I apologize for the delay in getting this posted tonight.
Because I was swamped yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to get in that the government of Moldova had come apart. Moldova has, unfortunately, been close to unadministratable for the better part of the past year. It is not because the governing majority doesn’t have a majority. Nor is it because they don’t know what to do. It is because they are in a precarious position economically, regionally, and strategically. It also doesn’t help that the leader of the opposition, who is a former president, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kremlin. The BBC has the story:
Moldova’s government has collapsed and its pro-EU prime minister has stepped down after 18 months of political and economic turbulence.
Europe’s poorest country was struggling with “multiple crises”, outgoing PM Natalia Gavrilita said on Friday.
With the war raging in neighbouring Ukraine, Moldova has been facing inflation, high energy prices, a refugee influx and Russian aggression.
The news came just hours after Russian missiles flew over Moldovan airspace.
Announcing her resignation on Friday, Ms Gavrilita said that when her government was elected in 2021, no one expected it would have to manage “so many crises caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine”.
Moldova is precariously close to the war – it shares a 1,222km (759 mile) border with Ukraine, and has suffered greatly from the fallout of Russia’s invasion.
“I took over the government with an anti-corruption, pro-development and pro-European mandate at a time when corruption schemes had captured all the institutions and the oligarchs felt untouchable,” Ms Gavrilita said at a news conference.
“We were immediately faced with energy blackmail, and those who did this hoped that we would give in,” she said, referring to the Kremlin.
An energy crisis was sparked last year when Russia suddenly reduced its gas supplies to Moldova, which relied 100% on Russia for gas. It caused inflation to skyrocket and there was public unrest over the high energy costs.
President Maia Sandu thanked Ms Gavrilita for her “enormous sacrifice and efforts to lead the country in a time of so many crises”.
“We have stability, peace and development, where others wanted war and bankruptcy,” the president said.
She has already nominated her former defence adviser Dorin Recean – who is also pro-EU – as the next prime minister. The Moldovan parliament will vote to confirm his nomination next week.
ABC News has more:
CHISINAU, Moldova — Moldova’s president tapped her defense and security adviser, pro-Western economist Dorin Recean, to succeed Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita who unexpectedly resigned Friday, 18 months into a tenure sorely tested by the war in neighboring Ukraine.
President Maia Sandu told a news conference that members of Gavrilita’s ruling Party of Action and Solidarity, or PAS, accepted her choice of Recean as the new prime minister.
Recean, 48, who served as interior minister between 2012-2015, will have 15 days to form a new government to present to Parliament for a confidence vote. PAS has a majority in Parliament.
“I know that we need unity and a lot of work to get through the difficult period we are facing. The difficulties of 2022 postponed some of our plans, but they did not stop us,” President Sandu said, adding that in 2023 she wants to focus on revamping key areas such as Moldova’s economy and justice sector.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people, has sought to forge closer ties with its Western partners. Last June, it was granted European Union candidate status, the same day as Ukraine.
Recean said he would “proceed immediately” with setting up a new government and that his main focus will be to introduce “order and discipline” in Moldova’s institutions, breathe new life into the economy and ensure peace and stability.
Following her resignation, Gavrilita, a 41-year-old economist appointed prime minister in August 2021, told a news conference that her government “would have been able to move forward more and faster” had it garnered the same support and trust domestically as it did from other European countries.
Gavrilita’s premiership was marked by a long string of problems. These include an acute energy crisis after Moscow dramatically reduced supplies to Moldova and skyrocketing inflation in the wake of the war in Ukraine. Compounding that has been missiles from the war that have traversed its skies and missile debris that has been discovered on its territory.
She also said that no one expected her government “would have to manage so many crises caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine.”
“I took over the government with an anti-corruption, pro-development and pro-European mandate at a time when corruption schemes had captured all the institutions and the oligarchs felt untouchable,” Gavrilita said. “We were immediately faced with energy blackmail, and those who did this hoped that we would give in.”
