12:17
Transnistria is too little too late (just like everything else in this war).
If it had come in the first week it would have been a serious situation.
Now Ukraine has Neptune and whatever the British anti-ship missiles are called so they won’t get anywhere near that coast and Moskva with the entire landing force is gone.
In Transnistria there are 2,500 Russian soldiers + the militia the Transnistrians themselves have, whatever that may be.
Moldova’s army is just over 6,000 so nothing that a bit of Western SOF can’t quietly handle 🙂
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Now I know this is extremely unconfirmed but down there is also the 45th Air Assault brigade and in Odessa there is the 5th Tank brigade if it’s not up near Kherson and we also have the people’s army with almost endless battle-hardened infantry so if the small Russian force starts moving towards Ukraine they’re finished in a week.
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Yes, as many write, the Russians are hell-bent on all countries that are not in NATO, pretty clear.
12:26
Quite a lot of discussion in pro-Russian media that they are “neutralizing” sabotage groups inside Russia and pictures of shot-up cars, captured and killed. They have to write something when all of Russia is one big New Year’s fireworks display but it seems to be a fairly coordinated campaign against targets in Russia right now, explosions daily, from both drones and on the ground.
12:41
By Western SOF helping the Moldovans, I mean here.
12:43
Seems like Romania is solving the problem, according to a pro-Russian source,
“There’s rumor that a ‘large number of Romanian soldiers and officers’ have been deployed to Moldova under Moldovan uniforms, including officers and commanders replaced by Romanian counterparts”.
12:46
Here you have an insanely good piece of news if it’s true, we have speculated for a long time in the thread whether Poland could secure Ukraine’s northern border against Belarus for example to free up some angry soldiers for the eastern front. Pro-Russian source,
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“❗️Poland is secretly preparing a “liberation campaign” against Ukraine. For this purpose, a set of measures is being carried out – the supply of weapons, equipment and mercenaries across the Polish-Ukrainian border. Several formations of the Polish Army – the 18th motorized rifle division and the 6th airborne brigade – are preparing for a “peacekeeping mission”
The Polish Army stepped up measures to the maximum extent possible to complete the units to wartime states. The recruitment of “volunteers” is carried out through the websites of the Ministry of Defense of Poland.”
12:50
I know this has been discussed but quite a few videos of dead Ukrainians on pro-Russian sites are lined up or in a pile.
Sometimes it’s probably that they dragged them to a place but I often get the feeling that they have been liquidated. It could be that after the prisoner video was filmed they simply shoot them?
It’s such an enormous contrast to the first two weeks when Ukrainians gave Russian prisoners water and bread in all videos.
13:18
Mariupol is coming up on the agenda again, it seems like the Russians are working hard to eliminate the defenders.
IF the Ukrainian counterattack took 40km (which is extremely unconfirmed) then it’s almost halfway to Mariupol.
My take on this is that the Russians have reinforced their offensive west of the Dnipro and then are working their way north near Vuhledar and Velyka so the southern front is the weak point here and it could go quite fast once it starts moving.
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Of course, you can’t try to push a wedge down to Mariupol, even I understand that, but if Ukraine can start pressing in several places on the southern front combined with accurate artillery and SOF it could create a Russian collapse that will play out lightning fast because I’m pretty sure the Russians are not defending in depth here.
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This may be old information but it was something like 6-7 BTGs around Mariupol which have now been sent north and then 5-6 BTGs along the southern front. If they have reinforced Kherson and then push towards the old ceasefire line there must be a weak spot somewhere around where the information was that Ukraine advanced 40km.
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Consider here that the southern front and straight north have not been a prioritized attack target for the Russians, they have concentrated north of the pocket/bow Horlivka and at Kherson. Ukraine is not strong in that area either but some kind of force buildup is going on there that we don’t yet know about.
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It will probably be a while before something happens but there are many hints from many different sources that Ukraine is eager for offensive operations, we’ll see 🙂
14:27
I’m probably the wrong person to answer here but just like after the first offensive when Ukraine took back 60% of the front line, the air will go out of the spring offensive pretty soon and then Ukraine can retake Crimea and Donbass because the Russians have bet everything on red and probably didn’t plan for a defense in depth.
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After that Russia has the possibility for some kind of general mobilization and to within 3-6 months carry out a renewed offensive against Ukraine but that can only be with older/worse equipment, worse soldiers, fewer missiles and less artillery and during that time the Ukrainian military will have become one of the world’s strongest, best-armed and most battle-hardened we’ve seen in modern times. It’s only a matter of time before the US has trained Ukrainian personnel on their weapon systems and empties the mobilization depots and gives fat contracts to MID so they upgrade themselves to the year 2150.
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If Russia chooses to go for round 3, 4, 5 or whatever we end up with it will be a long war but it will hardly be fought on Ukrainian soil – the Russians will try an offensive at some limited front to gain the upper hand, be pushed back, their logistics will be in ruins etc. The losses will be absolutely astronomical, Tannenberg every time.
