The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

[Feanor]

A little offtopic about things I recently found out that could be interesting but not directly related.

Probably everybody here knows who is Victoria Nuland. During the Obama presidency she was appointed in 2013 as the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and during Biden presidency she was appointed in 2021 as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under Secretary-designate Antony Blinken. She has been accused of instigating the Maidan revolution of 2014 and she was the center of a scandal which included leaked phone conversations shortly after the Maidan in which she discussed who should or shouldn't be appointed in the new government of Ukraine and also said the (in)famous "F*ck the EU".

But the interesting part comes now. Her husband is Robert Kagan, he is considered a "neo-con" and has being a prominent foreign policy advisor for several members of the Republican Party including John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign, and even created a now defunct think tank in the 90s, advocating for US hegemony through military interventions. Here is his wiki page (Robert Kagan - Wikipedia ).

Then, I was looking for today's ISW report when I noticed in my google search that the founder of ISW is a women named Kimberly Kagan. And I was like hmmm, Kagan again? A quick search help me found that Kimberly Kagan is married to Frederick Kagan, brother of Robert Kagan (Victoria Nuland's Husband). Everything's stay in the family, uh?

How much influence does this family have in US foreign policy?


Sorry for the offtopic.

On the one hand you've uncovered one of a myriad of informal influence networks that run along social, economic, and familial lines. And these structures can have a profound influence on national politics within both democratic and authoritarian countries. On the other hand, this has very little direct relevance to the subject of this thread. Unless you are prepared to make a specific and well-supported argument of how this relates to the Russo-Ukrainian war, please leave the nuances of US internal politics out of it.

 

[kato]

Germany will be delivering 50 Gepard SPAAG to Ukraine. The vehicles come from industry stocks at Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, not from the Bundeswehr.

Germany to supply Ukraine with heavy weaponry for first time

Germany announced on Tuesday its first delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine to help it fend off Russian attacks, after weeks of pressure at home and abroad to do so amid confusion over its stance.

www.reuters.com

(delivery was confirmed by Minister of Defense Lambracht today, even if she's not exactly the one formally responsible)

Rheinmetall has additionally requested export permission to similarly deliver 88 Leopard 1A5 MBT and 100 Marder 1A3 IFV from their stocks.

Rheinmetall seeks permit to export Leopard tanks to Ukraine

German defence company Rheinmetall has requested government approval to export 88 Leopard 1A5 tanks to Ukraine, German newspaper Die Welt wrote on Monday citing documents.

www.reuters.com

 

[ngatimozart]

Germany will be delivering 50 Gepard SPAAG to Ukraine. The vehicles come from industry stocks at Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, not from the Bundeswehr.

Germany to supply Ukraine with heavy weaponry for first time

Germany announced on Tuesday its first delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine to help it fend off Russian attacks, after weeks of pressure at home and abroad to do so amid confusion over its stance.

www.reuters.com

(delivery was confirmed by Minister of Defense Lambracht today, even if she's not exactly the one formally responsible)

Rheinmetall has additionally requested export permission to similarly deliver 88 Leopard 1A5 MBT and 100 Marder 1A3 IFV from their stocks.

Rheinmetall seeks permit to export Leopard tanks to Ukraine

German defence company Rheinmetall has requested government approval to export 88 Leopard 1A5 tanks to Ukraine, German newspaper Die Welt wrote on Monday citing documents.

www.reuters.com

Those Gepard SPAAG will be mean machines. They are somewhat formidable with a good rate of fire on a twin 35mm gun mount. They'll ruin a few Russian flyboys days.

If the Leopard 1A5 deal goes through it will be good for the Ukrainians as well. I would presume that the industry supplied vehicles will be the latest up to date models of the 1A5 and will include add on armour.

 

[kato]

I would presume that the industry supplied vehicles will be the latest up to date models of the 1A5 and will include add on armour.

With intended delivery within a few weeks? Very doubtable. That's about enough time to make sure they can actually move under their own power at most.
Rheinmetall intends to also establish a maintenance center for them in "a nearby allied country" btw.

