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July 10, 2022
Ukraine Open Thread 2022-109
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Ukraine’s Implausible Theories of Victory
The Fantasy of Russian Defeat and the Case for Diplomacy
excerpts –
“The West can make the lives of Russians a bit drabber, and it can deprive Russian weapons manufacturers of sophisticated imported electronic subcomponents. ”
“As the months and years go on, Russia and Ukraine will both have suffered a lot to achieve not very much more than what each has already achieved—limited and pyrrhic territorial gains for Russia, and a strong, independent, and sovereign government with control over most of its prewar territory for Ukraine. ”
comment –
Seems a retorical excersize – uses unsupported hypothesis and opportunistic extrapolations to rationalize an opinion and euphemize the results obtained to date. Lots of head nodding and beard stroking.
Posted by: jared | Jul 10 2022 13:30 utc | 1
“Deprive Russian weapons manufacturers of sophisticated electronic subcomponents” This is high order wishful thinking. If you’ve ever looked at circuit boards for anything at all, you’ll see chips manufactured everywhere in the world except the USA. Do we really imagine that we can successfully embargo chips made in Malaysia or other Asian countries. The international market in such things is way too porous and we don’t control it, nor can we.
Posted by: erik | Jul 10 2022 13:55 utc | 2
Posted by: jared | Jul 10 2022 13:30 utc | 1
Only to wait for November. No use to read the ukrainian bs.
Posted by: Olivier | Jul 10 2022 13:57 utc | 3
Orginal Timeline of Operations adjusted significantly:
1) Phase 2 Liberation of Donbass – originally expected to be achieved by late July, now appears to be Mid-August
2) Phase 3 Liberation of Odessa oblast – start delayed by 4-5 weeks start mid/late Sept, suggests unable to be achieved before winter begins. Phase 3 goals might be reduced in scope.
Conclusion – the Allies are going to not make a big push for phase 3, more likely operations will be to secure phase 2 gains, perhaps isolate Kharkov and prepare for Spring 2023 campaign.
Posted by: Exile | Jul 10 2022 13:58 utc | 4
“… and a strong, independent, and sovereign government ”
If wishes were fishes we’d all swim in riches…
Whatever the author is on, I want some.
Ukr will continue on as worlds money laundromat under new management (same one that has made Transnistria an open air weapons bazaar)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria
Posted by: CommiesGOFY | Jul 10 2022 13:58 utc | 5
Well, yes the Russians have their own chips in 25nm for miltary.
And china is doing great progress in 5nm chips homemade.
Sooner or later the chip ASML manufacturing superemacy of the West will fall and it will hurt a LOT because Russia and China will provide better faster and cheaper chips than the West.
However for now the Russians have a secret weapon.
They use hand written ASM or plain ANSI C code instead of C++ or Python or Go or Java as the West uses.
Java / HLL languages waste a LOT of the CPU power.
And Western programmers are no longer able to write complex algorithms by hand in ASM language
But Russians can write complex military applications in ASM by hand and pretty fast also.
And this gives them an 100x up to 1000x boost in CPU speed and performance. It is enough to beat down Western CPU by a lot in military applications.
Not to mention less bugs and real time problems from garbage collections, use after free and related high level problems.
And the rocket will explode anyway on target, no need to add a I7 CPU to it.
Posted by: Bogdan | Jul 10 2022 14:02 utc | 6
(repost on a fresh thread…)
“They should have realized that they would lose from the very beginning of our special military operation, because this operation also means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the US-style world order.”
(Vladimir Putin)
If one compares this quote from Putin with his original justification for the SMO (disarmament, denazification, protection of the Russian population), it is striking that the goal is now much broader.
It is a declaration of war on the USA.
The RF President is brimming with confidence, the SMO seems to be going in Russia’s favour. It is not propaganda but reflects our insights into the economic and military battlefield. Russia’s initial respect for western sanctions or the ukrainian NATO army is gone. Russia will win this war.
But what does “win” mean in this context?
It means that the US admits that it cannot achieve its goal.
That Ukraine is lost for its geostrategic game.
That Russia is not isolated.
That Russia emerges stronger from this conflict.
But the US cannot admit that, because it would be tantamount to surrender.
This will prolong the war, but at the same time strengthen Russia with each passing day. Because the rest of the world perceives the fact that Russia in a sovereign way is resisting the Empire as a victory for Russia. Day by the day the US is appearing more as a paper tiger. The more the US resist to accept the situation, the more the pressure grows to accept it.
How is this American saying? The winner takes it all?
Posted by: njet | Jul 10 2022 14:38 utc | 7
Q: Anyone remember what the West’s original excuse was for provoking the Russians to attack Ukraine? A: Russia said it did not want Ukraine to join NATO. The West forgot to mention that the West did not REALLY mean it wanted Ukraine to join NATO either, which also meant it did not come to Ukraine’s aid as it had promised (or led to believe…) The Prez of Finland also said he wanted Finland to join NATO because Russia had told Ukraine it did not want Ukraine to join NATO.
Posted by: Jonathan W | Jul 10 2022 14:40 utc | 8
How is this American saying? The winner takes it all?
Posted by: njet | Jul 10 2022 14:38 utc | 7
UK-Eng. First past the post.
MBA-Eng. First mover advantage.
Gamer-Eng. zero-sum (end game)
Gr3-Eng. I win, you lose.
monotheistic-Eng. There is one god.
Posted by: sln2002 | Jul 10 2022 14:44 utc | 9
@Bogdan, you got it! Writing code in ASM or plain C may last longer in the first run, compared to quickdirty “high-level-langues” (which are proudly called state of the art), but the coder must be skillfull to the bones and the result will be for sure an abdolutelx very fast and time-correctly program, uhm..they call it now an app, don’t they?
Russian weapons has no need for high-performance CPUs and moreover, the robustness against radiation is far better using “old” technologies, what is important for weapons.
Posted by: ableman | Jul 10 2022 14:45 utc | 10
@Bogdan #6
Why exactly do you need or even benefit from civilian grade 25nm semiconductors in artillery?
