Mungler

In a word ‘Yes’. This is the first and only time anyone has dared to utter any public criticism of Putin / those in control and which is why it is so interesting. If you watch the studio clip, one of the old guard actually tells one of the liberals to watch and take care in what they say in criticising those in charge. There’s also a mood change about Putin in Chinese media, but that’s for another time.

For the first time there is open dissent (albeit with a small ‘d’) on Russian TV. It appears that those under 50 who have been exposed to the norms of the West, are questioning the whole war invasion empire building thing. However, those over 50 are insistent that Putin’s ‘as long as it takes view’ is hunky dorey because it’s all about drug addled Nazis and these lot want mobilisation, everyone else’s children sent to Ukraine to fight and for the nukes to come out. There is a machine translated TV show in the feed below - it’s worth a watch and to see where the divisions are.

Sauron = Putin Orcs = Russian soldiers Come on, you must have seen one of the Lord of the Rings films 😀 Edit Sauron’s unpopularity in Mordor (that’s Russia to you) has even made it onto the MSM 10 pm news. Where are the resident Russian shills - there’s at least 2 big Putin fans on here who have been on the missing list for the last week.

Not too sure why they used a Mercedes estate hearse. And the last car in the convoy was an X5 BMW. The world is watching.

That was published in 2014 and yet the whole of Ukraine has mobilised to fight Russian invaders. Go figure.

