The Ukraine war thread
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Some Russian railways thoughts inspired by recent threads from TrentTelenko(https://threadreaderapp.com/user/trenttelenko) and Prune602 (https://threadreaderapp.com/user/Prune602) on the Xitters. There are four rail nodes in increasing distance from Ukraine that, if taken out, will completely screw Russian supply to the war zone. They are Kursk (or any where south of it), Stary Ospol, Liski and somewhere around Volgograd. See this openrailwaymap and the following screenshot of it.
The key locations (from L to R): Kursk, Stary Ospol, Liski and Volgograd
These nodes are key because they are junctions on the electrified main lines to the border area and especially (in the case of the last two) to Rostov-on-Don which Russia uses for all it’s logistics into the southern section of the war. The first two take out logistics for Kursk/Karkiv area and one major access to Belgorod (for Northern Lukhansk) respectively. Russia relies on its electrified lines as it has far more electrical locomotives than diesel....A final point. Unlike, say, airfields or ammo dumps railways stretch a very very long way. That’s the whole point, especially in Russia which is a truly enormous country. But unlike roads there typically aren’t bypasses available for when the rail line is out in one spot. As you can see from the map at the top of this post if you take out a few nodes then there are no ways around. None. No bypasses or old roads on the other side of the valley. And this is particularly true of electrified ones. If the line is not electrified then your electric locomotives can’t go there. So if you take out the junctions between different electified lines and/or the junctions between electrified and non-electrified lines then you break the network.
Worse, it’s hard to overtake trains. On a single track line it is impossible. On a double track line there are only occasional places where someone built the points to allow a train to move from one track to another. If you take the power out an electric train will stop where it is. If it stops near to a train in the opposite direction there may be no way to change tracks between them.
Russia is aware of this and has railway repair workers ready to spring into action ASAP when there’s an issue. But even though these repair teams exist, if there are enough hits in enough places then they can’t fix them all. This is the sort of thing that drone warfare is excellent at. There’s no need to hit the (probably defended) marshalling yard or junction. Just take out a rail or an overhead wire 2 miles out one way and 5 miles out another. Keep doing this. Every day and twice on Sundays.
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@Wim said in The Ukraine war thread:
Same could be said about Ukrainian railways....
Of course, yes. Taking a railway out, especially an electrified one, could be crippling.
I wonder, however, if Ukraine has similar "choke points" for movement of goods.
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Here’s Zakrevsky’s diatribe against Putin, in my translation:
“Our country is not just on the brink of disaster or already right next to it; our country is already in trouble. In big trouble. Drones are flying all over central Russia, right up to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They even attacked the Kremlin. Our Black Sea fleet is being pushed out. It’s being pushed out as if we were not a great power with a great fleet, but some third-rate country.
“Our air force is practically not working because it is also being pushed out. We are standing in the same positions that we took more than two years ago, and partly in those to which we retreated. The population is dying out, becoming impoverished, drinking itself to death: no one cares. All they have time to do is bring in migrants.”
Zakrevsky minces no words in assigning blame for this sad state of affairs: “And all this was done by the so-called ‘president.’ The ‘Great’ Putin.”
After accusing army officers of incompetence and worse, Zakrevsky concludes his screed with an appeal “to those who are in the trenches. You know very well what kind of indecency is happening there now….You know very well the faces that are mocking you and your relatives…. We call on everyone to join our union to save our country. The point of no return has already been passed.”
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144 Drones say hello to Moscow.
Ukraine struck the Moscow region on Tuesday in its biggest drone attack so far on the Russian capital, killing at least one woman, wrecking dozens of homes and forcing around 50 flights to be diverted from airports around Moscow.
Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power, said it had destroyed at least 20 Ukrainian attack drones as they swarmed over the Moscow region, which has a population of more than 21 million, and 124 more over eight other regions.
At least one person was killed near Moscow, Russian authorities said. Three of Moscow's four airports were closed for more than six hours and almost 50 flights were diverted.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the drone attack was another reminder of the real nature of Ukraine's political leadership, which he said was made up of Russia's enemies.
"There is no way that night time strikes on residential neighbourhoods can be associated with military action," said Peskov.
Oh....
Kyiv said Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, had attacked it overnight with 46 drones, of which 38 were destroyed.
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Kursk incursion: a gamechanger?
https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/09/14/frontline-report-russian-forces-finally-sacrifice-pokrovsk-offensive-to-defend-kursk/ -
In the short run, yes.
Long run, no.
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Badaboom!
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@Wim said in The Ukraine war thread:
Badaboom!
Perfectly legitimate military target well inside Russia.
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The DPRK is not doing just because the goodness of their heart. There is some payment from Russia to North Korea for the troops.
(As a side note, there is actually a large number of DPRK citizens working in the Russia logging industry. If you think that Haitian immigrants are treated badly, check out the life of a DPRK logger in Russia.)
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Russians are ready to end it. I suspect that if 31% will answer in the affirmative the number that really feels that way is greater.
"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
