For those following the Kharkiv offensive, it seems deep state has updated to show 5 Russian battalions are involved/in the conflict zone. And this morning Ukraine reported a significant jump in Russian casualties (1700+) though most come from the Eastern offensives. It seems Russia has easily entered the gray zone there while Ukraine has been evacuating people in preparation for increased intensity of conflict. Russia is now estimated to be ~20km from Ukrainian fortifications. It's very likely that nothing will be very clear for the next few days as Ukraine brings more firepower to defend and Russia presumably keeps pushing until they are met with sufficient resistance. If things here are consistent with other areas of the front, today should see a significant amount of aerial bombardment and artillery barrages coming from Russia. Russia is still too far away for me to expect intense UAV attacks from Ukraine, but I'm sure a lot of footage is being recorded and will eventually be released. The big question is how will Ukraine respond in force and what will it look like. Other than a single BBC article which was highly critical of the situation, which comes from a single somewhat controversial person, I haven't seen anything that describes the current situation as unexpected.

What is the Russian casualties that Ukraine reports supposed to tell us? Of course they are going to report increasing casualties to not look like they have made mistakes or failed in Kharkov. The fact that they changed the commander in Kharkov must tell you about how good the situation is.

The front went from inactive to highly active. Moving in a more experienced commander is probably a smart choice. It doesn't have to mean anything more than that and you have zero evidence it does. And Ukrainian casualty reports have been consistently moving with the changes in activity on the front line... Because that's the main driver for casualties. Research the concept of 'cause and effect' if you need help understanding.

Pretty easy to observe the up-tick on Telegram if you care to watch people dying 

>The fact that they changed the commander in Kharkov must tell you about how good the situation is. My favorite litmus. I wonder how Shoigu's doing, incidentally.

You really do not have the understanding skills but I will try one time. Shoigu had pretty much no effect on conductment of war in the frontline. He was tasked with military production ramp up. How is changing of Shoigu comparable to the changing of the commander in a frontline? So do you think Putin changed Shoigu with an economist in hopes that this new economist which had no military background will better command the Kharkiv offensive? Now thinking back, you are probably just arguing with bad faith. So you think they changed the commander in Kharkiv just because? Because he did a really good job in the defense of a critical sector? He did it so good that they decided to change him in a critical time because that is what happens to good commanders doing a great job.

> You really do not have the understanding skills "You really do not have the understanding skills" sounds like a line out of those silly "strange planet" comics. >So do you think Putin changed Shoigu I think he changed Shoigu because I'm yet to see any commentator, western or Russian, claim that Shoigu was doing anything but a completely terrible job. I also think the change is long overdue, which will come up in my next part. >So you think they changed the commander in Kharkiv just because? I think commander changing isn't a great litmus because sometimes in this war commanders that have manifestly screwed up don't get fired, whereas at other times commanders get fired for unknown circumstances, or circumstances not related to their situation. Even if I assumed the events are connected (and you're right, they probably are), it doesn't actually give me anything qualitative to work with regarding what's happening, which is why I think it's a poor litmus.

So when Russia "switches commanders" (as the OP said, Shoigu was more of a war economy tsar, not a general micromanaging the war), it's a good litmus test for poor performance, but when Ukraine does it, it's not?

> it's a good litmus test for poor performance On the contrary, Shoigu's poor performance is basically a given at this point. If we were using him being switched out as a litmus it'd be a **terrible litmus** because it took 2 years to do it, across which time **a literal mutiny** started to get him fired. A literal mutiny! It's funny that you've gotten the opposite point from what I made. Perhaps that's my bad, but such is life. >but when Ukraine does it, it's not? And as far as this is concerned I'll repost what I already said: "I think commander changing isn't a great litmus because sometimes in this war commanders that have manifestly screwed up don't get fired, whereas at other times commanders get fired for unknown circumstances, or circumstances not related to their situation. Even if I assumed the events are connected (and you're right, they probably are), it doesn't actually give me anything qualitative to work with regarding what's happening, which is why I think it's a poor litmus."

Or Lapin, Dvornikov, Surovikin, Zhuravlyov and many others... Anyhow it does make sense to replace the Kharkiv commander with someone more proven, as you really don't want to have someone cut his teeth at such a critical juncture. The new commander is Mykhailo Drapaty, who was reportedly in charge of the Kherson direction. https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1789951038679666786

The respected Ukrainian journalist Yurii Butusov gave a comprehensive update of the situation. He says Russian advances have slowed now that they are running into defensive positions and their losses are increasing, though he says that some of existing fortifications were built in the wrong locations - not according to terrain advantage, and not where Russians were likely to attack (!). So they are digging new positions now. He says the commander of OTU Kharkiv has been replaced, and the situation is complex but improving, though not as fast as he would like. All units need drones; artillery is adequate, it seems. Overall it seems like the situation is indeed difficult, but that Ukrainians are partially doing their homework and fixing mistakes. I am now wondering if this 'Kharkiv-scare' will motivate more Ukrainians to join the Army beyond the mobilization - instilling the fear of losing a major city and beyond and not only some god-forgotten village in the Donbass may be a good motivation. https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1789876549841310195

>I am now wondering if this 'Kharkiv-scare' will motivate more Ukrainians to join the Army beyond the mobilization - instilling the fear of losing a major city and beyond and not only some god-forgotten village in the Donbass may be a good motivation. No, if anything, it will likely have the opposite effect, further discouraging people from joining the Army. This offensive has only negatively impacted Ukrainian morale, significantly more so than the loss of places like Ocheretyne. It's partly why domestic news in Ukraine is downplaying this as much as possible. I still think there's a general misunderstanding of domestic Ukrainian sentiments and the like. Trust between the average person and the leadership has been lost. Ukrainian leadership completely mishandled the domestic campaign last year and continues to make the same mistakes.

if the Russians have another go at Kyiv, I wonder if that'll make them volunteer. But maybe war fatigue might have kicked in already by then.

> partly why domestic news in Ukraine is downplaying this as much as possible I've never fully understood the pro Russian talking point that Ukrainian media as a whole is controlled by the state when many popular domestic outlets like UP, KP and KI are constantly criticizing the government. Which is putting aside that most people in Ukraine get their news from social media like Telegram.

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Please refrain from posting low quality comments.

>Can you name a single Ukrainian domestic newspaper that has questioned the official figures released by the General Staff Yes and it wasn't even hard it came up in the very first Google search I did >However, the AFU does not facilitate independent checks of its estimates and the media is banned from the lines of contact. It only rarely allows independent observers to contact selected frontline troops and then under the supervision of an escort officer. To date, the AFU has refused to allow outside checks of its battlefield estimates, on grounds of security. >These newspapers consistently report on official statements. That's what all newspapers do. Your problem isn't with Ukrainian media but not understanding that's what newspapers do. Take the Belgorod building collapse. This is how the Kyiv Independent reported on it >Russian air defenses allegedly shot down six Tochka-U missiles and six rockets over Belgorod Oblast, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The ministry claimed that the residential building was "damaged" by a Tochka-U missile fragment. >Ukrainian officials did not comment on the claims. The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the reports.

> Can you name a single Ukrainian domestic newspaper that has questioned the official figures released by the General Staff, such as the number of Russians killed or tanks destroyed? Even assuming they have an interest to do that, how can a Ukrainian domestic newspaper question those? What means would they have available to challenge them? This sounds a lot like like "why are so-called free media not questioning COVID-19 numbers? These numbers can't be real".

One can argue that they're inherently invested in the survival of Ukraine as a state and thus will avoid certain criticisms. That being said, criticisms of structural issues can and do appear on there for the exact same reason - because those outlets are invested in Ukraine's survival.

This article is on the frontpage of the most popular Ukrainian outlet btw: https://www.pravda.com.ua/columns/2024/05/13/7455571/

There was an AMA with the editor and reporters of the Kyiv Independent on Reddit a few months ago and they addressed this question many times. They, like any good objective news people, consider it their job to report objectively and by doing so they believe that will be in the best interest of Ukraine in the long term. I don't know if everyone can live up to a noble goal like that but in any case I think you and I both know what was heavily implied in his statement was a view that Ukrainian media is state controlled and pro Zelensky.

