11:24 – MatsExtrude
+1 (Starting to run out of positive adjectives so I’ll settle for +1) 🙂
Of course, it is easy to become negative if you only look at DeepStateMAP and see what has happened since the turn of the year.
The Russians continue to press and attack and even though it is at great losses, they slowly grind forward in several places. They do not seem to have faltered yet and if they continue the same way, AFU will have to focus on defending themselves and stopping them.
It is easy to see that it could risk messing up the big spring offensive that we are all waiting for.
It currently reminds me a bit of fighting a forest fire where you have to fight several smaller fires and new ones pop up, which means you don’t have time to put out the main fire.
What you have to remember is that all fires, no matter how big, eventually burn themselves out when everything that can burn has burned up.
It is only a matter of time but I wonder if it will have finished burning by mid-April?
There is a lot of training ongoing and not all Western armor has arrived yet. It is not just about learning the vehicles, they also need to train together so it can work well in the units where they will be used and one must not forget the logistics.
I am leaning more and more towards mid-May maybe being better than mid-April. Feels 50/50 now.
But I hope I am wrong, want to get the Russians kicked out as soon as possible!!
#SpringIsComing
13:36 – Johan No.1
This one is interesting because if so, it means that we (I) are drawing too big conclusions from Deepstatemap, that the disputed area does not mean it is crawling with Russians.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1636154219135631362?s=20
13:39 – Johan No.1
This one is interesting, want to post it here as well – this together with LW posting yesterday that they received reinforcements suggests that Deepstatemaps’ “contested” area might not be crawling with Russians in the way one interprets it.
Consider that “captured” is quite constant here but that “contested” is growing worryingly much every day.
Now we have LW yesterday showing reinforcements coming in and now this from, according to Dmitri, a credible source.
It could absolutely be that I have overinterpreted the contested area negatively, for everyone accusing me of always being positive 😀
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1636154219135631362?s=20
13:43 – Johan No.1
Or maybe the contested area is not what we interpret it as at all, I discuss it every day because it’s a big caveat 😀
You look at Deepstatemap which looks threatening but what does it look like in that area that is contested?
I share your view that the concern is psychological but rather to deny Putin a morale boost or Xi some straw to grasp at.
The Ukrainian army is like a drawn bow right now and the spring offensive is just around the corner, try to get a child to start feeling down on Christmas Eve.
13:52 – Johan No.1
#SpringisComing is a very positive something 😀👍
13:58 – Johan No.1
It flew by yesterday that Putin has started taking passports from the administration/Duma or similar which was what I referred to.
Well, in the link it talks about the exodus below, if you combine that with window flights and subsequent suicides worldwide I get a – did they have any choice?
(then I can think that they do but not a choice they jumped on maybe).
“It should be noted that Russian business has understood the consequences of Putin’s war quickly and correctly. As leading Russian businessmen were respectfully listening to the President in the Kremlin on the evening of 24 February, their private jets were warming their engines up in the Vnukovo‑3 airport. However, the swift exodus was short-lived (according to various sources, almost half of the Forbes Club members left Russia in the first 48 hours after the start of hostilities against Ukraine): in the months that followed, at least 70 Russian billionaires (including all members of the ill-fated meeting between the President and leading members of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs) found themselves under EU, US and UK sanctions and some, such as A. Rotenberg, K. Malofeev, A. Miller and A. Akimov, have been on the ‘stop lists’ since 2014−2016.”
14:33 – Johan No.1
Here is another map but without Deepstates’ “contested” area, looks less threatening?
https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1635672180154302465?s=20
14:57 – Johan No.1
A good suggestion
https://twitter.com/irgarner/status/1636177979729494022?s=46&t=x8UymKDl9OvmJej1iXBLpQ
18:48 – MatsExtrude
Could wish that Putin understood that too.
10:16 – Johan No.1
It is unclear what is happening in Bakhmut, according to Deepstate the delaying battle through the city continues.
I can’t reconcile Zelensky’s meeting that Bakhmut must be held with the fact that the delaying battle in the built-up area is moving daily to the W (as it should, because it is a delaying battle).
Looking at this purely tactically on Deepstatemap, the delaying battle through the built-up area is now approaching its end.
Yesterday the blogger reported that they rotated units so the supply route must still have been open.
This suggests that the definition of contested is not as strict as I had thought because the road up near Khromove is presumably where it is, and on the map it looks like RU holds it with direct fire almost, at least KSP and RPG and they should have full control over what moves on the road – a retreat across the fields W towards Ivanivske should therefore still be possible?
