2023-10-14 -

10:54 – Johan No.1

The Lions ✊
https://twitter.com/ukrainiansquad/status/1712878591573168221?s=46&t=p1KKU65QdcUvvnvLaT6Qhg
When you watch this film, you see yourself and your work colleagues as a tank crew and infantry. These are ordinary teachers, engineers, and McDonald’s employees who have taken up arms and who have family at home where the partner cannot sleep because of all the worry.

Since I am among those who believe the losses are 1:2, I also believe that RU has around 3000 removed from combat readiness for the third day in a row – staggering numbers.

You must also not forget the logistics; if the VDV is now pulled from the southern front, how well-equipped are BARS and the thousand-strong units replacing them? Do they have anti-tank missiles, rocket launchers, direct artillery lines, armored vehicles, and so on?
They probably function best when they are an infantry unit subordinated to a motorized or armored brigade, but as independent units, they are likely weak?

Everything is logistics, as they say, and if Ukraine had been supplied with missiles, they could have continued striking high-value targets deep behind enemy lines, but now there has been a shortage of mushroom clouds for a long time.
One never stops being furious about the West’s sluggishness here 🤬

Then yesterday we had two breaking news, one of which I was happily second on, which I see as a big win – the glide bombs are here 🙏
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1712919513010762194?s=46&t=p1KKU65QdcUvvnvLaT6Qhg

The other is that UA now fires more artillery than Russia in absolute terms, look at the graph from Erik14 and you will understand what a sensation this is and above all “Ukraine has unlimited ammunition at Zaporizhia”.
https://twitter.com/albafella1/status/1712902835019403510?t=UNsyUKNPiGWQHaeOBjn31A&s=19

If you remember a discussion about ammunition shortages that refused to die out where some claimed that Ukraine absolutely fully resourced this spring offensive. This supports their assumption to some extent that UA has unlimited ammunition after several months in mid-October – right again 😀

It is true that UA has gone from acute disadvantage to 1:1, we have heard it from many sources now, it is absolutely sensational and Russia cannot in any way handle these artillery losses, the statistics do not lie.,

If they only had LV or precision aircraft today that could protect the fronts from FAB500, FAB1500, and Ahkp, it might have gone better than this. UA themselves have stated that because of these capabilities, they cannot assemble larger units but must fight in the way they do now – adapted to the situation.

The Accent man discusses new RU reserves at Bakhmut and on the unit maps RU has significantly reinforced south of the built-up area in Bakhmut. Furthermore, he pointed out that UA strikes units already during the buildup and has destroyed a total of 40 different pieces of equipment in about a week.

To summarize, UA has advanced in an area RU has reinforced as much as possible, and UA destroys reinforcements already during the buildup.

Presumably, the RU units are also severely undermanned because it is a forest of brigades in a small geographical area.
According to him, UA fights with; 120th reconnaissance battalion, 28th and 93rd mechanized, and 5th and 92nd assault with 45th artillery.

Again, one can note that the unit maps correspond well with that and that is probably the number of brigades we have previously been told are fighting at a given time – they rotate in one battalion at a time?

45th artillery has in that case detached artillery to Bakhmut but one gets the impression that they have pooled indirect capabilities south of Bakhmut in large numbers now?

The next step for RU will be to retreat to the line Opytne – lower Zaitseve but now UA tank stands on the railway embankment and shoots accurately – an unsustainable line because they are within max range for tanks.
Then it is the Popasna – Svitlodarsk line that applies (which does not actually run there but got that name).

According to reports yesterday, UA has moved down 1 NG brigade to Avdiivka, it was up in northern Luhansk and is a competent unit.

I think indications are starting to appear that DPR units are now being deployed at Avdiivka and that should mean that they have used up what they moved down from northern Luhansk, presumably?

We have previously guessed that the condition is poor for the DPR units around Donetsk and that RU has handed over the defense of the darkest Donbass to the DPR units.

With the attrition rate now at Avdiivka, you can probably wear down 3-4 heavily undermanned DPR brigades per week and there are not infinite numbers of them in Donbass. It would not surprise me if the majority of DPR units in the area have fewer than 1000 men in many cases.

When UA advanced towards Opytne, there was only whining about the rebels, no food and no ammunition.
There is supposed to be some VDV unit there now as well, which I do not know.

