10:41
Then I read just like someone wrote yesterday that the new Russian commander has been given epithets like “hero” and “mythical general” in Swedish media, DN I think. One is actually surprised every day at how Swedish media has behaved here.
That the leader of L laughingly promised to flee to Norway if there is a war and our media constantly praises Russia to the skies may be a bit more than anecdotes and more a symptom of a severely peace-damaged country?
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The good old Russian hatred needs a comeback for the next 30-40 years I think, in the 90s when I did my military service the Russians were the enemy period.
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50 strf-90 to the Ukrainian border with complete TOLO and heavy transport should already have been done, even Australia has sent armored vehicles now.
10:57
The Russians gain local advantage in the pocket/bow north of Horlivka but Ukraine has the advantage of not starting, they can wait for an opening and strike.
The Russians have artillery and air superiority which sucks and will unleash all this the first week, it starts with an absolutely massive pre-attack and our dear media will portray it as the end and that Ukraine will be forced to capitulate within a week or so as usual 🙂
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Then the ground assault will start and maybe they take the bow north of Horlivka but within max 1-2 weeks Ukraine will strike, west of the Izyum advance there is too much armor and mech for the Russians to hold out provided they can break the air superiority. Virtually all terrain north of Horlivka and eastward will be retaken, is it Luhansk Oblast? The whole Izyum offensive will be encircled.
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Kharkov holds 🙂
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Kherson, it’s probably good for Ukraine that Russia is driving around with 6-8 elite BTGs there I guess? Eventually they will cut the bridge over the Dnieper or have it under direct fire. That Ukraine cannot carry out a counteroffensive along the southern front is a bit of a mystery, it’s probably the air superiority that denies them ground movements maybe? Otherwise they have quite a potent force along the southern front.
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Mariupol must hold but I read just yesterday here that the Russians actually only hold road junctions and certain communities and that Ukraine is rampaging freely over large areas behind the southern front so one can guess that the situation in Mariupol is not as bad as one wants to imply. I do want to know how large the original defense force was, we have said 20,000, pro-Russian media says 14,000 and Wikipedia that it was 4,000. On pro-Russian media they talk about 3,000-3,500 defenders left alive and they still control a large and easily defensible area.
11:01
Yes, in this war it is quite clear that Swedish neutrality is just a way to do nothing which I never believed was the purpose of it. If Finland had been attacked we would probably have discussed ad absurdum until the Supreme Commander got tired and sent everything to Finland on a Friday evening so the politicians wouldn’t have time to act.
NATO becomes a bit compulsory and I’m beginning to see the advantage of it especially against Russia where all countries with a land border should be in NATO.
Then one should probably do the same with China as they terrorize their neighbors.
11:07
A Gotland with some coastal forts would deny Russia movement in the entire southern Baltic Sea with today’s missile ranges.
Make them nuclear bomb safe and you have a guarantee that you have something left to strike with even in the worst-case scenario.
I always wonder about Åland, isn’t that also a prioritized target for Russia?
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Basically, a company with missiles can take out an entire Russian landing and if you breathe life into the Gotland brigade it doesn’t matter how much pre-attack you do because there are always enough missiles left. A nice contribution to NATO 🙂
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A few more submarines and plenty of fighter jets and a couple of battalions (brigades might be pushing it…) whose task in war is to be relocated to Finland.
12:01
11:30, for about a month we have heard the bunker dwarf threaten with nuclear weapons if anyone joins NATO, about ABC attacks and false flags that would make your skin crawl. Then reality knocked with mass rapes and torture-murders of children as young as 5. Doesn’t feel like Russia has anything dangerous to dangle in front of the West anymore and that is probably also why Peskov is starting to backtrack earlier statements about what NATO for Finland would bring?
Everyone has a limit and Russia has probably taken a huge step over the West’s red line and is slowly beginning to understand that.
12:12
The calm before the storm and LW has for a while written about a renewed Russian offensive mid-April and it looks like that is exactly what will happen. A guess is that they will start over a couple of days, so it will be a gradual increase. Not because it is the plan but because the Russians are Russians. 153 planes shot down, that is about 10-15% of the Russian air force?
13:39
You mean when all media said Kiev would fall within two days and the internal culture on this blog was the only one saying it was nonsense with LW at the forefront?
