TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org

In Odintsovo, Moscow Region, an attack was committed on a former associate of Akhmat Kadyrov and former deputy chairman of the Ingush government, Sherip Alikhadzhiev

This was reported by Kommersant and other media. The attack occurred late in the evening, when Alikhadzhiev was returning home, he received serious injuries and was hospitalized in the intensive care unit of a local hospital.

Previously, Alikhadzhiev was one of Akhmat Kadyrov's closest associates during the first Chechen war, and later held the post of deputy chairman of the government of Ingushetia.

Prior to the attack, Ramzan Kadyrov announced his intention to declare a blood feud against Senator Kerimov and State Duma deputies Bekkhan Barakhoev (Ingushetia) and Rizvan Kurbanov (Dagestan), who allegedly tried to order his murder.

It is believed that Kerimov is protecting businesswoman Tatyana Kim and the merger of Wildberries with Russ, and Kadyrov is protecting Vladislav Bakalchuk, who is trying to stop what is happening against the backdrop of a divorce.

- Are the russian mafia clans turning against each other? And who will Godfather Putin favour?

🤔🇺🇸 Johnson: “I don’t have an appetite for further Ukraine funding, and I hope it’s not necessary. If Trump wins, I believe that he actually can bring that conflict to a close. I think he’ll call Putin and tell him that this is enough. If Harris wins, I don’t think it ends."

- Imagine that! And if Putin doesn't listen?

Journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, whose death was reported yesterday, was held by Russians in Detention Center No. 2 in the city of Taganrog, Rostov Oblast, Russia. According to former prisoners, this detention facility is notorious for its brutal torture methods

"Taganrog is known as one of the most horrific places for Ukrainians detained in Russia. It’s called hell on earth. Azov fighters from Azovstal are also held there. Released individuals have spoken about the horrific torture they endured. Everyone there, whom Russians want to frame as criminals, ends up confessing to crimes they did not commit. After that, they are transferred to Rostov and put on trial," said human rights advocate Tetiana Katrychenko.

https://youtu.be/zbh9SW5Cgqg?si=EHHPUv7QjFmKiBu1

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/my-2024-election-video-of-the-week?publication_id=365422&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&r=70k1h

How a Russian operative snared an Irish politician.

Despite his extensive counter-surveillance training, Sergey Prokopiev failed to notice the surveillance officers monitoring his activities at quarters. Officially, Prokopiev served as a counsellor at the Russian embassy on Orwell Road in Dublin, but this was a cover story.

Prokopiev was a spy: a high-ranking military intelligence officer sent to Ireland by Russia’s armed forces to operate under diplomatic cover. His mission was to recruit and handle agents, sources and assets from the worlds of politics, business and media, but also to engage in what Russians call active measures: the modern iteration of the political warfare tactics employed by the KGB during the Cold War.

At the time of his arrival in ­Ireland in March 2019, Prokopiev was focused on rebuilding Russia’s intelligence network on both sides of the border­. He was particularly interested in establishing contacts with loyalist and republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, which had sprung to life during­ the Brexit negotiations between the European Union and Britain.

Loyalists were threatening violence over the negotiations, which proposed creating an invisible border in the Irish Sea to prevent the return of a land border. The Kremlin was interested in exploiting these tensions as part of its covert efforts to destabilise relations between Ireland and Britain and the West.

Read more about how 'Classic Cold War tradecraft' lured a sitting member of the Oireachtas to offer his services to a spy.

@freerussia_report
🇪🇺@EU_Report 🇮🇪

Activist Disrupts Hungarian PM's EU Presidency News Conference In France.

An activist and municipal councilor for a Hungarian opposition party disrupted a news conference in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was laying out his plans for Hungary’s six-month presidency of the European Union.

Márton Gyekiczki, interrupted Orbán as he was speaking about his opposition to immigration, running toward the podium where Orbán sat and throwing a stack of what appeared to be banknotes at the prime minister.

