14:16 – Johan No.1
Haha, if only – my contribution to the war ended with Prigozhin’s free play which, if you ask me, was not a little controlled by Dengamle on site as I have understood in hindsight. I was only allowed to join zoom meetings so there were a couple of layers on that onion for sure. However, the whole operation hinged on us managing to fool everyone that I had been put on ice by Budanov but “Loose Mouth” was a bit low I thought and off script.
What IS mysterious though is that Dengamle keeps staying away again just when something big happens. If you remember “Apfritt” which he used to bring up when it was time for my tidy Friday pub, he ran a rephrasing of that on Friday on WhatsApp – “brofritt” and that beer stein emoji.
It was a bit too early to put the pieces together and I thought he had a senior moment (again) but now you understand that he managed to persuade Budanov to finally release the patrol burners. Budanov has been quite grumpy about using them.
Also got a very shaky and dark WhatsApp video from Budanov where it looks like he is sitting behind a person holding something square, wine red with two small wheels and a basket on it and in front of them in the picture three smaller watercraft move at high speed. I think you could hear the word “Svensksund” too and a couple of “blyat”. Unfortunately, he has that feature where all messages automatically disappear and I forgot to save the video.
14:20 – Johan No.1
Just got a WhatsApp from a worried friend in Altai who asked me to translate 扔到公共汽车下面 for him (means thrown under the bus).
He had a caviar spoon in his mouth so it was a pretty hard-to-understand voice message.
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1680908984604131328?s=46&t=34b-LB_hcC4RNYM-J477nA
14:28 – MatsExtrude
🤣👍
14:30 – MatsExtrude
🤣🤣🤣
14:31 – MatsExtrude
👍
12:26 – Johan No.1
I took the whisky penalty for mixing up Staromlynivka and Staromaiorske very seriously 👍
The accent man has already been up but my goodness what a response to the pizza attack it turned out to be just as Zelensky promised – a drone swarm against Sevastopol, storm-shadow rain over the darkest Donbass and the Kerch Bridge.
https://youtu.be/lqbOvNEPXqM
The accent man is of the opinion that UA is now trying to knock out as many staffs as they can and considering the number of higher officers who have been lost, it seems to be going quite well.
Since this is happening simultaneously with the UA offensive, RU will not be offered the opportunity this time to get their burning logistics and cut command chains in order.
They will be forced to face the UA offensive with what they have left this time.
As we wrote yesterday, UA is currently fighting against the best Russia can field; VDV, Spetsnaz, reconnaissance and naval infantry – and they are winning.
Since the (relatively) capable offensive reserve is in defensive fortifications, the question is what offensive reserve remains, my guess is very little.
We are very soon at a crossroads again where RU must choose what they want to defend. They can always give up northern Luhansk, which the one who wrote the grand campaign plan thought they would do, but then the border with Russia becomes 3 times longer and it is undefended as we understood after the Belgorod raids and even the Russians should realize that high risk, one would think.
They have already signaled that they will give up the entire Dnipro front and if they do not send reinforcements in quantity to the southern front soon, that will fall too.
According to yesterday’s post and DavidD’s numbers, there would be about 800,000 – 900,000 Russians involved in the war from all branches depending a bit on how you interpret the casualty figures?
Sounds like a lot so I try to break it down but want to be clear that these are DavidD’s numbers I am reasoning about. Earlier from UA we had 360,000 and then the compilation that came from a report that, among others, Defmon posted showing fighting units. Both were significantly lower than DavidD’s attempt at a summary.
250,000 Rosgvardia and FSB as occupation forces in conquered areas. They have partisans and SOF to keep track of, torture centers to staff and then they need to act as blocking forces for the army. The amount of abuses suggests the occupation force should be numerous. Take just one mobile crematorium for example, probably need 20 to staff one of those effectively.
Army
– 100,000 in northern Luhansk
– 80,000 around Bakhmut
– under 100,000 at the southern front
Rebels
– 50,000 in the darkest Donbass and some army units.
All branches – 50,000 at Crimea.
200,000 – 300,000 in logistics, at all airfields, depots, and so on between Melitopol over to Rostov on Don and up along the northern border?
There are quite few at the spearhead and there is probably a large occupation force and all logistics I guess?
If you read about the Gulf War the attacking spearhead was much smaller than all the “surroundings”.
Mistakenly scrolled Slava yesterday and all the videos we see here of knocked out RU tanks are actually knocked out UA tanks at Slava – there are two truths.
He had also jumped on the USA dragging with F-16 and Bruce Wallace’s correction of UA and then a picture where Zelensky stands alone at the NATO meeting and everyone else is bridge-cut.
That the West never learns is strange but since it is the whole EU, USA, Canada, Australia and NZ it cannot be controlled but the pro-Russian side is lightning fast at exploiting everything to their advantage.
Leaving Zelensky alone at the meeting was perhaps not the nicest thing to do if photographers were present.
Consider that this is what BRIICS get, another reality, and their heads of state are also dependent on what the citizens think but not in the same way as in the West. There it is more nothing and then revolution instead of like us a vote every four years.
If their media can show citizens a divided West they have an easier time getting the people on their side in their effort to be the counterpoint to the free West.
Have said it a few times that the last time I was let in (and allowed to stay) in an equally fun thread was herrings and minks on Skalman – it requires some kind of unifying topic and then that it is interesting enough for people to want to contribute in this way in quantity and over a long time. The numbers make the discussion broad and it is compressed so you learn a lot.
There is also another upside – sitting and keeping order on dredging international’s havoc down here is extremely boring and it takes maybe two hours a day so you stay active by following the UA war and this thread. Otherwise, you would probably have jumped into the shark-rich waters out of boredom. The thread is like a eucalyptus balm 😀
Always fun to go through the night shift in the morning and then follow the thread during the day.