10:40
Today’s published loss report on the blog, 60 fuel tankers.
It stands out a bit and can one guess that the drone unit together with the USA, whatever they are using to provide targeting data to Ukraine, are actively looking for fuel depots and tankers to strike?
10:56
Now I have, like everyone else, read about the New Year’s attack on Grozny in 1994 and the Winter War was known from before.
This sure doesn’t look any better, on the first day one was struck by how everything just “started up” without direct coordination.
After the air landing at Gostomel, it is just barely organized chaos on the Russian side, coordination is minimal and everyone follows their previous orders regardless of the situation, e.g. the Omon troop that drove straight into Kiev and was wiped out (which the media spun as Kiev would capitulate in a day or so…)
At best, the branches of the military pull in the same direction and move in one direction but having long columns with mixed armor and unprotected against shrapnel driving a couple abreast straight towards a city is just asking to get them wiped out.
What Ukraine has gotten going are drone attacks and targeting data from the USA.
Where the Russians have taken terrain, the free war is in full swing.
What is probably underway since these columns must be extremely tempting targets are long-range patrols into Russian and Belarusian territory that conduct ambushes on the convoys at night until they run out of ammunition or at least all the way up to the border.
If one can then use all 70 SU25s and Mig29s to strike the convoy heading towards Kiev and the direction of Kharkov, it is probably game over for the Russians in the most humiliating way.
11:50
Every time I write this it is always – “wait, you haven’t seen everything the Russians have going on yet”.
The war is won by Ukraine!
It is possible that Mariupol falls and that Russia believes they have negotiating leverage.
I believe the following,
-Russia has deployed all its operational units.
-The columns moving towards Kharkiv and Kiev are, as Cornu writes, third-rate units following their orders to move towards a taken city to manage the occupation.
-The fuel shortage is acute and so is the shortage of ammunition and food..
-VDV has not conducted any air landings for a couple of days, I don’t think we will see more from them.
-The naval infantry is being worn out in Mariupol.
-Spetsnaz and reconnaissance are exhausted in Kharkov and Kiev.
-Belarus will not go all in on an offensive in western Ukraine.
Within a few days Russia will try to freeze the conflict, preferably all of eastern Ukraine up to the Dnipro, at least Donbass, and the negotiating chip is Mariupol.
Ukraine will push hard and demand Donbass + Crimea + war reparations, the parties will leave.
I had thought Ukraine’s offensive capability was poor but have started leaning towards that if they go on the offensive with platoon and company size units and have decent communications and night fighting capability, Russia will be thrown out of Ukraine in less than a month, the Russian army is dissolving in places it seems and such things spread like wildfire.
11:54
I myself have fallen for the myth of the Russian threat presented by credible media and then the defense in Europe probably wants more funds and others benefit from it. The truth is that Russia is not a threat at all except for their nuclear weapons.
With a bit of luck we will get a process in Ukraine where they start approaching the EU and clean up the corruption swamp and a much-needed palace coup in Belarus.
If the EU could get Russia to democratize and approach the EU we would also have much to gain from that, the country is rich but has a very long way to go but one can have trade agreements and other things?
A bit like the USA has done with South America.
China will become quite lonely going forward 🙂
12:09
A thought, ambushes on columns/convoys have advanced enormously in recent days + drone attacks.
Ukraine’s president declared an “international legion” a few days ago.
Dare one guess that European special forces are on site in Ukraine in the international legion’s uniform but with their weapons now “delivered” by the countries in Europe?
Those flying the drones could be American drone pilots but the drones are Turkish.
Then there should probably be foreign advisors ensuring that staffs and communications work?
12:31
11:43 analysis – the south is the only front section where they have advancement, when they crossed the Dnipro at Khakovka it was a real riff-raff of different vehicles, passenger cars and older military equipment. Something went incredibly wrong here because Ukrainian units were in billeting, bridges were not blown up etc. and by lunchtime the first day they were almost over the Dnipro but it was by no means a first-rate unit leading the attack.
The naval infantry was deployed late (and now they apparently have mutinied, you wrote) and VDV was seen on site after a couple of days.
At first, Ukrainian reinforcements were shot down on the highway in large numbers, they did not manage to get much through but Kherson has changed hands a couple of times now and has not taken Mykolaiv so one must assume that Ukrainian reinforcements west of the Dnipro have arrived.
East of the Dnipro they are sniffing around Zaporizhzhia and Mariupol is under storming, they had TOS1 in Berdyansk yesterday.
I understand there is a desire to take a larger city but right now the Russians are burning everything in that storming so they have had less advancement northwards, they lost Tokmak and some unit surrendered near Zaporizhzhia.
Today I see nothing about new conquests, it is Zaporizhzhia, Huliaipole and Volnovakha that one should keep an eye on.
You have also written that Russian reinforcements take time to get down to Crimea, they have already sent VDV there and the naval infantry is deployed so now it’s probably about rolling something there?
