10:18 – Johan No.1
Excuse me PerraG55 if I went a bit too far but you posted a message just as this thread started that I felt was super interesting and I’m moving it here –
PERRAG55
2023-07-23 10:02 – 10:02
I usually take great care not to express any opinion about what is happening in the Muscovites’ power circles if it’s only based on intuition but one thing I dare to express is that the circle is shaky even if not disturbed or broken, and, as we know, a broken circle becomes a completely different entity.
Something has happened (and I definitely do NOT mean Soloviev), the circle bonds are the old loyalty built already from the late 80s and early 90s
The strains of the war, Ukraine’s will and strength to resist, the West’s until now unity, the sanctions’ erosion of the economy and Russia’s increasing isolation have probably begun to spread anxiety and fear in the “iron gang”, now in their 70s.
We often talk about “Russia’s behaviors and deeds” but often forget that the country is not governed by parliamentary decisions, whose members consist of people’s representatives elected in completely FREE UNMANIPULATED elections, the country is governed by an iron gang around Putler… actually one of the few who can with some justification be called “elected by the people”.
There is now a feeling of “vibrations”, the question is whether the big earthquake is imminent or not we will probably see, but the West must hold out, tighten compliance with current sanctions, take more measures (unfortunately very neglected today) to spread more information in Russian society about what Putler et al have caused, we must do everything to reduce Russian capital flow… yes, naturally, help more with military material and provide more humanitarian and political aid to Ukraine.
But… as I said… something vibrates in the ground… and something can happen in Moscow… whether immediately positive or negative… well, we will only see that afterwards
10:22 – Johan No.1
The lions, we must never forget the lions during or after this war. As far as this has gone now, the number of returning soldiers with incurable PTSD will be sky-high and the country’s resources to catch them will be limited. Not to mention all the civilians exposed to violence, parents forced to watch their children being desecrated, tortured and murdered (that seems to have been widespread).
https://twitter.com/jhan_no1/status/1682761215943094272?s=46&t=SI66eBWZF2B0xiHFYGw29A
When the ethnic cleansing of Bucha and Irpin played out and civilians as well as soldiers tried to get the information through the elected representatives, they took it as dramatic exaggerations and chose not to release it initially – the violence took everyone by surprise but it was systematic and started in the first weeks of the war.
Now that people have finished whining like elementary school kids about all the world’s injustices for a week or so, I took a serious think last night about the spring offensive over a (couple of) glass of rum.
The very professional analytical method I chose was to go through the entire bookmark list on Twitter and see how the war has developed over time and alternate Star beer with rum until clarity struck like lightning (could also have been when the power went out and then came back and all the lights turned on, unclear).
Conclusion –
right now we have an information embargo that makes UA post very little and one can experience that not much is happening as a consequence of that (even though every day’s posts start with the words – a lot has happened). Right at the beginning of the spring offensive the embargo was total and then the Russians themselves stood on the PR arena a bit surprised and took over. UA learned after a few weeks and began posting official updates and infantry-clearing-trenches from certain brigades, 3rd Assault brigade for example, because their own units got a false picture of the situation (I think it was Gregg who brought that up).
This is a very big shift from when they undertook to retake Kherson, then they did their best to show strength. If you remember advances with M113 and tanks with infantry behind, preferably company size. They wanted to show that they had mechanized capacity and that they had received Western weapons.
Then came all the videos during the advance before the window for the offensive started May 4, we saw whole brigades marching in goose step and got goosebumps.
That they feel they don’t need to show strength now IS strength, I think?
The Russians on their side are completely desperate to show Ukrainian losses. We can be absolutely sure that the Russian team would have immediately released videos of large UA losses if they had occurred – so we KNOW that UA is not losing large amounts (of their offensive capability!) material here.
We can reasonably assume that UA fights with maybe 25%-30% of available offensive units both at Bakhmut and the Southern front.
At Bakhmut it is moving and it is slow because RU is pushing in reserves, they have rotated four times since that offensive started sometime in early June.
Last night the living legend and famed joltcola drinker Erik14 announced that Ukrainian infantry is inside central Bakhmut – if true that is sensational but he made clear it was a rumor but today I’m grabbing onto everything 😀
What has happened at the southern front is that they ran into minefields, have been slowed down and then spent many weeks clearing them. Fortunately, the West has given them mine-clearing equipment in very large quantities even though quite a few are lost (engineering equipment on the loss list for UA that someone usually publishes).
