The Situation in Belgorod is Out of Control
The Ukrainians have been able to strike into Russia proper, near Belgorod, with nigh impunity. This is a situation that has been unfolding for months now. Attack helicopters were sent into Belgorod, sabotage teams from the Ukrainian side, you name it. Depots, oil storage facilities, electrical stations and so on have been targeted, and the occasional missile hits someone’s home.
Even now, Belgorod finds itself under a fresh new wave of attacks.
BBC:
Gunmen have killed 11 people in an attack at a Russian military training ground on Saturday.
During a firearms training session, two men opened fire on a group who had volunteered to fight in Ukraine, state-owned news agency Ria reported.
The attackers were from a former Soviet republic, the Russian defence ministry said, but did not give further details.
They were also shot dead during the incident in the Belgorod region of Russia, which borders Ukraine.
A further 15 people were wounded.
An oil depot in Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine is on fire after being shelled on Saturday, the governor said, as strikes increase against the area.
“We’re getting bombed again. One of the shells hit the oil depot in the Belgorod region,” regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
The lights went out in the capital of the Belgorod region.
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A few hours ago it became known that most of Belgorod suddenly plunged into darkness. Citizens reported explosions, the air defense system worked. Due to the strikes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a fire broke out at the Luch thermal power plant. Luckily, the fire was put out.
Tsargrad, a project financed by the so-called “Orthodox Oligarch” from Donbass Constantine Malofeev, says that this will lead to more retaliation, even though Putin has said that the wave of missile attacks unleashed by General Armageddon would not continue.
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The day before, the President of Russia spoke about the strikes on the infrastructure of Ukraine. He noted that now there is no need for massive attacks, as there are other tasks. However, 7 objects out of the planned 29 were not hit.
Obviously, "Armageddon General" Sergey Surovikin received a "secret order" - to get these objects. In addition, the wording probably says that in the future a massive strike can be resumed.
But the Armed Forces of Russia get them, these objects, gradually. Therefore, there is no need for massive strikes. At least for now, Vladimir Putin said.
Recall that the Russian army has been delivering targeted strikes on critical infrastructure in Ukraine since October 10. For example, after an attempted shelling of Belgorod by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, air sirens sounded all over Ukraine. Explosions were recorded not only in Lviv, but also in Rivne, Volyn and Ternopil regions.
If Russia wanted to deter Ukraine from escalating the war with acts of sabotage and terrorism, by unleashing the strikes, that plan seems to have failed. Not enough pain was inflicted, or, perhaps, the people who control Kiev don’t care what happens to the Ukrainians going forward, so they’re fine with escalation.
As to why they keep hitting Belgorod, it appears to be an attempt to show that they can hit Russia on Russia’s territory. This might just be a morale thing or a sales pitch to NATO to receive more funds. Either way, it looks bad. Russian bloggers wonder aloud why the army doesn’t push the Ukrainians back a bit. I suppose they simply can’t at this stage.
Now, while I do think Russia ought to have fought this war differently, I’m not one of those people baying for blood right now. I don’t really see the point of the strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. Everything that was hit will be repaired if isn’t already. I understand the strikes from a symbolic point of view, of course, but even on that front they did not act as a sufficient deterrent, unfortunately. Nor were they anywhere near as devastating as they could have been. As Strelkov pointed out, the Ukrainian government functioned normally the next day.
Furthermore, there is no point in making these strikes if they are not accompanied by a general advance. It remains to be seen if Russia will be able to do a general advance even after mobilization is done or whether they will simply attain parity with the Ukrainians and the situation will stabilize.
So, overall, it’s not the end of the world that there won’t be a massive sustained strike campaign. Despite the action and the increase in action, nothing has changed, fundamentally. Ukraine tries to press its advantage and Russia delays for time.
Not sure why you think attacks on the electrical grid will have no effect. You can keep repairing things ... until you can't. And, the Winter has not even arrived yet. The US completely destroyed the electrical grid in Iraq, which is one reason resistance collapsed, and it did not take 8 months.
Sorry for the length, but here is a 'Western Expert' on what can happen.
http://johnhelmer.net/russian-army-fires-old-sparky-us-loses-the-electric-war-in-the-ukraine/
By the way, the precedent for the Russian General Staff and Kremlin for destroying a country’s electrical grid was set during the NATO bombing of Serbia and then by the US air bombing of Iraq.”
Shutting off the power in the rump Ukrainian state will do just that to the Ukrainians. If they then start to flee for refuge to Poland and Germany, this will be a disaster unparalleled in recent European history. Just the attendant collapse in telecommunications will make the place a madhouse. You can well imagine the rest. Already there are queues for water in Nikolaev, and who knows where else. How does queueing for water, if there is any, in temperatures of minus-20C to minus-40C sound? This won’t be like the blackouts from US sanctions and attacks in Cuba or Venezuela – there they didn’t have to worry about freezing to death, the pipes bursting, or irreparable damage being done to billions of dollars’ worth of pumping, electrical, and other equipment due to freezing.”
