Ukraine

Even if Trump wins, i doubt they’ll pull the plug on the Ukrainian support, all of the support is funding US production of armaments and so on, so to pull the plug would basically mean reducing funding to companies that are traditionally republican based.

It’ll be the usual thing of sounding tough, and doing the same, he’ll have a go at the EU and others to provide more support, but won’t want to reduce the US support either.

This explains how Ukraine managed to rampage into Kursk so easily.

https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1823360490615066966

Interesting read. It sounds very credible.

https://x.com/Iammattaustin/status/1823333607441596646

Ukraine soldiers reviewing Russian restaurants

^^^Quality! Lol.

“Delicious food, good service, small parking lot. I couldn’t park my tank”.

%100 level trolling .. utterly brilliant

It’s like the good old days, when the internet was full of videos of farmers towing abandoned tanks and old ladies were taking out drones by throwing pickle jars at them.

The Ukrainian humour & trolling is a proper win.

Thanks to all the info/ posters on this thread.

I have been following since day 1.

My first question?

Do you think they will now turn right and come in behind the occupying Russians now?

Do you think they will now turn right and come in behind the occupying Russians now?

This is exactly my thoughts when I first heard of the incursion into Russia.

no. i think they will cause enough of a mess to force russia to redeploy and properly defend its full border. then they may do another incursion or two. once there is suitable chaos they will attack crimea. the sign its going to happen will be the bridge finally getting dropped

(is my armchair view)

Looks like a Ukrainian diver is now in the frame for the Nord Stream explosion

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/14/germany-has-issued-arrest-warrant-for-diver-over-nord-stream-explosions-says-report

I started typing but DT78 has pretty much said what I was going to. They have finite resources, especially manpower (far more so than Russia) and they have already committed a huge amount to this. It would be a long way further to go to get behind the Russians which would require a massive and vulnerable logistical tail.

Also very much an unqualified armchair view. I’m always happy for Ukraine to prove me wrong if I declare limits on their capability and ambition.

Looks like Ukraine is now in the frame for the Nord Stream explosion

I saw that. Hands up, I called that one wrong.

Looks like Ukraine is now in the frame for the Nord Stream explosion

Arrest warrant for man who disrupts income stream of nation invading his country. That’ll be a bad bad look for Germany if becomes a detained and conviction.

i thought there was evidence from one of the nordic countries of a russian ship operating in and around the explosion site with its transponders turned off? very surprised if it was ukraine, given the political fallout at the time, they could not afford to make the EU angry….but hell what do i know?!

They have finite resources, especially manpower (far more so than Russia)

There’s a ‘yes and no’ there. UAF are supposedly far more careful with their manpower than the Russians are, and the Russians are finding out the hard way that “there are always more conscripts” isn’t true.

That’ll be a bad bad look for Germany if becomes a detained and conviction.

Poland have already said the guy has gone to Ukraine

Yes, you forget the scale of the maps…. the occupied section front line  is a quite a long way off , so massively huge logistics even static troops!

I had visions of an encircling movement!

I think the restaurant reviews is the only time this thread made me smile.

Russians attacking their own convoy in Russia.

https://x.com/Seveerity/status/1823770863713263794

I saw that. Hands up, I called that one wrong.

I don’t think that you and I are alone in that error 🙂

The Wall Street Journal report that President Zelenskyy refused the plan. It was a small group of Ukrainians who carried on despite him, as opposed to the Ukrainian state.

It’s ironic that the man wanted is Volodymyr Z

Seems the Ukranians are now turning back west / coming over a wider border area. Mandatory evacuations on the Russian side.

Hmm.

And is the German military base lock down / poisoned water linked?

Going to be lots of displaced Russians directly exposed to the results of Putin’s “3 day special operation” who know for dam well they’d been living happily next to Ukraine for decades and the whole pretext for all war is BS.

Seems the Ukranians are now turning back west / coming over a wider border area

If that’s the case then it’s easier to retreat sooner than when you’ve engaged a massed Russian force.

Ukraine has always tried to prioritise its troops, but like everything in the last week, who knows?

