(Image by NEIVANMADE)
A brief housekeeping note: Gingko, I did see your comment this morning. Thank you for the kind words. You are most welcome.
Kramatorsk. September 2nd, 4:30 pm. After another shelling of the city by russian terrorists. pic.twitter.com/QP8u4Gw8w2
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 2, 2023
Meanwhile in Kramatorsk.
Today.
Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/2JYsYUIiUt— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) September 2, 2023
This Saturday evening, Russia found some more military targets in Kramatorsk pic.twitter.com/TNz3vjOMry
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) September 2, 2023
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
This Saturday, three cities that are indispensable part of Ukraine celebrating their day – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
2 September 2023 – 20:57
Dear Ukrainians, I wish you good health!
This Saturday, three cities are celebrating their day. The cities that are indispensable part of Ukraine.
Odesa. Our support in the south, on the Black Sea. A city that, together with Ukraine, has and will always have global significance. A port on which the lives of various nations depend – from Ukrainian exports through the Great Odesa. A city of culture that knows how to be interesting to everyone and respects everyone.
We have defended Odesa from destruction. Because the Russian regime is incapable of bringing anything other than degradation. And we will return security to Odesa. Odesa has always been a place where you feel lightness and happiness. Odesa will remain this way. Congratulations on your Day!
Sumy. Our outpost in the northeast. Every year, on the second Saturday of September, it celebrates its day. And it will always celebrate it as a free, Ukrainian city.
During these times – the times of war – unfortunately, we often receive reports of Russian terror from Sumy. About shelling, missiles, and bombs. About constant attempts by Russian sabotage groups to infiltrate the region.
“But despite everything, Sumy region is alive. Sumy is alive and gives strength to the entire region. And when I was in the city, I felt that there is faith there. Faith that evil will not prevail. Faith in people. Faith in Ukraine. Faith that we will definitely get through this time. And we will win. It will be so. Sumy, congratulations!
And the third city – Lysychansk. A city that Ukraine still needs to reclaim along with the entire Luhansk region.
Today, no one can specify a date when the city will be free again. But everyone who fights and works for Ukraine is doing everything possible so that our cities and villages currently under occupation can once again experience normal and free life.
Lysychansk has always been one of the pillars of the east of our state, one of the key cities. A proud city! It will remain so. A city that knows how to work and is rightfully proud of its achievements. Together with Ukraine, it’s all possible. With our strength, unity, and our ability to take care of each other – all cities together, all villages, all people.
And one more thing worth mentioning.
Undoubtedly, we will defend Ukraine and restore freedom to all our land. Each of us feels that this will be a Ukraine with different rules. The borders are the same. Democracy is probably just as turbulent. Freedom is one of the greatest in Europe, as always.
But without a doubt, there will be no more decades-long ‘business as usual’ for those who plundered Ukraine and put themselves above the law and any rules. And I thank the Ukrainian law enforcement for their determination to bring every case stalled for decades to a just conclusion. The law must work. It is so. It will be so.
Glory to Ukraine!
The remnants of a KAB-500 aviation bomb that russian terrorists drop on frontline villages and cities. They maim and kill peaceful residents every day. Fortunately, this one did not explode completely.
📷 32nd Mechanized Brigade pic.twitter.com/JN92I2cUG7
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 2, 2023
Bakhmut:
A morning clash at Bakhmut pic.twitter.com/DjLIuRjIC1
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) September 2, 2023
Svatove, Luhansk, Oblast:
The Ukrainian intelligence and special forces discovered and destroyed the target detection station 9S18 'Kupol,' the SAM launcher 9K37, and the 'Buk' SAM system on August 30 near Svatove, Luhansk Oblast.
🎥 @DI_Ukraine pic.twitter.com/rzK51ITbxa
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 2, 2023
Kharkiv:
These are classrooms in metro stations of Kharkiv where kids are going to study next year. The full study starts Sept 4. #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/y7KeZf8cqs
— Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) September 2, 2023
Zaporizhzhia, Oblast:
A video specially for those who wonder why the counter-offensive isn't going 'fast enough' and talk about it like it is a videogame.
