"First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me"

• Pastor Martin Niemöller

Watch for those instances that choose to defederate from the communist instances, for the most effective anti-fascists have been the communists.

10 million fascists were killed, wounded or captured during the Second War War on the eastern front.

Watch for free speech absolutists, centrists, and those who claim to be apolitical. Silence is violence. Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.

Re: Mariupol

azov militants using civilians gathered in house as collateral shields to deter a russian strike on them

the Russian military’s strategy is to encircle ukrainian units, then allow a corridor for anyone who surrenders weapons/proves they aren’t part of the ukrainian military, particularly azov, but the ukrainian military according to testimonies of some in Donbass and Mariupol are not allowing civilians, particularly Russian speakers from DPR and LPR, to use the russian corridors, finding them more useful as human shields. This would imply that, despite the invasion, Russian federation cares at least a little bit about optics, even if only for cynical reasons.

https://youtu.be/nhLB5Wp1lGs

https://www.reddit.com/link/t9ibhw/video/lyvj5ykj96m81/player

Re: Bucha

https://twitter.com/r_u_vid/status/1510731844236455940

https://t.me/rybar/30540

Russian troops left Bucha in March 30, after the talks between Russian and Ukraninan sides in Istambul, where Russian side announced the willingnes to diffuse the situation near Ukranian capital. In the four days since the Russian military left Bucha, there has not been a single sign of atrocities, not a single mention of them in the media. On March 31 Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk, shot a video about the Russian military leaving the city. He say nothing about the streets being strewn with corpses. Photographer Konstantin Liberov was in the city of Bucha (Kyiv region of Ukraine) on April 1 and 2. While shooting a video and talking about the city, he does not mention anything about the corpses of local residents. The man was there as a volunteer. In his story, the photographer never once mentioned the corpses in Bucha. He also did not see any bodies in his numerous videos. However, he toured the entire city.

On April 2, the National Police of Ukraine entered the city. There is a long video of them clearing the city on the Internet. There are only no bodies scattered around the city exept one Russian soldier killed.

However as soon as the Ukrainian army enters the city, the corpses suddenly appears.

On the same day (April 2), units of the Kiev Territorial Defense enter Bucha from another direction - for a clean up operation. Among them was a detachment of a Botsman — prominent Russian neo-Nazi Serghei Korotkih, who escaped Russian justice in Ukraine. Their video footage shows one of the fighters asking, “Those guys over there without the blue armbands, can we shoot at them?” “You bet!” - happily answers the other.

I made a more detailed comment in the “Early Stages of Ukranian” post, approaching the conflict from a tactical position the russian doctrine has shown itself to be superior with a more developed command & control combined with emphasis on smaller unit concentration leadership. The ability to contese a wide swath of ukraine with highly mobile troops supported by a proven equipment advantage (kinzhal, UAV, EW, Artillery)

Then examine the strategic level, particularly the production of referenced artillery which is the lynchpin of this conflict with the russian defensive lines and ukranian anti-artillery efforts

“We know that Ukraine uses a purported 5,000-6,000 shells per day, and that Russia has been estimated to fire as many as 60,000—though that’s a high ‘peak’ amount—the daily average over the course of the war being closer to ~20,000-30,000.”

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/on-shells-and-armor-the-war-of-sustainment

“The U.S., self-avowed manufacturing ‘powerhouse’ of the world, produces 14,000 shells a month and have recently announced a “3X production surge” to 40,000 to help Ukraine—which was soon after desperately amended to 90,000 to staunch AFU’s rapidly accumulating losses. Even for the U.S., it’s an effort large enough to take approximately 2-3 years to ramp up to.”

"Accepting that Russia mostly depleted usable 152mm stocks by the early 2000’s (not counting aging stocks requiring refurbishment), it’s credible that Russia spent the next two decades producing at a moderate rate equivalent to the U.S.’s 90k a month, which would grant them about 1 million shells per year. And twenty years of such stockpiling, from the early 2000’s, would give approximately 20 million—in line with Estonian estimates.

