Ukrajina

[sumirprimus]

liman ruje bombarduju nakav ojbekat na jezeru..

[A_A_AKCIJA]

Pitanje za koje koji znaju, koji bi ciljevi mogli biti ovog HIMARS-a kad bi ga dobili i koje bi kolicine to bile da bi rekli da to mijenja stvari na bolje?

Da li znamo koliko srtiljerije imaju Rusi u Ukrajini?

Koliko D20, D30, Pion-a, Akatsiya...?

Naravno, procjena samo.

Trenutno, ciljevi HIMARS-a bi bile artiljerijske i PVO jedinice Rusa.

Najveća prednost nije domet, koliko je preciznost. Ukrajinci ali i Rusi trenutno imaju slične sisteme kada je domet u pitanju, Uragan i Smerch.

HIMARS ima mogućnost korištenja laserski navođenih raketa i to je najveća prednost.

Teoretski, mali izviđački dron, kakve imaju Ukrajinci, izviđači u pozadini, Bayraktar, laserom obilježi cilj a HIMARS ga pogađa. To je game changer, u odnosu na dosadašnje naoružanje obje strane.

Istini za volju, i Rusi imaju Krasnopol navođenu municiju, ali je skoro nikako ne koriste, jer je nemaju dovoljno.

[sumirprimus]

Zanimljiv tekst malo duzi, al se isplati, who is who i kako stvari idu unutar mordor rezima..


Putin’s Pivot to a “Really Big War” in Ukraine
As his invasion enters its fourth month, the Russian leader is preparing for the long haul. Meanwhile, the military is chattering about its losses, and putting out calls for supplies on Telegram.

By Isaac Chotiner

May 24, 2022

Andrei Soldatov is an expert on the Russian intelligence bureaucracy, and the functioning of Vladimir Putin’s security state. Soldatov is the author, along with Irina Borogan, of “The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad.” They are also the founders and editors of the site Agentura.ru, which covers Russia’s security services. Two months ago, as it first became clear that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was going poorly, I spoke with Soldatov about Putin’s reaction to the setbacks. I called him again on Monday, with the hope that he could explain what has been happening internally in Russia throughout the past sixty days. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how Russia is preparing for a long war against Ukraine, how the Russian military sees the operation, and some of Putin’s biggest miscalculations.

Since we last talked, how have things looked internally in the Russian government?

The main thing is that, at least among the military, everybody now understands that it’s going to be a long, conventional war, not the small military operation they pretended it would be. And that is why some changes were made in terms of the structure of who is in charge of leading the troops on the battlefield. The military-intelligence agency was also put in charge of collecting intelligence information for the troops. [Previously, the domestic security service was doing so.]

Spoiler

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When we talked last time, you mentioned thinking that there had been more purges on the intelligence side than on the military side. And in part that was because the military had developed so much power within Putin’s system. But the U.K.’s Defence Intelligence agency recently claimed Putin is now moving against figures in the military. Is your sense that something has changed with the military? Is Putin purging for past mistakes, or preparing for a long war?

Given that he is not changing the main people, it looks like he’s preparing for a long war. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is still there, and Chief of the General Staff [Valery Gerasimov] is still there, but there has been a big turnaround. And I think it was quite visible during the military parade of the ninth of May. Everybody knows that Gerasimov was not in attendance.


What about within the intelligence agencies? When we talked a couple of months ago, it seemed Putin was beginning some purges to punish people for the intelligence shortfalls in the initial parts of the invasion. What more do we know about that now?

The G.R.U. is Russia’s military-intelligence agency and Putin put the first deputy head of the G.R.U., Vladimir Alekseev, in charge of intelligence operations in Ukraine. So that was what happened in the beginning of May. It is a significant change because, before that, when we spoke in March, Ukraine was primarily a responsibility of the F.S.B., a domestic counterintelligence agency. The leader of the fifth service of the F.S.B. is Sergey Beseda, and he was under a lot of criticism and was arrested. A lot of things happened to him because Putin believed that Sergey could provide a political solution to the problem of Ukraine, that he could use the F.S.B. to instigate a regime change in Kyiv. But that failed, obviously. So now Putin is preparing for the long war, and for that he needs military spies, not political operators, and the F.S.B. people are mostly political operators—that is why he appointed Vladimir Alekseev to be in charge of intelligence gathering in Ukraine.

