This is what it is all about:
A childhood crippled by the war.
Kalinouski's soldiers were driving through Bakhmut, and saw a boy. Stopped, talked, bought sweets, which he took for himself and gave to the local children. No child should go through the horrors of war. We just have to help stop war in Ukraine! pic.twitter.com/lv5Le7eZXc— Kastus Kalinouski Regiment (@belwarriors) December 8, 2022
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!
I had an important conversation with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today. We coordinated our positions ahead of the summit next week. In fact, this will be the final G7 summit this year, and it will determine the priorities for the next year. We are preparing as many as possible solutions that our countries need – for Ukraine and for the G7 states.
I also thanked Mr. Prime Minister and the entire United Kingdom for the constant support of our state. They discussed the situation on the front line and winter prospects on the battlefield.
The front-line situation remains very difficult in the key areas of Donbas – Bakhmut, Soledar, Maryinka, Kreminna… For a long time, there is no living place left on the land of these areas that has not been damaged by shells and fire. The occupiers actually destroyed Bakhmut, another Donbas city that the Russian army turned into burnt ruins.
I thank all our heroes, all soldiers and commanders who hold the front in these directions, repulse attacks and inflict significant losses on the enemy in response to the hell that entered Ukraine under the Russian flag.
Today, a conference was held in Kyiv, which continued the line of events in our country and in Europe that took place this week and last week, during which we work out solutions for the sake of justice, for the sake of holding Russia accountable, and for the sake of finding formats for the release of our people, who are held captive by the occupiers.
We feel support from both states and international organizations and human rights institutions. We hope to be able to announce specific details in the near future.
By the way, the results of the visit of the First Lady of Ukraine to London and her speech in the British Parliament were discussed with the British Prime Minister. On behalf of our country, Olena proposed that the United Kingdom shows leadership in the issue of justice – in the creation of a special tribunal to try the crime of Russian aggression. This is one of the points of the Ukrainian peace formula, and it is very important for me to see now in international communication that global leaders have really heard Ukrainian peace proposals.
Let me remind you that the peace formula consists of ten points – from nuclear security to the restoration of the territorial integrity of our state, from energy security to the return of all prisoners of war and deportees held on the territory of Russia. This is now one of the key tasks for our state – to involve the world in concrete implementation of the points of the peace formula. We must return the Ukrainian flag to all cities and communities of Ukraine, we must ensure the real responsibility of the terrorist state for this war, and we must guarantee the safety of all generations of Ukrainians after the end of this war.
Every day of the heroic resistance of our Defense Forces and all our people brings closer the day when the entire Ukraine will finally experience victory, victory and peace. Real, reliable.
Today, I presented the Ukrainian vision of steps towards peace at the TRT World Forum in Istanbul. There I focused on food security – on Ukrainian initiatives that add global weight to our state. This is the grain export initiative and the Grain from Ukraine initiative.
Using these transparent and useful examples for our people, for the Black Sea region and for the entire global community, we show that it is quite possible to restore security. The main thing is determination. I am sure that Mr. President Erdoğan, who was at the forum, heard our position.
We are already preparing for a very important next week – there will be important international events. I held relevant meetings today. I believe: there will be powerful decisions for our country.
Glory to everyone who fights for Ukraine!
Thanks to everyone who works for our people!
Eternal memory to all those who gave their lives for independence!
Glory to Ukraine!
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the situation in Izium:
IZIUM AXIS/ 2100 UTC 9 DEC/ UKR tactical elements have established positions across the P-66 HWY in the vicinity of Chervonopopivka. On the west bank of the Krasna River, RU forces have targeted artillery on UKR observation points (OPs) near the town of Ploshchanka. pic.twitter.com/4DAq1uiJ0I
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) December 9, 2022
Christopher Miller of The Financial Times brings us the details from inside Bakhmut:
Rockets and mortar rounds rained down on Ukrainian military positions on the eastern edge of the city of Bakhmut, spraying shrapnel and sending troops diving for cover.
Then came the Russian infantry, charging in a first world war-style attack across a no man’s land of shredded trees and artillery craters. The Ukrainians popped up and mowed down many of them with machine guns and grenade launchers.
Moments later, the scenes were repeated — although this time the Russian fighters had to navigate their comrades’ bodies. Again many were cut down by Ukrainian bullets.
“It’s like a conveyor belt,” Kostyantyn, an exhausted Ukrainian machine-gunner who described the scene to the Financial Times, said of the Russian tactics. “For what? A fucking metre of our land.”
