10:14
The last word has not been said on the NATO issue because now all member countries must approve the application.
The media of course take the opportunity to write on front pages that Sweden will not fulfill a single one of Erdogan’s demands on the list to get maximum aversion from Turkey. It’s almost sad that we don’t have a policeman in long coats who can pull publishers by the ear because that is very unnecessary. Keeping completely quiet until we are in NATO is naturally the only reasonable thing and the best for the country Sweden.
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Then, as you write, a new defense line will be dug and some new arguments drummed up; not until we are members is it a loss and shame for the left wing (or AfS…) who gives up, and NATO is almost the red rag here.
So infinitely much better to disarm our own defense with talk about meeting violence with love (went well in Mariupol) and doing nothing when democracies are attacked but sending support to corrupt rogue regimes just because they have the right ideology. Maduro and Castro get their annual congratulations from the left, and Mugabe was a freedom fighter who meant well but it just didn’t go quite according to plan. (some exaggeration for effect).
11:46
It seems there has been a ceasefire at Kherson and the Southern front, but now it has picked up again. Interpreting FIRMS, full speed towards Tokmak is the order of the day, and to the NE from Kryvyi Rih and down on the “inside” of the Inhulets.
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Umbra brought up the above about maintenance, and it has been written a couple of times that since the Russians are at a disadvantage in Kherson, they have to move up reserves by road to plug the holes. Ukraine has shifted the focus point from Davydiv Brid, which was a really weak spot until the Russians rushed in BTGs, then an attack westward at Kherson which had been weakened, and now up to the NE below Kryvyi Rih which has probably been weakened to plug Davydiv Brid again.
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All these Russian troop movements happen by road with heavy losses one can guess, as Ukraine’s air force and army aviation are very active and there is no shortage of eyes from above. Most attempts to scrape together some combined battle group to push back some Ukrainian wedge can be seen, then low-flying Mi helicopters of any model or CAS come in. Then the artillery on top and drones, like kicking someone who is already down. The critical mass is in Ukraine’s favor in Kherson, and the reserves the Russians push in take too heavy losses on the way so they can never turn numbers and materiel to Russia’s advantage. It is a slow Ukrainian steamroller that cannot be stopped.
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I am quite sure the Russians want more and that Donetsk Oblast beckons next. Now they have gotten Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in a short time, so why not continue with “fresh” (by Russian standards) units from the north and move towards Mykolaivka, Siversk, Slovyansk, and west of that, as Micke says Barvinkove. They probably won’t sit down at the eastern front and run over everything to Kherson and the southern front, so the window is still open. The reason for that is naturally that they want to exploit their window before Ukraine has received all materiel and that a retreat from Lysychansk for them is a trigger that Ukraine is on the defensive. All the units up there stay up there.
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My thought about the battle plan is to deny the Russians retreat across the Dnipro; then the goals of the Kherson offensive have been achieved. Either you get a Kuwait highway where small tired streams of smoking vehicles reach the other shore, or you encircle everything. These units then won’t be able to contribute to the defense of the southern front and down towards Crimea. If by chance they get over the Dnipro just by momentum, that would be fun and desirable, but I have seen it as a bit high risk to have it on the map as a first option. Laying some pontoon bridge west of Khakovka we can probably see a bit depending on how strong the defense the Russians have on the eastern shore.
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That said, you probably need to come up with something fun to shake up the Southern front a bit. They took some communities south of Vuhledar so the Russians had to rush reserves up there. They continue their march towards Tokmak, and it seems that T62 in defense has poor protection against top attacks because it’s burning in the red team’s positions along the entire Vasylivka defense line, I think.
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Not unreasonable that Ukraine crosses the Dnipro a good way north of Khakovka with boats with SOF/recon/competent infantry in large numbers and opens a threat behind the southern front. The artillery must provide the protection the armor cannot, and the air force must pound the Russian BTGs moving forward towards the crossing. A Davydiv Brid trap but at the Dnipro. You get in behind the southern front. They really won’t be able to push on towards Melitopol, but they become a bridgehead that the Russians will want to strike because it is a threat, and to do that they have to send BTGs by road and weaken the southern front. Here the NLAW, artillery spotting, and real-time targeting for the air force are crucial to work, but there are some nice communities to hold on to.
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If we follow how it has developed so far, Ukraine will also try to go south from the forest area west of Davydiv Brid when they have finished NE near Kryvyi Rih, and this time it should be a serious attempt to reach Khakovka. Now the Russians know all this, but since they are behind, they can only be reactive here.
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I think it has been discussed a few times, but when Melitopol is taken, Ukraine can only go on the defensive eastward, and that is a good natural north-south defensive line running through Melitopol. Then they don’t need to take Crimea; it is enough to keep an eye on the bridgehead Kerch Bridge and blow away everything that crosses, something HIMARS should be used for. Boats are all well and good, but for those, there are drones and harpoons. Melitopol is the chess move Ukraine is aiming for, one can probably guess, and trading away potato fields in southern Ukraine is quite smart.
