UKRAINE WAR - 1 YEAR AND GOING.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Ukraine uses British missiles in major attack on Russian submarine

Ukraine used British cruise missiles in a significant attack against the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in occupied Crimea, Sky News understands.

A Russian submarine and warship were damaged in the pre-dawn barrage on the Sevastopol shipyard - potentially the largest strike against Russian naval targets of the war.

A Ukrainian and a Western source said that British Storm Shadow cruise missiles were deployed.

Images on social media captured explosions and flames ripping through the shipyard against a night sky in the very early hours of Wednesday morning.

Russia said 10 cruise missiles were fired against the facility, with seven being shot down by air defences. It said an attack by three unmanned boats was also thwarted.

Ukraine confirmed it struck Russian naval targets and port infrastructure in the city of Sevastopol, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, but has not officially said how.

However, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleschuk, the head of the Ukrainian Air Force, posted an image on his Telegram channel of the burning shipyard, with the caption: "And while the occupiers are 'storming' and they are still recovering from the night cotton [Ukrainian slang for explosions] in Sevastopol, thank you to the pilots of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for their excellent combat work!"

The UK gave Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine's armed forces earlier in the year. They are able to be fired by Ukrainian aircraft, with a range of more than 150 miles.

France has also supplied the Ukrainian military with cruise missiles.

"It was Storm Shadow," one of the sources said.

Britain's Ministry of Defence has not yet made a comment.

Admiral Sir Ben Key, the head of the Royal Navy, was asked about the Sevastopol attack during a speech at an arms fair in London.

He did not talk about any specifics and was not asked about the potential involvement of missiles given by the UK, but he said: "[The Ukrainians] are demonstrating what can be done through innovative thought processes and a willingness to take risk.

"As we have seen in a number of various areas, some really significant adaptations of tactics, techniques and capabilities in order to try and generate a capability advantage over the Russians and I really applaud that."

This is the first known successful attack against a Russian submarine of the war.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea and a major Black Sea port, said on Telegram that at least 24 people were injured.

"All emergency services are working on the site, there is no danger to civilian objects in the city," Mr Razvozhayev wrote.

The strategic shipyard on the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, builds and repairs ships and submarines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Russian troops 'shot in friendly fire as retreat mistaken for attack'

Over two dozen Russian soldiers have been shot dead by their own comrades, who mistook their 'chaotic' retreat for a Ukrainian assault, according to reports. Kyiv MP Yuriy Mysiagin has claimed that Vladimir Putin's troops fired on their own men as they 'retreated to new positions chaotically and almost in a panic.'

Russian forces assumed their troops were enemy soldiers attempting to retake territory near the Donetsk airport, he said, as Ukraine steps up its counteroffensive in the occupied south and east. Artillery fire then came down on the fleeing troops, he said on Telegram, resulting in high numbers of casualties and the loss of 'several pieces of equipment'. 'The result was 27 dead and 34 wounded,' Mysiagin said, 'Approximately half of the wounded had their arms or legs blown off.'

[Zaune]

My theory: He thinks Russia will lose, and take infrastructure damage in the process. (i.e Ukraine retakes all their lost territory, and then pounds the crap out of Russia to make sure they can't do it again). He wants to be remembered as a 'friend' to get in on the rebuilding efforts and $$$.

I feel like being remembered as a friend to Putin is not going to do him many favours with whoever ends up president, prime minister or possibly tsar after the dust settles, but that does sound somewhat plausible.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

My theory: He thinks Russia will lose, and take infrastructure damage in the process. (i.e Ukraine retakes all their lost territory, and then pounds the crap out of Russia to make sure they can't do it again). He wants to be remembered as a 'friend' to get in on the rebuilding efforts and $$$.

I feel like being remembered as a friend to Putin is not going to do him many favours with whoever ends up president, prime minister or possibly tsar after the dust settles, but that does sound somewhat plausible.

He's pinning his hopes on Trump getting back in the White House.

[LaCroix]

According to satellite pictures, the landing ship Minsk and the sub Rostov on Don were in drydock at that time... immobile targets. Pretty much scrapped. Same for the drydock - the seperation wall between the two bays came down, and the repair facilities building was blown up. As of now, sewastopol no longer has a drydock. That is not good news for the aging black sea fleet. These facilities were pretty much in constant use.

Seems ukraine is cracking down on missile launch systems prior to winter - russia is currently stockpiling for a new series of infrastructure attacks like lastyear.

