2023-06-17 -

11:55

How to handle Belgorod I just can’t figure out, now they have sent a battalion of Kadyrovites there to keep order.

The interesting thing might not have been that but that they are accompanied by “inexperienced recruits,” the country Russia today has nothing to defend Belgorod with, which is very surprising (still).

They have had three weeks to train Rosgvardia, FSB and others but instead it is this year’s cadet school and a battalion of Kadyrovites that have to defend Belgorod Oblast – incomprehensible.
(yes I understand there is more but trying to make a point).
https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1669858872717197324?s=46&t=odaEYzOCF8RTBmA6dwi7aw

There should reasonably be a Belgorod raid 3.0 quite soon to put even more pressure on the Russians, we have previously discussed that there are a number of units with a very hard bite idling on their phones at the border – behind the free Russian forces there is a lot of firepower.

Now I troll Slava and other pro-Russian media far too much and there are no Ukrainian prisoners, not much destroyed armor and not many dead on film.

Pro-Ukrainian accounts, on the other hand, are flooded with videos of captured, videos of the dead, videos of captured defense systems and destroyed armor just as it should be.

If the UA offensive had stalled or been pushed back, Russian PR would have been out like spitting cobras as with that engineering company that drove into a minefield and was knocked out.

Putin is totally embarrassing himself when he pulls UA loss figures out of a hat, 186 tanks and 418 IFVs in one week – unlikely because RU would never have missed the PR value of drone overflights of something like that, right?

There simply aren’t hundreds of destroyed UA vehicles to film, it’s that simple.

The West is a bit anxious and Russian psyops are once again being presented as truth but it does not affect the offensives. However, apparently the soldiers became negative at first when all they read was Russian propaganda about UA losses so then the reporting started.

This is how the Russians have always operated since the Cold War started, projecting threats, confusing, dividing and so on – their subversive activities are really something they excel in but they do it because the West adheres to laws in a democracy. It’s about time to prosecute all cooperation with Russia under terrorism legislation which is well developed by now – you just need to classify either the country Russia (for promoting terrorism) or all ABC-agencies involved in subversive activities as terrorists. Then cooperation becomes a crime punishable by imprisonment and justifies surveillance operations (I think).

We went from increased intensity along the entire front late April – early May over to the Bakhmut offensive, the Belgorod raids and then offensive operations on the southern front closely followed by crossing the Dnieper which is now slowly starting up?

The only area that is reasonably quiet for the Russians is northern Luhansk but there we have previously guessed that SOF disturb their sleep every night so those who live suffer from sleep deprivation.

My guess was that they started the window for offensive operations around May 4 (or already April 10 according to Ukraine themselves but the intensity was too low in my opinion) and then various fronts, army corps and especially brigades started when they could with their offensive operations and then they keep going as much as they can, take their combat breaks, adapt to the situation and advance.

There is no reason to stop in Bakhmut, the southern front will keep grinding, the Dnieper front was delayed a week by the Khakovka explosion but now they are getting started.

The brigades between the city of Donetsk – Horlivka keep up the pressure, northern Luhansk should keep pushing forward.

Now we have actually reached the point where all fronts are conducting their offensive operations according to the orders they have received.

So it is not in one place as before but all units are conducting offensive operations on all fronts – we have not seen this before in this war and it is a sensation.

The next phase will be to retake the Dnieper front, deliver the Azov thrust, they retreat to the Svitlodarsk-Popasna line at Bakhmut and continue pushing up in northern Luhansk.

That is where we will be before too long.

Then I think Putin has already blinked but considering the overwhelming force I had to endure when I joyfully exclaimed that China had thrown Russia under the bus, one dares not read too much into that, the economic threads are quite boring to hide in.

Then the West has finally solved the precision air power and Ukraine now has all the weapon systems they have requested really, ATACMS is coming too but they already have Storm Shadow so it won’t be the huge capability increase it would have been if they had come at the turn of the year.

Above all, Ukraine has what will win the war for them – the world’s best infantry who could not be better motivated.

Everything else is “nice to have” but not war-winning.

Ukraine tries to keep a good face here but I guess they are biting their nails and are significantly more worried than the rest of us – a lot is at stake for them.

But individual soldiers deliver, support functions deliver, leadership delivers and they have shaken the Russian team badly on the southern front in a week.

Russian retreats are coming – just a matter of time.

It’s easy to lose focus but Ukraine has already retaken 40% of its territory without Western tanks, Storm Shadow and precision air power.

That they would not succeed with the remaining 60% is unlikely now that they get everything they point to and have mobilized and trained probably the strongest army in the world today.

