The War in the Ukraine

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
What do members here, especially those like @Tam and @gelgoog who are plugged into the Russian information space, think of the narrative that China is behind Russia's recent battlefield successes?
Russia has been launching optical recon and GLONASS satnav satellites since the conflict started. Especially last year several satellites went up. I put a picture taken by one of these recon satellites on the Russian Military thread just a couple days ago.

With the improved GLONASS satellites i.e. the GLONASS-K2 series plus just having more satellites up you can bet the accuracy of the satnav signal over the battlefield has improved. I also heard rumors that software in some Russian weapon systems was changed to enable them to operate at the higher precision. Instead of entering GLONASS coordinates as 1.234 they are now entered as 1.23456. Something like this. They added two extra digits of precision to software systems.

In Q4 2023 they put the first satellite in the Razdan series up. This is a large recon satellite similar to the US Keyhole series. And in Q4 2023/Q1 2024 they put two Razbeg satellites up. These are small recon sats similar to US commercial recon satellites. The Razbeg satellites are expected to have 0.9m resolution in Panchromatic mode. And the Razdan should have much higher resolution.

Russia has been working on building its own modern space grade electronics since those supplies got sanctioned from the West after the annexation of Crimea. It took a long time to make the electronics, then the whole systems, and the whole satellites, and test them. But now after almost a decade the satellites have been entering service.

If China cut all sales of dual use products to Russia what would have suffered the most would have been the Russian civilian sector. The few components they are talking about which are imported from China that do end up in Russian military products would have been smuggled in anyway. Maybe some weapon systems would have been degraded but I doubt this.

Russia had been preparing for a cut in trade ties with the West for like 8 years. If they hadn't had a secondary source for the simpler COTS semiconductors they would have just developed more of their own supply.

This guy really underestimates Russian industry. Russia has its own chip designers. They have their own semi fabs. And they have a metric ton of software developers. He seems to think Russia cannot develop its own command and control systems. I can tell you that it is highly doubtful that Russia would use an imported software system and connect it to the heart of their military control systems. Especially in the middle of a war. They don't even trust Chinese construction teams to build strategic objects like railways and railways tunnels.

Command and control systems have been in use and development since the Soviet Union. In fact the Soviets had an edge in this over the US for a period. The Soviets had highly advanced command and control theory which predated the US developments for like a decade. The Soviet collapse led to a delay in the modernization of such systems but the modernization has been ongoing since like the early 2000-2010s.
 
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plawolf

Lieutenant General
Not this guy in particular, he's just an example. I want to get others' thoughts on the scope of Chinese "support" to Russia through the trade of so-called dual use items like CNC machining centers, thermal imaging systems, satellite intelligence, etc. and to what degree that's having a qualitative effect on Russia's war effort.

I personally think Chinese assistance is far more comprehensive and impactful than either the Chinese or Russians will publicly admit to in the foreseeable future.

The Russians don’t want to say anything to maintain their Russian pride in being able to ‘stand up’ to America and NATO ‘all by themselves’. Whereas China is still playing for time and don’t want to risk triggering WWIII unnecessarily or prematurely from their own POV and timeframes.

Hell, I’m sure even the Americans and Europeans knows a lot more than what they are prepared to say publicly because they know that once they say something publicly they will then be expected to do something about it. But doing something risk retaliation from China and if the tit-for-tat gets too bad, then they loose all deterrence power to do much more if China just started to full send all the lethal aid it can produce to the Russians.
 

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
In the electronics sector China helped as a source for a lot of inputs which previously used to be imported from Europe like PCB fiber or large diameter silicon wafers which were not made in Russia. The Russian government has since started a program to make their own independent supply of the materials to ensure continuity of supply.

In case of a total cut of supply you would have seen Russia basically recede to late 1990s level of chip technology. But the idea that the Russian MIC would lose access to semiconductors altogether and be unable to make weapon systems is just ludicrous. Just for reference the level of chip technology even in fighters like the Su-35 is basically that level. They are made in six inch wafers with Soviet tools and materials. Those would have been able to continue to be produced just fine. As would discrete semis. It is only things like the more modern semiconductors used in the Su-57 that would have been affected. But for those systems production rate is still low and existing chip stockpiles will probably last for years of production.

I also see investments being done piecemeal. All over the place. Even mid sized companies have been getting their own surface mounting machines (pick-and-place and ovens) instead of outsourcing this to ensure rapid product iteration and continuity of supply. To properly take advantage of surface mounting technology you also need the appropriate chip packaging. And I also see the Russian chip companies, like Mikron, adding modern plastic packaging equipment inhouse. Previously Russia had a company which did pretty advanced semiconductor packages based on ceramics. But the plastic packaging was typically outsourced to Asian countries. The semi industry in Russia is basically moving as many processes as possible in house. The equipment used for this is typically Asian. But not necessarily Chinese.

I think the West is ignoring just how many things the Russians can still import just fine from other countries. For example they were still importing machine tools from South Korea and Taiwan recently. And I think they still are.