This is a terrible war in every way and it is hard to accept that the West has acted as it has so far now when we have several escalations – Serbia and Kosovo, I..el – H..as, Turkey in Syria and what else?

However, a united front against RU is now forming – war-deciding weapons package, oligarch assets confiscated, tough rhetoric, and a West that stands firm. This is something we have long called for.

The question then becomes who gives up first, RU or Ukraine.
Budanov himself believes that RU can keep going until 2025 and maybe 2026 and that UA will keep going.
When you read that, there is really only one thing to say – give Ukraine all the missiles that are about to be decommissioned in the West, ALL, and without restrictions.

If RU strikes UA’s energy infrastructure this winter, Ukraine MUST respond proportionally.
We know that is the only thing RU reacts to, nothing else.

UA has performed miracles but now RU has prepared missiles for months to strike the power infrastructure this winter which will directly hit civilians and the economy that remains.

If UA in a big strike first hits all the Iskander platforms and then the strategic bombers, there will at least be fewer and then they respond proportionally – one substation for one substation.

Now maybe the West understands this but forcing Ukraine to fight without air support, mediocre LV and without missiles against an opponent who has exactly these capabilities and then forbidding Ukraine to enter Russia where they have achieved the greatest success is high risk. It is all red lights at the casino and hoping for the best.

If the West has not lifted the restrictions, they should do so immediately and Freedom Russia and all other units should be unleashed in the northern oblasts.

The war is already over – RU cannot conquer more land and they lose ground daily so it is only a matter of time but Putin can prolong the suffering considerably if the West goes half speed.

If one were to capture Kursk and Belgorod, for example, that would presumably have the same effect as the Azov strike?
What shakes the regime to its core and leads them to turn inward, as we hoped the Azov strike would do.

Over time, it would have especially drained the fronts of reserves that would have needed to be sent up to the northern oblasts.
If they had gone all-in immediately with all ten brigades, Belgorod would surely have fallen, as poorly defended as it was then.
Zelensky has already confirmed that the West opposed an invasion of Russia, so not much loose speculation but confirmed, even though we guessed that correctly for quite a while.

It’s hard not to become more bitter the longer this atrocity is allowed to continue. In Ukraine, there are endless photos of the lost on the stove with burnt-down candles. How the remaining lonely adults manage to carry on is incomprehensible.
It is a national trauma; it’s easy to sit and dictate terms when you don’t have family at the front and don’t have to run down with the children to the shelters every night and lie awake worried.

2023 started brilliantly when the coalition of tanks got going, but then it has been disappointment after disappointment, a bit like my bosses probably always feel about me 😀

They got resources for the spring offensive and a batch of Storm Shadow missiles that made moon craters of ammunition depots in the darkest Donbass, but then the fun ended.

The air force didn’t come, the armored vehicles so-so, the missiles were paused, and we’ve seen how Ukraine has had to adjust to solve the task with what they have.

The ban on entering Russia gives me high blood pressure just thinking about it – one would like to strangle the politicians who came up with that insane strategy 🤬

If I may guess, the Russian influence operations have largely aimed at exactly this – less support and more restrictions, and the West should seriously examine itself going forward and root out the pro-Russian elements who have managed to exert this influence.

Then when the defeatists get going, it’s always Ukraine that should tire first, give up first, run out of weapons and ammunition first, and so on.

Now we have a graph a bit above showing that Ukraine went from 1:15 artillery disadvantage to 1:1 with a slight advantage. And they have better hit rates and lose fewer pieces.

But no one says that Russia will throw in the towel and go home with their heads hanging because “it’s impossible”.
They claim that since we don’t know UA losses, they must be astronomical, even though we know RU loses 5:1 since spring, as UA representatives have told us.

Of course, the country is exhausted; they have been fighting as a nation for 1.5 years with half-bad help, and the war is high-intensity.

JEF met again yesterday, and I read somewhere that the intention is to create a NATO unit for the northern flank where Sweden and Finland were the cornerstones. I guess that means the US hands over responsibility to Scandinavia for the northern flank and provides support where needed?

NATO has never been this strong on the northern flank and it is an enormous capability increase for the organization.
It’s about time to clear Transnistria of Russian troops as well, I think; UA is killing Wagner in Africa, so Transnistria shouldn’t be difficult?

