10:19 – Johan No.1
I have guessed that the “pause” was not only because the weather was bad for the simple reason that the Russians did not need to pause in the bad weather?
You don’t prepare an offensive in a week, this has been simmering for a while and Ukraine has known what was coming. They must be reallocating resources to some extent, I guess, and then there is a pause 😀
Yes, I am very clear that FAB500 and FAB1500 are not dropped over the targets, that is the whole point of them being able to be dropped from a distance – was written unclearly.
At Bakhmut, a few brigades defended from winter 2023 until the spring offensive started while about 20 brigades in total were brought forward in the area, and those were units not used for a winter offensive. UA has probably announced that they mobilized about a million men under arms or similar?
My assessment then was that the brigades brought forward to Bakhmut that had not gone into defense were relatively intact. I now see that a couple seem to have been moved from Bakhmut to the southern front, presumably, but most remain.
I also cannot see that all have participated in combat even though they have rotated in some new ones and those fighting seem to have a battalion or so in the active front.
But yes, maybe there isn’t a third left that they have not activated yet 😀
My two cents PJ.
11:43 – MatsExtrude
Many thanks for the situation report!
12:05 – Johan No.1
Thank you MXT!
12:08 – Johan No.1
I always extrapolate too far 😀
My thought was that UA now has about as many tanks and IFVs as Russia, they are not losing heaps of them, and they have an excellent network of workshops that restore them – they have reached a level where they have enough.
Do you remember last fall when they were running around like desperate car salesmen with sweaty brows and darting eyes wanting “300 MBTs”?
But yes, more of everything.
And absolutely, if they manage to cut UA infrastructure again this year it would be unfortunate.
12:20 – Johan No.1
Now you are putting words in my mouth to be able to write “I’m sorry, but no” 😀
I wrote – “At Bakhmut, a few brigades defended from winter 2023 until the spring offensive started while about 20 brigades in total were brought forward in the area, and those were units not used for a winter offensive.”
How the units were positioned we had to use unit maps for. If you have better data than that, that’s great and we know which units fought in Bakhmut until Wagner stopped.
Then I write – “UA has probably announced that they mobilized about a million men under arms or similar?”
Which is a total figure, right, and has come from Zelensky himself or some representative, nowhere does it say “1 million new at the front?”
At Bakhmut, we basically only have Ukraine’s own reports that they fought “1:9” and that losses for RU were 1:5 or more, 1:9 has been reported but it varies.
We know the size of Wagner that fought in the area, the time, that they rotate battalions and that there are reserves.
From your post, is the point you want to make that Ukraine has no reserves left today in Bakhmut?
What is your assessment regarding the southern front, have they committed everything and have no reserves left?
Does that then mean that Ukraine’s offensive is over since they have no units to fight offensively with going forward?
Now I tried to interpret where you want to go and if I hit the mark I don’t think we are there yet, I believe there is offensive capacity left 😀
13:34 – Johan No.1
I take with me here PJ that I express myself a bit carelessly and will be more precise 👍
If you then have credible information that the whole low point was only the weather, it is quite reasonable even if the Russians considered themselves able to attack in the bad weather. My thought was that UA moved artillery and therefore artillery losses went down and that they are now waiting to see if there will be more offensive operations from RU.
According to one of the YouTubers, RU had hidden units in the cities of Donetsk and Makiivka for this and UA first caught on to what was going on when the units lined up in their ufa. The low point coincided for a few days with this RU offensive.
FAB500 we have previously written about that Ukraine may lack suitable LV close to the front for them since, as you write, they are released at a distance. Ahkp knocked them out rapidly when it happened.
Regarding the units at Bakhmut, you probably overinterpreted what I wrote 😀 but can you elaborate that there are no reserves?
I have interpreted it as that they have fought in the area with X number and within the brigades they have rotated battalion-wise and then rotated the brigades. And that when brigades went to rest, they replenished with reserves in a system we have previously been informed they have.
When the spring offensive started, they fought with 5-6 brigades of the total, I got the impression from the way we have seen in the videos, group or platoon strength.
Please elaborate on the reasoning.
09:48 – Johan No.1
According to what we wrote the day before yesterday evening, it is not only at Avdiivka that RU is now conducting catastrophic offensive operations, although yesterday we only wrote about Avdiivka and it now dominates the reporting, so it will be Avdiivka again today. Russians are dying a little everywhere right now.
Also quite sure that UA’s temporary pause is to wait out this suicide.
Grankovitch summarized during last night’s shift which units participated in the attack at Avdiivka and in northern Luhansk. If you remember, 25CAA was the only strategic reserve added to the fronts and a CAA was withdrawn from northern Luhansk with its two MRRs, right?
