12:06 – Johan No.1
Thanks for valuable observations Dengamle, next level 👍
Yes, that was a bad analogy, I had probably thought the comparison was with D-Day maybe but 8-9 soldiers is neither violent nor fast so a good point.
Point two above you clarify very nicely, there has actually been incompetence since Hostomel and the useless inability to conduct war has become even worse than it was then. We have almost reached a point where we actually have to start calling it a special operation because it is simply too incompetent to be called a war anymore. Or maybe we should start talking in terms of the Russian peasant uprising in Ukraine?
12:10 – Johan No.1
Everything will always take longer than expected, including the preparations which have been made in the middle of an ongoing war.
The USA had the privilege of being able to prepare for as long as they wanted against a fixed date, Russia as well.
Ukraine has to defend itself while they prepare, wizard level.
I am of the opinion that the window must not be too prolonged because then the Russians have more time to prepare; it took them a little over a week to bring units to the Svitlodarsk-Popasna line and a couple of days to bring units to the northern front.
Then we have the big joker, do they have any reserves at all?
The fact that 150,000 were not sent to the northern front is a bit revealing.
In that case, it doesn’t matter when Ukraine starts because they can’t reinforce anymore.
All guesses.
But yes, time is money, as they say.
12:38 – Johan No.1
One thing I thought we would have seen already was Russia offering peace to save the children.
Then naturally a ceasefire but frozen fronts, very Russian to do that.
Then opinion makers in the West would come out with dreadful descriptions of how Ukraine continues to fight and kills the children when Russia wants peace.
Yes, the Russians are very stressed now, Belgorod and Bakhmut (which is kind of the intro, the diversion and to pull units to a secondary target) they have barely managed to handle so far.
12:45 – MatsExtrude
+1 Thanks, well written as always!
16:06 – Johan No.1
Putin’s speech, an absolute mess.
https://twitter.com/rybar_en/status/1663544685032529924?s=46&t=tx6b3mBWVkJV1M0GDIYqIA
17:19 – MatsExtrude
A mess and a real nonsense.
17:22 – Johan No.1
The second army corps of new brigades is marked to cross a certain river. I think it has more to do with the map owner not really knowing where they are than that they are standing there wetting their toes.
The only scenario we really haven’t raised is that UA commits everything to a violent breakthrough that takes them to Kerch 😀
Today the defense down on Crimea is pretty shabby and everything at the southern front will retreat in panic backwards.
At all fronts UA can defend with one hand behind their back and there is an offensive of 20 brigades plus 10 brigades at the Dnieper and 10 more at the southern front.
They wouldn’t be able to stop that steamroller before Kerch, if at all.
19:01 – Johan No.1
This was a thought that flew by, maybe should have been clearer 😀
09:44 – Johan No.1
It was already up yesterday by some shining genius in the thread without early hair loss but Zelensky has now announced that the date is set for the offensive.
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1663263126521888769?s=46&t=Bkw6fWp5Q-O7jcGTf8FuHA
Gregg this morning has stated that the military leadership wishes that the offensive is not discussed “for a couple of days”.
As someone wrote yesterday and as we have discussed before, there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed with families who must try to live a life while anxiety eats them from within.
The soldiers probably have a phone ban now and have had their last calls with their families.
I recently read something fitting – “May all the Angels in Heaven protect them”.
We know where one of the army corps is and we know that brigades in it have Leo2 – nothing new there and it follows the big campaign plan.
Where the other is sent is the interesting part because it is another huge blow with 10 “new” brigades being added to some front.
If anyone thought that there is no ongoing offensive already, there are constant raids and explosions in Belgorod Oblast.
https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1663268651305238528?s=46&t=Bkw6fWp5Q-O7jcGTf8FuHA
If one may guess, this is a combination of infiltrating SOF, raids by “Freedom Russia” and rebels in Russia.
There are also daily sabotage actions against high-value targets inside Russia, drones or outright sabotage.
