Ukrainian Defensive War against the Russian Invasion - Mark IV: The Partitioning of Discussion

[mindlessobserver]

I thought Putins goal was to annex Belarus. Why is he giving the Potato Man thousands of hard core mercenaries and nukes? He DOES realize what this means, right?

 

[Snekposter]

Wagner troops going to BY is also suspicious. Are they going there to then attack UA from the North? This could all be a feint, who knows.

Not going to happen. Lukashenko does not want to get drawn in any further than he has to. The man wants to be a tinpot dictator, without the whole "strung up by his own military after he assfucks the entire country" thing that tends to happen to those sorts of people. There's also pretty strict rules on neutrality in war and those rules prohibit allowing foreign personnel to launch attacks using your country as a base. He got away with it once before but if it happens a second time Ukraine would be well within their rights to declare them as a co-belligerent and start blowing things up in Belarus that are providing support to the invading forces.

Zelenskyy is an actor and comedian. He gives the guys that are fighting for him an ideal.... while at the same time making sure they're paid on time. That's why he's going to win.

Pretty much. He doesn't know jack shit about fighting a war... but he does know how to work public opinion, both at home and overseas, and AFAIK he's been pretty persuasive in his international summit meetings on what Ukraine needs, what it can use now, what it can use after training a given training period, and what it can accomplish when given certain things. Nobody except the most deluded of vatniks has ever said Ukrainian morale is going to collapse and he's no doubt been playing a major role in that by keeping morale up, both civil and military, and they'll probably build statues of him all over the place in Ukraine the minute he leaves office same as England did with Churchill.

Unlike Churchill though I doubt anyone's going to vote him out based on a whole bunch of false, feel-good promises.

And I hope that the West is well prepared for the moment when the Soviet-era shells and ammo finally get depleted, cause Ukraine will have to be able to use NATO-issued ammo in the same quantities.

We're working on it. We've also reopened a few old Pact-era facilities in Eastern Europe that were shuttered after joining NATO to keep the supply going as long as possible.

they didn't expect total Slavic Escalation

You'd think a bunch of Slavs would realize Slav anger goes from 0 to genocide with nothing in between.

Not saying you are wrong, but I don't know the exact condition of the ground, but treaded vehicles could probably cross (slowly). You could also lay down a road of pre-poured concrete blocks over the silty mud. Its also summer and it gets really damn warm and sunny there. You can see the light colored areas where I bet there's a good crust that's already formed.

Not an easy task but easier than building a bridge. Major issue with that is they're still going to be bridge the river, and former silt doesn't make for a good bridgehead support. Also having to descend/climb up the shore is going to be a fairly tall order.

Its still easier to cross than water and Russia is going to have to have recon around to make sure light infantry hasn't sneaked a crossing with ATV's.

Also I guess "forming a mighty mittelafrican empire for russia" is yet another geopolitical masterstroke by putin that hinged on this totally-fake coup attempt

That is some of the worst fucking cope I have ever seen. Not because I don't think Russia/Wagner/whoever isn't willing to go for it, but because France has made it abundantly clear Chad belongs to them, and any attempts to fuck with their control will be dealt with harshly, as Ghaddafi learned.

Here we are at "THE CIA TOTALLY SPENT GORILLIONS IN SEKRIT BRIBING WAGNER BUT SEXY MR PUTIN WAS TOO CLEVER!!!" stage of cope

As mentioned before, there goes the last year of "ukraine is stealing all the aid money and gibdats it gets" narrative down the terlit

There are three things the CIA provides whenever a coup is fomented: money, drugs, and guns. The fact there wasn't a massive body count as god knows how much "free" (depends on how much you value your soul) ammunition was expended by coked-up Wagnerites on their road trip to Moscow causing mayhem and piles of dead civilians along the way tells me the CIA probably wasn't involved.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Pretty much. He doesn't know jack shit about fighting a war... but he does know how to work public opinion, both at home and overseas,

And he was very smart for focus on what he can do while letting the generals do their job. Something even Putin has been unable to do.

