I have returned because I have a bit of free time. Forgive me if this discussion around these events has already occurred. I could not find it using the highlight feature.
Not a whole lot has happened map wise. There have been Russian attacks to the North near Kupyansk. Krasnogorovka has seen some Russian advances as well. But there has not been a lot of movement.
The big news though is the Ukrainian counter attacks around Berydichi and Orlovka. These counter-attacks have been basically a failure in a operational sense. They have seen tactical success but they are starting to be pushed out.
It would be different if Ukraine was operationally successful but this situation is probably developing into another Avdeevka.
If you don't believe me there was a microcosm of this happen as Ukrainian retreated from Orlovka.
This is your standard warning about not watching video of people dying.
There is a portion of land that Ukraine is holding right now in between Berdichi and Orlovka. If Russia takes Berdichi then Ukraine will only be able to cross the river there on one small road which Russia can and will bombard with Artillery. I have no idea how big the force stationed specifically there is. If there is a brigade or so in that region Ukraine will be looking at a lot of deaths. If it is a Battalion or two Ukraine will still take a lot of losses but not quite as much. Will be quite interesting to see what happens.
The interesting thing about these counter-attacks is that they are light on men and heavy on vehicles. Consider that Ukraine does not have a lot of vehicles to throw around. This is a massive commitment of an extremely rare resource by Ukraine. I did not expect to Ukraine to do this because it is a massive waste of resources you could use more effectively doing something else. With things like western Artillery and Vehicles Ukraine usually likes to use them for hit and run attacks. These are actually a pain in the ass to deal with. They don't change the state of the war but hit and run attacks can slow the Russian Advance. Ukraine has used their vehicles for meme offensives before, but Ukraine is running out of resources.
As a result of these attacks there have been massive amounts of losses of Western Equipment. It is not that strange for Ukraine to lose western Tanks as Tanks often get destroyed, but Ukraine has taken a lot of losses in terms of Self-Propelled Artillery which both signifies Ukraine is putting these assets at really high risk and therefore Ukraine is putting everything into this.
Russia Destroying Swedish SPA. (
Yes it is a video I couldn't get it to not bug out so I just took a screenshot)
Bradley Square. Ukraine lost a lot of Bradlys in a specific location.
In the first Polish Soviet war the Soviet Union was at the gates of Warsaw but massively logistically overstretched and had no reasonable chance of taking the city. Poland was preparing to launch a counter-offensive but a little bit before the planned date the Red Army launched a massive last ditch offensive. This failed but it spooked the Polish high command but they eventually decided to continue with the Counter-Offensive. The Counter-Offensive went really well and Poland captured and then incorporated a bunch of territory. (
I am not taking a side on this war just providing an example)
The reason I bring up this example is because I think it illustrates what is happening to Ukraine right now. They know they cannot achieve their defensive objectives into the future and so they are eating the seed corn. You could call this the Death Throes of the Ukrainian Army. The last gasp of life of a man that knows he is dying so he struggles as much as he possibly can before he goes limp.
I wonder how much of the change is from the new command structure after shitcanning the last guy. Depending on what you think of it, More local commanders might be making decisions to preserve resources while the new guy figures out his grand plan. I find it exceedingly unlikely the new chief is ordering the withdraws himself, considering the not one step backwards mentality Zelenski has on this stuff.
Well I think this basically happened. What I got wrong is that Srysky obviously overrode the local commanders smart decision to get out. What a farce.
You can't just throw money on the ground and have it grow into a working factory over a year. You can use that money to import tools and machines, even some prefab structures, but for the most part you first need to wait for manpower to be available that can raise the actual structure, then you need engineers to install all the machines and equipment, then you need a year or two to train the workforce.
Well yes factories take time. That being said this war has been going on for two years at this point. I think everything you have said is entirely correct for things like tanks or something even a little bit complex.
But for artillery shells? All you really need to make artillery shells is raw materials, Extrusion machines, a machine that deposits propellant and explosives in set amounts, and a machine powered Jig for assembly. Artillery shells are extremely an extremely simple thing. And if you are Ukraine and you need whatever you can get it is worth it to accept lower quality shells which have less precision.
Hell if you gave me billions of dollars I could buy thousands of CNC machines and produce Artillery Shells in the stupidest and least cost effective way possible without much difficulty.
There would be all kinds of problems are there are always problems but with someone extremely motivated who could get the government government to give them permits nearly instantly, billions of dollars, and two entire years to do something like this it is not impossible.
Keep in mind Ukraine has done things not too far off from this in the form or refitting old tanks or assembling drones. They aren't making 50k drones a day like they claim but they are making some.
There is one caveat to this is that Russian Strikes could make this very difficult. Though Russia wasn't always able to conduct strikes so frequently.
Survivable is true and been saying it for years, but winnable is the part that has me looking at the normies in fucking disgust. There is no "Winning" a nuclear exchange, its like a knife fight between drunks. One of you dies on the scene, the other bleeds out on the way to the hospital. As mentioned above, the people as a general concept can survive, but governments and any sort of interconnected economy dies on the vine in nuclear strike scenarios.
