Russian special military operation in Ukraine #22

The train destroyed yesterday. I note that the weather is go0od and warm. How long does it take for the depth of rust on those carriages to form? Note also that the carriages are being moved easily, after an Iskander has destroyed them and their contents. This doesn't stack up for me.

Starting to get very serious in the EU by the look of it. CO2 can be a byproduct of fertiliser production.

Carlsberg Polska suspends beer production due to suspended carbon dioxide supplies. The company appeals to the government for a reaction and points out that the problem may soon also affect other companies (including breweries and those that produce carbonated drinks).

The suspension of beer production by Carlsberg Polska is due to the suspension of carbon dioxide supplies by Anwil S.A. and Grupa Azoty SA. In turn, the reason for the suspension of supplies by these companies was "a sudden and unprecedented increase in the price of natural gas".

Ispan wrote:I am back after being "hors de combat" for the past three weeks, I was prodded to give my thoughts and since I took a break from work I have been able to put together this

https://guerraenucrania.wordpress.com/2022/08/25/noticias-de-la-guerra-25-08-2022-analisis-y-perspectivas/

Good to have you back.


War news 08/25/2022 Analysis and perspectives
25 August, 2022 Zhukov

In the forum burbuja.info , once "spring of wisdom, source of knowledge, well of erudition... etc... etc" in which free spirits and dissidents write, now turned into an infectious quagmire thanks to the pro-Ukraine poisoners paid by NATO, from time to time pearls appear among the feed of pigs and for pigs, which have motivated me to write the following reflections that I share with you after a prolonged silence and that are a good general summary of the last three weeks and the course of the war so far and prospects for the future. The analysis is my own and I take full responsibility for past and future errors of judgment, I do not have a palantir to tell me what they think or do in the Russian general staff and in the halls of the Kremlin, but I can draw conclusions from the known and observed facts.

The thread is this:

https://www.burbuja.info/inmobiliaria/threads/mi-pregunta-es-por-que-ucrania-es-incapaz-de-retomar-terrenos-perdidos-y-pierde-soldados-a-chorros-que-no-han-visto-a-un-ruso-en-toda-la-guerra.1809736/



The writing that has caught my attention and in which the author asked for my opinion is this:

Luis García Redondo:

Appointment:

When in the future the years pass and after some decade since the end of this war the facts can be analyzed with a certain perspective and away from the current fanaticism of the parties, we will be able to verify that this war is VERY interesting from several points of view.

First, I think we are facing a transitional conflict, as the Syrian war has already begun to be. Something straddling the old tactics and strategies and those that are to come. Notice that it looks much more like the First World War than the Second, which is most curious. With a very restricted use of armored vehicles, a massive participation of artillery, an infantry that remains the main weapon turned into cannon fodder and an air force with an almost accessory role today.

We are shining a light on a new way of Moderna warfare.

Secondly, being a mixture between colonial-type conflict and civil war, armed war is totally subordinated to the strategies used at the political level that are omnipresent and possibly decisive.

And I think the latter is possibly because Putin is someone trained in the KGB. The material authors of a good part of all the rebellions and insurgent movements that dotted the entire world during the twentieth century.

We have already forgotten, but I think that conflicts such as Vietnam or Algeria, among many others, are still fully valid and very present in the minds of those who are carrying out this war, at least on the part of Russia.

For me it is one of the explanations, why a very limited military force is being used, almost mainly circumscribed to local militias, mercenaries and volunteers. But above all about why so much care is being taken to minimize civilian casualties or the destruction of infrastructure and cities. It is very clear that Putin's real fear is not really the Ukrainian army but the possible insurgency, the guerrillas and the separatist movements after the conflict. It seeks not only to conquer, but also to consolidate.

It makes me laugh because in the end they seem to copy the Spanish tactics in America. Behind a military man always went a missionary. It was not just about winning, but also about convincing.

