Continuation The Russian invasion of Ukraine part 7

[jeremyp]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Like the Nordstream thing, my money's on the Russians due to the buffoonery factor.

What was buffoonish about the Nordstream attack? My understanding is that it was pretty successful at blowing up the pipeline and we still don't know who did it (accepting the there is circumstantial evidence that it was the Russians).

[Lurch]

The video of that pathetic explosion appeared rather anemic for a strike on a sizeable building. My instant assessment was that it could in no way be the effort of anything like a competent actor attempting to actually take out anyone. I wonder if it could even have reliably worked on an armored car.

[Drewbot]

Originally Posted by Drewbot

Holy Crap, this is the most damning video of the war. Wagner leader calling out MOD leadership while pointing at the bodies of 30 dead Wagner fighters.

"WHERE ARE THE SHELLS?!"

Bodies and bleeped out swearing.
https://twitter.com/Jack_Mrgln/statu...114344962?s=20

With english subtitles
https://twitter.com/Baterial1/status...018260992?s=20

I mean this tells me either the Wagner leader, or the two guys in the MOD are going to be killed soon.

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by Drewbot

I mean this tells me either the Wagner leader, or the two guys in the MOD are going to be killed soon.

Prigozhin has been pushing his luck - he was riding high (relative to Shoigu) in October (or at least he thought he was). Shoigu seemed to be taking it, which puzzled me as he seemed to be getting set up as the fall guy, but earlier this year, he started restricting Wagner's access to materiel and prison recruitment.

But yes, I hope both see that they have crossed the Rubicon and that they need to start emulating the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army in their relations with each other.

I personally think that Prigozhin is out of his depth. A lot of very obvious political manouvering, whilst Shoigu seems to be better at making the alliances in private. And also by not being too much of a threat to Putin.

[Dr.Sid]

Originally Posted by jimbob

Prigozhin has been pushing his luck - he was riding high (relative to Shoigu) in October (or at least he thought he was). Shoigu seemed to be taking it, which puzzled me as he seemed to be getting set up as the fall guy, but earlier this year, he started restricting Wagner's access to materiel and prison recruitment.

But yes, I hope both see that they have crossed the Rubicon and that they need to start emulating the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army in their relations with each other.

I personally think that Prigozhin is out of his depth. A lot of very obvious political manouvering, whilst Shoigu seems to be better at making the alliances in private. And also by not being too much of a threat to Putin.

The only thing I care about is when will they finally start to off each other.

[theprestige]

As a palate cleanser, I offer you the second ever "Captain HIMARS" clip:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/com...aptain_himars/

A similar clip dropped last year, just before the Ukraine spring 2022 counteroffensive that liberated Kherson.

Yes, he is telling Moscow soldiers to give Ukraine coordinates of equipment and supplies, to avoid having their barracks shelled.

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by theprestige

As a palate cleanser, I offer you the second ever "Captain HIMARS" clip:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/com...aptain_himars/

A similar clip dropped last year, just before the Ukraine spring 2022 counteroffensive that liberated Kherson.

Yes, he is telling Moscow soldiers to give Ukraine coordinates of equipment and supplies, to avoid having their barracks shelled.

Nice bit to sow distrust, "*keep* giving me the coordinates"

[crescent]

Originally Posted by jimbob

Prigozhin has been pushing his luck

Prigozhin is always the odd one out.

On one hand, he runs the most brutal operation in Ukraine. Brutal to Ukrainians, torturing captives, bragging about killing civilian children, mass rape, all that. All the stuff all the Russian troops do, but Wagner does more of it and expresses greater pride in it all.

And equally brutal to its own troops, recruiting prisoners to fight and then sacrificing them to draw fire and expose Ukrainian position. Pushing his own troops into meat grinder battles where they're taking casualties as high as 8x what the enemy is taking. Using blocking troops to prevent them from retreating.

But on the other hand, he's one of the few prominent leaders to ever get anywhere near combat or even the soldiers under his command. He's constantly in or near Bakhmut, visiting recently captured positions. He recruited the prisoner soldiers in person.

He's probably one of the most brutally cruel leaders in a military filled with and led by very brutal people - but he also shows some of the best basic leadership skills of the lot.

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by crescent

Prigozhin is always the odd one out.

On one hand, he runs the most brutal operation in Ukraine. Brutal to Ukrainians, torturing captives, bragging about killing civilian children, mass rape, all that. All the stuff all the Russian troops do, but Wagner does more of it and expresses greater pride in it all.

And equally brutal to its own troops, recruiting prisoners to fight and then sacrificing them to draw fire and expose Ukrainian position. Pushing his own troops into meat grinder battles where they're taking casualties as high as 8x what the enemy is taking. Using blocking troops to prevent them from retreating.

