Today's SITREP.
***Russian - Ukraine War Tactical and Strategic Updates*** [Warning on OP]
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Last: 11 hrs ago by Waffledynamics
Anyone know anything about the delivery launch profile for max 40+ mile range? Curious how effective this weapon can be given launch aircraft risk to Russian air defenses.
⚡🇺🇸 In the package of military aid from December 21, the United States transferred to #Ukraine guided aerial bombs with increased range #JDAM-ER, — #Bloomberg
— 🇺🇦UkraineNewsLive🇺🇦 (@UkraineNewsLive) February 22, 2023
These bombs are dropped from a height of 14 km and fly at a distance of up to 72 km.#UkraineRussianWar #UkraineWillWin pic.twitter.com/5lkthqpCZS
⚡️City Council: Russian ammunition warehouse destroyed in occupied Mariupol.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) February 22, 2023
According to the Mariupol City Council, a Russian ammunition warehouse was destroyed in temporarily-occupied Mariupol on Feb. 21.
The warehouse was located in the central district near the airport.
nortex97 said:
A very good discussion of the strategic situation/strategies here:Quote:
REBEKAH KOFFLER: Where we are with this conflict is that even the chairman of the joint chiefs, General Mark Milley, has admitted that there is no path to victory for Ukraine. My intelligence analysis tells me this war isn't winnable.
Why? It's because Putin's strategy is to outsuffer and outlast the adversary. Putin has assembled half a million new recruits, 315,000 joining the fight right now, 150,000 in training camps.
As you just said, Brian, this is typical Putin, typical Russia, just throwing bodies into the grinder. Putin also knows there is fatigue right now in the United States and in the west because the taxpayer is realizing that they have been sucked dry with $196 billion, as Lisa pointed out and they just can't continue forever.
So this "oops!" strategy that President Biden just pulled out with his visit is not going to stop Putin. Putin is not afraid. He has a plan. I describe this plan in my book, "Putin's Playbook," which you have.
Biden completely failed at deterrence, failed at strategy, just schizophrenically throwing weaponry at Ukraine hoping somehow it's going to scare Putin. But unfortunately, it won't.
FOX NEWS HOST LISA BOOTHE: To your point, I think a lot of Americans want to know what does winning look like according to Zelensky, how much money is that going to take, and how much human suffering has to happen to achieve that goal.
KOFFLER: Here is what Zelensky stated repeatedly what victory looks like to him. It's evicting the Russians from the entire territory of Ukraine.
BOOTHE: But is that feasible?
KOFFLER: It's absolutely not. Because the Russians are entrenched, especially in Crimea. It's an existential outcome of this war for Putin and for Russia. And so it is just not feasible.
Somebody needs to realize that the strategy of just throwing weaponry is not going to work. Weaponry and technology do not win wars, strategy does. And, unfortunately, despite 10 years' worth of every single piece of intelligence that we had back in the intelligence community, we had scores of war gaming, predicting and going through this conflict and how it's going to unravel, right?
How it's going to unravel is it is going to ratchet up if tensions are escalated, it's going to ratchet up cyber or nuclear armageddon. President Biden knows this. This is exactly why he is not deploying forces into Ukraine, he not sending F-35s into Ukraine.
...
KILMEADE: He miscalculated everything.
KOFFLER: Well, not everything. Not everything. Because, again, Putin is planning for a relentless draining war of attrition. Throwing people into the meat grinder, yes. They lost 200,000 men. In World War II, the Russians sacrificed 25 million. With the population of UKraine being 43 million, the Russians 143 million, can you do the math? That is prohibitive, so the conflict is going to go on forever.
And as long as it goes on, Putin achieves his goal. His definition of victory is very different from ours, it is preventing us and Ukraine from victory. The devastation of Ukraine. Ukraine right now has been decimated. The industrial base is destroyed. The agricultural base is destroyed. It is ceasing to exist as a viable country because we are providing the entire gross domestic product... They are entirely depending on us.
