12:47 – Johan No.1
Monday long post 😲
13:58 – MatsExtrude
👍 Thanks!
I assume these are the ideas you are after regarding submarines with tracks?
(Unfortunately, I can’t find any that would match based on that..)
http://www.hisutton.com/Russian_Tracked_Submarines_Baltic_1980s.html
Regarding the refineries, they are enormous, one hit is not enough to ruin all operations, Jake Broe talks a bit about that and shows satellite photos. https://youtu.be/LyEkZmxjDN8?si=gwymJqRYCXBeBZK9
So it might take a bit longer to stop all production but it’s only a matter of time. Hopefully, they can keep up the pace, the faster the better!
14:08 – Johan No.1
HISutton probably got the information for what he wrote from us that you linked to 😀
He had a large network in Russia but no luck, but it was worth a try.
Now he who knew his stuff in the thread must clarify, but if they hit UPP, would that freeze the entire facility, right?
14:32 – MatsExtrude
I was never part of the original discussions about what happened in the 80s and how it was twisted and turned (other than what came out in the media and what you brought up), so Sutton was previously unknown to me.
Yes, there is surely some Single Point of Failure that will stop most things, as long as you manage to hit the right spot.
14:35 – Johan No.1
Good 😀
14:38 – Johan No.1
Yes exactly, I recall that as a last resort I bounced ideas with Sutton and that he would write that post and try to push it out to all his followers and contacts to get a hit.
Before that, I was working with the guy who had the cybernetics zoo website and learned a lot, but he died in a motorcycle accident.
It was quite fun detective work 😀
14:39 – Johan No.1
The fact that the Russians don’t say a single word about what is happening to the oil industry suggests to me that Ukraine has finally hit the mark 😀
14:55 – MatsExtrude
Seems like there’s tons on the zoo site..
I was surprised when it turned out that DENGAMLE was a pioneer as a robot diver! 🙂
He must have had a drink or two before daring to try this:
17:43 – Johan No.1
🤣🤣
12:46 – Johan No.1
Sorry for the OT, today the project manager told us to go to work even though the union had shut down the workplace and he knew it, and down here the union apparently solves such problems quite harshly in large groups, also popularly called lynch mobs. We escaped with only two local employees who got beaten up, and the project manager was not exactly a natural leader in the middle of the lynch mob. I’m more than reasonably angry this Monday afternoon.
We brought this up when the pilot in Engels was prosecuted the other day that UA had already told us how this would go. So this is what Zelensky has previously said on the matter.
https://x.com/fella_canuck/status/1753987106211262482?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
There was an interesting discussion yesterday about how it is difficult to find information on Google about claims made in the thread – yes, this is notoriously complicated because everything written here has at some point been posted with sources in the thread but it’s damn impossible to find again. There is simply too much information and we discuss too broadly for anyone to keep up with archiving. Then there are often small statements in a larger context so search engines can’t handle it and Twitter is useless for archive searches.
We constantly evaluate sources and those we consider credible we latch onto and do plausibility analyses and extrapolate based on available information. We have a couple of points we don’t agree on – the daily death toll for example, but what came out from the blogger at BBC confirms that UA figures are quite close to the truth (and dead) and I think the reduced materiel in the bases also supports UA figures within a certain margin of error. Then we’ll probably argue about the ratio of dead vs wounded going forward as well.
When we were dealing with the submarine issue at Skalman, we could sit for months discussing a single day of a violation and I had a fairly large archive I worked with. There were people in the discussion whose task (probably 😀) was to sabotage the discussion and it was hopeless. Looking back now that Russia has started its war and exposed both that and the subversive activity, I have been confirmed that we were very right which was fun and one can rightly ask what the motivation was for those who took the opposite position.
With the above in mind, I think that over the course of the war much of what we have discussed and drawn conclusions on that we considered reasonable has also later turned out to be true – in many cases we are quite accurate.
My guess is therefore that quite a few of the assumptions we have made will prove to be correct when history is eventually written.