This is how densely mined the area's in the Zaporizhzia region are. pic.twitter.com/hqWq9k97JG
— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) September 2, 2023
The 47th Magura Brigade destroys Russian fortifications in the Zaporizhzia direction. pic.twitter.com/ZkyiUqXeLv
— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) September 2, 2023
Tatarigami got his hands on another Russian manual and has provided analysis by twitter thread. First tweet from the thread, the rest from the Thread Reader App:
Recently, the Russians released a manual outlining tactics to counter Ukrainian assaults. This guide draws from recent encounters with the 23rd Mechanized Brigade in June and July 2023, particularly during their liberation of Novodarivka and Levadne. 🧵Thread: pic.twitter.com/RFmv3hqjci
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) August 31, 2023
2/ It’s crucial to note that the Russians are presenting their perspective on Ukrainian units and their actions, based on their experience with a single Ukrainian mechanized brigade. This viewpoint should be carefully weighed before extrapolating it to the whole frontline.3/ Russians describe the following configuration used by Ukrainian units:
Assault teams comprise 20 members, divided into four subgroups of five. Two groups are assault subgroups. The third serves as a consolidation subgroup. The fourth functions as a reserve subgroup.
4/ Each ‘team of five’ must include a machine gunner and a radio operator. The number of grenade launcher operators is determined based on the situation. The recommended intervals and distance between soldiers are 7 meters5/ Primary functions of the assault subgroups (fives):
– 1st assault subgroup: advances forward covertly and engages with the enemy, contains the enemy upon detection, and secures positions once the task is accomplished;
6/
– 2nd assault maintains visual distance with the 1st group, reports passage of the first group’s to others, and after 1st “five” initiates firefight, the subgroup performs flank maneuver or rear approach; If the first group retreats, it covers it;
7/
– 3rd (consolidation) subgroup maintains a distance of 50-150m from the 2nd subgroup, aiming to set up positions to consolidate gains. If initial assault fails, they dig in, to facilitate reinforcement for further assault or to cover the retreat of the leading groups;
8/
– The 4th (reserve) subgroup remains within 300m from the 3rd subgroup and forms a hypothetical rear for supply, evacuation, and fire support groups. Ready to serve as reserve, if advance succeeds – it exploit gains, if enemy reserves approach, it moves out to counter them.
9/
The russians underline the successes of this tactic, acknowledging its contribution to capturing russian positions. In response, they stress the efficacy of employing anti-personnel mines, citing the near-impossibility of clearing all mines in such scenarios.
10/ They also recommend establishing deceptive positions that appear genuine, intermittently engaging in fire from these false locations, and simulating activity there. They advise occasional communication device use from these positions.11/ Russians note that units traveling by foot, particularly those carrying heavy equipment like AGS or mortars, experience rapid physical exhaustion. However, they don’t elaborate on how this vulnerability can exploited.12/ In summary, I’d like to highlight that their Anticipation-Action-Reflection time has notably shortened. This enables them to grasp and adjust to our tactics much faster compared to the past, when it used to take russians months to adapt13/ Simultaneously, they didn’t present an innovative approach to counter these tactics, apart from referencing already employed methods like deploying false positions and mines.14/ As the war continues, we see fewer large formations and increasing use of small tactical units, which present less visible targets compared to mechanized units. The latter have become frequent targets for FPV drones, ATGM teams and AT mines.
Reuters brings us details of an allied naval exercise in the Baltic Sea.
BERLIN, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Major naval drills about to start in the Baltic Sea involving some 30 ships and more than 3,000 Western service members will for the first time practice how to respond to a Russian assault in the region, Germany’s navy chief said on Friday.
“We are sending a clear message of vigilance to Russia: Not on our watch,” Vice-Admiral Jan Christian Kaack told reporters in Berlin. “Credible deterrence must include the ability to attack.”
The two-week Northern Coasts exercise, set to start Sep 9, will see troops from all NATO countries on the Baltic Sea, plus soon-to-be member Sweden and non-Baltic allies the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, train side by side. They will practise amphibious operations and strikes from sea to land.
The U.S. navy will send the Mesa Verde into the drills, Kaack said, a ship of more than 200 metres (656 ft) length, designed to transport and land some 800 marines in an amphibious assault.
Securing the sea routes through the Baltic Sea is another focus of the exercise that will take place off the coasts of Latvia and Estonia.
