Prepare for Erdogan to turn on the Kurds in Syria.
Sort of predictable. Despite promises and deals. He's still fond of Genocide.
Sort of predictable. Despite promises and deals. He's still fond of Genocide.
The end?
- Thread starter borolad259
- Start date
BobUpnDown
Well-known member
He's surely got to look at the bigger picture & realise he's better off giving them some autonomy: a friendly neighbour after seeing all the destruction conflict & ego brings..
Kurds are backed by US & helped keep ISIS in check, Turkey weakens them & potentially harms US troops & gives ISIS a chance to worm into the youth & susceptible of Turkey.. would cause huge issues..
Greater Kurdistan would include a sizeable chunk of what is now Turkiye...
Muttley
Well-known member
The poor Kurds deserve a homeland not genocide. I've spoken to a few (some weren't even Barbers!) and they have had years, decades of being shat on by Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. And it's largely us and the French to blame when we carved up the middle east after WW1 and the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Decent_Left
Well-known member
ISW has been issueing a daily bulletin on the SDF vs Turkish backed militias skirmishes - definitely getting
Unfortunately Ursula VDL is indisposed at the moment and will be for at least a couple of weeks, maybe more. Though I suspect that the financial package agreed with Turkiye to dissuade them from attacking the Kurds will now be witheld. I should say though that the Pkk in Turkey aren't necessrily "good guys". I have Kurdish friends who had to flee eastern anatolya as young kids because they were likely to be taken by the PKK. They operate as gangsters.
NY Times article - How Drones Changed Front Lines in Ukraine
Morning missive
"Fourth Battle of Kursk
Perhaps it is the Continuation Offensive of The Third Battle of Kursk, but I leave it to the historians to hash that out by enacting interpretive TikTok-dances in the future. Regardless, let is take a retrospective look at the reasons behind the location of the offensive, the size of the offensive, and the achieved objectives.
But, first let me point out that this is a smaller offensive compared to what we saw in August. That one involved 40K soldiers, against pretty much nothing. The speed of advance back then was slow due to lack of logistics, not due to lack of combat power.
Whereas this one has 20K soldiers, with a similar robotics number. So far only 10K soldiers have come into play, but with a 10K reserve force for a rainy day, and they have achieved quite a bit. To understand how we need to look at the discussions we had prior to the offensive.
Backdrop
There was quite an argument about where to perform the renewed offensive. It was far from certain it would be in Kursk. Some argued for Bryansk, some for Bilhorod, and others for an offensive in the East or even in the South.
Most did though argue for a Northern Winter Offensive to gain more Russian territory to bargain with. Question was mostly if it would be Bryansk or Bilhorod among the happily arguing generals. Throughout all of this Tank Girl kept mum about her idea.
The pro’s of offending in Bilhorod, and especially in Bryansk, was that Russia was woefully unprepared for an offensive there. Russia just do not have the manpower to defend everything at the same time, so they had elected to leave those areas pretty much undefended in the hope that they could move enough forces there to stop the Ukrainian offensive, and then turn it backwards over time.
Ukraine on the other hand had some 10K forces on the border to Bryansk, and ready reserves. And in Bilhorod there are more substantial units, that are busy with fighting Russians already North of Kharkiv.
With the limited manpower surplus that Ukraine had on hand it would rapidly have become untenable for Ukraine in Bryansk, and in Bilhorod Russia has the logistics advantage. In other words, Ukraine would have gained little long-term, and at great risk. And then we have the not so small fact that Russia was expecting such a thing already.
What none of the lesser generals had bothered with doing is to take an actual look at where Russian forces was, and how they are staffed. Tank Girl had done that in aces and spades, she can pretty much smell a Russian weak-point miles away.
And, she had found a big pile of missing Russian units. Still, the lesser generals had a jaw drop moment when she declared that she would perform the offensive against the ostensibly strongest Russian points on the entire Kursk Salient frontline.
At the peak of the Ukrainian former offensive, they held almost 1 200skm of Russia, but as the offensive restarted Ukraine held only 546skm. And with Putin having ordered Kursk retaken by the 20 th of January, Russia was burning hard through their manpower and equipment.
This means that what looked like the strongest points, the ones that Russia was offending from, was actually the weakest points. The units there had staffing issues and were severely understrength, and there were no reserve units left. All of it had been used up in the Russian counter-offensive.
