Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

If we listen to Western propaganda it is possible at first blush to deduce Ukraine is winning.

However the facts state otherwise, the longer this continues it plays into Russia’s hands.

For those of us that remember Vietnam, we were winning and it was deemed impossible for any other result.

Ditto for Afghanistan. How many times can the people be fooled?

Originally Posted by Iceman123

If we listen to Western propaganda it is possible at first blush to deduce Ukraine is winning.

Who depends on "propaganda" or the news aside from you old Luddites. There are plenty of ways to find out how the war is going without ever turning the TV on or reading a conventional news source. Something that you nor your spinmaster sabang are not capable of. You two are utterly laughable and well behind the curve as to what is going on in this war.

Originally Posted by Iceman123

However the facts state otherwise

I am still waiting for you to share some of these "facts".

Originally Posted by Iceman123

the longer this continues it plays into Russia’s hands.

That is patently false and shows how little you know about what is taking place on the battlefield. Russia is being ground down at a far more rapid pace than Ukraine is. During that time, Ukraine has had tens of thousands of soldiers being trained to NATO standards and new first-rate tanks and IFVs are in route to Ukraine. These will make a decisive difference, no matter how giddy that reality makes you propagandized vatniks. Just go research what happened in Vuhledar over the last two weeks. The Russians suffered some of their worst loses since WW2, FFS.

Originally Posted by Iceman123

Vietnam

Ancient history (sorry Norts), and many of your countrymen fought and died there.

Originally Posted by Iceman123

Afghanistan

You are so utterly clueless it is laughable. Both of those were political defeats. You do understand the difference, right? FFS in Afghanistan at the end there were less than 6k US troops required to prop up an entire nation state.

Originally Posted by Iceman123

How many times can the people be fooled?

The only ones being fooled are vatnik useful idiots. Ukraine is a simple conflict between good and evil.

A must-watch for anyone who actually wants to understand what is happening in Ukraine…



Timothy Snyder is the most honest and real source about the history of the why and how that this war started. He has an excellent YT channel...

https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/s...79407203110912

I would argue this is more of a must watch - Watch and learn Snubski

George Galloway is an attention seeking Communist. He should be avoided at all costs.

Originally Posted by bsnub

Ancient history (sorry Norts), and many of your countrymen fought and died there.

Not to mention it is obvious to anyone who knows the history of the Vietnam war that comparing it to the war in the Ukraine is not very bright. Apples and oranges.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel...

The Russian Army Is Time-Traveling Back To 1966 As It Reequips With Hundreds Of Old BMP-1 Fighting Vehicles

The Soviet BMP-1 was one of the first modern infantry fighting vehicles. It both reflected, and helped to drive, profound changes in Soviet ground-combat doctrine when it entered service in 1966.

Fifty-seven years later, the BMP-1 is obsolete. And that’s a big problem for the Russian army, which after a year of hard fighting in Ukraine is so desperately short of newer BMP-2 and BMP-3 fighting vehicles it has had no choice but to reactivate hundreds of stored BMP-1s.

A recent tally by an open-source-intelligence analyst underscores the BMP crisis. The Russian army widened its war in Ukraine in February 2022 with 400 active BMP-3s, 2,800 BMP-2s and 600 BMP-1s.

Over the next 12 months, the Ukrainians destroyed or captured at least 220 BMP-3s, 750 BMP-2s and 300 BMP-1s. The Kremlin is sitting on huge stocks of surplus BMP-1s and BMP-2s—7,200 and 1,400, respectively—but it has zero of the latest BMP-3s in reserve.

So as the Russian army scrambles to rebuild its battered forces, it’s replacing the third-generation BMPs it’s lost with second-generation and—even more so—first-generation BMPs it’s pulling out of long-term storage. The army is, in technological terms, traveling back in time.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1...0ba084d28b4935

The BMP-1 is armored—albeit thinly—and it carries personnel, but it’s not an armored personnel carrier. That’s because, in mechanized warfare, APCs haul troops into battle but don’t actually fight. They’re too lightly armed, too lightly protected.

An infantry fighting vehicle does as its name implies. It hauls infantry into battle and, unlike an APC, also stays and fights. That requires thicker armor and bigger weapons than you’d find on an APC, which tends to weigh on an IFV’s passenger capacity. A Russian MT-LB APC can pack in 10 or 11 infantry; a BMP-1 IFV squeezes in just eight.

But even that modest troop-capacity meant major design compromises as BMP-inventor Pavel Isakov struggled to balance firepower, protection and payload. For one, the BMP-1 stows ammunition in the passenger compartment. A direct hit can set off the ammo, with obvious negative implications for the infantry sitting right next to the exploding shells.

The 13-ton, three-crew BMP-1 has other problems. Its low-velocity 73-millimeter gun is unimpressive. Its turret has blind spots: it can’t rotate through 10 o’clock without the gun running into the hull-mounted searchlight.

