13:25
A note is that Girkin is silent while Ukraine destroys the entire supply chain.
Given how much he has complained, a non-existent supply chain should be a constant topic from him.
Leads me to think that he writes what he does for a purpose and that it does not benefit that purpose that Russia is now getting totally beaten already in the first half.
Or maybe he has written something I have missed…
14:10
Yes, you are absolutely right about Archer, everything is needed and it’s a hell of a system.
—
Point two you are probably right about because it will be enough with Soviet materiel to kick out the Russians and instead of losing top-shelf materiel, they use it to upgrade NATO’s eastern front. Yes, it’s hard to admit that it might be so. I mostly want the Ukrainians to die in something good and not surplus materiel, it’s sad to see how happy they are about M113s and armored personnel carriers.
—
Ok, send down a few CV90s then for some mech battalion or two so they can test it in combat, last offer 🙂
14:20
Sweden is one of the larger arms exporters and our weapons have been used in wars all over. In Yugoslavia, a Swedish PBV302 was probably shot out by Swedish anti-tank rockets/grenades or something. Sweden has also participated in peacekeeping missions that were not so peaceful in various places and the JAS probably made efforts in Libya? Our signals intelligence is not bad either.
—
That CV90 would be completely impossible given how we have acted before is hard for me to understand, the world is currently competing to give Ukraine the most so you risk no bad publicity here, rather the opposite, there will be a cool song about CV90 that the whole world retweets. Everyone just read about the Russian Terminator vehicles, imagine how viral drone videos of CV90 with autocannon cleaning out some column would go.
—
Sweden is usually good at finding solutions and I thought Slovakia’s purchase of 150 CV90s would be stockpiled and then passed on to Ukraine but they are brand new. A temporary reduction in capability when the Russian offensive capacity is basically zero should be bearable.
—
The Baltics and Slovakia have basically sent everything they have, they understand what is at stake.
I understand that I am not thinking entirely logically but emotionally and MagnusR might be right above but some damn free samples must be possible to send down.
14:22
Yes absolutely, he acts for the FSB and maybe even for Putin against the military, some have suggested.
However, he has stuck to the truth in his reporting which has been good because then we have gotten information.
The same Girkin, the one and only who looks so insanely bad in the picture 🙂
15:55
One theory that came up was to blame everything on the army and let Putin get a free pass, another that it is the FSB positioning itself but that would mean there is opposition that Putin can’t reach with suicide.
Girkin is the architect behind the whole 2014 Donbass revolution and quite well known so not a dumb poster boy.
—
I have forgotten it now but there was something that I couldn’t make fit and was going to bring up but it went off on something fun about grilled BTGs instead. Then Gregg showed up and posts some cutting edge stuff on the other end of the spectrum that contradicts Girkin on some points and I’ve started giving Gregg a bit more time when he posts. We’ll see when Girkin posts again if we can figure out his game. Just as you write, it’s probably a piece of information planted and if you can expose it you can probably figure out his angle I think.
16:49
Germany is starting to become a bit of a special case here I think.
Macron has gotten tired and posted chat logs online, probably didn’t feel so good for Putin and there won’t be any more late night calls.
Italy also did something nice, I think they were the first to welcome Ukraine into the EU.
The Germans promise big and then oppose everything that is good for Ukraine everywhere at all levels, big and small.
—
Someone has gotten sour on Scholz and leaked something about drugged and raped women at some party he was at so there is some counteraction. It feels like what they are doing is because they are forced, otherwise it’s obstruction against Ukraine that applies. It also can’t be fear of Putin and the gas weapon has already been fired.
—
The Germans just can’t shut down the last 6 nuclear power plants before the turn of the year and start up a bunch of coal power plants and then they have almost solved the problem?
When a country is as consistent as they are in making mistakes I at least think there is something behind it.
This something I think is that East Germany was let in without reservations into West Germany and the Soviets are not completely stupid so they probably got enough people into administrations and politics to make a difference, subversive activity. I have no other explanation because this many mistakes is almost impossible to just be unlucky with, it doesn’t work.
—
It says almost everything that when they really got angry like only a German can it was because Zelensky didn’t want to see them in Kiev, then they got really pissed off.
17:47
He is starting to be more precise in his information, there might be a purpose with his posting. Dare we guess that he gets a lot of sharing/spreading?
—
Anyway, this caught my attention, well said Gregg, he hit the nail right on the famous head.
Then of course the last sentence, don’t know if it was up and it’s those Anarcho-Communists he’s talking about but it is IMPOSSIBLE to protect all infrastructure in Russia and a blown up railway bridge holds that line for a number of months, etc. etc. endlessly.
“Regarding the Russians’ large number of shells, they are worthless if they don’t get to the front so you shouldn’t be blinded by the number.
Furthermore, there have been reports of new sabotage inside Russia, against both gas pipelines and railways. These are NOT Ukrainian sissies but local resistance movements to Putin’s war who have had enough.”
22:26
If anyone still doubts that Kherson and the Southern front are the real deal – straight from the horse’s mouth..
Then it must be the pre-battle we have seen the past week?
Will be fun to see FIRMS update on Monday since they probably don’t update over the weekend.
“Zelensky ordered to liberate the south of Ukraine, – Minister of Defense Reznikov”.
23:28
I haven’t forgotten Erik14 🙂
—
By the way, Lindsay Graham and Blumenthal were in Ukraine and it was after their visit the information spread like wildfire. Had never understood that.
