11:01 – Johan No.1
It started on May 4. UA announced that the intensity increased on April 11 if I remember correctly, and then there were peaks on April 20 and early May, and I considered that on May 4 the intensity was high enough for it to be the start of the offensive window, +/- a week maybe?
Started at Bakhmut, then the southern front, the Dnipro front, and now UA has gone on the offensive up in northern Luhansk (it seems).
The rest of the guessers are still waiting, right, since the other definition of the offensive was that the armored brigades would roll, and we have not seen that yet, just that they have gone quiet now 🧐
11:22 – MatsExtrude
Many thanks!
MRF has been absent and some have talked about us having exaggerated unrealistic expectations of Ukraine etc.
So I started thinking from the other side as a genuine pro-Russian. What is the worst-case scenario for Ukraine and how can one argue and interpret everything to the Russians’ advantage..
Discovered that if you are only willing to be one-eyed and interpret everything in one direction, it actually works.
It got too depressing so I needed to return to reality and then there is nothing better than your balanced and positive situation report!
Hope you get reassigned and then to a place where there are decent chips!
11:36 – Johan No.1
I really need grill chips, ranch dip, and Mariestad 😭
Yep, it goes down into total despair immediately and then you start doubting the whole war. I myself think we have a fairly sound view of how it is going for Ukraine and we have criticized the West enormously in this thread for their sluggishness.
11:46 – MatsExtrude
Yes, I also think we are quite right (even if one must admit that one thought it would go faster, damn mines). The pitch-black perspective is constantly disproved by what actually happens (and has happened).
You can DM me your address so I can send down an emergency shipment if it gets too acute! 🙂
12:10 – Johan No.1
Thanks for that, 76GAAD has just been moved down there and was held in reserve up in northern Luhansk – should be intact?
7AAD came from the Dnipro front, right?
It is probably not completely intact, I also remember it having fought for a while now?
35CAA sounds violent but it is two motor rifle brigades that according to the unit maps defend the front line between Robotyne – Vuhledar. To be able to use them as reserves, you have to abandon that line completely.
That is the Lex Frenchmen I usually write about 😀
A dozen or so brigades or regiments that can be freed if you give up the entire front line.
12:18 – Johan No.1
We started with this as the first interactive map but it doesn’t seem to have been updated.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1rRKs40IEbGRsV0Fhky25l5OkPJ_vUvQ&ll=47.48548531699319%2C36.23986618285352&z=10
However, this one that some legend in the thread linked to is the new black, updated. If it’s good enough for the legend David D, it’s good enough for me.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=180u1IkUjtjpdJWnIC0AxTKSiqK4G6Pez&ll=47.65959813897485%2C37.14946643681925&z=10
12:59 – MatsExtrude
Looking at Russian losses as an indicator varies a bit when you see the bars increasing.
It is quite clear that it starts to go up around April 23 overall BUT we had a low point in mid-April and around the 23rd it is at the same level as in early April. Around May 5 (that’s what happened on May 4) losses increase again (there is a small low point in between). Then it actually drops quite a bit towards the end of the month.
On June 1 there is no doubt that it is underway because then everything takes off considerably and since then it has been high overall.
The offensive may have started on the 23rd but it could also have been part of the usual fluctuation.
The first days of June we are completely sure it is underway.
But then we have what leaked from the fronts. Saying the offensive started only in June is not correct. Things started happening earlier.
Also, they did not start on all fronts exactly at the same time.
May 4 as a start (and that full strength was reached June 1) I think is as good a qualified guess as one can make.
In April I guessed around May 9-10 but no matter what I do I can’t really find support for that.. 🙂
Long ago I guessed around mid-May instead of around mid-April like most others, so I was still the closest 😉
14:07 – Johan No.1
So I was completely drunk at night and decided in a rum haze that the next day I would proclaim that the spring offensive had started because I read two tweets, one of which was something about Native Americans in North America, I even wrote it at night so the next morning I had to stick to it.
You have infinitely more science behind your analysis 😐
15:15 – MatsExtrude
You shouldn’t underestimate intuition, especially if it’s used while intoxicated (then the result, and especially how you arrived at it, can be a bit unclear in hindsight).🤣
It’s fine to analyze afterward and conclude whether it’s right or wrong, more impressive to hit so close to the mark right then!
20:37 – Johan No.1
I know we’re supposed to be serious because the thread is read by many, but I just have to say that I have found green Pringles chips and a bottle of Jack Daniels that actually go well with the Star beer 👍
Just missing the dip, experimenting a bit with different sauces but so far it’s a disaster…
We have been at a quarterly meeting with the client all afternoon because of the standing dredger, so no Friday pub and the monkeys survived another week but next week we’ll get them ✊
20:50 – Johan No.1
Sorry for the late reply Kylara, I was at a quarterly meeting all afternoon… Yes and no, it’s enough to project a threat for RU to have to reinforce those areas and then you can use volunteers and NOT make a big PR show of it.
