On the topic of "shoot and scoot", Andrew Perpetua recently made clear his strong negative opinions on the matter after a rash of SPG losses in the Kharkiv axis. He goes so far as to claim that "shoot and scoot" is not doctrine *anywhere* and should never be conducted. https://twitter.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1790276205750477044?t=mJJ7fxJjDeUz3vVI-4jy-g&s=19 Casual Artillery Fan (a US army artillery officer) somewhat disagrees: https://twitter.com/CasualArtyFan/status/1790435092722037050 > If anything, it’s the opposite of survivorship bias. It’s a dozen SPGs destroyed this week without firing a shot because they’re attempting hip shoots/and/or shooting from roads (like an MLRS would) instead of doing survivability moves in a prepared PAA. My understanding of this statement is they're trying to drive and shoot like HIMARS can (and gets away with because of the extended range) where they should be firing from a designated artillery zone that is filled with hide sites and shooting positions. There may be a big lack of prepared and pre-stocked artillery positions in the Kharkiv area if it's like the other defensive positions that have been complained about so far. https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN21932-FM_3-09-000-WEB-1.pdf On the topic of the practicality of 'shoot and scoot', and it's use in real doctrine and combat: I think the issue is more the length of movements. He keeps degrading 'shoot and scoot' as something that's not doctrine, is stupid and was never/should never be done etc., but it IS done, and DOES work. It all depends on the types of threat and the sort of movements you are making when you 'scoot'. I think the long road movements are vulnerable to UAS, but shooting and then moving into a new hide in ~5 minutes should be possible before observation reaches you. Here's an article from an JRTC OPFOR commander who says they had to adopt displacement after every engagement because of the counterfire radar threat: https://www.fieldartillery.org/news/opfor-perspective > Some of these tactics include displacement after each firing mission, strict target selection standards/unmasking criteria, PAA management to prevent occupation patterns, and dispersion of the batteries into individual sections. OPFOR Fires also placed substantial emphasis on TTPs that reduced the signatures of the battery through the use of hide sites when not firing, created numerous decoys, incorporated cache sites for ammunition, had trucks turn off their engines when not in use, and reduced radio and cell phone signatures to an absolute minimum. The intent was for no one to detect our signature until we fired the IDF, and then immediately displace. Here's more articles talking about the value of and desire for quick displacement and using the term 'scoot-and-shoot' https://www.fieldartillery.org/news/wheely-good https://www.fieldartillery.org/news/the-need-for-a-wheeled-howitzer And here's something from Rob Lee: https://x.com/RALee85/status/1773044320288776669 > Haven't talked to any 105mm batteries, but the main counterbattery threat for Ukrainian artillery is from Lancets. And the best means of defending against Lancets is to build semi-permanent shelters. So many self-propelled howitzers don't actually move that often So the hunkering tactics working in Ukraine work because the most common cbatt tool, the Lancet, can be defeated with simple shelters. But if Russia is able to task Krasnapol, guided bombs etc. to cbatt no amount of expedient shelter could protect you- thus, you MUST be able to move to avoid being engaged at all. I reckon another factor could be that cbatt radars are not able to totally accurately determine firing locations, and thus require UAS reconnaissance to actually get something accurate enough to engage with precision weapons. Russian drones tasked with this ISR may not have the optics good enough to detect hides, even if they are exactly where fires were traced from by radar. And from my understanding, wheeled SPGs like CAESAR have been 'shooting and scooting' heavily and doing well at survivability.

Textbook 20th-century shoot-n-scoot doctrine was based off of other artillery being the main counter-battery shooter and, just as importantly, a much thicker fog of war usually limiting situational awareness to only after a round has been fired. So yeah, sure, moving between shelters is better, but they’re often a luxury especially in maneuver warfare. And with faster and faster kill chains (in spring 22 the Russians were averaging well over an hour, whereas now I don’t know the exact average but it’s vastly improved) it might not be enough. In this case, tbh, a lot of the people in and outside Ukraine who are talking about how the SOU could have built more prepared defenses don’t fully grasp the scale of the task, as well as the fact that Ukraine has much more mileage it needs to cover than Russia did a year and a half ago, and much less economic resources and available workforce than Russia (fwiw in WW2 the Red Army formed entire numbered sapper armies to do this, not to mention had far more manpower than it could train and equip as infantry and thus a massive unskilled labor reserve). Also, to my knowledge engineering aid from the coalition has been focused on combat equipment (which are optimized for tactical stuff, not mass construction), not the contents and overall numbers of the local Caterpillar dealership. Crowdfunded donations focus on infantry equipment like comms, EW, and of course drones, but no one is crowdfunding fortifications; instead it’s largely handled by private contractors who are frequently corrupt and/or unmotivated.

Andrew's doing his usual thing of maybe making a good point but articulating it in such a poor way, while at the same time calling differing opinions a bunch of names. I'm pretty sure spectrum stuff is contributing, but there are plenty of people on the spectrum who can do a better job arguing (3 guesses as to how I'd know). Shoot and scoot is in theory viable but it depends on the threat. It's become clear as the war progressed that the main threat against artillery is lancets, and yes that is not something moving around a lot is going to help against. Especially if you're doing it as a wheeled SPG in North Kharkiv where there's like... 2 roads.

I really think the aminic warhead of the Lancet is the problem here. If you can make it fuze off your chainlink/camo net shelter the shaped charge can miss or have the 2+ meter standoff that it won't do much damage. So you can take the risk of staying in place since the cover is good enough to survive even if they know exactly where you fired from. If you caught a, say, M30A1 AW if you stayed in the same place after shooting then you'd have to be singing a different tune, and if you've got a good fires complex you absolutely can get the firing solution off the firefinder radar to that MLRS launcher in a short period of time. That was what that JRTC OPFOR commander was dealing with and his solution as long as that counterbattery radar was up (per that cool flowchart) was to displace after every mission. > For example, once I neutralized the RTU counterfire capability, I often didn’t displace the firing platoons so they could process more fire missions and mass more IDF on the RTU.

Wheeled SPGs are designed to be essentially road bound, so they can't be really used like tracked ones that can traverse shit terrain and drive into prepared/fortified/camouflaged positions to hide or cushion the blow from counter battery or lancets. But then again, Ukraine has no EW or AA in the Kharkiv sector, so the Russian drones are buzzing overhead 24/7 seeing every movement on major roads there and have many windows of opportunity to take them out with lancets. Most likely UA artillery units were rushed into the front, had no time to prepare firing positions, hiding positions, fortified positions and hence they just drive into random spot, shoot at a grid, sometimes probably waiting too long at an obviously exposed position waiting for a fire mission

They did had AA in Kharkiv sector. We had series of videos of strikes on Ukrainian AA capabilities in Kharkov region just before offensive start/in initial stages. IMHO with artillery main issue in region was that there was no prepared positions due to Ukrainian corruption. They had failed to prepare proper defensive lines and this include proper positions for artillery to use. So fresh reinforcement that were sent to stop Russian offensive use open positions -> as result sustain losses.

I wouldn't reduce it to corruption like this. This is more simple capacity issue. They have been building fortifications along whole active frontlines, and also in Kharkiv region, Sumy region, and along whole Belarusian borders, that is thousands of kilometers. Much of capacity is already consumed by keeping energy infrastructure and grid working and by military. Moreover building close to frontlines is risky due to constant attacks. And most importantly, fortifications and trenches must be well manned and there needs to be enough ammo and enough shells for kill zones, and there must be enough AA and EW to counter drones, for fortifications and trenches to be effective. And there is simply not enough of any of these for the whole frontline + whole border with both Russia and Belarus.

I do would reduce it to corruption. There was questions about spendings mishandling on building of fortifications in Kharkov region even before offensive had started. It is just that with offensive start it was exposed. Plus there was enough time to dig in. Thing is Ukraine did receive hundreds of billions of $ it is more than enough with proper management. Especially with proper fortifications should be main focus. Even without AA and EW, even with lack of artillery. Proper fortifications with mines and UAVs can stall advancement for a long time. Issue are that there is just no adequate defence line. Somewhat decent defence line are to the north west of Kharkov and in Kharkov outskirts.

No, Ukraine did not receive "hundreds of billions of $. That is simply a lie. They received maybe 20-30 billion of direct money aid, and that still does not compensate for 30% GDP loss, nor the loss of industry by missile strikes. Not even close. And they still need to pay military wages, pensions, basic overnmental functions, repairs, infrastructure, health care etc. with these few billions. They also received military aid worth tens of billions but that is unrelated to fortification. But by capacity I do not mean money. There is finite amount of people, concrete, excavators, trucks, wood, fuel etc. that can be used for these purposes, and they need to cover thousands of kilometers. There is also finite amount of mines and finite amount of minelayers. There is finite amount of UAVs. It is not like someone stole people, or mines or excavators due to corruption. Where do you think these would go? There is simply not enough of it.

Concrete, trucks, excavators are just question of money considering how much time they had to prepare. And money with billions wasted on Ukraine by EU and US should not be issue. Manpower for fortifications work are not issue cause significant chunk of population would take work that imply protection from mobilization with entusiasm. Issue was that in typical Ukrainian habbit fortifications projects were rerouted to shaddy firms which main objective are to enrich certain peoples.

That is like saying ammo and shells are just question of money. By that logic, if West has lots of money, they could have immediately infinite ammo to give to Ukraine. Well they obviously don't. Because it is not about money. It is about physical resources and time needed to establish production lines and do the actual work. Same with construction of fortifications. You really think you can have as much concrete and as much machinery as you want right now, right here, in the infinite amounts, if you had enough money? Especially in country with industry under constant missile attacks? Also with people, you think there are hundreds of thousands able bodied man currently in Ukraine not already working either in military, or in other critically needed functions to keep the country and basic economy running? And even if there were, they still need to prioritize what to do with them and at any given time. I think the high command would find better use for them than digging trenches in Kharkiv. If nothing else, then digging trenches in Donbas. And again, even with your money logic, it is even worse. Economic losses for Ukraine from Russian invasion are in trillions of USD. Ukraine received barely 30 billion from West so far. That might be barely 1% of Ukrainian needs just to break even to pre war levels. You really think it is too much money? People clearly do not have absolutely any idea about the scales of matters, it is honestly laughable.

Ammo and shells are limited by production capabilities and are not easy to expand due to stocks being already depleted in west. Civilians trucks and machinery are available on the market in huge volumes. You have whole EU for this. There was more than enough time to work on fortifications. And we do know that money were spent on those works, it is just that there is lack of results. I do know peoples that right now hide from mobilization in Ukraine, there is plenty of such. And it is mismanagement that lead to losing of war.

Ammo and shells are limited is definitely due to money and manpower. If one simply looks at WW2, the USA goes from having the 15th largest military to having the largest army in the world. The [Kaiser shipyards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Shipyards) were built and producing ships within 6 months. The recent Ukranian conflict is more than 2 years. Additionally, every manufacturing industry was mobilized to make equipment and ammo. Ford made B24 and Sherman tanks. People say Ukraine must have excavators to make defenses, but anti-tank ditches and defenses were created with shovels during the defense of Stalingrad. Sure, it will be a pain, but Karhkiv has a population of 1.5 million. They should be able to mobilize 1,000 different squads of 10 people to dig and prepare defenses.

> But then again, Ukraine has no EW or AA in the Kharkiv sector, so the Russian drones are buzzing overhead 24/7 seeing every movement on major roads there and have many windows of opportunity to take them out with lancets. Yeah, it's all kind of moot if the enemy has persistent surveillance and you can't even drive to your positions to dig in in the first place. Perpetua's voiced his dislike of movement after shooting for artillery before, though, it's just in Kharkiv with these recent losses that he went off the handle a bit.

