The end?

No prizes for guessing where Mr. I am Cursed is today. Alti being somewhat alive is bad news ... But he did deliver good news of an SU 30sm disappearing from the radar on its way to Odesa. Won't say what made it disappear.
 
I don't think many are yet in service. And they only operate on Ukrainian territory. AFAIK, they are primarily looking after those SAAB AWACS at the moment. When long range JASSMs arrive, they may be in play more. Problem is trained pilots and the ground crews, maintenance etc.
 
borolad259 said:
I don't think many are yet in service. And they only operate on Ukrainian territory. AFAIK, they are primarily looking after those SAAB AWACS at the moment. When long range JASSMs arrive, they may be in play more. Problem is trained pilots and the ground crews, maintenance etc.
Click to expand...
Didn’t they only get 6 so far and they dropped one of them.
 
Linthorpe_Exile said:
Interesting analysis : West’s missile go-ahead to Ukraine would hold no shortage of risks
Click to expand...
I'd expect Ukraine will realise there are - huge risks to using them inside Russia - & will have discussed targets they intend to hit prior to getting them & the - hopefully - OK to use them..

There is also huge risk not just to Ukraine, but Europe wide - if Russia is able to win. Hopefully they'll be used wisely & effectively. Russia can always withdraw to it's own lands & end the 'SMO' almost overnight..
 
Evening news. Everyone from UVDL to Erdogan stated that Ukraine should get all of its territory back. Long range missiles cleared for use in Russia, with the weird proviso that US technicians be present at launch. And two KH 22s decided to follow the SU 30sm into the Black Sea. And some Shaheeds went walkabout into Belarus.
Something new is fecking with Russia.
 
More about yesterday from the horse's mouth. The references to shifting sands are about lyrical sections he wrote about his oldest friend, The Director, who took his own life recently... and whose funeral in incoming. I obviously removed all that personal stuff.

"Russian Mistake no 1
Here in Kyiv, it is the 4th Crimean Summit, and several world leaders are attending, either in person, or through emissaries, or via digital link. I will return to this soon enough.
On this day Russia decided that it was a good day to launch attacks with Shaheeds and Missiles. It did not go well.
First an SU-30MS over the Black Sea was on the radar one second and gone the next. Russia was baffled by what happened to say the least, no missile was seen, nor any offending airplane. It just decided to upgrade into a submarine.
Ukraine was then told to scramble up some sort of explanation. They came up with manpads used from GUR rib boats, it was the best even Budanov could scrounge up while he scratched his head.
This prompted Russia to launch 2 TU-22M aircraft on an attack run over the Black Sea, a first in this war. They launched two KH-22 missiles from high altitude and hightailed it out as fast as they could.
Moments later those two KH-22 missiles decided that it was time for a career change into torpedoes and was last seen heading for the cruiser Moscow. At this point not even Budanov could come up with something.
At this point a few Shaheeds arrived to the Ukrainian border and promptly suffered from some sort of contagious malfunction, some drilled themselves into the ground, others all of a sudden attempted Daedalusian flight trajectories, with more doing a picture perfect U-turn into Belarus that promptly shot them down.
At this time a few Sad Russia Whimpers was extolled. They are currently trying to figure out what the heck happened, and how somehow Ukraine all of a sudden had gotten almost godlike powers, and what this will mean for the future of Russia. This was not expected.
The answer is simpler though, someone wanted their high representative to remain unbombed and decided that Russia was not to have fun on 9/11.
The mistake was when Russia attempted to kill the Greek Prime Minister and Zelenzkyy in Odesa. This time nobody trusted Russia, and “assets” was in place to enforce Russian unbombiness.
US may be having a nervous breakdown, but it still has formidable powers at its disposal and is not about to have its Secretary of Defence missiled.

