North Korea offering 100,000 troops to help defeat Ukraine, Russian state media says (Business Insider; Aug 7, 2022)

Why should hatred be morally right? — baker

In some occasion, people do understand why someone would have this feeling.

If someone kills your family and other loved ones, is it morally wrong to hate a person for this action?

Heck, if you would say that hating Donald Trump is morally wrong, many here would disagree (I presume).

Wow. Now that would be a dramatic move. But after this we haven't anything new about this, I guess.

I remember that Morocco offered cavalry to Finland during the Winter War. Yet the Moroccan cavalry didnt come to fight in snowy Finland.

Death of Gorbachev at 91


"I don't care to know what happens next."

It is interesting to see how the Ukrainian counterattack goes. The simple fact is that even with military aid they have gotten, they don't have enough resources for a full on Materialschlacht, a battle of attrition. Counterattacks sooner or later go into this.

Ukrainian fighters say that generally they have enough manpower, although many volunteers from the TDF are not ready for combat. Sometimes entire detachments collapse and leave long stretches of the frontline undefended. Tanks are precious, and they send them out sparingly. Ammo for Soviet guns is running out. They get enough ammo for the new Western guns, but those are few and far between, and getting worn out from intensive use.

On the opposing side it's the other way around. Russians have a seemingly endless supply of tanks, guns and ammunition, but nowhere enough men to go with them. They are still losing a lot of armor, but they are not as careless and undisciplined as they were at the beginning of the invasion.

Putin explained the reasons for the "special military operation" to some schoolchildren yesterday, saying that an "anti-Russian enclave" is forming in Ukraine and is threatening Russia. An interesting choice of a word - enclave, but it makes sense in light of his oft-stated belief that Ukraine is an integral part of the "Russian world," whether they want it or not.

A bit on the statistics:

U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark A. Milley said in mid-June that the international community had provided Ukraine with 97,000 various anti-tank weapons.

According to Milley, this is “more antitank systems than there are tanks in the world.”

According to Oryx, an online investigative project documenting equipment losses in Russia’s war, Russia has lost at least 994 tanks as of Sept. 1.

However, according to estimates by the Conflict Intelligence Team, an independent Russian online armed conflicts monitor, the Oryx database covers nearly 70% of the total equipment lost in combat by both sides, as it includes only fully-verified losses -- not every single captured or destroyed vehicle is pictured and documented.

Based on these estimates, Russia has lost nearly 1,300 tanks – an impressive 40% of its total operational tank fleet.

Which basically means that Russia can still fight on for quite some time without it's tank fleet being finished.

, the Kherson counterattack?
The Russian puppets were preparing for a vote, with the usual propaganda etc.
Maybe they'll get interrupted by the counterattack (don't know if they already have).

, an "anti-Russian enclave" that Putin's efforts have made more or less = Ukraine.
Arguably, Putin has created much Ukrainian Russophobia (analogous to a self-fulfilling prophecy).

, that's a lot of scrap metal. :o
I'm guessing that moving 100s of tanks from wherever they are in Russia can be seen by satellites or whatever monitoring.
If so, then the Ukrainian defense might get a warning.

Meanwhile, Trump applauds Putin.
Gotta' wonder what'd happen if Trump had been in The White House.

"Fierce" (using Trump's term):

• Russia warns Moldova over Transnistria troops (Deutsche Welle · Sep 3, 2022)
• DISINFORMATION: Russians in the Diaspora face discrimination (Veridica · Mar 21, 2022)

I'm guessing that moving 100s of tanks from wherever they are in Russia can be seen by satellites or whatever monitoring.
If so, then the Ukrainian defense might get a warning. — jorndoe

Ukraine is surely given top satellite information. And don't forget the simply thing as people taking videos and posting them on the net.

This was actually the reason why Russia couldn't gain strategic surprise at the start of the war. Even if Ukraine didn't start the mobilization of it's troops until the Russians were attacking.

Death of Gorbachev at 91


"I don't care to know what happens next." — Olivier5

:up:

Après moi, le déluge. — Louis XV of France

:grin:

Ukrainian fighters say that generally they have enough manpower, although many volunteers from the TDF are not ready for combat. Sometimes entire detachments collapse and leave long stretches of the frontline undefended. Tanks are precious, and they send them out sparingly. Ammo for Soviet guns is running out. They get enough ammo for the new Western guns, but those are few and far between, and getting worn out from intensive use.

On the opposing side it's the other way around. Russians have a seemingly endless supply of tanks, guns and ammunition, but nowhere enough men to go with them. They are still losing a lot of armor, but they are not as careless and undisciplined as they were at the beginning of the invasion. — SophistiCat

I think that's right. We have enough manpower (for now), but as the Ukrainian counterattacks ramp up, this will start to change. Since the start of the war, on the Kyiv fronts, Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces made up a sizeable portion of our frontline units. So far it has been mostly OK because Russia has been content with shelling the hell out of us from long range, and when absorbing these attacks, there's not much salient difference between territorial defense units and regular units.

