Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Saturday, November 8, 2025 06:40
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Thursday, November 6, 2025 2:43 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Russian security services say that NATO is planning to sabotage the Zaparozhiy NPP and cause a Chernobyl-scale meltdown, creating a "no go" barrier across central Ukraine, redirecting the entire Russian army away from fighting to stabilization, and (BTW) blaming the "accident" on Russia.

I'm fairly certain that this is indeed one of the plans being considered by NATO, and that Russia issued a preemptive warning.

Kiev is pouring troops into Pokrovsk, intending (presumably) to unblock the siege and allow troops to escape. Kupiansk is in trouble too.

But that doesn't mean the Ukrainian army is broken or that the defense will collapse all the way to the Dnieper river. Izyum is another major (high ground) objective that supports logistics to Slaviansk and Kramatorsk. Since Izyum, Slaviansk, and Kramatorsk are still standing, there's a long way to go for Russia, assuming the Ukrainian army doesn't collapse outright in the next couple of months or the ZNPP doesn'tget blown up.

Bullshit...

T

Which part?
Pokrovsk is almost surrounded. There's a gap of only 300 meters, according to some sources, between the two Russian forces bottlenecking the city. Most of Pokrovsk is under Russian control. Zelensky has ordered more forces to the city. Ukrainian forces outside of the city are attacking both at the bottleneck and further north, and Ukrainian forces IN the city are trying to fight their way out, Kiev says. (But take that with a pound of salt, since Kiev has a tendency to post weeks-old footage of better positioning as if it were recent.)

Kupiansk isn't in much better shape, because altho Russian forces don't surround the city, the Oskol River, with its bridges blown, forms a significant barrier, trapping Ukrainian soldiers on its eastern side while Russia advances along the western bank.

I added a comment about the Zaparozhiy nuclear power plant (ZNPP). Yanno, Ukraine has been actively shelling and droning the ZNPP all along, hoping to hit something important and cause a radiation release, even while IAEA inspectors are there. Every time they cause damage, Kiev blames RUSSIA. (Just like Russia was blamed for blowing up it's own pipeline and destroying a major dam that it controlled.)

And just to show you how "neutral" the IAEA is, even tho IAEA inspectors know better, they refuse to push back on Kiev.

So why wouldn't NATO want to up the ante? As a military, they should be looking at ALL contingencies, right? And that Ukie invasion into Kursk... it was aimed at a Russian nuclear power plant just a few miles down the road. What do you suppose Kiev would have done with it, if they succeeded in capturing it?

I've said before and I'll say again: If anyone considers a "nuclear option" in Ukraine, it'll be NATO. Russia has superior conventional forces. Zelensky has threatened nuclear weapons before, even tho the best they could possibly manage would be a dirty bomb. How much better would it be to arrange for a ZNPP "accident" with plausible deniability?

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Friday, November 7, 2025 8:08 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Are War Crimes and Ranged Fires The Future Of War?

Phillips P. Obrien | Nov 07, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/are-war-crimes-and-ranged-fires
-the

Hello All,

I’m going to share this early summary on the future of war with subscribers today. It might be one of the least uplifting pieces I have written. Sorry. It is about the direction of warfare, particularly in light of what we are/have seen from Russia and the USA. There are many elements in this summary that need to be thought through, and the plan is to eventually turn these ideas into a longer, publishable piece. However, I think it is important enough that I would like those who read my work seriously to have a first look. The central point is that the future of much state-state warfare is emerging right before our eyes and it is frightening indeed. It is a combination of ranged fires and war crimes, which will obliterate the whole idea of there being a clear battlefield while at the same time allowing states to target anything they damn well want, civilian or otherwise.

Russian Attacks On Civilian Infrastructure
Donald Trump posted images earlier this week of a suspected Venezuelan vessel targeted by the US military. Pic: @realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
US Attacks On Non-Combatants

The argument is that what we are seeing now across the globe is an indication of where war is going. And what we are seeing are states increasingly unconcerned (maybe even excited by) the commitment of war crimes while using ranged weapons. This template is something we are seeing by the USA in the Caribbean and which we have seen by Russia for years, and which is typical of all sides in the Middle East.

