Russia Invades Ukraine

[Suranis]

[RTH10260]

Russia ‘attacked Ukraine with North Korea-supplied ballistic missiles’
White House says Moscow likely to supply Pyongyang with advanced technologies in exchange

Julian Borger in Washington
Fri 5 Jan 2024 00.10 CET

Russia has started using ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea to attack Ukraine, the White House has said.

Washington also alleged Russia was in talks with Iran to buy short-range ballistic missiles. The US intelligence assessment is that Iranian missiles have not yet arrived in Russia, but that the deal will eventually be done.

The US’s national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said on Thursday that Russia fired a North Korean ballistic missile into Ukraine on 30 December, but it landed in an open field. However, Kirby said Russian forces had launched more such missiles as part of a large salvo on 2 January, and their impact had yet to be assessed.

“Due in part to our sanctions and export controls, Russia has become increasingly isolated on the world stage, and they’ve been forced to look to like-minded states for military equipment. As we’ve been warning publicly, one of those states is North Korea,” Kirby told reporters at the White House, adding it was a “significant and concerning escalation” in Pyongyang’s support for Moscow.

Kirby said the range of the North Korean missiles was 900km (560 miles), and that in return for the weapons, Russia was expected to supply fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armoured vehicles, ballistic missile production equipment and other advanced technologies.

“This would have concerning security implications for the Korean peninsula and the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... c-missiles

[Volkonski]

Russia Cancels Orthodox Christmas Masses In Ukraine Border City

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-belgorod ... 63790.html

Orthodox Christmas midnight masses in the city of Belgorod near the Russia-Ukraine border have been canceled, authorities in the city said on January 6, a day after officials offered to evacuate worried residents amid increasing attacks. The mayor of Belgorod, Valentin Demidov, said on social media he agreed with local church leaders that "night masses in Belgorod would be canceled in connection to the operational situation." Ukrainian forces have hit Belgorod with near daily attacks in recent days, the deadliest of which killed 25 people on December 30.

[Suranis]

Anton Gerashchenko@Gerashchenko_en
Dec 15, 2023

A citizen of Nepal, taken as prisoner of war by Ukrainian Defenders in Zaporizhzhia region. He says he was recruited after receiving a Russian student visa in Nepal.

According to him, recruiters tell citizens of Nepal that the war will be over soon, and it will be a chance for them to earn money and receive a Russian passport.

Reuters also reported that Nepal police have arrested 10 people who reportedly sent young people of the country into illegal recruitment into the Russian army after taking large amounts of money from them for travel visas.

Earlier in December, Nepal asked Moscow not to recruit its citizens into the Russian army and to send any Nepali soldier in its armed forces back to Nepal after six of its citizens serving in Russia's military were killed.

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/sta ... 8109636973

Anton Gerashchenko@Gerashchenko_en
Jan 6, 2024

Nepal has stopped issuing permits to its citizens to work in Russia after at least 10 Nepali soldiers were killed while serving in the Russian army, and about 100 are reported to be missing.

Nepal has asked Russia not to recruit its citizens in the Russian army and to immediately send all Nepali soldiers back to home and compensate the families of those killed.

But it did not stop Russia and the police in Nepal detained 10 people last month over allegations that they sent unemployed youths for illegal recruitment into the Russian army after charging them huge amounts of money for travel visas.

Source https://t.co/BRbrkr68tp

[RTH10260]

Comment on the war as per my observation of online available sources.

Russia is losing at least a battalion worth of personnel a week along the outstretched frontline. The hardware losses are staggering. Russia seems to have ancient storage resources that are getting put back in service and retrofitted to a degree. Ukraine seems to be able to establish local saboteur groups that make sporadic attacks on airforce fields and train lines. About a month ago one of the two train connections to China was successfully attacked and seriously damaged (train on fire on a bridge and in a tunnel, no recovery and repair efforts possibly during winter time). Iran is now supplying jet powered drones that are faster and therefore more difficult to shoot down, though they have a smaller range. Russia seems to have and receive small advanced battle field drones and its operators are also succefull against the Ukrainians. It's not a one sided game as one might assume from the internet, cause Russians do not have the capability to represent their feats.

