11:27 – MatsExtrude
+100 The question is not if the Russians will get beaten but only by how much!
Regarding Russian local media no longer clearing comments.
On RT, it has been possible to comment previously. Articles concerning the war have sometimes led to several hundred comments. Some way into the war, it was only pro-Russian commenters, from the normally disturbed zombies to the most bloodthirsty and vile types. Last autumn, one started to see the occasional pro-Ukrainian comment and since then there have been more and more even though the pro-Russians have always been many more.
RT has now completely shut off their comments (possibly if it is that they only hide them from those not coming from Russia but I doubt that is the case).
#SpringIsComing!
12:20 – Johan No.1
#Springiscoming ✊
10:57 – Johan No.1
Soon we won’t need to overinterpret because hopefully it will be offensive and not just repositioning.
Yes, one expects blue… every day you want this damn war to end.
https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1647630683500675072?s=20
If you have followed Accentmannen the last few weeks, it has gone roughly like this –
-Wagner tried to attack on the flanks N and S of Bakhmut.
-Wagner changes attack vector to the built-up area in Bakhmut.
-VDV takes over Wagner’s defensive positions on the wide flanks.
-Wagner intensifies attacks against the built-up area in Bakhmut.
-VDV takes over Wagner’s defensive positions towards Chasiv Yar and north of the built-up area in Bakhmut.
-Wagner further intensifies attacks against the built-up area in Bakhmut.
-VDV participates in attacks against the built-up area in Bakhmut together with Wagner.
-Only VDV and newly mobilized units participate in attacks against the built-up area in Bakhmut, Wagner no longer participates.
I think it is very clear that Wagner has taken such heavy losses in the attacks that they have shrunk to the point where they no longer functioned as an offensive resource if you follow the above timeline.
They reportedly had a hard core of +7000 left and if they pooled that for the attack in Bakhmut until they ran out of steam, it is not unreasonable that Wagner as an offensive unit is not particularly threatening today. We know that they have been fighting with “real” Wagner for quite a while now.
If Prigozhin is to be publicly humiliated on Monday, whatever that information might be, it is also not unreasonable that Wagner withdraws from active fronts – but we have not seen that and it is just Twitter speculation.
We will see what happens with VDV going forward but if I understand this correctly, several VDV regiments are involved in fighting in the built-up area in Bakhmut so it could go quite fast to decimate them.
If you have followed Accentmannen like me, you also know that RU has taken a big beating in Vuhledar in recent weeks as usual and lost large amounts of heavy vehicles.
Then Erik14 could show that UA formally confirmed that Spetsnaz have fought/are fighting in Bakhmut.
It is truly the elite that is being lost there and that is very good, better to die in Bakhmut than to go into a hard-to-break defense later.
The fact is that cumulative losses in April are 8000 so it is on track for yet another big loss month and then I have 1:2 on that, winter injuries have probably gone down now.
Since VDV has been deployed in large numbers in recent weeks, they are the ones taking the hits again so now we are ticking off from the last +50,000 from those who remained in September 2022.
Since January 6, RU has lost 76,000 and with 1:1 that is 150,000, 1:2 becomes 228,000.
Since they had 350,000 + Wagner + DPR/LPR and those who died are the elite and the numbers were total, the US leak is probably not far from the truth because it counted Russian BTG (the elite) at the various front sections.
If Wagner has now gone towards zero, they are part of the loss calculation indeed.
Now there will always be a stamp of unreasonable on this kind of thing so we’ll have to wait until the UA spring offensive starts and see how it goes but surely we have a Russian low point, we should be able to agree on that?
On the other hand, we have hard numbers on UA now – under 50,000 killed, 1:3 on that at least and +80% back in front-line service. That gives under 100,000 UA soldiers non-combat capable, maybe as low as 80,000. That also means that competence, expertise, know-how etc. are largely maintained in the units.
Guess how well the Russian cooks, truck drivers, depot workers and mechanics will fare against mechanical failures when the elite is gone and it’s their turn to sit and sulk in the trenches. They are the last +100,000 left in Ukraine.
A thought about Russia going forward, this is partly hard to speculate on and one should never play god but Western analysts have tried to figure out how long it would take to restore the different branches of the military. Spetsnaz would take ten years to regain capability for example and that is an uncomfortably short time.
For peace and quiet in the world, it wouldn’t actually be so bad if Russia turned inward and provinces, republics and -stans started declaring independence. -stans are independent in themselves but they have been under strong Russian influence.
Then we would avoid a very long runway towards round two which almost feels inevitable regardless of who takes over. The Soviet nostalgics are ready to take over, FSB’s Patrushev is probably almost worse than Putin and others with ambitions like the cook are probably even worse. What really could unite the whole gnome realm is probably a common goal of vindication, the stab-in-the-back legend and so on.
If they instead start fighting among themselves and carve off their piece of land, this capability will no longer exist going forward.
As I said, what happens happens and the West can’t actively instigate anything.
Ukraine, on the other hand, can’t be complained about if they want to liberate their brothers and sisters in Russia by not banning volunteers.
Another interesting crack, Russian news media does not delete comments critical of the war in the comments to their articles.
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1647474694625411072?s=20
Highlighting a comment from the living genius Labbiba from yesterday where he points out that the cannon on the Russian T90 latest mod (M?) was not stabilized. This must be the world championship in question marks surely because it should be stabilized?
A quick Google search is enough to understand that it should be and it was a pro-Russian propaganda film we saw so the best of the best.
How on earth is that even possible?
https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1647257568891338752?s=20
We like this one, the US is working on legal support to send frozen Russian money to Ukraine’s reconstruction.
Just in Belgium they had found 50 billion EUR or something similar?
Right now the Russians can’t move money at all even those that are not frozen so over time it will probably be a hefty sum for reconstruction when confiscation, freezing and transfers are done, maybe 500 billion EUR or something like that?
The Swiss don’t seem to have finished cleaning up yet because they have only frozen a few billion and over time the US will find RU tax havens, pressure governments and get to the companies that have laundered oligarch money.
This is a huge blow and everyone who said Russia would go unharmed got overtaken by the US.
The fact is that the Russian elite have saved their funds outside Russia and right now they are seeing their funds freeze at rocket speed.
Honestly don’t know how much is a lot in context but it sounds like a lot 😀
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3696761-us-discussing-mechanisms-to-transfer-frozen-russian-assets-for-rebuilding-of-ukraine.html
We discussed something early in the war and that was UA’s constant counterattacks. As soon as RU took a defense system, a built-up area or some grove and settled down and opened a small size fuel can, UA struck with its counterattack.
We had a theory that the counterattacks were carried out at night but haven’t really gotten that confirmed during the past year.
On the other hand, through Vuhledar, Bakhmut, Soledar, etc., we have received constant confirmations that they are making these counterattacks all the time. As soon as RU has forced something with copious losses and sits down to catch their breath, when they let their guard down in that exhalation, UA strikes directly and recaptures lost terrain 9 times out of 10.
It is absolutely incredible that this simple rope trick has worked for a whole year but it continues to work, RU has zero ability to counter dynamic and mobile combat.
It signals to me that as soon as UA breaks through and gains momentum in their offensive, RU will not be able to counter it at all, the units do not have communication between each other, the commanders essentially have no decision cycle UA can get inside – they have a paper with many orders in 30 points and as soon as the first point is lost, they become paralyzed.
These are isolated islands of immobility and poor initiative, and that works worst of all when under pressure and there are rapid shifts.