August 17, 2024
"Then our Stryker drives right into their table. We killed many of them on the first day. Because they were unarmed and didn’t expect us."
Said a Ukrainian solder who "said he was part of the first wave of troops crossing into Russia on Aug. 6 in a US-provided Stryker fighter vehicle," quoted in "Ukraine soldier says Russian troops were caught so off-guard that they were 'sitting in the forest drinking coffiee': 'Didn’t expect us'" (NY Post)(typo in headline).
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117 comments:
That's an exception. Usually coffee extends your life.
Stryker manufacturers exceptional medical products and technologies.
Washington crossing the Delaware.
Refresh my memory, somebody: What part of a nation's defensive posture, the part we are underwriting with billions of dollars, has to do with invading another country, and bragging about it?
Ethnic Spring is in the air... is transconstitutional. That said, all's fair in lust and abortion.
Too bad they didnt bring David french and Miss Lindsey with them. I'm sure they would love to have killed an unarmed Russian conscript or border guard. Given that Russia holds an excess number of Ukrainian POWs, it probably would've made more sense to take this unarmed men prisoner but whatever.
Meanwhile, the Russian Army is grinding away in the Donbass advancing toward key objectives.
Maybe “coffiee” is like “Kyiv”?
Invading the country that invaded your country is a fine tactic by me! WTF, it isn’t like Ukraine invaded an innocent country. I don’t like us giving money to Ukraine, but I like less an unwarranted invasion of a sovereign state.
So the allies in WWII should have stopped at the German border?
Lawnerd says..
Let's JUST begin Nuclear Strikes on Russia!! They invaded the russian parts of the ukraine, and thus: EVERYONE ON EARTH should die in Atomic Fire!
The Ukrainians are top notch at information war, there is no question about it. Well, they are riding on the US's global information dominance. But like I have been saying, let's give it a couple of weeks. My bet is when this narrative becomes unsustainable, they will change the subject with some grand futile gesture in some other direction, so people will forget all about what they were saying here.
The Russians are claiming to be inflicting heavy losses, and providing pictures of lots of destroyed equipment, which could be fake, and the Ukrainians are claiming to be setting up civil administration in the territory, but they could be sending small teams of soldiers into these tiny villages, snapping a picture, and then skedaddling before they are discovered.
It's fog of information war time, so if you actually care about what is going on, you will wait a couple of weeks and see if what the situation is then matches the claims going on right now by both sides.
Is that so wrong? Or as a good American, am I required to believe the words of Hunter Biden's clients regarding a war the Joe Biden provoked, and then herded the West into, no matter how improbably, and how bad the record of those words is when examined in the light of the perspective of passing time.
Stryker? I have a pair of their knees.
RCOCEAN II
Too bad they didnt bring David french and Miss Lindsey with them. I'm sure they would love to have killed an unarmed Russian conscript or border guard. Given that Russia holds an excess number of Ukrainian POWs, it probably would've made more sense to take this unarmed men prisoner but whatever.
Meanwhile, the Russian Army is grinding away in the Donbass advancing toward key objectives.
8/17/24, 11:14 AM
I'm sure Azov would love to take prisoners to trade, but that's not always possible. What has to alarm the Ukrainian soldiers, and what has even the usual NPC drones of the West worried, is that the Russians don't have to move their forces back from the Donbas- they have a vast army and can easily send in troops from their other military districts. This was never going to be more successful than the Ardennes offensive.
This operation was always doomed, mostly because the Russia military is run by professional soldiers and not Jewish Americans who lacked the creativity for Hollywood.
The New York Post is useful for covering some conservative-leaning stories that other outlets won't cover, and its tabloid personality can be entertaining/amusing at times. Unfortunately, the quality of its editing has been atrocious for quite awhile. Spelling errors are common, as are obvious copy/paste errors, e.g., sentence fragments, references to individuals not previously introduced in an article, quotes without attribution, etc. My old junior high school newspaper had far higher standards for its editors and copy writers.
Russia will likely regret being terrible at information warfare. Having more talent would have shortened the conflict, and most of the knowledge in the West comes from Ukrainians or "dissidents" funded by think tanks.
