Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

[dilute micro]

So - War nerds - the warships role was - essentially - a missile platform? Sea to land and sea to air? How much of a blow is it militarily to the Russians? Would it help the Ukrainians in terms of in terms of pushing the Russians out of Kherson and on the coast generally? Does it make other Russian naval vessels more vulnerable to air strikes?
Major blow - and embarrassment - for the Russian Navy id have thought. Losing the flag ship of their Black Sea Fleet has got to hurt.

Yes, it will makes them more vulnerable but as far as anything else I wouldn't know. The Russian navy is a different animal. I imagine they're a lot like their army and think they're superior to everyone else without doing the work or spending the money that's necessary to keep up. Tbh, I was never impressed with the Russian combat ships. It was their civilian spy ships that were the most impressive.

 

[strung out]

I wonder if it's possible to game the Dardanelles thing by transferring a ship's home base to Simferopol or Sevastopol

If they could, they'd have done it already. Turkey have already blocked three Russian ships back in February.

Turkey rejects Russia's request for navy ships to pass Bosporus

Invoking 1936 convention, Ankara turns back non-home based vessels

asia.nikkei.com

 

[maomao]

I've been on the Russian aircraft carrier Kiev in Tianjin (was a theme park then, apparently a hotel now, after surviving the 2015 Tianjin chemical explosions a few hundred yards away) and the thing that struck me was how short all the sailors must be to fit on the bloody thing. I'm a big lad but I was practically crawling in places.

 

[Indeliblelink]

Putin to invade moon.

Russia Will Restart Moon Landings, Says Putin - The Moscow Times

Russia will renew its lunar program with a new moon landing mission, President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday. “We need to successfully stand up to the challenges of space exploration,” Putin said during a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur region.

www.themoscowtimes.com

 

[strung out]

If they could, they'd have done it already. Turkey have already blocked three Russian ships back in February.

Turkey rejects Russia's request for navy ships to pass Bosporus

Invoking 1936 convention, Ankara turns back non-home based vessels

asia.nikkei.com

Also to add, apparently it was a Turkish TB2 Bayraktar drone that was used to help target the ship with the missiles. Maybe Turkey will try and drum up some business for more Bayraktar drone orders by letting a few more ships in though

 

[maomao]

Putin to invade moon.

Russia Will Restart Moon Landings, Says Putin - The Moscow Times

Russia will renew its lunar program with a new moon landing mission, President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday. “We need to successfully stand up to the challenges of space exploration,” Putin said during a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur region.

www.themoscowtimes.com

Presumably so he's got somewhere to run to when the nukes start dropping.

 

[Sue]

Putin outmanoeuvred by women leaders. Sweden and Finland could join Nato ‘within weeks’ That's got to hurt. Sanna Marin in her biker jacket is making Vlad's biker cosplay look even more tragic

What has that got to do with the price of cheese? Would you have mentioned it if they'd been 'male leaders'...?

 

[existentialist]

I was looking at that last night. It's possible that they were turned off or the crew wasn't watching them. Maybe they got accustomed to thinking they couldn't get hit and let their guard down. I'm surprised that it sounds as if the Russian navy is giving up on the ship so easilly.

While I don't think this is unique to Russian vessels, there has been talk of the fact that one of the search radars on the Moskva was only capable of a 180 degree search, and the Bayraktar that Ukraine had put up near the ship was doing a good job of having them look that way, while the missiles approached from the other direction.

If true, it's another example of the way in which Ukraine is clearly using creative and innovative strategies to launch attacks which are leaving the much more top-led Russian military floundering, as they struggle to adapt prevailing doctrine to an adaptable foe. Also worth remembering that quite a lot of the Ukrainian high command will be only too aware of Russian (and probably Soviet) military doctrine, so will have a pretty good idea where the holes might be.

The weather may also have been a factor - there were some filthy storms in the Black Sea at the time, which would have made it a lot harder to spot low-level (I think the term is "sea skimming") missiles amid the clutter of a very churned-up sea.

Whatever, this is definitely a massive morale booster for the Ukrainian military, and - presuming anyone gets to hear about it - a bit of a morale-sapper for the Russians.

It may be that they got very lucky with this, but it does open up the possibility of attacks being made on other Russian ships in the region, which is bound to be concentrating a few Russian minds along the way.

Also, it seems likely that the absence (apparent) of these missiles in the first 5 weeks of the conflict may have led Russia to assume they were non-operational, or incapable of attacking their ships. Complacency could well have been a factor. I guess that will be less the case from now on in...

 

[existentialist]

Putin to invade moon.

Russia Will Restart Moon Landings, Says Putin - The Moscow Times

Russia will renew its lunar program with a new moon landing mission, President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday. “We need to successfully stand up to the challenges of space exploration,” Putin said during a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur region.

www.themoscowtimes.com

"Look! Over there! STUFF!"

 

[Diamond]

The tone of those tweets is a bit too much like an excitable teenager playing video games for my liking. I agree with frogwoman, it probably involves a load of terrified young men, who didn't want to be there in the first place, dying and celebration seems like the wrong response.

