Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[China]

Meanwhile in Ukraine (you know, the topic of this thread):

 

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 445

• Ukraine forces have advanced on parts of the front line against Russian troops near the war-torn eastern town of Bakhmut. “Our soldiers are moving forward in some areas of the front, and the enemy is losing equipment and manpower,” Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, said on social media on Saturday.
• Russia’s defence ministry said its forces have gained control over another city block in Bakhmut. “The units of the Airborne Forces provided support to the assault units and pinned down the enemy on the flanks,” the ministry said in a statement.
• The United Kingdom’s defence ministry has suggested in its daily intelligence update that Russian forces had likely withdrawn from their positions on the southern flank of Bakhmut in bad order over the last four days.
• Russian news outlet Kommersant has reported two Russian fighter jets and two military helicopters were down over Russian territory close to the Ukrainian border. Kommersant said on its website that the Su-34 fighter bomber, Su-35 fighter, and two Mi-8 helicopters, which had made up an aerial raiding party, were “shot down almost simultaneously” in an ambush in the Bryansk region of Russia.
• Bryansk’s regional governor Alexander Bogomaz has claimed a Ukrainian drone hit a food production plant in Starodub, close to the Ukraine border, damaging the roof. Bogomaz, writing on Telegram, said there were no casualties.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry has said Ukrainian aircraft hit two industrial sites in the Russian-held city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles supplied by the UK.

Click on the link for more

[Gurgeh]

'Ambushed' is an interesting term for two planes and two helicopters being shot out of the air. Presumably it means the Ukrainians were waiting for them with some kind of AA system that the Russians didn't know was there. While the planes are more expensive than the copters, apparently one of the copters was fitted with specialised jamming equipment that will be hard to replace. Makes you wonder if that one was the real target, with everything else being a bonus.

[MrSilverMaC]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ukraine-made-mass-attempts-break-through-bakhmut-defences-2023-05-14/

 

Quote

 

Russia says two commanders killed as Kyiv wages Bakhmut offensive

 

May 14 (Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry said on Sunday that two of its military commanders were killed in eastern Ukraine, as Kyiv's forces renewed efforts to break through Russian defences in the embattled city of Bakhmut.

 

In a daily briefing, the ministry said that Commander Vyacheslav Makarov of the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade and Deputy Commander Yevgeny Brovko from a separate unit were killed trying to repel Ukrainian attacks.

 

It said that Makarov had been leading troops from the front line, and that Brovko "died heroically, suffering multiple shrapnel wounds". The defence ministry rarely announces the deaths of military command in its daily briefings.

 

 

[MrSilverMaC]

https://apple.news/ADziNmrfTTyyAf2wfWRyv2A

Wagner chief offered to give Russian troop locations to Ukraine, leak says

 

THE DISCORD LEAKS | Yevgeniy Prigozhin said he would tell Ukraine’s military where to attack Russian troops if they pulled their own forces back from the beleaguered city of Bakhmut, where Wagner mercenaries were taking heavy losses

 

In late January, with his mercenary forces dying by the thousands in a fight for the ruined city of Bakhmut, Wagner Group owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin made Ukraine an extraordinary offer.

Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them. Prigozhin conveyed the proposal to his contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war, according to previously unreported U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord.

Prigozhin has publicly feuded with Russian military commanders, who he furiously claims have failed to equip and resupply his forces, which have provided vital support to Moscow’s war effort. But he is also an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who might well regard Prigozhin’s offer to trade the lives of Wagner fighters for Russian soldiers as a treasonous betrayal.

The leaked document does not make clear which Russian troop positions Prigozhin offered to disclose.

Two Ukrainian officials confirmed that Prigozhin has spoken several times to the Ukrainian intelligence directorate, known as HUR. One official said that Prigozhin extended the offer regarding Bakhmut more than once, but that Kyiv rejected it because officials don’t trust Prigozhin and thought his proposals could have been disingenuous.

A U.S. official also cautioned that there are similar doubts in Washington about Prigozhin’s intentions. The Ukrainian and U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

In an interview with The Washington Post this month, Zelensky would not confirm the contacts with Prigozhin. “This is a matter of [military] intelligence,” he said. The Ukrainian leader also objected to airing classified information publicly and said he believed that the leaks had benefited Russia.

But there is no debating Prigozhin’s bitter frustration with the grinding fight in Bakhmut. He has complained, publicly and privately, that the Russian defense ministry has not given his fighters the ammunition and other resources they need to succeed. Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, has seen some of the bloodiest fighting of the war. Over the past few months, in a grinding back and forth measured by city blocks, Ukrainian and Russian forces have taken steep casualties.

Prigozhin, who promised to take control of the city by May 9, in time for Russia’s Victory Day celebrations, has recently threatened publicly to pull his forces out of the fight.

