Could be.
Posted on 12/09/2022 7:41:43 AM PST by SpeedyInTexas
@WarMonitor3 23h
“Russian VDV paratroopers and elements of Wagner have been deployed to Svatove area recently along with thousands of mobilised soldiers.”
I saw another report of 200 T-90 main battle tanks being positioned around Svatove.
Looks like an offensive force massing there in the North.
@visegrad24
“Massive explosions in Moscow this morning. It’s a headline we will see more of.”
Video here: https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1601151599946391553?cxt=HHwWgoDTpbO5t7gsAAAA
80,000 rounds of ammunition for howitzers
—
Or about 2.5 day supply.
In the video, it looks like the drone had crashed.
There is a controller command to shut the motors off in-flight.
My guess is that the EDM4S C-UAS gun can overpower the controller signal and tell the drone to turn it's motors off. Easy-peasy.
The Russians are attacking at Bakhmut because that is where there their supply lines are shortest,
—
The purpose of attacking and attacking and re-attacking Bakhmut is to kill as much high value human material (UA troops) as possible, while giving up only low value human material taken from Russian prisons - the purpose is not to take the small city - taking it is merely a bonus. So stated by Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner Group.
I thought that the Ukrainians fired around 3-5,000 155mm rounds per day? 80,000 should last a few weeks, and hopefully the Europeans will chip in some more to make it a month’s worth.
From the video, it looks like the last hits came in from the left at low angle, hitting something that made secondaries. Long range UA drones? People of Moscow are getting a taste of their leader’s medicine - wonder how many wealth Moscow Orcs perished.
Was 10,000-15,000 per day with Orcs firing 35-40,000
“Ukrainian side was using about 12,000 shells, plus minus between 10,000 and 15,000 shells of 155 mm per day during the most intense fighting in the summer, and Russia was using about like 35-40,000 shells per day during the most intense shelling.”
WiU 12/08/2022
@ChuckPfarrer Dec 8
BELGIUM CALLS OUT PUTIN: At the International Court of Justice, Belgium has filed a declaration of intervention under Article 63. It has invoked these statutes in the case concerning allegations of genocide by Russia against the nation and people of Ukraine.
By the way, WiU will be reporting that China just bought the entire output of all Gulf nations’ crude or a significant part there of.
Ouch. Russia can still bombard and launch missile strikes. Their ability to take and hold ground is poor since winter is not a one way street like many want to believe. There is a good chance Russia will capture Bakhmut. They will pay far too high a price that Ukraine is willing and able to make them pay. Ukraine can afford to lose some ground, letting winter kill off a good sized chunk of the Russian army in the process.
What I can't understand is why spend so much effort on Bakhmut, when Russia has failed to take it for months. Taking Bakhmut leads to several hundred square miles of defensible terrain, not a easy march to anywhere more important. Shifting to other politically important objectives would make more sense.
Modi and Erodgan are really sticking it to Russia. Turkey is protecting grain shipments and blocking Russian tankers to comply with the oil price cap. India just has to buy Russian oil at the price cap. Everyone except Russia wins.
To me, there appears to be 3 distinct explosions in a long building that is next to the mall.
The fire in the mall is massive, like the Russians don't believe in fire suppression sprinklers.
I wonder how long it will be before Putin blames Ukraine.
Some were saying last night that there were propane tanks sold at that store. But were the explosions consistent with that?
“”Moreover, as this thing is nowhere near its conclusion, no one can predict the outcome. No one.””
As the many months pass it is getting harder to remember how anyone and everyone could and did predict the outcome, the only guesswork was, would it be days, or weeks, before Russia crushed and ruled over Ukraine?
Here's a video of a large propane tank on fire.
Ukraine: military situation update with maps, Dec 8, 2022
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)
War in Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP2QApi8G2TKc8NZmeDWSUg/videos
Artillery (key to success in this war), Fuller explanation of Orc military structure, Other Bonus articles - see previous postings in “Attack on Europe” (FR title search).
