12:48 – Johan No.1
Now things are starting to get a little out of hand here and there in Europe, so I’ll continue spinning on yesterday’s post which ended up in the freezer but is now out in the open, entirely self-inflicted with the usual word…
The relevance and on-topic part is that the spearhead delivers, but the spear shaft is under a very well-executed and coordinated attack that will divert focus from Ukraine.
Focus away from Ukraine could, in the worst case, mean a Russian victory because without ammunition there is no fighting, but we are definitely not there today.
The Russians have now experienced this because the ammunition from North Korea leads to an epidemic of barrel bursts among them 😀
Almost makes you suspect that Rocket Man is playing both sides.
The prelude was to light the fire of the world’s most infected conflict P…a – I…el. The West likes to portray G…a as an open prison, but the residents have diligently built up the area to have been quite okay.
At the same time, H..as, with the good knowledge and sometimes passive help of all aid organizations, has built up an offensive capability and military infrastructure sufficient for them to dare to jump on I..el.
When the demonstrations in the West started as if on a given signal (which they were), the thread posed the rhetorical question “when will the right side be unleashed” – they have now been unleashed.
HMS Repulse had an excellent post the other day, mandatory reading, among other things about how to achieve prosperity for oneself as a person in the West and how to achieve power in the “red revolutions” – there are always groups on the fringes who want power if the opportunity arises, totalitarian power.
What we see today is at least 15-20 years of buildup – every government has a responsibility to manage its country in the best way always, which many governments in the West have not considered necessary. They have dozed through meetings and votes and felt that the country would probably keep running anyway. I have a thought about when the tide turned in Sweden, but that would get political, so we’ll skip that.
If the thread rolls on without our active participation, can we sleep through the thread?
A bad example is when I worked with the management of buildings and maintenance was considered by management to be something that happened by itself – the budget was anorexic, while they burned tens of times that budget on beautifying parks or bike paths – quick popularity points. That bridge pillars were like waffle cones was something they didn’t want to listen to. Same with many other things – money is spent on what is fun instead of what tax money should go to, or what taxpayers think it goes to.
A government should pursue policies that are best for the citizens at large and the country as a whole, as well as the alliances it belongs to, but it is easy to fall for those who shout the loudest.
There are always fringe groups and yes, you have a responsibility for them too, but you cannot adapt an entire country to make right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, climate extremists, religious radicals, or activists of other kinds happy. They will never be happy because it is their game to always be angry about everything.
The large group in the middle who just try to do the best job possible, get the kids to do homework and go to practice, maintain friendships with their better halves, manage to visit their elderly parents, and don’t have time to get worked up about everything – they can actually wake up too, and then it quickly gets lively because they are many. In Spain, there are millions in the streets right now.
We all have our sacred cows that we take great offense to if crossed, and I think quite a few have reacted to how the demonstrations since October 7 have developed; there is something that doesn’t fit with the picture we have of how it should be.
I keep nagging about Twitter and tiring everyone out, but there is a self-experienced point hidden in all my whining – I have an account with 100% feel-good films and pro-Ukraine in my feed because I don’t want to get caught up in all the conspiracies, I never click on them, and if they appeared in my feed before, I ignored them so the algorithm would learn my preferences, because that’s how it worked, right?
For a little over a month now, all pro-Ukrainian Twitter users have half disappeared from the feed, even my list is getting quite thin on information, and I have to go directly to the accounts to see what they write.
At the same time, Pizz…gate is back – now with irrefutable evidence from a hacker who has released everything, all the well-known MAGA faces, conspiracies, General Flynn, anti…semitism, hate, hate, hate, and injustices against us citizens that make one very upset.
Since I have had a feed I trust, this creeps under the skin a bit, you get angry that ping-pong pizza was a front for torture-murder of children simply, and it’s completely insane that Obama flew children with the government plane who were tortured in the White House 🤬
I don’t really know how big Twitter is, but I remember very well Cambridge Analytica and how they controlled information to help Trump (among other factors) win the election – now we have Cambridge Analytica 2.0 where they own the entire Twitter platform and can do whatever they want.