Thirdly, it is also very striking how stubborn Russia is in not asserting its considerable military superiority at all times or forcefully. He repeatedly uses the right military force to make progress slowly but insufficient to break the front definitively. If you analyze the forces in conflict, the firepower favors the Russians, but otherwise they are not as asymmetric forces as we have seen elsewhere.

The reasons why this happens can be multiple and I can think of quite a few but I don't want to get long and they would be a topic for another thread. Be that as it may, the essential message I wanted to convey is that this war will end up causing multiple readings and will generate liters and liters of ink in a few years. Time to time. I sincerely believe that we only see or are only transmitted the tip of the iceberg.»


My response with my reflections:


Hi, I'm not writing because I'm exhausted and depressed because I'm alone this August working in the city. I don't write because of that and because there is nothing to tell. The front has stabilized and the battle of attrition is going on more or less as expected. Since the Russians do not strive to achieve the rupture of the front and return to the war of movements, the conclusion explaining the observed facts is that in Moscow they are in no hurry. They could end Ukraine sooner, yes, at a much higher price in lives. That they do not do it is not for lack of troops and means, it is that they want to turn the war of economic attrition against Europe and the USA.

Your analysis is very good and I fully share it, except for some details.

Do not expect anything from the Ukrainian side, they lost the war in 2014 and my words in this forum were prophetic when I said that the Ukrainian one would be a very long agony that would last for years, although the truth is I did not expect that there would be so many.

It might seem that there is a stalemate and a deadlock, which the Western media sell as a triumph in that the Ukrainian army has stopped the Russian, but the headlines (I don't read any more either) have gone from saying that they were going to defeat Russia, to admitting that there is no possible victory and that Ukraine has lost the Donbass as always and that it cannot recover the rest of the lost territory either. And it will continue to change, this morning they already say that a negotiated solution to the conflict would be a surrender to Russia.

You are a very sharp observer and you are right when you say that this war is not like the previous ones. In general, we are so imbued with the maneuvering war legacy of the Second World War that both professionals and lay people have forgotten or do not know that we have to go back to the First World War to see something similar.

The war has not gone as I expected, my forecast was encirclement battles and annihilation of bags like those of 2014. For whatever reasons, the bulk of the Ukrainian army in the Donbass salient has not been fenced off and the front has stabilized along a thousand kilometers of natural obstacles, (forests, ravines, hills, lakes), populated areas and trenches. But such stabilization on a static front is done at a terrible price for the Ukrainian forces. Unable to counterattack or retreat, the only thing they can do is a desperate resistance in the current line being methodically crushed in a battle of attrition.

It is not a brilliant or sophisticated strategy, and it is long-term, but like Grant in the Wilderness, Franco on the Ebro and Eisenhower in Normandy, the Russians will achieve victory slowly but inexorably. People who do not understand these things and many military are obsessed with the capture of territories, but the Russian strategy is a return to the classical German conceptions, the theories of Clausewitz put into practice by Moltke:

"The main goal of war is the destruction of the enemy army"

Here is a good article that I read today, in Russian, a good summary.
https://topwar.ru/200640-glavnym-obektom-operacij-dolzhna-javljatsja-ne-territorija-a-armija-protivnika-voennoe-nasledie-helmuta-fon-moltke-starshego.html

Once the bulk of the enemy forces have been destroyed, the front will be broken and it will be back to the advances, the maneuver and the occupation of the territory. As you rightly point out, by annihilating Ukrainian troops in a conventional battle of attrition, possible bases for an insurgency are eliminated.

The plans have not worked out as planned. As Motlke said, no plan of operations lasts beyond the first battle with the enemy. All the plans for a quick victory, the lightning attack on Kiev, the seizure of cities from Kharkov to Odessa in a coup d'etat, forcing the Kiev regime to a negotiated solution, even the encirclement of the Ukrainian army in the Donbass salient, have failed one after another, but these tactical failures are not defeats, but simply a prolongation of a war that the enemy has lost from day one. The Ukrainian army and its American controllers did not expect Russia to intervene, and this strategic surprise makes the error of the initial offensive deployment beyond remedy.