(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)
••Denotes Transcribed Dialogue. The entirety of the analysis is from a Ukrainian guy named War in Ukraine’s daily video - I only transcribe it. Extras are just that - from other sites, or my comments marked (Edit: .... )
-—> Current to date and past MAPS: <——
https://militaryland.net/
———————————————————————————————————————
Extras:
-—> Ukraine Situation Report: Champagne Glass In Hand, Putin Vows More Energy Grid Attacks <——
After saying Ukraine “started it,” Putin made a veiled vow to continue strikes against its energy infrastructure.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-champaign-glass-in-hand-putin-vows-more-energy-grid-attacks
—
-—> Ukrainian Teams Hunt Russian Drones With Laser Rifles, Gun Trucks, Apps <——
Ukrainian volunteers have networks to issue alerts about incoming threats, which mobile teams then move to illuminate and shoot down.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukrainian-teams-hunt-russian-drones-with-laser-rifles-gun-trucks-apps
Excerpt:
Teams of Ukrainians are hunting Russian & Iranian drones, with the help of rifle-esque systems equipped with military-grade laser pointers, typically used to mark targets and other objects of interest on the ground for friendly pilots, as well as thermal optics. In this case, the lasers are used to direct fire from the ground, including from shoulder-fired small arms, machine guns mounted on pickup trucks and other light vehicles (as well as modified commercial cars and vans) at uncrewed aircraft flying overhead. In a 21st century twist on civilian air raid spotting organizations dating back to World War I, these anti-drone groups are first alerted to incoming threats by volunteers using tablet-like devices that quickly share reported sightings and related location information.
———————————————————————————————————————
Summary:
No changes.
Yesterday’s information about Yakovlivka does not look to be true.
Key areas:
- North Lugansk: no changes.
- North Donbass: no changes.
- Central Donbass (Donetsk West): no changes.
- Zaporizhya: no changes.
———————————————————————————————————————
••
Energy:
It is an extremely important type of commodity. Europe continues to live in the world of pain: natural gas went up to US$1,700 per thousand cubic meters, electricity went up to 400 euros per megawatt hour; France the problems there are nuclear power, UK is in the same boat, as is Switzerland, Belgium too, doesn’t look like Germany got there, I mean its still expensive, but not quite there yet.
The point I’m trying to make is that Europe will be living in this world of pain: sometimes its gonna be in remission, some sometimes its gonna flare up - as long as there is no change to energy policy in Europe, as long as European leadership is going to fight conventional energy, Europe will not have reliable and affordable energy. I would even mean ecologically friendly energy, because I showed that right now Germany burns coal lignite and Poland all the worst and dirtiest kinds of energy resources that’s available - as opposed to trying to do more reasonable things all because Germany shut down its nuclear power plants.
••Turkey:
Turkey is demanding 25% discount on natural gas from Russia; this has been lately a big trend in Asia or non-traditional Western buyers - the approach everywhere is: you see a weak animal & you try to take advantage of it, and that’s what’s happening to Russia.
Pakistan got something, India probably is getting something, China is getting something, Russia has to offer significant discounts; its still very profitable for Russia, even after these discounts, because there’s big misconception when people consider cost of Russian crude and they think its US$20-30 per barrel, but the real cost is about US$10-US$12 dollars, and what I’m referring to is ‘cash cost’: how much cash it costs you to extract crude from the ground, that number does NOT include accrual costs which are investments, because all of those investments are stopped.
Russia is trying to survive and its squeezing, milking the cow and not feeding the cow, but its possible for a long time because for Russia because their reserves are huge - one of the largest in the world, and many of them are fairly easy to extract, with except of the Far East and very North, but the rest is is not expensive.
Its more likely than not, Turkey is probably going to get a discount on natural gas which will help the internal Turkish situation. Turkey is preventing Russian crude oil tankers from leaving the Black Sea. Most of the tankers leave from Novorosslysk carrying Euros, one of the brands of Russian crude oil, and so they got stuck in Dardanelles because the Turkish authorities don’t allow Russian ships to leave, demanding proof of marine insurance.
