Ukraine Invasion: Part 21

[MagicFox]

Another thread, thank you to all

I've been rooting around on Russian sites while pondering three things:

1. What do they think the situation on the ground is?

1. How good/bad are the Russian forces?

1. Is Russification taking place in occupied areas?

As is often the case I come to no firm conclusions and find conflicting evidence.

Max Seddon
This appears to be the first, unconfirmed video of the Moskva, Russia’s now-sunken Black Sea flagship, after it was hit by Ukrainian missiles.

It’s three seconds long and the last two are someone saying: “You fucking idiot! What the fuck are you doing?”
twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1515971229978611715?t=8XvaCd4b1M_2I6jdEkr8dw&s=19

1. What do they think the situation on the ground is?

What's going on near Kherson appears to be fluid but Russian sources do not admit to ceding much ground.

Mariupol is about captured and will fall a week ago, yesterday, today, tomorrow.

In Donbass generally (see sample map for yesterday afternoon there is general alignment with what Ukrainian sources suggest. The map I have posted though does not perhaps show Ukrainian advances NW of Izium but the mapper has put an inset map there.

1. How good/bad are the Russian forces?

Russian side sources don't admit to much in the way of error. I can find images of clean and orderly command posts, well equipped and well behaved soldiers and so on. However, we know from Ukrainian / Western sources that there is a raping rabble element. What's the balance? It's hard to tell as there aren't images of young, panicked and undersupplied troops floating around. What I do notice is that the soldiers appearing well behaved and determined to camera tend to be older men.

Image: older troops showing off captured NATO supplied munitions.

How good/bad are the Russian forces, continued.

My working assumption is that there's a lot of fairly useless conscript level cannon fodder out there, and there are competent troops. It's a mix. The effectiveness of this mix is reduced significantly by interdiction of food, fuel and munitions supplies.

What about not Russian Federation forces on the Russian side? I found little in terms of competent looking forces from the Lugansk and Donetsk breakaways. There are Wagner images though. The one to the left came out on a Wagner telegram channel on 15th April and shows an eyes blanked out fighter in Izium (as shown by the sign above the statue). I assume it is to show 'yes we are here in the drive South in Donbass. Note Wagner watermark top right. Most Wagner group imagery is still from Syria though.

The British also said they were learning lots from the Ukrainians because they were full of ideas...

This is the thing that brings joy to anyone involved teaching or training. Good on both sides.

Has Russia had any disputes over borders elsewhere ? Because this is probably the time that other countries could take advantage and seize some of their land back ? It would be a shame if they were to work together and coordinate their actions too.

1. Is Russification taking place in occupied areas?

There's talk of a referendum in Kherson and introduction of Rubles in occupied areas. The Ukrainian President keeps mentioning the latter. I think it is a slow process and people have to have the things to be able to spend them. If the economy is semi-suspended that is a challenge. There's an additional issue with Ukraine being more cashless and card based than some might think. So someone would need a Ruble account linked to the card.

There are a lot of images of Ukrainian flags and signs being taken down. The town sign at Enerhodar/godar has been repainted in Russian colours (see image). This is where the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station is on the south side of the Dnieper. No other replacement needed with this one as the fourth letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, which looks like an upside down Latin L, is the same in Russian and Ukrainian. In Russian you sound it as G and in Ukrainian as H.

Russification seems to be a 'better get on with it' almost ad hoc process as the original Putin plan was regime change not capture an arc of territory.

@MMBaranova

2. How good/bad are the Russian forces?

Russian side sources don't admit to much in the way of error. I can find images of clean and orderly command posts, well equipped and well behaved soldiers and so on. However, we know from Ukrainian / Western sources that there is a raping rabble element. What's the balance? It's hard to tell as there aren't images of young, panicked and undersupplied troops floating around. What I do notice is that the soldiers appearing well behaved and determined to camera tend to be older men.

Image: older troops showing off captured NATO supplied munitions.

How do you tell from a photo if someone is "well behaved and disciplined" ?

Judging by the numbers killed, raped and tortured in previously held occupied areas, i would suggest that the majority either took part or stood by.

To be quite frank, i do not understand the purpose of your last two posts.

Kuril Islands for one (Japan and a clearcut case).

Several places where Russia has poured money into it - South Ossetia, though that is arguable, same for Transnistra; Chechnya for sure, though their spirit has been broken.

AFP News
#UPDATE Ukraine said Monday it was halting for a second consecutive day the evacuation of civilians from frontline town and cities in the east of the country, accusing Russian forces of blocking and shelling escape routes

The British also said they were learning lots from the Ukrainians because they were full of ideas...

A combined force to be reckoned with!

With regard to some previous discussion can I hint that we need to be wary of analysts on Twitter claiming/hinting a tac nuke strike really wouldn't be that bad.

To quote from a PP.

I think the important bit about that piece was how it made the distinction between tactical nukes which are considerably smaller than what we perhaps understand as nukes from Hiroshima.

No criticism of that comment itself or the poster, but the piece it refers to really should not have given or tried to make any such distinction..it's simply plainly downright wrong.

For context: Hiroshima yield estimated at 15- 20 kiloton, Nagasaki yield estimated at about 20 kilton.

Current tac nukes: Anything from sub kiloton to at least 50 kiloton (possibly using a single common warhead through a system happily nicknamed "dial a yield")

One of the potential warheads for the Iskander system (that the Russians have already used with conventional warheads) is up in the 50 k yield range.