“The bet of the enemies of our country was that we would act like previous governments, who gave up energy interests, who betrayed the national interest in exchange for short-term benefits,” she added.
Opposition leader Igor Dodon tried to flee Moldova, where he is facing charges, at the end of January. MSN has the reporting:
Moldovan prosecutors have asked the Supreme Court to place former president Igor Dodon under house arrest, accusing him of attempting to leave the country with forged documents related to a fake medical treatment for his son.
Dodon is being investigated for alleged passive corruption. He is suspected of accepting illegal financing for his Socialist party from organised criminal groups.
He was allowed by the Supreme Court of Justice to travel abroad between January 28 and February 5 on the grounds that he must accompany his youngest son to post-COVID rehabilitation treatment.
However, the doctor who prescribed to Dodon’s son rehabilitation treatment in Romania admitted that he did not know the patient and signed the papers at the request of a colleague.
On January 19, Dodon and his lawyers filed a petition at a court hearing to allow Dodon to travel to Romania, where his son was supposed to undergo the post-COVID rehabilitation.
Dodon presented the doctor’s recommendation to the court but six days later the doctor admitted he never saw Dodon’s son — meaning that the medical recommendation is void.
“On January 25, the doctor stated that he did not know this patient and put a seal on the referral at the request of a colleague who always consults the Dodon family and has close relations with them. She is the wife of the municipal councillor of Chisinau, a member of the faction of the party in which the accused is a member,” the prosecutor’s office said.
At the same time, the doctor noted that the procedures indicated in the recommendation do not have to be carried out abroad, since they are also available in Moldova, and there are no such recommendations in the national clinical protocol for the treatment of COVID.
In this regard, on January 26, prosecutors seized documents and IT equipment as evidence of the production, storage, sale or use of official documents.
This is all in addition to the corruption charges he was already facing. The Guardian has the details from last May:
The head of Moldova’s pro-Russian opposition party, former president Igor Dodon, has reportedly been detained on corruption charges, in a move likely to anger the Kremlin.
State television channel Moldova 1 and Russian state news agency RIA both reported the detention, citing senior anti-corruption prosecutor Elena Cazakov.
Photographs showed members of Moldova’s Information and Security Service escorting Dodon to a van after he was detained at his house in the capital, Chisinau.
Cazacov did not identify the detainee but said the investigation focused on suspected acts of “illicit enrichment, passive corruption, illegal party financing and (treason), which have taken place since 2014.”
More at the link!
President Zelenskyy’s address, both video and English transcript, are after the jump:
Dear Ukrainians!
Today, I started the day by visiting the Turkish Embassy. With condolences to the Turkish people after the terrible earthquakes. As of now, more than 21,000 dead are known. Debris removal continues. And, unfortunately, the death toll may be higher.
The team of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine is currently working in Türkiye, helping with debris removal. The Embassy of Ukraine is finding out all the information about Ukrainians who could stay in the disaster zone.
We share the pain of the Turkish people. And we wish all those affected a speedy recovery.
In the afternoon, I held several meetings with representatives of the defense sector and law enforcement agencies.
The topic is common to these meetings. It is the strengthening of the public institutions of Ukraine and the protection of institutions from any attempts from outside or inside to reduce their effectiveness and efficiency.
This applies to various areas: both personnel policy, interaction between public institutions, and the clarity of how the public structures work.
For example, at a meeting law enforcement officers presented a report on the detection and blocking of shadow schemes at customs. You have seen during these weeks appropriate investigative actions and detentions.
The Security Service of Ukraine, the State Bureau of Investigations, and the Prosecutor General’s Office have achieved significant results in protecting our country from those who worked for the aggressor state. There will be corresponding steps by the National Security and Defense Council, continuing our line of defense of the state.