I am equally puzzled why speed of programming is needed for military hardware.
Do tanks need commercial operating systems?
Do the Abrams use “C” of “Java” language software?
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 10 2022 14:55 utc | 11
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7170ff6a-fedf-11ec-88db-ae1b6b9bdd3e?shareToken=bf4fb39a72149acfe2685c62a7f8a19a
Ukrainian shopkeepers transformed into soldiers on the fields of Britain
July 06 2022
The mission to teach enough men and women to replace the growing number of casualties on the front line is deemed so critical that Russia is thought to have tried to prevent it. Lieutenant Oleksii, 26, who is using a different name for security reasons, said Russian missiles had struck the base where recruits bound for Britain were staying last month. “In Ukraine we always have the risk of Russian bombs and when we prepared to come to the UK we were attacked from Russia and Belarus,” he said.
There are 600 recruits going through basic infantry training at four locations across England with hundreds more arriving daily as part of a promise to train 10,000 troops every 120 days.
Hayes, 31, also in 3 Rifles and based in Edinburgh, said it was “heartbreaking” how the recruits had been forced to give up their civilian lives to fight to defend their homeland.
The Afghan war veteran said they held an “icebreaker session” on the first night in the new camp and realised all the recruits were ordinary civilians.
He said: “All the guys were lorry drivers or they worked in quarries or they were shopkeepers. I’ve been in the army 14 years and I chose to join. These guys are all civvies. We are teaching sometimes up to 10pm at night. And we are investing everything we can because we know they are going to need it.”
There is capacity to train up to 2,400 recruits at a time and an ambition, announced by Boris Johnson, to train 10,000 every 120 days.
These are “battle casualty replacements” to sustain the Ukrainian armed forces, a senior officer said.
Stenhouse said soldiers would learn more in two to three weeks on the front than he could ever hope to teach them in training. He said the mission was to give them the skills to stay alive that long.
“A week ago they were civilians with no military experience. It is only day four and they are already on the ranges. A British recruit wouldn’t be on the ranges in four days,” he said.
Posted by: Melaleuca | Jul 10 2022 15:03 utc | 12
“We will not wait indefinitely. We warn you once again that if the situation does not stabilize in the coming days, Russia will take tough measures against Lithuania and the EU, the preparation of which has already been completed.” -Zakharova
Posted by: Melaleuca | Jul 10 2022 15:09 utc | 13
@Bogdan | Jul 10 2022 14:02 utc | 6
US is building factories on its own land, low nm, with Samsung I think. Some are actually finished, some not. In China, Huawei is building low nm factories too
ASML was partially under sanctions with China (only low nm was sanctioned). Now US wants ASML to stop all exports to China, it was in the news a few days ago.
The same story is for Taiwan’s TSMC. US prevents them to sell low nm to China and they’ve also stopped working with Russia. Russia made their own custom cpus for industrial and government computers at TSMC factory, if I remember correctly. Once low nm manufacture is secured on US land, they’ll start turning Taiwan into Ukr 2.
Posted by: rk | Jul 10 2022 15:13 utc | 14
Posted by: Jonathan W | Jul 10 2022 14:40 utc | 8
I am sorry Jonathan, it may just be that I am a bit slow on the uptake, but your comment seemed a bit muddled. Perhaps you can try it again with more clarity
.monotheistic-Eng. There is one god.
Posted by: sln2002 | Jul 10 2022 14:44 utc | 9
What? What was that all about?
Posted by: Ed Nelson | Jul 10 2022 15:21 utc | 15
@ableman | Jul 10 2022 14:45 utc | 10
@Bogdan, you got it! Writing code in ASM or plain C may last longer in the first run, compared to quickdirty “high-level-langues” (which are proudly called state of the art), but the coder must be skillfull to the bones and the result will be for sure an abdolutelx very fast and time-correctly program, uhm..they call it now an app, don’t they?
These statements are far too general. If you think you can generally beat modern C++ compilers by writing plain C, you are mistaken.
Posted by: Norwegian | Jul 10 2022 15:22 utc | 16
Posted by: Bogdan | Jul 10 2022 14:02 utc | 6
That’s quite an interesting observation Bogdan. They very efficiently use Assembler to program their chips. Didn’t think of that but it makes perfect sense.
Posted by: Milos | Jul 10 2022 15:25 utc | 17
@rk #14
The US already has “low nm” semiconductor fabs: Intel’s.
Intel has 4 fabs in Oregon that are under 20 nm and 2 in Arizona.
Micron has 25 nm fabs in Virginia and Utah.
Again – the majority of the semiconductor problems worldwide is not the tip of the spear, it is the end of the shaft. These are the 20+ year old process technologies and the microcontrollers and so forth they produce.
The high end shortages are primarily due to Intel miscalculating demand and closing down multiple fabs for “capital intensity” reduction purposes – for which their CEO was rightly fired.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 10 2022 15:26 utc | 18
Blinken is claiming that Russia is preventing the export of fertiliser as well as wheat, through the Black Sea. In turn Russia is pointing out, obviously correctly too, that it ids Ukraine which is mining the sea lanes.
Ukraine may be responsible but it seems more likely that NATO is actually responsible for the offshore minefields. Is this the case? If so it should be easy enough to prove it.
Posted by: bevin | Jul 10 2022 15:30 utc | 19
Posted by: Norwegian | Jul 10 2022 15:22 utc | 16
You are right there. Modern C and C++ compilers produce the same quality of executables.
Assembly on the other hand not only allows you to write better code, it also gives you a better control of your interrupts than any Real time OS will. And you need real time OS (or asm) for military equipment.
Posted by: Erlindur | Jul 10 2022 15:36 utc | 20
Overconfidence and hubris is so extremely dangerous because it is usually caused by success which itself was caused precisely by not being overconfident or full of hubris.