The scene on Sunday in the frontline city of Donetsk province is one that troops say has played out repeatedly in recent days as Russia, desperate for a battlefield victory after humiliating defeats in Kharkiv and Kherson this autumn, refocuses its offensive in an area Russian president Vladimir Putin first invaded in 2014 and claimed to have annexed in September.
“They are just meat to Putin,” Kostyantyn added, referring to the Russian soldiers, “and Bakhmut is a meat grinder.”
Ukrainian soldiers described the intensity of the recent fighting in and around Bakhmut, particularly the artillery barrages, as greater than anything they had experienced anywhere in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February.
“A very fierce confrontation is ongoing there, every metre counts,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his Wednesday night address. During a visit to his troops 40km north-west of Bakhmut on Tuesday, he called the fighting around the city the “most difficult area that protects not only the east but our entire state”.
“Hell. Just hell,” is how Volodymyr, a senior officer who declined to give his last name because he was not authorised to speak to journalists, described the fighting. He was with a group of soldiers taking a short rest before returning to the battle.
Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts say there seems to be neither strategy nor logic to the Russian offensive in Bakhmut beyond symbolism. Leading the Russian charge there is the infamous Wagner mercenary group. https://t.co/tm2wYaJWzV
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 9, 2022
Returning to Bakhmut was tough. The city is my adopted Ukrainian home, where I lived from 2010-12. As I entered, a Ukrainian soldier suggested I was an idiot. "I'll pray for you. You should pray for yourself." The destruction since August when I was last there is much worse. pic.twitter.com/BKRdaIwXyu
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) December 9, 2022
Much, much more at the link!
Bakhmut. Evacuation of a wounded soldier. “I am married. My wife is expecting. I can’t die now!”#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/PFHAG1QVwk
— olexander scherba🇺🇦 (@olex_scherba) December 8, 2022
Kherson:
The use of Cluster Munitions in Kherson is heartbreaking. These have wounded and kill more civilians then anything else here. Today we blew up as many as we could because they are to dangerous to move, until we ran out of demolition. Back at it tomorrow. https://t.co/9flMK20CjF pic.twitter.com/CbYKO7xbiM
— Ryan Hendrickson (@tipofthespear42) December 9, 2022
The Financial Times also brings confirmation of what I posted last night in regard to the attempts to get Paul Whelan back. Also, whoever wrote the headline for that article should be ashamed of themselves.
In July, US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on the phone for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. During the call, Blinken pressed Lavrov to accept a “substantial proposal” from Washington to release Griner and the former marine Whelan, who has been detained in Russia since 2018 on what the US and his family say are trumped-up espionage charges.
Americans had offered to free Bout, people familiar with the discussions said, but the Russians said they also wanted the release of Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel from Russia’s domestic spy agency who was convicted of murder in Germany last year.
In the ensuing months, officials said, Washington made a number of offers to Russia in an attempt to secure the release of Griner and Whelan.
However, Biden administration officials said that in recent weeks it became clear that Moscow would only accept a one-for-one swap. According to one senior administration official, “the choice was bringing Brittney Griner home right now or bringing no Americans home from Russia right now”.
The Kyiv Independent‘s defense reporter Illia Ponomarenko provides the amount of the US’s latest aid package to Ukraine:
+$275 million on Ukrainian defense coming from 🇺🇸
One step closer to getting back to normal peaceful life.— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) December 9, 2022
Tally ho!
We traditionally wish you a good Friday, and we flew to do our work. pic.twitter.com/MV8eHAPvVI
— Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) December 9, 2022
Someone asked the other night why I kept putting Tally ho as the caption on Ukrainian Air Force videos. The answer is that US fighter pilots use the phrase or the shorter “Tally” on comms to indicate that the enemy is in sight. This is used in opposition to “visual”, which indicates friendlies are in sight. A lot of the jargon is borrowed from the Royal Navy and, I expect, from the Royal Air Force. I’ve read that the phrase is also used to indicate the enemy is in sight and the fighter is moving to engage, but I’m not 100% sure if that’s an accurate recollection or leftovers from a Tom Clancy novel when I was in college…
Hopefully Leto or one of our other Air Force or other aviation vets will pop up and further clarify. Because I’m not bothering my former boss – a retired Naval Aviator – about this on Friday night. Here’s a list of terms for those interested.
