12:34 – MatsExtrude
Thank you for today’s positive essay!
It is not impossible that Ukraine could take the initiative already this winter if the USA and EU get their act together, so they know reinforcements are coming.
It must be incredibly frustrating, if not impossible, to plan the military strategy right now, when you don’t know what the situation will be with equipment and ammunition going forward.
(Ulcer medicine needs to be added to the medical supplies.)
Something probably needs to be done soon to counteract the troll factories. Now with AI, it will soon become completely unmanageable. Everyone thinks they can resist influence campaigns (and that they are not affected by, for example, advertising) but the fact is that it works.
11:32 – Johan No.1
Now the Peruvian is back from vacation and is completely wild, when he walked into the office he opened with the Ukraine war in the first sentence when I reached out my hand to greet him and then he has been getting himself all worked up for two days and is really pissed off. Maiden 3 has worked excellently on some, one must conclude, nice that we don’t celebrate Christmas down here 😀
There are those who claim when they look at RU loss figures that the whole summer was just pre-battle, but it is my belief that Ukraine tried to achieve their breakthroughs but failed.
I myself can’t figure out how Ukraine through drones can see exactly how the minefields lie at dusk and at the same time drove straight into the mines as they did, but that’s how it went and there’s not much more to discuss about that.
The consequence of the entire spring offensive was, however, that Ukraine carried out an enormous (astronomical) pre-battle, decimated RU artillery violently hard and knocked out ammunition depots, and that they have improved their positions on the southern front, not least the Dnipro, and up by Bakhmut.
They have also conducted a very successful defensive battle which has led to the Russians’ worst offensive ever since Tannenberg, or rather it makes Tannenberg appear as a great victory.
The Russians’ enormous losses in armor and barbarians are largely from their own attacks, I guess, but UA drone weapons also do damage and not to forget all indirect fire – UA still receives new 155mm shells regularly as we see in the deliveries and they are supposed to be used for something fun too, right?
UA army aviation and air force have a lot of flight time and then we must not forget (all of the West’s) SOF who wreak havoc deep behind enemy lines like a swarm of hornets. The second largest losses for the Russians apparently come from snipers, the largest is artillery.
Then in the long run some make the mistake of thinking that Ukraine has run out of gas and it has been a bit depressing at times but looking at the whole picture, UA has actually carried out pre-battle and is fiddling with the starting blocks for the offensive reserve and all the hard vehicles are absolutely not used up. How do we know that, the doubter might ask – well we know because if there were Avdiivka-level losses of UA vehicles in front of the Russian lines we would have been flooded with videos of that from all possible and impossible angles. I keep track of Slava and the other swamp sites, nothing like that.
No one can attack during winter becomes the next depressing defense argument for why everything is hopelessly lost and pitch black but why can’t Ukraine launch a winter offensive when the Russians have done it twice already in this war?
Winter 2023 it is my conviction that Ukraine planned an offensive because the US went out in the media and urged UA to wait and RU launched a winter offensive in absolute panic just to regain the initiative after a rather rough autumn.
Now the situation is different, Ukraine fought like gods during spring, summer and early autumn but then RU snatched the initiative by stumbling forward screaming across the fields and dying kilometers from the attack objectives in large heaps crying and dying.
From where I sit in my parents’ basement room that means that Ukraine now has a rested offensive reserve, size unknown, and RU has exhausted the barbarian waves during the autumn and will reach its low point quite soon. Right there historically an opportunity has opened up that Ukraine has been lightning fast to exploit.
The only thing that would change something is RU strategic reserves but we still don’t see them except for the 104th AAD which is weak and the 25th CAA which was no more than 15,000 strong and poorly equipped.
If the West only comes with its promises of materiel Ukraine can start, I think that’s how this hangs together if I am to be honest and I base it on the fact that UA delayed the start of the spring offensive because they had not yet received the materiel – they simply did not trust the West’s promises to deliver.
Now some trust seems to have arisen where the West has actually shown loyalty to Ukraine and I believe that if they get binding promises the suspicion can be slightly eased and the Russians thrown out.
I was almost diagnosed when I suggested that UA should get 15,000 – 20,000 hard vehicles but they have actually received 8,000 already. Not everything will come with the next train but it gives Ukraine the security to be able to burn away thousands of hard vehicles in exchange for terrain.