“Finland and the Baltic states depend to almost 100% on the maritime supply routes through the Baltic Sea,” Kaack noted.
“Should the Suwalki Gap be blocked – and this can be done easily as there are only two roads and one railroad line – then we are left with the sea routes only, and that’s where we will then have to make our way through.”
The Suwalki Gap, a narrow land corridor of some 65 kilometres (40 miles), is the only connection linking the Baltic states to Poland and NATO’s main territory in Europe.
It will be the first exercise of this size that the German navy, the biggest navy on the Baltic Sea according to Kaack, will command from its new maritime headquarters in Rostock which just reached operational readiness.
Germany aims to provide the facility to NATO as a regional maritime headquarters, capable of leading the alliance’s operations in the Baltic Sea in case of a conflict.
“Our notification is on the way to SACEUR,” Kaack said, referring to NATO’s supreme allied commander, adding he expected a positive response by the alliance soon, thus beating Germany’s competitor Poland to the task.
Finland joined NATO this year, and Sweden’s application to join is expected to be approved soon, both moves coming in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This has radically altered the strategic posture along the Baltic Sea, where much of the coast had belonged to neutral states since Napoleonic times; apart from Russia’s own small stretches of coast, the entire seashore will soon belong to NATO members.
I’m sure this will go over well in Moscow and that we’ll see a measured, even response from Putin.
I actually managed to type that with a straight face.
Commenter Prescott Cactus sent me this article from Stars & Stripes regarding F-16 training for Ukrainian pilots:
STUTTGART, Germany — A new training center for F-16 pilots will be launched in Romania, which could eventually host Ukrainian aviators learning to fly the American warplane, officials said this week.
The initiative, which has been in the works for several months, is a joint effort between Lockheed Martin and the governments of Romania and the Netherlands. An opening date hasn’t been announced.
The center will be located at a Romanian base in Borcea, about 50 miles west of the Black Sea air base at Mihail Kogalniceanu that serves as a hub for U.S. forces in Romania.
“We will train pilots from Ukraine, provided they express their wish,” Romanian Defense Minister Angel Tilvar said Friday.
Still, any training of Ukrainian troops on the base will take time, Tilvar told the Defense Romania news outlet. In the meantime, the training of Romanian pilots will be the top priority, he said.
OJ Sanchez, a Lockheed vice president, said the center will initially focus on ensuring the effectiveness of Romanians flying the F-16, but eventually other nations will be incorporated.
“Once details are finalized, we are confident the training center will ultimately benefit Romania and other regional F-16 operators, including potentially Ukraine,” Sanchez said in a statement Thursday.
More at the link!
That’s enough for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
There are no new Patron tweets or videos posted today. So here’s some adjacent material from the Ukrainian Army Cats & Dogs account:
Not Patron pic.twitter.com/IgSfhQ8uPu
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 29, 2023
How to explain to cats that the mask was not pulled for them? pic.twitter.com/etrzkJ2J48
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 30, 2023
Important meeting pic.twitter.com/rPurNFLX3F
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 25, 2023
Night vision cat ☺️ pic.twitter.com/PXvb2uy8rM
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 30, 2023
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 25, 2023
Time to sleep pic.twitter.com/GdVmbYc8Io
— UkrARMY cats & dogs (@UAarmy_animals) August 28, 2023
Open thread!
trollhattan
Stupid Russian missile peoples can’t even place a no parking post correctly.
Liking the idea of naval maneuvers in the Black Sea. I just hope it’s not choked with loose antiship mines.
Thanks as always, Adam. This war will be done in four, five weeks, tops! (Seemed possible in 2022.)
Jay
@trollhattan:
Baltic Sea, not the Black Sea.
Betty
I believe the maneuvers are in the Baltic Sea only.
Eta: What Jay said.
The Pale Scot
The Suwalki Gap seems like a great place to declare NATO is emplacing nuke mines to prevent RU aggression. Lay down say 500? mostly dummies but maybe they ain’t.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: @Betty: Fixed!
bjacques
That woman taking the selfie with the rocket motor is pretty badass.
Jay
@The Pale Scot:
Poland is a member of the Mine Ban Treaty.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: If Ukraine doesn’t win this war, I foresee Poland withdrawing from that treaty.
