Ukraine can, should, and does attack any facility that enables the Russians to continue to wage war. Whether those facilities are within the occupied territory of Ukraine itself is not and should not be relevant. If anything, they’d be less inclined to destroy facilities within the occupied territory, because they plan to keep those for themselves after the war.
“The defense was counting on the [Russians] being able to retreat,” Viktor Kivliuk, a retired Ukrainian colonel with the think tank Center for Defense Strategies, told the paper. “But if there is no one left to retreat from the first line, who will defend the second?”
Photos of the damage done to the Russian submarine in last week’s attack on the Sevastopol dry dock:
That’ll buff right out
Should make it easier to submerge. Not so sure about resurfacing ability though.
(quoting Viktor Kivliuk)
I’m struggling with the concept of “who will defend the second line of defense?”. Um…themselves? Surely they are the defense? It’s kind of in the name?
Plus a bit of duct tape.
This is the issue:
Although Russia has built a “defense in depth” — consisting of multiple positions spread across a territory that allow forces to fall back and grind down the enemy’s advance — it has spent most of the counteroffensive using the bulk of its troops to defend in front of the first line, analysts told the paper.
Russian forces have also been conducting counterattacks ahead of this line, which Kofman said has been a “very costly strategy” as they have lost significant amounts of armored fighting vehicles and troops.
They’ve built more “Lines of defense” than they have men and equipment to occupy those lines. The intent was, when the Ukrainians begin to breach one line of defense, the Russians would retreat to the next line of defense, and start all over. Each line degrades the Ukrainian offensive capabilities, while preserving as much of the Russian defensive capabilities as possible.
But then, the Russians decided not to use them that way - they’re going all-in on defending the first line of defense, refusing to allow their troops to retreat in good order when the time comes to fall back to the next line of defense.
If Russia can hold Ukraine at that first line, this might not be a problem for Russia. But if they can’t do that, then Ukraine breaks through their first line of defense to find a second line of defense that is a ghost town - there’s nowhere near enough Russians manning that line to stop or slow down the Ukrainian offensive.
I’ve been reading that the RU bring/brought in quite some reserves to protect Tokmak … (next major city) … but I wonder if the UKR will bypass them (Tokmak could easily turn into another Bakhmut for both) and just sort of “keep them at bay” there … until they run out of … everything …
not even besiege them (I imagine there are still lots of civilians there) … just cut them off from mayor supply lines … so in order to be effective, the RU defenders would have to turn into attackers - which is likely not going to happen…
but time will tell
What the guy is saying is that the Russians have spent all their reserves reinforcing the first line, to the point where the only available forces to man the second line would be units retreating from the first line. But because of how the Russians are fighting, there won’t be anyone retreating from the first line because the units there are fighting to and beyond the point of being combat ineffective.
Defense in depth normally means retreating much earlier, trading territory for attrition on the enemy while preserving your own forces. The idea is that the enemy will run out of fresh assault forces before you run out of new defensive positions in your rear to fall back to, allowing you to inflict a disproportionate casualty rate on the enemy. The Russian defense around Robotyne and south of Bakhmut has not followed this pattern. Instead they continue spending additional forces in order not to retreat.
However, it remains to be seen if the Russian defensive rubber band will snap prior to the Ukrainians running out of offensive steam. There’s also the prospect of the fall mud season saving the Russians from a Ukrainian breakthrough and giving them time to re-establish an effective defense.
I believe the general Ukrainian strategic plan is probably to sever the supply lines along the so-called land bridge, and then re-double their attacks on logistical supply through Crimea, rendering the position of the Russian forces remaining in the southern parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts untenable and forcing a strategic withdrawal. That would mirror what they did on the right bank of the Dnipro last fall to retake Kherson without fighting in the city. A breakthrough could bypass Tokmak and instead advance to the southeast far enough to bring the road west from Berdyansk into artillery range. Then some missile strikes on bridges at the ithmus of the Crimean peninsula, and they might be able to retake Tokmak and Melitopol without any urban fighting.
Actually, for submarines, you need to use EB Green
Ukraine’s government is still struggling with corruption. Supposedly it’s steadily improving.
Russian Army recruitment commercial in which they discuss Ukrainian real estate investments. Bunch of fascists up front about their thieving intentions.
I’m assuming that, unlike the practice in Russia, none of them fell out of high windows.
One of the problems with actually fighting corruption is that it highlights when actual corruption is happening. You have to fire them, but that sets up the narrative of, “Man, look at how many people are being fired for corruption, it must be rampant!”
Meanwhile, if you weren’t actually doing anything about corruption, it would look okay. “There can’t be that much corruption, no one ever gets fired for it…”
It aggravates me when anyone mentions Russian ‘defense’ .
The Russians are invaders. People are trying to defend their country and homes and their lives.
The only defense going on is kicking Russians out of UKR.
So were the Germans, but they were defending the beaches in D-Day 
While that may be emotionally satisfying, from a military perspective, terms like “offense” and “defense” have particular meanings, and trying to get fancy with them for political or social reasons just muddies the waters, and risks fatal misunderstandings.
Offense is when you’re advancing against enemy positions with the intent of capturing or destroying them. Defense is when you’re trying to stop the enemy from advancing. Who used to own that particular patch of land before the war doesn’t matter.
Anything other than that, you start getting useless terms like when Trump said he “Tested very positively for negative” with COVID. Words have meanings, and trying to play with that causes confusion.