It doesn’t have to be a large or sudden change, it can sneak in undetected and slowly suffuse into everything. It doesn’t pick a side.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 10 2022 15:41 utc | 21
@ableman #10
Assembly isn’t a magic wand – and high level languages are primarily useful because they are flexible and easier to program highly complex actions.
However, it is not the least bit clear to me that any military applications are highly complex.
Artillery started with paper tables; progressed to mechanical calculators and these days – a 20 year old hand calculator can serve just as well.
Missile guidance: I’m no expert but it doesn’t seem like a highly complex operation to me. Take inputs from a handful of sensors and do XYZ.
The rest of it is similar: very simple tasks.
The only parts which are likely somewhat more complex are the communication systems – specifically the frequency hopping and encryption. But even then, it isn’t difficult at all to create an encryption module via analog means which can have its seeds reset.
What few pictures I have seen of Russian electronics show microcontroller use board from KH101 cruise missile
Note the chips present are microcontrollers – we are talking 1970s era technology here. There are literally billions and tens of billions of these microcontrollers in existence.
Here’s another pic board found in Barnaul T air defense system
Note the prominent chip displayed: an Atmel AT91RM9200 chip data sheet
This is a literally sub-$1 chip, retail. It is based on ARM Thumb – which is around ARM7 era which in turn is mid 1990s tech.
All this talk about “starving” the Russian arms makers of semiconductors seems even stupider than the US/EU Sanctions Shock and Awe campaign against the Russian economy.
These chips are literally cheap as dirt and ubiquitous.
Nor do I think US equipment is much different.
Even disregarding the fact that almost all present US military systems were designed and built in 1990 or earlier, you don’t use fragile, temperamental, complex chips in systems which are intended to last years and work in extreme environments.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 10 2022 15:43 utc | 22
@c1ue | Jul 10 2022 15:26 utc | 18
Low is 3-4nm up to about 12nm, I think, and that is what both US and China want to secure inside their own borders. To not depend on ASML, TSMC or whatever else there is.
Posted by: rk | Jul 10 2022 15:54 utc | 23
@c1ue (11)
Gunnery and targeting generally, in particular, are very computation intensive. While I know very little about modern computing systems that go with today’s military gear, I do know that history of computers throughout 20th century runs parallel to military applications. The first serious “computers” (using electromechanical contraptions, rather than electronics) were developed for targeting naval artillery at the beginning of 20th century, a lot of electronic gizmos were developed to target bombs from airplanes, various kinds of artillery, for missile guidance, and so forth, afterwards. In addition, a lot of military administration (logistics and so forth) is done by computers and, because of the way Russian military doctrine has been evolving, a good deal of routine staff work may be delegated to computers there as well, more than in Western armies. Of course, Russians have been quite gung ho about adding a lot of electronic warfare gizmos last couple of decades and they, again, draw heavily on computers.
Posted by: hk | Jul 10 2022 15:57 utc | 24
There are many oddities and coincidences in the topic “experts” vs. “military correspondents”.
Firstly, between the stuffing of the topic and its further dispersal in public, there is synchronism and consistency.
Secondly, in dispersing the given topic and raising the degree of “heat of passions” – anonymous “experts” and “military correspondents” from unofficial media (blogs, blog networks, etc.)
Thirdly, real military correspondents already have restrictions, according to the law on the media, and they do not allow hype in their reports.
The whole country knows real military correspondents – these are Alexander Sladkov, Alexander and Andrey Kots, Evgeny Poddubny, Olga Kurlaeva, Irina Kuksenkova, Semyon Pegov, etc. They perform dangerous but necessary work.
Fourthly, true experts tend to cooperate/work with law enforcement agencies in solving many problems.
Therefore, the “storm in the Telegram” is raised by those who hype on SMO, for whom likes and the number of subscribers are more important than the truth.
P.S. And yet, what real military correspondents and experts write unites the peoples of Russia.
Andrey Rudenko – military correspondent (Voenkor)
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 16:01 utc | 25
@rk #23
What the gubmint wants to secure has nothing to do with military systems – unless you consider AI/Big Data collection and surveillance of its citizens, a military system.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 10 2022 16:02 utc | 26
re: high(er) speed chips
It’s firstly for the radars and comms/networking for security, and countering both of the above. There are some obvious machine vision (“AI”) things too, but don’t think those are even considered high speed by today’s standards.
re: why use high level programming? because it facilitates getting larger groups of people working on big complex projects, and having a systematic way to ensure correctness. such complexity comes, again, from comms and networking. the semi-automatic target acquisition and management and distribution of targets and other info. most lines of code rarely get executed, yet are still needed for correct function of the system. that’s not to say building vast unwieldy system architectures isn’t a cause of problems – it also is.
Posted by: ptb | Jul 10 2022 16:03 utc | 27
@hk #24
Define what is “computation intensive”.
More computation intensive than an HP 12C pocket calculator can handle?
I doubt that.
Even the ARM chip noted above is a 16 MHz clock speed chip. Take the electromechanical systems of yore and speed them up 1 million times – is that sufficient? That’s what 16 MHz means.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 10 2022 16:04 utc | 28
Posted by: Ed Nelson | Jul 10 2022 15:21 utc | 15
“slow on the uptake” is one way to put it
Posted by: Jonathan W | Jul 10 2022 16:08 utc | 29
Melaleuca @ 12
A couple of weeks of training and then thrown out on the battlefield? They are walking dead. Military summary has been talking about Ukraine boosting of a million person army. I guess this is part of it, to keep it going as long as possible. Clearing the land of people. For what?
bevin @ 19
South Front has a video up of Ukrainian helicopters dropping flares on wheat fields under Russian control in the Ukraine.
Posted by: circumspect | Jul 10 2022 16:08 utc | 30
Posted by: Bogdan | Jul 10 2022 14:02 utc | 6
Amen to all of that.
There is no evidence that sanctions are critically impacting the RF defense sector and no sensible argument that they ever will!
Some consumer brands and products, plus some other non-defense inputs, will require substitution, a sometimes difficult, sometimes costly exercise, but always achievable and only a one-time cost. Once substituted, this is business the west might never get back.
