2022-2024 Russo-Ukrainian War

[S2]

Lot of consternation regarding pro-Russian mil-bloggers eminating from the Kremlin and the Russian MoD in today's ISW update-

ISW Ukraine Update July 10

Perun weighs in on some strategic/operational aspects of artillery usage during the war-a bit of history/numbers prior to Feb. 24 and changes since. Good discussion about ammunition usage, effects and tube wear. Long but, again, interesting-

[Monash]

Lot of consternation regarding pro-Russian mil-bloggers eminating from the Kremlin and the Russian MoD in today's ISW update-

ISW Ukraine Update July 10

Perun weighs in on some strategic/operational aspects of artillery usage during the war-a bit of history/numbers prior to Feb. 24 and changes since. Good discussion about ammunition usage, effects and tube wear. Long but, again, interesting-

Just about to post this myself. Excellent work by Perun as usual.

[Ironduke]

Looks like Slovakia is going to transfer all 12 of its MiG-29s to Ukraine. Poland and Czechia have agreed to protect Slovakian airspace in the meantime until Slovakia gets F-16 Block 7s starting in 2024.

[statquo]

Report that Iran is preparing to supply Russia with drones.

[Monash]

Report that Iran is preparing to supply Russia with drones.

Queue mysterious explosions in Iranian aero engineering facilities. So sad.

[Albany Rifles]

Report that Iran is preparing to supply Russia with drones.

A little more on this topic from Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/world/white-...es-2022-07-11/


White House: Iran preparing to supply Russia with drones


WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - The United States believes Iran is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred drones, including some that are weapons capable, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday.

Sullivan also said the United States has information that shows Iran is preparing to train Russian forces to use these drones.

Asked about Sullivan's statement, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied it, according to Iranian state media.


"The history of cooperation between Iran and Russia in the field of some modern technologies dates back to before the war in Ukraine," Nasser Kanaani was cited as saying by semi-official Mehr news agency.

"There has been no particular development in this regard recently."
Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo

[jlvfr]

A little more on this topic from Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/world/white-...es-2022-07-11/


White House: Iran preparing to supply Russia with drones

I can't over the irony of this... and I'm pretty sure some old school, hardcore iranians are laughing in glee at the situation. Iran is supplying the Lesser Satan with "advanced weapons" to fight against the weapons of the Greater Satan and it's allies. Gods, how the wheel turns...

[Albany Rifles]

I can't over the irony of this... and I'm pretty sure some old school, hardcore Iranians are laughing in glee at the situation. Iran is supplying the Lesser Satan with "advanced weapons" to fight against the weapons of the Greater Satan and it's allies. Gods, how the wheel turns...

Don't forget in World War 2 The Soviets and the British invaded Iran to a) forestall a pact between the pro-Germany Shah and Hitler, b) prevent a corridor for Germany to advance through Turkey to Baku oil fields and/or India, c) keep Iranian oil out of German hands and, d) keep a secure land route open for Lend-Lease through Iran to the USSR.

The US never invaded though we did set up Lend Lease operations in country...and almost a 1/3 of all Lend Lease supplies for the Soviet Union. The US also helped Iran go from an occupied country to an ally and a member of the United Nations in 1943. After this Iran also began getting Lend Lease supplies...critically important as confiscation by the Soviets of Iranian wheat was causing famine. US Lend Lease assuaged that quite a bit.

SIDENOTE: It was very interesting learning about this aspect of Iranian history when I was taking a graduate World War 2 history class...in 1979...in the midst of the taking of the US Embassy in Tehran...being taught by a Iranian professor.

[jlvfr]

Don't forget in World War 2 The Soviets and the British invaded Iran to a) forestall a pact between the pro-Germany Shah and Hitler, b) prevent a corridor for Germany to advance through Turkey to Baku oil fields and/or India, c) keep Iranian oil out of German hands and, d) keep a secure land route open for Lend-Lease through Iran to the USSR.

The US never invaded though we did set up Lend Lease operations in country...and almost a 1/3 of all Lend Lease supplies for the Soviet Union. The US also helped Iran go from an occupied country to an ally and a member of the United Nations in 1943. After this Iran also began getting Lend Lease supplies...critically important as confiscation by the Soviets of Iranian wheat was causing famine. US Lend Lease assuaged that quite a bit.

SIDENOTE: It was very interesting learning about this aspect of Iranian history when I was taking a graduate World War 2 history class...in 1979...in the midst of the taking of the US Embassy in Tehran...being taught by a Iranian professor.