One thing that has been overlooked that bears a comment though is Zelensky rammed General Zalushny's promotion to chief of staff through. Even promoting him over the heads of more senior officers like Sirsky. This really ruffled feathers but Zelensky was adamant.

The Battles of Hostomel and Kiev pretty much silenced all detractors. I don't know if Zelensky has a knack for picking war horses or he just got fucking lucky, but the proof is in the pudding as they say. Even our local vatniks here on the forums pray every day for Zalushny to die. The mam beat them and they know it.

 

[World in Scarlet]

I thought Putins goal was to annex Belarus. Why is he giving the Potato Man thousands of hard core mercenaries and nukes? He DOES realize what this means, right?

It could mean many things.

 

[Ghostse]

Not going to happen. Lukashenko does not want to get drawn in any further than he has to. The man wants to be a tinpot dictator, without the whole "strung up by his own military after he assfucks the entire country" thing that tends to happen to those sorts of people. There's also pretty strict rules on neutrality in war and those rules prohibit allowing foreign personnel to launch attacks using your country as a base. He got away with it once before but if it happens a second time Ukraine would be well within their rights to declare them as a co-belligerent and start blowing things up in Belarus that are providing support to the invading forces.

He got away with it twice before, and got away with it for two reasons:
First, the Russian troops transiting Belarus weren't invading Ukraine, they were reinforcing Russian positions (that is, Russia controlled that area of the border). This is sort of dubious but the reason no one took them to task on it at the time is ...
Secondly, no one expected Ukraine to last more than a couple of weeks. This was largely viewed as just speeding things along at the time.

Belarus has been getting the screws tightened more and more now. And Putin is smart enough to not fight it. Because if he tries to get Belarus more involved, that makes it easier for Romania and Poland to be more active as support bases.

Pretty much. He doesn't know jack shit about fighting a war... but he does know how to work public opinion, both at home and overseas, and AFAIK he's been pretty persuasive in his international summit meetings on what Ukraine needs, what it can use now, what it can use after training a given training period, and what it can accomplish when given certain things. Nobody except the most deluded of vatniks has ever said Ukrainian morale is going to collapse and he's no doubt been playing a major role in that by keeping morale up, both civil and military, and they'll probably build statues of him all over the place in Ukraine the minute he leaves office same as England did with Churchill.

A company's president doesn't need to know to make widgets. He just needs to know how to run a company, and have trust worthy subordinates who do know about making widgets.

 

[Astro Galactic Megalul]

The reservoir is almost completely dry. Pic related was from a week ago. Expect interesting things to happen here soon.
View attachment 5180034

Isn't that just the surface though? Wouldn't it be soft and muddy underneath? Heavy equipment would probably get stuck. It would be interesting to see some videos from the location, someone ought to be out there pocking it.

The new conspiratard theory popular in MAGA circles (e.g., patriots.win, Kim Dotcom) and pushed on the Gateway Pundit (Archive) is that the missing $6.2 billion the Pentagon announced was sent to Prigozhin by the CIA to pay him to mutiny, but then he collaborated with Putin to stage a fake coup and split the money.

It should be obvious that none of this makes any sense, starting with the fact (quoted above) that the "billions" was a theoretical value of weapons pulled out of storage and not actual money.

I first noticed this "Jackson Hinkle" (tweet in the image above) a few weeks ago when his idiot tweets suddenly started gaining visibility. Maybe Musk is taken in by his red hot zigger takes and is boosting him. North of Kyiv is swampy and heavily fortified, so no Chef is not going to lead his few thousand mercs down from Belarus to take a metro area of 3 million which the whole Russian army failed to take last year when it was more weakly defended.


To no one's surprise, Pepe Escobar also endorses this $6.2 billion theory.

It's pure insanity, these people act as if they know "the truth" but are completely ignorant of the world around them. For one, didn't Pentagon come out saying they overvalued the aid to Ukraine for total of $6.2 billion because they counted replacement cost while all that gear was essentially meant for scrapyard and whatnot?
It's the mistake most people seem to make when it comes to this subject, they don't realize that what Ukraine gets isn't pallets of cash but equipment (often obsolete by US standards).

