Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

It seems the Russian GRU urgently needs to convince young Russian artillerists to stop using the Russian Facebook to boost their egos.

These entries indicated that the Russian Army delivered into the Ukraine Grads BM21s with their Russian Army crews around 13 July.

Waiting for a good blogger site to do their analysis work on the geo tags of the photos for validation of the location of the BM21 unit inside the Ukraine as well as the IL76 photo.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/2...g-of-invasion/

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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

kaur--rumors are these two--- Girkin and Bezler--- have fled the Donetsk--intercepts are indicating their own mercenaries are trying to find them.

Maybe they realized the Ukrainian Army was about to encircle the Donetsk which was completed yesterday effectively cutting Donetsk off from resupply, money, and fighters.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/2...-fled-donetsk/

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kaur---Girkin is still in the Donetsk, but is being reported that Belzer is no longer there.

It appears that the Russian FSB/GRU is attempting to motive Baltic ethnic Russians to support their oppressed brothers in the Donetsk making it now like a pan Russian crusade against the fascists in Kiev.

from RIA today:

RIGA, July 29 (RIA Novosti) – A group of volunteers from Latvia is heading to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine to join independence supporters, the leader of Latvia’s For Native Language party told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

“A group of volunteers has departed for the Donetsk People’s Republic. It’s small,” Vladimir Linderman said refusing to give further details.

According to Ves.lv portal, Latvia’s security police earlier said it had information that Latvian citizens could be involved in the current conflict in Ukraine, where the government is fighting against independence supporters.

Police did not specify in which actions on the territory of Ukraine those citizens were participating.

The Army often states officers must lead from the front or motivate from the front---or the motto for years at the Infantry Officers School---follow me---but this is interesting. Ukrainian Chief of Staff in his own tank leading a frontal tank assault.

I seriously doubt we could get the American JCoS General Dempsey or the Army Chief of Staff into a tank and lead a tank charge facing RGP and Russian anti tank missile fire.

The T64 is a surprisingly stable tank platform--article says that with the retroactive armor some tanks took ten hits are more and kept attacking.

http://en.inforesist.org/the-chief-o...ngerous-areas/

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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

It seems the Russian GRU urgently needs to convince young Russian artillerists to stop using the Russian Facebook to boost their egos.

These entries indicated that the Russian Army delivered into the Ukraine Grads BM21s with their Russian Army crews around 13 July.

Waiting for a good blogger site to do their analysis work on the geo tags of the photos for validation of the location of the BM21 unit inside the Ukraine as well as the IL76 photo.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/2...g-of-invasion/

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They also need to rein in the Russian UN Ambassador---- as is with all social media tweets---cannot find the actual quote by day and time---but if true then the GRU needs to really talk to him.

https://twitter.com/MaidanOnline/sta...776256/photo/1

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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

The Army often states officers must lead from the front or motivate from the front---or the motto for years at the Infantry Officers School---follow me---but this is interesting. Ukrainian Chief of Staff in his own tank leading a frontal tank assault.

I seriously doubt we could get the American JCoS General Dempsey or the Army Chief of Staff into a tank and lead a tank charge facing RGP and Russian anti tank missile fire.

The T64 is a surprisingly stable tank platform--article says that with the retroactive armor some tanks took ten hits are more and kept attacking.

http://en.inforesist.org/the-chief-o...ngerous-areas/

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It is one thing for company grade officers to lead from the front as an example for the men. It is another for flag officers to run around in a tank within range of RPGs. Moreso in the case of Soviet school of thought, the key role of formation commanders (and their staff) is to plan and execute (deep) operations, not play flypaper for RPGs.

We are long past the days of Ney and Blucher...

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The T64 may actually have (working) composite armour and reactive armour, but it is less well protected compared to the latest Abrams/ Chally/ LeoII/ Merkava.

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Originally Posted by Maeda Toshiie

It is one thing for company grade officers to lead from the front as an example for the men. It is another for flag officers to run around in a tank within range of RPGs. Moreso in the case of Soviet school of thought, the key role of formation commanders (and their staff) is to plan and execute (deep) operations, not play flypaper for RPGs.

We are long past the days of Ney and Blucher...

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The T64 may actually have (working) composite armour and reactive armour, but it is less well protected compared to the latest Abrams/ Chally/ LeoII/ Merkava.

