10:15
When I finally read all the creative solutions late, I quickly lay on the floor twisting in small jerky circles of laughter at all the suggestions on how to tackle the electricity price, almost warming up in the middle of all the convulsions.
It was discussed here in the thread before Ukraine went on the offensive whether the Russians could parry quick maneuvers or not, and the guess was that they wouldn’t manage it very well, and that’s where we are now; Ukraine has only just started to accelerate.
A lot of information about the start of the war has emerged and I still believe that the Russians had a solid plan – infiltrated Wagner in large numbers (4000 Spetsnaz activated in twilight mode who shoot pilots, officers, and politicians…).
Zelensky himself told how they dropped paratroopers right over Kiev and the distances the spearhead was supposed to cover were a mere 120 km west of Kiev and 200 km east of Kiev.
The FSB stole the bribe money except for the southern front where things went extremely fast; they crossed the Dnieper at lunchtime on the first day, I remember the alligator hovering above the Khakovka dam as if it were yesterday.
If the Belarusians had pushed their wedge down to Lviv and Russian soldiers hadn’t sold their diesel for cheap vodka causing the big fuel shortage, then the war might have looked different if the paratroopers had taken out Zelensky.
Then we have the whole misprioritization at the start of the war and now it’s always hypothetical, but looking at Hitler’s rampages, it was a miracle he got as far as he did; he should have bogged down much earlier. With Putin’s rampages it’s the opposite, I still think he should have managed to take the terrain east of the Dnieper if he hadn’t focused on Kiev. VDV airlands at depth at all crossings over the Dnieper and then deep wedges bypass cities that the second and third echelons handle, much like what Ukraine is doing now. After a few weeks, Zelensky would have stood there with the entire defense of the ceasefire line – 40,000 to 50,000 men completely encircled and forced to give up the terrain east of the Dnieper. The only way to take it back would be to cross the Dnieper, and the Russians with DPR and LPR would have already fortified all crossings. A ceasefire would likely have been close at hand and Ukraine would have been divided in two.
Ukraine received guarantees that no attack would come from (if I recall correctly) Germany, France, and Italy’s intelligence services, or at least two of them. Zelensky believed this instead of the UK and US warnings about war and the army was not mobilized so as not to provoke Russia. Of course, they had a defense but the mobilization we have seen since February 24, which has now resulted in what is steamrolling the Russians like a steamroller, did not exist and has taken six months to build. Ukraine had not done this because they believed in guarantees of peace.
Then there is a piece of the puzzle that I find troubling (this is my personal opinion) and that is that the same countries that convinced Ukraine that Russia would not attack, and were wrong, have also tried to persuade Ukraine to cede territory to Russia in exchange for EU membership and peace – after the war started, and they have also been slow to contribute equipment and have opposed attempts in the EU to do more. This went on for a long time, until it became obvious that the Russians were bogged down, and only in recent months has this shifted. The Germans, for example, have refused to allow third countries to donate their Leo2 tanks to Ukraine (if I recall correctly).
If you ask me, some have been prepared to sacrifice Ukraine but this will never be clarified and all discussions can be dismissed as tin-foil hat nonsense and pure conspiracy theories, so nothing to dwell on.
I almost see the playing field as rigged against Ukraine but the Russians made too many mistakes – the big fuel shortage is one, going straight for cities instead of encircling another, the FSB stealing the bribe money is a third, and the plans for infiltrated units seem to have leaked to Ukraine in advance which meant Ukraine survived by a hair, the defense held.
Then the underlying systemic problems come to the surface over time – the army thought it was an exercise, the army had just finished an Afghan war, the army had maps from the 1980s, the army had no communication equipment and it was the Russian army so nothing works. Pretty much like in Afghanistan and Chechnya but they themselves projected the image that the army was Read Army 2.0 now.
Ukraine has survived the first blow, the one the Russians prepared for five years, and since the critical mass was in their favor sometime in March they have been able to build up an offensive capacity.
As soon as they could start to “strike back” instead of desperately defending themselves, they have exposed the Russians’ weaknesses and found a countermeasure to either expose the weakness or amplify it.
They have worked like the best horse traders to get new weapons and with every new type of weapon there have been 3-4 really fun weeks before the Russians start adjusting.