And with 40K soldiers already in location, all she needed to do was to provide just enough fresh troops and new high-tech equipment to be the tip of the wave, and the Russian lines would break. Well, that and massive amounts of firepower.
Also, if you are on the offensive you tend to forgo building new defences as you move forward, and you do not want to have a bunch of minefields in the way of your own advancing units. In this case it meant that the Russian trenches was more of shallow ditches to rest in, and the few minefields was fresh and well known by both sides.
In other words, after 3 months of counter-offensive Russia had become overconfident and overextended. So, when Olga started her offensive she smashed through the Russian lines with ease, and the Russians ran faster than they ever have in their entire lives.
To a civilian it probably does not matter if you take land in Bryansk or in Kursk, but to a military person it speaks volumes that it is done by punching through an ongoing offensive on the most hotly contested region of the war.
After all, that is not possible to do unless the enemy has some serious problems going on, or you are 3-5 times stronger than the enemy. And we all know that Ukraine does not have an army 3 times stronger than Russia.
Russian Staffing Issues
It is well known that Russia has fewer soldiers in the field than Ukraine does. The margin is roughly 400 000 soldiers in favour of Ukraine. Ukraine’s problem is that they only got what they already have, more or less. Whereas Russia is betting on their ability to continuously feeding their 600 000 Army in Ukraine with fresh recruits.
Ukraine is now struggling to keep their army at 1 million, and it is bound to soon drop below that number. At the same time peak Russian army was 720 000 men. That means that Ukraine until now have been able to keep the number up, while Russia somehow has dropped by 120 000 men in number.
When Kursk started there was 720 000 Russians fielded, and with 120 000 men gone and Russia still offending in Kursk, Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Kreminna and Kupyansk, things became spread out very thinly indeed for Russia.
Remember that Putin is still demanding that the same old objectives should be met, but now with less troops. There was a reason that Russia had to resort to bringing the North Koreans onboard in Kursk.
Russia has not been able to meet their recruitment objectives since August, and things are not looking up. Not a good position to be in when your entire battleplan is relying on a fresh stream of soldiers arriving “just in time” to the meatgrinder.
We should also note that Ukraine has to hold back near to 300 000 soldiers in the Western parts to protect against surprises, Belarus and Transnistria. This means that back in August there was as many Russians as there was Ukrainians in Ukraine East of Dniepro.
But now there are roughly 100 000 more Ukrainians than Russians in that region on the active frontlines. The only reason why Ukraine is not able to push the Russians backwards is mainly lack of enough equipment and munitions for a broader push, and the Russian will to still sacrifice their own soldiers to gain ground.
Why sacrifice soldiers on a costly offensive, when you can just sit and eat borscht while they kill themselves on your defence lines? But, initiative is important in a war long-term, and just sitting eating and killing soldiers is not by definition having the initiative, and you will lose ground over time by doing it.
Objectives
Back in August one of the objectives was to force Russia to abandon one or more of their offensives inside of Ukraine, especially everyone hoped that Russia would abandon either the Pokrovsk, or Toretsk, offensives. Or why not even both?
As we all know this did not happen, Russia unusually meticulously thinned the entire line and moved reserve units to Kursk. And after that they roped in the North Koreans to further bolster their lines.
This meant that Russia could continue their meatgrinders, while at the same time first contain the Ukrainian advance, and later start their own counter-offensive in Kursk. Undoubtedly Russia will attempt the same strategy this time around.
I do not think it will work now; the troop number disparity is just to big. Yes, there are more North Koreans coming, but they are rather anaemic as soldiers go, and there will not be enough of them in time to make any big difference, even with some thinned out Russian units to bolster them.
The reason for that is that Ukraine has another 10K troops with ample equipment and robotics to push the offensive further. This is why I think Russia will have to halt at least one offensive in Ukraine, or even more than one.
And there is yet another problem coming for Russia that I will return to below.
The Ukrainian objectives are limited beyond the obvious pulling in Russian resources into Russia. This is after all not a big offensive. The objective is to take back ground to the North and East of the current salient and expand it back to a more comfortable size.
And with Berdyn and other small towns taken back, Ukraine has more or less achieved that goal already. More than 50 villages and small towns have now been liberated, enough to get the attention of Russia.