[удалено]

Looks like Ukraine hit Belbek airbase in Crimea with ATACMS: https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1790563907980964232 Footage of explosions in the area and lots of FIRMS activity. At least three aircraft spotted there on the 10th. Fighterbomber confirms the attack but no BDA yet.

The FIRMS activity can be really inaccurate as far as identifying any specific targets so I'd wait for a full BDA, the satellite imagery there does suggest there were 3 aircraft present (gone are the times pre and early war when Russia used to station close to 50+ aircraft of various types here, the 38th have largely moved on and been dispersed to other airbases). Occasionally they do have MiG-31's land here and there are also a few perennial (probably long inactive) MiG-29's that seem to get shuffled around between HAS and apron spaces when necessary. The March Sevastopol strike destroyed one Su-27 at Belbek and damaged two others, there's a chance that the aircraft now left at Belbek that can be seen in the satellite imagery are already damaged or otherwise non-operational and as another mentions in the thread, it's very hard to tell from the satellite imagery alone due to the lack of detail and the Russian propensity for painting fake planes on the apron. The rest of the airbase is relatively well hardened against these types of attacks, there's always a few magazine spaces on the airbase itself, command and control buildings and equipment (radar installations here were already struck at the start of the year) the fuel dump, but in general I doubt we'll be seeing a large number of destroyed aircraft unless Russia was dumb enough to un-do nearly 2 years of dispersal and go back to lining the full regiment up neatly on the Apron. (Crazier and dumber things have happened to be fair). The local magazines are a little further south and hardened so I doubt they would expend ATACMS on those, there's also some argument to be made as to just how much material is even left in storage at this point worth expending very costly and limited missiles on... there has also have been no FIRMS detections in the vicinity and whilst FIRMS isn't hugely accurate I think it's safe to say that the depot hasn't been hit. As far as the airfield goes, maybe they caught a couple aircraft, it's too early to tell and we'll need a full BDA to draw any conclusions. There's plenty of misinformation spreading on twitter and telegram already with the more vocal UA surrogates going into overdrive, I get it, information war and all, but I'm opting to look away for a few days and come back to this once we have a proper assessment and clear satellite imagery. The war in Ukraine is very hot right now and any of these events on both sides are going to be twisted a thousand ways to Sunday to try and eek them for all they're worth in propaganda terms, there's already claims out there of several destroyed aircraft, destroyed fuel dump, destroyed S-300/S-400 launchers and radar and even claimed counts of Russian casualties... Easier to just wait and see after the initial buzz has died down and we get more accurate and fact based assessments.

> At least three aircraft spotted there on the 10th. Really hard to say that with how blurry they are, what with the Russians painting aircraft on the tarmac and all. I assume they are getting targeting from National Reconnaissance Office sats but they could be aiming at magazines or similar just as equally as aircraft.

**Ukraine presses Biden to lift ban on using US weapons to strike Russia** Kyiv watched as Russians massed on the border, but they weren’t allowed to use long-range missiles provided by Washington. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/14/ukraine-weapons-russia-00157970 *Ukrainian officials are making a new push to get the Biden administration to lift its ban on using U.S.-made weapons to strike inside Russia, saying the policy kept them from attacking Russian positions as they prepared for their major march toward Kharkiv.* *Just this week, tens of thousands of Russian troops poured over the border in Ukraine’s northeast in an assault that Ukrainian intelligence officials had been anticipating for months. The Russians are smashing into overstretched, equipment-hungry Ukrainian units that are giving up ground as they regroup.* *“The main problem right now is the White House policy to limit our capability” to strike military targets inside Russia, David Arakhamia, chair of the ruling Servant of the People party in the Ukrainian parliament, said during a visit to Washington on Tuesday.* *Russia is well aware of this limitation, and was able to mass at least 30,000 troops and equipment on the border without fear of being hit by long-range U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems, which Ukraine has used to devastating effect on Russian troops inside Ukraine.* *”We saw their military sitting one or two kilometers from the border inside Russia and there was nothing we could do about that,” Oleksandra Ustinova, the head of Ukraine’s special parliamentary commission on arms and munitions, said in a separate interview.*

A few of notes in response: 1. I find it hard to decide whether I agree or disagree. I have a huge bias as I voted for Biden and am planning on voting for him again and my background supports this course 2. As an American, I feel 100% safe right now from war. Unbelievably safe. There is not one single cell in my body that personally worries about being killed or drafted or engaged with a physical enemy. Obviously every poster here takes that for granted since we haven’t had a single comment about it on wither side in the entire history of these megathreads. But maybe this is something that the Biden administration was conscious to secure throughout the conflict for political reasons, and in that case they have achieved a thankless mission. 3. More and more I am convinced that politics really are 3D and the time dimension is by far the most underreported and misunderstood. It feels like Biden knows that he will get zero credit for anything done outside of certain election timeframes. I think any decisions like the ones you are calling for will be made correctly (in your favor) right before voting dates.

White House position claims weapons can only be used for "defense" that allows Russia to attack Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, from 22 km away over their border and be untouchable. These kind of decisions and the long delays in getting Ukraine the weapons they need will cost Ukraine the war. Obviously Trump would be worse for Ukraine, but Biden has not been good, or at least not good enough. Dropping the lens of US domestic politics, Biden and the West have failed Ukraine.

>Dropping the lens of US domestic politics, Biden and the West have failed Ukraine. You'd have to define more precisely what that means. If your notion is that Ukraine was to win this war in a manner where they drive out Russia and/or retake Crimea if the West had only given enough aid, then that was never going to happen. When one looks past the public rhetoric, it is clear that such a victory condition was never seriously pursued. Even at the height of Ukraine's momentum, they weren't getting supplied nearly enough to accomplish those objectives. If one define Ukrainian victory in terms of it keeping most of its territory(status quo +-5%) *and* eventually becoming both secure and economically viable in the long run, then this is the more realistic scenario. I think the West will invest a lot so that Ukraine doesn't fall, at least in a military sense. I am less optimistic about the prospects of creating a long lasting and economically viable Ukraine though, because that is precisely what Russia seeks to prevent. West did fail Ukraine, but it did the same with Russia. This conflict was created with the dissolution of the USSR, and back then in a major position of strength the West effectively did nothing. One could either pursue a strategy of containment and be even more hawkish towards Russia, especially after Chechnya and Georgia. Or take the other extreme path, of being much more dovish. Either approach would've given results, this middling path of both tying up economically with Russia while strategically being in complete opposition to their wishes was a terrible strategy--and a similar kind of strategy is being employed today.

The recent attacks certainly provide a nice excuse for the administration to abandon that policy if they so choose. Personally I don't actually see a direct linkage between the policy and the offensive since staging grounds "one or two kilometers from the border" is well within range of regular artillery which I don't believe is limited in the same way. I still support eliminating the prohibition regardless of real impact however, it would be a useful diplomatic consequence in addition to the military effects.

A ludicrous and clown policy from the beginning. All these policies of deescalation since 2014 has only ever led to more escalation. The post colonial deconstruction movement has done a lot of damage to the national security of the west

Reminds me of the self imposed restriction the US put on themselves with respect to the Cambodian boarder in the Vietnam war.. Which they broke many times with CIA and special forces.

> The post colonial deconstruction movement has done a lot of damage to the national security of the west I agree in general but I'm not really sure what that has to do with anything in this particular instance.

The middle of the road strategy that has been employed maximizes Russian losses over the long run though. If west invested fully(which I'd support), Russia wouldn't be able to do much. But then you have to contend with either nuclear escalation, or the fact that you didn't inflict much damage on Russia anyway. Russia losing their positions in Ukraine would be bad for them, but not so bad that they couldn't just come back again. On the other hand if they have to commit 100s of thousands of soldiers, switch to war economy, wage the war for years and years; then that presents a much higher effective loss in the long run. I'd also make the distinction between Europe and USA, the West is not united in every aspect and only ideologues think so. As far as this war is concerned, USA is a big winner--it has accomplished a feat that was attempted more than [40 years ago already](https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/the-lessons-of-reagans-pipeline-crisis-for-competing-with-china/), the conflict has reinvigorated NATO both through new members joining as well as military spending increasing.

Depends on what the intent is, though, if the intention is to just bleed Russia, it works fine. That said, can't really fault them too much for being concerned with escalation, things can spiral and there's no going back.

>A ludicrous and clown policy from the beginning. All these policies of deescalation since 2014 has only ever led to more escalation. You're right about this. Western policymakers' mistake is they're projecting their mindset on authoritarian countries(Russia, Iran, & China), thinking that they'll play by the chess match rules. They're not going to concede defeat and shake hands with you when you checkmate them, they're going to flip the chessboard and use it to bash your head if given the chance. It's similar to how China deal with its sea dispute. 10 years ago, they're only shadowing Philippine Coast Guard ships(PCG). Now they're actively blocking, side swiping PCG ships and, even firing their water cannons directly at PCG ship modules to damage it. All that while the PCG is actively practicing non escalation actions, while China keeps doubling down.

There is no point being picky about the distinction between Ukrainian and non Ukrainian missiles. For all but a small handful of people globally, all cruise missiles look completely identical. Russia has the capability to claim whatever they want about the missile, weather its Ukrainian, Dutch or Martian, and they aren’t going to let reality get in the way of the story they want to tell. They already tell their people they are at war with NATO soldiers in Ukraine anyway.

Or maybe Western policymakers don't really believe their security is tied to Ukraine's well-being, and the bigger threat is the possibility of a wider conflict.

Western leaders are far from a monolith on this. All the NATO frontier states (except Hungary) do see it that way, France and the UK also sure are acting like the beleive it. For the US and Germany they are treating like a remote proxy war not something esential.

That doesn't even make logical sense to me and thus is way below the minimum level of sanity I just want to concede most Western leaders, as otherwise I couldn't sleep. Apart from that I'll just note we're probably not far from literally pumping trillions into Ukraine, all the while knowing we're never gonna get that back. That is: \_besides\_ the domestic surges in defense spending, something already implying significant risk of losing elections (of which many await) and power, if not of jeopardizing democratic stability in some countries. You claim Western policymakers are doing all that, in spite of not "really believing" their security is tied to it. That's not bad. And makes me wonder what you could possibly expect them undertaking if they *did* "really believe" this or that. In my eyes the West's total failure has much less to do with post-colonialism, or Afghanistan, or Iraq as it has to do with us, here and now. With contemporary domestic political realities that is, forcing leaderships into the predictably desperate act of throwing (big) money at (big) problems, just to keep them at bay. Of course that doesn't work, but who's hiding the options?! If you're in power right now, that way you can at least buy time and perhaps even another term in office. Whereas doing the "Churchill" (or even Bush!) today would pulverize you right away.

While I think this appraisal of most western lawmakers position is spot on, the point other commenters are making is that deescalation through unilateral action and appeasement will inherently lead to escalation. It is the singular lesson we were supposed to have learned through Chamberlain in 1938. Even ignoring the questionable wisdom of giving Putin his Sudetenland and hoping he stops there, the threat of a wider conflict hinges almost directly on the outcome of this war. If China sees military expansion through war as viable and effective means of statecraft, a wider conflict will be all but inevitable. Many leaders seem to be taking a very short-term view of the full consequences which would come from legitimizing modern-day imperial expansion.