Offtopic – I’m missing a single puzzle piece – a tracked Soviet dry submersible maybe 13m long or something. If you find a picture of one you get the Nobel Prize. There were rumors they had a dry submersible with detachable track units but without a picture no Nobel Prize.
I know I keep harping on “operation turn off the lights” and the oil industry but this is starting to become a systemic threat to Russia.
Ok, blacked-out homes without heat they can live with until the population has had enough but…
They got in 1 billion USD/day when they could export oil undisturbed after the West imposed its very strict sanctions (some irony) and the refineries also produce fuel for the special operation, right?
The link below describes how the drones are targeting key components in the entire facility, exactly what the guy who knew his stuff in the thread discussed and that this would mean very long production stoppages (I’ve forgotten your name).
https://x.com/doktor_klein/status/1753809274059239506?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
And this source believes they have knocked out 30% – 40% of refinery and export capacity already. They have only been at it for a month 😲
https://x.com/missionartist/status/1753859931617509457?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Can Russia protect itself against this – no, they are completely hopeless. They don’t have air defense systems to move around and if they did, they don’t have internal troops to protect everything so UA runs saboteurs instead, and if both are in place UA just sends a cloud of drones so enough get through or infiltrate saboteurs who nest through the surveillance.
In 2-3 months Ukraine will have knocked out 100% of Russia’s oil export and refining capacity right in the middle of an ongoing special operation that must consume enormous amounts of fuel alone.
Already now we have seen reports of dry gas stations in Russia and it will get worse, it can’t go any other way, right.
This is presumably hurting the Russians enormously more than the discussion so far suggests. Western media has not grasped this at all and Russia is keeping quiet because it is too serious. Has any of you read a violent statement that if Ukraine goes after a single oil terminal more it will be full war for real?
I haven’t read anything, but they made a big deal about the IL76 and the downed Mainstay as well as some bombing in a bakery in Donetsk (pub full of officers).
Putin tried after Novorossiysk to threaten with higher oil prices for a while but the West didn’t listen.
Fuel depots in Ukraine and on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine are all known and logged as targets and can be taken out by SS or UA-made drones when they are on the RU side of the border. Some main depot in Donetsk was taken out recently if I remember correctly?
Then there is the big fuel shortage 2.0 and then nothing at all is delivered to the fronts anymore because the vehicle fleet then stands still. Now that the rail network has been heavily disrupted, more and more must be transported by road by the vehicle fleet.
Now in 2024 Ukraine has very effectively disrupted Russia’s oil export, refinery operations and electrical infrastructure – they have hit the soft parts of the country and definitely crippled the bedraggled aging bear.
-UA has previously tried to knock out the ammunition but the West failed to stop deliveries from NK, Iran and China (under the pretext that it is NK). The effort started in autumn 2022 and we speculated on how much ammunition RU had left and how much was in a larger depot and off the top of my head there could be 800,000 shells in the really big ones. We sat and guessed how long they had left before it ran out and since blown up depots reduced the total, RU ran out of ammunition but patched it up with imports, and then production so now they are at around 20% of what they had at their peak (which is a huge drop but maybe also due to lack of artillery, I don’t know)
-then UA has tried to knock out advanced technology production but Russia has smuggled in enough, if you remember there were explosions in a few facilities for key components and they had no guided munitions left on the vehicles but we have recently read that RU managed to smuggle in advanced technology worth 5 billion USD so they should have enough.
-The railway network is something they have succeeded well with, in my view, but it is a prioritized function with great repair capacity.
-Then they tried to take out the vehicle fleet by targeting the frontline on a large scale – no vehicles, no maintenance was probably the idea and not entirely foolish. But the exports have just been redirected to old stamping instead, so trucks unfortunately exist in far too large numbers thanks to the EU.
They were long unable to attack the oil industry, and now the question is whether the “axis of evil” can even supply fuel, which is presumably what Russia will need going forward?
