16:09 – MatsExtrude
👍 There you go, finally! I almost thought the boat had sprung a leak!
Maybe a bit early, but I also believe something will come via the Dnieper sooner or later. I have all along thought it would come later and not first. The dam explosion messed things up, so what else has happened, who knows.
I get a feeling that something unexpected will come soon. Either a replay of the Belgorod chaos 2.0 or something completely different… I dare not guess. Maybe they increase the pressure at Bakhmut so it breaks like a ripe plum (it has been relatively quiet from that direction) or maybe something up northeast…
Anyway, otherwise, it feels like everything is going according to plan!
16:19 – Johan No.1
Everything is absolutely going according to plan here, I feel as well.
The only thing a bit surprising is how quickly the Russians ran out of reserves at the southern front; it went faster than I thought, but that is more of a positive surprise than a disappointment. We already knew that the offensive reserve is unstoppable.
16:50 – MatsExtrude
I wonder a bit if what we are seeing now at Vuhledar was not really intended to go as well as it has, a diversion they continue with as long as it works to hide what they actually planned. But now that it seems to be breaking, maybe it will become a main effort after all.
16:54 – Johan No.1
Partisans in Donetsk are activated for all-out war.
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1668247319014244353?s=46&t=pn3oEXZNb7ihwKu-nrfpUQ
16:56 – Johan No.1
A privileged elite who behaved horribly, I find it hard to see anything positive about his life’s work at all really.
The world is full of hardworking parents who cook dinner, compliment their partner, and take the kids to their training. Then at work, they try to be as nice as they can to their colleagues.
– they deserve respect.
17:02 – MatsExtrude
Well said!
15:19 – Johan No.1
Was on a boat inspecting an old harbor quay with some contractor from Egypt who wants to submit a bid on the project, have been twelve people sitting in a very small boat without AC all morning, slightly traumatized.
Yesterday I got hold of a Google map with the fortifications that you can zoom in on and also with English place names. It felt a bit like going from deaf-mute to bat ears to avoid switching between static maps and guessing Cyrillic letters.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1rRKs40IEbGRsV0Fhky25l5OkPJ_vUvQ&ll=47.66622956887033%2C36.86527785192085&z=11
After spending way too much time on it and jumping back and forth between Deepstatemap and the place names we have flying around, I have to back down on the idea that they have broken through the first line west of Vuhledar – they have not at all and I find my way out myself.
However, they are starting to approach it but one should be clear that it lies in dominant terrain so they have the hardest part ahead.
When they have broken through it in the area west of Vuhledar, there is not much defense behind.
At the western end, there are at least three lines to break through and at least I consider that they have already forced the first line there, so that part is correct.
Now to something much more fun than me posting obviously incorrect information. We have been writing for a couple of days after the increasingly persistent rumors about the Dnipro front being abandoned that when you have to choose, it is time to abandon all terrain west of Melitopol.
When the extent of the Belgorod raids was clear a few weeks ago and that the border was defended by customs officers, we guessed that they would not abandon northern Luhansk because then the front would become three times longer, so the southern front remained when things started to get tight.
When the Kharkiv dam was blown up, the guess was that they would abandon that area and it seems they have come to that.
First there were rumors, then videos of them evacuating Kinburn Spit, then rumors of a 15 km retreat, then video of artillery battery from Enerhodar moving eastward and finally identifiable units in yesterday’s blog post 15:18 quoting Kyiv Independent, so it can be considered confirmed now?
The unit maps are quite inconsistent but there seemed to be 810 Marines and also 83 VDV there as the blogger wrote.
Then perhaps the 25th Spetznaz had already moved earlier, hasn’t that flown by somewhere?
11th VDV was possibly there too?
If Johan gets to guess, the elite units go behind the southern front as a task force and the other units fortify the NS line through Melitopol and prepare defense down towards Crimea.
It thus seems that they abandon the Dnipro front already after a week of attacks at the southern front – this is moving fast.
They may leave rear troops but if they move the offensive units they have, the idea is probably not to hold the Dnipro front very long, right?
We can hope that UA has let them run a gauntlet to the southern front.
Now Ukraine will cross the Dnipro fairly soon presumably and put pressure on the NS line through Melitopol and a lock against Crimea.
One should be very clear that if they had reserves behind the southern front, they would not have sent the units from the Dnipro front there – it’s not more complicated than that.
And Ukraine has not yet attacked with its offensive reserve.
