Ukraine Invasion: Part 33

[MagicFox]

Starting this at 980 on the other thread because it's late and I might miss the tipping point. We're moving fast at the moment, thanks all for the analysis, insight and company

It would be a hell of a loss - there's more on that story here:

edition.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine/index.html

"SpaceX’s request that the US military foot the bill has rankled top brass at the Pentagon, with one senior defense official telling CNN that SpaceX has “the gall to look like heroes” while having others pay so much and now presenting them with a bill for tens of millions per month.
According to the SpaceX figures shared with the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine were paid – or partially paid – for by countries like the US and Poland or other entities."....

As a general point some in the spaceflight field hold the opinion that SpaceX in general has done very well out of government contracts over the years - Musk didn't get to be one of the richest men in the world by being overly charitable.

It might be worth you reading through maybe the last 4 threads. The nuclear threat has been discussed, with good evidence for pros and cons for Putin to use them. Situations where he could have used them but didn't and the effectiveness of his use of them.

They are very reassuring and the links to each previous thread are at the beginning of each one.

As a result, right now, no, I'm not worried or afraid. In Britain I'm more concerned about keeping a roof over my head and food on the table rather than having a nuclear missile dropped on my head.

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has recognized Russia a terrorist state. 99 members voted in favour, 1 abstained. A historic moment. According to UA rep Honcharenko, the resolution recognizes Russia's participation in the UN Security Council illegal.

(It was Turkey who abstained)

Sorry, that should say it was one of Turkey's 5 representatives who abstained.

So four of them voted in favour? That's good

I’ve belatedly found these threads, I’d looked before but not seen them.

I just wanted to say thanks to you all, your knowledge is amazing and I appreciate you taking the time to share it

Back to lurking

Yes it does.

But I see no alternative that isn't worse.

If the West crumbles because of nuclear weopons threats, then all dictators will know that they work.

What will happen then? Dictators will make the threat over and over again as they invade other countries (don't forget that Russia has said that it wants to take over Latvia etc), and one day they will come up against someone who will say "we know what it's like living under you, even with the threat of nukes we are not giving in" and then the dictator will use them. Again, don't forget that many, many people were willing to die for freedom when the Iron Curtain came down. My partner's parents were on one of the squares, part of the gigantic crowd, facing the govt army and their weopons and they all knew they might die. Remember Romania and the deaths that led to the fall of Ceausescu.

Or an authoritarian leader will come up against another authoritarian leader and neither will blink, and the nukes will be used.

Standing firm - but not aggressively - now reduces the chance of nuclear weopons use. We will come up against this crisis again and again in the future. Wise leadership and a combination of standing firm and not threatening Putin's personal safety and power base are by far the best ways of handling this.

By standing firm it also allows time for the inner factional fighting to get worse. He's almost certainly less likely to set off the nukes if threats to his power come from within his own power base than from outside.

So yes, I'm afraid. But I'd be more afraid if we were crumbling.

If you want to live without the fear of nuclear war then I'm afraid it's too late. The moment they were invented was the moment that we were going to have to negotiate crises like this over and over again, in the future.

Right now we have, thank God, measured leaders in the US and NATO who are being very careful in how they handle the Russian leader's threats of nukes. We are, in a strange way, lucky.

As for the battlefield details, they can be interesting! specially to military or ex-military people but also to the interested observer too.

I do worry that this is possibly how things start with Musk. People/ Countries call for peace negotiations and then once they are denounced they pull their funding as they can't afford it anymore. Just prey this doesn't happen.

I do wander if/ when Ukraine push Russia out the country, the war isn't likely to be over. So how long to we keep funding them for after Russia have left as Ukraine will need a huge conventional army to deal with the likely good of future threats?

@Ijsbear that post was perfect

ISW Key Takeaways

Public reports of the first deaths of ill-prepared mobilized Russian troops in Ukraine have sparked renewed criticism of the Russian military command.

Russian forces continued to launch strikes on critical Ukrainian infrastructure on October 13.

Increasingly degraded morale, discipline, and combat capabilities among Russian troops in combat zones in Ukraine may be leading to temporary suspensions in offensive operations in limited areas.

Ukrainian forces made gains northwest of Svatove.

Russian forces are continuing defensive operations in anticipation of potential Ukrainian attacks towards Kreminna.

Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that Russian troops are attempting to recapture positions in northern and northwestern Kherson Oblast.

Damage to the Kerch Strait Bridge continues to impede the movement of Russian supplies and personnel to southern Ukraine.

Russian forces continued ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast and claimed to make marginal advances south of Bakhmut.

