The end?

Yeah. Wasn't a plot as such as a military plan. Russia found out, got scared and called Austin, who told Ukraine not to go ahead.
This is largely what prompted Big Z's meltdown last week and the subsequent re-assurance from the EU that they would continue to ramp up their support fro Ukraine if the US pulled out.
So it was actually the Biden administration that sort of pushed Big Z towards looking to accept the Trump peace plan.
As you may imagine, the Biden administration is not too popular in a certain household known to this board.

Anyway, Ursula has been as good as her word.
Some serious new kit has been developed in double quick time, at the specific request of Tank Girl (who, unfortunately, still meets with sexism amongst some quarters of the Ukraine military). She seems to have found a kindred spirit in the EU boss.
 
Wasn't a plot as such as a military plan. Russia found out, got scared and called Austin, who told Ukraine not to go ahead.
Yeah, I got that much from the article. I'm just thinking, it must have been something pretty outrageous for a) the Russians to be so discombobulated by it that they called the US for possibly the first time since the war began and b) for the US to step in and veto it.

I understand if you can't go into the details right now but if at any point in the future you feel you could elucidate, I've a feeling it would be absolutely fascinating.
 
I cant see Ukraine doing anything without the U.S knowing, only due to the fact it will more than likely use U.S weapons. Its probably just Russia trying to put a wedge between the 2
 
Yeah. Wasn't a plot as such as a military plan. Russia found out, got scared and called Austin, who told Ukraine not to go ahead.
Must of been a big plan if the U.S effectively told Ukraine to stop, or would that be more a case of the surprise has gone?
 
I cant see Ukraine doing anything without the U.S knowing, only due to the fact it will more than likely use U.S weapons. Its probably just Russia trying to put a wedge between the 2
Not according to the article. That was the whole point - it was something the US admitted to the Russians that they didn't know about and as soon as they did, they were so shocked at what it was, that they vetoed it.
 
It wasn't that shocking or anything untoward, like bombing the Kremlin. The Russians could see a massive army gathered in the North and put 2 and 2 together. Sneaky wrote about it. I will see if I can put some of it here later today.
 
I should add that Romania and Finland have basically decided to ignore US edicts this week. Expect more of the same. Ukraine has to be careful because they rely on patriot missiles and ATACMs continuing to arrive.
 
Not according to the article. That was the whole point - it was something the US admitted to the Russians that they didn't know about and as soon as they did, they were so shocked at what it was, that they vetoed it.

Okay. I have re-read what Sneaky wrote. I actually can't put much on here .... sensitive, rather than secret/classified.

"Russia noticed that a very large army was forming near Kharkiv, and extending all the way along the border westwards to Belarus.
It was an army on the same scale that Russia used for all of the Ukraine invasion, close to a quarter of a million soldiers.
Far beyond what was ever needed to retake the Kharkiv "boobs".

The plan was "The Northern Option", to invade and fully take. (redacted), taking advantage of the limited numbers of Russian soldiers, and those that were there being occupied with their own futile offensive.
It would have succeeded, or at least made so much damage to Russia that the war would have been over in most respects, giving Ukraine real leverage in a peace negotiation on their terms.

Obviously Russia noticed this.
So, what did they do?
The new Defense Minister Belousov called the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and begged him to stop Ukraine from doing it.
And the US caved and ordered Ukraine to not go through with it."

I can't repeat what happened next ... but you might imagine that it has altered some relationships, shall we say.
 
From a U.S point of view, why wouldnt they of wanted Ukraine to go through with it? If it possibly accelerated any peace deal/surrender/full withdrawal, isn't that what everyone is pushing for?
 