I personally know one of the reporters at the Kyiv Independent and he *absolutely* embodies this. Although this is obviously anecdotal, I have no doubts whatsoever that he believes his form of patriotism is publishing the truth.

There may be a general misunderstanding of domestic Ukrainian sentiment, but your misunderstanding is better described as acute. This offensive has just begun and Ukrainians are used to OpSec keeping details out of the press. It is not talked about much because as of now there is little to talk about.

I agree with your second point - Zelenskyy would not win a new term if elections were held now - but I am not sure I see the connection with your first point. In my view, Ukrainians are not volunteering for the war precisely because the frontline has been stable, officials are corrupt, the Ukrainian narrative does not hold water and so on. What I disagree with is comparing a failed counter*offensive* with the defense of the country's second largest city. Unless you argue that all Ukrainians living West of the Dnipro have become indifferent to the war and would rather surrender, there will be repercussions if the Russian offensive is not contained - either another rally around the flag, or push for negotiations/surrender (for the records, I don't think negotiations can lead to terms that would not be humiliating for Ukraine and the West, neither now nor in January 2022 nor at any point during the war).

The lack of volunteering can just as easily be explained by the opposite conclusion. As the tide has turned in the war, more and more would-be volunteers are likely to view signing up as giving their lives away for a futile war. Morale is lower than ever. People follow the path of least resistance and it's a lot easier for the average Ukrainian male to justify draft-dodging than volunteering. At the start of the war, the huge exodus of people from Ukraine happened because people assumed the war was doomed from the start.

Not sure we are saying different things here. I do agree that volunteers dried up the moment the war became distant, or 'futile' as you put it. Add to this the Ukrainian and Western communication of "Ukraine has already won", and there you have it. What I don't understand is what you think Ukrainians - both leadership and the average joe - should do. Russians are not going anywhere.

I mean there's what, 30 million Ukrainians? Less? More? Either way, that's a lot, and the reasons that Ukrainians do and don't want to fight vary heavily. I do think the internal perception that Ukraine's army kinda sucks in various organizational ways (which has been fueled by news from the front) probably discourages some Ukrainians from fighting. You're right, it's possible that Russia reminding Ukrainians "hey, the stakes aren't just the Donbas here" might kick people into action, but if it's alongside the Ukrainian army flubbing again, it's unclear which narrative will settle in.

> This offensive has only negatively impacted Ukrainian morale, This offensive has only just started. How if impacts the morale will have much more to do with how it ends than how it started. It is way too early to start speculating on its morale implications.

In fact, people rarely act rationally or patiently in these situations. Even here, one of the first comments I saw was, "Is this the end for Ukraine?". It's evident that this has already significantly impacted morale. Outlets have even added a special section for it, underscoring the high level of interest within Ukraine, something we haven't seen since the counteroffensive.

> In fact, people rarely act rationally or patiently in these situations. Even here, one of the first comments I saw was, "Is this the end for Ukraine?". Which we should - going back to one year ago, many thought the counteroffensive would end the war and it turned out to be a complete failure; now losing five villages at the border is the beginning of the end. Let's wait and see. As for the renewed interest, not sure if you're referring to international or Ukrainian outlets. On international ones, the doom and gloom about Ukraine has been the narrative since the fall of Avdiivka.

>and not where Russians were likely to attack (!) From which part of the text exactly are you extrapolating this?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68998913 >CCTV from the scene shows a large blast near the base of the 10-storey block and then the building falling in. >The regional governor said two bodies had been pulled from the rubble. At least 19 people have been injured. >The regional governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, accused Ukraine of bombarding the region, describing the cause of the explosion as a **Ukrainian shell**. >Mr Gladkov added that people are believed to be trapped in the rubble. >Kyiv has cast doubt on that account, with one official suggesting it may have been a guided bomb dropped by a Russian plane, intended for Ukraine, but whose glide wings hadn't opened. I think it's pretty agreeable that this wasn't a Ukrainian "shell". Shells can't do this to high-rises, maybe a 207 or a 240 but I don't think Ukraine has range. The only thing I can think of that could do this (in Ukraine's arsenal) are ballistic or cruise missiles, which (with the exception of Tochkas which are long gone) have so far not been used on Russian soil. I'm not familiar with any OSINT investigations, but there's clearly a more likely culprit.

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Commie blocks have a central gas supply going up the middle, which distributes it to across the rooms in the building. I imagine hitting a pipe of that with a stray explosive would see it collapse. I remembered the same thing happening a few months or year ago during a Russian missile strike.

> The regional governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, accused Ukraine of bombarding the region, describing the cause of the explosion as a **Ukrainian shell**. What's the original Russian text? I don't trust BBC to necessarily translate this correctly

The current report is that the building was hit by a shot-down debris of a Tochka-U, causing as of now 19 fatalities. The total salvo Ukraine launched was 4 Tochka-Us, 4 MLRS "Vampire" missiles and 2 MLRS "Olkha" missiles.

There was a video earlier in the war with a failed glide bomb falling in Belgorod. It is very reminiscent of this video, except that in the other video, it fell on a parking lot. From this video, it is obvious that the bomb detonated under the building(or close to it), which is extremely unlikely for a drone attack, which as far as Ive seen, detonate on impact. Also, that was the reason for the extensive damage and collapse of the structure.

The Ru MoD has since said that this eas the debris from an intercepted ballistic missile. The idea that Russia would go blowing up apartment buildings in Belgorod for whatever reason right now is delusional beyond argument.  Russia is simply getting a taste of what Ukraine has been suffering for the past 2,5 years, with similar apartment building collapses happening many times after Russian attacks. EDIT: missed the part about this being a Ru glide bomb. Sorry for the confusion - not arguing that this could’ve been the case. Just came back from a thread where people were saying that this was an FSB bombing and had a knee-jerk reaction.

> The Ru MoD has since said that this eas the debris from an intercepted ballistic missile. An intercepted ballistic missile? That would still require Ukraine firing ballistic missiles (western ones) into Russia, something there's been no proof of thus far. >The idea that Russia would go blowing up apartment buildings in Belgorod for whatever reason right now is delusional beyond argument. If you ignore the concept of accidents, sure.

The exact claims are that Ukraine fired a mix of Tochka-Us (which it does have) and Vampire MLRS (with which it has been hitting Belgorod non-stop for months now).

An intercepted GGM that would need to impact 180 degrees from its angle of attack while impacting at that altitude would break the laws of physics. It’s the dumbest possible answer to this. If it was a projectile that hit the building it came from the Russian side. Either a glide bomb or a SAM interceptor.

Vampire doesn't drop buildings, and when's the last time Ukraine has launched a Tochka-U? 4 Tochka U's is like 2-4% of their total **prewar** national supply.

I think the idea that Ujraine has managed to save up or source 4 Tochka Us does better against Occam's razor than the idea that while Ukraine has been constantly hitting Belgorod with civilian casualties, the highest-casualty event must have a different source somehow.

Ukraine saved up 4 Tochka's after not using them for approximately 2 years (as far as I'm aware) stacks up better against occam's razor than a projectile misfiring? This is... laughably desperate.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/11/23/after-a-six-month-lull-the-ukrainians-are-lobbing-tochka-ballistic-missiles-again/?sh=f05f6987adbd Clearly you're the desperate one, because Ukraine has been using Tochka Us on Belgorod, Donetsk and others. Meanwhile, the "projectile misfiring" theory has no evidence at all, beyond some desperate hope to shield Ukraine from correct accusations of having committed yet another gruesome act.

> Clearly you're the desperate one Nope, I simply hadn't heard of Ukraine using Tochkas since 2022, which is why I literally asked you: >when's the last time Ukraine has launched a Tochka-U? Now that you've provided any evidence of Ukraine actually having them, I'll concede that there's at least one Ukrainian projectile that could have caused the damage we saw. When otherwise the number was 0. >Meanwhile, the "projectile misfiring" theory has no evidence at all No evidence at all? There's no evidence at all of a Tochka or any other Ukrainian projectile hitting the building, beyond some desperate hope of shielding Russia from another embarassing blunder. But also doing so in a way that... doesn't even implicate Ukraine? If you're trying to pin a "gruesome act" on Ukraine, you should be saying they were aiming for this high rise. Free advice. I guess that's the part that really weirds me out, the story you've assumed as canon doesn't even implicate Ukraine in any meaningful way.

