12:04
I lost count at 7-8 and there have been about a dozen blown ammunition depots since.
This big review of the Russians’ ammunition supply in the thread probably has to factor in all these small smoke puffs because partly it is the current supply that is decreasing but also in total.
Fairly convinced that Lukas gave up his armor and ammunition because he was forced by a desperate Putin since they are short on ammunition now.
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Then you have sabotage against trains and hubs as well as explosions in Russia. Belgorod, when it was the main supply route, had an enormous number of fires for some months and in Russia ammunition factories have exploded 🙂
Ukraine announced that Belarus carried out 50 sabotage acts against trains and that contributed to the Russians abandoning Kyiv.
Now explosions are happening all over again which is very good.
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If one were to guess, to take Donbass proper you need to strangle the maintenance. It will remain there as a small isolated island and have all its maintenance blown up and then you cut off the supply.
13:30
I’m starting to wonder if Russia is ready to test NATO regarding the Baltics here. It feels very Russian to attempt an offensive and assume everyone is bluffing, after all they have wiped out Ukraine with the rest of the world passive on the sidelines.
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The question is with what, but theoretically Russia could continue with second-rate forces in Ukraine for a long war of attrition suits them well and save competent units for an attack on the Baltics. We really don’t know much except that they are struggling to get armor to Ukraine.
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Finland feels like they shouldn’t even try and surely the Russians understand that? From Putin’s perspective this probably makes it quite important to try to open a second front or somehow get the West to shift focus from Ukraine. China was also the buddy who betrayed here and the game plan was naturally that China would start causing trouble in Asia and then some Balkan countries allied with Russia together with Turkey so the West would have too much to think about and abandon Ukraine.
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The Baltics is of course a terrible idea but they have to come up with something here I think?
13:35
Yes, the USA and the West naturally have all eyes on Ukraine. They have managed to knock out command posts that move daily/with a few days interval and just when there have been large staff meetings with high-ranking visitors flown in.
Not just one but about a dozen or so.
It was rumored on Twitter that there were 50 analysts from the USA in Lviv whose sole task was to prepare target data for Ukraine.
-That says it all really about how well the USA/West/Ukraine have control over what is happening on the ground 🙂
14:19
I get the feeling that things are slowing down in Kherson (again), I have no direct evidence other than that the Russians have pushed in enough reserves that they could stabilize the situation and that the Twitter generals are very quick to report successes despite the lid being on and now it has been completely quiet for a while.
Partly that probably means Ukraine is taking a pause in fighting but above all it means the Russians are bringing in reinforcements in an area that Ukraine is watching and has the right weapons to knock them out. Now I don’t think it’s a five-step rocket where Ukraine plans to lure in maximum Russian troops across the Dnipro but overall right now it’s probably positive?
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They have acted in a way that the Russians have had to bring in reserves to try to plug the holes and they have been easy targets on the highway. The Russians have probably stopped the worst breakthroughs but at what cost I wonder?
Evidently, they have weakened elsewhere because near Vuhledar there was considerable movement the other day and there has been some forward movement towards Tokmak as well.
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Since the critical mass is in Ukraine’s favor I guess they will try a local advance somewhere Donetsk – Horlivka fairly soon because now the Russians have to pull more units from there to plug south of Vuhledar.
Now it is the Russians who have to bring up ancient armor on highways and band long stretches = technical failures and standing by the roadside, and above all they are moving around exposed to air, drones, helicopters and guided artillery ammunition where Ukraine sits like a grumpy god watching what moves in the sandbox.
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Imagine if Ukraine were to get a real breakthrough at Vuhledar, then a couple of BTGs would have to move in the opposite direction from Kherson and eastward again. They make them drive around like crazy by opening holes on different front sections. Ukraine itself has enough and their maneuver brigades are where they are. However, I understand that some brigades have detached battalions to the eastern front from Kherson.
