Kiev Is Burning

[Roman Alymov]

11 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

Another M777 hit by Lancet - note the same vertical frames around, seems like it is common practice now

Video https://t.me/milinfolive/94652

Now on YouTube

 

[Roman Alymov]

Krasnopol vs. pro-Ukr Grad

 

[Roman Alymov]

Guided bomb from Forpost UAV vs. truck

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by Roman Alymov

[RETAC21]

2 hours ago, seahawk said:

The tone of your post was fine, I often post provocations in the hope that people in the West stop applying their own standards and expectations on Russia. If you can follow their media and discussions on social media, it is a different world.

And it is no wonder, since becoming a Great Power and a European Power the country was under autocratic rule and the leaders often imported ideas from the West, even if the country was not ready for them.  Even Communism was imported and the industrial revolution that formed the basis for it, did not really take-off in Russia before the late 19th century. And even in 1917 Russia was not very industrialized compared to other Western nations.

Another thing to remember is that since becoming a Great Power Russian leaders no longer had to fear being disposed off by other countries, the only force that disposed Russian leaders where the Russian people, but not in a democratic regular manner, but by revolution and those were rare. And as Russians do not really want to be like the "Westerners" they also do not complain, if the situation is worse than in the West.

This means for the autocratic leader the biggest danger is a revolution and the strongest motivation for it, is if the Russian people believe a different leader would be better for them. So a country like the Ukraine, which most Russians consider as a part of Russia or the country where the stupid little brothers live, doing better economically and having a democratic and open society is the one thing that is a huge risk for the stability of Russia as a country and also for its leader. 

I thought you said you were read on Russian history. Russia as an idea is older than the actual country and revolutions and assasination was quite common to replace rulers, even when it became a great power.

But going at it against a stronger power was also its thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Swedish_War_(1554–1557)

 Ivan IV of Russia did not consider Swedish King Gustav I his equal and refused to negotiate with Swedish ambassadors in person.[1] Ivan made the king's ambassadors confer with a governor of Novgorod, rather than receive them in the Moscow Kremlin, as could have been expected between equals. The tsar responded to Gustav's remonstrances: "Ask your merchants and they will tell you that Novgorod's suburbs are larger than your Stockholm and that Novgorod's governors are descended from sovereign rulers of great empires, whereas your parents sold oxen at a market several decades ago". -  sounds familiar, eh?

And it ended like the Ukrainian war is likely to end, in a return to status quo ante.

[Stuart Galbraith]

So that's the formation of what is presumably an arctic division. 200 was shot to buggery last I heard though.

 

[Strannik]

1 hour ago, TrustMe said:

The Pantsir is also part of the S400, layered defence system.

Pre Ukraine, susposedly the Russian MOD has never liked the Pantsir design ,and had already started a project to replace it. I used to know what the new system is called, but i've forgotten it sorry.

There were rumors of new VSHORAD system (called Morpheus) being developed by Almaz, but they have died down several years ago.  Instead Pantsir got upgraded and received new missiles.

[seahawk]

34 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

I thought you said you were read on Russian history. Russia as an idea is older than the actual country and revolutions and assasination was quite common to replace rulers, even when it became a great power.

But going at it against a stronger power was also its thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Swedish_War_(1554–1557)

 Ivan IV of Russia did not consider Swedish King Gustav I his equal and refused to negotiate with Swedish ambassadors in person.[1] Ivan made the king's ambassadors confer with a governor of Novgorod, rather than receive them in the Moscow Kremlin, as could have been expected between equals. The tsar responded to Gustav's remonstrances: "Ask your merchants and they will tell you that Novgorod's suburbs are larger than your Stockholm and that Novgorod's governors are descended from sovereign rulers of great empires, whereas your parents sold oxen at a market several decades ago". -  sounds familiar, eh?

And it ended like the Ukrainian war is likely to end, in a return to status quo ante.

Agreed, but imho the only event from so far back, that still has a wider influence on modern society is the reformation, but that also did not effect the Russians very much. Quite like the French Revolution or even the Industrial Revolution.

[bfng3569]

Supposedly a patriot battery is heading to Ukraine in the next round of supplies

[RETAC21]

22 minutes ago, seahawk said:

Agreed, but imho the only event from so far back, that still has a wider influence on modern society is the reformation, but that also did not effect the Russians very much. Quite like the French Revolution or even the Industrial Revolution.

Well, Russian society and they way they work goes back to then, in fact, society is the only thing that ties the present to the past in Russia. Slavery was replaced by serfdom which was replaced by proletariat and eventually by collectivisation. The right to travel within Russia was limited until the end of the USSR, and the attitudes (fear of foreigners, for example) can be tied up directly to the wars with Poland and Sweden, so there's plenty of Imperial Russia in the XXI century.