Don't forget "after the allies also convinced Iraq at gun point to let them stay & work cause they did try to rebel in 1941". Oh the irony of history... and the head shaking of those that study it...

[TopHatter]

Another Russian general killed by Ukrainian forces - reports
Maj Gen Roman Kutuzov was killed leading an assault on a Ukrainian settlement in the region, a reporter with the state-owned Rossiya 1 said.

Alexander Sladkov said Gen Kutuzov had been commanding troops from the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic.

Russia's defence ministry has not commented on the reports.

"The general had led soldiers into attack, as if there are not enough colonels," Mr Sladkov wrote on the Telegram social media app. "On the other hand, Roman was the same commander as everyone else, albeit a higher rank."

Ukraine's military also confirmed the killing of Gen Kutuzov, without offering further details about the circumstances.

His death comes as rumours circulated on social media that a second senior officer, Lt Gen Roman Berdnikov, commander of the 29th Army, was also killed in fighting over the weekend. The BBC cannot independently verify the claims.

Russian commanders have been increasingly forced to the front in an attempt to drive forward the invasion and Moscow has confirmed the deaths of four senior generals.

Kyiv claims to have killed 12 generals and Western intelligence officials say at least seven senior commanders have been killed.

But there has been confusion over reports of the deaths of several other Russian officers. Three generals that Ukrainian forces claimed to have killed have subsequently been reported to be alive.

In March, Ukrainian forces said Maj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov had been killed outside the country's second city of Kharkiv. However, on 23 May Russian state media said he had been awarded a state honour and dismissed reports of his death.

Another commander, Maj Gen Magomed Tushaev, also appeared to be still alive and periodically appears in videos posted to social media.

And on 18 March, Kyiv alleged that Lt Gen Andrey Mordvichev had been killed in an airstrike in the Kherson region. However, he later appeared in a video meeting with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and on 30 May BBC Russia confirmed that he was still alive.

The deaths of generals are rarely officially acknowledged in Russia. In the case of Maj Gen Vladimir Frolov, no information about his death had appeared in state media prior to his funeral in St Petersburg in April.

Russia lists military deaths as state secrets even in times of peace and has not updated its official casualty figures in Ukraine since 25 March, when it said that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed since President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

In March, an official within President Volodymyr Zelensky's inner circle told the Wall Street journal that a team of Ukrainian military intelligence officers had been tasked with locating and targeting Russia's officer class.

"They look for high profile generals, pilots, artillery commanders," the official said. They added that the officers were then targeted either with sniper fire or artillery.

Last month, the New York Times reported that the US has provided intelligence to Ukraine, allowing them to target a number of the generals who have been killed in action.
______

[Albany Rifles]

So if you are on twitter and come across a post where the avatar is someone in a track suit or uniform with a squat Shiba face and wondered...WTF?

Here is your answer. I follow almost all of these guys and know several.

Remember...there is no CIA!!!

Go through the article and see some awesome Twitter posts.


Shitposting Shiba Inu Accounts Chased a Russian Diplomat Offline (vice.com)

Shitposting Shiba Inu Accounts Chased a Russian Diplomat Offline


The Fellas, or NAFO, are a loose cadre of extremely online shitposters who are raising money for Ukraine and fighting Russian disinformation.



An unofficial army of cartoon Shiba Inu dogs is making life hard for people who post Russian disinformation about the war in Ukraine online. They are known as NAFO, the North Atlantic Fellas Organization, a small but growing cadre of shitposters who’ve gathered to raise money for Ukraine and call out obvious propaganda when they see it. It’s getting hard to tow the Kremlin’s party line on Twitter without them showing up in the replies to mock and counter it.




If you’re plugged into the U.S. military social media sphere, they’re impossible to miss. They’re cute and ludicrous anthropomorphic Shiba avatars. They’re cute faces poking over track suits and army fatigues, some wear suits, some carry military equipment. These are the Fellas. Jack McCain, helicopter pilot and son of John McCain, uses a Fella avatar. CNN analyst and retired U.S. Army officer Mark Hertling is sharing the meme. U.S. Army Major General Patrick Donahoe is using a Fella avatar.

Where did these cartoon dogs come from and why are they suddenly everywhere on military Twitter?