I thought Putins goal was to annex Belarus. Why is he giving the Potato Man thousands of hard core mercenaries and nukes? He DOES realize what this means, right?

The way I see it, fewer allies you have, more empowered that makes their position in the relationship when you're a pariah. Fair to say that relationship between Lukashenko and Putin is semi-adversarial, considering how much effort the former is putting in order to avoid getting dragged into this war that Putin staked everything on.
I'd say that between the two, Lukashenko is smarter, more patient and calculating. And I'd imagine he'd rather rule hypothetical Nu-USSR himself rather than let Putin do it if he could. I don't think anyone actually respects Putin aside from brainwashed plebes worshipping his glowie ass.

Putin is desperate to seem legitimate and is whoring out Russia for any crumb of international support, which empowers his "allies" who has everything to gain while he has everything to lose.

 

[Pork Packer]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand the "THE COUP WAS TOTALLY FAKE AND NOT A SINGLE HEROIC VATNIGGER DIED!" narrative gets a bullet to the noggin courtesy of putin himself

"Thank you to all our military personnel, employees of law enforcement agencies, special services who stood in the way of rebels, and remained faithful to our duty, oath and our people.

Courage and self-sacrifice of fallen hero-pilots saved Russia from tragic and destructive consequences."

A lot of russiaboo retards gonna have to quickly adjust their latest cope narratives in light of this given how far and fast that bullshit of the blowed up planes and helicopters being fake spread

 

[Night Crawler]

It might be late but fuck it. I watched a Suchomimus video and it seems while everyone was watching the lame gay coup attempt by Chef the Ukrainians crossed the Dnipro.

Is Dnipro the river they had planned to cross before the damn was blown up? They might be planning to take Crimea. That would be a huge blow to the Russians.

Here is another Sucho video I just watched. It seems the Ukrainians are doing something near Kherson.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand the "THE COUP WAS TOTALLY FAKE AND NOT A SINGLE HEROIC VATNIGGER DIED!" narrative gets a bullet to the noggin courtesy of putin himself


A lot of russiaboo retards gonna have to quickly adjust their latest cope narratives in light of this given how far and fast that bullshit of the blowed up planes and helicopters being fake spread

Vatniggers also used the cope that the sanctions weren't hurting Russia. But here is Putin whining about the sanctions. The video is from 2 months ago. Not current but not that old.

The lesson here is never believe what vatniggers say. They will say all kind of retarded shit.

 

[teriyakiburns]

https://twitter.com/_kava24_02_22/status/1673660112349589508

https://archive.is/D3i4C

Someone is dropping incendiaries on the left bank of the dnipr, around the remains of the antonivka bridge.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I've wonder just how badly the Antonivka Bridge has been damaged. Quite a few spans still seem to be up, so it could be possible to use bridging equipment to reconnect them depending on how much is still up. Maybe not sturdy enough to drive a Tank Brigade over, but even getting light vehicles and infantry to the far side would be a huge win for Ukraine, and allow for the space necessary to ferry the heavy shit across the river.

For whatever reason these past few days have seen some pretty intense fighting around the bridge, so by all accounts Ukraine seems to want it for some reason. It should be noted that when compared to the massive trench fortifications in Zaporizhia and Donetsk, the Russian Defense lines in Kherson are much smaller. So if the Ukrainians can get across the river there is nowhere near the level of defensive fortifications blocking their path.

 

[World in Scarlet]

I haven't seen it posted, so here it is:

The Federal Security Service's investigative directorate has dropped the criminal case of an armed insurgency, the special service's public relations center said.

"During the investigation of the criminal case <...> on the fact of an armed rebellion, it was established that its participants on June 24 stopped the actions directly aimed at committing the crime," the department explained.

source: Russian government media
All good bro, you didn't actually overthrow the government, you only tried, so there's no need for criminal prosecution.

