Russian special military operation in Ukraine #60

Lapain wrote:

Problem is what happens if you have entrenched Ukies in the Kursk region?
Ukies with ability to strike the NPP and other assets with ATACMS almost at will?
This is the so called strong hand the nazis were hinting about.

Two years after the Kharkov debacle the RF are still unable to dislodge them from Kupyansk. So Russian leadership has about a month to dismantle this bulge or else, heads will roll, at least Gerasimov, hopefully Medvedev, maybe even the Boss himself, and you have right there a victory for the NATO proxies.

What was I saying. Russian Mil. has now about 20 days to reverse the situation.

Yeah, Russian command is shit at their job. Entire command should be sacked and someone more competent should be in.

Whiny whiny whiny.

They didn't even bother to evacuate civilians that now would have to be evacuated but by boat.

By boat is a fantastic way to evacuate people... boats don't hit land mines, and while they do have to follow rivers it is harder to hit them with artillery because rivers are often wider than roads.

Even Ukraine is evacuating civilians in Sumy and this is a regime who doesn't give a shit usually.

Ukraine is shooting and shelling civilians evacuating in the wrong direction...

This blunder of Russia is embarrassing right now.

Whiny whiny whiny.

Ukraines gonna hold a position Russia will have to go through the rear rather than direct. Now bridges are out.

Yes, because the Russian military does not know how to cross rivers at all... they are trapped!

This will be a serious problem with transferring additional forces.

The good news is they clearly don't expect to operate as a mobile force...

This will mean Russia will have to go into Sumy and then cut off the Ukrainian forces there.  Maybe hence why Russia is bombing sumy hard currently.

Ukrainian reserves and support are coming from that area, of course they are going to hit them.

That said, now civilians in this area will be used as hostages.

Something Kievs forces would never do...  

The Russians should have evacuated the people. So that Ukraine can't harden their positions as Russia could bomb the area relentlessly

The fortified positions and Soviet era underground complexes they have been fighting in took decades to build... their ability to dig in is limited... they wont have concrete and steel reinforcing rods to make extensive trenches... nor do they have the time to do so.

that launched the HIMARS that did it got too close to the front, so exposing themselves and paid for it with their destruction.

The bridge will be repaired faster than those HIMARS replaced.

Reports are circulating on TG that Ukraine (as per instructions by NATO) is preparing a "dirty bomb" nuclear provocation in the ZNPP site.

I know it is very dark of me but I hope they do. A good radiation screening often reduces deaths to cancer because early detection is key and checking everyone in a community often finds cancers early that would otherwise be missed and left untreated often till it is too late.

Secondly when the IAEA don't take a neutral stance and blame Kiev for it, Russia can finally say the IAEA is a tool of the west and kick those fuckers out of all Russian and Russian made reactors and demand reform... perhaps a BRICS nuclear regulation organisation or some such thing.

I would like to see air burst Iskander used, instead of one with cassette bomblets. That way they'll be sure that target is completely destroyed.

Those cassette bomblet warheads look rather weak but actually they are much more devastating to soft targets over an enormous area than even the large warheads.

An air burst 600kg bomb would probably be rather less effective than a cluster bomb with munitions spread over a huge area and detonated.

When you have a big group of people that are spread out a big bomb in the centre overkills the people in the middle... they get turned to mash, but their bodies absorb fragments and blast so people further out get minor injuries or none at all. Divide that large heavy warhead into 2kg packs complete with half a kg of fragments and scatter hundreds over an area of 200-300 square metres and everyone can be killed.

It is like the difference between firing one 125mm APFSDS round at 500 soldiers, or 2,000 rifle calibre rounds at 500 soldiers... they might weigh the same, but the effect... when the smaller rounds are delivered more efficiently, makes the lighter rounds more effective.

But flaming will have you think this wasn't a total **** up.

They mounted a fairly large scale attack on a relatively quiet border area and were initially successful... as you would expect... in the same way the Russian invasion force managed to take quite a lot more land area with a relatively small force.

Being surprised is not a **** up. Collapsing in tears and demanding people get fired is the **** up.

This entire war has been one **** up after the other for Russia.

Half a million nazis dealt with and continuing with that service to humanity is not a **** up.

Russia can't control what the west does or what Kiev does, it can only respond and so far its responses have been clever and effective and it is the Ukraine with all its billions in western cash injections and money and weapons and ammo and C4STAR resources that is losing.

But because of superiority in manpower and weapons, they were able to succeed even with these fuckups.

Ukrainian forces outnumbered Russian forces from day one and only now the balance has shifted because Ukraines resources and material are being used up faster than they can be accumulated.... 12 ATACMS shot down trying to hit the Crimean bridge, 12 thousand troops trained the last year and a half committed to this suicide raid that includes by all accounts French and English speaking mercs... eliminating these people is a service to planet earth.

