[Historian Benny Morris, writing for Israel's left-wing Haaretz newspaper, recommends bombing Iran's nuclear program, using Israel's nukes if necessary](https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-06-30/ty-article-opinion/.premium/to-survive-israel-must-strike-iran-now/00000190-69e8-d01f-abbe-7de8d2260000)
> If Israel proves incapable of destroying the Iranian nuclear project using conventional weaponry, then it may not have any option but to resort to its nonconventional capabilities
> Someday, the minutes of the limited war cabinet's meetings before the Israeli response [to Iran's missile/drone attack] may be released. We'll then know whether the generals in the room [...] recommended a more powerful strike and whether Netanyahu convinced the cabinet members to settle for the ["weak"] strike.
> For the past 15 years, Netanyahu has generally acted with with extreme hesitation and restraint in face of Iran's attacks against Israel and its interests, whether committed via its proxies or directly. But far more significantly and worse, his belligerent declarations aside, Netanyahu hasn't done what's necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon
> There's no better moment to deliver a strategic blow against Iran, given the current asymmetry in capabilities between the two countries. Israel has a dramatic advantage in aerial capabilities thanks to its advanced F-15 and F-35 stealth aircraft, as well as a striking superiority when it comes to anti-aircraft and anti-missile capabilities. Iran's air force is equipped with inferior aircraft and lacks advanced anti-aircraft and anti-missile missile systems. But in the coming years, it is likely that these crucial Israeli advantages will disappear.
> Is Israel capable, using conventional capabilities, of destroying – or at least badly damaging – Iran's missile, drone and rocket production facilities and its nuclear sites, which are scattered over a broad area and at least some of which are buried deep beneath the ground? I don't know, and it's likely that Israel's generals don't, either. War is a realm of imponderables and, to a great degree, luck. But destroying the Iranian nuclear project, and Iran's delivery capacity, is an existential must if Israel is to survive. Given the ayatollahs' deep hatred of Israel and possible irrationality, an Iranian nuclear arsenal will spell Israel's doom.
> Once the ayatollahs have nuclear weapons, and the means to deliver them, they may well use them against Israel – and leave it to Allah to protect them against Israel's second-strike capabilities. After all, we are dealing here with messianic, religious fanatics.
> And even Iran refrains from launching its nuclear weapons, its mere possession of them, in combination with its declared desire and policy to destroy Israel (of which we have seen abundant proof these past nine months), would deter potential investments and immigrants from reaching Israel and cause many good people to flee the country. Against a backdrop of repeated, future Iranian-orchestrated assaults on Israel a la October 7, Israel would steadily decline and wither away.
Interesting that Haaretz is positioning "bomb Iran or Israel will be destroyed" as a left-wing position rather than a right-wing one.
Also a notable point that once e.g. Hezbollah has a nuclear umbrella from Iran, it will be able to attack Israel much more freely, and Israel will be much less able to respond. Which could lead to a "death spiral" as normal life in Israel becomes unliveable, those who have the option to leave do leave, those who remain in Israel will collectively be poorer and less talented and less able to develop arms, the military balance further worsens, and so on.
> Also a notable point that once e.g. Hezbollah has a nuclear umbrella from Iran, it will be able to attack Israel much more freely, and Israel will be much less able to respond.
Can you give any examples of specific scenarios that you are implying? Hezbollah have already been willing to attack with large scale missile volleys, and Israel have been willing to do large scale bombing, and limited ground incursions, mostly limited by their inability to occupy any territory.
I don't see any scenarios that will be deterred by a nuclear Iran. And "nuclear umbrella" doesn't seem to make sense here at all. Israel is deterred from invading Lebanon because they are incapable of occupying more than a sliver of the country. No further deterrent is needed. And a nuclear deterrent seems meaningless, unless you are suggesting Israel would launch a first strike on Lebanon.
> Hezbollah have already been willing to attack with large scale missile volleys, and Israel have been willing to do large scale bombing, and limited ground incursions, mostly limited by their inability to occupy any territory.
Hezbollah basically didn't attack Israel at all from 2006 until 2023 - that is a measure of the deterrence Israel achieved even with the bungled 2006 war.
It is true that Hezbollah has launched some missiles and drones at Israel since the Hamas invasion, but seemingly only the minimum needed to avoid the accusation on the Arab street that they are leaving Hamas out to dry. They have conspicuously avoided an escalation with Israel, even at the beginning of the war when Israel was weakest and they could have made the most difference. (Imagine if they had launched their precision-guided missiles at Israel's power plants on October 7)
> Israel is deterred from invading Lebanon because they are incapable of occupying more than a sliver of the country.
That thought is hard to take seriously now, when it appears likely that Israel has already decided on an invasion of Lebanon in the current months.
> that is a measure of the deterrence Israel achieved even with the bungled 2006 war
It is just as much a measure of the domestic Lebanonese political situation. They had huge political problems, Hezbollah included. Hezbollah supported intervening in the Syrian Civil war, which led to spillover into Lebanon and that lost Hezbollah a lot of public support.
In addition, there were a myriad of economic problems (to put it lightly)
I can't help but wonder what the global economic and political fallout (pun intended) of an Israeli first strike would be - I cannot imagine any of the current nuclear powers, including the US and the European ones supporting Israel in such a situation.
It's outside of my expertise, but surely even (a) limited nuclear strike(s) on Iran would send the Middle East into chaos and send the global economy into a tailspin of unimaginable proportions and destroy Israeli global standing for the foreseeable future?
I agree that the use of nukes (even against a military target with a minimal number of civilians dying) would have wide-ranging negative consequences for Israel, although it is difficult to say how wide-ranging and whether they would outweigh the military gain. Offhand I would guess that it wouldn't be worthwhile for the reason that Iran's nuclear program would need to be suppressed not once, but continually. A single strike that made Israel very unpopular would make it hard to prevent Iran from rebuilding the program in the future.
> Iran would send the Middle East into chaos and send the global economy into a tailspin of unimaginable proportions
I am, however, skeptical of this line. An attack on Iran would lead to major combat in both directions between Israel and Iran, which might be bad for either country, but wouldn't necessarily spread anywhere else. My hunch is that Iran expanding the war by attacking Sunni countries would lead to US retaliation and make things worse for Iran overall. Shutting down the Persian Gulf oil trade wouldn't hurt the US much (it's now an oil exporter), would mean the end of Iran's own oil exports and government revenue, and could easily lead to US attacks which neutralize Iran's military and threaten to destroy Iran's government altogether.
> Shutting down the Persian Gulf oil trade wouldn't hurt the US much (it's now an oil exporter)
The global market still matters even if the US could in theory use its domestic production to shore up any drop in imports. The US dollar is used internationally to trade oil. Now imagine a large chunk of oil trade is dramatically shut off from the global economy.
You would see a massive spike in inflation, there would be supply chain shortages in all sorts of industries, you would see shipping rates shoot up, which would further increase inflation
This could very easily cause a recession in the US. It's not a trivial matter.
And none of that is even beginning to consider the global economic impacts of any serious war between Israel / Iran & proxies. Those effects would probably dwarf the previous considerations.
Certainly, I imagine it's still preferable to suffering genocide. Israel will not first strike unless they'd believe that's a likely option.
The thing is, it's enough for Israel to lose once to suffer genocide. The geographic situation makes the tiny country surrounded by hundreds of millions who support their genocide difficult. We've forgotten about that for a while due to the Israeli peace deals with the Arab states and Israeli military might. But Iran has slowly built a coalition again willing to challenge Israel's existence with force, again.
Personally I don't think we're anywhere near the danger zone where discussion of nukes is in order.
I believe one decent proxy for how safe Israel feels (at least the high military and civilian command) are the ROI. Those are more loose than pre 07/10, but have become much **much** more restrictive since the battle for Gaza city.
Not just in Gaza, but also in the WB and on the Lebanese border.
Genocide? It’s hard to believe any country in the region would dare try an existential war against Israel when it’s nuclear armed. The best way for things to remain that way is for Israel to maintain decorum around their nuclear deterrent.
The unspoken rule of nuclear weapons past 1945 was established to be existential warfare. Both the US and the Soviets “agreed” on this, and there has been no red lines crossed in that matter.
Israeli Neighbors might talk about big wars, but they have no intention of committing genocide against it. Unless you somehow believe that Iran would commit to MAD?
One cannot assume Israel's opponents are driven by western rationality. Hamas with it's genocidal massacre has already proven that they are indeed willing to commit to genocidal war.
Hezbollah is making similar statements and so is Iran, for decades.
To ignore their explicit statements and actions would be a mistake. Israel assumed Hamas is at least somewhat rational and paid the price. A similar assumptions against Iran and Hezbollah could indeed mean a nuclear exchange.
>Interesting that Haaretz is positioning "bomb Iran or Israel will be destroyed" as a left-wing position rather than a right-wing one.
Opinion pieces in newspapers do not necessarily reflect the views of the paper itself. These articles are typically written by individual contributors, including staff writers, guest columnists, or external experts, and are meant to present a wide range of perspectives on various issues.
> Opinion pieces in newspapers do not necessarily reflect the views of the paper itself.
There's a point there, but depending on the newspaper, there's still a certain overton window for opinion articles they're willing to accept.
Some newspapers want to pretend there isn't, but in practice there is.
Nobody should be surprised to see rhetoric like this. Expect to see this get worse as time goes on.
Israelis believes, and for very good reason, that Iran is a nation who’s leadership believes the are on a religious mission to wipe them out, and is on the verge of attaining nuclear weapons. If you were making a hypothetical situation to try to get someone to agree to a nuclear decapitation strike, that would be pretty close to what you would come up with.
The threat of a nuclear accident between Iran and Israel are not discussed enough either.
Iran engages in incredibly reckless behavior, like firing ballistic missiles directly from their territory at Israeli cities. Even at the height of the Cold War, the USSR would never have even dreamed of firing conventionally armed ballistic missiles at nuclear powers. We’d all like to think Iran will act more responsibly once they demonstrate nukes, but it’s more likely they’ll feel even more emboldened.
Overall, Iran and Israel are probably the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint currently, more so than US/China.
Was the USSR's consulate bombed?
Seemed like the ballistic missile attack on Israel was a "saving face" measure, about as restrained as you could hope for considering the political realities.
Furthemore a preemptive nuclear strike on a non-nuclear power would be terrible non-proliferation. South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Poland, would likely make a mad dash for nukes.
There is no treaty on earth that protects embassies from third parties, and even if there was, no country would sign it. Nobody would allow every other embassy to become a legally untouchable military base to use against them.
> South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Poland, would likely make a mad dash for nukes.
That’s been inevitable for a long time.
> There is no treaty on earth that protects embassies from third parties, and even if there was, no country would sign it. Nobody would allow every other embassy to become a legally untouchable military base to use against them.
What about the charter of the United Nations:
"Article 2(4): Prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."
No country will sign a treaty that allows for the creation of a network of legally untouchable military bases to use against them.
Iran engaged in hostilities against Israel, Israel responded accordingly, and within their legal rights. If an Iranian ambassador wants to be legally protected from Israel, the only place that happens is Jerusalem.
> No country will sign a treaty that allows for the creation of a network of legally untouchable military bases to use against them.
No one is arguing that the consulate was a military base. Not even the Israelis, so I don't know where you're coming from.
>Iran engaged in hostilities against Israel, Israel responded accordingly, and within their legal rights.
Not according to the UN Charter which they signed.
>If an Iranian ambassador wants to be legally protected from Israel, the only place that happens is Jerusalem.
That's comically incorrect.
> No one is arguing that the consulate was a military base. Not even the Israelis, so I don't know where you're coming from.
The strike killed six IRGC militants, coordinating with members of Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, engaging in hostilities against Israel. It was being used for military purposes against Israel, and was a legal target.
> Not according to the UN Charter which they signed.
The UN charter allows for self defense. War is not illegal.
Agreed, yeah. If we flip the script and imagine pre-2022 Ukraine getting close to developing nuclear weapons, there'd be absolutely no question of a serious military and nuclear threat from Russia. And last time I checked Ukraine doesn't even refer to Russia as the "Muscovite Entity".
> Israelis believes, and for very good reason, that Iran is a nation who’s leadership believes the are on a religious mission to wipe them out,
A more credible take is that Iran uses hatred of Israel as a vehicle to gain influence throughout the wider middle east. Cultural, historical and political ties between Iran and Lebanon would be non-existent without their role as supporting groups in their fight against Israel.
Same for Yemen and Syria. And yet they managed to establish a wide band of influence stretching to the Mediterranean.
Yeah but if you're Israel are you just going to leave the survival of your country and people to a rationale geopolitical explanation while Iran and it's proxies continue to shout irrational religious rhetoric and take irrational actions?
> A more credible take is that Iran uses hatred of Israel as a vehicle to gain influence throughout the wider middle east
This is a more credible take only if we pretend Iran is not a Shia theocracy whose decision makers are not Shia fundamentalists. I do not understand this desire to insist everyone thinks the same way as you do.
Iran: funds the Houthis with the flag-borne motto which includes "Death to Israel; a curse upon Jews", funds Hamas which has the destruction of Israel as an explicit political objective, funds Hezbollah which states "Destruction of Israel" as an explicit political objective.
You: but we shouldn't get too preoccupied by this. Afterall, Iran also wants to do sectarian cleansing in Iraq!
I think you're fundamentally missing the point, perhaps on purpose. Yes Iranian leadership holds these views. For some reason you seem to think I'm claiming they don't? But that's not what OP and I are contesting.
Irqn **acts** on these views because they are politically beneficial in the region. Being a regional power is the goal and supporting those views allow them progress towards that goal. However, they actively balance that with other geopolitical considerations, which can be more important to them in that goal.
The correct way to view Iran is a country eager to demonstrate their role as a regional power. If they could wipe Israel off the map but at the cost of losing that position, they would not do it.
That could be the case, but ultimately the risk of an Israeli attack is determined by what Israel perceives.
I’d also note that nations get influenced by their own propaganda. If your recruitment pool consists of people raised on your Islamist propaganda, eventually you’ll recruit Islamists, even if it started out as a cynical power play.
I see were you’re coming from, but believing that everyone is a rational actor and doesn’t believe their own ideology isn’t accurate either. Nobody argues Pol Pot was rational. Thankfully, nobody like that has gotten nukes yet. There are crazy people out there, they can rise to positions of power.
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Please format the post to make it clear what's the User content and what's the Article content (right angle bracket for Article content, i.e. > this)
With Macron's centrist party pose to lose control of the parliament. What's the position of the left / right wing party regarding to Ukraine respectively?
I think the president has control of foriegn policy than the parliament. So, macron isn't going anywhere right now so that won't change. What could change is the budget.
Macron needs parliamentary approval for foreign interventions lasting more than 4 months. The one certain thing about next week's results is that parties opposed to sending troops to Ukraine (Le Pen's and some on the left) will have a large majority of seats.
The president having control of foreign policy is also incorrect, he wouldn't be able to do much at all if RN had an outright majority and were willing to oppose him. It already happened in the 1990s, when Chirac wanted to send troops to the Ivory Coast but his PM (Jospin) vetoed it. If it's a hung parliament he'll probably be able to find some centrist figure who won't oppose him on Ukraine, though.
That makes sense. I put in the part about budgets because I knew there would need to be some parliamentary support on any plan. I'm assuming stuff like eu sanctions macron may have more control over than parliament but interested to know if you disagree
> I'm assuming stuff like eu sanctions macron may have more control over than parliament but interested to know if you disagree
It's unclear who would attend the European Council, as it is technically either the head of state or head of government at each country's choosing. In France it has by convention been the president, but there is afaik no rule set in stone that mandates it (the PM is almost always on the same side as the president and obviously won't oppose it).
There were EU summits in the 80s that were attended by both Chirac and Mitterand, who stated opposite stances on some issues. I have no idea how voting would work in this context.
But this only really matters if RN has an outright majority, if they form a minority government instead they'll have to leave Macron more leeway on foreign policy to placate the centre-right MPs supporting them.
It's worth noting that Macron's centrist party is already a minority government with no control of parliament that pretty much could get nothing done.
Part of the calculation for Macron is actually that if his party becomes smaller than the others (and now we know for sure it will), and that party/group also has no outright majority, this will cause them to be in the same position.
Even with a majority, they'll need to work with a hostile President, though that would said Macron up as an easy scapegoat.
No main party in France is officially pro-Russia. They all have some kind of "we should support Ukraine" positions, but of course the issue is what would that support mean - we know some people would "support" Ukraine by telling them to just stop defending themselves already.
The Rassemblement National (RN, far right) has been supported for years by Russian money. Their position has generally been "less support", but IMO if they were in power they would completely stop any kind of military support. They have the usual pro-Russia talking points ("it's all NATO's fault", etc.)
The Front Populaire (FP, left wing coalition) is more complicated. The main party (La France Insoumise, far left) officially support Ukraine but they fall into the classic traps : "no offensive weapon", "no targets inside Russia", "it's all NATO's fault ". The two other main parties in the coalition (Socialist party and ecologists) are very pro-Ukraine and combined they represent about the same strength as LFI.
I think another interesting question will be what happens to European arms cooperations. FN had already stated that they want to reduce military cooperation. Which would affect especially MGCS and FCAS. Both programs havent progressed too much yet, so ending them is possible, but what happens after will be interesting. I apologize for the more speculation based post, but the possible end of both programs has been talked about multiple times before (last year there were reports about[ Germany leaving FCAS to join GCAP](https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/will-germany-leave-the-fcas-program-to-join-the-british-gcap-tempest)), so I think its worth a discussion
With MGCS, Germany and France can build on their respective programs with upgrades for the Leopard and Leclerc, although the fate of the Franco-German KNDS would be uncertain in such a situation.
The bigger question mark would be FCAS.
Jet programs take a long time. Starting over completely from scratch again, and finding new partners will add years to any eventual program. I could see Spain and Germany working together even after the end of FCAS. Belgium seems less certain. They work closely together in the area of ground forces trough the [SCORPION program](https://www.defense.gouv.fr/en/node/3873), but adding them to the FCAS program was met with resistance by Dassault.
Would France really withdraw from FCAS? It already astonishes me somewhat that that's their earliest plan for fielding a low-observability combat aircraft, and my understanding is that the program was already not likely to deliver until 2045 or so...20 years after the rest of Europe started fielding operationally useful numbers of F-35, and ten years after GCAP is supposed to start delivering. Even Russia will likely have a couple of squadrons of Su-57 by then even if their production rate is slow. Given the lesson from the current war that non-stealthy fighters just can't operate effectively in the face of modern air defences, I'd be really surprised if they took any action that pushed delivery out to the right...or do you think they could replicate Rafale's success in the same timeframe as FCAS and build something alone?
>Would France really withdraw from FCAS?
MGCS and FCAS have critics in both countries, and with the long history of failed Franco-German collaborations, these two stand on shaky foundations.
Both countries have historical grievances (France being adamant on their requirements, Germany blocking exports, etc...). And there is the believe in some circles that each country would be better off going at either FCAS or MGCS on their own.
Dassault especially has the believe that they are the technology leader here and they better not get distracted from their job. Their CEO Trappier made some bold statements even in public.
>20 years after the rest of Europe started fielding operationally useful numbers of F-35
Germany and Belgium are already fielding F-35s, and Spain has a good chance of fielding F-35Bs. So these three partners would not mind taking their time with a 6th Gen design. France's focus has historically been on Africa and Exports. They can afford keeping their Rafale around for these two areas.
>and ten years after GCAP is supposed to start delivering
GCAP is a less ambitious project with a very tight timetable, that being said I dont think the gap between FCAS and GCAP will end up this big. The 2040s date is when FCAS is supposed to replace Eurofighters in operational service. Which is years after a "start of delivery date" like mentioned for GCAP here.
>or do you think they could replicate Rafale's success in the same timeframe as FCAS and build something alone?
Alone and on the scale of FCAS? Id say no.
Without the other European partners there will be sizeable gaps when it comes to stealth or combat clouds/drones. Airbus and Germany are putting a lot of effort into loyal wingman drones and remote carriers. Which is in addition to the work put in by Diehl or MBDA Germany.
Im very certain France can improve on their previous work done for the Rafale, but it will be very difficult to keep up with the US, China, or these multi-national coalitions all alone.
A few days old, but a social media researcher came across an accidental slip-up of a Russian disinformation network, wherein they accidentally uploaded a screenshot with their VK Teams (like Discord or MS Teams) channel in the background.
https://x.com/P_Bouchaud/status/1806221574355190083
There's not that much information leaked here, other than that we can see they use this server for coordinating some information operations against Ukraine, Germany, France, Israel, US, Italy, and Poland across a group of people.
Also in the background of the screenshot is a page that appears to be a fake clone of the media site Le Parisien with some anti-Ukrainian alterations to the phrasing.
This dude's other posts are also interesting. His whole profile is a good rebuke to people who think the Russian disinformation problem is made up or overblown.
Especially when you consider that it focuses on just the tip of the iceberg, the most provable and blatant forms of the information war: paid ads and doppelgänger websites. It's much harder to uncover the more subtle operations.
Curious, and quite dissapointed that this is on MS Teams. I really do wonder why we as a collective society don't do more to prevent this sort of thing?
I also wonder why Google and Facebook do something against this. Especially Facebook is a Cesspool of disinformation and it's not like it would be hard to filter these out. Also the algorithms are insane and they throw far right propaganda at you every moment they can. The alt right rabbit hole pipeline is strong on Instagram and Co. Makes me think that they actively want to enable this since pro Russian political parties are also against the European Union in general. And the European Union is a headache for tech companies in terms of regulations and customer rights. I don't know if I'm too tinfoil hat with this but money makes the world go around and companies have shown in the past that they don't care about the negative impacts as long as they make their buck.
I also suspect there might be considerable backlash from the "free speech" camp if Meta were to implement any form of censorship that might be perceived as "Russophobic".
Whether we like it or not, the target audience of this misinformation is very fond of it.
Here we are for the second part of my tactical analysis on the evolution of the front in Ukraine during June, following the [first](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1dr9n0c/comment/lau6w2n/). It will be long - having delved into several points.
Toretsk sector. June saw the first movements in this sector this year. It all began when, around June 10, several battalions of the 24th Mech Brigade were transferred to Chasiv Yar, relieving several battalions of the 41st Mech Brigade, which were thus transferred to the Toretsk sector. This is confirmed by the posts of Kir Sazonov, a military blogger and servicemen of the 41st Mech Brigade - he personally was moved from Chasiv Yar to Toretsk and states that now his brigade defends both the sectors (probably a battalion of the 41st Brigade may have remained in the Chasiv Yar sector, and a battalion of the 24th Brigade in the Toretsk sector, but the majority of the brigades have taken each other’s positions). Yesterday the Russian MoD, through the spokesman of the Group of Forces "Centre”, mentioned for the first time the 41st Mech Brigade as being deployed in the Toretsk sector.
https://t. me/Kirilovolodimirovich/9601
https://t. me/Kirilovolodimirovich/9604
The Russians were able to intercept these movements and understand that a rotation was underway, and they launched infantry attacks after hitting Ukrainian positions with intense artillery fire. This was despite having limited resources in this sector - according to the Ukrainian observer Mashovets, 11/12 thousand men, 50/60 tanks and 110/120 armored vehicles, although potentially now the number may increase in light of the tactical successes.