The vehicle’s biggest flaw is its steel armor, which is just a quarter-inch thick in some places and can’t even stop heavy machine guns firing armor-piercing rounds. It’s not for no reason that the major driver of the BMP-2 and BMP-3’s developments, respectively in the late 1970s and early ’80s, was protection.

There’s no shortage of videos on social media depicting Russian BMP-1s and their crews and passengers coming to bad ends in Ukraine. Peppered by artillery, popped by mines, pulverized by anti-tank missiles, the BMPs explode like firecrackers and burn like kindling.

The Russian army in a year has written off around 1,300 BMPs of all models. But a thousand were BMP-2s and BMP-3s with their thicker armor. The Russians could lose even more IFVs in the next year as the older, and much more vulnerable, BMP-1 once again becomes their standard fighting vehicle. Just like in 1966.

The Russian Army Is Time-Traveling Back To 1966 As It Reequips With Hundreds Of Old BMP-1 Fighting Vehicles

^^^ I have no time for this silly war porn snubski, but the biggest single Russian 'victories' of the war so far are probably Mariupol, Lyschansk and Severodonetsk.
There was no Battle of Kiev, in the regard of a battle for Kiev. This has been fully covered previously. Russia never attempted to storm Kiev.
There was no 'liberation' of Kherson in a military sense- it was uncontested because the Russians withdrew to the other side of the Dniepr, for very sound reasons.
There was no 'liberation' of Kharkiv either- the Russians never occupied or claimed it, and the barren steppe to the east was DPR/LPR militia and some Wagner.
Neither did any Russian source ever say 'Ukraine would fall within three days', or that Kiev would. That is a pure western MSM concoction.

It is an ongoing war of attrition, and I'm afraid Ukrainian losses of both (their) men and (our) material are ultimately unsustainable. By all means, seeing as you are so emotionally invested, take pride in their stern resistance- I am sure it took the Russians by surprise too.

Where to begin! So many falsehoods, lies and distortions there.

Originally Posted by sabang

Russia never attempted to storm Kiev.

Russia sent thousands of men and tanks in an attempt to take Kyiv. Clearly you forgot about the 40-mile-long convoy that the Ukrainians decimated with bayraktars and javelin anti tank missiles.

Also, forgot about the ruzzian VDV airborne units that landed in Kyiv and ultimately were decimated. Better known as the Battle of Antonov Airport.

Battle of Antonov Airport - Wikipedia

The heavy losses of an elite Russian regiment in Ukraine - BBC News

Originally Posted by sabang

There was no 'liberation' of Kherson in a military sense

Another patent falsehood. The liberation of Kherson took months and required the Ukrainians to retake thousands of square kilometers of land before they successfully entered the city.

Liberation of Kherson - Wikipedia

Originally Posted by sabang

There was no 'liberation' of Kharkiv either- the Russians never occupied or claimed it

Kharkiv oblast was liberated in one of the largest combined arms battles since WW2.

Originally Posted by sabang

the barren steppe to the east was DPR/LPR militia and some Wagner.

That is an outright lie and you full well know it. Several brigades of ruzzia's most elite Armies were wiped out in the Battle of Kharkiv. Including ruzzias best armor formation, the First Guards Tank army.

A Hundred Wrecked Tanks In A Hundred Hours: Ukraine Guts Russia’s Best Tank Army

The Ukrainian army’s counteroffensive around the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine starting on Sept. 6 destroyed half of the best tank division in the best tank army in the Russian armed forces.

A hundred wrecked or captured tanks in a hundred furious hours. That’s how much destruction the Ukrainians inflicted on the Russian 4th Guards Tank Division, part of the elite 1st Guards Tank Army, the Russian army’s best armor formation.

A Hundred Wrecked Tanks In A Hundred Hours: Ukraine Guts Russia’s Best Tank Army
https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/09/13/russias-1st-guards-tank-army-kharkiv/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Kharkiv_counteroffensive
https://medium.com/@carson.teuscher/...s-b38a6bf83440

Originally Posted by sabang

Neither did any Russian source ever say 'Ukraine would fall within three days', or that Kiev would.

BS. Can you prove that? You can't because it started off as a 3-day special military operation.

Originally Posted by sabang

It is an ongoing war of attrition, and I'm afraid Ukrainian losses of both (their) men and (our) material are ultimately unsustainable.

You have not a clue what you are talking about, as always.

Originally Posted by sabang

^^^ I have no time for this silly war porn

You forgot "....unless it comes from a high-heeled war criminal-approved, Russian state propaganda source".

Does it hurt some?

Originally Posted by sabang

There was no Battle of Kiev, in the regard of a battle for Kiev. This has been fully covered previously. Russia never attempted to storm Kiev.

What? They were beaten back before they got into the city!


CNN’s timeline is interesting.

