Rossticus said:

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B-1 83 said:

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Many reports keep mentioning Russian air power and air strikes. Do the Ukes not have enough longer range/modern SAMs to reduce these to nothing?

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Nope. Most missile strikes are either stand-off strikes from within Russia or sub based cruise missile strikes.

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Are they using air launched stand-off stuff against ground troops to a large degree?

Numerous videos like this have been put out by the Russians, this one a day ago. Their premier attack helicopter is lofting unguided rockets, an incredibly inaccurate method of employment. It does allow them to stay over friendly lines though which mostly protects them from manpads. Ideally these things would be out hunting behind Ukrainian lines, destroying artillery and supply lines. Instead they're being used as expensive airborne grad launchers except those fire much larger rockets.

Economic sanctions are working now against Russia as they squeezed Japan before World War II. But the historical lesson is that they don't make adversaries less aggressive.

https://t.co/VuYBdPpMsR

— AEI Foreign Policy (@AEIfdp) May 14, 2022

SouthTex99 said:

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CondensedFoggyAggie said:

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📽️Ukrainian drone drops a grenade on Russian positions in #Zaporizhzhia Oblast #UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/LXlAFy9fPC

— MilitaryLand.net (@Militarylandnet) May 14, 2022

Good hunting

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Pardon my ignorance…can they hear the drone overhead? They started moving away once bomb was released. I assume they can hear the weapon descending.

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Am I the only one that thinks that looks like CGI?

These particular sanctions have crippled Russia's ability to build new weapons of war, which seems like a good goal. Could end up saving tens of thousands of lives and cutting off Russia's expansionist tendencies at the knees.

That said, desperate countries do desperate things. Separately, I'm not sold on sanctions being a useful tool to stop internal repression.

Sully Dog said:

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SouthTex99 said:

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CondensedFoggyAggie said:

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📽️Ukrainian drone drops a grenade on Russian positions in #Zaporizhzhia Oblast #UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/LXlAFy9fPC

— MilitaryLand.net (@Militarylandnet) May 14, 2022

Good hunting

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Pardon my ignorance…can they hear the drone overhead? They started moving away once bomb was released. I assume they can hear the weapon descending.

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Am I the only one that thinks that looks like CGI?

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Looks pretty fake; not that any other video posted is. This one looks fake though.

"Mum, my battery commander shot himself in the foot just to get out of here"

Russian soldier is talking to his completely delusional mother about the situation in Ukraine. He desperately wants to go home, but his mother insists soldiers need to employ 'patriotism' in case Russia is attacked by the West. https://t.co/coBmZG3lx5 pic.twitter.com/DyfzeKP0ug

— Dmitri 🇺🇦 (@mdmitri91) May 14, 2022

I too have been reading about a huge deployment of Russian armor into the Izyum pocket in the last two weeks. Russian cell signatures light up the map there as nowhere else. A large force. Can they complete their task?

— C3 (@C313106944) May 14, 2022

CondensedFoggyAggie said:

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The beginning of the end is here!💥🥳

“Ukraine update: Something *big* is happening, as the Battle of the Izyum Salient begins”

“Guys, 20-25% of Russia’s entire Army is in that pocket. Something big is happening. I mean big, as in war-altering.” pic.twitter.com/pyhbio8GU1

— ClimateGuru (@WebWorks19) May 14, 2022

With Karkhiv relatively secure, hope they can surround and cut off those 15 Russian battalion tactical groups

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Point: if Russia has concentrated a significant portion of their troops in an area where they can be cut off, surrounded, and starved out, then that is significant.

Counterpoint: I don't know if that Twitter person has any credibility. My understanding is that most of the Russians are farther south in Donbas, Kherson, Crimea with different supply lines, so there aren't that many in Izium.

Overall, I have no doubt that cutting off and retaking Izium would be a significant win. It would free up the Ukrainians to concentrate their efforts on Kherson (guessing) or possibly keep rolling up the Russians from the north. But I think the hardest fighting will be in Donbas. I'm also really concerned about what will be uncovered if/when Donbas is retaken… a lot of Ukrainians in the region, no telling what the Russians and Russian sympathizers have been up to the last few months.

Seems really foolish to deploy a large portion of your forces in a salient where you can't get offensive operations started forthwith. But, the Russians seem to come up with new and better versions of stupid each day.

Interesting article that may explain why so many Russian casualties are from the poorest people. Basically a mix of hopeless poverty and nationalist propaganda.

Quote:

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'We want to die for the motherland too!' A dispatch from a Buryatian village where one percent of residents have joined the war in Ukraine

Two fifth graders outside the building sing along as they swerve to avoid cracks in the pavement. "What is a patriot?" LB's correspondent asks one of them. Makar wrinkles his forehead, trying to recall: "They're willing to go into battle and die!" He pulls a bottle of Coca-Cola out of his backpack and takes a sip. "We want to go to battle, too and to die for our motherland!" he adds.

After the Soviet Union broke up, the plant shut down and the village began to empty rapidly. Right now, only 2.7 thousand people live here, compared to the 10,000 who lived here in the late Soviet period. There are a lot of abandoned homes, but very few trees. Work is hard to come by, so a lot of men join the army as contract soldiers.