“How much did you sell out the country for? How much did you sell out the country for, Mr. Prime Minister?”, Gyekiczki yelled as the papers scattered. “He sold out to Putin, he sold out to Xi Jinping!”

The president of the Democratic Coalition party, former Prime Minister Ference Gyurcsány, later wrote on social media that he was “proud” of Gyekiczki for his actions. “We will say it everywhere and always: Hungary has a traitorous government!”

The reference about "sold to China" gets understandable when taking into consideration that Chinese police is now allowed to act legally in Hungary. This gives the Chinese regime the possibility to control and spy on their citizens legally, especially dissidents. In 2022 the Spanish NGO Safeguard Defenders denounced that China is operating almost 40 illegal police stations in the EU, targeting and seeking to intimidate mainly political dissidents and members of persecuted communities.

Moreover China is very interested in using Orban the same way as Putin - to influence the EU and get a foot inside. For Orban it's all about the money. China gets an important bridgehead in conquering European markets, Orban gets some sort of a 'strategic corruption' framework agreement with China, like the Budapest-Belgrade railway line renovation, covered to 85% by Chinese loans. It might take an entire century to pay back in full, and the regime "can take out several billion euros a year."

Meanwhile, EU officials have already stated they are looking to limit China's economic aspirations in Europe.

Orban got also thunder from Ursula von der Leyen in a fiery clash at the European Parliament.

“There are still some who blame this war not on Putin’s lust for power but on Ukraine’s thirst for freedom, so I want to ask them: would they ever blame the Hungarians for the Soviet invasion in 1956? There is no European language where peace is synonymous with surrender and sovereignty is synonymous with occupation.”

On Wednesday, some in the European Parliament fired back with a song. After his speech some members started singing “Bella Ciao,” an Italian antifascist resistance song from the World War II-era.

“You are not welcome here,” Terry Reintke, the co-leader of the Greens Party in the European Parliament, told Mr. Orban. “This is the house of European democracy.”

The champion for “illiberal democracy” again called for a change of policy and supported Putin painting a bleak future of an EU "falling apart." Also reiterated his support of Trump saying "We will open several bottles of Champagne if Trump is back,” at a news conference.

'Make Europe Great Again' is Orban's motto in lend-lease. I agree, start with suspending voting rights of every member country that is violating the rule of law.

🇪🇺@EU_Report 🇭🇺
@freerussia_report

https://youtu.be/v5FgG0DK2ao?si=yjzhnoLFrly_MLXj

Ukrinform
https://open.substack.com/pub/ukrinformsubscription/p/newsletter-11102024?r=70k1h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Russia's 155th brigade of the Russian Pacific Fleet lost 2400 out of their 3000 personnel in the battles for Vuhledar, an 80% loss, according to BBC Russian Service investigative report.

📢 Subscribe to Kyiv Post

👀🇬🇧 British military chiefs are considering sending troops to Ukraine to train soldiers in "secluded" locations to help Kyiv's recruitment efforts, — The Times

This would solve some of the logistical issues that come with sending Ukrainian troops to UK bases for training and save money, according to two sources with knowledge of the talks

I am on my president's side

Actor Steven Seagal said he was ready to take part in the war on the side of Russia and even die for Putin at the front.

So when will you be enlisting Steven?

📩 🐵 According to him, at the very beginning of the "Special Military Operation" he sent Putin a letter in which he said that if necessary he would give his life for the president

SOON?

Ops-ops-ops, what's going on? 💬

Feodosia, Crimea. Another oil tank exploded at the oil depot that was attacked four days ago 🤨

https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/this-is-a-special-kind-of-stupid/58500/

https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/this-is-full-blown-dementia/58489/