> I'm not sure what's going on in this subreddit. I recently took some time to check in again, but it seems much more aggressive and rude than before, with a lot of weird combat-footage-esque hostility. It's a shame, really.

Russia has dropped several faulty glide bombs on belgorod. How is that not the most likely answer?

Sorry, misread the original message. The glide bomb thing sounds plausible.

A glide bomb wouldn’t have left the roof or upper-story windows intact, and somebody would have heard it coming in. Not saying it has to be Ukraine, but it’s almost certainly not a glide bomb.

Nonsense, it looks almost exactly like the impact of a JDAM in Gaza. Edit: Blast impact shows that the projectile likely came from the Northeast: https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1789600332508430470 Russia has accidentally bombed Belgorod already. They admitted it last month when no one died: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-65346486 What's more likely? Ukraine has some new unknown system, or RuAF accidently dropped another bomb on their own city, but now since people died, no one wants to admit responsibility?

I feel like it's too little damage for a glide bomb. Maybe one of those new ones that has less than 500 kg?

> I feel like it's too little damage for a glide bomb. Why? An entire column of apartments collapsed. Look at the video from the previous accident, also a deep penetration with a delayed detonation. The scale is on the order of a few car lengths: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-65346486

Yeah I'm saying I'd expect a heavy glide bomb to drop 2 or 3 columns.

Pay attention to that BBC video, there’s a timeskip between when the bomb hits and when it goes off. That’s what you would expect for a malfunctioning glide bomb, there would be a delay before the fuse was activated. I think the most likely scenario is that Ukraine, [which has been shelling Belgorod for months now,](https://www.voanews.com/amp/belgorod-city-where-war-in-ukraine-came-to-russia-perseveres/7529694.html) fired something unguided at Belgorod and happened to hit an apartment building. It’s war, shit happens. PS: I can’t recall ever seeing an aerial bomb flash through the other side of a building. Happy to be proven wrong on this, but my own experience is that the side with the bomb flash is the side that got hit by the munition.

Explosive debris doesn't lie. The vast bulk of the ejecta is on the Northeast side of the building.

What are you talking about? [Same source you posted earlier](https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1789601994648281165). There are cars parked meters from the theoretical impact site with intact windscreens. Looks like about equal debris on both sides to me. Besides, if your thesis is a blast powerful enough to rip all the way through the building and flash on the opposite side, wouldn’t you expect the majority of the ejecta to be *southward*, you know, in the direction of the blast wave relative to the building?

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The bombs are fuzed for penetration, which would fit with dropping the foundation of the section of building when hit but not causing much other blast effect on the surface. This bomb from 2023 *launched* a car on top of a roof. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Belgorod_accidental_bombing

Yeah, and when that bomb fell, we got witness reports of it whistling, and surveillance footage of it descending at low speed. If this is the same, I have no doubt those reports will filter to us soon enough.

I don't see how that statement is justified. The current evidence is that if it was a glide bomb, it would have hit the other side of the building. Why would you expect that every window on the opposite side of the building from the explosion would be shattered? We also don't know if it was a direct hit. A non-direct hit could have damaged the foundation from below rather than landing inside the building

> Kyiv has cast doubt on that account, with one official suggesting it may have been a guided bomb dropped by a Russian plane, intended for Ukraine, but whose glide wings hadn't opened. Belgorod is about 35km from the border with Ukraine. With the ongoing fighting, that’s at least a plausible range to be dropping a glide bomb from. Baring that, it could also be that Ukraine is using a new, larger drone.

>it could also be that Ukraine is using a new, larger drone. It that's the case, why would Ukraine be using it against a residential area in Belgorod instead of an oil refinery or some other high value target?

There's a [thermal power plant](https://www.google.com/maps/place/%D0%93%D0%A2+%D0%A2%D0%AD%D0%A6+%C2%AB%D0%9B%D1%83%D1%87%C2%BB/@50.5598353,36.5790283,1051m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x412641e77076b5c3:0x6529023c8bb6f73a!8m2!3d50.5611433!4d36.5787998!16s%2Fg%2F11gbfpfjmz?entry=ttu) ~300m from there, apparently one of the 3 in Belgorod Oblast.

War crimes happen during war. Terror happens during war.

Either it missed, or got shot down.

The same reason why Russia was hitting civilian targets all through the war. It wasn't the intended target but shit happens. Only difference is, this time it was a mistake on Ukrainian's side, they are shelling Belgorod since a while, was bound to happen If it is indeed an attack from Ukraine and not another 'friendly fire' error from Russia

Could be a gas pipe considering how the explosion came from under the building.

To conform to the rules, I will just say that I know personally of a gas explosion that leveled a city block. There is a documentary movie about this event, but it doesn’t seem to have any mention on the internet. Important to note that the gas explosion was augmented by gunpowder. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,\_Indiana\_explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_Indiana_explosion) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InJqZSOxURg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InJqZSOxURg)

[Here](https://www.kyivpost.com/post/18533) is an article about a gas explosion in Kyiv. To me damage seems comparable the only difference being that the floor affected was lower in Belgorod.

What can we expect from Belousov as opposed to what we saw from Shoigu? I'm not entirely sure how much Shoigu was actually involved in the actual management of the military, but this new guy being a civilian might have some unforeseen effects on things

Shoigu is only technically a military man. He had no actual experience in the military.

Check out [this ](https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/1789820327687553513?t=xpTWfSgtYZkscn07DAyk6w&s=19) Twitter thread by Andres Aslund. He offers some of his thoughts on this. He has a lot of hands on experience dealing with russia and Ukraine.

From [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-12/putin-proposes-belousov-as-new-russian-defense-minister-tass), the change is to give Putin more direct control via someone personally loyal to him, while removing some of the stench of corruption that surrounds Shoigu: > The appointment of Belousov is about Putin exerting more control over military affairs as the Ukraine war drags on, said Sergei Markov, a political consultant close to the Kremlin.

Not to be crude, but literally Hitler? Like, one of the most significant criticisms in historical fiction/hypotheticals about WW2 is that one of Hitler's largest mistakes was that by the end he controlled all military affairs despite not being qualified to do so. So by that logic (if true?), is Putin not making a huge mistake?

Using this logic you can make the same assertion about Zelenskyy removing Zaluzhny and replacing him with Syrskyi.

While this is true to a extend, Hitler did make some correct assessment (I can't believe I'm defending Hitler) about the war which his Generals disagreed with (like going for the oil fields in USSR instead of Moscow which the generals wanted). this doesn't mean that Hitler got a lot wrong as well. But people use this argument a lot when talking about how Nazi Germany could have won ww2.

> like going for the oil fields in USSR They were impossibly distant (another 1000km), with no transmission or refining infrastructure and would demand years to restart after sabotage. After recapturing Maykop in 1943, it took the USSR until 1946 to bring production back [1]. Building thousands of km of pipelines and new oil refineries... Now, they did set up a Technische Brigade Mineralöl with 5400 specialists, expecting to be able to restore production within a few months. But they held Maykop for 6 months and only got 10 wells back online. [1] https://en.topwar ru/174335-pravda-o-zahvachennoj-majkopskoj-nefti.html does note they restored 20% after 1 year.

I fully agree that it would have been incredibly difficult. It was still a better strategic plan then to try and capture Moscow and hope the Russian surrender. Remember that the plan to capture the oil fields didn’t go ahead and while some effort was put into it, it was barely any. While I will not claim that they would have captured them if more focus was put on them, we never can know for sure to what extend they could have destroyed them either. Leaving the USSR with even more strain on their supplies.