Attacking is another story, and "regular" troops are preferred for a number of reasons not limited to better training, higher morale, better equipment, etc.

In any case I agree Russia's problem is more about maintaining adequate numbers of trained personnel. However, at the rate they are expending ammunition, and putting stress on their big guns, I do not expect them to maintain their current pace of attack for more than 1 to 1.5 years. They will HAVE to slow down.

We just need to be patient, pick our spots, and plan counterattacks carefully. It would be nice to push hard from now until mid-October or thereabouts, before digging into defensive positions before Winter comes. Then Russia can either wait (while we amass more weapons and ordnance) or they can attack and incur catastrophic casualties. Either way, the winters that have historically worked to their advantage against the French and Germans will now work against them in this war, and I foresee Russian morale dropping to all-time lows.

It is interesting to see how the Ukrainian counterattack goes. The simple fact is that even with military aid they have gotten, they don't have enough resources for a full on Materialschlacht, a battle of attrition. Counterattacks sooner or later go into this. — ssu

I think that's right. We have to pick our spots and initiate counterattacks only when opportunities present themselves. So far the Russians have been throwing themselves against a brick wall and taking on huge casualties. As we mentioned before, Russia has now lost a bit over 10% of their total tanks in a little over 6 months. That should be a totally unacceptable number for them considering the majority of their remaining tanks are outdated or non-operational.

As the Ukrainian frontline forces consist of a large number of Territorial Defense units, the same is true for the Russian frontline units. The frontline is still majority regular troops, but in many spots they are not. This is problematic for Russia because they cannot mount respectable attacks with non-regulars against moderate-heavily fortified positions.

More or less the usual, "the evil hemisphere" is mad about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Putin seems to have a bit of sancxiety, ...

I think it should have been quite easy to anticipate what would happen when Europe puts sanctions on Russia. But in hindsight, that didn't seem to be anticipated. I think since from the Russo-Georgian war it was clearly evident that commercial ties didn't mean much if anything for Russia. And only something that could be used as a tool of policy. Not like in the West, where foreign policy actually serves commercial ties and business, not the other way around.

A recap of how Europe is now facing an energy crisis:

Ukrainian counter-offensive upsets Russian forces near Kharkiv

It is in the east that the Ukrainian forces' counter-offensive is proving the most effective. They regained ground in the region, taking advantage of a weakness in the Russian defensive system.

By Emmanuel Grynszpan, le Monde
Posted today at 5:30 a.m.
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2022/09/08/guerre-en-ukraine-une-contre-offensive-ukrainienne-bouscule-les-forces-russes-pres-de-kharkiv_6140648_3210.html

It had been expected for months in the south of the country, in the Kherson region. But it is in eastern Ukraine, near Kharkiv, that the Ukrainian forces' counter-offensive is proving most effective. Between Tuesday September 6 and Wednesday September 7, it broke through the Russian defense lines and advanced 15 kilometers. Images filmed by the Ukrainians and testimonies from both sides attest to this movement, which occurred in one of the least publicized areas of the front line which stretches over 2,000 kilometers.

It seems that the Ukrainians had previously identified a weakness in the Russian defensive system there and attacked by surprise. The idea would be to cut Izioum's main supply route. This Ukrainian garrison town, taken in March, is used by the Russians as a rear base to attack northern Donbass.

The influential Russian blogger Starche Eddy (half a million subscribers on Telegram) deplores that the Ukrainian army “has for the moment completely outclassed our command (…) . Izioum prepares for battle. We must now wish good luck to our soldiers, our veterans and our officers. The enemy will strike from the north and from the south (…) , the night will be hot” .

“Exceptional Audacity”

The breakthrough was made near the town of Balaklya, pushing Russian forces to the left bank (north side) of the Siversky Donets and Serednya Balakliika rivers on Tuesday, September 6. Ukrainian forces probably took Verbivka (less than 3 kilometers northwest of Balaklya) on 6 September. Geotagged images published that same day show Ukrainian infantry in the east of this city.

Several Russian sources have acknowledged the Ukrainian gains and report that the Russian army hastily demolished bridges east of Balaklya to halt the Ukrainian advance. The experts of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in Washington, believe on the contrary that these destructions testify to the fact that the Russians were preparing for a retreat. The Ukrainian assault troops are now advancing towards Kupyansk, another crucial city for supplying the Russian divisions attacking the Donbass.