Other leaked documents reveal Russian defense ministry officials privately wondering how to respond to Prigozhin’s criticism of the military’s performance and his demands for more resources, which they apparently conceded were not illegitimate grievances. The documents also speak to a power struggle between Prigozhin and top officials, including Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Against that tense backdrop, Prigohzin has carried on a secret relationship with Ukrainian intelligence that, in addition to phone calls, includes in-person meetings with HUR officers in an unspecified country in Africa, one document states. Wagner forces provide security to several governments on the continent.

 

The leaked U.S. intelligence shows Prigozhin bemoaning the heavy toll that fighting has taken on his own forces and urging Ukraine to strike harder against Russian troops.

According to one document, Prigozhin told a Ukrainian intelligence officer that the Russian military was struggling with ammunition supplies. He advised Ukrainian forces to push forward with an assault on the border of Crimea, which Russia has illegally annexed, while Russian troop morale was low. The report also referred to other intelligence noting that Prigozhin was aware of plummeting morale among Wagner forces and that some of his fighters had balked at orders to deploy in the Bakhmut area under heavy fire, for fear of suffering more casualties.

The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment about Prigozhin’s communications with Ukraine.

In wartime, it is not unusual for opposing parties to maintain some form of communication. And the documents don’t reveal Prigozhin’s intention in talking to his erstwhile foes in Ukraine. In an interview, a Ukrainian official characterized the contacts in the spirit of “keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.”

The documents also suggest that Kyiv suspects, or may know, that the Kremlin is aware of Prigozhin’s communications with Ukrainian intelligence, if not his secret negotiations over Bakhmut.

One document, based on “sigint” — or intercepted communications — states that Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrolo Budanov, “expected the Russians to use details of Prigozhin’s secret talks with the HUR and his meetings with their officers in Africa to make him appear to be a Ukrainian agent.” It doesn’t specify whether Budanov suspects Moscow may already know that Prigozhin is talking to HUR officers.

When informed that U.S. intelligence documents revealed Prigozhin’s communications with Ukrainian intelligence, the mercenary commander appeared to make light of the situation. “Yes of course I can confirm this information, we have nothing to hide from the foreign special services. Budanov and I are still in Africa,” Prigohzin wrote on Sunday via his Telegram channel.

Budanov didn’t immediately respond to a question about Prigohzin’s offer to disclose Russian troop positions

[Larry]

Pretty sure this is Russian for "**** you for that video about needing ammo".  

 

[PokerPacker]

Dear Prigozhin (not gonna bother spelling it right),

Wagner troops are Russian troops.  Don't want to them to die?  Leave.

Go **** yourself,
PokerPacker

[China]

On 5/13/2023 at 11:36 AM, TradeTheBeal! said:

Uh oh…Luka drank the tea.

 

 

 

So is Putin's plan to off Lukashenko so he can install a more compliant puppet that will invade Ukraine from the north?  Ukraine would then need to divert troops from the south to fight on this new front.

[PokerPacker]

1 hour ago, China said:

 

So is Putin's plan to off Lukashenko so he can install a more compliant puppet that will invade Ukraine from the north?  Ukraine would then need to divert troops from the south to fight on this new front.

I thought Lukashenko was a pretty compliant lapdog.  Wonder what else Pooti-poo wants from Belarus.

 

Or maybe it's actually an internal matter.  He is quite hated amongst his people.  Needed Daddy Putin to put down protests to save his dictatorship.

Edited May 15, 2023 by PokerPacker

[The Sisko]

On 5/11/2023 at 2:50 PM, tshile said:

Iraq didn’t last a week. 
 

you can argue we shouldn’t have done it (I’d disagree)

 

you can argue our long term plan was poorly designed and executed (don’t think anyone would disagree there)

 

but if the context is measuring military ability to invade another country - we did amazingly well and I think you’d be hard pressed to find a better example (excluding ones where the invaded country didn’t put up a fight and gave up immediately, like we saw in some ww2 invasions)

Iraq was something like the 4th or 5th largest standing army in the world at the time we invaded. Within a week their military was destroyed. 
 

and in 20 years we lost less than 5k troops. That’s incredibly awesome. 

 

On 5/14/2023 at 12:53 AM, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Either way, despite what it cost in the end it basically cost us no more than any other poor decision we made, certainly there are no long term ill effects. And I don’t see how you can make the argument that the Middle East would be in a significantly better place strategically for the US had we not invaded Iraq. 
 

So was Iraq a complete success? No. Was it a strategic blunder? Not really. Despite whatever lies wer told to sell the war, whatever tarnish was done to our reputation, when it was time for the west to fall in line, the west fell in line. 