We have the different bars – time, terrain, personnel, materiel. If you want more of something you have to sacrifice more of something else.
Ukraine considered that they could sacrifice time during spring and summer and thus saved on personnel and materiel.
Now going forward they need terrain, time is not critical but either they have to sacrifice personnel or materiel. If they have an abundance of materiel to sacrifice they save on personnel.
They need to push up the infantry in the defense systems and provide fire support and then very likely damage the vehicles so they have to be abandoned but if you have infinitely many to use you can keep going and start clearing the attack objectives one by one.
Western vehicles save crew and infantry to a large extent in exchange for a knocked-out vehicle. For a soaked and frozen Russian without near PV it is quite irrelevant if death is delivered by an MRAP or a Bradley – they die anyway forgotten and frozen in a wet hole missed by no one.
UA rotates battalions that have lost their vehicles to rear bases and there they are re-equipped during rest and then resurrected as a new battalion again – rinse and repeat while the Russians lose both ground and many lives in the constant ring game with a 1:5 ratio.
UA offensive capacity will thus be close to constant and RU will be decimated hard.
Impossible exclaim the depressives but exactly like that UA has fought even without the hard vehicles and then there is less terrain because they attacked with group or platoon that took defense systems, 24 dead Russians against a few wounded.
What is now needed is fighting at battalion size and retaking larger areas faster to collapse fronts.
I am of the opinion that UA can manage to fight cohesively in battalion size with support of indirect capabilities including the air force and that they can have overarching offensives with larger units.
It is easy to forget everything else –
Ukraine recruits tens of thousands of ethnic Russians for the future liberation of Russia, here you have an ethnically Siberian battalion.
https://twitter.com/glasnostgone/status/1734967045874143689?s=46&t=jioiGHaH4bfQciea9kImcQ
There are constant acts of liberation against the railway network and power supply in Russia and now also in Belarus. No one in the thread made the connection when we saw all the videos of freezing Russians protesting in the provinces when the heat disappeared, or going to warm themselves at the airport, that maybe it was acts of liberation behind it – I don’t know but I know that it explodes every day in Russia and they are beautiful explosions that are very violent and bring darkness.
https://twitter.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/1735064446010102219?s=46&t=nxpshftXxRRCblezsTa4cg
There is de facto a shortage of many things now, and during a joint patrol with China, the Russians flew in a demonstration aircraft – which is probably not the most common, as they usually fly formation aircraft, so to me, this signals that they are also very short on frontline aircraft now, which is very good.
https://twitter.com/guyplopsky/status/1735327509338841455?s=46&t=W7kdz-1tavQNxc7gWuEiOQ
Just to give you an idea about T…p, see the video below and think about what his inner life might be 😀
”he died like a dog, a beautiful dog”.
https://youtu.be/OsBOWSjOLsE?si=X1IfGNMWMgGR0wfV
Today I see it as a real risk that T…p will win the election because he has Twitter behind him and that is probably not the only thing. D is completely overtaken – Biden, Philips and Williamson, where the latter two are completely unknown, and I do not see Biden as a strong candidate. Trump has the wind at his back.
This one from Wartranslated, which we value highly as a source, suggests that there are slightly more than a total of 315,000 killed or wounded in the war, right?
We know that the rebels have been pushed hard since the start and that they mobilized 100,000 before the war and then everything that can move has been mobilized.
According to him, there are 600,000 wounded veterans who are struggling to survive in LPR.
Then I have the question why BBC and Medusa have never mentioned that there are 600,000 wounded in Donbass, they have simply done a terribly bad job and should really be ashamed 😐
I’m not here to play with numbers but we have previously received information from DPR and LPR that there are basically no mobilizable left and their pre-war population was 6 million or something?
I guess this includes former wounded from the war since 2014 as well, but the pre-war army was 25,000 strong so a not insignificant number of the wounded must have come during this war.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1735618139734392884?s=46&t=DRvsy262ihTUPS7c5HtIQg
This one you want to turn up to the max but unfortunately it’s just a conversation between two barbarians, but it’s two barbarians closer to a palace coup.
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1735747685921988904?s=46&t=NiZNS0MpgPUJB0Uy3c9HJA
I know I tire everyone with my constant angry rants about Russian subversive activities and that the first and only reaction is – “it’s impossible and Johan No.1 has finally, or at last, fallen straight down the rabbit hole”.