Russia used an estimated 7-10m so far in the first year of the SMO (20-30k per day multiplied by roughly a year). If the Estonian estimates are accurate that means Russia could have ~7-10m left, which is about another year’s worth of shells.

In WW2, the USSR was said to have produced 100 million shells per year, just to give an idea of what’s possible. Also, as a rule, Russia has several times more arms factories compared to the U.S. per category. For instance, the famed Lima plant in Ohio produces all American Abrams. Russia’s top tank producer Uralvagonzavod alone has roughly 12 factories, though they’re not all committed to tank production. Some produce civilian equipment like train cars, others full-time tank modernization/refurbishments, like upgrading the older T-72’s to T-72B3 standard.

So if U.S. can do 90k shells a month (1m/year) on only one production line by merely increasing shifts, Russia likely has several such production lines, in the famed Tula Arms plant and elsewhere, and should be able to comfortably triple that, at the minimum. And tripling 1m shells gets us to exactly what Estonian intel reportedly estimated Russia manufactures per year; or this source which claimed Russia was assembling 2 million shells per annum comfortably:"

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/dissecting-west-point-think-tanks

“The capacity to detect and strike targets at ever-greater distances and with ever-growing precision increases the vulnerability of dense troop concentrations, and therefore limits the ability to conduct large-scale sequenced and concentrated operations. As such, in order to enhance survivability, current battlefield conditions are forcing military units to disperse into smaller formations, dig in, or both, unless these conditions are effectively countered. As a result, the battlefield tends to become more fragmented, offering more independent action to lower tactical formations as the depth of the front is expanding to a considerable extent.”

“As a survey of decades of history illustrates, Russian military strategy over the past decades has correctly forecasted a number of implications of advancements in weapons, as well as sensor technologies, that are currently affecting the character of warfare in Ukraine.”

“The operational level of war sits between tactics, which consists of organizing and employing fighting forces on or near the battlefield, and strategy, which involves aspects of long-term and high-level theatre operations, and the government’s leadership. The Soviet Union was the first country to officially distinguish this third level of military thinking, when it was introduced as part of the deep operation military theory that its armed forces developed during the 1920s and 1930s and utilized during the Second World War.”

“After the failure of the initial invasion, the subsequent period of the fighting in the Donbas was at first marked by Russian dominance in fires. Besides precision munitions, the employment of UAVs for target detection greatly enhanced the effectiveness of Russia’s large numbers of legacy artillery systems. Russian artillery batteries employing UAVs for target detection generally showed themselves capable of engaging Ukrainian positions within minutes after being detected. As a result, Ukrainian infantry companies were forced to disperse and often occupied front lines up to three kilometers wide. Consequently, battalions covered frontages that are traditionally the responsibility of brigades. Russian artillery superiority and sensor density even prevented Ukrainians from concentrating in units above company size, because anything larger would be detected prematurely and effectively targeted from a distance.”

“Russian forces also rarely employ armor and infantry in concentrated assaults and in the defense occupy dispersed positions, while increasingly drawing on artillery to blunt Ukrainian attacks.”

“However, current battlefield conditions are adding the related difficulty of achieving the concentration of forces necessary for establishing main efforts during offensive operations. This is reducing large-scale engagements and thereby necessitating a concentration and synchronization of effects, rather than a traditional physical massing of troops. In turn, this places an extra burden on command and control, especially when contested by electronic warfare. Only by disrupting the opponent’s kill chain can larger formations regain the ability to concentrate and engage in maneuver warfare. During the war in Ukraine, superiority in kill-chain effectiveness has become one of the prime objectives for both sides. In this war and any other characterized by the same dynamics, this superiority becomes an essential condition for victory.”

With a doctrine advantage, western acknowledged electronic warfare, indirect fire, and air support superiority combined with an established, modernized supply line its JOEVER

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