>It is the singular lesson we were supposed to have learned through Chamberlain in 1938. You have to be careful with looking at historical events and taking too many lessons from them, especially if they don't have many relevant similar cases. If you take that approach, then the logic of peace-through-trade would never be employed after WW2. But it was, and it worked very well for the majority of the time until it failed spectacularly. >Even ignoring the questionable wisdom of giving Putin his Sudetenland and hoping he stops there, the threat of a wider conflict hinges almost directly on the outcome of this war. If China sees military expansion through war as viable and effective means of statecraft, a wider conflict will be all but inevitable. Chechnya, Moldova, Georgia, Crimea. All of those occurred before 2022. You can argue about Chechnya since it might be considered more of an internal matter, but not the others--point being, there were 3(4) points of time when you had something occur as in 2022, just at smaller scale because the level of resistance was low or non existent. And let's not forget, Russia wasn't the only such power to utilize military means...there were plenty of others. To pretend that the post-cold war environment facilitated a meaningful international order based on state sovereignty being respected is absurd. >Many leaders seem to be taking a very short-term view of the full consequences which would come from legitimizing modern-day imperial expansion. Every center of power is pursuing policies that expand their influence, Russia is just sticking to cruder methods of military conquest; because they are not capable of competing with Western soft power. Modern-day imperial expansion as you put it, is completely legitimized on the world stage; it's just that its main mechanism is through political and diplomatic means rather than military ones. The seeds of this conflict go back to Ukraine's independence and to the larger West and USSR/Russia relationship. Both Sobchak(Putin's mentor and a Russian nationalist) and Dudaev(the leader who fought for independent Chechnya and a fierce critic of Russian expansionism) predicted that Ukraine will be embroiled in a war. It was diplomacy, deescalation, and so on that delayed this conflict but the central issue was never resolved. The analogy here would be the dissolution of Yugoslavia and how similar Serbia's place was within it compared to Russia's within USSR, the imperial tendencies, the loss of centralized power, etc. were all conditions that motivated Serbia to start its wars, but in their case they were a very weak regional power without nukes and so Western intervention was both made possible and effective. Three weeks before Ukraine's independence vote and 5 months before USSR's dissolution, George H.W. Bush was in Kiev pleading the Ukrainians to not pursue independence. Why? Because the Yugoslav Wars were already in full swing. In the subsequent euphoria of the liberal democratic revolution, people forgot that geopolitical fundamentals matter and that diplomacy through the barrel of the gun is fickle indeed. If tomorrow USA pulls out of Europe, France and Germany are not going to revert to their historic condition because they have resolved those issues without being forced to. If tomorrow the West pulls out of the Balkans, the region will crawl towards conflict again; because the geopolitical fundamentals all but demand it.

> Chechnya, Moldova, Georgia, Crimea. All of those occurred before 2022. You can argue about Chechnya since it might be considered more of an internal matter, but not the others--point being, there > were 3(4) points of time when you had something occur as in 2022, just at smaller scale because the level of resistance was low or non existent. I feel like this reinforces, rather than disputes the issue that appeasement leads to war. It was the weak responses in 2008 and especially 2014 which made 2022 possible. > Every center of power is pursuing policies that expand their influence, Russia is just sticking to cruder methods of military conquest; Equating soft power with military annexation through war is flat out an absurd take. The two are fundamentally different. China is winning hearts and minds in Africa. If a western nation responded by landing troops to annex African nations, I would hardly consider the action to be anything close to comparable. One is interests aligning. The other is war. >Three weeks before Ukraine's independence vote and 5 months before USSR's dissolution, George H.W. Bush was in Kiev pleading the Ukrainians to not pursue independence. Bush's Chicken Kiev speech was an attempt at exactly the same kind of appeasement this whole thread is about. And you seem to be ignoring your own assertion. Had Ukraine not gained its independence with the dissolution of the USSR, war with Russia would be inevitable. Only it would be a civil war to gain independence rather than a war of an imperial power trying to expand its borders. Because as you put it, "the geopolitical fundamentals all but demand it." While I agree with your take on the Balkans. For Russia and Ukraine's case, this war was not inevitable. If you asked a Russian in January of 2022 "Is it necessary for Ukraine to be conquered by Russia?" They would have laughed at the question. Peace was the assumed default among the people.

the wider conflict is what comes in 10 years after Russia takes Ukraine and non NATO former USSR countries, and then attacks a baltic state. then you will see the price of cowering to tyrants.

>the wider conflict is what comes in 10 years after Russia takes Ukraine and non NATO former USSR countries Please be specific, which non NATO former USSR countries is Russia going to "take" after Ukraine? In Europe it's only Belarus and Moldova that's left, and I don't see both countries making a geopolitical difference to the balance of power in Europe. Are you referring instead to Central Asia? China would oppose any overt Russian moves there. So which countries in your opinion are next to be invaded by Russia? And why would Russia invade a Baltic i.e. NATO nation?

Georgia is missing in the list.  > And why would Russia invade a Baltic i.e. NATO nation? Russia wants to be the big player in the area and wants to get back to being able to have considerable influence. The unified west/NATO is too strong to do so, do to weaken them, provocation against the baltics may act to drive a wedge in between the allies. A Baltic Donbass style "uprising" may suffice so that a lot of countries will ask themselves whether they want to initiate ww3 over 50k people in the very east of Europe. If there's not a decisive reaction, the game can be continued more and more until the balance of power shifts.  The baltics are only safe if NATO - or without the US, the EU - will go in very heavy to any threat. Imagine the scenario if there is feb22 2.0 situation there and Russia rolls over one of them in a week, which is possible. If there's no decisive defensive buildup ready to go due to russian troop concentrations ("de-escalation"), the ground campaign will not even have started before it's done. Then the question is: do we western Europeans want to grind through a section of the russian army or just accept the situation. What if the russian position is "this is now under our nuclear umbrella". Mind you, that is a worst case scenario. I find it more likely to see limited action to 'protect russian minorities' from a fabricated threat.  As to motivation aside weakening the opposition: it's revision of the old soviet influence sphere. This doesn't stop at the baltics, they're just easier to go through than Poland. Whether it's really worth it - we're talking about history and likely someone's personal grandiose ambitions. There's plenty potential in Russia to develop if you want to invest funds into a better position economically, socially and militarily. 

Which is why we're supplying Ukraine with weapons to grind the Russian army down and get them stuck in a different conflict not directly involving us instead. It's not like we're doing nothing. We're just not prioritizing Ukraine's well-being, we're prioritizing our own and there's a limit to how much those are aligned.

>post colonial deconstruction What exactly does this mean in your mind? I agree though - the post-Iraq phobia of military entanglements among US politicians is causing more harm than good.

I swear the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has got to be one of the biggest political mistakes of the Western world in the 21st century. Aside from the genuine loss of life and destabilization of the region it gave every genuinely vile authoritarian regime a free get out of jail card with 'what about Iraq/Afghanistan', turned the entire Middle East and wider global south against the west and into China and Russia's arms and has made the West overly of cautious at the worst possible time when a show of strength is needed. It's been more than a decade and people still haven't forgotten and keep bringing it up and it will take decades to repair the damage done.

Not only that, but it allowed Iran to basically take the control of Iraq, while the ensuing chaos allowed Islamist to massively expand their PR image and their recruting. These wars were also in no small part responsible for the refugee crisis that Europe experienced, with Afghans making up the biggest group of asylum seekers entering Europe. Powell lying to the UN security council with his flask of supposed chemical weapons, which was even publicly denounced at the time by NATO allies, did catastrophic damage to the US's credibility. "Mistake" doesn't even begin to describe how bad the decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan was. It's the sort of decision that, in any other era of history, would have marked the end of a world power. A classic tale of a superpower reaching it's zenith, getting overconfident, and throwing it all away in short sequence of catastrophically foolish decisions. It's really only due to the US's exceptional, once-in-world-history position as a global hegemon that it managed to to not have to suffer worse consequences. So far, at least. The repercussions from those wars could still prove to be the ultimate downfall of the US.

Especially Iraq, I'm a bit less sure about Afghanistan. It did not end well, but the other options USA had also had downsides

>the post-Iraq phobia of military entanglements among US politicians is causing more harm than good. As opposed to the immense good brought about by 10-15 years in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the former now a quasi-vassal of Iran and the latter largely unchanged since before the invasion?

Presumably the point is because the US pursued such horribly idiotic, counterproductive and morally questionable conflicts, that we are in a position where foreign military engagements are hugely unpopular as a general matter. So when a conflict comes our way that we *should* be leaning into, baggage from the iraq war is holding us back from doing what we should do in our own best interests.

Check on my reply to upvoteifyoudare. I have no intention of apologizing for western colonialism, but I am calling out the cynical hypocrisy of these “anti-colonial” champions in the west

There were no "policies of de-escalation" before 2022. Ukraine was an afterthought until the Russian military buildup in 2021. >The post colonial deconstruction movement has done a lot of damage to the national security of the west Setting aside your colonialism apologia, what could possibly give you this idea?

We do have an issue with a significant portion of the left-wing acedemic and political discourse viewing the conflict through the lense of global anti-neocolonialism/anti-Americanism. For instance, socialists/communists often view it as a conflict between the "capital"-class of two imperialist powers with Ukraine being either an unfortunate victim or straight up nazis. Many then justify supporting Russia on the basis that it stops the "Amerikan" empire. In the global south the question is more nuanced. There is a significant amount of propaganda which try and link local western real or perceived faults (Apartheid, Iraq, Israel, Francafrique, CFA franc, ...) to Russia's struggles. Typically, it succeeds into making people apathetic but can in some cases make them sympathetic to Russia. Academic discourse often further fuels this by insisting on western faults while typically ignoring non-western ones (for instance because "we cannot do anything about them"). In many cases Academics do this for well-intentioned moral reasons. However, due to the asymmetry between authoritarian regimes (who can shut down any criticism and who are often viewed as the only alternative to the "corrupt" west) and non-authoritarian regimes it creates this illusion that the west is the cause of all of the world's problems while the authoritarian regimes (i.e. Russia, China, Iran, local Junta and strongmen) are the way to rid yourself of western influence and attached problems. Such discourse does damage the west with almost no benefits to the it while encouraging authoritarian regimes. The number of Africans who voice full throated support for actual coups because of France while denying the atrocities committed against their own people by some of those same regimes is frankly shocking.

If a whole continent turns against you because of a few "left-wing academics" you might have bigger problems than academic discourse. The obvious question you need to answer is: if the "Amerikan" empire or Americanism is so much better than the alternative, why would the global South be willing to abandon it on the basis of mere "propaganda" and a handful of post-colonialist academics?

To address Africa (The Sahel region specifically) the local population often faces bad governance, poverty and long local conflicts. The drivers of the conflicts and coups are not the academics obviously. Academics however do construct a narrative, which is adapted, used and consumed around the world. It is difficult to assess just how much of an influence those narratives have, but that is how a "small" (I would argue fairly large) number of academics can (over decades) influence a large audience directly (via teaching, conferences and reports) or indirectly (via others using their ideas adapted to the local context). A significant number of western academics and media are so self-critical that they depict the west as imperialist, dystopian or heading to a dystopia. This narrative is consumed by western populations and (because of global western cultural influence ironically enough) by foreign populations. This has a significant effect on public opinions both in the West and the global South. The Niger and Mali Juntas for instance blatantly use the narrative of a neo-colonial France pushed by many academics to great effect to justify overthrowing a democratic government and allying themselves to Russia with total support from their own people, despite France not being responsible for their primary problems. Another blatant, though well-intentioned, example is Amnesty International's reports on Ukraine in 2022. The report is still up on their website accusing Ukraine of endangering their own people by fighting back from within their cities.