Where it went is unclear but 41CAA and 1 GT were also withdrawn and sent to Avdiivka (1st GTA? later the link writes 60 GTD and I only find one GTD up in northern Luhansk and 1GTA was probably knocked out in Izyum?).
Thus, northern Luhansk has been further weakened and the southern front has not been reinforced – at these two fronts this is negative because 25CAA has been the ones attacking up in northern Luhansk and taking astronomical losses.
At Avdiivka it is absolutely a bloodbath – the losses are enormous and even if it was a surprise attack, no one was surprised except by the total incompetence when the Russians were knocked out kilometers away from their combat objectives.
This is on par with the miracle at Vuhledar or when they committed suicide by voluntary drowning up at Siversky Donets.
They get points for a brave attempt – artillery, ahkp and special aircraft, three attack points and diversion at another two or three points.
Ukraine is absolutely not strong in that area, they have units intended for defense but have so far held out and they are extremely exposed in a half-arc.
Some want to say that this is the Russians’ attempt to relieve the southern front and Bakhmut but I am of the opinion that this is Shoigu trying to save his own skin. He chose the two places he thought were weakest, northern Luhansk and Avdiivka, to try to snatch a small win so Putin would feel he had fulfilled his order.
We can probably now conclude that Russia is incapable of offensive operations and that in this war they will not be able to take more ground. The units had all rested, trained and been resourced for a long time. This is the new Russian army with mobilized troops who have now shown what they are capable of – not much beyond dying.
As usual, it goes around in the media that the Russians are on a major offensive with the accompanying analysis that Ukraine will soon lose the war.
The truth is that they have been weakened more up in northern Luhansk, not reinforced the southern front and lost enormous amounts of materiel and personnel at Avdiivka and in northern Luhansk in the past week – the weak Russian position is further weakened.
Zelensky’s wish list now has one item – air defense. That means they consider themselves to have enough armored vehicles and artillery, presumably?
Germany has 10 more Leopard 1A5 in its new package, Abrams deliveries are starting and there was more Marder and something else recently, Stryker, you almost get the feeling they are topping up armored vehicles over time?
At Avdiivka it is RU ahkp and aircraft with FAB500 and FAB1500 bombs in large quantities. At the southern front it was aircraft and Ahkp that caused and are causing great damage.
Clearly, special aircraft like F-16 today would have made a big difference and more air defense as well, UA no longer has the ability to deny the Russians flight time over the fronts.
Now this is a truth with modification because for quite a while RU did not want to sacrifice the air force and army aviation after spring 2022 and they have now, due to lack of artillery, been forced to expose these resources again.
At the start of the spring offensive at the southern front, UA knocked out all ahkp in a few weeks and at Bakhmut it has been air-free for a long time but in the last month we are getting more and more indications of activated Russian air force.
Also in Kherson they are air bombing UA with FAB500 and FAB1500 – that should be well inside blue territory which is worrying.
In the long run – clearly ATACMS and more missiles would also have made a big difference in knocking out all air and army aviation at the front-line bases, there are certainly hundreds they could reach in a nice two-day campaign.
It is what it is, unfortunately one can only conclude, the West is and remains the West 😐
Yes, now some about war-deciding weapon packages that never need to be delivered are starting to come and we are nervously waiting for the USA 100bn dollar package but letting UA run their spring offensive without sufficient air defense or new aircraft is almost as incompetent as missing the low point in September 2022 – to me completely incomprehensible but they have run out of tears over all this problem child we call the West is doing.
That the Russians do not lack materiel or personnel is an absolute lie and it aligns with the idea that RU can never lose because they have unlimited amounts – an invincible threat that it is just as well to give up against.
If they had unlimited amounts, they would not have fielded T54-55 or withdrawn artillery from the 40s and we would not have seen all these films of rusted-out ammunition.
(there are also not thousands of T90s in mountain caves in the Urals as the pro-Russians claim).
We also would not have had the begging trains to North Korea and Iran, right?
They do not have personnel either, why raise the age to call up former officers to 70 years if they have unlimited personnel?
Why do they need to try to persuade Cubans, Serbs and everyone else to fight for them if the barracks are overflowing with recruits?
Why is there no mobilization, the one that was supposed to start in September and then October 1, if they have unlimited numbers to mobilize?
What they did have, however, was absolutely superior artillery and air force,
https://twitter.com/friaukraina/status/1605485831984074752?s=46&t=FgJPDEliAIcfM1y0eHQHmQ
There UA has now largely succeeded in the impossible and decimated the artillery but the air force and army aviation are still a threat, especially since RU has realized how well FAB500 works.