I've read Russians saying that Putin simply gutted russias military and reason why they are incapable of really committing to this war is because it's a skeleton. And the military command are just very incompetent.

Hahaha... and if all that were true how do you explain the fact that Kiev is talking about peace deals and is clearly losing on the battlefield at a rate it cannot sustain and it is trying such ridiculous measures to try to rescue something from the ashes.

Pretty clear this mission... which likely included the destruction of the Crimean bridge as a part of it, but the capture of the Kursk NPP was Nulands promised surprise... so once it is ground down and destroyed it will likely be something more desperate... talk of a dirty bomb.... they are scraping the barrel and coming up with nothing.

But Russian military command is incompetent because the enemy is getting desperate and making costly mistakes...

How, in God's name, was the border this unprotected?

If Russia mobilised 12 thousand men with armour and had full artillery support... exactly which western border would stop them moving deep into the territory of any bordering country?

Even Finland would be in trouble and Moldova and Romania might not even notice the incursion till the troops entered the capital cities.

To stop an armoured force of 12K men who are properly trained... unlike the cannon fodder they are sending to the Donbass front lines, these are essentially HATO trained elite force... you would need double or triple that number to stop them in border guards and FSB.... probably more...  and where would these men wait... so far they will have been sitting doing nothing  for three years and even if you had them there HATO are going to spot them and shift the attack to somewhere else... or launch a fake attack somewhere else to draw them away.

Maybe Ukraines propaganda was real because how does Russia not have enough manpower to deal with this?

The key two words here is Ukraines and Propaganda.

It is a bit like saying Russian air defence systems are the best in the world... how come the Orcs can still hit targets... the Russians should be shooting down everything.

Well when the target is the Crimean bridge or the Black Sea Fleet HQ then they don't hit the target. When it is some backwater dry dock with a sub and some ships in it then launch a dozen missiles and one or two might slip through. Hit a bridge here or there and they can reach.

Nothing is 100%... have you ever played war thunder? No matter the talent of the gamer no one never dies no matter what vehicle they operate.

No vehicle is invulnerable and it is a game so in reality you can't use really good headphones to hear someone coming because your own engine noise would prevent that every time. You can't use the mouse to look over objects and buildings, and visibility from most of those vehicles is absolutely horrific... and when your track is hit you don't push a button and wait 10 seconds to fix it... you bail and run.

Where is the hundreds of tanks, helicopters, bombers and jets blowing up Kiev?

That was your imagined response to this attack, I am sure Putin has things that are rather more productive and useful for Russia.

Smashing a fucked up city helps no one.

Why haven't they gone after the command of Ukraine?

International laws against destroying US embassies?

Why have they left supply lines running for Ukraine?

Because there are millions of trucks and thousands of roads and rail lines for supplies to enter, and much of it is just normal commerce. A normal truck carrying baby food might have artillery ammo packed into a corner but that will be hidden....

But instead, this protracted war of moving slower than geriatrics fucking, and letting the enemy somehow amass a large army to invade your own territory and now after a week, still is moving in, just goes to show that if it was a NATO invasion, they would be in Moscow by week 2 and Putin would still be saying it's all provocation.

It was a group of about 12 thousand that has been training the last year and a half... the best of the best, likely plus a few mercenaries from recently retired military in the west.... bet they are regretting their decisions now... bet you in training they were kept in a bubble and not told what was happening... all the Russian soldiers are monsters hurting Ukrainian children and touching them wrong and you have to go and save them and punish those bad Russians.

I don't think they are going to be captured, most will just be killed, but those ethnic Ukrainians probably getting a look at Russian territory are probably thinking their mud huts and sealed roads are better than what they have in the Ukraine... what is going on...

3. The worst thing that Putin has done is not flattening Ukrainian government installations, transit, internet, water, gas, electriccal, and internet infrastructure. Sparing civilians is smart, but winning the peace at the expense of winning the war, is well nonsensical.

The west does not care about any hardships or death the Ukrainians have to put up with. The west want a short sharp conflict, Russia needs to get this done right or they will end up having to do it all over again in 5 to 10 years at even greater costs.

Destroying infrastructure and making civilians freeze does not always achieve the desired results. The German bombing of London didn't make Britons want to surrender and they ended up destroying lots and lots of German cities in retaliation... if the Germans had had red lines they might have avoided what was to come... of course the allies probably would have bombed the crap out of them anyway.

4. A bit of optimism, Ukraine still owns less territory than is in the Chicago Metropolitan area and they are being absolutely and completely slaughtered.

These soldiers and tanks and artillery vehicles that are being destroyed at their best... the men took over a year to train and were mostly trained in the west to HATO standards... it is better they kill them in this operation than such soldiers get sent to the front to slow down the Russian advance and perhaps force a stalemate.