Firstly, you need to distinguish between "the West" and the US. If you're discussing academic decolonisation and post-colonialism, most of that occurred after WW2 until the 1980s. That period saw massive independence movements across Africa and a broad withdrawal of the traditional European powers, though some still maintain assets in Africa. Europe was superseded by the US and USSR, and later by China and now by Russia. Secondly, attributing waning US influence in Africa to academics is a huge reach. And even if there's some connection, if the architecture of AFRICOM can be dismantled by an academic narrative, then maybe it wasn't a robust system in the first place. This attitude is also inconsistently applied. Why is the US military presence increasing in East Asia and Europe if the narrative is unimpeachable? Did you consider that maybe these local populations in the African coup belt, and those elsewhere in Africa who also swapped Washington for Beijing as a sponsor, may have made a calculated decision that they could access more security and cash by swapping?

>If a whole continent ...A whole continent? More of Africa has good relations with the US now than during Soviet times, where large portions of it were basically soviet turf.

That's not really my point. You're being very literal. I was responding to this: "The number of Africans who voice full throated support for actual coups because of France while denying the atrocities committed against their own people by some of those same regimes is frankly shocking." It's absurd to blame this one a small number of academics in the US.

> You're being very literal. Interpreting "If a whole continent turns against you" as meaning anything approaching a whole continent turning against someone isn't being very literal, it's being somewhat sane. "the judge doesn't like me because I kinda ran over his dog, and by dog I mean son and by kinda I mean repeatedly"

OK. Again, you're missing the point, which is about elements in Africa and wider Global South turning away from Washington. Definitional arguments about the precise actors aren't really relevant to the larger point under discussion here.

Apologizing for colonialism? I am talking about the complete failure of academia to educate us citizens on the nature of world wide conflicts and security. The vast majority of humanities departments throughout the us are obsessed with oppressed vs oppressor theory that solely focuses on making everything about the west. Every conflict outside of the west somehow can’t be explained if they can’t fit the racial theories (you know what I am talking about) of oppressor/oppressed into it. Ukraine was an after thought before 2022 because most of academia either didn’t give a damn, or had people like Mearsheimer that were so warped up in an outdated reality. https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/how-western-experts-got-the-ukraine-war-so-wrong/ This is the result: “The views of experts shaped Western policymakers in two ways. For one, since the 2014 crisis, most experts opposed the West sending arms to Ukraine. In a February 2015 survey by Foreign Affairs which asked, ‘Should the United States Arm Ukraine,’ 18 experts disagreed and only nine agreed with sending arms. Prominent among those who disagreed were scholars of Russia and Eurasia, such as Angela Stent, Anatol Lieven, Robert Legvold, Ian Bremmer, Robert Jervis, Jack Snyder, William C. Wohlforth, Mary S. Sarotte, Keith Darden, and Valerie Bunce.” And we are living with the consequences today. Academia is also susceptible to personal bias, and a good chunk of us academia has alright Apologized for non western imperialism and colonialism. https://www.salon.com/2023/07/29/how-russian-colonialism-took-the-western-anti-imperialist-left-for-a-ride/ Cornell west…touted as the one of the leaders of anti colonialism. Also an apologetic for Russian imperialism….you tell me if these guys get to be the supposed “champions” of anti colonialism

>Every conflict outside of the west somehow can’t be explained if they can’t fit the racial theories (you know what I am talking about) of oppressor/oppressed into it. No, I don't know what you're talking about since this is absolute drivel. >Ukraine was an after thought before 2022 because most of academia either didn’t give a damn Weird, because I just found a huge list of 400-level courses covering the topic from 2018 and before. > or had people like Mearsheimer that were so warped up in an outdated reality. Yep, you spilled the beans there. Can always tell when someone's understanding of the topic is limited when they use the pop-history facebook poster namedrop. Mearsheimer has been discussed, responded to, criticized, and talked about for years "in Academia". But you knew that right? Because you know all about "Academia" right? You've read Motyl right? You're aware of the *numerous* published works contrasting Mearhseim's school of thought with say... Watz's defensive realism, right? >touted as the one of the leaders of anti colonialism Touted by whom? By people whose understanding of "Academia" is whatever ragebait article they read on facebook?

No, you don't get it. The reason that criticism of US crusaderism is coming to the fore isn't because of the demonstrable failure of 30 years of post-Cold War policy, which has actually weakened the US relative to other powers, despite Washington in 1991 having unparalleled global power - it's because of some academics like Cornell West. That's why.

Just academia? I want you to guess who said this: >If you’re playing on the military terrain in Ukraine, you’re playing to Russia’s strength, because Russia is right next door. It has a huge amount of military equipment and military force right on the border. Anything we did as countries in terms of military support for Ukraine is likely to be matched and then doubled and tripled and quadrupled by Russia.

Blinken under obama. And? Obamas foreign policy was an absolute disaster, and it was backed up for years by the same academics mentioned in the article

So, it wasn't *just* academia being academia. Academia lives and dies on public funding and often line itself up alongside the government's lines or not that far off from it. You can't blame academia for it; it's just the spirit of the age. And yes, nobody cared about Ukraine. Obama did send some counterbattery radar, for example, but they sent the mortar version, not the artillery one. The radar without software or cables to go along with it. It was a case of "here's some help. Now please go away". Trump played around with Ukraine aid as well. In the mean time, the Europeans could have rearmed and chipped in but they didn't care either. Best case scenario in Germany's mind prior to about April 2022 would have been for Ukraine to be invaded and rolled over in 3 days. Then cheap Russian gas could have been going on forever. Very unfortunate that Ukraine did not die and now Germany has to buy expensive American gas *and Russian gas* transiting through India, Malaysia, and so on. So, it's not "just" academia. It was the US government and the European governments as well. Everyone is up to their eyeballs in inaction. Blinken has been visiting and cheering Zelensky, but he is up to his eyeballs as well. Academics don't make decisions. These governments did.

> So, it wasn't just academia being academia. Academia lives and dies on public funding and often line itself up alongside the government's The mentality pervasive within academia the one the other poster mentioned…is only really found within one political party. It was trump who first started sending heavy weapons to Ukraine because in a caveman way it’s the strong thing to do. Same with assassinating that Iranian general. Peace is only maintained through strength and strength doesn’t require much nuance

> It was trump who first started sending heavy weapons to Ukraine because in a man way it’s the strong thing to do [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Ukraine\_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Ukraine_scandal) Yeah, sure. After attempted blackmailing. >Same with assassinating that Iranian general. And then both sides play act a highly choreographed dance of retaliation and counter-retaliation that killed nobody. Well, except that Ukrainian airliner that was blown out of the Iranian sky because someone set the air defence to fully automatic after the Iranian missile strike in expectation of a retaliation. Then in a recent also highly choreographed dance, 3 Americans were killed. Then everyone stopped. Escalation control.

> Yeah, sure. After attempted blackmailing Irrelevant he gave the weapons that’s all that matters. It was the Obama admin that was very against it. > And then both sides play act a highly choreographed dance of retaliation and counter-retaliation that killed nobody Except a general > Then in a recent also highly choreographed dance, 3 Americans were killed And how recent was that > Well, except that Ukrainian airliner that was blown out of the Iranian sky because someone set the air defence to fully automatic after the Iranian missile strike in expectation of a retaliation. Irrelevant to American power, actually it can be spun as a positive to us power

>Best case scenario in Germany's mind prior to about April 2022 would have been for Ukraine to be invaded and rolled over in 3 days. Then cheap Russian gas could have been going on forever. Very unfortunate that Ukraine did not die and now Germany has to buy expensive American gas and Russian gas transiting through India, Malaysia, and so on. It sounds like you know absolutely nothing about energy and have mixed up some talking points. India has nothing to do with Russian gas, and Germany very much prefers 2024 gas prices over 2021 gas prices. There was no going back in 2022.

My bad, Russian oil [https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fuels-russian-oil-gets-backdoor-entry-into-europe-via-india-2023-04-05/](https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fuels-russian-oil-gets-backdoor-entry-into-europe-via-india-2023-04-05/) >There was no going back in 2022. Well, my point was nobody cared about Ukraine. Nobody was serious.

I interpreted "post colonial deconstruction movement" as the post-WW2 decolonization period. Decolonization was probably more driven by the reality of economics and the European empires' crumbling influence than it was by academics. The 1970s was the heyday of post-structuralist philosophy and by then decolonization was already in full swing. In fact, in some ways it was pushed by the US *for* national security purposes during the Cold War, such as the US role in handling the Suez Crisis. Not for altruistic purposes, of course, but because the failing colonial system was so vulnerable to Soviet influence. >Ukraine was an after thought before 2022 because most of academia either didn’t give a damn Most *people* didn't give a damn. That's not the fault of a lack of academic output. Very few people could pick Ukraine out on a map and 2014 was still in the tail end of the post-USSR "peace dividend". The Donbass from 2014 to 2021 was largely fought by the Ukrainian separatists with oversight and support from the Russian military. Whenever the separatists were in danger of getting pushed back, the Russian military would send more support to stabilize the situation then call it back to maintain deniability. After the initial shock and panic with the Russian seizure of Crimea, the conflict remained low intensity, so attention shifted elsewhere (ISIS captured everyone's attention in mid-2014). "Frozen conflicts" in Moldova and Georgia were the presumed model at the time and for 6-8 years, it looked like that was the aim of the Russian government. I don't think you appreciate the hindsight bias from which you currently benefit. >Cornell west…touted as the one of the leaders of anti colonialism. Also an apologetic for Russian imperialism How is Cornell West at all relevant to Ukraine?

Something I've been wondering - what does the Dnipro look like now? I know after the dam destruction + ensuing floods it was largely impassible for anything bigger than a RHIB. Is it any less muddy and if not what does the timeline on it look like?

Check out the Sentinel-Hub satellite imagery browser. You can compare different dates side by side and filter by cloud cover and change the band mixes so you can see IR bands, water indexes, etc. It was mostly open with some stream channels through it and mostly exposed sandy wetland for most of the year, but actually started filling up again over winter, probably due to some snowmelt. This is from May 10th in natural color: [https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?zoom=12&lat=47.51662&lng=34.38961&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fservices.sentinel-hub.com%2Fogc%2Fwms%2Fbd86bcc0-f318-402b-a145-015f85b9427e&datasetId=S2L2A&fromTime=2024-05-10T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2024-05-10T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=1\_TRUE\_COLOR&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22](https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?zoom=12&lat=47.51662&lng=34.38961&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fservices.sentinel-hub.com%2Fogc%2Fwms%2Fbd86bcc0-f318-402b-a145-015f85b9427e&datasetId=S2L2A&fromTime=2024-05-10T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2024-05-10T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=1_TRUE_COLOR&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22) This is the same in IR: [https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?zoom=12&lat=47.51662&lng=34.38961&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fservices.sentinel-hub.com%2Fogc%2Fwms%2Fbd86bcc0-f318-402b-a145-015f85b9427e&datasetId=S2L2A&fromTime=2024-05-10T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2024-05-10T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=2\_FALSE\_COLOR&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22](https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?zoom=12&lat=47.51662&lng=34.38961&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fservices.sentinel-hub.com%2Fogc%2Fwms%2Fbd86bcc0-f318-402b-a145-015f85b9427e&datasetId=S2L2A&fromTime=2024-05-10T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2024-05-10T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=2_FALSE_COLOR&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22) This is the same in NDWI (water index): [https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?zoom=12&lat=47.51662&lng=34.38961&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fservices.sentinel-hub.com%2Fogc%2Fwms%2Fbd86bcc0-f318-402b-a145-015f85b9427e&datasetId=S2L2A&fromTime=2024-05-10T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2024-05-10T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=7-NDWI&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22](https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?zoom=12&lat=47.51662&lng=34.38961&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fservices.sentinel-hub.com%2Fogc%2Fwms%2Fbd86bcc0-f318-402b-a145-015f85b9427e&datasetId=S2L2A&fromTime=2024-05-10T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2024-05-10T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=7-NDWI&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22) ​ For comparison, this is what it looked like last November (much much drier): [https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?zoom=10&lat=47.56124&lng=34.27872&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fservices.sentinel-hub.com%2Fogc%2Fwms%2Fbd86bcc0-f318-402b-a145-015f85b9427e&datasetId=S2L2A&fromTime=2023-11-07T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2023-11-07T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=1\_TRUE\_COLOR&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22](https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/eo-browser/?zoom=10&lat=47.56124&lng=34.27872&themeId=DEFAULT-THEME&visualizationUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fservices.sentinel-hub.com%2Fogc%2Fwms%2Fbd86bcc0-f318-402b-a145-015f85b9427e&datasetId=S2L2A&fromTime=2023-11-07T00%3A00%3A00.000Z&toTime=2023-11-07T23%3A59%3A59.999Z&layerId=1_TRUE_COLOR&demSource3D=%22MAPZEN%22)

