12:59 – Johan No.1
Lots of meetings, it’s never fun when you have to work.
13:49 – MatsExtrude
Agree!
Even though it takes time and Ukraine hasn’t progressed as far as hoped, it is far too early to write off the spring offensive. The Russians are taking enormous losses and losing a lot of hardware. Sooner or later, they will break.
Whether that happens before winter is, of course, impossible to know.
Now, we don’t want to give Russia more time to recover and dig in even more, but if it actually turns out that there is no decisive outcome this year, I still believe Ukraine will be better equipped than Russia by spring. The condition is, of course, that the West continues to help. Ukraine has significantly lower hardware losses and will be able to get more. They are building up more and more air defense and F-16s will appear eventually.
The Russians have air power but can only use it to lob bombs. They are desperately recruiting prisoners..
They are simply getting worse and worse.
But we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves, as said, the spring offensive is not over and summer is long! ✊
14:50 – Johan No.1
You would probably get the same treatment as a brigade commander if you ordered a battalion into a suicide attack. Wasn’t there a dismissal after that mechanic battalion (or company?) that drove into the minefields?
In all the videos from these defensive clearances, the group usually loses at most one wounded, but yes, that is the edited version.
If Russia had drone footage of rows of destroyed Western armor, we would presumably have seen it?
I believe the turning point was at Lysychansk, everything before that was just trying to survive. After that, they have tried to fight smart and conserve soldiers. They rotate battalions and they have leaves.
Their big blow was now at the start of the offensive on the southern front where they ran straight into minefields. Since we have seen drone footage that could see where the mines were, I am still surprised it went the way it did. It seems brigades have quite a lot of decision-making power, which is very positive, but that they hadn’t received all the information or something?
We will have to wait until after the war to see if everyone’s different calculations are correct or not.
15:17 – Johan No.1
UA is definitely going for the land bridge to Crimea here, otherwise they wouldn’t have crossed the Dnipro.
Looking at the attack vectors, they had a plan and now the encirclement is working better.
18:30 – Johan No.1
Piracy 😳
https://twitter.com/jayinkyiv/status/1722304596419256505?s=46&t=LOwzNFBsDr6otEqPUgCe6w
19:04 – MatsExtrude
Terrorists! 🤬
12:58 – Johan No.1
Always forward ✊
https://twitter.com/ukrainiansquad/status/1721992686930939988?s=46&t=sdasz4O6ZZeH9RMe6vUK7w
Regarding the attack on the 128th Mountain Brigade medal ceremony, you can see how big headlines were made about 20 dead. This suggests that RU does not get such lucky hits too often, right?
A brigade commander gets fired for 20 dead soldiers. We overestimate UA losses because we know nothing, otherwise there wouldn’t be a brigade commander still in service if a medal ceremony with 20 dead is the exit door.
Do you remember the Russian battalion commander who lined up the entire battalion for inspection in Svatove and who rolled around in the tungsten rain and died – now that is what you call a miscalculation.
Then I think the daily loss list for RU is quite accurate, Andrew Perpetua’s team lists what they find and is independent. UA themselves list some days 2 knocked-out tanks and some days 50. To me, that’s being honest otherwise they would do like RU and never have under 25 (or some other suitable number) any given day with some peaks and some valleys.
Then we also probably underestimate RU losses, we wrote earlier that RU would pull out the 70th MRR (42GMRD) and now the day before yesterday there was one of those desperate “help us” videos where the regiment announced they were 80 total left in the unit.
We have previously written that we guessed those brigades took heavy losses and it certainly seems to be true 😀
No near-PV either so the guy who says they are short on that in the thread all the time might not be wrong?
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1721751258510266558?s=46&t=ao3cBjIO0RC77y2Fk-LVXw
https://twitter.com/jayinkyiv/status/1721634619131339181?s=46&t=lp0bZE47UvWGmUmCaLHEVQ
Then we have the next tale that the spring offensive has failed and the word “fiasco” has been used by credible Twitter users. The same group that oddly enough wanted Bakhmut to be abandoned.
We in the thread have already sounded the gong for the Dnipro so we are not surprised but the bridgeheads keep expanding and RU counterattacks have failed.
Now the first indication has come that UA is transferring heavy vehicles.
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1721601394526900651?s=46&t=lp0bZE47UvWGmUmCaLHEVQ
RU does not have mobile units lying in their defense systems and according to the link below panic is starting to spread.
https://twitter.com/andysch64494719/status/1721746271776493793?s=46&t=ao3cBjIO0RC77y2Fk-LVXw
They are broadening the bridgehead at Poima
https://twitter.com/ralee85/status/1714433456283791564?s=46&t=ao3cBjIO0RC77y2Fk-LVXw
https://twitter.com/jayinkyiv/status/1721626896868257862?s=46&t=lp0bZE47UvWGmUmCaLHEVQ
I think most understand that the reason UA is expanding its bridgehead is that they have night fighting capabilities. The Marine Corps is a prioritized unit that likely handles night combat very well.
