11:34 – Johan No.1
Was a bit off-topic today and have been a bit whiny about the West the past week. Now I think my rum cure is starting to work and that it will be more on topic going forward 👍
12:00 – MatsExtrude
👍👍👍Masterful!
Hard to understand the developments in Russia but we just have to keep our fingers crossed that it leads to a collapse one way or another!
Also hard to understand the West’s restrained support.
The Quran burning is a sad chapter but I think we shouldn’t back down. Then it’s not wrong to discuss what possible restrictions should exist, some things are already not allowed today. But if so, it should happen on our terms and not because we are pressured from outside. We’ll see how the expulsion goes.
Good review of the frontline situation!
Then as the icing on the cake DENGAMLE’s adventures!😆👍👍
12:03 – Johan No.1
At least now I’ve gotten completely stirred up in the stands here – Vladimir Solovyov has also been pointed out.
Almost have to search for a more rabid warmonger?
https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1682683244884500482?s=46&t=UFkTYcd_rBmCGU4TxSrO0w
12:07 – Johan No.1
😀 yep Dengamle is an inexhaustible source of good stories.
I think we underestimate what is happening right now in Russia, there must be a lot we don’t see.
Thanks 👍
12:28 – MatsExtrude
Highly interesting! I’d like it to be true so we don’t have to see more of him..
Though it seems strange.
BENDUNDER might be on the right track..
17:49 – Johan No.1
Since I was honored with a mention I have to join in 😀
A couple of points –
1. You write – “If you at the same time see that Ukrainian losses of weapon systems (current and projected if/when the offensive increases in strength and depth) and ammunition are at a level that they cannot be replaced fast enough.”
Which weapon systems do you think the West cannot replace because Ukraine’s losses have been too large?
If we take those counted as UA should receive – HIMARS, 777, Cesar, CV90, Bradley and Abrams, Ukraine has probably received a maximum of 10% of any of those systems if even that?
The rest of the materiel is surplus materiel, all M113 for example or all old Eastern materiel. F-18 Hornets from Australia are in storage and F-16s are being phased out, right?
2. You write – “If we only observe what has actually happened so far, we can see that some of these considerations have changed along the way, but there are still factors pulling in the direction of not giving Ukraine everything they point to.”
Sorry but haven’t all considerations changed along the way?
If we take the Western vehicles, there was a whole group in the thread who knew for sure from experience and position in society that CV90, Leo2, Bradley or Abrams would never be sent to Ukraine due to a whole forest of reasons and that was basically how the debate went?
I remember a Paul who could swear that not a single Leo would ever roll across Ukraine’s land border, he has been absent for a long time but hopefully he reads the thread and can be happy that they came.
3. You write – “It can for example be 10% fear of Russian escalation, 20% economy, 20% own security/military combat power and 50% “saving to have something to send later when it becomes necessary”
Here you probably land about right on how the West reasons but I think the fear of Russia is higher and I think Russian subversive activity is still strong – countries sending materiel have citizens and parliaments to answer to and we know it’s somewhat of a Russian specialty to drive opinion.
The peace movement has just gone hard against cluster munitions for example and left-wing organizations campaigned for quite a while that if the West sent weapons it would prolong the war.
Scholz probably had pretty violent government meetings and the left has absolutely done their best in Germany but they managed to end up on the right side in the end.
That Trump – MAGA – Qanon would become pro-Russian was a low-odds bet since even during Qanon you could see where it was heading. General SVR who writes a lot about Putin is also disturbingly similar to Qanon by the way, same concept.
The problem is that if Trump were to win (which he won’t) then all US support for the war disappears.
The other big point is actually a pretty sad character trait. If you remember the constant discussion about when a woman is harassed on the subway in Stockholm and everyone looks the other way except some South American who intervenes. We in the West have an almost unique ability to feel it’s better to do nothing and even if in the case of Russia we should already have been cured of that disease it seems deeply ingrained.
-if you ask everyone in the thread how many around them care about the war, the answer is probably the same as mine – none.
For many in the West simply believe this will never affect them. We saw it during WW2 where everyone preferred to wait and sacrifice a pawn.
Now we’re a bit luckier than when Poland and France were supposed to be Europe’s bulwark and got beaten in a few weeks – Ukraine is well on its way to winning this. But… the country Ukraine also has a border and if they come up short now this summer the risk is real for a compromise solution.
4. You write “So it’s pretty pointless to write that we should send everything we have, that the Gripens should be unleashed or something like that.”