Jay
@bjacques:
not just a rocket motor, there is probably a warhead under the pavement that failed to explode, but could go off at any moment.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Yes indeedy, some wag on Xitter pointed out that very thing: “taking selfies 3ft away from a live UXO”. But one can imagine that after 1.5hr of living with hot flaming death on the reg’lar, your risk-assessment machinery gets biased a little, and previously-risky activity doesn’t seem as dangerous.
kindness
Great critter pics at the end there.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
Land mine, other than Claymores, are a PITA. They are a PITA to encounter, to install, to map and keep track of and a PITA to clear.
They are also easy to steal and be repurposed for nefarious intent, so you have to keep an “overwatch” on them.
While they slow down enemy assaults, they also block you in as well.
They kill far more civilians than soldiers, usually long after the reason for their deployment has passed.
Airpower and arty has made them in many ways, redundant other than the remote control/smart mines.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Notwithstanding, if UA loses this war, Poland will want an ample supply of mines. They probably won’t deploy them instanter, but they’ll want them available, so if and when they need to deploy, they can just open the warehouses and go.
Alison Rose
Crap, do I have to like Lockheed Martin now? Maybe just on this one issue and nothing else.
Re: the second cats & dogs tweet — anything a cat sees is for the cat. This is the way.
Thank you as always, Adam.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
they emptied the warehouses and shut down the manufacturing in 2016. Poland only has “smart mines” and command mines.
Gin & Tonic
In the town of Einbeck, in central Germany (about equidistant from Berlin and Frankfurt) a russian man (or at the least russian-speaking) encountered a group of Ukrainian kids, presumably refugees. He confronted them and demanded that they speak in russian, not Ukrainian. When one of the kids refused, the man threw him off the bridge they were on. Luckily the bridge was over a river, and the kid survived. The man is at large, and police are looking for him.
This is who russians are, whether in russia or in Europe. I hope he is found and deported, and I devoutly wish that the EU would no longer grant visas to any russians.
Wombat Probability Cloud
@Jay: A command mine is a remote-controlled mine? I’m not finding a definition using The Google.
Alison Rose
@Gin & Tonic: JFC. I mean…it would be repugnant no matter where it was, but this asshole had the audacity to do this when they are not even in russia, or even in Ukraine. I hope the police find him and read him his rights in Ukrainian.
Geminid
While this is not certain, the Black Sea Grain Initiative seems closer to being reinstated.. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was in Moscow Thursday, talking about the Initiative with his Russian counterpart. From Hurriyet Daily News:
The new agreement will anger many, since it calls for a subsidiary of Russia’s agriculture bank to participate in the SWIFT global payments system. There may be other concessions to Russia as well.
Mr. Fidan has been busy. The week before last, he spent two days in Baghdad, one day in Erbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government and visited Ukraine for talks on Friday. Besides meeting with FM Lavrov this past Thursday, Fidan was to meet with Russian Defence Minister Shoigu Friday.
The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs just announced that Fidan will visit Iran tomorrow, “to review the progress of cooperation in several areas” and discuss regional and international developments. Then on Tuesday, Fidan will host Greek Foreign Minister Gerepetrites in Ankara for a working meeting.
wjca
Allow me to take (partial) exception to this. I would hope he is found, serves time for attempted homocide, and only then is deported. Just deportation is way too mild a slap on the wrist.
Jay
@Wombat Probability Cloud:
command dentonated mines require an operator to either trigger them, or turn them on.
They are not “live” per se, where anybody who encounters them can trigger them.
Probably, the most common example of late is IED’s used in Iraq. Roadside bombs would be triggered to explode by a nearby operator when a Military Convoy passed by.
Anonymous At Work
Two questions:
dr. luba
@wjca:
It depends. Is he of age for immediate conscription?
Jay
@Anonymous At Work:
very close, inches not feet.
as Tatarigami_UA noted, this is one manual, based off one UA attack.
the standard saying is “we are so lucky that our enemies are so stupid”.
Wombat Probability Cloud
@Jay: Thank you. Clearly a better alternative, at least in the right hands.
wjca
More to the point, does he have the connections to evade conscription? Because Putin seems to be ignoring the supposed limits on age of conscripts.
wjca
And so terrified that, if they don’t religiously go by the (often outdated and irrelevant) book, they will be punished. Sucks to be a Russian officer. Not quite as bad as for the troops, but still really bad.