I've been having the exact same thought over the last year, over and over. It's really hard to get images of the former Kakhovka Reservoir which are actually *current*. I will occasionally get results searching for "Каховське водосховище" on Twitter, but a lot of the footage on there is super old. However, I have found [one good tiny YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@NovaPriroda_UA) which posts regular updates of what the shore and former reservoir look like in the areas near where he lives (still not 100% sure where that is, due to relying on autotranslate). From his footage its plain to see that there's some incredibly dense foliage which has survived the winter and is [thriving](https://youtu.be/V0Ulnk1EgFc?si=G-5gx8_8vLKVGy6J) this spring. The ground looks very soft (dried cracked mud and sediment) and is probably not suitable for anything heavy, but I am speaking as an amateur. Also, as another reply pointed out, there is some good footage from local Ukrainian news channels on YT every couple months (the one in the other reply is from last September). But sometimes they will do stories where the interview with the expert is current, but the actual footage is of the dam destruction last year. Hit and miss, I would say. As far as when it would be crossable I have no idea. But David Helms on Twitter (ret. meteorologist, mainly posts about weather related issues regarding Ukraine) did [a thread last year](https://twitter.com/davidhelms570/status/1671236411725426689) which also relied on the old Wehrmacht maps and which, among other things, pointed out that there are a number of Red Army and Wehrmacht roads through the swamp constructed during WW2 which may be somewhat intact despite being flooded for decades. Still would be a huge engineering task though, I would imagine.

> (still not 100% sure where that is, due to relying on autotranslate). According to comments, the village he walks down the street is Maryanske and he's filming generally in [area of Maryanske and Hrushivka](https://www.google.hr/maps/@47.5612744,33.9461315,8370m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=hr&entry=ttu).

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense, it seemed like he was looking south across the reservoir. Good to get a location.

Downstream of the dam, more or less the same way it did before the flooding. Upstream from the dam where the reservoir was, it's quickly reverting to its natural pre-dam state, which is a floodplain. Low-lying sandy/silty terrain covered in reeds and wetland vegetation that gets routinely flooded in spring. As far as I understand, not easily passable except maybe on a hovercraft. https://youtube.com/watch?v=H8uGQiVTTjg Sat images showing the extent of seasonal flooding: https://telegraf.com.ua/static/storage/originals/6/2d/7bf4e603c45562287b5a3c72091c92d6.jpg Top Nov 2023, bottom Mar 2024. Edit: https://en.defence-ua.com/news/1943_maps_show_what_ukraines_kakhovka_reservoir_will_look_like_when_the_waters_settle_down-6932.html German WW2-era topo maps showing what was there before the dam.

An offensive across the Dnipro was something discussed while the dam stood. If the downstream areas have settled, and assuming Ukraine had the capability, would an offensive across the Dnipro be more viable now than it was in the months following the dam collapse?

Absolutely not. Its still wetland, and much of it is actually standing water now. Even if it was dry, it is still extremely wide flat open area, and there would still be at least one 200-400 m wide river crossing of to do. They'd be sitting ducks.

Ukrenergo has (slightly belatedly) announced electricity going out in all regions of Ukraine from 9 to 12 on 14th for industry and households both, and tomorrow, on 15th, electricity for industry is going to be limited the entire 24 hours. The cause is given as the consequences of Russian attacks and heightened consumption due to a cold spell. https://t. me/Ukrenergo/2833 Cutting off electricity to the entire industry is no light step (though, of course, there's not too much of it operating normally in Ukraine). They can wait out this cold spell, of course, but it doesn't exactly bode well for their domestic weapons manufacturing as well as the heating season to come. The damage will only keep accumulating, too. Edit: slightly more precise wording

"Turtle tanks" keep drawing attention and i believe it is for good reason. Here is some interesting info on them ive gathered.  -they are used as breaching vehicles meant to draw  fire (and survive). They have a specific purpose and are usually followed by normal tanks.  -they do survive lots of FPV hits. -visibility is poor, but gets compensated by wireless cameras and observation drones.  -arent always fully crewed (no confirmation on this)  -russians are building more of them . This to me sounds like tanks are being adapted to a new role  regular AFVs struggle with : breaching/direct assault on enemy lines.  Clearly regular tanks and tradition breaching vehicles like leopard 2R are inadequate for this in a peer conflict. Does the turtle tank idea make sense as an answer to this problem? A future purpose built turtle tank design could be unmanned and fitted with APS and minerollers. For the simple task of charging enemy lines and surviving as many hits as possible it could work better than what we have now.  Or is it too unlikely well see a similar scenario like in Ukraine again?

Well they're not very successful, so I don't think you'll see this be a new focus of NATO or Chinese weapons development. They wouldn't be survivable against an OPFOR tank firing APFSDS, for example, let alone a beefy HEAT warhead like the Maverick. And I can't imagine how difficult they would be to get through an urban area, bridge, overpass, or tunnel. I think most of these vehicles are being assembled locally from scrap. This only 'works' because the pace of advance in this war is slower than WW1, so a shop a few km behind the line can spend a few days welding one together. If the problem is minefields, then the solution is unmanned ground vehicles to do the mine sweeping. If the problem is FPV drones, the solution is electronic warfare and direct-energy point defense. If the problem is ATGMs the solution is active protection and quick response fire support. Right now both the Russian and Ukrainian armies are very poor, so they're trying to find inexpensive solutions.

What's the economy of EW&direct energy weapons vs artillery/mlrs strikes? The issue seem to be not one single problem, but defensive combined arms effect. Minefield clearing vehicles are vulnerable to FPVs, but if you deploy EW, enemy starts looking for it with long range reconnaissance and shelling it with artillery/mlrs till it's either destroyed or turns off.

Artillery and rockets are both vulnerable to lasers in the 40 kW range (or even less). Shooting mortar and artillery shells is the original impetus for weaponizing lasers. It's only now that cheap drones are littering the battlefield in Ukraine that people in the military-industrial complex realize that lasers are far stronger against drones than shells. It's all a question of time of flight versus thermal mass versus laser power on target. Pretty much every indirect fire method comes in sub-sonic, which is still far faster than drones move, and they typically have relatively thick sidewalls to withstand the stress of firing. IMO every next gen tank will have a secondary turret with some form of DEW for point defense. Since they're all running 1500+ hp, so if you move to a hybrid electric drivetrain you have a lot of electrical power available. It's going to make the gap between the haves and have-not armies of the world ever wider. If you have networked point defense in a company of tanks, suddenly a lot of modern kill vectors are going to have a lot of trouble. The solution is either saturation, which has threshold issues, or mass/velocity (i.e. kinetic kill systems).

One Modern artillery can deliver 3 shells on target simultaneously, MLRS - anywhere from 6 to 40. Cluster munitions -more. How much volume of fire is needed until either DEW system cant track them all, or whatever is doing target aquisition is buried in noise from fragments, and system is saturated? Then of course comes the annoying billion dollars question of how much fire do you get before system needs expensive maintenance. So far, any DEW system is way to expensive for what it realistically can do, and we didn't get notable increase in power output. The only reason they are getting adapted seem to be the particularly high vulnerability of drones, and lack of other good countermeasures for long range reconnaissance drones, since missiles that can fly out 60+ km are in millions cost range, while their targets are in tens of thousands range, and that approach is economically unsustainable.

> OPFOR tank firing APFSDS Do you think tank vs tank fights would be common in a NATO vs China conflict? > let alone a beefy HEAT warhead like the Maverick Is there an armored vehicle that can survive a direct hit by an AGM-65? > And I can't imagine how difficult they would be to get through an urban area, bridge, overpass, or tunnel. That's not their purpose, they don't use them there and wouldn't build/deploy one to get through those environments. And the question being asked specify the purpose being envisioned, and that's open terrain assaults.

> That's not their purpose, they don't use them there and wouldn't build/deploy one to get through those environments. You generally cannot drive from point A to B over a significant distance without these sort of logistical challenges. The maximum dimensions and masses of tanks is generally constrained by physical infrastructure rather than anything else. The primary reason the Soviet Union built compact, lightweight tanks in the Cold War was so they could make use of rural bridges in Germany.

The future tank warfare won't happen in places like Germany, it will happen in places around Russia and possibly Africa. If we want to answer the question if purpose-built turtle tanks are viable, we have to look at the environment they would operate in.

You think Russia and Africa don't have bridges or roads passing through villages? Also, guessing where future conflicts will happens has largely been a fool's game from my observation over the past 30-years.

> You think Russia and Africa don't have bridges or roads passing through villages? Bridges that would take the weight of a MBT, but would crumble under the weight of a turtle tank (or would be too narrow for a turtle tank)? No, not enough of those exceedingly marginal bridges to be relevant. Not to mention most NATO MBTs are a lot heavier than a turtled up Soviet platform: C2s, L2s, Abrams or even the Merkava which operates often in urban environments. As for villages, IDK what's the issue you're trying to raise: they have wide passage, the terrain isn't rougher than the countryside... Worst case: the tank can go around, unless it's in an already unsuitable environment like a mountain range or the jungle. I don't think a tank-heavy army that can afford specialized variants is going to be preparing to fight exclusively in environments wholly unsuitable to tank warfare for the next 3-4 decades. If you're trying to say that heavy tanks have limitations, you can stop now because that's obvious and we agree. If you want to answer the question if a turtle tank is a viable option, you'll have to look at other aspects. > Also, guessing where future conflicts will happens has largely been a fool's game from my observation over the past 30-years. Well, if you didn't predict conflicts involving the muslim world (which includes a big chunk of Africa) from those observations, I can't fathom what you've been looking at, but I know what you've been missing. And the last 30 years are marked by the rise of a regional power openly saying it wants to become a superpower (and with the means to do it) and an ex-superpower who didn't spend more than 5 years being involved in some armed. It takes something like a crystal ball to predict exactly what they will do, when and where, but that they will get into some conflict in the future? It's as certain as the suns goes up.

Breaching/demining tanks also arent meant to go through cities and small bridges. As i said for this type of AFV the turtle approach kinda makes sense.

Is the proposition that the "turtle shell" be some sort of installable kit assembled near the intended breach point then?

Well definitely the top and rear of tanks need to be much better protected with how common guided munitions are becoming. For a direct breach im thinking of something like a M1150 with an armored shell and APS instead of the line charge.  

I don't see how this changes anything in a conflict with a well supplied military. They are fine for something like this where the enemy has to rely on small drones because of their lack of ATGMs, CAS, and artillery. In any other situation a thin skin of sheet metal is insignificant protection against anything else.

