10:21
At Kherson, Ukrainian air and artillery are at least on par with the Russian, I think.
It seems the staffs are finished and now they are going after ammunition on a large scale; there have probably been 5-6 depots destroyed just last week. After that, it’s probably the artillery’s turn and then they grill the BTG. The air force is bombing everything the Russians try to gather to plug the hole at Dayydiv Bridge. There are also a bunch of videos of Ukrainian artillery fighting at the Kherson front, so it’s probably full speed there.
Now everything at Kherson is exactly Twitter rumors, and every community has at least three identical communities in different places in Kherson and Mykolaiv, so you have to be very careful with place names, but according to the Twitter generals, the Russians have so far failed to plug the hole at Dayydiv Bridge and then there’s a loose rumor that Ukraine has reached Tamaryne SE of Snigurivka. About every other day, the air force and army aviation announce they have struck ground targets.
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I’m pretty sure the daily lottery numbers are misleading; I think it’s been a bit of taking yesterday’s figures and adjusting them slightly up or down, the defense ministry seems to have updated poorly on its website, and then yesterday’s letter about how good a job they thought they had done. I don’t really think the daily lottery numbers add much except that it makes you a bit happy about the destroyed armor because the capability reduction is infinitely higher than what the daily lottery numbers suggest. We have discussed that reverse Darwinism applies to Russian BTGs and that the tip is knocked out first. Then all specialist services, battalion commanders are probably the worst, then drivers, gunners, shooters, etc.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3503630-ukrainian-forces-destroy-over-30-invaders-three-ammunition-depots-in-south.html
10:40
Yes, Ukraine has to seize the opportunity before the Russians have the capacity to actually freeze the front because the EU’s support is probably very fleeting. That’s why I think Ukraine is pushing so hard now to get heavy weapons. The US was worried about losing its internal support for Croatia’s Operation Storm during the Yugoslav wars, so they wanted to get the attack going as soon as possible.
Since the Russians are still weakening Kherson, the Southern front, and Donbass for more suicides at the NE front, the window is probably not closed as I thought before when the Russians went into deep defense and it looked like 24 BTGs were in place. Now most of those were empty shells, as we discovered.
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If you see how quickly the media adapts to Russia’s narrative, you can guess what will happen when Putin seriously wants to freeze the situation. Our media will seriously write that Putin wants peace in our time and that Ukraine should be adults and give the world peace. Then most countries will jump on the bandwagon and freeze their arms deliveries except the US and UK. If Russia manages to get some twist on this so that it becomes a “NATO escalation” and China joins in, they might even force the US to slow down.
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Now the delaying battle in Donbass has gone beyond expectations, but there is a risk that Putin tries to freeze the conflict even if he doesn’t take Severodonetsk. Therefore, it is very important that Ukraine takes the Kherson front, preferably locks the bridges and denies Russian BTG retreat, but second best is a street fight over the bridges with enormous losses. After that, Ukraine takes Melitopol and blows up the bridge at Kerch, then Ukraine controls the narrative and I think Putin will have difficulty locking the conflict.
10:46
Now that I said the daily lottery numbers weren’t important, they come in strong and then of course they are very good. Now a BTG has been lost again, which is fun, and the question is where all the armor is being destroyed. I think it’s at Kherson because on other front sections they don’t attack with armor in that way now.
It’s almost an artillery battalion lost daily now if you combine the different systems.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3503667-about-31900-russian-soldiers-killed-in-ukraine-general-staff.html
11:06
Was that video of green-painted vehicles without reactive armor, like unmodified?
At first it was said to be T64, then it became T80, and I have no idea what it was in the end.
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Back then there was some kind of consensus that the Russians could get 3,500 tanks in total, there was someone on YouTube who had visited all Russian bases and counted the tanks and made an assessment of how many were in warm garages. If they have lost 1,400, they should actually have reinforced all 130 BTGs with the same number of tanks and still have reserves. Now most BTGs are low on armor and we have seen T62s at the front, the number was 120, of which 30 were in defense at the southern front and quite a few were sent up to Kherson, “at least one armored battalion.”
To me, it seems they are fortifying the entire southern front and Kherson with these T62s and then sending better models to Popasna, Severodonetsk, Izyum, etc.
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Then we have the reverse Darwinism you write about, the tip has taken the highest losses and for a T72 to fight you need a crew and then a functioning unit. Here you are probably spot-on that the longer time you give the Russians, the better defense they can achieve, and then it is weighed against the new weapons Ukraine gets.
11:08
Yes, a good point came up here, many in Azov had their families with them and maybe sacrificed themselves so that they could live. Unfortunately, they are probably also in filtration camps.
11:18
This is almost too much to take in, I feel, when LW writes “50,000 dead in Mariupol” that means an entire Sundsvall or an entire Östersund has been wiped out. Or like Gothenburg wiped out and 15% of the population dead.
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Mariupol was a real losing ticket because the Russians gained momentum at the southern front the first day, they rolled over Khakovka around lunchtime. Now it’s probably true that Mariupol’s defense saved all of Eastern Ukraine because if they had gone straight north instead, they would have reached Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro quite quickly, but instead they fought bloody battles at Mariupol for quite a while, probably 15,000 Russians or so. The first week there were 200 tanks going towards Mariupol instead of north at the weakest point in all of Ukraine’s defense.
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Why Azov didn’t send their families west of the Dnipro only they know, but yes, they had their families there, hundreds wounded who slowly died, and in a bunker environment with constant artillery so it would never have been possible to hold out.