5. They, Ukraine are taking cow pastures and are losing thousands of troop in areas of the front they are needed.

And if reports are true are having to further strip men and artillery resources from the front lines they are back-pedalling on to try to keep this incursion going leading to reserves arriving and being shelled as they arrive.

6. Reason for concern, when there is talk of a dirty bomb being used, I could believe it. If it happens, Russia should not strike Kiev. No, Washington, Warsaw, London, Brussels, Rammstein, Landstuhl, etc become legitimate military targets.

When you look at the wider west vs everyone else global war the risk of a western supported dirty bomb attack and lack of action from the IAEA means the destruction of that corrupt western owned organisation. A real BRICS replacement whos goals and aims are pure and not hitched to western agendas and politics would be a real result.

Alienation of the US and west from the rest of the world is the other real bonus.

You and I both know Putin is good for economics and stability but shit for military. It's as simple as that.

Is that because Russia has lost in Syria and in the Ukraine?

Because they didn't and haven't.

But Russia couldn't even bother to protect its own borders.

Are you honestly that stupid?

Russia bankrupts itself by building a 10 million man army... not to march on Kiev... it is needed to man the largest border on the planet... who knows where the Ukrainians might launch an attack from and in what numbers so 10 million armed men taken from factories and working life to stand guard on some empty border around the largest country on the planet because some faggots on the interweb are pissing their pants over incursions.

If a dirty bomb is used, Putin and Medvedev will say a bunch of stupid shit and continue the geriatric **** speed of the war.... more people will die and Russians will give approval rating of 90% to Putin.

Yeah... it is easy to prove Medvedev and Putin are weak when you say what they will do to some made up shit.

I seem to remember comments from you pussies 8 years ago where Putin is weak because he is doing nothing when Kiev shells and bombs Ukrainians who want to speak Russian... eventually he tries every peaceful option to force dialog and to achieve a peaceful solution and all the while the west is arming up Kiev for a war.

Then Putin did nothing... oops no... he invaded the Ukraine and started killing nazis... but he is weak and incompetent... no matter what he does.

Seph and others are like the western media.... Putin and Medvedev and Russia can never be good enough and are weak and stupid and incompetent.

Look at the economy stupid. Look at the current situation on the ground. Look at the leaders of both sides.

Who visits countries demanding handouts and donations like a beggar in the street and who looks for trade ties and commercial upgrades and solving the problems of other countries like free food exports to African countries?

You can't win a war when you are bankrupt... as Kiev is about to show... the money dries up and things stop happening...

Yes the Russians where caught with their pants down not should they have been, again someone somewhere fucked up and failed to detect this force, this was a Big enough gathering it should have been noticed, will it amount to anything not really

Yeah, 11/9 should have been prevented too... total incompetence...

FP is Russian, so it is normal that he is trying to whitewash or justify failures.

You mean like you and Seph are from the west so you amplify problems and the solution is always to fire Putin and Medvedev and raise the dead and put Navalny or his wife in power...

I believe that both political and military side, share the blame.

Thank you for sharing, but honestly I could have told you what you believed before you said it out loud because nothing has changed...

Is the solution for Putin to offer a complete surrender and let Kiev keep any land they have taken and give back all the regions of the Ukraine and Crimea and then start pumping money into the Ukraine to pay for 1,000 years of abuse... 200 trillion should do it right?

Why mevdev?

The guy has no control or say over the military operation, he has actually been one of the most vocal critics of how the war has been handled and far

Political side (basically Putin), for setting unrealistic requirements (especially at the beginning of the war) and to some degree, tying military's hands and higher military echelons showed that good part of them is not there, because of their military skills, but nepotism.

The Minsk agreements left most of the Ukraine intact... all they lost was Crimea. All they had to do was roll back a few laws like banning Russian language (what country calls itself a democracy and bans languages?), and banning religions and agree to not join HATO. They would have been allowed to join the EU if they wanted but now that is off the table too.

These terms are incredibly generous, but have been rejected. So Russia has invested men and money and time into fixing their problems for them. Four regions have voted to join the RF and their aspirations have been accepted so that original deal is no longer on the table, and now there are incursions into Russian territory I suspect Russia will want to create a buffer zone to prevent this from happening in the future.

The population in that buffer zone might decide that joining the Russian Federation is going to get things fixed faster and lead to a much better future than being a miner in some mine owned by some American company, or working on some farm for some US company.

Referendums might lead to Ukraine territory disappearing from maps.

What reposting?

I trimmed the quotes and only kept relevant part

Well done.

Ajd Make no mistake if Putin doesn't change his ways which so far he hasn't, just more of the same "blah blah blah" it will happen and happen again

If only their borders were as secure as Americas borders...

The question is why have the bridges on the Dnieper remained intact after 2.5 years of war?

It shows they don't intend to continue moving.... by now they likely can't... and will be trying to dig in.

