15:30 – Johan No.1
haha, yes I probably simplified a bit – we are also trying to have a foundation and then you have to fiddle with the rest until it works.
For example, a child spoke three languages fluently at six years old and the next started talking at five. That’s more what I meant.
Your second point, those paratroopers I got from an interview with Zelensky, the long one on BBC I think, but maybe I remember wrong?
According to him, there were parachute drops over Kiev AND infiltrated units beforehand, but at my age memory isn’t what it should be.
15:38 – Johan No.1
Directly from the horse’s mouth, now I don’t know exactly how to interpret it but it seems they have broken through the Klischiivka – Ozarianivka line that runs along the railway embankment, that line has fallen?
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1700140400302850250?s=46&t=PVPxKGx5TjaUsBpDLmntmg
Then the next line is Opytne – lower Zaitseve.
15:39 – Johan No.1
And Bakhmut just became more tedious to try to hold.
15:48 – Johan No.1
And while Ukraine sacrifices generations trying to protect the world from Russian barbarism, the UN is secretly negotiating with Russia to ease the sanctions.
https://twitter.com/jayinkyiv/status/1700128786333782099?s=46&t=PVPxKGx5TjaUsBpDLmntmg
16:09 – Johan No.1
-fear of escalation.
Russia cannot escalate and China could escalate but the only ones they could go after are India or Russia.
No one really believes China will survive massive amphibious operations?
-there is basically no real risk of escalation.
-own security.
Portugal, Spain, UK, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium could, for example, send all their deployed IFVs and MBTs to Ukraine without risking their own security?
None of those countries are worried about coup-like attacks from the EU, right?
-long-term thinking.
Absolutely, you don’t trust Ukraine after 1.5 years but you should if you had seriously engaged in risk analysis.
We make it very simple –
If criminals have broken into your neighbor’s house, raped the wife and children before they were murdered, and then forced their way into two of the rooms bordering your plot by a husband who gave up – are you then safe?
If you also know that the husband managed to fight the criminals for five days and you could have handed him a revolver with extra ammunition so he won – wouldn’t you have done it?
-pragmatic investment thinking.
I have a suspicion why the US is slowing deliveries and it’s because the arms industry wants a long war.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
A new cold war would be perfect for the arms industry.
16:41 – MatsExtrude
👍Sounds good, although otherwise it has been good to hold the heights and then finish them off from there.
I think they can almost afford to fall back one more round and lure them out and get them to take Klishchiivka one last time.😎
17:32 – Johan No.1
Sensing a certain mistake on my part, I was thinking of the 3rd Assault brigade which is conducting the fights so it was confirmed directly from units on site.
No, it wasn’t horse-face Lavrov this time 😀
17:34 – Johan No.1
Putin has many missed calls from someone 👇
https://twitter.com/darthputinkgb/status/1700166373421240565?s=46&t=PVPxKGx5TjaUsBpDLmntmg
13:22 – Johan No.1
Sorry for a slightly off-topic post maybe, I’ve been googling who stopped the project and they are real heavyweight elephants. Our project is owned by a multi-billionaire but those who managed to stop it make him look like a teenager working at McDonald’s.
Since it came up – I see managing a war a bit like having small children, now we (my wife and I) believed that practice makes perfect (star stop on Dengamle’s misinterpretations) and everything you thought you knew about child-rearing goes out the window every time because every child is unique and the life situation is always different.
When two relatively equal parties go to war with the training and doctrine they believe makes them superior to the opponent, the winner is presumably the one who can both adapt best and then gain the upper hand in the right capabilities in a constant whack-a-mole?
At the start of the war, the Russian army was – relatively – capable compared to Ukraine’s – they had already adopted drone weapons and their infiltration into UA with all capabilities was high. They dropped paratroopers over Kiev and several SOF units had infiltrated.
What seems to be confirmed is that when they advanced from the border, the ground bearing capacity was too poor so they had to move onto the roads and there they became long snakes of targets – if it turns out that it was the Olympics that delayed them, that would be really funny.
There was also a rumor that they sold fuel for alcohol so when they ran out of gas, the logistics were caught off guard because the fuel should have been enough.
But they got down to the west of Kiev and tried to fight their way towards the capital.
It is indisputable that what stopped them were Ukrainian units that fought to the last soldier almost everywhere outside Kiev and then on the eastern front. Some units suffered 90% losses.
In southern Ukraine they made advances and northern Luhansk they took over time – there Ukraine was outclassed and the rumor was that in the south the FSB had paid the bribes.
When the initial smoke cleared, it was then largely about both in the whack-a-mole game knocking down the enemy’s capabilities and then acquiring your own combo of capabilities that makes you win.
Every war is unique.
The ability to adapt is everything.