Ukraine needs those 300km to reach all the depots’ mother (sounds better than central depots…) in the darkest Donbass.
Simple plausibility analysis I think, you probably don’t need to shoot them into orbit I think but can send them off a bit flatter.
Then as you say, I wonder if they dared to move HIMARS just north of Volnovakha or if it stood west of the Dnieper, it doesn’t feel like you want to risk those systems and even north of Volnovakha is far…
00:24
I know that, 5th Tank brigade got 100 Polish T72s we learned some time ago and M113s to the mech battalion.
Then it seems like 1st Tank brigade was refitted too because some battalion has been inserted into Vuhledar.
Where other imported vehicles of various kinds, MBT and IFV have gone I have no idea.
It’s been pretty intense on the eastern front so you should have needed to reinforce there continuously too I think?
—
Now even the National Guard brigades have armor and all the mech brigades at Kherson have had armor too, how much/little I have no idea but if you want to bother with Wikipedia you can probably sum up what it says and warm up in a forest area north of Kherson and wait for marching orders 🙂
—
I have actually wondered if the fighting at Kherson so far has been more reconnaissance battles than a full-scale attack and that they have advanced because they could. I have no idea, just thinking out loud..
13:21
There are too many destroyed depots now for it to be sustainable for the Russians, a long list every day.
-At the start of the war, there were some spectacular attacks early on, some black-ops among them if you ask me. That was fun, we took a handful from the chip bowl and felt that this would probably work out.
-Then came tour-de-777 and all the long-range weapons that suddenly could reach the front-near rear. That was also fun when it was the big staff week, they did an Iraq and waited for the meeting to start before striking. Now it became fine chips and some kind of confirmation that the USA sits like a god watching down into the sandbox in real time and follows how the Russians move. One began to feel that Ukraine has control over this, they will win over time.
-This latest storm is Russia’s Armenia moment, the Russian command can only stand and watch how their entire supply chain goes up in smoke. Exactly everything within 80km range from where a Ukrainian is located will be blown away. It’s going incredibly fast now and the timeline is significantly accelerated.
—
The magpies speculated yesterday whether this was the turning point and it certainly feels that way, FIRMS is bright red from all the pre-strikes and we have 3-5 depots blown up daily and the railway is in danger. Now naturally there is inertia in the artillery ammunition and they probably have small front-near stocks for the batteries for a week that are unknown but soon the intensity will probably drop significantly for the red team.
—
This at the same time as 777 and the tracked howitzers have been able to focus on pre-striking defenses instead of rear areas now and that’s what we have seen on FIRMS for a week or so. A nice puzzle piece is that 1000 precision munitions are to be delivered. They are intended for a direct hit so that’s 1000 targets on trucks on the way, grilled BTG in a city near the Russians.
The USA is quite interesting because they always quickly evaluate what works and then do more of it while planning the next test run. Now HIMARS has delivered so bring in more, 777 worked well with guided ammunition, what do we have in the warehouses.
—
There is a new target group emerging, if you believe the Brits the Russians are, in parallel with their human waves in the east, building up reserves for a larger attack, Donetsk Oblast is probably next. It would be highly desirable if the railway could malfunction badly so there is a lot of banding on the roads and then when they go into billets deep in the rear, whether in Ukraine or Russia I don’t know, they start knocking them out. If you don’t get the fun to HIMARS there is ToshkaU and daredevil remote patrols/SOF. If you ask me, Ukraine will get the long-range weapons but only in limited quantities and probably with an American at the firing unit who ensures they shoot at targets inside Ukraine until it is diplomatically unlocked. For this to go fast, Ukraine needs to get rid of a couple of targets beyond today’s HIMARS range but as said, there are other tools in the box.
—
Artillery ammunition aside, fuel and ammunition for armor and infantry are also needed. They don’t shoot continuously but huge amounts of necessary maintenance are disappearing for the Russians right now, oil is needed too.
Then we have this effect of the railway being knocked out so the armor has to band on roads = mechanical failures, that should not be underestimated. I just can’t add up 3,500 tanks – destroyed tanks + tanks in units at all and have guessed that there is a lot of armor in workshops and by the roadside with mechanical failures in the Russians’ rear.
Add to that the truck fleet’s increased driving times to new depots further back = mechanical failures.
—
Now we were positive about Kherson and the southern front here and are slowly starting to feel that the plug might come out and it’s the same feeling with the maintenance, the Russian command can’t possibly keep up here and their organization has an inherent inertia which means Ukraine can just keep doing more of the same all summer.
—
Back to the stacks posted a few days ago and that they constantly fluctuate, now Ukraine needs to get decent armor in quickly so they can exploit this opportunity for a larger offensive, a chess move and then a devastating win and maximum humiliation of Russia. It might be that they have quietly received armor because maybe they don’t want to advertise the increased capability in advance? For a breakthrough here to be possible, it is needed. If the West insists on the damn second-rate stuff then just a lot of it, really a lot. If you ask me, we should send 200 CV90s before it’s too late. If Ukraine is now going to die for our freedom, they can at least die in the best that the West has.
—
Apparently the Panzerhaubitze 2000 has the same function where they can put five shells on target simultaneously as Archer so no real showstopper anymore. An Archer no longer raises eyebrows but 200 CV90s would give absolutely massive publicity.