My guess is that the Russian strategie is to bleed Ukraines ammunition storage faster than the west can resupply.

Uraine seems to have a strategy in the south to hit Russian targets on Crimea. They are hitting radar installations, airfields and command posts. Russia retreated ships out of Sevastopol harbour to the Russian mainland and to non-military ports further south on the island. A couple of weeks ago a supply landing ship was sunk there, it is said to have carried a supply of ammunition and Iranian drones at the time. Russia channels military supply on train from Russia accross the Kerch bridge thru Crimea then up north to the front. Just these days Ukraine bombed a new bridge, it's gone and the train line inoperable. In recent weeks Ukraine has targeted with success (according to reported smoke raising) several ammunition and fuel storage facilities farther back of the frontline than before.

In total - a WW1 situation of stationary front lines with pin pricks by all parties.

[Suranis]

Ukrainian site so use Salt etc.

[Suranis]

Russian soldiers are "showing off" their upgrades — headlamps from the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Not very happy faces.

Any thoughts?

[RTH10260]

How many batteries do they get to replace each night, how long does a set last in the cold? Or do they get USB connectors and chargers

[Sam the Centipede]

How many batteries do they get to replace each night, how long does a set last in the cold? Or do they get USB connectors and chargers

The batteries probably last a lifetime. Literally. A Russian soldier's lifetime.

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

Two Russian intelligence gathering aircrafts downed over the Sea of Azov, one loss, one emergency landing.

The poster I consider to be a "trustd source", commenting based on his news gathering and internet sources.

YMMV

[RTH10260]

Latest internet whispering out of Russian sources is that those two airplanes, the AWACS look alike and the flying command post, were shut down by friendly fire and not by assumed Ukrainian Patriot missiles. The Kerch bridge is heavily protected, and the rumours are that someone lost their nerves when seeing those planes circling from the Ukranian border towards their general direction. Someone mused that the Ukranians may have helped on by sending in a drone or two ...

[RTH10260]

Further up I mentioned that Ukraine was able to shoot down several of the more advanced fighter jets. At least one of them went down in Ukranian controlled territory. They did just give the US the opportunity to inspect the wreckage and return home with parts.

[RTH10260]

A fresh news item claims that a mayor-general commanding the airstrikes against Ukraine was aboard the downed Russian A-50 (AWACS type) and therefore perished.

Sounds like this incident is a major disaster for Russia, not only losing a scarce plane (only 15 put into service total) with specialized electronic warfare hardware, losing pilots with certain special qualifications, losing a crew specialized in using and analyzing the electronic warfare signals, and now the boss appearently gone too.

[johnpcapitalist]

A fresh news item claims that a mayor-general commanding the airstrikes against Ukraine was aboard the downed Russian A-50 (AWACS type) and therefore perished.

Sounds like this incident is a major disaster for Russia, not only losing a scarce plane (only 15 put into service total) with specialized electronic warfare hardware, losing pilots with certain special qualifications, losing a crew specialized in using and analyzing the electronic warfare signals, and now the boss appearently gone too.

Other estimates say that there are only around 8 units that are mission-capable at this point. Basically, given the frequency of repairs on 30-40 year old airframes plus lack of reliability in mechanical radar versus more modern AESA (actively electronically scanned array) systems, I'd bet that they have at most 3-4 aircraft actually capable of taking to the air at any given moment, and they just lost one of those. Lack of AWACS capability may be a major reason why RuAF is not a significant factor in the Ukraine war.

Next-gen US and NATO equipment will not have the big rotating dome on top of the aircraft, but will instead be much smaller business jets with a stationary linear radar above top of the fuselage. Amusingly, the Russians were working on an A-50 replacement, built on the same aircraft platform, and again with a rotating radar dome. They were in limited flight test just prior to the Ukraine invasion, but now are having a tough time getting Western components to continue development.

[RTH10260]

As gleaned from the web and filtered by me: it looks like an increasing numbers of Russian soldiers that are fighting in the trenches are capitulating, some cause they will get executed by their own people if they leave the front line.

It seems that a large number of fresh infantery is moved to the front line with minimal training, with barely sufficient resources at hand.Stories of fresh men that never shot or seen a machine gun in their "training".