The remaining objective was to ramp up the destruction of Russian equipment as much as possible, that has also been achieved with more than 100 artillery systems destroyed in 2 days. We should also note that 10 air defence systems and 300 logistics trucks have been destroyed in the same timeframe.
There have also been quite a few prisoners of war taken on top of the killed and wounded Russians. The war prisoner thing has now become such a large problem that Russia has now agreed to a continuous exchange of prisoners, just to be able to send them back to the front.
Until Russia sorts out their staffing issue Olga will push ahead and gain ground, and we know that it usually takes Russia at least 5 days to respond to things like this, and that it will take about a month until that response is effective.
The question is more if the Ukrainian objective of halting any of the Russian offensives will be met. And if not, how much will the offensive combat power of Russia be lessened in the other offensive areas?
Transnistria
The anarcho-capitalist Stalinist Soviet fake-state of Transnistria is heating up, or more to the point, cooling down substantially.
While EU has been busy building a gas-pipeline into Moldova from Ukraine, and corresponding high-density electricity lines, the same preparations had not been done in Transnistria for obvious Russian reasons.
This meant that as Ukraine turned off the remaining Russian pipeline through Ukraine, Transnistria was left without gas to power its electricity and heating plants with, while Moldova remained bright and toasty.
It started with the heating being shut down, then they started with rolling blackouts consisting of 4 hours on and 4 hours off. Now they have gone to 8 hours off and 4 hours on. The water system is no longer functioning due to having frozen, and the pumps not having electricity.
The so-called president of Transnistria had to resort to using field-kitchens to feed the population, but that will not work in the end due to the massive need for food and heating.
At the same time the President of Moldova have made it clear that all she has to do is flip a switch and power will be restored in the Trans-Dniestrian region of Moldova, all they have to do is kick their President to the curb and elect to become good Moldovans again.
At the same time there is a blue-kerchiefed battalion waiting patiently and smiling at the border- crossings for the time being. They are waiting to heard the Russian “peacekeepers” to suitable relocation centres and take over the world’s largest ammunition depot.
All we need to do now is just to sit down and patiently await that all the Transnistrians cool down sufficiently to see the light and wisdom of returning back to being warm and bright Moldovans inside of EU.
The effects of Transnistria failing will be prodigious for Russia. Just the ammo depot alone is a biggie, it used to contain 20 million shells, the biggest in the Soviet Union. Let us say that half of that remains, and that half of that is usable. We are still talking about 5 million shells for Ukraine in one go.
But the by far biggest advantage is that no longer would Ukraine have to staff the border to Transnistria with 20 000 soldiers, and behind those are ready reserves. And even deeper units can be moved.
Zyrskyi estimates that if Transnistria falls he can send 50K rested and trained soldiers directly to the frontline, further increasing that disparity in numbers, or go on a new offensive with them in the spring.
If he goes for the bolster option that is enough to halt both Pokrovsk and Toretsk dead in their respective tracks, or even slowly turn them backwards. We have indeed reached the part of the war where every single soldier counts, and Russia is bound to still waste theirs like no tomorrow.
Russian Income
Russia has suffered 3 huge blows to their revenue stream of Western provided income. The first was when Gazprom bank was booted out of SWIFT. This made it far harder for Russia to get the money that they make back into Russia, it did though not as reported diminish their income flow substantially, instead it made it much harder for them to use their ill-gotten money.
The next blow was the sanctioning of the Ghost Fleet of Russian oil- and gas-tankers. And with Finland taking harsh punitive measures on the Eagle S ship, and with warships patrolling and “inspecting” the Ghost Fleet Russia has had to abandon it in port, or even on the high seas.
That alone removed 30 percent of all income to Russia, and quite permanently. To get that back Russia would have to build a new pipeline, and neither China, nor India, wanted to partake in any such operations.
And with both Russia and Ukraine refusing to renew the gas-forwarding contract through Ukraine, Russia suffered the next big blow. Out the window vented the income from Slovakia, Hungary, Transnistria and Austria.
Austria had taken some steps and are not so hard hit by it, but Hungary and Slovakia have numbnuts as Presidents, so they are having problems. Both of those countries opted out of the EU Emergency Gas Plan way back when, relying on Russia to continue their deliveries.
