Thread: Russia launches Ukraine invasion

Putin’s Loudest Crony Full-On Panics Over Shelling Inside Russia

The Russian governor of Belgorod accused Ukraine of shelling the Shebekinsky urban district over 500 times in the last 24 hours, in the latest indication that Ukraine’s alleged attacks inside Russia proper are not letting up.


“460 units of various ammunition were fired in the Shebekinsky urban district, 26 drops of explosive devices from UAVs were recorded,” the governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on social media. “In the city of Shebekino, strikes were mainly directed at residential areas.”


Attacks also targeted the village of Bezlyudovka, Murom, Novaya Tavolzhanka, Gordyushkin, and Surkovo, Gladkov said.


The repeated attacks inside the Belgorod region, which come just weeks after a pro-Ukraine group stormed Russian borders, have apparently spooked some Kremlin propagandists. Margarita Simonyan, RT editor-in-chief and top Moscow mouthpiece, appeared to suggest this week that the war should end to avoid Ukraine attacking further and further inside Russia, according to a Meduza translation.


“The Armed Forces of Ukraine will receive long-range missiles and fighter jets. They will inflict all blows on us, on our territories. Belgorod region, they will go further, Voronezh region is not far there, God forbid, Rostov region, Krasnodar is my native, and so on,” Simonyan said.


Russia should try to hold “referenda in all disputed territories” in Ukraine to end the war, she said, admitting to doubts that Kyiv would actually agree to that.


The growing sense of alarm about attacks inside Russia comes just days after Gladkov ordered residents to evacuate in a desperate measure to “save lives.”


“I ask that the inhabitants of the localities that have been shelled, in particular those in the Chebekino district, follow the instructions of the authorities and temporarily leave their homes,” he said, according to AFP.


Thousands of Russians living on border towns with Ukraine had previously abandoned their homes to take refuge in the main city of Belgorod, according to Reuters. Now that the violence is reaching the city too, residents are reportedly questioning why Russia isn’t able to wage a proper defense inside its territory.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia...=home?ref=home

Might be a good time to buy grain futures.

The collapse of the Nova Kakhova dam on Tuesday could turn Ukraine’s southern fields “into deserts” by next year, top Ukrainian officials have cautioned.
A crisis of global food security could occur if the Ukrainian fields turn into deserts, as the dam’s destruction has stopped the water supply to nearly 600,000 hectares of agricultural land.

The lack of water supply to this land endangers the production of four million tonnes of grains and crops exported from Ukraine, Ukraine’s agricultural ministry wrote.
They also said: “The fields in the south of Ukraine may turn into deserts as early as next year.
“In total, according to preliminary calculations, the losses from the death of all biological resources will amount to [$285m dollars],” it concluded.

The statement also noted that the surrounding countryside and water supplies have also been destroyed and fish stock killed.
Ukraine is globally one of the major producers of grain and oils, which means without the maintenance of agricultural land, worldwide food supplies could be majorly affected.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/ukraine-fields-deserts-dam-attack-global-food-security/

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

You have to admit that the war has changed dramatically in the last two or three weeks, 'Arry.

Not really.

Just a few new places bombed to smithereens, and a dam blown up by Russia.

Net effect on the occupation?

Fuck all.

There's a few less mouths to feed, which is just as well because there'll be a few less harvests next year.

^^ Because we don't see it on CNN live, doesn't mean it's not happening - a lot is happening and has done for weeks. We will likely have more information in a week or so - just like the previous counter offensive; it took us some time before we were told what happened. A good indicator is the Russian social media bloggers because they went crazy with negative info during the last counter offensive for about a week before our main news outlets gave the same information; currently, the Russian social media bloggers are going crazy with negative info...

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

We will likely have more information in a week or so

From mainstream media perhaps, for those of us who are OSINT wonks things are heating up. I am just going to put this out there with no links to back it up for now due to OPSEC, but western tanks have made their first appearance in the battlespace.

Things are just kicking off with massive bombardments along the front, JDAMs, GMLRS, Stormshadow, M982 Excalibur, as well as heavy artillery are being focused on first line ruzzian frontal positions. As was previously stated, ruzzian milbloggers are shitting themselves.

Originally Posted by bsnub

It is temporary and will not last long, that water will start receding by the end of this week. From the BBC...

I didn't realise the full extent of the damage when I first posted. I thought it was only the first few metres of the dam top that had gone but the full extent is now clear, fully breached with total flooding of the area. As you and others have said, it is a major catastrophe.