Russian Mistake no 2
By bringing in Iranian ballistic missiles Russia made a grave political error. It had far-reaching ramifications today. It certainly shifted sand.
It was highly expected that Momsie would be downright draconian on the topic, and she assured that EU is fully behind Ukraine restoring its total territorial integrity, including Crimea. And after her world leaders toed the line and stated the same, both expected, and some unexpected like Erdögan.
The only voice missing was Scholz, who is now flying entirely solo on a trajectory that is bringing him ever closer to Orban and Hungary. When even China and Turkey is stating that Ukraine shall have all its territory back, then talking about Ukraine giving up territory is Chamberlinesque to put it mildly.
Russia bringing Iran into play was a political mistake on the highest order. It shored up and improved the support behind Ukraine.
Erdögan was wavering, but with his regional arch-nemesis all of a sudden sending missiles, he had to respond to not lose face. Same goes for a few other states, like the US. Iran is after all like waving a red blanket in front of a bull.
It was the straw that broke the camels back as it trudged over the shifting sands of Rub’ al Khali. And out from the eternal dunes came the permission.
Ukraine has received permission to fire ATACMS, Storm Shadows, SCALP/EG’s and JASSM against airfields, ammunition depots, troop gatherings, command and control centres, radar and EW systems together with US Army technicians. Ukraine is not permitted to use them against infrastructure such as refineries and powerplants.
This is a tectonic shift in the sand. Not so much that the permission finally came through. No, the US Army Technicians are the tectonic shift. It sort of implies that the US is part of the war now.

Arctic Shifting Sand
Today the City of Murmansk was attacked by long range Ukrainian drones that had flown 2 654km to reach their target. Russia claimed that at least one drone was launched from Finland, this is though not true.
They flew from Ukraine this time around, and not from Svalbard like previously. Instead, there was an AWACS in the air over Finland both giving target directioning back to the Ukrainian operators, and at the same time working as a signal relay for the drones.
Iran is truly a gift that kept on giving back to Russia today and will continue to give back to Russia for quite some time.

Weight of Sand
At the same time as the shifting sand revealed new attitudes and arms, it at the same time started to slowly crush and suffocate Russia. On top of the arms a whole slew of new sanctions hit Russia.
The new goal is to force Russia to the negotiating table in Austria under the Second Peace Summit. And to do that, a new resolve is put in place, and the rules of the game has been changed.
At the same time, Iran has grown a new and deadly enemy with a vested interest in them not being able to produce missiles in the future. An enemy that can send drones with deadly accuracy 2 654 kilometres across Russia. Iran should truly fear the righteous wrath that will be coming the same second as the first missile dumps down.
Same goes for the Kim’s of North Korea, after all it is just a question of time before the overly clever Ukrainians bolt together some behemoth-ranged drone and wave it goodbye on its long flight to a Kim castle.

Kursk
General Pissedoffsky is busy containing the two attempted breakouts in Kursk. The Russians in the Korenevo sack and the Russians in the Seym sack in utter desperation over lack of food and ammunition have started a breakout.
They Korenevo Baggins broke out to the South, and the Seym Baggins broke out directly East, and they then joined up into one even bigger Sackville-Baggins.
Let us here note something, they are still in a sack, and neither group is even one iota closer to connecting back to the Russian main force. Unless their plan is to go the long way around via Ukraine, this is not the way out.
The breakouts were extremely bloody for the Russians, but it must be admitted that it was costly for Ukraine too. Reinforcements have been brought in, and further progress is since an hour halted.
But it will take at least another 48 hour to fully contain the situation. If instead the Russians in the Seym sack had broken to the Northeast into Korenevo, and the Russians in Korenevo had broken through to the North things would have been extremely problematic.
That way they could have connected up with Russian forces to the North, and that would have been rather uncomfy, and it would have undone a lot of Ukrainian progress in this area.
Instead, it reeks of desperation and short-sightedness from unexperienced local commanders. Due to the deteriorating weather, it is basically the last opportunity that they had to do something before Rasputitsa truly takes over, the rains have already started.
But going this way they just created a bigger sack with more Russians in them, and they have squandered a lot of resources to be able to do it.
General Nottakeshitskyy is mostly miffed about having to spend her precious time before getting bogged down on cutting up the Russians again into bite-sized chunks again for processing during Rasputitsa. "
 
Artillery numbers getting squished are interesting. Bumbled along at 40+ per day for months, then dropped off into the teens, last couple days shot up to 60s and 70s??
 
So, David Knowles' death is now being treated as murder. with foreign involvement.

And now, fasten your seatbelts and get your maps out.