Borrowed from elsewhere: Why is Mordor losing? Because it is a Potempkin stake. It has become, under Sauron, a delusional kleptocracy. His first action was to steal the TV stations off the oligarchs because, ironically, they were criticising Yeltsin's trivial Johnson level corruption. Sauron is a KGB trained propaganda expert, so it seemed natural to him to convert the by now Westernised and vibrant TV channels into a propaganda tool. His propaganda is very good, nothing like the boring, worthy Soviet crud. They've retained Western production standards, just changed the message. His next step was to take the Orc economy away from the greedy and flaky but money-making and smart oligarchs and give it to his KGB cronies, who just milk it for yachts and Italian villas while 20% of the population have no plumbing. He can get away with this because vast gas and oil reserves stop the whole thing collapsing. The whole edifice is absolutely mired in corruption and theft from top to bottom, propped up by oil, the genuine opposition murdered or jailed, a fake opposion of extremist psychos bought and paid for, and the truth hidden by a solid wall of well made and lively propaganda. So how does all this economic dim-wittery cause them to lose? Everything not nailed down is stolen, the whole war is based on a lie, the budget is tiny, the high tech kit is vapour ware, nobody will ever tell anyone any hard truths, and everything is shoddy and broken. The orcs are being beaten by an enemy who ran away or had already been killed using weapons that had already been destroyed, led by a handful of pedophile Nazis off their faces on drugs, apparently. Amazing really. Now reality has popped round and smacked the orcs in the face, as reality has a nasty habit of doing. Guardian exclusive today saying "“[It] was a big special disinformation operation,” said Taras Berezovets, a former national security adviser turned press officer for the Bohun brigade of Ukraine’s special forces." Unfortunately this is directly contradicted by the UKR General Staff, who say the counter offences are concurrent. I think it actually goes as follows. In Kherson the plan was to get as many Orc forces in as possible, blow the bridges to starve them of supplies, and slowly artrite them and blow up their logistics with HIMARS. This has always been obvious, so obvious that when the Orcs fell for it I was concerned it was an Orc trap in some way. They couldn't be THAT stupid, surely? Fortunately, yes, they could, for the reasons given above. As I feared they attacked towards Mykolaiv, but they got nowhere. However that set off the Ukranian counter attack early. As a result the orcs aren't really short of supplies yet, so UKR aren't really winning. But they're not losing either, and as the orcs start running out of hard to replace supplies UKR should begin to grind them down and out. It was always likely that UKR had another army that it would use to attack Zaporizhzhia or Kharkiv. This again was widely commented on and it was no surprise to anyone when they had a go at Kharkiv. No surprise to anyone except the Orc high command it seems, who had stripped the place bare. The front collapsed far faster and far more catastrophically that anyone imagined it could. The orcs were so shocked they actually exagarated the loss, bs-ing they were pulling out of Kharkiv region to reinforce Donbas. In fact the orcs have not left the region, and are fighting hard in Izium and Lyman, both of which they claimed to have pulled out of, presumably anticipating they'd have to. This is the kind of fixed battle UKR don't like, so let's hope they don't get bogged down. Although UKR territorial gains are nice, the point of the exercise was to take Kupiansk and Izium, which will make Orc logistics much more complicated. This is how wars are won, you cut off the enemy supply lines. It took the orcs three months to take Izium and four days to lose most of it. Kupiansk is long gone. UKR needs to tidy up now, take the rest of Izium, and make the rest of the border the Oskil River. The critical offensive remains Kherson, but having seen what happened in Kharkiv you'd be brave to bet against UKR there. UKR are not the underdog any more. Because they have mobilised, they have a bigger army - the orcs are persistently short of manpower. What UKR cannot do is stand toe to toe with the orcs and punch, because the orcs have way more old fashioned innacurate artillery. So long as everything in front of them is hostile, the orcs can flatten it. But UKR is far better equipped to make vast numbers of accurate strikes, so it can dance around the orcs and destroy them, and it is no longer stretched for manpower. The hard part, for UKR, is fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk. The orcs just blast them endlessly with artillery, slowly grinding their way through, leaving a smoking ruin behind. However once UKR have cleared Kharkiv and tied up the Orcs in Kherson, they are then free to attack the orcs in Donetsk and Luhansk from multiple directions at once. The game will then be a different one, and one that suits UKR far better. UKR haven't won, not by a long shot. But they've made it obvious they CAN win. That leaves Mordor with some difficult choices to make, politically and militarily. There are a lot of intersting things that have enabled UKR to do better. One is the fitting of AGM-88s to their Soviet era planes. These have forced the orcs to pull their AA missiles right back, out of HARM's way, which in turn means UKR drones like Bayraktars can fly undetected and unmolested under a 1,000 meter ceiling. The orcs seem to have used up their HARMs in the first days of the war in a failed attempt to totally destroy UKR's AA once and for all. Not only that, but although the Orc planes have the ability to carry high tech guided munitions, orcs don't seem to have any stocks, again, for the reasons I gave in the beginning. The orcs lost another 50 million buck SU34 the other day, because the planes have to come down low to drop unguided munitions. Because of all this the orcs have been using very expensive guided ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles. These are accurate and devastating, but they can't make these as fast as they are using them. Also, they are persistently wasting them through poor intelligence, the most egregious example being hitting a concert hall in Vinnytsia with five very expensive missiles when they meant to hit the airforce headquarters across town, all because of a similarity in names. In an effort to preserve stocks the orcs tried firing massive 1960s shipping missiles, but these just miss and bring bad publicity, partly because they are giant overkill. You fire something designed to sink an aircraft carrier and with no GPS guidance at a small factory making tank parts and you blow the absolute stuffing out of a shopping centre half a kilometre away. Then Zelensky goes on TV and accuses you of genocide. The honest truth, "Our weapons are rubbish, so we missed" isn't much better. Meantime for relatively short range accurate missiling they are using S300 anti aircraft missiles. These are more accurate, but still not good enough, being designed to hit aircraft, and they cost a million bucks each. In the same role UKR are using HIMARS, which are pin point accurate and cost 150k a go. The UKR approach is to dash about the place with ATVs and drones, call in a HIMARS strike on anything heavy they find, the HIMARS being safely miles away, and then take over with troops. Their weakness is nowhere near enough armoured personnel carriers and trucks, and we need to send them a boatload, now. Germans have them... Neither side is using airpower much, UKR because it doesn't have any, orcs because lack of guided munitions gets it shot down. When it comes to close air support, both sides are firing rockets from their own sides of the lines and running home. Girkin had a go about "excessive caution", someone got a kick up the backside I assume, because the next day the orcs lost two ground attack aircraft and a helicopter and have wisely returned to excessive caution.

Pretty sure things were better, much better for Ukraine before being invaded by a lunatic lead neighbour. Yeah, great plan that whole invasion thing has transpired to be; cracking plan, something well thought out and a plan to be proud of. Mind you, the country appears to have allied and United behind Zelensky as leader and done rather well against a superior aggressing force. Conversely, it’s heading towards being more up in the air in Russia right now. Great plan. That Putin, he’s a shrewd one… so we were told at length.

‘When it didn’t have to be’ Not really. The choice was binary either let Russia role in and take over day 1, or fight. Russia had all the choices, including the choice not to invade and the choice to withdraw. I’d guess that if Ukraine make it through this there will be deals and NATO support / stationing going forward - if only to ensure that Russia doesn’t regroup and do this all over again. As for the super oil nuclear power that is Russia, that would be the same Russia with the economic output of Italy. And yes, where we are now, all the matters is what comes next after Putin…

Indeed, and there lies the madness of all of this.