If you ask me this blog has hit more right than Swedish media since day 1, they didn’t want to talk about Ukraine’s counteroffensive at all the first week.
Then we read the coffee grounds and it hasn’t happened yet and then it’s very easy to say it’s free fantasies.
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The encirclement at Kiev was something the blogger was very early out sniffing, as well as the mythical column.
Then not everything goes as planned, at Kherson Ukraine moved its mech brigades east of the Dnieper instead of going for a decisive blow.
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You have all the maps of troop movements and you move a brigade when there are reports that it has fought in a place so not entirely pulled out of thin air 🙂
13:40
Or maybe I misunderstood you and blew it the wrong way 🙂
16:52
I think we have this discussion every day. Nowadays you read the title of an article or the summary and how it is framed is absolutely the most important. If you are then a bit more balanced in paragraph 7 a bit down in the article many miss it.
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On pro-Russian sites they take these articles and write “This is what is written in Sweden” and that gives legitimacy to their peddling. Then above all demoralizing for Ukraine that Western media (exaggerating a bit) praise Russian capabilities and people and the war so far and don’t to the same extent talk about the Ukrainian miracle.
17:24
Tankfri and Surtrutn, yes exactly because we (read I) only read the Ukrainian side and it becomes too positive. LW usually mentions this sometimes in his blog posts that it becomes positive bias. I am very much for highlighting the opposite side normally but in this war when the media seem to see everything from the Russian perspective I decided to take the Ukrainian side as the truth. The Russians do not deserve to have their version discussed even if they are sometimes probably right.
Despite that I have been fooled into thinking Mariupol would fall when Russian psyops started and would probably prefer to forget my pessimistic posts about the city’s impending fall a week ago 🙂
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Yes, I’m sitting in another forum that is not moderated and the whole discussion just becomes fights with trolls which of course is the purpose. Then it escalates and finally you have written something that was not so nice that is taken as your position on the issue forever.
17:37
Speaking of Putin having made literally every possible mistake in this war; waiting for the Olympics to end so the soldiers had time to sell fuel and rations for alcohol and the roads became muddy, failing to bribe Ukraine as the money was stolen along the way, and misjudging the situation so completely that they rolled in as if it were an exercise and were knocked out within a few weeks.
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Now we can soon add that in order to have an end by May 9th for his parade, he will be forced to launch an offensive prematurely, the units that have been pulled back have not had time to recover and the reinforcements probably haven’t had much chance to train and will be sent in against Ukraine somewhat as they arrive against an enemy that has now had time to position itself, rest, receive supplies, and is just waiting.
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I wonder if there is a risk here that Putin will finally, when he hasn’t even managed to take all of Donbass and Luhansk oblast, simply dig in with everything he has there in Donbass and try to freeze the conflict?
Then the last Putin-lovers will probably crawl out and then everyone will go up in falsetto and demand an end to this terrible war and senseless killing and that Russia settles for Donbass?
It will be absurd scenes when Swedish peace advocates claim that Ukraine is the aggressor and Jan G cries on TV over the killing of Russian boys.
17:43
Yes, with the artillery you might be right because there are daily explosions in Belgorod and it’s probably the Russians’ artillery ammunition going up in smoke 🙂
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Now I’m obviously guessing wildly but if you look at the arc north of Horlivka, the Russians will try to take it in the next 1-2 weeks (when they start) and north of that is, in my view, not particularly well fortified?
I’m not talking about Donbass east of the ceasefire line yet, unclear as usual.
Between Kharkiv and Izyum there are 5 brigades waiting, 2 armored, 2 airborne, 1 mechanized, and I’d bet my flip-flops that there is something else there that we don’t know about.
Russian focus will be on moving south so when these 5 brigades start moving eastward it will be straight into the side of an already tired Russian offensive. That’s why I think it will move fast.
BUT… a Ukrainian offensive is completely dependent on whether they can get a protective screen against Russian air power, without that it will probably be difficult.
10:37
The link below is pro-Russian so rumor.
I have long guessed that all Western SOF are in Ukraine and for quite some time now there has been talk about Western SOF in Mariupol which is surrounded and here a TikTok Chechen discusses this.
I belong to those who believe it would be dereliction of duty if Western SOF had not participated in this war, very good.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/72MTe5On9t9Y/