11:28
Yes, and then I spell the place names wrong…
Check Zolota Balka in Kherson Oblast (I think).
Across the river on the eastern side you have a small peninsula and then two river branches going southeast from the Dnipro and a bit down a settlement called Verkhnii Rohachyk.
A good defense.
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Copying in the map, can you open this?
https://earth.google.com/web/@47.37219664,34.19813359,61.14768234a,87441.90734133d,35y,359.3849734h,0t,0r
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Looking at the FIRMS map, it is in this area and east of it that the Russians are glowing right now.
Now this is just a thought from my side that I am airing but it has come up a couple of times in the thread as a fun alternative.
12:56
I actually want to hear the UN and the Red Cross explain to the whole world how they have guaranteed the safety of all Azovstal prisoners in recent months. You don’t have to be conspiratorial to understand that when the war ends and the prisoners are to be exchanged, there will be a dozen or so Azovstal prisoners left, the rest have been tortured to death over time.
I also wonder why the UN and Red Cross don’t raise their voices; when a Palestinian with a knife is shot in self-defense in some kindergarten, there are condemnations and resolutions immediately. How can there not be hundreds of UN resolutions against Russia’s ethnic cleansing here?
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It is really only the countries in the free West and NATO that have stood up for Ukraine; all other organizations that are supposed to guarantee world peace mostly just hope Ukraine will give up so the suffering ends. The fact is that if the US had not trained Ukraine since 2014 together with other countries and then supported it with its lend-lease, Russia would today be standing at Ukraine’s western border threatening many new countries with death and destruction.
12:59
You definitely get the overall feeling now that Ukraine has weathered the storm and now has the initiative. The Russians can continue with everything they are doing but it does not change the outcome of the war, possibly they can extend the timeline a bit.
13:03
According to pro-Russian sites, it was Crimean partisans who dropped a homemade bomb with a drone in Sevastopol.
Then it matches what Ukraine says, that they did not carry out the attack.
More of that, you get the feeling that Crimea still feels the war is distant and it is time for them to start sweating down there too.
13:46
If I am correct here, all bridges over the Dnipro are in various stages of being impassable and the bridges over the Inhulets have been cut.
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The Russians have then started with ferries and pontoon bridges and a glowing tungsten rain when there is a queue on the eastern side is naturally the next step 🙂
We are going to go through a period now when the Russians try to boat over reinforcements that Ukraine knocks out.
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Then when everything is supposed to go the other way, there is no chance that evacuating Kherson will succeed. It will be abandoned materiel and soldiers floating over on whatever they have.
13:51
When NATO has encircled Russia with Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan (I think) and Ukraine, someone special, the only border that is not NATO is against China or their sphere of interest.
I have also thought about that since China has territorial claims or at least interest in the landmass to the north and what Putin will do if China occupies a larger landmass, go and whine to whom?
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The fact is that China has the choice to go after Taiwan in a complicated invasion or against other West-oriented countries or alternatively take land from a weak Russia that has no support from anyone. That seems close at hand to me but maybe China sees it as weakening the counterweight to the West or something to attack one of the few allies on the other side of the fence.
10:44
I am continuing from my late post two days ago that FIRMS suggests crazy preemptive fighting NE of Khakovka and W of Melitopol. Looking at the map, there is a nice W-E defensive line at Verkhnii Rohachyk and then a similar one further north.
Now I have zero evidence for this and if timed wrong it will probably be unpleasant but…
If you could get a crossing going at Zolota Balka, first with some infantry battalion fanning out and then with some armor on a car ferry, you would create a threat in the “rear” of the southern front.
The artillery is on the western bank providing indirect fire support.
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The huge bonus would be Melitopol but then you probably have to keep the pressure up on the southern front significantly and then get a total partisan uprising while conducting fire raids on everything they have behind the entire southern front for maximum chaos.
More likely is that they conduct a Davyidiv Brid and go on defense in a half-bow with waterways S and N and then Verkhnii Rohachyk as defense eastward. The old classic: take something the Russians want and let them pay with grilled BTGs.
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The Russians need to burn a lot of BTGs trying to neutralize the threat and Ukraine lies in their trenches adjusting indirect fire as soon as the Russians enter the Ufa. It feels very Ukrainian to do so and not entirely unlikely but there is some risk.
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By the way, the bridgehead at Davyidiv Brid has never fallen; they have apparently held the forest area W of the settlement all the time. Except up at Vysokopilia, there seems to be a bit of a fighting pause again and Kyselivka is not in the daily artillery report unfortunately.
There are strange fires on FIRMS, it could be clouds and then it is probably not updated on weekends but you get the feeling of a fighting pause at Kherson and the southern front when looking at the fire map while the rear behind the eastern side of the Dnipro is going up in smoke. BUT there are no direct fires east of Kherson or Khakovka, they are further north.
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Have they knocked out everything of value behind Kherson and Khakovka? It takes a few weeks to wipe out all high-value targets in such a large geographical area, so the lifespan of remaining Russian logistics/rear is short.
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Izyum is quite strange, it can only mean that the Russians have weakened the Izyum area on their own initiative and that Ukraine is taking the opportunity? We KNOW that the Russians have sent units down to Kherson and behind the southern front from there, which is perfect because it weakens other front sections and then they will be trapped – several birds with one stone.
Now someone wrote in yesterday’s thread that they probably go on defense at Oskil eastern side instead. That is a bit unfortunate because part of the plan (if Ukraine had the capacity) should have been to cross the Oskil river before the Russians figured out they have to defend eastward, but you can’t have everything.
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Regardless of that – no real show of strength that the Russians are starting to consider abandoning Izyum…
The next blow will be when Kherson falls despite them having sent everything on wheels there and then it gets cut off at Melitopol.