Kiev Is Burning

[kokovi]

5 hours ago, On the way said:

The Ukrainians must have had access to NATO and US spy satellite images of their border areas for weeks now. They must have known the disposition and strength of the Russian forces for some time now. Yet they don't seem to be able to even put up token resistance at the entry points. Is it their strategy to let them come in and then bog them down somewhere? The Ukrainians don't seem to have a plan at all, unless its to let the Russians come into their major cities and do a Chechnya or Berlin on them in street to street and house to house fighting

I think it would have been incredibly stupid for the Ukrainians to have resisted in predictable locations against Russian air power and artillery at the outbreak of hostilities. They would just have been obliterated.

[DougRichards]

3 minutes ago, jaro said:

That might have worked somewhere else, but Ukrainians don't drop weapons.. they fight.. occupation will be costly..

In some ways, sadly, I hope that is correct.  But it also means that the liberal West does not know truly how to deal with Tsar Putin.  I will post the text of a rather astute Australian commentator about this next.

[Stuart Galbraith]

21 minutes ago, RichTO90 said:

Unlikely, since Gostomel, unless things have changed significantly since I was there in 2004, is primarily a test facility for Antonov and never really managed to become an air cargo hub as planned. That honor went to Boryspil, which is probably where any air deliveries of arms from the US went through.

Or maybe they just wanted to capture all the Antonov antiques and boneyard aircraft, which is most of what was there. The hints in the one photo are the weeds growing on the concrete and what appears to be an engine-less AN-2 Colt sitting on the taxiway...I remember seeing it or its brother there 18 years ago in the same condition. The derelict AN-124 at the end of the taxiway is pretty impressive though.

Just as a matter of interest, do you happen to know where the uncompleted AN-225 is? The Chinese were supposedly stumping up some money to complete it.

[BansheeOne]

Well what became of the Il-76s out of Pskov? That should be an indicator of whether any airhead is being reinforced.

Also, what is the word on the alleged amphibious landings?

What's the TankNet sorta-consensus on the best of the various online maps supposed to show the state of operations?

[RETAC21]

28 minutes ago, RichTO90 said:

Yeah, I know, shhh! You'll give away the secret. Seriously, Gostomel is a bitch of a ride from downtown Kyiv; its only virtue is that it os on the correct side of the Dnieper, unlike Boryspil. With helos they could have just used the driveway, parking lot, and entrance grounds at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, its a clear, fairly flat space about 600 by 80 meters or so...and near the center of the city.

Only if an Il-76 could land there...

I would say most of what is "known" now it's incorrect in typical fog of war fashion, but to me it seems the Russian attack has followed a the usual template: 

1) Missile and air attacks to supress enemy air defences and bases: given the weeks of tension, the Ukrainian Air Force probably dispersed its assets, but they don't have a lot of aircraft to start with.

2) Diversionary operations to fix the enemy attention away from the critical points: Gostomel fits this, but coudl aslo serve as an airbridge to Kiev and bypass defensive enemy positions

3) Deep operations following a breakthrough, which seems to be based on 3 thrusts, one from Belorussia aimed at Kiev, one from Kursk aimed at outflanking the forces deployed on the Donbass and one out of Crimea to isolate Ukraine from the sea.

The Ukrainians probably deployed away from the border (other than in the Donbass), to avoid being surrounded and destroyed, and just had screening forces there, which would explain the ease of the initial Russian penetration, and the T-64s in the South.

edited to add a map:

Edited February 25, 2022 by RETAC21

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, KV7 said:

Do we know what happened at Gostomel yet ? Did the airborne troops pull out or are there still clashes ?

The story I heard is that the Ukrainians foiled an airborne landing, a reinforcement, and the Airborne troops at the airport split and hid in a nearby forest.  Last I checked it was all over, although obviously in this kind of situation, events are fluid.

[Stuart Galbraith]

6 minutes ago, jaro said:

That might have worked somewhere else, but Ukrainians don't drop weapons.. they fight.. occupation will be costly..

It wouldnt be the first dictator to make a truly stupid decision based on his own hubris. Look at Saddam Hussein in Iran or Kuwait.

OTOH, Saddam didnt have the worlds second largest nuclear stockpile, so there is that.

 

9 minutes ago, DougRichards said:

One suggestion is that it is simply the incorporation of the Ukraine into 'Russia'.  Isn't that Putin's end game?