Russian invasion of Ukraine: A timeline of key events on the 1st anniversary of the war

Putin announces plans to deploy nuclear-capable Sarmat missiles amid media reports of failed tests

In a video released by the Kremlin’s press service to mark Russia’s Defender of the Fatherland Day on Thursday, Vladimir Putin announced that the country’s nuclear-capable Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles will be moved to combat readiness this year.


In addition, the president said Russia will continue mass production of Kinzhal hypersonic air-based systems and will start mass shipments of Zircon sea-based hypersonic missiles to the military, as well as adding three Borei-A nuclear submarines to its fleet in the coming years. He also said that Russian troops will also receive “new strike systems, surveillance and communication tools, drones, and artillery systems.”


According to CNN, on February 20, when U.S. President Joe Biden was visiting Kyiv, Russia conducted multiple unsuccessful tests of its Sarmat missiles.


Putin’s holiday saber-rattling comes just two days after he announced Russia would suspend its participation in the New START Treaty, the U.S. and Russia’s only remaining nuclear arms control agreement.

Putin announces plans to deploy nuclear-capable Sarmat missiles amid media reports of failed tests — Meduza

Originally Posted by misskit

What? They were beaten back before they got into the city!

The VDV (airborne) did get into the city, but wound up being completely annihilated.

Russia's failures in Ukraine have dented the 'elite' status of its paratrooper force

Russian Failures in Ukraine Dent Airborne Paratroopers' 'Elite' Status

Another tool for the tool box...



The United States is supplying Ukraine with winged, GPS-guided bombs, Bloomberg reported.


The Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range lends itself to a special bombing method—one that adds miles to its already significant range.

Flying low and fast toward the front line, a Ukrainian jet lugging a load of JDAM-ERs would pitch up and “toss” the bombs like a softball pitcher underhanding strikes.

Toss-bombing JDAM-ERs could be the key to a new aerial campaign for Ukraine. Ukrainian squadrons that currently are limited to striking no farther than a few miles from the front could, with their new bombs, blast Russian forces 50 miles away.

The U.S. Defense Department is being coy about the GPS-guided bombs. Unspecified “precision aerial munitions” were part of a $1.9-billion aid package the Pentagon announced in December.

The New York Times reported that the munitions are JDAMs. Bloomberg specified that they’re JDAM-ERs. The Pentagon reportedly expects Boeing to deliver the bombs no later than the end of June.

JDAM is a $25,000, bolt-on kit that includes a GPS seeker and long vanes for maneuvering. The kit transforms a 500- , 1,000- or 2,000-pound dumb bomb into a smart bomb.

JDAM-ER adds pop-out wings to the basic kit. The wings help the bomb glide, boosting its range from a few miles to nearly 50 miles under the right conditions.

The U.S. Air Force—the world’s biggest user of JDAMs—lately has been fighting wars against low-tech foes with no serious air-defenses, so it tends to drop JDAMs from medium altitude.

The Ukrainian air force doesn’t have that luxury. The air space over Ukraine is some of the most dangerous in the world for a fast-jet pilot. Ukraine and Russia each lost around 60 fixed-wing warplanes in the first year of the current war.

Today it’s rare for a Russian or Ukrainian tactical jet to cross the line of contact and strike targets deep inside enemy territory. The Russian air force of course can conduct deep strikes by firing long-range cruise missiles from heavy bombers that never leave Russian air space.

Those Russian deep strikes tend to target homes, churches, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as part of Russia’s wider terror campaign. They don’t have a lot of military value.

With JDAM-ER, the Ukrainian air force could do with its Mikoyan MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27 fighters and Sukhoi Su-24 bombers what the Russian air force does with its Tupolev Tu-95 and Tupolev Tu-160 heavy bombers—but hit targets whose destruction actually contributes to Ukraine’s war effort. Bridges. Supply depots. Troop concentrations. Headquarters.

The Ukrainian planes would fly low to minimize the risk of detection by Russian radars and, at the last second, pull up to give the GPS-guided bombs upward trajectory. The pilots could “turn tail while the bombs each autonomously fly to their targets,” Carlo Kopp, an analyst with Air Power Australia, wrote about JDAM-ER toss-bombing.

It’s going to take a little effort on the part of U.S. and Ukrainian technicians. Australian engineers had NATO-style warplanes in mind when they developed the munition that eventually became the JDAM-ER. For the glide-bomb to work on, say, a Ukrainian MiG-29, the MiG needs a new pylon and some way to transmit data to the bomb.

Fortunately for the Ukrainians, a lot of the conceptual work already is done. When the United States supplied Ukraine with High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles last spring, it also supplied Ukraine with custom pylons for MiG-29s and Su-27s.

A slightly different custom pylon—one including a “Mil-Std-1760C” digital data bus—could make the MiGs and Sukhois compatible with JDAM-ERs.

Squadrons would program target coordinates into the JDAMs before a sortie. But the bomb still needs to know where it is, and how fast it’s traveling, in the instant it drops. That’s the data that passes through the Mil-Std-1760C bus.

