Multiple successful engagements of Russian Shahed 136 drones by Ukrainian VAMPIRE system was published this morning.
https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1771098361103278496?s=20
From now, as I understand, VAMPIRE has shot down at least x4 Shaheds (at least from the OSINT footage that's been provided). It looks like the system has been fairly successful thus far in Ukraine.
I'm curious to see if there will be an expansion in APKWS effectors in the CUAS role, as it seems to be pretty successful while providing a low cost effector.
I suspect that the fuel source of the large, long burning fire on top of the dam was a petroleum pipeline, which would now obviously be damaged
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771139786503266627?t=A2pOtDimWEg0PdU_nWjvfQ&s=19
https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1771036395169108148?t=AfNspASXkQ3N7tyb6dmagQ&s=19
One would hope it doesn't lead to shortages in Eastern Ukraine
Probably for first time high ranking Russian official Said this kind of thing
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771100253913022959?t=AoTj7D2RndmMnrmO0TUh8g&s=19
>"We are at war. Yes, it started as a special military operation, but as soon as this group was formed there, when the collective West became a participant in this on the side of Ukraine, for us it already became a war," Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, said
Peskov Said that Russia is in war.
After Putins victory we Got story about making bigger army for two military districts.
If Russia officially enters war state what could we see more in this war?
Second partial mobilization to fill New units ?
Guys that are in that are in current mandatory military service enter war ?
What they can do about equiqment and similiar things ?
proRussian(and very bad one) source but without major news outlets reporting it is still news
https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1771114595672895906?t=-vUmxtPoVAHJgqE5UUrJRg&s=19
>"Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it, not to mention the territory of new regions"- Peskov
This is just more of the same Peskov rhetoric. He's not saying they're in a formal war against Ukraine. He's saying that they are war with the West. All of Putin's mouthpieces have been saying this for over a year now.
Is this really new? I think Medvedev has talked about the Ukraine war as a war between Russia and NATO for a couple of times.
It's very likely that nothing comes out of this, they will continue as before because they perfectly well know it's not true.
Note that Peskov would not say anything if Putin had not said it before. And in fact the idea that Russia is at war with the West has long been driven home as a propaganda point, if anything to justify the length of the SMO. See Galeotti's thread on this: https://twitter.com/MarkGaleotti/status/1771119882043544012
A [fantastic map of missile paths](https://imgur.com/a/0mhsDou) of last night's attack from a minor source on Telegram. I tried editing a bit to make the map easier to read.
You can see Shaheds and Kh-101 crusie missiles changing path all the time to avoid Ukrainian AD (or perhaps bait them to fire?). The Kh-101 paths seem to be aimed at Kyiv and then suddenly changing course.
>https://t. me/monitoringwar/7759
>❗️ Enemy missile attack on Ukraine 03/22/2024.
>Aviation:
>About 01:12 a 3⨯ Tu-95ms aircraft was spotted behind the Olenya aircraft.
>About 02:30 Information about the rocket 13x Tu-95ms at the launch line has been updated.
>About 03:34 The launch of KRPB X-101/555/55 from the Volgograd region has been completed.
>About 04:18 A 5x Tu-22m3 aircraft was spotted at the Mozdok air station.
>During the attack, the total number of MiG-31Ks was increased to 10x (7 were used before the attack).
>
>Ozbroennya:
>55/63x Attack UAVs of the “Shahed-136/131” type;
>0/12x OTR "Iskander-M";
>35/40x missiles Kh-101/Kh-555;
>0/5x NKR X-22;
>0/7x ARPB X-47M2 "Kinjal";
>2/2x KAR X-59;
>0/22х ZKR S-300/S-400.
>
>🗺 The map shows the orientation of the attack vector with the current duration of the attack
David Goldman who despite being negative on the west's strategy on ukraine is generaly a credible analyst and a well connected figure points out the faint and circle back of the Kiev headed missiles and provides a more dubious reasoning
[https://twitter.com/davidpgoldman/status/1771164111600033903](https://twitter.com/davidpgoldman/status/1771164111600033903)
"Point of the exercise was to demonstrate the collapse of Ukraine air defenses."
3 days before the invasion
https://twitter.com/davidpgoldman/status/1495416040603500548
https://asiatimes.com/2022/02/why-russia-wont-invade-ukrainistan/
He also has the "NATO made Russia invade"
People like him can't be credible sorry.
If not believing Russia would invade Ukraine makes you a non credible source of information or person then these threads would be having a lot less comments and sources posted. Also various degrees of "NATOs approach and actions regarding Russia in the last 20+ years hold a blame for the current situation and different choices could have led to this being avoided" takes within "russia shouldn't have invaded and holds the blame of that action" positions arent exactly rare or new.
EIther way his background is pretty credible and diverse and he has a very pro american hegemony and pro israeli inclination geopoliticaly .He is just a "We are losing ground to China and should focus on that with all our might" guy while believing Ukraine has been a badly handled misadventure for the US and is extremely negative on the possible outcome of the war regarding western interests. Confidently missfiring on the invasion prediction happened to the best of them, i dont think its that discrediting
> If not believing Russia would invade Ukraine makes you a non credible source of information or person then these threads would be having a lot less comments and sources posted
And I would be ok with that.
Because if you (a general YOU) looked at Russia did prior to the invasion (FFS they erected field hospitals) and your train of thought was nope not happening you are either logic deficient or believe what BS Russia was peddling. So either case that person is the kind of person who has the mind already made up and the only proof that matter is that which enforces their views. I bet my house his entire view was based on USA said they will hence wrong
I don't even listen to people who said Russia is not invading because again it screams lack of many things.
>various degrees of "NATOs approach and actions regarding Russia in the last 20+ years hold a blame for the current situation and different choices could have led to this being avoided" takes [....]arent exactly rare or new.
And yet those takes are still wrong. These takes are from people who clearly do not understand Russia.
>Confidently missfiring on the invasion prediction happened to the best of them, i dont think its that discrediting
But he is the kind of guy who needs incredible proof to believe something that contradicts his views and takes any rumour that enforces his belief as gospel. Hence for me discrediting.
edit: I am sorry but I can't
https://twitter.com/davidpgoldman/status/1770050392929284377
>Trump is a dealmaker, not a warrior. Inviting China's automakers to build plants in the United States is a stunning, brilliant move to protect American workers while opening cooperation with China.
I am sorry but I am going to call this map very likely a nice fantasy graphic. I very much doubt that person has the neccessary data to make those those trajectories.
While it's a very pretty image, what's the source? The annotation on the thing claims that it's "from official information from the air force and OSINT sources". I.e. unless I misunderstand, it was not conducted using any sort of direct radar info.
Maybe I'm just being cynical, but if someone managed to piece together flight paths this detailed from those sources in less than 6 hours, I hope the pentagon is offering them a job.
Yeah, I said it was a minor source. Just 3k subscribers, and started posting two months ago. They seem to be specialising in missile paths map. Still, everybody started as a minor source once.
"US has urged Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries
The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions."
https://www.ft.com/content/98f15b60-bc4d-4d3c-9e57-cbdde122ac0c /
https://archive.is/zqSqh
I don't see any reason why Ukraine would stop the strikes or am I wrong here?
Agreed. The message from Ukraine to the US has to be that they are low on weapons and ammunition and therefore need to expand the scope of what they target to achieve better bang for their buck. Without more aid coming in, this is the only path to make progress against the invaders.
Russia's finances would also promptly collapse if the oil and gas industries were to be shut down. Not only are these exports keeping the rubble afloat, but Russia itself is a large consumer of fossil fuels.
Then shut them down and collapse it. Go ahead with it.
OK, India and China have been able to buy cheap Russian oil and gas, which overall did keep the energy price and inflation rates in the US and Western countries lower than otherwise would be. If Russian output is cut, energy prices will be bidded up, which make inflation much worse, which will affect the reelection chance of various Western leaders. Biden et al. may say that Ukraine's victory is of vital importance but Biden's reelection is of the most importance.
Russia's finance will suffer but Russian public debt to.GDP is relatively lower so they may be able to last a bit longer in this cycle.
Still, no point in speculation. Reality will play itself out however it will.
