I have earned a living as a nuclear engineer for 43 years doing everything from systems engineering to reactor engineering and particle transport and radiation shielding and activation calculations. I can’t even begin to tell you how idiotic, ignorant, stupid, vulgar, unwise, wrongheaded, witless, irresponsible, lamebrained, and knuckleheaded this move was.
Only an uneducated nitwit, a lunkheaded fool and crackpot would order such a thing or even participate in it.
Now let’s be clear. Commercial reactors don’t explode like nuclear weapons. They just don’t. American made nuclear reactors must be designed with an overall negative power coefficient by the Code of Federal Regulations.
Not so for Russian designed reactors. I developed and presented training years ago to the Department of Energy safety analysis engineers on Chernobyl. The problem with that accident is that the reactor design could (and did) have an overall positive power coefficient because of its positive void coefficient (here is the stipulation – assuming that the electronic controls work, this has been accounted for by automatic reactor control). The precursor to the accident was that an electrical engineer bypassed that automatic protection circuitry for the purpose of a test and plant management let him do it without a documented safety analysis.
Even then it didn’t explode. It was a steam explosion, not a nuclear explosion. Nonetheless, the core melted and the radiological source term caused a problem for an awful lot of people. Today I would gladly take a walk around the exterior of the plant. Then, not so much.
Even if the reactor was shut down upon the assault by Russian forces, there is still core cooling to consider, as well as thousands of metric tonnes of spent fuel in the pools. A SRO (Senior Reactor Operator) and RO, along with equipment operators, must be on shift 24 hours per day.
Nuclear reactors (especially as designed and built in America) are inherently safe, clean and efficient, and produce carbon free power. America will go nuclear or suffer life without power, because solar cannot even begin to compete with nuclear in terms of powering industry. Russian reactors are inherently safe too, mostly, that is, until some dunderhead goes shooting at safety systems and kills plant operators. That’s why nuclear power plants have the most intensive security of virtually any place on earth. I’ve seen it first hand.
But the security wouldn’t be able to stop an assault like this.
I … just … can’t … even … begin … to … tell … you … how … stupid … this … is! Well, stupid or wicked. Words fail me.
But, Putin … and Russia’s military apparatus. So there. You can sign me up for being highly pissed at Putin and his military apparatchiks. While the responsible ones among us are trying to convince people of the rightful need for nuclear, they have to go and muddle this up, even if it’s only because of wrongheaded thinking by people who don’t understand the physics of nuclear energy and are frightened because of that. Even if the plant is under control right now, the psychology of this is damaging.
The intention is for this to be oriented towards a logistical, strategic and tactical analysis of the current war in Ukraine. I would like to approach it from the perspective of a more clinical analysis rather than a personal commitment to winners and losers. However, it’s worth pointing out a few of the main points of contention in the geopolitical scene and briefly weighing in on the morality of the conflict.
Then I’ll provide an extended summary of the strategy Putin’s generals have pursued thus far, followed by a number of observations on tactics, techniques and procedures we’ve seen in use. I’ve tried to use confirmed sources (usually redundant reports, or reports that intersect with the main points I want to make). Finally, I’ll close with a number of videos I’ve culled from the news reports available at the time of posting.
It is noteworthy that I’ve tried to ensure the correctness and accuracy of the sources, but I can’t make assurances in every case. The reader is appropriately warned. With that said, a number of the sources are obviously correct (e.g., you can be fairly certain that when you hear a British voice and an American voice in a video during fighting, and they refer to a Russian helicopter overhead, the likelihood is that it has nothing to do with fighting in Afghanistan, although I can think of operations in Northern Africa where this might have occurred even though it doesn’t purport to be anything other than Ukraine). The major things (e.g., strategy) are obvious from looking at the blunders to date. Some of the videos simply cannot be completely verified without financial resources and backing. Trust at your own risk. That’s the best I can do.
It should also be stipulated that Elon Musk has virtually assured Ukraine of connectivity (Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route), while Anonymous has declared war on Russia, causing all sorts of hacking, connectivity and banking problems (video embedded below).