And all this activity is not only these or other episodes or these or other criminal proceedings. Not only what concerns certain individuals. And what concerns institutions. The state will continue modernizing the institutions, their processes and procedures. The clarity in the work of the public structures should be guaranteed not only by what depends on the people but also by the creation of transparency and accountability functionality.
And I want to thank all the workers of our defense and security sector and all law enforcement officers who care about the state, who strengthen the state with their work, and who not only suggest how to enhance Ukrainian institutions but also give results in such strengthening.
Of course, I want to thank our defenders of the sky for the result today. For another page of success in defending our state from Iranian drones used by Russia.
I would especially like to mention the fighters of the 160th Odesa, 208th Kherson anti-aircraft missile brigades, and the 302nd Kharkiv anti-aircraft missile regiment. Thank you guys!
Thank you to all our soldiers for the latest results that Ukraine needs in terms of resistance and repelling enemy assaults in Donetsk region – near Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, and other directions. Thank you to the soldiers of the 80th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade, the 5th Separate Assault Regiment, the border guards, and the National Guardsmen, who are fighting together in Donetsk region.
Air reconnaissance and intelligence, aviation, mortars, gunners, infantry, tankers, and anyone and everyone who helps. Thank you all!
Glory to all who make Ukraine stronger, the enemy weaker, and our victory closer!
Glory to Ukraine!
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the situation in Bakhmut:
BAKHMUT AXIS /2120 UTC 11 FEB/ RU continues attempts to cut Lines of Communication and Supply (LOCS) into Bakhmut. RU has consolidated a salient N of Krasna Hora, threatening the M-03 HWY. UKR air defenses downed a Russian Su-25 strike aircraft. pic.twitter.com/TuHElOz8jn
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) February 11, 2023
Bakhmut:
SYSTEM FAIL: The tragic-comic defeat at Vuhledar showcased an enduring Russian fault: battlefield micro-management. Among dead was the Commander of the 144th Special Forces Brigade, Col. Sergey Polyakov. If your brigade commander has to carry a rifle- you need a better plan. pic.twitter.com/KtO8nw1gkG
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) February 11, 2023
Short update on the Bakhmut area, 11 February – no major changes, the defence line is holding, counter-attacking in some locations. Supply lines are intact. pic.twitter.com/9a1gNuc4bQ
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) February 11, 2023
Zaporizhzhia:
A Russian troop concentration near Bakhmut of what I believe has been made up by 6 MBTs and one truck has been hit by artillery shells from the Ukrainian 128th Mountain Assault Brigade.#Bakhmut #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/NK5OHJu1jq
— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) February 11, 2023
UPDATE: @Tendar has clarified the location of the artillery strike. It occurred in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and not Bakmut as originally reported. The result remains the same. pic.twitter.com/3GtG5nFcgC
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) February 12, 2023
Lyman:
In this intercepted call, a Russian serviceman tells a friend about the impenetrable fortifications of the Ukrainian army in Lyman area: "they have an underground city, we can't penetrate them" pic.twitter.com/2h9jfDTuvA
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) February 10, 2023
Area convict has thoughts:
🤡 Dreamer Prigozhyn believes it will take 1,5-2 years to take the Donbas and 3+ years to reach the Dnieper. But he also wants to get to the English Channel and give away European countries to the Ukrainians. pic.twitter.com/nXR0ZXsCr5
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) February 10, 2023
Anyone curious what’s going on with the conscripts?
Vladlen Tatarsky writes that in his area of responsibility, Russian mobiks refused to go into battle. Worrying enough situation for him to announce it publicly. pic.twitter.com/kfG8HMC7vA
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) February 10, 2023
More on the mobiks from 1231 regiment I posted about earlier, addressing the command personally. They've been robbed of all equipment and sent to assault a height the locals were unable to take for ages. Several battalions of mobiks before them have already been slaughtered. pic.twitter.com/ONGtgGeZ92
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) February 11, 2023
Wives and mothers of mobilised men from Tatarstan are asking for help. Their men are thrown into assaults in Donbas without any preparation, only with assault rifles. The command regards soldiers as expendable material, telling them they are "future 200 [KIA]". pic.twitter.com/n4nhq2LQ2j
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) February 11, 2023
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
A new video from Patron’s official TikTok:
@patron__dsns Оцініть мій новий зимовий лук😎 #песпатрон
The caption machine translates as:
Rate my new winter bow 😎 #песпатрон
Open thread!