Since we’re on the topic of military aviation, Politico brings news regarding the possible American provision of MQ9 Reapers to Ukraine:
The Air Force thought it had the perfect plan: Take its older Reaper drones, which it’s been trying to get rid of for years, and send them to Ukraine, a country begging for long-range weaponry.
But after months of internal wrangling, the Pentagon has yet to make a decision — even though the drones could provide a capability to Ukraine that it’s wanted since the start of the war.
The Air Force made the pitch to send its older Reaper drones to Ukraine about a month after Russia invaded in late February. But concerns over the transfer of sensitive technology, and the fact that some would almost certainly be shot down, has led to a months-long stalemate, according to four people familiar with the issue.
The four people were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The debate over the armed drones has see-sawed for much longer than for other once-controversial systems, such as artillery and long-range tactical missile systems, both of which began arriving by the summer as fighting escalated.
The stance has frustrated Ukrainian officials who have pledged to use the donated drones to strike only Russian positions within Ukraine, and have promised to share targeting information with the U.S. before launching strikes, one of the people said.
Both the Reaper and the Army version — the Gray Eagle — would give Ukraine a critical new capability as the country’s forces press on occupied Crimea and the well-defended Russian frontlines in Donbas. The issue isn’t off the table, DoD and industry officials have suggested, as the Pentagon and drone maker General Atomics continue to try to make one or both drones transferable to Ukraine.
Since the early days of the war, the Air Force Reapers and Army Gray Eagles have been high on Kyiv’s wish list, as they would give Ukraine a vastly expanded surveillance and strike capability, which is vital in a war heavily reliant on artillery duels and drone attacks.
General Atomics executives have been in contact with Ukrainian officials for months in attempts to reach an agreement on technology transfers that would comply with U.S. rules and concerns.
The Air Force has been trying to scrap older versions of its Reaper fleet for years to free up money to buy and operate more cutting-edge technology, but Congress has shot down the proposal each time.
The most recent proposal in the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which requests the transfer of 100 Reapers to another government agency, would conceivably free up some of the drones to send to Ukraine. The Air Force would not confirm which government agency, but the U.S. Customs and Border Protection also flies Reapers, and it is unclear if the drones would be drawn from the Air Force or special operations fleets.
The Air Force is already operating the aircraft in Europe. Last year, the Air Force began flying Reaper missions from Romania.
In March, the service asked the major commands that fly the Reaper to assess the impact on their units if the U.S. transfers the drones to Ukraine, and Air Force Special Operations Command volunteered to send their drones, said two people with knowledge of the discussions. AFSOC flies roughly 50 Reapers and those drones are equipped with full-motion video that does not come with the baseline system. That offer wound its way through the Pentagon bureaucracy, where it still sits.
The Air Force referred a request for comment to the Pentagon, and Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said he had no updates on where the issue stands.
Much, much more at the link!’
The Daily Beast reports what is clearly RUMINT that Putin has already put an exfil plan in place in case he has to flee for his life:
Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his cronies already have a plan in place to flee the country once things go sideways, a former aide to the Russian president has claimed.
Abbas Gallyamov, a former speechwriter for Putin, made the astounding claim on Telegram early Wednesday, citing an unnamed source that he said had “insider” information on the whole affair.
The evacuation plan, according to Gallyamov, got underway back in the spring, when it was unofficially dubbed “Noah’s Ark.”
“As the name implies, it’s about a search for new land to go to in case it becomes completely uncomfortable in the homeland. The leader’s entourage has not ruled out that he will lose the war, be stripped of power, and have to urgently evacuate somewhere,” Gallyamov wrote.
Putin’s inner circle first considered a plan to evacuate to China, Gallyamov said, but later thought better of it, fearing the chances of “cooperation” from the Chinese were slim, especially since they despise “losers.” Now, he said, the focus has shifted to either Argentina or Venezuela, with Putin ally Igor Sechin currently overseeing an evacuation plan for the latter country.
Here’s a machine translation of the Telegram post referred to in The Daily Beast’s reporting:
Abbas Gallyamov
I usually don’t retell insider stories, but today I will make an exception. Firstly, I trust the source too much, and secondly, the information is very fried.So, starting in the spring, Putin’s Politburo began work on a project under the unofficial name of Noah’s Ark. As the name implies, it is about finding new lands where you can go in case it becomes completely uncomfortable in your homeland. The leader’s entourage does not exclude that he will lose the war, lose power and he will have to urgently evacuate somewhere.
