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

[NSJAP]

 

[World in Scarlet]

Soldiers of 252nd Battalion of Ukrainian 241st Territorial Defense Brigade and Georgian volunteers in Poroz village of Belgorod.​

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IMO a traditional border raid.

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An anti-terrorist operation regime (KTO) was introduced in Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions on Saturday night due to the increased level of sabotage and terrorist threats from Ukraine.​

Translation note: "Terrorism" is the official Russian government term for Ukrainian military actions against targets in the Russian Federation, such as airfields, barracks, headquarters, munition dumps, fuel facilities, bridges used to transport military equipment, etc. Whenever some Russian government figure complains to the UN about terrorism by Ukraine, this is what they refer to. Russia is after all not at war. Hence Ukrainian soldiers on Russian soil are currently being investigated for illegal carrying of firearms and such crimes.

Spoiler

This private information is unavailable to guests due to policies enforced by third-parties.

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Russia has also blocked the Signal app. It's software Null uses to communicate with lolcows.

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Scratched by shrapnel Tornado-U armored truck and a motorized assault vehicle on a road in the Kursk Region.

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(Russia visually confirmed lost like 140 of these motorized assault vehicles last month IIRC)

 

[draggs]

NAFOs on twitter claiming Russia has pulled some units from the Bakhmut and Avdiivka fronts to send to Kursk, we will see

 

[Corette]

NAFOs on twitter claiming Russia has pulled some units from the Bakhmut and Avdiivka fronts to send to Kursk, we will see

Which is one of the most likely objectives of Kursk-operation.

 

[Elämällä on väliä]

I think this whole move is to just mess up eu-rope gas supply and push prices up so us gets dolar market stabilized. The whole campaign is idiotic and waste of meat. Russians can afford loosing worthless land.

Of course, the loss of even a few districts did not change much for them, but the tearful appeals of Russian women flying around the Runet about how Sudzha is being destroyed by bombs and how refugees are not provided with help are destroying confidence in the Russian junta.

As for gas supplies, currently the only ones using the point in Sudzha (contrary to what is written in the safe space for snowniggers, the measuring point in Sudzha is one of the last active gas export points) are Hungary, Slovakia and Austria. Just over 5% of the EU population, even less economically, and it is not the case that the point in Sudzha provided them with 100% of their needs.

In general, contrary to what Russian propaganda says, Russian raw materials were not critically needed by Europe. It's a bit like John Brown (Russia) running a shop (selling gas and oil) in some town and claiming that if it weren't for him, people (EU) would starve because they buy 60% of their needs from him.

And then it would suddenly turn out that Johnny is a pedophile, a fag, a transvestite, a stinker, a drunk and a Russian. Customers would suddenly switch to a competitor who has goods at a similar price, and that idiot Johnny would wonder why they are not dying - at the same time ignoring the fact that he will lose his main source of income (production and sales of Russian raw materials have been systematically declining for a year and a half due to the destruction of mining and processing infrastructure . And it is decreasing globally).

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

"Hey, where's the opposition?"
"I don't know. Want to just keep advancing until we either meet some Russians holding the line or hit the end of our supply chain?"
"Sounds good to me."

100%. This has literally all the hallmarks of a border raid turned into an impromptu "Thunder Run" once the Ukes realized just how fucking lucky they'd gotten. I continue to boggle at the sheer Russian incompetence; they should have been bombed into road pizza by the entire Russkie air force or shelled to shit by the 2nd line of defenses.

But there was no 2nd line of defenses. Russia had their forces set up like a 10 year old playing Company of Heroes for the first time. And now their air force just took a holy-fuck L.

Going for broke is starting to be Ukraine's only option at this point. Russia WILL eventually meatgrind them to a defeat, be it in 2 years or 20, Putin doesn't care. At which point they'll be completely exhausted of young white men and probably young white women too. Ukraine will cease to exist - not just be forced to surrender to an untrustworthy foreign power.

So they need to exploit the shit out of every lucky break. I sincerely hope that at the bare minimum they get to the nuclear plant and blow the substations to Mars.

 

[World in Scarlet]

As for gas supplies, currently the only ones using the point in Sudzha (contrary to what is written in the safe space for snowniggers, the measuring point in Sudzha is one of the last active gas export points) are Hungary, Slovakia and Austria.

