10:25 – Johan No.1
The more I think about this – RU seems to want to avoid a front collapse. When they need to give up the Dnipro, they will try to do it in steps that they try to make look professional, which will fail just as a Russian retreat can fail.
What doesn’t fit perfectly is that they have burned tens of thousands of barbarians storming over the potato fields near Avdiivka, but if there are strategic reserves on the way down to the southern front (which we don’t know yet!) then there would be some logic to it all.
The escalation in MENA largely followed that book I always nag about but then came to a sudden stop, the author of the book should be correct.
H…ah has not thrown the white glove in front of I..el, Iran has de-escalated its rhetoric, and China has visited Biden.
Already these Chinese golf carts have been seen in combat – RU has as soon as the first arrived used them as shrapnel protection for the mechanized troops. It went so-so; they ran over their own and then were probably knocked out.
Yes, it’s a step up from 1950s trucks which can be considered a real low point to ride into battle on as mechanized infantry, bad for morale.
Globally, Russia has failed to ignite the fire and this is a big miscalculation for them.
We have rewound the tape to maybe the turn of the year again and then they promised China a blazing winter offensive and Ukraine kept calm – on paper it looked like RU had the initiative.
Since spring, UA has attacked everywhere and for some reason RU chose to carry out a devastating autumn offensive for them, but Ukraine has not stopped – at the Dnipro they have the initiative.
You quickly come to the conclusion that a front collapse could have significant consequences for Russia.
-Allies retreat back into their holes and shadows.
-Weapons deliveries stop because no one likes a loser.
-The West becomes motivated to send more of everything because Ukraine is doing well.
-Morale in Ukraine hits the ceiling.
-In Russia, opponents stand in the shadows waiting for their turn.
Right now it is difficult to read the information because there is total blackout from UA and RU now has a positive bias in their reporting after Girkin’s arrest and the quarterly talks with the other opinion makers.
Zelensky and the other car salesmen are not panicking right now – that much is clear.
Nor are these the most high-flown speeches to inspire courage.
It is business as usual in a war (if you can diminish it that much without crossing the line) and I interpret that as this going as UA wants. RU has just fired some generals again and the opinion makers on Russian TV have foam around their mouths – I interpret that as it’s going so-so for them.
Russia only has one option we learned from some genius in the thread early 2022 – if the level of violence doesn’t work, they increase the level of violence until they hit the wall.
No one likes a loser and we are probably heading towards that at a good pace.
Now, as we have written for a while, the wet and cold period begins, difficulties in getting supplies forward and difficulties in maintaining combat effectiveness. Ukraine now has a drone kill zone 25 km into RU territory at the Dnipro and certainly also the southern front, which means the Russians cannot warm themselves or they get a shell down the chimney pipe with the desired result.
In November 2022, Kherson was cleared of barbarians and on January 6, 2023, the Russians launched our time’s great attempt at the rush to Berlin which got stuck already in the fences outside the metropolis Bakhmut.
Then they attacked all winter until Ukraine took the baton – I doubt the weather would stop Ukraine from killing Russians. Everything is relative and the essential thing is who is affected the most.
Last winter SOF cleared around like an angry swarm of hornets up in northern Luhansk and RU never got out of the starting blocks.
Now Ukraine has pooled SOF, partisans, and other competent capabilities at the southern front and the Dnipro, which hits the Russians hard with their night hunts.
The Russians barely even have flares and UA sneaks around with the latest image intensifier in bakelite.
According to Erik14, Magyar managed to drone the life out of the 810th Marine Infantry when they lined up for a ceremony – they never learn.
100 wounded and 25 dead – there probably weren’t many more than that left in the unit so we say goodbye to the 810th.
Looks bleak around Krunky for the Russians, 810th zeroed, 826th AAR fled, 144th MRB started giving up a little bit and besides that there are 2 more MRBs, a BARS battalion and 10th Spetsnaz which can only be counted in hundreds.
