The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

HelBattery · Feb 28, 2022

Photos of NLAWs and RK-3 Korsar ATGM captured by Russian Forces/rebels :
Военный Осведомитель | VK
Военный Осведомитель | VK
Военный Осведомитель | VK
Военный Осведомитель | VK

I have a question addressed to experts: is possible an effective use of NLAW launcher by rebel ATGM operator without additional training?

STURM · Feb 28, 2022

Todjaeger said:
Russia has in the past announced that, in the event of conventional conflict between Russia and NATO, Russia will make use of nuclear weapons.

Yes that was my understanding but there have slight change.

''In 2020, Putin approved “basic principles” with four cases when Moscow could use nuclear weapons. They were when ballistic missiles were fired at Russia’s or allied territory, when an enemy used nuclear weapons, an attack on a Russian nuclear weapons site, or an attack threatening the existence of the Russian state''

Key questions after Putin’s nuclear announcement

Experts weigh in after President Putin put nuclear forces on high alert in dramatic escalation of East-West tensions.

www.aljazeera.com

Big_Zucchini said:
The popular knowledge is that Israel deployed its ballistic missiles exactly when American satellites were scheduled to pass above them, in a signal only to the US that it's either an emergency restocking operation, or nukes on its enemies.

My source? Internet literature that I can try to dig up if you cast doubt.

No reason on my part to cast doubt... One of the books [can't remember which] I read mentioned nuke mines; I have no idea if Israel actually had nuke mines. If I'm not mistaken one of these books mentions the same thing you did.

Vivendi · Feb 28, 2022

STURM said:
Yes that was my understanding but there have slight change.

''In 2020, Putin approved “basic principles” with four cases when Moscow could use nuclear weapons. They were when ballistic missiles were fired at Russia’s or allied territory, when an enemy used nuclear weapons, an attack on a Russian nuclear weapons site, or an attack threatening the existence of the Russian state''

Key questions after Putin’s nuclear announcement

Experts weigh in after President Putin put nuclear forces on high alert in dramatic escalation of East-West tensions.

www.aljazeera.com

Putin has been in a "state of war" with the west for a long time employing "hybrid war" tactics. Disinformation is central. Long story short, you never know when he tells the truth and when he is lying. You cannot trust him. He breaks rules, agreements, and "principles" as he sees fit. Whatever helps him reach his goals.

A recent example was when he said Russia will not invade Ukraine, at the same time he was planning the attack, and then he invaded. As you know there are many other examples (Crimea and Donbas also comes to mind just to mention other examples highly relevant to the current situation).

Perhaps he will invent a story to make it fit with the "principles" you refer to above, to justify launching a nuke attack. Or perhaps he will just not care.

Anyways, seems he is already in the process of inventing at least one story to justify going for nukes:

“It will be much easier for Ukraine to acquire tactical nuclear weapons than for some other states which are actually conducting such developments. Especially in the case of technological support from abroad. And we shouldn’t rule this out either. With the appearance of weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine, the situation in the world, in Europe, especially for us, for Russia, will change in the most radical way. We cannot fail to respond to this real danger,” Putin said during his address to the nation.

Click to expand...

Russia Sends Bone-Chilling Message To Sweden & Finland; Threatens 'Military Implications' If They Go The Ukraine Way (eurasiantimes.com)

Vivendi · Feb 28, 2022

Switzerland’s president says his country, which is traditionally neutral, will adopt all of the sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russia.

“This is a big step for Switzerland,” Ignazio Cassis told a news conference after the Alpine nation had for days hesitated over whether to join with Western powers and move to economically punish Moscow for its assault on Ukraine.

Finance Minister Ueli Maurer told reporters that the holdings of those figuring on Brussels’ blacklist, including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had been “frozen with immediate effect.”

Russia-Ukraine live news: Kyiv, Moscow hold talks amid conflict | Russia-Ukraine crisis News | Al Jazeera

Has anything like this happened before? My understanding was that Switzerland has been neutral for hundreds of years, and they received a lot of criticisms for that during WW2.

Now the whole of Europe has introduced harsh sanctions. As mentioned previously, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand have also imposed sanctions, or are in the process of doing so. Next out in SE Asia is Singapore: Singapore to impose sanctions on Russia, including export controls and certain bank transactions: Vivian Balakrishnan - CNA (channelnewsasia.com)

When will ASEAN follow suit? They should consider that China is watching how the sanctions are impacting Russia and potentially influence Russia decision making processes moving forward. Sanctions by itself cannot stop the war, but if enough countries join in, it may speed up things a bit.

