared more easily, these videos could only come from POWS or corpses.

Gruesome, but they do graphically show what it's like when a Russian unit is pinned, Ukraine artillery and fire coming in and bodies are piling up/men getting shot.

Thought this was particularly interesting. There's 2 parts, part 1 is PG rated, part 2 I'm not sharing and is at the low end of the scale but there's still very clearly Russians dead/dying. It shows how badly cornered Russia is becoming in Kherson, one thing looking at maps, quite another to see it from the perspective of a truck crossing a pontoon bridge over the Dnipro.

[fishfoodie]

I suspect by Ukrainians so the earlier PG rated parts can be shared more easily, these videos could only come from POWS or corpses.

I hadn't really put that together myself, but it does make sense !

There's something grimly ironic, about filming your own demise, on a mobile phone, that very probably gave away your units position, & movement, in the first place, & triggered the attack at the most vulnerable position.

It's years now since Israel started cracking down on it's troops taking their phones with them, when they were on duty, & they discovered the likes of Strava showing data, they didn't want just appearing on the web, (I even remember one rather surreal phone bridge, with one guy doing his reserved duty as a tank driver in the Golan). The Orcs can't do one fucking thing about it either, because the decades of graft, & looting means that their army has to rely on civilian comms systems, or they'd already have lost.

[Hellraiser]

[tabascoboy]

[Hellraiser]

[tabascoboy]

Not much clarity so far today about developments, still seems to be plenty of nervousness from Russians following the Kharkiv counter-offensive and not too mention the usual "it's a trap, we'll crush 100 000 of them in it!" from propagandists. Definitely sensible from UA to try and keep their intentions as secret as possible.

This just breaking

[Brazil]

I was reading about Bagration and it strikes me that Russia has been duped by the same sort of Maskirovka ops as the USSR carried out there. The drawing of elite units to a front where they can be easily trapped in order to open up fronts elsewhere is more or less what the Red Army did to destroy Army Group Centre. Not that the comparison is necessarily direct in terms of impact in the modern case, obviously.

[tabascoboy]

Jesus, imagine driving along and seeing this just above the road

[tabascoboy]

[tabascoboy]

Hopefully this steady flow of bad news for RU leads to Putin having an aneurism

[tabascoboy]

Claims ( which need to be properly verified) that UA forces have entered Kupyans’k. Seems unlikely it could happen this quickly

[_Os_]

Claims ( which need to be properly verified) that UA forces have entered Kupyans’k. Seems unlikely it could happen this quickly

Maybe not given how they're assaulting positions they choose to attack? There's a lot of video of frontal assaults on defended positions with little held back. This is the latest I've seen.

[petej]

Claims ( which need to be properly verified) that UA forces have entered Kupyans’k. Seems unlikely it could happen this quickly

Looks like a proper russian collapse in kharkiv oblast. Mad that Russia is still trying to attack.

[_Os_]

I was reading about Bagration and it strikes me that Russia has been duped by the same sort of Maskirovka ops as the USSR carried out there. The drawing of elite units to a front where they can be easily trapped in order to open up fronts elsewhere is more or less what the Red Army did to destroy Army Group Centre. Not that the comparison is necessarily direct in terms of impact in the modern case, obviously.

I've seen some comments on Twitter along those lines, that Ukraine sucked Russians into Kherson and waited until they had done that before really hitting the bridges there to cut them off and are now hitting them in weak points in Kharkiv. I can't remember which accounts were saying this, and if they were proper analysts or not, but it just looks like a description of events really.

There's some speculation among Russian accounts that the Ukrainians are preparing a third counter offensive through the middle in the Zaporizhzhia area, it could be part of their thinking now, which maybe doesn't mean they rush to reinforce Kharkiv like they did Kherson.

[Hellraiser]

I was reading about Bagration and it strikes me that Russia has been duped by the same sort of Maskirovka ops as the USSR carried out there. The drawing of elite units to a front where they can be easily trapped in order to open up fronts elsewhere is more or less what the Red Army did to destroy Army Group Centre. Not that the comparison is necessarily direct in terms of impact in the modern case, obviously.

I saw a post on Twitter earlier:

Von Manstein's ghost watches with approval as the Russians trap themselves at Izyum for the third time in two wars.

[yermum]

The Ukrainians really have their socials game on point.



Mr. President, we have taken control of the city of Balakliya, Kharkiv region. Your orders have been carried out. Special unit of the main intelligence directorate (GUR) Kraken. Russians have left (escaped?). As of 8th of September, 16:00. Slava Ukraini"

[Hellraiser]

Those Kraken boys run by ex-Azov veterans.

[Niegs]

Truth in this?