"On the Kharkiv front, the enemy launched [Tuesday] an offensive which he had been preparing for a long time, judging by the transfer of reserves, striking his main blow in the sector of the city of Balakliïa" , relates, on his Telegram channel, Igor Girkin (alias "Strelkov"), a retired colonel and former Russian warlord, who led the armed uprising in the Donbass in 2014 during the first months. Ukrainian army, this ultranationalist remarks "the exceptional audacity of the enemy attacks taking positions, penetrating them at high speed directly by means of armour, as a result of which [the] [Russian] artillery lost the ability to hit a enemy too close [its] positions” .

On Wednesday evening, the Russian forces seemed to have lost two additional localities (Baïrak and Nova Husarivka, south of Balakliïa). Moscow has probably cleared this area since the end of August to redeploy soldiers in the Kherson region, where the Ukrainian counter-offensive was clearly preparing.

Strikes on logistical nodes

Based on available obituary data on Russian soldiers, the ISW found that Russia elements of the 147th Artillery Regiment of the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division of the 1st Guards Tank Army deployed in the Kherson region no earlier than the end of August. “This is the first time that the ISW has observed elements of the Russian 1st Guards Elite Tank Army operating in southern Ukraine. Elements of the 147th had previously fought at Buchha and Kiev in March, and elements of the 1st Guards Tank Army were active mostly along the Kharkiv axis after the Russian withdrawal from Kiev. »

Begun ten days ago, the counter-offensive in the Kherson region is progressing more laboriously on a front 200 kilometers long. Here too, the Ukrainian forces have long sought weak points in the Russian system. The preparation was made by continuous strikes on logistics nodes coming from Crimea, means of transport, concentrations of troops and equipment, ammunition depots and command centers in the Kherson region.

Particular effort was made to methodically destroy the only two bridges crossing the wide Dnieper and, subsequently, the ferries used by the Russian army. The objective was to exhaust the isolated Russian army corps north of the Dnieper until, deprived of the necessary supplies, it was no longer able to resist.

“In the area of ​​the enemy bridgehead, [south of] the Ingulets River, the enemy continues to slowly but surely push back our units ,” laments Igor Girkin. According to his information, which matches that collected from pro-kyiv sources, the Ukrainian forces have taken four localities: Sukhoi Stavok, Bezimenne, Kostromka, Schastlivoie. “Such a deep advance by the enemy threatens to break through the front towards Tchkalovo, and further towards Berislav, with, as a result, a fragmentation of our units in this area” , he comments again on Telegram.

Clandestine actions

Pentagon Undersecretary for Defense Policy Colin Kahl also confirmed for the first time on Wednesday that Ukraine had launched its counteroffensive in Kherson and "inflicted heavy casualties on Russian forces . " Kherson is also the scene of frequent clandestine actions. On Monday, a vehicle bomb killed a local Ukrainian official collaborating with the Russian invader. This is the twentieth assassination or attempted assassination in six months. On Wednesday evening, the headquarters of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party in the city of Melitopol was blown up, an action claimed by Kyiv.

Moscow regularly postpones the holding of "referendums" intended to legitimize the annexation of Ukrainian territories. A few hours before the Melitopol explosion, the local boss of United Russia, Andrei Tourtchak, had announced that these consultations would be held on November 4. A date which corresponds to the feast of the unity of the people in Russia.

But, while the Ukrainians rejoiced to finally seeing their counter-attacks materialize on two fronts, a few false notes disrupted the day on Wednesday. In the Donbass, Russian forces managed to gain ground on two axes. In Piski (northwestern suburb of Donetsk), they took the "anthill" , nickname of an underground bunker gradually reinforced in 2015. The front in this area had hardly moved for eight years thanks to a line of defense very efficient Ukrainian. Further north, Russian forces captured the also heavily defended hamlet of Kodema, thereby breaking one of the last barriers to the town of Bakhmout.

Seems that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is going somewhere. Hopefully they can retain and continue the drive. :up:

Russians can be gotten to negotiate for an armstice (if not peace) only with making this option to be the better one for them than just for Putin to stick onto the original plan.

A minute of silence for the fallen on both sides!

:death: :flower:

Pity poor @boethius who thought this could never happen.

We have already lost’: far-right Russian bloggers slam military failures
Military pro-war bloggers with frontline contacts offer rare insight into Russia’s performance on ground
Pjotr Sauer, the Guardian
Thu 8 Sep 2022 13.35 BST

“The war in Ukraine will continue until the complete defeat of Russia,” Igor Girkin, a far-right nationalist, grumbled in a video address to his 430,000 followers on Telegram on Monday. “We have already lost, the rest is just a matter of time.”

Girkin, a former Russian intelligence colonel who became a commander of the pro-Russian separatist forces in 2014, is arguably the most prominent voice within an increasingly loud and angry group of ultra-nationalist and pro-war bloggers who have taken to berating the Kremlin for its failure to achieve its tactical objectives as the fighting in Ukraine has entered its seventh month.