Does this suggest that Putin has simply blamed the intelligence agencies for the war’s problems? Or is it that he has no option now, other than to turn even more to the military?

That’s the problem. He’s actually out of options. He’s quite limited. He got himself in a big war, and right now the military is finally quite convinced that they are fighting a really big war, not just some limited conflict. So what’s he going to do? He needs to vow to keep going in Ukraine. And he understands that he’s fighting a conventional army, not some group of Nazis. And the military thinking is that in this big war, the Russian Army is on the losing end, because the Ukrainian Army is a completely mobilized army that actually claims it can call on hundreds of thousands more in reserves. The Russian Army is still largely a peacetime army.

At the same time, the Ukrainian Army is given the best weaponry that the West can provide. And this weaponry is tested against the Russians and the Russians are not in position to inflict any damage on nato. They’re suffering heavy losses from the weaponry supplied by nato countries.

For many years, the Russian military believed that they had a chance to win a conflict with the West, not because they have better technology—they knew that the West always would have better technology—but because the West, and specifically the United States, would never sustain heavy casualties like the Russian Army can sustain, because, to the leadership, the cost of life is different. But in this war, in Ukraine, all the casualties are not by nato or by the American Army but by the Ukrainian Army. So even this cannot be played by the Russian Army. And that is why they think that they picked up a fight with nato in the wrong place.


So if they’d been fighting a nato country then presumably nato itself would be experiencing losses. And now nato is more willing to go along with the long war, because it’s the Ukrainians who are taking the losses?

Yes, absolutely. But the weaponry supplied by nato—

By nato countries, really.

Yes, exactly. So the Russians are taking these losses and they are taking a hit from the Ukrainian Army with the best weaponry in the world, supplied by the West. But we are not in position to inflict any damage back on nato.

You’ve said several times that this means it’s going to be a big, long war. What is the goal of that war? What does the Russian Army think it is trying to do?

The Army feels that it’s going to be a really long war. They believe that this pretense of running special operations should be abandoned and some people in the Army establishment are saying this openly. For instance, Vladimir Kvachkov—he’s a former colonel of Special Forces. He is respected in the Army because of his war record in Afghanistan. And he became prominent in 2005. He was actually charged with trying to kill Anatoly Chubais, a big name in the Russian reformist government back in the nineteen-nineties. Lots of Russians blame Chubais for the way reforms went in the nineties. So, allegedly, Kvachkov tried to kill him. He got caught and sent to prison, and then got acquitted and released. On May 19th, a statement signed by Kvachkov, which lots of people inside of the Army support, said that, Look, we need to admit that we lost the first stage of this war. The Special Forces part of the war didn’t work and the Russian armies were told to retreat from the Kyiv region and Kharkiv, so now we need to accept it’s a big war and we need to adjust our strategy. And I talked to some people inside of the military, and they are supportive of this point of view.

But do we know what the goals of this war are?

No, that’s the most interesting thing. The thinking is that, look, we are sustaining heavy casualties and suffering a lot, so the goal of occupying the Donbas cannot be the objective of such a war. We need something a bit more ambitious, and some pro-military channels on Telegram have just conducted polls and asked their subscribers, “What do you think? When will the objective for this war be achieved?” And only six per cent of people said that it would be achieved with the “liberation” of the Donbas, while thirty-three per cent said it would be when the whole of Ukraine capitulates unconditionally. People in the military and people close to the military want something much more ambitious than what Putin is saying.

Are you implying the officer corps is more hawkish than Putin?

No, just more than the official position of Putin. Nobody knows what he actually thinks.

It’s depressing, though, because it suggests there’s not going to be a lot of opposition to Putin embarking on a long war. It suggests that the military, which you’ve defined as the other big power center, aside from Putin, is in favor of it.

Yes. Unfortunately, now they accept it. When we first spoke, they were trying to find whom to blame for the way the war started. But now it looks like they have accepted that the war is going on. They accept that it’s going to be a really long war and that they need to adjust and need to find a way to fight it. So they completely switched to this war mentality. Unfortunately.

How has the propaganda within Russia changed, if it has? There was all this talk early on about how this was just a special cleanup operation, and wasn’t a major war. Have Putin and the propaganda become more upfront about this being a long struggle?