 

[Cult Icon]

By way of background, the Ukrainian Army is generally organised into brigades, which are supported by assets such as intelligence, communications, logistics, air defence and so on. In defence, the organisational structure works fine. In offensive action, it is slightly more problematic due to lack of vehicles and lack of fires superiority. Ukraine seems to have a problem with massing their vehicles for offensive action at a brigade level.

The UK Defence Secretary says Russia committed over 120 Battalion Tactical Groups to its war in Ukraine - about 65% of its entire ground combat strength. Two months later, the UK assesses more than 25% of that force has been "rendered not combat effective" — an amazing Day 61 performance by Ukraine after Russia's invasion began.

The Ukrainian General Staff, through their website/social media are very vocal and propagandist about (largely unverified) claims victories/killing of key personnel of their enemy but very secretive about the condition of their own units and why their offensive performance is lacking. What comes to mind is that they are afraid to mass large forces and clog up the road net with the vehicle fleets of several brigades, and become a target for Russian air/artillery/etc. as they lack the means to suppress these elements. Instead they have pursued a fixed defense/immediate counterattack tactical practice, with small, short-duration deliberate counterattacks, nibbling off the forward edges of the front.

These BTG claims by US/UK/Ukraine are a rather odd way to put it. Artillery should be most important arm in inflicting casualties for ground units. Even "bleed white" combat units should still have the bulk of their artillery batteries and support services in tact as I doubt that the losses are evenly distributed. Meaning that the "combat ineffective" BTG so often claimed by the boastful Ukrainian General Staff should still be capable of using their heavy artillery and MLRS to support other formations. They just lost their infantry/IFV and tank group. Albeit the first week of the Special Military Operation exposed the Russian army to so many flank attacks. But the front stabilized since then. Or, could it be that the losses to the rear echelon are somewhat higher due to the extremely low tactical density of the Russians, making them more vulnerable to deep raids?

In WW2 combat the losses of units tended to be extremely concentrated in the front-facing elements (esp. infantry and assault engineers) while support services and artillerymen remained largely in-tact. Tank crews tend to be mid-ranged as knocked out tanks frequently have the crew survive or 1-3 injured rather than the entire crew destroyed and tank battalions/regiments tended to hold a surplus of crews. To illustrate this point the Russians have in recent weeks put out videos showing crews of their knocked out tanks/IFVs leave and are still alive.

There is another hasty method to refill losses- to just send a new batch of infantry/missing personnel from the parent organization or assemble replacements from disparate sources and without proper integration and training. It is unknown to me whether or not and to what extent this has been used by the Russians.

To my understanding there are 2-3 infantry battalions in the Ukrianian army brigades, which give them a large infantry-rich advantage to the Russian which are a collection of medium sized battalions drawn from their parent organizations (divisions, brigades, regiments). The peculiar aspect of the Russian BTG is the high density of its fire support, really high concentration of tanks/artillery for such a small unit combined with a weak infantry element that is too small for offensive operations.

This organizational form looks to be an unbalanced failure, it seems like the widespread adoption was influenced by Russian army trends/restructuring since 2008 Georgia.

Article on the BTG :

https://www.benning.army.mil/Armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2017/Spring/ARMOR%20Spring%202017%20edition.pdf

I recall that this article refers to a core vulnerability of the BTG as being particuarly casualty sensitive leading to an easy road to 'combat ineffectiveness'.. since it is supposed to have only 2-4 small (80) men IFV mounted infantrymen and a small tank element compared to a US brigade. And this does not even go into its sustainability issues and resupply practices. It is rather bizarre, and a sign of unpreparedness that the Russians used a sensitive form for large scale warfare.

 

[swerve]

$165m worth of Ammo sales has been cleared by the US for sale to Ukraine, including Ammo for
152mm Arty
Vog-17 for AGL
120 and 82mm Mortar
122mm Arty
125mm for T-72s
as well as transportation, logistical and program support.
$165m worth of Ammo sales has been cleared by the US for sale to Ukraine, including Ammo for
152mm Arty
Vog-17 for AGL
120 and 82mm Mortar
122mm Arty
125mm for T-72s
as well as transportation, logistical and program support.