After Ukraine’s latest counter-offensive in the south and the north-east of the country, these bloggers – who have so far been granted a public platform denied to many – have intensified their criticism of the Kremlin, slamming the army’s inadequate performance in the war and urging Vladimir Putin to declare a full-scale mobilisation.

And then he might declare full-scale mobilization.

Never underestimate a country that goes full-time war economy.

He needs to decide fast, as training recruits takes time, and Ukraine has the initiative for once. Problem is, I guess they can't be sure that the average young, mobilisable Russian will not revolt or surrender if forced into this hell. There is a risk there.

Zelensky acknowledged some success in recent operations but added this:

Zelensky also appealed to "some bloggers," as he put it, "not to complicate the task for our army with your haste. Please do not report the specific details of the defense operation earlier than the official representatives of our state."

As an avid consumer of information, I heard that as calling for less demand for the last five minutes. Guilty, as charged.

People like to share good news, but I can see how the geolocated photos and videos compromise opsec. However, I think they are also adding to the full on rout on the Russian side as every hour seems to show new progress. Yesterday they're outside Kupyansk and the occupation government has fled the city. They might cut off the supply lines to Izyum. Next thing you know they're in Izyum, the Russians appear encircled. Then suddenly they're pushing up in the south and already in Lyman. It's like the entire front evaporated.

I sort of believe it too. More photos and videos of captured undamaged vehicles and supplies than at any time before. Looks like the Russians were totally unprepared for an attack up north.

Hopefully they don't outrun in their indirect fire support and supplies. I am curious if the aim was always to attack in force up north after trapping so much of Russia's best prepared units down south by blowing the bridges, or if it was just opportunity and the ability to move resources north quickly. Guess we won't know until things settle down.

Russian milbloggers doom posting makes it seem like half the Ukrainian army was somehow secretly teleported to Kharkiv.

It is interesting that Zelensky was not asking the 'bloggers' to shut up but chill with the absolute immediacy element.

The information war includes these bloggers.

I am curious if the aim was always to attack in force up north after trapping so much of Russia's best prepared units down south by blowing the bridges, or if it was just opportunity and the ability to move resources north quickly. Guess we won't know until things settle down. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The Russians did move resources south after all the fanfare. As you say, it is hard to know who is fooling who until the deal goes down.

Maybe they wanted to push the "Ukrainians are Nazis" line by exactly re-creating the time they got another huge chunk of their combat forces encircled and destroyed in the same spot.

Eerily similar. Guess that's because geography doesn't change much and the same points still make natural boundaries.

Russian milbloggers — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interesting to note that, given the current news blackout from Ukraine, these Russian military bloggers have become our main source of info on what's happening on the front.

They are clearly well tipped by frontline informants.
Every one seems to assume they must have a pro-russian bias but some may still be 'catastrophists'.

One wonders why the Telgram platform isn't shut down or "policed". Maybe Putin too relies on them for info... :smirk:

What a different 12 hours makes. 12 hours ago we had video made for TV of reinforcements airlifting into the pocket. We had video of reinforcements streaming down south. Suspiciously, the tracks on the helicopter footage seemed to show two helicopters parked in an empty field right next to each other, with men moving from one into another when the footage was compared, and the long column of reinforcements appeared to be the same five trucks, shot from multiple angles.

But times have changed!





We have now learned that the faliure was the fault of rapacious boyars once again. The incompetent scourge of Russia. The true leaders have stepped in. Unfortunately, the word going out to the Russian milbloggers is that the boyars really blew it this time and all that can be done is to abandon the entire front and retrench. Strangely, no mention of how the thousands of men cut off from a retreat will manage this retrenchment or how they will be replaced if they represent a significant proportion of all combat forces.

To be honest though, this probably is the smarter move. When I initially saw that they were going to try to airlift VDV through an area covered by SAMs and crawling with MANPADS, just to put even more men who need supplies into a cut off pocket, I thought I was going to see something as stupid as the continuous unsupported air assaults with no SEAD at the start of the war. The propaganda videos made more sense then the real thing would have.



Would not surprise me. I don't take any "leaks" of Russian casualties that seriously. I doubt anyone knows. There is a tendency to not report bad news up the chain of command and we now know from public trials that many BTGs were extremely understrength in vehicles and men going into the invasion, so extrapolating from the starting components is going to over count loses as well. Seems like a ghost soldier phenomenon similar to what was common in the ANA. Some commanders are being tried for that anyhow, I suppose they could just be scape goats, but lots of evidence suggests understrength BTGs.

rapacious boyars — Count Timothy von Icarus

You mean, corrupted generals and such? Those getting the ghost soldiers' pay?

On russian milbliggers, it baffles me that they are right now the world's only source on battlefield news.

In February, Putin met with Xi in Beijing. Now, Xi will meet Putin somewhere in Central Asia just a month before Xi is poised to cement his place as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.

Meaning what?