Obviously both of those grumble about Ukraine being mean to them, but the fact is that it was Russia that cut the stream on their side first and Ukraine then delivered out the remaining gas to them.
This is another 10 percent blow to Russia. And with the Bosphorus also being closed now for their Ghost Fleet, half of Russia’s total income of hard currency is now gone. And all of it in just a few weeks.
Let us now contemplate upon the natural beauty of Sad Russia Noises. "
"Fourth Battle of Kursk
Perhaps it is the Continuation Offensive of The Third Battle of Kursk, but I leave it to the historians to hash that out by enacting interpretive TikTok-dances in the future. Regardless, let is take a retrospective look at the reasons behind the location of the offensive, the size of the offensive, and the achieved objectives.
But, first let me point out that this is a smaller offensive compared to what we saw in August. That one involved 40K soldiers, against pretty much nothing. The speed of advance back then was slow due to lack of logistics, not due to lack of combat power.
Whereas this one has 20K soldiers, with a similar robotics number. So far only 10K soldiers have come into play, but with a 10K reserve force for a rainy day, and they have achieved quite a bit. To understand how we need to look at the discussions we had prior to the offensive.
Backdrop
There was quite an argument about where to perform the renewed offensive. It was far from certain it would be in Kursk. Some argued for Bryansk, some for Bilhorod, and others for an offensive in the East or even in the South.
Most did though argue for a Northern Winter Offensive to gain more Russian territory to bargain with. Question was mostly if it would be Bryansk or Bilhorod among the happily arguing generals. Throughout all of this Tank Girl kept mum about her idea.
The pro’s of offending in Bilhorod, and especially in Bryansk, was that Russia was woefully unprepared for an offensive there. Russia just do not have the manpower to defend everything at the same time, so they had elected to leave those areas pretty much undefended in the hope that they could move enough forces there to stop the Ukrainian offensive, and then turn it backwards over time.
Ukraine on the other hand had some 10K forces on the border to Bryansk, and ready reserves. And in Bilhorod there are more substantial units, that are busy with fighting Russians already North of Kharkiv.
With the limited manpower surplus that Ukraine had on hand it would rapidly have become untenable for Ukraine in Bryansk, and in Bilhorod Russia has the logistics advantage. In other words, Ukraine would have gained little long-term, and at great risk. And then we have the not so small fact that Russia was expecting such a thing already.
What none of the lesser generals had bothered with doing is to take an actual look at where Russian forces was, and how they are staffed. Tank Girl had done that in aces and spades, she can pretty much smell a Russian weak-point miles away.
And, she had found a big pile of missing Russian units. Still, the lesser generals had a jaw drop moment when she declared that she would perform the offensive against the ostensibly strongest Russian points on the entire Kursk Salient frontline.
At the peak of the Ukrainian former offensive, they held almost 1 200skm of Russia, but as the offensive restarted Ukraine held only 546skm. And with Putin having ordered Kursk retaken by the 20 th of January, Russia was burning hard through their manpower and equipment.
This means that what looked like the strongest points, the ones that Russia was offending from, was actually the weakest points. The units there had staffing issues and were severely understrength, and there were no reserve units left. All of it had been used up in the Russian counter-offensive.
And with 40K soldiers already in location, all she needed to do was to provide just enough fresh troops and new high-tech equipment to be the tip of the wave, and the Russian lines would break. Well, that and massive amounts of firepower.
Also, if you are on the offensive you tend to forgo building new defences as you move forward, and you do not want to have a bunch of minefields in the way of your own advancing units. In this case it meant that the Russian trenches was more of shallow ditches to rest in, and the few minefields was fresh and well known by both sides.
In other words, after 3 months of counter-offensive Russia had become overconfident and overextended. So, when Olga started her offensive she smashed through the Russian lines with ease, and the Russians ran faster than they ever have in their entire lives.
To a civilian it probably does not matter if you take land in Bryansk or in Kursk, but to a military person it speaks volumes that it is done by punching through an ongoing offensive on the most hotly contested region of the war.
After all, that is not possible to do unless the enemy has some serious problems going on, or you are 3-5 times stronger than the enemy. And we all know that Ukraine does not have an army 3 times stronger than Russia.