Initially, China, proposed, as they say, by the elder Kovalchuk, was considered as the main platform, but potential emigrants quickly became disappointed in the prospects for cooperation with him. The Chinese are too self-conscious and too despised of others – especially losers. Hope, as it has now become clear, is not enough for them.
Now Latin America – Argentina and Venezuela are being considered as a promising platform. I don’t know any details about the first one, but the project of moving to the second is supervised by Sechin. He has a good personal relationship with Maduro and it is to him that the curatorship of the evacuation project is now transferred.
As I was told, Yury Kurilin, the right hand of the head of Rosneft, is directly involved in the on-site work; a person who, until recently, was in charge of the company’s apparatus. In the summer, he formally resigned from there and now devoted himself entirely to the “Noah’s Ark”. He has American citizenship and good connections. He graduated from Hayward University in California, worked in BP structures, including in the high position of director of corporate affairs.
Unfortunately, my source does not know any other details, however, what has been said is enough to understand: when they say that “everything is going according to plan”, it makes sense to clarify which one. They seem to have more than one plan.
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
It’s so lovely! Today we received the letter from @SecBlinken 🤩 That was so unexpected! And the first time, I received a letter from the United States and from a government official (so maybe next year I’ll not react like this). Thank you, @USAmbKyiv for sending this to me. pic.twitter.com/8YKvWWRcYA
— Patron (@PatronDsns) December 9, 2022
Here are the letters so you don’t have to click through.
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:
@patron__dsns Якби я був персонажем аніме🐶 #песпатрон #патрондснс
The caption machine translates as:
If I were an anime character🐶 #PatrontheDog #PatronDSNS
Open thread!
Spanky
“Tally ho!” Was the call the Hurricane and Spit pilots broadcast as they dove in to engage the Germans in the Battle of Britain. Swiped fron fox hunting.
Alison Rose
“Neither strategy nor logic” seems like a good descriptor of putin’s entire mishegas here. And I don’t doubt at all that he views his soldiers as fodder for the meat grinder, and hasn’t lost one second of sleep over it the whole time. Could there be a starker contrast between two leaders in a war?
Speaking of actual leaders, Time had a ceremony of sorts and Zelenskyy recorded an English-language video for it. I love how he makes clear that he didn’t earn this accolade on his own and that everyone in Ukraine is also worthy of it.
Patron is really building up an impressive network of friends! Maybe one day an American university will award him an honorary…dogtorate.
I’ll see myself out.
Thank you as always, Adam.
zhena gogolia
Gallyamov says a lot of wild things.
Spanky
WaPo article:
David Letterman on his surprise Ukraine trip and Zelensky interview
It’ll air on Netflix Monday night.
Amir Khalid
Trying to take a strategically unimportant town at enormous cost in men and materiel. Wasting already limited ammo stocks to bombard civilian targets, committing a war crime and achieving nothing on the battlefield. Not to take anything from what the Ukrainians are doing, but sometimes it feels like Russia is deliberately trying to lose this war.
zhena gogolia
zhena gogolia
@Spanky: Thanks!
Kent
So the Russians are losing 100+ dead and hundreds wounded (many of whom also will die) every single day in Bakhmut. In just that one single battle.
For the sake of comparison I looked up death rates in Vietnam and Iraq. The single most deadly day for Americans in the entire Vietnam war was 247 dead and that was on the first day of the Tet Offensive when the Vietcong attacked all across the country and suffered upwards of 50,000 casualties themselves.
In Iraq the deadliest day of the entire war for Americans was 37 dead and that was a day in which 30 of the dead was from a helicopter crash.
What Russia is doing is just beyond belief.
trollhattan
Enjoyed seeing this new crew of Ukrainian Ice Infantry, going through training.
https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1601094541607669763?cxt=HHwWhsC8xZXAnbgsAAAA
Alison Rose
@Spanky: “And then we have Trump, who is a mistake from the minute of birth.”
LOL. Letterman’s humor didn’t always land for me, but this gave me a good chuckle.
Geminid
A Ukraine related story made the CBS radio news this evening. US officials warned that Iran may soon send Russia the short range ballistic missiles discussed a couple of months ago. Part of the story described Iranian pilots training in Russia, learning to fly advanced Russian fighter jets. The Russians and Iranians may be trading missiles for warplanes.