At the moment, Ukraine probably controls the information war. That’s the way of things, and you may want to take that into consideration in your own assessments. Glenn Greenwald makes some interesting observations concerning the moral certitude some people feel in their position and how it leads to the propaganda campaign. He mentions such examples as the following.
a Russian tank purposely and randomly ran over a civilian car (the video suggests a possible accident and, more importantly, subsequent news accountsacknowledged: “it wasn’t immediately clear if the armored vehicle was Russian or Ukrainian hardware, or when this crash took place”);
a mega-viral thread from a member of the EU Parliament claiming Russian oligarchs and Putin were screaming at each other in a bunker in desperation (pronounced “likely disinfo” by the US-intel-friendly and vehemently anti-Russia site Bellingcat);
It may be that the lazier among us see these things through the lens of confirmation bias, but I never saw the first example as anything but a Ukrainian vehicle that had a track seize up (I’m part of a discussion thread where someone pointed out the signs of that). As for the second example, I couldn’t care less. I didn’t even read the whole thing. It sounded like trash to me. As for the third example, this is the most interesting. I confess that I fail to see his point. “Possible.” Virtually anything is possible. Moreover, it seems to me that if it’s true that it was a Ukrainian missile that caused the damage to the apartment, it doesn’t change the conclusions one iota. Ukraine could have very well pointed out that machinery malfunctions and parts fail. This sort of thing happens in warfare. In order to have prevented this, Russia could have chosen not to invade, giving Ukraine the opportunity to choose not to launch the missile.
Most of Glenn’s examples invoke the intellects of people who wish to see an outcome and grab for evidence for the chattering class or the ten-second snippet crowd. In other words, the Twitter crowd with the short attention span. I mostly loath Twitter except for informative videos, and sometimes I’ll even accept unconfirmed videos if I can learn and hone TTPs (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) from them.
Geopolitical Considerations
Copious Soros cash likely caused the upheaval that led to the election of Zelenskyy. He has been referred to as a comic, but he is much more than that. He earned a law degree. If the data is to be believed, and assuming that there was no corruption in the election, he won his election with 73% of the vote.
For whatever reason his proclivities turn him towards the West for economic cooperation rather than towards Russia. Whether this is a wise move on his part with the feckless and highly corrupt Western leaders is anyone’s guess at the moment. But this is Russia’s “near abroad,” and allowing such close cooperation with the West might be compared to the U.S. allowing China to buy up massive amounts of land in the U.S. and Mexico (which is happening as we speak) or ensconce weapons on the Southern border. Putin has a legitimate concern for the safety of Russia when it comes to an ever-expanding NATO and living with military infrastructure on his border.
That’s not the reason for the current war. Putin’s real concern is replacing the petro-dollar with the petro-Ruble. This all has to do with energy – its production, transmission and usage, and the wealth this creates. NATO is a pretext for the current war. Putin is certainly corrupt, Zelenskyy may or may not be (time will tell), and the Western leaders are most assuredly massively corrupt. Most world leaders are corrupt. Picking one corrupt leader over another corrupt leader from a moral perspective is rather like bathing and smooching with swine.
The most important consideration is the fact that Ukrainians don’t want the Russians there (as I will demonstrate in the data below). They are uninvited, hated, and considered enemy invaders. I have always believed in the moral right of secession (including here in the U.S.). Covenants may be dissolved when the terms and conditions of those contracts have been violated. In this case, Ukrainians don’t even consider themselves to be Russians or even Russian in origin, much less was there ever a covenant or contract that had to be dissolved. The fact that the Soviet Union once controlled Ukraine is more evidence for tyranny, not justification for a future contract. Control of others by force of arms is not a covenant or contract. The main reason for opposition to secession is the desire to control others, and that doesn’t weigh in the positive for moral considerations.