The sub destroyed was one of the main platforms used to fire Kaliber cruise missiles at civilian targets.

[wautd]

Russia is loosing quite a lot of ships and boats against a country with no navy.
Probably good news for a country like Turkey, which gives them a stronger hold on the Black Sea

[Lord Revan]

Russia is loosing quite a lot of ships and boats against a country with no navy.
Probably good news for a country like Turkey, which gives them a stronger hold on the Black Sea

And makes the position of St. Petersburg even less viable as a Naval base since, Finland does have navy and the area of the Baltic sea St Petersburg is on is called the "Gulf of Finland" for a reason.

Russia might saber rattle against Finland and Estonia but knowing they can't really stop supplies from coming by sea anymore here I suspect they're not really looking to expand this conflict.

[Solauren]

My theory: He thinks Russia will lose, and take infrastructure damage in the process. (i.e Ukraine retakes all their lost territory, and then pounds the crap out of Russia to make sure they can't do it again). He wants to be remembered as a 'friend' to get in on the rebuilding efforts and $$$.

I feel like being remembered as a friend to Putin is not going to do him many favours with whoever ends up president, prime minister or possibly tsar after the dust settles, but that does sound somewhat plausible.

He's hoping he'll be remembered as a friend to RUSSIA. I can expect him to downplay any connection to Putin in the event Putin is (publically) removed from power.

[bilateralrope]

But how would he have figured out that Ukraine were going after a sub ?

He didn't - even Ukraine didn't - this was a harbour attack at Sewastopol - they simply attacked whatever they found, including submarines at anchor.

So why would this attack stand out as one Musk would want to stop after all the drone attacks that he didn't interfere with ?

That's a good point, now you mention it. It's entirely possible that they had a genuine outage due to technical difficulties arising from the same kind of manglement that comes up regularly in the thread about Twitter, but Musk decided to capitalise on the coincidental timing and claim it was intentional because he's under the impression that this would play better in the press.

Why he would want to be seen rooting for the side that's losing, you might well ask? Presumably the Ukrainians are less generous with their plain envelopes full of used notes.

Another possibility is that someone hacked Starlink with no involvement from Musk.

As for Musk claiming it was intentional, do you have a source for that ?

Ukraine uses British missiles in major attack on Russian submarine

So this was an attack mainly by cruise missiles, not Starlink equipped drones.

[Solauren]

Giving the timing of the crash, I have to wonder if someone (Russian Intelligence) has someway (supplied administrative passwords/agents in place) of remotely crashing Starlink without Musks involvement. That way, they can crash Starlink to try to offset Ukraine attacks, but Musk has deniability.

But really, at this point, I would assume the Ukraine has switched all their tech away from using Starlink because of Musks previous actions.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Putin humiliated after kamikaze drones outwitted by fake army

Russian forces have been wasting a huge number of kamikaze drones and missiles destroying what is actually fake Ukrainian military equipment.

Vladimir Putin’s army is being outsmarted by cheaply made decoys, such as dummy missile launchers and tanks.

A fake 155-mm M777 howitzer, for example, was made from sewer pipes for around £800.

A spokesperson from steel company Metinvest, which makes much of Ukraine’s replica army, said: ‘War is expensive and we need the Russians to spend money using drones and missiles to destroy our decoys.’

He continued: ‘After each hit, the military gives us trophy wreckage.

‘We collect them. If our decoy was destroyed, then we did not work in vain.’

Quoted in Ukrainian Pravda, he said the number of decoys produced are not counted – only those that are destroyed, as that’s what’s key.

‘The sooner our decoys are destroyed, the better for us,’ he explained.

Referring to a dummy radar the company built, Metinvest said: ‘The enemy was unable to distinguish the model from a real radar station and spent expensive high-precision ammunition to destroy the plywood and metal replica.’

Company Steel Front has also contributed to the effort, producing more than 250 models of guns and radars to help Ukrainian Armed Forces outwit the Russians.

Ukrainian government advisor Anton Gerashchenko said: ‘You have to understand that this is a war of innovation.

‘[Sophisticated] drones and satellites… can see in greater detail.

‘It’s harder to fool the enemy who have cameras and live video. But high-quality decoys can work very well.’

Russia has previously fired at decoy HIMARS missile launchers, which are just wooden mock-ups, boasting of successful hits.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian infantryman has revealed how his homeland is shifting to drone warfare.

