The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

Larry_L · Feb 25, 2024

I don't know where to start today. I am sure both sides commit atrocities, but from the sources available to me because of my linguistic insufficiency, I see the Russians as barbaric. The following clip is of Russian soldiers executing surrendering soldiers. Warning: footage of live people becoming corpses.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1761809220167454841

I find this interesting, since it parrots Shogui in his report to Putin on Avdivka on minimal losses. To me it looks like politics are more important than soldiers.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1758710637994401809

The consensus seems to be that the Su-50U loss was result of friendly fire. Only the Ukrainians, and their allies can take comfort in that. I can only wonder how the Russian pilots and flight crew feel when they know that their best protection can kill them. It was stated recently that 75% of the aircraft Russia lost were reported as friendly fire. The following links are an overview of that incident from different sources. The first is the video many of you have seen with translation to English. The last is on the aircrew that went into eternal flight.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1761086281893687500

A quick Review of the Russian A-50-Fleet

Hello everybody! Because it seems that there is a hunting season for Russian A-50s in Ukraine, every February, and in the wake of already the second such loss within a month (for the first one, see here), there are lots of questions in style of, ‘and how many (Beriyev) A-50 SDRLO (AEW) aircraft...

xxtomcooperxx.substack.com

У збитому А-50 загинули 10 росіян, з них п’ять майорів – джерела

Екіпаж з 10 окупантів загинув у збитому 23 лютого російському літаку А-50у.

www.pravda.com.ua

Kyrylo Budanov is trolling the Russians again. He finishes with the statement; "I would not recommend to the civilian population to use the Crimean bridge." There is hype here, but also truth.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1761730677794291835

I don't know what conference this is. Possibly this is in the UN. Several of the countries that know Russia best give their views on Russian disinformation.

https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1761467698855178556

https://twitter.com/glandsbergis/status/1761164490026983874?s=61&t=rmEeUn68HhlFHGKbTPQr_A

Some more input from Tom Cooper from late last night. There is a bit on the A50-u and some on the front lines.

Ukraine War, 25 February 2024

Hello everybody! Here’s another, ’late night, telegraphic‘ update… Please mind: the following was actually written in the final minutes of the 24 February, but will be posted in the early minutes of the 25 February. Thus, sorry if any passages might appear confusing…

xxtomcooperxx.substack.com

Another data point on losses. Zelensky states that 31.000 of their soldiers have lost their lives. This would be good news if true. Sadly this is probably a lower limit on an estimate.

https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1761818010661310832

Ukraine has targeted the Arkadia restaurant in Donetsk. They reported that there was a concentration of troops there.

https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1761456755215593472?s=61&t=rmEeUn68HhlFHGKbTPQr_A

Feanor · Feb 26, 2024

Larry_L said:
I don't know where to start today. I am sure both sides commit atrocities, but from the sources available to me because of my linguistic insufficiency, I see the Russians as barbaric. The following clip is of Russian soldiers executing surrendering soldiers. Warning: footage of live people becoming corpses.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1761809220167454841

I'm wondering if this is Wagner mercenaries. Their record involves warcrimes in Syria, and it would make sense if they were involved again.

The consensus seems to be that the Su-50U loss was result of friendly fire. Only the Ukrainians, and their allies can take comfort in that. I can only wonder how the Russian pilots and flight crew feel when they know that their best protection can kill them. It was stated recently that 75% of the aircraft Russia lost were reported as friendly fire. The following links are an overview of that incident from different sources. The first is the video many of you have seen with translation to English. The last is on the aircrew that went into eternal flight.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1761086281893687500

*A-50U. But otherwise I agree with your sentiment. It's far worse for Russia if this was friendly fire. It's an indicator of problems that run deep indeed

Another data point on losses. Zelensky states that 31.000 of their soldiers have lost their lives. This would be good news if true. Sadly this is probably a lower limit on an estimate.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1761818010661310832

Zelensky lying again. It isn't worth taking anything he says at face value.

Fredled · Feb 26, 2024

Feanor said:
Zelensky lying again. It isn't worth taking anything he says at face value.

Yes. Everybody knows the number is much higher.

Note that a December 2023 UK intel report put the number of Russian KIA at 70K. link
This is, to the contrary, overly conservative (much less than witnessed).
So to maintain a ratio of less than 1 to 2, Zelensky had to come up with the number of 30K. He couldn't give a number that would look equal to that of the Russians. IMO, it would be smarter to stick with their principle that they don't disclose the losses of the Ukraine forces.