Clarification – there are different groups pulling in the same direction here, not everything is on Putin’s orders on a white sheet of paper but I think everyone understands that?
In absolute plain language – the flow I see today in my feed is grossly manipulated. It is not based at all on my search history and my interests, on the contrary it filters out what I want to see and lifts the entire QAnon conspiracy again, I am completely overwhelmed by this right now.
This is not God’s will, Twitter is a company and they have had meetings where they went through the new guidelines and then changes have been made in the algorithms by the engineers, period.
And nothing happens there without our buddy Elon knowing about it, especially not something like abandoning the platform’s basic idea of how the algorithms should work, which I think it did for me until a few months ago.
This “a few months ago” coincidentally coincides with October 7…
There is an enormous amount of influence and provocations right now, but if it’s enough to just inform about actual mistakes, that’s making it a bit too simple and here our elected leaders in the West are partly involved to some extent.
Then there is a reality and we are where we are but now today leaders in the West should start thinking about delivering what they are appointed to deliver and not amuse themselves with things that are fun all day long.
They should also seriously start thinking about where the Russian subversive activity is taking us because it’s getting quite lively country after country when the fringes meet in city centers to tear them down united in their hatred of a free democracy.
Over the years, the EU has absolutely poured funds into various projects in the EU where the funds have not gone to what they were intended for, but when it comes to the Ukraine war, everyone is suddenly eager budget lovers.
For me as a taxpayer, the Ukraine war is one of the few occasions where I really think you can open your wallet because they are solving geopolitics for us right now.
For me, this is serious because it affects politicians who make the decisions and the only way to avoid a global conflict in our time is that the country Russia is fundamentally defeated in Ukraine and that their subversive activities in the West are smoked out, it is not a natural law that they should be allowed to carry on with their country-prioritized activity to completely destroy the West undisturbed – it is punishable and if we make them a “state sponsor of terrorism” it becomes easier.
13:31 – MatsExtrude
Thanks! Time for the West to step up and make sure Ukraine gets everything they ask for. I don’t think we will get anything decisive during the winter but when spring comes everything must be in place so it doesn’t end up like last spring when the last promised deliveries only arrived in the autumn.
13:38 – MatsExtrude
+++++
14:49 – Johan No.1
In some places that is actually the case, the defense of the Dnieper doesn’t have much equipment and if they get BMP-1s or up to T62s to play with, they probably don’t have advanced aiming devices. I’ve also guessed that batteries for image intensifiers are not the first to be delivered when there are delivery problems.
Sure, VDV, Spetsnaz, naval infantry, reconnaissance and prioritized units came to Ukraine with night combat equipment but these units are largely wiped out and I guess the equipment has gradually deteriorated each time the units were re-established.
At the Dnieper they started by knocking out all the Murom systems, then they took a 25 km wide corridor for their own drones and then with EW they prevented Russian drones from operating.
Then it’s basically down to personal equipment for individual soldiers.
Ukraine has received enormous amounts of image intensifiers and all the eastern vehicles also came with thermal aiming devices so they should have a high capability and the naval infantry is absolutely fully equipped and there are many SOF at the Dnieper.
14:51 – Johan No.1
Probably it will be that Ukraine has to retake its land meter by meter and then they will have to do that.
15:24 – Johan No.1
👍👍👍
16:13 – MatsExtrude
Yes, there is a risk it will take time but one can hope that the Russians will break, that the West will realize it’s just a matter of sending everything needed or that some dark horse will come through. There have been unusually many smaller protests among mothers and wives lately.. Maybe, maybe something internal can happen.
Now really bad weather is coming, especially over Crimea. One can hope that it will at least get some of the Russians in the hole to realize that the best thing is to give up, or to go home.
