Kiev Is Burning

[Yama]

2 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

Keep reading that Russian forces prefer NLAW over Javelin. Have you been reading that as well?

NLAW is simpler to use at least, no? ISTR Simon mentioning that Javelin shooter needs sim time to be effective.

[seahawk]

That is questionable, as we have seen videos of pro-Russian troops using captured Javelins against anti-Russian troops.

[BansheeOne]

Quote

Visiting Ukrainian Sappers on the Front

A Sea of Explosives 1,000 Kilometers Long

Russian troops have transformed the fighting front into what is likely the largest minefield in the world. Ukrainian sappers are making but slow progress through this sea of death. But they haven't lost their optimism.

By Christoph Reuter and Julia Kochetova (Photos)

15.09.2023, 20.21 Uhr

Zeus is walking perfectly normally. The enormous Ukrainian who has adopted the name of the king of the Greek gods as his nom de guerre doesn't join the others in his team, instead continuing to walk back and forth. For months, they have spent almost every night – frequently under fire – slowly shrinking what is likely the largest minefield in the world, strip by tiny strip. Now, they only have two or three quiet days in their quarters not far from the village of Velyka Novosilka before they are to be relieved by a different unit. They are happy to talk about their mission. But not Zeus.

And there is another thing striking about him as well. His steps make a peculiar sound: "Pffft. Pffft. Pffft." A quiet, pneumatic hiss. The sound of a good prosthesis.

Zeus’s lower right leg and foot is made of metal, plastic and modern technology that, after several months spent at a rehabilitation clinic, allows him to walk completely normally. But he does not wish to talk about the moment half a year ago when an anti-personnel mine detonated underfoot. Others will tell the story later.

Zeus has returned to his specialist unit within the 35th Naval Infantry Brigade for a mission in which any wrong step might be the last.

The primary reason why the Ukrainian offensive has advanced so slowly – more important even than their lack of warplanes and shortage of tanks – are the mines. Sappers like Zeus are arduously doing their best to clear the explosives. And they are not at all surprised by the slowness of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Indeed, they are instead rather perplexed by the surprise shown by the West.

Sitting on benches and camping chairs beneath the thick canopy of an oak tree, Zeus’s comrades speak of the hell they have gone through over the last three months. Of the anti-tank mines that detonate when a vehicle drives over them, or PARM mines that rip through the sides of tanks, where there is less armor, from just a few meters away. Then there are the buried anti-personnel mines, the trip-wired booby traps and the bounding mines, which spring a few feet into the air before exploding. And small "butterfly mines," which can be dispersed by the thousands from the air.

Taken together, they form an ocean of potential death extending around 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) along the entire front, up to 16 kilometers wide. The men can only advance very slowly, as they are harassed by drones and fired at by distant artillery.

"We frequently come back from missions thinking: Good that we survived that one," says Jaroslav, the 26-year-old commander who has been with the army since 2014. "And a couple of times, after we had finally cleared a section, the Russians dropped cluster bombs on the area. And when we didn’t hear a cascade of explosions, we knew that they were actually new mines."

Sisyphus would be a more fitting name from Greek mythology than Zeus, the name of the figure of legend who determinedly pushed a stone up a mountain only to have it continually roll back down again. Similar to Sisyphus, even though the team is exhausted, they don’t sound discouraged about the fact that they have only made significant progress, a couple of kilometers, in just a few places since the beginning of the offensive in early June.

"It was clear to us from the very beginning, when we received the surveillance photos" of the Surovikin Line in early summer, "that there won’t be a second Kharkiv," says Major Jaroslav, referring to the surprisingly rapid Ukrainian advance near the northeastern city of Kharkiv in September 2022, after breaking through the Russians’ insufficiently fortified lines with lightly armored, fast-moving vehicles. That push was so fast that the Russians fled in panic, leaving behind munitions and hundreds of tanks and other vehicles.

General Sergey Surovikin, Russia’s top commander in Ukraine at the time, learned his lesson. As Germany, the United States, Britain and France spent months vacillating over whether or not to send tanks to Ukraine – a process that Berlin portrays as prudent deliberation – Surovikin rapidly moved to build a defensive line, including tunnels, trenches, bunkers and tank barriers known as "dragon’s teeth." And, especially, minefields.

"They have always been extremely good at laying mines," says Oleksandr, Jaroslav’s deputy. "They shouldn’t be underestimated. They quickly learned from their mistakes."