As a bonus, the same bus should make Ukrainian jets compatible with other NATO-style smart munitions. So Ukraine’s JDAM-ERs, arcing down on Russian forces from 50 miles away, might be just the start of an expanding campaign of precision bombing starting this summer.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax...h=23c0466b4b40

Just over a year ago, most western commentators and policymakers had effectively written off Ukraine ever regaining control of Crimea, the peninsula which Russia invaded and annexed in early 2014. Sure, it was still officially considered Ukrainian territory, and U.S. and European governments had denounced the invasion as unacceptable. But while Russia’s claims to the province may not, in western eyes, have been legal, Ukraine’s allies appeared to acquiesce to the idea that Crimea holds a supposedly special place in Russian mythology and they weren’t sure it was worth a fight.

That view is now changing. A year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his disastrous war — which not only saw Russia annex further chunks of Ukraine, but which has already cost Russia more casualties than the U.S. saw in Vietnam — the geopolitical tides have shifted measurably. And in the past few months, with Ukrainian forces continuing to reclaim regions from Russian forces, western voices have begun revisiting a topic they’d long brushed off: Crimea.

Rather than viewing the peninsula as a Russian appendage, an increasing number of experts and policymakers have begun arguing that restoring Ukrainian control of Crimea may be the key ingredient for any lasting peace — and that, increasingly, only Ukrainian sovereignty over the region will guarantee stability not only in Ukraine, but in Europe overall.

Such a view isn’t yet a consensus; western policymakers haven’t uniformly come out in full-throated support of Ukraine’s moves to reclaim the peninsula. Last week, Rep. Adam Smith, one of the top Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee, said there was a “consensus” that “Ukraine is not going to militarily retake Crimea.” And Secretary of State Antony Blinken added that a Ukrainian effort to retake Crimea would be a red line for Putin.

But in conversations and commentary, views have clearly begun to shift, especially among the expert community, which increasingly views Ukrainian efforts to retake Crimea as both feasible and necessary. And while western officials aren’t yet outwardly backing such views — and still aren’t providing all of the arms the Ukrainians have asked for — they’re increasingly leaving the door open to a Ukrainian push toward the peninsula.

Thanks to Putin’s full-scale invasion, the myth that Russia has some kind of right to Crimea has effectively collapsed across the West. And the reality has begun seeping in from Washington to London to Brussels that, in terms of military success, Russian suzerainty over Crimea must end before any lasting, stable peace can be found.

Part of that shift in perspective comes from a purely tactical analysis. As Ukraine continues to claw back Russian holdings — including in areas that Moscow nominally claims as its own, such as Kherson — a push toward Crimea suddenly becomes much more plausible, and much more militarily viable.

To be sure, any thrust toward the peninsula remains a way off. “We won’t seriously be talking about Crimea until the rest of Ukraine is free,” former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk told me in an interview. Purely from a geostrategic perspective, Ukraine will need to reclaim significant holdings in places like Zaporizhzhia and even Donetsk before considering an assault on Crimea.

But such a push seems far more feasible now than it did just a few months ago — and western analysts have begun gaming out what such a push might entail. In a recent Twitter thread, retired Australian general Mick Ryan, one of the most popular commentators regarding the war’s progress, detailed Ukraine’s potential routes toward the peninsula. One option backed up Zagorodnyuk’s view that Kyiv will have to recapture significant territory elsewhere prior to any push, in order to form “a land blockade and fire support base” that would allow Ukrainian forces to pour into the peninsula. Another option could see Ukraine launch “a large-scale air, sea and land operation to advance on several axes against key land objectives in Crimea,” forming a “robust air and sea campaign” to “accompany the hundred thousand or so Ukrainian troops required to capture Crimea.”

Either option contains significant hurdles, not least the significant military assets Russia still maintains in Crimea. And it is clear that Ukraine will likely be unable to accomplish any push into Crimea without expanded western weaponry such as long-range precision missiles and increased air power.

But it’s also obvious that Russia’s ability to resupply Crimea is becoming tenuous, with both the Russian land corridor and Crimean Bridge, the latter of which was recently bombed, increasingly threatened. And a year into the war, it’s now apparent that Russian military assets in Crimea will continue to present an unacceptable threat to Ukraine, regardless of the outcome of the war.

“Occupation of Crimea enables the Russian military to threaten Ukrainian positions from the south and gives Russia’s Black Sea Fleet a forward base for carrying out long-range attacks,” retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, one of the U.S.’s premiere Ukrainian experts, recently wrote for Foreign Affairs. Even if Ukraine is victorious elsewhere, Crimea would effectively remain a forward operating base for the Kremlin’s military, a sanctuary for Russian forces to rest and regroup. This reality manifested most clearly last year, when Russian troops used Crimea as a staging ground for Moscow’s most successful push of their 2022 invasion, allowing the Kremlin to gain significant ground in southern Ukraine.

