16:40 – Johan No.1
The West can be pretty tough when needed. Actually, we in the West probably don’t want to engage so openly as with Libya, the Iraq war, and Afghanistan and have probably learned that spreading democracy is difficult.
Smaller actions like when SOF have struck in Africa or Israel’s needle pricks are relatively okay when removing threats. A bit like when the police act preventively before a planned murder, find the murder weapon, the murder plan in text, and prosecute everyone for attempted murder.
We should probably consider acting preventively regarding EU infrastructure if we have the surveillance capabilities, and if we don’t, the security services should damn well make sure to keep their eyes open.
I believe the West would largely accept such development if it is temporary and preventive.
I thought we would get that in the Black Sea, a line RU was not allowed to cross and if they did – sink.
16:46 – MatsExtrude
Thanks for today’s essay!
It will be interesting to see what happens this winter. I guess Putin is starting to feel the knife at his throat and he is probably ready to cause serious chaos to save his skin and will likely try to cause trouble by any means.
Besides an increased number of sabotage cases, I think we will see the termination of the test stop agreement and maybe even a test explosion.
17:19 – Johan No.1
A Satan 2 up and then straight down into the nearest major Russian city 😀
14:28 – Johan No.1
Many meetings all morning, the bosses refuse to leave us alone.
Yesterday one suspected what was going on and this morning one could read Accentmannen with his informed information as usual.
https://twitter.com/alexbondodua/status/1711779975299215449?s=46&t=SAmLZ7DHWYE14hgvtLe_gg
The proposed Russians planned to, in the media shadow behind I..el, and hoping that Ukraine was fully occupied at the southern front, capture Avdiivka.
Ukraine has never been strong in that area, they have had a defense in a curve that has been defended throughout the war despite energetic attempts by the Russians to run across the fields as fast as they can.
Today’s losses are thus reasonably not very aggregated but a crushing defeat for the Russian commander at Avdiivka.
He had scraped together 8,000 for the exercise and Accentmannen states it as two brigades but only if they were at full strength.
So either RU has brought down two fully manned brigades from northern Luhansk for the exercise or they have deployed 5-6-7 DPR brigades that are in the area in this attack.
Hundreds of tanks, more IFVs and hundreds of artillery backed by Ahkp and aircraft with FAB500 and FAB1500 – they have definitely brought down heavy vehicles.
At northern Luhansk, they probably had about a thousand tanks left?
Their own offensive killed well over a hundred tanks, and now this, it’s starting to get empty even in that reserve up north soon 👍
Very violent attacks against Ukrainian positions across the whole arc – a defense system with 15 defenders was attacked by “hundreds” and 13 Ukrainians were seen retreating – maybe all, maybe some were lost.
Ukraine unleashed the whole palette on the poor Russians who were heavily decimated. Then on top of that, their own RU artillery and air force also heavily decimated the Russians in blue-on-blue – it apparently should not be fun to be Russian according to both Ukraine and Russia.
“Hundreds wounded” have arrived at the hospital in Horlivka according to civilians.
Thoughts go to the defense in the area, this is naturally an extension of Shoigu having received a sharp order to take something at all costs during October.
My guess – UA had a feeling that there would be offensive operations and have awaited these.
https://youtu.be/nZxku2U_SxE?si=UD0vlygtVQvbKBRf
This one was considered three battalions but that was probably the number that attacked maybe?
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1711987792991957376?s=46&t=-CZqeA5w0mDSeg6rDCjfQg
Thoughts must also go to the Russian commander at Avdiivka who now must register with the employment office when Shoigu does not get what he wants and yells in the field tent about more attacks or dismissal.
We will see which units fought and if there were any strategic reserves added, my guess is that they are now quickly using up what remains at the fronts and that this further drains the Russian defense.
A small reality check we got with the 72nd brigade at Bakhmut which on paper was a full-strength motorized brigade but in reality was maybe 500 riflemen including logistics and artillerymen and without heavy vehicles.
At the southern front and at Bakhmut it looks like that for many units and according to that Murtz blogger it is just as bad in DPR.
Here at the office there is never a lull with my colleague – discussions are daily now and everything is I..el or the West’s fault in everything, H..s or Russia are just victims, and so on endlessly 😀
He even managed to explain why it is both parties’ fault that infants have been beheaded by H..s.
https://twitter.com/henmazzig/status/1711732906412884432?s=46&t=t9rMS2-yPY80lM_v2YBFiA
I have opened the discussions in order to better understand his motivation and it is quite clear – the USA went hard in Latin America so for him the Soviet Union and later Russia were the good side and that is now fixed in his worldview and how he sees the Ukraine war or the terror attack, unshakable in his belief.
Some concern about this rain and mud. Earlier the assessment was that UA had until the end of September before they had to wait for frozen ground but then this topic was discussed extensively and the thread concluded that UA could continue fighting uninterrupted. One must keep fingers crossed that the thread’s assessments are correct because a pause in fighting only benefits the Russians.
I wonder if the Russian logistics will collapse because their vehicle fleet is now partly civilian trucks and the roads are starting to get a bit slippery and then the defense systems will probably fill with water one can guess so there seem to be few advantages.
If you want to understand the difference in Russian and NATO capability, the Russians cannot avoid crashing when two companies from the same battalion are supposed to drive parallel but Sweden manages joint exercises with 4-5 other nations’ defense branches. Accentmannen’s description of Avdiivka was vivid.
https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/sv/var-verksamhet/ovningar/avslutade-ovningar/baltops-2022/
Like the difference between cycling with or without training wheels roughly and where the Russians have reached tricycles.
