regarding ukraine short range air defense survival,
i suspect that long range target acquisition and 'fix" is performed by nato assets within the medium exctended air defense system (meads) architecture. maybe feeds from aegis ashore (poland and rumania) , awacs flying over poland (limited look down!) and orbital sensors, implying ukraine is integrating and using nato/us extended air defense sensors and a variety of data links for diverse intercept functions.....
Thanks for all you do. The US and it's golden billion vassal states is running out of tricks and foreign cannon fodder so we go to the ICC which did Milosevic but not Clinton destroying any creds they might have had. The US and top vassals are now trying to get Russia banned from the Olympics, more admissions of impotence. The US is now threatening sanctions on airlines which can overfly Russia giving them a competitive edge. Today I watch Van du Lying thanking the Minor vassal state of Canada for training the Ukraine military since 2015. The set looked like the general dynamics factory in London Ontario where they build death machine's for the head chopper's and the preppie university makes students get vaccinated after making financial commitments to the school. Moody's, probably the ratings agency with the most integrity just downgraded the entire US banking industrial complexes. Switzerland who gave up the neutrality it's had since Napoleon and hides more money than anywhere has its second largest Bank going under and all European Banks are zombie Banks. The empire of extraction, built on the giant financial fraud that is fractional reserve banking backed by the army of goons military and financial is finally coming to an end after half a millennium...hoorah!
Regarding the Sitrep. If the Russians do not have a very clear picture of what Ukraine is doing around Bakhmut, then all the expectation that they have surveilance/ISR somewhat comparable to the US is wrong.
So if the Russians are wondering IF a breakin is being prepared by the AFU, that is worrisome. Certainly ISR will not tell you enemy intentions, but it will certainly enemy capacity.
If a breakin is being prepared, then the AFU is concentrating people and equipment in densities that invite attack. If they are able to concentrate unmolested while we are told by some that the Russian hesitate to concentrate for fear of HIMARS, glidebombs, artillery fires etc. then the Russian situation is more tenuous than we imagine.
If the Russians are as capable and prepared as we hope, they should be seeing these concentrations as a great opportunity.
I don't entirely trust the Russian Army. they have a long tradition of being more intent on fighting their internal enemies than external. The Russian Army would like to see Wagner take a beating. Institutionally, Wagner success is a threat to the MOD. I imagine there are a lot of people in Russia watching these developments who share the same thoughts. I suspect there is already uncertain trust for the Russian Army as an institution within Russian society.
If this counter attack occurs, the AFU goal will be to collect good video footage of the AFU advancing and rescuing the trapped garrison at Bakhmut. That will be success for them.
The Orekhov offensive seems like it was a test offensive of sorts, using NATOs combined arms blitzkrieg tactics they seem to think are the key for wining any conflict. The smoke part was confusing; isn't that usually used when your position is revealed and for you to move out of the way to safety? But even then its for line of sight only right? What affect is that supposed to achieve against artillery and air strike on your smoke group?
"The powers that be are watching Ukraine’s collapse and know the last big ‘hurrah’ hail mary throw of the vaunted ‘Spring Offensive’ will be the true beginning of the end, at which point Zelensky will be under great pressure from various sides to begin formal overtures of peace/compromise toward Putin/Russia."
Or, they really believe the offensive will be succesful, and in their pursuit of the "regime change" strategy, they do not want to give Putin an out of the resulting precarious situation (in the form of possible peace talks that they hope he will be begging for).
"Initially, US/NATO appeared deterred by the events and cancelled planned future flights. However, they did end up sending up a new RQ-4 Global Hawk, but this time it flew with transponders on and much farther away from Russian territory."
Does the RQ-4 Global Hawk not always fly with transponders on? I see it every day on Flightradar.
Well, as to the alleged Ukrainian 20 brigades and their upcoming attempt to "deblock" Bakhmut, all I can say is: "Good luck with that, Ukraine..."
Which is to say: "That ain't gonna happen".
OTOH, if Ukraine does manage to throw back Wagner from their "crumple zones", you can expect the gloom-and-doom concern trolls to be out in force claiming that Russia has lost the war and must now sue for peace on the "Korean DMZ" concept.
"That ain't gonna happen", either.