[crazyinsane105]

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3252782/185-billion-in-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/
 

One Patriot missile battery and some munitions for it. Maybe more will come in the future, but as I said, quantity given to Ukraine will be very low 

What struck me was the sheer number of 125 mm tank rounds. Up to 100K of them. Guess a lot of them are floating around in ex Warsaw countries 

Or we are buying more from Pakistan? We had to for the 122 mm artillery shells. Can’t imagine there is still that much left in Eastern Europe 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2022 by crazyinsane105

[crazyinsane105]

24 minutes ago, bfng3569 said:

Supposedly a patriot battery is heading to Ukraine in the next round of supplies

That won’t be in operation for a few months at least. It takes nine months to train individuals on that platform. Squeezing it into six is probably the most optimistic scenario, so this will come well into spring 

[bfng3569]

9 minutes ago, crazyinsane105 said:

That won’t be in operation for a few months at least. It takes nine months to train individuals on that platform. Squeezing it into six is probably the most optimistic scenario, so this will come well into spring 

have they been training them already in anticipation of sending them?

[Roman Alymov]

7 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Well, Russian society and they way they work goes back to then, in fact, society is the only thing that ties the present to the past in Russia. Slavery was replaced by serfdom which was replaced by proletariat and eventually by collectivisation. The right to travel within Russia was limited until the end of the USSR, and the attitudes (fear of foreigners, for example) can be tied up directly to the wars with Poland and Sweden, so there's plenty of Imperial Russia in the XXI century.

Sorry to say that, but this post is full of factual mistakes. Slavery was not replaced by serfdom in Russia (unlike in part of Europe that was Roman Empire) - in reality tribal military democracy of "every man is free warrior" was replaced by wery weak feodal rule (it was weak since too many land around, population dencity too low -so peasant pressed too hard was always able to walk away with his family into another place, and since it was weak there was no way to collect enough means to create strong control system, it is cycle)  - centuries later it was transformed into sort of centralized military-cleric system where landlords were not owners of the land but temporary appointed officers given this or that village to provide means for him and handful of his men to keep up their war horses and weapons and go to war when needed, and peasants were "tied to land" (it is meaning of Russianm word "krepostnoy") to prevent this semi-landlords loosing material means to maintain their war readyness if peasant leave. Effectively, both landlords and peasants were just employees of the state, personalized by Tsar. Note is is MASSIVE difference from neighboring places like Poland, where peasants were de-facto slaves of their noble landlords (even very "small" ones, not to mention oligarch "magnats") and nobles reporting to nobody. In addition, massive parts of Russian population were staying outside of this system (like Cossacks, peasants living on Orthodox Church or state lands etc).  Only by the middle of XVIII century new, European-educated (and ethnic German) emperors, who needed nobles support in their endless palace struggle, tried to convert this system into European-style serfdom while giving "freedom" to nobles. 

     No, right to travel was not limited in USSR - more over, state was sponsoring travel in many forms (from free holiday tours into distant parts of the country to airplane tickets sold at a fraction of their real cost). What was limited was the right to resettle to capital cities (since flats were free, travel sponsored and all services guaranteed by law, there were no ecomomic barriers for entire population trying to move into places considered the best for this or that reason - so administrative measures were needed instead).

   I do not know what "fear of foreigners......can be tied up directly to the wars with Poland and Sweden" you are talking about. Sweden simply do not exist in Russian folclore -since Sweden existed as empire and enemy for too short time to be remembered, and Poles are suject of jokes, not fear (except may be in Ukraine - as Soviet child in early 1980th, i was shoked when my Ukrainian grandmother told me "Poles are the most cruel nation" since for me Poles were our Socialist friends and good guys from "Czterej pancerni i pies"). Actually the only enemies named in Russian folclore are Tatars ("Uncalled guest is worse than Tatar" etc.) - but now Tatars are part of Russian nation (below is popularsleevebadge that reads "We are Tatars, we are with Russians, and God is on Russians side" after well-known Suvorov's words)

https://elitashop.ru/catalog/nashivki_flagi/shevron_patch_my_tatary_my_s_russkimi_s_nimi_bog_/

[Roman Alymov]

21 minutes ago, crazyinsane105 said:

That won’t be in operation for a few months at least. It takes nine months to train individuals on that platform. Squeezing it into six is probably the most optimistic scenario, so this will come well into spring 

Pro-Russians believe it will be operational immediately, with foreign crews (like Poland-provided Krab SPGs operated by Polish crews)

[Yama]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

So that's the formation of what is presumably an arctic division. 200 was shot to buggery last I heard though.

According to WaPo article, they suffered about 40% losses over three months. Which is very heavy, but not really extraordinary - during battles of summer 1944, premier Finnish infantry formation, the Jäger Brigade, suffered 100% losses.