"Rondo a la Kurska
I’m not a dimwit, nor a dullard, but this required me to get quite a lengthy walkthrough. In retrospect it looked so simple and obvious, but dammit if I could have done it myself, especially since it was pretty much done on the fly.
It should though be said that there were plans for it, but not fleshed out since it is impossible to know the specific details about what the enemy will do at every turn. You might have twenty sketched plans but pulling five fully fledged ones out of your ****… well, you see my point.
General Tocleveritskyy was not overly enamoured with Russia getting ideas and interfering with her squashing them like small bugs. On top of that they never understood that she wanted them to move and do something, so that she could do unspeakable things to them.
As long as they remained inside the Korenevo sack and the Seym sack they had prepared defences to hide in, but as soon as they came out of those defences it was time to move forward with some of those sketched plans.
Now, remember here that She already had 10 Brigades in action doing various things in Kursk, among those no less than 4 different offensive vectors and two hold-in-place actions. That is a lot to keep track off for anyone.
What I am now will write about was enacted within 24 hours as she fleshed the sketched out to viable offensive plans complete with logistics chains, moved the troops into action, and then enacted the plans by jumping in said units.

Combat Manoeuvre Warfare
When performing an offensive with Combined Arms Army groups utilising Combat Manoeuvre Warfare it is a tenet that you have to have well trained units in moving fast to where needed, and that are capable of moving out of location to their point of operations.
This means that it is very important where you place said units, keep them mounted on trucks, have a pre-assigned point of offloading, in this case about 50km from the point of operations, and then jump all of it said 50km, and all of it in one fluid motion.
That way you maximise the surprise effect on the enemy. Something that worked flawlessly during the initial break into Kursk. So flawless that even Schwarzkopf would be envious.
It is also well known that if you attempt to do this twice, it is highly unlikely to work. But here we are… Now, hold on your hats, because there will be fireworks from now on. Just remember that all of the below was performed at the same time.

Brigade Fugue
With the 3 Brigades that controlled Korenevo, Seym sack, and kept the line between them being swamped with work, Russia got through in a few spots and connected to each other. It is likely that they would have been beaten apart again by the 3 existing Brigades, but why now instead whack them?
Here a reserve Brigade was jumped in from a distance of 120km outside of Kursk with the offloading point at the border crossing that was initially broken. From there they raced straight into the point where the two sacked groups of Russians were just about to shake hands.
The sudden and unexpected onslaught drove a wedge between the two groups, and the Korenevo Brigade could start going on the offensive again towards Korenevo now that the defences there had been weakened.
For the Seym group the holding action was restored, and Russia was at least partially ejected out of Snagost. This concludes the Eastmost of the attacks, now ever onwards.
Seeing that the Seym Group had been moved Eastward to connect with the Korenevo Group it was time to cut them in the back.
The next Brigade crossed the border and took Medvesh’e under rapid control and then roared onwards in the direction of the shortly named village of Sadovoye Tovarishchestvo Glushkovo. As they closed in, they delivered that famous dagger in the back of the Seym Group.
Not being the one to forgo dishing up a second serving of backpain a third Brigade went through the Border crossing between Volfyne and Krasnoobtyabr’skiy, that in turn continued towards Obukhovka and Veseloe.
I wrote yesterday about the first Brigade to arrive that crossed to the West along a minor road into Neoniolivka, that has spread somewhat further into Khodeikovo, Kolodezhi and Dronovka.
The goal for this Brigade is to draw in troops from the main posting at the main border crossing along E38 between Katerynivka and Kozino. Thus far that is unmolested.
So, that was 4 Brigades at 4 different spots that slammed into Russia. Shall we do a fifth? Well, yes she did…
North of the E38 is another main border crossing between Ukraine and Russia. In Ukraine the road is named E391, but on the Russian side it has several names, the first in importance is M3. The M3 is a main Motorway to Moscow via Bryansk, it is also known as E101, at Khomutovka it splits with the M3/E101 going to the more famous places, another road goes to the WNW and is called A142, that in turn leads to more junction further inland, in Trosna in Oryol Oblast it meets up with the E105 that goes to Oryol City and down to and down to Kursk City.
Talk about a superb place to hold prior to Rasputitsa. It is sort of something that will send shivers down the spine of any Russian hearing that the Ukrainian army is belting it along that road. How far so far? Zarya, Nekislitza, Alexandrovskii and Troebortnoe are rapidly learning the Ukrainian National Anthem and how to properly salute the Blue & Yellow Flag of Freedom.
Now, if she would accidentally find a sixth Brigade and send that through the E38 highway border crossing… Ehm, ouch in Russian Bumbum.
How bad is it for Russia to have Ukraine holding 1, or perhaps soon 2, of their main roads going all interesting ways into the Russian wazoo? Especially in the light of the impending Rasputitsa?
From what Ukraine was holding Previously they would have had to pound their way into and through Kursk City to get to a proper highway leading to the North. From Sudzha and Malaya Lokna Russia had ample time to mount defences and could use all of Kursk City as a bunker before Ukraine could move towards Moscow.
Now, that is sort of a moot question, now there are all sorts of ways to the North and East. Now Russia must react, or they are in very deep pile of ****.

