11:18
I’m a bit out of sync again today but I write about what I see.
A month ago before Christmas, someone from Ukraine discussed that the Russians were preparing a winter offensive and that they would also attack from Belarus.
It has been a bit chaotic for a while but Gregg made a major revision in his update which some kind soul posted in the thread and Erik14 has done his night shift.
It is notable that the Russians have white tape – they have also changed tape and the offensive now unfolding was the winter offensive Ukraine expected.
It also seems quite clear that they are still engaged in Oblast warfare and feel it is worth sacrificing elite units to achieve a quick resolution.
What is not happening is Belarus, so not everything is going according to plan for the Russians; it is quite obvious to me that if you put everything you have on the line, then a diversion from Belarus would also have been smart, especially if you have 25,000 men there and several Guards brigades – but for some reason it did not happen.
We have now confirmed that the following unit types are attacking between Kreminna – Vuhledar; Spetsnaz, Guards, VDV, Marine infantry and they are infiltrating reconnaissance. These units have until now been in the rear and allowed newly mobilized and LPR/DPR forces to take the hits where it has occurred.
There are isolated elite units along the entire NS line from Svatove all the way up to Kupiansk but they are likely qualified reserves. There are also many Guards units along the Southern front but there it is not all-out war.
These are all the elite unit types and it is a long front they are fighting on; if I were to guess, quite a lot of the Russians’ capable reserves have been dedicated to this offensive.
When the VDV gathered in Kherson, it was in the order of +15 BTGs or thereabouts and today there are active fights on a front twice as wide as the Kherson front and around 2000 men are put out of combat daily. I got the impression that the entire VDV was stationed in Kherson but that can of course be wrong.
We do not know how large a part of the remaining VDV is being deployed but they have been fighting at least in Kreminna and Soledar. Of the +15 BTGs in Kherson, a couple probably took heavy losses and were wiped out, I don’t remember how many but at least three and mostly 4-5?
Regarding the VDV, they cannot have many battalions left with maintained combat value as expected of them – maybe 8?
The Marine infantry was almost wiped out during the autumn after Popasna and has probably been inactive on the Southern front. They have been deployed at Vuhledar.
Spetsnaz are almost endangered and they have been deployed at Kreminna.
There are many Guards units and it is incredibly difficult to figure anything out but they are deploying Guards units in the fights now instead of LPR, DPR, newly mobilized or motorized.
Guards are considered to have a higher capability but how the empty shells have been filled over time is what we do not know. It could be a battalion with newly mobilized for example which has a worrying name. If I were to guess, they have chosen the Guards units that have maintained combat value for this offensive.
Firstly, the Russians are now using their best units instead of letting them go on defense and have – a long war.
Almost all analysts have agreed that Putin would benefit from a long conflict. He would try to freeze the conflict, get a ceasefire and all that.
The only one who has not agreed with the analyst corps is Putin because he goes all in as soon as he can in 2023. We were guessing a Ukrainian surprise on Orthodox Christmas but it was Putin who went all-in on Orthodox Christmas, just as we thought they would do on our Swedish Christmas day or Midsummer day, so right thinking.
If you do a map check, they are infinitely far from succeeding in capturing Donetsk Oblast, they are working in one corner and if against all odds they were to capture Bakhmut – Siversk line, the main line runs from Kramatorsk/Slovyansk in a semicircle down towards Horlivka, and there is more Donetsk Oblast behind that.
– a bit like swimming into a crayfish trap and thinking you have won.
If the Russians had thought in terms of defense, they should have put this effort into a North to South offensive along the Oskil river all the way down to the town of Oskil and retake Lyman.
They should also have tried to do what they always say they will do – take Zaporizhia Oblast. They have flank protection from the Dnipro and the higher up they get along the Dnipro the more pressured Ukraine becomes down towards Vuhledar and is forced to retreat. There is an excellent defensive position between Dnipro – Pavlograd.
One reason they may not feel they can do this is probably Ukrainian indirect fire which they would have gotten right in the flank?
Instead, they throw themselves over a defensive line that has no significance whatsoever and with another defensive line behind it. They also do not think in terms of improving their positions because they could quite easily have fallen back to prepared defenses a few kilometers east and saved many lives.
Instead of that, they go straight into well-prepared traps and just grind on until they achieve success and they do not get that before they commit the main part (possibly) of their elite units.
To be very clear – if they had deployed LPR, DPR and newly mobilized, no eyebrows would have been raised but it is the Russian qualified offensive reserve that is now being used up.
Putin does not feel he has time to wait until a spring offensive, exactly why we do not know but we see it in his actions.
They are also very troubled by Ukraine’s indirect fire and feel they are being combated unpleasantly much in defense.
That is why I believe this is positioning ahead of negotiations rather than a course change in the war.
It could of course also be in pure desperation to preempt Ukraine’s winter offensive which they knew would reach Azov and liberate northern Luhansk…
The rest is air, it costs nothing to talk – mobilize 500,000 men, set up 20 new divisions, the goal is to invade all of Ukraine etc. It is also a massive Russian psyops campaign running around in the media again.
– A litmus test will be to see how large the next missile attack is which probably started last night. We had about 90-100 missiles at most when they started attacking the power infrastructure?
– The second is how long it takes before the will to die starts to fade around Soledar and Bakhmut.
– The third is Kreminna.
– A fourth is if they mobilize 500,000 men now starting January 15.