I wonder if the Wagner PMC has already established the medals "For the Capture of Rostov", "For the March on Moscow" and "Participant of the March of Justice"? As well as the award badge "Excellent Air Defense Wagner"?

I believe that since Wagner is a non-state company, the merits of its employees in the biggest events of PMCs over its history should certainly be recognized. Especially since this time, apparently, no state awards for the "March of Justice. Well, not yet.

And, yes, after thinking carefully, I realized that I must treat Evgeniy Viktorovich with the same respect. After all - he is one of few "three times Hero" in Russia (not to mention Belarus): Hero of Russia, Hero of DNR and Hero of LNR. There is only one other such person in the whole world - Ramzan Akhmatovich. Prigozhin can be deprived of these titles only through court, and as we know, there will be no court case - he was amnestied...
Anyone who speaks ill of Yevgeny Viktorovich must remember that he is insulting a Hero of Russia, and thus discrediting the member of the Council of Europe. And this is an article!

source: Girkin
It's easy to forget what a piece of shit he is when he writes these things.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Things must be going badly for the Russians. They're back to bombing civilians again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66031342

https://archive.is/pbaw7

https://twitter.com/KramarenkoMari3/status/1673755660331130882

https://archive.is/wip/TqlRe

 

[Ghostse]

Vatniggers also used the cope that the sanctions weren't hurting Russia. But here is Putin whining about the sanctions. The video is from 2 months ago. Not current but not that old.

Repeating my admonition that war economies don't slow they collapse.
Germany, a much smaller company fighting a two-front war, was still making 250 fighters a month up until the last month of WWII.

Russia still has external trade via energy exports that will be keeping the wheels on and reduce the engine knocking. Squeezing Russia is good - keeping sights off their tanks is good, keeping their supply of advanced cruisemissles low is good - it keeps them from making new advanced fighters & helicopters, making Russia think extra hard about how they are using these assets even though they have deep reserves.
But Russia doesn't need French optics or advanced chips to make 155mm shells or new howitzer barrels, which is their primary method of fighting.

I've wonder just how badly the Antonivka Bridge has been damaged. Quite a few spans still seem to be up, so it could be possible to use bridging equipment to reconnect them depending on how much is still up. Maybe not sturdy enough to drive a Tank Brigade over, but even getting light vehicles and infantry to the far side would be a huge win for Ukraine, and allow for the space necessary to ferry the heavy shit across the river.

Answer: It is straight fucked. It doesn't matter what it looks like, it is a tear down. On a reinforced concrete bridge, once the rebar is severed the bridge is a lost cause. yes, you can just weld more rebar and repour concrete, but if the materials failed that means forces have stressed the bridge. That stress is never point, it spread along the span means and there is tons of damage you can't see and won't see until it fails.
A steel bridge or suspension bridge, you can just inspect he parts, replace anything that failed or doesn't meet spec, and place the top segments.

The Antonivka is double fucked because the supports have been damaged. Every single one that's taken any sort of trauma will need to be replaced.
There is a reason Russia has bypassed the storm-shadow smacked bridges with pontoons.

Now, of course that's for road traffic under civilian conditions. This is war and compromises need to be made.

You could do some shit like Accelerated Bridge Replacement techniques to replace the top and be gentle with it - basically march troops over with some limited light vehicle traffic - if they can push Russian artillery out of range ideally before hand but if not, quickly after the operation starts. but you would not want to hinge your landing on it because it might go away, so Ukraine needs some other corridor for moving the bulk of forces.
You could use it to supply a successful action, but think about the logisitcs: You need to either spread out & slow down your convoys, and have them land at a place that they then need to drive further to get to your cross-river logistics hub, or for troops they need to be transported, dismount, march, and then remount. That's a lot of time and moving parts.

