Belarus nutjob FOMO at Kim ‘n Putin.

Lukashenko proposes ‘three-way cooperation’ with Russia and North Korea

Be interesting to see if any other crackpots emerge from the sewers.

Do we know where Ali Khamenei is?

https://x.com/BBCSteveR/status/1702584698487329155?s=20

Reports of Kadyrov being in a coma, did he drink a cuppa Vlad made for him…

Reports of Kadyrov being in a coma, did he drink a cuppa Vlad made for

if true , hes not looked healthy fir a while

I find it remarkable that Putin has any close political associates, considering how many seem to suffer all sorts of unfortunate consequences should they say even the slightest thing out of place.

Wondering just how much longer the Black Sea Fleet can survive as a meaningful force considering the current attrition rate, and the fact that those ships were built in Ukraine, and Russia has no means to replace them itself.

https://kyivindependent.com/military-intelligence-chechen-warlord-kadyrov-in-critical-condition/

Rumors of Kadyrov’s declining health have circulated for months. In March, Kadyrov laughed off the speculation in a Telegram post.

“For those who console themselves with the hope that I am terminally ill, I am sorry to upset you,” Kadyrov said.

According to Obozrevatel’s Chechen sources, Kadyrov has been in a coma for several days and is waiting to be transferred from Chechnya to receive treatment abroad, likely in the United Arab Emirates.

You were saying?
So, nerve agent, radioactive material, Death Cap fungi, blowfish toxin…

Now he’s out of the way, will Chechnya be absorbed into greater Russia, or will a bunch of would-be successor warlords start fighting like cats in a sack in a flooded river, to try to take his place?

interesting kyib independent about russian defensive actics.  obviously bias, but still interesting talks about attrition

https://kyivindependent.com/attrition-shortages-tactical-inconsistency-russian-blunders-on-southern-front/

Black Sea Fleet can survive as a meaningful force considering the current attrition rate

The Russians don’t have a shortage of ships. That Kilo class sun? They have 64 of them. But in the Black sea I agree they have limited assets and can’t bring any more in through the Bosporus. It’s less about attrition I think, but paralysis. They can’t deploy what they do have.

The Russians don’t have a shortage of ships. That Kilo class sun? They have 64 of them. But in the Black sea I agree they have limited assets and can’t bring any more in through the Bosporus. It’s less about attrition I think, but paralysis. They can’t deploy what they do have.

They might have built 64 but they don’t have that many in their fleet.

According to Wiki they have 11, the rest have been sold.

I doubt all 11 of those subs are operational, even in a functioning navy, there is a cycle of maintenance – training – operations.

If you don’t do the first 2 properly, then the operations phase will be a bit lacking.

Reports of Kadyrov being in a coma

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Rumours are that Kadyrov blamed his doctor, who was also his health minister and deputy premier, and consequently had him burried alive. Lovely.

So he is sufficiently non – comatose to have someone buried alive?

He’s been ill and blaming the doctor for a while, i think itd be fair to assume he had that done before falling into a coma.

Not that I actually believe the story yet.

these stories are the sort of thing you’d expect to hear about in the dark ages

these stories are the sort of thing you’d expect to hear about in the dark ages

Quite

these stories are the sort of thing you’d expect to hear about in the dark ages North Korea

NK has history of death by pack of dogs, AA guns and acid baths….

no confirmation yet, but ..

Ukrainian Military Intelligence says they've sunk the Russian Navy ship "Sergey Kotov" in the Black Sea.

According to the representative of the Ukrainian military intelligence, Andrii Yusov. pic.twitter.com/jzrHOZHIIy

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) September 18, 2023

.

Not sunk, probably out of action for a few months

It was attacked on the 14th, after the dry dock/sub attack on the 13th. Back to Russia for repair then…

Only launched a couple of years ago too

I wish they would send The Sergey Lavrov to the bottom of the sea as well…

where can it dock for repairs with svestapol damaged and turkey blocking access to warships?

last time ukraine said they’d sunk a ship, turned out true, so a reasonable chance if it is actually from ukr and not just bloggers.  That’ll be another ship capable of firing cruise missles out of action.

Lots of positive noise on ISW about degrading the russian troops.  Seems bahkmut is seeing another push

The Bahkmut effort is purely to draw Russian resources away. The Ukrainians know that Putin can’t afford to be seen to lose it after they spent an insane amounts of blood and treasure capturing it earlier this year so it’s a diversion he can’t ignore, i.e. the best kind.

The real focus remains Tokmak, which I’ve been banging on about in this thread for a good 9 months now but we do seem to be approaching an inflection point regarding Ukraine’s attempts to take out the rail junction there.

Take out Tokmak and it becomes much, much harder for Russia to hold Crimea, the recent strikes on Russian Naval and air defense assets there suggest that Ukraine is already preparing for that next phase.

Not to say that it is in any way assured that this will happen. The Russian defences North of Tokmak are some of the most formidable on the entire front, it’s going to be seriously grim work and my heart goes out to the brave men and women tasked with this.

Once within HIMARS/Artillery range though, they don’t need to take the city. Smash up the rail junction from 30km away, render it unusable then just bypass it.

