11:13
Yes, one is starting to get a bit irritated at the slowness here, we have excellent platforms to kill Russians with and Ukraine is in absolute desperate need of them.
At least I have (had) a self-image of the country Sweden as a leading nation that stands up for the weak. This is probably the most obvious Good vs Evil conflict I will experience during my adult/awake lifetime and that we haven’t done more is quite embarrassing.
Talking costs nothing but we are not even sacrificing Swedish lives here, only materiel that we have plenty of.
A bit like during the tsunami where after two weeks there was still arguing that Sweden had no obligation to bring home any citizens when hundreds lay with rotting wounds in a tsunami-ravaged country and the world’s most dysfunctional country – Italy – had evacuated all their citizens on the second day or something.
Pretty sure the entire Swedish defense gives a thumbs up to contribute to knocking out Russian offensive capability so what is going on right now is not honest in any way, the defense must have gotten a list to choose from where it says dirty can and uniform M56.
11:19
Pretty BREAKING (certainly not first but must keep the style as perpetual second).
A first piece of information about Leo2 🙂
Now we have to wait a bit more before doing backflips, after all still a Twitter god so far.
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1566317554896879617?s=20&t=jmfKDCPOyq34OYnP8JAv2g
11:24
You really want it to be the CV90 but the Finnish LV vehicle is a bit too different…
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1566264823670865920?s=20&t=jmfKDCPOyq34OYnP8JAv2g
11:30
Unconfirmed of course but if the geolocation is correct, there are air missions against ground targets over in Donetsk now, strength to say the least.
https://twitter.com/HeliosRunner/status/1566159280776028160?s=20&t=qe4taibvJY7T7Su_6m79xw
11:44
Ukraine has crossed the Siversky Donets river on the eastern front if this is true, quite significant.
https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/4-september-ukrainian-military-liberated-ozerne-village-near
12:44
Girkin’s latest, sad reading if you are Russian.
https://wartranslated.com/igor-girkin-south-ukraine-frontline-update-for-4-september/
21:10
Good that he announces that it is an official bulletin.
Also good that Ukraine gives one with a three-day delay.
Looks good for group 2 – they are probably doing what we discussed, taking all terrain west of the NS road between Davyidiv Brid – Khakovka and then pushing straight south towards Khakovka and going on defense eastwards along the NS road.
Group 3 has probably broken through a strong defense and behind it might be a bit less prepared and more spread out?
According to rumors, Vysokopilia was like a fortress and handled the terror shelling of Krivoj Rog.
Think it looks very good.
22:37
Very interesting with the crossing of the Seversky Donets, unconfirmed that they have reached Yampil, if they can take Lyman it is a possibility to push into this northern area where it is worst defended.
What an upper-cut.
The 3rd Army Corps is also on the move and can’t do a damn thing, one wonders if the date for the offensive had to do with that because now they are supposed to organize themselves down in Crimea and then band northwards and wherever they gather HIMARS can reach.
At Kherson things seem to be moving, unconfirmed, and if you put the pieces together the Russians have now exhausted the firefighting force because it was too small, 2000 men according to Gregg, and it is the defense that must hold now with poorer units.
I think it is a really low-odds bet (someone writes high-odds immediately) that the plug will come out inside Inhulets and they will reach Khakovka.
We speculated quite a bit in the thread whether they “lured” Russian units into Kherson before cutting the bridges and it reasonably seems to be so. The week before Ukraine started it was the talk of the town that the Russians would renew their offensive and then the bridges went down.
One wonders here if there is a similar idea behind the Russians reinforcing the southern front and going on the offensive, a slightly harder task but now all elite units and +60% of Russian units are west of Mariupol?
23:01
There are quite a few abandoned VDV positions now that Ukraine is going and inspecting. What conclusion can be drawn from that?
That VDV was in defense in the first line?
They are positioned like that on the unit maps at least and one position is probably a platoon roughly?
There should be around 10 BTG better units in Kherson and if the firefighting force was no bigger than 2000 men it is extremely interesting.
Now we only have Gregg to lean on and the total figure is between 10,000 – 25,000 men in Kherson where Gregg probably stands for the highest figure.
But, 2-3 weeks before the offensive there were columns of VDV on their way to Kherson so clearly the Russians have sent what they had there.
So I start to wonder if it could be that they have exhausted the elite units in Ukraine?
The other alternative is that they have withdrawn them to the east of the Dnipro secretly but what speaks against that is that they are in defense in the first line.
Then I think they have a couple of BTG in defense in Kozatzke so they are on the wrong side of the river compared to those seen on the unit maps around Khakovka. It is a defensive position with natural defense and is probably part of doctrine to hold a bridgehead?
The big guessing game, it will be fun to see when they eventually line up the defenders in a field how many there were and you count BTG and units. Maybe the worst decision of the war not to release west of the Dnipro and go on defense on the LEFT bank.
The second worst is to focus on defense of Crimea and the southern front because trap 2 is soon ready to close.
23:07
That was a very interesting update Erik14 because it is all the BTG that have been up against Vysokopilia and Arkhangelske that are finished 🙂
There are under 10 BTG left in reserves “inside” Inhulets if you exclude the poor BTG that are supposed to try to stop the breakout down from Davyidiv Brid.