The suggestion is that what he has been wanting, or so we are interpreting from his speech, is a Soviet Reunion, or perhaps closer to the Old Russian Empire. He is very much a C19th man in so many ways.

 

[futon]

Airborne landing may have been a faint if nothing is following up on it.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/sean-penn-ukraine-film-documentary-202102205.html

he actor and humanitarian has been meeting with Ukrainian officials and military in Kyiv

 

Actor Sean Penn is on the ground in Ukraine making a documentary about the Russian invasion, Vice Studios confirmed to Variety on Thursday, as Russia began a full-scale attack on its neighbor.

The Oscar-winning star and longtime humanitarian activist appeared at a press briefing by the Ukrainian government in Kyiv on Thursday, listening to government officials speak about the crisis many world leaders are calling the worst conflict in Europe since 1945.

Related: Ukraine fighting to stop ‘a new iron curtain’ after Russian invasion

Penn previously visited Ukraine in November 2021 to research for the film. His visits with the Ukrainian military were documented by the Ukrainian joint forces operation press service, which posted photos of the meetups on social media at the time.

According to Newsweek, Penn arrived in Kyiv earlier this week and met with deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk, as well as local journalists and members of the military.

The office of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a statement through the Ukrainian embassy in praise of the actor and director, who “specially came to Kyiv to record all the events that are currently happening in Ukraine and to tell the world the truth about Russia’s invasion of our country”.

“Sean Penn is among those who support Ukraine in Ukraine today. Our country is grateful to him for such a show of courage and honesty,” the translated statement read.

The statement also said Penn “is demonstrating bravery that many others have been lacking, in particular some Western politicians. The more people like that – true friends of Ukraine, who support the fight for freedom – the quicker we can stop this heinous invasion by Russia”.

[Perun]

8 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Only if an Il-76 could land there...

I would say most of what is "known" now it's incorrect in typical fog of war fashion, but to me it seems the Russian attack has followed a the usual template: 

1) Missile and air attacks to supress enemy air defences and bases: given the weeks of tension, the Ukrainian Air Force probably dispersed its assets, but they don't have a lot of aircraft to start with.

2) Diversionary operations to fix the enemy attention away from the critical points: Gostomel fits this, but coudl aslo serve as an airbridge to Kiev and bypass defensive enemy positions

3) Deep operations following a breakthrough, which seems to be based on 3 thrusts, one from Belorussia aimed at Kiev, one from Kursk aimed at outflanking the forces deployed on the Donbass and one out of Crimea to isolate Ukraine from the sea.

The Ukrainians probably deployed away from the border (other than in the Donbass), to avoid being surrounded and destroyed, and just had screening forces there, which would explain the ease of the initial Russian penetration, and the T-64s in the South.

edited to add a map:

Map source for future observations

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

7 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

Well what became of the Il-76s out of Pskov? That should be an indicator of whether any airhead is being reinforced.

Also, what is the word on the alleged amphibious landings?

What's the TankNet sorta-consensus on the best of the various online maps supposed to show the state of operations?

Dont know. Possibly that was bilge, or possibly they knocked it on the head when the pathfinders got overrun.

There was something big shot down over Kyiv last night, no idea what that was yet. CNN says it was a missile shot out of the sky, but this to me looks like something a lot bigger.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-explosions-heard-after-ukraine-26325553

Edited February 25, 2022 by Stuart Galbraith

[Perun]

Some sources said it was Ukrainian Su-27

[DougRichards]

From an Australian media source that can usually be relied on, except when taking about those of the alphabet:........

This is the sort of war the West does not know how to fight.

It is not just about territory, borders, resources, or power. It is existential — it is about identity. 

Vladimir Putin has made it clear Ukraine is part of the soul of Russia. And he is prepared to crush the souls of Ukrainians to achieve his ends.

But it is the "why" that is more important than the "what" here.

Why? Because to Putin, there is no Ukraine without Russia. They are one.

Putin said so: there is no Ukrainian sovereignty. Putin sees Ukraine as Russian land essential to Putin's idea of Russkiy Mir (Russian World). It is about Russian language, culture: it is blood and soil.

It is mythological. Russkiy Mir is holy: central is Russian orthodox faith.

To Russian nationalists like Putin, Ukraine's capital Kyiv is the mother of all Russian cities. 

This is why Putin famously called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century". It is oft-repeated, not as often understood.

Putin wants Russia back

Putin doesn't want communism back, he wants Russia back. The catastrophe wasn't the collapse of Marxism-Leninism, it was the suffering of the people. 

