12:05 – Johan No.1
When the Russians deployed their elite units in an accelerated offensive, a search for reasons began, all kinds of theories floated around and one of them was that the sluice gates were opened for Western weapons right after New Year, both coincidentally happened around the same time even though both had been prepared before.
With what we are beginning to understand about the Ramstein meeting, it is highly likely that this is a strong reason why Putin does not feel he has time on his side here. The process started when Zelensky was in the USA and somewhere around that time the Russians also got information about what was coming and decided to ramp up their winter offensive. You remember that Zelensky came home and said he had received promises of a lot, including offensive weapons.
Someone in the thread also posted that flights from the entire JEF were in the air at the same time as Zelensky.
The fact that they had children telling about their war experiences in Davos means it is very coordinated on several levels – they have brought out the bigger PR cannons here.
The Russians have clearly opposed top-shelf Western armor quite strongly, otherwise it would have arrived a long time ago – it is usually politically and diplomatically sensitive. They probably have the world’s best subversive operations and China has been up to all sorts of things (in my opinion). That Elon Musk came out saying tanks were obsolete and did not need to be sent was very interesting to me.
Zelensky’s USA visit was the starting shot and the goal is the Ramstein meeting where everything is decided and the purpose is to resource Ukraine’s spring offensive, and the signaling to Putin/Russia that they will be overrun quite soon.
Germany is now making a last half-hearted attempt but they will deliver their Leopards in the end, I would bet five hundred on that. If they surprisingly don’t, there will probably be a government crisis and a huge betrayal debate within the country, Scholz must be able to see that and that the least painful thing is a Leo2 delivery.
At Ramstein, 40 countries meet and what we have been told today is an absolutely massive upgrade of the Ukrainian defense from Western stockpiles, and everything is top shelf.
We guessed the same day the Challenger 2 was announced that Macron would try to top it 😀
Credit to Bulgaria by the way, who have taken no credit at all for their enormous support, which they have admittedly been paid for but it is a poor country.
Did you see that Serbia has thrown in its formal support for Ukraine, unexpected that they would do it before Croatia but so it happened. A good indication that one can see what is coming.
At the same time as Ukraine receives Western armor, an equivalent amount of Soviet armor is freed up to top up a corresponding number of other brigades.
On Friday or Saturday we can probably sum up the number of mechanized brigades with Western armor and try to figure out how large Ukraine’s then top-equipped offensive reserve will be, including better Soviet armor.
6-8 mechanized brigades is what I have been thinking it might land at.
Then on top of that we have glide bombs and all other ammunition that the West will send, now 150km is the new black so all the effort the Russians put into moving depots beyond 100km was suddenly for nothing and they have to start over again.
We are actually seeing the death throes of the Russian empire here, I have probably read 5-10 different “we can consider peace” from Russian representatives recently. They are absolutely terrified and rightly so, they have stirred up a hornet’s nest badly and now stand there with the stick long in their face and see the swarm coming out.
Their infantry is outclassed, their elite units are outclassed, their armor is outclassed, the artillery is being knocked out, their supplies are being knocked out, everything they plan is known by Ukraine. They haven’t even managed defense, they get guided missiles, drone bombs, cluster strikes and now suicide drones in the head where they stand in their holes until they die and SOF is running around with them so they are more prey than a threat right now.
The old joking early spring that 777 wipes out a BTG in a morning without coffee break has some truth in it 😀
In no area can the Russians take the initiative and Ukraine’s offensive capability is about to increase exponentially from an already high level today.
There are no cards for Putin to play. We are keeping an eye on what their reaction to the Ramstein rearmament will be but I guess it will be lukewarm because there are no more threats to use, they can always talk about their nuclear weapons, mobilization or red lines at Russian territory but all that has been scrutinized. A counter-move would have to be to get China on board or present a game changer – that won’t happen.
The only thing I’ve heard so far is that the T14 Armata will be sent to the front, they are doing what they can 👍 They will probably be knocked out before they even get into combat considering UA/USA intelligence gathering and all kinds of guided weapons now in units.
They absolutely cannot manage mobilization because they are trying to downplay it and their elite units are going nowhere in Soledar and Bakhmut after astronomical losses.
At the same time as Ukraine holds back its offensive reserve and bides its time – the winter offensive is resourced and can start whenever the opportunity arises and the spring offensive will get its materiel delivered starting soon.
