Russia invasion of Ukraine

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Yu Ominae

https://www.newsweek.com/us-man-john...russia-1784618

As of March 1, there’s report of an American volunteer who defected to Moscow.

IMO some things simply don't add up. Repeating the russian propaganda about Nazi's and saying he believed so before going to fight to Ukraine sounds fishy. Saying he is a commie when russia hasn't been communist since the fall of the USSR three decades ago. More plausible scenarios:

1) Was captured by the russian army, beaten up and offered a chance to live if he repeated their propaganda.
2) While on Ukraine was offered money for spying and took the bait, some people will do anything for money.

Either way, whatever intelligence a low level officer can get is bound to be minimal and become outdated soon enough. Wouldn't be surprised if as soon as they are done with him for propaganda purposes, they will draft him into the frontline with people wagner has gotten from other countries, now that his identity is public he has lost his long term appeal and will try to make him a Martyr when he dies as cannon fodder.

[Yu Ominae]

They'll milk him for what it's worth.

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.overtoperator.com/post/c...strange-orders

Captured memo from a Russian soldier that EXPLICITLY gave orders for Russian troops operating in Ukraine to take off any patches they have and identify themselves as Wagner forces in case they get "into trouble".

[Yu Ominae]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/16/e...ntl/index.html

Ukrainian troops reported shooting down a Mugin-5 drone. It's made by Mugin Limited, a company in Xiamen, China.

[SidVicious]

ICC issues war crimes arrest warrant for Putin

International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Russian leader and woman at center of alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-...b3df7144d61dd2

[ramlaen]

Originally Posted by SidVicious

ICC issues war crimes arrest warrant for Putin

International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Russian leader and woman at center of alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-...b3df7144d61dd2

Usually you wait until after the war is over and you have captured the enemy leadership to do this. As neither Russia or America are members of the ICC this is little more than propaganda for internal consumption.

[mangamuscle]

BTW, since no one is commenting about it, Russia fell (again) into the trap ... line, hook & sinker! Remember how they downed the reaper drone? Now they are making an earnest effort to get the wreckage from the bottom of the black sea. Do you know what will happen when they find it? If your answer is "they will reverse engineer it to make one bigger, better & cheaper" then you are not seeing the big picture. The reason the USA has not provided reaper drones (which besides surveillance can be used as combat drones) is because they fear one might end in hands of the russians, who will share it with china. Well, now they have it so you can bet (even if they don't announce it) that they will now send reapers to Ukraine, just in time for the spring cleaning offensive.

[Renegade334]

The reason is that large(r) UAVs like Bayraktar TB2s and Reapers are now facing a much more different threat environment than before, one that is populated with better thought-out and layered detection and antiair systems.

We're no longer in last year's bumbling phase where TB2s could just loiter above unsuspecting Russian convoys (many of which were either unaware of their actual purpose or not taking their job as seriously as they should have) and drop bombs willy-nilly with little fear of retaliation. A different mindset has emerged from all those mistakes and lessons have been learnt--on both sides. The Ukrainian airspace in the East is a deadly one and only smaller airframes have a chance of survival. The remaining MiGs and Sukhois in the UA's inventory now have to do some pretty intense nap-of-the-earth flying to maximize their chances of survival and chances of successful payload delivery, which means: no flights above a certain altitude to avoid being detected, tracked and prosecuted by a rather large smorgasbord of short-, medium- and long-range AA systems that can also refer you to either local S-300/400 batteries or MiG-31s armed with R-37s flying on Russia's border. It doesn't even have to be a top-of-the-line weapon like a S400's 9M96 - even a simple Strela or SA-8/9M33 would suffice to take down a system that wasn't primarily built with stealth in mind. Hell, a UA TB2 was lost not too long ago - to friendly fire, to boot.

The value of large and slow-moving UAVs with little means of self-defense (they cannot either "notch" or outrun/outmaneuver missiles the way fighters and ground attack planes like the Su-24 and Su-25 can) has decreased noticeably and even the Ukrainian pilots know this...which is why they're hoping for donated fighters like MiG-29s -or even F-16s- instead. As for A-10s? Yes, they're well-armored and they've got that GAU-8 and plenty of underwing weapon hardpoints, but they're best used in asymmetrical warfare against an enemy that doesn't have a profusion of antiaircraft guns and missiles...and a large air force; Israel learned that the hard way during their wars against their neighbors when their own ground-pounders were pitted against Soviet-made Shilkas and SAMs. It's one of the reasons why the Pentagon is so hell-bent on replacing the Warthog with the faster and stealthier F35: the modern threat environment has changed. A lot.

Quadrotor drones with mortar shells dangling from their underside and artillery (working in tandem with these small aerial spotters) are the name of the game today. They're more economically viable, too - and they don't require the radio comm signal repeaters that the TB2s needed to operate all over Ukraine.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

Quadrotor drones with mortar shells dangling from their underside and artillery (working in tandem with these small aerial spotters) are the name of the game today. They're more economically viable, too - and they don't require the radio comm signal repeaters that the TB2s needed to operate all over Ukraine.

By the way, how are they flying those civilian tier drones in the front lines? I would expect 4G towers to have been taken down...

