04:08
So, I am in Sweden and have lost it but for the rest of the meeting it is morning and they are sitting drinking coffee and seem quite alert.
04:18
We have been saying for a while that Ukraine has captured more than they have lost and the image below looks like they are doing a good job putting the vehicles into combat again.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1518638287610650626?cxt=HHwWhIC5tb_epJMqAAAA
04:20
If Ukraine takes Snihurivka they can put the bridge at Khakovka under indirect fire with the new guns they have received and the right ammunition.
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Now maybe they don’t want to blow up their own hydroelectric power plant but if it’s between that and capturing 8 BTGs of the Russians’ elite units it feels like a scorched earth tactic is in order.
11:00
Also want to remind about MADMAX’s post yesterday that they took out a Russian staff meeting/command meeting/administration meeting in Kreminna with a classic big blast. It seems like Ukraine is getting information almost in real time and just sitting and waiting for sufficiently high-value targets?
11:09
Third on that ball I just saw now…
11:25
Erik14 posted a video yesterday of reinforcements coming up from Simferopol, they were soft vehicles.
Some other posts have been armor.
What I am really after is – what is rolling towards the front?
It must be supplies and the armor they have left but are the Russians starting to send forward mobilized reserves in the form of infantry?
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A figure that is thrown around is that Russia has a military (doesn’t quite fit with defense forces) of 1 million.
But breaking it down, the army is about 300,000 and then they have run an Afghan war so a bit less than that and the part that is combat units is smaller since it includes logistics, railway troops, engineers, etc.
I am quite convinced they have sent in everything that is available now and if that matches 85 BTGs it is about 100,000 men left to wear out, the rest are dead, deserters, gone home after broken contracts or wounded.
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Even Western media are now spreading the message that Russia is mobilizing its “million army”.
If the entire military is 1 million and 300,000 in the army of which maybe under 180,000 are combat units, with the same breakdown on the reserves of 2.4 million there are 430,000 combat soldiers left to deploy.
(not exact math I know…)
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Since these are Russians, they will first break everything they have so command structures are gone and these 430,000 arrive more or less as they come and are thrown into combat untrained and unmotivated and against that is Ukraine’s 300,000 men in maneuver brigades + endless infantry, as many as they have managed to arm.
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According to earlier, the Russians had only managed to mobilize 20,000 of the 60,000 they announced so of these 430,000 maybe they manage to scrape together what, 200,000 in the end and above all there is a big hole now after the spring offensive and until these arrive which Ukraine WILL exploit maximally exactly like last time and this time they will take back everything they can in the East, Donbass and Crimea if possible.
11:52
Go to Militaryland’s unit map because they have made a big update.
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At Kherson, Ukraine now has as many as 6 elite brigades at the front and 2 brigades in reserve, one marine and the 5th Tank Brigade which seems to be a reserve brigade they are probably training hard. We have quite good knowledge that the bridges are soon if not already under indirect fire, and that damn road P74 that I never find 🙂
That is 4-5 battalions X 6 = +24 battalions of mech, armor, marines and motorized and 8-10 more available in the area.
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The Russians have had 6-8 BTGs in the area and are reinforcing but with how many then, 4-5 more BTGs (I don’t know just guessing)?
Kherson is a blow just waiting to be delivered, we know that Ukraine has taken Kyselivka and the Russians have RETREATED to Chornobaivka (others in the thread have posted).
Looking at the maps the terrain sucks and Ukraine will probably have to very slowly take one small protected settlement at a time and move forward positions, a Russian doctrine attack will be a bloodbath but now they can hammer everything in Kherson with guided artillery and real-time information. The smaller the area becomes the more is concentrated in a small space and the Russians seem to seek safety in each other when it heats up, they stand in a pile and just wait to die.