Many people wrote here that it was a small attack by Ukrainian forces on Kursk region. It looks like it wasn't that small. Now they will push Ukrainian forces out for half a year or even longer.

So what... even if it takes 10 years, these are the elite troops they have had in training in the west for the last year and a half... these guys are hard core nutters and it will be rather good to eliminate them from team oxygen thiefs.

Plus all the best equipment and armour is being used up and worn out... I suspect most will break down faster than it can be found and destroyed, but when they break down they will be easier to find and destroy anyway.

What was I saying. Russian Mil. has now about 20 days to reverse the situation.

These are not guys that will surrender... they will have to be hunted down and killed in small groups... like wild dogs.

It will take as long as it takes.

Be reasonable here Garry, one had to have been asleep at the wheel to let this happen in Kursk.

These are elite soldiers in comparison to the cannon fodder they have at the front line, this was a surprise attack... the key word is surprise.

Do you think Russian intel should be all seeing and perfect... do you think Kiev fights fair and moves troops without camouflage in the middle of the day?

How many thousand Mexicans cross into the US of A... the US spends trillions on their defence and they can't man a border a small as the one they have with Mexico?

Incompetence... fire them all.

- It was said hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are not in this fight and still sitting at the borders.

Tunnel vision is a terrible thing... when you move all of Russias soldiers to the border with Ukraine what do you think is going to happen on the border with Georgia or the border with Finland or the Baltic States? Do you think there might be agitation in the stans too?

And what is going to happen on the unwatched borders?

But of course move all those men to sit and do nothing... fucking brilliant... you are a master chess player... the key thing about surprise attacks is surprise. They don't just spontanously happen.... they are planned... and part of the plan is to find weak areas or the weakest areas in the enemy lines and to amass and commit a force able to penetrate at that point.

For example another conflict at Kursk a few years back required the building of lots of lines of defences and the amassing of lots of soldiers and armour and artillery and air power by both sides... each thinking they had the advantage of surprise.

Should Stalin or Hitler be fired because neither side were very surprised?

- If that was the case, then how come there is a limited force in Kursk?

You have troops where you need them... until this incursion started they weren't needed there.

Where ever you put them the enemy would see them and attack somewhere else so they would always need to move when needed... that is what a reserve force is.

You cant control every portion the border, that is true. And the Ukies moved fast. But the issue is, the sweep up should have been quicker as they only had 12K soldiers while Russia apparently has plenty more than that. There is still about, roughly, 50K in Belarus.

Sorry dude I can't believe how stupid you are sounding.

Russia has a border force, and they have reserve forces that are mobile that can move to where they are needed.

Are you saying the 50 thousand Russian troops in Belarus should now be moved to Kursk because of an incursion by perhaps now 10K Orcs?

What happens if they then attack the border with Belarus?

You do understand the Orcs are using the recon resources of HATO and can find and exploit weak areas... what they don't have is unlimited weapons and ammo and most importantly trained men and they are now squandering them in open farmland a great distance short of their intended goal with no chance of reaching it.

Reserves should be kept to deal with incursions and they generally wont see an incursion until it starts... which makes responding difficult... look at the Orcs response to the Russian invasion 3 years ago... they outnumbered the Russian force by a large margin but were unable to stop them even with all their air power and armour and trained experienced fighting men.

That is why surprise attacks are used, because they are effective... but once the surprise has worn off you then have to hold ground and when there is no support and no replacements things are going to get rather hard for them over the next few weeks.

Putting time limits on this is pointless... if you get it done before the time limit do you get a cookie?

If it takes an extra week did you fail and have to completely surrender to the enemy?

Bollocks.

- Why is a lot of the logistics and easy form of transport still available to Ukraine? They can easily move men around.

What makes you think it was easy?

This is a desperate measure that has already failed. What they lose over this is yet to be seen, but I suspect with his track record that Putin is going to make some decisions they are not going to be happy with at all.

- Ukraines military command should have been dealt with. And every other replacement.

In every war that has ever happened... but even Israel can pick off one or two individuals occasionally... when was the last time a high level command meeting was interrupted by a Kinzhal or Kh-32?

Even when it works they are replaced and things carry on.

I would say targeting the Ukrainian oligarchs and western company assets in the Ukraine would be a more productive way to go because their military command is bonkers.

Anyway, you can see me as stupid all you like, but the reality is, this was a blunder and if someone as stupid as I that you think I am is able to see it, guaranteed many much more intelligent people will have seen it too.

I dont think you are stupid, but you obviously hear stupid things and believe them. Which borders are 100% secure from fully equipped elite forces with armour and artillery support? Let alone barefoot mexicans heading for the promise land. Which national border force can stop a 12K military force equipped with drones and armoured vehicles including Challenger tanks and Bradleys. What military gains has Kiev achieved by throwing 12K trained soldiers into Russian territory?