I still think it was a gain in tempo for the Russians, in that they have scuppered any initial attempt of a Ukraine counteroffensive in the Kherson region. There had been a build up of forces in the region and a strong possibility of a major counteroffensive being initiated very soon in this area. However, I can't understand why they didn't wait for it to start before blowing the dam. That would have made more sense unless they were just after more time all along the front while Ukraine has to deal with a humanitarian emergency.

This is a report from today...



I doubt if Western MBTs have been used so far in what looks like probing attacks to find weaknesses. I have heard reports of a couple of T64s being used in areas to support probing and reconn missions but no Western MBT, which would more likely be used together in a major punch through once a weakness has been created.

As stated in the video, Ukraine has suffered the inevitable heavy casualties in their early attacks along the front. Let's hope they manage to find a weakness and use the latest equipment to its full effect rather than waste it due to frustration.

...and Betty, this is more like WW1 than WW2, trying to punch through layers of static defensive lines and heavy artillery. It's gruesome in the extreme and we're talking of metres being gained rather than 10s of kilometres.

Originally Posted by bsnub

Things are just kicking off with massive bombardments along the front, JDAMs, GMLRS, Stormshadow, M982 Excalibur, as well as heavy artillery are being focused on first line ruzzian frontal positions. As was previously stated, ruzzian milbloggers are shitting themselves.

Do you have any OSINT info on the Leopard 2 tanks that were reported ambushed lately? Tanks on roads following closely line astern...really? That is how the Russians lost their tanks!! MBTs need to be used correctly if they are going to be use in a strong punch through...this is not WW1!!!

If they lose Challenger 2 tanks in the same way then they might as well make peace with the current front line right now!

Originally Posted by Troy

Do you have any OSINT info on the Leopard 2 tanks that were reported ambushed lately?

Pure ruzzian fantasy.

Originally Posted by Troy

...and Betty, this is more like WW1 than WW2, trying to punch through layers of static defensive lines and heavy artillery. It's gruesome in the extreme and we're talking of metres being gained rather than 10s of kilometres.

It seems to be both - WW1 style defenses as you're saying, and the WW2 style Russian artillery bombardment. There's also all the drones and satellite stuff going on, AI and super computers in the background, and the social media wars too. There's a lot going on, and the Ukrainians have a very tough slog to get the Russians back (and potentially out?), but this war is still a complete failure for Russia.

That dam is a total disaster; it's terrible, and after watching a few programs yesterday, far worse than I thought too - pure terrorism from Russia; I don't see how Putin can ever come back from this insanity.

Originally Posted by bsnub

Pure ruzzian fantasy.

Starts at 1:07

Originally Posted by pickel

Starts at 1:07

Ya, I thought that Troy was talking about the one from yesterday where the ruzzians had tried to pass a tractor off as a Leopard. I will say that that tank looks recoverable as the ammunition cook off was out of the rear blast panels. The crew likely survived.

There will be more western equipment destroyed in the coming days. It is inevitable.

Here's a nice analysis (the fella is so good, he could almost be initiated into the TD TSI):

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

Here's a nice analysis (the fella is so good, he could almost be initiated into the TD TSI):

Good analysis especially the bit about lack of coordination and commuication between the Russian military units. This has been evident from day one and partly explains why Russia is getting nowhere fast with their invasion forces.

Originally Posted by bsnub

The "best" died last year now we are deep into the conscripts. All the "trainers" have been sent, they died, All of OMAN was sent they got smoked, Spetnaz is totally smoked. What is left?

Apparently, the Russians conducted a very strong defence in the Western Zaporizhia region where Ukraine are trying to drive forward towards Tokmak. Reports suggest the Russians held the line after an initial breakthrough. Looks like Ukraine have decided to hit the strong point of the Russian defence, which will make for a long and bloody counteroffensive.

Too early to tell but any thoughts if this being a walkover should be dispelled.

Ukrainian forces suffer ‘stiff resistance’ and losses in assault on Russian lines

Ukrainian forces have suffered losses in heavy equipment and soldiers as they met greater than expected resistance from Russian forces in their first attempt to breach Russian lines in the east of the country in recent days, two senior US officials tell CNN.


One US official described the losses – which include US supplied MRAP armored personnel vehicles as “significant.”


Ukrainian forces managed to overrun some Russian forces in the east around Bakhmut. However, Russian forces, armed with anti-tank missiles, grenades and mortars, have put up “stiff resistance,” with their forces dug into defensive lines that are several layers deep in some areas and marked by minefields that have taken a heavy toll on Ukrainian armored vehicles.


