16:19
Now I understand how you think KLASA, you interpret my posts as if Ukraine will roll into Mariupol tomorrow.
I might be a bit eager, but an attack of this magnitude will probably play out over a couple of weeks if Ukraine is hurrying slowly.
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The big question mark is where they cross the Dnipro and I think that will be decisive for how they act afterwards. It is quite possible that they will not cross at Kherson and Kakhovka and will have to go around via Dnipro, but then at least they have cleared all terrain west of the Dnipro to start with.
16:42
Now I get all information from websites that the Russians also read, so no direct danger and that I break “a Swede keeps quiet” 🙂
The map below states itself that it should be updated,
https://militaryland.net/ukraine/deployment-map/
I think it matches relatively well with the info we get and then I make logical assumptions, i.e. the 80th air mobile is grouped in the combat area and the 28th Mechanized has been moved up, so logically the 80th air mobile should also be fighting.
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I might write a bit definitively sometimes in eagerness
16:56
Putin has damn completely lost grip on reality. So for him to be able to give a speech in Moscow, about twenty planes have to circle around completely aimlessly. This while his army is bleeding out in Ukraine and would need the maintenance that these 20 planes could deliver.
17:43
We have speculated that “the Russians are holding back their best units and starting with the third-rate ones” and that they would strike soon. Over time, we have understood that the best they had of the maneuver battalions mechanized, armour and rifles is a third-rate.
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What we haven’t discussed yet is if Ukraine might have done the same, the Russians have bled against the National Guards and less heavy units and the real elephants have been held back?
In some places they had to deploy them for the line to hold but I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be more mechanized fighting from Ukraine’s side.
17:49
17:12 comment, exactly, for this to de-escalate Ukraine must succeed with something spectacular, like mass surrender, for the Russian people to understand that the emperor has no clothes and depose him.
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If Putin is allowed an out, he will wriggle through it and can calmly rearm the Russian army into a real threat in 10 years.
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It is my strong hope that Ukraine can strike eastward from Kherson and reach a local decisive victory that might be enough, but it also gnaws a bit here that they have not made as big an advance as it seemed for a while.
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A frozen conflict and we have the Cold War 2.0 which will suck. The outcome will be the same but the whole EU will live in constant war preparedness for 10 years.
23:23
You have to give the Russians that they lead from the front.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1504916368302424066?cxt=HHwWhICy1dXdxOIpAAAA
23:46
We will probably have reason to return to this but Ukraine has learned 3D combat, fire, movement, indirect fire, infiltration, fire ambush, mechanized combat and drones which are the new black.
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It has been a bit difficult to fight advancing Russian units on the move but if the Russians now try to dig in, they become very easy targets for Ukrainian artillery spotters who seem to fly drones nowadays. You can simply remove everything that can be fought, vehicles, armor, headquarters, maintenance and then start nibbling at the positions at night with small mobile groups.
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We haven’t quite reached that yet but if Ukrainian mechanized counteroffensives do not deliver the quick decision in the south that one hopes for, then this 3D combat will wear down the Russian defense quite quickly, it will be damn hard for Putin to freeze the war. We have at least 1.5-2 months left before the weather gets good and maintenance starts to be knocked out, depots, junctions, railway hubs and the so valuable fuel tankers.
23:55
Liveuamap has now updated after the fighting at Mykolaiv, you can select days and from March 10 which was a fan out from Mykolaiv the Russians have been pushed back halfway to Kherson.
https://liveuamap.com/en/time/18.03.2022
09:56
As the blog well wrote yesterday, the 28th Mechanized Brigade has participated in the attack on Mykolaiv – Kherson, so it has been rolled up from Odesa but left the 5th Tanks Brigade behind there.
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We haven’t heard too much about the Russian units that fought north of Mykolaiv, but they had spread out like a sort of fan-shaped V to the west and north of Mykolaiv, so there is a reasonable chance that cut-off units remain in the area now that it went so quickly down towards Kherson.
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A quick look at the map, the 80th Air Assault Brigade and 59th Mechanized Brigade were already engaged around Mykolaiv and it is likely that the 17th Tank Brigade has also been deployed. So, 4 of Ukraine’s heaviest and most experienced brigades are participating in the attack on Kherson. The fighting on this side of the Dnipro has also been lighter, so one can assume that the combat value is high.
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We should hear about a crossing of the Dnipro quite immediately, so one can assume it has not happened yet.
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Anyone in the thread who knows which units the Russians have west of the Dnipro and what is between Tomak – Mariupol – northern Crimea? I am thinking about what Ukraine is facing if they were to strike eastward towards Mariupol.