10:26 – Johan No.1
I want to post this from Accentmannen that Matsextrude posted in today’s thread and I took two things from it –
https://youtu.be/N-X8Zaev5o4
-I have tried to argue the thesis that Ukraine does not have all its brigades on the front lines even though it looks like it; they have one battalion at a time that is rotated. This is supported by Accentmannen and I have quite high confidence in him. I have based this on the fact that there are too many brigades at the fronts and that there are always counteroffensives by many different brigades that seem to be in battalion groups. This means that the combat value of the brigades is high even if a battalion takes losses – I consider it likely that UA has saved its offensive reserve and maintained its brigades’ combat value through the winter.
The other is that there was a Russian breakthrough north of Bakhmut and according to earlier information, the last thing was/is that a counteroffensive north of Bakhmut along the M03 highway should have played out then. Yesterday morning there was some concern and not so positive when the first reports came in. Now Accentmannen hasn’t included the whole stage up to this morning, which Bingbong did.
Posting below from Bingbong who threw it into yesterday’s thread in the pre-discussion this morning, completely unconfirmed but quite reasonable if you try to put the puzzle together.
That would then match Gregg’s information that three brigades were sent down there from Kreminna because it looks like one motorized and two Spetsnaz brigades, plus one more Spetsnaz as northern flank protection – Spetsnaz are light on armor…
According to earlier, it was a critical situation if the Russians took the hills west of Yahidne and west of Bilohorivka, which they seem to have done according to below.
Also according to earlier discussion – naturally UA’s counterattack from the north along M03 should have played out before considering encircling Bakhmut.
Also feels like a pretty big likelihood that they managed to burn down along M03 and cut off at least one Spetsnaz brigade. According to the battalion maps, there was an armored brigade in reserve and on the map below it is an armored brigade that entered together with the 46th Airmobile which was also in the area – they took from their offensive reserve.
The markings are for regiments but they are brigades. IF that is true, twelve-timers have been taken down here and almost reason for spontaneous chips and beer purchase on a Monday.
We’ll see what comes out during the day…
https://twitter.com/SebastianDomara/status/1630097004796805123
The Cossack was calm and with the completely unconfirmed fragments we have received (completely unconfirmed) it seems like they have managed to stabilize up north and now it’s pouring rain.
With a bit of luck we can leave Bakhmut for this time and with even more luck they killed a lot of Spetsnaz.
If you have understood the formula that makes the free West always land on its feet like the best of cats, you also understand that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is coming to its end (do not misinterpret the word end).
It’s easy to be wrong, ask M Kyuene, but if you have the right calibration formula you see this for what it is.
Oryx has listed what Ukraine has received – I probably didn’t know more than a third if even that… There was a brilliant star who posted it now a few days ago, all light on them.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html
For example 745 MBTs where the majority are later mods of T72.
Then MRAPs and APCs (fragmentation protection with light armament!) Ukraine has received/is to receive 2600 of, take in that number!
The Russians on the other hand have by the end of the month lost 10,000 hard vehicles, 150,000 dead and 300 aircraft.
We forget one thing when we try to figure out what the Russians have left – Girkin early in the war thought that the Russians sold quite a lot of their T90 and T80 on export, even those intended for the Russian army. True or not we will discover this in spring.
Sure, we see a lot of T90 and T80 in combat now but not 600 T90 and 3000 T80 (depending a bit on which figures you go by).
The Russians have according to fairly consistent sources around 1800 tanks in Ukraine, last autumn we guessed 1500 left so for me it’s a quite reasonable total figure of what they could muster.
Why then – well if they really wanted to decide and had another 5000 serviced tanks, they would have deployed them at the same time as sacrificing the rest of their (relatively) capable units this winter.
What do you need 5000 tanks for when the last tank crews ran across the fields with bayonets on?
Now they are showing in every way that they are short on armor and we have said that for several months now – it’s very clear.
It has been suggested that we haven’t seen the best from the Russians yet (that’s how I interpreted it). It’s a quite natural narrative now when the winter offensive went to hell. Then you don’t have much choice but to try to dangle the next big threat.