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Fully agree---but am still amazed that it can take 10 hits from various types of RPGs and Russian anti tank versions---that was something we never assumed possible from their reactive armor when it first came out.

Agree that a CoS should not be running around the battlefield like a company commander, but right now there is a wave of patriotism breaking out in the Ukraine ---at least six different videos are running right now in their TV channels.

Right now many of their frontline combat units have been in the grind for well over three months of constant combat against Russian Spetznaz teams and a lot of combat experienced mercenaries without any RIP/TOA---the question is can they keep the pace up.

This might have looked like a stunt but to the tankers in the fight they knew his call sign and it signaled to them his respect for their efforts.

These frontline units are all the Ukrainians have until they can train replacements.

What is interesting in this wave of respect for the UA/NG and for that matter even the oligarch independently funded groups--is the growing realization that they are fighting for the first time for their own independence historically speaking. You see it all the time now being talked about in their newspapers, social media, and TV/radio stations.

Russia has forced the Ukraine to become a country not a mixture of different of ethnic groups---even the "rescued" proRussians in the recaptured towns and villages have seriously rethought their viewpoints after a four month mercenary reign.

We in the West talk about crowd funding for startups---they have right now one of the largest ongoing crowd funding projects that I have seen to support their military with private people and shop owners providing food and medical supplies and buying military equipment.

Someone recently purchased over 100 former US helmets here in Berlin and then had to carry each one across the Polish border due to German laws about military equipment and over 30 people volunteered to help carry one helmet at a time across the border just to be legal with the equipment---who would do that in the US?

It is literally an DIY military that was once ragtag that has transformed itself into a force that pulled off an armored Calvary end run that divided and enclosed the Donetsk this week that would have made the US 2nd or 3rd ACR salute.

And that from an army that is not highly mobile.

One has to wonder just how much Russian Duma politicians really understand economic globalization.

In the article below from RIA today they want to pass a law that would basically forbid the US and other international auditing/consulting houses from working in Russia as a response to the sanctions.

What these politicians do not seem to understand is that most international lines of credit and international bank loans require a auditing aspect that these companies provide back to the creditor. Doubt seriously if the international finance markets would accept Russian "homegrown" audit agencies simply based on the level of Russian corruption within Russian companies.

MOSCOW, July 29 (RIA Novosti) – The introduction of the “aggressor state” notion to Russian legislation will uproot all foreign-based audit companies in the country, a result that will not only be welcome but also overdue as it will nurture national auditing, a senior Russian lawmaker said Tuesday.

“Our economy will certainly lose nothing to it … Larger [national] companies are already steady on their feet. My feeling has long been that we need more national auditing, even if we leave sanctions out of consideration. Sanctions may only serve as an impetus,” said Mikhail Emelyanov, deputy chief of an economic policy, innovation and entrepreneurship committee with the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.

“The idea is good, although it might require judicial, technical or similar amendments, but the concept is the right one,” Emelyanov added in a comment to RIA Novosti.

Russia’s Izvestia newspaper cited sources in the Duma as saying Tuesday the country’s lawmakers were mulling a bill that would add the notion of “aggressor country” to the law of the land.

According to the sources, an aggressor country will be defined as “a state introducing sanctions against the Russian Federation, Russian citizens and Russian legal entities.”

It is expected to hit foreign legal entities and individuals registered in such states, banning them from providing audit and consultancy services in Russia.

All six major US audit and consulting companies working in Russia – Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey – could be outlawed, according to Evgeny Fedorov, one of the initiators.

I saw this and this rings true to me, at least. I never thought the actual population living in Eastern Ukraine (or Crimea for that matter), really support an armored movement to become part of Russia.

http://www.interpretermag.com/why-pe...onist-banners/

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Why People in Eastern Ukraine Haven’t Flocked to Secessionist Banners
s the Ukrainian military closes in on Moscow-backed forces in southeastern Ukraine, Russian commentators are scrambling to explain why the Russian-speaking population in that region have not flocked to the banners of the secessionists in Donetsk and Lugansk.

Not surprisingly, these commentators have not focused on the fact that the population there now overwhelmingly identifies as Ukrainians and has no interest in becoming part of the Russian Federation. What they are saying explains a lot about how Moscow is trying to explain away its own miscalculation about the support it would receive.

