10:19 – MatsExtrude
👍 Thanks for the positive situation report! I can only agree with everything you write!
The most important thing is your criticism of the West, soon there will be another Rammstein meeting on the 19th, and then we hope they step forward and show unwavering support with solid promises of deliveries.
Hopefully, they won’t be needed, but clear signals are needed so Russia understands that they are completely done for (they seem a bit slow, so it apparently needs to be hammered in).
13:53 – Johan No.1
If the West just holds out, this is a crushing defeat for Putin like a geopolitical atomic bomb.
13:58 – Johan No.1
I remember when the entire pro-Ukrainian Twitter mafia was completely crazy over Bakhmut and demanded a retreat. Today they pretend it never happened.
Yes, sometimes various debaters take strange positions and if they have high credibility it gets a bit tricky.
Challenger 2 was with the 82nd Airmobile and that brigade was deployed a few weeks ago.
They probably rotated out some other brigade after months of fighting?
I know that one of the mechanized brigades, 33??, had taken very heavy losses but that’s the only one I’ve heard was decimated.
It’s way too early to play the card that UA is running out of gas here, at least that’s what I think.
Thanks, yes, trying to make it interesting 😀
09:44 – Johan No.1
Sailing around on light blue clouds here that I managed to secure the placement I had in mind 😀
There is a lot happening in the special operation as well – the last Russian offensive reserve at the southern front (maybe some regiment from 7AAD and then the brigades in the main frontline -between- the breakthrough points remain but you understand) has launched counterattacks against Robotyne from the S and W which failed. If one were to guess, that Challenger 2 was taken out in that battle.
The accent man described that battle in detail in today’s post.
The attacker is always most vulnerable when he has taken something or after a breakthrough, and a well-timed counteroffensive can completely crush them, but RU has failed almost every time during this entire spring offensive.
It is very telling that 76GAAD is put into combat almost immediately after arriving in the Robotyne area. There isn’t much else to draw from, presumably?
https://twitter.com/julianroepcke/status/1699065261335474286?s=46&t=iBZa4E3FTuEAnFITL93N6A
https://twitter.com/xpussydestorerx/status/1699093897224368398?s=46&t=iBZa4E3FTuEAnFITL93N6A
According to the maps, UA continues to roll up the first Suvorikin line at Verbove and it seems some units have fallen back to the prepared “intermediate line” running between Psenychne – Verbove?
From Robotyne towards Novoprokopivka, there are many forest tongues, six in total, and then a small forest – there is plenty of cover for UA infantry to advance hidden towards the settlement itself.
The seven regiments in the settlement are presumably decimated because otherwise, they wouldn’t be seven and would have been able to counterattack and retake Robotyne without needing to call in 76GAAD.
Then Ukraine comes from the east and can go straight into the flank of Novoprokopivka through the trench systems and maybe also through the tunnels rumored about?
Novoprokopivka will fall and the defending units will occupy the trench systems south of the settlement if they are not too slow, fall behind Ukraine, and have to retreat to the next fallback line by slipping out to the southeast.
They will then be able to roll up towards Kopani and widen the breakthrough further.
Since 76GAAD has failed, what is described above is now playing out without being able to be stopped, just a matter of time.
The fact is that all these fortifications give Ukraine an opportunity to advance under cover across the fields as soon as they manage to break into the systems – Russia has only created traps for themselves. The trench systems that curve south of Novoprokopivka are perfect for Ukraine to advance in, for example, and encircle the entire settlement.
Everyone can see that there are further openings at the southern front, between the city of Donetsk and Horlivka, between Soledar – Kreminna, and up at the northern front.
The Easter egg of night fighting was excellent and the Easter egg of where the last offensive reserve will go is even better when it eventually comes. It’s probably fewer than the 10 brigades we discussed a few months ago but there is a huge blow that has not yet been delivered at some weak point where the Russians have left a sparse picket line.
At northern Luhansk, Azov and the CV90 brigade are now present – I really don’t understand why journalists insist that UA is weak in that area.
Regarding Bakhmut, attentive listeners have probably heard what UA has previously said – “we are quite satisfied that RU is sending in reserves and attacking us in our dominant positions” or similar.
That’s all we need to know about the Bakhmut offensives so far – a flytrap.
The Bakhmut offensive has actually gone better than the one who sketched out the big campaign plan thought, some legend with beginning hair loss.
I also think there are clear anchor positions on the flanks for a breakthrough at Verbove so you can have a defensible bridgehead for further offensive down towards Berdyansk.
Those of us who have scrutinized the big campaign plan know which attack vector at the southern front is most important but then reality probably knocks as well instead of the parents’ basement and Rise of Nations where you can choose difficulty depending on how late at night you play.
It is very quiet from the West right now, after the newspapers stopped with the doomsday doctrine there isn’t much they think has news value except maybe Satan 2.
As usual, one sits and looks at fortification, progress, and unit maps and feels that it really is hanging in the balance right now.
Then one thinks (today again…) that Ukraine has cleared through 10km of minefields that were among the densest and deepest in modern times under constant artillery and drone fire. Then they repelled counterattacks by VDV, reconnaissance, spetsnaz, and naval infantry. They continued forward and have now stepped straight into the first Suvorikin line which has bunkers and underground tunnels.
