12:25 – MatsExtrude
👍Happy Easter!
19:34 – Johan No.1
There are Twitter rumors that the fronts are poorly manned but no one has dared to tackle that so far, nice that defmon with high credibility is entering that question.
Remember now that he talked about the spearhead not the total, not everything is Russians in the trenches but those beyond this number are not resistance.
At the Dnipro that number has flown around before a couple of times. Reasonable.
Zaporizhia – thought it was around 30,000 + some at Vuhledar but they have lost a lot.
Bakhmut and north of it, Soledar and Bilohorivka/Lysychansk/Severodonetsk – sounds reasonable actually.
Northern Luhansk – WTF 😀
20:50 – Johan No.1
He has visually tried to confirm and it’s the same guy who got 3500 before the war started (then the Russians maybe wanted low numbers, now they want high 😀).
350 T80Us are standing still at one of the bases – good indication that guidance systems are stolen I think?
The military base(s) with T62/T55/T64 have much less armor than 6 months ago.
Then the kicker, they are supposed to be drained of oil, serviced every two years and the electronics checked regularly – pretty sure that doesn’t happen.
1000 tanks have warm air storage but moving parts are still ancient and guidance systems can still be stolen.
There’s probably some left but servicing T62 is an indication that they have a shortage of others probably?
Nice that there are only 50 T90s left in the warehouses 👍
09:13 – MatsExtrude
Yes, those 3,500 I have never believed in and if you analyze what he himself said about tanks that have disappeared (when in his second video he counted how many were no longer there) his logic broke down quite a bit. With some interpolation I then came to the conclusion that it should be about 6-7,000 tanks.
Believe that he might be more on point this time, but the question still remains how the condition really is. He also roughly estimated that about half would be completely OK wagons and half would need a bit more care (apart from all those that are scrap).
12:03 – Johan No.1
I entertained myself by going through the bookmark list which is several miles long and want to remind about these two, it was already last autumn…
https://twitter.com/amessniperkitty/status/1567861805413793794?s=20
https://twitter.com/praisethesteph/status/1568344075446947841?s=20
Ukraine has experimented with mechanized combat since last summer, sometimes it went well sometimes worse and like everyone else they have learned from their mistakes?
The videos we got then were of M113, various types of ATGM and eastern armor – we sympathized with them and chanted our CV90 every day and in between hoped they had been delivered, when the Gepards arrived I mistook them for Leopards and had a daily drink to drown the disappointment.
This time the spearhead is Bradley, Marder, CV90, Warrior and western vehicles.
It is an enormous capability increase in materiel and they have also learned lessons and trained away weaknesses since then, as well as having launched a large number of new brigades.
They swept clean in Kharkiv, Izyum, Kherson and Lyman before it finally stopped mainly because the Russians in pure desperation threw in their best units in a meaningless winter offensive after sacrificing newly mobilized troops until then to try to stop Ukraine and released large front sections to consolidate their defense.
The Russians are now weaker than they were last autumn both in materiel and individual soldier capability. Probably also in numbers since they had more Wagner, DPR/LPR and lots of newly mobilized flooding in. Those who had conscription in their background were sent directly to units – we got 80,000 of them.
The joker is probably that the Russians’ newly built defense system would be the world’s best but my money is on it being bypassed quite quickly where UA wants breakthroughs.
It’s actually quite simple – UA has superior intelligence gathering and where they decide to break through they know exactly where the minefields are and how the defense looks.
They will not take chances but break through with a good safety margin and we have all seen the destruction simple drones with winged grenades can cause against a fortification system.
To achieve a breakthrough they need to break through a battalion in defense and if you concentrate different capabilities on one point it is quick death for it.
If you look at the unit maps there are today 20 brigades, mech, mountain or assault, that are not at the active front and not as a rapid reaction force immediately behind the active front.
It is an enormous offensive reserve, a mechanized spearhead of 100,000 in functioning units.
After that follows everything else.
Gradual increase should be the model and since over time it will light up along the entire front and the critical mass has long been in Ukraine’s favor it doesn’t matter what the Russians do. I have tried to describe the possible attack vectors, 3 at the southern front (or 4 if we include crossing of the Dnipro), northern Luhansk, Bakhmut, Soledar-Siversk and then towards the city of Donetsk.
I have also tried to describe how you theoretically can concentrate forces against one front, achieve the combat goals and then move units to the next – it is naturally map warfare and then reality knocks on 😀
In this video I see lions but I also see ground that holds
https://twitter.com/ukrainiansquad/status/1643995080414339073?s=20
There is another angle on this Russian mess Putin has slid into, Zelensky is now using his status to try to save Moldova and he has previously made statements that Belarus and Russia should get their freedom.
This is dizzying but if one could succeed in decolonizing Russia tens of millions of people’s lives would improve and the world would become a better place.
It also signals that Zelensky/UA are not completely self-centered but think in wider circles than just surviving. Honor to them if so.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1644021712164454401?s=20
Have you seen this – Armenia is to participate in NATO exercises?
Things are moving fast among all the -stans now.
https://twitter.com/TreasChest/status/1644050551703851014?s=20
The court jester Luca from Brazil has joined the discussion but that was quite expected.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1644242009333309443?s=20
And the USA clarifies when Sweden will join NATO, July 11 it will be.
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1644231900100173824?s=20
On the subject of Russian mobilization I see nothing at all in the feed, I want to remind that on April 1 it was supposed to start and they were to mobilize 400,000 volunteers. In September we were flooded with videos but today April 8 I have not seen a single video in the feed, have you?
The Russians haven’t even tried to do PR about it with paid queues at recruitment offices, almost as if they are toning down this mobilization so it will be forgotten?
In any case I think we are starting to get close, the ground does not hold everywhere but we have seen videos of heavy vehicles moving in the terrain and that the ground holds.
We guessed mid-April as a possible start date earlier. Now a start date doesn’t mean 100 brigades go forward but it means UA CAN start offensive operations.
Mid-April maybe it was possible considering the terrain, then 100 other factors must also fall into place.
What I am very sure of though is that they will not wait until summer because that would give the Russians a chance to get organized.
A large part of the materiel is unit-assigned and ready for action.
Happy Easter.