As they burn up that force, do you think they have another 12K force that trained for 1.5 years in the west?

The next group are just going to be mercs and they are getting thin on the ground too because the success rate seems rather low... ironic there seems to be no limit to money spent on this project but it is not the guys with the rifles in their hands that are seeing any of it... blackrock and goldman sachs are making a fortune... along with boeing and other MIC companies...

But if you want to talk about stupid, your comment is extremely stupid. You know me much better than that and you know my opinion of Navalny and the likes of him.

I mentioned him to make you realise who you are sounding like... the Navalnys and Karls and Caveats who don't really care about Russia and just want Putin gone because he is stopping the west and Russia from joining forces to fight China which is the real evil... or some such bollocks. Russia too strong and too independent and they don't understand independent... it is like their parents are getting divorced all over again...

No, I am of wanting stronger leadership that is willing to really go after Kiev.

Perhaps you don't understand what strength is.

Plenty of western leaders fold like deck chairs when the US tells them or the EU tells them. Putin not folding and standing his ground.... not to make a point, but in the interests of Russia and Russians. That is strength.

Any fuckwit can bomb a country to the ground... Germany didn't surrender till Soviet troops took Berlin... now they take it up the arse from their overlords in the US... so you can't say they are tough independent people... they follow the rules and when faced with an outside threat.... even one they brought upon themselves... they do what their government tells them... like most people do.

Murdering lots of Ukrainians is not the solution... they are just sheep and really don't effect things one way or the other.

If you are not careful and take out heat and power and food and water it can sometimes have the opposite effect and they hate you even more.

I actually believe that would have been Medvedev. His method of going in hard and fast at Georgia was the right thing to do. The slow and steady isn't working.

But did they go hard and fast? They certainly were not well prepared and one of the main results of that conflict was that Putin realised the military was not in great shape and needed money and time and effort to get them right. We see the results in Syria and in Ukraine now. They are a world class force... they probably couldn't fight around the world like the western colonial power forces are designed to do but they are a smart well equipped and well armed force that has good training and tactics.

We have all heard about how Ukraines military was about to collapse. Thats been about year and half now.

They are believing their own and western propaganda. Let them continue to fight.... the longer they fight the worse their terms will be and the fewer of them there will be too.

They still have plenty of men and equipment to send into meat grinders.

I don't agree with your definition of plenty... they want Ukrainians overseas to come home and fight for the motherland...

And this is gonna still cost Russian lives. I don't care about Ukrainian lives.

The Russians are paying a terrible price and the fact that it is a tiny fraction of what the Ukraine is paying does not make that better.

The fact of the matter is that this price needs to be paid and it is more about Russia and the west than Kiev.

If it ended right now I don't think the west has suffered enough to understand what has happened, and Russian troops covering the entire Black Sea would benefit Russia and friendly people in Moldova and also in Serbia... having territory on the Danube would give Russia rights to sail to Serbia without crossing any borders....

So the Russians feel humiliated and angry ? Because the Orcs invaded ? Good . Perhaps one reason the SMO is taking longer than envisaged , is the relative weakness of the Orcs . Perhaps if they had invaded Russian territory from the start , then Russia would have finished them far sooner . The actual damage is done , 100,000 civilians displaced . So for the temporary loss of small territory , how many Orcs have been taken out ? How much equipment destroyed ? They are trapped behind the River , they destroyed the Bridges , they do not plan to advance further ? The trap they set themselves . Now they are committed by pride , to stay and die ! How effective is this trap ? Better than other areas ? Then use  your  anger , use their  foolish  pride , meat grinder on steroids ! But if the net is empty , or few fish , then close the border .

GarryB wrote:

I would like to see air burst Iskander used, instead of one with cassette bomblets. That way they'll be sure that target is completely destroyed.

Those cassette bomblet warheads look rather weak but actually they are much more devastating to soft targets over an enormous area than even the large warheads.

This is something that sometimes turns me on.
It is a trash talk Rybar where a claim about "not damaging Patriots" bullshit was provided.
And an endless loop of idiocies, because as we all know, a random guy at TG knows much better which warhead will be the most effective against a dedicated type of target.
Right?

Iskander has more than TEN types of warheads, optimized for a different sort of targets.
The difference between a blast fragmentation warhead and a cluster warhead with fragmentation/shrapnel submunition is the size of the shrapnel.
Bomblets carry already made shrapnels with the same standardized size, while blast fragmentation creates a different size of fragments.
If you have a soft-skinned target - and a SAM system is the one - the size of the fragments does not matter.
Specification of Iskander warheads has not been revealed yet in detail, so what we can use is already revealed variants of Tochka and Oka.
Especially Oka, as Iskander is a directly evolved piece, but Tochka would be even better as we have more details.

