The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

[Feanor]

Baerbock is Foreign Minister, shows the quality of reporting one can expect from CNN and co.

Interesting footage of the strike on the Mall including some footage of it's use as depot for Grads:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1505929082441277443

You can see the Grads parking underneath in a photo here. I'm also seeing discussions on social media, not just this one, but Russian as well, suggesting that people control what they post based on the information war that's on-going. It's rather alarming as a trend.

Безжалостный удар агрессора по мирному торговому центру

Вся суть истории с безжалостным ударом по мирному торговому центру в Киеве. На деле, просто выявили огневую позицию РСЗО Град ВСУ и уничтожили ее. Там еще и БК для Пионов был. По ссылке https://t.me/boris_rozhin/34883 есть видео, где можно заметить, как недалеко…

colonelcassad.livejournal.com

 

[Vivendi]

Baerbock is Foreign Minister, shows the quality of reporting one can expect from CNN and co.

LOL I did not even notice, of course she is. Clearly I did not read the intro very carefully. What can I say, both words consist of many letters and start with an "F", probably more than enough to confuse the person who wrote this

 

[HelBattery]

Reports of lots of Ukraine Military Bases being hit during this war.

Just wondering how inhabited these Bases would be? I have this idea Bases are sitting Ducks in the age of cruise Missiles so best evacuated. Plus most of the Soldiers would be away fighting the War anyway. So motivation to hit them is mainly psycholgoical and maybe hit some stores.

But maybe this is not reality?

There were two attacks that caused great losses (Yavoriv base, Nikolayev base). Today there are reports of another attack - on Novaya Lyubomirka base - with 80+ killed.

VK.com | VK

vk.com

It seems strange that the Ukrainians, at this stage of the war, do not draw quite obvious conclusions.
Of course, such strikes must have an impact on morale - you are in mortal danger even being beyond the frontline and you feel completely defenseless. Many volunteers who left Ukraine after the attack on Yavoriv vamp cited this as their main reason for leaving.
Second, the destruction of military infrastructure is part of Putin's announced "demilitarization" of Ukraine, and will certainly - along with the destruction of ammunition and fuel depots, air bases, communications centers and factories - delay the rebuilding of its military capabilities in the future.
Third, the Russians can test the effectiveness of their missiles in real combat conditions.

 

[Ananda]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1505901014532165641

French update on the Ukraine front. Interestingly, compare to UK snd US defense officials, seems French concure more on what some "independent" analysts already put for few days. Ukraine position in Donbas threater are increasingly being corner and getting surounded.

 

[T.C.P]

You can see the Grads parking underneath in a photo here. I'm also seeing discussions on social media, not just this one, but Russian as well, suggesting that people control what they post based on the information war that's on-going. It's rather alarming as a trend.

Безжалостный удар агрессора по мирному торговому центру

Вся суть истории с безжалостным ударом по мирному торговому центру в Киеве. На деле, просто выявили огневую позицию РСЗО Град ВСУ и уничтожили ее. Там еще и БК для Пионов был. По ссылке https://t.me/boris_rozhin/34883 есть видео, где можно заметить, как недалеко…

colonelcassad.livejournal.com

Download Reddit Videos with sound - Reddit Video Downloader | RedditSave

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redditsave.com

In this video you can see the drones track the MLRS systems to the mall, what a surgical strike. Track by drone and ground intelligence, night strike by a single missile to take it out.

There was a video about shelling near Odesa across the water. @Feanor did Russia make aerial/naval strikes on Odessa last night to keep the Ukrainains firmly locked in there and waste some more reinforcements being tied there?

 

[STURM]

Also Asian countries has a history of being extremely selective in this regard, unfortunately. Several countries can and should do better.

You referring to Myanmar? Or in line with your European/Wesfern ccetric narrative/perspective your're going to suggest that certain Asian countries should get tougher with Russia? You going to bring up Singapore again? Good for Singapore and kudos with regards to the steps it has taken but don't assume that others should follow suite.

Well most Asian countries don't have the diplomatic clout that the West has, they don't have the institutional security of NATO or the EU to fall back on and they have smaller economies. They also don't preach selective good governance, human rights and democracy like the West does.. When it comes to.being very selective in applying justice and also being self serving and hypocritical the West has been at it far longer and far more extensively. Most Asian countries also don't have a recent history of invading others and practising regime change at great cost to the locals.

