Posted on 02/24/2024 5:59:01 AM PST by SpeedyInTexas
This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When a vehicle is captured and then lost in service with its new owners, it is only added as a loss of the original operator to avoid double listings. When the origin of a piece of equipment can't be established, it's not included in the list. The Soviet flag is used when the equipment in question was produced prior to 1991. This list is constantly updated as additional footage becomes available.
(Excerpt) Read more at oryxspioenkop.com ...
My theory on Chinese golf carts in Ukraine. China provides golf carts instead if IFVs because they want to fight to the last RuZZian. As RuZZia is destroyed, China walks into Siberia and the ‘stans’.
“🔥| 🇨🇳Chinese-supplied Desertcross 1000-3 ATV with 🇷🇺Russian infantry were hit by 🇺🇦Ukrainian FPV drones”
https://x.com/GloOouD/status/1824532449671430262
Where would you put them? I guess they could target the suspension bridge, but its supports look particularly massive, compared to the supports of the roadways to and from the suspension bridge part. Is there a particular sweet spot for disassembling such bridges?
“our experience with Russian propaganda indicates that when they accuse others of something, it is because they do it themselves. In this case, it is an indication that the Kremlin is planning an attack on the nuclear power plants:”
Also, it is a way to threaten to attack a NPP, because it looks like the kind of prep they would do for such an attack, even if they are just bluffing. They have been able to deter or delay a lot of Western aid, with such nuclear saber rattling psyops (Cue Medvedev, to make some inflammatory Bad Cop threat).
“China provides golf carts instead if IFVs because they want to fight to the last RuZZian. As RuZZia is destroyed, China walks into Siberia and the ‘stans’.”
What CSTO doing?
OilPrice.com reports:
Kazakhstan Calls for a Russia-Free Defense Bloc in Central Asia
“Kazakh President Toqaev has called for increased defense cooperation among Central Asian countries, potentially forming a regional security architecture.
This proposal has been met with mixed reactions, with some seeing it as a way for Central Asia to assert its independence from Russia, while others remain skeptical of its feasibility.
The move reflects the changing geopolitical landscape in the region, with countries like Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan playing a more active role in promoting regional integration.
Central Asia...
...it won a ringing endorsement from a pro-government media outlet in Azerbaijan, a country that last month participated in rare Russia-free military drills with Central Asian countries in western Kazakhstan...
...”Since the war in Ukraine began, Central Asia has had a chance to reinvent itself in a comfortable geopolitical space,” said Luca Anceschi, a lecturer at the University of Glasgow.
“They are trying to say that they are not on Russia’s side in Ukraine, like Belarus is, but they are not with Ukraine either. They have ties with the West but are not pro-Western,” Anceschi told RFE/RL.
“But as the war goes on, as the discussion around secondary sanctions grows, perhaps the region’s governments see that this space is shrinking somewhat.”
All the more reason then, to emphasize regional integration on Central Asian terms, which is precisely what Toqaev did in an op-ed prefacing the sixth consultative meeting of the presidents of Central Asia in Astana on August 9...
...The main impetus towards closer cooperation in Central Asia has come from Uzbekistan, the region’s most populous country and the only one to share a border with every country in the region.
...(Uzbek President) Shavkat Mirziyoev saw fresh opportunities for trade and diplomatic unity when he came to power in 2016.
In an August 14 article on this topic, former Uzbek Foreign Minister and special presidential aide on foreign policy Abdulaziz Komilov wrote that Uzbekistan “had assumed a special responsibility for the future of Central Asia” by “completely abandoning outdated approaches to establishing relations with neighbors.”...
...the region’s countries have traditionally had stronger economic and political relationships with China and Russia than within the region.
So Toqaev’s op-ed on stronger regional ties, published by the state-run Kazakhstanskaya pravda — Central Asian Renaissance: Towards Sustainable Development And Prosperity — was bound to raise eyebrows.
Because beyond stressing Central Asia’s unique history and economic potential, Toqaev also called for “cooperation in defense and security” and even the “creation of a regional security architecture” that would include a “catalogue of security risks” for Central Asia.
These were naturally the parts of the op-ed noticed by commentators in Russia, whose war in Ukraine was referred to obliquely by the author in terms of instability on the region’s perimeter.
For pro-Kremlin nationalist television and radio personality Sergei Mardan, Toqaev’s words indicated that Kazakhstan had lost faith in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-dominated military bloc that includes the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan...
...A “defense union” was not the exact phrase used by Toqaev, who made sure to mention in his article he backed the participation of Central Asian states in a range of groupings, including the CSTO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
But the idea of a Central Asian NATO was seized upon in other Russian commentaries about the Kazakh president’s article.
In the August 12 column titled Rats And Ships: “Central Asian Defense Union” Smells Of The British Pound And Delusion, published in the Asia-focused Vostochniy ekspress, author Fedor Kirsanov insisted that the apparent proposal for a new regional bloc likely originated with the British intelligence agency MI6.
“The union idea, predictably, was suggested by Toqaev, who has recently donned the toga of a political thinker,” Kirsanov wrote...
