UVZ

This acronym strikes terror into the hearts of Russia's enemies. 

The acronym stands for Uralvagonzavod--literally Ural Railcars Works. And, boy, look at them those "railcars" produced in the city of Nizhny Tagil. 

Not only those "railcars", starting from legendary T-34s, first of which rolled off the conveyor in 1941, to T-72s to T-90M Proryv, continue to roll off assembly lines today, but UVZ produced now undeniably the best tanks in the world--real combat in SMO left no doubts about it. Moreover, Russia is unbeatable in terms of quality and numbers of these tanks produced. By a mile, more than whole NATO combined. Today, UVZ celebrates its 88th anniversary. These are state-of-the-art, netcentric tanks which are capable to take on any self-proclaimed "best" Western tanks and defeat them, in fact--they did it many times already. 

Dmitry Orlov in his latest, symptomatically titled Uncontrolled Chaos, notes today:

It was a disaster 80 years in the making. At the end of World War II, the United States stood virtually alone as an economic power. Accounting for 50 percent of global GDP, it held 80% of the world's hard currency reserves. Fast-forward to 2024 and the share of the US in the world economy has shrunk to 14.76% (calculated from figures provided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund). But even this number is misleading, for fully 20% of the US economy is made of what goes under the acronym FIRE: finance, insurance and real estate. These are unproductive parasites on the productive economy. Another unproductive parasite is health care: ridiculously overpriced, it amounts to almost a quarter of all spending in the US. Neither the resources consumed by FIRE, nor by health care spending, contribute much of anything to the standing of the US within the world economy. Adjusted for these, the US share of the world economy dwindles to just over 8%. While hardly negligible, this share is nowhere near sufficient to give the US anything like a majority vote or veto power in world affairs. The tragedy of the situation is that the mindset of Americans, particularly those occupying positions of authority in Washington, has been unable to adapt to this development. Their mindset appears to be fixed for all time: they believe that they can still dictate terms to the whole world and finding it increasingly awkward to cover up for the fact that almost the whole world (with some notable exceptions) now feels free to ignore them.

Here, you can see yourself overwhelmingly non-productive nature of the US economy. 

Get it? They consider a third world economy "based on services" a sign of a "developed nation". No wonder, when one looks at such "developed nations" like UK or Germany which increasingly look like a third world. Which also explains why the US is incapable of producing a new Main Battle Tank, with the reputation (primarily through Hollywood and propaganda) being blown up to smithereens by good ol' UVZ's T-72. Remember this? 

Well, in related news... Another SSK of pr. 636 Yakutsk (for Pacific Fleet) was floated today. 

But, but, I am sure that capitalization of the St.Petersburg's Admiralty Wharfs which builds those subs is nowhere near the capitalization of any business consulting company in the US. Hey, what do those losers at UVZ have on this monster--they'll tell you how to run business, right? Right?  

About T-90M, Again.

TASS reports about the combat use of T-90Ms Proryv in SMO, and quotes tank commanders about the machine (in Russian), They love it. Here are some opinions on a several months long combat use.

Он усовершенствован - экипаж надежно защищен, командир танка, то есть я, сижу уже внутри, мне необязательно вылезать на улицу, перезаряжать [пулемет] "Корд" и вести стрельбу - я все это делаю изнутри. Усовершенствованы приборы наблюдения, у меня есть панорама, я могу смотреть на 360 градусов и не надо крутить головой, я все могу на компьютере увидеть. Также могу общаться с соседними танками, не выходя на связь, просто пишу им координаты, подъезжаем туда и мы вместе работаем. У нас Т-90 подорвался на противотанковой мине, гусеницу не повредило, оторвало лишь каток и он своим ходом выбыл из зоны боевых действий, весь экипаж цел", - рассказал командир еще одного танка Т-90М "Прорыв" Руслан.

Translation: It has been improved - the crew is reliably protected, the tank commander, that is, I am already sitting inside, I don’t have to get out into the street, reload the Kord [machine gun] and fire - I do all this from the inside. Surveillance devices have been improved, I have a panorama, I can look at 360 degrees and do not need to turn my head, I can see everything on the computer. I can also communicate with neighboring tanks without getting in touch, I just write the coordinates to them, we drive up there and we work together. Our T-90 was blown up by an anti-tank mine, the track was not damaged, only the roller was torn off and it left the combat zone under its own power, the entire crew was intact," said the commander of another T-90M "Proryv" tank Ruslan.