Valentyn Ilchuk is part of a highly mobile team of military-trained volunteers that has fought in some of the country’s hottest spots in support of larger Ukrainian formations.

He now leads a three-man ‘hunter-killer crew’ using first-person view (FPV) kamikaze strike drones loaded with high explosives, capable of taking out targets far behind Russian lines.

[madd0c0t0r2]

He now leads a three-man ‘hunter-killer crew’ using first-person view (FPV) kamikaze strike drones loaded with high explosives, capable of taking out targets far behind Russian lines.

Well that sounds like a new and delightful flavour of PTSD on both sides

[Rogue 9]

Interesting that they would inform the Russians of the decoy operation through the press.

[LadyTevar]

Interesting that they would inform the Russians of the decoy operation through the press.

"We're so good you will never know if you hit a decoy or a real target, so why try?"
That's what they were trying to send to Russia.

In other news, it looks like Ukraine has broken thro the "dragon's teeth" and are getting mechanized troops into position for more attacks.

[Solauren]

Interesting that they would inform the Russians of the decoy operation through the press.

"We're so good you will never know if you hit a decoy or a real target, so why try?"
That's what they were trying to send to Russia.

I suspect a certain level of psychological warfare was involved in the decision. The Russian military is now aware there is a very, very good chance they are wasting money blowing up junk. Also, that their assets can't tell the difference between real targets and said junk.

Meaning, any data they have on Ukraine military assets is now HIGHLY suspect.
i.e is that really a squadron of artillery, or a clever mock up to distract us from real artillery? Are those tanks or scrap? Do we risk launching these drones and exposing our position when it might just be a pile of old painted 2x4s?!?

Sure, Putin and his high level officials and officers won't care, but the low level guys have to be wondering alot now...

[Lord Revan]

Yeah that's often the more effective part of decoys then the actual decoys that enemy will second guess their intel and maybe not take action against actual assets.

Not mention this is very good for hiding numbers too if the enemy is questioning if what they're seeing is real or just decoys they'll have hard figuring out the actual troop numbers in the combat zone.

[KraytKing]

It is also important to remember that Western perception is tremendously important to Ukraine in this war. Assuring pro-Ukraine westerners that the Russian Telegram footage of destroyed expensive equipment is all suspect is a very significant goal. Anyone who wants to support Ukraine irrespective of the actual picture on the field now has an excellent excuse: it was just a fake, Ukraine has loads of those. So, morale, within Ukraine and globally, and among enemies and allies.

Also, it isn't necessarily that significant that the Russians know there are fakes. They probably DID know, to some extent: if they hit a fake HIMARS and it doesn't cook off, they might guess that it was a fake. Or if the BDA drone shows a bunch of wood splinters. Just because they identify fakes after impact, or know that some amount of Ukrainian field equipment is actually fake, doesn't necessarily mean they'll never waste another fire mission.

Interested to see where this breakthrough spearhead goes. It's moving slow, and Ukraine still seems to be heavily supporting other offensives as well--they haven't pulled their punches elsewhere to throw more units into Robotyne and Verbove. Neither does Russia seem to be committing all of its own reserves--major attacks in the northern areas of the front have just been repulsed by Ukraine, with severe Russian casualties. So they have reserves that they don't feel the need to commit, and Ukraine probably has reserves and definitely has frontline units that they won't commit. So, where does it go? Is the pace we're seeing the new norm for modern peer conflict? Will Ukraine continue to develop the salient in the next three or four weeks before the climate shifts? I didn't expect the offensive to last this long, I thought it would have either reached a moderately successful conclusion a month ago or have ended in defeat; obviously, new data needs to be collated.

Russia still doesn't seem capable of offensive action. That might be unfair to say, considering the losses suffered early in the Ukrainian summer offensive, but I see last winter as the Russian version of what Ukraine had in June. They had their chance to lose their assault units, learn how they needed to fight instead, and then try again after adaptation. They also watched Ukraine try it for three months. And then they launch a counterattack, and it fails miserably AGAIN? My expectation is that the Russian military may settle into this pattern: effective defense, poor offense, leading to a costly but inexorable Ukrainian gain.