Yesterday there were also reports of counterattacks near Khromove, seems to have been a local counterattack?
(that report from an unconfirmed Twitter user about bodies everywhere and an offensive was quite unique…)
If they have any card up their sleeve, it’s time to play it, otherwise it will very soon be time to withdraw from the built-up area of Bakhmut after a completed delaying battle in the town.
It also seems to be contested far W of the industrial area which makes a defense of the industrial area obsolete.
Either they withdraw or they carry out larger counterattacks on the flanks in the near future.
Since the ground does not seem to support heavy vehicles yet (I think after all the videos we’ve seen) it will probably be the case that they withdraw from the built-up area in Bakhmut, I think?
Trying to see this objectively, they had certainly planned to hold Bakhmut until the spring offensive started mid-April but then they have reality to contend with, and if the ground doesn’t hold, it doesn’t hold.
(Homsan can call me a boring realist again 😀).
Now Wagner will capture and execute the last platoon that didn’t get out in time after they stayed the hours they were supposed to as rear guard and they will find piles of bodies in basements that couldn’t be driven out – the pro-Russian side will cheer all the death on the videos and demand more death because they are most invigorated by all the death, death is life force for pro-Russians even though I think dead pro-Russians are best of all.
It is my opinion that quite a lot has been achieved with the defense of Bakhmut, we know that RU has weakened northern Luhansk and we know that at least “real Wagner” and VDV have been heavily decimated in the city.
Nothing is beautiful in war and everything is Russia’s fault. I hope the finger-pointing stops now and that when history is written the value of the defense will become clear just as it did with Mariupol.
Personally, I believe that no one can ever be sacrificed “for the greater good” but then I’m not in a war for my survival and difficult decisions are made every day, wrong decisions are made every day. There are people who have to live with having sent platoons and companies to annihilation completely unnecessarily and who made completely wrong decisions, and also went against others who said exactly what would happen when they made the decisions, but life is rarely fair.
There seem to have been reconnaissance fights towards Polohy/south of Orihiv. Gregg in today’s post talked about “the Russians retreated 10 km” and Rybar that the Russians repelled “the big attack with enormous losses”.
Presumably smaller reconnaissance fights 😀
Reconnaissance fights are usually carried out with a purpose and the obvious purpose here is offensive operations when the ground holds.
Then at least I have seen a sharp increase in deployed artillery, AFVs and armor recently that is not fully explained by RU’s tragic attempts to take ground in northern Luhansk, Avdiivka, S of Bakhmut and Vuhledar. Especially not the artillery.
Maybe they are starting to focus on frontline heavy vehicles in defense, AFVs and artillery as preparation (preliminary bombardment) ahead of the spring offensive – it’s about time for that now.
Then we have one more from Accentmannen that FJKL posted in yesterday’s thread this morning, the Russians get completely spun around every day. It must be incredibly frustrating to have to extend and extend the scope all the time but still hit a concrete wall and then when it doesn’t work try straight at the attack objective again – the same concrete wall, and then they run the carousel one more time.
Just like up in northern Luhansk Ukraine fights better than the Russians every day, a dynamic mobile fight.
Do you remember that 9-minute video in the trench?
Do you remember the defense of the forest area along the Siversky Donets and the big drowning day up there?
It was an interview with some Airmobile and they said they had 16 soldiers in defense and 300 Russians attacking and they described in words how they defended and it matched exactly the 9-minute video, they ran around between different weapons and created the illusion that they were a larger number so after a while the Russians gave up.
Also at group and individual level UA fights like this every day, mobile dynamic fighting.
The Russians get a long order on poor paper that easily gets wet and illegible, proceed according to the long order which they have difficulty reading and as soon as the war makes itself felt and everything crashes they become passive and more prey and victim than a fighting unit.
Explains quite a lot of UA’s successes I think – they fight like 2023 and the Russians like Tannenberg or a few years after, maybe 1924?
https://youtu.be/ONtxtkvWpdU
Regarding the numbers and my guess that 30%-40% of the Russians’ armor is in the rear with technical faults, at least this guy seems to think along similar lines. It is a good visualization of why the Russians are severely short on armor. This is one place, there are similar ones up in Belgorod and in the darkest Donbass and probably also Rostov-na-Don
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1636061907600719875?s=46&t=VC5kFaicz71xQWTjxLfxUw
I find this one very interesting as it shows the Russians’ defensive lines. There is hope to get back your five hundred because precisely in that area E of Volnovakha is the minimum defense system.
https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1635957454520320000?s=20
That said, it’s not the easiest to drive in a wedge and then defend it against barbarians both to the right and left but there are two anchor communities E of Volnovakha that look defensible and then dominant terrain that is probably undefended running N-S and the area behind the front should not have deep defense so one can roll in and dig in.