US and Western officials have been bracing for the counteroffensive for months, moving to shore up Ukraine’s defenses ahead of its start. This week, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said an offensive was “taking place in several directions.”


“It is not only about Bakhmut. The offensive is taking place in several directions,” Maliar said. “We are happy about every meter. Today is a successful day for our forces.”


Both US officials say the losses are not expected to impact the larger planned Ukrainian counteroffensive. US and western officials long expected the counteroffensive to take time and put Ukrainian personnel and equipment, including Western-supplied systems, at high risk.


Russian Ministry of Defense claimed Wednesday that the Ukrainian offensive close to Bakhmut was “thwarted”.


“The Armed Forces of Ukraine, having failed to achieve the offensive objectives and suffered significant losses in South Donetsk direction, made the attempts to break the defence of Russian troops in Donetsk direction close to Artyomovsk (Russian for Bakhmut),” a spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Defense said.


“The attack of the enemy armored group using Western-manufactured hardware was thwarted. The enemy was destroyed.”


Moscow often inflates claims regarding Ukrainian losses on the battlefield. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently acknowledged the counteroffensive would be hard for Ukraine, telling the Wall Street Journal that “a large number of soldiers will die” as Kyiv’s ground forces make their advance.

MORE Ukrainian forces suffer 'stiff resistance' and losses in assault on Russian lines | CNN Politics

Russian Elite Is Souring on Putin’s Chances of Winning His War

(Bloomberg) -- A mood of deepening gloom is gripping Russia’s elite about prospects for President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, with even the most optimistic seeing a “frozen” conflict as the best available outcome now for the Kremlin.


Many within the political and business elite are tired of the war and want it to stop, though they doubt Putin will halt the fighting, according to seven people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because the matter is sensitive. While nobody’s willing to stand up to the president over the invasion, absolute belief in his leadership has been shaken by it, four of the people said.

The most favorable prospect would be negotiations later in the year that would turn it into a “frozen” conflict and allow Putin to proclaim a Pyrrhic victory to Russians by holding on to some seized Ukrainian territory, two of the people said.


“There is elite deadlock: they are afraid to become scapegoats for a meaningless war,” said Kirill Rogov, a former Russian government advisor who left the country after the invasion and now heads Re:Russia, a Vienna-based think tank. “It is really surprising how widespread among the Russian elite became the idea of a chance that Putin won’t win this war.”


The growing despondency is likely to intensify a blame game over responsibility for the faltering invasion that’s already stirred bitter public divisions between nationalist hardliners and Russia’s Defense Ministry. With the Kremlin facing a Ukrainian counteroffensive that’s backed by billions in weapons from the US and Europe, expectations are low among Russian officials for any significant advances on the battlefield after a winter in which Moscow’s forces made little progress and incurred huge casualties.


The catastrophic breach of a giant dam in Ukraine on Tuesday that the government in Kyiv blamed on Russia further complicated the conflict as floodwater swept across parts of the conflict zone. Russia denied responsibility.


Attacks inside Russia are adding to a sense of insecurity, including the largest drone strikes last week targeting Moscow since the war began. Fighting has spread into the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, challenging Putin’s image as the guarantor of Russia’s security.


Even some who support the invasion and want to intensify the fight against Ukraine have become deflated about Russia’s prospects in a war that was supposed to conclude within days and is now in its 16th month. Nationalists led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary group, have raged against Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s army chief Valery Gerasimov for military failings, as they press for a full-scale mobilization and martial law to avert a potentially catastrophic defeat.


“There have been too many big mistakes,” said Sergei Markov, a political consultant with close Kremlin ties. “There were expectations a long time ago that Russia would take control of the majority of Ukraine but these expectations didn’t materialize.”


Putin and his top officials insist Russia will win, even as it’s no longer very clear what would constitute victory after its army failed to seize Kyiv early in the war. There’s no sign of any challenge to his leadership from within his circle.


Most in the elite are keeping their heads down and getting on with their work, convinced they can’t influence events, according to four of the people with knowledge of the situation. Putin shows no indication of wanting to end the war, five of the people said.


State media explain away repeated reverses by pumping out the message that Russia is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine against the US and its North Atlantic Treaty Organi

The Kremlin has imposed the harshest repression in decades to punish even mild dissent with jail terms. Russia’s middle class who’d formed the bedrock of support for opposition to Putin’s rule in major cities in the past decade have been cowed into silence or have fled the country as part of the biggest wave of emigration since the 1990s after the Soviet Union’s collapse.


