"Russia Considering ‘Surgical Strike’ on Ukraine" Topic

" Moscow is considering "surgical retaliatory strikes" on the Ukrainian territory after the standoff has led to first civilian victims among Russians on Russia's territory, a Kremlin source told Kommersant Monday.

"Our patience is not boundless," the source told the newspaper, stressing that "this means not a massive action but exclusively targeted single strikes on positions from which the Russian territory is fired at."

The Russian side "knows for sure the site where the fire comes from," the source said…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Maybe the billionaire president of the Ukraine should post a 100 million dollar bounty on Puttin to shut him up?

Looking at it logically, which side has most to gain from shelling Russia, and laying the blame on the government?

Ukrainian government
Ends up fighting a much bigger, more organised professional army as well as the separatists, faces increased border restrictions

Separatists
Ends up getting Russian support they have been requesting since the outset.

"Seit 5.45 Uhr wird zurückgeschossen" (From 5.45h – which was 4.45h GMT – we are shooting back) – Germany, September 1st, 1939.

Hitler did not have much patience, either…

Situation is more complicated. Each of the sides of the conflict has their own moderates and ultras.
- Poroshenko (i.e current government) – still can be called moderate, need to balance between those, who have supported him from business interests, nationalists (who are best motivated fighters from his side), Maidan activists who are still there and threaten to take action as nothing apart of association agreement took place and the last – population of the East, that is antagonized with each past day.
He is losing a bit in propaganda war, as, unfortunately, thought nothing better than start Chechnya-style operation. He would like to still be considered a poor victim, so if Russia comes full force he can enjoy worldwide moral support and military help – now it is not that easy to justify selling/giving him offensive weaponry.

- Russia.
Putin is currently on moderate position, as he is not really interested in starting large scale conflict over the East – not from the military point of view, but bcs. of diplomatic fallout and inevitable sanctions. At the moment, sectoral sanctions are very unlikely, but with Israel-type strikes they're much closer. We also have our own hawks and extreme patriots, who're accusing Putin of betrayal of rebels in the east. If the shells are falling on Russian territory and Putin is ignoring it, they have even more ground to critisize weak leadership.
– Rebels want to be left alone, and for that they, in theory, need to stop the war. On the other hand, they have very diverse groups and leadership, and some of them definitely need to provoke Russia into getting our hands dirty in the East. The proposals to establish a no-flight zone are coming up regularly.
So far Putin ruled out intervention, so the hawks are trying to find other possibilities to escalate conflict.

As for who exactly fired on Russian village I'm not ruling out any version. This conflict some day later might receive a few Clancy-style novels on what is going on…

Did the Russian Army ever do a surgical strike?

We'll just have to see which way Vlad the Shirtless will jump.

In fact yes – like a guided missile that have killed Chechnya leader Dudaev as far back as 18 years ago. The problem is that these strikes are not a major part of our doctrine though. If such a decision will be made ( I still doubt it) then it will not be this particular mortar, but all mortars in several km radius ;)
Russian press points out, that escalation took place when Putin is not in Russia (touring South America), similar to the times of Georgian attack on Ossetia…

'Russian press points out, that escalation took place when Putin is not in Russia (touring South America), similar to the times of Georgian attack on Ossetia…'

Always nice to be able to 'I didn't do… it was him…'

Good assessment Barin. Presumably the Russian army has some sort of modernised radar trajectory assessment system for counter barrage? (SNAR-10 systems go back to the 1970s, I'm guessing they have something more updated?)

I doubt it was an intentional attack, just a very poor shot. In fact pretty much all damage we have seen so far seems to be single wayward shots.

Still a lot of unknowns and unconfirmed speculation.

link

[Quote from link but edited for sequence] A warplane has attacked a rebel-held town with rockets in eastern Ukraine. Local officials said four people had been killed while a rebel spokesman told Russia's Interfax news agency that "about 10" civilians had been killed when a single Ukrainian jet fired five rockets.

The rebels blamed the attack on Ukraine's air force. However this is denied by Ukrainian sources.

Ukrainian Security Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko confirmed that the town had been bombed, with damage and casualties. But he told reporters in Kiev that the town had been attacked by an unknown aircraft with the aim of discrediting Ukrainian government forces.

Ukrainian defence analyst Dmitry Tymchuk argued on Facebook that the attack could only have been carried out by Russian jets as Ukrainian planes had carried out no flights since the An-26 transport plane was downed on Monday.

