Russia has invaded Ukraine

[pip08456]

But Russia's winning isn't it?

"Overall, the following targets have been destroyed since the beginning of the special military operation: 132 aircraft, 105 helicopters, 245 surface-to-air missile systems, 456 unmanned aerial vehicles, 2,213 tanks and other combat armored vehicles, 249 multiple launch rocket systems, 966 field artillery guns and mortars and 2,110 special military motor vehicles," the spokesman said.

The Russian troops eliminated seven Ukrainian military facilities by airborne precision missiles overnight, including a Tochka-U missile launcher, Konashenkov said.

https://tass.com/defense/1438181?utm...m_social_share

---------- Post added at 14:53 ---------- Previous post was at 14:18 ----------

Originally Posted by Mick

BREAKING: Russia threatens to deploy nuclear weapons in the Baltic if Sweden, Finland join NATO.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said that Moscow would have to strengthen its defenses in the region and "there can be no more talk" of nuclear-free Baltics. - Kyiv Independent.[COLOR="Silver"]

According to the Latavian Minister for Defece nukes are already there.

However, the Lithuanian defence minister, Arvydas Anušauskas, claimed on Thursday that Russia already had nuclear weapons stored in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, which borders Lithuania and Poland. That claim has not been independently verified, but the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) reported in 2018 that nuclear weapon storage bunkers in Kaliningrad had been upgraded.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...land-join-nato

Couple of updates from Kyiv Independent:

BREAKING: Washington Post: Russia warns U.S to stop arming Ukraine.

The Washington Post reported that it had received a copy of a diplomatic note sent by Russia. In the note, Russia claimed that US & NATO shipments of weapons to Ukraine could bring “unpredictable consequences.”

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Russian forces shell residential area in Mykolaiv.

Russian shelling of a residential neighborhood in Mykolaiv, a regional capital in southern Ukraine, injured multiple civilians on April 15, according to Hanna Zamazieieva, the head of the Mykolaiv Oblast Council.

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Up to 50,000 residents return to Kyiv every day, according to local official Mykola Povoroznyk.

Earlier, mayor Vitali Klitschko said that it was too early to return as there is still a threat of Russian strikes, while the demining of territories surrounding Kyiv is ongoing.

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Media: North Macedonia expells 6 Russian diplomats.

The Foreign Ministry of North Macedonia has declared 6 more Russian diplomats persona non grata for violating diplomatic norms, RFE/RL’s Balkan Service reported. The country has already expelled 5 Russian diplomats in March.

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Russia threatens Sweden, Finland with 'consequences' of joining NATO.

The ministry's Maria Zakharova said the two countries will then become a new "frontier” in Russia’s confrontation with NATO and there'll be “negative consequences for peace and stability in northern Europe."

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Moody's: Russia's failure to pay debts in dollars by May 4 will mean default.

Russia reportedly made payments on two bonds in rubles on April 4. Moody’s issued a statement saying that a change in payment terms may be considered a default if not cured within a month.

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UN: Nearly 5 million Ukrainians have fled the country in 50 days of war.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, over 7.1 million people have been internally displaced.

[pip08456]

A very good breakdown of Russia's supply problems

Canary in the coal mine
Telenko describes one recent photo of tire damage on a multimillion-dollar mobile missile truck, a Pantsir S1, as the canary in the coal mine for Russia's logistical efforts.
As such an expensive piece of equipment, he would have expected its maintenance to be first-rate. Yet its tires were crumbling just a few weeks into the war -- what Telenko refers to as "a failure mode."
If trucks are not moved frequently the rubber in their tires becomes brittle and the tire walls vulnerable to cracks and tears. Telenko says the problem is common when tires are run with low inflation to cope with the sort of muddy conditions that Russian forces are facing in the Ukrainian spring.
For Telenko, who for more than a decade specialized in maintenance problems in the US military's truck fleet, the condition of the Pantsir S1 is a revealing mistake.
"If you're not doing (preventive maintenance) for something so important, then it's very clear the entire truck fleet was treated similarly," he says.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/14/e...-ml/index.html

Originally Posted by pip08456

A very good breakdown of Russia's supply problems



https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/14/e...-ml/index.html

This is very true, however the story’s appearance in the mainstream media 50 days in to the war really underscores how reluctant journalists have been to listen to anyone other than the same experts who all predicted the war would end in capitulation after 3 days.

Strategic studies academics were pointing out the tyre issues in some of the earliest photos from Ukraine, within a week or 10 days of the war beginning. These pieces of evidence, and others like them, are the reason some of these people have been so ahead of the game in predicting Russia’s difficulties. Unsurprisingly, these are the same people who are saying that no matter how much Russia may want to take Dneipro or encircle the Ukrainian army in Donbas, it simply doesn’t have enough men or equipment available to do so. Yet at the moment, the BBC and others continue to publish maps with bold red arrows implying that the war is still all Russian movement and progress.