So far, polls show most ordinary Russians continue to back Putin, who’s mixed Soviet-era nostalgia with Russia’s imperial past to assert that he’s defending the country’s interests and reclaiming historical lands by annexing areas of eastern and southern Ukraine.


Still, concern may be ticking up again after spiking last fall when Putin announced a draft of 300,000 reservists. A May 19-21 survey of 1,500 Russians by the FOM polling company found 53% considered their family and friends were in an anxious mood, a jump of 11 percentage points since April and the highest in nearly four months.


Prigozhin toured Russian cities last week warning of a “difficult” war that may last years as he argued for martial law and full mobilization. He said in an interview last month that Russia risked a revolution similar to the one in 1917 because of the divide between the Kremlin elite and ordinary Russians whose children “come back in zinc coffins” from Ukraine.


The ruling United Russia party began an investigation after a senior State Duma lawmaker, Konstantin Zatulin, told a forum that the invasion had achieved none of its declared aims, Vedomosti reported Monday. “Let’s get out of this somehow,” Zatulin said.


Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian Orthodox nationalist supporter of Putin, wants Russia to keep fighting because “the Ukrainian state should cease to exist.” He rejects any talk of a cease-fire, though he said many within the ruling elite including a “huge number” of business people would support China’s recent peace initiative that envisages a truce.


“They say they support the special military operation but in reality they’re against it,” said Malofeev, a multi-millionaire who’s also sponsoring a volunteer force fighting in Ukraine. “In six months, we’ll have clear superiority in ammunition and shell production and we’ll be ready to go onto the attack.”


To be sure, Russia still possesses enormous resources for the fight. Its troops are dug in on the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine and Ukrainian air defenses have been kept busy as Russian missiles and drones have rained down on the country throughout the past month.


Ukraine has ruled out a resolution of the conflict that leaves Russia occupying any of its territory, as it begins to unleash the counteroffensive that’s been months in preparation.


“It’s time to take back what’s ours,” Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said in a Telegram post May 27.

With no end to the fighting in sight, Russian officials and billionaire tycoons know they face potentially years of international isolation and deepening dependence on the Kremlin as Putin pushes businesses to back the war effort and bans those around him from leaving their posts.


They and their families have been hit with asset freezes and travel bans under US and European penalties that have also made Russia’s economy one of the world’s most sanctioned, upending decades of integration into global markets.


“Officials have adapted to the situation but no one sees any light at the end of the tunnel - they’re pessimistic about the future,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a former Russian journalist and central bank advisor who’s now a non-resident scholar at the Berlin-based Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “The best they hope for is that Russia will lose without humiliation.”

Russian Elite Is Souring on Putin’s Chances of Winning His War

Originally Posted by misskit

Ukrainian forces suffer ‘stiff resistance’ and losses in assault on Russian lines

These types of operations are very dangerous. Probing the enemy line to find the weak spot, obviously that part of the line was not.

I love the phrase "close ally" when he's the high-heeled war criminal's sock puppet who would have been hanging from a tree if Putin hadn't bailed him out.

Russia will start deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus after the facilities are ready on July 7-8, according to the Kremlin readout of a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in the Russian resort city of Sochi.
"So everything is according to plan, everything is stable," Putin said, according to the readout.
The two men had previously agreed the plan to deploy Russian land-based short-range nuclear missiles on the territory of Moscow's close ally, where they will remain under Russian command.

🔴 Live: Russia to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, says Putin

Originally Posted by bsnub

These types of operations are very dangerous. Probing the enemy line to find the weak spot, obviously that part of the line was not.

Nope, the Ukr are finding it's not easy to take on mobile equipped forces with heavy armour. I said at the start of all this tanks have had their day. Ukraine need air support, the F16s were required.

Originally Posted by Troy

I don't know how far from the front line this was, nor whether the area was mined.

This video geo-locates it.

^ The fuss is over snubby thinking that the Russians will fold as soon as they see a bit of Western hardware.

So far that has not been the case. Russians have been defending aggressively, as you would expect.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 8, 2023 | Institute for the Study of War

^ The Ukr are going to be on the receiving end of the same antitank action that they deployed so successfully, the Russians have had plenty of time to know what's coming and equip and plan, Ukr need more than armour and a following wind imo.