Shornikova plans and choreographs all of the patriotic events in Selenduma, from the motor rally to the memorial gathering for Andrey Dandarova. She wanted the motor rally to be "effective and meticulously beautiful." After some thought, she decided to combine the motor rally with a children's soccer tournament and a supply drive for Selenduma soldiers. "A motor rally is great, but we need to at least send our soldiers some woolen socks," she said. "A toothbrush or a letter from home it's just so moving! Oh, I'm going to start weeping."

She goes quiet and takes a breath. "You know," she says after a moment, "The fellow soldiers of our dear Andrey Dandarova, may he rest in peace, are on leave right now. They sent a message to Andrey's parents: 'When our leave is up, we'll go [back to Ukraine] and avenge Andrey's death 100 percent.'"

In middle school, Dandarov would go regularly to the village's Kazachok children's club, where kids would sing Cossack songs, dance, and play sports. "Cossack culture instilled in us a desire to win," said Andrey's friend Alyona Golykh. "And Andrey liked that. Everything there was in a military, patriotic style, and I think that's why he decided to tie his life to the Russian army."

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https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/05/11/we-want-to-die-for-the-motherland-too

Follow up article:

Ukraine update: Something *big* is happening, as the Battle of the Izyum Salient begins

With unconfirmed reports that Ukraine has pushed Russia mostly out of its territory north of Kharkiv, we have been speculating where Ukraine would counter nexttoward the railhead northeast of Kharkiv in Vovchansk, or the the logistical hub at Kupiansk, where three major rail lines connect. Both those locations would cut off the flow of supplies to the Izyum salient and Russia's 22 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) in the pocketthe largest concentration of Russian forces anywhere in Ukraine.

Ukraine took a look at both of those critical logistical centers, and then decided to hit the salient directly instead.


NASA FIRMS satellite data, designed to track forest fires, gives us a perfect indication of the direction of combat: The woods to the west of Izyum, where any Ukrainian counteroffensive would originate, are lit. It's happening.

Back to the Battle of the Izyum Salient, Russian telegram claims five Ukrainian brigades are moving in on Izyum from the north, looking to directly cut off supply lines to the bulk of the Russian forces in the salient. That would be the equivalent of 10-15 Russian BTGs which seems … fantastical.


Remember, Ukraine doesn't announce operations in advance. Looking at FIRMS imagery over the past several days, we can actually see the counter-offensive began on May 10-11:

Now, with Russia already at its limits, Ukraine is taking direct aim at the largest concentration of Russian forces in Ukraine.

Guys, 20-25% of Russia's entire Army is in that pocket.


We were looking at Izyum's supply hubs in Kupiansk and Vochansk. Ukraine is going straight for the jugular instead.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/14/2097948/-Ukraine-update-Something-big-is-happening-as-the-Battle-of-the-Izyum-Salient-begins

agent-maroon said:

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That pic looks like some places I've seen in New Mexico and Eastern Arizona. Probably for the same reasons

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Agree, I'm guessing nobody here will be surprised such a place has a higher percentage of enlistees.

The Russian invaders become so ferocious in the war in Ukraine that their own wives start fearing them.

The atrocities they are committing in Ukraine have changed the psyche of the soldiers. This is evidenced by a new telephone conversation intercepted by the SBU. https://t.co/8E8ivflEoz pic.twitter.com/6mcqqiiDjq

— Dmitri 🇺🇦 (@mdmitri91) May 13, 2022

I hope Putins cancer overwhelms him asap.

That is so 30 pages ago.

One of the reasons it looks like that is because the more deaths you have from Moscow or Saint Petersburg the more likely they would put a stop to this. As long as it's the commoners and the poor folks in the rural areas dying, the urban folks are all for it.

He added that there were no casualties.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) May 15, 2022

Stand-off munitions. Russia likely having to conserve guided precision weapons, so whatever the target, it was a priority.

⚡️UK Defense Ministry: Russia likely lost one third of its ground forces in Ukraine.

Russia’s Donbas offensive has lost momentum and is unlikely to accelerate its pace in the next 30 days, the ministry said.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) May 15, 2022

Ukrainian military publishes audio from sinking of Moskva cruiser. In the audio, a crew member says that the ship has been hit twice and that it is tilting on its side. Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, sank on April 14. https://t.co/4a3RjjRpab

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) May 15, 2022

Heard similar from commanders in Lysychansk a few days ago. When asked, they said their two biggest needs were more artillery ammunition, and more transport trucks.

— Neil Hauer (@NeilPHauer) May 15, 2022

Is this Russian or Ukrainian soldiers talking?

The report shows overall confirmed equipment losses between the two and it wont be a surprise that Russian losses are running overall at abt 3.75 to each piece of Ukrainian equipment lost. pic.twitter.com/Xt8YTdtNzG

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) May 14, 2022

Such an extreme imbalance in one piece of equipment shows how focussed Ukrainians have been in destroying Russian logistics--an excellent case showing why they have been so successful overall. The Ukrainians are fighting smarter.

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) May 14, 2022

Has to be Ukrainian. No way a Western journalist is getting this info from Russian commanders.