I highlighted what is crucial. This is netcentricity and this is the thing which in terms of firepower creates a synergy effect because it increases many fold the effect of tactical surprise and flexibility. All this underscores the futility of the West's attempts to "supply" 404 with whatever obsolete armor it tries to send there. Such as this risible British attempt:

Britain will announce the donation of ten Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, The Guardian reported on Friday, citing Ukrainian sources. In doing so, the UK would become the first NATO member to send Western-designed tanks to Kiev, as pressure mounts on Germany to follow suit. A formal announcement is expected on Monday, the newspaper’s sources said. These same sources said that while ten Challengers will likely have no impact on the tide of battle, they hope the decision will push Germany into allowing its European allies to export their stocks of Leopard tanks to Ukraine, which Berlin has thus far not authorized.

Considering military incompetence of the Western political and military top brass, it all comes down to, and you guessed it already, PR and desire to show that "something is being done". I expand on the issue of West's miscalculations in my latest:

Plus, a good friend of mine, Colonel Trukhan (thanks, Larch), a former operations officer from the Central Apparatus of Russian MoD gave a good interview to (initially) Ukraina.Ru, precisely on the issues concerning a real war, not BS created by all kinds of media-personalities both in the West and Russia who wouldn't be able to command a platoon, let alone brigade or division. Here is a quote:

- Делайте что хотите. Хотите наслаждаться победой – наслаждайтесь. Хотите комментировать не восторженно – комментируйте. Кто кому доктор, каждый сам на свое кладбище выползет. Нужно понимать, что ВС РФ работают планомерно и целенаправленно. А публика может реагировать как хочет. Там мощные укрепрайоны, которые строились восемь лет. Почему мы дали их построить? А кто бы им их не дал построить? Мы не одни на этом земном шаре. Мы строили свои вооруженные силы, Украина строила свои вооруженные силы. У кого их получилось лучше построить? Посмотрим.

В 2014 году на тех украинских операционных направлениях мы почти ничего не имели. Это я вам достоверно говорю. Об этом никто сейчас не помнит, но при Сердюкове даже 20-ую армию сократили, был переход к бригадным системам. И когда начался этот замес, когда наш "северный ветер" остановил этот начинавшийся геноцид, мы начали строить свои вооруженные силы абсолютно правильно. Мы их начали строить со стратегической ядерной триады. Путин "мультики" показал – продажи памперсов возросли. И сейчас эти "мультики" получили материальное оформление.

Translation: - Do what you want. If you want to enjoy victory, enjoy. If you want to comment not enthusiastically - comment. Who is a doctor to whom, everyone will crawl out to his own cemetery. You need to understand that the RF Armed Forces are working systematically and purposefully. The public can react however they want. There are powerful fortified areas that were built for eight years. Why did we let them build? And who wouldn't let them build them? We are not alone on this globe. We built our armed forces, Ukraine built its armed forces. Who was the best at building them? We will see. In 2014, we had almost nothing in those Ukrainian operational areas. This I tell you for sure. Nobody remembers this now, but under Serdyukov even the 20th army was reduced, there was a transition to brigade systems. And when this batch began, when our "northern wind" stopped this genocide that was beginning, we began to build our armed forces absolutely correctly. We started building them from the strategic nuclear triad. Putin "cartoons" showed - sales of diapers have increased. And now these "cartoons" have received material design.

I am on record, remember? US and NATO cannot do strategy, they never could after WW II. It is a cold hard fact of life. Sure, they love to use the term "strategy" but very few in the military-political top in the US have a grasp of what it is. So, what can I say--I already get flack for my pointing out that John Mearsheimer has no clue about strategy, Russia and balance of power--he doesn't have a tool set, as wouldn't any political "scientist", to grasp it. His early 1970s background from USMA at West Point and a few years in the USAF are radically not enough, especially lacking serious military engineering background, for understanding modern operations. Bernhard makes today a note of it, when speaking about Emmanuel Todd:

He however has some criticism for Mearsheimer: "Mearsheimer, like a good American, overestimates his country. He considers that, if for the Russians the war in Ukraine is existential, for the Americans it is basically only one 'game' of power among others. After Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, what's one more debacle? The basic axiom of American geopolitics is: 'We can do whatever we want because we are sheltered, far away, between two oceans, nothing will ever happen to us'. Nothing would be existential for America. Insufficient analysis which today leads Biden to proceed mindlessly. America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system towards the precipice. No one had expected that the Russian economy would hold up against the 'economic power' of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it.

Remarkably, highlighted in yellow shows a complete ignorance of Todd himself of strategic planning and how Russia approaches war and economy. But then again, he is an anthropologist, what do you expect. He, certainly, didn't read this blog in 2014--early 2015 when I had to pass a diagnosis on the fate of the combined West, but what do I know, I am not anthropologist. So, here is your primer for Saturday. 

P.S. About VSU plans for "offensive" to reach Mariupol--Good God, only NYT and WSJ would buy this BS. Yes, with 50 Bradleys and 20 NATO tanks.