Dagaetch
You don’t ever need to apologize for a delay in posting this Adam, we’re just grateful to you for doing it at all!
John Revolta
Adam, have you read this story about Gazprom starting up its own mercenary army similar to Wagner? Any thoughts?
Alison Rose
Man, in addition to everything else, russian orcs are pretty fucking dumb. That gaggle of vehicles might as well have erected a giant neon sign saying AIM HERE.
This piece from NYT (gift link) about how Ukrainian civilians are trying to survive the cold winter often without power and heat is really hard-hitting. It’s mostly photos, some of which made me want to cry. The headline is taken from this quote:
A lighter bit: This photo is too cute not to share. I love how every cat in Ukraine looks like it is ready, willing, and able to eat putin’s face off (including one of the photos in the previous link).
Thank you as always, Adam.
Wombat Probability Cloud
Adam, as always, grateful for your posts. Here’s hoping that Moldova finds a stable path. And, oy vey, Igor Dodon certain exudes charisma, no?
Adam L Silverman
@John Revolta: At this point I’m aware of at least six different mercenary companies, despite them being illegal in Russia. This includes one that seems to be run by the Minister of Defense. Which should make it the Russian military, but what do I know.
Adam L Silverman
@Wombat Probability Cloud: The Russians have made that very difficult. Between the Transnistrian stupidity and the gas supplies, which are themselves tied to the Transnistrian stupidity, the Moldovans have their work cut out for them.
oldster
The brigade commander killed at Vuhledar —
yes, perhaps he was killed in the field when he should not have been micro-managing.
But he may also have been killed by his own men. Fragging happens in just these conditions.
Adam L Silverman
@oldster: Fixed. I need sleep.
Wombat Probability Cloud
@Adam L Silverman: Meant to say “certainly exudes,” but distracted by Asa, our cat in home stretch of her 9th life, on my lap. I see that Moldova has candidate status in the EU as of June. Might that be a non-NATO significant source of support if they attained full membership?
piratedan
with RU spending people like cartridges, makes me wonder how in the hell do they have anything left to go after Moldova (which has been rumoured) and what kind of defense the Moldovans could mount if attacked.
oldster
@Adam L Silverman:
Wait — did I call out an error? I did not mean to.
I was just commenting on the contents of the tweet. I did not know that you had said something about it that needed fixing.
But in any case — yes, get some sleep if you need it!
oldster
Any aviation buffs out there have thoughts about why the F-22 has become the platform of choice for shooting down UFOs? Why not the F-35?
I see that the F-22 has a slightly higher listed service ceiling — 65k ft. vs. 50k ft. Similar range, though. The F-22 is a generally bigger bird — about 4/3 the weight, about 4/3 the wingspan.
But it still strikes me as odd that we are using the relatively scarce F-22 when we have four times as many F-35s available. Anyone want to speculate? Does the F-22 have special anti-alien coatings?
John Revolta
@Adam L Silverman: Interesting to think they’ve got enough available manpower to put together all these outfits. Do they get hired out? domestically, or around the world? I know we’ve got Blackwater or whatever they’re calling themselves these days, but I’m a little surprised there’s that much call for private armies-for-hire.
Adam L Silverman
@Wombat Probability Cloud: They’re years and years and years away from membership. The best way to help them is to defeat Russia as quickly as possible.
I’ll keep good thoughts for Asa.
YY_Sima Qian
@oldster: Considering that the balloons are flying at 60 – 80K ft altitude, the 15K ft difference in service ceiling matters quite a lot.