Before Christmas I was at least worried that the West would falter when Germany and France were at their worst and that Ukraine would finally give up land due to lack of support. The thread is deadly dangerous when you falter and I ran and hid in the much calmer economy thread for a few days, suitably battered.
The New Year’s speech dispelled the land concession worries and as soon as the West started competing over armor deliveries after New Year, that disappeared too.
I think even those of us who have been most for top-shelf Western armor in the thread with our CV90 chanting since spring/summer, which apparently finally became tiresome, will be surprised how much materiel Ukraine is getting here.
You can feel proud as an EU citizen and as a Swede, and there are a bunch in the thread who have been convinced about armor deliveries for quite a while – great that it happened. The probability was always 1 for that simple reason that we would always get to this point where we are today because it has always happened historically. Unfortunately, it took a bit longer than the best outcome, but it’s rarely perfect. The counterarguments were boring and above all wrong, but those who took that position in various debate forums will have to think about why they took that position.
LPR and DPR just have to consider switching sides now.
You remember the discussion that the Russians only have negotiation cards as long as they have territory Ukraine wants – as soon as they are driven out, there will be no negotiations.
The same obviously applies to LPR/DPR, they can only switch sides before the war is over.
Ukraine is also getting mine-clearing equipment, bridge layers, and mine-laying artillery. The latter is perfect for preventing Russian reinforcements from advancing during a breakthrough.
So now the entire free West has rallied and opened the barns for Ukraine, Russia doesn’t even have a microscopic chance to achieve a single goal, they are being driven out and my money is on the war being over this summer as is well known.
You can guess how the Ukrainian soldiers feel now – they know they are unstoppable.
Without downplaying that hundreds of Ukrainians are still dying in this war, most recently in Soledar Russian pages paraded piles of Ukrainian corpses and in upcoming offensives they will suffer very heavy losses.
I also want to point out that there was supposed to be a Russian general mobilization on January 15 – have we heard anything?
The other thing we were supposed to keep track of was the missile attack and it was about half compared to the big ones before Christmas.
Russia turning inward moves up quite a few notches on my list now, far beyond any kind of popular revolution.
As soon as they turn inward, the war is over, then the remnants of the army are needed in the civil war and the LPR/DPR armies will probably become mercenaries for some warlord.
Negotiations are very high on my list, I think the elite want an out while they still have the opportunity to negotiate one and that window is closing fast. The spring offensive and then there is nothing to negotiate because then the remnants flee home across the border just in time for midsummer, wasn’t that what Pasiikiivi said?
13:03 – Johan No.1
haha, I can really picture Putin here, sitting with paper and pen squinting at the screen to sum up all the armor that’s coming and then when he clicks further he sees this, the day totally ruined after spelling his way through the tweet😀
I think there is an underlying signal somewhere here but I’m not smart enough. Those who want/try to negotiate are not Putin and his closest circle here. Gerasimov, Shoigu, Lavrov, Peskov and a few others.
The person who went to Turkey, who should have been one of them, was unknown.
The EU has announced that Putin will be prosecuted and then maybe limits it to a couple of others, giving some kind of signal to others that if they negotiate peace and leave Ukraine they will be safe.
There is quite a lot going on beneath the surface right now besides what we see and leaving the Russian horde Ukraine takes Zelensky directly.
Additional to all the armor donations – what is not shot to pieces can be returned to the donor countries at a later date, Ukraine doesn’t want this patchwork as a country going forward but it is perfect for beating the Russians.
13:11 – Johan No.1
There is some value in signal politics and positive PR and I am probably not alone in feeling that Germany should take the basic course in both and pause the Twitter account until then. The word “uncool” didn’t quite cut it.
Some get undeserved positive PR and the indisputable king is Macron who can turn rowboats into battleships and got away with “light tanks” until the UK fired a torpedo straight into the side with Challenger 2.
I recall that Germany convinced Ukraine together with France that Russia would not attack on February 24. Zelensky believed this and kept the army in the barracks to try to de-escalate and that will haunt him forever.
Just that alone is enough reason to open the barns and ask what Zelensky wants and in what color, I think.
Then German politics themselves in their mudslinging against each other said that Scholz-something (cabinet, department, authority…) actively delayed the question of whether third countries could send their Leo2s, they buried it in investigations. True or not and Van usually has the answer but it came up a while ago.