The Lancet loitering munition also uses COTS NVIDIA GPUs to do the AI processing like target recognition. This is probably much cheaper than using existing Russian AI chips to do the same thing. But you don't see threats or actual sanctions against NVIDIA. The fact is most imported semis you find in Russian weapon systems are in fact of Western design and not Chinese. And it is just so easy to get COTS chips that the idea you could stop the flow to Russia just by convincing China to stop exporting there is idiotic. If China even wanted Russia to lose which I kind of doubt it. They don't want the US in their Northern border as well.
 
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sunnymaxi

Major
Registered Member
@gelgoog read your posts.. agreed with all of your points..

Russia still getting most of the equipment/tools from western world via different countries.. one example is here.

Italy's exports to Kyrgyzstan are up 1000% from before the invasion. This goes on from all EU countries to all of Central Asia and the Caucasus.. all these countries have very small market. so where all those exports gone ? obviously Russia..

Image


China's exports is going into commercial/civilian market. as we have seen automobile , Phones , semiconductor , heavy machinery and machine tools. last year in june, 2023 as per the Financial times chart, Russia's import 50 percent of their tools from direct Chinese companies.

i believe, this War made one thing possible, Russians now looking for second option as well. this is where Chinese companies entered in the game.. compatibility with Chinese tech. they are still getting tools from European/Koreans but also import tools from Chinese.. dual strategy. sensible move..

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Medical equipment is another very important sector, we have no data. but i think Russian also import Chinese medical machines and equipment ..
 

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Medical equipment thus far is not sanctioned. Russia has been upgrading their entire hospital network and most of the equipment being used is still imported from the West.

As can be seen from your chart just the imports of machine tools from South Korea and Taiwan exceed pre-invasion imports of tools from Europe and Japan. It is Europe which has been the biggest loser here again.

More machine tools are being bought by Russia but the idea this is just for the MIC is idiotic. A lot of companies in Russia are bringing processes in-house where they used to be outsourced abroad. To ensure supply won't be disrupted again. New factories are being started to replace lack of supply from products which now are not available for import from the West anymore. One good example of this is the Rostselmash tractor plant that was opened recently. That company previously only made combine harvesters in Russia. Rostselmash prior to the sanctions imported tractors from their factory in Canada. The automobile companies are also making more parts in house than they used to.

The Russian government is also trying to move all industry from just expanding capacity to decreasing its labor intensity. Solving the labor shortage problem with increased automation.
 
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lych470

Junior Member
Registered Member
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An article from Foreign Affairs on why neither side wants to come to the negotiating table.

"To make peace in a conflict, both parties have to be willing to accept each other’s minimum demands. And despite the mutual lack of progress, neither Russia nor
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can swallow each other’s requirements. ...

For both countries, fighting on remains preferable to making a settlement. And unless there is a drastic change on the battlefield or in one of the state’s governments, it is highly unlikely that the two sides will revise their requirements in the long term, either."

The article starts well enough but then it assumes that things will continue on in this state indefinitely. Morale and support for war from the Ukrainian side isn't worn down gradually like a smooth gradient; rather it would collapse, like a titration curve.

What is clear is that the war will not end with Zelensky in power.
 
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Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
What do members here, especially those like @Tam and @gelgoog who are plugged into the Russian information space, think of the narrative that China is behind Russia's recent battlefield successes?

That should be one MLRS but the other appears to be a SAMP-T/IRIS-T SAM system.

Real time satellite imagery from the Chinese isn't necessary for two reasons. First, the Russians have their own and it works well. Second, there's always reconnaissance UAVs everywhere, such as in this particular case, the drone that took this footage may have originally spotted these launchers and obtained their targeting data, allowing the Russians to fire a ballistic missile with sheer minutes of the discovery. Whereas the Iskander is usually attributed, it can also be a Tornado-S, a DPRK or an Iranian missile to finish the job. All these other missiles help explain why Russians have more than enough missiles available to do any job, to strike at any opportunity that presents itself, this along with the scaled up production of Iskanders. A new Iskander-M missile has removed it's decoy apparatus in exchange for a data link that may receive target data uploaded from a UAV, allowing for inflight changes of target coordinates.

In this case I think it's an Iskander-M that was retargeted as the targets moved from one place to another, the observing drone same as the the one taking the footage, provided new coordinates. This new scheme means shoot and scoot tactics don't work anymore.

Extras:

Kozak-3 APC taken out by Krasnopol.

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Ukrainian tank taken out by Krasnopol.

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M777 taken out by Lancet from the 238th Brigade.

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Ukrainian transport gets picked off by artillery.

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Ukrainian vehicles under FPV drone attacks.

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Ukrainian Akasya SPG gets knocked out by a Lancet.

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M777 knocked out by counterbattery fire.

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Gerans arrive on a city near Odessa.

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The 200th Brigade has taken Bogdanovka.

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A soldier of the 200th shots down an FPV drone.

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FPV drones took out a Bradley and a Maxxpro.

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Ukrainian soldiers on a dangerous job of trawling swamps, fields and forests for unexploded Russian shells that they can use. Serious shell shortage biting.

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Kyiv residents protesting against the cutting of forests for the construction of a huge 260 hectare military cemetery. Building such a huge cemetery implies the sheer scale of the casualties Ukraine has suffered.

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