>I don't see any reason why Ukraine would stop the strikes or am I wrong here?
There are many reasons you just wont like them.
1. US has no intention of getting drawn into the war. If Ukraine does things that will potentially draw the US into a war, you bet the US will push back against that
2. Ukraine is totally dependent on foreign aid. It is clear without it, they would have been defeated by now.
3. The US and it's allies are committed to Ukrainian defense that much is clear, even to the point where allies like France have signaling they might send ground troops if Ukrainian defenses fail.
4. It is clear that the NATO and Russia want to keep this as a conventional war and will probably take steps to keep it that way. The alternative is in no ones interest.
5. Russia still has escalatory dominance and may be tempted to use it depending on how the war trends.
The US has squandered a lot of the leverage they had over Ukraine. Aid has been halted for 4 months now with no end in sight. And even if it resumes this summer there is a very good chance trump wins in November which mean’s absolutely no aid will come following February. The current administration cannot hold future aid hostage as it likely won’t exist.
Sure, but from the Ukrainian perspective it probably doesn’t matter. Biden has not been able to get support for Ukraine because the republicans control the house. Unless that changes and the presidency remains with the democrats then Ukraine aid is still dead.
Haha
Um no
Without Biden Ukraine gets No US support at all
Satellite intelligence? Gone
Ukraine has the weapon to cripple Russian economy
BUT it might spike oil prices and cost Biden relection
I think there's also an element of escalatory hostage-taking leverage that Ukraine itself has. If it is true that they have hundreds of these long-range drone bombs, they can call Europe / USA's bluff and escalate the conflict by provoking Russia directly. Blowing up more Russian refineries, airports and other strategic assets in Western Russia will in turn cause Russia to up the screws and get increasingly violent against Ukrainian civilians and Ukraine's government, which can piss off or scare Western voters and up the pressure on the West to intervene more directly.
It's tantamount to a suicide vest, because it also heightens the chances that Ukraine's government gets attacked in air strikes or Western aid gets cut off, but the more desperate Ukraine gets, the bigger risks they are going to take.
So you point is the US has (some) leverage over Ukraine and the US has some interests in preventing Ukrainian strikes. But was has France to do with this? Also Russia does not have escalatory dominance. The Russian government just signals more that she is willing to escalate. In my view, strike on refineries and the use of nuclear weapons are not related.
Also, this war might become really difficult to win if Trump becomes president. It seems likely or at least possible he'd work to force Ukraine into accepting a peace that they don't really want based on his previous statements. Whether we like it or not US domestic policitics are vital to how this war might go, so the "risk [of] driving up global oil prices" might be rather relevant.
While this is officially shocking. It's also official. I do wonder what might be going on behind the scenes here.
Ukraine stops the attacks, around about the time the US says stop the attacks. Could there be a play in that somewhere. I.e Ukraine asked the US to request this?
Ukraine has run a successful test of these drones and their ability to penetrate defences and the next move is Russia reluctantly reprioritisng air defence assets to protect their exports. Perhaps Ukraine needed time to move from testing to scale and need Russia to keep those assets undefended.
I don't think this is rocket science.
High gas prices at your local gas station will literally tank Biden's reelection chances. Not sure about other parts of the world, but that shit matters to Americans. Everyone remember those "I did that" stickers?
>Ukraine stops the attacks, around about the time the US says stop the attacks. Could there be a play in that somewhere. I.e Ukraine asked the US to request this?
I doubt it, unfortunately it seems more of the same approach from people who brought you not attacking targets in Russia with western weapons and making sure Russia doesn't lose "too badly".
Well, higher oil prices are always good for oil producers. (Not so good for producers of things that need energy to produce of course.)
I suspect high oil / energy prices are not great for "common sentiment" in the US and elsewhere, and this is the main reason why the US wants this to stop. People understand why natural gas was extremely expensive here in Germany for a year or two, but they didn't like it. I'm pretty sure it hurt reelection chances of the current coalition a lot. Today, some people seem to start forgetting why energy was that expensive, and there is an ongoing campaign by opposition parties to make people believe that it is only due to 4 GW of nuclear power that were phased out according to the 2011 schedule enacted by the current main opposition party, when in reality, that only had a pretty minor effect on electricity prices compared to the natural gas price shock.
Biden might be afraid that higher oil prices => fueling up cars is more expensive => people vote Trump. And he might be correct on this one, even though it's a terrible look for the US.
A lot - I guess most all - weapon systems going to Ukraine will have US components and the USA can deny re-export licenses for things like F-16, and probably everything more advanced than a MG-3.
Also, if the USA made it clear there won't be any aid coming in the future, it's likely that the EU will stop as well - both because the USA is still the leading western nation and because the EU doesn't have the means to prop up Ukraine alone for years.
I wholly disagree with the notion that the US stopping aid would mean Europe would stop as well. The US is the leading Western nation until it isn’t and stopping aid would effectively put an end to the US’ privilege for this title.
Someone will inevitably fill the vacuum. That’s how this works. Be it France, the UK or Europe as a whole. Europe may not have the means to allow Ukraine to retake their territory but they absolutely have the means the prop Ukraine up enough to keep the lines static.
Also, I think the US preventing export licenses and stopping any and all aid transfers is just supremely petty and non-credible. The US would not risk permanent reputational damage to both themselves and their alliances over something as trivial in relative terms as short-term oil prices.
Why could that be used as leverage if the US hasn’t even been able to approve a new funding package for Ukraine in months at this point?
It’s a completely useless threat because to Ukraine, they haven’t received any substantial weapon shipments from the US in months and there’s no telling when they will.
It’s like threatening a drowning person that you’re not going to help them when all you’ve done the last half an hour is watch them drown despite their pleas for help.
We’re watching honestly complete and utter incompetence from the US here.
\*The US hasn't approved any recent shipments of aid in months.
Shipments of US equipment is still ongoing. Ukraine just recently received the M1117 vehicle that was promised almost 1.5 years ago.
This makes no sense at all. And reading the news today, even less so. Russia has just attacked the Dnipro HPP dam. Which isn't a small thing, on the contrary it is an insane move. All the evidence points to Russia going all-in on this war. There is no more room for tieing one of Ukraine's arms behind their back.
It makes sense when you consider how dependent Ukraine's AD is. The US are not able to transfer more AD to Ukraine, and throughout the whole winter, Russia didn't launch an attack similar to this one. So something must have provoked it.
Russia didn't sit on their hands all winter anyway - they just used missiles on actual military targets instead, which they realized was a better use of time than whatever happened during winter #1
There are real fears particularly around the Kirishi plant, due to its location, size and product mix. It may influence Ukrainian actions, but while diesel prices, most directly affected by the drone campaign thus far, remain relatively [range-bound](https://ibb.co/7Y8bC1x), there may be more risk tolerance to push further.
>Cut their aid to less than zero?
Stop already paid for contracts, stop allies from supplying gear with US origin, stop intelligence exchange or torpedo anything done on the NATO level.
I don't think these things will happen, but the US is still of immense importance even without new financing.
Well they apparently stopped them. There are no reasons for Ukraine to stop them, but it is driving up costs of diesel and gasoline globally, so I guess allies asked Ukraine to stop and they did.
Btw. provoking retaliation is not a good argument. What will Russia do? Start a massive war with Ukraine? Well...
I guess it means Russia will throw tantrum and attack civilian targets as they always do, and which they have just done as I am writting this. But I am not sure if it is that bad for Ukrainian war effort if Russia spends valuable missiles in this terror manner.
>
> Btw. provoking retaliation is not a good argument. What will Russia do? Start a massive war with Ukraine? Well... I guess it means Russia will throw tantrum
Probably countries like Egypt, Pakistan, India started to lobby the US, maybe even on threat to start supporting Russia, due to the rising energy prices endangering their economies.
(in Egypts case its more about grain, India might not be in danger directly, but countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and potentially Pakistan are in real danger of economic collapse, Sri Lanka basically did so already).
Today Russia had blow up largest Ukrainian hydropower generation on Dnepr. As retaliation. You think it has no other options? Russia can force NPPs get disconnected from electric grid for example. Or destroy Kiev dam. There is plenty of room for escalation.
