11:15
Cool MickeU, I was just sitting and looking at Minurus and that 85% of all armor is junk and thinking that it’s not true. I have probably myself thrown out a completely illogical number of 5000 as well as that Putin can handle a low-intensity war forever.
The figure 3500 tanks became a truth and sometime this spring there were 1500 knocked out and 1500 in use but trains with T80, T90, T62 arrive every day so sure they have more than we have been led to believe.
The trick here must be to deny them getting the vehicles to the front and then knock out front-line units faster than they can be replenished – then you win.
A low-intensity war they can run forever.
Then as you say, the lack of key personnel is their big problem.
Very nice analysis 👍
11:43
According to Gregg (post above) Deepstatemap has moved the AP heads into a wedge and that signaled retreat. Ran and looked and it’s true. Now Deepstatemap doesn’t know exactly where the units stand but has moved them into this wedge to send the message that the area east of Inhulets is being abandoned.
Nothing similar at the city of Kherson and they have blown up all crossings over Inhulets.
12:09
Has this been up?
The Russian team is doing fine in the mud 🙂
https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1590625159257657345?s=20&t=cfdtl3cFzo8UC3I9pHXcMw
13:38
Now it’s the Twitter generals again but Bruskynske should be taken.
It lies south of Davyidiv Brid and has been somewhat of a medieval fort.
Haven’t checked all place names but if it starts moving from the north as well, it could probably go fast for the Kazotzke Russians to slip into the swimming rings and check the water temperature.
13:58
Read this, I can’t evaluate the source should be added.
https://twitter.com/LanguageIearner/status/1590445464981499905?s=20&t=T6Achg2GaTRGoISbK7CFBQ
A bit simplified – the Inhulets Russians are on their way to exit but the city Kherson Russians are not. The city Kherson Russians consider that they need Khakovka for their retreat because it is the only crossing Ukraine cannot Himars to pieces.
Everything else is impassable.
This has all the signs of potentially becoming a really fine mess actually, it only takes one brigade commander to make the wrong decision here and the circus starts. A smart Russian move would be to hold the city of Kherson and then work with small boats (there are huge supplies in Kherson), not barges, but Russian is rarely smart and it wouldn’t surprise me the least if there is a cow release from the city of Kherson towards Khakovka after all bridges over Inhulets have been blown up and Ukraine is on the Russians’ heels down towards Kozatzke.
My tip is that east of the Inhulets there are no VDV but LPR/DPR and mobilized troops, but in the city of Kherson there are still guards and VDV who have not been withdrawn east of the Dnieper because they might be planning a defense. The thread suggests 16,000.
Russian combat command at its best 👍
14:18
So not 16,000 VDV but some VDV and Guards remain together with the rest of the circus ensemble.
18:03
It’s going fast, the question is whether they have used the last few weeks to ship away VDV; if the city of Kherson falls immediately in this chaos, that would be reasonable, right?
If they are in Chornobvaika, it has gone quite fast from Kyselivka, 10 km across open shooting fields. You don’t take that by force from 16,000 VDV in defense, I think?
Looking forward to the press conference tomorrow but this sure looks like a final battle?
18:09
Either they communicated when the units they wanted to save retreated or Shougu created absolute chaos with his speech, Kherson was to be held but they saw the speech and are trying to save their skins; in scenario 2 there were probably VDV left in Kherson.
19:49
I can’t make sense of this, if UA is in the city of Kherson the defense is on its way out but you don’t move 20,000 Russians on a ferry across the Dnieper in one day.
If it’s a full retreat from the city of Kherson and Khakovka, they must have eased the pressure earlier.
So we have figures of 20,000 – 40,000 men to be evacuated and if everyone had left their positions and walked down to the Dnieper, the majority would still be at the ferry camp in a few days.
23:09
The retreat at Khakovka seems “planned” (Russian version) but the one in the city of Kherson is forced and spontaneous.
What an epic mistake this is 😀
They could have avoided collapse but of course Kremlin had to communicate and then it took on a life of its own – the Russians in the city of Kherson got no orders and solved it themselves.
Now remains to see if VDV have been nested out or remained in the city of Kherson. East of the Inhulets they probably were not.
