Quote:THE DISAPPOINTING pace of Ukraine’s counter-offensive has been the focus of international headlines for weeks. For Anastasia Zamula the consequences have been more tangible. Ms Zamula is a co-founder of Cvit (Blossom), an all-women volunteer organisation that supports Ukrainian units on the front line. Her crowdfunding appeals have struggled as hopes of a quick breakthrough have dwindled. Now she says her attention is devoted to counselling exhausted troops whenever she sees them. “The idea of a counter-offensive is bliss when you talk about it from an armchair,” she says. “It’s much harder when you understand that it means darkness, death and despair.”

The public mood is sombre. Criticism of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president, has increased, and the reasons for the dissatisfaction are clear. Having once promised a march to Crimea, occupied and annexed by Russia since 2014, the political leadership in Kyiv now emphasises more realistic expectations. “We have no right to criticise the military sitting here in Kyiv,” says Serhiy Leshchenko, a spokesman in the presidential office. He likened frustration with the speed of the counter-offensive to impatient customers waiting for their iced lattes in the capital’s many hipster cafes. “This isn’t a horse you can whip to go faster. Every metre forward has its price in blood.”



Ukraine’s leadership is particularly frustrated that Western equipment has not yet arrived in its promised numbers. It is “upsetting…and demotivating,” Mr Leshchenko says. Equivocation among allies about the supply of newer weapons, and the prospect of America re-electing Donald Trump next year, have added to Ukrainian anxieties. A source in the general staff says that Ukraine has received just 60 Leopard tanks, despite the promise of hundreds. Demining vehicles are particularly scarce. “We simply don’t have the resources to do the frontal attacks that the West is imploring us to do,” says the source.

Lack of air cover is another difficulty. The source adds that Ukraine’s army was never blind to the challenges of breaching Russian minefields and defence lines without air superiority. (On August 20th the Dutch and Danish prime ministers said they would donate up to 61 of the jets, starting in the new year.) For that reason the military leadership delayed the counter-offensive as long as it could. After a disastrous start in early June, when two Western-trained brigades lost an uncomfortable number of men and equipment in minefields, the initial plans were adjusted. Ukraine has since prioritised preserving its army. “We no longer plan operations that presuppose large losses,” says the source. “The emphasis is now on degrading the enemy: artillery, drones, electronic warfare and so on.”


In recent days Ukraine’s armed forces have made important advances in the crucial southern theatre, and may have breached enough minefields to reach the first of three lines of Russian fortifications in several locations. They have also degraded Russia’s operational reserve and logistics. Still, two-and-a-half months in, Ukraine remains a long way off its strategic goal of nearing the Azov sea—and thus cutting Russia’s seized land corridor to Crimea—before the rains of late October, when mud will make for much harder going.

The grim mood is spilling over into Ukraine’s politics, which have been on hold for much of the war. Rumours have circulated all summer that Mr Zelensky’s office may call early parliamentary and presidential elections. The logic is that it is better for him to seek re-election while still a national hero, rather than after being forced into peace talks that might require an unpopular ceasefire or major territorial concessions. “Any election, if it happens, would be a referendum on Zelensky,” says Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst. “Apart from [commander-in-chief Valery] Zaluzhny, who is busy running the war, he currently has no obvious competitor. Zelensky’s team understands that could change.”

Conducting an election during a war, with up to 6m Ukrainian citizens living outside the country and hundreds of thousands fighting away from home, would be complex. And martial law precludes elections, meaning parliament would have to approve a change in electoral rules. The talk was initially of holding both elections this autumn, but it is now almost certainly too late for that—indeed, sources close to the presidential office insist the idea has been ruled out. In any case, polling suggests that Mr Zelensky’s team would have trouble persuading citizens of the need for an early vote. “There just isn’t a demand for it,” says Lubomyr Mysyv of Rating, a Kyiv-based sociological group. “The population is confused by the very idea.”