Since RU has also built its defense westward, the goal with the Azov thrust has not been achieved at all with this but there will be cheers in the huts and the end of Obolon at the company when the entire Dnipro front soon turns blue on Deepstate, fun.
Ukraine seems to have written its own manual in maneuver warfare.
We have had two schools in this thread – the big mechanical failures are coming and the other that it will look like this the whole war.
I have jumped between both in constant indecision.
The manual for breakthrough is to concentrate force against a couple of weak points and carry out two breakthroughs per point with mortars, paving, the elite at the forefront and try to strike deep. This has been vividly described in the thread by someone without early hair loss more than once.
You go around larger fortified places and let the following infantry take care of them and they also function as flank protection so the spearhead is not depleted and you have second and third lines that take over when they run out of steam.
In defense, Ukraine has reached legendary level, dynamic defense fighting and constant counterattacks, the Russians never got to feel that they had taken anything for more than a few hours, then Ukraine threw themselves over them immediately.
The retreat from Lysychansk is probably the only tactical retreat Ukraine has carried out after the initial losses when Russia together with leading European countries promised not to attack and Zelensky made his big mistake of not mobilizing.
The coup attempt in Kiev was repelled with veterans who ran to the barracks and got weapons out, they pooled everything against Hostomel, in Kharkiv it was home guard and volunteers who fought and so on.
The army was gone in the east.
In the south they got a push forward and I am quite sure that bribes and subversive activities worked as they should down there. There were many dismissals half a year later.
Kherson and the southern front were lost immediately and the only reason the extent up to Dnipro stalled was because Mariupol held out and became a flypaper for the Russians.
After that, Ukrainian breakthroughs have come when they maneuvered the Russian team until they retreat.
When they fight at Bakhmut they take over entire trench systems without major losses and when they are done the Russian platoon is either dead in the trenches or in the fields behind, and they attack at a numerical disadvantage.
We don’t see everything but we have seen this now infinitely many times and the infantry does not move as we learned, it was dismounting near the trench system, marching on and then either the platoon was wiped out or the trench was taken.
This is more on an individual level how they behave – I have no good word for it but they control the battle in a completely different way than a rifle squad that operates according to the manual. They constantly adapt to how the battlefield looks down to the individual level all the time in symbiosis with the rest of the group in a “fluid” way.
Wizard level it is probably called.
When they go deep it is because the Russian defense is already shaking but until then they hack tirelessly and take position after position.
At the southern front it is thus “the most complex fortifications since World War II” and everyone is waiting for brigades to break through the line in a cloud of diesel steam.
At the same time Ukraine attacks with less than battalion size along the entire front and completely crushes the Russian task forces with indirect fire before they get there.
And if they manage to advance, they are taken out by defensive fire.
To me, this is dynamic warfare that far exceeds the brigade attacks against targets D, C, B, and A that we learned.
The Russian command does not have just two points with threatening breakthroughs to worry about; they have over 30.
They could have concentrated VDV, artillery, and air support on two points and caused damage, but with 30 points, they don’t know how to react at all; they are completely incapable.
It’s like a damn anthill where you advance everywhere all the time and then follow up in real time on openings and opportunities. There is no prestige involved; they do not waste resources but do not hesitate to do what is necessary. They fight from different brigades as if they came from the same unit.
When they break through the last line at the southern front, it is open on the other side, and presumably, they will spread out like a fan, but the breakthrough itself seems to be done in the way we now see?
What I learned on the training fields in Skåne was that a battalion was gone by midday if you misread the situation, which was often the case because both sides constantly try to surprise with the unexpected. By lunch, there was orange juice mix in every bush, and a major with a shiny forehead and darting eyes stood smelling anxiety before the evaluation.
You cannot win against this kind of warfare unless you fight in the same way and better, and the Russian army is completely incapable of that.
I remember a certain adaptation we had; I think it was Ulf Henriksson who came up with the idea that instead of advancing on two leads as a brigade, it would be smarter to “swarm.” Each battalion was given an area X km wide to advance through on all available roads, and they were to use all roads – from memory.
Then Gregg brought up this about positive reporting and that soldiers become demoralized when they only see Russian side images of destroyed Leo2s and no successes – I felt on day three that the best way is to be positive and have tried to maintain that line because of this. Not because it is read by Ukrainian soldiers but because it always borders on a mood of doom.
From the stands, it looks very positive, but as someone said earlier in the thread, it will be a long summer.
That the Dnieper line is being prepared to be abandoned is significant, and that they are well on their way to pushing RU back to the Svitlodarsk-Popasna line is also significant. All before June ends and the summer is long.