Energy substitution is going to cost the EU every second of every day!
Posted by: anon2020 | Jul 10 2022 16:11 utc | 31
@Bogdan #6 @c1ue 11
—
Java was spearheaded by the DoD as a programming environment for embedded processors with trusted execution hardware features. The military need was a multiprocessor architecture with a hardware trusted execution module to protect regions of memory across context switches. It lives on today in JavaCard ==> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Card
—
The Russians (and Ukrainians) have to patch the firmware in their DJI drones to keep the drones from leaking GPS data.
https://t.me/sashakots/34284
The speed and accuracy that counter-battery fire targets a spotter drone’s coordinates is amazing.
Posted by: too scents | Jul 10 2022 16:14 utc | 32
ZH is reporting……
A natural gas gathering and processing facility near Medford, Oklahoma, exploded Saturday afternoon and could disrupt the flow of hydrocarbons to energy export hubs on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Oneok, Inc., a leading midstream service provider and the operator of a major natural gas liquids (NGL) systems, experienced an explosion at its NGL fractionation facility in Medford, about 85 miles south of Wichita, Kansas.
It’s Putin undoubtedly!
Posted by: SwissArmyMan | Jul 10 2022 16:14 utc | 33
Posted by: njet | Jul 10 2022 14:38 utc | 7
You say, Putin de facto declared war on the USA? Wrong! The USA declared war on Russia in 2014.
Posted by: Barofsky | Jul 10 2022 16:16 utc | 34
If the goal of computers for gunnery is to get the first shot in faster than the other side, there’s potentially a big advantage to having a better algorithm that can handle more data and produce the more accurate firing solution faster. But how much advantage is there to better “computing,” really, and is it worth the cost required? Good question. Probably depends on a lot of factors outside just the computing power, I suppose
Posted by: hk | Jul 10 2022 16:18 utc | 35
@ptb #27
Perhaps you can give some examples of just how much computation power and speed is needed for a radar system. It seems few people understand just how much is accomplished by even double digit MHz, 16 bit systems because modern PCs and laptops are so sloppy and inefficient as to require 64 bit Gigahertz systems.
On the security side: no. You only need high power systems for certificate signing of firmware upgrades; you don’t need high power systems to encrypt data in transit.
“countering” – this seems like gobbledygood to me. The “radar countering” systems I have seen all involve minimizing radar cross-section via design and materials – there is no computation in execution although there is lots of computation in design.
Communications countering – the Russians aren’t using magical algorithms to jam, they’re using powered up noise inserted into comms channels.
Yes, you can use computation power to try and unpick encryption on comms, but you also cannot drag around the Amazon cloud with you to do it with – particularly if your nice encrypted comms channel to said cloud brings a missile down on your head from the other side.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 10 2022 16:18 utc | 36
Ukrainian forces shelling the DPR with standard Nato artillery.
“Ukraine’s armed forces conducted a massive shelling of Donetsk’s residential districts on Sunday using 155-mm caliber artillery which is a standard NATO caliber.”
https://tass.com/world/1477951
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jul 10 2022 16:25 utc | 37
UK Defence minister and one time possible replacement for Boris Johnson, Ben Wallace meets, and greets Ukrainian troops in UK who are there for extensive training by UK troops.
Over a thousand UK troops will train ten thousand Ukrainian troops on how to use Western weapons.
“According to the MoD on Saturday, the UK has so far sent more than £2.3 billion in military aid to Kiev, including more than 5,000 NLAW anti-tank weapons and M270 multiple launch rocket systems.”
The English government keeps propping up the Nazi’s, how embarrassing.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/07/09/685328/Russia-Ukraine-UK-soldiers-training-Wallace–
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jul 10 2022 16:31 utc | 39
Shivani Arjuna (38).
I don’t know, but here in Scotland I cannot access the site I get the 403 message sometimes, and other times nothing at all appears.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jul 10 2022 16:33 utc | 40
Melaleuca [12]
Go to YouTube and watch Sky (Comcast) report on these training sessions. Infantry are not exactly bright but cheap to train and disposable. Basic infantry training is useless when fighting combat-hardened troops
These men are cannon fodder and will be dead in weeks.
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Jul 10 2022 16:37 utc | 41
SwissArmyMan
Those with most incentive to blow up US LNG facilities are American so US domestic prices do not rise to World Prices
So long as US does not export gas is affordable for US domestic population
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Jul 10 2022 16:40 utc | 42
Doran said BoJo once was seeking rapprochement with Russia. Then went to a meeting with MI6 and came out breathing fire against Russia.Then began his commuting to Kiev. What happened?
Posted by: Richard | Jul 10 2022 16:41 utc | 43
Posted by: Norwegian | Jul 10 2022 15:22 utc | 16
Agreed. Add to that the weird claim that US missiles and hardware uses high-level languages with consumer-grade features like garbage collectors. Would love to see the source for that claim.
Posted by: Bogdan | Jul 10 2022 14:02 utc | 6
You do realize all drivers and firmware are still written in assembly, right? and that operating systems kernel programmers deal with C code and Intel/ARM assembly language all day long?
what makes you think there aren’t similar sets of skills in the US army? or are you just throwing programming buzzwords around?
Posted by: Lemming | Jul 10 2022 16:44 utc | 44
Tech wise, I’m a moron. Are all those chips planted in the Nazi brains able to upgrade their performance on the battlefield, cause I’d ask the chip manufacturers for my money back? Same goes for most of the US-NATO wmd/drone deliveries.
Posted by: WTFUD | Jul 10 2022 16:45 utc | 45
Well, its pretty terrible for Brits…and the Unfriendlies. Yesterday a Russian girl won the Ladies Championship, while today a Serb won the Gentleman’s Championship at Wimbledon.
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 16:50 utc | 46
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jul 10 2022 16:48 utc | 47
—————
And, s/he is right!
Because you know absolutely NOTHING of what Russia has or buys in the world or even developed itself!