The Dnieper front is well on its way to falling and the Bakhmut front as well – had that happened in autumn 2022 it would have crashed the internet. Expectations are sky-high.

We know from before that RU built their fortifications based on maps from the 80s with civilian contractors so they are not optimal. Then Accentman has taught us that RU is completely fixated on holding communities which are often in valleys and UA attacks the heights instead.

And since last autumn we have discussed UA’s advantage in night fighting capability and that RU mostly has flares left (guess). It was when we last autumn saw deliveries of night fighting equipment and understood that all armor delivered came with thermal sights.

It is not hard to understand why UA is making progress here when fighting this circus ensemble, they can’t even build fortifications – incompetent all the way through.

A week ago we learned that RU has forward deployed 30 AHKP behind the southern front who are probably the ones now being deployed at UA local breakthroughs.

We also know that they had 400 aircraft on airbases in Russia along the northern border. Then of course they have aircraft on Crimea, the southern front and so on.

They seem to have tamed the artillery quite well and at threat levels a well-functioning Russian artillery would be absolutely devastating but it is heavily decimated.

There is evidently still Ahkp and CAS, and I fully understand that UA is upset that the West has delayed with aircraft. There are really no reasons for that other than the constant worry about Russian escalation. Then the diplomatic balancing act with China, but they seem to have rolled over on their back now.

Good that the advanced aircraft are coming, but unfortunate that it was too late for the spring offensive…

According to The Economist in April 2023, Ukraine has 80 advanced aircraft left and has lost 40% so far.

If you remember the discussion about Opytne – the lower Zaitseve line south of the settlement in Bakhmut, it runs along a watercourse – that was the next logical line after Klischivka.

According to Gregg, RU has fortified it with new units – which are not entirely clear since only one brigade is marked on Deepstatemap, but Gregg writes Shoigus Storm-Z.

When Klischivka eventually falls, UA will have recaptured 10 km in depth south of Bakhmut when RU falls back to that line.

I thought Klischivka would fall weeks ago and UA would throw themselves over the Opytne – Zaitseve line with indirect fire already, but that was quite optimistic (unusual for me…).

According to earlier, RU in the settlement in Bakhmut will then feel that life is bitter and retreat, and then presumably the hole will be opened in the Bakhmut front that forces them to retreat to the Svitlodarsk – Popasna line. Quite soon UA could be up on the hills throwing stones at all the Russians running around among the ruins in Bakhmut looking for food like in some dystopian zombie movie.

According to Gregg, the 80th Air Mobile Brigade has been deployed west of Vuhledar – then it has been pulled away from Bakhmut.

And then apparently Shoigus Storm-Z is also at the southern front – is it starting to become the only reserves the Russians have left or something?

Then Kadyrovites up in Belgorod?

As is well known, still missing those 150,000 who were supposed to be in training camps in Russia, they have not revealed their existence yet.

As said, this is a “numbers game”.

That they are close to the main defensive line in the area west of Vuhledar is sensational. That all Russian counterattacks so far have completely failed is also sensational.

6 km in depth and 37 km in width on Deepstatemap and they have around 10 km left until they break through the main defensive line according to Deepstatemap which we know is conservative – all in one week.

When they break through that main defensive line, there is no prepared defense behind, and above all, all Russian units west of the breakthrough point are then at risk and must retreat. Especially if UA is then heading towards the land bridge to Crimea from the Dnepr front.

The southern front has every opportunity to become a new “sprint” but the Russians’ hand must be forced first.

Regarding reinforcements, they have now pulled everything from the Dnepr front that functioned as an offensive reserve, presumably when they started to run low on reserves behind the southern front, right?

The only move they have left after that is to start pulling units from other fronts, between the city of Donetsk – Horlivka, Bakhmut, or northern Luhansk.

They will be subjected to consequences on the way down as expected and we will immediately hear about such movements from Gregg and the Accent man, so they have not happened yet.

It appears we are moving very quickly to another point where the Russians must choose what they will defend (again).

The offensive reserve UA has held back, which I have counted as 20 brigades, is now 15; they have thus so far deployed 25% of their offensive reserve (excluding brigades already at the active front).

Then, of course, you don’t fight with everything you have at the active front; at Bakhmut it is probably about a third or something that is in combat.
The difference with the offensive reserve is that it can appear anywhere.

It will be a long summer but all arrows point straight upwards as they should.

12:31

This probably doesn’t really need to be said but have you noticed that while Russia is sending T54-55s to the fronts, UA is getting better and better tanks – Leo2 sent, modified Eastern tanks that are good, and Abrams are on the way.

Russia no longer has that endurance in materiel that was always their trump card.