Andrya
@Alison Rose: Sorry, Alison Rose, you have to like Lockheed Martin now. :-) The Ukraine war has shown what would happen if there is a head of government like putin and we don’t have a huge stockpile of weapons. It’s unfortunate but necessary.
If I seem a little obsessive about this, it’s because I have a lot of leftie, semi-pacifist family members who gave me grief for years because I worked for a rocket factory. (Lockheed was one of our customers.) If my mother were alive today, I would CERTAINLY point out that Ukraine is only free because we had lots of missiles to give them.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … VOANews.com:
They, of course, blame their problems on the USA and NATO leaving Afghanistan. Doesn’t have anything to do with their actions over the last 20+ years, no sir-ee.
I seem to have lost my tiny violin…
Pakistan seems to be in the FO part of FAFO.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Another Scott: 20? More like 30+, yes? PK has been training the Taliban since the early 90s at least.
Prescott Cactus
@Gin & Tonic:
I must admit I feel rather uncivilized. Actually more like a barbarous Neanderthal. All of my preferred methods of punishment are horrid.
Prescott Cactus
@Andrya:
If you’d like, please join me in despising Raytheon.
Anoniminous
Mine warfare is an obscure and highly technical branch of Military Engineering. US Army FM 20-32 (Mine Countermine Operations) is the standard reference.
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah, it’s been a long time.
Of course, the Taliban isn’t monolithic and the Afghan Taliban is (generally) supported by Pakistan while the Pakistan Taliban is (generally) supported by Afghanistan and causes trouble for the Pakistan government. It’s very complicated.
:-/
But the Pakistan government has caused all kinds of trouble for stability in Afghanistan for ages (because, among other things, they didn’t want India to have a foothold there). They loved being able to cause trouble for the USA (witness their harboring of bin Laden, for crying out loud). The hubris of wanting the USA and NATO out out OUT, but then whin[g]ing that we/they did the withdrawal RONG is kinda breathtaking.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Another Scott:
*big smile
Anoniminous
Re: Tatarigami_UA’s thread
Fixing the enemy and then flanking has been used for thousands of years. That’s effectively what Hannibal did at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE. It says a lot about the quality of Russian infantry that they have to be given OJT for the tactic.
More evidence the Russian Army sucks.
Andrya
@Prescott Cactus: I enjoyed your riposte, but I’m genuinely curious: should Raytheon be despised simply for being a defense contractor, or did they do something especially bad? Like selling arms to overseas bad actors? Or financial chicanery that cheats the taxpayers?
If to be despised just for being a defense contractor, do you really want a world where no one has the means of defense against the likes of russia?
For the foreseeable future, human nature being what it is, there will be aggressive dictatorships out to conquer, and impose tyranny, on anyone they can. Peace, love, and daisies will not stop them. Only someone with weapons can stop them.
wjca
The difference being that, for the past 20, they have been doing it with money they charged us (heavily charged us) for allowing us to transport our supplies thru their territory.
One of the two greatest policy mistakes of my lifetime is this**. When we were preparing to invade Afghanistan, Iran offered us free passage for our supplies. We didn’t even give them the courtesy of a reply. Apparently our foreign policy establishment was too attached to the Saudis. (For my part, if we have to ally with a theocracy, I’d rather do so with a country which has been civilized for millennia, rather than one barely 2 generations from being nomadic camel herders.)
** The other, actually very similar, one? Before allying with China, Ho Chi Minh had come to the US looking for support. China, after all, has historically been at daggers drawn with Vietnam. But we turned him down, too. The entire Vietnam War might have been avoided….
Andrya
@wjca: Adding to your great post, at the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, a group headed by Ho Chi Minh (then living under a different name) petitioned the Allies for self-determination for Vietnam. They were turned down because the sacred principle of self-determination did not apply to colonies.
More than a million Vietnamese lives, and 55,000 American lives, would have been spared if France had been leaned on to stop being imperialist.
Anoniminous
@wjca:
That kind of thing happens when you put a man who received his education in global military strategy and International Relations by selling men’s underwear in Kansas City, Mo.