Iran has a lot of drones and rockets but not much of an air force. They are said to want to upgrade their air defenses with modern warplanes because they are afraid someone wants to bomb them for some reason.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Look at WWI or WWII for a better comparison.
Carlo Graziani
I believe that the original etymology of “tally ho” may in fact be the cry of English fox hunters sighting their prey as it is flushed by the hounds, and they spur their mounts to the chase. To be pronounced with a very upper-class accent, but slightly excitedly…
YY_Sima Qian
On the subject of Reapers to Ukraine, I read a Twitter thread a month ago (that I can’t find anymore) that made a persuasive case why Reapers are not the most bang for the buck for Ukraine. Reapers fly high, fly slow & are non-stealthy, which make them very vulnerable to Russian SAMs. While Russian air defense has had a hard time defending against low flying Ukrainian suicide drones or cruise missiles (especially as they are stretched thin on the exterior lines), they are still a great threat against anything that flies high, having recovered from the chaotic mess of the “thunder run” to Kyiv at the beginning of the war (when the Russians had failed to set up proper battle integrated air defense system to cover their mad rush). That is why Ukrainian fixed & rotary wing aircraft fly nap of the earth on missions, & why the Ukrainian MOD is no longer positing so many footage of Bayraktars destroying Russian equipment. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are now mainly employing the Bayraktars for battlefield reconnaissance & surveillance, & they are still quite useful in that role. A few Reapers would not make a meaningful impact even at the tactical level, & will likely be shot out of the sky in short order. OTOH, they are quite expensive, so each loss will be painfully felt. The Bayraktars & similar drones are much more disposable & better suited for Ukraine’s current needs.
kalakal
@Spanky:
@Carlo Graziani:
Yep, originally fox hunting on sighting a fox to let the other hunters know. The RAF used it in WW2 to let the ground controllers know they were engaging. I read somewhere that NASA astronauts using it on spotting other spacecraft and spacejunk
kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, it sounds very like WW1 battle on a smaller scale, a mini Verdun
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Of course she was. How long before Bout has a seat in the Duma?
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Like “the information is very fried”?
YY_Sima Qian
@zhena gogolia: What Gallyamov said about exile to China (assuming some semblance of truth) sounds like one sided wishful thinking. China has not stuck its neck out for Russia in any meaningful way throughout the current war, why would it do so for a Putin clique that has lost the war & lost grip of power in Russia. It will be busy cementing ties w/ the new powers that be in Moscow (even if it is liberal & western leaning), the standard Chinese practice when there is a change of power in any state (democratic or authoritarian), & sheltering Putin may well be detrimental to that effort.
The only national leader I can recall China sheltering was King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, after his relations soured w/ the Khmer Rouge regime, & after Vietnam invaded to over throw the Khmer Rouge regime. China, Thailand & the US had forged an informal alliance to unify all of the anti-Vietnamese forces (Khmer Rouge, republicans & royalists) in coalition against the perceived Soviet client state. King Sihanouk received most of his medical care in Beijing, & had died there in 2012.
Carlo Graziani
@Geminid: One thing that I believe that we have just learned concerning Iran’s Shahed drones is that they have a highly constrained supply chain, that in no way matches the Russian ordnance requirements set by the incredible rate of fire in the Ukraine war.
As per last night’s update, they appear to have emptied their stock in the initial sale, and now can do no more than supply the Russians at whatever production rate they can manage above their own needs. Which is probably no more than a few per week, and comically below Russian requirements.
Missiles are likely to have even lower production rate than drones, and the Iranians are unlikely to have a very large stock of them. So they shouldn’t be able to fill as large an order of them for the Russians as they did of Shaheds, and they certainly should not be able to roll them out of factories at rates compatible with volleys of munitions launched at Ukrainian infrastructure.
So I think that we can anticipate that while they will certainly represent a real threat, it will likely be a limited and short-lived one, after which it will become an extremely sporadic one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Carlo Graziani: There is a hunting horn for a reason, old boy.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Wasn’t there some line about the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible? I’m probably remembering it wrong, and I’m not going to look it up.
Carlo Graziani
@kalakal: Actually, I mentioned the other evening, Bakhmut reminds me most vividly of Severodonetsk. The Russians are doing something self-destructive for the most politically idiotic of reasons, and the Ukrainians are obliging them for the sake of butchering as many of their troops as possible, at the highest possible rate of exchange. Even if the Russians should, in the end, “conquer” Bakhmut, it would boot them nothing strategically, and it would constitute an obvious Ukrainian victory to an even greater extent than did the battle of Severodonetsk.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: There was. I think it was Wilde.
