Russia Ukraine Update Thread - part 3

a reply to: Oldcarpy2

I accept and embrace these blessings and send them back to you with brotherly love!

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Vegetable rights and peace, brother.

One of Russias goals has already been accomplished long ago.

Russia has achieved at least 1 of its war goals: return Ukraine's water to Crimea

Two days into Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February, Russian military forces blew up a dam that Ukraine had built to cut off Crimea's primary water supply. Ukraine barricaded the North Crimean Canal in retaliation for Russia seizing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

The Kremlin had been fuming about the dam ever since.

"I think that this shows us the importance of that issue [to Russia]," she says. There were multiple reasons why Russia invaded Ukraine, Olenenko says, and restoring the flow of water to Crimea was one of them. "Putin and the [Russian] government promised to the Crimean people that they would solve the water problem in Crimea," she says.

www.npr.org...

a reply to: Imhere

First of all; Ukraine blew the dam up after Russia invaded so it can't be a reason they invaded if the water supply was intact prior to the invasion.

And if after fast approaching three years after the invasion that is the sum of Russia's achievements - one of their goals - then do you really think its been worth all the death and destruction the invasion has caused?

originally posted by: Freeborn
a reply to: Imhere

First of all; Ukraine blew the dam up after Russia invaded so it can't be a reason they invaded if the water supply was intact prior to the invasion.

And if after fast approaching three years after the invasion that is the sum of Russia's achievements - one of their goals - then do you really think its been worth all the death and destruction the invasion has caused?

There is no “first of all”

Did you actually read the full article? Or been following the situation past years?

Crimea’s water was shut off well before 22’

nice try

a reply to: Freeborn

And if after fast approaching three years after the invasion that is the sum of Russia's achievements - one of their goals - then do you really think its been worth all the death and destruction the invasion has caused?

Crimea is the main goal for Russia's position. Already been a lot of death and destruction there during WW2 as the tradition goes on. Russia won't say no to Kiev, but don't like the carpark plan and will wait on that one as the political tides have ebbed and flowed over the centuries.

As for Western Ukraine, NATO can have it, Russia don't want to deal with it.

With how the USA election is shaping up, the MIC wins wither way. If Kamala wins the money is going into Ukraine. If Trump wins the money is going to Israel.

So lets say Kamala wins to keep on topic with this thread. A big offensive is made and Crimea is captured by NATO. The Nazi made the same ground in their prime. It did come at a big cost for Germany and they held it for a few months. As Germany tried to push further into the USSR, it all fell apart form them as the USSR beat the Allies to Berlin.

With the USD already under stress as the BRICS currency is on the rise, how long will NATO hold Crimea should it decide to take it and at what cost will that come? How far will Russia push back?



Russia has made a lot of changes from the days of the USSR. Will America have to learn its own Perestroika the hard way?

a reply to: Imhere

Ukraine didn't shut off the water supply they restricted it. Russia blew up the dam shortly after the invasion begun - 2 days later if memory serves me right?

And that's the height of Russian achievements in soon to be 3 years of invasion.
Hardly impressive is it?

So, do you think 'restoring water' to Crimea vindicates Putin's invasion and all the subsequent death and destruction?

a reply to: kwaka

Russia's involvement in Crimea precedes WWII by quite a bit. I think its fair to say they've never been benevolent rulers of the region and have at times been quite brutal in their suppression of any opposition.

Russia's desire to control Crimea is all about access to The Black Sea.
Russia's desire to possess Ukraine is all about Russian nationalism, reclaiming Novorossiya and Putin's Great epithet.

Good the water was cut off from the Uki side , You want to be part of Russia you drink that Russian water.

Why should the Ukraine provide water to Russian vassals ?

originally posted by: firerescue
Soviets covered up the disaster for 30 years

en.wikipedia.org...

I fixed the link by deleting the pound symbol # and everything after it. Interesting that Italy was able to publish an article about it 6 weeks after it happened, I wonder how they found out about it? It sounds like if the blast didn't kill someone, they might die anyway from exposure to the highly toxic fuel, that sounds like really nasty stuff.