I have no idea where Asia fits into the context of the discussion but since you saw fit to bring it up. If you want to.go further I'm always more than happy to oblige.

 

[Feanor]

Download Reddit Videos with sound - Reddit Video Downloader | RedditSave

RapidSave helps you download reddit videos with sound audio and HD quality. A free reddit video downloader to download reddit videos & save videos from reddit.

redditsave.com

In this video you can see the drones track the MLRS systems to the mall, what a surgical strike. Track by drone and ground intelligence, night strike by a single missile to take it out.

There was a video about shelling near Odesa across the water. @Feanor did Russia make aerial/naval strikes on Odessa last night to keep the Ukrainains firmly locked in there and waste some more reinforcements being tied there?

I haven't had time to look yet, I'll try to do an update later. No promises though, sorry.

 

[T.C.P]

You referring to Myanmar? Or in line with your European/Wesfern ccetric narrative/perspective your're going to suggest that certain Asian countries should get tougher with Russia? You going to bring up Singapore again? Good for Singapore and kudos with regards to the steps it has taken but don't assume that others should follow suite.

Well most Asian countries don't have the diplomatic clout that the West has, they don't have the institutional security of NATO or the EU to fall back on and they have smaller economies. They also don't preach selective good governance, human rights and democracy like the West does.. When it comes to.being very selective in applying justice and also being self serving and hypocritical the West has been at it far longer and far more extensively. Most Asian countries also don't have a recent history of invading others and practising regime change at great cost to the locals.

I have no idea where Asia fits into the context of the discussion but since you saw fit to bring it up. If you want to.go further I'm always more than happy to oblige.

Why should Asia bare the burden of the West's tiff with Russia. I cant talk about other countries persepctive, but here in Bangladesh, we dont care about the Ukraine war as much as we did about the Iraq/Afghan/Syrian situations, just like most Europeans care more about Ukraine.

We continued doing business with the West despite the extremely unpopular actions against Iraq, why should we stop dealing with Russia? If we gain access to cheap Russian resources and hardware why should we turn it down? Already our institutions are looking at bypassing swift and using currency swaps and alternatives like CIPS. I know that a poor country like Bangladesh is not in anyone's radar, but we are not the only country that feels like this. Weaponnization of SWIFT is making a lot of countries look for alternatives.

 

[cdxbow]

Tweet from Komsomolskaya Pravda suggesting Russian deaths are close to 10,000

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1505972650786672648

 

[Feanor]

Tweet from Komsomolskaya Pravda suggesting Russian deaths are close to 10,000

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1505972650786672648

10k dead 16k wounded? That's a very strange ratio. It would also mean ~26k out of action, out of an invasion force of 170k? A body count that high should lead to some serious repercussion. The headline also makes no sense. It says that they're denying massive casualties and offerring a number of 10k instead of 15k? I suspect there's a typo. They were probably trying to put in either 861 or 986. Not that I would trust their numbers to begin with. Let's see what Russian MoD says.

 

[cdxbow]

10k dead 16k wounded? That's a very strange ratio. It would also mean ~26k out of action, out of an invasion force of 170k? A body count that high should lead to some serious repercussion. The headline also makes no sense. It says that they're denying massive casualties and offerring a number of 10k instead of 15k? I suspect there's a typo. They were probably trying to put in either 861 or 986. Not that I would trust their numbers to begin with. Let's see what Russian MoD says.

Yes I agree it's a low number of wounded. Perhaps it reflects high lethality of PGMs destroying vehicles, poor medical support or it's just inaccurate. Time will tell.

The Ukrainians say over 15,000 Russian troops killed, the US estimates around 7000, they are all around the same range. We know Russia has lost thousands of vehicle all up, we know Russia is hiring mercenaries and that progress has been very slow. All these are consistent with an invasion that is bogged down and taking a high numbers of casualties. If these numbers reflect reality then I can't see Mr Putin continuing the war for very long.

 

[HelBattery]

10k dead 16k wounded? That's a very strange ratio. It would also mean ~26k out of action, out of an invasion force of 170k? A body count that high should lead to some serious repercussion. The headline also makes no sense. It says that they're denying massive casualties and offerring a number of 10k instead of 15k? I suspect there's a typo. They were probably trying to put in either 861 or 986. Not that I would trust their numbers to begin with. Let's see what Russian MoD says.

