Kiev Is Burning

[Roman Alymov]

Lancets (?) vs. tanks on the battlefield (previously, were mostly used for rear area hunt) https://t.me/infomil_live/10435

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Figure the Russians are firing something like 1,000 tons of rockets, bombs, and shells a day.  Six months of that would be 180,000 tons of ammunition.  The pictures you have posted collectively might be thousands of tons of munitions, but not six months of munitions.

Another way to look at it is that they concluded that the amounts and types of ammunition being stored there weren't worth the upgrades, and that the expensive facilities need to be for the important stuff like Kinzhal missiles.

Except, as you can see if you look on Google Earth, improvements WERE underway. The new bunker section at the first site that went Tunguska is clear evidence of that. But it was too little (it clearly didnt compensate for the rest of the site) and too late (because it wasnt finished).

How many weapon storage sites do you think they have in the West of the country? Its not as many as you think, Ive looked. And other than some in the caucasus, they all looked pretty much as the CIA reported them.

 

Edited September 24, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[Roman Alymov]

More MadMax: UAZ van nonverted into phaeton passing through graveyard of NATO armor  and civilian vehicles https://t.me/boris_rozhin/138495

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

How many weapon storage sites do you think they have in the West of the country? Its not as many as you think, Ive looked. And other than some in the caucasus, they all looked pretty much as the CIA reported them.

No idea.  If their shell reserve was 30,000,000 before the war, and they're comfortable with, oh, I don't know, 3,000 tons in any given site, then that would be about 250 sites.  So I'd guess more than 100, less than 500?

[Josh]

Someone online recently did an exhaustive analysis of the number storage base commands and sites. I’ll post later if I find it. I think their numbers were ~50 but attempting to consolidate pre war down to ~30.

[RETAC21]

52 minutes ago, Josh said:

Someone online recently did an exhaustive analysis of the number storage base commands and sites. I’ll post later if I find it. I think their numbers were ~50 but attempting to consolidate pre war down to ~30.

A look at Russian logistic depots that sometimes go boom:

https://tochnyi.info/2024/09/logistics-system-of-russia-storage-facilities/

[Stuart Galbraith]

58 minutes ago, Josh said:

Someone online recently did an exhaustive analysis of the number storage base commands and sites. I’ll post later if I find it. I think their numbers were ~50 but attempting to consolidate pre war down to ~30.

Somewhat fewer now....

[Josh]

1 hour ago, RETAC21 said:

A look at Russian logistic depots that sometimes go boom:

https://tochnyi.info/2024/09/logistics-system-of-russia-storage-facilities/

Thanks, that’s the one I was thinking of.

[alejandro_]

Demographer Libanov on mortality and birth rates during the war, immigrants and emigrants, the labor market and the restoration of Ukraine

https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/articles/2024/09/25/7476595/

When they say "Ukrainian demography", their name immediately comes to mind. Ella Libanova has been the director of the Institute of Demography and Social Research for 17 years in a row.

State institutions, ministers and presidents turn to her for consultation. Especially now - during a full-scale war, when the question of the size of the Ukrainian population and its capabilities is particularly acute. 

Does Ukraine really now have the highest death rate and the lowest birth rate in the world? How did almost three years of full-scale war change Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian labor market? In the future, is Ukraine ready to accept immigrants who can help in post-war reconstruction and Russians who want to flee here from the authoritarian Russian Federation? 

- In order to encourage Ukrainians to have children during the war, some politicians propose, for example, to introduce a "childlessness tax". This idea did not find support , it was sharply criticized. Did it even make sense? 

- We already had this in Soviet times. So what? It doesn't work. But if you just want some extra cash for your budget, then yes, it might make sense.


@Roman Alymov Were you aware of this tax in the Soviet Union?

Edited September 25, 2024 by alejandro_

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Elon puts in a reservation for an appearance at the Hague.

[Josh]

I suspect it is a Starlink receiver registered to a third party. The Russians are apparently buying a lot of them from black market bird parties in Qatar and Turkey. I think Musk is a total Rick, but blaming him for where every starship terminal ends up is like blaming Stoner for every AR-15.

[crazyinsane105]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

 

Might make more sense for the Russians to simply buy back S-400 from Turkey at this point. Turkey saves face and Russia doesn’t have its SAM falling into the hands of the West 

[crazyinsane105]

2 minutes ago, Josh said:

I suspect it is a Starlink receiver registered to a third party. The Russians are apparently buying a lot of them from black market bird parties in Qatar and Turkey. I think Musk is a total Rick, but blaming him for where every starship terminal ends up is like blaming Stoner for every AR-15.