The Russian army seems to function like a WW1 army, they get written orders which they follow and continue with until they get orders otherwise. It seems possible to lead from the front but then it’s like with my attempts at business ventures in developing countries, what you can control and oversee yourself works but everything else sinks like a stone – if you remember, Ukraine started by knocking out all front-line staff positions to disrupt command chains with tour-de-777. Now all battalion commanders probably sit 180 km behind and give orders by courier and to have full control the standing order is – “don’t do a damn thing unless you have it in writing or it will be the desecration by Kadyrov Chechens,” very clever by Ukraine.
Then the really fun thing happened the other day – they disrupt all communications before an attack and give counter orders that the Russians either believe come from their combat leadership or from the neighboring unit. This retreat in Kherson was partly created by confusing the Russians.
As long as it was static and the Russians had artillery superiority, the Russians could “keep Ukraine at bay,” the air force also played a role.
Now Ukraine has an air defense screen that would make the Israelis green with envy if it hasn’t neutralized the air force, it is at least a fight before the daily briefing on who will fly over Ukraine.
The artillery, we saw a significant increase in losses which I interpreted as artillery radar now being in place, a lot has been lost, then there are technical faults, bad barrels, and ammunition shortages.
I probably thought that the Russians’ supplies were more disrupted than they have been but evidently at Izyum there were huge stockpiles left. According to their own statements, Ukraine took materiel for two brigades and large amounts of ammunition. That the artillery has “quieted down” is probably a combination of destroyed guns, technical faults on guns, fewer transport vehicles, and destroyed depots. You can guess how the depots look in the darkest Donbass and down by Rostov on Don. Up near Belgorod there are still huge bases that Ukraine probably doesn’t strike even if they could. T90 and T80 tanks are also arriving in a steady stream now.
Then we have the next part where Ukraine is conducting combined arms warfare and its version of mechanized combat, massive infiltration, and then the armor leading the way along with fast vehicles – the basic principle is fire and movement and trying to bypass defenses that are then forced to retreat in a rout.
This has proven to work beyond expectations in areas where the Russians have not prepared deep defenses over a longer period and the density of defending units is low.
There were also reports that they deploy tanks that from a safe distance knock out the defense with direct fire, presumably together with indirect fire and drones that direct the fire.
All this is situational adaptation and something has started to emerge here – it might be that there are few tanks on the Russian side in some places because the armor moves quite casually as long as they are outside infantry fighting vehicle range. Could it be that they knock out buried armor in defense with 777 or HIMARS precision strikes and then attack the remaining infantry first with direct fire and then bypass or run over them? – I think so.
At the top of the risk list is if Ukraine loses momentum but that does not seem to be the case and now is likely the low point for the Russians. If they get time, they can build up a defense again but they will never get it; Ukraine will press on with more of the same until this is over. There is no chance that the Russians will be able to adapt to avoid this loss in the making.
Rather, Putin will issue increasingly insane general orders that contribute to the decline.
I don’t think MBTs and IFVs are decisive because Ukraine has captured incredible amounts of armor here that they repair and put into combat immediately, but I think it is poor of the West not to provide it – it would have shortened the war considerably.
However, Ukraine will move towards a win entirely on its own and clear area by area unless one of the bubbles suddenly happens.
In terms of low-hanging fruit, the area east of the Inhulets River is ripe. It seems they have brought in that VDV regiment from Syria there and reserves have arrived in recent weeks, but despite that, they are retreating. Positive-Positive.
10:52
Also forgot the fatal decision to postpone the start of the war until after the Olympics ended, partly so the soldiers could sell everything for cheap vodka but then I think the frost thawed due to rain?
Looking at the average temperatures, before the end of January would have been much better than the end of February.
Then you have the Christmas holidays and all that which would have had positive effects but maybe they were not ready.
But if the whole thing was – wait until after the Olympics – then it was a fatal misjudgment.
16:03
Polling.