Mallard Filmore
For a little humor, this section of today’s YT video from Denys Davydov shows UA soldiers opening a can of fish from Sweden.
https://youtu.be/n9mCJzyGiQg?t=867
wjca
And who at the State Department (since that was clearly not Bush II) would that have been?
Jay
@wjca:
Truman
wjca
Hmmm. The description I always heard (from my father) was “a two bit judge out of the Prendergast machine in Kansas City.” (Father was amazed that someone with such an unpromising background had somehow managed to do the job of President so well. But then, despite having come thru military service in WW II, father wasn’t all that focused on foreign affairs.)
It would be interesting to know, given Truman’s lack of foreign policy experience as noted by Anoniminous, who in the State Department advised him.
Andrya
@Anoniminous: @wjca: @Jay: Was Truman responsible for the enmity between the US and Iran? I thought Truman refused British requests to overthrow the elected government of Mohammed Mosaddegh, and Eisenhower agreed to do it- in 1953. (And this was all about profits for British petroleum companies). That lead to decades of tyranny by the Shah, which lead to the Iranian revolution, which led to the hostage crisis. I think the hostage crisis, as much as the Saudi alliance, led to the refusal to cooperate with Iran re: Afghanistan.
Anyone who knows more about this than me, please correct me!
Carlo Graziani
@wjca: Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, George Kennan, Charles Bohlen. The architects of Containment.
wjca
And not a haberdasher in the lot….
Prescott Cactus
@Andrya:
I should have explained more. It’s personal. They did something especially bad, in that they hired me. I worked for them for two and a half years, which is a record for me. A mild case of indentured servitude.
I worked in the construction field, which is akin to being a migrant worker. You pick the fruit or build the structure and move along. It wasn’t just the length of time, it was just everything. The middle of cornfields living in a town of 400 souls, two taverns and one restaurant, which was one of the taverns.
No direction from corporate other than an occasional email. Onsite management and long term employees ran fiefdoms over their projects.
The only good thing I took away from it was learning the sport of curling.
I release you all from hating Raytheon, but will continue to do so myself, till the clods of dirt echo off the wooden lid of my Chicago overcoat.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Andrya: I think the point is that Truman was dissuaded from supporting Vietnamese (and Indochinese generally) independence from France—and Ho Chi Minh went ahead and got the help to do the job elsewhere.
Because no one in the State Department at the time truly grasped that the era of the European overseas empires was ending, and keeping the French happy seemed more important that taking a chance on the future of Indochina.
Andrya
@Prescott Cactus: I have to sympathize. I have a similar grudge on NASA for gross mistreatment on the job, including totally unnecessary sleep deprivation for a 36 hour telephone conference. (The NASA team worked in shifts, so they got to sleep.)
Plus, I’d never heard the expression “Chicago overcoat” before- it will definitely add to my vocabulary.
Andrya
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): Thanks for the clarification. I was confused by multiple topics in the thread.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Andrya: I figured as much.
BruceFromOhio
Bit of a flex happening there.
Hangö Kex
@Mallard Filmore: Surströmming. I haven’t dared to try any myself, but have it on good authority that copious amounts of Snaps are de rigueur.
Anoniminous
never mind
Prescott Cactus
@Andrya:
I’d hold a grudge against NASA too. I’d probably add the company you worked for also, for not pushing back. I doubt they learned a lot after their Richard Feynman moment.
Grudges are good. Especially long ones, like Hatfield and McCoy.
Enjoy! No credit or attribution required. My misspent youth was nurtured on the Southside. Sox not Cubs, thin not thick, the list goes on and on.
YY_Sima Qian
Valuable article from the Kyiv Independent on the less well covered Kharkiv axis.
New brigade bears heavy brunt of Russia’s onslaught in Kharkiv Oblast
Goes into some detail on where NATO training has been useful, & where not. Also give some indication of the quality of Russian units on the axis & their tactics (relatively speaking), as least as viewed from Ukrainian grunts in the trenches. On the one hand, the Russian forces have not made much head way in that direction, the novice Ukrainian units are holding. OTOH, the attrition ratios may not be so favorable to the Ukrainian side there.
Now that the Ukrainian Army is making progress in Zaporizhzhia , forcing the Russians to shift some VDV units down south to prevent a breakthrough, the Ukrainian brigades at Kharkiv may be under less pressure now.