If you use Twatter at all (and I didn’t, prior to this), then follow Phillips P O’Brien, Dr Mike Martin and Shashank Joshi for starters.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by Chris

This is very true, however the story’s appearance in the mainstream media 50 days in to the war really underscores how reluctant journalists have been to listen to anyone other than the same experts who all predicted the war would end in capitulation after 3 days.

Strategic studies academics were pointing out the tyre issues in some of the earliest photos from Ukraine, within a week or 10 days of the war beginning. These pieces of evidence, and others like them, are the reason some of these people have been so ahead of the game in predicting Russia’s difficulties. Unsurprisingly, these are the same people who are saying that no matter how much Russia may want to take Dneipro or encircle the Ukrainian army in Donbas, it simply doesn’t have enough men or equipment available to do so. Yet at the moment, the BBC and others continue to publish maps with bold red arrows implying that the war is still all Russian movement and progress.

If you use Twatter at all (and I didn’t, prior to this), then follow Phillips P O’Brien, Dr Mike Martin and Shashank Joshi for starters.

@PhillipsPOBrien Is my go to on twitter as he explains strategy etc in an understandable form and links to relevant articles from others such as the above.

Don't forget he admits he got things wrong in the beginning just as the majority of stategists did. Russia was only a paper tiger but regrded as something else by the west.

Meanwhile.

BBC: FSB asks Russian government for additional funding to bury Russian troops.

The FSB asked the Russian government to increase by 17% the “funding for military burials and tombstones,” BBC reported. Ukraine says 20,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine since Feb. 24.

Originally Posted by Chris

This is very true, however the story’s appearance in the mainstream media 50 days in to the war really underscores how reluctant journalists have been to listen to anyone other than the same experts who all predicted the war would end in capitulation after 3 days.

Strategic studies academics were pointing out the tyre issues in some of the earliest photos from Ukraine, within a week or 10 days of the war beginning. These pieces of evidence, and others like them, are the reason some of these people have been so ahead of the game in predicting Russia’s difficulties. Unsurprisingly, these are the same people who are saying that no matter how much Russia may want to take Dneipro or encircle the Ukrainian army in Donbas, it simply doesn’t have enough men or equipment available to do so. Yet at the moment, the BBC and others continue to publish maps with bold red arrows implying that the war is still all Russian movement and progress.

If you use Twatter at all (and I didn’t, prior to this), then follow Phillips P O’Brien, Dr Mike Martin and Shashank Joshi for starters.

This guy posted much the same info on Twitter six weeks ago…

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/show...&postcount=628

This is a thread that will explain the implied poor Russian Army truck maintenance practices based on this photo of a Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile system's right rear pair of tires below & the operational implications during the Ukrainian mud season.

For the sin of being the new guy, I was the DCMA quality auditor in charge of the US Army's FMTV "vehicle exercise program" at the contractor manufacturing them from the Mid-1990's to the mid-2000's Then we got more new guys.

Short form: Military trucks need to be turned over and moved once a month for preventative maintenance reasons.

In particular you want to exercise the central tire air inflation system (CTIS) to see if lines have leaks or had insect/vermin nests blocking the system. One of the biggest reasons for the repositioning, per TACOM logistic Representatives, was that direct sunlight ages truck tires. The repositioning of Trucks in close parking prevents a lot of this sun rotting and cycling the CTIS keeps the tire sidewalls supple.

When you leave military truck tires in one place for months on end. The side walls get rotted/brittle such that using low tire pressure setting for any appreciable distance will cause the tires to fail catastrophically via rips.

Now look at the same Pantsir-S1 tire sidewalls after the Ukrainians tried to tow or drive it out of the mud. The right rear tire fell apart because the rips in it were too big for the CTIS to keep aired up. No one exercised that vehicle for 1 year.

There is a huge operational level implication in this. If the Russian Army was too corrupt to exercise a Pantsir-S1. They were too corrupt to exercise the trucks & wheeled AFV's now in Ukraine.

The Russians simply cannot risk them off road during the Rasputitsa/Mud season. And there is photographic evidence of this. There are 60(+) Russian army trucks crowded & parked on this raised road bed to avoid the fate of the mud-bogged Pantsir-S1.

Given the demonstrated levels of corruption in truck maintenance. There is no way in h--l that there are enough tires in the Russian army logistical system.

