A place for aggregated discussions of a possible conflict, it’s implications and effects, news updates and personal accounts if any. If the expected conflict kicks off, I will change the title but the function will stay the same.
Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner Group boss says he will pull fighters out of Bakhmut
The leader of Russia's Wagner mercenary group says he will withdraw his troops from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on 10 May because of ammunition shortages.
Yevgeny Prigozhin's statement came after he posted a video of him walking among his dead fighters' bodies, blaming top Russian defence officials.
"Tens of thousands" had been killed and injured there, Prigozhin said.
Russia has been trying to capture the eastern city for months, despite its questionable strategic value.
Wagner troops have been heavily involved.
Earlier this week, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby - citing newly declassified intelligence - said that more than 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and another 80,000 wounded in fighting in Ukraine since December. Half of the dead were from the Wagner group.
In his statement on Friday, Prigozhin, 61, pinned his decision to withdraw from Bakhmut squarely on the defence ministry, using expletives.
"Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the... ammunition?... They came here as volunteers and die for you to fatten yourselves in your mahogany offices."
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov have often been the focus for Prigozhin's anger, amid reports of fierce infighting among different power groups in Russian President Vladimir Putin's entourage.
In the statement, Prigozhin said his Wagner's casualties were "growing in geometrical progression every day" because of the lack of ammunition.
But he stressed that his fighters would stay on their positions until 9 May, when Russia marks Victory Day in World War Two, and would only withdraw from Bakhmut the following day.
Hopefully there is none of them left to withdraw by May 8th...
Vexler made the observation that Prigozhin's blaming of Gerasimov and Shoigu amounts to an invitation to mutiny. This is interesting for anyone who watches Vexler because he is definitely not prone to hyperbole. If anything, he tends to err on the side of downplaying the significance of public statements by putting them into a Russian cultural context. His pointing this out marks a noteworthy turning point in how the messaging of the war has been going.
Prigozhin appears to recognize that his big promises are coming to naught and that he needs to find someone to shoulder the blame for it. Whether it is Putin or his financial backers/shareholders he needs to answer to, his day of reckoning appears to be fast approaching.
‘What is this insane war?’: a philosopher on Ukraine’s frontlines
It's a documentary review, but the man behind it, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy nails it in one.
The Russian motivation, as he can see it, is “to really negate, deny, destroy the Ukrainian identity”, said Lévy, dating back to what he calls the “real beginning” of the war, when Russia invaded the Crimea in 2014 with little international blowback. “Putin starts from the hypothesis that Ukraine does not exist, that Ukrainian culture does not exist,” he said. “Therefore in order to make the reality match with his creed, what can he do? Kill, bomb, destroy, scorched earth. If I dare give a certain logic to this crazy war, it is in the logic of the denial of the Ukrainian identity. This barbarity matches with this logic of the denial of the very existence of Ukraine.”
As a result, Lévy views the war, in and out of the film, as a conflict for nothing less than the soul of Europe, the future of liberalism, and the sanctity of human rights. “I think that without the resistance of the Ukrainians, maybe the Baltic states would be invaded at this moment. Certainly the Chinese would have started their operation on Taiwan, and so on,” he said.
‘What is this insane war?’: a philosopher on Ukraine’s frontlines
It's a documentary review, but the man behind it, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy nails it in one.
The Russian motivation, as he can see it, is “to really negate, deny, destroy the Ukrainian identity”, said Lévy, dating back to what he calls the “real beginning” of the war, when Russia invaded the Crimea in 2014 with little international blowback. “Putin starts from the hypothesis that Ukraine does not exist, that Ukrainian culture does not exist,” he said. “Therefore in order to make the reality match with his creed, what can he do? Kill, bomb, destroy, scorched earth. If I dare give a certain logic to this crazy war, it is in the logic of the denial of the Ukrainian identity. This barbarity matches with this logic of the denial of the very existence of Ukraine.”
As a result, Lévy views the war, in and out of the film, as a conflict for nothing less than the soul of Europe, the future of liberalism, and the sanctity of human rights. “I think that without the resistance of the Ukrainians, maybe the Baltic states would be invaded at this moment. Certainly the Chinese would have started their operation on Taiwan, and so on,” he said.