What is important about this is that as technology and weapons improve, ranged fires and war crimes are likely to become more and more the norm. It will be relatively easier, cheaper, and arguably more effective to use them—all the while destroying the paradigm that you need to have lots of “boots on the ground” to have strategic effect. I have always thought this last point completely wrong-headed and based on a misreading of World War II. The constant stress on “boots on the ground” helps explain why the USA at the height of its power has constantly lost wars.

And the relative imbalance towards defensive firepower makes this shift even more likely to grow. The front line is now far more dangerous than at any time in war. Constant surveillance and weapons that can hit accurately and quickly after detection, means keeping troops near the front line results in grotesque casualty numbers as we see in the Russian military. Any country that wants to preserve its military, which the Ukrainians are trying to do now, will actually move towards limiting the number of troops they send forward into what is a growing “kill zone” where the armies meet.

Are You Basing Your Future View Of War On Packing The Kill Zone?

If having lots of troops in the front line is a loser’s game, what we are seeing is the power of ranged fires to have strategic effect. Again, this should not have been a surprise, but for some reason much of our understanding of how World War II was won (and lost) missed out the importance of ranged fires such as strategic air power. However, what we are seeing around the world is that ranged fires can have significant strategic effect. By far the most effective campaigns by both the Russians and the Ukrainians have been their ranged efforts. The Ukrainian campaign against Russian oil production has been discussed in great detail here, as well as the Russian campaign against Ukrainian power generation and production. This winter, for instance, these campaigns will almost certainly define the course of the war. Certainly in cost/benefit terms, the ranged campaign is proving far more important for both Ukraine and Russia.

And its not just in Ukraine and Russia that the power of ranged campaigns have been felt. The Israeli air campaign against Iran, even after it was short-circuited by Trump, showed what can be achieved by ranged fires through a well worked out plan. Of course Israel is not alone in this—the Houthis have arguably achieved great strategic effect through their ranged fires on civilian and military vessels in the waters off the coast of Yemen.

And you know what might ranged fires even more devastating? It would be the commitment of war crimes (or more accurately what used to be considered war crimes). Right now two of the five permanent members of the UN Security council are committing war crimes regularly with ranged fires. The Russian attempts to make Ukrainian cities unlivable through freezing them is a war crime, and what the US is doing in the Caribbean would normally be considered a war crime.

For instance, the US is attacking with ranged weapons vessels in the Caribbean that represent no threat to US forces, which are in international waters, and which could easily be seized if the US wanted to bother. However what is happening is that those vessels and the crews on them are being destroyed, which the US has tacitly admitted is a war crime.

How did the US admit that? Well, after attacking one of these boats and not killing all the crew, it took one of the survivors and released him back to his country of origin (Colombia). It was a tacit admission that the person was a civilian and any further punishment (which will almost certainly not be forthcoming) would have to come from civil courts in Colombia.

This matters. Why you might ask? Well. one of the fundamental things which used to make a war crime was attacks on civilians (broadly conceived). Such attacks were considered not legitimate acts of war unless the civilians were directly involved in the war effort. In other words, you could attack a factory making war equipment if there were civilians involved, but you were not supposed to attack those factory workers after they were no longer at their place of work.

There has been a grey area on this about dual-use facilities. If you take out power generation to an urban area, for instance, you could affect war production, but you could also disable hospitals, etc. Now the dual-use distinction will come down far more in favor of what is considered strategically expedient.

Indeed, what we are seeing now around the globe is the disappearance of any restraint, what we might call the normalizing of war crimes. Yes, I know war crimes have always been committed. However it was notable that during the period of the International Rules-Based Order (now arguably over) states at least wanted to act like they were not committing war crimes. Now that pretence is over—and that means that the reality will be worse.

As ranged weapons become more numerous, accurate and effective, and as restraints on what can be attacked lessen or even disappear, this will mean the great incentive will be to try and achieve strategic effect through devastating attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Fighting on the battlefield will be seen as a slow, bloody slog through death zones, while ranged, war crimes will be seen as faster and more effective. So when we add up what we are seeing, it's terrifying and ethically bankrupt, but also strategically rational. It may very well represent the future of war.