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Near Vuhledar Russian air seemed to go all in unfortunately and that is something the thread has reasoned about that Russian air still denies movement in the east so those F-16s would be nice if they could be delivered with lend-lease soon.
15:14
Yes, now I was more reasoning but managed to phrase it a bit too definitively. The thread seems unanimous that if the Russians take a step outside Ukraine and into another country in Europe, they are done for 🙂
17:20
One is starting to get a bit tired of flashy helicopter videos set to any Vietnam tune or the ride of the Valkyries, but one flew by with a total of 4 helicopters of different models. I think they fly a lot in Kherson and they use helicopters when they don’t risk being shot down by the opposing side’s aircraft, so for me it’s a signal that the Russians are starting to be cautious about flying west of the Dnipro, which is quite interesting since these helicopters take out a lot on the ground.
17:55
That was kind of what I was thinking, Soren75. Looking at Ukraine in hindsight, it’s just as stupid and yet here we are. I think we’ve reached a point in the war in Ukraine where either the army should have stopped and sat on their hands or the leadership should have thrown in the towel. Now we’ve learned that they don’t think rationally at all and a war of attrition seems to be the plan rather than finding a way out (if they even have a plan anymore…).
I don’t believe for a second that Russia would last very long but NATO themselves don’t seem to dare to take a chance, I saw in the blogger’s 15:34 update that they will strengthen their presence to 300,000 men.
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I think there’s another wildcard, which is if things start moving in more places and that’s why a quick and humiliating defeat for the Russians is important. If China gets restless and starts stirring in Asia and then things heat up in the Middle East, NATO’s capacity could be stretched to the breaking point. For example, the Javelin stockpile is depleted after three months of war in Ukraine. A large fleet in all its glory but aircraft carriers are big targets and Russia is raining missiles over kindergartens and schoolyards, so if they haven’t used everything, there is a threat.
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Sooner or later the West has shifted to a war economy but we haven’t done that yet. I find it incredible that Russia has anything up its sleeve but China has been building up quite heavily for a long time now and there are a couple of countries sitting on the fence. What could happen is that Russia jumps on the Baltics and it becomes a short but intense war. I haven’t really thought about what consequences that would have but I think one must be careful to assume that Russia is afraid to escalate because they have gone from zero to a hundred in a few months and most explanatory models have gone out the window so far.
18:05
Yes, logically Luhansk Oblast is a bigger combat objective that could even cause the Russians to redeploy units from the eastern front. If they haven’t taken Luhansk Oblast, it’s probably still tense at command.
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Donetsk Oblast they are not even close to taking, so it feels like they might abandon that goal and just focus on defending the terrain they have taken instead, so that’s why the horseshoe at Lysychansk is quite important for Ukraine so they can maintain numerical and qualitative superiority on other fronts for a while longer.
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I’m a bit skeptical about the whole Wunderwaffe discussion but clearly a strong reinforcement of Ukraine’s artillery while the Russians lose their ammunition is something you win wars on. But you also need target data, fresh maneuver brigades, tanks, night fighting equipment and everything else including F-16s.
The fact is that if you didn’t have motivated soldiers you could have as many HIMARS as you want, Russia would have marched straight across the country.
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Yes, you’re right that there is slowly a capability increase and the lend-lease deliveries are probably what’s needed now, to get good models in large numbers.
18:09
The first delivery that AverageNisse mentions hasn’t arrived yet. There are hints that this is where all the fun begins, which I interpret to mean IFVs, MBTs, F-16s and all the other stuff Ukraine needs but a few models in large numbers. They are switching over to Western weapons. Now many in the thread say we will never see Abrams in Ukraine but I am of the opinion that it is the only MBT available in the numbers Ukraine needs.
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The current mosaic was just what the West could spare right now and it has helped to turn the tide of war and the counteroffensives we see right now but to retake Donbass proper and then be able to defend their border against Round 3, a lot is needed and that is what lend-lease is for if I understand correctly.
