Russia Masses Military Equipment Near Ukraine Borders: A Prologue to WWIII?

[Occult1]

Russian forces reorganising before ‘large scale attack in Ukraine’, say Britain

''Russian forces are reorganising before launching “large-scale” attacks in Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday.

[...]

In a statement the MoD said: “The battlefield across northern Ukraine remains largely static with Russian forces likely conducting a period of reorganisation before resuming large-scale offensive operations.

“Russian forces are attempting to envelop Ukrainian forces in the east of the country as they advance from the direction of Kharkiv in the north and Mariupol in the south.”

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/russia-large-scale-attack-ukraine-war-ministry-defence-b989881.html

 

There are also reports that when the Russian military take full control of Mariupol, it will free up to 6.000 troops to be redeployed to other fronts.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Occult1

[DarkHunter]

6 hours ago, ExpandMyMind said:

I’m a bit skeptical of all of those intercepted audio calls, if I’m being honest. They just have a bit of a fake propaganda feel.

Maybe it’s the translation of this one, but it sounds a bit too comically bad.

They could be fake but Russia has been using civilian radios and Ukranian cell phones for most of their communications.  Arguably stuff is comically bad.  The few pictures of Russian forces out there do show them carrying civilian radios.  A 40 mile long convoy that didnt move for days is comically bad too.

[DarkHunter]

NATO officials have reported they believe between 7,000 and 15,000 Russians have been killed so far with total Russian losses, which include killed, wounded, captured, and deserted to be between 30,000 to 40,000.

If accurate that is a lot of losses for approximately four weeks of combat.

[Buzz_Light_Year]

A Boeing 747-E4B Nightwatch with call sign GRIMM 99 just landed at RAF Mildenhall. These planes are command and control centers in case of nuclear war. It’s designed to carry the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff during a nuclear attack. An E-4B in the air is noted as a National Airborne Operations Center.

It's also known as the Doomsday Plane. There are 4 in service and they are designed to withstand electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear detonation and they are designed to stay aloft for a week if need be.

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104503/e-4b/

Edited March 23, 2022 by Buzz_Light_Year

[Wepwawet]

Totally unverified, as with most things in this war, the situation in part of Mariupol seems about to become a re-run of the battle for the tractor factory (tank factory) in Stalingrad. Russian and DNR forces are said to be around the perimeter of Azov-Stal, a huge steel works, and cut off the Ukrainans there. Also totally unverified is that all Ukrainian forces in Mariupol have been given until midnight tonight to surrender.

[Wepwawet]

6 minutes ago, Buzz_Light_Year said:

A Boeing 747-E4B Nightwatch with call sign GRIMM 99 just landed at RAF Mildenhall. These planes are command and control centers in case of nuclear war. It’s designed to carry the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff during a nuclear attack. An E-4B in the air is noted as a National Airborne Operations Center.

It's also known as the Doomsday Plane. There are 4 in service and they are designed to withstand electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear detonation and they are designed to stay aloft for a week if need be.

https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104503/e-4b/

I would think this is because Biden is flying to Europe and will be in Warsaw tomorrow. I believe that the Russians have one of their equivalents constantly airborne in a rotation.

[ExpandMyMind]

NATO estimate that Russia are down 40,000 troops total. That’s deaths, injuries, captures and desertions.

Insane if that number is anywhere near accurate.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-03-23/card/russia-lost-up-to-40-000-troops-in-ukraine-nato-estimates-xyZjWxinMDHzdeRZvAeD?mod=e2twp

[Buzz_Light_Year]

9 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

I would think this is because Biden is flying to Europe and will be in Warsaw tomorrow. I believe that the Russians have one of their equivalents constantly airborne in a rotation.

Yeah one of these usually accompanies Air Force One on it's flights.

[CrimsonKing]

7 minutes ago, ExpandMyMind said:

NATO estimate that Russia are down 40,000 troops total. That’s deaths, injuries, captures and desertions.