I disagree with your evaluation of the strategic dimensions of Nuclear war though I agree with the sentiment. MAD is a good principle to describe Strategic Nuclear war when both sides are competent and have the same level of capacity with their Nuclear weapons. But if there is a mismatch then the calculation changes massively. Russia has the best Nuclear Arsenal in the world. And the US from what we can tell has had a lot of problems maintaining their Arsenal. That is not to say Russia would make it out of a Nuclear war unscathed but it does look like Russia would win it. Hypersonics are really fucking good.
That being said I am not a fan of Nuclear war and I don't want Russia to strike the US. Not least because I live close enough to a very strategic location that would have 10+ Nuclear Weapons targeted at it.
Trump is pretty tight with Erik Prince.
This is true it is also a sign that chunks of the people who are connected to the Washington Bureaucracy are realizing that they are losing this war and they should surrender now.
Of course because of the Stupid things the West has done. Surrendering for a limited peace is impossible.
The only thing more worthless then Sun Tzu writings. Are people that qoute him.
So true.
-Clausewitz enjoyer
The constant message in the article is that everything happened due to lack of artillery shells. If they just had more artillery shells to fire, everything would have been fine. This though is completely wrong in that the Ukrainian artillery had generally pulled back from the city long before the final fights there. The Ukrainian Artillery could not provide fire support inside the city because the Russians were on three sides of the city. Any artillery deployed close in would have been rather quickly taken out.
I do think not having enough artillery is a big part of Ukraine losing this war. This will be a controversial opinion but Ukraine is fighting this war incredibly stupidly and from a massive disadvantage and this is a large part of the reason Russia doesn't have to sacrifice that much to achieve victory.
If Ukraine didn't fight stupidly and had about as much artillery as Russia has this war would be much more painful.
Good Article though I like that you breakdown what western media says and what it means.
Found this interesting. Russia started using new type of aerial bombs with a turbojet engine and jam-resistant navigation system.
Sorta of like USA's PJDAM which is still being developed I think.
I guess this is a side-grade to Gerans. Turbojet engines are not exactly cheap and so these glide bombs will not be used in as much quantity as the others. They will likely be more expensive than Gerans by 2x or 3x or a bit more but they have capability to deliver much more explosives.
https://archive.ph/H79ky
This article suggests that a missile engine in the US costs around 200k in 2014. Costs have probably risen massively, but the engine is smaller and Russia is cheaper to produce stuff in. That puts the c-ost for the Russian Engine somewhere in the 50-100k range. This is not nearly as expensive as something like a Kinzhal but it is still decently expensive. Traditional glide bombs cost thousands of dollars.
This perhaps explains all the reports of new highly accurate "glide bombs" in the conflict. Its not really a glide bomb at all. Its not really at the complexity of a cruise missile either. More of a bomb with a highly accurate targeting system. This also explains why these things have become such an effective weapon in the last few months.
I think you are right in your characterization of the new glide bomb in relation to cruise missiles and the old glide bombs. But I don't think increased accuracy of this bomb is the point I think it is about range. Russia seems to lack the ability to conduct precision medium range strikes with a large payload in the numbers she would like. I think this is the reason Russia purchased North Korean and Iranian Ballistic Missiles. This capability allows you to strike important things like logistical hubs and troop formations deeper behind the lines. Russia had this capability with the Iskander but they are too expensive.
You are probably somewhat correct though in that if one of these bombs is operating it needs a more reliable way to receive signals to avoid jamming. This is probably why it has 8 Antennas and satellite communication.
When was the last time that happened tho?
The US used to have a draft and it no longer does. Ukraine is a degraded state without widespread guns and look what happens.
Still don't understand the whole debacle with France. There are conflicting statements about the french potentially sending troops to Ukraine. But i suppose this is one of those things where we have to wait and let time reveal the answer? Then again, there were french mercenaries in Ukraine before, so i guess it's accurate to say that the new french troops would still be fair game for Russian bombardment
It is desperation from Europe. I think it is also partly about testing the waters in regard to escalation. The west would like to know what things they can get away with.
The problem is that they aren't ideologically opposed to wars on behalf of our oligarchs; look how they were easily manipulated into believing that in order for the Second Coming to occur jews and their temple are an absolute prerequisite so we must send billions of our tax payer's money to Israel and defend it with our lives, despite that being an absolute heresy in every iteration of legit Christianity.
The Israel lobby is really fucking strong. That being said we are not currently at war with Iran so I think things are fine in this regard. A lot of the Iraq/Afghanistan veterans I have talked to are not thinking like this at all. I can imagine the Gen X and Boomers are but the people who actually fought have expressed hatred for the wars they fought. I have seen a sentiment of "the war I fought was worthless, stupid and evil, but it taught me how to fight and I will get the chance to fight for America for real someday soon" expressed by a fair number of combat veterans.
One of the worst things for political stability is having a bunch of Veterans who hate you and aren't getting paid.
We have an off-brand Mcdonalds (fries became worse, otherwise no difference) and can still buy games at Steam.
It is the potatoes. McDonalds fries have to be made with a special kind of really annoying potato to grow correctly.
Though if it makes you feel better our French Fries also don't taste very good. Morale amongst workers is extremely low and it is not going to get better. It might be hard for foreigners to understand especially since America has the image of an incredibly rich country for a long time but things have gotten really bad.