Yup. Folks like Vexler have been saying this since 2014 and have noted that all the folks talking about "NATO expansion" or "Ukrainian minerals" were looking for alternative explanations when the real reason was so obviously in their faces the entire time. This was always about a genocidal drive toward the restoration of empire. And there is no compromise position possible that will not amount to an incremental step toward an eventual goal of exterminating non-Russian identity, not just for Ukrainians, but everyone up to historical East Germany.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s air force claimed Saturday to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defense systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles.
Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defense systems.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Oleshchuk wrote. “It happened during the night time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”
Oleshchuk said the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from the Russian territory and was shot down with a Patriot missile.
A kinzhal is “hypersonic” in a technical sense only in that it can exceed the arbitrary speed threshold. If that’s the definition we choose to accept, Yury Gagarin was also a “hypersonic” payload.
The term has been overmarketed and stretched to mean just about anything.
Wow, those new missiles are so good that a nearly 40 year old defense system brought them down.
Yes, I know the Patriot has gone through numerous upgrades, but let me have my hyperbole.
A Kinzhal is basically a janky kludge. It would be like if the US duct taped a Pershing II medium range ballistic missile to the bottom of a B1 Lancer and air launched it from altitude at 900mph only much less sophisticated. It is speed for speed's sake. It is a triumph of marketing over substance and preys on the fears of the ill-informed.
‘What is this insane war?’: a philosopher on Ukraine’s frontlines
It's a documentary review, but the man behind it, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy nails it in one.
The Russian motivation, as he can see it, is “to really negate, deny, destroy the Ukrainian identity”, said Lévy, dating back to what he calls the “real beginning” of the war, when Russia invaded the Crimea in 2014 with little international blowback. “Putin starts from the hypothesis that Ukraine does not exist, that Ukrainian culture does not exist,” he said. “Therefore in order to make the reality match with his creed, what can he do? Kill, bomb, destroy, scorched earth. If I dare give a certain logic to this crazy war, it is in the logic of the denial of the Ukrainian identity. This barbarity matches with this logic of the denial of the very existence of Ukraine.”
As a result, Lévy views the war, in and out of the film, as a conflict for nothing less than the soul of Europe, the future of liberalism, and the sanctity of human rights. “I think that without the resistance of the Ukrainians, maybe the Baltic states would be invaded at this moment. Certainly the Chinese would have started their operation on Taiwan, and so on,” he said.
I agree with everything except for the Baltics being invaded. Russia has no interest in a direct confrontation with NATO, but they probably would have been gobbling up all other more-or-less independant smaller states around them if they could.
Prederick wrote:‘What is this insane war?’: a philosopher on Ukraine’s frontlines
It's a documentary review, but the man behind it, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy nails it in one.
The Russian motivation, as he can see it, is “to really negate, deny, destroy the Ukrainian identity”, said Lévy, dating back to what he calls the “real beginning” of the war, when Russia invaded the Crimea in 2014 with little international blowback. “Putin starts from the hypothesis that Ukraine does not exist, that Ukrainian culture does not exist,” he said. “Therefore in order to make the reality match with his creed, what can he do? Kill, bomb, destroy, scorched earth. If I dare give a certain logic to this crazy war, it is in the logic of the denial of the Ukrainian identity. This barbarity matches with this logic of the denial of the very existence of Ukraine.”
As a result, Lévy views the war, in and out of the film, as a conflict for nothing less than the soul of Europe, the future of liberalism, and the sanctity of human rights. “I think that without the resistance of the Ukrainians, maybe the Baltic states would be invaded at this moment. Certainly the Chinese would have started their operation on Taiwan, and so on,” he said.
I agree with everything except for the Baltics being invaded. Russia has no interest in a direct confrontation with NATO, but they probably would have been gobbling up all other more-or-less independant smaller states around them if they could.
I think they absolutely would gobble up the Baltic states, but recognize that Article 5 is a major impediment to their "existential" goals. This is where hybrid warfare comes in and the efforts of infrastructure terrorism, political subversion, and information warfare play into their plans. Their funding of rabidly anti-Semitic extremists and propaganda campaigns about "Russophobia" are not without geopolitical objectives. They are laser focused on undermining NATO resolve and creating ambiguity. If they succeeded in Ukraine, I have ZERO doubt they would have attempted similar f*ckery in Latvia and Estonia where they could leverage their large ethnic Russian populations and scream that they are being "oppressed" to manufacture separatist movements aided by Wagner mercenaries.
I agree with everything except for the Baltics being invaded. Russia has no interest in a direct confrontation with NATO, but they probably would have been gobbling up all other more-or-less independant smaller states around them if they could.