Many in the West had anticipated that the long-awaited Ukrainian spring offensive would rapidly push the Russians back. The hope was that Leopard 2 tanks from Germany, Bradley fighting vehicles from the U.S. and Ukrainian troops trained in the U.S. and Europe would be able to advance far enough that the Russians would no longer be able to supply their troops.

But when the modernized units headed out in early June, they didn’t get very far. Vehicles would be struck by Russian artillery or rockets. Others would deviate from the tracks of those in front of it at night and roll onto a mine.

The wounded had to be tended to, with medics jumping out of vehicles and taking cover in shell craters, which were also mined. Suddenly, more casualties had to be tended to and the stationary vehicles made for easy targets. Evasive efforts frequently set off yet more explosions. Losses of materiel – and, more importantly, personnel – were high. The big offensive thrusts were stopped.

"It was awful," says Yuri, a surgeon from Odessa who works in a regional hospital not far from the front. He scrolls through his phone, showing photos of the injured who were brought in – and explaining what the bloody images full of bone chips and tissue depict. "This here is a hand. That is a leg that was missing 15 centimeters of the shinbone. What kind of war is it where you don’t even see your enemy? We only get blast victims. I haven’t seen anyone with a gunshot wound since June."

In order to strike the large, visible and sometimes immobile Ukrainian vehicles, the Russian military improved its arsenal. It now has a variety of different drones, including the feared Lancets, and Moscow is also relying on the helicopter gunship Alligator, which can fire guided missiles from a greater distance than can be reached by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses.

Most of all, though, say Ukrainian officers from a number of different units, the Russians have focused their attentions on those hulking machines designed to clear minefields quickly and safely – such as the Soviet-era UR-77 Meteorit or the German-supplied mine-clearing vehicle Wisent 1.

The military leadership does not want journalists to get near such equipment for fear of divulging their location. As such, it was only a chance stop on the side of the road that led DER SPIEGEL to a Meteorit unit. "The entire army only has 10 of them left," says a soldier. And several of them are right here, parked beneath the thick canopy of a small forest. The decades-old giants fire off lines to which clusters of small explosives are attached, designed to detonate all mines within an area measuring 90 by six meters.

The soldier laughs, saying that Meteorit might be a fitting name for the vehicle itself, but not for the team that operates it. "The armor is only two to eight millimeters thick. It should never go into battle. We call ourselves the molecular kitchen." A single strike at the wrong moment, he says, and not much will be left of the crew.

"The Wisent mine-clearing tanks, though, are great," says Oleksandr, and begins listing off the amenities. "Night-vision, automatic transmission and a modular construction so that broken parts can be quickly replaced." It is a huge advantage when you come under fire in the middle of a minefield.

"But these systems unfortunately have one decisive disadvantage," he continues. "They are big, slow and easily recognizable." The Russians, he says, are constantly on the lookout for them.

Which is why the mine-clearance teams often leave them parked and head out with a combination of highly modern technology and superannuated methods. To determine whether mines are hidden in a certain area, camera drones equipped with infrared sensors are first deployed, usually at around 2 or 3 a.m. Anti-tank mines in particular store daytime heat longer than the surrounding earth, and the old TM-62s are especially easy to spot using the method.

Once they have been identified, the men head out in small groups, usually with a metal detector – "but they are useless if there is too much shrapnel in the ground," Oleksandr admits. In such cases, they turn to a device that doesn’t have much in common with the high-tech equipment otherwise used in this war: a metal rod that is shoved diagonally into the ground.

It's an extremely slow process. Too slow, believe some U.S. military officers, who have turned to the media to anonymously criticize the Ukrainians of hesitance. It is a sensitive issue, despite the Ukrainian gratitude for U.S. weapons deliveries. Major Jaroslav recalls a piece of advice comrades received from a U.S. general: "If you’re not making progress through a minefield, he advised calling in air support or going around the obstacle."

Standard practice, to be sure, "but we don’t yet have any modern F-16s, and how are we supposed to go around this?" Jaroslav demands, his voice raised for the only time in two days. "The Russians have mined the entire front, 1,000 kilometers long, and as we are busy clearing them up here, they are laying new ones, a fourth and fifth line. They’ll keep going like that until the Sea of Azov. How are we supposed to get around that!?"

The reality of Velyka Novosilka and the tiny steps being made by the 35th Brigade have brought the lofty expectations of Western military leaders and politicians back down to earth. Or perhaps even a couple of centimeters below that.