Turkey is enjoying their sanctions against the Russia, and I think this is a typical Turkish approach to get better deal; I think once they reach a deal, suddenly Russian oil tankers will be able to sail through Dardanelles. The situation right now is very difficult for Russian crude oil because all of those tankers are stuck - you cannot really export EUROS crude; EUROS accounts for 60% of Russian oil supply.
The other big crude brand is ESPO, Far Eastern crude oil. ESPO has no bottleneck, it can be suppled, and its very close to China; there is a big demand by Japan too; it sells at no discount for about US$68-69 per barrel, even though there’s now a little discount - I think its US$6.00, but still its fairly negligible.
Russia does get extremely good profit at US$68-69, except in case of ESPO where the ‘cash cost’ is higher, its unclear how much higher, but definitely not US$10-12 its higher, because that’s what most of EUROS crude costs - that’s a very low cost to produce, because its extracted under more normal conditions in the Volga Basin - that’s that’s a little bit better and easier for Russia to produce, versus ESPO because the conditions in the Far East are much harsher, more difficult.
Not only does Turkey not allow Russian crude oil tankers to go through the Dardanelles Strait, it reduced its own purchases of Russian crude by roughly 2X: Turkey was buying 380,000 barrels per day, and just for reference, Russia is producing around 11 million barrels per day; China buys about 1 million, India slightly less than one million, but roughly 8,000,000-900,000bbls pd; a sizable number & Turkey is another sizable buyer, but they reduced their buy from 380,000 to about 200,000.
That’s almost a 2X cut; this is probably pressure from Turkey to achieve what it needs; it could be also political pressure, because Russian troops are in Syria still, despite all of this, and there are some clashes there between Turkey and Russia. EUROS is now selling for US$43-44 dollars per barrel; typically, it trades close to Brent, which is US$76, this is a US$32-33 discount from Brent, but that’s still minus US$12 - Russia is still earning US$30 per barrel - its still quite profitable, its not end of the world.
For now Russia is facing these difficulties, they do look more like temporary difficulties, once there is agreement with Turkey, the flow will continue, but for right now, it is difficult for Russia, no question about it.
••Ukraine:
There are calls from the Ukraine Parliament to stop the transit of Russian natural gas and crude oils through Ukraine. There is a really large pipeline going from a little bit south of Kiev to Hungary, Slovakia and it supplies is a lot of natural gas to that part of part of Europe, including Austria, Czech Republic and even to Italy & southern Germany.
That is another Russian route to supply natural gas that’s still working, closing it would be pretty painful blow for the Russian government. Ukraine is not a big transit country for crude oil still, but Belarus is. There’s are pipelines that supply digital fuel, so its a product that is already processed as opposed to the crude, the raw material; that closure may lead to additional shortages of diesel fuel in Europe - Hungry is having problems, and they had to increase the prices for both gasoline and and diesel, so this may increase the pressure from that angle.
••India:
India is willing to supply spare parts to Russia for airplanes, for locomotives, for some cars, this whole blockade of Russia doesn’t quite work. I mean it is terrible for energy, but even technology which is right angle, if you really want to achieve something, the right angle is really technology, because Russia is extremely dependent on the Western technology.
That’s a right angle of attack, but as you can see India is willing to undermine that as well for profit; this is not done out of kindness of the heart, just purely for the money reasons - it remains to be seen if that’s gonna become real. There’s quite a bit of problems in Russia with spare parts for airplanes because Russia is using Airbus, they’re using Boeing, they are hard to get in Russia, or even getting them on the black market; then spare parts becomes insanely expensive & the whole system breaks down and doesn’t make sense anymore, if you don’t have steady reliable and low cost supply of spare parts, so Russia started cannibalizing some of their airplanes in order to maintain its passenger fleet.
••China & Persian Gulf Countries:13.27
••What This Means for the West:
About the Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia: this is not just Saudi Arabia, there is a bunch of Persian Gulf countries - UAE, Bahrain, Qatar - they all went to the meeting with China.
They effectively want to switch, to become a vessel of China, as opposed to the US; there was an announcement that there were 3-4 investment deals signed during this meeting with the value of at least US$30 billion.