Russia as we know it in 2023 has no interest in a direct confrontation with NATO. But in a hypothetical timeline where the invasion of Ukraine was successful, and was followed by similar invasions of other states in the "near abroad", I could easily see Putin's ego, and the confidence of the Russian elite in general, growing large enough to seriously consider the idea.
Supersonic would only be important if your enemy is using sonar to detect missiles. Otherwise it's just a number.
I believe the intent of hypersonic weapons - weapons that travel over about 3850mph, or a bit over a mile per second - is that defensive systems need to have far faster capabilities to detect, track, launch and then adjust flight path to hit at closing speeds of what, Mach 7 to Mach 10? That's not easy, at all. If it was we'd have had ballistic missile defense systems a long time ago.
On the other hand, the Kinzhal is going so fast that if you can just get a bucket of scrap into it's path it'll disintegrate into a cloud of shredded metal. But again, you gotta get something into its flight path at the right time, angle and distance.
If the Patriot software and control and flight systems are capable of this, then hypersonic missiles will be essentially useless. Unless you use them in a very expensive swarm, in which case a few might still get through. But in this round of the race it looks like Patriot has won. We'll see if it continues.
I believe the intent of hypersonic weapons - weapons that travel over about 3850mph, or a bit over a mile per second - is that defensive systems need to have far faster capabilities to detect, track, launch and then adjust flight path to hit at closing speeds of what, Mach 7 to Mach 10? That's not easy, at all. If it was we'd have had ballistic missile defense systems a long time ago.
On the other hand, the Kinzhal is going so fast that if you can just get a bucket of scrap into it's path it'll disintegrate into a cloud of shredded metal. But again, you gotta get something into its flight path at the right time, angle and distance.
If the Patriot software and control and flight systems are capable of this, then hypersonic missiles will be essentially useless. Unless you use them in a very expensive swarm, in which case a few might still get through. But in this round of the race it looks like Patriot has won. We'll see if it continues.
It’s a little more complicated than that.
Things traveling at hypersonic speeds haven’t been difficult to intercept in a while. It’s only when things traveling that fast are capable of doing so at low altitude that they become a problem. Predictable ballistic trajectories can be tracked from point of launch whether they be from the ground, sea, or air. In that sense, the kinzhal is not really an issue for a military with adequate ISR and air defense.
It’s the ISR that is much more difficult with stuff like hypersonic cruise missiles or boost/glide vehicles. The curvature of the earth makes tracking a hypersonic object at low altitude difficult to track with the time available, but a kinzhal is something you can track from the other side of the Caspian Sea.
The Russians claim to have a handful of actual boost/glide systems (and the Chinese a lot more) but even those have their own issues. One is that if you engage them with aircraft, they’re going to have to bleed off a shit ton of energy evading your countermeasures. And at a few million dollars a shot, that’s going to get pretty costly pretty quickly. There is also the issue of timely guidance and control lag. And the communication issues with the plasma wake present challenges unique to the platform. Finally, every ounce you spend making it fast is another 50 or so pounds you can’t put in payload making them pretty much unthinkably expensive for anything but nuclear weapons. And, honestly, for that we’ve already had platforms that work at least as well for a tiny fraction of the cost since the 70’s.
I'm more focused on the bad press For Russia around Ukraine shooting down something Russia had claimed was impossible to intercept. It's another example of their impotence.
And the details for what folks have been sharing.
Essentially, all ballistic missiles are hypersonic – which means they travel at least five times the speed of sound. Almost any warhead released from a rocket miles in the atmosphere will reach this speed heading to its target. It is not a new technology.
What military powers – including Russia, China, the United States and North Korea – are working on now is a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV).
An HGV is a highly maneuverable payload that can theoretically fly at hypersonic speed while adjusting course and altitude to fly under radar detection and around missile defenses.
An HGV is the weapon that’s almost impossible to stop. And Russia is thought to have an HGV in its arsenal, the Avangard system, which Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018 called “practically invulnerable” to Western air defenses.
But the Kinzhal, as a variant of the Iskander SRBM, is not an HGV. While it does have limited maneuverability like the Iskander, its main advantage is that it can be launched from MiG-31 fighter jets, giving it a longer range and the ability to attack from multiple directions
Russia's future rests on Ukraine war, Putin tells Victory Day parade
Vladimir Putin has said Russia's future "rests on" the soldiers fighting in Ukraine, during his annual speech to mark Victory Day in Moscow.