In the absence of a military breakthrough, peace negotiations with Russia would be an even harder sell. True, there have been some signs of a shift in mood, in unexpected quarters. In early August a Ukrainian sniper fighting north-west of Bakhmut made waves by dismissing the prospect of Ukraine ever regaining its full territory. He suggested that many soldiers would now welcome a ceasefire—a notion that would once have been unthinkable. But for now, few would agree. Too much blood has been spilt. “Any peace now is delayed war,” says the general-staff source. “Why hand the problem to the next generation?”

Many of Ukraine’s young are, of course, already bearing the burden of a war that has no end in sight. For young men, in constant danger of being served conscription papers and sent to the front, the pressure is particularly intense. Those keen to fight volunteered long ago; Ukraine is now recruiting mostly among the unwilling. “It makes the air so thick that you can actually feel it,” says Ms Zamula. Everyone knows that the cost of regained territory is dead soldiers. “Even hoping for success in the counter-offensive has become an act of self-destruction.”

The Economist

• 400,000 Ukrainian Troops | Killed ... In ... Action
  
• Whole units surrendering to the Russians due to an inability to treat and evacuate casualties
  

Quote:If We Press This With Russia, It Will Reach Us Here In The US

"Every claim is false, the last one especially," said Carlson, adding "the Ukrainian army is not winning - in fact, it's losing badly. Ukraine is being destroyed. Its population is being slaughtered."

(08-22-2023, 11:56 AM)Snarl Wrote: Finally ...

Here's a full-bird colonel gonna tell ya the truth about what's going down over there:

• 400,000 Ukrainian Troops | Killed ... In ... Action
  
• Whole units surrendering to the Russians due to an inability to treat and evacuate casualties
  

WTF was this imbecile Biden administration thinking goading this war on from the get-go. I called it out on TOS that effing around with those pipelines was going to end this way. Not even ashamed of being that 'Told You So' guy. 

Quote:If We Press This With Russia, It Will Reach Us Here In The US

"Every claim is false, the last one especially," said Carlson, adding "the Ukrainian army is not winning - in fact, it's losing badly. Ukraine is being destroyed. Its population is being slaughtered."

There was never any question in my mind how Ukraine would fare in a fight with Russia. Tell ya the truth, I can't even say that Russia has been weakened during the fight. And, the lessons they learned will definitely add strength to their tactical experience and strategic planning. Their Russian Army is toughened-up while America's Army is flush with diversity and included people. <chuckle>

I don't want to speculate deeply, but if 'the dumb' happens (like the pipelines), I've got a bad feeling Putin is going to nuke the ever living shit out of Poland. This dumbassedness of handing that leather bikini wearing faggot Zelensky a bunch of F-16s that are 100% capable of zipping (below radar) into and through Russian airspace might be that catalyst. How many American Troops are there in Poland right now? That's right ... we don't know ... but it's more than a couple thousand. Imagine what would happen if they were all ... suddenly snuffed out. You don't think this Biden Administration isn't giddy just waitin' for it to happen?

Considering the other obvious false flags ... Putin didn't take the bait over ... I'm surprised Biden hasn't nuked Poland himself.

Quote:Ukraine’s strike on Rostov-on-Don, a Russian Navy Kilo-class submarine, on September 13 was a major event in the naval war so far. In an instant, one of the four Improved Kilo-class submarines in the Black Sea was taken out of action. This submarine was used to launch Kalibr cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets. Nearby a landing ship, Minsk, was also severely damaged.

Images have been shared online which show the extent of damage. The Russian Ministry of Defense has stated that the submarine will be repaired. This is unrealistic.

The images were shared online by Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group specializing in open source intelligence (OSINT). The images seen, including in this article, have been partially pixelated to protect the source. Naval News has had access to the original unredacted images and can confirm their credibility.