I think that we need to remember that the battles are still raging on other parts of the frontline and that Russia is still pressuring Ukraine in the Donbas

One of the reasons for Ukraine failing to launch a successful summer offensive last year was the lack of experience of it’s more senior battlefield commanders in handling co-ordinated manoeuvre warfare in large scale formations. They’re very experienced (and very successful) at small scale operations – company sized and below. But when it comes to Battalion and Divisional sized formations, they were seriously lacking by comparison to their Russian counterparts. There was  a concerted effort by NATO allied countries to take some of the more senior Ukrainian officers and train them in this sort of warfare. That happened earlier this year in a series of 10 week courses.

I wonder if anyone could come up with a way that Ukraine could test, or perhaps experiment using the tactics they’ve recently been taught, as a proving ground perhaps, to see if they’ve got the hang of it.

certainly seems that they’re exploiting a breakthrough.  to where or why I don’t know.  There’s a railway a bit further away that’s a key logistics line and an airfield near kursk but I always think these things can be disrupted without physically taking them but moving the front line extends the distance russian bombers have to target from.

useful article:

https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/how-ukraine-caught-putins-forces-off-guard-in-kursk-and-why/

From my armchair, i can see a strategy of attacking / invading across the border, causing massive local disruption then retreating before the might of the russian army is brought to bear, only to repeat the process in a different russian bordering region a few weeks later.

Would be a great way to “involve” lots of russians in the fact that a war is going on and continue to pose awkward questions to putin?

Reports of a Russian Tu22 bomber crashing, but nowhere close to Ukraine so could just be shoddy maintenance.

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1824096761368998111

The last Tu22 were built in the ’70’s (if memory serves) they should’ve been retired years ago, they must be waaaay beyond their airframe life, I’m not surprised that they’re crashing

Or it’s a Tu22M, different plane.

Embarrassing for the Germans bankrolling a state which is blowing up her key infrastructure.

I thought the Americans were against the Nord stream 2 pipeline from the start of construction which led to a mid build delay then finally completing the build?

No-one seems to miss it at the moment and the however many billions on build cost is largely forgotten about in the grand scheme of things?

Correct retrorick. I work for Uniper, the largest German power utility company that were rescued by the German government who now own 99 7% of the company. This was due to the Gazprom supply curtailment.

We owned 1/2 of Nordstream 2 and simply wrote off 1bn euros when it was blown up. See also 4x massive Russian power stations.

Everyone has 20 20 hindsight, but so many Russian eggs in one basket now seems somewhat poor business policy.

Bilateral trade is generally a good thing but betting it all on Russians or handing your infrastructure keys to the Chinese are mostly shite ideas and I am not even a geopoliticist (sp??)

Or it’s a Tu22M, different plane.

It was a tu22m,

Be interesting to see what Russia does with the kursk situation, throw everything at all t and by mb the crap out of their own towns as they do in Ukraine?

With Trump faltering in the US at the moment, it’s not going to well for putin

Well it wasn’t all ‘on’ Russia, there’s a small portfolio of UK power stations, a Nordic fleet including quite a lot of Hydro as well as a lot of German power generation and some novel new businesses. However IIRC 90% of gas was purchased from Gazprom which was a significant risk, especially when you have to purchase all that lost volume at, (market inflated) spot prices! :-0

All-some-none same as the risk appetite in any portfolio. I guess all the big bollocks O&G leaders thought they were a bigger deal than a narcissistic psychopath mentalist dictator and that money would always trump everything else.

I don’t think that’s fair, the directors at the time were a pretty pragmatic bunch of mainly Germans with a few other level headed Northern European types. But 20 odd years of reliable trade without much apparent political interference is bound to influence any business risk analysis.

Anyway, sorry, thread diversion. I’ll stop now.

Me too. I have no idea other than it always seemed a bad idea but then O&G trading probably involves quite a bit of interaction with questionable people and regimes. OK I SHADDAP NOW

One of the reasons for Ukraine failing to launch a successful summer offensive last year was the lack of experience of it’s more senior battlefield commanders in handling co-ordinated manoeuvre warfare in large scale formations.

From what I have read, partly this, and also largely the huge minefields and lack of air superiority meant as soon as they went into the minefields to clear them the KA52 helicopters were picking them off and they hadnt been given air support of SHORAD to counter this.

In Kursk Oblast they discovered little entrenched defense and so were able to exploit this.

Everyone has 20 20 hindsight, but so many Russian eggs in one basket now seems somewhat poor business policy.

Surely thats largely on Angela Merkels shoulders. German govt could have acted in 2014 after the Crimea and Donbass invasions but chose not to. To be fair the Schultz gov’t has totally got with the programme now.