I simply don’t believe that.
The Russians peaked winter 2023 and now it can only go downhill.
They have no capable crews left to operate their saved-up equipment and don’t forget that at the start of the war when contract soldiers were supposed to fight through the special operation it was chaos from day one.
Does anyone believe that a few hundred thousand newly mobilized with 4-5 months training and without experienced non-commissioned officers, officers or key personnel can perform better?
10:51 – Johan No.1
I think it’s time to start reasoning about UA’s offensive ability/capacity, Russian defensive capability and how this will play out (or we already know that but the different steps to get there).
We already know that the Russian winter offensive ended before the capability went to zero but they have burned through a bit under 60% of their (relatively) capable reserves I guess. I had hoped for 70% but you can’t have everything.
There are many brigades that were not put into combat but their combat value today is low because they consist of mobilized with 3-5 months training.
When these brigades have been put into combat this winter they have proven completely incapable of offensive operations. Defense is a bit easier but combined arms warfare, breach doctrine, SOF with fins and mechanized combat is not easy at all to be on the receiving end of – ask Iraq.
We have a couple of milestones ahead of us – UA offensive start, different front sections, end of the war.
You must not plan according to bubbles, those are the rules but if it happens it happens – that the Russians leave UA before they are completely plowed down in the potato fields I think is very likely.
They can then maintain the narrative that they chose to leave for the “greater good” rather than being chased out of Ukraine in panic in the most humiliating scenes broadcast during prime time.
Don’t forget that Zelensky was supposed to present which peace terms he could live with to Biden and Poland this February, so that is behind us now.
Reasonably, there will be a first peace overture in March amidst the mushroom clouds from GLDSB?
(I’d rather write it wrong than write glide bomb since Matsextrude is sneaking around 😀).
I have hung Putin quite far down the list; I rather believe that they will withdraw from Ukraine and consolidate their power in the country instead and increase pressure on the population.
What is worse for the ruling elite – civil war, revolution, or a retreat from Ukraine?
I also have revolution far down the list, and a palace coup is not particularly high either. Popular revolution is low until Putin makes the mistake of announcing mobilization, but I don’t think they will do that – the threat of a million armed Russians is greatest for themselves, better to leave Ukraine.
It is good to ridicule Russia and support Ukraine, but realistically I believe in a Russian retreat from Ukraine and then Russia will increase internal pressure instead and become even worse than what we have seen so far.
When does the offensive start – according to Argus, Accentmannen, Matsextrude and Google, it seems the offensive CAN start mid-April and onwards because then the ground will bear.
This is because Argus has figured out that when the grass comes, it takes a week or so to absorb the water, and according to Google, the grass comes late March/early April – and then two weeks on top of that, probably longer in the north and mid-April in the south.
Maybe one should add a week to that?
Before Christmas, my best guess was that the Russians would go on the defensive over the winter, sacrifice newly mobilized troops and DPR/LPR to tire out Ukraine, and in the spring have an offensive reserve of about half a million including Belarus.
That was when we still believed that the Belarus army was 90,000 strong and that the Russians would mobilize this winter, because they would have needed to.
– The long game from the Russians would be to sacrifice their poor units, keep the better ones in reserve, and try to tire out Ukraine through defense.
Western analysts emphasized the importance of a UA offensive, and until January 6, it was generally accepted that Russia benefited from a long war, right?
There are probably still some stragglers who believe that Russia benefits from a long war, but January 6 changed everything (before that, of course, but then everything played out).
That was exactly how the Russians acted at Kherson and the southern front throughout the fall, and the only real offensive had been at Bakhmut. Up in northern Luhansk, they had all the problems in the world holding the defensive lines, so there was no talk of an offensive there either.
The winter would also give Ukraine absolute advantages – better equipment and the ground’s bearing capacity for heavy vehicles was good.
Then came Zelensky’s visit to the USA, the whole West stumbling over each other to send Leopards and competing in the harshest condemnations of Russia – somewhere here Russia decided to attack with all its best units in an all-in now this winter (they knew this earlier than us, to be clear).
