Nice to know you are back to gloat over death and destruction .
Offline for past 1.5 weeks due to a family emergency.
50,000 dead not counting the fake people’s republics.
Add in another 20,000 for them, and nearly 70,000 dead RuZZian Boys.
3:1 WIA:KIA means 210,000 WIA.
280,000 total RuZZian casualties
“Nearly 50,000 Russians killed in war in Ukraine - report
With a reportedly 95% probability, between 40,000 and 55,000 Russians have been killed in the Ukraine war, according to oppositional Russian media.”
“They added the caveat, however, that their estimate did not consider military casualties of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic.”
https://www.jpost.com/international/internationalrussia-ukraine-war/article-749542
Nice to know you are back to gloat over death and destruction .
I was afraid of that, I really wanted to make some humorous wisecracks about your absence but as the days went by there was concern that something serious might be happening at your end.
Reposted.
Ukraine: military situation update - July 16, 2023
••Denotes Transcribed Dialogue. Extras are just that - from other sites, or my comments marked (Edit: .... ) or { } or [ ].
https://www.youtube.com/@RFU
[ Ukrainians Destroy a Russian Rocket Base. More Officers Liquidated | Visible 50km away ]
••Day 508: Jul 16
Today Ukrainians conducted a series of massive strikes, combining aerial and marine kamikaze drones and Storm Shadow missiles.
The most powerful explosion happened in the Luhansk region.
Today in the morning, residents of Luhansk reported hearing multiple explosions.
Many people reported that the explosions were so powerful that the impulse resembled an earthquake.
A former commander of the LPR forces, colonel Marochko, claimed that Ukrainians conducted a strike on Luhansk City using Western cluster munitions.
However, first of all, it turned out that the explosion happened in the small village of Yuvileine, it’s just that the huge plumes of smoke could be seen tens of kilometers away.
And secondly, even though the Ukrainian Defense Ministry confirmed that Ukrainians have already received Western cluster munitions, judging by the explosion, it is unlikely that Ukrainians used them.
It is more likely that in response to such events, Russians are using information operations to set the local and general population against Ukraine and its allies by claiming that they used devastating weapons to target civilians.
The real target of the strike turned out to be a coal mine in the village of Yuvileine, and many analysts are saying that it was targeted by Storm Shadow missiles.
Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainians destroyed a huge warehouse with Russian rockets.
The coal mine was a perfect location for storing rockets because it is not located on the surface and because it is located right next to the railways, which allows for easy transportation.
Unfortunately for Russians, these transportation routes were closely monitored.
The second target of the Storm Shadow missile strike became Mariupol.
Local residents reported hearing multiple explosions.
Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor Petro Andrushchenko added that Russian air defense got triggered not only in Mariupol itself, but also near Nikolske and Mangush, which are located around 15 km northwest of Mariupol.
The third target of the Storm Shadow missile strike became Berdyansk.
Local residents reported hearing explosions in the southeastern part of the town and north of the town.
Both Berdyansk and Mariupol are some of the most important Russian logistical hubs, with a lot of warehouses and industrial areas that are constantly being used for stationing troops and storing ammunition and equipment.
But the most comprehensive strike happened in Crimea.
Russian sources reported that there were several waves of attacks.
The first wave happened at 1 am. In order to complicate interception, Ukrainian aerial drones targeted various objects at the same time: the airfield, the oil depot, and the Black Sea Fleet.
The second wave happened at 5 am, and it was even more diverse because apart from launching 9 aerial drones, Ukrainians also launched 2 marine drones.
Russian sources reported that interception proved to be very challenging, and they had to engage all of their resources to prevent dire implications.
Russians tried to use regular air defense, which did not work efficiently against such targets.
That is why they used stationary as well as mobile Electronic Warfare Systems and multiple units with small arms.
Marine drones are even more challenging targets due to their mobility. The most effective weapon against them was a machine gun.
This time Russians got lucky because, even according to the Russians sources, the drones got shot down in the last seconds, less than 100 meters away from the Black Sea Fleet.
In the meantime, Russian forces lost another important officer.
Today Ukrainian officer confirmed that Ukrainian forces liquidated the commander of the Russian 96th Reconnaissance Brigade, colonel Maksim Kharlamov.
Ukrainian Intelligence reported that this brigade was created in 2015, specifically in preparation for the invasion of Ukraine, and the activities of exactly this brigade inflicted a lot of damage to the Ukrainian forces.
That is why this commander was considered to be in the top 10 of the most important targets.
Maksim Kharlamov was reportedly eliminated in a Storm Shadow strike that happed previously.
Some of the strikes do not receive a lot of publicity because they target some bunkers that serve as headquarters, so there is no big explosion that catches people’s eyes.
But, just because the result is not known immediately doesn’t mean that the strike was made in vain.
Today we saw a lot of similar strikes in the south because they were not accompanied with pictures of huge and visible explosions.
That indicates Ukrainians were highly likely targeting not ammunition depots, but headquarters and command posts, trying to effectively behead the Russian army and undermine Russian defense by causing disorganization in the rear.
••Dibrova-Kreminna
Russians had some success here and moved up to the UA mine fields and stopped. Now the tried advance, but without success - many vehicles spoke Kaboom.
==
New tactic - the UA tries to identify every threat, including individual soldiers and eliminate them with artillery, before sending in infantry.
==
According to the WSJ, Ukraine only got 15% of the required tools needed to de-mine before the offensive began, which has led to getting bogged down, due to the extensive Russian mine fields. [ More US-NATO foot dragging, costing needless lives. ]
==
The President of the USA approved the training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets in European countries - the adviser to the US President on national security.