The Russians are plodders…

It suits their style of rigid command and planned assaults. They just keep at it. If Ukraine is going to win it needs equipment and resources to break that mould and regain the initiative. None of which it’s scheduled to get.
Russia is worried about its manpower issues and its economic situation is stretching it thin. But its allies seem to be relishing the chance to have a go at Ukraine - not because it’s Ukraine but because it would humiliate the West - especially America. That plays well for China, DPRK and Iran, all of whom have good reason to take the opportunity to get at their primary opponents as they see it.
This grinding war is being fought at a strategic level too. The relentless Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries (which have stopped and so have Russian attacks on electricity generation in Ukraine- has there been a secret agreement, it was on the cards?), then the attacks on ammunition depots and supply points has been crucial. The attacks on airfields have forced Russian aircraft back and further back, making the use of glide bomb attacks far harder.
The Russians use a formalised and more rigid approach to their supply chain whereas Ukraine’s is more like a distributed supply system with few if any major depots.
Both sides are under immense pressure and it’s getting to them both. The difference is Russia brooks no dissent and no discussion of dissent. As another mil blogger complaining about shell starvation has just found out, whisked off to court for defaming the Russian army.
Putin feels he is winning - and he is, and his allies are happy to commit more as they see that fact too.
We in the West are letting Ukraine survive but not win. We should be ashamed of ourselves for being so cynical.
I was raised to believe that if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. We are not doing well. And we are not doing the right thing. We’re only half way there. Are we all in are we just pretending?

‘The Analyst’ MilStratOnX
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦!

MILITARY & STRATEGIC:
THE STORY OF VUHLEDAR

In essence this is as much about a lack of western aid as anything else.
Problem one for Ukraine is that the 72nd Brigade defending the town was the only one that was fully mobile, and the rifle brigades that flanked it, were non-motorised infantry.
The aid that is arriving is being consumed in the Pokrovsk salient for the most part, but valuable units that could have helped in such a wide and open area of territory, such as the British supplied Challenger-2 were being wasted in Kursk defending nothing important.
The Russians wanted to get around Vuhledar and cut it off, capturing the defenders. They tried to cut off the last road out of the town but were unable do so, though they did have a high degree of fire control over it, which they failed to use properly.
Instead they were forced to fight their way through the forward defences and urban zones suffering incredibly high casualties because of the mines and fortifications.
By the time they reached anything of significance the Ukrainians had gone, leaving booby traps and rubble in their wake.
To break into the town the Russians used relentless amounts of artillery, newly trained Spetznaz special forces accompanied infantry assaults to ensure they finally broke through - all supported by heavy drone attacks.
Because of the close nature of the fight aerial bombing wasn’t viable.
It was not an easy withdrawal.
Drones harassed and destroyed multiple vehicles but for the most part the escape out of the town was a success thanks to the resistance of the flanking forces which prevented the Russians from closing the pincers.
Part of the Russians problem was they had no metalled roads for supply and their nearest supply points were 18-30km behind the lines. This caused a sort of stop-start as fuel and ammo was brought forward - lulls in fighting the Ukrainians used to their advantage.
There was never going to be some sudden Russian breakthrough because the town fell. The area is vast and rural, with hundreds of square kilometres of fields, gullies and hilly ridges before meeting any settlement. There are no roads other than the one to Vuhledar.
I’ve heard it described as a Phyrric victory for the Russians, but that’s not fair or true.
A Phyrric victory is where the cost of a successful attack is so great that you have no means whatsoever of pursuing the benefits of that victory and nor can you find enough forces to defend what you have won. Kursk is such an example for Ukraine.
The Russians will take their time but they will consolidate and eventually move forward at Vuhledar.
Ukrainian strategy is to give land for the maximum price they can extract from the Russians.
It’s a process that works but the Russians seem to be quite happy to have the crap beaten out of them over and over again, rendering the strategy of wearing them down almost impossible to accomplish.