There are a few brigades left as offensive reserves but they don’t even reach the combat area before they get droned away when they try.
According to Erik14, UA knocked out a SOF staff position in the sand dunes which may have been 10th Spetsnaz (maybe, just guessing).
Demonstrations are starting to move a bit in Russia, which is a big positive and a new development.
https://twitter.com/citeam_en/status/1726977990142447891?s=46&t=Aqg1uflIFmLCIwo_rsRQfQ
My Twitter is 100% feelgood movies and support for UA, nothing else, and since I never click on anything else, there is no history.
(so it’s not like that classic “why do I get ads for Russian dating sites when I visit your page” – “you get that because the ads are based on your search history”).
Still, in the past month, I have gotten quite a bit of antisemitism, anti-I..el, Andy Ngo, and anti-immigration content in my feed. There is zero previous history to base the interest on, so it must reasonably be Twitter that, through algorithms, is promoting these to me.
I belong to those who believe that the purchase of Twitter was taking the Cambridge Analytica trick to new heights; now they own the platform instead and can freely control what we get in our feeds instead of manipulating someone else’s, and many of the pro-Ukrainian Twitter users I have on my list I don’t see what they post unless I go directly to their profiles.
But this is my personal opinion (1.2.3… MXT about Russian dating sites and my search history).
Now Iran is hinting at sending ballistic missiles to RU, feels like a couple more locks on the diplomatic and political steps just got unlocked – send more of everything 🤬
https://twitter.com/dim0kq/status/1727050130032148810?s=46&t=ooH_WLLFwAjjj45H7Zw9IQ
100,000 Ukrainians have been trained in the West – now we know how large the offensive reserve was.
https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1727095142279188960?s=46&t=ooH_WLLFwAjjj45H7Zw9IQ
Unlike the Russian swimming pools, UA has pumps for the fortifications.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1726886738151248369?s=46&t=Aqg1uflIFmLCIwo_rsRQfQ
As mentioned, the USA has some explaining to do; they also tried to stop Poland from sending Mig29s to Ukraine – which Poland refused to comply with, and the reason was “risk of escalation”…
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1727089821850435923?s=46&t=ooH_WLLFwAjjj45H7Zw9IQ
It is quite possible that the West has a better picture than we do and considers the risk acceptable, but from my parents’ basement room, it looks like the collective West is unacceptably risk-prone here. Every weapons system is first denied, then announced, then sent individually, and finally sent in quantity.
-All weapons systems that have been sent can therefore be sent more of – as many as you want.
The fact that hundreds of Bradleys are standing by for destruction, ATACMS ammunition to be phased out, and so on endlessly is downright embarrassing.
Then Portugal, Spain, Belgium, NL, and France don’t need any heavy vehicles or artillery beyond their intervention brigades; they can send all unit-equipped materiel on loan.
UA is doing the best they can and it’s going surprisingly well, but that the West STILL in autumn 2023 is playing stingy poker (TM someone in the thread) is remarkable.
It’s probably Slovakia that has basically zeroed out its defense force and sent everything they have to Ukraine?
Then the West starts doubting that Ukraine can win when they don’t send materiel, the world’s clearest self-fulfilling prophecy (as an example, will not happen 😀).
This thing about a ratio of 20:1 dead in Avdiivka is interesting and very good.
https://twitter.com/julianroepcke/status/1727272659606786329?s=46&t=lekfRU9ISMmqhs8rw1LMHA
Biden and Xi are not coming to the G20 where Putin is supposed to speak in person (pretty close to writing the forbidden word and even once more when writing this…)
A few more who didn’t show up
https://twitter.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1727299904354030042?s=46&t=lekfRU9ISMmqhs8rw1LMHA
Looks good at Avdiivka then, the new flypaper after Bakhmut which effectively knocked Wagner out of the war.