It became an absolute fiasco from the Russian side that drained their offensive reserves quite hard. The offensive reserves that were supposed to be the task force to plug Ukrainian breakthroughs in the spring.
Kind of like starting to use a credit card to buy food – the beginning of an inevitable personal financial crash.
So how does the playing field look now this spring and which factors and how do we rank them –
-UA capability for offensive.
-UA willingness for offensive.
-RU capability for offensive.
-RU willingness for offensive.
-external factors
(I won’t get to external factors in this post).
I consider it indisputable that Ukraine has both the capability and the willingness to go on the offensive. A prolonged war does not benefit Ukraine and Russia’s low point is now, not in June-August if left alone.
Ukraine also has the capability to disrupt maintenance and rear areas with indirect fire up to 150 km (certainly further…) already now, and last time it took them a month to do that.
They also have the capability to break through defensive lines and have resourced the spring offensive with Western armor from the top shelf. Have you seen the German road layers that are coming?
Then the question remains – will the Russians go on the offensive this spring as soon as the ground bears, and will Ukraine wait out the Russian offensive before they themselves start?
I see a risk of conflict in the available information here –
– the Russian chance for a negotiated solution where they get land in Ukraine in exchange for peace is non-existent and they have burned their best units trying to take Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Trying that again would be idiotic.
– the Russians can never hope to hold in defense against Ukraine’s spring offensive and attack is the best defense.
So it is quite much up to which of two lousy options Putin chooses – and both will lead to a crushing defeat.
I believe Putin will want to continue attacking until he orders a retreat from Ukraine – that feels very Russian and very much like Putin.
Where does the UA offensive start – We don’t need to include northern Luhansk, it will continue without interruption and eventually the area will be liberated and UA will reach the NS supply line outside their land border.
What will be a distinct “offensive start” is at the southern front, where they will begin with indirect fire and then breach doctrine.
As soon as a breakthrough is achieved at one place on the southern front, the entire defensive line is obsolete. Lex the French.
Melitopol is an important town to capture as it automatically empties all terrain west of it of Russians who retreat down to Crimea and you can reach all of Crimea with indirect fire.
Do you remember that the Russians withdrew a bit from the Dnieper to get away from all indirect fire?
I find it likely that an offensive at the southern front will be preceded by crossing the Dnieper with infantry who go on defense in suitable communities; above Khakovka there are some good points – maximum chaos.
Crimea is then by definition lost – they go on defense at the bridges to the mainland and then rain indirect fire over Crimea, let UA seals wreak havoc and infiltrate as much as they can.
After a month of blowing up everything, they give an ultimatum – the bridge will be blown up on May 30 and thereafter our offensive starts – you have one week to leave Crimea.
– the peninsula will be emptied in a few days.
It is called the chess move for a reason.
There is a strong reason to hold Vuhledar – then you control RU’s ability to bring in reserves behind the southern front. Ask all the destroyed bases and columns in Mariupol.
You also control the Crimea bridge and the bridges to the mainland now.
-even if there is Russian will for an offensive, UA will be able to control how many units are behind the southern front from now on. At the southern front, whether there is Russian will for an offensive or not is irrelevant – UA can follow its timetable.
I had bet five hundred that UA would go SE from Vuhledar instead of down towards Melitopol. That was at a time when the important thing for the Russians was Kherson and defending the southern front closer to the Dnieper so Kherson would not be cut off by a Ukrainian offensive from the eastern side of the Dnieper.
An attack down towards Melitopol looked completely impossible when adding up all the units in the area.
Today the weak point down towards Melitopol, if you go by the unit maps, is the result of the terrible Russian winter offensive – they have made the impossible possible entirely on their own.
It can always happen that they open two fronts but the value of advancing SE at Vuhledar while simultaneously going towards Melitopol I don’t really see because Crimea is the important thing.
However, at some point they probably want to get back to the ATO line and that defense, or to their land border over at Rostov-na-Don. Then swing up “under” (S) of Donbass and push into the darkest Donbass – because an offensive SE of Vuhledar wouldn’t be so dumb, there are anchor communities to hang the offensive on and you get fire control over the NE land route to the area behind the entire southern front.