Not everything has been reported, so its probably higher number than that; so from that, we can clearly conclude that the visit was successful, and there is mutual interest to continue cooperation, continue going in this direction. I said this is big problem for the West, because without Persian Gulf, without cheap and reliable energy, the quality of life in the West will go down, not even 2X, probably gonna be 3X, could be in some countries 4X - depending on the country.
(Edit: Sounds like he is implying China just bought the entire crude output of the Persian Gulf nations or a very significant portion of it! But given China’s imploding economy, how will this oil help? And they may be forced to resell it, or is that the plan all along? The West only gets as much oil as China permits?)
The US is definitely not going to be 4X maybe definitely 2X, could be as low as 3X, but some other countries in Europe that are extremely low on resources can easily go 4X. That’s a result of all of the West’s misguided energy policies which alienated the Persian Gulf nations, pushing them to become an ally of China. This is not firm - they still testing the water, but if they see that its possible & can do it, they will jump on that train.
••Persian Gulf Region:
I just want to explain a little bit about the Persian Gulf region. They only can exist if there is a big country protecting them; it was US protecting them - the deal was protection for the sale of crude oil in US dollars; that helped cement US dollar of the main currency of the world.
In Russia and in China the popular idea is if they can undermine the dollar by flipping the Persian Gulf or trade in crude oil from US dollar to the Chinese Yuan or Russian Ruble, which is mission impossible, then they can destroy the domination of the US dollar in the world. It’s not gonna happen - the reason why the US dollar dominates relative to other countries is because there is more trust in the US system than all other systems, because the US system is better designed, the least worst system.
Federal Reserve is willing to do minimal dilution of the currency, to keep interest of international capital, and so it stays in US dollar, but in the Communism dilution happens day and night - nobody will ever go and start trading in Chinese Yuan; its not ever gonna dominate the world, never become the International currency as long as the China is Communist country that’s mission impossible.
This attempt to destroy or undermine the US dollar system is doomed to failure, because the problem is in China and in Russia, there’s no trust in those countries, not just the regular person, but people who have capital, and those people tend to have quite high intelligence, you cannot really fool them easily, like you can fool average person.
There’s always the dream in Russia, especially in the KGB world that they’re going to destroy US dollar, and will not - the only destruction will come from within of the US, that’s the only way that can be destroyed, not by flipping Persian Gulf to trade or to sell to China, or anything like that.
India is the same: India rupees are not the currency anyone would trust; there is no institutional mechanisms, there is no understanding, and not to do dilution of the currency or inflation of the currency. Look at inflation and where the inflation is the lowest, that’s the most stable currency, and that’s where capital will go, assuming that you’re not gonna get it expropriated from you, because totalitarian countries may have low inflation, but nobody will ever go there under any circumstances anyways.
Hopefully this explains a little bit what China is trying to do, and why its not gonna happen, but that’s the plan maximum for China, Russia, and Iran. The plan minimum is, ‘we want to secure supply of energy guaranteed to us, and ensure that the energy doesn’t go to the West,’ and that has been achieved by China, not because China is so skilled in diplomacy, but its the result of the West’s policies.
The whole of the Persian Gulf has always needed a protector, and before it was US, now they considering China as the alternative, and it looks like that’s where its all gonna drift. The reason they need a protector is because they have natural enemies that can easily overwhelm them like Iran, or in the past, Iraq until it was destroyed as a country; then there’s Turkey, even Egypt potentially, but that’s the least dangerous enemy; they have enough enemies & they realize they will not be able to exist on their own and need some protector.
That’s a whole dynamic there and whoever’s protector gets the benefit that the oil is gonna be sold in the currency of the protector, and hopefully that makes sense in terms of what’s going on there what’s going on with this visit. In short, it was successful, but in terms of plan minimum, in terms of plan maximum, its not going to happen, no matter what China tries.
••China and Russia:
China is requesting Russia to supply more natural gas - that really helps Russia right now, because natural gas is blocked to Europe, and may get even worse with this potential stoppage of transits through Ukraine - every bit helps - its a low low profit export to China for Russia, but if you have nothing, this is better than nothing.