“How many people realize that a sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) circuit breaker, commonly used in electrical substations, requires an electric heating blanket to be functional in sub-zero weather? Most westerners don’t. They are common in high voltage substations which ultimately feed the grid lines with power. In the Ukrainian case, I suspect there is a mixture of those and older style oil circuit breakers (OCB), along with oil-filled large power transformers (LPT), which are essential to electrical distribution. And guess where most of the oil comes from to fill these devices?”
“I suspect that most of Zelensky’s officials and officials in the supporting EU governments have persuaded themselves with their own propaganda. They aren’t daring to think through these questions, any more than they care to understand that the housing of the pumps delivering their water and treating their sewage will freeze and split apart if they are not heated via electrical means. Even if the gas is on — and it won’t be — electricity is needed to ignite, then control, furnaces. How many of these officials understand the long lead times, compounded by manufacturing shutdowns due to high energy costs, which you must have to replace and restore everything?”
Reading the grid maps of the Ukraine, the source says “it is obvious that the real vulnerability, in my estimation, lies in the approximately 88 substations for 330 kV distribution and 33 substations for 220 kV distribution. Note the nodes or junctions. Those are substations connecting the distribution lines which crisscross the Ukraine. These substations contain large power transformers, switchgear, DCS equipment [Distributed Control System] and other power quality and control equipment, spares etc. Widespread coordinated strikes on these substations will quickly overwhelm the Ukrainian ability to effect repairs and re-balance the loads on the generation stations. This will create a cascade effect whereby overloaded power plants, and distribution gear will ‘trip out’ over wide swathes of the country
“Any repair efforts will also be severely hampered, if not crippled, if utility yards where spare cables and other gear, as well as vehicles (bucket and line trucks, cranes etc.) are stored and parked are struck. Personnel losses among the finite number of utility crew members due to follow-up attacks and the inevitable mishaps that come with interacting with damaged or compromised high voltage electrical equipment, will quickly mount. If the attacks are launched during the hard winter months, the impact will be exponential, increasingly unmanageable and catastrophic as the hours go by.”
If the strikes on infrastructure had been maintained they definitely would have had a positive effect in a few weeks, Strelkov said as much in one of his last Telegram posts. If NATO/the Ukraine isnt allowed to move their forces around the country like its still peacetime like they can at present it will be a legitimate "game changer" only for real this time. Even if Russia cant muster enough troops for a decisive offensive in the foreseeable future every last inconvenience that NATO/the Ukrainians have due to damaged transportation infrastructure and lack of electricity will aid the guys holding the line.
Theres tons of footage of the Ukrainians loading up tanks, artillery etc etc on their railways so if Moscow could be bothered to keep hitting their railhubs and terminals and at least force consistent delays in getting all that junk to the front that will help quite a bit in slowing down the enemy operational tempo. Force the Ukrainians to have to run their locomotives on diesel or whatever instead of electricity. Changing all that over will buy the guys at the front even more time to dig in and prepare a good defense. Literally every day Moscow can buy will pay off for the guys who need to hold the line in the meantime.
Thats whats so infuriating about Moscows abject apathy here. Sure the FSB are likely more concerned with harassing volunteers headed to the front than stopping terrorism but even if they were doing their job they still wouldnt be able to stop every terrorist attack. Sure Russia really cant stop every artillery barrage sent into Donetsk, they cant stop every last drone and missile attack on Russia proper but they can actually buy they guys at the front time and save some lives buy inconveniencing the enemy's logistics work by keeping heavy pressure on the enemy's transportation and electricity infrastructure. But like always apparently Moscow cant be bothered with that either.
And the Ukrainian Golems thrive off their tic tok/telegram gore porn. TURN THAT SHIT OFF or at least make the internet spotty AF. That absolutely will be a heavy blow to public morale. To me thats psych war 101 but maybe im missing something. Imagine if the Ukrainian public no longer has their gore porn peremoga BS and they no longer see the Zog west supporting them online due to no internet. Make them feel isolated and cut them off from the globohomo community, turning off their internet will pump the breaks on Ukranian society consolidating and rallying. The current younger demographic of Ukraine are just as much internet generation as anyone else and losing that will hurt.
So yeah even if theres no general offensive on the horizon on Russias end keeping pressure on the enemy's infrastructure is well worth it imo and its one thing they could do. Unfortunately like 99% of good things Russia could do they wont.