It all started back in May when an artist named Kama started designing the little guys because he thought the Shiba Inu looked goofy. “Out of boredom, I started making other Fellas and imprinting them on random images from Ukraine,” he told Motherboard.

People started asking Kama if he’d design avatars for them and he began taking requests. Around the same time, the Georgian Legion—a volunteer military unit of Georgians fighting in Ukraine—was seeking donations for equipment. To manage demand and raise money for a good cause, Kama started designing Fella avatars for people who’d donated to the Legion.

The NAFO movement gained popularity and mainstream attention with a surreal moment in June. Longtime Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov tussled with the Fellas and lost. Ulyanov is active on Twitter, typically posting pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian sentiments and retweeting official Kremlin sources. On June 18, Ulyanov was posting as he normally does.



“The most popular Western narrative: Russia undertook unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Unprovoked? The shelling of civilian population in the Donbass by the Ukrainian army started in 2014 and continues right now,” he said. This, of course, ignores the very real invasion of East Ukraine that Russia conducted in 2014.

The prolific shitposter, military twitter e-celebrity, and NAFO member @LiveFaustDieJung replied to the diplomat. “You: ‘We have to bomb all of Ukraine’s civilians because Ukraine was fighting an internal war and some civilians got shelled,’” he said.

Then Ulyanov broke one of the cardinal rules of posting: he replied to his troll. “You pronounced this nonsense, not me,” he said.

Ulyanov’s reply became a meme among the fellas, a rallying cry for the obvious stupidity of so much Russian disinformation. Replies and quote tweets from other Fellas poured in. People began parroting the phrase. Now, you can buy it on a T-Shirt from the St. Javelin charity that donates cash to Ukraine.



Ulyanov tried to play the whole thing off for the next few days and pondered aloud if some of the Shibas were bots. Then he vanished from Twitter for a week before returning on July 1 with the explanation that he’d taken a pre-planned vacation. “Now is the time to resume tweeting,” he said. The first reply is from a Fella account. They will not leave him alone.

Sending a Russian diplomat’s Twitter feed to reply-guy hell is one of the funniest things the Fellas have done, but they’re also raising a lot of money for Ukraine. St. Javelin reached out and now there’s a separate page on its store just for Fellas-branded merchandise. When I spoke to Kama, they’d raised about $47,000 just for the Legion and “at least another $10k for other causes and we have roughly made $30 to $50k through the St. Javelin store.”

In addition to the St. Javelin store and the Shiba avatars, the Fellas have set up a Discord server where they organize charitable acts, debunk Russian propaganda, and share news from Ukraine from vetted sources. Military twitter shitposter and former U.S. Marine @IamtheWarax is one of the mods on the Discord server. His real name is Matthew, he asked Motherboard not to use his full name. He first noticed the Shiba dogs around May. “I just thought it was funny,” he told Motherboard. “I don’t really do much serious stuff with my Twitter account. I really just shit post. I saw people doing funny stuff so it caught my attention.”



As one of the more popular Fellas accounts and the person who set up the Discord server, people keep asking him if there’s a plan. He said there’s not. “What this is, is it’s funny,” he said. “It’s funny little pictures…and it caught on organically and it’s connected to a good cause. Helping Ukrainians defend themselves had broad appeal.”

In the years after its invasion of the Donbas in 2014 and now, Western media has painted Russia as a master of disinformation. One of the popular narratives about the 2016 election was that Russia used clever social media manipulation to swing the results of the election in favor of Donald Trump. A few months into its disastrous war in Ukraine, Russia no longer seems like the elite masters of online manipulation some in America had come to believe they were.

The internet is full of memes making fun of Russians and their own soldiers are posting disasters to Telegram daily. The Russian army’s war crimes in places like Bucha are so well documented that no amount of official counter-narrative seems believable.

And in every thread from a Russian official, you’ll find the Fellas posting memes. “The Russians are good at disinformation,” Matthew said. “They’re good at controlling it and processing it, but they’re not used to any kind of operation at this scale. So now what they’re dealing with is trying to control up to 100,000 soldiers who are just doing soldier shit.”



On July 6, a video of a Russian soldier firing a machine gun at an abandoned surface-to-air missile system at close range and probably blowing himself up made the rounds on the internet. Someone who filmed the explosion posted it to Telegram. This is the kind of soldier shit Matthew is talking about. “This would happen in any army on Earth,” Matthew said. “But it does show that this myth of the ultimate control of the Russian government over information is not true.”

