Gurgeh

Israel Gaza live news: Netanyahu says action only just begun as Hamas threatens to kill hostages - BBC News "Israel knows that a wave of international sympathy and goodwill gives its military a window of opportunity to conduct extensive military operations inside Gaza. One former government official told me Israel will have “at least two weeks” before calls for restraint from Washington (the only power that matters here) will become hard to resist. "If Israel is determined to deal a decisive blow to Hamas, this will inevitably involve a massive ground operation, at which point civilian casualties – already high – are likely to soar. Complicating matters enormously is the fate of at least 100 Israeli hostages – soldiers and civilians - now being held in Gaza. "If Hamas starts killing the civilians, the former official told me, “we will do to Hamas what the world did with ISIS and al-Qaeda”.

"Why now" is always a good question to ask. Maybe Hamas didn't like what they were hearing about the deals being struck between Israel, the US and the Saudis, and this way they scupper any peace negotiations..

A few bits from reading the ISW daily updates ( https://www.understandingwar.org/ ) After Ukraine took out some key missile defenses and managed to strike their naval HQ, Russia has withdrawn most of its surface fleet from Sevastopol in Crimea. The Russians are now talking about building a new naval base in a breakway region of Georgia, which says something about how the Russians view the long term security of Crimea. When the Ukrainians finally breached the first line of Russian defenses, it was expected that the Russians would follow standard military tactics and withdraw to their second line of prepared defenses. After all, that's why they built a second (and a third) line, so they had a secure position to fall back to, where they would once more have the advantage of hard cover in combat. Instead the Russians have launched attack after attack to try and throw the Ukrainians back, or at least halt their progress. And to a degree, they have been successful, in that the Ukrainians haven't advanced much further because they are too busy fighting off the Russians. The cost, however, has been very high, far higher than if the Russians had simply fallen back. There are reports that many commanders want to withdraw because of the high casualties, but have been refused permission to do so. The best explanation for the counter-attacks is that Putin is determined that no ground be given to the Ukrainians, so he can stick to the line that the offensive has completely failed. This is reminiscent of the fight over Kherson last year, where the logical thing for the Russians to have done was to withdraw to the river as it is easy to defend. Instead, Putin insisted that they keep fighting on the other side of the river for months, wasting thousands of lives before inevitably having to withdraw anyway.

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” And how many of them are elected.

(What's a little more significant about this breakthrough is that the Russians had sent elite reinforcements to Verbove about a week ago to prevent this from happening.) Ukrainian forces have broken through in Verbove, top general says | CNN The general leading Ukraine’s counteroffensive along the southern front line says his forces have broken through in Verbove – and predicts an even bigger breakthrough to come. “On the left flank [near Verbove] we have a breakthrough and we continue to advance further,” Oleksandr Tarnavsky told CNN Senior International Correspondent Frederik Pleitgen during an interview on Friday, though he conceded his troops were moving slower than anticipated. ...At the beginning of September Ukrainian forces said they had taken the village of Robotyne and were pushing east toward the village of Novoprokopivka. Soldiers said they expected battles for control of high ground to the south and east of the village as they approached the next layer of Russian defenses. Verbove is a few miles east from Robotyne. However, Tarnavsky told CNN he believed the big breakthrough of the counteroffensive would be if Ukraine could take Tokmak, a strategic hub for Russia, which is its first major target in its fight in the south.

Over the last month, the Ukrainians have taken out two of the supposed six missile defense systems protecting Crimea, so there are some gaps in the coverage. Hopefully there'll be more strikes until the systems get replaced

He's a wonderful human being... https://www.newsweek.com/putin-ally-ramzan-kadyrov-critically-ill-report-1827514 "Kadyrov was also accused earlier this week of murdering his personal physician and former Chechen deputy prime minister, Elkhan Suleymanov, who the Chechen head reportedly blamed for his sudden worsening health. According to the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, which claims to have inside information from Russian security forces, Kadyrov accused Suleymanov of poisoning him and was rumored to have buried the doctor alive."

That air defense system supposedly cost over a billion dollars; I'm not sure how much of it they destroyed but it'll be expensive to replace. Apparently the AA system had been in action the night before shooting down some of the missiles targetting the ships and subs in Sevastopol, and run low on ammo to defend itself the next day.

It's more likely that NK will provide ammunition rather than equipment, and who knows what the quality of NK ammunition (or equipment) is like. In return I'm sure NK will get some technology know-how, probably rocket engines and AA systems, two things the Russians are still good at. Well he's right about the village ceasing to exist, but that's because the Russian strategy is to level any settlement that they withdraw from, to deny cover for the advancing Ukrainian troops. Videos from frontline villages that have been retaken just show roads surrounded by bare rectangular patches of ground where houses once stood. The battles south of Robotyne could be decisive - if the Ukrainians do break through, they can reach Tokmak and the main rail route between Russia and Crimea. The Russians are pulling reinforcements in from other parts of the front line to prevent it, while the Ukrainians have similarly brought up fresh troops to push forward.

