Ukraine Notes
This is a long one, I should have split it but had a busy week.
Ukraine Notes
Ukraine says it destroyed two Russian patrol boats with TB-2 drone attacks. Video footage shows the boats are on fire, it’s unclear if they sank. And now we have multiple reports of the USA sharing intelligence with Ukraine for targeting, including involvement in the sinking of the Moskva. But any major fire on a ship is extremely serious and can be just as ruinous as sinking the ship in terms of repair cost and time.
This is rich. The Russians plundered $5,000,000 worth of combine harvesters from a John Deere dealer in Ukraine, transported them over 700 miles to Grozny, AND THEY DON’T WORK! 27 harvesters were taken, and they were remotely disabled! They’re worth $300,000 each and were taken from a dealership and had an electronic interlock to prevent such theft. LOVE IT! Also taken were tractors and seeders. The equipment had GPS installed and was easily tracked. Reportedly the Russians are trying to hack around the lockouts, we shall see how successful they are.
A Ukrainian intelligence analyst says he thinks Russia is getting ready for an all-out Zerg attack across the Donbas front, making reference to the popular video game Starcraft. This is a mass assault with little regard to casualties. Considering their current Donbas success - i.e. none (see much later paragraph), I can't see this doing much more than limited gains and a lot more bodies and wrecked machinery.
Russian oligarchs forced to sell off stakes in bank after criticizing the Ukrainian war. What a surprise.
Since the war started, Russia has been hit with a brain drain of young IT professionals fleeing the country both in protest of the war and because they didn’t want to get drafted and shot. Now the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service has stepped up and is offering tech-savvy prisoners to perform low-cost IT work to Russian companies to work remotely to help fill domestic needs.
Russian tanks. The major tank in the Russian inventory is the T-72, which is quite old, dating back to the USSR and the 1970s, but they have huge numbers of them so it’s hardly surprising that we’d see so many in use. The latest and greatest Russian tank is the T-90M, which is quite sophisticated. Safer than the T-72, satellite communications, etc. There’s only 100 of them. Some have been sent to the Donbas offensive. AND THEY’RE GETTING BLOWN UP. So not much better than the T-72 when it comes to NATO anti-tank missiles and artillery.
The Dnipro river sort of cuts Ukraine in half, running from the SE corner of Belarus almost down to the city of Dnipro. Russia really, REALLY needed to capture bridges and fords to have good east/west passage across the country. And much like they needed to control the air space above Ukraine, failed to secure it. Now Ukraine has fortified the river and Russia is unable to secure it for their own access. The locals are unhappy because they can’t take pleasure craft out on it safely or otherwise use it recreationally.
The Russian ship Admiral Makarov was hit with Ukrainian anti-ship missiles. It is/was equipped with eight vertical launch cells for Kalibr and other cruise missiles, 24 Buk anti-aircraft missiles, plus short-range air defense cannon and anti-submarine rockets. The Russian Navy operates three - or perhaps now two - Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, with 10 similar vessels either completed or under construction for India as Talwar-class vessels. Word got out that part of the attack on the Moskva, and possibly the Makarov, included sending out drones to distract the anti-aircraft and air defense capabilities of the ship while the anti-ship missiles closed and did their thing. That does not speak well to the crew training that they allowed themselves to become distracted and fixated on one threat while ignoring the bigger threat that lead to their destruction.
Ukraine’s very capable TB2 drones attacked a Russian ship delivering an air defense system to Snake Island, apparently destroying the ship. Other footage shows a hit on a building on the island, which is off the southern coast near Romania.
The war just got real for Russia’s civilian population: Ukraine launched a DDoS, Distributed Denial of Service attack, against a very critical distribution chain. The Unified State Automated Alcohol Accounting Information System. The two day outage this week “…impacted not only vodka distribution but also wine companies and purveyors of other types of alcohol.”
Russia is now the world’s leader for leaked sensitive data such as passwords and email addresses. They are getting massively attacked by pro-Ukraine cyber groups. One group calling itself Network Battalion 65 has modified the Conti ransomware software package to evade detection and with improved encryption and is nailing government-connected Russian companies. They say they haven’t collected any money yet but will give any proceeds to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, daily downloads of VPN software inside Russia have skyrocketed from about 10,000 a day before the war to nearly 300,000 a day currently, according to data compiled for The Washington Post by the analytics firm Apptopia, which relies on information from apps, public data and an algorithm to come up with estimates. Russian clients typically download multiple VPNs, but the data suggests millions of new users per month. Russians are seeking information outside of Putin’s Digital Iron Curtain.