...Then there was the Russian-focused YouTube channel Khod Mysley (more than 450,000 subscribers), whose author questioned whether Toqaev was following Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, who “under the leadership of the Anglo-Saxons, is slowly but surely turning Armenia from a friend of Russia into an enemy.”...
...But if Toqaev’s musings went down badly in Russia, they were praised in Baku by the privately owned Haqqin media outlet — which is often viewed as having close ties to hawks in the Azerbaijani regime...
...Toqaev’s concerns were “fully logical,” argued Novruzova, given Russia’s tendency toward militarism and the uncertainty of when and how the Ukraine war will end.
“All developments indicate that for the Kremlin elites, Russia’s peaceful development and the restoration of its economy are of no interest at all,” he said. “In other words, the Kremlin will not get on a peaceful track under the current regime — the machine of state aggression has been put in drive,” Novruzova wrote.
The view from Baku is even more interesting in light of both the Birlestik-2024 military drills that involved Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in western Kazakhstan last month and the small-scale naval exercises involving Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan in Baku’s section of the Caspian Sea last year.
Azerbaijan — which shares Turkic heritage with four of the five Central Asian states — has become a source of admiration for some analysts in the region since Turkey-allied Baku reclaimed militarily the contested territory of Nagorno-Karabakh from nominal Russian partner Armenia.
And Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attended the meeting of Central Asian leaders in Astana — the only head of state from outside the region to do so.
Nevertheless, argues Fuad Shahbazov, a Baku-based political analyst, nobody is really seeking out new Eurasian military alliances at this point.
“Azerbaijan believes that deepening ties with Central Asia gives it more room to maneuver,” Shahbazov said, noting that Baku is pursuing a similar drive with other countries against a souring of ties with the West and its traditionally complicated ties with Russia.
But in the long term, the analyst says, Azerbaijan views Central Asia through the prism of trade, specifically the Middle Corridor — a 6,500-kilometer trade route connecting China to Europe through Central Asia and the Caucasus but bypassing Russia — rather than security.
“With Kazakhstan, [Baku’s interest] is more about energy and logistics,” Shahbazov told RFE/RL.”
(China, might feed on a decaying Soviet Empire, but so might Turkey. The Turkic ‘stans must prepare to fend for themselves when a post-Imperial Russia might be curled up internally, licking its wounds, or fighting amongst itself, unable to be a security guarantor anymore.)
Schlumberger is still pumping Russian oil for Putin’s murder rampage.
Kyiv Independent reports:
“The Texas-based oilfield services company SLB is expanding its operations in Russia, filling the vacancy left by Western competitors, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Aug. 15.
SLB, previously known as Schlumberger, is the world’s largest offshore drilling company. It continued to operate in Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, even as other oil giants left the country.
SLB’s Russian subsidiary signed new contracts and posted over 1,000 job postings within the last year, the FT reports.
The nonprofit organization Global Witness obtained documents, seen by the FT, that show SLB in December 2023 entered into a contract with Vnigni, a Russian state-funded institution that conducts geological research for fossil fuel production.
The company has advertised over 1,000 new jobs in Russia since December 2023. Open positions include drivers, chemists, and geologists.
Russian corporate databases also show that SLB registered two new trademarks in July 2024.
SLB announced in July 2023 that it would immediately stop all shipments of products and technology from its facilities into Russia in response to growing sanctions on the Russian oil industry. In their announcement, SLB joined “the international community in condemning and calling for an end to the war in Ukraine.”
Russian customs filings show that while SLB did stop importing supplies from its facilities abroad, it continued to import products and technology from other sources. Of $17.5 million in equipment shipped between August and December 2023, $2.2 million was declared to have originally been manufactured by SLB.
Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) has labeled SLB an “international sponsor of war” for its continued business in Russia.”
“I believe a 4-ship of F-16s firing 8 JASSMs would drop at least 1 span.” (Kerch Bridge)
If we can only drop one span, do the side coming in from Russia, as a sign for them to make use of the exit, while it still stands...
Makes sense - projection like the dems do...
So I guess that makes this a proxy war between NATO and China, but we both want the same thing.
“That makes this a proxy war between NATO and China, but we both want the same thing”
Russia is so screwed…
That is a good question. How deep is water under the ship crossing span portion? Would dropping the ship opening span impede ships passing through that area?
Dropping the ship crossing bridge span would be a far greater repair project than any of the other spans.
Considering the weight and stress on that portion I would imagine gravity would help in its destruction
From post#6944 of AdmSmith’s thread:
“Russian gas giant Gazprom suffered net losses from January to June 2024 almost double those in the same period last year.
Losses in the first half of 2024 totalled 480.64 billion rubles ($5.5 billion), while those in the first half of 2023 totalled 255 billion rubles ($2.95 billion), according to Gazprom financial statements,”.
(Loss of European market share and a bigger tax take to fund the war are probably the main contributors to these losses - but breakdown in their production capacity is likely also accumulating at some varying rate.)
Gazprom had a net loss in 2023. But they are taxed on revenue, not profit. To pay taxes, they had to sell some of their assets, mostly real estate.