If the Oligarchs feel too much pain they may decide to revolt against Putin. Alternatively, the "common people" in Russia may also start to revolt if things keep going in the wrong direction at several levels at the same time.

Musashi_kenshin · Feb 28, 2022

Vivendi said:
If the Oligarchs feel too much pain they may decide to revolt against Putin. Alternatively, the "common people" in Russia may also start to revolt if things keep going in the wrong direction at several levels at the same time.

The oligarchs won't do anything other than run for the hills, unless elements of the Russian military command concur that Putin needs to go. They'll fear being jailed or shot if a palace coup goes wrong, so they'll want to know the plan can't fail before even considering putting something into motion.

As for the general public, things will need to get worse first. The Russian economy is in trouble, but until they're unable to buy food or find work I expect there won't be sufficient pressure to make the military and oligarchs move.

Vivendi · Feb 28, 2022

In further evidence that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is radically changing European views, a survey for the Finnish public broadcaster YLE has found a majority of the country’s population is in favour of joining Nato for the first time.

According to the poll, conducted last week over three days before and immediately after the attacks with a representative sample of nearly 1,400 people, 53% of Finns would now support Finland’s accession to Nato, with 28% opposed and 19% unsure.

Russia’s invasion has also increased support for Nato membership in Sweden, with a survey commissioned last week by Swedish public broadcaster SVT showing 41% in favour and 35% opposed. The Finnish poll suggested that if Sweden applied to join the alliance, support for Finnish membership would rise to 66%.

Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Putin ‘willing to consider’ halting attacks on civilians, says France – live | World news | The Guardian

This is what I expected. NATO membership has in general not been on the agenda in Finland with strong opposition against the idea. However, seeing how a European country outside of NATO is being "handled" by Russia, many Finns have changed their minds. The same goes for Sweden.

I think chances are pretty good that both Sweden and Finland will become NATO members before the end of the year. Now is the time to join, Russia will be distracted by the invasion in Ukraine, and will also become weaker militarily as a result of the Ukranian war.

Musashi_kenshin · Feb 28, 2022

Vivendi said:
I think chances are pretty good that both Sweden and Finland will become NATO members before the end of the year. Now is the time to join, Russia will be distracted by the invasion in Ukraine, and will also become weaker militarily as a result of the Ukranian war.

The Swedish government has maintained that it will not join NATO, although the general election later this year may change that - either from a new government or the existing government realising its lost the argument. I think it will depend on how far the Swedish public opinion gets behind becoming a member of the Alliance and is able to indicate that it is a core political issue for them, other than a "would be nice" matter.

For me Finland could move first. Its parliament will debate a petition for a referendum on the question (debate date to be confirmed). As it will be a debate the government will have less control of the process and may find it hard to find a reason to refuse to let the public decide. Also being on Russia's border and right next to the Baltic states, it joining NATO would make it so much easier to defend them and make the chances of Russian aggression less likely.

Jaykaro · Feb 28, 2022

Launch and result of the Iskander OTRK.

The headquarters of the operational command "North", the headquarters of the communications regiment and the fuel depot in the Chernihiv region were destroyed.

vimple.co/af149e212a2c40a9938c0753e37b2d05

Vivendi · Feb 28, 2022

Musashi_kenshin said:
The Swedish government has maintained that it will not join NATO, although the general election later this year may change that - either from a new government or the existing government realising its lost the argument. I think it will depend on how far the Swedish public opinion gets behind becoming a member of the Alliance and is able to indicate that it is a core political issue for them, other than a "would be nice" matter.

For me Finland could move first. Its parliament will debate a petition for a referendum on the question (debate date to be confirmed). As it will be a debate the government will have less control of the process and may find it hard to find a reason to refuse to let the public decide. Also being on Russia's border and right next to the Baltic states, it joining NATO would make it so much easier to defend them and make the chances of Russian aggression less likely.

As mentioned in previous posts, a lot of things have changed dramatically the last few days in European politics.

Chances are that Sweden and Finland will at least consider synchronizing their entry into NATO. Both would see several benefits of joining at the same time. I think it's more likely that both join at the same time, than Finland or Sweden joining solo.

In other news, Norway is now donating 2,000 M-72 to Ukraine. Norge sender våpen til Ukraina – VG

Finland is donating 2,500 automatic rifles, 150,000 bullets, 1,500 anti-tank weapons and 70,000 packages of food Finland sender våpen til Ukraina: – Historisk øyeblikk – Siste nytt – NRK

Like Germany, both Norway and Finland had prohibitions against sending weapons to a war zone. Now they have made an exception, sending a strong signal of support and solidary to both Ukraine and Russia.

