Kiev Is Burning

[mkenny]

11 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

. I submit that not taking a place you were attacking for 6 months is not a huge victory. 

 

The Siege of Sevastopol 1854-55 was not a huge  French/British victory?

The  Siege of Sevastopol (1941-42) was not a huge  German victory? 

Edited December 11, 2025 by mkenny

[TrustMe]

Does anyone know the date when the snow starts to fall & freeze in Ukraine in winter?

[urbanoid]

13 minutes ago, mkenny said:

The Siege of Sevastopol 1854-55 was not a huge  French/British victory?

The  Siege of Sevastopol (1941-42) was not a huge  German victory? 

Now compare the size and importance of both places and how taking them affects the big picture. 

Taking Kherson was a major victory (for either side) with significant implications, then again there was quite a bit of operational art there involved (again in both cases), not just slugging it out for months on end. Pokrovsk? It means that the grind is going to just continue as before. For the record, if theoretically the Ukrainians managed to take it back I wouldn't call it a 'huge victory' of theirs either. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

13 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

Does anyone know the date when the snow starts to fall & freeze in Ukraine in winter?

Climate change is a thing, Its seemingly happening later and later and getting milder and milder. But I think they are well into the muddy season by now/

[Josh]

7 hours ago, Sinistar said:

 

it shut down the conversation whether you think they would actually transfer or not

i think trump sort of letting that idea float to gauge a reaction from the russians

if it scared them or changed behaviors then go with it

I do not pretend to understand Trump’s reasoning or lack there of. I just note that he generally has been willing to sell Ukr anything the EU will pay for, and these weapons were specifically developed for Ukraine and are not a U.S. inventory item. So there would be no depletion of U.S. munitions, and indeed there is no current other customers (though apparently the USAF and two other foreign buyers have registered interest).

Will the weapons be sold? Impossible to say. But delivery of ~80 missiles a month next year would probably represent an order of magnitude more weapons in the first year than Stormshadow donations in total. Additionally, the 500 lb weight would make them small enough for tandem or even triple ejection racks on F-16. So salvo size also would be much larger than previous weapon donations.

 

7 hours ago, Sinistar said:

something causes that to stop all together and trump goes from ukraine probably can regain its territory to they better agree to something because they are losing and europe is weak

I never said Ukraine would gain territory. But if that many cruise missiles were directed at air defense targets as part of a SEAD effort, the Ukrainian strategic strike campaign would likely greatly benefit. The Sapsam missile apparently is now also in use.

 

7 hours ago, Sinistar said:

 

tomhawks in themselves are not necessarily going to win the war anyway since there are neither enough of them to do that and they are not cutting edge anymore anyway

Tomahawk will never be sold. It would have to come from US stocks or active foreign sales (Dutch/Japanese), and new launchers would need to be provided. And as you say, very few could be provided in any case. ERAM production looks to be nearly a thousand/year in 2026 on two separate production lines, and this likely represents a LRIP.

 

7 hours ago, Sinistar said:

it is old technology

Tomahawk has been constantly updated and about the only original element is the engine. It is not a VLO weapon, but even the initial version was 0.5 m2 RCS and blk4 significantly reduced that with changes to control surfaces and chine of the nose.

 

7 hours ago, Sinistar said:

i think at least one was recovered in syria or somewhere which no doubt the russians looked at

I am sure the U.S. has pieces or entire missiles of every system used in Ukraine; that probably does not tell them much that can help them shoot it down.

 

7 hours ago, Sinistar said:

and they have moved ahead in cruise missiles and ballistic missiles anyway

they do more and cheaper

No argument. ERAM was built to address that issue for air launched weapons; they are roughly $250,000.

 

[urbanoid]

10 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

Does anyone know the date when the snow starts to fall & freeze in Ukraine in winter?

I think first snow in Ukraine was several weeks ago, same as here, but it was just for a few days (here) and it's already all gone, temperatures are around 5-10C, with sometimes mild freezing temps at night, but not always. Seems similar in Kyiv according to Google. 

[mkenny]

18 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Now compare the size and importance of both places and how taking them affects the big picture. 

Taking Kherson was a major victory (for either side) with significant implications, then again there was quite a bit of operational art there involved (again in both cases), not just slugging it out for months on end. Pokrovsk? It means that the grind is going to just continue as before. 

Depends on the POW/body count for 'Pokrovsk' (meaning Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad)  

 

 

[TrustMe]

3 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

I think first snow in Ukraine was several weeks ago, same as here, but it was just for a few days (here) and it's already all gone, temperatures are around 5-10C, with sometimes mild freezing temps at night, but not always. Seems similar in Kyiv according to Google. 

 

Thanks Urbanoid.

[mkenny]

There is a current film on Telegram of Russian missiles hitting  Myrnohrad.  Snow is visible 

[urbanoid]

And there are some (presumably?) current from Pokrovsk in which there's none. 