But on the other hand, he's one of the few prominent leaders to ever get anywhere near combat or even the soldiers under his command. He's constantly in or near Bakhmut, visiting recently captured positions. He recruited the prisoner soldiers in person.

He's probably one of the most brutally cruel leaders in a military filled with and led by very brutal people - but he also shows some of the best basic leadership skills of the lot.

Qualities needed to stage a coup.

And his rivals probably know that too

[JoeMorgue]

Originally Posted by Drewbot

I mean this tells me either the Wagner leader, or the two guys in the MOD are going to be killed soon.

Wagner leader's going to go to sleep and wake up in the cart from the opening scene of Skyrim next to a red shirt from Star Trek, Sean Bean, Gwen Stacy, the Black Guy in a Horror Movie, a Cop that's one day from retiring, and Carmine from Gears of War.

[crescent]

Originally Posted by Lurch

The video of that pathetic explosion appeared rather anemic for a strike on a sizeable building. My instant assessment was that it could in no way be the effort of anything like a competent actor attempting to actually take out anyone. I wonder if it could even have reliably worked on an armored car.

My theory is that it was a false flag attack planned by committee.

"We want to stage a false attack to make it look like they tried to kill Putin, and destroy the Kremlin. Sort of a 9-11 in Russia. That will motivate the nation to support the war more so that we can draft more soldiers without riots, increase our military spending and production, and gain sympathy from our allies so they provide us with more weapons and ammo. Maybe even justify a nuke or two or three."

"Okay, but our false flag can't do anything that could actually harm Putin in the least."

"Or startle him."

"And making it look like Ukraine almost killed him might make him look weak, we can't have that!"

"So let's just do an attack on the Kremlin while he's not there. We can bomb the apartment he has in the Kremlin, because everybody knows he never uses it anyway."

"Bomb the Kremlin?"

"Well, yes. But we do it in a way that doesn't hurt anyone important."

"Wouldn't bombing the Kremlin make us look weak?"

And so on. They hem and haw worried that any sort of false flag attack could make Russia look bad. Balancing the value to be gained from a big false flag attack against the ever-there concern about looking weak.

So they finally decide to just fly a small drone past an empty apartment in the Kremlin and detonate it mid-air where it can't actually damage anything. False flag by committee.

[theprestige]

It seems Prigozhin has announced the withdrawal of Wagner from the Bakhmut front.

But no doubt the Moscow war machine grinds on, and Ukraine is eventually doomed if it continues to resist.

[crescent]

Originally Posted by theprestige

It seems Prigozhin has announced the withdrawal of Wagner from the Bakhmut front.

But no doubt the Moscow war machine grinds on, and Ukraine is eventually doomed if it continues to resist.

He's apparently been ordered to take the city by May 9 (Victory Day). He's stated that Wagner will turn Bakhmut over to regular Russian forces on May 10, unless they start giving him more ammo. He seems to be setting the stage to explain the failure to meet the deadline.

So it's all conditional. He says he'll do something five days from now unless he gets what he wants. Unfortunately, not the same thing as an actual Russian withdrawal from the city.

[theprestige]

No, of course it's not the same thing. Russia's vaunted strategy of overwhelming firepower and endless human wave attacks is slowly but surely conquering all of Ukraine.

[jimbob]

How to spot a Russian false flag operation

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by jeremyp

What was buffoonish about the Nordstream attack? My understanding is that it was pretty successful at blowing up the pipeline and we still don't know who did it (accepting the there is circumstantial evidence that it was the Russians).

Not because the NS attack was buffoonish per se, but because Moscow are buffoons in general.

There's basically two reasons to blow up the Nordstream pipeline: Either you're Dark Brandon playing 5D chess with Europe's energy supply in order to keep Germany on side; or you're a no-talent ass clown who somehow got it in your head that attacking the pipeline would be some kind of 5D chess maneuver.

Over the past year, Moscow has shown remarkable consistency at being no-talent ass clowns whose mastery of 5D chess extends as far as shooting themselves in the foot.

So when I see some no-talent ass clownery over the Kremlin of a May evening, I assume it's the Russians. And when I look at the NS attack, I conclude that no-talent ass clownery is the more parsimonius explanation.

When trying to identify the perpetrator of some bad act, you can ask, "cui bono?" And when the answer seems to be "nobody, really" then the perpetrator is probably Moscow.

[JoeMorgue]

There's a sequence of events in Tom Clancy's Sum of all Fears (the book, I forget how in depth the movie goes into it.)

The plot of the book is that a group of terrorists are trying to goad the United States and Soviet Union into full scale thermonuclear war. The initial setup is setting up a massive, multi-stage nuclear, very high yeild weapon built out of a rebuilt Israeli weapon lost and presumed destroyed during the Yom Kipper War, to go off at the Super Bowl in Denver. The idea being nobody would think anyone but a major nuclear power with an advanced nuclear weapons program would be capable of this kind of in size and scale nuclear weapon, it would be seen as far too large and complicated to be an improvised terrorist nuclear weapon, leaving the US with no choice but to come to the conclusion that the Soviets were the source of, it not the direct firer of, the weapon.