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 16:52 utc | 47
@ circumspect | Jul 10 2022 16:08 utc | 30
what are the flares supposed to do? burn the wheat field down? thanks for the note..
karlof1 probably already posted a link to this, but i am doing it again…
TRANSCRIPT OF PUTIN’S 7/7/22 SPEECH TO RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT (BREAKDOWN OF US-LED WORLD ORDER, “LET THEM TRY” TO DEFEAT US ON THE BATTLEFIELD, ETC.)
Slavyangrad telegram channel is back up and running..
https://t.me/s/Slavyangrad
Posted by: james | Jul 10 2022 16:55 utc | 48
Intrigued as to why this article. And why now. This extract from the twitter teaser…..The Times and The Sunday Times @thetimes
The triumphs and blind spots of President Zelensky
Before the Russian invasion Ukrainians were falling out of love with Volodymyr Zelensky, the TV comic turned president. Biographer Serhii Rudenko reveals the triumphs and blind spots of ‘Zelya’.
………Yet in the early hours of February 24 the attack came — and on a colossal scale, as Russian troops poured over the border and missiles rained down on Kyiv and other cities.
In the months since, his gift for showmanship has helped him to assume the mantle of a highly charismatic wartime leader.
More unexpected has been his enormous personal courage: during the first hours of the conflict he reportedly rejected an offer by the US to be evacuated.
He famously declared: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
He has survived no fewer than ten assassination attempts in Kyiv, according to one of his advisers.
Volodymyr Zelensky survives three assassination attempts in days. President Zelensky has survived at least three assassination attempts in the past week…..
Read the full profile here @Peter_Conradi
Posted by: Melaleuca | Jul 10 2022 16:55 utc | 49
@Olivier (3) “Only to wait for November. No use to read the ukrainian bs.”
Please tell us what you expect in November that will change anything vis a vis Russia and Ukraine.
Posted by: Rob | Jul 10 2022 16:56 utc | 50
@Posted by: Bogdan | Jul 10 2022 14:02 utc | 6
I agree on your position on software. Layers over layers of software result for the need of faster chips without a net functional advantage but just more software to prove correct. And of course the apps I use the most on my phone come from Russia with some exceptions.
Posted by: Richard L | Jul 10 2022 16:57 utc | 51
as you can imagine CBC is presenting this story very differently…. please send ukraine more shrink wrap canada!
“Slavyangrad
🇷🇺🇺🇦 @rybar: Today the Ukrainian media circulated footage of Russian Armed Forces strikes on the outskirts of the village of Chasov Yar, west of Bakhmut (Artemivsk). Propagandists and Ukrainian-controlled resources claimed that residential houses were the target of the raid.
Except that correspondents at the site of the explosion caught some interesting details. One of the photos shows rescuers carrying a man in a military uniform from under the rubble. This led us to believe that there were servicemen of the Ukrainian armed forces in the destroyed building.
Our team managed to find the damaged building: it was not a purely residential building, but a dormitory of a local refractory plant in the south of the village. According to local sources, before the SMO started, most of its premises were empty, but with the start of hostilities the fighters of Ukrainian formations began to use it for their needs. They were not in the least embarrassed by the fact that civilians who refused to resettle continued to live in the building.
Coordinates: 48.556645, 37.823303”
Posted by: james | Jul 10 2022 16:58 utc | 52
Fun stuff!
Canada decided to expand sanctions against the oil and gas sectors of the Russian economy and returned the repaired Nord Stream turbine!
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 17:04 utc | 53
About electronics: many products, originally designed for “Western” processors and components, are now being outfitted with “Made in Asia” processors. While the first Chinese processors may be considered copies of existing US designs, more recent models have some merit of their own. To me it feels as if the Chinese are not going for the high end export market, but rather for the low cost internal Chinese market.
Posted by: Passerby | Jul 10 2022 17:05 utc | 54
What has happened to thesaker.is/?
Posted by: Shivani Arjuna | Jul 10 2022 16:29 utc | 38
Yesterday the saker web said they had been under attack for a month, and that the attacks had become worse.
Posted by: Passerby | Jul 10 2022 17:09 utc | 55
Posted by: Exile | Jul 10 2022 13:58 utc | 4
Orginal Timeline of Operations adjusted significantly:
1) Phase 2 Liberation of Donbass – originally expected to be achieved by late July, now appears to be Mid-August
2) Phase 3 Liberation of Odessa oblast – start delayed by 4-5 weeks start mid/late Sept, suggests unable to be achieved before winter begins. Phase 3 goals might be reduced in scope.
Conclusion – the Allies are going to not make a big push for phase 3, more likely operations will be to secure phase 2 gains, perhaps isolate Kharkov and prepare for Spring 2023 campaign.
This is the worst possible scenario for the EU. As I predicted two weeks ago, Grandma will freeze to death this winter:
Petri Krohn @PetriKrohn on June 26, 2022
My guess:
– War will last until next summer.
– #Russia will pause offensive operations in September and switch to economic war.
– #Europe & #Ukraine will freeze.
Only chance for #EU to survive #winter is if #Kiev surrenders by end of August.
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Jul 10 2022 17:16 utc | 56
@Bogdan #6:
Well, yes the Russians have their own chips in 25nm for miltary.
Used to have. Now that TSMC has stopped making chips for MCST and Baikal, they have to work with Mikron, which can only produce 90 nm chips.
However for now the Russians have a secret weapon.
They use hand written ASM…
Not on all architectures. E2K architecture was specifically designed to be used with a highly optimizing compiler. It’s not impossible to write E2K assembly, but it’s very hard. As MCST is now forced to work with 90 nm for the foreseeable future, I predict they will go for an even wider architecture (even more ALUs), thus making assembly programming even more complex and the role of an optimizing compiler even more important.
Posted by: S | Jul 10 2022 17:17 utc | 57
“”
Alim is the first Iranian passive radar. Passive radars do not transmit. Instead, they detect and track objects by processing reflections from non-cooperative sources of illumination in the environment, such as commercial broadcast and communications signals.