The message from the Kremlin is quite confusing, and that is why even people who are supportive of the war might be relying more on Telegram channels and bloggers than on, say, Russian state media. Again, some polls were conducted by pro-military, pro-war channels on Telegram. And again only two per cent said that we actually trust the mass media as a source of information about the special military operation, or whatever it is. So it looks like there is some sort of disconnect between the government and even pro-war people. It’s also quite confusing in terms of objectives. Weeks ago, all of a sudden, everybody started talking about Transnistria, which is a region in Moldova. Lots of people thought that might be a sign that Putin is getting serious about escalating the conflict beyond the borders of Ukraine. And maybe he’s going to send more troops into the region, just to escalate. It never happened, or it’s not what is happening right now. Then there was increasing talk about tactical nuclear weapons that might be used, for instance, against Azovstal, the steel plant in Mariupol. But, again, the nuclear weapon was not used against it. So it’s a series of confusing messages. But I don’t think these changes in rhetoric are actually consistent with what the Kremlin is going to do

And figuring out public opinion is still very difficult, yes?

I had this conversation with the Levada Center people. It is the only independent pollster in the country. They are saying that, actually now, lots of people, eighty per cent, are supportive of the war, perhaps because people are adjusting to this new reality, and the economic impact of the sanctions is not yet there. People who know more than I do about the economy say that we need to wait until the middle of the summer for some impact from the sanctions. In big cities, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, you can see that some shops are closed, but the coffee store is still there. You can go to the cinema. Everything looks the same. And especially in Moscow there’s not much pro-war propaganda. You see signs sometimes, but they are not everywhere. And the Moscow government tries to pretend that everything is going as usual: enjoy the summer.

More broadly, what else are you looking at as this war enters a long phase?

The Russian Army suffered some big, disastrous casualties, and, to be honest, I’ve been following how people reacted to that internally. We had this big case with the sinking of the Moskva ship, which didn’t seem to have a big effect on opinion in military circles. But it looks like something is changing now because of the most recent disaster with Russian troops trying to cross the Siversky Donets River last week, and an entire battalion tactical group was decimated from Ukrainian shelling. This registered, surprisingly, on people and on the military. Pro-Russian military bloggers started talking about the losses and asking why nobody was held responsible for these losses. So, only now have they started questioning what the military is planning and how the war is being conducted. These are people in the military and the security services

So, even if people in the military are still very much in favor of the war, there’s started to be more self-questioning about why things have gone so badly?

Yes. They think that the war is a necessity. That’s how they see it—like it’s unavoidable. But the way the military command is conducting operations, that is now questioned by high people in the Army and in the security services.

What’s the hope there, or what do you draw from that?
Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I think we have some new factor here in that Telegram is such a big thing in Russia, that it is probably the very first war where we have, if you can call it, some public opinion of the Russian military and some sort of discussion about the military, which is happening on Telegram, not always in open channels but in some private groups. People talk about what is going on. It is a new factor.

The veterans of the Russian Army are quite unhappy with the equipment their friends are given. So they’re gathering radios, medicine, armor, or, for instance, if they know that there’s some shortages in night-vision devices for pilots. It also started a discussion about why the Army cannot provide this kind of equipment. And that creates some sort of—well, it’s not pressure, but at least people have started talking inside of the military. They are talking about these problems.

What’s happened with your Web site? Is it still down

It was blocked, but again, thanks to Telegram, we are still accessible for Russians. You can subscribe. So we think it’s quite fine. We’re still able to reach our audience and talk to them. It’s officially blocked, but people know how to access it.

izdvojeno

That’s the problem. He’s actually out of options. He’s quite limited. He got himself in a big war, and right now the military is finally quite convinced that they are fighting a really big war, not just some limited conflict. So what’s he going to do? He needs to vow to keep going in Ukraine. And he understands that he’s fighting a conventional army, not some group of Nazis. And the military thinking is that in this big war, the Russian Army is on the losing end, because the Ukrainian Army is a completely mobilized army that actually claims it can call on hundreds of thousands more in reserves. The Russian Army is still largely a peacetime army.

At the same time, the Ukrainian Army is given the best weaponry that the West can provide. And this weaponry is tested against the Russians and the Russians are not in position to inflict any damage on nato. They’re suffering heavy losses from the weaponry supplied by nato countries.

For many years, the Russian military believed that they had a chance to win a conflict with the West, not because they have better technology—they knew that the West always would have better technology—but because the West, and specifically the United States, would never sustain heavy casualties like the Russian Army can sustain, because, to the leadership, the cost of life is different. But in this war, in Ukraine, all the casualties are not by nato or by the American Army but by the Ukrainian Army. So even this cannot be played by the Russian Army. And that is why they think that they picked up a fight with nato in the wrong place.