The whole ‘should have just let them in’ thing doesn’t wash and is easy to say tucked up in a comfy bed a thousand miles away. Indeed they will know better than us the consequences of Russian rule and they made their choice as they were entitled to do. Reuters and others now reporting widespread Russian collapse in Ukraine. Funny, no mention of a tactical withdrawal and tactically leaving all their kit behind. Moscow has sealed off public places to stop rioting and theres silence from Putin & Co. But increased criticism of the regime - we’ll see if that goes anywhere or if it’s just more people that need to stay away from windows. Incidentally, the ‘get flattened’ bit didn’t do Germany any harm and those Russian sanctions will drag on and on. This could well be the end of Russia as we know and the end of Putin, which makes this is a very dangerous time as all bets are now going to be off. .

There is no way any of recents events were planned or part of any Russian strategy. The response inside Russia tells us it’s a disaster but of course they have the resources and bodies to keep sending more. The hope obviously is that at some point someone near the levers of power in Russia says ‘enough’. Indeed the costs, embarrassment and pointlessness of Putin’s folly ought to near crescendo.

Yes this must be part of some Russian master plan - after all, their military can move so much quicker without all those tanks and all that equipment now in the hands of Ukraine. Hey, let’s not argue. Let’s sit back and watch.

The danger is that it’s all too humiliating for Putin and his supporters and he then reaches for the Nukes. I can’t see how NATO will let that one go unanswered or how nuclear escalation makes it any better for Russia for short, medium and long term. Indeed, it is total and utter humiliation for the Russians and all their brainwashed moron supporters. Well done to Ukraine, the courage shown by its people and to President Zelensky.

In fairness, despite the sentiments of a minority, the UK was head of the support pack and it’s that support which has enabled Ukraine to get where it is now - obviously the mainstream news is full of the Queens death, but the news coming out of Ukraine is that the Russian pack of cards has well and truly collapsed. I understand that the Ukrainian army now has possession of more tanks than the whole of the Russian army….. oh yes indeed you can tell how good it must be for Ukraine from the silence of some on here.

Borrowed from elsewhere, and yes, recent events could well be a turning point now. Overnight UKR took Kupiansk. Izium must fall now [update, Russian military blogger says it just did, but now changed his mind it seems]. The salient is too broad for the Russians to close, so if this was ever intended as a trap it has backfired big time. Now the Russians must react. I cannot see things continuing as they are. The Kharkiv front has collapsed. The Russians are trapped in Kherson, that will be lost in time. That leaves the bit of Donbas they already had, the bit of Donbas they just took, and Crimea. All of these, even Crimea, look vulnerable. Once Kherson and Kharkiv are gone and the Russian forces there killed, captured or fractured, equipment destroyed or in UKR hands, UKR forces are simply more formidable than Russian ones. Go figure - turns out they really really didn’t fancy being invaded or occupied. What can RU do? It can throw the rest of its land forces in. But about 80% are there now. It can mobilise, but that produces a conscript army that, while it would have made conquering Donbas easy even a week ago, probably could not stand now. It can sue for peace. I'm not sure the fired up UKR would offer reasonable terms. This was always a worry. I thought a return to 23/2 by a chastened Putin would be the best bet for stability long term. The concern was, as Macron said, Putin would be humiliated, and that's what's happening. Putin has created an illusion of democracy by banging up anyone reasonable and setting up arguments with nationalist crazies. If Putin falls, the crazies get the gig. That's very concerning. They could easily start chucking nukes about. Something Putin could forestall by doing it himself of course. A small ray of hope is that many of the crazies started out as quite sensible, but turned into the gonzo of the gonzos when they saw which way the wind was blowing. I don't think there is much hope of the rational taking charge. Russia simply doesn't work like that. But I said that in 1990, and for a short period I was wrong. I’d be interested to hear from the usual suspects on what they make of this. There’s a couple who have been unusually quiet this week.

Ukraine appears to have taken Kupiansk with barely a fight. The front is collapsing. Next up is Izium. The Russian have reinforced it, but it's hard to see how it can be defended without Kupiansk. Russian TV is gloomy but defiant. I don't see then rolling over. Putin will accept infinite losses, but will the population? There's a problem here, for all of, including Putin. Putin accepts, even encourages, a rabid nationalist opposition, because it creates an illusion of democracy. Sensible voices are silenced. If there is a mutiny against Putin, it will come from nationalist zealots. If they depose him, they will up the stakes. Also if they gain influence over him.

