12:07 – Johan No.1
A bit late starting here, didn’t get the luggage yesterday so highest priority was to get my suitcase and that means back to the airport after lunch in yesterday’s clothes.
Yesterday there was a bit of a recap and yes, I pulled 25,000 Wagner out of the hat as Erik14 pointed out. Considering the area they covered, they were probably no less than 10-15,000 and up to 25,000 but the exact number is unclear to me. The figure that their hard core was 7,000-8,000 has been mentioned before but they are quite a large organization I have started to understand.
However, Wagner had saved their “hard core” so it is, by Russian standards, a very capable unit that has been neutralized here.
Quietly, a genuine lively Russian “purge” or cleansing is also ongoing. It works so that anyone who has had any kind of contact at any level with a suspect also becomes suspected and in the best case is arrested and interrogated and in the worst case arrested and tortured to death or imprisoned on very flimsy grounds.
We had a list of 7-10 units that jumped on the revolution train and who will now probably see their future darken considerably, and then there have been co-conspirators everywhere who are now being weeded out.
The amount of collateral damage must be considerable and everyone is terrified of being arrested which should reduce some of the motivation to try to fight in Ukraine.
It was a bigger conspiracy and to that we have everyone who fled Moscow as soon as Wagner started moving – excluding Putin and his inner circle, is that considered punishable or not?
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1673921271355043840?s=46&t=CUv8n7jJHjrJMpm8wgXuew
Apparently the internal troops and Putin are being punished for overcapacity from them to Rosgvardia which is probably not popular at all in the country where the most weapons win.
https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1676645500781469711?s=46&t=eRxFRux0IyacHJ4FnBiC5w
I know all this has come up thousands of times but I think revolution, purge and cleansing are so interesting that I can’t stay away from it.
I have also been bursting with theories about this coup but I’ll just conclude that they drained the army further and that it didn’t go according to plan.
Also completely sure that we have only seen the beginning, Prigozhin was not a failed end game but rather the spark that lit the powder keg. All UA needs to do now is more raids into Belgorod, support the “liberation fronts” and send drones against Moscow and that self-reinforcing loop you always get from Matsextrude is unstoppable.
Pstyleone also suggests that RU is starting to run out of reserves on the southern front.
We discussed that the first sign of that was three weeks ago (well… holidays are tricky) when they pulled the offensive reserve from the Dnieper front and then couldn’t even keep it as a rapid reaction force behind the southern front but let them fight on the front line.
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1676581201010622464?s=46&t=eRxFRux0IyacHJ4FnBiC5w
12:08 – Johan No.1
The defense on the southern front definitely has an end date and it is approaching very fast.
Because there are no offensive reserves left to send, if you do that you weaken another front so it falls instead and in Russia there were no 150,000 fully trained and equipped units, we can be quite sure of that after the Belgorod raids.
At the Dnieper front, the second-rate units remain and on the southern front Spetsnaz, reconnaissance and marines fight on the front line.
And Ukraine has 75% of its offensive reserve left and is waiting for a crack they can exploit for a breakthrough and after all it’s an hour’s drive down to Azov when it breaks.
Legendary level as I said…
In Bakhmut things are starting to move, I have to admit that Klishchivka held longer than I thought but it held because RU put VDV in defense there together with a tank brigade that was a capable reserve – they have sacrificed their best units.
The next line is Opytne – lower Zaitseve and when RU has to abandon the buildings in Bakhmut the gap will be opened and it will be the Russian version of a retreat to the Svitlodarsk – Popasna line.
In this retreat RU will leave openings on the flank towards Lysychansk that UA can exploit so there is quite a big movement underway here where UA retakes the whole area south of the Siversky Donets and up to the Popasna – Svitlodarsk line (which continues north to the Siversky Donets).
RU probably intends to hold Horlivka as the southern anchor in that line?
12:11 – Johan No.1
I have a new take on the world’s best infantry.
If you watch the film below they stand quite relaxed (wrong word) and deliver lots of fire on the target and there is a lot of movement forward but not in a unified group.
I (and everyone who has done military service reasonably) immediately think that they haven’t received any training because that’s not how you fight; it should be fire assault, alternating advances, cover, and so on.