The Russian units in the area barely even have access to flares anymore.
To me it looks like the spring offensive is chugging along here in the middle of late summer (I know but I have to keep the schedule…) and that UA has now expanded to such a large bridgehead over the Dnipro that they can start transferring heavy equipment.
RU has also just started screaming loudly about renewed UA attacks west of Verbove.
The spring offensive is absolutely not over, UA still has a sky-high ambition level otherwise they wouldn’t have sent their most protected resources in the Marine Corps across the Dnipro, right?
And those of us who read the big campaign plan remember that it must be combined with an offensive on the southern front – which at least RU believes is what is happening.
I am keeping an eye on strategic reserves on the southern front as the guy in the thread told us to do, unclear to me about the 44 Airborne. They seem to have been resting and then sent back without really being reinforced.
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1721752713535357431?s=46&t=ao3cBjIO0RC77y2Fk-LVXw
Then the VDV regiment from the 7th MAAD has been located at the Dnipro front, that division was previously moved to the southern front in its entirety if I recall correctly?
If we go by the condition of the 70th MRR and the information that the 76 GAAD and 7th GMAAD had at best 60% strength left after the battles at the southern front, and they were already undermanned before, and extrapolate a bit below to try to figure out the condition of the units.
We know that the BARS units south-east of Robotyne have taken heavy losses, at least two of them, and they are battalion-sized.
We also know that the 1152nd and 1430th have taken existential losses and my guesses on these units are that they were around a thousand strong when formed.
It is also likely that the 71st MMR is in similarly poor condition as its colleague.
The 22nd Spetznaz and reconnaissance units around Verbove have, if I recall, been on the front since last summer and have probably been run hard since they are offensive reserves and there have been many counterattacks.
It looks really bad in this area for RU, really bad. I don’t think the 44th Airborne has really contributed anything.
UA is pressing everywhere still in that area and the defense is folding.
This while they cannot manage to break the bridgeheads over the Dnipro, they are completely incapable.
Over at Vuhledar the units have been in poor condition for some time due to heavy fighting around the Staromaiorske area and then they tried a bit of the Russian version of an attack at Vuhledar which went as usual.
If RU tries to pull units away from the Vuhledar area they weaken there instead so at the southern front today there are no real reserves left to use.
Around Avdiivka there are absolutely no reserves left, they have been used up.
RU has thus lost 400 heavy vehicles during the period, an extreme amount.
https://twitter.com/andysch64494719/status/1721746151039287639?s=46&t=ao3cBjIO0RC77y2Fk-LVXw
At Bakhmut RU has reinforced to avoid losing Opytne – the lower Zaitseve line so they can’t weaken there either.
Up in northern Luhansk they can’t weaken more but that doesn’t stop them from doing it anyway and then UA will be able to go on the offensive up there.
Strategic reserves remain and I don’t read about any such. When the 25 CAA was sent down we got that information well in advance before they were at the fronts.
At Staromaiorske UA maintains a threat of offensive to tie down units so there are still UA brigades available if things go better elsewhere.
Overall the narrative that Ukraine has run out of steam here and that the offensive is over does not hold.
The narrative that Russia has lots of capability left and will launch a successful offensive is also wrong.
Unfortunately it seems to be exactly what everyone wants to hear because everyone grabs that information as absolute truth every time.
For my part I accept that the spring offensive is over when we have quiet weeks and no information about Ukrainian offensive and we are absolutely not there yet, right now they are moving heavy vehicles across the Dnipro and that was part of the big campaign plan.
Then to everyone who thinks there is a possibility of a negotiated solution where UA gives up land, read the link below. The country Ukraine will never give up here, never.
In the past week, I don’t think Zelensky could have been clearer than he has ever been in response to all the Russian influence operations claiming that the West’s support is decreasing.
Unfortunately, the sexual sadist murderers in Wagner will just be moved to Africa and behave the same way there, but that is another discussion.
https://twitter.com/euromaidanpress/status/1721505320365695000?s=46&t=ZZvmQ7sMZ2SI-OKX6OYf5g
If you have seen the video below, you probably think like me – where are the women, men, and children?
It is only the very elderly who welcome the liberators with flowers. That suggests what the civilian losses will be after the war.
https://twitter.com/igor_from_kyiv_/status/1721804602557726823?s=46&t=taSMIf15k8IuA0ZtxAEsUg
Yes, positive-positive about the spring offensive, negative-negative about the escalating war crimes.