12:37 – Johan No.1
ISW says what Ukraine themselves have said but never got – more IFVs and MBTs.
https://twitter.com/thestudyofwar/status/1728110816770101746?s=46&t=m31wr38SLN-SgquJQRStKQ
Do you remember that I listed the US arms stockpiles and here you have some of what exists in the West. Not everything is assigned to units, but these are production figures, yet by now one would have swept the barns clean and refurbished what is standing, right?
Sure, there are destruction programs here and there but there is also an enormous amount in depots.
Russia had some time ago 2500 MBTs and 4500 IFVs (all types of armored vehicles) in Ukraine. Then they went and lost a lot in October and probably also during the summer, and my guess is that 30% are out of commission with technical and mechanical faults in the rear.
– CV90 – 1400 units
– Storm Shadow – around 1000 units
– Leopard – around 5000 units
– AMX-10 – 1750 units
– VAB ptg vehicles – 5000 units
– What is Bulgaria pressing on regarding eastern armor – they have 10,000 armored vehicles and 400 tanks.
– Greece – 1300 tanks and 2000 IFVs but they have some border issues with Turkey.
– UK, which will never need to defend itself with armor, has 3800 armored vehicles of all categories.
– Poland is supposed to have 1300 MBTs but they have a defense to consider.
We always get scared when we hear Russia’s numbers on rusted tanks in depots or how many BMP-1s remain with the divisions.
The West’s barns are significantly larger and above all, they can start the vehicles and the targeting systems haven’t been sold for cheap vodka.
The Russian depots are now full of those vehicles that were too difficult to get running and have been used as spare parts stockpiles for other vehicles. They need Chinese components and smuggled parts from the West but if they get 2-3 years, they can probably refurbish quite a few more.
The West could fully resource Ukraine’s maneuver brigades without in any way reducing its own capability because a large part of the materiel is in depots and not assigned to units.
The production figures above are exactly that – an idea of what has actually been manufactured.
The West has chosen to send 30 Abrams, a few hundred Leopards, about fifty CV90s, and so on. The West has sent significantly more defensive weapons but then it stopped with missiles and ATACMS out of fear they would be used offensively on Russian territory.
The US has well over 4000 Tomahawks that could be useful?
Ukraine gets, as MXT so poetically put it, just enough to keep their nose above water.
And then the constant rumor that Western leaders are getting tired, will force Ukraine to negotiate, Ukraine can’t win, and so on.
Do you see how wrong those who spread these rumors are?
Ukraine has effectively prevented every attempt at a Russian offensive throughout 2023 and in 2022 Russia abandoned 50% of conquered territory.
The West has an arsenal of weapon platforms that makes Russian depots look like an IKEA parking lot and could at a stroke send exactly what Ukraine has asked for to win the war.
Ukraine did not get what they asked for to win the war – 1500 IFVs and 400-500 Western MBTs.
What seems to be true, however, is that Western leaders cannot see clearly through all the Russian influence operations and are beginning to think that citizens may be tired of the war.
Because guess if these demonstrations against I..el or for G…a will soon turn into protests against the Ukraine war in one way or another, for peace in our time maybe or for every krona to stay within the country 😀
But I, as a taxpayer, am of the opinion that for once my tax money is being used for something that actually does good and that the government overruled the defense forces and sent CV90, Archer, and 122 was many gold stars for them.
Kadyrov did not die unfortunately and seems to have taken up training, he embarrasses himself on TikTok daily nowadays.
https://twitter.com/thedeaddistrict/status/1728666996609323284?s=46&t=5RsWEhUPqCPWrQOy5XwRCw
First came the Shahed attack and then a “mass attack” of drones against Moscow. Zelensky has promised eye for an eye this winter and he didn’t break that promise directly at least.
My guess is that the missile rain will not materialize after a couple of attempts, Lex Black Sea Fleet and its blockade of civilian shipping – we’ll see.
Anyway – very nice to be able to respond proportionally.
https://twitter.com/pstyle0ne1/status/1728654798113702064?s=46&t=5RsWEhUPqCPWrQOy5XwRCw
By the Dnieper it’s chugging along.
https://twitter.com/mavkaslavka/status/1728503856781508832?s=46&t=5RsWEhUPqCPWrQOy5XwRCw
Now it’s winter in Ukraine and how do you think a Russian in a foxhole feels right now?
