09:46
It’s probably lucky that the thread isn’t sitting in a trench in Ukraine. It’s no easy task not to infect others with doubt when you know the Russians have gathered several brigades a kilometer away. Still, the defense has held for almost a year, and some group is always at the front and gets overrun. The feeling in the pit of the stomach when a few mechanic companies come towards you or a few hundred Wagner across the fields must require a man to handle – and Ukraine has done it for a year without complaining.
Rumors spread all the time, and the Russians have a massive psyops operation constantly rolling that is now clearly on the rise. The other day there were lots of new names in the thread taking strange positions, often about how we needed all weapons for the “Öland Islanders” (so we wouldn’t send any to UA) and then that nuclear weapons are an enormous threat we should be more afraid of. Then one or two new names came and wrote “+1” or “I completely agree,” and so the discussion started. Other forums that are not actively moderated are completely hopeless now; here their half-life is one day thanks to a very wild mod.
There is a soldier in Bakhmut who posts a reality check a few times a week and always punctures the drama about the city’s impending fall; he probably started in December already when Wagner went in and out like the best yo-yo dieters.
There are two versions about Bakhmut and Soledar, I have read something about fighting in Soledar again and that they pushed away from Bakhmut while the situation is critical (in the cities) – what can be stated is that today Ukraine has not released anything and it is February 3rd.
Behind Bakhmut and Soledar, there is prepared defense just west of both. We know this because the Russians got stuck immediately when they tried to advance westward from Soledar. There will be no Ukrainian-style breakthroughs because every small community is fortified and they have to take it by force.
The main defense line, which the Russians are not even close to, runs from Slovyansk/Kramatorsk and down along the dominant terrain to somewhere around west of Horlivka where the front now goes. If Ukraine retreats west of Bakhmut and Soledar, it is an absolute nothing-burger. It’s like running into a lobster trap and thinking you have won.
Siversk may eventually become relevant and it has every possibility to become the new Bakhmut. If it doesn’t, we have the forest belt along the Siversky Donets as flank protection for the Kreminna offensive.
What happened after Lysychansk and Popasna fell?
Well, it became Bakhmut and Soledar. If they fall, naturally there will be two new cities instead that the Russians throw themselves over. LW has explained this to us in a couple of long blog posts, so the thread doesn’t need to scream when it happens – Ukraine continues fighting as they have for a year now.
An interesting note flew by the other day, Zelensky is supposed to meet Biden and Poland’s prime minister for peace talks at the end(?) of February. Then Zelensky is supposed to come up with a list of points he can live with. We already have the 10-point list and it will probably be something similar?
A very sad piece of information is the rumored leak from the White House that Crimea cannot be retaken (it said in the near term, which is undefined). If it is a leak, it is badly handled because it gives Putin hope – terrible from the US if I may say so.
And then the rumor that Biden tried with land concessions but UA refused, the most integrity in the world since Churchill and we have them to thank for our freedom. I put PSYOPS on that though.
The above is probably an important piece of the puzzle as to why the Russians are going all-in right now. That Zelensky is supposed to consider negotiations comes close enough in time to guess, as we did in early January, that Putin’s all-out war right now is positioning ahead of negotiations rather than an attempt to win the whole war.
Threatening a “powerful offensive in February” also feels very Russian. That 500,000 men are supposed to storm Ukraine’s defenses as we read yesterday is of course completely unreasonable; they have trouble not getting two brigades to run over each other and they are still in separate forests. Belarus towards Lviv was also mentioned in this context while the Russians have emptied Belarus of troops.
My opinion is that at best it can be more of the same during February – dead Russians and local breakthroughs with tactical retreats by Ukraine. Tactical retreats are exactly that and something Ukraine has done all the time. The Russian version of that is a panicked flight over a large area.
The West wavers more than Ukraine which is directly embarrassing. Unfortunately, there was criticism here when people tried to follow Germany and France during the autumn and Western deliveries of armor were supposedly not coming at all; we got a flood of reasons for that.
Now all that has changed for the better, but unfortunately some countries took that position as well. Now we are where we are and the war is becoming longer and bloodier than if Ukraine had gotten Western armor at the low point in September. It’s too late to complain now, some old fox would probably have said, and it is Ukraine that takes the whole hit.
In plain language, Germany’s position above all has prolonged the war and really threatens all of Europe.