Broadly, I see two routes that may change that prediction in a manner favorable to Russia. One, they keep up this offensive grind until the rains come, and the men who drove it are allowed to learn real lessons and experiment with solutions. It would be extremely costly in the short term and will capture headlines, but I would start to worry if the Russians look like they're repeating the Ukrainian debacle from June. After refitting and regenerating their assault formations, they will pose a serious threat in the winter and spring. Two, they stop committing their best troops to a ridiculously aggressive active defense. Indications are fairly clear that some of the elite of the Russian military were deployed to the Robotyne area, where they were attrited into oblivion in repeated assaults to dislodge the Ukrainians from ground they had just captured. Effective it may or may not have been, but what it means is that Russian troops that should have been the tip of the spear up north are now dead, and Robotyne is still in Ukrainian hands. This is an imperfect solution: rather than developing better tactics to achieve success, it relies on simply better execution of poor tactics. But Russia does still have the potential for serious advantages over Ukraine, it merely needs to apply them moderately efficiently.

Holding out hope that Ukraine is going to pirate a Russian ship and Chinese and Indian insurance is going to drop all Russian shipping. Seeing the naval war escalate would be fascinating. I do not find that particular scenario very likely.

[LaCroix]

This is one thing western Generals (especially US) can't comprehend - the Ukrainians can't concentrate their forces and push with might.

1. Pushing through a minefield ist just stupid.
2. Western style warfare only works if you have air superiority and just delete any obstacles that slow you down.
3. If they concentrate, they allow the Russians to counter-concentrate.

They tried western tactics, for the first month, and then gave it up - remember how they had stupid losses in the beginning and then stopped- because mobile warfare doesn't work against trenches and minefields that span entire regions in unbroken lines. Not if you can't bomb everything into oblivion for a month or two before your ground troops even start to move anywhere.

Right now, Ukrainian forces are alternating pushing at 2 1/2 spots (Robotyne, Bakhmut and Kherson delta crossings), and the russians constantly have to shift troops from one area to the other to shore up defenses oagianst the latest breech.
This is intentional - because troops on the move are easily targetet, do not hit your troops, and are going to be less effective if they just arrived and are thrown into a battle. Meanwhile, you keep erasing artillery and air defense, and supply. Force Russia to deploy more and more of their reserves,while keeping yours fresh.

This is why Ukraine is happily sitting inside salients, where conventional wisdom says you are getting beat up from all sides - they have much better equipment than Russia. While Russian troops always storm those salients and get ground up in horrific numbers, UA forces use them to bit Russians into counteroffenses (which is their doctrine - you loose a position - immidiately conter-attack with all available forces), who are then ground up. This is why they have still 3:1 losses in their favor, even while being the ones on the offence. Capturing a position, use that to kill as many in the counteroffensive as possible, fall back, repeat later. Until the Russians give up. Then go to the next one.

Slow? Yes. Effective? Yes.

"But wouldn't that go faster if you concentrate your forces all in there?"

Nope.
This is a "can 9 women deliver a baby in 1 month" question.
Putting more men into that salient makes things worse, not better. You give the Russians more targets, and you can't all get all these people to the frontline, anyway - you already have the maximum number you can supply with food and material deployed there. And then some who only go in there occasionally for selected offensives, and then leave once they are done. Crowding doesn't help.

Calling this the "Counteroffensive" is kind of wrong - this is still the shaping operation. Designed to grind down the reserves until Russia will have to start making "goodwill gestures" because the frontline gets too thin. Just like in Kherson, but this time it is harder because the supply is not just relying on one single bridge. Even if there is one important one. You still got roads, rail, harbors. There is nothing but the grind. But sooner or later, something is going to break, and we will see movement. And once this starts, it will become a rout. Not a big one, but the necessary 5 or 10 more kilometers (of 20 total) to get through this defense fortification into open terrain.

And that's is what the reserve is held back for - Western mobile assault warfare will commence once the gates are opened

Just as well, they aren't just sitting on their bumbs waiting for the break - they currently focus on removing as many cruise missile launch systems as possible to preemptively dampen the (no doubt to be occurring) campaign agains civilian power plants that will start up come winter, and are tearing the air defense to shreds, which enables to hit even more important targets (There are a couple of positions in the Russian Admirality available to pick up, btw).

This time, the rain will not save Russia - Ukraine does not use Tanks for their offensive, and drones and artillery do not care about mud. And worse of all, Russian troops in the trenches will still need supplies - which they can barely get now when the roads are still traverseable. Comes rain, we will see them sit in their mudholes, soaked and starving. Comes winter, they tanks and assaults come back, along with more hunger, and frostbite.