10:31 – Johan No.1
I feel a bit guilty for high absence so had to do a double 😀
It’s a bit low season in the thread and participants come and go but it’s probably as the blogger and others have written for a while now that it’s important to keep it going so this war doesn’t fall into oblivion. Ukraine delivers every day and Russian influence is delivered every day. It’s a constant ongoing job to evaluate sources, find new sources, and jump on the trends you think you see in the noise of information but I still feel after 1.5 years that the media constantly slips into the Russian psyops.
We have, if not for too long, worked out numbers we believe in over two years, even if the thread disagrees on some issues, but also exposed a lot of lies and not to forget the Russian subversive activity with concrete examples and information as support.
Hard to understand that established media can’t get to this and all other actors on it. The Russian subversive activity is the one that right now is starting anti-I..el demonstrations and then counter-demonstrations start to get going.
This is very well organized and always ends without exception in riots against the government and the “establishment” and becomes very messy.
If it starts to calm down, they send out some talent to wrap a Koran in bacon and throw it on the grill and it’s on again, and if that’s not enough, they paint swastikas on lots of synagogues.
I also want to encourage everyone to write and reason, every day there are some longer texts that are interesting so go ahead – the thread doesn’t live its own life, it becomes what the participants make it, and by now most are probably at least at a general’s level when it comes to Ukraine.
The world’s least useful skill – being able to find every little hole in Ukraine within ten seconds and immediately know if it’s dominant terrain or lowland 😅
We have a couple of myths to kill here, I think –
-“the West has nothing more to send” – totally wrong because they have hundreds of Bradleys in depots for destruction.
-“meat wall wins wars” – no way, taking 20:1 losses in a meat wall would mean 10 million dead Russians to get rid of the half a million Ukrainians currently at the front.’
There are still those who seriously believe the above and then something – “Russia can’t lose because they have never lost” but Russia has spectacularly lost most of its wars but got a free pass after WW2 and communism to build its own history.
Earlier in 2022, we understood the extent of the drone weapon – got information about those GUR units, or SBU?, that took out 6 tanks during one night shift so it’s really no news for us in the thread.
But now with changing weather, it’s incredibly clear what the drone weapon stands for in terms of destroyed materiel and probably also destroyed barbarians.
If we think one step further, it’s indirect capabilities, right?
Now that the Russians’ artillery has been decimated so UA no longer takes 70% of its losses from that weapon AND they inflict the majority of RU’s losses through indirect capabilities.
Then one can reasonably assume that UA losses are quite low, right?
There have been reports of a ratio of 1:20 at Avdiivka so even when RU attacks, UA can decimate them before they are even near the objectives.
I consider this to be an assumption as good as any based on reality, and if anyone wants to bring up Ukraine’s now skyrocketing losses and impending breakthrough, then it’s just a matter of showing it with numbers, right?
More myths to debunk,
The reason the EU is behind in ammunition deliveries is that the million shells must be manufactured in the EU, not that there is an ammunition shortage in the entire Western world, right? The USA, UK, South Korea, Australia, Canada are not part of the EU, and there are many countries besides them.
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1727411079591178302?s=46&t=aB09YyX3nkBGu6vneTra2g
Azov is gaining ground in the Kreminna forests in addition to the local offensive in Horlivka. If Russia were very strong, they wouldn’t lose such strategically important places, right?
We have long pointed out that UA is in no way weak in northern Luhansk and that RU is now weakened beyond what is necessary even for defense.
https://twitter.com/andysch64494719/status/1727552426821992727?s=46&t=aB09YyX3nkBGu6vneTra2g
Contrary to what many believe, new heavy vehicles keep coming, both MBTs and IFVs, most recently 20 Marders. Since the crews often survive, they just get a new vehicle and are back at the active front as newly manufactured. It is still my opinion that UA has parity with MBTs and especially better vehicles now.