12:57
Now it’s probably important that the last units in southern Lysychansk slip away before the net becomes too tight here.
Don’t know the numbers and they might be completely insignificant but it would be a shame if there was a surrender of any unit that didn’t make it out and that the Russians could parade.
16:53
This one from the Twitter general WarMonitor is a bit slow, “Significant indication that Russian forces are preparing an assault on Soledar.” That means full throttle from the east and also right in the middle of the new line, it’s being tested immediately.
It also means that the Russians didn’t use up everything in Lysychansk, a bit like with a cockroach problem where you get rid of 1/100th when you kill the ones you see.
According to the always unpleasant Girkin pictured here, Ukraine has fortified the Siversk – Bakhmut line with “new units,” meaning unclear except that these are not retreating units from Lysychansk who are tired and low on everything, so it should reasonably be a decent defense and grilled BTGs.
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The line looks potent and NS’s anchors are Siversk and Bakhmut, I think you can anchor the southern part in Konstantynivka which is a larger settlement. Siversk is a bit trickier, there you really have to push the Russians back between Mykolaivka – Siversk if they get through, there aren’t many natural obstacles under the excellent defensive terrain along the river, but it seems to be good defensive terrain there.
And then you anchor the northern end all the way out in Slovyansk via Mykolaivka.
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It’s a nice horseshoe-shaped defensive line with quite a few natural obstacles and hedgehogs that should be excellent to defend. You should keep an eye on Barvinkove as Micke says and south down towards Bakhmut I haven’t snooped around much but I think it looks defensible. That line should be able to hold if Ukraine fortifies it sufficiently and the supply routes are considerably shorter and above all more numerous. It feels like a good horseshoe. The now rather happy Russian soldiers who sit sipping the cheapest Russian vodka and sniffing onions in Lysychansk will get the most boring marching orders of their lives pretty soon and go die in front of the next line. A bit like the onions I sniffed, the stocks never run out, they think before stepping on one of their own mines in some potato field outside Siversk.
17:58
Any information about a military exercise in eastern Poland?
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Right now it’s probably a pretty good situation for Lukas to move in along Ukraine’s western border while those 15,000 + 4,000 soldiers gathered north of Kiev on the eastern side move south again. Ukraine has most of its maneuver brigades in the east or near Kherson. A Belarusian attack must be met with Polish boots is probably my assessment, Poland moves straight east and stops at Kiev and then takes over border guard duties against Belarus. As sure as a letter in the mail, the color revolution will come and then Belarus won’t be friends with Russia anymore.
We don’t really know the status of all these units being assembled yet and one must assume quite a bit of armor is at the front lines now?
18:57
I read this wrong earlier today when it flew by but now reading the whole letter, there will be no Belarusian invasion of Ukraine, that much can probably be confirmed, the brigade officers have even gone out with their names and it’s not just any provincial brigade that has soured either. These guys you’d probably want on your side 🙂
https://wartranslated.com/belarus-officers-of-the-5th-special-operations-brigade-address-to-lukashenka/
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Am I second, is lightning Erik14 ahead?
00:12
A look at deepstatemap shows how fast this went, the next defensive line will be tested already this week. Maybe one has to read up on S about Bakhmut but Kostiantynivka looks like a lovely place for defense and an excellent anchor. South of that one might have to start studying a bit closer but that hasn’t been the focus of Russian suicides for quite a while now.
09:23
Yes, it’s important that the depots keep blowing.
I think the Russians will continue in the north, it seems like they want more if you look at their focal points.
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The responsible commander has to work with what he can scrape together in Kherson and hopefully he doesn’t really want to admit how badly it’s going up the chain either.
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Yes, Ukraine needs more heavy weapons. Everyone says everything takes time but they are dying for us and in four months they almost had the Gripen up and running.
10:06
If you want to be picky, I think Ukraine blows up high-value targets in Russia daily, but I understand your point here 🙂
Just hubs, rails, and depots, as well as the factories that manufacture key components, all seem to have been visited across the country by a sneaky guy with a heavy backpack.
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A popular reaction is a bit hard to predict; it could be that if you pull a HIMARS into the onion domes of Red Square, the Russians rise up as one and accept putting the country on a war footing… or there could be a revolution against Putin.
The charm of diplomacy is that you escalate in small steps all the time, the boiling frog effect, to avoid sweeping reactions that go the wrong way. In the beginning, the West was not even allowed to send an air rifle to Ukraine because then it would lead to nukes; see where we are today with arms deliveries.
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Then there are probably red lines, and nuclear weapons are one, and the terror bombings are probably starting to approach unlocking something further here, something more exciting than what we see today in the form of heavy weapons, F-16s, and MBTs? I also believe that the mills grind slowly, and when we start to get tired, then Kaliningrad becomes autonomous, Belarus gets its color revolution, and Kazakhstan joins NATO together with Georgia and Azerbaijan, and then the sanctions remain with some point that must be fulfilled, a long list of big shots who must appear in The Hague, for example.