Russian incompetence continues to take its toll on mobilized personnel before they ever reach the front lines, likely exacerbating already-low morale.

Russian officials are likely increasingly limiting freedom of movement in Russia to preserve additional mobilizable populations and prevent them from fleeing the country.

Russian occupation officials called for the evacuation of civilians from occupied Kherson Oblast.

+++

⚡️ UK intelligence: Russian troops anticipate combat in Kherson.
Russian forces have started to prepare for the evacuation of some civilians from occupied Kherson, which means they "anticipate combat (kyivindependent.com/uncategorized/uk-intelligence-russian-troops-anticipate-combat-in-kherson) extending to the city of Kherson itself," the U.K. Defense Ministry reported on Oct. 13.

⚡️ 14 NATO members, Finland to create joint European air defense system.
Defense ministers of 14 NATO allies and Finland have agreed to develop an air and missile defense system called "European Sky Shield Initiative" to strengthen NATO's ability to defend its members, the organization reported.

⚡️ Ukrainian military: Country is ready for possible attack from Belarus.

⚡️Zelensky: 'Ukraine only has 10% of air defense it needs.'

⚡️Governor: Russia again hits military facility in Lviv Oblast.
According to Lviv Oblast Governor Maksym Kozytskyi, Russia struck a military facility in the oblast's Zolochivskyi District for the second time on Oct. 13. He didn't specify what the facility was or when it was hit for the first time.

Ukraine returns 20 soldiers from Russian captivity (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/ukraine-returns-20-soldiers-from-russian-captivity)

Borrell: ‘Russian army will be annihilated' in case of nuclear attack against Ukraine (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/borrell-russian-army-will-be-annihilated-in-case-of-nuclear-attack-against-ukraine)
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said that the people supporting Ukraine, the EU, its member states, the U.S., and NATO are “not bluffing” when speaking about the response in case Russia uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

Stoltenberg: NATO to send drone jamming devices to Ukraine (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/stoltenberg-nato-to-send-drone-jamming-devices-to-ukraine). (kyivindependent.com/news-feed/stoltenberg-nato-to-send-drone-jamming-devices-to-ukraine)

⚡️Ukraine’s military destroys Russian command post in southern Ukraine.

Stand with the Kyiv Independent. Become a member today: patreon.com/kyivindependent

Spain to provide Ukraine with 4 Hawk air defense systems

⚡️Reuters: Russia threatens to withdraw from UN-backed grain export agreement.
Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, told Reuters that Moscow could withhold support for the UN-backed grain deal’s renewal next month if the UN doesn’t address its concerns.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his team are working on an expanded Black Sea Grain Initiative, a four-month-long agreement between Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the UN.

⚡️Ukraine investigates whether Antonov employees cooperated with Russia, leading to destroyal of Mriya.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has opened a probe against undisclosed employees from Ukraine’s Antonov company, the producer of the world’s largest cargo aircraft An-225 Mriya.
(this plane was extraordinary. Almost genius. It could launch space shuttles from its back, midair).

⚡️Police open investigation over pensioner tortured to death in occupied Chaplynka, Kherson Oblast.

⚡️Ukraine demands that Red Cross visits prison in occupied Olenivka in next 3 days.

⚡️Media: Satellite images show 11 Russian strategic bombers close to Norwegian border.
Russia has moved strategic bomber planes to the Kola peninsula, about 32 kilometers from the Norwegian border, according to satellite imagery obtained by Faktisk, a Norwegian fact-checking website. The images of the Russian Olenya Air Base on the Kola Peninsula near the Norwegian border show an increased presence of long-range strategic bombers, including Tu-160 and Tu-95.
The planes have the capacity to attack targets in the U.S. and all of Europe with nuclear bombs. The planes are usually stationed at Engels Air Base, 720 kilometers southeast of Moscow, Faktisk reports.

⚡️Official: Belarus declares counter-terrorist operation regime. [this is possibly part of increasing repression in Belarus and probably also part of Russia's new theme that Ukraine is a terrorist nation]

⚡️ Belarusian media: Belarus began covert mobilization 'to man up existing combat units.'

⚡️Reintegration Ministry: Ukraine's army has liberated over 500 settlements in Kharkiv Oblast.

⚡️CNN: Elon Musk’s SpaceX asks Pentagon to pay for Starlink in Ukraine.
CNN reported citing documents the journalists obtained, that last month Elon Musk’s SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service for Ukraine.
In the letter, it was requested that the Pentagon take over funding for Ukraine’s use of Starlink, which SpaceX claims would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months.

Huge personnel losses again. No indication of which areas. The plane is the Mriya.