"Grass!" says Jaroslav, in a tone of voice that makes it seem as though evil incarnate is hiding among the clumps. "When it’s half a meter tall or taller, like it is now, we can no longer tell what may have been buried there a few months ago." The images from the infrared cameras of the drones are also blurry if there is too much vegetation growing over the mines.

Late summer meadows are the stuff of nightmares for the team of sappers. But the men say they are looking forward to late fall – the season that military strategists warn of. When the rain starts falling, the ground turns into a sticky sea of mud that can even ensnare battle tanks. But for mine clearance units, November is a paradise: "No plants to cover up the traces, no leaves in the trees to block visibility."

In the depths of winter, though, Jaroslav continues, it is again impossible to read the ground. "Snow is bad. Fresh snowfall is hell." After just half an hour, it covers everything so uniformly, he says, that their only option is to use probe rods – which also don’t work in frigid temperatures when the ground is frozen.

One of the biggest questions currently hanging over the Ukrainian offensive, is whether it will fail because the troops aren’t advancing quickly enough and have only "about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left," as Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told the BBC recently with an eye on the approaching autumn. That question, though, says Jaroslav, is the wrong one.

After all, what good is hard summer ground on which the new Leopard and Bradley tanks can race forward if they get stuck in the middle of a Russian minefield and are shot to bits? On the other hand, Major Jaroslav says, nothing is lost if it takes a bit longer. Plus, they are moving forward – 50 meters on some days, 100 on others. The night before, he says, infantry units managed to liberate the village of Robotyne, around 10 kilometers behind the June line. Another 10 kilometers or so from there and the highways and rail lines used to supply the Russians will be within range of American rocket launchers.

[...]

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/visiting-with-ukrainian-sappers-a-sea-of-explosives-1-000-kilometers-long-a-7126472b-da90-40ff-9cff-6ba20bf70879

[Markus Becker]

11 hours ago, urbanoid said:

Yes, not like he has any choice, especially now. A good decision too.

A ban on the sale in Poland or one on transit shipments? 

[urbanoid]

2 minutes ago, Markus Becker said:

A ban on the sale in Poland or one on transit shipments? 

Only on sales, there was never an issue with transit. 

[Roman Alymov]

5 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Only on sales, there was never an issue with transit. 

But pro-Ukrainians complain about total ban on any grain transportation   Anyway, it is just curious debate as untill bridges destroyed (something our Gov is resisting to do) transit will continue.

[urbanoid]

4 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

But pro-Ukrainians complain about total ban on any grain transportation   Anyway, it is just curious debate as untill bridges destroyed (something our Gov is resisting to do) transit will continue.

No, transit is excluded from the ban and it was the same before today, only then the ban was made on the EU level (for Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary). The EU decided not to prolong it, so we did it on our own.  

It's largely the game of Ukrainian PM, who in turn is one of Akhmetov's guys. Akhmetov has large stakes in agriculture in Ukraine and would like to earn more by selling the grain closer.

Pissing off a country that's been one of their biggest supporters from the very beginning, without which they would have likely lost already, so Akhmetov&Co can earn more money takes a special kind of stupid. 

[Markus Becker]

13 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

I missed the 7 September update of IFW Kiel's Ukraine Support Tracker, now tracking to the end of July. The biggest change is that with recent multi-year commitments, the EU institutions have for the first time overtaken the US in total aid pledged at 84.8 vs. 69.5 billion dollar, followed by Germany at 20.9 and the UK at 13.8. The US however remains by far the biggest donor of military aid at 42.1 billion, followed by Germany at 17.1 and the UK at 6.6 billion.

Most notable among other nations is Norway, which is now in fourth place in either list above with 7.2 and 3.7 billion respectively. They actually top the list of aid as a share of GDP at 1.71 percent, ahead of the long-time leaders from the Baltic States and Poland if you don't count the latters' EU contributions and refugee cost. Including EU share, Lithuania is still on top at 1.82, followed by Estonia at 1.77, but then it's Norway, Denmark, Latvia, Slovakia before we come to Poland at 1.26. I suspect the ongoing deliveries of Leopard 1 and 2 etc. have propelled the Nordic countries ahead relative to their GDP. The biggest total donors remain in midfield here, with Germany at 0.99, the UK at 0.49, and the US at 0.33.