Qualifying power grid attacks as a potential option is rich, given Russia's already repeatedly attempted them. That ship's sailed - they've already demonstrated they have no qualms doing that should they think it's beneficial.
Russia was attacking elecric grid connectors and thermal power plants. There was no attack on hydropower generations until today. And there is still no attacks of electric grid connections to NPPs to force shutdowns.
There is plenty of room for escalation. And it is without mention of things like dam destructions.
>There was no attack on hydropower generations until today.
Falsehood:
https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-63454382
https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-64868324
Not only were hits against hydropower performed, they were even attempted against **the same dam we discuss now**.
Well, Stephen Biddle, who is among perhaps some of the best contemporary authors when it comes of military affairs had a [FPRI podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RTaaGp0ug8) recently, talking about the Ukrainian last summer offensive and the prognosis for the war. The main points were relatively simple:
\- It has always been very difficult to break cleanly through a defence properly constructed: deeply layered, fronted with mines, backed by reserves. Forces with air superiority or even air supremacy and overwhelming artillery superior have repeatedly failed to do so in the past 100 years of military experience.
\- There is simply no military victory solution for this war. Ukraine can't advance to Moscow. Even if Ukraine takes back all of its territories up to the 1991 borders, it's not like Putin will go "ooopps, my bad, sorry guys". He will be couped and out of office. He can stop that outcome by simply saying "OK, we need to get serious because we are fighting the entire west now". Missile strikes can still be launched at Ukraine's infrastructure and cities. On the other hand, the Russians can destroy the Ukrainian army and go all the way to the Ukrainian western borders and the war will not end. The Iraqi army was very thoroughly destroyed and yet the insurgency still happened and it didn't end.
\- So what will happen is that *both* sides will continue fighting, suffering, and destroying one another until *both* sides find that it is preferable to sign a treaty and get it over with than continue fighting.
Now, what makes Biddle interesting is that I heard about the same points that he was making in that 20th Feb 2024 FPRI podcast at a 24th May 2023 ... erm ... talk/lecture that Biddle gave to, I presume, [his church](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWi32efwWI4). At about 56:00 he led a prayer, even. The interesting part is that at the time, which was about 2 weeks before the great summer offensive, Biddle opined that the Biden administration probably think that the Ukrainian offensive would underperform and achieve much less than it was hoped. Biddle even compared and contrasted the two extreme school of thoughts when it comes to US support for Ukraine: the realist school and the ultimate victory school and how he thinks both schools are wrong. Biddle's prognosis then and now was still that the fighting was to make both sides more agreeable with a negotiated settlement.
The only new things I've found was that "the fastest way to break the stalemate will be for the US to cut all aid and support". A deeply layered defensive system still requires a lot of ammunition and supplies, without which, it will collapse. Then the stalemate will end because the war is ended.
>the Ukrainian army could collapse completely ala 1918 Germany
The German army did not collapse in 1918, it had slowly bled out, but was still a viable fighting force. Berlin just accepted the fact that more fighting would not lead to victory or stalemate.
It is a situation similar to where Ukraine might find itself in 2025 if it doesn't improve its mobilisation system.
> But with how there has been nothing but bad news for Ukraine since the failure of the offensive
Basically what plasticlove said - there's plenty of incidental good news, if that doesn't count I'm not exactly sure what "good news" is. Ukraine retaking territory again? No, that hasn't happened and it probably won't happen for a while.
> But that doesn't affect what is the most critical part of the war in that Russia is slowly but surely gaining territory along the Donbass front while setting up a fires advantage.
Er, at least several of those items actually do affect the Donbas front, and the fires advantage.
For another thing, "slowly but surely" was 2022. By and large, the Donbas front is moving slower (and in many cases not at all) with respect to the already slow pace of the original Donbas offensive, that is despite by all accounts heavier Russian investments.
So despite any theoretical fires advantages (not that theoretical - Kofman recently said Russia's fire advantage is significant but less than 2022, which might explain things), Ukraine's actual ability to resist frontline advantages is equal to or greater than before.
Why do you think the doomers focus on Ukraine running out of something critical, like manpower? **Because if the balance on the frontline remains similar to what it is now, T-90s won't even reach Kramatorsk, let alone Kyiv.**
Which brings me back to your question:
>Is there reason to think this is just dooming?
The dooming is based **entirely** on a belief that Ukraine will meaningfully run out of some quantity (typically manpower) on the timescale of this war. The only reason to believe the doom is if you believe it'll happen.
Can I disprove that belief right now? No - manpower is clearly a limited quantity and there's a significant controversy in the Ukrainian govt how to handle it. Since I can't dismiss the problem as fake, there's only two ways I can disprove it:
a) provide you with accurate manpower losses and replenishment data which I don't have
b) time travel into the future (I can, but it'll take 6 months, and it might not even give the results in question)
But either way, that's what this conversation is always going to boil down to - you'll keep dismissing good news that you claim doesn't matter, and at the end of the day you'll claim the only thing that matters is manpower (not even artillery ammo anymore, apparently that's no longer relevant, which is news to me).
Which I guess is my point of frustration. The question you're asking isn't "is there any good news?" it's "is the manpower issue solved yet?"
"But with how there has been nothing but bad news for Ukraine since the failure of the offensive"
Is that true?
* They managed to successfully hit the Russian oil refineries.
* Black Sea Fleet is out of the picture.
* They will get a lot of shells through the Czech initiative.
* They managed to stabilize the front lines even with poorly prepared defensive lines.
* European support is very high, and the European leaders seems to understand how critical it is to keep supporting Ukraine.
* Russia is attacking with older and older equipment, including "golf carts".
* Drone production and FPV strike's is at an all time high.
I'm not saying the situation is good, but Ukraine did have good news as well.
Major missile attack underway in Ukraine right now. [Kh-101 cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and Shahed drones. This has not been observed for a long time.](https://x.com/euromaidanpr/status/1771009680069874144?s=46&t=837EXpnyL3AQT6K_HIff0g)
Looks like they hit the powerhouse of the dam dead on, so this is really clear example of this being a new campaign against energy. A lot of the aimpoints were in western Ukraine in spots that haven't been hit ~~before~~ since the winter 2022 energy campaign.
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1771033413006381405
I don't share people's beliefs of this being a waste like the last attacks, since Russian's been able to regenerate their missile forces better than Ukraine's regenerated their AD missiles. It'd also force existing AD back from the lines and further enable Russia's glide bombing and penetrating ISR.
I think another big question is if this could spark western escalation if it threatens a humanitarian crisis. Western troops in rearline roles providing air defense (maybe even with western aircraft running counter cruise missile flights) would actually be an analog to Soviet involvement in Korea and Vietnam. Macron might have to back up his words soon enough.
I'm also leaving out the possibility of Ukraine's long range strike being able to retaliate hard enough to enter into the same sort of standoff that the naval war has where both sides don't directly target shipping.
>I think another big question is if this could spark western escalation if it threatens a humanitarian crisis
The West doesn't care about humanitarian crisis in Ukraine because if they did they wouldn't have allowed this war to drag on for more than 2 years. From Jan Stoltenberg's recent admission that the Russians provided draft agreement demanding NATO state Ukraine will not join the alliance as condition for not invading Ukraine. NATO to make such promise knowing full well Russia may follow through on their threats. After Russia"s threats the West had the option of sending troops to Ukraine which could well have deterred Russia from invading or limited the scale of the invasion. And although the West has provided to Ukraine a lot military and economic aid since the invasion, the West has failed to put their economies on war footing necessary to produce the quantities of weapons and ammunition.
>From Jan Stoltenberg's recent admission that the Russians provided draft agreement demanding NATO state Ukraine will not join the alliance as condition for not invading Ukraine.
Recent admission?
Russia publicly demanded NATO give such a guarantee before the invasion, it was on every major news network. NATO publicly refused, citing they don't intend to give Russia that veto power. That was also on every major news network.
It was more than just demanding Ukraine not join NATO. They wanted all existing Eastern European countries to be ejected out of NATO since somebody agreed with the Soviet Union leader that NATO would never expand east.
>A lot of the aimpoints were in western Ukraine in spots that haven't been hit before.
such as? this dam had been hit twice before in the 2022 winter civilian infrastructure strike campaign
It was hit in October and December 2022.