Typical Pro-Putin comment posted over hundreds of times since 2022, word for word.
Gazprom has 500,000 employees.
When will they layoff 200,000?
Less revenue, means less employees.
Ukraine appeals to UN, Red Cross over alleged video of beheaded Ukrainian soldier
The video surfaced on social media earlier this week. It shows a man in Russian military fatigues with a covered face with what appears to be a severed head put upon a spike in the background. The authenticity of the video could not be immediately verified.
Ukrainska Pravda’s undisclosed source said that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office is still investigating the footage. The outlet also claimed it had obtained an intercepted audio of a Russian soldier ordering the decapitation of four dead Ukrainian soldiers. Ukrainska Pravda did not publish the recording.
“(Russia) uses such videos to intimidate and demoralize Ukrainians. However, this only strengthens our desire to bring everyone who commits such inhuman atrocities to justice!” Lubinets said on his Telegram channel. The ombudsman called it “another violation of international humanitarian law by Russia.”
The perpetrators were soldiers of Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, which has suffered heavy losses in Ukraine and had to restore its ranks with mobilized conscripts, DeepState said.
New Caliphate forming in a unexpected region.
“During Ukraine’s Incursion, Russian Conscripts Recount Surrendering in Droves”
“More than 300 have been processed in a prison in Ukraine, providing the country with a much-needed “exchange fund” for future swaps of prisoners of war.
They were lanky and fresh-faced, and the battle they lost had been their first.
Packed into Ukrainian prison cells, dozens of captured Russian conscripts lay on cots or sat on wooden benches, wearing flip-flops and, in one instance, watching cartoons on a television provided by the warden.
In interviews, they recalled abandoning their positions or surrendering as they found themselves facing well-equipped, battle-hardened Ukrainian forces streaming across their border.
“We ran into a birch grove and hid,” said Pvt. Vasily, whose small border fort was overrun on Aug. 6 — at the outset of a Ukrainian incursion into Russia that was the first significant foreign attack on the country since World War II. The New York Times is identifying the prisoners by only their first names and ranks for their safety if they are returned to Russia in a prisoner exchange.
The fighting marked a significant shift in the war, with Ukrainian armored columns rumbling into Russia two and a half years after Russia had launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/17/world/europe/ukraines-incursion-russian-conscripts.html
Kremlin snuff box, 08/17/24
https://t.me/s/kremlin_secrets
“Kursk will put everything in its place.” Gerasimov made a new statement on mobilization and demobilization
Valery Gerasimov continues to insist that we need to carry out a new serious mobilization and prevent partial demobilization. We wrote that the head of the General Staff convinced Vladimir Putin of this. Now he is actively talking about this topic with military personnel from his circle.
“Kursk and what is happening in the Kursk region will put everything in its place. It was impossible to delay the mobilization ( note that Gerasimov has been calling for a serious wave of mobilization for a long time - ed. ), it was impossible to delay it any further. You can’t play demobilization when the enemy has gone so far,” a general close to him quoted Gerasimov as saying.
The Chief of the General Staff will soon have several conversations on this topic - with the President, as well as with Andrei Belousov and a number of other representatives of our elites. He wants to get as many allies as possible in this matter before September, when Vladimir Vladimirovich will make decisions about mobilization and demobilization ( we wrote about this ).
—
Kremlin snuff box, 08/17/24
https://t.me/s/kremlin_secrets
“There is no panic, but there are other feelings.” What they say at the General Staff after the Kursk breakthrough of the Ukrainian Armed Forces
If the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on August 6 was a serious surprise for many, then from the height of the past days everything looks different. The day before, we talked with our friends and comrades at the General Staff to find out what the general mood is now in the army.
One of our interlocutors admitted that mistakes were made at first. They were caused, among other things, by panic among the personnel [ https://t.me/kremlin_secrets/4499 ].
“We don’t know how they managed to transfer so much equipment and troops to the border. Alas, we were not ready. The enemy really found a weak point and used it 100%, to be honest,” said an interlocutor at the General Staff.
A source close to Valery Gerasimov emphasized that the mistakes made in the first days of the invasion were caused by the scale of the front. “There is a huge front line, many reserves involved. And in general, several branches of the military are mixed, which prevented effective command and control of the troops,” our interlocutor explained.
According to a high-ranking interlocutor in the Aerospace Forces, in the case of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kursk region, serious Western technologies were involved, which interfered with the accomplishment of aviation tasks [ https://t.me/kremlin_secrets/4490]. Part of the aircraft fleet was lost during the fighting. The exact number has not been disclosed, but the losses, alas, are serious.
A high-ranking interlocutor among the generals emphasized that by the end of the second week of the onset of panic there was no feeling, however, many hasty actions were provoked by the actions of Ukrainian special forces. “Their saboteurs scour the entire region, and local commanders’ reflexes sometimes worked in the wrong direction. That is, panic out of the blue. This is, in principle, what special operations forces exist for. We work in a similar way.
“Now the situation has calmed down, but there are problems with managing reserves and we do not fully understand what is happening in the Glushkovsky district, how many people there are cut off from us logistically,” the general noted.
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