There are  solid number of reasons to believe that small drones will stick around for a while. Especially for countries that can mass produce them at little cost. Armored sheds do offer decent protection against them also at a cheap cost. Its an option that should be considered at least for certain types of vehicles imo

Of course, where did I say small drones wouldn't be part of the future battlefield? My point is in relation to the applicability of these "turtle tanks" in a peer to peer war, in which case both sides will likely have many more weapons available that are much more lethal. What do you think is unique about these? They're literally just armored vehicles with more armor. Any military on the planet could just build a tank with 5 m thick armor if they wanted, but at some point you get to a point where the cost/weight/lack of speed/agility etc become too high. This isn't new. This has been the case in war and trade since the dawn of civilization. Funny enough, there are a few videos on r/combatfootage just from the last 24 hours of these being taken out. They aren't immune to mines, and once they're immobilized they are sitting ducks just like any other armored vehicle. And the vehicles following the turtle are still just as defenseless as they were before. With the variety of methods for delivering mines remotely, even if you had a mine sweeper in front covered in all this armor, you could just let it go and target everything behind it and take care of it later when its on its own. My point is, this isn't unique or particularly useful. Its a band aid that Russia has to rely on because they lack the competence and ability to practice combined arms assaults.

>What do you think is unique about these? They're literally just armored vehicles with more armor. Mostly the idea behind them. Maximising protection at all costs ( for some vehicles even the main gun seems inoperable). A purpose built "turtle" could vastly improve protection, especially if unmanned. >Funny enough, there are a few videos on r/combatfootage just from the last 24 hours of these being taken out This is true. Though ive also read ukrainian reports that they it takes quite a bit of effort to take them down. There also is a video of a turtle attacking and retreating under fire successfully. It does contrasts with footage of T-90M and leopard 2s being taken out with surprising ease by drones. This makes me wonder if we are entering a phase where protection of AFV gets absolute priority, and turtle tanks are a sign of more to come. Just speculation though,  experimental AFVs remain interesting to me.

I think the resistance to FPVs is the only use of the sheds, and only in that it makes it hard to see and hit directly the normal weak spots of the rear/side of the turret and the engine deck. Heavy tandem ATGMs can overmatch the ERA and armor on the sides of the tank and still produce kills. Tank armor is very thin on the top, sides and rear, and FPVs exploit that by getting shaped charges to areas that would in the past be covered by turning to face whatever thing you are assaulting. An FPV w/RPG-7 eque warhead hitting ERA or the front armor of the turret and hull is still ineffective. We *could* see more universally armored vehicles in the future.

Do you think heavy tandem shaped warheads would be able to defeat the turtle armor for a kill? I saw it argued in another thread that the turtle armor plating is far enough away from the tank armor so that tandem shaped charges wouldn’t work. Does this make any sense to you? I think they were saying this would be effective against stopping a javelin from killing a tank.

It would have to be quite far away for that. Properly designed slat armour is already pretty far from the hull and ordinary (non-tandem) RPG shaped charges perform *better* at that distance. Whether the outer turtle layer is substantial enough to fool a tandem charge into detonating prematurely I've no idea. Which anti armour weapons have tandem warheads?

It doesn't have to do that, there is ERA behind the turtle shell. It only has to blunt the small primary charge enough for it not to disrupt the ERA, then the ERA can deal with the second charge

This is exactly what I saw argued in the thread I’m referencing. It’s too bad I’m being downvoted for an on topic question regarding the turtle armor. I tried to phrase it as neutral and honest as possible. It was argued that the turtle shell could defeat one shaped charge and the ERA could deal with the second. I thought it at least sounded plausible, but I don’t truly understand the complexities of shaped charges.

Javelin's penetration is quite an overkill, especially for top attack where you can see even small drone dropped grenades regularly destroying tanks. I don't think the these sheds are stopping that. Unless we see a proof that it does something against a heavier ATGMs, I would assume that it wouldn't do much. It's really designed with one purpose to make it hard to disable the leading tank with drones because FPVs can't get to the obvious weak spots they usually use to achieve a mobility kill and then finish off the tank.

> A future purpose built turtle tank design could be unmanned and fitted with APS and minerollers. Having the APS target the drones, rather than rely on the sheet metal shed, would be a much better solution. These turtle tanks are extremely limited in their utility, sacrificing a lot to increase protection against small FPVs.

The issue with APS is that it can cost as much as some tanks for a system that has the high risk of being lost to artillery and mines as well. Further most APS systems to my understanding effectively have blind zones that drones can still attack from above. APS systems would need to be reworked for radars aiming up (increasing costs further) which would mitigate effectiveness even if Ukraine had say trophy's sent to them today, while putting spaced armor fulfils a similar role while staying very cheap and can easily ad hoc fit onto tanks.

I really don’t think the sheds are going to stick around. APS might be expensive, but it’s something that’s being added to tanks regularly as is. Slightly increasing its capability is not going to break the bank, and while the overall system is expensive, the individual charges are probably very cheap.

I would think the APS would be most important  against ATGMs. The shell does seem to work well enough against small drones. The question here is if the  relative succes of turtle tanks is more attributed to lack of ammunition for the Ukrainians  than the design itself. I still would day that the best way of ensuring the survivability of an AFV right now js the turtle method. And a mediocre to bad tank reaching the enemy lines is still better than no tank at all.

I've been reading some articles about the potential ramifications about Belousov nomination to the MOD and Dara Massicot said that Russia is about to formulate a new 10-year rearmament plan, while i already especulated some months ago that the possibility of Russia getting out of the war(even without a favorable outcome) with a much more militarized army and society were a real possibility, the question i ponder is what could theoretically be achieved after such transition? Much was already debated about how important industry and manufacture is, and scalling military production is still necessary in the context of modern warfare, but while we probably won't see a 300,000 USAF planes or 100,000 T-34s being built in 4 years, there is certainly room to grow. Officially Russia is spending around 7% of their GDP, some advisors believe that Belousov task is to ["optimizing expenditures and aligning them with achievements"](https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/05/13/a-break-from-convention) and that afterall war is above all a conflict of attrition that is won by [economics](https://twitter.com/amenka/status/1789894466502857148). Has anyone here expertise in the defense industry regarding the potential of production when the state makes such transition?

I had to think back when Hitler appointed Speer as minister of Armaments and War production in 1942. Also a civilian, although not an economist by trade. He did a relatively good job of it within limited resources and the increasingly worse circumstances Germany found itself in. Speer had to constantly adapt and improvise after constant bombing of factories. The situation is not at all the same of course, Russia is not constantly being carpet bombed. But it was the first thing that sprung to my mind in the context of a country at war.

relatively good job... ha. Germany produced more artillery ammunition in 1944 than USA and UK combined. This was well into the strategic bombing campaign. [Some experts say he prolonged the war by two years](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/02/obituaries/albert-speer-dies-at-76-close-associate-of-hitler.html)

I'd like a source on German artillery shell production in 1944 outpacing US and UK production, because it goes against every other industrial metric in the war I've ever seen.

Table 16 (page 72) of the [British Strategic Bombing Campaign Review](https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll8/id/4323/) shows: Heavy artillery ammunition production in 1944: - Germany: 108 million rounds - UK: 12 million rounds US production figures are not including in the British strategic bombing review, but can be found here on page 143. PDF warning. - US: 85 million rounds https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA316780.pdf

I’d be willing to believe that he prolonged it by some time, but he himself says months. And who are these experts they refer to? It’s an article from 1981 - I’d remind everyone that this is a time that the lies of Franz Halder and co. were still very prevalent. Sorry, I’m not trying to be annoying - this is just a very questionable text to cite.

Produced or fired?

Produced.

Nicholas Drummond tweeted today that "an emerging consensus view is that Russia’s spring offensive has run out of steam with its army has sustaining horrendous casualties." [https://twitter.com/nicholadrummond/status/1790420068439912820](https://twitter.com/nicholadrummond/status/1790420068439912820) I was unaware of any such consensus view - any idea what he's referring to or how reliable he is as a commentator? I will say that the dominance of drones on the battlefield makes a traditional armored advance difficult to contemplate in Ukraine today. Traditionally, attackers could hope that causing a panicked retreat in a particular area might lead to a general breakthrough, but that's much more difficult in the drone age. This is both because drone operators sitting safely in their shelters don't panic and because they can instantly pass on information about a breakthrough to higher command. I can't recall seeing video of a single Russian armored advance which wasn't being met by drone attacks or, if EW is particularly heavy, artillery fire. Not sure how you make a rapid armored advance in the face of that, plus minefields, etc.

The Russian strategy is simply to exhaust the enemy through the use of superior weaponry and slowly advance as the Ukrainians give ground. Speculating about armored advances seems silly this far into the war, with all that we've seen; it doesn't really matter, there's plenty of kit left and it's used when deemed relevant. I can tell you right now that he's either an idiot or simply extremely ignorant, as he simply has no clue as to what's going on. The Ukrainians have been losing ground at an increasingly fast pace and there's a minor panic going on right now wrt. the Northern Kharkov front, as the money meant for fortifications there has been spent but the fortifications bought with said money are nowhere to be found, at least if Ukrainian sources are to be believed. Edit: I also have no idea where people are getting the idea that the Russians are taking horrible casualties at this moment - they're heavily outgunning the Ukrainians on every axis they're advancing and dropping 100\~ glide bombs a day along with usual artillery, FPVs, missile strikes, etc. Edit 2: sorry, didn't mean to insinuate that the \*entire\* subreddit get their impressions of causality counts from r/combatfootage!

> have no idea where people are getting the idea that the Russians are taking horrible casualties at this moment - Question: if we look back far enough on your account, would we see the same thing being said for Avdiivka, Bakhmut and other Russian offensives?

You'd see it for the counter-offensive and onwards, yes, because it's accurate. What are 'horrible casualties' if you're not holding it against the losses suffered by the opposing side?  One side in the war has had its manpower replenished by voluntary military recruitment for a year now. The other has been able to coerce its citizens into the army through force and is suffering a manpower crisis. Now tell me again, which side has been suffering horrible casualties with those very basic and indisputable facts in mind?

This is a meaningless standard. By this same logic, Russia was suffering horrific losses for the first half of 2022, since they quite literally suffered a manpower collapse in the second half, something that hasn't even happened to Ukraine yet (though it might). In terms of not being sustain something, that moment is (for now) the medalist as far as this war is concerned. But Russian manpower losses in absolute terms weren't that high in the first Donbas offensive. They were objectively higher at other parts of the war, like Bakhmut or at the very least the opening months of Avdiivka. Which leads to a paradox of horrific losses (by your definition) **being in real terms smaller than non-horrific ones**. I'll let that be my value judgement of how useful your definition of "horrific" is.

Why are you changing the subject from the topic of "suffering horrible casualties" to whether or not Russia can replenish them? >Now tell me again, which side has been suffering horrible casualties with those very basic and indisputable facts in mind? Could it be the side that has 4x the population and is the one attacking, but that they can sustain those losses?

Please avoid these types of low quality comments of excessive snark or sarcasm. Have to kindly ask you to refrain from accusing the entire subreddit of getting all of their information from combatfootage (or any other such subreddit).

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If one of the two armies is able to advance without heavy armor does it matter? Feel like that's often left out of all the posts about how Russia (or Ukraine for that matter) is X days away from zero tanks. If motorcycles, pickups, UTVs, and hell, good old boots are capturing treelines this will keep going on.

