Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Legbiter]

Apparently the UK has already provided several Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine. 

Which means they'll drop the Kerch Bridge again as a grand finale sometime this summer...

[Sheilbh]

And a sign of the politics of Ukraine here, that Labour's Shadow Defence minister's main question was why they weren't sent sooner

Wallace's excuse, which seems fair, is that there was lots of technical work on adapting a Franco-British missile for Ukraine's air force.

[Legbiter]

And all the ammo dumps the Russians moved out of HIMARS range will go kaboom once the offensive starts...

And the Sevastopol harbour.

[Hamilcar]

Wallace's excuse, which seems fair, is that there was lots of technical work on adapting a Franco-British missile for Ukraine's air force.

Are they going to fire them from Ukrainian Mig-29 or Su-27? Or are there.... western jets in Ukraine?????

[Josquius]

I was wondering amidst reading of the Russian fighters superior missile range why all the chat was on F16s rather than putting western missiles on Ukrainian jets. Surely they can't be that impossible to convert.

[Legbiter]

Are they going to fire them from Ukrainian Mig-29 or Su-27? Or are there.... western jets in Ukraine?????

Yeah, these are air-launched cruise missiles. It's a Soviet/modern kludge that's probably a minor miracle of engineering.

[Hamilcar]

I was wondering amidst reading of the Russian fighters superior missile range why all the chat was on F16s rather than putting western missiles on Ukrainian jets. Surely they can't be that impossible to convert.

They were controlling HARMs with iPads in the cockpit, or something like that.

[Legbiter]

I'd be curious to know how that tank commander knew that the infantry they were facing had no MPATs.  Crashing through the brush like that in advance of your infantry would be very dangerous if the defenders had something like RPG-7s.

Yeah Strelkov just quoted this guy complaining on telegram about an absolute lack of ATGMs.   The asshurt is glorious.



Gradually, then suddenly...

[PDH]

The thing about Russian logistics is that somewhere there are probably a lot of ATGM, in a warehouse, in a depot under tarps, out in the mud (knowing the Russians, the last is likely), but nobody who can order them moved knows where they are, how to move them, or anything else useful.

Plus, the people who do know where they are are lining up their contacts for resale of the ATGMs.

[Legbiter]

There is panic on vatnik telegram, reports coming in of several successful local Ukrainian counterattacks in several places at the front...

[Threviel]

Well, the Ukrainians are saying that they can't possibly attack and they need more stuff, so the the big push should be very imminent.

[Sheilbh]

Well, the Ukrainians are saying that they can't possibly attack and they need more stuff, so the the big push should be very imminent.

Yeah I did see Zelensky's "we can't attack now!" line today and think that's exactly what you'd say immediately before a counter-offensive

[Josquius]

Watch this isn't the counter attack. The Russians are just that bad they're crumbling from the initial probing attacks whilst the bulk of the Ukrainian force is still being oiled up.

[Legbiter]

The Ukrainians seem to have been very successful. 

[Josquius]

 Read some mutterings that the Russian army is insisting the wagners are the ones who ran away leaving their soldiers exposed in the bakmut defeats.