Russian Staffing Issues
It is well known that Russia has fewer soldiers in the field than Ukraine does. The margin is roughly 400 000 soldiers in favour of Ukraine. Ukraine’s problem is that they only got what they already have, more or less. Whereas Russia is betting on their ability to continuously feeding their 600 000 Army in Ukraine with fresh recruits.
Ukraine is now struggling to keep their army at 1 million, and it is bound to soon drop below that number. At the same time peak Russian army was 720 000 men. That means that Ukraine until now have been able to keep the number up, while Russia somehow has dropped by 120 000 men in number.
When Kursk started there was 720 000 Russians fielded, and with 120 000 men gone and Russia still offending in Kursk, Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Kreminna and Kupyansk, things became spread out very thinly indeed for Russia.
Remember that Putin is still demanding that the same old objectives should be met, but now with less troops. There was a reason that Russia had to resort to bringing the North Koreans onboard in Kursk.
Russia has not been able to meet their recruitment objectives since August, and things are not looking up. Not a good position to be in when your entire battleplan is relying on a fresh stream of soldiers arriving “just in time” to the meatgrinder.
We should also note that Ukraine has to hold back near to 300 000 soldiers in the Western parts to protect against surprises, Belarus and Transnistria. This means that back in August there was as many Russians as there was Ukrainians in Ukraine East of Dniepro.
But now there are roughly 100 000 more Ukrainians than Russians in that region on the active frontlines. The only reason why Ukraine is not able to push the Russians backwards is mainly lack of enough equipment and munitions for a broader push, and the Russian will to still sacrifice their own soldiers to gain ground.
Why sacrifice soldiers on a costly offensive, when you can just sit and eat borscht while they kill themselves on your defence lines? But, initiative is important in a war long-term, and just sitting eating and killing soldiers is not by definition having the initiative, and you will lose ground over time by doing it.
Objectives
Back in August one of the objectives was to force Russia to abandon one or more of their offensives inside of Ukraine, especially everyone hoped that Russia would abandon either the Pokrovsk, or Toretsk, offensives. Or why not even both?
As we all know this did not happen, Russia unusually meticulously thinned the entire line and moved reserve units to Kursk. And after that they roped in the North Koreans to further bolster their lines.
This meant that Russia could continue their meatgrinders, while at the same time first contain the Ukrainian advance, and later start their own counter-offensive in Kursk. Undoubtedly Russia will attempt the same strategy this time around.
I do not think it will work now; the troop number disparity is just to big. Yes, there are more North Koreans coming, but they are rather anaemic as soldiers go, and there will not be enough of them in time to make any big difference, even with some thinned out Russian units to bolster them.
The reason for that is that Ukraine has another 10K troops with ample equipment and robotics to push the offensive further. This is why I think Russia will have to halt at least one offensive in Ukraine, or even more than one.
And there is yet another problem coming for Russia that I will return to below.
The Ukrainian objectives are limited beyond the obvious pulling in Russian resources into Russia. This is after all not a big offensive. The objective is to take back ground to the North and East of the current salient and expand it back to a more comfortable size.
And with Berdyn and other small towns taken back, Ukraine has more or less achieved that goal already. More than 50 villages and small towns have now been liberated, enough to get the attention of Russia.
The remaining objective was to ramp up the destruction of Russian equipment as much as possible, that has also been achieved with more than 100 artillery systems destroyed in 2 days. We should also note that 10 air defence systems and 300 logistics trucks have been destroyed in the same timeframe.
There have also been quite a few prisoners of war taken on top of the killed and wounded Russians. The war prisoner thing has now become such a large problem that Russia has now agreed to a continuous exchange of prisoners, just to be able to send them back to the front.
Until Russia sorts out their staffing issue Olga will push ahead and gain ground, and we know that it usually takes Russia at least 5 days to respond to things like this, and that it will take about a month until that response is effective.
The question is more if the Ukrainian objective of halting any of the Russian offensives will be met. And if not, how much will the offensive combat power of Russia be lessened in the other offensive areas?
Transnistria
The anarcho-capitalist Stalinist Soviet fake-state of Transnistria is heating up, or more to the point, cooling down substantially.
While EU has been busy building a gas-pipeline into Moldova from Ukraine, and corresponding high-density electricity lines, the same preparations had not been done in Transnistria for obvious Russian reasons.