Then we will have to calibrate again.
I have quite a lot of understanding that Ukraine’s winter offensive is on pause until this has played out. One can also remember that when the Russians put everything on Lysychansk, Kharkiv fell and we know that they have redistributed units from the Southern front to keep the pressure up but Gregg believes that Ukraine has also had to pull units from the Southern front now.
Had an intense dream about threats to children that obviously came from what we have now experienced. Tried to protect my own children from those I knew wanted to harm them, everything ended exactly according to plan because you get to decide your own sleeping time, but there have been countless tragedies that have played out in Ukraine during the year.
A thought I’ve had about the torture centers is that already during the Yugoslav war, the worst abuses were filmed and sold on a very lucrative black market. Reasonably, with all the mobile phones, Russian soldiers should have found an extra source of income and are doing exactly that. Films of tortured, murdered, raped small children probably unfortunately go for very large sums in the dark underworld. Otherwise, I find it hard to see that every little hole has had 4-5 torture centers, as that is usually handled by a unit in a building that acts as a prison and administration.
This war is completely pitch black and it is in that light that one must see that those who do not put in absolutely everything to bring it to an end receive quite a lot of criticism. That criticism is highly justified and they have to live with it.
The whole discussion during the autumn about not being able to send armor for various reasons was downright distasteful and above all completely wrong now that top-shelf armor is arriving.
Not sending it during the summer ahead of Ukraine’s autumn offensive has absolutely prolonged the war, but we have been sour enough about that, so it’s probably time to let it go.
By the way, it seems there will be a Ukrainian armored brigade with Leo2 and we could probably equip the mechanized battalion with CV90 and the artillery battalion with Archer?
The Brits are also sending down Challenger immediately, you can always count on them when the wind blows 😀
Counter-move Macron for his AMX-10 doesn’t make as much noise, I think we have Leclerc?
I am positive-positive about what I see, the last on my risk list was that the West would betray or Ukraine would decide to give up land and both are now down to zero, which of course can change but I don’t see that.
14:47
The signal value itself has made Putin start taking a double dose of omeprazole, but a brigade fully equipped with Western armor, under an air defense screen and with Western artillery, absolutely makes a difference.
I don’t remember what the heavy armored brigades in the USA are called, but they were expected to make a difference on the scale of a brigade, not a division or corps.
If Ukraine requests 300 MBTs, 600 IFVs, and 500 ART, one can quite quickly figure out what they have in mind, 3-4 brigades?
THAT would be a battering ram that would hardly be stopped before the border. Since the Russians only lay mines in the first line, you can work them away and then it never stops.
Air and army aviation are what you have to protect against, but the country with the most air defense in the world is probably Ukraine.
According to reports, near-precision and eastern tank guns should scratch the paint a bit on the better tanks, and with CV90 or Bradley as a partner, it becomes hard to stop.
We might get to see mechanized combat after all.
Ukraine has reached wizard-level in its indirect fire/pre-engagement, and I am doubtful that there are any tanks left in operational condition on the defensive line when they advance, but of course they have to counter the counterattack from the firefighting force before they break through completely, and then we have superior tanks with superior crews against some who have just learned start and stop.
15:00
Starting to be a crowded boat, Dengamle and HMS Repulse share a seating area with a table, Järven goes solo, we have a telegraphist and Erik14 gets the honorary task of guarding the fridge with Jolt Cola, no table there but unlimited supply.
15:06
Look at this, Ukrainian-developed drone with very exciting things in the camera, can one guess rangefinder, coordinates and other things that have been automated?
https://twitter.com/FriaUkraina/status/1614029912297332740?s=20&t=oHkhQPlcBhzT1-oQwxacIw
15:13
Seems to have been a unit that was encircled and defeated in the town of Soledar.
Then there was some confusion about the two train stations, but if I understand this correctly, Ukraine holds a fairly formidable defensive position a bit west of the town of Soledar and has dominant terrain?
If that is correct, the Russians have today not really achieved anything of value, Bakhmut is holding as well?
17:06
Imagine if Scholz, aka The Eel, could get as angry about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Putin as he is now about countries in Europe having the audacity to want to send Leopard 2 to Ukraine.
This July anger is only surpassed by the absolutely German rage in the first weeks of the war when Zelensky did not want to meet Germany’s president in Kiev, then Scholz got as furious as only a German can. The special operation he had probably mentioned a bit in passing at that time.
Van has an interesting half-year ahead with German media now that this nest of snakes will try to find a way forward, but it’s very fun that Die Grüne is for offensive weapons.
However, I think they have sorted this out just in time for Rammstein and that Macron has now convened the security council and the entire parliament on a Saturday evening to propose how to top Challenger 2.
17:07
Sorry for the relapse.
17:07
Or as Dengamle would have put it, a gust of wind in the weather vane.
17:39
There will be an -after- within a year where the EU will be shaped for the future.
The charm of the EU is that one country has one vote and that is democracy, so elephants like Germany can very well find themselves overtaken in all EU matters going forward just because all the other countries are angry at them.
Since they are quite dependent on electricity imports and have cut the umbilical cord to Russia, I don’t see that they have a position of strength directly. Yes, they have large industry and economy but it depends on the rest of Europe giving them electricity.
10:48
The UK is sending tanks to Ukraine immediately.
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1614193884820537346?s=46&t=mRuuONHiGdZG37bQkBeFFQ