Alim
Country of origin
Iran
Type
Passive radar
Range
300 km (190 mi)
Alim is cheaper and has lower maintenance cost than conventional radars because it lacks a transmitter and movable mechanical parts. It requires high processing power, as six levels of processing are needed to track targets. Other advantages include the ability to detect low RCS targets at low altitudes. Since it doesn’t transmit, it is immune to anti radiation missiles such as American AGM-88 HARM, thus it can be deployed near enemy lines
”
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alim_radar_system
—
Russias air defense system is linked to a man portable air defence system (MANPADS)rocket tube by radio. The tube tells the soldier to point the tube southwest and hold on tight. The computer at base and in the tube have been collaborating to shoot down something the webed system has been tracking long before soldier could have seen it. Russia has these ‘internet of things’ MANPADS systems for about 5 years now. Some tube carrier can just point his tube and take down a jet and not even fire the rocket from the tube, by his tube telling another tube on the other side of the hill a target would be at some place at some time for an easy kill.
—
The US flew fancy spy satellite over Iran.
Iran flew high a hopped up airliner full of batteries and a giant solid state laser sticking out the top, and blasted the eyeballs out of the fancy US satellite. That was maybe 12 years ago.
—
Posted by: Carl | Jul 10 2022 17:21 utc | 58
@ Posted by: jared | Jul 10 2022 13:30 utc | 1
In my excitement, I neglect to cite the text was taken from article pub at Foreign Affairs.
I particularly found petty the reference to the “drab life” in Russia – very ignorant. To me the article is more enlightening as to the inner workings of bureacratic mind – none, except in the aspect of “fitting in”.
Posted by: jared | Jul 10 2022 17:23 utc | 59
@36 c1ue
re: radar/ comm / counter
My understanding is it’s the never-ending push to more “diluted” spread spectrum techniques (not just military, all cel phone services have this trend). In test, combine with mid GHz frequencies producing data from a dense array of receivers, and ever faster switching. Combined with directional transmission and reception (ie must scan the configuration of the array fast) abilities of AESA’s. So that’s a race for fast ADC/DAC and processing of it. So far still okay. Then on the other side, scanning for it without knowing where the signal is a-priori, in both location/direction, and in the radio frequency space … in order to locate a transmitter (and that’s if they aren’t playing tricks reflecting off of stuff). So it takes bigger volume of samples to be processed, to pick it out from the background.
I do agree with you that most computing power in, say, the phone in my hand, or my car for that matter, is utterly wasted by the OS tripping over its own management functionality. But I disagree with above commenter, who seemed to imply that it would be fixed with super talented developers – Microsoft has that resource without limit for example. In my opinion it’s a function of the corporate mentality which gets reflected in the system concepts that come out of that.
Posted by: ptb | Jul 10 2022 17:23 utc | 60
Tomorrow, 11th July, both lines of Nord Stream are stopped for routine maintenance…and panic is rising in the EU unfriendlies…😏
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 17:34 utc | 62
…to the last Ukrainian
1/. Ivanna Zarashchak has been killed in battle against the Russian Army.
RIP Ivanna!
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1545953694151221249?cxt=HHwWgoCxsbWsqvQqAAAA
2/ Ukrainian soldier taking cover in a trench while under heavy Russian artillery fire.
https://twitter.com/qwest__/status/1544712497973936131
…And anyone else…
Brazil:
Douglas Búrigo, a Brazilian volunteer who was killed after a bombing by Russian artillery in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine on July 1.
The Brazilian media had access to an audio of him that he sent to a friend…
https://twitter.com/esse_uma
§§…Japanese and American volunteer soldiers fighting together in Ukraine against the Russia Army.
Their grandparents would be very surprised if they would have heard that sentence.
Posted by: Melaleuca | Jul 10 2022 17:39 utc | 63
The old 486 processor was used on the space shuttle and there are many craft using old processors even today.
Why today’s spacecraft still run on 1990s processors
The CPUs of Spacecraft
Computers in Space
One of my favorite old stories…
Iraq does not underestimate the power of the Playstation
I can see it now. Putin driving up the cost of play stations to fuel his war machine
Posted by: circumspect | Jul 10 2022 17:45 utc | 64
comedy of Russian gas sanitized by transit through UA continues
“We are asking Canada to not return the Gazprom turbine to [OEM Siemens Energy.de], but to Ukraine,” Sergiy Makogon, the chief executive officer of Ukraine’s gas transmission system OGTSU wrote on Facebook earlier.
Berlin, Kiev at odds over Russian gas pipeline Siemens Energy.ca “refurbished” Gazprom turbine
I’m guessing, OGTSU wants to replace the one they sabotaged in May, just in case Yamal or Nord Stream some how takes a transit turn through UA.
Posted by: sln2002 | Jul 10 2022 17:46 utc | 65
Posted by: james | Jul 10 2022 16:55 utc | 50
I did not know that they were back! I was wondering what had happened to them and was forced to find other sources that have turned out publish way too much of the grisly stuff. Thank you.
Posted by: eyeswideopen | Jul 10 2022 17:50 utc | 66
Petri Krohn @PetriKrohn on June 26, 2022
My guess:
– War will last until next summer.
– #Russia will pause offensive operations in September and switch to economic war.
– #Europe & #Ukraine will freeze.
========
Good call there. Beginning to agree with you. My idea from May that Phase 3 needed to be completed before winter was wrong.
Let‘s see how the next 2 weeks unfold.
Posted by: Exile | Jul 10 2022 17:53 utc | 67
Capitalism undermines the efforts of the most capitalist societies to punish Russia, China, Iran and others. There is money to made in supplying what Russia needs, and so the demand will be met. The US can try to control chip technology, but it allows the technology and manufacturing to be controlled by corporations that are unlikely to be patriotic and loyal.