Thanks for reading Phillips’s Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, November 7, 2025 8:43 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ukraine War: Pokrovsk's Fall Doesn't Have to Be a Defeat

By Marc Champion | November 6, 2025 at 10:00 PM CST

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-11-07/ukraine-war-pokr
ovsk-s-fall-doesn-t-have-to-be-a-defeat

First Bakhmut, then Avdiivka, now Pokrovsk. In each of the last three years, Russia’s generals have identified a midsize Ukrainian town as their invasion’s next critical target, expending vast amounts of manpower and hardware to take it. The question is not whether Pokrovsk will fall, but what that will mean for the war.

Pokrovsk’s capture would have significant political and symbolic importance for both sides, as was the case for its predecessors in 2023 and 2024. That plus road and rail links explain why Russian commanders pulled troops away from other parts of the front to concentrate more than 100,000 personnel at a mining town with a pre-war population half that size.

Vladimir Putin needs this win as he heads into winter. Lack of foliage to hide advancing troops from drones and the fallback defenses Ukraine has built behind Pokrovsk will make advancing even more difficult and costly until the leaves grow back in the spring. And for Russia, this has already been a disappointing year, gaining less new territory despite growing battlefield advantages, and at a time when the economy is showing signs of strain at home.

So Pokrovsk’s capture would help sustain Putin’s narrative of ineluctable victory and suppress any sense among ordinary Russians that the gains he’s making in Ukraine aren’t worth the human or economic cost. It would also hit already low morale in Ukraine and could, most dangerously, persuade the US to pressure Kyiv into capitulation.

What it won’t do is, as some have said, open the road for Russian forces to sweep through the so-called fortress belt of east Ukrainian cities that have so frustrated Putin’s invasion. That’s because of the way this war is being fought, which is on foot; it’s been a long time since either side did any sweeping. Indeed, Pokrovsk’s fall could also be seen as another stage in a Ukrainian strategy to bleed Russia’s advantages in manpower and equipment to exhaustion.

To put this in perspective, it has taken Russia’s armed forces 20 months to move less than 50 kilometers (29 miles) from Avdiivka to Pokrovsk – a one-hour drive in peace time. In that period, Ukraine’s count of Russian war dead and wounded nearly tripled to 1.147 million, from 401,350. Those figures are partisan and therefore unreliable, but there is wide consensus among independent military analysts that the trend they reflect is correct; this has, for Russia, been the bloodiest year of the war to date.

Will Pokrovsk prove to have been worth the cost? And how should Ukraine’s allies respond?

These are two parts of the same question, because this war will be decided by the ability and will of each side to remain in the fight — and that’s something Pokrovsk’s fate alone can’t determine, but Ukraine’s allies can. In fact, when I visited to see the town’s coking coal mine in October 2024, the fear at the time was that resistance might not last beyond the end of the year. A defense that continues nine months beyond expectation, against an eight-to-one force concentration drawn from other areas of the front is not a sign of military collapse.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, November 7, 2025 4:22 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Putin’s nuclear blackmail has expired

By Igor Desyatnikov | Nov 7, 2025 1:30 PM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/5594645-russia-nuclear-t
hreats-fail/

For more than three years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has used nuclear threats as his go-to weapon against Western support for Ukraine. Battlefield setbacks? Cue the warnings about “red lines” and World War III.

And it worked. The Biden administration’s careful, incremental approach to military aid was partly shaped by fear of crossing Putin’s threshold.

But things have changed. Putin’s nuclear theater has not just failed to intimidate President Trump — it has backfired so badly that the Kremlin had to scramble and walk back its own threats. In fact, this may be the moment Putin’s nuclear blackmail finally hit its expiration date.

The pattern has been consistent since 2022. When Ukrainian forces routed Russian troops in Kharkiv and Kherson that fall, Moscow’s nuclear saber-rattling was so alarming that CIA Director Bill Burns later revealed there was “genuine risk” of tactical nuclear use. Each time the West considered supplying advanced weapons, Russia issued dire warnings, which the Biden administration took seriously.

Trump initially fell for the same playbook. For nine months, Putin convinced him that Russia’s victory was inevitable, while stringing him along in his peace negotiations theater. Vice President JD Vance explicitly warned against triggering World War III. Trump delayed major sanctions, genuinely believing restraint would bring peace.