We screamed blue in the face for CV90 and 50 with barracuda camouflage are now in Ukraine. Now we shouldn’t elevate ourselves to gods and I think they would have come anyway but opinion influence is quite a big thing nowadays – our politicians went and shut down a large part of our electricity production after intense lobbying probably driven by wind power companies 😀
Otherwise I can only agree with everything, well said 👍
17:55 – Johan No.1
Of course they still have Easter eggs left 😀
If you remember the drone weapon, Ukraine had bought parts for 100,000 drones and the whole West donates drones.
We absolutely haven’t seen the drone swarm yet.
We haven’t seen Ukraine’s offensive reserves yet in large-scale combat.
Sometimes “2000 rounds of 155mm ammunition” appear in the lists – those are guided shells and I don’t think we have seen all guided ammunition unleashed for real yet.
Stormshadow there were over 1000 and UA got a few hundred.
Against the Black Sea Fleet Ukraine has built countermeasures over 1.5 years and a large number of anti-ship missiles have been delivered.
Then we have domestic production of Grom2 for example and there were some other weapon systems.
23:16 – Johan No.1
I think this has been said before but the thread is a bit like a concentrated juice.
You learn an infinite amount in a short time that would be impossible to read up on yourself.
I now have two areas of interest – submarine incursions in the 80s and the Ukraine war. Imagine if I had spent this time learning about fund investing instead.
23:22 – Johan No.1
I just realized that without planning it at all, I’m kind of sniffing around the night shift.
Trying to handle all the emotions without fainting but probably about to finish the last sip in the rum glass and pull down the blinds, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow there will be an informative night shift to go through.
09:08 – Johan No.1
Thank you.
Wagner recently reported 1:2 in losses and with UA loss figures they would then have 700,000 unfit for combat (dead or mutilated).
DavidD believes that all branches of the military in this war were over 1.7 million in total.
We should support Ukraine has been my opinion throughout the war with positive encouragement but also try to stay as close to the truth as possible.
If you remember Lysychansk I was too early with that loss so I was questioned in the thread – no cover-up there 😀
09:11 – Johan No.1
Thanks for the night shift. Good posts Erik14, very interesting information.
Do we have anything more about UA in the buildings in Bakhmut than what you posted?
Then you forgot a bag of cheese puffs on the chair when I was about to take over the day shift, it got quite crumbly…
11:22 – Johan No.1
I never thought Girkin would be arrested; for 1.5 years he has been allowed to say anything, no matter how outrageous, and suddenly the FSB strikes and arrests him. Could it have been Prigozhin’s palace coup that made Putin and his circle a bit more risk-aware?
Girkin was pro-war and a hardliner who basically only thought that Putin and the MoD were managing the war poorly. He was also the architect behind the Donbass rebels and a truly cozy war criminal just like Prigozhin.
Before Girkin was arrested, some old GRU legend, many high-ranking officers in the VDV have been dismissed, and now Girkin is closely followed by Gubarev.
It also seems like the entire “league of patriots” (or whatever they are called) leadership is being put together in one cell.
None of these had any connection with Prigozhin’s palace coup, so they are probably just being purged based on known loyalty or something?
The fact was that Girkin was against Prigozhin’s palace coup, and while Prigozhin sits with a large-sized mash jug in Belarus and relaxes, Girkin is now arrested – many layers to the Russian onion.
This is also just what reaches us – the purge is probably quite intense and violent right now, and the more people arrested, the more suspects they get after some torture confessions.
The army looked up to their commanders, they looked up to Prigozhin, and they probably liked Girkin – the question is how long they intend to die in Ukraine when the leadership they absolutely despise tortures to death all the commanders they like?
There are two decisive spoilers – the army refuses war and palace coups.
MXT pointed out yesterday in a neat post that the West basically lets Russia be and does the minimum they think they can get away with for Ukraine.
With these tensions in Russia, there will be internal chaos sooner or later (because historically there always has been), and for Ukraine’s sake, sooner would be preferable.
Why the West should prolong the suffering for Ukraine is incomprehensible to me.
That the Black Sea Fleet is allowed to sail is another mystery; Ukraine has already received the weapons but they need significantly more of them to be able to go after the fleet.
The West’s weapon stockpiles are full of suitable weapons, and Ukraine has shown it can learn to use them, repair them, and use them smartly.
Why did they get 130 Bradleys and not 1500?
If you remember a discussion in the summer of 2022 before the low point when we thought heavy weapons would be delivered, the figure 300–400 MBTs and 1500 IFVs was flying around, if I recall correctly.
We sat and summed up and concluded that the West could easily donate these numbers.
They have received tanks, but most have been modified Eastern tanks and then quite a few older Leos.
They are far from 1500 IFVs but a substantial number of APCs and anti-tank guided missiles have been sent, thousands.
