09:37 – Johan No.1
Wrote that in yesterday’s thread this morning but think it’s a bit sad that Dengamle and a few others took a break.
10:04 – MatsExtrude
+ 1 Great that your positive attitude now also starts to encompass a large part of the world (except BRIICS then). It’s needed!
The situation in Bakhmut increasingly feels like a solid victory for Ukraine (even though they of course also take losses).
If Wagner doesn’t get serious help soon, I think they will collapse, especially if their ammunition starts to run out. Probably depends on how disliked Prigozhin is and whether they abandon him.
A bit jokingly, before the Russian winter offensive, I thought Ukraine would do something unexpected in their offensive. For example, a feint and pressing at Bakhmut (not to go all the way but to push the Russians back a few miles to stress them and force them to regroup, which weakens them elsewhere).. If Wagner runs out and they don’t get support.. You never know.
10:06 – MatsExtrude
Agreed then and agree now!
LW, if you see this. Could you email DENGAMLE and explain that the trolls are gone and that things have calmed down and that we all want him to come back!!
10:08 – MatsExtrude
Oh, no, hadn’t read all the comments. I see now that they are back again.
10:10 – Johan No.1
Yes, now damn it, world joy shall start spreading 😀
10:11 – Johan No.1
Yep, it looks promising in all sorts of directions, I think.
Also get the distinct feeling that the Russian team is starting to run short on everything now but don’t have proof of that yet.
10:46 – MatsExtrude
+1
10:48 – MatsExtrude
Actually haven’t seen any proof either so I’m mostly relying on my own theory 🙂
Considering the losses, it logically must start to be felt by them.
15:28 – Johan No.1
This kind of thing is tragic, these are veterans from a year of fighting who died in an east vehicle when they probably would have survived in a west vehicle, surely a grandfather and two fathers if you look at the pictures.
I go completely crazy that the West hasn’t sent earlier and more, and if you don’t want to care about human lives and be cynical, you can at least see that these are extremely competent soldiers who are dying and that they are valuable to the whole EU?
This level of combat experience is not found in any Western country.
https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1632818252240879618?s=20
15:33 – MatsExtrude
Can only agree.
15:33 – Johan No.1
14:56 – know it was discussed yesterday about the murdered prisoner but you go completely crazy at all the Russian war crimes, the level is endemic and their damn normal state is torture, rape, and murder.
The only light in the tunnel is that the country was not conquered and all this happened while the West returned to its slumber, it has an end date.
18:04 – Johan No.1
Have they already given up?
Would have been good with a Vuhledar-style offensive attempt at the southern front before they give up and the order should be crystal clear – take the oblast before March 31.
Or are the reinforcements to try to go on defense instead?
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1633037865868308481?s=20
18:12 – Johan No.1
Not questioning MRF but the CNN link is something they picked up from TV that Haidai said, and it’s not dated except for when the article was published – is it from today?
NOEL tweet is probably from as late as yesterday?
Gregg usually also goes like that, one day it’s absolute chaos and the next they win – probably how they themselves experience the situation?
Question – where is Haidai located?
18:13 – Johan No.1
Not NOEL tweet but the TV segment, so from today or yesterday I think?
19:46 – Johan No.1
Slava has a huge campaign around Bakhmut I saw now, after my post above, UA is basically fleeing the city and leaving everything behind.
If I haven’t totally misunderstood this, they have left the terrain east of Bakhmutka and then some equipment was left behind.
Then they have pulled out “regular” army units and brought in those who are well versed in urban combat.
It’s well written and you’re ready to proclaim that Bakhmut has fallen, until you remember where you read it somewhere.
22:14 – Johan No.1
What I meant was that Slava is pure lies and psyops.
Poorly written, sloppy.
08:33 – Johan No.1
I’m a bit behind and really only know one thing, if I’m wrong I get Matsextrude and a few others on me so I’m walking very carefully around most things now 😀
He definitely has access to correct information and probably isn’t sitting alone. Guess he is a channel chosen by the defense to push out information in English-language media and supplied with information?
Or he’s insanely good at trawling open channels, seems to know Russian and Ukrainian so has access to completely different sources than we do after all and maybe he’s just good at putting the puzzle together?
Will ask him after the war.
09:31 – Johan No.1
Now Svambob gets a job at any staff and the addition general- in front of his name. When going through Erik14’s excellent night shift, it now seemed clear that RU is strongly reinforcing the southern front and that the rumor is that they are doing it by weakening northern Luhansk (they are sending to Bakhmut but there are not 130,000 there and where do they get the units rolling through Melitopol from?)
If you go two weeks back on the Deepststemap, it is basically completely stagnant up in northern Luhansk, for two weeks, in the middle of the Russian winter offensive where they are supposed to take the whole Luhansk Oblast, and with 130,000 men and 1,000 tanks.
UA has also advanced a few hundred meters in the forest SW of Kreminna – the one VDV enters and then disappears.
Posting Erik14’s below from yesterday’s thread –
NOEL – “we have seen massive Russian troop build-ups in the Zaporizhzia region in recent days. New troops and heavy equipment arrive in Melitopol every day and today a column was spotted in Mariupol, on its way to the front in Zaporizhzia”.