Neither is Xi going to convince Putin to negotiate with Ukraine - if he even intends to. Russia's security needs require taking control of all of Ukraine, deposing the neo-Nazi/NATO regime, and putting a Military District in Western Ukraine, right on the Polish border, with a couple hundred thousand Russian troops, a thousand Russian tanks, and airfields with Russian MiG-31Ks armed with Kinzhals and a Russian navy base in Odessa.
Then Putin can talk to the West and say, "OK, you got your Aegis Ashore in Poland and Romania - we just countered that. And I hope you don't like it. Now what are you going to do about it?"
President Putin has, I believe, stated in recent times that privately owned element of the military industrial complex which are underperforming are liable to have their ownership status reviewed.
Putin's initial years in power were associated with the political neutering of the oligarchs of neoliberal financial capitalism (the "Semibankirschina") and it is interesting to note the President Xi's crackdown on corruption has also strongly targeted oligarchs whose activities might negatively effect financial stability.
5) It is interesting to note with regard to NATO's Yugoslavia bombing campaign that I think Colonel Doug MacGregor has said that they they started with list of static military infrastructure that were destroyed relatively quickly and as a result they moved on to targets of much lower significance (i.e. probably not that militarily relevant). I think I also read somewhere that it was also a fairly ineffective campaign when it came to the actual destruction of military hardware (rather than buildings).
As far as geo-locating the Reaper crash sight, another cross-check occurred to me this morning. Google earth will show that the shelf on which Crimea is perched begins dropping precipitously only 20 kilometers or so from the southern shores. For the wreckage to be at 900m, it can't be much further offshore than that, or it would be twice as deep. So assuming the drone spent at least some of its time trying to escape, it must have been very close to land indeed when the intercept started.
With respect to history Dominic Lieven’s Russia Against Napoleon seems a fair take by a British / western author (albeit his ancestry seems to be Baltic German). It covers only the Napoleonic War but shows that the Russian Army defeated Napoleon and then reached Paris. The victory was not only caused by winter. It even details aspects such as Tsar Alexander visiting French wounded in hospital, as well as how Russian society mobilised and was organised to fight the war. Quite different to usual British histories of the period that focus on the Iberian Peninsula War, Wellington, Nelson and Waterloo.
Obviously, all of the works on WW2 by Antony Beevor are full of anti Soviet / anti Russian propaganda and very much need to be avoided. If you believe him, every Soviet soldier was seemingly committing rape and other outrages almost constantly. Which many British people seem to lap up as gospel truth.
History of Russia, have a look at this website https://histography.ru/en/#8620101 for chronology and overview, most topics before 1905 can then be checked for more details even with wikipedia or history channels in YT.
This doesn t make any sense. Where do AFU stores it s 20 brigades în Yar, Slaviansk-Kramatorsk region? We are talking about 50k+ men and equipement în a very small area. That not double when the russian just can bomb you with kalibrs into Kingdom come. Plus we allways talk about tens of thousands of soldiers but when we look at the videos we don t see that many soldiers. It was said that AFU had 80k soldiers aroumd Bahmut but they were beaten by Wagner with ,what, 30k soldiers? WTF? În WW2 you could see a sea of soldiers but here? Something doesn t add up. Why do the russians have to take soldiers from the south front to help Wagner, were are the 500k soldiers? How does Ukraine still have men? 50k here, 11k there, 15k over there. Where the fuck are they getting them? And finally, why are they still fighting, wtf is wrong with those stupid ukranians, don t they have internet, don t they know that they are uncle s Sam bitch, that their wifes have gone în the West and are sucking foreign cock, that their country is beyond fucked? Are they that dumb and brainwashed? Can t understand these bandera fucks. Strange war indeed.
Let’s do…this💙🇷🇺❤️
regarding ukraine short range air defense survival,
i suspect that long range target acquisition and 'fix" is performed by nato assets within the medium exctended air defense system (meads) architecture. maybe feeds from aegis ashore (poland and rumania) , awacs flying over poland (limited look down!) and orbital sensors, implying ukraine is integrating and using nato/us extended air defense sensors and a variety of data links for diverse intercept functions.....