It's the same as with any game - no one loves the grind - they all want to immediately initiate the Zerg rush.
Patience.

[madd0c0t0r2]

I concur. One reading I seen of the situation is that Ukraine is competent, and is choosing to grind. Perhaps they believe the political situation in Russia is fragile, and there's few Siberians left to draft, so the Russians can't have another mobilization without prompting outright city rebellions. If that's the case, the troops that Russia has now is all they have.

It's just a case of costing enough to encourage them to give up.

[Solauren]

Also, the longer Russia takes heavy losses for no gain/lost territory, the longer the Ukraine has to get more military equipment from outside sources, to train new members of their armed forces, and give them combat experience.

Ironically, it's historically similar to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in some regards. Except now Putin is the one goosestepping.

[Highlord Laan]

Yep. The main problem with the perception of the war here in the US is that the way the battlefield developed is anathema to the way Western forces are trained to fight, it's a complete separation in doctrine. The US Army and Marines are trained from the beginning to avoid static lines like we have in Ukraine like the plague, since to us, getting locked down in a grinding line just means getting pasted by artillery.

Publicly, the dumb ones are shaking their heads and saying Ukraine has already failed. The smart ones are looking over our own doctrines in search of new ideas. I've even heard talk that there's an underlying idea that western armies (the US especially) may have overemphasized our reliance on technology and mobility in lieu of attrition resistance and holding power. I wouldn't know, I'm just a civilian that reads a lot, but it seems a theme of overspecialization may have crept in since the fall of the USSR.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

It should be noted that good mockups have even fooled NATO during the Serbia campaign. To the point that the Serbian military retained practically all its air defense and airforce assets while NATO basically did squat until they effectively went on a terror bombing campaign.

Since Russia's light industry has always been lagging behind (and not having the experience of getting the fact that air power alone isn't worth the weight of your airforce in gold, that and someone who isn't Arab in terms of competence can basically tell your airforce where to stuff it), they won't have the tools for better decoy detection.

[Ralin]

Seems to me that using decoys and other forms of deception is a given seeing as we are talking about an actual war. Not really revealing anything the Russians wouldn't be assuming.

that and someone who isn't Arab in terms of competence

Uh

[Lord Revan]

I suspect part of the reason US/NATO is stuck in doctrine they are is that it's hard to really find a conventional warfare opponent that was at best(or worst depending on your PoV) equal to NATO forces and most of them are inferior so unless said opponent plays their cards really smart it's hard to bog US to fixed static battle lines. We got remember those static battle lines were not Russia's original plan they tried US style mobile war but did so poorly they got bogged down into static warfare.

Russia didn't want to fight Great War 2.0 but they Ukrainians forced them to it and Ukrainians themselves don't have resources to re-mobilize the war so they're not trying to.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

that and someone who isn't Arab in terms of competence

Uh

People forget that, for the most part, the various Arab armies of the Middle East are in their own league of incompetence. For example, Iraq doesn't have anything considered a doctrine despite several major nations pouring a lot of money and resources into training them, individually they fight well, but once you get them into a group, you'll find that group-tactics tend to be well out of their reach. Saudi Arabia basically makes what happened during the Korean monarchy of the 1st Japanese invasion of Korea look tame (to put it bluntly, outside of their infantry corps, it's literally a place to put rich kids and nothing else; some of the stories of US trainers trying to train Saudi pilots are... eye-opening... ).

I could go on, but basically, in the military community, the term 'Arab Competence' is a snide remark on just how incompetent one can get.

Funnily enough, Russia is heading towards that point.

[The_Saint]

One of the aspects of the Ukrainian offensive that confuses many is that "basic tactical wisdom" suggests that when you make a breakthrough that that is where you concentrate your forces but "advanced strategic wisdom" is that if you're about to make a breakthrough somewhere you increase your tempo everywhere else to keep the pressure up and prevent your enemy form concentrating against you... which is almost exactly what Ukraine has been doing with this offensive.

The western issue, which is not entirely a western thing but it's where most of us are, is that "everyone trains to fight their last war" which with the previous success of USA/western air power leads to an air power heavy doctrine and everyone remembers seeing allied heavy armour annihilating the Iraqi army, twice, and forgetting that the Iraqi army was never truly a "peer adversary". It was telling that while many were on social media were up in arms as soon as destroyed Leopards and Bradleys were seen and yet actual western armoured officers were going "that's actually fair, we'd expect 50% casualties assaulting through a defended minefield".