12:07 – MatsExtrude
+100
If Russia had managed to win quickly at the start of the war, I don’t think there would have been any general genocide. Opponents would of course have been imprisoned and probably tortured to reveal others, but I think it would have stopped there.
If, against all odds, they manage to win this far into the war, I think it would end in a massacre and your scenario would be the result.. Ukraine MUST simply win!
10:21 – Johan No.1
Now objectivity is completely gone here, so it’s probably best to keep a low profile, but it’s been a long time since I felt so strongly that something would come to an end.
We continue to be overwhelmed with acts of violence against unarmed civilians or prisoners of war, the latest being the one Erik14 posted with the worst torture that ended in death for prisoners of war – just like ISIS, only the burning cage is missing.
Sometimes you can’t help but speculate – if RU had won the war, they would have covered it up and drowned everything in psyops while continuing exactly like this. We would have been sitting here thinking the exiled Ukrainians were annoying with their exaggerations because no one can act like that, and then we would have worried about MP massacres of our power grid instead. Meanwhile, the country would have been slowly ethnically cleansed and the torture centers overcrowded.
The only reason we have been here every day for over a year is because UA is winning, everyone likes a winner.
They are not only winners, they are also cunning; not even the USA got their attack plans when they asked, they got a fake battle plan which they bought – UA trusts no one.
They have also decided not to stop until the country is liberated to the 1991 borders. Zelensky’s speech was very strong as usual.
They also strike me as quite pragmatic, so if they perceive that a fragmented Russia is better going forward, they can probably voluntarily help their brothers and sisters in Russia regain their freedom.
From the information we have to relate to, either RU numbers from January as officially communicated by UA or the latest leak from the USA, things do not look good for the Russians at all.
They simply do not have enough elite units to defend on any front, and to be able to hold a defense they must pool units from other fronts, weakening those fronts.
The Russians will very soon be forced to choose again.
We have Twitter rumors that they are starting to prepare evacuation of the area behind the southern front, but surely they can’t abandon that front voluntarily, it’s more of a precaution in case of a breakthrough?
It has already been discussed in the thread, so I give it a solid five on that.
https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1648395121145028624?s=20
As for northern Luhansk, one can suspect they will only abandon it when it gets tight, partly to gather defenses for the city of Luhansk but also for the cities of Donetsk and Horlivka. They simply do not have units available on other front sections, and reinforcing these areas should be a priority?
I noticed that the VDV’s assigned tank company has run out of ammunition in Bakhmut, I always find such things highly interesting because it signals disruptions in the supply chain on the prioritized front section.
We know that during one of the attacks at Vuhledar, the attacking units received reduced ammunition allocation so that with normal ammunition supply it wouldn’t have lasted the day. Maybe pure cynicism from the Russians because they didn’t expect to survive the day, but that’s not smart warfare, so it must have been forced by ammunition shortage.
Going further with that line of thought, the areas the Russians are attacking now are not particularly large, just a couple of focal points.
At least that tells me that their supply chain looks bad (again…).
There have been pictures circulating of the interior of a T90 sent to the USA, and it was in a deplorable condition. Early in the war we saw T72s with terrible interiors and everyone assumed they started with the shabby vehicles, but if the T90 looks the same, it indicates that everything is in various stages of decay, presumably?
Erik14 posted yesterday that UA smashed the 291st motorized regiment and got at least some advance if not a breakthrough.
According to Defmon, the regiment is located a bit further east than the place the battle was supposed to have taken place.
My interpretation is that the unit was in the attack vector through the dominant terrain (in the middle).
The fact is that most reconnaissance battles have been against this attack vector for over a month now?
The reason it keeps happening is that every time they push, they get further than expected.
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1648414262899924993?s=46&t=rO_LFs49f1ndL80CnhsUww
Did you see this?
UA not only stopped a Russian offensive attempt up by Kupiansk (presumably north of there where they apparently are still trying) and not only that – they pushed the Russians back, a “flight”.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3697343-ukrainian-troops-stop-offensive-attempt-forcing-russians-to-flee-in-kupyansk-direction.html
We have a good grip on UA losses now, -50,000 dead, 1:3 or 1:4 in wounded, +80% return to units and 7,000 missing and captured.
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1648372239451013142?s=20
Now everyone understands that if you have mobilized maneuver brigades in the order of 500,000, these losses are absorbable and the brigades have retained combat value.
I see no reason to question this, the figure 7,000 has come up many times, 1:3-1:4 is probably reasonable, it has gone up from 15,000 to under 50,000 since last fall sometime and they obviously have good combat medics and the whole West probably assists with medical care one can guess?
Waiting times.