Both sides have cracks appearing in their ability to wage this war. The Russians have made a vast effort this year and despite our general derision for their methods, which are deserved, they have still made major and significant advances - don’t measure it in terms of square kilometres but in terms of strategic points taken.
The victory at Avdivka - in the end wasn’t just lost because of a lack of aid to Ukraine - that was a factor - but the Russians tactically undermined the fixed defences and the use of underground tunnels broke key positions.
Ukraine handed them victory at Ochertyne through bad comms and poor command, then continued to let the same crap commanders run the show as Russia pushed them further and further back.
Yes Ukraine has caused huge losses in men and material and Russian forces are still not winning decisive victories.
What we have to remember is they don’t expect to win such victories- that’s not their strategy. They have accepted it’s a long slow grind and that’s exactly what they are working for. So you have one side trying to make it a long slow and expensive grind, while the other accepts that’s exactly what it is and doesn’t care.

The numerical superiority of Russian forces over Ukraine on the battlefield will likely begin to decrease by the end of this year, according to American military analyst Michael Kofman.

Kofman believes that while the Kremlin continues to pressure Ukraine, suffering high levels of attrition, it is now beginning to struggle under “very significant constraints.”

“Battlefield advantage is likely to diminish as we enter this winter and look toward 2025,” said Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

However, he cautioned against expecting Russia to run out of equipment or personnel soon. Still, he believes Moscow will not be able to sustain its current pace of attack for long.

Kofman’s first explanation is that Moscow is replacing significant losses of equipment with Soviet-era weapons, but even these reserve stocks will not last indefinitely.

“Russia is depleting its Soviet-era assets, and the production rate of new equipment is quite low compared to the battlefield losses. This means that the Russian military is increasingly forced to adapt tactics to minimize losses, which also reduces their ability to achieve any operationally significant breakthroughs,” says the expert.

High payments to contract soldiers in Russia indicate that recruitment efforts are under pressure, he points out. Kofman believes that the Russian government will struggle to maintain the surge in bonuses and benefits it offers to new recruits.

“It’s clear that, at this rate of losses, Russia’s contract recruitment campaign will not be sustainable. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Russia will face a manpower shortage soon, but it’s evident they are encountering difficulties,” Business Insider quotes Kofman.

For instance, the British Ministry of Defense has estimated that the Kremlin will lose 1,000 soldiers daily during the coming winter, after suffering record daily losses in May and September.

The slow and costly pace of hostilities has consequences not only for the front lines in Ukraine but also for Russia’s wartime economy. It remains unclear how long Moscow can continue increasing its war budget.

CONTINUES….
The tank has had to play a secondary role - often operating alone or with infantry support rooting out enemy trenches and dugouts in tree lines.
When they have had the opportunity to be mobile - as has happened in Kursk lately, they’ve come as a nasty shock. The Challenger-2 proving quite effective. But they operate in ones and twos, often as fast ambush attacks because they simply can’t hang around and wait for enemy drones to get them.
There have been low points. The Russians recently captured a fully intact and working Leopard-2A5 and made a big deal of making sure we knew it.
These things happen in war but rarely do they change anything short term. We have captured Russian equipment and missiles and drones just as they have, unless they gain some encrypted information and how to access communications it’s going to take months to analyse a tank that’s not even the latest version.
Is the tank here to stay - especially what we see as the main battle tank?
I’m not sure it’s dead but it certainly needs to evolve. They’re too big and unwieldy and they need speed and a different kind of protection.
We seem to be employing what we have in ways to make them useful - just as the gun armed super dreadnoughts were used as land bombardment platforms in amphibious invasions. They existed so we found a use for them but we don’t build new ones. They passed into history.
I think the Main Battle Tank has had its day but, clearly, smaller lighter vehicles like the Bradley and the CV-90 have proven to be highly effective against even a T-72/80/90, so a new generation of IFV with anti-drone weapons and defences, fast, mobile, multi-purpose hulls and equipment options looks to have a more positive role going forward.
The generals will be hard pressed to give up on the MBT completely- yet clearly the concept is struggling to justify itself on the modern battlefield.
The age of mass armour seems to be over because ironically we don’t have enough of it to make it a mass that works.
1 MBT is 1.6 IFV’s in rough cost terms. When you have so few -
for example the UK will have just 143 Challenger-3’s and they’re based on massively overhauled and upgraded Challenger-2’s, is there really any point at all?
We use them because we have them. Ask yourself if you were posed the question ‘design me a vehicle to support troops, destroy enemy APC’s and IFV’s, defend and defeat drones, counter helicopters and help the crew survive if things go badly’, what would you build? I’d bet it wouldn’t be an MBT. Most likely a flexible hull that splits the roles of drone defence and anti-air, networked to protect others of the same hull with different modular load outs would be far more useful.
Let’s see what time provides us.