And then you have the issue of placement of your main artery: If you try to say run a pontoon bridge beside the Antonivka, now Russia has one target area to focus on and all that effort and prep work will be getting the attention of every Russian tube and rocket in the area. If you try to build your main bridging project in another area, now the men coming accross need to be transported further to get to where they are needed. The only way this works is Ukraine has already secured the entire left bank at least +20 Km to push back normal tube artillery. And if you're that successful, why are you bothering with jank-ass crumbling bridge?

tl;dr Answer: Its fucked. At most you could get the top repaired use it help speed the flow of men into your push, but that's be so dicey with so much effort put in, it won't be worth it except under very specific circumstances. It might be possible to, if a successful river crossing is made, put it back into very limited service to open up supply to said action but the action will need to already be successful.

Things must be going badly for the Russians. They're back to bombing civilians again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66031342

https://archive.is/pbaw7

https://twitter.com/KramarenkoMari3/status/1673755660331130882

https://archive.is/wip/TqlRe

View attachment 5181328

Just Chef thinking about life post-SMO and taking out the competition.

 

[jalopy]

I read the point of the sanctions is not to make it impossible for Russia to export oil or gas, since that would cause worldwide economic chaos, but to make it so that the Russians can only sell at ruinously low prices.
According to official numbers by the Russian Ministry of Finance oil and gas revenue decreased by about 10% when comparing revenue up to and including April 2023 to the same time period in 2021, but who knows how reliable those numbers are.
That website is horrendous and it's possible I misinterpreted something.
I don't think comparing revenue drops from 2022 to 2023 is meaningful because of the massive speculation/panic price bubble of last year.

Yep, when the negotiations were happening they had to hold back the Poles, who wanted the price to be set below cost of production/distribution.

At the end of this May, since April 2022, Russia has racked up a $82 billion deficit. Ten percent drop in oil and gas revenue my ass and that's not evening addressing the glut from 2022 where every Eurocuck was trying to filled their reserves. One of the first things their central bank did was to cease publishing detailed figures and now their lying about the figures like the Chi-Comms, whose economy is totally growing. They totally swear guys.

Keep in mind the hydrocarbon sanctions operate via insurance regulation, so running a "dark fleet" is the sanction busting method. Thing is, even the Chinese are starting to ask questions about the viability of the vessels, with the Singaporeans straight up banning more vessels in the last year than they had in the previous decade. If there is a disaster of any measurable magnitude then either Russia coughs up actually useful currency, read not the Ruble, Rupee, or Yuan, or its ability to sell dark crude above the sanction price tanks.

It ties into the greater issue of sanction busting, which contrary to what many a tard say, doesn't magically make sanctions meaningless. Having to pay ten times the price for Chinese household appliances so you can loot the ICs off the boards to repurpose into military hardware isn't a good solution, especially when the sellers know damn well what you're using it for and will jack the prices again if the heat comes. Also the hilarity of Chinese chip counterfeiting ending up in a cruise missile. Point being, fucky wucky supply chains mean fucky wucky products especially when the Chi-Comms are involved.

The Russians also lack the facilities for LNG, so they will continue having to use the few pipelines they have to sell. As far as I know Power of Siberia II hasn't left the planning stages, never mind a Trans-Siberian pipeline capable of moving the western gas east to China. So they are reliant on transiting gas through Ukraine (lol) and under the Black Sea to Turkey, who is asshole. Turkey then resells the gas into the Euro market. Funnily enough, this includes Bulgaria who have reopened several Soviet era munitions factories being powered by that gas. Many dimensional checkers victory that is.

0/10 would not want to be Nabiullina

 

[No. 7 cat]

I haven't seen it posted, so here it is:

source: Russian government media
All good bro, you didn't actually overthrow the government, you only tried, so there's no need for criminal prosecution.




source: Girkin
It's easy to forget what a piece of shit he is when he writes these things.

Strelkov is a shithead terrorist who murdered 298 people whom Putin still accords professional courtesy as this ex spook carefully calibrates his words to only attack underlings and like his Club of Angry Faggots just wants more crime done better.