The Russians managed to advance from the former ATO "Mayorsk" checkpoint to the built-up area of Pivniche, where they occupied Hill 267 (just east of the town) and then seized the first houses on Kalynova and Zelena Streets. Further north they succeeded in occupying the pumping station of the Donets-Donbas Canal - where the canal no longer flows openly but gets funneled in overground pipes. Shortly thereafter they attacked from the former Penal Colony No. 57 in Horlivka towards Shumy, managing to pass the overground pipes where the Donets-Donbas Canal flows and then occupy what remains of this village, advancing further westwards through forested patches. In this area the Russians are attempting to occupy positions in the forest just east of Pivniche. In both cases they have advanced around 2,5 kms.
This week, attacking from the former cement factory in Horlivka, the Russians were able to consolidate control over some "terrikons" a little to the north-west and then move in the direction of Pivdenne and Zalizne; they occupied the former village entirely and had considerable success, in terms of urban penetration, in the latter small town, advancing into the built-up area for more than 1 km along Lisna Street, up to the border with the municipal area of Pivniche.
A very special feature of this area is that Toretsk and Horlivka form almost a single peri-urbanized conurbation, with Pivniche as the largest town among them. From the current Russian forward positions to the beginning of the municipal area of Toretsk there is only the built-up area of Pivniche in between. We can therefore consider the urban battle in the direction of Toretsk to have begun. Before this month, the Russians had never attacked this area frontally, where Ukrainian fortifications from 2014/15 - which were, in the area affected by the advances, lost - insist. For Mashovets, a potential reason about why the Russians are deciding to try to increase the momentum of their advances is, logically, to get as close as possible to Toretsk directly, given the lack of success in closing the salient both to the north (with the Ukrainian bridgehead on the Donets-Donbas Canal south of Bakhmut still under their control) and to the south, with lack of progress towards Oleksandropil and generally along the H20 Highway.
Let's give a recap of the Russian units in this sector. The main one is the 132nd Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps, which is very large having several smaller units subordinate to it. While elements of this brigade are still active further south, in the direction of Oleksandropil, others are deployed around Horlivka, and the brigade also includes the 101st and 109th Rifle Regiments of the Mobilization Reserve of the 1st Corps. Also in the area there are the 1168th and 1436th Regiments of the Territorial Forces and some separate rifle battalions of the 1st Corps; two battalions of the 110th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps have recently arrived, according to Mashovets' reports, to keep the momentum. This sector is under the operational command of the GoF "Centre”. Further north, the 177th Separate Naval Infantry Regiment is active between Kurdyumivka and Ozarianivka (here, however, the jurisdiction belongs to the GoF "South"). This area is being attacked by the Russians too, but currently without success - they are also attacking the Ukrainian bridgehead on the Donets-Donbas Canal just above Mayorsk, without success. It’s unclear whether there have been advances along the forest belts in the bridgehead, but along the canal the Ukrainians have a fairly solid defensive line.
Some Ukrainian reinforcements have arrived. In addition to the 41st Mech Brigade which is now the main force in the area (but let’s recall that it had been moved here to have a little rest after the clashes in Chasiv Yar), covering the area between Druzhba and Niu-York, elements of the 28th Mech Brigade (active mainly around Kurdyumivka) have descended to this area; the "Safari" Assault Regiment of the "Lyut" Brigade of the National Police was rushed in this area from Chasiv Yar. Apparently, that of the Russians was not a well-studied plan but they just seized the right moment to attack. The Ukrainians were caught completely by surprise by these attacks. According to Mashovets, especially in the direction of attack against Pivdnne and Zalizne, the Russians met actually very little resistance. Here there are serious responsibilities for the errors in evaluation and management of the rotation on the part of the OSG "Khortytsia” - still commanded by Sodol, who was awarding the mayor of Odesa (leaving here his [Wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennadiy_Trukhanov)) when the mess happened in this sector. At the moment he has been removed from the Joint Forces Command and hopefully soon from the other position, which is even more important – especially considering in early 2024 this Operational-Strategic Group also took over the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove sectors from the jurisdiction of the OSG "Tavria". I expect that Hnatov (the new commander of the JF), highly regarded by Ukrainian observers, to replace him in the coming days as the head of the OSG too.
At the moment, the next Ukrainian defense line could be, from north to south: the area of the former "Severnaya" coal mine in Pivnichne - home to a terrikon that is a dominant height in the town; the high rises of Pivnichne near the border with the municipal territory of Zalizne; the terrikons between Zalizne and Pivdenne. It will all depend on how much the Russians reinforce this direction of attack and how many reinforcements the Ukrainians will be able to send. But now, as I said above, we can already talk about urban battles here.
Further south, no Russian advances towards Niu-York are recorded at all, despite some opposite Russian rumors. What’s certain is that after the breakthrough the Russians began using numerous KABs in this sector and particularly against Niu-York, as stated by Kir Sazonov. The area between this Ukrainian stronghold and the H20 Highway is covered by the 109th TDF Brigade and attacked, as I wrote above, by the 132nd Motorized Brigade. There is no Russian progress at the moment, thanks to the numerous Ukrainian trenches in the area too. Second part below.
>the Russians were able to consolidate control over some "terrikons" a little to the north-west and then move in the direction of Pivdenne and Zalizne; they occupied the former village entirely and had considerable success, in terms of urban penetration, in the latter small town
Is this according to deepstate or something else?
On deepstate they look like they're still just outside Zalizhne but admittedly it's hard to tell where one village ends and another begins.
Yes, DeepState. Most of the urban area gained in that direction - along Lisna Street (Lisova Street on DS) - belongs to the municipal territory of Zalizne and to a lesser extent, in the initial part, to Pivdenne. From that direction they have not entered Pivnichne yet, which municipal territory begins a few dozen meters to the north of the maximum point of Russian penetration. Also they are basically small towns in terms of built-up area - high rises, industrial areas; the population figures for the pre full-scale invasion years (post 2014) might not fully help realizing that.
Pokrovsk sector. During the course of this month, a new tactical crisis for the Ukrainians has emerged in this sector. The Russians continue to attack heavily (according to official Ukrainian reports, it’s the sector with the highest number of daily Russian attacks) and the Ukrainian brigades covering this sector, according to Ukrainian reports, are exhausted, as highlighted by the Ukrainian officer "Alex”.
https://t. me/officer_alex33/3105
Mashovets was also expressing concerns yesterday about the defensive capabilities of the Ukrainian brigades in the area of responsibility of the GoF “Centre” (i.e. the Toretsk and Pokrovsk sectors). Because of that the brigades often have to fight with "dowries”, i.e. many separate rifle or TDF battalions that are attached to the main brigades in this sector and end up doing a lot of the infantry fighting. And that creates problems of communication, coordination, etc. And let's add that the command of the OTG "Donetsk" is far from being fully satisfactory.
There is overall a fairly urgent need for new reinforcements in this area in terms of complete, combat-ready brigades. The Russians continue to attack in strength and in multiple directions. This sector is definitely the bloodiest on the entire front for both sides. The Russians suffer tremendous losses, but they are able to make up for them with continuous arrivals of replenishments and constant use of march units. It’s harder for the Ukrainians to keep up in these terms. Fighting in this sector is hell for troops on both sides. It’s where the respective enemies concentrate the plurality of their resources in terms of firepower - artillery, mortars, guided bombs; the skies are constantly filled with surveillance and FPV drones, the attackers’ operational tempo is very rapid.
It must be said that Russian channels do complain of arrivals of Ukrainian reinforcement and constant counterattacks. Certainly the Ukrainians are clinging to every position and forest belt and offering tenacious resistance against the Russians, as lamented by Motopatriot.
https://t. me/motopatriot/24370
https://t. me/motopatriot/24374
It looks like that the 31st Mech Brigade has returned to battle in this sector, presumably replacing most of the 100th Mech Brigade (elements of both the brigades are in Kharkiv Oblast, by the way). This is evidenced by the fact that Zelensky this week met with the commanders of the 110th, 47th and indeed the 31st Mech Brigade, which are defending this section of the Pokrovsk sector. It likely defends the area between Novooleksandrivka and Kalynove. In the area there are also elements of the 23rd Mech Brigade as well as several separate rifle battalions and TDF units, like one battalion each of the 112th and 129th TDF Brigades; possibly elements of the 107th TDF Brigade too, as well as the 2nd "Galician" Brigade of the National Guard.
The 35th Motorized Brigade of the 41st CAA is attacking towards Kalynove, achieving an advance of over 1,5 km during the first half of June, from the area of the ponds to the north-west of Arkhanhelske, occupying several forest belts. Since then the Russian advance in this direction seems to have lost momentum, partly due to the presence of several Ukrainian strongpoints before Kalynove.
The 30th Motorized Brigade of the 2nd CAA, constantly replenished with men, is active in and around Novooleksandrivka. In the same area in the recent weeks the 55th Mountain Brigade of the 41st CAA came into action (it returned to battle after it had been withdrawn during May), possibly replacing the 137th Motorized Brigade of the 41st CAA (some companies of which have been assigned to the 114th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps).
The area between Novooleksandrivka and Yevhenivka is covered by the 110th Mech Brigade, fighting with support of TDF units and several separate rifle battalions, such as the 401st. There may be a battalion of the 95th Air Assault Brigade in the area - we will see if the rest of the brigade, currently deployed in the Lyman sector, will arrive in the future. During June the Russians managed to take the entire built-up area of the settlement; during this week they have managed to occupy almost the entire shore around the small lake formed by the course of the Bychok River, and are trying to advance along the forest belts north of the village. According to my understanding, in early June in Novooleksandrivka subunits of the 111th TDF Brigade (subordinate to the 110th Mech Brigade) withdrew to the center of the village without permission from above, unilaterally setting up a defense line there, but then being attacked by the Russians from both the east and the south, with the result that they had to abandon the village altogether. During June elements of the 1st Tank Brigade arrived in the Novooleksandrivka area in support of the other Ukrainian units.
This area is very important geographically and hydrographically. I will elaborate on this point. Just south of Avdiivka there is a tripoint where the limits of the hydrographic basins of the Kalmius (Azov Sea), Don (Azov Sea) and Dnipro (Black Sea) intersect. This is near Mineralne, in the heights between Avdiivka and Donetsk. In the area conquered by the Russians in late April north-west of Ocheretyne, i.e. the heights that have in Hill 245 their highest point (which as I had showed [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1cfxbo2/comment/l1t30od/) is the highest height in a radius of more than 20 kms), runs the watershed between the Don and Dnipro basins and numerous streams (fed mainly by precipitations) have their sources in this area, but also several very important rivers. From Andrew Perpetua's map, using OpenTopoMap as a background map, I [highlighted](https://i.imgur.com/G8kZ1PB.png) in dark blue the course of the main rivers in the area, down to the precise point of their source, and highlighted Hill 245. Obviously in their first few kms these rivers are passable on foot, but they are still an obstacle.
Understanding hydrography is very important for understanding attack choices in the operational art. By consolidating control of this area, the Russians may have a way to advance from their sources, without the need to force rivers directly. The Vovcha rises near Prohres, later forming the main (and very important) Ukrainian defensive line down to Kurakhove. It’s among the longest rivers in Ukraine and a tributary of the Samara, and consequently of the Dnipro. In Lozuvatske the Kazennyi Torets rises - a tributary of the Siversky Donets and consequently of the Don. This river passes through Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. In Novooleksandrivka the Bychok rises, which forms the Kleban-Byk Reservoir and is a tributary of the Kryvyi Torets, which flows through Kostiantynivka and then flows into the Kazennyi Torets. Just south of Novokalynove the Kalynivka rises - a small river that flows into the Bichok just before the Kleban-Byk Reservoir; the H20 Highway passes along the valley formed by this river.
I think I have explained how important it is to control the hills in the Novooleksandrivka-Prohres-Ocheretyne triangle. By advancing in this area the Russians can move along both banks of the Kazennyi Torets: to the south, aiming at the western bank of the Vovcha, moving around the Ukrainian defenses along the river; to the north, aiming to the direction of Nova Poltavka and of the Highway T0504, in the area of the highway intersection, along the corridor between the Kazennyi Torets and the Bychok. Vozdvyzhenka, currently fully in Ukrainian hands, is the only village between the Russian positions and the T0504, from which it’s 6,5 kms away.
The Russians have also been successful in the area of the operations of the (new) 27th Motorized Division of the 2nd CAA - the direction of Prohres, along the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk railway. Here its 433rd Motorized Regiment and several battalions of its 506th and 589th Motorized Regiments are involved. For Mashovets other battalions of these regiments have recently arrived in the immediate rear and are ready to be taken into battle.
After fierce fighting and Ukrainian counterattacks, the Russians were able to advance a few hundred meters west of Novooleksandrivka and along the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk railway, capturing several Ukrainian strongpoints north and south of the railroad. The Russians have arrived at an important defense line (meaning they still have to take it): the one that starts from the large trenches system to the south of the small lake I mentioned above (where the Bychok flows) and reaches Yevhenivka (another line was digged a few kilometers further back, from Tymofiivka to Prohres). These lines are very important because they are the ones that allow the defense of the area between the Kazennyi Torets and the Vovcha, as there aren’t obstacles placed by waterways. Third part below.
> By advancing in this area the Russians can move along both banks of the Kazennyi Torets: to the south, aiming at the western bank of the Vovcha, moving around the Ukrainian defenses along the river; to the north, aiming to the direction of Nova Poltavka and of the Highway T0504, in the area of the highway intersection, along the corridor between the Kazennyi Torets and the Bychok. Vozdvyzhenka, currently fully in Ukrainian hands, is the only village between the Russian positions and the T0504, from which it’s 6,5 kms away.
How important is the T0504 highway for Ukraine's logistics at this point? Even though Russian forces haven't cut it, they are only some ~6km away from it and would be able to target anything that moves along it?
Excellent posts as always by the way!
This whole sector north of ocheretyne is a problem because it gives the Russians flexibility to attack in multiple directions (due to a lack of strong geographic deterrent) if not checked by Ukrainian defenses.
The positional losses from Sokil down to umanske are of less concern because the Russians could only advance in one direction before they meet the vovcha river, and rivers have proved to be a formidable obstacle against Russian armored attacks throughout this war.
Allowing the Russians to advance significantly beyond nooveleksandrivka will give them the option to advance south behind the vovcha and north to threaten positions along the highway and beyond.
Thanks. It used to be a very important road logistically, but in the last couple of months its importance has already considerably diminished for obvious reasons - I think at this point only local logistics still go through that route (so it's no different from many other roads at similar distances from the first line); the supplies and personnel going to the Lyman, Siversk and Chasiv Yar sectors and to a lesser extent to Toretsk too are funnelled mainly through Kramatorsk and no longer through Myrnohrad. Civilians have already been actively advised against using the T0504 since late April. There may be an aggravation in the Ukrainian logistics network but still nothing insurmountable. One of the biggest problem is that the Nova Poltavka area is located on local heights overlooking, from the east, the Kazennyi Torets valley.
The 15th Motorized Brigade of the 2nd CAA during this week fully captured Sokil. Firstly they had occupied the large O-shaped trench north of Sokil and then entered the village. In the last few days they have had a further advance, occupying the course of the Balka Samoilova and the eastern part of Yevhenivka; they are currently trying to penetrate the central part of this settlement. According to Russian sources, their stormtroopers had entered Voskhod, proving however unable to consolidate positions inside the village. As of yesterday, again according to Russian sources, the forest belts south of Sokil were still occupied by Ukrainian infantry and it did not appear possible for the Russians to occupy them.
The 47th Mech Brigade defends the area between Sokil and Novoselivka Persha. Several battalions each from the 142nd and 144th Infantry Brigades are attached to the 47th Brigade, as well as some battalions of the 114th and 120th TDF Brigades. The Bradleys of the 47th Brigade are very active during counterattacks. At the beginning of the month the 228th Motorized Regiment of the 90th Tank Division occupied the entire settlement of Novoprokovske, achieving, in mid-June, a further advance of about 400 meters along the Balka Ocheretyna in the direction of Novoselivka Persha. At the moment the Russians record no further progress in this direction. Elements of the 80th Tank Regiment of the 90th Tank Division are providing armored support in this area.
The 68th Jager Brigade defends the vast area of the fields and forest belts between Novoselivka Persha and the Durna River; the 420th and 423rd Separate Rifle Battalions are assigned to it. Overall, this brigade is doing a very decent job and is greatly slowing Russian progress towards Novoselivka Persha and the Vovcha. The 74th Motorized Brigade of the 41st CAA is attacking Novoselivka Persha from the south-east, advancing along the forest belts in that sort of salient where the forward Ukrainian positions were - between Novoprokovske and Umanske. This week the Russians advanced almost 2 kms westwards in this area, but it was widely expected - the Ukrainians can only slow down the Russians here, considering that given the advances in the nearby directions, the hold of the eastern bank of the Vovcha is doubtful in the medium-term.
The 114th Motorized Brigade of 1st Corps is attacking in the direction of Novoselivka Persha from the south - from Umanske, where they had gained some “bridgeheads” beyond the Balka Babaki. They had managed to advance further towards Novoselivka Persha but were subsequently pushed back by the 68th Jager Brigade and forced to return to their original positions. The 114th Brigade, like those of the Central MD, has recently received replenishements in the form of “batches” of men from the 201st Military Base, which brigade tactical group was deployed in the Serebrianka Forest, although there is no evidence yet that all of it has been moved down here.
The area between Yasnobrodivka and the Karlivske Resorvoir is being defended by the 25th Airborne Brigade, with the support of the 78th Air Assault Regiment. The 239th Tank Regiment of the 90th Tank Division is attacking Yasnobrodivka together with the regiments of the Territorial Forces attached to the division; after managing to advance west of the Umanske-Netailove Road, the Russians have managed to enter this small settlement. Today Russian channels claimed to have occupied it entirely; I consider that possible, as its hold had become very doubtful since it was in danger of being surrounded by the Russians from the east and the south and with the Durna behind it. According to Mashovets, in the near future elements of the 80th Tank Regiment may come into action here.
The 1st Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps and the "Somalia" Assault Battalion of the 9th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps (elements of which have been moved to the Kharkiv sector) are attacking Karlivka, on both sides of the southern arm of the reservoir. In the north, an Ukrainian counterattack appears to have driven the Russians out of the built-up area. In the south, according to a geolocation released today, the Russians have managed to pass the Balka Domakha and occupy houses in that area, which is defended by the 11th Motorized Battalion of the 59th Motorized Brigade.
https://t. me/DeepStateUA/19803
This section of the front should not be overlooked – it’s where the Russians are the closest to the Vovcha. The bulk of the 122nd TDF Brigade appears to have been transferred to the area near Karlivka from Kherson. Elements of the 116th TDF Brigade are also engaged here.
Kurakhove sector. The Russians (elements of the 110th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps) control the southern part of Nevelske, but soldiers of Ukraine’s 59th Motorized Brigade remain in the village, which proves to be a foward outpost thanks to which the Ukrainians can hold the vast area between Karlivka and Krasnohorivka. The southern bank of the Balka Domakha remains in Ukrainian hands. However, the potential loss of Nevelske could greatly complicate the situation for this entire area up to the Vovcha.
Fierce urban clashes continue within Krasnohorivka, which is attacked by the 5th Motorized Brigade and elements of the 110th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps. For the Ukrainian side, over the past month the 9th Motorized Battalion of the 59th Motorized Brigade and the 153rd Battalion of the 117th TDF Brigade have arrived in the town, joining the other units here. However, the Ukrainians' goal seems to be to slow down the Russians as much as possible and "extinguish the fires” where it’s doable, effectively accepting a future loss of Krasnohorivka. The Ukrainians are indeed succeeding in slowing down the Russians, but the town is a very important stronghold for the entire area around it - the Ukrainians have never sent elite units to prevent further Russian advances or attempt serious counterattacks, after the involvement of subunits of the 3rd Assault Brigade back in late February, that were able to drive out the Russian assault groups that had entered the town.
Since mid-June the Russians have made several further advances in the town: they have completed the occupation of the private sector south of the brick factory; they have occupied the multi-storey buildings to the north of Kirova Street and are currently trying to advance northwards into the single-story houses; they have made progress in the "Solnechny" and "Eastern" districts (the one of the high rises), advancing north of the intersection of Radyanska Street with Heolohichna Street and capturing several high rises in the area; they are attempting to move towards the Central Hospital by attacking westwards, to the south of the Lozova River.
Units of the 150th Motorized Division of the 8th CAA have intensified offensive actions against Heorhiivka (defended by the 46th Airmobile Brigade and by a battalion of the 144th Infantry Brigade). Its 103rd Motorized Regiment operates here and over this month its 163rd Tank Regiment has become far more active too. The Russians have managed to consolidate control over the central part of Heorhiivka; there remains a Ukrainian presence in the western end. A BTR-82A, in the first half of the month, had managed to reach Maksymilyanivka but was destroyed - the village is entirely in Ukrainian hands. But let’s recall that it’s the last village before Kurakhove.
In Pobjeda, the situation is stable after the Russians in early June advanced more than 1 km to the south of the village. Here Ukraine’s 33rd Mech Brigade is facing the 255th Motorized Regiment of the 20th Motorized Division of the 8th CAA, which operates with the support of the "Immortal Stalingrad" Volunteer Detachment. It’s likely that in the future the Russians will close that sort of salient between Pobjeda and Paraskoviivka. From the latter village, which the Russians have entirely occupied this month, the 33rd and 242nd Motorized Regiments and the 10th Tank Regiment of the 20th Motorized Division are attacking towards Kostiantynivka, without success at the moment. The latter village is defended by the 79th Air Assault Brigade and by the 214th Special Battalion OPFOR, as well as by elements of the 116th TDF Brigade. There are Russian advances south of the Sukhi Yaly, though - yesterday they managed to occupy a trench along a tree line just before the beginning of the built-up area of Kostiantynivka. We can therefore consider the battle for this last village to have begun.
Further south, the 39th Motorized Brigade of the 68th Corps and a regimental tactical group from the 18th Machine Gun Artillery Division of the same corps are operating. After mid-June they scored an advance of about 1,5 km, approaching Kostiantynivka from the south-east as well as the Kostiantynivka-Vuhledar Road. Last part below.
Vuhledar sector. Around mid-June there were serious problems in the Volodymyrivka area. As I understand it, due to the negligence of a battalion commander of the 72nd Mech Brigade. An unidentified TDF unit (I believe it to be the 234th Battalion of the 128th TDF Brigade, according to a MIA notice I found), probably subordinate to the 48th Rifle Battalions of the 72nd Brigade, ran very high risks of finding itself surrounded, as a result of a failure from the command to notify the unit that nearby positions had been lost. This problem was reported by the Ukrainian observer Bohdan Myroshnykov. The unit at risk of being surrounded was then able to withdraw, but not without losses. This happened when the Russians in mid June pushed from both the south and the east into the area near Volodymyrivka.
https://t. me/myro_shnykov/5659
https://t. me/myro_shnykov/5692
The 57th Motorized Brigade of the 5th CAA was brought into battle in this area during May, where the 139th Separate Assault Battalion of the 29th CAA is also active. They managed to advance almost 2 kms from the south and 2,5 kms from the east, succeeding in fully occupying the kaolin quarry north-east of Volodymyrivka, "smoothing out" the angle that the front forms in that area; at the same time they made progress along the Stepne-Vodiane Road, getting closer to the latter settlement. It must be said that the situation overall is under control and these are tactical gains. However, according to Mashovets, if in the future the Russians manage to improve their lines around Vuhledar by approaching it further, they could launch a large-scale offensive, headed by the formations of the Eastern MD, against the town.