Which is kind of funny. The US, where actual patriotism is laughable (especially in business and government) and locality is seen as a moral defect leading to being poor, demands international loyalty to itself. The only ones willing so far are the Stockholm Syndrome sufferers in the EU who think they’ll be rewarded for loyalty to the US. They’ll be stabbed in the back (ongoing) and left to bleed out into the curb. It’s who we are as Americans. You can’t expect the scorpion to change its nature.
Posted by: Lex | Jul 10 2022 18:00 utc | 68
Let‘s see how the next 2 weeks unfold.
Posted by: Exile | Jul 10 2022 17:53 utc | 69
—-
Let’s see what happens after Thursday 21st July…
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 18:04 utc | 69
A couple of weeks of training and then thrown out on the battlefield? They are walking dead. Military summary has been talking about Ukraine boosting of a million person army.
Posted by: circumspect | Jul 10 2022 16:08 utc | 30
Don’t forget that they have now placed restrictions on the movement of young women, in prospect of conscripting them, of course.
Posted by: laguerre | Jul 10 2022 18:05 utc | 70
In the discussion of assembler versus high-level languages, I didn’t see mention of the latter’s tending to be more decipherable to someone who is reading the production code without having access to its author or to detailed documentation. This seems to suggest that military software (at least in Russian-built systems) tends to remain stable after it’s deployed, in contrast to business or consumer software that might have numerous production releases to supply enhancements or bug fixes.
To what extent is this inference valid?
Posted by: David Levin | Jul 10 2022 18:07 utc | 71
I wish to sign in to VK but the site seems to accept only area code 7 phone numbers as passwords
Can anyone help?
Posted by: Gerrard White | Jul 10 2022 18:18 utc | 72
Posted by: Gerrard White | Jul 10 2022 18:18 utc | 74
—————–
Simply delete the +7 and add your country code then the phone number
Posted by: pppp | Jul 10 2022 18:24 utc | 73
@Bogdan | Jul 10 2022 14:02 utc | 6
According to page 7 of this PDF, the Abrams SW is in Ada.
http://www.cister.isep.ipp.pt/ae2016/presentations/ptc.pdf
ADA also provides more runtime checking than “C”
Posted by: daffyDuct | Jul 10 2022 18:31 utc | 74
@David Levin #73:
To what extent is this inference valid?
Before attempting to infer various corollaries, you must establish the validity of the basic claim, i.e., that all Russian military software is written in assembly (hint: it’s not).
Posted by: S | Jul 10 2022 18:35 utc | 75
@ eyeswideopen | Jul 10 2022 17:50 utc | 68
hey! you’re welcome! cheers..
Posted by: james | Jul 10 2022 18:39 utc | 76
The price of airline tickets will go up “without doubt” as fuel costs rise, an air industry boss has warned. These costs will be passed on to consumers, Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said.
– BBC whines..
Many other MSM in unfriendly countries are also complaining on the rapidly rising cost of energy and fuel, and also of abandoned flights. Panic is rising in the unfriendlies…tomorrow is 11th July…
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 18:40 utc | 77
I’ve been programming for more than 50 years, in lots of different assembly languages, lots of different languages.
This thread about assembly language is complete, utter, catastrophically uninformed nonsense! Modern compilers _always_ produce better code than hand-coded assembler, both in code size and code speed.
Modern compilers (which Russian programmers are world-experts in) just produce smaller and faster code than hand-coded assembler. This isn’t even a thing with actual programmers – any actual experienced programmer here is laughing at this assertion.
A different assertion, which is quite valid, is that 10 year old embedded processors costing less than one dollar are adequate for almost any military purpose. I completely agree with this.
Posted by: Contrarian_Ed | Jul 10 2022 18:40 utc | 78
Brave Sir Zelensky, survived 127 assassination attempts, the majority from tainted cocaine & crack.
Shelling parts of Ukraine you want returned, unfortunately, is not how you win hearts & minds, you snide little anglo-zionist puppet.
Posted by: WTFUD | Jul 10 2022 18:41 utc | 79
If anything were normal I would say that Ukraine will not last out a long war. How on earth are they accomplishing logistics? It is absolutely necessary to move food fuel and ammunition. Which are all heavy. Each has demands on how it may be handled. Logistics is a challenge for any army.
The last man standing in the logistics chain is the black marketeer. Ukraine was known for weapons sales even before this all began. When thinking longterm, which is maybe weeks for the black market, it could make sense to feed the frontline just to keep the gravy train from Washington rolling. Promises from Washington are faltering and moving off into impossible timeframes. At some point the retail arms merchants want to cash out.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jul 10 2022 18:46 utc | 80
Posted by: WTFUD | Jul 10 2022 18:41 utc | 81
——————-
If they wanted to get rid of Ze, they could’ve done that quite easily, but they need him alive to put on tribunal for war crimes…😏
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 18:46 utc | 81
These men are cannon fodder and will be dead in weeks.
Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Jul 10 2022 16:37 utc | 41
Yes, they are. But I wonder if they just serve as a smokescreen for a small number of experts being trained for … something really dirty.
That idea has started worrying me of late.
Posted by: Martina | Jul 10 2022 18:56 utc | 82
10th July, 1934 the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) of the USSR was created.
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 19:01 utc | 83
ostro (62).
In Northern Ireland they’ll be plenty of heat and light, as they set fire to their bonfires of hate every 11th of July.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jul 10 2022 19:05 utc | 84
“Russia will take tough measures against Lithuania and the EU, the preparation of which has already been completed.” -Zakharova
Posted by: Melaleuca | Jul 10 2022 15:09 utc | 13
Imagine Maria Zakharova as VVP’s successor, vs. all the oblivious broads in leadership rolls across the EU, US, and UK. A great contrast of alpha female vs. bravo cannon fodder. There have been very few lady public affairs practitioners like her.
Posted by: ERing46Z | Jul 10 2022 19:12 utc | 85
Ostro (47).
Easily remedied in the age of the internet almost everyone knows something about some countries achievements, I’d have thought you might have, well known that.
Incase you didn’t here’s a starter for you.