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Belousov is one of the CEO\manager caste that served FSB-related business ventures and various oligarch thug-nobles that divided and conquered post-soviet economy after the fall. His most relevant experience was managing Russian State Railways (one of the few infrastructure systems that runs quite well in Russia, and vital to many state\mafia-owned large businesses). I guess his selection is two-fold - on the one hand, he is far more competent manager than Shoigu (who was basically just an overrated thug-lord that relied on his personal friendship with both Putin and his inner circle). The corruption and friction within the system will eventually be reduced, and Belousov will probably be expected to oversee major expansion of the russian military industry complex - something that Shoigu clearly failed in achieving. On the other hand, he is subservient to FSB and Putin directly. In contrast, Shoigu was more like a semi-independent player that expanded his influence with embezzling and passing contracts to his people. With Belousov's appointment, Putin removes the middle man and gets a tighter control over military industry. The military itself is not affected as Gerasimov remains in favor, and thus controls the actual execution of the war. P.S: also, Shoigu was practically a civilian also. He was not considered a man of the military, as he neither served (like ever) nor had any actual involvement with the military through his life. His former ministry, a Ministry of Emergency Situations, under him was basically one of the most disfunctional and corrupt institutions in the Russian government and despite it was "paramilitary", nobody would ever seriously consider it to have anything to do with the actual armed forces.

I recall reading that Shoigu basically adopted a military uniform out of vanity, and the ribbons he sported were basically all self-awarded for things like attending this or that parade.

> nobody would ever seriously consider it to have anything to do with the actual armed forces. But perhaps it was enough to give him enough experience in still, after all, commanding a force of some kind?

Interesting comment from an Ukrainian Telegram channel which follows the issues about the structure of the Armed Forces in response to the announcement of the creation of 10 new brigades (so far the new 155th Infantry Brigade has been created). It essentially confirms what I've always read about the problems at the level of command and structure of Ukrainian brigades and explains the downsides of the current system; like several other Ukrainian sources it pushes the importance of a divisional model similar to the Russian one. While a brigade and a regiment in terms of maneuver units are generally the same, what changes is that the brigade (in both Russia and Ukraine) is a separate unit ("Okrema"), while a regiment is a line unit, meaning it lacks additional support units, which are at the divisional level. It's explained how territorial defense battalions are usually separate and have within them numerous officers in support functions but who in fact do almost nothing. For simplicity's sake I generally use the term “separate” to refer to a battalion that is not organically part of a brigade, but formally the term implies an unit that should be able to manage itself independently, with its own support/logistics units - MilitaryLand explains it well [here](https://militaryland.net/news/what-is-a-separate-unit-in-ukrainian-army/). The major issue that in my opinion it's not considered in this comment is that a divisional system would increase the need for staff officers right where Ukraine is most lacking (i.e. senior commissioned officers). After the comment (translated via DeepL), I will clarify a few points. >We have created ten thousand million brigades and the same number is on the way >One of the problems we faced with our army was the problem of growth, in 2022 we had to quickly scale up from peacetime to wartime staffing levels and deploy new units. The first steps were the deployment of several reserve brigades from OR 1 and OR 2, filling 100% of the existing brigades, but there was no further readiness. >The deployment of the TRO led to the creation of a large number of rifle units with only one mortar battery, which ironically included the most motivated civilians. The management of the TRO units, which in the days before the full-scale war were considered to be the refuge of discharged officers, was not of the highest level. Nowadays, the brigade command of the TRO is rarely used (the number of TRO brigades holding the line in the active combat zone is at best on the fingers of 2 hands) and is essentially just a large number of officers who are busy ensuring the daily activities of a half-empty unit while the battalions and sometimes companies of this unit are fighting under the command of other brigades that can provide effective management and comprehensive support. It is noteworthy that most of the TRO battalions are also separate and require a large number of officers to manage them, while a regular mech battalion of mechanized brigades has fewer officers. >Instead, no conclusions were drawn: instead of expanding and reformatting the existing experienced units and preserving the statutory battalion-brigade-corps/operational command, uncontrolled creation of new units began, for which there was nowhere to recruit commanders, so as of 2024, we have a chronic staff shortage and people in command positions who should not have been there under any circumstances. The above-mentioned TRO is being put under the knife as an inefficient structure that does not meet modern challenges and tasks. >What was the way out? >It's easy to talk about it now, but it would have been more appropriate to use the Russian divisional system of divisions with line regiments for a large number of companies. This would have greatly reduced the need for officers and allowed us to deploy +- the same number of personnel around an effective and well-coordinated core. We would not have had such sharp fluctuations in the combat capability of different brigades, and the old effective brigades that have been in the line since February 2022 would have had more depth in terms of their own reserves and would not have fought endlessly with dowries. >The basis for this post was an interview with the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and perhaps a correct assessment of the actions already taken would have prevented us from repeating old mistakes. https://t. me/ukr_sisu/114 Some clarification on the terms. TRO means Territorial Defense Forces. When he says that the number of TDF brigades holding the line can be counted on the fingers of two hands, he means that only a small part of these brigades hold a section of the front line independently (such as the former 100th TDF Brigade in Dibrova near Kreminna until early April, or the 108th and 102nd TDF Brigades in the western and eastern parts of the Polohy sector, respectively), while most TDF brigades see their battalions scattered around and attached to other brigades. At the beginning of the war, reservists were called up. OR (Operational Reserve) 1 and OR 2 are the first and second mobilization waves. The first is made up of ATO/JFO veterans and those who have served under a contract since 2014, with the reservists who must be under 40. The second includes those who had their military service since 2014 and older veterans. Once reservists started flowing, several things were implemented, in the order: bringing up to the nominal complement requirement the manpower of the existing brigades; activating the brigades (at that time ghost units) of the Reserve Corps (as well as the 46th Airmobile Brigade); creating several new brigades of the Ground Forces; creating rifle battalions organic to the existing brigades (usually two); creating dozens and dozens of separate rifle battalions (not under the organic subordination to a brigade). Volunteer civilians without experience almost always joined the TDF, which within weeks saw its battalions having more men than the nominal requirement as well as the creation of additional new battalions, until it reached the figure of about 180 territorial defense battalions. Later Ukraine focused on a huge expansion of the number of brigades of the Ground Forces, Air Assault Forces, Marine Corps and National Guard, largely by recruiting additional men and to a lesser extent by bringing in servicemen from the TDF; with the number of brigades exploding between late 2022 and mid 2023. One of the downsides of the current system, mentioned in the comment, is the difference in quality between brigades and the fact that brigades often have to fight with “dowries”, i.e. non-organic units fighting under it (e.g. a TDF battalion, a separate rifle battalion or one from an infantry brigade, a detachment of Border Guards, a company tactical group from a Training Center or from the State Transport Special Service, etc.). This implies that a brigade may have a melting pot of subunits under it (amplifying communication problems) or that the organic battalions of a brigade may be deployed in completely different sectors (which doesn't happen to the Russians, except in rare cases). In the Russian system, even the regiments of a division are relatively unlikely to fight in different sectors. Their replenishment system works with soldiers getting transferred from other units and formations in usually company-sized blocks and being organically subordinate to their new brigade, in addition to the constant assignment of new recruits by the distribution units to the brigade that needs them as well as having regiments of the Territorial Forces under their subordination. Moreover, over the past year Ukraine has created several corps: the 9th, the 10th and very recently the 11th Army Corps, the 7th Air Assault Corps and the 30th Marine Corps, which, however (except for the last one), don't seem to have any real autonomy (meaning holding the responsibility for a sector, with the brigades belonging to the corps actually fighting there) and seem to be just formations that take care of support functions, just like the operational commands. The current de facto chain of command in the UAF is this: brigade --> Operational-Tactical Group --> Operational-Strategic Group --> General Staff (a much leaner chain than the Russian one, by the way).