It appears to have been an interesting couple of days. Girkin laying it on heavy with criticism of Putin and military, elsewhere growing calls to impeach Putin and sections of the Russian military in mutiny. Very interesting times. Let us see….

This is all about Ukraine drawing a line, holding onto territory (likely to be de-marked by physical boundaries such as rivers) and then dragging it out i.e. making it so painful and expensive for Russia to take. I expect that they would like to get that line drawn before winter and it involves Kherson to the river and potentially cutting off a chunk of Russian military currently supplied by boat / pontoon. None of us are forgetting that Russia is a nuclear super power with way more people, resources and nuclear weapons than Ukraine. However, that didn't stop them making a mess of Afghanistan and Ukraine is a big old piece of land to take and to hold, especially when the locals don't appear that keen. So, unless Russia mobilizes the whole country or gets the Nukes out (neither of which is a great look and doubles down on this whole business, which no doubt even the RT brow beaten average Russian may consider to be less than necessary in its aims and objectives) then this is going to be about attrition, morale, support, the weather and ultimately those Russian sanctions kicking in (which they increasingly will with the passage of each day). I expect that Ukraine will be very keen to take back the town of Balakliya (Izyum front, Kharkiv province) and to show the world (and its own countrymen) how nice the Russian invaders have been to the civilian population.

And not wishing to flood the thread, but I do find these reports and updates interesting and useful. Quick war report: Kherson - UKR counter offensive began, general consensus, initial territorial gains were not worth high price paid in crack troops and fancy kit. Attacking the orcs across the river took them by surprise. However positionally speaking it's been a great success. UKR has destroyed logistics and supply lines in all directions, arguably leaving 20,000 orcs trapped. Now we see if the Orc pop up ferries and fuel pipes can replace the three main bridges. In addition, since the small-gains-not-worth-it consensus of Sunday, UKR seems to be picking up the pace again. Donetsk - UKR had excellent battle hardened troops there, but they were under-equipped. Now rotated out in favour of NATO trained and armed troops, giving the orcs Hell. The Orc problem was they could flatten stuff and take it, but they couldn't hold it due to lack of manpower (they took Pisky eight times). It seems the new, well equipped but woefully undermanned 3rd Amy Corps will now be providing manpower. Even so the battle is going slightly against the Orcs. In Kharkiv province UKR have got a bit lively in the last 8 hours and for now the orcs are retreating. Follow up: Updates and corrections: UKR forces in the East have not been rotated out, but reinforced by the NATO equiped 93rd Korodny Yar Brigade. RU are not in Pisky, having been kicked out yet again. It is now empty. Neither side can hold it. UKR look close to taking the large town of Balakliya (Izyum front, Kharkiv province). This is significant in that it would be the first big conurbation that UKR has taken back, and will give everyone a look at exactly what level of rape, torture and murder the orcs are currently up to in the territory they hold. Sauron has set the 15th of this month as the date by which Donetsk province must be taken. Weeks ago the orcs entered the town of Soledar. They are still fighting over it, having been pushed out several times. It is possible that Sauron expects great things of the 3rd Army Corp, which seems wildly optimistic, but more likely he doesn't have, or isn't being told, or simply refuses to accept, the true picture. Given he seems to be taking much more control of events personally, the more deluded he is the faster and more decisively he'll lose. In my non military opinion one of the two sides is hugely over-reaching itself at the moment, with UKR taking on a massive Army in Kherson at the same time as pushing back in Donetsk and around Izium, and Mordor setting itself absurd targets in Donetsk and rushing forces into what looks very like a closing trap in Kherson even while losing ground around Izium, essential to their supply lines. I'm increasingly hopeful the deluded side is Mordor. Amusingly: On the first of September the Orcs claimed UKR had crossed the river with sixty special forces soldiers to take the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant back. This was obvious BS designed to put off the nuclear inspectors, so we were all a bit shocked when video emerged of the corpses by the river. Orc shills reposted this endlessly. Today UKR let out a slightly longer version of the video, showing the "corpses" getting up at the end.

