The War in the Ukraine

There were recent news of Ukraine exporting electricity to the EU. Here is a chart of Ukraine electricity demand from the IEA.



Since the conflict, massive population exodus, and the Russians blowing up the transformers in the middle of the grid, Ukraine's electricity demand plummeted to less than half the pre-war levels. Since electricity has a major correlation with GDP, you can guess what happened to that. Ukraine's GDP numbers are probably even worse than advertised.

So even with a significant fraction of the energy production capacity now captured by the Russians or in conflict areas, the lack of demand means a lot of electricity can be exported. Since the largest transformers and switching stations thus far have not been hit.

The remains of a destroyed Ukrainian T-64BV as filmed by a Ukrainian soldier and posted in social media. This is in Bakhmut.


Yet another M777 falls victim to a Lancet attack and it won't be the last. The crew of the howitzer can be seen running away as soon as they realized the drone is headed towards the gun.


ATGMs hit a Ukrainian tank and a squad of Ukrainian troops behind it.


The remains of a Ukrainian 2S3 Akasyas destroyed by Russian artillery.

According to NBC after reading some of the leaked files, there is a mention that US provided JDAMs are failing due to Russian EW equipment and the Ukranians not setting the fuzes properly

A document marked “secret” examines why Ukrainian bombs equipped with U.S.-made guidance systems, known as Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, have failed recently. It speculates that bomb fuses are not being armed correctly and that GPS signal issues — potentially caused by Russian jamming efforts — could be at play.

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Seems the Russians have finally figured out gliding bombs do have their advantages

NYT: Leaked documents suggest Ukrainian Air Defense is in peril if not reinforced. A huge influx of munitions is needed to keep Russia’s air force from changing the course of the war, according to U.S. officials and newly leaked Pentagon documents.
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WSJ: Ukraine may run out of air defenses by may, leaked Pentagon documents warn. Kyiv is depleting its last reserves of S-300 missiles, making it possible for Russia to achieve air superiority, according to purported Pentagon presentations.
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baykalov said:

NYT: Leaked documents suggest Ukrainian Air Defense is in peril if not reinforced. A huge influx of munitions is needed to keep Russia’s air force from changing the course of the war, according to U.S. officials and newly leaked Pentagon documents.
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WSJ: Ukraine may run out of air defenses by may, leaked Pentagon documents warn. Kyiv is depleting its last reserves of S-300 missiles, making it possible for Russia to achieve air superiority, according to purported Pentagon presentations.
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NATO has not put much emphasis on anti-aircraft for more than 50 years, as this role would be covered by its extensive air force.
There is simply no industrial capability or even existing systems, both in quantity and quality, that can fill the role of the Soviet S300 batteries operated by Ukraine.
Of course, this can be overcome within 1-2 years with astronomical investments of money, and if a war economy is entered into. We see how even for the production of ammunition this is complicated.

In the same way, the Soviets/Russians never thought they would achieve air superiority (plus the Soviets' own experiences against the German air force).
Thus, both sides of the conflict have found themselves on the opposite side of the conflict from what they planned.
The Russians have the potential to dominate the skies within their grasp, and an adaptation to achieve this seems to be underway, with the FABs' glide-steer kits being the best example.
On the other hand, NATO seems to be failing to adapt to this "inferior" role of simply denying the enemy the air.

Well, war, they say, is in essence a game of adaptation ...

We'll have to see how it plays out, but all those now daily videos of FABs destroying Ukrainian positions means a lot of dead once you "get close".
Well, I remember when the HIMARS destroyed half a dozen ammunition dumps, how many ammunition dumps have been blown up these last two weeks thanks to the Russian air force?

This is why a video that shows a tank being hit does not necessarily mean it's dead. If the geolocation of this tank and the video is true, then the Russians have made significant progress in Marinka recently.


Denis Pushilin visits Bakhmut ahem Artemovsk on the ground.

baykalov said:

NYT: Leaked documents suggest Ukrainian Air Defense is in peril if not reinforced. A huge influx of munitions is needed to keep Russia’s air force from changing the course of the war, according to U.S. officials and newly leaked Pentagon documents.
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Isn't it super weird that NYT has a classified image embedded in its article? Pentagon has been scrubbing images from Twitter, but NYT sharing them like it's candy... Does this suggested a controlled leak, which NYT is amplifying and re-sharing?

Phead128 said:

Isn't it super weird that NYT has a classified image embedded in its article? Pentagon has been scrubbing images from Twitter, but NYT sharing them like it's candy... Does this suggested a controlled leak, which NYT is amplifying and re-sharing?

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I think that the content is indeed classified but the source is OSINT rather than anything sophisticated.

Su-27UB and Mig-29 taking off from a highway somewhere in Ukraine. Judging by the state of the road, good luck getting F-16's to take off in such conditions.

Phead128 said:

Isn't it super weird that NYT has a classified image embedded in its article? Pentagon has been scrubbing images from Twitter, but NYT sharing them like it's candy... Does this suggested a controlled leak, which NYT is amplifying and re-sharing?

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Its a controlled leak. If it was a real leak, the US propaganda media would have had a gag order imposed on them just 1 millisecond after the US authorities discovered it

Literally fake news