The end?

exiledinboro said:
It sounds like Putin has had access to the UK intelligence via Truss’s phone

Although I do wonder if intelligence is the right word when referring to Truss or the Tories 🤔
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Ironic, as the West had access to Putin's phone. Hence they knew chapter and verse what his plans were, what he was saying etc.
 
To those still reading theis stuff. Well done.

"
Before I get into the main news of the evening there are a couple of other small news.

24 hours
In the last 24 hours it has been rather stupendously atrocious for the Russians.
1000 dead, 53 combat vehicles, 13 tanks, 5 airplanes,1 chopper, 56 artillery pieces, and 3 ships have been liquidated.
This is a record.

Donbas
Over at Bakhmut the Russians are back to forcing wave after wave of Mobiks (Russian term for mobilised) and Wagnerised prisoners forward. Not all of them are armed. This is partially the explanation for the 1000 in a day number.
And now the Russians have come up with the idea of doing exactly the same thing at Avdiivka. This took Ukraine a bit unawares, so initially Russia gained a couple of kilometres, but then it was back to wave after wave running into Ukrainian heavy fire.
Also, it did not help that all the Russians did was to push up against a series of lakes and marshes to get stuck behind. But, obviously there is much rejoicing about taking useless ground on the Russian side.
Generally it is a bad idea to force your way to the wrong side of a large body of water.

Kherson
Slowly the Ukrainian panzer python is closing the loop around Kherson City, they are though not in a hurry, they want to secure the Antonivka Bridge first. After that they will actively engage Kherson City by sitting on their bums eating Borstj. In other words, a good old siege.

Vuhledar
Ukrainians have become the masters of two things, one is definitely OpSec, the other is to do rapid and unexpected manouvre warfare.
Heavy mechanised platoons all of a sudden moved in from every which way and reformed as a heavy army group and slamed into the Russian defence line at Vuhledar under massive artillery barrages.
This seems to have crumpled the under-staffed defencive line and a break through seems to have occured almost directly.
This is the shortest route to Mariupol, but we do not think they will go all the way.
Instead we think this is intended to cut the main road and the railroad further reducing the inflow of soldiers, equipment (well, the WWII garbage flow), and what remains of the pitiful Russian logistics chain.
Obviously this would leave everything west of Vuhledar relying on the Kerch Bridge such as that now is.
Not guarding this part was a major oversight by Surovikin and the Russians will pay so dearly from it that I suspect that starvation will be the end result for the Russian army. I just hope that they will not revert to eating longpigs.
I freely here admit that Ukraine did not Tick, Tock, nor Tack. Instead they went Tuck, and it is a mistake that I find both annoying and glorious at the same time. It was a lovely surprise after all, the one coming up with these lovely surprises will be studied at war schools for centuries to come.

Moscow
The FSO is continuing to "exercise in evacuating government people". Reportedly not a single one of the evacuees seem happy about being carted away to their designated places in the Gulags. Kadyrov seems to have gotten the picture, among his "Dons" and general weirdness he seems to have a working brain, so he is quietly reinforcing his borders and moving his tiktokers home to Chechnya.
He does not relish the idea of beefing with Patrushev.
Prigozhin on the other hand does not seem to have been let in on the secret. I suspect he is about to go on a sunny vacation in Vorkuta-137.
Peskov and Soyghurt was spotted being chummy in the Kremlin, so they seem to be consolidating their positions.
Medvedev has gotten himself a long black leather coat that would have fitted in both Matrix and on Hitler, the significance of this is unknown.
Lavrov is unusually quiet, but his department has gone into overdrive on the nutty scale accusing everyone of everything, up to and including the mosquitos.
The Oligarchs have gone to their most remote datchas, this is not the time for them. And the economy is anyway in ruins. Reportedly some of them are outdoing Deccamerone on the decadent party scale.
I would say that right now the entire country is moving forward on momentum alone, the engine is broken and the stearing wheel has fallen off. The ditch is nigh."
 
For anyone interested it might be worth having a look at "TraumaZone", Adam Curtis's new series, on iPlayer. I'm only 3 episodes in myself and while Ukraine is not its main focus a series like this can't explore the effects of Perestroika without looking at the formerly Communist Countries of Eurasia.
 
Fishy stuff

"
Lavrov has returned to the living.

Yesterday evening he called his Ukrainian counterpart, with actual content unknown.