Is the US Awacs still operating over Poland?

Both sides have operating military radars not far from the accident site. Civilian airports on both sides of the border have them too. I guess it will not be too hard to dig out the truth – if the sides of the conflict really need it.

The thing I like about this conflict, and there really isn't anything to like about this little war. Save for someone's predilections for gaming purposes. Is they keep it local as opposed to islamists who export to the West …

We always reckoned that about the American Civil War :-)

Yes, buy IIRC, the UK had observers with the Rebel(scum !), just to see where the chips would fall ! And maybe "get a piece of the action" in the end … like cheap cotton and tobacco … It's alway about the Benjamins …

You don't think the US has observers in Ukraine to see which way the chips will fall, and maybe get a piece of the action in the end? ;-)

I'd be crazy to think the US didn't have "observers" before, during and when it happens … after … There or dozens of other places worldwide …

"Looking at it logically, which side has most to gain from shelling Russia, and laying the blame on the government?"

As always, look for the beneficiaries of any incident. Sarajevo bread queues for example.

Surgical strikes!?!?!

Seems like a bunch of idiots everywhere think that chainsaws and scalpels are the same thing.

Dan
TMP link

They are Not !?!?!?

"Many local citizens saw the plane that dropped the bomb – it had Ukrainian markings," said Sergei, a rebel commander at the scene who declined to give his surname.

Lot of these unsubstantiated rumours about. Chances are it was a Ukrainian jet, but given the low altitude, high speed, low visibility markings, etc, I doubt that anyone was able to identify it from the markings.

Meanwhile they seem to be about to increase the pressure on Russia for failing take positive steps to descalate or denounce separatist actions:

According to a draft statement seen by Reuters news agency, EU leaders will now also block loans for new projects in Russia by two multilateral lenders and broaden the scope of other sanctions.

The leaders will ask the European Investment Bank to suspend financing of new Russian public sector projects, the reported draft statement says.

They will also reportedly work together to suspend funding for new projects in Russia through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

This is amongst rumours that they have been positioning surplus equipment (T-64s, BTRs, BMDs, bridging equipment…) near the border for separatists to use link

That's the first time I've seen mentioned the shooting down of Russian UAV's in Ukrainian airspace.

If I was a state official, I'll be ashamed to say "social media video footage suggests"…we beleive that…instead of providing satellite pictures in the era when you can see the nameplate of the vehicle on the picture. The report unsurprisingly coming before EU heads meeting, as USA is not too fond of applying more sanctions without creating a visibility of world-wide support.
From what i've seen in the press, more sanctions in Europe will be most likely blocked by some EU members (9 countries are listed), so we'll see soon.
The hottest topic at the moment is whether 2 Russian soldiers were killed at the border by shells from Ukrainian sides, I've seen three conradicting statements from today's morning….

I agree, the social media sources are highly dubious. You often don't know when or where they were taken, and they appear to take the (often incorrect or biased) commentary as gospel.

I hadn't seen anything about Russian UAVs before that report either, and cant find anything else.

Not seen any reports of Russian soldiers killed (a civilian in the Russian vilalge of Donetsk was killed the other day), but the closer the fight gets pushed to the border, particularly with the evidenced lack of accuracy that both sides seem to be exhibiting, the further Russian troops probably want to be standing from it rather than patrolling right along it.

It seems that the US has gone ahead and applied increased commercial sanctions, whatever stance the EU may take.

The new round of US sanctions announced by the US treasury department significantly expands previous penalties by Washington, which were limited to individuals in Russia and Ukraine and a number of companies.

This time they include the giant oil firm Rosneft and two major banks – Gazprombank and Vnesheconombank. The weapons manufacturer Kalashnikov Concern is also on the list.

The penalties stop short of a complete disengagement with sectors of the Russian economy – a step that US officials said was being held in reserve in case Moscow launches a military invasion of Ukraine.

Contrary to any objections, there seems to be considerable strength of opinion that the EU will follow suit.

In Brussels, the EU leaders agreed to beef up their own sanctions against Russia.

They said the list "of entities and persons" affected would be announced by the end of July.

The EU said it would suspend new investments in Russia by the EU's European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

From the actual EU document:

Finally, the European Council invites the Commission to re-assess EU-Russia cooperation programmes with a view to taking a decision, on a case by case basis, on the suspension of the implementation of EU bilateral and regional cooperation programmes. However, projects dealing exclusively with cross-border cooperation and civil society will be maintained.