NOEL -It’s been pretty quiet around Kreminna
for the last week. Today I got an update. The fighting continues, but there are some positional changes north of Kreminna in favor of UA. Rumors spread that Russian troops in Kreminna are being moved towards Bakhmut.
Erik14 deep analysis – (and then we should consider that the biggest Russian offensive went northwest from Kreminna, while UA held more in the southwest)
Just northern Luhansk I have seen as the trickiest area for UA partly with proximity to reinforcements and maintenance but then also that they pressed in 130,000 men and 1,000 tanks there.
Retaking northern Luhansk is very important because then you force Russian maintenance and reinforcements outside UA’s land border in a NS supply line (road and railway) that UA can comfortably reach with long-range and SOF.
Granted, Rostov-na-Don is a supply hub but that can be taken out over time.
The weather is awful, rain and down to zero at night. If you are out in the field Russian-style you are probably wet, cold, hungry and homesick.
Then there are not many with image intensifiers in the trenches and UA’s SOF are rampaging like an angry swarm of ground hornets with extra everything and SBU/GUR on top of that.
Then I wonder like this – if UA passes Kreminna and turns down towards Severodonetsk and towards the city of Luhansk. At the same time as they move towards Starobilsk.
I think it will trigger a serious migration among all Russian units north of there as they have to both defend Starobilsk but also the city of Luhansk, if they are short on units, which I believe they are.
They force another retreat from a whole geographical area which is the area northern Luhansk (not the first time…).
Bakhmut – pretty sure they will force the Russians to fight their way through the city of Bakhmut now.
Not so sure that RU will reach the other side of the city (W) in the delaying battle but that is at the earliest weeks away reasonably.
Then we again went through a period of – “they should abandon Bakhmut now!!!” and then everything stabilizes. I am honestly surprised who took that position actually, it was pro-Ukrainian with sky-high credibility.
The easiest place for the Russians to bring in reserves now is Yahidne, E of Bakhmut and Ivanrad, they have some buildings to move in.
To expand the northern scope, then it is over open fields that apply and they must be extremely muddy now if you go by the videos – difficult.
Then you also don’t get armor forward but it becomes infantry moving forward against UA in defense now with at least IFV and all kinds of indirect fire as support – dead Russian on muddy field.
The natural thing is – do something – we try to go through the city of Bakhmut instead where we at least can move without sinking into mud up to our knees..
UA has rotated out the army units and brought in units that master urban combat and are fully prepared.
I think UA is in full control here 👍
Then it doesn’t hurt that Prigozin is starting to get cold feet, that the army is working against him and that UA creates a threat around Bakhmut – Soledar. They have partly brought in some of the offensive reserves but then also moved the units that previously were inside Bakhmut out to the flanks.
Matsextrude was a bit into this yesterday and then we have had a previous discussion about why the West does not conduct Putin-style war.
They have figured out that trading with countries is a win-win for everyone and that you only lose in war. I don’t remember the light in the thread that explained it to me but I have thought quite a while about the drive of the free West and finally understood it so a year’s thread-reading was absolutely worth it 👍
If we put ourselves in the US driver’s seat for a second.
They have been at it since 2000 training the Ukrainian army and with small steps tied the country to the West – everything is costs without payout.
There is nothing wrong with UA approaching the West even if the pro-Russians think so – why choose Russian peace with torture centers and castration when you can become a prosperous Western country?
The payout –
-USA has taken over Russia’s raw material exports to the EU – bingo.
-EU and USA get a powerhouse in Ukraine to trade with – bingo.
-USA has gotten a weakened opponent in Russia so the China-Russia axis is not as strong – bingo.
-USA ties many places to itself and of course there will be trade exchange – bingo.
-USA gets to deliver part in the rebuilding of UA – bingo (Zelensky has some deal already with Lehman)
-USA gets to deliver weapons to NATO countries in the next arms race – bingo.
On the other side we have Russia which has really gotten stuck here, crashed army, economy, foreign policy and everyone who matters cannot leave the country and their blood money is frozen.
It has probably never been clearer that the West’s strategy to fend off dictators and tie the victims of aggression to itself pays off a hundredfold in the long run and they understood this already at the time of the Napoleonic wars.
Ukraine is far from perfect, that Cossack talked about Zelensky meeting with “azkenazi” for something, like giving Russian oligarchs their money or something, not even an attempt to hide anti-Semitism.
It is enough to read their tumultuous history from 2004 until today to understand that it is a messy country.
But if Poland, the Baltic states and the Balkans could get in order then Ukraine can and they reasonably have every chance to become a prosperous country and a respected trading partner in the EU and with the USA.
If anyone has played 5D chess it is the USA here, not Trump and not Russia, and absolutely not China who is supposed to be the masters of the long game.
At least I am incredibly pleased with how this is developing right now and think that if you can start tying countries in Africa to yourself with fair trade going forward then it can become a pretty pleasant world to live in eventually.
BRIICS will probably have to sit and sulk on the sidelines and watch as robotization brings manufacturing home, renewable energy finally works as the visionaries told us it would, and the free West is armed to the teeth so that it’s not even worth trying to jump on some weak neighbor.