And right now, the Pentagon is already telegraphing to Ukraine that this is unsustainable because we are doing our own review, because our own weapons stockpile is depleting, some of these weaponry is going to take 7-18 years to replace. Ukraine is having an extremely high burn rate of ammo. 5,000 rounds a day, so our production capacity is outmatched.
The wild card here is the Russian people and those willing to replace putin.
Will there be enough resistance when Russia sends 200k to their deaths? I have my doubts. It seems many of those who might, in a previous life, participated in a "revolution," fled the country during the mobilization
Agthatbuilds said:nortex97 said:
A very good discussion of the strategic situation/strategies here:Quote:
REBEKAH KOFFLER: Where we are with this conflict is that even the chairman of the joint chiefs, General Mark Milley, has admitted that there is no path to victory for Ukraine. My intelligence analysis tells me this war isn't winnable.
Why? It's because Putin's strategy is to outsuffer and outlast the adversary. Putin has assembled half a million new recruits, 315,000 joining the fight right now, 150,000 in training camps.
As you just said, Brian, this is typical Putin, typical Russia, just throwing bodies into the grinder. Putin also knows there is fatigue right now in the United States and in the west because the taxpayer is realizing that they have been sucked dry with $196 billion, as Lisa pointed out and they just can't continue forever.
So this "oops!" strategy that President Biden just pulled out with his visit is not going to stop Putin. Putin is not afraid. He has a plan. I describe this plan in my book, "Putin's Playbook," which you have.
Biden completely failed at deterrence, failed at strategy, just schizophrenically throwing weaponry at Ukraine hoping somehow it's going to scare Putin. But unfortunately, it won't.
FOX NEWS HOST LISA BOOTHE: To your point, I think a lot of Americans want to know what does winning look like according to Zelensky, how much money is that going to take, and how much human suffering has to happen to achieve that goal.
KOFFLER: Here is what Zelensky stated repeatedly what victory looks like to him. It's evicting the Russians from the entire territory of Ukraine.
BOOTHE: But is that feasible?
KOFFLER: It's absolutely not. Because the Russians are entrenched, especially in Crimea. It's an existential outcome of this war for Putin and for Russia. And so it is just not feasible.
Somebody needs to realize that the strategy of just throwing weaponry is not going to work. Weaponry and technology do not win wars, strategy does. And, unfortunately, despite 10 years' worth of every single piece of intelligence that we had back in the intelligence community, we had scores of war gaming, predicting and going through this conflict and how it's going to unravel, right?
How it's going to unravel is it is going to ratchet up if tensions are escalated, it's going to ratchet up cyber or nuclear armageddon. President Biden knows this. This is exactly why he is not deploying forces into Ukraine, he not sending F-35s into Ukraine.
...
KILMEADE: He miscalculated everything.
KOFFLER: Well, not everything. Not everything. Because, again, Putin is planning for a relentless draining war of attrition. Throwing people into the meat grinder, yes. They lost 200,000 men. In World War II, the Russians sacrificed 25 million. With the population of UKraine being 43 million, the Russians 143 million, can you do the math? That is prohibitive, so the conflict is going to go on forever.
And as long as it goes on, Putin achieves his goal. His definition of victory is very different from ours, it is preventing us and Ukraine from victory. The devastation of Ukraine. Ukraine right now has been decimated. The industrial base is destroyed. The agricultural base is destroyed. It is ceasing to exist as a viable country because we are providing the entire gross domestic product... They are entirely depending on us.
And right now, the Pentagon is already telegraphing to Ukraine that this is unsustainable because we are doing our own review, because our own weapons stockpile is depleting, some of these weaponry is going to take 7-18 years to replace. Ukraine is having an extremely high burn rate of ammo. 5,000 rounds a day, so our production capacity is outmatched.
The wild card here is the Russian people and those willing to replace putin.
Will there be enough resistance when Russia sends 200k to their deaths? I have my doubts. It seems many of those who might, in a previous life, participated in a "revolution," fled the country during the mobilization
I don't know how this will go one way or the other but comparing WWII to Ukraine isn't comparing apples to apples.