[Renegade334]

I am not an RC aficionado by any means, but I believe most quadrotor drones have simple radio emitters (I've heard of some using 2.4GHz or 900MHz multi-channel networks) that give them ranges of a few kilometers, with the more ambitious models going for double-digit distances (vendor claims not verified by yours truly; caveat emptor!).

I imagine some tinkering with inclusion of more powerful components (better batteries and emitters-receivers) can boost that range significantly. But even two kilometers is plenty enough for drones that are mainly used by ground units to peer over the surrounding treeline and spot enemies in the distance), we're not expecting Global Hawk-levels of uptime or Amazon-delivery-type, close-and-personal flying here.
Also, the vast majority of military drones (like the Switchblade 300, for one) does not require 4G or whatever to function, and transplanting those units' components into their civilian counterparts' airframes would easily reduce their dependence on any form of civilian comm network. I've no doubt the Ukrainian Aerorozvidka is far more than well-versed in designing and building ruggedized, Frankenstein-style, drones now.

[Yu Ominae]

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarV...eakthrough_on/

Ukrainian military showed to the press the components taken from the T-90M.

[Liddo-kun]

is there a news of that which is not in reddit? Cannot access because don't have reddit account.

[Renegade334]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/sVh3D_RzRJE

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

^--- UA debriefing on the captured T90M Proryv. Not in English, I'm afraid.

Spoiler:

Note that the UA has had access to the T90M for a while already and got their hands on a handful of more or less well-preserved Proryvs that were either not blown up (Russia lost another one just recently, btw) or scuttled.

The one here below was captured near Kharkiv circa September 18 and was towed away by a T72B3 (also captured by the UA!)...only visible damage being one detracked side (which is possibly the reason why the tank itself had been abandoned by its crew). It's highly possible that this specific unit was the one trialed (see the slideshows in the YT video's background) and dissected by the UA given its good internal condition. Also interesting is that it was found ensconced in a Nakidka thermal shroud, which is also claimed to have radar-reducing capabilities.

https://twitter.com/Kontakt642/statu...43273503707137

EDIT: oh what the heck.
Reuploaded all Reddit pictures on this imgur folder.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by ramlaen

Usually you wait until after the war is over and you have captured the enemy leadership to do this. As neither Russia or America are members of the ICC this is little more than propaganda for internal consumption.

You fail to read the undertext, now putin can't pull a "yeltsin", bad end in sight.

Some background history, Yeltsin was a weak and sick old man, he ended leaving the reins of the kremlin to a younger and healthier man so he enjoyed his golden years. Putin back then did worked to stabilize a crumbling economy (just to make it crumble again himself, the irony)

Putin might have been tempted to make final effort to invade 100% of ukraine and leave the occupation and rebuilding of the russian economy to someone else so he can enjoy the rest of his lifespan.

But now he must die on the throne, the moment he leaves power he could be abducted and whoever is in his place will think "good riddance" while he tries to portray him as a martyr. His paranoia might rival Stalin's in the near future.

Mind you, Boris Yeltsin could have been prosecuted by the ICC, but there was no international ill will since back then everyone believed Russia was on a path of modernization and democratization.

[ramlaen]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

You fail to read the undertext, now putin can't pull a "yeltsin", bad end in sight.

Some background history, Yeltsin was a weak and sick old man, he ended leaving the reins of the kremlin to a younger and healthier man so he enjoyed his golden years. Putin back then did worked to stabilize a crumbling economy (just to make it crumble again himself, the irony)

Putin might have been tempted to make final effort to invade 100% of ukraine and leave the occupation and rebuilding of the russian economy to someone else so he can enjoy the rest of his lifespan.

But now he must die on the throne, the moment he leaves power he could be abducted and whoever is in his place will think "good riddance" while he tries to portray him as a martyr. His paranoia might rival Stalin's in the near future.

Mind you, Boris Yeltsin could have been prosecuted by the ICC, but there was no international ill will since back then everyone believed Russia was on a path of modernization and democratization.

The "undertext" here is neither Russia or America are members of the ICC, they are irrelevant and have no power.

[Yu Ominae]

https://news.sky.com/story/russia-ga...laims-12741742

This one's from last year, but Moscow provided Tehran with captured Stingers, NLAWS and Javelins for Iranian engineers to tinker around in return for Shaheds/Mohajer drones.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by ramlaen

The "undertext" here is neither Russia or America are members of the ICC, they are irrelevant and have no power.

Most of America is part of the ICC, do you also call tomatoes a vegetable?

[ramlaen]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

Most of America is part of the ICC, do you also call tomatoes a vegetable?

Yes there are countries on the continents of North and South America, like the United Mexican States, that are members of the ICC whereas others like United States of America are not.

What does this have to do with the ICC being a powerless and irrelevant entity?

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by ramlaen

What does this have to do with the ICC being a powerless and irrelevant entity?

For a "powerless and irrelevant entity" the USA seems to make too much of an effort to curtail their attributions.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/...ct-becomes-law
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Back on track, I am very puzzled by Xi visit to Moscow, so far much ado about nothing, but this is day one of a three day visit.

[ramlaen]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

For a "powerless and irrelevant entity" the USA seems to make too much of an effort to curtail their attributions.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/08/03/...ct-becomes-law

Really? A 20 year old article about how the US will rescue any Americans that are abducted under the guise of an ICC ruling is supposed to show the ICC has authority or the ability to enforce their decrees?