As for my personal views, I’ll observe that Putin is a gun controller, and I consider gun controllers to be my enemy, whether in the U.S. or abroad (as for that matter, Ukraine has been fairly strict concerning carrying weapons in public until this war, although not as strict concerning ownership as in Russia). As far as the desire to control others and the willingness to use force and cause pain and suffering to achieve wealth, I don’t see a dime’s worth of difference between Putin and “the controllers” in American politics. The controllers only favor gun control because they fear their own people. They fear their own people because they know they’re doing some illegitimate or immoral.
Logistics, Strategy and Tactics
As best as can be determined, Putin’s original goal was to drive in heavy armor, rush to Kiev, surround the capital city, and then drop paratroopers in to kill or arrest Zelenskyy and his government. Then install a puppet regime, and leave (or leave some contingency of troops behind for stability operations). This seems to comport with the actions we’ve witnessed thus far. But Kiev wasn’t really surrounded and incapable of self-defense, and Russia didn’t control the battle space.
The most amazing thing about this plan is the ability of the generals to sell Putin on the idea. It’s bad logistically, it’s bad tactically, and therefore it could never work properly from a strategic standpoint. Meeting resistance, the convoys had to splinter to effect rear guard protection and answer defilade fires. Eventually, the units splintered to the point that they were no longer a cohesive drive.
Logistically, trains had to move heavy equipment to the front, along with fuel. Fuel was the limiting factor in much of the main drive through France and into Germany during WWII. Under such heavy loads, armored vehicles are gas hogs. They apparently didn’t believe they would encounter much resistance, and that they would either make it to Kiev before their tanks were empty, or refuel along the way, being met with Russian flag-wavers cheering them on as freedom fighters and liberators.
A stationary armored vehicle is a massive risk, and unless it’s a large scale tank battle (such as seen during WWII). But the column typically goes much slower than a mad dash to an endpoint, with infantry in tow to provide protection for the vehicle. At least, this is classic armored vehicle TTPs. It’s what my son learned at 29 Palms. The Russian army tried to use battle tanks as race cars. More than that, when they figured out (late to the game) that there was no possibility of refueling because of the impossibility of providing security for refueling trucks, they began carrying additional fuel on the outside of the tanks. This practice makes for quite the bomb for users of Molotov Cocktails.
Now Putin is having to turn more violent and send in his remaining forces currently deployed on the border (or near it). He is meeting resistance he didn’t anticipate, but should have if he had listened to anyone outside his echo chamber of yes-men. Yes-men are dangerous to leaders, but it seems that those are the sort of people who always get promoted.
Years ago at the height of the campaign in Iraq, an anthropologist deployed to Iraq to observe and assist and analyze (for example, they can understand things about tribal loyalties and cultural issues that the military leaders can’t or don’t have time for). He and I exchanged copious email, and he remarked to me one day that while the military had discussed and even planned for massive hunger during the campaign, it suddenly occurred to him why that could never happen. In addition to the largest population centers being near the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, he could go outside along the rivers and find ripe Pomegranates freshly dropped from the trees in any quantity he wanted. It was literally impossible, he told me, for anyone to starve in Iraq.
Similarly, a good psychologist could have explained to Putin why the initial plan would never work. Ukrainians don’t consider themselves Russians. Ukrainians want the Russians to leave. Thus, an elderly lady has the courage to call out a Russian soldier and tell him to put sunflower seeds in his pockets so that they would grow there when he died on their soil. “You’re occupants! You’re fascists!” I have other videos of this same sort of thing occurring.
Folks trying to leave are living in a line of cars at the Polish border that is 20 miles long and takes three days to finish. This sort of thing doesn’t happen when people trust the incoming government. It’s fairly simple, really. In America we teach our children to hate our elders. Education at Marxist universities is the capstone of that treachery. In this part of the world, this isn’t at all true. We know folks who hail from this part of the world. They virtually worship their elders.
The little old lady who busted the Russian soldier feels that way because she remembers life under the Soviet empire. She doesn’t want to repeat that. She wants to be left alone. She has taught the younger kids around her, and they listened. The vast majority of the Ukrainians see the Russian troops as invaders, occupiers and terrorists. This is especially true when they target power plants, gas pipelines, oil depots and apartment buildings.