I expect it will be sourced from Ex-Warsaw Pact NATO-countries or Middle-East allies. Quite unlikely these items will be ordered from Belarus or Rusia.

At least two (Poland & Slovakia) ex Warsaw Pact countries have manufacturers of some or all of the ammunition types listed, & more have stocks.

 

[swerve]

Thoughts on the recent number of fires at chemical and Petrochemical plants inside Russian as well as the fire at the

A big fire broke out in Korolev Industrial Center at the gates flies, which includes several factories related to the production of energy and space components, including TsNIIMash-NII-88, a Russian science center dedicated to the development of rockets and spacecraft, and RKK Energija, a company that deals with activities related to spaceflight.

Pictures of the fire spread. Various Ukrainian social channels, combined with the hypothesis that it may be anti-Russian sabotage. In fact, Korolev’s case is not an isolated case. yesterday Two other flames It erupted in Russia, one at the Air Defense Research Institute in Tver and the other at the Dmitrievsky Chemical Plant in Kineshma

The fire at the Air Defense Research Institure also seems suspicious to me.

Rumors ( and I say rumors) swirling on social media that they’re TB2 attacks, well within range but hard to believe imo. If anything possible, saboteurs, make more sense. Or simple coincidences

Bryansk is close to the border, but Tver's NW of Moscow. I doubt the Ukrainians could attack it with TB2s, because of control issues. And Kineshma is even further away.

If the Ukrainians are responsible, perhaps by sabotage, kudos to them.

BTW, that's a dodgy translation, I think from Italian. "at the gates flies" seems to be "at the gates of Moscow" - or Mosca in Italian, which is also the Italian for fly.

 

[kato]

The overall list is 2500 MANPADS, 900 anti-tank rocket launchers with 3000 rounds of ammunition, 15 anti-structure rocket launchers with 50 rounds of ammunition, 100 machine guns, 16 million rounds of small arms ammunition, 100,000 hand grenades, 2000 anti-tank mines, 5,300 explosive charges.

Apparently some of the anti-tank mines were captured by Russian troops near Izyum, thus both confirming delivery and that the mines are PARM DM22 - i.e. standoff directional anti-tank mines.

 

[STURM]

Interesting discussion on the air war. The speaker goes into what the Russians have been doing in terms of tactics and how the air war has evolved compared to the early phase of the war.Limitations include not only the widely known shortage of PGMs and capable targeting pods but also the fact that units equipped with multi role aircraft tend to.have limited air to ground training.

He points out that in WVR engagements; given that super maneuverable all aspect AAMs can go up to 50Gs and are almost impervious to countermeasures; there will be no winners. He also discusses MANPADs/V-SHORADs and how Starstreak which is guided by a pair of faint and thus hard to detect laser beams and moves at Mach 3 took out a Mil-28 by severing its tail boom. On the ground war he questions the ability of the Russian army to sustain ops for the next 3 weeks given its losses in men and material.

Another video featuring this speaker.

 

[Cult Icon]

. On the ground war he questions the ability of the Russian army to sustain ops for the next 3 weeks given its losses in men and material.

A problem with that is there are no reliable statistics on the Russian or Ukrainian personnel losses, most of it is agitation. The Russian/Ukrainian claims of enemy losses are incredibly high while their own loss reports are incredibly low. However less incredulous are that the Russian formations on the East/Southern front are largely the same as though present in the first days of the war. Of interest is the Izyum bridgehead saw a main attack with the "Ukrainian claimed destroyed" 4th TD and 3rd MD (from Kharkiv axis) coming to support 6th Tank Brigade without withdrawal for an extensive refitting.

With airpower I think what matters the most is the extent of the damage (through interdiction/armed recon) and the cumulative degree of impact, short and long term- to the operations of the Ukrainian ground force. The very presence of Russian air, artillery, missile power is likely to have prevented operational level counterattacks that would have otherwise taken place.