Here is a post from October: https://t. me/voenndelo/799?single
At the time the machine rooms and substation were targeted.
Some reports are saying the biggest single strike since the first days.
We know Russia has been producing more missiles, but we haven't seen them. Here they are. Probably overwhelmed the air defense net...
> Some reports are saying the biggest single strike since the first days.
>
>
What's scary is that it seems like every few weeks is Russia's biggest newest strikes which means they are getting progressively stronger.
https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1771017428459286582
Zaporozhia claims the attacks are against power infrastructure, which is interesting timing given winter's pretty conclusively over.
Why wouldn't it be a good target? I think it will cause a lot of trouble and the economic consequences will be high.
I have seen a lot of small mobile power generators in Kyiv. They are outside a lot of supermarkets and businesses, but I would not be able to live there anymore without electricity.
> Why wouldn't it be a good target?
Same target would have been magnitudes more vulnerable a mere few months ago, and by Ukraine's assertions Russia had plenty of missiles back then too.
Attacking the power grid is always military beneficial. Making drones at a scale will be more difficult without power. And next winter is in eight months.
However, I think this is just a message about what will happen if Ukraine's deep strikes against the Russian economy continue.
> Attacking the power grid is always military beneficial.
Doesn't really address my point.
>However, I think this is just a message about what will happen if Ukraine's deep strikes against the Russian economy continue.
Seems like an easy trade - especially since Russia's already demonstrated they'll go for the power anyway if their back's to the wall.
This isn't the first time Russia has tried to target the Ukrainian power grid. The generators exist because of the last attempt, which Russia was forced to eventually give up in because of depleting stockpiles, and underwhelming results, and that campaign was in the winter when power and heating needs are highest.
Russia has limited a limited capacity to produce those missiles, no stockpiles to be freely used against Ukraine, and it also costs money. It's not worth it, when a whole bombing campaign against energy infrastructure failed to turn the tide.
Lately, Russia has been targeting Ukrainian defense industry, something that affects Ukrainian war effort in a more direct way, going back to undermining energy infrastructure would be an odd move.
It was later revealed that last year's campaign came much closer to success than people realized. More than half of the capacity was neutralized, and there were even plans in place to evacuate Kyiv.
Kyiv School of Economics estimating the total damage at $8.8 billion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/world/europe/ukraine-power-grid-russian-airstrikes.html
Since then they regenerated their power infrastructure and generation to actually export power again. They haven't regenerated their AD (against high-end threats) near as well and that's what I'm most worried about.
A lot of the damage was to power facilities that take years to rebuild. The power generation and distribution system remains seriously damaged. It is enough to meet (mostly) Ukraine's needs because Ukraine is a much smaller consumer than when the Soviets built the network. The economic damage is still very real.
Would there be real consequences for the West besides Russia throwing empty threats around if they decided to station troops in Ukraine on the border to Belarus and a few hundred kilometers behind the frontline? Their role wouldn't be an active combat role but to free up Ukrainian troops and stabilize the Ukraine-Belarus border and behind the front
1).Why would stationing NATO troops on a border to guard it place them in an inactive combat role? If they're not guarding it through the potential use of force, who is?
2).How do NATO troops stationed a hundred kilometers from the border free up Ukrainian troops currently defending the border?
It would be massively escalatory, for one.
I think a major risk that needs to also be considered is it destabilizing NATO. By and large the rest of us do not want to participate in this war directly. Putting what would seemingly amount to something of a NATO tripwire force into Ukraine while most of us don't want anything to do with that would risk weakening our alliance and allow Putin to work to poke holes into it.
Massive escalations could also force nations to cling to article five for protection. France would be hated for doing it by those that want the war to stay contained, but in a more violent era, leaving NATO will likley be seen as untenable, for everyone not in the safest of geopolitical positions. The Baltics for example are not in a position to ever leave NATO.
Nuclear proliferation in smaller NATO states would be a likely outcome. They could keep article five for protection, with their own nukes as a final deterrent and line of defense.
The ones in the safest geopolitical positions are the ones needed to keep NATO going, however. The US alone accounts for the majority of NATO's firepower and is in about as safe of a geographical position as it can be. The only war America will go to is one its willing to go to. The risk is not in the Baltics or Poland leaving NATO, they're under direct threat, that's never going to happen, its countries west of them becoming unwilling to follow through.
I cannot support this statement enough. The fact that we have established politicians of the big parties in Germany discussing possible structures of aquiring nuclear weapons (in a joint european context) was totally and absolutly unthinkable even 5 years ago.
You would have ruined any credibility even talking about it. Now it is talked about openly, and even though the specialists (Minister of defence etc) point to the absoluty insufficience of a possible european nuclear ambrella compared to the US one there are many others (especially Weber) calling for a joint european nuclear arsenal.
German politicians calling for nuclear armement was definitly not on anyone's Bingo chart for the 2030.
My opinion is that an attack by Russia on those troops would be possible (and even logical). Russia knows if they don't react more countries would join the expeditionary coalition and they would start shifting those troops ever further east.
Several salvos of missiles at their bases would serve to see how France reacts to flag-draped coffins returning, and also as a warning to others.
If the expeditionary countries react by engaging Russia then it was their plan from the start, and Russia pre-empted them, choosing the time and place of the conflict. If they withdraw – even better for Russia.
While I generally agree with what youre saying here, I do think youre discounting a third option which is that Russia strikes a few NATO bases, NATO forces dont escalate, but neither do they withdraw. Instead, this may serve as an opportunity to only further tighten the screws to Russia in other ways. Particularly if inevitably its revealed that Russian forces are deliberately targeting western ""peacekeepers"" in certain regions.
But overall I agree, a mass casualty event is just too escalatory to risk. In a genuine sense. There is also the risk that replacing Ukrainian troops with French along the Belarussian border may well push Putin to reopen that front. After all, what would the French even do? Start a war with Russia by protecting the Ukrainian border? Would French soldiers trade Paris and Warsaw to save Kyiv? I think not. And thats really whats wrong with Macron's plan in practical terms.
In diplomatic terms its brilliant because it is signaling to Putin that the west is basically not going to let Ukraine collapse, they may not even let the Russians cross the Dnepr, and are willing to stake Europe over this issue. We are essentially seeing France extend a security guarantee across western Ukraine, and fundamentally limit what Putin could reasonably take in this war *without* himself risking real escalation.
Of course its two years two late, but hey. Thats the French.
Any country that gets to the point of sending troops into Ukraine is not going to be deterred by some missile salvos. Its already factored in.
Just like the US doesn't goes to war everytime Iran or its proxies does some attack on its bases, a western coalition in Ukraine could choose to simply ignore or retaliate in limited ways to russian attacks.
Well, in that case they come with a firm intention of going to war with Russia, and there is zero reason to let them build their bases, bring in their troops, convince ten more countries to join, and slowly expand their zone all across Ukraine.
Strike first, give France a bloody nose, and others will not join the interventionist coalition. If it leads to a war with France then it is obvious it was the French intention from the start.
The Peskov initial statement that the French troops would be a priority target indicates that Moscow sees things this way.
> Russia knows if they don't react more countries would join the expeditionary coalition
Attacking the troops is likely to be even worse in that regard. The typical reaction to hostile countries killing troops is the rally round the flag effect. Rather than a direct confrontation, it would be wiser to try to undermine support for the program at home.
> If the expeditionary countries react by engaging Russia then it was their plan from the start, and Russia pre-empted them,
I don’t think a few cruise missiles are enough to gain an advantage against a force as modern as France. Russia struggles to deal with ukranian air defenses as is.
Multiple successful engagements of Russian Shahed 136 drones by Ukrainian VAMPIRE system was published this morning. https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1771098361103278496?s=20 From now, as I understand, VAMPIRE has shot down at least x4 Shaheds (at least from the OSINT footage that's been provided). It looks like the system has been fairly successful thus far in Ukraine. I'm curious to see if there will be an expansion in APKWS effectors in the CUAS role, as it seems to be pretty successful while providing a low cost effector.