Unfortunately, the Germans are good at just that, threatening all of Europe, and seem to have an almost unique ability to get it wrong in all major conflicts. It would not surprise me in the least if they come about half a year after Ukraine has won and push through an absolutely massive rearmament of their defense on their own soil so one almost begins to suspect that it is Poland they are starting to worry about.
Then there apparently is some GDLSB in stock; if one had the energy, one could go back in the thread and see who was absolutely sure they hadn’t been manufactured yet because there were a couple of “who knew”.
There is a rumor (I don’t want to post it because I guess it’s the same source and those who repost are not the most credible) that China plans a visit to Russia during the spring. They have one demand – either the Russians must be able to show success and achieve a favorable peace or they must have left Ukraine. This feels very Chinese to me with my experience of them. In early January, when the West showed a united front and open stockpiles, all rogue states went out and distanced themselves from Russia. But if Russia achieves relative success, or the West splits, then they are immediately back again.
There are only two I can think of who can open that door if the West splits again, and one, Macron, is starting to fall in line but we’ll see what Germany does in February. If we hear the word discussion from him, out comes the eel. It is not his place to air that word at all; then he has completely misunderstood his place in the world.
09:50
From time to time I think about the Russian mobilized in the trenches, if there is a hell on earth it is probably the life of a Russian soldier on the eastern front. The choice is to storm across the field towards a prepared defense and be taken out by HIMARS or be shot, desecrated, or clubbed to death by the blocking battalion. No food and cold on top of that.
Putin has absolutely zero capacity for empathy and so does the Russian dictatorship/system.
09:56
Another note flew by, the Russians are sending up another 8 BTGs from Melitopol to the southern front from their offensive reserve. That can only mean that the first 8 BTGs they deployed are approaching their expiration date?
With these additional 8, they have deployed maybe +40% of their usable offensive reserve behind the southern front and the attrition rate was then around two weeks.
According to Twitter rumors, the marine infantry in Vuhledar refuses to die, so maybe they have assigned some BTGs for Vuhledar as well and not just straight north at the southern front?
If they continue at the same pace, they will have used up almost their entire remaining offensive reserve behind the southern front just in time for the anniversary. A very strong statement from Putin, I must admit, but not in the way he intended. This is a display of absolute tyranny – sacrificing everything they have for nothing.
The marine infantry and DPR (elite) units attacking Vuhledar are accompanied by a GRU unit (not Spetsnaz). Vuhledar is, in a way, unfortunate if it falls because it “straightens out” the front, but in a larger perspective – nothing either. And right now the marine infantry is striking as mentioned above.
Defmon has three more marine brigades, one near the Dnieper which is probably somewhat spared, one up at the NS defense line through Svatove which most likely has participated or will participate in attacks across open fields, and one in Donbass which is probably in defense. Where the 177th brigade is located, I have no idea?
To me it now looks like almost the entire VDV is in combat and they are the attacking party along the NS line through Svatove or in defense in the ranger terrain around Kreminna. One can hope for their sake that they have batteries for their image intensifiers because it is dark at night…
If Kreminna falls, all units north of it are locked up as soon as Ukraine moves in all directions. Kreminna is the key to northern Luhansk and the key to complicating the movement of units down to the southern front, which we have probably clarified before.
According to Gregg – 6 VDV regiments and 1 VDV battalion around Kreminna, it is likely a fairly large part of the remaining VDV capability that is currently being ground down by Ukraine in that area, and then two (2) VDV regiments at Bakhmut on top of that.
Defmon has some more regiments, something near the Dnieper, something behind the southern front, and a couple in the rear up near Kreminna, which I believe are being or have been deployed. They thus have a few VDV regiments left as rapid reaction forces at various front sections.
I thought it was 2 brigades from the 144 Guards Motorized Division + some other small stuff attacking but according to Gregg there are 6 more brigades and a tank division (how large numerically?), so at least 10 brigades x 2 BTGs – 20 BTGs that they have resourced their offensive with besides the VDV.
What has been brought down from the training camps and is newly mobilized is unclear but it is probably a mix of new and old.
This has every possibility to be the VDV’s last battle and it cannot be overstated how significant that is. Not this much has happened in a very long time, at Kherson the VDV slipped away but when they thought they were on safe ground Gerasimov comes and does what Ukraine did not succeed in.