Yeah, that's probably fair but most of those lot are ex-military types and it's understandable that they were excited I think. I listened in on their Twitter room at the time - very informative. There were a number of people who had served on ships not too dissimilar to this one during the Falklands conflict or First Gulf War and they talked through what is supposed to happen in such a situation and then what they actually did think happened. The general consensus was that this was some sort of cock-up - that they were probably distracted by a decoy threat and then they got hit by missiles coming from off the Coast. Two main points of criticism - (i) being too close to the coast (radar degrades apparently), and (ii) being distracted from the true threat (assumed by the result). Both could be put down to poor judgement, insufficient training - dominant Russian themes so far.

 

[andysays]

Putin to invade moon.

Russia Will Restart Moon Landings, Says Putin - The Moscow Times

Russia will renew its lunar program with a new moon landing mission, President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday. “We need to successfully stand up to the challenges of space exploration,” Putin said during a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur region.

www.themoscowtimes.com

It's not an invasion, it's a special operation for the purposes of de-Nazification

 

[A380]

Putin to invade moon.

Russia Will Restart Moon Landings, Says Putin - The Moscow Times

Russia will renew its lunar program with a new moon landing mission, President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday. “We need to successfully stand up to the challenges of space exploration,” Putin said during a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur region.

www.themoscowtimes.com

Quite right to, I saw a documentary about nazis there:

 

[Dogsauce]

US surveillance aircraft have been over the Black Sea over the last couple of days. That’s probably of some relevance.

 

[Diamond]

Proof that this was more than opportunistic:



Am getting the sense that this was some kind of complex plot

 

[maomao]

Proof that this was more than opportunistic:



Am getting the sense that this was some kind of complex plot

Seems unlikely. If you can sink an enemy ship and save your people's lives you're not going to fuck about coordinating the attack with the Post Office.

 

[andysays]

Quite right to, I saw a documentary about nazis there:

View attachment 318456

I wasn't aware of that film before I made my post, but I was pretty sure there must have been at least one 'Nazis on the Moon' film made in recent years

 

[Diamond]

This naval journo seems to think it was a v sophisticated, potentially new form of attack:



It's going to be fascinating to find out what really happened here but I wouldn't be surprised if you had NATO intelligence, the Turks, and Ukrainian daring all feeding into something quite remarkable.

 

[Dogsauce]

Is the Sun ‘newspaper’ going to do that headline again then?

 

[Indeliblelink]

Is the Sun ‘newspaper’ going to do that headline again then?

GOTCHVA

 

[ska invita]

"Look! Over there! STUFF!"

Ole fashioned Make Empire Great Again textbook space race bollocks

A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Nazis on the moon)
Her face an' arm began to swell.
(but Nazis on the moon)

 

[dilute micro]

The Snake Island event still strikes me as odd and possibly commendable on the part of the Russian navy for giving the Ukrainians a chance to live and then the relatively good treatment afterward which makes it seem more like restraint. The Moskva could have called in a ship to destroy everything on the island. I think maybe the nicest Russian commander in the war has been sent home.

 

[Pickman's model]

This naval journo seems to think it was a v sophisticated, potentially new form of attack:



It's going to be fascinating to find out what really happened here but I wouldn't be surprised if you had NATO intelligence, the Turks, and Ukrainian daring all feeding into something quite remarkable.

I don't think it is in any way unprecedented for an enemy to make a feint in the course of a military - or naval - engagement

 

[cupid_stunt]

Seems unlikely. If you can sink an enemy ship and save your people's lives you're not going to fuck about coordinating the attack with the Post Office.

Unless they were waiting on the Post Office to deliver the missiles.

 

[zahir]

Vox pop with refugees and others in Lviv and across the border in Poland.

 

[Mr Moose]

It's not an invasion, it's a special operation for the purposes of de-Nazification

Evidence of arms build up as NATO provides weapons to inhabitants.

 

[kebabking]

Twitter chat seems to indicate a huge loss of life on the Moskva and that she has sunk, that there may have been around one hour between the first distress signals and her sinking. A Turkish Civilian ship rescued some 60+ crew, but that's (for the moment) it.

Apparently both Turkey and Romania are saying she has sunk.

Crew of about 550.

First reports, unlikely to be, or much like, the full story, but catastrophic if true.

 

[Wilf]

I don’t feel that comfortable celebrating this incident tbh, surely not all the Russians on board were war criminals/rapists/Putin bootlickers etc. War is shit

Yep, I'm very glad to see the Russians having a setback, but not the human consequences of that as you say.

Bit of a derail, but it brought back memories of other ships and human life:

 

[kebabking]

The 'ammunition fire' thing might be significant. If a ship's magazines go she's dead - HMS Hood, four times the size of Moskva, sank in three minutes with the loss of all but three of her 1400 crew when her aft magazine brewed up after being hit by a torpedo.

Ships: a bit like being in prison, with the added possibility of drowning.

 

[Yossarian]

A Turkish Civilian ship rescued some 60+ crew, but that's (for the moment) it.

If there's any evidence that missiles from the Moskva were aimed at civilian targets, I hope Turkey doesn't hand the ship's officers straight back to Russia.

 

[Smangus]

The 'ammunition fire' thing might be significant. If a ship's magazines go she's dead - HMS Hood, four times the size of Moskva, sank in three minutes with the loss of all but three of her 1400 crew when her aft magazine brewed up after being hit by a torpedo.

Ships: a bit like being in prison, with the added possibility of drowning.

I thought it was a lucky but catastrophic shell hit, detonated the magazine?