The War in the Ukraine

Have there being any evidence of large scale employment of western equipment by Ukraine? Something like a leopard platoon or two. The lack of report on such is giving me the feeling that Ukraine is gathering their best equipment and troops for a grand offensive sometime in the future.

If such an offensive failed, I'm not sure how they are planning to muster enough men for another one. It would be the beginning of the end.

Breadbox said:

Have there being any evidence of large scale employment of western equipment by Ukraine? Something like a leopard platoon or two. The lack of report on such is giving me the feeling that Ukraine is gathering their best equipment and troops for a grand offensive sometime in the future.

If such an offensive failed, I'm not sure how they are planning to muster enough men for another one. It would be the beginning of the end.

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that grand offensive they have been planning just got an early start. this was the reason zaluzhny opposed staying in bakhmut, it takes away future offensive potentials.

Prizoghin gave a message about 3/8 in response to a query by the New York Times:



I will just say the important part:

Prigozhin says that Bakhmut is Wagner's final move. And continues:

"Defense Minister Shogu told you that after Wagner takes Bakhmut, operational space will be freed.

And so far the world has not met the well trained Russian army as these units have not entered combat.

They have all possible modern weaponry and means of reconnaissance.

Perfectly trained, they are waiting their hour.

Exactly when PMC Wagner opens up the operational space after taking Bakhmut.

Then the whole world will tremble"



Either Prigozhin is trolling or the Russian MOD will deploy operational or strategic reserves to develop the offensive operation. There is an unused operational reserve in the Luhansk that has been sitting there for months, training.

Prigozhin's next interesting statement.

He thanks Zelensky for working with him in Bakhmut and for the good times.

"My only request is to the old men and children out of here, and bring the proper combat ready units here.

Just be honest. We are honest with you. Please be honest with us.

67,580 personnel from Zaporizhya 21,000 from Lyman. Send them here and let us work with them."


I read this as Pzigozhin is taunting him and Ukraine for being strategic morons for allowing his PMC to tie down 1/3rd of their front line forces. Also that Ukraine has withdrawn the regular formations from Bakhmut and left the low quality units for Wagner.

It's been a while since the last missile barrage against energy infrastructure (). It appears these infrastructure missile strikes are becoming less frequent ever since General Surovikin's replacement by Gerasimov in January. Russia needs to exponentially increase infrastructure attacks to have a real effect on Ukrainian regime.

drowingfish said:

the winner here is fundamentally decided by which side has better coordination amongst units and branches.

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Bakhmut are already done deal. It is just question of time. There is mud season starting and Ukraine retain only mud road to supply(and in range of Russian artillery). Due to this attrition rate should be really ugly for Ukraine right now(there plenty of videos from Ukrainian side about state of supply road that they use now).

Another next tought battle would be for Chasov Yar and heights to the north of it. It has dominating height, control of which mean control of territory up to Kramatorsk.

Phead128 said:

It's been a while since the last missile barrage against energy infrastructure (

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). It appears these infrastructure missile strikes are becoming less frequent ever since General Surovikin's replacement by Gerasimov in January. Russia needs to exponentially increase infrastructure attacks to have a real effect on Ukrainian regime.

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I think its mostly missile stocks are running low than changing generals.

Why would changing generals affect the intensity of missile attacks when it makes no sense to stop/slow them down. The only difference the change of generals did was on September when Surovikin took command, and that was because Putin himself decided to start doing missile attacks. It was a strategic choice at that time

Now, however, it doesn't make sense. So most likely the reason is that missile stocks are running low IMO. Because if not, why would any military in the world would willingly lower their intensity of missile strikes?

gelgoog said:

Still, I doubt it would be that easy to integrate the AMRAAM even with these systems. For example even the electric signals for the weapon rails are totally different. Let alone having to reprogram the radar.

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With regards to the weapon rails, here's my layman's understanding of how they got the AGM-88 HARM to fire from the MiG-29. The fire control computer of the Mig does not readily recognize the electrical ignition signal of the HARM. So either they modified the computer to be able to accept the HARM's signal, or perhaps more likely they modified the electrical ignition signal of the AGM-88 HARM to imitate the ignition signal of a common existing MiG-29 weapon that the computer can recognize (ie. R-27 missile). The rest are the physical mods to the pylons and wiring.

They can probably use the same method to fire AMRAAM from MiG-29, but that's just the firing part.

Overbom said:

I think its mostly missile stocks are running low than changing generals.

