For Those Who Might Be Wondering Why We Might Be In Ukraine

Azov South reports that between 50-70% of residents of the Belgorod region' have left, Panic among the population is growing.
Governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov. Economically, Belgorod is a big contributor to the Russian economy, with a population of around 350,000

Around 170,000 refugees are currently evacuating from Kursk - this is only going to add to that,

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I have been extremely impressed with ChloeTzang. I am therefore mystified by her support for the war in Ukraine. Those of us who are old enough to remember when the Berlin wall fell are unable to understand why America's insane government is so eager to not just revive the cold war but provoke a nuclear war.

A little remembered factor is that when German reunification was pending, there was considerably consternation about Germany remaining in NATO. President Eisenhower would have resolved the issue by disbanding NATO. Eisenhower had stated that if US troops remained in Europe a decade after NATO was established, then NATO would have been a failure. President George H W Bush understood the issues extremely well. G H W Bush negotiated a peaceful resolution by assuring the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand "one inch Eastwards" beyond Germany.

Just a few years later President Clinton who had zero foreign policy or military expertise much less experience, was invoking the insane "duty to protect" doctrine as a pretext to bomb ethnic Slavs into the stoneage so that the Jihadists of Bosnia could impose Sharia law on them. This became the pretext to relentlessly expand NATO Eastward, bringing American nuclear missiles closer and closer to Moscow. Now America is supplying Zelenski, the comedian who is most famous for playing the piano with his penis, with nuclear capable, F-16 fighter bombers!

Putin is crushing this incursion into Russia as I write. When he is finished, he will have absolutely overwhelming political support to utterly destroy Ukraine. There will be no negotiated settlement. Recognizing the autonomy of the ethnic Russian, Russian speaking populations of Crimea and the Donbass will be insufficient as a concession. Russia will insist on not only controlling Ukraine but Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, but annexing portions of Poland to regain a contiguous connection to Kalingrad.

If people on this forum had brains, they'd be digging fallout shelters.
 
I have been extremely impressed with ChloeTzang. I am therefore mystified by her support for the war in Ukraine. Those of us who are old enough to remember when the Berlin wall fell are unable to understand why America's insane government is so eager to not just revive the cold war but provoke a nuclear war.

A little remembered factor is that when German reunification was pending, there was considerably consternation about Germany remaining in NATO. President Eisenhower would have resolved the issue by disbanding NATO. Eisenhower had stated that if US troops remained in Europe a decade after NATO was established, then NATO would have been a failure. President George H W Bush understood the issues extremely well. G H W Bush negotiated a peaceful resolution by assuring the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand "one inch Eastwards" beyond Germany.

Just a few years later President Clinton who had zero foreign policy or military expertise much less experience, was invoking the insane "duty to protect" doctrine as a pretext to bomb ethnic Slavs into the stoneage so that the Jihadists of Bosnia could impose Sharia law on them. This became the pretext to relentlessly expand NATO Eastward, bringing American nuclear missiles closer and closer to Moscow. Now America is supplying Zelenski, the comedian who is most famous for playing the piano with his penis, with nuclear capable, F-16 fighter bombers!

Putin is crushing this incursion into Russia as I write. When he is finished, he will have absolutely overwhelming political support to utterly destroy Ukraine. There will be no negotiated settlement. Recognizing the autonomy of the ethnic Russian, Russian speaking populations of Crimea and the Donbass will be insufficient as a concession. Russia will insist on not only controlling Ukraine but Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, but annexing portions of Poland to regain a contiguous connection to Kalingrad.

If people on this forum had brains, they'd be digging fallout shelters.
I can't possibly agree more, very well stated.....👍👍👍👍
As for Chloe..... she's doing remarkable work, I'm also impressed ....you go girl...her posts help me to stay centered, and to question my sources
 
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Go to the Military Summary channel on YouTube for even handed daily reports on battlefield conditions in Ukraine.
I’ve been watching the videos, makes your eyes glaze over. It’s hard to get a sense of who’s winning and who’s losing. I’ll keep viewing, maybe they’ll show a general strategy in this assault in Russia.
 
I’ve been watching the videos, makes your eyes glaze over. It’s hard to get a sense of who’s winning and who’s losing. I’ll keep viewing, maybe they’ll show a general strategy in this assault in Russia.
Troops are being moved there from offensive fronts in Ukraine. The strategy appears to be to put Russian troops into defensive mode so Ukranians can go on offense. It is shifting the dynamics, though unclear whether it's working as much as they'd like.