We have also discussed before that Russia is impossible to protect but I don’t think any of us expected the Russian border against Ukraine to be completely undefended – they surprised us again.
Then there has been constant movement in Bakhmut since the 3rd Assault brigade pressed start and it seems confirmed that Wagner is now withdrawing. That is very good and UA has rotated in new battalions during the past week.
I think I understand Klischivka, a forest and a hill that is well fortified. UA seems to try to move in cover and forest to project a scope and the Accent man apparently guessed that one can get the Russians to abandon Klischivka without storming it.
UA is dropping leaflets right now.
Now that everyone is hoping for a Saving Private Ryan offensive, it is appropriate to remind that RU has had to bring in many brigades as reinforcements to Bakhmut and you don’t do that if it is “platoon reconnaissance fights” – these have been and are offensive operations around Bakhmut since the 3rd assault brigade started.
Gregg also confirmed (if one chooses to believe Gregg) that it is as we think that they have about twenty brigades in the Bakhmut area so there is much more offensive capability on that front that does not need to be moved to other fronts.
We have guessed that when history is written the truth will be 10 times worse than what we know today, we have thought that the winter in Mariupol was not survivable and we have staggering numbers of dead.
I also believe that history will show that the Russian attack was infinitely more incompetent than we think. We tend to dismiss stories of drunkenness, chaos, destroyed depots, no food and no water as anecdotes and not the normal state.
Finally got time to watch the YouTube film about Hostomel and it went to hell immediately, three brigades overran the VDV at the airport and not until the armor arrived did UA withdraw.
This was the opening move that ended with the big retreat from Kiev.
Kharkiv went just as badly we know now and it is rumored that Spetznaz, reconnaissance, VDV and marine infantry are virtually wiped out – but we don’t really want to believe that either because it is too sensational.
The rebels have barely gotten out of the starting blocks along Horlivka and down to north of Vuhledar in well over a year.
Putin is absolutely desperate for the West to stop supporting Ukraine and preferably for the West to forget the war. A low-intensity war that Russia could manage for many years.
https://twitter.com/kremlintrolls/status/1663161861611700226?s=46&t=svrO2JeX-_q_uFhddvPeIw
He is not getting that but that is also why everyone must continue to discuss the war so it does not fall into oblivion.
Now we have uprisings in the oblasts closest to Ukraine, a wave of sabotage against infrastructure in Russia, a serious wedgie since the border was undefended, a successful UA offensive at Bakhmut and so on.
On top of all that the Russian economy is miserable except for the mountain of rupees and the West has now sent missiles and soon fighter jets – everything that remained on the wish list.
The war is really over but one man refuses to realize it, instead he is busy with formalities around conquered provinces as if they have already won, it is staggering.
https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1663166082440470529?s=46&t=svrO2JeX-_q_uFhddvPeIw
This one explains the stolen children, those who could show a UA child apparently received money and an apartment as thanks, according to below.
https://twitter.com/glasnostgone/status/1663172048825229313?s=46&t=svrO2JeX-_q_uFhddvPeIw
That border protection would continue to be so poor is very strange, they have had over a week now, haven’t they?
According to the link below they are trying to hire old Wagner to fill the gaps.
Argus has informed that FSB should have 100,000 and there are also, according to my calculation, 360,000 more that are supposed to be for exactly this but they are not in Belgorod Oblast anyway.
https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1663134103170850816?s=46&t=quTdinkQfmUnnYGEBn3jWQ
We have discussed this before and if it could be that these different groups are for the power struggle in Russia and cannot be sacrificed in Ukraine – they have to have something to kill each other with when the country soon turns inward?
If this were a normal situation, Belgorod Oblast should be flooded with Omon, Rosgvardia, FSB, army brigades and what else but it is not.
That signals to me that Russian capability has taken a lot of damage in this war.
At the same time Ukraine has an offensive reserve of 20 heavy elephants standing and adjusting the starting blocks.