This isn't going go simply go away without Russia showing positive steps to restrict and denounce separatist action.

Well the great hypocrite Uncle Sam launches yet more sanctions on equally hyopcritical Russia.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10971573/Ukraine-crisis-US-breaks-step-with-Europe-over-Russia-sanctions.html

What I don't get is Uncle Sam can happily support jihadist groups in Libya or Syria to promote it's own interests, but Russians are bad for doing it themselves. The hilarious thing is it backfired on USA in Libya and Syria as one dead US ambassador can atest to if you believe in an afterlife.

Now the Americans are going back to their old enemy Russia whilst also agitating in Asia (as opposed to trying to be a neutral peace maker and tempering both sides).

Say bye bye Western hemegony and hello multipolar world with everyone at each other's throats.

EDIT: Russia's reopening an old spy base in Cuba too:

theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/russia-reopening-spy-base-cuba-us-relations-sour

Idiots on both sides.

So, Russia and Russians are now surprised that events, incidents, conflict that they started has now spilled over to their side of the border?

Why is that a surprise?

Seems to me they are lucky a lot more hasn't happened on their side of the border, given all the trouble Putin and his minions have stirred up.

If fighting is going on near the border, it's almost inevitable that some fire will cross said border. And heck, with the amount of Russian kit on both sides, I imagine keeping track of who is who would be a nightmare.

Hey, Vlad, BMP coming down the road and the turret is kinda pointing our way. Friend or foe?

Come on nobody is surprised. It is diplomatic dance. You can't catch me, but if I catch you, I'll smash you nose.
BTW,decision on Lurdi base is not made yet…however I'll not be surprised if it will be reopened. Providing that US is spying even on its allies, of course we're interested to know what the force that is generally opposing Russia is up to…may be something in Nicaragua too – at least the country will have GLONASS station.
Eurocouncil is a consultive entity, so the recommendations can be taken or rejected. I guess EU will pick a middle ground and will apply some not-so-significant sanctions.

Lol. Very true! The only bit of the diplomatic dance missing is making sure your guys and our guys are not dancing with each other.

[Unsubstantiated] claims that Russia has shot down a Ukrainian SU-25: link

Ukrainian officials sought to argue that pro-Russian separatist rebels could not have downed the plane because they lacked missiles to hit it at high altitude.

Bit circumstantial, as they could well have gained access to longer range missiles, and it's unlikely that an SU-25 in a combat area is over 10,000ft?

At certain pont there were reports about rebels taking control of 2 AA stations in Donetsk region, one has several BUK SAM systems…Ukrainian army later told that they have made it unoperational before leaving, but they might have been wrong.
Still…if the plane have crossed the border into Russian territory, I guess we'll gladly shoot it down, like happened between Turkey and Syria.

The SA-11/SA-17 (Buk) system would certain be capable of operating to that altitude, and with many having come through some form of military national service (or actual service) it is possible they have someone capable of operating it. However I would find it surprising to find a CAS aircraft operating so high in the attack zone. As I said, the 'evidence' of it being Russia is pretty circumstantial.

Yes, if it has crossed the border then it is quite possible that Russia would have engaged it. However in that case I would have expected a stronger media announcement from Russian media that they did shoot it down because it had crossed into their airspace, thus justifying the action. More likely they would simply put up a couple of interceptors though.

I know there have been talks of imposing a no-fly zone. No doubt Ukraine would object to that, as they hold pretty much air supremacy.

…pro-Kiev activists have pointed to videos which appear to show Grad multiple rocket launchers being fired from Russian soil in the direction of Ukraine.

Second time I have heard that claim.

YouTube link

Some pretty in depth exploration of the potential firing location here:

link

Latest comment: Ukraine's defence ministry said: "It is likely that [the hit] was carried out by air-to-air rockets from the Russian air force which were patrolling the border in a pair."

That would be more likely, although I would expect a single AAM rather than rockets.

link
Malaysian Boeing down over eastern Ukraine.

this is very, very bad.
Might be a turning point in propaganda war if the truth will be established.

Exceptionally bad news.

And given the rebels don't have planes, there's only one side who have been throwing SAMs about.

hope those responsible for it will be found, still at the moment I'll not be pointing fingers – we have the case of RA-85693, that Ukraine still denies, even that at that time there was simply nobody even in theory who could shoot the plane down
link

Yes, very sad …

In fact yes – like a guided missile that have killed Chechnya leader Dudaev as far back as 18 years ago. The problem is that these strikes are not a major part of our doctrine though. If such a decision will be made ( I still doubt it) then it will not be this particular mortar, but all mortars in several km radius ;)

At least to this former practitioner of rapid urban renewal, a "precision strike" means blowing up what you intended with minimal damage aside from what you wanted blown up.