But by October, the illusion had worn thin. A phone call with Putin on Oct. 16 ended with Trump announcing plans for a Budapest summit to explore a settlement. Days later, after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivered the same hardline ultimatum to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump pulled the plug. Days later, frustrated and determined to compel Putin to negotiate seriously, Trump imposed his first major sanctions on Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.

Russia’s response? A dramatic pivot that appeared more desperate than strategic. With conventional diplomacy getting nowhere, Moscow went back to nuclear theater, but this time with an absurd twist.

First up: the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered cruise missile, which Putin announced on Oct. 26-27. Then the messaging took an even stranger turn. Putin sent Kirill Dmitriev, his economic envoy, not part of a military apparatus, to Washington to brandish this “unique weapon.” Dmitriev showed up with chocolates featuring Putin quotes.

The response? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent openly ridiculed him on CBS News, calling Dmitriev “a Russian propagandist.” When American Cabinet officials are openly mocking Russian envoys on national television, you’ve lost more than just the argument; you’ve lost the psychological game entirely.

Western experts weren’t buying it. The Burevestnik is subsonic and riddled with technical problems; a 2019 test killed five Russian scientists. Trump’s comeback summed it up bluntly: “They know we have a nuclear submarine, the greatest in the world, right off their shores.” He’s talking about U.S. subs operating from Norway with missiles that could hit Moscow in five to seven minutes. The logic of developing such a system becomes dubious given the existing U.S. deterrent.

With the Burevestnik gambit failing, Putin doubled down. On Oct. 29, he rolled out the Poseidon torpedo, supposedly capable of creating 500-meter radioactive tsunamis that would devastate American coastal cities.

Technical experts dismiss it as implausible. Underwater nuclear blasts spread energy in all directions. To generate a towering, focused tsunami hundreds of meters high, as Russia claims Poseidon could, would require not just immense power, but geological conditions nuclear weapons can’t replicate. Physics just doesn’t support it.

And that’s when things unraveled. Trump misread what Russia was actually testing. The Poseidon and Burevestnik use nuclear-powered engines, not nuclear warheads. On Oct. 30, Trump declared he’d order the Pentagon to restart nuclear weapons testing, something we haven’t done since 1992.

The Kremlin’s strategy had backfired. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov scrambled to clarify that Russia’s tests were not of warheads but engines, an implicit admission that their posturing had provoked the wrong response. A tactic that once paralyzed Western decision-making was now triggering the very escalation it sought to prevent.

And this isn’t a one-off. Russia’s “wonder weapons” have a habit of flopping. Take the T-14 Armata tank, unveiled in 2015. Russia planned to build 2,300. They’ve made fewer than 20, and exactly zero have been deployed to Ukraine, even as they’ve lost over 4,000 tanks in combat. Or the RS-28 Sarmat “Satan II” ICBM, which has now failed four straight tests. The September 2024 test left a 200-foot crater where the launch site used to be. Putin admitted just days ago it’s still “not yet deployed.” Even the newer Oreshnik missile exists only in tiny numbers — Ukraine has already destroyed one of the three known systems.

The pattern is clear: Putin’s nuclear blackmail depends on theatrical demos of weapons that either don’t work, can’t be mass-produced, or barely exist outside propaganda videos. When your top tank never deploys, your missiles keep failing, and your economic envoys are pitching military tech, deterrence starts to look like theater.

Trump’s approach has been chaotic, maybe even reckless. But it called Putin’s bluff. Trump didn’t bother with the careful restraint Biden had practiced. He reminded Putin that America’s strategic edge, especially in nuclear deterrence, was beyond dispute. And for once, the usual intimidation tactics didn’t land. They increasingly fail to scare the West into abandoning Ukraine and to keep stringing along American presidents with empty threats.

None of this means nuclear risk has vanished. But it does mean that Putin’s most reliable form of leverage — strategic intimidation masked as ambiguity — has expired. He no longer holds the same sway in Washington. And most importantly, he no longer holds the same audience.

When your nuclear intimidation ends with your own spokesman clarifying you’re not actually testing nukes, you’ve lost the room. Putin’s nuclear blackmail appears to have hit its expiration date. What happens next depends on whether the Kremlin can adjust to dealing with a less predictable, less intimidated Washington.