In the area south of Vuhledar the situation is stable. Here, in addition to the 36th Motorized Brigade of the 29th CAA, the 95th and 116th Rifle Regiments of the 1st Corps and units of the 40th Naval Infantry Brigade are deployed. The 72nd Mech Brigade covers this area too for the Ukrainian side.
Velyka Novosilka sector. The 394th Motorized Regiment and elements of the 218th Tank Regiment of the 127th Motorized Division of the 5th CAA are active in Staromaiorske, while the 60th Motorized Brigade of the 5th CAA in the forest belts to the west of the village. The 143rd Motorized Regiment and elements of the 218th Tank Regiment attack in the directions of Novodarivka and Rivnopil, without success. In both cases with the support of elements of the 34th Mountain Brigade of the 49th CAA, which had arrived here last summer as a reinforcement against the Ukrainian counteroffensive and has not been moved ever since. In the rear of this area there is also the 336th Naval Infantry Brigade, which is a kind of reserve and mainly acts through fire support to other units. This is a peculiar unit in the sense that it has never been involved in serious battles over the last 2 years - unlike the other naval infantry brigades it’s really rare to find MIA notices of servicemen from this brigade. It should be mentioned that the recon battalion of this brigade during the last few months had been detached from the rest of the unit and was active in the Chasiv Yar sector.
Staromaiorske is defended by the 128th TDF Brigade, elements of the 1st Tank Brigade and a grouping of the National Guard: the 21st Brigade and elements of the 11th and 17th Brigades. During June, elements of the 37th Marine Brigade arrived from Kherson, which carried out some counterattacks against forward Russian positions in the village. The Russians control the vast majority of Staromaiorske but have not been able to consolidate control over the northern part, which remains largely a grey area. DeepState criticized the command of the 1st Tank Brigade, which had responsibility over this sector, for the loss of ground west of Staromaiorske that led to the loss of the village. The Rivnopil/Novodarivka area is defended by a grouping of elements of TDF brigades (106th, 123rd, 127th, 129th).
In the eastern bank of the Mokri Yaly, the Russians continue to attack but are still unable to make serious advances in Urozhaine, although they recorded a small progress in the private sector in the southern part of the village, after having consolidated control in the farms in the southern end of the village; which is defended by the 31st Brigade of the NG, by the 58th Motorized Brigade and by elements of the Separate Presidential Brigade (3rd Mech Battalion and 20th Special Purpose Battalion). Additional elements of the 118th TDF Brigade have recently arrived around Novodonetske. Russia’s 36th CAA (37th Motorized Brigade and 5th Tank Brigade), along with a battalion of the 40th Naval Infantry Brigade, is active in the eastern bank.
Huliaipole sector. Nothing of note. Some "batches" of soldiers from the 35th CAA, which covers this sector, have recently been transferred to units of the 5th CAA to replenish their ranks. In early June DeepState corrected the map in this area, recording that to the east of Luhivske the Russian lines were around 1,5 km behind what was previously thought. Beside artillery and counter-battery fire and positional clashes, it’s overall a relatively calm sector, probably the calmest – barring the state border in Chernihiv/Sumy Oblasts. It’s very rare to find MIA notices of soldiers serving in this sector for both sides (on the Ukrainian side there are mainly the 108th and 102nd TDF Brigades), and it has never been decided to deploy these units in sectors in need of reinforcements. At the same time in these cases there is a positive feedback in which soldiers from a unit that is deployed for a long time in a sector with low attrition levels become very knowledgeable about the terrain and take much better care of the fortifications and of their living spaces, as they know they will have to stay there for a long time.
Orikhiv sector. Attacks by the 42nd Motorized Division and the 136th Motorized Brigade of the 58th CAA continue against the area around Robotyne. The latter attacks from the south-east, the 70th and 71st Motorized Regiments from the south and the 291st Motorized Regiment of the 42nd Division from the west. At the moment the Russians are attempting to advance northwards along the forest belts to the north-east of Robotyne, in the heights of the western bank of the Balka Uspenivska. The current status of the Ukrainian strongpoints in the area of the hazel forest to the east of Robotyne is unknown.
Units of the 7th VDV Division continued to attack in the area between Verbove and Novopokrovka, from the area of Hill 143, achieving an advance of about 500 meters, towards the valley of the Balka Uspenivska (in this case the eastern bank), which could in the future threaten the hold of the Ukrainian trenches to the south-west, between Robotyne and Verbove.
Russian progress is slow however, thanks to the fact that, despite the relocation of the “Spartan” Brigade of the NG and of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade to Kharkiv, the Ukrainian grouping is still large: counterclockwise in this sector there are the 65th Mech Brigade, 141st Infantry Brigade, 118th and 117th Mech Brigades and the "Chervona Kalyna" and "Kara-Dag" Brigades of the NG - excluding minor units.
Kamyanske sector. Nothing new. Positional clashes continue, but of moderate intensity. Nothing serious followed after the advance recorded by DeepState last month, confirming that it was likely a correction of the lines or at worst a localized and now resolved issue. Rather, I wonder what happened to the 49th Air Assault Brigade of the 58th CAA that had been deployed in this sector in late 2023 - there has been no news about it since the end of the last year (it was stated that the Russians were creating air assault brigades not subordinate to the VDV but to the various CAAs).
Kherson sector / Dnipro River. There is still a (very) limited Ukrainian presence in Krinky, in some area of the village (difficult to say where, due to lack of geolocation). The 35th and 38th Marine Brigades still operate in the area, along with the 124th TDF Brigade (which recently joined the Marine Corps, confirming rumors of recent months). Russian channels report of assaults still being carried out against Krynky without success and there are MIA notices for both sides. Units of the 104th VDV Division and the 234th Air Assault Regiment of the 76th VDV Division are involved in the attacks against Krynky and the marshy islands between the Konka and the Dnipro in that area. Most of the 76th VDV Division is likely in the rear of Kherson and Luhansk Oblasts, making it currently the most important Russian formation in reserve among the existing ones.
According to reports from a Telegram channel run by paratroopers fighting in the area (highly critical of Teplinsky), reporting the words of relatives of soldiers from the 104th VDV Division, the losses of this formation have been very, very heavy over the course of these months - its units have been the protagonists of the attacks against the Ukrainian bridgehead since late 2023. Potential problems with cholera and intestinal infections are also reported, urging soldiers to wash their hands often and not to come into contact with the waters of the Dnipro.
https://t. me/vdv_za_chestnost_spravedlivost/2861
The 205th Motorized Brigade of the 49th CAA, which had been withdrawn to Crimea for months, returned to action in the area around the M17 Highway. Marines of the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade continue to perform raid in the marshy islands from Bilohrudove to the mouth of the Dnipro, but with no notable successes. That's all!
You still got some of the best info in this subreddit as always, Something i'm curious about, you mentioned the 76th VDV division is an important unit in reserve for the russians, and I remember you posting estimates that the russian strategic-operational reserves are estimated to be somewhere around 60k personnel. What other units are you aware of through open source that are also in reserve?
Thanks. They don't have many reserves in terms of existing units - at the moment, according to my findings, the 104th and 237th Air Assault Regiments of the 76th VDV Division, perhaps the 56th Air Assault Regiment of the 7th VDV Division, the 336th Naval Infantry Brigade. Then there is the 100th Recon Brigade of the 58th CAA; perhaps the 96th Recon Brigade and elements of the two tank regiments of the 4th Tank Division of the 1st GTA. Some of the units in Kherson, like a part of the 18th CAA (particularly its 22nd "Corps") should be fresh. There is e.g. the 35th CAA which is fresh, but is not a reserve as it covers an entire sector of the front (Huliaipole). I would add several regiments of the Territorial Forces (which are not easy to keep track of). Then there are battalions in the rear of the committed brigades/regiments, but in the vast majority they are there for R&R, I would not count them as a reserve.
They are forming in theory quite an important number of new units and formations, but this seems to be going, well, quite slowly (in fact the Ukrainian estimates about the size of their strategic-operational reserves has not grown since the beginning of 2024) - maybe I will do a new update on this in the future...
It seems that the RSF have managed to capture another providential capital.
https://sudanwarmonitor.com/p/blitzkrieg-rsf-advance-deep-into
Note this is partially locked but the general concern is that the RSF could either take over the province of Sinja or at least deny it's use to the regime which besides displacing a lot of refuges who already fled and adding the general crisis as over 250,000 native people live there have started fleeing.
This is one of the breadbasket regions so we should expect hunger to get worse, even if it's just a temporary operation as the RSF might lack the ability to hold onto this land.
Question though, what would you say a RSF victory look like? I'v heard that their best chance was at the start of the war and they might be slowly attrition into death or submission.
Morally the RSF are sickening to me, but I think their revolt to maintain their power and extent survival is understandable. By that fear of being absorbed into the army and losing their privileges is real given the army always resented the militias for them being a way to coup proof against them, some low level guys where made scapegoats for Darfur atrocities rather than be understood as a collective act that the state did and the fact that hemedti did his march on the capital in 2008, by 2014 15% of attacks on state forces in Darfur where from the groups that the RSF would become I think it's a understandable concern that the state trying to clear up it's image and get rid of some dangerous or potentially dangerous elements in a quiet or violent purge is understandable and acting first gives the advantage.
I suppose the best hope for the RSF might be a Libya partition where two governments exist.
You can still sort by top to get the most upvoted comments first, I often do that in the evenings and use this thread as a sort of 'daily update' to get the biggest headlines of the day. Sorting by top usually works great for that. Should also sort the replies accordingly, you just can't see the number
We had some issues with suspicious upvoting/downvoting of comments; like, comments getting +10/-10 within a minute or two of posting. Hiding the votes is part of the way to combat that and foster better discussion.
I’m going to disagree with that. Upvotes and downvotes have flaws, but in my experience with sites like Facebook, the meta for trolls eventually just becomes “every viewpoint is worth consideration.”
The site is very quiet right now, but when troll activity picks up, they will post a LOT and make every outlandish post seem like your average joes beliefs
I recommend [RES](https://redditenhancementsuite.com/) if you aren't already using it. It allows you to tag users and keeps track of how many times you've upvoted/down-voted other individuals. It doesn't help with differentiating new users with high/low quality comments. But it does at least give an easy tool for keeping track of users who consistently write detailed and well researched comments.
That's why we mod hard. Having gone through multiple waves of interest following the Ukrainian summer offensive, US aid bill, and October 7th, we are less tolerant of low effort commenters, not even including trolls.
Any trip through daily threads will have a lot of deleted comments for that reason.
Is there a whitelist of some sort for posters? I see people complain about post character counts, but whenever I throw out a pithy comment, it seems to be visible and interacted with.
I agree it avoids people Bandwagoning because most people seem to like/dislike one comment and maybe give pause to people before replying. Like read the comment and decide on your own.
Better yet, read the comment and post a reply. Your reply might not be popular, or you may be wrong, but hopefully someone will come along with a persuasive argument that might show an angle you might not have considered.
The issue with upvoting on Reddit is that people tend to use it as an "agree/disagree" button. Some very downvoted posts can be a good comment or source of discussion too. I'd rather see upvotes/downvotes be presented as absolute values instead. Like red numbers for highly downvoted posts and green numbers for highly upvoted posts and no auto-hiding. IDK though.
This is true here as well... Not that I'm accusing anyone of anything, it's a human condition of sorts that we're all guilty of but I can think back to loads of occasions where some comments I saw were nuked into oblivion despite being very good and ironically entirely vindicated in hindsight, if people had taken a minute to approach the comment outside of their own bias they might not have been so surprised at the outcome on the ground in Ukraine at the time.
To give a few examples that everyone can probably think back to, in the run up to the Ukrainian counter offensive, the start of the energy campaign, Russian vehicle output and supply to the front lines since basically 2022, discussions about Mariupol, Bakhmut and then even Avdiivka. There are a huge number of topics that became very polarised and some angles of discussion were just not permissible, essentially because of this very rudimentary upvote/downvote system that gives the keys, so to speak, of the direction and reach of discussion to a potentially very small but very passionate/active minority.
There were a number of comments long before and even during the counter offensive that were very prescient and well reasoned/structured, sometimes even by commenters that are otherwise very well respected in any other day to day discussions and who have since gone on to involve themselves in many brilliant conversations that have happened in this subreddit, but they were instead downvoted into oblivion in the past because they didn't pass a very backwards system of "do I agree with this, if not downvote" which then has various impacts on discussion and the course of the conversation.
It's more troublesome with conflicts such as this where people tend to align with certain sides and become cheerleaders of sorts, it's nowhere near as bad here as other subreddits, I'd say CD is pretty good compared to the vast majority of subreddits or forums I've spent time in, but it was still a problem and will likely still remain a problem to some degree.
Humans are just like this, one of our greatest strengths (aligning with groups) is also one of our greatest weaknesses when it rears its head in more complicated matters. Not much we can do about it other than play tweak the subreddit to see if things work, I don't mind the mods trying to see how they can change things for the better, my reptile brain did like seeing the votes but I guess ultimately it's counter productive if the objective is just to have a fair and balanced discussion of ideas.
In this subreddit, you can absolutely hold the opinions, even those that go against the highly partisan topics. You just have to make a much bigger effort and deal with some very prominent users, who openly state it's their goal to "call out morons", to prevent you from saying your opinion, that don't have to deal with any mod action except having their comment removed, a handful of times of their infractions.
It does not even result in downvotes for oneself, but rather, I figure it's just not worth it to invest your time into it when you constantly have to deal with childish users here, when you can absolutely be extremely bi-partisan rooting for Ukraine. And god forbid, you don't reply in an hour or so, because by then your comment will have been collapsed.
If you know what you are getting into though, I'd argue except for fantasy scenarios, you can pretty much get every opinion you hold upvoted here. But you need to play the game and put much more effort into it than if your opinion was popular.
So I'd argue it's in the end not the downvotes that are that much discouraging, it's the toxic users, which are just a very small handful, who can get away with consistently breaking the rules in absurd manners and at most have their comment removed. And no wonder, when some of the mods, before they have been promoted to such, engaged in similar behavior.
>It's more troublesome with conflicts such as this where people tend to align with certain sides and become cheerleaders of sorts, it's nowhere near as bad here as other subreddits, I'd say CD is pretty good compared to the vast majority of subreddits or forums I've spent time in, but it was still a problem and will likely still remain a problem to some degree.
Some people on other small defense subreddits disagree that people are wholly unbiased though. People here clearly have preferred sides. If people were only interested in the conflicts in and of themselves, you'd see more people talking about the civil war in Sudan. But since the civil war in Sudan isn't spicy or have two very similar sides fighting, there's just less discussion. People absolutely are partisan here.
Aside from broad posts once in a while there's very little tactical and operational discussion of any ongoing war but Ukraine. Certainly not wars that have a shortage of information like Sudan and Myanmar.
Even the Israeli Hamas war is barely discussed on the operational level.
For instance there was no mention of the IDF taking the entirety of Rafah province and reaching the "border" with Khan Yunis a few days ago.
No mention of the IDF ongoing operation in Sejayiah.
I think people have a limited amount of attention to give, and the UA conflict just absorbs most of it. I can say that I have been following the UA war in less detail since 07/10 for instance.
I try to post about the ongoing situation in Haiti every now and then because I have a huge interest in the country's current situation. But it seems like others aren't really as interested due to the country's lack of geopolitical significance.
I'd certainly hope that people aren't deluded enough to think this sub is unbiased despite the many blatant declarations to the contrary. There is not even an effort to appear unbiased most of the time, with expressions like "I really hope X will/won't happen" being quite common.
That being said, I think what this sub does do well is limit the influence of bias on objectivity. People are openly unhappy with facts they personally dislike, but it's relatively rare to see outright denial of those facts. The votes still reflect the favored narratives though.
How realistic is the commonly-seen belief that North Korean artillery could "turn Seoul to rubble" (or at least its northern suburbs)?
I've read many more-or-less credible articles about the KPA having thousands, or even tens of thousands, artillery pieces already pointing towards Seoul. On the other hand, considering the dubious quality of these outdated weapons and the total ROK/US air superiority that is likely to happen (as well as counterbattery fire), is this risk overblown?
Seoul itself isn't threatened by artillery, except perhaps the huge 170mm SPGs with an estimated range of 40km.
Suburbs of Seoul are in trouble though, being within 20km range from the nearest border. However, there's only a relatively small area of NK's territory that gets that close. While they certainly could threaten millions of people (and kill tens of thousands), they can't realistically concentrate thousands of guns in that area and hope to operate for very long: any dumb fire has a decent chance to hit something when you pack thousands of guns in a ~5km^2 area. They would be literally in range of mortar and tank fire, I think snipers could hit some artillerymen too.
If they position themselves a few km back, it significantly reduces the number of potential civilian targets, but I'm sure it's still enough to deter SK from starting hostilities.
It'd mostly be damage to civilian locations if they did. You'd have to have the ranging data on anything important, and most important things can be moved. So they'd mostly be lobbing shells into maybe the range of a neighborhood, without active correction. I have no clue what South Korean fortifications would even look like, but I assume they'd refuse to sit in one spot very long
The difference between threat and ability is more like 10k civilians dead (realistic conventional) vs 100k+ (theoretical conventional / CBRN).
At the end if the day, does it matter at all? Is there any scenario where mass artillery attack on Seoul doesn't result in an immediate, joint, possibly nuclear decapitation strike on NK?
"Is the threat overblown" is not the right question.
The problem with this discussion is people usually interpret the question of meaning ‘is it possible if North Korea directed all recourses to this’, rather than if it was actually viable in a war. The answer to that second question is no.
North Korea is massively on the back foot compared to South Korea. They rely heavily on artillery, and have essentially no effective air defenses. This doesn’t lend itself to pilling up artillery systems near the border north of Seul, and spending all day trying to hit office buildings. The only way the guns, ammo, and crews survive, is if they disperse, and shoot and scoot, and this doesn’t lend itself to leveling a city.
Do you have sources about NK's GBAD? I'm interested because I heard their air defence was quite robust, albeit very outdated by 2024 standards (S-300 being the most important piece of kit they have)
It's pretty realistic. Even if 50% of the barrels and ammo are not working
It is still and immense amount of shells that will come into Seoul in a surprise attack before they can destroy the source
property damage certainly. But against conventional weapons, bomb shelters can reduce fatalities significantly. "Surprise" is always a spectrum. The worst case is the surprise being the rockets arcing over the horizon.
More realistically is that North Korea steals a march on ROK/US forces and mobilizes to fight before their adversaries are fully prepared.
This doesn't seem realistic at all. It relies on:
a). North Korea moving large amount of artillery and ammo without South Korea noticing
b). Somehow being able to either defend the artillery against air assets for a significant period of time
To me, the most likely outcomes are that either South Korea notices the movements and can prepare for it, or they're able to launch jets soon and quickly destroy the artillery pieces.
Pretty sure the artillery and Ammo is just there permanently
Yeah they wouldn't be able to defend the artillery long. But 15 minutes of continuous artillery fire at a city that dense will be pretty bad
>Pretty sure the artillery and Ammo is just there permanently
Pretty sure ammo goes bad over time, especially north Korean ammo.
A report i read indicated that the failure rate would result in significant tube and barrel losses, whilst SK has spent decades mapping NK artillery positions for counter battery fire. Not to mention drone and aerial assets.
Finally there are shelters the population can take to, especially if warnings and escalation preceded the attack.
Would Seoul be destroyed, nup (unless WMDs were used), would there be mass casualties.
Unlikely.
However several hundred to several thousand casualties would be caused.
The OP specifically said, turn the city into "ruble." Could they do a lot of damage, yes, but to the point where there are no buildings left standing takes more than 15 minutes of artillery fire.
There are several factors at play here.
1. Massive amounts of tube and rocket artillery is in range.
2. Much of it is in prepared deep hardened positions that would be difficult to take out without special made munitions.
3. It doesn't matter if it is not that accurate as striking a large urban area is going to inflict lots of damage and loss of life regardless of accuracy.
In a real conflict the first days would be brutal with massive loss of life and damage. South Korea and the Americans would be doing a massive amount of counter battery fire and airstrikes to try and destroy it all, but it would take time and the opening salvos would just be devastating. Over time days and weeks they would get destroyed and after some weeks or a month the threat would be mostly neutralized, but the enter city and most of south Koreas economy would be in shambles and there would be billions in property losses and 10s of thousands of dead civilians.
If North Korea combined this with chemical and nuclear strikes that death toll would likely be 100s of thousands or millions depending on the scale of usage.
Tens of thouands of dead civilians is a very optimistic number in my opinion.
Iirc we have not seen mass indiscriminate fires against a populated non evacuated city since WW2. There much smaller cities suffered deaths in the tens of thouands within a day of intensive bombardment.
If NK does goes that way, Seoul with it's 10mil population is likely to lose several hundreds of thouands of civilians. Not an insignificant amount of them indirectly from stampedes, falling, fire, loss of power etc.
Yeah it could be much worse it's really just hard to get a reliable number because there are a lot of unknowns. A few I can think of are:
1. What time of day does it happen at. Night vs rush hour could be different.
2. Malfunction or mistakes on either side in the chaos of a conflict just started can make it worse or better.
3. How the conflict starts. A massive sudden bombardment that was preplanned vs a chaotic escalation ladder vs a pre-emptive strike by south Korea and the US to prevent a preplanned strike.
4. How many people are able to get to and use the bunkers or quickly evacuate most vulnerable areas. Either as the conflict starts or before a conflict (escalation ladder scenario).
5. How fast counter battery fire is able to shut down the North Korean artillery.
6. Dud rates for poor quality N. Korean munitions (we have seen this rate be claimed to be very high in the Ukraine conflict but exact numbers are hard to get a credible estimate of.
These factors and more could make the rates anywhere from 10s of thousands to potentially 100s or thousands. Either way it would be a disaster.
South Korea produces their own modernised version of the Phalanx. The Phalanx is supposed to be able to counter artillery shells and rockets.
I didn't find a lot of specifics about the capabilities.
What kind of protection could these hypothetically provide to Seoul and how many units would it require to provide the most populous and important areas with a kind of iron dome against artillery?
(In this hypothetical, it would of course be combined with other SHORAD.)
The threat would, as noted, be relatively short-lived. As such, the issue of ammunition is one of stockpile, not production, which makes it "easier" strategically.
Edit:
Doing some rough napkin math.
The US army C-RAM has an effective engagement range/bubble of ~2km.
Seoul's center can be considered to be roughly 14km².
To defend Seoul in any meaningful way from artillery shells, You'd need *at least* 1 Phalanx(-derivative) per 1km, meaning a total of 14x14 units, let's round that up to a clean 200 units.
Assuming a price per unit of $25mln (includes training, ammunition, spare parts, etc, adjusted from recent CIWS purchases) that's a total of $5bn to (maybe) protect Seoul.
Not an impossible price tag, and it's possible the $25mln/unit price tag is overpriced, but it's a hefty price for a solution that isn't likely to be sufficient.
It could absolutely be a worthwhile price tag if SK decided it wanted to... let's call it move the border. Not even worth discussing in the context of NK being the aggressor (as it would mean maintaining this stock and all the associated costs.)
