09:32
Yep, now we can stop the lament about top-shelf armor and unconditional support. Nice.
The thread got lively, you can probably guess how many high fives Zelensky and the defense minister gave and how morale-boosting it is for all of Ukraine that all suspicions that they are not getting all the help needed to win now disappear. The adrenaline will take them to the national border.
10:13
The speech below from Zelensky is exactly what we said in the thread, we could not see a rational reason why top-shelf remained untouched. Now the sluice gates are open.
https://twitter.com/tpyxanews/status/1610777551781101572?s=46&t=HxH5zHdRRxQ_GZsYEPVjOw
10:22
Ceasefire for Orthodox Christmas is a parliamentary fire for full mobilization.
The Russians will blow up many civilians celebrating Christmas.
And then declare general mobilization and full war economy in a storm of internal PR.
The West knows this and that is why the floodgates have been opened for offensive weapons, it could not wait any longer and signal politics was needed.
11:46
Yesterday and today were fun days, I’ve also always thought that Scholz dresses nicely and that Macron’s bro hugs are manly, if anyone thought otherwise, beer-boot is one of the world’s great wonders on par with beef bouillabaisse.
I interpret increasing armor losses as Ukrainian offensive operations, right or wrong, things are starting to move.
Before the cards are shuffled away – the important thing with top-shelf armor is signal politics, now the floodgates have been opened for IFVs and MBTs will follow, Putin knows that the West will deliver until he has lost the war and that the West has enough. He absolutely hates his life right now. The next step is Ukraine’s further increased capability but with a bit of luck the war will be over before everything is deployed, materiel for the winter offensive is already secured.
Over time, Ukraine’s army will achieve NATO standards in everything.
All arguments as to why top-shelf armor would never be sent to Ukraine applied until they no longer did. I get the distinct feeling that there has been a lot of horse-trading diplomacy behind closed doors and that support has been secured over time until the last had to give in. No one wants to be last and no one wants to miss the contracts for rebuilding Ukraine. There have been a couple who consistently dismissed those (incorrect) arguments – good position it turned out. Everyone who had the absolute truth as to why nothing would be sent should perhaps consider why they took the wrong position when the likelihood of it being sent was always high.
We absolutely cannot see the whole game and not everything is as it seems but the important thing was – signal politics that the West wants Ukraine to be able to win the war through offensive weapons and with better offensive weapons than the turret launchers. Now it is done and we can let go of the eternal mantra. Whether CV-90 comes or not is not decisive for the Ukraine war so we can let that go too, even if it would be fun to see Sweden contribute with offensive weapons of course. Any country can spare a company and Bradley and Marder get a lot of positive PR now ahead of the big arming of the free West, but now maybe it’s Puma that applies.
A very speculative thought is that Russia will try to unite the country in some kind of full mobilization and that they use Orthodox Christmas for it. Nothing probably stirs Russian feelings like bloody church pews at Christmas time. The West knew this and preempts it through signal politics.
Probability 1 that the war will end this year, early or late, and that a war end equals full Russian retreat from all Ukrainian territory. The last puzzle piece was offensive weapons if you remember discussions early last fall when we thought they had been smuggled into Ukraine ahead of the autumn offensive, which they had not to our great positive disappointment.
The picture is Putin riding out to battle on a hummingbird by the way, apparently only visible on a computer.
Now Russia is also starting to build the image that the West is at war with them everywhere, read this from Rybar, I personally believe that those best suited for special operations in Russia are Ukraine, a Russian born in Ukraine with Ukrainian sympathies can move quite freely in Russia and money can buy everything. But it is more Russian to blame attacks on Western countries.
https://twitter.com/rybar_en/status/1611209586446372864?s=20&t=ES9RfRagoTDAcLBwPo0wnQ
This one is also quite funny because his map is frozen since August or something but he calls the offensive successful, there isn’t much positive to write about for Rybar anymore, now we just wait for the panic to come.
https://twitter.com/rybar_en/status/1611208164875042819?s=20&t=ES9RfRagoTDAcLBwPo0wnQ
Girkin has completely condemned the Russian army and Russian leadership and wonders when Putin will be overthrown, he is this war’s great mystery. If you say the word war you get 10 years in the gulag but Girkin can lay out how Putin will be hanged at prime time.
Rybar is also worried about Ukraine’s enormous reorganization of the army, we know of two new brigades but there has been talk of divisions. Apparently they are reshaping the brigades according to NATO standards and moving leftover troops to training grounds to set up new maneuver units – is there anyone who still feels that Ukraine is going all in here, is too tired and starting to run out of everything?
The old truth that the critical mass is to Ukraine’s advantage still applies with the difference that since all maneuver brigades are at active fronts they are now setting up new ones we do not yet see.
There were a couple of things on the risk list –
-that Ukraine has all units at the active front and falters.
-that Ukraine considers it better to abandon some land to avoid suffering.
-that the West does not support all the way and not with offensive weapons.
All three are gone.