Take a look here :



This is a blast fragmentation version of warhead 9N123 warhead of Tochka.
After detonating, it creates up to 14500 fragments of three types.
20.6g ones - 6000 pcs
10g - 4000 pcs
5.7g - 4500 pcs
Warhead carries 162.5 kg of TG20 TNT.
Both fragments and explosives grant various sorts of destruction in 2-3ha area.

This is a cluster warhead with OBE (oskolochny boyevy element) 9N24.


For a better visualization, here is Oka warhead of the type :



It carries 50 bomblets, each with 316 pcs of the same, 7g fragments - 15800 in total.
There is no explosive warhead for blast effect, each bomblet carries 1.45kg of low-yield explosives only to give impetus to the shrapnels.
Detonation covers 3.5-7ha.

And this is exactly what you can see on those pictures - the detonation of dozens of bomblets at a given height, each spreading hundreds shrapnel. Usually, it is 15-20m above the ground.

Cluster warheads with shrapnels cover a much wider area.
It will be less deadly for light-armored targets, and the effect will be less spectacular. Smaller explosives loads do not heat up the shrapnel as it is with the big one, so even if the missile is torn to pieces, it can be undetonated.
And that's it.
It is a perfect tool of destruction for a given sort of target, only being less spectacular leaving some home-breed sofa warlords unhappy.
You can always play Arma and order a nuclear attack or something.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

sepheronx wrote:But that's the problem. It may not amount to anything but it could have and let's not forget how Putin in the past said that no more wars would happen on Russias soil. Fast forward to now and he allowed one on his soil.

I don't disagree, Putin isn't a good wartime leader if the enemy isn't jihad level terrorists.

Everything that happened at Kursk was a massively failure of the Intel Branch and a direct result of Putins continued hand tying of his own military forcing them to play overly nice while denying them the numbers they need to win the war in a timely manner

Ajd Make no mistake if Putin doesn't change his ways which so far he hasn't, just more of the same "blah blah blah" it will happen and happen again

Militarely yes but politicaly it's not the same.

If they go in and level every city and kill innocents in mass he will end up with all the population against them, then there is no point in doing this war.

They learned quite well from US mistakes in Iraq.

24 lives saved.

Twenty-four servicemen from the 22nd separate mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces surrendered in an organized manner to the Russian army near the village of Komarovka in the Kursk direction.

#с_поля_боя
Sofa General Staff

So industrial accidents have spread to Bulgaria

Bottom left in the map is road E50 which resupplies UA units in Karlivka and Kalynove

AMK Mapping
@AMK_Mapping_
Geolocated footage indicates that Russian forces continue to exploit their localised breakthrough in the direction of Novohrodivka and have entered and captured most of the village of Mykolaivka.

This was done by branching off from the windbreaks on either side of the railway line and attacking down the main street. Footage shows Russian infantry attacking agricultural buildings in the western part of the settlement.

Reports indicate that Russian forces may have captured the entire village, although this remains unconfirmed, and so far, only one of my three reliable sources has reported on it.

sepheronx wrote:But flaming will have you think this wasn't a total **** up.

It's not. It's been 10 days now, are the Russians still being taken by surprise? No, surprise would only have been a factor for the first 8 hours of events, or rather not at all because I continue to see no evidence that anyone was taken by surprise.
What you're really saying is that the Russians had no defenses in Kursk or very minimal ones, and has been incapable of flooding the Kursk region with more troops for over a week now. Which is an even more dumb claim. There are VDV regiments which can be deployed to the region in 12 hours if there was a need for it.

What's really happening is what I've been saying all along. The Ukraine has gone 'all-in' with all of its reserves, backed by NATO-operated air defense systems and HIMARS which are capable of striking Russian reinforcements en-route even at night - and this is a pretty large wave of people and vehicles which needs to be properly managed and reduced over a period of weeks sans any Hollywood heroics or any last-stands at the border just for the sake of image.

This entire war has been one **** up after the other for Russia. But because of superiority in manpower and weapons, they were able to succeed even with these fuckups.

No it hasn't, it's been one **** up after the other for NATO. Which unlike Russia, has neither done its homework (hence it's economic disaster and ineffectivenss against Russia), nor has been prepared to confront Russia once the conflict did start (hence its deficiency in military-industrial production). And this latest desperate invasion of Kursk is yet another blunder of theirs even if in your panic you're not capable of seeing it.

NATO continues to win in the propaganda space, but that's about it. Russia is very much winning the actual war, and it's hardly fighting against the Ukraine by itself but rather the Ukraine's manpower matched with NATO's equipment, specialists and industries.

Actually, this entire fuckup is because Russia is pussyfooting for no reason other than "brotherly relations".

I keep hearing this but I really don't see how carpet-bombing Ukrainian cities would help Russia win the war.