Gin & Tonic
Interesting side note to the TV Rain (Dozhd) story from Latvia a couple of days ago. Recall, if you will, the russian reaction to the idea that in Latvia, they have to speak Latvian. Well, there was a report by European Pravda, posted on Twitter, that starting in January the Latvian government will require Ukrainian exiles who are working in Latvia to learn Latvian. I did not check every Tweet in response, but every one I could find from Ukrainians was some form of “yup, makes sense” or “this is logical.”
Gin & Tonic
@Carlo Graziani: If the russians do “conquer” Bakhmut it will be piles of rubble, nothing more.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: Bakhmut is even more senseless than Sievierodonetsk. At least the the battles for Sievierodonetsk & Lysychansk were presumably intended to pave way to conquer the rest of Donetsk & Luhansk. Bakhmut doesn’t lead to anything other than a hallow claim of a battlefield victory.
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: I worked a postdoc in France for 3yr. Initially was only for 1yr. I arrived a month early and paid for an intensive French course at the Alliance Francaise, before the job started. B/c, y’know, if you’re gonna live in a place, you better be able to speak the language. Only imperialists think otherwise.
Jay
Carlo Graziani
@Carlo Graziani: Per ISW:
And, good luck to them. Perhaps they can double the production rate, so that they can produce, and fire, what, maybe two Shaheds per day? Three? Five?
They need hundreds.
I guess sometimes people do things because the alternative is doing nothing. But this is about the same as doing nothing.
Another Scott
@Jay: Thanks for that.
A “More Tweets” reply (sound on):
Slava Ukraini!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Grumpy Old Railroader
Got a kick out of the “List of Terms” that pilots use. It took me right back 50 years to the “boonies” of Vietnam and the Beau coup dinky dow (dien cai dau) grunts I served with. Mostly filth and drudgery on a year long back packing trip in the Central Highlands interspersed with periods of violent chaos and sheer terror. I do miss the funny parts. We found humor in many ways as soldiers always have done
Geminid
@Carlo Graziani: The Shahed is a low cost, one-time use drone that can probably be produced at a faster rate than a few per week. Chips and such may be a constraint but they might not be. I read that that the body and delta wing are made basically out of plastic infused cardboard. So it’s the propulsion and guidance systems that will be limiting factors.
We’ll have a better idea of production rates when Iran sends the next tranch of Shaheds. They are not as effective if used piecemeal, so the next shipment will probably consist of 300inches to 400 units, like the first one. Iran also might dip into their stock of drones previously deployed to enable strikes on on regional enemies like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel.
I would not underrate Iran’s capabilities in this area. They’ve been blowing up stuff with drones at least since September, 2019 when they used 40 to put two Saudi oil facilities out of commission. Those were probably Shaheds or a precursor type. Iran has a decent industrial base and an educated workforce, and they have emphasized development and production of drones for warfare since the late 1980s
And while you say Iran is unlikely to have large stocks of ballistic missiles, I have to ask: how do you know this? It’s a country of 85 million people with educated engineers and a authoritarian regime that has made weapons production a very high priority. Back in July, when Jake Sullivan raised the prospect of Iran sending attack drones to Russia, some people scoffed at the idea that Iran could even produce effective ordinance of this type and that view was proven wrong.
Ruckus
@Kent:
vlad does not give a fuck about anyone but vlad. He may mouth the words but no, not another soul. To anyone who has served most anywhere would be able to tell you, treating men and yes women like disposable bags of meat never really goes over very well, demanding that they die for one man’s desires/bullshit almost never goes over well.
vlad owns Russia, just ask him. He of course will lie about that but he does whatever the hell he wants, like this war. People die he doesn’t give a shit as long as he gets what he wants. He didn’t become one of the wealthiest men in the world by earning $140K/yr. He owns Russia and everyone in it. He makes all the rules.
Jay
One theory about Bakhmut, ( in addition to other Orc actor’s ideas), is that Putin is looking for a “ceasefire”, but needs something domestically, that can be sold as a “victory”.
He need’s a salable “high note” to have the vatnick’s accept, even grudgeingly, a “pause”.
Another Scott
@Jay: Maybe. But given that VVP lies about everything, I find it hard to believe that’s a real consideration. IIRC my russian history, things have to get really, really, really bad for the people to revolt.