U2’s Bono and Edge gave an hour-long concert in a Kyiv subway station, performing alongside local talent. I expect there to be YouTube videos of it somewhere.
Lockheed-Martin is ramping up production of the very successful Javelin anti-tank missile, almost doubling it to 4,000 units annually, this will take about a year. No word on whether this is the U.S. military version that will require a component to be removed before export, or if it will be the export version, or a mix.
Soldiers fighting for Russia from South Ossetia refused to fight, leaving the battlefield after 11 days and returning home. The were quoted as saying that the equipment was crap and 99% of it non-functional and officers did not know what they were doing. In one case, an officer had bodyguards because he was afraid his troops would beat him. Later, Spetznaz troops - Russia’s special forces - forced their way into his quarters and beat him. When the Ossetia troops were asked directly if they thought Russia would lose the war, one soldier replied “Yes, we believe they will lose.”
Southern Ossetia was back in the news today, 13 May. Apparently they are going to hold a "referendum" whether or not to rejoin Russia. I'm confident it will be an absolutely free and valid vote.
Russia this week had their annual Victory Day parade celebrating the defeat of Germany. This year had some differences. Putin’s speech was much more subdued. Analysts were apprehensive that he might declare actual war against Ukraine, but he did not. In fact, he did not utter the word ‘Ukraine’ at all in his speeches. And he did not look well. He was limping and stumbling a bit, and he was the only one among the World War 2 veterans in the review stand who had a blanket on his lap. Conspicuously missing from the military equipment show of force was the Russian Air Force. Aside from possible equipment problems and fuel shortages that could have caused a cancellation, there’s the issue that they’ve lost a heck of a lot of equipment and pilots in Ukraine. But there’s another factor to consider: security for Putin. He knows Egypt's Anwar Sadat was assassinated during a military review. And even if the planes are loaded with dummy bombs and have no ammunition in their guns and cannons, all it takes is one pilot with some guts to crash his plane into the review stand and it’s all over. He’s also pissed that they haven’t been able to secure air control over Ukraine, ignoring the fact that him and his klepto friends have gutted the military - that can’t possibly have anything to do with it! So this can also be a penalty round for the Air Force, announced as ‘poor flying conditions’ when the skies were perfectly reasonable for decently skilled pilots to fly in.
Putin Health Rumors: far be it for his health to be actually discussed by the Kremlin, current rumors include Thyroid Cancer for which he may need surgery very soon which will take him out of action for a period of time. Today I read it being described as "blood cancer", which I interpret as leukemia. Here's to a fast and painful death to a miserable bastard who has ordered the murder of multiple people using quite a number of novel techniques including nerve agents.
Whenever the Ukrainian military captures a Russian military position or an intact command vehicle or anything like that, it's standard procedure to scour it for anything that might be valuable in terms of intelligence information. Recently they struck gold. In the town of Trostyanets in Sumy Oblast (oblast is an administrative district, I guess akin to a county or state), they recovered a set of COMPLETE Russian war plans that detailed what the Russians were wanting to do from beginning to end, which was to take over the entire country. They haven't had any luck with this and have yet to capture and hold any significant city for any substantial period of time. Even Mariupol hasn't completely fallen, and with the new NATO/American artillery coming online, if that gets into the area they can give the Russian troops one hell of a pounding when assisted by drone surveillance.
The Russian Donbas offensive has been a farce. The orcs have captured just one city and have been pushed back pretty much everywhere else and are losing ground. In an extremely embarrassing case caught on surveillance satellites, the Russians attempted a river crossing using a tugboat and pontoon bridges. Sadly for them, it was in range of artillery, possibly some of the new artillery coming online from NATO and the USA. Not only were the pontoon bridges destroyed, the tugboat was badly damaged if not destroyed and over 50% of the battalion's combat vehicles were destroyed or rendered combat inoperable. Effectively the battalion was wiped out. Maybe it was a brigade. Now, obviously the Ukrainian artillery have this part of the river zeroed in to a fare thee well and can rain god's judgement down on anyone who wants to go for a swim. So what do the Russians do? Attempt a third crossing. It has exactly as much success as the previous, i.e. lots more scrap iron sitting on the far shore and the bottom of the river, and more men dead.