I will say that Putin shouldn't have tried too hard with the negotiations business, held back from destroying infrastructure and industrial plants when military logic dictated that they should be, or held out hope for finding someone agreeable in Kiev - but then it's easy to criticize in hindsight. If Putin hadn't done any of that what would people say? People would say that we might have been able to come to an agreement with the Ukraine but bloodthirsty Putin never gave peace a chance.

I've read Russians saying that Putin simply gutted russias military and reason why they are incapable of really committing to this war is because it's a skeleton. And the military command are just very incompetent.

And who are these Russians and what competency do they have to relate such accounts?
You don't think that with this entire forum dedicated to observing and discussing the Russian military, and us all being regulars here, that we wouldn't have heard about this Stalin-esque purge prior to the SMO?

The closest thing you had to mass-layoffs was all the way back during Serdyukov's reforms.

I see our military command as very competent, at least at the higher levels dictating strategy - local commanders have been found lacking on occasion for sure. The absolute priority is to preserve our own soldiers lives while maximizing the destruction of enemy forces. And to learn from previous mistakes as quickly as possible. No stupid risks, no propaganda stunts, no repeating the same failed thing over and over again at the cost of your own men's lives, nothing. Of course conservativism can become an enemy of opportunity and this needs to be managed too. We're nearing the point where we have a chance to end this war and we shouldn't miss it.

How, in God's name, was the border this unprotected?  Maybe Ukraines propaganda was real because how does Russia not have enough manpower to deal with this?

It wasn't, and it isn't. The Ukrainians have been scrounging around the same border villages and getting blown up and are claiming this massive victory over the Russians at Sudzha with hundreds of captured Russians in compensation - but I really wouldn't rush to take their claims at face value.

Where is the hundreds of tanks, helicopters, bombers and jets blowing up Kiev? Why haven't they gone after the command of Ukraine?

Why would you need tanks, helicopters, bombers and jets blowing up Kiev when a hearty Shahid drone and Kh-101 missile will do all that work for you? All you have to do is find them a target. And a lot of targets for them have been found over the past 32 months, the remaining ones have learned how to hide better

The ground forces will come in after the Ukraine's remaining reserves have been mopped up

Why have they left supply lines running for Ukraine?

Because that would require the full occupation of Western Ukraine and the Ukraine's border with Romania too. Essentially you will have to entirely defeat the Ukraine and occupy it before you can cut the supply lines

Got plenty more questions and honestly, if Russia went to Kiev and take control of it, they could have cut off Ukraine in the center and let the forces in the west then move east.  But instead, this protracted war of moving slower than geriatrics fucking, and letting the enemy somehow amass a large army to invade your own territory and now after a week, still is moving in, just goes to show that if it was a NATO invasion, they would be in Moscow by week 2 and Putin would still be saying it's all provocation.

They should have put you in charge.

I will agree that Putin excels in looking weak and complaining about 'provocations' when life and now this war should have taught him to expect anything (and I'm sure he did, he's just being a politician). But that's a separate discussion.

This is just embarrassing for a so called super power to not be able to deal with Europe's poorest country.

The Ukraine is a Slavic North Korea and was militarized way beyond that of any NATO member in the years leading up to the SMO and now continues to be carried by every single piece of equipment NATO can dedicate to the goal, as many supplies as their industries can muster and as many mercs as they can gather.

It takes time, deal with it. Victory will be ours. For our enemies are stupid beyond belief.

caveat emptor wrote:What's with that tall and narrow structure on the left side, that should be a building?

Welcome to the world of brutalist Soviet architecture.

FP is Russian, so it is normal that he is trying to whitewash or justify failures.
I believe that both political and military side, share the blame. Political side (basically Putin), for setting unrealistic requirements (especially at the beginning of the war) and to some degree, tying military's hands and higher military echelons showed that good part of them is not there, because of their military skills, but nepotism. Lower structures of Russian army have improved considerably last two and a half years, while restructuring high command will take much longer, as inevitably, politics is involved.

I'm not trying to whitewash or justify anything nor is national allegiance an excuse to do so. That just amounts to you obfuscating the actual state of affairs to yourself and to your own people and I believe that's actually counter-productive. And thankfully Russian Telegram channels don't do that either.

It is however what Western media and Ukrainian propaganda excels at. Let them.

Arrow wrote:

The question is why have the bridges on the Dnieper remained intact after 2.5 years of war?

Could be because they want to cut supplies through them or cut enemy forces off at a critical time when it becomes important to do so.
If they do it too early the enemy will have time to find a work-around.

Same reason why the Ukrainians blew up that bridge in the Kursk region now instead of say a year ago. It has only become relevant now.

Arrow wrote:

Many people wrote here that it was a small attack by Ukrainian forces on Kursk region. It looks like it wasn't that small. Now they will push Ukrainian forces out for half a year or even longer.