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Which makes the recent movement of Russian forces more interesting, I think. The possibility of Russian directly using forces to roll back Ukraine forces seems to be raising. For example, http://pressimus.com/Interpreter_Mag/press/3560 . If you invade and the population doesn't support you, how do you establish long term stability with a Keiv government still in the West. Moreover, its likely to be a Keiv government that is getting actual military assistance from the west. This is on top of further economic sanctions.

In sum, if Russia decides to directly become involved and take the harm of economic sanctions, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to act decisively and seize Kiev? If you are going to isolate yourself fully, why not?

At the first glance the newest round of sanctions seem to have a different quality compared to pretty soft ones. I will take a closer look at it and likely post it on the thread about the Russian economy.

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EU ambassadors approve economic sanctions on Russia

Today @ 17:32

By EUOBSERVER

EU ambassadors have approved a raft of economic sanctions against Russia, banning EU citizens and companies from trading Russian bonds, as well as selling weapons to or importing them from Russia, exporting technology for oil exploration and items with military and civilian use. The sanctions will enter into force Friday.

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Possibly the Duma will be indeed so stupid to 'uproot' all foreign-based audit companies in the country or other patriotic-idiotic stuff and it will continue to cut deeper into it's economy's flesh. More in the economy thread, but a weaker Russian economy will have an impact on the war.

@BrentWilliams: It is also noteworthy that this also mirrored by the already mentioned crowd-funding of this conflict and the events at Maidan. One side seems to have so far a an easier time to gather the support of the civil society and common citiziens. Especially those of the young.

@Shchors and outlaw: At the very least both large motorways to Donezk, Makiivka and Horlivka, the M04 and the H21 seem to be at the center of rather intense fights. The H21 runs in this fought over area through the urban areas of Shaktarsk, Torez and Shinzne and turns then northeast to Krasnyi Luch. Between them there is a not too dense network of roads, little rivers and almost only flat terrain which should be dry. So supplies to the west should be possible.

Donezk and Makiivka form a large urban hub. The recent 'pincer' offensive obviously bypassed this densly settled area and hit in far more open terrain.

http://gdb.rferl.org/4F9E72E4-E8F4-4...mw1024_s_n.jpg

As usual one should be quite careful with those maps, taking fog of war and party interests in mind.

There is still the potential need for such displays of the 'follow me' type combat leadership especially in circumstances when and advance or an attack is stalling.

Good for this man. Good to see a general officer showing the troops how it should be done.

Don't worry about the past or the present... think only of the battle situation on the ground and that the general was forward enough to read the battle and take action to defeat the enemy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maeda Toshiie

It is one thing for company grade officers to lead from the front as an example for the men. It is another for flag officers to run around in a tank within range of RPGs. Moreso in the case of Soviet school of thought, the key role of formation commanders (and their staff) is to plan and execute (deep) operations, not play flypaper for RPGs.

We are long past the days of Ney and Blucher...

------------------------------

The T64 may actually have (working) composite armour and reactive armour, but it is less well protected compared to the latest Abrams/ Chally/ LeoII/ Merkava.

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Geriatric home In Lugansk after shelling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8XcymfIBcU#t=437

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Originally Posted by Shchors

... Ukrainian armor falling into the hands of the Russian separatists on the territory of Ukraine (there is the suspicion that certain military personnel at arms depots allowed these losses without a fight) I agree that these pieces of equipment fall well short of 100.
But what does that have to do with Russian armor sneaking across the border into the Donbas? Video evidence of such incursions are multiple and overwhelming.
I fail to see your point. And why should I read anything in Wikepedia? By the way, thanks for attaching this document. If authentic, it is a valuable source for future citation.

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1. Statement

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Ukrainian armor falling into the hands of the Russian separatists

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has nothing to do with statement

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Russian armor sneaking across the border into the Donbas

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and I fail to see why do you even ask? First statement disproves your claim

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Originally Posted by Shchors

. The separatists have also acquired close to 100 T-64 and T-72 tanks themselves, with generous numbers of artillery and rockets, all smuggled over the border from Russia.