Vivendi · Feb 28, 2022

The US, the UK, EU and Canada announced just now that they sanction Russia's central bank as well as sovereign wealth funds: Russia-Ukraine: US, UK, EU, Canada sanction Russia’s central bank | Russia-Ukraine crisis News | Al Jazeera

They claim this will significantly limit Russia's ability to fund the war effort.

I am not an economist, I am very interested in hearing what the economists on this forum makes of this latest move.

SolarWind · Feb 28, 2022

The financial shocks will have significantly more effect on Russia's financial system than the rest of the world. But currency reserves are not the only tools to prop up the ruble. Doubling the savings rate, as the Russian central bank has done, is no doubt slowing and limiting the fall of ruble. Fundamentally, the ability to fund a war relies on the availability of resources, where money is just the medium of exchange and not a resource itself. So the problem is technical, not fundamental.

FD 3.14 · Feb 28, 2022

ngatimozart said:
I see that you are a newbie on here. FYI this is a professionally run international defence forum and we do have rules so it would pay for you to make yourself familiar with them otherwise you will run afoul of Moderators like myself, and I am one of the more grumpier ones on here so be warned. Being a Kiwi I also have a tendency to tell it as it is, rather more bluntly than my Aussie cousins, so don't push it.

You aren't a defence professional and as far as we are concerned you are a civilian newbie until you prove otherwise. If you have expertise in certain areas we will take that into consideration, but we may ask for proof and we do undertake checks of credentials that are provided. If credentials are found to be fraudulent we may, at our discretion, forward the details to the appropriate authorities. We do this in order to protect the integrity of the Forum.

There is no need for you attitude with @wittmanace because it's highly disrespectful, plain bad manners, and immature. You have made eight posts on here and think that you are an expert; but on here you aren't until proven otherwise, and like everyone else you have to earn the respect of other members by the quality of your posts, not the quantity. At present you are failing in that area. We have had some new posters come on here and in their first ten posts they have made a solid reputation amongst us because of the very high quality of their posts. Some of them don't post often but when they do even the Moderators and Defence Professionals take note because of the shear quality of the posts and the learnings that we can get from them. Then you get posters like me when I first turned up and the Moderators were tearing their hair out over me. Eventually I came good after I drove two to strong drink and one to swear off sex and coffee for the rest of his life.

So I am giving you a chance and a choice. Either you sort your posting behaviour out and follow the rules, or your time on here will be short indeed. The choice is up to you, so choose wisely. Consider this as a formal warning. Awarded 6 demerit points for 6 months.

You guys aren’t much different than ATS I’ll watch my manners. All I’ve been doing is reading since my last post anyway.

ngatimozart said:
I see that you are a newbie on here. FYI this is a professionally run international defence forum and we do have rules so it would pay for you to make yourself familiar with them otherwise you will run afoul of Moderators like myself, and I am one of the more grumpier ones on here so be warned. Being a Kiwi I also have a tendency to tell it as it is, rather more bluntly than my Aussie cousins, so don't push it.

You aren't a defence professional and as far as we are concerned you are a civilian newbie until you prove otherwise. If you have expertise in certain areas we will take that into consideration, but we may ask for proof and we do undertake checks of credentials that are provided. If credentials are found to be fraudulent we may, at our discretion, forward the details to the appropriate authorities. We do this in order to protect the integrity of the Forum.

There is no need for you attitude with @wittmanace because it's highly disrespectful, plain bad manners, and immature. You have made eight posts on here and think that you are an expert; but on here you aren't until proven otherwise, and like everyone else you have to earn the respect of other members by the quality of your posts, not the quantity. At present you are failing in that area. We have had some new posters come on here and in their first ten posts they have made a solid reputation amongst us because of the very high quality of their posts. Some of them don't post often but when they do even the Moderators and Defence Professionals take note because of the shear quality of the posts and the learnings that we can get from them. Then you get posters like me when I first turned up and the Moderators were tearing their hair out over me. Eventually I came good after I drove two to strong drink and one to swear off sex and coffee for the rest of his life.

So I am giving you a chance and a choice. Either you sort your posting behaviour out and follow the rules, or your time on here will be short indeed. The choice is up to you, so choose wisely. Consider this as a formal warning. Awarded 6 demerit points for 6 months.

I appreciate your giving me a break. But I’m not interested. I definitely won’t fit in. After posting I’ve been reading posts for the last two days. This is a Putin fan club.

So thanks but no thanks.

Feanor · Feb 28, 2022

Update.

Kiev.

A Russian strike against a Ukrainian radar site at Brovary, Kiev, or possibly against a Ukrainian army checkpoint. Maybe both?

The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

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