If we however include refugee cost, too, Poland comes out on top at a total 3.77 percent with its Baltic neighbors once more following at 2.90 for Estonia, 2.65 for Latvia, and 2.54 for Lithuania. Germany also grows to 1.35, while not much changes for the UK (to 0.53) and US (essentially nothing). With all the add-ons expressed in dollar, the US still is biggest individual total supporter with its 69.5 billion, followed by Germany with 52.3, Poland with 23.5, and the UK with 14.9 billion.

 

One needs to keep in mind it's a lot of accounting. The book vale of this or that might not be the actual value and then there's the hard to quantify military value. 

A billion Euros is nice to have, a billion Euros in tanks is even nicer. 

Or do they also offer information on how much of the aid was financial, humanitarian and military hardware? Or is "military aid" hardware only? In that case Germany is doing surprisingly well and Poland not so much. Can't be. 

Edited September 16, 2023 by Markus Becker

[BansheeOne]

Yeah, their dynamic charts are hard to embed, but they break it down between different categories of aid. Of the EU pledges, the vast majority is in fact non-military, since the Union has no equipment stocks and has only rarely bought gear for Ukraine directly; the overwhelming part is financial aid. Though obviously that enables Ukraine to buy their own stuff including new-built like the 100 PzH 2000 worth 1.7 billion Euro they ordered last year and should get in 2024, and otherwise keep the country running.

And the part about accounting is very true. Even before we come to current value vs. original acquisition vs. new-built cost, I suspect that the Patriot battery (+), two IRIS-T firing units (+) etc. delivered by Germany carry hefty price tags worth a couple dozen tanks alone.

Edited September 16, 2023 by BansheeOne

[urbanoid]

A twatter thread about the grain issue, mostly autotranslated

Quote

What is this embargo on UKR grain about? Generally, in Kiev, agricultural oligarchs who have "farms" with an area of tens of thousands of hectares and are linked to politicians in Kiev and Western investors applaud the President of the European Commission. She gave them the green light on doing business worth billions of euros at the expense of EU farmers. Why? Because no farmer in the EU is able to compete fairly with agroholdings from UKR.

In addition, Western investors expect profits from their investments in agriculture. They didn't invest for this purpose of losing money, nothing like that. Currently, UKR agriculture is controlled by a small group of huge agricultural enterprises that control most of the arable lands on the Dnieper. There are 93 agroholdings in which, according to official information of the Ministry of Agriculture, own approximately 32% of all agricultural land in Ukraine. Ukrainian agriculture has been developing steadily in recent years, despite the economic crises that hit the country. A lot of money was invested in agriculture to now give up the opportunity to earn money from agricultural products on the world market.

 

[BansheeOne]

Or as dear Viktor Orban just said, it's not Ukrainian grain anymore anyway, but something grown on soil that's now probably American-owned. Damn those land-grabbing yankee imperialists for invading Ukraine! 😁

[Rick]

1 hour ago, BansheeOne said:

Yeah, their dynamic charts are hard to embed, but they break it down between different categories of aid. Of the EU pledges, the vast majority is in fact non-military, since the Union has no equipment stocks and has only rarely bought gear for Ukraine directly; the overwhelming part is financial aid. Though obviously that enables Ukraine to buy their own stuff including new-built like the 100 PzH 2000 worth 1.7 billion Euro they ordered last year and should get in 2024, and otherwise keep the country running.

And the part about accounting is very true. Even before we come to current value vs. original acquisition vs. new-built cost, I suspect that the Patriot battery (+), two IRIS-T firing units (+) etc. delivered by Germany carry hefty price tags worth a couple dozen tanks alone.

Surprised Switzerland, a "neutral country" is providing all three categories of aid and Japan providing financial help. Thanks for the graph, easy for an American to understand

[BansheeOne]

I think you're mixing up Sweden and Switzerland, which is only providing humanitarian aid.

Japan was surprisingly prominent in financial aid even in the previous update, though behind the total of the US, Canada, Switzerland and Iceland relative to their GDP at 0.15 percent (but still way ahead of followers Australia, South Korea and New Zealand, who are in the 0.02-3 range).

[Rick]

54 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

I think you're mixing up Sweden and Switzerland, which is only providing humanitarian aid.

Japan was surprisingly prominent in financial aid even in the previous update, though behind the total of the US, Canada, Switzerland and Iceland relative to their GDP at 0.15 percent (but still way ahead of followers Australia, South Korea and New Zealand, who are in the 0.02-3 range).

Your right. Wonder what the tiny bar at the very bottom represents? I thought it was Switzerland?

[BansheeOne]

It's part of France. The image just shows the top part of the entire chart; if you go to the Ukraine Support Tracker site, they have data for a total of 42 donors.