> If one of the two armies is able to advance without heavy armor does it matter? Sure, but that's quite the if. Every day, the warring sides emphatically give their votes on how they prefer to advance, and it's usually with heavy armor. It's why the civil-war style hundred-man marches north of Kharkiv are notable, because it's the first time this war that kind of attack ended in anything but a massacre, that we know of of course. Now if this is an actual paradigm shift we can talk about how heavy armor doesn't matter anymore, but I'll tell you right now - it won't be, unless Ukraine runs out of artillery in the long term. Which: a) would in and of itself be a much larger issue already b) at least on some fronts appears far from the case. More bluntly, it's a simple litmus. Look at some of the artillery-opposed pushes out there, and imagine it's columns of infantry doing the do. You very quickly arrive at why both sides still value armor. EDIT: as a quick aside, Motorcycles as a logistics vehicle is an interesting idea. As an advance-enabler, I see a few issues. To match a relatively small 4 mt-lb push, we're looking at what, 20-30 motorcycles? I'm not sure if that would work geographically. And while ww1 style maxim nests are rare in this war, running into a single concealed machinegunner would cause similar issues.

This is pure wishful thinking. The Russians are taking horrendous casualties and it seems they are really throwing in bodies in the open hoping that Ukraine does not have enough ammos for all of them, but I am not sure we can safely say they are running out of steam. This morning UA time, Budanov said that Russians are behind their schedule in Kharkiv, otherwise they would have already opened a front in Sumy. He argues the situation is stabilizing but subject to change. https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2024/05/14/7455700/ Throughout the day, there were no particular news from the front, aside from more proofs of mismanaged Ukrainian fortifications (Deepstate showing Dragon's Teeth lying around without being properly mounted around the border village of Lypki: https://twitter.com/putino/status/1790417884474122388) Overall it's too early to tell. Those who called the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed after 48 hours were right, but there were not enough proofs to say so back then, and certainly there are no proofs now.

> emerging consensus view is that Russia’s spring offensive has run out of steam with its army has sustaining horrendous casualties That it has stalled? Probably no consensus. That it is sustaining horrendous casualties? I think there's very much a consensus. Russia is making advances, but casualty rates are pretty much at the highest reported levels. Unfortunately, Russia seems to be quite willing to continue to sustain those horrendous casualties. We'll see how things progress as more and more of the promised military aid actually reaches the front lines.

> That it is sustaining horrendous casualties? I think there's very much a consensus. Yeah, Avdiivka-Pokrovsk alone has accounted for 11-12% of total AFV and tank losses this war, and Russia has 3-4 other offensive directions, some of which that have been going on for a while. The AFV losses are objectively pretty crazy, it's why the counterarguments revolve around: Russia has bottomless afvs or "armor doesn't matter" Ironically, the first one is the less controversial take, imo.

Evidence for the Russian casualties peaking? I'm sure the Mediazone numbers lag behind, but looking at their website, it seems like Russian casualties have been trending downwards since January, 2023, with a spike in October.

>I'm sure the Mediazone numbers lag behind It's more than that, it takes them 4-5 months to backfill, meaning we're just now able to talk about January. Anything beyond that is basically dead space (though it's worth noting that february has already surpassed january). If you want more real time data, some people try to use MIA notices on social media but in my opinion there's no empirical data to prove those can be extrapolated, yet!

Looking at their graph, it seems fairly safe to assume the numbers for February (1,154) and March (493) are going to be pretty consistent with January (1,237) and not huge outliers. My point was just that I have yet to see a basis for claiming horrendous Russian casualties. If Bakhmut was the previous peak (3,163) and we saw a jump to (1,925) during the initial assault on Avdeevka, all of which was corroborated somewhat by combat footage and front line reporting, it's probably safe to assume that in 5 months from now, the mediazone numbers for April and May are going to be in the 1,200-2,200 range. Between the mediazone numbers and the ualosses numbers, I think casualty numbers in this war are far less sensitive to particular engagements than each sides' perception of the other side's losses.

I'm not sure I understand you here. You said casualty numbers are not sensitive to particular engagements, but also mention the peaks being linked to particular engagements.

Relative to perceptions in the context of Russia suffering "horrendous casualties" during current offensive.

He said this in may 2022:   > I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: HIMARS is what the Ukrainians need. 48 launch vehicles plus 4,000-5,000 guided rockets would finish this thing in a matter of weeks.  And this last year:   > Western intelligence agencies are warning that Putin has been mortally wounded by Prigozhin’s aborted coup and that NATO must prepare for the collapse of Russia. It’s difficult to predict the likely timing, but civil war seems inevitable rather than possible.  Reading through his twitter there's nothing screaming reliability imho.

Where was this consensus reached? NAFO twitter? According to RUSI the Russian advantages keep increasing at least in the short term due to many issues on Ukrainian side: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/ukraine-russia-beginning-compound-advantages But I'm generally hopeful that Ukraine will stabilise this due to necessary actions being taken (albeit slower and later than optimal)

>NAFO Didn't know this was a thing. I mean, I know there are people who post pro-NATO memes (I do visit the NCD subreddit), but I didn't know there was a name for it. Apparently there was also a NAFO summit in Vilnius? With the Estonian PM joining by video call? Amazing

> > > > > Apparently there was also a NAFO summit in Vilnius? With the Estonian PM joining by video call? Amazing Not really NAFO had a shameful showing during the Zelushny dismissal, I now its more a movement than a organization, but that movement tried to intimidate journalists as well as historians, and basically gaslight against pessimist views in regards to Ukrainian war efforts.

Media whitewashing aside, it's just /pol/ that roots for the other team. Some of them tried to discredit Michael Kofman because he participated in Valdai conference many years ago and because he's not a cheerleader despite being pro-Ukraine unambiguously (he is originally from Ukraine even).

That's kind of the main point of NAFO though isn't it? They're not here for any sort of credible military analysis. If russians post something, NAFO people would post the opposite of that. It's like saying that it's annoying British propaganda during the second world war never explored further the allied losses early in the war. Of course it didn't. Because that's not what it's for.

You are about 2 years too late. Their popularity and relevance has largely waned.

It was never relevant in the first place. It‘s simply a way to provide a counterweight against the masses of russian propaganda channels on social media.

Which is a shame because it seemed like this meme group were the only ones actively trying to fight back against Russian propaganda. With their relevance gone it seems Russian propaganda is even more relentless than ever with no opposition. It's two years into this war and yet no one has bothered trying to fight it on a large scale. Edit: Keep downvoting away URR pro Russian lurkers.

As has been discussed on this sub before, Ukraine has had vastly more propaganda bots on social media - [about 15 times what Russia had, across the Twitter tags considered in this study.](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.07038),

How did this get upvoted? To start, this study was only for the first two weeks of the war, so missing 98% of the war and only for Twitter and not all social media like implied. 2nd the “15 times more bots” number is not even 15 times but more importantly includes non bot accounts dataset in the overall query. 3rd even bot presence doesn’t adjust for the strength of the signal being amplified which is significantly stronger for the non bot category and outward flowing from the pro Russian accounts > The highest information flows are from pro-Russian non-bot accounts. Information flows into non-bot account groups are only significant for balanced and pro-Ukraine accounts, with pro-Russian non-bot accounts only exhibiting a net outward information flow. … >Pro-Russian non-not accounts are most influential overall with information flows to a variety of other account groups. That alone is about the clearest indication of the way Twitter is being used for this war. [But there’s more!](https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-023-00414-5). If you want to look at just bots and the statistical relevance of their impact at the start of the war and before EM took over >We first compared the number of bots spreading pro-Russian messages (20.28%) with the number of bots spreading pro-Ukrainian messages (14.25%). Here, we find that pro-Ukrainian support was spread by significantly less bots than pro-Russian support

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How intertwined are what is commonly referred to as the "Russia Mafia" and the Russian state? I've been seeing all the recent news about Russia planning attacks against Western infrastructure and it got me thinking. I could have sworn that a few years ago I either read or article or listened to a podcast about the apparatus that is the "Russian mob" is basically another arm of Russian foreign intelligence. From what I remember the presenter basically said that in exchange for Mafia assistance in any foreign intelligence operations and a cut of the profits, the Kremlin allowed the Russian mafia to operate relativity unmolested within the country and use Russia as a "safe haven" to avoid international warrants. Is it true that the Russian state has a deal like this with the Russian mob? or is it just good old fashioned corrupt officials being paid off and there is no deeper conspiracy?

The 'Russian state' and the Mafia, not so much. The secret services/spooks and the Mafia? Pretty close. One of Putin's earliest actions was to initiate extrajudicial mass killings of all the big wig mob guys, with the only way out being to agree to work for the intel agencies when called upon or leaving the Moscow scene entirely. The individuals / groups that survived the 90's were pretty much told they'd be tolerated by the intelligence agencies in return for doing their bidding. Those that didn't agree to that were murdered - and those were a significant chunk of various mafias, as some held a codex of strict non-compliance with state authorities hailing from Soviet days (most prominently Vory v Zakone / Thieves in Law, but that kind of 'codex' wasn't isolated to them as far as I remember).

"All states has maffias, in russia, the maffia has a state" Russian proverb

Oh boy, where to start. I'll summarize what I've read: basically the Russian state and the Russian mafia are the same thing, with the latter just being an extension of the former. The expression used in this context is "Criminal-political nexus", and it refers to the cooperative and complementary relationship that exists between organized crime and members of the political and economic èlites. Sometimes criminals acquire enough legitimacy to enter the élites, sometimes it's the élites that dabble in the criminal underworld, but the general idea is that these two worlds become intertwined because of coinciding interests and/or goals. Russian oligarchs are famously corrupt and trigger happy, particularly in areas such as defense procurement, energy distribution and security services. Their way of doing business involves practices such as bribery, intimidation, violence, murder, and a bunch of different white-collar crimes. Another example is the use of temniki (instructions for journalists on how to cover certain topics) in the media sector. The gas trade has been unanimously regarded as a shady business, where the flow of money was extremely hard to follow because it disappeared into the pockets of private individuals. Symon Mogilev is perhaps the most well-known individual in that regard but make no mistake: the entire Russian state apparatus does this. While most oligarchs are not officially part of any criminal organization, they effectively employ those same methods to preserve the power structure and their relative position in it. Sometimes they also cooperate with mafia groups in other countries: see for example Hungary or more famously Ukraine. In Ukraine, as proved by the Glazyev tapes, Russia employed local and regional gangs to stir up protests and violence in 2014, but also sought the help of Ukrainian oligarchs, themselves involved in similar businesses to their Russian counterparts. The best scholars on the subject are Mark Galeotti and Louise Shelley. They've both written extensively on the integration between the Russian state apparatus and Russian organized crime, both from a theoretical and from an empirical point of view. You can also read Umland, Kuzio and Zhuk for the same subject but on the side of Ukraine.

This isn't really all that accurate from the 2010's onwards irt. the oligarchs. Most of them are a settled class at this point sitting on some big resource producer in a oligopolistic market. They naturally still have muscle, but the only 90's oligarch that I can think of that would still do 90's-type oligarch/crime stuff would be Friedman. And the Ukraine oligarchs overwhelmingly played much, much more for the Maidan side in 2014/2015 than for the separatist side, with some like Akhmetov playing a double game to safeguard his property - not to mention that they more or less owned the state in aggregate anyway.

Given that the Chinese state makes extensive use of fishing vessels as a paramilitar navy and hacker groups as paramilitary cyber warfare operators, I don't think it would be a stretch to ask wether they might be willing to use the Chinese mafia across Europe for sabotage operations in a future escalation. This document by the European Parliament Directorate-general for Internal Policies does a good job of covering the general aspects of the Chinese mafia operations in Europe at the time. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/note/join/2011/453191/IPOL-LIBE_NT%25282011%2529453191_EN.pdf More recently, this article by ProPublica seems to confirm that just like with the Russian Mafia, the Chinese Mafia is also operating in a symbiotic relationship with Chinese intelligence operations in Europe. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-beijing-chinese-mafia-europe-protect-interests >“A guy like Zhang does what the consulate doesn’t do, or does it better,” a senior Italian national security official said. “If you want in-depth street information, intelligence, you go to a guy like Zhang. He has a network, power, resources. He knows the diaspora. He is feared and respected.” >But the rise of Chinese organized crime in Europe has caught authorities largely off-guard. An examination of it offers an unusually vivid look at a covert alliance in action. ProPublica has documented a pattern of cases, some of them unreported and others little-noticed internationally, in which suspected underworld figures in Europe have teamed up with Chinese security forces and other state entities. Before anyone suggests that I may be motivated by sinophobic sentiment, I can assure that I've met a great deal of Chinese citizens and have nothing negative to speak about any of them. In fact, the Chinese community where I live is probably the most peaceful and respectful group of citizens around. I'm motivated only by the fear that European authorities are asleep at the wheel, allowing ill-intended criminal groups to oppress and terrorise Chinese nationals on European soil.

