History in the Making: Russian Invasion

Mr_Asa said:

I forget who did what, but one of my favorite PsyOps type stories from WWII was one side built wooden airstrips with wooden planes and over night the other side dropped wooden bombs on them.

I think the Axis had the wooden planes and the Allies had the wooden bombs.

Bwaahaha!  not well documented, but the story was circulating on both sides of the war at the time:

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/07/the-story-of-the-wooden-bombs-dropped-on-german-decoy-airfields-is-likely-true.html

Russians are curiously falling out of windows again:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russians-keep-mysteriously-falling-from-windows-to-their-deaths/ar-AA11m1QW

I thought this Peter Zeihan piece provided some useful context.

GameboyRMH said:

Russians are curiously falling out of windows again:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russians-keep-mysteriously-falling-from-windows-to-their-deaths/ar-AA11m1QW

I love that the opening line is "Although the cause of his death has not yet been confirmed,"

Yeah, "falling" out of a 6th story window isn't any indication of potential problem. Was he irradiated as well?

GameboyRMH said:

Russians are curiously falling out of windows again:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russians-keep-mysteriously-falling-from-windows-to-their-deaths/ar-AA11m1QW

"As every patriotic Russian knows, gravity is insidious Western plot, comrade."

stroker said:

I thought this Peter Zeihan piece provided some useful context.

Excellent analysis.

In reply to stroker :

That was really interesting. I wonder if they are just going to go in with patriotic frogmen at some point.

Now this is funny. Hack a Russian taxi company and send all of their taxis to the same address.

https://twitter.com/runews/status/1565319649683804160

Some updates:

• The Russian Ministry of Defense and Russian milbloggers began an information operation declaring the Ukrainian counteroffensive a failure almost as soon as it was launched.  It is far too soon to assess the progress of the counteroffensive operation, however, which will likely be difficult to evaluate in the short term if it relies on feints and misdirection.
• Russian occupation authorities are imposing a curriculum on Ukrainian students aimed at eliminating the notion of Ukrainian national identity, explicitly in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speeches and writings falsely claiming that Ukraine is part of Russia, and that the Ukrainian identity was an invention of the Soviet period.
• The G7 Non-Proliferation Directors Group condemned Russian attempts to disconnect the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from the Ukrainian power grid as “unacceptable” ahead of the arrival of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation to the plant.
• Russian forces conducted a limited ground attack north of Kharkiv City.
• Russian forces conducted ground attacks south of Bakhmut and along the western outskirts of Donetsk City.
• Russian-appointed officials in Crimea began “reconstructing” air defense systems to counter smaller targets in response to recurring drone attacks on the peninsula. Russian officials are likely strengthening Crimean air defenses at the expense of other theaters.
• Zabaykalsky Krai announced the formation of the “Daursky” volunteer engineer-sapper battalion.
• Ukrainian partisans conducted an improvised explosive device (IED) attack against the headquarters of the “Together with Russia” political organization in Berdyansk, Zaporizhia Oblast, where occupation authorities were reportedly preparing for sham referenda.

Pretty scarey stuff Russia is propagating. Where can I buy iodine pills?

I just re-read the update above, and realized this was a pretty strange entry:

Zabaykalsky Krai announced the formation of the “Daursky” volunteer engineer-sapper battalion

What exactly are the Russians using sappers for?

For those who don't know, a sapper is essentially a miner and where used in castle warfare (probably earlier) to tunnel under castle walls, make a void held up by wooden shoring, then burn the shoring, causing the void to collapse and the wall section to come down.

There was a well know use in the Civil war (using explosives planted under a fortifications walls) and they were also so common in WWI trench warfare, that both sides had tunnels that where listening posts, that would listen for signs of opposing sappers digging towards their lines.  There was a somewhat famous result of that by the Allies at Messines where they managed to put a HUGE amount of explosives under the German lines:

On the morning of June 7, 1917, after a dry quip to journalists about how he didn’t know whether he and his men’s actions “shall change history tomorrow,” but would “certainly alter the geography,” a British major general ordered a series of mines set off, detonating an almost 1 million pounds of explosives, killing about 1,000 German soldiers, and causing leaders in London —about 130 miles away — to hear the explosion.

https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/battle-of-messines-ridge-explosion/

Another quick update that is still pretty vague:

• Ukrainian forces continued to target Russian logistical nodes and key positions throughout Kherson Oblast in support of the ongoing counteroffensive in southern Ukraine.
• Russian milbloggers reiterated claims that Ukrainian forces are fighting along four axes of advance in Western Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces conducted ground attacks northwest of Slovyansk, south and northeast of Bakhmut, and northwest and southwest of Donetsk City.
• Russian authorities escalated claims that Ukrainian forces are threatening both the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) and the newly arrived International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation on the territory of the ZNPP.
• The Russian 3rd Army Corps is continuing to form for deployment to Donbas.
• Russian occupation authorities are likely increasingly recognizing their inability to successfully hold sham referenda in occupied areas of Ukraine due to Russian military failures and ongoing Ukrainian resistance in occupied territories.