34 minutes ago, mkenny said:

Depends on the POW/body count for 'Pokrovsk' (meaning Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad)  

I don't think either side's body count determines the 'hugeness' of victory (or defeat) here, plus I assume we're not going to learn what they are, other than 'propaganda figures' from either side, or at least nothing that can be considered reliable.  

[mkenny]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

And there are some (presumably?) current from Pokrovsk in which there's none. 

I don't think either side's body count determines the 'hugeness' of victory (or defeat) here, plus I assume we're not going to learn what they are, other than 'propaganda figures' from either side, or at least nothing that can be considered reliable.  

Film of lots of POWs would be evidence. It remains to be seen how many Ukrainians are trapped and at least give some idea of which side takes the most prisoners. 

[ink]

16 minutes ago, mkenny said:

Film of lots of POWs would be evidence. It remains to be seen how many Ukrainians are trapped and at least give some idea of which side takes the most prisoners. 

Seems unlikely that we'll see Barbarossa-style encirclements with thousands of captured troops. Even the Ukrainians didn't manage that during the Kharkov offensive. It's even less likely now, where movement and holding territory are both carried out with small infantry units (or even individual soldiers), which means the territory "held" by Russian forces on the map (showing Myrnohrad to be encircled) is sure to be quite porous.

[Sinistar]

8 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_Stalingrad_Speech

'But I wanted to come to the Volga, to a definite place, to a definite city. It accidentally bears the name of Stalin himself, but do not think that I went after it on that account.

''''

I wanted to take it. And do you know, we're modest: that is, we have it; there are only a couple of very small places left there.'

 

the analogy does not hold

equally someone could say the soviets are not in berlin in 1945 by the same measure as you seem to think the ukrainians are actually in control of pokrovsk with the russians ejected

 

the actual trends over watching this for months is that it has been a slow grind 

over several months russian reconnaissance groups slowly penetrate from the southwest and gradually start moving in more and more while the cauldron forms around the pokrovsk amalgamation

as you know this has been taking several months with attempts by the ukrainians to cut off the forming pocket around all that and counterattacks going in and so on

 

there are pickets in the outside hunting one another down but for the last week or more there are no more street battles going on in there but at the most drones still active in the general area from both sides

 

suddenly a selfie proves that none of that occurred even when the main street to street fighting is over 

 

simply using a single snapshot in time from a social media page does not disprove this trend but which is often what audiences are doing  

Edited December 11, 2025 by Sinistar

[Roman Alymov]

3 hours ago, ink said:

Seems unlikely that we'll see Barbarossa-style encirclements with thousands of captured troops. Even the Ukrainians didn't manage that during the Kharkov offensive. It's even less likely now, where movement and holding territory are both carried out with small infantry units (or even individual soldiers), which means the territory "held" by Russian forces on the map (showing Myrnohrad to be encircled) is sure to be quite porous.

More over, not clear what territory is actually "held" - as pro-Russians are sceptical not only about enemy maps, but also about own command ones https://t.me/milinfolive/162155

"The map of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Seversk is not inferior in its crazyness to their similar map (https://t.me/milinfolive/161660 ), recently published in the Pokrovsko-Mirnograd direction.

If the statements (https://t.me/milinfolive/162141 )  of the Russian General Staff are a couple of months ahead of the current situation on the front line, then the statements of the Ukrainian General Staff, on the contrary, lag behind this situation by the same few months.

For an approximate understanding of the falsifications, on the map published by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the approximate current contact line in the Seversky direction is marked with a red line.

It is interesting to observe how the two general staffs of the warring countries are vying to prove to the president of a third country that their situation is more stable than that of the other side."

 

 

[Mike1158]

I would still like to know why the trumpet is so pro put in.  I get that megalomaniacs LIKE power and that of life and death can be pretty addictive.  Does trumpet REALLY believe history will see him as a peace maker?  Piece of WHAT?

 

Mooooo, sniff.

[Roman Alymov]

6 hours ago, TrustMe said:

Does anyone know the date when the snow starts to fall & freeze in Ukraine in winter?

Ukraine is very big place, and there is no way to have some fixed date. More over, region is known for rapid changes of weather, frequient thaws or sudden snowfalls.  Rught now it is snow (little) on the ground in Zaporozhye region (frontline's South end), while raining in Moscow far away to the North.....

[Sinistar]

you might also want to address that question to rutte and macron:

 

they are openly saying to get ready for war

 

to varying degrees starmer and mertz have been saying to get ready for war

 

military leaders have already said to prepare for nuclear war or to invade or wipe out kaliningrad 

 

of all of them trump is the one saying that he wants to draw down out of europe and ukraine though there are other forces which will not let him make a clean break just yet

 

venezuela is a different matter however

 

the point being the europeans are just as much jonesing for world war III afwully bad but when they do it using humanisms and under the general assumption that they are sophisticated people leading sophisticated cultures

the basic prejudice everyone has is that the americans are loud brash crazy cowboys

 

the europeans are like civilized or calculated villains plotting their own destructions

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TrustMe]

29 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

Ukraine is very big place, and there is no way to have some fixed date. More over, region is known for rapid changes of weather, frequient thaws or sudden snowfalls.  Rught now it is snow (little) on the ground in Zaporozhye region (frontline's South end), while raining in Moscow far away to the North.....