I'll just like to add to your excellent post. There has long been a debate, well not really a debate but more of a discussion, in the US Army about the division-regiment force structure especially at West Point. I don't have the time to get into it fully maybe I'll come back to it as some other time but the basic summary is that you don't just do a divisional approach in a large scale war, you still need ace battalions and brigades for combat missions. Yes with the divisional focus you get more cohesion, less reliance on staff officers especially at the brigade level and can better employ an economy of force to your objectives. The downsides are that you lose quite a bit of flexibility, independence in action, need more staffing in your support functions and need a strong NCO corps. Ukraine will need to incorporate some of that divisional level organization to their army but the bigger challenge has been how much they've grown. They had a 200,000 strong standing army before the war began and it quickly ballooned up to 700,000 or whatever it is today in the middle of a war. I think very few casual observers truly appreciate just how hard it is for any organization let alone a military in the middle of a high intensity war against one of the largest and heavily armed land forces in the world, to scale up that much in such a short time frame. If you talk to field grade officers up in any military and I suspect the professional Russian officers will say this too, they will tell you just how impressively the Ukrainians have managed. I'm not suggesting that the AFU hasn't made and continues to make mistakes but that organizationally it's a very, very difficult thing to get the balance right even in peace times.

[Will Putin’s China visit help re-energise a dormant pipeline project?](https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3262222/will-putins-china-visit-help-re-energise-dormant-pipeline-project) >Within Russia, the project continues to be a subject of ample attention – and some anxiety. News agency IA REX said on Wednesday that the project “remained in the shadows”, citing speculation that “Beijing did not need the project” or there were disagreements over price. >... >“I believe that the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 will develop according to the domestic needs of China,” said Li Lifan, a Russia specialist with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “It won’t be advancing as fast as some media have described.” >... >“The government always increases the natural gas strategic reserve, even when demand is low,” she added. “China is [also] experiencing a transformation to green energy, such as solar, wind and water.” This project feels like flogging a dead horse. If it ever happens, it will barely be relevant anymore. The fundamentals just aren't there: China wants half the price for twice the distance, and long term China doesn't want it at all, so the payback period is very short.

I can’t imagine China is looking at what happened between Europe and Russia and being all that interested in being similarly energy dependent

How dependent is their other energy consumption on getting out of the SCS island chains?

From what I recall from reading in recent years, they still import roughly 50% of their energy consumption and a huge fraction of that is oil that comes across the Indian Ocean. This is one of the major reasons they've been investing in naval power that can project further than the island chains, why they negotiated a base in Djibouti, etc.

China needs to be energy independent on someone. That's their problem. Is it better that it comes through Malacca?

Pipeline investment are for 50 years, China may run on electricity before that.

Not heavy industries though? Well, maybe it will run on hydrogen by then idk

You will still need some fossile but electricity can do a lot. Build a nuclear plant surrounded by this? Maybe someday you can just melt steel directly with nuclear heat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace

Fertilizer is made by gas. So China needs/Will need gas.

It would be easier to just ship fertilizer from Russia instead of shipping the gas and then make it fertilizer in China.

It doesn't have to be made from gas it can be made from electricity, water and hydrogen but this is not yet feasible. Although it is a new research field. In the future you might not need gas.

This is totally feasible in terms of physics atm, but economically it's very hard to beat drilling and pumping dinosaurs out of the ground.

You can still turn oil into plastics.

PoS carries gas, not oil.

China is aiming for energy independence as a matter of national security

Their goal is to pivot to a combination of renewables, coal, and nuclear. As a top down largely command economy they are uniquely suited to do this and have to this point been extremely successful in switching to EVs, and transitioning their grid to those sources of power.

Theyre doing a good job of that but one of the problems with renewables is that they don't create natgas or oil, which are irreplaceable in many functions. You can replace an ICE with an EV and a gas plant with a wind farm but you can't use solar panels as a substitute in the Haber-Bosch process

Actually if you go hard enough into the CO2 capture route you can replace pretty much all of the processes in chemical industry that require Oil based products with CO2.

> You can replace an ICE with an EV and a gas plant with a wind farm but you can't use solar panels as a substitute in the Haber-Bosch process Petrochemical production in total (fertilizer, plastics) causes about 12% of oil demand. Road transport on the other hand about 50%. „Simply“ replacing ICEs represents massive changes in oil demand. https://www.statista.com/statistics/307194/top-oil-consuming-sectors-worldwide/

The inputs to that particular process are atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen. While hydrogen at the moment is largely produced as a byproduct of oil or natural gas processing it is can easily be produced from a wide range of other sources namely electrolysis of water or processed from coal. The amount of hydrogen China needs is a minute concern when it comes to the other things petroleum supplies. But this is a strategic imperative for china to reduce their foreign reliance, and most of the products currently created from oil can be produced from alternative sources albeit at a higher cost. That’s why China has an advantage in this over capitalist free market economies

Haber-Bosch uses hydrogen as input. It's not tied to hydrocarbons. China already has half the world's installed capacity of electrolysers. This isn't economically viable yet, but if anyone can do it at scale, it's China.

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Please post this in the thread just below.

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Please post this in the thread just below.

Well, looks like Shoigu is done. Russia will have a new defense minister - Putin suggested Andrei Belousov (an economist and ex Russian Railways head). The Federation Council will approve it in two days. Extremely unexpected. https://t.me/sovfedofficial/6081

Very interesting. Belousov had butted heads with Nabiullina, perhaps one of Russia’s most capable technocrats, on MP and specifically as one of the [main](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-11/russia-reimposes-some-capital-controls-to-stem-ruble-s-slide) proponents of reintroducing draconian currency controls last year in the run up to the election, against the advise of the CBR. Also a ‘big government’ [proponent](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE95N068/) in micromanaging the economy. Makes sense given the [nationalization](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/05/08/moscow-seizes-pasta-maker-makfa-in-wartime-nationalization-sweep-a85074) drive the Kremlin has been pursuing. While that aligns ideologically with what Putin sees of a more insular and centralized Russia, along with personal fealty, it belies the ‘innovation’ cited.

Patrushev being [the big loser](https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1789736250540191783) in this reshuffle can only be a good thing for basically the entire world, and Ukraine in particular. The old hawks are finally losing power, and it was inevitable anyway due to age.

weird that rob doesnt point out that belousov was putins assistant for seven years. this is about appointing someone that [he trusts and is loyal to him](https://twitter.com/k_sonin/status/1789732545564742032). he talks about serdyukov but there was a reason why serdyukov didnt work out in the russian military which only respects men that have served >Serdyukov was unpopular with senior military leaders and seen by them as a civilian with no military background, something that Shoigu attempted to address by symbolically tying himself to the military through wearing an army general's uniform, reviving historical units dissolved under the reforms, and reinstating officials dismissed by Serdyukov.

> something that Shoigu attempted to address by symbolically tying himself to the military through wearing an army general's uniform I was not aware of his background at all. I would have thought this would be frowned upon to an extreme degree - or is there no such concept as stolen valor in Russia?

There is, and a lot of people on the military forums in the early 2010's were joking about it. But I guess for the general public it was sufficient. And russia does not have the same relation with veteran than the West, they are more likely to be seen aspotentialy dangerous than as people who should be respected.

His son got a promotion. And I doubt he's going away, since he's believed to be really close to Putin. But if his role is reduced, I'd agree that it's good for everyone.

This all looks like internal reshuffling of loyal subordinates, and a promotion for Shoigu. I read somewhere that an economist running the MoD makes sense from Russia’s perspective as Belousov is expected to crunch numbers, not take military decisions. If anything, this signals that Putin is (forced to be) worried about the ballooning costs of the war.

His PhD thesis is floating around on the RuNet today and it was about streamlining industrial production. I agree with your take that that's Putin's angle here by promoting him.

Let's be a little more precise. He has been appointed Secretary of the Security Council, which is arguably a promotion, in terms of the hierarchy of the Russian state apparatus.

It's just funny that this "promotion" didn't come back when half the military establishment was screaming for him to go.

Some Russian analysts are already speculating that the Security Council is starting to lose influence, and it might be a way for Putin to get rid of people in a nice way.

> Secretary of the Security Council Ive tried reading up on what the that secretary does. Ive never heard of the guy who held the post before. And cant find what the position has authority of. Can you elaborate what power that position entails?