[crazyinsane105]

25 minutes ago, bfng3569 said:

have they been training them already in anticipation of sending them?

No, from what I've read, training just literally begun in Germany a few weeks back. The US was very hesitant on even green lighting this until now. 

Also, one Patriot battery is next to nothing to what Ukraine really needs. I see this more symbolic than anything else. 

[crazyinsane105]

20 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

Pro-Russians believe it will be operational immediately, with foreign crews (like Poland-provided Krab SPGs operated by Polish crews)

Have doubts about that. Polish provided Krabs can still be manned by Ukrainian artilleryman, who have experience with Soviet systems. 

Patriot missile is unlike anything Ukrainian personnel have utilized, and typical training regimen is 90 soldiers to man a single battery, and takes 9 months or so to fully train them. If manned by foreigners is really happening, we'd be sending in many more Patriot batteries, not just one. 

[Ssnake]

Training the operators will take some time. And these then need to train UKR operators in turn.

[crazyinsane105]

1 minute ago, Ssnake said:

Training the operators will take some time. And these then need to train UKR operators in turn.

I don't think this is an issue. US and Germany have spare batteries specifically for training, and since only battery is being sent, they'll only need 90 or so Ukrainians who have experience in air defense and are bilingual (since interface of Patriot is in English). Given how large Ukrainian AD has been, I'm quite sure there are plenty of Ukrainians who fit this category

[Yama]

20 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

Sorry to say that, but this post is full of factual mistakes. Slavery was not replaced by serfdom in Russia (unlike in part of Europe that was Roman Empire)

Here we are going off topic again, but serfs did not replace slaves in former Roman Empire either, rather free peasants were turned into serfs whilst slaves gradually disappeared as a class or was outlawed. Also it happened outside former Roman Empire territory too, though some outlying areas were spared from it.

[txtree99]

2 minutes ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Have doubts about that. Polish provided Krabs can still be manned by Ukrainian artilleryman, who have experience with Soviet systems. 

Patriot missile is unlike anything Ukrainian personnel have utilized, and typical training regimen is 90 soldiers to man a single battery, and takes 9 months or so to fully train them. If manned by foreigners is really happening, we'd be sending in many more Patriot batteries, not just one. 

Doesn’t fit their narrative that they are fighting NATO. earlier he claimed that HIMARs were not manned by Ukraine 

[bfng3569]

7 minutes ago, crazyinsane105 said:

No, from what I've read, training just literally begun in Germany a few weeks back. The US was very hesitant on even green lighting this until now. 

Also, one Patriot battery is next to nothing to what Ukraine really needs. I see this more symbolic than anything else. 

i guess it depends, if it goes well and they are effective, who knows what the future holds.

silly to think they didn't plan for the fact that they would, unless its just feet draggin and truly is symbolic and nothing more.

 

one battery shouldn't be that hard to destroy once its in place

[Roman Alymov]

4 minutes ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Have doubts about that. Polish provided Krabs can still be manned by Ukrainian artilleryman, who have experience with Soviet systems.  

Pro-Ukrainian infantrymen do not have this doubts, see my earlier post linked below. Yes there is no factulal need for Polish crews in this vehicles (they are relatively simple) but may be Polish/US officials want to get experience in real fighting against peer adversary, and with this idea in mind, it is quite reasonable to send Patriot battery with own crew. Who knows...

 

[Yama]

2 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

Now on YouTube

 

These were probably in close proximity, maybe part of same battery. I can't make out any human movement in either M777 video. However they do not seem to be decoys, second gun hit suffers large propellant fire and the position looks very genuine.

Seems Ukrainians had some kind of early warning and quickly abandoned the guns?

[crazyinsane105]

2 minutes ago, bfng3569 said:

i guess it depends, if it goes well and they are effective, who knows what the future holds.

silly to think they didn't plan for the fact that they would, unless its just feet draggin and truly is symbolic and nothing more.

 

one battery shouldn't be that hard to destroy once its in place

I don't think the issue is having the battery destroyed, Russians seem very incompetent in trying to determine location of a LOT of Ukrainian assets in general.

My issue with this is, after nearly a full year of combat, we are sending one Patriot battery (which are in very short supply anyways and have questionable effectiveness given its spotty performance in Saudi Arabia against Iranian missiles less advanced than the ones being sent to Russia). We'd be better off sending in two squadrons of F-16s, even Block 50/52s will make sense, and the number of people to maintain two squadrons around the clock may actually be similar to manning a single Patriot missile battery. What makes a bigger impact? A single Patriot battery or a squadron of F-16s? 

I'm not holding my breath on fourth generation aircraft at this point. We keep hearing of promises for Mig-29s to come from whatever country (that never seems to materialize), so F-16s are probably out of the picture for now.