"There is nothing more important now than your combat effort," he said.
The military parade, which commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, was scaled back this year for security.
Mr Putin also used his speech to justify his invasion of Ukraine, while accusing "Western globalist elites" of provoking conflicts.
Civilisation is again "at a decisive turning point", he said in Moscow's Red Square to a crowd composed of just officials and veterans, as the event was not open to the public.
Addressing the troops fighting in Ukraine - some of whom were present - Mr Putin said a "real war" had been "unleashed" against Russia. The reality is that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine.
"The security of the country rests on you today, the future of our statehood and our people depend on you," he told them.
Parade took 10 minutes.
I heard one tank appeared. Anyone playing Tankemon Go in Red Square was mightily disappointed…
Possibly the MOST important part of the parade is the Immortal Regiment. It is where members of the crowd bring portraits of their relatives that fought in WW2. They are often festooned in medals and unit banners. The idea is to remember the sacrifice of the nation.
He cancelled that part.
Because he was afraid mothers would bring portraits of their sons killed in Ukraine.
I heard one tank appeared. Anyone playing Tankemon Go in Red Square was mightily disappointed…
One T-34/85.
There were only 51 vehicles in the parade, down from 197 in 2021. And to get to 51 Pooty had to borrow 10 vehicles only used by Kadyrov and his TikTokers.
Robear wrote:I heard one tank appeared. Anyone playing Tankemon Go in Red Square was mightily disappointed…
One T-34/85.
There were only 51 vehicles in the parade, down from 197 in 2021. And to get to 51 Pooty had to borrow 10 vehicles only used by Kadyrov and his TikTokers.
I recently heard a Ukrainian defense analyst make the statement that the Russians haven't manufactured an actual MBT since before the 2014 invasion of Ukraine (I think he said that the last actual start to finish line of Russian tanks was in 2011). Apparently, the process is heavy on Western (unsurprising) and Ukrainian (ironically) inputs. The ones currently showing up are all refurbs of older stock, mostly with cannibalized parts from vehicle lots. He stated that the Russian MIC has been so damaged by corruption, expertise loss (aka "bright flight"), deinvestment, and just the aging out of the technical workforce that serial production of new tanks is just not a capability they have anymore.
Kaliningrad: Russia fury as Poland body recommends renaming exclave
The Kremlin has reacted furiously after a Polish government body advised using a different name for Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea coast.
The Polish committee said the city and wider area should instead be called Królewiec.
This was the area's traditional name, it said, and the decision no longer to use an "imposed name" was partly a result of Russia invading Ukraine.
Russia said the decision was "bordering on madness" and "a hostile act".
"We know that throughout history, Poland has slipped from time to time into this madness of hatred towards Russians," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
For hundreds of years before World War Two, the area was known as Königsberg and was part of East Prussia. Królewiec is the Polish translation of Königsberg.
However, after World War Two, the city and wider region were placed under Soviet administration. The Soviets renamed it Kaliningrad after Mikhail Kalinin, one of the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, Kaliningrad became part of the territory of Russia, making it an exclave - an area that is geographically separated from a country's main territory - located between Poland and Lithuania.
Kaliningrad is strategically important to Moscow because it houses the Russian Baltic Fleet at the port of Baltiysk and is one of Russia's only ice-free European ports.
lol. Dmitri, you're a chode.
"We know that throughout history, Poland has slipped from time to time into this madness of hatred towards Russians," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
When you literally make a deal with literal Hitler to carve up your neighbor and slaughter its people in decades of war crimes and human rights violations, their hatred of you is logic, not "madness".
Good for that soldier. Brains and bravery. Somehow I don’t think his comrades would do the same for a Ukrainian soldier.
Too early to know for sure, but there is a lot of smoke that the situation in Bakhmut is changing in Ukraine's favor.
Too early to know for sure, but there is a lot of smoke that the situation in Bakhmut is changing in Ukraine's favor.
It has a very Helm’s Deep feel to it, doesn’t it?
Badferret wrote:Too early to know for sure, but there is a lot of smoke that the situation in Bakhmut is changing in Ukraine's favor.
It has a very Helm’s Deep feel to it, doesn’t it?
What with the Ukrainians fondness with using Tolkien references, I'd be shocked if some of their battle plans didn't have names like, Operation First Light, or Fifth Day.
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