Today he called US Secretery of State Blinken, content partially known.
-He formally requested negotiations with Ukraine led by the US to start.
-He asked that the US would give security guarantees for Russia. Unknown if that was during negotiations, or more far reaching.
-According to the US in a memo to allies Lavrov was frantic. That took Blinken aback, Lavrov has never been frantic, he is normally pompous and very cool (and sprouting fairly bizarre stuff in the last 12 months).
-It was not until the end of the call he asked that "relations return to 2021". Unknown what that entails. It was judged by Blinken as that the Russian starting positions would be the 2021 borders in Ukraine, something that both sides know will not fly.
US judgement is that Russia really want to negotiate now.

Why now?
It seems like Russia finally woke up to the not so small fact that China has snuck a rather ominous looking army up their wazoo, and that Russia in no way shape or form can fight a two front war. Matter of fact is that they are loosing one war against a lesser enemy than China.

As you know I have stated several times that we might bizarily enough end up having to help defend Russia against China.
I think this bonkers thing is moving closer now.
Loosing Crimea and Belgorod to Ukraine would sting and hurt like hell, but could be survived by Russia. After all, the West would never allow Ukraine to go to far into Russia, and Russia jolly well know this.
Losing half of Russia East of Baikal to China? Russia would rather fight to the last Russian alive.
And the West would much prefer to fight China by supporting Russia than fight themselves. After all, that concept worked swimingly against Russia in Ukraine.
For the West Russia is a devil we know all but to well, China is a completely different ballgame of Bonkers.
I digress.

On the ground
The trains have stopped in Russia. All trains moving towards Ukraine diverted in the last 24 hours into train depots.
In Ukraine Russia wasted 80 missiles with very limited effect, 70ish of them was blasted out of the sky.
While launching those Russia started to blow every bridge in Luhansk that is roughly on the 2021 line.
Donetsk attacks slowed down a lot, same in Kherson and Zhaporizhzhia.
Russian airforce in the west high tailed it towards Siberia, and in Belarus the Russian forces started to board trains hauling every piece of equipment with them.
I really think that the Russians noticed that they have buggered themselves unto the brink of self-destruction and are starting to faintly hear the Chinese instruments, and almost fainted.
Next few days might be interesting."

Additional news flash. Two KH 52 helicopters have been blown up IN Moscow. According to my mate, not the work of the west/Ukraine
 
And Turkey say, grain shipments will continue. That's an affront to the RF, right there.

Have the Chinese actually moved any troops? Hopefully not.
 
Hap said:
And Turkey say, grain shipments will continue. That's an affront to the RF, right there.

Have the Chinese actually moved any troops? Hopefully not.
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Yes they have. In small increments, but enough to send a few alarm bells ringing.
 
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Reactions: Hap
I’ve mentioned the Chinese desires for Russia’s Far East on here before, prior to the Ukraine invasion. Watching Russia fail against a western backed power using western tactics and weapons will have given them serious doubts regarding Taiwan and the logistical nightmare of invading a heavily defended island… what other land could be claimed/reclaimed?

If Russia wasn’t a nuclear power then I think this may well have already happened. China has vastly populated areas not far over the border, whereas Russia’s territory is vast, sparsely populated and lightly defended… China could walk into Russia and they could do very little to stop them short of a nuclear exchange.

Mark Galleotti covered the complex China-Russia relationship and intelligence sharing in his last In Moscow’s Shadows podcast. A couple of good lines related to them not being “frenemies” but more “frivals”, and that Moscow had a choice to move closer to a partnership with the west/Europe or become a vassal of China, we can see which one they’re headed towards.
 
Just a snippet. The Russians now have only 600 tanks left with only about 60% of them still mobile (that's from 3,300 back in Feb). They're so short of guns that they are commandeering hunting rifles. Ukrainian forces recently captured some of these from Russian forces on the front line, I kid you not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM_M1910
Meanwhile, because the borders have closed, some of the Campniks trying to escape Russia are doing so by swimming across the border river to Kazahkstan.
 
Good news.

And the grain deal is back on.

Thanks to Turkey reminding RF that they're not in a position to call the shots, I suspect.

Although the RF are saying that Ukraine have promised not to use these shipping movements as a cover to launch attacks on the RF fleet.

The RF have to be seen to have some sort of concession, of course.
 
A small installment.

