2023-06-02 -

12:17 – Johan No.1

I continue to be fascinated by the “raids” into Russia. Ever since the first raid straight into Belgorod, there have been reports of a wave of sabotage in Kursk, Berdyansk, and Belgorod oblasts at least, and various freedom movements and Russian-Ukrainian units have posted videos or photographs.

Between the two larger raids, there was a drone attack straight towards Moscow with “dozens” of drones according to the Twitter gods.
This is no longer a peripheral war for Russia, the war is now inside the country of Russia.

There seems to be a similar raid into Bryansk oblast as well, maybe not as large but there is at least artillery shelling which usually means that RU is trying to shoot away a threat.

The Russian defense failed to defend a 50km wide stretch of the front a week after the first raid.
Today’s front against Russia is hundreds of kilometers long, then we have Belarus and then the entire front along northern Luhansk which is even longer, that semicircle.

The Russian border being wide open is probably an absolute truth.

UA-supported raids into Russia can happen maybe once a week and “dozens” of drones against Moscow may sound like a lot but UA has acquired parts from China for 100,000 drones from domestic production and the entire West is constantly delivering drones to UA.

So we have only seen the beginning of these capabilities and add to that liberation fronts inside the country of Russia, that is Russians settled in Russia who want to shake off the yoke.

Then the minority peoples who see their chance for freedom – decolonization.

St Petersburg has already voted for greater freedom for example, so not even ethnically Russian areas in the vicinity think this is fun anymore.

We have known since spring 2022 roughly that UA has struck deep into Russia but now it is somewhat of a happy popular movement and then there is a risk of a grassfire and popular revolution.

The only large-size oligarch they fear is revolution and they would probably choose de-escalation every day over the threat of the people’s lynch mob.

We wrote when the “Belgorod raids” were carried out that we should not underestimate the chaos UA is causing and I think that still holds quite well.

There is not much else leaking out right now, pre-emptive strikes on the rear continue to be astronomical – they just hit a couple of ships in Berdyansk for example.

Daily losses are running rampant again and we have said it before – it is few Russian attacks that are not knocked out by UA either in front-line pre-emptive strikes or in various offensive operations.

It has not been calm at all since UA increased the intensity on April 10, things are moving a bit everywhere including in Bakhmut but we will have to wait until something that crashes the internet is reported.

Personally, I think we see brilliant successes daily and instead of waiting for the “big offensive” (which is probably defined by seeing the Western-equipped brigades in combat) it is easier to rejoice in all the bad things happening to the Russian dictatorship right now.

Have you read how much materiel is now being donated – the F-16 coalition, more tanks, more Patriot and other air defense, piles of ammunition and they continue to sweep up all Soviet armor.
If you go to Oryx and see what has been sent, it is an incredible amount of materiel.

The spring offensive is fully resourced and now they are gathering materiel for the next round if needed, which it will not be.

There is no ammunition shortage, they continue to receive large amounts of high-quality Western weapons, the drone weapon is delivered, F-16s are on the way and so on.

We have previously calculated this and today UA has more and better tanks than at the start of the war.
The same applies to IFVs.

We see more and more soldiers with personal weapons from the West so clearly such deliveries have been made and I thought Sweden’s contribution of 15,000 anti-tank rockets was wow, that will grill many BTGs.

Everything is as it should be – Putin has existential anxiety, the combat leadership is googling asylum and the soldiers in their trenches jump at the slightest sound.

Have had a bit too much for a while with the dredger but if it wasn’t confirmed then all proposals for boat places and everything else I missed are approved – the living oracle Dengamle has demonstrably everything under control and has henceforth the mandate to make all such decisions 👍

To return to something we said earlier – Ukraine must come out of this war with a maintained defense force, if they win but go towards zero the risk of a round two is sky-high. When Russians in trenches drag themselves home across the border with hanging heads they need an incredible number of brigades and weapon systems to secure their entire land border.
They hurry slowly.

12:48 – Johan No.1

There is a before and there is an after.

If Russia chooses to use tactical nuclear weapons they have crossed a very red line that no one else has dared since WW2.

A tactical nuclear weapon stops nothing. A large number of cities in Ukraine are already destroyed as if after nuclear weapons.
If they cannot manage to shoot missiles at UA units how will they then succeed in hitting them with nuclear weapons?

Yes, a couple of brigades will be wiped out but that does not reduce UA capability and the response will be devastating for the simple reason that it must be devastating.

Then I belong to those who believe that chain is already broken, I don’t think Putin will get any off even if he decides to.

12:49 – MatsExtrude

+1 Maybe that meme with Ukrainian soldiers who accidentally took over the Kremlin, when they were supposed to take Crimea, will eventually come true if the Russians don’t choose to regroup seriously.

I wonder if they have actually thrown a larger part of their capability into Ukraine than people thought. They should have kept border defense etc. to be prepared if something beyond the SMO happened but it seems very weak on that..

12:53 – Johan No.1

That’s exactly it, they have no border defense so where is all the border defense, FSB?
Where are the internal troops whose job it is to handle this type of situation?
And if you want to reinforce with the army, there should be 150,000 left in Russia.

13:09 – MatsExtrude

Of course, it could be that they are still arguing about who should do what.
Whatever the reason, it is just downright embarrassing!! 🙂

What a wake-up call it must be for many whose Russian self-image has completely collapsed when they realize how damn bad the Russian defense is.

15:15 – Johan No.1

That is apparently an elite unit, completely unknown to me that they set it up but apparently they took Spetznaz and broke them out and topped them up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Operations_Forces_(Russia)

That means the Russians are worried and then it means more elite units will die, you need to plow through 2,500 of them and then they are down to zero.