Retired US Army Sergeant, programer turned nearly full time war blogger has a piece on that Ukrainian marine trench raid video retards and the ill willed call a war crime (archive) with no trace or concept of irony.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

Ukrainian tests prototype drone-recovery system:

I've seen them do it with hooks and loops of rope, but this is outstanding.

When the war ends I expect a lot of these guys (and their tech) will be snapped up by various armed forces & industries, but the civilian market will still be flooded with direct & spin-off capabilities. Or at least I hope that farmers with mined fields full of Russian scrap will still be able to set up 3D printing production lines, rather than leave. Because fuck China.

Spoiler: And now for something completely different...

*Sounds of death*
Ukrainian Marbled Polecats

 

[draggs]

I suspect the bridgehead over the Dnieper is intended as a distraction that may turn into something more if the Russians continue to fail at destroying it

 

[King George III]

Things must be going badly for the Russians. They're back to bombing civilians again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66031342

https://archive.is/pbaw7

https://twitter.com/KramarenkoMari3/status/1673755660331130882

https://archive.is/wip/TqlRe

View attachment 5181328

The schizo justification is that it was a "secret meeting" and Russia "excels at is cultivating HUMINT networks". I'm probably late to the party, but I've concluded that Russia's western sycophants are undiagnosed psychopaths.

Img #1 https://archive.ph/smJY2
Img #2 https://archive.ph/W1mH2

 

[Night Crawler]

Things must be going badly for the Russians. They're back to bombing civilians again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66031342

https://archive.is/pbaw7

https://twitter.com/KramarenkoMari3/status/1673755660331130882

https://archive.is/wip/TqlRe

View attachment 5181328

Did they ever really stop? That's kind of been their tactic for a while now. Destroy everything they can and kill enough civilians hoping to push the country to surrender. Not only are the targeting civilians they are also using SAM's to do it. The S-300 is a SAM. It's not a good sign. It means they are out of other ways to do it. It might be a good sign for the Ukrainians because it shows the Russians are running out of weapons. But it's not a good sign for the Russians when you have to use a SAM to attack ground targets. Imagine the US using SAM's to attack ground targets in Afghanistan or Iraq. That's how bad that looks. The second best army in Ukraine strikes again.

@Ghostse

Repeating my admonition that war economies don't slow they collapse.
Germany, a much smaller company fighting a two-front war, was still making 250 fighters a month up until the last month of WWII.

Russia still has external trade via energy exports that will be keeping the wheels on and reduce the engine knocking. Squeezing Russia is good - keeping sights off their tanks is good, keeping their supply of advanced cruisemissles low is good - it keeps them from making new advanced fighters & helicopters, making Russia think extra hard about how they are using these assets even though they have deep reserves.
But Russia doesn't need French optics or advanced chips to make 155mm shells or new howitzer barrels, which is their primary method of fighting.

They might have a lot of reserves. But how much of it is usable? They said they didn't have any T-62's or T-55's left and here they are in Ukraine.

 

[World in Scarlet]

Marbled Polecats

A whole family?! I wish I'd started a collection of war related animal videos, so far I've seen that other polecat video, a beaver, a badger, and an elk (aside from the usual cats and dogs and pigs and the cryptid pigfish).

The schizo justification is that it was a "secret meeting" and Russia "excels at is cultivating HUMINT networks".

I read the Kh-22 they have been using a lot recently (including for that) are soviet anti shipping missiles (zigger will say Russia is absolutely not running out of precision munitions though!!!) and have terrible accuracy when not targeting things they can radar lock on. So perhaps they didn't aim at the residential buildings and merely didn't care what they hit.

Anyway, I agree, one of the more despicable aspect of ziggers is their glee when hospitals or residential areas or civilian infrastructure are hit. Truly subhuman behaviour.


Edit:

The S-300 is a SAM.

I read that it's been designed with ground attack capability in mind, but hasn't been used that way in practise because of its short range, somewhat poor accuracy and somewhat small warhead for how expensive the missiles are, but Russia also has >6000 of these lying around while everything else is pretty depleted. I don't have knowledge of those things and am only repeating what I read.