Sounds a bit desperate to me. However desperate despots do desperate deeds.
Hey, if it worked for John Paul Jones, maybe it will work for Putin.
I haven’t seen much news about a underground resistance. It’s surprising because it has traditionally been very helpful in gathering intelligence and harassing occupiers.
ISW July 7
‘We have not yet begun to fight!’
‘We’d better start, because we’re getting our arses kicked!’
Following that analogy to its conclusion, Putin would allow Ukraine to burn Russia to the ground and then save the day by moving the entire Russian population to Ukraine.
Or he’d compose a killer bass line.
Sen. Lindsey Graham has shown his support for the preservation of democracy in Ukraine. Sen. Richard Blumenthal also made the trip.
Hehe, and to come full circle, a user on a Bass Guitar forum I’m a member of has the naval JPJ as his avatar.
I found this idea quite compelling (the end of the article is paywalled):
Ryan McBeth has a pretty good video about why they haven’t done it.
Short version: Bridges aren’t easy to bring down from the air. Hitting it is going to be difficult for Ukraine without air superiority and no high precision bomb capability.
He’s a little wrong in his argument for how much explosive a special forces team would need to make the bridge inoperable - the counter argument he cites is a controlled demolition, and the special forces team doesn’t need to bring every bit of it down. But the rest of the argument, even the part of leaving the bridge as an escape route for Russian troops is pretty sound.
The Russians certainly seem to be nervous about the bridge to Crimea.
In the past few days, they’ve conducted smoke screen exercises at the bridge:
This led to accidents for the motorists crossing the bridge:
The Russians have also placed a decoy ship at the bridge:
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1544658476475236353/AYTOSWxR?format=jpg&name=900x900
From the article in one of the above links:
The Crimea bridge could be too high value a target. I’d be concerned Kyiv would be turned into another bombed out ruin like Mariupol.
It would be extremely satisfying to see that bridge knocked out. Cut off the supply chain from Russia.
Current US military aid. I don’t have the latest $400 million draw broken out but it includes 4 additional HIMARS - total of 12 to date - 8 in country. Also 1,000 rounds of high precision 155mm howitzer rounds. Perhaps Excalibur or a different model.
United States security assistance committed to Ukraine includes:
• Over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;
• Over 6,500 Javelin anti-armor systems;
• Over 20,000 other anti-armor systems;
• Over 700 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;
• 126 155mm Howitzers and up to 410,000 155mm artillery rounds;
• 36,000 105mm artillery rounds;
• 126 Tactical Vehicles to tow 155mm Howitzers;
• 19 Tactical Vehicles to recover equipment;
• Eight High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and ammunition;
• Two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS);
• 20 Mi-17 helicopters;
• Hundreds of Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles;
• 200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;
• Over 10,000 grenade launchers and small arms;
• Over 59,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition;
• 75,000 sets of body armor and helmets;
• 121 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;
• Laser-guided rocket systems;
• Puma Unmanned Aerial Systems;
• Unmanned Coastal Defense Vessels;
• 26 counter-artillery radars;
• Four counter-mortar radars;
• Four air surveillance radars;
• Two harpoon coastal defense systems;
• 18 coastal and riverine patrol boats;
• M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions;
• C-4 explosives and demolition equipment for obstacle clearing;
• Tactical secure communications systems;
• Thousands of night vision devices, thermal imagery systems, optics, and laser rangefinders;
• Commercial satellite imagery services;
• Explosive ordnance disposal protective gear;
• Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear protective equipment;
• Medical supplies to include first aid kits;
• Electronic jamming equipment;
• Field equipment and spare parts;
• Funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment.
I get heavy “this is not even my final form” vibes.
Professional training should increase the odds of the recruits surviving the war. They may even be better trained then the newest Russian conscripts. It’s probably an accelerated course that combines basic combat training (BCT) and advanced individual training (AIT).
Guardian blog
I wonder if the Brits are giving anyone partisan training. A little expertise in behind the lines sabotage for use in the Donbas, maybe.
Someone looked intothis and discovered this guy is a retired border guard. Excellent detective work detailed in this Twitter thread:
And the idea of using Harpoons, an anti-ship missile, seems especially dubious. Not so much on account of the warhead (although, it’s a lot easier to put a hole in an unarmored ship than a bridge pylon, I suspect), but because it might not necessarily have the ability to discern a particular part of the bridge and lock onto it for a precision strike of the sort I imagine would be needed to bring down a bridge.
Like, even if you can hit the bridge and have the warhead explode as desired, I would imagine you’d want multiple missiles to hit essentially the same handful of key structural components to actually bring about a collapse, rather than just put some potholes in the road here and there and have the bridge’s structural soundness be “questionable” for the next however many years (because something tells me Russia won’t give two shits if collapse could happen at any time: they will only care if it actually collapses, and not for loss of life, but for the disruption to their supply chain).
Bridges tend to be solid structures designed to hold up a not-so-solid deck. You can continually poke holes in the deck and make it inoperable without taking the support structure down. It’s like destroying a piece of rail. Easy to replace but it shuts down the use of the line until repaired. And you can keep taking out small pieces of rail all day long. The trick is to do it just before a train hits it so not only does the rail need replacing but all the de-railed trains need to be removed.
There are extra points for destroying the track repair equipment when it shows up.