Yesterday we could read from some poster that demonstrations against the war are increasing in Russia, and today we are overwhelmed by the news that sabotage acts are paralyzing the arms industry around Moscow. We have long considered that the country Russia is incapable of defending itself against sabotage or popular celebrations.
https://twitter.com/golub/status/1727565648283288009?s=46&t=aB09YyX3nkBGu6vneTra2g
How widespread is Russian subversive activity – likely very widespread, as some seem to think that Poland’s spontaneous blockade against Ukraine is a Russian-paid influence operation.
https://twitter.com/friaukraina/status/1727415853220548973?s=46&t=mMC0Gta-3Z4sJvJYM3rujg
What Russia excels in is its subversive activity, and I think the thread as a collective is slowly beginning to accept the scale of it, right?
Those of us who have hobby-studied the 80s and the Cold War see how the Russians have dusted off old influence operations and are running them again, with the same successful results. What is somewhat sensational is that the entire pre-against discussion about the reasonableness or unreasonableness of them conducting influence operations during the Cold War has come full circle and died.
PerraG55 is doing the decade’s effort in sorting out how everything fits together, and that our media does not pick this up as front-page news is a mystery to me.
There was some big-depression day in the thread a while ago when many began to feel that all was lost – hand on heart, do you still feel that all is lost?
Russian subversive activity is incredibly good at making people feel hopeless, making decision-makers passive, creating conflicts between groups, and lighting fires where there are none.
We all have our core principles, and when someone jumps on them, we feel threatened and ignite – this is what Russia is expert at starting up.
Why do they win in the subversive activity category?
Because this is a prioritized activity for the Russian state while the free West stays within its democratic frameworks and tries to make the world a better place to live.
After Russia has now been exposed for actively supporting H…as and helping them plan October 7, it is diplomatically and politically unlocked to classify the country Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”
Then all dealings with the country Russia and its representatives become illegal and can be prosecuted and weeded out with the help of anti-terrorism legislation. There are extensive possibilities for surveillance and investigation on suspicion.
A better opportunity to tackle Russian subversive activity will never come again.
If we could get to Iran and the other rogue states, we can get to Russia too. China has internal problems and will not interfere in this (says my coffee grounds).
Think a little about which countries you believe gave H…as the drone weapon and training and assisted with building the underground complexes – Iran is a given but also Russia. These tunnels must have drainage, ventilation, and be able to withstand detonations, so they are built for military use.
In the long run, this means that all our aid organizations operating in G…a have helped protect this force buildup and helped Russia help H…as commit one of the decade’s most successful and worst terrorist acts. The information now coming out about how civilians were tortured and murdered is absolutely horrific.
Now I am extrapolating far too much, but many in those organizations would end up behind bars if Russia becomes a “state sponsor of terrorism,” this has actually completely flipped, and when you understand the extent of this, you also understand how far the Russian subversive tentacles reach.
10:32 – Johan No.1
Posting again in a separate post below.
11:12 – MatsExtrude
👍 Thanks!
11:20 – Johan No.1
Thank you, didn’t you miss an open goal now?
Has your Christmas peace already started in November 😀
11:23 – Johan No.1
Typo,
It said – Ukraine’s now skyrocketing losses and impending breakthrough, then it’s just a matter of showing it with numbers?
It should of course say impending COLLAPSE 😐
13:09 – MatsExtrude
👍
#RussiaIsATerroristState
13:47 – Johan No.1
El Terorristos.
16:10 – Johan No.1
I find that very interesting reasoning, we have been racking our brains over the whole overarching philosophy around support to Ukraine and guessing, so yes, why can’t leaders in the West be completely open about what the ambitions are?
For Sweden’s part, there is zero realpolitik to consider here, Russia cannot carry out offensive operations against us for quite a while, so no imminent war threat. We export very little and import very little.
Maybe out of fear of China and BRIICS?
Don’t know but it would be fun to understand the thinking at the closed meetings.