••Holland, ASML & China:
Dutch authorities finally announced that the US was putting pressure on Dutch authorities to limit export of chip making equipment to China: by ASML, the final producer or assembler of lithography machines. Lithography is a process that’s used to manufacture those chips, but its ASML is not alone - Kulicke is another company that’s critical for ASML as it supplies all of the lenses and optics for lithography, without it ASML cannot really function, cannot achieve what it does, they go hand in hand - its like one system.
Kulicke is building factory in China, which was strange at that time, and it becomes even stranger, because now I understand that’s one of the key components in ASML machines.
That’s a transfer technology to China, but anyways the Dutch Diet already trying to reduce export of the lithography machines, and they’re not banning everything; they start with 14 nanometer chips. Chips go in sizes of nanometers; 14 nanometer is fairly modern, its 2014 technology - most of the computers that were produced at that time of have 14 nanometers technology. So everything before 2014 is allowed, everything from 2014 to 2022 its prohibited, so but it still allows you to use 22 nanometers.
Your computers are not going to be as fast, as productive, but what you can do is you can make it up by increasing number of computers. It’s might be harder for military technology because sometimes the space is very important and very limiting factor. The logic is to limit it to smaller sizes like 14nm. 10nm came in 2016, then 7nm came in 2018, then 5nm in 2020, and in 2022 3nm, and 2nm is the next frontier, expected in 2024.
••Chips size discussion - skipped.
This is a limiting factor on the development of China’s military; it’s not inhibiting development of Chinese military. All the Chinese military, I wouldn’t say its creative, its just very straightforward, you just put in more computers. Its still hard because you need to put them together in one system & that creates another layer of problems, but technically you can get it done - its just gonna be much more effort. This is definitely not making China happy, but increasing the antagonism between China and the West.
••Ukraine:
I want to mention that Ukraine is getting 18 RCH self-propelled howitzers - its a 155mm cannon, 52 caliber which is the standard high quality, top of notch barrel - its very similar to Panzer howitzers 2000 from Germany: the same as Krabs, Caesars, & Susanas; all of this is the standard top notch artillery specification, the only problem with RCH systems is that they are wheel-based & definitely its not going to work in Ukraine very well in winter - fine in the summer, but in the fall and the winter when there is sleet, and early spring this is going to be a problem. The only way you can use this is on roads, significantly limiting their mobility, and ability for counter battery fire.
I would say engineering flaw so this is I’m not saying that this is bad, its excellent product for Ukraine, but in general, its very clear that Krause Murphy Wagman, who engineered this, didn’t really think about all of the conditions they would be used under, and in general, is a bad approach to engineering, but nevertheless, they are excellent canons, they also can shoot while they move - I don’t think its the best approach or best idea, but technically that’s possible, and Ukrainian Army will definitely benefit from that.
Ukraine has very clear advantage over the Russian artillery, specifically in the area of high precision, long distance cannons, and if used properly, they are excellent for counter battery fire, and you can decimate Russian artillery with these tools, and there’s enough of them - its probably more than 100 units at this point, various ones, but maybe even pushing 150 of them. I didn’t track it because this is a very clear advantage for Ukrainian side, unfortunately, the potential of these systems is not being realized, that’s on the negative side.
••Ukraine :power Grid:
The energy power grid system is still surviving: the situation is bad - Ukraine lives in its own world of pain with no improvement for probably another year; if Ukraine would start fixing transformers and substations right now, the earliest time the problem can be fixed is probably in a year, because it takes about a year to manufacture a transformer, and that’s probably a little bit generous timing, but its very clear that the problem will persist for a long period of time, and there is high chance the system will collapse, if there is another Russian attack, which is a very highly probable event.
••State Border:
Things are more or less stable - there are reports that there is accumulation of Russian troops here in the Belgorod area of Russia. Ukrainian side also keeping a couple brigades here - the 47th Brigade is somewhere in the Kharkiv area to prevent attack on hierarchy.
••Strategic Situation:
There is an accumulation of Russian forces east of Swatova, most of them are mobilized conscripts, they are still being trained behind the main front line, but there’s a very clear accumulation of all equipment - about those 200 T-90s & a lot of soldiers. The situation is moving towards some offensive - its unclear about the timing of the event, most probably its going to be January, probably like more like a mid-January, towards the second half of January, unless something drastically changes this is probably what coming Ukraine’s way.