The editors of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" confirmed the hacking of its website.
Сообщение от редакции KP.RU - KP.Ru

МИГ России

Уточнение по ситуации с "потерями": все данные берутся из официального брифинга МО РФ. Других источников у российских СМИ не бывает. На вечернем брифинге МО РФ никаких цифр о потерях не озвучивалось. Но. Несколько выдуманных строк (абзац) был вставлен в материал на дырявый сайт российской...

t.me

 

[Feanor]

Yes I agree it's a low number of wounded. Perhaps it reflects high lethality of PGMs destroying vehicles, poor medical support or it's just inaccurate. Time will tell.

The Ukrainians say over 15,000 Russian troops killed, the US estimates around 7000, they are all around the same range. We know Russia has lost thousands of vehicle all up, we know Russia is hiring mercenaries and that progress has been very slow. All these are consistent with an invasion that is bogged down and taking a high numbers of casualties. If these numbers reflect reality then I can't see Mr Putin continuing the war for very long.

But again most of Russia's vehicle losses are either abandoned or captured... quite many intact. I suspect even many of the destroyed vehicles weren't destroyed in combat, but merely abandoned and subsequently destroyed, just off camera, so by the time Oryx gets to them, they're destroyed. I'm really curious to see what happens. ~26k/170k out of action isn't a bogged down invasion. It's a catastrophic failure. They should be failing to hold the front line, and yet they're still advancing, just much slower and in far fewer places. Ukraine started this fight out with a numerical advantage, and not a small one (200-250k of MoD troops, plus National Guard, Border Guard, and territorial defense). With losses that high, Russian morale should be crumbling and units should be failing to function. But we're not seeing this. Something's off here. We're also not seeing any large quantities of Russian prisoners. We're getting a few here and there, but the numbers are tiny compared to casualties that high.

 

[T.C.P]

With losses that high, Russian morale should be crumbling and units should be failing to function. But we're not seeing this. Something's off here. .

This something I am very curious about, from all the telegram channels, Russian troops, the rebels and the chechens seem to be in high spirit. Are the russian troops on the ground being kept deaf about their mounting losses? is that even possible to pull off?

 

[Stuart M]

Yes I agree it's a low number of wounded. Perhaps it reflects high lethality of PGMs destroying vehicles, poor medical support or it's just inaccurate. Time will tell.

The Ukrainians say over 15,000 Russian troops killed, the US estimates around 7000, they are all around the same range. We know Russia has lost thousands of vehicle all up, we know Russia is hiring mercenaries and that progress has been very slow. All these are consistent with an invasion that is bogged down and taking a high numbers of casualties. If these numbers reflect reality then I can't see Mr Putin continuing the war for very long.

I suspect he can carry it on, he is a nuclear armed dictator after all, but the question is at what cost? This is shaping up as a war of attrition and Russia has advantages in this.

 

[Twain]

No idea who this is but his analyses are very interesting. Just to hopefully head things off in advance, has has stated upfront that unit locations and the lines are approximate

His two most most recent threads

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1505736672662757376

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1505385093485015041

 

[koxinga]

I think media in almost all countries (including Western, but even more so media in Turkey, India, Russia, etc.) are doing a poor job at explaining International Law, war crimes, and the consequences of ignoring such crimes for political reasons.

There are so many things wrong with this statement.

1. Assumption that countries like Israel or Turkey or India, do not know exactly is going on.
2. If they are failing to take action because of "political reasons", these reasons are inconsequential in the context of the said international laws.

Don't be mistaken, most (by the virtue of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1, 2 March 2022) countries know exactly what laws are being broken by Russia and have expressed their contempt. But to expect everyone of those countries to react in the same way (i.e, imposing economic sanctions, shipping arms) as the EU is impractical and naive.

To imply/dismiss countries which fail to commit to those sanctions/actions as failing Ukraine/human rights/international law are falling short of the standards set by the West and need to do better, that is the classic "Western country lecturing the rest of the world how being to be better". It completely ignores the "why" and dismisses the practical concerns (i.e., Russia supports my economy, Russia is a major security player in the region) as irrelevant.