All those thousand-strong units and those set up during the spring probably have terrible winter and rain gear and this kind of weather is tough if you’re lying in a hole.
A godsend for the combat value of many Russian units is now plummeting and they cannot engage in fire because reconnaissance drones are like a cloud darkening the sun.
https://twitter.com/flash_news_ua/status/1728679127857697180?s=46&t=5RsWEhUPqCPWrQOy5XwRCw
I predicted the Finnish Winter War 2.0 last winter but felt it didn’t happen even though the number of frostbite cases skyrocketed to 30% of hospital admissions in Luhansk and SOF roamed around northern Luhansk so much that the Russian offensive up there completely failed.
We got a film of maybe a frozen-to-death group of DPR soldiers in a fortification system but it was unclear if they had just gotten drunk and were sleeping or had actually frozen to death – not as definitive as Operation Badanka.
But we will definitely see new and old images and films of frozen Russians wrapped in some blanket when Ukraine retakes ground this winter. A bit like those illustrations of Armfeldt’s Caroleans.
While the West struggles with exhaustion symptoms regarding the Ukraine war, Eastern Europe understands very well what is at stake. Easy to forget that they lived under this oppression until 1989.
https://twitter.com/markomihkelson/status/1728451022970843522?s=46&t=5RsWEhUPqCPWrQOy5XwRCw
The Russian losses in October and November (which are not over!) are the second highest in the entire war, only in March 2023 when the Russian offensive was underway were they higher and after that Wagner disappeared from the war.
Avdiivka is an absolute failure for the Russians and the losses are astronomical – the highest daily losses of barbarians, tanks, and armored vehicles have been now in October and November and the completely pointless screaming attacks over the potato fields have contributed heavily to that even though the Ukrainian drone weapon is now very effective.
Today it’s not only 3rd Azov that has learned to fight mechanized in a way that works – we see it everywhere. They use tanks as 4km snipers and the armored vehicles deliver the fire and provide direct fire without being knocked out. Platoon size seems to be the favorite.
They keep losses down and try to use indirect capabilities where possible.
The Russians never deny themselves and have used the same rope trick at Avdiivka that didn’t work at Vuhledar or anywhere else for that matter. The difference in capability couldn’t be greater actually, Usain Bolt against me.
The current situation in Ukraine is that the Russians are gradually starting to lose their grip on the Dnieper, they are reactive on the southern front, they have failed miserably at Avdiivka, they are holding out in Bakhmut with offensives that are going terribly, and they have run out of offensive capability up in northern Luhansk (I guess!).
Also, with winter coming now, their combat effectiveness will plummet.
Ukraine has held back offensive reserves and has also managed its resources as much as possible, and letting the Russians rest until Christmas will not happen. We wrote when the offensive began that the intensity would increase, and Argus is right about the ground conditions for us.
SOF is a swarm of hornets with night combat capabilities, and several maneuver brigades can also fight in the dark.
We will see what comes next in Russia; if anyone thought the Wagner coup was just Wagner, you are wrong. The VDV was supposed to join but betrayed at the last minute, and those generals who have been reasonable like Surovikin et al. joined. Rostov fell without a shot being fired. Ukraine has not had any military coup, right, so 0-1 there.
I see Ukraine cutting the land bridge to Crimea as a done deal going forward, and then we will see if that was enough to make Russia turn inward or not. If it doesn’t, Ukraine will continue liberating its land meter by meter, which they will do despite the Russian influence operation claiming they are about to lose the war, that the West will give up, and that the West has run out of weapons to send.
This winter will not be fun for a Russian in a trench, sitting and blinking in the dark, small muffled sounds from neighboring trenches, and then silence.
Night combat capability should not be underestimated; it is, if anything, a wunderwaffe where Ukraine totally dominates.