But I wouldn't trade that for their major advantages in electronic or combined arms warfare. Ukraine is destroying its professional army to "change the narrative." Although the Zelensky types hate Ukrainians as much as Russians, so that's not actually a loss for them.
There is an opinion out there that the Ukrainians gambled everything on capturing the nuclear power plant, and having failed at that, this is now a debacle, because the Russians are advancing in areas where the Ukrainians took troops for this gambit. Which, truth be told, had it worked, would have presented Putin with some very hard choices.
How does this help Ukraine?
can easily send in troops from their other military districts
Not so much. Look at the roads, bridges, and rail lines. They are having a hard time doing that.
PS. A Stryker is a type of infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) that has been used extensively in combat by the US military. Several other countries, including Ukraine, also use it.
How is Ukraine destroying their regular army? The Russian resistance hasn't been much, and the Ukrainians have actually been using combined arms and maneuver warfare in Kursk, a rarity for either side in this war.
I didn’t expect US weapons of war being used in Russia either. Sounds like we are escalating the war. I’m sure it is nothing and it will all be fine.
I've heard similar stories, but Ukraine could easily engage in nuclear terrorism with their medium and long range missiles from their current positions. A major reason NATO countries are denying involvement with this "counter offensive" is that a false flag from neocons/ Ukrainians will likely be answered by a genuine nuclear attack against NATO targets (or allies).
They were told there would no [mass of Ukrainians] across the border.
Serious questions: What good does it do Ukraine to capture Russian territory? They're struggling to defend the Ukrainian territory they still have. They've pulled some of their best units off other defensive lines and thrown them into this attack. They've expended a lot of lives and equipment. For what purpose?
Attrition is what the Ukrainians need to worry about. Military strength is downstream from industrial strength, demographic strength and economic strength. Ukraine is no match for Russia in these areas.
I'm starting to wonder if the US still is and if so, for how long?
STOP EMBEDDING ITALICS
Bob Boyd said...
How does this help Ukraine?
Kursk city is 20KM inside the Russian border and Kursk Oblast contains two of the primary rail yards the Russians use for resupply. Last I heard the Ukes held both yards. There's also a major nuke plant in the region and if they can manage to get it offline it will wreak havoc since approximately half of Russians rail stock is electric.
This will be a logistical nightmare for the Russians and they will likely have to pull troops out of Ukraine to counter the threat.
Coffiee?
It's what you serve a wookiee at a covfeve.
I guess there are serious things at stake in Ukraine, but when you get old enough, wars start to sound like reruns, especially when the place names are the same. The glee in big killings may also get on one's nerves when it's not one's own country that's at stake.
Russia has inflicted major losses upon the attacking Ukrainians from the air.
This sounds like the border crossing in Stripes.
I think the objective was to cut off supply routes to Russian forces further south.
That story comes from the Russian side, the Ukrainians are keeping quiet about their objectives, as they should. Not that I think they would turn down the opportunity if it arises, but there are other directions that are closer to their supply lines.
The Romans enjoyed watching men fight and kill each other. Are we more enlightened?
Battle of kursk does no one read history anymore
The Strategists Guild in full flower.
Yup. My first thought. They have a big plant here in pr making non-invasive surgical tools
I couldn't figure out the Ukraine angle
John Henry
Guess Who will be asked to pony up the half TRILLION dollars needed to rebuild Ukraine? Free clue: it won't be China or India---and certainly not the Russkis. It'll be us, asked to open up our hearts and our wallets, then our savings, then our future, then our children's future.....
The Russians (or the ukes?) are talking about dirty nukes to contaminate power plants. My understanding is this means conventional explosives spreading radioactive materials.
Serious question:would this be a "nuclear attack" under international treaties.
Lawnerd neither "says" nor remotely implies any such thing. Your glaring Straw Man argument is of course fallacious. You can do better.
You need to worry a lot less about international treaties and a lot more about what Russia will do if they decide they are playing under Hitler rules. The League of Nations was legendarily useless at stopping Stalin- and equally so with Hitler. Putin absolutely has the capacity to attack his enemies anywhere in the world, including private islands, but Russia is trying to play the diplomatic game with non-NATO countries. Watch out when they decide to attack things America cannot afford to lose.
Some people read history, others make it.