Let's talk about the artillery, it's pretty amazing stuff. We're used to the old war movies where the spotter is watching through field glasses and the artillery fires and he yells into the radio "Up ten and over five! Fire for effect!" Well, that was before GPS and modern munitions. At least for NATO. The Russians still need forward observers, or artillery directors, to adjust fire. And they don't have them, so they're using ordnance maps from the 1980s before the fall of the USSR, which aren't remotely accurate anymore. And they're using old "dumb" munitions. Likewise, almost all of Ukraine's field artillery pieces were of Soviet manufacture prior to 1991! So they're getting massive upgrades with this new gear! Every howitzer that the USA, Canada, France, England, Australia, etc. is sending them are standard NATO 155mm artillery. Every shell will fire out of any howitzer. And no shell will fire out of any Russian or older howitzer. The new American munitions have fins and seeker heads that will look at the battlefield for GPS coordinates or laser designators and say "Hey! There's an important target! Let's blow that up!" Do you know what you can mount a laser designator on? A TB2 drone! Or field infantry! Here's a quote that's fun: "The Soviet-era 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled howitzer has a range of 10.5 miles and can fire up to three 152-millimeter rounds per minute. By comparison, the French CAESAR self-propelled howitzer has a range of nearly 25 miles and can fire up to six rounds per minute." You don't want to be a Russian facing that! French artillery anti-tank rounds are amazing. Check this out: "UK/French BONUS artillery shell. BONUS was developed for one thing and one thing only: to kill tanks and other armored vehicles. BONUS, once fired from the muzzle of a howitzer, flies downrange and ejects two smart submunitions. The two submunitions use a multispectral sensor package to detect enemy armor across an area of up to 32,000 meters. Once an enemy tank or armored vehicle is detected, the submunition fires a self-forging warhead that lances down through the top of the vehicle, penetrating the thin armor and destroying it." NATO artillery out-ranges Russian artillery, so if it can get close enough with drone support, send in a fleet of drones to laser designate the Russian artillery and no more Russian artillery!
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a39841070/ukrainian-army-field-howitzers/
The first Russian soldier has gone on trial in Kyiv for war crimes Thursday 12 May with his court appearance. He is charged with the murder of an unarmed civilian, a 62 y/o man (IIRC) who was on a bicycle talking on a cell phone. The 21 y/o soldier was the commander of a tank group and was driving around in a stolen car when he was ordered to kill the man to prevent him from reporting their position, he did. No info on how the Russian soldier was captured. The first court appearance had the soldier acknowledge his identity but he did not have to enter a plea yet, that will be the next court session. Also coming up is an in abstentia trial for a soldier who murdered a man then raped the man's wife at gunpoint while threatening her and the surviving children.
A lot of war crimes like these were captured on CCTV footage, and possibly with internal Russian Army collaboration, the Ukrainian gov't has names and identifying information of lots of the soldiers assigned to this war. Identifying them may not be difficult if they are captured. If they are not, there's always social media.
There is growing belief that a lot of the accidents and sabotage inside Russian borders may be pro-Ukrainian or anti-Russian partisans, actual Russian citizens taking an active stance in the war, and not active Ukrainian army elements infiltrating Russia and committing sabotage. Interesting development if it is. There is, of course, just the Occam's Razor die roll of looting critical systems, lax maintenance, and then eventually rolling snake eyes and bad shit happens. But that can't explain all of the things potentially related to the war happening inside Russia.