There are two sides to this coin, but I am of the opinion that the West should have sent much more of the best materiel ahead of this spring offensive.
Where are we on the escalation ladder when Russia burns thousands of tons of grain intended for the third world, causes a natural disaster, and most likely will try to crash power plants?
This after they blew up NS 1 and 2.
Diplomatically, the West could send everything we have, they could protect the grain with their own fleet, a missile-free zone over western Ukraine, and a couple more measures.
It is not the diplomatic escalation ladder that is holding the West back.
It is not the lack of materiel or knowledge about what happens to one’s own country if Russia gets near that which holds them back either.
Neither is the risk of the “stab-in-the-back” legend and that it was NATO that went to war against Russia – Russia has already made both into truths without the West actively intervening in the war.
When Russia threatens and then carries out its threats against the world’s grain, only one country stands up to the bully – Ukraine.
The rest of the world cowers and hopes not to be noticed in the crowd because they are terrified of being singled out by Putin.
How hard would it be to stop Russian shipping through the Baltic Sea – Russia is, for heaven’s sake, under sanctions, surely they must be enforced or are they just on paper?
How hard would it be to read the UN Charter, interpret it correctly, and declare that Russia is not a member of the UN and will not become one?
We have Ukraine to thank for a lot here, and the fact that the West half lets itself be talked down by a Russia losing on the battlefield is downright embarrassing.
I also understand that the USA has a lot of hands-on presence on the ground in Ukraine, more than we know (or I know from Budanov, of course…), and that there is diplomacy behind closed doors beyond what we ordinary taxpayers get to know. But we still see the RESULT of what is done, and it is too little.
If Ukraine had had a couple of hundred advanced aircraft for the spring offensive, Russian CAS and attack helicopters would also have been out of the equation, and they have been troublesome for Ukraine on the southern front.
The country is undergoing a national trauma while defending all of Europe, and the West should absolutely do more. If they could send 130 Bradleys, they could have sent 500 directly, right?
A few hundred Abrams would have been fine too, Spain’s, Portugal’s, Belgium’s, and the Netherlands’ Leo2s could also have been sent.
When I was young, I took everything at face value, then I was enlightened at university and dismissed all conspiracies, and finally, I grew up and understood that not everything is black and white, but you still want to believe that there is fair play behind the drawn curtains of the Ukraine war.
Okay, then I met Dengamle, and all truths were turned upside down again – it is incredible how many major historical events he has caused through accidents.
Greek fire, for example – when it happened, he tried to become an artist, but since the market for artists was quite small, he tried to break in as a revolutionary live sculptor.
The business idea was to stand and smear concrete on some wooden stick construction while battles or naval battles played out, then paint it very colorfully.
He carried sacks of cement, quicklime, brushes, paint, and turpentine to clean the brushes with, and he always chose the most violent battles to create a snapshot sculpture somewhere in the middle of the battlefield.
Back home, he sold the at least somewhat obscure snapshots of the violent battles to society, which really did not appreciate the colorful bird nests but had to show they were patriots by bidding over each other in the victory frenzy.
In the naval battle at Constantinople, Dengamle, true to habit, prepartied with a ten-centimeter-long joint of the best Moroccan marijuana before starting his lucrative creation.
Right away, he managed to sweep the turpentine can into a larger trough with quicklime and then dropped the joint straight into the mixture when he tried to catch the falling turpentine can with both hands. Upon impact, high flames erupted, and when he took two steps back to protect his beard, he stepped right on the other end of the plank that lay as a lever with the hidden marijuana bag underneath (on the drug-free boat…) and the burning trough on the opposite side.
Not a little surprised, he then followed with his gaze a ball of burning sludge that slid in a semicircle straight towards the Arabic flagship. When the ball slammed into the deck, an unquenchable fire spread and the ship burned out quite immediately.
At first, he was worried that he had managed to burn an Eastern Roman ship and tried to blame the ship’s boy when jubilant sailors lifted him up, but quickly realized that all the hoisting and cheering was a tribute and not a hope for a keelhaul, so he claimed that he had just tested a new deadly weapon that worked exactly as intended.
The rumor spread, but it took a while and two burned-down houses before he found the right mix for his medieval napalm, which he became absolutely filthy rich selling to all parties in all conflicts – something the world’s arms industries later learned from him.
Since he is also the world’s most unlucky person, his wealth manager did exactly what he asked and exchanged and deposited his entire fortune in papyrus securities in the safest place available at the time – the Library of Alexandria.
The rest is history.
On topic – the Ukraine war is a black-and-white conflict where right and wrong are crystal clear and very simple.
One of the great mysteries of this war is actually why the West only supplies exactly what Ukraine needs.