One of the chaps I follow on line is proving to be a very useful and regular war content consolidation update service. He has posted as per below if anyone is interested in which ‘sources’ and why. I thought I'd say something about the sources I follow to keep an eye on this murderous war. I have two favourites, one very conventional, one very unconventional. Conventionally, I recommend Bild's highly experienced and very well informed war correspondent, Julian Ropcke. He is pretty much the only Western analyst who is not wildly optimistic, for which stance he gets death threats. When the Russians pull something off, he'll tell you. Find him on Twitter. Unconventially, I reccomend war criminal and genocidal maniac, the man alleged to be responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines MH17, former FSB colonel and former defense minister of the so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic, Igor Girkin, aka Strelkov. Girkin is immensely well informed, and represents that wing of the military which is deeply cross that Putin doesn't declare a full on war. He is immensely rude about the current military leadership, but stays out of jail and inside of windows because, as I have explained before, Putin likes the presence of alternative viewpoints more bananas than his own because it creates the illusion of democratic debate. Girkin will gleefully report Russian success because he is a raging nationalist. On the other hand he will gleefully report failure because it makes his point. He's also, even machine translated, quite fun to read. "OPTIMISTIC FORECAST Kadyrov announced a new large-scale offensive in the DPR I will not comment on Ramzan Akhmadovich's statements in detail. Let me just remind you that all his previous statements about "concrete", "effective" and other "stages" turned out to be ... to put it mildly ... "not entirely true." Let's see how it will be this time. And on my own behalf I will write that I DO NOT EXPECT ANY MORE MAJOR SUCCESSES OF THE RF Armed Forces over the next 2-3 months. So? - And then they will be possible only if the Kremlin stops "flying on blue clouds around the planet of pink ponies" and finds the strength to face the truth and start fighting for real (with martial law, the mobilization of the army and the economy and etc.). But if the Kremlin elders do not dare to do this, in 2-3 months, not tactical, but quite serious defeats will begin. And this - I emphasize - is still a rather optimistic forecast (in terms of the start time of future defeats)." He wrote that a few days ago. He's right, it's looking optimistic. But it's not all rants. Here is this morning's: " Today's first attack on our positions in the Ternovye Pody area has been repulsed. It is reported that the enemy is preparing for another" You can find Girkin on Telegram. Looking at other sources: Aleksey Arestovych, Ukranian spokesman, ex military, ex right wing nutter, provides a wide ranging summary every day. Not only should *any* official spokesman / news source always be read carefully, but this one seems to be a wild optimist on an individual level. He is however usefully frank, even colourful. Assorted official military channels - there loads of these, unless you want the entertainment they are summarised by Arestovych and The Euromaidan Press. Phillips P O'Brian. Military academic, extremely intelligent and well informed on military theory, wildly optimistic. The Institute For The Study of War. Very useful for maps, be warned, extremely close to the UKR leadership. Def Mon. Former OCSE monitor of the Minsk agreements, well informed, highly opinionated, having watched the orcs shell civillians for 8 years and try to blame it on UKR, very pro UKR. Excellent maps. Often ahead of the game, confirm with other sources. Find him on Twitter.

Agree with that. The added aspect for me is just how unnecessary the invasion was (and with that all that has followed). There we go.

Nope. I am at one with it all. Any argument with people who don’t, won’t and can’t accept the MSM version of the Salisbury murders and the invasion of Ukraine for example (absolutely not a ‘special military operation’) but willingly accept the content of RT, is a total waste of time. Ok it took me 100+ pages to realise that but I got there - others gave up along the way 😆

You flatter yourself 😆😆 Angry, me, no, not at all. I am a total pragmatist as to what arguing on the internet actually achieves.

Its more frustration in arguing with Putin’s useful idiots. It’s just one of those things really.

Gazprom's ownership of Nordstream is public record. Yes they have an annual scheduled maintenance program, but unsurprisingly, under the auspices and "badge" of regular scheduled maintenance they have set about throttling supply this year, culminating in their simply cutting off supply to Nordstream 1. My rant was triggered by you earlier statements that Russia was not at that time throttling supply and that the Russians wouldn't do that because it was economically unsound for them to do so and would mean their unilaterally breaching a supply arrangement which would make them look bad (like they care) etc. That then lead to : "Nordstream 1 closure and the continued throttling of gas supplies - do you think that is because of planned maintenance or because of any of the other Kremlin stated reasons, today’s one being a leak? Simple enough question." It really isn't that difficult. Or rather it's only as difficult as you want to make it. Russia Today providing balance? Oh, that's a good one.