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If the West sees that Russia after being kicked out of Ukraine simply carries out some kind of full mobilization one can guess it will continue as now with explosions in Russia daily and that they disrupt the buildup with drones and artillery to severely reduce the capability and sanctions will continue unabated. The only reason Russia could mobilize as they did before February 24 was that Ukraine followed the rules of the game…
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Now I think Putin’s lifespan is like a mayfly’s and that when the spring offensive has gone to hell and they have lost Crimea and Donbass the military and others will have had enough but stranger things have happened and Putin is quite a peculiar creature but if you want to bet that he will be dangling by his feet at a gas station before summer ends you probably won’t even get your stake back.
14:34
Ukraine’s losses are absolutely high but they have battle-hardened reserves that plug the gaps and the brigades maintain the command structure and transfer experience to the newcomers filling the ranks – their losses do not result in a reduction of capability and the brigades’ size and combat value remain intact.
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The losses in equipment rather lead to an increase in capability as they now get T72s equipped for night fighting, etc.
They have certainly lost more tanks than they report but have also managed to get captured Russian vehicles operational as units. Within half a year, they’ll be speeding around in Abrams.
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Russian units are being “liquidated” and they lose irreplaceable equipment; with each passing week, their offensive capacity approaches zero. The units they can muster after the spring offensive will be almost useless for conducting offensive operations.
14:49
We know from the blogger that Ukraine is starting to empty western Ukrainian cities of defenses (a bit exaggerated) and send them to the eastern front, and now the report that Poland will send volunteer brigades (stole from someone else in the thread) in some kind of peacekeeping operation. There might be some truth here because otherwise Ukraine probably wouldn’t have started emptying the western half of the country of units.
16:04
What is happening 🙂
Do we now have the almost absurd situation where the FSB is conducting its false flags at the same time as Ukraine/the West is hitting high-value targets?
They could have saved some explosives or gasoline by not doing false flags now when there are fires and explosions everywhere anyway.
This MUST be bigger than Ukrainian pinpricks; in Belarus citizens have been arrested for terrorism and in Russia they talk about sabotage groups but it feels like the dam has burst here.
16:07
Kind of that civic discontent will manifest itself in sabotaging whatever one can.
18:41
My gut feeling tells me that the Russians have concentrated forces at Kherson (25,000 men someone wrote in the thread yesterday) and north of the Isyum – Severodonetsk line and that Ukraine has enough reserves to find a weak spot in the southern front and start rolling it up. Completely sure that we will see at least one more brigade on the unit map down there in a few days because they can still roll over Zaporizhzhia.
Could it be night fighting capability that decides?
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Above I base on a tweet so about as uncertain (and maybe wrong) as when I declared victory at Kherson after a single video of Russian trucks driving like car thieves from the airport 🙂
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Worth noting that the Russians have no reserves if there should be a breakthrough at the southern front, all units are fully occupied fulfilling Putin’s May 9 promise.
18:56
The fighting is quite intense right now, the Russians are throwing everything they have against Ukraine and hoping something will give somewhere. The consumption of fuel and ammunition must be absolutely massive.
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Observation two that I am quite sure of is that the Russians do not have defense in depth precisely because they are pressing everywhere.
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And the last is that Ukraine probably has quite good night fighting capability and can create breakthroughs at night.
10:02
I would like to follow up on some posts from yesterday,
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-Solros2022, at Zaporoznye HULAIBPOLE the Russians were pushed back 40km towards Mariupol. So this is right in the middle of a buildup of Russian units there that were supposed to move towards Zaproznye and a bit west of the Russians’ old favorite “drive north
along the provincial border of Donetsk Oblast”. 40km is a retreat.
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-KLASA has been focusing on Snigurivka which has a very strategic value for cutting the bridge over Kherson, and Solros2022 posted that they are advancing towards that city at rocket speed. Considering that Ukraine has recaptured Kyeslivka and soon has all bridges under indirect fire (with the new long-range weapons from the West). These are probably the hints the Canadian dropped yesterday that they are denying the Russians a retreat route over the Dnipro and Ukraine now has the numbers on their side here to eliminate what is west of the Dnipro. As mentioned, there are many rear, logistics, staffs etc. in Kherson so this will be really interesting. The Russians have in parallel built up for a continued offensive west of the Dnipro and Kherson is a good city for logistics and rear.
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Ledsentant posted about additional generals confirmed or unconfirmed, I think it’s crystal clear that Ukraine gets target information in real time and can strike against half-hour meetings effectively. The Russians, on the other hand, barely have radios so they have to meet physically to convey any orders, the dissonance is almost total here.
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KAARU and Solros2022 mentioned that the Russians lost a couple of aircraft with VDV. I remember quite early after the Hostomel fiasco that there were quite a few IL-76s in the air and we thought they would reroute them to Crimea or something instead but then a couple of these were shot down (has been rumored for a while). This also explains why the VDV are endangered, Hostomel, downed IL-76s and those aboard the Moskva as well as heavy fighting.