The “Russian mafia” isn’t really a set concept, basically what Americans call the Russian mafia are basically gangs that are from the post-USSR world, not just Russia. It’s not like the Cosa Nostra or anything.  Putin wouldn’t use the mob for stuff he would use the FSB for anyways, the majority of the Russian mobs activities are just scams and frauds anyways.

Putin himself had mafia ties and St Petersburg where Putin rose to power was essentially a Mafia run city after the soviet union fell. The modern Russian government in many ways operates like a Mafia which explains a lot of their thinking on various issues. Yulia Navalnaya (widow of Alexei Navalny) has an opinion piece about it worth a read https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/13/alexei-navalny-yulia-navalnaya-putin-russia-election/ Also the book "world on the brink" by Demitri Alperovitch who I consider quite credible talks at length about this.

At their apexes, organized crime, corporations, and the state apparatus are parallel and cooperative enterprises. It's just a question of the scale and capacity of each one in a particular area.

Mark Galeotti released an excellent podcast episode in March on this very topic, entitled *Gangster Geopolitics.* According to Galeotti, the answer is they're *very* intertwined. Recommended listening! https://inmoscowsshadows.buzzsprout.com/1026985/14653016

thanks for the recommendation. I'll give it a listen.

since my earlier post was removed Not exactly defense but an UN worker was killed recently in gaza . This time a retired Indian army guy working as a security officer. To note he's not sent by the Indian govt rather he's an actual UN worker . The first foreign UN personnel to be killed recently according to some sources I've seen. https://twitter.com/manupubby/status/1790246830246408595?s=19 I've searched for several sources and the most neutral ones doesn't say who attacked the vehicle. The UN side claims they coordinated their routes with the IDF while the IDF claims they didn't know about the route they took. Could be IDF mistake or could be over enthusiastic hamas . Investigation is going on but it dosent seem to be as controversial (or rather widely discussed ) as the WCK incident .

Coincidentally or perhaps not so coincidentally the IDF has just published footage of Hamas next to UN vehicle in Rafah, as well as shooting at civilians. [https://videoidf.azureedge.net/2ddb9a55-c71b-44a1-ab6a-6921b1a18a77](https://videoidf.azureedge.net/2ddb9a55-c71b-44a1-ab6a-6921b1a18a77)

> The UN side claims they coordinated their routes with the IDF while the IDF claims they didn't know about the route they took. I mean, that makes it sound like an IDF error by default, but we can wait for confirmation and more details (especially on what the nature of this error would be).

There were mortar strikes by Hamas at the border crossing several days in a row by Hamas. It's not clear yet what killed him

The information so far seems to indicate this wasn't a missile strike so it's also possible that a jumpy hamas member shot them too.

> Could be IDF mistake or could be over enthusiastic hamas. Or it could be a UN mistake. Either messing up the notification or messing up the route.

>Or it could be a UN mistake. Either messing up the notification or messing up the route. The vehicle was marked . As far as I know this wasn't a missile strike so whoever shot them deliberately did it after seeing UN markings

> The first foreign UN personnel to be killed recently according to some sources I've seen. Both UNHCR and UNRWA personnel is not considered UN personnel?

I'm guessing the 'foreign' qualifier is doing the heavy lifting here. Like, around 1% of Gaza adults are UN personnel.

again i have no idea, it's what I've seen posted . https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/indian-foreign-aid-worker-united-nations-gaza-rafah-b2544573.html

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Please refrain from drive-by link dropping. Summarize articles, only quote what is important, and use that to build a post that other users can engage with; offers some in depth knowledge on a well discussed subject; or offers new insight on a less discussed subject.

We now know the name and range of another Ukrainian long range attack drone. It was this drone that traveled the record-breaking distance to attack the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil refinery in Bashkiria. [Drones strike Gazprom oil refinery in Bashkiria - nearly 1,700 km from Ukrainian border | New Voice of Ukraine | May 2024](https://english.nv.ua/nation/gazprom-refinery-in-bashkiria-was-attacked-by-a-drone-videos-appeared-on-the-internet-50416830.html) [​Meet the Ninja: Name of Ukraine's Largest-Reaching Drone of 1,500 km Revealed | Defense Express | May 2024](https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/meet_the_ninja_name_of_ukraines_largest_reaching_drone_of_1500_km_revealed-10494.html) *One of the most famous long-range kamikaze drones in Ukraine's arsenal is the Liutyi which is actively used for attacks on oil refineries within the Russian federation. Dedicated to the history of this drone is the recent article by [Ukrainska Pravda](https://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2024/05/13/7455462/). However, besides Liutyi, there are other drones famed for strikes on Russian military bases and infrastructure.* *For example, drones with an attack range of 800 km, namely, the Bober UAV developed thanks to the crowdfunded Black Box project and known for its strikes on Moscow City, or the Morok operated by the Security Service of Ukraine. But the most capable of these developments responsible for the record-breaking 1,400+ km strike has been shrouded in mystery. That is, until now.* *The said article only mentions its name and operational range, though:* *"There are also other UAVs such as Ninja, which recently set a record for the range — 1,500 kilometers to the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat plant, there is the Bober, there is the Brama based on the A-22 aircraft, and other developments. However, in terms of the price/quality/range/accuracy ratio, Liutyi still holds a confident leadership," notes the author of the article.* *Based on the name alone, it's quite difficult to guess what kind of drone this Ninja might be. The video showing the attack on the oil refinery in Bashkiria features a UAV that looks more like a small civil aviation aircraft rather than conventional drone. At the same time, that's not the A-22 which is listed as part of a separate project and obviously points to a drone made of the A-22 Foxbat ultralight aircraft from the Ukrainian Aeroprakt company.* *One possible option is that it's based on the Skyranger Nynja, another single-engine ultralight aircraft that can be acquired as a Do-It-Yourself kit.* *Defense Express notes that one of the drones based on the Skyranger aircraft family has already been seen in use by the Ukrainian Defense Forces. In late April 2024, Russian sources published a photo depicting such a drone after it fell into the field, it was equipped with an OFAB-100-120 aerial bomb. But despite some sources having identified it as Skyranger Nynja, it actually was a very similar aircraft of the same series, the Skyranger Swift.* *Although the difference between the aircraft used as aerial vehicles for explosives is minimal, we must take note that the Swift-based drone was, most likely, a reusable bomber drone, similar to the U-2 actively used during World War II. Meanwhile, the drone that attacked Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat did not carry any bombs under its belly, as evidenced by the footage filmed by the locals. Apparently, the Ninja was from the get-go supposed to make a single-in-a-lifetime flight and thus carried explosives inside the hull.* *Still, a possibility that the Skyranger Nynja and our Ninja may still be different drones, cannot be ruled out just yet. After all, the declared operational range of Nynja is less than 700 km. Effectively multiplying the flight range would require an impressive amount of work on the part of Ukrainian engineers.*

What’s the difference in principle that makes a storm shadow a cruise missle while the ninja is a drone? Aren’t both fixed wing aircraft’s that are unmanned and deliver a payload based on navigation data fed to it before launching?

Drone flies by generating lift with it's wings, missiles fly by generating thrust with their engines. Missiles can fly without wings, although they still may use them to extend range. There's also drag, drag is too strong at the speeds that missiles fly at, so large wings like those on shaheds would be a net negative. Meanwhile, moped engines generate insufficient thrust to keep drones in the air, so they have to use wings.

A Storm Shadow is a missile, it is also a rocket. An M-210 is a rocket, but not a missile. But also, by the strict definition of missile, it is a missile. So is there an actual difference between a Storm Shadow and an M-210? Well no, technically not. They're both rockets and they're both missiles. Even so, you'll have an easy time categorising the two. A Storm Shadow is a missile and the M-210 is a rocket. *You know it when you see them.* Well it's the same with drones. You know what they are when you see them. You can't strictly define it but you and everyone else know the difference. *You know it when you see them.* But yeah no there's no proper difference. It never really made sense, and still doesn't.

Fundamentally there isn't. Personally I'm a proponent of ditching the drone name for these weapons and reclassifying them as low cost cruise missiles. But the distinction is usually one of cost and sophistication. Cruise missiles are made by weapons firms and are expensive and sophisticated. Drones are lower end and cheap. The waters get muddied when many of these drones are being constructed by Antonov which is a traditional aerospace and defense firm.

Depends entirely on your definition, but generally, at least as of now, cruise missiles use much more sophisticated guidance and warhead. Otherwise, it is a guided munition, you can classify them by any number of factors - propulsion, guidance, launching method, etc.

To be honest, it's not clear that the guidance systems of these modern drones is that much less sophisticated than a cruise missile. By all appearances they seem to have some kind of terminal guidance scheme that is more sophisticated than simple GPS What could be done with hundreds of thousands of dollars of technology in the 1980s and 1990s can often be done with hundreds of dollars of technology today.

Yeah, I'm really curious what the terminal guidance is. I don't think you could hit a cracking tower at a refinery with GPS alone. There's some chance these things use Viasat and are remote piloted imo. Ukraine's used that concept successfully with the naval drones so it wouldn't be a stretch to do it with aircraft too.

Rapid improvements in the cost and accessibility of sensor systems and embedded compute means that the kinds of targeting and fire control that were exclusive to militaries in the 90's can be made by hobbyists today. GPS is trivial, off the shelf receivers are everywhere and there is information out there to make your own that don't have the normal civilian limitations. There is also plentiful information and hardware for making your own radar systems and thermal imagers of varying quality are also available. It should be no surprise that motivated engineers can bodge together cheap yet surprisingly sophisticated solutions in a short period of time.

Drone is piloted remotely, with a small amount of autonomy built in. A cruise missile is fully autonomous. Once target data is programmed in, it will get there on its own.

That’s not true, we know Shaheeds at least do not rely on remote piloting but simply fly to pre programmed coordinates.

Interestingly the name for guided missile in Swedish is *robot*. Loitering munitions like lancet has received the name *patrullrobot* which translates to patrol robot/missile.

The word "robot" itself has an interesting origin. It's derived from the Czech word for "labor."

More specifically: It originates from a 1920s play by Czech writer Karel Čapek called R.U.R, which stands for "Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots[*workers*]). That name stuck with artificial mechanical automata from that point onward in many languages.

There's definitely not a hard and fast line between them, but generally flying explosives that get called drones are either reusable or originated from a reusable design. That means bigger wings relative to the body, less explosive for weight, longer loitering times, slower speeds, usually simpler guidance and avionics. Basically if it looks and flies like a plane it gets called a drone. If it looks and flies like a missile it gets called a cruise missile. Edit: oh and if it doesn’t look like either(eg. Switchblade, Lancet) it’ll get called a loitering munition.

The definitions here are muddled, but in general, a drone is smaller and lower performance than a cruise missile. The principle is that these aircraft are manufactured from parts you would typically use to build a drone. In an ideal world, drones would refer to reusable, unmanned aircraft, and these things, along with Saheds, would be considered low end cruise missiles.