11:44
Very well reasoned.
Now I think quite a few of us are starting to feel that Ukraine can throw out Russia and restore the pre-2014 borders.
But what happens then, it’s not Ukraine’s job but the free democracies that must make sure that Russia cannot just do another advance like this past winter and start round 2. Someone suggested that the long-range artillery is probably meant to deny Russia the ability to terror-bomb Ukrainian territory when they are back on their own and Ukraine can probably pinpoint some buildup nodes and depots but a bigger grip on all of Russia MUST happen so that we don’t get a new Cold War where they just prepare for another fiasco.
15:07
Hello and thanks yourself for always good posts, yes there is probably no hurry to push south from Zaporizhzhia just as you say. I thought in times of highest optimism, you remember when there was a video of trucks driving like car thieves from Kherson Airport, that Ukraine would be able to cross the bridges over the Dnipro just by momentum but it didn’t quite turn out that way.
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Yes to everything else, the advance towards Kupiansk should keep going because it is such a big gain and Donbass (north of the Horlivka pocket/bow should be mobile fighting as I understand it, potato field versus tank wreck.
20:10
Maybe I am really wrong in my thought that Ukraine will go towards Melitopol since the Russians seem to have built up both on the Kryvyi Rih side but also the eastern side of the Dnipro below Zaporizhzhia. It is completely ecstatic on pro-Russian sites that Zaporizhzhia will fall in a day or so as usual.
11:32
Russia has during the night sent I don’t know how many rockets and there is constant artillery fire so they are going all out with everything they have now. What is interesting is that they are striking targets all over Ukraine and I think their definition now of what they are to conquer is – Mykolaiv Oblast and all of eastern Ukraine east of the Dnipro up to Kharkiv, so Kharkiv seems to have been written off. There are so many different statements here but these maps are starting to spread quite actively in pro-Russian media.
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This is an enormous effort that they do not have the resources for but it guarantees that they will wear down all their BTGs in attempts to achieve, in their eyes, a strategic goal which is defined by the Bunker Dwarf pointing at a map and saying “give me”. That they have not written off Odessa is strange since they could have retreated east of the Dnipro and held the crossings so they get more resources for the southern front but nothing Putin does is rational.
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As said, artillery ammunition and rockets are probably the critical line here and it’s quite amusing that Ukraine strikes targets on Russian territory daily, or with help from others, because we do remember the constant fireworks in Belgorod which now seems to have been replaced by high-value targets all over Russia. Forest fires and derailments are risk-free sabotage but I think it signals that there is a Putin resistance inside Russia or Ukraine has infiltrated a sabotage army over seven years that is now activated, the former seems more likely. Go Ukraine and as many have pointed out, when certain artillery arrives they can reach targets up to Moscow and artillery shells are not exactly easy to knock out so hopefully it will get lively.
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Is there anyone in the thread who has an idea of how many BTGs have not seen combat in this spring offensive?’
Erik14 has posted pictures of some columns and I guess those are the 20 BTGs that were pulled away north of Kyiv for refit and are now being sent down towards Izyum?
We have to relate to the figure of 85 BTGs which is the upper estimate from most open OSINT and the US, UK, etc.
It IS not more than under 100,000 men and considering that Russia has abandoned 60% of its frontline + Mariupol it signals that they have a shortage of units, otherwise they would have just continued.
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Now the smaller breakthrough at Izyum is probably not planned by Ukraine but, with the luxury of sitting at a keyboard, it’s not a bad idea if they press west of Kramatorsk/Slovyansk because the further south they get the harder it will be to rescue them.
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Another strategic mistake that now seems to be playing out and here maybe the dead generals at Kherson airport play a role in why they had the meeting, is that the Russians seem to be pushing in new resources for an advance towards Kryvyi Rih. If it is true as pro-Russian sites say that Ukraine has a buildup near Zaporizhzhia there are enough defenses to stop that offensive and then they also stand on the wrong side of the frontline just like all BTGs north of the Kramatorsk – Severodonetsk line as soon as Ukraine starts a counterattack.
One actually starts to wonder how much the Russians have left at the southern front here, especially the area closest to the Dnipro,
looking at the unit map Ukraine has moved forward the 19th Rocket Brigade and Azov just SE of Zaporizhzhia and has previously had the 59th Mechanized Brigade there so Melitopol is definitely a possible target + there are probably units there we don’t know about. We don’t know where the 46th Air Assault Brigade and 15th Mechanized Brigade are.
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I have to admit here that there are fewer and fewer reserves of the heavy and elite brigades, a lot have been placed along the northern front which is probably smart, I would have thought they would solve it with infantry and send all the heavy elephants eastwards but then they would have lost the war with such a lousy strategy… There are probably three more mech and airborne brigades as possible reserves since they have been behind the fronts and we don’t know where they are.