10:53 – Johan No.1
Well, Paludan isn’t exactly a hill I want to die on 😀
Am I completely off?
You write that there is no evidence but IF there had been evidence that Paludan acted on directives from some Russian from the letter agencies AND either the organization he was involved with was a terror-designated organization OR that Russia had been designated as a “state sponsor of terrorism” – then his actions could have been prosecuted under terrorism legislation, right?
If you use those laws, there are probably extended powers for surveillance, for example?
(I’m in deep waters now, I know…).
Paludan has been at it for quite a while and if we had the terrorism laws in place, it would probably have been legally possible to wiretap or surveil him. Today he burns a book which is completely legal and there are no suspicions of more serious crimes than that, so there is probably no legal basis to wiretap or otherwise snoop around his activities?
Your last paragraph you take a bit out of context, it’s not that I don’t understand freedom of speech or anything, that burning books is legal and in previous discussions that has been my position. What I hope we can avoid is the subversive activity from Russia.
A simple observation is that there haven’t exactly been repeated book burnings with burning Qurans outside the Turkish embassy, so it might be that the average Swede doesn’t feel particularly strongly about burning Qurans outside embassies?
Now it got a bit messy so to calibrate myself – do you think it is good or bad to designate Russia and/or all the letter agencies as terrorists?
11:46 – MatsExtrude
+1
One advantage of keeping Swedish equipment together in a brigade might also have to do with data communication (which one can assume is encrypted) between all units..
13:36 – Johan No.1
I have also seen the new brigades before and the name Viking. I sincerely hope the name does not become Viking because then the Russians and all of Sweden’s combined Soviet apologists will get free ammunition.
Swedish brigade or brigade Sweden or something similar that refers to our country as a nation would be really fun.
The name Södermanland Brigade would of course be best.
Then of course Ukraine will steal the name as soon as they get the vehicles and it will be called brigade Kiev or something.
20:57 – Johan No.1
Dengamle – picking up the earlier discussion about boat space, your spot is unchallenged and I now see that the post was carelessly written but I blame that on lunch – you were only allowed to drink two beers but apparently there was no consequence when you doubled that and topped it off with a whisky. You’re never too old to stretch the rules.
Argus has raised the question of whether there is space left on the boat. I think 13C with plush sofa and mahogany table is still free. It’s in the VIP section but there has been quite a lot of depressing going on for a while now due to the lack of an offensive so the seats have remained empty.
Approved?
10:25 – Johan No.1
Apparently it is a new moon now and according to Järven, things will kick off, everyone over the demarcation line at 06:00 👍
Not sure if it has been mentioned but everyone understands that the Swedish Armed Forces is currently beta-testing the Swedish mechanized brigade against what it is intended to fight.
We could have donated the vehicles separately and UA could have distributed them as they wished but it became a Swedish mechanized brigade as a whole which was also trained in Sweden.
You then know that the brigade commander down to (perhaps) infantry has received Swedish training and has documented capability and level, and then you organize a brigade structure similar to what we have or have planned.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we have embedded observers on site taking notes (but that’s just a guess).
I compared Rybar’s unit map against militaryland and Rybar had more brigades marked, especially the mechanized brigades that UA has held back. We can guess (but we do not know, want to be clear about that) that some of them are the offensive spearhead equipped with Western weapons and trained by the West.
Some units have been trained since last autumn, others since UA’s winter offensive never happened – it is solid training and the soldiers have combat experience on top of that. Now they have had rest, equipment, and training. Hard to see how one can come better prepared to the fight than that, actually.
Worth noting that the units Rybar marked at the southern front are ¼ of the offensive reserve. There is thus 75% of the main force left waiting their turn.
If what Rybar writes is correct, then UA has reinforced the southern front with offensive capacity aimed at breaking through at one or both of the western attack vectors.
His map did not include the attack vector southeast of Vuhledar.
I don’t think resources from Bakhmut need to be reallocated to the southern front, the units in Bakhmut remain in Bakhmut until the combat objectives at the Bakhmut front are achieved.
At the attack vectors towards Melitopol and the dominant terrain between Melitopol – Mariupol there are thus 10 mechanized brigades and over two artillery brigades.
Then there are 10 brigades on the right bank of the Dnieper, including 3 marine brigades and two artillery brigades. That is enough for an attack vector from there if UA so wishes.
The quick-witted realize quickly that this numerical strength is roughly equivalent to what they have pooled together for the Bakhmut front.
They now have an offensive reserve left which, if moved, provides the same numbers and artillery support at the Vuhledar – Horlivka front(s) AND up in northern Luhansk.