"So, now that the mobilisation has stopped, and the conscripting of 18-21 years olds can start (120 000 of them) so that they can be sent to die at the front, we are already seeing what is going to happen next.
And as I predicted they are going for the women next.
On Monday school children in Russia was sent home with a note to their "Dear Mothers", yes it really said Dear Mothers.
The mothers are then supposed to answer these questions and sign the paper:
-Do you have previous military training?
-How do you rate your physical abillity from 1 to 10?
-Do you consider yourself patriotic to Russia?
Note, this is even worse than I expected. I thought they would go for childless women, instead they are going for the mothers directly. Why?
Single women would just run away or become Campniks (those who have gone into the woods to hide), it is far harder for mothers to run away or camp in the woods, so it is easier to haul them to the front to die.

Attrition rate
This phrase is the average rate per day that an army is losing soldiers.
Prior to mobilisation this number was bobbing between 300-500 dead and between 900-1500 wounded per day.
Now that the quality of the soldiers have dropped the number has gone up to 600-1000 dead per day and 1800 to 3000 wounded per day.
The number that die under hospital care is unknown, but it is estimated to be at around 25%. This number is not in the death rate.
The death rate is calculated from Russian bodies counted by Ukraine. So, the number is conservative.
But, we know that the numbers are fairly accurate since up until first of October Russia was openly budgeting their death payments. And those tracked earily close to Ukrainian numbers.

As more and more untrained and unequiped Mobiks enter the frontline these numbers will increase correspondingly.
At the same time the Ukrainian mortality rate, and rate of wounded, has not gone up. Those numbers peaked during the massive Russian onslaught in the beginning of their Donbas offensive at 200 dead and 600 wounded per day, down to 100 and 300 from Juli onwards.

Now, ponder that the first 300 to 500 thousand Mobiks got bad weapons (at best) and a little ammo, imagine how bad it will be for the 120 000 youngsters that are being sent straight to the front without training. I doubt they will get anything, they will probably have to go directly into combat wielding a rock while wearing ripoff adidas clothes.

This is no longer a war, it is a self-inflicted massacre on Russians.
Russia no longer have an army, they have a travesty."
 
Hap said:
Good news.

And the grain deal is back on.

Thanks to Turkey reminding RF that they're not in a position to call the shots, I suspect.

Although the RF are saying that Ukraine have promised not to use these shipping movements as a cover to launch attacks on the RF fleet.

The RF have to be seen to have some sort of concession, of course.
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But there have been a lot of 'carelessly discarded cigarettes' causing explosions in Crimea,😉
 
borolad259 said:
A small installment.

"So, now that the mobilisation has stopped, and the conscripting of 18-21 years olds can start (120 000 of them) so that they can be sent to die at the front, we are already seeing what is going to happen next.
And as I predicted they are going for the women next.
On Monday school children in Russia was sent home with a note to their "Dear Mothers", yes it really said Dear Mothers.
The mothers are then supposed to answer these questions and sign the paper:
-Do you have previous military training?
-How do you rate your physical abillity from 1 to 10?
-Do you consider yourself patriotic to Russia?
Note, this is even worse than I expected. I thought they would go for childless women, instead they are going for the mothers directly. Why?
Single women would just run away or become Campniks (those who have gone into the woods to hide), it is far harder for mothers to run away or camp in the woods, so it is easier to haul them to the front to die.

Attrition rate
This phrase is the average rate per day that an army is losing soldiers.
Prior to mobilisation this number was bobbing between 300-500 dead and between 900-1500 wounded per day.
Now that the quality of the soldiers have dropped the number has gone up to 600-1000 dead per day and 1800 to 3000 wounded per day.
The number that die under hospital care is unknown, but it is estimated to be at around 25%. This number is not in the death rate.
The death rate is calculated from Russian bodies counted by Ukraine. So, the number is conservative.
But, we know that the numbers are fairly accurate since up until first of October Russia was openly budgeting their death payments. And those tracked earily close to Ukrainian numbers.

As more and more untrained and unequiped Mobiks enter the frontline these numbers will increase correspondingly.
At the same time the Ukrainian mortality rate, and rate of wounded, has not gone up. Those numbers peaked during the massive Russian onslaught in the beginning of their Donbas offensive at 200 dead and 600 wounded per day, down to 100 and 300 from Juli onwards.

Now, ponder that the first 300 to 500 thousand Mobiks got bad weapons (at best) and a little ammo, imagine how bad it will be for the 120 000 youngsters that are being sent straight to the front without training. I doubt they will get anything, they will probably have to go directly into combat wielding a rock while wearing ripoff adidas clothes.

This is no longer a war, it is a self-inflicted massacre on Russians.
Russia no longer have an army, they have a travesty."
Click to expand...
Striking words at the end there
 
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