They took out some high-value air defenses, including a S-400 system. The next day they launched a large drone attack on Crimea, but unfortunately it seems most if not all of the drones were still shot down. It was still an impressive raid to pull off, given that they air or sea equivalence in the area, let alone superiority. In other news: A Russian Mi-8 helicopter landed in Ukraine carrying spare parts for Mig fighters. The Ukrainians say the pilot defected in a carefully planned operations, the Russians say he simply got lost. The Ukrainians are starting to advance out from the towns of Robotyne and Mala Tokmachka. This puts them just past the dense minefields that held them up for so long and should give them more room to manoeuvre. They are pushing to get in striking distance of the city of Melitopol before the ground turns to thick mud in late Autumn. They have also taken most of the heights around Bakhmut and now surround it on three sides, leaving the Russians with the politically awkward problem of withdrawing or becoming surrounded if they lose more ground.

I don't think this makes a future coup any less likely, it just means the next one is definitely not going to end in some BS "let's go out separate ways" settlement, as you say,. When the ceasefire comes, just remember this is how Putin respects the deals he makes, in case the repeated invasions of other countries wasn't enough of a red flag.

And another one bites the dust... https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/jailed-russian-general-69-who-knew-secrets-of-putin-s-1billion-black-sea-palace-dies-mysteriously-in-prison-ahead-of-parole-bid-the-second-top-kremlin-commander-to-perish-within-days/ar-AA1fnLPA A Russian general who was keeper of secrets about Vladimir Putin's £1 billion Black Sea palace has died mysteriously in jail. General Gennady Lopyrev, 69, suddenly became ill on Monday - gasping for breath - and was told by doctors he had previously undiagnosed leukaemia. There are now suspicions he was poisoned just as he became eligible for parole.... 'Everything was fine on Sunday,' he said. 'We had a chat via a payphone, there wasn't a single complaint about his health. His voice was energetic, he spoke about his usual sports like gymnastics and stretching. Every day he walked 15km [9 miles]. 'On Monday he called with his voice suddenly sounding hoarse. By evening on Monday… he called from [hospital in] Ryazan, saying he felt really unwell…he said he struggled to breathe.' Viktor Boborykin, chairman of the Public Monitoring Commission for the region, said there was 'nothing criminal' in his death.

While there's been only small gains in territory by Ukraine this summer, the reports are they've inflicted a large number of casualties. If they'd only managed to find a way to get through the minefields they'd probably be at the coast by now. Unfortunately, no-one seems to have an effective alternative to sending in the troops at night to clear the mines out by hand, and with mines spaced 6 feet apart for 10 to 20 miles, there's no chance of getting it done this year.

I thought he did well but I worry that playing behind that OL is going to mess with his head as the season goes on.

At the moment each side is trying to force the other to fight elsewhere... Ukraine forces have retaken land near Bakhmut from Russia, Kyiv says | Ukraine | The Guardian Ukrainian forces have recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and are successfully encircling Russian troops in the city, a defence minister in Kyiv has said... “The main focus of the Ukrainian army is the south, and the Russians are focused on the east. The Russians are infiltrating in two main areas – Kupiansk and Lyman. It’s a nightmare there. ...She added: “Why are the Russians doing this? We were making good progress on both flanks in Bakhmut. We have taken almost all the key heights there. The Russians were trapped there, they couldn’t get out and now they can’t move around the city of Bakhmut because the Ukrainians are shelling the city from the heights. And in order to pull our forces away from Bakhmut, the Russians moved forward in other directions so that we would throw our forces to save them. And they exposed their rear near Bakhmut. That’s why they launched an offensive in other places to stop our attack on Bakhmut.”

They hit an oil tanker used by the Russian military usually for transporting aviation fuel

Playing behind a bad line has ruined the career of better prospects than Sam Howell. Good teams put their players in a position to succeed, but this year we seem to have done the opposite for our QBs. If Sam does work out, it won't be because of the staff, it will be despite them.