This meant that as Ukraine turned off the remaining Russian pipeline through Ukraine, Transnistria was left without gas to power its electricity and heating plants with, while Moldova remained bright and toasty.
It started with the heating being shut down, then they started with rolling blackouts consisting of 4 hours on and 4 hours off. Now they have gone to 8 hours off and 4 hours on. The water system is no longer functioning due to having frozen, and the pumps not having electricity.
The so-called president of Transnistria had to resort to using field-kitchens to feed the population, but that will not work in the end due to the massive need for food and heating.
At the same time the President of Moldova have made it clear that all she has to do is flip a switch and power will be restored in the Trans-Dniestrian region of Moldova, all they have to do is kick their President to the curb and elect to become good Moldovans again.
At the same time there is a blue-kerchiefed battalion waiting patiently and smiling at the border- crossings for the time being. They are waiting to heard the Russian “peacekeepers” to suitable relocation centres and take over the world’s largest ammunition depot.
All we need to do now is just to sit down and patiently await that all the Transnistrians cool down sufficiently to see the light and wisdom of returning back to being warm and bright Moldovans inside of EU.
The effects of Transnistria failing will be prodigious for Russia. Just the ammo depot alone is a biggie, it used to contain 20 million shells, the biggest in the Soviet Union. Let us say that half of that remains, and that half of that is usable. We are still talking about 5 million shells for Ukraine in one go.
But the by far biggest advantage is that no longer would Ukraine have to staff the border to Transnistria with 20 000 soldiers, and behind those are ready reserves. And even deeper units can be moved.
Zyrskyi estimates that if Transnistria falls he can send 50K rested and trained soldiers directly to the frontline, further increasing that disparity in numbers, or go on a new offensive with them in the spring.
If he goes for the bolster option that is enough to halt both Pokrovsk and Toretsk dead in their respective tracks, or even slowly turn them backwards. We have indeed reached the part of the war where every single soldier counts, and Russia is bound to still waste theirs like no tomorrow.
Russian Income
Russia has suffered 3 huge blows to their revenue stream of Western provided income. The first was when Gazprom bank was booted out of SWIFT. This made it far harder for Russia to get the money that they make back into Russia, it did though not as reported diminish their income flow substantially, instead it made it much harder for them to use their ill-gotten money.
The next blow was the sanctioning of the Ghost Fleet of Russian oil- and gas-tankers. And with Finland taking harsh punitive measures on the Eagle S ship, and with warships patrolling and “inspecting” the Ghost Fleet Russia has had to abandon it in port, or even on the high seas.
That alone removed 30 percent of all income to Russia, and quite permanently. To get that back Russia would have to build a new pipeline, and neither China, nor India, wanted to partake in any such operations.
And with both Russia and Ukraine refusing to renew the gas-forwarding contract through Ukraine, Russia suffered the next big blow. Out the window vented the income from Slovakia, Hungary, Transnistria and Austria.
Austria had taken some steps and are not so hard hit by it, but Hungary and Slovakia have numbnuts as Presidents, so they are having problems. Both of those countries opted out of the EU Emergency Gas Plan way back when, relying on Russia to continue their deliveries.
Obviously both of those grumble about Ukraine being mean to them, but the fact is that it was Russia that cut the stream on their side first and Ukraine then delivered out the remaining gas to them.
This is another 10 percent blow to Russia. And with the Bosphorus also being closed now for their Ghost Fleet, half of Russia’s total income of hard currency is now gone. And all of it in just a few weeks.
Let us now contemplate upon the natural beauty of Sad Russia Noises. "
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Literally was just shaking my head reading this guy again who appears to have regained his lofty US think tank throne again after having it torn from under him in February 22
From a country that if it had only produced Sullivan we would all be doubting everything about its strategic thinking there are far far too many Kofmans.
Please check out this very well remunerated individuals “informed” opinion in light of your mates last note. Is it any wonder mainstream press are so very far behind the reality of what’s occurring on the ground if this is the quality of the go to experts
The only defence of them I can think of is called the Budanov defence
bsky.app
From a country that if it had only produced Sullivan we would all be doubting everything about its strategic thinking there are far far too many Kofmans.