Here is how you make the Russians nervous.  That is a flight of B52s that either came out of Lithuania, or appeared as they where over Lithuania.  The circle over Estonia is an in-flight refueling (there is a tanker out there also). They also made a nice pass over (soon to be new NATO member) Stockholm Sweden. No idea what they are doing over Denmark, but it sure was twisty.

In reply to aircooled :

In Commonwealth Nations, Sapper is used as a rank in Engineering units, it replaces Private. In the Royal Canadian Engineers has Sappers. The reserve units of Engineers have Sappers also. As a child I lived a block and a half from the W.P. Fell Armoury so the local unit was the 6th Field Squadron and they are Combat Engineers.

You guys remember the Ukrainians that forcibly got their passports taken away?

They've been conscripted.

Google Translate

berkeleying Putin. This is his last hurrah. It's win or die trying and berkeley all the people he takes with him. He's going down that well trodden Russian path of murderous dictators. 

Rons said:

In reply to aircooled :

In Commonwealth Nations, Sapper is used as a rank in Engineering units, it replaces Private. In the Royal Canadian Engineers has Sappers. The reserve units of Engineers have Sappers also. As a child I lived a block and a half from the W.P. Fell Armoury so the local unit was the 6th Field Squadron and they are Combat Engineers.

Interesting, thanks for that.  It was a bit wierd that they would be digging tunnels!

Update:

• Independent polling showed that a majority of Russians still support the Russian war in Ukraine.
• Russian and proxy officials are solidifying their narratives surrounding the Ukrainian counteroffensive to claim it will debilitate the Ukrainian military.
• Ukrainian officials reported that positional battles are underway in unspecified areas of Kherson Oblast and that Ukrainian forces are continuing to strike Russian ground lines of communications (GLOCs), logistics nodes, and reinforcement efforts throughout southern and central Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces conducted ground attacks south and northeast of Bakhmut and along the western and northern outskirts of Donetsk City.
• Russian forces continued targeting Ukrainian rear areas along GLOCs and may be reinforcing the Southern Axis by reallocating equipment from Russian rear areas in Donbas and Crimea.
• Ukrainian sources claim that Russia can pull an additional 300,000-350,000 military personnel from support units in Russia, Syria, Armenia, Tajikistan, Nagorno Karabakh, and Kazakhstan. These figures do not accurately represent the fact that support units placed into combat roles will not generate substantial combat power and are necessary for supporting combat, training, and other operations. 

Also a map of estimated gains:

In reply to aircooled :

Is there a good map showing the whole of what has been gained and lost since the beginning?  Like Feb 24th to current?

You can go here and click on Time in the upper right.  You have to pick a particular date (no slider), but it will show estimated control.  Make sure Ukraine is selected of course.

https://liveuamap.com/

The Ukrainian counteroffensive is making verifiable progress in the south and the east. Ukrainian forces are advancing along several axes in western Kherson Oblast and have secured territory across the Siverskyi Donets River in Donetsk Oblast. The pace of the counteroffensive will likely change dramatically from day to day as Ukrainian forces work to starve the Russians of necessary supplies, disrupt their command and control, and weaken their morale even as counteroffensive ground assaults continue. The Russians will occasionally counterattack and regain some lost ground and will of course conduct likely fierce artillery and air attacks against liberated settlements and advancing Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian forces have made substantial enough progress to begin evoking more realistic commentary from the Russian milbloggers, who had been hewing very closely to the Kremlin’s optimistic rhetoric until today.

A Ukrainian Hacktivist group dubbed HackYourMom setup fake dating profiles targeting russian military members.  The soldiers sent geotagged photo's and the data was used to triangulate and hit the base.

LOL HackYourMom

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/ukrainian-hackers-created-fake-profiles-142721144.html
 

In reply to 84FSP :

Like Henry Rollins once said, "Fellas, leave your dick at home!"

or King Missile, who proclaimed a detachable penis was desirable because he could leave it at home when it might get him in trouble.

I was going to post another Doctor Demento classic: "Chicks Dig Jerks" which I hadn't really listened to in 30 years only to realize that it's kinda offensive. I mean, there's a lot of truth to it, but whereas it was funny back then, it's also painful in a way that I didn't understand as a twenty-something.

So I will be honest, IF I were in the situation where I was conscripted by a foreign power against my country I would go through paces until it was time to toss lead. I know it would be a death sentence but they would be patching up or burying every non-American in my range.

QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:

So I will be honest, IF I were in the situation where I was conscripted by a foreign power against my country I would go through paces until it was time to toss lead. I know it would be a death sentence but they would be patching up or burying every non-American in my range.

See: sabotage of German V2 rockets by POWs.