Ukrainian counteroffensive’s slow going offers reality check but could yet pay off | Ukraine | The Guardian Tanks, as the military experts had warned, were not a solution on their own. Without air superiority in the skies above and overwhelming artillery support, they were vulnerable to Russian anti-tank missiles fired from the trenches and from gunships able to strike them over the horizon. The Ukrainians had mine-clearing vehicles but not enough. They were priority targets for the Russians, who learned to stack anti-tank mines on top of each other to hobble them... The Ukrainians adapted their tactics, switching to platoon-sized infantry units, often at night, to pick their way through the minefields. But that has meant that progress has been slow, at walking speed, with frequent halts and withdrawals. Pathways cleared through minefields have been quickly reseeded remotely by Russian drones or artillery... While Ukrainian forces had to claw back Russian-held territory 100 metres at a time, and their advances look almost negligible on a map of the whole front, territory is not the only measure of success. The impact of attrition on Russians forces may not be immediately apparent but it could be equally significant in the longer term. Frontline units have been hollowed out, many with less than a third or a quarter of their full numbers. US-donated Himars rockets and British and French Storm Shadow missiles have wrought havoc in Russian rear lines, destroying ammunition depots and supply hubs. Russian military bloggers have painted dire pictures of damage to Russian forces and their morale, issues that came to the surface when Gen Ivan Popov, the commander of the Russian 58th Combined Arms Army, fighting in Zaporizhzhia region, claimed last month that he had been fired for complaining about Moscow’s mismanagement of the war... The efforts to minimise Ukrainian casualties and the protection offered by western armoured vehicles, even when knocked out of action, have meant that most assault units are not as depleted as they had been expected to be. Almost all the Leopard tanks damaged in battle have been repaired in Polish workshops.

There was a story doing the rounds in the early days of the Russian invasion, that before the war there had been an impromptu meeting between a high ranking Russian official and the Polish ambassador. To the disbelief of the ambassador, the Russian guy "let it be known" that the Russians would have no objection to the Poles taking over the western part of Ukraine including Lviv, as long as they didn't interfere with the Russians taking over the rest of the country. This apparently was reported straight back to Warsaw where the Polish government became convinced the Russians were serious about invading Ukraine. The story is very unlikely to be true because it is crazy that the Russians would make such an offer, and especially to Poland given that the Russians and Germans basically made exactly the same deal in carving up Poland at the start of world war 2. But then you get Putin making statements like this and you start to wonder if the story is really that far-fetched,

Allegedly comes after a Storm Shadow cruise missile strike on an ammunition depot

Both the Ukrainian and Russian pilots know exactly where the ground based AA systems are and steer well clear of them. The greatest danger comes from the opposing air force, but there the advantage lies entirely with the Russians, who have more modern jets that are armed with AA missiles with twice the range of the Ukrainian planes. It's a similar story with the helicopters, who are staying well out of range of Stingers and the like.

Going far back we have this example. Cynics at the time (and afterwards) believed the driving reason behind such rules was that leaders were concerned that battles would be so bloody they would run out of troops, so the creation of these rules allows armed conflicts to continue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg_Declaration_of_1868 In 1863, the Russian Army had perfected a fulminating musketball that could explode when it hit a hard target and was designed to blow up powder magazines or ammunition wagons. At the same time several similar projectiles for the same purposes were developed in America, the best one known being the Gardiner's Explosive Bullet, and both sides used them in the US Civil War, inflicting horrible wounds when aimed at people, and that, in turn, caused a public backlash against the weapon. In 1867, Russians perfected an improved explosive musketball that would detonate on any impact after being fired, even soft targets like people or animals. Predicting the disastrous effect of such a discovery on diplomatic relations with their neighbors, Russia decided to negotiate a ban on the development, creation, and use of such weapons before a grisly arms race commenced ... The delegates affirmed that the only legitimate object of war should be to weaken the military force of the enemy, which could be sufficiently accomplished by the employment of highly destructive weapons. With that fact established, the delegates agreed to prohibit the use of less deadly explosives that might merely injure the combatants and thereby create prolonged suffering of such combatants. The Great Powers agreed to renounce, in case of war among themselves, the use "by their military or naval troops of any projectile of a weight below 400 grams (14 ounces avoirdupois), which is either explosive or charged with fulminating or inflammable substances." While the declaration bans the use of fragmenting, explosive, or incendiary small arms ammunition, it does not prohibit such ammunition for use in autocannon or artillery rounds.

In happier news: Elsewhere, the Ukrainians have advanced far enough to be able to safely recover the 7 Leopard tanks they lost in the early days of the offensive. Two were apparently destroyed and five damaged when they were caught by artillery fire while making their way through a minefield. The hope is the five can be repaired and returned to action.

With all the right equipment the Ukrainians could do it, but the chances of them getting what they need are slim: - they asked for 300 tanks, and were pledged around 100, of which around 60-70 have actually been delivered. - they asked for long range weaponry to match the Russians. Only the Brits have given them anything, and that's air launched which limits how often it can be used as the Ukraine air force can be struck anywhere in Ukraine by Russian AA missiles fired from outside Ukraine. - they asked for F16s to defend their airspace, and might get some maybe by the end of the year, well after the summer offensive will be over