Ukraine vs Russia III

Another one of these new, rare, and valuable bits of kit has been taken out today by a direct GMLRS hit. I hope they knew their doom was coming, given that is the purpose of the vehicle.

 

If y'all will recall, Russia has recently taken over from Western countries following coups in countries in the Sahel region of Africa. Well, it isn't going well. Due to Russia's involvement in Ukraine, they have been forced to send inferior, under-equipped troops and mercenaries to assist the governments. This has resulted in a sense of lawlessness in those countries.

For one, Russian troops and mercenaries are actively involved in extra-judicial killings. The killings are often critics of the new governments, but also include random citizens as they are generally "above the law" and they have a habit of "looting" the area they are assigned to and conducting other criminal activities.

For two, ISIS and al Qaeda are expanding their regions of control in those areas and, so far, are winning any battles they have with the local military and Russian troops/mercenaries. One example happened within the last few days in Niger when ISIS aligned militants ambushed a group of Nigerien and Russians and killed at least 30 troops. The units were in the area looking for missing soldiers from a previous ambush and, obviously, failed to find them and became victims themselves.

High chance Islamic State fought the biggest battle with the Niger government this year two days ago in Tikrafane.
And won. ISGS seems to have killed at least 30 soldiers, but it's yet to be determined. Likely photoset from jihadists will follow soon. #Niger

— Paweł Wójcik (@SaladinAlDronni) July 22, 2024

 

The USA with Canada and Finland signed the ICE-Pact, and the plans are to build about 90 icebreakers to operate and confront Russia in the North Pole area.

 

There is an excellent video of Perun that tackles this aspect of geopolitics and power projection

 

Arenot they already busy with submarines under the ice?

 

A video of the drone strike was posted on Telegram by a Russian civilian.

Full view of the drone hitting an oil refinery in Tuapse, Krasnodar region of Russia. Impressive. https://t.co/SKog7BBZTe pic.twitter.com/HhplGbtuWv

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 22, 2024

 

Ukraine has attacked and damaged the Slavyanin, the last remaining train ferry that travels the Kerch strait.

 

Russia has advanced 6km further beyond Avdiivka in the last week. Ukraine is, of course, moving troops into the area, but it sounds like there is a lot of miscommunication going on. Ukrainian drone operators are reporting that their own anti-drone forces are destroying more of their drones than the Russians are and it is making it difficult to attack advancing Russian troops.

 

Yikes! After a chaotic retreat, units of a UKR brigade face encirclement.

.@Deepstate_UA says the operational-tactical situation (on the Pokrovsk front) became critical over the weekend after the Ukrainian infantry brigade holding Prohres conducted a chaotic retreat (the post suggests they were not trained properly). The 47th Mechanized Brigade… https://t.co/sHqB82bou5 pic.twitter.com/1lexodSNdX

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) July 23, 2024

 

And now it's 1,900,000 (around $22,000 - the exchange rate is a little fuzzy these days).

 

That is not good.

 

There seems to be good evidence that Russia harvests organs from Ukrainian POWs. They have reportedly sent some bodies back that are missing everything inside.

Well played, Russia. I keep thinking you have sunk to the lowest dregs of depravity and you keep proving me wrong.

 

Hearts, livers, kidneys....etc sell for big bucks on the black market

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This conflict has apparently turned into a "Drone war".
Allies plan on supplying Ukraine with 1 million drones soon.
Ukraine claims their drones kill 100 Russian soldiers a day

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cne4vl9gy2wo

 

I am hearing reports that the Ukranians broke the encirclement in force with help of artillery and support from aerial reconnaissance

Great news for them, but sadly every day they are losing terrain. Russia is losing menin a scandalous pace, but they don't care about that.

 

This is hilarious. It's like something out of Saturday Night Live.

Russians hit a mine while trying to drive past another blown up and still burning vehicle.https://t.co/nryNMgHYuN pic.twitter.com/NBCknol99m

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 25, 2024

 

That's a successful de-mining operation right there.