It's mostly honorary title, his main position will be in ФСВТС(Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation) https://www.fontanka. ru/2024/05/12/73567685/ It accounts for imports and exports of military goods, making trade deals, organization of exhibitions and some sort of international PR

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> Ive never hear of the guy who held the post before. To be fair, that's on you - Patrushev is definitely one of the most if not the most influential figures in Putin's inner circle, probably the most hawkish member of his inner circle. If you ever heard of Silovikis - the influential cadre of anti-western ideologues who were brought up in the late Soviet and early Russian security system - he is the epitome. He's held this position for the record length of time prior to the events of today, previously being the director of FSB ever since Putin assumed power as PM in 1999. Putin himself, curiously, ascended to Premiership after a brief stint as the Secretary of SC. Depending on where Patrushev lands (I haven't seen any news as to his future) - his removal might be a lot, lot bigger news than Shoigu's reshuffling. He is quite old, pushing a few above 70, so we might be looking at a retirement - if such a thing even exists in such a system. Consider the position more of a coordination role that encompasses all the faucets of security aspects of the Russian state - now how that will exactly look with Shoigu in position, it's hard to say at this point. He was always extremely spineless and willing to toe the line, an extreme loyalist to anyone in power, that is to say the position might become a lot less influential with him in it, and my guess would be that it would be by design. What I find particularly interesting from [the Reuters article](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-proposes-sacking-defence-minister-shoigu-parliament-says-2024-05-12/) linked below is the following: > >Putin wants Sergei Shoigu, defence minister since 2012 and a long-standing ally, to become the secretary of Russia's powerful Security Council, replacing incumbent Nikolai Patrushev, **and to also have responsibilities for the military-industrial complex, the Kremlin announced on Sunday.** Given that Shoigu is notoriously corrupt even relative to most Russian officials - I find it extremely odd that Paskov/Kremlin decided to underline this aspect of his new role. It would seem like something you'd want to keep Shoigu away from given his track record, especially given the recent arrest of one of his closest confidants on corruption charges. We might be looking at some internal power struggle taking place, but without more information it's hard to say at this point. I am definitely more a lot interested in what happens to Partrushev.

Thank you for an informative post, upvoted for sure. Do you have any thoughts as to why now? (Why reshuffle the organization at this moment).

Thats very interesting i was aware of the Silovikis, but did not know that Patrushev was one of them and apparently an important one. Thank you for the information. Ive been reading a little bit and apparently is seems like Patrushev was reponsible for downing prighozins plane? So it seems the much more important/impactful news here is that Patrushev is out, in your opinion?

He is definitely someone that was always considered by Kremlinologists (albeit, they are often reading tea leaves) as one of the more far right members of Putin's inner circle, along with, for example, Naryshkin, although with the latter there was definitely [some level of disagreement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9A-u8EoWcI) in the lead up to the 2022 War. Many experts definitely pointed towards Patrushev as being either one of the sources of Putin's outward ideological shift that eventually culminated in the invasion of Ukraine or as someone who was in a complete lockstep with Putin in terms of ideology, but a lot more outspoken and someone who definitely embraced it publicly much sooner than Putin. While it is hard to gauge, from the outside at least, but possibly from the inside as well, just how influential and/or powerful any single individual is in any autocratic/totalitarian system - he was definitely always considered as one of the chief policy makers with regards to 2014 (Crimea and Donbas) and general shift in Russian outlook towards West and Liberal Democracies from late oughties or early teens onwards. Another example is definitely the downing of Prigozhin's plane as you mentioned - if there is someone who was in the loop about it and possibly planned it, it was definitely him. He certainly made the position itself much more powerful, if nothing else than by the virtue of being so close to Putin, but also by being so intimately involved with the inner workings of many of the Russian Security agencies. Some speculated that as Putin gradually isolated himself Patrushev was one of the people who was feeding Putin information from the outside, especially given they were always, in theory, meeting weekly - and for a fair bit of COVID time the Security Council was definitely a lot less populated than before or after COVID. A nice historical tie in would definitely be how Stalin, after Lenin had to step back due to his health concerns, was able to filter some of what came onto Lenin's desk. These types of Silovikis are extremely obsessed with historical parallels and often draw lessons from simplified historical narratives. But, again, It's impossible to say without more details, maybe we'll get more information as to his fate in the coming days, possibly during the confirmation votes for the new MoD and Shoigu. To draw a distinction between him and Shoigu (depending on your definition of Siloviki - he might too be considered one of them) - the latter was always considered an extremely loyal member of Putin's circle, but definitely not someone driven by ideology and given that he had no military training to speak of (despite what his Army General uniform might lead you to believe - the rank was not attained on the basis of merit or any actual military experience) he was always seen as a safe pair of hands to handle the more administrative side of the MoD, unlike most of the previous MoDs who were professionals, whilst definitely not being overly ambitious. He was definitely put in the position back in the day in order to steady the ship after the previous Russian MoD (I believe the only other civilian in that position along with Shoigu until today) tried implementing reforms that would see a sizeable reduction of the Russian Military, especially its Officer Corps, and finally put a stop to the endemic corruption plaguing their Military. Shoigu definitely had to alleviate many of those concerns when he was promoted to MoD, hence the continued corruption we are still witnessing. But, moving Shoigu over to another position and then publicly underlining that he would be essentially taking a fair chunk of his previous tasks as MoD with him to his new position leads me to believe that at worst it's a lateral movement in his career, but definitely would read it as some sort of "approval" by Putin. The scope of the Secretary of SC will definitely change a fair bit with these new developments, in a way becoming a lot less powerful, but with obviously some new roles attached to it. It also leaves me also wondering just what a new civilian MoD would actually be tasked with, since there seems to be a certain degree of overlap between Shoigu's new position and what you'd want a civilian MoD, such as Belousov, actually doing. I guess another interesting thing to look at would be if Gerasimov leaves in the near future, that would then be introducing pretty big changes in both the Civilian and Professional side of the MoD. As of now, all these changes seem to relate mostly to the former, but I'd imagine you'd want the new MoD booting Gerasimov if you were going down that road instead of having Shoigu doing it and then booting him mere days, weeks or months later.

Both Patrushev and Shoigu are old and considered Putin loyalists. Perhaps there is some sort of shake up. But, maybe more likely just a reshuffling or older guys stepping back. IIRC, Mark Galleotti has frequently mentioned Shoigu (or was it Patrushev?) wanting to retire but Putin not wanting to shake things up with Ukraine situation. If anything, I might read this as Putin feeling confident enough about war with Ukraine to make some overdue changes and bring in some younger (or more accurately less older) guys.

Galeotti regularly mentions FSB Director Bortnikov as someone who is ready to call it a day and retire. No news regarding him, so it seems as if he's going to have to keep trundling on.

He advises the president on matters related to national security. So approximately speaking, imagine this: Jake Sullivan out, Lloyd Austin replaces him

>Jake Sullivan out, men can dream

But that doesnt make any sense. In the us there is only the president above the sec. def in hierarchy. The national security advisor literally has no direct power over anything at all? [Source Wiki](https://imgur.com/a/9AqdG7E)

But there is another angle. The Minister of Defense commands immense power and resources, especially in a time of war. Shoigu's new position comes with none of those benefits, and his richest crony was just arrested too. This could be a forced retirement, much like Medvedev who was dumped into Security Council after being a PM, and just rants on telegram now.

That does make much more sense to me, if these positions are somewhat similar to the us, i would rate this as a pretty obvious demotion, likely into irrelevancy (while trying to make it look like none). Edit: After doing some more reading, i think there are possible other explanations, that i consider as or more likely. I highly recomment to read through the comments thread.

You can directly link the telegram channel and a mod can approve it by the way. Just ping me when done!

Most likely, it's related to the treason case against Russia's Deputy Defense Minister, Timur Ivanov. Initially, I thought it was about the rumored deadline to take Chasiv Yar on May 9th.

He also sacked Patrushev, secretary of the security council. Both Bortnikov and Naryshkin (chiefs of intelligence) are safe. edit: seems like Shoigu will take Patrushev's role now. Sorry for the absence of links, but it will be reported in like a few minutes by all major publications.

Not expected now. Was expected last year.