155mm artillery is the key, rail lines are by their nature fairly hard to destroy and easy to repair, firing HIMARS at them would be a waste of very expensive and scarce ammo that should be saved for key Russian assets and installations.

The effective range of a 155mm howitzer with the standard ammo that Ukraine has in volume (Yes, I’m wildly generalizing here!) is 13 miles. Any battery firing from within a few miles of the front will be almost certain to be spotted by Russian drones and promptly attract unwanted attention.

For Ukraine these NATO-supplied artillery pieces (especially the self-propelled ones) are immensely precious, they are unlikely to risk then this way.

Realistically the Ukrainians need to get the front within 5-8 miles of the Tokmak before they will be able to lay down sufficient sustained artillery fire to knock out the rail junction in a meaningful way.

Archer/Caesar range is 50km+ with the right ammunition, which we have given them. The superior range of the kit we’ve given them is one of the reasons Ukraine is winning the artillery battle at the moment.

50km+ with the right ammunition

That’d be excaliber rounds, whilst they’re brilliant bits of kit I don’t think Ukr has enough of them for the kind of volume of fire they’re need to put the Tokmak junction out if action for a sustained period.

Also, the Excaliber, in order to fit all the guidance gubbins into a 155mm shell only has a 5.4 KG warhead, whereas the standard M107 unguided shell has a 6.86 KG warhead, so not only are they rare and wildly expensive (€112K each) but they don’t hit nearly as hard.

Interesting, thanks. I assume som3 of the quoted range of Russian gear is about as accurate as most statements from their military??

hatter
Full Member

That’d be excaliber rounds, whilst they’re brilliant bits of kit I don’t think Ukr has enough of them for the kind of volume of fire they’re need to put the Tokmak junction out if action for a sustained period.

Presumably though you don’t have to destroy a rail line to make it unusable? Just demonstrating the capacity to hit it reliably on demand could make it unviable?

I would have thought that partisans/sabotage would be effective against railway infrastructure.

I’d like to think that if that was the case the Ukrainians would have have happily HIMARS’d or sabotaged it long before now and they wouldn’t currently be pouring human lives and precious resources into the Zaporizhzhia front in order to inch closer to Tokmak so they can bring it within mass artillery range.

Interesting, thanks. I assume som3 of the quoted range of Russian gear is about as accurate as most statements from their military??

Some of their artillery is worn and won’t be either accurate or have max range. Russia has problems replacing the barrels because the necessary steel is difficult to make.

Older artillery pieces and tanks in the gunnery role tell a tale of both destruction and wear.

NK can provide a million rounds but that will only cause further problems

EDIT Google says that this has been a problem for 12 months

where can it dock for repairs with svestapol damaged and turkey blocking access to warships?

Russia has facilities about 100 miles up the coast. I don’t know whether they’re up to the scale of repairs needed

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the shift in balance of power in the Black Sea from Russia to Ukraine.  Despite the latter not having a functioning navy.

I’m trying to summarise what’s the impact of the Azerbaijan and Armenia battles at present.

I *think*, putting the violence aside, it means that Russia is losing influence again over the smaller states in the CTO.

I would have thought, that as predicted, that more smaller countries such as these choose to settle scores and/or weaken future Russian influence?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66852070

I would have thought, that as predicted, that more smaller countries such as these choose to settle scores and/or weaken future Russian influence?

Try this 10-min read. Azerbaijan is moving closer to the EU and Israel, neither Russia nor neighbouring Iran want this to happen

“Brussels considers oil and gas-rich Azerbaijan as a potential partner in ending its energy dependence on Russia.”

Its conclusion is, “But it is far from clear whether Russia has, indeed, been distracted or surprised. Perhaps it has instead learned how to play a weaker hand to its continuing advantage.”

https://theconversation.com/nagorno-karabakh-longest-war-in-post-soviet-space-flares-yet-again-as-russia-distracted-in-ukraine-213925

Huh, I must say I didn’t  see Poland being the one to stop weapons shipments, hopefully it’s more of a negotiating ploy than anything.

I can’t see the general Polish public being O.K. with any sustained stop on shipments regardless of the grain situation.

I’m surprised Ukraine are pushing the issue so much though, yes they need to be able to sell their grain but surely not pissing off Poland by dumping cheap grain into their market (and risk it becoming a more devisive issue that spreads and becomes the seed for countries reducing support for Ukraine etc.) is the bigger picture.

I must say I didn’t see Poland being the one to stop weapons shipments, hopefully it’s more of a negotiating ploy than anything.

This is not true! What the Polish PM said was "we are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine" & "now arming Poland with more modern weapons" because Poland has already sent Ukraine what it had in stocks. You saw Polish tanks and howitzers in UA long agohttps://t.co/QtNJCfLfRQ

— Daniel Szeligowski (@dszeligowski) September 21, 2023

The Orginal BBC story very much said they had stopped weapons shipments due to the Grain dispute, glad to hear that this wasn’t the whole story and that Poland have set the record straight.

As stated above, it was a bit of a suprise.

It’s absolutely in Poland’s best interests to make sure Ukraine wins at pretty much any cost to themselves. The last thing they want is Russia on their doorstep because that will be expensive. It’s why they supported Ukraine straight out the gate in the first place.