I had a new respect for rocket explosive potential after taking the standard tour of the Kennedy space center where the Saturn 5's were launched, and the guide mentioned NASA predicted the explosive potential of a failed launch would be like a tactical nuke. That got me interested, to look up the largest conventional bomb the US had was the MOAB or "Mother of All Bombs" which was equivalent to 11 tons of TNT. If Saturn 5 had exploded, the maximum potential from all 3 stages was about like 600 tons of TNT but engineers though it unlikely that would be reached, so a more realistic explosive potential was more like 400 tons of TNT, but that's still 36 times more powerful than the MOAB mother of all bombs. Fortunately, none of those ever blew up on the launch pad.

Anyway, Putin desperately needs a successful test of his nuclear sabre rattler lest it sounds more like a baby's rattle that doesn't inspire the fear he wants to inspire. Right now after 4 failures in a row, it seems to be more of a threat to Russians, than to their enemies.

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
I hope this video is as informative as it can be to those interested in historical and documentary information, and not just two minutes hate. I have triggered the haters to target me with their two minutes hate, so everyone else should feel free to comment while I absorb the impending character assassination, personal insults, and calls to shutup for daring to post an alternative analysis.

If you're talking about the last video you posted from this "History Legends" channel, I think the feedback was more directed at the youtube channel than at you, so you may be taking it a bit personally. However, you're posting on a western website, where Putin is largely seen in the West as a dictator who already rules the largest country on Earth, but has such an ego and is so greedy he feels the need to take even more territory using whatever made-up excuses he can think of, which don't withstand any scrutiny. So by posting videos that favor Putin, it would not be realistic of you to expect to win a popularity contest here. However, you still have every right to post "alternate" sources and express whatever opinions you have.

On the previous video you posted, me and one other poster said "masterpiece" in the video title was not a description that could be taken seriously for the Russian military, and then I explained further why it especially is not a good description for the last 2 years of failed Russian attacks on Vuhledar. Then you said my account matched the video content, but since my account was all about why the term "masterpiece" seemed so inappropriate, you still failed to explain why the video had "masterpiece" in the title.

Now the video quoted in this post, is very Russian biased. He dismisses the subtitle of this NYT (New York Times) article talking about a hail of gunfire, and says it doesn't happen because of Russian artillery:

Motorcycles and Mayhem in Ukraine’s East

In the latest tactic for storming trenches, Russians use motorcycles and dune buggies to speed across open space, often into a hail of gunfire.

I think he ignored the word "often" in that subtitle, which of course shows his bias. It doesn't say that happens 100% of the time, and the youtuber shows a couple of counter-examples where the Russian motorcycle assaults were successful. You will note that such an occurrence is not ruled out by the word "often", and the NYT article even confirms what he says that if the Russians are successful in making such a heavy artillery barrage that Ukraine's soldiers can't poke their heads out of the trenches to fire at the motorcycles, then the motorcycles can make it.

Sometimes the bikers get through if Russian artillery bombardments succeed in preventing Ukrainian soldiers from poking their heads above the trench. The tactic solves, though at great risk, a key tactical challenge of the war in Ukraine for both sides: how to cross a mined, open field while observed by drones and under artillery fire.

If they make it across a field, the riders cast aside their bikes, enter the Ukrainian trench and engage in close combat on foot.

“They jump off and start shooting,” said a Ukrainian sergeant, Sapsan, serving with the 47th Mechanized Brigade, who asked to be identified only by a nickname, in keeping with his unit’s security protocols. “These buggies and motorcycles are fast and fly right into our tree lines.”

So that part of the NYT article actually supports his claim about SOME Russian motorcycle attacks being successful, even though he gives the impression he's debunking the article as "western propaganda" talking about a hail of gunfire.

The article even quotes a Ukrainian soldier saying sometimes they all make it, but History legends doesn't seem to want to admit how many times they don't make it, and the same soldier says sometimes none of them make it. I bolded that paragraph below.