When we took the trench system, we followed training and then it went as it went; you didn’t directly see the enemy in the trench systems and were quite often surprised, but with fire and movement and by moving cohesively as a platoon, you were supposed to succeed – platoon against squad.
https://twitter.com/gloooud/status/1676628976754630656?s=46&t=eRxFRux0IyacHJ4FnBiC5w
What I see in this video is suppressive fire on the target or alternatively suppressing a Russian in a foxhole – hard to say.
My thought is therefore that through drones they know exactly where the Russians are and can very effectively shoot suppressive or suppressing fire that makes the Russians not shoot back very much.
It might also contribute that the Russian squad is getting worse and worse trained and mostly just throws themselves on the bottom of the foxhole with their hands over their ears?
By having fire superiority and suppressive fire, they do not expose themselves to danger by exposing themselves, and they know that, and at the same time, they have a good overview of the situation and know where the Russian foxhole soldiers are hiding somewhere?
On the contrary, if they had been glued to the ground, they wouldn’t have been able to shoot and would have given the Russians the opportunity to do so instead, and then the counterfire from the Russians would have been significantly greater.
It requires its man, I guess. I remember some exercises in squad combat early in military service where the red team was those who had started officer school (I think).
I was behind my cover with a 90-degree field of fire and suddenly some scout ran outside those 90 degrees and Johan was no more – cover is only cover as long as no one is smarter or acts offensively.
Then it was our turn to take the trench system, and I tried to move forward from cover to cover, but the damn scout kept moving within the target area, and it ended the same way – beeping vest.
In both cases, the opposition had better real-time information than I did because I was more focused on protecting myself from their fire, but by doing that, I saw nothing.
During the first months of reserve officer training, we spent the summer at the regiment and did the same exercise in the same trench system. I deviated from the manual, managed to get down into some unguarded trench passage, and then automatic fire through the trench system that was cleared and ready when the others caught up. There was quite an intense discussion that my vest didn’t work, but the exercise leader test-fired me with the pistol-like one he had to mark as out, and it was flawless.
The defenders had all spun around and fired single shots, so I probably had a higher probability of hits with 5-6 shots per target?
I got a lot of criticism for that move; firing automatic fire was not looked upon kindly, but it went significantly better than when I had all focus on not being taken out the previous time.
It seems like RU has stopped flying with AH-64s over the southern front?
You understand why when they lost half in two weeks, pure assembly line death.
They still have aircraft, 400 of them along the northern border a few months ago, whether that was all or if there are more was unclear.
I definitely think Gripen should be on the table now; we missed the autumn offensive because the West dragged its feet, and now the conditions are not optimal for the spring and summer offensives because the West is dragging again, but with the air force – the common thread is too little too late.
The only thing I have really never doubted is the world’s best infantry, and they probably need to be held back rather than forced over the crest. There is too much pent-up desire for revenge for that.
Hundreds of years of oppression and an honest chance to get even that will never come back, some kind of compromise peace will never be accepted even if Putin has slowly started looking for a dignified way out.
Here you have DavidD on the new army corps.
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1672077193181118466?s=46&t=HA9TBFTUtRgY4to5k134IA
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1671729594896883712?s=46&t=UI-o6qJitHOpffPXD0j2sQ
12:31 – MatsExtrude
Thanks Johan No.1 for yet another worthwhile triple! 👍👍👍
12:39 – Johan No.1
PerraG55 – you wrote yesterday that the rumors were that RU took losses now as big as at Izyum.
Could you specify how big losses RU took at Izyum as you heard, it was probably defined by the whole offensive against the Oskil River where RU finally fled over the last crossing south of the city of Oskil.
I was completely sure that UA had prepared ambushes in the forests east of the river, but apparently they had not done so.
It was hush-hush, but I guessed it was a couple of thousand in total as fast as it went down there, but we never got a figure, and it was just a wild guess.
12:40 – Johan No.1
Sorry – that UA took as many PRISONERS now as at Izyum was what I meant…
It was the number of prisoners during the Izyum offensive I was after.