From initial reports, it does seem to have taken them by surprise.
 
I’ve been watching the videos, makes your eyes glaze over. It’s hard to get a sense of who’s winning and who’s losing. I’ll keep viewing, maybe they’ll show a general strategy in this assault in Russia.
It goes into boring detail but I find it provides fair balance of activity on the field for both sides. It also shows the hopelessness of the Ukrainian effort along the line of contact. His accent drives me crazy as well, but it is what it is. You'll get more truth there than you will in our media. You come to realize as well that this war is small unit warfare because large infantry and armored formations are easily seen and targeted. The map has changed little in three years.
 
I found this fascinating - something I didn't realize. Ukrainian troops moving thru Kursk Oblast, and finding the locals are actually Ukrainian and speak Ukrainian. And listen to the old lady calling out Slava Ukraini! Very moving. Hold a referendum here and these people would probably opt to be part of Ukraine. Kursk and other border regions were part of the People's Republic of Ukraine till they were stolen by the Bolsheviks in the 1921 war and after the reconquest and occupation of Ukraine. If you look at the map below, these are all ethnically Ukrainian areas, including the Kuban. These are the borders proposed in 1919, there are variations of these. But Kursk and Bilhorod are 100% Ukrainian territory. Perhaps it's time to rethink whether the Kerch bridge should be destroyed.


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It goes into boring detail but I find it provides fair balance of activity on the field for both sides. It also shows the hopelessness of the Ukrainian effort along the line of contact. His accent drives me crazy as well, but it is what it is. You'll get more truth there than you will in our media. You come to realize as well that this war is small unit warfare because large infantry and armored formations are easily seen and targeted. The map has changed little in three years.
It seems to show the complexities of drone warfare. Ya can’t win a land battle with highly expensive armor and artillery without air superiority and stealth. I still think Ukraine is taking one hell of a risk of overstretching their logistical capabilities on a ruse.
 
Kursk citizens claim that many Russian volunteers are switching to the Ukrainian side. They are fed up with their government not caring about people unless they're from Moscow or St. Petersburg.Some Russian soldiers were killed, some were captured, and some started fighting against Russian forces. That does NOT look good for the Kremlin's rat.

 
I found this fascinating - something I didn't realize. Ukrainian troops moving thru Kursk Oblast, and finding the locals are actually Ukrainian and speak Ukrainian. And listen to the old lady calling out Slava Ukraini! Very moving. Hold a referendum here and these people would probably opt to be part of Ukraine. Kursk and other border regions were part of the People's Republic of Ukraine till they were stolen by the Bolsheviks in the 1921 war and after the reconquest and occupation of Ukraine. If you look at the map below, these are all ethnically Ukrainian areas, including the Kuban. These are the borders proposed in 1919, there are variations of these. But Kursk and Bilhorod are 100% Ukrainian territory. Perhaps it's time to rethink whether the Kerch bridge should be destroyed.


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Interesting! I can’t even begin to understand a path forward or a battle plan. Ukraine can only win this war with total involvement by NATO forces. Russia needs to suffer from constant massive overhead bombings raids and a valid threat to Moscow itself.. The Ukrainian forces just don’t have the logistical capacity to probe, sustain and keep territory.. unlike what I was led to believe earlier, they don’t have an air force worth a shit and they don’t have the time to train them on newer stuff. How many Russian mothers have lost sons in this Putin testosterone crisis. In Iraq towns like Fallujah our military surrounded the town denying terrorist reinforcements then sent in door kickers in bloody CQC but when our troops cleaned house we owned the town, we took heavy losses even with overwhelming military superiority. This Ukraine war is like two hammers pounding each other mercilessly, where one hammer holds all the cards. IMHO
 
Kursk citizens claim that many Russian volunteers are switching to the Ukrainian side. They are fed up with their government not caring about people unless they're from Moscow or St. Petersburg.Some Russian soldiers were killed, some were captured, and some started fighting against Russian forces. That does NOT look good for the Kremlin's rat.

Very well said.
The battle lines are as arbitrary and nebulous as the battle lines in the American civil war. Almost all involved are ethnic Slavs. I would have been extremely content to encourage Ukraine and ALL of the former Warsaw Pact to remain neutral. I also would have had America withdraw from NATO. (This is from a former Cold Warrior who used to do nuclear targeting studies.). Finland, Sweden and Austria are prime examples of how this could work. This would have established a true NEUTRAL ZONE that would provide BOTH sides with over a thousand miles of strategic depth. (This is unlike the Star Trek neutral zone with the Romulans that appears to be just a border that can be so easily crossed as a result of a minor navigational error.)