Additionally it seems that Ukraine is able to activate local Russian dissident groups for sabotage acts. As just reported such a group set fire to relais boxes along the train lines where Russian supply moves. Not easy to fix in winter time, assuming that spare parts and engineering drawings are available.

[RTH10260]

This armchair military strategist has been left sleepless over the question: Why did the chicken cross the road

Really, why was the top commander responsible for the Russian airforce on the Ukraine front on that plane? Did he just want to do an inspection run with the crew? But why take hours off his duty to be stuck on a plane rather than at his headquarters? I have been left with the impression that he was planning a major operation and had the command and control plane nearby intended to implement it. It's my believe that this takedown didn't just happen by chance, but that the Ukraine intelligence had information that some larger incident may be brewing, had knowlege that this top guy would be in the air, and the Ukrainian made a special effort to take the planes down. The A-50 AWACS type plane was likely a daily occurance near the battle field, but this time had a special passenger aboard. There had been reports that during those days there was a massing of Russians on two front lines (that in the end didn't get anywhere).

PS. the most recent comments about "Russian friendly fire" as the cause have been of disbelieve, claiming that Russians tend to blame their own rather than admit that the adversary was successful.

[Slim Cognito]

I realize that was speculation but it would answer some of my questions.

[RTH10260]

Revision 1 to my chicken-crossing-road problem above.

My obvious slip in logic was assuming that the top commander was aboard the A-50, as the initial talk was mainly about that plane. Logic dictates that he was on the Il-22 airborne control center. The only images available of that damaged plane are from the back tail section full of shrapnel holes. They conveniently leave out any damage to the fuselage front of the wings. On the day of the grounding the traffic of the pilot with the controller on the ground was recorded. The pilot urgently requested ambulances present when they landed. My guess that request was not to tend to the crew but to the commander.

[RTH10260]

Today a Russian airplane was shot dow near Belgorod, a Russian city not far from the Uraaine border. Russia claims this plane was carrying Ukranian POW destined for a prisoner swap.

According to this commenter it is propaganda.

FWIW

[Suranis]

Well, Russia tends to use Busses to transport POWs as they are a lot cheaper and more plentiful.

And the plane seems to have been on its way back to Russia from Iran.

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/statu ... 3768764429

Illia Ponomarenko@IAPonomarenko

The downed Russian air force Il-76 RA-78830, from what I see, had just had a flight from Moscow to Iran around Jan 23.
Then, it was seen taking off from Iran and then getting back to Russia via Saudi and Egyptian airspace on Jan. 24.
And then it was downed near Belgorod.
And I have a question - was it carrying Ukrainian POWs or Iranian weapons to Belgorod and farther into Russia?

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/airc ... 0#33ba78b2

That link goes to a flight tracker website to see the clight path of the Plane. Unless the site is complete bullshit, I dunno.

New speculation that it might have been carrying Drone operators.

Naturally the worlds press just went with what Russia said without verifying.

[RTH10260]

All video clips from the crash sites show some chunks of debris. But not one corps or body parts are highlighted. No human remains covered with cloth, nobody seems to be looking for expired passengers.


fwiw

► Show Spoiler

[johnpcapitalist]

Today a Russian airplane was shot dow near Belgorod, a Russian city not far from the Uraaine border. Russia claims this plane was carrying Ukranian POW destined for a prisoner swap.

According to this commenter it is propaganda.

I read the claim that Ukraine had shot down a plane full of its own POWs being returned and immediately thought it was BS. It just seemed a little too... literary.

[RTH10260]

Russia is obviously depleting its ammunition and rocket launchers faster than the expected. They are dropping back on older naval launchers installed on tanks.

► Show Spoiler

[pipistrelle]

Today a Russian airplane was shot dow near Belgorod, a Russian city not far from the Uraaine border. Russia claims this plane was carrying Ukranian POW destined for a prisoner swap.

According to this commenter it is propaganda.

I read the claim that Ukraine had shot down a plane full of its own POWs being returned and immediately thought it was BS. It just seemed a little too... literary.

I doubt they'd waste a plane, a pilot, and fuel on POWs.