RU adapts to the situation and has discovered that FAB500 and FAB1500 work well. We have previously wondered why they did not use missiles against fixed defenses in e.g. Bakhmut but now they have started doing it with FAB500 and FAB1500 instead (not exactly started now but they have begun using the ammunition extensively and increased production).
Germany, UK and France could today deliver 800 missiles with no restrictions and after 2-3 very intense days the Russian air force and army aviation would be so reduced that the FAB500 bombings would stop completely.
But they do not do that so Ukraine has to grind on with what they have and take unnecessarily high losses 🤬.
We wondered yesterday why it is quiet at Staromaiorske – something going on or units withdrawn. Rybar believes that all marine brigades have been driven back to Kherson, completely unconfirmed of course. It is also only Russian sources worrying about a larger crossing of the Dnipro.
The one who wrote the big campaign plan included something about crossing the Dnipro but all information about it comes from Russian sources so nothing to rely on.
We are actually approaching a decisive moment even though the general perception is that the war will continue for several more years – RU are weak on the southern front, that is indisputable, and at Bakhmut they cannot hold back.
RU has tried to carry out offensive operations up in northern Luhansk and Avdiivka, which has gone unusually badly even for the Russians. It is downright embarrassing now to be in the combat leadership of the Ukraine war.
All local counterattacks on the southern front and at Bakhmut have failed, and 100% of the VDV has now been used up. I believe that there are no regiments in reserve and the condition of the VDV is, according to my amateurish guess, now terrible.
This suicide mission is what RU has been occupied with after their winter offensive which led to a low point in the spring.
Today we therefore have the mother of all Russian low points 😀
The big question then naturally becomes whether Ukraine still has the capability to go on the offensive?
According to earlier reports, it is one or possibly two brigades on the southern front that have been severely decimated, the 33rd and 47th Mechanized. Otherwise, we see the same brigades fighting for months – the 3rd Assault brigade at Bakhmut, for example.
They have probably activated 2/3 of their offensive reserve at Bakhmut and the southern front is my guess, but that does not mean that the first two-thirds are finished, only that they have been in combat and rotated battalions into the active front over time.
They have removed the threat posed by the Black Sea Fleet, there are about 8 ships or so left in Sevastopol as Erik14 posted, and their air defense, radar, and missile platforms are thus not a threat west of Crimea.
This opens up for constant raids between Kinburn Spit – Crimea and down on Crimea and is a threat in the rear of the southern front.
Crossing of the Dnipro has already been done and is increasing, and RU does not have enough units in the area to strike the bridgeheads.
In my opinion, they have essentially eliminated the threat posed by Russian artillery, but they still have to deal with the air force and army aviation, which is both unnecessary and unfortunate.
Where we stand today, Ukraine understands, see Budanov below, what is happening and that Russia is trying to broaden the conflict so that support for Ukraine will be diluted.
The thread has for quite some time discussed that it will be this fall that matters if one wants to guarantee continued support from the West and that something “bigger” needs to be delivered.
It is my amateurish guess from the parents’ basement that Ukraine has set high goals for this spring offensive and has not revised these combat objectives.
We will see very ambitious breakthrough attempts here during late summer.
IF (which we do not) a situation arises where Ukraine runs out of gas, then the West will have a global conflict on its hands and can start calling itself Chamberlain, and that is not positive.
Budanov is not wrong when he writes that we stand on the brink of a larger conflict, the thread has made the same analysis.
https://twitter.com/flash_news_ua/status/1712343829225918509?s=46&t=FgJPDEliAIcfM1y0eHQHmQ
Now I agree with the UN here, but it is worth noting that they come out with harsh statements immediately while they have tiptoed around the Russians for 1.5 years.
https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1712267478943084903?s=46&t=FgJPDEliAIcfM1y0eHQHmQ
The Baltic connector was a seismic event.
https://twitter.com/oplatsen/status/1712051265671172356?s=46&t=-CZqeA5w0mDSeg6rDCjfQg
One more point to make, territorial defense has for quite some time in the thread been described as capable infantry brigades and counted in the total. At Avdiivka, it was a TDF brigade that took one of the hits in a Russian combined arms warfare attempt and fought excellently.
If you remember all the discussions about how lousy the Ukrainian soldiers always are according to various officers – isn’t it somewhat contradicted by the fact that the territorial defense stops mechanized brigades with AHKP, artillery, and air support?
The miracle at Avdiivka has lifted spirits quite a bit, long columns of destroyed Russian vehicles are like standing in an elevator painted light blue that moves silently with some calming low elevator music. You realize that the Russians have not learned a single lesson from the entire war and are just as lousy as they always have been.
Positive-Positive.