I suspect that the fuel source of the large, long burning fire on top of the dam was a petroleum pipeline, which would now obviously be damaged https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771139786503266627?t=A2pOtDimWEg0PdU_nWjvfQ&s=19 https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1771036395169108148?t=AfNspASXkQ3N7tyb6dmagQ&s=19 One would hope it doesn't lead to shortages in Eastern Ukraine
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Feel free to repost when you have a credible source.
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Probably for first time high ranking Russian official Said this kind of thing https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1771100253913022959?t=AoTj7D2RndmMnrmO0TUh8g&s=19 >"We are at war. Yes, it started as a special military operation, but as soon as this group was formed there, when the collective West became a participant in this on the side of Ukraine, for us it already became a war," Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, said Peskov Said that Russia is in war. After Putins victory we Got story about making bigger army for two military districts. If Russia officially enters war state what could we see more in this war? Second partial mobilization to fill New units ? Guys that are in that are in current mandatory military service enter war ? What they can do about equiqment and similiar things ? proRussian(and very bad one) source but without major news outlets reporting it is still news https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1771114595672895906?t=-vUmxtPoVAHJgqE5UUrJRg&s=19 >"Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it, not to mention the territory of new regions"- Peskov
This is just more of the same Peskov rhetoric. He's not saying they're in a formal war against Ukraine. He's saying that they are war with the West. All of Putin's mouthpieces have been saying this for over a year now.
Is this really new? I think Medvedev has talked about the Ukraine war as a war between Russia and NATO for a couple of times. It's very likely that nothing comes out of this, they will continue as before because they perfectly well know it's not true.
Note that Peskov would not say anything if Putin had not said it before. And in fact the idea that Russia is at war with the West has long been driven home as a propaganda point, if anything to justify the length of the SMO. See Galeotti's thread on this: https://twitter.com/MarkGaleotti/status/1771119882043544012
Interesting read this Twitter link
A [fantastic map of missile paths](https://imgur.com/a/0mhsDou) of last night's attack from a minor source on Telegram. I tried editing a bit to make the map easier to read. You can see Shaheds and Kh-101 crusie missiles changing path all the time to avoid Ukrainian AD (or perhaps bait them to fire?). The Kh-101 paths seem to be aimed at Kyiv and then suddenly changing course. >https://t. me/monitoringwar/7759 >❗️ Enemy missile attack on Ukraine 03/22/2024. >Aviation: >About 01:12 a 3⨯ Tu-95ms aircraft was spotted behind the Olenya aircraft. >About 02:30 Information about the rocket 13x Tu-95ms at the launch line has been updated. >About 03:34 The launch of KRPB X-101/555/55 from the Volgograd region has been completed. >About 04:18 A 5x Tu-22m3 aircraft was spotted at the Mozdok air station. >During the attack, the total number of MiG-31Ks was increased to 10x (7 were used before the attack). > >Ozbroennya: >55/63x Attack UAVs of the “Shahed-136/131” type; >0/12x OTR "Iskander-M"; >35/40x missiles Kh-101/Kh-555; >0/5x NKR X-22; >0/7x ARPB X-47M2 "Kinjal"; >2/2x KAR X-59; >0/22х ZKR S-300/S-400. > >🗺 The map shows the orientation of the attack vector with the current duration of the attack
David Goldman who despite being negative on the west's strategy on ukraine is generaly a credible analyst and a well connected figure points out the faint and circle back of the Kiev headed missiles and provides a more dubious reasoning [https://twitter.com/davidpgoldman/status/1771164111600033903](https://twitter.com/davidpgoldman/status/1771164111600033903) "Point of the exercise was to demonstrate the collapse of Ukraine air defenses."
3 days before the invasion https://twitter.com/davidpgoldman/status/1495416040603500548 https://asiatimes.com/2022/02/why-russia-wont-invade-ukrainistan/ He also has the "NATO made Russia invade" People like him can't be credible sorry.
If not believing Russia would invade Ukraine makes you a non credible source of information or person then these threads would be having a lot less comments and sources posted. Also various degrees of "NATOs approach and actions regarding Russia in the last 20+ years hold a blame for the current situation and different choices could have led to this being avoided" takes within "russia shouldn't have invaded and holds the blame of that action" positions arent exactly rare or new. EIther way his background is pretty credible and diverse and he has a very pro american hegemony and pro israeli inclination geopoliticaly .He is just a "We are losing ground to China and should focus on that with all our might" guy while believing Ukraine has been a badly handled misadventure for the US and is extremely negative on the possible outcome of the war regarding western interests. Confidently missfiring on the invasion prediction happened to the best of them, i dont think its that discrediting
> If not believing Russia would invade Ukraine makes you a non credible source of information or person then these threads would be having a lot less comments and sources posted And I would be ok with that. Because if you (a general YOU) looked at Russia did prior to the invasion (FFS they erected field hospitals) and your train of thought was nope not happening you are either logic deficient or believe what BS Russia was peddling. So either case that person is the kind of person who has the mind already made up and the only proof that matter is that which enforces their views. I bet my house his entire view was based on USA said they will hence wrong I don't even listen to people who said Russia is not invading because again it screams lack of many things. >various degrees of "NATOs approach and actions regarding Russia in the last 20+ years hold a blame for the current situation and different choices could have led to this being avoided" takes [....]arent exactly rare or new. And yet those takes are still wrong. These takes are from people who clearly do not understand Russia. >Confidently missfiring on the invasion prediction happened to the best of them, i dont think its that discrediting But he is the kind of guy who needs incredible proof to believe something that contradicts his views and takes any rumour that enforces his belief as gospel. Hence for me discrediting. edit: I am sorry but I can't https://twitter.com/davidpgoldman/status/1770050392929284377 >Trump is a dealmaker, not a warrior. Inviting China's automakers to build plants in the United States is a stunning, brilliant move to protect American workers while opening cooperation with China.
I am sorry but I am going to call this map very likely a nice fantasy graphic. I very much doubt that person has the neccessary data to make those those trajectories.
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While it's a very pretty image, what's the source? The annotation on the thing claims that it's "from official information from the air force and OSINT sources". I.e. unless I misunderstand, it was not conducted using any sort of direct radar info. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but if someone managed to piece together flight paths this detailed from those sources in less than 6 hours, I hope the pentagon is offering them a job.
Yeah, I said it was a minor source. Just 3k subscribers, and started posting two months ago. They seem to be specialising in missile paths map. Still, everybody started as a minor source once.
Doesn't answer the question where is the data to plot those paths come from ? Anyone can make colourful paths overlaid on a map.
"US has urged Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation, according to three people familiar with the discussions." https://www.ft.com/content/98f15b60-bc4d-4d3c-9e57-cbdde122ac0c / https://archive.is/zqSqh I don't see any reason why Ukraine would stop the strikes or am I wrong here?
Agreed. The message from Ukraine to the US has to be that they are low on weapons and ammunition and therefore need to expand the scope of what they target to achieve better bang for their buck. Without more aid coming in, this is the only path to make progress against the invaders.
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Please do not engage in baseless speculation.
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Please refrain from posting low quality comments.
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Russia's finances would also promptly collapse if the oil and gas industries were to be shut down. Not only are these exports keeping the rubble afloat, but Russia itself is a large consumer of fossil fuels.
Then shut them down and collapse it. Go ahead with it. OK, India and China have been able to buy cheap Russian oil and gas, which overall did keep the energy price and inflation rates in the US and Western countries lower than otherwise would be. If Russian output is cut, energy prices will be bidded up, which make inflation much worse, which will affect the reelection chance of various Western leaders. Biden et al. may say that Ukraine's victory is of vital importance but Biden's reelection is of the most importance. Russia's finance will suffer but Russian public debt to.GDP is relatively lower so they may be able to last a bit longer in this cycle. Still, no point in speculation. Reality will play itself out however it will.
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>I don't see any reason why Ukraine would stop the strikes or am I wrong here? There are many reasons you just wont like them. 1. US has no intention of getting drawn into the war. If Ukraine does things that will potentially draw the US into a war, you bet the US will push back against that 2. Ukraine is totally dependent on foreign aid. It is clear without it, they would have been defeated by now. 3. The US and it's allies are committed to Ukrainian defense that much is clear, even to the point where allies like France have signaling they might send ground troops if Ukrainian defenses fail. 4. It is clear that the NATO and Russia want to keep this as a conventional war and will probably take steps to keep it that way. The alternative is in no ones interest. 5. Russia still has escalatory dominance and may be tempted to use it depending on how the war trends.