Insane if that number is anywhere near accurate.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-03-23/card/russia-lost-up-to-40-000-troops-in-ukraine-nato-estimates-xyZjWxinMDHzdeRZvAeD?mod=e2twp

No doubt,if correct those numbers would seem more in line with WW1 trench warfare than modern urban combat...

[ExpandMyMind]

13 minutes ago, CrimsonKing said:

No doubt,if correct those numbers would seem more in line with WW1 trench warfare than modern urban combat...

I read that even at mid estimates of deaths, the Russians have lost more troops than allied forces did in any week of WW2, with the exception of D-Day.

[CrimsonKing]

1 minute ago, ExpandMyMind said:

I read that even at mid estimates of deaths, the Russians have lost more troops than allied forces did in any week of WW2, with the exception of D-Day.

That's insane!

[CrimsonKing]

Just now, CrimsonKing said:

That's insane!

Then again,I read elsewhere how when the German tanks got stuck marching through Russia that Stalin just kept throwing wave after wave of men at them no matter if they just had sticks and stones till the Germans just ran out of artillery!...how accurate that is I'm not sure.

That said with as twisted as Stalin was and the losses they actually usually accept from that war,I could see it.

Combine that with Stalin's "purges" and it's little wonder their population has never really hit many large "growth spurts" since...

[ExpandMyMind]

 

[Cookie Monster]

So where is the independent counting and monitoring of Russian war losses?

[CrimsonKing]

6 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

So where is the independent counting and monitoring of Russian war losses?

Kinda hard to get "independent" counting at the moment...

That's why many posts on this thread are started with "if"...

[DarkHunter]

13 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

So where is the independent counting and monitoring of Russian war losses?

For a lower limit there is Oryx

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html?m=1

Everything there has a picture or video of the equipment.  Given that Russia has lost at minimum 1,775 military vehicles with 868 destroyed does suggest Russian losses are significant.

[Cookie Monster]

35 minutes ago, DarkHunter said:

For a lower limit there is Oryx

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html?m=1

Everything there has a picture or video of the equipment.  Given that Russia has lost at minimum 1,775 military vehicles with 868 destroyed does suggest Russian losses are significant.

Ukraine has many of the same vehicles, its very easy to paint a Z on to make a propaganda video.

[DarkHunter]

1 hour ago, Cookie Monster said:

Ukraine has many of the same vehicles, its very easy to paint a Z on to make a propaganda video.

So you ask for an impartial source than just ignore it, so you werent really interested in one to begin with.

While they have similar vehicles the Russians frequently use different models of which in Russian vehicles their tends to be a good number.  Even then there are a significant amount of vehicles that Russia uses that Ukraine does not, but as I said you are clearly not interested in an impartial source.

[+and-then]

6 hours ago, DarkHunter said:

If accurate that is a lot of losses for approximately four weeks of combat.

I saw a report of the comparison of Russian losses in Afghanistan vs Ukraine and at the current pace, they will lose more in weeks than they did in a decade of fighting in Afghanistan.  I feel bad for the conscripted teens but the "professional" soldiers deserve what they get, IMO.  There are also rumblings pointing to the increasing possibility that Russia may try a bold stroke with chemical weapons to force a surrender of cities.  IF that happens and creates a mass-casualty event, it may be the final straw that takes this war to the next level of insanity.  Putin has the attention of the world and I think he understands that they fear his actions so now may be the time for him to demand a sit-down summit with global leaders to find a way to stop this.

The fact that he hasn't, tells me he still believes he'll complete all of his goals and the world will be powerless to stop him.  Biden just sent another 7K troops to Germany to act as a reserve force to be dispatched to other European NATO members if needed.  Drip...drip... drip.  I think NATO needs to be focused on building up troop levels and training in the Baltic states and Poland.  The message to Putin has to be clear.  This far, NO further.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Occult’ll get a kick out of this - Aussie (and therefore I presume other nation’s) media is discussing how the Azov Battalion totally isn’t full of Neo-Nazis now, despite it being a scratch regiment* that was full of Neo-Nazis when it was founded.