The Russians, despite not having achieved their strategic objectives by the fast track, have also thwarted all American plans to wear down the Russian army. They have not done what the Americans expected from a methodical general advance on a continuous front as in the SGM, which could be stopped by resisting in the cities turned into fortresses, but they acted with deep "cavalry" raids and withdrew fulfilled the objective. They did not attack in the open steppes of southern Ukraine, but launched the offensive in Kharkov and northern Donbass through terrain that favors the defender and prevents the maneuver of armored units, achieving tactical surprise. They did not manage to cut the overhang by its base, and turn it into a bag, but for practical purposes the effect is almost the same.

They have not succumbed to provocations and diversions and have caught the Ukrainians in a battle of attrition on a battlefield chosen by the Russians, on the Donbass salient and with short communication lines, in the courtyard of home, literally. They have thwarted American plans to fight a guerrilla war and to destroy the Russian armored columns with ambushes with man-portable anti-tank missiles. Few people are able to see it, but anyone with historical knowledge and common sense can see that in this war of positions in which nothing changes, the war is being won despite how slowly it is going, and even if it is not seen, the war is being shortened in the future. It prevents the Ukrainian forces from doing what they could have done, a fighting retreat and resisting for months on the Dnieper River line, or worse still repeating the experience of the battle of Mariupol in the other big cities. This carnage in Donbass prevents major massacres, especially of civilians. Nor will there be an insurgency like there was when the Chechens were defeated in Grozny and went to the mountains to continue the guerrilla struggle. In general, because Ukraine, except precisely for the wooded terrain in Donbass, is not a country for partisans, and because there will not be enough survivors left to found an insurgency campaign.

I do not know how long this siege war will last, because that is what we are seeing, a siege, and whether there will be a collapse of the front, a rupture and a rapid advance as happened in Normandy and the subsequent rapid advance through France in 1944, or perhaps we will again see a limited and gradual advance on a collective front as in the last hundred Days of 1918.

What I have no doubt is that the final victory is only a matter of time, and thanks to the obcecation of the Americans, the defeat of the puppet regime of Kiev will be total, final, and irremediable. It is not what the Kremlin wanted at first, but now they have no choice but to hurry the bitter chalice.

Moreover, war is not only military, but also multidimensional, economic and political. The longer the war drags on, the worse for Europe and the USA.

Barring a sudden collapse of Ukraine with the depletion of the army's resilience and morale, which is always a possibility, I wouldn't count on it, but I won't be surprised if it happens, this war will last until winter and beyond. It is obvious that the usurpers in Washington want to prolong the war until the November elections so that they do not have to admit another defeat after the one in Afghanistan, but they should be careful what they wish for because the Russians are happy to please them. The longer the war lasts, the greater the losses the Americans suffer. In the end, the price of gasoline and unemployment are more important indicators for the American voter than wars in deserts and distant steppes.



Summary of the situation at the front: Slavyangrad.

What is really happening in Ukraine?
Allied troops are slowly converging towards multiple targets along the entire front line. They saw that in the past, we could only assemble one, eventually two offensive operations (at best) at the same time. Now, fires caused by shelling are burning in Kharkov, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Artemovsk, Avdeyevka, Nikolaev... anywhere. What exactly changed? Some of you would say that there are more Allied troops now. And they're wrong. The change is qualitative for us and qualitative and quantitative for Ukraine. First of all, we have the approach that brings results. Slow, but brutally efficient. Artillery razes the ground. Whatever remains of the AU troops flees, surrenders or, in the worst case, will continue to resist until total annihilation. The best of the Ukrainian army is destroyed. The surviving forces are waiting for the "black days".