Operation Barbarossa comes to mind, except on a smaller scale, but with the same final result.
Stryker is headquartered in my small town in New Jersey
While I am sure it feels good to make the Russians hurt a lot, this is a stupid strategic maneuver- the Ukrainians have only created a cauldron for themselves. The Russians, I think, are simply hoping the Ukrainians dump more men and equipment into it to try to hold on to it. Even the Ukrainian military commentators online think their losses in this invasion are steep, unsustainable and not worth it- and they have no motive to lie about it. It reminds me of the German Battle of the Bulge in late 1944- a doomed counterattack that made defense on the Eastern front even more difficult.
In short, it reeks of desperation to garner any sort of action that can be called a victory.
Explain how it is a cauldron? It isn't like the Ukrainians will be surrounded.
Thirty years ago, an engineer friend was working on ways to neutralize the perceived sound of Army vehicles using out-of-phase sound waves. I wonder whether it ever bore fruit.
chuck, they are surrounded on three sides already- a beachhead of any kind is always under threat of getting encircled by attacks on the flanks. If the Ukrainians don't have the men and materials to hold onto the beachhead, they will either be forced to withdraw or get annihilated. This isn't rocket science- you don't take a beachhead if you have no means to hold it and expand it, and the Ukrainians definitely don't have that capability.
That might have been a stretch goal. Their real goal was to force Russia to adjust forces, take land, encircle anything they could, and gain artillery control over key rail lines.
I think they have achieved some of that.
Ukrainians have better interior lines in their beachhead, and they aren't being squeezed into a cauldron, and in fact they already surrounded Russian units and may be able form another one soon, in the west.
You need to look at the map carefully and notice the roads.
Its not that worrying.
https://liveuamap.com/?ll=48.11679266819489;37.739980468749984&zoom=8
In fact Russia is leaving the west side of the bulge.
https://liveuamap.com/en/2024/17-august-russian-military-bloggers-reporting-russian-army
"the Ukrainians are keeping quiet about their objectives"
I bet. The Ukrainians have already attacked another NPP, the one that everybody speculated that the Ukrainians were hoping to swap for when they seized this one. Oh, that's right, I forgot, the Russians disabled an NPP that they control in territory that they legally consider to be Russian by burning tires at the cooling tower, forcing a cold shut down, it wasn't Ukraine attacking it with drones the way the Russians said.
In fact, Zelensky helpfully informed us that Russia's reckless disregard for the safety of this NPP by pulling this stunt proved that it will never be secure until it is back under Ukrainian control! So there is no possibility of Ukraine lying about this.
Harun, they haven't been attacked on the flanks yet- all the Russians have done to date is to stop the advance. The Ukrainians won't be any more successful in keeping this beachhead than they have been in keeping any territory in eastern Ukraine over the last 1.5 years.
No need to wait a couple of weeks. There are plenty of sources of information that are not Ukrainian or Russian propaganda that demonstrated that the Russians are lying. I've listed them here several times, but 'tim in vermont' resolutely refuses to look at them. I also pointed out one example on the last open thread:
"We do in fact know that the Russians are lying. Early on they were claiming that [fewer] than 1,000 Ukrainians had crossed the border, and that Russian troops had killed 950 of them and destroyed 300 vehicles, while admitting that the Ukrainians were still advancing and capturing dozens of villages [as] the Russians evacuated tens of thousands of civilians. They stopped saying that when they realized that that meant that 30-50 Ukrainian soldiers were enough to defeat the several thousand (at least) Russian troops in the area. It was not just a lie but a really stupid one."
No reply from 'tim in vermont'.
Here's another example: @DefMon3, one of the accounts I've recommended on Twitter, shows a Russian video claiming to show Russians moving dozens of dead Ukrainian soldiers (link). He points out that only one of the supposed corpses is wearing a blue armband and that most of them are still moving. Others in the replies point out that one of the 'corpses' keeps his head lifted up while being dragged, that there are no flies, no rigor mortis (unless we count head-up guy!), and that the Russians notoriously don't bother to retrieve the bodes of their fellow Russians, so why would they gather Ukrainian corpses?
