12:29
A whole bunch of Russian BTGs are gathering up there, which is perfect. A bunch of them are probably previously knocked out if you google around but others might be defending against Ukrainian trolling. The Russians can’t risk that Ukraine isn’t listening to the thread and charges towards Belgorod and the humiliation would be total if Ukraine captured the city.
Ukraine thus manages to tie up Russian BTGs that would have been needed on other front sections, which is really neat 🙂
13:04
Now that we have officially confirmed that there are offensive operations at Kherson, it’s time to look at how it will go, I see this as a five-step rocket but of course anything can happen along the way. I probably posted that five-step rocket already but simplified a bit: stand and watch Khakovka from the western side of the Dnipro, attack Zaporizhzhia towards Melitopol, go east from Malinovka and the positions northwest of Izyum and cross the Oskil river. This simultaneously while Russian BTGs spin around on the roads behind to reinforce first in the south and then in the north until they run out of fuel.
Crimea and Donbass are the end goals but those moves have not yet played out, Crimea is however a nice wildcard because if things go really fast on the southern front you can just keep pushing. Melitopol is a heavy blockade as good as any and the bridge at Kerch is probably in danger now. The Russians will probably have to fly in reinforcements to Crimea with their personal weapons then.
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In the first phase, Ukraine needs to block retreat routes over the Dnipro AND be able to defend against Russian counterattacks.
This will also be the last battle for the Russian air force and army aviation (helicopters), they have to try to defend the Russian BTGs west of the Dnipro and to do that they have to fly west of the Dnipro. If this was a stroke of genius worthy of the greatest in history, one can guess that the trap is also set for the air force with a potent air defense umbrella, right? We have received several indications that Ukraine’s air force and helicopters have woken up, CAS with SU-25, attack helicopters were probably Canadian Ukrainian, an SU-34 shot down by a Mig-29. We have to keep an eye on Russian air losses because if the Russian air force doesn’t go all in at Kherson it means they can’t go all in at Kherson which is even better than if they die in Kherson.
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If I may guess, there is some sluggishness in the Russian staff and west of the Dnipro is still prioritized so a general order to retreat will not come immediately here. Then the command on site is probably quite poor since they have lost many higher officers in the famous staff location massacre. Defending works but when you have to start acting against the clock and make decisions against current orders it can lock up in places. The place for the crossing is not directly threatening if you are in a hole in Kherson so for the BTGs themselves it probably takes a while to understand what is going on.
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The Russians have seen this coming if anyone in the thread thought I was first and should tone down a bit because they started bringing up T62s and 20 Grad systems from Crimea before MR BEAN as the first person in Sweden posted about Ukraine’s offensive, worth putting on the CV I think Mr Bean. They are now trying to reinforce at the breakthrough with T62 and BMP-1, yes you heard right, it’s that bad now 😊
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Erik14 also posted a comment that took me a while to process, the Russians have brought up everyone who can hold a weapon from Crimea from all branches. They are scraping together everything they can here and trying to plug the hole. Hardly more panic than this, right…
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Since the critical mass is to Ukraine’s advantage, the Russians cannot take any BTGs from Kherson or Ukraine will break through there, Snihurivka is probably in danger right now. If they try to send BTGs from the southern front it will be too weak there. You can ease the pressure at Severodonetsk and Popasna but good luck getting Putin on board with that proposal now that victory is within reach, it would be a smart move from Ukraine to retreat from Severodonetsk, maybe also Lyzhyshansk 🙂 The solution will probably be to send BTGs down from Belgorod and if I may guess it’s at least 1.5 weeks before they are at the front lines so too little too late.
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Directly available Ukraine should have 2-3 brigades that have been inactive and 2 brigades that have been in combat for this breakthrough if they wish. Now you can’t push too much in this area because it becomes too easy targets but that’s what is available. That way you keep the pressure up at Kherson and Kryvyi Rih and have the two mech brigades and 1st Tank brigade left for other things, Kupiansk for example.
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When the crossings over the Dnipro are locked, you can always band brigades northwards and cross the Dnipro at Zaporizhzhia if there aren’t enough maneuver brigades there but I think they have an NG and a Mountain brigade that have been in reserve + the mech brigade and a hell of a lot of volunteer battalions. However, it would be smart to have a battering ram with capacity for night fighting there too, battalion size at least so maybe they have split the 5th Tank brigade? They have no shortage of artillery… we’ll see which brigades show up there eventually.
