11:06
A month into the war, all Russian defense employees in Crimea tried to sell their apartments (it was rumored) so now it is probably even more uneasy.
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Everyone’s eyes are probably on the Kerch bridge one would think. If it is intact when Ukraine takes back Melitopol, there should be quite dense traffic in the eastbound lanes.
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At Kherson, they probably want to deny the Russians retreat so they can’t go on defense just east of the Dnieper, but at Crimea I have now changed my opinion that if they don’t blow up the bridge, they get the peninsula for free. There probably aren’t many BTGs down there now either so no direct scalp lost. Ukraine takes Melitopol and then an ultimatum – if the bridge isn’t blown up within eight days, make sure you go home to Russia because then it’s over.
11:27
Flew past a twitter general that HIMARS is helping to pound the Russians in a pocket now over in Kherson. Full speed on the pre-bombardment then. Pretty quiet otherwise in the fog of war and unfortunately Kyselivka is no longer on the daily artillery list…
During the day FIRMS will probably be updated, they tend to keep low on weekends, so we’ll see where it’s burning.
Also get the impression that Russian artillery has slowed down and there was some kind of thread consensus that we would see results in about a week when HIMARS opened up.
11:30
Probably the same attack targets in the south; Kherson, Khakovka, Tokmak and Volnovakha.
Have been thinking if Donetsk – Horivka is starting to weaken and Ukraine can snatch some villages but otherwise it’s probably over at Izyum and never giving the Russians the whole Luhansk Oblast that applies?
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Now that it’s starting to get chaotic, the possibilities increase for partisans, SOF, long-range patrols and generally the free war and we should reasonably see more of that. For example, long ammunition convoys on country roads are quite grateful targets for small four-man patrols with some mines and a machine gun.
11:32
I actually think Crimea will be emptied when Ukraine is in Melitopol if they don’t cut the bridge over Kerch.
The fleet has probably been moved because of the 300 km rockets but MAY also have been moved because they know Ukraine will advance at Kherson and the Southern front soon. It’s not just the ships but also an enormous supply chain that must be transported to Russian ports and that takes time. But probably it’s the long-range weapons.
12:59
Argus, your last paragraph is a bit revolutionary. Now it’s not the same but I have probably assumed since the beginning of this war that the West has pushed SOF into Ukraine, that the command is full of American officers, etc. etc. etc. and right at the start when the foreign legion was set up we wrote in the thread that the purpose of it was to get Western soldier competence (i.e. not veterans) legally into Ukraine and that it was striking how many veterans showed up in four-man patrols.
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To that (you guess) that they have all the key competences needed for new systems to work through the foreign legion. Seems quite reasonable if you ask me, why do it differently and if there is any discussion they have a leave of absence or resignation as proof that the whole company went as volunteers with their personal weapons and command structure.
17:29
I think it’s quite funny, but also quite obvious, that those who draw up the attack plans also sit and look at a map just like us. Now they have infinitely much more information about the situation on the ground than us but if there is a city that looks like an angry hedgehog and would be good to have, then the Americans in the Ukrainian staff see that too.
The war is largely a maneuver to take dominant terrain, it took me a while to understand that in the beginning when thinking with the big strokes just like Patton would have done, my great-grandmother was his secretary and all that.. It worked perfectly to snatch a city when it was lightly defended and then let the Russians take it for three weeks in exchange for a couple of grilled BTGs.
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Right now it feels a bit like a water break at Kherson and the Southern front and there’s no damn chance the Russians get artillery ammo there now. They have even moved the unloading points eastward and fetch everything by truck directly to the front – they will not get an estimated daily consumption per day and very soon the Ukrainians will start removing the truck fleet from deep inside – that order has probably gone out to partisans, stay behind, SOF, free war units and the entire West’s combined SOF that operate behind the southern front.
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HIMARS is pounding away and maybe the really cool targets are over, the ones that go boom big and maybe the ammo. However, it will be a party when they get 300 km range, then the mother depot in the darkest Donbass goes up in smoke, the one that leaves a moon crater behind.
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Then I eagerly await the Stuka effect at Kherson, it’s coming..
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(a little disclaimer that all definitive assumptions are just spiced-up wild guesses).
17:34
haha, yes that would be a pretty good idea for the Crimean-Russian garrison, then you sell them food and water at exorbitant prices.
17:50
There will be a bunch of brigades left now that the pocket/bow north of Horlivka is leveled, not everyone fits on the Siversk-Bakhmut line. In a month or two they will be refitted and ready to grill BTGs again, those that are most worn out and some can probably be moved to Donetsk – Horlivka and Izyum.
The unit map apparently suggests interest in Volnovakha from Ukraine’s side.
18:49
An Erik14 thing, he started with Patton.
18:50
It’s probably a tough 3D war for the Russians right now, 360 front line around you wherever you are and never look up.
21:20
Now I quickly went through the latest FIRMS and it supports the above, a kind of extent of Kherson, Davyidiv Brid, Tokmak, Polohy and Volnovakha. It’s definitely not a Russian wall of artillery anymore but some shelling seems to be successful.
A bit calm, water break.
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Something a bit new is that behind the entire southern front there are fires everywhere all the way down to Crimea. This is relatively new and before there have been isolated ones so my guess is that behind the southern front it’s boiling right now with both HIMARS and the free war. Small neat strings of fires along the roads the ammunition transports must take 🙂
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Also trying to find an angle on the article below but it doesn’t work, no matter how I write that we know it’s over when the eight-year-olds show up at the front it doesn’t feel right so I won’t do that.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3531412-russia-undertaking-longterm-efforts-to-rebuild-forces-for-protracted-war-in-ukraine-isw.html
11:00
Yes exactly, now they have used up the experienced old VDV, Spetsnaz, marines that they probably recruited earlier?
They need to fill the ranks but no applications from sensible ex-soldiers because everyone knows what the lifespan is in Ukraine now.
Then it has to be the bottom scrap, criminals, more psychopathic than before, poor soldier qualities, etc.
Wagner was already before a closed ecosystem where ENORMOUS abuses against civilians in the countries they operated in were accepted. They have had protection from Russia and the country they worked in, unbelievable but now it became instant karma.