As of Thursday, gas supply in Sudzha was uninterrupted too.

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The Russians claim more than 100 Ukrainian armoured vehicles destroyed in the Kursk Zone, but they so far haven't provided evidence for more than a small fraction of them.
Here's visually conformed losses across the entire front line for the last days. I assume someone will eventually make a tally for Kursk, but so far nobody did. As you can see, not even adding up all Ukrainian losses everywhere gets you to anywhere near the claimed numbers for Kursk alone.

Spoiler

Note that "civilian" is a vehicle type category, not a use type category.
Tree alignment is determined based on the location of the tree wrt internationally recognized borders. They're included because Russians keep uploading videos of them hitting random trees and claiming they show destroyed vehicles, and if such videos are ignored, they bitch about bias.

Russians keep uploading videos from Kursk that show them widely miss vehicles or hit random fields, trees, or residential buildings, so it's not like they have an aversion to uploading footage, they just don't seem to be able to find more than a handful of clips that actually show destroyed vehicles. Not even if you assume the videos they upload actually are from the claimed place and time, which they not always are.

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Ukrainian looters in Kursk claim they stole a T-62M​

Allegedly it was the same from a MoD video, but the one in the video doesn't have those markings.
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Full video

Spoiler

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Another Ka-52 lost in Kursk.​

MANPADS at point-blank range...

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Russian tanks now come factory-equipped with rubber sheet armor.​

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Drone on drone combat​

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[MG-34]

Ukrainian looters in Kursk claim they stole a T-62M

It must be such a letdown to loot a tank and realize it's the Armored Vehicle equivalent of a 1996 Geo Metro with an Aliexpress body kit.

 

[TJT]

I am no armor expert but that looks more like a mudflap than actual armor meant to stop explosions. Come now.

The KA-52 with the double set of blades is pretty cool looking though!

 

[Elämällä on väliä]

On twitter we have first videos about inter-russian rapefugees. How to archive twitter shit?

 

[Ghostse]

View attachment 6292550

And this shows the flaw in Russia's EW "strategy" of just spamming frequencies with noise instead of properly attempting to jam communications: that jamming also fucks your C&C and if the enemy forces you into those ranges you have the problems Russian forces are seeing: turn off your EW protection or lose your drones.

Russian incompetence; they should have been bombed into road pizza by the entire Russkie air force or shelled to shit by the 2nd line of defenses.

Due to Russian inaccuracy, doing that would require flying close to the targets to have any hope of actually hit them.

Russia pilots are terrified of going up against F-16s on equal footing. The last time Russian pilots went up against a peer airpower was Korea (and possibly, Vietnam) and neither of those would be cause for confidence on the Russia side - North Vietnam's air victories were mostly GTA or MiGs hitting jetbombers. Their record against Corsair IIs and F-4 was.... ungood. And in Korea, despite having the jet with the better stats, their best foreign export aces got punk'd again and again. (and then strafed by their own wingmen to avoid scandal)

Even in Ukraine with something like 4 and 5 to 1 advantages they were getting rocked. Their training is lacking and they know it.
Now tbch in the current environment there like 10 F-16s and probably not a massive quantity of stand-off range missiles (which is what Ukraine would be using, they don't want to break their new toys yet) so they aren't really that big of a threat and I think the Russian pilots/air command would realize that if they stepped, but they are very much in an Anti-finding out mode, so aren't fucking around.


Russia is having problems sourcing SPGs, and what they do have is in the south trying to grind out another meter of territory. It'll take them the better part of a week to redeploy.

Russian tanks now come factory-equipped with rubber sheet armor.

I am no armor expert but that looks more like a mudflap than actual armor meant to stop explosions. Come now.

I think that's a drone-excluder flap. I have seen videos of FPVs flying up through the gaps in the cope-cage. Those would be cheap and to heavy for a drone to "push".

 

[draggs]

I mean despite a ridiculously massive numerical advantage in air-superiority fighters, SAMs, and bombs/missiles to hit airfields, Russia hasn't destroyed the hohol chair force in 2 and a half years of war, and now the F-16s are coming in. Russia doesn't have the doctrine or enough competent men to carry it out for the F-16s to get taken care of ezpz no matter how much vatniggers scratch their armpits and beat their chests

 

[TJT]

Pretty fascinating to see the evolution of the cope cage. Those steepled cages are clearly meant to make bombs roll off onto the ground rather than sit on top of the cage and explode. In addition to the droneflaps that Ghoatse pointed out.