13:37 – Johan No.1
Yes exactly – we said at the time that it had been so quiet so the West would unite around a strong condemnation and measures – now, after a few more weeks of waiting, one can only conclude that nothing happened.
We know from before that the Russians push on until it stops, so there is a bit of a high risk to be flat-footed when they still have Enerhodar and nuclear weapons.
They are like teenagers testing boundaries, and if there are no clear boundaries, they just go on.
14:02 – Johan No.1
Thanks Perrag55, that one remained undefended, and I want to remember that something official came from Ukraine about “a couple of hundred prisoners,” and then it felt hard to pursue further, but it went so fast there that a larger number just had to have been encircled, and the amount of materiel they captured, which they were completely open about, was enormous.
Then we were not completely wrong at the time 😀
15:25 – Johan No.1
Thanks yourself, it was supposed to be a single but then I got stuck in the filter and managed to find the sneaky word.
12:06 – Johan No.1
A bit late starting here, didn’t get the luggage yesterday so highest priority was to get the suitcase and that meant going back to the airport after lunch in yesterday’s clothes.
Yesterday there was a bit of a recap and yes, I pulled 25,000 Wagner out of the hat as Erik14 pointed out. Considering the area they covered, they were probably no less than 10-15,000 and up to 25,000 but the exact number is unclear to me. The figure that their hard core was 7,000-8,000 has been mentioned before but they are quite a large organization as I have started to understand.
However, Wagner had saved their “hard core” so it is, by Russian standards, a very capable unit that has been deactivated here.
Quietly, a genuine lively Russian “purge” or cleansing is also underway. It works in such a way that anyone who has had any kind of contact at any level with a suspect also becomes suspected and at best is arrested and interrogated and at worst is arrested and tortured to death or imprisoned on very flimsy grounds.
We had a list of 7-10 units that jumped on the revolution train and who will now likely see their future darken considerably, and there have been co-conspirators everywhere who are now being weeded out.
The amount of collateral damage must be considerable and everyone is terrified of being arrested which should reduce some of the motivation to try to fight in Ukraine.
It was a major conspiracy and to that we have all who fled Moscow as soon as Wagner started moving – excluding Putin and his inner circle, is that considered punishable or not?
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1673921271355043840?s=46&t=CUv8n7jJHjrJMpm8wgXuew
Apparently the internal troops and Putin are being punished for transferring excess capacity from them to the Rosgvardia, which is probably not popular at all in the country where the most weapons win.
https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1676645500781469711?s=46&t=eRxFRux0IyacHJ4FnBiC5w
I know all this has come up thousands of times but I think revolution, purge, and cleansing are so interesting that I can’t stay away from it.
I have also been bubbling with theories about this coup but I’ll just note that the army was drained further and that it didn’t go according to plan.
Also completely sure that we have only seen the beginning, Prigozhin was not a failed end game but rather the spark that lit the powder keg. All UA needs to do now is more raids into Belgorod, support the “liberation fronts” and send drones towards Moscow and that self-reinforcing loop you always get from Matsextrude is unstoppable.
Pstyleone also suggests that RU is starting to run out of reserves on the southern front.
We discussed that the first sign of that was three weeks ago (well… vacation is tricky) when they pulled the offensive reserve from the Dnipro front and then couldn’t even use it as a rapid reaction force behind the southern front but let them fight on the front line.
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1676581201010622464?s=46&t=eRxFRux0IyacHJ4FnBiC5w
The defense on the southern front definitely has an expiration date and it’s approaching very fast.
Because there are no offensive reserves left to send, if you do that you weaken another front so it falls instead and in Russia there were no 150,000 fully trained and equipped units, we can be pretty sure of that after the Belgorod raids.
At the Dnipro front it’s second-rate units left and at the southern front Spetsnaz, reconnaissance, and marines are fighting on the front line.
And Ukraine has 75% of its offensive reserve left and is waiting for a crack they can exploit for a breakthrough and after all it’s only an hour’s drive down to Azov when it breaks.
Legendary level as I said…
In Bakhmut things are starting to move, I have to admit that Klishchiivka held longer than I thought but it held because RU put VDV in defense there together with a tank brigade that was a capable reserve – they have sacrificed their best units.