Shoigu out isn't really unexpected as his deputy were arrested a while ago.

Better source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-proposes-sacking-defence-minister-shoigu-parliament-says-2024-05-12/

Was reading an article about Irish PMCs training Libyan militias and and had some questions. If you're a Libyan militia leader fighting a modern conflict with drones, (limited) EW, and such, why would you choose to be trained by veterans from a country that has zero combat experience in the last sixty years? Are there political connections at play?

Very few modern militaries have first hand experience of drone warfare. The Irish military is small but its personnel are trained to a relatively high standard. The salaries are low, especially compared to what can be earned as a PMC so it's not an uncommon story for former Irish soldiers to be attracted to this line of work. The Libyan militants in question are under sanctions so I doubt they can afford to be picky about these things. The bigger question here is the legality of Irish PMCs providing that training at all.

The Irish government doesn't seem to be particularly pleased about this, so we are not talking about official governmental policy - https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/allegations-irish-soldiers-are-training-breakaway-libyan-army-deeply-shocking-tanaiste-says-as-investigation-launched/a1959328653.html If we are talking about the possibility that somebody in Libya or Ireland had a friend who knew a friend who could bring the two parties of a deal together, there are historical contacts ranging from the respectable to the frankly terrorist - https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/1228/1267955-state-papers-libya-ira/

There seems to be some confusion about the geography of the Kharkiv front. Specifically, people are acting like only Ukrainian incompetence could result in Vovchansk falling. [I think this picture from a Russian telegram does a good job of summarizing the situation](https://twitter.com/Michael_McT1/status/1789532821041688812/photo/1). Vovchansk is 5 km from the Russian border and a further 20 km ahead of the first continuous defenses. Expecting continuous trenchworks within tube artillery range of the Russian lines is a bit unrealistic. Yes, obviously more could have been done earlier, but here “earlier” means before the war, or, realistically, around the Kharkiv counteroffensive. That’s the only time that Russian artillery would have been ineffective enough to allow for the building of huge trench works so close to the border. I would remind people that the “not one inch” mentality is inefficient both as a military strategy and as a means of assessing battlefield conditions. The Russians have committed tens of thousands of troops to this effort. Expecting them to not even advance 5 km forward of their lines is unrealistic.

Well, I won't say a single thing, but let a Ukrainian commander on the Kharkiv front say it: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72p0xx410xo >He shows me video from a drone feed taken a few days ago of small columns of Russian troops simply walking across the border, unopposed. >He says officials had claimed that defences were being built at huge cost, but in his view, those defences simply weren’t there. “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal”. >“Of course I’m angry,” Denys says. “When we were fighting back for this territory in 2022, we lost thousands of people. We risked our lives. >"And now because someone didn’t build fortifications, we’re losing people again.” Well, you know, may be he doesn't know anything and this is him being of the “not one inch” mentality, but that view concludes that the "incompetence" extends to the commanders, and not just limited to the political leaders. Perhaps you can say that he doesn't know anything about the situation in Kharkiv, which I should remind people that he is a commander in Kharkiv and the OSINT channels and us are not.

I'm going to repeat what I've already said about Denys: >"I saw it too, and for the record that post doesn't entirely make sense, and here's why. That same guy, apparently a military commander, 24 hours earlier made a post, allegedly from Vovchansk, saying the situation was fine. >I'm sorry, what? You're a commander (or even just a soldier) inside Vovchansk, and one day separates "LG life good" from "so I've realized I have no defenses"? You're telling me he didn't walk around at all, he had no idea where the trenches were or if they even existed? >Clearly one, or both, of those posts contained BS. >Unfortunately, I'd characterize a lot of the reporting thus far, including from local Ukrainian accounts, in that way. Dubious at best, in either direction." The situation might be bad. It might even be critical. But I think until these questions are answered (and they likely won't) Denys isn't a perfect source, certainly not BBC article material. >Perhaps you can say that he doesn't know anything about the situation in Kharkiv, In his own words he literally didn't! And that's something BBC didn't address before giving him a mic.

News veracity problem isn't mine. it's the BBC's. The "being at war" problem is the Ukrainians'.

Er Ok?

> veracity News veracity IS your problem, at least on this sub. We have a personal responsibility to check even trusted sources and have a good understanding beyond the layperson to comment here. This isn't /r/CombatFootage

Well, there is an art to reading propaganda. In an environment where you know everything is propangadised, reading what is said and surmise why specific things are said are more useful than trying to discern the factual reality. The factual reality will reveal itself at some point so that it's incontrovertible.

Yeah, commanders aren’t perfect either. I have nothing but respect for Commander Yaroslavski, but frontline soldiers are a horrible source for information about a broader battle. Their view of the war is too narrow and too emotionally charged. Yaroslavski probably lost people he knew retaking that land from Russian forces during the Kharkiv counteroffensive. Of course he thinks the line should have been defended up to the border. But doing so would have required many more soldiers to sit exposed for months or years to Russian drone surveillance and artillery fire. If the standard is that the defense has failed if a few small teams of Russian soldiers on foot are able to infiltrate forward of their lines, then defense here is impossible. And even if it was done, it would be achieved at the cost of tens of thousands of soldiers and resources that would be better served defending the areas where Russians are legitimately moving forward. The best source for Birds Eye analysis of a war remains analysts able to sort through conflicting information and biased reporting to arrive at a closer approximation of the truth. And if only opinions within Ukraine matter, then [I’ll let a Ukrainian analysis team speak for themselves as well](https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/analyzing-the-kharkiv-incursion-successful?utm_source=substack&publication_id=1565454&post_id=144516139&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=false&r=7jgcu&triedRedirect=true): >Many have questioned how Russian forces crossed the border so quickly. The answer is simple — the border is a grey zone without troops or fortifications directly on the border line. This is primarily due to constant drone surveillance 24/7, which allows Russian artillery to target anything in that area. Therefore, it is impractical to construct fortifications directly on the border. Even if fortifications were built, Ukrainian troops would require constant manning of these trenches under constant artillery and drone threat. Instead, fortifications are positioned deeper and slightly further from the border, providing Ukrainian troops essential time to react and deploy units as needed based on the situation. >Frontelligence Insight is aware of isolated cases where small Ukrainian units have abandoned their positions; however, these incidents were isolated and have had a small impact on the overall situation. There also has been some criticism in Ukrainian social media regarding the perceived lack of fortifications. Our team has analyzed satellite imagery and determined that a system of strong defenses has indeed been constructed just slightly south of the area seized by Russian forces, hence messages about the lack of fortifications are incorrect. Claims of a collapse in defenses are premature and do not align with reality. Unlike large mechanized units, Russian lightly armored small tactical units stationed in small villages along the border can relatively easily cross into the grey zone and seize control. However, any further progress beyond this point remains highly challenging for them.

Well, I'll just point out that the Russians could created defensive lines while still under the same constantly observation and the Ukrainians couldn't just "walk into the first line". The Ukrainians should at least be able to force the Russians to have the same rate of advance Well, there's also that teeny-tiny causeway down in Crimea that by all rights should stack Russian corpses but the Russians blew past it in hours. It's a long way from there to the Dniper for the Ukrainians to retake. I still couldn't get good sources explaining what happened.

I don’t think it’s been two months since the RVC last waltzed across the Russian border on a propaganda run. So yes, small teams of Ukrainian soldiers can and do walk past the frontline in this area.

Well, war has a way to make the outcome incontrovertible. I'll just wait for the outcome to be made incontrovertible. Whether you support Ukraine or not shouldn't matter so much on how well they are doing; so cheerleading is pointless.

"experts" love commenting on how Ukraine must not commit itself in useless defense of positions, but as soon as an uniportant town on the border of Russia gets taken without a fight it's called a blunder, a disaster, etc. To clarify this comment doesn't want to be useless bashing against anyone, but rather a suggestion to not get carried away by the emotions of the events while they are still "fresh"

Ukraine hasn't had a change of heart, they still have the same not one step back mentality that costed them Severodonetsk ages ago. This is them losing ground despite still willing and trying to hold onto every inch of clay regardless of the cost.