This turned into a twelve-pointer in the end 👍
Imagine what the ferry camps look like and there will be prisoners as well as an enormous amount of materiel.
11:06
Rybar sulked for a whole day and has now started focusing on Chinese drones.
Kadyrov and Prigozin applaud the Russian retreat from Kherson.
Zakharova sends out not particularly discreet peace feelers “we are ready to negotiate a bit depending on how the situation has developed over the past week,” roughly. Almost a – let’s retreat without a tungsten rain, please.
Two weeks of mystery about what the Russians are up to in Kherson ends with Shoigu ringing the bell for a full retreat – I still suspect that they have gradually pulled out the VDV and elite units and are letting DPR/LPR/newly mobilized take the hit, but time will tell.
In the middle of all this, Ukraine’s offensive in Kherson has restarted after the usual rest period. If I have interpreted this correctly, they basically threw themselves over Snigurivka and took it in a day or two with Azov and the international legion, and they have roughly at least a mechanized battalion as a battering ram in the Beryslav district direction towards Kozatzke.
Himars and 155mm run nonstop and strike everything, there are reports of bridges, ferries, exposed troops, explosions in communities, towns, etc. everywhere now – full throttle, in other words.
If one may guess, air and army aviation are at least equally active.
Looking at this soberly, it is probably so that if the Russians do not retreat according to Shoigu’s directive, then Ukraine still has quite a lot of territory to reclaim and in every offensive they have taken back a larger area, so naturally that will happen this time as well. They seem to have broken through the first defensive line along the entire front, it seems, though I haven’t heard anything about the Davyidiv-Brid area?
Then maybe we will see the Russian version of an organized retreat across a wide river, which will be a masterpiece painted in chaos – we have been hoping for that since March, they almost owe us Operation Badanka 😊
The smallest gain this period is the area inside/east of Inhulets, it is shrinking all the time, is hard to defend and they probably pulled out the VDV from there a while ago so it could go quickly there.
If the Russian team also abandons the city of Kherson in acrobatic gymnastics, one can read much more into that than just maintenance, since Shoigu said maintenance, of course there is a lot more…
-I think the VDV have started to make their voice heard?
-That something is going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about?
-That they need the units on other fronts?
-That the units are in infinitely worse shape in Kherson than we are led to believe, 40,000 men, all VDV, etc.
It’s quite telling that they have started digging fortification systems down in Crimea now, I think, signaling no longer a punitive expedition against Ukraine but more an attempt at survival.
We were on this a few days ago that the Russians are creating a new low point all on their own through all these insane high-knee attacks. For the historical library, I would love to see a film with Russian high-knee attacks anno 2022, none have appeared yet except the one filmed in the forest near Lyman.
The old joke that a 777 battery can knock out a BTG in defense if they skip morning coffee actually applies. Or not timewise, but the more I look at this, the Russians completely lack defense against guided ammunition, dropped wing grenades and drones. Their counter-capability is decreasing rather than increasing.
That means de facto that when Ukraine is done with Kherson and northern Luhansk, they move all the fun to the next front section and cause huge consequences for the Russians there as well. No front section is safer than any other and in times of mud, every front section becomes like Kherson – hard to supply.
Russians in a hole just get wetter and colder while the number of wing grenades dropped from drones increases exponentially and together with all the target shooting ammunition life must be pretty boring right now in the muddy hole. It’s not very easy to get cover from leafless forest, for example, and all heat sources give off smoke.
Winter War 2.0 should be imminent, if it’s time to leave Kuwait Highway 2.0 because it might have been overused…
Soon, or as soon as northern Luhansk is retaken, the NS supply road inside Russian territory goes down then (the entire West’s) SOF and long-range whatever reach there. There are depots in the darkest Donbass and Rostov-na-Don still but over time they get hit and it becomes difficult with transports down of new armor and mobilized.
I have decided on end of the beginning, then it also became Basarsultanen and Gulaschbaronen, they don’t insult entire countries but are at the same time sufficiently derogatory.
One misfortune never comes alone for the Russians so we can probably expect speed in northern Luhansk or the chess move, or both, quite soon.