In this vacuum there has been room again for the gloomy doubters who come with the most imaginative theories like if there were NATO brigades they would have gone through 10 km of minefields in a few days. They have completely forgotten Normandy and they have forgotten that this is the first time since WWII that two qualified nations are at war – Iraq is not Russia.
The doubters are those who before the party starts say it will be boring, then stand looking sour with a beer so the mood goes down like a daycare class running out of sugar and after the party they say – “what did I tell you” and smile for the first time.
I stand by that Ukraine today has the world’s best infantry and it is they who will win this war not the materiel but that is also needed to give them a fair chance not to take catastrophic losses.
10:24 – MatsExtrude
Interesting PERRAG55!
Good of Johan No.1 to post it again too because it was worth it!
10:27 – Johan No.1
In recent days, Zelensky himself has announced that they have now begun to reach the end of the mine clearance and that they will increase the intensity – strategic communication (I asked Budanov if he could ask Zelensky to make such a statement to calm the worries in the thread and it seems he has done so, nice to have a direct line to Zelensky 👍).
The fact that artillery has dropped significantly is probably war-deciding, see the film below on how fun it was when RU had the full palette to shoot with.
https://twitter.com/osintua/status/1533360455720255488?s=46&t=SI66eBWZF2B0xiHFYGw29A
They have now broken the back of the Russian artillery but CAS and ahkp are still a threat. However, they probably took out about 50% of the ahkp mobilized to the southern front in a week and now they no longer fly.
David D has a nice summary of how big a difference these damn F-16s would have made 🤬
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1682905598793248769?s=20
Then we must not forget that when RU was at its peak it looked like this –
https://twitter.com/dailyworld24/status/1502042907322236933?s=46&t=SI66eBWZF2B0xiHFYGw29A
How one can fight worse than that is unclear but they abandoned armor in formation as standard procedure some time ago and switched to some type of offensive infantry units with armored support instead?
Just so we don’t lose focus – they defeated RU at Kiev, Kharkiv, Kherson, Izyum and Lyman. 40% of the captured territory has RU already abandoned.
UA never lost Bakhmut.
This is how the war has looked so far after Putin cheated his way to a significant terrain gain in the first months, Mariupol was sacrificed so that the entire area east of the Dnieper would not fall then when the FSB paid out bribes and the local GUR chief kept his promise.
Now RU is at a new low and is losing the built-up area in Bakhmut. Cunning and sly as they are, they have hidden behind enormous minefields but UA is well on its way to plowing through and you don’t win wars with mines.
My assessment is that time is still on Ukraine’s side even though they got started a bit late due to a special year for the weather. We got reassuring news from the conqueror of the ground, mud and grass Argus the other day that there will be no sudden stop this autumn (and artillery guru!).
Again, combating the rear is not part of the daily accidents at work list.
The accent man who has high credibility considered that at the base on Crimea there were “thousands of soldiers”.
We have previously had reports of “many hundreds” at spectacular base eliminations (200 and 300 always confuse things so some risk of misunderstanding).
DavidD has shown satellite photos of huge depots where weapon systems with technical faults stand from all branches of the armed forces – hundreds.
We also know that Spetznaz fights as mechanized infantry so they buy time by sacrificing the last (relatively) competent men they have.
When they reach Azov it is not a daydream that the war is lost but it is based on the following –
The Russian team runs down to Crimea, everyone west of the wedge down to Azov does not want to be last over the land bridge to Crimea.
UA cuts the bridge and 60,000 – 80,000 soldiers are then trapped on Crimea.
UA guards the land bridge to Crimea and drives the other +25 brigades towards Mariupol, up along the land border and then into the area east of the city of Donetsk.
(those of you who have been around for a long time remember this area, Illovaisk among others).
RU has no units to stop this flood and above all, those they have must go on defense in Rostov-na-Don because a threat is now projected against that city.
The darkest Donbass is small in area and if you get behind the cities Donetsk and Horlivka and move up towards the city of Luhansk it is a critical situation for the rebels.
The dark horse – 1st and 2nd Army corps laying down arms is then highly relevant and it seems RU has handed over this area to the victorious rebels?
At the same time as they keep pressure up on all other fronts with existing units so RU cannot pull anything out and move to the darkest Donbass.
When this breaks loose it will go very fast and we are slowly approaching that point with 2.5 months left of the spring offensive.
10:42 – Johan No.1
Then I have also in the fumes of rum thought about the whole circus in the top leadership around Putin. Have you ever had a conflict at work (rhetorical question)?
Now I happen to be at a workplace with a mix of nationalities. Everyone fights for position, gets attacked, gambles that they have others with them, takes the fight and then it goes as it goes. Promises of support down here are worth something until they are no longer worth it. The project manager was fired and then the HR manager last week.