Nor are those ongoing military threats limited to land alone. Because of Crimea’s geographic positioning, the peninsula allows Moscow to threaten both Ukrainian and broader Black Sea maritime security. And this includes things like blockading Ukrainian exports, such as grain, which has already upended global markets. “Crimea is decisive for this war,” retired U.S. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, told me. “Ukraine will never be safe or secure, or be able to rebuild their economy, as long as Russia retains Crimea…. And I think increasing numbers of people are recognizing not only the necessity of [retaking Crimea], but also the feasibility.”

All of these tactical, military reasons are sufficient to explain the ongoing shift in western perceptions of Crimea. But elsewhere, and far more broadly, western observers are coming around to what Ukrainians have long been arguing: that Russian claims to the peninsula are saturated in myopic, misleading myths, none of which stand up to scrutiny. Indeed, one of the most pernicious pieces of Russian propaganda is that there’s some kind of Russian entitlement to Crimea — an argument that is only just now starting to recede.

Take Putin’s claims that Crimea somehow maintains a “vital, historic significance” to Moscow, or that it’s a kind of “holy land” to all Russians. To be sure, Crimea, which was initially annexed by Russian colonizing forces in 1783, retains a unique history, suffering through things like the 1850s Crimean War and World War II nearly a century a later. But myriad regions and countries, from Belarus to the Baltics, can claim similarly unique histories, without giving Russia any rightful claim to them. “If it’s a ‘holy land’ [for Russians], you wouldn’t have seen [hundreds of thousands of] Russians leave the country last year,” Hodges said, pointing to the significant numbers of Russians fleeing the Kremlin’s conscription orders. Even after Ukrainians directly hit Crimea’s Saki airbase, Hodges added, “you had a 30,000-car traffic stall trying to leave, instead of Russians heading to the military recruitment office.”

Likewise, the notion that Crimea has long been some Russian enclave isn’t accurate, either. The region wasn’t majority Russian until the Second World War, and only then as a result of the Kremlin’s gargantuan ethnic cleansing campaigns, which forcibly removed hundreds of thousands of indigenous Crimean Tatars. And, of course, Crimea doesn’t share a land connection to Russia — part of the reason the region has prospered under Ukraine and wilted under Moscow.

Crimeans themselves have hardly evinced any overwhelming desire to rejoin Russia, despite Putin’s insistence that they are part of Russia proper. In 1991, Crimeans joined every other region of Ukraine in voting for Ukrainian independence. And in the decades following, they never once voted to rejoin Moscow. In the months leading up to Russia’s initial invasion in 2014, fewer than a quarter of Crimeans wanted to rejoin Russia. Such realities go a long way to explaining why Moscow forced a sham, ballot-by-bayonet “referendum” on Crimeans in 2014, rather than offering a free and fair vote.

Perhaps most pertinently, Putin effectively abnegated the idea that Crimea is somehow unique in Russian eyes last September, when he announced the annexation of four further Ukrainian provinces (none of which Moscow controls). Suddenly, Crimea’s nominally distinct status — as the only region the Kremlin would go so far as to annex outright — crumbled. With Putin’s newest annexation announcements, the region that Putin claimed presented the “spiritual unity” of Russians was now no different than places like Luhansk or Zaporizhzhia, which Ukrainian forces continue to liberate.

Those annexations further undercut Russia’s most pertinent and most impactful threats: that Crimea presents some kind of “red line” for Russian authorities, after which the potential for nuclear war rises considerably. But given how Ukraine has continued to bludgeon territories Russia has claimed elsewhere — and how explosions continue rocking Crimea itself, without any resultant nuclear war — Moscow’s supposed red lines have become increasingly blurred, even to the point of disappearing entirely. As Russia expert Nigel Gould-Davies recently wrote in the New York Times, Putin “has no red lines.”

Indeed, the notion that Crimea presents any kind of final, formal “red line” is slowly fading. Even Blinken, who recently mentioned that Crimea might be such a “red line,” indicated that such a framing isn’t nearly as important as it once was. According to those familiar with Blinken’s views, the secretary of state believes “it is solely the Ukrainians’ decision as to what they try to take by force, not America’s” — with the secretary of state “more open to a potential Ukrainian play for Crimea.” As Blinken added this month, there will be no “just” or “durable” peace unless Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored. “If we ratify the seizure of land by another country and say ‘that’s okay, you can go in and take it by force and keep it,’ that will open a Pandora’s box around the world for would be aggressors that will say, ‘Well, we’ll do the same thing and get away with it,’” Blinken said.

All of these ingredients — the increasing military import of retaking Crimea; the shattering of Russian myths regarding the peninsula; upholding the principle that nuclear powers must never be allowed to carve up non-nuclear neighbors — have all begun combining, churning out a new perspective across western countries. A decade ago, when Putin initially launched his invasion of Crimea, the peninsula stood apart, a supposed crown jewel of Putin’s reign. Now, though, it’s increasingly viewed as what it’s long been: a peninsula full of Ukrainians who never opted for Russian rule, watching Kyiv’s forces steadily gear up toward a southern push, looking to finally dislodge the Kremlin’s forces from all Ukrainian territory.