The BRIICS countries have previously imported Russian oil, and the Russia-friendly countries are oil importers. It would be enormously easy for the West to threaten an oil embargo against countries trying to sell their imported products to Russia, and Western-friendly producers will fall in line.
To me, it looks like Ukraine has now found the weak point to strike that will bring down Russia; without refined oil products, there is no war. Fifth time’s the charm, never give up.
How are Russia’s facilities for war production and not least electricity production powered – I guess largely by oil products?
Certainly a country with lots of generators 😀
The special operation must consume astronomical amounts of fuel every day?
Now, I am of the opinion that the West is quite alert on this issue since that oil terminal in the Arctic was stopped through targeted sanctions and then China has been dragging its feet with the oil pipeline down to them, but may the West be flayed alive if they do not succeed in stopping refined oil product imports to Russia from now on.
I usually cheerfully proclaim that the war is already lost for Russia, which it is, and always get pushback, so I change it to this – let go of yesterday and the doubting mindset that Ukraine lost the spring offensive (which they did not, but they did not get the payoff they expected) and that it is a frozen war.
If Ukraine can take out Russia’s oil and refining industry in three months, the bear is wounded.
If they can hold the left bank of the Dnieper with a battalion of marines for several months, they have found the right combo to win on the battlefield. At Davydiv Brid, the mechanized battalion was pushed back in a few weeks, if I recall correctly?
I also usually cheerfully proclaim that Ukraine now dominates in drone weapons, and that draws some counter-comments, but they deny Russia drones through their own EW, and they knock out the Russians’ EW with scouts and artillery so they can operate their own drones freely. This is local but not everywhere (yet). They are also working on making their own drone fleet EW resistant.
They have found the combo for massive drone production – market economy.
They have trained an enormous number of drone groups and have cut and pasted the models that will work throughout the war even if they are cheap poor-man’s solutions that require a lot of manual handling.
This gives them the air superiority they need (locally so far), and if they can just deny FAB500 and FAB1500 bombs, then they have air superiority. The army air force has already done its part as a major player after the big helicopter massacre day, and the elite air force no longer operates close to the front.
Then it becomes mechanized combat, and Ukraine will win spectacularly. They will unleash a cloud of drones and guided ammunition, and then tanks will act as 4 km snipers and provide a strange patchwork of fragmentation-protected vehicles with direct fire support using observation drones when they take terrain and make breakthroughs.
If you remember the description in the big campaign plan, the Russians were supposed to go up into the trenches to meet the mechanized assault and are then completely exposed to drone weapons, cluster munitions, and guided ammunition that targets PV missiles and anti-PV first.
There are very heavy vehicle deliveries right now, but it wouldn’t hurt to have those promised 15,000 – 20,000 (which never have to be delivered) just so Ukraine doesn’t have to skimp and can sacrifice vehicles against terrain. Because Ukraine will lose enormous amounts of heavy vehicles in these attacks.
Then you have another detail regarding Russian drones: if they now managed to get through the EW shield – they are frontline and they are not a “mass weapon” except for autonomous Lancets, but they seem to work half well and production went down when Ukraine technically sabotaged the factory.
Say Ukraine is to take terrain, some section of the defense system x km wide, and simultaneously advances with a mechanized brigade, as for battalion combat, then there are too many targets so the drone weapon becomes saturated and a drone at most takes out a vehicle, not the rifle squad, which can continue the fight.
At the same time, Ukraine’s indirect capabilities hammer the defenders with suppressive fire together with direct fire from tanks and advancing fragmentation-protected vehicles.
When Ukraine then gets its breakthrough, the frontline drone groups must immediately regroup, and the weapon disappears completely or how – then they instead become hunted by Ukraine drones.
During the retreat, all Russian capabilities will be completely exposed to drone weapons, the air force, and indirect weapons – Kuwait highway 2.0.
Traditional artillery stands further back and has one or two defensive lines between itself and Ukraine’s advance, and they are a mass weapon that can deliver a large amount of ammunition on target in a short time, but Ukraine has made them prey rather than fire support – they have decimated the artillery very hard.
