In the plausible deniability department, send Ukrainian to drone control center, stick UKAF labels on drone, Hellfires and ARMs, touch and go at Ukraine air base going in and out, take out AA in armored column, then let Su 25s and helicoptered troops with NLAWs do their thing - all at night of course.

DO NOT land helos in mud.


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WRT the post above - I wonder if lethal aid to Ukraine might in future extend to Reapers or other UAVs and the weapons they can carry?
I guess that would move things closer to a proxy NATO v Russia conflict...

Would the Russians risk firing a S-400 at any aircraft or drone, flown fast and low straight along the heads of said parked column?

This is interesting:
The body of the article is behind a paywall, but according to the Wall Street Journal the oil companies and banks are showing more balls against Russia than the POTUS and the EU by not buying Russian crude.
Russia Scrambles to Maintain Oil Sales, Lifeblood of Economy - WSJ

A Bridge Too Far
 

Could Kiev be the Russians Arnhem?
Supplies stretched out over a single road, where breakdowns cause severe holdups.
Bridges being destroyed to hold up the advance.
Soft ground (and forests) either side of the road not allowing a manoeuvre based mechanised army able to deploy.
Parachutist sent in to capture key positions and failing.
Artillery unable to be deployed effectively.
Supposed Air Superiority under effective.
Resupply of forward assets compromised and ineffective.
Reinforcements unable to give impetus to the advance or take and hold positions.
No momentum.
Poor planning and hubris on the part of the leadership.
Defended strong points of a force of unknown size and quality - with strong leadership and high moral.
Defenders have much shortened supply lines.

The only difference is that the population are most definitely against the attacking force and civilians from around the world are able to help.
The attackers are led by a couple of dictatorial nut jobs.

or pump water onto them.

Apparently war is no hardship compared to COVID, as toilet paper remains plentiful.

Unless....?

Well, perhaps the Ukrainian people understand the purpose of bathroom hygiene

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Is to remove the piece of sleet from anus, not to add one, hence they avoid this product.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsin...ustom_printed/

One thing that strikes me is how the Russian invasion force seems to only use half the road - there was a picture in the Times of The Convoy all going round a big roundabout and staying on the correct side of the road with the other side empty.

I know leaving one side open is good for the top brass, motor cycles and any breakdowns but it does look rather odd - you'd think they'd maximise the amount of road they use.......................

Rulez iz rulez. You wouldn't want to get in trouble with the Ukrainian traffic police.

While you are correct on what you wrote, I was talking about world claiming how Russians violated international laws by acknowledging separatist republics, while they were quite eager to accept Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia. Slightly more than 50% of UN members accepted that, including USA, Australia and most of western Europe democracies.

If you've committed to only using half the road, for the reasons you have described, then going round both sides of the roundabout isn't going to gain you anything. In fact it will probably cause chaos once you leave the roundabout and have to squeeze back into half the width.

We are way past this debate, now that the Russian army is indiscriminately bombing cities. It looks, by the way, that it is the only thing this army has ever been able to do correctly.

A few thoughts:

- an analyst noted that the areas of red showing the extent of Russian advances we are seeing on various news media is misleading. The Russians are apparently restricted to advances along major highways, and haven't been venturing onto minor side roads on into the countryside, which leads me to:

- regarding 'that' convoy, I reckon the Ukrainian military would be well served by launching small unit shoot 'n scoot strikes along its length under the cover of darkness (not sure about the level of access to NVGs in the Russian mil- I suspect it'll be reserved for use by their elite units, not rear echelon truckies). As others have stated, the focus should be on fuel bowsers, anything carrying ammo or food, so no need to use the advanced weaponry we've supplied. This would necessitate the Russians having to put in place considerable force protection resources along its length, and would also deny these troops sleep. Same goes for other lines of advance.

- the longer Russia take to get their forces in place, the more of the kit we've promised will be available to the Ukrainians. I'm hoping they're building reserves of food, medical supplies etc in the cities too.

- final thought: how many troops would you realistically need to lay siege to a city the size of Kiev and keep them adequately supplied and keep those supply lines open? Then multiply that across all of the cities across Ukraine. To me, 180000 sounds nowhere near enough.

- final final thought. I reckon both sides are probably going to have to continue without any significant use of air power or helicopters, given the numbers of air defence systems present in the country on both sides. This is going to be a primarily a ground war. In this respect, the fact those EU countries decided not to supply those aircraft is probably now moot.

I think thats what the public were led to believe and it helped support budget uplifts for defence. The powers that be knew via BRIXMIS that the Warsaw Pact weakness was logistics.

if Sun TZU's tenet is to be borne out, the only way it can happen is if the rest of the Russian hierarchy are persuaded that Putin should suddenly be diagnosed with a serious illness that has affected his judgement and decision making - that would allow him to be removed from public life while he 'recuperates', allow the 'honourable' withdrawal from Ukraine and possibly allow Russia's economy to avoid the worst of the sanctions.

All woes can then be blamed on an ailing President, allowing what remains of the Govt to keep the faith of the Russian people.

Or, someone from the FSB could just shoot him.............

Trouble with using both sides is when you come up against oncoming traffic. There is a fast motion film of a long convoy at a crossing stopping to let civilian traffic crossing at intervals.

As for the main convoy, when passing through wooded areas etc i'm surprised they are not dropping trees across the road, interlacing them means that the tree nearest then has another on top and one on top of that etc making them difficult to move, then booby trap those and pump oil onto the road surface near and under them so anything trying to move the trees would have problems with traction.

You can be sure the Ukrainian Forces are aware of that convoy and have evaluated their options. And you can be sure they have a much clearer picture of what's doable/worth the risk and what's not than we do have on our safe armchair and keyboard.

I would have agreed but I think the longer this goes on the less likely the ascension of anyone associated with Putin will be an acceptable option as they will have become too complicit. If too much time passes they might also see themselves as being trapped. "I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er." and all that.

Lavrov being one of those already too toxic.

Telegraph at 10:06am

I think this is the only way now.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...sea/ar-AAUu6gN