We will reach a point where UA already has enough and can accelerate and then they will do it, maybe we’re not there yet.
RU can’t ignore the threats because Wagner would have come to Moscow if they hadn’t stopped and there were some FSB companies in Rostov na Don, roughly.
20:51 – MatsExtrude
Then I don’t need to send a box of emergency rations? Otherwise, I was thinking of raiding a mobile stockpile and sending a package of armored crackers along with the grill chips, dip, and Mariestad..
21:00 – Johan No.1
For Christmas it will be Sweden and all that (except the armored crackers).
Erik14 banished me to Scotland which was fun because the family is there right now so that will be the vacation and their selection of fine dining (the cheapest Asian buffet) and the top shelf (at Tesco) of gourmet food works 👍
21:15 – MatsExtrude
Sounds nice!
You fit right in there too as the first one..
”There can be only one!”
09:51 – Johan No.1
1267 comments yesterday and a very good atmosphere, I almost felt like I was part of the night shift before it went black 👍
I thought that on Friday evening not that many others read and it didn’t even hurt (the nonexistent) reputation to go off-script a bit 😀
The Nobel party is becoming more of a burden than our flagship right now, the world hasn’t missed it and the criticism is massive – a demonstration of what can happen when you sit in a closed echo chamber and think you are more important than what you are entrusted to manage.
Hot tip – give Zelensky the peace prize.
10:01 – MatsExtrude
👍 Agree!
10:45 – Johan No.1
Quite soon, the last people suspected of being pro-Russian will out themselves, as Russia will continue trying to talk the West out of this. An immediate ceasefire so that negotiations can begin to save the children will be the message flooding us in the Western media that is not quick enough to counter the influence operation.
I have the impression that hacker attacks have increased; I have difficulty opening deepstatemap and the blog, but that might be because I am in a country that always engages in fraud and is naturally blocked.
On the subject, the dredger is still idle and burning money, and relations are approaching meltdown here; it’s starting to get really tense because then they will send me to a less chaotic country just as the fuel riots start.
Yesterday there was a discussion about not taking the war too lightly and positively, so today will be a gloomy realist post, but remember that the purpose has been to mock the Russians and support Ukraine to the victory they can live with, and that the posts should be seen in that light. I back Ukraine and diminish RU.
If you remember the discussion about windows for the offensive that started on May 4, 2023, and then the overall battle plan, we are well on the way towards the “Azov push” despite UA starting late, to reach the Sea of Azov.
They are maintaining pressure at Bakhmut and between north of Vuhledar – Horlivka as planned and have now moved to an offensive in northern Luhansk.
I had thought they would have passed Bakhmut by now, but RU has really pushed everything they can into that area, a veritable forest of brigades.
The only really negative standout is that they had to abandon the successful Belgorod raids because the West protested. It’s easy to have higher morale when it’s not your own children being tortured and murdered.
It is something we avoid discussing, and that is how much gas Ukraine has left; my guess is that the offensive reserve is not yet fully engaged in combat and that brigades at the active front can carry out their tasks relatively long and significantly longer than the Russian counterparts. If we look at the 47th Mechanized and 3rd Assault brigade, they continue fighting after months, which suggests that the attrition rate is not as high as the Russians’.
UA has a rotation system that we have often written about where one battalion is at the active front and rotates, which means the brigades as a whole maintain their capability. Below is a territorial brigade that has a platoon at the front and rotates, sounds small.
https://twitter.com/friaukraina/status/1688482481475858432?s=46&t=1ZQ3uFnYUTxQaADzoaLPHQ
The West is playing a very high-stakes game here – we have discussed this often now in spring and summer. Ukraine is not a forever country; there are major internal conflicts and Russian influence is enormous, but right now everyone is pulling in the same direction. The West has deliberately given Ukraine just enough to survive the whole journey and also too little too late, which has cost tens of thousands of lives. If I were a politician in the West, I would not accept this risk-taking but discuss safety margins and push even harder. On the other side of the scale is at least a cold war and at most a third world war.
The West has also delayed good weapons like cluster munitions, and thermobaric weapons have yet to appear despite UA being inside the Suvorikin line. As said, it’s not our children who are dying…
The first 10 Abrams in September is downright ridiculous; the US could send 500 and 1500 Bradleys. That the US “slow-walks” weapon deliveries is indisputable.