A big positive factor in this is that the VDV was the troop type that was a threat and they are soon finished. As long as they were a rapid reaction force behind their own defense of newly mobilized troops, they could damage a Ukrainian breakthrough, now that threat is soon eliminated.
10:00
Now I had promised myself to drop the numbers but apparently that was too difficult.
We have covered UA numbers, I don’t think there is much more to say, if you have the capacity to set up two new formations then you are not anorexic in anything.
There is a figure flying around of 326,000 Russians in UA + 150,000 more in training camps. When in time this figure is from I find interesting because 50,000 disappeared during January.
That there are 150,000 more in training camps now at the beginning of February I want to see proof of, we know they have emptied Belarus because it went from 20,000 – 25,000 to 9,000 we were told. Do they empty Belarus before they empty all other training camps?
We also got information from Gregg about a week ago that they emptied the training camps and reinforced with 100,000 at the NS defense line through Svatove. Are there still 150,000 in the training camps on top of that (I don’t think so)?
I also don’t think 1:1 in losses is accurate either, we have received many reports about single days now and 1:1.5 is probably conservative but maybe appropriate. Add frostbite, illness, that units are “wiped out” at 90% and everything that HIMARS takes out and we are probably up to 1:2 on reported figures.
If we for a second choose that position (which I don’t believe is correct!) – 476,000 Russian soldiers available. That is now because it is a total figure that Russia has at hand so we have a clear ceiling.
How many of them are the spearhead in fighting units?
This figure must reasonably include everything, even depot workers and truck drivers?
Now the biggest losses are taken at the spearhead, indisputably, and they are not 476,000.
It will be a memorable circus when it is the cooks’ and depot workers’ turn to storm Bakhmut with loud screams and stumbling over the fields.
My guess is that they have burned through the better units remaining during February to about 70%. A wilder guess is that Gerasimov, and also that the anniversary is approaching, will give us unchanged or even higher burn-rate here. The whip is probably on.
After that we are back to a “normal state” like in the autumn where inexperienced infantry goes drugged across the fields and freezes to death in the trenches.
If the drugged infantry choose to go on defense in the trenches instead, they get combined warfare thrown at them like a ton of bricks. That DPR soldier in Kherson described very vividly for us last autumn how it felt. Maximum effect when he shouted into the camera all soot-covered in his face and with the ground vibrating around from all the blasts.
Simply put, the only reason the Russians are achieving (relative) success right now is that they are burning their last offensive reserve. More of the same has an end date and that is probably the end of February.
Ammunition shortage was also up for discussion.
The ammunition – during the autumn UA received 4000 + 2000 + 500(?) guided 155mm shells. They shoot them at a target and get a hit. They don’t shoot them at individual soldiers and when it happened we said they had twice the ammunition for remaining Russian armor. They have naturally not wasted that on nothing here and it doesn’t have long range so front-line close.
Ukraine has allocated resources for a winter offensive that never happened, so they have an offensive reserve but are currently drawing from it because the Russians are throwing everything in. Until Christmas, it was relatively calm except that Wagner went and died, but of course, they could also stockpile ammunition.
At Bakhmut, the ratio is 1:10 in favor of the Russians, we heard the other day. Since the total numbers are roughly equal, or UA has more soldiers than RU, the other 9 Ukrainians are standing around eating hot dogs in the rear, waiting for the offensive, a bit bored.
I rely on Ukrainian Forbes and constant reports of 1:10 at Bakhmut and Soledar for the simple equation.
Defmon – have you also noticed that it has become quite empty around Bakhmut and Soledar as well as at Bilohorivka (which was where Gregg believed Ukraine is currently advancing) on the unit map, the Russians have placed great focus on the NS line through Svatove. There is certainly an opening for Ukraine there given how the Russians have positioned themselves today.
Clearly, they have a very strong will to defend northern Luhansk here, but that comes at the expense of something else, and Ukraine has shown great willingness to exploit openings so far in the war.
10:26
Does it?
Mobilization is either volunteers signing up or going to fetch people who are to be mobilized.
During the autumn before they got in 300,000, there were many videos of arrests, but now they are completely absent.
They started in September and when? November they confirmed they had arrested 300,000 men.
Sure, they may have gotten more, but quite a few were lost during the autumn as well.
They sent 80,000 directly.
They have now sent 100,000 according to Gregg.
Then the newly mobilized came in batches November – December as cannon fodder.
The reason they had (had…) 150,000 left in capable units was that they lost them and then took numbers from the newly mobilized.