••North Luhansk’:
Here are as you can see Russian side is getting more and more aggressive. There are more Russian attacks then Ukraine attacks - the initiative slowly moving into Russian hands; right now, its probably in between the two, but the trend is in Russian favor - its still in the very, very early stages, so its practically unnoticeable yet.
••North Donbas:
The Wagner mercenary are operating since here is pretty bad for Ukrainian side - Wagner centers were pretty active; there were unconfirmed reports that Russian troops captured Yakovlivka - that does not look to be true, or at least the fighting is going on in the village itself, which doesn’t mean that its being lost, but its very clear that potentially as they say: if there is smoke, there is a fire - its definitely not a good situation for Ukrainian side, if the fighting is going on in the village already.
Russian troops are actively attacking Bakhmut from all angles: the more dangerous is the southern situation: today they were attacks by Russian side again - I mentioned Russian troops managed to get to the Western Bank of the freshwater channel, but there’s no more information to prove it or disprove it.
Potentially they are here already & have established a bridgehead, but its totally possible that they have lost it, or it never happened. Where there are regular troops, it could be that there are some reconnaissance groups there, but not in a major way, but in any case, this situation is clearly bad for Ukrainian side, and clearly its not possible to fix it within the current paradigm of Ukrainian Army.
It’s going to be slow bleeding, unless there is some Ukrainian offensive, which is also impossible right now, because there are many more Russian troops on the front line.
By the way, on the Wagner mercenaries, there are reports there are about 23,000 troops, but there are other reports saying there are 40,000 of them, not all of them are here, I’m not saying all 40,000 are here, but its probably 20,000 here; this Wagner group is turning into a little private army, and its clearly growing on steroids - that’s how the best to describe that situation.
••Central Donbas:
Things here relatively quiet: no typical Russian attacks out of this salient north of Adivka; nothing was out of Pisky. Ukrainian troops tried to counter attack here & failed miserably because the same approach practiced without change day after days, like almost like World War I cavalry attacks, using infantry fighting vehicles instead of horses, and sometimes tanks against unsoftened Russian defense and they predictably getting destroyed with heavy losses on Ukrainian side.
I mentioned the correct way is use artillery to soften Russian defenses, and most importantly destroying Russian artillery - counter battery fire is the top priority, and that’s how you start cracking the fences in the first place, and its not being done; that’s why I mentioned many times this is criminal from Ukrainian Command to attack in such a way, because its very predictable that it will lead to heavy losses.
Russian troops attacked a little bit in the southern sector against Marinka without results - by the way, there’s no difference between Ukrainian and Russian Command its the same approach, the same mindless or criminal cavalry attacks against machine guns with predictable results, except this time its for the Russian side - whichever side, you are in a Soviet Army - that’s that’s probably the best description of it.
••Zaporizhya:
Here are sleepy, and more likely than not, they will remain sleepy for a while, unless Russia starts its offensive, potential January offensive which is quite possible, because if you look at Ukrainian troops are stretched relatively thin.
There are very capable, quality brigades, with the exception of 65th, but definitely the 1st, Azov Kiev, 128th - they definitely have strong fighting spirit, but are too stretched; but if Russia accumulates enough amount of troops here - nobody can stop that huge steamroller, meaning the three brigades that’s because Azov regiment, its not even full brigade.
Based on information we have, its possible there are more brigades now because the front line is long at least 100 kilometers, maybe 120km, and this is not enough troops there now.
Russia didn’t have enough troops there either, so it was a balance, but there are more and more Russian conscripts hitting the front line so balance will will be lost and will be in Russian favor eventually.
Could be.
In the US it is illegal/against code to have a filled propane tank inside a public building. Even small tanks must be stored outside. I can’t imaging any country, even Russia, allowing indoor propane storage in a shopping mall.
Those 3 explosions were pretty widely and evenly spaced. Maybe 3 large spaces/stores that had filled with natural gas from a leak?
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