Adam L Silverman
@piratedan: Black Sea Cossacks.
Omnes Omnibus
I’ll dispute what Pfarrer said a bit. A good commander needs see enough of the actual front lines to know whether the reports they are getting from staff and subordinate commands are rose tinted or accurate. They shouldn’t live there, that narrows their view, but chateau generalship is arguably worse. Every WWII general who had been a company grade officer in WWI learned that lesson (well, maybe not MacArthur).
Adam L Silverman
@oldster: The F-22 has never tried to asphyxiate its pilot. The F-22 has never launched it’s armaments even though no one pulled the trigger. The F-22 has never decided to just eject its pilot for shits and giggles. Etc, etc, etc.
Adam L Silverman
@John Revolta: Wagner is currently operating in Libya and across the Sahel. As well as in Syria.
Martin
@oldster: Because shooting down things in the air is the F-22’s job, and well, the military is going to give it that job one way or another – be it for practice, because the doctrine says ‘stuff in air – F-22 job’, or to make everyone feel better about spending $60B on a platform that otherwise doesn’t really have anything to do.
My money would be on practice, though. If a hostile airspace incursion you send F-35 and F-22 to use their distinct capabilities. Today it’s a balloon, next time it might be a fighter jet or bomber. So, you run the drill.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: I don’t think that applies here because it was the F-35 that got a close enough look to determine if it was manned or not. The F-22 could have shot it down from 15 miles away.
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: My understanding is the F-35 is fine. The F-22 has had hypoxia problems. The 2nd problem I understand was from a test plane, not a production one, and the last one wasn’t a design issue but a production batch problem. But ‘F-35 has problem’ is good for clicks, so it gets reported on constantly, even though my understanding is it’s not really any more problematic than the other planes.
oldster
@Adam L Silverman:
Ah — so you are not a fan of the F-35, I take it?
How do you know those aren’t just advanced technologies designed to confuse the enemy?
Spanky
In the event that UFO is still collecting intel on its environment, you don’t want to use your latest technology.
Frankly, I’d have sent up a couple of Spads.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Yeah, not w/ the second flying object that was at 40K ft. Apparently Canada just found another flying object entering Yukon. Trudeau ordered it shot down, & an F-22 did the job again under the NORAD arrangement. Not sure the altitude it was flying at, & it remains officially unidentified.
Gin & Tonic
Patron is saying “Rate my new winter look.” There’s a loan word from English in there which is confusing the machine translation.
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: Christ. The PLA must have launched a spate of these things right before the CPC leadership read them the riot act.
Carlo Graziani
@Omnes Omnibus: For once, I think Pfarrer has it right (I know, must be a sign of the End of Days).
He’s speaking to the context of the over-officered, under-initiative-prone, utterly pathological Russian military command system. The senior officers, who are not idiots, see and understand the pathologies, but are helpless to correct them. Their only available work-around is to perform front-line supervision tasks that really ought to be the responsibility of subalterns, but which the system has discouraged those subalterns from engaging with. This makes their senior commanders vulnerable in a way that NATO commanders (for example) would not be.
I suspect that PLA commanders would also not succumb to this pathology, but I would, of course, defer to our local expert on such matters.
Anoniminous
@piratedan:
Not much. They have ~10,000 people in their military and their equipment is a bunch of old Warsaw Pact shit and some Humvees.
Carlo Graziani
That’s quite the salient that the Russians have pushed out south of Bakhmut. I can’t tell how much of a force commitment it represents, but it sure looks like an invitation to a combined-arms chop.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani:
And/or a number of countries are launching balloons for both surveillance & civilian research (or dual use) purposes, because they are cheap w/ low technical entry barriers, & there are more of them in the sky that most people had known before last week. Before last week, nations did not feel compelled to shoot them down, or did not feel compelled to publicize such shoot downs.
