Ukraine Conflict - "A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny"

[Zoraptor]

Like most artillery Ukraine has they're being fired outside spec pretty often. Saw a video today of a 2S7 going boom because of a critical malfunction from over use. While they have a lot of call on their limited amounts of artillery it's counterproductive to fire it too much as the thermal expansion of the barrel will make it very inaccurate, you get way more wear firing too hot so even a cooled barrel doesn't function as well,  and far more critical malfunctions (in the case above, explosion of the shell in the breach --> destroyed piece, and dead crew; less rapid firing and more care and they'd still have both).

OTOH 100 shells per day would be... rather poor performance. That's a shot every 15 minutes on average.

 

[Mamoulian War]

Looks like UA SOF were able to deliver another pack of cigarettes to Crimea 200kms behind enemy lines, and some Russian soldier found them.

 

[xzar_monty]

Interestingly, TASS reported this straight away. In its own way.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ammunition-depot-explodes-northern-crimea-tass-citing-local-authorities-2022-08-16/

[Malcador]

9 hours ago, Lexx said:

I've heard about this already a few weeks ago. The problem is not that the vehicles are bad, it's that their barrels can only shoot like 100 rounds per day. Ukraine however is using them way more than that, which ofc means they are breaking down faster.

Yes, had heard same. Not sure it was just 100 rounds a day, though. But just was interesting to see how rough this war is on equipment. Either the users aren't trained well, or the situation is just that bad, or both, I guess.

Wonder what the state of Russian gear is, saw some OSINT types talking about barrel wear and stuff like bent barrels on some howitzers.

[Mamoulian War]

Oof… This might be the biggest blow to occupation forces yet… We’ll see how accurate these numbers are soon..

 

[Lexx]

Is this the building that got hit because a journalist accidentally doxed them with showing a road sign in photos?

[Mamoulian War]

37 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Is this the building that got hit because a journalist accidentally doxed them with showing a road sign in photos?

Nope, it was day or two ago in occupied Popasna, where Wagner Group had HQs. There are also rumours about that hit, that Prygozin, the owner of Wagner could have been on site, during the explosion… He did not appeared in any Russian media since that explosion, but if this rumour is false, we will see him very soon alive and well, as he is a very prominent figure.

Edit: also there are reports, that almost no action is happening at Bakhmut after that hit. And as the siege of this city was directly under the Wagner Group command, this could mean, that the results of that doxxing might be significant. 
 

in the next few days, we’ll definitely know, if the number of casualties in these two places among the officers were as high as “advertised”, based on the reports how the attacks on Bakhmut and Soledar will move forward…

Edited August 16, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Zoraptor]

We saw him yesterday.

Guess they really wanted to dispel that rumour, since he's on the rubble of the building in Popasna that was hit.

[Malcador]

Sooner than HL3 at least.

[Mamoulian War]

6 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

We saw him yesterday.

Guess they really wanted to dispel that rumour, since he's on the rubble of the building in Popasna that was hit.

Hmm interesting. IMHO before getting to the final conclusion, we need to take into consideration few things. Prigozhin, was definitely in Popasna at least three days before the impact, as reported by Wagner propaganda Telegram channel Grey Zone. Popasna has been almost whole leveled to the ground in April/May, so a picture of him on any rubble in Popasna would be easy to make before the impact as well. I do not know how the reporting of this event went in another countries, but all the disinformation websites in Slovakia have rushed to release the statement, that Prigozhin is definitely not among the casualties. They did not even bother to edit the text. All of the sites which I checked this morning had completely same copy/paste article about the incident. This means, that the info was definitely distributed by Russian Embassy . And the last but not least thing, Russia would definitely never willingly admit such a high profile casualty, therefore unless we see Prigozhin alive and well on some pictures/footage in the near future, there will be a shadow of doubt about this event. My personal opinion is, that he was probably already away, when the incident happened, nevertheless, I want to see his newer footage as well

[pmp10]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Sooner than HL3 at least.

That's actually pretty interesting.
I doubt that anyone would waste a long range missile on just a transformer.
This gives credence to the rumors that attacks in Crimea were launched by saboteur units infiltrated there. 

[HoonDing]

It's almost as though Ukraine has been bombing Ukrainians for almost ten years.

[xzar_monty]

So, according to Ria Novosti, Russia will not let IAEA into the nuclear plant at Zap...

And here's an apparent recruitment video showing how the Russian army gets its men. Harrowing, if true.

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Malcador]

https://kyivindependent.com/investigations/suicide-missions-abuse-physical-threats-international-legion-fighters-speak-out-against-leaderships-misconduct

 

[Mamoulian War]

13 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

So, according to Ria Novosti, Russia will not let IAEA into the nuclear plant at Zap...

And here's an apparent recruitment video showing how the Russian army gets its men. Harrowing, if true.

 

And here is the reason why not…

 

[xzar_monty]

I'm quite sure there's an angle from which this(*) either did not happen, is not happening, is the fault of the collective west and/or is something that Russia clearly had no option to refrain from doing. Perhaps the angle will even be presented on this forum.