So the Russian generals misunderstood the culture, allowed their columns to splinter, overestimated their own resolve and underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainians, didn’t allow for protection of lines of logistics, and didn’t communicate very well with their own troops concerning TTPs or overall goals. When my son deployed to Iraq, the Lt. Col. for his Battalion trained them using PP overheads on ROE (as a reminder for the training they had received), goals, comms, and general standing orders (among many other things). He issued a ‘no surrender’ ‘die in place’ order, and explained why he did it. He shared the full presentation with me. So not only did my own son understand all of this, the Lt. Col. made sure that I did too. The Russian troops seem confused as to why they are there. In fact, one has to wonder if they are considered fully deployable units who have been trained, range certified and fully briefed. Did they undergo the full workups required for deployment?
Here I wanted to embed a picture of what I believe to be Russian troops (and I believe to be accurate and timely), but I could not assure it so I didn’t do so. Anyway, it shows virtually an entire platoon of Russian soldiers (along with multiple armored vehicles) securing a bridge. My son remarked to me that it shouldn’t have taken any more than a fire team to do that, and that you would never park armored vehicles that close together ifs you follow proper protocol.
Concluding Thoughts
I think this has been a fair assessment. Naive belief in the capability of long term victory against Russia is probably a pipe dream without more weaponry and more well-trained men. It can be done without air assets (witness what goat herders did to the U.S. in Afghanistan), but it will require much more anti-tank weaponry. Russia planned poorly. Ukraine was late to prepare. Putin is basically a thug who wants control of oil and energy. Putin believes in gun control. The Ukraine isn’t far behind in its limitation on the right of self defense. I do not advocate U.S. involvement in the conflict. I have never advocated for foreign misadventures. I will not change my views on that. In fact, I do not even advocate that the U.S. send weapons to foreign buyers without first rescinding the NFA, GCA and Hughes Amendment and legalizing ownership and manufacture of machine guns for the general population in the U.S.. We have human rights problems at home before we tackle problems abroad. Before we send machine guns to foreigners, we need to send them to Americans.
Russia clearly hasn’t engaged all of its armor and troops, nor even its air assets. There is more to come, proven by the fact that more is on the way as I write. It would be wildly inaccurate (or at least without basis) to assert that Ukraine can hold out against all of Putin’s assets for any protracted length of time without more hardware.
But his strategy at the beginning of the war was retarded. Ukraine was unprepared for the conflict, apparently believing that Putin was bluffing. I never for a second believed that Putin was bluffing. Putin has always wanted control over Ukraine. Despite Ukraine’s laziness to become involved in preparations and in engagement of a civil defense force (acquiring weapons and training the fighters), they are more prepared now than they would have been a few days ago. Putin’s retarded plan now ensures a much more violent campaign and many more lives lost, both Russian and Ukrainian. His generals should be hung from the nearest lamppost, along with most U.S, generals. Putin will not give up – and neither will Ukraine.
As for the armored column approaching Kiev, this is what it looks like.
For a quick analysis, in order to defeat this column, weaponry is needed, a lot of it, and immediately. On the other hand, my son says, “Give me just one good IED to stop the lead tank and force the others to come to a stop or splinter off from the column.” You can ask him how he knows what happens when an IED destroys the lead tank in a column. There is an “oh f***” moment after recovery of your senses if you’re still alive when SAW gunners are expected to lay down massive suppressive fires while others seek cover and concealment. No other vehicle moves, and the entire operation is at risk. Everyone is a sitting duck until they can muster a squad rush or something else.
Video & Continuation of TTPs
This will be a stream of consciousness regurgitation of things with running (and brief) commentary.
This Ukrainian soldier is self-confident. Perhaps too much so. He has a false sense of security. But it shows that morale is high among the troops.
Ukrainian soldiers engaging Russian troops after abandoning damaged armored vehicles. This is an example of why infantry is usually in tow with armor. We discussed that. These aren’t conventional tactics. At least at the moment, the Russians are trying to engage in conventional warfare.