While the STARLINK kits can be hard to track on the front line, I reckon that kits based in Russia or deep in Ukrainian territory held by Russia can easily be tracked and blocked.

[Stuart Galbraith]

4 minutes ago, Josh said:

I suspect it is a Starlink receiver registered to a third party. The Russians are apparently buying a lot of them from black market bird parties in Qatar and Turkey. I think Musk is a total Rick, but blaming him for where every starship terminal ends up is like blaming Stoner for every AR-15.

He has proven he can turn them off in places he doesn't want them used. So, why doesn't he just deactivate all the ones in Russia? Because, and this is fairly key, he doesn't want to.

[Stuart Galbraith]

11 hours ago, crazyinsane105 said:

While the STARLINK kits can be hard to track on the front line, I reckon that kits based in Russia or deep in Ukrainian territory held by Russia can easily be tracked and blocked.

He just deactivated Kadyrovs Tesla truck, when he finally figured out a war criminal running around with a gun mounted on one of his vehicles was not desirable.

Edited September 26, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[Josh]

34 minutes ago, crazyinsane105 said:

While the STARLINK kits can be hard to track on the front line, I reckon that kits based in Russia or deep in Ukrainian territory held by Russia can easily be tracked and blocked.

You would have to differentiate a Russian UAV in Ukrainian airspace from a Ukrainian Starlink. That is probably possible with some filtration based on velocity, but it is probably not an out of the box feature.

[Josh]

34 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

He has proven he can turn them off in places he doesn't want them used. So, why doesn't he just deactivate all the ones in Russia? Because, and this is fairly key, he doesn't want to.

But this was a UAV over Ukraine. And there’s a lot of gray zones in Ukraine. Is it a Russian scout team or Ukrainian? Is it a Russian UAV or Ukrainian? Starlink is hardly a system designed with IFF in mind. Geo fencing is probably pretty trivial, but anything inside Ukrainian occupied territory probably works by default.

[glenn239]

2 hours ago, Josh said:

But this was a UAV over Ukraine. And there’s a lot of gray zones in Ukraine. Is it a Russian scout team or Ukrainian? Is it a Russian UAV or Ukrainian? Starlink is hardly a system designed with IFF in mind. Geo fencing is probably pretty trivial, but anything inside Ukrainian occupied territory probably works by default.

The Russians are moving towards using Shahed and other cheap drones as very deep range reconnaissance and strike platforms.

[Josh]

3 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The Russians are moving towards using Shahed and other cheap drones as very deep range reconnaissance and strike platforms.

They obviously use them as strike platforms; I see no evidence of them being ISR assets.

[crazyinsane105]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

They obviously use them as strike platforms; I see no evidence of them being ISR assets.

ISR would require some type of satellite signal transmitting the data back, something the Russians simply lack with their drones. A Shahed drone won’t be useful for ISR in this manner 

[Stuart Galbraith]

10 hours ago, Josh said:

But this was a UAV over Ukraine. And there’s a lot of gray zones in Ukraine. Is it a Russian scout team or Ukrainian? Is it a Russian UAV or Ukrainian? Starlink is hardly a system designed with IFF in mind. Geo fencing is probably pretty trivial, but anything inside Ukrainian occupied territory probably works by default.

Yes, but its launching inside Russia. It should be possible to figure out if a weapon is launching in Russia with the starlink disabled, it shouldnt somehow suddenly activate inside Ukraine. I struggle to believe they cant figure that out.

[Soren Ras]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Yes, but its launching inside Russia. It should be possible to figure out if a weapon is launching in Russia with the starlink disabled, it shouldnt somehow suddenly activate inside Ukraine. I struggle to believe they cant figure that out.

How do we know it was launched from Russian soil as opposed to Russian occupied Ukrainian soil? 

 

--

Soren

[Yama]

I think Starlink has occupied territories locked out too.

Can Starlink block individual transceivers? If they can detect the speed it is moving somehow, and decide "hmm, that one is suspicious".

[Stuart Galbraith]

43 minutes ago, Soren Ras said:

How do we know it was launched from Russian soil as opposed to Russian occupied Ukrainian soil? 

 

--

Soren

As far as practical purposes are concerned, occupied Ukrainian soil IS Russian soil.

We might pretend there is a difference between Russia and Crimea, but as far as the war is concerned, there isnt, and no reason why Starlink cant and shouldnt view it that way.