Yes, as another interested observer I second that, and I really appreciate having these threads where if I don’t understand military stuff I can ask and firstly nobody will try to make me feel stupid for not knowing and secondly having seen the same people posting here for months I would not be at the mercy of random bullshitters making things up as I would be on Twitter.
Long live details.

Absolutely.

Succinct twitter thread on why we can't give in to Putin's nuclear threats:

twitter.com/andriypzag/status/1580703518994083840?s=12

The thing I love about these threads is the knowledge we are being gifted with from experts. That could be from people who have lived under Russian control, people who know about the geopolitics of the region, people who live in different countries and can explain the politics and attitud es, military experts etc. They say knowledge is power and it is, we are not believing headlines and propaganda but asking questions and educating ourselves.
These threads are invaluable

These threads are also great at debunking scaremongering.

Not with fluffy unrealistic positivity but with rational discussions of risk and consequences.

Thank you

I think what's rather scary is how many people get carried away with the emotional fear of the nuclear threat (the fear IS big!) but then aren't willing to weigh up the factors involved. The fear carries them away and leads them to want peace at any cost, which is going to make things worse in the long run not better. It's not one or fifteen people, it's tens of thousands.

that worries me as much as the threat, actually. Emotional-thinking without the ability to pause and think after a while (repeat, after the first shock is over!) leads bad places.

I'll assume I am the "you" since you posted this directly under my post about the Ukrainian air defenses.

What happens on the battlefield matters a great deal. What will deter Russia from using nuclear weapons is the knowledge that not only will that not let them conquer Ukraine, but it would also bring conventional NATO forces into the conflict against them.

I am also under the impression that many of the people who post here appreciate having the military aspects of the conflict explained in a way they find understandable and like being able to ask questions of people with military expertise.

Speaking to someone from work who is very much if this view. She basically said that she will always want to put the safety of her family first before any one else, regardless if it's millions of Ukranians.

When I mentioned about the nuclear threat, they seem to have convinced themselves that if this war carries on then it will eventually lead to a nuclear war and there are no other alternatives. When I explained that Putin wouldn't stop with Ukraine her words were "if I had a choice to die in a nuclear war now or a nuclear war in 10 years time, she would pick in 10 years time".

I do think the media has a huge amount to answer for regarding this as if people just read the headlines, you wouldn't blame them for thinking a nuclear war is imminent (we all know it's not)

She said after the last few years she just wants normality at any cost for her family. Not saying this is the view from everyone that advocates for peace talks etc . However, it does seem that it doesn't matter what it means for the future, they are all for the here and now.

I completely agree @Ijsbear and it's driving me crazy that people seem to not have learnt from WW1 or WW2, given how peace at any cost doesn't work when you're dealing with a tyrant. If we'd stopped him after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, then this situation would never have escalated to the devastation and loss of life we're seeing today.

I also agree re the media @Hancox432 - I've said before on these threads that I have no information or anything constructive to contribute but i appreciate being able to read what knowledgeable people have to say. I also take a great deal of comfort from reading what those who do know what they're talking about and how they post in a measured and non-hysterical way. Puts it all into much better context than the cast majority of what's in the mainstream media.

I am also under the impression that many of the people who post here appreciate having the military aspects of the conflict explained in a way they find understandable and like being able to ask questions of people with military expertise.

Too right we do!

And you do it very well, MissConductUS. Your posts are a model of clarity.

Thank you, and all the other knowledgeable folks contributing. I know there isn't always 100% agreement on the details, but even from reading the disagreements I come away much better informed than by gawping at emotional headlines of "Nukes! Nukes!"

*vast

No, because life is too short to get into a taking about what may not happen and over which I have no control anyway.

The same was true in the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties, when there was just as great a likelihood that nuclear weapons might be used deliberately by some dangerous or nihilistic idiot, or simply by accident. I didn't let that interfere with my sleep then either. The chances of being in a fatal car-crash are rather greater, and I don't fret the whole time about that.

She said after the last few years she just wants normality at any cost for her family.

What sort of world does she want in 10 years' time? One her family have a reasonable future in, or one that's darker?

I get it, but I also fear that a lot of people want that, but it is a very short sighted view. Action now will help make 10 years' time into the future better; with climate change, with stability, militarily, with a better economic future for everyone. (though climate change may be too late).

@Hancox432 Know you can't answer that, but it is frustrating when people take that view!

@JacquelineCarlyle I completely agree @Ijsbear and it's driving me crazy that people seem to not have learnt from WW1 or WW2, given how peace at any cost doesn't work when you're dealing with a tyrant.

Yeah ... :/