From a U.S point of view, why wouldnt they of wanted Ukraine to go through with it? If it possibly accelerated any peace deal/surrender/full withdrawal, isn't that what everyone is pushing for?
Largely it's politics. It isn't their war. They have taken, under Trump AND Biden (Sullivan) a much more isolationist approach to foreign policy. They are actually more pre-occulied with China... who they see as their main adversary. So an escalation in Europe is not something that suits their agenda.
It used to be a sort of Mexican stand off, with Russia, China and NATO (the USA effectively) standing with the pocket watch in the middle of a graveyard.

Now the complication is that there's a new "superpower" which has its own agenda.
The EU is basically at war with Russia. The EU also has, for the time being, common ground with China (trade). So China and the USA continue to be hostile with each other ... but China is trying to play nice with the EU, because it needs the trade.
And it's all happening a long way from Washington, where they have to have an eye on Israel and Gaza too ... so an escalation between Ukraine and Russia is not something that they want. Especially when there's an election coming up.... and Trump is likely to target the Democrats over their $$ suupport of Ukraine.

It ain't simple, that's for sure.
They kind of like Russia being occupied (busy) but not occupied (invaded).
 
In brief: Ukraine has hit a Russian airbase in..... Syria. Last night's rage droning resulted in 100% takedown of the 89 Shaheeds launched. And the sign on fee for Russians to go and be killed in Ukraine has increased by another half million rubles, give it take.
 
Exactly this. And they are mainly getting Grandads signing up, knowing they won't come back, but theat their Grandkids will have a nest egg. Tragic stuff really.
Do the families actually get any money? Call me cynical but Russia is hardly known for its honesty. I wouldn't be surprised if it was promised to get them signed up then not actually paid
 
Those following events will know about the drone attack on Ukraine last night. So here's latest. Alternative coverage is available on the BBC.

"There is a somewhat comical aftermath from Russias Rage-droning.
And we still do not understand really where the about 20 missiles that they should have used went.
It is our guess that they had intended to use missiles, and we sort of now how many they should have by now after a month of producing them.
Something out of our doing seems to have happened that we are unaware of, or Russia is trying to wait for more of them to be stockpiled for a bigger rage-missiling.
I guess we shall see.

First we believed that there was 42 Shaheeds launched, but post processing of the radar data etcetera shows that it was 89, about a dozen fell down on their own, but 77 was destroyed in various regions.
It sometimes take time to collate all the data.

At the same reports came in that these was not the usual nicely painted and fairly well bolted together Shaheeds.
Instead these were uniformly gray (unpainted), used different components and engines, and the fitting was horrendous.

We thought we had seen Russia using Russian made Shaheeds before, but either that factory has been boofed without us knowing it, or they used Iranian Shaheeds all along.
These was clearly of Russian make and had Russian markings and maker designations.
And lordy did they suck.

Normally out of 100 Shaheeds one, or maximum two will fall down.
And roughly 5 percent get lost en route, I will get back to this, but let us just say that some drones seemed to be going to very alternative places in Ukraine as they fell out of the sky, or was shot down.

But here we come to the truly comical part.
Turns out that Russia launched 100 Shaheeds.
How do we know that if only 89 ended up in Ukraine?
Did they bombard Russia?
Well, some may that we do not know about, but 11 of them meandered off into Belarus.

How do we know?
Because somewhat irritated Belarusians openly reported that Belarusian AD shot down 11 out of 11 Shaheeds (Yes, they named them) with Air Defense Units and scrambled Fighter Jets.
And checking backwards from a Forte AWACS we know they fired missiles and that Jets got up and blew stuff out of the air near Minsk...
Russia fired on Minsk.
Uncle Luka no happy.

And here comes what surprised us all.
We routinely laugh at the Belarusian army and air force, and see them as comical as Uncle Luka, but it turns out that they are better than the Russians are.
They out of the blue did what Russia is not able.
Yes, sometimes Russian AD can down a drone or two, but we have never seen their air force being able to do it.

This means that it is not the equipment that is the problem, it is lack of training of Russian AD crews, and aircrews.
If we now apply this to the entire army of Belarus, we see that they would be a bigger problem than we previously thought.
Time to be happy that they are not partaking in the war methinks, and let us be happy that Uncle Luka deescalated at the border.