OTOH, China certainly has maintained very substantial surveillance balloon program over the past several years, sending them all over the world into other countries’ sovereign airspace. WaPo/WJS/NYT have all published in depth articles on the subject. Now the US is launching a global campaign to educating 40+ nations around the world where suspected Chinese surveillance balloons have intruded. The bad press from last week’s balloon brouhaha, as well as the diplomatic campaign by the US, will likely succeed in forcing China to curtail its surveillance balloon program.
This is how the US should push back against Chinese bad behavior, & should be able to achieve broad buy in from most countries around the world. Other opportunities are aggressive actions by the Chinese Maritime Militia in disputed maritime territories, as well as predatory fishing in or near other nation’s economic exclusion zones by China’s vast fishing fleets.
It is still mind boggling to me that no country had pushed back before last week. While the Chinese maritime militia & fishing fleets are well known issues to people who study these matters, surveillance balloons had not been a topic of conversation at all. (Other than a long piece by Tyler Rogoway of the Drive in 2021, but I find the Drive to be often breathlessly hyperbolic, & not the most reliable source.)
Jesse
General Pavel’s turn should be coming up soon.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani:
I won’t claim to be an expert at the PLA, but I will add my 2 cents anyway:
As I wrote in a comment a while back, the PLA has had a very different history to the Russian & Soviet Armies. Throughout its formative decades, it was consistently outmanned & outgunned by its opponents (be they the Nationalist Revolutionary Army, the Imperial Japanese Army or the UN forces in Korea) or potential opponents (the Soviet Army). Throwing human resources (be they officers/commanders or the rank & file) away was not a sustainable strategy given its circumstances.
The Communist Red Army lost a large percentage of its most promising officers (division & corp commanders) during the initial hard years of its formation fighting against the NRA & warlord forces, leading men from the front. Since then, the Communist Red Army had always emphasized that lower level commanders should lead from the front & by example, but upper echelon commanders not needlessly expose themselves. The Communist forces did lose some upper echelon commanders during the Anti-Japanese War, because the base areas & the guerrilla zones they fought from were interspersed w/ the areas under IJA or puppet government control, the latter often launched large sweeps across partisan zones & into base areas w/o warning, so there was not much distinction between “front” & “rear”. (The NRA, OTOH, lost a lot of brigade, division, corps & even army commanders during the Anti-Japanese War, as its most steadfast generals often led their men from the front to steady their morale, in the face of overwhelming IJA firepower.)
During the 2nd Chinese Civil War, PLA Field Army & army commanders often reminded their corps & division commanders not to place their HQs too close to the front line, both to avoid placing themselves at undue risk & to maintain a better view of the bigger picture. Before the brigadization reform of launched in ’15, the smaller maneuver unit in the PLA has always been the regiment. Reading the histories of the 2nd Chinese Civil War & the Korean War, platoon/company/battalion level officers suffered very high casualty rates at the point of assault or focus of defense, because they were expected to lead by example & because the PLA always had a high tolerance for casualties to achieve its objectives. However, casualty rate at the higher levels, especially division & higher, was much lower. The PLA underwent a major reform program in the 50s, reorganized along Soviet lines. Nevertheless, the same pattern of high casualty rate among lower level officers was repeated during the the Sino-Indian border clash of ’62 & the Sino-Vietnamese border war of ’79, so the ethos did not change.