However the design, while far beyond what the major players in the novel would expect out of a terrorist group, is not perfect (the terrorists kill their bomb maker before he completes some seemingly minor but important last minute steps which leaves the second stage core of the weapon with Helium-3 poisoning, preventing it from reaching full fission) and the bomb fizzles badly, resulting in a much, much smaller nuclear detonation that while still massively destructive isn't the large scale strategic nuclear explosion level results they were hoping for.

However for the first few hours of the crisis the United States is relying on satellite imaging of Denver for all its data on the explosion and what amounts to a trick of the light essentially, the amount of snow on the ground and quartz gravel in a large parking lot built for the Super Bowl were flash-vaporized in the explosion, creating a double-flash that was far brighter than what one would expect from an explosion of this size and exactly what one would expect to see from a large multi-stage nuclear explosion, so for the first few hours of the crisis the United States IS operating under the assumption that the blast was so big it could have only come from a large, first strike strategic nuclear weapon, so they, even though the terrorist screw up, still wind up coming to the exact conclusion the terrorist wanted them to, that the only possible source was a Soviet strategic weapon.

In other words bad agents can be good at making you come to the exact wrong conclusions they want.

If someone who's not the Ukraine, Russia doing it as a false flag, or NATO does manage to pull of a major attack somewhere on this whole playing field, we need to think now about how we would recognize it and how we would react.

They are people not in this conflict who still have skin in the game.

Now is this relevant to this incident? No probably not, this is probably Russia shooting themselves in the foot for sympathy points, but still, food for thought.

Like this actually got brought up by scientist after the Cuban Missile Crises. Really think about it. What would have happened in a small meteor strike happened on let's say October 27th, 1962, somewhere in the United States, Soviet, or satellite/closely aligned state territories? Really think about how bad a reasonable, non-worst case scenario could have really gone.

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by jimbob

Prigozhin has been pushing his luck - he was riding high (relative to Shoigu) in October (or at least he thought he was). Shoigu seemed to be taking it, which puzzled me as he seemed to be getting set up as the fall guy, but earlier this year, he started restricting Wagner's access to materiel and prison recruitment.

But yes, I hope both see that they have crossed the Rubicon and that they need to start emulating the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army in their relations with each other.

I personally think that Prigozhin is out of his depth. A lot of very obvious political manouvering, whilst Shoigu seems to be better at making the alliances in private. And also by Prigoznot being too much of a threat to Putin.

I have been saying that Prigozhin is headed for the same fate that befell Ernst Rohm.

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by Dr.Sid

The only thing I care about is when will they finally start to off each other.

Night of the Long Knives 2.0

[dudalb]

Photo of Prigozhin:
https://news.yahoo.com/prigozhin-rid...142300014.html

God, He looks like an Orc from one of the Peter Jackson LOTR movies....

[Reformed Offlian]

Originally Posted by dudalb

Photo of Prigozhin:
https://news.yahoo.com/prigozhin-rid...142300014.html

God, He looks like an Orc from one of the Peter Jackson LOTR movies....

"Restauranteur and Businessman."

Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!

[dudalb]

Originally Posted by Reformed Offlian

"Restauranteur and Businessman."

Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!

[Dr.Sid]

Full Prigozhin speech. He's not pulling punches. Russia has at least to attempt to kill hims. No way they leave him running his mouth like this without some response.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgJolFUcF6g

[Jack by the hedge]

Prigozyn is just grandstanding as usual and throwing blame on defence official so he doesn't have to shoulder the failure to capture Bakhmut by Victory Day. No way he's going to pull out and let someone elsewhere 9get him with

[Craig4]

Originally Posted by Dr.Sid

Full Prigozhin speech. He's not pulling punches. Russia has at least to attempt to kill hims. No way they leave him running his mouth like this without some response.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgJolFUcF6g

Wow, that was fun to watch.

[Flo]

Originally Posted by dudalb

I have been saying that Prigozhin is headed for the same fate that befell Ernst Rohm.

I expect he's has already planned his escape to some African country like Centrafrica where his militia is helping the current despot stay in power and he'll be free to continue his murderous career …

[Mike!]

It'd be great if he makes good on his threat to pull out of Bakhmut and him and his goon squad get gunned down by a row of barrier troops on their way out.

[Jack by the hedge]

He's not going to pull Wagner out and let anyone else take the glory. He's just making his usual histrionic fuss to blame others for his failure to capture Bakhmut by Victory day.

[theprestige]

He seems pretty sincere in his conviction that there is no glory for Moscow in Bakhmut.