And this time, more western policy-makers — providing the arms, the financing and the diplomatic support necessary for Ukraine to finally achieve its goal of retaking “every inch” of Russian-occupied Ukraine — are increasingly along for the ride. “No matter what the Ukrainians decide about Crimea in terms of where they choose to fight… Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is at a minimum, at a minimum, demilitarized,” undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland recently said. Or as Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh announced last month, the U.S. will back Ukraine’s efforts to reclaim the peninsula it first lost nearly a decade ago.

“That includes an operation in Crimea,” Singh said. “That is a sovereign part of their country, and they have every right to take that back.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...-line-00083857

Russia claims Ukraine is preparing false flag attack in Transnistria

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed in a statement released Thursday that Ukraine is preparing to conduct a false-flag attack in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria and to pin the blame on Russia.


According to the Russian authorities, “Ukrainian saboteurs” are planning to dress in Russian military uniforms before carrying out the operation. The Russian Defense Ministry also said that fighters from Ukraine’s Azov Regiment will participate in the attack.


In response to these claims, the Moldovan authorities released a statement saying they “do not confirm” Russia’s reports and called on citizens to “refer to information from official or verified sources.”

Russia claims Ukraine is preparing false flag attack in Transnistria — Meduza

^Putin Rally Extras Were Paid $7 to Attend Freezing Event

an increasing number of experts and policymakers have begun arguing that restoring Ukrainian control of Crimea may be the key ingredient for any lasting peace

And what Einstein's are these?

Lt-Gen (rtd.) Ben Hodges, formerly Commanding General US Army Europe, explains how and where Ukraine should fight to expel Russia.

How does Ukraine win from here?

For Ukraine, the road to victory runs through Crimea. It is the key. It is the decisive terrain. Liberating Crimea, this year, will change everything in this war.

Ukraine will win because it has the superior will (it’s defending its own homeland) and is supported by a coalition of 50 nations, while Russia has only Iran and North Korea. Russian soldiers don’t want to be there and the Russian people, happy enough to wave flags, are unwilling to join the military. Some 500,000 military-age males left the country in September to avoid the “partial mobilization.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s logistics are steadily improving thanks to support from the coalition, although ammunition stocks are low. Russia’s logistics are steadily worsening thanks to sanctions, poor/corrupt management, excessive consumption, and accurate targeting by Ukrainian precision weapons.

Russia currently has 97% of its army in Ukraine, according to British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, and yet it is still unable to capture even the small town on Bahkmut in the country’s east, which is defended predominantly by territorial defense forces and national guard troops. That tells me that Russian forces are likely to culminate before the end of May; they simply can’t sustain the losses and ammunition expenditures at the current rate for much longer and they remain unable to conduct joint, combined operations.

Russia has also failed to interdict the delivery of Western aid that travels from Poland to Ukraine by rail and by convoy. This is inexplicable given their much larger air force and their apparently endless supply of rockets, missiles, and drones, which Russia uses instead against apartment buildings and power stations.

Our focus should be on helping Ukraine liberate Crimea; it should be the main effort, while using “economy of force” in the east to slow/stop Russian ground attacks. Ukraine knows it will never be safe or secure so long as Russia occupies the peninsula. Any peace settlement which results in Russia holding onto this land would simply allow the Kremlin to wait two or three years until we, the West, lose interest, while in the meanwhile they rebuild the military, address their mistakes, and restart their war against Ukraine — that, after all, has been the pattern since 2008.

OK, so how can Ukraine go about this?

Liberating Crimea means first making it untenable for the Russian army, navy, and air forces on the peninsula and then occupying it.

Start with isolating it using long-range precision strikes against the only two land lines of communication that connect it to Russia; the Kerch Bridge, already severely damaged by Ukrainian forces, and the so-called “land bridge” which connects Crimea to Russia via Mariupol and Melitopol along the coastline of Azov Sea. Targeting that transportation infrastructure will begin the isolation of Crimea from resupply or movement.

A large Ukrainian armored force attacking southeastwards in the direction of the Azov Sea and penetrating Russian linear defenses would complete the isolation of Crimea and enable the closer deployment of HIMARS rocket launchers which would then be in range of key Russian facilities in Crimea. Crimea is about the size of Massachusetts. There’s no place to hide. The locations of all Russian facilities are well known and obvious — and vulnerable.

Precision strikes on Sevastopol will force the Black Sea fleet to reposition to Novorossiysk which is far less capable as a base, and further away from Ukrainian cities. The airbase at Saky, on the west coast of Crimea, should be made completely unusable. And the logistics hub at Dzhankoy in the north of Crimea should become a huge bonfire. Once Crimea is untenable, then Ukrainian ground forces can begin to attack south, towards the Perekop Isthmus, and then into broader Crimea. Other Ukrainian assets (special forces, marines, unmanned systems, etc) will also play a role.