Further, as I said yesterday, "Anyone who follows @JuliaDavisNews and other accounts I've recommended on Twitter knows that the propagandists on Russian television are now admitting that Russia may lose, that the war may not end in their lifetimes, that state media (that's themselves!) need to stop lying to the people, and that the Russian 'Deep State' is a problem, among much else."
The fact is that the Russians are far better propagandists than the Ukrainians, and have fooled most of the commentators here, at least to some extent.
Oops, here's the @DefMon link.
I believe "You can do better" is what lawyers call "asserted without evidence".
Don't leave out the Kagans and Anne Applebaum Mr Ocean. They can load magazines and fold bandages or something. Those harpies should get their them also. It's only fair.
Read B. H. Liddell Hart's book Strategy and you'll make better sense of what Ukraine is likely doing. The book discussed the stagnation that happens during positional warfare and he discusses using indirection to break such stalemates. The Russians declare objectives and bull straight towards them, price be damned -- the Ukrainians tend not to use that approach.
My guess is the Ukrainians aren't after the nuclear power plant, rather they've after getting in artillery range of the major east/west supply road as well as isolating the Russian troops to the west of their current salient. Let the Russians dig all the trenches they want in front of the power plant, the object is to degrade Russia's army, not to seize territory.
I'm glad you posted that Biff, so now I don't have to. The Stryker family & their corporation may be predatory capitalists but at least they make medical gear for profit and rather than implements of war.
The Russian military seems like utter crap. We could just pay the Crips or Bloods or some Mexican cartel a few million dollars and take them out. Would save us a lot of cash in the long run. Of course, it would be difficult for politicians to get their cut, which is the entire point of the war.
Here's the DIRECT QUOTE..
Invading the country that invaded your country is a fine tactic by me!
what do YOU think that means? see, i can read.. can YOU?
The only place I could see that happening was by crossing the Seym river in the north west. There were two bridges to the south of Rylsk, the Ukrainians took down the big one at Glushkovo and are now attacking up the east bank from Ukraine.
might as well ask: "What good does it do the CSA to capture Pennsylvania territory? They're struggling to defend the CSA territory they still have. They've pulled some of their best units off other defensive lines and thrown them into this attack. They've expended a lot of lives and equipment. For what purpose?
meanwhile, Grant continues his move on Vicksburg
Yes, I can. And what I read in his straightforward comment is "Invading the country." What I don't read in his comment are your hysterical words, "begin Nuclear Strikes on Russia" and "EVERYONE ON EARTH should die in Atomic Fire!" Bolding, italics and all caps, no less. Those are impressive - way more impressive than your idea of arguments. Have at it; it is clear that further discussion with you on this is a fool's errand.
Serious questions: What good does it do Ukraine to capture Russian territory?
A couple of positives. Politcally it boosts morale at home and shows the world that UKR can take the battle to the Russians. Tactically, it could force the Russions to move troops from the front to avoid this embarassment. At some point UKR will most likely retreat to defensible possitions and try to hold on to some Russian land as a bargaining chip or have a buffer zone.
Just LOOK at ALL the invasions of Russia. Every one was a Smashing success..
Except for each and Every one of them
Just be sure to remember everything you listened to and believed right now at the end of September, chuck. Let's see how it all looks then.
I remember reading about a guy who lived in Japan during WWII who said that he knew that Japan was losing because every "glorious victory" of her armies was in a battle fought closer to home than the last glorious victory.
As of several days ago, Ukraine said they had captured more than 2,000 Russian soldiers in Kursk, and could show videos of them surrendering in groups of 20, 30, 40, 50, and most recently 102, as well as the usual 1s and 2s and 5s and 10s. They were apparently having trouble coming up with enough trucks to haul them back to Ukraine. Russia is showing new urgency about prisoner trades, since the new prisoners include officers, Kadyrovites, and conscripts. Russia has a draft, but it's illegal to send conscripts out of Russia, so they were using them as border guards. The contract soldiers being slaughtered inside Ukraine are mostly desperate lower-class provincials, including lots of Muslims and ethnic minorities, many forced to join up to pay off debts or get out of jail. All the upper-class kids from Moscow and St. Petersburg in the army are conscripts, so Ukraine finally has some prisoners whose parents are in a position to put some pressure on Putin.