I think his actual plan is to get his troops off the front line before the counteroffensive begins.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by dudalb

Photo of Prigozhin:
https://news.yahoo.com/prigozhin-rid...142300014.html

God, He looks like an Orc from one of the Peter Jackson LOTR movies....

More like Gollum if you ask me.

[Mike!]

Originally Posted by dudalb

Photo of Prigozhin:
https://news.yahoo.com/prigozhin-rid...142300014.html

God, He looks like an Orc from one of the Peter Jackson LOTR movies....

Originally Posted by lomiller

More like Gollum if you ask me.

If we're going for a literary comparison, I'm thinking Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in his youth, before he became so fat an antigravity device was required for him to remain mobile.

[Oystein]

Last September, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev followed Dmitry Bulgakov as deputy defence minister in charge of logistics and supplies.
So that would, going by his budget, be the guy in charge of supplying Wagner and other troops with ammunition and stuff.
But Prigozhin obviously had no beef with Mizintsev, despite laments that too little ammo was provided

A week ago, April 27, Mizintsev was removed from his post, apparently by Shoigu (the Kremlin refered questions about this to the defense ministry). No reasonwas given. Wikipedia has rumors that this came after Putin visited the vicinity of the front and learned how the situation (of logistics and supplies) really is - we may assume the problem is that supplies supposedly sent by Mizintsev didn't make it to the front. Where could they have gone?

Yesterday, we learned that Mizintsev now has a job with Prigozhin, as deputy commander of Wagner - so Prigozhin must be a fan.

I have seen it speculated that Mizintsev actually prefered Wagner and sold them supplies that were supposed to go to the Russian army.

This would explain why Prigozhin has now gone on full-on rants and threatened desperate measures: Because he has lost a friend in the Russian MoD who corrupted in Prigothin's favor.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Mike!

If we're going for a literary comparison, I'm thinking Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in his youth, before he became so fat an antigravity device was required for him to remain mobile.

Except that Baron Harkonnen was a true oligarch, accustomed and suited to wielding power on a grand scale. Even his nephew, the beast Rabban, widely considered to be a stupid brute of a man, was at least competent enough to govern a planet of great importance. And his troops were actually effective in their work (though of course no match for the Fremen).

Prigozin is no Harkonnen. He's not even a Rabban.

[Mike!]

Originally Posted by theprestige

Except that Baron Harkonnen was a true oligarch, accustomed and suited to wielding power on a grand scale. Even his nephew, the beast Rabban, widely considered to be a stupid brute of a man, was at least competent enough to govern a planet of great importance. And his troops were actually effective in their work (though of course no match for the Fremen).

Prigozin is no Harkonnen. He's not even a Rabban.

All fair points, I was only going for the visual aspect as that was what was being discussed at that moment in the quotes I quoted... That said, was the Baron ever referred to as once being handsome or even remotely attractive in any way, form or fashion?

[Foster Zygote]

Originally Posted by Lurch

The video of that pathetic explosion appeared rather anemic for a strike on a sizeable building. My instant assessment was that it could in no way be the effort of anything like a competent actor attempting to actually take out anyone. I wonder if it could even have reliably worked on an armored car.

To me those "explosions" look like cheap action movie special effects, with lots of bright flame, but little actual energy released compared to high explosives. It seems like anyone wanting to really do damage to the Kremlin would have used the payload allowance of those drones to pack in some HE and blow some nice, highly visible holes in the dome.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by Drewbot

I mean this tells me either the Wagner leader, or the two guys in the MOD are going to be killed soon.

Originally Posted by theprestige

It seems Prigozhin has announced the withdrawal of Wagner from the Bakhmut front.

I remain unconvinced it's not 100% acting.

Do we know if these messages are being broadcast in Russia?

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

I remain unconvinced it's not 100% acting.

Do we know if these messages are being broadcast in Russia?

They're being posted on social media. On what planet would Prigozin have the resources to broadcast this message, in Russia or anywhere else?

[Wildy]

A pro-Putin guy by the name of Gonzalo Lira has been arrested in Ukraine.

Some are calling this a blow to press freedom. But I don't really know what to think on that line in part because I'm aware of his other antics that make me biased against him to begin with.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by theprestige

They're being posted on social media. On what planet would Prigozin have the resources to broadcast this message, in Russia or anywhere else?

That was my point. If it's for non-Russians, none of it matters.

This tends to back up my take on it:

Quote:

Ukraine military officials say Wagner fighters are being sent to Bakhmut to reinforce their positions, not withdraw.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/...mut-withdrawal

[a_unique_person]

Originally Posted by Wildy

A pro-Putin guy by the name of Gonzalo Lira has been arrested in Ukraine.



Some are calling this a blow to press freedom. But I don't really know what to think on that line in part because I'm aware of his other antics that make me biased against him to begin with.

Probably just trying to boost his YouTube views. The guy was linked to by CE once and is a moron.