Ukraine received information from foreign intelligence services; it was the UK and US that informed Zelensky that there would be a war but they chose to believe a couple who said that Russia had no intention to attack – they were wrong and that is almost the very definition of bad advice, I think, if you cannot be held formally responsible for the absolute worst advice since someone told France to invest in videophones instead of the internet, then at least you can ridicule them forever 🙂
A war cannot be stopped by trying to convince the defending party not to prepare for defense, but that can only be done by persuading the attacking party not to attack. Yes, you are right that Macron and Germany were in daily talks with Putin and de facto they became useful idiots because they conveyed what Putin probably wanted them to convey to Ukraine, that Russia would not attack on February 24.
Now WE KNOW that Ukraine was not prepared for the attack on February 24 BECAUSE they listened to these intelligence services, so the reasoning below is probably not really needed but still –
On February 24, quite a few units were in their barracks and not in the field, I don’t know exactly which but down in southern Ukraine there were large amounts of artillery and tanks disabled on the highway, the worst was that artillery regiment just outside the barracks that they wiped out. They should of course have been in prepared positions.
Ukraine could have carried out this general mobilization in the summer of 2021 for example and that is probably one of the points Zelensky will be criticized for when this is over, he will of course not be re-elected as all great leaders never are after a war.
The Battle of Kiev was quite self-inflicted really and they knocked them out with quite a lot of fire attacks against the column/columns after they ran out of fuel (so goes the story, true or not). Everything became chaos and the airborne landing did not make contact with advancing armor before they were badly battered.
There was a river between Hostomel – Kiev that the Russians threw themselves across and in some places there were platoons defending crossings to the last man, they took enormous losses but the line held and it ended with the Russians beginning to regroup instead of pushing forward towards Kiev – or something like that.
Ukraine thanked Belarus for the over 50 train sabotages that contributed to the Russians not getting supplies to the fuel shortage and having to withdraw.
The second wedge east of Kiev got further but they tried to take Kharkiv so it became a gigantic flytrap but the Ukrainian maneuver brigades that absorbed the entire attack had to recover for months. Then they retreated from Severodonetsk when they had the majority of the maneuver brigades in that area because they were too exhausted and were lucky that the Russians threw themselves over the Siversk – Bakhmut line after that.
Ukraine was ready to go on the offensive towards the end of summer (according to themselves), had they been this strong earlier they would probably have taken the opportunity at the other low points?’
Kherson was about 6-7 BTGs for quite a while, at the southern front it was weak when the Russians pooled everything to Severodonetsk, +60% of available units were north of Luhansk.
I don’t feel like I’m off track about the course of events, not entirely clear if it is the criticism of Germany and France you are addressing but after the outbreak of war Scholz got pissed that Ukraine did not want his visit to Kiev, angrier than at Putin who had attacked Ukraine so those two countries have not acted very nicely.
18:42
Not according to the Ukrainians themselves anyway.
”Zelensky’s Chief of Staff: We didn’t believe Russia would invade Ukraine until very last. Andriy Yermak, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, said that authorities were preparing for Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine for months — ‘and now we see the result, we are successfully fighting for two weeks,’ but they did not believe it would really happen. According to him, during the first hours of the war, President Zelensky and others were concentrated, nobody panicked”.
https://kyivindependent.com/uncategorized/zelenskys-chief-of-staff-we-didnt-believe-russia-would-invade-ukraine-until-very-last
And Zelensky did not believe it.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-predicted-no-attack-2-days-before-russia-invaded-2022-2?r=US&IR=T
18:44
I honestly mean that Ukraine listened to Germany and France who, by being Putin’s useful idiots, made them trust that Russia would not attack and that they were not optimally prepared.
I honestly mean that quite a large shadow falls on Germany and France for that.
I honestly mean that I believe what Kiev Independent and Business Insider write.
Was that a bit clearer 🙂
20:25
This one has probably been up before but it is a little pre-party for mobilized Russians.
If you look closely, there is a gentleman with a lot of dancing in his legs in the middle who looks a bit different, the others look quite lukewarm.
https://twitter.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/1578015832961007619?s=20&t=2P42sE1eAfgtzSep1X7_bQ
09:56
Speaking of Gammalsvenskby –
“The night has been restless. There was a lot of automatic fire and many explosions nearby. The Russian army remains in the village.
The village had electricity for two hours, but is now without power again. This also means that there is no water.”