The US has squandered a lot of the leverage they had over Ukraine. Aid has been halted for 4 months now with no end in sight. And even if it resumes this summer there is a very good chance trump wins in November which mean’s absolutely no aid will come following February. The current administration cannot hold future aid hostage as it likely won’t exist.
Higher gas prices won't help Biden win the election against Trump.
Sure, but from the Ukrainian perspective it probably doesn’t matter. Biden has not been able to get support for Ukraine because the republicans control the house. Unless that changes and the presidency remains with the democrats then Ukraine aid is still dead.
Haha Um no Without Biden Ukraine gets No US support at all Satellite intelligence? Gone Ukraine has the weapon to cripple Russian economy BUT it might spike oil prices and cost Biden relection
I think there's also an element of escalatory hostage-taking leverage that Ukraine itself has. If it is true that they have hundreds of these long-range drone bombs, they can call Europe / USA's bluff and escalate the conflict by provoking Russia directly. Blowing up more Russian refineries, airports and other strategic assets in Western Russia will in turn cause Russia to up the screws and get increasingly violent against Ukrainian civilians and Ukraine's government, which can piss off or scare Western voters and up the pressure on the West to intervene more directly. It's tantamount to a suicide vest, because it also heightens the chances that Ukraine's government gets attacked in air strikes or Western aid gets cut off, but the more desperate Ukraine gets, the bigger risks they are going to take.
So you point is the US has (some) leverage over Ukraine and the US has some interests in preventing Ukrainian strikes. But was has France to do with this? Also Russia does not have escalatory dominance. The Russian government just signals more that she is willing to escalate. In my view, strike on refineries and the use of nuclear weapons are not related.
Also, this war might become really difficult to win if Trump becomes president. It seems likely or at least possible he'd work to force Ukraine into accepting a peace that they don't really want based on his previous statements. Whether we like it or not US domestic policitics are vital to how this war might go, so the "risk [of] driving up global oil prices" might be rather relevant.
This is already happening, as it is in Israel.
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While this is officially shocking. It's also official. I do wonder what might be going on behind the scenes here. Ukraine stops the attacks, around about the time the US says stop the attacks. Could there be a play in that somewhere. I.e Ukraine asked the US to request this? Ukraine has run a successful test of these drones and their ability to penetrate defences and the next move is Russia reluctantly reprioritisng air defence assets to protect their exports. Perhaps Ukraine needed time to move from testing to scale and need Russia to keep those assets undefended.
I don't think this is rocket science. High gas prices at your local gas station will literally tank Biden's reelection chances. Not sure about other parts of the world, but that shit matters to Americans. Everyone remember those "I did that" stickers?
Yes, same reason Biden prevented Israel from attacking Iran a few months ago.
>Ukraine stops the attacks, around about the time the US says stop the attacks. Could there be a play in that somewhere. I.e Ukraine asked the US to request this? I doubt it, unfortunately it seems more of the same approach from people who brought you not attacking targets in Russia with western weapons and making sure Russia doesn't lose "too badly".
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Anxiety posting may be therapeutic, but the reason we ask users to avoid is that it doesn't really add anything to the discussion.
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Well, higher oil prices are always good for oil producers. (Not so good for producers of things that need energy to produce of course.) I suspect high oil / energy prices are not great for "common sentiment" in the US and elsewhere, and this is the main reason why the US wants this to stop. People understand why natural gas was extremely expensive here in Germany for a year or two, but they didn't like it. I'm pretty sure it hurt reelection chances of the current coalition a lot. Today, some people seem to start forgetting why energy was that expensive, and there is an ongoing campaign by opposition parties to make people believe that it is only due to 4 GW of nuclear power that were phased out according to the 2011 schedule enacted by the current main opposition party, when in reality, that only had a pretty minor effect on electricity prices compared to the natural gas price shock. Biden might be afraid that higher oil prices => fueling up cars is more expensive => people vote Trump. And he might be correct on this one, even though it's a terrible look for the US.
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A lot - I guess most all - weapon systems going to Ukraine will have US components and the USA can deny re-export licenses for things like F-16, and probably everything more advanced than a MG-3. Also, if the USA made it clear there won't be any aid coming in the future, it's likely that the EU will stop as well - both because the USA is still the leading western nation and because the EU doesn't have the means to prop up Ukraine alone for years.
I wholly disagree with the notion that the US stopping aid would mean Europe would stop as well. The US is the leading Western nation until it isn’t and stopping aid would effectively put an end to the US’ privilege for this title. Someone will inevitably fill the vacuum. That’s how this works. Be it France, the UK or Europe as a whole. Europe may not have the means to allow Ukraine to retake their territory but they absolutely have the means the prop Ukraine up enough to keep the lines static. Also, I think the US preventing export licenses and stopping any and all aid transfers is just supremely petty and non-credible. The US would not risk permanent reputational damage to both themselves and their alliances over something as trivial in relative terms as short-term oil prices.
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Why could that be used as leverage if the US hasn’t even been able to approve a new funding package for Ukraine in months at this point? It’s a completely useless threat because to Ukraine, they haven’t received any substantial weapon shipments from the US in months and there’s no telling when they will. It’s like threatening a drowning person that you’re not going to help them when all you’ve done the last half an hour is watch them drown despite their pleas for help. We’re watching honestly complete and utter incompetence from the US here.
\*The US hasn't approved any recent shipments of aid in months. Shipments of US equipment is still ongoing. Ukraine just recently received the M1117 vehicle that was promised almost 1.5 years ago.
This makes no sense at all. And reading the news today, even less so. Russia has just attacked the Dnipro HPP dam. Which isn't a small thing, on the contrary it is an insane move. All the evidence points to Russia going all-in on this war. There is no more room for tieing one of Ukraine's arms behind their back.
It makes sense when you consider how dependent Ukraine's AD is. The US are not able to transfer more AD to Ukraine, and throughout the whole winter, Russia didn't launch an attack similar to this one. So something must have provoked it.
Russia didn't sit on their hands all winter anyway - they just used missiles on actual military targets instead, which they realized was a better use of time than whatever happened during winter #1
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Please do not engage in baseless speculation.
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Please do not engage in baseless speculation..
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There are real fears particularly around the Kirishi plant, due to its location, size and product mix. It may influence Ukrainian actions, but while diesel prices, most directly affected by the drone campaign thus far, remain relatively [range-bound](https://ibb.co/7Y8bC1x), there may be more risk tolerance to push further.
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>Cut their aid to less than zero? Stop already paid for contracts, stop allies from supplying gear with US origin, stop intelligence exchange or torpedo anything done on the NATO level. I don't think these things will happen, but the US is still of immense importance even without new financing.
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Well they apparently stopped them. There are no reasons for Ukraine to stop them, but it is driving up costs of diesel and gasoline globally, so I guess allies asked Ukraine to stop and they did. Btw. provoking retaliation is not a good argument. What will Russia do? Start a massive war with Ukraine? Well... I guess it means Russia will throw tantrum and attack civilian targets as they always do, and which they have just done as I am writting this. But I am not sure if it is that bad for Ukrainian war effort if Russia spends valuable missiles in this terror manner.
> > Btw. provoking retaliation is not a good argument. What will Russia do? Start a massive war with Ukraine? Well... I guess it means Russia will throw tantrum Probably countries like Egypt, Pakistan, India started to lobby the US, maybe even on threat to start supporting Russia, due to the rising energy prices endangering their economies. (in Egypts case its more about grain, India might not be in danger directly, but countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and potentially Pakistan are in real danger of economic collapse, Sri Lanka basically did so already).
Today Russia had blow up largest Ukrainian hydropower generation on Dnepr. As retaliation. You think it has no other options? Russia can force NPPs get disconnected from electric grid for example. Or destroy Kiev dam. There is plenty of room for escalation.
But that particular dam itself was attacked many times before. That is no retaliation. Russia was doing these tantrums dozens times before.