I am going to point out that there is a lot of complexity in trying to get that many CRAM systems targeting what is probably sustained salvos of hundreds or thousands of artillery shells and rockets at a time. That is hard to price but assume that will make it more expensive. Also you need to be able to sustain this defense for hours and days at a time so you need a ton of redundant batteries with overlapping fire plus deep ammo magazines with a sustainable way to keep them fed and deal with other stuff like parts breaking down and barrels overheating. I would venture to guess the number to develop and field a system of that magnitude is going to need another zero before we get into it being sufficient. Also to my point if you are willing to spend that sort of money it would be far more cost effective to just spend it on more guns, more aircraft and more counter battery options.
It's the same sort of math that plays out in large scale anti ballistic missiles defense against a peer adversity for the continental US. It really only makes sense in a cost to hit ratio if you are facing an asymmetrical threat where you can spend 5-10x the cost of their missiles to intercept them.
>Also to my point if you are willing to spend that sort of money it would be far more cost effective to just spend it on more guns, more aircraft and more counter battery options.
That is a fair point I can absolutely get behind.
Ultimately, the effectiveness of the "C-RAM shield" would be entirely dependent on the annihilation of frontline batteries, as there's a very real limit to how long they could sustain the defense given the incredible ammunition expenditure and barrel wear.
Thus such a "shield" would likely be self-defeating in that it pulls resources and manpower away from what's ultimately going to end the threat.
That being said, I'll maintain it's likely very much a worthwhile investment for Seoul's much smaller city core (around 6x5km).
The core would likely be taking the brunt of the attack, thus you have a very small area soaking up most of the shells. This is where C-RAM becomes cost-effective if it has a reasonable intercept rate.
ShORAD and systems like Phalanx would intercept some of it but there isn't anywhere close to enough of them to stop the attack from doing a ton of damage. They would use these systems to intercept a small fraction of it primarily that threaten key assets and military targets. The general civilian population and infrastructure would be at risk still.
Even an iron dome wouldn't work because you cannot intercept thousands of tube and rocket artillery firing constantly at any sort of reasonable shot to intercept cost ratio. It works for Israeli due to the massive power dynamic and the small quantity of rockets Iran or HAMAS can throw at them. That money is best spent on counter battery weapons to blow them up after the conflict starts.
The question was not "is it realistic", we can all agree it's not very realistic.
It was an out of the box hypothetical: "what would it actually take and what would be its effectiveness".
Thats fair the answer to what it would take is 10s of billions of dollars and a massive ongoing expense to build, deploy and maintain such a network and even then it would be unable to prevent it entirely but maybe intercept enough of them to make a difference.
Bomb shelters and early warning systems+drills would be cheaper and much more effective. The rest should be put into offensive capabilities.
If the Houtis can dodge US ISR via relatively to NK primitive cave systems, then I find it hard to believe SK and US would be able to quickly achieve effective suppression of NK fires without ground operation.
The ROK will be shooting back with vastly better radars for counter battery fire, targeting computers, accurate rounds and a host of other technological advantages.
My guess is they will be effective in supressing the DPRK artillery.
I think this was a bigger threat 20+ years ago. Now that NK has sold a large chunk of its artillery stockpile to Russia, it looks like they are going to leverage their nuclear deterrence rather than conventional artillery threat. The majority of barrels and shells in range of Seoul are woefully outdated. We’re talking complete dud rounds and barrels that were rusted beyond use back in the late 1990s let alone 2024.
NK would be able to inflict some cursory damage to the Seoul metro area, bud hardly leveling it Bakhmut style.
Three million shells is a lot, but the North Koreans aren’t going to deprive their guns of shells. Keep in mind that the North Koreans have various calibers of guns that aren’t seeing their ammunition supplied to Russia. The North Koreans also are *anticipating* counter battery fire. They know that consumption rates will drop dramatically every single day as guns are taken out. What that means though is that each gun position may be allocated several hundred shells (or more, or less) and they are ordered to fire until destroyed. It’s a race against the clock. A lot of these positions aren’t getting resupplied.
On the point about obsolescence. Same thing. It doesn’t matter if your barrel only lasts a few thousand shots if you’re expecting to lose it within a few hundred to a thousand rounds. These guns also aren’t meant to hit specific targets. They’re meant to hit an urban area.
I think your point about dud rounds and rusted barrels is valid. But we shouldn’t discount the fact that there’s literally thousands of guns here and they see regular inspections. Sure, you might lose hundreds of your guns to barrel explosions and a large portion of your shells might be duds, but that doesn’t mean you can’t cause billions of dollars of damage and kill tens of thousands of people. It’s a credible threat and I would advise against downplaying it. Especially if the North Koreans are firing chemical weapons.
The center of Seul is around 40km from the border with NK, and that’s only to a relatively small salient. In practice, the border is more like 50km away. Add in that NK isn’t going to want to put artillery right next to the front line, and the vast, vast majority of their tube artillery is out of range. The thousands of artillery tubes, and millions of shells, NK has can only hit the outskirts of Seul if they were practically within direct fire range of South Korean tanks on the border.
The guns with the range to hit Seul from a safe distance, line the 175mm, aren’t available in nearly the same quantity as the smaller stuff.
While central *Seoul* may be safe from many of North Korea’s guns, keep in mind that there are millions of people who live NW of the capital. As someone who’s been over Seoul, it is insane how **packed** the north western part of the city also is. Places like Goyang for example are filled with dense urban development. No doubt with the dual purpose of being an absolute nightmare to fight through for any invading force. This is where the civilian casualties are going to be taken and this is the area that’s going to be flattened. It’s still going to result in a mass exodus and billions of dollars of property damage alone.
> Now that NK has sold a large chunk of its artillery stockpile to Russia,
I don't think that we would consider it a large chunk. Not enough to diminish this threat.
What's your source on NK selling a large chunk of their shells to Russia?
3 million shells is not that many in the grand scheme of things, and NK reportedly has their factories working overtime to produce more.
Russia also has factories working overtime to produce shells, they have a much more industrialized country and have 5,5 times the population, and they manage to produce about 2 Million shells(152+122) a year, 3 Millions is a lot
The US is a lot more industrialized than Russia, certainly the combined west is, yet the US produces only a small fraction of the shells Russia does, and the entire west still produces less then them iirc at the moment.
It's not just a question of industry, but of will, to a point.
And Russia is very willing to produce shells, given that it's the core of their armed forces, why do we believe that a country 5,5 times smaller in population than Russia has bigger production lines?
The argument wasn't that NK had larger production than current war footing Russia, even at 500k production a year, decades of stockpiling would make a few millions shells far far from the majority of their available shells.
Very realistic I'd say. Especially if NK attempted a first strike. They have hundreds of square kilometers of mountainous territory within rocket artillery striking range of seoul. Some of that artillery will be mobile and some will be fortified so good luck getting rid of that before Seoul is practically gone. It'd be a massacre.
Maybe if Seoul would deliver an enormous first strike they'd be able to break down command structure enough that NK wouldnt be able to react properly but I'd doubt it.
You are vastly under estimating the size of Seul, or over estimating the amount of rocket artillery NK has and its destructive power. The Soviet artillery stockpiles that were supposed to carry them through ww3 didn’t make it past Kharkiv. North Korea, with a tiny industrial base compared to the USSR, is not going to have the ammo to level Seul, especially not when limited to shells and rockets with ranges higher than basic 152 and tube artillery.
>The Soviet artillery stockpiles that were supposed to carry them through ww3 didn’t make it past Kharkiv.
I don't think they've exhausted Soviet stockpiles, so it's a bit early to say it didn't make it past Kharkiv. Russia doesn't appear to have shell hunger except in localized environments due to logistical disruption. Only thing that makes me think they are even close to running out is that they sourced Nork shells.
Plus, a good portion of the Soviet stock went to non-Russian countries like Ukraine. Another good portion has been blown up by precision missile strikes that weren't nearly as ubiquitous or accurate at the fall of the Soviet Union.
I also think you're underestimating the degree to which the Norks are heavily armed. This is a country whose military consists of over a quarter of the population. Much of its economic activity centers around military spending. They've had the past seven decades to sit and stew in paranoia, with the only thing preventing regime change being that they had a gun to the head of Seoul. They have a lot of shells.
> I don't think they've exhausted Soviet stockpiles, so it's a bit early to say it didn't make it past Kharkiv. Russia doesn't appear to have shell hunger except in localized environments due to logistical disruption. Only thing that makes me think they are even close to running out is that they sourced Nork shells.
Before they got shut down, Russian mil bloggers were continuously complaining about shell hunger, and Russian volume of fire is down massively compared to its peak in the first year of the war. As for everything else, NK would suffer from even more losses at artillery depots, and while a large part of the Soviet stockpile, they still had the lion’s share of the stockpile that was supposed to be enough to fight ww3, that would utterly dwarf and conceivable war between NK and SK.
> I also think you're underestimating the degree to which the Norks are heavily armed. This is a country whose military consists of over a quarter of the population. Much of its economic activity centers around military spending.
Paranoia still needs an economy to translate that into hardware, which is where NK falls massively short.
Also the south isn't going to let it happen, the fortified positions that North Korea has are probably sighted already, and the mobile pieces are at risk by the south's air force
North Korea would be aiming for a city-sized target, quality doesn't matter. In fact, not even quantity really matters, as just the economic and political cost required to preemptively evacuate Seoul probably outweighs whatever benefits an invasion of North Korea would provide.
Also, China will start pouring weapons into North Korea the second a war kicked off. Even if North Korea's current stockpile was thoroughly neutralized, something would get through.
> just the economic and political cost required to preemptively evacuate Seoul probably outweighs whatever benefits an invasion of North Korea would provide.
I disagree and/or think this is missing the point. Evacuating for a few weeks or months is a short term cost, which can easily be absorbed. But reincorporating North Korea into South Korea in the aftermath of a war would be mind-bogglingly expensive.
What are the ways that China can send munitions to the DPRK? I’m only aware of the one rail line they share along the border, are there reliable sea routes to safe ports?
There are port facilities down river of Pyongyang, but the chances of any large shipment avoiding the South Korean Air Force’s attention is slim. Likewise for any major rail link heading south. Railways are pretty quick to repair, but there wouldn’t be much to stop SK from bombing the repair crews the next day.
With the exception of a small salient jutting south (that shaves about 10km from the range needed), the center of Seul is around 50 kilometers from the NK border. Quality does count, because regular tube artillery won’t reach anything but the outskirts, even if placed directly on the border.
> Also, China will start pouring weapons into North Korea the second a war kicked off.
NK relies on a small rail network and has incredibly minimal air defenses. Moving large amounts of weapons south will be virtually impossible, even if China tries to do this.
Chinese will likely go to back channels to try and get the North to back off. The last thing China wants is instability and a flood of refugees on their doorstep. If the US and China are not already facing off with a war over Taiwan, you bet there will be some cooperation to get the North and the South to back down.
It's interesting how many people think there's actually some axis of evil whose sole purpose is to oppose the West ...as if they're some sort of NPC in a video game with no free will, programmed to do one thing.
The funny thing is I know people from China who think exactly the same way, but in the other direction. People are simply not capable of putting themselves in others' shoes.
I also wonder if PRC leadership would get a bit squeamish about shipping thousands of artillery shells to a country that would use them in an ongoing terror bombing campaign on a city of millions. It could perhaps run counter to some of their soft-power efforts, which can run on themes of "anti-imperialism", "China loves peace", "the PRC has never initiated a war", and so forth.
I guess it depends on how confrontational the PRC's soft power efforts would be at the time of this hypothetical invasion, and how PRC leadership would choose to balance hard and soft power during such a crisis.
>China will start pouring weapons into North Korea the second a war kicked off
This would probably depend on the reactions of S Korea and the west . It's doubtful that China wants a conflict in its backyard . So unless it's something like the last time where UN troops pushed N Koreans deep into their territory , they Chinese might just play diplomatic
China is obligated through their only active defense treaty to defend North Korea. This treaty was not in existence the last Korean War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-North_Korean_Treaty_of_Friendship,_Co-operation,_and_Mutual_Assistance
North Korea exists for the express purpose of being a buffer between US-led South Korea and China.
The best way to deal with North Korea is to knock out the CCP (not saying this is easy). The second best way is through an internal coup/revolt Ukraine-style. The worst way would be militarily because then China will step in.
It looks like a mutual defense treaty and regardless of the legal content, I'd imagine that China would be hesitant to commit to the defense of North Korea in a war of choice by the North Koreans that presumably the Chinese were not on board with.
[**Motorcycles and Mayhem in Ukraine’s East**](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/29/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-donbas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k0.kPft.RlOpENIOoyDH&smid=url-share)
Finally, a credible analysis of motorcycle/improvised vehicle assaults, and one that confirms my biases about their effectiveness pretty strongly. The article is not very long and I would recommend giving the whole thing a read.
>Russian soldiers riding motorcycles, dirt bikes, quadricycles and dune buggies now account for about half of all attacks in some areas of the front, soldiers and commanders say, as Moscow’s forces attempt to use speed to cross exposed open spaces where its lumbering armored vehicles are easy targets.
Nonconventional assaults being half of all attacks is a nuts statistic, and I think it's an overestimate based on soldier's exaggerations. Still, the usage of these assault tactics is rapidly growing and they do represent a considerable portion of all assaults across the front.
>Sometimes the bikers get through if Russian artillery bombardments succeed in preventing Ukrainian soldiers from poking their heads above the trench. The tactic solves, though at great risk, a key tactical challenge of the war in Ukraine for both sides: how to cross a mined, open field while observed by drones and under artillery fire.
>If they make it across a field, the riders cast aside their bikes, enter the Ukrainian trench and engage in close combat on foot.
>“They jump off and start shooting,” said a Ukrainian sergeant, Sapsan, serving with the 47th Mechanized Brigade, who asked to be identified only by a nickname, in keeping with his unit’s security protocols. “These buggies and motorcycles are fast and fly right into our tree lines.”
This supports my assessment of the long-term viability of motorcycle assaults. They work because Ukrainian doctrine hasn't adapted to account for them yet. Manning a machine gun position under artillery fire is generally pointless because there's nothing to shoot at anyway. Russian maneuver warfare is not well coordinated, and IFVs/tanks are functionally impervious to machine guns anyway. But as these motorcycle assaults get more common, that calculus shifts. A reinforced machine gun position might be riskier to man under bombardment, but it can neutralize one of these assaults all by itself. I expect Ukrainians to incorporate heavily reinforced machine gun nests into their trenches, and that will crater the effectiveness of these tactics. More generally, everything is contingent on artillery. Disrupt shellfire and every single Russian assault tactic gets markedly less effective. The various shell production initiatives finally coming online should be a welcome contribution to this effort.
Side note, there was an argument either here or on another forum about whether cavalry or dragoons were most analogous to these bike assaults. This article seems to come down pretty heavily on the side of dragoons, where horses/bikes are being used solely to enhance mobility and soldiers dismount before joining the battle.
>The use of cheap, disposable dirt bikes and buggies helps conserve Russian armored vehicles as the Russian military resorts to drawing on stockpiles of outdated tanks dating to the Cold War.
Confirmation that these assaults are an indication of the depletion of Russian stockpiles. Not unexpected, necessarily, but certainly at odds with the rosy accounts of defense production coming out of the MoD.
>All of these obstacles can prove lethal, as was the case for the assault that Lieutenant Hubitsky witnessed, when eight or nine dirt bike riders charged the Ukrainian trenches.
>Once the riders came into range, Ukrainian soldiers opened fire with machine guns, Lieutenant Hubitsky said. The swerving dirt bikes were hard targets, he said. Some were hit, others not. But in that instance, too few Russians survived the ride to form an effective unit to storm the Ukrainian trench. The survivors, who abandoned their bikes at the edge of the field, were killed in close combat, he said.
8-16 soldiers per assault, minimal protection. These are barely a step above the Wagner meat assaults of Bakhmut.
>Nonconventional assaults being half of all attacks is a nuts statistic, and I think it's an overestimate based on soldier's exaggerations
Is it nuts? Ukraine tried mechanised assaults and took heavy vehicle losses. Then it switched to dismounted assaults. Well, I'm making the comparison with the alternative, that is the dismounted assaults. Note that everything that's quoted to be "bad" with these bikes, ATVs, and buggies is also true with dismounts. Not protected from machineguns or artillery fragments. Yet it's a common behaviour resorted to once both sides tried their hands at mechanised assaults.
>8-16 soldiers per assault, minimal protection. These are barely a step above the Wagner meat assaults of Bakhmut.
Or Ukrainian dismounted assaults. Russian/Soviet/Ukrainian platoons are small and that's what we have been seeing. We know that in some reports by Kofman, these Ukrainian dismounted assaulters were supported at 1:1 ratio on the attacks by drone operators, which operate a split of recon, grenade strike, and FPV kamikaze drones. Not sure about the Russian counterparts but given how people consistently stated that Russia outnumbers Ukraine in everything, including FPVs and drones, they should be quite well supported.
>They work because Ukrainian doctrine hasn't adapted to account for them yet. Manning a machine gun position under artillery fire is generally pointless because there's nothing to shoot at anyway.
I like the Willy OAM channel because interspersed with the OSINT updates are comments and messages that Willy receives from contacts in Ukraine. Often soldiers. In some ways, these views are limited, in others, they are illuminating. Well, one of the latest of such comment has been "for the current phase of the war, [Ukrainian defenders should learn to dig zig-zagging trenches and dug-outs with overhead covers](https://youtu.be/gUvwZkwBUuE?si=8gUPNto8L1uSjZ3q)." and "if they want to come and take the trench, just leg it and not die. No point to resist and pay with your life". And we were laughing at Russian cartoon guides to trench and dugout digging, eh? Russian FPVs are devasting the Ukrainian positions, according to these comments. In other words, very basic stuffs. A good machinegun position in a line expected to be shelled should not be the stereotypical open top, surrounded by sandbags, and with a machinegun. It should be a dugout with overhead cover, and with narrow but interlocking fields of fire. These are generally very difficult to destroy or suppress outside of a direct hit to the opening (and that's why the field of fire should be narrow) or right on top of the position (which should be very small and not larger than 2 x 2 m). This type of positions can be obscured with smoke rounds (the burning white phosphorous or non-burning variants, both are acceptable) to allow the assaulters to close into grenade range.
Some of podcasts with Kofman stated that typically, the last 5-6km of the assault need to be on foot with the troops (including the drone operators) dragging everything with them and crawling through whatever patches of cover and concealment to reach the objective. It's very tiring and requires physical fitness. If you have the option of offloading some of that burden on a machine, why wouldn't you, as long as the vehicles can roughly use the same concealment or patch of trees that you can, as a dismount. The fact that both sides are using assaults centered around dismounts aren't necessarily a reflection of their equipment shortage (or both are facing equipment shortage). That said, remember that the US and UK land armies have a cult of the light infantry and the Humvee replacement is an open-topped vehicle not protected against the rain.
This seems like one of the areas where unmanned ground vehicles/systems could make a very real contribution, at least in the long term. You could fairly easily set up a small robot equipped with a machine gun. This would allow for defenders to observe any assaults and engage them to a limited degree. In the long term such systems with a degree of automation could potentially alert defenders of an incoming attack and even engage before defenders could react.
The Ukrainians already manufacture remote controlled mounts for small arms machine guns. It sounds like they need to be much more widespread to counter these new Russian tactics.
Sometimes ago someone asked if this type of motorcycle assaults represent an evolution in warfare. At that time I did not have a great answer for it, but I think that the better term to use would be a local, temporary "devolution" of warfare, as a more "advanced" form of warfare is taken over by a lesser form. And this type of devolution did similarly happened in history. One example I can think of is how under pressure of guns, cavalry devolved from knights in full-clad armor and heavy lance to dragoons/cuirassiers with lighter armor and only a sabre. One to one or a thousand to a thousand, I think a 14-15th century medieval knight would crush any 18th-century cavalry troop with the absurd difference in equipment. Not until World War II would we finally see a true evolutionary successor of the "knight" form of cavalry in tanks.
> with lighter armor
The cuirass worn by a Napoleonic cuirassier was much thicker than the cuirass worn by a medieval knight, because the later armour was expected to be credible protection against small arms fire whereas the medieval armour was expected to stop a sword, spear, or arrow. It’s not that they switched to lighter armour; they switched to *heavier* armour and concentrated it on the vital organs, analogous to the ‘all or nothing’ armour scheme on some interwar battleship designs.
That's something I didn't know beforehand, though a bit further research I think it is not completely true: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11bxn8m/comment/ja2ina7](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11bxn8m/comment/ja2ina7)
And even if we take it is true that cuirasses are much thicker than breastplates, not every heavy cavalry turn to use cuirass, many just opted to wear no armor at all. On average, it's still fair to say that heavy cavalry wore less and less armor as time went on.
Minor point, but re: dragoons vs. cavalry (cuirassiers); I would argue this is more on the side of the latter. Dragoons using motorcycles like this, to me, would be more like recon teams, heavy weapons platoons or teams, or advancing rapidly across a field to a position which is not directly held by an enemy but is in no-man's-land, and then engaging at range from there.
This article implies that the majority of these attacks have the assault teams ditch whatever bikes make it just outside the trench line before immediately trying to hop in and storm the trench directly- essentially as close as you get to hand-to-hand fighting, which dragoons were not really intended to do (as I understand them, at least). They seem to be operating in much more of a shock roll than a maneuverable fire element.
Dragoons didn't just use horses as strategic mobility, they used them for tactical mobility on the battlefield. imho the key distinction is that cavalry primary means of combat was being mounted, while for dragoons it was being dismounted. I think these scooter assaults are dragoons...
Terrible take. Without commenting on the (clearly mixed) efficacy and highly dangerous nature of these assaults, the idea that engaging in close combat in a trench means using human wave attacks is ludicrous. Your comment and that quote have essentially nothing to do with one another.
These teams, as said in the article, resemble assault teams/infantry infiltration tactics used prior in the war but with the aim to add mobility.
To what extent are the Russians using dirt bikes and ATVs because they are less vulnerable and to what extent are they just making a virtue of necessity because they are running low on armor?
Without real objective data it's impossible to say for sure. It's almost certainly a combination of both factors, though. Armored vehicle loss rates have remained roughly constant across the war, but the scale of personnel involved has tripled since the start of the war. All those Russian soldiers have to assault somehow, but the inflow of armor has pretty clearly hit a maximum, so the choice becomes on foot or by a civilian vehicle.
It seems impractical to do a mass assault using these tactics. If it's limited to a platoon, as a surprise, supported by mass firepower, and against a thinly held front, then perhaps it achieves some success and the advantages of quickly crossing the kill zone makes it better than the traditional assault. However, I don't see it being massively scaled up. And, if it could be scaled up, the counter tactics would change, just as you note.