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and second one adds nothing to the first one.
2. My point is to disprove tons and tons of media nonsence and BS which is poured here by several biased and short-minded users.
3. Well, if you dislike Wikipedia, read something else, then. Anyway, it would be very polite of you if you make a little bit of research before posting anything.


ps. Another leaked cable, specially for kaur :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNoVfyAywlQ

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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

Dayuhan--a good comment---the problem for the west is will the sanctions be enough of a short term threat vs definitely a long term threat weapon---no actually they could in fact destroy the Russian economy for years to come.

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The sanctions themselves are a long term threat, but the elite's fear of sanctions is immediate. The motivator in this case is not so much what the existing sanctions have already done as what the economic elite thinks they will lose if further sanctions are applied. Those losses would take time to be realized, but the economic elite are not going to wait for that to happen to make their position known. They don't want to respond to losses, they want to prevent losses, and they will apply whatever pressure they can muster to achieve that goal. How much pressure they can muster is another question, but I'd guess there's a whole lot of talk going on behind the scenes right now.

Comes back to that same question: Putin can't afford to "lose" in the Eastern Ukraine, but can he afford to directly antagonize the business oligarchs?

comrade no nothing but claim you do Russian information warrior mirhond--

finally you say something that makes sense---if you cannot say the truth which you never seem to be able to do---as they say in the military---get off the net.

there have been reports after reports of mercenary driven tanks with UA markings driving up to the apartment buildings and firing directly into them and then "suddenly" appears a Russian TV crew---let's not even get into the reports coming from your own proRussian citizens of them watching GRADS being fired by mercenaries into the center of Donetsk.

strange mirhind strange is it not comrade?

1. Statement has nothing to do with statement and I fail to see why do you even ask? First statement disproves your claim

and second one adds nothing to the first one.


2. My point is to disprove tons and tons of media nonsence and BS which is poured here by several biased and short-minded users.

so finally comrade know nothing mirhond you admit you work for the Russian FSB and blog for them right comrade---but really there are four of you guys--what is your pay by the way comrade a free trip to the wonderful vacation resort of the Crimea?


3. Well, if you dislike Wikipedia, read something else, then. Anyway, it would be very polite of you if you make a little bit of research before posting anything.

well know nothing information warrior it would be equally great if you did not always take the side of your proxy mercenaries-- BUT wait a minute was it not yourself that defended those "zealous Christian" Cossacks for stealing credit cards, money, cosmetics, and Smart phones from the dead bodies of the airliner your guys shot out of the sky comrade?

AND was it not you who claimed here in SWJ that those "zealous Christians" because of their "famous burial rituals" picked up 36 bodies threw them in a truck and drove away---AND you comrade mirhond CLAIMED here in SWJ they were being taken to Donetsk---they never made it there comrade.

so were did the bodies disappear to comrade as there are still 71 missing.

comrade mirhond you have got to get new friends if all you have is "zealous Christians" to defend these days

get your facts straight comrade before you write here again--finally take your on adivce

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

The sanctions themselves are a long term threat, but the elite's fear of sanctions is immediate. The motivator in this case is not so much what the existing sanctions have already done as what the economic elite thinks they will lose if further sanctions are applied. Those losses would take time to be realized, but the economic elite are not going to wait for that to happen to make their position known. They don't want to respond to losses, they want to prevent losses, and they will apply whatever pressure they can muster to achieve that goal. How much pressure they can muster is another question, but I'd guess there's a whole lot of talk going on behind the scenes right now.

Comes back to that same question: Putin can't afford to "lose" in the Eastern Ukraine, but can he afford to directly antagonize the business oligarchs?

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Dayuhan---he can---Russian internal power is built on four legs, 1) the military, 2) the security services, 3) oligarchs, and 4) the Russian mob and over all of this the Russian Orthodox Church---so it really it just a balancing game for Putin.

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Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09

Dayuhan---he can---Russian internal power is built on four legs, 1) the military, 2) the security services, 3) oligarchs, and 4) the Russian mob and over all of this the Russian Orthodox Church---so it really it just a balancing game for Putin.

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Dayuhan---a solid article concerning the internal debate now among the four pillars of Russia power that I just wrote about.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/wo...-tactics.html?

Dayuhan--this is the core piece of the article and it goes to the information war comments I have been making here--it was focused at the EU, the Ukrainians, but more importantly the Russian themselves.