Could the “big offensive with 500,000 in a month” be just another scare tactic like all the others, the 20 divisions, the nuclear weapons, the gas weapon, etc. ad infinitum.
10:26
That is, capable units were held back and the newly mobilized were sacrificed.
10:46
Rybar has written about the next defensive line behind Soledar
https://twitter.com/rybar_en/status/1621318175290793985?s=46&t=wVeJWB8tS9JyrEOPF8eX_g
11:07
Don’t know when this is in time but Azov and 17th Tank in Bakhmut, they don’t let worse units take the hit.
Seems to match according to the unit maps.
https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1621072636393689089?s=20&t=a0rSMjE1QDH2xkmn461org
https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1621057011722104832?s=20&t=a0rSMjE1QDH2xkmn461org
11:08
Here you have the nothing-burger Wagner just took, nothing thus…
https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1620853085173350400?s=20&t=a0rSMjE1QDH2xkmn461org
11:40
They are rotating smashed Russian battalions at Bakhmut right now and bringing in new ones.
It’s incredibly hard to know their lifespan but about 2 weeks?
And UA has pushed in Azov and 17th Tank – lovely.
12:15
I think FriaUkraina captions their tweets very amusingly.
“The reporter was lucky to visit them on a quiet day” with a video sequence where shooting is continuous.
https://twitter.com/FriaUkraina/status/1621180886149382144?s=20&t=4nHG4nK-eE6upjYcXU-MUw
13:08
Putin is terrified of the Leopards
https://twitter.com/rybar_en/status/1621315343133073411?s=46&t=wVeJWB8tS9JyrEOPF8eX_g
14:01
Here you have a page with dead vs wounded, cannot assess the source.
Russian military losses December 9, 2022 – January 31, 2023:
Army of the Russian Federation (including losses of units of the LPR-DPR, Chechen formations, army special forces, volunteer formations):
15,490 – 15,600 killed, captured, missing;
60,801 – 60,969 people were wounded (DURING THE SPECIFIED PERIOD, THE NUMBER OF MILITARY SERVICEMEN IN THE AF OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IS Ill IS UP TO 40% OF THE NUMBER OF THE WOUNDED) .
Russian Guard (including the loss of special units):
130 – 150 killed, captured, missing;
402 – 410 injured (including hospitalized patients).
PMCs, including mercenaries recruited through the ”Combat Brotherhood”, prisoners, etc.:
23,700 – 23,870 killed, captured, missing (UP TO HALF OF THE LOSSES ARE AT THE WAGNER PMC, MOSTLY TO UNITS CONSISTING OF PRISONERS) ;
52,940 – 53,100 injured (including hospitalized cases).
Black Sea Fleet (losses of crews of ships, including on land, and marines): TEMPORARILY WE DO NOT HAVE THE POSSIBILITY TO GET INFORMATION ABOUT THE DEAD IN THE RF Black Sea Fleet
ship crews – 0 killed, 0 injured or injured;
Marines – 0 killed, 0 injured or injured.
Increase in losses of all pro-Russian formations:
+39 320 – 39 620 killed, missing, captured;
19:03
An incredibly well-balanced package of evil death for the Russian circus ensemble.
Putin is probably sitting with the abacus calculating the number of dead this month and how big a mobilization he has to pull off.
So nice that they hide the coolest stuff behind additional ammunition for HIMARS, “additional” can be interpreted as both more and further, where further is something new.
In 1-2 weeks the big supply depots in Donbass will explode, those that leave a lunar landscape behind.
19:21
Now at least I am sitting and waiting for a Ukrainian slap that makes Putin recoil with teary eyes and a twitch in the lower lip.
Long-range weapons, Western armor, and the Russian capable units have already been burned to 30%. At some point, the maneuver brigades have to run out of hot dogs here and get really bored.
The question is mostly how long they can hold back the army chiefs before they throw down the field phone, get into the Bradley, and command forward.
09:29
I’m starting to wonder if Putin has completely lost it here?
(I know…)
Throwing all the capable forces he has over the fields is madness, but at the same time believing that you can win the war is even stranger. There was some film the other day where he sat with a stone face and received all the bad news.
Sure, there is some value in unwavering integrity even if it is misguided, but now we are reaching a point where the Russian strategy of more violence no longer works; in a month, they will have burned through what, 70% of the capable units they had left?