Why would changing generals affect the intensity of missile attacks when it makes no sense to stop/slow them down. The only difference the change of generals did was on September when Surovikin took command, and that was because Putin himself decided to start doing missile attacks. It was a strategic choice at that time

Now, however, it doesn't make sense. So most likely the reason is that missile stocks are running low IMO. Because if not, why would any military in the world would willingly lower their intensity of missile strikes?

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Russia waited for Kiev to restore some electricity and today struck again on the power grid.

Yesterday the Western media was happy to report that after a year there are street lights again in Kharkiv, and today Russia hit Kharkiv again.

Joy as street lights back on in Ukraine's Kharkiv
Issued on: 08/03/2023

Street lighting has returned to Kharkiv, sparking joy in Ukraine's second-largest city that has been plunged into darkness and shelled regularly by Russian forces for more than a year.

Public lighting was switched on for just under two hours in the city centre on Tuesday evening, an AFP journalist reported.

Car headlights had been the main source of lighting in the city at night for more than a year, Terekhov was quoted as saying in a statement. The return of the lights lifted spirits in Kharkiv.

Local writer Anna Ghin said residents of Kharkiv had celebrated "victory of light over darkness.

"I have not felt such strong emotions in a long time," she wrote on Facebook.

"I saw a woman sobbing so hard she could not utter a word. She only cried into her phone 'Light, Light, Light'," Ghin wrote.

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Cult Icon said:

Prizoghin gave a message about 3/8 in response to a query by the New York Times:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I will just say the important part:

Prigozhin says that Bakhmut is Wagner's final move. And continues:

"Defense Minister Shogu told you that after Wagner takes Bakhmut, operational space will be freed.

And so far the world has not met the well trained Russian army as these units have not entered combat.

They have all possible modern weaponry and means of reconnaissance.

Perfectly trained, they are waiting their hour.

Exactly when PMC Wagner opens up the operational space after taking Bakhmut.

Then the whole world will tremble"



Either Prigozhin is trolling or the Russian MOD will deploy operational or strategic reserves to develop the offensive operation. There is an unused operational reserve in the Luhansk that has been sitting there for months,

Click to expand...

I think that Prigozhin is mocking regular Russian military, considering how well trained, informed and equipped they were during the last year.

Chilled_k6 said:

With regards to the weapon rails, here's my layman's understanding of how they got the AGM-88 HARM to fire from the MiG-29. The fire control computer of the Mig does not readily recognize the electrical ignition signal of the HARM. So either they modified the computer to be able to accept the HARM's signal, or perhaps more likely they modified the electrical ignition signal of the AGM-88 HARM to imitate the ignition signal of a common existing MiG-29 weapon that the computer can recognize (ie. R-27 missile). The rest are the physical mods to the pylons and wiring.

They can probably use the same method to fire AMRAAM from MiG-29, but that's just the firing part.

Click to expand...

I’m pretty sure they never integrated HARM onto the Mig29. Instead they rigged up a special tablet computer to allow communication with and launch of the missile using a special pylon.

At 0:58s of this video, you can just make out the top of the tablet at the bottom left of the frame.



In theory, so long as the pylon is compatible with the AMRAAM missile, they should be able to do the same using a software update to the tablet.

The biggest issue will be down to the practicality of how much manual input is required on the tablet, which in turn depends on how advanced the software is.

If the pilot needs to manually key in GPS coordinates on the tablet, that’s obviously a massive PITA, but is at least theoretically possible against a deployed SAM site as they are not going to be going anywhere in the 30-60s the pilot might need to key in the coordinates. But that is not going to work against fast moving air targets.

If the tablet can wirelessly pair with the commercial GPS satnav units also shown in the above video, and can display a moving map of live location of the Mig29 and allow the pilot to using touch input on the map to feed coordinates to the missile, then that might work against a completely unawares opponent by having the pilot guesstimate where the bogey will be, factoring missile flight time (XX seconds), and try to put the missile within seeker range of where the bogey will be in XX seconds. It can increase its odds by volley firing multiple AMRAAMs at different locations to maximise chances of one missile getting within range.

Massively suboptimal, but at least workable in theory. It also does away with mid course updates so the Mig can shoot and scoot immediately. It will have very low KP, but should also minimise the risk to the Mig, so if it lives long enough to keep taking pot shots, eventually it will get lucky.

Obviously they won’t be hunting Flankers like this (well, at least they shouldn’t), but they might catch some Su25s out, especially if the Su25s are making multiple passes against fixed ground targets.