Another article I saw recently quoted a senior intelligence analyst saying Putin could still "steam roller Ukraine". Well, maybe. Probably. Even without going nuclear. But it's debatable. He's losing tanks left, right, front, and center, and his reserve tanks are in terrible state. His air force has not been able to establish air superiority, and some really good air defense units will be coming in to play. I've talked about the NATO artillery. He does have man power, but it's not high quality and it's absolutely not motivated, and word is leaking that this is such a botched operation that you do not want to go there. Another article said that Putin will be finished in 90 days, that Ukraine is absolutely winning the war right now. I'm just not sure they have the man power in infantry units to push the Russians out, they're still terribly out-numbered. I'm hoping they can, and that they can retake Mariupol and sever the Russian land-link to Crimea and keep it expensive for the Russians to support by sea. Even moreso now with the ships that they've lost. And the Russian economy is absolutely in the shitter when it comes to building replacement tanks, helicopters, jets, much less ships. The first three are relatively fast to make, but not fast enough to get back into this war. A naval ship? 4 years. And damned expensive! Not to mention crew training! His material loss on this little ego venture is absolutely ruinous on Russia's economy.
Finland is on the verge of petitioning to join NATO. It shares an 800 mile border with Russia, and Russia doesn't like the idea at all. Until now, they've been uneasy neighbors. Russia is making a lot of blustery noises. Putin told Sauli Niinistö, Finland’s president,there was no threat to Finland's security. Yes, you also guaranteed Ukraine’s security and sovereignty by treaty. I believe Sweden backed down from joining NATO and will remain neutral, or maybe just no decision yet. Because of Finland’s move, Russia has stopped supplying them with electricity, but it was only a 10% loss and Finland’s grid operator says they can make up the difference elsewhere with no disruption. In a related move, Ukraine shut down a Russian natural gas feed that was somehow still running through their country into Europe. I don’t understand how Putin doesn’t understand what his future losses will be with a lot of countries cutting out Russian energy supplies and never going back.
Oligarch #7 dead, "his shaman" administered a hangover that was tainted with toad venom. Now, personally - and I don't know about you - I don't trust my shaman with my hangover cure. And I always keep my toad venom carefully secured. Administer your own hangover cure, keep your shaman away from your toad venom, you should be okay. Oh, and don't be a Russian oligarch in the energy sector. Four were executives at the state-owned Gazprom, this one was a former executive at Lukoil. Now here's the curious part: NONE of the victims criticized Putin or the war in Ukraine! The deaths look like classic KGB/FSB capers, so why is Putin having them iced?
Ukraine Notes
Ukraine says it destroyed two Russian patrol boats with TB-2 drone attacks. Video footage shows the boats are on fire, it’s unclear if they sank. And now we have multiple reports of the USA sharing intelligence with Ukraine for targeting, including involvement in the sinking of the Moskva. But any major fire on a ship is extremely serious and can be just as ruinous as sinking the ship in terms of repair cost and time.
This is rich. The Russians plundered $5,000,000 worth of combine harvesters from a John Deere dealer in Ukraine, transported them over 700 miles to Grozny, AND THEY DON’T WORK! 27 harvesters were taken, and they were remotely disabled! They’re worth $300,000 each and were taken from a dealership and had an electronic interlock to prevent such theft. LOVE IT! Also taken were tractors and seeders. The equipment had GPS installed and was easily tracked. Reportedly the Russians are trying to hack around the lockouts, we shall see how successful they are.
A Ukrainian intelligence analyst says he thinks Russia is getting ready for an all-out Zerg attack across the Donbas front, making reference to the popular video game Starcraft. This is a mass assault with little regard to casualties. Considering their current Donbas success - i.e. none (see much later paragraph), I can't see this doing much more than limited gains and a lot more bodies and wrecked machinery.
Russian oligarchs forced to sell off stakes in bank after criticizing the Ukrainian war. What a surprise.
Since the war started, Russia has been hit with a brain drain of young IT professionals fleeing the country both in protest of the war and because they didn’t want to get drafted and shot. Now the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service has stepped up and is offering tech-savvy prisoners to perform low-cost IT work to Russian companies to work remotely to help fill domestic needs.
Russian tanks. The major tank in the Russian inventory is the T-72, which is quite old, dating back to the USSR and the 1970s, but they have huge numbers of them so it’s hardly surprising that we’d see so many in use. The latest and greatest Russian tank is the T-90M, which is quite sophisticated. Safer than the T-72, satellite communications, etc. There’s only 100 of them. Some have been sent to the Donbas offensive. AND THEY’RE GETTING BLOWN UP. So not much better than the T-72 when it comes to NATO anti-tank missiles and artillery.