I find this kind of thing interesting, they opened 12,800 accounts on TikTok to run influence operations so that the US would not provide more weapons to UA.
It’s not one guy running them, it’s an entire organization behind it and there is a lot of technology involved.
“troll factories” is a bit misleading, this is a prioritized state function that has, if not unlimited budget, then at least a well-stocked bank account and recruits competence. The stated purpose is to destabilize the West and they have a lot of experience from this since the Cold War. To be precise, all of Europe’s kings had spies in all other kings’ courts to get information about when neighboring kings would try to steal their own kingdoms, so nothing new directly maybe but a pretty high level of activity.
https://twitter.com/jayinkyiv/status/1735560937900278017?s=46&t=DRvsy262ihTUPS7c5HtIQg
Perpetua IS anecdotal but a good indication of what has burned and exploded violently during the day – 1:5 is almost on the low side 💥
https://twitter.com/andrewperpetua/status/1735504458631594369?s=46&t=W7kdz-1tavQNxc7gWuEiOQ
Attacks on Christmas celebrations are now seen a bit everywhere, which was easy to guess.
https://twitter.com/rj_abel/status/1734927998573314317?s=46&t=jioiGHaH4bfQciea9kImcQ
Then, just before Christmas and the Russian Scud rain, one must not forget that there are 46 Iskander platforms (or similar) lined up along the northern front just inside the Russian side and that 46 Storm Shadow would completely knock out continued Iskander terror this winter.
And if the US sends 500 ATACMS then the Russian Air Force is knocked out.
I choose to believe that Putin is well-informed, that is my personal opinion and I have no proof of it but it seems likely to me. His Q&A was infinitely unsuccessful and above all it gives the West the reason they need to give Ukraine what they need – the desert march is over.
Russian milbloggers are now speaking out, and this is after the purge and Girkin in jail, and they scream that the only thing that can save the three-day special operation is frozen fronts so RU gets a breather.
https://twitter.com/jayinkyiv/status/1734890302215684143?s=46&t=jioiGHaH4bfQciea9kImcQ
Shoutout to the West – don’t give them a breather through frozen fronts and a fake victory, here we have everything we need to know how things really stand – the Russian barbarians are well on their way to losing in a fair fight against Ukraine and they don’t like it at all.
You have all read that the EU is considering stripping Hungary of its voting rights in the Council of Ministers, it must be unanimous (except Hungary) and now that Poland has Tusk back, and Slovakia is a bit shaky over a resolute EU, it’s not impossible.
The citizens of Hungary should quite quickly vote out Orban and his criminal clan because this is not going in their favor.
You can’t kick Hungary out of the EU but you can, with Article 7, start stripping them of their rights in EU decision-making bodies and then the EU doesn’t have to send lots of grants either, right?
Hungary will simply have to manage on its own going forward.
A wild guess is that 2024 will hit Orban like a ton of bricks.
You have also seen that there are large EU demonstrations in Georgia, things are moving in the old Soviet state 😀
https://twitter.com/thedeaddistrict/status/1735526226196893902?s=46&t=W7kdz-1tavQNxc7gWuEiOQ
Here I can actually understand if Putin feels threatened when the EU will absorb Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia going forward. Belarus and Armenia are probably future candidates very far in the future maybe but then it’s over?
All Putin needed to do was to have a more attractive alternative than NATO and the EU but the kleptomaniacs in the criminal clan can’t manage that at all.
Then I actually sit and wonder if it might be so that when Russia turns inward and there are some new countries – if some of them would be Oblasts bordering Ukraine, they will also, over a long time, want to join the EU – maybe?
Anyway, Putin fired the geopolitical atomic bomb and now he will see the consequences play out over the next 50 years.
The EU needs to consider how to gradually bring countries in, the last round has gone so-so and Western Europe can’t always bear all the costs but for a country like Ukraine, free trade is probably a jackpot and then if they get it easy with visas in the beginning before it becomes free movement so there is at least some control over who moves within the union.
When you’ve come this far it feels a bit like a student chant – “the bright future is ours” for everyone except Putin and Russia who will have to pay the price for this for at least the next 50 years.
The ball is rolling and Russia knows it as well as all of us and that’s why they are blowing a lot of hot air right now.
We did say last summer that the last thing they have left is to try to persuade the West to abandon Ukraine, and they have certainly gone all in here and are losing.