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A wildcard is of course if Ukraine manages to pass existing crossings at the Dnipro just by momentum when the Russians turn and run like car thieves eastwards.
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A fallback that I’d give 50/50 is that Ukraine keeps the pressure up on the southern front and then crosses the Dnipro southwest of Khakovka and at Khakovka and takes Melitopol from that direction. You can also just push straight towards Crimea until it stops. If you lock Melitopol, the Russians can’t relieve Crimea. Crimea itself feels a bit harder to just roll down into because surely the Russians must have fortified it but if they bring up everything they have now to Kherson it might be easy to defend, who knows.
Step one should be to infiltrate all SOF that roam behind the southern front down to Crimea and then start working away the defense with artillery if you can’t roll straight in. The air force should probably stay away.
13:25
The 12:56 comment on the blog was very interesting because it has been quiet about Russian reinforcements for a very long time now. Almost a drop in the ocean and above all untrained and unmotivated, so very low combat value on these 30-40 BTGs.
One can only hope they are not sent to Ukraine for their own sake.
So, reinforcements are over…
14:18
Yes, I’m a bit unclear, Ukraine must also take all crossings of the Inhulets River, they have now started going west from Daydiv Brid and Snihurivka probably has a letter on the maps. If they then come down to Ponyativka or Tokarivka they can calmly lob in Excalibur or whatever fun they have over the bridges.
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I think they are spreading out like a fan west, south, and southwest on the map (Andriivka, Kostromska, Byschynske) and then defending in the east along the north-south running road. The terrain is terrible but you have to have some use for all the new armored reinforcements, I think. Hurry slowly under the LV umbrella and recon the Russians’ fixed positions which the two artillery brigades get to open fire on, then you roll over them at night and sit in the buildings pressing on to the next night, fire and movement without stopping until the objectives are achieved or capacity runs out. The 5th Tank Brigade is the battering ram and mech/airborne follow up to clear, occupy or defend.
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One thing that is quite important here is that the Russians have to move on open roads to reinforce against this offensive and that gives Ukrainian air and helicopters an opening to take them out, then drones and artillery on top of that, and there are whole artillery brigades in the area.
14:27
The last part about Excalibur was written even more sloppily but I hope you understand the idea, I haven’t calculated exactly where you have to stand to lob in towards the bridges but you have the last crossing of the Inhulets down at Darivka.
The Russians will probably then try to put some pontoon bridge further south to get out which is shot down as usual.
I also think drones and aircraft can block the crossings at Kherson quite effectively.
14:31
The most exciting thing here was probably, as the blog writes, that they fill them with officers from the regiment so there will be no more training after that. The equipment will probably be, as Surtrutn writes, what they train on, so not the hottest but not T62 and BMP-1 either, something in between, T72?
14:36
Pro-Russian but a very educational video from artillery shelling and it is posted by Ukrainians, the blog will have to remove it if it breaks the rules.
https://t.me/intelslava/30247
15:24
For this battle report they went a bit extra 🙂
If you want to see the famous car thieves again, scroll in a bit in the film.
“The artillery war continues. Ukrainian defenders are chasing and burning the enemy military equipment across the plantations of Kherson Region and Mykolaiv Region. Run away from our lands, miserable subjugators and murderers. Kherson, hold on, we are close!”
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3494909-russian-occupiers-destroyed-with-ukrainian-artillery-in-southern-ukraine.html
20:08
Wasn’t the tear gas exercise quite a long time before the decontamination exercise, the tear gas I thought sucked. There were probably two who had tight gas masks and then the skin was irritated the rest of the week because you weren’t allowed to shower and had been sloppy about sealing wrists, neck, etc. Never understood the point of it.
21:41
If you sit and mad-click on the timeline, that is a very new contested area, right?
Like they took Blahodasne last night and a couple of days after they crossed the Inhulets?
Exciting as hell that, the head of Kherson defense will probably have a really hard time choosing where to send the reserves soon 🙂
It must reasonably mean that they keep the pressure up across the whole Kherson front and that it bulges here and there.
21:50
Could it be as simple as having two attack routes and that the purpose is to lock all three bridges over the Dnipro with indirect fire?
If you take Kyselivka with a night attack it’s almost like you can get bearing on the bridges at Kherson and you seem to be one settlement away now. Or it’s like up in Kharkiv that as soon as you start pressing with what you have, cracks appear and you somewhat surprised press on and report upwards that the Russians are retreating.