The Dnipro river sort of cuts Ukraine in half, running from the SE corner of Belarus almost down to the city of Dnipro. Russia really, REALLY needed to capture bridges and fords to have good east/west passage across the country. And much like they needed to control the air space above Ukraine, failed to secure it. Now Ukraine has fortified the river and Russia is unable to secure it for their own access. The locals are unhappy because they can’t take pleasure craft out on it safely or otherwise use it recreationally.
The Russian ship Admiral Makarov was hit with Ukrainian anti-ship missiles. It is/was equipped with eight vertical launch cells for Kalibr and other cruise missiles, 24 Buk anti-aircraft missiles, plus short-range air defense cannon and anti-submarine rockets. The Russian Navy operates three - or perhaps now two - Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, with 10 similar vessels either completed or under construction for India as Talwar-class vessels. Word got out that part of the attack on the Moskva, and possibly the Makarov, included sending out drones to distract the anti-aircraft and air defense capabilities of the ship while the anti-ship missiles closed and did their thing. That does not speak well to the crew training that they allowed themselves to become distracted and fixated on one threat while ignoring the bigger threat that lead to their destruction.
Ukraine’s very capable TB2 drones attacked a Russian ship delivering an air defense system to Snake Island, apparently destroying the ship. Other footage shows a hit on a building on the island, which is off the southern coast near Romania.
The war just got real for Russia’s civilian population: Ukraine launched a DDoS, Distributed Denial of Service attack, against a very critical distribution chain. The Unified State Automated Alcohol Accounting Information System. The two day outage this week “…impacted not only vodka distribution but also wine companies and purveyors of other types of alcohol.”
Russia is now the world’s leader for leaked sensitive data such as passwords and email addresses. They are getting massively attacked by pro-Ukraine cyber groups. One group calling itself Network Battalion 65 has modified the Conti ransomware software package to evade detection and with improved encryption and is nailing government-connected Russian companies. They say they haven’t collected any money yet but will give any proceeds to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, daily downloads of VPN software inside Russia have skyrocketed from about 10,000 a day before the war to nearly 300,000 a day currently, according to data compiled for The Washington Post by the analytics firm Apptopia, which relies on information from apps, public data and an algorithm to come up with estimates. Russian clients typically download multiple VPNs, but the data suggests millions of new users per month. Russians are seeking information outside of Putin’s Digital Iron Curtain.
U2’s Bono and Edge gave an hour-long concert in a Kyiv subway station, performing alongside local talent. I expect there to be YouTube videos of it somewhere.
Lockheed-Martin is ramping up production of the very successful Javelin anti-tank missile, almost doubling it to 4,000 units annually, this will take about a year. No word on whether this is the U.S. military version that will require a component to be removed before export, or if it will be the export version, or a mix.
Soldiers fighting for Russia from South Ossetia refused to fight, leaving the battlefield after 11 days and returning home. The were quoted as saying that the equipment was crap and 99% of it non-functional and officers did not know what they were doing. In one case, an officer had bodyguards because he was afraid his troops would beat him. Later, Spetznaz troops - Russia’s special forces - forced their way into his quarters and beat him. When the Ossetia troops were asked directly if they thought Russia would lose the war, one soldier replied “Yes, we believe they will lose.”
Southern Ossetia was back in the news today, 13 May. Apparently they are going to hold a "referendum" whether or not to rejoin Russia. I'm confident it will be an absolutely free and valid vote.
Russia this week had their annual Victory Day parade celebrating the defeat of Germany. This year had some differences. Putin’s speech was much more subdued. Analysts were apprehensive that he might declare actual war against Ukraine, but he did not. In fact, he did not utter the word ‘Ukraine’ at all in his speeches. And he did not look well. He was limping and stumbling a bit, and he was the only one among the World War 2 veterans in the review stand who had a blanket on his lap. Conspicuously missing from the military equipment show of force was the Russian Air Force. Aside from possible equipment problems and fuel shortages that could have caused a cancellation, there’s the issue that they’ve lost a heck of a lot of equipment and pilots in Ukraine. But there’s another factor to consider: security for Putin. He knows Egypt's Anwar Sadat was assassinated during a military review. And even if the planes are loaded with dummy bombs and have no ammunition in their guns and cannons, all it takes is one pilot with some guts to crash his plane into the review stand and it’s all over. He’s also pissed that they haven’t been able to secure air control over Ukraine, ignoring the fact that him and his klepto friends have gutted the military - that can’t possibly have anything to do with it! So this can also be a penalty round for the Air Force, announced as ‘poor flying conditions’ when the skies were perfectly reasonable for decently skilled pilots to fly in.