I don’t understand what the West is worried about – UA has just shown that they can do the impossible, break through the legendary Suvorikin line, albeit they have two more lines left out of three.
Before that, they have proven they can take the initiative on all fronts and they have proven they can invade Russia.
If the West were a parent and Ukraine a child wanting to prove themselves worthy, the parents would have been fired.
Ukraine was smart enough to understand that the fortifications were too well built so they decimated the defense instead because they figured out that a bunker is just a bunker that doesn’t shoot back but has Russians inside (a slightly modified old Chinese proverb).
It’s crystal clear to everyone that if the Russians could have held the first Suvorikin line longer than three days they would have – that UA got a foot in the door and threw it wide open was because the defense was too weak.
The Russian imperialist army that all the West is terrified of didn’t even manage to defend themselves in bunkers behind enormous minefields.
Not many, least of all Russia, thought it would fall but Ukraine and the thread have never doubted and now they are on their way straight through it – the thread is Ukraine’s foster parents who will take over when the West gets fired 😀
In the pitch-black analyses, everyone worries (or hopes) that Ukraine will run out of offensive capability. I can’t see that they have committed their entire offensive reserve to battle yet – there are a number of elite brigades with capability.
Brigades like the 3rd and 5th storm brigades at Bakhmut have fought for months without interruption – the attrition rate simply can’t be those 2-3 weeks the Russians seemed to have in their winter offensive.
Again – if there were videos of hundreds of burning UA vehicles, we would have seen them.
My guess is that they can increase the intensity until the ground bearing capacity stops them and the grass and mud conqueror Argus has given us reassuring news about that – months left.
We have had many nail-biters in this war but this is unequivocally the most important thing playing out right now – you simply can’t sit still.
The Russian team is taking screenshots from the maps and saying “three months of offensive, can you see the little blue UA has retaken”. A week ago it was the doomsday doctrine in the media and Ukraine’s own PR is starting to sound a bit desperate again.
The turncoats in the West probably have a wet finger in the air right now to see which way they should run and there are enough subversive elements in the West who will reinforce the slightest hint that UA will agree to territorial concessions.
At the same time as Putin is panicking, shuffling around in his bunker in Altai and binge-eating caviar – his army is being shattered, it cannot hold the captured terrain, his strategic bombers are being taken out on the ground, he has run out of ammunition and weapons, China has other things to do, Moscow is drone-bombed daily, the waters off Crimea have been surrendered by walkover, and so on endlessly.
The Ukraine war has an end date and the West MUST keep up the pressure, otherwise Chamberlain’s paper-waving will appear as a great victory, because that would be giving the win to Russia when they were not even close to being able to defend themselves.
If, against all odds, there is another offensive for Ukraine, it should be Abrams and Bradleys in all units except territorials who have received all the eastern vehicles, and there should be clouds of missiles closely followed by Apaches and F16s – at least that is what should be communicated to the Russians so they really believe it.
Just so everyone understands how this war is really going, the Belgorod raids and Wagner coup clearly showed that Russia completely ignored its border defense, and any country with a bit of pride would at least have tried to fortify its land border, at least against Ukraine.
Now, several months later, Erik14 can sensationally post that the “Free Russian Legion” (or whatever they are called) has entered Bryansk Oblast and advanced several kilometers without seeing anything other than two FSB border guards whom they chased until they died.
https://twitter.com/astraiaintel/status/1699189752631546254?t=4AHt53lkMX592-ZSdqbnFA&s=19
https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1699289551917776909?s=46&t=iBZa4E3FTuEAnFITL93N6A
A wild guess is that Ukraine could invade Moscow if they wanted to, but they don’t – they just want to regain their freedom.
The level of arrogance from the Russian leadership is not small when, even after being invaded and almost overthrown, they still do not reinforce their own land border except with two border guards.
I have guessed that the West has given Russia guarantees, Zelensky hinted at something like that. Then again, the Ukrainians are street-smart like a stray cat and will do whatever benefits them best, whatever that is.
So Ukraine has invaded Russia again without Russia being able to stop them – can this war just end so we don’t have to be ashamed of Russia and Putin’s incompetence any longer…
If that wasn’t enough to liven you up at your morning coffee, the French have finally done something sensible and summed up Russian tanks at the start of the war – between 6,000 and 7,000 of all categories.
The accumulated losses are 4,500.
Add to that those with technical faults, which in previous wars have been 30% of the total, so it strengthens the argument that the Russians are “snorkort” on armor as someone in the thread has argued for quite a while.
I have always liked the French 😀
https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1699306321055490154?s=20
This war should have ended a long time ago, when the Russians’ winter offensive failed in an epic fiasco most would probably have pulled back, but you have to give the Russians credit for being stubborn.
If Russia only understands violence, the West must ensure that Ukraine can deliver more violence until Russia feels it has had enough and sits crying loudly at the UN over Ukrainian aggression.
Anything else is doing Russia’s bidding and they do not deserve to succeed in talking their way out of this mess they have gotten themselves into. Even China has had enough now.