Igor Desyatnikov is a U.S.-based global macro strategist and fund manager, born in Ukraine, with graduate training in international security and political science from Harvard.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, November 7, 2025 5:02 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

AI soldiers: How deepfakes are manipulating Ukraine’s mobilization narrative

By Tim Zadorozhnyy | November 7, 2025 7:16 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/ai-soldiers-how-deepfakes-are-manipulating
-ukraines-mobilization-narrative/

Experts say the campaign marks a new stage in the Kremlin's information warfare — one designed to erode trust in Ukraine's leadership, sow panic, and weaken Western support.

"The information space is a battlefield, and that's why (Russia) works tirelessly to push its narratives," said Anton Kuchukhidze, an international political scientist and co-founder of the United Ukraine think tank.

Ukraine proved to Europe that Russia can be resisted, undermining a Russian myth that it was the world's second-strongest army.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, November 8, 2025 6:37 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Tomahawks would be useful. Funding Ukraine’s missile factories would be smarter.

By Igor Kossov | Nov 11, 2025

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/11/07/tomahawk-alternative-fund-ukrai
ne-missile-production/

As Washington flip-flops on granting Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kyiv, there is a more practical, politically expedient solution, which doesn’t involve an American veto of every target that Ukraine may want to hit.

Ukraine could make effective use of 50 or so Tomahawks at $4 million each (export price). However, since the US is highly unlikely to donate these missiles, European governments might be better advised to channel the estimated $200 million the Tomahawks would cost directly into Ukraine’s missile industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_missile

Tomahawks would be very useful to hit hardened targets, but chances of Ukraine getting them seem remote, with the White House constantly changing its mind.

Up to 50 missiles were under discussion; Ukraine would need hundreds of Tomahawks to take out entire factory complexes — plus, Washington could tell Kyiv what targets it's allowed to shoot.

For the same cost, the US and European allies could provide cheaper missiles and funding to buff up Ukraine's deep strike capabilities.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, November 8, 2025 6:40 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Norwegian politicians push Oslo to guarantee EU’s €140 billion Ukraine loan using profits from replacing Russia as Europe’s gas supplier, amid Belgium’s legal objections to frozen asset scheme.

By Benjamin Murdoch | Nov 7, 2025

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/11/07/pressure-grows-on-norway-to-use
-oil-fund-to-unlock-eu-loan-for-ukraine/

Pressure is building in Norway to use its vast sovereign wealth fund to help move forward the European Union’s stalled €140 billion loan for Ukraine - a proposal now gaining traction as part of efforts to overcome Belgium’s objections to using frozen Russian assets.

The EU’s proposed reparations loan would tap into about €190-210 billion in frozen Russian state assets held in Europe to use as collateral to finance Ukraine’s recovery and budget needs. Legal and political disputes, led by Belgium, where most assets are held by the clearing house Euroclear, have delayed the plan.

The idea of Norway stepping in to guarantee part of the loan has revived debate over the country’s wartime windfall. After overtaking Russia as Europe’s main gas supplier, Norway earned roughly €109 billion in extra revenues from surging prices in 2022-2023, prompting accusations it had become a “war profiteer.”

Several Norwegian parties, including those aligned with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s governing bloc, have urged Oslo to help “break the impasse.” Opposition politicians argue that Norway’s €1.8 trillion fund gives it the financial strength and moral duty to act.

“Norway has the means to guarantee a loan that would help Ukraine defend itself,” said Guri Melby, leader of the opposition Liberal Party. Greens leader Arild Hermstad added that Norway’s profit from the war made such support “a moral obligation.”

The proposal, first floated by two Norwegian economists in Denmark’s Politiken and endorsed by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen as “a great idea,” has since entered mainstream discussion in Oslo.

Støre has ordered a “full review” of possible involvement, while Norway’s finance ministry said it is “closely monitoring the situation and continuing dialogue with the EU.”

Norway has already committed 275 billion kroner (€27 billion) in civil and military aid to Ukraine through 2030. While officials stress there are no current plans for Oslo to act as a single guarantor, the debate underscores how Europe’s wealthiest energy producer is being drawn deeper into discussions on how to fund Ukraine’s war effort.

EU leaders are expected to revisit the issue in the coming months as Brussels looks for ways to meet Kyiv’s €55 billion funding needs for the next two years without adding pressure to national budgets.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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