Putin Health Rumors: far be it for his health to be actually discussed by the Kremlin, current rumors include Thyroid Cancer for which he may need surgery very soon which will take him out of action for a period of time. Today I read it being described as "blood cancer", which I interpret as leukemia. Here's to a fast and painful death to a miserable bastard who has ordered the murder of multiple people using quite a number of novel techniques including nerve agents.
Whenever the Ukrainian military captures a Russian military position or an intact command vehicle or anything like that, it's standard procedure to scour it for anything that might be valuable in terms of intelligence information. Recently they struck gold. In the town of Trostyanets in Sumy Oblast (oblast is an administrative district, I guess akin to a county or state), they recovered a set of COMPLETE Russian war plans that detailed what the Russians were wanting to do from beginning to end, which was to take over the entire country. They haven't had any luck with this and have yet to capture and hold any significant city for any substantial period of time. Even Mariupol hasn't completely fallen, and with the new NATO/American artillery coming online, if that gets into the area they can give the Russian troops one hell of a pounding when assisted by drone surveillance.
The Russian Donbas offensive has been a farce. The orcs have captured just one city and have been pushed back pretty much everywhere else and are losing ground. In an extremely embarrassing case caught on surveillance satellites, the Russians attempted a river crossing using a tugboat and pontoon bridges. Sadly for them, it was in range of artillery, possibly some of the new artillery coming online from NATO and the USA. Not only were the pontoon bridges destroyed, the tugboat was badly damaged if not destroyed and over 50% of the battalion's combat vehicles were destroyed or rendered combat inoperable. Effectively the battalion was wiped out. Maybe it was a brigade. Now, obviously the Ukrainian artillery have this part of the river zeroed in to a fare thee well and can rain god's judgement down on anyone who wants to go for a swim. So what do the Russians do? Attempt a third crossing. It has exactly as much success as the previous, i.e. lots more scrap iron sitting on the far shore and the bottom of the river, and more men dead.
Let's talk about the artillery, it's pretty amazing stuff. We're used to the old war movies where the spotter is watching through field glasses and the artillery fires and he yells into the radio "Up ten and over five! Fire for effect!" Well, that was before GPS and modern munitions. At least for NATO. The Russians still need forward observers, or artillery directors, to adjust fire. And they don't have them, so they're using ordnance maps from the 1980s before the fall of the USSR, which aren't remotely accurate anymore. And they're using old "dumb" munitions. Likewise, almost all of Ukraine's field artillery pieces were of Soviet manufacture prior to 1991! So they're getting massive upgrades with this new gear! Every howitzer that the USA, Canada, France, England, Australia, etc. is sending them are standard NATO 155mm artillery. Every shell will fire out of any howitzer. And no shell will fire out of any Russian or older howitzer. The new American munitions have fins and seeker heads that will look at the battlefield for GPS coordinates or laser designators and say "Hey! There's an important target! Let's blow that up!" Do you know what you can mount a laser designator on? A TB2 drone! Or field infantry! Here's a quote that's fun: "The Soviet-era 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled howitzer has a range of 10.5 miles and can fire up to three 152-millimeter rounds per minute. By comparison, the French CAESAR self-propelled howitzer has a range of nearly 25 miles and can fire up to six rounds per minute." You don't want to be a Russian facing that! French artillery anti-tank rounds are amazing. Check this out: "UK/French BONUS artillery shell. BONUS was developed for one thing and one thing only: to kill tanks and other armored vehicles. BONUS, once fired from the muzzle of a howitzer, flies downrange and ejects two smart submunitions. The two submunitions use a multispectral sensor package to detect enemy armor across an area of up to 32,000 meters. Once an enemy tank or armored vehicle is detected, the submunition fires a self-forging warhead that lances down through the top of the vehicle, penetrating the thin armor and destroying it." NATO artillery out-ranges Russian artillery, so if it can get close enough with drone support, send in a fleet of drones to laser designate the Russian artillery and no more Russian artillery!