These are way more advanced and built to purpose than the full enclosures the Russians had built in the field a year ago.

All of those crazy designs and jerry rigged contraptions we see posted around are the real time evolution in adapting to the drone threat.

 

[Ghostse]

Also, A-10tards, I would like to formally apologize. This would have been a perfect environment for the A-10 to operate in:
Russian Airforce hasn't been redeployed (yet) and is being kept at stand-off range (so far), minimal modern AAD, lots of thinskinned military vehicles in neat little rows.

In my defense, there was no way to figure Ukraine was going to do their next Thunderrun to Moscow.

 

[Dawdler]

Of course, the loss of even a few districts did not change much for them, but the tearful appeals of Russian women flying around the Runet about how Sudzha is being destroyed by bombs and how refugees are not provided with help are destroying confidence in the Russian junta.

As for gas supplies, currently the only ones using the point in Sudzha (contrary to what is written in the safe space for snowniggers, the measuring point in Sudzha is one of the last active gas export points) are Hungary, Slovakia and Austria. Just over 5% of the EU population, even less economically, and it is not the case that the point in Sudzha provided them with 100% of their needs.

In general, contrary to what Russian propaganda says, Russian raw materials were not critically needed by Europe. It's a bit like John Brown (Russia) running a shop (selling gas and oil) in some town and claiming that if it weren't for him, people (EU) would starve because they buy 60% of their needs from him.

I'd say, I agree completely. However, people are missing out on the fact that RU gov has complete control on media and will spin it any direction they like. This is just an excuse for even higher mobilization. That gas was mostly for HU and some of it for Austria via hubs. It's not an immense number but 5% is a lot of economy and people being cold is bad for elections.
Materials for europe - weren't needed in a way, that they can be replaced, but the cheap russian gas enabled cheap transport, export and heating. A lot of EU industry runs on gas and it was advertised as clean green source ... until the war.

kacapniggers value only one thing - the total area of controlled land. Having over 17 millions square kilometers wasnt fucking enough for them, so they came for Ukraine, instead of, you know, going and fucking developing their wilderness. Especially Far East - northern Kamchatka, southern Chukotka and interior of Khabarovsk Krai are so absurdly remote and uninhabited one can assume anime girls with wings coexist with dragons and have only 50% chances of being wrong. Millions of square kilometers ready to be invested in, yet they are too fucking dumb, chinks must do that for them. At least Stalin cared about these regions in a sick way (gulags), now it's all deserted and dead.

At times like that I hope I have live long enough to see "Russian Defensive War against the Chinese Invasion" thread.

That land was "developed" with meat from europe. EUSSSR had work camps as well. Lots of waterways were made by basic manpower, people worked 24/3 and when they collapsed in few days they were just shot. Officials found out it's cheaper that way than to provide them food, given the inexhaustable supply of war prisoners. Factories were moved east before, out of range of Axis bombers, then post war moved back, as the cost of transport was too great. Land in russia is overall useless, it's a giant swamp half of year and frozen wasteland the other half. Russia can afford to loose territory, it's severely reduced since USSR fell appart, a bit of hohol invasion is meaningless to the greater picture.

 

[Corette]

That land was "developed" with meat from europe. EUSSSR had work camps as well. Lots of waterways were made by basic manpower, people worked 24/3 and when they collapsed in few days they were just shot. Officials found out it's cheaper that way than to provide them food, given the inexhaustable supply of war prisoners. Factories were moved east before, out of range of Axis bombers, then post war moved back, as the cost of transport was too great. Land in russia is overall useless, it's a giant swamp half of year and frozen wasteland the other half. Russia can afford to loose territory, it's severely reduced since USSR fell appart, a bit of hohol invasion is meaningless to the greater picture.

While we agree that Russia could get whole lot smaller; I think that their decision makers don't share that mindset, they're likely to go for all out counterattack to save face.