On the fields, motorcycle riders have good visibility and can swerve to avoid mines that armored vehicle operators might not see, Ukrainian soldiers said. Or they ride along tracks left by armored vehicles in earlier assaults, knowing these routes will be free of mines.

But riders have no protection from artillery shrapnel exploding around them. And once they approach the Ukrainian trenches, they are exposed to a fusillade of machine gun fire.

“How they find people willing to do this, I don’t know,” said Volodymyr, a sergeant who also asked to be identified only by his first name, in keeping with military protocol. “Sometimes, none of them will make it, sometimes all of them.”

So the NYT article is not as biased as the youtuber tries to imply, it actually admits and quotes a Ukrainian saying sometimes the motorcyclers all make it. But ironically, it's actually History legends who is biased because he seems to want to ignore the other side of the coin that sometimes none of them make it.

Aside from History Legends and the New York Times article, the motorcycles seem like a more mobile form of the infantry "meat wave" tactics. Nobody ever said meat waves were not successful in taking territory. Keep sending in enough meat waves, whether on foot or on a motorcycle or golf cart or other open, non-armored vehicles, and eventually the assaults can overwhelm enemy forces and result in gains. The youtuber wants to talk only about those successes, and them try to portray the motorcycles as a brilliant tactic. But he doesn't seem to want to talk about the failures and the high losses which also occur.

Regarding the question of whether Russia is using motorcycles and golf carts because they have a shortage of armored personnel carriers or not, I don't have an answer for that. Maybe Russia would still use the motorcycle tactic even if they had an adequate supply of armored personnel carriers, but the fact is we have seen a huge number of Russian armored vehicles destroyed, at a rate faster than they can replace them, so that may not be a coincidence they thought of this "great motorcycle tactic" earlier this year, when they ran low on armored personnel carriers.

We all know Putin doesn't care how many Russian lives are lost in this war, so I'm sure he's ok with using motorcycle assaults even if the soldiers are unprotected and the losses are high. Personally, I think I'd feel safer in an armored personnel carrier than riding a motorcycle through a mine field. Either one might hit a mine, or be exposed to machine gun fire, but I like my chances better in the APC. How about you? Would you ride the motorcycle into the enemy lines?

Remember Russian artillery isn't that accurate, so if Russia is firing a lot of shells to supress enemy machine gun fire, I'd also be worried about the possibility of friendly fire from "friendly" artillery if riding a motorcycle in those conditions. Ukraine has a shortage of artillery shells, which reduces that threat, but if they had as many shells as Russia, that would make the motorcycle assaults that much riskier, they could blanket the field with cluster munitions. Production of shells in the west is still ramping up as new production capacity comes online, so that might be more of a concern in the future.

Ukraine's president Zelensky has a "victory" plan, he wanted to present to both US presidential candidates, Harris and Trump, as well as current president Biden, but Trump snubbed him and apparently isn't interested in Zelensky's plan. We don't know what's in the plan yet, details haven't been made public.

Zelensky in US now

“Ukrainians will never accept why anyone in the world believes that such a brutal colonial past – which suits no one today – can be imposed on Ukraine now, instead of a normal, peaceful life,” (Zelensky) said, asking for “support from all nations of the world” in securing peace for Ukraine.

Trump appeared unmoved.

I'm curious to see what's in Zelensky's victory plan, and I'm a little surprised Trump isn't also curious to meet with Zelensky to see what's in it.

As we head toward the 3rd year of this 3 month invasion of Ukraine and with Russia itself losing its own territory in the process Russia's chief TV propagandist Vladimir Solovyov voiced his frustration which is no doubt echoed by many watching.

“Et tu, Brute?”

The Russian press reported on this.
Solovyev called for concrete decisions and even for the resignation of the Commander-in-Chief:
"It is not enough to arrest the guilty. We need to appoint those who understand how to do this effectively, quickly and clearly. It does not matter what ministry these people are in and how they are called. It doesn't matter to me what color the cat is, the main thing is that it catches mice.
Therefore, let's move on to concrete solutions. If this requires the resignation of the Supreme Leader... well...”.