– The countries bordering Ukraine, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and not least the Baltic states have practically sent everything they have mobilized, so they can hardly be afraid of a strong Ukraine.
– NLAW, CV90, 777, HIMARS and whatever other weapon systems have had their order books filled by all the free advertising grilled BTGs have given.
– The countries that donate weapons are absolutely praised throughout the West and gain an excellent reputation.
– They help to push back the country that held Europe hostage until 1989 and has behaved absolutely worst throughout history.
– They probably help make the world a better place by decolonizing Russia – colonization is no longer modern.
Having gone through this, the only conclusion can be that there is no downside to helping Ukraine wholeheartedly, but then again, I am not a politician and probably miss a few layers of intrigue?
Sorry for going off-topic, but since I have previously expressed my opinion on the matter here in the thread, I just want to follow up because I already had an opinion on the issue. I usually avoid these topics.
When Paludan went on his book-burning crusade, my opinion was that it was legal but really unnecessary. We are allowed to burn books, but there is no law that says other countries have to like us, and we must accept the consequences as a country.
What has now happened, it seems, is that a citizen in exile who is critical of Iraq and apparently a critic of religion chose to burn the Quran publicly in front of the Iraqi embassy in accordance with Swedish law?
It became an enormous overreaction (we think), a burned embassy, cut trade, and decades of goodwill from aid and support were torpedoed because one person burned a book, and that person is not a Swedish citizen but a citizen of Iraq.
We have now reached the point where we cannot back down on principle, we shall not change laws, and we shall follow the laws of Sweden as they are written today, and we shall defend and stand up for this legal right.
Then I almost choked on my coffee – the Migration Agency is to reevaluate the Quran burner’s residence permit and maybe send him to Iraq. I would like to follow that case because if there is anyone who will not survive the day if he goes to Iraq, it is him.
Companies have an interesting balancing act to perform; they should naturally try to protect their business, but if they stray too far from the values we see as reasonable in the West, they risk a boycott from us instead, and that usually spreads like wildfire.
There are always two sides of the same coin, but Swedish law must be followed and the consequences handled – that is where we are now.
Now I think I have complained enough about the West’s sluggishness for a while, and the book bonfires.
I got an explanation for all the regiments that appear “1236 regiment,” there are a bunch near Bakhmut, for example – they are merged from depleted brigades and are a composite unit of those who survived. They probably have terrible combat value.
The FSB has disarmed some volunteer battalion at the southern front due to risk of mutiny.
https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1682460944884957184?s=46&t=6GIjJiDvyZPZvzp6UWQX7A
Zelensky hinted yesterday that the intensity will increase in the spring offensive. We have been discussing for a while now that the hard work is done and that the intensity should increase during the remaining 2.5 months or so until the ground’s bearing capacity deteriorates.
UA has built up to achieve something war-deciding this summer, and it is also necessary not to enter autumn in some kind of frozen fronts because then the risk of a bad solution brokered by an uneasy West increases significantly.
Zelensky also admitted that they got started late, as we have already guessed.
https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1682494014593855490?t=WJD7Leafu5YMDaEge1SM2w&s=19
We all see what is happening at the southern front – Spetsnaz fighting as infantry, artillery rationing ongoing, commanders being fired, and the fighting in the rear is astronomical.
We also see how UA purposefully clears mines and holds back most of its offensive reserve. The offensive reserve is not just Bradleys and Leo2s, right, it is the world’s best infantry that will win this war no matter what vehicles they ride in.
Rybar, who is a pretty good canary in the coal mine (thanks for the link), is starting to get worried.
https://twitter.com/rybar_force/status/1682484999134609408?s=46&t=UFkTYcd_rBmCGU4TxSrO0w
https://twitter.com/rybar_force/status/1682411562693279744?s=46&t=UFkTYcd_rBmCGU4TxSrO0w
I think our earlier assessment stands that UA will increase the intensity and definitely go for Azov this summer.
The likelihood that they succeed is sky-high as long as RU does not deploy rested army corps with extra everything, but we in the thread believe they do not have these reserves, we shall see.
At Bakhmut, it is now only a matter of time before RU abandons the settlement – everyone was so worried when RU was going to take this war-deciding little town, so everyone should be happy when UA takes it, right?
Up in northern Luhansk, we see a repetition of the winter offensive where they did not get out of the starting blocks, but it is a bit too early to rejoice. Ukraine is also to retake that area, so good if RU is decimated in the attack.
When the southern front falls, it will be by far the largest retreat of the Russians in this war, freeing so many UA brigades that the numerical advantage at the remaining fronts will become enormous, like dominoes.