Then of course the FAB500 and FAB1500 bombs must be removed for this to work.
Russia has already lost the drone war for the simple reason that they cannot integrate everything so it works. They also have their version of the digital battlefield but have not figured out how to make it work – we already knew that.
Ukraine has “Uber for artillery” so a hit on target is a minute away from detection, and their digital battlefield is very advanced, as we have seen in countless videos.
We will see how quickly Ukraine clears minefields because that is needed if the above is to happen; your guess is as good as mine since I have not seen anything, but you can be sure that they have been working day and night on how to get through deep minefields and that it will be updated in NATO doctrine after the war.
Yes, they have already come a good way, but Russia has also mined further back when Ukraine got stuck, and it would be unlike Ukraine if they were caught off guard again and got stuck in the minefields – it will not happen.
Simply put, Ukraine tested all different types of mine-clearing equipment during the spring offensive (even though they planned breakthroughs) and know exactly what works, and they have since increased the volumes of what works and improved where needed to get their breakthroughs.
No breakthrough, no peace, it’s that simple provided they cannot bring Russia to its knees through liberation acts inside Russia, and that would of course be spectacular, but that is on the wish list so I must not predict outcomes on that, still quite disappointed with the committee as I wrote a long rant.
Perpetua has a record for losses in one day and most of them are Russian.
https://x.com/andrewperpetua/status/1754179970849493192?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
The link below is interesting and remember that a Russian oligarch has bought Forbes.
https://x.com/ukrreview/status/1754137746262700364?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
A pro-Russian source says that 10 Leo2s are on their way to Ukraine but it could also be repaired vehicles returning.
https://x.com/thedeaddistrict/status/1754123412782375178?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Now it seems the frozen funds will soon come to Ukraine, albeit late, hopefully it will be a lot of bang for the buck.
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1754135008028107017?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
From the ombudsman but a good picture so I’m borrowing it – I once got heavily criticized in the thread when I suggested that drones would drop 155mm shells vertically – the pinnacle of guided ammunition.
Voila (the size)
https://bsky.app/profile/ombudsmannen.bsky.social/post/3kklajkgiac2v
Zelensky in Robotyne, he certainly doesn’t lack courage 😲
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kklwce56q22t
The latest model T80 accounts for most of the losses so no one still believes that RU is saving the better vehicles as the Russian psyops want us to believe.
https://x.com/verekerrichard1/status/1754097713161846951?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Daper posted this yesterday that RU produced (modified), including those completed from depots, 390 vehicles in 2023. That’s close to the figure I posted about 400 vehicles in 2023 and the article seems well-founded. I guess they won’t complete many more in 2024 and the article states that vehicles in poor condition take 3-4 months to complete and the deeper they dive the worse condition they presumably are?
That there are 7000 tanks total is irrelevant because they don’t get more than 400 out to units and in 2023 they lost 3000 so they are definitely running short on armor 😀
https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-how-many-tanks-does-russia-really-have-left/
It’s intense in Avdiivka, I think it’s the new strategic reserve attacking – don’t know which but it was T90 and BMP 2 and 3 so well equipped. There is a long delaying fight left in Avdiivka before the town is abandoned and RU will likely suffer abnormal losses if we are to judge by how such things have played out historically but Western media will of course create all the panic they can.
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1754107800593002530?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
If it’s true as someone wrote in the thread that there is a new offensive reserve up near northern Luhansk then maybe they have really dipped into the strategic reserves now?
The last could be those at the northern front maybe?
Regarding tanks, in October there were 3525 in acceptable condition and 5450 total, which supports that 30% of IFVs and artillery of those remaining are condemned.
Cabal mentions that there is a reduction of 1200 tanks from “a year ago” so October 2022.
According to Wikipedia, there were 11,000 – 12,000 tanks total of all makes and with losses of 6000 that roughly fits.