Please check out this very well remunerated individuals “informed” opinion in light of your mates last note. Is it any wonder mainstream press are so very far behind the reality of what’s occurring on the ground if this is the quality of the go to experts
The only defence of them I can think of is called the Budanov defence
Michael Kofman (@michaelkofman.bsky.social)
So far it appears the UA operation in Kursk was quite limited in its aims and scale, intended to gain better positions in the pocket. There was a Russian attack conducted at the same time, which was similarly limited in scope. I won't speak to how they reconciled.
bsky.app
Literally was just shaking my head reading this guy again who appears to have regained his lofty US think tank throne again after having it torn from under him in February 22
From a country that if it had only produced Sullivan we would all be doubting everything about its strategic thinking there are far far too many Kofmans.
Please check out this very well remunerated individuals “informed” opinion in light of your mates last note. Is it any wonder mainstream press are so very far behind the reality of what’s occurring on the ground if this is the quality of the go to experts
The only defence of them I can think of is called the Budanov defence
Michael Kofman (@michaelkofman.bsky.social)
So far it appears the UA operation in Kursk was quite limited in its aims and scale, intended to gain better positions in the pocket. There was a Russian attack conducted at the same time, which was similarly limited in scope. I won't speak to how they reconciled.
Oh dear. I suppose that you could say, in his defence, that the information black out has been very well conducted by UAF.
So I just got some understanding of what TG has done. The Russians had been attacking from the NW of the Kurk salient ... using a lot of NK troops. Also from the NE. With the idea of lopping off a big chunk of Ukrainians in the northern bulge. It was these two directions, where Russians have spent countless lives trying to take a few metres each day that Tank Girl broke out ... attacking straight into the forces that were gathering for more assaults. They are no more. The Akhmat, who were stationed beyond on the NW did what they always do. Than ran like **** when things got dangerous. Still some were killed and others taken prisoner. The rest legged it towards Brynsk City.
In other news, Ukraine food exports got back to pre war levels thanks to the shipping corridor. And this helped the economy grow for the first time in 3 years.
In the "sad russian noises " dept ... Brigade officer Colonel Litenko was picked up on comms "You fat feckers, the last of my boys just died! Where are the reinforcements..."
He's luckier than Colonel Tymoshin ... who went boom.
In other news, Ukraine food exports got back to pre war levels thanks to the shipping corridor. And this helped the economy grow for the first time in 3 years.
In the "sad russian noises " dept ... Brigade officer Colonel Litenko was picked up on comms "You fat feckers, the last of my boys just died! Where are the reinforcements..."
He's luckier than Colonel Tymoshin ... who went boom.
Decent_Left
Well-known member
A test for the direction of travel for the incoming Trump admin will be whether these stay or get lifted. Orban is a valued guest at the conservative function in the US each year.
Map to help visualise. Ukraine already has Bol'shoe Soldatskoe and they have already got to Snagost in the west (AFAIK).
Always good to wake up to this kind of morning message
"Good morning, Engels airbase is burning, the Russian front at Kupyansk in Luhansk has crumbled, TG is chugging along in Kursk, and there are oh so Sad Russia Noises."
Oh, and state TV is asking ordinary folk to give up their cars for the military. Seriously.
"Good morning, Engels airbase is burning, the Russian front at Kupyansk in Luhansk has crumbled, TG is chugging along in Kursk, and there are oh so Sad Russia Noises."
Oh, and state TV is asking ordinary folk to give up their cars for the military. Seriously.
Dirtyderekbracken
Well-known member
Be good if UKR can put the Orcs on the back foot in Kupyansk.
BobUpnDown
Well-known member
Engels-2 bomber base fuel supply burns after 32-drone night raid hits Russian territory - Euromaidan Press
Russian authorities reported shooting down 32 drones across eleven regions overnight, yet flames engulfed the strategic Kristall facility 600 kilometers from Ukrainian territory
euromaidanpress.com
Druss_The_Legend
Well-known member
Everyone probably saw Trumps press conference/speech yesterday. He is a dangerous bloke. That speech would fit in the dictatorship speeches for dummies book, very Putin esq.
Putinesque? I can't agree
Putin is an evil, evil manipulative man. But he has a brain.
That orange pig proved, yet again, that he is a complete moron who can barely string two coherent sentences together. He is dangerous, certainly. Dangerously fuc.king moronically stupid.
ChrisChefYork
Active member
As is Musk