[historical allusion to the "black day" of the German army in Amiens in 1918 that caused the rupture of the front, the return to the advances and the collapse of German morale and the final defeat]

Or, in a nutshell, for one last stand if they ever come to that. The nationalist battalions also suffered great difficulties. Although they are directly involved in combat in some places, they are mostly used now as blocking detachments, to prevent regular troops from leaving their positions. That does not mean that they are often not attacked with deadly results. What changed is that Ukraine can no longer replenish all those losses. We hear about waves of mobilization... mobilization is constant now. But those troops are poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly commanded or without commands at all at all... How do they resist then? Simply. They're entrenched. We are slowly annihilating them, but now, we have intensified the pressure, which is being applied on all fronts. We have to wait and see how long they can withstand these casualties. Maybe 2 months, maybe 3. It's irrelevant really. The front is cracking. And, ignore stories of some "miracle" super weapon. Miracles only happen in fairy tales. For Ukraine, this is a horror story. I've rarely seen a happy ending in that genre.
By the way, Shoigu mentioned something that everyone somehow overlooked refused to believe. That's information about 150,000 Ukrainian casualties. If 2 or 3 months ago there were 70,000 confirmed dead, what makes you think that Ukraine's losses are less than that figure?

PS

The figure of 70 thousand dead comes from a leaked Ukrainian internal document. Regardless of whether it is authentic or not, all reports and indications confirm that Ukrainian casualties exceed one hundred thousand by now

Document

https://antimaydan.info/2022/08/razbor_dokumenta_o_poteryah_v_vsu.html

JohninMK wrote:The train destroyed yesterday. I note that the weather is go0od and warm. How long does it take for the depth of rust on those carriages to form? Note also that the carriages are being moved easily, after an Iskander has destroyed them and their contents. This doesn't stack up for me.

This train was the most probably hit with Iskander-K carrying FAE warhead. The wreckage is burned, which is why it rusted so fast. It can happen in a matter of hours.

Belisarius wrote:
Downed anti-radar missile AGM-88 HARM.

Oh no, another Wunderwaffe broken
You damn Russkie!

limb wrote:
The fact that you have to retort by claiming that this is brilliant progress because Russia isnt losing ground to an army whose units are traveling in civilian cars mostly, and has barely any artillery left, shows that you have no reasonable explanation for lack of any acceptable land gain.

Whoa calm down, honestly I wasn't expecting a spastic violent butthurt response from you. I am simply pointing out that the mythical AFU has ZERO casualties in the ongoing Kherson "counter-offensive" according to your NATzO overlords.

limb wrote:
The fact that the Russians are bragging for days on end about taking 2 km  or spending 4 weeks on some random hamlet like kodema, blagodatnoe, zaitsevo or partizanskoe noone ever heard of before is pathetic, and coping that Russia isnt LOSINg ground as being some epic success is even more pathetic.

No, you are the pathetic one for making too many personal assumptions duh.

limb wrote:

PhSt wrote:

limb wrote:So what happened to the mythical pesky flower? What about the mythical "massive" offensive towards nikolaev?

Relax, the Kherson counter-offensive is going as planned

The fact that you have to retort by claiming that this is brilliant progress because Russia isnt losing ground to an army whose units are traveling in civilian cars mostly, and has barely any artillery left, shows that you have no reasonable explanation for lack of any acceptable land gain.

The fact that the Russians are bragging for days on end about taking 2 km  or spending 4 weeks on some random hamlet like kodema, blagodatnoe, zaitsevo or partizanskoe noone ever heard of before is pathetic, and coping that Russia isnt LOSINg ground as being some epic success is even more pathetic.

He was being sarcastic...dam you are easily triggered ain't you.

franco wrote:

nomadski wrote:Franco wrote " Control of the territory of Ukraine by the allied forces following the results of six months of the NVO by regions.