Seaspear said:
There are reports that Ukraine has again shown interest in acquiring Australia older Abrams 1, this has been refused apparently

It means that Ukrainians like these tanks.
The Aussies reject the demand because these tanks have to be donated, and this will cost Australia a lot of money. Earlier, these tanks had to be sent first to the US to be refurbished. Now this can be done in Poland for a fraction of the cost. Still, Australia is not exactly next door. The cost of transportation can be very significant. (That's one of the reason why the American left so many vehicles in Iraq.)

If Ukrainians offered to buy them and cover the cost of transportation and repair, it would be different.

vonnoobie · Feb 26, 2024

Fredled said:
Yes. Everybody knows the number is much higher.

Note that a December 2023 UK intel report put the number of Russian KIA at 70K. link
This is, to the contrary, overly conservative (much less than witnessed).
So to maintain a ratio of less than 1 to 2, Zelensky had to come up with the number of 30K. He couldn't give a number that would look equal to that of the Russians. IMO, it would be smarter to stick with their principle that they don't disclose the losses of the Ukraine forces.

It means that Ukrainians like these tanks.
The Aussies reject the demand because these tanks have to be donated, and this will cost Australia a lot of money. Earlier, these tanks had to be sent first to the US to be refurbished. Now this can be done in Poland for a fraction of the cost. Still, Australia is not exactly next door. The cost of transportation can be very significant. (That's one of the reason why the American left so many vehicles in Iraq.)

If Ukrainians offered to buy them and cover the cost of transportation and repair, it would be different.

Not really. Transport cost's are relatively straight forward, Sure outsized odd cargo so may have to pay a premium but to transport entire fleet, maybe a couple million tops? And the program costs for getting these M1A1's was about $550 all up so not exactly a lot of money so if government chose to donate them we wouldn't lose out on much.

John Fedup · Feb 26, 2024

vonnoobie said:
Not really. Transport cost's are relatively straight forward, Sure outsized odd cargo so may have to pay a premium but to transport entire fleet, maybe a couple million tops? And the program costs for getting these M1A1's was about $550 all up so not exactly a lot of money so if government chose to donate them we wouldn't lose out on much.

Curious, what sort of vetting is necessary for sea carriers wanting to bid for shipping M1A1 tanks besides the actual transport?

Feanor · Feb 26, 2024

Fredled said:
It means that Ukrainians like these tanks.

Ukrainians like any remotely modern tanks they can get their hands on. Ukraine is badly short on MBTs. They've committed their reserves, riding the M1s, to the fighting west of Avdeevka, and it's not going well. Ukraine has lost the first line of villages (Severnoe-Lastochkino-Stepovoe) and is now engaged in a desperate defense on the southern part of the second line (Tonen'koe-Orlovka-Berdychy) with Russian forces inside Orlovka and engaging on the outskirts of Tonen'koe.

vonnoobie · Feb 26, 2024

John Fedup said:
Curious, what sort of vetting is necessary for sea carriers wanting to bid for shipping M1A1 tanks besides the actual transport?

Specifically I can not say, Locally it would require an export permit, Proper international paper work, when it comes to shipping their are several options that are available, two off the top of my head ARC shipping, US based RoRo operator mainly shipping across atlantic but does transhipment globally including to Australia but their ships quite large, Or give the RN a call and ask to loan out a Point class, large enough to make the journey with one stop to refuel along the way and about right sized to take full fleet.

The only issue that stops us giving them away because value of them or delivery is not it is the GoA slow walking in the replacement. Something the US could deliver in full in 12 months they have spread out over years and seeing IOC wont be until 2025 we are not in a position to spare any, especially with such a small fleet.

Fredled · Feb 26, 2024

Direct admition from the official Ukrainian press website that Russians are winning new positions and assaulting others further west.
Russians storming Orlivka from three directions after Ukraine pulls back from Lastochkyne
__________________________

vonnoobie said:
Not really. Transport cost's are relatively straight forward,

They are more complicated to ship that regular container. You can't stack them up. Then you have to load and unload with special cranes. Then move them on trucks...
But if the reason is that replacements are late, it also makes sens.

