Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Therein is the source of Russia's military ineptness. "Modern Doctrine" as you wrote would indeed have been a lot more careful about the storage of explosives and the deployment of assists. A modern military is ideally used like a scalpel, carefully cutting in and getting the job done with as little unnecessary damage as possible. But the Russians don't appear to know how to do that anymore. Their scalpel is a massive bloody hammer that they swing around like a mid thing. It's no surprise that the hammer would eventually hit them in their own damn head.

A modern disciplined military would have been smarter about the storage of weapons. A modern disciplined military would also have been taking the time to actually train their recruits to be more than meat for the grinder, and a modern disciplined military would not have nuked their chances of winning over the local population by raping & murdering them.

If this attack has crippled their southern air forces, all the better. I don't fancy Russia's current abilities of replacing Soviet-era military aircraft.

No wonder the Russian holidaymakers, if that's who they were, are all fleeing by car. But to where and how do they back to the homeland.

Piece in the Guardian today about the nuclear plant, claiming that Russian authorities were hoping to redirect the output towards Crimea power supply and into Russian grid. That this involves 'destroying' some of the power infrastructure and so on. Curious that the recent disputed claim of shelling at the plant was said to cause damage to power lines. Whole story could be misinformation of course and sounds to be a very crude and dangerous way to go about managing a major power plant. But ties in with events.

You don't let your enemy see your cards, it's that simple. If you disclose that the attack was carried out by HIMARS or M270 launched ATACMS, Neptun missiles or Ukraine's domestically developed Grim-2 short range ballistic missile, you'll just expose those weapons systems to even more potential reprisal attacks. If you disclose that it was an air strike, it will likely result in increased Russian combat air patrols and a beefing up of air defenses, whilst stating that the attack was a special forces raid will massively increase the risk for the team that conducted the raid and that might very well still be hiding in Crimea, waiting to strike the next target.

By saying nothing, the Russian Forces don't know what they need to defend against. They only know that even far behind the front lines, in areas that Russian Forces and civilians perceive as safe, Ukraine is able to strike seemingly at will. They now need to spread their forces thin trying to cover their own rear, reducing the number of troops that can be sent to the front line. Then there's the psychological aspect. Knowing that your base might just spontaneously explode without warning can't be too good for morale.

Do you have any "After" Pics?

No sorry I shouldn't of posted it now thinking on it. Its easy to say things and post stuff but without evidence or some like you say after pics it's hard to judge. Tho I say we should see some soon i would hazard a guess.

The Russian holidaymakers likely reached Crimea via the Kerch Bridge, and will likely return that way.

This Road/Rail bridge was built after Russia annexed Crimea and it links the Ukrainian peninsula with a bit of the Russian mainland just to the east of it. It is likely the safest option for Russian civilians to reach Crimea (for now). The other "Land Bridge" Russia has managed to carve out of Southern Ukraine doesn't have many direct routes, and is a warzone, making it pretty dangerous to even their own army. That leaves the Kerch Bridge, which long-term is probably going to be a target for attack.

I must question the intelligence of a Russian holidaymaker in going to beaches near military installations, which are not that far away from an active warzone featuring an enemy who claim the very beach you are relaxing on. Boggles the mind. I get that Russian sun-holiday options in Europe are likely curtailed a lot lately, but surely getting a tan isn't this important!

I'd say the Ukrainians are not letting on what happened is because if they say the Russians will take defensive actions.

If its long range strikes they move them further like they did with their boats, if it was a "special military operation TM" then they beef up defences around ammo dumps etc and keep their planes close to the theatre of war. In either case, putlers thugs can use the knowledge of what happened to make it harder to happen again.

Ukraine claiming that there were 9 aircraft destroyed in the attack.

August 10 — Russia's war against Ukraine — online Suspilne

A month old! Everything changed when the HIMARs arrived…Have you forgotten this was a 3 day operation?

This is the video he's talking about.

One correction, a Ukraine general admitted to sustaining 100k losses back in June. A casualty is a soldier who is either dead or wounded, and my guess is that 100k number includes missing/captured. So Ukraine hasn't actually lost 100k dead, the number is still terrible.

Secondly, two months have passed since then, so the Ukrainian casualty rate is going to be a lot higher since the 100k won't include many casualties sustained during heavy fighting for Severodonetsk. What is the most up to date casualty number for Ukraine now? 120k, 130k, 140k? Those figures don't seem unreasonable.

On the otherhand, the Pentagon came out yesterday and gave their assessment of Russian casualties running at 80k. American intelligence has shown to be top notch, so I am inclined to take the number at face value.

The situation for Ukraine looks really grim to me.

the kerch strait bridge might just be in range if the below is anything to go by

Fire at oil depot in Yeisk, Kuban

So if we take these figures at face value it means that Ukraine is suffering far greater casualties than Russia when it is Ukraine mostly defending ground. This would not be a good sign for Ukraine at all if this was the case.