And if the said countries decide to forgo their individual "political reasons" to join EU/NATO, and there is blowback from Russia, do you think that the EU/NATO will say, offer security gurantees to Israel, economic assistance to India and accept refugees from Algeria? Those are real consequences, although not the types you were thinking of.

 

[koxinga]

But again most of Russia's vehicle losses are either abandoned or captured... quite many intact. I suspect even many of the destroyed vehicles weren't destroyed in combat, but merely abandoned and subsequently destroyed, just off camera, so by the time Oryx gets to them, they're destroyed. I'm really curious to see what happens. ~26k/170k out of action isn't a bogged down invasion. It's a catastrophic failure. They should be failing to hold the front line, and yet they're still advancing, just much slower and in far fewer places. Ukraine started this fight out with a numerical advantage, and not a small one (200-250k of MoD troops, plus National Guard, Border Guard, and territorial defense). With losses that high, Russian morale should be crumbling and units should be failing to function. But we're not seeing this. Something's off here. We're also not seeing any large quantities of Russian prisoners. We're getting a few here and there, but the numbers are tiny compared to casualties that high.

Prior to the start of the conflict, Western intelligence estimated that Russia had amassed around 170k - 195k troops. Even with losses exceeding 15k, it would be less than 10% of the pre-conflict estimates.

So where are the rest of those forces?

 

[Feanor]

Thanks a lot for the Updates @Feanor .

I have one question, you state that so far no russian strela 10's have participated in this war but oryx lists 6 russian strela 10 losses. Can you take a peek at the pictures and help clearify If russia is using strela 10's? Or elaborate why you think they are not used by russia so far? Thank you again for your work keeping us updated

Thanks for calling this out, I took a look and it appears I was mistaken. While I haven't seen any in photos of Russian forces in action, at least 3 of them are readily identifiable as Russian or rebel. I suspect one, the one with a V, belong to the VDV, the rest I honestly don't know.

 

[ngatimozart]

It appears that the Russians may have made a strategic error which could cost them their victory. Putin's Colossal Strategic Error in Ukraine | Newsroom What Robert Patman labels a colossal error, I think is possibly an over statement. However he is correct in that it is a stuff up.

"More than two weeks after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is increasingly evident Putin’s Russia has made a huge strategic misjudgment that potentially threatens the political survival of the authoritarian regime in Moscow.​

​

Having failed to obtain a lightening, blitzkrieg style victory the Putin regime expected, the Russian military has resorted to encircling Ukrainian cities and blindly pounding them with artillery and missile strikes.​

​

To date, Putin’s war has already destroyed an estimated $US40 billion plus of infrastructure in Ukrainian cities and caused the deaths of nearly 600 Ukrainian civilians.​

​

If Putin’s regime seems willing to commit war crimes in the name of its so-called “de-Nazification” campaign, it is clear that Russia’s larger and heavily armed military has struggled in combat with a smaller, but tactically aware and highly motivated opponent.​

​

Russia has lost large amounts of equipment and sustained thousands of casualties, almost as many in two weeks, according to some estimates, as America suffered in Iraq during seven years of war after Washington’s 2003 invasion.​

​

Moreover, three highly decorated Russian generals have been killed by Ukrainian forces."​

Ukraine has resisted the might of Russia so far denying it any significant victories on the battlefield and after nigh on four weeks that has to be eating the liver of Putin and his supporters. It won't be doing the confidence of the Russian High Command any good either.

It's been suggested that the Russians don't appear to have an overall theatre commander on the ground and retired Australian General Mick Ryan says: "If there is a senior Russian Ukraine commander, he has performed terribly. If there isn't, the Russians may be even more inept than we thought."

Also the Ukrainians have upped the pressure on Putin by claiming that Bortnikov could replace him. Vladimir is paranoid enough at the moment and this will just paly on his suspicions. If it was Uncle Joe (Stalin) Bortnikov would be dad now. Stalin was that paranoid he'd shoot his own shadow on the suspicion that it was spying on him.

One other thing of note was the unusual coordinated flights on 17 / 18 March, of the Russian "Doomsday" Il-96-400VPU aircraft and an Il-96-300PU Presidential aircraft, both of which are operated by the Rossiya Special Flight Detachment. It is not known why these flights occurred.