The Russians send (more) Marines
The Russian 155th Separate Naval Infantry Brigade, based in the port city of Vladivostok, and the 40th Separate Naval Infantry Brigade, out of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, are heading west to “make up for the losses” suffered in Ukraine.
The hull numbers on the Russian ships, shown in photographs released by Japan, suggest the ships were the Alligator IV-class Nikolay Vilkov; the Ropucha I-class Oslyabya, and Admiral Nevelskov; and the Ropucha II-class Peresvet. All four belong to the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet and make up the entirety of its major amphibious units.
They will likely be transported west on train cars. It would be a pity if the Ukrainians derailed these critical Russian naval infantry assets.
The Azov BTN
Okremyi zahin spetsialnoho pryznachennia Azov or the Azov Special Operations Detachment of the Ukrainian National Guard gets a lot of negative publicity in the press. Do they deserve it?
In its early days, the Azov volunteer group was a special police company of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, led by Volodymyr Shpara, the leader of a nationalistic party in Ukraine. In a world where nationalism=bad and globalism is good, it’s difficult to tell whether they were “good or bad” in Ukraine, where good would equate with the infamous Hunter Biden and the American power elite.
In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission. US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as the US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its nationalistic orientation, which they referred to as a “neo-Nazi background”.
Ukraine decided to turn all volunteer battalions—both the Territorial Defence Battalions associated with the armed forces, and the Special Tasks Patrol Police of the interior ministry—into regular units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the National Guard, respectively. Azov is one of the latter.
In January 2015, Azov Battalion was officially upgraded to a regiment. More recently, they’ve accepted foreign recruits.
It’s a regular unit of the Ukrainian Army, yet, whenever the press covers them, it refers to them as “Nazis”.
Communications Breakdown (h/t Claudio)
(Radio Liberty) “We have no communication. We have no walkie-talkies. Nothing,” a bedraggled Russian soldier tells his interrogators in a video published by Ukrainian defenders this month and posted to YouTube.
A mere three weeks into the war, such statements, along with intercepted chatter, captured equipment, and images of cheap, handheld transceivers, suggest that an inability to communicate — up and down the chain of command and across branches of the Russian military — is impeding Moscow’s war plans.
And while military fortunes can swing quickly, in even major offensives like the one launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24 to “demilitarize” and subdue Ukraine, many Western military experts suggest that the Kremlin and its planners’ botched key aspects of the early weeks of the invasion.
The Russian advance and operational performance is abysmal given the amount of armor, rotors & aircraft, absolute control of the Black Sea, etc. You should read the whole article.
The Ukraine Army listens to the Russian Army as they broadcast on unsecured (cheap) Chinese handheld radios…and there is a back story as to why this is the case.
Channeling Uncle Joe
The Russian Economy’s Impact (maps)
Apologies to all that the blog was down for about twelve hours. As you’ll note, we’re back in battery.
Glad to see you back in action.
Don’t feel bad about it, nothing on the internet ever works 100%.
Happy you’re back!
-Kle.
Well, I’m glad you are back. You & SiG are my morning wake up reads. lol
You know, if you had a solar panel on the roof powering the servers the Cali rolling blackouts wouldn’t have taken them out. Felt like my left arm was missing…and half my brain. See, you matter.
As for the above…fodder indicating things will get very 3rd World if American “leadership” peel back their oppressive regulation to unleash the power of the middle class economic engine. After, we can let the world fight among themselves, posturing for second dog position.
In the mean time we have more asinine “just because she sits there must mean we have to nice to her” theater over on a a flat out liar no one ever heard of before likely getting a lifetime seat on the highest court in the land, because she’s…what? Qualified? “Uphold the Constitution?” Yeah, right. Not on your life. She shouldn’t even be there. Guess that makes me the full boat hater now.
But hey, everything is distraction piled on distraction, who can keep up?
I was telling somebody that since Michigan has two Dem senators, all we can do is pray.
Then I realized what I was saying.
Praying is the best thing we all can do.
Pray for the lost souls, give God His vengeance, do what we can, and stick to the true Faith of mercy, forgiveness, and Matt 22:39/Gal 5:14.
You struck a chord. Thank you.
As short as your absence was we still missed you and your insights.
I don’t think there are any “good” or bad guys in the Ukraine, Russia war. Certainly no one we can believe. Maybe a small nod of the head to Ukraine since they are the invaded party but that is about it in my view. We don’t need to be establishing no fly zones (and remember the enemy gets a vote) or anything else other than sending ant-tank and SAMs to Ukraine.
Sure seems like awfully big ships to be transported west by train cars. Even if there are no overpasses on the Trans Siberian railway there are still curves on the track when it goes though mountain passes. I must be missing part of the puzzle.
Summer is going to be flat out ugly in so many ways between inflation, low fuel availability, no fertilizer etc.
Just remember that it is designed to be ugly.
and of course, Putin did it.
Infantry win battles, logistics win the war. Pro-Ukrainian saboteurs in Belarus have been blowing up trains carrying supplies to the stalled Russian offensive, trucks are breaking down from no maintenance and cheap chink tires, no fuel, food or ammo resupply….FUBAR.
FUBAR is an important acronym.
There was another one on the wall of the Navy Officer’s Club at Subic Bay that echoes what some of us felt at times – FUBIJAR (Fock You Buddy, I’m Just a Reserve). People make fun of those doing reserve time and it’s fair enough. But reserves had their own opinion.
Trains, or the tracks they run on, are soft targets. In that part of the world the only viable all weather infrastructure for any distribution (ok, maybe pipelines).
The Russians thought that their rail system was safe from sabotage. Misplaced hubris.
If they aren’t Nazis then why the doppelsigrune?
Then again, maybe it has an earlier/alternate meaning. I’ve mentioned before about how pissed off I am that 95% of the West seems to have no idea that the swastika (not to mention the manji/suwastika) are ancient symbols that long predated the Nazis, and are sacred in at least one religious tradition. But the interpretation of the swastika/manji has been hijacked by a small but very very vocal minority. My mother wanted very much to have the manji inscribed on my maternal grandmother’s headstone, seeing as both were devout Buddhists. But we didn’t do it since we didn’t want the headstone vandalized by idiots — who would have been fully supported by the courts had they even been caught.
Exactly, the rune has other meanings that predate mid 1900’s Germany. Hitler stole from this and that. Traveling through Asia, almost every Buddhist temple has a manji cut into stone on the surface.
As to the various runes, the Vikings were historically active in the Black Sea area (traveling down the rivers to trade) and as I understand it, Azov Rgmt. took its symbolism from them, not the Germans who invaded and slaughtered Ukrainians.
Except that Bandera was a Nazi sympathizer.
Excellent commodities map.
AZOV? Useful stick to beat the Left with, obvs. Then there’s the Russians, I’d imagine several have/will roll.
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