 

Y'all are hilarious. W. took us into a fight with a tar baby because Saddam tried to kill his daddy, which is probably the best reason to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and a few of our troops as well. The WMD was little more than Saddam's own efforts to bluff us and others in the region and our intelligence seeing what W. wanted them to see. In the end, without the counterweight of Iraq, Iran is now a regional power and perhaps the worst Islamic Extremists ever were allowed to coalesce and proliferate.

[Riggo-toni]

 

 

[Riggo-toni]

 

 

[PeterMP]

37 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

 

 

You got to wonder if this doesn't represent some sort of malfunction/misrepresentation.

 

Can they actually go as fast as reported?

 

Is there something about their warhead/software that would make them blow up prematurely?

 

Etc.

[Gurgeh]

3 hours ago, PeterMP said:

 

You got to wonder if this doesn't represent some sort of malfunction/misrepresentation.

 

Can they actually go as fast as reported?

 

Is there something about their warhead/software that would make them blow up prematurely?

 

Etc.

 

We don't know for sure exactly what has happened. There are rumors that part of one Patriot system was damaged in the last mass attack. Did a missile get through, or was it debris, or is it not damaged at all? Was it a hypersonic missile that hit, and if so, why did it only damage the system? Are they inaccurate?

 

Given the sequence of events, it seems very probable that a Patriot can take out a hypersonic missile, which led the Russians to fire a volley of them the following night. Those missiles are scarce and expensive; they wouldn't fire several of them unless they had do, and if they fired six in one go, that's more than a tenth of their entire stock.

 

If a Patriot can take out several hypersonic missiles then it puts the shelving of NATO hypersonic missile development over the last couple of years in a new light. The West may have figured that if we can shoot these things down with current tech, the Chinese can probably do the same, so maybe the better, and likely cheaper option is to improve missile stealth rather than improve speed. A single Khinsal hypersonic missile costs five or six times as much as a stealthy cruise missile, not counting the billions in development costs.

 

Speaking of development costs, you can bet every piece of those hypersonic missiles that were shot down will be in the USA very soon. The Russians are still pretty good at developing missiles (their manufacturing let's them down), so there's likely plenty to learn from the wreckage.

 

 

 

[Larry]

Re: Patriot shooting down hypersonics: (and China)

 

I'd really like to know whether Aegis can. 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

The stories about the supersonic missiles remind me of the story of how two companies were trying to develop car wash polisher that worked for automated car washes. One company has developed a product and released it to much success. The other company wanted to replicate the results but no matter how hard they tried, they could not come up with s successful formulas. Exasperated, they decided to test the properties of the competing product and found out that it actually didn’t work as advertised and a product they already developed was superior.

 

 

the United States is probably the only country with supersonic missiles that are close to working…

[PokerPacker]

7 hours ago, Larry said:

Re: Patriot shooting down hypersonics: (and China)

 

I'd really like to know whether Aegis can. 

I can neither confirm nor deny the effectiveness of Aegis.

[China]

UK and Netherlands agree ‘international coalition’ to help Ukraine procure F-16 jets

 

Prime minister Rishi Sunak and Dutch leader Mark Rutte have agreed to build an “international coalition” to help procure F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine, the British government has announced.

 

A Downing Street spokesperson said Sunak and Rutte “would work to build an international coalition to provide Ukraine with combat air capabilities, supporting with everything from training to procuring F-16 jets”.

 

“The prime minister reiterated his belief that Ukraine’s rightful place is in Nato and the leaders agreed on the importance of allies providing long-term security assistance to Ukraine to guarantee they can deter against future attacks.

 

“The leaders agreed to continue working together both bilaterally and through forums such as the European Political Community to tackle the scourge of people trafficking on our continent.”

 

The statement on Tuesday came a day after Ukraine’s president hinted that Kyiv could soon receive F-16 fighter jets, saying he was hopeful of “very important” decisions on the subject with the help of the UK.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Russia says hypersonic missile scientists face 'very serious' treason accusations

 

Three Russian academics who have worked on hypersonic missile technology face "very serious accusations", the Kremlin said on Wednesday, in a treason investigation that has spread alarm through Russia's scientific community.

 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was aware of an open letter from Siberian scientists in defence of the men, but that the case was a matter for the security services.

 

In the letter, published on Monday, colleagues of Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev protested their innocence and said the prosecutions threatened to inflict grave damage on Russian science.

 

"We know each of them as a patriot and a decent person who is not capable of doing what the investigating authorities suspect them of," they said.

 

President Vladimir Putin has boasted that Russia is the global leader in hypersonic missiles, capable of travelling at speeds of up to Mach 10 (12,250 kph) to evade enemy air defences. On Tuesday, Ukraine said it had managed to destroy six of the weapons in a single night, although Russia disputed this.

 

Notices of academic conferences stretching back over many years show the arrested scientists were frequent participants.

 

In 2012, Maslov and Shiplyuk presented the results of an experiment on hypersonic missile design at a seminar in Tours, France. In 2016, all three were among the authors of a book chapter entitled "Hypersonic Short-Duration Facilities for Aerodynamic Research at ITAM, Russia".