Russian-speaking Slavic people were cut adrift — as Putin sees it — from mother Russia.

Why can't the West fight this? Because the West doesn't even understand it. The West is meant to be a place beyond identity. 

This is everything the West is not. The modern West grew out of Reformation and Enlightenment. It was about liberation. In the West we change citizenship, we move countries, we swap or abandon religions.

Pluralism and multiculturalism have been hallmarks of progress. We celebrate diversity as a strength. But the success of the West poses harder and harder questions. 

Liberal democracy is staggering under the weight of growing inequality, contested rights and political tribalism.

What binds us? We appear ever rootless, not rooted. 

Not everyone, of course. Roots matter to some, but liberal democracy can leave us unmoored: it hollows out our communities, mocks tradition, banishes faith from the public square.

Liberalism elevates the individual to the point of alienation. Scholar Patrick Deneen charted this decline in his book, Why Liberalism Failed. It has lost its moral and political core, he argues:

"Today's widespread yearning for a strong leader, one with the will to take back popular control over liberalism's forms of bureaucratised government and globalised economy, comes after decades of liberal dismantling of cultural norms and political habits essential to self-governance."

The modern West is less village square than city centre. Yes, there are "somewheres", as the British writer David Goodhart put it, but inexorably we seem to be on a journey to "anywhere".

In the West, Putin sees weakness

This is a demographic, economic and cultural fault line that runs through the liberal pluralist West and it is increasingly political. It is a battle over what the West is, and who is prepared to defend it.

It cuts across religious freedom, LGTB rights, race, gender and class. It divides the rural from the urban.

And Vladimir Putin sees it as a weakness. He has castigated the West for its culture wars and its corrosive identity politics.

Meanwhile, Putin himself plays identity writ large. He plays it hard. When it comes to national identity, when it comes to Russian civilisation, Putin shows none of the self-doubts he sees in the West.

Putin is a product of our age. As globalisation has continued apace, there has been a blowback, a return to borders, tradition, religion, race. The return of the tribe.

And it has set the world ablaze. The Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen best summed this up with his phrase "solitarist identity". He means that our world turns toxic when we are reduced to one essential thing: our race or our religion or our nation.

Then, we fail to see ourselves in each other. This, Sen says, is where identity meets violence. Solitarist identity, he says, "kills and kills with abandon".

The West has been dragged into the wars of identity. Think of the last few decades. The ethnic cleansing of Rwanda, the conflict in the Balkans and the break-up of the old Yugoslavia. The blood feud of Shia versus Sunni Muslim, Hindu against Muslim, the persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar.

"Who are you?" is the most dangerous question in the world.

These are wars never won. After two decades in Afghanistan, the US fled, leaving the Taliban to return to a country lacerated by identity conflict.

The West's War on Terror has not quelled the lure of radical Islam. A new generation of Muslims raised in the West, angry and disillusioned, has swelled the ranks of Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Breaking Ukraine's will, enacting revenge

French philosopher Jacques Derrida spoke of those "who have bread of apocalypse in their mouths": those filled with vengeance and grievance, haunted by the past, who see only unending catastrophe.

Western modernity holds no allure for them. Putin has Derrida's "bread of apocalypse" in his mouth.

He has unleashed a war of identity on Ukraine to stop its drift to the West, break its will, and in no small part to exact revenge on Western nations he believes have humiliated Russia.

Michel Eltchaninoff, the author of the book Inside the Mind of Vladimir Putin, says vengeance explains much of his crackdown against dissidents inside Russia and his attacks on enemies outside Russia. After two decades in power, Eltchaninoff says, Putin was about "revenge — against those protesting his return to power and against the West".

As the West has battled the wars of identity abroad, those same battles have exploded within the West itself.

Nations like America face foes without and within. The most powerful country in the world is a nation unsure of itself. Certainly, it is unprepared at this point to fight Putin in Ukraine and is looking to redeem and rejuvenate a sense of its own identity.

America was always an idea: as Abraham Lincoln said, a nation "dedicated" to a "proposition". But the idea of "out of many, one people" struggles to speak to the souls of those who seek only the one.

And watching this is Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader believes this is his time. His China Dream is within reach.

He believes in one people, one China, one identity. He has Taiwan in his sights. Potentially the mother of all identity wars.