Thanks for all you do. The US and it's golden billion vassal states is running out of tricks and foreign cannon fodder so we go to the ICC which did Milosevic but not Clinton destroying any creds they might have had. The US and top vassals are now trying to get Russia banned from the Olympics, more admissions of impotence. The US is now threatening sanctions on airlines which can overfly Russia giving them a competitive edge. Today I watch Van du Lying thanking the Minor vassal state of Canada for training the Ukraine military since 2015. The set looked like the general dynamics factory in London Ontario where they build death machine's for the head chopper's and the preppie university makes students get vaccinated after making financial commitments to the school. Moody's, probably the ratings agency with the most integrity just downgraded the entire US banking industrial complexes. Switzerland who gave up the neutrality it's had since Napoleon and hides more money than anywhere has its second largest Bank going under and all European Banks are zombie Banks. The empire of extraction, built on the giant financial fraud that is fractional reserve banking backed by the army of goons military and financial is finally coming to an end after half a millennium...hoorah!
Regarding the Sitrep. If the Russians do not have a very clear picture of what Ukraine is doing around Bakhmut, then all the expectation that they have surveilance/ISR somewhat comparable to the US is wrong.
So if the Russians are wondering IF a breakin is being prepared by the AFU, that is worrisome. Certainly ISR will not tell you enemy intentions, but it will certainly enemy capacity.
If a breakin is being prepared, then the AFU is concentrating people and equipment in densities that invite attack. If they are able to concentrate unmolested while we are told by some that the Russian hesitate to concentrate for fear of HIMARS, glidebombs, artillery fires etc. then the Russian situation is more tenuous than we imagine.
If the Russians are as capable and prepared as we hope, they should be seeing these concentrations as a great opportunity.
I don't entirely trust the Russian Army. they have a long tradition of being more intent on fighting their internal enemies than external. The Russian Army would like to see Wagner take a beating. Institutionally, Wagner success is a threat to the MOD. I imagine there are a lot of people in Russia watching these developments who share the same thoughts. I suspect there is already uncertain trust for the Russian Army as an institution within Russian society.
If this counter attack occurs, the AFU goal will be to collect good video footage of the AFU advancing and rescuing the trapped garrison at Bakhmut. That will be success for them.
The Orekhov offensive seems like it was a test offensive of sorts, using NATOs combined arms blitzkrieg tactics they seem to think are the key for wining any conflict. The smoke part was confusing; isn't that usually used when your position is revealed and for you to move out of the way to safety? But even then its for line of sight only right? What affect is that supposed to achieve against artillery and air strike on your smoke group?
A few thoughts:
"The powers that be are watching Ukraine’s collapse and know the last big ‘hurrah’ hail mary throw of the vaunted ‘Spring Offensive’ will be the true beginning of the end, at which point Zelensky will be under great pressure from various sides to begin formal overtures of peace/compromise toward Putin/Russia."
Or, they really believe the offensive will be succesful, and in their pursuit of the "regime change" strategy, they do not want to give Putin an out of the resulting precarious situation (in the form of possible peace talks that they hope he will be begging for).
"Initially, US/NATO appeared deterred by the events and cancelled planned future flights. However, they did end up sending up a new RQ-4 Global Hawk, but this time it flew with transponders on and much farther away from Russian territory."
Does the RQ-4 Global Hawk not always fly with transponders on? I see it every day on Flightradar.
Well, as to the alleged Ukrainian 20 brigades and their upcoming attempt to "deblock" Bakhmut, all I can say is: "Good luck with that, Ukraine..."
Which is to say: "That ain't gonna happen".
OTOH, if Ukraine does manage to throw back Wagner from their "crumple zones", you can expect the gloom-and-doom concern trolls to be out in force claiming that Russia has lost the war and must now sue for peace on the "Korean DMZ" concept.
"That ain't gonna happen", either.
Neither is Xi going to convince Putin to negotiate with Ukraine - if he even intends to. Russia's security needs require taking control of all of Ukraine, deposing the neo-Nazi/NATO regime, and putting a Military District in Western Ukraine, right on the Polish border, with a couple hundred thousand Russian troops, a thousand Russian tanks, and airfields with Russian MiG-31Ks armed with Kinzhals and a Russian navy base in Odessa.
Then Putin can talk to the West and say, "OK, you got your Aegis Ashore in Poland and Romania - we just countered that. And I hope you don't like it. Now what are you going to do about it?"