The Russian power struggle is naturally exactly the same, they don’t think 5D chess because no one does, they do the best they can and loyalty only applies until it no longer does.
About what we see is probably what is happening, hard to believe that Putin agreed with Prigozhin to recruit accomplices for a palace coup just to out the accomplices.
Putin is currently reactive which means he is one step behind and then he plays it safe and goes hard.
Considering the breadth of the purges, many probably sleep with their eyes open, GRU, Army, VDV, hardliners, opinion makers and that is just those we know of.
My question is whether it was Prigozhin’s prank that set this in motion or if it is something else that worries and what that is if so?
The working theories that have emerged were that they are preparing the ground for a retreat from Ukraine or that they are going after a specific faction in the power game that has fallen out of favor (but for what)?
Solohyov is gone now too, not a power player but one of the biggest media warmongers –
https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1682683244884500482?s=46&t=UFkTYcd_rBmCGU4TxSrO0w
ISW agrees that the lack of weapons is holding back UA,
https://twitter.com/thestudyofwar/status/1682941724958642176?s=46&t=1-TZt2GmDVPuF9wjn7xZww
Here we have a summary of what UA has not received
https://twitter.com/euromaidanpr/status/1682953950314606594?s=46&t=1-TZt2GmDVPuF9wjn7xZww
ISW also concludes the same as we have done earlier – this is a “numbers game”.
https://twitter.com/thestudyofwar/status/1682955914322558976?s=46&t=1-TZt2GmDVPuF9wjn7xZww
Things are happening in Belarus, now Wagner is training their army and Luka has just passed a law that their army can fight in UA or for Russia.
https://twitter.com/georgewbarros/status/1682934157301923841?s=46&t=1-TZt2GmDVPuF9wjn7xZww
https://twitter.com/hajun_by/status/1682817561900056576?s=46&t=1-TZt2GmDVPuF9wjn7xZww
Then Luka suppresses Belarusian culture so there is probably some ground for a popular revolution now.
https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1682865409387646976?s=46&t=1-TZt2GmDVPuF9wjn7xZww
Then we have a figure on what RU can pull from the military bases in far eastern command, a few thousand so there are no brigades or divisions left.
https://twitter.com/thestudyofwar/status/1682824079877840897?s=46&t=1-TZt2GmDVPuF9wjn7xZww
Unfortunately, the US is slow with ATACMS but the glide bombs are on their way.
https://twitter.com/officejjsmart/status/1682865539528499200?s=46&t=1-TZt2GmDVPuF9wjn7xZww
At the same time RU has carried out 157 attacks, many against grain or ports to destroy as much as possible of UA grain.
Ukraine is winning this war and they are doing it by replacing advanced weapon systems they cannot get with super cheap homemade ones, and it works.
Take a look at this, a drone-dropped 155mm high explosive and all the dumb 155mm shells suddenly became smart 😀
https://twitter.com/militarylabb/status/1682875705858695170?s=46&t=1-TZt2GmDVPuF9wjn7xZww
I am personally convinced that Ukraine’s loss figures are accurate and that it is 1:2 + non-war-related injuries that apply, and Russia has dedicated a large part of its armed forces to this war (which we knew).
Those who argue against it always come up with the lower number but then in the same breath say, “Russia can mobilize five million anytime if they want.”
My truth is that Russia has gone all in here – you need hundreds of thousands of occupation troops for occupied areas, the rebels were 100,000 at their peak, Wagner we know was 80,000, they have sent four batches of conscripts to UA, they have mobilized their 300,000 + 20,000 – 30,000 per month for ten months. Special forces, navy, maintenance, and air force on top of that, so the total is probably well over a million, maybe DavidD is right?
The point is that Russia has gone all in and is losing.
The only thing they could do now is general mobilization and put the country on a war footing, but in recent days Putin has chosen to arrest the worst warmongers who presumably pushed for exactly that?
We have also not seen anything beyond forcibly conscripting prisoners through the Storm Z unit recently, no new army corps, no volunteer units with T90, Terminator, and so on.
As a layman, this is difficult, but I still bet five hundred that the Bakhmut front (up to the Svitlodarsk – Popasna line) will collapse this summer and that the Azov thrust will be delivered in full.
The Azov thrust is war-deciding according to the explanation above, and then the war is hopelessly lost for Putin – we are on our way there when the world’s best infantry has cleared the mines and created the conditions for a breakthrough.