Donetsk People's Republic - 15996 km² out of 26508 km² (60.34%)
Zaporozhye region - 20441 km² out of 27049 km² (75.57%)
Lugansk People's Republic 26682 km² out of 26682 km² (100%)
Mykolaiv region - 1247 km² out of 23938 km² (5.21%)
Kharkiv region - 10775 km² out of 31436 km² (34.28%)
Kherson region - 24513 out of 25642 km² (95.6%) . "


Thank you Franco for your post , it puts everything in more of a perspective . The SMO , should bring about a better situation in Ukraine , for both linguistic groups , than what existed before . It is obvious now that these populations could not live at peace , side by side . This means that  referendums to decide the fate of each region can not solve the problems , even if they could be held . Since the the situation is not a democratic one , and any referenda will return a binary result , one where the minorities will be deported or resettled . Hardly a democratic outcome , understood within the correct meaning of the term .

And since the Russian speaking regions and populations , particularly to the west of Dnieper and North are an absolute minority ( from 5% to 15% ) and liberating these regions , will mean that the majority Ukrainian speakers will be displaced , and it will take the use of many more troops as well , that the best solution is to have the minority Russian speakers moved to the East , in areas already under Russian control . And leave these areas alone otherwise . Since this would reflect also the result of any vote in these regions . The only exception is Odessa , with a 30% to 40% minority of Russian speakers , that can justifiably be liberated and put under Russian control . The town's of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv , both average about 14% Russian speaking populations , if my information is right , and should also be left alone . Since also these are large towns , and capturing them , would need large resources .

So in my view , apart from liberating all of Donetsk , then no more advances should be done in the East . Then Odessa region should be liberated and all Russian speakers ( living in the western region  ) to be moved East , and all Ukrainian speakers in the liberated areas to move West . They could be moved into each other's houses and homes , to save on building of new homes for them . This will be the fastest and easiest and most practical and fairest way to end the conflict .

Your information is not correct. Kharkov city is majority Russian and the province is 44% last census. Kherson has the lowest Russian population amongst the regions mentioned above (25%) but they have been one of the strongest resisters to the Maiden group. Mykolaiv region was 29% Russian last census with the urban areas being mostly Russian and rural areas being Ukrainian. And as for just staying in the Donbas, do you believe the Ukrainians and the West will quit attacking? These people are blinded by hate and crazy through ideology.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language_in_Ukraine

I did not know there were so many ucrainian speakers in Nikolaev countryside...I am curious to know if that is actually true or not.

P.S. I believe that these people lost the opportunity to decide for themselves since 2013. They did a set of wrong choices and now they will have to live with the consequences (including possible loss of statehood for their beloved country)

This enables it to carry the vast majority of standard military items, and from long enough range to keep it well out of the way of enemy fire – this range would have been ideal for the situation in Mariupol.

If they had them then and there the Nazis would have loved them... taking leaders and officials out and bringing in more ammo and food for the pleebs to continue to resist... only problem of course is that such "drones" would be easy targets to any air defence force... or even just small arms fire.

As the still from the Mad Max movie shows, those things fly slow and you are a sitting duck as you fly past anything on the ground... flying higher just makes you more obvious from further away.

The train destroyed yesterday. I note that the weather is go0od and warm. How long does it take for the depth of rust on those carriages to form? Note also that the carriages are being moved easily, after an Iskander has destroyed them and their contents. This doesn't stack up for me.

The way the carriages are sagging I would say they burned, which explains the metal discolouration, which can be mistaken for rust... it is a train... odds are it is aluminium, which doesn't really rust in the conventional way... certainly not in an environment away from the sea.

She said... and dramatic as her gender can be

Passionate people say things in the heat of the moment that they don't really mean...

Put your hand up anyone with no regrets about anything you have ever said to anyone...

First, I think we are facing a transitional conflict, as the Syrian war has already begun to be. Something straddling the old tactics and strategies and those that are to come. Notice that it looks much more like the First World War than the Second, which is most curious. With a very restricted use of armored vehicles, a massive participation of artillery, an infantry that remains the main weapon turned into cannon fodder and an air force with an almost accessory role today.

We are shining a light on a new way of Moderna warfare.