That the armed forces did not consider they could spare anything we know, and that they do not think like us taxpayers that the money will eventually after many years do practical good we also understand.
19:59 – MatsExtrude
Periodically busy so sometimes there isn’t enough time.
10:24 – Johan No.1
The more I think about this – RU seems to want to avoid a front collapse. When they need to release the Dnipro, they will try to do it in steps that they try to make look professional, which will fail just like a Russian retreat can fail.
What doesn’t fit perfectly is that they have burned tens of thousands of barbarians storming over the potato fields at Avdiivka, but if there are strategic reserves on the way down to the southern front (which we do not know yet!) then there would be some logic to it all.
The escalation in MENA largely followed that book I always nag about but then it came to a sudden stop, the author of the book must be right.
H…ah has not thrown the white glove in front of I..el, Iran has de-escalated its rhetoric and China has visited Biden.
Already these Chinese golf carts have been seen in combat – RU has thus as soon as the first arrived used them as shrapnel protection for the mech. It went so-so, they ran over their own and then they were probably knocked out.
Yes, it is a step up from trucks from the 1950s which can be considered a real low point to ride into battle on as armored infantry, bad for morale.
Globally, Russia has failed to ignite the fire and this is a big miscalculation for them.
We have rewound the tape to maybe the turn of the year again and then they promised China a blazing winter offensive and Ukraine kept calm – on paper it looked like RU had the initiative.
Since spring, UA attacks everywhere and for some reason RU chose to carry out a devastating autumn offensive for them but Ukraine has not stopped – at the Dnipro they have the initiative.
You quickly come to the conclusion that a front collapse could have significant consequences for Russia.
-Allies retreat back into their burrows and shadows.
-Weapon deliveries stop because no one likes a loser.
-The West becomes motivated to send more of everything because things are going well for Ukraine.
-Morale in Ukraine hits the ceiling.
-In Russia, the opponents stand in the shadows waiting for their turn.
Right now it is difficult to read the information because there is a total block from UA and RU now has a positive bias in their reporting after Girkin’s imprisonment and the quarterly talks with the other opinion makers.
Zelensky and the other car salesmen are not panicking right now – that much is clear.
Nor are the most grandiose speeches to instill courage.
It is business as usual in a war (if one may diminish it that much without crossing the line) and I interpret that as this going as UA wants. RU has just fired some generals again and the opinion makers on Russian TV foam at the mouth – I interpret that as things going so-so for them.
Russia only has one mode we learned from some genius in the thread early 2022 – if it doesn’t work with the level of violence then you increase the level of violence until you run straight into the wall.
No one likes a loser and we are probably heading towards that at a good speed.
Now, as we have written for a while, the wet and cold period begins, difficulties in supplying and difficulties in maintaining combat value. Ukraine now has a drone kill-zone 25km into RU territory at the Dnipro and certainly also the southern front and that means the Russians cannot warm themselves because then there will be a shell down the chimney with the desired result.
In November 2022 Kherson was cleared of barbarians and on January 6, 2023 the Russians started our time’s great attempt at the rush towards Berlin which got stuck already in the fences outside the metropolis Bakhmut.
Then they attacked all winter until Ukraine took the baton – I doubt the weather would stop Ukraine from killing Russians. Everything is relative and the essential thing is who is affected the most.
Last winter SOF cleared around like an angry hornet swarm up in northern Luhansk and RU never got out of the starting blocks.
Now Ukraine has pooled SOF, partisans and other competent forces at the southern front and Dnipro which hits the Russians hard with their night hunts.
The Russians barely have any lights and UA sneaks around with the latest image intensifier in bakelite.
According to Erik14 Magyar managed to drone the life out of the 810th marine infantry as they lined up for a ceremony – they never learn.
100 wounded and 25 dead – there probably weren’t many more than that left in the unit so we say goodbye to the 810th.