The important thing here is probably that there are 3525 left in the depots that are okay and that RU managed to prepare a total of 400 during 2023 – modification and what the depots themselves sent out.
RU has lost around 3000 tanks since last summer and add to that those that always have technical faults in the rear, 30%.
So INSANELY stupid of the West not to do a full inventory half a year before the war started (or maybe they did…) so we had a baseline. Covert cabal is great but if we had had a 2021 baseline and then inventory every 6 months we would have had something to work with to predict Russian capability very accurately.
The rumor that Zalizhny is a backward thinker is very strange – he is the person who has tried to carry out spectacular offensives as soon as he could and was denied by NATO. He probably doesn’t want to sacrifice brigades to please the West but he is all about risk – reward.
Then I want to remind about something we have discussed a lot earlier in the thread and that is the extremely high risk the West is playing with in its dragging out of support to Ukraine. We have discussed that Ukraine is three branches of the military, many different political factions, others aspiring to power, generally corrupt and a boiling pot of Russian influence operations but that everyone has pulled in the same direction so far. We have discussed how they have united in their will to throw out the Russians but that everyone has done a group project at school and knows how that usually goes. Rumors also spread in Ukraine and that nothing is constant, Gregg has sometimes posted how thoughts go in his unit and the Cossack from Bakhmut called the politicians “azkenazi-j…ar” in some video. The external pressure is enormous and just as we want Russia to turn inward Ukraine can turn inward and then it can go fast. Now that there are increasingly persistent rumors about firing all sorts of people, without commenting on the rumor I want again to highlight WHY we are so critical of the West – it is because one day the West could very well be left with a collapsed Ukraine and a fait accompli so the West has consistently in this war accepted an extremely high risk without blinking which doesn’t look very good for us. Risk analysis is not very hard to learn and is used on all major projects and if they had sat down and done one in the EU together with Ukraine experts they might have understood the urgency instead of from a safe distance not understanding the seriousness of the situation.
I have a certain tendency to lean towards the positive side and then paint a little extra but it’s hard not to see what is going on here I think?
Ukraine has taken the war to Russia seriously now and it looks bad for Putin.
It is reasonable to assume that the Azov push could end the war, or something else spectacular for that matter but the message to the FSB reading the thread is to please strengthen the Azov push 😀
Ukraine’s local small offensives are increasing sharply and they have recently retaken some dominant terrain up in Bakhmut.
It bears repeating – Russia blows a lot of hot air but three times they have run away in this war as soon as Ukraine pushed hard, most recently the Black Sea Fleet.
They will of course do the same again.
Ukraine must take this to the level where those around Putin’s inner circle feel it stings more than it’s worth and that it can’t go on.
Yes, the Russians tend to drive straight into the wall so push the wall forward as far as possible. The most effective thing in this whole war is the environmentally friendly liberation deeds against the oil industry and the fact that the West has ignored Putin’s hot air about higher oil prices probably means the West has fully stepped up is my opinion.
Putin knows this very well and if Ukraine can now just continue the environmentally friendly liberation deeds paired with some Zalizhny offensive on the battlefield the pressure cooker might just have enough.
The frozen 300 billion USD is probably painful as well, but the West should also flush out the rest and expand the sanctions list so they can confiscate even more oligarch property in the West. There are many nice billions to freeze, and consider that this is blood money and criminally obtained to begin with, so the more that is confiscated, the more lawful the world becomes. A bit like how the Tax Agency thinks about what they do with us taxpayers.
The West should also strike with that war-winning weapons package that never needs to be delivered, but maybe it’s on the way with those 50 billion EUR from the EU?
Not quite -euphoric- positive yet, but the meter is hovering near that, now up in bright green.
The daily briefings in the Russian command must be terrible right now, sweaty brows and smelling of anxiety when trying to get the message across but at the same time wrapping it enough so that the full extent of the disaster isn’t clear until after the meeting. Probably many senior officers are googling how to seek asylum in China or Dubai.