10:49 – MatsExtrude
👍
Heroiam Slava!
10:56 – MatsExtrude
Thanks!
Just wish we could fast forward, but it shouldn’t be more than a week or a few weeks now before something big happens.
11:34 – MatsExtrude
👍
15:11 – Johan No.1
Flew past something about Zerebets on Twitter and now I understand that up by Novovodiane RU has already passed Zerebets.
There you can probably talk about a Russian local breakthrough because it is a large area.
The rest of the front in northern Luhansk hasn’t moved at all, right?
If they want to continue straight west in that area, the next obstacle is a string of settlements that are naturally defended, and the only way to reach them is across farmland.
If we continue in the same geographical area, after that is the last line of defense at the eastern bank of the Oskil river.
15:32 – Johan No.1
Haven’t Ukraine themselves been absolutely clear about what they want?
In summer 2022 they wanted 300-400 MBTs and 1500 IFVs and it took until January before that decision was made. They completely missed the low point in September 2022.
They are shouting blue in the face for Atacms and F-16s, they have probably even asked for a no-fly zone at some point?
They want more sanctions and absolutely hope the West will protect the grain with the navy.
They have long lists of war criminals to The Hague and most recently at the NATO meeting a couple of representatives were annoyed at the ungrateful Ukrainians.
Ukraine wants to join NATO, they want to join the EU, they want more ammunition, and so on.
The other side of the positive coin is also that until the West was sure Ukraine had a chance, the West gave nothing and had its sights set on Ukraine giving up land for peace. The biggest countries in the EU pushed that hard.
Isn’t the truth that Ukraine was nicely allowed to carry out an offensive in autumn 2022 with what they had to convince hesitant leaders in the West to start supporting them with offensive weapons?
There were MANY countries that for a long time only wanted to give DEFENSIVE weapons.
When they only got M113s in autumn 2022, we were quite sad that they had to die in glorified milk cartons and that they get so little Western armor is constantly a subject of criticism in the thread.
Before Christmas 2022 there was a significant negative dip here in the thread because the concern was palpable that the West would not send tanks.
The offensive has admittedly been grinding on since May 4 this year but Ukraine has not committed more than 30% of its offensive reserves to battle yet and there are 2.5 months of favorable conditions left.
But yes – if we come to this autumn and a situation where UA has exhausted its offensive capacity then the EU and the West will stand there with the whole problem and wish they had done more. Now I belong to those who believe UA has the capability we hope for but it is not fun to troll Slava right now.
15:37 – Johan No.1
Then we had the whole discussion about the diplomatic steps here in the thread when NS1 and NS2 were blown up already, that MBTs and all other weapon systems were unlocked for delivery.
The West has consistently sent too little too late, MXT touched on that the other day, personally I can’t understand the motivation for that and basically have the main thesis that Russian subversive activity is still too good.
If you know your Cold War, you understand what a cloud of subversive activity is simmering in Europe trying to disrupt political decisions that are bad for Russia.
The peace movement has forever pushed for the demilitarization of the Baltic Sea with one exception – it does not include the Russians.
16:01 – MatsExtrude
Good answer Johan!
16:08 – MatsExtrude
Ouch, so they have already widened the captured terrain downward from the bulge west of Karmazynivka?
They probably mean business with that offensive after all..
16:51 – Johan No.1
Yes, that looks like the beginning of a local breakthrough and they are over the damn river but so far it is very local.
19:06 – MatsExtrude
Yes, but if this is an extension downward about the same extent as just above, it is still maybe 5 km deep and 10 km wide together.
Local, but almost on par with when Soledar was taken.
Now we don’t know exactly how much they have nibbled off there but still a bit worrying.
Hope they haven’t broken through without Ukraine simply retreating.
07:41 – Johan No.1
Monday morning and new explosions are reported from Russian-occupied Crimea. According to the source it is the airport and military warehouse district of Vesoloye. Coordinates of the location:
45°34’36″N 34°16’32″E
The Russian-installed governor Aksyonov also speaks of…
https://twitter.com/tendar/status/1683349977009889281?s=46&t=b6hRSjp07j7unYoSrqOFeA
08:07 – Johan No.1
Could be a violent week according to the legends below 👇
https://twitter.com/euromaidanpr/status/1683353972722094085?s=46&t=b6hRSjp07j7unYoSrqOFeA
09:51 – Johan No.1
There was a bit of follow-up in yesterday’s thread, the two most important things were –
Erik14, do you have anything more about UA being inside Bakhmut again?
And that bag of cheese puffs on the chair, was that a mine?
It worked.