 

The cases showed that "any article or report can lead to accusations of high treason", the open letter said.

 

"In this situation, we are not only afraid for the fate of our colleagues. We just do not understand how to continue to do our job."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[CousinsCowgirl84]

Prepare the windows…

[China]

29 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Prepare the windows…

 

They just need to put up some netting like they have in China...

 

[China]

Russian T-72 will split US-made Abrams 'like nuts' entering Kyiv - Kadyrov

 

Russian Chechen Republic leader Ramzan Kadyrov asserted the superiority of upgraded Russian T-72 main battle tanks (MBT) to the US M1 Abrams on Tuesday, after a Monday announcement that Ukrainian soldiers were to soon train on the American MBT.

 

Kadyrov said that the Abrams was like a children's pedal car, and that the improved version of the T-72 was "real power."

 

The T-72 "surpasses foreign equipment in combat power, control, protection and ease of use. With it, any attack is like fishing on a yacht – a pleasure!" Kadyrov wrote on Telegram, alongside a video of him riding in the armored vehicle's turret.

 

"On such a tank we will enter Kyiv and carry out denazification, simultaneously splitting the Abrams like nuts! "

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Meanwhile in reality...

 

Russian Museum Piece Tanks Spotted in Ukraine – How Long Will They Survive?

 

Commercial satellite imagery, produced by Maxar Technologies, from as early as the summer of 2022 continuing into the autumn, showed the movement of old T-62 tanks from storage at Russia’s 1295th Central Tank Reserve and Storage Base in, Prymorskyi Krai region. These tanks which, unlike those deployed at the start of the full-scale invasion showed little sign of having been upgraded or modified, began to appear on the front line in Ukraine.

 

Then, in March 2022, footage began to appear on social media of the even older T-54 and T-55 tanks being transported by rail from the Arsenyev base, which raised widespread speculation that these armored vehicles, which were built in the 1960s, were also being deployed to the Ukrainian front.

 

 

Experts initially presumed that these tanks would then be modernized and upgraded before being sent to the frontlines. There was an attraction in using the T-54/55 due to its simplicity which would be reflected in a relatively short time to train crews, particularly conscripts, as well as low, by 21st century standards, operational, logistic and maintenance costs.

 

Russia had much experience in upgrading its T54/T55 tanks, primarily for export, which have seen action in most of the conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and Caucuses of the 1980s, 90s and as recently seen in Yemen and Sudan.

 

However, the T-54/55s seen in Ukraine appear to have received no enhancements and have been deployed in the same condition as when they were placed in storage. They appear to lack any of the protective features seen on some of the enhanced variants of the 1990s, or even the 1980s.

 

The 205 mm front turret and 120 mm hull front armor, offers limited protection from modern anti-tank weapons and their rudimentary fire control and gun stabilization systems make them unsuitable for use in their original primary role as part of a mechanized assault group. The 100 mm rifled gun, carried by these older versions of the tank, would be ineffective against virtually all of Ukraine’s armor. Upgraded T55s, used by the Iraqi Republican Guard in Kuwait during the First Gulf War, were simply outgunned by US M1 Abrams and British Challenger tanks and destroyed at ranges that exceeded their own maximum limit.

 

As Russia increasingly goes on the defensive, building extensive trenches and defensive positions, particularly in the south of Ukraine the T54/T55s may prove more useful as static gun emplacements. The tank could be dug in so that only its turret can be seen above ground to defend a front line against counterattacks. As Delaney went on to say: “If you’ve been the aggressor in a war and you’re suddenly about to be on the defensive, this would be effective for static defensive positions.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

On 5/13/2023 at 11:36 AM, TradeTheBeal! said:

Uh oh…Luka drank the tea.

 

 

 

 

[PokerPacker]

7 hours ago, China said:

Russian T-72 will split US-made Abrams 'like nuts' entering Kyiv - Kadyrov

 

Russian Chechen Republic leader Ramzan Kadyrov asserted the superiority of upgraded Russian T-72 main battle tanks (MBT) to the US M1 Abrams on Tuesday, after a Monday announcement that Ukrainian soldiers were to soon train on the American MBT.

 

Kadyrov said that the Abrams was like a children's pedal car, and that the improved version of the T-72 was "real power."

 

The T-72 "surpasses foreign equipment in combat power, control, protection and ease of use. With it, any attack is like fishing on a yacht – a pleasure!" Kadyrov wrote on Telegram, alongside a video of him riding in the armored vehicle's turret.

 

"On such a tank we will enter Kyiv and carry out denazification, simultaneously splitting the Abrams like nuts! "

 

Click on the link for the full article

*the next day*
Hmm, that Abrams sure is a tough nut to crack.

[Riggo-toni]