Stan Grant is the ABC's international affairs analyst and presents China Tonight on Monday at 9:35pm on ABC TV, and Tuesday at 8pm on the ABC News Channel.

 

 

]

[Perun]

"west" will fight till last Ukrainian

[futon]

4 minutes ago, Perun said:

Map source for future observations

 

The Ukraine live map has a bit more of a penetration showing towards Kyiv at the moment on the west side. ot as much on the east side of the river.

https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/25-february-russian-tank-column-approaching-kyiv-from-northwest

 

I recall a few weeks ago of a Fox Business analysis news saying that the forces in Bularus were not sufficient for an invasion. That is sure looking to be wrong.

Edited February 25, 2022 by futon

[Stuart Galbraith]

Just now, Perun said:

Some sources said it was Ukrainian Su-27

Yeah, its possible, particularly if he was full of fuel.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Just now, Perun said:

"west" will fight till last Ukrainian

Whats your alternative, a no fly zone?

Yeah, im down with that, but im fully aware of the consequences of it. Not that it makes much difference, because as things are, I think we are going to be at war with them by the end of the year anyway.

[RETAC21]

2 minutes ago, futon said:

T

I recall a few weeks ago of a Fox Business analysis news saying that the forces in Bularus were not sufficient for an invasion. That is sure looking to be wrong.

Unless augmented by the Byelorussian Army..

[futon]

Just now, RETAC21 said:

Unless augmented by the Byelorussian Army..

Seems to be so, wow.

Footage has shown Russian military vehicles and troops entering Ukraine from several border points including Belarus as Moscow-led forces launched a major military assault on Ukraine, with reports of missile strikes and explosions in major cities.

The Ukrainian state border service (DPSU) said that the country's frontier "was attacked by Russian troops supported by Belarus," according to CNN.

The network showed livestream video from the Belarus border crossing shot around 6:48 a.m local time Thursday of a column of troops and military vehicles crossing between Senkivka, Ukraine, and Veselovka, Belarus.

Minsk and Moscow have close military ties, and Russian troops have been in Belarus for extensive military drills.

...

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-belarus-putin-tanks-video-1682125

[Stuart Galbraith]

Just now, RETAC21 said:

Unless augmented by the Byelorussian Army..

There is no evidence right now they are taking part. In fact, if I was Lukashenko, I would keep whatever army I had (which is not much to be honest) between me and NATO.

The article by Futon is deeply interesting though, and its certainly possible the Belarus border guards assisted Russia in some fashion.

Its not clear to me whether the troop numbers are actually including the Russian National Guard, which also seems to have deployed to Belarus and possibly Crimea.

[RETAC21]

6 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

There is no evidence right now they are taking part. In fact, if I was Lukashenko, I would keep whatever army I had (which is not much to be honest) between me and NATO.

The article by Futon is deeply interesting though, and its certainly possible the Belarus border guards assisted Russia in some fashion.

Its not clear to me whether the troop numbers are actually including the Russian National Guard, which also seems to have deployed to Belarus and possibly Crimea.

They don't need to commit the whole Army, just a brigade or 2 will suffice, and they can just be providing security to the rear. The push to Kiev seems more like a supporting operation to draw forces and attention away from the East.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well its certainly conceivable they would do that, but bear in mind they only have about 5 manoeuvre units to begin with. They dont have nearly as much kit to spare as people think they have.

I was browing Russiadefence.net to see if there was anything interesting. There are claims there that Russian paratroopers are still defending Gostomel, and they linked this twitter post to prove it.

However, It strikes me as remarkable that the CNN guy whom interviewed these paratroopers yesterday, noticed there was a small fire burning inside the compound. And that small fire still seems to be burning 24 hours later. One either concludes that is the case, or someone is attributing film shot yesterday as the current situation on the ground.

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

This seems to be the moment the checkpoint at Crimea was taken.

 

[Yama]

3 hours ago, KV7 said:

Do we know what happened at Gostomel yet ? Did the airborne troops pull out or are there still clashes ?

Ukr side claims the field was cleared: they sent a mechanized brigade there, probably more than enough to deal with a small landing. However they apparently didn't have troops to encircle the field and the landing force may have been just pulled back from the open. If Ukrainans had really killed or captured a large number of VDV forces, the pics would be all over the news.

As for the rumoured Il-76 force heading towards Gostomel, it might have been just a rumour, or then the landing was judged unsafe due to presence of Ukrainan artillery or air defences: or it might have been cancelled due to something mundane like the weather, idk.