[drug_profi]

Pa to je ono sto govorismo ovdje. Nije bilo boljeg zicera za NATO od Ukrajine. Dovoljno velika da apsorbuje ruski napad, dovoljno odlucna da se brani,
nije u NATO, a granici sa NATO i ima strateski vazan polozaj u odnosu na Rusiju.
Da su pitali Brisel i Pentagon gdje da započnu rat, ne bi bolje odabrali.

[sumirprimus]

[sumirprimus]

Pa to je ono sto govorismo ovdje. Nije bilo boljeg zicera za NATO od Ukrajine. Dovoljno velika da apsorbuje ruski napad, dovoljno odlucna da se brani,
nije u NATO, a granici sa NATO i ima strateski vazan polozaj u odnosu na Rusiju.
Da su pitali Brisel i Pentagon gdje da započnu rat, ne bi bolje odabrali.

cekaju oni njih na zicer jos od 2016 te ja mislim..

[sumirprimus]

gledaj ti barbara, bescutnih, kradu usjeve od ukrajinaca i prijavljuju ko rekordne iznose
mordor pravi

[skrbavi-admin]

ko nije osjetio njihovu cizmu ne zna sta je blagostanje......

[corolla02]

[Čitalac]

Okupator otima sve, od žita do kulturnog blaga.

As well as destroying museums and galleries, Russian troops are accused of having stolen an estimated 2,000 artworks. In addition to the theft of the Scythian gold in Melitopol, in Mariupol a handwritten Torah scroll and a valuable gospel printed in Venice in 1811 were all have been taken.

[Truba]

Pa to je ono sto govorismo ovdje. Nije bilo boljeg zicera za NATO od Ukrajine. Dovoljno velika da apsorbuje ruski napad, dovoljno odlucna da se brani,
nije u NATO, a granici sa NATO i ima strateski vazan polozaj u odnosu na Rusiju.
Da su pitali Brisel i Pentagon gdje da započnu rat, ne bi bolje odabrali.

I bas zato je trebalo rusima udobrovoljiti prije 2014
Jer kad znas da imas budalu i naoruzanog manijaka treba biti dobar s njim
Jbg ali to sam samo ja
Pizda

Eh sada pravac bojiste oslobadjajte zemlju

[Janjicar]

Eto vam budite dobri preko Milanovica ko vam brani....

[toska]

Pa to je ono sto govorismo ovdje. Nije bilo boljeg zicera za NATO od Ukrajine. Dovoljno velika da apsorbuje ruski napad, dovoljno odlucna da se brani,
nije u NATO, a granici sa NATO i ima strateski vazan polozaj u odnosu na Rusiju.
Da su pitali Brisel i Pentagon gdje da započnu rat, ne bi bolje odabrali.

cekaju oni njih na zicer jos od 2016 te ja mislim..

previđate da niko nije mogao sa sigurnošću predvidjeti ishod ruske invazije,
opciju pada Ukrajine i uspostavu proruske marionetske vlasti niko ozbiljan nije smjeo apsolutno isključiti,

gdje bi tu bio interes Amerike ili UK?

[corolla02]

gledaj ti barbara, bescutnih, kradu usjeve od ukrajinaca i prijavljuju ko rekordne iznose
mordor pravi

pljacka cista

ovako putinovci finansiraju svoj rat

[lajkujMe]

Svi u cudu zboh Njemacke



Sad se prica da se organizuje istocna Europa s Nordijskim i VB zemljama da pomognu a da Nijemce ignorisu.
Naravno uz poziv da pomognu

[drug_profi]

Pa to je ono sto govorismo ovdje. Nije bilo boljeg zicera za NATO od Ukrajine. Dovoljno velika da apsorbuje ruski napad, dovoljno odlucna da se brani,
nije u NATO, a granici sa NATO i ima strateski vazan polozaj u odnosu na Rusiju.
Da su pitali Brisel i Pentagon gdje da započnu rat, ne bi bolje odabrali.

I bas zato je trebalo rusima udobrovoljiti prije 2014
Jer kad znas da imas budalu i naoruzanog manijaka treba biti dobar s njim
Jbg ali to sam samo ja
Pizda

Eh sada pravac bojiste oslobadjajte zemlju

I tako udobrovoljavaj ludaka dok ti sve ne uzme...