Yesterday we were informed that a tank battalion from Avdiivka had been moved to Opytne – southern Zaitseve line and then there are probably armored vehicles there in defense now together with a couple of VDV regiments.
RU has thus made a serious attempt to stabilize the situation south of the settlement in Bakhmut.
The discussion yesterday went something like that UA will pre-fire this defense as much as possible before trying to break through it and that now maybe they shift focus north of the settlement in Bakhmut and Soledar for a while?
I am of the opinion that this is the last defensive line RU has managed to prepare today.
It may be that the units that fled in panic have withdrawn “behind” this defensive line and are trying to set up a new one in a hurry?
This also tells us one more thing (and now the genius Argus mentioned this yesterday but I had started drafting a text and include it as a good second, always second 😀)
– RU may have prepared their three defensive lines but they do not have the resources for three defensive lines – if they had, there would be three fortified defensive lines in Bakhmut without needing to rotate in units from Zaporizhia or Avdiivka, right?
How does it look on the southern front – similar if one may guess actually, the numbers we guess at fall far short for all built defenses.
Putin’s tactic has been to attack anywhere just to keep the initiative but such a strategy has an expiration date and it has now been reached.
Right now the Russians’ hand is visible at the Bakhmut front and it was pairs in twos.
The fascinating thing about Bakhmut is that UA attacked with battalion strength and got several RU units to retreat – numerically RU was stronger but without armored vehicles and probably also low on close air support as we have long guessed.
Then UA has direct line to CAS and artillery while RU has no one answering the field phone when they call in panic because the command post was HIMARSed.
They attack at three points north of Bakhmut and at three points south of the settlement.
Probably units from 3-4 brigades involved now in offensive operations, it is growing exponentially.
That no one talks about reconnaissance battles anymore is good and then it must by definition be offensive operations or is there some middle ground I never learned about in the happy 90s?
You stop mapping the enemy’s defense when you break through it, I think?
If we attacked with everything we had in Sweden, the numbers would still be less than what they have dedicated to the offensive around Bakhmut – would we then call it reconnaissance battles or our country’s great offensive to defend our land?
I stand firm that the window for the offensive has opened (May 4) and according to the big Schlieffen plan, Bakhmut was first out.
Now I have to write that they will never cross the Dnieper but in the above-mentioned plan crossing the Dnieper was second or simultaneous with offensive operations at the southern front.
We have discussed subversive activities quite a bit and we have actually had confirmed that what we guessed the Russians did in the 80s, they did as well, cunning and evil through and through.
It was not Russophobia then and it is not Russophobia now.
During the Cold War they sent agents to West Germany who attacked j123a and made it look like an epidemic of neo-Nazism in West Germany.
https://twitter.com/ehunterchristie/status/1659026404745281542?s=46&t=qSsToBwfyXYJjlsBiW16Vg
Nothing is better than dusting off something that worked so now someone in the USA has been arrested after peddling Ukrainian neo-Nazism to reduce support for Ukraine in the USA.
https://twitter.com/ehunterchristie/status/1659010456017686528?s=46&t=qSsToBwfyXYJjlsBiW16Vg
Then we have the 125 people in Scandinavia who actively run Russian psyops.
For my part, the state of Russia should be classified as a terrorist state because they have an enormous amount of subversive activity and if you can get at that with anti-terror laws, everyone who assists becomes criminal and can be prosecuted.
This cancer should be smoked out and then free West becomes a more peaceful place to live.
Alternatively, be very smart in classifying Russian letter agencies as terrorist organizations so you can get at all subversive activities that way.
This harms Sweden, take for example Paludan who chose the Turkish embassy for his Quran burning exactly when the debate was hottest around NATO – we must respect freedom of speech and one may burn books but it also damaged Swedish trade with the Muslim world and we have to wait for NATO. IF it was Russian subversive activity we would have avoided that if it fell under anti-terror laws.
FT writes that UA has been given an ultimatum that if they have not achieved anything decisive by this fall, there will be negotiations. The text doesn’t quite sound like that, but Gregg has brought this up before and it is quite sad.
My first question is of course why a similar ultimatum has not been given to Russia; negative discrimination is never fun.
My conclusion then is that it will be a very violent summer for Russians in the pit because it feels quite Ukrainian to decide to solve the whole problem before autumn so that there is nothing left to negotiate about.
https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1659225254143590405?s=46&t=MjhGxDGM5lgB5XorwW2yXw
A new way for UA to detonate mines, very innovative 👍
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1659423355760439296?s=46&t=LS9JRhuiWDSJ_kSB_TSVpA