Is there any better military objective? Why not the Donbas?

It’s important but not decisive. The liberation of Donbas won’t significantly change the strategic situation. The liberation of Crimea would be such a monumental defeat for Russia that I think the will to fight among Russian troops and “separatists” in the region would likely evaporate.

What kit does Ukraine need to make this happen?

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) says that precision can defeat mass if you have enough time. Russian massed infantry depends on Russian massed artillery. Russian massed artillery depends on headquarters, ammunitions stockpiles, and transportation. All three of these can and should be targeted by long-range precision weapons with a range greater than the GMLRS they now have (90km.) Specific systems including ATACMS (300km), ground-launched small diameter bombs (150km), and Gray Eagle drones (25 hours loiter time) would all be useful.

What does victory look like?

1. All Ukrainian sovereign territory restored to Ukraine, including Crimea and Donbas;
2. All deported Ukrainians (including tens of thousands of children) returned home to Ukraine;
3. Accountability for Russian war crimes (delivered through an international tribunal for charges of aggression by Russia.)

Ukraine’s Road to Victory Runs Through Crimea - CEPA

WASHINGTON — A year ago, the United States did something extraordinary — it released previously classified intelligence that exposed Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine.

Last week, Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, made a similar move when he warned China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, against providing weapons to Russia.

In a previous era, the warning might have remained private, at least for some time. But a new intelligence playbook honed just before and during the war in Ukraine has redefined how the United States uses its classified knowledge to undercut Russia and its partners.

The playbook is not just about naming and shaming Russia and its allies; it has become a powerful tool in the United States’ arsenal to try to stymie the Kremlin’s offensive by exposing Russia’s military plans and in aligning support for Kyiv’s war effort in allied capitals.

Ahead of Mr. Blinken’s meeting with Mr. Wang, the United States disclosed to allies intelligence normally held in tight secrecy. It included details about the ammunition and other weaponry China was considering providing Russia. Then Mr. Blinken shared the broad conclusion that China was considering giving military support to Russia publicly.

“For the most part, China has been engaged in providing rhetorical, political, diplomatic support to Russia, but we have information that gives us concern that they are considering providing lethal support to Russia in the war against Ukraine,” Mr. Blinken told ABC News.

“And it was important for me to share very clearly with Wang Yi that this would be a serious problem.”

The disclosure by Mr. Blinken was driven at least in part by the U.S. belief that public warnings and the declassification of additional intelligence about internal Chinese deliberations, could still deter Beijing from delivering to Russia weapon systems to aid Moscow’s military campaign.

Some American officials insist that unlike Iran or North Korea — countries whose military support for Russia has been disclosed by U.S. officials — China cares about its international reputation. Because of its trade ties with Europe and the United States, which North Korea and Iran do not have, Beijing may be less willing to risk sanctions over weapon sales.

The effort to declassify intelligence to expose Russia began just over a year ago when the Biden administration was trying to convince some skeptical allies in Europe that Russia was poised to invade Ukraine. The administration’s new intelligence sharing strategy did not stop the Russian invasion, but it succeeded in revealing Russian plans and aligning major Western powers behind measures to isolate Russia economically and diplomatically.

“It’s not a natural thing to share intelligence beyond a handful of our most trusted allies, but we knew that this effort was going to have to be broader and deeper than we had ever done before,” said Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser.

The shift toward disclosures is driven in part by lessons of the past, and startling technological changes that have made more information about wartime activities accessible than ever before, something intelligence officials say allows them to release more information without endangering secret sources.

The strategy is also, in part, a product of past intelligence failures. Some failures, most infamously over claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, still color how Europeans view American spy agencies two decades later. Those doubts forced the United States and Britain to share more about what they knew about Russian capabilities and intentions to try to stave off European skepticism.

Now, according to some diplomats, when those two allies declassify and release intelligence, it is more readily believed by allies in Europe who were previously uncertain of U.S. and British intelligence on Russia’s war plans.

“Even though Russia was not deterred by the release of the intelligence information, what was achieved was that everybody was on the same sheet of music when the war started,” said Kaupo Rosin, the director general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, which has also released declassified information.

The U.S. release of intelligence has focused on various countries’ support for Russia’s war. In addition to the warning about China, the White House disclosed plans for Iranian trainers, missiles and drones to join the battlefield in Ukraine. And it shared information about North Korean artillery ammunition going to resupply Russia.

The disclosures laid the groundwork for new sanctions by the U.S. and Europe on Iranian drone makers. More information releases are likely, officials said, whenever Russia is close to striking a deal for new weaponry. In addition to calling out countries who are considering supporting Russia, the United States plans to release information on Moscow’s battle plans and preparations, much as officials did in the months before the invasion.