 

Funniest still, It is not the first time it happens either. I have seen several videos just like that. Going around a burning vehicle and getting mined.

 

Video has surface that reportedly shows a Romanian Gepard shooting down Russian drones over Ukraine. Romania has, reportedly, started doing this after a Russian drone landed 11km inside of Romania the other day. This is not the first time that Russian FPVs have hit Romanian territory, but it is the first time that Romania has started to do anything about it.

BREAKING:

A NATO state has started shooting down Russian drones over Ukrainian airspace.

A new video shows Romanian Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns shooting down Russian suicide drones across the river separating Romania from Ukraine near Izmail.

Romania was forced to… pic.twitter.com/IUWlZG6AYT

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 25, 2024

 

What's their breaking point, though? It's not like the children of the elite are going to war. Are the elite being hurt all that much by sanctions and the war economy? They don't care about the Russians being fed into the meatgrinder, and may even see it as a net positive for Russia (dead convicts, minorities and the poor aren't going to bother rich people in Moscow and St. Petersburg).

 

There are other breaking points besides the rulers.

It's not really possible to know until it happens. There are many parts of the Russian economy that are feeling a lot of stress right now, but governments go a lot longer than you think because they have immense power and a wide array of resources to cover them up. It's why the pressure on Russia has to be multi-pronged and relentless.

If there's someone in the world who knows where Russia's danger points are, it's probably someone like Russian economist Valentina Bondarenko, who was an expert in socio-economic forecasting and modeling. Was. She fell out of a very high window in Moscow today. Those Moscow windows are really unsafe. Someone should look into that.

 

We cannot know for sure, but as spejic says it's not an elite that is immune to events in the country.

The Russian economy is not built around Moscow and St. Petersburg. Petrostates make money from the extraction of fossil fuels, and in Russia's case the fossil fuels are located in Siberia. As the "poor" regions run out of recruits (which is already happening), Russia has to turn to either its cities, where the elite live, or its resource extraction regions, where its wealth is produced. Maybe Gazprom itself can run extraction on a skeleton crew, but the support economy around it -- builders, grocers, pharmacists -- will be gutted. At some point there would be too many ghost towns to sustain these sites. What happens then?

My point is this. You can game out a number of ways in which Russia's approach is unsustainable in the long run. While others focus on kit and equipment problems, I'm more focused on how Russia will soon face irreversible demographic declines, if they haven't already, which will make life unlivable for people outside the elite core.

When that happens, will the elite arm themselves to quell riots? Who will stop rioters in Buryatia? I can see military units returning to quell unrest in Belgorod or Vologograd, but would they be reidrected to Ulan-Ude or Irkutsk? I very much doubt it. If rioters stop government machinery in these areas, how does Putin show he is in charge? Where else might decide to stop listening to Moscow?

Killing your army off when potential unrest can occur everywhere is a strategic blunder.

 

I'll add to this: Western democracies faced tremendous social unrest during both world wars. You would be foolish to assume that the Soviet civilian front was all hand in hand singing songs hunky dory during WW2. Casualties raise the negotiating hand of labor and they don't want just wage increases. Western democracies responded by building out the social safety net. Russia isn't going to be able to rebuild its social safety net by killing off its workforce. So the only options it has are provide political freedoms OR repress. But repress with what army?

 

Cell phones are vital for Russia's soldiers. They need them to communicate, get intelligence, call in artillery, operate their drones, even handle their monthly pay. In fact, Russia has designed and implemented a new system called "Svyaz" which is going to connect all the cell phones in a secure new wi-fi network with new equipment bypassing the existing cell thing totally.

Unfortunately, they also allow soldiers to make videos that embarrass Russia. So the Duma is looking to outlaw all smartphones at the front.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/russian-military-to-be-punished-for-using-smartphones-in-ukraine/