The next line is Opytne – lower Zaitseve and when RU has to abandon the buildings in Bakhmut the hole will be opened and it will be the Russian version of a retreat to the Svitlodarsk – Popasna line.
In this retreat RU will leave openings in the flank towards Lysychansk that UA can exploit so there is a pretty big movement underway here where UA retakes the entire area south of the Siversky Donets and up to the Popasna – Svitlodarsk line (which continues northwards to the Siversky Donets).
RU probably intends to hold Horlivka as the southern anchor in that line?
I have a new take on the world’s best infantry.
If you watch the video below they stand quite relaxed (wrong word) and deliver lots of fire on the target and there is a lot of forward movement but not as a unified group.
I (and anyone who has done military service reasonably) immediately think they haven’t had any training because that’s not how you fight, it should be fire bursts, alternating advances, cover and so on.
When we took the trench system we went according to training and then it went as it went, you didn’t really see the enemy in the trenches and were often surprised but with fire and movement and by moving as a platoon you would succeed – platoon versus group.
https://twitter.com/gloooud/status/1676628976754630656?s=46&t=eRxFRux0IyacHJ4FnBiC5w
What I see in this video is suppressive fire on the target or alternatively suppressive fire on Russians in a trench – hard to say.
My thought is that through drones they know exactly where the Russians are and can very effectively shoot suppressive or suppressive fire that makes the Russians not shoot back much.
It may also contribute that the Russian team is getting worse and worse trained and mostly just throws themselves to the bottom of the trench with their hands over their ears?
By having fire superiority and suppressive fire they don’t expose themselves to danger by exposing themselves and they know it and at the same time they have a good overview of the situation and know where the Russian trench soldiers are hiding somewhere?
On the contrary, if they had been glued to the ground they wouldn’t have been able to shoot and would have given the Russians the opportunity to do so instead and then the return fire from the Russians would have been much greater.
It takes a man I guess. I remember some exercises in group combat early in military service where the red team was those who had started officer school (I think).
I was behind my cover with a 90-degree field of fire and suddenly a scout ran outside those 90 degrees and Johan was no more – cover is only cover as long as no one is smarter or god forbid acts offensively.
Then it was our turn to take the trench system and I tried to move forward from cover to cover but the damn scout kept moving in the target and it ended the same way – beeping vest.
In both cases, the resistance had better real-time information than I did because I was more focused on protecting myself from their fire, but by doing so I saw nothing.
During the first months of the resoff training, we spent the summer at the regiment doing the same exercise in the same fortification system. I deviated from the manual, managed to get down into some unguarded fortification through, and then automatic fire through the fortification system that was cleared and ready when the others caught up. There was quite an intense discussion that my vest didn’t work, but the exercise leader test-fired me with the pistol-like one he had to mark as knocked out, and it was flawless.
The defenders had all been running around shooting single shots, so I probably had a higher chance of hitting with 5-6 shots per target?
I got a lot of criticism for that move; shooting automatic fire was not looked upon kindly, but it went significantly better than when I had all my focus on not getting knocked out the previous time.
It seems like RU has stopped flying with ahkp over the southern front?
You understand why when they lost half in two weeks, pure assembly line death.
They still have aircraft, they had 400 along the northern border a few months ago, whether that was all or if there is more was unclear.
I absolutely think Gripen should be on the table now, we missed the autumn offensive because the West dragged its feet and now the conditions are not optimal for the spring and summer offensives because the West is dragging again but with the air force – the common thread is too little too late.
The only thing I have really never doubted is the world’s best infantry and they probably need to be held back rather than forced over the crest. There is too much pent-up desire for revenge for that.
Hundreds of years of oppression and an honest chance to get even that will never come back, some kind of compromise peace will never be accepted even if Putin has slowly started looking for a dignified way out.
Here you have DavidD about the new army corps.
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1672077193181118466?s=46&t=HA9TBFTUtRgY4to5k134IA
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1671729594896883712?s=46&t=UI-o6qJitHOpffPXD0j2sQ