They sacrificed 25 million fighting off an invader that wanted to exterminate them. That wasn't a special operation. They eventually got tired of losing people in Afghanistan. I suspect that's what it might take in Ukraine. Lose enough people and folks back home eventually get upset.
We know man power isn't a problem but do they have the equipment?
This. Seems like Afghanistan is a better comparison than WWII.
Some will be excited to learn we have apparently also helped them procure a UH-60 and perhaps a Hind attack helicopter (not clear where this was actually sourced).
Well said. Ww2 is the outlier, not the standard.
Afghanistan is a more apt comparison. Maybe ww1, if putin can convince the Russian people this is a fight of survival for Russia. Bur, even then, the people revolted
Afghanistan is a more apt comparison. Maybe ww1, if putin can convince the Russian people this is a fight of survival for Russia. Bur, even then, the people revolted
I know nothing of these weapons but as a pilot, I would not expect heavy bombs with short wings to have a very large glide ratio. Maybe 6:1? So to achieve the distance described they would have to be dropped from ~40k feet. This is within range of S300 anti aircraft systems so it's not a great weapon for deep penetration with the limited unstealthy airframes Ukraine has. That said, the Russians aren't terribly effective or efficient at anything, including air defense so I would expect some daring raids to achieve some noteworthy results, but not without costs.benchmark said:
Anyone know anything about the delivery launch profile for max 40+ mile range? Curious how effective this weapon can be given launch aircraft risk to Russian air defenses.⚡🇺🇸 In the package of military aid from December 21, the United States transferred to #Ukraine guided aerial bombs with increased range #JDAM-ER, — #Bloomberg
— 🇺🇦UkraineNewsLive🇺🇦 (@UkraineNewsLive) February 22, 2023
These bombs are dropped from a height of 14 km and fly at a distance of up to 72 km.#UkraineRussianWar #UkraineWillWin pic.twitter.com/5lkthqpCZS
ETA: I just re-read the tweet and see that my brain doesn't always register the metric system. 14km is about 46k feet so the Russians will see these bombers coming from a long way off.
Manpower is a problem for Russia because their younger generation is not very large, and their older generations are not very healthy. They don't have the seemingly inexhaustible numbers they had several decades ago. And poorly equipped and trained men consume resources without being combat effective, and removing them from productive employment weakens the economy.
Good description of western style infantry raid/assault but I have not seen the russians do this yet. When somewhat close as soon as a couple of them get whacked the rest tuck tail and retreat. I have seen several ukes do this.
🧵1/17 You don't hear as much about the advancement of regular russian brigades, but you see reports about Wagner advancing in certain areas. While it's true that it's achieved due to extrajudicial executions and irrational losses, the situation is a little bit more complex pic.twitter.com/KbGhX85DIQ
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) February 22, 2023
Putin's pre-invasion assumptions were totally congruent with the Koffler-like 'experts' in the west ... e.g. military assistance to Ukraine would be essentially wasteful and futile.nortex97 said:
A very good discussion of the strategic situation/strategies here:
So following this Koffler-like logic - what if Putin's pre-war assumptions were mostly correct? That the US and NATO would do next to nothing (similar to 2014) except mostly meaningless economic sanctions. That Europe would mostly continue business as usual ... importing Russian energy, finding loopholes around sanctions, and continuing with their minimal defense spending policies. That without US-led western military aid, Ukraine would quickly run out of weapons/ammo and Russia would eventually win within 6-12 months even with their black swan military blunders.
That's the alt-universe reality that many say is the preferred choice to wasteful military aid.
BTW, strategic and germane to this thread (mods) because this is the same question central to the discussion of providing game changing weapons like ATACMS to Ukraine.
MouthBQ98 said:
Manpower is a problem for Russia because their younger generation is not very large, and their older generations are not very healthy. They don't have the seemingly inexhaustible numbers they had several decades ago. And poorly equipped and trained men consume resources without being combat effective, and removing them from productive employment weakens the economy.
That's somewhat relative. The younger generation is a lot smaller but still bigger than Urkaine's. It's not like they're got 100 dudes turning 18. There are still a lot of people in Russia.
