This plant in Yekaterinburg is said to be the only one in Russia that manufactures self-propelled artillery guns like the Msta-S and the Tulip. Yekaterinburg is about 1,800 km east of Moscow in the Urals, so it would be quite a distance for a drone. Link here.
The official statement from Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations claims that the fire originated on the roof of an empty workshop, where welding operations were ongoing. Three workers evacuated the premises on their own, and no others were inside the workshop.
However, the press service of Uraltransmash has provided a different account, stating that the blaze has now been extinguished and that it occurred during the dismantling of old storage facilities.
Local sources underscore that at least three explosions were heard before the fire broke out, leading to the thick smoke seen over the plant.
In this video of a drone assault on a Russian coast guard base in Crimea, you can see the Russian fire going over the top of the low-lying sea drone.
At last, we have a definition of a “shitload.”
The Battle of Krynky was costly for Ukraine — 262 confirmed dead and 788 missing.
Slidstvo.Info talked to a dozen sailors, boatmen and medics from different marine brigades who either were in Krynky or transported people there.
Most of them say that defending Krynky was an extremely difficult task with limited resources from the very beginning.
‘It was especially difficult to go there in October for the winter,’ says one officer who participated in the operation.
Some of the participants of the Krynky landing believe that at first it was possible to defend the village and try to expand the bridgehead, but when the village was wiped out and not even ruins remained, then at the end of winter the task of holding these positions became a ‘one-way trip’ for many, although Slidstvo.Infomanaged to find people who had been to Krynky three times.
The journalists managed to find out from the police how many Ukrainian soldiers went missing in one village of Krynky, Kherson oblast, on the left bank of the Dnipro River. 788 men are reported as officially missing there between October 2023 and the end of June 2024. At the same time, the number of dead soldiers who were taken out of the village and eventually buried is much smaller — 262 defenders during this period.
This is an excellent article that examines the mistakes that were made in Ukraine’s failed counter-offensive from last year. The article also points out mistakes by Western countries in taking way too long to get arms to Ukraine and crank up weapons production.
It concludes by saying “the lead times involved in regenerating offensive combat power mean that renewed offensive operations are not viable in the foreseeable future.”
I’m not sure I agree with the conclusion. Ukraine chose to attack the most heavily fortified and mined part of the front, which slowed everything down. An offensive in the future would be possible if the point of attack is chosen a lot more carefully.
Ukraine also made a series of errors. First, experienced troops were used to hold the line of contact and thereafter conduct fixing operations during the offensive, while the main force was for the most part newly raised. This left the lead elements with a dearth of combat experience, which led to tactical errors during the execution of the operation. Second, Ukrainian planners exacerbated their shortage of properly equipped forces by committing troops on multiple axes, which were then further resourced with ammunition and enablers, at the expense of the main effort. The combination of these two errors limited the ability of the force to operate at and maintain tempo.
The most serious error made in planning by Ukraine appears to have been the basis on which it was determined that the main effort could succeed under these circumstances. Rather than using tempo and concentration to defeat six Russian regiments, it was hoped that shock action would cause Russian troops to break, as had occurred around Kharkiv in 2022. Insufficient planning was done to assess how the critical conditions for such a collapse in morale could be achieved, so that this proved an overly optimistic planning assumption. In the event, the initial attacks failed, and tempo was lost, such that Russia could fight the battle with the full 105,000 troops it had in the target sector.
A lesson for both Ukraine and its international partners is that operational security was inadequate, such that Russia knew precisely where and approximately when the offensive was to take place. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that with only a couple of brigades properly equipped for offensive operations, Russia only had to track a small number of units to determine Ukrainian intent. Given that this lack of security partly stemmed from the multinational process of organising the offensive, this should be examined carefully by NATO, which relies on comparable processes.
Ukraine’s biggest donor of tanks is …. Russia.
And 671 tanks is a pathetically low number over 2.5 years.
Perm is northwest of Yekaterinburg and close to the Urals.
Hmmm. Do you suppose there are any disaffected folks in Russia who could be hired to sabotage Russian military/industrial assets?
Russian locomotives would be a good target for saboteurs.
Oh, man! Those nice new T-72s got FUBARed. Can FUBAR be a verb?
WARNING: Video shows dead Russians.
Well, it’s a start.
Putin blames the blackouts on cryptocurrency mining.
I suspect there will be a lot of countries that will follow suit.
Another demonstration of why you don’t want to be on the receiving end of a Bradley’s 25mm gun.
Ugly, but effective.
Listen to your wife and mother, dude. Stay home.
Can’t have any reminders of Russian genocide around.
I hope he is wearing those headphones when the drone finds him.
This won’t age well.
This is a needed defensive measure.
France steps up again.
Apparently Russian airlines think it’s OK to leave passengers cooking on the tarmac — just like airlines in the U.S. do.
Some Russians are just as much in denial as MAGAs.
Fun at the car wash.
The music is all wrong though. Should have been this song.
Nothing quite as romantic as the tango.
Rest in peace.
Combat cats are brave.