The only thing I really thought was that those who were not wounded looked to be in fighting condition but only they know why they gave up. Sure, you can jump up and down and scream blue in the face that Putin never keeps a promise but the point is probably mostly why don’t the UN, RC, Turkey, France, and a few others do more?
You can at least put pressure on Russia, it doesn’t cost anything.
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The criticism is therefore not so much against Russia as against those who came in as guarantors. And surely they could have rampaged around Mariupol for a while if they filled their pockets with ammunition and the purpose was to kill Russians.
12:21
May I take the opposite side, after all we are talking about a country that in 1989 (was it) underwent exactly the collapse that one wants to avoid after Western sanctions and an arms race tore the union apart.
Back then, they tried to give Russia fair trade agreements and we ended up where we are today.
Then you must not forget that Soviet tanks stood at East Germany’s border until 1989.
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EU leaders can hardly be so ignorant of history that they feel the best way forward here is to give Putin/Russia room for an attempt? Isn’t the chance greater that they try to starve out Russia as they did with the Soviet Union?
We will have a strong eastern border regardless of what happens but letting the current regime stay and lifting the sanctions would be quite unwise.
13:15
Out of curiosity, we know the Germans’ losses 1939-1941, I get the feeling that the Russians have burned through quite a lot quickly and then have poorly maintained the stocks so that a huge buildup against Ukraine could happen is incredible. That’s what everyone is a bit afraid of, that the Russians get their maintenance chains going and suddenly thousands of functioning armor are delivered to the fronts.
But sure, NATO and the EU should “convert” to a war economy which in this context means taking their defense seriously and actually being able to defend themselves. Now it’s not just Russia that’s a threat but China is jumping on the sidelines together with a motley collection of rogue states that would probably gladly go all in if they feel they get the upper hand. I have interpreted the advantage of NATO as being able to arm without wrecking the economies while those you are in an arms race with will eventually sink themselves.
13:22
Putin has for a long time considered the West weak and will blink first. Russia was supposed to have enormous currency reserves and a raw materials economy that was unaffected and the West would capitulate as soon as the Prada bags stopped arriving. I also think the Russians are pushing so hard because they believe they are close to breaking the back of the Ukrainian army.
Now it is not so and looking at this from the outside, Putin is digging Russia’s grave with a big shovel. However, it will take longer and cause more suffering because Putin and those in power do not quite understand which dragon they have awakened.
13:30
If Russia falls into internal conflict, they will not be an external conflict and the “shell protection” on Europe’s eastern border can be kept strong enough and then bring in an Iron Dome in case of nukes. If the choice is between that or a new Soviet Union, I choose the former. Oil and gas will still be bought, Russia becomes a resource colony to the EU.
Now it is not between those two and one should absolutely be able to get something better going than that but a worst case scenario.
13:51
Now I am probably on board with a Swede keeping quiet but historically it has been that the only ones who did not know about Sweden’s military capacity were the Swedish citizens, the USA and the Soviet Union had everything down to individual underwear in which mobilization depot.
13:54
What exactly are they doing, it is not only a shortage of tanks but also artillery and mines?
I don’t even think they are bringing forward more armored vehicles because transport capacity is taken up by artillery and tanks, at least I have seen very few BMPs etc. Sure, it is a low-priority front but they still want it to hold against Ukrainian attacks and they know exactly what they are up against. That can only mean one thing, they have no other materiel to send.
15:27
It does not seem like the Russian reinforcements to the southern front and Kherson have been intended for attack.
At least at the southern front they have gone on defense.
We know that Ukraine has a couple of brigades with bite along the stretch Kamyanske – Huliapole.
There was a motorized and an NG brigade there previously and the 128th Mountain brigade is probably in good condition and then the 80th Air Assault and 5th Tank brigades may also have partially reinforced as well as now three entire artillery brigades.
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Now everything follows in sequence and Kherson is first but they would not have sent forward entire artillery brigades if they did not intend to punch holes in a deep defense, which is what it is there. There are now also more and more fires in the red team’s area in the intended area for the offensive so you can start to talk about pre-bombardment before the offensive there.
Then the Russians would not have rushed into defense there if they did not think something was going on so we can be quite sure that Ukraine is going to strike there. Maybe they try something up at Izyum first just to divert and stress the system maybe but it is in the cards.
09:48
It doesn’t seem like there was any prisoner exchange or whatever it was in Mariupol.
How have the UN, Red Cross, France, Switzerland, and Turkey planned to protect the prisoners whom they presumably committed to when negotiating the surrender?
For example, the two Britons in the show trial in Donbass, where are the UN condemnations and why isn’t the Red Cross screaming now when they were guarantors in the deal.
Now the rest are being sent up to Russia instead of being returned to Ukraine.
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If all the defenders had known they were going to die, they probably would have attempted a breakout and taken Russians with them in death rather than being hanged in Moscow during prime time. The southern front was probably porous enough and they only left 2,500 defenders towards the end, so they could probably have caused some damage if they coordinated with infiltrated units/stay behind. The soldiers looked tired but those on the buses still had combat value, so some of those who surrendered probably hoped they would be treated according to the agreement.
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As an “Azov Nazi,” the chances of surviving even until the trial are probably low, and then they will probably all be hanged.
Very sad, and it almost makes you suspect that Turkey and France played dirty just to give Putin the victory, but I guess you’re not supposed to say that out loud. It’s a bit of a Srebrenica warning on the whole thing, I think.