Maybe he’s doing what he can to hold on for the glorious 35th Anniversary on May 15, 2023.
Hard to say.
Cheers,
Scott.
glc
@Omnes Omnibus: Here is the Guardian dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.
Corrections and Clarifications
I found their correction regarding The Ballad of Reading Gaol more enlightening.
Perhaps more significantly, they establish that Memphis is not, as is widely believed, a midwestern city, and review other notable points of geographical information.
Captain C
@Kent: I’m starting to wonder if Putin, Prigozhin, Kadyrov, and maybe some others are secretly part of a no shit for real human sacrifice cult, and this is how they get their victims.
Jay
@Another Scott:
It’s not a case of revolution or revolt, by the proletariate,
The vatnick’s have come around to “understanding” that Russia is losing. But they are blaming the Russian Military, some Generals, the Thieves in Law and lately, even Prigozhin, is being criticized.
Putin is not, (yet).
If Putin can “win” in Bakhmut, and then get a ceasefire, ( a pause). the Vatnick’s will see that as a “win” and a reprieve for Russia’s war aims, and will sell it hard to the Russian public.
Anyway, that is one of the theories going round, (not in Russia), behind the Russian focus on Bakhmut “at all costs”.
*(Russia probably can’t take Bakhmut, and any Russian dreams of a ceasefire rank up there with TFG’s dreams of being installed as President for reality.)
Carlo Graziani
@Geminid: You’re right to call me on this. In a sense I’m thinking aloud, or “a-text”.
I’m putting an educated guess together from two factors. One is that missiles are, compared to drones, complicated and expensive and person-time intensive manufactures. Without knowing exact budgets or rates, I would expect fewer to have been produced and stocked, and a manufacturing rate to be lower, than that of the Shahed drones, which are the weapons system for which I think we suddenly have an interesting datum.
The other factor is that whatever the manufacturing rate of either system, it is a couple of orders of magnitude lower than the rate at which the Russians fire them at Ukraine. They simply can’t make them fast enough. That’s the “Aha”.
It’s like a bathtub, with some amount of water in it, that’s getting filled from a tap, and drained from the drain. The tap is the production line, the drain is the requisitions to the field, and the tub is the warehouse. Initially, Iran is in some kind of steady state, because the conflict with Israel is a low-level sort of affair, compared to the war in Ukraine—the tub drains slowly, so the tap can keep up easily, and the tub can fill.
One day, Russia shows up with a huge order. They want the entire contents of the tub. Obviously this is not on, because the Iranians have their own requirements. But the Russians have some toiletries and plumbing supplies of their own that they’d like to trade for, so the Iranians agree to hand over most of the water in the tub, holding back what they think they need to handle their own requirements, and in exchange they drive a near-rape-level bargain for the Russian goodies.
The Russians use up the water in almost no time at all—their requirements are crazy compared to the Iranians. Practically the next day they are back begging for more bathtub water, sink water, toilet water, any water the Iranians may have to sell.
The thing is, the bathtub (drones, in the analogy) will never again be able to fill that kind of huge order. The tub is mostly empty and is going to stay that way, because demand will keep draining it. From now on, at best it can supply the Russians at the supply rate from the water tap, minus the rate that the Iranians deem necessary for their own consumption. And that rate is not going to come anywhere close to Russian requirements.
OK, sorry for the extended analogy. The point is the extreme mismatch between what the Russians need to fire in the war and what the Iranians can hope to produce, no matter how advanced their industrial supply chain has become. Keep in mind that NATO is under strain supplying Ukraine with rounds for its much lower firing rate of all kinds of artillery, and Western military-industrial supply chains are undoubtedly vastly less constrained than Iran’s. It doesn’t matter how good Iran is at making these things. Russia will buy its stock, fire them at Ukraine, then wind up sucking at their agonizingly slow production to lob a few per day at most of whatever it is. One-day volleys of 100+ Iranian missiles/drones etc. directed at Ukrainian infrastructure at a rate faster than the Ukrainians can fix that infrastructure are a pure fantasy. That’s the point.
kalakal
@Gin & Tonic: Oscar Wilde about fox hunting. He wasn’t a fan
kalakal
@Carlo Graziani: The reason I compared it to Verdun is partly the endless repeated frontal assaults by the Orcs across open ground but mostly the murderous idiocy of the Russians. ‘von Falkenhayn’s mincing machine’ began with a hideous but rational plan. He wasn’t actually interested in Verdun as such, what he wanted was a spot he knew the French would defend and where he could concentrate overwhelming artillery. He initially fed in only enough units at a rate that forced the French to keep upping their commitment but not enough to capture the place. The battle took on a hideous life of it’s own, a battle of prestige. von Falkenhayn could hardly tell his troops that he didn’t actually want to capture the place as the casualties were racking up into the 100s of 1,000s and so was forced to try to actually capture it. The French made it their hill to die on, 80% of the entire French army was rotated in and out.