Ukraine is therefore currently preparing its organization for post-war, their land border is enormous and they will need a large defense organization to protect that border, why take chances again.
That is probably also the reason they do not sacrifice and play tight poker (TM LarsC) as we discussed early this spring when the offensives never started – you need an intact army to protect the border as soon as the Russians are out.
Another truth we guessed in the spring when the Russian April offensive was at its worst was that Russian BTGs were going towards zero but Ukraine was economizing on losses. That is why it looked worrying but we kept hope up and were positive every day 👍 – the BTG shells and the whole discussion. That is what we see now when the Ukrainian maneuver brigades are intact and enormously capable and the Russian ones are newly mobilized in a hole. The last thing they have, my guess, is VDV and some Guards they have tried to protect.
When Ukraine has broken through the lines with newly mobilized and second-rate troops and reaches the VDV and Guards – I believe that is the limit of what the Russian command is willing to sacrifice. They then pull these units back to their own side of the border to save the children. There is probably a red line even for the Russian general staff, and not having any hired-guns for the big post-war positioning is probably not an option.
The next big event will be when LPR and DPR switch sides, which can be done peacefully or by joining Ukraine against Russia. I thought they would switch sides earlier, but better late than never. How one can choose the front line, slaughter, and desecration by Kadyrovites over EU membership is something someone will have to explain to me, but it will probably be quite easy to reintegrate eastern Ukraine after this.
Not least because the last thing we will see in this war (and we are not there yet, winter offensive and maybe also spring offensive and even a Russian one) is a modern version of scorched earth tactics where the Russians also leave DPR and LPR burned out with salt on the fields – my last five hundred goes to that just because it feels very much like the current Russian regime to do so.
Then the country Ukraine must be rebuilt, and at least I welcome them into the EU and preferably also NATO, or JEF World…
They have many problems left to solve but have all the conditions to become a powerhouse in the future where living in eastern Ukraine is synonymous with wealth, not as a slave under Russia with torture centers and genocide. What must be addressed immediately after the war is all able-bodied men who have nothing to do, but maybe that is solved by having a huge standing army with decent pay?
11:54
This has probably been brought up by some other genius in the thread, but a serious attempt to understand the Leo2, I have enormous sympathy for all the criticism the Germans have had to endure.
I don’t agree with everything but a couple of good points.
https://twitter.com/WAJKoenitz/status/1604201668253724672?s=20&t=Y0Emq2llFuhS2QsBVjQpAQ
12:00
Personally, I don’t think we have seen the FSB “candidate” yet.
Prigozhin is probably more focused on surviving after the war, Wagner is not powerful enough. They completely lack the FSB’s capability for subversive activities.
Hard to see Russia getting better post-Ukraine, a perfectly reasonable scenario as you describe.
There is probably a scenario where the West has secretly agreed with democratic and good forces within the FSB to democratize Russia, but even with the most positive outlook, I find it hard to believe in something like that; those forces do not exist.
12:06
An addition regarding offensive weapons that I have been meaning to post for quite a while but always forget is that the latest modifications of a T72, the one Excalibur is supposed to perform on the 150 T72s for example, should be considered high-end. The cannon is not bad at all and much depends on the sighting system and reinforced protection.
There is no way around turret hits unfortunately, and it is a written-off crew with a good hit, but Ukraine moves with the tanks in a very measured way except when they are to act as a battering ram during breakthroughs.
So even if one is worried that MBTs have not appeared yet, T72s with the latest in sighting and reinforced protection are now coming to Ukraine.
12:08
Then there are a lot of BMP-3 and later BTRs instead of BTR-60 and BMP-1 in the videos now, and if they just get rid of M113 and Kirpin against Marder and Bradley, it is a significant capability increase.
12:13
These wars in Africa have been very lucrative for Wagner and, well, Russia. It’s not exactly new but during colonization and after its fall, countries have offered protection in exchange for natural resources.
Russia has just recycled an old concept, but what is sad is that they have given a group of rapists and psychopaths a free pass to do whatever they want, and they have done just that. A raped and torture-murdered child in CAR suffers just as much as one in Ukraine.
12:16
Sorry, that was from today and posted by Mustang Sally above, honestly my mistake.
14:33
I think Ukraine is pushing Russian soldiers into the reinforced trench with drone grenades to then put a 155mm in the reinforced trench. Not what you see in the video, but the drone follows the soldiers hopping into the reinforced trench and then they have coordinates for a ten-point hit – collapsed reinforced trench packed full of Russians.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1611325530841780226?s=20&t=bKY6_YG32HEbPGEKtpbc2Q
09:13
Ukraine is going on the offensive and the old “no one likes a loser” seems to be true.
It was brought up yesterday but there will be a follow-up, and being part of rebuilding Ukraine again with EU money in the middle of a recession might be worth a few MBTs even for the most cynical.
Now everyone will compete to outdo each other in sending the most offensive weapons and all the truths about why nothing could/would be sent no longer apply.
The last puzzle piece is in place.