Russia has enormous problems not just with the former Soviet but not Russian Republics but with ethnic and cultural minorities within the Russian Federation. Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hadn't conspired with a Samantha Powers and Victoria Nuland to foment a coup to overthrow the constitutional elected President. Nuland even got herself videos handing out cookies to the protestors. Nuland also got her cell phone tapped as she was dictating who should be in the cabinet of the provisional government.

The thing to remember is that while Russia's nuclear arsenal is much smaller than it used to be, it wouldn't take more than a few hundred nukes to de-energize and deindustrialize America. Only a hundred, medium yield nukes would be sufficient to destroy about 90% of America's oil refining capacity. America has no realistic plans to reconstitute these industries. With no industry to support food production and transportation, most of the population would die within a year. Afte the Berlin Wall fell, Russia resisted the instinctive impulse to launch a strategic nuclear strike before they lost control of most of their ICBMs that were stationed in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Why the FUCK are we trying to push their backs to the wall and provoke them into going nuclear on us now?
 
Very well said.
The battle lines are as arbitrary and nebulous as the battle lines in the American civil war. Almost all involved are ethnic Slavs. I would have been extremely content to encourage Ukraine and ALL of the former Warsaw Pact to remain neutral. I also would have had America withdraw from NATO. (This is from a former Cold Warrior who used to do nuclear targeting studies.). Finland, Sweden and Austria are prime examples of how this could work. This would have established a true NEUTRAL ZONE that would provide BOTH sides with over a thousand miles of strategic depth. (This is unlike the Star Trek neutral zone with the Romulans that appears to be just a border that can be so easily crossed as a result of a minor navigational error.).....


I see a whole range of factors here, amongst them that every country who neighbors the Russians, when the chips are down, dislikes them intensely, if not hates them for their history - Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians all had their own holocausts at the hands of the Russians. Finland escaped that fate, but only by fighting two horrendous wars (the Winter War and the Continuation War) to keep themselves free of the Russians. Don't ask the Circassians, they were almost exterminated. The Crimean Tatars? All shipped to Siberia. Poland? The atrocities on Poles carried out by the Russians both historically and in WW2 and the aftermath were unspeakable. I never met by great-grandfather, but he was Polish and to him, "Russians" was a curse. Personally, speaking as someone whose family on my dad's side was Polish and from the countryside outside of Lvov, in what is now Ukraine, I have a really intense dislike of Russians, particularly after they started this war.

Ukrainians above all have good reason to hate the Russians. The Holodomor killed more Ukrainians than the Nazis killed Jews in WW2. The nazis were tried in courts, jailed, executed and their crimes documented and publicized world wide. The Holodomor? No Russians have ever been punished for those crimes, and now it's far too late, but still, as with the Katyn massacre, the Russians refuse to atone for their crimes, or even admit they existed. Instead, they are going all out to commit another Holodomor on Ukrainians and indeed, Putin's stated objective is to extinguish the Ukraine as a country. As for enutrality and Russia, it's impossible to be neutral. For Austria maybe, they have no border with Russia - but note how Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia joined NATO as quickly as they could. Note how Poland did so to, and how Poland is rebuilding their armed forces to a size where they CAN take on Russia. Because it's not to fight the Germans.

Witness Sweden and Finland joining NATO. Sweden has been neutral since the Napoleonic Wars, and Russia managed to eliminate that neutrality. And what did neutrality, or even trying to reach accommodations with Russia get Georgia? Land graps. What did Russia's "friendship" get Armenia. Nada. Before this war, most Ukrainians wanted an association with the EU but joining NATO wasn't really a thing that had support before 2014, but grabbing Crimea and the Donbas and Luhansk, in all of which areas a majority voted for Ukraine pushed more Ukrainians into separating from Russian.

And after the last two and a half years, it's no use wishing to go back to what was. Ukraine is opting out of EVERYTHING Russian. Ukrainians who spoke Russian as their 1st language are opting to learn Ukrainian and Russian as a second language is fast vanishing. The Russian Orthodox Church is being banned, anything Russian is fast vanishing from Ukraine and that is by popular choice. Even the railway lines are being changed to the European gauge, and I understand there's a move to adopt the Roman alphabet. EU membership is being fast-tracked, and NATO will come. There will NEVER be a netral zone now. Putin has made sure of that, and he may well have ensured that rather than the Greater Russia of his daydreams, he's destroyed the Russian Federation as well.