Below graphic for JDAM so not really the same ... but low altitude approach may not be too dissimilar except for 45kft launch altitude. Still, it seems very risky if air defense is in the neighborhood.
?
?
I'm no weapons expert so just spitballing as an Aerospace major. You can release a JDAM while in a climb to toss it like a high arching baseball but you're probably not talking 10s of kilometers of added range.
I'm just not sure how to loft one of those ERs with their wings folded back. Given the drag on the bombs, even with the wings folded, I don't thing you could get them far enough above their release point to make a low level penetration work.
I'm just not sure how to loft one of those ERs with their wings folded back. Given the drag on the bombs, even with the wings folded, I don't thing you could get them far enough above their release point to make a low level penetration work.
Russia's stocks of Iranian-made drones appear to be running low
according to the latest assessments of European officials, who say their use against Ukraine has fallen significantly over the past 10 days.
Prior to that dozens of drones were regularly deployed against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, though most were shot down by the country's air defenses. The government in Kyiv said in December that Russia had received an order of 250 drones from Iran, without specifying where it got the information. One of the people said Russia was constantly working to obtain more drones as well as other military supplies from Iran and other sources.
The supply squeeze comes as Russia's war in Ukraine nears the one-year mark, and with fighting still very bogged down in eastern areas, even as Moscow's forces step up their attacks. Russia has leaned increasingly on drones and missiles to try and weaken critical infrastructure across the country.
Ukraine's allies have identified Tehran as a key supplier to Moscow's war efforts. Evidence shared among countries shows that drones observed in Ukraine have matching characteristics to Iranian-made drones seen elsewhere, one of the people said. Parts recovered in Ukraine, including engines and wing stabilizers, are similarly consistent, the person added.
That's even as Tehran has repeatedly denied shipping Russia supplies of drones.
according to the latest assessments of European officials, who say their use against Ukraine has fallen significantly over the past 10 days.
Prior to that dozens of drones were regularly deployed against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, though most were shot down by the country's air defenses. The government in Kyiv said in December that Russia had received an order of 250 drones from Iran, without specifying where it got the information. One of the people said Russia was constantly working to obtain more drones as well as other military supplies from Iran and other sources.
The supply squeeze comes as Russia's war in Ukraine nears the one-year mark, and with fighting still very bogged down in eastern areas, even as Moscow's forces step up their attacks. Russia has leaned increasingly on drones and missiles to try and weaken critical infrastructure across the country.
Ukraine's allies have identified Tehran as a key supplier to Moscow's war efforts. Evidence shared among countries shows that drones observed in Ukraine have matching characteristics to Iranian-made drones seen elsewhere, one of the people said. Parts recovered in Ukraine, including engines and wing stabilizers, are similarly consistent, the person added.
That's even as Tehran has repeatedly denied shipping Russia supplies of drones.
Putin walking from the SALT Treaty will give China pause in supporting Russia. The last thing China wants is for us to put PanTex back into high gear and bring another 10k nukes online.
Putin says Xi to visit Russia, ties reaching 'new frontiers'
Seems concerning...
Seems concerning...
Quote:
MOSCOW, Feb 22 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that China's Xi Jinping would visit Russia, saying relations had reached "new frontiers" amid U.S. concerns that Beijing could provide material support to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Chinese weapons supplies to Russia would threaten a potential escalation of the Ukraine war into a confrontation between Russia and China on the one side and Ukraine and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance on the other.
Putin is too old to ride around on a white horse with no shirt these days... he more likely to stroll down the hallway in his sagging white underwear before he ****s himself... Puttee wont be around by the end of 2024 is my guess.. he is going to get too many of his own people killed and this is not going to sit well with the people of Russia, including many in the military who are already tired of the fighting and deaths ... the upcoming spring offensive for the Ukraine will tell us alot of where this thing is headed.. we may all know by late summer
Revisiting five pre-war predictions. Cyber's limited impact is perhaps the only surprise.
LOOKING BACK
LOOKING BACK
You didn't miss anything. That's Nortex.
AgLA06 said:
You didn't miss anything. That's Nortex.
Nortex didn't say that, nortex was quoting an article that was quoting Koffler.