Matthew said he’s been watching the Russian military and its activities for a long time. The horrors it's unleashing in Ukraine right now were practiced and honed in Syria. He said humor has helped him cope. “It has kept us sane throughout this entire process,” he said. The Fellas are great, he said, because there’s a charitable component to it.

“It felt good to log on and make fun of whatever Russian government employee you would engage with,” he said. “Now you’re able to tie that to donating to people who are fighting in Ukraine or donating to relief organizations, which is what we’ve been doing. I’m never going to sit here and pretend that we’re beating Russia. That’s never been the goal. It’s always just been to do whatever we can within our means to help.”

Why does Kama think the Shiba caught on? “Personally, I think it’s the Fella’s face—it’s goofy as hell,” he said. “But I know that many people find the loafers/shin kickers endearing. But in all seriousness, I believe that people are able to find a refuge in Fellas. There’s a lot of doom, gloom and horror when it comes to the war in Ukraine, but Fellas are very much centered around good vibes and the possibility of making a change.”

The fellas are currently raising money to buy the Georgian Legion anti-drone rifles. Before that, they used the money to buy armor for the soldiers. “People knew that each donation got us closer to another plate and that each plate is another life saved,” Kama said. “At the end of the day, it’s a just cause dressed in a goofy facade, which allows people to comprehend the difficulties which come with a war, but not be traumatized by them. I make a very conscious effort to keep Fellas as welcoming and open as it is possible. No matter your beliefs, faith or creed, everybody is welcome.”

[astralis]

reports coming in that Ukraine is taking our good Colonel's advice and wiping out whole command structures.

The commander, chief of staff, head of the operational staff, and head of artillery for Russia's 20th Motorized Rifle Division and chief of staff of the 22nd Army Corps killed in Kherson, reportedly during HIMARS o'clock.

currently Russian sources have confirmed deaths of the commander and the chief of staff of 20th MRD.

Kherson is getting a lot of HIMARS love recently, with a massive supply dump there going up in flames:

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/...45849534988289

[Albany Rifles]

reports coming in that Ukraine is taking our good Colonel's advice and wiping out whole command structures.

The commander, chief of staff, head of the operational staff, and head of artillery for Russia's 20th Motorized Rifle Division and chief of staff of the 22nd Army Corps killed in Kherson, reportedly during HIMARS o'clock.

currently Russian sources have confirmed deaths of the commander and the chief of staff of 20th MRD.

Kherson is getting a lot of HIMARS love recently, with a massive supply dump there going up in flames:

https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/...45849534988289

I've seen some tankies on line saying the HIMARS rockets are a) being intercepted by S-300/400 or b) are hitting grain silos.

I've seen ASP explosions and that's no grain we see exploding.

[Dazed]

They also claim that Russia has lost 217 Airplanes (not including helos and UAVs) since Feb

The US Navy lost 532 airplanes in combat for the whole Vietnam war.

I'm not believing any of the numbers that the Ukraine government is putting out

A little drift, but the US Navy just about wrote the book on SEAD. I know it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Since the mid 50's they had dedicated ECM aircraft, Pioneered ECM/EW pods. invented the AIM 7 and AIM 9 for air to air, Bullpup and Shrike for air to ground. Still they lost aircraft. I agree with your point.

What surprises me is the fact the Russians haven't found a way to suppress Ukrainian air defense. They built/supplied/provided doctrine for the air defense. They operational experience in Georgia and 2014 Ukraine. In theory they have all the weapons and skills to do it.

Have the systems and doctrine have improved since 1982? That Russia can't control contested airspace protected by a Russian Air Defense System?

[Gun Grape]

What surprises me is the fact the Russians haven't found a way to suppress Ukrainian air defense. They built/supplied/provided doctrine for the air defense. They operational experience in Georgia and 2014 Ukraine. In theory they have all the weapons and skills to do it.

Have the systems and doctrine have improved since 1982? That Russia can't control contested airspace protected by a Russian Air Defense System?

I think the problem is that they are fighting against their own systems.

If you jam them you also jam your own systems cause they are both the same.

How well could the US shut down an enemy air defense system if they were using US goods? Could we shut their Patriot capabilities down without degrading ours?

Was listening to a Ukraine drone operator. He mentioned that they could only fly when the Russians were flying drones. Because the Russians had to shut their EW jammers down to do ops.

Maybe the Russians are facing the same dilemma with the air defense systems