Which in all honesty, would probably now be the best outcome. Russia is one of the world's last colonial empires, and there are a dozen ethnic states that stand to emerge from it's distintegration. The Siberian ethnic states to start with, the Volga-Finnic regions of Mari El and Mordovia. Chechyna. Dagestan, and the rest. Look at the oblasts in the map below - Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod, Voronezh and Rostov + the Kuban across to the Caspian and down to the mini-states of the Caucasus are Ukrainian and given a choice would likely opt to join Ukraine. Komo is NOT Russian. A large part of Karelia is Finnish - and before WW1, St Petersburg was 25% Finnish and the countryside of Ingria, around St Petersburg, was almost 100% Finns. Stalin dealt with that by sending them all to Siberia, but....

When you get to the core of Russia, it's a state about the same geographical size as Ukraine with a population of maybe 110-120,000,000. By comparison there are 85 million Germans, 37 million Poles, 40 million Ukrainians - about the same as California. The true Russia is just another average European country, albeit with a slightly larger population but a shit economy. Strip away Siberia and a lot of the resources that the kleptocrats loot and steal are gone.

Best solution is break up the Russian Federation, strip away the nukes, send the war criminals to the Hague and denazify the country, altho a lot of that is tied to Russian nationalism.

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They're back!!!!!! Ukrainian Farmers and their Tractors are being drafted into service in Kursk. Here, Ukrainian tractor is advancing at 70 km/h into the Kursk region to help evacuate captured Russian armored vehicles, according to the 225th Separate Assault Battalion. Apparently the Ukrainians have captured so much Russian military equipment that the usual Army recovery vehicles are unable to keep up. Ukrainian farmers are again being asked to assist and, as they did in 2022, they and their tractors are answering the call.....

Slava Ukraini!!! Slava Tractors!!!!

 
It's like something out of Junkyard Wars....Inside Kursk Oblast - a wild looking S-60 57mm AA technical based on what looks like Onezhets tractor chassis in service with Russian forces in Ukraine.

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They're back!!!!!! Ukrainian Farmers and their Tractors are being drafted into service in Kursk. Here, Ukrainian tractor is advancing at 70 km/h into the Kursk region to help evacuate captured Russian armored vehicles, according to the 225th Separate Assault Battalion. Apparently the Ukrainians have captured so much Russian military equipment that the usual Army recovery vehicles are unable to keep up. Ukrainian farmers are again being asked to assist and, as they did in 2022, they and their tractors are answering the call.....

Slava Ukraini!!! Slava Tractors!!!!

The real problem that both Reichy and Becky have is that they want Russia to win, even though they say they don't. So when news breaks against Russia, they get tripped up on their messages.

Your posts have really slowed down their contributions because their desired outcome is more in question and they don't want to admit it
 
The real problem that both Reichy and Becky have is that they want Russia to win, even though they say they don't. So when news breaks against Russia, they get tripped up on their messages.

Your posts have really slowed down their contributions because their desired outcome is more in question and they don't want to admit it

Makes for some interesting debates though, and it makes for some interesting topics to work through. F16's for example. Not to mention logistics, military equipment supply, etc etc etc. The equipment coming through is now also being handled way more discreetly than it used to be. Used to be a big sng and dance when new IFV's were shipped in, but now it's crickets half the time. No idea what the Finns and Swedes have sent for example, and they keep it fairly quiet.
 
Makes for some interesting debates though, and it makes for some interesting topics to work through. F16's for example. Not to mention logistics, military equipment supply, etc etc etc. The equipment coming through is now also being handled way more discreetly than it used to be. Used to be a big sng and dance when new IFV's were shipped in, but now it's crickets half the time. No idea what the Finns and Swedes have sent for example, and they keep it fairly quiet.
Yah, I think Ukraine has learned silence is the better strategy
 
Yah, I think Ukraine has learned silence is the better strategy
And much better at OpSec. Specifically not letting the US know at all. Our Admin and the Pentagon leak like a sieve. They're getting more professional at all this all the time - guess experience is a harsh teacher.
 
This article illustrates something I mentioned in an earlier post, which is that an immediate consequence of Putin's War is to accelerate the momentum behind Ukraine turning it's back on Russia and integrating more and more closely with the rest of Europe. Note "interoperability" and "physically" - physically is the big thing - that's the changeover from Russian gauge to European gauge, and that will completely divorce Ukraine from Russia's rail network. A big think, because right now, Russia is using Ukraine's railways lines for logistics. Change gauge and that becomes next to impossible.