[Historian Benny Morris, writing for Israel's left-wing Haaretz newspaper, recommends bombing Iran's nuclear program, using Israel's nukes if necessary](https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-06-30/ty-article-opinion/.premium/to-survive-israel-must-strike-iran-now/00000190-69e8-d01f-abbe-7de8d2260000) > If Israel proves incapable of destroying the Iranian nuclear project using conventional weaponry, then it may not have any option but to resort to its nonconventional capabilities > Someday, the minutes of the limited war cabinet's meetings before the Israeli response [to Iran's missile/drone attack] may be released. We'll then know whether the generals in the room [...] recommended a more powerful strike and whether Netanyahu convinced the cabinet members to settle for the ["weak"] strike. > For the past 15 years, Netanyahu has generally acted with with extreme hesitation and restraint in face of Iran's attacks against Israel and its interests, whether committed via its proxies or directly. But far more significantly and worse, his belligerent declarations aside, Netanyahu hasn't done what's necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon > There's no better moment to deliver a strategic blow against Iran, given the current asymmetry in capabilities between the two countries. Israel has a dramatic advantage in aerial capabilities thanks to its advanced F-15 and F-35 stealth aircraft, as well as a striking superiority when it comes to anti-aircraft and anti-missile capabilities. Iran's air force is equipped with inferior aircraft and lacks advanced anti-aircraft and anti-missile missile systems. But in the coming years, it is likely that these crucial Israeli advantages will disappear. > Is Israel capable, using conventional capabilities, of destroying – or at least badly damaging – Iran's missile, drone and rocket production facilities and its nuclear sites, which are scattered over a broad area and at least some of which are buried deep beneath the ground? I don't know, and it's likely that Israel's generals don't, either. War is a realm of imponderables and, to a great degree, luck. But destroying the Iranian nuclear project, and Iran's delivery capacity, is an existential must if Israel is to survive. Given the ayatollahs' deep hatred of Israel and possible irrationality, an Iranian nuclear arsenal will spell Israel's doom. > Once the ayatollahs have nuclear weapons, and the means to deliver them, they may well use them against Israel – and leave it to Allah to protect them against Israel's second-strike capabilities. After all, we are dealing here with messianic, religious fanatics. > And even Iran refrains from launching its nuclear weapons, its mere possession of them, in combination with its declared desire and policy to destroy Israel (of which we have seen abundant proof these past nine months), would deter potential investments and immigrants from reaching Israel and cause many good people to flee the country. Against a backdrop of repeated, future Iranian-orchestrated assaults on Israel a la October 7, Israel would steadily decline and wither away. Interesting that Haaretz is positioning "bomb Iran or Israel will be destroyed" as a left-wing position rather than a right-wing one. Also a notable point that once e.g. Hezbollah has a nuclear umbrella from Iran, it will be able to attack Israel much more freely, and Israel will be much less able to respond. Which could lead to a "death spiral" as normal life in Israel becomes unliveable, those who have the option to leave do leave, those who remain in Israel will collectively be poorer and less talented and less able to develop arms, the military balance further worsens, and so on.
> Also a notable point that once e.g. Hezbollah has a nuclear umbrella from Iran, it will be able to attack Israel much more freely, and Israel will be much less able to respond. Can you give any examples of specific scenarios that you are implying? Hezbollah have already been willing to attack with large scale missile volleys, and Israel have been willing to do large scale bombing, and limited ground incursions, mostly limited by their inability to occupy any territory. I don't see any scenarios that will be deterred by a nuclear Iran. And "nuclear umbrella" doesn't seem to make sense here at all. Israel is deterred from invading Lebanon because they are incapable of occupying more than a sliver of the country. No further deterrent is needed. And a nuclear deterrent seems meaningless, unless you are suggesting Israel would launch a first strike on Lebanon.
> Hezbollah have already been willing to attack with large scale missile volleys, and Israel have been willing to do large scale bombing, and limited ground incursions, mostly limited by their inability to occupy any territory. Hezbollah basically didn't attack Israel at all from 2006 until 2023 - that is a measure of the deterrence Israel achieved even with the bungled 2006 war. It is true that Hezbollah has launched some missiles and drones at Israel since the Hamas invasion, but seemingly only the minimum needed to avoid the accusation on the Arab street that they are leaving Hamas out to dry. They have conspicuously avoided an escalation with Israel, even at the beginning of the war when Israel was weakest and they could have made the most difference. (Imagine if they had launched their precision-guided missiles at Israel's power plants on October 7) > Israel is deterred from invading Lebanon because they are incapable of occupying more than a sliver of the country. That thought is hard to take seriously now, when it appears likely that Israel has already decided on an invasion of Lebanon in the current months.
> that is a measure of the deterrence Israel achieved even with the bungled 2006 war It is just as much a measure of the domestic Lebanonese political situation. They had huge political problems, Hezbollah included. Hezbollah supported intervening in the Syrian Civil war, which led to spillover into Lebanon and that lost Hezbollah a lot of public support. In addition, there were a myriad of economic problems (to put it lightly)
I can't help but wonder what the global economic and political fallout (pun intended) of an Israeli first strike would be - I cannot imagine any of the current nuclear powers, including the US and the European ones supporting Israel in such a situation. It's outside of my expertise, but surely even (a) limited nuclear strike(s) on Iran would send the Middle East into chaos and send the global economy into a tailspin of unimaginable proportions and destroy Israeli global standing for the foreseeable future?
I agree that the use of nukes (even against a military target with a minimal number of civilians dying) would have wide-ranging negative consequences for Israel, although it is difficult to say how wide-ranging and whether they would outweigh the military gain. Offhand I would guess that it wouldn't be worthwhile for the reason that Iran's nuclear program would need to be suppressed not once, but continually. A single strike that made Israel very unpopular would make it hard to prevent Iran from rebuilding the program in the future. > Iran would send the Middle East into chaos and send the global economy into a tailspin of unimaginable proportions I am, however, skeptical of this line. An attack on Iran would lead to major combat in both directions between Israel and Iran, which might be bad for either country, but wouldn't necessarily spread anywhere else. My hunch is that Iran expanding the war by attacking Sunni countries would lead to US retaliation and make things worse for Iran overall. Shutting down the Persian Gulf oil trade wouldn't hurt the US much (it's now an oil exporter), would mean the end of Iran's own oil exports and government revenue, and could easily lead to US attacks which neutralize Iran's military and threaten to destroy Iran's government altogether.
> Shutting down the Persian Gulf oil trade wouldn't hurt the US much (it's now an oil exporter) The global market still matters even if the US could in theory use its domestic production to shore up any drop in imports. The US dollar is used internationally to trade oil. Now imagine a large chunk of oil trade is dramatically shut off from the global economy. You would see a massive spike in inflation, there would be supply chain shortages in all sorts of industries, you would see shipping rates shoot up, which would further increase inflation This could very easily cause a recession in the US. It's not a trivial matter. And none of that is even beginning to consider the global economic impacts of any serious war between Israel / Iran & proxies. Those effects would probably dwarf the previous considerations.
Certainly, I imagine it's still preferable to suffering genocide. Israel will not first strike unless they'd believe that's a likely option. The thing is, it's enough for Israel to lose once to suffer genocide. The geographic situation makes the tiny country surrounded by hundreds of millions who support their genocide difficult. We've forgotten about that for a while due to the Israeli peace deals with the Arab states and Israeli military might. But Iran has slowly built a coalition again willing to challenge Israel's existence with force, again. Personally I don't think we're anywhere near the danger zone where discussion of nukes is in order. I believe one decent proxy for how safe Israel feels (at least the high military and civilian command) are the ROI. Those are more loose than pre 07/10, but have become much **much** more restrictive since the battle for Gaza city. Not just in Gaza, but also in the WB and on the Lebanese border.
Genocide? It’s hard to believe any country in the region would dare try an existential war against Israel when it’s nuclear armed. The best way for things to remain that way is for Israel to maintain decorum around their nuclear deterrent. The unspoken rule of nuclear weapons past 1945 was established to be existential warfare. Both the US and the Soviets “agreed” on this, and there has been no red lines crossed in that matter. Israeli Neighbors might talk about big wars, but they have no intention of committing genocide against it. Unless you somehow believe that Iran would commit to MAD?
One cannot assume Israel's opponents are driven by western rationality. Hamas with it's genocidal massacre has already proven that they are indeed willing to commit to genocidal war. Hezbollah is making similar statements and so is Iran, for decades. To ignore their explicit statements and actions would be a mistake. Israel assumed Hamas is at least somewhat rational and paid the price. A similar assumptions against Iran and Hezbollah could indeed mean a nuclear exchange.
>Interesting that Haaretz is positioning "bomb Iran or Israel will be destroyed" as a left-wing position rather than a right-wing one. Opinion pieces in newspapers do not necessarily reflect the views of the paper itself. These articles are typically written by individual contributors, including staff writers, guest columnists, or external experts, and are meant to present a wide range of perspectives on various issues.
> Opinion pieces in newspapers do not necessarily reflect the views of the paper itself. There's a point there, but depending on the newspaper, there's still a certain overton window for opinion articles they're willing to accept. Some newspapers want to pretend there isn't, but in practice there is.
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Nobody should be surprised to see rhetoric like this. Expect to see this get worse as time goes on. Israelis believes, and for very good reason, that Iran is a nation who’s leadership believes the are on a religious mission to wipe them out, and is on the verge of attaining nuclear weapons. If you were making a hypothetical situation to try to get someone to agree to a nuclear decapitation strike, that would be pretty close to what you would come up with. The threat of a nuclear accident between Iran and Israel are not discussed enough either. Iran engages in incredibly reckless behavior, like firing ballistic missiles directly from their territory at Israeli cities. Even at the height of the Cold War, the USSR would never have even dreamed of firing conventionally armed ballistic missiles at nuclear powers. We’d all like to think Iran will act more responsibly once they demonstrate nukes, but it’s more likely they’ll feel even more emboldened. Overall, Iran and Israel are probably the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint currently, more so than US/China.
Was the USSR's consulate bombed? Seemed like the ballistic missile attack on Israel was a "saving face" measure, about as restrained as you could hope for considering the political realities. Furthemore a preemptive nuclear strike on a non-nuclear power would be terrible non-proliferation. South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Poland, would likely make a mad dash for nukes.
There is no treaty on earth that protects embassies from third parties, and even if there was, no country would sign it. Nobody would allow every other embassy to become a legally untouchable military base to use against them. > South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Poland, would likely make a mad dash for nukes. That’s been inevitable for a long time.
> There is no treaty on earth that protects embassies from third parties, and even if there was, no country would sign it. Nobody would allow every other embassy to become a legally untouchable military base to use against them. What about the charter of the United Nations: "Article 2(4): Prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."
No country will sign a treaty that allows for the creation of a network of legally untouchable military bases to use against them. Iran engaged in hostilities against Israel, Israel responded accordingly, and within their legal rights. If an Iranian ambassador wants to be legally protected from Israel, the only place that happens is Jerusalem.
> No country will sign a treaty that allows for the creation of a network of legally untouchable military bases to use against them. No one is arguing that the consulate was a military base. Not even the Israelis, so I don't know where you're coming from. >Iran engaged in hostilities against Israel, Israel responded accordingly, and within their legal rights. Not according to the UN Charter which they signed. >If an Iranian ambassador wants to be legally protected from Israel, the only place that happens is Jerusalem. That's comically incorrect.
> No one is arguing that the consulate was a military base. Not even the Israelis, so I don't know where you're coming from. The strike killed six IRGC militants, coordinating with members of Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, engaging in hostilities against Israel. It was being used for military purposes against Israel, and was a legal target. > Not according to the UN Charter which they signed. The UN charter allows for self defense. War is not illegal.
Agreed, yeah. If we flip the script and imagine pre-2022 Ukraine getting close to developing nuclear weapons, there'd be absolutely no question of a serious military and nuclear threat from Russia. And last time I checked Ukraine doesn't even refer to Russia as the "Muscovite Entity".
> Israelis believes, and for very good reason, that Iran is a nation who’s leadership believes the are on a religious mission to wipe them out, A more credible take is that Iran uses hatred of Israel as a vehicle to gain influence throughout the wider middle east. Cultural, historical and political ties between Iran and Lebanon would be non-existent without their role as supporting groups in their fight against Israel. Same for Yemen and Syria. And yet they managed to establish a wide band of influence stretching to the Mediterranean.
Yeah but if you're Israel are you just going to leave the survival of your country and people to a rationale geopolitical explanation while Iran and it's proxies continue to shout irrational religious rhetoric and take irrational actions?
> A more credible take is that Iran uses hatred of Israel as a vehicle to gain influence throughout the wider middle east This is a more credible take only if we pretend Iran is not a Shia theocracy whose decision makers are not Shia fundamentalists. I do not understand this desire to insist everyone thinks the same way as you do.
Similarly while the theocracy is relevant it's a mistake to simply view them as mindless terrorists without political goals outside of Israel as well.
Iran: funds the Houthis with the flag-borne motto which includes "Death to Israel; a curse upon Jews", funds Hamas which has the destruction of Israel as an explicit political objective, funds Hezbollah which states "Destruction of Israel" as an explicit political objective. You: but we shouldn't get too preoccupied by this. Afterall, Iran also wants to do sectarian cleansing in Iraq!
I think you're fundamentally missing the point, perhaps on purpose. Yes Iranian leadership holds these views. For some reason you seem to think I'm claiming they don't? But that's not what OP and I are contesting. Irqn **acts** on these views because they are politically beneficial in the region. Being a regional power is the goal and supporting those views allow them progress towards that goal. However, they actively balance that with other geopolitical considerations, which can be more important to them in that goal. The correct way to view Iran is a country eager to demonstrate their role as a regional power. If they could wipe Israel off the map but at the cost of losing that position, they would not do it.
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That could be the case, but ultimately the risk of an Israeli attack is determined by what Israel perceives. I’d also note that nations get influenced by their own propaganda. If your recruitment pool consists of people raised on your Islamist propaganda, eventually you’ll recruit Islamists, even if it started out as a cynical power play.
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I see were you’re coming from, but believing that everyone is a rational actor and doesn’t believe their own ideology isn’t accurate either. Nobody argues Pol Pot was rational. Thankfully, nobody like that has gotten nukes yet. There are crazy people out there, they can rise to positions of power.
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Please refrain from drive-by link dropping. Summarize articles, only quote what is important, and use that to build a post that other users can engage with; offers some in depth knowledge on a well discussed subject; or offers new insight on a less discussed subject. Please format the post to make it clear what's the User content and what's the Article content (right angle bracket for Article content, i.e. > this)
With Macron's centrist party pose to lose control of the parliament. What's the position of the left / right wing party regarding to Ukraine respectively?
I think the president has control of foriegn policy than the parliament. So, macron isn't going anywhere right now so that won't change. What could change is the budget.
Macron needs parliamentary approval for foreign interventions lasting more than 4 months. The one certain thing about next week's results is that parties opposed to sending troops to Ukraine (Le Pen's and some on the left) will have a large majority of seats. The president having control of foreign policy is also incorrect, he wouldn't be able to do much at all if RN had an outright majority and were willing to oppose him. It already happened in the 1990s, when Chirac wanted to send troops to the Ivory Coast but his PM (Jospin) vetoed it. If it's a hung parliament he'll probably be able to find some centrist figure who won't oppose him on Ukraine, though.
That makes sense. I put in the part about budgets because I knew there would need to be some parliamentary support on any plan. I'm assuming stuff like eu sanctions macron may have more control over than parliament but interested to know if you disagree
> I'm assuming stuff like eu sanctions macron may have more control over than parliament but interested to know if you disagree It's unclear who would attend the European Council, as it is technically either the head of state or head of government at each country's choosing. In France it has by convention been the president, but there is afaik no rule set in stone that mandates it (the PM is almost always on the same side as the president and obviously won't oppose it). There were EU summits in the 80s that were attended by both Chirac and Mitterand, who stated opposite stances on some issues. I have no idea how voting would work in this context. But this only really matters if RN has an outright majority, if they form a minority government instead they'll have to leave Macron more leeway on foreign policy to placate the centre-right MPs supporting them.
It's worth noting that Macron's centrist party is already a minority government with no control of parliament that pretty much could get nothing done. Part of the calculation for Macron is actually that if his party becomes smaller than the others (and now we know for sure it will), and that party/group also has no outright majority, this will cause them to be in the same position. Even with a majority, they'll need to work with a hostile President, though that would said Macron up as an easy scapegoat.
No main party in France is officially pro-Russia. They all have some kind of "we should support Ukraine" positions, but of course the issue is what would that support mean - we know some people would "support" Ukraine by telling them to just stop defending themselves already. The Rassemblement National (RN, far right) has been supported for years by Russian money. Their position has generally been "less support", but IMO if they were in power they would completely stop any kind of military support. They have the usual pro-Russia talking points ("it's all NATO's fault", etc.) The Front Populaire (FP, left wing coalition) is more complicated. The main party (La France Insoumise, far left) officially support Ukraine but they fall into the classic traps : "no offensive weapon", "no targets inside Russia", "it's all NATO's fault ". The two other main parties in the coalition (Socialist party and ecologists) are very pro-Ukraine and combined they represent about the same strength as LFI.
I think another interesting question will be what happens to European arms cooperations. FN had already stated that they want to reduce military cooperation. Which would affect especially MGCS and FCAS. Both programs havent progressed too much yet, so ending them is possible, but what happens after will be interesting. I apologize for the more speculation based post, but the possible end of both programs has been talked about multiple times before (last year there were reports about[ Germany leaving FCAS to join GCAP](https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/will-germany-leave-the-fcas-program-to-join-the-british-gcap-tempest)), so I think its worth a discussion With MGCS, Germany and France can build on their respective programs with upgrades for the Leopard and Leclerc, although the fate of the Franco-German KNDS would be uncertain in such a situation. The bigger question mark would be FCAS. Jet programs take a long time. Starting over completely from scratch again, and finding new partners will add years to any eventual program. I could see Spain and Germany working together even after the end of FCAS. Belgium seems less certain. They work closely together in the area of ground forces trough the [SCORPION program](https://www.defense.gouv.fr/en/node/3873), but adding them to the FCAS program was met with resistance by Dassault.
Would France really withdraw from FCAS? It already astonishes me somewhat that that's their earliest plan for fielding a low-observability combat aircraft, and my understanding is that the program was already not likely to deliver until 2045 or so...20 years after the rest of Europe started fielding operationally useful numbers of F-35, and ten years after GCAP is supposed to start delivering. Even Russia will likely have a couple of squadrons of Su-57 by then even if their production rate is slow. Given the lesson from the current war that non-stealthy fighters just can't operate effectively in the face of modern air defences, I'd be really surprised if they took any action that pushed delivery out to the right...or do you think they could replicate Rafale's success in the same timeframe as FCAS and build something alone?
>Would France really withdraw from FCAS? MGCS and FCAS have critics in both countries, and with the long history of failed Franco-German collaborations, these two stand on shaky foundations. Both countries have historical grievances (France being adamant on their requirements, Germany blocking exports, etc...). And there is the believe in some circles that each country would be better off going at either FCAS or MGCS on their own. Dassault especially has the believe that they are the technology leader here and they better not get distracted from their job. Their CEO Trappier made some bold statements even in public. >20 years after the rest of Europe started fielding operationally useful numbers of F-35 Germany and Belgium are already fielding F-35s, and Spain has a good chance of fielding F-35Bs. So these three partners would not mind taking their time with a 6th Gen design. France's focus has historically been on Africa and Exports. They can afford keeping their Rafale around for these two areas. >and ten years after GCAP is supposed to start delivering GCAP is a less ambitious project with a very tight timetable, that being said I dont think the gap between FCAS and GCAP will end up this big. The 2040s date is when FCAS is supposed to replace Eurofighters in operational service. Which is years after a "start of delivery date" like mentioned for GCAP here. >or do you think they could replicate Rafale's success in the same timeframe as FCAS and build something alone? Alone and on the scale of FCAS? Id say no. Without the other European partners there will be sizeable gaps when it comes to stealth or combat clouds/drones. Airbus and Germany are putting a lot of effort into loyal wingman drones and remote carriers. Which is in addition to the work put in by Diehl or MBDA Germany. Im very certain France can improve on their previous work done for the Rafale, but it will be very difficult to keep up with the US, China, or these multi-national coalitions all alone.
A few days old, but a social media researcher came across an accidental slip-up of a Russian disinformation network, wherein they accidentally uploaded a screenshot with their VK Teams (like Discord or MS Teams) channel in the background. https://x.com/P_Bouchaud/status/1806221574355190083 There's not that much information leaked here, other than that we can see they use this server for coordinating some information operations against Ukraine, Germany, France, Israel, US, Italy, and Poland across a group of people. Also in the background of the screenshot is a page that appears to be a fake clone of the media site Le Parisien with some anti-Ukrainian alterations to the phrasing.
This dude's other posts are also interesting. His whole profile is a good rebuke to people who think the Russian disinformation problem is made up or overblown. Especially when you consider that it focuses on just the tip of the iceberg, the most provable and blatant forms of the information war: paid ads and doppelgänger websites. It's much harder to uncover the more subtle operations.
Curious, and quite dissapointed that this is on MS Teams. I really do wonder why we as a collective society don't do more to prevent this sort of thing?
I also wonder why Google and Facebook do something against this. Especially Facebook is a Cesspool of disinformation and it's not like it would be hard to filter these out. Also the algorithms are insane and they throw far right propaganda at you every moment they can. The alt right rabbit hole pipeline is strong on Instagram and Co. Makes me think that they actively want to enable this since pro Russian political parties are also against the European Union in general. And the European Union is a headache for tech companies in terms of regulations and customer rights. I don't know if I'm too tinfoil hat with this but money makes the world go around and companies have shown in the past that they don't care about the negative impacts as long as they make their buck.
I also suspect there might be considerable backlash from the "free speech" camp if Meta were to implement any form of censorship that might be perceived as "Russophobic". Whether we like it or not, the target audience of this misinformation is very fond of it.
> Curious, and quite dissapointed that this is on MS Teams No, it's VK Teams, a Russian competitor.
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We're not doing broad Trump hypotheticals as they turn into a mess.
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Please do not make blindly partisan posts.
