Here We Go Again...

... even in this blog "specialists" in operations demand actions ranging from annihilation of Kiev to removing Russia's political top. I also want to reiterate here--I don't read and do not use ANY TG channels, especially by such "experts" as Boris Rozhin (aka Colonel Cassad) and his ilk, but only use confirmed information from Russia's MoD or people in the US who are military and intel professionals with the connections and access to reliable data. Here is what we know and was confirmed: one Mi-8 and one SU-34 have been lost (in Russian), very likely, but not 100%, due to use of the manpads by the VSU diversionary group near the border of Bryansk Oblast with 404. Read my lips--this activity WILL continue, because it is the only real track on which NATO can gain some PR success and deliver some pin-pricks. It is primarily the job for FSB. Yes, it is tragic to lose the crews and aircraft, but that happens once in a while--it is SMO, people die. I wonder where those media ass-holes (Zatulin, Starikov and other "strategists") who advocated for letting Ukrainians into Russia freely are now. Effectively, they advocated for importing sabotage networks of GUR and SBU. 

But by far more interesting is this:

МОСКВА, 13 мая - РИА Новости. Минобороны России сообщило, что накануне боевыми самолетами воздушных сил Украины был нанесен удар поставленными Великобританией ракетами Storm Shadow по Луганску.Пострадали мирные жители, в том числе 6 детей. Наносивший ракетный удар по Луганску самолет Су-24 и прикрывавший его истребитель Миг-29 воздушных сил Украины сбиты.

Translation: MOSCOW, May 13 - RIA Novosti. The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that on the eve of combat aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, a British-supplied Storm Shadow missile attacked Luhansk. Civilians, including 6 children, were injured. The Su-24 plane, which launched a missile attack on Luhansk, and the MiG-29 fighter jet of the Ukrainian Air Force, which covered it, were shot down.

 

So, we know now that they did integrate Storm Shadows with SU-24s. OK, that opens the path down the slippery slope for some UK assets being targeted--how and when, I don't know. As I am on record constantly--it is all primarily PR and trying to "accelerate" this, now proverbial "counter-offensive". The level of BS in media is off the scale, including an openly Russian misinformation sewer such as Kommersnat, are risible. Here is NYT:

OUTSIDE CHASIV YAR, Ukraine — The Ukrainian army is advancing in attacks near the eastern city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian commanders said Friday, in fighting that has shifted the front line only slightly but is exposing fissures, confusion and alarm among Russia’s forces in the war. Russia’s pro-war bloggers were quick to claim that Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive had begun, but Ukrainian officials downplayed the advances and described them in more local terms. Ukrainian soldiers broke through Russian lines south of Bakhmut on Wednesday, they said, and then exploited that breach, assaulting Russian forces near the city and threatening Russian flanks to the north and south.

And who those Russian "pro-war bloggers" might be? Well, I repeat--a bunch of media shysters like Cassad, Interslava and other creeps whose delirium is actively used, including histrionics by Prigozhin, for creating a caricature. Or get a load of this:

Details emerge of Army Special Forces’ battle with Russian mercenaries.

I mean, I read a lot of purely military BS in my life--Tom Clancy's writing being an Exhibit A of this--and it is only natural for professional military environment sometimes to exaggerate, but reducing oneself to outright wet fantasies against the background of the NATO's strategic defeat--boy, how desperate one has to become to provide some spirit-lifting BS. Read my lips again: Wagner is a light infantry specifically honed for urban combat, which they do extremely well, and ARE NOT combined arms formation. In the open, they are no match for any combined arms formation of the US Army. Wow, the US Army "defeated" what amounts to a unit of light infantry. Lets add this to its glorious "victories" of this army in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan et all. Plus, the US Army never fought anything like SMO, not even close and it is not designed for it, because it never fought near peer enemy in its modern history. Pathetic. Here is your Saturday primer.