Yes, it requires the country Moldova to ask for help so everything is done legally, but they should be able to vote for that, right?

I am now of the strong opinion that countries in Europe should have joined forces and created a no-fly zone over western Ukraine with the justification that they intervene humanitarily before this winter and need to protect civilian personnel. That could have been sold to the world.

Air defense and fighter aircraft manned by Western countries, Sweden could, for example, send in a division of JAS.
Then Ukraine can move all its air defense and air close to the front.

Then Poland should send in “border guards” (SOF in customs uniforms) and take over all surveillance against Belarus so all personnel are freed up from there.

All this is politically and diplomatically unlocked; we are far beyond that on the escalation ladder.

It would free up critical air defense and air resources for Ukraine in the interim period before they get their new air force.
Russia is not a natural force that it’s better to lie down for; they have cheated their way to undeservedly much over the years by building up a threat image that does not correspond to reality.

In many ways, it is probably their own influence operations in the West that have been a great help. When a person like Sarkozy managed to out himself, you understand that they have penetrated far into the inner circles.

If the West had already today supplied Ukraine with missiles, tanks, IFVs, air defense, and fighter aircraft, Russia would be sitting in the UN crying and begging to at least keep Moscow, please.

At the start of the Belgorod raids, Ukraine had about a dozen brigades with hard bites in the area, but since the West wisely demanded that they refrain from war-winning operations, they unleashed a couple of hundred Russian volunteers and discovered to their surprise that the border was completely undefended and that there were no units in the area.

I seem to remember there was talk about evacuating Belgorod when it happened, but it passed quickly.
Belgium was quick to condemn, and then Ukraine kept a low profile.
Missed opportunity if anything to create ripples and get Russia to turn inward!

Russia will of course not turn inward before the pressure is high enough, and the West seems to try to balance this so the pressure does not become too high.

My guess is that it stems from a fear that if Russia turns inward, anything could happen.
The West has a short memory; in 1989 the Soviet Union lost all of Eastern Europe and twelve republics(?) and it did not become World War III.

It is rather that the situation we are in today stems from a yielding West that seems motivating to Russia.

From JEF presumably, but the UK will send 20,000 from its defense to the Baltic Sea area, unclear which branches. This in response to Baltic Connector – strength to say the least.

The fact that UA has decimated the Russian artillery so hard is directly mood-lifting, the day goes in light blue and positive, and then you get even livelier knowing they have unlimited ammunition in Zaporizhia.

11:49 – Johan No.1

What do you base your assumption on that Ukraine will not get long-range missiles, just curious?

I have gotten the impression that the US has hinted that with ATACMS they will not impose restrictions on where they can be fired, but now I can’t find that statement.

You are making an assumption here – that Ukraine will be forced to the negotiating table – and then you build your reasoning around that and get an outcome?

I make the opposite assumption based on what Ukraine itself says and since Russia is losing ground every day, albeit a little, I believe it is only a matter of time before they are driven out 😀

What do you have that supports that Ukraine will be forced to the negotiating table?

Contrary to your last paragraph, I now see a West that has, albeit late, significantly increased pressure on Russia – enormous weapons packages, confiscation of frozen assets, and guarantees of eternal support – the USA has just promised to set up Ukraine’s air force as the leader of a coalition.

There was a rumor going around this summer that Ukraine would be allowed to keep what they conquered in this offensive and then would be forced to negotiate – my best guess is that it was planted Russian psyops because no Western leader has even hinted at that as far as I can find?

Then I do think that a “massive attack on power infrastructure” is exactly what Ukraine has prepared to deliver in Russia, right?

They have been testing drones all summer and autumn and we know they have scoured the world for drone parts.
If you ask me, there will be a “proportionate response” this winter where Russia is blacked out if Ukraine is blacked out 😀

14:05 – Johan No.1

Proof 203 that RU has a hand in the escalation in MENA

https://twitter.com/felix_nuno/status/1713157549548003629?s=46&t=2goo_vCX6MFnHgV2Vm0hmQ

17:08 – MatsExtrude

+++++
I agree 100% regarding the criticism of the West and it is strange that they don’t realize it themselves. Glad that they have still done what they have done.

I am convinced that Ukraine will manage this anyway but it will cause unnecessarily great suffering.