The brigadization reforms launched in ’15 made the combined battalion the smallest combined arms maneuver unit in the PLA, & the battalion HQ staff was significantly expanded to reflect the change. Reports on unscripted PLA exercises generally show battalion & brigade commanders directing the battle from their HQs. These exercises at Zhurihe (modeled after the US Army’s Fort Irwin National Training Center) are stacked in favor of the BlueFor (the OpFor in PLA exercises), so occasionally one reads an account of a desperate RedFor combined brigade commander ordering the battered remains of his combined battalions on a mad assault that completely disregard loses, in an attempt to breach BlueFor’s defenses & reach the BlueFor HQ. However, that is very much the exception. Like the Russian Army (& most other armies in E/SE Asia), the PLA does not have a robust NCO corp, at least not in the same vein as western militaries. The PLA’s NCO corp mainly serves as a long term career path for the enlisted, & to retain expertise in specialized/technical roles. It is the officers that does the heavy lifting. OTOH, the PLA still has the role of commissars down to the company level. They serve the role of HR managers & morale officers (as well as ensuring political reliability), reducing the work load on the unit commanders, while adding a measure of redundancy (as commissars are also expected to be competent unit commanders should the need arise). In the PLA, unit commanders indubitably outrank their commissars, & during exercises it is the unit commanders that call the shots, while the commissars serve as advisers. In contrast, in the CCP bureaucracy, it is the Party Secretary at any given level that is the decision maker, who outranks their bureaucratic counterpart (mayor/governor/minister). The latter is charged w/ execution of policy, has a strong (but not final) voice in policy making.
Of course, the PLA has not fought a war since ’79, & has not fought a significant military action since the late 80s, so how it will actually perform on the battlefield is unknown. It is commonly assessed that PLA’s (Army/Navy/Air Force) training & exercises are increasing realistic & adversarial, as opposed to the scripted affairs that the Russian military still makes do w/.
I think the main issue w/ the Russian Army is the same one that has plagued it since the start of the current invasion – very poor communication infrastructure & systems, & a low level of digitization/informationalization in command & control. Brigade & even Group Army commanders (or at least their senior deputies) have to go the front frequently to have any understanding of what is going on, poor comms discipline make them visible to the Ukrainians & vulnerable to targeted strikes. OTOH, since the 1st Gulf War the PLA has made C4ISR the priority in its modernization, ahead of mechanization & modernization of weapons/equipment/platforms. By the late 00s, the PLA would show off obsolescent towed tube artillery pieces in exercises, but paired w/ digitized/informationalized command & control, as well as digitized fire controls. In contrast, the PLA did not achieve full mechanization of its land army until well after 2015.
patrick II
There is a phrase “if you give them enough rope they will hang themselves” I feel we did nothing in Georgia, Syria, on the initial attack Crimea and Eastern Ukraine and we did nothing. And it would have been tough to do. Nobody wanted war, few in the U.S. cared enough to support a war in those circumstances. But eventually, he got too bold and now everyone is interested in stopping him. I guess it was wise not to go after him early — but eventually he took enough rope to hang himself, and we are glad to assist him.
lowtechcyclist
This piece threw a bit of cold water on the notion of a huge Russian offensive in the near future. I thought his points about logistics were well-made.
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-15?sd=pf
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Interesting article.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I figured. I ran it through both DeepL and Google.
Princess
I mentioned this on another thread — my kid worked on a high-altitude scientific balloon launch in 2017. It paired with NATO precisely so it could be public and known and the Chinese and a Russians wouldn’t get antsy. This tells me a) high altitude balloons have been viewed as a concern for a while. What’s new is that we’re hearing about it. and b) these are not scientific.
YY_Sima Qian
Dan Satterfield is speculating about the possibility that the flying object shot down over Alaska might have been a NWS weather balloon launched from Kotzbue. The one over Yukon, OTOH, does track back to the vicinity of Inner Mongolia, where a major Chinese balloon/airship/dirigible launch site has been identified (would have been launched 5 – 7 days ago).
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, but the F-22 did try to kill its pilots. Most cutting edge fighters do.
USMedicine.com
Large, cutting-edge programs almost always have problems – if it were easy, it would have been done already. But that’s why good management, oversight, and audit are so important.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Carlo Graziani
@lowtechcyclist: Yes. Very sensible.
Anoniminous
@lowtechcyclist:
Excellent analysis. Thanks!
Manyakitty
@YY_Sima Qian: I can’t speak to The Drive overall, but Tyler Rogoway is generally very good.