Source: https://t.co/zotLu7uPa7
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) February 23, 2023
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) February 23, 2023
nortex97 said:
A very good discussion of the strategic situation/strategies here:
KILMEADE: He miscalculated everything.
KOFFLER: Well, not everything. Not everything. Because, again, Putin is planning for a relentless draining war of attrition. Throwing people into the meat grinder, yes. They lost 200,000 men. In World War II, the Russians sacrificed 25 million. With the population of UKraine being 43 million, the Russians 143 million, can you do the math? That is prohibitive, so the conflict is going to go on forever.
And as long as it goes on, Putin achieves his goal. His definition of victory is very different from ours, it is preventing us and Ukraine from victory. The devastation of Ukraine. Ukraine right now has been decimated. The industrial base is destroyed. The agricultural base is destroyed. It is ceasing to exist as a viable country because we are providing the entire gross domestic product... They are entirely depending on us.
And right now, the Pentagon is already telegraphing to Ukraine that this is unsustainable because we are doing our own review, because our own weapons stockpile is depleting, some of these weaponry is going to take 7-18 years to replace. Ukraine is having an extremely high burn rate of ammo. 5,000 rounds a day, so our production capacity is outmatched.
No it's a horrible discussion.
The combined 800 million population of US, Europe, Japan and other Ukrainian allies will make sure the Ukes have near everything they need, and slowly escalate to heavier and heavier weapons. Ending the war is in the financial interests of everyone involved, which is a powerful incentive.
Putin can throw in as many adidas wearing chain smoking demoralized undertrained poor fools as he wants, and frankly they'll all die under the tracts of Leopard 2's.
Unwinnable war? A few Himars, artillery and soviet era tanks enabled the Ukes to take back large swaths of territory. Let's see what they do with more modern NATO gear against worse and worse Russian troops.
Don't really know what's going to happen in Moldova, but there's a lot of chatter. Coming from both sides.
Well that doesn’t sound good… https://t.co/W0kNy2qmJf
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) February 22, 2023
Other than a few video of Ukrainian Forces being moved towards Transnistria over the last few days I haven’t observed any Significant Movements of Ukrainian Heavy Equipment that would be required if they wish to take the Region.
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) February 22, 2023
Russia can't win. The sooner they come to this realization and try to negotiate for some of what they have and call it done, the better for everyone. It will suck for Ukrainians if they lose territory to Russian aggression but they need to calculate if it is worth the cost to try to win it back, but I don't see either side reaching a position where they would negotiate until 2024 when Ukraine has had a chance at strategic counterattack to optimize their own position and Russia has a chance a facing losing major gains versus negotiating.
Ukraine may not officially end up in NATO but they'll have one of the top few NATO integrated militaries in Europe by the time this is over. This is why Russia is becoming increasingly desperate and pushing their offensive ahead of schedule. It's a "now or never" situation for them. If they don't take Ukraine as part of the "special military operation" then they won't get another favorable opportunity.
Right now is as good as it's going to get… and that's not particularly good news for them based on what we continue to see.
Right now is as good as it's going to get… and that's not particularly good news for them based on what we continue to see.
MouthBQ98 said:
Russia can't win. The sooner they come to this realization and try to negotiate for some of what they have and call it done, the better for everyone. It will suck for Ukrainians if they lose territory to Russian aggression but they need to calculate if it is worth the cost to try to win it back, but I don't see either side reaching a position where they would negotiate until 2024 when Ukraine has had a chance at strategic counterattack to optimize their own position and Russia has a chance a facing losing major gains versus negotiating.
Russia is in too deep. They can't negotiate for any less than they have "annexed", and they don't control near all of what they claimed to be Russian territory six months ago. Removing those territorial claims from their constitution would be a gigantic humiliation for Putin and the Russian government.
And Ukraine isn't going to give away a bunch of land that Russia isn't in any imminent danger of occupying. I really don't think either party has stomach for compromise.
Round and round we go for almost 5 and a half hours pic.twitter.com/Gks84XoeUP
— RoINTEL (@RoINTEL) February 22, 2023
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