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a39841070/ukrainian-army-field-howitzers/
The first Russian soldier has gone on trial in Kyiv for war crimes Thursday 12 May with his court appearance. He is charged with the murder of an unarmed civilian, a 62 y/o man (IIRC) who was on a bicycle talking on a cell phone. The 21 y/o soldier was the commander of a tank group and was driving around in a stolen car when he was ordered to kill the man to prevent him from reporting their position, he did. No info on how the Russian soldier was captured. The first court appearance had the soldier acknowledge his identity but he did not have to enter a plea yet, that will be the next court session. Also coming up is an in abstentia trial for a soldier who murdered a man then raped the man's wife at gunpoint while threatening her and the surviving children.
A lot of war crimes like these were captured on CCTV footage, and possibly with internal Russian Army collaboration, the Ukrainian gov't has names and identifying information of lots of the soldiers assigned to this war. Identifying them may not be difficult if they are captured. If they are not, there's always social media.
There is growing belief that a lot of the accidents and sabotage inside Russian borders may be pro-Ukrainian or anti-Russian partisans, actual Russian citizens taking an active stance in the war, and not active Ukrainian army elements infiltrating Russia and committing sabotage. Interesting development if it is. There is, of course, just the Occam's Razor die roll of looting critical systems, lax maintenance, and then eventually rolling snake eyes and bad shit happens. But that can't explain all of the things potentially related to the war happening inside Russia.
Another article I saw recently quoted a senior intelligence analyst saying Putin could still "steam roller Ukraine". Well, maybe. Probably. Even without going nuclear. But it's debatable. He's losing tanks left, right, front, and center, and his reserve tanks are in terrible state. His air force has not been able to establish air superiority, and some really good air defense units will be coming in to play. I've talked about the NATO artillery. He does have man power, but it's not high quality and it's absolutely not motivated, and word is leaking that this is such a botched operation that you do not want to go there. Another article said that Putin will be finished in 90 days, that Ukraine is absolutely winning the war right now. I'm just not sure they have the man power in infantry units to push the Russians out, they're still terribly out-numbered. I'm hoping they can, and that they can retake Mariupol and sever the Russian land-link to Crimea and keep it expensive for the Russians to support by sea. Even moreso now with the ships that they've lost. And the Russian economy is absolutely in the shitter when it comes to building replacement tanks, helicopters, jets, much less ships. The first three are relatively fast to make, but not fast enough to get back into this war. A naval ship? 4 years. And damned expensive! Not to mention crew training! His material loss on this little ego venture is absolutely ruinous on Russia's economy.
Finland is on the verge of petitioning to join NATO. It shares an 800 mile border with Russia, and Russia doesn't like the idea at all. Until now, they've been uneasy neighbors. Russia is making a lot of blustery noises. Putin told Sauli Niinistö, Finland’s president,there was no threat to Finland's security. Yes, you also guaranteed Ukraine’s security and sovereignty by treaty. I believe Sweden backed down from joining NATO and will remain neutral, or maybe just no decision yet. Because of Finland’s move, Russia has stopped supplying them with electricity, but it was only a 10% loss and Finland’s grid operator says they can make up the difference elsewhere with no disruption. In a related move, Ukraine shut down a Russian natural gas feed that was somehow still running through their country into Europe. I don’t understand how Putin doesn’t understand what his future losses will be with a lot of countries cutting out Russian energy supplies and never going back.
Oligarch #7 dead, "his shaman" administered a hangover that was tainted with toad venom. Now, personally - and I don't know about you - I don't trust my shaman with my hangover cure. And I always keep my toad venom carefully secured. Administer your own hangover cure, keep your shaman away from your toad venom, you should be okay. Oh, and don't be a Russian oligarch in the energy sector. Four were executives at the state-owned Gazprom, this one was a former executive at Lukoil. Now here's the curious part: NONE of the victims criticized Putin or the war in Ukraine! The deaths look like classic KGB/FSB capers, so why is Putin having them iced?