Ukraine had a base of highly motivated infantry that did the impossible throughout the war. We all saw the videos from the eastern front when artillery rained down continuously and units were completely overrun. Mariupol’s defenders who surrendered were 1,500 for example.
They have since decimated Russian artillery and armored vehicles very hard.
At the same time they have built up critical capabilities either through deliveries or through cheap substitutes.
Unfortunately, the Russians managed to counter UA’s offensive build-up of mechanized units with something as simple as mines and time, and the pendulum swung once more. It was a bit unexpected but says a lot about how they constantly try to outpace each other in a capability and then it takes quite little to disrupt it (or quite a bit, a few million mines…).
Taking a step back, fortifications and mines were the last thing the Russians could pull out of the hat. They are low on armored vehicles, artillery is heavily decimated, they lack well-trained soldiers, and they cannot achieve air superiority.
For Ukraine to achieve its decisive victory, the West MUST maintain deliveries of everything Ukraine considers necessary so that the scales do not tip in RU’s favor.
UA has proven excellent at adapting to situations but the Russians have also adapted and their Lancet drones have proven to work well. Right now RU knows very well what they are weak in and is in contact with China to cover that need over time.
I think everyone understands that the charade with North Korea is just theater so China can start sending weapons – ammunition above all. RU has reached a point where they cannot manage this without more support from China and then it becomes perfect to call it weapons from North Korea.
This nail-biter is incredible and now people are a bit anxious and glancing towards what the preliminary announcements are around the Ramstein meeting and hear absolutely nothing. The West must provide the capabilities UA considers necessary, not doing so would be giving Russia a win they not only do not deserve but could never have gotten if the West was not misled.
We have definitely reached a point where Ukraine went all-in, their most protected capabilities are clearing defense systems on the southern front and they are conducting offensive operations on all fronts.
We still see no signs of it abating and we see no signs that the Russians are deploying strategic reserves or mobilizing, the first do not exist and the second I don’t think they can mobilize even if there are now rumors about 200,000.
But the amount of ammunition, vehicles and maintenance needed now is astronomical and to keep the pressure on all fronts the deliveries must be maintained and I don’t think we are reading anything about that right now.
The missile rain has decreased significantly for example while the Taurus is lying gathering dust in Germany.
Do you know who else isn’t reading anything?
Putin.
And then he hopes UA will run out of gas. The war-deciding weapons package simply must be communicated no later than at the Ramstein meeting and there is no pre-talk at all right now.
Ukraine has done the impossible but the West must keep the pressure up equally from their side to accelerate the degradation in RU.
Then I want to make a comparison – do you remember when Wagner stubbornly stormed across the fields to take Bakhmut during winter and spring and the thread, media and West were in a state of dissolution over this nothing burger?
All the pro-Ukrainian bloggers who were furious that UA did not abandon Bakhmut, it was called a “key city” by the media and the concern was enormous when Wagner died on every street in droves.
Now that UA is pressing on towards Bakhmut and the southern front it sounds the opposite – it is no existential threat to Russia and nothing happens other than the offensive actually failing – there’s a bit of yawning.
But Wagner, they were deadly.
The only offensive that has failed here is probably Wagner’s, Bakhmut is encircled and they are dissolved as a unit?
As uninterested as I was in Bakhmut, I am equally interested in the spring offensive – the importance of this cannot be underestimated. It spells Russian low point and wavering West.
Just a reflection on how I and the world have valued – very important – and – completely irrelevant – very differently half the war.
Do you remember when the Russians were supposed to land in Odessa and the battle plan was to connect the land route to Transnistria?
The EU had completely silently watched when Russia occupied a country in Europe (Moldova) in 2021 and no one lifted a finger.
The Russian plan was not wrong and the fact that the West looked away all the time meant that Putin finally took action.
They had laid the groundwork by the president essentially dismantling the Ukrainian defense, so by 2014 they were a country of 40 million with almost no fighting units – a bit like the peace movement and you know who always want to do the same with Sweden for our eternal peace.
We have come a long way since the attack on Kiev and the attempt to reach Transnistria, but Putin keeps grinding on – nothing screams failure louder than having already abandoned 50% of the conquered territory, but the more desperate Putin becomes to get his way, the more willing the West seems to be to give it to him.
I see no return to normalcy after this, Russia, China, and the BRICS have really shown their cards now with their multipolar world, and half of Africa is in various stages of recolonization.
How can this escalate as everyone is so terrified of?
China could attack Taiwan, but after that, the only real targets China could attack would be India or Russia for imperialistic amphibious landing attempts in the Chinese seas, which would end in a bloodbath.
We have a very important autumn ahead of us, and maybe too much time is being spent on this now, but it is geopolitically important not to actually follow it. Ukraine has done the impossible, and now the West just has to do the fully possible and very simple task of communicating the war-deciding weapons package.