Quite strange because according to the unit maps there are 3 elite BTGs there lurking. Maybe in panic they have sent some BTG to the breakthrough at Daydiv Brid?
Or maybe it’s like the most positive hope that Ukraine has loaded up with so many maneuver brigades, artillery and other things that say bang so it’s just to roll over the defense 🙂
Really exciting.
22:08
According to Ukrainian Canadian, it is all the maneuver brigades along the Inhulets that have crossed at several river crossings.
The two mech brigades, air mobile and 5th Tank brigade?
We got that in the first message from Mr Bean but then there was some kind of picture that they crossed at Daydiv Brid and spread like a fan but according to our Canadian it seems to be like the first message.
(yes I know I think he is a basement dweller…)
https://twitter.com/CanadianUkrain1/status/1530999914322440193?cxt=HHwWgsC9xe-Tmr8qAAAA
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At the same time Mr Simpleton reports that things are starting to move also at Kherson so it almost feels like they have put in the 5th Tank brigade as a battering ram in battalion size in a couple of places and that all maneuver brigades along the entire Kherson front are moving in the direction of the Dnipro now, we’ll see.
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It almost starts to feel like they take settlements at night and then blow on with artillery against the next defensive line/settlement during the day, according to StefPalm they are pounding towards Chornobovaika which is three settlements closer to Kherson (or rather a suburb of the city) than where they are now. You should probably be able to see on FIRMS during the week when they start updating after the weekend.
22:37
Tracks are short distances and they wear out incredibly, there is a number of miles they can handle.
Tracked howitzers are not driven around between different front sections, they are unloaded from heavy transport behind the front and then they move forward in short hops, roughly.
Howitzers can be moved long distances.
Both types must of course change firing positions often, in this war it is probably often after 2-3 hours I guess because the Russians are slow but I don’t know.
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Historically, tracked howitzers have been the ones that are splinter-protected but now some similar to Archer have appeared which are probably not so bad. Then as many have said in roadless terrain and difficult seasons it’s not so bad to have wide tracks. The Germans got caught on that during their adventure in the east, their tracks were too narrow. The Russians on the other hand have built tanks for flat terrain and as soon as it gets hilly they can’t stand behind a hill and lower the barrels enough like a western tank so they have a harder time standing on an uphill slope which many natural covers often have.
22:42
I can’t decide if they should release the city immediately so the Russians get completely excited and think they have made a breakthrough and send everything there despite the highest command in Kherson panic messages on WhatsApp that now it’s really over or if they should hold as long as they can to maximize the Russians’ effort there.
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What they absolutely should do is tactical retreat from Severodonetsk and Lysychansk before there is an encirclement, if there is an encirclement. If they can hold the city or cities it would of course be perfect just to really rub in to the Russians how terrible they really are.
01:30
They will probably try to lay a pontoon bridge south of the bridges at Kherson if they are blockaded, and there will be a mass exodus as usual.
I think the bottleneck will clear quite soon because they are pushing in the reserves they have, and when they run out there is not much to do. There is a pretty strong creeping feeling of – I’m done for – when you have a river at your back and Ukraine starts clearing, no one wants to be the last over the bridge when it opens.
02:18
A bit unclear but it seems they are pushing from Kryvyi Rih as well. That would mean all brigades west of the Dnipro have advanced.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1531029794724380673?t=H2Bc9ahC3M6jWDUjFnnjRQ&s=19
02:19
Second on that, Erik14 was first surprise surprise
12:27
I the end, as the last person in the thread, I have now understood that Deepstatemap has a date function so you can see how the front lines move over time since the start of the war, which I have been looking for…
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If you go to April 20 or a bit later and zoom in on the forest area southwest of Izyum, you can very clearly see how the Russians took that forest area up to the Seversky Donets river and then lost a large part of that forest area, it is now contested almost all the way to Izyum.
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No normally functioning individual believes that the Russians voluntarily gave up a tactically important forest area near the city of Izyum when they pumped down 25 BTGs and it was so important that their Chief of Staff was there pointing with the whole hand just because there were too many mosquitoes and it was a bit swampy?
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It is my strong conviction that the fires on FIRMS early in May and the river crossing were a serious blow to the Russian units in that area. It was the second stop for tour-de-777 and one of the heavy elephants west of the Izyum offensive got the feeling and crossed the river. We have discussed this so much that it almost becomes boring but I want to try to have the last word here, Deepstatemap is supposed to be used by the Ukrainian army according to the blog 🙂