If Ukraine has burned through 3 in under a week you can almost calculate how long it will take before they stand in Khakovka. Also, probably the 1-2-3 BTG trying to hold the line up at Davyidiv Brid are in terrible shape now and the next to end up on the out-list.
23:28
Here we have a few days of work for a couple of 777 batteries with guided ammunition.
https://twitter.com/tinso_ww/status/1566408223300718592?s=20&t=-SNVbNLn8btgKLDr5kU82A
23:29
Wait, from May and that was discussed higher up in the thread…
Third as usual, must keep the style.
11:02
I would like to return to something I usually write in a highly sarcastic tone – “a Russian BTG dug in defense where targets are logged can be wiped out by a battery 777 in one morning if they skip the 9 o’clock coffee”.
At Kherson, Ukraine has shot away most of the LV capability and now Bayraktar and other drones move unhindered, and we got a glimpse that Bayraktar had taken out 8 T72s and damaged 5 in one week, plus a couple of artillery/IFVs on top of that.
Now it’s not just drop-wing grenade-explode T72 that the drones are doing, but of course they can also now scout the Russians’ positions for the artillery and there are 5,000 guided shells (at least) available as well as HIMARS. Imagine getting 5,000 hits right in the middle from 155mm shells at Kherson, after that Ukraine’s infantry can just walk through the burning remains down to the Dnipro. Guided ammunition has very high accuracy and delivers a lot of death to Russians in trenches.
There are probably very few built defensive positions at Kherson that can withstand a direct hit from 155mm.
Then the Russians are now limited to boat transport, some pontoon bridges and an air bridge with helicopter to Chornobvaika.
Anyone can understand that you can’t supply 30 BTG with that and in combat the Russians consume front-line depots in a week/weeks depending on what they have stockpiled and how many HIMARS manage to find.
I don’t think they manage to ration ammunition, it’s always full throttle with that organization.
First the artillery on the western side of the Dnipro will probably fall silent and then the firefighting units will have used up their ammunition, then the 1st line of defense, 2nd line of defense, and so on until the AK magazines are empty.
Let’s hope they don’t manage to roll their Pion to the eastern side of the Dnipro, there were trains with them down in Crimea and they have an unpleasantly long range.
Right now one should probably also be raining glowing tungsten balls over all traffic queues boarding the ferries – my theory is that they let the ferries run and some small rickety pontoon bridge so that everyone retreats there and you can unleash the zone rockets over the wandering circus – Sun Tzu is in all of us but it doesn’t have to be a wide bridge you leave intact 🙂
I don’t really know what a loss at Kherson means for the whole war but it will be an enormous PR loss internally in Russia when they parade 10,000 angry paratroopers in the fields outside Kherson (yes I read today’s Gregg). Losing 30 BTG is also significant and Ukraine can move a few dozen brigades to other front sectors.
And then the disclaimer that Ukraine is in no hurry and that the units inside Inhulets shall throw in the towel first. We can be positively positive every day from now on. The only sad thing is that it didn’t become an – it has begun – in time now when they pulled out that popular reference for every little local small offensive.
Now that Zelensky himself has declared all-out war, I wonder if one could dust off the old Izyum encirclement?
Take up to the city Oskil and then revive the Kupiansk offensive and encircle those left, somewhere around 15 BTG, artillery and some other units?
What one might force is a street fight either north or east via a small land tongue south of the city Oskil to heavy losses under a rain of airstrikes and glowing tungsten rain?
Now it’s Gregg (as others have worthily posted as usual) but he floats the figure 25,000 incompetents at Kherson which would be an enormous number, and according to him the firefighting units have already been used up which were only 2,000 men – some caution is observed and don’t draw too big conclusions, so don’t do like me…
What I do have to think a bit about is how a few dozen battalions of elite units don’t become more than 2,000 men, since the majority of all elite units have been sent to Kherson it is either the end of them or they have sneaked them out over the Dnipro quite recently?
You remember just like me the whole discussion about sending all VDV to Kherson for a new offensive.
Then he posted today’s big surprise, that they are pushing all units to Crimea and deprioritizing all other fronts and that he reasons about sabotage and long-range weapons to strike this buildup coming up behind the southern front.
Pretty soon the area behind the southern front will be the same as at Kherson when it calms down there, HARM that takes out all LV, drones, aircraft and army aviation running completely unhindered and all kinds of artillery on top. These are large stretches you have to cover now when you can no longer run trains either due to damaged rails or fear of glowing tungsten rain. There will probably be a showdown with the Russian air force maybe but it will end exactly the same as at Kherson – acute fear of flying 🙂
If there were 30 BTG at Kherson there are probably twice that in the area between the Dnipro and Mariupol now that the 3rd Army corps is arriving so around 90 BTG total (yes varying personnel strength and motivation)?
So they are no longer sending anything to Mariupol because of what? The long-range weapons?
If one can push a wedge down to Mariupol (yes an incredibly tall order) then the war is probably decided and Volnovakha is the first step on that journey, according to Liveuamap Ukraine is almost gaining access to the forest area north of Volnovakha but exactly where they are there is not clear to me, I suspect Liveuamap might be wrong.
It’s starting to shape up, one must say, according to Gregg Ukraine wants a decisive result at Kherson within two weeks so now the question is what the definition of a decisive result is.