2) Regarding Russian oligarchs here is an excellent and very recent piece on one in particular by John Helmer.
https://johnhelmer.net/is-the-bar-coming-down-on-the-dirtiest-of-the-russian-oligarchs/
President Putin has, I believe, stated in recent times that privately owned element of the military industrial complex which are underperforming are liable to have their ownership status reviewed.
Putin's initial years in power were associated with the political neutering of the oligarchs of neoliberal financial capitalism (the "Semibankirschina") and it is interesting to note the President Xi's crackdown on corruption has also strongly targeted oligarchs whose activities might negatively effect financial stability.
5) It is interesting to note with regard to NATO's Yugoslavia bombing campaign that I think Colonel Doug MacGregor has said that they they started with list of static military infrastructure that were destroyed relatively quickly and as a result they moved on to targets of much lower significance (i.e. probably not that militarily relevant). I think I also read somewhere that it was also a fairly ineffective campaign when it came to the actual destruction of military hardware (rather than buildings).
As far as geo-locating the Reaper crash sight, another cross-check occurred to me this morning. Google earth will show that the shelf on which Crimea is perched begins dropping precipitously only 20 kilometers or so from the southern shores. For the wreckage to be at 900m, it can't be much further offshore than that, or it would be twice as deep. So assuming the drone spent at least some of its time trying to escape, it must have been very close to land indeed when the intercept started.
With respect to history Dominic Lieven’s Russia Against Napoleon seems a fair take by a British / western author (albeit his ancestry seems to be Baltic German). It covers only the Napoleonic War but shows that the Russian Army defeated Napoleon and then reached Paris. The victory was not only caused by winter. It even details aspects such as Tsar Alexander visiting French wounded in hospital, as well as how Russian society mobilised and was organised to fight the war. Quite different to usual British histories of the period that focus on the Iberian Peninsula War, Wellington, Nelson and Waterloo.
Obviously, all of the works on WW2 by Antony Beevor are full of anti Soviet / anti Russian propaganda and very much need to be avoided. If you believe him, every Soviet soldier was seemingly committing rape and other outrages almost constantly. Which many British people seem to lap up as gospel truth.
History of Russia, have a look at this website https://histography.ru/en/#8620101 for chronology and overview, most topics before 1905 can then be checked for more details even with wikipedia or history channels in YT.
This doesn t make any sense. Where do AFU stores it s 20 brigades în Yar, Slaviansk-Kramatorsk region? We are talking about 50k+ men and equipement în a very small area. That not double when the russian just can bomb you with kalibrs into Kingdom come. Plus we allways talk about tens of thousands of soldiers but when we look at the videos we don t see that many soldiers. It was said that AFU had 80k soldiers aroumd Bahmut but they were beaten by Wagner with ,what, 30k soldiers? WTF? În WW2 you could see a sea of soldiers but here? Something doesn t add up. Why do the russians have to take soldiers from the south front to help Wagner, were are the 500k soldiers? How does Ukraine still have men? 50k here, 11k there, 15k over there. Where the fuck are they getting them? And finally, why are they still fighting, wtf is wrong with those stupid ukranians, don t they have internet, don t they know that they are uncle s Sam bitch, that their wifes have gone în the West and are sucking foreign cock, that their country is beyond fucked? Are they that dumb and brainwashed? Can t understand these bandera fucks. Strange war indeed.
Here are some items that are interesting and informative about Russian history and culture. Many of these are long but well worth the time.
Robert K Massie:
1. Peter the Great: His life & world
2. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a woman
3. Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty
Yulian Semyonov:
Seventeen Moments of Spring
(novel available in English at Amazon. Also see 12 episode soviet tv series with subtitles on YouTube.)
YouTube series “The Forgotten War”
Dostoyevsky:
1. Crime and Punishment,
2. Brothers Karamazov
Tolstoy:
War and Peace
Pasternak:
Doctor Zhivago (very different from the movie!)
Alexander Griboyedov:
Woe from Wit: A Verse Comedy in Four Acts (Russian Library),
translated by Betsy Hulick
Novels by Boris Akunin are fun and provide historical context at various key points. Most are available in English.
This is a hell of an incredible SITREP, awesome reading, thanks a bunch.
“A Concise History of Russia” Paul Bushkovitch is pretty good. Certainly a good overview starting point
What a great read. I was wondering what's an "SD" in the phase below?
"VFU used smoke before the attack, and three charges of SD to make passages in minefields."