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As the thread has said for a couple of days, the introduction of Russian units west of the Dnipro is a strategic mistake that only means they stand on the wrong side of the river when Ukraine launches its counteroffensive. In the absolute best case they drive like car thieves over some remaining bridge with huge losses. There are not many roads to the bridge over Kakhovka either…
The Russians have rarely acted rationally but this is something beyond the usual, instead of holding a natural obstacle they make sure the obstacle is to their disadvantage.
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Ukraine has at least a 3:1 strength advantage here and that is more than enough for a victory but they don’t want to take unnecessary losses and are probably proceeding slowly.
11:56
What is a bit funny about this war is that it is going so badly for the Russians that all their contacts in the West must go against the current and shine like a spotlight on a dark autumn night.
Spontaneously it is the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, Jan G, Hirdman, Pierre Sch, Tro och Solidaritet, V and a few others that you immediately see as well as a bunch of left-wing debaters. Then you have the Qanon right and all the “alternative media” sites that you probably never read again.
It scares me how good the Russians have been at building opinion and media impact in the West…
12:03
With Pskott you would aim a little high because when the projectile left the tube it dropped a bit as I recall?
A fun detail with GRG and backblast when we fired them in the trench was that there was a hell of a blast from the backblast if you lay too low in the trench and the blast hit the wall behind you. The back of my calves and thighs felt like someone had whipped them continuously for an hour but you learned after one shot. It had support so you aimed where you wanted to hit.
There was also a second lieutenant who loaded our first shots and after firing he had his arm behind the tube and had to go with his arm in a cast and pinned support for the rest of our conscript time.
12:16
Russian agents is a bit of a strong word, ideologically connected is what I would use. They interpret everything to Russia’s advantage and try to facilitate for them, whatever reasons they may have. If you go out in the media and try to turn opinion against important issues like arming Ukraine, beating the hell out of Russia and joining NATO you should reasonably be branded in the critical situation we are in today?
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Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society went out on TV at the same time as Russia had its message that “if Sweden gives weapons to Ukraine they will end up in terrorists’ hands, don’t give weapons” the message was almost identical to what was read from Russia a day or so later.
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V did not want to give weapons to Ukraine, probably the only party that voted against that parliamentary decision?
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SD + Qanon + alternative sites have gotten stuck in a USA-bad and Russia is a necessary counterweight. I sit with fully functioning Swedes in other forums who believe THIS HARD. Here a serious damn deprogramming is needed because they have probably become useful idiots without realizing it.
12:29
There have been some brigade movements around Kharkov and Izyum – Severedonetsk.
It seems like they are trying to retake all the settlements N and E of Kharkov and the 72nd Mechanized and 127th Infantry brigades are working on it.
They also need to secure all terrain west of Pechennivy and up to defensible terrain so that the Russians cannot cut off the advance towards Kupiansk just by driving down a wedge east of Kharkov.
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The whole arc would presumably be a mobile fight back to the forested line Kramatorsk – Severedonetsk but they haven’t even managed to push Ukraine back there and, as someone said above, there are hectares of potato fields with an incredible number of tank wrecks right now.
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Things are going terribly badly for the Russians in the northern part of the arc/pocket Horlivka and near Izyum and the losses are sky-high. Ukraine has 10 elite brigades around the entire arc and thus 4-5 x 10 or 40 to 50 battalions. Add to that all the national guards, territorial defense, and national battalions that are hiding in the cities.
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From the north and striking southwards, the Russians probably have about 50 BTGs in total, I find it hard to believe they have more than that but maybe someone has more exact figures and half of them have been fighting around Izyum with each other in a huge traffic jam for a little over two weeks and should be pretty worn out. The other half probably still have some energy left, one would guess?
It’s not clear to me if the extra 20 BTGs that rested north of Kiev are included here or are additional.
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The northern part of the pocket/arc north of Horlivka will stop quite soon and then, as is well known, they will be on the wrong side of the front line when Ukraine can start its counteroffensive at the southern front and Donbass.
12:38
This leads us to Donetsk and the southern front, it seems to be quite lively around Donetsk and near Vuhledar as Ukraine, according to Militaryland, has plugged in quite a few brigades there.