Storm Shadow Strike on Rostov-on-Don

British supplied Storm Shadow, and the essentially identical French supplied SCALP-EG, is an air-launched cruise missile. Ukraine has adapted the Soviet-era Su-24 Fencer jet to carrying two missiles. Russian sources claim that 10 missiles were employed in the attack with 7 intercepted. What is clear is that at least 3 got through, with 1 hitting the submarine and 2 hitting the landing ship.

Storm Shadow uses the BROACH warhead. This stands for Bomb Royal Ordnance Augmented Charge and means a two stage delayed explosion. The missile dives into the target and the first charge creates a hole in the structure for the second warhead to pass through. The main detonation then occurs inside or below the target, depending on the fuse settings.

The warhead likely penetrated the forward hull close to the front end of the pressure hull. The Kilo class is a double-hull submarine with an outer casing enclosing the inner pressure hull. The first stage of the tandem warhead, which is designed to penetrate reinforced concrete, probably drove the missile through both the outer and inner hulls. The main warhead would have them exploded inside the submarine.

Indications of this are visible in the upper casing of the submarine which is peeled back, consistent with an explosion blowing outward. Although the hit was in the torpedo room, that was likely empty. So the explosion will have been from the missile’s own warhead.

Total Devastation

The wrecked outside is only a hint of the damage done inside. We have not seen images of the interior, but we can infer several things. The detonation of the warhead will have gutted the submarine’s innards. Pipes will have been ripped from their supports, valves broken and surfaces buckled. The smoke seen in the photos rising out of the hole on the hull, is evidence that it started one or more fires. These will have melted and fried electrical systems and further damaged the hull separately to the initial hole.

Smoke will have added to the mess and damage. As will the gallons of harbor water which were likely sprayed through the hole in the hull in an effort to extinguish the fire.

Quote:Mobilization in Russia for Oct. 17-18, 2023 CIT Volunteer Summary

It has also been reported about the death of 19-year-old Kirill Kholkin in the war with Ukraine. He joined the war at the age of 18 as a conscript and had to sign a contract while already on the frontline. After being wounded, Kholkin returned to Russia and had no intention of continuing to fight, but military doctors refused to recognize him as disabled. As a result, he went AWOL. The court sentenced Kholkin to five years of probation, allowing him to be sent back to the frontline. In late September, the family was informed that the young man had been killed.

In the Arkhangelsk region, a garrison military court ordered five years of imprisonment for contract soldier Nikita B. for going AWOL. In December 2022, the serviceman, who was due to be deployed to the combat zone, abandoned his unit and fled home, only to be caught by military commandants in May of this year. The defendant fully admitted his guilt, claiming that his actions had been driven by his deteriorating health and delayed wage payments.

The Volgograd Garrison Court found four military personnel guilty of offering bribes to commanders in an attempt to avoid being sent to the war. The bribe amounts ranged from 10,000 [$100] to 150,000 rubles [$1,500]. All the accused, including both contract soldiers and mobilized soldiers, received suspended sentences and fines. The sentences against their commanders are not reported.


The Mozhem Ob'yasnit [We can explain] Telegram channel, based on statistics from the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court, has reported an eightfold increase in the number of Russians convicted of terrorism in 2023. During the first half of 2023, courts issued 39 guilty verdicts under this article. For comparison, in the same period in 2022, five people were convicted. This explosive increase is primarily linked to a wave of arson attacks on draft offices after the onset of the war and the announcement of mobilization. Investigators have increasingly classified these actions as acts of terror. The penalty under this article ranges from 10 to 20 years of imprisonment.

Children

An article in the 'Draft Offices of Russia' magazine discusses a new model of training for young Russians preparing for military service. According to the authors, it should include sports competitions, militarized tourism and parachute jumps. They suggest that retired military officers should be engaged in teaching at schools, while veterans and Cossacks should play a role in patriotic education.

(10-28-2023, 03:43 AM)727Sky Wrote: There are some armies that it would be better to stay home than join