This video shows what appears to be a dead Russian soldier, or what’s left of him. When bodies can’t even come home in body bags and there is nothing left to bury except a rib cage, it’s easy to lose support of the people. The value of including graphic images such as this is that it shows the horror of war. It’s not a pretty or clinical thing. Warning: graphic images.
This is what appears to be a saboteur caught in a non-military vehicle. From the pictures it’s hard to see if he has insignia, but if not, he won’t even be treated as a POW.
❗️ A saboteur was detained in the city of #Razdelnaya, region #Odesa.
Weapons (including machine guns and grenade launchers), ammunition and mines were found in the detained minibus. Among the defenders of #Ukraine there are wounded – declares the Border Service of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/JsGo3YPU8w
This is the video posted by Anonymous. Thus far it’s causing massive problems for Russian TV and banking.
This is a discussion where retired Major John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute gives practical advice to the Ukrainians.
In this video, you hear the voices of both British and American fighters (this is certain from the accents), presumably volunteers. They discuss a Russian helicopter, so it seemingly cannot be of different origin than the front in Ukraine.
In these two videos, what appears to be Russian soldiers stole a money vault or safe from a Ukrainian bank and looted a grocery store. This is exactly the sort of thing you do when you want to “win hearts and minds.” Steal wealth and food from the population in a time of shortage.
Russian soldiers stole a safe from a Ukrainian bank in Kherson region, according to the Ukrainian military pic.twitter.com/acnZG2KPmk
My assessment at the moment is that Russia failed with their initial strategy. They are calling up more armor and troops, and this is a perilous time for Ukraine. It’s equally perilous for Russia. They haven’t won hearts and minds. Ukraine doesn’t want them there. Their campaign is going to have to become much more brutal and full scale if they are to win. If reports are to be believed, they have thus far lost 3500 troops. That’s 70% of the deaths the U.S. lost in the entire campaign in Iraq during a ten year occupation.
Continued losses with boys coming home in body bags risks loss of the Russian public and continued cyber attacks risks loss of the Oligarchs and their business. It will also cause a run on the banks, and could quickly tank the financial system. Here consider what Trudeau did in Canada and how the banks and people responded.
When the dust settles, Putin cannot leave his troops in Ukraine. They simply cannot stay there on a permanent basis, any more than the U.S. could remain in Iraq or Afghanistan on a permanent basis. They will be hated, they will sustain a tremendous rebuilding burden, they will drive the psychology even more sour than it already is, and eventually they will be burned with gasoline or shot.
The financial burden will become too great (similar burden bankrupted the Soviet Union), and Russia should consider the experience of the U.S. in our foreign misadventures (where it cost the taxpayer multiple trillions of dollars to sustain the occupation).
It looks much like ancient warfare. This isn’t a commentary on Russia or Ukraine or the machinations of who is doing what or why. What I’m saying has nothing to do with international politics.
The requests for rifles prior to the invasion have been so ubiquitous that it stands as commonly assumed knowledge. Everyone was training with a rifle, including little old ladies.
This shows what gasoline and bottles will do. Observation: Men with rifles, who are willing to use them, cannot be dominated by any ruler.
I’ve been rehearsing the history and battles of the war of independence, from the battle of Trenton (without which moral would have sunk to a deadly and possibly irrecoverable level for the continental army without so much as a single victory during the entire enlistment of the first round of soldiers), to the battles with Cornwallis in the South, to Yorktown.
One professor gives Lafayette a little too much credit by claiming that without Lafayette, victory in the war of independence would not have occurred. I disagree.
Cornwallis suffered from an insurgency in South and North Carolina at the hands of men who knew the terrain, were accustomed to living there, and knew how to fight a superior force. Fire and retreat, fire and maneuver, shoot from behind trees and disappear, shoot the British leading the patrols and bleed them of troops and morale, and so on. If Cornwallis had stayed in the swamps and near the river valleys of South Carolina (e.g., the Pee Dee), Francis Marion’s insurgents would have eventually bled the army dry. Then of course there was the American victory at Cowpens. You can add to that the victory by American fighters aged 14-17 at King’s Mountain (the “Overmountain Men”), in which Cornwallis’ strategy of using loyalist troops to win was smashed to pieces.