‘The Analyst’ MilStratOnX
Slava Ukraini

A T-72 turret is blown 75m into the air - believed to be a record just a week or so ago. It weighs almost 3 tons.

MILITARY & STRATEGIC:
TANK WARFARE HAS CHANGED

The first tanks were deployed in WW1 in 1917. They were developed to break the stalemate of trench warfare. With nothing to counter them except a direct hit from heavy artillery - something more likely to happen by accident than design, in the end they were critical in upending the war and winning it. They restored mobility.
In WW2 the tank truly came into its own as the very focus of military operations - Blitzkrieg was predicated on the armoured spearhead slicing its way behind enemy lines and cutting off infantry armies, placing them in pockets that were in some cases vast in size - especially in Russia. Several examples of infantry as large as 250,000 men being captured provided staggering victories for Nazi tank armies led by imagination and daring.
The tank dominated land warfare.
By 1988 the end of the Iran-Iraq war which became remarkably static occasionally broken by Iraqi tank raids that usually ended badly, created some doubt. The US invasion of Iraq a couple of years later and again in 2003 proved that a disciplined combined arms tank based war was still viable. In many ways it was text book but its weakness was its overwhelming nature, that led to a view that nothing could surpass it.
Ukraine has changed the whole concept of the tank. Military forces around the world are wondering how their expensive tanks are going to fare in a world of drones and wide use of ATGM’s.
The loss of the T-72 series to single hits that cook off the ammunition in the autoloader sending one recent turret 75m into the air has undermined the value of such weapons.
The M-1 Abram’s suffered so many losses - partly because it became a high bonus payment target for Russian troops - that Ukraine withdrew them from use. 15 of 31 were destroyed. Some of the imagery shows them properly destroyed - weakness around the tracks and rear engine compartments were quickly identified by drone operators. Crews lauded the fact they survived which is more than can be said for T-72/80/90 operators.
The M-1 has now reentered service with specially designed mesh net frameworks over the rear of the turret, full length armoured side skirts and a heavy coating of Kontakt-1 exploding bricks designed to stop some anti-tank weapons.
There was much concern over the value of the 1960’s designed Leopard-1A5 long stored in warehouses in Germany. It was designed in the early 1960’s to counter the Russian T-62/64 but was outclassed by the T-72 which had thicker armour and longer ranged guns.
Yet it’s proven to be quite useful once crews worked out how it could be employed.
Some use it as mobile artillery and that’s something the ancient T-55 has been used for by the Russians.
Others have found that its long range optical sights, fast rate of fire, speed and manoeuvring skills completely outclass the T-64 and other armoured units and it can pick them off at long range and scoot off. Just don’t let drones get to it.
Another way tanks are being used rather than as spearheads is to come in and back up infantry during trench and tree line clearing operations. They have to race in, do a fast job and get out again before the enemy drone operators get a grip of the situation.
The tanks then retreat quickly back out of range often under smoke.
There have been almost no scenarios where the use of armour as spearhead has been possible. Neither side has the numbers and on the few occasions there are not trenches and minefields established in depth - such as the flanks of the Pokrovsk salient, even as the opportunity to use mass armour presented itself, there was neither the quantity or manpower to make it viable.
The Ukrainians urged on by the allies attempted a combined arms operation in the summer of 2023. It was initially a disaster. Leopard-2A6’s were seen burning and spearhead tactics obliterated. It should never have been attempted because the key element missing was air power. Without that no spearhead these days can advance against heavy networked and mined defences.
The lesson was learned the hard way. CONTINUES…