11:28
That swamp is probably a bit hard to predict even for the best, I think, it’s like a pinball that can go off in any direction. My thought has probably been that you have to really break Russia’s back this time, they have been the eastern threat for hundreds of years and got a free pass from decolonization because they had a nice and good communist revolution that excused everything else. Exactly how that is done is an open question, but I have begun to understand how large and rich many of the -stans are that Russia still does more or less as they please with.
I googled Kazakhstan a while ago, enormous country, 40 million and raw materials like few others. Why should they have to live under Russian supremacy?
I have poor knowledge of the provinces but they must be even more tightly controlled than the -stans and it wouldn’t be bad if they got autonomy/freedom through this. Belarus and Kaliningrad are probably the minimum punishment for this special operation, I have thought, because the EU needs a better eastern border against Russia.
14:33
A two-stage rocket. First deny what, 10,000 – 15,000 Russians at the Kherson retreat across the Dnieper. You need to have the bridges under at least indirect fire.
(Which you basically have today anyway 😀).
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When that is done, go down through Tokmak and secure Melitopol and go on the defense.
Bubble candidates are Volnovakha and Mariupol, feels like a big bite.
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Then wait, threaten to blow up the bridge over Kerch, defend eastward along the Melitopol line. Over time Kherson is cleared and Crimea taken and there’s not much the Russians can do.
14:47
A relevant question, I think, everyone knew that in the 90s the Russian army and navy were in such decline that we downsized the entire defense.
Then the Russians have run an Afghan in all ranks that the West apparently missed?
The US’s panic withdrawal from Afghanistan because their army ran an Afghan, one might guess the US missed that?
(It came conveniently but we will probably never confirm if that was the case).
Otherwise, there is probably some self-interest of spy organizations and countries’ defenses to have a threat so they avoid the great regiment death 2.0?
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I have thought that if they had from the start smashed on with artillery and attacked sensibly, Ukraine would be divided today, so half luck half skill, roughly. Now the military experts are not worse than to keep quiet for a few months, calibrate their models and then come back as if nothing happened, especially not that they grossly underestimated Ukraine and overestimated the bunker dwarf.
15:41
This flew by on the pro-Russian side,
I don’t quite understand this. If Ukraine wants, they can blow up the bridges today, all three.
One presumably also doesn’t want the Russians to retreat in good order.
Was there some artilleryman who got a feeling?
“In the Kherson region, air defense systems are being strengthened after the shelling of the bridge across the Dnieper by the Armed Forces of Ukraine – deputy head of the VGA”
15:46
It seems like they are pounding the Russian hole quite heavily south of Zaporozhye where the Russian defense line runs in a W-E direction at Vasylivka. FIRMS is completely bright red where the Russians’ positions are.
According to the unit maps, the Russians have a bunch of BTGs there, you understand why because if Vasylivka falls, Ukraine just sweeps down and parks itself at the bridges over the Dnieper but on the eastern side.
Feels like pre-bombardment because that is not a point Ukraine would try to jump on and not try with force.
You have to use all those guided 155mm shells that have just been delivered somehow.
11:22
Time and money and above all knowledge. If you believe the rumors, the training battalions are also starting to appear at the front, so the quality of the already terrible Russian army will only get worse in the future.
This has been called a geopolitical atomic bomb in the thread.
If there is to be any offensive power, Chinese instructors and Chinese equipment are needed.
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That Belarusian letter from the Spetsnaz brigade (which was probably fake) sparked hope that more capable units have had enough, but that they are dying in droves is the next best thing.