Very quiet on this thread this week?
CNN were today reporting upcoming changes at top of Ukraine military…
Yes, I have had lots of stuff but not posted it here.
Re- Zaluzhny, yes, he and Zelenskyy have their spats, but the real reaon for the change, which is coming, is rotation.
A few brief words on my mate's take .... there's much more, but too sensitive to share.
"Zaluzhnyy
In about a month his contract as Chief of the Ukrainian Defence Forces ends.
It is debatable if that will be renewed.
And let me here be perfectly clear, it is quite common to change the head general during large wars, the strain is immense, and you tend to want fresh perspectives over time.
Every general knows that with time they will be moved to a new position.
I agree on the rotation, it is time to do it, but it is always about how you do something, not what you do.
I do not agree with the general populations view that Zaluzhnyy must stay at all cost on the post.
Nor does he in fact.
Furthermore, I would say that Zyrskyi is tired and have grown "stale" where he is and that the Luhansk front need a shake up.
We all grow stale after a while, especially in high pressure environments.
Same goes for Zaluzhnyy.
I would go even further and say that most of the front would do well with switcharoo's among the commanders.
Fresh eyes see new opportunities and all that."
He was also saying yesterday that there has been a step change in the war this week, with the arrival of GLSDBs (which have now had their "bugs" sorted).
"Boomus Maximus
It all began in Kherson as 4 Himars hove into view, the launcher cassettes erected with two missiles in each cassette, and 8 rockets fired off within just seconds of each other.
At the same time 4 HAARM missiles launched from airplanes East of Crimea.
As two GLSDBs each hit Henichesk, Razdolne and Chornomorsk 3 different radar complexes seized existing.
In Yevpatoria two more GLSDBs hit a radar station at the Balbek airfied, and the 4 HAARMS took out two more radars, one in Yevpatoria and the other in Sevastopol.
One heck of an opener, but here comes the big guns.
The follow up was SCALP EGs taking out targets in Balbek Airfield , Dzjankoi, Saki Airfield, Yevpatoria, Sevastopol, Simferopol and Feodosia.
At this point two BU-64 AASM 1-ton Seismic Glide-bombs hit the underground Black Sea Fleet Command Bunker just north of Sevastopol.
At this point one of the escorting fighters noticed a target 90 nautical miles below, locked on and fired an RBS-15 Gungnir toasting the R-334 Tarantuul-3 Ivanovetsk missile corvette, which was already under attack from marine drones (somewhat overkill).
It is now on a Special Submarine Operation at the bottom of the Black Sea.
Russia is claiming that they shot down 20 missiles and that only 3 airplanes was destroyed.
In the real world all targets was destroyed.
It was the first time during the war that Ukraine could perform a combined strike of ground based missiles (technically the GLSDB is not a missile, but seriously who cares), air launched cruise missiles, and seismic bombs.
It speaks volumes what Ukraine can do when they get real weapons, and weapons systems.
It was never about lack of skill, it was always about missing kit to perform the job properly.
So, the bunker.
We do not know if someone truly special was in it, but after the HQ in Sevastopol and the spare facility in Fruktove was destroyed, the only fully operational command center left was the old Soviet monster-bunker.
It was designed to be able to take a nuclear aerial detonation in the sixties, so it is a hard-target.
But, the energy transfer from an aerial detonation, even nuclear, is not the same as from a bomb that slams down 30 to 50 meters into bedrock and then detonates.
We will probably not know how effective the bombs truly was until after the war, but the level of confusion seems to indicate that there was at least some damage done there.
But, with a bit of luck significant parts was caved in for good.
As the telemetry came in, we had a bit of a moment all of us.
Russia
As a cold and dark morning dawned in Moscow, the citizens took great rejoice and comfort in the bright lights of the Kremlin, after all Papa Putin was warm and had lights they thought as they muddled to work in a cold and dark office.
They particularly took joy in the electrical station that had exploded during the night, cutting incoming electricity coming into the city from afar into Moscow.
"That will hurt NATO" they cheered to themselves while queuing for a a cold cup of tea without the egg sandwich.
In St Petersburg the residents jubilatingly fell down on their knees and sang hymns of praise to Shoigu and the Russian Air Defence as their final refinery burst into joyful fire to celebrate their dark and abysmal day.
In Kremlin they looked at what they had wrought, and felt pride over their accomplishments, and accepted the joy of the population over them being warm, lighted, and toasty footed.
All is well in Russia, in a week or so the internet will be restored, and the banks will open up for business, that is what the government promised, and as all Russians know, trust in the government, they truly work in mysterious ways to take care of Ivan and Ivanna.
And, if all is well, sometime towards the summer they will be able to call Uncle Vova in Novosibirsk again, Putin himself promised that.
All is well in Russia."
Some thoughts about the Russian politics
"Russia's political pain is completely different and far more widespread and varied.
At least 5 different protest movements from 5 different angles.
Economic political pain.
A bunch of various resistance movements blowing **** up gloriously across all of Russia.
A hungry and cold population.
And to top that they are having an internal power struggle in Kremlin that make the MAGAs in the House of Representatives look like kittens.
Previously they have mainly been jockeying for positions, but now there are true battles fought for the power.
Originally there was 3 distinct sides.
The pro-peace doves.
The war-hawks.
And the Putinists that wanted status quo, or a new Putin type.
The last bunch is gone, we know that since none of their Big Names is running in the race.
Oddly enough we only have "Putin" as a war-hawk in the race, the real one or not.
Instead we have a highly confrontative Nadezhdin representing the "Change and Peace" grouping within Kremlin.
What I find interesting is who is in which group, because the rift goes through groups the usually stick together in their groups.
The Siloviki are clearly split between Naryshkin's peace-doves and Patrushev's war-hawks.
Soyghurt seem to have taken the "I am just bureaucrat and follow the politicians" approach and seem neutral, and with Gerasimov in the looney bin again the army is leaning no way whatsoever.
Same goes for the circle around Putin with Peskov, Zakharova, Lavrov, etcetera.
Either Peskov or Zakharova seems to continue the war-hawking, Lavrov seems to take a neutral stance, and with the entire Finance Department being doves.
There's definitely a dispute between Peskov and Zakharova since the propaganda now is split too into two groupings.
While Simonyan, Skabaeva, Popov and Mardan are taking a destinctly neutral tone in regards of all the candidates including Nadezhdin, Solovyov have gone off on a separate track calling Nadezhdin a traitor and spewing oodles of vitriol.
Skabaeva and Popov even went so far to put up graphics with Putin and Nadezhdin sharing equal sized rectangles, with all the others in a row below with far smaller rectangles for their portraits.
One should obviously not take the election seriously as a democratic tool.
But, there are interesting things to read out from it still.
And, we should remember that IF Nadezhdin is allowed through into the third stage, he is an official Kremlin candidate for the peace-doves.
Somehow I am getting the very weird feeling that Naryshkin and Patrushev has sat down and hashed out that instead of going into coups, or a civil war, they will hash it out via a giant arsed public poll about the war.
And that regardless of who wins, the real figures will form the basis for the new political direction.
This is just me speculating wildly mind you."