The Germans did very well in WWI. If the allies hadn't won in the west, Ukraine would have become part of the German Empire.
"object is to degrade Russia's army, not to seize territory."
One thing about Ukrainian information war is to always report the truth except for the part about which side is doing it.
"No need to wait a couple of weeks."
Of course not. If we start looking retrospectively at the various claims in the perspective of the clearing of the fog of war, and especially the fog of information war, then the "Hey look! Another squirrel!" tactics the Ukrainians use will fall apart.
"This was never going to be more successful than the Ardennes offensive." Depends on which Ardennes offensive you mean. So far it's looking a lot more like 1940 than 1944, with the Ukrainians breaking through in several places while the Russians desperately throw in one unit after another trying to block them.
Of course, anyone who thinks the Ukrainian offensive is being run by "Jewish Americans" is a bigot and a fool. They didn't even tell the US about it beforehand because they knew Biden's guys would leak it to the press and probably directly to the Russians.
If it is a fair fight, you are doing war wrong.
We have had our wallets emptied already. Everything after this is borrowed.
War porn for the neocons.
War is hell. Hope Xi pays close attention.
They need to take the war deeper into Russia. Let the Russian populace get a taste of what war is doing in the Ukraine. Putin will keep fighting till either he runs out of Russian conscripts... or Russia gets fed up with him and give him the 9mm retirement.
Cofveve
The Russians have a dilemma. Pull troops from other border regions on their raillines, pull troops from other Ukrainian fronts and road march them, or use the conscripts and whoever else is nearby to stop this. The first is logistically difficult, the second is the same as the first with the potential of opening gaps for further Ukrainian assaults, and the third is a political problem, this isn't the Red Army or the Czarist army and the deaths of conscripts can lead to political problems in Russia proper.
And the Ukrainians have been going at this for a week.
The combat vehicle is an adaptation of Canadian adaptation of a Swiss combat vehicle platform, the Mowag Piranha. In US service it is named after two unrelated soldiers named Stryker. The vehicle is unrelated to the medical company.
This reminds me a bit of Jeb Stuart going off to raid in MD while Lee and Meade closed in on Gettysburg. We know how that turned out for the team with fewer players. I do have to admire the Ukraine for their courage and if they are to have any success they do need to get out of the trenches and out maneuver the Russians. However this is a "raid" and though raids can be uplifting for the home team and upsetting to the visitors they rarely decide the issue. It is becoming more and more clear that Russians military is less than ship shape to allow such a raid. If the Ukraine can have more successes along these lines then perhaps they can force Russia to the table, which is the only solution to this confrontation. I remain convinced that Ukraine's manpower deficit makes it impossible for them to force the Russians out of the territory they have gained.
Invading the country, that has nuclear weapons and a leader of unknown red lines, that invaded your country, may be tactically gratifying but, especially when that country is Russia, is probably strategically worthless. And potentially very, very, dangerous for all of us.
This used to be understood, hence the tactically frustrating restrictions on bombing North Vietmanese airbases or crossing the Yalu River in the Korean War, regardless of the provocations.
But now it’s all just a YouTube channel, or ignorant social media solidarity, or keeping the backhanders from the defense industry flowing.
If we’d had any adults in the Establishment this conflict would have already been resolved. Or would never have begun.
"What part of a nation's defensive posture, the part we are underwriting with billions of dollars, has to do with invading another country, and bragging about it?"
Uh, did Ukraine start the war by invading Russia? I missed that.
NATO was based on the proposition that we can prevent war by persuading the Soviets (now Russians) that if they invade, a coalition of free nations will stand against them. Ukraine was NOT a member of NATO, so the Russians thought they could get away with invading Ukraine. It turns out that even though NATO didn't fight against the Russian invasion, NATO countries including the US saw it in their interest to support Ukraine's defense against the invasion. This showed that even a third-rate military power with that kind of support could fight the Russians to a standstill .
The time has come, or will soon come, for an end to this war that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty. A counter-attack or two into Russian territory may advance that goal.
The unarmed killed were not African people’s of color I hope?