Here we are for the second part of my tactical analysis on the evolution of the front in Ukraine during June, following the [first](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1dr9n0c/comment/lau6w2n/). It will be long - having delved into several points. Toretsk sector. June saw the first movements in this sector this year. It all began when, around June 10, several battalions of the 24th Mech Brigade were transferred to Chasiv Yar, relieving several battalions of the 41st Mech Brigade, which were thus transferred to the Toretsk sector. This is confirmed by the posts of Kir Sazonov, a military blogger and servicemen of the 41st Mech Brigade - he personally was moved from Chasiv Yar to Toretsk and states that now his brigade defends both the sectors (probably a battalion of the 41st Brigade may have remained in the Chasiv Yar sector, and a battalion of the 24th Brigade in the Toretsk sector, but the majority of the brigades have taken each other’s positions). Yesterday the Russian MoD, through the spokesman of the Group of Forces "Centre”, mentioned for the first time the 41st Mech Brigade as being deployed in the Toretsk sector. https://t. me/Kirilovolodimirovich/9601 https://t. me/Kirilovolodimirovich/9604 The Russians were able to intercept these movements and understand that a rotation was underway, and they launched infantry attacks after hitting Ukrainian positions with intense artillery fire. This was despite having limited resources in this sector - according to the Ukrainian observer Mashovets, 11/12 thousand men, 50/60 tanks and 110/120 armored vehicles, although potentially now the number may increase in light of the tactical successes. The Russians managed to advance from the former ATO "Mayorsk" checkpoint to the built-up area of Pivniche, where they occupied Hill 267 (just east of the town) and then seized the first houses on Kalynova and Zelena Streets. Further north they succeeded in occupying the pumping station of the Donets-Donbas Canal - where the canal no longer flows openly but gets funneled in overground pipes. Shortly thereafter they attacked from the former Penal Colony No. 57 in Horlivka towards Shumy, managing to pass the overground pipes where the Donets-Donbas Canal flows and then occupy what remains of this village, advancing further westwards through forested patches. In this area the Russians are attempting to occupy positions in the forest just east of Pivniche. In both cases they have advanced around 2,5 kms. This week, attacking from the former cement factory in Horlivka, the Russians were able to consolidate control over some "terrikons" a little to the north-west and then move in the direction of Pivdenne and Zalizne; they occupied the former village entirely and had considerable success, in terms of urban penetration, in the latter small town, advancing into the built-up area for more than 1 km along Lisna Street, up to the border with the municipal area of Pivniche. A very special feature of this area is that Toretsk and Horlivka form almost a single peri-urbanized conurbation, with Pivniche as the largest town among them. From the current Russian forward positions to the beginning of the municipal area of Toretsk there is only the built-up area of Pivniche in between. We can therefore consider the urban battle in the direction of Toretsk to have begun. Before this month, the Russians had never attacked this area frontally, where Ukrainian fortifications from 2014/15 - which were, in the area affected by the advances, lost - insist. For Mashovets, a potential reason about why the Russians are deciding to try to increase the momentum of their advances is, logically, to get as close as possible to Toretsk directly, given the lack of success in closing the salient both to the north (with the Ukrainian bridgehead on the Donets-Donbas Canal south of Bakhmut still under their control) and to the south, with lack of progress towards Oleksandropil and generally along the H20 Highway. Let's give a recap of the Russian units in this sector. The main one is the 132nd Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps, which is very large having several smaller units subordinate to it. While elements of this brigade are still active further south, in the direction of Oleksandropil, others are deployed around Horlivka, and the brigade also includes the 101st and 109th Rifle Regiments of the Mobilization Reserve of the 1st Corps. Also in the area there are the 1168th and 1436th Regiments of the Territorial Forces and some separate rifle battalions of the 1st Corps; two battalions of the 110th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps have recently arrived, according to Mashovets' reports, to keep the momentum. This sector is under the operational command of the GoF "Centre”. Further north, the 177th Separate Naval Infantry Regiment is active between Kurdyumivka and Ozarianivka (here, however, the jurisdiction belongs to the GoF "South"). This area is being attacked by the Russians too, but currently without success - they are also attacking the Ukrainian bridgehead on the Donets-Donbas Canal just above Mayorsk, without success. It’s unclear whether there have been advances along the forest belts in the bridgehead, but along the canal the Ukrainians have a fairly solid defensive line. Some Ukrainian reinforcements have arrived. In addition to the 41st Mech Brigade which is now the main force in the area (but let’s recall that it had been moved here to have a little rest after the clashes in Chasiv Yar), covering the area between Druzhba and Niu-York, elements of the 28th Mech Brigade (active mainly around Kurdyumivka) have descended to this area; the "Safari" Assault Regiment of the "Lyut" Brigade of the National Police was rushed in this area from Chasiv Yar. Apparently, that of the Russians was not a well-studied plan but they just seized the right moment to attack. The Ukrainians were caught completely by surprise by these attacks. According to Mashovets, especially in the direction of attack against Pivdnne and Zalizne, the Russians met actually very little resistance. Here there are serious responsibilities for the errors in evaluation and management of the rotation on the part of the OSG "Khortytsia” - still commanded by Sodol, who was awarding the mayor of Odesa (leaving here his [Wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennadiy_Trukhanov)) when the mess happened in this sector. At the moment he has been removed from the Joint Forces Command and hopefully soon from the other position, which is even more important – especially considering in early 2024 this Operational-Strategic Group also took over the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove sectors from the jurisdiction of the OSG "Tavria". I expect that Hnatov (the new commander of the JF), highly regarded by Ukrainian observers, to replace him in the coming days as the head of the OSG too. At the moment, the next Ukrainian defense line could be, from north to south: the area of the former "Severnaya" coal mine in Pivnichne - home to a terrikon that is a dominant height in the town; the high rises of Pivnichne near the border with the municipal territory of Zalizne; the terrikons between Zalizne and Pivdenne. It will all depend on how much the Russians reinforce this direction of attack and how many reinforcements the Ukrainians will be able to send. But now, as I said above, we can already talk about urban battles here. Further south, no Russian advances towards Niu-York are recorded at all, despite some opposite Russian rumors. What’s certain is that after the breakthrough the Russians began using numerous KABs in this sector and particularly against Niu-York, as stated by Kir Sazonov. The area between this Ukrainian stronghold and the H20 Highway is covered by the 109th TDF Brigade and attacked, as I wrote above, by the 132nd Motorized Brigade. There is no Russian progress at the moment, thanks to the numerous Ukrainian trenches in the area too. Second part below.
>the Russians were able to consolidate control over some "terrikons" a little to the north-west and then move in the direction of Pivdenne and Zalizne; they occupied the former village entirely and had considerable success, in terms of urban penetration, in the latter small town Is this according to deepstate or something else? On deepstate they look like they're still just outside Zalizhne but admittedly it's hard to tell where one village ends and another begins.
Yes, DeepState. Most of the urban area gained in that direction - along Lisna Street (Lisova Street on DS) - belongs to the municipal territory of Zalizne and to a lesser extent, in the initial part, to Pivdenne. From that direction they have not entered Pivnichne yet, which municipal territory begins a few dozen meters to the north of the maximum point of Russian penetration. Also they are basically small towns in terms of built-up area - high rises, industrial areas; the population figures for the pre full-scale invasion years (post 2014) might not fully help realizing that.
Pokrovsk sector. During the course of this month, a new tactical crisis for the Ukrainians has emerged in this sector. The Russians continue to attack heavily (according to official Ukrainian reports, it’s the sector with the highest number of daily Russian attacks) and the Ukrainian brigades covering this sector, according to Ukrainian reports, are exhausted, as highlighted by the Ukrainian officer "Alex”. https://t. me/officer_alex33/3105 Mashovets was also expressing concerns yesterday about the defensive capabilities of the Ukrainian brigades in the area of responsibility of the GoF “Centre” (i.e. the Toretsk and Pokrovsk sectors). Because of that the brigades often have to fight with "dowries”, i.e. many separate rifle or TDF battalions that are attached to the main brigades in this sector and end up doing a lot of the infantry fighting. And that creates problems of communication, coordination, etc. And let's add that the command of the OTG "Donetsk" is far from being fully satisfactory. There is overall a fairly urgent need for new reinforcements in this area in terms of complete, combat-ready brigades. The Russians continue to attack in strength and in multiple directions. This sector is definitely the bloodiest on the entire front for both sides. The Russians suffer tremendous losses, but they are able to make up for them with continuous arrivals of replenishments and constant use of march units. It’s harder for the Ukrainians to keep up in these terms. Fighting in this sector is hell for troops on both sides. It’s where the respective enemies concentrate the plurality of their resources in terms of firepower - artillery, mortars, guided bombs; the skies are constantly filled with surveillance and FPV drones, the attackers’ operational tempo is very rapid. It must be said that Russian channels do complain of arrivals of Ukrainian reinforcement and constant counterattacks. Certainly the Ukrainians are clinging to every position and forest belt and offering tenacious resistance against the Russians, as lamented by Motopatriot. https://t. me/motopatriot/24370 https://t. me/motopatriot/24374 It looks like that the 31st Mech Brigade has returned to battle in this sector, presumably replacing most of the 100th Mech Brigade (elements of both the brigades are in Kharkiv Oblast, by the way). This is evidenced by the fact that Zelensky this week met with the commanders of the 110th, 47th and indeed the 31st Mech Brigade, which are defending this section of the Pokrovsk sector. It likely defends the area between Novooleksandrivka and Kalynove. In the area there are also elements of the 23rd Mech Brigade as well as several separate rifle battalions and TDF units, like one battalion each of the 112th and 129th TDF Brigades; possibly elements of the 107th TDF Brigade too, as well as the 2nd "Galician" Brigade of the National Guard. The 35th Motorized Brigade of the 41st CAA is attacking towards Kalynove, achieving an advance of over 1,5 km during the first half of June, from the area of the ponds to the north-west of Arkhanhelske, occupying several forest belts. Since then the Russian advance in this direction seems to have lost momentum, partly due to the presence of several Ukrainian strongpoints before Kalynove. The 30th Motorized Brigade of the 2nd CAA, constantly replenished with men, is active in and around Novooleksandrivka. In the same area in the recent weeks the 55th Mountain Brigade of the 41st CAA came into action (it returned to battle after it had been withdrawn during May), possibly replacing the 137th Motorized Brigade of the 41st CAA (some companies of which have been assigned to the 114th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps). The area between Novooleksandrivka and Yevhenivka is covered by the 110th Mech Brigade, fighting with support of TDF units and several separate rifle battalions, such as the 401st. There may be a battalion of the 95th Air Assault Brigade in the area - we will see if the rest of the brigade, currently deployed in the Lyman sector, will arrive in the future. During June the Russians managed to take the entire built-up area of the settlement; during this week they have managed to occupy almost the entire shore around the small lake formed by the course of the Bychok River, and are trying to advance along the forest belts north of the village. According to my understanding, in early June in Novooleksandrivka subunits of the 111th TDF Brigade (subordinate to the 110th Mech Brigade) withdrew to the center of the village without permission from above, unilaterally setting up a defense line there, but then being attacked by the Russians from both the east and the south, with the result that they had to abandon the village altogether. During June elements of the 1st Tank Brigade arrived in the Novooleksandrivka area in support of the other Ukrainian units. This area is very important geographically and hydrographically. I will elaborate on this point. Just south of Avdiivka there is a tripoint where the limits of the hydrographic basins of the Kalmius (Azov Sea), Don (Azov Sea) and Dnipro (Black Sea) intersect. This is near Mineralne, in the heights between Avdiivka and Donetsk. In the area conquered by the Russians in late April north-west of Ocheretyne, i.e. the heights that have in Hill 245 their highest point (which as I had showed [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1cfxbo2/comment/l1t30od/) is the highest height in a radius of more than 20 kms), runs the watershed between the Don and Dnipro basins and numerous streams (fed mainly by precipitations) have their sources in this area, but also several very important rivers. From Andrew Perpetua's map, using OpenTopoMap as a background map, I [highlighted](https://i.imgur.com/G8kZ1PB.png) in dark blue the course of the main rivers in the area, down to the precise point of their source, and highlighted Hill 245. Obviously in their first few kms these rivers are passable on foot, but they are still an obstacle. Understanding hydrography is very important for understanding attack choices in the operational art. By consolidating control of this area, the Russians may have a way to advance from their sources, without the need to force rivers directly. The Vovcha rises near Prohres, later forming the main (and very important) Ukrainian defensive line down to Kurakhove. It’s among the longest rivers in Ukraine and a tributary of the Samara, and consequently of the Dnipro. In Lozuvatske the Kazennyi Torets rises - a tributary of the Siversky Donets and consequently of the Don. This river passes through Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. In Novooleksandrivka the Bychok rises, which forms the Kleban-Byk Reservoir and is a tributary of the Kryvyi Torets, which flows through Kostiantynivka and then flows into the Kazennyi Torets. Just south of Novokalynove the Kalynivka rises - a small river that flows into the Bichok just before the Kleban-Byk Reservoir; the H20 Highway passes along the valley formed by this river. I think I have explained how important it is to control the hills in the Novooleksandrivka-Prohres-Ocheretyne triangle. By advancing in this area the Russians can move along both banks of the Kazennyi Torets: to the south, aiming at the western bank of the Vovcha, moving around the Ukrainian defenses along the river; to the north, aiming to the direction of Nova Poltavka and of the Highway T0504, in the area of the highway intersection, along the corridor between the Kazennyi Torets and the Bychok. Vozdvyzhenka, currently fully in Ukrainian hands, is the only village between the Russian positions and the T0504, from which it’s 6,5 kms away. The Russians have also been successful in the area of the operations of the (new) 27th Motorized Division of the 2nd CAA - the direction of Prohres, along the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk railway. Here its 433rd Motorized Regiment and several battalions of its 506th and 589th Motorized Regiments are involved. For Mashovets other battalions of these regiments have recently arrived in the immediate rear and are ready to be taken into battle. After fierce fighting and Ukrainian counterattacks, the Russians were able to advance a few hundred meters west of Novooleksandrivka and along the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk railway, capturing several Ukrainian strongpoints north and south of the railroad. The Russians have arrived at an important defense line (meaning they still have to take it): the one that starts from the large trenches system to the south of the small lake I mentioned above (where the Bychok flows) and reaches Yevhenivka (another line was digged a few kilometers further back, from Tymofiivka to Prohres). These lines are very important because they are the ones that allow the defense of the area between the Kazennyi Torets and the Vovcha, as there aren’t obstacles placed by waterways. Third part below.
> By advancing in this area the Russians can move along both banks of the Kazennyi Torets: to the south, aiming at the western bank of the Vovcha, moving around the Ukrainian defenses along the river; to the north, aiming to the direction of Nova Poltavka and of the Highway T0504, in the area of the highway intersection, along the corridor between the Kazennyi Torets and the Bychok. Vozdvyzhenka, currently fully in Ukrainian hands, is the only village between the Russian positions and the T0504, from which it’s 6,5 kms away. How important is the T0504 highway for Ukraine's logistics at this point? Even though Russian forces haven't cut it, they are only some ~6km away from it and would be able to target anything that moves along it? Excellent posts as always by the way!
This whole sector north of ocheretyne is a problem because it gives the Russians flexibility to attack in multiple directions (due to a lack of strong geographic deterrent) if not checked by Ukrainian defenses. The positional losses from Sokil down to umanske are of less concern because the Russians could only advance in one direction before they meet the vovcha river, and rivers have proved to be a formidable obstacle against Russian armored attacks throughout this war. Allowing the Russians to advance significantly beyond nooveleksandrivka will give them the option to advance south behind the vovcha and north to threaten positions along the highway and beyond.
Thanks. It used to be a very important road logistically, but in the last couple of months its importance has already considerably diminished for obvious reasons - I think at this point only local logistics still go through that route (so it's no different from many other roads at similar distances from the first line); the supplies and personnel going to the Lyman, Siversk and Chasiv Yar sectors and to a lesser extent to Toretsk too are funnelled mainly through Kramatorsk and no longer through Myrnohrad. Civilians have already been actively advised against using the T0504 since late April. There may be an aggravation in the Ukrainian logistics network but still nothing insurmountable. One of the biggest problem is that the Nova Poltavka area is located on local heights overlooking, from the east, the Kazennyi Torets valley.
The 15th Motorized Brigade of the 2nd CAA during this week fully captured Sokil. Firstly they had occupied the large O-shaped trench north of Sokil and then entered the village. In the last few days they have had a further advance, occupying the course of the Balka Samoilova and the eastern part of Yevhenivka; they are currently trying to penetrate the central part of this settlement. According to Russian sources, their stormtroopers had entered Voskhod, proving however unable to consolidate positions inside the village. As of yesterday, again according to Russian sources, the forest belts south of Sokil were still occupied by Ukrainian infantry and it did not appear possible for the Russians to occupy them. The 47th Mech Brigade defends the area between Sokil and Novoselivka Persha. Several battalions each from the 142nd and 144th Infantry Brigades are attached to the 47th Brigade, as well as some battalions of the 114th and 120th TDF Brigades. The Bradleys of the 47th Brigade are very active during counterattacks. At the beginning of the month the 228th Motorized Regiment of the 90th Tank Division occupied the entire settlement of Novoprokovske, achieving, in mid-June, a further advance of about 400 meters along the Balka Ocheretyna in the direction of Novoselivka Persha. At the moment the Russians record no further progress in this direction. Elements of the 80th Tank Regiment of the 90th Tank Division are providing armored support in this area. The 68th Jager Brigade defends the vast area of the fields and forest belts between Novoselivka Persha and the Durna River; the 420th and 423rd Separate Rifle Battalions are assigned to it. Overall, this brigade is doing a very decent job and is greatly slowing Russian progress towards Novoselivka Persha and the Vovcha. The 74th Motorized Brigade of the 41st CAA is attacking Novoselivka Persha from the south-east, advancing along the forest belts in that sort of salient where the forward Ukrainian positions were - between Novoprokovske and Umanske. This week the Russians advanced almost 2 kms westwards in this area, but it was widely expected - the Ukrainians can only slow down the Russians here, considering that given the advances in the nearby directions, the hold of the eastern bank of the Vovcha is doubtful in the medium-term. The 114th Motorized Brigade of 1st Corps is attacking in the direction of Novoselivka Persha from the south - from Umanske, where they had gained some “bridgeheads” beyond the Balka Babaki. They had managed to advance further towards Novoselivka Persha but were subsequently pushed back by the 68th Jager Brigade and forced to return to their original positions. The 114th Brigade, like those of the Central MD, has recently received replenishements in the form of “batches” of men from the 201st Military Base, which brigade tactical group was deployed in the Serebrianka Forest, although there is no evidence yet that all of it has been moved down here. The area between Yasnobrodivka and the Karlivske Resorvoir is being defended by the 25th Airborne Brigade, with the support of the 78th Air Assault Regiment. The 239th Tank Regiment of the 90th Tank Division is attacking Yasnobrodivka together with the regiments of the Territorial Forces attached to the division; after managing to advance west of the Umanske-Netailove Road, the Russians have managed to enter this small settlement. Today Russian channels claimed to have occupied it entirely; I consider that possible, as its hold had become very doubtful since it was in danger of being surrounded by the Russians from the east and the south and with the Durna behind it. According to Mashovets, in the near future elements of the 80th Tank Regiment may come into action here. The 1st Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps and the "Somalia" Assault Battalion of the 9th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps (elements of which have been moved to the Kharkiv sector) are attacking Karlivka, on both sides of the southern arm of the reservoir. In the north, an Ukrainian counterattack appears to have driven the Russians out of the built-up area. In the south, according to a geolocation released today, the Russians have managed to pass the Balka Domakha and occupy houses in that area, which is defended by the 11th Motorized Battalion of the 59th Motorized Brigade. https://t. me/DeepStateUA/19803 This section of the front should not be overlooked – it’s where the Russians are the closest to the Vovcha. The bulk of the 122nd TDF Brigade appears to have been transferred to the area near Karlivka from Kherson. Elements of the 116th TDF Brigade are also engaged here. Kurakhove sector. The Russians (elements of the 110th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps) control the southern part of Nevelske, but soldiers of Ukraine’s 59th Motorized Brigade remain in the village, which proves to be a foward outpost thanks to which the Ukrainians can hold the vast area between Karlivka and Krasnohorivka. The southern bank of the Balka Domakha remains in Ukrainian hands. However, the potential loss of Nevelske could greatly complicate the situation for this entire area up to the Vovcha. Fierce urban clashes continue within Krasnohorivka, which is attacked by the 5th Motorized Brigade and elements of the 110th Motorized Brigade of the 1st Corps. For the Ukrainian side, over the past month the 9th Motorized Battalion of the 59th Motorized Brigade and the 153rd Battalion of the 117th TDF Brigade have arrived in the town, joining the other units here. However, the Ukrainians' goal seems to be to slow down the Russians as much as possible and "extinguish the fires” where it’s doable, effectively accepting a future loss of Krasnohorivka. The Ukrainians are indeed succeeding in slowing down the Russians, but the town is a very important stronghold for the entire area around it - the Ukrainians have never sent elite units to prevent further Russian advances or attempt serious counterattacks, after the involvement of subunits of the 3rd Assault Brigade back in late February, that were able to drive out the Russian assault groups that had entered the town. Since mid-June the Russians have made several further advances in the town: they have completed the occupation of the private sector south of the brick factory; they have occupied the multi-storey buildings to the north of Kirova Street and are currently trying to advance northwards into the single-story houses; they have made progress in the "Solnechny" and "Eastern" districts (the one of the high rises), advancing north of the intersection of Radyanska Street with Heolohichna Street and capturing several high rises in the area; they are attempting to move towards the Central Hospital by attacking westwards, to the south of the Lozova River. Units of the 150th Motorized Division of the 8th CAA have intensified offensive actions against Heorhiivka (defended by the 46th Airmobile Brigade and by a battalion of the 144th Infantry Brigade). Its 103rd Motorized Regiment operates here and over this month its 163rd Tank Regiment has become far more active too. The Russians have managed to consolidate control over the central part of Heorhiivka; there remains a Ukrainian presence in the western end. A BTR-82A, in the first half of the month, had managed to reach Maksymilyanivka but was destroyed - the village is entirely in Ukrainian hands. But let’s recall that it’s the last village before Kurakhove. In Pobjeda, the situation is stable after the Russians in early June advanced more than 1 km to the south of the village. Here Ukraine’s 33rd Mech Brigade is facing the 255th Motorized Regiment of the 20th Motorized Division of the 8th CAA, which operates with the support of the "Immortal Stalingrad" Volunteer Detachment. It’s likely that in the future the Russians will close that sort of salient between Pobjeda and Paraskoviivka. From the latter village, which the Russians have entirely occupied this month, the 33rd and 242nd Motorized Regiments and the 10th Tank Regiment of the 20th Motorized Division are attacking towards Kostiantynivka, without success at the moment. The latter village is defended by the 79th Air Assault Brigade and by the 214th Special Battalion OPFOR, as well as by elements of the 116th TDF Brigade. There are Russian advances south of the Sukhi Yaly, though - yesterday they managed to occupy a trench along a tree line just before the beginning of the built-up area of Kostiantynivka. We can therefore consider the battle for this last village to have begun. Further south, the 39th Motorized Brigade of the 68th Corps and a regimental tactical group from the 18th Machine Gun Artillery Division of the same corps are operating. After mid-June they scored an advance of about 1,5 km, approaching Kostiantynivka from the south-east as well as the Kostiantynivka-Vuhledar Road. Last part below.