First you probably cross the Dnieper with AMX, boats and bridge layers north of Khakovka so you draw a lot of Russian units there and then you punch a hole in the southern front?
What I find most clear about the sketch is that as soon as the wedge down towards Azov is completed, all defense west of it becomes obsolete, whether it is made against Melitopol or East Mariupol, or somewhere in between.
There could probably be 30,000 men in that area or nearby who will then retreat down towards Crimea and security.
Then there are certainly units down in Crimea as well, so it creates a pretty good locking effect.
Everyone understands that the bridge will be cut when UA wants it to be cut.
In northern Luhansk, I believe there is defense along the NS line through Starobilsk and in the W-E line near the city of Luhansk as well.
Then one must not forget the old stalemate line at Donetsk, which should be formidable I guess since they have had 8 years for it?
Then they have reinforced Avdiivka with newly mobilized units – they have been taken from somewhere and those who were there were not enough to solve the task 😀
Below clearly shows why offensive wars do not pay off and why the free West always wins. The one who enlightened about this earlier in the thread was a genius.
The USA ties UA and everywhere else to itself through trade and voila – prosperity.
Russia is well on its way to ending up in the Middle Ages or even further back in time, the Iron Age?https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1636146663122190338?s=20
We have long discussed the Russians’ subversive activities and the undersigned knows what he thinks about the peace movement, the environmental movement, and right/left extremists.
This tweet expresses it nicely and the more I think about it, the more I believe the state of Russia should be classified as a terrorist state so that all anti-terror legislation applies to all Russian subversive activities and then clean up that swamp. Collaboration with the Russian terrorist state would then be punishable.
We know from the Cold War exactly how they operated and I think it is clear that the playbook still applies.
The West would be much calmer without Russian subversive activities.
The other thing is that the country turns inward, which it seems to be well on its way to doing, and then maybe it will die out?
There is no reason to accept this destabilization any longer because there is no golden middle way to go with Russia.
https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1636078279281999872?s=20
Then we have fantastic news – Putin has decided to mobilize 400,000 VOLUNTEERS.
Firstly, it is too late, secondly far from the general mobilization they threatened with, and thirdly, I think everyone understands that the trickle of volunteers will not even be a trickle.
They were supposed to start April 1 and then after a month when they have had 500 applications, it will be compulsory mobilization instead.
This gives Ukraine the window they need to win this war – the Russians are out of sync.
Even if it is a euphemism for conscription, April 1 is still too late, and even if they have started quietly, it is still too late.
They are supposed to be trained and out in defense before UA rolls over them, which they will not have time for.
I understand that there are now two sides to look at this – Bakhmut falls, Russian mobilization, pro-Ukrainian bloggers with sky-high credibility hang their heads and even Gregg is depressed about Bakhmut.
On top of that, slow armor deliveries and a USA that is starting to falter – the end is near or at least it will be a very long war, depressing.
I see everything in a very different, much brighter light – it was a smart defense of Bakhmut, no chance for RU to get mobilized troops into the pit before UA attacks, dry ground mid-April (I find it exciting that we came to that conclusion in the thread entirely on our own and now more and more consider it a start date after they made the same analysis), the home guard has received heavy vehicles, they have ammunition, and 14 “storm brigades” have been set up to go first in the offensive and where they had to filter applications.
The very definition of high morale is what I see.
In addition, we have been flooded with videos and information on dry exercises of breakthroughs, mine rollers, mine plows, mine rollers, bridge layers both for armored ditches and rivers, and enough Western armor for the spearhead breakthrough.
We know they have received enormous amounts of night combat equipment, that they have received 2,500 suicide drones, that they have taken air bursts, wing grenades from drones, and the situation in real time to wizard level.
I listen to Bodanov who says that the next three (2.5 months now) will decide the war and I have watched the Russians’ disastrous offensives all winter with growing surprise. Northern Luhansk I have not managed to process yet, it never became “chaotic”.
Then I see SBERbank’s profit drop by 80% and Putin taking the oligarchs’ passports so they do not leave the country (the rats probably really want to leave the sinking ship now).
Then I read that large companies in Russia are starting to set up their own private armies and Kadyrov looks like a blowfish in the face.
Prigozhin tells us daily how much the army opposes him, Russian bloggers are terrified of the UA spring offensive, and Girkin has completely given up.
I find it hard to sit still and see no reason why the war should drag on into the fall.
The bubble list is boiling.