KipPotapych · Feb 26, 2024

So now we cannot rule out sending the troops to Ukraine because we must do everything for Russia to lose.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he refused to rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine, but said no consensus existed on the step, at a meeting of 20 mainly European leaders in Paris convened by Macron to ramp up the European response to the Russian military advances inside Ukraine.

Protecting France’s strategic ambiguity he said “there is no consensus to officially back any ground troops. That said, nothing should be excluded. We will do everything that we can to make sure that Russia does not prevail.”[…]

He said: “We must do whatever we can to obtain our objective.”

It is the first time there has been such open discussion of nation states collectively looking at providing troops to support the depleted Ukrainian military manpower.[…]

Among those present at the meeting were the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the UK foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte. Relatively junior officials attended from the US and Canada.[…]

The objective, he said, was to ensure Ukraine can negotiate peace and return to full territorial sovereignty.

Macron refuses to rule out putting troops on ground in Ukraine in call to galvanise Europe

French president admits no consensus exists on such a move as he urges fellow European leaders to take action rather than wait for US aid

www.theguardian.com

This, of course, is insanity, but not surprising at all. In the past few months we went from Ukraine threatening Crimea in order to negotiate to holding the line to getting ready for war with Russia (because Russia is planning an attack in 3-8 years) to possibly going to war with Russia (but not the Russian people) in Ukraine. How crazy is that?! All in the name of avoiding a big war with Russia.

The last paragraph there is also rubbish - the objective of negotiating peace and returning the borders of Ukraine to pre-2014. Ot looks like Zelensky bug is contagious.

Vivendi · Feb 27, 2024

Macron is a joke...! "do whatever we can". Unfortunately France has NOT done "whatever we can". True, they have shipped some very useful equipment like the SCALP missiles however they are so far behind most other NATO countries. Even worse: France has actively blocked attempts at the EU level of purchasing ammunition from non-EU countries, the main motivation of course being to protect French jobs in the ammo industry. Disgusting. The need for ammo in Ukraine and EU is so big that they can do both: Emergency purchase of ammo from outside of EU and at the same time stepping up EU ammo production.

Macron should look to Denmark: they recently decided to donate ALL their artillery to Ukraine. PM says Denmark to donate all its artillery to Ukraine (kyivindependent.com)

Also: Instead of "boots on the ground", perhaps they should consider a no-fly zone over Ukraine... It is also risky but much less risky than soldiers on the ground.

KipPotapych · Feb 27, 2024

^ I definitely think it would be beyond stupid for France to provide “all the got” to Ukraine, but the same article suggests that he now supports the idea of sourcing the artillery ammo from elsewhere:

He admitted Europe had failed to meet its over-optimistic promise to provide Ukraine with a million rounds of ammunition. He said the provision of ammunition was now the “top priority”, pointing to gunpowder shortages creating bottlenecks. But he asserted European countries had room for manoeuvre both to increase production in Europe, and also to purchase surplus ammunition stocks outside Europe to hand to Ukraine, a proposal advanced by the Czech Republic.

Vivendi · Feb 27, 2024

KipPotapych said:
^ I definitely think it would be beyond stupid for France to provide “all the got” to Ukraine, but the same article suggests that he now supports the idea of sourcing the artillery ammo from elsewhere:

He admitted Europe had failed to meet its over-optimistic promise to provide Ukraine with a million rounds of ammunition. He said the provision of ammunition was now the “top priority”, pointing to gunpowder shortages creating bottlenecks. But he asserted European countries had room for manoeuvre both to increase production in Europe, and also to purchase surplus ammunition stocks outside Europe to hand to Ukraine, a proposal advanced by the Czech Republic.

Thanks, I missed that part...

Well that's good news. Although it should have happened much earlier. It's frustrating that so many European politicians are always making these decisions so late... it was clear months ago that Europe would not be able to provide million rounds of ammo.

Big_Zucchini · Feb 27, 2024

KipPotapych said:
So now we cannot rule out sending the troops to Ukraine because we must do everything for Russia to lose.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he refused to rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine, but said no consensus existed on the step, at a meeting of 20 mainly European leaders in Paris convened by Macron to ramp up the European response to the Russian military advances inside Ukraine.

Protecting France’s strategic ambiguity he said “there is no consensus to officially back any ground troops. That said, nothing should be excluded. We will do everything that we can to make sure that Russia does not prevail.”[…]

He said: “We must do whatever we can to obtain our objective.”