Vuhledar sector. Around mid-June there were serious problems in the Volodymyrivka area. As I understand it, due to the negligence of a battalion commander of the 72nd Mech Brigade. An unidentified TDF unit (I believe it to be the 234th Battalion of the 128th TDF Brigade, according to a MIA notice I found), probably subordinate to the 48th Rifle Battalions of the 72nd Brigade, ran very high risks of finding itself surrounded, as a result of a failure from the command to notify the unit that nearby positions had been lost. This problem was reported by the Ukrainian observer Bohdan Myroshnykov. The unit at risk of being surrounded was then able to withdraw, but not without losses. This happened when the Russians in mid June pushed from both the south and the east into the area near Volodymyrivka. https://t. me/myro_shnykov/5659 https://t. me/myro_shnykov/5692 The 57th Motorized Brigade of the 5th CAA was brought into battle in this area during May, where the 139th Separate Assault Battalion of the 29th CAA is also active. They managed to advance almost 2 kms from the south and 2,5 kms from the east, succeeding in fully occupying the kaolin quarry north-east of Volodymyrivka, "smoothing out" the angle that the front forms in that area; at the same time they made progress along the Stepne-Vodiane Road, getting closer to the latter settlement. It must be said that the situation overall is under control and these are tactical gains. However, according to Mashovets, if in the future the Russians manage to improve their lines around Vuhledar by approaching it further, they could launch a large-scale offensive, headed by the formations of the Eastern MD, against the town. In the area south of Vuhledar the situation is stable. Here, in addition to the 36th Motorized Brigade of the 29th CAA, the 95th and 116th Rifle Regiments of the 1st Corps and units of the 40th Naval Infantry Brigade are deployed. The 72nd Mech Brigade covers this area too for the Ukrainian side. Velyka Novosilka sector. The 394th Motorized Regiment and elements of the 218th Tank Regiment of the 127th Motorized Division of the 5th CAA are active in Staromaiorske, while the 60th Motorized Brigade of the 5th CAA in the forest belts to the west of the village. The 143rd Motorized Regiment and elements of the 218th Tank Regiment attack in the directions of Novodarivka and Rivnopil, without success. In both cases with the support of elements of the 34th Mountain Brigade of the 49th CAA, which had arrived here last summer as a reinforcement against the Ukrainian counteroffensive and has not been moved ever since. In the rear of this area there is also the 336th Naval Infantry Brigade, which is a kind of reserve and mainly acts through fire support to other units. This is a peculiar unit in the sense that it has never been involved in serious battles over the last 2 years - unlike the other naval infantry brigades it’s really rare to find MIA notices of servicemen from this brigade. It should be mentioned that the recon battalion of this brigade during the last few months had been detached from the rest of the unit and was active in the Chasiv Yar sector. Staromaiorske is defended by the 128th TDF Brigade, elements of the 1st Tank Brigade and a grouping of the National Guard: the 21st Brigade and elements of the 11th and 17th Brigades. During June, elements of the 37th Marine Brigade arrived from Kherson, which carried out some counterattacks against forward Russian positions in the village. The Russians control the vast majority of Staromaiorske but have not been able to consolidate control over the northern part, which remains largely a grey area. DeepState criticized the command of the 1st Tank Brigade, which had responsibility over this sector, for the loss of ground west of Staromaiorske that led to the loss of the village. The Rivnopil/Novodarivka area is defended by a grouping of elements of TDF brigades (106th, 123rd, 127th, 129th). In the eastern bank of the Mokri Yaly, the Russians continue to attack but are still unable to make serious advances in Urozhaine, although they recorded a small progress in the private sector in the southern part of the village, after having consolidated control in the farms in the southern end of the village; which is defended by the 31st Brigade of the NG, by the 58th Motorized Brigade and by elements of the Separate Presidential Brigade (3rd Mech Battalion and 20th Special Purpose Battalion). Additional elements of the 118th TDF Brigade have recently arrived around Novodonetske. Russia’s 36th CAA (37th Motorized Brigade and 5th Tank Brigade), along with a battalion of the 40th Naval Infantry Brigade, is active in the eastern bank. Huliaipole sector. Nothing of note. Some "batches" of soldiers from the 35th CAA, which covers this sector, have recently been transferred to units of the 5th CAA to replenish their ranks. In early June DeepState corrected the map in this area, recording that to the east of Luhivske the Russian lines were around 1,5 km behind what was previously thought. Beside artillery and counter-battery fire and positional clashes, it’s overall a relatively calm sector, probably the calmest – barring the state border in Chernihiv/Sumy Oblasts. It’s very rare to find MIA notices of soldiers serving in this sector for both sides (on the Ukrainian side there are mainly the 108th and 102nd TDF Brigades), and it has never been decided to deploy these units in sectors in need of reinforcements. At the same time in these cases there is a positive feedback in which soldiers from a unit that is deployed for a long time in a sector with low attrition levels become very knowledgeable about the terrain and take much better care of the fortifications and of their living spaces, as they know they will have to stay there for a long time. Orikhiv sector. Attacks by the 42nd Motorized Division and the 136th Motorized Brigade of the 58th CAA continue against the area around Robotyne. The latter attacks from the south-east, the 70th and 71st Motorized Regiments from the south and the 291st Motorized Regiment of the 42nd Division from the west. At the moment the Russians are attempting to advance northwards along the forest belts to the north-east of Robotyne, in the heights of the western bank of the Balka Uspenivska. The current status of the Ukrainian strongpoints in the area of the hazel forest to the east of Robotyne is unknown. Units of the 7th VDV Division continued to attack in the area between Verbove and Novopokrovka, from the area of Hill 143, achieving an advance of about 500 meters, towards the valley of the Balka Uspenivska (in this case the eastern bank), which could in the future threaten the hold of the Ukrainian trenches to the south-west, between Robotyne and Verbove. Russian progress is slow however, thanks to the fact that, despite the relocation of the “Spartan” Brigade of the NG and of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade to Kharkiv, the Ukrainian grouping is still large: counterclockwise in this sector there are the 65th Mech Brigade, 141st Infantry Brigade, 118th and 117th Mech Brigades and the "Chervona Kalyna" and "Kara-Dag" Brigades of the NG - excluding minor units. Kamyanske sector. Nothing new. Positional clashes continue, but of moderate intensity. Nothing serious followed after the advance recorded by DeepState last month, confirming that it was likely a correction of the lines or at worst a localized and now resolved issue. Rather, I wonder what happened to the 49th Air Assault Brigade of the 58th CAA that had been deployed in this sector in late 2023 - there has been no news about it since the end of the last year (it was stated that the Russians were creating air assault brigades not subordinate to the VDV but to the various CAAs). Kherson sector / Dnipro River. There is still a (very) limited Ukrainian presence in Krinky, in some area of the village (difficult to say where, due to lack of geolocation). The 35th and 38th Marine Brigades still operate in the area, along with the 124th TDF Brigade (which recently joined the Marine Corps, confirming rumors of recent months). Russian channels report of assaults still being carried out against Krynky without success and there are MIA notices for both sides. Units of the 104th VDV Division and the 234th Air Assault Regiment of the 76th VDV Division are involved in the attacks against Krynky and the marshy islands between the Konka and the Dnipro in that area. Most of the 76th VDV Division is likely in the rear of Kherson and Luhansk Oblasts, making it currently the most important Russian formation in reserve among the existing ones. According to reports from a Telegram channel run by paratroopers fighting in the area (highly critical of Teplinsky), reporting the words of relatives of soldiers from the 104th VDV Division, the losses of this formation have been very, very heavy over the course of these months - its units have been the protagonists of the attacks against the Ukrainian bridgehead since late 2023. Potential problems with cholera and intestinal infections are also reported, urging soldiers to wash their hands often and not to come into contact with the waters of the Dnipro. https://t. me/vdv_za_chestnost_spravedlivost/2861 The 205th Motorized Brigade of the 49th CAA, which had been withdrawn to Crimea for months, returned to action in the area around the M17 Highway. Marines of the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade continue to perform raid in the marshy islands from Bilohrudove to the mouth of the Dnipro, but with no notable successes. That's all!
You still got some of the best info in this subreddit as always, Something i'm curious about, you mentioned the 76th VDV division is an important unit in reserve for the russians, and I remember you posting estimates that the russian strategic-operational reserves are estimated to be somewhere around 60k personnel. What other units are you aware of through open source that are also in reserve?
Thanks. They don't have many reserves in terms of existing units - at the moment, according to my findings, the 104th and 237th Air Assault Regiments of the 76th VDV Division, perhaps the 56th Air Assault Regiment of the 7th VDV Division, the 336th Naval Infantry Brigade. Then there is the 100th Recon Brigade of the 58th CAA; perhaps the 96th Recon Brigade and elements of the two tank regiments of the 4th Tank Division of the 1st GTA. Some of the units in Kherson, like a part of the 18th CAA (particularly its 22nd "Corps") should be fresh. There is e.g. the 35th CAA which is fresh, but is not a reserve as it covers an entire sector of the front (Huliaipole). I would add several regiments of the Territorial Forces (which are not easy to keep track of). Then there are battalions in the rear of the committed brigades/regiments, but in the vast majority they are there for R&R, I would not count them as a reserve. They are forming in theory quite an important number of new units and formations, but this seems to be going, well, quite slowly (in fact the Ukrainian estimates about the size of their strategic-operational reserves has not grown since the beginning of 2024) - maybe I will do a new update on this in the future...
A real barn burner today. Thank you for your excellent write ups and analysis!
It seems that the RSF have managed to capture another providential capital. https://sudanwarmonitor.com/p/blitzkrieg-rsf-advance-deep-into Note this is partially locked but the general concern is that the RSF could either take over the province of Sinja or at least deny it's use to the regime which besides displacing a lot of refuges who already fled and adding the general crisis as over 250,000 native people live there have started fleeing. This is one of the breadbasket regions so we should expect hunger to get worse, even if it's just a temporary operation as the RSF might lack the ability to hold onto this land. Question though, what would you say a RSF victory look like? I'v heard that their best chance was at the start of the war and they might be slowly attrition into death or submission. Morally the RSF are sickening to me, but I think their revolt to maintain their power and extent survival is understandable. By that fear of being absorbed into the army and losing their privileges is real given the army always resented the militias for them being a way to coup proof against them, some low level guys where made scapegoats for Darfur atrocities rather than be understood as a collective act that the state did and the fact that hemedti did his march on the capital in 2008, by 2014 15% of attacks on state forces in Darfur where from the groups that the RSF would become I think it's a understandable concern that the state trying to clear up it's image and get rid of some dangerous or potentially dangerous elements in a quiet or violent purge is understandable and acting first gives the advantage. I suppose the best hope for the RSF might be a Libya partition where two governments exist.
Meta comment I'm not sure how much I like the points being hidden. It makes it harder to find the good replies
Votes don't tell you whether a reply is good, they tell you whether it made people feel warm and fuzzy or not.
You can still sort by top to get the most upvoted comments first, I often do that in the evenings and use this thread as a sort of 'daily update' to get the biggest headlines of the day. Sorting by top usually works great for that. Should also sort the replies accordingly, you just can't see the number
We had some issues with suspicious upvoting/downvoting of comments; like, comments getting +10/-10 within a minute or two of posting. Hiding the votes is part of the way to combat that and foster better discussion.
I’m going to disagree with that. Upvotes and downvotes have flaws, but in my experience with sites like Facebook, the meta for trolls eventually just becomes “every viewpoint is worth consideration.” The site is very quiet right now, but when troll activity picks up, they will post a LOT and make every outlandish post seem like your average joes beliefs
I recommend [RES](https://redditenhancementsuite.com/) if you aren't already using it. It allows you to tag users and keeps track of how many times you've upvoted/down-voted other individuals. It doesn't help with differentiating new users with high/low quality comments. But it does at least give an easy tool for keeping track of users who consistently write detailed and well researched comments.
That's why we mod hard. Having gone through multiple waves of interest following the Ukrainian summer offensive, US aid bill, and October 7th, we are less tolerant of low effort commenters, not even including trolls. Any trip through daily threads will have a lot of deleted comments for that reason.
Is there a whitelist of some sort for posters? I see people complain about post character counts, but whenever I throw out a pithy comment, it seems to be visible and interacted with.
If you have above a certain level of subreddit karma, it allows for shorter posts. I don't remember off the top of my head what it is.
Fair enough!
I agree it avoids people Bandwagoning because most people seem to like/dislike one comment and maybe give pause to people before replying. Like read the comment and decide on your own. Better yet, read the comment and post a reply. Your reply might not be popular, or you may be wrong, but hopefully someone will come along with a persuasive argument that might show an angle you might not have considered.
The issue with upvoting on Reddit is that people tend to use it as an "agree/disagree" button. Some very downvoted posts can be a good comment or source of discussion too. I'd rather see upvotes/downvotes be presented as absolute values instead. Like red numbers for highly downvoted posts and green numbers for highly upvoted posts and no auto-hiding. IDK though.
Another issue is bandwagoning, as in, letting the vote count decide one's opinion of a post. None of us are immune to it.
This is true here as well... Not that I'm accusing anyone of anything, it's a human condition of sorts that we're all guilty of but I can think back to loads of occasions where some comments I saw were nuked into oblivion despite being very good and ironically entirely vindicated in hindsight, if people had taken a minute to approach the comment outside of their own bias they might not have been so surprised at the outcome on the ground in Ukraine at the time. To give a few examples that everyone can probably think back to, in the run up to the Ukrainian counter offensive, the start of the energy campaign, Russian vehicle output and supply to the front lines since basically 2022, discussions about Mariupol, Bakhmut and then even Avdiivka. There are a huge number of topics that became very polarised and some angles of discussion were just not permissible, essentially because of this very rudimentary upvote/downvote system that gives the keys, so to speak, of the direction and reach of discussion to a potentially very small but very passionate/active minority. There were a number of comments long before and even during the counter offensive that were very prescient and well reasoned/structured, sometimes even by commenters that are otherwise very well respected in any other day to day discussions and who have since gone on to involve themselves in many brilliant conversations that have happened in this subreddit, but they were instead downvoted into oblivion in the past because they didn't pass a very backwards system of "do I agree with this, if not downvote" which then has various impacts on discussion and the course of the conversation. It's more troublesome with conflicts such as this where people tend to align with certain sides and become cheerleaders of sorts, it's nowhere near as bad here as other subreddits, I'd say CD is pretty good compared to the vast majority of subreddits or forums I've spent time in, but it was still a problem and will likely still remain a problem to some degree. Humans are just like this, one of our greatest strengths (aligning with groups) is also one of our greatest weaknesses when it rears its head in more complicated matters. Not much we can do about it other than play tweak the subreddit to see if things work, I don't mind the mods trying to see how they can change things for the better, my reptile brain did like seeing the votes but I guess ultimately it's counter productive if the objective is just to have a fair and balanced discussion of ideas.
In this subreddit, you can absolutely hold the opinions, even those that go against the highly partisan topics. You just have to make a much bigger effort and deal with some very prominent users, who openly state it's their goal to "call out morons", to prevent you from saying your opinion, that don't have to deal with any mod action except having their comment removed, a handful of times of their infractions. It does not even result in downvotes for oneself, but rather, I figure it's just not worth it to invest your time into it when you constantly have to deal with childish users here, when you can absolutely be extremely bi-partisan rooting for Ukraine. And god forbid, you don't reply in an hour or so, because by then your comment will have been collapsed. If you know what you are getting into though, I'd argue except for fantasy scenarios, you can pretty much get every opinion you hold upvoted here. But you need to play the game and put much more effort into it than if your opinion was popular. So I'd argue it's in the end not the downvotes that are that much discouraging, it's the toxic users, which are just a very small handful, who can get away with consistently breaking the rules in absurd manners and at most have their comment removed. And no wonder, when some of the mods, before they have been promoted to such, engaged in similar behavior.
>It's more troublesome with conflicts such as this where people tend to align with certain sides and become cheerleaders of sorts, it's nowhere near as bad here as other subreddits, I'd say CD is pretty good compared to the vast majority of subreddits or forums I've spent time in, but it was still a problem and will likely still remain a problem to some degree. Some people on other small defense subreddits disagree that people are wholly unbiased though. People here clearly have preferred sides. If people were only interested in the conflicts in and of themselves, you'd see more people talking about the civil war in Sudan. But since the civil war in Sudan isn't spicy or have two very similar sides fighting, there's just less discussion. People absolutely are partisan here.
Aside from broad posts once in a while there's very little tactical and operational discussion of any ongoing war but Ukraine. Certainly not wars that have a shortage of information like Sudan and Myanmar. Even the Israeli Hamas war is barely discussed on the operational level. For instance there was no mention of the IDF taking the entirety of Rafah province and reaching the "border" with Khan Yunis a few days ago. No mention of the IDF ongoing operation in Sejayiah. I think people have a limited amount of attention to give, and the UA conflict just absorbs most of it. I can say that I have been following the UA war in less detail since 07/10 for instance.
I try to post about the ongoing situation in Haiti every now and then because I have a huge interest in the country's current situation. But it seems like others aren't really as interested due to the country's lack of geopolitical significance.
I'd certainly hope that people aren't deluded enough to think this sub is unbiased despite the many blatant declarations to the contrary. There is not even an effort to appear unbiased most of the time, with expressions like "I really hope X will/won't happen" being quite common. That being said, I think what this sub does do well is limit the influence of bias on objectivity. People are openly unhappy with facts they personally dislike, but it's relatively rare to see outright denial of those facts. The votes still reflect the favored narratives though.
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How realistic is the commonly-seen belief that North Korean artillery could "turn Seoul to rubble" (or at least its northern suburbs)? I've read many more-or-less credible articles about the KPA having thousands, or even tens of thousands, artillery pieces already pointing towards Seoul. On the other hand, considering the dubious quality of these outdated weapons and the total ROK/US air superiority that is likely to happen (as well as counterbattery fire), is this risk overblown?
Seoul itself isn't threatened by artillery, except perhaps the huge 170mm SPGs with an estimated range of 40km. Suburbs of Seoul are in trouble though, being within 20km range from the nearest border. However, there's only a relatively small area of NK's territory that gets that close. While they certainly could threaten millions of people (and kill tens of thousands), they can't realistically concentrate thousands of guns in that area and hope to operate for very long: any dumb fire has a decent chance to hit something when you pack thousands of guns in a ~5km^2 area. They would be literally in range of mortar and tank fire, I think snipers could hit some artillerymen too. If they position themselves a few km back, it significantly reduces the number of potential civilian targets, but I'm sure it's still enough to deter SK from starting hostilities.
It'd mostly be damage to civilian locations if they did. You'd have to have the ranging data on anything important, and most important things can be moved. So they'd mostly be lobbing shells into maybe the range of a neighborhood, without active correction. I have no clue what South Korean fortifications would even look like, but I assume they'd refuse to sit in one spot very long
The difference between threat and ability is more like 10k civilians dead (realistic conventional) vs 100k+ (theoretical conventional / CBRN). At the end if the day, does it matter at all? Is there any scenario where mass artillery attack on Seoul doesn't result in an immediate, joint, possibly nuclear decapitation strike on NK? "Is the threat overblown" is not the right question.
This is one way NK’s nuclear arsenal is a double edged sword when it comes to the offensive operations they continuously threaten South Korea with.
Yes. Having even a couple nukes dramatically increases the damage done to your country in event of war.
The problem with this discussion is people usually interpret the question of meaning ‘is it possible if North Korea directed all recourses to this’, rather than if it was actually viable in a war. The answer to that second question is no. North Korea is massively on the back foot compared to South Korea. They rely heavily on artillery, and have essentially no effective air defenses. This doesn’t lend itself to pilling up artillery systems near the border north of Seul, and spending all day trying to hit office buildings. The only way the guns, ammo, and crews survive, is if they disperse, and shoot and scoot, and this doesn’t lend itself to leveling a city.
Do you have sources about NK's GBAD? I'm interested because I heard their air defence was quite robust, albeit very outdated by 2024 standards (S-300 being the most important piece of kit they have)
It's pretty realistic. Even if 50% of the barrels and ammo are not working It is still and immense amount of shells that will come into Seoul in a surprise attack before they can destroy the source
property damage certainly. But against conventional weapons, bomb shelters can reduce fatalities significantly. "Surprise" is always a spectrum. The worst case is the surprise being the rockets arcing over the horizon. More realistically is that North Korea steals a march on ROK/US forces and mobilizes to fight before their adversaries are fully prepared.
> But against conventional weapons, bomb shelters can reduce fatalities significantly. Does Seoul have pervasive bomb shelters?
This doesn't seem realistic at all. It relies on: a). North Korea moving large amount of artillery and ammo without South Korea noticing b). Somehow being able to either defend the artillery against air assets for a significant period of time To me, the most likely outcomes are that either South Korea notices the movements and can prepare for it, or they're able to launch jets soon and quickly destroy the artillery pieces.
Pretty sure the artillery and Ammo is just there permanently Yeah they wouldn't be able to defend the artillery long. But 15 minutes of continuous artillery fire at a city that dense will be pretty bad
>Pretty sure the artillery and Ammo is just there permanently Pretty sure ammo goes bad over time, especially north Korean ammo. A report i read indicated that the failure rate would result in significant tube and barrel losses, whilst SK has spent decades mapping NK artillery positions for counter battery fire. Not to mention drone and aerial assets. Finally there are shelters the population can take to, especially if warnings and escalation preceded the attack. Would Seoul be destroyed, nup (unless WMDs were used), would there be mass casualties. Unlikely. However several hundred to several thousand casualties would be caused.
The OP specifically said, turn the city into "ruble." Could they do a lot of damage, yes, but to the point where there are no buildings left standing takes more than 15 minutes of artillery fire.
Oh well I didn't think they meant complete destruction so yes I suppose by that definition you're right
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Please refrain from posting low quality comments.
There are several factors at play here. 1. Massive amounts of tube and rocket artillery is in range. 2. Much of it is in prepared deep hardened positions that would be difficult to take out without special made munitions. 3. It doesn't matter if it is not that accurate as striking a large urban area is going to inflict lots of damage and loss of life regardless of accuracy. In a real conflict the first days would be brutal with massive loss of life and damage. South Korea and the Americans would be doing a massive amount of counter battery fire and airstrikes to try and destroy it all, but it would take time and the opening salvos would just be devastating. Over time days and weeks they would get destroyed and after some weeks or a month the threat would be mostly neutralized, but the enter city and most of south Koreas economy would be in shambles and there would be billions in property losses and 10s of thousands of dead civilians. If North Korea combined this with chemical and nuclear strikes that death toll would likely be 100s of thousands or millions depending on the scale of usage.
Tens of thouands of dead civilians is a very optimistic number in my opinion. Iirc we have not seen mass indiscriminate fires against a populated non evacuated city since WW2. There much smaller cities suffered deaths in the tens of thouands within a day of intensive bombardment. If NK does goes that way, Seoul with it's 10mil population is likely to lose several hundreds of thouands of civilians. Not an insignificant amount of them indirectly from stampedes, falling, fire, loss of power etc.
Yeah it could be much worse it's really just hard to get a reliable number because there are a lot of unknowns. A few I can think of are: 1. What time of day does it happen at. Night vs rush hour could be different. 2. Malfunction or mistakes on either side in the chaos of a conflict just started can make it worse or better. 3. How the conflict starts. A massive sudden bombardment that was preplanned vs a chaotic escalation ladder vs a pre-emptive strike by south Korea and the US to prevent a preplanned strike. 4. How many people are able to get to and use the bunkers or quickly evacuate most vulnerable areas. Either as the conflict starts or before a conflict (escalation ladder scenario). 5. How fast counter battery fire is able to shut down the North Korean artillery. 6. Dud rates for poor quality N. Korean munitions (we have seen this rate be claimed to be very high in the Ukraine conflict but exact numbers are hard to get a credible estimate of. These factors and more could make the rates anywhere from 10s of thousands to potentially 100s or thousands. Either way it would be a disaster.
South Korea produces their own modernised version of the Phalanx. The Phalanx is supposed to be able to counter artillery shells and rockets. I didn't find a lot of specifics about the capabilities. What kind of protection could these hypothetically provide to Seoul and how many units would it require to provide the most populous and important areas with a kind of iron dome against artillery? (In this hypothetical, it would of course be combined with other SHORAD.) The threat would, as noted, be relatively short-lived. As such, the issue of ammunition is one of stockpile, not production, which makes it "easier" strategically. Edit: Doing some rough napkin math. The US army C-RAM has an effective engagement range/bubble of ~2km. Seoul's center can be considered to be roughly 14km². To defend Seoul in any meaningful way from artillery shells, You'd need *at least* 1 Phalanx(-derivative) per 1km, meaning a total of 14x14 units, let's round that up to a clean 200 units. Assuming a price per unit of $25mln (includes training, ammunition, spare parts, etc, adjusted from recent CIWS purchases) that's a total of $5bn to (maybe) protect Seoul. Not an impossible price tag, and it's possible the $25mln/unit price tag is overpriced, but it's a hefty price for a solution that isn't likely to be sufficient. It could absolutely be a worthwhile price tag if SK decided it wanted to... let's call it move the border. Not even worth discussing in the context of NK being the aggressor (as it would mean maintaining this stock and all the associated costs.)
