12:07 – Johan No.1
Plan to evacuate Enerhodar. Probably the troops there are for the evacuation?
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1656228290108215302?s=46&t=7dSxV_lCaHvoimbn8yui2w
12:25 – MatsExtrude
+1 Thanks!
The hunting right applies as I understand only to DENGAMLE so I politely express my dissatisfaction with the missing RU numbers but am sure you will deliver well-founded figures as soon as you have time.
Chortling while I wait, a bit amused at the screaming Russians fleeing in women’s clothes and wondering how it will go for them when they reach the blocking battalions in the rear lines.. If it’s Kadyrov rites they will probably avoid being defiled as they prefer goats but otherwise they are probably in trouble.
China has thrown Russia under the bus but hopes they won’t notice. They have therefore let an arm and one foot stick out. They hesitate to deliver the coup de grace, want to continue selling some stuff and keep the possibility to buy cheap raw materials.
12:35 – MatsExtrude
Not unreasonable at all.
I see no risk that Russia will use nuclear weapons but I am a bit worried about the nuclear power plant. Of course, they will not do anything deliberate but I am a bit worried that they might simply mess up so that an accident happens.
For example, as the thread you linked to suggests. There is a risk that they evacuate too many and maybe the wrong people out of pure stupidity.
13:58 – Johan No.1
Yes, only Dengamle, you others should and must push on, the more criticism the better.
The hunting license certificate also has a point about the reverse language.
11:45 – Johan No.1
Short post today due to a lot of work.
It’s fun that the thread is starting to come to life 👍
I want to remind what UA has received in terms of equipment –
1000 artillery pieces
700 tanks
2500 anti-tank guided missiles
1500 fragmentation-protected troop transports
(what a poor excuse for the promise of posting RU numbers 😢)
It is an enormous amount of equipment that they have pooled together with what they have and what they have captured and repaired in workshops across Europe.
So to the important part – the right to hunt.
On May 4, 2023, the undersigned wrote –
”Someday I have to write this so I’m writing it today – ”and so it has begun”.
(famous last words).
I had written something very dramatic here but it never read right so it was discarded.
A little less dramatic than the sentence above – hundreds of thousands in brigades whose march to the grouping areas is now complete and the window for the offensive has likely opened”.
And further
”Is this a nothing burger I pretend nothing is happening as usual and declare an offensive later when even ISW has announced it. The dramatic event a few weeks ago when Dengamle was supposed to be first in the thread but overslept after the morning round around the living room has been bothering me a bit so now I’m making my bet – if everything returns to calm in the coming days and next week is the same intensity as last week then the hunting license is on me again for Dengamle 👍”
That was a full hedge worthy of a professional I thought except for the hunting right 😀
Now everyone is sitting and waiting for ”The Great Offensive” and Gregg writes about an ”elite brigade” with all Western equipment that even the elite soldiers adore.
Ukrainian representatives constantly announce ”The Great Offensive” that is coming soon.
The Russians think the offensive has started and scream loudly in all media channels, dress in women’s clothes and hide in the forests behind the southern front.
Breakthrough at Bakhmut – all pro-UA bloggers immediately said ”it was just a small area”.
At Bakhmut we will not see any of the ”new” brigades in my assessment, unless they have already been smuggled in.
They have already fully resourced the offensive at Bakhmut with ”existing” brigades, around 20 brigades and 5 artillery brigades.
No need to wait for reinforcements.
We all probably understand that if they break through RU defense at Bakhmut and it is empty behind, then they accelerate.
The fact is that the Azov brigade is the 3rd Assault brigade and is one of the newly formed brigades so it’s a bit a matter of interpretation here if you want to be picky but we are not.
I think we will see continued increasing intensity here, I can’t find my long post about how the offensive would play out but I’m quite sure it either starts with Bakhmut or crossing the Dnieper.
Probably I wrote that northern Luhansk would keep going but it is also possible they come up with something far up north.
If you ask me offensive operations have started (a while ago) – to push out a weakened battalion from the 72nd brigade, Gazprom contractors and inflict Wagner damage which according to Prigozhin was ”500”.
Then they attacked with strength, at least a mechanized battalion presumably?
The attack vector is one envelopment around Bakhmut.
The other area it has moved in is up towards Soledar – the second attack vector in the envelopment around Bakhmut.
UA has been engaged since April 10, 2023 with reconnaissance fights but no one can say that the Azov brigade’s attack was a reconnaissance fight, right?
Battalion strength or more is a proper mechanized attack – you don’t do reconnaissance fighting, the purpose is to strike.
I think we have been told this because Prigozhin announced it, similar things are probably happening on other fronts.
At Bakhmut RU is exhausted, we did not know that the 72nd Brigade was there and they have already been beaten at Vuhledar.
If they have left combat positions 3 km wide and 2 km deep it is by definition a breakthrough, then maybe UA does not choose to exploit it fully and RU rushes in its rapid reaction force and manages to establish a defense in suitable terrain further back (they don’t seem to have retaken the area).
My guess is that RU is weak in armor around Bakhmut as it is VDV and Wagner and that Soviet armor with Western anti-tank weapons should work well.
I don’t think RU has defense in depth in this area and that a breakthrough can be exploited well but the rapid reaction force is always deadly. Maybe it is VDV?
The week ends on Sunday so we leave the hunting right open but preliminarily Bakhmut qualifies to revoke the hunting right if we follow my post above, don’t you think?
Then my friend wonders if China has thrown Russia under the bus now that they did not congratulate on May 9 as they always have all other years, he actually calls for a formal definition of what ”thrown them under the bus” means.