10:38
The G7 was very clear that all Ukrainian territory shall be returned and Ukraine is also clear about that. Now the ranks have straightened out in the West and there are no longer a lot of uncompromising solutions. I think Russia’s negotiating position is downright terrible.
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The only thing that can reverse this development is if there is a palace coup and someone sensible whom the West trusts takes power, but even the opposition like Navalny is radical by our standards so I think it will be Russian military capability fundamentally defeated, Kaliningrad and Belarus no longer Russian, encapsulated in NATO and a bundle of sanctions.
11:08
After the morning round it seems like Ukraine is holding on by the fingertips in Lysychansk, very interesting because the Russians are starting to run out of gas there 🙂
(it could of course also be an orderly tactical retreat that has not yet played out).
If Ukraine manages to hold the line it was almost like the Russians won in overtime equally exhausted as Ukraine and they do not have enough right now to maintain offensive operations and would have to send units from other front sections.
Ukraine has “reinforced Siversk – Bakhmut with new units” according to Girkin so maybe they made a decision to hold Lysychansk and brought up reserves?
I understand that relying on Girkin and WarMonitor is a bit weak but this was a potentially won battle for the Russians that played out in real time and worth following.
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If one guesses, Ukraine’s maneuver brigades that have fought furthest east in this pocket/bow north of Horlivka are quite worn out but when the front line becomes smaller the density is higher and you get more firepower within a smaller area. I still think this horseshoe with a river on two sides, defense from height and a natural defense southwards with enormous fields of fire and easily defensible buildings looks like a real Russian killer if you can fend off encirclement attempts west of Lysychansk.
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WarMonitor was sluggish and gloomy yesterday and I thought about posting something but the thread was in its best mood after the NATO application was approved so nothing came of it, you have a reputation as positive to maintain. I expected bad news this morning but if Ukraine manages to stabilize the situation in Lysychansk we have a couple of fine months of grilled BTGs ahead of us because that horseshoe is very good defensive terrain. Then we have the bonus that Putin has not yet gotten Lysychansk Oblast and must continue there and cannot commit his empty shells of battalions with T62s on other front sections.
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We will see, tactical retreat in the making or the battle that turned the war 🙂
11:25
As is well known, I guessed quite early that all of the West’s SOF are in Ukraine either as “discharged” in their units or simply just there. What seems quite clear, however, is that partisan activity/stay behind/SOF and the free war with suitable units is very intense. Then we have the gray area where Western active SOF train Ukrainian special forces and that is probably still ongoing, SAS is at least in Ukraine for training, it flew by.
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The other day it was news that Ukraine has infiltrated behind Severodonetsk and into Donbass, I was quite sure it would be too difficult terrain so that there was not much SOF there but I was wrong, they were tougher than that.
There have been quite a few fires deep in FIRMS for example down in Crimea and we reasoned about whether it was long-range weapons like ToshkaU or from the ground. Recently we got some information that they are starting to get a bit worried down in Crimea too and are arresting all sorts of people for the usual Russian treatment – torture and murder.
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Still thinking about how much difference partisan activity (collective name for everything) can make at Kherson and the southern front. After all, it is Russian battalion-sized units defending over a couple of communities/villages and a larger partisan attack popping up in the middle of a group in a community at 01:00 can probably cause quite a lot of damage. You should be able to take over communities that way too I think if it comes at the right time 🙂
Melitopol was talked about as almost abandoned so you can probably come up with something fun there.
14:56
I would like a legal review of what this really is?
There is war and laws of war and somewhere you follow a set of rules with a war but Russia has not declared war on Ukraine.
Doesn’t that then become criminal activity and those participating in this criminal activity are guilty of criminal offenses such as murder, assault, weapons offenses, traffic violations, rape and so on?
(you are not allowed to drive vehicles just anyhow…)
Those who give orders are guilty of aiding and abetting and incitement.
Genocide is genocide and is presumably tried as such and The Hague has probably already started polishing the pallets and making nameplates but I am a bit curious about how many instances you can reach the responsible parties.
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Google doesn’t give that much but I think that if Putin had declared war it would in some way have been following the rules of the game but now it is just an enormous pile of crimes stacked on each other and everyone who gives orders is complicit, the list is quite long and starts with the bunker dwarf.
17:28
I was struck by this; “And now we openly send into fight T-62 tanks and BMP-1 taken off of storage (praporshiks have long drunk away the tents prescribed via regulations while the generals in the ministry of defence wrote off the money for new ones and put it in their pockets), while driving around in our much more modern tanks and BMPs are various Assad’s guards and other Libyan scum…”
They have sold all functioning armor to the third world.
23:35
The Russians won the battle and that was a bit sad. The Russians apparently burned out 1-2 armored BTGs in the process but they threatened Lysychansk so Ukraine chose to retreat orderly. Naturally, Ukraine would have held that horseshoe if they could but it probably went a bit too fast after Zolote for them to keep up. Inferior position, Russian air, Russian artillery and poor maintenance. Now I have been going on and on that the whole area was meant for just this but it went too fast, Ukraine was overrun and it cost some armor but if they could have held on for three more months it would have been better.
00:03
Looks on the map like Siversk can be attacked from three directions and the weak point in the next line of defense, so one can hope it is a really spiky hedgehog.
Also get the feeling that the Russians will attack down between Mykolaivka – Siversk and especially throw everything at Mykolaivka.
10:54
The thread is a bit sensitive since Russian PR is insanely active, the post is more of a question as I interpret it.
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On the subject Johan2022 it probably doesn’t matter? If you shoot a missile with that precision it would have hit some residential area anyway since it was fired towards a city. If I turn your argument around – the chance that it hit something military in a big city is minimal, so LW’s argument always holds, right?
10:34
We saw it with Moscow, during a major event there is chaos in the PR machinery and the craziest versions of what happened come out until the ranks straighten out and they get a dominant version. In pro-Russian forums they have been completely rabid with the version they have been given to sell, often different ones in the same forum.
The consistent thing is that no one cares about the victims and now there are piling up reasons why it is not a war crime (when Russia wipes out entire cities… without declaring war… and five-year-olds are exposed and murdered…)