Reasonably the only remaining card to play is to try to advance south of the Dnipro hoping to take all of eastern Ukraine up to the Dnipro. This is at least a couple of weeks away and I don’t think the Russian army will hold together that long 🙂
There has been too much focus on Kiev and Kharkov when the southern offensive has spread out like a fan and now there is street fighting inside central Mariupol (I think if you look at the map).
13:56
The rebels, LPR and DNR (or whatever they are called) have done very little in terms of advancement.
LPR takes a few villages in the arc that bulges eastward north of Luhansk and DNR has tried to take Volnovakha but has not succeeded and probably participates in the storming of Mariupol one can guess.
They are supported by regular Russian units and I wonder what numbers there are in Donbass since they were probably not counted among these 200,000 mobilized soldiers and have some combat experience?
If the Russians started rolling up the front along the ceasefire line, would the rebel army pose a threat?
14:22
14:02 – when you read about the Russians’ communication and then see their equipment. As someone previously wrote in the thread, this can’t just be theft at all levels and then you run an Afghan and it looks good on paper?
We have read about the modernization of the Russian army to death and they have mobilized the best they have to Ukraine. By 2025 at the latest, Russia was supposed to have the most modern army in Europe and be a real threat to our way of life.
Yet we see MTLB and truck-drawn artillery, they have no communication, the equipment is ancient and in poor condition, maintenance is non-existent, and their fieldcraft is incredibly bad, not even survival instinct or street smarts.
On paper, this was a well-equipped elite army but in reality a poorly equipped and badly motivated force that cannot operate between branches and has a siloed organization and zero overview other than what they see in front of them.
Against them stands Ukraine’s army, which has been trained by the West for 7 years and is likely commanded with Western help, and whose special forces are present in large numbers in the country. Unlike the Russians, the Ukrainians have combat experience and fight for their country, so you almost have to look hard to find better soldier equipment.
This was doomed to fail even before it started.
14:53
A thought that might be a bit too speculative but as I see it, this army never had a chance to succeed in invading Ukraine.
Clearly, Putin has not understood what a Potemkin façade this has been.
Has the West understood it? Our intelligence service is not completely inept?
We have been told that Russia was modernizing like never before and would be a threat by 2025 at the latest.
For 7 years, Ukraine has been trained into a capable Western army with combat experience.
I’m not going so far as to say Putin was tricked into this because he/Russia owns all of this and no one else.
But could there be an extra bonus here that they break Russia’s back so they can plunder the country for the next 10 years? I thought they would try to break China in the upcoming recession but maybe it turned out to be Russia this time, allowing the rest of the world to get off easier?
18:36
Reports are coming in about how Omon, FSB, Rosgvardia have started rampaging in the conquered areas.
These units are generally populated by scum and I unfortunately believe that the restraint shown by the operational units is a thing of the past and they will commit abuses against the civilian population.
The Chechens are also involved in the traffic jam towards Kiev and are at best war criminals.
18:40
This is Russia’s best, they damn well have old WW2 steel helmets!
https://twitter.com/golub/status/1498703452784021505?cxt=HHwWgsC-7bG2u8wpAAAA
18:48
So Lukashenko sends in his army to Ukraine after the atomic bomb of sanctions against Russia and a week of bloodbath that will soon end in defeat.
He probably just signed under his at best trial in The Hague but at least he’s not the friend who betrays.
18:48
I didn’t think so, he has been quite street-smart so far and the friend who betrays type.
19:14
This has come up in the thread before, does Russia only have one echelon of attacking units?
I thought there were 2-3 echelons where you start with the third wave?
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1498009282335363072
If this is true, then the reserves, as Cornu says, are mostly Rosgvardia, Omon, and Chechens + maintenance.’
Now the US is talking about the big convoy towards Kiev mostly being maintenance vehicles.
If this is true, then they have used everything and combat value is heading towards zero, so the war is basically over?
19:20
There is a video of prisoners in the link.
These soldiers are in their early 20s and were probably playing Dota as recently as last year.
I think it is valuable to get these testimonies out so that Russia’s population understands what is going on.
https://twitter.com/GlasnostGone/status/1498718317862965248?cxt=HHwWgMC-qdOXwswpAAAA
19:29
Mariupol seems to have survived the day, I also don’t see any new city names in videos so it seems to have been a day of relative calm used to terror-bomb densely populated areas with rocket artillery.
The all-in offensive against Kiev was supposed to come Sunday, at the latest Monday morning. Now it’s Tuesday and the columns are not even near UFA yet.
If it’s true that the naval infantry refused orders, then it might be that the VDV will also sit on their backpacks?
I think tomorrow morning we will see rows of burnt-out vehicles in the two columns towards Kharkov and Kiev. Ukraine will make maximum use of this night.
https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1498680379447857163?cxt=HHwWlsCyjaz3sMwpAAAA
09:21
What has happened since yesterday is that the fighting is now inside Mariupol. Geolocated to the city.
https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1498469970648387588
Yesterday TOS1 was seen in Berdyansk + artillery within range of Mariupol.
Also fighting in Kherson.
The Donbass rebels have probably been sniffing around Volnovakha but no reports of it being taken.
Haven’t seen anything about Bilmak or Rozivka so it can be assumed that there is still a corridor?