[drug_profi]

cekaju oni njih na zicer jos od 2016 te ja mislim..

previđate da niko nije mogao sa sigurnošću predvidjeti ishod ruske invazije,
opciju pada Ukrajine i uspostavu proruske marionetske vlasti niko ozbiljan nije smjeo apsolutno isključiti,

gdje bi tu bio interes Amerike ili UK?

Upravo tako. I to obara sve teze o tome da su USA i UK isprovocirali ovo.
I oni su sami nudili egzil predsjedniku Zelenskom, vjerujuci da nema nista od Ukrajine.
Medjutim, heroji su stali na crtu. I tu se onda upalise lampice anglosaksoncima.

[Grean]

Nema linije, nije dobro. Ovo ko' na Igmanu 93', ambijent, nema rovova.

Tresnjevo brdo , oca mi, samo jos tekbir da krene...eno onaj ceto jos sanja taj tekbir...

I ti bio?

Cuo sam da je bio i @JoseMujica samo je baniran na dvije sedmice pa nam ne moze odgovoriti.

Ja sam izasao drugu noc kad je tunel prokopan, mislim da je bio 31/7 na 1/8 ali slagat cu ti u dan. Dosli na Veliko polje ujutro onaj isti dan kad je palo. Odatle Hrasnica, pa nazad pod Golo brdo pjeske preko Stojcevca, premjesten dan poslije na Tresnjevo koje je nekako u blizini Golog, pa nas odmijenili a mi presli na kontra stranu mislim da su Crni vrhovi negdje prema Krupcu. Tu ostali 5 noci i 4 dana.

Naravno sve nove linije, nigdje nista, suma i poredaj se.

Izvinjavam se za off topic.

[toska]

previđate da niko nije mogao sa sigurnošću predvidjeti ishod ruske invazije,
opciju pada Ukrajine i uspostavu proruske marionetske vlasti niko ozbiljan nije smjeo apsolutno isključiti,

gdje bi tu bio interes Amerike ili UK?

Upravo tako. I to obara sve teze o tome da su USA i UK isprovocirali ovo.
I oni su sami nudili egzil predsjedniku Zelenskom, vjerujuci da nema nista od Ukrajine.
Medjutim, heroji su stali na crtu. I tu se onda upalise lampice anglosaksoncima.

da, to je to

a kritičari bi nepomaganje Ukrajine od Amerike opet tumačili kao "zavaljivanje", isto kao i pomaganje,
uvijek imaju argument

[90minut]

A to je mit jel hahahahhahaha

Kao što je mit da ameri i izraelci osiguravaju plin i naftu?

reci ne drogi
foe

Da mi je tvoj proces razmišljanja da se odmorim barem na dan

[djugum]

a kritičari bi nepomaganje Ukrajine od Amerike opet tumačili kao "zavaljivanje", isto kao i pomaganje

Da da...od pocetka je takav bio narativ od nekih na forumu. U pocetku udjes u diskusiju ali uvidis da nema pomaka u razmisljanju - jbt isto ko da je promjeniti misljenje usljed novih saznanja smrtni grijeh. Ovdje i ne racunam one sto su ideloloski jednostavno toliko daleko odlutali da radije vjeruju kojekakvim teorijama zavjera nego svojim ocima i zdravom razumu.

[sumirprimus]

ameri ne zaboravljaju mijesanje u us izbore i jos mnogo toga, raznorazne dogadjaje jos od konferencije u minhenu, iznenadne bolesti americkih diplomata po bijelom svijetu, aneksiju krima 2014 , sirija i spasavanje vojnika asada i mnogo toga jos..
ameri osim sto ne zaboravljaju i ne prastaju, i vrate kd tad ,a ova jzicer jednostavno nisu mogli propustiti, a ko kaze da nisu imali plan u nekoj ladici vec

kako god zicer je, pa i za nas male, jedinstvena prilika da se rijesimo ruskog sveta i satelita i njihove pogubne politike u europi...

[nota1969]

reci ne drogi
foe

Da mi je tvoj proces razmišljanja da se odmorim barem na dan

šta je proces razmišljanja ?
nesuvisao si totalno
manje šiše,dande
pa možda bude bolje
i opet foe

[sumirprimus]

arogancija ga je kostala glave..

[sumirprimus]

da li je patka znacemo , vidjecemo...