So their wheeled AFV/truck park is as road bound as Russian Army columns were in the 1st Russo-Finnish War. What that means is that as long as and where ever the Spring Rasputitsa is happening, the Russian Army attack front is three wheeled AFV's wide.

When the Ukrainians can block the road with ATGM destroyed vehicles. They can move down either side of the road like Finns in 1939 destroying Russian truck columns.

The Crimea is a desert and the South Ukrainian coastal areas are dryer. So we are not seeing this there. But elsewhere the Russians have a huge problem for the next 4-to-6 weeks.

BREAKING: The U.S rebuffs Russia's earlier warnings saying, 'Nothing will dissuade' us from supporting Ukraine.

The Washington Post reported that it had a copy of a diplomatic note sent by Russia to U.S. claiming that U.S., NATO shipments of the “most sensitive” weapons to Ukraine could bring “unpredictable consequences.” - Kyiv Independent.

[OLD BOY]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seems to have brought about ‘unpredictable consequences’

[Sephiroth]

Does anybody think that now's the time for NATO or a NATO country to enter Ukraine upon Zelensky's invitation, then immediately imposing a no-fly zone on the non-Russian occupied areas?

This move would call Putin's bluff; so long as Putin can maintain the bluff, Ukraine will be systematically destroyed. Can we really stand by and watch?

As for Germany, not enough noise is being made in the West about that; Zelensky would think all Europe wants is for this to go away.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Does anybody think that now's the time for NATO or a NATO country to enter Ukraine upon Zelensky's invitation, then immediately imposing a no-fly zone on the non-Russian occupied areas?

Nope.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Does anybody think that now's the time for NATO or a NATO country to enter Ukraine upon Zelensky's invitation, then immediately imposing a no-fly zone on the non-Russian occupied areas?

This move would call Putin's bluff; so long as Putin can maintain the bluff, Ukraine will be systematically destroyed. Can we really stand by and watch?

As for Germany, not enough noise is being made in the West about that; Zelensky would think all Europe wants is for this to go away.

If NATO did that then it would bring NATO into direct confrontation with Russia and would show the Russian people that Putin was right. A dangerous move IMHO, but I am not a military strategist nor have I been in the military.

The Ukarainians so far have shown to be very successful in their war against Russia so I think the best thing would be is to step up the aid, give them the heavier weopons they need and the aircraft to counter the Russian airforce. They have been quite clear on what they need so why not supply them. Would it be worse than a direct NATO confrontaion?

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by pip08456

If NATO did that then it would bring NATO into direct confrontation with Russia and would show the Russian people that Putin was right. A dangerous move IMHO, but I am not a military strategist nor have I been in the military.

The Ukarainians so far have shown to be very successful in their war against Russia so I think the best thing would be is to step up the aid, give them the heavier weopons they need and the aircraft to counter the Russian airforce. They have been quite clear on what they need so why not supply them. Would it be worse than a direct NATO confrontaion?

Putin might well win in the end. He is bombing Kiev and Lviv using cruise missiles launched from Belarus. Ukraine can't stop that. Surely someone must? It seems to me to be the point at which Putin's bluff needs to be called.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Does anybody think that now's the time for NATO or a NATO country to enter Ukraine upon Zelensky's invitation, then immediately imposing a no-fly zone on the non-Russian occupied areas?

This move would call Putin's bluff; so long as Putin can maintain the bluff, Ukraine will be systematically destroyed. Can we really stand by and watch?

As for Germany, not enough noise is being made in the West about that; Zelensky would think all Europe wants is for this to go away.

Nope - that’s what Putin wants; to use NATO as a justification.

There’s no need - Ukraine are kicking their ass, with the arms/logistics/AWACs support we are already providing.

NATO getting directly involved (unless Putin invades a NATO member) would be counterproductive.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Putin might well win in the end. He is bombing Kiev and Lviv using cruise missiles launched from Belarus. Ukraine can't stop that. Surely someone must? It seems to me to be the point at which Putin's bluff needs to be called.

Indiscriminate cruise missile strikes on civilian population centres are a sign of impotence and a lack of strategy. The range and targeting ability of a cruise missile is paid for in reduced explosive yield. Used this way, they are terror weapons with no more military value than the V-1 and V-2 missiles launched at London by Germany towards the end of WW2 - and they will have no more effect on Ukraine’s military effectiveness than Hitler’s super-weapons had on ours. The only militarily effective use of a cruise missile is in taking out high-value targets that stand in the way of an immediate military objective.

Also … they’re expensive, n limited supply and given the sanctions imposed on Russian industry, quite possibly irreplaceable. It’s ultimately self-defeating because when they really need them, they won’t have them, and in the meantime they are only stiffening Ukrainian resolve to resist.

And latest Map Intel: