Russia invasion of Ukraine

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

There's some intersting implications here. Especially since UkrOboronProm recently setup shop in Poland to do tank repair and refurbishment work, and theoretically could be better positioned to turn a relic T-64 tank into a battle worthy vehicle due to their easier access to electronic components and high quality ball bearings than Russia could.

Then (as I said as the start of this thread) China does not want russia to win. Xi could manufacture the ball bearings that putin desperately needs and say those are for the rail system, but they can win big by doing nothing, they can get back the territories they lost in 1858 (and then some) after the fall of the russian federation and whatever new nations arise in Asia from it's ashes can be easily influenced by beijing (the same way they are doing in africa and south america) while the west continues shadow boxing with the new and impoverished russia.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

Then (as I said as the start of this thread) China does not want russia to win. Xi could manufacture the ball bearings that putin desperately needs and say those are for the rail system, but they can win big by doing nothing, they can get back the territories they lost in 1858 (and then some) after the fall of the russian federation and whatever new nations arise in Asia from it's ashes can be easily influenced by beijing (the same way they are doing in africa and south america) while the west continues shadow boxing with the new and impoverished russia.

Dont know if its that simple. High precision ball bearings are a highly specialized industry super heavily dominated by the USA, Germany and Japan. China might be the largest overall individual exporter, but if it's in bulk they might not be manufacting the specific high precision ball bearings needed for trains or a modern Main Battle Tanks. Chinese companies might only be able to supply high precision ball bearings to Russia in the quantities it wants if they openly flaunt the sanctions against Russia by transferring western imported ball bearings to Russia...which gets that supply cut off if it's brazen enough, and would be bad since they need that stuff for their own domestic use.

I think China the issue is less China doesn't want Russia to win. It's more that they don't want to have to bank roll that win, and deal with the blowout of doing so openly.

[Key Board]

China is all about saving face

At the very least, the Pentagon seems to think so.

But that creates a conundrum doesn't it? If Russia performs well, China will be less involved.
If Russia performs worse, especially on the PR front, China will be more inclined to be involved.

//

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Key Board

China is all about saving face

At the very least, the Pentagon seems to think so.

But that creates a conundrum doesn't it? If Russia performs well, China will be less involved.
If Russia performs worse, especially on the PR front, China will be more inclined to be involved.
//

The lack of really overt Chinese support doesn't support that view.

Keep in mind. China was likely figuring unqualified russian military success, and for the European response to be very fragmented. That would have kept yhe US from pivoting to the Pacific, and the only price the PRC would have had to pay would be willing to keep doing business with Russia. They weren't supposed to have to send Russia a couple million artillery shells, and the mountains of computer electronics and ball bearings to rebuild the Russian in service tank fleet that got Saint Javelined.

You don't need to think very much into why they're hesitant to go all out in investing in the Russian war effort.

[ramlaen]

China's "winning condition" in the Ukraine war is to have NATO and Russia exhaust themselves to the fullest extent possible.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by ramlaen

China's "winning condition" in the Ukraine war is to have NATO and Russia exhaust themselves to the fullest extent possible.

NATO is only getting stronger, as they give Ukraine hand me downs while getting more modern military equipment themselves. Also, I don't think xi is really concerned about NATO (the same way Mexico is not concerned about Russia), Europe is too far from china's corner. What should concern china is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), which has the potential to checkmate them

[Yu Ominae]

Picking reports that Kara-Murza's attorney is leaving Russia after he picked up indication that the state has some "things" to talk to him about.

[Ithekro]

What is the situation at this point? I am hearing rumors of Wagner and Russian forces shooting each other and Russian planes dropping bombs in their own territory.

[ramlaen]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

What is the situation at this point? I am hearing rumors of Wagner and Russian forces shooting each other and Russian planes dropping bombs in their own territory.

https://www.understandingwar.org/bac...-april-23-2023

[Yu Ominae]

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/s...32038229008386

Someone in Sevastopol recorded a loud explosion going on there.

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/com...ainian_border/

Air raid siren turned on from the Ukrainian-Belarusian land border.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

What is the situation at this point? I am hearing rumors of Wagner and Russian forces shooting each other and Russian planes dropping bombs in their own territory.

It is crystal clear that russian winter offesive failed and now they hope to stop the Ukranian spring cleaning. Ukraine knows they have one shoot at this and are waiting for the best climate conditions and will strike wherever they deem will give them the best results.

The bombing of belgorod by a russian aircraft could have been lack of maintenance, human error or a deliberate charade to evacuate people from said housing complex.

Meanwhile, china's xi plays at diplomat beliving he can convincingly play the neutral card. Meanwhile russia stirs some trouble in sudan and the grain deal most likely will most likely end.

Seems like this trainwreck has been renovated for another 52 episodes.

[Yu Ominae]

Former Riksdag member Caroline Nordengrip enlisted to the legion from Sweden after her term is done. She's from the Sweden Democrats.

https://romania.postsen.com/world/21...st-Russia.html

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/ea...ident-zelensky

Old news, but Zelensky has a fanboy in Kyoto. He's so dedicated that he maintained his beard to make it similar to his.

[Yu Ominae]

Dmitri has some interesting tweets he translated from Russian:

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...06010907115552

Prigozhin is in panic mode and is sure that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will start on May 2 once the weather improves. He blames Russian MOD for holding ammo back.

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https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...53765836738565

Igor Girkin is not confident that Wagner can secure Bakhmut. He's confident of Ukraine being able to secure the city.

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https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...Cx5aeUu_AtAAAA

A video of an ex-con who got recruited to fight in Ukraine. Yakovlev got recruited from St. Petersburg prison. The convicts didn't have enough supplies and were given 40,000 rublee as salary. Their six months contract didn't say much except to survive.

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https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...80038084571136

Russian telegram channel "Veteran's Note" posted to say that the user is not pleased that T-55s are being deployed.

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https://twitter.com/wartranslated/st...C2keKZ1uotAAAA

Russian milcor Zhivov mentioned the use of FPV drones. He saw one go into the cab of a KAMAZ truck and killed two Russian soldiers inside.

[Roger Rambo]

Russia launched what appeared to be another retaliatory cruise missile strike a few days ago. Ukrainian air-defenses appear to have been very effective, taking out 15 out of 18 of the cruise missiles.

Though Institute for the Study of war pointed out something rather interesting about that strike. Namely that it was carried out by 11 Russian strategic bombers. 9 TU-95 bombers, and 2 TU-160s. All together those bombers have the capacity to carry 96 cruise missiles. So the strike force was only firing about 18% of their theoretical maximum payload, which the TU-160's alone could have carried. ISW thinks this is probably because Russia is suffering shortages in their cruise missile stockpiles, but there are some purported Russian sources saying some of the missiles launched over the Caspian Sea malfunctioned outright after they got dropped. So it could be a combination of limited ordinance, and a lot of what can be built being of shoddy quality due to the sanctions.

While there's been a lot of talk about the concerns of Ukraine's SAM stockpiles running low, it's sorta looking like Russia has limited availability of functional long range/precision munitions that could take decisive advantage of that. Given the interception rates we've been seeing against cruise missile attacks, it seems like the Russian Airforce trying to perform these same deep strike missions with manned aircraft dropping dumb bombs WW2 style would lead to some horrifically unsustainable losses bloody quick.

[Yu Ominae]

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/sta...38360139804672

There's a fire incident at the fuel depot in the Krasnodar Krai Region of Southwestern Russia.

Looks like a drone strike.

[Renegade334]

Possible first case of a successful interception of a Kh47M2 Kinzhal by a Patriot missile.

Still waiting for more data on this. I was under the impression that Ukraine had received German PAC-2s (which are fitted with blast fragmentation warheads and pulse Doppler radar fuzes), but current media chatter is pointing its finger at PAC-3/PAC-3 MSE, which is hit-to-kill instead (although there is still a much smaller explosive component to improve the missile's kill probability).

[ganbaru]

Kremlin drone incident: What do we know?
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...ow-2023-05-03/

Drones over Kremlin likely launched from inside Russia, experts say
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe...ts-2023-05-05/

About half a dozen larger military drones currently in development or use worldwide have the ability to fly the 400 plus kilometer distance. China, India, Taiwan and Ukraine are among a clutch of nations producing drones of this size and capability, Gettinger said.

Gettinger, who published a paper on one-way attack drones on Thursday, said if the aircraft was launched from within Russia, there was a significantly greater number of aircraft capable of carrying out this attack.

[Renegade334]

Oh boy. That Victory Parade in Moscow was really a stark (unintentional or maybe not) snapshot of how the war's going in Ukraine. Almost a caricature, even.

- No main battle tank and infantry fighting vehicle section.
- Only a single T-34 to open the parade (and I have reasons to think it's one of the thirty T-34/85s Russia recently had to buy back from Laos because their own surviving T-34s were no longer serviceable ).
- No VDV section.
- A bigger amount of missile TELs (S-400, Iskander, Yars).
- No Super Saiyan Armata, but three Bumerang pre-production vehicles to close the column.
- 51 vehicles in total down from 131 (2022) and 197 (2021)...and 10 of them are actually from Chechnya.
- RU Air Force is a no-show.

...
...And yes, I'm keenly aware of the concepts of "austerity" and "sobriety", but neither stopped the Russians from making 131 vehicles strut through Red Square with great fanfare, last year.

...That said, the absence of T-34s is going to create more "after T-55s, Russia sends T-34s to Ukraine to defeat the big bad Neo-Nazi Ukrainians" memes.

EDIT: there's one picture showing two more T-34s sitting on the sidelines, not taking part in the parade. So the count is three.