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/russia/articles/10-amazing-things-that-russia-gave-the-world/
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jul 10 2022 19:15 utc | 86
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jul 10 2022 19:15 utc | 86
—————
Thank you for the link. Its interesting to know what the foreigners “know” about Russia. 😃
Well, on the other hand, I’d never been to Scotland, maybe some day…
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 19:26 utc | 87
Well, if you know Russian, here’s a (very) short summary (04.07-10.07.22) https://t.me/yurasumy/4180
By the way, this is the only Telegram channel of Yuri Podolayaka.
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 19:32 utc | 88
@ 81 ostro
Yes I mentioned the assassination attempts tongue in cheek, 127, 11 more than Fidel Castro.
He’s gone from dick playing piano player, fictional & (f)actual President, to tactical military operations strategist and war hero in 2.5 years.
It’s cost him 100k + casualties, mountains of sovereign loans/debt and a country that’ll have only 50% of its former GDP, if it even exists.
Although Biden & US Neocons will call the above Winning.
Posted by: WTFUD | Jul 10 2022 19:32 utc | 89
One Azov guy recently captured in Donbas has been sentenced to death for shooting civillians. He was a BMP-2 gunner during the 2014 assault on Mariupol. The canon camera footage from the incident has been published by Russell Bentley. It is up there with the WikiLeaked video of the massacre of civillians by US Apache crews in Iraq.
The initial frames show the victims are clearly civillian. The scene rapidly becomes filled with dust from cannon shell impacts.
https://t.me/TXDPR/875
Posted by: Arfur Mo | Jul 10 2022 19:38 utc | 91
Don’t you love it when puppets piss their pants from fear?
Former Polish President Lech Walesa said that the population of Russia “needs to be reduced to less than 50 million people.”
Posted by: rk | Jul 10 2022 19:45 utc | 92
@
‘Former Polish President Lech Walesa said that the population of Russia “needs to be reduced to less than 50 million people.”‘
This is the deranged genocidal racist that Western liberals fawned over when the so-called Solidarity ‘trade union’ was trying to overthrow the legitimate government in Poland in the early 1980s (an attempt backed and funded by, of course, the CIA).
Posted by: Hidari | Jul 10 2022 19:53 utc | 93
“The modest charm of European Nazism wishing to overfulfill Hitler’s program.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/
Russia must be “dismembered.” “Either change the political system of Russia, or return it to a population of less than 50 million,”
Nobel Peace Prize winner, former Polish President Lech Walesa
La Viellesse Est Un Naufrage…
Posted by: La Bastille | Jul 10 2022 19:54 utc | 94
People still living in the Kharkov Metro (Underground) stations today https://youtu.be/wWb7ghEBPrs
Posted by: ostro | Jul 10 2022 20:08 utc | 95
Many here set imaginary deadlines. Next spring, summer etc. Zelly will attack something or other delusions. Give up. Ukr is gone today, getting erased from the map each day. I still find their strategy at least weird, but they won’t stop and can’t be stopped.
Puppets are falling already. Germany blocked 9bn Ukr loan, they know money won’t ever come back, the country doesn’t exist. Newspapers write about Schlitz very bad things. Suddenly Poles remembered Ukr are nazis. Germans suddenly discovered Ukr has 40 nazi monuments. Le Pen said sanctions hurt France and not all Russia. So many discoveries in a week
Posted by: rk | Jul 10 2022 20:10 utc | 96
Girkin:
“ The enemy continues to launch missile strikes in the Donbass.
Apparently, the Russian air defense systems, which relatively (very relatively) coped with attacks with the help of “Tochek-U” and “Uraganov” – turned out to be ineffective against massive strikes by Hymers missiles. Today, Shakhtersk is burning and detonating again. Stronger than last time.
Over the past 5-7 days, more than 10 large warehouses of artillery and other ammunition, several oil depots, about a dozen command posts and about the same number of personnel locations in our near and deep rear were hit. As well as several air defense and artillery positions. BIG losses in personnel and equipment have been suffered.
P.S. I am not writing this to inform the ukrov about the success of their strikes – they know about it better and before me. And not in order to “gloat” (which every pseudo-patriotic scum accuses me of). And in order to ask one more question:
WHEN WILL THE RF Armed Forces START FIGHTING IN FULL FORCE? Those. when devastating strikes on the transport system of the so-called. “Ukraine”, through which all these “Himers”, “777” and “Caesars” (as well as ammunition for them) are safely and unhindered delivered to the combat area?
I ask for the maximum repost. This is not what I need. I am not (yet) in danger of being hit by enemy missiles.”
Video of a recent one:
https://mobile.twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1545963914252505102
Posted by: Moabeobachter | Jul 10 2022 20:11 utc | 97
Posted by: S | Jul 10 2022 17:17 utc | 57
The discussion of ASM vs optimizing compilers and higher-level languages is interesting but misses the point. Nobody is going to use straight machine code for an entire application suite. Optimizers are better for that. But every app has bits of time-critical iteration which usually works better if you think about what’s happening in the ALUs. However the point I made yesterday was that you can optimize across all your possible code paths but if you don’t need most of what’s in a library, the fact it’s been optimised is largely irrelevant. You’re still loading DLLs you don’t need and it’s still flabware. If good compilers protected against flabware Microsoft would have trouble selling next year’s Office products. IMO anyway.
Posted by: T Paine | Jul 10 2022 20:20 utc | 98
reply to 64 / 71 (computers)
I’m glad to see such expertise as there is a an odd question I have. I’ve heard that Russians use some sort of analog computing (or chips) in military hardware – and that this gives them an advantage over purely digital methods. Has anyone ever heard of this?
Posted by: Eighthman | Jul 10 2022 20:21 utc | 99
Moabeobachter | Jul 10 2022 20:11 utc | 97
Hey, it’s ghost of kiev, no one can stop him him. He flies each missile by hand. He inflicts MASSIVE losses on Putin but Putin is hiding in a bunker
Posted by: rk | Jul 10 2022 20:25 utc | 100