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South of Zaporoznye there is now only one mechanized brigade and some Azov, and as the blog writes, there is soon a potential attack on Zaporoznye which is a bit unfortunate because then that part of the southern front is no longer weak. This started being discussed in pro-Russian forums a while ago, both Ukrainian buildup and Russian offensive.
By a stroke of luck, the Russians have prepared their own offensive exactly where Ukraine intended to push and take Melitopol.
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Now there may be 3 heavy brigades we don’t know the location of and which could potentially reinforce Zaporoznye, and then the endless amount of infantry, of course. We might have to wait a bit longer for a Ukrainian offensive against Melitopol.
12:41
That will do for now, I think it’s a bit funny that in China you can still smoke in the office, when they come an hour into the meeting and start getting tired and restless, the cigarettes come out and they puff happily for the rest of the meeting and there’s always someone who really coughs up phlegm.
15:48
Now this isn’t really a discussion I hope takes over the thread but what do you really think about the environmental movement and Swedish Peace Ben Dover?
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The environmental movement has given us the electricity crisis that led Russia to think they could attack Ukraine and Swedish Peace wants us demilitarized and the US not to come near but you’ve never heard a peep about Russian military buildup?
I’m pretty convinced both are children of Russian psyops considering the damage they have caused.
You’ve also never heard the environmental movement complain about Russian gas which is quite funny, they even tried to classify it as environmentally friendly while our hydropower is supposed to be removed.
15:49
But I’ll probably leave this discussion because I don’t really have a direct stance on the issue other than that everyone should do what’s best for Sweden and our buddies and if they don’t I complain a bit about them.
15:57
Yes, we often have this discussion 🙂
No, you’re right that it’s probably not 100% but it’s the same OSINT that ISW and others comment on since Ukraine itself doesn’t reveal its troop movements and that’s what we have to relate to, the Russians’ troop movements are much harder and extremely rough guesses but I try to write that.
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I’ve always thought 4 battalions but then googled brigades and often they have a bit more, an armored company and reconnaissance company or an extra battalion. Take this one for example, so I started writing 4-5 battalions but maybe that’s a bit much. You also often say they aren’t full-strength brigades since they’ve detached battalions and that’s probably true too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/92nd_Mechanized_Brigade_(Ukraine).
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At Kherson, OSINT has been very consistent with the number of BTGs but if you think like this, staging area towards Mylokaiv and helicopter, maintenance and all that at the airport, staffs, Rosgvardia, administration and you probably end up at 25,000. Now we know they have reinforced but we don’t know by how much but the last I saw before that was 8 BTGs at most and then there’s marine infantry, VDV and guards armor. Then you have some reconnaissance and spetsnaz on top.
The Russians are definitely stretching the bow too far here, Putin wants the land route to Odessa…
20:35
I know it’s a bit borderline optimistic but I’ve almost stopped looking at what the Russians are achieving in their offensive and scan the net to be first in the thread with the post that Ukraine’s offensive has started 🙂
I know it won’t be tomorrow but when the time comes it will be a few happy days in the comment section.
20:47
There you misinterpreted a bit Ben Dover 🙂
20:47
Or maybe the comment wasn’t directed at you, in which case I take back calling you a pedophile.
20:52
20:46, if I may venture a guess it will sound like this on May 9 – “we have achieved our goals, Mykolaiv oblast is ours, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are incorporated into Russia and we are ending the war.”
The reality is that they have lost down to Crimea and there is some cleanup left in Donbass 🙂
There is no reason for Putin to stick to the truth and if you’re going to lie you might as well go all out.
04:07
Sitting in a meeting in another time zone in Asia so I haven’t completely lost it and am not sitting here all night 🙂
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Ukraine has taken Kyselivka north of Kherson and it is within artillery range of at least the large bridge over the Dnipro but probably also the smaller one considering the ammunition that has likely been sent.
To cross the Dnipro, the Russians in Kherson need to drive 55-60 km up to Kakhovka to cross the river on that bridge.