13:29 – Johan No.1
Is that BMP-1 in two of the pictures?
Should be Russian reserves for Bakhmut and if they now attack with their better units it looks pretty bad or do we think these are rebel units?
https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1615806419101487123?s=20&t=Maf_vZDlKcKF3lT2uqnJdw
13:30 – Johan No.1
What the heck, it was Ukrainian, too bad the comment couldn’t be removed but it looks brilliant and victory is near!
13:30 – Johan No.1
That low-pressure cannon is very deadly and the wing shell penetrates everything.
13:34 – MatsExtrude
+100
14:06 – Johan No.1
So insanely good, they dragged out an old Volkswagen bus that is pulverized.
Killing power is a very good word.
I saw such live fire with 122 or 121 but then it was a company on the firing range (or if it was a few platoons of a company being trained that year, I don’t remember), it is so enormously deadly and the tracer rounds from both cannon, coax and turret machine gun amplify the effect and you think nothing can survive in the target area.
But I always thought the CV90 was “scarier” as a fighting force, they have some kind of crab/beetle profile that they crawl forward with and when the cannon opens up it is too fast and too high a rate of fire, you barely can keep up. I’ve never seen them in live fire company or so only in exercises and then we were kind of overrun when we still tried to back out of firing positions. You get scared of them when you spot them in sights or binoculars because they have put a missile or explosive a second later.
15:07 – Johan No.1
Have you seen this, CV90 ammunition is somewhat dominant.
https://twitter.com/stakmaskin/status/1608579447208267776?s=46&t=5o1xS-dtymsjSrnFQyZmdA
15:11 – Johan No.1
I floated the old question a week ago – have we seen Putin on video and with today’s newspaper.
The speech yesterday, was it video and date?
There was a lot of flying yesterday but I guess that’s what happens when Putin is going out traveling a bit.
Wondering if he might finally have gone and died 😀
15:40 – Johan No.1
Now that we have reached MBT and 150km range in the steps, there is almost only strike aircraft and ground attack left?
The next threat to Russia is that at the next Ramstein meeting whenever that is, Ukraine will get all the A10s, strike aircraft and Apaches they want, eager to give up before then?
15:47 – Johan No.1
Don’t you think the CV90 also takes out Russian MBTs from the front?
I believe it does, and soon we’ll see proof. We’ve seen UA 30mm take out T72s, and all the different protections Russian vehicles supposedly have would at best have been egg cartons.
Almost everything is going to be turret flying, and one of the CV90’s ammunition types delivers a tungsten rain; I don’t know how effective it is against top armor, but could it work?
They apparently also have a completely new improved arrow that is supposed to do the impossible.
Could it be that the truth that the CV90 takes out Russian MBTs from the side and rear has been under the assumption that the protection was as complete as the Russians claimed and before this new Star Wars ammunition?
15:48 – Johan No.1
Quantity is also a factor, and there are quite a few very well-aimed hits from the CV90.
16:14 – Johan No.1
I googled a bit after this, and there seems to be a rumor that he is dead?
That has happened often, so one dares not hope, but if he has been out and about, there has also been an opportunity to get to him.
After the entire West unanimously decided to flatten Russia, there are probably strong forces in motion.
16:19 – Johan No.1
Seems to come from Zelensky and may have been misinterpreted?
https://metro.co.uk/2023/01/19/davos-volodymyr-zelensky-questions-if-vladimir-putin-is-still-alive-18127830/
What does Bess say?
The swan and the army encircle Moscow?
21:20 – Johan No.1
Now we know that the VDV is in Bakhmut
https://twitter.com/rybar_en/status/1616117792066904065?s=46&t=9GnH6M0fYvbAM-nzIvGs5A
11:13 – Johan No.1
Well, I suppose I should start by apologizing here, I am very proud to be Swedish, an EU citizen, and to belong to the free West today, and any nicknames I have at my advanced age have completely slipped my mind.
50 CV90s is a very good delivery, and if the number of Archers is 12, likewise – very nice 👍
Topping that off with additional weapons is brilliant.
This time we have hit the mark on all questions, we could have complicated things like Germany or France did, but there have been enough people with integrity and the right calibration to manage to balance on this tightrope after a somewhat slow start.
Now everything else is also kicking in – we are in the right group in the EU, we have a good relationship with them, the country Sweden gets PR, our weapon systems get PR, and so on.