Thanks Roman.

[ink]

11 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

More over, not clear what territory is actually "held" -

Good point! I'm always a bit mistrustful of the maps that get published. Sure, they can give you an overall sense of the lay of the land, but once you start zooming in, the likelihood of inaccuracy goes up significantly.

[Sinistar]

the institute for the study of war maps are more reliable than chance

if you were to draw the conclusion that nothing is known and that there are no general patterns than you will probably find yourselves outmaneuvered 

after all that is what any game consists of: patterns

 

often i debate people on any number of topics and often you get this sense that there are no generalizations that you can make about anything

which i am skeptical about and i think that there are generalizations which are more safe than random luck 

 

if there is no pattern and it is all random at any given instant then there is no game

no one can either 'win' or 'lose' under 100 percent random or chaotic conditions or certain conditions

the game never gets going in any case

 

for example i score the winning goal only for the universe to randomly transform into something bizarre or unexpected or irrelevant at that exact moment

on the other hand if it is already known beforehand what happens than there is a strange situation where the game collapses before it happens in an equally opposite but ineffable way:

why would you proceed on a losing course of action knowing beforehand it would lose

therefore you would not and therefore you run into some self contradicting paradox

 

for any functional game the conclusion can neither be 100 percent random nor 100 percent certain

but within the game it becomes apparent there are patterns and adaptions and trying new innovations and more patterns emerge and so on

 

Edited December 12, 2025 by Sinistar

[Stefan Kotsch]

56 minutes ago, ink said:

Sure, they can give you an overall sense of the lay of the land, but once you start zooming in, the likelihood of inaccuracy goes up significantly.

However, this also shows us that even after four years of war, progress can still be sought with the zoom magnifying glass. Two more months and "the Great Patriotic War is over". But, the war goals of the "Red Army" were set extremely briefly this time.

[Stuart Galbraith]

15 hours ago, ink said:

Seems unlikely that we'll see Barbarossa-style encirclements with thousands of captured troops. Even the Ukrainians didn't manage that during the Kharkov offensive. It's even less likely now, where movement and holding territory are both carried out with small infantry units (or even individual soldiers), which means the territory "held" by Russian forces on the map (showing Myrnohrad to be encircled) is sure to be quite porous.

The only place it happened in this war was Mariupol, and that was down to the unusual tactical circumstance of having see on one side so they couldnt escape. Despite promising reports, we didnt see anything from the apparent encirclements about Pokrovsk. They either were evacuated, or they were small in number and got vapourized by endless artillery strikes.

[Stuart Galbraith]

15 hours ago, Sinistar said:

 

the analogy does not hold

equally someone could say the soviets are not in berlin in 1945 by the same measure as you seem to think the ukrainians are actually in control of pokrovsk with the russians ejected

 

the actual trends over watching this for months is that it has been a slow grind 

over several months russian reconnaissance groups slowly penetrate from the southwest and gradually start moving in more and more while the cauldron forms around the pokrovsk amalgamation

as you know this has been taking several months with attempts by the ukrainians to cut off the forming pocket around all that and counterattacks going in and so on

 

there are pickets in the outside hunting one another down but for the last week or more there are no more street battles going on in there but at the most drones still active in the general area from both sides

 

suddenly a selfie proves that none of that occurred even when the main street to street fighting is over 

 

simply using a single snapshot in time from a social media page does not disprove this trend but which is often what audiences are doing  

Just because you claim something is the case, it doesnt mean its true. I found a post today on one of the news threads on my search engine, claiming a Russian column was destroyed assaulting Pokrovsk. Which is a neat trick, considering they are supposed to have already taken it.

The question you have to ask yourself is, if Pokrovsk is taken, why havent they advanced beyond it? And clearly they arent, because its still invested. This is fairly obvious stuff, and that nobody is engaging their brain to consider it, suggests how completely they are putting their brains in neutral and accepting the narrative they want to hear.

Russia will take Pokrosk, that is a given. But no, not yet. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

12 hours ago, Mike1158 said:

I would still like to know why the trumpet is so pro put in.  I get that megalomaniacs LIKE power and that of life and death can be pretty addictive.  Does trumpet REALLY believe history will see him as a peace maker?  Piece of WHAT?

 

Mooooo, sniff.

I mean, how many pages you want? There are as many theories as there are Trump moods. Personally, I think he believes Putin is like himself, because he sees himself a tough guy, so clearly he has more in common than with those Europeans. This rather shows you how Trump utterly overrates himself.

[seahawk]

Trump understands that woke-liberalism is the greatest enemy to a conservative and free society. Putin is not woke nor liberal. Putin has strong conservative views and understands power. Putin can be a reliable partner in the war against woke.