IF the 200-300 sorties/day routinely claimed by the Pentagon are right, then the number is between18,000- 12000 in the first 60 days of the war plus the over 1600 + missile strikes. Low volume compared to the US/Coalition air campaign prior to the invasion of Iraq.

 

[Sandhi Yudha]

Apparently some of the anti-tank mines were captured by Russian troops near Izyum, thus both confirming delivery and that the mines are PARM DM22 - i.e. standoff directional anti-tank mines.

Seems to be a quite rare spicies of anti-tank mine.

Windows to Russia

If you like to sled, you have to like to drag the sled

windowstorussia.com

Are all those 2000 anti-tank mines of this model, or just a limited amount?

 

[Redlands18]

https://adbr.com.au/australia-adds-m777s-to-equipment-support-for-ukraine/

Australia is sending 6 M777 Towed Howitzers to Ukraine along with Ammo.
Also a big middle finger for Putin, a further 6 Bushmasters were transported on a AN-124 on 26th April, there is a picture in the article.

 

[Twain]

https://adbr.com.au/australia-adds-m777s-to-equipment-support-for-ukraine/

Australia is sending 6 M777 Towed Howitzers to Ukraine along with Ammo.
Also a big middle finger for Putin, a further 6 Bushmasters were transported on a AN-124 on 26th April, there is a picture in the article.

Good move by australia, clear across world and they are contributing more than some countries that are much closer. That makes 159 either towed or self propelled pieces of artillery for Ukraine so far. That's a minimum as some countries are not disclosing how much they are sending, just that they are sending some.

Answering The Call: Heavy Weaponry Supplied To Ukraine

www.oryxspioenkop.com

 

[Redlands18]

Good move by australia, clear across world and they are contributing more than some countries that are much closer. That makes 159 either towed or self propelled pieces of artillery for Ukraine so far. That's a minimum as some countries are not disclosing how much they are sending, just that they are sending some.

Answering The Call: Heavy Weaponry Supplied To Ukraine

www.oryxspioenkop.com

And that is 10% of our current Artillery, 6 out of 54 Guns, probably most of our attrition reserve.

 

[vonnoobie]

And that is 10% of our current Artillery, 6 out of 54 Guns, probably most of our attrition reserve.

Guns that we dont need that much because they support 3 different brigades of which only 1 would be deployed at a time so 6 guns wont break us. Do we still have our 36 M198's in reserve or have they been disposed of? If we got them give them over too, Not as good as the M777 but something better then nothing and such a delivery would outfit one of their new brigades artillery needs.

 

[ngatimozart]

Guns that we dont need that much because they support 3 different brigades of which only 1 would be deployed at a time so 6 guns wont break us. Do we still have our 36 M198's in reserve or have they been disposed of? If we got them give them over too, Not as good as the M777 but something better then nothing and such a delivery would outfit one of their new brigades artillery needs.

It doesn't really matter. The Ukrainians have far greater and more urgent need of them. They will help them kill and defeat invaders. That's what is important, not complaining about minor Australian problems. Keep things in perspective and count yourselves luck that you lot don't have missiles and shells raining down on your heads from a war criminal invader with no morals or scruples. You got your arses handed to you in the Emu Wars so I wouldn't be to cocky.

 

[vonnoobie]

It doesn't really matter. The Ukrainians have far greater and more urgent need of them. They will help them kill and defeat invaders. That's what is important, not complaining about minor Australian problems. Keep things in perspective and count yourselves luck that you lot don't have missiles and shells raining down on your heads from a war criminal invader with no morals or scruples. You got your arses handed to you in the Emu Wars so I wouldn't be to cocky.

Oh I wasnt in any way trying to make out we need to keep enough guns for our selves, Rather just the 6 guns would make bugger all difference to how we use them. Frankly we could give away half of our M777's and still have enough left over that any brigade sized deployment and training is still covered.