At this point I think they have already started approaching the city of Luhansk up in northern Luhansk and that pacifies the LPR quite a bit. There is a NE defensive line through the area around the city of Luhansk.
They are also pushing the Russians back between Vuhledar – Bilohorivka as far as possible but remember that there is an ATO defensive line for the Russians to fall back to which should reasonably be quite hard to capture since it held for 8 years?
To complicate things for the Russian command there are strong reasons to keep the pressure up along this line and there is a wildcard here – LPR and DPR.
As said, you can’t predict outcomes based on the wildcards but quite a bit of the defense around the city of Donetsk is 1st and 2nd Army corps.
According to the pro-DPR blogger Muntz(?) they are in bad shape and the wildcard is that they give a walkover.
I know I am the only one pushing this but I see it as a big wildcard.
How will it play out – it will mainly go fast and should be in several places to paralyze the Russian command.
They have shown themselves completely incapable of handling speed and multiple locations and getting inside their decision circle should be a central part of the battle plan because that was always hammered into us.
If Putin decides not to throw in the towel even though northern Luhansk, the southern front, and Crimea have fallen, then the war is basically over for 99% of Ukraine by sometime this summer.
There will not be large numbers of drones after that and those that come can be shot down 80-90% and the rebuilding of the country can begin.
Then indirect fire, SOF and finally the elite among the maneuver brigades will clean up in the darkest Donbass and since they will get access to NS supply routes outside UA land borders then the whole Donbass pocket becomes anorexic on supplies and will be retaken over time.
Now I don’t think we will get to that point but that Putin will decide to save the children and promote world peace earlier than that.
Then I don’t think UA will cross into Russia.
And then I don’t think the EU will manage to go all the way so there will be no Hague, continued sanctions or war reparations.
But there will be a free Belarus, a demilitarized Kaliningrad and a hard border against Russia going forward.
UA’s very tough rhetoric right now is also ahead of negotiations, that should probably be clear.
10:53 – Johan No.1
Exactly 😀
11:42 – Johan No.1
I’ll join in on a part here which I understand depends on how you look at it,
“Experts have spoken on TV since around March about the Russian army’s collapse in the sense of ‘ability to act cohesively and carry out offensives ceases.’ It has not yet arrived.”
Personally, I think since March the Russians have lost 40% of the territory they conquered and that all offensives since then have ended in chaos and above all no direct territorial gains at all which should have been central to their battle plan.
It is then the word “ability” and the meaning of that word that becomes central I think and it becomes subjective and open to interpretation.
Darth Putin usually talks about them advancing backwards and that’s kind of how it has been since March I think – not much forward at all?
11:57 – MatsExtrude
+1 Can’t help but agree!
12:10 – Johan No.1
I don’t think everyone had it – last autumn we got information that 80,000 had adequate training and were sent to battalions at the front, if it was 300,000 then 220,000 probably did not have it I think?
There are also tons of reports of completely untrained soldiers being sent to the front, all autumn we got videos of that.
Then maybe it doesn’t matter I think because at the start of the war and during a year they have shown themselves completely incapable of competent warfare and there is a shortage of key personnel I am quite sure of.
12:17 – Johan No.1
The latest was an immediately impending offensive of 500,000 men that was a threat to Ukraine.
When people didn’t believe in it they were flayed for being incurable optimists.
When people at the start of the war didn’t believe in Kiev’s imminent fall they were flayed for being optimists.
When people believed in operation badanka (Kherson) and the revolving door (northern Luhansk) they were flayed for being optimists and sitting and wishful thinking.
As an optimist you shed your skin more times than a snake.
12:24 – MatsExtrude
+1 It will be really interesting to see how the spring ends and if you are right in your analyses. Sounds sensible and well thought out, but precisely because of that I suspect Ukraine will also surprise with some attack vector no one has thought of!
13:39 – Johan No.1
Yes, it will be interesting to see.
The reason I don’t think they will get through in the darkest Donbass is the old ceasefire line but maybe I am exaggerating its effectiveness?