It is the first time there has been such open discussion of nation states collectively looking at providing troops to support the depleted Ukrainian military manpower.[…]

Among those present at the meeting were the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the UK foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte. Relatively junior officials attended from the US and Canada.[…]

The objective, he said, was to ensure Ukraine can negotiate peace and return to full territorial sovereignty.

Macron refuses to rule out putting troops on ground in Ukraine in call to galvanise Europe

French president admits no consensus exists on such a move as he urges fellow European leaders to take action rather than wait for US aid

www.theguardian.com

This, of course, is insanity, but not surprising at all. In the past few months we went from Ukraine threatening Crimea in order to negotiate to holding the line to getting ready for war with Russia (because Russia is planning an attack in 3-8 years) to possibly going to war with Russia (but not the Russian people) in Ukraine. How crazy is that?! All in the name of avoiding a big war with Russia.

The last paragraph there is also rubbish - the objective of negotiating peace and returning the borders of Ukraine to pre-2014. Ot looks like Zelensky bug is contagious.

The goal of helping Ukraine by sending troops is a good one. I do have a few thoughts:
1. Talking solely about ground troops is odd. Alone, NATO ground troops hardly offer anything Ukraine's own lack. Instead, they offer an integration capability with other branches for a true all-domain warfare. But that in itself would require the active participation of all said branches, which would be far more significant than the presence of one's own ground troops. In fact, it may be argued that integrating aerial and other strategic assets with Ukrainian ground troops will yield greater results overall, with the exception of some western special forces for specific limited ops.

2. Direct NATO involvement in Ukraine does not necessarily entail any consequence regarding Article 5. Article 5 dictates that any member of the alliance, under certain circumstances, is entitled to seek the aid of all other members. But no threshold level of aid is defined. Members can contribute as much, or as little as they want. NATO is also not limited to self defense, and members may provide aid regardless of the application of any article. As such, in reality, NATO's defense mechanisms are very much centered around free will, i.e. the autonomy and policies of its members, rather than a set of strict rules.

3. Deployment must be preceded by mobilization. And troop mobilization must be preceded or accompanied by industrial mobilization. Russia certainly mobilized its industry, and there may be some critical defense items in which Russia may have entered 2024 on a better footing than they entered 2023, meaning net gains. For example Russia mobilized allied support and gained a whopping 5:1 advantage in artillery in certain areas of the front, ultimately driving its successful offensives (if human losses are unimportant). The west has not. Most NATO members still spend less than 2% of GDP on defense which is what is considered the level necessary to retain a capability. Only a few spend more than 3%-4% which is necessary to build capability.
That is not mobilization.

4. For a plethora of reasons, NATO+EU and other nations want this war to end. Most wish it to end on favorable terms, but merely ending it has merit. Of course, to really end it - it must end in a way that inherently discourages a restart of the war. Direct western involvement can do wonders in that regard - push Russia out of areas it occupied, help Ukraine set up robust defenses, assist Ukraine in building an armed force up to western specs, and get out. As it currently stands, the war is set to last at least several more years. It may be more financially wiser to help Ukraine end it quickly with an X amount of resources, than to spend several times those resources keeping Ukraine alive.

Vivendi · Feb 27, 2024

The Netherlands will contribute 100 million EUR to purchasing ammo for Ukraine: Dutch contribute €100 million to Ukraine ammunition plan - DutchNews.nl

In addition a 10-year security agreement between Ukraine and the Netherlands will soon be signed, reflecting similar agreements between Ukraine and the UK, Germany, France and Denmark. The Netherlands to conclude a 10-year security agreement with Ukraine | News item | Defensie.nl

As I have stated previously: unless Russia is able to make significant gains in the near future, they will struggle more and more since so many countries are committing to supporting Ukraine for at least the next 10 years, and are increasing weapons production. Even lack of US support will ultimately be compensated for. Perhaps not until 2026, but it will happen eventually. Unfortunately the near future will be extremely hard on Ukraine before Europe has ramped up production. Hopefully the US house of representatives will approve the latest aid package.

Feanor · Feb 27, 2024

Update.

Oskol Front.

Russia has taken out it's first Archer howitzer, presumably from the 45th Arty Bde.

The Russian-Ukrainian War Thread

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