 

[TJT]

The Ukrainian excursion to Kursk is, at best, an impromptu sightseeing tour. Best case scenario they use their limited armaments to destroy some infrastructure worth more than nothing. A random house on the way to Kursk would be an example of destroying nothing of any real value.

You can argue that it is an "optics failure" or some shit but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. When the sleepy Russians eventually react to it they will be cut off with no possibility of escape then get killed or captured.

That's the cold hard reality of it. All it did was create a media blitz to gaslight people.

 

[Elämällä on väliä]

I'd say, I agree completely. However, people are missing out on the fact that RU gov has complete control on media and will spin it any direction they like. This is just an excuse for even higher mobilization. That gas was mostly for HU and some of it for Austria via hubs. It's not an immense number but 5% is a lot of economy and people being cold is bad for elections.
Materials for europe - weren't needed in a way, that they can be replaced, but the cheap russian gas enabled cheap transport, export and heating. A lot of EU industry runs on gas and it was advertised as clean green source ... until the war.

Not really.

Let's start with electoral issues: Slovakia is shortly after the elections (the option that did not support military support for Ukraine won), Hungary is Orban's semi-dictatorship (it also does not support supporting Ukraine) and Austria is a military neutral country (and its support is also symbolic). Generally speaking, not much can happen there politically, Hungary tried to block EU aid to Ukraine and... well, let's just say they didn't really succeed.

Next, there is the issue of the price of Russian gas: it is not and has not been significantly cheaper than imported from other directions. Generally, the change in gas prices is more noticeable for the German industry, but it does not cause any HURR DURR economic crash, it only slightly reduced the profits of large consumer chemical concerns (this is important) such as BASF. In general, it is unnoticeable, the printed pile of EUR and some national currencies has a worse impact on the EU economy (although it is also small), the biggest problems are the terrible costs of real estate (including commercial ones) and shortages in the labor force (unemployment in the EU is usually of a structural or social nature: some population groups do not have the qualifications needed to work, or they stubbornly live in Spanish or Greek rural areas (where the unemployment problem is the biggest).

Next, the issue of heating is a huge issue. Eastern European heating is still largely based on coal, wood, bio-waste or heating with waste heat from electricity production. Gas is important, but it's not like any big city will either get supplies of Russian gas or freeze. Additionally, gas transmission networks in the EU are interconnected, and if necessary, gas can be pumped from one country to another.

The biggest problem with the lack of Russian raw materials are Hungarian refineries - small, old, producing mainly for the needs of the MOL corporation, but... these are Hungary's problems. And Hungary doesn't support Ukraine anyway.

tl;dr: If this gas pipeline blows up at all, the blow will hit only the Hungarian economy and two small economies that do not support Ukraine.

@TJT

Yea, for sure. AS we know, the Russian attacks moving part of the front by 50-100 meters after month-long assaults costing thousands of Russian lives on the eastern steppe are DECISIVE AND CRUSHING ATTACKS, and the Ukrainian incursion of 30 kilometers is an insignificant episode.

It is also obvious that for the first time in 900 days of war there will be an encirclement of some forces.

 

[ComeOnDuder]

The Ukrainian excursion to Kursk is, at best, an impromptu sightseeing tour. Best case scenario they use their limited armaments to destroy some infrastructure worth more than nothing. A random house on the way to Kursk would be an example of destroying nothing of any real value.

You can argue that it is an "optics failure" or some shit but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. When the sleepy Russians eventually react to it they will be cut off with no possibility of escape then get killed or captured.

That's the cold hard reality of it. All it did was create a media blitz to gaslight people.

Maybe. Overall it shows another failure for Russia. Casual observer of both threads and the war in general.

Winning Kyiv was a big success. However this ongoing struggle in the 'Oblast' or whatever it is called might be a good tell for what is to come.

Any news on the internal politics of the Russian government and its people in regards to the conscripts? From my understanding some soldiers were killed and they were not supposed to be seeing combat. I don't understand why these particular soldiers are held to such high regard.

 

[Corette]

When the sleepy Russians eventually react to it they will be cut off with no possibility of escape then get killed or captured.

Expedition of tens of kilometers from Ukrainian border is hardly a re-enacment of Napoleon's march to Moscow.
Though when Ruskies deign to awaken someone could tell them that there's a war going on.