It looks bleak around Krunky for the Russians, 810th wiped out, 826th AAR fled, 144th MRB started to give up a little bit and besides that there are 2 more MRBs, one BARS battalion and 10th Spetznaz which can only be counted in hundreds.
There are a few brigades left as offensive reserves but they don’t even reach the combat area before they are droned away when they try.
According to Erik14 UA knocked out a SOF staff position in the sand dunes which may have been 10th Spetznaz (maybe, just guessing).
Demonstrations are starting to move in Russia slowly which is a big positive and a new development.
https://twitter.com/citeam_en/status/1726977990142447891?s=46&t=Aqg1uflIFmLCIwo_rsRQfQ
My twitter is 100% feelgood videos and support for UA, nothing else and since I never click on anything else there is no history.
(that is, it is not like the classic “why do I get ads for Russian dating sites when I visit your page” – “you get that because the ads are based on your search history”).
Still, in the last month I have gotten quite a lot of antisemitism, anti-I..el, Andy Ngo, and anti-immigration in the feed. There is zero previous history to base the interest on so it must reasonably be Twitter that through algorithms lifts these up to me.
I belong to those who believe that the purchase of Twitter was taking the Cambridge Analytica trick to new heights, now you own the platform instead and can completely freely control what we get in our feeds instead of manipulating someone else’s and many of the pro-Ukrainian Twitter users I have on my list I don’t see what they post unless I go directly to their profiles.
But this is my personal opinion (1.2.3… MXT about Russian dating sites and my search history).
Now Iran is hinting at sending ballistic missiles to RU, feels like a couple more locks on the diplomatic and political steps just unlocked – send more of everything 🤬
https://twitter.com/dim0kq/status/1727050130032148810?s=46&t=ooH_WLLFwAjjj45H7Zw9IQ
100,000 Ukrainians have been trained in the West – now we know how big the offensive reserve was.
https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1727095142279188960?s=46&t=ooH_WLLFwAjjj45H7Zw9IQ
Unlike the Russian swimming pools, UA has pumps for the fortifications.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1726886738151248369?s=46&t=Aqg1uflIFmLCIwo_rsRQfQ
As said, the USA has a thing or two to explain, they also tried to stop Poland from sending Mig29 to Ukraine – which Poland refused to accept and the reasoning was “risk of escalation”…
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1727089821850435923?s=46&t=ooH_WLLFwAjjj45H7Zw9IQ
It is entirely possible that the West has a better picture than we do and considers the risk acceptable, but from my parents’ basement room, it looks like the collective West is unacceptably risk-prone here. Every weapons system is first denied, then announced, then sent individually, and finally sent in quantity.
-All the weapons systems that have been sent can thus be sent more of – as many as you want.
The fact that hundreds of Bradleys are waiting to be destroyed, ATACMS ammunition that is to be phased out, and so on endlessly is downright embarrassing.
Then Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France do not need any heavy vehicles or artillery beyond their intervention brigades; they can send all unit-equipped materiel on loan.
UA is doing the best they can, and it’s going surprisingly well, but that the West STILL in autumn 2023 is playing cheap poker (TM someone in the thread) is astonishing.
Isn’t it Slovakia that has basically zeroed out its defense forces and sent everything they have to Ukraine?
Then the West begins to doubt that Ukraine can win when they don’t send materiel, the world’s clearest self-fulfilling prophecy (as an example, will not happen 😀).
This thing about a 20:1 ratio of deaths in Avdiivka is interesting and very good.
https://twitter.com/julianroepcke/status/1727272659606786329?s=46&t=lekfRU9ISMmqhs8rw1LMHA
Biden and Xi will not attend the G20 where Putin is to speak in person (pretty close to writing the forbidden word and also once more while writing this…)
A few more who didn’t show up
https://twitter.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1727299904354030042?s=46&t=lekfRU9ISMmqhs8rw1LMHA
Looks good near Avdiivka then, the new flypaper after Bakhmut which effectively knocked Wagner out of the war.