FWIW there certainly were warheads around for battlefield/tactical use in the past with 100 kiloton plus yield, may well still be.

So to summarise do not assume a tac nuke strike automatically means something sub Hiroshima, it could be significantly bigger.

Let's hope we don't have any.

.

Russian propaganda media announce that 'Ukrainian nationalists' prepare to bomb churches on Easter night this weekend: this means that's what Russia is planning to do. The majority of Ukrainians will celebrate Easter on April 24, and going to a church for a night mass is a custom
twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1516014022981824519?t=rQyVM3iL0hc__wu5nvAZGg&s=19

Oh shit.

There is no depths they won't sink to, is there.

@notimagain

With regard to some previous discussion can I hint that we need to be wary of analysts on Twitter claiming/hinting a tac nuke strike really wouldn't be that bad.

To quote from a PP.

I think the important bit about that piece was how it made the distinction between tactical nukes which are considerably smaller than what we perhaps understand as nukes from Hiroshima.

No criticism of that comment itself or the poster, but the piece it refers to really should not have given or tried to make any such distinction..it's simply plainly downright wrong.

For context: Hiroshima yield estimated at 15- 20 kiloton, Nagasaki yield estimated at about 20 kilton.

Current tac nukes: Anything from sub kiloton to at least 50 kiloton (possibly using a single common warhead through a system happily nicknamed "dial a yield")

One of the potential warheads for the Iskander system (that the Russians have already used with conventional warheads) is up in the 50 k yield range.

FWIW there certainly were warheads around for battlefield/tactical use in the past with 100 kiloton plus yield, may well still be.

So to summarise do not assume a tac nuke strike automatically means something sub Hiroshima, it could be significantly bigger.

Let's hope we don't have any.

This is a bit misleading and more worrying than it needs to be. DH says that a single tactical nuke wouldn't be that bad (for those outside the blast zone). The real danger is that it will lead to retaliation and potential escalation. It's a genie you definitely don't want to let out of the bottle.

He says yield is not linear, it's more like the earthquake scale but on a x4. So a 100 kiloton is not a 5 times bigger explosion than a 20 kiloton one, it's a bit more than double the Hiroshima one. You'd need a 320 kiloton one to treble it and a 1,280 one to quadrupal it. Obviously utterly devastating for those in the blast zone but not for those outside it.

As for fallout, he says that does increase on a linear basis so if it's 10 times as big you get 10 times the fallout. HOWEVER, the bigger the blast the higher into the atmosphere the fallout goes and the longer it takes to come back down. This means it has time to degrade before coming back down. So overall the fallout wouldn't be that much worse.

How do you tell from a photo if someone is "well behaved and disciplined" ?

Well with a VIDEO (and there are a lot of them) you see their actions in a range of settings over time and hear what is being said.

As for a photo. Um, not sure. Do YOU have an answer to that? It was your question.

So before I get the shaming dump on me again, as someone who is a defender of Ukrainian independence, was present (briefly) at Euromaidan before Christmas 2013 , sends money to relatives in Ukraine (in the free parts and in the Russian occupied), sends money to relief charities and to support the Ukrainian war effort in the hope that it kills Russian soldiers, and as a mother, let me tell you what I do here on Mumsnet. I can get my to a reasonable extent in Ukrainian and Russian and know some of the locations that feature in the news. I sometimes dip into Russian media and social media to see what it says is going on. There's a lot of propaganda, ultra-nationalist sounding off and, despite phones officially being banned for Russian troops, some interesting from the ground reports, photos and videos.

Early this morning I spent a couple of hours poking around with three questions in mind, seeing what was fairly easy to stumble upon to suggest some partial answers. One of my answers is that there are clearly different levels of behaviour and discipline on the Russian side. How it breaks down percentagewise and whether one switches from brutal rapist and murderer mode to calm professional soldier and back again is something I can't say.

One image I posted was a grab I made from a video that showed older soldiers who seemed coherent and well turned out showing off captured NATO munitions. I tend to not post more than one image and it was illustrative. I could have linked videos a range of videos but life is too short to feed everything in.

I follow Trent Telenko, Phillips OBrien et al already so the pastes of their output on here aren't anything new to me. I see if I can turn over a stone that hasn't had so much scrutiny.

How very strange. My last post has been hidden by MNHQ but only included a calming clarification of the info @notimagain posted from a nuclear scientist.

@MNHQ I can give you DH's details if your worried about accuracy.

That's so annoying I want to read @BringBackCoffeeCreams post!

Alexandra2001

To be quite frank, i do not understand the purpose of your last two posts.

I'm truly sorry Alexandra2001. Perhaps for you or perhaps that I have clearly been wasting my time.

Placemarking, thank you.

@MagicFox

That's so annoying I want to read *@BringBackCoffeeCreams* post!

Me too, and I think we should be able to.

I for one appreciate your posts @MMBaranova - I was going to say that earlier and I say it now even more strongly

Radio 4 World at One well worth a listen (will be on iplayer www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_fourfm from about 7 minutes in )

Starts with report from Lviv and then how Moskva is being covered by Russian media, the two British captured UA soldiers, and a jaw-dropping interview with a Russian former Putin advisor and leader of some think-tank, asserting that Moskva was bombed by NATO forces and that NATO is waging war against Russia. Norway, UK and USA get special mention and condemnation.

So that's how it's being played: Russia battling valiantly against the might of NATO, as opposed to being humiliated by puny Ukraine.