I believe the Russian assets already frozen in western countries will more than cover the cost of rebuilding Ukraine. That's one benefit of the vast corruption of the Russian ruling classes: there are plenty of gigantic yachts and Italian villas to seize and auction off, besides the less glamorous companies and bank accounts. (The other benefit is that most of that stolen money was supposed to be spent on the Russian military, which is why most of the recruits you see in Russian social media where-is-my-loved-one-last-seen-in-Ukraine advertisements are wearing mismatched uniforms, plastic helmets, and no plate armor, and carrying WW2 or even WW1 era guns. And that is why Russian recruits are being slaughtered in huge numbers.)
I have seen a plausible argument that the US will actually make money from supporting Ukraine. Not only are we sending obsolete equipment that would cost more to recycle than it costs to ship to Ukraine, but our obsolete weapons are so much better than Russia's brand new ones that Russian arms sales to other countries have dropped to near zero, while ours are booming. No one outside Russia is buying Su-57s any more, but lots of countries want F-22s and F-35s and even F-16s - a 50-year-old technology. Supplying that demand will provide jobs, and tax dollars, for years to come.
The federal government is bankrupt, but aid to Ukraine is contributing little or nothing to that problem.
@Aggie
I had to take out your comment because it caused all the comments after it to go into italics.
But it was a good comment:
"Stryker ? Stryker ??"
8/17/24, 11:37 AM
'We'll nevet get over macho grande'
Another opinion- better founded, and what is happening- the Ukes invaded to hamper Russki logistics. All rail shipments to and from Belarus have been stopped. Rail lines are jammed up with many trains abandoned as the locomotives are being redirected to haul Russian troops and equipment and supplies to different fronts. The daily count of artillery shells being fired by Russians has dropped- new supplies are dropping as shipments are delayed. There's a lot going on- all hidden by the fog of war. One big thing is- the Ukes were supposed to be unable to do this- and they did. And the Russians aren't in an immediate position to throw them back.
More then half. A lot more then half. https://www.statista.com/statistics/321014/locomotives-units-forecast/
The Uke offensive or raid's importance at this point is because it presents new political opportunities for different parties, and reminds us that "in war the moral is to the physical as three is to one."
There's no reason inherent in the situation that the Uke strikes won't prove to be like the Tet Offensive--convince the classes and masses of the larger power that they can't win. Even if it has been proved by historians that it was a military disaster, it was a political victory and that counted for more.
There's a widespread notion that somehow the Russians are unbeatable. That has never been the case. They lost the Crimean War, they all but lost the Russo-Japanese War, they lost against the Kaiser, they lost against the Poles. They can win localized victories against small or backward countries such as Finland in 1939-40 (by the end of which there were fraggings reported in the Red Army of Workers and Peasants) and Turkey in 1877-78 or 1914.
And their greatest successes (1813-14 and 1942-45) came when they were allied to rich and/or technologically advanced great powers fighting against clear, present, and determined dangers.
I commented not long after the SMO began that without a quick and clean win the most likely result would be bloody stalemate, with phases resembling WWI more than WWII; that Putin's entire worldview is that of the snitch and secret policeman, with no understanding of history and his and Russia's place; and that the issue would eventually be decided by the willingness of the combatant armies and populations to endure.
Thirty months in, it is not obvious to me that the Russians are winning or have a clear idea of what winning means.
Yancey Ward (1:23pm):
The Russians have not in fact 'stopped the advance'. Even Russian sources are reporting that they just lost Korenevo after several days of fighting and are also withdrawing from all land south of the Sejm River. Or trying to: as several others have already noted, the Ukrainians have blown up two of the three bridges and also reportedly (no pictures yet) blown up a replacement pontoon bridge with a bunch of Russian troops on it. I've seen reports that Russians in the area are begging for boats on social media. No one knows how many are stuck south of the river, but it's at least in the hundreds. Once that area is cleared, the Ukrainian 'beachhead' will no longer be "surrounded on three sides", as you said at 1:10, but only on two (N and E), which means not surrounded at all.
If only they had not been encouraged by Biden's weakness.
The primary purpose of this incursion would appear to be to ensure Russian troops take up defensive positions along the entire border to protect their territory. Given the success of the current operation it shows that the previous Russian strategy was to leave the 1000 km long line of contact along the border undefended. The Ukrainians by way of contrast have always had to have troops covering the border facing essentially empty territory. The Russians reserved the right to cross the border at any point but assumed the Ukrainians wouldn’t. The asymmetry of forces along the border no longer holds.