(*) The "this", as far as I know so far, is only confirmed to the extent that Russia is not letting IAEA enter the nuclear plant. Your videos just might turn out to be false, but I'm not holding much hope for that.

 

And other, less significant news today: Russia has once again blatantly breached Finnish airspace. Estonia, Sweden and Finland: three thoroughly evil western powers whose shameless provocations Russia clearly has no option but to respond to.

Edited August 18, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Mamoulian War]

The second tweet tries to show the similarities in the videos to some picture taken long time ago. And to me, the evidence looks plausible.

 

anyway, it looks like that tonight is pretty hot in a lot of places in Crimea and Belgorod. There is also a video of air defence shooting near Kerch Bridge.

[Malcador]

Footage in that first Twitter post hurts my head.  But at least there's trucks there.  Also the workers were told to take Friday off, nice of the Russians

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

I'm quite sure there's an angle from which this(*) either did not happen, is not happening, is the fault of the collective west and/or is something that Russia clearly had no option to refrain from doing. Perhaps the angle will even be presented on this forum.

What's causing you to whine about this ?

Edited August 18, 2022 by Malcador

[Zoraptor]

6 hours ago, Malcador said:

https://kyivindependent.com/investigations/suicide-missions-abuse-physical-threats-international-legion-fighters-speak-out-against-leaderships-misconduct

The military stuff doesn't really sound like suicide missions. If you don't want to do dangerous missions then staying home is the easy solution- or read 'Homage to Catalonia' or a history of the Spanish Civil War for experiences in prior ad hoc/ international formations to get your expectations right when it comes to leadership. Though there were certainly contemporary rumours that some international units suffered 80% casualties in a day in Severodonetsk that article doesn't really substantiate it much at all. The more 'civil' stuff like looting is not much of a surprise. Even if it weren't illegal it's really, really stupid when one of your big worries is civilians giving away your positions to the enemy to give them more reason to do so. Overall though, does kind of make you wonder how that (supposed) Polish fraudster didn't get shot by a 'Russian infiltrator' or accidental discharge at some point.

Also kind of has to said, much as this is being trumpeted as showing how great freedom of the press is in Ukraine to put some positive spin on, the report had apparently been sent to a bunch of international organisations too- so it was going to come out whether they wanted it to or not.

[Malcador]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/17/ukraine-defense-minister-special-forces-new-strategy/

Ukraine’s conventional forces lack the weapons and ammunition needed to launch a full-scale ground offensive to retake territory from the Russians, Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview. He said he expects that sufficient quantities will eventually be delivered in line with commitments already made by Ukraine’s Western partners.

In the meantime, Ukraine is seeking to erode Russia’s capabilities by attacking its most sensitive military installations from within.

“We’re using a strategy to ruin their stocks, to ruin their depots, to ruin their headquarters, commander quarters,” he said. “It’s our answer to their meat-grinder tactics.”

To that end, Ukraine is activating a “resistance force” under the command of Ukrainian special forces to carry out attacks far behind Russian lines, Reznikov said. The force was formed in January in accordance with a law passed last year, and in recent weeks it has been activated in Ukrainian territory held by the Russians.

 

[InsaneCommander]

UN boss to nominate General Santos Cruz for fact-finding mission in Ukraine.

I wonder if Russia will see this as good news, since Brazil is kind of supporting them. Both Bolsonaro and Lula are fans of Putin so regardless of who wins the election later this year, Brazil's position won't change.

I don't remember any discussion about this in this thread, not that I checked it all the time, but the word here in Brazil is that more than an interest in Russian fertilizers, Brazil won't condemn the war because Russia is helping with the development of the Brazilian nuclear submarine.

[pmp10]

8 hours ago, Malcador said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/17/ukraine-defense-minister-special-forces-new-strategy/

Quote

Ukraine’s conventional forces lack the weapons and ammunition needed to launch a full-scale ground offensive to retake territory from the Russians, Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview. He said he expects that sufficient quantities will eventually be delivered in line with commitments already made by Ukraine’s Western partners.

I'm surprised a message this important is communicated in a one paragraph lifted from an obscure interview. 
In practice this could mean a military stalemate for at least the rest of the year. 

[Malcador]

Well he says he expects the West to turn over the needed goods soon. Who knows. Surprised it wasn't some scare tactic to get some new weapon.

[pmp10]

There are maybe two months worth of decent weather left in the year.
Even if divisions worth of hardware arrived today, there is no way they would be ready in time. 

[Mamoulian War]

IIRC Land Lease will effectively start only around September/October. 
 

An analysis on their mobilisation along the lines of the interview was published few days ago.

 

In other news, the strike against Wagner Group in Popasna might not have taken out Prigozhin, but it looks like, it took out their main propagandists. The propaganda Telegram Channel of Wagner Group, The Grey Zone with more than 250k followers is “silent” since August 13 - the day of the explosion.

 

Edit: and the second big explosion, I’ve mentioned, in Lysychansk, which allegedly took out more than 100 Russian officers, was executed based on the photo, which they released for propaganda purposes, but they did not turned off geolocation, so it contained the exact GPS coordinates of their HQ

Edited August 20, 2022 by Mamoulian War