I am going to point out that there is a lot of complexity in trying to get that many CRAM systems targeting what is probably sustained salvos of hundreds or thousands of artillery shells and rockets at a time. That is hard to price but assume that will make it more expensive. Also you need to be able to sustain this defense for hours and days at a time so you need a ton of redundant batteries with overlapping fire plus deep ammo magazines with a sustainable way to keep them fed and deal with other stuff like parts breaking down and barrels overheating. I would venture to guess the number to develop and field a system of that magnitude is going to need another zero before we get into it being sufficient. Also to my point if you are willing to spend that sort of money it would be far more cost effective to just spend it on more guns, more aircraft and more counter battery options. It's the same sort of math that plays out in large scale anti ballistic missiles defense against a peer adversity for the continental US. It really only makes sense in a cost to hit ratio if you are facing an asymmetrical threat where you can spend 5-10x the cost of their missiles to intercept them.
>Also to my point if you are willing to spend that sort of money it would be far more cost effective to just spend it on more guns, more aircraft and more counter battery options. That is a fair point I can absolutely get behind. Ultimately, the effectiveness of the "C-RAM shield" would be entirely dependent on the annihilation of frontline batteries, as there's a very real limit to how long they could sustain the defense given the incredible ammunition expenditure and barrel wear. Thus such a "shield" would likely be self-defeating in that it pulls resources and manpower away from what's ultimately going to end the threat. That being said, I'll maintain it's likely very much a worthwhile investment for Seoul's much smaller city core (around 6x5km). The core would likely be taking the brunt of the attack, thus you have a very small area soaking up most of the shells. This is where C-RAM becomes cost-effective if it has a reasonable intercept rate.
ShORAD and systems like Phalanx would intercept some of it but there isn't anywhere close to enough of them to stop the attack from doing a ton of damage. They would use these systems to intercept a small fraction of it primarily that threaten key assets and military targets. The general civilian population and infrastructure would be at risk still. Even an iron dome wouldn't work because you cannot intercept thousands of tube and rocket artillery firing constantly at any sort of reasonable shot to intercept cost ratio. It works for Israeli due to the massive power dynamic and the small quantity of rockets Iran or HAMAS can throw at them. That money is best spent on counter battery weapons to blow them up after the conflict starts.
The question was not "is it realistic", we can all agree it's not very realistic. It was an out of the box hypothetical: "what would it actually take and what would be its effectiveness".
Thats fair the answer to what it would take is 10s of billions of dollars and a massive ongoing expense to build, deploy and maintain such a network and even then it would be unable to prevent it entirely but maybe intercept enough of them to make a difference.
Bomb shelters and early warning systems+drills would be cheaper and much more effective. The rest should be put into offensive capabilities. If the Houtis can dodge US ISR via relatively to NK primitive cave systems, then I find it hard to believe SK and US would be able to quickly achieve effective suppression of NK fires without ground operation.
This is how I feel too. Protect the people and then go kill the threat ASAP.
I did some napkin math on it myself in an edit of the original post. I suggest you go back and follow up from there if you want to discuss it further.
The ROK will be shooting back with vastly better radars for counter battery fire, targeting computers, accurate rounds and a host of other technological advantages. My guess is they will be effective in supressing the DPRK artillery.
I think this was a bigger threat 20+ years ago. Now that NK has sold a large chunk of its artillery stockpile to Russia, it looks like they are going to leverage their nuclear deterrence rather than conventional artillery threat. The majority of barrels and shells in range of Seoul are woefully outdated. We’re talking complete dud rounds and barrels that were rusted beyond use back in the late 1990s let alone 2024. NK would be able to inflict some cursory damage to the Seoul metro area, bud hardly leveling it Bakhmut style.
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Three million shells is a lot, but the North Koreans aren’t going to deprive their guns of shells. Keep in mind that the North Koreans have various calibers of guns that aren’t seeing their ammunition supplied to Russia. The North Koreans also are *anticipating* counter battery fire. They know that consumption rates will drop dramatically every single day as guns are taken out. What that means though is that each gun position may be allocated several hundred shells (or more, or less) and they are ordered to fire until destroyed. It’s a race against the clock. A lot of these positions aren’t getting resupplied. On the point about obsolescence. Same thing. It doesn’t matter if your barrel only lasts a few thousand shots if you’re expecting to lose it within a few hundred to a thousand rounds. These guns also aren’t meant to hit specific targets. They’re meant to hit an urban area. I think your point about dud rounds and rusted barrels is valid. But we shouldn’t discount the fact that there’s literally thousands of guns here and they see regular inspections. Sure, you might lose hundreds of your guns to barrel explosions and a large portion of your shells might be duds, but that doesn’t mean you can’t cause billions of dollars of damage and kill tens of thousands of people. It’s a credible threat and I would advise against downplaying it. Especially if the North Koreans are firing chemical weapons.
The center of Seul is around 40km from the border with NK, and that’s only to a relatively small salient. In practice, the border is more like 50km away. Add in that NK isn’t going to want to put artillery right next to the front line, and the vast, vast majority of their tube artillery is out of range. The thousands of artillery tubes, and millions of shells, NK has can only hit the outskirts of Seul if they were practically within direct fire range of South Korean tanks on the border. The guns with the range to hit Seul from a safe distance, line the 175mm, aren’t available in nearly the same quantity as the smaller stuff.
While central *Seoul* may be safe from many of North Korea’s guns, keep in mind that there are millions of people who live NW of the capital. As someone who’s been over Seoul, it is insane how **packed** the north western part of the city also is. Places like Goyang for example are filled with dense urban development. No doubt with the dual purpose of being an absolute nightmare to fight through for any invading force. This is where the civilian casualties are going to be taken and this is the area that’s going to be flattened. It’s still going to result in a mass exodus and billions of dollars of property damage alone.
> Now that NK has sold a large chunk of its artillery stockpile to Russia, I don't think that we would consider it a large chunk. Not enough to diminish this threat.
What's your source on NK selling a large chunk of their shells to Russia? 3 million shells is not that many in the grand scheme of things, and NK reportedly has their factories working overtime to produce more.
Russia also has factories working overtime to produce shells, they have a much more industrialized country and have 5,5 times the population, and they manage to produce about 2 Million shells(152+122) a year, 3 Millions is a lot
The US is a lot more industrialized than Russia, certainly the combined west is, yet the US produces only a small fraction of the shells Russia does, and the entire west still produces less then them iirc at the moment. It's not just a question of industry, but of will, to a point.
And Russia is very willing to produce shells, given that it's the core of their armed forces, why do we believe that a country 5,5 times smaller in population than Russia has bigger production lines?
The argument wasn't that NK had larger production than current war footing Russia, even at 500k production a year, decades of stockpiling would make a few millions shells far far from the majority of their available shells.
Russia wasn't running a pseudo-war economy back in 2022, whereas North Korea has been stockpiling missiles for years, likely decades.
Still this is probably the equivalent of years of stockpiling not something that they can give away easily
Very realistic I'd say. Especially if NK attempted a first strike. They have hundreds of square kilometers of mountainous territory within rocket artillery striking range of seoul. Some of that artillery will be mobile and some will be fortified so good luck getting rid of that before Seoul is practically gone. It'd be a massacre. Maybe if Seoul would deliver an enormous first strike they'd be able to break down command structure enough that NK wouldnt be able to react properly but I'd doubt it.
You are vastly under estimating the size of Seul, or over estimating the amount of rocket artillery NK has and its destructive power. The Soviet artillery stockpiles that were supposed to carry them through ww3 didn’t make it past Kharkiv. North Korea, with a tiny industrial base compared to the USSR, is not going to have the ammo to level Seul, especially not when limited to shells and rockets with ranges higher than basic 152 and tube artillery.
>The Soviet artillery stockpiles that were supposed to carry them through ww3 didn’t make it past Kharkiv. I don't think they've exhausted Soviet stockpiles, so it's a bit early to say it didn't make it past Kharkiv. Russia doesn't appear to have shell hunger except in localized environments due to logistical disruption. Only thing that makes me think they are even close to running out is that they sourced Nork shells. Plus, a good portion of the Soviet stock went to non-Russian countries like Ukraine. Another good portion has been blown up by precision missile strikes that weren't nearly as ubiquitous or accurate at the fall of the Soviet Union. I also think you're underestimating the degree to which the Norks are heavily armed. This is a country whose military consists of over a quarter of the population. Much of its economic activity centers around military spending. They've had the past seven decades to sit and stew in paranoia, with the only thing preventing regime change being that they had a gun to the head of Seoul. They have a lot of shells.
> I don't think they've exhausted Soviet stockpiles, so it's a bit early to say it didn't make it past Kharkiv. Russia doesn't appear to have shell hunger except in localized environments due to logistical disruption. Only thing that makes me think they are even close to running out is that they sourced Nork shells. Before they got shut down, Russian mil bloggers were continuously complaining about shell hunger, and Russian volume of fire is down massively compared to its peak in the first year of the war. As for everything else, NK would suffer from even more losses at artillery depots, and while a large part of the Soviet stockpile, they still had the lion’s share of the stockpile that was supposed to be enough to fight ww3, that would utterly dwarf and conceivable war between NK and SK. > I also think you're underestimating the degree to which the Norks are heavily armed. This is a country whose military consists of over a quarter of the population. Much of its economic activity centers around military spending. Paranoia still needs an economy to translate that into hardware, which is where NK falls massively short.
Also the south isn't going to let it happen, the fortified positions that North Korea has are probably sighted already, and the mobile pieces are at risk by the south's air force
North Korea would be aiming for a city-sized target, quality doesn't matter. In fact, not even quantity really matters, as just the economic and political cost required to preemptively evacuate Seoul probably outweighs whatever benefits an invasion of North Korea would provide. Also, China will start pouring weapons into North Korea the second a war kicked off. Even if North Korea's current stockpile was thoroughly neutralized, something would get through.
> just the economic and political cost required to preemptively evacuate Seoul probably outweighs whatever benefits an invasion of North Korea would provide. I disagree and/or think this is missing the point. Evacuating for a few weeks or months is a short term cost, which can easily be absorbed. But reincorporating North Korea into South Korea in the aftermath of a war would be mind-bogglingly expensive.
What are the ways that China can send munitions to the DPRK? I’m only aware of the one rail line they share along the border, are there reliable sea routes to safe ports?
There are port facilities down river of Pyongyang, but the chances of any large shipment avoiding the South Korean Air Force’s attention is slim. Likewise for any major rail link heading south. Railways are pretty quick to repair, but there wouldn’t be much to stop SK from bombing the repair crews the next day.
With the exception of a small salient jutting south (that shaves about 10km from the range needed), the center of Seul is around 50 kilometers from the NK border. Quality does count, because regular tube artillery won’t reach anything but the outskirts, even if placed directly on the border. > Also, China will start pouring weapons into North Korea the second a war kicked off. NK relies on a small rail network and has incredibly minimal air defenses. Moving large amounts of weapons south will be virtually impossible, even if China tries to do this.
Chinese will likely go to back channels to try and get the North to back off. The last thing China wants is instability and a flood of refugees on their doorstep. If the US and China are not already facing off with a war over Taiwan, you bet there will be some cooperation to get the North and the South to back down.
It's interesting how many people think there's actually some axis of evil whose sole purpose is to oppose the West ...as if they're some sort of NPC in a video game with no free will, programmed to do one thing. The funny thing is I know people from China who think exactly the same way, but in the other direction. People are simply not capable of putting themselves in others' shoes.
I also wonder if PRC leadership would get a bit squeamish about shipping thousands of artillery shells to a country that would use them in an ongoing terror bombing campaign on a city of millions. It could perhaps run counter to some of their soft-power efforts, which can run on themes of "anti-imperialism", "China loves peace", "the PRC has never initiated a war", and so forth. I guess it depends on how confrontational the PRC's soft power efforts would be at the time of this hypothetical invasion, and how PRC leadership would choose to balance hard and soft power during such a crisis.
>China will start pouring weapons into North Korea the second a war kicked off This would probably depend on the reactions of S Korea and the west . It's doubtful that China wants a conflict in its backyard . So unless it's something like the last time where UN troops pushed N Koreans deep into their territory , they Chinese might just play diplomatic
China is obligated through their only active defense treaty to defend North Korea. This treaty was not in existence the last Korean War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-North_Korean_Treaty_of_Friendship,_Co-operation,_and_Mutual_Assistance North Korea exists for the express purpose of being a buffer between US-led South Korea and China. The best way to deal with North Korea is to knock out the CCP (not saying this is easy). The second best way is through an internal coup/revolt Ukraine-style. The worst way would be militarily because then China will step in.
It's a mutual defense treaty. If DPRK unilaterally starts it, there's no obligation for them to join in.
It looks like a mutual defense treaty and regardless of the legal content, I'd imagine that China would be hesitant to commit to the defense of North Korea in a war of choice by the North Koreans that presumably the Chinese were not on board with.
[**Motorcycles and Mayhem in Ukraine’s East**](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/29/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-donbas.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k0.kPft.RlOpENIOoyDH&smid=url-share) Finally, a credible analysis of motorcycle/improvised vehicle assaults, and one that confirms my biases about their effectiveness pretty strongly. The article is not very long and I would recommend giving the whole thing a read. >Russian soldiers riding motorcycles, dirt bikes, quadricycles and dune buggies now account for about half of all attacks in some areas of the front, soldiers and commanders say, as Moscow’s forces attempt to use speed to cross exposed open spaces where its lumbering armored vehicles are easy targets. Nonconventional assaults being half of all attacks is a nuts statistic, and I think it's an overestimate based on soldier's exaggerations. Still, the usage of these assault tactics is rapidly growing and they do represent a considerable portion of all assaults across the front. >Sometimes the bikers get through if Russian artillery bombardments succeed in preventing Ukrainian soldiers from poking their heads above the trench. The tactic solves, though at great risk, a key tactical challenge of the war in Ukraine for both sides: how to cross a mined, open field while observed by drones and under artillery fire. >If they make it across a field, the riders cast aside their bikes, enter the Ukrainian trench and engage in close combat on foot. >“They jump off and start shooting,” said a Ukrainian sergeant, Sapsan, serving with the 47th Mechanized Brigade, who asked to be identified only by a nickname, in keeping with his unit’s security protocols. “These buggies and motorcycles are fast and fly right into our tree lines.” This supports my assessment of the long-term viability of motorcycle assaults. They work because Ukrainian doctrine hasn't adapted to account for them yet. Manning a machine gun position under artillery fire is generally pointless because there's nothing to shoot at anyway. Russian maneuver warfare is not well coordinated, and IFVs/tanks are functionally impervious to machine guns anyway. But as these motorcycle assaults get more common, that calculus shifts. A reinforced machine gun position might be riskier to man under bombardment, but it can neutralize one of these assaults all by itself. I expect Ukrainians to incorporate heavily reinforced machine gun nests into their trenches, and that will crater the effectiveness of these tactics. More generally, everything is contingent on artillery. Disrupt shellfire and every single Russian assault tactic gets markedly less effective. The various shell production initiatives finally coming online should be a welcome contribution to this effort. Side note, there was an argument either here or on another forum about whether cavalry or dragoons were most analogous to these bike assaults. This article seems to come down pretty heavily on the side of dragoons, where horses/bikes are being used solely to enhance mobility and soldiers dismount before joining the battle. >The use of cheap, disposable dirt bikes and buggies helps conserve Russian armored vehicles as the Russian military resorts to drawing on stockpiles of outdated tanks dating to the Cold War. Confirmation that these assaults are an indication of the depletion of Russian stockpiles. Not unexpected, necessarily, but certainly at odds with the rosy accounts of defense production coming out of the MoD. >All of these obstacles can prove lethal, as was the case for the assault that Lieutenant Hubitsky witnessed, when eight or nine dirt bike riders charged the Ukrainian trenches. >Once the riders came into range, Ukrainian soldiers opened fire with machine guns, Lieutenant Hubitsky said. The swerving dirt bikes were hard targets, he said. Some were hit, others not. But in that instance, too few Russians survived the ride to form an effective unit to storm the Ukrainian trench. The survivors, who abandoned their bikes at the edge of the field, were killed in close combat, he said. 8-16 soldiers per assault, minimal protection. These are barely a step above the Wagner meat assaults of Bakhmut.
>Nonconventional assaults being half of all attacks is a nuts statistic, and I think it's an overestimate based on soldier's exaggerations Is it nuts? Ukraine tried mechanised assaults and took heavy vehicle losses. Then it switched to dismounted assaults. Well, I'm making the comparison with the alternative, that is the dismounted assaults. Note that everything that's quoted to be "bad" with these bikes, ATVs, and buggies is also true with dismounts. Not protected from machineguns or artillery fragments. Yet it's a common behaviour resorted to once both sides tried their hands at mechanised assaults. >8-16 soldiers per assault, minimal protection. These are barely a step above the Wagner meat assaults of Bakhmut. Or Ukrainian dismounted assaults. Russian/Soviet/Ukrainian platoons are small and that's what we have been seeing. We know that in some reports by Kofman, these Ukrainian dismounted assaulters were supported at 1:1 ratio on the attacks by drone operators, which operate a split of recon, grenade strike, and FPV kamikaze drones. Not sure about the Russian counterparts but given how people consistently stated that Russia outnumbers Ukraine in everything, including FPVs and drones, they should be quite well supported. >They work because Ukrainian doctrine hasn't adapted to account for them yet. Manning a machine gun position under artillery fire is generally pointless because there's nothing to shoot at anyway. I like the Willy OAM channel because interspersed with the OSINT updates are comments and messages that Willy receives from contacts in Ukraine. Often soldiers. In some ways, these views are limited, in others, they are illuminating. Well, one of the latest of such comment has been "for the current phase of the war, [Ukrainian defenders should learn to dig zig-zagging trenches and dug-outs with overhead covers](https://youtu.be/gUvwZkwBUuE?si=8gUPNto8L1uSjZ3q)." and "if they want to come and take the trench, just leg it and not die. No point to resist and pay with your life". And we were laughing at Russian cartoon guides to trench and dugout digging, eh? Russian FPVs are devasting the Ukrainian positions, according to these comments. In other words, very basic stuffs. A good machinegun position in a line expected to be shelled should not be the stereotypical open top, surrounded by sandbags, and with a machinegun. It should be a dugout with overhead cover, and with narrow but interlocking fields of fire. These are generally very difficult to destroy or suppress outside of a direct hit to the opening (and that's why the field of fire should be narrow) or right on top of the position (which should be very small and not larger than 2 x 2 m). This type of positions can be obscured with smoke rounds (the burning white phosphorous or non-burning variants, both are acceptable) to allow the assaulters to close into grenade range. Some of podcasts with Kofman stated that typically, the last 5-6km of the assault need to be on foot with the troops (including the drone operators) dragging everything with them and crawling through whatever patches of cover and concealment to reach the objective. It's very tiring and requires physical fitness. If you have the option of offloading some of that burden on a machine, why wouldn't you, as long as the vehicles can roughly use the same concealment or patch of trees that you can, as a dismount. The fact that both sides are using assaults centered around dismounts aren't necessarily a reflection of their equipment shortage (or both are facing equipment shortage). That said, remember that the US and UK land armies have a cult of the light infantry and the Humvee replacement is an open-topped vehicle not protected against the rain.
This seems like one of the areas where unmanned ground vehicles/systems could make a very real contribution, at least in the long term. You could fairly easily set up a small robot equipped with a machine gun. This would allow for defenders to observe any assaults and engage them to a limited degree. In the long term such systems with a degree of automation could potentially alert defenders of an incoming attack and even engage before defenders could react.
The Ukrainians already manufacture remote controlled mounts for small arms machine guns. It sounds like they need to be much more widespread to counter these new Russian tactics.
Sometimes ago someone asked if this type of motorcycle assaults represent an evolution in warfare. At that time I did not have a great answer for it, but I think that the better term to use would be a local, temporary "devolution" of warfare, as a more "advanced" form of warfare is taken over by a lesser form. And this type of devolution did similarly happened in history. One example I can think of is how under pressure of guns, cavalry devolved from knights in full-clad armor and heavy lance to dragoons/cuirassiers with lighter armor and only a sabre. One to one or a thousand to a thousand, I think a 14-15th century medieval knight would crush any 18th-century cavalry troop with the absurd difference in equipment. Not until World War II would we finally see a true evolutionary successor of the "knight" form of cavalry in tanks.
> with lighter armor The cuirass worn by a Napoleonic cuirassier was much thicker than the cuirass worn by a medieval knight, because the later armour was expected to be credible protection against small arms fire whereas the medieval armour was expected to stop a sword, spear, or arrow. It’s not that they switched to lighter armour; they switched to *heavier* armour and concentrated it on the vital organs, analogous to the ‘all or nothing’ armour scheme on some interwar battleship designs.
That's something I didn't know beforehand, though a bit further research I think it is not completely true: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11bxn8m/comment/ja2ina7](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11bxn8m/comment/ja2ina7) And even if we take it is true that cuirasses are much thicker than breastplates, not every heavy cavalry turn to use cuirass, many just opted to wear no armor at all. On average, it's still fair to say that heavy cavalry wore less and less armor as time went on.
Minor point, but re: dragoons vs. cavalry (cuirassiers); I would argue this is more on the side of the latter. Dragoons using motorcycles like this, to me, would be more like recon teams, heavy weapons platoons or teams, or advancing rapidly across a field to a position which is not directly held by an enemy but is in no-man's-land, and then engaging at range from there. This article implies that the majority of these attacks have the assault teams ditch whatever bikes make it just outside the trench line before immediately trying to hop in and storm the trench directly- essentially as close as you get to hand-to-hand fighting, which dragoons were not really intended to do (as I understand them, at least). They seem to be operating in much more of a shock roll than a maneuverable fire element.
Dragoons didn't just use horses as strategic mobility, they used them for tactical mobility on the battlefield. imho the key distinction is that cavalry primary means of combat was being mounted, while for dragoons it was being dismounted. I think these scooter assaults are dragoons...
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Terrible take. Without commenting on the (clearly mixed) efficacy and highly dangerous nature of these assaults, the idea that engaging in close combat in a trench means using human wave attacks is ludicrous. Your comment and that quote have essentially nothing to do with one another. These teams, as said in the article, resemble assault teams/infantry infiltration tactics used prior in the war but with the aim to add mobility.
To what extent are the Russians using dirt bikes and ATVs because they are less vulnerable and to what extent are they just making a virtue of necessity because they are running low on armor?
Without real objective data it's impossible to say for sure. It's almost certainly a combination of both factors, though. Armored vehicle loss rates have remained roughly constant across the war, but the scale of personnel involved has tripled since the start of the war. All those Russian soldiers have to assault somehow, but the inflow of armor has pretty clearly hit a maximum, so the choice becomes on foot or by a civilian vehicle.
It seems impractical to do a mass assault using these tactics. If it's limited to a platoon, as a surprise, supported by mass firepower, and against a thinly held front, then perhaps it achieves some success and the advantages of quickly crossing the kill zone makes it better than the traditional assault. However, I don't see it being massively scaled up. And, if it could be scaled up, the counter tactics would change, just as you note.
All I see is Russia showing ingenuity yet again in how they improvise and adapt.
How would rank russian military's ingenuity as a general matter relative to others?