Worth mentioning is that the goal of the Russian subversive activity is for the West to remain passive, and to a large extent, I think it has succeeded. Had RU done better than they did and taken the terrain up to the Dnieper, the country would have been divided, and had the whole country fallen, the West would not have lifted a finger – some Poland vibes. The only reason it did not succeed was that Ukraine held out.
The spring offensive started late, Zelensky himself has said so, and the US also in some analysis. What I cannot understand, however, is how UA could be caught off guard by the minefields. We already know that commercial satellites have excellent images, and we know that drones with night vision can see all mines precisely at dusk.
What I wonder is that Ukraine did know about the minefields but that when they had to solve the task sharply, it was harder than they thought (trained for), the minefields were too deep so it stopped, and then the Russians had somewhat surprisingly (because they did not have it in Bakhmut) accurate indirect capabilities left at the southern front.
It then became 3-4 weeks of mine clearance under fire, and then RU has pushed forward all its offensive reserves in counterattacks at the front line, which is not according to their doctrine.
My guess is that they wanted to show that the offensive was stuck and then talk the West out of it – which seems to have failed.
We have now passed this stage in the spring offensive that started May 4, 2023, and at the southern front it is balanced on whether (when!) UA gets a breakthrough down to Azov.
A red flag is if this offensive slows down, but again, the 3rd Assault brigade has been fighting since sometime in May!
Trying to sum up Russian numbers is impossible right now, but on the other hand, you can keep a reasonable track of the condition of the units.
At Robotyne, there are more and more units with 1000-series numbers that we have learned are composite units of previously wiped-out brigades, and at Staromaiorske, the “original” brigades are still there but according to before have taken very heavy losses.
If anyone has the numbers for 76GAAD, please write them, as it is the last offensive reserve now at the southern front that has not been in combat since June.
What I can deduce is that RU’s attrition rate is much higher than UA’s and that they will run out of gas first because the numbers are also on UA’s side in the spearhead units since reverse Darwinism applies to RU.
Now, it is actually my belief that RU will turn inward when UA reaches Azov for the simple reason that it is an enormous piece of terrain being retaken; RU will be clustered away when they try to retreat down to Crimea, and there will be a large number of prisoners.
Crimea then cannot be defended – Lex Kherson, and Lex Former Crimea.
If the inertia is greater than that, then northern Luhansk and the darkest Donbass remain, and UA then gets about forty brigades or more freed from the southern front.
These brigades will be able to fight before RU has finished training their new CAA, AC, and divisions, and in the darkest Donbass, it is DPR and LPR left as well as in northern Luhansk decimated from the 100,000 that were supposed to be there; they have recently withdrawn units but also lost in the attacks.
One brigade up there was no longer combat capable according to Erik14 yesterday.
Northern Luhansk is retaken by projecting a threat against Belgorod and the darkest Donbass by projecting a threat against Rostov on Don, so RU must spread out its units.
Ukraine should also increase liberation actions in cooperation with local capabilities and fuel everything that makes Russia turn inward. I think we see that, and it is becoming becoming that the West keeps quiet, thank you.
If we take a look at the bubble list, anything can happen that ends the war, the army refuses war, the army marches towards Moscow, or Putin is taken out.
What I have thought could possibly happen but will not is that the current leadership simply announces that the war is won, the Nazis de-nazified, and now they will be the adults in the room and retreat to the 1991 borders. Crimea is handed over in a cloud of Russian goodwill.
The reason for this, as I have understood from reading the thread, is that then they have used up their violence capital in the criminal clan and the next alpha male is ready to take over.
Then someone wrote at the beginning of the war that Russia only has one gear – if violence doesn’t work, they increase the level of violence until they win or it crashes.
To summarize – if the southern front does not fall and Crimea does not start its Kherson journey, then UA will continue with northern Luhansk and the darkest Donbass.
The new RU CAA et.al that are under construction will at the earliest be able to be deployed in December or so, and above all, mobilization is needed to resource them, and that has NOT started.
Today there are no warning flags really except that one becomes completely tearful over how the West has delayed with the materiel. Diplomatically and politically, the MBT was unlocked when NS1-2 was blown up, but the West continued to delay.
We continue to ridicule the Russian team and we continue to praise Ukraine towards the victory they can live with every day until this war is over.
Then, of course, Russia will continue to be a threat if they do not turn inward and break up, but the goal with this is that Ukraine regains its territory to the 1991 borders and they will manage that, then UA has done its part.
After that, well, the West will have to do its damn duty and ensure that our eastern border defense is funded jointly so that countries like the Baltics do not completely ruin themselves trying to defend against Russia. A little solidarity can be had with the doormen even if you are sitting in the living room with all the extras; we are currently living in peace thanks to Ukraine and we should be very grateful for that.