2022-12-07 -

10:35

Belarus is probably just a matter of time and it looks like a popular revolution in the Ukraine style.

One thought has been that a triggering factor could be if they try to move parts of the army into Russia to be subordinated to Russian command. It is probably no secret that WW2 has knocked with its barrier battalions and high-knee attacks and the next best thing is probably to take the fight in Belarus?

I know Belarus poorly but it was almost an election year there a few years ago, Lukashenko stood in a bulletproof vest on the palace steps together with his sons.

10:44

They have apparently designed their defense lines WW1 style and without depth so it is enough to get a breakthrough at one point to then be able to go deep and roll up the rest of the defense lines.

Along the N-S line through Svatove they have not had enough time to build a defense and probably not enough numbers either.

When Ukraine retook Izyum, the first Russian measure was to try to retake all terrain up to the Oskil river and then they have conducted a delaying battle in order to buy time for the N-S defense through Svatove.

The defense is therefore not complete/effective but probably more like isolated islands in channeling terrain, which soon will no longer be channeling terrain.

11:14

There are more advantages with subzero temperatures over a longer period and that is that marshes and small watercourses freeze.
The ice forms on the Seversky Donets for example…

Along the N-S defense through Svatove, the Russians have likely managed to prepare isolated islands of defense in channeling terrain. Pretty sure they haven’t thought four steps ahead and that channeling terrain is meaningless when the watercourses have frozen over.

In Sweden, we probably had two “seasons” for Russian special operations and peace, one was Midsummer’s Day when it was driest and we were all knocked out after a nice party and the other was Christmas Day when we were equally knocked out by the Christmas food.
OT but the season for submarine incursions-peace was October and a while forward when storms stirred up the water layers and made it difficult to locate the Russian peace submarine.

Especially in winter, marshes and watercourses are passable with vehicles in a completely different way than in summer and you would not have to stick to the roads so our rangers’ delaying battle would have become more complex, it was not enough to put an explosive charge in a culvert (which by the way was there for that reason) to stop Russian advance on a road because the ground supports so they can go around.

This is by no means unknown to Ukraine but the Russian circus has probably not factored this in across the hastily constructed defense line in northern Luhansk and they started building before it froze. They have erected their defense at a bridge or a passable road through a marsh.

Therefore, there can probably be sudden large breakthroughs ahead in northern Luhansk where there are quite a few watercourses and especially when the Seversky Donets river freezes over.
After that, the next defense line is N-S through Starobilsk, probably better prepared and maybe with more VDV?
After Starobilsk is the border.

The second advantage is the darkness and Ukraine has increased its night capability incredibly during the course of the war. Passing isolated islands of defense is of course easier in darkness or poor visibility than in full daylight.

A quick map reconnaissance of the Southern front shows that strikingly many defense lines have a watercourse nearby, the Vasylivka line for example.

If Ukraine can utilize indirect fire, SOF, darkness, cold and frozen watercourses, then the Southern front is probably also at risk of breakthrough by sheer force.

It feels like the winter season greatly increases Ukraine’s advantage and that Ukraine will exploit this fully.

LW says this often but being forced out of your (relatively) warm defense into the terrain without cover or shelter is quite an unpleasant experience, especially if it happens suddenly, so the possibility of improvised defense after a hasty retreat drops drastically. It would not surprise me if UA breaks through the Svatove line and then it rolls all the way to Starobilsk. And then they repeat this from Starobilsk to the border.

Now it is Opsec on all fronts again and they have probably learned what that means by now.

11:55

There has been quite a lively discussion in the thread about tougher rhetoric against Russia and Russians in general and that one should filter a bit. As a Ukrainian, of course, you can think, say and do whatever you want until Russian aggression is over, Russia can after all leave Ukraine whenever they want so all the death they cause there in all its forms is completely self-inflicted.
– you can never blame a victim.

For study purposes, I had too many beers with my brother yesterday and watched Brothers which is a post-Soviet film before the Putin era started. There are a couple of Soviet-romantic films often from East Germany, Poland etc. but this one describes the interim period where Russia opened up (for better and worse).

Russian rock music was almost unlistenable and the clothing style challenging. The misery enormous and crime rampant but I got the impression that there was a freedom that Putin later managed to curtail and that they were influenced by the West.
There was a lot of “signal politics” in the film, what was trendy then – how to smoke a cigarette for example, the small details are always the funniest.
The submarine incursions stopped around 1994 if I remember correctly so then the Russian-peace project in Scandinavia was discontinued.

In 2000 Hypnopad became president and in 22 years he has managed to put the country on a war footing and right in the digital age when information suddenly became available to everyone managed to steer opinion in Russia so much that he has managed to carry out a catastrophic offensive war against Ukraine and still not be dangling from a gas station.
Everyone remembers the Arab Spring and that there hasn’t been a Russian spring yet is somewhat incredible, even in Iran and China there is more movement.

I think one has to distinguish between Russian citizens and the country Russia’s aggression against not only Ukraine. Clearly Russia has received too little criticism and we have gone too soft on them, otherwise we wouldn’t be here today.

We should also crack down really hard on Russian subversive activities because they damage our democracies deeply. The blogger mentioned a political party today that is responsible for my electricity bill and somewhat coincidentally that type of parties all over Europe have done the same thing. There are others whose fringes sow division everywhere they get access. Then we have hate preachers etc. I was talking during the year’s Christmas party with a woman born in Sweden who is more Swedish than I am but she doesn’t feel Swedish because she is not accepted due to her appearance – this kind of thing is what Russian subversive activity is masterful at exploiting. Rich against poor, pigmented (TM Ben) against ethnic Swedes, the environmental movement, the peace movement, left extremists, right extremists, Islamists.

A Russian is not automatically a bad person, even though there are many examples of Russians who are truly bad people. One should not generalize, but one should also not ease up in their criticism of the dictatorship Russia and all the Russian citizens who either support the war (I am thinking of the diaspora) or actively participate. Anyway, recommended film with some beers.