I had to tell about the issue in my yesterday’s video and today he approved it. It will start in one or two weeks.
==
The Ministry of Defense is an important state body, an important structure. But if it is privatized by a group of individuals, this does not mean that we should participate in this crime - Prigozhin.
==
Russia ramps up production of the Israeli designed Lancelot drone, which is hard to see and used to target Western tanks.
==
VDV in Bakhmut area recorded warning message for the Russian Military Command: touch our general and we will go to Moscow.
==
It is reported that the Russian Major General Ivan Popov, recently removed from his post as commander of the 58th Army, will be transferred to a command post in Syria.
With the start of full-scale hostilities in Ukraine, the Russian group in Syria became a some sort of prison for both some failed commanders and inconvenient for higher Russian authorities.
••The grain deal is terminated - Dmitry Peskov
Updated. “Putin’s talking mustache” added that Russia would immediately return to the grain deal as soon as the agreements concerning it were implemented.
Updated. Russia today officially notified Turkey and Ukraine, the UN secretariat of its objection to the extension of the grain deal, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said.
The thing is that doesn’t change anything. Russia is unable to control the ship movement and Turkey with provide security of the ships anyway.
—
The grain deal “has gone down in history,” Erdogan said
At the same time, Ankara emphasizes that they intend to discuss this issue during Putin’s visit to Turkey. China also said that the grain deal should continue.
==
The Russian Su-25 attack aircraft fell into the water not far from the coast in Yeysk.
Eyewitnesses filmed a splash on the water and the moment the pilot ejected.
As reported pilots didn’t make it to the soil and decided to join the Moskva ship crew.
“Offline for past 1.5 weeks”
We celebrate your return with a festive strike on the Kerch Bridge - reserved for special occasions.
I heard an American commentator say that there was a period in which the ukes were flying planes in rus heartland and doing a little invading up near belgorad. That was followed by a period in which the ukes were doing their southern offensive—but all the attacks looked like they were groping around. The ukes didn’t seem to know where the rus were. Then a couple weeks ago the ukes started precision bombing russian positions in the south. they cut back their attacks. the thinking was that they were interested in attriting the rus.
What an american youtuber said was the reason for this behavior was that the US military did not like that the Ukes had violated their agreement with the US not to use american weapons on russian lands. So the US pulled intelligence. The ukes were mostly flying blind for a couple weeks and taking heavy casualties. Then there was some kind of reconciliation that restored western intelligence. And we started seeing a lot of precision targeting in southern ukraine but no hits on Rus land.
imho there is a limited amount of time left before the rains return and a limited amount of time for the ukes to get battle field success.
one simple strategy—if the ukes had chinooks would be lodge the chinooks in poland and then on an evening fly them to the north shore of the old dneiper lake. Maybe 10 chinooks. Each chinook can carry up to 55 men or ten tons of material. So 10 chinooks with a flight time of 10 minutes could carry 550 men from one side of the old dneiper lake to the other. All the uke troops would be also be assembled from disparate places so russian spy sattelites could not see the ukes concentrating. As well all the equipment and ammunition and fuel would be driven in to the jump off point on an evening from all over ukraine —so again the rus spy sattelites could not see any concentrations of supplies. Say it takes 1 hour for each chinook to make the complete round trip. (To do this correctly would take a lot of uke training.) So eight hours of darkness would get the ukes 4*550=2200 men plus 4*10=40 tons of equipment fuel and ammo.
That small uke army could then drive up the south shore of the old lake and take the rus lines from the rear as uke attacked the rus lines from the front.
That would open up a corridor to the south from which the ukes could fan out behind the rus fortifications.
Nice idea. but the ukes would need a lot of air cover to make the plan work. —but just in the narrow area around the crossing—something equivalent to what they currently have around Kiev. further it doesn’t have to be chinooks. Here’s a complete list of heavy lift helicopters.
https://www.fairlifts.com/helicopters/the-top-10-heavy-lift-helicopters-for-2023/#:~:text=The%20Mil%20Mi%2D26%20has,in%20terms%20of%20lifting%20capacity.
While you have been gone, Ukrainian forces continued to grind forward slowly.
It seems that the Artillery counter-battery battle is going quite badly for the Russians. One Russian General on the Zaporizhzhia front (MG Ivan Popov) fell on his sword to raise the issue to the Ministry of Defense, and got relieved within a day (since reassigned to the boondocks in Syria). It many be more than a tactic - Ukraine may be deliberately focusing on attritting Russian Artillery systems. Close Air Support is forced to try to fill the huge capability gap, but it is a temporary bandage, as they take losses trying.
Ukraine seems to be making less constrained use of their Artillery tactically, conserving their assault forces, as they continue pretty aggressive storming and clearing of trench lines.
Big news is that the USA is now proving cluster munitions (155mm DPICM Artillery shells, and likely GMLRS rockets for HIMARS). We have millions of those DPICM rounds, and hundreds of thousands of those non-unitary GMLRS rockets, loaded with sub-munitions. That is potentially enough firepower to get through this year and next at these rates of combat operations, just on their own, while Western Artillery shell production increases. Not only is it more, it is more effective.
Ukrainian forces advanced on the Southern flank of Bakhmut to the settlement of Klishevka, where they captured commanding high ground.
Russian forces and Commanders seem to still be in turmoil with senior leadership, and the status of Wagner is still in the air somewhat. Wagner is reported to have turned 2,000 very heavy weapon systems back over to MoD, but they are trying to keep their overseas rackets running, and Prigozhin remains free and rich, able to travel to St. Petersburg and Moscow.