Here is September 19th’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Here is September 20th’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Here is September 21st’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Here is September 23rd’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Here is September 24th’s update! TLDR? Here’s the summary.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists, for the “buh Zeleski is a jew?!?!” people.
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it’s a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn’t really need more, but:
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week’s discussion post.
The US Army, on August 18, released a survey to find companies that can produce 12,000 M795 155 mm artillery shells a month. This was after depleting its own stockpile when it supplied 800,00 rounds to Ukraine as of early September.
Just for Ukraine’ – After Cutting Production, US Army Wants to Revive the Factory Floor
The M795 is the standard ammunition for the M777 lightweight towed howitzer used by the US Army and US Marine Corps. As of September 8, the US has transferred 126 M777 guns to Ukraine since Russia’s military intervention began on February 24. This is part of a $14.5 billion security assistance program, according to a Department of Defense (DoD) factsheet. However, in June 2021, the Army announced cutting its spending on 155 mm shells to $174 million from $306 million for the fiscal year 2022. Reports quoted officials citing “budget pressures” rather than “operational needs such as the drawdown from Afghanistan.” Wanting to repurpose the money saved for other modernization efforts, the Army ensured that it had enough rounds to expend for training purposes. The US Army hoped to fund the development of new systems like the rocket-assisted XM113 and the Extended Range Cannon Artillery costing $51.1 million with the saving.
Ukraine Uses 5,000 a Day – But US Wants To Produce 500 & Russia Can Make 2,000
By June, Ukraine was using 5,000 to 6,000 rounds every day, but with a ratio of only one piece for Russia’s 10 to 15 artillery pieces, the deputy chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Vadym Skibitsky, said in a Guardian report.
The report also said Ukraine’s military intelligence believes Russia can continue fighting at the current rate for another year without having to manufacture more weapons or mobilize the population.
Skibitsky also added the near impossibility of being able to take back southern Ukraine’s Kherson and Zhaporizhzhia, where Russia has dug in for the “long haul,” building even “double” and “triple” lines of defense.
Secretary of Defense Llyod Austin, on September 8, announced the US’s readiness to “integrate,” “work together,” and “innovate” Ukraine’s own “long haul” against Russia.
But that would first require being able to produce 12,000 rounds a month (144,000 a year), which translates into 500 rounds per day, far from meeting Ukraine’s daily need of 5-6,000.
Interestingly, Russia-critical media itself notes Russia’s sheer military industrial wherewithal that could churn out 570,00 artillery ammunition annually as of 2017, which translates to 47,500 a month (almost 2,000 a day) – four times what the US aims to do.
Heavy use of artillery by Ukraine was also putting Germany’s own Panzerhaubitze-2000 (PzH-2000) Self-Propelled Howitzer (SPH) out of action. (SO MUCH FOR THAT
NAZIGERMAN ENGINEERING LMAO :pit: )
Ukraine was firing far above 100 shells a day, stipulated as “high intensity” by the system’s manufacturers Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), Rheinmetall, and the primary user, Bundeswehr (German Army).
Concerns with post-Covid supply chain disruptions is another issue the US industry might run into. It figured in Lockheed Martin’s media interactions regarding the Javelin missile and the F-22 Raptor, where they said ramping production and getting vendors in order would take a very long while.
To ‘Arm’ Ukraine, US Allies’ Unarm’ Themselves (lmao even)
Lastly, arming Ukraine from its stockpile has been an irritant between US allies. In May, Poland expressed disapproval of Germany’s inability to replenish Warszawa with old ‘Leopard’ tanks after the latter sent Ukraine dozens of its Soviet-era T-72 tanks. (Cope, pole-fash)
Poland was hoping for a circular deal that Germany had with the Czech Republic, where Berlin restocked Prague’s armor with older variants of the Leopard tank (possibly the Leopard 1) after it, too, sent its Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Canada too said it was expecting South Korea to replenish its arsenal of 155 mm rounds in May this year. Ottawa had sent 20,000 additional such rounds to Ukraine. South Korean defense ministry officials said the deal could involve up to 100,000 shells from Seoul’s own reserves. (A win for the DPRK as the southern puppet state drains their own reserves of war material expressly made for killing their own brothers)
First Russia spent the last several years bringing down factories outside Russia that produce ammo for their own artillery systems so that Ukraine couldn’t replenish them, then NATO comes along and tries to transition Ukraine from Soviet to NATO systems in the middle of a war and then when it’s approaching some level of workability (in reality there are still many flaws as you simply can’t train this many soldiers to use entirely new and disparate systems designed in foreign countries in a situation like this), they then have to be like “Ah… yeah… uhh… we haven’t actually made enough ammo for these artillery systems. And even in the best case scenario, you’ll have an order of magnitude too little to maintain the status quo - that is, gradually losing to Russia. Sorry.”