Putin was able via info war messaging to increase his popularity, influence the mood of the Russian population to support him and his actions, and in fact was able to hold the EU up from further hard stage three sanctions-successfully by the way in holding the EU especially Germany in place-----that info war crashed the day the airliner crashed and they have not recovered to the previous successes of that info war. And the EU has gone to stage three sanctions with promises of more to come if he does not throttle back.

Actually they have lost their own information war and you can sense that in their various press releases which are all over the map especially on the reasons for the crash which was up to 15 different theories.

Putin's most serious mistake was that he had seen how the EU/US responded to Georgia and Moldavia and honesty had assumed the same in the Ukraine--meaning a lot of yelling, teeth grinding and a lot of words flying around and then it would be over and back to business as usual.

His second serious mistake was believing the myth of the power of gas and oil--meaning the EU would stop on anything to avoid less gas but in fact it appears now that Russia is so tied to the needed sales income from the two raw resources he cannot cut gas and oil off without truly destroying his economy for the next 20 years. He simply did not or wanted to not see the economic interdependence.

From the INT article:
More frequent and prominent critics are saying that Mr. Putin and the hard-line leaders in the Kremlin overreached by suggesting that Russia, far more dependent than the old Soviet Union on international trade and financial markets, could thrive without the West.

“They were not anticipating the West to make radical moves, costly moves,” said Nikolai Petrov, an independent political analyst. “What is happening is different from what they wanted and what they expected.”

He and others pointed to the downing of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 over embattled southeastern Ukraine on July 17 as upsetting the balancing act that Mr. Putin had managed to pull off to maintain support from the public, hard-line nationalists, the security services, the oligarchs and the more liberal business community.

“Until this catastrophe, Putin’s calculations were pretty good in terms of being able to win any tactical battle,” Mr. Petrov said.

The Kremlin had been counting on its ability to maintain just enough instability in Ukraine to keep the country dependent on Russian good will, while making Europe and the United States cautious about intervening too assertively there.

Dayuhan--this is where the information warfare fit into his strategy.

Right after this weekend, when the likelihood of more serious European sanctions materialized, Mr. Putin met with advisers to say that Russia needed to become self-reliant. He was referring to arms production previously done in Ukraine, but the sentiment echoed in other fields.

A new definition for the mercenary looting/stealing at the crash site--kind of goes with the zealous Christian comment.

Not sure what the proper training is for looting/stealing?

3. It seems that since the Kremlin has set itself the task to demonize itself as a fully-fledged “evil empire,” it will no longer deviate from this path (of course, not without help). Covering for and shielding terrorists goes beyond all imaginable limits.

Thus, Russia’s permanent representative at the UN, Vitaly Churkin announced that the DNR fighters, who controlled the Boeing-777 crash site and [who] stole belongings from the deceased passengers, along with the local residents, cannot be called looters. “Why are the locals collecting something? Because it literally falls on their heads,” said Churkin. And the militants, according to him, loot because [they] “don’t have proper training” (presumably, this is the criticism of Russian FSB and GRU training centers where terrorists are being trained).

Obviously, Churkin himself, who doesn’t consider the appropriation of victims’ belongings a sin, used to rob graves during his youth. What is so wrong [about it], when they [the belongings] are “literally” lying under your feet?

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Originally Posted by Firn

@Shchors and outlaw: At the very least both large motorways to Donezk, Makiivka and Horlivka, the M04 and the H21 seem to be at the center of rather intense fights. The H21 runs in this fought over area through the urban areas of Shaktarsk, Torez and Shinzne and turns then northeast to Krasnyi Luch. Between them there is a not too dense network of roads, little rivers and almost only flat terrain which should be dry. So supplies to the west should be possible.

Donezk and Makiivka form a large urban hub. The recent 'pincer' offensive obviously bypassed this densly settled area and hit in far more open terrain.

http://gdb.rferl.org/4F9E72E4-E8F4-4...mw1024_s_n.jpg

As usual one should be quite careful with those maps, taking fog of war and party interests in mind.

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Shchors/firn---

Here is a perfect example for the Ukrainian crowd-sourcing going on for those UA troops that have been holding the border areas and getting shelled by the mercenaries as well as the Russian 3-5 times daily.

Raised funding goes for food, supplies and other needs of the airborne, SF and other units in that pocket that have surprisingly been holding on well.

firn---probably a new updated battlefield position map as well is in the article.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/2...rom-all-sides/