12:36
Here I am quite Monday-tired and trying to get started with the week.
It struck me that LW hasn’t missed a day since the war started and has a multitude of other commitments and in the thread it’s probably Erik14 who has kept the zero or close to it.
The rest of us come and go as we can in the constant puzzle of kids, work, living 🙂
There used to always be some comment thanking the blog at the start of the day, it’s been a while and maybe replaced by the daily donation, which I think is very good but pretty neat to keep the zero in blog and thread after 8 months 👍
13:10
Pro-Russian sources are starting to complain about how poorly their own offensives are going, an incredible finger-pointing and various commanders have roughly the lifespan of a mayfly. The fronts are stagnant but it’s not quiet, there are Russian attacks as much as they can manage and what can the purpose of these attacks really be; Vuhledar, Pisky, Bilohorivka, Bakhmut, Soledar and a couple of other places.
I think the Oblast fighting has ceased, they no longer try to take Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts and proclaim peace in our time, that train has left and the hypnopad knows it. In northern Luhansk it is more defensive battles than offensive operations. At Bilohorivka it is also basically defense since Ukraine intended to go on the offensive there.
Between Soledar – Vuhledar Ukraine has kept calm and it is quite lively on the Russian side with high knees and collective suicides in the thousands. What is the goal of this? We know they are fortifying the eastern bank of the Dnipro so there is a will to hold the entire area behind the Southern front. The Southern front has also been static so presumably okay defense?
Between Donetsk – Horlivka they are pushing west of previous ceasefire lines and preparing their defense – hard to see that they are chasing better positions for the winter? Bakhmut – Siversk, that line they have stormed non-stop since Ukraine withdrew there from Lysychansk – why?
They could have gone north from the Southern front I think and tried to reach Zaporozhye and Dnipro, a large river as flank protection is not a bad idea.
There are a few different alternatives to this seemingly illogical behavior.
-they just go on with what they can.
-no one questions orders but throws everything at the latest general order that has been left.
-new commander orders attacks to save his own skin.
-they have tried to break Ukraine’s back during the autumn with attacks where they can and targeted sensitive infrastructure with heavy weapons – the hope was that Ukraine was as tired as themselves and that a willingness to negotiate would arise.
The last is probably the only one with some degree of professionalism in it but then they should have tried to open their northern front simultaneously together with an offensive north from the Southern front, they reached about halfway.
Ukraine always hits with something really smart, something that makes a difference, they take a poorly defended area and let the Russians retake it with incredible losses or go in and retake strategic positions where there are gaps. The Russian team is the total opposite, completely pointless offensive operations and I can’t see a hidden purpose other than maybe the last point but then it was poorly executed.
The point is that somewhere in September the Russian offensive operations actually ceased and they switched to defense. Now they have tried to regain the initiative through terror bombings against soft infrastructure and extremely intense attacks. What was missing/was really just to open a northern front from Belarus, NW of Kharkiv and offensive operations from the south. The air force has demonstrably gone all in despite the quarrels before the daily reviews of who will take the Ukraine route.
Since Ukraine rarely dawdles they have of course prepared for a new round of offensive operations, east of the Inhulets river seems close at hand and presumably also northern Luhansk? When the chess move is delivered is impossible to know but it is also in the cards.
Then the question arises – are the Russians finished?
The units are now a group of soldiers who have learned to shoot AK mixed with many war-weary experienced soldiers and presumably a screaming lack of key personnel across the entire special operation.
They have no defense against guided ammunition and no protection against it either, and Ukraine’s capability is increasing all the time.
The leadership has been replaced so many times that the ability to cooperate must be low.
You remember the steps a group goes up in the military service, or any other chosen activity. The first week they never got the tent up and lay under the tent canvas and slept around midnight. Towards the end the tent went up in fifteen minutes. That development of the group is disrupted if you add or remove personnel, if you add it is easier to absorb but if you remove (and add) the group slips down quite a few rungs on the ladder.
The ability to cooperate, function as a unit and solve tasks drops sharply.
Many Russian BTGs were presumably skeletons at some point and then they have been filled up and the combat leadership is probably completely replaced by now?
Now it seems the Russian army manages to send soldiers to die anyway which seems to be a floor and they deserve full credit for that. The ability to solve tasks and combat value for units must be low.
Looking at the combat leadership’s plans for offense the last +month it does not signal competent warfare.
Looking at how combat is conducted by the units it is back-to-basic. Run in the direction of Ukraine and shoot.
Is there any chance for Russia to restore its capability – no.
They can get deliveries of materiel but it must be operated too and someone must control this materiel and a group of personnel so that they can solve a task and that ability is probably permanently gone now.
That said the war is not over and Ukrainian soldiers die every day. The intensity of the fighting on the eastern front probably has no parallel since WW2 and it is incredibly sad that we have not fully committed to Ukraine here. But they manage anyway and now we are past a point where there would be any scenario where Russia can win.
Beginning and the end or end of the beginning is probably a matter of taste in this context but a milestone was passed a while ago 👍
14:32
Skators, read the entire analysis and I found it very interesting.
Detailed to say the least.
15:22
A mistake, Bakhmut is an important locality.
19:01
I was also thinking along those lines hms repulse 😀
They go in a row without fire on target until they get shot out. Like a shooting range.
Poor visibility and all, but quite a lot is course A1, like a platoon providing support and shooting at the target.
Then the eternal driving the same route as the last mine explosion, reckless or madness.
Or is it just suicide by cop we’re seeing?
Has that angle been brought up as an explanation yet
12:14
Skators – I think they want to keep all of Kherson if possible.
They are prepared to abandon east of Inhulets if it gets tight.
Preferably, they probably don’t want to abandon the city of Kherson.
They don’t want to use up all the VDV in the process 🙂
There is some kind of rotation going on and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ukraine suddenly moves down towards Khakovka and then when history is written there were no VDV among the captured, for example.