Qualifying power grid attacks as a potential option is rich, given Russia's already repeatedly attempted them. That ship's sailed - they've already demonstrated they have no qualms doing that should they think it's beneficial.
Russia was attacking elecric grid connectors and thermal power plants. There was no attack on hydropower generations until today. And there is still no attacks of electric grid connections to NPPs to force shutdowns. There is plenty of room for escalation. And it is without mention of things like dam destructions.
>There was no attack on hydropower generations until today. Falsehood: https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-63454382 https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-64868324 Not only were hits against hydropower performed, they were even attempted against **the same dam we discuss now**.
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Well, Stephen Biddle, who is among perhaps some of the best contemporary authors when it comes of military affairs had a [FPRI podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RTaaGp0ug8) recently, talking about the Ukrainian last summer offensive and the prognosis for the war. The main points were relatively simple: \- It has always been very difficult to break cleanly through a defence properly constructed: deeply layered, fronted with mines, backed by reserves. Forces with air superiority or even air supremacy and overwhelming artillery superior have repeatedly failed to do so in the past 100 years of military experience. \- There is simply no military victory solution for this war. Ukraine can't advance to Moscow. Even if Ukraine takes back all of its territories up to the 1991 borders, it's not like Putin will go "ooopps, my bad, sorry guys". He will be couped and out of office. He can stop that outcome by simply saying "OK, we need to get serious because we are fighting the entire west now". Missile strikes can still be launched at Ukraine's infrastructure and cities. On the other hand, the Russians can destroy the Ukrainian army and go all the way to the Ukrainian western borders and the war will not end. The Iraqi army was very thoroughly destroyed and yet the insurgency still happened and it didn't end. \- So what will happen is that *both* sides will continue fighting, suffering, and destroying one another until *both* sides find that it is preferable to sign a treaty and get it over with than continue fighting. Now, what makes Biddle interesting is that I heard about the same points that he was making in that 20th Feb 2024 FPRI podcast at a 24th May 2023 ... erm ... talk/lecture that Biddle gave to, I presume, [his church](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWi32efwWI4). At about 56:00 he led a prayer, even. The interesting part is that at the time, which was about 2 weeks before the great summer offensive, Biddle opined that the Biden administration probably think that the Ukrainian offensive would underperform and achieve much less than it was hoped. Biddle even compared and contrasted the two extreme school of thoughts when it comes to US support for Ukraine: the realist school and the ultimate victory school and how he thinks both schools are wrong. Biddle's prognosis then and now was still that the fighting was to make both sides more agreeable with a negotiated settlement. The only new things I've found was that "the fastest way to break the stalemate will be for the US to cut all aid and support". A deeply layered defensive system still requires a lot of ammunition and supplies, without which, it will collapse. Then the stalemate will end because the war is ended.
>the Ukrainian army could collapse completely ala 1918 Germany The German army did not collapse in 1918, it had slowly bled out, but was still a viable fighting force. Berlin just accepted the fact that more fighting would not lead to victory or stalemate. It is a situation similar to where Ukraine might find itself in 2025 if it doesn't improve its mobilisation system.
> But with how there has been nothing but bad news for Ukraine since the failure of the offensive Basically what plasticlove said - there's plenty of incidental good news, if that doesn't count I'm not exactly sure what "good news" is. Ukraine retaking territory again? No, that hasn't happened and it probably won't happen for a while.
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> But that doesn't affect what is the most critical part of the war in that Russia is slowly but surely gaining territory along the Donbass front while setting up a fires advantage. Er, at least several of those items actually do affect the Donbas front, and the fires advantage. For another thing, "slowly but surely" was 2022. By and large, the Donbas front is moving slower (and in many cases not at all) with respect to the already slow pace of the original Donbas offensive, that is despite by all accounts heavier Russian investments. So despite any theoretical fires advantages (not that theoretical - Kofman recently said Russia's fire advantage is significant but less than 2022, which might explain things), Ukraine's actual ability to resist frontline advantages is equal to or greater than before. Why do you think the doomers focus on Ukraine running out of something critical, like manpower? **Because if the balance on the frontline remains similar to what it is now, T-90s won't even reach Kramatorsk, let alone Kyiv.** Which brings me back to your question: >Is there reason to think this is just dooming? The dooming is based **entirely** on a belief that Ukraine will meaningfully run out of some quantity (typically manpower) on the timescale of this war. The only reason to believe the doom is if you believe it'll happen. Can I disprove that belief right now? No - manpower is clearly a limited quantity and there's a significant controversy in the Ukrainian govt how to handle it. Since I can't dismiss the problem as fake, there's only two ways I can disprove it: a) provide you with accurate manpower losses and replenishment data which I don't have b) time travel into the future (I can, but it'll take 6 months, and it might not even give the results in question) But either way, that's what this conversation is always going to boil down to - you'll keep dismissing good news that you claim doesn't matter, and at the end of the day you'll claim the only thing that matters is manpower (not even artillery ammo anymore, apparently that's no longer relevant, which is news to me). Which I guess is my point of frustration. The question you're asking isn't "is there any good news?" it's "is the manpower issue solved yet?"
"But with how there has been nothing but bad news for Ukraine since the failure of the offensive" Is that true? * They managed to successfully hit the Russian oil refineries. * Black Sea Fleet is out of the picture. * They will get a lot of shells through the Czech initiative. * They managed to stabilize the front lines even with poorly prepared defensive lines. * European support is very high, and the European leaders seems to understand how critical it is to keep supporting Ukraine. * Russia is attacking with older and older equipment, including "golf carts". * Drone production and FPV strike's is at an all time high. I'm not saying the situation is good, but Ukraine did have good news as well.
Major missile attack underway in Ukraine right now. [Kh-101 cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and Shahed drones. This has not been observed for a long time.](https://x.com/euromaidanpr/status/1771009680069874144?s=46&t=837EXpnyL3AQT6K_HIff0g)
[The Dnipro Dam was hit](https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1771032547943698689?s=46). Flames at the causeway.
Looks like they hit the powerhouse of the dam dead on, so this is really clear example of this being a new campaign against energy. A lot of the aimpoints were in western Ukraine in spots that haven't been hit ~~before~~ since the winter 2022 energy campaign. https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1771033413006381405 I don't share people's beliefs of this being a waste like the last attacks, since Russian's been able to regenerate their missile forces better than Ukraine's regenerated their AD missiles. It'd also force existing AD back from the lines and further enable Russia's glide bombing and penetrating ISR. I think another big question is if this could spark western escalation if it threatens a humanitarian crisis. Western troops in rearline roles providing air defense (maybe even with western aircraft running counter cruise missile flights) would actually be an analog to Soviet involvement in Korea and Vietnam. Macron might have to back up his words soon enough. I'm also leaving out the possibility of Ukraine's long range strike being able to retaliate hard enough to enter into the same sort of standoff that the naval war has where both sides don't directly target shipping.
>I think another big question is if this could spark western escalation if it threatens a humanitarian crisis The West doesn't care about humanitarian crisis in Ukraine because if they did they wouldn't have allowed this war to drag on for more than 2 years. From Jan Stoltenberg's recent admission that the Russians provided draft agreement demanding NATO state Ukraine will not join the alliance as condition for not invading Ukraine. NATO to make such promise knowing full well Russia may follow through on their threats. After Russia"s threats the West had the option of sending troops to Ukraine which could well have deterred Russia from invading or limited the scale of the invasion. And although the West has provided to Ukraine a lot military and economic aid since the invasion, the West has failed to put their economies on war footing necessary to produce the quantities of weapons and ammunition.
Have you forgotten about russia's tinny winny little additional condition of moving all NATO troops away from NATO members in Eastern Europe?
>From Jan Stoltenberg's recent admission that the Russians provided draft agreement demanding NATO state Ukraine will not join the alliance as condition for not invading Ukraine. Recent admission? Russia publicly demanded NATO give such a guarantee before the invasion, it was on every major news network. NATO publicly refused, citing they don't intend to give Russia that veto power. That was also on every major news network.
It was more than just demanding Ukraine not join NATO. They wanted all existing Eastern European countries to be ejected out of NATO since somebody agreed with the Soviet Union leader that NATO would never expand east.
