12:19 – MatsExtrude
Thanks for the situation report!
A few dark clouds on the horizon where possibly faltering deliveries are the darkest.
Now the West can’t be so stupid as to stop sending more, then they might as well have shut down already a year ago. I believe it will work out.
21:23 – Johan No.1
A video specially for those who wonder why the counter-offensive isn’t going ’fast enough’ and talk about it like it is a videogame.
This is how densely mined the areas in the Zaporizhzia region are.
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1698051786936893894?s=46&t=GU_QPziX2oQxK0NEN-jmtQ
21:24 – Johan No.1
Second after the blogger, nice that everything is as usual 👍
21:48 – Johan No.1
Unfortunate to be Wagner
https://twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1698060278145945947?s=46&t=GU_QPziX2oQxK0NEN-jmtQ
11:30 – Johan No.1
Now the unit maps are probably not to be relied on, but I think you can see that the main line between Vasylivka – Robotyne is thinly defended.
Between Robotyne – Vuhledar there is also a thin picket line.
Ukraine has been poking around in those areas a bit, but one should be clear that it is the minefields again…
There are enough UA brigades not on the active front to try a breakthrough at some such place – the southern front commander is playing a very high-stakes game right now.
At Staromlynivka the RU defense is the same brigades that have repeatedly taken heavy losses and now all UA marine brigades in the area except one. They are just like air-mobile elite units and have support from a Tank brigade and several mech brigades. The condition of most of the Russian defense there has been considered very poor, 4-5 brigades are said to have taken enormous losses.
The southern front still looks deadly for the Russians and the risk (chance) of a large-scale and further breakthrough is very high.
In Verbove they choose to defend with the best they have, Spetznaz and reconnaissance. Sure, these are RU’s most valuable resources, the last ones, who now go and die but with 76GAAD they have brought down a couple more regiments in the area. The positive thing is that they can now be targeted with tube artillery and drones, they are not hiding behind a screen of LPR and DPR units taking the full hit like up in Kherson.
Virtually all units are on the active front around Robotyne – for example, they pulled the garrison from Ocheretuvate a few weeks ago, a VDV regiment.
It is also not reasonable that seven (7) full regiments are squeezed into Novoprokopivka, so they should be low in number – those are marked as regiments.
BARS and those units with 1000-series designations should be battalion strength by the way – seven of the units around Robotyne are battalion-sized.
If Ukraine just has enough indirect firepower to rain down on these, there will be a breakthrough so we hope the West keeps the deliveries up – we really have to hope they have.
UA has 17 elite units in the area around Robotyne, of which 2-3 are battalion strength.
Unfortunately, we have now received a first indication of strategic reserves but it is not as bad as it sounds. RU is sending 25CAA to northern Luhansk far too early – not fully manned and not sufficiently trained.
This is so they can send 41CAA to the southern front – a first warning flag.
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1697854429276340441?s=46&t=sMS0wiMBRvKoTHqDyV2WjQ
It consists of three motorized brigades so it will not make much difference if this is all they send.
That they are sending 25CAA to northern Luhansk far too early also signals that they have no redundancy in the area, right?
A bit unclear how much 41CAA has fought, its regiments seem to have previously taken existential losses but they have been reformed and trained and are now in the area north of the Kreminna forests.
Not good for blood pressure to dig into this but 25CAA has trained in bases that could easily be reached by Western missiles which have partly not been delivered in sufficient quantity and then come with lots of restrictions. Tatarigami found 12 bases quite close to the UA border where they could quietly train the next batch of reserves since the West has decided that Ukraine may not use their weapons on Russian territory.
A few hundred hard vehicles stood in a neat square and all could have been taken out with a coordinated missile strike.
Now that they are moving 41CAA to the southern front it will need to gather at different places also in Ukraine and we can only pray that Ukraine has now received a new batch of Storm Shadow and Taurus so they can strike hard at all key points during the advance and then have enough HIMARS ammunition to hit CAA when they band up towards their staging area.
That 25CAA has been moved into UA is bad but it would be much less bad if Ukraine got a few thousand missiles to hunt them with.
If the West HAS NOT sent these missiles despite the intelligence situation, it is a dereliction of duty.
You have just like me noticed that there has not been the highest intensity of explosions in depth for quite a while and that 76GAAD could be moved to the southern front without being chased in a tungsten rain.
The West is playing a very dangerous game here – if they do not provide enough capability to Ukraine, even this weak point could slip out of UA hands. That Russia gets to train right on their side of the border, that Belgorod is not attacked and that they send exactly enough for UA to keep their nose above water all the time is – I don’t even have words to describe it 🤬🤬
Now Ukraine needs all cluster munitions and thermobaric weapons available in the West’s warehouses when they break through the Suvorikin line.
At Bakhmut a few RU regiments have disappeared and several of those remaining were considered practically wiped out during the spring offensive.
There must be enormous OPSEC there right now because we hear nothing but that the units in Bakhmut are now encircled and that they are advancing south of the settlement in Bakhmut.
There should not have been any major terrain gains or Rybar would have screamed and cried.
UA still has many brigades with a lot of bite in that area, many of which have not yet been committed to battle.
Up in northern Luhansk one can almost say that RU interest in offensive has cooled considerably, they are pulling back their last offensive reserve and then removing 41CAA and replacing with newly mobilized.
I have the impression that the initiative has shifted to UA up there, we will see.
At certain points up there it is quite obvious that if artillery and drones are supplied, UA will be able to launch a violent offensive.
The Bakhmut front and northern Luhansk are not Suvorikin-mined.
Here you have a picture behind the lottery row’s supply trucks, a whole line of tankers knocked out by HIMARS
https://twitter.com/thedeaddistrict/status/1697854456543486281?s=46&t=sMS0wiMBRvKoTHqDyV2WjQ
Australia is sending 160 anti-UAV something, aka?
https://twitter.com/thedeaddistrict/status/1697843205528518673?s=46&t=sMS0wiMBRvKoTHqDyV2WjQ
Then surely everyone understands that “Satan 2 deployed” is a low cry for help from a disgraced Putin?
Western media should damn well not let Russia rattle the nuclear threat in a single article 🤬
Right now Ukraine is making a superhuman effort on all fronts, the losses we can cry about after the war – they are higher than we think and they are absolutely on the verge of a breakthrough at the southern front.
The warning signs are partly that the number of missile attacks completely died out and long-range HIMARS as well – that the West allows a dip in that combat when everything is just gathering dust on the shelves is completely incomprehensible. But also that they are sending 25CAA into Ukraine. We know that 25CAA is not full strength and fully mobilized which is good but bad that they have anything to move.
According to UA official communication, UA has successes against Novoprokopivka – considering that it is located in highland terrain and is supposed to be defended by 7 regiments, it is a strong signal that the Russian defense is starting to have real problems.
At Staromlynivka, the Twitter gods expect an RU counterattack soon and that UA has temporarily gone on the defense – it will be interesting to see which units participate in that RU attempt.
The deployment of 41CAA is also a sign that problems are starting to arise on the southern front – unfortunate that Gerasimov stopped firing everyone who complained and actually did something.
The conclusion is that the situation is balanced on the southern front right now and if the pressure can be maintained, UA will break through again. For that, they need to cluster and shower the Russians with tungsten around the clock so they lose heart, and today’s prayer goes to Western politicians who, unusually, have not skimped on ammunition deliveries to the critical capabilities.