[Roman Alymov]

Drone-directed arillery (?) vs. NATO MRAPs attack near Urozhaynoye https://t.me/boris_rozhin/97684

[Strannik]

Staggering losses in Ukraine: "Of every 100 people mobilized last fall, 10-20 remain, the rest are dead, wounded and incapacitated.  This was stated by the head of the Poltava Regional TsK. According to him, Poltava is in last place in the region in terms of recruitment rates - it has fulfilled the General Staff plan by only 13%."

 

 

[Roman Alymov]

5 hours ago, urbanoid said:

No, transit is excluded from the ban and it was the same before today, only then the ban was made on the EU level (for Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary). The EU decided not to prolong it, so we did it on our own.  

It's largely the game of Ukrainian PM, who in turn is one of Akhmetov's guys. Akhmetov has large stakes in agriculture in Ukraine and would like to earn more by selling the grain closer.

Pissing off a country that's been one of their biggest supporters from the very beginning, without which they would have likely lost already, so Akhmetov&Co can earn more money takes a special kind of stupid. 

What is the sake for Arhmetov&Co to have Ukraine without making money from it? Oligarchs actions are quite reasonable from their own point of view.

[Roman Alymov]

6 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Staggering losses in Ukraine: "Of every 100 people mobilized last fall, 10-20 remain, the rest are dead, wounded and incapacitated.  This was stated by the head of the Poltava Regional TsK. According to him, Poltava is in last place in the region in terms of recruitment rates - it has fulfilled the General Staff plan by only 13%."

 

 

A lot of losses are hidden, according to this appeal of the wife of one of MIA (with English subtitles for some reason) https://t.me/rezident_ua/19687

Pro-Russian sources are warning audience not to get illusioned by high losses on enemy side:

"Let's have no illusions. The statements of the Poltava military commissar that only 10-20 percent remained in the ranks since the draft last fall should not be misleading. And then I look, someone is already interpreting these figures as if we destroyed 90 percent of the Ukrainian army. That's not so.

They don't have an autumn or spring draft. For them, mobilization is a permanent process that delivers new meat online to the blood drained units. And the brigades that were broken up in Zaporozhye are gradually being replenished with new people.

Another thing is that the quality of this infantry is not what it was a year ago. Then, in the wake of Kharkiv's success in Ukraine, there was a surge of patriotism and euphoria. And that autumn recruitment for mobilization was, perhaps, the last to which volunteers went. And it's great that we have mowed down 80-90 percent of these motivated and ideologically charged envious people in a year.

But others took their place. Let them not be so ideologically savvy and forced into the army, but they are there, this is a fact. And the West is driving equipment to Ukraine quietly. We must not let the enemy recover. Because by spring, this raw infantry will already be stronger, and there will be more equipment, and planes will go, and long-range missiles. Again, we will have to fight not because of, but in spite of." ( https://t.me/sashakots/42230 )

[seahawk]

12 minutes ago, Strannik said:

Staggering losses in Ukraine: "Of every 100 people mobilized last fall, 10-20 remain, the rest are dead, wounded and incapacitated.  This was stated by the head of the Poltava Regional TsK. According to him, Poltava is in last place in the region in terms of recruitment rates - it has fulfilled the General Staff plan by only 13%."

 

 

So Glen was correct.

[Roman Alymov]

On 9/15/2023 at 2:20 PM, Roman Alymov said:

Pro-Ukrainian drone video of what was Andreevka village UkrArmy is trying to capture for several days. Probably Western media will call it "town" is they succeed https://t.me/NeoficialniyBeZsonoV/29225

The same ruins filmed by Azov nazis rambling there under fire https://t.me/boris_rozhin/97680

[Roman Alymov]

CCTV video from Poltava region - attempt to mobilize two guys went wrong as they were sort of gangsters 

https://t.me/NeoficialniyBeZsonoV/29239

[Roman Alymov]

Mi-28 thermal sign picture, in color

https://t.me/NeoficialniyBeZsonoV/29244

[Roman Alymov]

Drone video of two BTR-4 wrecks in Novoselovskoys near Kupyansk, note "Z" painted on the roof of one of them, probably as attempt to full Russian ddrones ("German" crosses are also present on the sides of the vehicle) https://t.me/boris_rozhin/97681

[Roman Alymov]

TOYOTA HIACE 1990 vs. NATO claster bomblet https://t.me/dva_majors/25620