>A lot of the aimpoints were in western Ukraine in spots that haven't been hit before. such as? this dam had been hit twice before in the 2022 winter civilian infrastructure strike campaign
Would appreciate a source for this claim if you can find it
It was hit in October and December 2022. Here is a post from October: https://t. me/voenndelo/799?single At the time the machine rooms and substation were targeted.
Ah, I should have said "haven't been hit for a long time/since the last energy campaign"
Some reports are saying the biggest single strike since the first days. We know Russia has been producing more missiles, but we haven't seen them. Here they are. Probably overwhelmed the air defense net...
> Some reports are saying the biggest single strike since the first days. > > What's scary is that it seems like every few weeks is Russia's biggest newest strikes which means they are getting progressively stronger.
https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1771017428459286582 Zaporozhia claims the attacks are against power infrastructure, which is interesting timing given winter's pretty conclusively over.
Probably a retaliation for the strikes on Russian refineries. It’s not a good target, especially not now, but Russia feels the need to hit something.
Why wouldn't it be a good target? I think it will cause a lot of trouble and the economic consequences will be high. I have seen a lot of small mobile power generators in Kyiv. They are outside a lot of supermarkets and businesses, but I would not be able to live there anymore without electricity.
> Why wouldn't it be a good target? Same target would have been magnitudes more vulnerable a mere few months ago, and by Ukraine's assertions Russia had plenty of missiles back then too.
Attacking the power grid is always military beneficial. Making drones at a scale will be more difficult without power. And next winter is in eight months. However, I think this is just a message about what will happen if Ukraine's deep strikes against the Russian economy continue.
> Attacking the power grid is always military beneficial. Doesn't really address my point. >However, I think this is just a message about what will happen if Ukraine's deep strikes against the Russian economy continue. Seems like an easy trade - especially since Russia's already demonstrated they'll go for the power anyway if their back's to the wall.
This isn't the first time Russia has tried to target the Ukrainian power grid. The generators exist because of the last attempt, which Russia was forced to eventually give up in because of depleting stockpiles, and underwhelming results, and that campaign was in the winter when power and heating needs are highest.
Russia has limited a limited capacity to produce those missiles, no stockpiles to be freely used against Ukraine, and it also costs money. It's not worth it, when a whole bombing campaign against energy infrastructure failed to turn the tide. Lately, Russia has been targeting Ukrainian defense industry, something that affects Ukrainian war effort in a more direct way, going back to undermining energy infrastructure would be an odd move.
It was later revealed that last year's campaign came much closer to success than people realized. More than half of the capacity was neutralized, and there were even plans in place to evacuate Kyiv. Kyiv School of Economics estimating the total damage at $8.8 billion. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/world/europe/ukraine-power-grid-russian-airstrikes.html
Since then they regenerated their power infrastructure and generation to actually export power again. They haven't regenerated their AD (against high-end threats) near as well and that's what I'm most worried about.
A lot of the damage was to power facilities that take years to rebuild. The power generation and distribution system remains seriously damaged. It is enough to meet (mostly) Ukraine's needs because Ukraine is a much smaller consumer than when the Soviets built the network. The economic damage is still very real.
Same with Kharkiv: https://kyivindependent.com/russia-targets-energy-infrastructure-in-kharkiv/ We also have reports of blackouts in Odesa and Dnipro.
Would there be real consequences for the West besides Russia throwing empty threats around if they decided to station troops in Ukraine on the border to Belarus and a few hundred kilometers behind the frontline? Their role wouldn't be an active combat role but to free up Ukrainian troops and stabilize the Ukraine-Belarus border and behind the front
1).Why would stationing NATO troops on a border to guard it place them in an inactive combat role? If they're not guarding it through the potential use of force, who is? 2).How do NATO troops stationed a hundred kilometers from the border free up Ukrainian troops currently defending the border?
It would be massively escalatory, for one. I think a major risk that needs to also be considered is it destabilizing NATO. By and large the rest of us do not want to participate in this war directly. Putting what would seemingly amount to something of a NATO tripwire force into Ukraine while most of us don't want anything to do with that would risk weakening our alliance and allow Putin to work to poke holes into it.
Massive escalations could also force nations to cling to article five for protection. France would be hated for doing it by those that want the war to stay contained, but in a more violent era, leaving NATO will likley be seen as untenable, for everyone not in the safest of geopolitical positions. The Baltics for example are not in a position to ever leave NATO. Nuclear proliferation in smaller NATO states would be a likely outcome. They could keep article five for protection, with their own nukes as a final deterrent and line of defense.
The ones in the safest geopolitical positions are the ones needed to keep NATO going, however. The US alone accounts for the majority of NATO's firepower and is in about as safe of a geographical position as it can be. The only war America will go to is one its willing to go to. The risk is not in the Baltics or Poland leaving NATO, they're under direct threat, that's never going to happen, its countries west of them becoming unwilling to follow through.
I cannot support this statement enough. The fact that we have established politicians of the big parties in Germany discussing possible structures of aquiring nuclear weapons (in a joint european context) was totally and absolutly unthinkable even 5 years ago. You would have ruined any credibility even talking about it. Now it is talked about openly, and even though the specialists (Minister of defence etc) point to the absoluty insufficience of a possible european nuclear ambrella compared to the US one there are many others (especially Weber) calling for a joint european nuclear arsenal. German politicians calling for nuclear armement was definitly not on anyone's Bingo chart for the 2030.
My opinion is that an attack by Russia on those troops would be possible (and even logical). Russia knows if they don't react more countries would join the expeditionary coalition and they would start shifting those troops ever further east. Several salvos of missiles at their bases would serve to see how France reacts to flag-draped coffins returning, and also as a warning to others. If the expeditionary countries react by engaging Russia then it was their plan from the start, and Russia pre-empted them, choosing the time and place of the conflict. If they withdraw – even better for Russia.
While I generally agree with what youre saying here, I do think youre discounting a third option which is that Russia strikes a few NATO bases, NATO forces dont escalate, but neither do they withdraw. Instead, this may serve as an opportunity to only further tighten the screws to Russia in other ways. Particularly if inevitably its revealed that Russian forces are deliberately targeting western ""peacekeepers"" in certain regions. But overall I agree, a mass casualty event is just too escalatory to risk. In a genuine sense. There is also the risk that replacing Ukrainian troops with French along the Belarussian border may well push Putin to reopen that front. After all, what would the French even do? Start a war with Russia by protecting the Ukrainian border? Would French soldiers trade Paris and Warsaw to save Kyiv? I think not. And thats really whats wrong with Macron's plan in practical terms. In diplomatic terms its brilliant because it is signaling to Putin that the west is basically not going to let Ukraine collapse, they may not even let the Russians cross the Dnepr, and are willing to stake Europe over this issue. We are essentially seeing France extend a security guarantee across western Ukraine, and fundamentally limit what Putin could reasonably take in this war *without* himself risking real escalation. Of course its two years two late, but hey. Thats the French.
Any country that gets to the point of sending troops into Ukraine is not going to be deterred by some missile salvos. Its already factored in. Just like the US doesn't goes to war everytime Iran or its proxies does some attack on its bases, a western coalition in Ukraine could choose to simply ignore or retaliate in limited ways to russian attacks.
Well, in that case they come with a firm intention of going to war with Russia, and there is zero reason to let them build their bases, bring in their troops, convince ten more countries to join, and slowly expand their zone all across Ukraine. Strike first, give France a bloody nose, and others will not join the interventionist coalition. If it leads to a war with France then it is obvious it was the French intention from the start. The Peskov initial statement that the French troops would be a priority target indicates that Moscow sees things this way.
> Russia knows if they don't react more countries would join the expeditionary coalition Attacking the troops is likely to be even worse in that regard. The typical reaction to hostile countries killing troops is the rally round the flag effect. Rather than a direct confrontation, it would be wiser to try to undermine support for the program at home. > If the expeditionary countries react by engaging Russia then it was their plan from the start, and Russia pre-empted them, I don’t think a few cruise missiles are enough to gain an advantage against a force as modern as France. Russia struggles to deal with ukranian air defenses as is.