The Russian troops "didn't expect" the Ukrainians? What, did the Ukrainians name it "Operation Spanish Inquisition"?
Trent Telenko discusses what he sees as the purposes and end result of the Ukrainian Kursk incursion.
STOP EMBEDDING ITALICS
No! Rather, if someone leaves them turned on up above, simply turn them back off again.
This is how: Simply place a close-italics html tag at the beginning of your special fixit posting—which looks like this:
</i>fixit
In my humble strategic opinion, neither army has the power available at the schwerpunkt to penetrate the fortified line. So the Ukrainians have conducted a cavalry raid to interdict Russian supplies to that fortified line. The Russian lifeline is rail supply, not enough trucks and good roads. This is like Middle Tennessee in 1863 when Rosecrans was moving toward Bragg at Tullahoma while Wheeler and Forrest were destroying his wagons and rail behind him.
Can the Cavalry force starve the Russians out of the lines west of Kharkiv? Tune in next week!
Poke them with the soft cushions. And then fetch...........the comfy chair.
Elsewhere Telenko (I've recommended him before as one of the best sources for Ukraine) argues that Ukraine is trying to collapse the Russian railroad system, which was already very shaky. (They can't get the high-quality ball bearings absolutely necessary for railroad cars, since only four countries make them, and all are boycotting Russia. The US is not one of them, by the way: I think it's Sweden, Germany, Japan, and South Korea? or Switzerland?) Forcing them to run extra trains back and forth hauling troops to the battlefield and civilians away from it is straining an already-strained system, and droning a few locomotives or electric substations would cause the whole system to seize up (most Russian locomotives are electric, not diesel).
A second point made by someone Telenko quotes is that capturing the railroad junction at Sudzha probably gave Ukraine access to all information about Russian trains, exactly where they are and where they are headed at all times. Railroad guy says modern railroad systems have cameras and sensors all along the tracks, that every boxcar has a serial number, that all information can be accessed in real time from any major terminal, and that the system is so interlocked and automated that you cannot shut it down for a single province, you can only shut down the entire nation, which would cause collisions all over the place. As long as Ukraine controls Sudzha or any other major train depot, they will have all the information they need on Russian train movements.
A third point relates to the first: a lot of Russians (including Igor Girkin) are worried that Kursk is not the main target, and that Ukraine is forcing Russia to send every unit they can spare there so they can strike somewhere far away. Possibly crossing the now-drained Kakhovka reservoir to seize the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, or crossing the Dnipro further south (lots of possible locations) to cut the land connection to Crimea, while blowing up the Kerch bridge to cut it off completely. (They've already wrecked all three railroad ferries.)
In sum, Russia is screwed, and the smarter Russians are starting to realize that. See the 2nd-to-last paragraph of my 1:26pm comment for evidence.
The Murmansk run was the only reason the USSR had the equipment to hold off the Germans and finally turn the tide. Through the Murmansk Run, the United States supplied the Soviet Union with 15,000 aircraft, 7,000 tanks, 350,000 tons of explosives, and 15,000,000 pairs of boots. American boots made a difference on the Eastern Front, especially during the harsh winters. Boots- a basic commodity- and the Russians relied on the allies to provide them with boots.
, If forces Russia to move one set of combat assets to another area. Russia, as we have seen, is notoriously bad at logistics.
He is. It's why he's purging his military.
Gospace, I wonder how accurate the boot statistic is. I mean, I dont doubt that many boots were shipped, but I do doubt American leather boots, or even rubber Mickey Mouse boots, lasted in the Russian winter. They love their felt peasant boots, which dont have to repel water in the dry cold, and which won’t crack in double digit subzero temps. Sort of like the Eskimo mukluk concept.
I also dont doubt the Commies’ ability to hose up the logistical chain for such a basic thousand year old product, but i am pretty sure smaller units or individual soldiers would have found workarounds. Even Solzhenitsyn was able to get felt boots in the gulag.
JSM
I've noticed that on some threads. The new comment system doesn't do as good a job of sanitizing the comments as the old thread comment system. Programmers these days...