It should be noted that during Solovyov's speech, the guests in the studio shouted "Oh-oh-oh!" shouts are heard.
Recall, Vladimir Solovyov has come to be the embodiment of Russian propaganda. He is on air for hours and hours every single day—on TV, on the radio, and on YouTube, justifying Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, praising Vladimir Putin’s actions, threatening the West with a nuclear Armageddon, and calling for the dissidents to be jailed. Today he is by far the most active and hard-working personality of the Russian state propaganda landscape. And, according to a survey conducted four years ago by independent pollster Levada Center, he is also the most trusted anchor in Russia.

If I were Solovyov I'd be moving to a bungalow.

a reply to: gortex

if history is the judge of this , Putin is already gone.

a reply to: gortex
a reply to: annonentity
Everything else I've heard Solovyev say for the last almost 3 years sounded like he was repeating talking points supplied to him by Putin or his minions.

But when Solovyev talks about "the resignation of the Supreme Leader", that does NOT sound like a script written by Putin, so it sounds like Putin is already gone, at least as far as writing Solovyev's scripts goes, right?

Also, remember Putin left Russia during the Kursk invasion. Instead of abandoning Russia to chit-chat with some other leader, if he wanted to stay in power, maybe he should have cancelled that trip, so he could be doing commander-in-chief stuff in the crisis of Russia's first time being invaded since WWII.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

people put whatever they want in their titles, you can ask him as to why it was a masterpiece. I don't even remember where he said it, probably in one of the repeated scenes where these units were used to rush to the trenches right as the artillery bombardment stopped and routed the guys there before they could come back out. I find it comical though that you take offense to that one word, and then go on to summarize the video quite well without ever having seen it, expecting that this guy failed to mention, and visualize the repeated Russian failures on that front. Except he did precisely that. I have seen the guys in the videos you post on here with their commentary. They practically never even add clips from any actual battles. They just keep the map up for fifteen minutes while slowly repeating whatever they are reading. History legends adds the actual clips of said battles, the social media posts of people on the ground for corroboration, the repeated statements from Western news sources like Forbes, WaPost, NYT (which we all know is CIA fronts) which go along with specific operations. testimony from soldiers etc.. etc..

He covered at least three towns that were taken by Russians going through underground tunnels and popping up under Ukrainian positions and catching them in pincer moves. Images and videos from their boys sneaking in through those tunnels were released in his videos after the operation was over. the fact that it happened repeatedly shows me very little tactical adaption to repeated enemy tactics was occuring.

Just using the Kursk operation as an example, everyone was just posting a handful of clips from MSM. When I added WarLeaks and this guy, significantly more images and video were shown, most of which was not even posted including the badass Bradley IFV's doing their damage and some great HiMARS strikes. Of course the flip side was also seeing some of that same equipment getting blown up so I can understand why those videos did not want to be seen.

Maybe he has a bias, but I often here him rooting for Ukraine not Russia, which is probably just an agency ploy. The fact is though, his analysis covers more, offers more visual confirmations and straight from western sources corroboration in the videos than I often see here, and so I add it as well as war leaks.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Also, remember Putin left Russia during the Kursk invasion. Instead of abandoning Russia to chit-chat with some other leader, if he wanted to stay in power, maybe he should have cancelled that trip, so he could be doing commander-in-chief stuff in the crisis of Russia's first time being invaded since WWII.

I think he maybe looking for a place to flee??

I forgot to add this video in as well from 4 days ago released by War Leaks. Starts off with some FPV drones harassing Russian soldiers, more newly released footage of initial Kursk offensive border incursions, and recent footage from Toretsk. It has some intense footage in this one, and is heavily cut from the full version.

27 September Update

Ukrainian forces repelled a reinforced battalion-size Russian mechanized assault in the Kupyansk direction on September 26 — the first large Russian mechanized assault along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line since Winter 2024.

Russian and Ukrainian forces continued assaults in Kursk Oblast, but neither side made further advances.

Russian forces recently advanced within and around Toretsk and southeast of Pokrovsk.

More at URL above.

Cheers