Crimea
Things are from now on about to get fairly grim in Crimea.
During the night Ukraine blew out the last remaining big electric grid transfer point from Russia, an electric switching station.
It is unreparable, at least quickly, since it suffered heavy damages.

This has led Crimea to be without electricity.
Something that would be somewhat humorous in regards of the Russian tourists ambling about in dark bars drinking vodka that is 40C.

But, the big problem is water.
As Russia blew up the Kakhovka dam the feeder canal of water from the Dniepro dried up.
For a while Russia supplied water via a pipeline on the bridge, but that has not been repaired after the bridge was blown.
Instead they drilled deep wells to get water up, but that requires electricity to run the pumps.

There's 1.9 million residents there, 50K soldiers, and roughly 1 million tourists.
Each one requires 3 liters of water to survive.
This means that Russia has to somehow get 8 850 000 liters of bottled water every single day just to keep people somewhat hydrated.
Washing, water for food, showers... nope.

This is 8 850 cubic meters of water each day.
To haul in just that much water you need 369 trucks every single day, filled to the brim with water.
My bet is that the tourists will go home to have a shower as soon as possible, and to charge their phones so they can complain online about their ruined vacay's.
But that still leaves the need for 244 truckloads per day.
I seriously do not think that Russia can pull this off.

Yes, they will get a few wells up and running using diesel-generators, but my point still stands.
From now on Crimea will be a miserable and stinky place.
And it is still 40C here...

And, yesterday I tried out a day without a working AC, it was not nice.
And I get about an 8 hour window each day to shower and fill up my water buckets to flush my loo.
And I have to get bottled water, since the water is no longer drinkable.
It is not nice.
But, my problems are minute in relation to what is happening now in Crimea.

We have electricity between 8-12 hours every day.
But here most have generators, and I have a solar roof and a generator, so I have electricity 24/7.
And, we have the entirety of Europe helping out with the biggest pinches, and helping with rebuilding the electricity grid.
Russia got jack all of all that help, and getting generators... well that requires paying scalping prices to some Chinese dude, and diesel is gettin in short supply anyway in Russia.

We suspect that at least all of the Russian citizens will vamoose to Russia from Crimea.
And this is the plan.
The less civilians the better, because if we go for Crimea it will be levelled, there is just no nice way to take it.

From a technical standpoint we could do an attempt already, but we will wait for the tourists to go home, and hopefully as many residents of Russian origin as possible.

And, to get to that point we need the bridge standing, and make it as unnice as possible for them so that they use said bridge to vamoose home to their beloved shitfilled Rodina.
I did mention that I have filled buckets with water... how else would I flush my bog?
Ponder now how those Russian tourist hotels will smell after a couple of days of filled to the brim bogs.

Anyway, I have adapted a long time ago to the small problems in life that comes with living here.
But something tells me that it will not be that simple in Russian occupied Crimea.
For instance, you need at least 2 bucket per person.
Where do you find 6 million toilet buckets in just a day or two?
And you should have more, if you get guests or housepests you want spare capacity for those.
I have ten 15 liter buckets.

And as I mentioned, Russians can't order diesel-generators or solar roofs.
Life will be miserable in Crimea, and that miserablification will spread across Russia as we go.
Here the rumour is that in mid August we will be getting electricity 16 hours a day thanks to the hardwork and cash done by EU into restoring our powergrid.

That army of 10 000 western technicians working in tandem with an equal number of Ukrainians are working wonders.
I see new powerlines just emerging like mycelia all over the place, with brand new sub-stations and gas-turbine generator plants.

They are now working faster than Russia can missile and drone stuff.
And now that Russia is having supply and quality issues in making new drones and missiles, while at the same time the AD is growing stronger...
Let us just say that things are getting better for the civilian side in Ukraine by the day."
 
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