 

 

 

 

*that’s the right term, isn’t it? A regiment made up of (at best) militia  unified under a recognised military chain of command.

[+and-then]

2 hours ago, Cookie Monster said:

So where is the independent counting and monitoring of Russian war losses?

This war is no different than most in that one has to assume propaganda on both sides.  It's probably more valid to look at combat effectiveness of the forces.  Russia seems to be stuck in place.  Occult says this is down to trying to save excess civilian deaths but one look at the rubble that used to be Mariupol gives the lie to that.  IMO, the Russian military has been thoroughly humiliated before the world and Putin may feel the need to execute some grand stroke of power to change that perception.  A chemical weapons attack on Kyiv, Kharkiv, or Mariupol that produced mass-casualties might be the move that shakes the Ukrainian civilians into surrender.  From Putin's POV, it'd be a "freebie" because he can adamantly deny his forces used them.

[spartan max2]

My prediction is the Russia will take one of the more sympathic Eastern parks of Ukraine and then try to call it a victory and end the war.

Putin will have to find some way to save face and that's probably how.

[ExpandMyMind]

1 hour ago, and then said:

I saw a report of the comparison of Russian losses in Afghanistan vs Ukraine and at the current pace, they will lose more in weeks than they did in a decade of fighting in Afghanistan.  I feel bad for the conscripted teens but the "professional" soldiers deserve what they get, IMO.  There are also rumblings pointing to the increasing possibility that Russia may try a bold stroke with chemical weapons to force a surrender of cities.  IF that happens and creates a mass-casualty event, it may be the final straw that takes this war to the next level of insanity.  Putin has the attention of the world and I think he understands that they fear his actions so now may be the time for him to demand a sit-down summit with global leaders to find a way to stop this.

The fact that he hasn't, tells me he still believes he'll complete all of his goals and the world will be powerless to stop him.  Biden just sent another 7K troops to Germany to act as a reserve force to be dispatched to other European NATO members if needed.  Drip...drip... drip.  I think NATO needs to be focused on building up troop levels and training in the Baltic states and Poland.  The message to Putin has to be clear.  This far, NO further.

They’ve already lost more than a decade in Afghanistan, more than in Chechnya, more than the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, and more than half of what the US lost in the entire Korean War.

They’ve also lost more commanding officers than any other conflict they’ve been in since WW2.

They’ve absolutely decimated, and it doesn’t look like slowing.

[ExpandMyMind]

1 hour ago, and then said:

This war is no different than most in that one has to assume propaganda on both sides.  It's probably more valid to look at combat effectiveness of the forces.  Russia seems to be stuck in place.  Occult says this is down to trying to save excess civilian deaths but one look at the rubble that used to be Mariupol gives the lie to that.  IMO, the Russian military has been thoroughly humiliated before the world and Putin may feel the need to execute some grand stroke of power to change that perception.  A chemical weapons attack on Kyiv, Kharkiv, or Mariupol that produced mass-casualties might be the move that shakes the Ukrainian civilians into surrender.  From Putin's POV, it'd be a "freebie" because he can adamantly deny his forces used them.

It’ll be a chemical weapons attack on Russians that he’ll orchestrate. This will drum up support for the war and he will be able to ‘retaliate’ in a huge way,

After all, it was a false flag that killed hundreds of Russians that enabled him to solidify his power in the 90s. Dictators really do love their false flags.

[ExpandMyMind]

16 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

My prediction is the Russia will take one of the more sympathic Eastern parks of Ukraine and then try to call it a victory and end the war.

Putin will have to find some way to save face and that's probably how.

At this point I don’t think the Ukrainians will allow it. If they win, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them retake Crimea and the other two territories.