The place itself was ruins before the battle, it served no purpose other than a hideous test of prestige when von Falkenhayn lost control to his subordinates & rivals in internal German politics. I called it a ‘mini’ Verdun and I hope it never gets near the scale of the original which was the longest & bloodiest* battle in history – nearly a year long and 800,000 casualties.
*casualties per area fought over.
patrick II
@Jay:
I can’t believe Ukraine would consider a ceasefire, there are too many reasons to keep continuous pressure on the Russian army during the coming winter months.
Jay
@patrick II:
the theory is not based on Ukraine, or the West, but on Russia.
Russia, to the highest levels. believes if they offer Ukraine a Minsk III, (where they, the Russians get to keep not just the places they are, but the places they have claimed to have annexed), that Ukraine will take the deal, or The West will force Ukraine to take the deal.
It is akin to certain American’s belief, ( and other’s), that if you just make, “Don’t Say Gay”, a law, LBGTQ people will disappear and eventually cease to exist.
Delusional.
Geminid
@Carlo Graziani: When the prospective drone sales were brought up in July, experts predicted that they would not be a “gamechanger,” as in significantly altering the strategic calculus in this war. This assessment has proven accurate. I don’t think the short range ballistic missiles will be too different in this respect, although they will be much tougher to intercept and they deliver more dangerous warheads.
But every night people here decry the death and destruction Russia so viciously inflicts on Ukraine and its people, and therein lies the significance of the projected supply of these missiles. The questions you raise as to production rates are important in this context. I’m saying that we do not yet know the answers, and that Iran’s arms industry should not be underrated.
Geminid
@Geminid: From the AP report on National Security office spokesman John Kirby’s statement yesterday on the transfer of Iranian missiles to Russia:
Kirby also said that Iranian pilots are being trained on the Sukhoi SU-35 fighter and Iran could receive deliveries of the plane within a year.
Victor Matheson
At least the kid has his pup. Gives me some hope that he survives this as best possible.
Victor Matheson
@Alison Rose: Honorary Dogtorate?
Blocked and reported…
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why? Those were existential conflicts. This is Russia’s war of choice.
Yes, this battlefield resembles the blasted landscape of Verdun. But you don’t choose to fight a battle of Verdun in the 21st century unless you’re really really stupid. I’d say, ‘or unless troops are basically expendable to you’ but they’re losing troops on a scale that I doubt even Russia can afford to maintain for long.
Unlike in WWII, Russia isn’t going to send millions of men into the conflict. In comparing the death toll, Russia’s should be more akin to our side in the Vietnam war, when we topped out at about 545,000 troops in country. They don’t even have that many troops in Ukraine, but their death toll is comparatively staggering.
Omnes Omnibus
I think you just provided my response to your comment.
Another Scott
Speaking of weird military terms…
(via ErikAukan)
Cheers,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
@Another Scott: IIRC US submariners in the Pacific during WW2 had a tradition of hoisting a “clean sweep” broom when returning to port after combat patrol. Here’s a source.
Note:
And now you know…
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
OK, you’re comparing casualty rates of Verdun to Bakhmut why? I mean, yeah, what Russia’s doing there is really really stupid, but we didn’t need to compare to WWI or WWII numbers to figure that out. Or at least I didn’t; can’t speak for you.
Miss Bianca
@Spanky: And of course, all you learned coves know that what “Tally Ho!” *specifically* means is that the huntsman has spotted the quarry. The chase is officially on!
way2blue
Adam, FWIW. According to my Apple dictionary app:
Which is how it’s stuck in my mind. (A local church used to have an outdoor ‘Blessing of the Hounds’ service where a bunch of church-goers would come in their fox-hunting gear with horses & dogs… )
Carlo Graziani
@Miss Bianca: Heh. Tainting another with the accusation of being a “learned cove”. I rather suspect you of being a P.G. Wodehouse fan…