 

[ngatimozart]

Oh I wasnt in any way trying to make out we need to keep enough guns for our selves, Rather just the 6 guns would make bugger all difference to how we use them. Frankly we could give away half of our M777's and still have enough left over that any brigade sized deployment and training is still covered.

Well discuss that in the appropriate thread or NZ might start passing intel to the Emu Confederacy.

 

[OPSSG]

Part 3 of 3: An attempt to move beyond ill-informed conjecture

7. Russia’s initial military and diplomatic strategy in its invasion of Ukraine had been tried and tested in other contexts—such as in Chechnya and later in Syria. Despite the presence of these templates, Western official said: "Even when the Russians take a village or town the Ukrainians frequently counter attack immediately. So Russians have no time to bed down or control the situation. And they're immediately on the back foot again."

​

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1519278397897297921

(a) The war in Ukraine is not going well for Russia, thanks to Russian corruption and the nature of its army. The interviewer is shown a photo taken from a drone of Russian soldiers eating lunch in a ruined house near several Russian bodies lying in the dirt. “They’re eating 20 meters from the decomposing bodies of their comrades.”​

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1519309024558202880

​

(b) We must keep in MIND that the defender, when fighting with depth, has an inherent advantage. Because of this, Russia engaged in diplomatic negotiations using these processes to stall for time, with little desire to participate in good faith. Instead, negotiations were used tactically to distract from what was happening on the ground, deny allegations of Russian war crimes and other reprehensible actions. This is why, Oleksiy Arestovych, President Zelenskyy's military advisor said, “as the greenery starts to grow all over Ukraine, we’ll find places to hide and do what we do best: trap them and kill them, one by one.”​

​

(c) Russia has also bombed dozens of hospitals and healthcare centers in the first weeks of the conflict, mirroring the tactics used in Syria. The Kremlin is still trying to spread disinformation about these attacks, even if the more open information environment in Ukraine works against this. Images of the mass murder of civilians emerged from Bucha after Russian troops withdrew, but Russia spun its own version of events as condemnation mounted. This again allowed it to claw back some support, or avoid disapproval, from states that had sidestepped taking strong positions on the invasion. Russian disinformation efforts have focused heavily on non-Western states like India, ASEAN member states (eg. Vietnam, Laos & so on) and in Latin America. This is likely to have an even greater impact as the conflict grinds on​

​

(d) Ukraine is historically well versed in Russian strategy, making it reluctant to assume Russian good faith. This has put it at an advantage in negotiations relative to external actors who tried negotiating with Moscow in Syria. Embassies have major military representation stationed at them. Reopening Poland’s embassy in Kyiv has enhanced bilateral military-to-military cooperation — as Poland is a key logistics hub for aid to flow into Ukraine. Likewise the US embassy, when it reopens will dramatically military-to-military cooperation between Ukraine and the US.​

8. There is a general misconception that free speech itself can defeat Russian propaganda and lies, by some kind of process of natural selection of the "best" ideas under perfectly "free" conditions. That is not the case, especially for falsehoods planted by Russia; these are intended to grow like destructive parasites, in any information ecosystem, like Twitter or Facebook.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1516827186069704709

Are all those 2000 anti-tank mines of this model, or just a limited amount?

9. I suspect the German anti-tank targeted mines DM-22 are rare; likely to have supplied a limited amount, in the low hundreds.

 

[kato]

9. I suspect the German anti-tank targeted mines DM-22 are rare; likely to have supplied a limited amount, in the low hundreds.

They're not really rare in the Bundeswehr, by numbers. Offhand, for anti-tank mines other than rocket-delivered they currently make up around 10-20% of German stocks (i.e. somewhere around 25,000), and due to the rocket motor i wouldn't be surprised if some of that - around 25-year-old - PARM stock is near the end of its shelf life and hence good for such deliveries.

The other mines in service are Swedish FFV028SN (DM31) for deployment either by MLVS85 minelayers or by hand by engineer companies. There may potentially also still be some older DM21 - hand-deployed only - around in depots, hence the uncertainty in the stock numbers. PARM as opposed to that is notionally issued at company level directly to combat troops in the Bundeswehr.