I understand the point you are trying to make but it very much ignores the extensive work done by the Russian AF and long range precision strike weapons that gutted the resources of the Ukraine army while the small infantry forces pinned their main forces in the Donbass and the rest of the other forces in Odessa and Kiev in place.

If precision missile strikes and air attacks didn't destroy thousands of tons of weapons and armour and aircraft and fuel and quite a few people too, this conflict would have been very different.

Another factor is that in this case and unlike WWI, the conflict is largely static because the more powerful side wants it to be... they don't want quick occupation of the country, they want to bleed the enemy of nazis and anti Russians, and their current tactics might look like trench warfare with artillery and machine guns dominating, but that is because it is getting the job done... it is nothing like a stalemate that it is portrayed in the west to be... Russia is in control... despite minor hiccups that western propaganda leap on to prove Kiev is winning.

And I think the latter is possibly because Putin is someone trained in the KGB. The material authors of a good part of all the rebellions and insurgent movements that dotted the entire world during the twentieth century.

I rather suspect this operation was planned by the Russian military... and Putin just said yes... in much the same way Biden said we are leaving in Afghanistan and had very little to do with planning day to day operations there.

They could end Ukraine sooner, yes, at a much higher price in lives. That they do not do it is not for lack of troops and means, it is that they want to turn the war of economic attrition against Europe and the USA.

Taking the entire territory of Ukraine would not end the war, and would lead to a guerilla conflict that could go on for some time... they need to keep doing what they are doing and minimise their own casualties while breaking the back of the enemy and its supporters.

The fact that the Russians are bragging for days on end about taking 2 km or spending 4 weeks on some random hamlet like kodema, blagodatnoe, zaitsevo or partizanskoe noone ever heard of before is pathetic, and coping that Russia isnt LOSINg ground as being some epic success is even more pathetic.

Capturing ground is irrelevant, the purpose is to kill Orcs... if you don't even when you capture all of Ukraine those Orcs will be a pain in your supply convoys until you deal with them. Easier to deal with them now while the supply lines are shorter and easier to protect.

If the general population can ignore the nazi overtones of their current overlords that steal their money and resources and murder the ones that are not anti Russian enough then they will love the Russians as overlords because as usual roads will be built and buildings and bridges and money will be spent on improving their lives and their situation despite them being ungrateful bastards about it I suspect they wont hate it the way they should be hating all this nazi bandera shit.

caveat emptor wrote:

nomadski wrote:
And since the Russian speaking regions and populations , particularly to the west of Dnieper and North are an absolute minority ( from 5% to 15% ) and liberating these regions , will mean that the majority Ukrainian speakers will be displaced , and it will take the use of many more troops as well , that the best solution is to have the minority Russian speakers moved to the East , in areas already under Russian control . And leave these areas alone otherwise . Since this would reflect also the result of any vote in these regions . The only exception is Odessa , with a 30% to 40% minority of Russian speakers , that can justifiably be liberated and put under Russian control . The town's of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv , both average about 14% Russian speaking populations , if my information is right , and should also be left alone . Since also these are large towns , and capturing them , would need large resources .

So in my view , apart from liberating all of Donetsk , then no more advances should be done in the East . Then Odessa region should be liberated and all Russian speakers ( living in the western region  ) to be moved East , and all Ukrainian speakers in the liberated areas to move West . They could be moved into each other's houses and homes , to save on building of new homes for them . This will be the fastest and easiest and most practical and fairest way to end the conflict .

Where did you come up that in Kharkov 14% is a Russian speakimg population? Literally, everyone in the city speaks Russian and maybe some percentage speaks Surzhyk in the villages. I doubt that there are even 14% of Ukrainian speaking population in Kharkhov region.
And what does Russian speaking population, even mean?

I can confirm, I have been in Kharkov in 2016 and everyone I met spoke Russian (even between themselves). The younger generation (20-25 years old) were perfectly bilingual, but still used russian to speak with each other (even the pro-ucrainian or Azov fan among them).