@ Dr Weevil: The Russian rail network is being attacked by saboteurs on an almost daily basis. The Russian army will rely on the railways to send any reinforcements to Kursk, but it's failing.
Are the attacks being carried out by Ukrainian partisans or Russian patriots?
Ukraine blows up bridges ( Seym river) to consolidate its positions. I would be willing to bet the Kerch bridge is high on the list of potential targets as well.
It wasn't only Murmansk--Lend Lease involved building highways and railroads through Iran, and regular ferrying of aircraft to the front through Alaska and Siberia. The Sovs used their own pilots out of Fairbanks; they bought up all the perfume in the place.
I would have to look it up to be sure, but the boots were made to Russian specs. American industry was quite capable of giving the end users what they wanted.
Arguably more important than tanks and planes were the 600,000 trucks and jeeps, the high-octane aviation fuels and specialty lubricants, the radio and telephone equipment including reliable wire, and the 1200 heavy locomotives.
Entire factories were built and shipped, and Soviet experts were allowed to see all but the most secret (i.e. Manhattan) projects. They knew about it of course--Stalin was better informed about the A-bomb than Truman was at first.
The Soviets and Russians did everything possible to wipe out all knowledge and memory of how dependent they had been on the West (with, it must be admitted, a lot of help from Western writers and influencers) and told themselves that they defeated the Fascists all by themselves--setting themselves up for surprise and failure.
Sean McMeekin's "Stalin's War" is a must-read for these issues.
@Josephbleau: After a couple of days and more research I think your example from 1863 is better than mine. Stuart accomplished nothing except blinding Lee. Wheeler and Forrest did as cavalry was supposed to do. I remain convinced that Russia's manpower advantage should be decisive. However as the Russians seem to be frittering that advantage away by maintaining little or no momentum, I am becoming convinced that Ukraine will be able to force negotiations on a much more favorable basis than previously. As usual civilians are paying the price for both sides mistakes.
Or Hood moving north into Tennessee while Sherman was slicing southeast across Georgia.
"Cauldron" or "Kessel" another echo of WWII. Germans were always getting caught in cauldrons by the Russians.
Who says Ukraine can only fight an invader within their borders?
Best tactics would be dropping bridges and disrupting rail lines behind the Russians, and invading Russia to cut off the invading Russians. Anything else is surrender or a long status quo of bleeding death.
Anyone worried about Russian nukes is a fool. Will you allow Moscow to do anything they want because any pushback is answered by nuclear threats? Moscow knows their cities and dachas are countertargeted, and Europe has been clear (from self preservation) that nukes will be answered with nukes.
Ukraine should've kept a few warheads.
Lazarus As I recall Sherman ignored Hood and left him to Thomas who, having a 2:1 manpower advantage, destroyed Hood's army. My impression is that the Russian army is so poorly led that even with their manpower advantage they may not be able to trap the Ukrainian raiders. If I were commanding the Ukraine forces I would be nervous about staying in the 'bulge" too long. It will be interesting to see if the Russians transfer troops from their current positions and this leads to a Ukraine assault along the front. My impression is that Russia's current positions are so well fortified that any assault would be very costly. But surely the Russians can't sit still with Ukraine forces on their flank and rear.
Lazarus (12:29pm):
A cauldron is often called a 'Kessel' and a cauldron battle a 'Kesselschlacht' because the Germans invented it. They caught millions of Poles, French, Soviets, and others in cauldrons in the first part of World War II, and killed or captured most of them. The Russians were getting pretty good at cauldron battles by the end of the war, but they learned how from the Germans.
Saying that "Germans were always getting caught in cauldrons by the Russians" is false in another way. It wasn't Russians, it was the Soviet army, in which Ukrainians and Belarussians (for instance) did their share or more than their share. (They certainly took a disproportionate share of the casualties.) One of those Soviet soldiers was Zelenskyy's grandfather, a colonel in the Red Army. The fact is that Ukraine is the one of the four countries that was on the right side in both wars: Germany has switched from wrong to right, Russia and Belarus from right to wrong.
“Anyone worried about Russian nukes is a fool.”
The thing about nuclear weapons is that the threat of them has great value, while the use of them has zero value. Which is why they have not been used since WWII.
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