Say, dropping GPS-guided 81mm mortar shells from a UAV onto every single mortar within 10km of the border, or managing to land an incendiary on the ammo dump(s).

At this stage we don't know if the Malaysian aircraft was shot down or crashed for other reasons. Of concern is that, like the previous Malaysian aircraft, there was no distress or other indication that anything was wrong. It simply vanished from radar. Photos are now appearing from the crash site, with almost total devastation.

It was in cruise, meaning if it was shot down it was way beyond the range of any manpads.

"A tweet (in Russian) from a key Twitter account used by pro-Russian separatists, in which they claim to have captured a Buk surface-to-air missile system, has now been deleted, BBC Monitoring observes."

If this turns out to be a missile fired by the rebels, I suspect Russia will quickly distance themselves from the separatists. If it turns out to have been fired from Russia… well that could get very bad.

RA-85693

Accident sites all report a similar story.

…Impacted by a Ukrainian S-200 surface to air missile, which had been fired as part of a military exercise being conducted in the Black Sea…

…Ukraine defence forces were doing an exercise near the coastal city of Theodosii in the Crimea region. Missiles were fired from an S-200V missile battery. A 5V28 missile missed the drone and homed in on the Tupolev. The missile exploded some 15 meters above the plane. The aircraft sustained serious damage, resulting in a decompression of the passenger cabin and a fire. The aircraft entered an uncontrolled descent, crashed into the sea and sank to a depth of 2000 m…

Of course Russia denied they were at fault over KAL007, even retaining the black boxes until several years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A couple for the Russian speakers:

link

link

The BBC and the Grauniad linked to these as evidence of pro-Russian separatist involvement.

The separatists appear to have been of the belief that this airspace had been closed to civil traffic. I'd assumed, perhaps naively, that would be the case in all conflict zones where SAMs are a feature of the warfare.

I've seen the first one – even wrote in this thread about it in the morning. AN-26 might still be down (seen the reports midday), there's a location somehow specified by the twit – "somewhere behind Progress mine", not sure if it corresponds to the point where Malaysian plane has fallen. Also, twit says that the downed plane has not inflicted any damage on civilian structures, while Boeing's parts did hit several buildings. I'd believe in satellite images…not sure about propaganda twitter.

Here (in Russian)
link
there's a report of eyewitness, who saw a missile hitting AN-26 and how it fell down. So – low attitude, and you can't mistake An for Boeing. they also report the time of accident as 16:00 local time, if I'm not mistaken, East Ukraine is GMT+3. If so, Boeing disappeared from radar at 17:15 local time, i.e. 1 hour later. Of course, if we're to believe the witnesses….

Is that a second AN-26? Or the one from Wednesday?

Cheers. Is there any evidence that an Antonov was shot down today? Wreckage? The separatists have (according to the Graun) deleted references to it from the website they'd mentioned, which looks not just suspicious, but also rather amateurish.

Are satellite images likely to be of much use in determining what happened here? Maybe, I suppose the region is under pretty intense scrutiny, but then I had supposed the conflict zone would have been closed to civil traffic, so…

the twit was from 17.07, so I guess they were referring to 2d AN. If the proposed ceasefire works, I guess the investigators can identify, if there was a single crash site, or two….

Apparently all combat was presumed low altitude, so upper airways were still open.

Sounding like they mistook it for a Ukrainian Air Force jet…

Found that one of the "official" rebels sites still has information of captured Buks from 29/06
link
On the other hand, it seems that we have two crash sites – one near Snezhnoye, and another near Torez, and different timing. Still, it is too early to make any valid conclusions, IMHO…

Can't see any reports of a second list Antonov

The airspace had apparently been closed to flights up to 31000 feet. The airliner was flying at 33000 feet.

33,000ft is way, way, WAY outside MANPADS range. But any missile that does enough damage to an airliner to take it out without any communications of difficulty has to be big. MANPADS are barely capable of shutting down one engine (proved that in Iraq and Afghanistan), and the pilots should be able to recover from an engine-out while yelling into the radio…

That's a major escalation from someone. I can't believe the Russians would be that stupid…