18:27
I saw I was second after you now, so everything is as it should be 🙂
21:13
Here I think the West’s PR could step up and do something about the Kremenchuk missiles, at least giving Ukraine the capacity to take out those damn platforms should be doable?
So far they have increased gradually, in the beginning Putin said he would unleash nuclear weapons if anyone sent as much as an air rifle to Ukraine and today they get HIMARS and we join NATO.
However, I think more could be done faster, now maybe we’ll get a super surprise with the first lend-lease list but I damn well want to see F-16s, more HIMARS, MBTs and Bradleys at least.
21:17
Exciting development because south of Vuhledar the blue team’s area has increased according to deepstatemap and there were reports of repelled Russian counterattacks. If you go by uawardata which even I understand is not fully updated, it is a weak point and we have just read that the Russians have sent everything they have against Kherson.
Now it’s still a way to Mariupol but this gives a bit of Davydiv Brod vibes 🙂
11:59
As is well known, I believe that some of the lost armor has been moving along the highway towards the front in Kherson.
However, it is all-in to try to encircle Lysychansk right now according to WarMonitor, this is thus the second assault attempt on Verkhnokamyanka and it was discussed in the thread yesterday and the day before that the Russians are advancing with armored regiments and motorized units out from Popasna now. It is a logical move by the Russians to try to encircle Lysychansk so we will surely see an attempt at a river crossing soon.
If one were to guess, it would be near Bilohorivka and then they try to push straight south to Verkhnokamyanka.
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The Russians are also trying to “storm” Lysychansk from the southeast and that was also discussed in the thread a few days ago that it is a veritable fortress 🙂
Now our very own Gregg has written a post above that very well describes the situation. Ukraine has naturally fortified this horseshoe enormously during the time the Russians have been occupied with Zolote and Severodonetsk.
It has been close here but considering the losses, the Russians are throwing everything at the encirclement of Lysychansk now but are failing. They fail because Ukraine intends to hold this horseshoe and they have heavy brigades in defense.
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It currently seems that Ukraine has set the stage for the next big trap which is the horseshoe at Lysychansk and that the Russians will burn through a large number of BTGs trying to take this city. As previously discussed, the next defensive line is at Siversk – Bakhmut which means that Ukrainian artillery and armor are positioned on the western flank as soon as the Russians attempt further encirclement of Lysychansk.
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A Russian counter-move will of course be to try to take Siversk via a river crossing, move towards Slovyansk or somewhere in between, but that will go even worse than previous attempts as the defense is now well established. Ukraine’s constant prodding at the open wound near Izyum and their artillery targeting the supply route (not just artillery, partisans/SOF/the free war as well) means that a serious offensive by those mythical 20 BTGs stationed at Izyum never really gets started; they are continuously shot down in the forested area.
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You remember that blast before May 4-5 which I am still convinced grilled some BTGs, since then Ukraine has used the same concept several times, they withdraw and let the Russians occupy the forest and then they knock them out. Entire armies have disappeared in that exciting forest area 🙂
All this is Twitter rumors but initially there were 24 BTGs in the area and then 20 more BTGs were sent down for this offensive and now it seems there are about 20 BTGs in the area or thereabouts so according to the Twitter generals, Russian BTGs must have been consumed like popcorn there and it all started with tour-de-777.
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Anyway, while the media explains to us that the Russians have won an important partial victory in Severodonetsk and are close to the final victory, Ukraine has withdrawn to the main defense of the horseshoe and is ready to grill Russian BTGs as they arrive. The Russians also send their BTGs into battle as they come so there is never a buildup of 150 new BTGs that will strike in a massive assault; they are fully occupied plugging the holes Ukraine opens and trying to take Lysychansk and it is never a quiet day for them.
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That said, the fighting on the eastern front is somewhat incredible in its scale and at the top of the wish list is a quick win for Ukraine but if they don’t get that, they have positioned themselves for the next best thing, to grind down the Russian army in the potato fields of southern Ukraine.