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Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - October 6
This thread is posted weekly on Thursday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.
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I have seen a number of Tweet-reports saying that the surrender hotline Ukraine has set up is so busy that Russian soldiers are complaining that they can’t get through. Anybody seen reliable sources on this? Or any general statistics on volume of surrenders?
In related news, there have been reports that Ukraine is no longer short of ammunition because of how much has been left behind by rapidly fleeing Russian troops.
Obviously, even assuming these reports are true, it’s not yet time to get hopes up that the war is coming to an end. But the wind currently appears to be at Ukraine’s back.
Related:
Ukraine’s New Offensive Is Fueled by Captured Russian Weapons (WSJ)
Also related:
UK intelligence: More than half of Ukraine's tank fleet consists of captured Russian vehicles (Kyiv Independent)
Missiles strike Ukraine cities with central Kyiv hit
(BBC Live Reporting page with many updates, videos, photos, and related news)
Some of the most pertinent info:
I'd have to check again, but the translation I saw of this suggested he meant the response will be "similar to the terrorism committed by Ukraine against Russia", so he's pretty much said the quiet part out loud and admitted they're basically responding to what he calls terrorism with their own terrorism.
Again: That's easily messed up nuance of the details of the translation here. I wouldn't really trust any non-russian source on this to get this right, unless they explicitly call out this interpretation. Anyone know Russian and can track the original quote down?
Kremlin, shifting blame for war failures, axes military commanders (Washington Post)
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Itʼs a good morning! Why? Because Crimean Bridge is on fire
Ukraine’s Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council posted this on his Facebook account (I’m posting from Reddit because I’m not Facebook savvy):
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/xymg81/secretary_of_the_national_defense_danylov_posted/
Why is Marylin Monroe in the video? Oct 7 was Vladimir Putin’s birthday.
Edit: actually here’s a Twitter link, if you prefer: https://twitter.com/OleksiyDanilov/status/1578636142055870464
I dunno, maybe Danilov likes her.
Related articles with a few more details and some speculation:
BBC
The Guardian
Via Twitter
Oleksiy Sorokin (Twitter)
A truck bombing makes sense though it gives me chills that, if it was the truck, this is essentially a suicide bombing. A really well coordinated one. War is a hell of a thing.
I'm not a demolition experts, so my opinion is basically just pure speculation... but I don't know if I buy the truck bomb explanation, and instead think the explosives expert interviewed by the BBC is correct in saying an attack from underneath the bridge platform may have caused it. The truck was probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time, and the train was just a target of opportunity.
The reason I think that is If you look at the close up photo of the collapsed sections, you can clearly see that the tarmac is only superficially fire damaged, but the support structures under them look to have significantly more damage done to them.
This video, allegedly from the moment of the explosion, also makes it look to me like the explosion initially happens in front of the truck, which is driving full speed ahead at the time. And if you were going to set off a bomb in your own truck you would likely be stationary on a spot you knew where it could do the most damage... not set it off while still barreling down the bridge at full speed. There is also a bunch of glowing particles raining down after the explosion, which reminds me of the magnesium rain often seen after setting off thermite.
I'm not demolitions expert either, but I think if they had access to the lower parts of the bridge, the rail bridge wouldn't have those tall, skinny columns anymore. I'm not sure how much energy it takes to knock one of those out, but surely less than the forces we've seen at work here.
Those "tall, skinny columns" are reinforced concrete, and likely would have required a significant amount of explosives to even moderately damage the surface of, let alone take out completely. As the other expert interviewed by The Guardian said, reinforced concrete bridges are the hardest for sappers to take down, unless they attack the "right points of the bridge span" (e.g. the weaker connection points between the support pillars and the platforms, or the midpoint of the spans themselves). So if it was just a small SF team on a boat that set some charges, the weak points of the rail bridge would have been almost impossible to get to, especially undetected, given how high it is. However, unlike the rail bridge, the passenger side is significantly lower, within easy reach of the water, and it would have been far easier to get to the weak points.