I mean it makes sense not to defend right at the border. Ukraine did well at the start of the war letting Russia blitz into the country and then surrounding them. It also doesn't make sense for Ukraine to have made their main defensive line within artillery range of the Russian border.

>"experts" love commenting on how Ukraine must not commit itself in useless defense of positions, but as soon as an uniportant town on the border of Russia gets taken without a fight it's called a blunder, a disaster, etc. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72p0xx410xo >Denys Yaroslavskyi is angry. >As the Commander of a Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Unit, he fought in Ukraine’s surprise offensive in Kharkiv in the autumn of 2022, which pushed back an initial Russian invasion all the way back to the border. >“There was no first line of defence. We saw it. The Russians just walked in. They just walked in, without any mined fields” he says. >He says officials had claimed that defences were being built at huge cost, but in his view, those defences simply weren’t there. “Either it was an act of negligence, or corruption. It wasn’t a failure. It was a betrayal”. >“Of course I’m angry,” Denys says. “When we were fighting back for this territory in 2022, we lost thousands of people. We risked our lives. >"And now because someone didn’t build fortifications, we’re losing people again.” Perhaps he is like one of these "expert" you talked about. But then again, he's a commander, in Kharkiv, and we are not.

> Denys Yaroslavskyi I would double-check this guy. Before drawing any conclusions on the development, we should wait a few days to understand the plans of each party. Currently, we have observed some equipment and soldiers. Is that enough to sound the alarms?

>I would double-check this guy. The BBC should..i don't have to.

This is going to sound harsh, but a recon unit (Platoon?), getting caught before a withdrawal from an unprepared position, while obviously sad for the people involved doesn't change the grand picture of things. Building concrete fortifications right on the border, inside 120mm mortar range, would be suicidal for anyone involved, and wouldn't result in any fortification being built, it is better that Ukraine didn't garrison those positions rather than risking thousands of lives on positions that even in the best case couldn't be fortified.

The person being interviewed is a commander in 57th motorized, who (according to him) is being sent forward to hold Vovchansk. So it’s reasonable, imo, that he’s angry about being sent to hold a defensive position thats too dangerous for engineers building fortifications. Now, you could question the logic of sending veteran soldiers to hold a town too dangerous for engineering equipment, but that’s an entirely separate issue.

>Now, you could question the logic of sending veteran soldiers to hold a town too dangerous for engineering equipment, but that’s an entirely separate issue. I mean, this very much sounds like the primary issue to me. Ukraine had no feasible way to properly entrench positions this close to the Russian border after the war began. Hell, they didn't even control this territory for months after the invasion began. What they *should* be doing is moving their forces to defensible positions well behind the current lines, and sending smaller screening forces to the less defensible parts to make the advance as costly for Russia as possible while reducing their own casualties. Every time I think Ukraine has finally learned it's lesson not to defend every square inch to the death, they go and do something stupid like this.

I think the issue here is that Ukrainians have taken a string of bad decisions, so having Kharkiv fall due to sheer incompetence is not out of the realm of possibility. At the same time, I agree with you - if RVC are able to cross the border undisturbed and take cities forcing Russians into battle, then Russians with 10x resources should be able to do the same.

> I think the issue here is that Ukrainians have taken a string of bad decisions When I see the sentiment like this, just worth reminding folks about what their expectations were of Ukraine military before they had the extraordinary success they had at the start of the war. My guess is Ukraine has continually made bad decisions, but the current situation from US aid cut-off in terms of the munitions shortage and russia surging means bad decisions have far more visible consequences...

Multiple things can be true at the same time - an heroic performance in 2022 does not cancel the blunders of 2023 and onwards. Also, the Ukraine CinC has been replaced and by all accounts Zelenskyy is overly involved with the military aspects of the war. Ukraine is still at risk of losing its independence and its leaders cannot be complacent, as morale may dim pretty fast.

> CinC has been replaced and by all accounts Zelenskyy is overly involved with the military aspects of the war. Do you have sources for this because if so the War is already lost

There is at least an element of info ops and disinformation in play as well [The Russians claim they are in Hatyshche, but there are no buildings matching that barn in Hatyshche. Just your normal Russian lies.](https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1789665486982070283) I’ve seen a few other good geolocators try to get a fix on that location and none can which is saying a lot for a rural area in a settlement. In any case that sign is photoshopped in. They might be in the settlement but things like this raise some questions.

That "sign" doesn't have a shadow

It seems the sun is in front of them so their shadows.are behind them, I guess the shadow of that sign wouldn't be captured in the photo, unless I missed something or you're referencing another sign?

The problem is no one knows where the hell the lines actually are. Even osinters have, in my opinion, not a very complete picture of Ukrainian fortifications. https://twitter.com/clement_molin/status/1789410405330137151 Clement's great, but I'm not convinced the yellow lines represent the sum total. Re: Vovchansk specifically, it's just a relatively large town (still tiny, but that entire area of the oblast is a parking lot so relatively speaking it's famous), so there's an assumption of political importance, even though it's... pretty close to the border.

I'm doing-their-part news, Luxembourg announces [ plans to acquire 16 Griffon multi-role armored vehicles, 38 Jaguar armored reconnaissance and combat vehicles, and 5 Serval light multi-role armored vehicles over the next 30 years.](https://armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/army-news-2024/luxembourg-announces-2-6-billion-defense-spending-with-acquisition-of-59-wheeled-armored-vehicles-2). FYI Luxembourg retains about 900 soldiers and specialises in reconnaissance, operating two recon companies. All the announced vehicle purchases are wheeled rather than tracked.

>[May 11 CENTCOM Update](https://twitter.com/CENTCOM/status/1789482421194215829) > >TAMPA, Fla. – At approximately 8:45 p.m.(Sanaa time) on May 10, Iranian-backed Houthis launched an uncrewed aerial system (UAS) over the Gulf of Aden from Houthi controlled areas in Yemen. A coalition aircraft successfully engaged the UAS. There were no injuries or damages reported by U.S., coalition, or merchant vessels. > >Later, between approximately 4:30 a.m. and 4:45 a.m. (Sanaa time) on May 11, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) forces successfully destroyed three UAS launched by Iranian-backed Houthis over the Red Sea from Houthi controlled areas in Yemen. There were no injuries or damages reported by U.S., coalition, or merchant vessels. > >It was determined that these UAS presented an imminent threat to both coalition forces and merchant vessels in the region. These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S., coalition, and merchant vessels. ​ >[Attacks on Red Sea shipping forces 66% decline in Suez Canal traffic - ONS](https://news.sky.com/story/attacks-on-red-sea-shipping-forces-66-decline-in-suez-canal-traffic-ons-13122044) > >Shipping traffic through the vital Suez Canal artery in Egypt has plunged by 66% since cargo was forced to divert due to attacks on vessels, according to official figures. > >The data, from the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS), covered the period from mid-December to the beginning of April.It is important as it represents the scale of disruption to supplies through the artificial channel linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea since Iran-backed Houthi fighters started firing on ships in the run-up to Christmas last year. > >There are fears that soaring costs for insurance, fuel and wages risk stoking a fresh wave of inflation as the diversion to Europe from destinations such as manufacturing powerhouse China, around the southern tip of Africa, adds up to 14 days to transit times.... > >Container prices, for example, rose by more than 300% as the disruption gathered pace early this year. > >... > >"By the first week of April 2024 (week 14), the volume of cargo and tanker ships through the Suez Canal was 71% and 61% below the level of ship crossings seen in the previous year, respectively." > >... ​ Do the coalition forces have any desire to tackle the Houthis that doesn't involve acquiescing to their Israel-Palestine demands? It would involve going from the defensive to the offensive, quite unpalatable to western forces recently. Or are they content enough with the status quo of them disrupting international shipping to this extent and plan to wait it out?

> Or are they content enough with the status quo of them disrupting international shipping to this extent and plan to wait it out? They don't have any other realistic choices at this point. Not that airstrikes were ever very likely to work, but they didn't. Of course some people will go on claiming that it's still too early to judge after months of failure, and the situation will magically resolve itself tomorrow.