A further step towards the technical harmonisation of the railway systems of Ukraine and the European Union has been taken with the signing of an administrative arrangement by the Ministry of Communities, Territories & Infrastructure Development and the EU Agency for Railways. ERA will provide expertise to support Ukraine in becoming part of the Single European Railway Area, with structured exchanges on topics including safety, interoperability and train driving legislation. A steering committee will set priorities in support of the overall objectives.

‘The development of the Ukrainian railway is one of the prerequisites for full-fledged transport integration into the EU’, Deputy Minister Serhiy Derkach said on August 8. ‘We have several challenges in this regard, but with the support of ERA, we will be able to work together to adapt the Ukrainian railway to European standards, both physically and in terms of regulations.’



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https://www.railwaygazette.com/poli...harmonisation-support-agreement/67116.article
 
The war in Ukraine is one that Putin cannot now win. The Russians might make minor gains in the Donbas if they can keep up the attacks they are carrying out, but the attrition rate is high and as the ZSU gets more and more newer equipment, trains new units and retrains old, that attrition rate will worsen and Russia's ability to counter Ukrainian counter-attacks, as in Kursk, will worsen. The only real question now is just when the Russian Army will break.

Worsening the situation for Russia, is that by the end of this year, the first locally-produced Lynx infantry fighting vehicles from a new Rheinmetall plant inside Ukraine will be rolling out of the plant. No further details were shared about the vehicle. However, the report mentioned a ramp up in military vehicle production in Ukraine and from earlier reports the goal is to build hundreds of these. One of the key principles of the Lynx concept is the integration of proven sub-systems with a high technology readiness level to reduce development time, cost and technical risk, meaning it can be built quickly from existing components. It's also very modularized, which is likely why production has been able to be ramped up so quickly. Depending on the version and configuration, the IFV model can carry between six and ten personnel. It also comes with a 30mm gun and add-on weapons systems. Pretty lethal piece of equipment. Rheinmetall plans to provide several hundred Lynx vehicles to Ukraine.

Rheinmetall's CEO noted an increase in the speed of production and delivery, with projects that previously took a decade now being completed in a few months. A new ammunition factory exemplifies this increased efficiency, aiming to ensure supply security. When this contract was signed, Papperger mentioned that the first Fuchs IFV (a 6 wheeled IFV) should be ready in Ukraine within six to seven months, and the first KF41 Lynx within twelve to thirteen months. Production in Ukraine is projected to start by the end of summer 2024 for the Fuchs, and possibly by summer 2025 for the Lynx - so it looks like the Lynx is well ahead of schedule. We should be seeing Fuchs soon too.

Now, add in that the Netherlands will deliver the first Dutch-built and financed BAE Systems CV90 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine in 2026. The intention is to supply "dozens" of CV90's to Ukraine, in addition to the 50 already provided. Additionally, Sweden previously announced they are sending their entire stock of existing PBV 302 armored tracked personnel carriers to aid in the reconstruction of Ukraine’s military brigades. These are already available and are likely already their or on their way, and there were a couple of hundred of these available, including the entire stock of spare parts. It's an older piece of equipment, an M113 analog, but its there and available for immediate handoff.

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It seems to show the complexities of drone warfare. Ya can’t win a land battle with highly expensive armor and artillery without air superiority and stealth. I still think Ukraine is taking one hell of a risk of overstretching their logistical capabilities on a ruse.
Ground warfare has changed and the WWII mindset and the strategies and orders of battle around it are being challenged by technology. As mentioned, persistent overhead surveillance and integrated targeting systems change everything. The days of operating between satellite orbits are over. The problem now is how to analyze in real-time the unbelievable amounts of data that these systems are capable of collecting. The contributing agencies are the NRO, NSA, NGA, CIA, and the DIA. Space is the ultimate high ground and may itself be the next battlefield.
 
Ground warfare has changed and the WWII mindset and the strategies and orders of battle around it are being challenged by technology. As mentioned, persistent overhead surveillance and integrated targeting systems change everything. The days of operating between satellite orbits are over. The problem now is how to analyze in real-time the unbelievable amounts of data that these systems are capable of collecting. The contributing agencies are the NRO, NSA, NGA, CIA, and the DIA. Space is the ultimate high ground and may itself be the next battlefield.
Somewhere recently I read a really good writeup on how the ZSU managed the attack in Kursk - I'll see if I can find it again.
 
Meanwhile in Kursk Oblast, Ukrainian soldiers are reviewing Russian restaurants on Google....

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