I wonder if maybe the truck driver didn't know what was in back and it was set off remotely. Is that a thing?
Elon Musk blocks Ukraine from using Starlink in Crimea over concern that Putin could use nuclear weapons
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-blocks-starlink-in-crimea-amid-nuclear-fears-report-2022-10
And in today’s episode of “Whose Side Are You On Anyway?”…
You may know better than I, but I would assume Starlink in Ukraine was about as effective as Starlink in Iran, which is to say, not very.
I will try to do a better job of finding articles focused on the value of Starlink to Ukraine’s military, but until then I’ll just say that have seen many reports that it has been extremely valuable to the military.
Here’s one summary:
I've read news reports of Ukraine military using it. Most recently:
How Ukrainians, targeting by drone, attacked Russian artillery in Kherson (Washington Post)
A more strategic Russian retreat signals long fight ahead in Kherson (Washington Post)
Based on a visit to the front lines in Kherson:
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TBF, there's not really a way to make the dam impassable using artillery. At least not a way that Ukraine would be willing to take in this case. If my map-reading skills and knowledge about civil engineering aren't horseshit, then bombarding the dam will either leave it still passable or at risk of completely collapsing. Complete collapse would flood one of Ukraine's bigger cities with a massive amount of water. It would also drain the entire reservoir from Kakhovka to Zaporizhzhia. Environmental and humanitarian disaster aside, it would change the face of the battlefield to such a degree that I'd doubt the currently winning side would want to risk that at all. Suddenly that area between the Donbas and Kherson where there's no fighting going on is the most inhospitable warzone you can imagine.
Having said that, Ukraine is currently advancing along the lake from the north, so actually taking the dam isn't unreasonable in the near term. Then Russia's situation on the west bank is getting seriously threatened; all it takes is a few lucky HIMARS strikes on the bridge, and they'll be swimming back home. This time leaving their equipment behind.
I don’t know what they meant, but I’m wondering if nearby artillery would make the approach very dangerous to cross, rather than taking out the dam entirely?
Ohh, you can absolutely make it miserable to cross: They don't really have many options of where to go, so put a few drones in the air and pepper anything that moves with artillery, absolutely. But that's still a far cry from the complete denial that blowing up a bridge would be.
The way I see this going is Ukraine will probably want to secure both sides of the dam before they completely clear the west bank. Once the river is the dividing line between Russian and Ukrainian forces, forcing a crossing is going to be.... ahh, we've seen how well that works. If Ukraine could secure a bridgehead on the east bank before Russia knows what's up, that's a giant advantage.
But hey, I've been wrong before. Matter of fact, I thought the next attack was going to be into the Melitopol direction, cutting the land bridge to Crimea. Flat land there, relatively hard to defend. You take Melitopol and you massively destabilize the position of Russian forces all the way down to Crimea. You basically completely bypass the obstacle of the lower Dnipro river that way. Though I suppose you can always try to shorten your defensive line first by clearing the west bank, and if you end up at an impasse due to the river, attack from Zaporizhzhia towards Melitopol and bypass the river. The advantage of taking Melitopol is that you force any redeployments from e.g. Kherson to Kharkiv to go the long way around through Rostov. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces can make that same redeployment much quicker
Does anyone know of a good source for current maps showing the progression of the various fronts and campaigns in Ukraine. For whatever reason my news readers are not showing many maps to illustrate what they are reporting.
There's always the ISW who do publish maps, as well as liveuamap. Is that kind of what you're looking for?
Perfect. Thank you.
Another map: deepstatemap.
@War_Mapper on Twitter posts updates every day or so, including what they changed. Their profile links to a zoomable map but it tends to be a few days out of date.
Also, @WarMonitor3 seems like a good source of updates in general. But a bit too noisy for me.
But I don’t know who either of them are, which is disconcerting.
Arguments against the Russians using nuclear weapons:
How does the Russo-Ukrainian War end?
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Dutch investigators arrest man for violating Russia sanctions in microchip deals (NL Times)