Wild guess that all these Zapad exercises were heavily staged and then the information released was adjusted because none of what we have seen in Ukraine suggests that they could have had reasonable exercises with 250,000 in the Baltic Sea area all branches of the military.
The navy is chased away by the country without a navy, the air force has flight fear and mechanized units run into each other and die.
Superkuf posted a long post about the Soviet fiasco in WW2 that everyone should read – history is adjusted to say the least and they do not disappoint us today either 😀
Baltic connector – we have now clearly shown that the same ship suitable for bottom works that was at the site where NS1 and NS2 were destroyed with explosives has also been observed at the site where Baltic connector was destroyed with explosives.
The Baltic Sea is not small in area and that the ship could be geographically linked to both places where sabotage was carried out is hard to explain for the Russians.
In my world as I perceive it, Russia has sabotaged three NG pipelines now in terror attacks. Then they have engaged in piracy when they boarded the ship in the Black Sea.
The Russian side will be very clear that the ship was there to listen for Ukrainian saboteurs but that does not hold – Ukraine could have struck along the entire pipeline so that they were exactly where it exploded is unreasonable and that they were not the ones who carried out the attack is impossible.
Then the Russian side will stubbornly point out that the EU has not formally pointed to Russia so then Russia is innocent according to all laws in the world and accusing them is Russophobia.
But everyone still knows that it was Russia who carried out the terrorist act and the West should probably start thinking about protecting its electricity infrastructure this winter. These are two NATO countries they have sabotaged and for Sweden’s part we are not even in NATO yet.
I laughed the other day at some who were worried about sabotage against our weapons factories, now I no longer laugh, was it MXT and someone else – see Johan No.1 does not laugh 😐
Doesn’t seem like H..ah listened to I..el either because outgoing artillery from Lib..n is being reported by people on site now – so much for that de-escalation attempt 😐
https://twitter.com/mattmcbradley/status/1711753527373021478?s=46&t=t9rMS2-yPY80lM_v2YBFiA
If not full war then escalation.
https://twitter.com/joetruzman/status/1711507649672749333?s=46&t=SAmLZ7DHWYE14hgvtLe_gg
UA is street-smart as always and is now actively trying to take out equipment RU has for building new fortifications and mine-laying, one would guess.
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1711634485614141738?s=46&t=SAmLZ7DHWYE14hgvtLe_gg
Now the media have finished analyzing and concluded that there are 67 accounts that coordinated spreading lies about the I..el war on X.
https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1711860501041324518?s=46&t=-CZqeA5w0mDSeg6rDCjfQg
Not entirely unexpected.
There has also been a lot of discussion from pro-Ukrainian accounts that their tweets are not visible and here I sit this morning wondering why the internet hasn’t exploded over the failed RU attack at Avdiivka yet?
I know I endlessly harp on about Russian influence operations but it affects how a large part of the West’s citizens perceive conflicts and the country Russia is absolute experts at this for the simple reason that it is a prioritized activity to disrupt others while we in the West try to improve things for others.
Then people always go too far in emotion and accuse Russia of something they haven’t done and then everything is questioned as unreasonable and dismissed as conspiracy theories altogether.
NS1-NS2 and Baltic connector are so obvious to me that I absolutely boil, pro-Russian debaters push alternative theories and the information about the Russian ship at NS1 and NS2 disappeared very quickly from the debate and suddenly it was Ukraine behind it.
Now that the ship has been linked to Baltic connector, the Russians have probably lost this discussion with a bit of luck but it worries me that Western media after 1.5 years of war still bite on these obvious baits.
It is exactly the same modus operandi they had during the Cold War and just like how the whole discussion about submarine incursions in the 80s has shifted from being Soviet violations to either natural phenomena or that it was the USA.
At some office at GRU or whoever is behind it, they must be getting tired of champagne for so many successful influence operations they have managed over the years and the head of the office has a full box of medals.
The danger is that if the West starts losing interest in a topic – the UA war or the overall picture – Russian influence will quickly gain great traction and actually be able to persuade the West to support less or lead them in the direction that a compromise peace is best.
When people like Martin Kragh or the blogger started gaining traction, they were character assassinated in established media or otherwise silenced.
Now I am eagerly waiting for the media to pick up the information about the ship at both NS1-NS2 and Baltic connector and for it to become the dominant narrative instead of the sailboat Andromeda or other alternative theories.
The more Russia gets away with, the more terrorist attacks they will carry out, right, and last winter many Swedes took out their savings to pay the electricity bill when they fired the gas weapon.
The EU electricity grid is interconnected and large with endless unmonitored points and very vulnerable, the soft parts.
Last year was a spike in technical faults which together with the gas weapon strongly affected the electricity price. The technical faults were considered just that – technical faults.
This year they only have sabotage to rely on since the gas weapon has already been fired so there must be many more technical faults.
We will be flooded with information that it is only technical problems and the companies themselves do not want to admit that security is terrible so they will probably try to push that line as well – and Russia will get away again with terrorist attacks that previously used to have major consequences for the perpetrator.
Sometimes you get tired but then you should always read the latest news from Ukraine where the Russians are dying by the thousands and the Ukrainian shooting is advancing – then you become positive again 😀