The aim would be to call out Russia’s efforts to step up or expand its offensive in the east or south of Ukraine, said U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Such a disclosure, which would take away the element of surprise, could help Ukraine prepare and galvanize a European response — either through additional economic steps or increased military assistance to Ukraine.

Still, there are more limits now than a year ago. Ahead of the invasion, the United States was trying to prod Ukraine to take the threat of invasion more seriously. Now Ukraine is fighting with all its might, and U.S. officials say they want to make sure any disclosure of Russian movements or operational plans aids Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself, not complicate them.

Part of the reason the U.S. government can disclose Moscow’s war plans, is in large measure because Washington-based think tanks like the Institute for the Study of War or the Russia Studies program at CNA, are scrutinizing various threads of information to examine Russia’s movements.

The surge of such open-source information, which includes images from commercial satellites as well as reports from Russian bloggers, social media posts analyzing weapons found in Ukraine and other information, has enabled the intelligence community to make more disclosures, officials said.

Many declassifications have come when the intelligence community can find open-source information that allows analysts to draw similar conclusions.U.S. officials say they are not aware of any sensitive sources of information that have been lost as a result of the releases — at least so far.

In 2014, after Russia seized Crimea, the Obama administration took a more cautious approach when it came to sharing intelligence — than about Russian activities in the Donbas region of Ukraine — with skeptical European allies, a decision that some officials came to see as a mistake because it made it easier for Moscow to sow divisions in the West.

“Obviously, Biden administration officials have learned from that firsthand experience that most of them had as part of the Obama administration,” said Evelyn Farkas, the top Pentagon official for Ukraine during the Obama years. “You can’t convince people to go along with your policies if they are suspicious about what those policies are based on.”

In the fall of 2021, many of the officials who were involved in Obama administration decisions on intelligence sharing were back in power, and they faced a similar dilemma.

At first, they were somewhat unconvinced of the dire predictions of U.S. intelligence agencies about a possible Russian invasion.

But as they were presented with more evidence, Jake Sullivan, who served as Mr. Biden’s national security adviser when he was vice president, and Mr. Finer, his deputy, came to the conclusion that the Biden administration should not allow a repeat of 2014, and needed to find a way to prevent Russia from dividing the West and catching the world by surprise.

Mr. Biden agreed and directed that U.S. intelligence about Russia’s war plans be declassified so they could be shared with a broad group of allies.

“He turned to us in the intelligence community and said, ‘You’ve got to share,’” Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, recalled in a speech last week. “‘You have to get out there and start sharing because we’ve got to help them see what you’re seeing.’”

In contrast to 2014, when U.S. officials were largely caught off guard by Russia’s lightning seizure of Crimea, intelligence agencies saw the 2022 invasion coming. As a result, Biden administration officials knew they had weeks, if not months, to lay the groundwork with reluctant allies and to pre-empt Moscow by exposing its plans.

“There were really strong arguments for going one step further and actually downgrading and declassifying some information so that we can also start to prepare the public landscape,” Mr. Finer said.

U.S. intelligence agencies are generally reluctant to share their secrets, but they agreed to do so after taking steps to ensure that the disclosures would not expose their most valuable sources.

The new playbook appears to be here to stay: Biden administration officials say they will continue to disclose sensitive information when it is in America’s strategic interest. But that does not mean the administration and intelligence officials will always agree on what to release.

In a talk at the Munich Security Conference, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, said the decisions to release intelligence had an important impact on the course of the war. But he said intelligence should be released only after an evaluation of the potential benefits and risks of each disclosure.

“As I’ve learned over many years, the surest way to lose sources of good intelligence is to be reckless in your handling of them,” Mr. Burns said. “There’s always a temptation to think that anything worth doing is worth overdoing. So in this case, I think we have to be careful and case-by-case.”

nytimes.com

looks like the UK is trying to unlock the fighter jet impasse

Russia-Ukraine war latest: Britain ready to swap fighter jets so eastern Europe can send planes to Ukraine

Britain is prepared to send fighter jets to its Eastern European allies in order to unlock shipments of Soviet-era aircraft to Ukraine, Ben Wallace said on Friday.


The Defence Secretary told Times Radio: "The other quick way that Ukraine can benefit from fighter jets is for those countries in Europe that have Russian Soviet fighter jets - MiG 29s or Su-24s - if they wish to donate we can use our fighter jets to backfill and provide security for them as a result.


"They are already configured to fight in a Nato way, where of course Ukraine isn't."


The likes of Poland and Slovakia have signalled they are ready to send MiG-29 as part of an international effort to better arm Ukraine.


For this to happen, the Eastern countries would need Western fighter jets to be leant to them to backfill for any Soviet-era models delivered to Kyiv.


Polish and Slovak MiGs have been upgraded, unlike the jets Ukraine flies, to operate with Nato-standard weapons, such as the RAF's Storm Shadow cruise missile, and communications systems.



Russia-Ukraine war latest: Britain ready to swap fighter jets so eastern Europe can send planes to Ukraine