Initially it was about 1000 men, which is about x10 the size of previous forays into the Belgorod region, but still not that large for this war.
However it was obvious that there were a lot more men in support and those preparing to go in too, which is what happened.

Lapain wrote:

Lapain wrote:

Problem is what happens if you have entrenched Ukies in the Kursk region?
Ukies with ability to strike the NPP and other assets with ATACMS almost at will?
This is the so called strong hand the nazis were hinting about.

Two years after the Kharkov debacle the RF are still unable to dislodge them from Kupyansk. So Russian leadership has about a month to dismantle this bulge or else, heads will roll, at least Gerasimov, hopefully Medvedev, maybe even the Boss himself, and you have right there a victory for the NATO proxies.

What was I saying. Russian Mil. has now about 20 days to reverse the situation.

They are incapable of entrenching there, neither the terrain nor the materials to do so, and I don't think some extra 10-15km depth will make a difference to whether they can strike the Kursk NPP with ATACMS or not. They can do that from well within Ukrainian territory as is.

I believe 3 weeks will be sufficient myself. But it does depend on how many more men the Ukraine and even NATO itself decide to reinforce failure with and commit to the offensive too. So we cannot make blanket predictions. I hope they do run the tap dry and introduce every last spare man they have, of course.

GarryB wrote:I know it is very dark of me but I hope they do. A good radiation screening often reduces deaths to cancer because early detection is key and checking everyone in a community often finds cancers early that would otherwise be missed and left untreated often till it is too late.

Secondly when the IAEA don't take a neutral stance and blame Kiev for it Russia can finally say the IAEA is a tool of the west and kick those fuckers out of all Russian and Russian made reactors and demand reform... perhaps a BRICS nuclear regulation organisation or some such thing.

If the Ukrainians detonate a dirty bomb in Russia then that would open up a new avenue for ending the war

Launching nukes at the cities of Lvov and Ivano-Frankovsk and then demanding the immediate surrender of Kiev.

But so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that this isn't a propaganda fairy-tale made up by Russian psyops. Let's hope that's all it is.

kvs wrote:Putin was under pressure from China and India to negotiate.

So the Chinese leadership are retarded? Anyone who is not should realise that there you should not negotiate with nato, but rather accumulate as much military force as possible and then use it as effectively as possible.

kvs wrote:The analysis by Mercouris who seems to have a "source" that the Kursk crisis is essentially staged is on the mark.   People are expecting Russian forces to mop up
10,000 Ukrs in a couple of days.   That is not the objective.   These Ukrs were lured into Kursk so that they could commit crimes and give the Russian government the excuse
to not engage in any negotiations and to carry out a regime change operation.    Putin was under pressure from China and India to negotiate.    Thanks to the
lunatics in Kiev he can tell them that there is no point.   At the same time the NATzO west loses any credibility pushing for negotiations.   You see the Americans
trying to distance themselves from the Kursk operation.   The optics are not good.

Well thats what i postulated in the beginning too.
Apart from making your forces targets for enemy precision missiles, as well as encouraging the enemy to strike elsewhere instead - pulling up tons of reinforcements ahead of any Ukrainian offensive would have robbed Russia of an easy excuse to bin whatever rumours of peace talks or Modi coming to broker negotiations or the public pressure from Trump seeking to offer an olive branch, etc..
Because none of that was going to go anywhere anywhere and the Ukraine wasn't interested in fulfilling Russian demands.

And now all the Ukrainian reserves are in one place themselves and Russia has a public and diplomatic mandate to essentially finish the job when it comes to the Ukraine war.
Russia has been engaging partially conscript-manned units in the battles for the Kursk region and this breaks a powerful psychological barrier for Russian society too.

I'm not saying all of this was the intent from the start but there were clearly a lot of reasons for those planners who may have noticed the Ukrainian preparations, and then the beginning of their offensive, to simply let events take their course and not interrupt the enemy in making a mistake, so to speak

flamming_python wrote:

I'm not trying to whitewash or justify anything nor is national allegiance an excuse to do so. That just amounts to you obfuscating the actual state of affairs to yourself and to your own people and I believe that's actually counter-productive. And thankfully Russian Telegram channels don't do that either.

It is however what Western media and Ukrainian propaganda excels at. Let them.

Level of nepotism and protectionism in Russian MoD is so obvious, by now, that you don't need any "Western and Ukrainian media and propaganda" to come to that conclusion. Russian media is all you need. It is enough to see how many medals both Bulgakov and Ivanov had, while "results of their work" is for all to see. To top it all, Bulgakov is a hero of Russian Federation. They have more medals than Zhukov. It just isn't clear on what grounds. Ivanov's lawyers even brought everything to the court to show how much he "gave to the motherland".
In Serbian, we have a saying for that: Ja tebi vojvodo, ti meni serdare...