Beyond that, Cornwallis suffered from mosquitos and the diseases they carry. It has been estimated that at any time, one third of his troops were in the infirmary due to diseases or wounds suffered in battle with Marion’s forces in the bush of South Carolina. His forces could never have won. It would have taken a force size ten times what the British brought to have stabilized the states, and even that would have been only temporary.
Howe, in New York, was faced with having to retire to fortifications in the intemperate weather in the North, and while Washington’s army suffered in the weather, they managed to pull of a victory at Trenton. They also managed to build an intelligence network second to none at the time, and after the battle of Trenton the continental congress sent fresh troops and logistics.
There was no hope of victory for the British. A determined insurgency cannot be beaten. They could only hope to prolong the war.
But then, that’s the issue isn’t it? Lafayette was smart enough to listen to his men and he managed to learn the tactics of insurgency very quickly, employing those tactics with great success against the British. While it may not be correct to say that the war of independence would not have been won without him, it is fair to say that it would have been prolonged and bloodier without him.
His commitment to America was laudable, and he’s even today more of an American than most Americans, and certainly more so than the vipers inside the beltway.
Funny, that. It’s just the opposite of my reaction. I think it’s one of the prouder moments in Australian history, especially after gun confiscations.
The only thing that would have made it prouder would have been for them to have shot the cops.
Does that surprise you? Remember. The pols are tyrants, and the cops are their willing enforcers. They have kidnapped people and sent them to concentration camps, and kidnapped children without permission or knowledge of their parents and taken them off for forcible vaccinations.
The Target Engagement Authority was a US one star who sat in the joint operations center in Erbil, with the task of approving and controlling all Coalition fires in Northern Iraq. I took the headset, preparing myself for the argument that I knew was coming.
“Andy, are you firing mortars”,
“Yes sir”,
“What the hell is going on?”
“Sir, the Pesh are getting mortared in the breach. I’ve got an OP less than 500 meters away.”
“Are US personnel taking fire?”
“Not yet, sir”
“Then you’re not authorized to make that decision”
“Sir – it’s a matter of one correction before our guys get hit too — I’m not going to wait for that to happen”,
“That’s not up to you Colonel, that’s my decision — cease fire now!”
[ … ]
My introduction seems a lot to surmise from an isolated case of poor leadership, a single data point carrying by itself insufficient weight to yield such generalizations about the US military. Except, that this exchange was one of many similar incidents over my career, and the TEA, a General Officer with impressive background and unsullied reputation, was not someone I could simply dismiss as being a poor leader. Instead, he was the product of an institution imbued with a cultural preference for centralized control and procedure. It’s a culture that has evolved – as cultures often do – because of a view of the world, that appears rational to members of the organization. But that view no longer matches reality – if indeed it ever did – and the culture it has produced is proving harmful to the institution, its members – and the nation itself.
His experience doesn’t differ in the least from the awful ROE I’ve document in Iraq and especially Afghanistan. The micromanagement was astounding, and men perished because if it. As I’ve documented about the U.S. Marine Corps work in the Helmand Province, Gen. David Rodriguez, that awful imposter of a man, demanded to be at the top of the chain of approval for every artillery shell launched in combat. Every single one.
But the author is making excuses. The culture is a reflection of the men who lead it. Leaving aside the issue of whether we should have been in Iraq (we shouldn’t have) or how we conducted the campaign in Afghanistan (much differently), when men are engaged in warfare, it requires men with souls to win it.
Heartless men, men who have jettisoned their last remaining vestiges of morality, decency, belief system and love for their fellow warriors, have no business in politics or war, and yet it seems that’s all we’ve got
Limited war is NOT war … You can’t fight a war of defense only and win.
Whoever (the UN?) came up with the doctrine of limited warfare needs to be taken out back and shot, bulldozed into an open grave, burned, the earth salted, and the history books to all point out how totally retarded that notion is.
3 years, 1 month ago