Amusement
I find it fun that while Russians are beating their chest over their breakout attempt, and the Punderati extolling upon how screwed Ukraine is, that they miss how far up their wazoo the dildo of consequence arrived, and the spectacular lack of lube used while it was delivered, and in how many places.
I will though give the Russian side that a few Russian Milbloggers have started to scream to high heavens about how much they are in danger now.
And to quote General Smugkova herself: “A girl must find something to amuse herself with during Rasputitsa”. She will be completely unbearable now.

Less amused are various Brigade Commanders that enjoyed their stardom on Twitter and Telegram. They have all been spanked and made to post that they are no longer allowed to use social media without express permission.
Not a word to be released from now on without prior approval by Zyrskyi or Tank Girl, depending on where they are. From now on there will mostly be dead silence coming out of Ukraine.

Communication
The US want to publish a list of targets that will be hit with long-range missiles from the West, and that list will be presented during a UN-meeting.
This might seem backwards for most, but there are two good reasons for it. One is obviously that it is good to avoid misunderstandings and mistakes when dealing with an unhinged nuclear superpower.
The second reason is that it is good policy to openly state “we are gonna **** you up badly” directly to the enemy to force them to come to the negotiating table to avoid said fuckupery.
In reality the permission is now given, the list is hammered out in regards of targets, and now it is just the communications part left.
And while we wait Russia is pounded daily with Ukrainian drones and regular GMLRS missiles, and that is now bad enough to make Russia take notice, and enough to make them ponder how bad it will be when the missiles come into play.
First of all, it will make it possible for Ukraine to concentrate on Russian infrastructure, refineries and power infrastructure within the 570km range of the missiles since those will hammer purely military targets.
It will also free up more long-range missiles for usage against targets beyond that 570km range. As such the missiles are more of a force multiplier. It is also good to remember that the military targets are better protected with air defence systems than the industries, infrastructure, refineries, and power-installations.
This means that currently Ukraine is wasting drones on hard to hit stuff, instead of using them on soft targets that are easy to hit.
Just as an example. In that 144-drone swarm that Ukraine launched a couple of nights ago, 100 was used on military targets, and 70 of those was shot down. Out of the 44 used on softer targets 4 was diverted by EW and hit houses in Moscow, the rest hit the intended targets directly. Now, imagine that those 100 aimed at military targets could have been replaced by 30 missiles, and instead pounded industries?
Yeah, you see my point. "
 
Interesting shift by Belarus today & - apparently - been ongoing this summer, Luka looking to soften his image & slip his masters chain, maybe.. Political prisoners being released..

“I think the Lukashenko regime is interested in avoiding becoming part of Russia. That’s why they want some communication with the West. That’s why they're releasing prisoners,” argues Ryhor Astapenia, a Chatham House analyst on Belarus based in Warsaw.

www.bbc.co.uk

Families cling to hope in Belarus after first release of political prisoners

Dozens of prisoners were freed unexpectedly this summer, now relatives are hoping more will follow.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
A programme starting on BBC1 Called Hell Jumper about an English lad rescuing families on the front line in Ukraine - It might be worth a watch.
 
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