Then if LPR or DPR throw in the towel (wildcard) then the darkest Donbass opens up like a party invitation.
13:42 – Johan No.1
+1
14:27 – Johan No.1
Do we have any Gregg yet you Facebook folks?
If he can’t post any piece of information he usually writes happy news but that he has to wait.
I think we can get enough to figure out how it went in Bakhmut.
14:30 – Johan No.1
Have you seen this, I think I see a BMP-2 firing at the PV shooter before the vehicle is taken out?
Somewhat incredible.
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1629899116015759360?s=20
14:54 – Johan No.1
Ben Dover – I wrote a substantive reply to your own post above, which you did not respond to.
However, you seemed to enjoy writing here that ChatGPT writes my posts.
Previously, you have called me invective and said you don’t read anything I write – generally quite sad that you don’t want to discuss the matter but instead sit and ruin someone else’s discussion, quite a low level even for you.
– especially high hopes for you have probably never been had but you are welcome to scroll past my posts and focus on other discussions if you want, can’t stop you.
Then we have the court jester Tankfri on top of that – back to your medication we had agreed on, if I remember correctly?
You are starting to completely fall into pro-Russian rhetoric right now which is directly worrying on top of all the other poison you spew when you have paused your medication. It was almost like you had understanding for the troll Marco the other day and thought we should discuss what he raised in his troll post.
So, now I have solved my problem with ambivalence that you were annoyed about the other day Tankfri, thanks for the suggestion 😀
15:38 – MatsExtrude
I am probably half-blind, have trouble seeing that BMP-2 is firing.. But good sequence anyway!
15:59 – Johan No.1
Flagging that it is Slava who posted the video but it is somewhat historical because partly the group is probably dead today but then you see their version of mechanized combat.
An interesting detail is that they use dispersed formation for vehicle combat, they are no longer on top of the vehicles which was for quite a long time the standard procedure for Russian mechanized infantry?
First they drive straight ahead on a gravel road which is basically asking to hit a mine, then the vehicle is alone and finally they have a chaotic dismount, standing and looking at each other and it seems like the squad leader basically has to direct every soldier for something to happen otherwise they stand still.
If this does not belong on the blog the admin is welcome to remove it but I thought it was interesting to show Russian capability.
16:11 – Johan No.1
He is shooting at a target and I think I see tracer rounds nearby and a bit generally dusty but maybe I overinterpreted that out of pure optimism?
16:21 – MatsExtrude
Except for the reflection in the camera lens I can’t see anything happening until he fires the PV shot, then there is quite a lot flying around but that is probably from the shockwave.
16:44 – MatsExtrude
BEN DOVER, he was not exactly alone in that. Could be because it came from you and you don’t exactly have a reputation for being the nicest debater. You reap what you sow.
17:37 – Johan No.1
Hey Ben Dover – now I wouldn’t be ambivalent as I have been told but I think it would be appropriate to backtrack on what I wrote to you after your clarification above which was much more measured than what I wrote.
Full back on what I wrote about you – can that be accepted (apology Johan No.1 style)?
It has been a few days with quite a lot of sniper fire against me so I am probably reading with those glasses on right now.
17:51 – Johan No.1
This one is also good, they use T90 as indirect fire and wear out the barrels 👍
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1630059511493849089?s=20
20:54 – Johan No.1
This one with Budanov will probably be morning analysis.
I think he confirms much of what we have guessed.
Is he credible as a source?
https://twitter.com/friaukraina/status/1630271485775314944?s=46&t=WdiaXeDBm3AqZUVcvFz-sQ
20:57 – Johan No.1
The last one was a rhetorical question – he is credible.
09:51 – Johan No.1
China and Russia have historically not trusted each other, despite both being communists, and there are somewhat different views on who has rights to which country?
Above all, would the West care significantly if China wants to liberate the oppressed Chinese in Siberia in a three-day special operation?
and then fight a defensive battle all the way to Vladivostok?
(yes, I do think that for China it would become too dominant but it would be fun to see the Russians scream and cry in front of a sleeping UN).